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Volume 102, Issue 5

September 17, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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NEWS 03 NEWS

The McGill Daily Monday, September 17, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

City of Montreal presents Three-Year Capital Plan Focus on maintenance and renovation of infrastructure

SSMU discusses Bill 101 Hotels remain on strike across the province Controversial immigration bill called a human rights violation

08 COMMENTARY Angry feminists explain their anger QPIRG links campus and community A student’s lesson on the power of words from the Arab Spring Commentary Editors’ vision for the section The administration is talking, but are they saying anything?

Letters to the editor

11 INSIDE THE DAILY 12 SCIENCE+TECH New ideas for digitally designed cities A McGill physics student attains internet fame Student perspectives on Soup and Science

14 UNFIT TO PRINT The upcoming season premiere

3

Lola Duffort The McGill Daily

M

ontreal’s $4.1 billion Three-Year Capital Plan (TYCP) will continue to emphasize rehabilitation of the city’s deteriorating infrastructure over development of new initiatives, with 75 per cent of the budget dedicated to maintenance and renovation.

The TYCP is released each year and outlines the city’s capital improvement projects for the next three years.

Approximately sixty per cent of the 2013-2015 TYCP is dedicated to water and roads, with $1.4 billion allocated to the city’s water and sewage systems and $1.1 billion to be put toward modernizing transportation infrastructure.

Taxpayers will be responsible for financing approximately 47 per cent of the TYCP. At a public consultation of the TYCP held by the city’s Finance and Administration Committee on September 11, one anxious Mile-End resident asked about the tax burden. City councillor Michael Applebaum replied in French that, although particular attention was given to the individual taxpayer’s ability to contribute, “exceptional efforts” would be required of the public to tackle aging infrastructure.

Two days later, La Presse leaked the city’s 2013 operating budget, revealing a 3.4 per cent tax hike – onethird of which will go directly to a fund established explicitly to finance

the rehabilitation of the city’s water production and distribution systems.

Infrastructure in Montreal and Canada A report released last week by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) stated that about thirty per cent of Canadian municipal infrastructure is in a “fair” to “very poor” condition, with replacement and repair costs totaling roughly $171.8 billion.

In late August, Le Devoir reported that the number of tunnels and bridges in critical condition in Montreal had jumped from 12 in 2011 to 27 in 2012, according to city inspections initiated after the 2011 collapse of a 25-tonne beam in the Viger tunnel.

According to the TYCP, $44 million will be spent on bridge, tunnel, and overpass upkeep and development in 2013 – a number significantly lower than the $61 million Mayor Gérald Tremblay had previously announced.

McGill Civil Engineering professor emeritus Saeed Mirza told The Daily that three factors contribute to the critical state of Montreal infrastructure: poor construction, little investment in maintenance, and sheer age.

According to the FCM report, only about 15 per cent of Canadian drinking water infrastructure requires attention. In Montreal, on the other hand, “in some parts of [the city], we are losing between thirty to forty per cent of our purified water because of pipe leaks,” Mirza told The Daily.

Highlights of the 2013-2015 Three-Year Capital Plan

More money is needed “The previous generation did not spend the money that it needed to on maintenance, and I give Mayor Tremblay a lot of credit… but we need a lot more,” said Mirza.

The city estimates that despite the current TYCP, an additional annual investment of $700 million will be necessary to fully renovate existing municipal infrastructure and has asked the federal and provincial governments to help meet these needs.

Mirza said he is doubtful that Quebec will come through.

“In the end, it’s going to have to be the user that pays,” he said. “[At the provincial level] infrastructure competes with education, it competes with health.”

Criticisms from Projet Montréal Since its foundation in 2004, Projet Montréal – one of the city’s three municipal parties – has advocated for better initiatives in sustainability and public transport.

“We think this is a continuation of what the Tremblay administration has always been doing […] and that the Three-Year plan does nothing to help bring Montreal into the 21st century,” said Peter McQueen, Projet Montréal’s city councillor for the Côtes-des-Neiges–Notre-Damede-Grâce borough.

“It offers nothing in terms of new transport initiatives for residents,” he said.

McQueen and Projet Montréal also object to the fact that five per cent of the TYCP – representing

over $206 million – is earmarked for a collection of cultural heritage projects in honour of Montreal’s 375th anniversary. Of that $206 million, $110 million will go to the Société du Parc Jean Drapeau, a paramunicipal body that runs Parc Jean-Drapeau and, according to McQueen, does not answer directly to the city. … and from Westmount This year’s TYCP was released in September – earlier than previous years – in order to facilitate project planning.

Finance and Administration Committee Vice President and Westmount Mayor Peter Trent said he believes this is a good idea, but that problems arise because this means that the TYCP is approved before the city’s operating budget.

During a public consultation held on September 13, he attempted to pass recommendations to halt the adoption of parts of the TYCP until the operating budget had been examined, but failed to receive support from majority party Union Montréal.

“I suspect that it has something to do with the partisan project,” explained Trent. “You know, in Westmount, the city councillors all run as independents. In Montreal, there are three political parties – and they’re just always at each other’s throats.”

The TCYP will be officially adopted by the Agglomeration Council on September 21.

—with files from Dana Wray and Waseem Haja

Other Projects $429.6 million Public Safety $143.4 million

Rehabilitation of Water and Sewage System $1,427 million

Economic Development $462.3 million

15 SPORTS ‘Ownership’ and fantasy sports

Legacy of Montreal’s 375th Anniversary $206 million

16 CULTURE Pop Montreal “Miss America” challenges our perception of nationalism, gender norms, and the works of Aboriginal artists

19 EDITORIAL 20 COMPENDIUM!

Recreation and Culture* $597.6 million

Roadwork for Active Transportation and Public Transit Projects $151.9 million *Excluding Economic Development and Legacy of Montreal’s 375th Anniversary projects

Graphic Rebecca Katzman | The McGill Daily

Rehabilitation of Road Infastructure $693.1 million

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NEWS

The McGill Daily | Monday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

SSMU responds to Quebec elections Concerns raised about Bill 101 and student diversity Esther Lee and Doris Zhu The McGill Daily

T

he Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) released a statement in response to the provincial election results and recent mandate announcements made by Marois’ Parti Québécois government. Uploaded by SSMU’s Communications and Publications Manager on September 11, the statement outlined the society’s concerns for expansion of Bill 101 and adoption of the Secular Charter to Quebec.

Bill 101, or the Charter of the French Language, defines French as the official language of Quebec.

The new minority government under Marois seeks to strengthen the legislation and introduce a new bill to ensure that francophones cannot enroll in English CEGEPs. In its online statement, SSMU announced that it “will remain vigilant…and advocate on behalf of our members in the face of measures which could negatively impact the ability of some to work,

[and] receive services…”

In an email to The Daily, SSMU Vice-President External Affairs Robin Reid-Fraser explained, “since we have so many anglophone students, it could impact their abilities to get jobs.”

Reid-Fraser added that she maintains contact with the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) and student associations at Concordia in order to work together.

“We all come from different Quebec-wide associations, or [some schools] don’t have one at all, but it may be a good time to form a sort of coalition of anglophone campuses to make sure our students are being clearly represented,” she said.

SSMU offers representation to the francophone population of the University through the Francophone Affairs Committee.

The statement also commented on the government’s potential adoption of the Secular Charter, which would restrict public display of all religious symbols with the exception of the Christian crucifix. According to the SSMU Constitution, the society “commits itself to groups, programs,

and activities that are devoted to the well-being of a group disadvantaged because of irrelevant personal characteristics that include but are not limited to race, national or ethnic origin, colour, [or] religion....”

“The diversity of our student body is important and we need to be sensitive to how government policies will impact students in different ways.... Advocating for students who are being affected by imposed secularism fits into [the constitution],” explained Reid-Fraser.

The statement was not discussed during the first SSMU Legislative Council of the academic year, which was held on September 13.

Former Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) representative Sean Phipps was not present. The AUS representatives, who hold three SSMU Legislative Council seats, are elected by the Arts undergraduate students in a general election. Article 12.15 of the AUS Constitution states that, “In the event of a leave of absence by any member of the Executive Committee or Arts Representative to SSMU, Council shall have the

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

authority, if deemed necessary, to appoint a temporary replacement from amongst its members.”

AUS VP External Brian Farnan stated that Phipps was not dismissed but submitted a friendly resignation to the AUS Executive Committee. “I must stress, to my knowledge, that AUS executives have received words [but] no reasons. It was friendly, everything was fine,” he said.

Regarding the pending reappointment of the new representative, AUS President Devon LaBuik said, “The AUS will reappoint a new representative as soon as possible. It shouldn’t affect the representation of AUS in a huge way but Sean’s resignation is certainly a loss.”

Phipps could not be reached for comments at press time.

NEWS

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Twenty hotels remain in negotiations Management claims workers are on strike, not lockout Jordan Venton-Rublee The McGill Daily

T

he management of Hotel Espresso in downtown Montreal is disputing the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) claim that its employees are on lockout.

The CSN represents 5,500 people in the hotel industry in Quebec at 35 different hotels.

Unionized hotel workers and their employers have been negotiating their contracts in Quebec throughout the summer. The negotiations have often been hampered by 24-hour strikes, walkouts, and lockouts across the province.

On Sunday, September 9, a 24-hour strike occurred at the Gouverneur Hotel Place Dupuis.

This strike was just one of many that have been occurring in Montreal and throughout the province since unionized hotel employee contracts expired in May. Issues under negotiation include wage increases of three per cent, job security, and pension increases, according to the CSN. CSN Spokesperson Michel Valiquette told The Daily that the 24-hour strikes occurred “to put pressure for an agreement at the other hotels that have agreements already.”

According to the CSN website, three hotels in Montreal have remained on lockout since August: The Holiday Inn Select, Hotel Maritime Plaza, and the Hotel Espresso.

Stefano De Vito, general manager of the Hotel Espresso, said that the employees at his hotel are on strike, not locked-out.

“This is not a lockout; it is a strike […] they can come in anytime they want, they can come back to work, they are free to work,” he told The Daily.

The CSN website says that Hotel Espresso prevented eighty of its employees from entering the workplace on August 16.

De Vito disagrees.

“We were negotiating, and at noon we left for lunch, and [the union] planned a manifestation while we were negotiating,” he said. “I saw it as a sign of provocation, so I said I was going to cancel the afternoon negotiations.”

Jessica Insogna, a front desk employee at the hotel and U1 Kinesiology student at McGill, told The Daily that the union distributed t-shirts during negotiations.

“They gave them out to all the union employees and said ‘wear them to work tomorrow,’” she said.

After De Vito found out, he allegedly told the workers that they would be sent home if they wore the t-shirts the next day.

Quebec hotels have been negotiating throughout the summer.

“And then the next day, apparently, we were on strike. Most of the front desk employees weren’t aware of what was happening,” said Insogna. “I would say ninety per cent of the front desk staff didn’t get a phone call to turn up at the General Assembly to vote.”

Insogna said she was not allowed to return to work because

of her status as a unionized worker.

Of the 35 hotels that started negotiations this past summer, 15 have reached agreements with hotel management as of press time. Twenty hotels across Quebec remain in negations that will continue into October and November.

When asked if there was a threat of more strikes, Valiquette

Decolonization and anti-oppression workshop tour hits Montreal Tami Starlight urges people to unpack their privilege Hannah Besseau The McGill Daily

S

ince April, anti-colonial and indigenous activist Tami Starlight has been traveling across North America offering decolonization and anti-oppression workshops.

Starlight’s workshop tour, which made a stop in Montreal last Thursday at Concordia University, included a historical discussion on decolonization and oppression in Canada, as well as the “basics of grassroots, horizontal, democratic, anti-oppressive, collective community organizing.”

Starlight described herself as an “indigenous two-spirited

woman of trans experience,” explaining that she has faced oppression and multigenerational patterns of colonialism and was thus in an ideal position to facilitate the workshop.

“Often people who facilitate these workshops on anti-oppression have grown up with tons of privilege,” she told The Daily.

Starlight started the workshops while working with the Occupy movement, and soon noticed a disconnect between many Canadians and their colonial past and present.

“People come to these workshops with fairly basic knowledge [of colonization],” she said. “[But] there’s a need to unpack their privilege and develop an under-

standing of anti-oppression.”

For Starlight, “unpacking of privilege” includes acknowledging the government’s role in “perpetrating the madness.”

In the workshop, Starlight argued that capitalist ideologies, based in extraction and exploitation, have resulted in systemic oppression and effectively silenced indigenous voices over the years.

Supporting the state through capitalism, she said, and cultivating a false sense of “uber-nationalism,” only aids this continuous oppression.

“It’s going to be a long struggle,” said Starlight. “There are a lot of people drinking the KoolAid, so to speak. But when it comes to being engaged with your community in a meaningful

way, we need to understand all of these privileges and all the colonization and historical context in which we are all operating.”

In closing, Starlight advocated for community building as a solution.

“Part of the system that perpetuates [oppression] is that we don’t know each other at all. We are disconnected from people and their historical contexts,” she told The Daily.

“We’ve developed a Canadian culture of minding our own business […] a so-called ‘sleepy nice Canadians’ reputation. When we create community capacity and relationships with people in meaningful ways, then we are a strong community, and then we can create change.”

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

replied, “It is still a possibility. We would like to give a chance to the negotiations. If we don’t, for sure it will be a possibility to have another 24-hour strike or more.”

The general manager of the Holiday Inn Select did not wish to comment on the issue. The Hotel Maritime Plaza was not able to be reached by press time.

6

NEWS

The McGill Daily | Monday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

The Daily and CKUT chat with former Dean of Students Jane Everett discusses security, disciplinary hearings

J

ane Everett is the former Dean of Students and is currently a professor in the Department of French Language and Literature at McGill. She sat down on Thursday with The Daily and CKUT’s Gretchen King to discuss the previous year and the challenges ahead.

The McGill Daily (MD): At the end of the year there was a message from the principal that described the year as having a “rock ‘n’ roll” feel to it. Do you have a welcome back message that follows up to what happened last year?

Jane Everett (JE): I can only speak as a person who is a prof, and a welcome message would be: this is an exciting place to be, where we’ve gone through experiences in the last year that I think sensitized everyone to a number of very important issues.

And that we should use that energy going forward as a way to question our assumptions – and by “our” I mean the whole community – and to use this influx of new energies coming from the new students primarily but also the new colleagues to help us gain perspective of all the things

that happened in the past year, and in the years preceding that.

Gretchen King (GK): What about your views on the student strike? […] What are your concerns about accessible education at McGill as a prof now, but also as the former Dean of Students in the last five years?

JE: It’s very difficult to answer that question without seeming to take sides, and I truly don’t have a side in this because I don’t feel well enough informed on any of these issues…. It was very difficult to get critical distance from all the various arguments that were coming my way, because I heard all sides or many sides and it was hard for me as just an individual to step back an take a look at what was going on and to make up my mind about things. […] There was also the sense that last year we were so immersed in everything, we were trying to keep the University moving as usual…understanding sometimes that usual business will be disrupted for reasons that we can’t do anything about – and that’s fine – but you still have to do your job […] in my case often questioning whether I had the mandate to intervene from any-

body. The term Dean of Students is a bit misleading in some ways… some people see it as someone who has oversight over what students do…others see it as a position of pure advocacy for students…. It’s more of an office that connects all things that have to do with students, whether it’s student affairs, student services, student groups and so forth. […]

GK: As Dean of Students last year, I’m sure you heard students talking about the presence of police on campus. […] Do you feel that securitization is a valid concern among the people that you have been in conversation with over the last year? And as a prof, what are your views of cops on campus and the impact of the provisional protocol?

JE: I don’t think any member of the McGill community supports the presence on a regular basis of police on campus…there is no place for them here. If there was a hostile intruder I would welcome them. This is a different case, so I think it would have to be on a case-by-case basis. The reference to securitization, I heard that concern expressed a great deal and I heard students…worrying

about being videotaped just walking around. If you were wearing a red square some people felt that they were targeted there. I heard other people say, I’m very happy to have them here, that way we can be sure that things won’t get out of hand again. […] As to there having been an official University response to that so far, the mills of universities grind slowly. […]

There was a feeling that we got plunged into a situation [and] we just hadn’t thought ahead of how things might unfold. So the provisional protocols were kind of an attempt to look ahead a little bit and to provide some clarity […]

GK: …Just last semester there were over fifty [disciplinary hearings] and the semester before we saw a number of students facing disciplinary hearings for their participation in actions to support the MUNACA strike. Are you concerned that these codes, procedures, and hearings are being used against students participating in extracurricular activities such as demonstrations, protests, and support rallies?

JE: That’s not how I view the code [of student conduct] or the Charter. I see them as two balanc-

ing documents. The code helps us understand when students have violated the rights of other students or have violated certain university codes…. I would never as Dean of Students…support using the code to suppress dissent. People can express dissent, they can express disrespect, lack of deference, and those are not code offences. You can do it in many different ways. […]

I’m looking forward to being a spectator to see what happens with the discussion around the revision of the student conduct because I don’t think it’s well enough known. The suggestion has been made on a number of occasions that we provide something similar to the Fairplay Brochure, [which] gives scenarios about plagiarism, cheating, and things that have to do with what we call academic offenses, but there is another zone which are the non-academic offenses. […] It would be helpful maybe to have a brochure like that.

—Compiled by Juan Camilo Velásquez This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

NEWS

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The McGill Daily | Monday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Controversial bill criticized for human rights violations

WHAT’S THE HAPS

Quebec immigrants face uncertain future

Rosh Hashana Services by Chabad at McGill Sunday, September 16 to Tuesday, September 18 Chabad House, 3429 Peel

Chabad at McGill will be offering services and meals during the High Holidays. All are welcome. For the complete schedule and to RSVP for meals, please visit www. chabadmcgill.com.

McGill Debating Union Presents: Opening of the House Wednesday, September 19, 6:30 p.m.

SSMU Ballroom, 3rd floor

The McGill Debating Union’s first public show of the year will debate the resolution “This House believes the US should end military drone strikes.” Learn more about the Debating Union and how you can get involved. They will be answering questions and heading to Gerts afterwards.

Movie Screening: H2Oil Thursday, September 20, 7:30 p.m.

Community Centre of Côte des Neiges 6767 Côte-des-Neiges

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Jennifer Laura Lee News Writer

D

espite the Parti Québécois’ (PQ) harsh rhetoric over the Canadian immigration policy, it remains to be seen how far the newly elected government is willing to push the boundaries of its parliamentary minority in proposing long sought-after immigration and language policy reforms.

In particular, the PQ has heavily criticized the Harper government for its proposed Bill C-31, “Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act.” Introduced by Conservative Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenney, Bill C-31 is an attempt to clean up abuse and fraudulence in the refugee system, and has been condemned by some as a violation of basic human rights.

Since passing its third reading in June, the act has been slammed

by PQ critics for putting unprecedented power over citizenship in the hands of a few cabinet ministers, while leaving those legitimately seeking asylum vulnerable to an array of emotional and psy-

chological dangers.

PQ Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Bernard Drainville identified the bill as an ideological departure from Quebecois values, adding it to the list of policies that would divide an autonomous Quebec from the rest of Canada.

“Again, this situation demonstrates how Quebec needs to control immigration on its territory and not be subject to the decisions made by another country that does not share our values,” he told the National Assembly in French in May. Stephan Reichhold, Director of the Table de Concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et Immigrantes (TCRI), told The Daily, “From my past experience in the business of refugees, between the Liberals and the PQ, very little changes.

They are similar in terms of policy, funding, and budget.”

“Although the discourse may change a little, the PQ has been more outspoken about Bill C-31 in the past. But now they are in a position that makes it easier for them to criticize the current sys-

tem,” he continued. “Fortunately, the PQ has always been open minded to humanitarian and refugee policies.”

Under Bill C-31, refugee claimants can be automatically detained for up to one year without judicial review if the Minister of Public Safety deems their arrival “irregular.” The process would include less consideration of individual cases, instead allowing an expedited judicial review for refugees applying from countries that are deemed generally “safe” by the minister.

According to an Australian parliamentary inquiry, incarceration in a foreign country, coupled with previous traumatic stress and isolation from social groups, has been proven to increase chances of depression, self-harm, and a plethora of stress-induced physical ailments and disease.

The bill also allows parents to be separated from their children and kept from reuniting with other family members in Canada for up to five years.

Quebec’s immigration policy is currently unique in Canada

in that it allows immigrants who are at risk of federal deportation to remain in the province on humanitarian grounds.

However, the PQ has recently faced heavy criticism surrounding proposed laws that would strip newcomers deemed “not proficient in French” of a number of political rights, including the ability to hold public office or raise funds for political parties.

“It is not only for newly arrived Quebecers; it’s for everyone,” Marois told journalists in French in August. “Every citizen of Quebec that wants to be elected as a mayor, as a councillor, as a MNA must have a knowledge of French.”

Still, refugee defense groups like the TCRI are hopeful that the PQ will make good on past promises and make settling immigrants into the labour market a higher provincial priority. Whether the PQ will try to reconcile its liberal stance on refugee reform with more severe attempts at preserving traditional Francophone heritage, however, remains to be seen.

The Parti Québécois declined to comment for this article.

The film H2Oil addresses the exploitation of oil sands as a global environmental catastrophe with questionable economic benefits. A discussion with economist Jean Bernard Thomas, climatologist Damon Matthew, and director Shannon Walsh will follow the screening. The film will be shown in English with French subtitles. Panelists will present their analyses in French, and will take questions in both languages.

Meet Your SSMU September 21, 12 to 3 p.m.

Breakout Room, Shatner Building

SSMU executives and councillors will be meeting and greeting students. Go talk to your student representatives, ask them questions, and express your ideas and concerns for the year ahead.

2nd Annual Aboriginal Awareness Week September 24 to 28 McGill University’s Aboriginal Awareness Week is intended to increase awareness at McGill about Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The week honours the many Aboriginal cultures across the country including the Méti, the Inuit, and First Nations. The week also offers an opportunity to collaborate with community partners and draws active participation from McGill students, faculty, and staff. For the full schedule of events, visit aboriginalnetwork.mcgill. ca/aaw.html.

commentary

The McGill Daily Monday, September 17, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

8

Confessions of a feminist killjoy Why I don’t back down Isabella Mancini and Jamie MacLean Hyde Park

H

aven’t we beaten this horse to death? Is there really anything left for me to add to here? You know my opinion, right?

You’ve got to know what I think by now. Wait…you don’t know what I’m talking about? Oh. If you were a mechanic, it might seem strange that someone else doesn’t know how to do something as simple as change the oil in their car. If you were an astronaut, you might find it weird when you step out of your spaceship to find that no one understands the terms that you use at work every day. Being a feminist is kind of like that.

When I step out of an anti-oppressive space and find that the majority of people in the world don’t think about rape culture and the deep underlying problems in our patriarchal society at least once every day, that a lot of people don’t think about the hurt and pain that are caused by the oppressive structures built into our everyday life, it comes as a shock. Any space where I don’t have to explain the power relationship behind a man cat-calling a woman on the street feels safer than anywhere else in the world, and so I end up trying to spend as much of my life in those safe spaces in order to expose myself to as little oppressive bullshit as possible. Which seems reasonable to me – until I realize that most people don’t live in my antioppressive dream world, because

not only do other people have antioppressive dream worlds that are different than my own, but most people don’t know what oppression is.

When I see a problem with the world that I’m living in, whether that means the world at large, a city, or a campus community, I want to try to fix it. Complacency isn’t satisfying. This complacency is thrown in the face of activists who are told that “we” have come so far already and “we” have achieved enough. An unwillingness to adhere to complacency is the reason why people still go to protests or write Commentary pieces in The Daily about rape culture at McGill Froshes. I am not saying this to be annoying or to spoil the fun of others, but to initiate change on a small scale in order to raise awareness among students who have never heard these arguments before or who need to hear them at least one more time.

I find it difficult to enter a social space and meet a new person without either identifying them as someone who already understands feminism and the fight against systems of oppression, or discovering that they don’t understand feminism and then talking about the patriarchy for an hour. Usually, I leave these conversations exhausted and angry, even when the person I’m speaking to is sympathetic. Is it my responsibility to explain and educate every person I meet who doesn’t understand? This is how I came to be a feminist killjoy.

Something is wrong with the world we live in and the way that we’re made to think of each other and this fucking oppressive civiliza-

Illustration Akanksa Chaubal

tion, and nobody talks about why or how to fix it in any kind of mainstream medium or political stage.

This is why I still talk about these things and argue constantly and get frustrated – because I can’t sit in the back seat and watch oppres-

sive mainstream norms and fear of controversy dictate my life. So next time you feel like someone is sucking all the fun out of something by bringing up that dirty, dirty word, feminism, take a fucking second to think about it.

Jaime MacLean and Isabella Mancini are Gender Studies students and members of the Valerie Solanas Makeout Club. You can contact either of them at jaime.l.maclean@gmail.com and isabella.ml.mancini@gmail.com.

Bridging campus and community How QPIRG connects McGill to Montreal at large, students to community Lily Hoffman, Holly Nazar, and Shyam Patel Hyde Park

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ast week, Activities Night was once again astonishingly busy and popular. Clearly, McGill students have no lack of enthusiasm for getting involved.

Yet, getting involved at McGill often means further immersing oneself into the “McGill bubble.” Campus engagement tends to be bound both figuratively and literally by the surrounding gates, limiting students’ passions to the McGill community. Although McGill sits in the middle of Montreal, it often feels about a million miles away, both to students and the people who live

around the university.

McGill’s international status makes it easy to feel isolated.

Academics and students come from all over the world to study here and in turn a lot of things about McGill are cosmopolitan – they would be the same wherever the university was located. We’re rightly very proud of that, but there is also a need for balance.

Attending university shouldn’t just be about classes and books, as the hundreds of people at Activities Night would agree. McGill is a public university expected to serve the community and the pursuit of knowledge, and the University’s prestige should serve to further these goals, not hinder them.

In an attempt to arm students

with tools for social change, and to fight trends of McGill insularity and elitism, QPIRG (the Quebec Public Interest Research Group) was formed in 1980. In 1988, a student referendum made QPIRG-McGill the first autonomous student-funded PIRG in Quebec. QPIRG-McGill is part of a network of PIRGs across Canada dedicated to community engagement and activism under the mandate of social and environmental justice, building stronger links between universities and the communities and societies around them.

Over the years QPIRG-McGill has accomplished this by coordinating the Convergence undergraduate journal and the Study in Action conference, providing discretionary funding for small events and proj-

ects in Montreal, hosting Rad Frosh, and working with SSMU on lecture and workshop series like Culture Shock and Social Justice Days. As well, QPIRG supports around a dozen working groups in which students and community members work together, ranging from the very local, like the Committee to Save Parc Oxygène (you can find the park at Hutchison and Prince Arthur), to the global, like Climate Justice Montreal. Some groups are more academic, like the KANATA journal, and some focus on needs outside the University, like the Immigrant Workers’ Center. However, one of the criteria for any funding from QPIRG is that the group has not received much from larger donors, fostering a diversity of small activist

groups that often go on to grow and become more independent. It is solidarity, not charity.

And yes, QPIRG is political.

Being engaged means having an opinion about how things should be, and working with others to build it. QPIRG is dedicated to giving students and community members the tools of knowledge and information, community, resources, and support with which to enact change and fight for one’s passions, within and beyond the McGill gates.

Lily Hoffman, Holly Nazar, and Shyam Patel are writing on behalf of the QPIRG Board of Directors.

You can reach QPIRG at qpirg@ ssmu.mcgill.ca.

commentary

They know their words; do we know ours?

Arezu Riahi Hyde Park

T

My lesson from the Arab Spring

Illustration Ariel Lieberman

he situation in the Middle East is likely not news for many of us these days: it feels like we wake up, drink our morning coffee, and, after seeing the familiar daily death toll online, continue to go about our day. While the inert political discourse continues, it is becoming a struggle to maintain perspective on the dire humanitarian crisis in Syria and the political upheaval elsewhere in the region. As with most jarringly important global issues, the sense of overwhelming helplessness is beginning to rear its familiar head in the international community, and we can all feel it.

Accordingly, I originally drafted this piece as a call to refocus our attention on the events continuing in the Arab world.

While writing in a cafe near campus, I witnessed the first student protest I had seen since I returned for the school year. Again, the protesters were chanting to remind us all that the struggle continues for accessible education in Quebec. As someone who was fairly involved in the fight against the dramatic tuition increases, my instinct was to close my laptop and make my way into the march. And then it hit me, my first dose of cognitive dissonance of the school year: was I about to postpone advising others to refocus their attention to the Arab world? Well, of course, because it’s ridiculous to put off action today in the hope of action tomorrow! Paralyzed, it occurred to me that in that moment, I had become the inert student in a cafe criticizing the inertia of other students in cafes. I stood immobile as the march made its way past, neither taking to the streets nor writing, and eventually made my way home.

Later that day I came across an opinion piece in Al-Jazeera by Palestinian poet Mazen Marouf that seemed to be written directly for

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me, and my existential difficulties.

Marouf, quite refreshingly, cites the catalyst of the sweeping political uprisings in Tunisia and the rest of the Middle East as neither political action nor opposition militant coups.

Rather, Marouf writes that the historic action taken against the regime was carried by the sheer power and impermeability of the poetic metaphor. Marouf begins by referring to a scene in Tunisia between the nowiconic street vendor Mohammad Bouazizi and a French policewoman. Upon hearing Bouazizi’s protest against the confiscation of his unregistered grocery cart, the policewoman slapped him in the face, spat at his feet, and said “degage!” (French for “leave.”) Bouazizi, insulted and

belittled, promptly went to the provincial headquarters to complain to local municipal officers, who refused to see him. At 11:30 a.m., less than an hour after the confrontation with the policewoman, Bouazizi incinerated his own body, and Tunisians flooded their streets calling for the departure of their once-seemingly impermeable autocratic government. Marouf notes that the word itself, “degage,” not Bouazizi’s attempted suicide, was the real spark that inspired the chants and slogans that toppled the autocratic regime ten days after Bouazizi died.

Strikingly, the unified consciousness of Tunisians and other citizens who partook in the Arab Spring appears to be tied together in the abil-

ity to take an element of culture, in this case, a single word, and change its meaning, its musicality, and make it poetic. By putting “degage” on their banners, the Tunisian people were working together as a collective poetic mind, showing how one word has the potential to unify and free a people. The tumultuous political history of the Middle East has shown the power of the political poem and the steep price their writers often pay for their work, and their reward: today, the words of the poets past have served to give the first demonstrators in Egypt, Lybia, and Syria their voices.

Lately in the Middle East, even the most elusive poem can incite, move, and liberate the thoughts and feelings of those who feel most oppressed

and mute. The power of the word has jumped outside the walls of the classroom and into the streets, come to our morning news, and will soon land in our textbooks. I began to think about and see how easy it is to overlook these words, our words, the threads that graciously unify and breathe life into any struggle, whatever words they may be. Maybe then the solution to my plight is not to criticize or picket, or criticize while I picket; rather it is to do exactly what I did: think about what words I stand by, why I stand by them, and say them.

Arezu Riahi is a Joint Honours Middle East Studies and Philosophy student. She can be reached at arezu.riahi@mail.mcgill.ca.

Challenging, criticizing, illuminating The Commentary editors’ vision for the year Jacqueline Brandon and Steve Eldon Kerr The McGill Daily

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e used to think it was simple: writing an opinion piece meant stating a clear thesis and then typing out four or five concise paragraphs designed to convince the reader to side with you. After all, why publish your opinion at all if not in service of some greater end?

The better the argument, the better the piece, right?

Well, yes and no. We still think the traditional opinion piece works best when persuasive: when rhetoric, logic, and facts are arranged in order to sway someone else. After all, political debates are not solved without arguments. But there are more forms of commentary than the six- to eighthundred word single-issue dissection.

Our section recognizes – in fact affirms – the existence of bias and subjectivity everywhere in the world, and therefore is the natural home of personalized perspectives. Unlike an editorial, which is debated, written, and edited by the 19 editors of The Daily, Commentary, like the rest of the paper, is available for anyone in the McGill community.

Consider: Commentary – the word itself implies discussion and observation (think of a sports commentary or the director’s commentary on a DVD). The purpose of commentary is not just to persuade, but to illuminate.

Whereas the value of an expert’s argument lies in the depth and breadth of their knowledge, the value of any person’s commentary lies in the unique perspective each person inherently has. Each of us views the world from a different vantage point, and this variety leads not just to a diversity of opinions, but a diversity of methods, styles,

and experiences. Ought a survivor – of anything – be expected to argue in a step by step forumulaic style that their oppression was wrong because x, y, and z? Of course not! The value in their opinion comes from their very lived experience and rhetoric. It is more than possible that someone feels a poem or a passionate tirade of words is the best way to communicate what they have been through. Readers learn not just from argument, but by coming to understand the way another person sees the world, so all styles are welcome in Commentary’s pages.

Of course, we cannot print every piece we receive, nor would we want to, but we see ourselves more as curators than anything else. The most rewarding part of being an editor is taking the time to work through a piece with an author and doing the best to help them produce something they are really happy with. We won’t speak

for people, or insist on printing only our own views, but we do want to garner as wide a range of experiences as possible.

Certain perspectives and arguments are more widely read and accepted than others. To that end, we recognize the truth that some voices speak not just louder than others, but are volunteered for publishing more often. Our role is to create a welcoming space for those who are shyer to offer their perspective, those who are marginalized and overlooked in mainstream media. Moreover, and ultimately this remains the most valuable feature of campus-community media, we are not profit-oriented: we can print what doesn’t sell because we think it needs to be read. So, we welcome authors who seek to challenge the status quo and established – and establishment – sacred cows. We want to provide a space for under-

privileged and oppressed people to air their voices, in whatever style they wish. The Daily’s Statement of Principles accords with our vision for the section: our goal is to curate a section that is critical and open.

We still welcome those whose lives are lived among books and learning enable them to write well-resourced and argumentative pieces about current political issues, but Commentary is also for social change, for mindless rants, for congratulations, and for rage.

We welcome those who problematize, and who can show us what we didn’t see before. Remember, the Commentary section can only ever be a product of those who write for it: the more the merrier.

Jacqueline Brandon and Steve Eldon Kerr are this year’s Commentary editors. They can be reached at commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

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Satire is the least of your problems Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

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fter the events of November 10, the principal made a point of appearing at the “We are all McGill,” rally, ostensibly to show students that she was alive and well and part of the McGill community. The next major event that the principal publicly attended on campus involved several tonnes of chopped fruit, a PR stunt apparently worthy of a prime spot on the McGill home page. But just because the administration is interacting with the students doesn’t mean they’re saying anything.

The administration would like us to know that they have taken steps to improve communication between those in James and those on Lower Field. From chatty emails about vacation plans, to food-focused events on campus, to creating a Director of Internal Communications, expanding surface-level and superficial communication was clearly a summer priority for the highest-paid employees at the University. Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa of “[students] don’t have a right to demonstrate on campus” fame even announced that the administration totally heard faculty and student concerns that a constant and visible security pres-

ence at the doors of the James Administration building “didn’t make people feel welcome” (shocking!).

The Daily exists to critique and examine power relations and imbalances. Morton Mendelson, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), feels that using satire as a vehicle for this criticism – and using his public persona as a figurehead for the administration – is mean-spirited and tiresome (“A personal attack from behind a screen,” Commentary, September 13, page 6). There is an inherent power imbalance between the administration and the students at McGill. Students have almost no input in the major decisions of our university, despite having to bear the brunt of these decisions’ consequences. Our modes of communication with each other are limited to student publications that print a few thousand copies – quite a bit fewer than emails that reach every student and faculty member through the MRO email system.

Accurate critiques of power are never “fair and balanced,” which the phrase’s positioning as the motto of Fox News should make clear. When the outside world wants to know what’s going on at McGill, it’s those on the sixth floor of James that are contacted – one of the few times students themselves were asked was when they took it upon themselves to be on that sixth floor. And when-

ever students reveal and address this power imbalance, regardless of the manner in which it’s done, it’s often dismissed as whiny disobedience and ad hominem attacks.

The administration doesn’t seem to understand that hollow reassurances and weak gestures towards fostering community do nothing to give students back the power they’ve lost over the past years on this campus.

Student autonomy has been consistently eroding, as student control over our own spaces, groups, and funding slips away. All the minglefriendly barbecues in the world won’t taste as good as Arch Café’s studentcentricity (and brownies) did. All the peppy emails you can think of won’t erase the memories of MROs being used to warn students of the horrors of a student demonstration walking by the Roddick Gates. And not even the largest fruit salad in the history of human civilization will nourish student groups during the grueling, divisive, and useless practice of existence referenda (and no, I’m not just saying that because The Daily is forced to hold one). Instead of coming up with events that are supposed to “promote the values of inclusivity and community,” how about the administration promotes those values by not pitting students against each other in a battle to save the lives of valuable organizations like QPIRG? As a wise McGill disciplinarian

invoke a common humanity, not arrogant backlash. To assume that one can comment on another’s expressions or belittle another’s experience highlights not a tougher-hide or laid-back attitude but bigotry and ignorance, and casually twisting another’s reactions as null or dramatic is disgusting.

Who are you to decide whether or not someone is exercising their basic right to an opinion in a causal fashion? Who are you to reduce a political debate as dynamic as gender equality to “oversensitivity”?

Also, while we’re at it, the point of an opinion piece is to express opinions, and berating a newspaper’s editors for publishing a piece you do not agree with is completely uncalled for and a blatant display of arrogance.

Maybe next time try to be a little more politically correct and a little less egocentric when you sit down to write something other people will probably read.

—Emily Saul U1 International Development

technology, engineering, math) program, Physics, I think a lot of the behaviour at Frosh is sexist. I think those songs are sexist. I think the way that the language and power structures and the songs bleed into everyday conversation around the physics lounge, or the classroom, or anywhere on campus, is sexist. Frosh feels like a boy’s club. School feels like a boy’s club, sometimes, too.

When I was a froshie at McGill, I took the option of trying to join that boy’s club. My Frosh shirt read “shove it in me Shannon,” and I didn’t really want anything shoved in me in those moments of existence, but, here I was in this new place, and it seemed like the best thing to do for my well-being was to disavow whatever allegiance I had to my own gender/general wishes. It wasn’t even that bad of a three days on the whole – I met one of my best friends at McGill there, and have a bunch of pictures of me passed out on a comfortable-looking couch. But as far as the sexist t-shirt writing, and chanting – what was I accomplishing?

Half-heartedly allowing other people to treat me like an object so I could fit in? Women are perfectly capable of upholding patriarchy. It’s this thing that we all participate in! But unlike, and I think we can mostly agree here, the ideal orientation week – Frosh upholds cultural benefits for certain

Illustration Jacqueline Brandon and Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Criticism of power is critical

once told me, being a public figure has its downsides. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather my position have the downside of absurd satire than have to work at the mercy of an uncompromising and unchallenged administration.

Queen Arsem-O’Malley is wary of relationships but maintains a profound love of satire and ATI requests. She is The Daily’s Coordinating editor.

All opinions expressed are her own.

Email her at queen.arsem-omalley@ mail.mcgill.ca.

groups of people, and is probably not as omg-fun-for-everyone as some would like to think.

—Shannon Palus U3 Physics DPS Board member Daily Sci+Tech Fall 2010, Winter 2012 and Web Editor Fall 2011

plants from insect pests in the soil, and is currently the safest method available. Bees have little contact with corn plants, as corn is usually pollinated by wind and doesn’t have flowers producing nectar.

This suggests the losses could result from a management issue.

Improper over-wintering of bees, including removal of too much honey and overuse of sucrose for feed, can lead to heavy losses, as can mites, which at least one expert has found in MAA hives.

There are many reasons for colony collapse disorder and it is a serious problem. At Macdonald Campus we are keenly aware of the importance of bees to food production, and we support the efforts of our local beekeeper and the MAA. To spotlight our limited use of one pesticide and assume this is the sole cause of the MAA’s difficulties is not only unrealistic, but poor science and poor journalism.

—Paul Meldrum General Manager Macdonald Campus Farm

Letters Budding politico completely misses point

No, I am not an Engineering student, and no, I was not offended by Frosh. But I was offended by Sean Coleman’s “Grow a thicker cowhide” (Commentary, September 13, page 5).

The continual Frosh debate has lost its way, and Coleman’s taking of Frosh themes and gleaning the “deepest” most “profound” and absurd implications for them doesn’t make him funny or good with artifice – it means he lacks perspective.

The overarching point here is that people are feeling victimized on campus, and, regardless of whether or not someone may be arguing something seemingly contrived, the point is that if people feel offended about a practice, it doesn’t mean they’re over-sensitive.

It means they’re offended. Sensitivity to an issue might be buried deeper in some people than others, but it does not mean that it does not exist or that it should not be accounted for.

One is perfectly entitled to say they don’t care about something because it’s not an issue of personal significance, but one cannot say that another person should not care about it. If Coleman has become so jaded as to think that people are overreacting, he’s completely misappropriated the situation, and its setting on our campus.

Pertinent social concerns should

Shove it yourself

I would like to address several of the comments on the online version of the article, “Don’t make excuses for rape culture” (Commentary, September 13, page 5), specifically ones relating to sexism and Frosh.

As a woman in a STEM (science,

Buzz buzz buzz

I read with considerable concern Evan Henry’s Commentary (“Beeware,” September 10, page 7), particularly its bald assertion (with the help of a headline) that a pesticide used on corn seed at the Macdonald Campus Farm caused the McGill Apiculture Association’s (MAA) loss of hives in the winter of 2011-12.

This conclusion is dubious at best.

We have used seed corn treated with neonicotinoid pesticide for seven years, with no demonstrated effect on the bee population. A local beekeeper has maintained hives during this period surrounded by our cornfields, and he reports no loss of bees.

We have also had hives next to our cornfields for a research project with no adverse effect on bees. The chance of bees being contaminated by coated corn seeds is negligible. Seed goes directly from planting equipment into the ground, preventing direct contact with bees or other flying insects.

Treated corn seed protects young

To publish a letter in The Daily, send an email to letters@mcgilldaily.com, and include your name, year, and field of study. Letters must be 300 words or less and contain no racist, sexist, homophobic, or other offensive language.

Days at The Daily Production: from pitch to print

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Illustration Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

The city of the future is digital Hack Ta Ville brings new ideas to city planning Marcello Ferrara Science+Technology Writer

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n his 2008 book The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop it, Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet Law and Computer Science at Harvard University, divided the progress of contemporary technology into a binary system: sterile and generative technologies.

A sterile technology is fixed to expectations of the producers. Think of train tickets, punch cards, or Instagram-only cameras.

They are made to accomplish a specific task within specified limits. A generative technology is the opposite: its uses are not limited to the desires of the vendors of the hardware or operating systems.

Generative products give birth to new products, from the personal computer to Facebook. Zittrain calls this process, spread across multiple layers of social and technological relations, “generativity.”

Before the swift showers of September 8 soaked the city of Montreal, I saw on the 3rd floor of SSMU the process of generativity in action. The SSMU ballroom was the scene of a hackathon, an event

where computer programmers find new uses for old hardware and software. This event, called “Hack Ta Ville,” was an initiative to combine the disciplines of sustainable urban development with programming in order to improve cities. Generativity is inherent in the structure of a hackathon such as this.

“You Say City” is an example of generativity in practice. Pierre Beaudreau, the creator of You Say City, spoke with programmers and designers about his project at Hack Ta Ville. You Say City is a 3D tool for displaying new building designs.

Users can upload models of both planned and imagined projects in a three-dimensional map of a city embedded in the Google Earth service. Each model comes with a marker indicating its location, which also contains a forum to discuss the design. These forums are where Beaudreau hopes people can “start talking about what they think is important for the city.”

Collaboration and networking was integral to the structure of Hack Ta Ville. While I was interviewing Beaudreau, a software technician sat at our table. He explained that he was looking for simple work, on the side, even though he already

has a job. I spun around the room.

At every other table, there were attendees on their laptops, turning and talking to one another, pointing at their screens, smiling and shaking hands. It reminded me of those romantic scenes writers and artists conjure about the modernists sitting in Parisian cafes sharing their grand ideas and collaborating on their exciting new projects.

Some, including myself, dream of that time, and here it was in front of me, playing out in Javascript and PHP instead of paint and prose.

Throughout the day, workshops taught computer novices the basics of data visualization and programming languages like Python, while workshops for computer experts introduced them into the topics of urban planning, transportation, and sustainable development.

The purpose of Hack Ta Ville was explained to me by Jason Prince, research coordinator at the McGill School of Urban Planning.

Prince said that he wanted to gather young people “on top of new emerging technologies and see what they come up with.”

Hack Ta Ville also offered a chance to observe the results of the Open Data Movement.

For the uninitiated, Jonathan Brun, the co-creator of Montreal Ouvert, delivered a talk at Hack Ta Ville on the Open Data revolution. This movement calls for transparency in municipal and federal governments, asking them to release their data in an open, centralized, and permanent platform. The data must be open, that is, it must be accessible to everyone in a non-proprietary format (so not in PDFs or Word).

Most importantly, there must be a legal license allowing people to reuse the data.

Prince also believes that the Open Data movement is essential for the development of cities. “Urban planners depend on data for everything they do,” he said. He also expressed his dislike of how universities – a bevy of important data – continue to keep it private, despite being publicly funded. “It’s fundamentally wrong to not let that data [be] freely available,” Prince said.

The darker side of Open Data was also addressed in Brun’s workshop. When the Indian government published its entire datasets on land ownership, opportunistic construction corporations identi-

fied areas in which much of the population lives in poverty and has little formalized education, and proceeded to swindle the landowners out of the real worth of their land. This phenomenon ultimately exposed loopholes in India’s legal structure.

Both Brun and Prince are currently lobbying in Canada for more transparent government data.

The movement is much further ahead in countries like the United Kingdom and United States, where laws advocating open information on the internet are being strengthened and rewritten.

Hack Ta Ville was ultimately successful in its attempt to plant the seed of the importance of open data in the minds of young creative digital entrepreneurs.

However, the counter examples highlighted in Brun’s workshop demonstrated a more maniacal avenue for open data that exists outside the room filled with bright people with big ideas about improving cities. He showed that, though there is a push for open data to liberate us, the seductive emancipatory fantasy of the internet may instead blind us to the new expressions of old powers.

science+tech

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Tim Blais on “A Capella Science” Physics student’s Higgs-themed video goes viral

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ow does a Masters physics student create a Higgs boson-based parody of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” that goes viral and gets featured in popular science magazines and blogs? We sat down with Tim Blais to learn more about his personal experiences leading to his musical and scientific project, “A Capella Science.”

McGill Daily: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself: where you’re from, your childhood, and other experiences that in hindsight you think might have led you to where you are now?

Tim Blais: I grew up in a family of five in the little town of Hudson, Quebec, twenty minutes west of the island of Montreal. My childhood was pretty full of music; I started experimenting with the piano, figuring out songs my older siblings were playing, when I was about four, and soon got actual piano lessons. My mom also ran, and continues to run, our local church choir, so from the time I was three I was singing in front of people as well. Also at about three or four a kid in my preschool introduced me to Bill Nye the Science Guy, which became the only TV I watched for about six years. After kindergarten I didn’t go to school until Grade 10, but was homeschooled by my parents. We had a very multifaceted way

of learning [...] that I think allowed me to see the big picture of things without getting bogged down in the horrible little details that are often the stumbling block when you start learning something. That gave me a fascination with science that’s essentially carried me through a science DEC and one-and-a-half university degrees. But my parents have always been super cool about not pressuring us kids to be anything in particular, and now to show for it they’ve got an emerging rock star – my brother, Tom; a dedicated speech pathologist – my sister, Mary-Jane; and me, researcher in incomprehensible physics and recently popular internet fool. I think they did alright.

MD: Your Facebook page references “years of tension between [your] creative and academic side.”

When did this tension arise?

TB: The [three] things that always came most naturally to me were music, science, and math, but of those [three] I never had the feeling that I wanted to study music; it was too fun, and too playful, for me to want to ruin it with rigorous study.

That continued through high school, where I was top of my science classes but also spent most lunch breaks playing music with friends. [...] My pursuit of academia has always been largely based on questions I’d ask myself and be unable to find the answers to. But in the middle of

CEGEP, my long-time bandmate and brother, Tom, moved to Vancouver to try to make it as a musician and I realized there was a big part of me that would love to follow him, or at least follow that path. But I still had too many questions, so I continued on to an honours physics undergrad at McGill, and then a master’s degree when I still felt I didn’t have the complete picture. But as I’ve answered more of my own questions through my undergrad and grad work, [I have] simultaneously both honed my own musical abilities and watched my brother’s music take off.

His band, Fighting For Ithaca, is now signed to Carly Rae Jepsen’s home label, 604 Records. I admit that my inclinations have been pulling consistently towards the idea of making a serious go at being a musician.

MD: How did this tension finally lead you to this project? What caused this sudden realization?

TB: To be honest, I’m really not sure. I’ve been doing a capella for a while; when I worked in Vancouver at the TRIUMF research facility I [did a lot of arrangements for] this group called Acapocalypse and it made me realize that this was something I was good at. At the same time I’ve recently become really interested in online video as a medium, because it’s really one of the most accessible ways for a DIY kind of person to get their material

out there; you don’t have to know the right people or get a distribution deal, you just need to make something awesome enough that the first few people to see it go, “oh man, this is great!” and introduce it to a few more people. True virality feeds off great content, and nothing else. Anyways, I’d been thinking of starting an a capella channel and wanted something to distinguish myself from the leagues of other people doing that sort of stuff, and then I remembered how crazy the internet is about science, even things that are horribly campy like Alpinekat’s “LHC Rap,” and I realized that this would be something that I would love, and other people would love, and that only I could do. And then I had to do it.

MD: You were featured on a Scientific American blog. How did they discover you?

TB: I really don’t know. The blog post itself says that she found me on Reddit, but to be honest the video didn’t do that well there so I’m surprised she found it. Another lady from the Agence FrancePresse contacted me for an offbeat news story about the same time, so maybe one of them got it from the other, or maybe they both just happened to see it. By that time I was already getting emails from people in physics labs all over the world saying they’d seen it and loved

it and shown it to their research groups. I guess someone knew someone who knew someone; who knows? The mystery of virality.

MD: What is the next song you plan on doing?

TB: Ooh, spoilers. You want a hint? Watch right to the end of the “Rolling in the Higgs” video.

MD: Do you consider yourself a singer or a scientist?

TB: I don’t really know what I am. I’m a person with varied interests, like most people, and I’ve found a way to bring some of those interests together. I think it’ll be great if I can get people more interested in science, or if I can get scientists more interested in indulging their creative side. I think people often try too hard to be just one thing – a musician, a doctor, an artist, a physicist – at the expense of the other facets of their personality. Maybe that’s why people love this kind of mash-up between worlds; the scientific and the musical. I know that’s how I feel about the physics professors’ Redshift Blues Band. It’s awesome because you didn’t expect it, but why not?

People aren’t machines built for a single task.

—Compiled by Ethan Yang For more of the interview with Tom Blais, visit the Science+Technology section on mcgilldaily.com.

Eating it up with a spoon Why Soup and Science matters for students Alexander Chang Science+Technology Writer

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et’s face it: McGill students are always hungry.

Thankfully for the last seven years, McGill’s Faculty of Science has hosted the Soup and Science event series to nourish both mind and body. Professors from a variety of faculties gathered together in the Redpath Museum every day last week to discuss topics that define their particular set of interests. Ranging from single-molecule biophysics to evolution, the lectures allowed students to broaden their knowledge beyond their own major and explore some of the newest research done at McGill.

Presentations of such diversity naturally attracted a large crowd, which resulted in a swarm of young undergraduates clamouring up the

steps to occupy seats that were often filled in a matter of minutes.

At 11:30 a.m. each day, the heavy wooden doors at the entrance were closed, turning away many hopeful students disappointed by the lack of availability and the loss of opportunity to see his or her professor of interest.

“I had to skip my class for several minutes today because it gets [really] crowded,” explained Xavier Chen, a U0 student in Biology who was denied admittance on Monday.

Many other students shared the same struggle to acquire a seat for the halfhour lecture. Volunteers could only reply with a copy of the event’s schedule and a sombre apology.

So what really attracts such impressive crowds to the conference?

The soup or the science? When the question was posed to some of those attending, the response was that the soup was often of equal importance

as the science.

“A little bit of both for us,” answered Lydia, a U0 Biochemistry student, and her friend Jennesa, a U1 student in Physiology, as they enjoyed what remained of their potato leek soup on the front steps. “It’s like a bonus that there is free food.” The conference was a first for both of the freshmen, who felt that “sitting here [made them] feel… a part of the campus.”

This begs the question: what if there were no soup?

“I would still probably go,” affirmed Lydia. “I really want to get to know the profs,” was a common theme voiced by the scores of students that encircled professors in the casual Q&A session where the soup of the day and sandwiches are finally presented.

Plates emptied quickly and were immediately filled by dedicated volunteers sporting white t-shirts,

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shuffling behind tables while carefully balancing trays of small cardboard bowls of hot soup.

Regardless of the variety of topics each professor lectured upon, the scene in the museum lobby remained consistent: one esteemed professor flanked by students of varying age and majors intent on striking conversation, posing inquiries, or establishing relationships in the hopes of eventually working on research.

For Nigah, a U1 student in Cell Biology, “this was a really good opportunity to see what kind of teachers actually do research, and what research they are doing.”

For her and many others, Soup and Science presented a chance to “get to talk to [the professors] and maybe get the opportunity to actually work with them.” But Nigah strikes a sharp contrast in comparison to the other students

interviewed, as she was able to overcome the intimidation factor and speak with the professor about his research.

As the students slowly filed out to make way for an incoming class using the lecture hall, volunteers expressed surprise upon seeing that this year’s turnout was composed of primarily first years. They noted that typically there is more diversity when it comes to the age of those who attend the conference and expressed optimism that the Faculty of Science had such an involved class despite it only being the beginning of the semester.

Soup and Science was met with enthusiasm from both students and professors. One hopes, though, that the event and the professors’ words have served as lasting inspiration for the students even after the trays have been cleared and the lobby emptied.

SAVE UP

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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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Illustration Julia Boshyk | The McGill Daily

The nightmare of fantasy Fantasy sports and the “ownership” issue Evan Dent The McGill Daily

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t is hard to quantify just how huge fantasy sports have become. Fantasy sports, little known before the advent of the internet, have become a multi-billion dollar industry in the past ten years. In a fantasy league, fans take control of digital “teams,” drafting from a pool of active players in a given sport. Each week, depending on how the players perform, the fan earns points and hopes to beat their opponent. Most play for money (some for large sums – there is a fantasy league of Wall Street traders that boasts a $1 million dollar prize), others play purely for pride and bragging rights. No matter what they’re playing for, a lot of people are playing.

There were an estimated one to three million people playing fantasy sports in the early 1990s, before the internet made statistics tracking more accessible to casual fans. A 2010 estimate put the number of users at 32 million. It’s hard to find a sports media outlet that doesn’t cover fantasy sports in some way, or offer a way to play on their website. And it’s hard to find

a sport that doesn’t have a fantasy option these days – a simple web search will find you fantasy cricket, bowling, darts, or bass fishing.

A 2003 estimation of the financial value of all fantasy sports was $3 to 4 billion dollars; the total has probably grown since then. Simply put, a ton of people are playing fantasy sports, and a ton of money is being made from it.

Fantasy sports have changed the way fans watch games and how the media covers them. Fans now have incentive to watch games that don’t involve their favorite team, but that involve one of their players – even if the game is a defensive slugfest with very little excitement, many fantasy owners will stick it out in the hope that their player will score. TV broadcasts of most sports now put a premium on updating stats on-screen throughout the game – most NFL games show individual player stats after every play, as well as league leaders in fantasy-friendly statistical categories throughout the game.

Fantasy sports have even inspired related television programs. Fantasy football has its own pre-game show on ESPN, as well as a half-hour program in the afternoons. There’s even a comedy TV

show, The League, centered on a group of friends and their fantasy football league.

This boom in popularity itself isn’t a huge problem – everyone has their hobbies – but what is troubling is the way that it changes how fans view and treat players. The players are becoming the fan’s commodities, pieces of meat who should do nothing but play, play well, and win the fan a fantasy championship.

At the beginning of the 2011 season, Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, a top selection in many fantasy football drafts, was dealing with a hamstring injury that threatened to keep him out of the first game of the year.

Fans were constantly tweeting at him, asking him about his leg – but they weren’t all Texans fans.

Many of them just “owned” him in their fantasy leagues. Foster sent out a tweet a week before the first game, saying, “I’m doing ok & plan 2 B [sic] back by opening day.

4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick.” A few hours later, he further explained, tweeting that “… [his] quarrel [was] with people who value a digital game over a human’s health.”

This sort of treatment of injured players is frequent; players are

often lambasted for not being able to play through injuries that most fans wouldn’t be able to deal with, let alone play through at a professional level. But since many fans now think of themselves as “owning” these players (there is a comment on a news story about Foster’s tweets that is actually signed, “your employer”), fans treat them like bad bosses would: do your job no matter what, do it well, and make me money. The players are rarely considered as human beings.

Players are similarly attacked by their “owners” if they fail to live up to some preset performance expectation. Consistently performing at a high level in any sports league is extremely difficult, yet many fantasy owners expect it every game. Players are subject to vilification not only by fans, but also by the huge fantasy media industry that breaks down every player’s performance, every game. The player is expected to be a statistics machine, performing at their highest level no matter what– an unsustainable pace for any athlete. A dip in performance is unavoidable – no player can have a great game, every game – but to a majority of fantasy owners, perfection is required. In fact, some

players even apologize after “bad” games, saying they need to get more points for their fantasy owners, placating the angry masses.

I’ll admit, in my own experience in fantasy leagues, I’ve been guilty of these offenses. I’ve been angry at players for sitting out games with high ankle sprains, or for “only” scoring one goal, or “only” grabbing nine rebounds. It’s easy to think this way – that winning is all that matters – but this is a narrow and selfish view. Many fans forget the player’s humanity: they work for our entertainment, but also to provide for themselves, and their families. We sometimes dream about having their athletic prowess, their fame, their pure ability. But for them, our fantasy is their reality.

There’s nothing wrong with playing fantasy sports, but there needs to be an acknowledgement by every fan, a reality check of sorts, that “owning” a player in a fantasy league gives you no right over them, no special privilege.

There is no deep connection besides a fan watching the player perform. All that’s left to do is the standard – sit back, watch, and enjoy. This is a divide we shouldn’t cross.

culture

The McGill Daily Monday, September 17, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

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POP Montreal

TEXT: Tom Acker, Kaj Huddart, Victoria Lessard IMAGE: Anna Foran

Austra

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riginally from Toronto, Austra formed in 2009 and quickly developed a sound entirely their own. Relying on heavy synths, fast paced beats, and opera-trained lead singer Katie Stelmanis‘ voice, Austra is able to create haunting melodies that are upbeat enough that you can still dance along. Their debut album, Feel It Break, was nominated for a Juno and was shortlisted for the 2011 Polaris prize. They will be playing with the percussion-heavy experimental electro band Doldrums. You won’t want to miss seeing both groups back-to-back.

Austra will be playing with Doldrums at Mission Santa Cruz, 60 Rachel West, on Friday, September 21. The show starts at 11:00 p.m. Free admission.

Gotye

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s much as you don’t want to admit it, you have probably had “Somebody That You Used To Know” stuck in your head at least one point in the last year. Although Gotye has been around since 2002, it wasn’t until this past year that the Australian singer shot into mainstream success. With a number-one billboard chart hit, Gotye is definitely reaping the benefits with the most expensive ticket at Pop ($54). If money grows on trees for you, he boasts a wide variety of pop-rock songs that you can definitely bust a move to. (And hey, you don’t even have to tell your friends you went.)

Gotye will be playing with Chairlift at Metropolis, 59 Ste. Catherine East, on Friday, September 21. The show starts at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $54.

Wild Nothing

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p-and-comers Wild Nothing has received critical praise across the board for their sophomore album Nocturne, released this past August. Refining their dream-pop sound, Wild Nothing definitely emulates bands like Beach House while incorporating eighties-style synths and melodies to create something all their own. Paired up with Valleys, a dream pop band with some darker tones and DIIV, a band best know for their melodic guitar, the lineup promises to deliver from start to finish.

If dream pop is your thing, you won’t want to miss out.

Wild Nothing will be playing with Valleys and DIIV at Il Motore, 179 Jean-Talon West, on Wednesday, September 19. The show starts at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $13.

culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Lil B

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erkeley-born Lil B is one of the strangest rap stars the world has ever seen. He has released a mixtape with over 700 songs, has challenged homophobia by entitling an album I’m Gay, and has been called “the most revolutionary MC of the last 15 years” by Vice magazine. With the help of the internet, this 23-year-old rapper has become a bizarre phenomenon.

His playful and lo-fi sounding tracks drop a myriad of pop-culture references and musings on consumerism, amid the usual boasting about “swag” and “b*****s.” He may wear the same dirty pair of Vans in most of his amateurish videos, but his cultish fan-base semi-seriously revere him.

Whatever you think of Lil B’s lackadaisical Youtube videos or his repetitive hundreds of songs, the guy is definitely pushing the genre beyond anywhere it has gone before.

Lil B will be playing with Lunice and Cadence Weapon (DJ Set) at Club Soda, 1225 St. Laurent, on Friday, September 21. The show starts at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $28.

Brave Radar

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here must be something in the water here in Montreal. That’s the only explanation for the city’s penchant for continuously offering up talented local musicians, ranging from wild, near-performance art acts to soft-spoken indie rock. Brave Radar runs more toward the indie variety, with a low-key sound that makes you feel like you should be sitting on a beach, a beer in your hand and salt water in your hair. Don’t make the mistake of reading low-key sound as forgettable sound however - the melodies sneak up on you. “Line Storm” is particularly interesting, with a haunting intro, and slightly dissonant lyrics. The song grabs you and doesn’t let go until the final chord. “Sternwall,” with a slightly more upbeat feel, shows off the variety of tone that can be achieved by the group, as well as just being a song that would make you want to turn the radio up.

Brave Radar will be playing with Chevalier Avant Garde, Sheer Agony, Cresting, Freelove, Fenner, and Mavo at Brasserie Beaubien, 73 Beaubien East, on Wednesday, September 19. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10.

A Tribe Called Red

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Tribe Called Red offers a truly distinctive sound, a difficult feat in the sea of talented artists comprising the Pop Montreal festival.

Hailing from Ottawa, this First Nations DJ group has invented a style of electronic music they’ve termed “Pow-Wow Step.” The group fuses traditional pow-wow music with a plethora of different sounds. Mixes range from fresh and upbeat, with pow-wow singing or drumming coming to the forefront, to more mainstream dub step, with booming beats and intense drops. DJ’s NDN, Bear Witness, and Shubs will have you tearing up the floor, clamouring for more of their unique electronic stylings.

A Tribe Called Red plays with Nautiluss, Prison Garde, and Blank Capsule at Église Pop Little Burgundy, 5035 Ste. Dominique, on Friday, September 21.

Opening sets by Blank Capsule, Nautiluss, and Prison Garde. The show starts at 11 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Lunice

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ative son Lunice is an ambitious synth hip-hop producer. Freshly returned from a big North American and European tour, this past year has seen Lunice collaborate with Diplo, Azealia Banks, and Glaswegian DJ Hudson Mohawke, with whom he made an EP, TNGHT. He certainly hasn’t forgotten his hometown, though, having recently teamed up with fellow Canadians Ango and Prison Garde to form Nouveau Palais, a group that we strongly suspect is named after the popular restaurant on Bernard.

Lunice will be playing with Lil B and Cadence Weapon (DJ Set) at Club Soda, 1224 St. Laurent, on Friday, September 21. The show starts at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $28.

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Ghosts Before Breakfast

or any student taking an art history course, Ghosts Before Breakfast offers a worthwhile excuse to ditch your readings for an evening and head out to Pop. Named after a Dada short film made in 1928, the group produces tracks worthy of their artistic predecessors. Their songs, such as “Desert Home,” present strong melodies that start off sounding like any moderate group you could hear on Top 40 radio – but then the guitar tune begins to change, the lyrics start, and suddenly you’ve stepped through the looking glass. Ghosts Before Breakfast’s off-kilter songs are rock and roll mixed with Dadaist irreverence.

Ghosts Before Breakfast will be playing with Loon Hunters, Star Hunters, and Statue Park, at L’Escogriffe, 4467 St. Denis, on Wednesday, September 19. The show starts at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Nicky da B

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Bounce” is a booty-oriented hip-hop subgenre created and played mostly in the lower-income neighborhoods of New Orleans. While the lyrics are simple and heavily repeated, Bounce songs are a great excuse to shake your ass (or twirl it, or dip it, et cetera) Little-known outside of NOLA, “Sissy Bounce” is the sub-sub-genre of Bounce created by queer artists including Nicky da B and last year’s Pop selection, Big Freedia.

Through the efforts of Pop and other avenues of dissemination, Bounce is gaining notoriety across North America. High-profile collaborations including Nicky da B and Diplo have helped to spread the good word further.

Check out Nicky’s videos for an introduction into the riotous and sexual New Orleans party culture that Bounce is centered on.

Nicky da B will be playing with Sun Araw and Shaydakiss at Église Pop Little Burgundy, 5035 Ste. Dominique, on Sunday, September 23. The show starts at 11:00 p.m. Tickets are $12.

Grizzly Bear

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f you hadn’t heard “Two Weeks” at least some point in 2009 you may have been living under a rock. Indie darlings Grizzly Bear’s third studio album Veckatimest shot to the top of “best of” lists everywhere with their signature dreamy folk-pop. Marked by heavy bass rifts, perky piano melodies, and multilayered vocals, Grizzly Bear’s sound hits everyone a little bit differently but definitely leaves an impression. The band’s most recent album, Shields has a decidedly more upbeat sound, harkening back to folk legends like Neil Young. Die-hard Grizzly Bear fans will definitely want to check it out, but at $40 a ticket this is one of Pop’s more expensive concerts.

Grizzly Bear will be playing with Unknown Mortal Orchestra at L’Olympia, 1004 Ste. Catherine East, on Sunday, September 23. The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $40.

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culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, September 17, 2012 | mcgilldaily.com

Humour as defiance Kent Monkman brings irreverence to issues of social injustice

Kent Monkman

Miss America, acrylic on canvas, 84” x 132”, 2012

To view this painting in full colour, visit our website: mcgilldaily.com

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he’s mounted side-saddle on an enormous alligator, chest bare, dark hair fluttering in the breeze, feet adorned with strappy, high-heeled sandals in a fetching shade of periwinkle. The figure raises a feather to the sky, face inscrutable as she stares into the distance. She holds court over a baroque, diverse tangle of figures: a basketball player, a British soldier, a mermaid that might be Marilyn Monroe, and a few other half-clad First Nations people of ambiguous gender identity. This is Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, alter-ego of the man who painted her: the halfCree artist, performer, and filmmaker Kent Monkman.

Miss Chief inhabits many facets of Monkman’s work, but in his “Miss America” exhibition at the PierreFrançois Oullette Art Contemporain gallery, her presence is largely felt in the eponymous canvas. The gloriously crowded work incorporates a rich and varied array of symbolism, much of it slyly funny. There is cleverly tweaked Christian imagery (a Catholic priest nervously accepting the one-armed embrace of a mohawked warrior), visual gags about cultural appropriation (a canoe that sports the Mercedes logo on its prow), and spliced gender roles galore (a man sporting both a wolf skin hood and a pale lavender parasol). Still other images are nigh impossible to categorize. See the irate businessman’s car: sprawled over the hood is a young man, his pale, sculpted torso pierced with arrows, presumably the sexualized, homo-

eroticized Saint Sebastian common in Renaissance works. So why is he wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a gun holster? Is that a Chanel logo on his belt buckle? Why is he drowning?

For all his modern subject matter, Monkman draws much of his inspiration from the landscapes of the Hudson River School that flourished in the mid 19th century, citing artists like George Catlin, Paul Kane and Albert Bierstadt. “It was a period of painting in the 19th century where the art really supported the idea of America being like an empty wilderness or an open paradise,” Monk said in a phone interview with The Daily. “And they’re mostly empty with the occasional animal or native person sprinkled throughout.

The paintings really forced this idea of a vacant land, which sort of gave me the inspiration to go back into [their] work and to reproduce the paintings as faithfully as I could and then insert my own narrative.”

Another prominent influence is the European Old Masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Monkman cites their ability to “tell stories with paintings.” Miss America in particular is a nod to the American section of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s 1752 fresco Allegory of the Planets and Continents, but with the perspective turned on its head. “It was the world through the European’s eye in the 18th century, imagining the four continents,” Monkman says. “Of course he had never been to Africa or America, so his paintings are mostly fantasy and I think that’s what really drew me to them: the imagination of the artist, the power of the artist to create his own vision of the world.” In the case

of Tiepolo, it is a largely inaccurate vision. “So I wanted to revisit The Four Continents. I wanted to think about a contemporary version of globalism and how consumer culture and corporate culture have impacted indigenous people on the various continents… I wanted to revisit that series of paintings through the aboriginal lens.”

There are, of course, other paintings present. Hidden in the back of the gallery are Apollo and Hyacinth and Achilles and Patroclus, mirror images of a waterfall surrounded by lush greenery, the small figures that lend the works their titles lounging near the bottom. The perpendicular wall displays Winnetou & Shatterhand, characters from a popular 19th century German novels, and Tonto & The Lone Ranger. These are parallel versions of the previous two classical references, imagined in lush HD video, complete with sound effects and live-action portrayals of the characters. The comparison drawn here, between popular white portrayals of Aboriginal peoples and their older, classier character analogs, says more about the creators of the characters than the people they were trying to portray.

If there’s any drawback to the show, it might be the arrangements of the works, perhaps due to the limitations of the space. Miss America, in all its titanic glory, demands the largest wall in the gallery, which just so happens to be the first wall visible upon entry. This has the unfortunate side effect of frontloading the exhibition’s climax, and rendering everything else a bit of a letdown. This isn’t to say that Descent into Amnesia or Flow isn’t on the same level as their flashy sister. No, they’re just a bit

quieter, a bit more subtle and narrowly focused. They are certainly not done justice by being drowned out with the cognitive noise of Miss America.

Monkman’s work can be described with an array of descriptors prefixed by “post”: post-colonial, post-modern, maybe even post-heteronormative.

It’s commentary on commentary: the Aboriginal view of the white colonialist view of the Aboriginals. It all comes back to Miss Chief, a Zelig-like figure, inserting herself in different cultural and historical contexts, overpowering and seducing the white explorers and cowboys who think they’re in charge of things and offering a knowing, victorious wink to the fourth wall. For a while now, Monkman’s been donning heels, wig, and headdress to allow her to venture into the 3D world during performance art pieces that have appeared all over Canada, and as far as the UK. She has even released her own disco single – “Dance to Miss Chief,” which you can download at kentmonkman.com. Miss Chief is her own unique way of exploring power, sex and the history of the “New World.” “For me it was also about making sex and sexuality something more celebratory and something more empowering,” the artist says of his saucier alternate persona. “I wanted Miss Chief to sort of be a super hero, to triumph over the sexual repression that happened in our cultures.”

And really, who could reject the aid of a warrior against injustice when they look that great in fuchsia?

“Miss America” runs to September 22 at the Pierre-Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain at 372 Ste. Catherine O., #216.

Culture HAPS

Hillary Pasternak Culture Writer

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

September 18 8:00 p.m.

Cabaret du Mile End 5240 Parc At the door $20, advance $16 Ariel Pink is a Los Angelesbased musician that has progressed from lo-fi bedroompop roots to become the leader of his own band signed to 4AD records. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti’s 2010 album Before Today marked a turn towards more accessible and successful alt-guitar pop. A cut from that album, Round and Round, became Pitchfork’s song of the year. Pink’s most recent effort, Mature Themes, came out last month to critical acclaim.

Verdi’s La Traviata

September 18, 20, 22 7:30 p.m.

Salle Wilfrid Pelletier Place des Arts Tickets: General $51, Student $30 (if you buy tickets to two shows) L’Opéra de Montréal is presenting Verdi’s popular opera about an ill-fated romance between Violetta, a noble courtesan, and Alfredo, a gentleman. The timeless theme of star-crossed lovers makes the show a favourite and accessible to anyone. Opening night is already sold out. For anyone looking for a break from pounding club music, better act fast and get tickets to this classic tale.

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cover design Hera Chan contributors Hannah Besseau, Julia Boshyk, Edna Chan, Alexander Chang, Akanksa Chaubal, Marcello Ferrara, Anna Foran, Waseem Haja, Jennifer Laura Lee, Esther Lee, Ariel Lieberman, Jamie MacLean, Isabella Mancini, Paul Meldrum, Hillary Pasternak, Shannon Palus, Jordan Venton-Rublee, Emily Saul, Dana Wray, Ethan Yang, Doris Zhu

19

Short of breath, short on logic On June 29, the Liberal Party of Quebec announced a $58 million loan to assist in reopening the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Asbestos, Quebec.

Now, months after that announcement and a subsequent Parti Québécois announcement that they would reverse Charest’s decision, the federal government has finally promised $50 million of investments to diversify the economic activities of towns like Asbestos, which have suffered since the closing of the mine.

Quebec, once a leading global exporter of asbestos, has had a lengthy, historical, and torrid love affair with the product. It has not simply lined the walls and pipes of Quebecers’ homes; it has lined the pockets of their executives, politicians, and institutions – including McGill – as well.

Charest’s announcement of the reopening was largely seen as a populist attempt to engender Liberal support in the riding around Asbestos – and it worked: the riding encompassing Asbestos elected a Liberal candidate.

But the Liberal government was only one investor in the re-opening project headed by Bernard Coulombe, president of the Jeffrey mine.

Charest’s loan was contingent on additional private financing of $25 million. This financing came from Baljit Chadha and Bernard Coulombe, under a company named Mineral Fibre Inc., and a Thai investment company, which has sold asbestos roofing sourced from Quebec for twenty years.

It must be mere coincidence that Baljit Chadha, the president of Balcorp (and husband of a former McGill Board of Governors member) threw a fundraiser in 2009 at his Westmount home for the PLQ, and that in 2010, he chummed around with Charest on a trade mission in India in 2010.

Supporters of asbestos are not naive, nor are they blind to the negative publicity Asbestos received that led to its fall from grace. They now posit that a different form of asbestos – called chrysotile – is less dangerous, and therefore justified to produce and export. This claim has been assisted by work done at McGill between the 1960s and 1970s by professor John Corbett McDonald, now retired. According to a CBC documentary which aired last year – amidst much protest from McGill and others involved – McDonald received over $1 million from the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA) for his research into chyrsotile asbestos. Last year, Dimitri Soudas, Stephen Harper’s communications director, expressed his party’s support of the industry when he told reporters, “All scientific reviews clearly confirm that chrysotile fibres can be used safely under controlled conditions.” As of last week, the federal government has conceded that asbestos is dangerous, but this “realization” is too little, too late. While less dangerous than other types of asbestos, chrysolite asbestos has still been known to increase rates of lung cancer nine-fold.

Local support of the plan to reopen the Jeffrey mine, which would bring around 400 jobs to Asbestos residents, is more understandable if one considers the economic risk inherent in single-industry towns and cities.

Premier-elect Pauline Marois (PQ) has wisely promised that the money pledged by Charest will go to economic diversification in the region, and the federal government has added its support, but in Quebec politics, things don’t always translate. As a spokesperson for the mine told the Montreal Gazette last week, “Look, we have an agreement with the government, work is continuing, and we have no further comment.”

Errata In the article “PGSS talks provincial elections, strike, and academic year” (September 13), The Daily mistakenly attributed a statement to Alexandra Turnbull instead of PGSS Equity Commissioner Gretchen King.

In the article “The Daily talks with prospective LCP leadership candidate” (September 13), The Daily published a picture that depicted Stéphane Dion instead of David Bertschi.

In the article “Canada-Iran tensions boil over” (September 13), The Daily misspelled MISA VP External David Salimi’s name as David Salmi.

The Daily regrets the errors.

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compendium!

The McGill Daily Monday, September 17, 2012 mcgilldaily.com

20

lies, half-truths, and SCUMBAG LIBERALS

Liberals proclaim victory Totally miss point The Copper Cobra The Twice-a-Weekly

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n a stunning display of ignorance as to the true meaning of social struggle, trillions of Quebec liberals threw away their red squares and proclaimed victory over la hausse. Unaware that their victory had been secured by a bigoted populist who doesn’t really give a shit about anything more than gaining power, liberals could be seen celebrating their victory over all forms of oppression, across the world and forever, now that they had finished playing a marginal role in an incomplete social movement.

“I was kind of worried that eventually I’d have to actually do picketing or condemn excessive police violence,” said second year PoliSci shitbag Wyatt Priveledge, talking through a haze of free trade coffee vapor, “but then democracy triumphed, and we won free edu...well we totally

increased accessi....erm…nous avons bloqué la hausse!”

Campus conservatives, back from a summer of polishing Capital’s boots aboard the S.S. Marlapunt Hull, were surprisingly overjoyed at the news. “It’s true that we might have to spend another year or two sitting next to poor people in classes,” said Bencer Purger over the phone while bathing in rendered hog fat, “but the truth of the matter is that those bird-brained liberals are going to deflate their own movement and kill it with inertia. Then we just have to wait for the PQ to reinstate the hike and laugh as they shrug their shoulders waiting for another election! BLAM-O, you fools!”

In related news, The Copper Cobra™ is back. Hiss, hiss, Muggles.

The bite is back.

The Copper Cobra is a blood relative of the Platinum Python and is married to the Silver Serpent. Bite, constrict, swallow.

Serving you better... sometimes McGill finally, publicly admits its incompetence Fureza Kyaroru The Twice-a-Weekly

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enovations continue... indeed. You thought we lived in Quebec? A nation within Canada? No, since even before the PQ win in the elections last week, McGill has been in a different nation entirely: renovation nation. Yet, it is not the land of prosperity, justice, and nonfluctuating temperatures that we each hoped for when we gazed longingly at those admissions brochures years ago, during that summer before first year. No, it is a land where expectations are modest. McGill aims to serve us better, that is for sure. But only sometimes. Which times exactly?

The times when you really need

that coursepack for that class you never went to and you suddenly realize the midterm is tomorrow only to find out that someone else has taken it out and the return time is after the g*d d*mn loans desk closes? Or is it the time when all of lower McTavish is flooded with water and McGill security can only stand in awe at the California-trained surfers who study in our midst?

W hy doesn’t McGill just actually ser ve us...you know... like, drinks?

Sometimes serving us better takes a hammer, they proclaim.

Sometimes it just takes getting hammered.

If a coffee is drunk in a forest does anybody eat cookies? WHO THE FUCK KNOWS?

McGill loves you. Love it. Be with it. Be in it. You are it. Don’t stop.

Fuck this Cicholon Nameras The McGill Daily

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UCK THIS Wait... how did you? Oh my god! Oh my fucking god. Come on, Brian! Are you kidding me!? There is NO WAY you’re allowed to look on someone’s screen when

you’re playing HALO. Dude, no you can’t. NO YOU CAN’T! I SAID NO YOU CAN’T! As if “its totally legal.” Whatever... (six seconds pass)... That is such bullshit, Brian, and you know it. What!?

Nobody else is doing it... What do you mean “we never officially said we couldn’t” its like the UNWRITTEN LAW of HALO. You are such a

jerk, Brian. There is no way I am letting you sleep over this weekeWHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SNIPE ME AGAIN!? Stop looking on my screen!

Got something you want to get off your chest? A rant? Anything?

Email fuckyeah@mcgilldaily.com to submit.