Vol102Iss25

Volume 102, Issue 25

January 17, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

DAILY Valued and principled since 1911

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

PAGES 4, 6-10, 15

NEWS

The McGill Daily Thursday, January 17, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

02 NEWS

100 Arts classes to be eliminated

Idle No More faces criticism

Arts senator alleges cuts are punishment for Course Lecturer unionization

Montreal paramedics end strike Masi talks university financing at SSMU Council

06 COMMENTARY The meaning of Idle No More Allyship and Idle No More

Preventing bullying in Montreal

08 FEATURES

Idle No More, the media, and McGill

11

HEALTH&ED

Brain-related sports injuries The problem with advanced standing

13

CULTURE

Mile End talk show The western, deconstructed Japanese food worth the wait

15

EDITORIAL

Why you should support Idle No More

16 COMPENDIUM!

2

Juan Camilo VelĂĄsquez The McGill Daily

D

ean of Arts Christopher Manfredi announced last Wednesday at a Faculty of Arts Committee meeting that as many as 100 classes in the Faculty of Arts are set to be terminated for the 2013-2014 academic year. The number represents 8 per cent of Arts courses.

The cuts have been under consideration since September of last year.

According to Manfredi, smaller classes currently taught by fulltime professors will be cut, and the professors moved to larger lectures at the expense of the temporary course lecturers currently teaching them.

In an email to The Daily, Manfredi wrote that that the objective was to “increase the proportion of Arts courses and students taught by permanent, full-time faculty members.� “Whenever possible and reasonable, our Arts courses ought to be taught by permanent, full-time faculty members rather than temporary teaching staff,� he wrote.

Each individual department within the Faculty of Arts will decide how

to achieve the objective. “One way to achieve this objective is to ask permanent, full-time faculty members to teach slightly fewer of the lower enrolment courses and to teach instead more of the larger introductory and intermediate courses that are often currently being taught by temporary teaching staff (called course lecturers at McGill). Another way to achieve this objective is to rotate lower enrolment courses on a two or three year basis. Yet another way is to replace several lower enrolment courses with a more broadly defined slot course,� wrote Manfredi.

The move, according to Manfredi, will save the faculty money that will then be put directly into other teaching support like Teaching Assistants (TAs) and activities like internship programs and student advising. “Additional TAs and TA-ships will mean more financial support for graduate students, smaller conference sections, better undergraduate student access to certain courses, and more time for professors to have substantive interactions with students,� stated Manfredi.

AGSEM – McGill’s Teaching Union President Lilian Radovac told

The Daily that she was surprised and disappointed by the decision. The union is composed of three units: course lecturers, invigilators, and teaching assistants. “No one from the faculty spoke with the union that represents course lecturers at McGill, even to give us a heads-up, let alone to consult with us on this move,� said Radovac.

The course lecturers unit of the union was certified in August 2011 and is currently negotiating their first collective agreement with the University. According to Radovac, the decision of cutting classes was not addressed during negotiations with the administration.

Arts Senator James Gutman told The Daily that he believed the administration is “punishing course lecturers for unionizing.� “What this does is pit course lecturers against TAs, because they’re saying: ‘we’re going to cut course lecturers but we’re going to give it to TAs’,� he said.

Radovac stated that AGSEM stands united in its opposition to these cuts. “[The teaching assistant unit in AGSEM] is aware of the fact that McGill does not deal fairly with any of its employee groups and

they’ve had twenty years of experience learning that.�

Radovac also stated that the decision to cut smaller classes will negatively affect the quality of education at McGill. “We don’t have enough [small classes] as it is, our students are crying out for more intimate learning settings and instead of giving more opportunity to learn in a smaller class environment with more oneon-one time with their instructors, the university is now going to give them less of that.�

Arts Undergraduate Society VP Academic Tom Zheng believes that “courses should not be cut, students should have access to a diversity of courses.�

Zheng also mentioned that while he encouraged an increase in the number of TAs to reduce the TA to student ratio, classes should not be cut to achieve this. “Both [increase in TA and course lecturers] should be done without one affecting the other,� he said.

The decision-making process is still ongoing and a Town Hall meeting – planned by the AUS – for the Dean and students to discuss is planned for January 22.

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news

3

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 17, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Administration withdraws proposed protocol Statement of “values” on free expression to be released Lola Duffort The McGill Daily

T

he McGill administration has abandoned plans for a permanent protocol regulating campus protests, following a condemnation from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).

The CCLA’s statement reads that the organization has “significant concerns about the extent to which [the protocol] pr otects freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association on campus and whether it assists members of the community in understanding the limits being placed on these rights.”

“We’re claiming this as a victory for everybody who worked to oppose the protocol,” said Lilian Radovac, the president of AGSEM – McGill’s Teaching Union.

Although the administration’s announcement said that its decision came solely as a result of the consultation process, Radovac believes it was much more likely that “the confluence of the opposition from the unions, the media attention, and ultimately criticism from a national civil liberties group that […] lead to such a dramatic about-face.”

Despite campus unions and student groups raising similar concerns during the initial consultation process, the administration released a proposed version of the protocol reflecting no substantive changes to the university-wide community on November 30.

The administration’s announcement released yesterday states that “the McGill community will be best served by an agreed-upon statement of values and principles, rather than a protocol of operating

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

procedures, which, by definition, must be sensitive to context and determined by judgment,” and that it will now embark on a second consultation process.

Radovac added that for AGSEM, “the issue won’t be fully resolved until the provisional protocol is officially revoked […] there should be no protocol at McGill.”

The provisional protocol was first introduced in February of 2012, immediately following the five-day occupation of Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson’s office in the James Administration building. According to the email that first released the protocol, it was to

“remain in effect until further notice.”

Late Wednesday, members of the administration could not say whether or not the provisional protocol was still in effect.

The CCLA statement was dated January 8, posted to the CCLA’s website, and sent to Provost Anthony Masi and VP (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa via the email address provided during the protocol’s consultation process. According to Cara Faith Zwibel, the CCLA’s Fundamental Freedoms Program director and the statement’s author, the CCLA never received a response from

the University.

Last week, the protocol received even more off-campus attention when a Montreal Gazette article reported on U3 philosophy student Eli Freedman’s grievance to Senate about the protocol, and quoted McGill alumnus and prominent civil rights lawyer Julius Grey as noting an increasingly harsh attitude about campus dissent at McGill.

Anti-protocol campus mobilization had been underway since last February and intensified after a revised version was released to campus unions and student groups for consultation in November. The new version included a definition

of what would be deemed a “peaceful” demonstration.

Campus unions and student groups published letters in student and the Montreal press, which in turn published critical editorials. Several student associations voted to condemn the protocol.

AGSEM launched a website last week, endorsed by campus unions MUNACA and AMUSE, as well as the Philosophy Students’ Association, compiling information and press clippings about the protocol, and promoting a protest that was to be staged January 23 – the same day that the protocol was to go before Senate.

Campus groups organize against provincial budget cuts Professors’ union publicly denounce decision Hannah Besseau The McGill Daily

P

ressure on the provincial government is escalating as Quebec universities begin to mobilize against the $124 million budget cut initiated by the Parti Québécois (PQ).

The budget cut came as surprise to universities across the province when it was announced last month, in the middle of the 2012 fiscal year.

Student and administrative groups across campus are starting to mobilize their opposition to the cuts.

Alvin Shrier, president of the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) talked to The Daily about publicly denouncing

the budgetary restraints.

“People have to stand up and speak with a loud voice. For the government to expect a university to come to a substantial cut late in the fiscal year while preparing for something different – well it’s hard to imagine the government doing that on itself,” he said.

MAUT sent a motion to all parties concerned as well as the Montreal Gazette at the end of last year. The motion calls for “all universities, student associations and faculty unions and associations to establish a unified and common position in demanding a reversal of the budget policy on higher education and research put forward by the Quebec Government.”

Quebec universities are now

faced with cuts of up to 15 per cent over the next four months, according to the MAUT motion.

Shrier expressed concern over what kind of cuts McGill would implement, fearing students services will be the first to face adjustments.

“I could see some of the first cuts we’ll see will be on student services,” he said.

The McGill University NonAcademic Certified Association (MUNACA) has also reacted to the cuts.

“It is completely unreasonable that these cuts are retroactive, made well after university budgets have been set. McGill’s budget includes a recently signed collective agreement and a soon to be signed pay equity agreement,

both of which MUNACA and McGill achieved with help from government conciliators,” read MUNACA’s official statement.

“No matter how universities might make these cuts, they will be damaging to the core functions of universities, which will ultimately be damaging to the province generally.”

The cuts were announced nearly two months before the upcoming summit on higher education slated for late February. SSMU VP External Robin-Reid Fraser expressed concern about the effects of these cuts on the summit.

“The impression given before was that all options were on the table, to be discussed in a constructive way…it was very poor timing on the government’s part”.

SSMU will be releasing a state-

ment on the matter shortly, but indicated a consensus of discontentment with the cuts.

The Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) also pointed to the summit in their own press release stating: “With the Quebec Summit on Higher Education to be held in February, these cuts undermine the Government’s credibility to genuinely address the issue of higher education funding.”

PGSS is calling for the Quebec government to reverse their decision on the university cuts.

Principal Heather MunroeBlum will be participating in a pre-summit meeting on January 17 and January 18 on the topic of governance and financing of universities. The meeting will be held at Université de Sherbrooke.

4

NEWS

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 17, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Mohawk Traditional Council declines to endorse Idle No More Role of Assembly of First Nations questioned Carla Green The McGill Daily

P

rotest rhetoric tends to err on the side of boundless optimism, but when Stuart Myiow stood up in front of the crowd of hundreds at the Idle No More protest last Friday, he bluntly broke the mold.

“The Mohawk Traditional Council (MTC) can’t directly support the Idle No More movement,” he said, reading from the statement that the Council had released that day. Myiow is a temporary Wolf Clan representative of the Council.

The MTC statement goes on to outline its criticisms of the Idle No More movement, saying it has “too many voices saying too many different things, including some radical and controversial demands, allowing those responsible for the problems…to hijack the movement.”

Initially, the crowd didn’t seem

to register the potentially controversial content of the statement, which, like the other speeches that day, was peppered with cheers and applause.

Wahéhshon Shiann Whitebean is a female chief on the Mohawk Traditional Council and one of the co-signatories of the statement. She explained why she saw the breadth of opinions in Idle No More as problematic.

“People are standing up, but they don’t know what to do to make a difference, which is why there needs to be leadership and direction,” she said. “If Idle No More is the beginning of something, it would be good to see people take it somewhere.”

Melissa Mollen-Dupuis, a Montreal-based Indigenous rights activist and one of the march’s organizers, said that she thought it was really important that the MTC have a say, even “if we don’t agree with everything they have to say.”

“I’m not scared of people not

being okay with the movement, that’s for sure. I think it would be more scary if everyone agreed with everything.”

In response to the criticism of there being too many voices in the movement for it to accomplish anything, Mollen-Dupuis said that she saw Idle No More’s ideological openness as one of its greatest strengths.

“Idle No More definitely has a lot of voices and a lot of different ideas. They can see that as a negative thing, but I see it as a very positive thing,” she said. “Voices are like twigs: if you have one twig it will break, but many twigs won’t break as easily. People might want to have a clear unilateral voice that says the same thing, but that’s not going to happen.”

The Mohawk Traditional Council of Kahnawake co-exists with its Mohawk Band Council. The latter is one of 630 Canadian First Nation band councils whose chiefs are represented by the Assembly

of First Nations (AFN), the current governing structure of First Nations on the federal level. In the past, some of the band councils have suffered heavy criticism after charges of corruption and failing to be properly representative.

Contrary to the electoral system by which a native community’s band council is formed, traditional councils’ representatives are nominated by clan mothers and confirmed through consensus.

The MTC’s statement listed a series of demands, including that band councillors fight to “dissolve the structure of the AFN, […] formally pull out of the self-government agreement [and] dissolve the elective band council system.”

Joe Delaronde is a spokesperson for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, on Montreal’s south shore. He acknowledged that the AFN has had its share of problems in the past, but doesn’t see the dissolution of the Assembly as a viable road to solving the problems

of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

“The AFN is not perfect, the council system is not perfect, but is there any other body that brings Native peoples together? I don’t see one,” he said in a phone interview with The Daily. “If people don’t like the AFN, I invite them to come up with some other method that brings people together and gives them a chance to have a voice about issues of national importance.”

Whitebean, however, said that complete dissolution of the structure of the Assembly of First Nations and of the band council system is a perfectly reasonable and realistic goal.

“It would be stupid to support anyone in the band council system because it’s something that has destroyed our people,” she said.

“The elected system does not work for our people. In fact, we’ve been contacted by other nations to help them set up their own traditional councils.”

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news

5

The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 17, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Paramedics end two-week administrative strike Union unanimously endorses tentative deal to its members Farid Rener The McGill Daily

Q

uebec’s paramedic workers ended their two-and-a-halfweek symbolic strike last Friday. A tentative agreement was reached after three days of intense negotiations between Quebec’s Minister of Health and Social Services, Dr. Réjean Hébert, and negotiators for the 2,500 paramedical employees affiliated with labour federation Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN).

Quebec’s paramedics have been without a contract since March 2010.

The agreement, which was announced by Hébert last Thursday, still needs to be ratified by individual union members.

A resounding 71 per cent of the union’s members voted down a previous tentative agreement between the CSN and the province in October 2012, but Jeff Begley, president of the Federation of Health and Social Services of the CSN, told The Daily that he expects a different outcome this time.

“The delegates received the information on the agreement and unanimously decided to recommend it to the members,” Begley said.

Regional general assemblies of CSN members started across the province on Tuesday. “We expect that in the next two weeks the agreement will be ratified, and signed in the days that follow,” Begley said.

The strike, which started on December 24, was the first legal strike

ever undertaken by the paramedics.

Paramedical services are deemed to be an essential service under the Essential Services Act, which meant that strikers were legally responsible for providing 100 per cent of their normal services. Instead of reducing emergency ambulance services, the strike was administrative, with paramedics refusing to completely fill out insurance forms.

“When you call an ambulance, somebody pays for it – either your insurance, or Quebec auto insurance, or you personally. There are papers that have to be filled out so that whoever has to be billed, can be billed. Those are the kinds of papers that weren’t completely filled out,” Begley told The Daily.

The CBC reported that paramedics had stopped telling hospitals when non-urgent cases were brought in, making work harder for their emergency room staff.

Apparently, this was especially tough during the end of December, when there were an abnormally large number of patients suffering from the seasonal flu.

However, a representative from the McGill University Health Centre, which runs six teaching hospitals in the Montreal region, including the Montreal General Hospital, told The Daily that patient care was unaffected by the strike.

The Essential Services Act meant extra work for the striking ambulance technicians, since complaints about a diminishment of service from the public could have meant fines for the union. “That means that we have to

Montreal paramedics ended a two-week strike. have teams that, even though they aren’t working, they have to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

That is a lot of work,” Begley said.

In an attempt to make the strike visible to members of the public, ambulances were decorated with colourful signs that read: “En Grève” – “on strike” in French.

The union’s strike tactic, which included demonstrations throughout the province, seemed to speed up negotiations, which have been ongoing since February 2011. “We did notice since the beginning of the strike that the government has been

Photo Laurent Bastien Corbeil | The McGill Daily

feeling more and more pressured to come to an agreement,” Begley said.

In a press release, Hébert said that he was proud that an agreement, satisfactory to all parties, was found. “Finding common ground was a big challenge,” he added.

The new collective agreement, if ratified, will reduce the number of pay scales from 16 to 14, allowing paramedics to reach the top of pay scale two years earlier. This is still far from parity with other provinces, which the union was initially seeking, where it takes on average five years to reach the maximum pay scale.

The paramedic’s previous contract also stipulated that paramedics were not being paid extra for the first half-hour of overtime. “This was a rather strange clause,” Begley said, “from now on – at the end of the regular eight-hour day if you have to stay and work longer, you are paid timeand-a-half.”

Changes have also been made to the pension plan, where accrued benefits have been increased from 0.8 per cent of a paramedic’s salary per year to 0.85 per cent per year.

The new agreement, if ratified, will be up for renegotiation in 2015.

Admin talks university finances at SSMU Council Motions call for more transparency in the education system Esther Lee and Dana Wray The McGill Daily

S

SMU Legislative Council discussed university financing and the state of education in Quebec at their first meeting of 2013.

The meeting opened with a financial management report from Provost Anthony Masi, who spent the better part of half an hour answering SSMU VP External Robin Reid-Fraser’s question about whether Quebec universities were truly underfunded or just mismanaged.

Masi’s response focused on the changing directives given to McGill from the provincial government over the course of the year. “If there’s anything being mismanaged, it’s the way government have asked universities to prepare their budgets,” he said.

Masi stated that the Parti Québécois’ (PQ) decision to abolish the tuition increase slated for September meant a loss of $7 million

in expected revenue for the University.

He continued that McGill was pushed to cut an additional 5.2 per cent from its annual budget following the PQ’s controversial December announcement that universities in the province retroactively cut $124 million from their costs.

Because the decision was announced so late in the fiscal year – and because the province expects the savings to be realized by April 2013 – the administration argues that the cut will amount to 15 per cent for the remainder of the fiscal year.

“Our underfunding is real this year. Absolutely real…because we’ve had four different messages to prepare our budget…I don’t think that’s financial mismanagement on the part of the university,” Masi stated.

The themes of university financing and the state of education in Quebec continued with two motions introduced by Reid-Fraser.

The first, the motion regarding an alternative education summit,

was amended to instead call for an états généraux.

“An alternative education summit could have been quite interesting, but it would have required a great deal of resources on the part of us, [Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ)], and whoever else were to be involved,” Reid-Fraser said in an email to The Daily.

An états généraux is a process of consultation spanning from a year to 18 months which the Quebec National Assembly would be responsible for commissioning and funding, which would include the participation of student associations across the province.

Reid-Fraser said that the period of time provided by the états généraux would allow for more discussion, and the creation of a clearer collective vision than the current education summit.

Reid-Fraser intimated that the process was long overdue. “We haven’t had an examination of higher education in Quebec since the Parent

Commission in the 1960s,” she said.

In light of the amendments to the motion regarding an alternative education summit, the motion regarding états généraux was amended to ask for a comparative audit of university finances in Quebec.

“There doesn’t seem to be an overall picture of university financing,” Reid-Fraser said at Council.

She suggested a comparative approach rather than the current focus on individual institutions.

SSMU President Josh Redel clarified the wording and intent of the motion. “I think here the term ‘audit’ is trying to get at the core of why we spend on certain things. …When you say you want more transparency, that’s like seeing it, and I think the audit is next step where we now investigate it.”

The motion regarding états généraux was tabled indefinitely to allow time for more research.

Reid-Fraser told The Daily that she would be working with the

SSMU External Affairs Committee and Political Attaché & Researcher so that the demands can be brought to TaCEQ and to the provincial government.

Two motions regarding SSMU by-laws 13.6.1 and 13.6.3, which deal with regulations on club status and membership, were passed with no opposition. VP Clubs & Services Allison Cooper told Council that she intended for the by-law amendments to open full status to clubs with a more unconventional structure.

A motion regarding the removal of Queer McGill’s undergraduate fund by-law passed as well. Cooper explained that the elimination of the by-law allowed for a more efficient discretionary system for allocating internal funds.

A motion regarding an amendment to the Elections SSMU electoral timeline passed with no opposition.

The electoral timeline will now take into account reading week in March.

commentary

The McGill Daily Thursday, January 17, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

6

It’s about people, not politics Idle No More and the importance of action Jessica Barudin Commentary Writer

I

dle No More is a collective shift in thinking and being that has manifested as broad social and political action to challenge state agendas, authorities, and institutions. At its core, Idle No More is rooted in unity and represents a transformation or restoration to ways of being in the world as an Indigenous person. This is a historical turning point for an emerging wave of Indigenous activism that aims to tackle environmental and human rights issues. It has spread like wildfire around the world and although there are gaps in direction, it appears to have reached a breaking point for Indigenous people, and there will be no further idling.

The list goes on of collaborative events between Indigenous nations and respective allies (grassroots supporters, environmentalists, human rights activists) who are working cooperatively to maintain the momentum of the Idle No More movement.

The relatively recent coverage of the movement by the mainstream media does little justice to representing views alternative to those of the Harper government and even to those of the Assembly of

First Nations (AFN). The flurry of stories has thus far succeeded in confusing the general public with tried and true tactics of political distraction by overwhelming both supporters and opposition with erroneous information.

As Malcolm X stated: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” – this is exemplified by the ongoing media attacks and finger pointing amongst appointed leadership.

Although the problems were initiated in the past, they remain unacknowledged as a national tragedy today, a complete failure of human accountability and decency. Things have morphed over the past few centuries, but the legacy of colonization remains on a variety of levels – so how do Indigenous people decolonize? Well, that is the burning multi-billion dollar question at stake – finding solutions for this goal has continuously been challenged since the identification of the ‘Indian problem.’ Through a means more calculated than you or I can imagine, the institutional powers that control our glorious home and native land will never genuinely support these solutions. Instead, the current structure will continue to create

ed

animosity and tension to distract us from our greater, collective goals as Indigenous nations and Canadian allies.

We must get at the fundamental issues, not the symptoms. The root of the problem is structural and is the direct result of a longstanding process of deculturation, a disconnect from sources of traditional teachings.

This is the colonized mind and soul, and its deleterious effects are profound – many generations have the burden of inheriting this deep-rooted pain, and they must be given the respect and support to confront these issues to heal on their own time.

A wise man once told me, “You don’t get rehab from the drug dealer; you cannot expect the person who broke it to fix it.”

That is precisely what Indigenous people are up against: a battle to restore the balance in all nations, a fight to extract the harmful control of the federal government upon each nation, which is an extremely complex and sensitive process that ultimately interferes with the goal of sustaining sovereign nations.

The static political and legal definitions of Indigenous identities (i.e. Aboriginal, a state-sanctioned definition) are methods used to control every aspect of Indigenous lives, an entity rectified by the treacherous Indian Act. For a succinct account of the Indian Act, search YouTube for “Pam Palmater – Idle No More,” for her poignant analysis. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin stated that the “Indian Act is racist and should be abolished.” Regardless of these abhorrent definitions pertaining to identity, Indigenous peoples have and always will fight to live in accordance with their respective customs, laws, and traditions – this cannot be dictated by the Canadian and provincial governments, nor by a handful of elected ‘Chiefs.’

Indigenous peoples are sovereign nations with the inherent right to self-determination.

However, we are intrinsically divided and unique, and therefore unification may not be possible. Over time and through sustained movement, we can restore our nations by adapting culturally sound strategies. The key is movement – we just need movement to start the process of healing the rifts to collectively push for the cultivation of respectful relationships for all interactions between individuals, families, clans, traditional territories, plants, and animals. This is a spiritual revolution,

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

a resurgence of Indigenous peoples – although that appears very cryptic to most of us, the nature of this movement works on a continuum of growing consciousness or re-awakening.

The most inspiring aspect of this movement is the involvement of Indigenous youth. Each child aware and actively involved in this movement brings promise for restoring healthy, sustainable Indigenous communities. The well-known American Indian Movement activist Russell Means said: “…I’d much rather get across the concept of freedom. It’s what’s important to Indian children. The only way you can be free is to know that you are worthwhile as a distinct human being. Otherwise you become what the colonizers have designed…Get in line, punch all the right keys, and die.” These kids have a beautiful capacity for understanding and sharing the concept of freedom, or rather contributing to the foundations of resistance for being Indigenous in this tenuous time, including being grounded in family and community, nurturing connection to land, and learning language, traditional knowledge, and spirituality.

From what I see, there is a lot of work to be done, but a few small successes can and will spur action to revitalize our spiritual and cultural foundations as strong nations.

My greatest fear is that everything will remain the same or worsen, and the Idle No More movement will lose its momentum. The signif-

icant dates #J11 [January 11], #J16, and #J28 will quickly come and go; therefore, lasting change comes from one’s personal commitment to transformation.

I have made my education my priority and therefore I am not in a position to return to my community. It has and always will be a painful tradeoff of career advancement over cultural connection. To counteract and involve myself with the Idle No More movement, I follow a variety of Indigenous and allied voices, rather than mainstream media, and this has become a daily necessity. Drawing upon many perspectives (while avoiding ignorant and racist remarks), enables me to raise awareness and have conversation with others more or less knowledgeable on the issues than myself. To move forward, we must engage and utilize all of the talents of the people within our communities to begin a process of regeneration. This involves but is not limited to: instilling mentoring and learning relationships that foster real and meaningful human development and community solidarity; using our Indigenous languages to frame our thoughts; and moving away from political agendas and toward traditional philosophies. Everyone has a purpose – we need movement.

Gila’kasla.

Jessica Barudin is a Kwakwaka’wakw Graduate student, Representative of the Indigenous Student Alliance of McGill and the McGill First Peoples’ House. Send responses to jessica. barudin@mail.mcgill.ca.

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Decolonize yourself The creative/destructive potential of allies Mona Luxion Through the Looking Glass

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ll across my Facebook feed, Twitter, and the editorial pages of the country’s more left-leaning newspapers, white settlers are donning red feathers and declaring “I support Idle No More!” Congratulations, friends. Have a cookie for acknowledging oppression exists, and that those who experience it have a right to resist. (Give the cookie back if your comment was along the lines of “I support Idle No More, but...”)

All snarking aside, I think those of us who think of ourselves as activists, leftists, progressives, or just all-around tolerant people, need to talk about allyship. Being an ally means supporting the struggles of those who experience a form of oppression you benefit from.

Rule number one is that you listen to the people you’re supporting.

You can offer your support, but it’s up to them. They owe you nothing.

Recently, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair urged Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence to end her hunger strike, because in his judgement Stephen Harper’s government had taken “a step in the

right direction.” No one asked for Mulcair’s advice. As a white man and as a politician, his opinion is usually given more weight than that of other people, especially that of a Native woman.

Instead of helping Chief Spence and those he claims to support, he decided that being an ‘ally’ gave him the right to say “this far, and no farther.” That is not allyship, it is entitlement.

Idle No More is a series of events in a long history of struggle for selfdetermination and decolonization on Turtle Island. Although the demands around Bill C-45 are important, we potential supporters need to be aware that this struggle doesn’t end there. Like all liberation struggles, the fight for the liberation of the Native peoples of this continent will not be over until the structures of power that oppress them are destroyed.

Those of us who benefit from those structures will not survive intact.

Should decolonization succeed within his lifetime, Thomas Mulcair, MP, head of the NDP, will no longer exist. Neither will I. (I’m rather looking forward to it.) That is not to imply death or deportation, though either would be payback for centuries of genocide. Rather, the systems of knowledge we believe in, the customs we abide by, the institutions we inhabit, the economy we depend on, the languages we speak, the

identities we claim; all of these are colonial artifacts. Even de-centering them from their assumed positions of neutrality and dominance would shake us to the core. But their place on this continent (and ours by extension) is unearned, and their displacement is a necessity.

This is what we sign up for when we decide to work for the liberation of others. This is not just a matter of keeping the pie intact and giving some oppressed group a slightly bigger slice.

Equality and justice require such massive transformations that those of us who benefit from privileges due to our race, gender, ethnicity, class, ability, sexuality, or anything else will lose ourselves along the way.

But we need not assume that just because others are gaining something we will be worse off. Change is difficult, of course, and even losing things you didn’t need anymore can hurt. But we have a lot to gain. In a recent blog post, Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of student activism, wrote about how being asked to name his preferred pronouns – a first step towards trans* liberation – gave him a sense of possibility and freedom, even though he generally benefits from everyone assuming his gender correctly.

Liberation struggles are, first and foremost, necessary for peo-

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

ple who experience oppression.

Obviously. But those of us with various privileges can also benefit from freedom from the structures we’ve been bound up in. Only, getting there requires listening to people we’re not used to hearing when they say things we don’t want to hear, holding our tongue when we want to claim ‘but we’re not all like that,’ standing up to our powerful friends and colleagues when they perpetuate oppression, and yes, embracing our own destruction.

On that last point, a note: saying “Yo, fuck white people” doesn’t erase your white privilege.

Believing that you, as a straight person, shouldn’t speak for queer people doesn’t absolve you from standing up to the homophobes in your classroom who take your silence for approval. Being politically correct is not enough, but shifting our thinking from aiming to be inoffensive to wanting to advance liberation can be a big step in actually getting there. Hear that, Mr. Mulcair?

In Through the Looking Glass, Mona Luxion reflects on activism, current events, and looking beyond identity politics. Email Mona at lookingglass@mcgilldaily.com.

Anti-bullying action Why we must fight for change in schools Julia Devorak Commentary Writer

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n late November 2011, 15-yearold Marjorie Raymond took her own life. Her death shook Quebec, awakening Quebecers to the pervasiveness of bullying in the province’s schools.

A high school student in the tiny northern Quebec town of Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, Raymond was bullied verbally and physically throughout her two and a half years at Gabriel-Le Courtois School. One month before her death, she was reported as having been physically bullied at school by one of her close friends, an incident from which she allegedly never recovered. In the note she wrote before taking her own life, she blamed “jealous people who want only to ruin others’ happiness.” It seems clear that bullying and violence were elements that factored into Marjorie Raymond’s tragic decision.

Two months after Raymond’s death, Bill 56, “An Act to Prevent and Stop Bullying and Violence

in Schools,” was introduced at the National Assembly of the Parliament of Quebec by Minister of Education Line Beauchamp. This bill, which was passed on June 15, 2012, requires that “every [Quebec] public and private educational institution… adopt and implement an anti-bullying and anti-violence plan” that includes preventative and disciplinary measures to end “all forms of bullying and violence.”

Sabrina Nicholson, a third-year Kindergarten and Elementary Education student at McGill, clarifies what Bill 56 means for Montreal elementary schools, based on her three-month field experience at Willington Elementary in the fall of 2012: “The administration…must ensure that their staff is informed about this bill, and then they have to encourage their staff – the teachers – to do something about it.”

In addition to teachers, other school staff members can be involved in putting Bill 56 into action. Frank Lofeodo is a spiritual community animator at four English Montreal School Board schools. He works with both ele-

mentary and high school students to help prevent negative situations from arising in the school environment and has experience implementing a variety of programs to deal with the issues of bullying and violence in response to the passage of Bill 56. At the secondary level, he explains, “we approach the bullying problem through the students.” In other words, their input is used to determine how instances of bullying can be dealt with. Based on student input, John F. Kennedy High School has implemented a program in which students can anonymously bring cases of bullying and repeated perpetrators to the attention of the school’s staff and administrators. Students repeatedly acting in inappropriate ways are paired with volunteer staff members who act as positive behaviour mentors, offering constant support to the students throughout the year. Lofeodo explains that this strategy “[deals] with the behaviour in a positive way, and [encourages] that person to be a productive, positive member of the school community.”

In addition, several other ini-

tiatives are being taken at the secondary level, including pep rallies centered on the issue of bullying, motivational speakers, and Physical Education uniform t-shirts carrying anti-bullying slogans. “It’s an all-encompassing thing we’re trying to do,” says Lofeodo, “to keep [the issue of bullying] in front of their awareness through the year, and to deal with the specific problems when need be…and to get kids involved in a positive way.”

At the elementary level, a number of programs have been implemented at the schools with which Lofeodo is involved, including Peace by P.E.A.C.E, Don’t Laugh at Me, and The Power of One. Peace

by P.E.A.C.E is a nine-week conflict resolution program taught

by McGill student volunteers, which emphasizes concepts such as anti-bullying, inner power, tolerance, and communication through interactive games, skits, and discussions. The goal of the program is to give children the tools to resolve conflicts in a positive manner. Lofeodo believes that the skills taught in the Peace

by P.E.A.C.E program can constitute bullying-prevention tools for elementary school students. He comments that “[the program’s] activities deal with relationships between people, and if you can foster positive relationships…you then diminish bullying.”

Student-run organizations like Peace by P.E.A.C.E testify to the involvement of the McGill community in anti-bullying and anti-violence efforts in Montreal. McGill students can continue contributing to these efforts in the Montreal community by getting involved with such organizations, or by otherwise supporting them. Peace by P.E.A.C.E recruits volunteers each fall semester and hosts several fundraising events to help support their initiatives, like the upcoming annual benefit show taking place at Casa del Popolo on January 18. Why not lend a hand so that the world of tomorrow can be a better, safer, happier place for everyone?

Julia Devorak is the Fundraising Director of Peace by P.E.A.C.E Montreal. She can be reached at julia.devorak@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The willow that weeps no more Text: Hera Chan | Photos: Laurent Bastien Corbeil | Illustration: Amina Batyreva

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he air was cold, sharp, biting. A medicine man was burning sage in a cleansing ceremony and a sacred fire burned in my peripheral. An elder called forth all the women who knew the Willow Song to come share the voices. In my Torontonian grade school, Canada’s history begins with the socalled discovery of the Americas. The Willow Song, as well as many other Inidigenous traditions, was never taught. As the beat of my heart blended with the beat of the drums, I began to understand the immensity of the history I did not know. So I took some notes from the Willow Song: willow trees bend by the force of the wind. They do not break.

Through the smoke of the fire, I could see the slow rush of the Ottawa River and on its noble cliff, Parliament Hill. Samuel de Champlain wrote in his journal on June 14, 1613: “the savages call it Asticou, which means

kettle.” The waterfalls that gave the land its name are no longer there. Today, most call this Algonquin territory Victoria Island, home of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence. A woman who, through her hunger strike – still ongoing at time of writing – is inspiring thousands of people to march for Indigenous rights in the social movement now known as Idle No More.

The grassroots movement brings to light three main goals: the process of decolonization by Indigenous peoples, the reversal of federal omnibus Bill C-45, and the union of Indigenous people and their allies in a collective, nationwide movement. Omnibus Bill C-45 amends 64 acts or regulations, including the Indian Act and several acts regulating natural resource extraction.

Many of the reforms will allow the federal government to streamline projects and profit from Indigenous territories.

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A fellow Daily editor and I arrived on the island the morning of January 11 – one month after Chief Spence began her hunger strike. There was a demonstration planned for that day and buses were already arriving from all over the country with people ready to walk the short distance to Parliament Hill.

The Ontarian band chiefs had convened the day before in Ottawa’s Delta hotel to discuss whether or not to negotiate with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This was our second attempt at getting past the camp gates; a media blackout that had begun the previous Monday kept journalists like us out. We came as students instead, leaving recorder, notebook, and camera behind. (Thus, I won’t be talking about the demonstration inside the camp.)

Before entering the camp, my colleague and I spent a good ten minutes idling among the parked cars, unsure how to respectfully approach a movement we felt was not ours.

A woman wearing traditional indigenous regalia approached us and introduced herself. She laughed with us and chatted amicably about where she was from. “Go make your observations inside,” she said.

A gatekeeper to the camp told us that the media blackout was imposed because of the harm mainstream media had done to the movement. He had been on the island since the first day of Chief Spence’s hunger strike.

Since December 11, Chief Spence has been the face of what has been described as a battle between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian government. On January 7, in the thick of the movement, the government leaked an audit of Attawapiskat that had been filed on September 20, 2012. The accounting firm Deloitte emailed Chief Spence and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs stating, “an average of 81 per cent of files did not have adequate supporting documents and over 60 per cent had no documentation of the reason for payment.”

The federal government provided approximately $104 million to the Attawapiskat band council between April 1, 2005 and November 30, 2011. There are approximately 3,000 members of the Attawapiskat community. The funding per person annually would amount to little under $6,000 and must provide for education, infrastructure, housing, and administration. According to NDP MP Meghan Leslie’s teach-in last week at Dalhousie University, the federal government spends around $14,000 on a nonIndigenous Canadian to fulfill these needs.

“The mainstream media has been very important to the movement...in particular mainstream media’s poor coverage of the movement,” Howard Ramos, a Dalhousie professor who specializes in Canadian Aboriginal mobilization, told me over the phone. In her column for the National Post, Christie Blatchford referred to Spence’s hunger strike spurring “the inevitable cycle of hideous puffery and horse manure that usually accompanies native protests swirls.”

Ramos noted that the average Canadian’s lack of understanding coupled with the confusing message put forth by the press has generated a lot of interest.

Melissa Mollen Dupuis, co-organizer of the Quebec Idle No More chapter, says current coverage in alternative media sources is a drastic change, however, from the reporting on the 1990 Oka Crisis.

When the Quebec town of Oka tried to push residential development and build a golf course onto the Mohawk community of Kanesatake, including on an ancestral

burial ground, community members and supporters armed themselves and erected a barricade blocking the construction. The protesters were met with the Sûreté du Québec and eventually the military, resulting in a two and a half month standoff. No shots were fired by either side. According to Dupuis, the media “demonized” the indigenous community and people who participated in road blockades. “We’re always told we’re damn savages,” she said. Dupuis sees hope in the reporting from more alternative news sources, particularly supportive media from blogs and Twitter.

“You cannot pass judgment on what you see on television if you cannot even name the 12 nations on which you live,” Dupuis told me with laugh. “[Idle No More] is like a bushfire.

The wood was dry and ready to burn.” *** As we left the Idle No More rally on that Friday and drove into Montreal, we found another Idle No More demonstration. Some protesters had constructed an immense Kaswentha or Two Row Wampum belt, a representation of the original covenant between the settler Europeans and the Haudenosaunees, the “people of the longhouse.” The Wampum belt is comprised of two rows of purple that run parallel on a bed of white. One row of purple represents the canoes of the Haudenosaunee and the other row represents the ships of the thencoming Europeans, running parallel but not crossing paths.

That was how Kakwiranó:ron Cook explained the Kaswentha to me at the First Peoples’ House of McGill. Cook is the Aboriginal Community Outreach Coordinator and Career Advisor and works across Canada recruiting students to come to McGill. He is my first real teacher on Indigenous issues.

The island of Montreal is known in Mohawk as Tiohtiá:ke or “where the people split or parted ways.” McGill University itself sits on a former Iroquois settlement. The only relic of a former indigenous existence is the Hochelaga Rock by the Roddick Gates. I followed Cook around the First Peoples’ House looking at Wampum and distinguishing band councils from traditional councils. Cook’s father is Mohawk and his mother is Dakota.

He says to truly understand what needs to change, we must first understand the great diversity of indigenous communities and recognize how people wish to be identified.

Four years ago, McGill began asking students to self-identify as North American Aboriginal, which includes but may not be limited to First Nations, Inuit, Métis, NonStatus, Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian, when applying to the University. Out of 37,000 students at McGill, currently 150 (.04 per cent) of students have self-identified under this category, despite a 45 per cent growth in Canada’s indigenous population between 1996 and 2006.

“You have to wonder, is it because McGill isn’t a friendly place for indigenous students,” said Erin Linklater, a U3 Political Science student. I sat down in the First Peoples’ House with Linklater, a citizen of Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. Linklater said she couldn’t believe there wasn’t an Indigenous Studies program at McGill when she first got here. “Taking a Canadian politics course here, you’ll have one little chapter on indigenous issues and you won’t talk about indigenous issues ever again in

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the whole class,” she said.

In an immediate sense, Idle No More is a concerted effort against the federal government’s ongoing colonialism in indigenous communities, and an attempt at nationwide Indigenous solidarity. As protests continue into a second month, the movement may also serve as a wake up call for larger institutions to recognize the plight of Indigenous communities, as well as the Canadian education system’s utter lack of knowledge about them. *** In the 2013-2014 academic year, McGill will offer a minor concentration in Indigenous Studies, but Cook feels that it will be a long time until McGill implements a major or establishes an institute similar to those at University of Victoria or the University of British Columbia. Jessica Dolan, a McGill PhD student currently writing her dissertation on Haudenosaunee environmental philosophy, said that part of the solution could be simply having more Indigenous people here. “If an institution encourages more indigenous professors, more Indigenous students, more people in general to be interested in the whole history of North America rather than certain parts of it, then there is going to be a synergistic effect that alters the pedagogical leaning of the University,” she said.

Linklater and Dolan are great comrades and advocates for Indigenous issues. They clarify each other’s sentences and remind each other of points they forgot to make. Linklater was once part of a campaign against Indigenous appropriation around Halloween; Dolan is organizing an Idle No More teach-in as a postgraduate student to be run later this month.

Linklater’s general advice for McGill is to recognize the combined history to make way for a very different shared future. “I think that is a form of respect and I don’t think it would go unnoticed,” she said. When I asked her about whether McGill participates in the ongoing colonial process of Indigenous people in Canada, she replied “there’s one sense in which I might change going to [the] University but there’s [another] sense that I might change the institution by being here.” *** Founded by Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Jessica Gordon, and Sheelah McLean, the Idle No More movement is in its second month and may continue for longer. The movement has found other leaders in Melissa Mollen Dupuis and Widia Lariviere in Quebec. Others continue to utilize social media platforms to keep the Idle No More fire burning. Professor Ramos said to me, “the status quo is not sustainable.”

That morning on Victoria Island, as I stood on my toes to catch sight of Chief Spence, the only thing that cut through the cold were the sounds of song and drum. If the administrators of the federal government were to welcome Indigenous communities – as my colleague and I were welcomed into the camp – this place we call Canada would carve out a different landscape against the scope of vast blue. As we gathered there that morning ready to set out, and a freezing rain seeped through jackets and headdresses alike, the organizer simply said, “our people have been through worse” than the Ottawa winter. People continued to ask each other where they were from, and answer with Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onodaga, Mohawk.

Idle No More is offering an education to the world. It is only the inauguration of a journey we as people can traverse together. The Canadian federal government might be in for a long winter, because as was proclaimed that morning, it has “awoken the spirit of a spiritual people.”

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Invisible scars Brain-related sports injuries linked to dementia and depression Jassi Pannu Health & Education Writer

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oston University (BU) has a bank stocked with brains: the “Brain Bank” at it’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy houses brain and spinal cord tissue of deceased athletes and military personnel.

Within a few years, the bank has collected dozens of donations, most notably from former professional hocky and football athletes.

Concussions and other forms of brain trauma are common in these professions, and the centre studies the effects such incidents have on health. Through their donations, athletes hope to help uncover the long-term consequences of this severe brain trauma.

According to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), concussions account for 20 per cent of all injuries in ice hockey, and only slightly less in rugby, football, and soccer. Ambitious athletes begin playing their sport of choice as young children, before their brains have fully developed. Without careful precautions, concussions can swiftly accumulate and the effects of repetitive brain injury can be quickly compounded. The more concussions one has, the more susceptible they are to another and the worse the concussion is likely to be.

A recent study of 85 brains at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy found that four out of every five were afflicted with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The devastating symptoms of CTE, which are thought to include depression and dementia, are caused by the abnormal accumulation of tau protein which leads to tissue death. The damage is irreparable, and CTE itself is incurable.

It is unfortunate that most research on CTE must currently be conducted post-mortem. The spinning, rapid acceleration, and jolted stops that cause the brain to bump violently against the skull (causing concussion) often leave few obvious external signs. It is only after mental health is noticeably impaired, or after death, that the full extent of the damage is known. NFL linebacker Junior Seau is the most recent in a series of athletes who have committed suicide and been subsequently diagnosed with CTE. Yes, the sample that BU researchers studied was a narrow one. Brains are most often donated by individuals who not only have suffered brain trauma, but who also already display symptoms of CTE. However, the findings help

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

establish that there is a definite link between repetitive head trauma and long-term brain diseases like CTE. Steps have been made by major regulatory bodies to reduce the prevalence of head injuries. The NHL, for example, now requires players to get immediate medical attention if they suffer a blow to the head. But athletes must still be proactive when it comes to injuries. Dr. Scott Delaney, a physician and consultant to the Montreal Alouettes, made clear in a MUHC “HealthBeat” radio interview that doctors are “still dependent on a very basic thing… the athlete coming forward to volunteer his or her symptoms.”

Further changes to the rules in the NHL made all intentional and

targeted blows to the head illegal, and the rules regarding “boarding,” the act of pushing or checking a player into the boards surrounding the ice rink, were made more stringent. Detractors, like the colourful sports commentator Don Cherry, continue to glorify the unnecessary violence of the game – even when faced with evidence that fighting, and associated head injuries, have been linked to depression and the early onset of dementia. It is this culture of competitive contact sports that often encourages an athlete to continually shrug off their symptoms, leading to several undiagnosed concussions that may have long-term consequences.

A few concussions will not lead to CTE, but any sort of head injury requires proper treatment. Rola

Abouassaly, a senior physiotherapist at the Sports Medicine Clinic of the McGill Sports Complex, stresses the importance of “having athletes be educated” as to what a concussion is. “Some people don’t think they have a concussion,” and don’t realize that their dizziness or trouble concentrating may be linked to a recent head injury, she explained. The treatment for any trauma is sufficient rest in order to allow the brain to recuperate.

Excessive brain stimulation should also be avoided – perhaps a difficult task for a McGill athlete.

Awareness campaigns like those carried out by the Montreal Children’s Hospital stress the importance of educating athletes.

Their “Trauma Concussion KiT,” available online, includes tech-

niques for diagnosing a concussion as well as information on symptoms and sports-specific guidelines.

Further preventative tools are also in the works. An iPad app developed by Jay Alberts, a researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, aims to help coaches and athletes diagnose concussions if a physician is not nearby. A Canadian startup known as ShockBox has developed helmet sensors to detect the severity of a hit. The sensors are commercially available, and the company hopes to have them on every NHL helmet in the future, as they should be – the major leagues serve as inspiration to young athletes. When athletes speak out, with their words as well as their actions, taking care of your brain can become cool as well as common sense.

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What’s up with McGill’s advanced standing policy?

Students face challenges transferring advanced standing credits Nirali Tanna Health & Education Writer

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imilar to many graduates of CEGEP and the A-Level system, graduating from the International Baccalaureate (IB) program granted me the dubious honour of ‘skipping’ my first year at McGill based on the advanced standing credits I received. I couldn’t believe I was exempt from an entire year of university. When faced with the impending prospect of graduation, the scenario now looks quite different. The lack of a freshman year robbed me of the chance to explore different courses and prospects, as well as the transition period to adjust into a four-year program before tackling more challenging U1 courses.

A closer look at the process, however, has made me further question the impact of the IB on my transition to university academic life. The summer before commencing my McGill degree, I found out that I was to receive 10 credits per Higher Level subject I did, in which I surpassed a certain grade level. This meant that for my three Higher Level classes – English, History and Film Studies – 30 credits were automatically exempt from my degree in Political Science and International Development.

This is an odd framing of policy considering that Higher Level IB subjects may not even have any relevance to your degree at McGill. This is especially pertinent for students in the Faculty of A rts, since few IB subjects directly overlap with the more challenging content studied in university A rts courses. W hen it comes to Introductor y Biology or Math, course content may be comparable to material covered high school, and thus more easily transferable. Advanced standing also doesn’t take into account the grade students received on their Extended Essay – an in-depth research paper written in the last year of the IB. The latter is arguably the only component of IB that directly transfers over to the development of the skill of higher education essay writing.

A fellow IB graduate who wished to remain anonymous had a similarly frustrating experience to recount: “A lthough I received credit for most of the classes that were a prerequisite for a Math major, the material covered in introductory McGill math classes is very different and far more challenging than what I studied in the IB. While I tried registering in one of

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

these fundamental courses, and even spoke with an advisor, I was forced to withdraw halfway through the course, due to the credit I received for Higher Level Math in the IB.” The McGill system for awarding academic standing, therefore, is lacking in a number of ways. Unlike many schools in the U.S. or the University of Toronto, at McGill we have no choice in whether we wish to transfer credits for registration or not. W hen it comes to core courses such as Calculus or Intro Biology, this might make sense. It’s ultimately unfair to students who are truly novices in prerequisite material to have to compete with students who have covered similar material in high school. But when it comes to the A rts disciplines, there is ver y little equivalency between, for example, histor y at the high school level and political

science at the undergraduate level. The exemption of A rts students based on high school curriculae which only vaguely overlap with first year courses at McGill is not only arbitrarily decided, but ultimately creates gaps in our accumulation of base knowledge, which needs to happen early on in our degrees to help students cope with more challenging 300- and 400-level courses.

Understanding the momentum of the semester is an important part in adjusting to university life, but not everyone has had the opportunity to do so prior to entry into their McGill degrees.

Both CEGEP and IB students, for instance, can enter McGill with similar amounts of credits transferred forward. Conversely, the IB is a two-year program in which ones studies six different subjects with a comparatively less specialized focus than in CEGEP, where

students are already exposed to four-month-long semesters with courses specific to their chosen fields of interest.

It’s clear that advanced standing policies are created with the intention of being in the student’s best interest. Allowing students to enroll in classes with material they have already covered and mastered is unfair; it’s both a waste of the students’ and the professor’s time. Introductory classes are big enough as it is, and so in many ways this is an important policy, but that doesn’t mean the process is unequivocally fair or successful. Furthermore, being pushed into choosing a major early on in your degree, with little to no exposure to both your courses of interest and the courses available, only serves to constrain students’ options.

Criticisms of these advanced standing policies are usually expressed by the

select groups of students who feel limited by them, not by ever y student who has received advanced standing in some form; a fair number of students would likely claim that advanced standing has improved their experience.

In an idea l situation, though, McGill would a llow some degree of student input in determining whether or not the student has a suf f icient level of competence in both the sk ills and k nowledge required to complete their degrees.

Blanket policies based on the curr iculae prov ided by internationa l high school programs don’t work in the case of ever y student; hav ing the choice to decide for ourselves, at least to a cer tain ex tent, would greatly benef it those who feel they need the f lex ibilit y of a four-year program to develop their potentia l.

culture

The McGill Daily Thursday, January 17, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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The art of conversation Mile End talk show Parc Avenue Tonight Nathalie O'Neill The McGill Daily

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he Montreal Gazette’s Bill Brownstein has called it “a postmodern talk show.” CBC radio describes it as “a very, very, low-budget version of The Tonight Show.” Creator and host Dimitrios Koussioulas proposes an alternative epithet, describing his project as “the kind of show South Park kids would do.”

“Parc Avenue Tonight” is a new web-based micro talk show based out of Mile End. Koussioulas and his producer, Natalie Vansier, explain their show as a way to get to know Mile End’s familiar faces, to “discuss nothing in particular with the people we see everywhere, but don’t necessarily know a lot about.” The first eight episodes, all available online, include guests ranging from taxidermy-artist Kate Puxley, Rastafari food distributor Stretch, Mexican restaurant Tachido co-owner Mariano Franco, to filmmaker Matt Silver.

The “Parc Avenue Tonight” venture is just one of the manifestations of the natural curiosity that dictates Koussioulas’ life. When I first met him last summer, he had a job tending a posh bar on Parc. Before this bartending gig, Koussioulas dabbled in film animation, copy writing, advertising, and art dealership.

He’s already exploring future possibilities, including a return to advertising, writing a book, and, most intriguingly, waste management. But for now, Koussioulas is invested in the talk show world.

“Parc Avenue Tonight,” with its candid and casual style, provides an alternative to the increasingly prevalent argumentative talk show model.

“Those are the worst,” Koussioulas emphasizes. “The View is the worst.

It’s a nightmare show.” The “Parc Avenue Tonight” team tried to keep every aspect of the show as straightforward as possible, in some cases to Koussioulas’ chagrin. “I wish I was wearing makeup, man,” he laments.

“You can see some shine, man.” But overall, Koussioulas has a pretty good gig: he sits behind his desk – wearing his suit and tie uniform – asking the questions he wants while sipping brandy and smoking throughout the show. The emphasis on natural ease doesn’t prevent Koussioulas from delivering zingers to his bemused (and sometimes taken-aback) guests. In one episode, after listening to Puxley describe her creative process, Koussioulas jumps right in with one of his characteristically cheeky lines: “I like that you’re attractive and you do gross stuff.” But it’s all in good spirit for Koussioulas, who simply loves conversation. The show reflects the team’s desire to

bring back, as Vansier puts it, “discussion for the joy of conversation.”

In a time where politically correct and highly informed opinions seem de rigueur, many people have grown reluctant to declare a strong conviction, especially to a relative stranger. But unlike many prolific orators, Koussioulas is perhaps an even better listener. “When’s the last time I heard an opinion, man?”

Koussioulas laments. “I haven’t heard an opinion in months.”

And Koussioulas wants to hear your opinion on (nearly) everything.

Just don’t talk to him about your next vacation or where you’re going for dinner. These are the type of wornout topics Koussioulas desperately avoids. The show itself was born of a desire to offer an alternative to the promotional veneer of most popular talk shows, by steering people away from the conventional interview.

Koussioulas attributes this to his own forgetfulness, as he reports frequent memory lapses when it comes to straightforward questions. Be that as it may, Koussioulas’ offbeat questions seem for the most part to catch his guests off guard, lending a freshness to their answers. He largely glosses over career-related prompts, sticking to jaunty questions that can border on the absurd, but delve beneath the surface of their public personas. Franco, for example, is much more than an owner of Tachido restaurant – he is also an avid figurine collector. Puxley is more than a taxidermist – she is also the wife of an Italian opera singer.

The 16 episodes making up the first season were filmed over ten days this past summer in Koussioulas’ Parc Avenue apartment. The continuity of the interview is preserved in an effort to communicate immediacy and authenticity.“ A couple of our guests were hesitant to be on the show,” Koussioulas explains, “because they were afraid to be spliced into some weird monster.” The episodes, which usually last between ten and 15 minutes, were each filmed in a single take, which avoids the possibility of misrepresentative editing. “It’s just going through,” Koussioulas emphasizes. “If you’re a fuck up, you’re a fuck up.”

So why the Mile End? “Montrealers are made to believe we’re secondhand international citizens,” Koussioulas says. “So if you do something in Montreal, you kind of presume nobody is going to see it.” A Montrealer born and raised, Koussioulas wanted to find a way to communicate his enthusiasm for his hometown. Restricting the show’s scope to Mile End allows for an in-depth look at the neighbourhood’s demographic. Mile End was an ideal fit for a micro show for the producers, who were in search of self-fashioned celebrities, both local and international. “In the Mile End you don’t need real celebrities,” Koussioulas jokes. “Everybody acts like a celebrity, everybody is ready to be a celebrity. We chose everybody based on looks,” he adds, grinning. “We’re from the Mile End too. That’s the truth.” With the three members of the “Parc Avenue

Photo Courtesy of Parc Avenue Tonight

Tonight” team living in close proximity to their guests, the show occasionally takes on a slightly selfdeprecating tone. Viewers include less Mile End folk than expected, as YouTube stats show people across Canada and the U.S. tuning in. Koussioulas attributes this to an “underestimating of how much selfloathing the [Mile End] cool have.”

The show is already promisingly popular, leaving its producers pleasantly surprised. “It’s kind of like we’re drug dealers,” Koussioulas offers. “We’re like here, you like this, you want more in your veins? Maybe you should hire us.” Parc Avenue Tonight has also garnered a surprising amount of praise from mainstream media, and producers have been approached by advertisers. “I wish we had known so many people would watch it,” says Koussioulas.

“We might have done it differently.”

Vansier points out that the challenge with web television is getting people into the rhythm of watching the new episode every Thursday. But the “Parc Avenue Tonight” team sees the silver lining to its underfunding.

“Without any money we can be as lazy as we want, which is true Mile End spirit,” Koussioulas argues. “Being a good creative person is doing the least amount of work possible.”

This doesn’t mean the team doesn’t have an eye for details. “No one’s asked me about the bananas yet!” Koussioulas exclaims when I bring it up. Koussioulas offers a banana to his guest at the end of each episode. “Instead of having a time sig-

nal,” Vansier explains, “I’d wave him a banana.” Koussioulas recounts how he used to draw banana and apple cartoons for a girl he loved. “I draw cartoon bananas really well. I love bananas. It’s my favourite fruit.” Vansier and Koussioulas promise to clear up the banana myth when filmmaker Mark Slutsky comes in on January 17 to demonstrates how to peel a banana.

Bananas aside, where exactly does “Parc Avenue Tonight” fall on the spectrum between journalism and entertainment? Admittedly, the project seems to have taken off at a somewhat lackadaisical angle. But their approach appears to have shifted somewhere along the way. “What you have to prove with a talk show,” Koussioulas explains, “is that you can be interesting: be random and spontaneous; have something to say everyday.” After asking so many silly questions in an attempt to avoid the blatant self-promotion of many talk show guests, Koussioulas seems to have discovered that these silly questions were, after all, not all that silly.

“Parc Avenue Tonight” reminds its viewers that what makes individuals unique tends to lie in the seemingly mundane details. Their probing interviews reveal multifaceted characters, making guests appealing as bizarrely fascinating – and ultimately real – people. Whether the Parc Avenue Tonight team knew they would come up with these attention-grabbing portraits is unclear, but it works. Beyond appealing to their viewers, the results seem to have taken the creators themselves by surprise.

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, January 17, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

culture

Heart food Why people wait for a taste of Kazu Margie Ramos Culture Writer

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f there is a line up, then it must be worth the wait. Located at 1862 Ste. Catherine West, right at the corner of St. Marc, a unique Japanese restaurant has gotten Montreal’s food enthusiasts talking and passers-by intrigued. Locals and tourists line up for it, and people all over the world who tried it write about it. A fan from London commented on Kazu’s Facebook page: “I miss you from London...

Kazu has gone international!”

So, what is so special about Kazu? What makes people willing to wait at the line up for 15 to 40 minutes, and why do they keep coming back? Étienne Clément, a student of Asian cultures and languages at UQAM, is trying to get in to Kazu for the fifth time. The hype and the line up drew him here, but the line itself is also the reason why he is still wondering what Kazu is all about. After thirty minutes of waiting on a busy Sunday night, he walked away once again without getting to feed his curiosity.

However, unlike Clément, the loyal Kazu fans out there like Aaron Neifhoff, a Political Science student at McGill, whom I also met in line, have relived the Kazu experience several times: “I’ve been here many times before.

The food is incredible, because it’s really authentic and I really like the character of the place,” Neifhoff said.

Dubbed the best Japanese restaurant in Montreal by many delighted customers and known for its originality, it quickly gained popularity through word of mouth and positive reviews online after opening on March 1, 2010.

When I asked Chef Kazuo Akutsu, founder and owner of this restaurant, what is so special about Kazu, he simply said, “Heart food.” Curious, I also asked if he knows how popular his restaurant is on the internet and how everybody is talking about it, he replied in his thick Japanese accent, laughing, “No. I don’t know. I don’t have time to check.”

For starters, Kazu does not serve sushi. Instead, you’ll discover Japanese food you won’t find anywhere else in the city, such as their famous shrimp burger, grilled salmon head, and Kazuo’s favourites: pork neck; their salmon and tuna bowl, which is served with salad and topped with crispy rice noodles; and their homemade sake ice cream – all made with Kazuo’s meticulous delicacy.

I asked Kazuo why he doesn’t serve sushi, tow which he replied, “I need an ocean, but there is no ocean.”

Illuminated with Japanese lanterns, the first things you will notice at Kazu are the menus,

Dishes at Kazu benefit from simple but elegant presentation. which are handwritten with markers on white sheets of paper.

They are posted on the walls where patrons can easily read them. The place itself is tiny and low-key. Everybody sits elbowto-elbow with one another at the bar or at small tables. The friendly waitstaff wear jaunty kerchiefs.

Demonstrating his commitment to his tiny but remarkable restaurant, Kazuo is often is at the bar cooking with his sous chefs, greeting

both new and regular customers.

A must-order dish at Kazu is the Japanese version of bibimbap, a Korean dish. Served with rice, fried egg, and salad, the tender, juicy marinated beef rib will definitely make you want to order a second round. As for dessert, the homemade wasabi ice cream, which came from Kazuo’s imagination when he was thinking about a spicy ice cream, is a must-try. It is made for food adventurers.

Photo Margie Ramos

Although the wait may be long, the service is undeniably fast. The average price for a dish ranges from $10 to $25, but with $20, you can still enjoy a full meal followed by dessert. The menu may be a bit pricey for students on a budget, but Kazu must be on the “try list” of every would-be McGill foodie.

Kazu is located at 1862 Ste. Catherine West.

A rebuke to empty patriotism Meek’s Cutoff, a revisionist Western Lilya Hassall Forays into Film

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othing makes me lose my appetite like American politicians and their nauseating patriotic rhetoric. I was happy on November 6, not only because Mitt Romney lost, but because the bullshit that had clogged media outlets and kept my stomach in a constant state of queasiness would finally come to an end.

With the presidential inauguration and the State of the Union address approaching, however, my Twitter feed will once again fill with quotes of the hope, strength, and spirit of the American people.

This weekend, to give my tender stomach a rest, I decided to skip out on schmaltzy new releases like Lincoln. Instead, I saw director Kelly Reichardt’s latest film,

the pseudo-Western Meek’s Cutoff (2010), which, despite its low budget, boasts big names like Michelle Williams and Paul Dano.

Reichardt’s previous features, River of Grass (1994), Old Joy (2006), and Wendy and Lucy (2008), all deal with protagonists that are lost in life in present-day America. Characters seek freedom and redemption on the mythological American highway or frontier, only to find that it no longer exists.

Meek’s Cutoff, in contrast, deals with characters that are literally lost in America. The film follows a band of settlers and their guide, Stephen Meek, as they attempt to cross the High Desert of Oregon in 1845, but become hopelessly disoriented in the infinitely shifting, starkly beautiful landscapes of the West.

Now, Westerns are usually the stuff that American political rhetoric is made of. In its classical form, the Western dramatizes and resolves the conflict between two oppo-

sitional values within American ideology: on the one hand, civilization, community, and family; and on the other, individualism and freedom of the frontier. Obama similarly attempted to resolve this conflict in his acceptance speech, saying, “while each of us will pursue our individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together.”

Luckily for me, Meek’s Cutoff belongs to a group of films called Revisionary Westerns, which, since the 1960s, have been breaking down American ideology faster than politicians can rebuild it.

Meek’s Cutoff juxtaposes the mythology of the Western with the grim reality of pioneering, suggesting that the freedom of the frontier only ever existed in our imaginations. Instead of offering the pioneers freedom from societal constraints, the bleak landscapes play host to the relentless persistence of cultural norms. The settlers encoun-

ter a Native man, and struggle over whether to kill or enslave him. The female pioneers are consistently relegated to scrubbing dishes and darning socks, while the men make decisions just out of earshot.

Meek’s Cutoff also specifically critiques the filmic Western, invoking its tropes only to debunk them.

Meek, the iconic, ruggedly masculine cowboy, spouts as much rhetoric about American freedom as any politician. His authority is consistently undermined, however, as his claim to know the West like the back of his hand amounts to nothing, and the settlers grow more and more disoriented. When the fabled standoff occurs, it doesn’t take place between two cowboys, but between the Native man, a woman, and Meek.

Without the structuring ideology of the Western, the film’s narrative structure collapses, and the viewers become as hopelessly lost as the settlers. Meek’s Cutoff

eschews traditional plot structure in favour of slow, subtle movement, so that, thinking back on the film, it becomes impossible to order the events. The seemingly directionless plot is emphasized by the film’s unnavigable physical spaces. The heavily disorienting cinematography makes austere, marker-less landscapes even more confusing for the audience than it is for the settlers.

If Reichardt’s previous films ask how to live in present-day America, Meek’s Cutoff asks how to make an American narrative film when you no longer believe in America. So if you, like me, are sick of being told to have faith in the Star-Spangled Banner, Meek’s Cutoff is just what the doctor ordered.

Lilya Hassall is a U3 Cultural Studies student. Forays Into Film and Feminism is a bi-weekly column about alternative films, why she likes them, and where to see them.

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EDITORIAL

volume 102 number 25

Idols of colonialism, no more

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

Queen Arsem-O’Malley

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com

coordinating news editor

Juan Camilo Velásquez

Illustration Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

news editors

Laurent Bastien Corbeil Lola Duffort commentary editors

Jacqueline Brandon Steve Eldon Kerr culture editors

Kaj Huddart Hillary Pasternak features editor

Christina Colizza science+technology editor

Anqi Zhang

health&education editor

Ralph Haddad sports editor

Evan Dent

multimedia editor

Kate McGillivray photo editor

Hera Chan illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva design&production editors

Edna Chan Rebecca Katzman

copy editor

Nicole Leonard web editor

Tom Acker le délit

Nicolas Quiazua

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Amina Batyreva contributors Jessica Barudin, Hannah Besseau, Lindsay Cameron, Julia Devorak, Carla Green, Lilya Hassall, Esther Lee, Michael Lee-Murphy, Mona Luxion, Nathalie O’Neill, Jassi Pannu, Margie Ramos, Farid Rener, Nirali Tanna, Evan Vassallo, Dana Wray

Late last year, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin remarked, “we have never admitted to ourselves that we were, and still are, a colonial power.” Perhaps retirement has allowed Martin more time to reflect on the state of Indigenous relations in Canada, or perhaps the Conservative government’s arrogant and negligent attitude toward Indigenous peoples forced Martin’s hand.

Regardless, his words – still rarely heard in mainstream politics – are not the lone musings of an old politico. His sentiment fits alongside those of tens of thousands across Canada who are mobilizing as part of the Idle No More movement.

In the movement’s own words, “Idle No More calls on all people to join in a revolution which honours and fulfils Indigenous sovereignty which protects the land and water.” The call has been heeded by drumming flash mobs, highway and rail blockades, and countless rallies across the country.

These peaceful actions are the signs of a grassroots movement intent on building Indigenous sovereignty and protecting the environment from irreversible damage. Despite being less than two months old, the movement has attracted international attention. Over 700,000 tweets using the #IdleNoMore hashtag have been posted since December 10. The movement is forcing Canadians to confront both an ongoing colonial heritage and the actions of the current Conservative government.

The Idle No More campaign was started by four women in response to the Conservatives’ introduction of omnibus Bill C-45 to Parliament in October. The 457-page bill, which received royal assent on December 10 and is now known as the “Jobs and Growth Act, 2012,” contained changes to the Indian Act, Navigation Protection Act, and Environmental Assessment Act. These changes remove environmental protections for 99 per cent of the rivers and lakes in Canada and have drastically reduced the number of development projects that require environmental assessment. They also make it easier for the federal government to gain access to treaty lands and territory; protected indigenous land is often seen as red tape in the way of the government’s economic plans.

Idle No More, in protesting changes that bear consequences for all Canadian people, has

nevertheless been met with resistance, much of it stemming from calculated misinformation spread by the government. Politicians and pundits discuss the ‘threat’ posed to Canadian sovereignty by Indigenous movements, and time and again the myth that Indigenous communities freeload off the state is trotted out to disguise the truth: First Nations mismanage funds no more than non-Native municipalities, and the de facto subsidies often run from territory to federal state, not the other way around.

Moreover, despite mining, logging, and hydroelectric companies generating billions of dollars in profit from First Nations land – money that falls into the hands of the federal government in the form of taxes and royalties – annual government spending per capita averaged about $7,200 for First Nations residents, yet $14,900 per capita for residents of Ottawa, according to 2005 numbers cited by the Media Co-op.

The recent politically-motivated leak of an audit of the Attawapiskat reserve highlights the negative attitude of the current Conservative government, which treats Indigenous peoples as opposition that needs to be silenced, rather than citizens to be served. How else to account for the low priority status accorded First Nations residents, a policy that has dire human consequences. Canada has the world’s largest supply of fresh water, but over 100 Indigenous communities have tap water so dirty they are under continual boil alert. In the far north, the rate of tuberculosis is 137 times greater than the rest of the country.

Yet the more politicians fall into the hands of mining and logging companies, the more the newspapers buttress the Conservatives’ desperate defence of injustice, the more the pundits decry Idle No More’s “vast and ill-defined agenda, its vague and shifting demands, its many different self-appointed spokespersons,” the more it becomes clear that the alternative future being pointed to by Idle No More – one of respect for Indigenous sovereignty and respect for nature – is considerably preferable to a status quo that will surely be condemned by history.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

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All contents © 2012 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

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compendium!

The McGill Daily Thursday, January 17, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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lies, half-truths, and our design editors are the best looking ever

Knowledge complete, say academics All further investigation will be repetition Euan EK The Twice-a-Weekly

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cademics around the world have announced that knowledge is now complete, and that all further inquiry into problems will not be necessary.

The findings were announced at an award ceremony simultaneously held at Harvard, Oxford, and Beijing Universities last night, and mark the end of humanity’s search to discover and understand the mysteries.

Speaking at the ceremony at Oxford, Professor Roger Scruton, noted Conservative and aesthetics fan, said that, “It is with great pleasure that I announce that knowledge is now complete. The questions have been answered, and the sums have been done. If it isn’t in a book now, then it simply isn’t a thing....Also I was right when I told the progressives we didn’t need to broaden the admissions pool. ” The announcement has been met with surprise in some quarters of the Academy, as it emerges that several thousand academics believed they were still working at problems that needed to be solved.

“I must say this has come as a surprise,” said John McDonald, Professor of Children’s Literature at the University of Sinkingship. “I

thought my work toward a hermeneutics of the centipede in early 1905 Northern Irish children’s literature would add to humanity’s total knowledge, but it appears that it has either already been done, or doesn’t count as a thing that people need to know.”

“I have clearly not been paying attention,” said Mortono Fendelson, Professor of SilenceIs-Bliss at McGall University. “I thought my work was still of use.”

Other academics have welcomed the news, and suggested that given that they “did their job, like, 100 per cent” they should be “richly rewarded in this life and all of the lives with tokens of your appreciation and yachts and other gifts, that it is becoming of inferiors to donate to their natural superiors.”

Meanwhile theoretical physicists are baffled by the announcement, coming as it does while they are still searching for the mysteries of the universe and creation using large pieces of equipment.

“We have been building some very expensive machines, some very fucking expensive machines,” said William B. McAlfred, Head of Finding-the-Answer at C.E.R.N. “We have put those very fucking expensive machines deep in the ground, deep under rock and dirt, which is itself not an inexpensive venture.

We have since been looking at these

machines literally non-stop for the last year, and trying to make the numbers, which are very big and hard to count – numbers with lots of digits to the right of the decimal point – add up. This has not been easy, and we haven’t succeeded yet. But apparently we needn’t have bothered....[yes] this is quite a surprise.”

When quizzed on how the completion of knowledge could have happened with physicists still busily attempting to discover the origin of the universe and purpose of life – problems which are surely important to solve – McAlfred was baffled.

“I don’t know. We must have left the answer in a book somewhere.”

Philosophy departments have been sent into a wild neo-existential tailspin by the news.

“If we already have it, then why do we have questions? We must have left the answer somewhere.

But if we did that, and we don’t know where, then are we allowed to ask where we left the answers?

But that’s a question. Is the answer buried in our mind? Is that a question? Fuck,” said Harvard Professor and Pathetic Apologist for Empire John Rawls, before exploding into a haze of question marks and italicized words.

Of course, some academics are dismayed that the completion of knowledge renders all

Illustration Amino Acid | The Twice-a-Weekly

their hopes and dreams futile and totally worthless.

“I knew I couldn’t be another Foucault,” said Dr. Angajo. “I knew I wasn’t destined to revolutionize my field and provoke a new generation of academics to take up difficult ethical and historical questions...but...I just thought I could do my bit. I’m devastated.

I just hope there is another universe out there that needs knowledge...but then, if there is we’d already know about it. Help.”

Some of the most disappointed academics hail from China, a country which has never won a Nobel Peace Prize despite “giving the West

such a huge leg up back in the day.”

“Papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, and printing, but no Nobel,” said one Chinese academic who declined to be named. “It is time.”

In other news, McGall Principal Heatha Mama-Boom has announced that, despite the solution to all of the problems universities were only created to solve, McGall would be increasing the number of upper administration roles next year.

“Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean we can’t keep spending your money on fine 1948 Bordeaux,” said HMB.

McGill releases Statement of Values and Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly

D

ear members of the McGill Community and Market place: We would like to thank those of you who took the time, to share your opinions concerning the Protocol Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations. Your comments on the substance of the document and on the process itself were thoughtful. There was no unanimity on changes being sought, can you believe!

We write today to tell you that as a result of these consultations, it has become evident that further discussion on this complex issue would be useful means of pacifying you, and, that in addition to written submissions, different types of exchanges on this matter such as song and dance would be welcome before final decisions will be made.

As well, in further reviewing best practices in this realm, we

have come to an understanding that the McGill community will be best served by an agreed-upon statement of values and principles agreed upon by us, rather than a protocol of operating procedures, which, by definition, must be sensitive to context and determined by judgement and reason and rationality and basic moral principles.

As such we have prepared a Statement of Values and Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly that we have outlined below.

1. McGill values academic integrity. As such all students are required to pay a new $500 “plagiarism” fee, so that we may catch cheats.

2. McGill values frank and open discussion on matters of aesthetic expression. We invite all members of the university community to donate money toward the ongoing beautification of campus.

3. McGill values its students, and

prides itself on providing them with the best work-experience possible.

To join the alumni donation team, call 555 398 9999.

4. McGill values diversity and peaceful assembly. As such, will be diversifying both our investment portfolio and assembling a greater number of senior administration positions starting in September.

5. McGill values transparency.

Starting in September, all students are required to declare all political affiliations on their application form and all political activity will be recorded on their transcript.

6. McGill values inclusivity. We accept Canadian Dollars, American Dollars, Australian Dollars, British Pounds, the Euro, and Japanese Yen. 7. McGill values sustainability. We promise to sustain our use of resources as long as students keep paying.

8a. McGill values freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

We will be opening a dedicated

“protest zone” on the other side of the mountain in August this year.

8b. The creation of this zone will necessitate the creation of a $100 non-opt-outable Freedom and Liberty fee.

9. All protests will accord with the principle of “between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. or else.”

10. All protests will accord with the principle of “economists know best.”

11. A corollary to 10. (and 7.) is that any occupations will be filmed and sold as reality television shows to fund extensive use of private jets.

12. Excellent protesters will receive course credit. Protesters must sign an attendance sheet to receive this credit.

These guidelines will of course be subject to the same usual rigorous consultation program. Dates and venues for the renewed consultation process will shortly be made available, but they have tentatively

been set for April 14 to April 30, for your convenience. The process will include consultation fairs and the creation of an open website allowing all positive comments to be posted completely unedited, for consumption by members of the University community. We urge members of Conservative and Liberal McGill to participate in this important process.

Following the consultation period, the Statement of Values and Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly will be brought to Senate and the Board of Governors for final deliberations when we deem the time is right.

We look forward to watching you jump through hoops over the next months.

Sincerely, Princess Di Anna, Vice-Principal (Counting and Adding Up) Manthony C. Assi, Silliest