The McGill Daily - Vol104 iss11

Volume 104, Issue 11 Monday, November 10, 2014

SOLIDARITY WITH THE MEXICAN STUDENT PROTESTS

PAGE 19 Hotbed of activism since 1911 mcgilldaily.com

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

THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE

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News 03

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

SNAX ordered to cease and desist sandwich sales

NEWS

Sandwich problems at SNAX Joint Board-Senate controversy SSMU’s finances back in order

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Police training in Montreal needs improvement

Students disappointed with disruption to student-run snack shop

Smoke-free campus on the table

Emily Saul The McGill Daily

Post-grads discuss austerity

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Culture Shock kicks off at McGill

09 COMMENTARY Democracy needs to change before we get environmental justice Letters to The Daily On racist attitudes toward Kurds in Turkey

The Environment Issue

11

FEATURES

Support, surgery, and slacktivism

14

SCI+TECH

How media outlets spun the latest prostate cancer study

15

SPORTS

A recap of the Redmen’s disapointing season

16

CULTURE

A review of Caroline Vu’s first novel Meeting Montreal’s new postpunk band A night of anti-oppressive poetry with Remi Kanazi Considering the return of the vinyl

19

EDITORIAL

Solidarity with the Mexican student protests

20 COMPENDIUM! Oil and power at McGall Mathilda Quimms journeys to the great unkown

he sandwich shelves of SNAX’s fridge remain empty about one month after the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) received an email calling into effect a ceaseand-desist order on sandwich sales.

According to AUS President Ava Liu, the email, sent on behalf of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens, stated that AUS was violating its Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the University by selling sandwiches at the student-run snack shop. “It has come to our attention that the AUS is selling sandwiches at SNAX in Leacock. Please note that [...] AUS is not permitted to sell sandwiches,” read the email.

“We asked to meet with them about our options, and they said, ‘first, comply,’ so we did,” said Liu. Appendix E of the 2010-15 MOA, which is the document that defines the legal relationship between AUS and McGill, bars SNAX from selling “any kind of processed or prepared foods, such as sandwiches or any kind of hot food.”

“The MOA is a little confusing,” said Liu. “[But] for as far as I can recall, SNAX has been selling sandwiches. It’s not a new development.”

According to Dyens, the sandwich sales were previously unknown to the University. “We acted when it was brought to our attention, as we always do,” Dyens said in an email to The Daily. “The AUS has an obligation, per the agreement they signed with the University, to not sell sandwiches.”

The present MOA, which the current AUS executive has inherited from its predecessors, comes up for renewal this year. “Though I don’t want to speculate, this was called into question right before the negotiation period,” said Liu. In speaking with The Daily, some SNAX customers hypothesized that the University was trying to use sandwich sales to bargain for a more expensive lease. Sandwiches garner a fair portion of SNAX’s revenue – about 20 per cent – and generate the margin used to pay employees, according to Liu. “The fact that they’re trying to use rent as a point of contention is possible,” said Liu. “[However], in my understanding, SNAX may have faced rent increases regardless.”

The University denied that the cease-and-desist email was

The SNAX counter in the Leacock building. prompted by complaints from competing food outlets on campus.

“This is in no way related to complaints from Première Moisson, or any other food suppliers at the University, including student-operated food outlets or commercial outlets in the [University] Centre,” Mathieu Laperle, Director of Food and Dining Services, told The Daily in an email. “And there’s no foundation to the speculation about this being some kind of bargaining chip.”

“It just feels... fishy. Could [the administration] really not have noticed [the sandwich sales] this whole time?”

SNAX customer Director of Internal Communications Doug Sweet clarified Laperle’s comment, saying it “might leave the impression that there have been complaints from other outlets.

There have been no complaints.”

Another speculation is that SNAX, because of its health-conscious fare, might be cornering a market the University hopes to tap.

According to Liu, SNAX manager Hasan Nizami was offered a meet-

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

ing with Food and Dining Services to discuss how it could improve its food offerings. Nizami was unavailable for comment.

“We think there’s an interest for McGill and others in SHHS [Student Housing and Hospitality Services] to consolidate food options on campus,” Liu said. “We’re not interested in helping them develop their suppliers [...] market share can always be consolidated by the University.”

“It seems petty, honestly,” said one SNAX customer, who asked to remain anonymous, to The Daily.

“This is one of the few places to get sustainable, organic foods.”

“I recognize that correlation does not equal causation,” confided another anonymous SNAX customer, “but the timing of everything is off. It just feels… fishy. Could [the administration] really not have noticed [the sandwich sales] this whole time?”

Student-run spaces wanted Comment sheets have been posted around SNAX where students can share their opinions about the absence of sandwich sales. Some comments drew parallels between this situation and that of the closure of the Architecture Café, another student-run outlet that the administration shuttered in 2010.

One critic wrote on a comment sheet, “[This] seems like a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get people to buy at Première Moisson. Ugh,

McGill, this does not make you look good. Long live Architecture Café.”

Marc-André Levesque, a second-year Education student, was disappointed when he learned of the change. “I detoured to buy here – it’s delicious and affordable. And [it’s] healthy stuff. I don’t understand why this happened.”

U3 Economics student Zach said that the change affects him because “I am a consumer of sandwiches, and more options are always better.”

A common concern raised in the comment sheets is that SNAX is one of the few student-run spaces left on campus. One note on the bulletin board read, “Please bring back affordable, student-run food!”

The importance of maintaining student-run space was also highlighted by Liu. “As it is right now, [SNAX is] entirely managed by a student team,” she said. “What we do is tied to sustainability on campus, a lot of our initiatives are related to that. We also offer options that are not really offered [elsewhere] on campus.”

“We feel that if this chunk of offerings, vegan offerings, were moved to within SHHS, the cost would obviously increase,” she added. “They might be able to have some of these premium products, but they [...] would be offered at an expensive price. That’s my opinion as student, that’s why I [advocate] for us to keep things within our control.”

Individuals with ICHTHYOSIS are needed for a research study in Montreal involving an approved topical treatment.

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November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Reimbursement will be $300 for four visits.

Students decry industry focus of Joint Board-Senate

Contact derek.ganes@ganespharma.com

Community engagement should be need-driven, participants say Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

SACOMSS Sexual Assault Center of the McGill Students’Society

Free.

Confidential.

Non-Judgmental.

www.sacomss.org

We’re here to listen.

514-398-8500

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ommunity engagement through research and innovation was the theme of this year’s joint meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG) and Senate, which took place on November 4 in the ballroom of the McGill Faculty Club. Student representatives present at the event criticized the focus on enterprise, claiming that the discussion focused on what McGill could gain from community engagement, instead of what it could give back.

The joint meeting has no immediate decision-making power, but a formal report will be created and presented to Senate on November 19 and to the BoG on December 2.

The meeting began with a short panel discussion that explored the relationship between “innovation projects and engagement,” after which attendees participated in roundtable discussions on the topic of community engagement. Mostly speaking in generalities, four panelists – two professors, a student, and the acting senior director of HydroQuébec’s research institute (IREQ) – focused on their interpretation of innovation and their experiences with entrepreneurship and industry partnerships in the context of research at McGill.

“The way innovation is linked to society is to create wealth,” said Gaétan Lantagne, acting senior director of IREQ. “We expect that this will benefit companies, but it’s a benefit to society as well.”

Cécile Branco-Côté, an International Development student who won the McGill Dobson Cup entrepreneurship competition with her idea to build a business incubator in Lac Mégantic, disagreed. “My conception of innovation doesn’t necessarily mean increasing money at all, but increasing values,” she said.

Although a period for questions to panelists was planned on the agenda, the moderator, Associate Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) Sarah Stroud, decided not to take questions. Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) Rose Goldstein, who led the planning of

the event, explained in an email to The Daily that this was done because “the event started late.”

Students criticize industry focus In an interview with The Daily, Medicine Senator David Benrimoh deplored the focus of the panel on entrepreneurship and industry partnerships.

“When we got into the meeting, there was a large industry focus, there was a large focus on what we could gain from community engagement [...] from the innovation [and] research side of things,” said Benrimoh. “There wasn’t a very clear idea of what community engagement meant [or] why it was important.”

Sharing Benrimoh’s concerns, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University Affairs Claire Stewart-Kanigan expressed frustration at the fact that the panel had been, in her opinion, disingenuously presented to participants as centred on community engagement. She also spoke against the cancellation of the question period.

“They eliminated the question period without notice [...] that was very disappointing,” said StewartKanigan. “Particularly given the drastic shift in what we were led to believe this conversation was going to be about versus what it was actually about, a space for questions would have been very much apprecited.”

“This [focus] severely limited the conversation that was had here.

There was very little space for critical dialogue on what community engagement should mean,” she added.

Benrimoh said that students had planned to ask Lantagne about Indigenous resistance to Hydro-Québec’s projects. “We thought it would be good to ask a partner of McGill about their social justice record, which we think is totally relevant – it’s only fair that if we’re going to partner with someone, we hold them to account on what they do.”

Discussion broadens after panel After the panel, attendees broke out into discussion groups. At each of the ten tables, a student senator facilitated the discussion and later reported back on it. Although the dis-

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cussion questions were pre-selected, most groups discussed community engagement more broadly than in the panel. An overarching consensus among all the participants was that applied research at McGill should be responsive to the needs of the community, and not done solely for the sake of innovation. “[We] talked a bit more about having problem-driven research in the community. We [need to] make space for communities to define their own needs, to make sure that when we’re creating solutions, they’re for [...] the community members,” said Stewart-Kanigan, reporting on her table’s discussion.

“We also discussed service to the community,” said SSMU President Courtney Ayukawa. “It is in McGill’s mission statement, and there is a call for recognition of this from [...] specifically the upper administration.”

Some attendees noted a contrast between the background readings and the panel, both of which focused on business and industry partnerships, and the discussion.

“Interestingly enough, every single table of the ten tables that reported their discussion, they didn’t focus on [business and entrepreneurship] – they focused on what McGill could give to the community,” said Medicine Faculty Senator and Senate Representative to the BoG Edith Zorychta in an interview with The Daily.

For Stewart-Kanigan, however, the tone of the discussion did not alter the overall framing of the event. “[The discussion] does not assuage my concerns about the definition of community engagement that McGill is currently operating on, and seems to seek [to legitimize] through this forum,” she said.

Stewart-Kanigan also noted the level of commitment necessary to truly engage with the community.

“It takes a lot of work to engage in that kind of approach to community engagement, it takes oftentimes years of relationship building,” she said. “I hope to see it organized in a way that acknowledges that that is a long-term project, and not something that you can deal with by setting up a forum one time a year.”

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November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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SSMU finances back on track after adoption of revised budget Council discusses fee bundling, communication with constituents Lauria Galbraith The McGill Daily

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n November 6, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council convened for its bi-weekly meeting to discuss the possibility of fee bundling and methods for better communication with constituents, and to continue its previous discussion on library improvements. SSMU VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley also presented the revised 2014-15 SSMU budget to Council.

Budget presentation Bradley was optimistic about the budget, saying that SSMU is “doing well as far as long-term financial sustainability.” She also announced that Frosh ran a $950 deficit, which she called “a really awesome number.”

A glaring hole in the budget was the student-run café, The Nest, which is projected to operate at a $76,000 deficit. Bradley cited this loss as a consequence of the “disconnect between the low food costs that students want and the original mandate of The Nest,” which specifies that The Nest must be “local and sustainably oriented.”

“I fear that bundling, with the limited information on the bill itself, may not give credit enough to all the students that are doing work that the University should be doing.”

Courtney Ayukawa SSMU President “This year we’re waiting to see how [The Nest] operates over a full year because last year, we didn’t have very much data to go on,” said Bradley in an interview with The Daily. “And if it’s still facing the same high-cost, high-labour, lowprice problems, then we’ll have to address [these issues].”

The Club Fund has been set to $86,000, up from $30,000 the previous year. The VP External portfolio budget has been substantially increased to $16,100 to fund a yearly speaker series. Additional funding was also allocated to equity and mental health, the latter being an addition to the University Affairs portfolio this year. The full $50,000 annual transfer to the Capital Expenditures Reserve Fund has also been made for the first time in three years.

The budget presentation and the line-by-line breakdown are available on SSMU’s website.

Fee bundling SSMU President Courtney Ayakawa brought forward a discussion on fee bundling, which would group all of the small student fees payable to SSMU on Minerva into sections such as “service fees” instead of listing each fee individually. Ayukawa said that Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens told her that McGill “really wants this [fee bundling] to happen.”

Arts Representative Lola Baraldi spoke against fee bundling, citing “the easiness of seeing this big fee and having someone just click to opt out of all of those services” as her concern.

Echoing Baraldi’s point, Medicine Senator David Benrimoh also stated that he was “very worried that people may opt out of all the fees, even the fees that they may benefit from.”

“Having a big bundle of fees is completely counter to the sense of transparency in government,” added Benrimoh.

Ayukawa also expressed her dissatisfaction with fee bundling.

“A lot of these fees are things that students run [...] which arguably the University should probably be doing,” she said. “I fear that bundling, with the limited information on the bill itself, may not give credit enough to all the students that are doing work that the University should be doing.”

A straw poll was taken to gauge Council’s position on fee bundling; the councillors were unanimously against it.

Communication with constituents Arts Senator Kareem Ibrahim brought the problem of communication with constituents to

Councillors in discussion. the floor, citing a Facebook event supporting a facetious motion to “turn SSMU into a giant Chuck E. Cheese,” created after the October 22 General Assembly, as a concern.

The name of the event page has been changed since its creation.

Ibrahim asked councillors for their opinion on creating a Facebook group to “poll constituents about issues.” Arts and Science Senator Chloe Rourke spoke in favour of the suggestion.

“Using online forums such as Facebook is worth considering, because really the communication channels we have right now are inadequate,” she said. “There is a huge disconnect between SSMU and its constituents, a lot of the time there is misinformation about what SSMU does.”

Ayukawa was a bit more hesitant about the idea. “This often devolves into personal attacks and I don’t think that it’s fair to put [...] any of us into a situation where we are going to be personally attacked,” she said. She suggested that instead, each set of faculty councillors create their own Facebook pages that “could be passed down from year to year.”

Extended library hours VP University Affairs Claire

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily Stewart-Kanigan brought up the discussion of extended library hours, which she had previously brought forward at the last Council meeting.

Engineering Representative Anikke Rioux reported her constituents’ feelings to Council. “A lot of people care more about having the hours than who pays for it,” she said.

Arts and Science Representative Saurin Shah echoed this sentiment, saying that his constituents “would very much like McGill to fund extended hours, [but] if it came down to it they would rather SSMU fund it than not have it at all.”

Publications fee VP Internal J. Daniel Chaim brought to discussion the funding problems of the Old McGill Yearbook that SSMU publishes every year. “It’s very important that we figure out a sustainable way to fund [the yearbook] for the future, because as it stands right now the SSMU loses over $23,000 a year in the publication of the yearbook,” he said.

Chaim said that nothing could be changed this year, but suggested the implementation of a publications fee which would also cover “the handbook, the website, and other improvements that we’d like

to make in the future in terms of technological publications.”

He estimated that the fee would be around $2.50 per semester.

Baraldi spoke in favour of this approach. “Creating a fee opens up possibilities for students for what they want to see in the yearbook, and I definitely also think it should be opt-outable.”

Changes to clubs and services A motion to amend the Clubs and Services Portfolio By-law Book to allow services to use leftover fees to fund projects was criticized by councillors due to its restrictive nature. The motion stated that services could not use discretionary funding for capital expenditures “whose use and value exceed the timeframe in which the project or event takes place.”

Bradley defended this provision. “I don’t think it’s fair to ask students of today to be funding services that donate to projects of tomorrow,” she said.

The motion passed, along with a motion to create an Ad-hoc Club Hub Committee. The committee is to review the current club structure and make recommendations to Council on changes to this structure by the end of the academic year.

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November 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Rethinking police training SPVM under fire for response to sexual assault, mental health crises Arianee Wang News Writer

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n late October, the Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montreál (FPPM) sent a formal report to police chief Marc Parent stating that the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM)’s firearms training and maintenance is seriously lacking – so much so that it poses a serious threat to public safety.

On October 6, the FPPM also published a press release demanding that the Commission des relations du travail take all the necessary measures to ensure the safety of the members of the police force.

According to the press release, a majority of the Montreal police has been deprived of training in weapons handling since the closure of four SPVM shooting ranges in 2013.

“This neglect has ensured that the qualification rate of Montreal police in the use of service weapons was about 5 per cent at the end of 2013. The current rate is higher but remains unknown to the Fraternity,” the press release stated in French.

Firearm use and maintenance is not the only area where SPVM training has been said to be lacking. The Quebec coroner’s report on the January 2012 shooting death of Farshad Mohammadi, who was homeless and struggled with mental illness, stated that there needs to be more effective training for police officers in handling mental health crises.

The SPVM also recently came under fire for its response to four different womens’ reports of being sexually assaulted by taxi drivers.

Gender and sexual assault In October, an SPVM spokesperson warned that women should “limit their alcohol consumption and stay in control” after a series of reports from women of being sexually assaulted by taxi drivers. This response was widely criticized as an example of victim-blaming and indicative of the SPVM’s insufficient

response to sexual assaults.

Indeed, police departments are often criticized for the way in which they handle sexual assault.

In an email to The Daily, Frances Maychak, External Coordinator at the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS), outlined a few of the many factors that prevent survivors from reporting to the police.

According to Maychak, a fear of further violence, concerns about the legal process, trauma, relationship to the perpetrator, and issues of language, citizenship, and immigration can all impact a survivor’s decision. “[Survivors may] fear violence from the police and/or negative/ violent experiences with the police in the past,” said Maychack, adding that many also fear being blamed for their own assault.

Communication barriers can also impact the ability and willingness of assault survivors to report to police. “Survivors may not speak the language(s) necessary to report their assault(s),” stated Maychak.

Preparation and sensitivity in other issues, such as language, can play a role in the use of force by police. According to Maycheck, atten-

“It is extremely important that the police are educated on issues of sexual assault, take all reports of sexual assault very seriously, [and] never disbelieve a survivor.”

Frances Maychak, SACOMSS External Coordinator

Manuela Galindo Carvajal | Illustrator tion to the specific needs of sexual assault survivors is crucial.

“It is extremely important that the police are educated on issues of sexual assault, take all reports of sexual assault very seriously, never disbelieve a survivor, and never blame a survivor for being assaulted,” she said.

SACOMSS has recently begun training a team of volunteers to accompany assault survivors to the police, as well as court dates and medical appointments.

The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP), an autonomous group that aims to combat police brutality, argues that the SPVM’s inefficacy at responding to sexual assault is a product of the patriarchy.

A COBP press release about police violence against women read in French, “Men dominate the army and the police, particularly in positions of command. Men generally have more money than women.

Although there obviously are some women who occupy better positions

than men, it is possible to speak of Quebec as a patriarchal system that divides society into two classes of unequal genders.”

Homelessness Despite the implementation of initiatives that sought “to better respond to the many aspects of mental health and homelessness problems” detailed in the SPVM’s 2013 annual report, the homeless population remains a target of police brutality in Montreal. There have been reports of threats from the police for panhandling. Earlier this year, a member of the Montreal police shot and killed Alain Magloire, a homeless man who faced mental illness, after hitting him with a police cruiser.

In order to learn more about the relationship between Montreal’s homeless population and the SPVM, The Daily spoke to the Old Brewery Mission, an organization that works with Montreal’s homeless population. The Old Brewery

Mission tries “to work with people to find better solutions, depending what issues they are dealing with.”

Old Brewery Mission Emergency Services Coordinator Neila Ben Ayed spoke with The Daily about the relationship between the SPVM and Montreal’s homeless population.

“Most of the time, it’s not violent; [however] sometimes [the police] lose patience, they can be verbally more aggressive with these kinds of people,” said Ben Ayed. “Homeless people need – how can I say that – they need a human approach.” “[The Old Brewery Mission] has a great relationship with the police,” said Ben Ayed. However, she conceded that “they have to improve communication.”

“Maybe the SPVM has to improve their workers with more training with specific population issues, like homelessness,” concluded Ben Ayed.

SPVM media relations would not comment on the current training process for officers.

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Smoke-free campus to come?

Committee extends smoking policy to e-cigarettes, review to continue Saima Desai News Writer

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n October 20, the University Health and Safety Committee (UHSC) began discussion on a review of McGill’s recently updated smoking policy, which may eventually include a campus-wide smoking ban. The review comes approximately one month after the committee extended the policy to cover e-cigarettes in the ban on smoking in certain areas of campus.

According to the current smoking policy, which complies with provincial law, smoking is prohibited within nine metres of doors and windows leading into McGill buildings.

Last winter semester, Redpath terrace was designated as a smoke-free area. The recent addendum, effective September 22, includes e-cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes, in the ban.

E-cigarettes are personal vapourizers that commonly produce

nicotine vapour rather than the smoke of conventional cigarettes.

Associate Director of University Safety Wayne Wood told The Daily that the policy was revised following inquiries from staff about whether ecigarettes were included in the ban.

Music Senator and Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) representative on the UHSC Maximillion Scebba spoke to The Daily about the addendum. “I honestly was pretty surprised that the policy didn’t already include e-cigarettes,” he said.

However, some students didn’t agree that e-cigarettes should be treated the same way as cigarettes.

“Extending e-cigarettes, which are supposed to be kind of a nonchemically-oppressive way to smoke cigarettes, as being subsumed under the [smoking restrictions], that just kind of defeats the point of people smoking e-cigarettes,” said U3 student Alice Feldman.

It’s possible that even bigger

changes may be in store for the smoking policy. Scebba noted that “some discussion of a blanket ban of smoking on campus” was a possibility for future UHSC meetings. “[The committee] did seem quite eager,” he said. “They’ve noticed that some universities in Canada [...] have banned smoking across all campuses.”

When asked about a campuswide ban, however, Wood replied, “I’m not aware that the UHSC is considering a campus-wide ban at the moment. Someone may have mentioned it at the last meeting, but it is not on our current agenda.”

In the meantime, Scebba says the committee will meet twice over the next two months and discuss the policy.

“It will consist of an evaluation of the resources the University has at its disposal to enforce the current policy, with the goal of determining ways in which it can be improved,”

Scebba told The Daily in an email.

According to Scebba, the discussion will focus on a “review of the role security services play in the current policy,” as well as on the assessment of the success of designated campus smoking areas.

The committee will be “exploring options for new sites, physical improvements to the sites themselves, and issues of accessibility,” he said.

Scebba raised concerns about whether the community would be adequately consulted on such decisions.

“The committee is very open to student consultation, I just don’t think they’re always good about following through with that,” he said. “Out of concern that the members of the UHSC may not follow through with this responsibility to an ideal extent before that discussion takes place [...] the committee needs as much input as it can get.”

Reactions to a campus-wide ban among students who smoke were

mixed, with many students supporting a smoke-free campus.

“I wouldn’t mind that much, to be honest,” said U3 student Kevin Dejean. “I understand how it can be uncomfortable for the non-smokers.”

Feldman, however, voiced concerns over the fairness of the policy.

“Telling us ‘you have no place here in which you can, you know, be yourself and smoke,’ that’s just kind of ridiculous to me,” she said.

“I think that if there were workshops, like how to smoke better, how to dispose of your cigarette butts, what kind of impact it has on the environment, who you should be conscious of smoking around, then people would be more mindful instead of instituting this blind ban,” Feldman said.

Whether the discussion will bring about any concrete changes to the policy remains to be seen. “I do not know whether any policy updates or new items will be implemented, or merely discussed,” said Scebba.

Post-grads endorse anti-austerity protest Council mandates PGSS to create policy on international tuition deregulation Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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he Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) held its monthly Council meeting on November 4. Council heard a presentation given by the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), of which PGSS is a member, and passed motions on austerity, tuition deregulation, and mental health.

Austerity and tuition deregulation The first motion discussed and passed mandated PGSS with encouraging its members to participate in an anti-austerity demonstration on November 29. The protest is organized by Refusons l’austérité, a coalition of ten groups including FEUQ. Speaking in favour of the motion, PGSS External Affairs Officer Julien Ouellet said, “I think it would be interesting for PGSS to be a part of that, because, of course, we are all extremely affected by those cuts. It will affect the quality and accessibility of our education.”

Another motion regarding attending the October 31 anti-austerity protest was brought up at the PGSS Annual General Meeting (AGM) on October 22; however, the clauses that would compel PGSS to join the protest were struck.

“The fact that our members are scattered across the city makes it

extremely difficult for us to mobilize them on such short notice,” said Ouellet in an email to The Daily, explaining why PGSS did not endorse the October 31 protest. “While we can all agree that the protest on [October 31] was peaceful and in line with our stance against austerity, we did not have enough information about it to make an informed decision at the time.”

“None of these reasons keep us from participating in protest [on November 29], and we will make sure that PGSS comes out in force,” he concluded.

Council also passed a motion mandating PGSS to support the stances of departmental postgraduate student associations on the issue of international student tuition deregulation. PGSS will create a policy to that effect, and will additionally demand that no program’s tuition be deregulated without obtaining consent from its students through democratic means.

FEUQ mobilization campaign FEUQ President Jonathan Bouchard told councillors about FEUQ’s annual mobilization campaign, which this year has to do with updating the provincial government’s student loan program.

“What has happened in the past is that the cost of living has increased much faster than the actual loans

and bursaries; and that’s basically because of how [the government] evaluates [students’] needs,” said Bouchard at the meeting.

Bouchard explained that the cost of living has increased by 45 per cent since 1994, but the bursary amounts have increased only by approximately 24 per cent.

“The newly elected government has a very strict economic plan to go back to zero deficit. It is a very aggressive plan, we do need to have mobilization for the campaign,” said Bouchard.

In response to Bouchard’s comment about opposing austerity measures, PGSS Equity Commissioner Michael Krause questioned FEUQ’s motives.

“About a year and a half ago, when the [Parti Québécois] was doing austerity, you came to us and said that the universities had enough money; it was just mismanagement.

And now that the Liberals are in power, now that there is austerity, we have to go on the streets. So where does the FEUQ stand exactly, and has anything changed but the government?” Krause asked.

In reply, Bouchard said that FEUQ’s stance on university finances was still the same, and that they have been waiting for a report on how universities are financed from the government since June 2014.

“Huge cuts have been imposed

The Speaker of Council. on universities right in the middle of their financial year,” Bouchard said.

Mental health priorities PGSS passed a motion to set the priorities of the PGSS Mental Health Working Group, which was created after PGSS approved a mental health policy on May 7. “[The group is] simply a working group based off of volunteers.

Just like [the councillors], they don’t have a lot of time, so their question is: what they should they prioritize this year?” PGSS Health Commissioner Elizabeth Cawley told Council.

Graduate Association of Stu-

Andy Wei | The McGill Daily dents in Psychology (GASP) Representative Nora Hope spoke in favour of prioritizing more accessible mental health services and resources over awareness-raising, citing the fact that it constituted a more direct and concrete focus.

“If we don’t have enough services available to treat students [...] increasing awareness and reducing stigma for seeking out mental health services [becomes ineffective] to some degree,” Hope said at Council.

In the end, Council decided to have the working group prioritize advocating for more accessible services and resources.

8

News

November 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Face to face with social justice Culture Shock events give students an opportunity to engage with the issues From November 5 to 9, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) McGill, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), and the Social Equity and Diversity Education office (SEDE) held events in and around the McGill campus exploring issues related to race, immigration, Indigenous resistance, and more through workshops, panels, movie screenings, and other events. The workshops held throughout the week were, for the most part, widely attended, and generally received positive feedback from attendees. Three highlighted workshops are presented below.

Immigrants with disabilities in Canada: discrimination, segregation, suicidal deportation On November 6, Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) held a workshop titled “Immigrants With Disabilities In Canada: Discrimination, Segregation, Suicidal Deportation.”

The workshop was facilitated by Farhana Haque of the soon-to-be SAB Committee for Immigrants with Disabilities, a project currently in development that will attempt to address the specific issues faced by immigrants with disabilities. The purpose of the workshop was to “debunk what it really means to be an ‘excessive burden’ in Canada, [and] debunk the supposed global initiatives for people with disability,” according to the event description.

Haque opened the workshop by challenging common themes often associated with Canada. “What do we think of when we think of Canada? We think of democracy, we think of freedom, we think of multiculturalism, we think of equality, peace, humanitarianism.

What we don’t think of are discrimination, segregation, and suicidal deportation that immigrants with disabilities face.”

The workshop included an overview of Canadian immigration policy, from the Chinese “head tax” of the 1880s (a fee charged

to each Chinese immigrant entering Canada) to today’s restrictive provincial immigration quotas. Haque noted that, as current Canadian immigration law effectively does not allow for disabled immigrants, people with disabilities must enter the country as refugee claimants.

While Haque noted that many disabled people support themselves, an emphasis was placed on the crucial role that families play for many immigrants with disabilities in terms of access to education, employment, and support; according to Haque, being deported and separated from this family network can lead to poverty or other dire circumstances. “[It] is like being sentenced to a suicide for the crime of having a disability,” said Haque.

After the event, attendee comments were made available on the SAB committee’s website. People gave suggestions for future workshops and actions by the committees, such as putting more emphasis on debunking what it means for one to be considered a social burden. “This will affirm, though to different degrees, how everyone is a burden and not just people with disabilities,” said the commenter.

—Janna Bryson

Migrant workers in Canada: why everyone should care On November 6, a workshop titled “Migrant Workers in Canada: Why Everyone Should Care” gave McGill students the opportunity to meet three people who wanted to share their experiences with temporary work in Canada, while exploring the history of temporary foreign workers and migration in Canada.

The speakers were Noé Ricardo Arteaga Santos, a temporary worker from Guatemala; Kike Llanes, who was a temporary worker with International Experience Canada and is now active at the Association des travailleurs/ euses temporaires d’agences de placement (ATTAP); and Viviane Medina from ATTAP and the Temporary Agency Workers Association. They emphasized that the Canadian government focuses on creating an underpaid labour force that is easily exploitable. Llanes also stated that the program through which he got to Canada from Spain is “deeply colonial and deeply racist.”

The speakers highlighted that while temporary workers take on innumerable jobs and positions within Canadian society, from working on farms, to childcare, to retail jobs, the Canadian immigration system denies them access to healthcare, education, basic labour protections, and residency.

Participants attend a presentation about immigrants with disabilities.

“The employer has a myriad of rights over the unprotected worker, and the worker becomes a commodity. [...] The worker becomes objectified,” said Llanes.

According to the panel, temporary workers live in extreme isolation within Canada.

Due to language barriers and a lack of knowledge of Canadian laws, many migrant workers are not aware of their rights, said Llanes.

Oftentimes already indebted before coming to Canada, the workers are left to labour in much harsher conditions. They are at the mercy of their employers without the ability to lodge complaints, as they fear losing their jobs and being sent home with no money.

Medina said that women face different issues than men: about 70 per cent of the complaints that women bring to her organization concern sexual harassment.

Llanes explained that the conditions of temporary workers are not improving, with the federal and provincial governments passing bills that impede the rights of migrant workers and make it more difficult for them to unionize.

Llanes added that, as they stand, the temporary worker programs prove to be “a prolongation of colonialism, but with legal paper.”

—Joelle Dahm

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

Creating a culture of resistance Last Friday, Kanahus Manuel, a mother and a warrior from the Secwepemc Nation in British Columbia (B.C.) who has been involved in actions to resist colonialism and corporate developments projects, facilitated a workshop on building a culture of resistance to colonialism. The workshop was attended by roughly twenty people, most of whom were students.

Manuel began by highlighting some of the direct action that is currently taking place in Indigenous communities, such as actions to resist the Mount Polley mining disaster in B.C., anti-colonial hip hop and street art, the use of traditional midwives, and the choice to eat traditional foods.

Manuel also screened a short, yet-to-bereleased film that depicted the resistance

of Manuel, her family, and her community against colonialism. In her community, many people, including Manuel herself, have chosen not to register their children with the Canadian government. These children, called “freedom babies,” will not have social insurance numbers, access to Canadian healthcare, or be in any way recognized by the Canadian state.

“By not registering our children and having these freedom babies, it’s really pushing our people to say what independence and what autonomy look like in our nations,” explained Manuel.

The unregistered children will grow up completely independent of Canada, and learning traditional methods of survival, and will go through traditional ceremonies. Manuel said that they are in the process of training and making alliances

with doctors and dentists so that their children will have the care they need without requiring help from the Canadian government.

The film also highlighted the intense police reaction to the resistance that took place at Mount Polley.

After the video, participants were asked to move their chairs into a circle, and Manuel invited everyone present to share their name, home, ancestral lineage, intentions in attending the event, as well as any skills they might have to offer, following the protocol used by the Unist’ot’en Camp (another resistance community in B.C.) whenever new people come to their territory.

“This is enough people, with all those skills combined, to take down the country of Canada

if we needed to right now, here in this room,” Manuel said.

“We’re smart enough to do that as human beings with these skills, we are smart enough to do that, it’s just about getting together strategically – that’s the best way to utilize these people’s skills in order to accomplish some of our goals.”

Robin Reid-Fraser, a recent Environment graduate from McGill, told The Daily that the event was refreshing. “I do always come out of these kind of events feeling hopeful and excited because there are so many people who are interested in these kinds of things, and having more of those connections with each other is really great.”

—Jill Bachelder

Commentary

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

9

The logic of climate protests The inadequacy of trying to stay within the status quo Simon Fiala Commentary Writer

O

n September 21, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in cities all over the world, most notably in New York, to participate in the People’s Climate March, which became the world’s largest environmental march to date.

The main impetus behind the march – as explained in the film Disruption, a documentary on the subject – was that despite scientific consensus on the gravity of climate change, established more than two decades ago, countries have not only failed to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels and limit the destruction of the environment caused by their use, but have in fact kept increasing their production and consumption levels year after year.

The People’s Climate March was hailed by its organizers as an overwhelming success. The number of people gathered – 311,000 in New York by some estimates – is astonishing. On the day of the march, New York bent under the weight of hundreds of thousands of people, whose demands ranged from divesting from fossil fuels and banning fracking all the way to demanding full environmental justice for people pushed to the margins by climate change.

To me, however, the march signified the defeat of hope. As I marched through the streets of downtown Manhattan, I was amazed by the scale of the protest, the creativity behind the protesters’ banners, and by the strength of their expression and determination to change the way our current global system operates. But I couldn’t help but think: “This is as big, as good, as powerful as it gets. But it is not enough.”

It all boils down to the existence of two modes of human interaction that have increasingly become distinct. In our immediate surround-

ings, we meet people, we befriend them, we communicate our thoughts to them, and they communicate their thoughts back to us. We try to understand other people’s points of view, to bring each other’s ideas in line, and eventually reach a consensus. On a larger scale, this is the basis of the socio-political mode of interaction, within which we engage in political arenas and formulate demands across the board.

The other mode of interaction could be called ‘market-based.’ With this mode of interaction we do not try to understand other people’s standpoints. We merely read indicators they provide, as if reading aggregated symbols in economic markets. This establishes the environment for decision-making, and then we act accordingly. Within this mode of interaction oftentimes we do not directly deal with the actors involved. Instead, we indirectly interact with disparate and fluid groups of people.

While there may have been times where these two modes of interaction were barely distinguishable from each other, or at least kept in relative balance, today’s globalized world overwhelmingly relies on the marketbased mode of interaction: the mode of signals, mediated messages, and mechanical coordination, as opposed to consensus-making.

This creates a strange situation.

The market-based mode of interaction has as a whole brought about consequences that directly threaten the well-being of a large portion of the world’s population, especially those who do not have a voice as they are located on both the geographical and political periphery. Upon realizing this we resort to socio-political interaction in order to keep the problem in check.

However, as it sadly manifested itself during the march, the socio-political mode of interaction based on conversation, and mutual understanding

has its limits. While 311,000 people is an impressive number in terms of social activism, it pales in comparison with the 1.6 million people who interact using the market-based mode of interaction on a daily basis in Manhattan alone. This number at the march looks even lower compared to the number of stakeholders in the issue of climate change, which amounts to roughly seven billion, the entire population of the world.

This comparison neatly brings out the inadequacy of our tools in the face of this problem. We are trying to rearrange the world’s core political and economic processes by gathering in the streets, all the while contained by police barriers, in order to disrupt the status quo as little as possible. We are trying to stop environmental degradation by organizing cupcake sales on campuses. Maybe at this point our ability as humans – that is, as social and political beings – to coordinate ourselves in order to avoid clashing

with the status quo is inadequate in dealing with the relentless marketbased, impersonal, even anti-social interactions that govern our lives. At this point, within the current social organization of the world’s nations, it seems that nothing can be done to change the order.

Where does that leave us? It seems that things inevitably have to get worse before they get better. Unfortunately, it may well be too late.

But provided that at some point there will be enough incentives to act, a major reshuffle in the social and political structure of the whole world will be needed. The question is: how do we bring our ability to act in a political, deliberative way in balance with our overdeveloped ability to coordinate ourselves as if we were interacting with the economic market instead of actual human beings?

One thing seems to be clear: contemporary capitalism is prohibiting us from taking decisive action on

climate change. ‘Reforming capitalism’ is a phrase that is now comfortably embedded in leftist political discourse. It implies however that the change must take place in the distant sphere of corporate buildings and capital markets, whereas in the sphere of democratic decision-making, civil society and, ultimately, everyday life, everything is supposed to remain the same. That cannot be the case. We should start working on accommodating the uncomfortable thought that change will have to go beyond disciplining capitalists and will, in fact, need to include a radical reform of how we understand democratic governance.

Pessimists say that global climate change will end history, but optimists know that radical change will begin a new chapter.

sensationalist, false, and ultimately harmful. It is unfair and wrong to argue as the author does that free speech was “suppressed” at the General Assembly (GA). If we, as members of SSMU, have the right to choose what we wish to talk about at a GA, we also have the right to choose what not to talk about, and when to talk about it.

Freedom of speech requires some sort of rules or framework to organize its expression: speakers’ lists, time limitations, and rules of procedure do just that. That Mr. Khan draws a parallel between his unhappiness with Robert’s Rules of Order and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s struggle against unjust segregation laws is absurd. We, democratically

and as a simple majority of students in attendance, chose to modify the issues that were to be discussed at this particular meeting. This wasn’t an “assault to democracy” – this was democracy. The author decries the fact that the “no” side was “organized.” Doesn’t the New Democratic Party “organize” to convince people how to vote?

Don’t union leaders “organize” to tell workers how to act? There were two sides that “organized” to achieve an outcome they wanted at this general assembly. The fact that Mr. Khan’s side lost grants him no moral high ground.

Jonathan Reid | The McGill Daily

Simon Fiala is on exchange studying Sociology. To contact him, please email simon.fiala@mail.mcgill.ca.

Letters Submit your own: letters@mcgilldaily.com

A response to SSMU GA critics In his op-ed (“Organizing against free speech,” Commentary, November 3, page 11) Nadir Khan shows that he is indeed an eloquent writer – but this does not change the fact that his claims are

– Ariel Shapiro, U3 Arts (Political Science)

Commentary

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

10

“No friends but the mountains” Supremacist nationalism has far-reaching consequences Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

R

ecently, mainstream media has been saturated with news from the Middle East, most specifically from Syria. The mostly Kurdish town of Kobane, located in northern Syria, has been under siege by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since September 16. The siege comes as part of a greater invasion campaign conducted by ISIS in an attempt to achieve territorial legitimacy.

Recently, the Turkish government has come under criticism because of its inaction and passivity regarding the siege of Kobane. Admittedly, Turkey has very recently allowed Kurdish Peshmerga from Iraq to pass through Turkey in order to aid with the resistance at Kobane; but this decision came more than a month after the beginning of the siege.

This passivity may seem bizarre given that Kobane is located very close to the border between Syria and Turkey, and considering the fact that Turkey has recently authorized military action in Syria against ISIS. Yet, Turkey’s inaction is actually symptomatic of a broader context of the long and strained relationship between the Kurdish independence movement and Turkey.

The majority of the population of Kobane is Kurdish. The Kurds, not just in northern Syria but throughout the region, have been asking to have their autonomy recognized by the various local powers for decades; however all of their efforts have so far been in vain. No government wants to see an autonomous, independent Kurdistan in the region – especially not Turkey. As an old Kurdish saying goes, they have

‘no friends but the mountains.’

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been fighting the Turkish government for more than thirty years, and admittedly, they have committed some irreconcilable terrorist acts in the process. This has included suicide bombings, kidnappings, and violent clashes between PKK militants and the Turkish military. While violence cannot be condoned, however, we must also keep in mind that this kind of violence does not occur without reason.

The root of the conflict stems from the fact that Turkey was founded as a nation-state whose core nationality does not necessarily correspond to all ethnic groups in the country. According to the Turkish constitution, all citizens of Turkey are Turkish, which is understandably problematic for people of those ethnic groups who wish to maintain their independent cultural identities, including Kurds. This leads to such discriminatory acts as denying Kurds the right to access education in their native language, or even the right to entertain the idea of autonomy. The official government line in the 1980s was, “There is no such thing as Kurds, they are simply mountain Turks.”

The nationalistic atmosphere in Turkey prevents people from having reasonable discussions about the socalled Kurdish problem. But recently, the siege of Kobane has brought to light a new form of oppression.

Turkey’s stance on Kobane reeks of the ancient adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The same Turkey that has authorized military action in Syria against ISIS has refused to intervene simply because ISIS was attacking Kurds this time.

Keep in mind, this is the same ISIS that believes it is okay to enslave

Yazidis, the same ISIS that beheads journalists, and the same ISIS that murders indiscriminately. This is the sort of moral depth to which racism in Turkey will sink.

This racism is institutionalized too. Officially, all citizens of Turkey are Turkish, which translates into a suppression of all other ethnic or cultural identities. Turkish schools teach the virtues of ‘Turkishness,’ and all the good that ethnic Turkish people have done. Yet what about all the evil that was done?

What about the Armenian genocide, for instance, which cannot even be mentioned in Turkey without qualifying it “so-called?” What about all the other things that might have been done, but that history lessons under the Turkish curriculum have left out?

The country’s institutional measures make it very difficult to criticize nationalism in Turkey: Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Law forbids insulting ‘Turkishness.’ According to the article, it is illegal to insult, or “denigrate” the concept of ‘Turkishness,’ but it is acceptable to criticize it. However, the line between denigration and criticism is left very vague.

A famous example would be the case of Hrant Dink, an ArmenianTurkish journalist, who in 2006 was prosecuted and sentenced to six months in prison for essentially affirming his identity as an Armenian and a citizen of Turkey while denying being a Turk. The case was then brought to the European Court of Human Rights, and his sentence was delayed. Nevertheless, Dink was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007 in broad daylight, right in front of the offices of the newspaper he worked for.

Talking about non-Turkish iden-

Kristian Picon | The McGill Daily tities remains taboo, and if people do talk about them, the discussions are fuelled by prejudice. For instance, when people talk about Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, one of the first counter-arguments anyone makes is that the Kurds would fail horribly if they had their own state, because they have never had their own state before. Not once do people ask themselves why the Kurds have never had a state of their own. Not once do they consider the fact that, maybe, no one ever let them have a state of their own. It is not always the most extreme nationalists who make these sorts of arguments – even the most liberal, open-minded people can end up going there.

Casually making a generalization about an ethnic minority, and denying them their rights based on this generalization is illogical.

It is falling victim to circular logic.

Furthermore, it is pure, unadulterated racism. What gives Turks the right to deny Kurds their right to self-identification, let alone selfdetermination? And if this denial has translated into decades of persecution, is it really surprising that the Kurds resort to violence, and even terrorism?

The Turkish state has, for decades, tried to protect the integrity

of its borders by denying peoples of different ethnic groups their identities, and replacing them with the singularity of ‘Turkishness.’

Admittedly, it is not right to blame individuals for the situation that Turkey is in right now. It is an institutional problem, caused by an effort to create a nation-state, comprised of a single nation, out of an ethnically diverse population. The situation in Turkey now is a devastating and divisive legacy of European nationalism, and a horrible misinterpretation of the right to self-determination. Self-determination is supposed to mean that if any people, united by a common culture or language, decide to determine their own fate, then it is their right to do so. No nation has the right to declare itself superior. Yet Turkey’s racist politics with regard to Kurds are the incarnation of supremacist nationalism. This kind of nationalism is the bane of my country, as it has been for the Kurds for a long time. Seldom has this been truer than now in Kobane.

Cem Ertekin is a commentary editor at The Daily, but the views expressed here are his own. To contact him, please email cem.ertekin@ mail.mcgill.ca.

Coming soon at the Phi Centre CINEMA

November 12 at 7:30 PM THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS A documentary by James Hall and Edward Lovelace

CONCERTS

November 14 at 7:30 PM FISH & CAT

By Shahram Mokri with Abed Abest and Mona Ahmadi

November 19 at 7:30 PM PRIDE

By Matthew Warchus with Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton

November 27 at 7:30 PM ELLE QUÉBEC fait son cinéma: THE MISFITS

By John Huston Free

November 28 at 7:30 PM THE BETTER ANGELS

By A.J. Edwards with Jason Clarke and Diane Kruger

Watch the trailers at phi-centre.com All films are $11.25 (taxes and fees included) unless otherwise indicated.

Programming subject to change without notice. Visit our website for the latest updates.

Phi Centre—407 Saint-Pierre Street, Old-Montreal—phi-centre.com

December 3 at 8 PM LIFE AFTER DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 A documentary

by Eva Michon

November 21 at 6 PM DEE The Space Between Us Launch and concert as part of M for Montreal Free

THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE

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THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE We all inhabit the same planet, but we have gone too long ignoring the fact that our actions can have a profound impact on communities around the world.

As one of the biggest producers and consumers of fossil fuels, Canada has contributed significantly to the degradation of the environment. The current Conservative government, led by Prime Minister Harper, has also been particularly adamant about ignoring scientific evidence for climate change at the expense of our environment, wildlife, and livelihoods.

However, the negative effects of this carelessness do not impact everyone equally. Climate change, and environmental degradation in general, disproportionately impacts Indigenous communities, who are on the front lines of resistance around the world. Our silence on these disparities is shameful; they should be front and centre in discussions.

The issue of environment is one that is insurmountable: there are a myriad of dimensions that could not all be covered in this special issue. We have tried to tackle a few of these, like forward-thinking research, pipelines that run through Montreal, Indigenous activism in Canada and worldwide, and climate justice.

It is time to take a stand against climate change by educating ourselves, influencing policy-makers, and making changes to not only our daily lives but the institutions and structures of our society. We hope that this issue and our microsite will help you realize the great impact our actions have had on our future, and the urgency of the current situation we find ourselves in.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

Harper is destroying the environment

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The pipeline you should be worrying about

6 The absolute necessity of climate justice

Online: Industrial ‘green’ initiatives: How green are they really?

Indigenous activism across Canada Food for thought: Where does your breakfast come from?

Go to mcgilldaily.com/environment for our microsite.

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Indigenous resistance around the world

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How McGill’s research could help the environment Can technology combat climate change?

AUDIO: PANEL DISCUSSION: ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS ON CAMPUS We sat down with members from Divest McGill, Organic Campus, and ECOLE to talk about what the groups have been up to recently, and to discuss the importance of student-run environmental groups on and off campus. Go to mcgilldaily.com/podcast to hear the discussion!

Illustration by Sinthusha Kandiah

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HARPER’S WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT Rackeb Tesfaye

T

he 2014 Climate Change Performance Index, an annual publication by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe, compares countries based on factors such as renewable energy, emission levels, energy efficiency, and climate policy. Canada was ranked number 58, placing it dead last among industrialized nations.

According to the authors of the report, “Canada still shows no intention of moving forward with climate policy and therefore remains the worst performer of all industrialized countries.”

A damning report released last month by the Auditor General of Canada revealed that Harper’s Conservative government doesn’t even have a specific plan in place to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emission reduction target, which it will therefore miss.

Instead of developing solutions to combat climate change, Harper instead plans to extract more oil

and gas. Just last month, Harper announced that Ottawa and Quebec are ready to jointly introduce legislation to manage oil and gas production in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

First Nations leaders called for a 12-year moratorium on oil exploration in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in July, and were supported by many groups, including Montreal-based Coalition Saint-Laurent. The Coalition has expressed large concerns over the fragile and important Gulf ecosystem that is shared by five provinces, as well as the health risks to surrounding communities. Opposing parties also cite the lack of scientific knowledge about the area, insufficient capacity to respond to an oil spill, and a lack of social and economic responsibility.

Repeatedly, the actions of Harper have supported corporate oil interests over those of Canadians and the environment. While the rest of the world is making efforts to mitigate climate change, the Canadian government has been taking steps in the wrong direction, reflected by Harper’s absence at the UN’s Cli-

mate Summit this September.

Policies and Actions of the Harper Government Not too long ago, Canada seemed like it was on the right track in the fight against climate change. In 2005, Paul Martin and the Liberal government signed the Kyoto Protocol, the first binding international agreement that sets targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the goal to cut carbon emissions by 6 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012 failed, and Canadian emissions were set to overshoot the target by nearly 30 per cent. In 2011, under the Harper government, Canada became the first nation to back out of the Kyoto Protocol, allowing it to avoid incurring financial penalties.

Since then, Harper has continued to deliver blow after blow to environmental efforts – streamlining the approval process for new pipelines, reducing federal obligation to report environmental effects, undermining First Nations’ rights, weakening the protection of biodiversity and Canada’s waters, and overall delivering a

huge setback to environmental protection and research.

The Conservatives have pulled off an extraordinary Houdini act, eliminating research centres and environmental agencies that produced data that contradicted their policies, including stripping funding from the only agency responsible for the environmental assessment of off-shore drilling. Meanwhile, the Tories cut environmental spending from $1.01 billion in 2014-15 to $698.9 million in 2016-17, according to an Environment Canada report.

Yet, the icing on the cake is Harper’s silencing of Canadian scientists. His control over the communication between scientists and the public has sparked worldwide outrage; over 800 scientists from around the word signed a letter last month asking Harper to end the restriction on science communication and funding.

Winners and losers Between the tar sands and oil pipelines, oil and gas companies are the big winners, receiving bil-

lions in profit as well as $1.3 billion in government subsidies. 71 per cent of Canada’s oil sands are foreignowned, and no federal savings fund has been put in place to share the wealth with future Canadian generations. Harper has consistently used job creation and immediate profits as a reason to push through with oil and gas development, disregarding the long-term impacts they will have on the people of Canada and the environment.

In a frankly terrifying 2014 report by Natural Resources Canada, the authors detail the impacts of climate change that face Canada, including risks to human health, increased natural disasters (like last year’s floods in Alberta), destruction of natural resources, and much more.

Harper is not the environment’s best friend – the proof is in the oily tar pudding. Though it will take generations to rebuild what we have destroyed, it’s time for Canadians to wake up to what’s happening, take a stand against Harper, and reclaim their environment.

A TIMELINE OF HARPER’S ACTIONS April 2007

Fall 2011

Environment Minister John Baird unveils the “Turning the Corner” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Targets are weaker than those under the Kyoto Protocol.

February 2006 Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is sworn in after the Conservative Party wins a minority government, ending a 13-year Liberal government.

Environment Canada forms a group to work on oil and gas regulations including representatives from the Alberta government, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and three oil companies (Suncor, Cenovus, and Canadian Natural Resources Limited)

December 2009 Harper signs a climate change accord along with the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

Canada’s previous target set under Baird’s proposal is weakened.

March 2007

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty reveals the federal budget, which includes $4.5 billion in spending to fight climate change and improve the environment. Some funding toward environmental initiatives has been restored.

May 2011 Harper and the Conservatives get a majority government.

October 2008 Harper and the Conservative Party are re-elected as a minority government. Jim Prentice is named as the environment minister.

April 2013 In a statement indicative of the Harper government’s policies, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver tells La Presse, “Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated.”

March 2012

November 2013

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research, an organization that funded university-based research on the Arctic, air quality, severe weather, and oceans, closes after failing to receive renewed funding after multiple requests.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq says the government is not ready to introduce new regulations to reduce pollution from oil and gas companies.

June 2012 The Conservative government passes omnibus bill C-38 (“Jobs, Growth, and Long-term Prosperity Act”), imposing restrictions on reporting on the environment, and easing the process to approve new pipelines.

December 2011 Canada announces plans to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. These plans follow Obama’s decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would allow increased transport of from the Alberta tarsands to the U.S..

July 2012

June 2014 Harper and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott say they feel no additional pressure to fight climate change, and indicate their desire to prioritize economic growth instead.

Parliament adopts new laws to eliminate nearly 3,000 federal environmental reviews of industrial projects (including those related to oil, gas, and pipeline development).

4

W

hile many battles against pipelines have taken place on Canada’s West Coast, Enbridge’s Line 9 hits a little closer to home. Line 9 is a 38-year-old pipeline that carries oil over 639 kilometres from Montreal to Sarnia, passing through Toronto, around 14 First Nation reserves, and many smaller municipalities along the way. It also crosses waterways that feed into Lake Ontario, including the St. Lawrence.

In 2012, Enbridge put forward a proposal to the National Energy Board (NEB) that asked to reverse the direction of the pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Sarnia to Montreal, and to increase the pipeline’s capacity from 240,000 to 300,000 barrels per day.

ENBRIDG

FORT McMURRAY

Dana Wray

TAR SANDS PIPELINES ENBRIDGE LINE 9

PORTLAND–MONTREAL PIPE HARDISTY REGINA

ENBRIDGE’S PROPOSAL

The Line 9 proposal is part of a plan that stretches back now nearly six years. In 2008, Enbridge – an energy delivery company – announced that as part of the “Trailbreaker” project, it would help move tar sands oil from Alberta to the U.S. through its pipelines. While this plan stalled because of the global economic crisis only a year later, many groups suggest that the new proposal to reverse and increase Line 9’s flow is merely the first step in continuing this.

On March 6, the NEB approved the pipeline reversal and flow increase – contingent on several conditions, mostly concerning safety measures – after holding hearings in late 2013. However, on October 6, the NEB refused Enbridge’s request to open the line and start operating by early November, delaying the pipeline based on the conditions of approval set out in March. Specifically, Enbridge had not ensured that there were safety shut-off valves at all of the 104 major water crossings, and the company also tried to cancel over 100 “integrity digs” (inspections of the pipes to ensure there are no cracks or other defects).

SUPERI

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS Enbridge’s pipelines have a long history of oil spills. According to the company’s own data, between 1999 and 2010, Enbridge had 804 spills, releasing 25.74 million litres of hydrocarbons – an average of 73 pipeline failures per year. Since it was built in 1976, Line 9 itself has had 35 total spills, according to a CTV investigation, although Enbridge claims there have only been 13.

New laws introduced by the Harper government ensure that there does not have to be an independent environmental review process for pipelines. Richard Kuprewicz, an international pipeline safety expert acting on his own accord, concluded that there is a high risk that Line 9 will rupture early on if the project goes forward, due to the increased capacity, Enbridge’s current lackadaisical safety standards, and the transport of a new type of oil.

The environmental impacts of oil spills are well known, but Line 9 will carry a particular kind of oil: diluted bitumen, also known as tar sands oil. It is decried as dirty oil by environmental groups, while advocates insist it is no more harmful than conventional oil.

Environmental groups such as the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group, argue that there are indications that tar sands oil corrodes pipes faster, leading to a higher risk of spills. A Cornell University study found that “between 2007 and 2010, pipelines transporting tar sands oil in the northern Midwest have spilled three times more oil per mile than the U.S. national average for conventional crude oil.”

What’s more, tar sands oil spills can endanger people’s health. After a 2010 spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, residents reported headaches, nausea, breathing problems, and other health problems.

Areas that are considered “at risk” from the pipeline, according to environmental groups, include the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, the Niagara Escarpment, and more. More importantly, Line 9 runs through densely populated areas, including urban areas, magnifying the fallout of spills or explosions.

Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC. By 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC by CA.

RESISTANCE

Groups organizing against the pipeline First Nations communities, to student group The NEB held hearings throughout Oct these diverse backgrounds who spoke ag ings, people took to the streets to protest Li while similar numbers have been seen in To from demonstrators.

“Lockdowns,” where activists have cha throughout the proposal process – from June to a few weeks ago in Montreal.

Here in Montreal, in addition to protes NEB hearings, there have also been forum speaker events – such as the Tar Sands Rea Even after the approval of the pipeline and still continue now after approval have

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GE LINE 9 OIL SPILLS (IN LITRES)

ELINE

Data from CTV W5

MONTREAL PORTLAND (US)

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IOR (US)

5 2 1

3

10

7

4

8 9

11 12 13 14

SARNIA CHICAGO (US)

E TO THE PIPELINE

SPECIAL PLACES AT RISK 1

Grand River

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Victory State Forest

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Niagra Escarpment

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Connecticut River

e are varied – from local to national environmental groups, to ps, to landowners, and even the City of Toronto. tober 2013, drawing a significant number of speakers from gainst the pipeline. Outside of the formally sanctioned hearine 9. Protests in Montreal have drawn hundreds of people, oronto, with one hearing even shutting down due to pressure

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Rouge River

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Missisquoi River

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Lake Ontario

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Coös County

ained themselves to Enbridge sites, have occured many times e 2013 in Hamilton, Ontario, to December 2013 in Toronto,

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Richelieu River

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Androscoggin River

sts in solidarity with environmental activists and against the ms – such as one hosted by Climate Justice Montreal – and ality Check tour. e, protests and actions by groups continued against Line 9, stalled.

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St. Lawrence River

13

Crooked River

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Lake Memphremag

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Sebago Lake

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WHO IS MOST AFFECTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE? On wealth disparity and the need for climate justice

Fatima Boulmalf

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lthough climate change is a global phenomenon that affects us all, the burden of its effects is distributed very unequally. The world’s richest 85 individuals have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest, according to a report by the United Nations. The colossal disparities between the world’s rich and poor are a primary cause of climate injustice, as climate change only exacerbates the existing imbalances. As wealthy countries refuse, in the name of profit, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming effectively, they shift the burden of climate change onto already marginalized communities.

Impoverished communities are “the real losers” of climate change, according to Thomas Loster, geographer and Chair of the Munich Re Foundation. They are more susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change due to increased vulnerability and exposure, and they often lack the resources to manage climate change and minimize damage. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that “the effects of

climate change are expected to be greatest in developing countries in terms of loss of life and relative effects on investment and the economy.” Wealthy countries are far better equipped to adapt to climate change than poorer countries, which lack the infrastructure and resources required to mitigate its consequences.

With the disparity of wealth comes a disparity in the ability to cope with climate change.

Those who continue to profit from greenhouse gas emissions to the detriment of the environment must be held accountable. Oil companies generate billions in profit, and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable are left to deal with the ramifications – this is the pinnacle of injustice. The implementation of laws penalizing companies that fail to limit and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions is a necessary, if insufficient, first step.

Industrialized countries also bear most of the responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S., China, and the European Union are responsible for 56 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions, while per capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use and cement production were highest for Aus-

tralia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Canada, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency’s 2013 report. Because the world’s poor remain the most affected by climate change while being the least responsible for it, it is “only fair and reasonable that the developed world should bear most of the responsibility” when it comes to fighting global warming, in the words of UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon. Indeed, “those who have most responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and most capacity to act must cut emissions first,” according to the principles of climate justice cited by the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice.

Climate change also increasingly displaces individuals, who are left with no recourse under international law. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), approximately 22 million people were displaced in 2013 by natural disasters, with developing countries accounting for more than 85 per cent of the cases. The IDMC’s 2014 report on displacement indicates that “the latest scientific evidence shows that anthropogenic climate change has already altered

the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events in some regions, and that such extremes have become more unpredictable,” thus contributing to increased levels of displacement in the future.

Residents of areas affected by rising sea levels are being forced to leave their homes, as their quality of life is deteriorating at a rapid pace due to the effect on agriculture and the scarcity of drinking water. Inhabitants of these islands and coastal areas suffer from droughts, water contamination, and food shortages due to their inability to grow crops on soil that has been rendered infertile by the intrusion of sea water.

Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu, compared global warming to weapons of mass destruction, as it threatens the survival of the island nation.

At present, international refugee law does not accommodate individuals who are displaced by climate change. The UN News Centre reports that “Ioane Teitiota, a Kiribati national, lost his asylum appeal in New Zealand this past May in a case that would have made him the world’s first-ever ‘climate change refugee.’” New Zealand authorities based this decision on the

1951 Refugee Convention, which defines a refugee as someone who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of [their] race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” Individuals displaced by climate change are therefore not awarded refugee status and the protection warranted by this status.

José Riera, Senior Advisor in the UN refugee agency’s Division of International Protection, explains that “in the case of crossborder movement, we’re looking at a gaping legal hole.” Therefore, exerting pressure on governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and taking measures to expand climate change adaptation programs is insufficient. Individuals displaced by climate change must be afforded consideration by international law so as not to find themselves without protection.

Climate justice is the notion that the burdens of climate change and its resolution must be shared equitably among peoples. We must recognize the disparate ways in which people are harmed by climate change, and the systems that drive this inequality, if we want to achieve climate justice.

RESISTANCE TO RESOURCE EXTRACTION

1 Idle No More Photo by Hera Chan 2 Demonstration against Plan Nord Photo by Shane Murphy

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More photos on the Environment Issue microsite at mcgilldaily.com

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INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE TO RESOURCE EXTRACTION AROUND THE WORLD Anna Rubin and Emmet Livingstone In settler societies across the world, Indigenous people are at the forefront of resistance to environmental destruction. While this resistance happens in many countries around the world, The Daily looked at three different countries – Ecuador, Bolivia, and Australia – and their experiences of Indigenous resistance.

ECUADOR There are about 4 million Indigenous people in Ecuador, and the country is widely regarded as having the largest Indigenous movement in Latin America. Politically subversive, Ecuador’s Indigenous population has fought for decades to win rights and concessions from the government.

Chief among these concessions was the approval of a new constitution in 2008 to safeguard environmental rights. The constitution now states that nature has the “right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution,” and that the government must take “precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems, or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.”

This success is complicated by the fact that Ecuador has large oil reserves, primarily located in the Amazon basin, home to much of the Indigenous population; and that under Ecuadorian law, these resources belong to the state. The current president Rafael Correa has ended the moratorium on oil drilling in previously protected areas, and much like in Canada, Indigenous groups are demanding consultation before oil exploration begins in their territories. Correa’s government has responded with a crackdown against Indigenous organizations, attempting to criminalize protesters and jailing Indigenous leaders.

The fight against big oil in Ecuador is not new – it has been going on for decades. U.S. oil company Chevron has been working in the country for years. However, according to the Cultures of Resistance Network, an organization that promotes groups fighting for social justice around the world, Chevron’s operations have led to “cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and skin defects” among the affected population. In 2012, a court ruled that Chevron owed affected Indigenous groups $18 billion in damages – the company has yet to pay out. Now, some hope that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will serve as a new tool for Ecuadorian Indigenous groups to protect their lands from environmental destruction. The struggle in Ecuador is ongoing, and it remains to be seen whether the Indigenous movement will be successful.

AUSTRALIA

Australia is home to the largest uranium reserves in the world, most of which are on Indigenous territory. The country also has one of the world’s most aggressive governments. The Australian government currently supports the expansion of mining activities, despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental activists. Uranium mines are large polluters, leading to the contamination of local water supplies and thus damaging agriculture in the area. Where there are uranium mines, Indigenous Australians’ livelihoods are under attack.

In the early 1980s, Rio Tinto, a British-based mining company, opened the Ranger Uranium Mine in Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory of Australia. This mine is in the middle of the land of the Mirrar people, who fiercely opposed the project – it is now one of the largest uranium mines in the world. That uranium mines are dangerous for the immediate environment was proven when in 2004, large amounts of radioactive water spilled out from the site. Again in 2006, radioactive water contaminated streams used for agricultural irrigation. When plans were made for yet another uranium mine in Mirrar territory in 1999, Jacqui Katona and Yvonne Margarula, from the Djok and Mirrar people respectively, led the struggle to stop uranium extraction on their lands. They fought back with demonstrations, marches, and blockades, and were helped by nearby Indigenous activists such as the leaders of the Mirrar, Erre, Bunitj, and Manilakarr peoples. In the end, their struggle succeeded and they stopped Kakadu from opening another uranium mine.

However, demand for uranium is on the rise once more, and the Australian government is determined to sell its resources on the world market. Maragula effectively sums up the sentiment of the struggle against resource extraction on sacred land: “It’s my country. I’m going to win.”

BOLIVIA The Indigenous population of Bolivia accounts for roughly 60 per cent of the population, giving it the highest proportion of Indigenous peoples in any colonial society. In 2005, President Evo Morales, himself an Aymara (an Indigenous people in Bolivia) came into office. This was the first time that Bolivia had an Indigenous president and a government committed to Indigenous rights. Nonetheless, Bolivia’s economy is reliant on mineral and natural gas exports, and Morales has chosen to expand extraction rather than limit it. There has been widespread backlash.

The government supports a major highway construction project through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, both to facilitate hydrocarbon exploration and extraction in the area and to improve the country’s infrastructure by linking the two cities of Trinidad and Cochabamba. However, the park is the current and ancestral home of three separate Indigenous communities. The communities living there strongly object to the project, as it will lead to more settlers on their territory as well as the destruction of the environment. In August 2011, Indigenous and environmental activists marched 526 kilometres from the park to La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, to protest outside Morales’ office. The demonstrators faced police violence and repression along the way, but decided to march the same route again in 2012.

Still, Morales has stated the project will go ahead “whether it is wanted or not.” The lack of consultation with Indigenous groups flies in the face of the Bolivian government’s stated policies, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The president seems to have forgotten the 1990 March for Dignity that demanded Indigenous land rights and sparked Indigenous political activism in Bolivia – the very same activism that eventually led Morales to power.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE Diana Kwon

Preserving blue carbon

Recent research has found that a disproportionate amount of carbon is found in coastal regions, specifically in mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and salt marshes. There are two potential reasons for this: the first is that the type of vegetation found in these areas (root systems, dense vegetation, et cetera) is highly efJonathan Reid ficient at storing carbon. The other is the fact that they trap carbon from external sources, like rivers and oceans.

Each time that these areas are inundated by tides, the size of the deposits increase and more carbon is captured, which gives these carbon sinks (natural carbon reservoirs) greater longevity than their land-based counterparts.

This coastally located carbon is referred to as “blue carbon,” and it is being lost at critical rates due to factors such as deforestation, urbanization, and climate change.

Rising sea levels brought about by climate change and excessive nutrient leeching from agriculture pose further risks to these areas in the near future. Gail Chmura, a professor in the department of geography at McGill, and her team have focused their work on how to measure this stored carbon, and are looking at how climate change will impact these critical coastal areas in the near future.

One of the problems scientists face is trying to determine the amount of carbon density in these blue carbon areas. Currently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) instructs scientists to look at one-metre depth, but Chmura and her students are finding that there is a great amount of variability in peat thickness across different areas. Eventually, they are hoping for their research to allow them to make predictions about the thickness of a certain area based on its surface features. This could help in calculating the carbon sink and identifying areas that are faced with the greatest amount of risk.

Teaching students about climate change One way to stop and reverse the damaging effects of climate change is by educating people on the issue.

Drew Bush, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography and the School of Environment at McGill, is trying to do just that. By researching effective models of teaching students Jonathan Reid about climate change research, through teaching students himself, Bush hopes to create a citizenry that is more educated and informed on these issues.

Sadly, even though human-induced climate change is a well-established fact among scientists, there is still debate among both policy-makers and the public.

One potential reason behind this is that the tools climate scientists use are complex. For example, global climate models, which are very commonly used, require supercomputers to process vast amounts of data and to simulate various scenarios of what past climates might have looked like.

In order to make these models more digestible, one of the models Bush uses is Educational Global Climate Modeling (EdGCM), a user-friendly version of a global climate model that can be used in classrooms, allowing students to open the ‘black box’ that research often involves.

“I think that is the most important thing [...] we need to have people who understand the science and the work that goes into it, so that when they vote in elections or are in policy-making positions, they know what they are talking about,” Bush told The Daily.

Zapaer Alip The prospect of colder winters and hotter summers, flooding due to rising sea levels, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events are all frightening realities due to climate change. Rather than despair, it is important to identify viable solutions that people can engage in and that are implementable. This article highlights some of the solutions that researchers are developing here at McGill.

Storing energy in metal Alternative fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, and hydrogen are all potential candidates to replace fossil fuels. In 2012, Donald Smith, a McGill professor of plant science, founded BioFuelNet, a non-profit organization that aims to provide funding for biofuels research, and also connect academia, industry, and government with the intention of commercializing biofuel production in Canada. BioFuelNet focuses on second-generation biofuels, which are generated from non-food-based crops and waste materials (such as food waste and agricultural residue).

However, biofuels and hydrogen fuel each have their caveats. With biofuels, there is simply not enough biomass available to become a stand-alone alternative to fossil fuel.

Hydrogen, although it has a high ratio of energy stored per unit mass, requires a great deal of space for storage, as it has a low ratio of energy per unit volume, rendering it a less than optimal choice. Hydrogen fuel is also very flammable and is difficult to store and transport safely.

Jeff Bergthorson, a professor in Mechanical Engineering at McGill, and his team at the Alternative Fuels lab have a potential solution: metals. Currently, metals like iron are produced using a blast furnace and use a lot of coal in the process.

However, this new technology allows iron to be produced using renewable sources such as solar energy. The metals would then act as a storage mechanism for energy used to create them. Once the metal is combusted or undergoes a chemical reaction, it releases the stored energy without any carbon dioxide emissions.

Metals can store more energy than hydrogen in the same volume. In comparison to hydrogen, metals are also relatively safer to transport and store. Storing energy could be done with scrap metals – allowing them to be recycled and used to store energy. This could reduce waste and eliminate the need to mine for more metals. However, Bergthorson stresses that metals are only part of the solution and that several solutions are needed to make the shift to zero-carbon energy sources.

Building solar-powered houses Not all climate change solutions are technical. In 2013, a group of university students in Montreal formed netMTL to enter the Solar Decathlon Europe in 2016. The competition involves designing and building a small solar-powered house that is energy-neutral (producing the same amount of energy as it uses). “We are thinking of new Nadia Boachie ways to make use of resources.

Beyond resources, it’s a way for rethinking our social interactions,” said Daniel Tarantino, a project manager at netMTL. This involves creating a system to share tools or food with neighbours, growing urban rooftop gardens, and composting.

While there are different approaches to achieve energy neutrality, netMTL is focusing on reducing the amount of energy wasted. Tarantino suggests that by using high-performance windows and material like cellulose, the insulation of houses can be significantly better, thereby decreasing the need for heating in the winter. netMTL hopes that by developing easily implementable solutions, they will reduce our impact on the environment.

Features

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Floating in grey matter

What I learned about support through my experience with cancer Written by Drew Wolfson Bell Photos by Chris Bell and Tamim Sujat

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I would not be writing this without the support of all my friends and family.

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Features

November 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

t has been three Movembers since I was diagnosed with brain cancer.

I was first diagnosed during the summer of 2012 while I was working at a summer camp in Muskoka. Part of my job was getting the site ready for campers. I would spend my days raking up leaves, packing them into burlap sacks, and dumping them in a pile. Within a month on the job, the pile began to resemble a small mountain. I would also chip off the faded paint from cabins and then paint them back the same dark brown. I would do this along with other meticulous maintenance jobs while taking routine breaks, dips in the lake, and other entertainment only found in the woods. On one of the earlier days at the job, I was driving the camp truck to move some paint materials from one end of the camp to the other. The truck was finicky at best, and it was while I was driving down a steep hill that I lost control of the vehicle and slid off the road.

Luckily I was not driving very fast and didn’t incur any major injuries. I did, however, hit my head on the steering wheel when the truck collided with the curb. I had to go to the hospital. After about four hours there I was cleared to go, leaving only with a minor concussion, told that I would be fine within a few days.

Within the next few days I began to feel nauseous and started throwing up – a clear sign another visit to the hospital was needed. This time I had a CT scan. Unbeknownst to me, it would the be the first of many I would have. I headed straight back to campground after the scan was done, and took it easy for a few days. My headaches went away, I didn’t feel nauseous anymore, and I was back at work in beautiful Muskoka. I was ready to get on with my summer.

I woke up to another cold morning in my cabin, to an average day of work. I stumbled out of bed, wiped the sleep out my eyes, and got dressed, pulling my heavy wool socks over my feet. After throwing on my work boots, I climbed into the back of the camp’s rusted, old pickup truck, the same one I crashed a week earlier, to drive myself and the rest of the crew to the shop where we stored our tools overnight. It was a day like any other.

While at the shop, the crew and I started a game of basket-

ball, and it was then that I got a call from my dad. His voice was shaking, and I could tell he was trying to be calm and collected, but right away I knew something was up. He told me the CT scan had found something unexpected, and far more ominous than I ever could have anticipated. The scan showed I had a lowgrade glioma in my left frontal lobe – a brain tumour, a cancer that would envelop my life. I stood there and felt nothing. Fuck.

Cancer was not a new concept for me. When I was ten, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. A good part of my childhood was shaped by this experience. But what my own scan showed was a different experience altogether. I was a healthy 19-year-old (casual smoker) who had just finished his first year at McGill. This tumour, I was told later by doctors, could have been living in my brain for the past ten years, and I would not have known had I not crashed the camp’s truck. How could this happen to me? It wasn’t fair; I had never heard of anyone my age having cancer, and now all of a sudden it was part of my identity. I had no symptoms. I had no warning. I had no reason at all to question my health in any way.

I stood there, completely emotionally shut down. Numb, I even went back to work the same day – despite protest from my co-workers. Brain cancer, you don’t survive that. Brain cancer – the most important part of my body is infected with a serious disease, with the potential to end my life. I truly thought I had come to the end of the line.

The surgery There are two approaches to dealing with brain tumours: wait and see, or go in and operate. Since I did not have any symptoms, one of the surgeons that my family and I consulted supported the wait-and-see method. Despite this, and after much deliberation with my family, I decided to have surgery. It came down to me simply wanting the tumour out of my head.

I had surgery in the the winter of 2012; it was an eight-hour awake craniotomy. Before the surgery, I underwent an elaborate series of cognition tests, mostly involving recognition, where I was shown an image and had to identify it. The doctors kept me awake during the surgery so I could answer the same questions as before. They did this in order to map my brain function during the surgery, and ensure they were not removing healthy tissue.

Being awake also meant that when my skull was cut through with a electric bone saw, I felt completely present. I still remember the sound. It was like nails on a chalkboard, and I felt the vibration shake my head back and forth, despite it being secured by a head brace. I remember having a seizure midway through the operation. I remember the nurses squeezing my hands to let me know I was going to be ok, and the pain of having 57 staples in my head.

I remember all of this, and I hope to never forget it because it was the hardest experience of my life and I survived – though I was never alone.

When I got back to McGill I told my friends that I had a brain tumour and needed surgery to remove it. The reaction I got was better than I ever could have expected. They were always there for me, and even organized a benefit concert to help cover the cost of my surgery. Without their help, I don’t know what I would have done, or how I would have coped. We laughed together, sometimes cried together, and got through it together. I had amazing people by my side and I am so lucky to have had them there. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have this kind of support, and it certainly made all the difference in my experience with cancer.

De-corporatizing cancer support This is the month of Movember, a campaign that aims to support and raise awareness about prostate cancer. I do not suffer from prostate cancer, but I do have experience with cancer, and have been subject to different support initiatives as a result. By no means do I want to say meant to speak on behalf of all, or any, cancer survivors except for myself, but I want to state that I don’t need or want the type of awareness that Movember and similar campaigns facilitate.

Movember is a time when well-intentioned people grow facial hair and collect money for cancer research so they can feel like they are supporting people with cancer. I feel campaigns like this, which are riddled with gimmicks and slacktivism, distract – if not completely distance – us from those who are really at stake, as well as the substantial methods of support outside these highly corporatized self-benefitting campaigns.

Corporations are quick to jump on as sponsors of campaigns that claim to aid people with cancer because it is good advertis-

Features supporting cancer survivors in a meaningful way. The idea of Movember is good in theory, but falls short of affecting real change in its complicity in the corporate cancer machine that capitalizes on people’s suffering. It is just another self-serving device in a pool of capitalized cancer initiatives.

When I first found out that I was diagnosed with brain cancer, I went to a hospital in Toronto. Since I am from Ontario, I was covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). I quickly became familiar with the financial constraints of Canadian healthcare, and the real limits that cancer survivors may face. I went to my local hospital to meet with the brain surgeon and discuss the approach that would be taken with my surgery.

According to the surgeon, I would spend six hours under observation in the hospital and be sent home afterward. Six hours for an awake craniotomy – an incredibly challenging and complicated surgery – did not seem sufficient to ensuring proper care of a patient. But in the Ontario healthcare system, this apparently makes a lot of financial sense.

Cancer is an incredibly expensive disease to have. Hearing about the six-hour observation prompted me to follow up with research on why this would be the case. What I learned was that because Canada’s healthcare system is publicly funded and not-forprofit, doctors claim to need new and unique ways of conducting surgeries. These ‘new and unique’ ways resulted in more limited patient care, such as day surgery.

The idea of cancer patients spending only six hours in hospital and later going home offers the healthcare system a saving of approximately $1,140. This shows how desperate the Canadian healthcare system is to save money. If outcare is being cut back on, which one would imagine would be a priority in a healthcare system, it begs the question of what cuts are being made on the research side.

With this in mind, taking the example of Movember again, which claims to have raised $147 million last year, I do not doubt that it has made a difference, but in the grand scheme of things, it is just a drop in the bucket, and is not going toward ameliorating the above issues.

The effort to raise awareness about cancer is appreciated, but I do feel that the method is misguided, and even misplaced.

Raising money through quick-fix slacktivism is just a band-aid solution. Cancer is a very expensive disease. My surgery alone cost around $10,000. A better use of resources would be if the participants of Movember lobbied and protested the government to make healthcare more accessible. The more accessible healthcare is, the more benefits and care cancer survivors will receive. If you want to help survivors, fight for this, not essentializing moustaches.

The October a year after my surgery, I was back at school and was starting to feel like myself again. I was just ready to get my life back on track. However, it was that fall that I was flooded by a sea of pink. Everywhere I looked in October there was pink. It was on so many products targeted toward women – yogurt, wine, butter, everything. Its has been reported that certain companies’ donations to the cause are meagre at best. For example, Campbell’s do-

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily nated about 3.5 cents for every can of soup it sold. Similarly, if you were to raise a mere $36 to fight breast cancer with the Yoplait cancer campaign, you would have to eat three cups of yogurt each day for four months.

So how much does this actually help? Do I feel supported when I walk in to a supermarket and see chocolate bars with a cancer ribbon? Not really. It is this lack of sensitivity that is alarming and realized through the whole month of October. It surprises me that nobody ever thought that maybe filling a grocery store full of merchandise that claims to support cancer is very triggering for people who have survived it. While it might make you feel better because you are supporting the cause, you’re not the one that has to deal with the disease. One cancer survivor told the Boston Globe that October is a difficult month for her because she is constantly reminded of her disease. She said, “I want to buy my English muffins and not be reminded of it while I’m waiting for results to come in.”

The difference between this and year-round events are that they focus on helping the survivors and those affected. These groups also usually offer free counselling and education sessions. These are the sort of groups that need support, not just companies that slap a pink logo to commodify a struggle so they can profit.

Meaningful support Movember raises awareness about prostate cancer, but does so in a limited way. By growing a moustache and raising money, participants are privy to the gratifying sense that they are helping, that they are making a difference, that they are supporting survivors. Somewhere along the way, participants might feel a sense of inflated significance of their support’s value – even to the extent of a sense of entitlement over change. I’d like to call for a more substantial and direct approach to support than growing a moustache, or dropping money in a jar on your way out of a depanneur.

Real, substantial support is not about arm-length, momentary actions such as this.

You never forget that you have cancer. Sometimes you just want to try not to think about it. When I got back to Montreal, I started to notice that whenever I would go out with my friends, there would always be that one person in the room who I had maybe talked to once in my life, but who had heard about my surgery through friends of friends of friends. They would rush up and ask me how I was and if I was okay. They’d say things like, “Hey man, if you ever need help give me a call.” Though clearly well-intentioned, I often felt situations like these made me feel the need to compromise my comfort level so that others could feel like they had done a good deed for the day.

I was left wondering what their stake in caring was beyond this. Living with cancer is a very real thing that I have to deal with everyday. I don’t feel I need reminders, and I certainly do not need sympathy. Thanking people who essentially amount to strangers puts me in a position where I have to validate their feel-good deed.

It really does very little to help me beyond reminding me that yes, I do have cancer.

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Personal support Campaigns to raise awareness or raise funds for cures often obscure the most influential support that is needed for people with cancer. It centres and congratulates the supporter, rather than the person in need. What might be more effective is moving away from centring the supporter, and refocusing on the survivor: allyship.

Allyship removes the onus on the survivor to explain themselves, to validate your concern, and other extensions people make in an attempt to help. It means asking how they would like to be supported, and not telling their stories, or claiming knowledge over their experience.

Before I had surgery I was dealing with a lot. The average student juggles much more than academics alone, and having added medical appointments and stresses definitely did not make things easier. My friends were good allies because they addressed my needs the way I needed them to. They didn’t give me patronizing sympathy, nor did they try to be overly sacrificial. They treated me like the same old Drew. If I wanted to talk about what I was going through, they made themselves available to listen. This was exactly how I wanted to be supported and it made all the difference for me.

Unlike quick-fix coin boxes, pink merchandise, and unattractive facial hair, being an ally is an ongoing commitment. The best way to support cancer survivors is to treat them with the dignity of this commitment, rather than the former. Financial help does make a big difference, and fundraising is a significant aid, but once a year is not enough, and monthly donations are far more effective, as is calling for healthcare reform. Cancer survivors aren’t the neatly wrapped corporate fun-and-games that you can just buy. They’re people and they should be the motivation for the cause.

I truly believe that people that are taking part in Movember, pink ribbon campaigns, Livestrong, and all the others have their hearts in the right place. But this type of support needs to be challenged. More direct care can make a much more meaningful difference to cancer survivors. Growing a moustache does not help me fight cancer, nor does buying Becel. I’m not sure how people think it does. If you want to do something with your hair to be in solidarity with cancer survivors, shave it off, something many people working in cancer wards do to support their patients. Monthly donations to hospital funds are much more directly beneficial.

It’s been a long journey, I’m not jaded, or mad, or looking to give people a hard time. I just want to live my life, a life that will always be filled with routine cancer screenings, clinical trials, and the various other medical exams that come with having cancer. This is my reality. If you want to help me and others with similar realities, do more than just supporting these slacktivist campaigns, because frankly, they don’t cut it.

If you would like to get in contact with the writer, you can email him at drewwolfsonbell@gmail.com

Sci+Tech

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Does heterosexual promiscuity decrease prostate cancer in men?

Spinning the facts on scientific research Zapaer Alip The McGill Daily

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ast week, a study on prostate cancer risk from the Université de Montréal was published in Cancer Epidemiology, sparking widespread discussion. Dozens of articles and blog posts were published on the study, with headlines such as: “Men with more sexual partners have lower risk of prostate cancer” and “Men who sleep with multiple women REDUCE their risk of prostate cancer.”

However, only a few media outlets presented the findings of the study accurately, while most sensationalized them. For example, both the Huffington Post and the Telegraph reported on the story, each spinning the findings by implying men who sleep with more women reduced their chances of developing prostate cancer. Yet the study never actually claimed causality, a fact which many media outlets have not mentioned or clearly explained in their articles.

This can often become like playing a game of broken telephone; the information is passed along from scientists to the public but is often corrupted either intentionally, or accidentally, en route.

Marie-Élise Parent, a professor in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit at the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier, and one of the three researchers involved in the study, told The Daily in an interview that, “One of the conclusions [of the study] was that males who had over twenty female sexual partners over their lifetimes had a lower risk of prostate cancer. [...] It could be an independent indicator of something else like the frequency of ejaculation. [...] But this was just an observation, an association. [...] One

study cannot call for causality.”

Parent’s study was part of a larger initiative to investigate the risk factors of prostate cancer. She explained that “we are contributing to one piece of the puzzle.” It compared 1,590 individuals diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,618 randomly selected Canadian males living in Montreal. Each individual was interviewed about their socio-demographic factors (like family income and highest level of education), their lifestyle (including their sexual activity and exposure to STIs), and medical and environmental factors.

One of the study’s conclusions was that males who had more than twenty female partners during their lifetime had a lowered risk of prostate cancer while having more male partners increased risk. However, the study only looked at the correlation between number of partners and cancer risk. This does not prove causation. For causation to be proven, more data would need to be collected, and further studies conducted, to replicate the findings. It is important to distinguish between correlation and causality. Just because variable A increases when variable B increases does not necessarily mean the increase in variable B is causing the increase in variable A. In the case of this study, having observed that men who have more than twenty female partners have a lower tendency to develop prostate cancer does not mean that sleeping with more women will reduce your risk of prostate cancer.

To prove causality, the study has to be replicated several times and repeatedly show association between sleeping with more than twenty women and decreasing prostate cancer risk.

When the study was published, it resulted in a wide spectrum of reactions. Parent noted that the study has created insightful discourse within the scientific community.

However, Parent has also received negative reactions in the form of harassing phone calls and emails from “people who think we are promoting promiscuity, which is not what we are doing.”

This experience has left Parent frustrated. “The media can turn a story [into] quite a monster. We [scientists] have no way to influence that. We do a lot of excellent interviews and press releases, but what people are using is often second-hand information. At the end

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily of the day, it becomes distorted, and that is worrisome.”

This worry was echoed by Timothy Caulfield, a law and public health professor at the University of Alberta, who in 2013 gave a talk about the accuracy of health-related headlines at McGill’s Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium. In this talk, he stated that “non-science sells more than science” when it comes to the mainstream media, resulting in an abundance of bad science being propagated among the general public. He urged members of the public to be cautious when it comes to scientific headlines.

Ideally, scientific literature would contain accessible language and be available without a paywall. However, this is not the case, and a vast majority of people rely on the mainstream media to learn

about scientific research. This can often become like playing a game of broken telephone; the information is passed along from scientists to the public but is often corrupted either intentionally, or accidentally, en route.

Currently, once a scientific article goes through the peer-review process and is accepted for publication, scientists have to pay several thousand dollars if they want to have their research freely available to the public. This is a fee that many like Parent feel is too expensive to bear, especially in this day and age, when scientific funding is being cut drastically. Instead, scientists often publish summaries of their research on their websites and give talks at public conferences in an effort to communicate their findings with the public directly, while avoiding

media involvement.

Parent is still receiving several interview requests daily, but has decided to stop conducting them due to the time commitment, and because she fears it will contribute to the misconceptions already perpetuated by other media outlets.

Science journalism tries to bridge the gap between scientists and the public by acting as a translator, converting scientific literature to be more accessible to those who are funding it – the public.

Science journalists have the task of accurately portraying scientific research while making it more accessible to people who do not have science degrees. However, next time you read a headline about science – especially on outlets known to sensationalize results – treat it with a healthy dollop of skepticism.

Sports

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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McGill drops final game to Concordia Redmen finish season at the bottom of the rankings

Karen Chiang | Illustrator tanner levis Sports Writer

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n, November 1, the McGill Redmen football team ended their season exactly the same way they started it: with a loss to the Concordia Stingers. The only difference this time around was that the game was nowhere near a blowout, but rather the closest the Redmen have been to victory all season.

McGill took an early 1-0 lead before the clock even started. Nils Jonkman, the Redmen kicker, put the ball through the end zone on the opening kick-off with a little bit of help from a gust of wind.

The Redmen carried the lead until the very end of the first half, when McGill kick returner Kenny Baye fumbled the ball in the end zone, and Stingers defensive player Jordan McLaren jumped on it for the touchdown, making the score 21-18 for the Stingers.

Later in the fourth quarter, Stingers kicker Keegan Treloar kicked a 15-yard field goal, making it 28-25 for McGill with only six minutes and 18 seconds remaining.

As usual, McGill decided to take a knee in the end zone, suren-

dering two points to the Stingers and making it a one-point lead with little to no time left.

On the Stingers’s last drive of the game, they failed to reach the ten-yard mark on second down, and their only hope for victory was to send out Treloar for a 45yard field goal attempt. McGill ran out of luck, and the field goal was made. Concordia took a two-point lead, leaving the Redmen only 28 seconds to come back, where they had an unsuccessful four play drive, dropping the last game of the season with a final score of 28-30.

For McGill, points came from Jonkman, who kicked two rogues and three extra points; punter Rémi Bertellin, who also added a rouge; and receiver Raphael Casey, quarterback Joel Houle, and running back Pelle Jorgen, who each had one-yard rushes for touchdowns. Concordia also kneeled the ball in the end zone twice, giving the Redmen an extra four points.

Since the opening game of the season, the Redmen have faced anuphill battle. A total of nine players faced season-ending injuries throughout the year, including starting quarterback Dallon Ku-

prowski with a concussion; defensive tackle Olivier Cain-Tremblay with a fractured fibula; defensive end Carl Laverdiere with several concussions; and defensive back Alexandre Lefebvre-Tardif with an assumed torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

Aside from injury-related issues, McGill running back LuisAndres Guimont-Mota was arrested mid-season after he faced charges of domestic assault. Soon after, he was suspended from the football team.

The suspension of GuimontMota also prompted the resignation of head coach Clint Uttley.

One of the reasons Guimont-Mota was suspended was due to his previous criminal record; however, Uttley said that he believed in the rehabilitation of players, and fundamentally disagreed with the University’s punishment.

Since the team no longer has a head coach, both offensive coordinator Patrick Boies and defensive Coordinator Ron Hilaire have stepped up as interim head coaches.

McGill Athletics will put up a job posting next week in hopes of hiring a new head coach for the 2015 season, with the goal OF

turning the football program in the right direction. McGill Athletics will announce the new hire

Overall, this wasn’t the season the Redmen were hoping to have, but at this point the only way to go is up. soon after the winter break.

The last time the Redmen had a winning record was in 2002, where the team went 7-1 and placed first in the Québec University Football League (QUFL), which has now been renamed the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ). Over the last ten seasons, McGill has played 82 games, only 17 of which have been wins.

That puts their overall record for the past ten seasons at 17-69.

With the hiring of a new head coach, there’s a possibility of change, which we can only hope

will bring victory to Redmen. It has yet to be seen if McGill will look to hire internally or will look for external candidates, but both Boies and Hilaire have been asked to submit applications for the position.

The most positive aspect of the 2014 season for the Redmen was the success of rookie all-star linebacker Karl Forgues, who came through with a break-out season. Forgues lead the RSEQ in total tackles, and finished second in the forced fumbles category. Nationwide, Forgues came second in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) standings with total tackles, third with eight total sacks, and tied for fourth in the tackles for loss category. This puts Forgues in very good standing to be named the RSEQ Rookie of the Year, and even potentially the CIS Rookie of the Year.

Overall, this wasn’t the season the Redmen were hoping to have, but at this point the only way to go is up. McGill will recruit heavily this off-season in hopes of building up for future seasons, but the main priority will be to hire a head coach who has the ability to bring the McGill football program back to the top of the RSEQ, and hopefully the CIS.

Culture

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The record revival Tangibility, nostalgia, and the Montreal Fall Record Convention Lira Loloçi Culture Writer

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he end of October means three things: scary Halloween costumes, the first cold winter air, and Montreal’s Fall Record Convention. Organized by Dreambeat Conventions, this year’s fair filled Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus with albums dating all the way back to the 1940s and vendors from across Montreal and Canada. There was a general hum of comradery in the packed church as attendees of all ages searched through endless stacks of records, hoping to find that one album they’ve always been looking for. Many record store owners themselves were in attendance, scouting new additions for their collections, according to Manuel Paul Gabber, owner of Montreal record store Paul’s Boutique.

Montreal’s Record Convention belongs to a particular moment in vinyl history; records today no longer mean what they used to decades ago. First used for commercial purposes around the 1920s, vinyls were originally a marker of the upper class. As they became more accessible price-wise over the following decades, however, records became definitive of music taste.

For teens in the sixties and seventies, record collections could define identity. With the development of music technology, however, evolving to tapes, CDs, and now, digital downloads, vinyls eventually became obsolete – or so everyone thought. The ongoing surge in record sales (according to Montreal vendors, 2014 has been the highest selling year in the past decade), the reopening of many vinyl stores, and the presence of events such as the Montreal Record Convention would lead us to believe otherwise.

So how, years after everyone predicted their demise, are records making a comeback today? Why are these convention attendees willing to pay an average of $15 for a vinyl record, when we live in a digital era where most are not even willing to pay $1.29 for a song on iTunes?

Perhaps the answer is that an illegal download is just not enough.

Now that almost every track is available for free on music-streaming services like Spotify or on pirating websites, music fans need something more to please them – digital downloads simply cannot offer a full listening experience.

According to Shawn Ellingham, owner of SoundCentral, a Montreal record store, the tangibility of vinyl records has contributed significant-

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

Cheap Thrills record store. ly to their popularity. “For me, the album is not just songs, it’s a concept, you have a beginning, a middle and an end – it’s a story described in music, and you don’t have that with other forms of audio. You don’t have the visuals, the lyrics.”

An anonymous buyer at the convention also shared the same view.

“The sensation that I get when I put on a record is just not the same as pushing the play button on the playlist, although the latter is surely more practical.”

Today’s North American culture of e-books and e-courses has arguably lost touch with many tangible aspects of everyday life. In an environment where technology goes by the motto “smaller is better,” sometimes going back to the basics offers a relief. Ellingham explains that “anyone who really appreciates music is going to want the whole story, and vinyl is a way to really appreciate music on a tangible level, because the quality is there as well.”

His reference to quality is also important – many music purists believe that the audio produced by vinyls is unmatched. According to Gabber, “The sound produced by vinyl is a lot warmer than the sounds you would hear on MP3s or CDs, so it gives you the best quality of the music.” Another convention attendee echoed this emphasis on quality, stating that vinyl’s warmer

sound makes “the album sound a lot more authentic.”

Ellingham also noted that it’s not so much vinyls that are making a comeback, but society that is pushing them back into the mainstream. “Vinyl never really left, it is just that now it started to be accepted again,” he explained. For those who grew up collecting records, it is indeed likely that vinyl never left – many of the older listeners at the convention have been buying records for decades. What’s more curious is the new generations that are record-shopping, the ones who are coming of age in a digital era but adopting the music listening methods of their parents.

This curiosity points to a second reason for the record revival, aside from tangibility: nostalgia. Records are not just means of listening to music – they are also historical and cultural artifacts, remnants of other eras. They are vintage. Listening to records from the sixties connects the listener to that distant time.

Obviously, as Coltrane Faragher, a convention attendee, pointed out, the rise of vintage isn’t only manifested in the resurgence of records.

He believes that “the resurgence of the pop culture from when vinyl was popular has led to the popularity of records at the moment.”

There are extensive examples of retro fads in fashion, furniture, car, and design industries. The ad-

opted vintage trends emphasize lifestyles and identities of eras that are frequently romanticized today.

Records and ‘Gatsby’ fashion reference the roaring twenties – a period of dynamism, economic growth, and creativity. Also popular are hippies of the sixties and punks of the seventies: it is not uncommon to walk down the streets and see a twenty-something wearing John Lennon sunglasses or a Ramones t-shirt. Though they have also now been appropriated, advertised, and sold by the mainstream, these vintage trends are popularly associated with ‘hipster culture,’ a subculture that prides itself on being non-mainstream, sometimes to the point of disassociating itself from the present. Perhaps this nostalgic resurgence of records is part of a larger cry for the past.

Pierre Markotanyos, owner of Aux 33 Tours, the biggest record store in Montreal, explains how this vintage trend intertwines with generational exploration.

“There are many people from the younger generation who are inheriting records from their uncles and when they try them, they realise that music sounds so much better than in that tiny iPod,” he says. “It is also [connected to] the fashion revival – there is the cool element of it. Our customers now are from 12 to 85 years old.”

Ellingham stressed that nostalgia is only one part of the equation.

“It can definitely be nostalgia if you’re buying records of Jimi Hendrix or The Beatles,” he says, “but there are bands that are current that are bringing out material too.”

Interestingly enough, however, the emphasis at the Montreal Record Convention was on exactly that: the historic rock of artists like Hendrix and The Beatles. Legendary rock bands from the seventies such as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Genesis occupied considerably more space than any other genre – perhaps indicative of a nostalgia for the glory days of rock, more than a specific era. While nostalgia may not be the only factor, this record revival certainly exposes younger generations to music history.

It might sound outlandish to think that people are still buying vinyl in 2014, over a hundred years after they were introduced to the market, but listening to music is an experience. Whether its because they feel digital listening is lacking, or because they’re looking to experience another era altogether, music enthusiasts are clearly returning to records. So maybe it’s time to search through your parents’ old collection, dust off the needle, and give some records a spin, if only to find out what you’ve been missing.

Culture

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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More than just words

Slam poet Remi Kanazi fights back against oppression Annie Rubin Culture Writer

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he SSMU ballroom was unusually crowded this Halloween as nearly a hundred people gathered to hear 33-year-old slam poet and political activist Remi Kanazi perform. The event, “Poetic Injustice,” was jointly sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices, Tadamon!, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – both the Concordia and McGill chapters – and McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies. During the recent SSMU General Assembly, the topic of Palestinian human rights caused a great deal of agitation in the same ballroom, but this poetic event allowed for a vastly different atmosphere.

To Kanazi, the topic of Palestinian human rights is a personal one, his family hailing from Jaffa, Haifa, and Nazareth, all parts of historical Palestine. His whole family has felt the shock of displacement first hand. In an interview with The Daily, Kanazi explained that his grandmother was forced to leave Palestine when pregnant. He joked that when his mother was born in Lebanon, she “came out of the womb [...] and said ‘Where am I?’” His poetry conveys such harsh realities and rages against these oppressions.

At the event, Kanazi juxtaposed his hard-hitting content with an approachable demeanour, introducing himself to the crowd with characteristic eloquence. Kanazi explained that with his poetry, he opposes oppression in a non-violent manner. He acknowledged that many of the issues he describes are unsettling, touching on atrocities which Palestinians experience daily and which most of us in the audience could never imagine.

However, he is also firmly unapologetic about this difficult subject matter.

Kanazi emphasized at the event that

the short amount of time we spend speaking about pain pales in comparison to what a three-second decision by the U.S. government can inflict on the targeted people of Palestine.

Often focusing on brutally real and overwhelmingly personal experiences, Kanazi’s poetry shocked theaudience into awareness. Before passionately launching into a rendition of his poem “Tone it Down,” Kanazi shared his source of inspiration for the piece. He was once approached after a poetry reading by two drunk men at the bar in which he was performing.

“You’re brown and angry,” shouted a drunk white man, to whom Kanazi considered replying, “You’re a white supremacist.” But he held his tongue and saved his words for the poem, turning his frustration into an eyeopening performance.

With titles like “This Divestment Bill Hurts My Feelings,” “An Open Letter To Campus Zionist Groups and University Chancellors,” and “Normalize This,” much of Kanazi’s poetry also pushed against the normalization of violence and the rhetoric of neutrality with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “People don’t want dialogue, they want domination,” he boldly claimed in a space where dialogue had been indefinitely postponed just a few weeks before.

“Actively investing in oppression is not neutral.” Kanazi’s voice rang out clearly as he uttered these powerful poems and statements, making it hard to believe otherwise. He stood tall and convincing. In a white t-shirt emblazoned with a painted fist, symbolically colored green, red, and white like the flag of Palestine, Kanazi angrily expressed his disgust as he spoke about “neutral” (read: complicit) university chancellors in the U.S. and in Canada. “This is not [a] two sided [conflict],” he proclaimed.

Kanazi also reminded the crowd

Jasmine Wang | The McGill Daily of our own complicity in the violence, as our tuition fees are used towards militarization. His poems rejected normalization through complicity.

Kanazi’s eyes pierced the crowd as he hit them with phrases like “nothing normal about putting a civilian population on a diet.” Passionate verses like “images of old men/cupping seas of tears/on mounds of crushed homes/ and limbs of children” transferred his heartbreak to the audience.

When asked what he would like to accomplish with his words, Kanazi told The Daily, “In the most ideal sense, you hope to inspire people, educate them, and hopefully get them to act.” He explained that poetry is his medium of choice because it is accessible. “I was a freelance writer before I became a poet and I figured [...] the average 19-year-old didn’t necessarily want to read an op-ed, or watch cable news, but they’d listen to a spoken word piece.”

This audience was certainly lis-

tening. During what he introduced as a series of untitled short poems, Kanazi spoke loudly, pausing after each line so that audience members could absorb the sting of his phrases.

Often he would take a single breath in between words, emphasizing different beats to make his performance all the more captivating. The audience was on the edge of their seats, waiting for him to continue.

As he spoke about “the sirens” and “batons” that “always seem to have [Palestinian school kids’] names on them,” Kanazi’s words became his own sirens: his voice shook the ballroom and then just as suddenly caused a deafening silence. Holding the microphone in one hand, Kanazi gesticulated with the other, emphasizing the down beats of certain words, as the audience snapped, clapped, and shouted in agreement.

The performance itself became a full-body experience for the audience – hearing his words, internaliz-

ing their powerful connotations, and then reacting collectively.

Kanazi also expressed that it is important for students to fight against all forms of oppression. “l know that sometimes you feel like you’re one against 35 million,” he admitted. But while one person may not be able to change the world, Kanazi maintained that “those small steps make a big wave.”

Indeed, one of his pieces is rightly titled, “This Poem Will Not End Apartheid.” But while Kanazi may not single-handedly be able to right all injustices, he has at least created an open environment for learning and discussing. For those who have only ever looked at the the IsraelPalestine conflict through an abstract political lens, Kanazi’s performance was vastly enlightening in conveying the harsh realities suffered by the people of Palestine. His words painted haunting images that won’t leave us anytime soon.

Free City Radio III and A Cappella @ McGill Niyousha’s Pick: Free City Radio III Free City Radio, a regular weekly program on CKUT 90.3 FM, is launching its third seasonal zine this week, focusing on how media practices and social movements interact. Drop by the Concordia Co-op Bookstore for the launch and pick up your copy of Free City Radio III. This issue of the zine explores everything from social justice educational flyers, to the use of “social media in a time of war,” and features reflections by a

range of journalists from all over North America. The zine promises a refreshing new look at alternative media facets, and boasts interviews with three journalists who covered the Gaza bombings this past summer. For those who feel their faith in humanity weaning every time they mistakenly indulge in corporate or state-backed news sources, Free City Radio III could provide hope in the form of “collective possibilities for media practice.” This hand-crafted, silk-screened zine

might even inspire you out of the November blues.

Rosie’s Pick: A Cappella @ McGill This week, two of McGill’s four a cappella groups are having their first concerts of the year. Thursday is Midnight Hour, the fall concert from McGill’s oldest a cappella group, Tonal Ecstasy. Performing a range of genres, including jazz, rock, hip hop, and pop, the group is kicking their year off with a small, late, intimate show. Get up close and personal with their sul-

try harmonies.

If you’re busy cramming for that midterm on Thursday (how is it still midterm season?), then check out Effusion A Cappella’s show Clockwork on Sunday. The group is promising a wide range of classics, from Amy Winehouse to John Mayer. Not to mention, McGill band SHYRE will be kicking off the evening with Sarah Rossy’s equally powerful vocal chops.

Both renowned for their singing skills and musical innovation, these two a cappella groups are sure to make

your week pitch perfect.

The Free City Radio III zine launch is Wednesday November 12 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Concordia Community Solidarity Coop Bookstore.

Tonal Ecstasy’s Midnight Hour is Thursday November 13 at 9 p.m at Club Balattou.

Effusion’s Clockwork is Sunday November 16 at 7 p.m. Café Campus.

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Culture

November 10, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Making sense of memories

Caroline Vu’s Palawan Story tells untold tales of the Vietnam War Daniel Woodhouse The McGill Daily

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n 1975, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell as the U.S. withdrew, and communism was established in the country. In Caroline Vu’s new novel, Palawan Story, narrator Nguyen Thi Kim watches the events unfold on her neighbour’s TV in the city of Hue, almost a thousand kilometres away. Kim’s mother decides that the best chance for her daughter is a life in America. It is this belief that puts Kim on a boat out of Vietnam.

Instead of America, Kim finds herself in Palawan, a squalid refugee camp in the Philippines, waiting indefinitely for her asylum to be processed. Finally, a case of mistaken identity sends her to Connecticut where she adopts the life of an American family’s sponsored child. It is not until Kim arrives at McGill University, and encounters other Vietnamese students, that she begins to come to terms with the reality of her own story.

Short-listed for the Concordia First Book Prize, Palawan Story is the first novel from Vu, a McGill

alumnus who works as a family physician in Montreal. Like her protagonist, Vu grew up in Saigon before leaving for America at the age of ten, and then later moving to Canada.

Speaking to The Daily, she indicated that much of her novel was inspired by the notion of memory loss, explaining that her focus was “how we get back our memory by telling each other stories; to build up a second identity.” Kim’s perception of America and the Vietnam War are largely based on other people’s experiences, pointing to Vu’s own preoccupation with personal and collective memory.

Vu mentioned in the interview that “I do have memories [of the Vietnam War] but a lot are very hazy. Did I see that, or watch it on TV?” Palawan Story is also a process of individual and collective remembering – it unfolds as a series of fragmented recollections and extended monologues in which characters share their stories. Kim is put on a boat with the promise of a better life in America, but when she encounters a survivor of the My Lai massacre, the survivor’s horrific story quickly complicates her con-

structed image of America. Through the vivid retelling, the survivor’s account of the mass killing of between 300 to 500 unarmed Vietnamese villagers thus becomes part of Kim’s story, although she herself never directly suffers from American war crimes.

With any narrative composed of fragments, there is often a danger of superficial characterization – the reader fears that the author will never break past the characters’ surface.

Palawan Story, however, still manages to achieve depth of character by revisiting each fragmented narrative.

Kim’s mother, for example, is first introduced unsympathetically through childhood recollections of constant scoldings, but as Kim grows up and learns more stories about her mother, she, along with the reader, discovers a more complicated being. Vu’s strength as a novelist lies in this artful development of characters through the stories they tell and receive.

The immigration story is a trope in North American fiction. While Palawan Story belongs in this category, it also ultimately subverts it, particularly disrupting the idealiza-

Manuela Galindo Carvajal | Illustrator tion of America as landing point.

While Kim does arrive in America and obtains the promised opportunities of a secure middle class life and higher education, Connecticut never really feels like home for Kim before she leaves for Canada. Moreover, she feels strongly that above all else, her relationship with her family and the country she left behind have to be resolved. It is her struggle to recollect these past relationships that takes

centre stage and moves the reader.

In a world overflowing with patriotic American narratives about the Vietnam War told from the perspectives of American soldiers who fought in it, Palawan Story provides a fresh and insightful look at the lives of those affected by the war.

The novel uses storytelling and the murkiness of memory to demonstrate how no one narrative can ever paint the full picture.

Meet Moss Lime

The Daily sits down with Montreal’s newest post-punkers Zoë Vnak Culture Writer

T

he success formula for punk bands usually requires years of making loud, angry noise in basements before the angst catches on. Moss Lime, a Montreal postpunk group, is almost the opposite of this boys-in-the-basement stereotype. Frontwomen Hélène Barbier and Caitlin Pinder-Doede only started teaching themselves their respective instruments this past year, and didn’t even plan to form a band when they started playing together, finding themselves surprised to even have been labeled as punk.

But since they started writing songs together in the summer, the group has been gaining buzz and playing shows around Montreal. Just last week, they released their debut EP, July First.

On a rainy day in the Mile End, Barbier and Pinder-Doede took the time out of their performance schedule to chat with The Daily about July First and the band’s experience as an emerging post-punk group in Montreal. Having just played two shows this past week, with an additional one scheduled for this coming Monday, the girls were rather worn out; regardless, they were eager to chat, maintaining a calm and positive out-

look as they discussed the drastic changes and new developments of the past few months.

MD: How did Moss Lime come into existence?

CPD: Hélène and I were roommates a few years ago, and I think we had talked for a while about wanting to do something, but we were kind of shy and never really managed to do anything. I came back [to Montreal] this summer and we were playing around a bit with basses.

We never really intended to be a band; we just wanted to try out a show in August. So our goal became to get songs to play [for] that show and then after that we were like, we should record them just to have a souvenir!

MD: What has it been like starting out as a band in Montreal?

CPD: It’s been really great. People have been so supportive. [...] Fixture Records has been great too. They’re the best. We didn’t know what to expect, really, but they’ve done way more than we thought was going to be done.

MD: Fans and critics have been referring to your sound as “minimalist post-punk.” What does it mean to be a post-punk band in Montreal today?

How would you describe your music?

HB: We were surprised to hear this. It was funny, because we were really aiming for something more surf rock. We really wanted to do some-

thing summery.

MD: So you didn’t really intend to be post-punk?

HB: No, no. I always wonder, what is post-punk, anyway? I would say it’s a nice definition for people who don’t know how to use pedal effects, reverb, whatever. As for “minimalist”— that’s really just in our inexperience.

MD: Tell me about your inspirations.

HB: I would say phone calls not answered. A lot of text messages not answered too…

CPD: Definitely a lot of frustration. And rejection.

MD: So I guess that plays a lot into your seemingly angsty lyricism.

How do you go about writing songs?

Where does a song like “Ice Cream Sandwiches” [from the July First EP] come from?

CPD: Well, that was cool, actually, because there was this one night where we were [playing] and “July First” and “Ice Cream Sandwiches” were actually mixed up – the lyrics were intertwined, and it was bothering all of us. I think [Hannah] suggested for everyone to just write what they want, and to put it all together. So we ended up all having a piece in that song. Really, that’s what I like the most – we each try to throw in what we can. Especially when you’re stuck, and then some-

one throws something in. That’s my favourite feeling.

MD: Cool. Well, even though you don’t [think of yourselves] as punk, you do kind of have this femalefronted, punky vibe going on. Do you have any thoughts on [women in punk], or feminism?

HB: It’s really interesting that you ask this, because we have talked about this before, with a French paper. They asked as what the difference is between being in France and Quebec, and we answered that in France we’re a girl band, whereas here we can just be a new band.

MD: For me, when I saw postpunk and female, I thought of [feminism] immediately.

HB: I think we’ve been processing this [punk feminism] more since watching that documentary about Kathleen Hanna [lead singer of Le Tigre and part of the punk-feminist movement of the nineties].

CPD: Maybe subconsciously that has been influencing us.

HB: Well, I watched it like four times this summer.

MD: Inspiration wise, are there any other movies or artists that have been inspiring you guys?

HB: Moonrise Kingdom!

CPD: Also, we were listening to a lot of Freelove Fenner together, and CROSSS, and Each Other. La Femme,

ScHoolboy Q. And Beyoncé.

MB: Considering the visa troubles you’ve been facing, what are some of your goals as a group from here on out? Are you planning to go on tour?

Can we expect some new music any time soon?

CPD: We’re in the midst of figuring everything out. I think our goal is to ultimately tour next summer.

HB: We have two new songs – “Dreamboat” and “Chou Frisé.”

MD: What’s the story behind both of these new tracks?

CPD: The three of us worked at Jean-Talon Market in August and September, and it wasn’t the greatest experience. We were working ninehour shifts and having to repeat the same things over and over again. So one night, we were all biking together after work, and we were rapping the phrases we had to repeat all day long, because we were like, this is insane!

You have to think of a million different ways to say the same thing for nine hours straight … like, “Do you want a bag?” So that’s where we got our inspiration for “Chou Frisé.”

“Dreamboat” is a love song [...] just really cheesy rejection. Trying not to be tacky about it. Trying to be a bit fun.

Moss Lime is playing Monday, November 10 at Brasserie Beaubien Ltée.

Editorial

volume 104 number 11

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Solidarity knows no borders

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Dana Wray

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

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sports editor

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rec@delitfrancais.com cover design Tamim Sujat contributors Fatima Boulmalf, Manuela Galindo-Carvajal, Hera Chan, Karen Chiang, Joelle Dahm, Saima Desai, Lia Elbaz, Simon Fiala, Lauria Galbraith, Sinthusha Kandiah, Tanner Levis, Lira Loloçi, Shane Murphy, Jonathan Reid, Annie Rubin, Emily Saul, Rackeb Tesfaye, Zoë Vnak, Arianee Wang, Andy Wei, Daniel Woodhouse

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

L

ast week saw a 72-hour student strike in Mexico in protest of the disappearances of 43 student teachers from Iguala, in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero. The strike was accompanied by solidarity actions across the world, including here in Montreal. The students, who attended the Ayotzinapa Normal School, a rural teaching school, disappeared over a month ago after being attacked by the police. Since then, there have been ongoing student protests in Mexico and around the world calling for justice. It is crucial as students that we stand in solidarity with Mexican students and their allies who are protesting abroad.

The Ayotzinapa students disappeared in early September after a protest action in which they were attacked by local police. The crime was not perpetrated solely by the police: it is suspected that the police handed the students off to a local crime organization after being ordered to do so by the mayor of Iguala’s wife. The incident is the most recent, and the most visible, in a long line of killings and disappearances in Mexico’s drug war. The drug war is multidimensional, not only implicating organized crime and cartels. Police and army forces, as well as corrupt politicians, have been involved in human rights abuses across the board; in the meantime, nearly 70,000 people have perished. This situation is only compounded by the U.S.’s push for continued militarized violence in Mexico.

Students in Mexico have been protesting in solidarity with their disappeared comrades, holding

strike after strike in a pushback against this corrupt, complex system of violence, and bringing international attention to the failed drug war and the Mexican state’s complicity in it. The importance of student action is not to be overlooked: student movements have a unique ability to cross borders, create awareness, and build strong solidarity movements.

They also demonstrate the importance of building and maintaining memory as a tool to counteract state violence. Activism should not stop at borders; solidarity should be global.

To stand in solidarity with the Mexican student movement, then, is a necessity. In doing so, we must also recognize the northern complicity fueling the violence that culminated in the disappearances of the students in Iguala. While some may think that only the U.S. is involved in the drug war, Canada has been expanding its “tough on crime” policies internationally, providing aid and military resources in Central America to fight the cartels. Recognizing that our government plays a direct role in perpetuating the violence forces us to express our discontent, rather than remaining complicit in the violence. But recognition is only a first step: solidarity involves protesting, lobbying, and actively fighting against the violence perpetuated by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Students at McGill and in Canada should not only march for their own demands, but in solidarity with their fellow students overseas.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

The article “How the media misrepresents a voice of a generation” (Culture, November 3, page 21) incorrectly stated that Laura Bates represented SACOMSS at Free Press Libre’s anti-oppressive art night. In fact, it was Frances Maychak who represented SACOMSS and spoke about representations of sexual violence and consent in the TV show Girls.

The article also incorrectly stated that the event featured a skit called We should be asking why POCs aren’t getting shows. In fact, this was a line in the skit, and not the title.

The Daily regrets the errors.

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19

Compendium!

November 10, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and a cup o’ crude.

Administration power drunk and oil-crazed Scientists embarass McGall, consequences unfold

Louis XIV | The McGall Weekly

Mathilda C. Quimms The McGall Weekly The following was found scrawled in blood on a wall outside The Weekly’s offices, with a postscript urging us to publish the piece if we had any concern for the consistency of our wifi signal.

In the wee hours of this past Thursday morning, it was reported that McGall Weekly contributor and U3 Bullshit Semiotics major Mathilda Cesarina Quimms died of mysterious causes in her apartment. Experts expect someone will get around to caring by Wednesday? Thursday maybe?

They dunno, dude, there are a lot of midterms this week, stop being such a drama queen. Suspected cause of death is suffocation via a crushing Sisyphian weight comprised of the workload associated with earning an undergraduate Arts degree and the accompanying

quiet terror of knowing said work may not, in fact, be a simple stumbling block on the road to immortal fame and renown.

Quimms was also beginning to doubt her long-held belief that her body held the reincarnated souls of both Dorothy Parker and Catherine de Medici, a state far from optimal for one such as herself, who survived entirely on a diet of cosmic narcissism and sometimes Kraft dinner.

The Weekly was lucky enough to grab a word with Quimms on her way up to the Dark Door in the Sky. Banging together a couple of soda cans in lieu of rattling chains, the deceased was luminous with the glowing radiant clarity of the Great Beyond. The effect may have been enhanced if she’d had a chance to get an old-fashioned white nightgown or something, but the subject was in a hurry and we must be forgiving.

“It just really saddens me that such an important body of work as the one I produced is just going to be lost in the slipstream of time, you know? Remember that one time I wrote an exposé on those two students in the History department? Who were, like, being assholes? That was some hardhitting shit right there. I mean, people didn’t really talk or tweet about it, but I could feel a sort of shift on campus, you know? People were awake. In a way they hadn’t been before. I did that.”

Quimms declined further comment after this dubious statement, disposed of her soda cans, and continued her journey upwards into the unknowable. She intends to keep her Twitter feed active via photoplasmic patch through the Veil of Worlds.

If the living Quimms is remembered at all, it will probably be for that time that she and her spoken

word poetry/noise rock collective got the Battle of the Bands banned from her former high school. Not, like, for her vast, devouring heart, or piercing, unclouded gaze, or relentless hunger for, and pursuit of justice and poetic irony. Because apparently that would be asking too much of the universe (although admittedly that Battle of the Bands was pretty sweet).

Though not asked to offer an example of the wisdom earned in her shuffle off the mortal coil, Quimms enthusiastically submitted that there is, indeed, life after love, only for those “strong enough” to serve at the pleasure of the Great Antenna’d Woman in Black.

If the old maxim states that “the eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator,” one must wonder just how dispassionate we must appear before Ms. Quimms’ tongue begins to slow, even beyond the grave.

Crossword solutions

Public: nah, we’re cool, we didn’t really notice

November 3

Weekly writer dies

Some claimed they heard snatches of conversations outside the palace referring to a “new world order.”None of the senior administration could be reached for comment after November 6. All have been hospitalized for an extremely rare condition in which the iris and pupil morph into dollar signs. The Weekly wishes those affected a speedy recovery.

Across

remained recalcitrant.

“Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” she announced, eyes agleam and arms outstretched. “All shall love me and despair!” she cried, before retiring to her throne room.

Students participating in the angry mob were reportedly at a loss for words, and pressed the administration for clarification.

4. Dumbledore 6. Luna Lovegood 9. Leaky Cauldron 11. Marauder’s map 13. Aberforth 16. Scrimgeour 17. Voldemort 18. Death Eather

“I mean, when there’s no water to drink – are people going to complain about drinking crude oil then?

I don’t think so,” he added.

Campus tension reached such a point that McGall principal, Suzie Forte, decided to weigh in on the debate on November 6. Addressing an angry mob that had congregated outside her balcony at the Administration Palace, the principal

Down

I

n a dramatic revelation, McGall researchers confirmed on November 3 that human-made climate change is irreversible, and biblical environmental conditions will soon sweep humanity from the face of the Earth. The revelation is particularly embarrassing for the administration, which has sought to spin earth-devastating climate change in a positive light. On Friday, McGall declared that the species will cling on no matter what, but that students must radically adapt their lifestyles to accommodate the brave new world before us.

The Weekly contacted the McGall environmental researchers for comment; however, all bar one were busy burrowing deep beneath the Macdonald-Stewart building in an effort to found an underground stronghold. The only researcher who could be reached for comment was visibly distraught.

“Wow. So environmental destruction,” said Professor Doge Sanscomic, an Environmental Collective Murder academic. “Such sad.

So fear.”

At press time, splits between McGall’s research community and

the administration were evident.

A point of particular contention is the Deputy Provost for Student Gripes and Weed, Trololollivier Bitumens’ pro-crude oil marketing campaign, which has been underway since the beginning of the semester. Across campus, students have been invited to sample a “cup o’ crude” in lieu of their morning coffee. The another initiative, “crude-for-food,” has seen McGall pay for student services using only its profits from fossil fuel investments, though has received widespread outrage, as well as condemnation from the United Nations.

“I tried a cup [of crude] before a conference once. It tasted like natural-habitat-death, with just a hint of Alberta,” Bryan McBlob, a U0 Farts student, told The Weekly. “Pretty gross to be honest. Both taste-wise and moral-wise. Definitely why I decided to join Divest and Destroy,” he continued, referring to the antifossil fuel campus activist group, Divest and Destroy McGill.

“I don’t know what everyone is grumbling about,” Bitumens told The Weekly in an email. “For a start, we’re raking in those dolla’. Plus, we’re all going to have to accept this is the life we’re all going to be leading soon. Better get used it.”

1. Azkaban 2. Chocolate frogs 3. Sectumsempra 5. Wotcher 7. Pensieve 8. Deluminator 10. Veritaserum 12. Parseltongue 14. Hagrid 15. Firebolt 19. Hogsmeade

Lucy Peaceblossom The McGall Weekly