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McGill Students Daily

Volume 101, Issue 19

November 10, 2011 mcgilldaily.com

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The FTQ is considering more protests against Bill 33.

Camille Chabrol for The McGill Daily

Jordan Venton-Rublee

that, “We have a couple of problems with Bill 33.”

Some of these problems include the ability for workers to get a raise. “We think that there should be a place for a pay increase,” he explained.

Laiche also commented on the fact that the way workers voice their demands is also a problem. “[It’s a] general strike or nothing in the construction industry – we are not allowed to do anything else legally,” he explained.

Laiche said that CSN believes that transparency is needed within the industry. “What we want is transparency of that process. We want everyone, everywhere to have access.”

Another aspect of the proposed bill is forcing construction unions to open their books to the public.

Guerin stated that the FTQ already publicizes their finances on the Internet. “We have no problem that our members can consult that. Even if it’s the law, it was already like that, but what is the interest for the public to know our financial state?”

The Daily asked Guerin whether there would be any further action to protest the bill.

“I hope not, but we don’t know,” he replied.

The FTQ and the CSN are two of the five construction unions in Quebec, with around 155,000 members.

The Construction Commission of Quebec declined to comment on the bill.

The McGill Daily

S

ince October 11, one of the largest construction unions in Quebec, the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ)-Construction, protested a proposed bill that would end the ability of construction unions to place workers within the industry.

Labour Minister Lise Thériault presented Bill 33 at the beginning of October to the Quebec National Assembly. The document of the bill states in French that, “This proposed bill introduces a new reference system that would replace the current practice of union placement of employees within the construction industry, and proposes various measures that aim at improving the functioning of the construction industry.”

Construction workers must belong to one of the unions to work legally in Quebec.

The bill comes on the heels of a corruption report by the former head of the Montreal police, Jacques Duchesneau, which was leaked to the media in September.

Quebec construction unions are at odds over support of the bill.

Arnold Guerin, president of the FTQ, spoke in French about the report’s relation to Theriault’s bill. “[Duchesneau]’s report did not ever speak of the union, it never spoke of the workers,” Guerin said.

The FTQ strongly opposes the bill and the proposed changes that it would have on the construction industry. The union represents 45 per cent of the construction industry and, according to Guerin, would be the worst affected union.

Guerin explained some of the FTQ’s reasons for protesting the bill. “Us in construction, we do not have security in our jobs. We don’t have job security. Others are protected, but not us,” he explained.

There were numerous unplanned walk offs at construction sites across the province in October to protest the bill, including blocking the entrance to the Montreal offices of the Construction Commission of Quebec.

Guerin stated that the walk offs were due to the inability of the unions to be heard.

Guerin added that the workers were frustrated with the proposed bill, and were “provoked.”

Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN)-Construction, another construction union in Quebec, supports the intentions of Bill 33.

Jean Pierre Laiche, a representative for the union, told The Daily that, “We believe that the placement of people is not a union task.”

“There are people who think that their work is to place people.

We think that everyone should have access to work regardless to the quality of relations with those people,” he said.

“We are backing that part of the bill,” said Laiche, though he noted

— with files from Erin Hudson

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

3

AUS GA votes in favour of November 10 student strike mandate Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

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he Arts Undergraduate Society’s (AUS) General Assembly (GA) voted on Tuesday in favour of a one-day student strike mandate for its over 7,500 members in support of the November 10 demonstration against tuition hikes.

According to the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), over 200,000 students have declared a one-day student strike for November 10, including almost 18,000 Concordia Arts and Science undergraduates at their own GA last week.

The resolution to strike, moved by five students, mandates AUS to declare a one-day strike, as well as to petition Arts faculty members to cancel classes today. After questions from students regarding the implications of a student strike, the motion passed with an overwhelming majority. A committee was formed at the end of the GA to plan communicating the results of the vote and promoting the strike to students and faculty members.

According to SSMU VP External Joël Pedneault, this marks the first time there has been a student strike at McGill since 2005, when students protested cuts to the provincial government’s student bursary program.

The GA exceeded its 150-member quorum almost half an hour after the assembly opened.

The first motion on the agenda mandated the AUS to lobby for academic amnesty. The motion stated that academic amnesty “includes the right to abstain from participating in academic commitments for reasons of conscientious objection and/ or cases of ethical or moral conflict without penalty” during a strike or lock-out at the University, and was nearly an exact replica of the motion for academic amnesty presented to McGill Senate last month. Despite its failure at Senate, the motion passed amongst Arts students.

A motion for the AUS to support a ‘yes’ vote in the QPIRG existence referendum sparked debate before it passed. Voices against the motion centred on the question’s proposal that the QPIRG opt-out system revert back to its previous method, which requires students to opt-out in person rather than online through McGill’s Minerva system.

Arts Representative to SSMU Isabelle Bi was one of three students who spoke against the motion.

“It is my job to represent you guys and I find that, with a question like this that asks students that we mandate or we endorse a ‘yes,’ is telling to our 7,000 students that we favour one side; we’ve now marginalized a complete other voice on campus who may not agree,” Bi said.

It was not until a student in the audience prompted AUS Speaker Ben Lerer to intervene that Bi was forbidden to assist in counting votes on the motion. During motions later in the agenda, several AUS executives questioned movers and voiced discontent with the contents of motions, and proceeded to assist in counting student votes.

Sheehan Moore, former Daily Design and Production editor, moved a question for AUS to support the striking McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA).

AUS President Jade Calver questioned Moore about whether he was aware of the motion that had failed at AUS Council in September, and of surveys that have been distributed to Arts students on the question.

Moore responded that he was aware of Council’s vote, and that many of the ‘no’ votes had been a result of claims of being uninformed about the details of the strike. “You’re never going to have the support of everyone, but the point of an association like AUS is not to appease people, but to take action,” he said.

AUS VP Academic Yusra Khan asked about a clause that read, “AUS Executive be mandated to encourage its members to support the strike

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Arts students vote at the AUS General Assembly. and assist those students who wish to actively advocate for MUNACA.” Khan stated that it “doesn’t really reflect our opinions,” referring to herself and the rest of the Executive. She attempted an unfriendly amendment – an amendment where the mover of the motion, in this case Moore, disagrees with the amendment – to omit the mandate explicit to the Executive.

Moore explained that Khan’s comments related back to Bi’s earlier concerns. “It’s a matter of how you think the democratic process should carry out: whether or not you should be representing us, or whether by electing you, we are just endorsing everything you say,” Moore said.

Lerer refused to allow Khan’s unfriendly amendment once it had been drafted, stating that it was submitted after a vote to move the question was approved. Argument then broke out among students as to the legality of such a ruling.

After the GA, Khan addressed her opinion on the procedure. “I do feel like the atmosphere of debate in this

room wasn’t fostered at all – I think that specifically the Chair’s decisions to haphazardly employ whatever rules or procedures he felt comfortable with really hindered the debate that could have taken place,” she said.

“I do feel that specifically my motion for an unfriendly amendment...was completely overlooked, and that is, in my opinion, just not acceptable. In a way, I feel like it calls into question the legitimacy of the resolution, because there was no consistency in the way that that was determined,” Khan added.

The motion to support MUNACA passed with about twenty students opposed. Approximately 229 students were present for the vote.

A motion to support the African Studies program – which had its introductory class, AFRI 200: Introduction to African Studies, cut this year – was amended to add that AUS lobby the McGill administration for a programspecific professor, as well as for general support to the program.

The GA lost quorum after the

November 10 strike motion passed.

Three remaining motions were discussed as a consultative forum.

A motion regarding student consultation on the reappointment of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson was discussed, as was a motion for AUS to oppose and educate students on all tuition hikes, and a motion regarding the brewing of coffee at SNAX. After adjournment of the assembly, Calver spoke to The Daily.

“I think it was a little disappointing that not everything was debated, especially because this GA was student-initiated because there were issues that students wanted to discuss and pass resolutions on. I think that it was a little contradictory that there wasn’t actually debate on some issues,” she said.

— with files from Erin Hudson A full version of this article is available online.

MoA vote ends negotiations over McGill name Kallee Lins and Juan Camilo Velásquez The McGill Daily

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SMU Legislative Council voted last week to sign the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between SSMU and McGill after hours of confidential debate.

Council voted to publicize the results of the vote on the MoA, which passed with fourteen in favour, five against, and four abstentions.

Those involved with the decision had mixed reactions to ending a multi-year battle with the administration over the use of the McGill name.

Clubs and Services Representative to SSMU Sahil Chaini explained why her constituency is worried.

“I have received numerous complaints about the MoA and how frustrating it is for clubs to have to change their names, merchandise, banners, signs, et cetera. The prin-

ciple behind the change is the real problem, however,” Chaini wrote in an email to The Daily.

According to Chaini, the MoA creates a precedent of agreeing to the demands of the University in a way that divides the students from the McGill administration.

“We are all part of the same University, and should be able to define ourselves as such,” Chaini added.

Engineering Representatives to SSMU Alex Kunev and Tariq Khan expressed dissatisfaction about the outcome of the vote. Many of their constituents made an appeal at Council for SSMU to postpone signing the MoA, and to support the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS)-organized “We are ALL McGill” campaign.

Kunev explained that EUS is in a different situation than other faculty associations, since they are beginning the process of negotiat-

ing their own MoA, and face similar issues pertaining to the use of the McGill name and logo.

Though unsatisfied with the vote, Kunev acknowledged that the issue has dragged on since last year. “Not having an MoA affects every student group’s ability to do their work,” he said.

Former SSMU VP University Affairs Rebecca Dooley pointed out that SSMU’s negotiations with McGill are not finished until the lease is signed. Council voted last week not to sign the lease until more information is provided by the University.

“While the MoA is really important for delineating student autonomy and SSMU’s formal relationship to the University, the lease is really key because it’s one of the resources that students use most,” said Dooley.

“You know McGill is going to call upon this student work as a source of pride. They are aware of what their name means, but they treat it

as a corporate entity and not something that can empower members of the community,” Dooley added.

Khan sees the battle as far from over. “What I see is that all university students will be united on the forefront and this will be a literal fight with the University,” he said.

SSMU VP Clubs and Services Carol Fraser said that, after voting to sign the MoA, SSMU is seeking student fees that the administration has been withholding for the last month.

“Legally, they have to give them to us within thirty days after the last day of registration under the Act [Respecting the Accreditation and Financing of Students’ Associations],” Fraser said.

Fraser explained that SSMU VP Finance and Operations Shyam Patel asked the administration for the fees.

“We were not going to do that, because negotiations were going well and we did not want to seem aggressive about it, but now that we

agreed in principle with the MoA, we do need our fees,” said Fraser.

In a memo distributed to the gallery at Council, Fraser wrote that McGill offered $25,000 to help with costs pertaining to name changes, if the alterations are made by November 15.

“Please note that the name you choose must be reflected in your website, Facebook groups, Twitter, any official correspondence, banners, et cetera… If making these changes is going to incur serious financial expenses, McGill (through the SSMU) may be able to reimburse you,” Fraser wrote in an email to affected groups.

“Some groups are really confused and upset, rightfully so...but I think a lot of people understand, because the issue has been around for so long, nobody is personally angry. A lot of people get the trend that McGill, in general, is not prioritizing its students,” said Fraser.

4 News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

McGill community mobilizing Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily

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s over 200,000 students from across Quebec go on strike today – including McGill’s Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) – McGill’s graduate students, teaching and support staff are doing their part in the fight against tuition hikes.

Unions representing McGill’s TAs, course lecturers, striking support staff, and even some professors, are mobilizing around today’s province-wide student walkout that could see tens of thousands of students take to the streets of Montreal.

AGSEM The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill represents TAs, invigilators, and – as of this year – course lecturers. AGSEM will be hosting an assembly for its mem-

bers at the Y-intersection at 12:30 p.m., after which members will be encouraged to join the main McGill contingent at the Roddick Gates, who are meeting at 1 p.m.

Lerona Lewis, AGSEM president, said that the union’s participation in the protest is mandated by a 2010 General Assembly, in which members voted to “support the movement against the increase in fees.”

After months at the bargaining table, Lewis spoke against the Quebec government and the McGill administrations’ claims that higher tuition will allow schools to attract better teaching talent. “The University has not yet come back with a response that says [we] will get more than 1.2 per cent increase in pay,” she said, referring to TA salaries.

Lewis added, “We don’t think...students have to pay more so that educators can be paid,” citing a “bloated administration” in her criticism of University management of finances.

MFLAG The McGill Faculty Labour Action Group, a loose organization formed in response to the recent MUNACA strike, has been circulating a statement pledging to grant academic amnesty to any striking student.

At press time, the statement had been signed by 17 professors two days after an AUS General Assembly voted to lobby professors for academic amnesty (see page 3).

Derek Nystrom, a professor in the Department of English and a signatory, said that while AUS has been encouraging professors to cancel class, there is no organized campaign to cancel Thursday classes.

Asked if he expects any repercussions from the McGill administration, Nystrom said, “It does raise questions about academic freedom, pedagogical freedom, and things like that. So I genuinely don’t know if they’re going to bother.”

Yesterday morning, Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi sent an

email to department chairs reminding them that there is no “general academic amnesty” for students who miss class.

If professors cancel their classes, the email continues, they will be required to inform the chair of the department, provide “Reasonable Justification,” and indicate how the missed class time will be made up.

PGSS The Post-Graduate Students’ Society is encouraging their members to participate in the demonstration, though it has not voted to strike. The PGSS contingent will meet up with striking Concordia students at Ste. Catherine before moving to the main protest site, Place Émilie Gamelin.

According to PGSS VP External Mariève Isabel, the society has been publicizing the day of protest since September with posters, fliers, and a town hall on tuition fees. They have also been work-

ing closely with the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), their parent student lobbying organization.

MUNACA The union representing support staff at McGill, on strike since the beginning of the school year, will also be joining the demonstration.

According to MUNACA VP Finance David Kalant, the union has moved its picket duty to the march so striking workers can fulfill their duties by attending. The union and student protesters share similar concerns, he said.

“We do support the students fighting an increase in tuition fees.

We think the problem really is not the funding, it’s a matter of how it’s used.

That’s [MUNACA’s] issue as well… It’s part of the same problem.”

Kalant said he expects roughly 900 MUNACA strikers to attend the march, based on the number of workers regularly on the picket lines.

The Daily talks to McGill researcher Brenda Milner Canadian neuroscientist honored with Greengard Prize for achievements of women in science

B

renda Milner is a Canadian neuroscientist who has worked at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (MNIH) since 1950, when she joined celebrated doctor Wilder Penfield in studying the field of clinical neuropsychology. Born in Manchester, England in 1918, Milner has become a pioneer in the study of memory and cognitive functions in humans.

She was the first to study the effects of damage to the medial temporal lobe on memory through work on the famous patient, known simply as “HM.” She has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, which recognizes achievements of women in science.

The Daily spoke with her about working at the MNIH, her achievements, and what it has been like working as a woman in science.

The McGill Daily: What made you stay at the MNIH for so long?

Brenda Milner: McGill has always been famous for its medical school, and science in general.

When I was coming to Canada in 1944, my professor at Cambridge said to me, ‘Oh, well, McGill has a very good medical school.’ And within this medical school, this institute has always been very special. I think most people would agree with me that Doctor Penfield’s greatest contribution…was his vision for an institute where he had people coming from all parts of the world. And what is quite remarkable is that today, we have the same vision. This has never died, this feel about the institute.

MD: What pushed you towards psychology?

BM: I discovered that I wasn’t going to be a great mathematician. I had a sort of romantic notion about pure logic. People at my high school wanted me to do languages, which came around easily to me, and go to Oxford. I didn’t want to go to Oxford, I wanted to go to Cambridge and do mathematics, which was the place to do mathematics in those days, probably still is. And then, you know I realized that it wasn’t my forte.

Fortunately I passed my exams, but I had a chance to change to a different field. It was luck. People agree with me when I say this: people who have gone somewhere, nobody really gets anywhere in life without some luck along the way. If they tell you that they do it without having any luck, just by their effort, don’t believe them, because I don’t think that’s possible. You have to grasp opportunities before they go away. I knew nothing of psychology – they gave me a handbook on experimental psychology, like a telephone directory to take home to read during the summer, which I dutifully did.

Mathematics is a very lonely occupation, and I value very much the companionship that science brings you.

It was a revelation. So it worked for me, but it was luck.

MD: What motivates you to pursue your research? Is it the companionship that science brings?

BM: And curiosity. These two things. I’m very curious, and when I was young I was certainly a good observer. I’m quite observant on how people and animals behave, and then my curiosity is excited – why did that happen, and how I can study it? So it’s my curiosity. I like working with young people. I like the medical students, I think its very bad to have

Brenda Milner has been at McGill for over sixty years. people segregated by age, its not natural, it’s not how families are.

MD: Have you ever felt discriminated against in your field of work because of your gender?

BM: I have never felt that at all, not in England, you know, and I haven’t felt it here at all at the neurological institute. [The MNIH], in Doctor Penfield days, it was a sort of pyramidal structure with Doctor Penfield very much at the top, and the younger people lower in the pyramid. But there were never any gender differences, and [Penfield] was also very interested in hearing what anybody had to say about his patient. He was never, ‘Oh I don’t

want to hear anything from you because of your gender or anything,’ that was quite different.

MD: What advice would you have for undergraduates at McGill?

BM: I suppose to know yourself in a way. Think of the field of neuroscience, which is very exciting, you still have to ask yourself, ‘Is this right for me?’ You have to be very patient; you have to be capable of taking many many boring readings, not being bored. I don’t bore easily. You also must not go in expecting to have a wonderful discovery every week or even every month. If you get something really exciting every year, that’s

Lorraine Chuen for The McGill Daily good. You have to be patient, and you have to be a little bit obsessive. The other thing is that if you find you’ve chosen the wrong field, don’t hesitate to change. I obviously changed from mathematics to psychology. I know somebody that changed here at McGill from philosophy to physiology and made a huge successful career in physiology, and it was quite late. So don’t be afraid to change.

— Compliled by Laurent Bastien Corbeil Milner will be giving a talk this Sunday, November 13, at TedxMcGill.

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

5

Good without God Why religious ethics aren’t necessary One Less God Harmon Moon

onelessgod@mcgilldaily.com

One of the enduring myths about religion and atheism is the idea that morality is permanently grounded in the former, that a life without a weekly prayer session is one with a morass of anything from moral relativism to unending evil. The idea, that is to say, that you cannot spell ‘good’ without ‘God.’ Before we address this issue, lets examine the notion of ‘good with god’ or what I see as the basis for religious ethics. Most religious ethics are based on the idea of there being some sort of heavenly tribunal watching for infractions of God’s laws, with those who stray being subjected to some sort of fitting punishment. To what degree the punishment takes depends on the interpretation. Some limit themselves to a vague idea of perpetual torture after death, while others have faith in immediate divine intervention.

Obviously, atheists do not subscribe to this belief. And yet, many atheists manage to be good people.

Not only do these ethics depend on the existence of a divine judgment, this notion approaches ethics in a top down manner. This type of religious morality asks that people do good not because it’s kind of a nice thing to do, but because, if you don’t, a gigantic omnipotent hand in the sky is going to lay a divine smackdown on you. The divine power’s opinion seems to matter more than yours.

Yet, despite millennia of religious commandments demanding that we stop it, humanity continues to cheat, steal, murder, covet their neighbours’ spouses, lie, commit adultery, et cetera.

While it’s certainly a possibility that these people are all being immersed in lakes of boiling oil after their death, there is no immediate, visible reaction to immorality. The cosmic police seem, for all intents and purposes, to be asleep on the job.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of motivation, then, to act like a good person. But we continue to live in a society with a lot of good people in it, regardless of

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily their religious orientation, even though there are not lightning strikes on petty thieves. I would argue that ‘religious ethics’ is far less important as a system of how to be a good person than it is as a system of why you should be one, and that this system is

more based on retribution than it is on inherent goodness. An atheist does away with that idea of retribution. Since there’s no hell to burn in after committing some great sin, it’s a lot more reasonable to just not commit that sin because, well, it’s kinda

nice. Atheist moralists concern themselves with their actions; religious moralists concern themselves with God’s reaction.

One has an eye on the here and now; one has an eye on the hereafter. After all, why should we be told to do good?

One Less God is a twice-monthly column on atheist communities and philosophy. Harmon Moon is a U2 History student and VP External of the McGill Freethought Association. He can be reached at onelessgod@ mcgilldaily.com.

6 Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Alex Chalk | McGill Daily

Why it needs to get better Sometime there’s left and right – and sometimes there’s right and wrong Richard Carozza Hyde Park

The recent shock at the death of Ottawa teen Jamie Hubley has brought to the limelight the issue of homophobic bullying in high school. However, much of the media fails to grasp the real problem. The assumption is that teenagers are brutal misanthropes who are predisposed to bullying and harassing their fellow classmates. Fact is, they are, but I argue that it isn’t their intolerance that’s leading to 40 per cent of queer male youth attempting suicide in the United States, or a suicide rate among American queer teenagers being 400 per cent higher than their straight counterparts. It’s the intolerance of those who exited their teens long ago.

Teenagers (straight, queer, or otherwise) are going through vast changes in their bodies and minds. Since they are completely indecisive, they easily succumb to outside pressure and the opinions of others. This includes the bullies. But where do you think all of

this teenage homophobia comes from? From adults who spew hateful rhetoric over television, radio, the internet, on street corners, and anywhere else you can imagine. These self-righteous bigots easily influence kids, including the bullies who pass on the hatred the hatred of their fellow humans that adults claim is somehow commendable, that being queer is a sin, that it’s unnatural and immoral. But you know what?

They’re wrong.

Completely, undeniably, irrationally, utterly wrong. After seeing scores of teenagers – unable to grasp why their the rest of humanity can’t empathize with their sexuality – shoot themselves, hang themselves, lock themselves in garages with the car running, or to commit suicide in any other way, I have this to say: claiming the immorality of homosexuality, and advocating against gay marriage and other civil rights, is simply inhumane.

I had a similar debate with a conservative Christian friend of mine once, and upon giving my opinion, he said that I was insulting his religion; while, in fact, he and

every other homophobic church attendee out there are insulting my religion. Raised Catholic, I can’t believe that God would put people on this earth – people who are genuinely good, altruistic, and good-hearted by nature – purely to have society torment them. I can’t believe God creates a human who is damned simply for how he or she chooses to love. I can’t believe God is an irrational being that somehow disapproves of two men or two women loving, and approves solely of heterosexual relationships, that he is so fickle that he demands that we love in a certain way. I just can’t believe that is how God is. And, frankly, if you can believe that, then obviously there is a serious disparity between your beliefs and the basic tenants of the Bible’s more overarching, prevalent themes, rather than the two or three references to homosexuality. I’m sick and tired of religion being a way for people to justify their bigotry. It’s a stain upon everything Christ stood for and real Christians aspire to be.

I don’t mean to exhibit the same sort of anger and hatred that the other side uses, but I

honestly believe that Christ is looking down at these “followers” and is disgusted. Perhaps it doesn’t register to the same magnitude of using his name to justify the Crusades or other “holy” wars or other injustices. But to use the name of the most holy person to ever walk on the earth to justify some sort of inner-demon, to put homophobia and hatred on a pedestal, to exult intolerance is repugnant and appalling. But past that, the damage that they do is tragically immense: the despair that one feels to actually end their own life, to think that to be dead and to feel absolutely nothing is somehow preferable to your own life brings me to the edge of tears.

And to actually end it is such a waste of life, especially when it is ended so needlessly, simply because some cannot accept how another feels. So, as far as I’m concerned, to be so revoltingly indifferent to the well-being of those around you – or outwardly and personally malicious towards them – couldn’tan’t be construed as “Christ-like” in a million years.

I’m not queer, and I’ve never been tormented the way Jamie

Hubley and other victims have been, but even for those who can, at the most, empathize, it’s enough to scream. I suppose this is my scream. It’s my scream to people who bully queer youth.

You have no idea the damage you unfurl. It’s my scream to homophobic adults: realize the consequences of your hatred, that what you do in the name of religion isn’t a holy war, but rather a war against the holy. It’s my scream to school officials, parents, and those who have power and influence over these victims: do your job, protect them, and nurture them. We’re not tinkering with passages of the Bible and fighting over rhetoric, we’re dealing with the mental health and physical well-being of thousands of youth who question their sexuality, who are going through enough tumultous times without being subjugated to homophobic individuals overcompensating with their senseless malice.

Richard Carozza is a U1 physiology student. He can be reached at richard.carozza@mail.mcgill.ca

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

7

QPIRG should defund Tadamon!

Why one QPIRG supporter questions this organization Alexander Dawson The McGill Daily

As the referendum period draws to a close, we will soon be confronted with either the end of QPIRG or their continued existence as master of their own opt-out process. It’s unclear how the administration will respond to the results, so a ‘no’ majority might not mean QPIRG’s demise.

Still, somehow this referendum feels like a climax, a prospective victory for either QPIRG or their opponents. By “opponents,” I, of course, refer to the opt-out campaign. My initial thoughts about the opt-out campaign centred on the extraordinary feebleness of their tactics. Promising a single sandwich over the course of a whole year will only convince a certain sort of person. If you are one of the people who opts-out for reasons like these, in any condition other than dire financial

need, then we have nothing to say to each other. However, the opt-out campaign appears to been extremely effective in eroding QPIRG’s resources.

QPIRG’s troubles seemed to be largely a PR problem: people knew that you could buy a sandwich with $7.50, but they were unaware of all the great programs funded by QPIRG. However, I have come to realize that one argument made by the opt-out campaign has significant resonance with McGill students: some of the money that students give to QPIRG is used to fund Tadamon!.

A major focus of Tadamon! is the oppression of Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories. I have no personal connection to either Israel or Palestine, but it is clear that there are deep and alarming divisions between Jewish and Arab Israelis.

A 2011 poll by Maagar Mochot, an Israeli research centre, found that 49.5 per cent of Israeli high school

students would deny Arab citizens rights equal to those of Jews, and 56 per cent felt that Arabs should not be eligible to run for the Israeli parliament. 40.5 per cent of Israeli Arabs deny the Holocaust, according to a 2009 University of Haifa poll.

Despite Tadamon!’s repeatedly stated commitments to justice and equality, I feel their initiatives have the actual effect of limiting constructive discussion and increasing this divide on campus. I am particularly discomfited by their equation of Israeli policies with apartheid. This label is unproductive and factually inaccurate.

Richard Goldstone is a former South African Constitutional Court judge who gained attention for his judicial activism against apartheid. His experience in the South African court system and his later work investigating human rights abuses in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the Gaza Strip have made him one of the most quali-

fied people to comment on the definition of apartheid.

In a recent New York Times editorial, Goldstone wrote that apartheid involves a much higher degree of state-sanctioned oppression than is present in Israel. While discrimination against Arabs is widespread in Israel, Goldstone points out that Israeli law, unlike pre-1994 South African legislation, does not hold racism as an ideal.

Because I feel that Tadamon! sacrifices factual accuracy for sensationalism, I would also prefer that my student fees did not go towards Tadamon!. If you are a student who plans to vote ‘no’ because you are uncomfortable with funding this group, I can sympathize. However, I have consistently declined to opt-out of QPIRG because I feel strongly that other recipients of QPIRG funding – such as Rad Frosh, Campus Crops, and in fact, pretty much all other QPIRG-funded groups – contribute positively to our campus

on a scale that far outweighs the inflammatory effects of Tadamon!.

I will be voting ‘yes’ in the QPIRG referendum for the same reason, and encourage you to do so as well.

And in this spirit of considering the big picture, I must also address QPIRG: your decision to fund Tadamon! – made with the good intention of improving human rights in the Middle East – has compromised your ability to represent McGill students and left you vulnerable to the machinations of a disingenuous and cynical few. At the very least, QPIRG should proactively engage in consultations to determine the level of support for Tadamon! among students. Moreover, I feel that it would in the best interest of both QPIRG and the McGill community for QPIRG to cease funding to Tadamon!.

Alexander Dawson is a U1 Biology student. He can be reached at alexander.dawson@mail.mcgill.ca

Students should protest today The bigger picture: MUNACA strikes, student strikes This September, QPIRGMcGill and SSMU planned to host a panel called “Beyond Free Education.” The event was postponed – QPIRG and SSMU agreed that renting space at McGill to discuss the future of accessible education when the University’s non-academic staff were striking seemed ironic, if not unethical. Today, MUNACA remains on strike, and McGill has not conceded to any of their demands.

This afternoon, thousands of students will gather to protest the end of (more) accessible education in Quebec. The connection between MUNACA and the student movement is more than the simple fact that these groups are both on strike (it may not look like the case at McGill,

but students across Quebec are, indeed, on strike). Though they are protesting different aspects of their work or school conditions – wages well below the average, and sky-rocketing tuition fees – these problems share a common root. Both cases bear witness to the rapid privatization of our university system.

In the last few years alone, McGill has made astounding leaps and bounds in transitioning to a corporate model of university management. 2007 saw the administration become the leading advocate of ending the freeze on tuition increases and of giving universities control over the cost of out-of-province and international tuition. In 2007, McGill also launched the Capital

Have an opinion?

Campaign, which aims to raise $750 million through private and corporate sponsorship. And just last year, McGill’s MBA became our University’s first (and surely not last) self-funded degree program. Tuition for students in the MBA program now costs $30,000 per year, with greater increases on the horizon.

McGill students have a reputation for caring a lot about what happens at McGill, but being mostly AWOL when it comes to Montreal and Quebec events and politics. There are many out-of-province or international students who have enjoyed their time here, but who have no intention of staying in Quebec after their degree. That’s fine. What isn’t fine is for McGill students to

remain silent while the Charest government (with the express encouragement and consent of McGill’s administration) dramatically increases the cost of education in Quebec.

Quebec presently has 10 per cent higher post secondary enrollment rate than the Canadian average – but this will not last: for many people, the vast increases in tuition will discourage them from pursuing a post-secondary education. It is easy to think of tuition hikes as simply “paying a little bit more for your degree,” but an increasingly expensive and privatized education system also determines who is able to “pay a little bit more.” So here is our point: when education becomes increasingly inaccessi-

ble, Quebec and Montreal change for the worse. From the MUNACA strike (and McGill’s tepid negotiations with AGSEM), to the selffunded MBA, our school is changing for the worse too.

Today, McGill’s own Arts Undergraduate Society is on strike. Today, they join approximately 200,000 of our contemporaries at Université de Montréal, UQAM, Concordia, and many CEGEPs. Today, especially, QPIRG McGill strongly encourages McGill students to join in this province-wide movement.

Students will gather at 12 p.m. at the Roddick Gates.

Signed by the QPIRG McGill Board of Directors

Write for Commentary commentary@mcgilldaily.com

Letters

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

8

Our most recent project involves a participatory documentary film that highlights the experience of FIlipino-Canadian high school youth as they encounter difficulties of family reunification, high school pressures, and adapting to Canadian society.

This empowering initiative was supported and funded by QPIRG’s summer stipend project.

Filipino Solidarity Collective QPIRG-McGill Working Group

The importance of QPIRG

The Plate Club supports QPIRG

We want more than to stay alive

Sometime during the last year of my PhD, during a clean-up in my (former) department, I came across a wooden paper holder which was intended, many years ago, as a repository for paper to be collected for recycling. On a yellowing label, attached to one side, were listed the types of paper which could and couldn’t be recycled, and at the bottom, a tag from the organization running the program – “QPIRG McGill”.

The paper holder (which I still have) reminded of something often left unsaid in all the current discussions over QPIRG’s future: that QPIRG not only supported, but initiated, many services and programs at McGill which have since become institutionalized and which we now consider so basic that we essentially take them for granted. These include recycling at McGill and the McGill daycare.

During my time at McGill, I saw QPIRG support and fund all manner of student and community initiatives in the areas of social justice, environment, human rights, sustainable transportation, anti-racism, community health, and many others. Not all of these were equally successful, or equally widely supported (although many were both successful and widely supported), but all deserved the resources for people to at least attempt them. Is this not within the spirit of research, free inquiry, and innovation which should characterize a university?

If QPIRG is not supported by students, as it has been for thirty years, who knows what programs and services we may be sacrificing in the future, because the structures to help them get off the ground were undermined?

The Plate Club, SSMU’s celebrated and decidedly nonpolitical reusable dishware rental service, has collectively decided to put in a strong word of support and undying love for QPIRG, of which Greening McGill, the original founders of the Plate Club, are a working group.

The Plate Club would not exist if not for QPIRG. From our humble beginnings of legendary hand-washing in 2007 - 2008 to today’s strong collective complete with a low-impact and incredibly hygienic dishwasher (SSMU Best New Club 2008, now a full-fledged SSMU service!), we have maintained the original mandate of QPIRG/ Greening McGill’s reusable plate initiative to reduce styrofoam waste through our daily lunch service, lending out reusable plates in the SSMU caf, and through event rentals, which gives students organizing events free access to our inventory.

But our QPIRG-funded history is not the only reason why the Plate Club wholeheartedly supports QPIRG McGill’s referendum.

This referendum’s proposed opt-out system represents a healthier future for this powerful engine of social change. It is sad that the current system has allowed small groups of students to spread misinformation to the point that misled students are surprised to learn that QPIRG is responsible for the creation of such an unarguably awesome initiative as the Plate Club. QPIRG’s consistent support for environmental justice initiatives has been a source of inspiration and support for us as we put in long hours at the dishwasher. Plus, we can thank Rad Frosh for leading many members and supporters to involvement in sustainability at McGill at all, and QPIRG events always remember to green their events by using our service!

We are excited to see what other innovative and successful seeds future working group initiatives will plant. Voting ‘YES’ ensures new voices can be heard, powerful lasting initiatives can start, essential student services can grow, a whole world of ideas can inspire – and your community – from the Plate Club to all of McGill, Montreal and beyond – will be stronger because of it.

Re: “Keep CKUT and QPIRG alive” | Commentary | November 3

Sincerely, Ed Hudson PhD, 2010

Vote Thursday before 5 p.m.!!

QPIRG and CKUT are appreciative of The Daily’s editorial “Vote ‘yes’ – keep CKUT and QPIRG alive” (Editorial, November 3).

There were, however, a few misleading and factually inaccurate statements made in this editorial that we feel need correcting.

To clarify, QPIRG and CKUT are running existence referenda: we are asking students to support our continued existence by renewing our fee-levies, which would no longer be opt-outable on the Minerva system, but instead fully refundable through QPIRG and CKUT. Going back to a refund system under student control is integral to our long-term survival, both in terms of having a steady and predictable source of funding, as well as by ensuring a fair, informed system that remains accountable to students. Of note, the McGill Tribune successfully passed a similar question in 2010.

The editorial stated that the proposed changes to the opt-out system were made “without adequate student consultation.”

False. Students have consistently demonstrated their opposition to the Minerva opt-out system via the two most democratic means at their disposal: in a 2007 SSMU General Assembly and a 2008 referendum.

Furthermore, both questions involved active consultation with students, per SSMU’s recognized process for approving referendum questions. In running these referenda questions, we are following through with students’ demands to protect the financial and organizational autonomy of student organizations from the McGill administration.

The editorial also stated that “taking the opt-out system offline would force students with gravely limited financial resources, who seriously need their fees refunded, to make this a public declaration.” False. Students have never and shall never be asked to provide any explanation as to why they want their fees refunded.

Both organizations remain committed to an open and accessible refund system (see our policies on our websites), and look forward to student feedback and consultation with respect to this process.

The Plate Club Executive 2011-2012 SSMU Service

QPIRG-McGill Board and staff CKUT Board and staff

Support the Filipino Solidarity Collective The Filipino Solidarity Collective strongly encourages students to support both QPIRG and CKUT in the ongoing referendum. As one of Canada’s growing ‘visible-minority’ groups, the Filipino community is largely shaped by the immigration-labor nexus.

While it is clear that these policies have and will continue to structure our past, present, and future experiences as Canadians, there remains an unspoken discussion of how they shape our everyday lives. For instance, high school drop out rates among FilipinoCanadian youth are among the highest in Canada, and the economic marginalization of Filipinas under the Live-in-caregiver program continues to constitute a form of modern day slavery. Despite the pervasive issues that we face, there is a paucity of time and space to educate the broader community of our everyday realities. As such, local community organizations have been instrumental in providing a voice for the marginalized Filipino-Canadian community.

The Filipino Solidarity Collective has made significant links with grassroots organizations such as Kabataang Montreal and the Kapit Bisig Centre, where we have been able to educate and organize university and high school students on the political, economic, and cultural struggles of Filipino-Canadians through various workshops, conferences, cultural events, and a weekly radio show (‘Sigaw ng Bayan’ on CKUT). More specifically, we discuss the systemic barriers that affect our community – be it racism/ discrimination, transnational migrant work, women’s oppression, and/or low educational achievement among our youth. Our more recent project involves a participatory documentary film that highlights the experience of Filipino-Canadian high school youth as they encounter difficulties of family reunification, high school pressures, and adapting to Canadian society. This empowering initiative was supported and funded by QPIRG’s summer stipend project.

As such, the Filipino Solidarity Collective is grateful for allies like QPIRG and CKUT, who give provide us with resources and venues to critically engage and unravel the issues that impact our community.

By supporting them, you support us.

Filipino Solidarity Collective QPIRG-McGill Working Group

NOV.

SPECIAL JOINT ISSUE Facts and Figures Behind Tuition Hikes

NUMÉRO COMMUN SPÉCIAL Faits et chiffres derrière la hausse des frais de scolarité

PAGE 02

Un mot:

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

>>table of contents

03

Breaking down the budget

04

Tuition timeline

05

Another way to pay

06

Drop outs and tuition hikes

07

A word:

Le 10 novembre 2011, the Link, The McGill Daily et Le Délit se On Nov. 10, the Link, The McGill Daily, réunissent dans un effort de solidarité pour rejoindre les milliers d’éand Le Délit will come together and take to tudiant-e-s québécois-e-s qui manifesteront dans les rues. Lors de the streets in solidarity with thousands of unila manifestation, les trois journaux universitaires distribueront le versity students across Quebec to distribute a cahier spécialement conçu pour l’occasion. copy of the special insert you’re holding.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que les journaux étudiants proIt’s not the first time our student papers duisent ensemble un numéro spécial. La dernière collaboration have been compelled to put out a joint paper. a eu lieu en réponse au massacre de 1989 de l’École PolytechOur last collaboration was in 1989, after the nique, lorsque les étudiant-e-s se sont réunis pour coucher sur Montreal Massacre at the École Polytechpapier leurs émotions et leurs pensées. nique, when students “came together to put Cette semaine, encore une fois, nous joignons nos forces alors que their thoughts and feelings on paper.” les étudiant-e-s du Québec vont écrire leur histoire dans le long This week, we’re joining forces as Quebec students combat qu’est la lutte pour l’accès à l’éducation. are facing yet another historic moment in the ongoing Le nombre d’étudiant-e-s en grève et dans la rue en fait foi: la fight to keep education accessible. jeunesse d’aujourd’hui n’est pas la foule apathique, non-participaThe sheer number of us declaring strikes and tive et manquant de solidarité que les politiciens espèrent. taking the streets on Nov. 10 – over 100,000 were Demander une meilleure accessibilité à l’éducation entre dans la ligne anticipated at press time – proves that youth today de pensée d’un investissement publique à long terme. C’est un combat are not the self-interested, apathetic, and non-particpour un système de financement juste et pour un investissement dans ipatory citizens policymakers hope we are. le futur. Les étudiant-e-s ont compris qu’ils ne peuvent plus jouer les Calling for accessibility to education recognizes the bouc-émissaires d’un système en déroute plus longtemps. Un vrai dilong-term public good. It ’s a fight for a fair funding alogue est requis. model and for an investment in the future. Students Le 10 novembre pourrait être le coup d’envoi des achave realized we cannot afford to be the scapegoat for a tions contre la hausse des frais de scolarité et le partage set of broken systems any longer and that real dialogue d’information et la collaboration étudiante, qui à ce point, about alternatives at this point is mandatory. représente un pouvoir essentiel.

November 10 could very well be a tipping point in student acNos journaux encouragent chacun-e de se tenir intion on tuition hikes. Sharing information and student collaboraformé au sujet de ces enjeux: lisez, apprenez-en davantion at this moment is real and tangible power. tage sur vos droits et parlez en autour de vous. Cela Our papers encourage everyone to get informed about the issues, n’est que le commencement dans les négociations understand your rights to strike and talk to each other. This is only étudiantes pour un meilleur avenir. the beginning of negotiating a better future for students.

En toute solidarité en ce 10 novembre, In Solidarity on November 10, The Link, The McGill Daily & Le Délit

The Link, The McGill Daily & Le Délit

Pros and cons of the hike

08

* La position prise dans cet éditorial ne fait pas l'unanimité au sein du conseil de rédaction du Délit.

* This editorial does not have unanimous support among the members of Le Délit's editorial board.

Strike rights

STATUS OF THE STRIKE

Université/University UQAM UDEM CONCORDIA MCGILL UNIVERSITÉ DE SHERBROOKE UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À TROIS-RIVIÈRES BISHOP UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC EN ABITIBI-TÉMISCAMINGUE UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À RIMOUSKI UNIVERSITÉ DE SHERBROOKE CÉGEPS/CEGEP

Manifestation/Protest Gréve/Strike OUI/YES OUI/YES OUI/YES OUI/YES OUI/YES

OUI/YES 30 associations facultaires sur 82 ont voté pour la levée des cours.

Certaines doivent voter la semaine prochaine.

The Arts and Science students and the Graduate students voted for the strike at their General Assemblies.

No, but there is going to be a strike vote at the Faculty of Arts' (AUS) first GA, on November 8th.

3 associations facultaires ont approuvé une levée de cours, 2 associations facultaires doivent encore voter, sur 11 associations.

3 des 80 associations facultaires et départementales ont voté pour

la grève (AEEH, AGEEPP-UL, AEEA-UL).

OUI/YES Non (Leurs membres ont voté non lors de OUI/YES l'Assemblée générale) PAS DE RÉPONSE/NO ANSWER

OUI/YES OUI/YES OUI/YES OUI/YES

Non (Il y a eu une journée de grève régionale le 12 septembre pour protester contre la hausse) Levée de cours votée et approuvée Levée de cours votée et approuvée 20 CÉGEPs, sur les 48 du Québec ont déjà voté pour la grève.

6 CÉGEPs doivent voter le 7 ou 8 novembre.

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

PAGE 03

Breaking down the budget GRAPHIC : HILARY SINCLAIR

How the government plans to spend our “fair share” •

HILARY SINCLAIR

—THE LINK T h e re a re a l o t o f n u m b e r s f l y i n g a ro u n d w h e n i t c o m e s to the debate about tuition fees in Q uebec right now – n um ber s l ik e $1, 6 2 5 an d $3 2 5 and $ 85 0 mil l ion .

But what do they actually mean? Before asking an entire province to go on strike against tuition hikes, it ’s important to understand what the numbers are saying. What does almost doubling our tuition get students?

In March, the Quebec government released “A Fair and Balanced University Funding Plan,” a document that called for students to pay their “fair share” of education costs.

To “g ive Q ue bec th e m e a n s t o fi l l i t s a m b i t i o n s , ” t h e 5 8 page bu d ge t o ut lin e d f o ur k e y goa ls requ ired t o m e et u ni ver s i t y f u n d i n g n e e d s , “f a i r l y re distribute” the cost of educ at ion , e ns ure acce ss i bi li t y a n d “ i n t ro d u c e p e r f o r m a n c e commitments to impro ve qualit y of e d uc at ion . ”

Crunching the numbers Tuition fees in Quebec have gone through two ice ages. From 1968 to 1991, fees were frozen at just over $500 per year for full time undergraduate students. They rose to $1,630 until 1994, and then remained frozen until 2007.

While restructuring tuition, the government also wants to close the province’s $483 million deficit. To do that, the government plans to raise more money from students and individuals. This arrangement hinges on “access to additional revenue of $850 million in 2016-2017.”

How are they going to spend all this extra cash? The plan details $530 million worth of programs slated to improve the quality of teaching and research.

More money = higher quality?

Meant to keep universities accountable to the government, each school will develop and publish its own targets. In 2014, the province will conduct an in-depth review of the results. If targets have not been reached, the university is required to draft an action plan to help reach these goals…

for a second time.

The budget also outlined “performance commitments” – fiveyear agreements between the province and universities that allow Quebec City to oversee how the new money is being spent.

The government expects schools to double donations by 2016, but hasn’t come up with a plan to stimulate fundraising – except to match donations to individual institutions.

The province can only reach its goal of providing universities with $850 million in extra money if $54 million of that comes from donations. For that to happen, universities must increase the amount of donations they receive by eight per cent annually until 2017.

C u r re n t l y, t h e g o v e r n m e n t gives universities $0.25 for e ve r y do l l a r dona te d, u p t o $ 1 million per institution, and with a province-wide cap of $10 mil lion. The ne w plan wil l e limin at e thi s ce il in g.

But according to Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec President Martine Desjardins, universities in Quebec – and particularly francophone institutions – are already struggling to raise donations.

“When you ask for 20 per cent for

each university, you know the big universities can raise that from different groups, but in other regions, you cannot even raise 10 per cent. I think they won’t be able to do it.”

In 2010, Concordia received $8.9 million in donations.

The plan will give $0.50 per dollar to universities with 15,000plus students and will match smaller universities dollar for dollar. If they fail to reach the 8 per cent goal, however, universities only get $0.25 per dollar.

Target taskmaster The budget also established the Fonds pour l’excellence et la performance universitaire, a body which is intended to make sure that funds are spent properly and targets are met.

With a $160 million mandate to ensure universities raise donations by 8 per cent annually, the Fonds has a lot on its plate.

Despite clear purposes to match donations, eliminate deficits, and support research excellence, the budget doesn’t detail the body’s administrative costs or explain who will oversee its operations. Without someone to keep an eye on things, how can the

province guarantee how student money will be spent?

A fair and balanced plan?

While some features of this budget could benefit students and improve the quality of post-secondary education, many questions remain.

There are questions like why the tuition levels of 1968 were so optimal that we should return to them, questions about who is going to oversee the distribution of funds and questions about what real motivation universities have to make performance deals with the province.

When a budget is drafted that directly affects students and is supposed to help students get a better education, it would not be unreasonable to assume the government would be eager to defend and promote its plan.

That is not the case, however. Despite numerous interview requests, the Ministry of Education and Finance Ministry were unwilling to clarify aspects of the budget.

It is your choice to strike on November 10. Consider the numbers and make an informed decision. At the end of the day, are we getting what we are paying for.

– with files from Andrew Brennan

Tuition timeline PAGE 04

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

Student mobilization against Quebec’s tuition hikes – Compiled by Erin Hudson, The McGill Daily

Feb. 2007

Sept.

2008

The Charest government announces an end to the historic freeze on tuition fees in Quebec, and announces a $100 increase per year for the next five years, at increments of $50 per semester for a total of $500.

Concordia’s Board of Governors succeeds in raising tuition for international students by $1,000 a year, after four failed meetings, including a meeting of questionable legality in June. Concordia students gather to demonstrate outside the meetings in March and September.

Jan. 2011 Led by the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), students at Université du Québec à Montréal, Université Laval, Université de Montréal, and Université du Québec à Chicoutimi stage sit-ins at their rector’s offices due to prospective tuition hikes.

Mar. 2011

Oct. 2011 Hundreds of students protest in Quebec City outside of the Quebec City Convention Centre where 2,000 Liberal party delegates are gathered for the Liberal Party Convention. The protest’s theme is “rouge de colère” – red with anger. Some students dressed in red and tomatoes were thrown at a poster of Charest’s face.

Nov. 2010

Over 60,000 university and CEGEP students from across the province demonstrate in Quebec City against the second Rencontre des partenaires en éducation, a meeting of provincial government ministers, university administrators, and student and labour unions.

Bachand announces the 201112 provincial budget, which includes tuition fee increases of $325 per student every year for five years starting in September 2012, for a total increase of $1,625.

Oct. 2011 Starting in Square St. Louis, 400 university and CEGEP students march through the Université du Québec à Montréal campus. The demonstration ends in f ront of the Arts building on the McGill campus.

Concordia’s Graduate Students’ Association founds Angry Week, a seven-day festival that aims to inform the community of the implications of tuition fee increases for Concordia students.

About fifty student protesters calling for free tuition occupy the office of the Vice-Chair of Quebec’s parliamentary committee on Labour and the Economy.The three-hour occupation of the office of Gerry Sklavounos,Liberal MNA for Laurier-Dorion, is one action in the day of economic disruption organized by the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante.

Dec. 2010

Mar. 2011

55,000 protestors gather at Place du Canada to demonstrate against Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand’s provincial budget.

Riot police surround and arrest ten people on charges of conspiracy and possession of weapons. After 55 hours of detainment, nine are released without bail, and one on bail of $500. Conspiracy charges are dropped.

May. 2010

Aug. 2009

Students at CEGEP du Vieux Montreal are locked out of their college for five days starting on November 20.

The lockout comes as students prepare a week of mobilization against the Charest government’s planned tuition hikes. The week of student action included strikes, sit-ins, and an outdoor bed-in.

Sept.

2010 Accompanied by demonstrators, Concordia’s Graduate Students’ Association, in protest of tuition hikes for international students, presented two motions to the Board of Governors along with a 2,700signature petition.

Mar. 2011

Mar. 2011 Dozens of students, led by ASSÉ, occupy the Montreal office of the Quebec Ministry of Finance, while approximately 100 students demonstrate in the building’s entrance to protest impending tuition increases. Thirty students affiliated with the Federation étudiante collégiale du Québec occupy the Minister for Natural Resources’ office in Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean on the same day.

Oct. 2011 Three-hundred students within the Coalition régionale étudiante de Montréal, a group including many Montreal universities and CEGEPs, demonstrate outside the Montreal off ices of the Minister of Education.

Student and student-faculty associations at 11 Quebec postsecondary institutions participate in a provincial day of action organized by ASSÉ, FEUQ, and FECQ. The one-day strike includes over 2,000 students marching, with 70 demonstrators staging a sit-in at the Montreal offices of the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec. The demonstration ends in five arrests and a police riot squad firing stun grenades and pepper spray at unarmed protestors.

MayAug 2011 A group of between 5 and 15 students affiliated with FEUQ and FECQ pitch tents outside the Montreal offices of the Quebec Ministry of Education, camping on weekends throughout the summer. Notable action at the campsite includes a dramatization in which the federations rented a bulldozer, dressed one student as Quebec Premier Jean Charest, and bulldozed over graduation caps. The hats had been filled with paint, staining the driveway outside of the Ministry.

Another way to pay

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

PAGE 05

Student groups: university price tag doesn’t have to rise andRew bRennan— THE LINK

with students energized and united by student unions and lobby groups against the Charest government’s proposed tuition hikes, funding alternatives – like free education, or at least reasonable fees and better governance – are being proposed. but adequate funding alternatives will require a major overhaul, as well as an ideological one, to make this happen.

“It is a question of political will,” said Gabriel nadeau-dubois, communications secretary for the student lobby group L’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante. “[The province] has the money to do it, but must decide where [they’re] going to take it. From students already paying? Or, [from] where it is: big corporations and rich people.”

Holly nazar, of Free education Montreal, similarly said there are “a bunch of places where taxes are practically non-existent, or actually are.”

Citing figures from research thinktank L’Institut de recherche et d’information socio-économique, nazar indicated that increasing taxes on the financial capital of banking institutions from 0.98 per cent to 1.5 per cent would generate $271 million in revenue – $6 million more than the funds to come from increasing tuition fees.

according to IRIS, the provincial government lost $950 million in potential revenue by cutting household taxes in 2007 that “especially favoured the most affluent individuals.”

Since 2000, the Quebec government has implemented over $5 billion in tax relief for corporations and individual incomes. a free-education model, according to IRIS, would cost $700 million annually in funding to implement.

This is in addition to maintaining core funding, which the Quebec Government has valued at $320 million in their proposed university-funding plan.

FeM calculated the cost to implement free education and maintain core funding to be $1.22 billion annually, a mere two per cent of Quebec’s current annual budget.

More accessible to whom? nazar explained that policy in Quebec has recently shifted towards catering to economic interests rather than the public good.

“There is a perception that Quebec is socialist,” said nazar, “but we are looking out for the concerns of corporations and the rich, and we’re even rewarding private money infiltrating into universities by offering them incentives to do so.”

Les Échos du Passé

•

anabeL COSSeTTe CIvITeLLa

—Le déLIT Les manifestations qui débutent le 10 novembre 2011 n’ont rien d’une révolution. Il suffit de se rappeler la mobilisation étudiante de 2005 pour y entendre des échos familiers.

L’année scolaire 2004-2005 reste marquée d’un X dans le calendrier des manifestations étudiantes. en réplique à une coupure de $103 millions dans les programmes de prêts et bourses, l’insurrection étudiante ne s’était pas fait attendre: une grève de sept semaines et 230,000 personnes dans les rues avaient finalement eu raison de la tentative du gouvernement libéral qui avait rendu les armes et les $103 millions en mars 2005.

Contexte à comparer Simon Grandjean-Lapierre, à titre de Président de l’association des étudiants du Collège LionelGroulx, était monté aux barricades

durant l’année scolaire 2004-2005 pour contester les coupures.

Il se souvient du contexte politique de l’époque: «Le gouvernement était fraîchement élu de 2003, il n’y avait donc pas de grogne comme en ce moment, et certainement pas autant de protestations.»

Quant au contexte médiatique, l’une des plus grandes différences perçues par Laurent Gauthier, actuel vice-Président aux affaires universitaires à la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, demeure dans la présence des médias: «en 2004, le sujet sortait moins dans les médias parce que le mouvement étudiant publiait moins de recherche». en effet, en publiant des rapports chiffrés sur l’endettement étudiant, la FeUQ s’attire plus de partisans qui peuvent fonder leur engagement sur des faits tangibles.

L’influence des gains du passé Récupérer les $103 millions demandés, après sept semaines de grève, Simon Grandjean-Lapierre qualifie cela de «gain symbolique». en effet, si les $103 millions n’ont

Though proponents of the tuition fee increase promise to maintain accessibility in attaining higher education training, this is doublespeak, according to nazar. Increasing tuition fees lowers enrollment, she said bluntly – no matter what.

“Just repeat the lie. Repeat over and over that accessibility won’t suffer. where’s the evidence?”

In late October, the british broadcast Corporation reported that following a £6,000 raise in tuition by the government for 2012, applications to english universities dropped nine per cent. desjardins said she also believes lower fees will result in a more-accessible education system, but that we must know all the facts before proceeding in any direction, which is why the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec is lobbying to continue the tuition freeze, so that policy makers, advocates and students alike have time to see the implications of changing tuition fees. as she prepares for Thursday’s province-wide demonstration, nazar ultimately wants students to be more aware and united. If not, accessible education will not be possible.

“Concordia students need to realize that its not about $325 a [semester], it’s about getting fucked over. I imagine many people can pay the increase, but that’s not the point – many more cannot.”

finalement pas été déduits du programme de prêts et bourses, «on ne faisait que récupérer l’argent qui nous appartenait, nuance-t-il. de plus, le total en jeu était minime sur le budget du gouvernement».

Toutefois, d’après l’ancien président du collège Lionel-Groulx, le message était clair: la solidarité fait bouger les choses.

Pier-andré bouchard St-amand, président de la FeUQ en 2004-2005 soutient qu’il y a eu autant de gains positifs que négatifs suite à cette grande manifestation. Le retour des 103 millions était évidemment très important, puisque c’était le fondement de la campagne. «Il y a aussi eu une prise de conscience collective. Les étudiants avaient l’impression de participer au débat civique.»

Par contre, la conviction d’avoir accompli une grande avancée s’est dissipée avec le temps. L’ancien homme fort de la FeUQ avait notamment l’impression que la jeunesse qui s’était levée allait prendre des mesures pour changer le paysage politique après 2005. «après huit ans avec les libéraux, on voit que ce n’est pas vrai. Les circonstances ne sont plus les mêmes.»

THREE OPTIONS FOR ALTERNATIVE FUNDING These propositions from FEM would have the wealthy help fund free education through higher taxes, while accounting for necessary funding.

This would cost $1.22 billion annually.

01

02

03

Immediately start taxing 100 per cent of capital gains, or the profit a company sees from their own assets such as stock and property acquisition, instead of just 50 per cent, which is the current policy of the province. This could create $346 million in potential funding. Further, return income tax to pre-2007, yeilding $950 million.

Tax Quebec’s $346 million in capital gains and raise $702 million from raising taxes by 1.4 per cent on the financial capital of banks to 2.4 per cent. In the second year, increase taxes on highest-income earners from 24 to 25.4 per cent, generating $294 million.

Increase financial capital taxes from 0.98 per cent to 2.4 per cent, raising an additional $702 million. Raise the taxes on the highest-income earners in this province from 24 per cent to 26 per cent – which would make for an additional $420 million.

This leaves $100 million to be accounted for by other government funding plans already in place.

Les acteurs du changement Si la communauté universitaire restera toujours contre toute forme de hausse des frais ou de coupures budgétaire, qu’en est-il de ceux qui ne sont pas directement touchés?

Le corps enseignant, par le biais de la Fédération Québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université s’insurgeait contre les coupures en 2004-2005 et s’inquiète encore aujourd’hui des conséquences de la hausse des frais. À l’opposé, traditionnellement, la Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec, suit les décisions du gouvernement en place.

Le citoyen moyen, quant à lui, réagit différemment en fonction du combat mené.

«La société civile n’était pas impliquée de la même manière en 2005, puisque les coupures dans les prêts et bourses, soit l’aide aux plus pauvres, bouleversaient toute la société» tient à souligner Laurent Gauthier, vicePrésident actuel aux affaires universitaires de la FeUQ. «aujourd’hui, c’est un combat plus idéologique qui rallie les étudiants»

souligne-t-il.

Pier-andré bouchard St-amand voit plutôt la hausse de $1625 en cinq ans comme une stratégie en défaveur des libéraux en comparaison avec les coupures de 103 millions: «Lorsque le gouvernement a touché aux prêts et bourses, il a seulement atteint une parcelle de la population.

«Maintenant qu’il touche 100 pour cent des gens, il suscite un potentiel de mécontentement bien plus grand».

Et maintenant…

Pour ceux qui manifesteront cette année, Simon Grandjean-Lapierre y va d’un conseil: ne pas avoir peur des mythes et médisances politique.

Par exemple, le gouvernement menaçait les étudiant-e-s en grève de retenir leur diplôme, de faire payer les sessions supplémentaires, etc. «évidemment, ce ne sont jamais des choses qui se concrétisent» assure-t-il.

Il ne faut tout de même pas oublier qu’il y a toujours des limites à ne pas dépasser. «C’est correct de manifester, mais il faut faire la part des choses; l’acharnement des manifestants n’apporte jamais rien de plus».

Know your rights PAGE 06

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

The international student perspective on prolonged strikes •

JULIA JONES— THE LINK

Being an international student in Quebec means you are required to be a full-time student every semester except the year you’re graduating in order to legally stay in the country – paying, by far, the highest tuition fees in the province.

As of next year, it could get even worse. If students decide to go on an indefinite general strike in 2012 over the winter semester, international students could stand to lose over $10,000 in tuition fees.

If the union holds the vote for a strike early enough and students drop out of winter classes in preparation for a strike semester, international students in support of the strike can choose to either take the hit and lose the semester, or to take the semester off and go back home.

As November 10 approaches and students prepare to fill Montreal’s streets in protest of a $325 yearly increase for the next five years, international students can say they’ve done less for worse.

At Concordia, international students’ tuition has been increasing by 35 per cent a year since 2005-2006, including unannounced hikes for all international students. It increased by 50 per cent for John Molson

School of Business graduate students in 2009.

Currently, tuition fees for undergraduate international students in Art & Sciences can be over $20,000.

With numbers this high, you would think international students would be the first to speak up against tuition hikes. But with more at stake than other students, they might be shy to come out and protest for fear of the consequences.

According to Nadia Hausfather, a Concordia graduate student and member of Free Education Montreal, a popular concern for international students is the loss of their study permits in the event of a prolonged strike.

“The only risk in terms of [losing their study permit] is if by chance a student had to renew their study permit during a strike,” she said, however. “If that happened they’d have to prove that it wasn’t their intent to join the strike, which they could easily do, so that’s very minimal.”

Another common misconception is that during an indefinite general strike, students wouldn’t be registered for classes. “[Being registered] is the power that [students] have – if they lose a semester, the whole entire system would be delayed by one semester,”

explained Hausfather.

“The whole point of [striking] is threatening the government with the risk of losing a semester. They will always threaten back that students will lose a semester. But of course neither students nor the government want to lose a semester.”

This means international students can keep their jobs if they have an off-campus work permit, but in terms of on-campus jobs, it would be up to each student and the general assembly voting for the strike to decide whether students want to keep working.

Another misconception about student strikes is that since students have a union, they have academic amnesty and their transcripts will not be affected.

“Other than a democratic vote and a resolution, there is nothing that legally protects students who are on strike – at all,” said Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill.

“A binding mandate from an accredited student association puts a significant amount of pressure on the university administration to accommodate that, but there’s no specific legal status to a student union that goes on strike.”

Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said that a student strike, even if prolonged, would not change the

university’s routine.

“It will be business as usual at Concordia. Professors will continue to teach and students will be expected to attend classes; all academic requirements of a course remain valid and students are expected to fulfill them.”

The same will apply for international students, even though the administration has not looked into the issue of legality of study and work permits.

Even more common is the misconception that students don’t have to pay student fees while on strike.

For very pragmatic reasons, students are not asked to refrain from paying fees. “It’s hard to get everyone to not pay their fees, and then there is a huge consequence in terms of having to pay interest,” said Hausfather.

To international students afraid of losing a whole semester’s worth of fees, it can be helpful to look at Concordia’s participation in previous strikes. Hausfather said that losing a semester is not something students should worry about.

“In the history of general unlimited strikes, students have never lost a semester,” she said. “Students who had flights booked [made] arrangements with their professors to be able to take their flight home and still finish their work. Usually the se-

mester is prolonged for a little bit for people to catch up.”

Despite international students paying higher fees than Quebecers and Canadians, the proposed increase of $1,625 would be a much smaller proportion of international students’ tuition.

“I can understand the argument that [a general unlimited strike] would be perhaps less convincing to international students,” said Hausfather. “That being said, I know from international students that any increase – even $30 – is really difficult, partly because they’re already paying so much extra.”

Concordia administration, however, isn’t buying the possibility of a prolonged strike come wintertime.

“There won’t be a prolonged strike,” said Mota. “From my experience, that has never been an issue at Concordia. When students do participate in a strike, it’s usually a oneday strike, in solidarity; I’ve been here for 18 years and I’ve never seen a prolonged student strike.”

Hausfather said she’d like to challenge students to prove Mota wrong. “Things are looking up,” she said. “It depends on Concordia students and their ability to not only think about their own education, but the role of education in the rest of society.”

Tuition, participation linked after all Finance minister relies on incomplete figures for arguments •

ERIN HUDSON— THE MCGILL DAILY

Since the end of the provincewide tuition freeze in 2007, the Quebec government has held a strong position on tuition fees, stating that students must pay more to “their fair share” towards university funding, while maintaining accessibility to universities will not be compromised as a result of the increases.

On September 22, the Comité consultatif sur l’accessibilité financière aux études (CCAFE) released an opinion on the increases, stating they were “worried about the possible negative effects of the hikes on the financial accessibility for current and future students to university studies.”

Under the Loi sur le Conseil supérieur de l’éducation, the Minister of Education must consult

CCAFE whenever changes are made to student financial aid or tuition regulations.

Prior to the CCAFE’s concerns, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand addressed accessibility concerns in a March speech when he announced the impending hikes.

“To those who fear this adjustment will act as a deterrent on university participation, I have this to say: there is no evidence of a link between university participation and tuition fees,” said Bachand.

“In fact, in 2008-2009, the Canadian province with the highest university participation rate of students 20 to 24 years old was precisely the one with the highest tuition fees – Nova Scotia.”

Philippe Lapointe, secretary of academic affairs for l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, spoke regarding about the government’s denial of the relationship

between university participation and tuition hikes.

“The principal argument used by the government to say there is no link between [tuition increases and student participation] is that they show the post-secondary statistics.

“They say, ‘Look, in Quebec, we have the lowest tuition and there are fewer students at the university, while in the rest of Canada, there are higher tuitions and there are more post-secondary students,’” Lapointe explained. “Where this is wrong is that they do not include the CEGEP students.”

Research conducted by the Montreal-based Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques challenges the numbers that show that Nova Scotia has higher participation rates while also charging the highest tuition fees.

Asserting Bachand’s claim does not account for differences between

the provinces’ education systems, the IRIS believes the numbers “render ineffective comparisons that focus only on university participation rates.”

Removing CEGEP students from the university participation figures disregards students seeking a vocational diploma and who opt for a college education rather than go to university, as they would have to in Nova Scotia, according to the research.

The IRIS also noted that Quebec’s bachelor degree programs last three years, while the rest of Canada’s bachelor programs last four, “artificially [raising] their university participation rate compared to Quebec’s.”

Mathieu Le Blanc, press attaché for the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, confirmed that the university participation rate in Nova Scotia is overstated.

Le Blanc also explained that research shows a large number of students attending university in Nova Scotia are from other Maritime provinces, thus raising the province’s university participation rates.

IRIS researcher Éric Martin said that the relationship between tuition hikes and enrolment “has been confirmed in several different scenarios” and that Quebec’s rate of postsecondary participation is 9 per cent higher than the rest of Canada’s.

According to IRIS, the province’s tuition fees—among the lowest in North America—have allowed 85,000 more students to pursue their education than would have been possible if Quebec’s fees had matched the Canadian average.

For more information, consult tuitiontruth.ca.

PRO/CON

tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

PAGE 07

Oui à l’excellence

Tuition hikes shall not pass!

la hausse des frais de scolarité n’est pas un objectif en soi. C’est plutôt un moyen pour que les institutions postsecondaires québécoises atteignent des standards d’excellence. l’enjeu essentiel reste donc de conjuguer la hausse des frais de scolarité avec le principe d’accessibilité des études postsecondaires pour tou-te-s les Québécois-e-s. le problème du sous-financement des institutions postsecondaires ne pourra pas être résolu uniquement par l’effort des étudiant-e-s. l’augmentation de la contribution étudiante fait partie de la solution dans le plan gouvernemental de financement des universités qui vise $850 millions en 2016-2017. ainsi, le gouvernement libéral demande la participation des étudiant-e-s universitaires, mais aussi de l’ensemble de la société. présentement, la contribution des étudiant-e-s à leur formation dans les provinces du Canada est en moyenne de 25 pour cent du coût réel; elle est de 12,7 pour cent au Québec. la volonté du gouvernement du Québec de hausser les frais de scolarité est fondée sur une plus grande participation des étudiant-e-s à l’investissement dans leur avenir. À la suite de la hausse des frais de scolarité, les étudiant-e-s contribueront à 16,9 pour cent du coût de leur formation, loin derrière la moyenne canadienne de 25 pour cent et loin derrière le pourcentage de la contribution des étudiant-e-s québécois-e-s en 1964-1965 avec 26,4 pour cent de leur formation.

Cependant, pour mettre un terme aux querelles «gèle-dégèle», le gouvernement du Québec et les acteurs de la société devront s’asseoir ensemble et décider d’un taux de contribution socialement acceptable de manière à ce que, dans l’éventualité d’une nouvelle hausse, elle soit absorbée proportionnellement au niveau de contribution fixé, sans désengagement de l’état. toutefois, il est primordial que tout argent supplémentaire versé par les étudiant-e-s soit réinvesti dans le réseau afin d’avoir un réel impact sur la qualité de la formation offerte. prenons le plan de financement des universités de $850 millions en 2016-2017. le gouverne-

Great Britain, Chile, South Korea, the rest of Canada, and now Québec. the flood of tariffs threatens to drown every single island of knowledge accessibility to please the rising tide of knowledge merchandising. the organisation for economic Cooperation and development, the G20 and the right wing think-tanks join up to promote the ideology of private, student-financed education. the concept of user as payer is described as a solution to the lack of funding for universities. however it’s never pointed out that repeated tax cuts and the “income reduction” strategy used by neoliberal governments is responsible for the state disengagement in public university funding. they also fail to address the reorientation of our universities. Universities are currently split between two models: one dedicated to teaching and academic research, and another dedicated to applied corporate research. if the first model lacks funding and suffers from overcrowded classrooms, lack of teachers and aging libraries, it’s because the second model overflows with income.

Before reinvesting massively in the universities, we should secure the use of the funds toward free public education. if it is essential that university education be accessible for everyone, it is crucial that it respects its original mission: education. not only do we refuse to pay for a right, but we will not pay to benefit corporations. education is neither a luxury nor an individual investment. it’s a right and a social choice. this hike, as well as the whole concept of tuition fees, spoils the accessibility to public education by imposing a material barrier between knowledge and students. it cannot and shall not pass.

•

FranCiS l.-raCine—LE DÉLIT

ment investira plus de la moitié du montant à hauteur de $430 millions. avec la hausse des frais de scolarité, l’effort étudiant se chiffrera à $332 millions; de ce chiffre 35 pour cent seront retranchés pour être directement investis dans le programme d’aide financière aux études, soit $116 millions. ainsi, les étudiant-e-s contribueront à hauteur de $265 millions au plan de financement des universités. par la suite, $101 millions proviendront des revenus additionnels des universités et $54 millions des dons des entreprises. plusieurs nouvelles mesures seront mises en place pour accentuer l’accessibilité aux études. le gouvernement compte compenser la hausse des frais de scolarité pour les étudiant-es bénéficiaires du programme de prêts et bourses notamment par plus de bourses, une augmentation de l’aide financière, en révisant à la hausse la contribution demandée aux parents et au conjoint, et par l’actualisation du programme de remboursement différé.

Cependant, une autre solution d’accessibilité peut être envisagée. Celle de la Commission-jeunesse du parti libéral du Québec vise à s’assurer du respect du principe d’accessibilité en se dotant d’un mode de remboursement proportionnel au revenu accessible à tou-te-s les étudiant-e-s. il s’agit d’une forme de remboursement des prêts étudiants fondé sur la capacité financière d’une personne à s’acquitter de sa dette. en fait, il permettrait à n’importe quel étudiant de rembourser la différence entre ses frais de scolarité actuels et ceux qui lui seraient facturés après une hausse, seulement au moment de son entrée sur le marché du travail. le système du rpr donne plus de souplesse dans le remboursement de la dette et il réduit le risque d’étudier dans un domaine où la rentabilité ou la réussite est incertaine. le rpr est une mesure plus progressiste que le système actuel de remboursement des prêts étudiants et qui assurera l’accessibilité aux études supérieures pour tous. en somme, si chaque acteur y met du sien, nous assurerons la survie et l’accessibilité du réseau d’éducation publique pour les générations futures. en allant dans cette voie, on s’inscrit sans aucun doute dans un mode solution et pas en mode manifestation!

•

philippe lapointe— aCademiC aFFairS SeCretary, aSSé

Probing the propaganda •

jUlian ward

&

organize. your student association is yours. take it, participate in the general assembly, and if there is none, petition for one. whatever your association is, make sure it is a democratic arena for discussion and decision-making. once this is done, get your association to work. a mob Squad, an anti-tuition Council, or whatever name you want to give it. the important thing is that people hear what you have to say – and as often as possible. rise up. on november 10, stand up, walk to émilie-Gamelin park and join students from all over Quebec in an epic demonstration to express your opposition to the tuition hikes. we have to be as numerous as possible. this is an ultimatum, the final notice to the government to say, “hell, no!” the demonstration needs to prove that we have the upper hand in the discussion. we need to prove that our potential for action is strong enough to flood montreal’s streets and overwhelm the government’s policies. we need to show the population that we are resolute, that we are serious and that we aren’t afraid to act to defend our rights. resist. once we are organized and risen to send our ultimate message, we have to think about the next step. in the quite likely eventuality that the government does not bend, there’s only one way to resist against tuition hikes – a general strike. this winter we shall be prepared to occupy our campuses, disrupt the status quo, take the streets and reaffirm our opposition to the hikes. it is time to debate in your local general assembly if you are prepared to vote for a strike this winter and join thousands of students in a common cause for accessible public education.

Students, hear this call to organize, rise up and resist. this trend needs to be opposed everywhere. Facing this attempt to sabotage education, we have our answer – a general strike.

andrew SChartmann—THE LINK

“With tuition rates expected to skyrocket, it’s important for everyone to be informed about government cutbacks and tuition hikes,” reads a pamphlet distributed by the Concordia Student Union.

We couldn’t agree more, so we dissected the CSU pamphlet to test its accuracy. And it’s a good thing we did! The document is fraught with informational errors – some vague, some misleading and others outright false.

The over twenty unsourced statements and statistics made for a difficult task, but this didn’t stop us from unearthing many of the pamphlet’s inaccuracies.

For a full breakdown of the CSU pamphlet, go to thelinknewspaper.ca

This claim is supported by the following logic: If Quebec’s tuition is raised to the national average, the province’s participation rate will fall accordingly, thus eliminating 30,000 students. By the same logic, one would expect Ontario, which has the highest tuition rates in the country, to have the lowest rate of participation. This, however, is not the case.

This is entirely misleading. The statement reads as though the government is only giving out $7 a day for all expenses when in fact the FEUQ document from which we believe this was taken says the government allocates $7 per day for food only. This is also disingenuous because the source of this info is yet another FEUQ document, which itself isn’t sourced.

This $500 increase affects ancillary fees, not tuition. Ancillary fees do not fund reductions in classroom size or improved teaching – to imply so is dishonest.

Also, tuition in Europe varies greatly from country to country; some provide practically free education, while others have quite high tuition fees (in comparison to the Canadian average). The sweeping generalization that a European education is “excellent” is also highly suspect. Prove it!

In 2010, the average yearly food budget for a student was $3,294 according to the FEUQ. Even if the FEUQ’s inflation rate of 4.8 per cent is applied over two years, the total is only $3,618. And the price of tuition in 2012 is actually $2,493. If the CSU cannot get the cost of tuition right, how can we trust the other uncited numbers? Also, who spends $762 on clothing and struggles with tuition?

WTF do these numbers even mean?

PAGE 08

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To strike or not to strike? tuition special issue • november 08, 2011

COREY POOL— THE LINK

The fight against tuition increases has finally come to a head, but a great divide still exists between students who understand the issue and those who don’t.

Regardless of your political stance, in the next few days we all have to make a conscious decision on whether to join the movement or not.

Before we make that decision, we need to understand just where this movement is going, what our rights are as students, and what we can expect out of the next few weeks.

Remember, remember, the 10th of November On November 10, tens of thousands of students from across Quebec are expected to descend upon Montreal to take part in what is shaping up to be a historical day of action against the provinces proposed tuition fee increases.

Students from nearly every university and CEGEP across Quebec will be rolling into town to march to Jean Charest’s office in a

demonstration that intends to send a clear and unavoidable message to the Premier. “ This is a province-wide movement, a province-wide demonstration, and a provincewide campaign against tuition increases,” said Concordia Student Union VP External Chad Walcott. “Pretty much every post-secondary school across Quebec will be in Montreal [on November 10].”

On November 3, graduate and undergraduate members of Concordia’s Arts and Science Federation of Associations officially joined the movement by voting in favor of a one-day strike mandate for the November 10. “[The strike mandate] is more of a symbolic gesture to the government to show that students really are starting to mobilize,” said Nadia Hausfather, graduate student at Concordia and active member of Free Education Montreal.

“It’s very practical because it encourages students to leave class on November 10.” Symbolic or not, a movement against tuition hikes carries no weight without student participation.

“Students need to understand that nothing can happen if they’re not involved,” said Hausfather.

“Any action and any general assembly that takes place will be nonsense without their support.”

“Strikes are our strongest weapon,” said Walcott. “They’re really the only weapon we have as students to express our dissatisfaction with these issues. It’s our means of applying pressure, and showing resolve.”

“It sends a clear message to the media, to the public, and even to politicians, saying,‘Now we’re pissed off, now we’re missing out on school, and we’re putting a lot of time and money on the line for change.’”

Know your rights (or lack thereof) Earlier in the semester, a letter written by Concordia’s Provost David Graham and approved by Interim President Frederick Lowy was circulated throughout various departments at the university. In it, Graham asks that faculty show “flexibility and leniency” toward students participating in the day of action on November 10. “[The letter] was not a request for academic amnesty,” explains Graham. “I can’t authorize an ac-

ademic amnesty, I can’t demand or impose one, and the CSU is aware of that.”

Graham points out that despite the letter, faculty are protected by their rights to academic freedom, which allows them full rights to refuse amnesty to students missing class for reasons that are not deemed legitimate by the university’s standards.

“Individual faculty members have the right to decide what they’re going to do, and how they are going to conduct their courses,” said Graham. “As long as they are operating within university regulations I cannot, nor will I override that… It is [the faculty’s] right to say no.”

In short, this means that students are required to be in class on November 10, strike or no strike. Unless you receive permission from your instructor that pardons your absence, you are responsible for whatever classes that are missed, and similarly responsible for the consequences.

“Students need to know that there is no official protection for them,” said Graham. “They are free to behave as they wish, obviously within the limits of the law, with the knowledge that there may be consequences.”

“Our final exam”

This Thursday is set to be a momentous event in the history of Quebec student movements.

With a head of steam gathered from successful movements like the student strikes of 2005, and rumors circulating that the government is already feeling the pressure of these movements, many are looking to the 10th as the steppingstone to putting an end to these increases.

“Nov. 10 can be thought of as our final exam,” said Walcott.

“If we pass it we go on to the next semester, and then more mobilization and more campaigning will follow. If we don’t succeed on Nov. 10 then we fail, and that’s it.”

For Walcott, Concordia’s reputation of activism and community engagement has been lost over the years.

“It’s important that we bring that back,” he said. “ The whole world is going through big changes, and this is a historical time, so why not get in on it? Things are happening.”

Misallocation of funds not in students’ interests •

HENRY GASS— THE MCGILL DAILY

As tuition steadily increases, both the Quebec and Canadian governments are doing little to bolster student aid programs, with private and political interests converging at the expense of mounting student debt.

According to Students’ Society of McGill University VP External Joël Pedneault, “There’s no way to justify the current financial aid system in Quebec.”

Pedneault argued the structure of Quebec’s Aide financière aux études leads to the misallocation of millions of dollars of student aid.

Quebec students paying inprovince tuition are eligible to take out loans from private banks and credit unions and have the Quebec government pay all interest on the loan until six months after the student’s graduation.

“A huge chunk of the financial aid budget goes straight to banks, and when you think that the government could just be allocating that money straight towards universities to, for instance, lower tuition fees – which would mean that students would actually incur less debt – well, that means they wouldn’t have to incur interest payments,” said Pedneault.

According to a October 2009 study conducted by the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques, in the 2007-2008 fiscal year the Quebec government spent 45 per cent of the AFE budget on interest payments to the tune of $79.6 million.

Pedneault added that a large portion Quebec’s promised $118 million “reinvestment” in financial aid will come from new tuition revenue paid by students, 35 per cent of which the government is committing to financial aid.

The Quebec government’s 201112 budget states, “Students must shoulder their fair share of the effort made in regard to university education. In addition, it is essential for the government that the implementation of the funding plan does not jeopardize students’ access to a university education.”

A Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) report published last month revealed that students will be financing 98 per cent of the government “reinvestment” by 2018, when this round of tuition hikes ends.

In turn, the report claims that Quebec’s total contribution to the financial aid budget will drop from roughly 48 per cent in 2010 to around seven per cent in 2018.

“The provincial government is currently trying to withdraw funding from the [AFE], as it preaches the importance of an educated population for the future of Quebec,” stated the FEUQ report in French.

Another financial aid situation unfolding at the federal level involves the $15 billion ceiling set by the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, which dictates how much money the federal government is allowed to distribute in loans to students.

According to Canadian Federation of Students National Chairperson Roxanne Dubois, the government did not expect to reach the ceiling until at least 2016. She said the expected date for passing the ceiling is now January 2013.

“It can only be assumed that some changes are coming down the pipes to the [act],” she said.

Dubois described three possible changes to the act: the cap could be increased, it could be removed, or the federal government could stop giving out student loans altogether. She said students would carry most of the cost for each option.

“If we’re no longer giving out loans…fewer students will be able to have access to that help to pay for their tuition fees,” said Dubois.

“We also have to think about the impacts of increasing the ceiling, lifting or removing the ceiling, because that money eventually is just passed on to the backs of students in the form of student debt,” she said.

In an email to The McGill Daily, a spokesperson from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada stated that, “The Government of Canada will ensure that students continue to have full access to student loans, now and into the future.”

The representative stated in October that regulation of the lending portfolio, as opposed to legislation, provides greater flexibility and makes it easier for the government to ensure students will have full access to loans.

“Obviously there’s a more longterm solution, which is to recognize that the federal government has a role to play in guaranteeing a minimum level of access to post-secondary education,” said Dubois.

One solution – the Canadian Post-Secondary Education Act – is currently being debated in the House of Commons.

“We would see [that act] as a framework that would give the federal government some guidelines as to where the provincial governments should invest the money that’s going

to education, to prevent cuts to education from the provinces, and to ensure that we reduce tuition fees.”

Dubois added she saw tuition fees as “the main barrier” to postsecondary education. “It’s reason number one why people may decide not to pursue their [university] degree.”

Both FEUQ and Pedneault claim that the province’s recent allocation of federal funds relating to the termination of Ottawa’s Millenial Scholarships Program in January 2010 is contributing to its withdrawal of AFE funding.

The federal government’s decision entitled Quebec to $70 million annually from the federal government. According to the same FEUQ report, however, the Quebec government has yet to allocate the funds directly to financial aid.

“The government’s refusal to allocate the additional money paid by the federal government…has the effect of reducing its own contribution” to the AFE, stated the FEUQ report.

In an email to The Daily, a spokesperson from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada wrote that, “Since the province operates its own program, independent of the federal government, it is fully accountable for its spending.”

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Art Essay

Nicolas Roy

9

Health&Education

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

10

Witnessing an amputation in a rural hospital A U3 BSc student at McGill recounts his final experience shadowing doctors in India Shaurya Taran

Health&Education Writer This is the third part of a continuing series of Taran’s Health&Ed essays.

H

e was the last patient I saw at the KV Hospital in rural India, where I had spent five weeks between May and midJune shadowing doctors. He was a quiet fellow – I don’t recall hearing even a single word from him – and he kept mostly to himself, even though his bed was in the busiest wing of the hospital.

He was a young man, no more than a year or two older than me, but he wore a pained expression that made him appear much older. It was an anxious, desperate look – a look to which I had recently grown accustomed, having seen it on the faces of almost every patient I met. This particular patient had his foot caught in a heavy industrial machine at work, mangling it to the point where it was no longer recognizable.

He had been rushed over by an ambulance from the site of injury.

The on-call orthopedic surgeon, Doctor S., took charge. In an operation for which I had not been present, he attempted to reconnect what was now the two halves of the patient’s foot. Doctor S. had performed what is called a K-wire operation, a procedure that makes use of long, thin stainless steel pins to hold fractured bones together.

In this particular case, he had inserted five K-wires through the patient’s toes, deep into the body of the foot. He had then bandaged the patient’s foot with several rolls of gauze before sending him to the recovery room.

As he was performing the K-wire operation, Doctor S. realized that the procedure might not work: the patient’s foot had simply been too badly mangled in the accident. This was confirmed one week later when he visited the patient, accompanied by myself and two nurses from the operating room.

We found the patient lying supine on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Our entrance elicited no reaction from him, he continued to stare at the chipped white paint in the small square of ceiling directly overhead.

“Let’s take a look at your foot,” said Doctor S. The patient remained silent.

Doctor S. unwound the rolls of gauze. I tried to get a look at the foot, but the nurses were standing directly in front of me, and the room was too small to circle around for an unobstructed view.

There was a long silence. Then, in a very slow and careful voice, Doctor S. finally spoke.

“We’ll have to amputate it,” he said, more to himself than to anyone in the room. At these words, I automatically turned to the patient, whose face remained blank.

“Book the operating room (OR) for this afternoon,” said Doctor S. to one of the nurses. “We need to get this done right away.”

Then he turned to the other nurse. “Inform anesthesiology that we’ve got an operation scheduled for 12. Doctor C’s services will be required. Kindly inform Doctor C. that he will have to delay his lunch break until after the operation.”

As Doctor S. busied himself with the gauze around the patient’s foot, I tried not to think about what must be going through the patient’s mind, but my thoughts inevitably went in that direction. Here he was – a young man of twenty, watching a doctor wind bloody bandages around what remained of his foot. In two hours, he would be wheeled into the OR, where half of his foot would be removed. He would then be sent home with painkillers and a set of instructions about what to do if any discomfort persisted. These procedures, although important and necessary, still failed to address what was probably the patient’s most burning question: how will my life change, now that the operation is over?

I left the patient’s room with Doctor S., who instructed me to present myself at the OR around noon. When I got to the OR after having spent the rest of the morning in the patient ward, preparations for the upcoming operation were already being made: three nurses were busy unwrapping freshly autoclaved surgery kits, the cleaning staff was performing a last-minute cleanup, and Doctor S. was adjusting the operating table to the appropriate height. I left the room to change into sterile scrubs, and, by the time I got back, the patient had already been transferred from his stretcher onto the operating table. His face – formerly blank – was now anxious, and his movements were tense. Nobody bothered to ease any of his fears.

Doctor S. ordered his patient to sit up. Then Doctor C., the burly anesthesiologist, administered a vial of clear liquid into the patient’s lower back. He adjusted the IV line to ensure a continuous drip of fluid, and attached the leads of the cardiac monitor to the patient.

When everything was ready, he signaled to the nurses.

A nurse carefully unwound three yards of bloodstained gauze

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily from around the patient’s bare foot, enabling my first glance at the injury. When I saw it, I had to blink twice to confirm that the engorged and misshapen mass was, in fact, a human foot. The part of the foot past the heel was entirely unrecognizable – for one thing, the colour didn’t appear right. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that I was looking directly at the underlying muscle; the skin had peeled off everywhere except for around the toes and at the heel. The muscle had a strange texture and appearance. It wasn’t smooth and bright red, but somewhat coarse and pale. His foot was a macabre patchwork of skin and discoloured muscle, crudely held together by five K-wires jutting through each of his five toes.

The first stage of the operation involved removing the K-wires.

This was not a straightforward task: each K-wire was about six inches long, and had to be extracted from the bone. Using a pair of heavy, industrial-grade pliers, one of the nurses clasped the first K-wire and pulled hard in the opposite direction. It took her a quarter of a minute of tugging before the K-wire was removed.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, even though I understood that force was probably necessary to loosen the K-wires. it bothered me that the nurse wasn’t being gentler. This was, after all, an amputation – care and precision were likely not as important here as they would have been in, say, an appendectomy, the surgical removal of the appendix.

Nevertheless, I still expected a

certain degree of carefulness from the nurse – if only because she was handling the body part of a living person.

The nurse removed the next three K-wires with relative ease, and with each one, the top half of the foot got floppier, having nothing but stringy muscle left to anchor it to the bottom half.

When she got to the last K-wire, she pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge: after two minutes of fruitless pulling, it remained stubbornly in place.

“Let me have a go,” said Doctor S. He took the pliers from the nurse and pulled hard, setting his foot against the operating table for balance.

It took him half a minute of pulling to remove the K-wire.

When it was out, the top half of the foot flopped over like a limp sock.

Doctor S. used a pair of scissors to cut away the remaining shreds of muscle that bridged the two halves of the foot. In five minutes, the final attachments were severed.

With the top half gone, the bottom half was now merely a stump, with slivers of bone projecting through skin and pale muscle.

Doctor S. discarded the top half of the foot into a biohazardous waste bag. The second stage of the operation involved smoothening out the stump of the foot. Using a pair of bone cutters, Doctor S. cut away the slivers of bone still projecting through the muscle. As he worked, bits of bone occasionally blasted into the air like shrapnel, hitting a nurse in the face. Each time this happened, Doctor S. would apologize profusely.

In fifteen minutes, the last remaining slivers of bone were removed, leaving the stump of the foot relatively smooth. The third and final stage of the operation involved preparing the stump for a skin graft – a procedure involving the transplantation of skin – which would be performed at a later date. Doctor S. sutured shut several leaky blood vessels, before carefully re-attaching loose patches of skin to underlying fat and muscle. The process was a painstaking one, requiring nearly half an hour of laborious suturing and re-suturing. Finally, the operation was deemed complete.

The nurses opened a fresh box of gauze and wound it carefully around what remained of the patient’s foot. The first few layers of gauze turned red with the patient’s blood, but, with each new layer, the gauze became fresher and whiter. Who could tell what injuries this patient had sustained, simply by looking at his bandaged foot? The most one could do was admire the outcome of the surgery – like the nurses, who had stepped back from the operating table to admire their handiwork, or the doctors, who nodded together in approval.

Only two people in that room kept themselves out of the celebration: one was the patient himself, and the other was a young, somewhat naive outsider who, in his five weeks shadowing doctors in a remote hospital in India, had not yet acquired the ability to detach himself emotionally from the patient, and simply celebrate a successful operation.

Health&Education

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

11

A safe place to inject Veronica Winslow

Health&Education Writer

T

he controversy behind supervised injection sites is nothing new. As previously stated in The Daily’s news article, “Supreme Court rules in favour of supervised injection site” published on October 24, the Supreme Court ruled on September 30 in favour of allowing Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, to continue running.

According to Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc, the city of Montreal plans to follow suit in the coming year.

Supervised injection sites are a place where those addicted to drugs go to inject them under the supervision of health care specialists. They get their drugs from their usual source and take them into a building full of nurses, counselors and other health authorities to inject. The purpose of this arrangement is to keep them off the streets, provide clean needles, and allow authorities to intervene in the case of emergency.

InSite, the first, and only, legal injection supervision site in North America, is located in Vancouver. It first opened in 2003 and has since helped over 12,000 drug users safely inject. InSite operates under a harm-reduction model – they strive to decrease the adverse health, social, and economic consequences of drug use without abstinence.

They offer a network of nurses, counselors, mental health professionals, and peer support workers, along with clean injection equipment such as syringes, cookers, and tourniquets to prevent infection.

According to InSite for Community Safety, a website linked to InSite, there have been only thirty new cases of HIV/AIDS in

downtown east side of Vancouver the year after InSite’s opening. This is massive progress compared to 1996’s 2100 new cases. These sites also save large amounts in health costs yearly – lifetime costs of an HIV infection are about $500,000, a significant amount compared to InSite’s relatively meager 2010-11 budget of $2,969,440.

There are 12 injection booths at InSite, where drug users inject under the supervision of nurses and healthcare staff who intervene immediately in the case of any complication. InSite has successfully intervened in 221 overdoses and has referred over 5,000 drug users to social and health services, such as detox and addiction treatment.

Supervised injections sites have many names, including: drug consumption facilities, medically supervised injection sites, safer injection facilities, or – most controversially – safe injection sites.

Most officials are hesitant to call them safe, on the premise that drugs are inherently unsafe.

Not only are these sites safer for the drug users themselves, but they also make the community surrounding them safer. Contrary to what politicians opposed to supervised injection sites may argue, Health Canada has shown that these sites do not attract drug-related crime. In addition, they reduce drug-related litter in the streets, overall needle-sharing, and do not negatively impact those seeking addiction treatment. Furthermore, they promote education about drug abuse so that the public can get the facts. Health Canada also reports that studies conducted by “a private security firm hired by the Chinatown Business Association show that between 2003 and 2006

there was a decrease in sex trade activity (by 19 per cent), thefts (by 32 per cent), shop lifting (by 20 per cent), sexual assault (by 66 per cent) and squeegee activity (by 95 per cent) on the Chinatown area.”

The main argument against InSite and similar institutions is that drug use is a crime, and should not be condoned in any way. For example, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police released a report in 2006 claiming that there is an increase in the number of drug users proportional to the decreased risks associated with InSite. Tony Clement of the Conservative Party called InSite an “abomination” and, in 2008, refused to renew InSite’s exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In general, the Conservatives see injection sites as a step towards drug legalization, undermining laws and policies, as implied by Stephen Harper’s comment that “we as a government will not use taxpayers’ money to fund drug use.”

“Unlike what some people believe, the sites do not increase crime in the community. They save lives. Drug abuse is a disease,” said Quebec’s Health and Social Services Minister Yves Bolduc to the Globe and Mail.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” Mark Townsend, executive director of the PHS Community Services Society said to the press after the court ruling in Ottawa. “You have forty peer-reviewed studies funded by the federal government themselves that says it saves lives, it saves money, it’s a useful part of a comprehensive strategy.”

And, as the Supreme Court concluded, “there can only be one response: to grant the exemption” and keep safe injections sites alive.

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Sugar-coating fall with candy apples Marlee’s vegan kitchen Marlee Rubel

marleesvegankitchen@mcgilldaily.com

W

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

hat do candy apples and autumn have in common? They’re both sweet, crisp, and never seem to last long enough. Fall has always been a special time of the year: new agendas are purchased, scarves are recovered from dusty drawers, and chilly winds make us appreciate the sun before we enter hibernation mode in the winter. When I heard a knock on my door and found a candy apple hand-delivered by a couple of fall-loving friends, I knew I had found my column for the week.

With tart green apples, delicious

candy coating, and their avoidance of most dietary restrictions and preferences, this recipe is fully certified for the newly kitchen-curious.

Satisfy your post-Halloween, preholiday sweet tooth with this simple recipe.

Makes 6 Apples - 6 apples, washed and dried - 6 wooden sticks - ½ cup superfine sugar - 1 ½ cups water - 1 ½ cups regular sugar - 1 ½ cups light corn syrup - 2 tsp. natural red food colouring - ½ cup of chopped peanuts (any variety of nut will do) 1. Spear each apple with a wooden stick, and line a cookie sheet with aluminium foil. Sprinkle sheet with superfine sugar.

2. Over high heat, bring water, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 300 degrees Fahrenheight (candy thermometers are ideal).

Remove from heat, and pour in food colouring while slowly stirring.

3. Tilt saucepan to the side to pool candy mixture, and quickly dip each apple into the pan until completely coated. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts. Place onto the prepared cookie sheet and let cool in refrigerator for two hours. Yum! Variations: Instead of peanuts, try sprinkling your still-wet candy apples with hard candy, soft candy, dried mint leaves, orange zest, chocolate sprinkles, marshmallows, a sprinkle of cinnamon, or a handful of crushed mints.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

12

In memoriam

Matthew Dowling reflects on Remembrance Day at McGill, and closer to home

“T

he war is not a very vivid memory to the generations that are now passing through the College,” read The McGill Daily editorial of November 10, 1928. Such editorials usually dined on standard University-centric fare: the “real” value of an education, intercollegiate sports rivalries, or the mystery of the jackets stolen from the Student Union cloakroom. The paper’s writers adopted a decidedly more serious tenor for their editorial nearest to Armistice Day, the official anniversary of World War I’s end.

Modernist writers like Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, along with novels like All Quiet on the Western Front, enshrined an enduringly bleak vision of war in the 1920s.

They believed it was a cruel and pointless waste. For others, the McGill Daily’s yearly Armistice Day editorial is a strong example, this could not be the end of the discussion. The war’s gargantuan struggle had been fought in defence of the basic principles of justice and order. To wit, the weight of the past demanded both remembrance and defence of the war’s principles. Pain and loss were lessened by the memory of heroic, yet common soldiers – brothers in arms bound by service and sacrifice. For each Sassoon, there were multitudes that shone a milder light on war, says historian Jonathan Vance, and they also warrant scrutiny.

Some people were unsure of how to celebrate Armistice Day’s first anniversary in Montreal. No formula existed and many of the contemporary commemorative experience’s key elements – the Dominion Square Cenotaph, the red-cloth poppy fundraising drives, the various neighbourhood memorials – had not yet been devised.

Some approached the first anniversary with a determined optimism. The Daily’s editorial of Wednesday November 12, 1919, “A Young Man’s Day,” exclaimed that the war had proven the power of young men. Their potential “when united for the accomplishment of a common, lofty purpose” could not be forgotten in the post-war years.

The modern reader might scratch their head. An equally valid interpretation of the war’s lesson to youth could hypothetically go as follows: “the war took a great many nations’ best and brightest and then proceeded to shred and break them.” The prospective editorial writer, especially in Montreal, could also have noted that English-French relations had never been worse than at war’s end. These were not ideas that would have gained easy acceptance. War’s tremendous cost demanded a rationale, and became a rhetorical starting point for future progress.

Edna Chan | The McGill Daily The past’s demands on the future rarely lessened as the decade passed.

McGill’s students could not forget, went the 1923 article, that the school’s war record “imposed great obligations upon us. Our men died for justice and honour in a war to make war cease.”

Rhetoric entangled institutional pride with the legacy of service in wartime.

War casualty and McGill alumnus John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” became another strong reference point. Mere mention of the poem’s title often sufficed as an allusion to war-time conditions. For another Daily writer of the era, it solidified McGill’s connections to the new phenomenon of poppy fundraising-drives. At any rate, one didn’t always need actual memories as years passed – the institution had its own.

The Daily’s editorial writers per-

ceptively addressed memory and its practice, commemoration. They noted that the European battle sites’ “little fields of white crosses” absolutely contradicted what had taken place there during the war.

They recognized the importance of altar and cenotaph, implicitly underscoring the religious, national, and imperial tones that imbued the ceremonies of remembrance.

It was an instance of what some historians call “the useable past.” An indictment of the war effort – terrible as it was – would have been an indictment of so many things that people held dear. So, substitutes emerged. Popular poetry, official ceremony, and the ethic of valour replaced the actual action of war.

Remembrance of the war did not stop in the 1920s, anxious as contem-

poraries were that it might fade away.

My mom will tell you that her grandfather went out back to the barn after learning that his brother, a driver attached to the Canadian Field Artillery, was killed in action during the final months of World War I. Whoever was there heard screams from behind that house west of Kingston.

My family visited the grave at a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Amiens, France, in 2008. It’s a massive complex with huge, looming walls of white and grey stone that encapsulate perfectly maintained grounds.

The only ostentation is the massiveness of the collective: each gravestone is identical – save for name, national insignia, and religious markers. The pillars at the entrance

represent each sacrifice. Ninety years on, this was our connection.

My dad won’t tell you so much about that part of the war, the part marked by gravestones: his maternal and paternal grandfathers were wounded during the Somme offensive. Both made it home.

One found more grace in peace time than the other.

What he’ll probably tell you about is a little boarding-house on the outskirts of Ypres. It’s a hotel now. We spent the night. It had its own tranquility as a place where men on leave passed a couple days before returning to the lines.

Don’t ask me what my family knows about the building as it was almost a century ago in 1915. I can scarcely remember my stay there, and that was only in 2008.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

13

Pirating what’s important A look into the media’s misguided priorities when addressing Somalia The West and the Rest Kurtis Lockhart thewestandtherest@mcgilldaily.com

D

isney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise grossed over $2.79 billion worldwide. Judging from this success, it’s safe to assume that the subject of piracy grabs people’s attention. Perhaps this is the reason why, since April 4, 2008, when Somali pirates hijacked a Frenchowned luxury yacht, newsstands worldwide have been chalk full of reports of piracy off the coast of Somalia, arguably the world’s most comprehensively failed state.

After reluctantly accepting the fact that piracy is still alive and well, most people’s former apathy towards a funny sounding ‘nation-state’ in the Horn of Africa is transmuted into

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

curiosity – hopefully mixed with a tincture of indignation. This curiosity impels them to look into how this unfamiliar country could allow such a barbaric thing to occur in the 21st century. In utter disbelief, they discover that Somalia is among the poorest nations in the world. Somalia is beset with drought and famine, plagued with religious conflict and ongoing civil war, inundated with human rights abuses, and beleaguered by maniacal fanatics that pledge allegiance not to a flag, but to the hateful Islamist cults of al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab. They also learn that the country has essentially been in a state of anarchy for two decades.

Their now-piqued consternation begs another question: Why have I not heard more of Somalia’s dire situation before this pirate-mania began? A valid question.

Somalia’s descent into lawlessness began in 1991 with the collapse of Siad Barre’s government. Twenty

years later, anarchy remains.

The current civil war involves many factions vying for power, the main conflict being between the weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and their allied African Union forces (referred to as the “African Union Mission in Somalia” or AMISOM) on the one hand, and various insurgent groups on the other, most prominently the al-Qaeda-linked group, al-Shabaab.

Human Rights Watch notes that throughout this conflict there have been appalling violations of human rights by all factions. TFG forces have raped and pillaged their own people. Insurgent groups have indiscriminately attacked civilians, journalists, and aid workers. Amnesty International has also reported a case in the city of Kismayo, where the ruling Islamist group was informed of the rape of a 13 year-old girl, and proceeded to detain the girl and accuse her of

adultery. She was stoned to death for breaching Islamic law.

The main Islamic group, the Shabaab militia, is so infuriatingly intransigent that, even faced with the tragic fact that the current famine ravaging Somalia has killed an estimated 29,000 children, they continue to refuse any kind of humanitarian aid from entering into their area of control.

The Economist’s East African correspondent states that “because that area is controlled by hard-line elements of the Shabaab militia, access even to Islamic relief charities has not yet been allowed.” This means that children have essentially been labeled as expendable.

Why, you ask? “Many Shabaab commanders [assert that] history will judge them not by their compassion but by their ascendancy over unbelievers,” another Economist correspondent explains.

Al-Shabaab’s strategic advantage thus lies in their brazenly evil willingness to kill innocent civilians, in order to triumph over the so-called infidels. This type of dogmatic thinking truly epitomizes what Christopher Hitchens notoriously calls “Fascism with an Islamic face.”

What’s worse, if such a degree of inhumanity is possible, is that the criminals who commit these heinous offenses go unpunished due to the TFG’s inability to establish control.

This was noted by the UN Secretary General who affirmed, “the lack of accountability, for past and current crimes, reinforces a sense of impunity, and further fuels conflict.”

Did anyone hear about these many outrages? No. But a French luxury yacht being commandeered by pirates, now that’s a story worth writing about!

Even news of progress, a rare occurrence in Somalia, failed to take attention away from the subject of piracy. On August 5, the progovernment forces won back control over Mogadishu, the capital. The Shabaab insurgents remaining in the war-torn city scattered to the countryside. But this significant step towards the cessation of the two-decade long civil war was barely mentioned in the international press.

Still, while the TFG was quick to tout the horn of victory after the recapture of Mogadishu, many obstacles remain in the way of peace and stability. AMISOM, the allied AU force, noted that the withdrawal of al-Shabaab to the hinterland only changes the dynamics of the civil conflict – it is now likely to become a guerrilla war with a potential return to “warlordism.”

Experts predict that al-Shabaab’s new strategy will include deploying snipers and bombers to the capital, continuing to refuse humanitarian aid, and, after time passes and enough TV and photographic images of starving Somalis leak out, permiting aid organized strictly

by Muslim agencies to enter their areas of control – only in exchange for money, which will be used to fuel their insurgency.

With civil war and one of the worst famines of the century occurring simultaneously, Somalia has not received this much international attention since the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3 and 4, 1993, in which 19 American soldiers were killed. Again, the media didn’t so much report on the mass atrocities in Somalia as it did on the apparently more pertinent issue: the death of 19 Americans. The Battle of Mogadishu also inspired the 2001 blockbuster film, Black Hawk Down, which grossed $173 million at the box office. Perhaps the West should thank Somalia for the entertainment they have provided us by not merely reporting on this country when profit-hungry news conglomerates believe it will sell. Instead, the international media should extend a show of humanity to the citizens of Somalia – humanity that al-Shabaab and other parties to the conflict have so dismally failed to demonstrate.

The best way to deliver a desperate dose of the humane is to continually report on the crisis’s setbacks and on its progress, keeping the world up to date on pressing issues, which will slowly wash away our ignorance on Somalia’s internal chaos.

Has the world come to view these tragic stories of discord, death, and deprivation from Sub-Saharan Africa as quotidian? Is our moral fibre so lacking that the only subject from this continent that grabs our attention is Johnny Depp-like piracy?

After all, the subject of piracy has sold papers at newsstands just as it sold tickets at the box office.

Let us hope that we have not grown indifferent to human suffering. Let us hope that Somalia’s crisis of civil war, Islamofascism, and famine inspires concerned global citizens to collectively call for action.

A display of moral outrage by the international community will demonstrate to the Somali people that they are not forgotten, and will show journalists that sometimes their job is to tell the world exactly what it does not want to hear.

14 Culture

CULTURE BRIEF Getting real on the silver screen

A

s term papers descend upon us, and final exams loom ahead, there is nothing better than handing in an assignment and taking the night off (even if you know you really shouldn’t) to watch some guilty pleasure reality TV. However, when you start to catch yourself buying more tabloids than newspapers, and following Kim Kardashian’s impending divorce more closely than Canadian politics, it’s time to stand up and say – “My name is Victoria, and I have a pop culture problem.” Thankfully, the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival (Rencontres internationales du Documentaire de montréal – RIDM) begins November 9 – so I, and any other fellow tabloid addicts, can rehabilitate with a new type of reality show: one that doesn’t, in any way, involve gym, tanning, or laundry.

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

The RIDM film festival, created in 1998, presents about 100 films every year, which cover a wide variety of social, political, and environmental issues. RIDM’s mission is to showcase new and exciting ways of viewing the world through documentary filmmaking. The festival also looks to promote Quebec-documentary filmmakers, and give them greater exposure to the rest of Canada.

RIDM is divided into three competitions – the International feature competition, the Canadian feature competition, and the International short and medium length feature competition. Despite the specific Canadian feature competition, the festival displays little focus on our nation’s cinema, let alone Quebec’s.

This brings into question RIDM’s commitment to its mandate.

However, out of the few Canadian films presented, many Quebec films have received a lot of hype. Quebec filmmaker Marie Tremblay presents her first directorial effort, Le Voyage Silencieux, which examines – on a more human, less political level – the Mexico-U.S. border conflict.

Canadian filmmakers Jim Brown and Gary Burns offer a fun exami-

nation of optimism – their cynical protagonist is sent to discuss the topic of hope with a number of academics and artists. Andrea Bussmann, another Canadian filmmaker, presents a short feature, He Whose Face Gives No Light, about those cinematic players who so often go unnoticed – extras on the movie set.

The films above are just a small sampling of the screenings offered at the festival, which examine a wide variety of hot topics, from the tarsands in Alberta to the docks Quebec. So if you feel as though your brain is slowly imploding from studying – or you find yourself using the word “meatball” to describe someone – head out this week to support Quebec and Canadian filmmakers and go see a documentary at RIDM. You’ll find me in the front row, tossing my US Weekly behind me.

Homeless in May He had a way with choosing apples, my boyfriend had told me. So when he gave me free reign of his fruit bowl, it was the apples that drew me first. There were five of them, mostly red with erratic yellow stripes, and they were very large. I ate one while waiting for him to finish lunch, but it wasn’t up to his usual scratch.

“They’re not actually very good. Throw it away if you don’t like it.”

I dropped it in the trash on my way to the bathroom.

I could still hear him singing in the kitchen, falsetto thirds and fourths wondering whether the avocado was ripe.

“Is this one soft enough, no, not quite yet, this one, but this one is soft enough.” When I re-entered the kitchen he was scooping out the flesh with a spoon, standing over the sink, growing old. ­—­­ Naomi Endicott

— Victoria Lessard

Student tickets are $8 per screening, but you can buy a package of 5 tickets for $32, or a pass for $70. Visit www.ridm.qc.ca/en for more details.

Inkwell

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EDITORIAL

volume 101 number 19

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

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Alyssa Favreau Contributors Laurent Bastien Corbeil, Juan Camilo Velásquez, Richard Carozza, Alex Chalk, Edna Chan, Alexander Dawson, Matthew Dowling, Victoria Lessard, Kallee Lins, Austin Lloyd, Kurtis Lockhart, Nicolas Roy, Marlee Rubel, Shaurya Taran, Jordan Venton-Rublee, Veronica Winslow

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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.

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ISSN 1192-4608.

We are all liabilities Over 130 student clubs and services were forced to change their names last week. This happened because SSMU Council voted to sign its Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the administration. The Daily wishes it hadn’t.

The administration’s main concern is that having the McGill name attached to student clubs like the McGill Global AIDS Coalition and TVMcGill will make the school liable if the groups break the law.

It is insulting and alienating for students to be told that they are a danger to the reputation and pocketbook of a school that exists, above all, for their education and improvement. Along those lines, The Daily wonders who is fit to use the McGill name, if not its own students?

We imagine the administration will have an easy time answering this, given how often, and how reverentially, they speak of the “McGill community” – and how often they show off the activities and accomplishments of the very groups whose names they are now forcibly changing.

The “McGill community” just keeps getting smaller it seems. Since the start of school, the administration has villified striking non academic workers with propgandistic emails and the pursuit of injunctions that push these workers further and further away from McGill.

Then, the administration threatened students who spoke out in support of these community members with disciplinary action – based on erroneous and incomplete information.

Now, students with the temerity to include the name of their University in their clubs title are being told to keep their distance, too.

Pretty soon, the “McGill community” will consist of the James Administration building and the bank of security TVs in Ferrier.

In the hands of the current administration, the fertile concept of a McGill community is withering into the dessicated notion of McGill as a “brand.” One of the few concessions McGill made in negotiations with SSMU – the preservation of club names such as the McGill Debating Union and the national champion McGill Quidditch team – seems aimed at strengthening the school’s brand with the smallest possible risk. But, The Daily does not believe that McGill student life should be governed by fears of imaginary lawsuits or by attempts to keep the Martlet logo sellable.

Unfortunately, students have lost this battle. Coming into office with an already expired MoA, and facing an administration unwilling to compromise, the SSMU Executive was in a bind. However, with inadequate publicity of the Council vote itself, the Executive ended over a year of negotiations without making students fully aware of the sweeping changes they were about to make. They failed to capitalize on their strongest weapon in negotiations: McGill students. 130 groups adds up to thousands of affected students that SSMU could have called on to influence negotiations and lobby their Councillors to vote against the MoA. Although the SSMU Executive has been keeping clubs updated on negotiations since the summer, the Executive failed to directly inform these groups when the crucial vote would be taken.

We believe that SSMU representatives could have done more to mobilize students on this issue. SSMU had a chance to show the administration what the McGill community really looks like – and they missed it.

Furthermore, the Engineering Undergraduate Society has been battling the administration over the McGill name in their logo, and it is now a battle they will almost certainly lose. SSMU’s decision to sign the MoA has sacrificed any leverage other student groups would have had going into future negotiations with the administration.

Indeed, we should wake up and realize we attend a university whose administration is embarrassed by the activities of its students and that sees liability when it should see community.

15

CompendiuM! Lies, half-truths, and Nazgûl!

FUCK SHITTY THIEVES

A friend and I were walking down Prince Arthur around 1:30 on Saturday night. You were walking towards us and we crossed paths at about St. Famille. I was just about to send a text when you grabbed my phone out of my hand and sprinted away.

I didn’t really feel like losing an iPhone.. So, to your surprise, I started booking it after you.

I stayed twenty feet behind you for about four blocks before you realized you weren’t gaining and I wasn’t going to stop. Then, just south of de pins, you shot me a look of disbelief, gave up and threw my phone on the ground in defeat. I called you a fucking asshole a few more times before you disappeared around the corner.

I hate to be insensitive, but it needs to be said: YOU ARE THE WORLD’S WORST FUCKING THIEF. You couldn’t even steal a cellphone from a drunk twenty year old?! Seriously??!! If I were you, I would really reconsider your current line of work. I’m so sorry: but theft just isn’t for you.

Also, go fuck yourself.

THIS IS THE REAL SHIT

Fuck yeah Arts students for showing up to a GA, taking a stance on tuition hikes, deciding to strike, and making the AUS executive do something useful for once! Finally some McGill students getting on board with real shit and joining the rest of Quebec – 200,000 STUDENTS AND COUNTING – to protest the fact that education is getting fucked over hardcore. Fuck yeah for students paying attention, getting political, taking action, and making this campus the dynamic place it should be. Fuck yeah professors who declare academic amnesty or cancel classes and are proud to stand in support. Fuck yeah unions supporting students and strikers in solidarity! Fuck yeah THIS is what a community looks like.

HMB, look out your James Admin window once in a while and you’d know this for yourself.

STRIIIIIIIKE! 264 Students at the AUS General Assembly

PLUS 200,000

PLUS 264

SNAX motion loses quorum

MINUS 150

Marx motion didn’t even get into the agenda

MINUS

Lauren Liu endorses QPIRG/CKUT with a cute video THE LINK LOVES US Nous aimons le Délit!

Obama and Sarkozy don’t realize their mics are on SSMU signs MoA Saskatchewan NDP loses hardcore

TOTAL

PLUS 20 PLUS 8 PAGES PLUS 100 AWKWARD MINUS 132 MINUS 11 200,091 –

The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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