Vol103iss18

Volume 103, Issue 18 Monday, February 3, 2014

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

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Ac ITO Mc ces RIA (p Gil s M L: In ag l f c e un Gil dig 23 d l d en in e o ) g se us rv es

Are student residences gentrifying Montreal?

Page 3

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News

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

The student role in gentrification

03 NEWS Students gentrify downtown Montreal Indigenous Access McGill faces dearth of funding

Downtown hotels to be converted to residences

Temporary foreign workers struggle to gain rights Unions resolve payroll issues Graduate supervision practices come under scrutiny

09 COMMENTARY Column about queer people of colour, a love letter to them, their plight Academics have a middle-class bias which affects the research they conduct

12

FEATURES

One former McGill student’s journey to Parliament with the NDP

15

SCI+TECH

The ethics of memory modification Signatures of consciousness

17

HEALTH&ED

Discussion on the controversy surrounding euthanasia and Bill 52 in Quebec

19

SPORTS

A weekend of lumberjacking at McGill

20 CULTURE A graphic novel about ants Lion in the Streets at Dawson Theatre Free Radio City publishing zines McGill band VLVBVMV

23 EDITORIAL Indigenous Access McGill deserves McGill funding

24 COMPENDIUM! Ex-Weekly editor tells all

3

Hera Chan and Carla Green The McGill Daily

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hen the Holiday Inn on Sherbrooke and the Delta Centre-Ville hotel on University re-open this fall, they will be home to hundreds of university students, joining the recent trend of converting hotels to student housing in the area around McGill campus and the downtown area.

The making of the ‘McGill Ghetto’ Despite the recent news, the neighbourhood around McGill hasn’t always been so student-laden. Over the years, it morphed from a working-class neighbourhood to a home for hippies, draft dodgers, and counterculture. Finally, in the mid-1990s, it became the expensive, student-filled ‘McGill Ghetto’ that we know today.

According to an interview published in Satellite magazine in 2012, Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, said, “In the [19]70s through the [19]80s, there was a huge not-for-profit cooperative housing project for about 600 to 700 people just to the east of the McGill campus, in the downtown.”

Lucia Kowaluk, president of the Milton Parc Citizens’ Committee, said that she has lived in the neighbourhood since its ‘hippie’ days in the 1960s, when she was a student at McGill’s School of Social Work. “McGill was small at the time,” she said in an interview with The Daily. “Not many students lived there.”

Now, with almost 40,000 students enrolled at McGill as of 2013, student housing has become a central issue in the neighbourhood. Notably, private investors, rather than university residence systems, are currently the most active in the student housing market. Campus Crest Communities Incorporated – one of the investors in both the Holiday Inn and Delta transformations – is a major player, with a 35 per cent stake in the Holiday Inn project and a 20 per cent stake in the Delta project.

In an e-mail to The Daily, Ted Rollins, CEO of Campus Crest, wrote, “We have big plans for Canada. We believe that the Canadian market is in need of this type of project. We have already experienced a tremendous amount of interest from students.”

As the McGill student population continues to grow, the University has also been rapidly expanding its residence network. Three hotels have been converted to residences in less

Parc cité residence set to open in May than ten years: New Residence Hall, Carrefour Sherbrooke, and La Citadelle, in that order. In addition, private investors from Toronto and the United States have plans to convert the Quality Inn on Parc to a student residence in the near future.

According to Éric Michaud, coordinator at the Comité logement VilleMarie, a housing advocacy group in the downtown core, the flood of students into the areas around the McGill campus has made it less accessible for families to live there. “[The growth of the student population] diminishes the accessibility of housing for families because students can split the costs and pay more than a family could for the same space,” he said in French in an interview with The Daily.

Conversely, Kowaluk isn’t worried about the ongoing hotel-student residence conversions. “That’s fine,” she said. “From the board chatting about it, we’re glad that students are moving into hotels so they don’t take over [the neighbourhood’s] Victorian houses.”

Michaud somewhat agreed, saying, “Unfortunately, there’s not enough student housing built by the universities,” he said. “We think that it’s a good thing to have student residences built by universities because [then] students pay less [for it].”

For an individual student, the average rent for a double room, shared with an assigned roommate, at New Residence Hall, Carrefour Sherbrooke, or La Citadelle, is $1087.67

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

per month, with La Citadelle the most expensive at $1112 per month.

Rollins declined to specify exactly how expensive the converted Holiday Inn residence would be, writing only, “We aren’t the cheapest, but we believe that students will receive a compelling value.”

“McGill is a terrible landlord.

There are things you have to pay for that would never stand up if they had to face a renting board,” said Fred Burrill, community organizer at Projet Organisation Populaire Information et Regroupement (POPIR) of the St. Henri, Petite Bourgogne, Côte-Saint-Paul, and Ville-Émard areas.

Prime real estate In recent years, McGill has turned to hotels to build cheaper residences, with all three of its most recent residences the product of such renovations. While these residences may take students out of the renting pool for private apartments, it won’t necessarily drive rent down in the apartments they would be leaving behind.

Paule Provencher, a real estate agent in the McGill area for around 25 years, said that after the renovation that turned the former Renaissance Hotel into New Residence Hall several years ago, there were far fewer students looking to rent, but that the dip in demand had little impact on rent prices in the neighbourhood. “[The prices go down] a little

bit, but not that much,” she told The Daily. “You have to understand that people have purchased their condo at a high price and they really cannot just give it away.”

“Families and professional couples don’t want to [live in the McGill area]. When I tell them that it’s in [that] area, they say ‘no thank you.’

They hang up,” she said, adding, “Just a few families live in the area, but really not that much.”

“A trend that has been happening in the last couple years in Montreal, roughly since when McGill opened up Solin Hall [in 1990], is that universities – and McGill is on the forefront of this – are becoming developers, even if not for-profit, making the neighbourhoods more upscale,” said Burrill, adding that, “The university as developer is a phenomenon that McGill started but is no longer the only participant in the process.”

A soon-to-be-released study, conducted by the Comité in conjunction with the Université du Québec à Montréal, indicated that in the borough of Ville-Marie (which includes most of the Golden Square Mile), property prices have soared since 2004.

“They have doubled between 2004 and 2011, which has had an impact on, among other things, [property] taxes and rent [in the neighbourhood],” said Michaud.

It’s not only renters who pay the price of the shift to private investors (Continued on page 5)

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February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

5

Indigenous Access McGill searches for funding Program supports First Nations and Inuit students at McGill Emma Noradounkian The McGill Daily

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n its ongoing search for permanent funding, Indigenous Access McGill (IAM) continues to provide mentoring and tutoring services to First Nations and Inuit Students in Social Work and other programs. Despite its financial uncertainty, the program has garnered support from other Indigenous student groups and support services at McGill over the years.

Since IAM started up in 2007, Arts Senator Claire Stewart-Kanigan told The Daily in an interview on January 16, the program has “seen an increase in Indigenous graduates and students coming into the School of Social Work. [...] So, Indigenous Access McGill has been a concrete help for Indigenous students in making McGill seem like a more inviting environment [for them], and also [in] providing skills and support to help [Indigenous] students succeed when they get here.”

In its seven years of existence, IAM has kept in contact with, and has been supported by, the First Peoples’ House and other Indigenous student organizations throughout campus.

IAM Project Coordinator Courtney Montour told The Daily in an email that IAM has also been instrumental in developing the Aboriginal field studies course (IDFC 500) in 2013, which was offered to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Social Work, Medicine, Anthropology, and Law. The course was initially run in 2010 as a slot course and then formally recognized by McGill in 2011 as IDFC 380.

“The idea for an Aboriginal field studies course grew out of IAM. We did the initial research and developed the framework,” Montour said,

(Continued from page 3) in the residence market. “I think that as universities like McGill and Université de Montréal are moving increasingly toward the corporate model, they need revenue streams. That comes with increases in tuition, increases in ancillary fees that McGill has, students have to pay,” said Burrill.

It’s unclear exactly what impact private investment will have on the situation, but Provencher

adding that she visited the University of British Columbia to gather ideas. “We took what we learned through this experience and tailored it to the needs of the McGill and Kahnawake communities.”

IAM was born out of a research study – conducted from 2005 to 2008 by the Director of the School of Social Work Wendy Thomson, and funded by the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport du Québec – on current and ongoing educational and professional needs in the Kahnawake and Kanehsatà:ke communities, and the region of Nunavik.

The study found that “Indigenous students are underrepresented in undergraduate and graduate programs,” Montour said, adding that the study also found “participants had myriad concerns around their ability to succeed in a mainstream social work program. It was clear that a range of support systems needed to be put in place.”

In 2007, IAM was founded by the Director of the School of Social Work Wendy Thomson, Social Work assistant professor Nicole Ives, past IAM Coordinator Oonagh Aitken, and Michael Loft, professional associate with the IAM and professor with the School of Social Work, in order to speak to these issues within the study’s findings.

Since its inauguration, IAM’s funding has come through grants –one from Health Canada between 2007 and 2010, and one from the Counselling Foundation of Canada between 2010 and 2013. However, since September 2013, Montour stated in an email to The Daily that IAM “[has been] without any concrete funding” and that “the Dean of the Faculty of Arts is currently providing IAM with some bridge funding.”

Following the Arts Undergradu-

said that if it will impact rent prices in the neighbourhood, it would most likely drive them up even further.

“If it’s a private [company], of course they’re making an investment; they want money, and [residences] they develop will probably be more expensive than McGill’s,” Provencher said.

The students’ legacy Despite the dizzying climb of rent prices in the McGill area since

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily ate Society (AUS) Council’s January 22 meeting, Stewart-Kanigan asked Dean Christopher Manfredi whether the Faculty of Arts would continue to fund IAM until permanent funding is found for the program.

“I asked, ‘Will bridge funding continue if additional funding or university funding isn’t found?’ And he said, ‘Yes it would. For next year if external funding isn’t found then they will continue to receive funding from the Faculty of Arts. The staff positions won’t disappear.’”

When asked about the amount of money that is required to run IAM, Montour refused to comment. “It is minimal, and right now with that

bridge funding, the three of us at the university [are] capable of using our manpower to do any support service.

But if anything costs money out of the physical realm of our ability, we can’t do that right now.”

Once IAM receives sustainable funding, Mary Shen, a McGill Social Work student and current member of IAM, told The Daily that, in addition to maintaining the current Aboriginal Field Studies Course that IAM was instrumental in creating, she would like to see IAM push for and offer more courses related to Indigenous Studies.

“I know there are other programs in Indigenous Social Work that they

could offer. The First Nations program is just starting out at McGill, so I know they could offer a lot more [in terms of courses].”

Stewart-Kanigan added on January 16 that with permanent funding, IAM could “get a bit more outreach and joint events with other organizations. I think that could help with their visibility because I think there’s space for them [...] within the Faculty of Arts.”

“But things are slowly moving,” Loft said to The Daily. “And I think they’re moving in a Native way. […]

We want to make a better day for our youth for the future, and that’s what it’s about.”

the 1990s, a typical feature of gentrification, both Provencher and Kowaluk argued that the neighbourhood hasn’t been gentrified.

“I don’t see students moving in as gentrification,” said Kowaluk, although she wasn’t happy about the change.

Provencher agreed. “I don’t think [of it as gentrification]. Because the families with kids, they don’t want to come [to the neighbourhood], the professionals, they don’t want to come,” she said.

“The number of students is overwhelming the demographic mix,” Kowaluk added. “It’s not the majority of students, but enough who don’t have a sense of living in a neighborhood [and] don’t know how to behave or hold their liquor [...] I know people who say their neighbours have left because they were tired of the noise.”

Burrill described McGill’s view on incoming students as a “captive tenant population,” saying that “[The University] is tar-

geting them as a revenue source.”

Burrill believes that the conversion of hotels to residences downtown do contribute to a form of gentrification, pushing lower-income tenants out.

“The main way students can not contribute to gentrification is living a certain way, getting to know their neighbours,” he said.

“There are certain legal things student[s] can do. You can transfer your lease, insist on having repairs done.”

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News

February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Temporary foreign workers face challenges in Canada Organizations push for rights of migrant workers Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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n December 31, the federal government’s latest amendments to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) came into effect, including a change that prevented employers who had criminal convictions in human trafficking, sexually assaulting an employee, or causing the death of an employee from participating in the TFWP; however, the change was later dropped.

The TFWP was introduced in response to Canadian employers who claimed they could not find sufficient qualified workers in Canada, and allows employers to bring non-Canadians to work in the country for a limited time under temporary work visas.

However, the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) of Montreal, whose mandate includes educating workers about their rights and improving their living and working conditions, believes that the TFWP is a ‘revolving door’ immigration policy that breeds precarity among the workers in the program. As such, the IWC assisted with the creation of the Temporary Foreign Workers Association (TFWA), which had its first general assembly on November 23, 2013.

“The best people that can fight for our rights as temporary foreign workers [are] the same temporary foreign workers,” said Helena Sanchez, head representative for TFWA Montreal and a temporary foreign worker, in a phone interview with The Daily.

Sanchez came to Canada from Spain under the Experience Canada program, which provided her with a temporary open work permit. Even though it is a work-holiday program, Sanchez said that most Europeans come to Canada for the work and not for the holiday.

“It was super difficult to find a job, just because of the visa. I got this special number, which starts with a nine, that says that you are a temporary foreign worker,” Sanchez explained. “Employers don’t want to employ you, because they know that you would be obligated to leave the country in a year.”

“It’s cool that you have an open visa, but when you have an open visa not associated to any

Alice Shen and Tanbin Rafee | The McGill Daily employer it means that you’re not going to have services. And [even] after a year I couldn’t go to [the] hospital. I paid all my taxes all year, like a normal Canadian [resident, but I had] no services, health insurance. I [had] absolutely nothing,” she added.

“It is a form of indentured slavery, which becomes more prominent when the worker gets into a labour dispute with an abusive employer.”

Joey Calugay IWC community organizer According to Neil LaDode, a representative from TFWA and a migrant worker who is not working under the TFWP, another problem workers like him face is the isolation they encounter in the workplace.

“We want to have equality; not only equal [in] the system, but also [free] from the stigma. We want the confirmation that temporary foreign workers need to be welcomed well, from the government as well as from the society,” LaDode said in an interview with The Daily.

Other than an open temporary work visa, workers can also have closed visas tied to specific employers; however, Sanchez said that the closed work permits seem to give an unfair advantage to the employers with regards to controlling the rights of their employees.

“You are in the hands of your employer. He or she decides when you are coming, when you are leaving, what are your rights, and what aren’t your rights,” she added.

Adrienne Gibson, associate researcher at Migrant Workers’ Rights Quebec (MWR), believes that the Conservative government has decided to prioritize the demands of employers through the TFWP, rather than immigration programs which bring foreign workers and families on permanent status.

Although on paper all temporary foreign workers are supposed to have access to all the same pro-

tections as Canadian workers, Gibson told The Daily that, in reality, that has never been the case for about 50 per cent of them.

“The fact that some of these workers can be sent home at any time upon the employer’s request, without access to an impartial review of the decision to repatriate them, is a huge obstacle and is an example of how the TFWP seems to be unconstitutional, in our opinion,” Gibson said in an email to The Daily.

According to Joey Calugay, community organizer at the IWC, even having closed work permits could be problematic for temporary foreign workers.

“Most have closed work permits which tie them to one employer. Their ability to stay in Canada is tied to that employment. It is a form of indentured slavery, which becomes more prominent when the worker gets into a labour dispute with an abusive employer,” said Calugay in an email to The Daily.

“The worker is immediately faced with the choice of fighting for their rights and perhaps losing their employment, and thus their right to stay and continue to have an income to support themselves

or their families, or to remain silent and simply endure the abuse and exploitation,” Calugay continued.

Sanchez explained to The Daily that when she went to renew her visa, she encountered problems at the Canadian border. “I [got] to the border, because in this program, you have to get out of the country, and then come back to process your visa. [Border services] told me that I should have private health insurance, because without my private health insurance, it would be impossible to get into the country. [...] But in [IWC], they told me [...] if you have a permit, if you have a job, you have a right to have public health insurance,” Sanchez explained.

“I have the right. It’s just that they try [to make sure you do not] know what your real rights are in Canada,” Sanchez continued.

In December 2011, the Quebec Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights issued a legal opinion stating that various aspects of these programs violate the Quebec Charter of Human Rights. Apart from that, while organizations like the IWC and MWR are investigating the legality of the TFWP, to date, no legal action has been taken against it.

News

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

7

Labour unions withdraw complaints about payroll schedule McGill’s changes would have created strain on union workers Jill Bachelder News Writer

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n a positive development for the University’s relationship with labour unions, both the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) and the Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE) have reached a compromise with McGill administration over issues related to the changes in payroll frequency.

The problems initially arose when McGill announced its plan to standardize the pay periods of all McGill employees by changing its payroll schedule to every two weeks, with a payment delay of one pay period. According to information released by McGill Human Resources, this change was meant to make the task of paying McGill employees easier, as the previous system had different employee groups on different pay schedules.

However, unions were unhappy with the change, as the new schedule would have resulted in a two week delay in payment.

“The problem with this delay is the first paycheque we received on January 16 was for work that was done January 1 to 3,” Sean Cory, the president of AMURE, told The Daily in an email. “This would have resulted in skipping almost a full paycheque.”

To make up for the delay in payment, the University offered to issue interest-free loans to employees at the beginning of January to be paid back regularly over the course of the year.

However, this solution still would have created problems for MUNACA and AMURE workers.

“The end result would have been salary deductions for almost a year to pay for McGill’s pay frequency change,” noted Cory.

In addition, the fact that the loans offered were interest-free meant that they would be subject to tax, resulting in further loss of wages. The overall effect would have been a loss of $15 per pay period for MUNACA and AMURE employees.

Initially, when confronted with resistance in negotiations from Principal Suzanne Fortier and Vice-Principal (Administration and

Finance) Michael Di Grappa, the unions encouraged their members to submit complaints concerning the payroll delays.

MUNACA and AMURE members filed over 300 complaints in a court case planned for December 2013, but they were withdrawn when the compromise was reached at the end of November.

Cory told The Daily that the basis of the complaints was initially that “we felt that unions were targeted as they were the only ones that were having this delay introduced and thus salary deductions.”

However, according to Doug Sweet, McGill’s director of internal communications, both unionized and non-unionized employees faced this change.

Just a few weeks before the changes were scheduled to take place, MUNACA, AMURE, and the McGill administration were finally able to come to a compromise. McGill agreed to allow workers to pay back their interest-free loans when they leave McGill, instead of deducting the loan from the workers’ paychecks.

“It resulted in an almost seam-

Jasmine Wang | Illustrator less transition to bi-weekly pays with a delay,” said Cory. “It is a difficult time financially for the University. We are not sure what the real benefit [of ] a two week delay is to the University or whether that justifies this loan of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we recognize that a two week delay in pay is essentially standard in large companies.”

“I think a lot of it got resolved

once the upper administration understood what kind of impact it would have on our membership,” Kevin Whittaker, president of MUNACA, told The Daily. He added that the complaints were withdrawn “because the University came to an agreement [and understood] that what they were doing would be a hardship for our members and they adjusted the process [so that it] suited us.”

McGill addresses grad-supervisor relations Students, ombudsperson recommend more supervisor training Janna Bryson The McGill Daily

A

s part of an ongoing initiative to improve the relationship between graduate students and supervisors, something that the University has struggled with in the past, McGill recently launched a new webpage that outlines the roles and responsibilities of the supervisory relationship.

In an interview with The Daily, Martin Kreiswirth, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and Associate Provost (Graduate Education), explained that attention to the relationship between supervisor and supervisee is relatively new.

“In graduate education in universities, [the relationship] was something that had been pretty much ignored for many years, up until the mid-1990s or even later,” said Kreiswirth. “I don’t think McGill has been particularly late [to address the relationship], but it wasn’t at the forefront. McGill has

been in the middle, and I think we’re now giving it a kind of attention that other universities aren’t […] the attention that it needs.”

In December 2012 and January 2013, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) and the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) distributed a survey to both graduate students and supervisors on the state of the supervisory relationship.

In the survey, 66 per cent of students across faculties thought that McGill should train all graduate supervisors; however, only 39 per cent of surveyed supervisors agreed that this training was necessary.

This discrepancy, according to Kreiswirth, is largely due to the importance of the relationship to the student’s career relative to the supervisor’s. Training new professors and holding workshops for supervisors has been consistently recommended by Spencer Boudreau, the student ombudsperson, in the Ombudsperson’s Annual Report since

the 2010-11 academic year.

According to Kreiswirth, the GPS is acting on these recommendations despite some faculty resistance.

“We’ve improved our [supervisor] workshops, we get more people to attend. [...] There’s a pretty general agreement that new professors need to get training [before becoming supervisors],” he told The Daily.

The focus on training new professors, rather than all supervisors, stems largely from concerns about the feasibility and practical concerns of such a project.

Another important change will be the explicit statement of the roles and responsibilities of both graduate students and supervisors. Kreiswirth emphasized to The Daily that “establishing and maintaining the relationship between supervisors and supervisees, and articulating expectations and agreeing upon them early,” are arguably the most important factors to improving the relationship

between graduate students and their supervisors.

Jonathan Mooney, PGSS Secretary-General, agreed with Kreiswirth, adding, “PGSS wants there to be clear expectations and accountability on both sides for the students and the supervisor. We think that is the best way to build a positive solution for the relationship.”

According to Kreiswirth, expectations will be clarified through adjustments to the mandatory progress tracking system already in place at McGill.

Kreiswirth also explained that the new mechanism should not require additional Senate approval as it is simply an add-on to the system that is already in place.

Boudreau’s 2012-13 Ombudsperson’s Annual Report, released online on January 31, acknowledged the progress that has been made. “There are regularly scheduled supervision workshops, as well as a website, and resources available to all supervisors,”

reads the report.

However, Boudreau also emphasized that future implementation of mandatory training will be critical to the improvement of the supervisory relationship.

“Unfortunately however, at times one gets the impression that those supervisors who would benefit most from these resources do not use them. Consequently I wish to repeat my recommendation from my [2010-11] Annual Report that all new academic hires without prior experience of graduate supervision be expected to attend a supervision workshop,” Boudreau stated in the report.

The Daily was unable to reach Boudreau for further comment before press time.

Overall, there is still work to be done on the relationship between graduate students and their supervisors. “It’s generally good, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better,” said Kreiswirth.

Art Essay

Monday, February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

8

Untitled Tanjiha Mahmud

Commentary

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

9

A modest proposition Toward the liberation of queer people of colour Kai Cheng Thom From Gaysia With Love

T

o: QPOC Everywhere, All the time Re: Let’s do each other, maybe?

“I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.” Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches Dear Queer People of Colour (QPOC), This is a love letter and a call to arms. This is a love letter and a challenge. This is a love letter and a manifesto, a celebration, a remembrance, a seduction, a warning, a modest proposition toward the liberation of Queer People of Colour struggling to see ourselves and each other amid the blinding whiteness of the ‘mainstream’ gay culture: yes, I am propositioning you, all of you. I am proposing that we have sex with each other for the revolution, that we eroticize each other for the revolution.

I am speaking in solidarity with those of you who, like me, have begun to question the construction of our desires as subordinate to that glorious subject, the young white body; those of us whose bodies have rarely or never appeared in our own sexual fantasies. I am speaking with gratitude to those of you, elders and mentors, who have been engaged in revolutionary loving for many years.

I am reaching out because it was in the shadow of the rainbow that I discovered my race: always Chinese, I had never thought of myself as simply “Asian,” never felt myself considered part of a faceless, sexless, sub-human mass until my first night on a gay dance floor. Because the most violent racist aggressions in my life have always come from white queers, and particularly white gay men.

This letter is for my best friend and chosen brother, a fiercely beautiful and intelligent East Asian diva who once told me that white men are “scientifically” better-looking than men of colour. For you, my unstoppable brother, from whom I learn so much and for whom I have no answers when you ask me if I think that your white boyfriends are fetishizing you, save that you are worth all the love in the world.

This is for you, the gorgeous brown boy whom I nearly fucked in

Jasmine Wang | Illustrator a bathroom in a bar one night after doing a drag performance in Ontario.

You called me the most beautiful boy you’d ever touched. I had to stop – I almost cried – when you said that, because even after years of learning makeup and glamour, of trying to reclaim my femininity and my Asianness as something sexual, I still couldn’t make myself believe those words. Because, in some twisted way, I thought that you deserved something better – more masculine, whiter – than me. Because I could see in the way you touched me that you had not yet had the kind of tender, consensual sex that I have fought for over the years, that you were used to the kind of violence with which coloured queers are so intimately familiar.

This is for the mixed-race activist who told me how she was driven from a white feminist, lesbian collective because her anger at being co-opted and invisibilized was considered “too divisive” and “too aggressive.” I want to tell you that I think your rage is powerful, is sexy, is a thousand times more attractive than the pale hypocritical politics thrown around like so much window-dressing in white queer activist spaces. The community I want is one with you burning bright and hot in it.

This is for all you black and brown femmes and bois, gaysians, coloured queens, Two-Spirit folks, QPOC, and mixed queers who have grown up in the shadow of the rainbow. All of us who ever searched for identity, for sex, for safety, for a saviour in the white sea of the gay community; who went online and saw ourselves immediately ruled out with petty, almost gleeful cruelty as sexual partners: no femmes, no fats, no Asians or Blacks, am I right? Who watched porn and Queer as Folk and Will and Grace and Looking and thought, where am I? Who defined our worth, our realness, our viability as queer people by our ability to attract white partners – who compromised our pleasure and integrity and safety for a dangerous, anonymous fuck that we didn’t enjoy. Who agreed to polyamorous relationships, ostensibly in the name of sexual liberation, but secretly because we were afraid that our white partners would leave us if we didn’t. Who sat ashamed and alone in STI clinics after sex we weren’t sure we agreed to, surrounded by “HIV/AIDS awareness” posters and pamphlets all featuring the glamourized bodies of white men so concerned by their own marginality but who never once thought of those

shadowed brown bodies quietly dying outside the spotlight.

My dear QPOC, I think we deserve to desire each other. It is not easy to see ourselves as erotic, as possessing that power that we have come to associate with whiteness.

But listen: we know the shape of each others’ scars. There is an intimacy that exists between us that is deeper than the dream of subordination we were taught to exalt.

Because I know about those dreams. About solitary exploration, discovery, fear, elation, rejection under the covers in the quiet hours of the night, trying not to wake siblings and parents in the tiny living space you shared. I know about bleaching creams and body hair anxiety – the hair that refused to grow and the hair that refused to stop growing. About the muscle that wouldn’t come, the fat that wouldn’t cooperate. The dieting. The vomiting. The resignation that we could only ever be, at best, beautiful in spite of our race and not because of it.

And I know about being cruel to other queer people of colour. I know about competing for attention in a white space, about jealousy of those of us who could “pass” for white or conform more closely to a white

standard of beauty. I know about rejecting our cultures, our parents, our pasts, as irresolvable with the mainstream gay political project of marriage rights, military participation, and capitalist ascension. You and I? We know all about cruelty, honey.

What I want to learn about is what’s possible if only we started being tender, flirtatious, silly, serious, sexual, raw, delicate, deep with each other. I want to remember the sacredness, the sensuality of hair that refuses to stop growing, of skin that will not lighten. Because, Queer People of Colour, you are so, so sexy. There’s pleasure beyond words in your mouth, and I want to find it with my tongue. There’s a revolution in my pants, and you are definitely invited. We can go slowly, we can always stop if it doesn’t work out. But I want to choose the possibility of you. And I want you to choose the possibility of me.

From Gaysia With Love, Kai Cheng From Gaysia With Love is an epistolary exploration of intersectionality by Kai Cheng Thom. They can be reached at fromgaysia@mcgilldaily.com.

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February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Cheap boots and wet feet Class prejudices in academia and the logic of poverty

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily Benjamin Elgie The McGill Daily

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cademia is intensely middleclass. The cost of tuition alone helps ensure this, but so too does the time commitment.

Sinking six to ten years into getting a Bachelor’s and PhD (and outside of certain select fields, you do need a PhD) is more than most people who need to pay bills and support families can afford. Even if you do come from a poor or working-class background, you will slowly become acclimatized to the attitudes and opinions of your peers.

This socioeconomic climate of academia has an unavoidable effect on the way academics form their ideas. Consider temporal discounting, a phenomenon studied under cognitive psychology and other disciplines, often used as a measure of impulsivity. In a typical temporal discounting experiment, the researcher will offer the participant the choice between something of a small amount of value now (money, chocolate, et cetera), or else something of higher value sometime in the future. By systematically varying the amounts of value and time, you can construct a curve predicting an individual’s choices. This is used to test hypotheses concerning addiction, emotional regulation,

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obesity, reward behaviour, and related issues; similar concepts are present in other fields, including economics.

Of course, the logic of these experiments appear to make sense; by delaying your reward, you increase your value. It’s the simple math of delayed gratification, and if someone has a high curve at short time intervals, they are simply impulsive, and lacking some degree of cognitive control.

And yet, if you grow up poor, taking less now rather than more later makes sense. Not because you’re impulsive, but because you must take less money now, because your rent costs half as much as (or more than) your monthly wages.

Plus, who knows if the money on offer will still be there six months from now? Money now is much more certain than money later.

But you’ll hardly ever hear a cognitive psychologist or social neuroscientist tell you about the socioeconomic history of their participants, even with the rare study that examines the effects of “resource scarcity” and “mortality.” Instead, you hear that a population of poor people have high impulsivity, which explains the high rate of alcoholism among that population (though, of course, it’s rather easier to manage

your alcoholism if you have money).

Or that obesity among the poor is related to impulsive behaviour, rather than trying to get the most calories for the least cost.

Cue middle-class academic liberals clucking their tongues, wondering how they can get funding for classes for welfare recipients so that they can learn how to delay gratification. This is no random example. Such courses have been especially popular in colonial nations – particularly in North America, Australia, and South Africa for their Indigenous and poor populations.

Approaches that treat impulsivity as an undesirable cause, or even effect, of poverty, then attempt to use behavioural remedies rather than economic ones. Books such as Teaching With Poverty in Mind, or programs such as “Money Smarts 4 Kids” give strategies for reducing impulsive behaviours in children, and misunderstand both the nature and the origins of the behaviours they describe.

The seemingly short-term, impulsive thinking attributed to the poor is absolutely frustrating to many of my peers in academia.

Consider the sort of middle-class investment that works by saving money now to buy something of higher quality in the future. This is the logic of the middle and upper

classes. The logic of poverty, on the other hand, can be clearly described by author Terry Pratchett as the “Vimes Theory of Boots.” His character, Samuel Vimes, muses that he can only afford cheap boots, which fall apart in a few months, requiring him to purchase a new pair. He will easily spend more on several pairs of cheap boots than a wealthier person does on a single pair of highquality boots, all without ever having the ability to afford to save up for quality boots. Not only does he spend more over the long-term than a wealthier individual, but he’ll have wet feet the whole time as well.

Middle-class academics treat such behaviours – which have their own logic for someone who is poor – as personality or character flaws, rather than adaptive traits.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer with The Atlantic, described how this played out for him as he grew up in a rough Baltimore neighbourhood in the 1980s, and later transitioned to the New York professional writing scene. The behaviours that in the former environment had been adaptive for him, such as threatening someone who refused to back off of an argument, in the new environment put him at risk of losing his job, or even facing legal action.

This idea that certain traits are adaptive in some circumstances,

and maladaptive in others, is a simple enough concept for ecologists dealing with animals, but seems to escape many academics who deal with humans. The underlying assumption is that the ways we, as academics, conceive of ideas, and the ways the people in our studies respond, are somehow universal.

As Dr. Joseph Henrich, economics and psychology professor at the University of British Colombia has suggested, the individuals who have participated in seminal social science studies, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment, are largely unrepresentative of the world’s population. His group labels the typical psych subject as Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic, or ‘WEIRD.’ While his label itself carries some assumptions, the point should be reflected on by anyone who works in relevant fields. As academics working with humans in any kind of behavioural science, it must be understood that both our studied populations, and we ourselves are heavily unrepresentative of the bulk of humanity.

Benjamin Elgie is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Daily Publications Society. He can be reached at benjamin.elgie@mail. mcgill.ca.

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REFLECTING ON THE ORANGE CRUSH A profile of Laurin Liu, McGill student-cum-NDP Member of Parliament Written by Daniel Woodhouse Illustration by Alice Shen

How did the NDP manage to jump from being being the fourth largest party represented in parliament to one of the largest oppositions in Canadian history?

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aurin Liu is the youngest female Member of Parliament (MP) in Canadian history. When she was elected as the MP for the electoral riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles in 2011 she was still a U2 History and Cultural Studies student at McGill, in addition to being a journalist at The Daily and CKUT radio.

In total, five McGill students were elected to Parliament as New Democratic Party (NDP) candidates, alongside other students at University de Sherbrooke and Laval. They were part of the “Orange Crush,” a surge in the popularity of the NDP late in the campaign period that saw the NDP gain 67 seats, making it the official opposition with 103 seats in total.

In 2000, the NDP seemed to be vanishing from the Canadian political radar with a meagre 13 seats in Parliament. But three years later the party elected Jack Layton, a mustachioed veteran of Toronto municipal politics with a fresh vi-

sion for electoral success, as leader. Despite starting with a leader who wasn’t even an MP, the party managed to make steady electoral progress. Going into the 2011 election, the NDP had 36 seats in the house and the party was openly optimistic. Despite the optimism, it would have been difficult to foresee the political coup that followed. Jack Layton, often referred to as the “happy warrior” for his unwavering optimism, became leader of the opposition. But just shortly afterwards, he announced a leave of absence after being diagnosed with cancer and died in August 2011.

Welcome to the NDP Liu grew up in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, attending Royal West Academy and College Jean-de-Brébeuf, among Canada’s most prestigious high schools and CEGEPs, respectively. Her father, a biologist, and mother, who teaches Cantonese, emigrated from Hong Kong

before she was born. In high school, she began investigating which political parties best represented her values as an environmentalist and feminist. She decided on the NDP and obtained a membership card. Before long she became involved with campaigns and was one of the presidents of the Youth Wing of the Quebec NDP. It had long been NDP policy to leave no seat uncontested, and Liu was among the candidates who were entered in 2011. Many were in their early twenties, and many had no expectation of reaching Ottawa. During the election, she did not campaign in her riding, Rivière-desMille-Îles, and instead helped Thomas Mulcair with his campaign in Outremont, using her fluent Cantonese to appeal to Chinese-Canadian voters. She only found out that she had taken the lead when her friends texted her that she was ahead in the polls. Thomas Mulcair would go on to succeed the late Lay-

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February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

ton as party leader.

Liu on the work she does I spoke with Liu by phone while Parliament was out of session this January. When not occupied by Parliament, she returns to her riding, where her office becomes a consultancy for individuals, community organizations, and businesses, to gain advice on using federal services. “What we do is more proactive, and not just reacting to problems they face; we will send them information about federal grants that they could qualify for,” she said.

I ask her what the major issues in her riding are at the moment. “The cuts to Canada Post and door-to-door delivery,” she said.

“I have a lot of seniors in my [constituency] – older folks who have mobility issues and who live at home. They are concerned about having to walk to a community mailbox to get their mail.”

NDP success When Liu was elected in 2011, the local press was skeptical. One local newspaper ran the headline “Deux nouvelles députées du NPD qui en savent bien peu” (“Two new MPs from the NDP who don’t know much”). And in The Daily’s 2011 article about Liu and the “Orange Crush,” one commenter seemed unhappy about her riding’s new MP. “Nobody really knew anything about her [...] actually, we didn’t even know we had a NDP candidate around until we saw her name on our voting sheet,” the commenter said.

While this seems like an obvious criticism to make about the unexpected new crop of young, inexperienced NDP MPs, it is not one that seems to have been borne out by the evidence.

“I’m not the first member of parliament to win an election based on the popularity of my leader,” said Liu. Layton’s popularity was the major reason for the NDP’s success in the election. With U.S. politics increasingly coming under fire for being unrepresentative and unfair, Canadian politics stand in stark contrast. How did the NDP manage to jump from being being the fourth largest party represented in parliament to one of the largest oppositions in Canadian history?

Brad Lavigne, the director of the 2011 NDP election campaign, has recently published his book Building the Orange Wave.

He would argue that the NDP’s success was rooted in the direction Layton took the party when he became leader in 2003. In particular, he cited Layton’s ambition to make the

party a genuine contender for government, as well as the importance placed on courting the Quebec vote.

The NDP’s approach to Quebec – their own version of ‘flexible federalism’ – is clearly exemplified by their document on Quebecois separatism, the Sherbrooke Declaration. Unlike the Liberals’ Clarity Act, the NDP policy would give Quebec the right to self-determination and a referendum to be passed with more than 50 per cent. On the issue of the Bloc Québecois, Liu is forthright about the sentiment of her riding. “They are not interested in going back into those constitutional debates, and going back to the question of a referendum. They found an option that is [...] progressive.”

These views of the election seem to be broadly supported in a recent paper “Riding the Orange Wave: Leadership, Values, Issues, and the 2011 Canadian Election,” authored by five political scientists, including three from McGill. “Neither fluke polls, leaders’ debates, nor a decline in support for Quebec sovereignty were the driving forces behind the orange wave,” the paper concludes. Instead they find that the NDP’s success was due to “a combination of Jack Layton’s leadership and the discovery by many voters of the NDP’s proximity on some values and issues.”

Samuel Harris, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP External, was an NDP society member in 2011, and knew many of the McGill MPs. He recalled being optimistic about how his friends would fare in Parliament. “These were people who were not necessarily from wealthy families and had worked part-time jobs, who were very active with the party, the club, were in relationships, were very good academically and wanted to do either law or graduate school afterwards [...] I think if you wanted students to be elected to Parliament, these are exactly the kinds of hardworking people with a lot of experiences that you want.”

“I have a really great record as a Member of Parliament working for my constituents for the past two years,” said Liu. “When I go door to door in my riding what I hear is that the issues that people care about are the issues we are defending in the House of Commons.”

A parliamentary critic When Parliament is in session, Liu has a very different set of concerns. During question period, Liu is Deputy Critic for Science and Technology, and for six hours a week she sits on the Committee on International Trade.

“[The Conservatives] have been rejecting 100 per cent of the propositions that the opposition parties have been proposing to change our amendments [...] which is [...] unprecedented in majority governments.

This is not [what] was done under the majority government of Paul Martin.”

Lauren Liu On parliamentary committees under the Conservatives

Features “Traditionally, [committees are] the Byzantine approach to the press, prioritizplace in which all parties are able to work ing message control and showing little untogether, and we’ve seen that, in the case derstanding of the importance of the free with the environment committee in the flow of scientific knowledge.”

When I asked Liu if she is optimistic Mulroney year [...], we were actually able to work together to produce a really success- about the situation improving for Canaful report on acid rain across party lines that dian scientists, she interjected before I was actually widely read among the public,” could finish the question stating, “Absoshe said. “[The Conservatives] have been re- lutely not!” She spoke about the latest jecting 100 per cent of the propositions that consultation being conducted by the Conthe opposition parties have been proposing servatives. According to Liu, the questionto change our amendments [...] which is [...] naire being used is nothing more than a unprecedented in majority governments. transparent attempt to re-evaluate science This is not [what] was done under the ma- based on its commercial impact.

“The Conservatives think science jority government of Paul Martin.”

Despite the Conservatives’ apparent should be fully at the service of industry, unwillingness to collaborate, Liu seems whereas I think – and my party thinks – proud of her achievements in Ottawa. “One [that] science should benefit us economiof [the] first things [I did] as a Member of cally, but also benefit the health and enviParliament was tabling a private mem- ronment of Canadians,” she said. bers bill to have senior citizens who qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) to automatically receive it,” she said.

Formerly, seniors who qualified for the GIS – a monthly supplement for seniors under the poverty line – had to sign up to receive it.

“The main problem that we’re trying to address here is that many people don’t make the initial [...] application to receive the guaranteed income supplement,” Liu told Lauren Liu CBC news when the On being Deputy Critic for Science and Technology NDP tabled the bill in March 2012.

Layton always made a point to empha- What lies ahead It seems that the real test for the legacy size that his constituents were his priority and that he considered them deeply when of this NDP opposition is whether or not making political decisions in Ottawa. In they can win the next election and really his case, it is not simply a trite sentiment, start implementing their own political platand even got Layton into trouble on occa- form. For their part, it seems that the new sion. During the 2004 election campaign, MPs have managed to overcome the initial a reporter asked him if he held the then- skepticism surrounding their election to Prime Minister Paul Martin responsible Parliament. Charmaine Borg, one of the for the deaths of the homeless due to his ‘McGill MPs,’ has been given the position of cuts on affordable housing. ”I’ve always Digital Issues critic, becoming the youngsaid I hold him responsible for that,” said est full critic in Canada’s history. During Layton, provoking a small media uproar her term, she helped to force the Conservatives to abandon the controversial C-30 and some backlash.

Liu seems to share the priorities of her bill, known colloquially as the ‘Internet party’s former leader. In her case, the cause surveillance bill.’

Toward the end of my conversation is the GIS, and the ‘ordinary people’ who she is taking into consideration are the with Liu, I asked her if entering Parliaseniors living in her district who Liu feels ment provided her with some privileged may not be subscribing to a program that insights into Canadian politics. “Using the Member of Parliaments’ gym can be could be helping them.

As a Deputy Critic for Science and Tech- very strange. I’ll often see my colleagues nology, Liu finds herself representing a very in their workout shorts and t-shirts,” she different constituency. The policies of the said, laughing.

And if it came down to an athletic comHarper administration have been widely criticized by scientists and commentators petition to win the next election, who would as ideologically motivated attacks, slashing win? “I would say the NDP.” She is totally serifunding and effectively muzzling scientists. ous. ”After the 2011 elections the average age In particular, the cuts to governmental en- of parliamentarians in the House of Commons vironmental institutions laid out in omnibus went down by ten years: about a dozen folks budget Bill C-38 were dubbed “Harper’s war were elected [who are] under the age of 30.”

With many young people disillusioned on science” by critics.

Science and medicine journal Nature with their democratic systems, it is enpublished an editorial criticizing the re- couraging to know that in Canada at least strictions placed on Canadian scientists one generation, albeit all from a singular when talking to the public, and argued that political party, has been given a chance to investigations had revealed “a confused and shape their future.

“The Conservatives think science should be fully at the service of industry, whereas I think – and my party thinks – [that] science should benefit us economically, but also benefit the health and environment of Canadians.”

Sci+Tech

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A spotless mind The practical applications and ethics of memory modification Alice Shen The McGill Daily

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hrough evolution, humans have benefited tremendously from the memory of fear to avoid life-threatening situations.

Yet, in the cases of victims of sexual violence, accident witnesses, and war veterans, terrifying experiences can cause an overstimulation of stress hormones, strengthening consolidation of the conditioned fear response.

In some cases, this can result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which currently affects around 8 per cent of the population in Canada and the U.S..

In an effort to improve the condition of those who suffer from PTSD, Alain Brunet, a professor in psychiatry at McGill, and many leading researchers in the field, have been investigating the use of the drug propranolol for treating and preventing PTSD.

Research over the past decade has identified propranolol as a promising drug to attenuate the emotional responses associated with memories of traumatic experiences.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, PTSD is characterized by three categories of symptoms: re-experiencing (flashbacks, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts), avoidance (emotional, mental, and physical), and hyperarousal (insomnia, angry bursts, and tenseness).

Treatments for PTSD include psychological therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy and pharmacological intervention; however, many patients (around 40 to 50 per cent) do not respond to these standard treatments, urging novel treatment methods to be explored.

Research over the past decade has identified propranolol as a promising drug to attenuate the emotional responses associated with memories of traumatic experiences.

Propranolol, a beta-adrenergic blocker that is commonly used to treat hypertension and anxiety disorder, utilizes its intrinsic property to block the binding of the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine to the receptors in the brain. While there are many theories of how the drug works in the scientific literature, the precise mechanism of propranolol is not fully understood.

Both animal and clinical studies have shown that those administered with controlled doses of propranolol exhibit consistent decrease in emotional response to fearful memory recall. Brunet says, “As clinical psychologists, [we] ask whether the drug works, and we leave the how does it work question to the animal psychologists.” Recently, propranolol has been found to block a number of protein activities at the molecular level that ultimately prevent memory reconsolidation.

A common misconception of this drug is its non-selectivity for memory control; many question whether it suppresses more than just the targeted memories. In order to dispel such myths, Brunet’s lab designed a double blind study to assess the drug’s effect on patients’ factual and emotional memories. They dispensed propranolol to people with PTSD or a placebo once per week for six weeks, and discovered that individuals who were given propranolol retained their ability to describe the traumatic events taking place, but had little emotional reaction compared to those who were given placebo.

In other words, their factual memories were not directly affected by the treatment. Furthermore, Brunet reported no other side effect of the drug from his patients. On the other hand, while the drug has no adverse effect on memory, further investigation needs to be done on its selectivity on emotion, including, but not limited to, reactions to traumatic events.

The emotion-suppressing effect of the drug may be fitting to the treatment of PTSD, but there are legal implications. As addressed in a paper published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the authors raise the concern that in cases of sexual assault, victims may

Antu Das | Illustrator lose validity in their testimonies due to their relative indifference to their experiences and thus be less convincing when presented as evidence in legal trials. Brunet defends these implications by comparing propranolol to other existing psychiatric treatments, including those that do not involve direct chemicals interventions in the patient’s brain, such as cognitive therapy.

Brunet explains that any treatment for PTSD is aimed at removing the patients’ burden of having the pathological reactions to past traumatic events, in order to restore patients to their mental and behavioural state prior to the trauma. Consequently, the medical objective of treatments does not preclude legal proceedings – as the

objective facts are still present, one should not require patients to suffer just to fulfill certain emotional expectations in court.

The medical potential of propranolol extends beyond PTSD, and is presently being studied by many institutions other than McGill. For example, a research group at the University of Cambridge is investigating propranolol’s effectiveness in treating drug addiction.

Though it is important to stay informed on one’s drug subscription, it is also important to distinguish myths from facts. It seems ironic that while Prozac abuse is so common in society, newer drugs like propranolol – arguably with greater medical value, and fewer side effects – are irrationally feared and

thus overlooked.

The medical institution advances on scientific fact, not fear and lack of understanding. Brunet does not deny potential risks and concerns of propranolol – as mentioned, its effects are yet to be clarified, and there are certainly concerns about its abuse – but one does not stop at just any doubt. On the contrary, current debates on the drug are precisely why institutions exist: to discover truths, to dispel myths, and ultimately, to better lives. As is the case with all medication, only by understanding the exact nature of the drug can society tailor the production, distribution, and control procedures to balance the risks and benefits of propranolol.

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Sci+Tech

February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Signatures of consciousness Opening the door to the human mind Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez Sci+Tech Writer

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uman curiosity about the nature of its own conscious experience is not new. The problem seems as old as human thought.

Throughout the ages, philosophers and scientists have been, above all, intrigued by the unique and nontransferable nature of the human mind and amazed by the elusiveness of this phenomenon. For a long time, we thought such a complex matter escaped the possibility of being scientifically addressed. If science measures and analyzes objective events, then how could this subjective topic be a part of its inquiry?

Even though, historically, society has been inclined to believe in a ‘separate’ soul, apart from the physiological processes of the body, currently most people in different fields accept the fact that the mind arises from the physiological processes occuring n the brain. Before the 1970s, scientists did not dare raise this topic. Nowadays, thanks to new brain-imaging technologies, they are beginning to make progress in a field that used to belong exclusively to philosophers.

This is how Stanislas Dehaene, a professor at the Collège de France, started his talk on “Signatures of Consciousness in the Human Brain” at the Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal.

So, how to study consciousness? Many theoretical approaches have attempted to answer complex questions like what it is or how and why our sense of self originates.

For this so called “hard” problem of consciousness, Dehaene thinks a better comprehension of the phenomenon will emerge from its decomposition into smaller, simpler questions, addressable by minimal experimental paradigms. When it comes to more abstract philosophical problems, he believes we need a much better definition before experimenting with them.

Dehaene’s approach is based on the “workspace-model theory,” proposed by Bernard J. Baars in his book, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness. According to this model, consciousness is the ability to share information from inside a module to the rest of the brain. By comparing conscious and non-conscious brain states (using brain imaging methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging or electroencephalography that allow us to see the living, acting brain), researchers have been able to identify the functional

Alisa Brandt | Illustrator changes that underlie conscious experience. These are the so called “signatures of consciousness.” This has special relevance when it comes to potential clinical applications.

For example, looking for these signatures could help us to detect consciousness in a patient that does not have the ability to communicate due to brain damage.

The question of the social and cultural context of our conscious experience has also been of interest to neuroscientists. “[Our lab] tries to study the most basic aspects of consciousness […] But I am also personally interested in how you perceive digits and words. These are of course enormously influenced by culture; we can only recognize them because we have gone to school.” Dahaene went on to illustrate the example of school as an external influence on our brains by explaining how the processing of faces is moved from the left hemisphere to the right when we learn to read, so visual processing of words takes the place in the brain where faces

used to be.

Although some philosophers or anthropologists may accuse these kind of models of being reductionist, Dehaene asserts that “reductionism” is a not an appropriate word for science. “The way science deals with problems is by decomposing a system,” he said, “But it is not as if we wanted to jump from the molecular mechanisms or a single neuron property all the way to consciousness. We need intermediate conceptions and intermediate descriptions, possibly of a mathematical nature.”

Another of Dehaene’s claims is that it is possible to build simulations of neural networks that, when put together into a neural architecture with long distance connections, can reproduce the signatures of consciousness. When asked if he believes this may mean that we will one day build machines that we can call “conscious,” he declared that he doesn’t see any reason why this should be impossible. “Of course, our current simulations are way too simple. Nowadays, we program

computers in a completely modular manner. We already have highly specific models for face or speech recognition, so we have already solved a number of the ‘modular’ problems of the brain. What needs to be addressed now is the system of communication which allows these results to be shared. If we can implement this in a machine, I think we would all agree that we can call it consciousness.”

Despite the fact that his team has already found brain correlates of conscious events, there are still a lot of things to be done. According to Dehaene, the future lies in decoding brain representations instead of just detecting them. This would have a major clinical implication: it would allow non-communicative patients to express themselves through a machine interface. The challenge is complex: It implies we will be able to reconstruct a person’s mental image from the physical patterns of activation in a brain. Researchers are slowly working toward this goal – Dahaene’s research team has already studied brain activity underlying the

processing of numbers. He claims that they have been able to infer the number a patient is thinking about and guess it correctly in more than 50 per cent of situations – which is better than mere chance.

The topic of consciousness is currently highly debated, but there’s no doubt that the advances in brain research bring us closer to a physiological understanding of what we call “consciousness.” Intense discussions on this highly contentious topic are currently on the table and there are still a lot of thinkers that believe in a more complex interdisciplinary approach to the subject. Many people would disagree with views that machines will someday be conscious or with Dehaene’s claim that “It is the end of the time of philosophy for consciousness. It is now an experimental science in all of its aspects.” We don’t know if time will prove him right or wrong, but with continued experimental study, the once closed door of human consciousness is slowly being opened.

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Eleanor Milman | Illustrator

The great divide The right to die debate and Quebec’s Bill 52 Diana Kwon The McGill Daily

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hough the Hippocratic Oath forbade physicians from administering lethal drugs in any context, euthanasia in the context of painful and incurable illness has been debated since the times of ancient Greece and Rome.

Today, all forms of doctor-aided death are illegal in most parts of the world; however, with an aging population and advances in medical technology that allow the prolonging of life even with terminal illnesses, physician-aided death is coming to the forefront of discussion in both medicine and law. Society is trying to reconcile the difficult problem of preventing suffering while preserving the sanctity of life. Physician-assisted suicide has been legalized in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, as well as a few U.S. states (Oregon, Washington state, and Vermont). The conversation has recently gained fuel in Canada, and Quebec may become the first province in Canada to legalize

physician-assisted death.

Physician-aided death in Canada In Canada, physicians who aid a person in committing suicide are held criminally liable under the Criminal Code. This law has been challenged a number of times over the years – one of the most recent cases being Carter v.

Canada (Attorney General), which involved Gloria Taylor, a woman who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that involves muscle paralysis, and chronic pain while maintaining cognitive function, and leads to a slow, but eventual death. Taylor sought out physician-assisted suicide, and the British Columbia (BC) Supreme Court ruled in favour of providing an exception in her case; however, the BC Court of Appeal held the ban on assisted suicide.

Though Taylor eventually died of an infection, the case is now being brought to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The various definitions surrounding “endof-life” interventions are poorly understood by the general public. Under the current

law, discontinuing life-sustaining treatment (‘pulling the plug’) at a patient’s request is legal. All individuals have the right to refuse treatment, even if it means accelerating death.

Potentially life-shortening symptom relief – such as palliative sedation, which involves using medications such as morphine to decrease a patient’s level of consciousness to relieve severe pain – is also considered legal, as long as the intent is not infliction of death. This is not to be confused with terminal palliative sedation, the practice of administering a lethal dose of sedative in order to accelerate the patient’s death. Euthanasia (the deliberate act of ending someone’s life in order to relieve suffering) and assisted suicide (providing the means or knowledge needed for an individual to commit suicide), and any act carried out with the intent of killing a patient are illegal under federal law.

Quebec’s Bill 52 A game changer in Canada may be Bill 52, (Continued on page 18)

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Health&Ed

February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

(Continued from page 17) termed “An Act respecting endof-life care.” This bill was first introduced in 2013, and is currently being discussed at the National Assembly of Quebec. The bill defines “end-of-life” care as palliative care for individuals at the end of their lives, and includes the options of “terminal palliative sedation” and “medical aid in dying.”

The specific criteria for access to medical aid in dying are also outlined in the bill. Individuals must be of full age, be capable of giving consent, and the possession of an incurable serious illness with irreversible decline in capability and constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain.

A double-edged sword Bill 52 has sparked heated debates, with strong supporters both for and against; however, both sides advocate for what they believe is the solution in the best interest of patients and society, and raise important considerations, making it difficult to define an easy solution.

This particular legislature uses the terms “medical aid in dying” and “terminal palliative sedation.”

This has become one major area of contention – proponents of the bill see this as a necessary step in avoiding the negative connotation that comes with the terms “euthanasia” and “suicide,” while the opposing side has argued that this lack of clarity hides the reality of what it really is.

“I’d like to stress that ‘medical aid in dying’ is an expression that is well-chosen,” Veronique Hivon, the Quebec Minister for Social Services and Youth Protection, told The Daily. According to Hivon, the main differences are that euthanasia does not imply that all requests come directly from the person suffering, and assisted suicide does not make it necessary for a physician to be present when an individual carries out the act. “Here, the focus is on the ‘continuum of care,’ and the comforting and support-

ing aspect is very important,” Hivon added.

Some opponents argue that because patients can be asked to be taken off life support – and palliative sedation provides the means to alleviate suffering – other options are not required, and should remain closed to prevent the risk of abuse.

To this, supporters of physician-assisted death argue that keeping people sedated without

“I’d like to stress that ‘medical aid in dying’ is an expression that is well-chosen,” Veronique Hivon Quebec Minister for Social Services and Youth Protection life support is inhumane and the length of time before a person passes away is often uncertain.

“In palliative sedation, people are made unconscious with the assumption that they will die. The problem is that we don’t know when it will happen – it could be days, hours, [or] weeks. The problem won’t be for the patient who is unconscious, but for the family that will have no end,” asserted Dr. Yves Robert of the Quebec College of Physicians.

The slippery slope One of the most commonly heard arguments against these death-inducing interventions is the “slippery slope” argument.

Recently, a number of controversial cases have been arising in Belgium, where euthanasia has been legal since 2002. In September 2013 Nathan Verheist, a trans man, was given legal euthanasia for “unbearable psychological

pain” after several unsuccessful surgeries. Earlier that year, Marc and Eddy Verbessem, two deaf twins who were going blind, were given legal euthanasia on similar grounds by the same doctor. These cases sparked the legal euthanasia debate in Belgium, raising the question of whether assisting death for “mental suffering” without terminal illness was pushing ethical boundaries. Additionally, Belgium’s recent moves to attempt legalizing euthanasia for patients with dementia and for terminally-ill minors have added fuel to this debate.

Arguing for the need to protect vulnerable populations from misuse of euthanasia, opponents of Bill 52 suggest that these issues could arise if Quebec legalized medically-assisted death. “I think everybody should object to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide even if they don’t think it’s inherently wrong, because of the possibility of abuse and what it means for the values of our institutions and society,” said Margaret Somerville, a law professor at McGill.

Policymakers and proponents, on the other hand, assure that the stringent requirements in Quebec’s bill make it impossible for these types of cases to occur legally. Unlike the laws in Belgium, which state that individuals suffering unbearable psychological or physical distress as a result of incurable medical conditions are eligible for euthanasia, Quebec’s laws additionally require the individual to be at the end of life. “For Quebec, it’s a combination of criteria similar to Oregon or Washington state that are based on the “end of life,” whereas in Belgium and the Netherlands it is based on suffering,” Hivon explained.

Yet, with little data regarding the state of physician-aided death currently occurring in Quebec, it is very difficult to know whether this slippery slope might materialize. “Whatever happens, there needs to be clear guidelines about how the process happens – and

we need very good data. The slippery slope argument makes sense, but we don’t have very good baseline data,” says Emmanuelle Belanger, a researcher in palliative care at McGill.

“Whatever happens, there needs to be clear guidelines about how the process happens – and we need very good data. The slippery slope argument makes sense, but we don’t have very good baseline data,” Emmanuelle Belanger Palliative care researcher at McGill Access to palliative care Currently, not all individuals who need palliative care receive it.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, only 16 to 30 per cent of individuals who need palliative care actually receive it. Palliative care physicians are one of the groups that have been vocally against the adoption of Bill 52. One of their concerns is that the knowledge of the option to receive “medical aid in dying” may act as a barrier for patients seeking alleviation from suffering.

Additionally, they argue that most individuals don’t fully understand all the options available and the

various terminologies surrounding physician-assisted death.

Hivon assures that the bill takes measures to improve palliative care, describing the bill as being based on the idea of a “continuum of care,” with medicallyassisted death being reserved for exceptional cases at the very end of the spectrum. The PQ government publicly acknowledged the need to improve palliative care services, announcing last May that it would invest $15 million into palliative care.

Not all physicians will be willing to carry out the act. A survey by the Quebec Medical Association revealed that only 41 per cent of doctors surveyed would be willing to grant the requests for medical aid in dying. “I’ve tried to get specialists to understand that if they referred me to a patient who did not want palliative care, I’d refer them back to them, because I can’t help them. They aren’t aware of the fact of who would be willing to do it.

It’s one thing to support the idea in principle, and another to implement it,” Manuel Borod, a palliative care physician at the McGill University Health Centre, told The Daily.

End of the debate?

Though questions still surround the long term effects of passing a bill that will allow medical aid in dying, Bill 52 has aimed to address most of these issues, and is likely to move forward in the National Assembly. Physicianassisted death is a deeply divisive issue with individuals on both sides ready to fight for what they believe. Emotions run high. There is one point on which both groups agree: people deserve compassion and respect at the end of life. Even if Bill 52 is adopted in Quebec, it won’t be the end of the issue. All forms of physician-assisted death are illegal at the federal level, and the federal government has expressed that they will keep it this way, meaning that adoption of this bill could lead to a constitutional challenge. The debate will, seemingly, continue on indefinitely.

Interested in writing about food, sex, mental health, and oppressive power structures?

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Sports

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

19

An absurd, dignified spectacle McGill’s woodsmen and women fell many a log in lumberjacking meet Joseph Renshaw The McGill Daily

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ast Sunday McGill’s lumberjacking – for lack of a better word – team hosted their annual meet, welcoming woodsmen and women from some of the country’s top agricultural schools to Macdonald campus. For those who don’t know, the day was not just a gratuitous humanity-vsforest face-off, but a selection of events that ranged from fire-building, log rolling, and tree climbing, to, of course, log chopping.

What those events consist of might need some elaboration.

Firstly, all the events are timed, with no direct competition between different teams – probably not a bad idea, considering that the vast majority of participants are at times clearly pumped up to the max, and in possession of extremely sharp axes. We’re not talking ‘forged in the caves of Middle Earth’ sharp, but they could split a human skull with ease. That said, the day was by no means overly competitive; the atmosphere seemed to encourage self-improvement rather than victory at all costs.

Fire-building, or the water boil, sees competitors start with an axe, a lump of wood, a match or two, and a blackened tin of water. In a matter of minutes, the competitors have spliced the wood into pieces of varying sizes and constructed a miniature inferno. They even strike the match on the axehead. For this downtown cosmopolitan Arts student, who would probably need the best part of an hour and/or a petroleum-based liquid to build such a fire, watching the event was a thoroughly shame-inducing experience.

Another compelling event is the crosscut saw. A team of six has to cut six discs from a 8x8 inch log, with three pairs of cutters working in relay on each end of the saw. Teams almost always complete the event in under a

Saad Salauddin | Illustrator minute. A more gruelling but no less entertaining event is the standing block chop, in which competitors have to chop through a block of wood that is standing up. For every person who make it look easy, there was another who exposed just how difficult the task is; and for every axe blow that sent the top half of the log spinning to the ground, there were 15 that hit the log with a dull thud. All the events are clearly very technical, but the standing block chop saw the greatest variation in times and technique.

On the subject of times: the day’s results left the overall standings unchanged from before the

Everybody get up and write for sports now Space jam (We got a real jam going now)

meet. McGill’s men’s first team and women’s first team both remained in third place, and men’s second team was in seventh.

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring event is the pole climb.

Decked out with spiked shoes and a tube of what looked like rubber (which they wrap around the trunk and hold on to), competitors shoot up a 28-foot pole to ring a little bell. In case you were wondering, they’re on a rope, so minor mistakes do not necessarily result in death. There were also two events which could be broadly grouped under ‘log manipulation.’ The three pairs who compete in log decking have to

roll a largish log down a track and back again. They each do so with the help of a (medieval weapon of war) peavey, which they then have to pass, like a baton of death, to their teammates.

The other is pulp throwing, which is not what it sounds like; competitors do not hurl clouds of sawdust around. The pulp is actually a small log, about four feet in length and weighing between 30 and 40 pounds. The team of six take it in turns to throw the four pulp sticks between pegs some 19.5 feet apart. When the team reaches 48 successful throws, the timer stops. Kind of like ten pin bowling, if people threw the pins

instead of the ball.

To those reading with a superior smirk on their face, try looking toward Canada’s national sport. Is flicking a lump of rubber across some frozen water really less ridiculous than chopping down a log? The absurdity of sports in general is unquestionable, but that absurdity does not detract from the spectacle. If anything, it adds to the enjoyment, as watching a group of grown men fight each other because of what happened during a game of rubber-lumpon-frozen-water will confirm. The woodsmen and women, in many ways, are amongst the most dignified of athletes.

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Culture

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

“I’m getting so sick of this itty bitty lifestyle”

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Michael DeForge gets dark with his graphic novel Ant Colony

Left, a page from Michael DeForge’s Ant Colony. Right, the graphic novel’s cover.

Kyle Shaw-Müller Culture Writer

M

ichael DeForge is probably best known outside the realm of graphic novels and comics as a character designer for the hit cartoon Adventure Time. The show has managed to become at least as popular among young adults as with its younger target audience. It’s useful to mention Adventure Time here for anyone who’s seen it and, most likely, deeply enjoyed it. DeForge utilizes the same sleek, abstract, and colourful style of Adventure Time in his new graphic novel Ant Colony.

But the dark and weighty themes only tantalizingly hinted at by the kids’ show are now brought into explicit, made-for-adults focus. Ant Colony aspires to the sincerity of subversive literature.

The first page shows our unnamed protagonist in the middle of having sex with his lover, followed by a game of cards. Most of the character development centres around this relationship which, like almost everything else in the book – from most ants to the colony to the Queen herself – seems to be heading toward an unhappy ending. All of the characters that are still alive, including this central couple, are nameless. The relationship the protagonist has with his sociopathic father and his struggle with a strange power he gains early on in the story constitute the book’s other main narrative thrusts.

But it is somewhat against the

spirit of this novel’s rather discontinuous and diffuse structure to speak of discrete narratives. Ant Colony’s disorienting climax-less narrative is probably its most subversive or experimental characteristic. The aforementioned virtual lack of names, for example, breeds

At one point, you’re surrounded by the slime of dying pupae, deep underground, amongst dark beiges, greys, and reds; the next, trailing a surreal yellow bumblebee through purples and more reds, as poor young Topher pukes (more or less) rainbows.

confusion, all while every panel episodically encapsulates often very distinct scenes. At one point, you’re surrounded by the slime of dying pupae, deep underground, amongst dark beiges, greys, and reds; the next, trailing a surreal yellow bumblebee through purples and more reds, as poor young Topher pukes (more or less) rainbows.

The illustrations, like Topher’s rainbows, are bright, sometimes almost fluorescent. They are vivid and clearly delineated like DeForge’s famous but usually simple designs in Adventure Time. Everything is rather more surreal and disturbing in this book, where censorship for a very young audience is not an issue.

Many designs, like the spiders (who he renders as eight-legged dogheads) and centipedes (snarky purple train-limos), could simply pass as childish fancy. But other choices, such as the ubiquitous rendering of all black ants with their guts visible, or the domineering and frank design of the queen at all stages of her life, are enigmatic and help articulate the weighty themes and motifs of the book, which include sensuality, fertility, and inevitable decay. The stunning visuals, in other words, help direct the snappy dialogue tremendously: this is a true graphic novel in that almost nothing about it can be told without the image.

The task of saying something intelligent about the nature and relevance of the narrative itself is near impossible. In a crude attempt at summarization, this piece can be

Courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly called a tragedy. There’s a general theme of cataclysm, and the second act is largely a story of survival, but the tone of the novel is far from tragic. It is funny, light – maybe absurd. The premise alone is extravagant: ants, living in and around a rotten apple, who end up going to war with another group of ants. The book’s first frame is of this apple, from afar, speckled by innumerable buzzing little dots. With several such extreme long shots, readers are reminded of the characters and their world’s insignificance. What DeForge does is make this theme central to his narrative. How fitting, then, that no living characters have names: why must these specks be dignified with titles? The only one who transcends such futility, in some regard, is Topher.

This may indeed riff off the cultural trend of comparing human insignificance in the universe to the plight of the ant. We are but crude, ‘teensy’ life-forms, living on and destroying a tiny speck of dust barreling through a cosmos far vaster than our own world. ‘Existentialism,’ unsurprisingly, is brought up explicitly within the book’s first few pages; this philosophy grapples with the undefinedness of our irrelevant existence by claiming that our identity is simply ours to form. Actions define us, in this regard, and we can only truly be judged after all our actions are completed. Maybe that’s why the only names of ants we hear are those of dead ones; maybe that explains Topher’s enigmatic ques-

tion which awaits the reader at book’s end.

The existential doubt in this piece does not end at the level of identity. This can be most powerfully seen in DeForge’s portrayal of violence. In illustration, it is rendered viscerally real, by the seemingly solid, abstract forms of the page. It arrives unceremoniously, there’s no lead up. As in everyday experience, the violent act is not necessarily recognized as such until reflected upon and named in retrospect – like a dead ant. We see a snarky purple train-limo (“Centipede”) racing across the landscape, then, in the next frame, without reason, a spider (dog-head with eight legs) impales the creature, to let it rot until darkness. Or red ants appear, throw a rock at a black ant, causing him to die a feeble, undignified death. Almost every other act here happens similarly: whether sex, decay, or the unwitting consumption of poison.

These are not events as a focused story would frame them.

But readers shouldn’t let this violence dissuade them. Ant Colony is bleak, yet it is also comical. It is superficial and profound, accessible and esoteric. These are not mutually exclusive terms when it comes to this colourful book. DeForge captures these contradictions, showing us that there are no conclusive, cutand-dry answers.

Michael DeForge’s Ant Colony is available at Drawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard W.) for $21.95.

Culture

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

21

Expanded radio Free City Radio zine documents social movement Hera Chan The McGill Daily

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ou hear the voices that filter through your radio dial, from the station up the street. The spontaneity of radio, its liveness, is a feeling that is hard to capture and keep. Voices coming from Honduras or New York City’s East Harlem can all be caught on these waves, a reverb in your memory. The “Free City Radio” show at CKUT 90.3 FM is now taking radio beyond its common means, expanding our experience of that media into a 36-page felt-cover zine.

On January 22, an intimate crowd gathered in place of the book carts that usually occupy the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore’s storefront in anticipation of the launch of a new project by the “Free City Radio” show. The project, pioneered by show programmer and community activist Stefan Christoff, is the Free City Radio zine – bringing you transcripts of radio interviews, artwork, photography, and reflections from the airwaves in a tangible physical format.

Created in collaboration with the CKUT community radio in

Montreal, the zine is independently published without corporate or state funding and will continue to do so once every season. To paraphrase Christoff ’s words, it is better to print editions according to the seasons than to a specified date four times a year.

The interviews, all conducted

by Christoff and Mostafa Henaway, are presented in the zine with two focuses in mind, one local and one international. Within this issue there are discussions on local gentrification and displacement. On the international level, the zine features discussions on massive political shifts.

“I think of radio as the medium for imagination,” said Christoff in his closing remarks. It is also arguably an imaginative realm for something better.

The zine also includes an interview with Juan Haro, an organizer with the Movement for Justice in El Barrio in East Harlem, New York City, who talks about the struggles in Harlem as a project of corporate-driven displacement.

Independent filmmaker Jesse Freeston, who was interviewed

by Christoff in the winter of 2014, speaks about the ongoing political

The Free City Radio zine on sale at the Concordia Bookstore. Hera Chan| The McGill Daily crisis in Honduras that extends beyond the elections and into the new mediascape post-2009 coup d’état. Alexis Stoumbelis from the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) speaks of the struggle there for land and social justice, and San Juan, Puerto Rico professor and writer Maritza Stanchich highlights the historical context of the Puerto Rican student movement.

“I can try to do as many interviews as possible – as humanly possible – to document these issues,” said Christoff.

We are brought closer together through our community radio stations, hemispheres closer. Pushing forth both a local and global perspective, the Free City Radio zine is another tactile step in a much larger social movement, bringing a network of social activists

and information to you in another format. Listeners become readers. In all this movement, a world of BuzzFeed, notifications, and sound bites, let’s take Christoff ’s advice, read this zine, and “slow down for a minute.”

Free City Radio zine is available for a year-long subscription of $20.

More information can be found at freecityradio.org.

Lion on stage, Lion in the Streets Dawson College’s Professional Theatre program tackles Judith Thompson Isobel van Hagen Culture Writer

S

onder, noun: “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own,” populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness, an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground.

Never have I contemplated the word ‘sonder’ as much as I did after seeing Canadian playwright Judith Thompson’s Lion in the Streets. Thompson’s play, presented by the Dawson College’s Professional Theatre and directed by Barbara Kelly, tells the story of the ghost of a brutally murdered young girl who wanders the streets of Toronto. The first scene of the play sets the stage, where a few rowdy, dirty, mean teenagers taunt Isobel (played by Alessandra Caruso

and Amélie Demchuk on alternate nights), the nine-year-old ghost who serves as our protagonist.

This prepares the audience for the characters they’re about to be introduced to – civilized adults on the surface, but underneath just as petty and nasty as these young teenagers. Although Isobel is the protagonist, at times it is difficult to even remember her presence, as the play has twenty-something other characters. Most of the time, Isobel is just peering through their windows, secretly observing their lives.

The play is composed of a number of small scenes between many different adult characters. Once one scene is over, a seemingly unimportant character stays to take part in the next scene, and the audience sees a quick snapshot of their life, with all the new characters. The characters seem so important while they are onstage, but

once they are gone, they are never seen again. This puts forth the depressing notion that though we all feel very important in our own ‘scenes,’ everyone else in the entire world has a ‘scene’ that feels just as important to them, and seems just as irrelevant to others. Isobel is the only person who is there in every scene, and she is the only one who can see how they are related.

At first, it seems that the end will reveal some connection between the somewhat disjointed scenes presented, possibly showing that all of the characters are secretly associated with Isobel’s murder, making everything come together nicely for the audience.

But as the play unfolds, it becomes clear that the only thing that is similar in all of the short scenes are the themes of death and evil. It is the story of acquaintances who are so wrapped up in their own sorrows that they fail to

see that they are the core of their own sorrows, whether through infidelity, bullying, arrogance, et cetera. As the play progresses, Isobel continues to look for the ‘lion’ that she believes has killed her. She senses it constantly and tries to protect people from it.

Unfortunately, the evil is deeply rooted within all of them.

Kelly’s use of music and dance enhanced the play’s rhythm, adding a more theatrical quality to the proceedings. A particularly interesting choice, “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M., was played during the intermission, and a slow, creepy version of Eurhythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” was played (and occasionally danced to) many different times, portraying every person’s futile search for a ‘sweet dream.’

This theatricality made Lion in the Streets a slightly less brutal experience for the viewer. The play

is so vivid and graphic in both its language and action. A priest almost drowns a boy, a rape victim’s boyfriend makes her believe it was her fault, a mother of two has cancer; the threat of death and evil is constantly lurking. The theatricality helps bring the audience back to reality, helps the viewer breathe and remember, “Oh, this is just a play, there is no way all people are so completely rooted in evil and are so obsessed with death.”

Unfortunately, it was not that easy to feel so far-removed from the production. This play vividly displays the materials to reflect on the ‘lion’ of your own life and make you wonder how you never noticed it before.

Lion in the Streets is playing from February 6 to 8 at 8 p.m. with a matinee on February 6 at 12:30 p.m. at Dawson Theatre (2000 Atwater).

Tickets are $8 for students.

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Culture

February 3, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Pushing the limits of pop McGill band VLVBVMV mixes it up Lucy Gripper Culture Writer

W

hen it comes to VLVBVMV (pronounced ‘Alabama’), the band’s name is considerably more complicated than the music they create. Their minimalist sound has a skeleton of pop, fleshed out with jazz. They only have a handful of songs released thus far, but what they lack in numbers they make up for in passion for the future of their project.

VLVBVMV consists of McGill students Stokely Diamantis on bass and electronics, Kate Markle on vocals, and Max Williams on the guitar. Their bare-bones beats paired with lofty vocals create an interesting balance — one with a purposeful outcome. “One thing that I think people need is music you can dance to, but also listen to and have great conversations with, and I think that that’s something we strive for,” said Markle. “We want people to have fun but also to be able to talk and enjoy it more peacefully.” Their music combines relaxing guitar riffs with more upbeat drums. Their instrumental “Mortal Wombat” takes this combination and uses bubbling samples to merge the two opposing sides together. In their non-instrumental pieces, Markle’s voice complements the guitar riffs, and creates more contrast with the drums – as in songs like “Just Passing Through.” As for specific influences, the group mentions Radiohead as having a huge impact on their music. As Williams explained, “Radiohead is, like, the trunk of the tree.”

The group formed in November 2012 and have brought their different musical backgrounds to the table. Williams is trained in jazz, and was originally enrolled in the Performance Jazz program at McGill. Markle has classical, jazz, and opera vocal training, while Diamantis is doing a Musical Science and Technology minor. The group identifies itself as pop, but is constantly trying to push the limits of the genre. “It’s really cool to try and be as eclectic as possible with stuff like that,” said Markle.

“I think it adds a lot to our appeal,

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily even if it’s just around our friends.”

Diamantis came up with the name VLVBVMV during the first stages of their project. “I had named the rough demo tapes we had of this project, or the beats that I made I just sort of… oh sure I’ll type that in. I didn’t really anticipate that it would become our actual project name […] it seemed cool at the time,” joked Diamantis.

Despite their somewhat impromptu origins, the music Diamantis, Markle, and Williams create is substantially more calculated. As the lyricist for the group, Markle draws inspiration from her Philosophy major to evoke themes of nature, imagery, natural philosophy, and the inner psyche. These ideas come through both in the lyrics themselves as well as in the band’s sound. “A lot of the lyrics are exploring emotions,” Markle explained. “Some of them [are in response to] heartbreak, some of

them more psychedelic experiences, and some of them dealing with mental health issues as well.” She also admitted that, among the indirect inspirations, she’s also taken all of the lyrics from one song from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Even though they all seem to have separate roles in the band, Diamantis, Markle, and Williams identify themselves as a collaborative project.

While Diamantis usually works on the underlying beat, and Markle tackles the lyrics, the melody is a group effort, and one can see a visible group dynamic. “I’ll ask them, what did you have in mind for this song? And like, what inspired it? And I’ll try and work off that,” said Markle.

On January 23, VLVBVMV played a show at La Sala Rossa with other bands from McGill.

The group had mixed opinions on how successful the evening was.

Diamantis seemed to be the only

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one pleased with how the show went, while Markle and Williams seemed unsure about the quality of their performance. “We had a ton of energy, people were dancing,” Williams clarified. “I’ll take that over playing really cleanly to a room that’s asleep any day.” The show was definitely a surprise in light of the band’s songs, which are for now only available online.

VLVBVMV seemed to deliver their own pieces live with more energy and fullness than their recorded versions, something that can prove to be difficult for many bands.

Markle’s voice sounded more confident live, although the group did not look particularly at home on the stage. On top of playing their older songs, they performed three new ones, and covered both The xx and Rhye. “We don’t play totally new stuff very often, but when we do it always puts [our music] into context,” reflected Williams. “It’s

like we’re covering our old songs – and that’s a good place to be.” Their covers were impressive, and were appropriate picks for the group’s instrumentation.

VLVBVMV has recently found themselves breaking out of the ‘English university’ music scene and into the wider Montreal scene. Until now, they had been performing with bands from McGill and Concordia. The Montreal music scene is notoriously international, so despite Markle being the only band member from Canada, they fit in easily. They recently played a show with the Montreal band Noyro, and were fortunate to play at last fall’s POP Montreal festival, which they described as being a fun experience (despite not being able to remember most of the week).

As far as their future is concerned, the group has big plans.

They are currently working on two EPs, one of which should be released before the spring.

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culture editor

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science+technology editor

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health&education editor

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multimedia editor

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photo editor

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Igor Sadikov le délit

Camille Gris Roy

rec@delitfrancais.com cover design Hera Chan contributors Jill Bachelder, Alisa Brandt, Janna Bryson, Antu Das, Benjamin Elgie, Cem Ertekin, Lucy Gripper, Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez, Tanjiha Mahmud, Eleanor Milman, Emma Noradounkian, Hillary Pasternak, Tanbin Rafee, Joseph Renshaw, Saad Salauddin, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Kai Cheng Thom, Isobel van Hagen, Jasmine Wang, Daniel Woodhouse

E.k. Chan | The McGill Daily

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ince its inauguration in 2007, Indigenous Access McGill (IAM) has provided support to Indigenous students, primarily at the School of Social Work. As one of several faculty initiatives designed to encourage the participation of Indigenous communities at the university, IAM offers mentoring, tutoring, and advising services that aim to help Indigenous students succeed, as well as serving as a focal point for students to meet and support one another. The program also advises any student who has an interest in Indigenous issues, creating dialogue that helps widen access to marginalized communities on campus.

Until last semester, IAM received two separate three-year grants from Health Canada and the Counselling Foundation of Canada; however, the grant was not renewed for this academic year. In the meantime, the Faculty of Arts has guaranteed the salaries of the three staff working at IAM for this academic year; however, this funding is not nearly adequate and only allows the organization to subsist. As of yet, no permanent funding solution has been found and IAM remains in danger of being scrapped.

The situation is especially worrisome given the notable success of the program. Since its inception, there has been a marked rise in the numbers of graduate and undergraduate Indigenous students at the School of Social Work. If McGill is to increase the accessibility of its courses to Indigenous students, IAM should be considered an integral part of this process.

On January 22, Arts Senator Claire Stewart-Kanigan asked the university Senate how McGill would support IAM in the future, and whether internal funding would be considered.

The Senate’s response heavily emphasized other university programs designed to encourage Indigenous access while acknowledging the critical success of work done by the IAM. They conceded, however, that the financial situation for higher education in Quebec remained difficult, and did not explicitly safeguard the continued existence of IAM. McGill has attempted to deflect attention by directing its response toward already existing programs, implying that the existence of organizations like the First Peoples’ House negates the importance of more specialized, smaller-scale programs such as IAM. The university Senate’s response also highlights that it believes it is already doing enough to boost Indigenous participation at the university; this is patently false.

Usually small programs like IAM are run on trial bases and funded externally to begin with.

If proven successful it stands to reason that such programs should receive University funding. The evasiveness regarding whether to grant internal funding is part of a wider trend. McGill has a history of underfunding or ignoring small but important initiatives, such as SACOMSS, which receives no University funding, yet provides an invaluable service to the McGill community.

IAM has a mission that is distinct from other Indigenous access initiatives at McGill; what’s more, it has been a proven success. Financial difficulties aside, the University should act now to fund IAM directly. A decline in equal access to education is more costly than giving IAM the funding it needs and deserves.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert

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dps board of directors Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Amina Batyreva, Jacqueline Brandon, Théo Bourgery, Hera Chan, Benjamin Elgie, Camille Gris Roy, Boris Shedov, Samantha Shier, Juan Camilo Velásquez Buriticá, Anqi Zhang All contents © 2013 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

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Compendium!

February 3, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Lies, half-truths, and he calls himself Ghost Dog

Ex-Weekly editor tells all on discreddit thread Reveals juicy details of sitting in basement listening to T. Swift for literal hours

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elow is an excerpt of a question-and-answer session with a former editor “weeklyed” at The Weekly. The exchange originally took place on a discreddit thread in the McGall subdiscreddit. weeklyed: Hi all, knowing this group’s fascination with The Weekly over the last couple years, I thought there might be interest in views from the other side of the edboard; how the editorials really get published. Ask me anything! jerk2STEM: Can you tell us a bit more about the editorial-writing process at The Weekly? Do the editors really whole-heartedly believe all the radical shit that gets published? weeklyed: Actually, the editorials are dictated and sometimes ghostwritten by several different Canadian labour unions in association with the black bloc. During our Monday night edboard meetings, we video conference with our overlords to hear their decisions as to the content and structure of the editorials before a tribute is chosen to write the piece from among our lowly ranks. moderationinallthings: Would you characterize the editors of the paper as good students and thoughtful people, or do they just like to pitch and write articles that confirm their existing biases?

Among those journalism hopefuls,

are there any who have a genuine interest in reporting the facts? weeklyed: The Weekly editors generally do not deign to resort to “facts,” “statistics,” or “quotes from primary sources” to back up their assertions and accusations of systemic discrimination, except when they do, which is usually. Most of the reporting is done to prove a point, unlike other news organizations which completely remove the human element to ensure that interpretations are entirely objective. For this reason, The Weekly’s system of recruiting human editors and writers, and interviewing people who have a stake in the relevant issues is entirely outdated, and frankly one of the reasons I left. moderationinallthings: Any other reasons for leaving? weeklyed: Well, besides the overpromotion of minorities, I was too rational for the literal, full-on anarchy that was edboard, and my intellectual curiosity was really quite overwhelming to them. turnthepinktide: I heard the elections process is particularly nasty, as it pits people against each other. Can you explain the elections process? weeklyed: Certainly. First, section editors subject their candidates to Clockwork Orange-style sensory overload, with images of

O R W A C N A U D R A S R S C G I H R U O A P O S T M O C A S L N C A D I Y A

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their competitors and all things right of “mildly socialist” mixed with classical music and images of rabid dogs, nuclear weaponry, and general death and destruction. After that, they are placed in a pit, where they first have a competitive, timed debate over the finer points of intersectionality before fighting to the death. adam_smithy: What does the Daily office smell like? weeklyed: Besides human sadness, it smells like hot dogs, Boustan, Indian food, old coffee cups, and literal full-on anarchism. jacobinmcgall: Who was your

favorite co-editor? weeklyed: Can’t answer that question, as I fear it would give away my identity :( . But I gotta say, I’m impressed with the coordinating editor this year, as they’ve really strived to make the paper more palatable, which is why nobody is calling them anti-zionist or reverse-racist at all anymore.

2manychainz: Is the edboard aware of their opposition or negative reaction to pieces? weeklyed: Yes. Editors regularly read comments on the website and social media, and then

openly weep, except when the comments clearly come from intractable ideological differences that will likely never, ever be solved, especially on the internet. schmequity: How many minorities did you promote? weeklyed: I can’t even keep track. The paper is practically drowning in minorities. peein_more: Thanks so much for doing this. Can you please confirm everything I’ve ever thought about The Weekly, especially how bad I think it is? weeklyed: Yes! It’s exactly as bad as you think.

Circlejerk poetry corner

‘To the left, to the left’ B E E L L L H E L O R O K S J U D E R N O I A T M H C B H U R O T M L S E N K R A Y

E.k. EK | The McGall Weekly

G G E O R G E T O R G T D E R W O I T N S D B A K U Y I S M O R D

J A K E C K L A Y T O N I N

B E R T F I S K

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T I N A F E Y

Self congratulation, by way of Tennyson Lucy Peaceblossom In my heart they whispered gaily, If by signs my heart could tell, That of campus papers sundry, Alone The Weekly reads so well.

Journos honest, trenchant, scaly, In sunken SSMU these scribblers dwell, They despair of grotesque copy, Of those that write but cannot spell.

Have some biting satire you want to share with campus?

Drew some comics or made a crossword?

Want to ask The Weekly for (bad) advice?

Pointing out injustice gamely, To ring the admin’s solemn knell, Addressing wrongs, inequity namely, What could be heaven is mostly hell.

And to those who hate us say we, ‘O future corporate personnel, To challenge imbibed doctrine – peerless Weekly, Breaks the spell.’

Get in touch: compendium@mcgilldaily.com