Vol104iss4 by McGill Daily

Volume 104, Issue 4 Monday, September 22, 2014

McGill THE

DAILY

Measurably disappointing since 1911 mcgilldaily.com

WHY McGILL NEEDS TO STOP STALLING ON GENDER-NEUTRAL WASHROOMS NEWS PAGE 8 EDITORIAL PAGE 23

Table of Contents 03

NEWS

Mac shuttle: no student left behind? Supervised injection sites on their way, slowly Highlights from Indigenous Awareness Week Washrooms for all Discriminatory blood donation restrictions Student questions answered at Senate

COMMENTARY

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

FEATURES

CULTURE

A ficition piece on a foresty adventure

Montrealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new social club

What to do this week

SCI+TECH

Anti-colonial hip hop fuses politics and music

Cutting Edge lecture in sustainable chemistry

kaie kellough and the malleability of language

Acquiring a taste for insects

Cowspiracy: strong convictions and half-baked answers

SPORTS

EDITORIAL

McGill falls to Stingers in home opener

Gender-neutral washrooms at McGill first step in overcoming transphobia

Scoreboard

McGill students should engage more with Quebec

COMPENDIUM!

Hemingway tackles a Quesada burrito

Net neutrality and labour tactics

The Dean of Farts is a small child Presented by

WINTER SESSION January â&#x20AC;&#x201C; April

LANGUAGE COURSES

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Information Session for Students on

STUDY AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES, LEARNING GERMAN AND LANGUAGE TESTS

Friday, September 26, 2014, 3 pm

Information Session will be held in English Goethe-Institut, 1626 Boulevard Saint-Laurent (MĂŠtro Saint-Laurent)

News

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Students increasingly dissatisfied with shuttle bus service Full shuttle buses leave Mac campus-bound students behind Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

he first weeks of the semester have been burdensome for many Macdonald campus students, as demand for the inter-campus shuttle that transports students between the downtown and Macdonald campuses has been largely exceeding capacity at certain hours. Every day, full shuttle buses leave behind many students attempting to commute to Macdonald in the morning and downtown in the evening. “We’re now getting 25 to 30 students left behind on the 7:30 [a.m.] bus, for example,” U3 Environmental Science student Kristen Perry told The Daily. “It’s really unacceptable. We need to get to classes, and we can’t get to our labs or course lectures if the buses are full all the time, and there’s just not enough buses, or they’re not scheduled properly to get us where we need to go.” The 48-seat shuttles, which are scheduled to run at 45-minute intervals from 7:00 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., take about 40 minutes to complete a trip that takes upwards of an hour and a half by public transit. Students sometimes line up at the bus stop over half an hour before their scheduled shuttle in order to secure one of the limited seats, further lengthening their commutes. The availability of the shuttle service has been an ongoing concern for many of the 1,900 students who take classes at the Macdonald campus, with Daily coverage of the issue going back to 2008. Students’ concerns have been brought to the administration numerous times, but no substantial improvements have been made in response to these complaints. “It’s definitely still not working the way we have it right now,” said Perry. In fact, students have reported a worsening situation this year, with record numbers of students unable to get to class on time. “I can’t remember a time when this many students were consistently missing class this often,” said U2 Global Food Security student Marius Karolinski in an interview with The Daily. “It is more of a problem now than it was in the past.” Perry, who is now in her fourth year at McGill, echoed this sentiment. “In the previous years it’s been, you know – ten, fifteen people

Inter-campus shuttle bus. maybe get left behind on a fairly regular basis, but this semester in particular it’s been particularly bad [...] on the buses I take at least,” said Perry. “It’s definitely gotten worse.” “One shuttle is over-full, then throughout the day [...] there’s overflow, it goes into the next shuttle, into the next shuttle – people just repetitively miss their classes,” added Perry. Organizing through social media On September 8, Perry expressed her frustration in what she called “a little Twitter rant,” garnering attention from other students, as well as from Macdonald Campus Associate Dean Chris Buddle, who offered his help. Perry’s tweets sparked organizing efforts in the Macdonald community. On September 11, Perry and U2 Nutrition student Maddy Hackstetter created a Facebook group titled “Intercampus Shuttle Incidents,” where students have been actively posting reports of early departures and overflowing shuttles, complete with time of departure, numbers of students left behind, and photos and video recordings. “The reason [the group] is effective is that it’s a lot more of an accessible forum for students than having to email the shuttle office – they do have an email, which I’ve emailed

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily before, but it doesn’t seem to do much,” Perry told The Daily. “Now I think we’re collecting a lot of complaints from students. [...] It wasn’t that volume before, and I think that’s going to be helpful in really showing the extent of the problem.” Hackstetter and Perry also launched a survey to collect data on students’ place of residence and time and location of classes, in order to be better equipped in discussions with the administration. “We also got people to fill out the shuttles they normally would take to get to class and back home by time, so we have that data and that’s going to be really helpful when we’re trying to rearrange the schedule or find a solution,” said Perry. The Macdonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS) executive has also been working on the issue. “MCSS is currently talking to [all the] stakeholders at McGill in relation to the shuttle,” MCSS President Mathieu Rouleau told The Daily in an email. “We met with the Principal [Suzanne Fortier] and the Deputy Provost [(Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens] this past Tuesday.” Representatives from MCSS will join Hackstetter and Perry this week to meet with Buddle and Gary O’Connell, Director of Academic

and Administrative Services at the Faculty of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, to discuss possible solutions to the problem. “We are planning on looking at the current issues and creating an action plan,” said Rouleau. Proposed solutions While the University would incur significant costs if it added buses to the shuttle service, students have brought forward solutions that do not require additional resources. Perry suggested that a reallocation of existing buses to suit demand could solve the problem. “If we were to have three shuttles leave from downtown in the morning, and then in the evening have the opposite – three shuttles coming from Mac – instead of having an equal two-and-two split, I think that would match the volume in demand,” said Perry. According to a post on the Facebook group by MCSS VP Academic Stéfanie Thibert, the administration is considering imposing a fee to students who take the shuttle in order to increase the frequency of service. For Perry, however, charging students is not an acceptable solution. “We shouldn’t have to pay another fee on top of what we already pay,

I think, just to be able to get to our classes,” she said. In a joint email to The Daily, Buddle and O’Connell agreed that the problem was a logistical one, but expressed doubts that the reallocation of resources could be a solution, instead putting the onus on students to use alternate means of transportation. “[W]e have the proper resources overall, but [...] given the logistical constraints, we are not always able to meet the early morning or late afternoon demand,” they wrote. “[G]iven additional complexities of rush-hour traffic and the distance between the campuses, there are limits to how many departures are possible. [...] We [...] may be close to the limits of what can be done to meet the demand at peak times, based on the number of buses and drivers we have.” “[I]t may be necessary to promote other transportation options for students who are true ‘commuters,’” Buddle and O’Connell added. Nonetheless, Perry was optimistic about the upcoming meeting with Buddle and O’Connell. “We’ll have a lot more data collected by then, and hopefully be able to go in with some strong suggestions for positive change.”

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News

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Installation of supervised injection sites stalled Funding approval, federal exemption still needed before sites can open Emily Saul The McGill Daily

ast week, Montreal’s mayor Denis Coderre announced his intention to release the eventual locations of Montreal’s first supervised injection sites (SISs), though he gave no indication as to when that announcement will come, or when installation will begin. A similar statement was released in December 2013, which declared that Montreal was soon to welcome four SISs, with locations across the city and one mobile clinic to serve the greater Montreal area. Supervised injection sites are locations where injection drug users can obtain clean needles, dispose of used ones, access social workers, and receive on-site emergency medical attention if needed. They are part of an initiative known as ‘harm reduction,’ and work to provide safe spaces and non-coercive, non-judgemental care to those trying to fight addiction. It has been over ten years since Quebec-based organizations such as the Association pour la Défense des Droits et l’Inclusion des personnes qui Consomment des drogues du Québec (ADDICQ), CACTUS Montréal, and Dopamine – located in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood – first started to campaign for SISs to be opened in Montreal after Vancouver opened its first SIS, InSite, in 2003.

The only role that these community-based organizations are playing right now is purely to raise awareness on a local level. “One thing we still can do is [to] have some groundwork [done] in our community in order to make sure that people understand why we need to have this sort of service, and what positive impacts it can have in the community,” Sandhia Vadlamudy, the executive director of CACTUS, told The Daily. Why so long? Funding for the sites has yet to be approved, according to Marie-France Coutu, a spokesperson from the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal, and until this is done the project cannot move forward. “We gave a document […] in January, and we are waiting for [Quebec’s provincial health ministry’s ...] approval because we need the approbation of the federal government,” she told The Daily in an email. The initial request for funding was filed by the Montreal Director of Public Health to Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, asking for $3.2 million initially and an additional $2.7 million annually. Lucie Charlebois, Quebec Minister for Rehabilitation (Youth Protection and Public Health) declined to comment on her stance regarding SISs and did not respond to emails asking if funding had been ap-

proved or when the administration would announce a decision. Once the funding is approved, the sites will require an exemption from Canada’s drug laws provided by the federal government. However, the Conservative government has shown hostility in the past toward SIS projects, when it refused to renew InSite’s exemption in 2008. Only after InSite appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court did the justices rule against the Conservatives, declaring in 2011 that InSite’s benefit to society trumped Canada’s drug laws. Assuming the exemption request passes, it will need to be accompanied by a letter outlining security issues written by the Montreal police chief. Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) spokesperson Marie-Elaine Ladouceur confirmed in an email to The Daily that the SPVM has not publicly announced whether it intends to write one. Only if all of these conditions are met can the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal begin working with community organizations to set up the clinics. Following in the path of InSite SISs have been controversial since their inception, as they involve the open provision of supplies to individuals who wish to use illegal substances. InSite began as a pilot project,

initiated to address the fact that Vancouver was experiencing the highest HIV transmission rates of any developed country. While the 2008 Supreme Court decision allowed for the continued existence of InSite, its recommendation that ‘parameters be established’ has resulted in a motion called Bill C-2, or the “Respect for Communities Act.” If passed, the bill will place several conditions on any application for exemption, requiring them to include interviews of local police, doctors, and scientists. The bill is in its second reading. M-J Milloy, a research scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV and AIDS, an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of British Columbia, and a former McGill student, was part of a team that worked on evaluating the effect of InSite on overdose patterns among Vancouver’s intravenous drug users. “What we’ve found [in Vancouver] is that a site is one good way to begin to meet these needs in ways [that] are not detrimental to other community members,” Milloy told The Daily in an interview. “By that I mean we did not see the site add to levels of drug use, add to levels of drug-related crime, and it does not damage communities’ local conditions to any extent.” “InSite is right on the edge of

Chinatown, and many Chinatown merchants were strongly opposed to the facility before it opened because they feared it would attract more people to the area, and that it would result in more drug use, violence, and litter,” added Milloy. “[Yet] a number of years after the facility opened, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper began making serious moves to close the facility, the heads of the merchant association wrote him a letter saying, ‘Please keep the facility open because of all the wonderful things it’s done for our neighbourhood.” Anna Marie D’Angelo, the Senior Media Relations Officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, the organization that runs InSite, told The Daily she thinks Bill C-2 will “make it more challenging, if not impossible, for new SISs to start up.” “For many people it’s a black and white issue. They don’t accept harm reduction, [which is] a researchsupported addiction treatment.” D’Angelo likened the process to smoking cigarettes. “If you look at people who smoke, there are a lot of people who use the patch, which is a form of harm reduction. It seems like when you go over the addiction line into the illicit drugs, everything has to change as far as the addiction treatment, when actually the same kind of principles work.” —With files from Dominic Gunewardena

The establishment of supervised injection sites in Canada 2009-2011 2003 InSite Vancouver is finally established and allowed to operate. Montreal groups being to campaign for supervised injection sites around this time.

Courts at the federal and provincial levels continue to disagree over whether or not InSite should be granted an exemption, with the federal government appealing the Supreme Court’s decision.

September 2014 Coderre promises to announce future SIS locations, though the timeline is not specified.

The Supreme Court allows InSite to operate during this period.

What’s next for Montreal? Announcement of the locations and opening dates of sites. Funding approval from Quebec’s provincial health ministry.

May 2008 InSite’s exemption ends. The Supreme Court of British Columbia (B.C.) decides that in the case of InSite, B.C.’s drug laws are in conflict with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

September 2011 The Supreme Court of Canada rules that InSite’s exemption should be renewed.

December 2013 Montreal mayor Denis Coderre announces that the proposal to create supervised injection sites in Montreal has been approved.

Granting of an exemption from Canadian drug laws.

News

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

4th annual Indigenous Awareness Week Written by Jill Bachelder, Kateryna Gordiychuck, Daniel Huang, Mallory Rappaport, Myra Sivaloganathan Photos by Alice Shen From September 15 to 19, the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office hosted McGill’s annual Indigenous Awareness Week. The week-long series of events is meant to honour and celebrate Indigenous cultures at McGill and beyond, and help increase awareness within the McGill community about Indigenous peoples. Events included everything from lectures, to panel discussions, to workshops; here is a small selection.

Two-spirits: history and survival On Thursday, Ben Geboe, a PhD student at the School of Social Work, gave a lecture about the history and survival of two-spirit people at the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal. The lecture lasted about an hour, and focused on Geboe’s experiences as an Indigenous person in the LGBT community and on the meaning of the concept of two-spirit. According to Geboe, two-spirit people are those who identify as both female and male. “While everyone has a combination of male and female spirits, two-spirit people have male and female spirits that are the same size,” explained Geboe. Geboe grew up on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, U.S.. While he said that his tribe was very open to people who identified as gay, not all tribes were as welcoming. “Every community is different and some [did not] have the acceptance mine did,” he said. Throughout the lecture, Geboe stressed that his tribe didn’t have the same gender binary as the Western world. “The main difference between the Western world and Native world is that [in the Native world] no one can tell you who you are, people have to ask you who you are,” he explained. Alan Vicaire, the Indigenous Education Advisor for the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office spoke to the goal of Geboe’s talk. “[We want] to create a safe space and open [a] dialogue for Indigenous students at McGill. Our primary goal is to educate students,” he said.

The KAIROS blanket exercise The KAIROS blanket exercise, an interactive event meant to illustrate the history of Indigenous populations and their land, took place on Tuesday. During the event, participants played the roles of Indigenous peoples so that they could relate more directly with the history they were enacting, which also allowed for more emotional engagement with the subject of the exercise. Organizers covered the floor with blankets to represent Canadian lands as they used to be inhabited by Indigenous people. The participants of the event were invited to freely walk on the blankets, to try get used to them, and to try to feel the connection with the land. Yao Xi Zhang, a McGill Kinesiology student who participated in the exercise, considered the visual format of the event very helpful. “They tell you [that people] took the Indigenous populations’ land. You hear it every day in social [science] class. Some country conquered another country. But when you are [standing] on the blanket, and they are folding the corners [to illustrate the land’s usurpation], you realize, ‘Oh. It’s my territory, and it just got smaller.’” People who attended the event had a desire to learn more about colonization – precisely because the exercise had an emotional effect on the attendees, they found the exercise more illustrative of the colonization of Indigenous lands than class textbooks that aim to convey the same knowledge. “[The exercise] is actually more important than the textbook, because we read [textbooks so much], we are not so sensitive to it,” Yao noted. This was the second year in a row that the KAIROS blanket exercise was used during Indigenous Awareness Week. Although event organizers noted that this year’s exercise was a bit different from that of last year, participants still found it impactful and educational.

News Healing and decolonizing: impacts of the institutionalization of Indigenous children On Thursday, Lindsey Decontie, executive director of the National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence (NACAFV), spoke at McGill about the legacy of residential schools in Canada. Decontie touched on a variety of issues that have a concentrated effect on Canada’s Indigenous women, from familial abuse and homelessness to the reserve system. Ending in the 1990s, residential schools were a systematic plan to assimilate Indigenous children into white Canadian society funded by the Canadian government. The schools were, as Decontie pointed out, places where “Aboriginal children were told they could not speak their own languages, and where there were many definite cases of physical and sexual abuse.” Decontie called the residential schools’ legacy today a “historical trauma” that influences, for instance, how an Indigenous woman might seek help after being abused. As she stated, “what happens is, since they were victims, they might be afraid to ask for help, or reluctant to solve these problems because their self-esteem and self-worth have taken a big hit.” In her presentation, she elaborated on the “stereotypes and assumptions that do exist, not only about Aboriginals who are in this position but also about the shelters that they seek help from.” As an example, she pointed out the demeaning stereotype that Aboriginal women “will only be victims for as long as it’s profitable to be victims.” To those who believe the situation is improving as a result increased awareness, Carole Brazeau, National Project Coordinator of NACAFV, pointedly warned, “the problem has not improved, it has gotten worse; it was a crisis ten years ago, and it is still a crisis now.” When asked what McGill students could do to help, Decontie responded that “oftentimes people might feel that, there’s nothing we can do, this is such a big problem, and I don’t know where to start, but it doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be as simple as volunteering at a women’s shelter, or writing a letter to their local MP [member of parliament].”

Holding the academy accountable: Indigenous studies and community inclusion On Tuesday, the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office hosted a panel to discuss Indigenous relationships with academia, exploring both the accountability of Indigenous studies programs to the voices of Indigenous peoples, as well as ways to create decolonized spaces in universities. Moderator Molly Swain read out the questions, written by SEDE over the summer, to a panel consisting of three speakers: Marsha Vicaire, a doctoral student at McGill who is Mi’gmaq (from the Listuguj First Nation); William Straw, a professor at McGill and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada; and Karl Hele, an associate professor at Concordia and director of its First Peoples Studies program. Throughout the discussion, Vicaire focused on the perspective of the learner, saying that, as an Indigenous student, she would like to see recognition of the differences between Indigenous and Western culture, as well as recognition that the methods of Indigenous peoples, while different, are also valuable. “We really need to be valued, respected, and we also need to have that sense of inclusion,” said Vicaire, “so I think those would be things to consider within those spaces, within those learning environments.” Hele emphasized the importance of teaching the Indigenous community, as it is a complex society composed of different peoples. “If you’re saying Indigenous studies, it’s got to be [...] broad enough to include the other communities within at least McGill’s [reach],” he said. Hele also encouraged the inclusion of more Indigenous voices and perspectives in the curricula of Indigenous studies programs at universities, stressing the importance of creating a welcoming place for Indigenous employees as well as hiring Indigenous professors to teach topics unrelated to Indigenous issues. Straw said that those in charge of funding should make Indigenous studies more of a priority. He also criticized the tendency of other departments to make the Indigenous studies department the sole source of accountability for Indigenous issues, and noted a need to integrate more space for Indigenous students within the curriculum. During the question-and-answer session, an Indigenous audience member and University of Victoria student spoke to the importance of accepting and utilizing alternative methods of research, such as more conversation-based qualitative data, in order to better represent Indigenous communities. “We have to be looking through an Indigenous lens,” said the student, “and not looking through a separate lens [...] and the understandings will come from there.” In five years, said Vicaire, she would hope to see more second- and third-generation Indigenous students at university, as most Indigenous students are currently first generation, as well as a more welcoming environment for Indigenous students. “It’s going to be coming onto this campus knowing ‘yes, I am an Indigenous person and I belong here.’”

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Indigenous students at McGill: before and beyond graduation On Wednesday evening, Indigenous peoples, scholars, and activists gathered to celebrate Indigenous culture, hear from an alumnus about her experience at McGill, and rethink McGill’s founding and its relationship with the Six Nations of the Grand River. Audra Simpson, McGill alumnus and associate professor of anthropology at Columbia University, stepped up to give a different speech than the one that was expected. Simpson did not solely discuss the significance of McGill and of the forms of training she received for her scholarship, as had been planned, but focused instead on the history and legacy of McGill for Indigenous students. According to Simpson, the founding of McGill is often narrated as stemming from the 1811 endowment from Scottish merchant James McGill. While the financial problems of the institution’s first forty years are often acknowledged, Simpson noted that little attention is paid to the money that was transferred from the Six Nations to McGill in the mid-1800s to rid the university of its financial crisis. “No mention is made of the crucial transferring of funds from the Six Nations of the Grand River in the 1850s that helped to save McGill from bankruptcy, [and] helped to repair [and] construct buildings. I suspect that was also money that in fact kept the university open,” stated Simpson. Funds from the Six Nations were used without the permission of the communities during the financial crisis, and McGill has never reimbursed the Six Nations for this outstanding debt, which now adds up to $1.7 billion. “[This unpaid debt should be paid] through a public acknowledgement, and not a superficial one at that, that McGill was kept afloat because of this unpaid debt [...] that needs to be acknowledged rigorously,” she said. “[Indigenous students] should [... also] have scholarships in the name of each person that signed off on this loan, who in different ways contribute to this complicated history and the flourishing of this fine institution.” Simpson added that compensation for this debt should also be made through hiring more tenured Indigenous scholars and professors. “But what is needed along with this big commitment to revitalizing hidden pasts, forgotten pasts, non-commitments to pasts, is diversifying this university. And here I want to ask, ‘Where are the Indigenous scholars at McGill, scholars in tenured positions?’” She also noted that McGill’s new Indigenous studies minor is a good start, but that the university should aim for an Indigenous studies major. “I am very happy to hear that there is an [Indigenous] studies minor. That makes me happy. Let’s go now for a major.”

News

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Extending safe space to washrooms Gender-neutral washrooms coming to Redpath Library Dana Wray The McGill Daily

s part of the lengthy renovations of the Redpath Library, students can expect revamped washrooms – this time, with one that is accessible and gender-neutral. With partial funding from the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) for the renovations, the construction of the washrooms will tentatively begin in May 2015, with a projected completion date of August 2015. The oversight committee for the Redpath Library washroom renovation project will oversee the planning, design, and implementation of new washrooms. “The fact that there [are] gender neutral bathroom[s] means that people can just go evacuate bodily fluid without fearing for their lives,” Gabrielle Bouchard, the Peer Support and Trans Advocacy Coordinator at the Centre for Gender Advocacy, told The Daily. According to the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office’s website, “A gender-neutral washroom is a single-person facility which is not labelled male or female but rather is available to anyone, no matter what their gender identity or biological sex.”

“Even in universities, trans and gender non-conforming people have been subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional violence for using what someone decides for them is the ‘wrong’ bathroom.” Leela Scott, co-op coordinator for the UGE The shift to include gender-neutral washrooms is part of a burgeoning trend across Canadian and American campuses. Concordia students and groups have been fighting to include gender-neutral washrooms for over five years. Resources also exist to direct people to existing gender-neutral washrooms, such as SEDE’s comprehensive list of locations on Mc-

Gendered washrooms at McGill. Gill’s campus, and Refuge Restrooms, an international crowdsourced site that offers information about washroom accessibility in general. Reflecting on their personal views, Leela Scott, the co-op coordinator for the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE) and a representative on the oversight committee, wrote in an email to The Daily, “These spaces are important because despite being in an academic institution surrounded by people who would like to think of themselves as very educated and accepting, there are still a lot of really toxic behaviors and opinions present.” “Even in universities, trans and gender non-conforming people have been subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional violence for using what someone decides for them is the ‘wrong’ bathroom,” they said, adding, “More commonly, a well-meaning person telling someone ‘I think you’re in the wrong bathroom...’ can be very traumatizing for a trans or gender non-conforming person.” The Redpath Library renovation project did not always include plans for a gender-neutral washroom. Faced with problems securing funding, the Library approached the Library Improvement Fund last year, which is a SSMU fund of student fees and alumni contributions allocated toward capital improvements in McGill’s library. “As the goal of the fund is not to take over the financing of operational projects from the University, we felt that it would be inappropri-

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily ate to cover the cost of the entire renovation,” explained Erin Sobat, the Library Improvement Fund Coordinator, in an email to The Daily. “The committee that allocates the fund, which is comprised of student fees matched with alumni contributions, agreed to provide partial seed money in March ‘on the condition that a gender-neutral washroom be included in the redesign.’” The majority of the members on the oversight committee for the renovations – which will review architectural plans, budgets, and timelines among other things this year – are university staff, but there are also three students, a significant inclusion according to Sobat. However, Scott told The Daily that they felt tokenized by the committee regarding the fact that they identify as agender, as well as the fact that they have a previous background in gender issues. “I’m a bit disappointed by the seeming lack of knowledge and research many of the others have. Obviously I know not everyone is interested or has the time to know everything, but gender is a part of this project (as it is with any project, really) and I think it’s their responsibility as paid employees to be aware of these things.” Gender-neutral washrooms across campus According to Chuck Adler, the director of Campus and Space Planning (CSP), the Redpath Li-

brary project’s inclusion of genderneutral washrooms was spearheaded by a SEDE report released in the fall of 2013. SEDE compiled a list of locations that had gender-neutral washrooms, as well as those that could be easily changed into gender-neutral washrooms through signage changes, among other things. The Office also looked at the universal access to washrooms on campus, another dimension of the project. “I thought the teamwork between the SEDE Office, our office [CSP], and the students was really great,” said Adler. “I think it’s a good sort of framework for the University to advance.” Over the next year, Adler said that CSP will be looking at securing funding for signage, locks, and other basic changes so that they can further convert washrooms on campus. When asked whether the University has plans for having gender-neutral washrooms in every building, Adler said, “We haven’t projected that far down the road yet [...] we’re going to follow the priorities of [SEDE’s report]. That will probably take us through the next year or so, and I guess we’ll reassess it with SEDE to see if we’re still missing needs or not.” Scott felt that McGill’s progress still left a lot to be desired. “Unfortunately, change comes rather slowly in an institution like this,” they said. “While policy says they’ll strive toward having a ‘gender-

neutral’ washroom on each floor in each building, right now some buildings have none, and many others only have [one].” Although single-stall, genderneutral washrooms are generally widely welcomed, there are also a few criticism. Bouchard raised concerns that if the gender-neutral washroom were located near gendered (men’s and women’s) washrooms, the person could inadvertently out themselves as trans or feel uncomfortable. Scott added that they had raised concerns about the original plan for the Redpath Library renovations, which was to have men’s and women’s washrooms along with a single-stall washroom. The committee changed the design to include two gender-neutral stalls, but Scott pointed out that this overlooked the potential for safety problems, adding that they were looking into implementing multistall, ‘all-gender’ washrooms along with Sobat. However, overall, Scott said that the renovations were a good step. “Access to washrooms is something that is often overlooked when thinking about how to make an institution safer because it seems so basic, but really – how many times a day do you go to the washroom? When it’s something you can do easily, without fear, you don’t think about it. But when it’s difficult and/ or unsafe it can really affect your life and that’s really unfair.”

News

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Queer Engineer protests discriminatory blood donation regulations Unable to donate blood, members volunteer and bring fruit for donors Jordan Brown News Writer

ast week, during the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) blood drive, Queer Engineer protested restrictions that keep men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood. The campaign was unconventional as it involved members of Queer Engineer, a group that supports queer people in science and engineering, volunteering alongside others to facilitate the running of the drive. The campaign was initiated by Rodrigo Cubedo of Queer Engineer. Cubedo told The Daily in an email that he got the idea after he was denied the opportunity to do-

nate blood, due to a restriction that does not allow men to donate blood if they have had sex with a man in the last five years. “Once I looked into it, I couldn’t believe how unjust and outdated this rule [is],” wrote Cubedo. After being denied, Cubedo mobilized Queer Engineer, involving them in this issue that, in his eyes, infringes on gay rights. Cubedo wrote that the immediate goal of Queer Engineer was to get Héma-Québec to allow its members to contribute to the blood drive. “The group brought bananas and apples to give away to donors and volunteered along with Héma-Québec, helping to distribute and finish Héma’s information pamphlets.”

According to Cubedo, this alternative method of protesting the exclusionary regulations was intended to be more collaborative with Héma-Québec, as they did not want to “aggravate the situation and bring us backward in our battle to keep our rights moving forward.” Cubedo said that Queer Engineer will do more to campaign at the next drive in January, where it will be employing similar tactics as well as distributing ‘End the Ban’ fliers to further promote getting rid of these regulations. Discriminatory regulations ban certain donors Prospective blood donors must meet an exhaustive list of 31 crite-

ria, which include drug use, possible symptoms of illness, and previous medical history; question 19 is, “Male donors: In the past five years, have you had sex with a man, even once?” Answering ‘yes’ to question 19 ends in a five-year ban from Canadian Blood Services. In the mid-1980s following the AIDS epidemic, Canada followed the U.S. and the United Kingdom (UK), as well as many other countries, in banning MSM from donating blood. The policy was instituted with the intent of screening out donors who are supposedly more likely to have diseases. Canadian Blood Services justifies its exclusionary regulations by claiming that the groups it targets

are at greater risk of transmitting blood-borne diseases. “The criteria that Canadian Blood Services uses to determine the eligibility of blood donors are based on scientific knowledge of risk factors,” the organization’s website reads. “Screening out people at greater risk of transmitting blood-borne infections is necessary to safeguard the people who receive donated blood.” In 2013, the Canadian Blood Services changed its policy from a lifelong ban to a five-year deferral. The UK shortened its deferral to one year back in 2011, and the ban in the U.S. remains permanent. Héma-Québec representative Pierrette Lavergne told The Daily that the policy is likely to remain “stable.”

Senate discusses consent training Construction on McTavish projected to end by late October Janna Bryson and Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

n September 17, Senate held its first meeting of the academic year, discussing the budget, mental health, and the promotion of consent on campus. Senate is the governing body at McGill that controls academic matters, and has representatives from across the university including administrators, faculty, and staff, as well as 13 elected student representatives. Cuts to provincial funding Principal Suzanne Fortier addressed a question from a group of Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) senators regarding the potential effects of the recently announced $172 million in provincial budget cuts to universities in Quebec. According to Fortier, the cuts were anticipated and largely accounted for in the April budget. “The impact for us is really on not being able to make additional investments that we were hoping to make,” said Fortier. “We don’t think we’re in a crisis situation.” Fortier did, however, emphasize that the levels of government funding relative to universities in other provinces do have an impact on McGill’s position in university

rankings. “Look at those [universities] ahead of us. They enjoy far more favourable financial situations [than McGill],” said Fortier. Consent and harassment policy discussed, will not target athletes In a written response to a question about the promotion of consent on campus submitted by Arts Senator Kareem Ibrahim and SSMU VP University Affairs Claire Stewart-Kanigan, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Olliver Dyens indicated that the training for frosh coordinators, frosh leaders, and orientation staff has been revised to include information about consent and the bystander effect, and that the 6,000 health kits distributed during Orientation Week included information on consent. Dyens also indicated that the consent campaign planned for October will replace the Forum on Safe Space announced last March. Addressing a follow-up question from Stewart-Kanigan regarding the institutionalization of consent training for athletes, Dyens said that although Athletics coaches and staff will participate in the newly introduced bystander intervention program, athletes will not receive specific consent training. “I’m not going to target one

group of students,” said Dyens. Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures and Equity) Lydia White presented the annual report on the University’s harassment, sexual harassment, and discrimination policy, which indicated that 67 per cent of the complaints did not proceed beyond the inquiry stage, thereby not leading to an investigation by the harassment assessors. In light of this statistic, Medicine Senator David Benrimoh expressed concern that the policy might be failing to fulfill the needs of those who have been harassed or discriminated against. White argued that these people might be choosing another avenue to pursue their case, such as a complaint to a dean, but noted that no statistics are being collected about those cases. “If they go somewhere else, we have no way of knowing whether they went or what happened,” said White.

the end of the month, and its recommendations are already being implemented. These recommendations include setting up waiting list referrals between McGill Counselling and Mental Health and mental health first aid training for staff. In response to a follow-up question from Benrimoh regarding concrete hiring and infrastructure changes to mental health provision at McGill, Executive Director of Student Services Jana Luker noted that waiting times at mental health have been reduced to less than two weeks due to staffing changes. “We are doing this in different ways, but the access issue seems to be under control at this point,” said Luker. Luker added that outsourcing services during exams could be an option if made necessary by increased demand.

Changes in mental health services Senate also discussed its response to a question submitted by Stewart-Kanigan and Arts & Science Senator Chloe Rourke regarding the progress of the McGill Student Services’ Mental Health Working Group. According to Dyens’ response, the group’s report will be available on the Student Services website by

Research integrity, Hiawatha Belt Flag Research Integrity Officer Abraham Fuks presented the Annual Report Concerning the Investigation of Research Misconduct for 2013-14. According to Fuks, six allegations of research misconduct were brought forward against McGill researchers, four of which had sufficient evidence to proceed as

investigations. Fuks hypothesized that access to digital information has increased both the opportunity for researchers to falsify data and the likelihood of them being caught doing so. Stewart-Kanigan also asked for an explanation as to why SSMU’s request to have the Hiawatha Belt Flag raised on National Aboriginal Day, which was June 21, was rejected. Secretary-General Stephen Strople addressed the decision. “I would not characterize the response of the University as rejection. [...] We were not able to fully analyze and consider the request in time for that date.” Strople emphasized, however, that there was a special page put on the McGill website for the occasion. Following the presentation of the report of the Academic Policy Committee, Senate adopted a final set of changes for a new bachelor’s degree program in bioengineering. During the opening remarks, Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa provided an update on the McTavish construction project. It is projected to end by late October, with access to the street expected in early November. “But really, we’re talking about construction in Quebec, so who really knows,” he said.

Commentary

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Bursting the bubble Why McGill students should engage with Quebec Martin Tremblay Commentary Writer

s a McGill student from Quebec, and as a francophone, I am surprised by the extent to which students in our university are oblivious to where they live. From my experience at McGill, the students I speak with (who admittedly only represent a small sample) are generally uninformed on Quebec politics, have not travelled in the province, and have little geographical or historical knowledge of the region. They are also rarely involved in groups or activities outside of McGill, and few know much about greater Montreal. The fact that few students speak French does not surprise me though, it’s that few have any interest in learning it. For many Western students foreign to Quebec, learning French is the only challenging adjustment specific to moving to here. I am struck when I see graduating students who don’t even speak a minimum of French. If they go on to leave Quebec after graduating, they will have lived four years in a francophone province without having learned the local language. For these two reasons (although there are others), most recognize that McGill is a self-enclosed ‘bubble’ within Montreal. It is true that McGill keeps its students busy, and

that French is not an easy language to learn. The situation is also understandable since Montreal is easy to navigate in English. But from an outside perspective, for someone who does not understand the dynamics of the ‘McGill bubble,’ to leave McGill with a degree but no knowledge of French or Quebecois culture is bizarre. It could also be perceived as close-minded. If anything, it’s a shame. From this brief and rather biased assessment comes an obvious question: why does this matter? Why should McGill’s students care about Quebec, or the French language? The answer is that they should care about these things for their own sake. Say I told you that I lived in Spain for four years but didn’t speak any Spanish, hadn’t travelled in Spain, hadn’t immersed myself in Spanish culture, didn’t know any Spanish songs, and didn’t know anything about Spanish history. What opinion would people have of me? They would probably say I’m close-minded. French isn’t only related to job opportunities, it’s the gateway to Quebec. French allows people to become part of the Montreal community, and the province, rather than just staying as detached, transient visitors. It opens the door to knowledge, to different people, and to a better under-

standing of the province. Being a student involves more than being taught and learning what professors teach. It is also about discovering. As students, we have a unique opportunity to use our time in a relatively free manner, to take the sort of risks we will not be able to take later, and to discover things that will soon become inaccessible. Being at university presents an opportunity to explore the world, to challenge our predispositions, to get to know the ‘other,’ as well ourselves better. Living abroad, in a place with a different culture and language, can be an excellent way to do these things – but only if you put in the effort. Quebec and its uniqueness offer favourable ground for such purposes. Overall, the closed mindset of the ‘McGill bubble’ is a loss both to students and to Quebec. As a Quebecer, I greatly enjoy McGill for both its diversity and its students. They can bring freshness into Montreal’s community, offer perspectives that could open our eyes to various issues, and help us understand what defines us. I wish students would engage more with the province; they, as well as Quebec, would stand to benefit. Martin Tremblay is a pseudonym. To contact the writer, please email commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

Quebec’s flag flying at McGill. Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily

nutritious, and sustainable options. In The Daily’s editorial last week (“Hungry for food accessibility,” Editorial, page 19, September 15), the efforts of student-run organizations on campus were mentioned casually without giving real credit to the hard work of volunteers and employees. Worse, Snax Cafe was not even mentioned.

Customers and employees of Snax will tell you that the cafe fills all the criteria listed in last week’s piece: locally sourced, reasonably priced, healthy options in a convenient location on the first floor of Leacock. Snax operates to break even, so each and every item is sold at slightly above cost (with the surplus going to staff wages). The past year has seen the cafe expand its

selection, with vegetarian, vegan, and organic options being introduced. Finally, Snax is entirely run by students, and has successfully served the McGill community for years. This is not intended to act as an advertisement for Snax, but as a reminder that healthy, cheap options exist at McGill, and should not be overlooked. If students at this university are truly

Letters Submit your own: letters@mcgilldaily.com

Accessible food We have heard a lot in the past week about the changes to food accessibility on campus. While the current options seem to be, in general, more expensive, less accessible, and less healthy, I think it would be a mistake to forget those options at McGill that continue to offer cheap,

This week’s web-only Commentary content Workers of SSMU, unite!: On why undergraduates should care more about student politics

Smoking and superiority: How smokers at McGill have it bad

upset with the latest restaurants being installed on campus, they should continue to eat at places like Snax, so that these types of organizations can continue to operate, and offer the prices, nutrition, and convenience expected by the McGill community. - Emma Meldrum, Assistant Manager at AUS SNAX

Commentary

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Go slow On net neutrality and labour strategies Benjamin Elgie The McGill Daily

n September 10, several organizations, including the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, the progressive Demand Progress campaign group, and internet and tech sector lobby groups Fight for the Future and Engine, joined to promote ‘net neutrality’ via an online protest against proposed rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent U.S. government agency. The new rules would establish a two-tiered system for broadband internet in which service providers would be allowed to charge additional fees to sites for access to a ‘fast lane’ of broadband service. Those unwilling or unable to pay the extra fees would be relegated to a ‘slow lane’. The protests in favour of net neutrality though were mere tokenism – real resistance would have involved taking concrete action. In principle, all broadband users have equal connection speeds, but practices such as selective throttling (artificial connection speed slowdown) and IP blocking (which prevents access to certain websites) have been used by large providers such as Telus, AT&T, and others to hinder virtual private networks (VPNs), online voice services such as Skype, file sharing, and to block access to websites such as those created by striking employees (as was done by Telus in 2005 to a Telecommunications Workers Union site). The symbolic protest endorsed by these campaign groups involved placing a ‘loading’ icon on a variety of websites. Tumblr, Grooveshark, Reddit, Netflix and Vimeo all took part in the protest, as well as other media-heavy sites that would be forced to pay for a faster connection. The icon even showed sporadically on the Media@McGill site. The action was labelled a ‘slowdown’ to highlight the consequences of the proposed FCC rules, but the organizers were quick to reassure users that no actual slowing of services would occur. A much more impactful and significant action would have been to actually slow internet traffic to demonstrate the effects of the proposed rules. What’s more, an actual slowdown would have drawn on successful labour tactics. The net neutrality protest merely appropriated the language

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily of labour organizing. Workers undertake ‘go slow’ actions, or slowdowns, to put pressure on employers without resorting to strike action. As a form of direct action, they can be undertaken for a variety of reasons – a strike might be illegal, impractical, or too expensive – and can be extremely effective. If inexperienced strike-breakers are brought in to force striking workers back to their jobs, for example, the experienced workers can go at the pace and skill used by the strikebreakers, resulting in an obstruction of production. A similar strategy is workto-rule, in which workers follow their duties to the letter, ignoring all the small shortcuts that typically smooth the functioning of a workplace. These actions inconvenience the employer by causing economic damage, but they also inconvenience any clients and customers. A road crew that deliberately slows down will also slow traffic, sending the message that those who wish for a smooth morning commute should support the crew’s demands. However, sabotage is not a tool limited to workers. Despite the negative attention given to worker

actions that inconvenience employers and clients, the same tactics are employed by those who denounce their use; this is because these tactics are effective. Employer and business sabotage also inhibits production to achieve specific ends. For instance, the deliberate destruction of crops, or milk quotas, destroys production so that the price of goods become artificially inflated. Closer to home, McGill’s refusal of provincial conditional grants (Quebec promised $32 million in grants if McGill would reduce its deficit by $9.6 million), and the transfer of funds from the university’s operating budget to its capital budget, represent a form of sabotage. The intent was to force reorganization of the university structure and increase tuition fees by creating a condition of scarcity on campus. Somewhat hypocritically, McGill won several injunctions against MUNACA, the university’s labour union for non-academic support staff, during their strike against pension cuts. The University forced picketing workers to keep to small, distant groups on the grounds that standard pickets were too noisy and inconvenienced students and staff.

So companies, governments, and institutions are only averse to sabotage that harms their interests, not to the tactic itself. The proposed changes to FCC rules can be seen in a similar light, as they represent artificial limits on broadband speed intended to force users to pay inflated prices for faster access. However, the situation with net neutrality is not precisely analogous to those of workers facing pressure from their employer. The powerful organizations and websites backing net neutrality are not employed by the businesses lobbying for increased control of digital infrastructure, and both ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ net neutrality corporations are represented by well-funded lobby groups. However, ‘pro’ corporations depend entirely on the broadband access controlled by the ‘anti’ corporations, and the new FCC rules would have a major impact on their ability to conduct business. They would also impact individual internet users by forcing a reduction in high-bandwidth media use, or would accept web plans even less competitive than those in North America today. The rules also open the door

to arbitrary access to certain websites at any speed, potentially allowing large telecommunications companies to extort increased payments from economic or political competitors. If proponents of net neutrality are serious about their campaign, they should drop lacklustre awareness raising and adopt the proven tactics of direct action. They should slow down their sites. Certainly their clients would complain about the slowdowns, but such complaints would provide a means to explain the nature of the new FCC rules in detail, and to point out how much worse the situation would be under those rules. It would provoke more of a response, and possibly even interfere with the business activities of those involved with the telecommunications lobby and the FCC, potentially forcing them to revisit their own goals. It’s much harder to ignore your Netflix being interrupted by constant buffering than it is to ignore a loading icon. Benjamin Elgie is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience. To contact him, please email benjamin.elgie@ mail.mcgill.ca.

Features

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Written by Clara Lagacé Illustrations by Sevrenne Sheppard & Alice Shen

unning wildly, grasshoppers jumping on all sides to avoid my trampling feet in the tall grass, I feel the blades rip, cut my skin. Countless thin red lines appear all over my legs. Sweat from the heat of the day, from running, pearls on my forehead, drenches the middle of my back. Dark stains on my shirt. Purple. The same colour I have been wearing these past twenty days. A long time. I circle back toward the encampment, where my fellow travellers stand watching me. George stands tall. His dark eyebrows, one raised slightly above the other, question me. George is heavier than he once was, but our adventure is kicking in. His body is hollowing out every day. Tall, but not outlandishly so. Broad-shouldered. Fred is unloading the canoe, pulling it up on the bank for the night, turning it swiftly over on its front. Seamus’ dirty blond head is nowhere to be seen. “What was that?” asks George. “I’m feeling restless. I need to lose some steam,” I reply, breathing heavily. “Try lugging the canoe next time. You’ll be tired enough then.” “I am tired. But also restless.” He does not comment. Cedar and crooked fir trees everywhere stare at our little troop. Our community of four. Darkness and a starry sky are taking over. It must be late. The darkness is still. If it weren’t for the swarms of flies around my head it would be quiet. Silence. But if it weren’t for the flies it would also be peaceful and comfortable. They stick together and they stick to my skin. Sucking red drops of blood or biting off small parcels of it, always leaving an itch. The itch makes me restless. For now it’s heat and sweat as we set up camp. One tent peg at a time. I’m on supper. I’m always on supper. With Seamus. We always sneak in bites before serving the others. Also, I’m no good with the saw. Better at adding spices. Darkness comes late so far north, but it comes fast. Sudden coolness announces its arrival. I reach back behind me and pull out my sweater from my pack. Warmth, pleasure, desire. It is so soothing to sit by the campfire staring into its depths. There are slightly fewer flies near it. Only slightly. Red, blue, orange, white, and yellow flames are running. The fire is restless as well. Dark comforts are fleeting.

Features

“Maybe a bit of hot pepper flakes, what d’ya think?” “Sounds good, let’s just not make them cry tonight.” Same smiles exchanged. Seamus glances quickly over his shoulder at George pulling the tent they share taut. When Seamus smiles, his whole face lights up. Eyelashes, dimples, and everything. ** “Oh my god…” “Yeah I guess the spices condensed when I dehydrated it.” “Or maybe they fermented over the last two weeks!” George gasps and clenches his throat in mock agony. Or maybe it’s real. “Add more cheese, it will dilute it a bit.” George nods, tears streaming through the corner of his eyes. That’s what’s really hurting him. The tears. “Well this is definitely the first meal you don’t swallow in one bite.” “Shut up.” I laugh. “What? It’s true! You eat incredibly fast.” ** “It was pretty funny to watch him suffer over food.” “Yeah. But people get crabby when they don’t eat enough and I do not want a crabby guy in my canoe.” “Since when are you so reasonable?” Quick smile before he returns his attention to the paint can. The paint can is a contraption he made that works just as fast as my little gas stove but only needs twigs to feed it. And there are twigs everywhere so it’s easy to use. Seamus is inventive. Seamus is creative. Seamus doesn’t really belong out here. I’ve never asked him why he said yes so quickly, so enthusiastically, when I invited him. Fir trees and Labrador tea ubiquitously surround us. The vegetation almost never changes and it’s very sparse, not in quantity but in diversity. I spotted a mother moose with her baby moose today. Her calf? Not quite sure. Legs kneedeep in water on either side of the river. Mine a lot closer to shore because of their comparative smallness. I whipped my head around. “Shhhh!” I pointed to the other shore. Fred nodded and patiently watched with the canoe on his shoulders. Eventually the moose left us with our loneliness and went to seek their own elsewhere. Silence. Food-induced silence. It is a full silence, unlike the lonely silences that fill our days out here in the wilderness. A communal moment of sharing and filling

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

our bellies. I try to make it last but of course my exhausted body won’t let me. My spoon keeps piling food into my mouth of its own accord. My teeth barely close on the mush of pasta-cheese-and-canned-unknown-fish before my tongue reacts, my throat opens wider, and the abyss engulfs the food. Inside I imagine soothing darkness and a balm on the rumbling of my stomach. No more thunder. Inevitably, my spoon reaches the bottom. Plastic against plastic that makes not the familiar urban scraping sound but a soft thud. The silence of the bowl is suddenly empty. Later, once the dome of night has overtaken the sky, I creep into the tent. The noise of the sleeping bag irks me. Outside sleepy sounds of Labrador tea being pushed about by the nighttime breeze; inside, down-filled sleeping bags rubbing against each other, zippers closing quickly, everything noisy, reawakening my restlessness. I came so far out in the world, isolated myself with this company of fellows for a long trip with ourselves and the wilderness, but I can’t escape the upheaval in my mind. Unquiet of night. Unquiet of synthetic sleeping bags. The coziness of the tent is considerable, but the only warmth I feel is from Fred’s eyes. I close my own. Inhale. Undress. Unzip. Get in. Zip up. Open eyes. Done. Exhale. The moths in my stomach have stopped fluttering. Warmth, pleasure, desire flow through my veins, through my mind once more – finding comfort in artificial cloth. “Hey.” I mumble a reply. “What’s up?” “Restless.” Fred sighs, turns onto his side, and noise invades the tent once more. My fingers twitch. “Have you been restless all afternoon?” “Since we left.” “This morning... or two weeks ago?” “Number two.” “Sam...” I can hear the tenderness in his voice. But I don’t know how to respond. Fred curls up against me, wraps his arm over my body and pulls me toward him. Lots of noise. Blue sleeping bag, next to red. Unzips his bag. I don’t move. Close my eyes. Unzips my bag. Zips them back together. One big bag. His hand is on my stomach. It trails downwards to that hairy spot between my legs. I don’t know how this is helping anything. I don’t know how it’s not. Eyes open once more. Daylight overhead and all around. I get dressed and make pancakes with Seamus. He smiles. There is nothing lonelier than Labrador tea and jagged firs under a grey sky, and a canoe on an untamed river. And still knowing you are less alone out here than in your head.

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Sci+Tech

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

A closer look at sustainability Cutting Edge presents research on iron nanoparticles Zapaer Alip The McGill Daily

n the evening of September 11, members of the public quietly packed into the quaint Redpath Museum auditorium, where just hours ago hundreds of students were in attendance for Soup and Science. It was now their turn to keep up to date with the latest scientific research and to mingle with leading scientists as part of Cutting Edge lectures. Cutting Edge is a science lecture series, where every month a professor is invited to give a talk on their research, why it’s important, and why we, as a society, should be interested in it. The lectures are tailored to the public but are also useful for scientists from other disciplines. The series remains one of the only forums in place to counter the barriers that exist between scientists and the public. Barriers such as scientific literature laden with heavy jargon are inaccessible due to the presentation of the concepts and the financial cost of subscriptions needed to access them in the first place as an individual. The need for Cutting Edge came from scientists who wanted to have a stronger understanding between disciplines. As one organizer explained, “These lectures were conceived back in 2003 because a number of people here at McGill got [...] fed up trying to understand what our colleagues in other departments were saying, and finding [their presentations] incomprehensible.” This frustration resulted in the creation of Cutting Edge. The topic of this month’s lecture was green chemistry, featuring Audrey Moores, an associate professor from the chemistry department, as the main speaker. Green chemistry aims to minimize the hazardous effects that chemical products and processes have on human health and the environment. Moores believes sustainable chemistry can aid in the global project of sustainability. Moores began her talk with an open question to the audience: “What do you know about sustainability?” Answers came in from confident and eager audience members and the question evolved to “What do you find unsustainable?” One audience member shouted “mobile phones,” another person “fisheries,” and someone else added “CO2 emissions.” Moores acknowledged that these answers all fall into the common perceptions of sustainability: biodiversity and the carbon cycle. She added “the problem of sustainability goes far beyond just carbon.”

Associate professor Audrey Moores presenting her research. Unbeknown to most, many electronics contain precious elements such as gold, silver, and platinum. The iPhone contains eight rare earth metals alone. Although mobile phones may use minute quantities of elements and rare earth metals, they are sold in extremely large quantities; Apple has sold more than 500 million iPhones since 2007. The high demand for electronics has resulted in a scarcity for certain elements and an excess in electronic waste, which is often mixed and thus very difficult to recycle – creating an unsustainable cycle. This has resulted in experts predicting metal and element shortages in the near future. Phosphorus is an element that suffers from unsustainable usage. “We are talking about a resource that is essential for agriculture to allows us to grow food.” said Moores. Phosphorus can only be mined, and most of the world’s supply comes from four countries: China, Morocco, South Africa and the U.S.. Its high demand has caused global concern, with China stopping the exporting of its supply. While there is a scarcity in terms of obtaining phosphorus for agriculture, there is also an excess in terms of phosphorus leaching into lakes and rivers causing eutrophication, a type of water pollution that can disrupt an

entire ecosystem by overloading it with nutrients. Recently, in August, a toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie caused hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio to switch to bottled water – the cause was linked to runoff phosphorus from fertilizers that leached into the lake. The overload of phosphorus, a nutrient, fed the algae and caused the bloom. Another example of scarcity and excess resulting in unsustainability. A parallel can be drawn with the mining industry where the extraction of the minerals cause scarcity on one end, and the mixing and dilution of minerals result in excess on the other as the product becomes nearimpossible to recyclable. Tackling sustainability in chemistry, Moores’ research group focuses on specializing in the use of Fe0 (or iron zero) nanoparticles in traditional reactions such as hydrogenation. Fe0 nanoparticles are non-toxic and cheap due to the relative abundance of copper, and can be produced by grinding old iron scraps. Hydrogenation, the addition of a hydrogen atom to a molecule, is used in a variety of fields from petrochemistry in hydrocracking to pharmaceutics when producing ibuprofen. The problem with hydrogenation is its reliance on heavy metal catalysts such as palladium, platinum, and rhodium, which are

Tamim Sujat | The McGill Daily all toxic and very expensive. In theory, heterogenous catalysts can be infinitely reused, but in reality they become deactivated over time and, like a printer cartridge, need to be replaced. In pharmaceutics, the heavy metal catalysts need to go through scavenger columns, which are costly machines with complicated polymers to filter out the metals that leached into the ibuprofen, to meet regulatory requirements on heavy metal concentration in the final product. Using naked Fe0 nanoparticles is not a new phenomenon; however, they are impractical due to the extreme reaction with oxygen and water, creating a rust coating larger than the nanoparticle, and making it unreactive. Moores and her group are using Fe0 nanoparticles coated with a rust, iron oxide shell that protects the Fe0 from oxidation with water allowing, it to maintain its reactivity. Moores pointed out another method for making Fe0 waterresistant including using a polymer block coating, making the use of Fe0 particles feasible in industry. In the case of pharmaceutical hydrogenation, using the Fe0 nanoparticle coated with a iron oxide shell as an alternative catalyst to heavy metals provides a more economical and sustainable solution as the nanoparticles can be recovered

due to their magnetic properties, and have a lower toxicity than the heavy metals. Moores mentioned several further applications of the nanoparticles she designed with her team, such as in biology, where it can be used to simplify the tracking of testosterone for researchers studying breast cancer development. The nanoparticles could also be used to purify contaminated ground water where the shelled Fe0 nanoparticles can transfer their electrons to destroy contaminants or sequester metals. Moores’ research shows us there are ways to move away from precious metals in chemistry and replace them with abundant and environmentally friendlier metals such as iron, rust, and copper. The potential benefits of using iron oxide shell-protected Fe0 nanoparticles include reducing element scarcity by using more abundantly available elements, reducing pollution by using fewer elements and reusing chemicals, and improving food and drug safety by using non-toxic reagents. However, the human health and safety implications of nanoparticles remain vastly unexplored. Moores agrees more research is required to get a better perspective on the impact nanoparticles could have on humans in the long term.

Sci+Tech

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Bugs for breakfast Breaking the social stigma behind eating insects

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily Leanne Louie Sci+Tech Writer

acon and scallops. According to Jakub Dzamba, a PhD architecture candidate at McGill, this is what wax worms taste like. Most of you probably just gagged. That was my first reaction as well. The very idea of insects as food is shunned in most Western cultures, with bugs viewed as nothing more than pests. But entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, dates back to the earliest humans. The Indigenous peoples of Australia enjoyed eating cooked moths and the ancient Algerians harvested locusts. Even Aristotle wrote of eating cicadas — according to him, the young ones are the tastiest, and among the adults, the egg-laden females are best. In today’s world too, entomophagy is a common practice. In many countries, insects are eaten on a regular basis and even considered delicacies. According to the UN, an estimated two billion people around the world include insects in their diets, from dry-roasted crickets to stir-fried palm weevils. Westerners tend to view insect aversion as the norm, but in reality, it’s a perspective that’s really only prevalent in North America and Europe. In the rest of the world, insects are not just

considered pests — they’re viable food sources. However, with the age of globalization comes the spread of ideas and, slowly but surely, entomophagy is gaining momentum in Western countries. Across North America and Europe, numerous companies have started to raise food-grade bugs, and many restaurants have opened that boast dishes featuring insects. Here in Montreal David Ali Garcia, chef at Limón, plans on creating a five-course, edible, insect-centred dinner. From August 26 to 28, the first entomophagy conference in North America was held here in Montreal as well. Called “Eating Innovation: The Art, Culture, Science and Business of Entomophagy,” it provided a forum for people to get together and discuss the benefits of insects as food. Perhaps the most significant advantage of entomophagy is its sustainability. We live in a world of dwindling resources, a world that will have to feed nine to ten billion people come 2050. “We can’t sustain the growing population on this planet with traditional livestock,” Aruna Antonella Handa, a speaker at the conference, told The Daily. “We won’t be able to feed them unless we start doing things differently.” By doing things differently, she

means eating insects. Rearing bugs for food requires a much smaller amount of feed, land, and water than traditional livestock. For every ten pounds of feed, a cricket colony gains four to five pounds of body mass, which is significant when compared to the single pound that cows put on. “Insects are cold-blooded, so they’re much more efficient at converting feed into body mass,” said Dzamba.

Perhaps the most significant advantage of entomophagy is its sustainability. We live in a world of dwindling resources, a world that will have to feed nine to ten billion people come 2050. And they’re good for us, too.

As a protein source, insects are comparable to chicken and pork, and crickets are high in healthy omega-3 fats. Considering their nutritiousness and sustainability, it’s strange to think Westerners haven’t used insects as a food source yet. It can’t be due to taste. Crickets purportedly taste like roasted almonds or cashews, flavours well-loved by many. According to Handa, mealworms have a subtler flavour, much like popcorn. With many insects, they’ll simply take on the taste of what they’re cooked with, much like chicken or beef. And as Dzamba stated, wax worms boast the flavours of bacon and scallops. Most would deem these flavours enjoyable, so taste is not likely the crux of this speciesspanning aversion. No, the culprit is socialization. From a young age, Westerners are taught that insects are pests, fit for extermination rather than ingestion. Given the prevalence of poisonous bugs in the insect population, this aversion actually makes good evolutionary sense. But in today’s world, we know which insects are edible and which are not, which eliminates the need for this all-encompassing avoidance. But learned associations from childhood are difficult to break — though not impossible.

Before insects can become a staple food source in North America and Europe, people must overcome this reflexive association with disgust. Dzamba says that Future Food Salons, events where groups of people get together to try eating insects, are a great way to introduce yourself to entomophagy. Insect flour is also a popular route, enabling people to dissociate from the image of bugs. The other main obstacle to overcome is production. Currently, there is far more demand than supply of food-grade insects, resulting in grossly inflated prices. Although insects are cheaper to produce than other meats, the price is around $9 per pound right now because of the inability to meet the demand. Handa predicts the price will fall to $4 or $5 per pound once the issue of supply and demand is addressed. Until then, an affordable way to include insects in your diet is simply by raising them at home. Third Millennium Farming sells at-home cricket farms that enable people to raise food-grade crickets on nothing more than food scraps. As these issues are overcome, Handa predicts that insects will become a central food source in the future. “We need them to be,” she said. “Otherwise, we will not be able to feed the planet.”

Sports

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

McGill gets stung in football home opener Redmen fall 41-7 against Concordia Tanner Levis Sports Writer

n front of a crowd of 3,000 fans on the chilly night of Friday 12, the McGill Redmen football team hosted the Concordia Stingers in their home opener. This was McGill’s chance to defend the Shaughnessy Cup, which has occurred annually between McGill and Concordia since 1975. McGill took home the Shaughnessy Cup last fall, defeating the Stingers 32-19. This year, a repeat was out for reach of the Redmen, who fell 41-7 in front of a sea of red at Molson Stadium. As it was the home opener, McGill fans came out in full force to support their team, fans wearing mittens and covering themselves in blankets to fight off the eight-degree weather was a common sight. Before fans even had a chance to settle into their seats, Concordia scored. Stingers kicker Keegan Treloar registered a 15-yard field goal just a minute into the game, sparking anger and disbelief in the crowd. The McGill faithful would have to endure a great deal more before the game’s finish. The Redmen were unable to stop the Concordia offence from scoring relentlessly, and the Stingers scored four more times before the home team was able to retaliate. By the start of the second quarter, Concordia was already up 21-0.

After halftime it appeared as though most of the stadium had cleared out as fans left in disappointment. The Redmen were finally able to answer the Stingers’ onslaught with a 57-yard drive, and executed a six-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dallon Kuprowski to receiver Louis Brouillette with under ten minutes remaining in the first half. Although seeing a spark of life from the Redmen was good, it’s hard to get too excited when the score is still 21-7.

Kristian Picon | The McGill Daily To end the first half of the game, McGill gave up another two points to Concordia by avoiding punting, and instead kneeling the ball in the endzone, hoping the Stingers wouldn’t capitalize on good field positioning and score another touchdown. After halftime it appeared as though most of the stadium had cleared out as fans left in disappointment, and the fans who stayed didn’t seem too happy about being there. Some of the home team fans even moved over to sit with the Concordia fans and started cheering for the Stingers. After halftime the game only got worse for the Redmen as the Stingers steamrolled through the defence once again, this time scoring six consecutive times while staying strong on the defensive side of the football. The second half started with the Stingers kicker’s second field goal of the night, kicked from 24 yards,

after a 55-yard drive by the offence. Next, for the fourth and final time, the Redmen gave up a safety, putting Concordia up 28-7. Treloar rounded off the third quarter scoring with a 42-yard field goal. It seemed like things could not get any worse, but the Stingers offence kept rolling in the fourth quarter, where Concordia slotback Daniel Skube scored another touchdown on a 34-yard pass from quarterback François Dessureault. To finish, Treloar put another field goal through, beating his last distance by a yard with an impressive 43-yard kick with just over five minutes left in the game, making the score 41-7. This was a dismal home opener for the Redmen; not only was the offence inactive, but the defence could not find an answer to Concordia’s offence. The team gave up 125 yards on 18 penalties, making it that much harder for the Redmen to earn any territory on Concordia. The Redmen defence was

not exactly impressive against the Stingers, but a few players do deserve individual mention for their efforts. Defensive end Devon Stewart led the Redmen defence with 7.5 tackles, while Redmen linebacker Karl Forgues had seven tackles and a forced fumble that was recovered by defensive tackle Kadeem Lewis. Among defensive leaders for the game was standout rookie linebacker Ricard Lubin, who recorded four tackles, 2.5 tackles for losses, and the only Redmen sack of the game. Although the Redmen defence had some solid performances overall, the defensive core will have to come together and form a cohesive unit to avoid such uneven scores. On the offensive side of the ball for the Redmen, Dallon Kuprowski went 13-24 for 122 yards passing, with a solo touchdown and one interception. Joel Houle relieved Kuprowski at halftime

and went 12-25 for 113 yards passing. Brouillette led the team in receptions with eight catches for 78 yards and caught the team’s only touchdown. Receiver Yannick Langelier-Vanasse tallied five receptions for 71 yards. Running back Luis Guimont-Mota had eight carries for 30 yards, as well as two receptions for 13 yards. Again, the offence has to improve in the same areas as the defence in coming together and playing a solid four quarters of football. On special teams, Pelle Jorgen received four kick returns for 52 yards, while Langelier-Vanasse also returned six punts for a total of 46 yards. The Redmen will have to improve on all sides of the ball, but this improvement was not seen on Friday night against the University of Montreal Carabins, where the Redmen lost 43-17. After losing their first two games, it looks like a long season for the Redmen faithful.

Sports

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

SCOREBOARD REDMEN

MARTLETS Women’s Field Hockey

Men’s Lacrosse

W 11 - 5 vs Waterloo W 13 - 7 at York vs Western

vs Bishop’s vs Queen’s

Men’s Baseball at Montreal at Carleton at Ottawa vs Ottawa vs Concordia

L 2 - 11 W 8-3 W 6-4 W 13 - 2 L 4-5 (OT)

T 1-1 L 0-1 W 5-0

Women’s Rugby

at Laval

L 12 - 30

Women’s Soccer

vs Bishop’s

W 3-0

UPCOMING GAMES Martlets 9/24 – Ice Hockey, at St. Lawrence (NCAA) 9/25 – Soccer, vs UQTR* 9/26 – Rugby, at Bishop’s 9/26 – Ice Hockey, at Vermont (NCAA) 9/28 – Soccer, vs Concordia* 10/3 – Basketball, at Ottawa 10/3 – Soccer, vs Laval* 10/4 – Rugby, vs Montreal* 10/4 – Ice Hockey, vs Montreal Stars* (CWHL) 10/4 – Basketball, at Carleton Redmen 9/25 – Soccer, vs UQTR* 9/27 – Football, at Laval 9/27 – Ice Hockey, vs St. Thomas* 9/28 – Soccer, vs Concordia* 10/3 – Soccer, vs Laval* 10/3 – Basketball, at TBA (Queen’s Invitational) 10/4 – Ice Hockey, at Denver (NCAA) 10/4 – Basketball, at TBA (Queen’s Invitational) 10/5 – Soccer, at Sherbrooke 10/5 – Ice Hockey, at Colorado College (NCAA) 10/5 – Basketball, at TBA (Queen’s Invitational) 10/6 – Ice Hockey, at Air Force Academy (NCAA) * home games

5 p.m., Appleton Arena (Canton, NY) 6 p.m., Molson Stadium 4 p.m., Coulter Field (Lennoxville, QC) 7 p.m., Gutterson Fieldhouse (Burlington, VT) 6 p.m., Molson Stadium 6 p.m., Ashbury College (Ottawa, ON) 6 p.m., Molson Stadium 1 p.m., Molson Stadium 3 p.m., McConnell Arena 6 p.m., The Raven’s Nest (Ottawa, ON) 8 p.m., Molson Stadium 1 p.m., Stade Telus-UL (Quebec City, QC) 7 p.m., McConnell Arena 4 p.m., Molson Stadium 8 p.m., Molson Stadium TBA, Kingston, ON 7 p.m. (MST), Magness Arena (Denver, CO) TBA, Kingston, ON 1 p.m., Stade de l’Université (Sherbrooke, QC) 6 p.m. (MST), World Arena (Colorado Springs, CO) TBA, Kingston, ON 6 p.m. (MST), Cadet Ice Arena (Colorado Springs, CO)

Art Essay

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

Culture

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

More than just watching New social club hopes to foster artistic and social dialogues Isabelle Grégoire Culture Writer

isual art galleries are typically places of quiet, reserved for personal interpretation and introspection. Montreal’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, however, is challenging this notion with its current exhibition, Romeo Gongora’s ‘‘Just Watch Me,” a new project shaking up Montreal’s contemporary social scene. With the help of other Montreal artists, Gongora has put together a program that allows the gallery to act as a disco bar, a fair-trade cafe, an artists’ residency, and a venue for workshops, shows, and screenings. A visual artist and UQAM media arts graduate, Gongora describes himself as a researcher. Half Canadian and half Guatemalan, the artist works closely with different communities throughout the world, and has been invited to collaborate with Aux Recollets in Paris, Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, and the cultural center of Neumünster in Luxembourg. He explained via email that the purpose of his art cannot be found in an object, but in the process of ‘‘a project that materializes [itself ] in a transdisciplinary manner (installations, performance, photography, meeting, writing, etcetera).’’ With “Just Watch Me,” Gongora has first and foremost aimed to foster an environment for dialogue and collective creation, which resonates with the gallery’s purpose: to ‘‘be a place where art specialists, the public at-large, and youth are able to experience art as a way of thinking and being in the world.” “Just Watch Me” is inclusive and accessible, welcoming all who are interested free of charge. One

of the project’s goals is in fact to attract diverse communities in order to encourage creative and thought-provoking dialogues. As the project is situated amongst Concordia locals, Gongora is particularly looking to attract students, whom he calls the ‘‘leaders of our future society.” While it may be less common in the current Montreal visual arts scene, Gongora’s social club is reminiscent of historical salons of modern revolutions – social gatherings of eminent intellectuals often associated with artistic, philosophical, and political movements of the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, “Just Watch Me” is inspired by artist collectives of the Quiet Revolution: Fondation du Théâtre d’Environnement Intégral, Fusion des Arts, and Mousse Spacthèque. The sixties in Quebec were a hectic historical period marked by the secularization of society, the creation of a welfare state, and many ideologies and movements. Most importantly, the Quiet Revolution is when French-Canadians became Quebecers. Abandoning conservatism, they embraced their differences with pride in Canada, reshaping the identity of the province. This notably led to the burgeoning of a sovereignist movement, with the election of a separatist party in the government. Artist collectives and social clubs were a big part of the development of this consciousness and Quebecois identity. The name of Gongora’s social club is a witty reference to Pierre Trudeau’s famous response to an interviewer during the 1970 October Crisis, when Trudeau enacted the War Measures Act in response to kidnappings by the separatist Front de libération du Québec. When

Ralph Haddad | The McGill Daily CBC reporter Tim Ralfe questioned Trudeau on how far he would go to maintain order by suspending civil liberties, the politician answered, ‘‘Just watch me.” Gongora wishes to ‘‘give a new meaning’’ to this wellknown phrase, and is also sending a straightforward invitation to all to ‘‘come and watch what you and I can do.”

Gongora is sending a straightforward invitation to all to “come and watch what you and I can do. Today, the renaissance of Que-

bec identity is becoming more current and more controversial. The question comes up constantly, brought to public attention by events as diverse as the 2012 student protests, the fall of the remaining separatist parties in recent provincial and federal elections, and the infamous Quebec Charter of Values. As younger generations gradually supersede the baby boomers that experienced the Quiet Revolution, Quebec’s face is changing once again. “Just Watch Me” hopes to provide a space where Montrealers can discuss these questions and changes, both orally and through art. “Just Watch Me” is not, however, the first contemporary art melting pot where poetry ateliers are juxtaposed with experimental films. Just this month, Montreal

has been home to the OUMF interdisciplinary art festival and POP Montreal – mashing everything together seems to be all the rage on the cultural scene. Nevertheless, Gongora seems to be proposing a deeper exploration of culture than just the mixing of media. This social club, if not capable of answering the big questions about Quebec’s future, may still provide an important space where inquiring minds can explore and challenge ideas of identity, in between a yoga workshop or a DJ set. “Just Watch Me” is open Wednesday and Thursday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.. The project runs until October 11. Check out clubjwm.com for event listings.

Poutine and Gender B(l)ender Weekly culture picks from The Daily Rosie Long Decter The McGill Daily

astern Bloc, an interdisciplinary art space and home of Montreal’s Sight & Sound festival, is hosting a birthday party fundraiser this Saturday, simply and mouth-wateringly titled “Poutine.” The day begins with a garage sale featuring your standard

records, CDs, clothes, and kitchen utensils, but also an array of Eastern Bloc specialties, including AV equipment, typewriters, and leftover prints from Sight & Sound. Following the garage sale will be a good ol’ fashioned BBQ, where you can chat with artists and tech wizards alike. Closing off the night will be a dance party, starting at 11 p.m. and featuring the tunes of

Bataille Solaire, Karneef, Country, and DJ ////, complete with an intense light show. Sounds like a good way to spend a birthday – or someone else’s. If you feel less like partying and more like performing this week, check out the September edition of Gender B(l)ender: L’open stage queer. This monthly open mic is an event “for queers and by queers”

that invites attendees to tell a story (or their story) in whatever way they choose – by singing, dancing, acting, or even stand-up comedy. Both an experimental and safe(r) space, Gender B(l)ender is an antioppressive environment that invites all kinds of expression. Hosted by performance artist Kama La Mackerel, this is sure to be an evening of laughter, love, and maybe a little bit

of heartbreak. Poutine is September 27 at Eastern Bloc, 7240 Clark on the 2nd floor. The garage sale runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.. The BBQ runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.. The DJ sets run from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.. Entry is $8 as of 9 p.m.. Gender B(l)ender is September 26, from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at Café l’Artère, 7000 Parc Avenue.

Culture

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

No bad sounds

Anti-colonial hip hop night displays diversity of music and activism Matt Shi Culture Writer

ip hop was born as a platform for individual marginalized voices to come together and be heard. No Bad Sound, a music studio located in Kent Park, held a night of anti-colonial hip hop last Saturday that took the genre back to these roots. Artists gathered at the studio to share their music, stories, and political messages, using music and spoken word to call attention to Montreal’s colonial past and present. No Bad Sound Studios was established in 2007 as an initiative of the Maison des Jeunes Côte-des-Neiges. It aims to help local youth develop their music by providing a place to meet and offering workshops for singing, songwriting, rapping, beatboxing, music production, DJing, and performance skills. The studio presented this evening of anti-colonial hip hop in collaboration with grassroots radical media project Reclaim Turtle Island,

which defends Indigenous land from resource extraction. Amanda Lickers, an organizer from Reclaim who put the evening together, highlighted these issues in her opening speech, stating, “There’s one [problem] called Line 9 that’s about to start spewing genocide in Turtle Island.” The four performances – vocalist trio Strange Froots, instrumentalist Lido Pimienta, rapper Alas, and powerhouse headliners Shining Soul – kept with this political theme in varying degrees, from Strange Froots’ mostly unpolitical lyrics to Alas’ proudly anti-governmental anthems (she consistently referred to Canada as “Ku Klux Klanada”). Somewhere along this spectrum was Shining Soul, who placed equal emphasis on their music’s artistry and message. During their performance, Emcee Liaison of Shining Soul connected politics to his personal life by telling the crowd about the colonized land of the Tohono O’odham (translated as “People of

the Desert”). The U.S.-Mexico border runs directly through the land of the Tohono O’odham, a physical illustration of how disruptive colonial endeavours have been to Indigenous communities. “Our [community’s] stories are still intact,” Liaison said, “but that push to resist is drowned out by these cities, by this concrete.” While colonial oppression was the main topic of the evening, the artists also addressed other forms of oppression: Shining Soul member Bronze Candidate spoke about his goal to “face oppressive institutions such as patriarchy,” and Lido’s third song was dedicated to her friend “whose parents don’t like him being gay.” In addition to their varying levels of political expression, the artists also demonstrated diversity in hip hop, pushing the genre to its limits. Strange Froots sounded like a soul/pop fusion experiment by Kid Cudi enthusiasts, and Pimienta was a roller coaster of drums and bass with a characteristic hip hop sensibility. Neither act would

be considered traditional hip hop, but these artists clearly grew up in the hip hop generation. Froots lacked the aggressive edge shared by the other artists, but the trio was invited back onstage by Pimienta for a few minutes of improvisation. Their collaboration produced a fuller, more nuanced sound than any performer achieved on their own. Alas brought a sound more typical of rap – for one thing, she actually rapped. The artist addressed topics such as land defence, staying true to one’s roots, and police brutality in an expansive and assertive voice. Her passion and hard-hitting (though somewhat cliché) beat, engaged the crowd, fostering a sense of political frustration and even anger, but also maintaining a strong sense of community. Members of the audience were united in their shared convictions. Shining Soul, a duo from Arizona comprising Bronze Candidate and Emcee Liaison, was the most traditional hip hop performance of the

night, featuring mid-nineties-style lyricism and sample-based beats. They were also the musical highlight; there was a confidence and familiarity in their performance that quickly gained the audience’s trust. As mainstream hip hop strays further from its political beginnings, No Bad Sound’s night of anti-colonial hip hop was a lesson in how to merge art and politics meaningfully. Though the performances were not all explicitly political, the coming together of these artists as a community, framed by the message of Reclaim Turtle Island, was a political act. Even the lineup itself stayed true to the event’s mandate: No Bad Sound featured a female majority onstage and in the crowd, the result of a deliberate effort by Lickers. After all, as PassionFroot of Strange Froots explained after the show, “Hip hop was made by oppressed people for oppressed people.” Through distinct yet cohesive voices, these artists conveyed the notion that to protect anyone, you must protect everyone.

A conversation about conversations Sound poet kaie kellough discusses his new album, creole continuum Niyousha Bastani Culture Writer

“

You are fully situated within your language. It’s almost a map of you,” says kaie kellough, Montrealbased word-sound systemizer. kellough just released his new record, creole continuum, an exploration of the sounds that make up language. kellough has performed internationally, authored two books of poetry, and released two sound recordings. Sitting down to meet him, I’m excited to chat with such an eloquent artist, but his language-focused art makes me hyper-conscious of my words. I decide to start at the beginning, asking where the concept for this record came from. kellough explains that he had been “performing the formative stages of language, like reciting the alphabet, speaking gibberish, and spelling,” and he wanted to experiment with stylizing sound pieces around such experiences. The title of kellough’s record, creole continuum, alludes to the 1960s linguistics study with the same name. “The idea,” as kellough explains, “is that in societies with an established Creole, there are degrees to which the dominant tongue and the Creole will mix as you move from standard English to pure Creole and back. That movement is reflective of different social strata, different levels of

education, your family background, and the milieu in which you grew up. The study speaks to how class, colour, and language are all intertwined.” He wanted these ideas to frame the record: “so I pinched the title,” he says. Due to our topic of conversation, all of my attention is drawn to his language and his calm manner with words. kellough doesn’t string his words together with countless ‘like’s. The more I notice his language, the more I want to be the Sherlock Holmes of linguistics, so I ask him about mispronunciation. This makes him grin. “Mispronunciation is fantastic!” he proclaims. “It’s a little detour out of grammar and orderly structure. It’s a great little chaos machine that brings noise and a more immediate perspective on language.” According to kellough, the language that we speak is a refined version of a much more immediate and noisy experience. His record breaks down language into this particular ‘something’ which is raw, messy, and often loud. I mean really loud: think Eliza from My Fair Lady trying to pronounce the rain in spain with marbles in her mouth. kellough concedes that the highly structured language we use has value, in that it facilitates communication and clarity. However, he adds that such language “also mirrors different social hierarchies. So it’s important to look at language from within and without

that structure.” In fact, it’s precisely the malleability of language which attracts kellough to this medium. When it comes to language, he believes that “there are endless possibilities.” Inside kellough’s CD is also a small print of one of his visual poems from a series called “erasure diasporas.” Reminiscent of Rorschach’s inkblot tests, the visual piece shows a patchy gradient of ink with lots of empty spaces to ponder. By focusing on such formative stages, and ideas that are left open to interpretation, kellough’s record defamiliarizes the listener with language. The more oppressive aspects of language linger in this process: the fifth track, “AlphabetA”, is the longest and harshest track. Seven minutes of gibberish backed with music is about as unbearable as it sounds. kellough explains his aggression toward the English language, which you can’t miss in these more jarring tracks, by linking it back to his fascination with mispronunciations. “As someone with distant African origins, mispronunciations are a way into the emptiness created when the dominant tongue was imposed on other languages, erasing the mother tongue.” However, the record’s jarring sounds shouldn’t put you off. creole continuum is full of possibilities. The first few tracks are orally lighter, like children toying with sounds. The third track reminds me of the kit-

tens in Aristocats bouncing off piano keys with their paws. After this track, a sense of struggle sets in. Language fights back, stumbling and stuttering to ear-piercing noise. “It’s an aesthetic approach,” kellough maintains, “but it isn’t always pretty.” It’s true. Depending on your mood, some tracks may sound like a migraine, but other tracks may make you smile. The sounds sometimes cause discomfort, but for those of us living in diaspora, they also act as comforting reminders of how malleable language can be. Very much aware

of this malleability, kaie kellough challenges us to rethink language, in ways as simple as always using lower case letters. “I use a visual approach. It’s a leveling of language, and I like the way it looks,” he explains. But even here, kellough seems wary of clinging too tightly to any form of language. He admits that “still, capitals can be useful sometimes, but only if you’ve got the right font.” creole continuum is available for download at howlarts.net/kaie

Culture

September 22, 2014 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Cows: our worst nightmare Moo-vie points to animal agriculture as primary cause of environmental decline Joseph Boctor Culture Writer

inema Politica Concordia kicked off its 2014-15 season with Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, a hard-hitting film on environmental destruction that markets itself as the new An Inconvenient Truth. Co-directed by narrator and researcher Kip Andersen and videographer Keegan Kuhn, it presents the primary cause of environmental deterioration: cows. More specifically, it cites the production of commercial livestock and society’s ever-present need for increased meat and dairy production as the culprits, not to mention corporate greed, willful political blindness, and the environmenal activism groups that are witholding these truths. While the documentary is convincing in its presentation and heartfelt in its message, Cowspiracy comes off as a series of strong convictions and half-baked answers.

While the documentary is convincing in its presentation and heartfelt in its message, Cowspiracy comes off as a series of strong convictions and half-baked answers. The film starts with a general biography of Andersen, who was inspired by the horrors of An Inconvenient Truth to become an environmental filmmaker himself. Now a strict vegan and a selfproclaimed “obsessive recycler,” Andersen tells the story of his realization that changing his individual lifestyle was not enough. In his search to discover a way to make an actual impact on the environment, Andersen began to look for the root cause of all the problems he sought to fix. After extensive research, he arrived at the conclusion that the true cause

of most of the planet’s destruction comes directly from the practice of animal agriculture – in other words, the practice of raising (and in most cases slaughtering) livestock for edible products such as meat and dairy. With eye-opening statistics – for example, animal agriculture accounts for fifty one percent of greenhouse gases – and numerous interviews with scientists, disgruntled ex-farmers, and representatives of the top environ-

be working to solve these environmental issues either do not know their actual cause or choose not to share it with the public. Andersen also adds a personal edge to the film by portraying how environmental activists such as himself have suffered for their research, citing the repression and murder of green-minded activists in Brazil, and the closer to home case of Cowspiracy losing its financial backing due to the film’s potential for controversy.

sen also devotes time to explaining the dietary reasons for a vegan lifestyle. But whether these are viable options already in production or in the growing stages of development is not made clear. Additionally, the film does not address the development cycle for these kinds of products – whether they produce waste as well. In a question-and-answer session after the film, Andersen claimed that “roughly 98 per cent of people have access to vegetables,” without acknowledging that

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret reveals the harm of animal agriculture. mental activist organizations, Andersen cements his argument. In the end, there is a sincere plea to switch to a vegan diet as it requires less land, produces less waste, and could potentially rebalance our planet’s ecosystem. Anderson manages to present the sheer size of the consumptive waste that is created by and for livestock with both gravity and subtle wit. The film’s facts are shocking and provoke the viewer to contemplate the severity of our planet’s environmental degradation. Cowspiracy emphasizes the seriousness of a siuation where not only is the government not paying attention, but the organizations who claim to

Instead of coming off as overly dramatic, this angle supports and propels Andersen’s message beyond mere contemplation. However, the film does not focus on much more than these cold facts. Whether the absence of proposals toward an environmental solution is intentional or not, it is undoubtedly where the film’s faults arise and where questions go answered. Don’t be mistaken, the film does devote some time toward showing the alternatives to meat and dairy eating; for example, the production of equally-nutritious, plant-based “meat,” “yogurt,” and “eggs,” or community farms that grow plants and vegetables. Ander-

and financial situations. At one point in the question-and-answer session, Andersen went so far as to call meat eating “an addiction to animal flesh and animal secretions.” With this kind of mentality it will be hard to foster a discourse with meat-eaters, let alone catalyze a worldwide dietary change – the movie ends up translating as more of a guilt trip than an impetus for change. While the film presents its ideas with an impressive fervour

Eleanor Milman | The McGill Daily

meat alternatives are often more expensive than fast food, and thus inaccessible for large portions of the population. The absolute lack of acknowledgement of any kind of complications that could occur with the shift toward veganism (both as a diet and means of using land) makes the proposed solution come across as a godsend rather than a viable option in the eyes of a discerning viewer. Andersen also hinders his own argument with a clear personal disdain for meat eaters. Given the circumstances of the film, this bias is understandable. However, for the uninformed it ignores a diversity of upbringings, traditions, beliefs,

toward respecting the lives of animals, inspiration does not successfully cover for the lack of information on the practicalities of ending animal agriculture. This gives the idea of living as a vegan an idealistic appeal but ultimately less credibility. Due to these limitations, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is unlikely to cause an agriculture revolution. That said, it certainly provides some good food for thought. Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret will be available for DVD purchase and digital download November 6, and is currently available for preorder.

Editorial

volume 104 number 4

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

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Flush transphobia down the toilet

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Dana Wray

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

Janna Bryson news editors

Jill Bachelder Emma Noradounkian Igor Sadikov commentary & compendium! editors

Emmet Livingstone features editor

Hannah Besseau science+technology editor

Zapaer Alip

sports editor

Drew Wolfson Bell

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

culture editor

Rosie Long Decter multimedia editor

Alice Dutrut photo editor

Tamim Sujat illustrations editor

Alice Shen copy editor

Molly Korab design & production editor

Rachel Nam web editor

Arielle VanIderstine community editor

Diana Kwon le délit

Joseph Boju

rec@delitfrancais.com cover design Alice Shen & Tamim Sujat contributors Jill Bachelder, Niyousha Bastani, Joseph Boctor, Benjamin Elgie, Kateryna Gordiychuck, Isabelle Grégoire, Dominic Gunewardena, Ralph Haddad, Daniel Huang, Clara Lagacé, Tanner Levis, Leanne Louie, Eleanor Milman, Kristian Picon, Mallory Rappaport, Emily Saul, Sevrenne Sheppard, Matt Shi, Myra Sivaloganathan, Martin Tremblay

ince 2007, McGill has committed itself to creating a more inclusive campus by building gender-neutral washrooms. As part of this initiative, the current Redpath Library renovations will include the creation of a gender-neutral washroom. Although this is an important step forward, McGill is still far from establishing a gender-inclusive campus. Gender-neutral washrooms are not explicitly labelled male or female, and therefore do not exclude trans people and those whose gender presentation does not align with the gender binary. In May 2007, the Joint Board-Senate Committee on Equity recommended that every newly constructed building on campus include a gender-neutral washroom. The Committee also recommended modifying single-stall washrooms into gender-neutral ones by changing signs and locks. Yet, many major buildings at McGill including Stewart Biology, James Administration, and the Law Library still don’t have gender-neutral washrooms. The ability to use the washroom without a second thought, and without fear, discomfort, or the threat of violence, is taken for granted by many people. However, going to the washroom can be a

daily struggle for those who are not cisgender or for those whose gender presentation does not conform to the gender binary. Offering gender-neutral washrooms is one of the most basic steps in supporting trans rights, yet even in this, McGill has been incredibly slow. Converting single-stall washrooms is also not enough. Forcing individuals to choose a single-stall washroom, especially if gendered (men’s and women’s) washrooms are nearby, can mark people as different and even potentially out them as trans. McGill’s policy on gender-neutral washrooms is a good start, but considering the policy was put in place in 2007, there has been very little progress. Many of the changes are minor and do not require a great deal of effort or resources on the part of the administration. Not providing immediately accessible gender-neutral washrooms is not something to be taken lightly; it exposes people to daily discomfort and the fear of violence. It is McGill’s responsibility to ensure that our campus is a safe space for the community. —The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata The article “The occidental jihadist” (Commentary, September 15, page 9) incorrectly stated that the population of Iraq is predominantly Sunni Muslim. In fact, Iraq is predominantly Shia. The Daily regrets the error. 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert

Mathieu Ménard Lauriane Giroux

dps board of directors Joseph Boju, Juan Camilo Velásquez Buriticá, Dana Wray

All contents © 2013 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff. Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec. ISSN 1192-4608.

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Compendium!

September 22, 2014 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Lies, half-truths, and a literary look at the burrito.

Hemingway eats at Quesada Newly discovered short story

Heaven Sent The McGall Weekly

ime, when you really think about it, makes no sense. Thus, the discovery of this short story by Ernest Hemingway. It describes the protagonist’s meal at the newly opened on-campus Mexican restaurant, Quesada. It was 1:25 exactly when class ended; I had an hour until my next class and I needed to eat. I was hungry. My class was in the Education Building and I did not want to eat in the bleak, fluorescent Education cafeteria. I decided to walk down the hill to Bronfman. There was a lot of construction along the way. I wanted to eat at the new Mexican place. It was called Quesada. I had never been. As I walked into the modernlooking Bronfman cafeteria, I could not believe the line. It stretched to the entrance. I entered this line: this must be worth it. I looked at my phone. I scrolled through Instagram, and liked a couple photos. I checked my Twitter. I briefly dealt with Facebook. My friend’s snapchats were funny. The line inched forward. I saw the options for the burritos. Regular, large, and big ass. You could get a big ass burrito. In what place could this ever be appetizing? I did not want to go to the counter and ask for a ‘big ass’ burrito. The sound of it hurt. I decided I wanted a large. I looked at the options for meat. Steak. Yes, that would be good. I asked for a large steak burrito. With white rice and black beans. Then I saw the steak. This steak

“I’ll stay with you until I am dead.” did not look natural. It did not appear to be from any cow I had ever known. It was grey. It looked as if it were created by some steak-substitute sludge. Still I decided to try it. I looked at the counter. I could tell that this restaurant was trying to be like Chipotle. But it was as if these people saw Chipotle and wanted nothing to do with food quality. It was probably more profitable that way. The number of topping choices was almost overwhelming. I did not want to slow down the people behind me. I got the guacamole for 75 cents extra. I even got the corn. I do not like corn that much, but I didn’t want to delay any longer. They heated the whole burrito

on another press, and then handed it over to me. I wanted it to go. I wanted to battle this burrito in private. I paid, and it seemed like a reasonable cost. I went to the SSMU lounge. I saw a friend there. She said, “I haven’t had Quesada yet. I don’t like burritos. They’re like a foodtube of stuff.” I was initially shocked. I like burritos. As I unwrapped this burrito, though, it was a food-tube. But I would finish this burrito. I took the first bite. At most I could say: it was a burrito, with beans, and rice, and cilantro, and onion, and corn. But there was no distinguishing flavor. It was all mush. I got to halfway through the

Samim Tujat | The McGill Daily burrito. It had begun to drip something that could not be identified. But I would not be defeated. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. [Ed’s Note: Possibly written before The Old Man and The Sea]. Each bite was a battle. The meat was grey and slimy, barely tasting of anything. Though I knew I must beat this. “I will eat you, burrito,” I said to the last fourth of it. “I will say I have eaten Quesada.” I looked at my phone – 2:10 p.m.. “Burrito,” I said, “Burrito, you are going to be eaten anyway. Do you have to make me late for class too?” I got to that part of the burrito where it has been destroyed from two sides. I thought of the great Joey Chestnut, who ate all those

hot dogs. I must be worthy of the great Chestnut, who could eat all those hot dogs despite his pain. I tipped it over and took the last couple of bites, hoping that I would not have the drippings of this burrito on me. I thought the great Chestnut must be proud of me today. I finished. I wrapped up my trash, careful to corral all the juices, and threw out my bag. I started to walk back toward Education. I was nearly out of breath by the time I arrived. It was 2:32 p.m.. I found a seat. Yes, I conquered that burrito. But all through class, and for the rest of the day, I was uncomfortable, my stomach rumbled. In my life I was never to feel at ease again.

Dean of Farts throws tantrum

Dean Manfreddo actually a baby, according to new consensus Lucy Peaseblossom The McGall Weekly

S As seen at McLennan: I literally can not even...

tudent journalists were shocked to learn last Monday that Dean of Farts Christopa P. Manfreddo had blocked them on Twitter, the popular social networking service. The Weekly learned of the shock move when its journalists were on one of their mandated internet creeping sessions. After prolonged negotiations with Manfreddo’s mommy, Weekly

reporter Baphomet Muscletone was allowed to approach the Dean of Farts for comment, on the condition that he “play nice.” “Sometimes the other kids call me names and it makes me sad,” admitted Manfreddo. “Besides, my mom says I’m cool,” he added, nervously fiddling with his backwards cap. Farts Faculty insiders weighed in, saying that Manfreddo could be “a bit touchy,” in an anonymous email to The Weekly. “He’s a humourless drone,” they continued. “We live in

a constant state of fear that we’ll insult his ego with some throwaway remark. He’s hell-bent on abusing what little power he has and takes criticism pretty rough.” Reported sightings of Manfreddo playing with the SSMU babies have long drawn comment from students at McGall. Popular opinion has now coalesced over the Dean’s motivations. “At first when I saw him clutching that leash with the little kids I thought it was some kind of publicity stunt,” said Jill Spell-

binder, U2 Occult Sciences. “I guess he’s just more comfortable among his own.” Weekly reporter Muscletone brought up the allegations in front of Manfreddo, but was rebuffed with piercing wails of “it’s not fair” and “no one understands me.” “Don’t you worry about him,” Mommy Manfreddo told The Weekly, after the Dean had gone to bed. “He’s usually bright as a whistle after I tuck him in with his chocolate milk and read him his bedtime story.”