Volume 102, Issue 2
September 6, 2012 mcgilldaily.com
McGill THE
DAILY
Canoeing in the Laurentians since 1911
Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.
PQ win overshadowed by gunfire
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The McGill Daily Thursday, September 6, 2012 mcgilldaily.com
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Students face difficulties in voter registration
The Daily investigates reforms post-Frosh MUNACA-McGill tensions linger Election coverage from the major parties
Madeleine Cummings The McGill Daily
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08 FEATURES An exploration of McGill’s torturous past
10 COMMENTARY A critical look at Quebec’s newly elected party Former columnists refelect upon their experiences at The Daily Problematizing this year’s Engineering Frosh theme
12 CULTURE Cultural policy under the Parti Québécois Students’ art and poetry Upcoming events in Montreal
14 COMPENDIUM! A letter from the Vice-Baroness, Heather Mama-Boom The Twice-a-Weekly investigates Charest’s recent evaporation
15 EDITORIAL The Daily’s stance on the election’s misplaced priorities
hen PhD student Misia Kowanda set out to register to vote on August 28, she didn’t expect it to be a 4.5-hour ordeal. That day, when she traveled to her local revision office to add her name to the list of electors, she was turned away because she was a student and staffers assumed that she had a permanent residence outside of Quebec. After reviewing the voting requirements online, Kowanda – originally from Burlington, Ontario – called the same local office, wanting to know why she could not register. She told The Daily that she had a lengthy discussion with a staff member from the office, who insisted that students are not always eligible. According to Kowanda, he told her, “You have to understand, a lot of students with strong opinions come here, vote, and leave without living with the outcome of the vote.” However, he was unable to refer her to a specific portion of the Elections Act that dealt with students or explained why she failed to meet the requirements to vote. She then called the Directeur général des élections du Québec (DGEQ) and verified that she did in fact have the right to vote. They urged her to call them back if she had more trouble registering. Kowanda returned to the revision office with her income tax forms from the past two years – filed in Quebec – and documents listing the voting requirements. After being questioned repeatedly about her lack of a Quebec Medicare card, she successfully registered. To be eligible to vote in
Quebec, a student must be 18 years or older on Election Day, a Canadian citizen, a resident of Quebec for six months, and registered on the list of electors. Students whose families live outside Quebec are eligible to vote there if they have lived in the province for at least six months and are registered. According to Christian Gohel, a returning officer for the Westmount–Saint-Louis riding, the staff members who questioned Kowanda were part of a commission de révision, a committee of three people – two of whom have been nominated by political parties – that adds, updates, and strikes names from the list of electors. “Concerning the students, it is a special case because the law says that you have to be domicile in Quebec for three to six months,” said Gohel. He explained that many students come to Montreal from Ontario wanting to vote in both provinces. “Some people misunderstand the meaning of the six months because it’s not six months of temporary residence, it’s six months of being established for good,” he said. According to the Civil Code, a person’s domicile is defined as “the place of his principal establishment.” Kowanda, who has lived in Montreal for three years and files her tax returns in Quebec, said she considers Quebec to be her principal establishment. When she was first told to leave the revision office, she recounted being devastated and on the verge of tears. “I was so upset that my vote wouldn’t matter,” she said. This will be her first time voting in a federal or provincial election. Kowanda also expressed concerns that the personal opinions of elections staff members may
Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
be preventing eligible students like her from voting. Ilona Dougherty, executive director of Apathy Is Boring (AIS) – a non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing youth voting rates through art and technology – explained that the Quebec system of voter registration may be a huge deterrent to youth participation. “The process in Quebec is not obvious,” said Dougherty. “You need to register before Election Day. You have two deadlines, and I know that a lot of people don’t realize that.” Though Dougherty said she doesn’t blame overzealous elections staff for Quebec’s low youth turnout, she said that accessibility for voters – young and old – is a huge problem. She also explained that temporary workers who receive a
small amount of training often staff elections. “Whether an individual worker makes a bad choice, that’s definitely something that’s plausible,” said Dougherty. According to Gohel, this election saw an unprecedented number of people attempting to register to vote, which led to some delays at his revision office. “It was easy to see that people were very anxious to be put on the list,” he said. Students who encounter difficulties with registration can report them on the Elections Quebec website. As for Kowanda, “I urge her to complain,” said Gohel. “Sometimes the process needs to be updated. Sometimes the procedures are too long, too tedious. Unless people complain, things change very slowly.”
Several McGill student associations remain on strike Students to vote on strike continuation in General Assemblies Carla Green News Writer
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s McGill launches into the fall semester, many of its students face the decision of whether or not to go back to class. Though the student strike garnered less support at McGill than at many other Montreal universities, several of McGill’s student societies did vote to strike. Among them were the Gender, Sexual Diversity, and Feminist Studies Students’ Association (GSDFSSA), the Philosophy Students’ Association,
the Art History and Communication Student Association, and the English Graduate Student Society. However, only the GSDFSSA is confirmed to still be on strike. GSDFSSA President Isabella Mancini explained, “The strike motion stipulates that there must be a vote in order to end the strike, and that if the [General Assembly] does not reach quorum, the strike continues, because without quorum we are not a decision-making body.” As their last two General Assemblies (GAs) failed to reach quorum, GSDFSSA is still technically on
strike, and will remain on strike until their next GA, planned for sometime in the coming weeks. The Association des étudiant(e) s en langue et littérature françaises inscrit(e)s aux études supérieures (ADELFIES) – which also voted to go on strike last semester – plans to hold a GA tomorrow. Bill 78, now signed into law as Law 12, includes a provision prohibiting the enforcement of a strike vote on university campuses. Violating Law 12 triggers hefty monetary penalties – an individual can be charged up to $5,000 per day for failing to
comply with any part of the law. Even in the face of these staggering fines, protesters have brazenly flouted the law throughout the summer, and there are indications that they may continue to do so with the start of the new semester. McGill student and activist Kevin Paul said that so far, Law 12 has done little to deter students from striking. “Just as [Law 12] has failed to stop street protests, it has failed to break strikes,” he explained. “Students have defended picket lines and disrupted classes, in particular at UQAM and UdeM this past week.”
The elections played an integral role in the continuation of the strike, according to Paul-Émile Auger, the general secretary of the Table de Concertation Étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ). TaCEQ is a federation of student groups in Quebec which includes the Students’ Society of McGill University. Auger confirmed that “TaCEQ still has members on strike, with a mandate from their GA.” The newly elected Parti Québécois’ promise to abolish the hikes raises doubts about the future of the student movement.
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Orientation week reforms show mixed results Contingency plans improve, but Frosh culture slow to change Jordan Venton-Rublee The McGill Daily
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eforms to Frosh, the results of a year-long collaboration between the First Year Office, faculty associations, Student Services and the Students’ Society of McGill (SSMU), included more thorough leadership training and better coordination between organizers. The reforms aimed at making the Frosh experience more inclusive of all students – such as those younger than 18 – as well as more accommodating to the surrounding Milton-Parc community. According to Josh Greenberg, VP
Events of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS), “Everything for the most part went pretty smoothly.” Asa Davis, VP Internal for the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS), echoed Greenberg’s positivity. “They put a strong emphasis on making sure we had events for underagers and I think we did a very good job of that this year,” he said. Ahan Ali, director of the McGill Student Emergency Response Team (M-SERT) – formerly known as McGill First Aid – saw an upsurge in calls made to the service compared to last year, but ascribed this to more M-SERT involvement with Frosh organizers. “Each of the individual faculties actually reached out to us this year, so we were able to cover a
lot more events than in years past, especially at specific club events,” he told The Daily. Despite the reforms, there were still reported cases of Frosh leaders leading their groups in offensive chants as well as giving Froshies – participants in Frosh events – inappropriate nicknames and writing them on shirts. “That has always been an uphill battle,” Davis admitted, “because the leaders think to what they have been able to get away with in previous years.” “It’s inevitable though that the message will be lost on some,” Greenberg added. “But every time we hear about an incident we do remind leaders every day via text message
‘scale it back, keep your kids in line.’” Although some of the reforms were aimed at making Frosh less centered on drinking, Frosh leaders were still allowed to drink on the job. According to SSMU VP Internal Michael Szpejda, “A big part of why we continue to allow drinking at Frosh is because harm reduction is proven to be more effective than completely removing drinking.” One of the more negative events of the week was a report of a group of Engineering Frosh participants being lead into a Concordia building shouting offensive chants aimed at the university. Both Davis and Concordia Security declined to comment on the incident. According to SSMU President
Josh Redel, “It is one of the lingering parts of Frosh from years past, and it happened again this year for some reason.” “It has been taken care of and the EUS will be issuing a public letter of apology to Concordia,” he added. The attempted reforms also failed to address complaints from the surrounding MiltonParc Community. Stephane Belanger, Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) inspector for station 38 – the Plateau Mont-Royal South station – told The Daily that there were “a lot of noise complaints… the same [amount] as previous years.” —with files from Lola Duffort
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Tensions resurface between MUNACA and McGill Salaries and raises for top administrators revealed Juan Camilo Velásquez The McGill Daily
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cGill’s non-academic workers’ union, MUNACA, released a statement last week accusing the McGill administration of violating Bill 100 and revealed the salaries of the university’s senior administration. Adopted in June 2010 by the Quebec National Assembly, Bill 100 is aimed at reducing the province’s debt. Among its provisions, the act stipulates a decrease in university administration expenditures for universities across the province. The administration and MUNACA signed a collective agreement earlier this summer after a six-month strike by the union. Days later, the administration announced a cut in support staff to reduce administrative spending. According to the University, the cuts are being made to bring
McGill’s budget in line with Bill 100. “McGill, earlier this summer, put out a notice saying that they [were] required by law to cut down on the support staff, including MUNACA, and that they were going to do it by attrition. We were surprised by this since our members are decreasing anyway,” MUNACA VP Finance David Kalant told The Daily. To verify whether the administration itself was complying with Bill 100, MUNACA filed an Access to Information request asking for a list of salaries, bonuses, and travel expenses of senior administration members for 2009, 2010, and 2011. The document provided to MUNACA shows salary increases for McGill’s top executives from 2009 to 2011 of up to nine per cent. Among the largest salary increases was that of Provost Anthony Masi, whose salary went from $301,661 in 2009
to $330,000 in 2011. Similarly, Associate Vice-Principal (Human Resources) Lynne B. Gervais’ salary increased from $228,218 in 2009 to $246,475 in 2011. The document also reveals that Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson received a raise of 3.4 per cent from 2009 to 2011. Principal Heather Munroe-Blum’s salary went from $358,173 to $369,250 in the same period. The salary for the VP Finance position, which was held by three different people in the three years covered by the documents, also increased by 7.4 per cent. McGill administrators also received extra payments for “other elements” that range from 0.6 per cent to 33.6 per cent of administrator salaries. According to Gervais, these include “employer-paid life insurance premiums, tuition subsidies and financial advis-
ing fees, the value of an interest-free loan, car and housing allowances, or other forms of cash compensation not included in the base salary.” MUNACA issued a press release accusing the administration of not complying with Bill 100, as the bill sets a 0.5 per cent salary increase restriction. Gervais told The Daily in an email that the University has not violated Bill 100 because the additional remunerations come from performance-based evaluations done in the 2008-2009 academic year. Article 8 of the bill stipulates that organizations may give executives or managers performancebased raises if the performance evaluation took place in a fiscal year starting no later than 2009. “The only way that managers (M-class employees) and executives at McGill receive salary increases is through a merit process, as opposed to automatic
annual salary increases or an annual bump-up to the next step of the salary scale,” explained Gervais. “The merit increase paid during fiscal year 2010-11 – the first year covered by Bill 100 – was based on performance from June 1, 2008 to November 30, 2009, and thus is in agreement with Article 8 of the Bill,” she said. MUNACA President Kevin Whittaker wrote a letter to the Minister of Education, Leisure and Sports raising questions over the way McGill is seeking to comply with the bill. “Although your Ministry does have guidelines recommending cuts by attrition to support staff, our understanding of the stated purpose of Bill 100 is to cut spending at the more senior management and executive levels,” wrote Whittaker. The union has not yet received a response.
SAVE UP
TO 90%
ON USED TEXTBOOKS
AND 35%
ON NEW TEXTBOOKS
BEING OF ADVENTUROUS SOUL but of meek wallet, I will hereby spend less for my textbooks in order to save money for what can’t be learned from a book.
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One dead, one injured at Metropolis Parti Québécois elected as the new minority government Laurent Bastien Corbeil The McGill Daily
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hots were fired halfway through Pauline Marois’ victory speech on Tuesday after it was announced that her party, the Parti Québécois (PQ), won a plurality of seats in the National Assembly. The results brought an end to nine years of Jean Charest’s Liberal government, one of the longest in the history of the province. One person was killed and another injured after an attempt to stop a lone gunman from entering Metropolis, where the PQ victory party was taking place. After being whisked away by her bodyguards, Marois went back on stage to reassure the audience. “This is what it’s like to be a female head of state,” she said in French.
The gunman later tried to set fire to the building. Inside the building, attendees were told that a sound grenade had gone off and were urged to remain calm. Most supporters were unaware of the events that were unfolding nearby, while others left prematurely because of a strong burning odor, similar to gasoline. Tough road ahead Marois’ government faces several challenges, including a staggering debt and stiff opposition in Parliament. While the PQ has vowed to repeal the tuition hikes through a ministerial decree, most of its campaign promises are likely to be difficult to pass through the National Assembly because of its electoral minority. Relations between Ottawa and Quebec are expected to sour as well. The PQ has said that it would
demand additional powers from the federal government, including greater control over immigration and culture. Bernard Drainville, a PQ member of the National Assembly, told The Daily in French, “We will do everything we can to be respected. We have our values, our interests. With a PQ government, Quebecers will be respected. And we will use every means to achieve that.” The PQ’s victory and the election of the first female premier in Quebec marked an important shift in the province’s politics, and members of the PQ were quick to point out its historical significance. “I’d like to remind you that in 1940, women gained the right to vote in Quebec,” the announcer said in French. “Sixty years later, we have the first woman premier in Quebec.”
A small victory Members of Québec solidaire (QS), a small progressive separatist party, also celebrated the election results. Françoise David, the QS candidate in Gouin, defeated PQ incumbent Nicolas Girard and increased the party’s representation in the National Assembly from one to two. Their election night event was held at the Olympia Theatre in downtown Montreal and featured speakers such as actor and event emcee Paul Ahmarani and rock singer Dan Bigras. The atmosphere was charged with excitement as the relatively young crowd alternated between cheers of “debout” and a chorus of boos as results came in. “I was dreaming of this opportunity for a long time. We will work with a lot more power, a lot more impact, especially that we now have a minority government, so each
party, each MNA [Member of the National Assembly] will count in the balance of power,” said QS cospokesperson Amir Khadir. David added that the lack of a PQ majority would give her party the opportunity to “have a dialogue” and “put our ideas on the table.” Disappointment for CAQ Results for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) were more disappointing, however. While the party won 27 per cent of the popular vote, it only gained 19 seats. In his concession speech, CAQ leader François Legault said that he was ready to work with the PQ government. “Marois will not be able to do everything she wants,” he said in French. “We will work with her if she is ready to make the necessary changes in Quebec.”
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The end of an era For the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), Jean Charest’s loss in his home riding of Sherbrooke signified the end of an era. At the PLQ’s Montreal headquarters, the crowd grew quiet as it was officially announced that the former premier had lost his seat. Supporters continued celebrating through the night, however, as the final results of the PLQ proved better than those projected by the major opinion polls. “We have been here for 145 years, so I think that we are going to be there for the next 145 years,” said Anson Duran, the PLQ candidate who lost to Françoise David in Gouin. “We are the party that has always had the ability to have new faces, and you can see that there are new faces and a lot of young candidates,” he added. Despite its nine years in power and a controversial record, the PLQ won fifty seats. “There’s always [the want for change], and after nine years it’s just a natural feeling that some people have,” Duran said. “We’ll see what the next few years have to
offer, and hopefully we can get back on our feet as soon as possible.” Some students vow to continue their struggle Away from the various party headquarters, approximately 200 demonstrators gathered at Place Emilie-Gamelin – a familiar rallying point from last spring’s nightly student marches – to protest the elections, whatever their results. “Every candidate, every party is in one way or another at the service of capital,” said one demonstrator into a microphone immediately before the crowd marched out of the park brandishing a banner that read in French, “We don’t vote…we fight!” The march followed a spontaneous route south east of the square, and a heavy police presence followed. The Cinéma du Peuple, a film collective formed at Occupy Montreal last fall, set up a large tent and projected coverage of the elections alongside popular videos made about the protests. According to volunteer Paul Bode, their projections were not necessarily meant to protest the
elections but rather “to give people access to this information in a public space.” The Facebook event created to publicize the event was titled “Leurs elections, on s’en calisse!” The SPVM reported no arrests and no injuries. —with files from Lola Duffort, Annie Shiel, and Juan Camilo Velásquez
1 - 5, 10. Marois becomes first female Premier, PQ supporters celebrate Photos | Hera Chan
6. Firefighters gather outside Metropolis after the shooting Photo | Hera Chan
7. Demonstrators march in protest of the elections Photo | Robert Smith
8 - 9. QS celebrates Gouin win Photos | Shane Murphy
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features
MK-ULTRA Violence
Or, how McGill pioneered psychological torture WORDS: JUAN CAMILO VELASQUEZ ILLUSTRATION: AMINA BATYREVA
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magine being trapped in a small room. Your hands covered in gloves, your sight blocked by translucent glasses, and your head covered by a pillow. You cannot touch, taste, see, smell, or feel. You are totally deprived of your senses. This is the imagery of torture in foreign wars, of espionage blockbusters, of terrible nightmares. It seems hardly something that would occur in Montreal. But it did occur, right here at McGill. Today, many journalists, doctors, and the general public see the Allan Memorial Institute in Royal Victoria Hospital as the cradle of modern torture, a cradle built and rocked by Scottish-born Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron. To the patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron, our university was the site of months of seemingly unending torture disguised as medical experimentation – an experimentation that destroyed their lives and changed the course of psychological torture forever. Cameron’s experiments, known as MK-ULTRA subproject 68, were partially funded by the CIA and the Canadian government, and are widely known for their use of LSD, barbiturates, and amphetamines on patients. In the media, they were known as the “mind control” studies done at McGill and were reported as a brainwashing conspiracy from the CIA and the Canadian government. For journalists, the story was a goldmine. LSD use in a CIA experiment was an angle no sensationalist media could reject, especially in the anti-drug frenzy of the 1960s. However, these studies were much more complex than a Timothy Leary scare in la belle ville. At its worst, the prolonged periods of sensory deprivation and induced sleep used in the experiments left many patients in a child-like mental state, even years after the experiments were finalized. Even today, remnants of Cameron’s experiments at the Allan Memorial appear in torture methods at places like Guantanamo Bay. A Tale of Two Doctors This story begins on June 1, 1951 at a secret meeting in the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Sherbrooke. The purpose of the meeting was to launch a joint American-British-Canadian effort led by the CIA to fund studies on sensory deprivation. In attendance was Dr. Donald Hebb, then director of psychology at McGill University, who received a grant of $10,000 to study sensory deprivation. It would be fifteen years after this meeting at the Ritz that Cam eron would disastrously pick up where Hebb left off. Dr. Hebb paid a group of his own psychology students to remain isolated in a room, deprived of all senses, for an entire day. In an attempt to determine a link between sensory deprivation and the vulnerability of cognitive ability, Hebb also played recordings of voices expressing creationist or generally anti-scientific sentiments – clearly, ideas psychology students would oppose. However, the prolonged period of sensory deprivation made the students overly susceptible to sensory stimulation. Students suddenly became very tolerant of the ideas that they had readily dismissed before. As a history professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Alfred McCoy described in his book, A Question of Torture, that during Hebb’s own experiments “the subject’s very identity had begun to disintegrate.” One can only fathom the cognitive effects of Hebb’s work.
Yet, Hebb was more Dr. Jekyll than Mr. Hyde. According to McCoy’s research, Hebb was described as a gifted man whose ingenuity revolutionized psychology as a science; in fact, seven years after the publication of this research, McGill University and the American Psychological Association nominated him for a Nobel Prize. Unknowingly, Hebb reached conclusions that would set the agenda for CIA investigation on emerging techniques of psychological torture and interrogation. Five years later, Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, this story’s Mr. Hyde, entered, with an unstoppable will to finish what Hebb had started. When Cameron started his research, he was the head of the Allan Memorial, which at the time was McGill’s psychiatric treatment facility. Although they were separate legal entities, the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill were unequivocally bound through their medical professionals. Cameron received a salary from McGill but was medically responsible to the hospital. Besides his work on campus, he was a world-renowned professor and a leading figure in the psychological sciences, serving as president of multiple psychiatric associations. It was determination and ambition that made Cameron a world-renowned psychiatrist. During his most controversial experiments, he strove to break barriers in the understanding of mental illness, but at the expense of his patients’ well-being. In a report to the Canadian government in the mid 1980s, sources reveal that Cameron was “ruthless, determined, aggressive, and domineering … He seemed not to have the ability to deeply empathize with their [patients] problems or their situation.” When the whistle blew on Allan Memorial, Cameron’s stern portrait turned into the evil stare of a “mad scientist,” as media reports explained the nature of his research. MK-ULTRA Subproject 68 Cameron’s research was based on the ideas of “re-patterning” and “re-mothering” the human mind. He believed that mental illness was a consequence of an individual having learned “incorrect” ways of responding to the world. These “learned responses” created “brain pathways” that led to repetitive abnormal behaviour. Dr. Cameron wanted to de-pattern patients’ minds with the application of highly disruptive electroshock twice a day, as opposed to the norm of three times a week. According to him, this would break all incorrect brain pathways, thus de-patterning the mind. Some call it brainwashing; Cameron called it re-patterning. He held the view that mental illness was also a result of poor mothering. Thus the de-patterning processes rendered the patient’s mind in a child-like state and through re-patterning the patient could be “re-mothered.” With this framework in mind, Dr. Cameron set out to prove his theory using questionable methods on unwitting patients. Step 1: To prepare them for the de-patterning treatment, patients would be put into a state of prolonged sleep for about ten days using various drugs, after which they experienced an invasive electroshock therapy that lasted for about 15 days. But patients were not always prepared for re-patterning and sometimes Cameron used extreme forms of sensory deprivation as well.
Cameron described the experience: “there is not only a loss of the space-time image but a loss of all feeling that should be present…in more advanced forms [the patient] may be unable to walk without support, to feed himself, and he may show double incontinence.” Step 2: Following the preparation period and the de-patterning came the process of “psychic driving” or re-patterning, in which Cameron would play messages on tape recorders to his patients. He alternated negative messages about the patients’ lives and personalities with positive ones; these messages could be repeated up to half a million times. Kubark, or how the CIA learned to torture The experiments done at McGill were part of the larger MK-ULTRA project led by Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA. In 1963, the year in which MK-ULTRA ended, the CIA compiled all the research into a torture manual called the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation Handbook. Yes, a “torture manual” that would eventually define the agency’s interrogation methods and training programs throughout the developing world. The Kubark, which is nowadays readily available, cites the experiments conducted at McGill as one of the main sources of its techniques for sensory deprivation. The document presents some eerie conclusions. An excerpt from the instructions to CIA interrogators reads, “Results produced only after weeks or months of imprisonment in an ordinary cell can be duplicated in hours or days in a cell which has no light, which is sound-proofed, in which odors are eliminated, et cetera,” In essence, the psychological paradigm taken by the CIA would not have been possible without Hebb and Cameron’s research on sensory deprivation and psychic driving. With names like MK-ULTRA and Kubark, these experiments sound like they are out of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. Hebb and Cameron’s work feel so far removed from modern North American life. However, there is strong indication these methods have been used in the United States of America. Following 9/11, the war on terror and the generalized fearmongering that ensued, the Bush administration changed the rules of the game out of concern for homeland security. Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved special practices that included the “use of isolation facility for up to thirty days.” All of a sudden, the U.S. allowed the use of torture methods developed just up University. Lawsuits Only decades later, in the 1980s, did past victims speak about their experiences, and by the nineties, the lawsuits began to pile up. In response, the Canadian government launched “The Allan Memorial Institute Depatterned Persons Assistance Plan,” which provided $100,000 to each of the former patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron. The compensation came from a recommendation by lawyer George Cooper, in which he clarified that the Canadian government did not have a legal responsibility for what happened, but a moral responsibility. A week ago, I met with Alan Stein, a Montreal lawyer who has handled some of the most notable cases of Dr. Cameron’s patients against the Allan Memorial and the Canadian government. Stein is an affable and zealous man
whose passion for the practice of law became evident after few minutes of meeting him. Sitting at a big table, in what perhaps was the office boardroom, Stein showed me his signed copy of prominent Canadian author Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. On the cover she had scribbled, “To the lawyer who had the guts to take on the shock doctors and win.” Stein’s cases have set important precedents for former patients of Dr. Cameron trying to receive compensation. He has been one of the most important figures in offering Cameron’s victims some peace of mind. To this day, Stein receives calls and emails from people seeking compensation. Curiously enough, Stein is also a man in full dedication to his work, in the same vein as Hebb and Cameron but with different results. As he recited by memory the many MK-ULTRA cases he has handled and talked about each of them as if they were still happening, I came to notice a connection between these three men. Hebb, Cameron, and Stein, in their respective eras, had the same relentless determination to their occupation. However, what set them apart so vastly was their morals and in a sense, their ability (or inability) to empathize with other individuals. Legacy for McGill University When the news broke of the true nature of Cameron’s research, McGill University and Allan Memorial were the names on everyone’s lips. A respected educational and research institution had hosted some truly macabre events and shaped the course of torture methods for many years to come. As Abraham Fuks, Research Integrity Officer and former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, explained to me in an email, the ethical framework for research has undergone vast changes in the past half a century. Since the seventies and early eighties, Canada and McGill have a regulatory framework for the ethical conduct of research with various mechanisms to ensure its implementation. New rules, stricter journals, and peer reviews are set to uphold medical standards. Cameron’s research at the Allan Memorial could not be possibly carried out today. With hindsight, it is easy to condemn Cameron, Hebb, and possibly every person associated with the MK-ULTRA project. Although some of these men deserve condemnation, it is important to recognize our own privileged position: A position with more information and a different set of values in which judging the past almost happens by default. But the legacy lives on, and what Cameron did fifty years ago will always be part of our collective consciousness and identity. Unmistakably, reviewing dark stages of our history exposes the volatility and fragility of the research conducted not only at McGill, but at all universities. This story highlights the importance of criticism on all types of research done at this institution, be it military, pharmaceutical, or medical: every piece of research will impact lives and perhaps change the course of humanity. It’s likely that 50 years from now, a bigheaded student journalist with the gift of hindsight will denounce a McGill research project that is currently underway. On that day, we will be accountable for letting it happen.
commentary
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The spectacle of separatism When cultural concerns mask economic realities Marcello Ferrara Hyde Park
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bove waving blue and white flags, Pauline Marois stood behind a clear podium and extended her arms to the crowd in front of a large Parti Québécois banner. They had won a minority government, ending the nine-year Liberal incumbency in the Quebec legislature. The PQ took 54 seats (63 seats are needed for a majority) with the Liberals trailing behind at 50 seats as the official opposition. Newcomers Coalition Avenir Québec secured 19 ridings, and Québec Solidaire won 2. “We want a country,” Marois said, “And we will have it.” The fleurs-delys fluttered above a cheering people. And then someone dressed in a blue bath robe opened fire. The gunman, a 62-year-old man, killed one person and injured another. “The English are rising up!” he screamed in French, while police stuffed him in a cruiser. This politically-charged act of absurd violence comes at the beginning of what some are calling a new chapter in Quebec history. It is, rather, the opposite. The minority government of the PQ and Pauline Marois does not signal a move toward a united and independent Quebec. It instead represents the uncertainty of a
province faced with an overwhelming budget deficit and an identity crisis. The depressing economic realities of the province were hushed up in the drab political debates and platform promises. Instead, most parties promised infrastructureexpanding projects with no proof of funding, or debated on the tired subjects of sovereignty and language. Indeed, the PQ’s platform centres on guarding the French language and securing Quebec’s independence as a nation-state. The PQ now needs to find a way, with limited political powers, to a) raise support for a successful referendum, b) find water in a dry well for its multi-million dollar projects while eliminating a deficit, c) repeal the unpopular and anti-constitutional policies of the Charest administration, and d) pass racist, anti-constitutional legislature of their own. And they plan to do all of this while increasing funding of services such as medicine and education. In interviews, Marois expresses her party’s support of minority rights in word only. The proposed “secularism charter” bans any kind of religious garments or symbols from the workplace – save for the Crucifix, of course – because it is “a part of Quebec’s cultural heritage.” Also, the extension of Bill 101 to install English language barriers in
the political and educational spheres would cripple English language CEGEPs and exclude the aboriginal community from the province’s political process. These are examples of policy that show no actual support or respect for minorities. Aside from cultural control, Quebec has a net debt of 51 per cent of GDP and an extremely low projected growth rate of 1.4 per cent, the third lowest in Canada. And according to recent estimates by the Royal Bank of Canada, each Quebecker will have to pay an average of $22,432 of provincial debt, the worst in Canada. The PQ has promised to abolish the student tuition hikes imposed by the former Liberal overlords. How they will materialize this with such limited authority and money remains to be seen. If they do, students will be pleased. However, in the coming years, once they’ve left the gates of higher education for the regular, boring, world of the workplace, students sticking around the province as taxpayers might have to shoulder a higher debt if the current one is not resolved. And it doesn’t look like it will be. The PQ’s promises to increase corporate taxes on resource extraction show small signs of hope, but the next few years will likely see an impotent government, pushing for misguided legislature that will not pass, while services stagnate.
Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
We can shout “Vive le Quebec libre!” all we like, but, at some point, we must actually live in Quebec, rather than simply for it.
Marcello Ferrara is a second-year student in English and Geography. He can be reached at marcello.ferrara@mail.mcgill.ca.
A critique of The McGill Daily Two former columnists offer their advice Christiana Collison and Davide Mastracci The McGill Daily
1. The McGill Daily claims it is a “non-hierarchical collective organization” which has a duty to “depict and analyze power relations accurately in its coverage.” 2. Despite its claims, The Daily is not entirely non-hierarchical, and The Daily staff has failed to adequately analyze power relations present within the paper. 3. There is a non-hierarchical relation amongst the editors at The Daily as they make decisions through consensus with equal voting power. This is something most other papers haven’t accomplished, or even bothered to pursue. 4. However, The Daily is made up of more than just nineteen editors as each issue includes contributions from numerous writers, columnists, photographers, and illustrators. 5. Despite this, the relationship between contributors and editors is a hierarchical one that favours the editors. 6. This hierarchy manifests itself in
numerous ways. In practice, the editors determine the cover, illustrations, and stories for each issue amongst themselves, though contributors are free to participate. Additionally, in relations with writers, the editors have the power to overrule whatever they wish, regardless of the desires of the writer. Though editors are usually reasonable, they ultimately hold the power not to be. 7. Subsequently, the issues that are described in point six become even more damaging when one examines the editorial team. The editors have usually been extremely tight-knit, which certainly makes sense, but which makes it very difficult to overrule the recommendation of your primary editor: when a dispute arises, your primary editor merely asks other editors for their opinion on the matter (such as the Coordinating editor), and then returns with a verdict. Thus far, in our experience, this has always meant that the primary editor has made their changes with little or no consultation on the part of the other editors who solidified this decision. 8. This process leads to articles being misinterpreted by The Daily community. For example, an article
titled “Anti-intellectualism amongst the political right” (Commentary, October 31, 2011) was written with a quotation at the beginning, which was referred to multiple times in the article. When the article was put into print, the quotation was mysteriously removed, while the article was otherwise unaltered, ruining the entire piece. With greater dialogue, these errors could be avoided. 9. In the 2012-2013 academic year, The Daily will face a referendum which determines if it will continue to exist or not. We believe that The Daily will pass this referendum as it is undoubtedly the best newspaper on campus. 10. Regardless, this does not mean that the paper cannot be improved. And more importantly, the fact that The Daily has existed for over 100 years with an impressive history should not be used as the sole justification for its continued existence. Relying upon past accomplishments to justify presence in the present is a conservative tactic, and as a paper which prides itself on progressive ideas, The Daily must avoid it. 11. So, as writers primarily concerned with the Commentary section
of the paper, we recommend the following changes be made to enrich the quality of the paper as a whole. a. Ensure that The Daily becomes a more open and welcoming paper which the student body can really claim as its own. This can be done by working to create a team-like atmosphere which extends beyond the editors, so that Commentary writers are not just people who send in an article every two weeks, but rather feel like they are a part of the paper. This can imply mutual editorial draftings, Commentary meetings, and greater inclusivity in terms of determining section content, such as taking suggestions on what topics can/should be addressed weekly. b. Strive for diversity in the issues tackled and taken up. That is, continue to challenge political structures of dominance in McGill society and society at large, but refrain from appealing to and maintaining white, privileged, and elitist ways of thought. c. Push towards broadening the Commentary section by addressing issues that deal with people on the political and social margins of society and go beyond surface-based
structures of oppression that are verbatim to white “leftist” issues commonly found in The Daily. An example that The Daily missed this year was an analysis of how the Montreal protests have privileged white protesters who have not had to deal with or experience racial oppression on a reoccurring basis at the hands of the Montreal police or the McGill administration. 14. In order to move into the next 100 years of its existence, The Daily must uphold all that it believes it strives to stand for. It needs to prevent itself from becoming a site of alienation and exclusivity, stagnant where it was once progressive. And so, in analyzing inequalities and hierarchies in the world, The Daily must turn its scope on itself, as the inequalities within the paper, unlike many of the inequalities in the world, are something Daily members can easily and readily fix. Davide Mastracci and Christiana Collison are former Daily columnists. They can be reached at davide.mastracci@mail.mcgill. ca and christiana.collison@ mail.mcgill.ca
commentary
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 6, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
Ro-dee-NO
Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
How Engineering Frosh coordinators fell off their horses Natalie Church Hyde Park
O
n August 28, veteran McGill students led their proverbial lambs to slaughter. This year, McGill attempted to “redefine” Frosh by making the world’s largest fruit salad and inviting the surrounding community to participate. They wouldn’t have been compelled to host such a fruity affair if there weren’t something terribly disturbing and disrespectful about Frosh’s reputation in Montreal. The rodeo-themed Engineering Frosh glorifies the men and women of the forgotten West: those brave individuals called cowboys and cowgirls, who, seeking freedom and landed property in the wild frontier inhabited by Native Americans, committed innumerable atrocities. Likewise, the founders of McGill forcibly appropriated Native lands – not to mention James McGill’s purchase of slaves. Engineering Frosh organizers chose a theme which
drags up awful memories for those in our community who have connections to the Native population; in the process, they used props like toy guns that serve to glorify weapons and violence. They should be held accountable, even if they need to be lassoed into writing an apology. Too bad organizers, leaders, and newcomers to McGill, like those frontiersmen of the past, will be too busy colonizing the streets of Montreal shouting profanities and anti-Concordia cheers to write an apology. James McGill, the cowboy of Canada, would be proud. He might also have been excited by the promotion video for “Rodeo Week,” which switches between shots of the orange Robert E. Lee car from the “Dukes of Hazzard” and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders – slightly perplexing considering that the only thing they have in common with the cowpoke is a hat, and not even a ten-gallon one. The cowboy theme, then, is
not only about the hats, but about sexual objectification. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office, “sexual assault can be verbal, visual, or anything that forces a person to join in unwanted sexual contact or attention.” When prevalent, as these incidents are in Frosh, rape culture develops. The main instigators of rape culture during Frosh are the leaders and coordinators. Not all Frosh leaders promote these negative attitudes, however, a lack of sensitivity towards these issues can be just as damaging. On the website, each coordinator has a biography section in which they post their favourite activities, their most treasured memories, and their “poison.” The most problematic question is, “How do you like your cowboys?” or “How do you like your cowgirls?” This question is almost as troublesome as some of the answers. Such a question, superficially non-offensive, enforces gender binaries by assert-
ing that there exist only two types of people, which delegitimizes and ignores the many in our community who do not identify themselves as strictly male or female. Moreover, requiring a coordinator to answer questions concerning their orientation and publishing their answers on a public forum may grant too much importance to socially constructed ideas of sexuality. Some answered this question with “bareback” or “bucking” – apparently mistaking their horses for their sexual partners; maybe to these cowboys they are one and the same. Another replied, “Lets just say I don’t touch anything lower than an 8.5/10.” Unfortunately, they are unaware that life is not an event at the rodeo, and scoring ‘contestants’ will not win them any prizes. Shockingly, one coordinator was able to take the question seriously and responded, “medium-rare.” Although Engineering Frosh seems to be the leader in the race to a new moral depravity, a culture
of violence, sexual subjugation, and objectification flourishes in the other Froshes as well. In fact, last year a number of individuals at the Arts Undergraduate Society General Assembly proposed changes to the Frosh mandate in order to make it a safer and more accessible space. These proposals included adding anti-oppression and rape culture workshops, which would have addressed many of the problematic aspects of these events. Given the concern surrounding Frosh, it is perplexing to see Engineering Frosh coordinators choose a theme centered around groups who have participated in acts of oppression and genocide. This only furthers the already apparent alienating and hierarchical paradigm in which McGill exists.
Natalie Church is a Philosophy, Political Theory, and Math student. She can be reached at pianonat@ hotmail.com.
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culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 6, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
Selective secularism The Parti Québécois’ cultural policies ignore Montreal’s multicultural reality
Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
Kaj Huddart The McGill Daily
T
he new Parti Québécois (PQ) minority government, elected on Tuesday and led by Pauline Marois, has a specific vision for the development of culture in Quebec. Canadian media have frequently accused the Premier of engaging in “identity politics,” or ethnically-charged populism. Marois has indeed led a campaign that appealed almost exclusively to the more nationalist sentiments of Quebecois voters. Although she won the election with a minority government, due to the rise of new parties, Marois received a lower percentage of the vote than she did in the 2008 election, which went to Jean Charest and the Liberal Party. According to the PQ platform, the party envisions a Quebec that
is defined both by the cultural dominance of the French language, and a tradition of strong secularism. To the effect of the latter, the PQ announced the drafting of a “Charter of Secularism” in mid-August. Among other provisions, Marois said, the Charter will ensure that no religious symbols – including clothing such as a chador or a Jewish kippah – can be worn by employees of public institutions. The only exception the PQ will permit is an unobtrusive crucifix, which the PQ claims that, though it violates the tradition of secularism, is part of the history of Quebec. Unlike the rest of Quebec, Montreal is a profoundly multicultural place. Over 15 per cent of the city’s population is from a religious background other than Christianity. Here, no one bats an eyelid at a kippah, turban, or hijab aboard a city bus. Moreover, the definition of “public employ-
ee” is dangerously broad. The public sector forms a larger proportion of the Quebec economy than exists in most other provinces. Everyone from bus drivers, to employees of Hydro-Québec, to doctors are employed by the state to provide services to citizens. Another plank in the PQ platform has been to stiffen the province’s language law, Bill 101. Currently, Bill 101 prohibits signage in English (unless French is provided a dominant position on the same sign), and mandates that francophones and allophones (those who have a mother tongue other than French or English) attend school in French. The PQ intends to extend Bill 101 so that English CEGEPs – often the first place that immigrants and French students can learn in English, if they so choose – are also off-limits to francophones and allophones. Although Marois chose to
hold her post-election speech in Montreal, the Parti Québécois won only six of the island’s 28 ridings. The result reflects a growing divide between the city’s increasingly multicultural nature and the demographic continuity of the rest of the province. Quebecoisfocused identity politics hold little appeal in most of the city. However, one of the most common reasons stated for strengthening the provisions of Bill 101 is the necessity of francisation in Montreal. Since 2006, the proportion of francophones on the island has been less than 50 per cent, and by most accounts continues to decline. Much of this is due to the emigration of francophones from Montreal proper to its off-island suburbs. In many of these satellite cities, francophones make up over 90 per cent of the population. The reasons for this suburban migration are not entirely clear,
but are almost assuredly comprised of a mix of factors, and not merely a flight into ethnic isolation. Economic factors such as high taxes, the poor quality of infrastructure, and traffic are reasons for suburban migration across North America. Citing the flight of francophones from Montreal as a reason to strengthen already-strict language legislation is an excuse to carry out an agenda that is ultimately hostile to the city’s mix of cultures. Whether the Parti Québécois succeeds in passing much of its cultural agenda remains to be seen. While the concerns of encroachment of anglo-Canadian and global English-language on the Quebecois culture are legitimate, it would be unfortunate to harm Montreal’s prospects, both as an international city of culture and as an attractive place for immigrants, by further restricting its citizens’ freedoms.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 6, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com
I. I read today that the better a man dresses the more badly he can behave. I was fourteen and standing by the water the first time I touched a girl’s breasts and I don’t remember what I was wearing but she ungloved my hands one finger at a time and I behaved badly as she stood with her back against the lake holding my wrists. The second to last time I kissed her was four years ago in the shade of a white brick wall and her shoulders smelled of salt through her t-shirt and we sipped warm beers until I had to leave and as she stood up she spilled a beer and started crying. I remember now her bra and the shade of its blue and the red polka dots on it but most clearly the soft shake of her breasts. I roll up the sleeves of my shirt to just under the elbows in bars sometimes and the waitress thinks my forearms are handsome and remind her of a boy who had stood next to her and held the metal railing between wagons on the California Zephyr between Denver and Chicago as they dropped beer bottles under the train’s wheels and their muscles shook. II. You’ve already been written and sung by Justin Vernon twice. He used to call you Re: Stacks and now he calls you Calgary. If you listen well you’ll hear yourself change. You’re the way he pronounces the very first ‘everything’. You’re the silence forty-five seconds in and the breath taken in between ‘two’ and ‘hundred at a time’. He smiles just like you when he sings ‘fakes a toss’. And when we said goodbye I heard the sound of the unlocking and the lift away. Now he sings about the prairies of Alberta but I know he means you and the syllables of your hips. I recognize the hurry of the ‘storming on the lake’ and the stretch of the ‘south’. And he sums us up well when he sings about all the rope being untied. III. She was born in August, forty-six years after the Enola Gay released its hundred and thirty pounds of uranium-235 over Japan. It traveled 11.5 miles away before the shock waves caught up. Hers are still catching up with me. Radio-Tokyo was speechless at first but I’ve learned to broadcast the damage. —Dominique Bernier-Cormier
Inkwell
Art Essay Hera Chan
Culture HAPS
Old Shakes
Pop-Up Exhibit Opening Party
Thursday, September 6 7:00 p.m. Fresh Paint Gallery 180 Ste. Catherine West
For over a year, the Fresh Paint Gallery has been showcasing Montreal street art in its eclectic multilevel space. Unfortunately, they will soon shut their doors for good. This chaotic gallery concentrates the talent of many artists from Montreal and around the world, showcasing work normally only found on neighbourhood walls and in abandoned spaces. This installationstyle visual experience is not to be missed – check out their second-to-last party tonight, featuring DJ Construct.
Dean Baldwin’s Lime Eyes Wednesday, September 12 6:00 p.m. Parisian Laundry
In his new installation piece Lime Eyes, Dean Baldwin promises both spectacle and provocation. Baldwin creates spaces that question the parameters of traditional art, taking the work off the gallery walls, providing a rare chance for the gallery visitor to perform in the piece themselves. The artist subverts the traditional way of appreciating and experiencing artwork for his viewers.
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compendium!
The McGill Daily Thursday, September 6, 2012 mcgilldaily.com
lies, half-truths, and...DEEP AND MEANINGFUL HEALING
i4
Eat, Pray, Love I hope you had an interesting summer, and that you were able to take time out to recharge and refresh body and mind. During my break, the long days and warm nights were filled with family and friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. I had the great fortune of spending two weeks in Quebec’s beautiful Laurentians, swimming, hiking, and canoeing on a quiet lake. And, of course, there were books read simply for pleasure – a vacation luxury. My favourite of the summer was Just Kids, the memoir by Patti Smith, “Godmother of Punk,” about her artistic awakening in the New York City of the late 1960s, and her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The book describes the rough spots and the joyful freedom that characterized that time. Smith writes brilliantly of that era. But her book is no mere nostalgia trip. One can’t help but be struck by her universal themes of friendship, the beauty of art, the importance of optimism, of taking risks, and, of learning to express oneself authentically. Watching McGill’s campuses again hum with activity, I’m reminded of how inextricably entwined universities are with the awakening of these elements of life. The new term has just launched with a fabulous Orientation co-organized by the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU), McGill’s First Year Office, and the Macdonald Campus Students’ Society. Orientation was jam-packed with creative and dynamic activities – including the creation of the world’s largest fruit salad. Not only was the salad a community exercise in sustainability (more than half of the 11,197 pounds of fruit was harvested from McGill’s Macdonald campus), it was also used to feed people at several local charities and street missions. Congratulations to everyone involved in all our Orientation activities. I know it has meant a lot of hard work, but it has been greatly appreciated by the many newcomers to our campuses – and by those returning. This fall our student, faculty, and staff organizations are offering a wide variety of opportunities to engage and to do some things you’ve never done before. Why not put doubt aside and try something new? Everything we try is a step toward fuller expression of our authentic selves. In closing, I extend a warm welcome to our new students, new professors, and new staff who are becoming part of the McGill Family for the first time. And, as we all step forward into the academic year, let’s try to hang onto a bit of that summer feeling. The warmth. The happiness. Best wishes and YOLO, Heather Mama-Boom
Charest Evaporates Liberals buying humidifiers in bulk Euan EK The Twice-a-Weekly
L
eader of the Quebec Liberal Party, John James Charest, has evaporated. The sublimation occurred minutes after confirmation reached PLQ headquarters that Charest had lost his Sherbrooke riding and that the PQ would be forming a minority government. An eyewitness reported that Charest “dropped to the floor, wept a single tear of actually quite pristine beauty, and then – and I’m not shitting you – fucking dissolved into thin air.” The Twice-a-Weekly is unable to give any more information on the disappearance, because we have literally no fucking clue what just happened. “The best we can do is just kind of ask his family and friends vague questions about him and stuff,” said Twice-a-Weekly reporter Andrew Eric-McGee, “but, like, people are kinda pissed. He did this with zero warning. Zero.” “I knew he was under pressure,”
said his long-suffering, but still solid wife, Michelle D’Eon, “but to just dissolve without even saying goodbye? After twenty years of marriage? It’s rude.” “You think you know a guy,” said Charest’s former drinking buddy Dominic Burn-Corn, “but then they are actually just a liquid. I spent the best years of my life with a glorified Pepsi can. I guess I gotta figure some stuff out now. This is big. Yeah. Yeah.” “The whole election campaign has been weighing on him for a while,” said Liberal minister Raymond Ball-chomp. “And he’s been really agitated about the whole policy...but then...like...is he a puddle?...water- based? Why did we ever trust anything he said? He wasn’t even like a proper inanimate object like a table or a bucket or something. He was a fucking puddle. A puddle. No further comment.” Authorities are kinda doing not a whole lot, but Shuritie de Quebec agents are excitedly running around Quebec with large humidifiers, trying
to condense their former PM back into an undissolved entity, but leading scientist Dr. Alfred A. Hawking told them in an email, “lol. no chance. he gone done split. keep looking tho lol [sic].” “Can you stop asking me fucking questions!?” yelled PLQ spokesperson Henri McStunned. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Look, we all know Jean’s a weird guy. Like he always hated kettles and stoves. I mean, ‘sure,’ we thought ‘weird guy, eccentric even, but you know, I can live with it.’ That’s what we thought. I mean, do you think we thought he was...what is he?...he, like, I can’t overstate this, but he evaporated. That’s it, that’s the fact. A previously solid, permanent, bipedal landbased mammal just evaporated. Fuck it. I’m out. This is way above my paygrade. I’m out.” Apart from his wife, Charest leaves behind two children and a small pool of water that tasted to this reporter like wet dog. Euan EK is a nine-tentacled octopus. Deal.
Illustration Amina The-Absolute-Best | The McGill Daily
EDITORIAL
volume 102 number 2
editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor
Queen Arsem-O’Malley
coordinating@mcgilldaily.com
coordinating news editor
Juan Camilo Velásquez news editors
Laurent Bastien Corbeil Lola Duffort Annie Shiel commentary&compendium! editors
Jacqueline Brandon Steve Eldon Kerr culture editors
Kaj Huddart Victoria Lessard features editor
Christina Colizza science+technology editor
Anqi Zhang
health&education editor
Peter Shyba sports editor
Evan Dent
multimedia editor
Kate McGillivray photo editor
Hera Chan illustrations editor
Amina Batyreva production&design editor
Rebecca Katzman Vacant
copy editor
Nicole Leonard web editor
Tom Acker le délit
Nicolas Quiazua
rec@delitfrancais.com
cover design Hera Chan contributors Dominique Bernier-Cormier, Edna Chan, Natalie Church, Christiana Collison, Madeleine Cummings, Mercello Ferrara, Carla Green, Davide Mastracci, Shane Murphy, Robert Smith, Jordan Venton-Rublee, Nicole Stradiotto
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Fear and voting in Quebec This election cycle, from its announcement in early August to Tuesday’s victory celebrations, has been marked by a lack of both discussion of substantive issues, and a clear vision for Quebec’s future. Candidates have pandered to popular opinion and used identity politics to gain votes, often not backing their rhetoric with concrete policy. Charest called the election for September 4, two weeks before the Charbonneau Commission hearings into corruption and collusion are scheduled to resume – which will most likely shed new light on the actions of the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) over the last decade. Avoiding these potentially damning political consequences was not the only advantage of Charest’s timing: Quebec’s student movement, with its powerful anti-establishment sentiments, was in a lull during the summer months; electoral campaigning occurred in the absence of rigorous student criticism. Rather than addressing the systemic critiques by the student movement and its allies, candidates reasserted the primacy of language and identity politics. Federalists and sovereigntists alike engendered fear amongst their followers: sovereigntists fear the decline of francophone culture within Quebec; federalists fear another independence referendum. Identity politics divides populations along ascriptive lines we cannot change – where we come from, the languages we speak, and the cultures we express. Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Pauline Marois’ comment, “we were here first,” apart from being wrong, turns political debate into us against them, and sidelines coherent and inclusive debate in favour of the politics of exclusion. Likewise, federalist parties stoked anglophone fears that a PQ win would result in harsh anti-anglo policies; in exceptional circumstances, these fears can translate into violence, as evidenced by the attack at the PQ election party on Tuesday night. By resorting to the age-old politics of identity, Quebec’s major political parties have placed sentiment and votewinning above rational policy discussion. The entire election campaign was characterized by irresponsible populist politics. From Marois donning a red square and promptly removing it as she tried to quickly calculate which of the pro- or anti-hike sides would gain her more votes, to Charest pushing to reopen a carcinogenic mine in Asbestos, candidates have buried the future of Quebec beneath their own personal interests. Plan Nord, the PLQ’s flagship policy, promises temporary jobs at the cost of irreversible environmental damage and reappropriation of indigenous land. When the mines are closed in twenty years, and the jobs gone, the stupidity of this short-term thinking will be clear for all to see. This election, then, has been conducted by the establishment for the establishment. Coherent, rational, long-term thinking – the sort that takes the environment and youth interests into account – has been notably absent. At a time of worldwide economic crisis, with Quebec’s budget in tatters and corruption allegations everywhere, and in the wake of the largest student movement in North American history, the major parties are talking about the same issues they were in 1960. With an aging population, language and sovereigntist politics play well in Quebec, but are they really what this province should be most concerned with as it looks forward into the 21st century?
Errata In the segment “Board of Governors” (Disorientation Guide, August 30), The Daily mistakenly implied that Daniel Gagnier and Roshi Chadha still sit on McGill’s Board of Governors. In fact, neither Gagnier or Chadha occupy seats on the 2012-13 Board. The Daily regrets the errors.
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All contents © 2012 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff. Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec. ISSN 1192-4608.
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