vol101issue17

Volume 101, Issue 17

November 3, 2011 mcgilldaily.com

ACCOMODATE THIS

McGill THE

DAILY Not kosher for100 years

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

Outremont splits over a synagogue’s expansion page 8

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Montreal demonstration supports anti-government protests in Syria

2

Write for news

Thursdays at 5:30 in Shatner B-24

Syrian activists allegedly harassed in Canada Laurent Bastien Corbeil The McGill Daily

More than 100 people marched through downtown Montreal on Saturday in a show of solidarity with anti-government protestors in Syria.

Protestors chanted “Solidarity with the Syrian people� and waved placards reading “Freedom for Syria.� “We want to send a message to the Canadian people that we cannot stand silent to what is happening in Syria,� Ibrahim, a protestor, explained. “This is a criminal regime that is corrupt and greedy, and they are ready to kill the entire Syrian people to stay in power.�

Since March, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been sending armed troops into Syrian cities in response to largely peaceful protests that are calling for democratic reform and, more recently, for Assad’s ouster.

According to the United Nations, nearly 3,000 Syrians have been killed since the beginning of the anti-Assad uprising in March, including nearly 200 children. Opposition groups have maintained that the number of deaths is over 5,000.

In a petition circulated during the demonstration, the protestors called for the Canadian government to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Syria.

Despite new parliamentary sanctions imposed against Syria by the Canadian government in early October, Suncor Energy, a Canadian oil company, still runs a $1.2 billion operation in the Ebla Gas Fields in central Syria.

The project provides electricity for about 10 per cent of the country’s population.

According to Suncor’s website, while the new Canadian sanctions “are aimed at our industry, they also allow for continued operation of existing operations [and] agreements.�

Suncor jointly operates the

project with Syria’s state-owned General Petroleum Corporation.

The company website states that it is not directly involved with the Assad regime.

Suncor Energy was not available for comment at the time of press.

Other protestors in Montreal expressed concerns for their safety.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a protestor spoke to some of his fears. “I am afraid. I am trying my best to avoid cameras,� he said. “My family is ready for anything. They asked me to be careful in Canada. They expect pro-government people to attack me.�

A recent report published by Amnesty International has revealed that members of the Syrian secret police, the al-Mukhabarat, have been actively plotting to undermine anti-Assad protests in Canada and other countries.

The Director General of Amnesty International Canada’s francophone branch, Beatrice Vaugrante, attended the rally and elaborated on the report. “People have been harassed on the streets, but, most importantly, families [were harassed] in Syria,� she said. “We have a case of a protestor in the U.S. whose parents ended up being arrested and beaten.

Another, whose brother manifested outside of Syria was also tortured.�

According to the report, staffers at the Syrian embassy in Ottawa allegedly filmed antiAssad demonstrations and took pictures of the protestors. A woman, identified in the report as Abeer, also received threats against her family on Facebook after she spoke out against the regime on Canadian television.

Although Amnesty International has only reported cases of harassment in Ottawa, some protestors hinted that similar activities might be occurring in Montreal. “We have a regular stand on Ste. Catherine, and usually we get some harassment,� a protestor said. “They insult us, they accuse

us of being traitors. They tried to [film us] once, but when we called the police they stopped.�

When asked whether the harassers worked for the Syrian government, another protestor replied that it was difficult to know. “Some of them do and some of them don’t,� he said.

The Assad regime enjoys some degree of support among different sectors of Syrian society.

Imad Mansour, a Political Science professor at McGill who specializes in Middle Eastern politics, explained that Assad hails from the country’s minority Alawi community, and many supporters – Alawis and others – fear that the toppling of the regime would mean an end to some of their economic and social privileges.

According to Mansour, support for the Assad family can be explained by a combination of factors. “There’s a variety of reasons why a group would support a sitting regime,� he said. “Either their economic interests are tied with it, they benefit from it in terms of division of spoils and political favoritism, or they are simply convinced that the absence of this regime would mean chaos.�

While a copy of the Amnesty International report was provided to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade earlier this month, the department claims that it has no evidence of any wrongdoing from Syrian security forces.

In a written statement to The Daily, a department spokesperson said that if such reports were confirmed, it would constitute “unacceptable behaviour on the part of the government of Syria.�

Meanwhile, the French and British governments have already taken steps to protect Syrian activists within their borders by enhancing police protection around protests and opening investigations into allegations of harassment.

1 MONTH FREE + A $250 GIFT CARD* ON 4 1/2 3 ½, 4 ½ renovated apartments, all included Indoor pool & 24h doorman Interior & exterior parking available.

Close to everywhere!

1100 Dr. Penfield

Call (514) 286-9191 www.cogir.net *Limited promotion on certain units.

Certain conditions apply.

MMPA

Shoot for us photos@mcgilldaily.com

Master of Management & Professional Accounting

t %FTJHOFE QSJNBSJMZ GPS OPO CVTJOFTT VOEFSHSBEVBUFT t 'PS DBSFFST JO .BOBHFNFOU 'JOBODF BOE "DDPVOUJOH t &YUSFNFMZ IJHI DP PQ BOE QFSNBOFOU QMBDFNFOU 5P MFBSO NPSF BCPVU UIF ..1" 1SPHSBN BUUFOE PVS JOGPSNBUJPO TFTTJPOT Wednesday, October , 20 1 1:30 am – 1: 0 pm 3PPN #SPXO 4UVEFOU 4FSWJDFT #VJMEJOH .D5BWJTI .D(JMM 6OJWFSTJUZ :HGQesday, 1RYHPEHU , 20 11:30 am – 1: pm 3PPN #SPXO 4UVEFOU 4FSWJDFT #VJMEJOH .D5BWJTI .D(JMM 6OJWFSTJUZ

www.utoronto.ca/mmpa

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

3

Changes to Cabot Square push out homeless and aboriginal communities City’s $5.5 million program works to change how space is used Henry Gass

The McGill Daily

A

fter holding consultation sessions throughout the spring, the City of Montreal has approved a $5.5 million urban revitalization program, known as the Programme particulier d’urbanisme (PPU). Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay stated in a press release in late September that “It’s time to continue the development and enhancement efforts of this central and unique Montreal district.”

The program, proposed by the borough of Ville-Marie, calls for the protection and enhancement of heritage sites and sustainable development. It also calls for a “targeted action plan for homeless,” a plan to build more affordable housing in the area, and the greening of Cabot Square, which is located in Shaughnessy Village along Maisonneuve.

Spokesperson for Ville-Marie borough, Ann-Sophie Harrois, told The Daily in an email that the borough adopted a plan addressing homelessness, targeted particularly at Ville-Marie, in October 2010. She noted that the plan “specifically proposes actions to [be taken] around Cabot Square.”

Kelly Pennington, an Urban Planning undergraduate student at Concordia, learned about the project from a paper she wrote. She told The Daily that, after looking more closely at the “grand scheme of the project,” she noticed that “certain classes of people are being chosen

over other classes.”

“They’re saying it’s this key part to Montreal that needs to be brought back to life, which ignores the fact that there are a whole contingent of people who are using that space right now, who call that space home – or at least, temporarily, home,” she continued.

Consultation The Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) conducted a consultation on the program earlier this year. The consultation included information sessions and meetings where community members and interest groups presented changes and comments on the program.

According to Luc Doray, secretary general of the OCPM, their office did “a lot of promotion of the consultation,” including flyering, an online questionnaire on the OCPM website, advertising in the metro and local newspapers, and a booth at Concordia’s downtown campus.

Doray said they heard more than eighty presentations from community members.

“The feedback was basically in agreement of the proposal of the City, but a lot of people [had] some more fine-tuning comments,” said Doray. He said that the commission submitted its recommendations to the City after six meetings.

Pennington was critical of the effectiveness of the OCPM’s recommendations. “[The OCPM is] allowed to offer suggestions, but there’s nothing that makes them accountable to what is asked for,” said Pennington.

William Thompson, who has been

frequenting Cabot Square for over a decade, was aware of the PPU, but doubted its ability to improve the park.

“This park has been like this for 15 years. It’s going to take more than new benches to make a change,” he said. “It’s a good idea, but all you’re going to do is push the problem somewhere else.”

A First Nations “gathering point” Ramélia Chamichian, a coordinator for the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Strategy Network, described Cabot Square as “a gathering point where all the aboriginals that come from out of Montreal, that come to Montreal, they gather over there to meet other aboriginal people.”

A subcommittee for the network submitted a brief to the OCPM commission, stating that “the result will likely be continued displacement of aboriginal peoples, which will result in the perpetuation of safety issues, including an increase in the number of arrests.”

The brief also recommended that aboriginal artwork and cultural elements be introduced to the Square, and that aboriginal outreach workers work in the Square.

Chamichian said she did not know if their recommendations had been included in the finalized program.

After the PPU was approved, the same committee presented similar proposals to a newly formed Equipe médiation urbaine, a roundtable with representatives from the City, the Montreal police, and community residents and businesses, as well as one aboriginal representative.

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Public consultation included more than eighty presentations.

According to Chamichian, the roundtable will be meeting every few weeks over the next months.

The homeless will “adjust” Pennington said that, while she understood the Shaughnessy Village community’s desires to improve the Square, she felt the homeless population was excluded from consultation on the project.

“Generally they’re probably going to impose a lot more ‘order.’ The plan is to generally tell people to move along if they’re just hanging out there and drinking,” she said. “I don’t mean to say that nobody wants improvements, but if you’re going to make the park nicer, you can’t just move people out.”

One homeless man, who has been sleeping in the metro station entrance near Cabot Square since

October, said he wasn’t worried about the implications of the PPU for the homeless population.

“Really it’s not a homeless presence, I’d say it’s more an alcoholic presence. More like people drinking beer and wine and hard liquor…that they might become more strict on,” he said.

“We adjust to situations,” he continued.

Another man in the station, who identified himself as Daddy-O, said he is no longer homeless, but has slept in Cabot Square in the past.

Daddy-O spoke to those who frequently used Cabot Square.

“They’re still gonna come back.

[It’s] not gonna work. It’s their home; it remains their home, and nothing gonna move them. I guarantee you that,” he added.

Let them eat cupcakes Photo by Victor Tangermann The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) held a demonstration on Wednesday to protest the way that the McGill administration is handling negotiations with AGSEM’s TA bargaining unit.

Protesters dressed in formalwear handed out cupcakes, referencing an event where Principal Heather Munroe-Blum served cupcakes in the Shatner building in celebration of James McGill’s birthday.

“We wondered what it would look like if the McGill administration had to support their bargaining platform through public demonstrations,” AGSEM VP External Sheldon Brandt stated in a press release.

TAs have been in negotiations with McGill since May. The bargaining unit’s demands include a 3 per cent wage increase, an increase in the number of TA hours, and access to paid training. TAs voted on October 19 to approve pressure tactics against the administration.

— Queen Arsem-O’Malley

Campus Eye

4 News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Sovereigntists reach out to Occupy movement Rally commemorates failed Quebec independence referendum Henry Gass

The McGill Daily

L

ast Saturday, over 300 people marched through the streets of downtown Montreal calling for an independent Quebec, inviting demonstrators at Occupy Montreal to join them.

The march – held a day before the 16th anniversary of the failed 1995 referendum that saw Quebec lose a bid for independence by 1.16 per cent of the vote – left Place du Canada early in the afternoon and wound its way down Ste. Catherine street towards Champ-de-Mars.

In the days leading up to the rally, the organizers Cap sur l’independance appealed to the occupiers to join them.

“We would first like to affirm our solidarity with all those involved in the Occupation movement of financial markets, around the world,” said Cap sur l’independance leaders – Claude Béland, Pierre Paquette, Gilbert Paquette, and Geneviève Boileau – in an October 26 press release in French.

“In Quebec, we are doubly indignant: by the international financial system and the political dependence of Quebec that deprives us of a national state capable of action,” they continued.

Yvan Lamonde, a professor emeritus in French Language and Literature at McGill, said he found the Occupy movement to be “more social, more global, more radical” than the Quebec independence movement.

“The link between the occupying people and the [Parti Québécois] is

not obvious for me, honestly,” he said.

Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois, joined the march going east along Ste. Catherine.

She spoke to The Daily about the Occupy movement.

“The national independence movement…[is] a movement that protests the exaggeration of financial institutions and large financial banks, and I [have] the same logic as the youth who [are occupying],” she said in French.

Lamonde, however, described a “lack of vitality” within the independence movement.

“If [they marched] supposedly to present some kind of a unified sovereignty movement it’s, let’s say, a minimal vital sign,” he said.

“There is a kind of fragmentation, almost everyone in the party has its own ideas,” he continued.

Many of the demonstrators reached different conclusions about the relation between the Quebec sovereignty movement and the Occupy movement.

Claude Talbot, who attended the rally with “99%” written on his hat – in reference to the label many occupiers have adopted – felt that the Quebec independence and Occupy movements were similar.

“The independence of the people is in the context of the global battle” against financial institutions, he said in French.

“The Quebecois of Occupy Montreal who are for national independence, [are] at the same time [for] changing the world economy and changing the democracy. Therefore it’s going to be…a country with a different

economy and a slightly different democracy,” he continued.

Jean-François Faucher, a U4 McGill Political Science student who attended the march, said he saw Quebec independence as an opportunity to build a new society along the lines prescribed by global Occupy movements.

“We don’t get much money out of our resources, our social programs are being dismantled, and with a sovereign Quebec we have a unique opportunity to make a state that’s more democratic, that’s more just economically and socially,” he said.

“That kind of project can include others, like Anglophones, immigrants, who can also get on board with a project for a new society with a vision for a just future,” he continued.

Faucher said he thought the sovereignty movement and the Occupy movement were variations on the same theme.

“They are linked, and they’re about the same thing, it’s just they’re different takes,” he said. “The Occupy Wall Street thing is a useful thing because it brings up awareness, and this is one of the ways – independence done the right way – is one of the ways that we should address the problems that Occupy Wall Street brings up.”

At the occupation in Place du Peuple, occupiers acknowledged a number of sovereigntists living in the camp. One occupier, Stéphane, said he didn’t see “how l’independance du Quebec can solve anything.”

Reda Birouch, who works at the information tent in the camp, said he doesn’t support Quebec independence.

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

A sovereigntist demonstrates at Occupy Montreal.

“I am not for the separation of people for the reason that I am for the conviviality of cultures, for change, for love between cultures,” he said in French.

“If it’s just independence for [the sake of] independence, and separation for [the sake of] separation…

No, I am against independence in Quebec,” he added.

Saskatchewan NDP promise to bring back tuition freeze if elected Universities react to proposed policy with mixed responses Daryl Hofmann

The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan)

S

ASKATOON (CUP) — A plan to help students through postsecondary education is featured in the platforms of both major political parties in Saskatchewan, leading up to the November 7 provincial election.

Current Premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party have introduced the Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship and the Saskatchewan Advance Grant for Education Savings.

The Advantage Scholarship would provide grade 12 graduates with $500 per year for four years. The Advantage Grant will match 10 per cent of parental contributions to any child’s Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for up to $250 annually.

On the other hand, if elected, Leader of the NDP in Saskatchewan Dwain Lingenfelter said his party would bring back a fully funded tuition freeze for universities and the

Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST).

Under former Premier Lorne Calvert’s NDP government, a tuition freeze was implemented for five years from 2004 to 2009.

The Saskatchewan Party lifted that freeze and, since 2009, the average undergraduate tuition in the province has gone up by just over $500.

“Electing an NDP government means students in 2015 will pay the same tuition at our universities and SIAST campuses as they do today,” said Lingenfelter in a press release.

The NDP platform also includes raising the maximum allowable family income level for student loans, increasing training opportunities at post-secondary institutions, and funding 100 new graduate student bursaries.

The total NDP post-secondary package will cost an estimated $313 million over four years, if implemented.

Wall, however, told the Regina Leader-Post that the NDP’s platform is reckless, and that freezes are poor policy, primarily because governments often fail to live up to their pledges to increase funding in order to make up for tuition shortfalls.

University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon also spoke out against the NDP’s proposed tuition freeze, saying it “would overstep the bounds of any Saskatchewan government.”

According to the University of Saskatchewan Act of 1995, the setting of tuition rates is the sole responsibility of the Board of Governors, and MacKinnon claims there are “very good reasons for placing this authority with our board.”

He said the board examines tuition rates closely and has the best interests of the university, students, and residents of Saskatchewan in mind.

Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) Saskatchewan Chairperson Haanim Nur, who also sits on the

University of Regina Students’ Union (URSU) executive, feels a tuition freeze would be a move forward for the province and would allow more people access to university and SIAST. She said both the CFS and the URSU are publicly endorsing a freeze.

Nur said the Saskatchewan Party’s platform overlooks the needs of students who are currently enrolled in post-secondary institutions, as well as students whose parents cannot afford to contribute to the RESP program.

“It eliminates those who can’t afford it and need it the most,” she said.

University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) President Scott Hitchings said he sees no place for the government’s hand in setting tuition prices, and added that the USSU will instead be lobbying for more grants, scholarships, and bursaries.

Hitchings explained that a tuition freeze is too broad a policy,

and only helps students whose parents can already afford the cost of post-secondary education.

“Even if they were to freeze tuition at the level it’s at now, it is still going to be hard for some people to pay. So instead of capping it at a level that’s unaffordable for some people, find out the people who it is unaffordable for and give them money to help,” he said.

University of Saskatchewan professor David McGrane, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies, said freezing tuition is a sure way to help out all students in one fell swoop. But McGrane noted that freezes can have harsh effects on a school’s quality, like leading to larger class sizes with fewer qualified professors.

“It comes down to the argument of people being concerned about maintaining the quality of education on one side, and people being concerned about the affordability of education on the other side,” he said.

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

5

Halloween: the consumerist eating of Otherness Exploring the whiteness of Halloween Tyrone Speaks Christiana Collison

tyronespeaks@mcgilldaily.com

W

hile at a Halloween party this weekend, my friend and I discussed Halloween’s whiteness by addressing the racially suggestive and discriminatory costumes we have encountered time and time again, which often are worn by predominantly white bodies. For example, the incident, a few years ago at the University of Toronto, in which two male students dressed up, one as a Klu Klux Klan member and the other as a slave, sporting blackface. In agreement with this point, I furthered this idea of Halloween as white, joking, “candy wasn’t the only thing whites were eating on Halloween; they definitely seemed to enjoy taking a bite out of that chocolate.”

This occasion, as metaphorically implied by the joke, was just another form of what bell hooks had coined as “eating the other,” in her piece entitled Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance.

Halloween is a holiday in which white society can publically commodify and exploit Otherness. It pro-

vides white society the opportunity, for one day, to embody what they are not – the Other. However, embodying Otherness is not simply restricted to adorning a racist costume; it also extends itself to action, speech, and comportment. For example, Halloween enables the white female draped in colourful feathers and caramel suede, dressed as a “native,” to further embody this costume by jumping around with a stick in hand bellowing out “native american” calls or speaking in “indigenous” dialects in attempts to further authenticate this highly racist costume.

The fact that the same Halloween proceeding Antoine Dodson’s fifteen minute rise to Youtube fame was saturated with white bodies in blackface sporting Dodson costumes and mimicking not solely what they believed to be his personality, but what were also essentialized and stereotyped notions of poor, innercity black youth (i.e uncouth, loud, primitive, etcetera) all speaks to the whiteness of this holiday.

Halloween has become a consumerist holiday in which white society’s desire to be, embody, and commodify Otherness is not only accepted, but also popularized. hooks explains this idea best by stating “within commodity culture, eth-

nicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.” This further speaks to the celebration and popularization of Halloween; for, “The commodification of Otherness has been so successful,” hooks argues, “because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling.”

In other words, the normalization of white society as “society” does not enable its white members to deviate from who and what they are – white.

The inability to be other than white, thus creates a mundane and unexciting space for white bodies. For, within this society (which I would like to point out has been created by white, heteronormative patriarchs for white, heteronormative patriarchs), white bodies are normalized and therefore, unable to embody anything but “the normal.” Thus, as hooks points out, commodification of Otherness presents itself as an alternative way to “liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.”

Halloween does just that. It enables white participants to indulge in the “exotic” – the wonders that are

Alyssa Favreau | The McGill Daily Otherness, ethnicity, and racial difference. To wear different national, racial, and ethnic identities, whether it be the native or black, as previously mentioned, or to adorn sarees or turbans claiming to be “dressed up” as an Indian or Muslim or perhaps to sport a sombrero riding a stuffed donkey calling oneself a Mexican, Halloween provides a shameless and ridicule-free way of allowing white

people to break free from the restrictive, dull, and mainstream holds of white society to be whoever they wish to be – including the Other.

McGill and only wants to increase it.

We must remember that QPIRG only asks $3.75 of every student per semester. Yes, you could save this money to buy a beer. But remember, it is also the price to access a library of resources that McGill libraries may not offer, the price to participate in an alternative frosh, the price to participate in Culture Shock Days, the price to support groups such as KANATA, to support initiatives such as Campus Crops, and several other activities QPIRG provides. Currently, the province of Quebec intends to increase tuition by $325 every year for the next five years for every in-province student. If reasons for voting against QPIRG’s existence are merely for individual economic benefit, KANATA asks students to re-think who they should be fighting against. If voting against QPIRG’s existence is based on what one hears from other groups and not actually from QPIRG, KANATA asks students to approach QPIRG, and to research their creation, formation, and activities on campus. See how their work encourages all sorts of groups on campus to continue to run. If voting against QPIRG’s existence is based on your disagreement with their man-

date, KANATA asks students to realize the value and integrity of diverse ideas and approaches at an academic institution, especially when the leadership of that institution is increasingly stifling groups and activities that do not follow their particular goals.

All in all, KANATA – a group dedicated to improving relationships through dialogue and academic research – encourages students to pursue their own dialogue and research before this upcoming referendum. Research what this article has claimed. Research QPIRG and its benefits to the McGill community through research opportunities, environmental action, and support to a diverse array of student groups. Research what groups opposed to QPIRG are claiming and why. By pursuing an inclusive, democratic, and honest dialogue, KANATA hopes that you will know that QPIRG’s existence is an important aspect to student life, where a great portion of knowledge is gained outside the classroom.

Tyrone Speaks is a column written by Christiana Collison on the subject of black feminism. It appears every other Wednesday in commentary. You can email her at tyronespeaks@mcgilldaily.com.

Support QPIRG KANATA explains why you should vote ‘yes’ in the QPIRG referendum

A

s the referendum for QPIRG’s existence approaches, KANATA, McGill’s Indigenous Studies Community, would like to speak out about the importance of QPIRG’s activities. As a working group, KANATA receives crucial support from QPIRG, which enables us to pursue our goal of establishing an Indigenous Studies community at McGill by providing interested students an inclusive space to learn about and discuss topics related to indigenous peoples and ways we can include indigenous academic perspectives on campus.

With the support of QPIRG, KANATA is even able to host McGill’s very first student-run Indigenous Studies conference at the end of November. For those who are unfamiliar with our group, we also advocate for a minor program in Indigenous Studies and, most importantly, strive for the creation of a space and a medium through Native and non-Native persons can come together and build relationships of understanding, dialogue, and mutual respect on-campus, and with ripple effects off-campus.

Universities are a place for a diversity of ideas and where students can come

into contact with information that they otherwise may not. QPIRG is dedicated to social and environmental justice and to supporting student research in these fields while building ties with communities around and outside of McGill. Its existence is without a doubt an essential part of the student learning experience.

Without QPIRG’s presence on the McGill campus, there would be less learning opportunities and fewer ways to engage with the local communities of McGill and Montreal.

For example, QPIRG McGill offers an excellent program for students to combine their academic experience with community engagement through Study in Action. This is a conference where students present research and gain knowledge of social and environmental issues while building ties with community organizations. At a school where internships are not mandatory in many departments and in an era where levels of education are inflating and direct experience is integral to finding employment, Study in Action is an excellent opportunity of many offered by QPIRG McGill.

KANATA also supports a more democratic and informed opt-out

system that renders fees refundable directly through QPIRG where students can be well informed about QPIRG and its activities, instead of by the campaigns of misrepresentation that occur every semester. In this referendum question, QPIRG is asking to return to the in-person opt-out form that was taken away from them with only three days notice from McGill administration.

This was an under-handed move that continues to damage QPIRG as blanket online opting out is increasing as students are merely opting out of any service they can, without considering these fees’ value to the student body and academic experience.

Of course, a few voices on campus claim that it is a more democratic choice to have an online optout system. KANATA strongly disagrees. Not only is this a lazy form of opting out, but it also encourages students to save a few bucks without informing themselves of the vast resources QPIRG offers to them on campus. Students will still be able to opt-out if they disagree with QPIRG’s work. This choice will not be taken from students. QPIRG upholds democratic choice at

Signed by KANATA – McGill’s Indigenous Studies Community

6 Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

The logic delusion Abbie Buckman and Adam Winer Soap Box

D

avide Mastracci, in his article “Religion and children” (October 17), bemoans a sorry state of affairs: that children are taught religious views by their parents. Why must this stop? Because, in order for “progress to be made, parents must end the unjust brainwashing of children.” Once parents cease and desist in educating their children about religion, then children will gain “the ability to access their own views, unpolluted by the beliefs of their elders.”

What does it mean for children to uncover their own views, and for these views to be logical ones? For one, by describing it in this way, Mastracci is making a misguided swipe at religion. According to Mastracci, since all people are rational at their core, an authentic relationship to one’s self entails an automatic rejection of religion. This is an odd view, as its truth depends on every person having an absolutely logical essence which they can tap into. This groundless assumption stems from the Enlightenment idea of rational progress, whereby all facets of the world (and of human life) can be explained accurately by reason.

In this Enlightenment ethos, reason is innate to humans and simply must be developed. Accordingly, anything that impedes the progress of reason must be discarded. As such, religion is irrelevant and opposed to logic. Mastracci unquestioningly adopts this trope of Enlightenment thought. He fails to justify his assumption that faith is fundamentally irratio-

nal, and thus reproduces a dangerous and unproven essentialist claim.

Mastracci’s understanding of religion makes room for neither the selfunderstanding of religious people nor the history of religion. He contends that religious practices rely on “fear mongering,” but few religious people would likely describe their worldview as fearful. If individuals possess the autonomy and hyperrationality that he assumes they do, then certainly their self-identification should be taken as valid.

Further, for Mastracci to equate all religious practice with the most extreme examples he can concoct, namely Hamas and the Westboro Baptist Church, is both false and illogical. It is false because it ignores the extraordinary diversity within religions, all of which include strong messages of pacifism, love, and tolerance. It is illogical because any human group contains diversity; ignoring this fact bars meaningful understanding. We should not dismiss leftist ideology on the basis of the violence of the Russian revolution, precisely because it is not representative of the diversity and range of leftist analyses and political programs.

The artificial division between faith and reason ignores history in two ways. First, it ignores the complex precedent of religious scholarship, critical thinking, and scientific exploration. In the pre-modern world religion was not delineated from other realms of knowledge in the way we now assume it to be.

Much of our own system of thought developed in a “religious” context.

Second, Mastracci’s notion relies on the explicit understanding of reli-

Esma Balkir | The McGill Daily

Unpacking Davide Mastracci’s assumptions about religion and reason

gion as being a matter of belief. This understanding itself is conditioned by the development of Christianity in the western context and cannot be translated to other religious contexts.

Mastracci unwittingly makes himself an important cautionary tale against our impulse to universalize our notions of religions. He disregards the fact that religion is as much a matter of experience, identity, community, and a sense of history as it is a set of beliefs.

Mastracci compares the teaching of religion (by parents to children) to the forced conversion of Native Americans by European settlers and writes that, “in both cases, the dominant group abuses its power by asserting a subjective belief it holds true over those it controls.” This comparison fails to confront the relationship of domination that Mastracci seeks to call out. Rather, it promotes the same logic of supremacy that was so compelling to European colonialists. Mastracci succeeds only in infantilizing Native Americans and asserting the superiority of his own

notion of rationality over religion. In doing so, he has almost entirely replicated the logic of domination which he claims to reject.

Humans are not isolated or asocial beings. We each inherit our own conceptual universe from those around us, and, as such, it is foolish to claim that any person who is not religiously indoctrinated will be an exclusively autonomous thinker. We are implicated in our social contexts; we are in dialogue with all sorts of influence regarding our values, our general understanding of the world, and what sorts of analysis we consider valid. Unless a child can be entirely shielded from external influence (which is neither possible nor desirable), the claim that children can draw beliefs from their pure and logical self is an utterly meaningless one.

What Mastracci ultimately seems to be calling for is a rational appraisal of the values we each hold. But such an undertaking requires nuance and self-awareness, and he offers neither.

He makes no mention of the task of

coexisting, one which is incumbent upon all of us and which requires some level of humility. His unbending assertion that “logic” (which he fails to define) is superior to “religion” (which he misunderstands) furthers neither of these goals. He does succeed, however, in embodying the dangers of the very assumptions of superiority, dismissal of difference, and imperialism of values that characterized the colonial experience he claims to question.

Diversity exists in this world, in this country, and on this campus. Our analytical tools (including logic) can and should be used to understand and come to terms with this diversity in light of our own beliefs.

Abbie Buckman is a U3 Honours Religious Studies student she can be reached at abbie.buckman@ mail.mcgill.ca. Adam Winer is a U2 Honours philosophy student. He can be reached at adam.winer@ mail.mcgill.ca.

Don’t use inaccurate comparisons A response to Haaris Khan’s “Western lies and Iranuendo” Jais Mehaji

Hyde Park

A

rejoinder to Harris Khan’s myopic vision of the world, as presented in his article “Western lies and Iranuendo” (October 24), is desperately in order.

Khan, in his unfounded tirade against the West, has emerged as a mouthpiece on campus for dictatorships and repression par excellence.

His vehement hatred of Canada, the United States, Australia, and the EU (nations that are not without their flaws) speaks to Khan’s skewed worldview. Not only does he not cite an iota of factual evidence, but his

tone seems to echo that of the propaganda of Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi’s anti-Western diatribes. According to Khan, Ahmadinejad becomes an audacious truth-seeker (never mind the stoning of women and the relentless repression of peaceful protesters in 2009 in Iran), while the West – which he really has a problem deconstructing and enjoys treating as a monolithic bloc – serves to perpetuate injustices. Khan turns reality completely on its head in this article.

His article is replete with vague and meaningless arguments. What exactly does Khan mean when he says the “current global power structure is deeply and unmistakably unjust”?

Whether he likes it or not, the history

of humanity is a history of balances of power, thus there will always be power disparities. Does he mean distribution of military capabilities? Size of economies? The disproportionate power of the security council in the UN? In such a nebulous attack, people like Khan (and Ahmadinejad) are anti-everything, failing to propose any meaningful alternatives.

“Ahmadinejad did, in fact, address his own people’s aspirations for freedom and dignity,” the piece stated.

Khan is spewing Ahmadinejad’s propaganda that even Iranian regime supporters would not subscribe to. How Khan justifies Ahmadinejad’s heinous human rights abuses as a part of Iranians’ “aspirations for freedom and

dignity” is perplexing to say the least.

Khan finally describes the legacy (quoting Ahmadinejad) of the Western world as including slavery, colonialism, mass murder, environmental degradation, and crony capitalism. He forgets to mention that the Persians, as well as other countries in the developing world, were some of the most brutal colonizers in history. Slavery was also commonplace in many countries Khan purports to defend. And as for “crony capitalism”, there has been much less of it in the Western world than in Ben Ali’s in-laws’ circle or in Mubarak’s clientelist networks, to cite two examples. As for the claim that “Western govern-

ments are just as oppressive as those they condemn” – I suggest taking a look at Human Rights Watch records, Amnesty International, and Freedom House ratings. It becomes indisputable that, although Western countries (whatever he means by the “West” – does it include Norway’s unparalleled generous donations to developing countries and to Palestinians?) have committed their share of oppression, non-Western nations lag very far behind in terms of respect for human rights.

Jaïs Mehaji is a U3 Honours Political Science student. He can be reached at jais.mehaji@mail. mcgill.ca.

Health&Education

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

7

Closing the distance A neurosurgeon uses technology to reduce disparities in medical care and education in remote areas Marzieh Ghiasi

The McGill Daily

“T

wo worlds, One spirit,” a collection of photography and sculpture by Ivar Mendez, the chairman of the Brain Repair Centre at Dalhousie University, was on display at Musée des Maîtres et Artisans du Québec. His black and white photographs capture the sharp boundary where dark, coniferous forests meet snow-covered mountain slopes in Northern Labrador.

This landscape is marked not only by tremendous beauty, but also by human suffering.

Mendez, a trained neurosurgeon, explores humanity’s struggles through art, while seeking to alleviate it through medicine and technology. I sat down with Mendez prior to a discussion on his work on September 24, which was organized by former McGill professor, Dr. Norman Cornett.

In recent years, Mendez has made headlines by facilitating the adoption of remote-presence robots to provide specialist neurological consultation services in remote areas of Canada. Remotepresence robots allow physicians to operate in a clinic thousands of kilometers away, using a video game-like joystick to move a robot throughout. These robots can rotate 360 degrees, and have

a monitor that shows a live-feed of the physician. In addition, they are equipped with highresolution cameras and sound equipment, allowing for real time examination and interaction with patients. Despite the unusual experience of interacting with a robot, Mendez says that patients, family, and staff quickly adapt to this futuristic associate.

In Canada, as well as in Mendez’s native Bolivia, aboriginal populations – often located in remote areas – suffer disproportionately from lack of access to specialist care due to distance and climate. Mendez excitedly speaks about the potential to expand such services and take expertise to where it is needed most.

“To listen to the heartbeat of a baby in the mother’s womb thousands of kilometers away,“ Mendez said. “[to] determine which mothers are at risk.”

He views technologies such as remote-presence robot systems as a means of reducing disparity and providing equal access to medical care, even in remote areas such as the Canadian arctic. These communities, too, are quickly accepting and integrating technologies.

Mendez describes a community in Northern Labrador that, after the province proved unwilling to purchase a remote-presence robot, came together to raise funds to do so independently.

Though he has helped found neurosurgical units Asia, Africa, and South America, Mendez’s interest in technology is not limited to the medical field. In another initiative, presently in its second year, children in Inuit communities in Northern Labrador are provided with laptops and put in touch with children from Nova Scotia and the Bolivian Andes.

“These kids can communicate with art, math, and music,” he said. “[This] instills in children the idea that, no matter who we are, our contributions have the same value.”

Mendez also emphasizes the importance of investing in crosscultural exchanges. He described a school in the north of Canada where, for the first time, two students have entered 12th grade, and will be the first two high school graduates in several years.

Communicating with graduating students in Nova Scotia via the laptops motivated these students to continue their education.

In this way, the introduction of innovative technologies can provide services to people who lack access, and offer these communities a means for growth.

“The change will come from within,” Mendez said. “We can help provide the environment for the children to one day become the leaders of the future, and change their own communities.”

Afra Saskia Tucker for The McGill Daily

Dr. Ivar Mendez talks about his exhibition.

Illness intrudes on our everyday language Mind Over Matter Roxana Parsa

mindovermatter@mcgilldaily.com

“H

e was being so weird, it was creepy. There’s definitely something wrong with him…maybe he has Asperger’s or something.”

I overheard this conversation earlier this week. The conclusion that an awkward acquaintance must have Asperger’s syndrome – a disorder on the autism spectrum characterized by social difficulties – is too common and somewhat troubling.

As a psych major, I’ve seen this before. You take one abnormal psych class and, next thing you know, you think you’re a clinical psychologist. You start telling people how they fit the new,

arbitrary criteria you’ve just read about. Your roommate’s been moping around feeling tired? She must be depressed. But wait, she seemed cheerful yesterday? She’s probably bipolar.

From the casual nature of these exchanges, it is clear that the language used to describe mental illness has made its way into our everyday conversations, yet, somehow, mental illness remains taboo.

According to the Canadian Medical Association, only half of Canadians would tell a friend that a family member has a mental illness.

Although one in five Canadians are dealing with a mental illness, the topic is rarely brought up.

In Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, she argues that misusing the language that describes illness only furthers feelings of shame in patients. She talks about how the term cancer has become a synonym of death and,

in other cases, a social metaphor; something being described as “a cancer on society” is now commonplace. While she writes mainly about terms used to describe physical illnesses, her ideas also apply to language regarding mental health.

While we refuse to discuss the real issue of mental health, words used to describe people with mental illnesses are often thrown around. My friend once described herself as “super OCD” because she’s organized and likes to keep her room clean. According to Dr. Arun Chopra’s research in 2007 at Nottingham University that looked at the usage of term “schizophrenia” in UK newspapers, up to 30 per cent of references to this illness in the media were metaphorical. Some usages included “the government’s schizophrenic attitude” or “a person’s schizophrenic style.” While these may be thoughtless statements, this language can further the

stigmatization of mental illness.

Earlier this year, a young man named Jared Loughner murdered six and injured thirteen in a shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Many reports in the media pointed to his mental health as the main cause of the tragedy, as if giving the explanation of schizophrenia would be enough to explain his actions. This clearly shows how the term schizophrenic has come to be synonymous with images of violence and irrationality, with someone who has become “unhinged” from society.

In reality, there very little correlation between schizophrenia and violence. One study by Oxford researcher Dr. Seena Fazel showed that, while alcohol consumption and drug usage can lead to an increased risk of violence, the same cannot be said for schizophrenia. Although Loughner may have been suffering from paranoid delusions, this case is in no way a

representation of all people with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, the media chose to latch onto the public’s fear of mental illness, equating it with the image of insanity depicted in pop culture.

This representation is due to a misunderstanding of what mental illness is. When a disease isn’t understood, it becomes feared, and people begin to create myths, which, in turn, leads to stigmatization.

It’s important to discuss mental illness and to raise awareness about its impact. It is also important to examine the ways in which we talk about it. By using these terms flippantly and attributing inaccurate meanings to them, we are stigmatizing those who suffer from a mental illness. To reduce this stigma, perhaps the first step is to strip these illnesses of all metaphorical meaning, in order to establish a greater public understanding of the realities of mental illness.

8 Features

Photos by Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

The secularist and the synagogue Christina Colizza

O

n June 19, 2011, temperatures in Montreal reached the mid-20s. The children of Outremont were busy, as they always are in summer, scootering down the neighbourhood’s tree-lined streets, or sliding down its wroughtiron banisters. But at the Mile End Library, the residents of the Plateau MontRoyal borough were ignoring the perfect summer day. They were voting on a referendum about a proposed 400-square-foot expansion of the Congregation Gate David of Bobov, a Hasidic synagogue on Hutchinson. (The west side of Hutchinson had been rezoned so its residents could vote in the referendum). The debate over Gate David’s expansion had been bitter, fuelled by flyer campaigns on both sides. After a day of balloting, the synagogue expansion was voted down. It was a close race: just 53.4 per cent voted ‘No.’ So, why the acrimony? Why the close vote?

The story begins years earlier, with former journalist Pierre Lacerte, and his camera.

Lacerte began in journalism writing articles about his world travels for the Montreal daily Le Devoir. He wrote for the other francophone dailies – La Presse and Le Journal de Montréal – and several magazines before retiring. In 2010, he was regarded highly enough to be named a judge for Canada’s National Magazine Awards.

When I sat down with Lacerte recently, he described to me the beginnings of another career. A resident of Hutchinson for 26 years, he has spent the last ten years or so attempting to right the wrongs he perceives in Outremont’s tightly knit Hasidic community. “Over the years I saw an increasing number of these people, and, from 2003, I realized there was something going on that was not appropriate,” Lacerte explained. “I saw that they were doing renovations on weekends, and at night. So I thought, ‘that’s strange,’ and I started taking pictures.”

Lacerte channeled his anger at the Hasidim into a blog (http://accommodementsoutremont.blogspot.com), painstakingly documenting all the “illegal” things his Hasidim neighbours do, photographing people, double-parked cars, and through the windows of synagogues. The writing on his blog is red hot with secularist fervor. “For more than half a century,” reads one post, written in French like the rest of the blog, “the Satmar sect has sacrificed thousands of children on the altar of religious ultraorthodoxy in Quebec.”

In 2007, Lacerte brought prominent Hasidic businessman Michael Rosenberg to the Outremont Council, asking that Rosenberg be kept off a local interfaith committee. Lacerte compiled a “dossier” of photos and documents purporting to show that Rosenberg had been making illegal renovations on a synagogue across the street from Lacerte’s house.

Rosenberg dismisses the charges to this day. They were “some stupid accusations,”

he said over the phone. “I didn’t look into it deeply.”

As many in the area know, Rosenberg is a big deal amongst the local Hasidism. He is president of the enormous Rosedev real estate company. You do not mess with him.

Lacerte found that out the hard way. Rosenberg sued him for defamation, demanding $375,000, and asked for a restraining order against Lacerte. (The restraining order was denied by a Quebec court in March, while the defamation suit is still pending.)

Soon, Lacerte became a known character around the neighborhood. When the PlateauMont-Royal council gave the go-ahead for the Gate David’s expansion in January, it came as no surprise that Lacerte led the charge to gather the signatures needed to spark a referendum.

“I think it’s purely anti-Semitic,” Rosenberg said by phone. “If you look at what Gate David wanted to do, it was not to increase its membership…but just to add some comforts, to modernize it, put some bathrooms on the ground floor for elderly people.”

“He’s just against every synagogue that exists in his neighbrouhood,” Rosenberg added.

Since the referendum period began, Lacerte has been written about in the mainstream Canadian press. Some of the accounts have portrayed him as an antiJewish crusader.

In one recent article, the National Post interviewed a local Hasidic woman who survived the Holocaust. She said Lacerte’s campaign against the synagogue felt “like sixty years ago,” and rolled up her sleeve to show the concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm.

However, the fanatical Pierre Lacerte depicted by the National Post – and by himself, on his blog – is nowhere to be found when I meet him at Le Figaro cafe on Hutchinson and Fairmont. He is well-spoken, calm, and has faultlessly good manners. He even smelled nice, like French cologne. When my tape recorder ran out of batteries, he pointed me to the nearest depanneur, and reassured me that he was in no rush, and would wait until I got back.

Lacerte insists that he is “not an anti-Semite.” He goes out of his way to emphasize this fact. He runs through the bullet points of his life and career: he speaks six languages and claims to have visited over 100 countries. He says that cultural difference has always interested him as a journalist. And he likes to emphasize that he has Jewish friends. In September, he wrote an article in Le Devoir about the Jewish Montreal painter Louis Muhlstock, a friend, who died ten years ago. He even “used to date an Israeli girl!” he says from across the table at Le Figaro, smiling.

His secularist ire isn’t targeted exclusively at Hasidism, either – Lacerte also harshly criticizes the “extremist Catholicist” brainwashing of his grandparents’ generation.

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

“With the Revolution Tranquille”– or the Quiet Revolution, a period of intense secularization in Quebec during the 1960s – “we were able to get rid of that, and we certainly don’t want fundamentalism of any religion to rule the secular life – the life of the suburb, the life of the city, the life of the country.”

The reason he keeps up his fight against the Hasidim is “not because they are always coming in and out of the synagogue to pray, but that they do illegal things,” he says.

Indeed, when he’s not declaiming about altars and ultraorthodoxy, Lacerte speaks in the staid, grey language of municipal bylaws and zoning requirements. For him, Hutchinson is residential, and shouldn’t be bombarded with double-parked cars, or Hasidism loading onto loud Greyhound-sized buses headed for weekends in Brooklyn.

But if we are to accept Lacerte’s allegedly legalistic focus, the question remains as to why he has targeted the Hasidism with such vitriol. Many McGill students can attest to the illegally run loft parties in Mile End. Shady poker games are certainly held in bars and cafes behind closed doors. The construction currently lacerating Parc is easily more disruptive than Hasidic school buses. And, either way, aren’t these quaint illegalities and minor disturbances what make Mile End Mile End? “The best solution is for him to move out,” says Tom Costaris*, who works in a store on Parc, and is married to my cousin. “It’s easier for one person to move than for 20,000 people to move.”

Costaris says the neighbourhood’s demographics settle the dispute in the Hasdim’s favour: “I don’t blame Lacerte. This guy is not anti-Semitic; that word is thrown around way too easily. He just feels they get away with everything without going through the proper channels, which they do. But I’m with the Hasidism, it’s their turf.”

A former resident of Parc-Extension, he concluded, “If you live in a Greek neighborhood and everyone is roasting their lambs in the backyard, you really can’t do much about it, either.”

Roasted lambs and illegal synagogue construction aside, Lacerte’s antiexpansion campaign was due in part to his belief that Outremont and Plateau Mont-Royal officials are corrupt, and work at the beck and call of Hasidic leaders. His blog, which often has a conspiratorial tone, offers detailed “proof” that Hasidic leaders (such as Rosenberg) are in cahoots with Outremont officials past and present. In one instance of Lacerte’s wit, Liberal politician Martin Cauchon became “Martin Kosher.”

“The Outremont government, the Plateau-Mont-Royal, the City of Montreal – all elected people are shutting their mouth, because if you touch these people, you’re considered antisemitic,” Lacerte tells me.

He describes the Hasidim of Outremont as a flock of misled sheep, who don’t think, and barely vote, for themselves: “They are totally subjected to the leaders of their group. They don’t have the right to read newspapers except for their own, they’re not allowed to watch television. Their only source of information is from their leaders…

They’re brainwashed. Poor people.”

In Lacerte’s telling, the memory of the Holocaust is used as a cudgel by Jewish leaders to keep the Hasidic community in constant trepidation. “It’s trauma. But,

at the same time, how can you always live only with that and not try and break the cycle?” he said. “The leaders maintain their people with this Holocaust thing, and that everyone in the world always hated Jews since the Egyptians 2,000 years ago. Is that a way to live a life? It’s a good way to be afraid of everybody else, and to make sure that your people will stay inside the room and not get out.”

The notion that Hasidism lead trapped lives is something many Mile End-ers grapple with daily. My mother grew up around Jeanne Mance and Bernard, in a churchgoing Irish family. Her best friend was a Hasidic girl named Rebecca*, whose house my mother had to visit if she wanted to see her, as Rebecca was rarely allowed out of the house. By their early teens, they began to drift apart: my mother continued to do things associated with teenaged years, while Rebecca’s parents looked for potential husbands.

Just walking down the street, you see ample evidence of the cloistered Hasidic lifestyle. The long skirts and stockings that Hasidic women wear seem ludicrously unpractical, not to mention oppressive, on hot summer days. And the clusters in which Hasidim walk to synagogue, heads down, talking to no one else, reinforce the barriers between them and their non-Hasidic neighbours.

Still, as Plateau-Mont Royal residents mulled over Gate David’s proposed expansion, many in the community rallied around the Hasidim. In a joint attempt to demystify the Hasidic lifestyle and gain local support for the proposed expansion, 37 year-old Mayer Feig opened Gate David to the public two weeks before the June 19 referendum. Despite pamphleting by Lacerte and others, nearly 200 neighbors attended the open house.

One of these neighbours, surprisingly, was another journalist with her own two cents to share. A feminist freelancer of Palestinian descent, Leila Marshy showed up to the open house and, along with her partner Kathryn Harvey and a small group of Hutchinson neighbors, decided to create a group that would soon be named the “Friends of Hutchinson Street.”

I got in touch with Marshy by email.

She wrote that she entered the fray because “Pierre Lacerte and his gang were going door to door with their flyers or petitions. Not only did I not understand what the problem was, I just didn’t get involved. I ignored it completely – they just seemed like cranky fanatics.

But a week and a half before the June 19 referendum I finally clued in to what was going on, and I just go so offended. I thought somebody has to stand up and it might as well be me.”

In response, Marshy handed out proexpansion pamphlets. “The referendum was nothing less than a vindictive collective punishment,” she says. Marshy’s efforts did not come without a cost. After the referendum, she felt ostracized by the community, as a couple of her antiexpansion neighbors refused to speak with her and accused her of fomenting conflict and spreading lies.

Not surprisingly, Pierre Lacerte held similar grievances with Marshy. “She and Mayer Feig played on that [their Palestinian-Hasidic friendship] a lot. It’s a strong image,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Feeling like Marshy came out of the blue, Lacerte could not understand why “all of a sudden she decided to fight for them. It’s strange…it’s just strange.”

In Lacerte’s mind, conspiracy shrouds

9

Marshy and Feig’s relationship. Marshy explained that Lacerte accused her of being on Feig’s payroll. And the accusations only got weirder after that: “Then he was ‘accusing’ me of caring only because I was Jewish,” she wrote in her email to me, adding, “The very idea of being ‘accused’ of being Jewish is so offensive, as if being Jewish is such a bad thing.” Mayer Feig refused to comment, wanting nothing more to do with the “ill-intentioned” Pierre Lacerte.

With only a Facebook page and two organized activities to date, “Friends of Hutchison Street” has faltered since the referendum. But the acrimony of the referendum period has been given a second life online by the group’s Facebook page.

The page, which briefly documents the events leading up the referendum and the need for “friendship and compassion,” has become a shooting gallery of snide remarks and long-winded postings.

Lacerte himself posts frequently.

Although Marshy believes the page “is not a space for fighting or petty insults,” she has not been totally immune from the temptations of biting online commentary. In one post, she commented that a photo of Lacerte “captures his smugness perfectly.” Marshy also uploaded a photo of a Hasidic man holding a Quebec flag upside down, saying Lacerte had photoshopped the image to make the man look anti-Quebec. Lacerte shot back with a link to an article from La Presse, in which the photo was originally published. In short, the Facebook battle has dissolved into he-said-she-said inanity.

Despite the remaining tension between residents, Mile End has managed, like so many times before, to recuperate. Molly Tonken, a McGill U2 Arts student who shares a backyard with the Gate David synagogue, said she “loves the neighborhood so much…this may come off as strange, but the Hasidic community gives it character. Children are always outside playing, and there is a strong feeling of safety. It’s a refreshing sense of community.” Tonken’s genuine optimism may stem from her newness to the neighborhood, but perfectly embodies the sort of attitude Mile End and Outremont needs right now – a fresh, even naive, conception of what a neighborhood can be. It’s sad, in a way, that it has taken a newcomer to embrace the pluralism that the neighbourhood could stand for.

The underlying irony of the strife on Hutchison can be found, simply, in the name of Lacerte’s blog: “Accommodements Outremont”). After a summer of referendums, pamphlets, photos, and snide Facebook jabs, Outremont is no more accommodating than it was before. It is uncertain what the future holds for this neighborhood, as young people cruise in, restaurants turn over, and the Hasidic community continues to grow. But the most recent squabble on the “Friends of Hutchison Street” Facebook page may give us a clue: Friends of Hutchinson Street/ Les Amis de la Rue Hutchinson: “The world population hit seven billion today, now, more than ever, we need to SHARE.” Pierre Lacerte: “Share? Great idea.

What are you planning to start with?” *These names have been changed.

Bottom right: cover page of Lacerte’s 2007 “dossier” on Michael Rosenberg; opposite: Lacerte in front of his Hutchinson home.

Courtesy of Pierre Lacerte

Letters From November 4 to 11, students will be able to vote in the QPIRG and CKUT existence referenda, which both take place every five years. If they recieve a ‘yes’ vote, both groups will be able to renew their Memoranda of Agreement with McGill’s administration. Student and groups wrote in to express their opinions on the issue.

As a new working group at QPIRG-McGill we have received unlimited and indispensable support from the QPIRG team as we continue to fight for the rights of immigrant and migrant workers. QPIRG is an important link between students and the community connecting campus and community social justice groups. It gives balance to an often one-sided academic environment, giving students access to space, knowledge and resources to make positive and meaningful social change and make connections between theory and action. Student groups, working groups, and research initiatives are vital, not only to campus life and learning, but to the greater community. PIRG’s across the country support grassroots groups and alternative action and re-action and QPIRG-McGill is no different.

Dignidad Migrante QPIRG-McGill Working Group

The Black Students’ Network stands in complete solidarity with QPIRG McGill, an organization “opposed to all forms of discrimination on the basis of: class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and dis/ability,” and actively strives to make the McGill community a community of safe space.

A vital organization for the McGill community, QPIRG caters to the interests of a variety of students with informative events such as: Rad Frosh, Culture Shock, and Social Justice Days. This is just one of the many reasons why we, the Black Students’ Network, urge all students to support QPIRG and vote ‘yes’ towards the referendum.

The Black Students’ Network McGill Student Group

Campus Crops has been a working group of QPIRG-McGill since 2007. Ever seen the lovely gardens north of the Birks building or behind the James Administration building? That’s us.

Every year since 2007 we’ve been growing veggies on McGill campus.

Our goal in these past five years has been to grow food on campus and to provide students and community members with space and opportunities to learn by doing.

We also seek to promote discussion around issues of food politics and food security through social and educational events such as workshops, film screenings, and potlucks. Throughout the years we have offered workshops on everything from permaculture, to herbal gynecology, to canning, to seasonal Temporary Foreign Worker Programs.

Through the means of popular education and knowledge sharing, our goal has been to empower people of all-skill levels. Indeed, many to-be green thumbs found their lifelong passion for urban agriculture at the Campus Crops gardens. Many of us would never have discovered our love and respect for food and agriculture in this bustling urban setting had it not been for Campus Crops or the support of QPIRG-McGill.

Before “being green” became the new big thing, QPIRG gave us voice, and empowered us to grow food on campus. QPIRG provided us with space to start our seedlings and hold meetings, funds to buy tools and materials, and trainings to sharpen our critical analysis and organizational structure.

Dedicated to both environmental and social justice, QPIRG provides students like us with the opportunity to seek knowledge outside of the classroom and to better both the McGill community and the Montreal community at large.

In supporting QPIRG you are supporting initiatives like ours. You are saying ‘yes!’ to creative, empowering, educational working groups and initiatives here at McGill and beyond.

Letter of support for QPIRG McGill

Dear McGill Daily,

Dear McGill Daily,

We are writing on behalf of the First Peoples’ House at McGill University to publically endorse the QPIRG Yes Referendum Campaign.

The First Peoples’ House is dedicated to providing support for First Nations (status and non‐status), Inuit and Métis students at McGill, by establishing a sense of community and a voice to aboriginal students who have left their home communities in order to pursue their education. One of our objectives is to collaborate and engage with local and national communities to support and raise awareness of Indigenous issues.

QPIRG has taken initiative on a number of issues and topics related to Indigenous peoples and we are happy to work in collaboration with them and truly value this partnership. During last years’ Social Justice Days, we co-hosted a film and discussion on the Tar Sands and their impacts on ecology and Indigenous Rights. This summer we co-sponsored activities for the 2-day National Aboriginal Day event at the Montreal Native Friendship Centre and this year we are collaborating again for the annual Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving Dinner.

QPIRG also houses KANATA, McGill’s Indigenous Studies Community. KANATA is a McGillbased student support community that explores, shares, and provides learning opportunities for anyone interested in Indigenous Studies.

One of their main activities is the development and production of a student-led annual interdisciplinary academic journal. This year also marks their first peer-to-peer led seminar on Indigenous issues.

All to say that we believe QPIRG does an excellent job at bringing important issues to the forefront and we think they play an integral part in the McGill community, so we agree with and support their referendum.

The Prisoner Correspondence Project has been a working group of QPIRG-Concordia since 2007.

We coordinate a direct letterwriting program for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, gendervariant, queer, 2spirit and intersexed inmates in Canada and the US, linking these communities with people who identify similarly and are outside of prison.

The project also coordinates a resource library of harm reduction practice (safer sex, safer drug use, clean needle care, safer tattooing, et cetera), HIV and Hepatitis C prevention, homophobia, transphobia, et cetera. Since our inception, we have worked closely with QPIRG-McGill in a variety of ways; whether co-organizing popular education events, supporting us with discretionary funding in order to work on special projects, promoting our project to the McGill campus and greater Montreal Community, or allowing us to use their space for our bi-weekly meetings, QPIRG McGill has been crucial to our project. QPIRGMcGill has helped us to fulfill our mandate of linking marginalized imprisoned communities with those on the outside so as to foster solidarity based relationships of support and friendship, helping break down walls of isolation.

QPIRG-McGill is a unique gem of an organization that encourages students to break outside of the university walls and engage in political activism and social and environmental justice causes.

The Prisoner Correspondence Project QPIRG-Concordia Working Group

In Peace & Friendship,

First Peoples’ House The Campus Crop Collective QPIRG-McGill Working Group

All illustrations by Amina Batyreva | McGill Daily

The McGill Daily | Thursday, October 27, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

11

The Midnight Kitchen hopes to be a bridge between the mainstream that we serve and the social justice that we work towards. Without the community resources – without QPIRG – the Kitchen would be a bridge to nowhere.

Midnight Kitchen

The recent referenda put forward by both QPIRG and CKUT needs to be recognized and examined for what they are: a willful twisting of the arm of the student body, while simultaneously being a propagation – albeit indirect – of student political apathy.

Both resolutions are worded in the same manner, and both deal with legitimate financial concerns of the two groups as a result of the online opt-out process for student fees. Theoretically, the vote is on granting the organizations the sole ability of tailoring specialized opt-out processes. Unfortunately, rather than having a clear, democratic vote on the true issue at hand, both resolutions are weighed with the ominous-sounding clause, a “no vote will result in the termination of all undergraduate fee-levy funding” to the groups.

Not only is this a not-so-subtle attempt at framing the question in the pursuit of maximizing a desired political outcome, but it alienates the segment of students who are sympathetic to the continued presence of QPIRG and CKUT on campus, and recognize the virtue of transparency, especially in monetary transactions.

This forces a black-and-white choice upon these students of the middle, students who likely form a large portion of the electorate, if not the majority. The resulting moral dilemma – voting against transparency or voting against supportive funding – means the only conscientious choice for this constituency is abstention.

No doubt that CKUT and QPIRG’s respective calculuses have prophesied the success of the as-worded referenda. Maybe the groups even believed that the distortion of the question into a stark choice would force students to evaluate to a clear position. In reality, the dulling force of the artifice will only motivate students to optout once more; this time, out of the referendum process. The only clear loser is student democracy.

Chris Liu U1 Political Science and Philosophy

As a faculty member, I have great admiration for QPIRG McGill, which serves as an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and others in the McGill community and beyond who seek a better world. Through its many activities and roles, QPIRG not only helps to engage the campus community in crucial local and global struggles for social and ecological justice, but offers a unique space for critical ideas, education, knowledge production, reflection and action, complementing – and sometimes challenging – the more formal kinds of learning which take place in the classroom or lab.

QPIRG offers many ways for students (and others) at McGill to meaningfully connect with, and support broader struggles for social justice and appreciate the ideas and debates behind them.

For example, its CommunityUniversity Research Exchange (CURE) provides an innovative means through which students can integrate their academic research with the work of local movements and activist organizations, encouraging and supporting socially relevant research via independent studies, projects internships. The many panels, workshops and cultural events which QPIRG organizes or co-sponsors have brought top-notch critical scholars from across North America and beyond such as Biju Mathew, Vijay Prashad, Radha D’Souza, Robyn Rodriguez, and Jasbir Puar who have participated in QPIRG’s Culture Shock program in recent years, as well as an array of activists, artists and community organizers from Montreal and around the world.

This is a great student-supported resource at McGill, and richly deserves more recognition for its work, and ongoing support!

Sincerely,

Aziz Choudry, Ph.D Assistant Professor, International Education Department of Integrated Studies in Education Faculty of Education, McGill University

Send your letters to letters@mcgilldaily.com from your McGill email address, include your year and program, and keep them to 300 words or less. The Daily does not print letters that are xenophobic, sexist, or otherwise hateful.

Since 2001, the Midnight Kitchen has been a vegan food collective that promotes a critical view of capitalism, consumerism and colonialism as they influence and control our lives.

The Kitchen aims to make people’s lives easier with a cheap nutritious meal and to create a safer, less stressed space. It is in this space that we can begin to question the stress and misery that we’ve come to view as normal.

There are too few such spaces, where the daily bustle is broken and we’re able to step back and ask ourselves ’why?’ Why such disparity? Why do our dumpsters overflow while people starve? Why accept such a volatile economic system? Why aren’t we (really) doing anything about climate change? Why, in our “democracy”, do we let any of this continue?

These aren’t easy questions to answer. It takes an incredible range

of information from all disciplines to start to detangle the web of issues that are so deeply rooted in our society. It takes a huge amount of support to keep going even when the answers to these questions challenge your own assumptions and personal habits.

QPIRG is the place to get these questions answered. They have working groups spanning almost any interest, and a library spanning many issues.

The Midnight Kitchen hopes to be a bridge between the mainstream that we serve and the social justice that we work towards. Without the com-

munity resources – without QPIRG – the Kitchen would be a bridge to nowhere.

In 2001, it was active QPIRG members involved in GRASPé who started the Kitchen. Without early support from QPIRG, we may have never existed, and without their continued existence, we will lose a valuable ally in our shared struggle for social and environmental justice.

A vote for QPIRG is a vote for MK, and we hope you will.

Midnight Kitchen Vegan Food Collective

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

12

The meaning behind the mask Exploring the significance of Guy Fawkes to the Occupy movement Pedro Marzano Culture Writer

A

s the recent global financial crisis evolved into a recession, hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the world to demonstrate their indignation against a system that, they believe, has failed them. Beginning with Occupy Wall Street, a movement baptized in New York City, it has expanded into a global phenomenon, from Hong Kong to Rio de Janeiro, as well as right here in Montreal. Footage from these demonstrations repeatedly show images of protesters wearing masks with a moustache and a pointed beard.

The proliferation of this image has aroused curiosity as to the provenance of the reappearing emblem.

Known by some as the V for Vendetta mask, this symbol of social rebellion has its origins in a much earlier era. In fact, it dates back to early 17th century Britain, when the failed “gunpowder plot” took place against British King James I. The plot was instigated by a group of provincial English Catholics, of which Guy Fawkes, the man depicted by the famous mask, was a member. With the aim of restoring a Catholic monarchy in Britain, the assassination attempt against King James I and the Protestant aristocracy and nobility

consisted of blowing up the House of Lords on November 5, 1605.

Although the plot was a failure, its legacy lingers to this day. Despite being only one of 13 conspirators, Fawkes stands out as an individual, considering he was assigned the job of igniting the explosives.

Ever since, November 5, “Guy Fawkes Night” or “Gunpowder Treason Day,” has become an annual holiday celebrated primarily in Great Britain. Exported by settlers to British colonies around the world, it became an underground tradition in North America, much to the chagrin of authorities.

In fact, Quebec has been directly influenced by this tribute to Guy Fawkes. The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed French Canadians free practice of Catholicism in the province. This Act infuriated Americans, as did the opposition from the Church in Europe to American independence, which threatened a revival of Gunpowder Treason day. In fact, Guy Fawkes had such an impact that his mask is used by Canadian police and military explosives technicians even today.

Embraced by political figures campaigning for civil disobedience such as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the Internet-based group known as Anonymous, and made famous by the 2006 movie V for Vendetta, the Guy Fawkes mask has become an international symbol for

anti-establishment protest groups.

On October 15, the Global Day of Action, at around 4 p.m., as over a thousand people gathered in Square Victoria (newly named La Place du Peuple) in solidarity with the Occupy movement. As a display of revolt, the Guy Fawkes Mask was placed on the face of Queen Victoria’s statue. More than a concealment of identity, the mask became a symbol of commitment to a shared cause and group spirit. The mask displayed a sentiment that was shared amongst Montrealers, and represented the reason for which many were there.

As much as corporate greed, influence over government, and social and economic inequality are denounced by the Occupy movement, the most fundamental cause may be much more subtle than that. It involves a growing feeling of disapproval that’s been building up in recent years – especially among youth – against the ways society functions, in the most primitive sense, and a growing need for the feeling of social belonging. The Guy Fawkes mask illustrates this defiance and thirst for integration by homogenizing faces to one universal expression.

By wearing the mask, protesters are sending a message of unity, indifference to response, and unlimited audacity.

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Happy birthday to me, says the CBC The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gets older, but what about its listeners?

Madeleine Cummings The McGill Daily

T

he Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) officially turned 75 yesterday, but only after teasing Canadians with anniversary-themed events and special programming for the past couple months.

There was the “1 Day” documentary project in August, which stitched together media footage and viewer contributions to produce a portrait of Canadians (young and old, unknown and famous) living their lives on April 30.

There was the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s performance, with Cirque Éloize, in early September, broadcasted live on CBC’s radio, television, and online programs.

There was even a movie about John A. Macdonald, our first prime minister.

Few Canadians deny that the

CBC’s impact on communications in Canada has been huge. Today, CBC.ca gets almost 200 million page views per month, and its programs and hosts – such as Peter Mansbridge and The National – are household names.

Still, this fall we’ve seen the CBC’s relevance and accountability questioned on several fronts. Some Conservative MPs have surveyed their constituents about the CBC’s value and the Federal Government has the broadcaster to cut costs by between 5 and 10 percent. Two parliamentary committees have been investigating the broadcaster’s economic and cultural importance as well as its handling of access-to-information requests and related legal battles with Canada’s Information Commissioner.

But what does this mean for us – as Canadians and university students? Does the CBC still matter to us? And do we matter to them?

On November 4, 1936, two days after the CBC replaced the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission,

Chairman Leonard Brockington delivered a speech on air that outlined the new broadcaster’s roles: “If Canadian radio makes no lasting contribution to a better understanding between the so-called French Canadian and the so-called English Canadian, between the East and the West, between the town and the country, between those of us who are fortunate enough to enjoy the privilege of labour and those of our fellow citizens who through no fault of their own are denied that opportunity, then we should have faltered in our stewardship.”

But Brockington also mentioned the importance of entertaining young audiences. “We will never forget that Canada is a country of youth,” he said. These words ring true, even today, as the baby boomers retire and the country’s population ages. Without TVs or portable radios, most university students get media on their computers.

Therefore, the CBC will have to

adapt to this reality in order to survive in an evolving digital world. “Any public broadcaster has to change with the changes in technology and with the changes in the audience,” said Ian Morrison, spokesperson for FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting.

Much of the the CBC’s special anniversary programming and online features have ties to Canadian history as well as to the history of CBC’s coverage in Canada. Some of this might interest us, but most won’t.

Are we thrilled to learn that 1966 was the first year Hockey Night in Canada broadcast its games in colour? This fact might excite our parents, maybe, but our generation? Probably not.

“I would hazard a guess that the CBC is afraid of cuts that the Harper government may be about inflict on it,” Morrison said. “It is trying to use the 75th anniversary as a way of appealing to the voting public in order to cause the government to think twice about zapping public broadcasting.”

Nevertheless, while the anniversa-

ry festivities might be geared towards the older voting public, the CBC still understands that appealing to youth might determine whether or not it makes it to that 100th birthday.

In 2008, for example, CBC Radio 2 redesigned its programming schedule, moved classical music from prime time to the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. timeslot, and introduced online-only stations and concerts on demand. CBC Radio 3 was created in the early 2000s with young people in mind, and through its blogs and other interactive components has evolved into a thriving community of people linked by the love of new independent Canadian music.

Morrison was surprised to see so many young people support FRIENDS’ recent “I Love CBC” campaign, which responded to Conservatives’ threats towards the CBC’s relevance and funding.

Young people might not be celebrating the CBC’s 75th with enthusiasm, but they still think the CBC is relevant, and the feeling is mutual.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

13

Art from the ground up

Julia Boshyk for The McGill Daily

Joan Moses recounts the culture of Occupy Montreal

T

he washtub bass is generally categorized as a string instrument. It’s made of a washtub, a broom handle, and a rope, and is played by planting one’s foot on the base of the instrument, and plucking away at the taut cord connecting the tub to the broom handle.

At Occupy Montreal last Thursday, this categorization was all but ignored.

In the midst of a spontaneous, rhythmic, musical and dance performance – in which a collection of around 15 individuals danced, sang, and played instruments near the entrance of La Place du Peuple – one woman simply banged enthusiastically on the washtub, reimagining the instrument as a drum. The strings, it seemed, were too cumbersome and too quiet. Only the pure, loud, steady beat of a drum could adequately express the energy of the protest.

The entire performance seemed motivated by this kind of vigor.

Unstructured, spur-of-the-moment, and entirely freewheeling – much like the Occupy movement itself – it was nevertheless awe-inspiring.

Guitarists ignored the instruments strapped across their backs in favor of beating on recycling bins; Dancers twirled impulsively with scarves (and, somewhat less expectedly, a cord tied to a baby shoe); Protesters sang shapeless but strong

notes – the entire spectacle exuded a contagious kind of enthusiasm.

The occupiers seemed to be almost buzzing as they greeted and danced with each other; high-fiving, laughing, and smiling despite the cold grayness of the Place and the chilly October weather. While the dance may have had an explicitly political dimension – for a time, the protesters chanted “solar power” – what was more powerful about it was its implicit social message.

As participant Christine Gahwi, who has been at the camp “since the beginning,” said to The Daily, this kind of “[artistic] creation, and participation in the larger creation of life [that is happening at Occupy] go hand-in-hand.” The space created by this performance mirrored that of the larger Occupy movement – it was uninhibited, friendly, and open. Any one can join and start to bang on a drum, twist with the other dancers, or sing into the megaphone. There was no clear leader, and, unlike a more traditional manifestation of protest, no one individual got up to give the longest speech. The performance was permeated by the non-hierarchal values of the Occupy movement, and, for that reason, it seemed both vital and unique.

This was, however, only one of many occurrences of this sort

of free-wheeling musical protest.

Gahwi attested to this, saying “just about every day we have creative, spontaneous experiments!” What’s more, the presence of a designated performance space suggested the existence of more structured artistic displays. A brightly coloured bus with the words “Jam Mobile” painted on the side of it, and with musicians almost spilling out of it, further indicated that musical performances are not rare.

Indeed, La Place du Peuple seems to be overflowing with creative energy. Just walking into it, one is greeted by a dada-esque image of a dark stone statue of Queen Victoria, on an at least 20-foot-tall pedestal, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. Depending upon your point of view, this could be taken as either hilarious or defamatory.

The base below her is covered with protest signs, as occupiers have scaled it to put them up. The signs are visually striking, occasionally belligerent, and covered with slogans (in English, French, and various other languages) that range from “Revolution, It’s Happening,” to “Pour Love on the Broken Places,” to “Plate Club in Solidarity with MUNACA.” They seem to bring the statue to life, converting it from mere stone to a lively expression of collective passion.

The area around the statue

is also covered with this kind of improvised artistic work. A makeshift Dia de los Muertos alter stands near a sign that says “¡Viva Mexico! ¡ Muerte al Neoliberalismo Financero! ¡No Sangre!” A small boat, clearly homemade from a cardboard box, rests on the ground, floating adrift on this sea of artistic detritus – a number of occupiers seem to have scrawled messages on its brown paper hull. “Resist the new world order,” it reads. “Think outside the box,” “Free Bradley Manning.” This entire space seems to be a public work of art, expressing the hopes and messages of the budding Occupy community.

These kind of collective works can be seen all over La Place de Peuple. As one occupier said to The Daily, “It’s not only signs themselves but different forms of expressions of art.” Referencing the large white banners strung up in several prominent locations in La Place du Peuple, he described places “where people are invited to sign or to leave a little message or to do whatever they feel that they need to be able to do to express themselves.”

These banners appear to be canvases meant for people to write or draw about their feelings on the Occupy movement.

One, for example, is covered with

pictures of faces, peace signs, yinyangs, hearts, handprints, and half-legible sentence fragments such as “talking to a stranger and getting a SMILE back”. Another has written across it – boldly and in both French and English – “List of Changes We Want To See in our Society (WHY ARE YOU HERE?).”

Underneath, many protesters seem to have taken up the challenge to make this list, cataloging both broad (“We need a greener lifestyle”) and more specific (“Save the romaine river”) suggestions.

The multiplicity of voices that shout out from these works, and from the art of Occupy in general, is striking. There is no one clear message that comes from these works, but, rather, all of the voices seem to blend into a powerful shout of resistance. The performances, the protest signs, the canvases – these various expressions of human activity seem to gush naturally out of the occupiers, almost out of the ground of the camp itself. They exclaim their resistance to the status quo, to social norms, to hierarchy, to anything at all that is oppressive.

And they converge at the corner of Beaver Hall and McGill to form an example of artistic defiance that cannot be ignored.

14 Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Queer imagination on the silver screen A look in to the last few days of Image+Nation Cinema Verite

John Watson cinemaverite@mcgilldaily.com

W

ith queer films becoming more and more prominent in the mainstream, it is often easy to forget about the margins from where they emerged. Of course, a “true” history of queer films is difficult to trace – thousands of trees worth of scholarly papers have revisited classic Hollywood texts, acknowledging queer sentiments in cinema through the work of artists ranging from James Whales to Rock Hudson. Films that dealt explicitly with queer desires and issues, however, were rare for a long time. In the article “Moving Gay Films Into the Mainstream,” New York Times writer Chloe Veltman acknowledges that “for many years, the work of gay filmmakers was virtually invisible beyond niche circles.” A significant shift in this history came with the emergence of the New Queer Cinema movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This saw a growth in the production of queer films, along with a wider distribution.

Now in its 24th year, Montreal’s Image+Nation film festival was born out of this movement, and offers a variety of feature-length and short films. These films continue in the tradition of the New Queer Cinema, while challenging and redefining what queer cinema means. Image+Nation is an international LGBT film festival, and the oldest exclusively queer film festival in Canada (Despite its progressive nature, Image+Nation still defines itself as only an LGBT festival, rather than the more inclusive terms like LGBTQ or queer).

This year’s festival has already seen a diverse and exciting array of events. Highlights include a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, and a 20th anniversary presentation of Jennie Livingston’s seminal drag ball documentary, Paris is Burning.

Although there are only a few days left, there are still a number of great films you could catch.

I spoke with McGill English Cultural Studies professor Alanna Thain, who is currently teaching “Sexuality and Representation: Queer Screens,” about what will be some of the more interesting films presented in the final days of Image+Nation.

Weekend, by UK filmmaker Andrew Haigh, has been receiving a lot of buzz and was acclaimed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. Weekend follows a Friday-to-Sunday romance between a pair of young men, which the festival’s website describes as a “brief window [that] provides a

Shinae Lee for The McGill Daily glimpse of the poignantly honest process of two men getting to know each other over a weekend of sex, drinking, sharing stories, and taking drugs.” Thain believes the theme “breaks out of the queer cinema ‘ghetto,’” while another reviewer commented that Weekend offers “a sense of authenticity and an eye for details that reminds us of the works of Cassavetes and Mike Leigh.”

There are also a number of promising documentaries still screening at this year’s festival. (A) Sexual by Angela Tucker explores the growing visibility of asexual people, and the their struggle to find a place for theselves within the queer community.

L’Amour Fou takes place in 1958 when a then 21-year old Yves Saint Laurent took over the house of Dior, and chronicles his subsequent relationship with business partner Pierre Bergé. The documentary, “filled with rare archival material and exclusive images of their homes,” pays tribute to the late fashion designer, his art, and his philanthropic contribution to the fight against AIDS. Finally, German filmmaker Rosa Von Praunheim’s Rent Boys (Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo) takes a look at Berlin’s hustler culture.

Focusing on the experiences of male prostitutes, Von Praunheim ventures to Romania, from where a number of Berlin’s male prostitutes hail.

Although international in scope, many films bring us closer to home. Montreal filmmaker Donald Winkler’s Margaret & Evergon explores the relationship between Canadian photographer Evergon and his mother. In addition, Matthew Hays, a film critic from the Montreal Mirror and author of The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers, will host Screening the Epidemic, a special illustrated conference that historicizes the AIDS crisis in film.

Finally, the festival will close with Leave it on the Floor, a musical that sparked a lot of intrigue at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The film is described as “an urban musical, its score weighted with the emotional honesty of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the break-outsinging bravado of Glee.”

With so many diverse options packed into the final four days of the festival, do yourself a favour by broadening your queer film repertoire beyond Brokeback Mountain and Milk. Check out one or more of these promising independent films by some of the queer art world’s best established and rising artists.

Image+Nation started on October 26th and will end on November 6th. See image-nation.org/2011/ for more details.

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

EDITORIAL

volume 101 number 17

editorial 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Joan Moses

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Henry Gass news editors

Queen Arsem-O’Malley Erin Hudson Jessica Lukawiecki features editor

Eric Andrew-Gee commentary&compendium! editors

Zachary Lewsen Olivia Messer culture editors

Christina Colizza Fabien Maltais-Bayda

science+technology editor

Jenny Lu

health&education editor

Melanie Kim sports editor

Andra Cernavskis photo editor

Victor Tangermann illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva production&design editors

Alyssa Favreau Rebecca Katzman copy editor

Peter Shyba web editor

Shannon Palus le délit

Anabel Cossette Civitella rec@delitfrancais.com cover design

Victor Tangermann Contributors Abby Buckman, Campus Crop Collective, Christiana Collison, Madeleine Cummings, Laurent Bastien Corbeil, Marzieh Ghiasi, First Peoples’ House, Midnight Kitchen, Christopher Liu, Austin Lloyd, Pedro Marzano, Dignidad Migrante, Jaïs Mehaji, The Black Students Network, Roxana Parsa, The Prisoner Correspondence Project, Afra Saskia Tucker, John Watson, Adam Winer

Vote ‘yes’ – keep CKUT and QPIRG alive Our University’s independent student organizations face regular existence referendums in order to ensure that they retain the support of McGill’s student body. Two crucial campus organizations, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) and campus community radio station CKUT 90.3 FM, will be facing this process from November 4 to 10. It is important that students vote ‘yes’ to ensure that these groups remain a part of our campus life.

QPIRG is a not-for-profit organization run by a mostly student volunteer Board of Directors. This organization deals with environmental and social justice issues through research, education, action, and funding of a wide variety of other campus groups. QPIRG’s initiatives include such events as Rad Frosh, which provides incoming first-year students with a socially conscious introduction to the McGill and Montreal communities, and support of environmental working groups on campus like Campus Crops, Greening McGill, and Climate Justice Montreal.

Meanwhile, CKUT, which is governed with input from both McGill students and staff, provides a varied range of quality radio programming produced by and for the McGill and Montreal communities, broadcasting what is not covered by mainstream media outlets. CKUT is the only campus organization that provides students with the opportunity to learn about and be involved with radio production. CKUT programs include: All Things McGill, an eclectic show putting community members in touch with important events at McGill and William Shatner’s Whisky Tears, a music show featuring numerous student contributors.

In the past, both QPIRG and CKUT have faced marked cuts to their funding through online opt-outs of student fees. This issue has been greatly exacerbated by smear campaigns aimed at encouraging students to opt-out of their QPIRG fee. As a result of these circumstances, opt outs from both of these organizations have more than doubled over the last five years, creating funding consraints for QPIRG and CKUT. In an attempt to combat decreased funding from opt-outs, both QPIRG and CKUT have decided to add opt-out system changes to their existence referendums, returning to the previous system and removing the option of opting-out of student fees online through Minerva. Instead, refunds would be available directly in person through each organization. While the motivation for this change is understandable, these measures are not in line with the open and accessible policies of these organizations.

While The Daily encourages students to vote ‘yes’, we feel that the way these optout modifications are being put forth is unfortunate, because it forces students who wish to support these organizations to also support the opt-out change. In addition, these changes were made without adequate student consultation. Taking the opt-out system offline would force students with gravely limited financial resources, who seriously need their student fees refunded, to make this a public declaration. Students shouldn’t have to publicly declare any aspect of their financial situation.

Because of these concerns, The Daily hopes that, should the existence referendums succeed, QPIRG and CKUT will publicly solicit student consultations regarding the opt-out system, along with a subsequent vote on the system that is not tied to either organization’s existence.

These caveats should by no means deter students from voting ‘yes’ in the existence referendums regarding QPIRG and CKUT. While the amendments to the optout system may not be ideal, these do not detract from the inherent worth of these two organizations. QPIRG and CKUT are both extremely valuable contributors to our campus communities, and must be supported by students so that they can continue to foster a plurality of student voices and experiences, and to enrich our campus community.

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.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

Boris Shedov Letty Matteo Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard

advertising & general manager

sales representative ad layout & design

dps board of directors

Marie Catherine Ducharme, Alyssa Favreau, Joseph Henry, Tyler Lawson, Sheehan Moore, Joan Moses, Mai Anh Tran-Ho, Aaron Vansintjan (chair [at] dailypublications.org), Debbie Wang

The Daily is proud to be a founding member of the Canadian University Press.

All contents © 2011 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

Errata

In the article “Occupy Montreal seeks to improve sustainability at Place du Peuple” (News, Page 7, October 31), it was incorrectly stated that the movement began on September 15. In fact, Occupy Montreal began on October 15.

In the infographic “Average water use per day” (Environment special content, Page 16, October 31), the average daily water use for Canadians was incorrectly depicted as 39 litres, when it is in fact 329 litres of water.

In “McGill union marches to Occupy Montreal” (News, Page 3, October 31), the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) was incorrectly identified as the Association of McGill Undergraduate Support Employees.

The Daily regrets the errors.

15

C o m p en d i u M!

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lies, half-truths, and internet meme parodies!

16

The strike continues... unfortunately VPs Sass and Sodomy continue whining about their sub-par sex lives

Simone de Boudoir and Salvador Dalliance Do the Dirty

I

t’s been a long, hard couple of years, um, wait, sorry, weeks since our last update. With regards to the current on-campus labour disputes – AGSEM has voted to use pressure tactics to force the administration’s hand. Meanwhile, after a couple of sexless semaines, the unreleased pressure building up

in us has forced hands as well. But, as negotiating partners have been few and far between, we’ve engaged primarily in solitary actions.

In other circumstances, this short dry spell would not be as perturbing. But here’s the thing – once you decide, as we did in this newspaper recently, not to have sex, boning becomes the only thing on your brain. Everyday situations suddenly become fraught with sensuous images...

Just grabbing one of the new Starbucks holiday drinks in between classes? BOOM! Whipped cream takes on a whole new meaning.

Casually skimming through your copy of The McGill Daily, glancing at the headline “Death by cream?” BOOM! You can’t help but

think about a BJ. Riding your bike to campus?

BOOM! Those bumps on the road connote a whole other kind of riding.

Hearing someone talk about a novel’s climax in class? BOOM! You’re suddenly tempted to run to the bathroom for a climax of your own.

Moral of the story, we’re kind of horny. And sexual strikes fucking suck (although, unfortunately, we aren’t).

So MUNACA, AGSEM, AMUSE, AMURE, we stand in solidarity and hope you guys don’t back down. But something tells us that we’ll be giving in and satisfying our demands pretty soon. And don’t worry readers – we’ll keep you posted.

close, but no cigar

FUCK MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAMS

Fuck you, multiple-choice exams. I mean, is it really necessary to try and condense the entire contents of a course into sixty (or less) awkwardly worded questions? I don’t think so. And guess what! I am not a number. I am a person. So please stop using Scantrons for every test because unlike what McGill seems to think, I am not a robot. I don’t care how much of an administrative hassle written exams are for big classes.

I’m tired of colouring in the circles in HB pencils. But that isn’t even the worst part of multiple-choice exams. It’s those questions that say something like “Which of the following statements is NOT true?”…FUCK YOU. Why don’t you just go ahead and say what you really mean, “We can’t give everybody A’s so here’s a really confusing question designed to be misunderstood by you.” Yeah, fuck this.

FUCK THE FALL

Who’s cuter? Joseph Gordon Levitt or a chipmunk?

Kids in the northeast US couldn’t trick or treat because of the snow :( Kim Kardashian got divorced this week. She made $18 million from her marriage.

MINUS A WHOLE LOT

People actually care.

MINUS 150

MINUS 72

A pair of Queen Victoria’s underwear was sold for £ 10,000

EVEN

Writing metrometre is hard.

EVEN

Ryan Gosling gets compared to puppies.

How can anyone decide???

TOTAL

PLUS 100 MINUS 60 MINUS 88

compendium@

mcgilldaily.com

The first reason is that it’s cold and fucking rainy as shit. It’s all “Oh, I’m going to be so pretty with multicolored leaves and harvests and tweed!

Oh my God, people fly to fucking Maine to witness me in all of my glory.”

But it’s not beautiful. It’s a poseur. At least winter has the (snow) balls to be like: “Yeah. I’m fucking freezing and the days are short and the trees are bereft of leaves and there’s snow and ice all over the place.” Fall is just the poorly decorated hall between the majestic pavilion of summer and the dungeon of winter, where our gloves and scarves are our shackles and chains.

The second reason I hate fall is because I spent all of last year toning my arms like Michelle Obama to be able to bare them over the summer and then only got like two months to flaunt them before fall came around. Sure my arms look great in all the pictures, but two months was not remuneration enough for the thousands of bicep curls, army presses, dips, pullups and extensions I executed. For Christ’s sake, I did a tricep exercise called “skullcrushers,” the idea of which is to lie on a bench with a barbell held at arms length above your head, to fold your arms backwards and then extend back upwards. If your triceps falter, you drop the barbell and your skull gets crushed. I put my life at risk to be able to look good in tank tops and then fucking fall came around and all of a sudden, I couldn’t have exposed arms anymore. Now I have to cover up my works-of-art with long-sleeved shirts and creatively patterned sweaters. Sure, those with whom I am intimate get to see my arms, but my sleeve puppies want an audience of more than one person! It would be nice to walk into a lecture wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts and have everyone be like: “Fuck, look at that guy. The one with the gorgeously sculpted arms.”

Sure enough, fall means that I can let my arms go to shit for a little while but I don’t want to do that. I want to keep my arms in tip-top shape, and not have to post disgusting, self-promoting photos on Facebook for people to see how jacked I am.

The third reason fall can eat it is because I have like at least $1,000 worth of summer clothes out of which I did not get nearly enough mileage. Now it’s fall and I have to put all of my lovely, pastel-hued tee-shirts and seersucker shorts into airtight plastic bins under my bed and pull out my dark and dreary winter clothes. Fall sucked all the color out of my wardrobe. Plus it’s not like I have a glowing tan to counterbalance the weight of fall clothes. Nope, my tan faded long ago and now it’s just dark colors against pasty skin. I recently saw pictures of myself from the last days of summer and I was brown as a nut. Now, thanks to fall, I resemble the jarred fish that my Jewish neighbors eat at Passover.

The last reason why I hate fall is because it immediately follows summer. Summer, the time of year when everyone is beautiful and free and happy and loving and devoid of any sort of responsibility. And then fall – the time of back-to-school, daylight savings, wind, rain, rubber boots and midterms. What I’m getting at, simply put, is that every fall feels like the dreaded Monday that follows that amazing weekend known as summer.

And it sucks. It sucks real bad.

Fuck This! is an anonymous rant column. Please send your non-hateful rants (of 300 words or less) to fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com.

20 Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 7, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Art: a cure for the crisis YAHAnet gets creative in the fight against HIV/AIDS Anna Silman

The McGill Daily

I

n recent years, AIDS activists have been faced with yet another in a long sequence of obstacles in their fight against this devastating global epidemic: the rising tide of public apathy. Although HIV/ AIDS has become increasingly controlled in the developed world, and antiretroviral drugs have become more accessible in developing nations, the social momentum that once propelled the AIDS crisis to the forefront of public awareness has dwindled. The increasing incidence of “AIDS fatigue” has been detrimental to both funding and awareness efforts.

A 2006 study at a Quebec highschool indicated that students’ knowledge about HIV/AIDS had decreased in the past decade. Even more alarmingly, over 70 per cent of grade eight students believed that there was a cure for AIDS. But this AIDS fatigue is not just afflicting those in the West. A study done at the University at KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa found that most of the students appeared apathetic to campaigns by NGOs aimed at AIDS awareness.

Enter Claudia Mitchell, a professor in McGill’s Department of Education. For the past decade, Mitchell has been studying the relationship between creative arts and HIV/AIDS awareness in young people, primarily in a South African context. In 2006, Mitchell was approached by UNESCO, who asked her to do a study on the online presence of arts-based youth groups. Along with her McGill colleagues Dr. Bronwen Low and Michael Hoechsmann, Mitchell conducted a study to examine the use of artistic methods amongst 300 youth groups from across the globe.

The results of this study revealed the profound potential in using creative projects as tools for educating young people about HIV/AIDS. As Mitchell explained in an interview with The Daily, almost half of all new HIV infections in Africa occur in people under the age of 24, so it is essential that new tactics are developed in order to combat the threat of AIDS fatigue within this high-risk group.

“There’s a lot of work that suggests that, in the past, there have been a lot of things developed by

Image courtesy of YAHAnet. adults for youth and this seems to be almost like the ‘kiss of death’…

There was an interesting study done in about 2002 by UNICEF that says that unless young people are involved in developing and having some agency in terms of the programs and materials that are available to them to address HIV/AIDS, the programs are almost surely doomed to failure,” Mitchell elaborated.

In 2007, with the help of funding from UNESCO’s HIV/AIDS division, Mitchell and her team at McGill University partnered with the University of Toronto and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa to create YAHAnet.

YAHAnet, short for the Youth Arts HIV/AIDS network, is an online educational tool that connects youth groups worldwide in order to initiate the conversation amongst young people about HIV/AIDS. Emphasizing the importance of artistic expression in “getting the word out,” the goal of YAHAnet is to encourage young people to be leaders in the dialogue surrounding the HIV/ AIDS crisis.

The site features online galleries that allow youth from around the world to upload and share their creative works, including everything from paintings and poetry to rap videos and graffiti. The site also serves as a social networking tool for users to share ideas in online forums and provides users with a variety of online resources to educate themselves on how to effectively use art-based approaches to further HIV/AIDS advocacy and counter discrimination.

In Mitchell’s view, the type of reflective thinking and critical engagement that the arts encourages provides a platform for young people to get involved and express their views on what can be a difficult issue to discuss. “When you add on this layer of sexuality, [as well as] HIV/AIDS stigma, these are areas that are quite difficult to talk about,” explained Mitchell. “But, somehow, you can talk about these things both indirectly and more explicitly by doing it through fiction or photographic representation and so on. It allows people to put into words things

they actually aren’t very comfortable talking about.”

YAHAnet is currently maintained by a team of interns at McGill, led by project co-ordinator John Murray. Emily O’Connor, a U3 International Development Studies student at McGill and a current intern at YAHAnet, said she was inspired to get involved by the creativity-based, youth oriented mandate of the site inspired. “I really liked the mandate of focusing on youth and using creative methods to bring awareness…

Especially for young kids. They won’t really listen to a boring speech or something like that – they need to have their hands in a project to engage in it better.”

YAHAnet’s newest project, the “Turn the Tide to Zero” Podcast Contest, challenges young people to create a podcast of up to three minutes based on the theme behind the contest’s title.

“Turn the Tide Zero” combines the World AIDS Conference title of “turning the tide together” and the World AIDS Day theme of “zero.” The podcast contest will run until December 2, and

is designed to coincide with the 2011 World AIDS Day. As O’Connor explains, this contest is in keeping with YAHAnet’s goal of providing new, fresh approaches to keeping the HIV/ AIDS issue in people’s minds.

“YAHAnet is this new thing that’s using these new methods to keep the word out there. For example, if we did another photo contest, its almost like people get desensitized to things like that. They’ve seen that before. Yet if you show it in a new way it almost seems like it’s a new thing” described O’Connor.

“The way we are going about it is to keep it current and keep it out there so people are staying aware and spreading the message.”

For Mitchell and her team, YAHAnet opens up a much-needed space for young people to make their voices heard. “Now isn’t the time to be saying ‘We’re adults, we know better.’ Now is the time to be saying ‘What’s needed?’” explains Mitchell. “And what’s needed, I think has been demonstrated in a lot of research, that young people can have a voice, and should have a voice.”

Look how happy we are!

Come to our meetings, every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Shatner B-24, and you too could have a smile this wide!

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 7, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

21

Just like the 90s at 90.3FM CKUT mixes up music-listening with new website initiative Zoë Robertson

The McGill Daily

F

or all who deem the technologies of pre-digitized life archaic: at the very least, do not doubt the lasting power of the mixtape. The newly-launched website www.campusmixtapes. org gives students the opportunity to publish and stream their own mixtapes in a public forum. The site is a CKUT – McGill’s independent radio station– initiative, and is aimed at McGill students and CKUT members.

Tim Beeler, a McGill U2 Arts student and CKUT’s campus events coordinator, explained the premise of the site in an interview with The Daily. “It’s a brand new – wildly new – paint-still-fresh website that allows students to upload mixtapes. You use a basic program like Audacity or Garage Band and you make a mixtape. It’s basically like the same constraints of making an old-fashioned mixtape (with a real tape) in that you can’t skip through tracks. You listen to the whole thing, so it kind of brings back the art of making a mix.”

Niko Block, now in his third year as an undergraduate student representative on CKUT’s board of directors, developed the site with the help of some staff members and students. He explained how the idea for Campus Mixtapes arose. “We’d had this idea kicking around for a while of having sort of an ulterior radio station online.”

Block cited inspiration from themixtapeclub.org, a similar style of website that publishes a set of 10 mixtapes at time. It is “very simple and it’s streamable. It’s really slick and highly accessible,” said Block. However, it doesn’t let users upload their own mixtapes.

Unlike The Mixtape Club, Campus Mixtapes, is “a website where students will be able to upload any sort of audio mixtape that they’ve made,” Block said. For example, “if you take a bunch of tracks that you mix into a playlist or something like that, and you stitch them into a single mp3 using a program like Audacity, you can just upload it onto your profile.” Anybody with an active McGill email address or who is a member of CKUT can create a profile on the site.

Campus Mixtapes will hopefully bridge the gap between the McGill community and that of CKUT, groups that Block perceives are too often disconnected. “It’s

Alyssa Favreau | The McGill Daily a really consistent problem for CKUT when it comes to the question of reaching out to the mainline of the McGill student body...

There are a lot of students who already do volunteer at CKUT or know about CKUT just because they’re sort of in the scene of going out to music shows. Unfortunately, however, “there’s also a lot of students who aren’t really up on that scene quite as much, and who just don’t listen to CKUT,” Block explained. It’s ironic, Block added, that CKUT is one McGill’s primary avenues for representation to the Montreal community, even

“A mixtape is more than just a tracklist...”

Tim Beeler | CKUT campus events coordinator

though so few McGill students are actually involved. Block hopes that Campus Mixtapes will ultimately bring students more into the fold of CKUT, an organization he feels, “has so much to offer students.”

The website also offers a good place for amateurs interested in a range of related productions to starts off. “We definitely wanted a way to bring McGill students into experimentation with audio,” explained Block. He hopes that students “know what kind of opportunities are available at CKUT, particularly in terms of the fact that, whether you’re a journalist or a pundit, you’re interested in audio, or if you’re a band, CKUT offers opportunities specifically to McGill students to get on the air.

It’s it’s played a huge role in building the careers of McGill students who have gone on to become fairly successful, including Grimes and Arcade Fire.” Certainly, site users

are experimenting with more than just music. “You can do some fun things,” explained Beeler, “a couple of the mixes on there are mashups, and you can talk in between the tracks.”

“The way that people receive music is such a big part of music-listening culture, and this is a way for people to kind of creatively express their interactions with music that they really enjoy,” noted Beeler.

Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

“You start doing it and it’s just wildly addictive. I made one last night, I was up till like 3 a.m. making one and I already started another one in class. Don’t tell my prof.”

The mixtape holds a unique value that much of our generation – and certainly future ones that are likely to fall further away from outmoded technologies – don’t really know. Beeler explained how “a mixtape is more than just a track list.

You kind of have to listen to it as a

whole product… It’s got the same appeal of a record in that you have to do some dedicated listening.

You sit down and put on a mixtape instead of just skipping through your iTunes.” But, the mixtape is versatile and has a more casual use, too. “If you’re working on something, you can just, you know, throw a mixtape on,” Block pointed out.

Beeler summarized with a sentiment similar to Block’s, expressing that this project is great for engaging students and creating connections on campus and in the greater Montreal community. As Beeler enthused, “Campus Mixtapes is a great part of a larger initiative from groups like CKUT and Midnight Kitchen to accentuate the fact that McGill is a student community.

There’s a lot to be gained from students interacting and sharing with each other – sharing knowledge, and sharing music, and sharing fucking awesome mixtapes.”

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 7, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

EDITORIAL

volume 101 number 18

editorial 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Joan Moses

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Henry Gass news editors

Queen Arsem-O’Malley Erin Hudson Jessica Lukawiecki features editor

Eric Andrew-Gee commentary&compendium! editors

Zachary Lewsen Olivia Messer culture editors

Christina Colizza Fabien Maltais-Bayda

science+technology editor

Jenny Lu

health&education editor

Melanie Kim sports editor

Andra Cernavskis photo editor

Victor Tangermann illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva production&design editors

Alyssa Favreau Rebecca Katzman copy editor

Peter Shyba web editor

Shannon Palus le délit

Fight the hikes: march on November 10 For decades, the Quebec student movement has been among the most active in the country. At the same time, Quebec students have enjoyed the lowest tuition fees in the country. This is no coincidence – it is in large part due to students consistently demanding accessible post-secondary education.

But, in recent years, the Liberal government of Jean Charest has attempted to undercut the painstaking work of Quebec’s students. In 2007, the Liberals unfroze tuition levels that had been capped for thirteen years allowing them to rise by $100 a year for five years.

Now, those five years are up, and Charest is at it again. This time, tuition will jump by $325 a year for another five years. Average tuition for in-province undergraduates in Quebec is currently $2,168, the lowest in Canada. When Charest and the Liberals are done with this round of hikes, the average Quebec student will be paying over $3,793 a year.

Recognizing that these are hard times, provinces like Newfoundland and Saskatchewan have been acting to ease the burden on students by freezing tuition or promising grants. Quebec’s Liberals seem to be choosing exactly the opposite path for our province. As tuition creeps upward, it will become harder and harder for students to afford a post-secondary education, which should be a basic right, and which has become an almost indispensable prerequisite for prosperity.

Fortunately, students still have a voice. Quebec’s student movement has been impressive in recent years – drawing big crowds and national media attention for their resistance to Charest’s policies. On Thursday, November 10, thousands of students will march will take to the streets to show the Charest government that tuition hikes hurt students and need to stop. Join them by going to the Roddick Gates at 1:00 p.m. Join the movement that’s responsible for Canada’s most accessible universities, and is still fighting to keep them that way.

Editors’ Note The Daily strongly encourages all members of the Arts Undergraduate Society (including Arts & Science students!) to attend the AUS General Assembly on Tuesday, November 8. The GA will be held in the SSMU cafeteria from 5 to 7 p.m.

Among the eight motions is a vote on an AUS strike on November 10 in support of the Day of Action against tuition hikes. At the time of press, associations representing over 130,000 Quebec students have voted for the one-day strike.

Bring your Arts student ID to be eligible to vote!

Anabel Cossette Civitella rec@delitfrancais.com cover design

Alyssa Favreau Contributors Organic Campus, Alex Chalk, Edna Chan, Anthony Cotter, Evan Dent, Clara del Junco, Jane Gatensby, Naomi Endicott, Juan Camilo Velazquez, Brianna Delagram, Richard Greer, Maggie Knight, Andrew Komar, Esther Lee, Austin Lloyd, Ian Murphy, Emma Mungall Sheehan Moore, Zoe Robertson, Anna Silman, Lucile Smith, Bipasha Sultana, Eric Wen, Anqi Zhang, Jane Zhang

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.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

Boris Shedov Letty Matteo Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard

advertising & general manager

sales representative ad layout & design

dps board of directors

Marie Catherine Ducharme, Alyssa Favreau, Joseph Henry, Tyler Lawson, Sheehan Moore, Joan Moses, Mai Anh Tran-Ho, Aaron Vansintjan (chair [at] dailypublications.org), Debbie Wang

The Daily is proud to be a founding member of the Canadian University Press.

All contents © 2011 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

Errata The article “Smart Sports Statistics” (Sports, Page ?, October 31) incorrectly identified Michael Schuckers as Michael Shuckers. The Daily regrets the error.

23