vol98iss2

Volume 98, Issue 2

September 4, 2008

McGill THE

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News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

3

MUNACA snubs another McGill proposal Adrienne Klasa

The McGill Daily

D

efeating their General Assembly (GA) motion to accept the University’s latest proposed contract Tuesday, employees of McGill University’s Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) surprised their executive, who had recommended they accept the offer.

McGill redrafted its contract proposal following last Thursday’s GA – when a fire alarm prevented MUNACA from voting on a strike motion. The motion would have officially mandated a rotating or full-scale strike if an alternative agreement with the University was not reached by Labour Day. MUNACA has softened its intentions to apply pressure tactics in light of the revised contract, according to MUNACA President Maria Ruocco, who asserted that MUNACA will not immediately resort to drastic action when negotiating with the University.

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happens,” Ruocco said.

The vote was clear – with 62 per cent of the 800 union-members in attendance voting to reject the contract – but Ruocco thought the University’s revised proposal was fair.

“The top quarter of the pay scale would suffer, but for the benefit of the collective. [The Executive] thought it was a good deal,” Ruocco said McGill offered employees in the top quarter of the pay scale a $300 signing bonus and the rest of MUNACA’s members a 12 per cent pay increase. Union workers would also be granted weekend and night

shift premiums for the first time.

Ruocco said that the union rejected the proposal because of the sharp disparity in the wage increases offered to MUNACA members. She cited the University’s willingness increase teaching assistants’ (TAs’) and professors’ wages by increments that outweigh the 12 per cent on the table for MUNACA workers as another possible explanation for the outcome.

According to SSMU VP External Devin Alfaro, McGill’s precarious financial situation may explain why the Administration offers wage

increases in small increments to its unions. The University is severely underfunded and is currently $58-million in debt, he added.

“This is Neo-liberalism on the ground,” Alfaro said. “Here we are seeing the result of 20 years of bad public policy. McGill has calculated to transfer underfunding as low down as possible. They are penny-pinching.”

Negotiations with McGill began last December, after MUNACA’s contract expired at the end of the previous month. The union is the largest at McGill with 1,800 members, representing all non-academic support

staff, including nurses, technicians, librarians, and clerical workers.

According to Alfaro, the media coverage of the recent TA strike landed the administration knee-deep in bad press for its union-busting tactics. He suspected McGill would try to avoid a similar situation with MUNACA negotiations.

Alfaro said that SSMU will maintain distance in its support for MUNACA’s struggle with McGill and will continue to do so should they decide to strike.

“This is their struggle, and they need to lead,” he said of MUNACA.

Community Gardens revitalize urban landscape Olga Redko

The McGill Daily

A

lthough over 160 community gardens were closed in Montreal last spring due to soil contamination, the push to green a concrete city through gardening remains strong.

McGill University’s Department of Architecture has been at the forefront of the movement to increase green space through the efforts of its Minimum Cost Housing Group (MCHG), which focuses attention on improving housing in poor nations.

Part of this process involves creating urban spaces where food can be grown in portable containers.

According to Vikram Bhatt, director of the MCHG, the group’s “Making the Edible Campus” project, which began last year, is part of an effort to look at issues such as producing food in urban areas from a different point of view.

“We are looking at...growing food on rooftops, looking at a city which has a lot of land wasted,” Bhatt said.

He explained that the MCHG has focused on the concrete Burnside plaza near the northern “stairs to nowhere.” Now, with the work of the MCHG and its volunteers – including McGill students and members of the Montreal community – the area has been filled with containers in which vegetables are grown, thus providing a green space for McGill students to enjoy. All the food that is produced in the garden is in turn donated to Santropol Roulant, a community organization run by young people who deliver meals to those who are elderly or lack autonomy.

Both Bhatt and Santropol Roulant’s Green Project Coordinator, Tim Murphy, noted that the Edible Campus program was part of an effort to close the food loop.

“The garden [at McGill] is part of our work toward a complete food cycle,” Murphy said. “We compost

Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily

Food from community gardens springing up all around Montreal help feed those in need. most of our kitchen waste, so we can grow vegetables, and the vegetables come back to the kitchen.”

Part of Santropol’s goal, he added, is to make its organization sustainable: trying to ensure that its food is grown locally, without pesticides, and with healthy varieties of seeds – all ideals the McGill project is able to achieve. As a measure of its success, Edible Campus was awarded a 2008 National Urban Design Award by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

Edible Campus is not the only program of its kind, however. The Edible Campus project is only one of several “rooftop gardens” initiatives supported by Santropol Roulant and its partner, the international solidarity organization Alternatives, which works toward the development of sustainable societies. In August, students in the Environmental Science program at Université de Québec

à Montréal (UQÀM) created a new self-managed garden on the roof of UQAM’s Design building, and produce grown there will goes towards feeding those without any food or shelter.

Ismael Hautecoeur, the head of Alternatives’s rooftop gardens project and a founder of the regroupement des jardins collectifs du Québec, stated that McGill’s Edible Campus garden is the main demonstration site for introducing rooftop gardening techniques to the public, allowing volunteers from the city to maintain the garden regardless of whether they are students or not.

“The idea is that it’s open and accessible to anybody who is interested in jumping into urban agriculture,” Hautecoeur said. “Universities are the most accessible sites we could think of.”

He added that other gardening projects have been created across

Montreal, and have even been started internationally in Mexico, Cuba, and Senegal. Furthermore, the Université de Montréal (UdeM) has expressed interest in an urban agriculture project of its own. Ultimately, Hautecoeur explained, the goal is to promote the different models of urban gardening used in Montreal throughout the rest of Canada and its other universities.

The common vision of Santropol Roulant, Alternatives, and the MCHG is to take an environmental approach to their work of creating sustainable gardening in urban areas. They are intent on providing an educational experience to the volunteers participating in urban agricultural projects, said Hautechoeur.

“If generation after generation of students learn and enjoy discovering the garden, we will have done our job.”

4

News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Summer construction lazes on Master Plan fails to connect Arts and Science buildings with pedestrian tunnel; promises sustainable changes Sarah Babbage

The McGill Daily

T

he steam tunnels beneath McGill’s roads are crumbling, necessitating a construction project that has left students to weave around barriers and cranes on their first days of class.

Two major tunnels are currently under construction: one between the Leacock building and Morrice Hall, the other beneath the open space just inside the Milton Gates.

Construction in the area was setback when a water line burst over the summer.

The University advised issued water advisories on affected buildings throughout the summer and closed others entirely. According to Robert Stanley, Project Director of Facilities Development, construction on the Leacock tunnel is still on schedule and is expected to be completed by November.

“The new tunnel will be wider, which will make it easier for servicemen to do maintenance,” he said, adding that the pedestrian tunnel will also be replaced.

Radu Juster, Project Coordinator of McGill’s Master Plan, indicated that construction around the Milton Gates will be more lengthy, with the site expanding north toward the James Administration building

extending into late 2009.

“The area may not be put back the way it originally was,” said Juster. “We don’t know yet.”

McGill’s Master Plan, published in 2006 after a lengthy consultation with the McGill community and a team of consultants, outlines McGill’s goals for the campus and provides guiding principles for all campus construction jobs. The document prioritizes sustainable and environmentally–friendly construction, a commitment to community, and the preservation of heritage buildings.

While construction around the Milton Gates was motivated by the crumbling of the tunnel rather than the Plan’s principles, Juster sees the overhaul as an opportunity to ensure new sustainable guidelines are followed.

“We don’t want to miss an opportunity to improve things once we’ve dug it up,” he said.

According to Juster, McGill has hired consultants to look at how the Consultants have yet to decide how to space could be relandscaped, taking into account the need to facili- to take the Plan’s principles into tate pedestrian movement, bike and account. Stanley indicated similar vehicle traffic, and parking. No pro- projects next year will focus on tunposals, however, have been received nels running under University, just north of Sherbrooke. from consultants.

“That will be a major job because Currently there are no further construction plans that fall direct- the area has so much traffic. We are ly under McGill’s Master Plan, but working with the City of Montreal to upcoming projects will continue plan it,” Stanley noted.

Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily

landscape the area outside the James Administration building.

According to Juster, constructing a pedestrian tunnel between the Arts and Science buildings will not be possible.

“It would be nice to close the loop [of pedestrian tunnels], but it’s beyond our ability to fund because pedestrians can’t go through the service tunnel. A second tunnel would

have to be built,” he said.

Juster asserted that several terraces, including those around the Redpath Library and the Stuart Biology building, will be replaced next year. Working groups have already been set up to study the areas and see what improvements can be made.

Keep the military out of universities, urge Montreal activists National Defence funding does not dictate research, insists war studies director Giuseppe Valiante

CUP Quebec Bureau Chief

A

ctivist Cleve Higgins, U3 Sociology and International Development Studies, views military funding on Canadian campuses as a threat to academic freedom. Along with his activist group, Operation Objection, he’s determined to fight against it.

The Montreal-based group spent the summer tracing the money trail from the coffers of the Canadian Forces, to Canadian universities, all the way to the battlefield.

“Is [the military’s] presence a neutral one? Can that be seen as impartial if they’re receiving fund-

ing [from the military]?” asked Higgins. “It raises questions that are problematic about the role of universities influencing foreign affairs issues.”

The group distributed flyers detailing their research to Quebec students during university orientation sessions, and hoped their movement gains momentum nationwide.

Operation Objective formed last year and was active in trying to end military recruitment on Quebec campuses. This year they aim to educate students and lobby student unions to adopt policies condemning military funding.

According to Higgins, militaryfunded research in science and engineering helps produce weaponry.

He feared money aimed at political science and history departments produces political analysis that beats the drums of war, influencing public opinion towards a more militant foreign policy.

Marc Milner, director of the Gregg Centre of the Study of War and Society at the University of New

Brunswick, disagreed.

“Never once in all the time that I have been involved in any strategic studies program...has anyone phoned me up from Ottawa and told me what to do,” said Milner.

Milner indicated that the Gregg Centre, which focuses on teaching modern military history, receives 25 per cent of its yearly funding, which equaled to $120,000, from the military – the maximum amount a program can apply for.

While this may seem like a lot, Milner noted it represents only a fraction of budgets for larger war studies centres across the country.

He explained that funding from the Canadian Forces comes from the Security and Defence Forum (SDF), which was created in the late 1960s after the Reserve Officer Training Corps – recruiting programs for mobilizing groups of young men and women in anticipation of a third world war between NATO and the Soviet Union – disappeared from Canadian universities.

Milner attributed the growth of

nuclear arsenals and the adoption of mutually assured destruction theory as causes for closing the training centres. From then on, universities were required to apply to the SDF for funding.

“The objective of the [SDF] is simply to get a rainbow of opinions across the country...outside of the Ottawa beltway,” Milner said. “Most of the people I was involved with through the SDF were very vociferous against the Canadian deployment of troops to Afghanistan.”

“From our perspective, we think it’s a good thing that the Department of National Defence is actually looking for opinions outside of Ottawa,” he added.

A full list of contracts awarded by the Canadian government, including the Department of National Defence (DND), can be found on the government’s web site and goes back as far as 2005, though the listings lack indepth detailing.

Operation Objection reported Dalhousie University in Halifax as the highest university recipient of DND

funding since 2006.

The Canadian government listed Dalhousie as having received over $5-million from 39 contracts since October 2005.

Courtney Larkin, president of the Dalhousie Student Union, said the issue of military funding had never surfaced on campus during her years in student politics.

“We have a very diverse population here,” said Larkin. “There may be students with that concern, but at this point, it has not been brought to my attention.”

But according to Higgins and the rest of Operation Objection, universities should not be in any way dependent on the branch of the government responsible for occupations of foreign countries.

“We oppose what military research implies,” Higgins said. “The way that we’re responding is by confronting it where it’s associated with us.”

Calls to the Department of National Defence were not returned as of press time.

News

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

5

Students wait to be waitlisted Janina Grabs News Writer

T

he Art History department introduced Minerva’s waitlist feature this semester when faced with an excess of students desperate to secure a seat in its few undergraduate classes, but waitlists are largely full, leaving many students out of luck.

Five undergraduate classes have waitlists, but at press time, only two spots were open. With about 250 undergraduate students enrolled in the department, nearly all of the 13 courses offered by the Department are full.

Justine Desrosiers, U1 Art History, was disappointed that winding up on the waitlist for Photography and Art was not solving her registration concerns.

“I wouldn’t have taken this course if the others hadn’t already been full, and here I am on the waitlist as well,” she said.

The corridors outside Art History Faculty advisor Maria Gabrielle’s office were swamped yesterday with anxious students desperate to land a spot in full classes. Students criticized the waitlists and complained that being waitlisted removed the chances of landing a spot in a class by hounding Minerva.

Art History Department Chair, Dr. Jonathan Sterne, admitted that the department was dissatisfied with the current waitlist software and hoped it will be developed soon to prioritize graduating students.

“The system has some real limitations and more sophisticated waitlist software could be developed,” Sterne told the Daily in an email.

U1 psychology student Margot

van der Kroget, also trying to get into Photography and Art, said she has given up hope.

“The department is definitely too small for the great demand,” van der Kroget said.

Staffed by 14 professors and a handful of teaching assistants, the Art History department has struggled in recent years to accommodate students in its major and minor concentrations. In September 2007 – when three undergraduate classes were cancelled at the last minute – the department decided to only credit students a maximum of six credits from the Communications department. The departments then merged and changed their name that year to “Art History and Communications Studies.”

Assistant Art History Professor Richard Taws wasn’t convinced that increasing the capacity of undergraduate classes is the appropriate solution to overcrowding.

“We don’t want our teaching to be compromised. It is important to maintain the standard [of teaching],” Taws said.

Sterne said the department is looking to introduce classes on Islamic and First Nations’ Art in the coming years. The department plans to recruit a new full-time assistant professor to teach Early Modern/Renaissance Art

by August 2009. He is worried that the University’s reluctance to increase faculty numbers overall will make the Art History Department’s plan for expansion difficult to realize.

Taws urged students desperate to meet calendar requirements for completion of their majors and minors to meet a faculty adviser.

“We try to problem solve during disaster time, rather than wait too long,” he said.

Tuition hike slams international students Nicholas Smith

The McGill Daily

C

oncordia’s Board of Governors finally succeeded in raising tuition for international students by $1,000 a year last Friday, after four failed meetings, including one in June of questioned legality.

Concordia violated the provincial Corporations Act when it called the closed-door teleconferencing meeting in June, only legal with the approval of all board members. The teleconference was called when a meeting a week prior failed to reach quorum.

Ruling that the teleconference meeting was arguably illegal, the Quebec Superior Court judge granted the Concordia Student Union (CSU) a preliminary injunction to stop the hike. Elie Chivi, CSU Vice-President Communications, was pleased the

injunction reprimanded Concordia for circumventing provincial rules.

“Our administration knows we will hold them responsible,” he said.

The first attempt to raise tuition was in September 2007, but as the school aimed to collect money for the term already in session, the proposal was delayed. At the next meeting in March, 200 protesting Concordia students were unsuccessful in persuading enough Board members to vote against the raise.

The CSU demonstrated again to prevent the hike on Friday outside the University’s in-person meeting, but with the CSU unable to legally challenge the administration further, the tuition hike passed.

“Legally, we’ve done everything we can,” Chivi said.

The CSU is planning to restart applying political pressure to prevent future international hikes.

Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

With Quebec’s harness racing industry in dire straits, a group proposes public housing in the Hippodrome’s place.

Montreal horse racing on last legs Erin Hale

The McGill Daily

T

he possibility that the land occupied by the Hippodrome de Montreal may become transformed into public housing is quickly slipping away.

Attractions Hippiques halted live races at the Hippodome when forced to file for bankruptcy protection in late June after steady losses and was hoping to build a larger complex north of Montreal. However, the company’s restructuring plan, due in October, is now likely to include plans for a redevelopment of the current Hippodrome, previously known as Blue Bonnets Racetrack in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-deGrâce (CDN–NDG) borough.

The current site, totalling 55 hectares is being eyed by the local Côtedes-Neiges Community Council, which proposed that the land be used to construct 2,500 public housing units. Though Attractions Hippiques runs the Hippodrome, the land is owned by the provincial government through the Societé Nationale du Cheval de Course.

Michel Therrien, communications press agent for the borough, noted that no firm plans have been made.

“It’s a complex topic, and there are too many players, [although]

there will be a community consultation when we’ve got a plan,” said Therrien.

Therrien pointed to Liberal Senator Paul Massicotte, who owns Attractions Hippiques, as the main reason that no projects are in the works.

“This guy is already sitting on the chair – if he’s not there anymore... maybe then we’ll have a project,” Therrien said.

Massicotte’s comany, who has already invested $38-million in Quebec gambling ventures, has attracted some controversy for his influence over the Hippodrome.

François Legault, the finance critic of the Parti Québécois, accused Massicotte of using his ties to the Liberal Premier of Quebec Jean Charest to further his business interests.

According to Gerard Landry of RSM Richter, an accounting firm that is supervising the restructuring of Attractions Hippiques, the company is likely to propose the construction of a Ludoplex – a larger, Vegas-style structure, combining horse racing, gambling, Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs), live shows and concerts, and family entertainment. While it was originally proposed to build a Ludoplex north of Montreal, the difficulty in finding a location returned attention to the current site.

While its attributes may indicate

promise as a potential tourist attraction, Henry Aubin, a columnist at The Montreal Gazette, says it will likely become a financial sinkhole.

“Of the two Ludoplexes built [in Quebec City and Trois Rivières], both are making far less than anticipated,” said Aubin. “They are making financial loses for two reasons. One, there is no smoking – and gamblers love to smoke. Two, people just are not interested in horse racing anymore.”

Gambling has been on the decline in Quebec, and some are questioning whether it deserves further investment. Even Massicotte admitted the company’s financial struggles due to this trend in an open letter to the media: while expected to receive $28-million in 2007 from government gambling revenues, the company instead got only $8.1-million, and will likely only receive $8.8-million this year. The company has also struggled to earn a profit from the VLTs at the Hippodrome, and it is unclear whether a larger investment in the same area will reverse a failing trend.

The CDN–NDG borough has been commended for their greenfriendly redevelopment by online magazine Spacing Montreal, but could be hard-pressed to deliver similar social change initiatives on this site if the Hippodrome redevelopment proceeds. Speculation is that the track may open its gates for live races as soon as next weekend.

Mind&Body

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

6

The great safe-inject debate New Quebec Health Minister shoots down plans for safe-injection sites around the province, local groups come out in protest

Nadja Popovich

The McGill Daily

E

arly this summer, plans for a safe inject site (SIS) pilot program seemed to be getting serious in Quebec. Though no concrete plans had been laid down, tentative pilots were proposed for Quebec City and Montreal. However, Quebec’s incoming Health Minister Yves Bolduc scrapped the plans shortly after they began unfolding.

Bolduc’s predecessor Philippe Couillard, who stepped down from his post in late June, had been considering setting up a safe injection site project in Quebec, but Bolduc’s office announced a turnaround in their stance towards SISs. Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services under Bolduc held that there was not enough direct evidence in support of safe injection sites for the project to go on.

The announcement came less than a week after Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement delivered a speech at the Canadian Medical Association’s Annual Conference (CMAAC) attacking the merits of safe injection sites, and citing “profoundly disturbing” ethical concerns.

Most recently, a number of community health organizations, including the Coalition des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte contre le SIDA (COCQ-Sida), an umbrella organization consisting of over a dozen local activist groups, have come out in direct opposition to the new decision to scrap the SIS project.

Where to draw the line?

Currently, North America’s only safe injection site, Insite, is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, but even this site’s continued existence came into Health Minister Clement’s line of fire.

Clement’s office provided a transcript of the CMAAC speech, which particularly expressed great moral concern over government’s role in establishing safe injection sites. He stated that this type of service really provides “palliative care” rather than a road to “full recovery.”

While he did not call for a full-out closure of Insite, he outlined funding

cuts for the safe injection services at the facility in favor of detox and classical rehab expansion.

“I believe we have to draw the line somewhere with regard to these kinds of measures,” stated Clement, calling it a “slippery slope.”

“Already there are people saying injection sites are not enough, that government should give out heroin for free,” he stated.

While most Canadians are not calling for government drug handouts, the idea of “inhalation rooms for people who smoke their drugs” is a less far-fetched concern in Clement’s slippery slope argument. Even so, drug inhalation cannot be directly compared to injection. Clement seems to miss that it is the nature of injecting drugs which is problematic – unlike inhalation, injection carries with it more ominous risks, such as facilitating the spread of infections and disease.

The issue is further complicated by the absence of comprehensive statistics on the impacts of safe injection sites on target populations.

For instance, few concrete numbers exists on the role of safe injection sites in reducing new HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C infections, as well as other injection-related diseases.

Clement cited an Expert Advisory Committee commissioned by his office as having found no sure evidence of supervised injection – such as that offered at Insite – making “any difference at all in the transmission of blood-borne infections, including HIV/AIDS.” Despite the lack of statistics on infection transmission, there is evidence that safe injection sites can be beneficial to users. A study published on behalf of the Society for the Study of Addiction found that “the SIF’s [safe injection facility’s] opening was associated independently with a 30 per cent increase in detoxification service use, and this behavior was associated with increased rates of long-term addiction treatment initiation and reduced injecting at the SIF.” Health Canada’s web site offered a similar assessment, stating that although the evidence is inconclusive on the impact that safe injection services have on rates of blood-borne disease or injection-related infections, the sites “positively impact many at-risk behaviors,” such as

North America’s first and only safe injection room at Insite in Vancouver, BC. decreasing needle sharing and increasing the regular use of condoms.

Contradictory ethics While Clement’s concern stems, in part, from the questionable ethics of allowing illicit drug use under government watch, he also sees SISs as an inappropriate form of patient care. In his speech, he characterized safe injection facilities as offering “palliative care,” not “full recovery,” asserting that rather than addressing the problem of addiction directly, they only “slow the death spiral of a deadly drug habit.”

Others, however, would rather call safe injection a philosophy of harm reduction.

Quebec director of public health Alain Poirier shares the latter opinion. He has been a steadfast voice of support for the plan for Quebec safe injection sites, even as the Health Ministry’s stance has shifted with the change in administration.

“We have evidence that they could be part of a solution – even if not the solution – to the consequences of drug use,” said Poirier.

He views these sites in a more positive light than Bolduc or Clement.

“They have given good results where they have already been implemented,” Poirier said. “I’ve been to Geneva. I went to visit the sites they have. There is a big difference from what we have here.”

Starting with the Netherlands in the 1970s, many countries around the world, including Germany, Switzerland, several northern European nations, and Australia have implemented safe injection programs as a tool in their fight against drug abuse. Poirier sees Quebec as being able to gradually integrate a similar system.

“In Quebec we have 820 sites where you can exchange old syringes for new ones – sterile materials.

There are exchanges in most pharmacies, hospitals, and some community organizations. This is the next step,” he said.

What Poirier noted as the problem is a lack of consensus. “It is feasible [to have safe injection sites around Montreal and Quebec] but we first need consensus.... We need a group of citizens [to back the sites].”

Still, he concedes that people don’t know what to think about these types of facilities, and have nowhere to turn for answers. “Do these sites increase the number of drug users?

The number of people on the streets?

The answer is no, but people wonder,” Poirier said.

Meanwhile, local community groups are openly calling for a reevaluation of the stance against safe injection sites by the Ministry of Health and Social Services .

Members of COCQ-Sida are among those coming out against the decision. One such group, Anonyme, is a Montreal-based organization aimed at helping young people with drug addictions, health problems, and other issues leading to social exclusion.

Julien Montreuil, Anonyme’s Coordinateur à l’Intervention, asserted that safe injection sites can be an integral part of the fight against drug addiction, and the range of negative consequences that can accompany intravenous drug use. To him, Clement and Bolduc’s stances against the expansion of these facilities are counter-productive to the war on drug abuse.

“When we give people who inject drugs clean materials to use, we give them advice about their proper use, general health, and other issues. But I feel like I then have to say ‘now go to a very dirty place and shoot yourself up.’ However, with safe injection, we could continue to help these people and offer other services. The sites would be a good door to come to for people in need, for

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Coastal Health

people who wouldn’t otherwise go to clinics,” he said.

Montreuil also expressed concern over the moral considerations touted

by Clement. “Tony Clement said that the ethics of doctors are at question [with regards to] safe injection sites.

But what is more ethical – letting the people shoot up in back streets?” asked Montreuil.

Instead, Anonyme sees safe injection facilities playing a positive role in the battle against drug abuse, especially as a transitional step towards full recovery.

Montreuil is another believer in the harm reduction approach. Much like Poirier – who has called SIS’s a “complementary service,” not one necessarily in opposition to that of classical detox and traditional rehabilitation – Montreuil sees safe injection sites as a good intermediate level of care, specifically for those who are not ready to go into detox or who have tried it and failed.

“A lot of people aren’t able to quit right now, but the motivation from inside is better than from out,” said Montreuil. “If the government sends you to detox, it’s not the same as if the person is ready to work on it themselves, to quit the lifestyle of drug abuse. It’s society’s responsibility to help these people even when they can’t quit. We need to help them be as safe as possible in this situation so that they can eventually make the choice to go to detox of their own will.” He holds that safe injection sites can play an integral role in this.

So far, community groups have spoken out against the decision to halt plans for the safe injection sites at a press conference denouncing the Quebec Health Ministry’s stance.

But Montreuil promised that “we will continue to fight this.”

“The government doesn’t need any more delays,” he said. “Mr. Bolduc just needs the population to stand up and say ‘hey, this is a good thing.’”

Mind&Body

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

The 100-mile diet: liquid edition all hopped up Joseph Watts

A

s the first days of school and the last days of summer are upon us, one phase of drinking slowly morphs into another.

Languidly beating the heat on a terrasse with a bottle of beer in hand turns into complaining about profs and exams over pints at Biftek. The reality of student drinking is that it’s often centred more on where and why you’re drinking rather than what you’re drinking. Even more disheartening for the student beer enthusiast is watching as large, corporate beer factories are chosen first, time and again, just for their price.

However, thanks to a 25-year-in-themaking revolution in beer taste, craft beer is all around us. If you’re sitting outside at OAP reading this, chances are you’re sipping a Boréale from Les Brasseurs du Nord, a brewery that has been filling taps around the city for 21 years. They are the exclusive supplier of all SSMU functions – including Gert’s – thanks to a switch in contracts from the Coors-owned macrobrewery Molson back in 2005.

Why should you care, let alone be proud of Quebecois craft beer on campus? Because consuming locally is a more sustainable, responsible, and delicious way of eating and drinking. No one would disagree that Jean Talon market has higher-quality ingredients than the downtown IGA. Food and drink produced in Montreal and its surroundings carries with it the flavour of the region.

In a piece on local food in the current issue of The Mirror, it’s noted that in Quebec, “eating well has been moving out of the insufferable foodie preserve and into the mainstream,” citing the appeal of “avoiding long-

distance imports.” As barley and hop farming in Quebec grew to supply the market, a wholly local beer became a reality. The rise of the “locavore” deserves credit for propelling the popularity of craft beer and piquing interest in bière d’ici.

Craft beer is distinctive in that it picks up attributes of the regions in which it is made. The Boathouse Brewpub in the tiny town of Ely, Minnesota, where wild rice is harvested in canoes 16 kilometres from the Canadian border, uses this local ingredient to make a beer that is spicy, bold, and unique to its surroundings.

More locally, Brutopia (1215 Crescent) revived the proud Quebecois tradition of spruce beer, brewed in New France for almost 400 years.

To sample the beers of Quebec

– which boasts more than 60 breweries – is to sample the regional variety from Chicoutimi to Chelsea. Provincially, the Quebec Microbrewers Association forms vital connections amid this decidedly underground community, while advocates within Montreal are found behind the numerous taps at Vices et Versa (6631 St. Laurent). And closest to home, here at All Hopped Up, local beer is the name of the game. Check back all year for everything devoted to the craft of the draught.

All Hopped Up serves up commentary on the world’s best libation every other Thursday.

Have a mind or a body?

Write about it.

There will be a Mind & Body meeting today, Thursday, Sept. 4, at 7p.m. in the Daily office (Shatner B-24).

Come with questions, suggestions, & yer thinkin’ caps on.

Aaron Vansintjan for The McGill Daily

7

8

Features

Snakes, SSMUshies, and Ladders With the SSMU executive geared up for their year ahead representing the student body, The Daily provides you a run-down of where we think they might fall off the board and which freshly minted campaign promises they’re likely to deliver on.

President

Kay Turner Roll the dice Turner claims she’s ready for her game of SSMU round two. She says that Council’s rejection of a student-run café in Shatner – a cause dear to her heart – has given her the gusto to revamp SSMU’s decision-making process. While we would have preferred for that gusto to have kicked in last year instead, we’re eager to see if last year’s SSMU social butterfly has morphed into a more effective student leader.

Ladder rungs – one by one Turner’s thinking big, and we’re skeptical. She wants to lay the groundwork for future executives to implement a student-run café in Shatner’s second floor food court and plans to use a student research team to draft a successful model.

Seeking more effective interactions between students and Council, Turner is overhauling the committee structure for an improved consultation process.

The planned committees will focus on SSMU-relevant issues, have elected members and members-at-large, and meet before decisions are voted through in Council. Turner envisions publicizing regular meeting schedules on SSMU’s new website – whenever it finally appears. Turner’s goals are well-thought out, and full of good intentions, but last year she couldn’t even get the creation of a woman’s caucus for Council off the ground. Her ambitious plans could stir councillors from their apathetic slumber if successful, and bring long-term improvements to Council – only if she pulls it all off.

Snake bites

Clubs and Services

Samantha Cook Roll the dice Hailing from small town Massachusetts, Cook got her feet wet in campus politics last year while administrating Queer McGill. She took two weeks off this summer from familiarizing herself with the paperwork in her filing cabinet to relax in an itsy-bitsy British coastal town where she shared the beach with geriatrics. Fun? Yes. But relevant to student politics? No.

Turner is hoping that holding the year’s first General Assembly (GA), scheduled for early October, outdoors will make the decision-making process more appealing to students. But that didn’t work last year. Neither did postering or sending out listservs, so Turner’s promises to enhance posters with more jazzy information such as instruction on how to strike a motion, – still make us skeptical. Furthermore, with additional guidelines for GAs posted somewhere in SSMU’s notoriously unreliable cyberspace, students may remain mystified by their union’s bureaucratic process.

Turner also has lofty plans to involve the administration when battling student issues – a good idea. In theory. We worry that Turner’s plans may actually backfire and her vision to utilize the administration as an information source for students’ referendum campaigning against ancillary fee hikes, for example, could look more like administrative propaganda than useful guidelines.

Finance an

Tobi

Ladder rungs – one by one The school year has hardly started and clubs are already complaining. So many are set up with office space, so why do they have to shuffle this weekend?

Cook wants to save clubs money. She is proposing online templates made available through SSMU’s website to take the pressure off of clubs to create independent sites, for which SSMU can charge over $200. Remember when SSMU’s website was updated? We don’t.

Snake Bites While Cook is flaunting her ability to assist those who come to her, we’re worried she’ll fail to reach out to those clubs and services who don’t. And with her sights set on revamping the Old McGill Yearbook and guiding The McGill Tribune to independence, students that come a knocking might be faced with a closed door. Cook admits that there is no way of keeping track of how frequently postgraduate students use SSMU services. Why then did she try to charge the Post Graduate Students’ Society $16,000 to grant their use of SSMU clubs and services?

External

Devin Alfaro

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

9

Roll the dice Webster’s got some decent experience under her belt – a definite perk to her portfolio – but the VP Internal position is harder than it looks, and after seeing Webster parading around campus last week with blowup toys, we’re having a hard time taking her seriously.

Ladder rungs – one by one Webster is all over the Web. Thanks to a summer spent in the office, the SSMU website has had a complete overhaul, though it’s still missing its English version. With the First Year Office, Webster also commissioned a website to aid first-years through McGill’s plethora of orientation events. Good luck finding it.

Webster’s planning to make event-planning a cornerstone of her portfolio.

Highlighting McGill’s Varsity athletics and pumping the Faculty of Music’s concerts is great and all, but Webster is at a loss for ideas to mobilize students for causes on campus, GAs in particular.

We’re waiting to see if Webster will surprise us. And if 4Floors will actually happen this year.

Snake Bites Despite efforts for a greener Frosh, last week’s beer fest still left a flood of plastic and trash scattered on lower field. Organic cotton shirts were the event’s main green star, as Webster’s failed to implement a re-usable plate system. She should have taken tips from RadFrosh. Webster worries that due to record-breaking registration numbers for Frosh, event logistics may fall apart for following years. Say goodbye to drunk white-water rafting.

internal

Julia Webster

Roll the dice While it’s no surprise to see a management student heading up Finance & Operations, Silverstein – new to SSMU – came out of left-field, snatching the portfolio when the previously-acclaimed VP resigned. He seems to have the numbers in line. We wish we could say the same about his ethics.

Ladder rungs – one by one Silverstein has spent a lot of time organizing the files in his office. Whoopie.

While he says that he recognizes the complexity of his portfolio, SSMU’s finances are historically an incurable burden. Haven Books, Silverstein claimed, is inundated with customers, but the store’s shelves are a mess, and the most concrete improvement he cited was an increase of pre-ordered text books. By how much? “More than last year,” Silverstein said.

Snake Bites

nd operations

ias Silverstein

We’re concerned Silverstein’s lack of experience in SSMU might be difficult for him to overcome. He described the summer, a time critical for laying a good base for the future of operations, as “transitional,” and referred to Liquid Nutrition, the new tenant of Shatner space, as “very affordable.” It’s not. At all. Silverstein is also apathetic about several politicized issues. GAs have not passed his radar, and apparently, if he had it his way, Council would never have considered a student-run food outlet in Shatner.

Roll the dice With two years experience on the External Affairs Committee, this articulate SSMUshie has some background know-how for this tricky profile. He travelled to Sherbrooke, Quebec City, and Ottawa this summer. He said – with a straight face – that it was fun.

Ladder rungs – one by one Alfaro has bank-rolled time collaborating on SSMU relations with external organizations – governments, universities, student unions, and the like.

Making new friends is nice, but making concrete plans is nicer. Alfaro knows what he has to do – encourage students to attend GAs, rally their support for political movements – but we’re not sure he knows how. His avoidance of the political-speak that becomes so ubiquitous among SSMUshies is refreshing.

Snake Bites The most glaring problem is that we still can’t see how Alfaro intends to achieve his lofty goals. The intransigence of McGill and Quebec are notorious, and we have seen nearly nothing concrete on getting students involved and interested. It’s going to be a steep uphill climb for Alfaro.

University affairs

Nadya Wilkinson Roll the dice

Wilkinson, a green-thumbed Vancouverite, is the happiest SSMU-shie we’ve seen in a while. And we like it. But there is such a thing as being too nice. Wilkinson’s optimism can go either way – leaving her trampled and jaded come May, or University’s new favourite student.

Ladder rungs – wone by one We like that Wilkinson is more that just talk when it comes to making sustainability a priority on campus. Thanks to her initiatives, a new sustainability office should be popping any time now. She’s even pushing an academic agenda to get students credit through their involvement. She has high hopes for a sustainability policy fitting snuggly into McGill’s structure. Alas, hopes are not enough.

Wilkinson is looking to student senators as a resource to promote GAs, but inspiring them to help may be harder than inspiring students to attend.

Wilkinson also noted strategies such as student consultation sessions and long-term planning. Hasn’t every SSMUshie?

Snake Bites We’re concerned Wilkinson’s lack of experience in the SSMU system will inevitably invite a grueling learning curve, and we’re curious to see how she juggles the year-long Senate review and coordination of a new ombudsperson for SSMU. Prioritizing a hard-line stance for more transparent relations with the administration is key, but doesn’t seem to be on the top of Wilkinson’s agenda. Unfortunately for her, it’s going to take more than a warm personality to crack the icy hearts of McGill’s tangled bureaucracy.

Photos by Stephen Davis. Illustrations by Noelani Eidse

10 Commentary

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Media ignores gender violence in school shootings

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F

rom Columbine to Dawson College, news reports of school shootings, time and again, have detailed the actions of the gunman or gunmen, as it is rarely women who pull the trigger.

The stories told by the media generally explain these crimes the same way – either by suggesting the perpetrators’ actions were influenced by violent television and video games, or by blaming mental conditions or a difficult upbringing.

The common thread of their masculinity is rendered invisible by its constant presence, and perhaps rightfully so, as it is certainly not their masculinity alone that leads them to commit such acts. But the gendered nature of school violence has, in several cases, reached beyond the gender of the perpetrators.

On October 2, 2006, a 32-yearold male truck driver walked into a one-room schoolhouse in the small, Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Armed with a shotgun as well as a handgun, he lined students against the chalkboard and released the male students, but kept the female adults present.

After barricading the door, all of the ten remaining girls were shot.

Five died. The gunman then killed himself.

Less than a week earlier, on September 27, 2006, a man entered Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, fired a warning shot, let the male students go, and kept six female students in the classroom.

He sexually assaulted some of the six girls, eventually letting four

leave one-by-one. When the police stormed the room, he shot and fatally wounded one of the remaining girls, then killed himself.

As I came across these stories of violence against women in the newspapers, I remember being astounded to see that there was little coverage of either of these events as hate crimes against women.

For days, full pages in notable newspapers were dedicated to explaining aspects of the Amish lifestyle of the girls killed in Nickel Mines, or to discussing these events as indicators of the need for increased safety precautions to be taken in schools. Nowhere, it seemed, was there coverage discussing how these events targeted women specifically.

Reading the press coverage following these events, I felt like I was the only one who noticed. I wasn’t.

Fuelled by a feminist blogosphere, and the desperate pleas of feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women, eventually, some press emerged to articulate that these acts of violence were not random, but targeted women.

The Christian Science Monitor published an article identifying the gendered nature of the crime in Nickel Mines.

The New York Times’ Bob Herbert wrote an excellent piece published on October 16, 2006 that linked both the crimes in Nickel Mines and in Bailey to a broader culture of misogyny where the degradation of women is so pervasive that “the startling aspect of the Pennsylvania attack” in which boys were sent out of the classroom “was that this terrible thing happened at a school in Amish country, not that it happened

to girls.”

What is most interesting for me as a Canadian feminist was that, particularly in the Canadian press, there was no mention of how these school shootings might be understood in relation to the 1989 Montreal Massacre, when Marc Lepine stormed Montreal’s École Polytechnique with a gun, separated the men from the women, and killed 14 women – all under the claim that he was “fighting feminism.”

In all three events, a man external to the school explicitly targeted women therein, made the male students leave, and attacked the remaining female students.

The explicit targeting of women in the Montreal Massacre caused a definitive outcry, both by feminist groups and the media regarding the event as symbolic of the larger need to combat the pervasive nature of violence against women.

By choosing to present certain stories in certain ways, the media effectively constructs, to a certain extent, public consciousness of certain events. It logically follows that in doing so, the media plays a large role in how the public may remember these same events.

In the case of the Montreal Massacre, as the related press demonstrates, those framing the story in the media often identified the event as one of misogyny, articulating how the Massacre might be understood as one extreme within a broadly experienced spectrum of violence against women.

Framed as a symbol of misogyny by the press, then, the Montreal Massacre has been remembered as an instance of violence against women, emblematic of other instances of vio-

lence against women, remembered widely at vigils every December 6, and for some of us, in the many days between.

However, the failure of the press to identify these most recent femaletargeted school shootings as acts of violence against women, then, has impeded on the ability of the public to remember said events as violence against women.

When these events are not articulated as acts of violence against women by the press, and are instead, discussed in terms of Amish lifestyles, or the pathology of the killer, the common thread of women as constant targets that runs between them is, like the masculinity of the perpetrators, rendered invisible.

The insidious and unremitting character of violence against women evident in these school shootings is therefore presented as random, rather than specifically gendered.

In telling the story of these shootings, the press did not tell the story of the inherent misogyny that these events entailed. As a result, the fight to end violence against women is denied another opportunity to rally support.

What does it say about our society, when such unambiguous violence against women fails to be identified as such? What message do we, as consumers of mass media, get when the gender of the victims in two separate school shootings explicitly targeting female students is barely mentioned?

Perhaps Bob Herbert said it best, writing that the outrage and the naming of the event as a hate crime that might have occurred if the same event had targeted “only the black kids…or the white kids… or the Jews,” did not, because “these were just girls, and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected.”

Although a school shooting explicitly targeting women has not occurred since Nickel Mines in October, 2006, innumerable instances of domestic violence and of sexual assault continue to occur each day.

Has something changed in the 20 years since the Montreal Massacre that has rendered the press unable to tell it like it is? Or has the level of violence been so great for so long that it is no longer worthy of mention when it is women in the line of fire?

The instances of the shootings in Nickel Mines and Bailey are then, in their own way, symbolic.

These events represent, for me, the way that the media has failed women by allowing the misogyny rife in these acts of violence to go unnoticed, and as such, to enable it to continue, unnamed and unidentified by the media and consequently, unseen by the public.

11

Commentary

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Letters: Police, tough-love, and more pot science

McGill’s union issues

ernment announced that François Brière was named and mandated to assist the Sûreté du Quebec police investigate the “situation” in Montreal-North and to protect the public.

Who will François Brière protect – the public or the police?

We thought that MUNACA’s General Assembly (GA) last Thursday would culminate with the approval of a strike mandate. Instead, it ended with a blaring fire alarm and an unfinished agenda.

The labour union, which represents McGill’s nonacademic staff – including library assistants, technicians, nurses, secretaries, grounds keepers, and others – has been negotiating its contract with the University since December. But only when a strike seemed like a real possibility did McGill finally pull itself together, upping its original offer of a 10.5 per cent pay increase over four years to 12 per cent last Thursday. On Tuesday, the union rejected the offer.

The proposed salary increase is not what MUNACA hoped, and it’s not the 18.5 per cent increase that McGill offered to professors, but it is an improvement. But the offer came almost a year after negotiations began – and only when a strike was just a fire drill and a single, threatening vote away.

McGill seems to be testing its limits, seeing how little it can offer before facing any true opposition. The last time McGill dared to be so careless with one of its unions, we all suffered. The TA strike, which endured for 11 weeks, had tremendous ramifications: classes were cancelled, professors dazed, lawsuits and grievances filed, students alienated and insulted by their administration’s apathy and its complete disregard for their academic experience. We should avoid a similar situation with our non-academic staff, without whom our campus would crumble.

The University’s behaviour with unions – and their willingness to let negotiations hit the extreme time and time again – is indicative of a serious flaw with this administration. It speaks to their lack of investment in the quality of campus life and student wellbeing. It’s not only these negotiations that are driving us to feel this way; it’s the new event booking policy that bans political and union rallies on campus, and other clamp downs on campus life.

The administration must hang up its cloak as a corporate monster when negotiating with its unions. It must stop investing its funds and time on protracted and unnecessary battles with its unions and begin investing in its students and staff.

MUNACA has not yet approved a strike mandate; it has only rejected the administration’s newest offer, and for now, they’re hoping that action will be extreme enough to inspire change. We urge the administration to change its bargaining tactics before our non-academic staff abandon their posts and head to the picket lines.

Letters Brière’s big day In 2004, a police officer of the Montreal police force, Eric Lehner, testified in court, and based on his testimony an honest citizen was convicted. Shortly after, this citizen filed a complaint with the police’s Internal Affairs department, alleging that the police officer perjured himself. After a lengthy investigation, the Montreal police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau confirmed that Constable Eric Lehner had committed a criminal act by perjuring himself. The file was handed over to crown prosecuator Mr. François Brière who immediately dismissed the case and refused to proceed to protect the innocent victim and the population. Constable Lehner is still a police officer with the Montreal police.

The victim filed a motion with the Barreau du Quebec to have disciplinary measures brought against Francois Brière and have his license revoked. This hearing will take place on October 2, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. at the Barreau du Quebec located at 445 St. Laurent, room 350.

A few weeks ago the Quebec gov-

Andy Srougi Human Rights Activist

Power, control, and...weed?

Re: “Does my teen need help?” | Mind & Body | April 7, 2008 Whether it takes the form of advertising, “tough love”, or police raids, drug prohibition isn’t about drugs, it is about control.

The kids sent through these “tough love” camps, or any “antidrug” programming are not being corrected for drug use as such, they are being punished for disobedience.

The only people who seem to like these punishment-based programs are the fearful weirdos who think that we all need some sort of dad to do all of our thinking for us and use a firm hand on us when we are “bad”. They would gladly sacrifice their free will for any measure of security or “belonging” to the collective. Since they buy into the whole father-knows-best power and authority paradigm, and fear works so well

FILL THIS SPACE. Can’t ya just feel it yearnin’ for your opinions?

The McGill Daily needs columnists.

Please send three 500-word sample columns and a short letter of intent to commentary@mcgilldaily.com

by Sunday, September 21.

And until then, write a Hyde Park.

They’re good for you!

at keeping them in line, they think everyone else should live the same way.

But if you accept that the government has any say as to what you can or cannot put into your own body, then you must accept their ownership. That means that they own you, like a pet, or cattle, and you have only the rights that they grant you. If you accept that, then you deserve to have no rights at all.

Russell Barth Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis P.S.: Recent science out of Germany shows how cannabinoids stimulate the body’s production of TIMP-1, which helps healthy cells resist cancer invasion.

This might explain why chronic pot smokers have lower – not higher – rates of cancer than tobacco smokers (as a recent California study showed).

Please send letters to letters@mcgilldaily.com from your McGill email address, and include your name, year, and program, so we can stop printing letters from strangers. Please keep letters to 300 words for style and brevity. We will not print letters that are racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, ableist, or otherwise hateful.

mcgilldaily .com where the good times roll

Errata In the “Daily Disorientation Guide” (Sept 2), The Daily included an incorrect phone number for the McGill Nightline. The service’s number is 514-398-MAIN (6246).

In “Students find shady jobs through CAPS,” (News, Sept 2) The Daily incorrectly identified Dan Ryan as the owner of Downshire Capital, when in fact the owner is Carol McKeown.

In the same article, The Daily wrote that nine students had been fired from their summer job; in truth only six were fired, three quit.

The Daily regrets the errors.

Editorials

Don’t sell our artists short Artists and politicians across the country have been up in arms about recent cuts to federal arts funding announced by the Harper government. Two programs aimed at promoting Canadian artists abroad have been scrapped entirely, with five others taking heavy cuts. Shock and outrage among the arts community has been running high – particularly in Montreal, host to a highprofile protest last week.

The Conservatives justified the cuts, reasoning that government money was being senselessly allocated to “fringe arts groups that, in many cases, would be at best, unrepresentative, and at worst, offensive.”

Surely there’s more to Canada than heritage art and culture alone. The government would do well to foster artistic innovation and progress as well – whether it’s on the fringe or not.

Cultural production gives an important boost to the Canadian economy.

According to a study by the Conference Board of Canada, the arts generated $84.6-billion in 2007, or 7.4 per cent of Canada’s GDP – and culture sector employment exceeded 1.1 million jobs in 2007.

Further, Quebec stands to be particularly affected by the cuts. Francophone artists face a relatively small audience in North America, making government support even more crucial. It’s no surprise that protests have been so loud around here, given that the cuts stand to disproportionately disadvantage a province with a past of being culturally dominated from the outside.

To the federal government’s credit, they have given support to artists who exemplify the multicultural, changing face of Canada, from Hindi ghazal singer Kiran Ahluwalia to Indonesian Gamelan Orchestras. But if Canada seeks to raise its cultural reputation internationally, it needs to be spreading word on its vibrant creative community far more than it has.

The recent policy changes have especially affected how artists, filmmakers, and musicians can tour. Without helping members of Canada’s creative community make their name abroad, how can the country ever hope to be seen as innovative, exciting, and inspiring?

Asserting cultural identity is particularly important for Canada because of its close proximity – culturally as well as geographically – to the United States.

With such a globally pervasive culture right next door, fostering Canadian voices in the arts is hardly just an aesthetic project; it’s an economic and social one, too.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

12

Red scare

FAT ASS GRAPHIC

Less money, mo’ problems

Ben Peck / The McGill Daily

Conservative government cuts $48.5-million from federal arts funding Caitlin Manicom

The McGill Daily

“C

onservatives have never been friends to the arts.

These are dark days that, as an artist, one just has to wait out.”

This fatalist cry from McGill’s new Canadian Cinema professor and experimental filmmaker Michael Crochetière rings uncomfortably true.

This summer, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government relayed an infuriatingly backwards message to the Canadian public. Comfortably nestled in their seats atop Parliament Hill – which lies next door to Ottawa’s National Art Gallery and close to the National Art Centre, both of which bring thousands of tourists to the capital each year – the Tories announced plans to cut almost $50-million in federal funding for the arts.

This act will eliminate several overseas touring programs and seriously harm institutions like Telefilm.

Digitization groups are also being hit hard, while similar organizations dedicated to the digitization of national content have recently received heavy increases in funding across the European Union and even

the United States. The Canadian government is already far behind many European countries in terms of artistic and cultural promotion.

Representatives of Stephen Harper argue that these cuts are necessary, that money is being placed in the wrong hands. According to the CBC, Anne Howland – a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs – went as far as citing Toronto experimental rockers Holy Fuck as a prime example of wasted funding. Is it really a question of quality, or is the government imposing their own subjective moral standards?

Much like the complicated relationship between censorship and federal money, thriving artistic communities are intrinsically linked to the growth of the national economy.

If the Tories cannot understand the importance of the arts in creating a national identity and voice, surely they aren’t blind to the billions of dollars generated by jobs in the arts sector each year, and the tourism promised by a booming cultural scene?

Crochetière admits that playing the “economic card” is often the only way to convince the government that funding for the arts is a nation’s life support, not wasted pennies. As a

low-budget filmmaker, Crochetière has dealt with his fair share of art grants and funding committees.

“You can speak to a bureaucrat forever about how great culture is, but inevitably their eyes glaze over until the moment you say it creates jobs,” says Crochetière.

With the looming likelihood of an election, it seems Harper has been too busy to consider the fact that the culture industry employs millions of Canadians, not to mention that it cultivates a quintessentially Canadian audience and allows Canada to interact culturally at a world level.

Two of the groups most affected by the cuts, PromArt and Trade Routes, allow Canadian artists to travel abroad. From musicians to dancers to puppeteers, nearly every Canadian that tours overseas relies on organizations like this for funding.

FLAK – a dance company based in Montreal – has benefitted from PromArt funding in the past and, as FLAK’s Valerie Buttle laments, would have continued to apply for PromArt grants. For Conservative ideologues, Holy Fuck’s seemingly obscene band name might be too raunchy to handle, but is there any plausible excuse for cutting the funds of a dance troupe, opera, or symphony orchestra?

“Overseas tours are important if we want to take our place on the world stage of culture,” argues Buttle. Although Canada’s funding for the arts compares unfavourably to nations with similar economies and population sizes, Canadians are generally well-respected overseas.

Admittedly, until a few years ago no one outside the country seemed to have heard of any Canadian artists other than Rush and Bryan Adams.

This has changed, partially thanks to the soon-to-be-defunct PromArt and Trade Routes programs, which helped groups like Arcade Fire successfully export their music.

Andre Guerette, the co-manager for acts such as Patrick Watson and Miracle Fortress, touring manager for Montreal-based label Blue Skies Turn Black, and a member of Montreal band AIDS Wolf, argues that public funding is an essential part of any overseas tour.

“Thankfully,” Guerette says, “none of the bands I work with have been directly affected by the cuts. The problem is that this doesn’t bode well for what the Conservative party will try in the future.”

Prepared to fight against a future sans arts councils and public funding, 2,500 enraged artists and activ-

ists convened at Montreal’s Société des Arts Téchnologiques on August 27 to show the Tories that they won’t let the arts be pushed even further onto the back burner of government policy.

But what about those that weren’t roused out of their daily routines by the news?

Perhaps the most frightening thing about the Tories’ unabashed dismissal of the arts is that far too many Canadians seem to accept or even endorse the funding cuts. In the chain of reader comments that follow related articles on the CBC’s web site, about half of them sided with the government’s actions.

Yet, as Crochetière argues, even those who support the policy changes are ironically interacting with a news source that certainly wouldn’t exist without public funding. “We’d be left with American Fox News, with the lowest common denominator – is that what the public really wants?”

Crochetière demands.

No one deserves to have Fox News at the epicenter of their cultural existence. Clearly, it’s high time for Canadians to protest a government whose public policy simultaneously censors artists and stifles creative culture and economy.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Who is KK Downey?: hipster comedy hits home Braden Goyette

The McGill Daily

W

e are the voiceless generation that has yet to do something genuinely new to define itself – so the argument goes.

Enter Terrence, a man-child pushing 30, the protagonist of Who is KK Downey?, the first full-length feature production from Montreal-based Kidnapper Films. His ex-girlfriend won’t return his calls, his band plays to an empty room, and he walks around his house half-dressed, asking: “Does this underwear make my dick look fat?”

He’s an upper-middle-class hipster at rock bottom, until he and his best friend Theo invent KK Downey – a legend in a wig and a fedora whose tragic story finally gives all the scenesters “something to give a shit about.”

KK is the main character of Truck Stop Hustler, a novel Theo has spent three years writing, only to be told that it’s unpublishable. Apparently, no one wants to read wild stories of child prostitution and drug abuse

CULTURE brief Rapid-fire art analysis Twenty images, and 20 seconds per image – this is the only guideline for the ten specialists presenting at next Wednesday’s Pecha Kucha.

Modestly described by the event’s organizers as “a regular show-andtell event,” these nights of animated discussion and idea exchange promise a fast-paced respite from crusty academia, with to-the-point expositions from a changing array of artists, architects, designers, musicians, and animators, not to mention young intellectuals.

The words pecha kucha are a Japanese expression for the sound of conversation. Started by Klein Dytham Architecture, a firm of Western architects based in Tokyo,

from a suburban white kid; as his publisher points out, “just about everyone has one of those at home these days.”

Adapting to times where authenticity has become a commodity of its own, Terrence and Theo switch tactics and market Truck Stop as an autobiography. When it becomes a hit and people start calling for KK, Terrence dons a blond wig and a limp southern accent, and voilà – a star is born.

Based loosely on the stories of literary hoaxes like JT LeRoy and James Frey, the film plays with the absurdity of a culture so starved for authenticity that selling it can become quite a racket.

The only one who’s not buying the KK hype is Conner, the painfully pompous music critic who’s also dating Terrence’s ex-girlfriend, Sue. With his over-enunciated pronouncements (“this song is quite contrived”), horrendous haircut, and mile-wide ego, Conner’s a caricature of the worst kind of hipster snob. The plot thickens when Conner sets out to bust the KK hoax and finds more than he may have expected.

Unlike their protagonists, the

the Pecha Kucha series was conceived to give designers a forum for their ideas and the opportunity to present their visions, from as-ofyet unattained dreams, to projects fully realized. Events are now organized across the globe in locations as diverse as Tokyo, Honolulu, Beijing, and Munich.

Held at the Societé des Arts Technologiques, (1195 St. Laurent) the seventh event of their Pecha Kucha series begins at 8:20 p.m. on Wednesday, September 10. Tickets are enticingly priced at $5.

One of next Wednesday’s presenters, Tina Piper, an assistant professor of Law at McGill, will speak in support of Creative Commons, a global project which allows authors, artists, scientists, and educators to “mark their creative work with the permissions and restrictions they want it to carry.” Aaron Sprechler of Open Source Architecture and modern composer Eldrich Priest will also present.

– Joshua Frank

The Culture section wants YOU! (yes, you)

Come to our weekly meetings: Tuesdays at 5:30 in Shatner B-24.

New writers always welcome.

filmmakers are writing what they know. The directors, Darren Curtis and Pat Kiely, are Montreal natives who have known each other since grade one, and have a close relationship with the object of their satire.

“Maybe I like to think of myself as on the periphery, but I’m probably a fullblown hipster,” admitted Kiely, who also plays Conner in the film.

It’s a funny accident of timing that the release of this “hipster comedy” coincides with the recent publication of an Adbusters article citing the subculture as a symptom of the end of Western Civilization. Even more ironic, considering that KK is positioned as the voice of a generation.

Conner himself gives the set-up for KK’s introduction, holding court in front of a crowd of awed admirers in

a local cafe: “Name one artist who’s had as much influence on our generation as Dylan had on his!”

The characters in this film want to be all kinds of things that they’re not. Terrence and Theo want to be everything but boring kids from the suburbs. In high school, they dreamt of being rappers; as twentysomethings, they’re romanticizing a hard life on the streets. In both cases, they’re longing for the “underdog cred” that they hope will make them edgy and interesting. Truck Stop Hustler is such a hit because all the readers have similar insecurities – and, ironically enough, because the work of fiction is, as Sue puts it, “so honest.”

Are we living in a cultural void?

Is our generation so preoccupied

13

with looking cool that we’re missing something of substance? Kiely remained skeptical that youth culture today is much worse than past generations.

“I think hipsters do have big ambitions,” Kiely said. “Maybe they just don’t know how to get there.”

It looks like the members of Kidnapper Films are making good on some of their ambitions, pulling off Who is KK Downey? on next to no budget, thanks to the help and support of the Montreal arts community.

Maybe we don’t have a common cause to fight for, but some of us have got spunk.

Who Is KK Downey? comes out Friday at the AMC Forum theatre.

14 Culture

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Pictures speak louder than words Matthew Forsythe’s graphic novel Ojingogo rethinks the relationship between words and images Alexander Weisler The McGill Daily

F

or a medium that’s considered visual art, comic books sure do involve a lot of reading.

While it’s becoming more common for mainstream superhero comics to feature sequences of silence, the verbose tradition of a medium that once paid writers by the word – Batman creator Bob Kane got every cent he could out of DC Comics in his earliest issues – remains prevalent.

“I think Western comics have a tendency to overdo the dialogue and sound effects,” says Montreal-based cartoonist Matthew Forsythe.

“I think we got that from Stan Lee,” he says, referring to the cheesy catchphrases that fought colourful artwork for attention in Lee’s SpiderMan. Composed of both prose and sequential illustration, comics often pose a challenge comparable to subtitled films, as they force readers to alternate their focus between the two.

Like all fiction, comics require a suspension of disbelief, but some of the more absurd elements of the text can disrupt that. At the launch of his new graphic novel Ojingogo at Librarie Drawn & Quarterly last week, Forsythe shared an example by illustrator Jack Kirby. In the panel, the captain of a fighter plane orders his crew

to abandon ship, though the reader can see that they are already doing so.

Forsythe also recalls that the unrealistic sound effect, announced in red block letters, distracted him from the graphic narrative.

While living in South Korea for a year, Forsythe became entranced with Asian comics’ tendency to blend illustrations with text. This is due as much to style as to the graphic appeal of Eastern languages, whose stylish characters lend themselves to sequential art. The Hangeul alphabet that Forsythe learned in Korea seemed to fit better than traditional Kirby-esque sound effects. “Hangeul is based on the shape our mouth makes when we say it,” explained

Forsythe at the launch. “It’s a sequential art in itself.”

Forsythe began his illustration career as an editorial cartoonist for McMaster’s university newspaper. “It was just so cynical and I didn’t want to spend every week doing negative comics,” he recalls, though later he took a similar post at an Irish magazine. “Only when I moved to Korea did I turn things around and get positive.”

Eager to explore Asia, Forsythe ended up in a town outside Seoul, where he taught English in an environment similar to a French immersion school. With little knowledge of the local language, Forsythe found himself using what he calls the “universal language” of drawings to communicate with students.

Forsythe composed Ojingogo while immersed in the pervasive cartoon culture of South Korea. In a country where poop is a popular cartoon property, even signs warning of deadly safety hazards are tinged with cuteness. “They have a greater sense of fun with things we take more seriously,” the artist notes.

Though Forsythe explains that Ojingogo began as a “manga version” of his friend Vanessa, a photographer whose camera gains a mind of its own in the comic, it became a response to the alienation he felt in South Korea. “I wanted to make a comic that was a little cryptic and obtuse because it captures the feeling of being in a foreign country,” he says. “Being around all these people I

couldn’t understand, it was like a second childhood.”

Aptly, Ojingogo is suitable for the underage set. Forsythe describe the black-and-white fable as “a Koreanflavoured Alice in Wonderland.”

Nearly wordless, except for occasional Hangeul characters, Ojingogo can be flipped through in a few minutes or thoroughly examined on a rainy day. With his North American audience in mind, Forsythe didn’t necessarily intend for the characters to be read, though their graphic simplicity makes them easy to understand. “There’s something cryptographic about Asian languages,” says Forsythe, which makes them useful for expressing quick thoughts and emotions.

The artist is glad to be back in Montreal, where he works for the National Film Board and teaches at Concordia. “French culture is much more connected with Asian culture,” he says. “I can go to the Bibliothèque Nationale and read new translations of manga they don’t have in English yet.”

Though he is currently at work on a non-fiction comic meant to teach Korean, Forsythe hopes to return to the world of Ojingogo. He’s satisfied enough with his new release, though; “The goal was always just to finish a comic that I could be proud of.”

Ojingogo can be found at Librarie Drawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard O). It is 152 pages long and sells for $14.95.

Courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly

Ojingogo’s illustrations were inspired by the language barriers of living abroad.

Compendium

The McGill Daily, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Lies, Half-truths, & CARTOONS!

15

I still don’t care what you did this summer Sarah Mortimer

The McGill Daily

I

t’s the part of returning to school that you have been dreading more than all mandatory 8:30 am classes. Weeks before those last summer nights, you started preparing for it. You rehearsed your response before your reflection, inflicting torture on that helpless still copy while blaring Rocky’s anthem through a locked door.

The Menace. That’s what you called it. That never-ending question of questions. Within metres of walking onto campus, you knew you would be asked.

Not only that, you knew it would be a sustained attack.

“How did you spend your summer?” It is a question that paralyzes the interrogated with instant boredom or embarrassment, but never grants the kind escape of death. The question is delivered with minimally invested interest, and one knows it. Some ask it as an excuse to explain their own extraordinary adventures, others use it as an excuse to complain. In both cases, the question is rhetorical and

the listener is a prop. It is transparent, like being asked about the weather, or whether you think it was a good idea for McCain to bring a Denny’s waitress so close to the American presidency.

The answer is obvious; the pain is in the question itself.

The first few weeks of school are all-out war against meaningful conversation. Bullets of tranquilizing small talk shoot from all corners of campus.

Trying to avoid these attacks won’t work. Private in-home lectures have yet to be cleared by McGill’s ethics board and pretending to have become Helen Keller over the summer is considered by most to be unethical.

Trenches are also apparently hard to dig. So soldier, you must man up and impress swiftly. You must be intelligent about it all.

One of the incredible things about attending McGill is just that.

Everyone here is intelligent. If they are not intelligent, they belong to somebody who is, which worsens the blow, since that means they probably have access to that person’s wealth.

During the school year, studying alongside the world’s priviledged sons and daughters may expand your cultural and intellectual hori-

zons, even buy you a few free drinks.

But when it comes to comparing answers to that fatal question, “What did you do this summer?” it only helps to worsen the sting when you find they’ve been in Paris while you licked enough envelopes to build a European liner from your parents’ home office in Ontario.

Your best defense to small talk warfare is the most diplomatic response. Lie. When your sophisticated peers begin discussing their visits to Southern France and Spain, respond with firey conviction that you saved a family Tehran. When you hear about their internships at The New Yorker, remind them of how you interned at a television station in Belgrave that is screened in the town square. Learn Photoshop. It will assist you in convincing your peers that you were Paris Hilton’s assistant and Lindsay Lohan’s secret lover.

Lie and you will crush the circular talk that once made you late for class, by entertaining yourself while entertaining your peers’ self absorbedness. Rediscover the triumphant triumphant feeling of being four years old and getting your little grubby hands away with it.

Ben Peck / The McGill Daily

Bobby Polo only asked about your summer office job to tell you why the top was that much better than base camp.

Daniel Kaell / The McGill Daily

Angel Chen for The McGill Daily