The Tribune Vol. 45, Issue 12

STUDENT LIFE

Borderless World Volunteers raises funds for Sudan genocide relief through Battle of the Bands PG. 12

OFF THE BOARD

11

The Unity Flag: A conversation with Tekarontakeh Tekarontakeh recounts how McGill flew this Kanien’kehá:ka flag without corresponding decolonial action

EDITORIAL

The

Tribune Editorial Board

On Nov. 20, communities across the world recognized Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day honouring the lives of trans and nonbinary people lost to anti-trans violence. However, this year’s commemoration in Canada was countered by an unprecedented wave of political hostility toward transgender youth.

The Alberta government, in particular, has taken an especially hostile stance. The province introduced three anti-trans laws last year: Bill 26 bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy for most minors, effectively politicizing a treatment otherwise prescribed through medical as-

sessment; Bill 27 requires schools to obtain parental permission for name or pronoun changes and turns gender and sexuality education into an opt-in system; Bill 29 bars transgender girls from gender-aligned sports participation. The province recently tabled new legislation, Bill 9, which invokes the notwithstanding clause in an attempt to shield the three previous bills from legal challenges regarding potential Charter rights violations. This surge in transphobic legislation under the guise of children’s safety is a coordinated political effort to restrict the autonomy of trans and non-binary people, and McGill’s own failure to guarantee access to gender affirming care (GAC) for its students reveals how deeply this disregard has been propagated throughout Canada.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

katzenmusik : Social inequality explored at Moyse Hall

A compelling performance of a town in turmoil

Alexandra Lasser Staff Writer

The McGill Department of English Drama and Theatre Program presents Tom Fowler’s katzenmusic, a darkly compelling exploration of social inequality and civil unrest in the fictional town of Burnside. Told in reverse chronological order, the play recounts a cat massacre that devastates the town and forever tarnishes its reputation. Each scene allows viewers to piece together the truth as they witness events unfolding backwards, observing consequences before motives.

The reverse storytelling creates a tale that individualizes as it progresses. The show opens with a cacophony of rings and answering machines as townspeople rush hurriedly across the stage, talking over each other. Confusion and anxiety permeate the first half of the play, as news headlines spin an easy narrative around the tragic event. As the story rewinds, however, the underlying issues in Burnside are revealed. The massacre was not an isolated act of brutality, but rather the climax of long-simmering frustrations among Burnside’s working-class residents, many of whom lost their jobs after the abrupt closure of a large car manufacturing plant.

Students organize events and rallies during Shut It Down departmental strikes for Palestine

Strike programming accompanied by high security presence on campus

Amelia H. Clark & Eren Atac Staff Writers

Asher Kui News Editor

From Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, 20 departments at McGill went on strike, calling for the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. These departmental strikes, organized by Divest McGill, Divest for Palestine, Working Alternatives McGill, and McGill Admin Watch, occurred alongside programming put together by the Shut It Down strike collective as well as student picketing. The Tribune brings you coverage of some of these programming events.

Wednesday, Nov. 19 – “Tyranny of Structurelessness” lecture

Barry Eidlin, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, gave a lecture titled “Tyranny of Structurelessness,” then led a discussion encouraging students to reflect on the current Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestine. A striking student in attendance made a connection between the present BDS movement and the Indian independence movement.

“Coming from India, our independence movement was supposedly non-violent, but at the end of the day, what led to independence was the fact that [many protests in India were] violent,” the student said. “It’s just extremely easy to ignore ‘perfect’ [non-disruptive] movements.”

Eidlin responded by agreeing that disruption is often the only way to truly make change in activist struggles.

“You do need to disrupt to win,” he stat ed. “The whole point of social movement is to shake things up. [Movements] emerge when existing channels, the proper channels, are not available. And the way that you create new channels, it’s a process of dis ruption.”

Another striking student expressed that the difficulty in mo bilizing students to hold departmental onstrates a general towards the on-cam for Palestine, and re disparities in student at General Assemblies departments vote to strike.

“Quorum to vote on a strike for either a department or for the whole undergrad [rep resents] a very vocal minority that shows up, including myself,” they described. “Most people are not going [to their departmental GAs] because […] they don’t care enough to vote. So then we go on strike because 10 per cent of students have decided we should, but that’s still 90 per cent of students who don’t necessarily feel as passionately about it, and then are frustrated that we’ve gone on strike because a small group of us voted on it.”

discussions about such departmental activist choices.

“[Students] should [still] show up [to GAs] if they don’t want to [strike]. They should show up and vote,” the attendee said. “That’s really […] why, even though we get these strikes passed and it feels successful, ultimately, it’s not really, because [most students] still want to go to class.”

More information on lecture content can be found on page 4.

Thursday, Nov. 20 – Campus restrictions announced

At 6:17 p.m., the Emergency Operations Centre announced that students would need their student IDs to enter McGill buildings on Nov. 21.

Friday, Nov. 21 – Divestment rally

At 7:30 a.m., protesters gathered in front of the James Administration Building to demand McGill’s administration divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide in Palestine.

“It’s the [university’s] administrators that are refusing to have conversations with students, or if they do have conversations, they’re totally taken in bad faith,” a protester said in an interview with The Tribune. “So we came together early today to be able to shame administrators as they were coming into the building to show them that we’re always watching them. We’re always going to hold them accountable to the decisions they make. There’s no hiding from the students.”

At the beginning of the rally, five McGill security guards were standing outside the building. One was wearing a bright nylon vest and held a camcorder to scan the crowd. She was identified by one protester in an interview as a member of private seMcGill hired in preparation for the strike who, at the beginning of the Shut It Down week, filmed students picketing while wearing civilian clothes instead of an identifiable security uni-

In an interview with

The Tribune, another protestor stated that the level of security McGill has employed during this strike is unparalleled to anything seen in the university’s history, with almost 30 guards at one point employed against ten students who

“[Security guards] are the ones that are intimidating students on campus because they cause escalations,” the protestor said. “They’ve been filming students’ faces. They’ve been recording students’ voices. It’s like we live in a surveillance campus.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) stated that the university deploys security to keep protest on campus peaceful.

fifteen more security guards arrived, forming a complete perimeter around the protesters. One marched into the crowd with a camera to get close-ups of students’ eyes: The only identifiable feature left exposed for most in attendance. Still, not one protester left their post.

Organizers then poured red paint on the pavement in front of the James Administration Building and on their hands to demonstrate how students’ tuition may contribute to McGill’s investments in weapons companies such as Lockheed Martin and Airbus Aerospace. About 15 minutes after the rally ended at 9:00 a.m., McGill staff power-washed the paint away as security trailed departing protestors from rue Milton to av. Lorne.

In an interview with The Tribune, a third protester cited previous student activists’ success in pushing McGill to divest from businesses with connections to fossil fuels and South African apartheid, affirming their confidence in the current movement for divestment from Israel’s genocide.

“I’m sure that it’s going to take a long time for us to achieve divestment from weapons companies tied to the genocide in Palestine, but I really believe that we can do it, and I know that everyone else [here] believes in it too,” they stated. “And we need every single student on this campus to believe in it.”

Friday, Nov. 21 – “The Colonial University and its Opps” talk

A former McGill graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, hosted a talk called “The Colonial University and its Opps,” on Nov. 21 at 1:00 p.m. in McGill’s Players’ Theatre. Their presentation covered a broad overview of McGill’s colonial entanglements and their implications for contemporary protests. The talk also explored the history of activism at McGill, focusing on how campus protests have evolved over time.

stated. “For instance, the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building. The first Baron Strathcona was a British Empire elite. He made all his money through things like the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was key in the colonial encroachment on what is now Iran.”

The speaker then moved to a discussion of past student movements for justice, including the 1980s anti-South African apartheid divestment campaign at McGill. The speaker described this movement as an example of student activism that successfully forced administrative change at the university, but only after years of effort and moments of waning traction for the movement.

“McGill was the first place in Canada to divest [from South African apartheid], but it was not the first place in North America [to do so]. In fact, it was kind of late to the party,” the speaker stated. “A lot of Ivy League universities had already started to divest in the years immediately prior to 1985. Those successes were really mobilizing. People were excited. They felt like their goal was possible again. But those successes were only possible because the student movement at [that] point was pretty mature.”

The speaker then turned to facilitating discussion about more recent protest efforts at McGill. One attendee of the event questioned the effectiveness of the departmental strikes, contrasting them with the 2024 Palestine Solidarity Encampment. They argued that the encampment may have been a more impactful protest tactic, as it had no defined length; it was meant to persist indefinitely until student demands were met. In response, the speaker expressed that while unlimited strikes can be more effective at forcing action from the administration, they also require significantly more planning and coordination to carry out.

The attendee highlighted that students— even those uninterested in striking—must continue to uphold democracy by participating in

“When groups choose to protest, University Security personnel are present to remind participants that vandalism, violence, and classroom obstruction are not tolerated, and that compliance with the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures is required to avoid sanctions,” the MRO wrote.

As the rally continued, approximately

The speaker emphasized the role of McGill’s physical presence in the workings of the broader colonial apparatus. They argued that the institution’s buildings and land use are intertwined with global systems of power, rather than being neutral spaces of learning as McGill’s community might believe them to be.

“I really want to emphasize how [slavery and colonial extraction] are imbued into [McGill’s] buildings and their names,” the speaker

“One of the important things to understand about unlimited strikes is that they’re really hard. [They are] the product of years of organizing [students] to build […] capacity in the student movement, to build the democratic processes in the movement to be able to strike,” the speaker said. “A lot of students don’t understand strikes […] because they haven’t been equipped yet with the knowledge to create their own analyses of the situation, and be able to engage with [striking] in ways other than what McGill emails say.”

The Unity Flag: A

conversation

with Tekarontakeh Tekarontakeh

recounts how McGill flew this Kanien’kehá:ka flag wi thout corresponding decolonial action

Mairin Burke Managing Editor

McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) confirmed in a written statement to The Tribune that from Oct. 23 to Oct. 30, McGill raised the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Unity Flag to celebrate the newlyunveiled Tsi Non:we Onkwatonhnhets project at the university’s Y-Intersection. Designed by artist Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall in the early 1970s, the Unity Flag depicts a man in profile against a red background and a sun, wearing one feather in his hair.

Despite The McGill Reporter stating that the Unity Flag on campus represented McGill’s “ongoing partnership with Indigenous communities,” Tekarontakeh, a knowledge keeper of the Kanien’kehá:ka from Kahnawà:ke, reported that he was not informed of the flag’s display at the university, despite being a member of the Rotisken’rhakéhte (Mohawk Warrior Society) who first used this banner.

In an interview with The Tribune, Tekarontakeh contextualized the significance of the Unity Flag for Mohawk communities. He made sure to distinguish the Unity Flag from another iteration of Karoniaktajeh’s work, colloquially known as the “Warrior Flag,” which depicts a man with three feathers in his hair, rather than just one.

“[Karoniaktajeh] put [the Unity Flag] together because he wanted Native people [to] have a symbol […] to help to bring our people back together,” Tekarontakeh explained. “The reason he put only one feather in the [man on the flag’s hair] is to symbolize […] that we are one people. Even though we speak different languages, […] we’re all saying the same thing [....] We are all part of creation [....] What is being done to one is being done to all of us.”

Tekarontakeh also touched on the importance of the Unity Flag’s creation and original use. It was initially employed when Indigenous communities across Turtle Island were fighting for land sovereignty, particularly during the Mohawk reclamation of Ganienkeh in 1974.

“We used that Unity Flag when we went

and reoccupied lands in the Adirondack Mountains so that we could build a new community and not live under the Indian Act or Canadian law, or [United States] federal Indian law, or the [United States] Constitution,” he stated. “We wanted to live in accordance to who we are, and we asserted our right to do this [....] We made the choice that we would physically, politically, spiritually, do what we must do in order to ensure that there [would] be a future for our children.”

Today, the Unity Flag acts as both a specific Mohawk symbol of pride and existence and a broader, global sign of resistance against colonialism, oppression, and genocide. Tekarontakeh referred to the flag as a “psychological medicine”—an antidote to actions like McGill’s against Indigenous communities, both locally and internationally.

“McGill University […] did experiments on Native children,” he stated. “McGill was involved in working with the [Canadian] government to assimilate our people, [and McGill is] still a corporation [who has] made money [through] the exploitation of people’s lands.”

Tekarontakeh further referred to McGill’s decision to uproot a white pine tree from the Lower Field in November 2024 as reflective of the university’s ongoing colonialism. Kanien’kehá:ka women planted the tree during a Haudenosaunee peace ceremony in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian Encampment at McGill. The university removed the tree within a day of its planting.

“This tree was a symbol of the people about unification,” Tekarontakeh emphasized. “The question should be asked of McGill, ‘If you’re going to fly that flag, are you prepared to plant that tree back?’ Because they go together.”

Tekarontakeh emphasized that he does not disagree with the flag being flown on campus— as long as it is flown with true awareness, care, and sincere desire to do right by the Indigenous communities McGill continues to exploit.

“If [the] flag is being raised by people who truly support and respect that flag, I don’t have a problem,” he stated. “But if McGill is going

to be raising that flag to try to pretend that they care about our people, I think that’s wrong [....] [The Unity Flag should not just be flown at McGill] to give the impression to Mohawk students or Native students [that], ‘Hey, look, we support you.’”

In an interview with The Tribune, Philippe Blouin, a PhD candidate in McGill’s Department of Anthropology and an associate of the Kanien’keha:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) fighting McGill for access to potential unmarked Indigenous graves at McGill’s New Vic site, described McGill’s performativity in flying the Unity Flag.

“It seems like cultural appropriation,” Blouin stated. “If you’re just [displaying] symbols, without any true means for reparation of [simultaneous] historical harm, that’s cultural appropriation [....] [McGill is] actively fighting against members of the traditional families that are represented by that flag.”

In a written statement to The Tribune via the MRO, McGill’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives (OII) affirmed that the Unity Flag was erected in collaboration with Indigenous individuals and groups from the McGill community and the Greater Montreal Area.

“The redesign of the Y-Intersection, along with all planning for its launch, was guided by an Indigenous Advisory Committee,” the OII wrote. “The flag included in the Y-Intersection event and installation was chosen as a gesture of respect and acknowledgment of our host and most proximate First Nation of Kahnawà:ke.”

Blouin shared in a written state-

ment to The Tribune that, according to his Kanien’kehá:ka associates, proper representation of Kanien’kehá:ka symbols such as the Unity Flag at McGill requires more consultation with, and consensus from, the community where the flag originated.

“My associates say it’s really not a matter of criticizing the choices of other community members [who participated in flying the flag], but insisting that the flag being raised at McGill does not reflect an endorsement from the community, but remains a private initiative,” he wrote.

Tekarontakeh expressed hope that McGill and other colonial actors will start to honour their stated commitments to Indigenous communities such as the Kanien’kehá:ka. He shared that the Unity Flag is a way to reaffirm and celebrate Mohawk survival and identity for Kanien’kehá:ka communities and their proven allies.

“[The Unity Flag] is showing the world that we are not extinct,” he affirmed. “Even [when] Canada [tries] to pass laws to legislate us out of existence, […] we will continue to maintain who we are and to pass this on to our children [....] We are still prepared to work towards harmonization of all peoples [....] We’re alive. We can still tell the truth.”

Recap: Solidarity Across Borders Montreal condemns Canada’s Bill C-12

SAB protests the bill for its xenophobic nature and sweeping powers to deport migrants

Mairin Burke Managing Editor

On Oct. 8, Canada’s House of Commons announced Bill C-12, which builds on Bill C-2 to majorly expand Canada’s power to revoke immigrants’ existing visas, permanent residency status, and work or study permits. This bill would allow mass deportations of these migrants without due process, in the name of public interest.

In response to Bill C-12, Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) Montreal, an anti-colonial migrant justice network, organized a caravan to the offices of four Montreal-based federal Members of Parliament (MPs) on Nov. 13: The Liberal Party of Canada’s Steven Guilbeault representing the Laurier—Sainte-Marie constituency, the Liberal Party’s Majorie Michel for Papineau, the Liberal Party’s Patricia Lattanzio for representing Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, and Le Bloc Québécois’s Mario Beaulieu for La Pointe-de-

l’Île. The caravan read a letter at each MP’s office demanding that the officials reject Bill C-12.

In a written statement to The Tribune, an organizer with SAB Montreal who wished to remain unnamed explained how the bill will increase pressure on Canada’s immigration system, rather than improve it as the government claims.

“Without any way of regularizing their [residency] status, many people would remain or become undocumented,” they wrote. “Borders would become more deadly [....] Undocumented people will be pushed even further to the margins, unable to access basic services in fear that this could lead inadvertently to their deportation.”

During the SAB action, demonstrators waved banners and signs, gave speeches, and handed out informational flyers to onlookers. The organizer highlighted some of Bill C-12’s student-specific impacts, describing how students from countries experiencing violence will

be prevented from applying for refugee status to stay in Canada if they have been in the country for over a year without already doing so.

“International students could see their study permits cancelled en masse, without any individualized assessment or means of appeal,” they wrote.

“If a student were to come out as queer, or transition, and it is dangerous or illegal to be queer or trans in their country of origin, they would nonetheless be barred from filing a refugee claim in Canada.”

The organizer concluded by encouraging people to participate in SAB’s upcoming events and to generally join the fight for migrant justice.

“If not already impacted personally, all stu-

dents have someone in their lives who will be impacted by [Bill C-12],” they wrote. “Whether [a] friend, a loved one, a neighbour, [a] TA, […] [Bill] C-12 and the current rise in xenophobia is really an attack on all of us.”

The Tribune Explains: Quebec government ends two provincial immigration streams

CAQ seeks to curb admission of new permanent residents through immigration cap

Eren Atac Staff Writer

The Quebec government ended the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ), which included the Quebec Graduates and Temporary Foreign Workers immigration streams, on Nov. 19. The removal of these two pathways leaves the Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ) as the only major pathway for most temporary residents to permanently immigrate to Quebec. These changes follow the government’s cap of 45,000 permanent immigration admissions per year. The Tribune explains what the government’s immigration policy changes will entail for McGill students.

Why did the government remove these two pathways?

The CAQ has been limiting the PEQ for several years, starting with a restrictive reform in 2020, in response to a sharp increase in the number of non-permanent residents in Quebec over recent years. The Quebec government, led by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), has argued that the latest reforms will preserve the French language and make the immigration process more selective.

Under the province’s old immigration system, many international students became eligible for permanent residency shortly after graduation through the Quebec Graduates PEQ stream. The PEQ had already been suspended from October

2024 through June 2025 before its total cancellation this November.

How do these changes affect McGill students?

For many McGill students, the Quebec Graduates stream was the primary pathway to permanent residency. It allowed students with a Quebec diploma, such as a bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD, to apply for permanent residency soon after graduation, without requiring extensive work experience or French fluency. Its removal leaves the PSTQ as the only substantial way to stay in the province.

The PSTQ has stricter requirements, such as proof of B2-level spoken French, at least one year of eligible skilled work experience, and a competitive score on Arrima, Quebec’s point-based immigration system.

These changes have created greater uncertainty for students who do not possess the required level of French proficiency and had planned to remain in Quebec after graduation. Students with a federal post-graduation work permit (PGWP) now face language barriers that previously did not exist.

What pathways to permanent residency still exist for students?

The PSTQ is now the main pathway to permanent residency for temporary residents of Quebec, including graduating students. Applicants can submit a profile through Arrima and may be selected based on various criteria, such as their French

proficiency, work experience, and education. Students who are able to improve their French to the B2 level will gain a significant advantage in the Arrima point system.

Students may also reconsider immigrating to Quebec altogether, given that other provinces have more accessible immigration pathways through their Provincial Nominee Programs. For example, the Ontario Immigration Nominee Program’s Employer Job Offer: International Student stream allows graduates with a job offer in a skilled position in the province to apply directly for nomination, without needing the points-based ranking used in Quebec. This pathway does not require any job experience, unlike Quebec’s requirement of one year of skilled work to gain residency status.

What transitional measures exist for affected students?

The government has introduced limited transitional measures for individuals affected by the changes. Those who submitted a complete application for residency before Nov. 19 will still be evaluated under the old rules, but students who were planning to apply are no longer eligible.

While McGill’s International Student Services does not offer advising on permanent residency, students with immigration concerns may contact them for help with temporary immigration docu-

ments and maintaining student immigration status.

What are the criticisms of these changes?

Various organizations have levied criticisms against the new changes. The Canadian Immigration Lawyers’ Association condemned the changes for being non-transparent, harming Quebec’s attractiveness to foreign students who hope to fully immigrate to Canada after their educational program. The association also raised concerns about the lack of transitional measures in place for graduate students, who had expected to apply for residency through now-cancelled streams. Additionally, the Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire has criticized the changes for reducing international interest in the province’s educational sector.

Recap: Quebec’s Bill 2 sparks alarm among McGill medical students

Medical groups say the law could reduce training opportunities and worsen Quebec’s family doctor shortage

Basil Atari Staff Writer

On Oct. 25, Quebec adopted Bill 2, legislation that changes the funding model for physicians so that 10 per cent of doctors’ salaries are tied to provincial performance targets. Bill 2 was introduced after the provincial physicians’ unions rejected four government offers to reconfigure their collective agreement with the province.

These rejected proposals sought to deregister patients from family doctors and to implement a colour-coded system prioritizing red patients with severe or complex health conditions, making access to family doctors nearly impos-

sible for green patients with less urgent needs.

At McGill, medical students are worried about how Bill 2 might affect their education. Giuliana Zambito from Medical Direction, McGill’s pre-med society, expressed concern in a written statement to The Tribune about the long-term impacts the bill will have on physician training.

“If more physicians leave Quebec or reduce their involvement in teaching, there will be fewer preceptors available for clinical placements,” Zambito wrote. “This may limit the quality and variety of training experiences and place more strain on the clinicians who remain. Students fear that some residency programs could face reduced capacity, fewer training sites,

or diminished learning opportunities, particularly in fields such as family medicine that already experience burnout and recruitment challenges.”

The Fédération médicale étudiante du Québec president Maxence Pelletier- Lebrun voiced similar concerns regarding medical students’ rights and recruitment in a written statement to The Tribune.

“We have received multiple legal opinions indicating that Bill 2 poses risks to medical students’ freedom of speech, […] notably regarding any strike vote, which could expose local student associations to fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars—jeopardizing their very survival,” he wrote.

Students are also uneasy about restrictions

in the bill that may affect academic freedom and advocacy, according to Zambito.

“The vague wording around concerted action, combined with the possibility of substantial fines [for striking], raises concerns about whether trainees could face consequences for speaking up about their education or working conditions,” Zambito wrote. “The idea that advocacy might carry personal risk is deeply unsettling.”

Lebrun also warned that the bill may discourage students from remaining in the province after graduation.

“The measures introduced in Bill 2 [make] Quebec the most restrictive place to practice in Canada,” he wrote. “This may lead more students to choose to practice in other provinces.”

Recap: Barry Eidlin gives lecture on Jo Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”

Talk explores the relationship between tactic and strategy in social movements

Asher Kui News Editor

Barry Eidlin, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Sociology, gave a lecture entitled “Tyranny of Structurelessness” on Nov. 19 to approximately 15 students. The lecture was based on Jo Freeman’s essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” first published in 1972, which explores the dichotomy between “structure” and “structurelessness.” Freeman argues that “structurelessness” in an activist organization does not actually exist— rather, it is a way of masking informal and unauthorized power.

The talk was one of many events hosted during the Shut It Down strike campaign, providing an alternative to attending class for students on departmental strike for Palestine between Nov. 17 and Nov. 21. Eidlin began the lecture by defining two key terms in activist movements: Strategy and tactic.

“Strategy [is] a broad, long-term, abstract goal, like abolishing patriarchy, freeing Palestine, and ending racism,” he explained. “It’s a big thing that you’re not just going to win in one fell swoop. It’s a multi-step process, […] [while] tactics are specific actions you take in pursuit of that strategic goal. The key question you could be asking is, ‘Does the tac-

tic help or hinder my pursuit of that strategy? Am I getting myself further along that path, or am I just standing still, or am I going back?’”

Eidlin then expressed that in the context of social movements, organizers’ desired outcomes are often unattained because of a mismatch between their strategy and their tactic, or a lack of either.

“There’s a retreat into a moralist, individualist approach to politics, where politics becomes more a part of who you are, as an identity, rather than the thing that you do,” he stated. “In the modern day and age, […] you post all sorts of radical stuff online, but you’re not […] getting anywhere [….] [That is] strategy without tactics.”

Eidlin concluded his lecture by highlighting how Freeman calls for social movements to create more democratic structures.

“Organizations that claim to be non-hierarchical, horizontal, anti-authoritarian, [do] have a structure, they just don’t see it,” he said. “Problems that derive from this refusal to develop formal structure [can be alleviated through] creating instructions of accountability to distribute authority deliberately, [and] allocating tasks more democratically to create more open channels for permanent […] transparency.”

More information on the post-talk student discussion can be found on page 2.

Lilly

Editor-in-Chief

Yusur Al-Sharqi editor@thetribune.ca

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Trans rights are human rights—and Canada is infringing on them

The Tribune Editorial Board

Continued from page 1.

Quebec also contributes to this national hostility and insensibility towards transgender and nonbinary individuals. GAC in the province remains chronically inaccessible: Some surgeries have waitlists of up to nine years, and Montreal patients report being turned away or receiving no follow-up after consultations. Access is further constrained in that a single private clinic holds a nearmonopoly over GAC surgeries, limiting availability and patient autonomy. These systemic barriers leave many trans and nonbinary people without timely or adequate care. These bureaucratic and legislative barriers produce measurable psychological harm.

A 2025 study in the US found that suicide-related Google searches rose by 13 per cent during legislative debates regarding trans rights,

with depression-related searches increasing by five per cent. In Canada, reports by the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre show similarly alarming patterns: 64 per cent of transgender and nonbinary youth report having self-harmed and/or seriously considered suicide in the past year, with 38 per cent reporting suicidal ideation and 21 per cent reporting a suicide attempt. 88 per cent of young trans and nonbinary individuals live with a chronic mental health condition such as anxiety or depression, revealing the extent to which GAC can—and does—save lives when accessible and unbarred by transphobic legislation.

McGill’s own records further affirm this pattern of institutional neglect. In the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Fall 2025 Referendum, the GAC Fee passed by only 51.1 per cent, with just 19.1 per cent of students voting, reflecting apathy toward some of the most vulnerable students on campus and ignorance of the cruciality of this fund. From 2023 to January

2025, SSMU provided coverage for critical GAC procedures through a reimbursement program with funds drawn from an unstable budget surplus. Prior plans capped lifetime maximum coverage at amounts insufficient to cover most procedures not otherwise covered by provincial or international insurance.

The GAC fund, created through the passing of this 2025 Referendum motion, allows students to receive coverage for critical services, including medication, gender-affirming procedures, mental health support, and more. Should the fee not have passed, McGill would lack a GAC plan entirely— yet the motion barely scraped through the referendum. McGill’s infrastructure mirrors this disregard for the importance of GAC: When the school’s only GAC-providing physician went on leave in 2024, students completely lost access to oncampus care; students consistently face name-change barriers on Minerva; and the administration has repeatedly platformed transgenderantagonistic speakers.

Especially considering the rise in hateful anti-transgender rhetoric across Canada, McGill has both a moral and legal responsibility to vehemently protect its transgender community. Fulfilling that responsibility requires more than mere statements and symbolic gestures of solidarity. McGill should actively support and collaborate with community organizations like Queer McGill and the Trans Patient Union, whose work fills the gaps long neglected by the university and SSMU insurance offerings. Further, as Alberta weaponizes the notwithstanding clause to restrict transgender rights, McGill must publicly oppose such legislation and advocate for federal limits on the clause’s misuse, including supporting Bill S-218. Honouring the lives of trans and non-binary people requires that institutions—both educational and bureaucratic—actively reject and counter political erasure in all forms and commit to the safety, dignity, and autonomy of trans and gender non-conforming individuals.

Fare dodging: Transit accessibility tactic or detractor?

CONTRIBUTORS

Noah Bornstein, Naïri Kibarian, Sofia Lay, Romane Musquet, Ella Paulin, Siena Torres Tarun Kalyanaraman, Abbey Locker,Elgin Wilson

Sofia Lay Contributor

Fare dodging, for many urban dwellers, is simply a part of life. Whether it be leaping over a turnstile at the metro entrance or sneaking onto the back of the bus, the practice of evading public transit fees is regarded by many as innocuous and commonplace. Over the past decade, fare dodging in Montreal has become a community affair with a social mission. Facebook group “Contrôle en cours – STM” claims to promote transit accessibility by sharing live alerts that help passengers avoid STM constables while fare dodging. Yet the movement overlooks the importance of supporting public transit through paid ridership to the detriment of lowincome passengers.

Contrôle en Cours was founded in 2017 and has since amassed over ten thousand members. Though the group “cannot change what [public transit] costs,” they have dedicated themselves to ensuring “those who cannot afford [transit] costs risk less when attempting to use it.”

The movement is not a reaction to recent Société de transport de Montréal (STM) strikes, as per recent clarification from the group moderator. Contrôle en Cours’s mission is built upon the implicit claim that Montreal transit pricing is problematically inaccessible. In reality, however, over 35 per cent

of Montrealers are already eligible for free or reduced-price riding; the remaining 65 per cent of STM riders pay a $3.75 CAD metro fare that is either comparable or cheaper than transit fares in many other major cities. Of course, there are many people for whom even reduced transit fare is too expensive, and it is imperative that the city address this issue through rapid policy change; for example, Projet Montréal candidate Luc Rabouin proposed an STM pricing model that extends reduced transit fare to all residents making less than $30,000 CAD a year. Ultimately, the growing movement of STM fare dodging is centred on the debate over how much riders should pay for public transit, if at all.

There is a common sentiment within fare-dodging circles that fee evasion is justified by the overarching principle of free (or at least, reducedcost) public transit. Yet, in other public service contexts, citizen buyin is both expected and respected. Per the Revenu Québec income tax rates, Quebecers pay 14 per cent to 25 per cent income tax each year, which is redirected to fund critical public services such as healthcare and education. In doing so, citizens support the government services that they then benefit from. There is no reason why public transit should be exempt from this model. The STM is heavily underfunded, and fare-dodging initiatives that reduce revenue will only decrease transit

quality for residents.

Low-income Montrealers are disproportionately impacted by fare dodging. The practice diverts revenue from the STM that could instead be directed towards positive improvements to the public transit system, such as faster service and increased routes. Because lowincome residents are more dependent on the STM than wealthy residents, they stand to benefit—or suffer— most when it comes to its budgeting. For many people, the STM is their primary, if not only, mode of transportation. A well-funded, functioning public transit system is crucial for supporting the mobility of Montreal residents who cannot afford cars. Choosing to evade transit fares is a personal decision that has a collective negative impact on financially vulnerable populations who choose not to partake in fare

dodging.

Decreasing STM revenue through fare evasion is counterproductive to the stated goals of fare-dodging groups: Ensuring transit accessibility regardless of economic status. Groups like Contrôle en Cours have noble aims, but employ tactics that decrease rider accessibility. Contrôle en Cours should lobby for universally applied structural accessibility reforms that are more likely to have a long-term positive impact on transit equity in lieu of band-aid measures such as fare evasion. Generally speaking, fare dodgers should direct their resistance away from the STM and towards the Quebec government. Policy solutions such as broadened fare assistance programs and STM-oriented budget reallocation will promote mobility equity without dismantling the transit system on which this aim relies.

Naïri Kibarian Contributor

TWhen Ottawa cuts, Kahnawà:ke pays

hrough Bill C-5’s ‘Building Canada Act,’ the Carney administration aims to achieve extensive economic development projects—though without respect for Indigenous rights and sovereignty. When critical funding for Indigenous services is placed on the chopping block, Indigenous communities have no choice but to take sovereign action to secure for themselves what the Canadian government has repeatedly refused to provide.

In an effort to achieve the goals of Bill C-5, Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to cut 15 per cent of the annual budget, amounting to approximately $4.5 billion CAD over the next three years. These cuts amount to a 2 per cent reduction in funding for Indigenous-Crown Relations and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). While 2 per cent may seem insignificant, it will remove nearly $2.3 billion in funding from ISC by spring 2030. By making steep cuts to Indigenous Services Canada, the Carney government signals that economic goals outweigh its Charter obligations to protect Indigenous rights and livelihood.

In response to the funding shortfalls caused by Bill C-5, Kahnawà:ke Grand-Chief Cody Diabo is seeking to impose tolls on Highways 132, 138, and 206, routes which link the Island of Montreal and the South Shore by passing through Kahnawà:ke. The tolls are expected to cost around $4.60 CAD.

Roughly 120,000 vehicles travel these routes every day, traversing the Mohawk reserve on their commutes. If Canadians wish to enjoy the benefits of public infrastructure,

COMMENTARY

Noah Bornstein

Contributor

IHighway 132 is one of the busiest commuter routes in Quebec; over 44 million vehicles pass through Kahnawà:ke every year. (Alexa

Tribune)

since public infrastructure is a major focus of Bill C-5, the Mohawk community should also be empowered to charge tolls on the roads that pass through their land. This is not only because these roads rely on sovereign Kahnawà:ke land, but because their funding comes at the direct expense of essential services for Indigenous communities.

Given that the Quebec government did not expropriate Kahnawà:ke reserve lands to create these roads, it is undeniably within the Mohawk council’s authority to enforce its own road safety and tolling codes in the regions where the highways cross into its territory.

Diabo asserts that this change is not intended to punish Canadians but to push the federal government. Ultimately, Indigenous

communities must take measures to prioritize their needs when the government refuses to do so.

While achieving economic development and infrastructural goals under Bill C-5 is undoubtedly important in light of Trumpled tariff pressure, actualizing these goals must not come at the expense of Indigenous communities’ Charter rights. This approach by the Carney government—positioning the bolstering of Indigenous services and economic growth as somehow incompatible with other legislative goals—perpetuates a vision of governance in which Indigenous communities remain subjects of regulation. If fiscal restraint were truly the motivation, its burden would be distributed evenly across departments.

A local grocer staves off

the

The refusal to enshrine funding for the ISC represents a political choice, not a budgetary necessity. Especially given Canada’s history of violent colonialism and settlement, providing federal funding for Indigenous Peoples to acquire crucial services is the bare minimum if the government has a genuine commitment towards reconciliation.

The Mohawk community’s proposed tolling system is not yet established or installed. Grand-Chief Diabo has stressed that he wishes, first and foremost, to make things ‘right,’ and that this plan will not be completed for the year to come.

The tolls are not a provocation—they are a clear assertion of Indigenous rights in the face of federal neglect.

predatory Loblaws monopoly

n the Mile End, on av. du Parc just south of av St.-Viateur, lies Lipa’s Kosher Market. Lipa’s, established over 70 years ago, belongs to a dying breed of local grocers geared to the needs of their community: In Lipa’s case, the Montreal Hasidic Jewish community. However, this past August, Maxi, a discounted grocer subsidiary of Loblaws, opened a new location—one of thirteen new Maxis in the Greater Montreal Area—just a few doors down from Lipa’s.

Loblaws strategically opens its chains, which also include Provigo, T&T, and Pharmaprix, in the vicinity of local independent grocers to assert its monopoly in the grocery market. This attempted sabotage of Lipa’s is only the beginning, and the Canadian Competition Bureau must take action before Loblaws’ monopolies run independent grocers out of business. Small business grocers are the heartbeats of communities and should be protected from predatory operations by industry giants.

Maxi is what is known as a discount monopoly. Maxi and its parent company, Loblaws, have immense buying power with wholesalers, enabling them to obtain goods for cheap to maintain predatory pricing until underfunded competitors go out of business.

While prices offered by chains like Maxi

may be cheaper for customers in the short term, their monopolistic spread ultimately leads to much higher prices. Once these chains secure their place in the market and drive other grocers out of business, they lift their prices. Loblaws has already been accused of price gauging; letting a monopoly of Maxis pop up unnoticed across Montreal could lead to even more incidents of unfriendly price increases.

This is not Maxi’s first attempt at targeting Lipa’s. In October, Maxi established its 198th branch on av. Bernard, less than a ten-minute walk from Lipa’s. The av. Bernard Maxi replaced former high-end grocer Les 5 Saisons. This is part of an attempt by Loblaws to establish Maxi as the preeminent low-end grocery store chain in Quebec. Yet if this expansion goes unchecked, many small local grocers will be uprooted in the process.

Lipa’s is an important Hasidic Jewish institution in a city with over 90 thousand Jewish residents. Much of the Hasidic Jewish population is concentrated in the Mile End and Outremont neighbourhoods, making Lipa’s presence as a Kosher market vital to the cultural needs of these communities. According to its owner, Lipa’s staff know the names of every customer and their families, even allowing regulars who enter a period of temporary financial hardship to keep a running tab and pay the store back in the future.

The community nature of Lipa’s is

undeniable, making it unsurprising that the market has thrived for many years as the primary place to obtain affordable Kosher goods in the Mile End. Yet with a new Maxi—with its own Kosher aisle—opening up around the corner, its business model is jeopardized.

Even if Maxi were to maintain the lower prices it currently offers in the long term, the loss of Lipa’s would represent a step in the ongoing gentrification of the Mile End. Over the last ten years, many iconic local businesses—including the famous Le Cagibi—have been forced out due to rising rent prices. Adding a Maxi to the neighbourhood could increase property values and rents further, threatening the historic Jewish cultural identity of those communities.

Lower prices do not justify the cultural harms the new Maxi will bring to the Mile End community. The government must protect Lipa’s from Maxi’s incursion. The Canadian Competition Bureau should police new store openings from Loblaws and its subsidiaries.

More anti-monopoly laws are also key, such as in 2024, when the US Federal Trade Commission blocked the merger of two major grocers, Kroger and Albertsons.

Customers should avoid Maxi and support local grocers. Loblaws is taking advantage of this economic downturn with its new discount monopolies. Buying local helps keep massive corporations out of our neighbourhoods.

The increased presence of chain stores represents the corporatization of society. Whether it is by removing culture from local neighbourhoods or by creating massive monopolies, there has to be some regulation to stop the rapid expansion of the Loblaws empire. If not, we will lose core community ties in exchange for temporarily lower prices.

katzenmusik: Social inequality explored at Moyse Hall

A compelling performance of a town in turmoil

Alexandra Lasser Staff Writer

Fed up with neglectful and opportunistic landlords, dishonest politicians, fruitless peaceful protests, and a media parade creating a circus out of their lives, ordinary people make the pivotal decision to murder the cats of the elite and powerful. This unique plot development forces audiences to confront the individuals at the core of such a large tragedy.

The production is a collaboration between undergraduate students and faculty members of the English Department. Students worked closely with professors not only as performers but also in courses on costume making, set design, and lighting, gaining hands-on experience in all aspects of mounting a show. The director, Sean Carney, worked closely with U3 Drama and Theatre student Celeste GunnellJoyce, who acted as assistant director. Having leadership in the hands of both faculty and students ensured the collaborative nature of the production and provided students with the valuable and unique opportunity to develop their creativity under the guidance of experienced professionals.

“There’s a lot of real mentorship and apprenticeship going on [....] That’s been

really incredible,” Gunnell-Joyce said in an interview with The Tribune

The play’s political message gains strength from its large ensemble of characters, inviting viewers to contemplate a diverse array of perspectives. With 15 performers in the production, the cast undertook the complex task of representing multiple characters in the show. This choice highlighted the community at the heart of the turmoil. There was no lead character to follow, just a web of townspeople populating each scene, sometimes as victims, sometimes as perpetrators. The lack of a clear moral distinction between characters complicated the narrative and further encouraged audiences to evaluate the situation themselves rather than seek convenient answers.

I was particularly impressed with the creation of imagined sets on the stage. Though the stage was void of any set or decor, each scene was vivid and clear in its setting. This was thanks to clever choreography, staging, spotlights, and the accomplished physical acting of the young cast.

The final scene centres on the moral ambiguity of all the characters. It focuses on the landlord, who is largely responsible for the chaos. He addresses a conference, proudly recounting his rise from a low-

Wednesday on a Friday

income background in Burnside. He built his success by buying cheap housing and neglecting to pay maintenance fees, profiting off the backs of those whom the audience had watched suffer. The play avoids villainizing this specific individual, whose corrupt greed resulted from an ordinary desire to prosper; instead, this scene con -

fronts viewers with the system that platforms and enables his actions, forcing the realization that towns like Burnside exist everywhere.

katzenmusik continues its run in Moyse Hall in the Arts Building from November 26 to 28.

The alternative country band rocked a sold-out show at Club Soda last weekend

Ella Bachrach

Copy Editor

“Isaw Wednesday on a Friday night” sounds like the setup to a classic riddle, but don’t be deceived. Fresh off the explosive release of their sixth studio album Bleeds , North Carolina’s resident alternative country band Wednesday stopped in Montreal on Nov. 15 and lit up Club Soda for the evening.

I must admit—I hold a particular bias against Montreal crowds. I saw Kaytranada at Parc Jean Drapeau last year and was shocked to be surrounded by marble statues and frozen corpses. Since then, I have often mourned the freedom to dance as an artifact of the past, an archaic custom dating back to before the self-perpetuated surveillance state of cellphones.

Suffice it to say, I was surprised when, mere moments into Wednesday’s set, an unseen force tugged me forward. A sweaty, dancing mass swallowed me as hundreds of voices joined frontwoman Karly Hartzman in singing “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” the semi-titular track from Bleeds

Many listeners held a falsely sweet expectation for Bleeds upon the May release of the album’s first single, “Elderberry Wine.” In this lilting love song—penned like a classic country standard—Hartzman waxes poetic about the thin line between a love that’s just right and one gone bitter. “The pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine,” she sings, blending the Appalachian culture of her upbringing with the belief that rotten eggs float. Hartzman wrote the song amid a breakup with Wednesday guitarist and solo artist Jake ‘MJ’ Lenderman, whose playing

is featured on the album but who has since been replaced in the tour lineup by Jake ‘Spyder’ Pugh. Anyone noticing a trend? No, me neither.

While other tracks on Bleeds lean towards alternative rock and away from the softer melody of “Elderberry Wine,” the album remains firmly rooted in Hartzman’s memory through regional details. “Townies” reflects the bitter gossip cycle of a small town and shows how people weaponize sexual rumours against young women, as they once targeted Hartzman and a close friend. “Phish Pepsi,” a rerecording of a track on the 2021 Guttering EP, depicts high school loserdom through minute details, referencing Four-Loko-fueled bike rides and a makeshift Pepsi can pipe. In “Wound Up Here (By Holding On),” Hartzman sings about antlers mounted in the kitchen and a dead boy’s jersey hung in a trophy case, two gruesome souvenirs that fade into mundanity. Her lyrics present a sharply realist twist on the southern gothic, deftly illuminating the grotesque in the everyday and finding humour in the dark.

After cycling through a few upbeat tracks, some from Bleeds and others off of previous records, Hartzman paused to introduce the next song, hinting that it was named after the current month. Someone in the crowd exclaimed, “October,” and we all laughed as Hartzman second-guessed herself. After a few jokes about the timebending properties of touring, the band dove into the soft chords and muffled vocals of “November,” a shoegazey single from their second album. The crowd fell into a trance, gently swaying, eyes alight. We weren’t corpses or statues; we were hypnotized.

Just as we relaxed into the lull of the soundscape, Wednesday transitioned into “Twin Plagues,” loud and gritty, and everyone leapt in unison to the heavy Loveless -style drop. Strangers opened the pit again and again, circles ebbing and flowing. A beanied man crowd-surfed to the stage, hugged Hartzman, and surfed back into the distance. As Wednesday took advantage of the audience’s raucous energy and played straight

through their planned encore, I threw myself into the crowd with renewed faith. The writhing mass of dancing bodies didn’t feel anachronistic; instead, the steel guitar and thudding bass ushered the crowd into a new age, fresh branches growing from deep roots. Good music is alive and well in the hands of Hartzman. Dancing never dies. And it turns out Montreal still knows how to have a good time on a Friday night.

You sit down to write, the blank page in front of you simultaneously inspiring and intimidating: The channel is open, the possibilities are limitless. This stage of the process is difficult and anxiety-inducing, but you know it is an unavoidable part of writing.

Or, maybe, it doesn’t have to be.

The impact of computer systems acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to understate. Although conceptual and technological groundwork for AI had been established since the 1950s, progress and usage were largely sequestered in university and government research labs. It wasn’t until the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 that artificial intelligence began to dominate the popular consciousness. As companies and industries scramble to adapt to a new world, the divide between optimism and pessimism surrounding artificial intelligence deepens. AI forces us to confront questions looming over modern existence: What do we want from machines, and what will we sacrifice for it?

Understanding AI and writing

Although these may seem like unprecedented times, contemporary discourse about AI echoes common concerns from earlier waves of technological development. Historically, new technologies and mediums have stirred fear among artists concerned about their effects on existing forms. 19th-century realist painters cursed the advent of photography, 20th-century filmmakers worried about advancements in computer graphics, and 21st-century writers considered how word processing software changes the way authors write. Through artistic movements and technological revolutions, writing as an art form has adapted and endured.

Recently, the rise of Amazon and social media has tested the literary field, significantly altering the relationship between publishers, authors, and readers, and pushing the novel into the modern economy of attention. Mark McGurl, in his book Everything and Less, explains how Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) reorient priority from writing innovation to customer satisfaction, contributing to the commodification of literature. Authors become producers, forced to adapt their image and work to the fast-paced marketplace. Readers turn into superficial consumers, captured by promises of entertainment or enlightenment; thus, the marketplace works hard to retain their attention. This attention-driven model restructures the reading experience, orienting it around convenience and constant engagement. To maintain and expand its customer base, Amazon aims to make reading frictionless, promoting an abundance of genre-fiction that caters to users’ niche interests. To make matters worse, Amazon uses machine learning and data

KEEPING THE CHANNEL Investigating human and experience approaching

Written by Anna Seger,

Designed by Eliot Loose,

mining—subsets of artificial intelligence—to extract data from users’ reading habits for marketing purposes, perpetuating a never-ending cycle of consumption.

The emergence of fiction-writing AI tools should come as no surprise, considering the commodified logic of modern literary production. One such program, widely regarded as the cream of the AI-writing-tool crop, is called Sudowrite. “Blank page, begone!” touts the website’s homepage, promising it can brainstorm, create story outlines, expand descriptions, generate metaphors, suggest character arcs and plot twists, and edit users’ writing. Since the post-Amazon literary landscape has positioned books and authors more as products and producers, the implementation of tools to maximize efficiency is an expected progression. While KDP opens paths to publication for more authors, the digital marketplace is an unstable one. For Amazon authors like Jennifer Lepp, who makes a living churning out self-published “potato chip books” multiple times a year under the pen name Leanne Leeds, using Sudowrite to accelerate the writing process allows her to keep up with the demands of the marketplace and her audience.

Despite still using the program, in an interview with The Verge, Lepp considered the harmful impact of AI writing tools on her own skills and their broader homogenization of literature.

“I need to pay attention much less closely. I don’t get as deeply into the writing as I did before,” she said. “I think that’s the real danger, that you can do that and then nothing’s original anymore. Everything’s just a copy of something else. The problem is that’s what readers like.”

To make a living off one’s art, artists are tied up in the dynamics of consumer demand. How, then, do we reckon with cultural shifts surrounding literary production, and what responsibilities do readers and writers have to each other?

The promises and the problems In literature, artificial intelligence makes two enticing offers. First, it claims to eliminate the kinds of reading and writing it casts as mere busywork—proofreading, editing, synthesizing, and summarizing—and free up time and energy

for authentic artistic and intellectual exploration. Second, it promises to enhance this exploration, acting as an excitable book club buddy or a thoughtful writing partner.

In an interview with The Tribune, Chris Howard, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Philosophy, expressed a cautious optimism about the incorporation of AI tools in creative fields.

“There is still a human element in terms of telling the machine what you want it to produce, and there’s a lot of latitude for creativity in that process [....] You could have an absolute explosion of culture and a diffusion of power from the gatekeepers of culture. Which is really exciting, but I also don’t want to be too rosy [....] I understand the attitudes of artists who feel like there’s some danger to their craft with this,” Howard said.

CHANNEL OPEN human writing, labour, approaching a post-AI world

Seger, Photo Editor

Loose, Design editor

Using two dozen large language models (LLMs), Sudowrite functions almost like an advanced autocomplete, using data analysis and statistical probability to create sentences by guessing, one word at a time, what comes next. Despite being transparent about how the word processing system works on their homepage, in their FAQ, they answer the question “Is this magic?” with “Yes. But so is life, isn’t it?”

To some extent, this is true: AI is still somewhat of a black box. It is hard to dissect exactly how deep learning and neural networks function, contributing to a fervour and mystique surrounding AI that strikingly mirrors religion. Tech companies’ insistence on the inevitable takeover of artificial intelligence bears resemblance to the eschatological story of the Rapture: You must get with the program, or get left behind.

In an interview with The Tribune, Alexander Manshel, associate professor in the Department of English at McGill, rejected this narrative and advised against passive acceptance.

“As with any technology, we’re often told that it’s inevitable, so it’s not if it’s going to change everything, but how it’s going to change,” he said. “But, as with any technology, we have a choice as to whether or not we adopt it, and if so, how. I’ve been really heartened by talking to a lot of not just McGill faculty, but McGill students, who see the value in doing their own complex thinking, their own complex writing.”

To truly engage in complex thinking and writing, no part of the process can be dismissed as nonessential. By trying to eliminate or accelerate some parts of the process, AI writing tools contribute to the sacralization and romanticization of writing, detaching the work from the art. The actual process of writing is envisioned as an undesirable, but unfortunately necessary step that artists painstakingly overcome to translate their grand visions and ideas into the world. However, AI cannot replicate the craft of artistic creation or the process of critical exploration, which is where art and ideas get their value.

In a piece for The New Yorker on Sudowrite, Canadian novelist Stephen Marche wrote, “For writers who don’t like writing—which, in my experience, is nearly all of us—Sudowrite may well be a salvation.” Beyond the use of “salvation” revealing a quasi-religious zeal for AI, the sentence also points to a broader tension: The sense of distance from art that can emerge when generative technologies partly or entirely mediate creative work. In the creative process, ideas gain meaning by acquiring shape and structure through negotiating with the strengths and limitations of a certain artistic form. Marche’s framing places primary value on ideas in their abstract, inarticulated state, rather than on the interpretive labour required to realize them. To many, this perspective can appear liberating—writers might not need to be skilled in the craft itself if a system can refine their concepts into readable prose. But what Marche and the broader framework of AI writing tools overlook is that writing is not a means to an end. The process itself is both the labour and the art.

The way forward

Individual writers can often feel insignificant against the larger political, economic, and cultural forces influencing the trajectory of literature. But the issues and questions raised by AI writing tools go beyond the specific concerns of the literary field. All of us who engage in reading, writing, and thinking have a critical decision to make.

In an interview with The Tribune, Alex Steele, president of Gotham Writers Workshop, a creative writing school in New York City, discussed what is lost in AI writing.

“AI does not think, it does not feel. It is, quite literally, bloodless,” he said. In his September newsletter, titled “In Praise of People,” he writes, “You, on the other hand, are the proud owner of blood, brain, body, and (most mysteriously) soul. The power of your writing—however imperfect, flawed, messy—will be found there and nowhere else.”

It’s a vital reminder of the purpose of art: To challenge perspectives, deepen understanding, and foster emotional connection through the transmission of human experiences. In writing, we are constantly confronted with the limitations and inadequacies of human language. Amorphous thoughts, feelings, and ideas beam into our brains, and we translate them into the world as we shape them through syntactic structures, diction, form, and style. Through practice and repetition, this process becomes mechanized in our brains. Perhaps this is why we overlook what we sacrifice when we let it become actually automated by machines.

Agnes de Mille recounts a conversation with fellow choreographer Martha Graham in her biography that echoes Steele’s belief in the value of unique human expression.

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you [....] And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open,” Graham said.

AI is, at the end of the day, a technology and a tool. Particularly in the modern labour landscape, its use may soon be unavoidable. But in our personal, intellectual, and artistic lives, we have the power to be intentional about our implementation of AI, choosing how, when, and whether to use it. In our creative communities, we can influence the creation of guidelines, norms, and precedents regarding artificial intelligence. Above all, we must remember what may be at risk, and keep the channel open.

Messy mothers in the movies

The

Best Actress race is full of remarkable depictions of motherhood

Siena Torres Contributor

This piece contains spoilers.

The 2025 Oscars season features the struggles of parenthood throughout many of its award-nominated films. One Battle After Another , the frontrunner for Best Picture, follows aging stoner revolutionary Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he races to save his daughter from his nemesis. And yet, the lead performances that stuck with me most were the intimate ones by Rose Byrne and Jennifer Lawrence as mothers at their breaking point.

Mary Bronstein’s film If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You follows Linda (Byrne), a therapist left to care for her chronically ill daughter as her life collapses around her. The film balances comedic moments—look out for a key scene involving a hamster— and a highly stressful pace as her days worsen. From the opening scene, a close-up of Linda’s face, the film keeps the audience physically close to her. Told solely from her point of view, with her daughter pointedly kept out of frame except for her voice, Linda’s exhaustion and frustration are unmistakable. Byrne does not play a ‘good’ mother, but rather one who consistently makes poor parenting decisions. But this is precisely what makes her performance so daring; she treads the line between unredeemable and empathetic, playing a woman society often shames.

Jennifer Lawrence delivers one of the best performances of her career in Die My Love . Adapted from Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz’s novel, the film follows Grace (Lawrence), a new mother who moves to

rural Montana with her partner, played by Robert Pattinson. Fans expecting Katniss Everdeen x Edward Cullen fanfiction will be bewildered by the peculiarity of Lynne Ramsey’s latest film. Lawrence fearlessly embraces the rawness many women experience after childbirth, navigating her relationships and place in society whilst postpartum. From crawling through the grass on the prowl to ripping up wallpaper with her bare nails, it is impossible to look away. Lawrence’s chemistry with Pattinson is undeniable, even as their relationship goes up in flames.

This lineage of complex depictions of motherhood on film traces back to Gena Rowlands’ formidable performance in A Woman Under the Influence , released in 1974. Directed by her husband, John Cassavetes, Rowlands played a free-spirited housewife, unable to deal with society’s standards, which leads her towards a mental breakdown. The tension between her and her husband, as well as his desperation to rein her in, parallels Pattinson and Lawrence’s relationship. In both films, the wives are admitted into hospitals, showing society’s historical tendency to pathologize ‘insane’ mothers.

Releasing later in November, Hamnet stars the current frontrunner for Best Actress, Jessie Buckley, who plays the wife of a fictionalized William Shakespeare. The film reimagines the creation of his masterpiece, Hamlet , as a response to the loss of their young son Hamnet. In another standout performance, Amanda Seyfried is drawing awards buzz for her work playing the creator of the Shaker movement, also a mother, in The Testament of Ann Lee

It is intriguing that a burst of acclaimed

female-led and directed films depicting the very real struggles of motherhood emerges alongside the rise of conservatism. In online spaces, the infamous tradwives broadcast their marriages and children through the lens of traditional gender roles. Many of these women have large families but hide the real difficulties that come with motherhood to avoid controversy and successfully promote their fantasy of the nuclear family to sell products.

While tradwife culture tries to flatten the difficulties of motherhood into a marketable brand, films like Die My Love and If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You insist on showing its realities. They restore mothers’ agency to break free from reductionist stereotypes, such as the ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ or ‘mad mothers.’ Despite being a heavily mediated medium, cinema remains one of the most effective tools to represent the human experience.

Art exhibition Comfort and Indifference invites a reflection on shielded

Considering the cost of looking away while others suffer

Romane Musquet Contributor

In a world where scrolling past tragedy has become routine, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ latest exhibition Comfort and Indifference —featuring works by 22 Quebec artists—asks us to reflect on the human cost of ignoring suffering while surrounding ourselves with comfort. Drawing on Denys Arcand’s 1981 documentary bearing the same title, the exhibit explores the connection between past and present social detachment. Quebec’s first referendum on independence was held in May 1980; Arcand’s film, released a year later, traces the province’s struggle for political sovereignty. More importantly, it highlights a broader phenomenon in which Quebecers, preoccupied with their material wealth, found themselves increasingly detached from political matters.

By defining success through ownership rather than social contribution and prioritizing personal gain over community well-being, they allowed lifestyle choices to shape political realities despite complaining about them. The exhibition similarly examines this shift from collective values to individual priorities, prompting us to reconsider our

approach to worldwide crises.

Western societies have increasingly pursued individualism, with the escalating use of cell phones contributing to a growing sense of isolation and detachment from social injustices.

At the heart of these privileged spheres remain politically detached individuals.

Through a selection of works temporarily on display, acquired by the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) between 2020 and 2025, visitors encounter a wide range of pieces, each encouraging reflection on notions of comfort and indifference.

On one exhibition wall, artist Joyce Joumaa presents five circuit breaker boxes that she transformed into light boxes. Inside each, she places photographs of various domestic or commercial spaces that illuminate at specific, predetermined times. This series of works reflects Lebanon’s energy crisis since the 1990s, which has worsened in 2021 due to the global oil shortage. Each box lights up according to the energy schedules of the places it depicts in the country, turning on when electricity is available and off when it is not.

The scale of these works ultimately prompts us to reconsider our material comfort and privilege while approaching it with

a more considerate lens. Following this objective, artist Michel Huneault shares a piece from his series Roxham titled Sans titre 1 . The series depicts the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepting asylum seekers on Roxham Road in Montérégie, a central point of unofficial entry from the United States, which is now closed. Huneault specifically uses fragments of images instead of photographs, adding a layer of anonymity and speculation to his reflection, emphasizing the human consequences of immigration policy.

Walking around the gallery evokes a range of emotions. The varied nature of the works leaves no fixed route to follow; instead, you drift from one piece to the next. Each work brings its own flavour and originality, inviting you to slow down, immerse yourself, and get to know the story behind it. From paintings to life-sized sculptures, the different mediums successfully provide a rich variety of ways to explore the exhibition’s key themes of comfort and indifference, inviting you to pause and reflect.

Comfort and Indifference

does not offer simple answers or solutions. Instead, it leaves you with a series of lingering questions about what it means to feel comfortable while others bear the consequences. The exhibition suggests that indifference is never just a private feeling, but a position with real effects on other people’s lives. What we do with that realization is left up to us.

Comfort and Indifference runs until May 3rd, 2026.

OFF THE BOARD

Self-care is the opposite of revolutionary

Helene Saleska News Editor

We’ve heard the lines and seen the videos probably more times than we can count—

“Protect your peace,” “choose yourself”, “cut people off that don’t serve you,” and the one that gives me the most pause, “you don’t owe anyone anything.”

The latest mental health trend: ‘Radical’ self-care. Originally coined by Audre Lorde as a revolutionary form of survival for Black women in the 1960s, self-care has since been repackaged for mass consumption in the form of selfoptimization and healing. It is devoid of its original context, and in the hands of TikTok and Instagram influencers,

has become capitalism’s newest way of distracting us from the power of collective action.

The romanticization of solitude and an obsessive capitalist emphasis on the value of one’s personal comfort and success are implicit in the modern rhetoric of self-care, thereby devaluing connections that may seem less convenient. Of course, there are very real reasons to cut contact with family, friends, or relationships that have been sources of pain and trauma. But embedded within the framework of cutting off relationships that don’t serve you is the postulation that friendships should behave like investments—to be easily discarded when they are no longer profitable.

Through advice for selfoptimization, influencers sell you a life designed to avoid pain, friction, conflict, and burden, and all it takes—so they claim—is to cut off the relationships that make you feel anything but good, to remedy negativity with self-isolation and the right products. It’s ‘self-care’ to blow off a friend who’s struggling, because they’re draining for you. Be careful! Their energy might rub off on you and get in the way of your future self.

These messages are also broadcast as healing. If you’ve experienced any of life’s inevitable pains—a breakup,

maybe, or a fight with a friend—then pop psychologists will tell you to isolate yourself so as not to infect anyone else with your toxic mindset. This implies that healing is a linear process or an optimized state of mind, but also suggests your trauma is solely your responsibility. Heal first. Become a better friend, a better partner, a better person, and do it by focusing on yourself

This sets up an unhealthy dichotomy of you versus everyone else. Whether you’re healing or protecting your energy from others, this rhetoric convinces us that people and their needs are inherently a burden, making us afraid to rely on each other when we need it. This shift towards isolation harms more than just our mental health; it impairs our ability to organize at a time when it’s more important than ever to do so.

“Protecting your peace” doesn’t serve you —it serves the people that capitalize on your consumption, and on your constant quest for more in the absence of authentic human connection. Isolation as self-care obscures the fact that we are all inextricably connected, and that how we spend our time and energy will always have consequences on others, whether we give it out ‘for free’ or keep it all to ourselves. This view of the world doesn’t only come from an innocent desire to take care of

It can be hard to love thy (conference) neighbour

ourselves, but from capitalistic values that teach us to be selfish with what’s ours

Connecting with each other means negotiating your perspective amongst divergent ones, inevitably bringing friction. If we don’t question each other and ourselves, then we won’t learn to question our systems or authorities. It is through our relationships that we practice navigating the messiness of the world that exists all around us, and where we start negotiating how that world should be

All of history’s monumental social movements—from the Civil Rights Movement, to women’s movements, to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa—were rooted in relationships and mutual aid, with conversations and arguments over shared meals. Difficult conversations are what made people into revolutionaries, and revolutions sustained themselves through the support that people owed to each other.

All the self-care you can buy won’t make you a better person or a better friend. We can’t be successful activists if we don’t first forge meaningful and sometimes messy human connections, and we can’t challenge powerful institutions if we run from discomfort or interpersonal conflict. Maintaining community is self-care, not its antithesis.

Sometimes a bad TA isn’t what ruins a conferences; it’s the people around you

Rachel Blackstone Staff Writer

As I snake through the eerie Education Building in search of my POLI 244 conference, my stomach rumbles. I root through my slightly too small but impossibly stylish purse for a granola bar, and I wonder if Severance inspired this building design.

A few minutes early, I wait for my TA and open the readings for the week, definitely not for the first time. Prepared with a few insights and questions (Game Theory?) and temporarily satiated from my stale granola bar, I am eager to learn, discuss, and get a break from Economics problem sets and the mouse in my apartment.

The room fills up; there are far too many chairs and not enough desks. Laptops rest on laps, water bottles scatter the floor, and Longchamps sit in salty slush. For a minute or so, we’re all seated, silent, wide-eyed, and expectant as the TA opens a PowerPoint full of quotes and questions.

After attendance is complete, I watch a third of the screens in the room fill with iMessage or the New York Times Mini Crossword (followed by Connections, Wordle, and Strands). These minds are now elsewhere (free?), never to be grounded (trapped?) in EDUC415 again. I watch people online shop, check scores, answer emails, make weekend plans. Slightly envious—and slightly disappointed by their detachment—I stare daggers into my half-finished lecture notes, hoping for a revelation.

Due to the shrunken number of engaged minds, it depends on the rest of us to facilitate discussion. A booming familiar voice fills my ears. I sigh; Mr. PoliSci Bro has something to say (as always). The class turns their heads to listen, nodding appropriately to incomprehensible jargon and a slurry of statistics spat out too quickly to fact-check. He talks and talks, burying potentially solid points in layers of obvious self-assurance and male dominance. I lose track of the discussion—is he really referring to a 400-level political science course he’s taking “for fun?”

I struggle to breathe with all the air Mr. PoliSci Bro is taking up. Still, I raise my hand. I see a flicker of relief in the TA’s eyes, as she looks at the attendance to remember my name. I ask about Game Theory (What is it? When will I next taste freedom?). The TA opens my question up to the class. Perhaps they can help me. The girl sitting next to me looks up from Hay Day momentarily, but she swiftly switches to Block Blast.

Someone in the first row raises their hand, giving an almost too concise definition of Game Theory to the TA. I feel embarrassed. How could they synthesize the 40-page reading so easily? When I lower my gaze from the back of their head to their laptop, I see ChatGPT open, prompted by: “What is Game Theory, 2 sentence definition.”

The conversation opens up a bit more. A few brave souls raise their verbal swords to the mighty Mr. PoliSci Bro. I participate here and there, losing myself

briefly in a Spotted McGill rabbit hole. Latecomers arrive eventually, ChatGPT triumphs inevitably, and Aritzia makes a few sales while the lull of Mr. PoliSci Bro becomes almost therapeutic.

After 50 minutes of witnessing the squandering of my academic optimism, I stand on McTavish feeling confused, angry, and dreading a future society with these people in charge. The obvious disinterest in the real world disheartens me, but I get it. Everything is terrible.

Hungry again, I debate going home or to my eternal perch on floor three of Schulich. I turn off Do Not Disturb to find a text from my roommate: “Mouse is back, brought its friends.” Great. Luckily, my friends back home have sent a dozen Instagram Reels to lift my spirits.

I try my best to stay vertical as I inch down an already icy stretch of McTavish. Looking up momentarily from my careful steps, I see the sun setting—it’s already 4:30 p.m., after all.

Borderless World Volunteers raises funds for Sudan genocide relief

Six student bands performed at Gerts Bar to fundraise for Ethar Relief

Talia Moskowitz & Tamiyana Roemer Staff Writer Student Life Editor

If you walked past rue McTavish Friday night, Nov. 21, you most likely heard the sounds and vibrations of live music emanating from Gerts Bar. Borderless World Volunteers (BWV) is a McGill club focused on empowering undergraduate students to lead and assist in development projects in Montreal and abroad. Their most recent fundraiser was a lively Battle of the Bands to raise money and awareness of the ongoing genocide in Sudan.

Vice Presidents of External Fundraising Angélique Gouws, U3 Arts, and Anna Nogael, U4 Management, organized the event. Gouws expressed the club’s motivation and thought process behind the event in an interview with The Tribune

“There is a huge crisis in Sudan and [it] doesn’t have a lot of news coverage at all, so I thought we might as well try and see if we can get some funds going towards [those affected].”

Borderless World Volunteers donated 15 per cent of all ticket sales to Ethar Relief, an organization focused on supporting refugee crises in regions that have been neglected by the international community through comprehensive development projects and aid. Ethar is currently focused on addressing crises in Sudan, Yemen, and Djibouti.

Gouws shared that it was important to her and BWV to make a contribution to an or-

The Rapid Support Forces have displaced over 10 million people and committed since April 2023, creating what the United Nations has called the world’s largest displacement crisis. (Anna Seger / The Tribune)

ganization that would have an impact on the ground in Sudan.

“I tried to find an organization that […] we can see that there is tangible evidence of them going in and having a real impact in the communities,” Gowan said.

Six bands played at Gerts for the event, and all were happy to contribute to the charitable cause that BWV was supporting.

“It was cool, there were quite a couple bands that I reached out to and they all seemed willing to do it. They all were really chill with the fact that we didn’t pay any of the bands, they were all happy that it’s a fundraiser,” Gowan said.

Gowan emphasized BWV’s awareness of how development projects can often slide into neocolonial interventions with underlying presumptions of white saviourism, a problematic tendency the organization is conscious of circumventing.

“A big issue with development projects is that it ends up pushing a kind of neocolonial agenda, and that’s something that we’re really trying to make sure we’re not doing. We’re really trying not to do that by sending people to other countries,” Gowan said.

Adrienne Calzada, U4 Arts student and Co-President of BWV, illuminated the club’s mission and origins.

Five questions about departmental strikes, answered

Clarifying motives, goals, and messages

Gregor McCall & Tamiyana Roemer Student Life Editors

This past week’s coordinated departmental strikes have raised a multitude of questions, concerns, criticisms, and misinformation. To clarify the purposes and intentions of these strikes, The Tribune has gathered five questions circulating on social media to answer, all relevant to understanding student activism on a deeper level.

Why are students striking as opposed to donating, fundraising, or participating in sponsorships?

Donations, fundraisers, and sponsorship may support specific initiatives, including aid, but they do not directly challenge the policies or investments of McGill as an institution. A strike, by contrast, is a direct call to challenge and holds McGill accountable for its entanglement with violence and genocide rather than applying a temporary band-aid to those issues. Where donations and sponsorship largely operate within existing frameworks, strikes have the capacity to demand systemic change.

What is the actual goal that the strikers hope to achieve?

As listed in the departmental strike motions, students choosing to strike are calling on McGill to divest from weapons manufacturers profiting from destruction and genocide in Gaza, to disclose the full amount of its financial holdings, to drop disciplinary charges against students engaged in activism, and to terminate its exchange and research programs with Israeli in-

stitutions that promote military technology used in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. However, student strikes such as these are also intended to be symbolic; the coordinated departmental strikes signify that the McGill administration cannot simply outwait student activism until it dies out or dwindles down. The need for change is not just concentrated in a few departments but is a widespread conviction among many students across both campuses. That strikes are happening in departments from Philosophy to Atmospheric Science signal that McGill students want the administration to take hold of their demands, irrespective of their course of study. While there are certainly larger demands for the strikes, another goal is to reinforce that student activism is not a trend, nor is it frivolous.

If strikers are so against McGill’s investment, why don’t they just transfer schools?

McGill, as a public educational institution, exists to serve its student body, and as tens of thousands of tuition-paying members, we have the privilege, power, and responsibility to push for ethical change from within. In 2022 alone, other Canadian universities such as Concordia and the University of Toronto achieved five major Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) victories. Rather than fleeing to institutions that have already begun to adopt desired outcomes, we can leverage our collective voice to influence McGill’s policies—and, in doing so, continue to set a standard for other universities to follow. The real question isn’t why we stay—it’s why McGill continues to fail to uphold the ethical standards it claims to value, and what we’re willing to do to force the administration to hon-

“The club was founded in the early 2000s so we have been at McGill for a while [....] It was founded with the intention of giving undergraduate students opportunities to apply what they learned. The point of the club is essentially to bridge the theoretical learnings that we learn at McGill.” Calzada said.

While the club initially catered to students studying international development, it has expanded over the years to include the broader McGill undergraduate community.

“What we’ve done over the years is […] branch out to other faculties because there is […] a space for every faculty in this sort of movement,” Calzada said.

Calzada also shared what BWV is looking to achieve this year both locally and abroad.

“Right now we’re working with a women’s shelter in the city and are in the process of finding an NGO that we want to work with this year, and our end goal is to raise enough money to send a couple students abroad over the summer so that they can take place in like grassroots sustainable initiatives,” she explained.

Fundraising events like the Battle of the Bands not only generate tangible financial support in the face of violence and destruction but also make Sudan’s genocide—which remains vastly underreported in mainstream media— more visible within the McGill community. It serves as a critical reminder that awareness itself is the first step in resisting international neglect and apathy.

our them.

Are the strikers really demanding amnesty from criminal offences: Vandalism, harassment, violence against those not participating?

One of the strike demands is for McGill to drop disciplinary charges against students involved in political demonstrations and advocacy. In April 2025, McGill filed an injunction that threatened disciplinary action against students who choose to participate in peaceful demonstrations. Likewise, McGill’s heightened security presence, including the hiring of an external private security firm, has served to create an atmosphere of violence against students exercising their right to free speech. The strike’s demands are not for McGill to allow people to break windows, incite violence, or intimidate those who choose not to participate. They are for McGill to recognize the right to protest and cease its disproportionately aggressive countermeasures, which, in the past, have included violent actions such as the employment of tear gas.

McGill campus security has been criticized for heavily policing pro-Palestine student activists. (Alexa Roemer / The Tribune)

Is the strike intended to antagonize students who opt to go to class?

Students who continue attending classes are not the target of the action, but one goal of the strikes is to bring more saliency on campus to those who have chosen to look away from crimes against humanity. The strike seeks to draw attention to policies and investments that affect the entire community. By striking, departments create leverage that encourages McGill to act ethically and responsibly, which

ultimately benefits all students. Rather than a personal attack, the strike is a form of collective advocacy that ensures student voices are heard in shaping the policies of the institution that we trust to serve our interests. In Gaza, 4 of the 16 university campuses have been destroyed, and 10 have been moderately to severely damaged. While we must acknowledge the importance of education, it is ultimately a privilege, and our learning cannot continue as normal when the livelihoods—and education—of other students around the world are so vulnerable. Meaningful change requires disruption—and if a temporary interruption to our routine is what it takes to compel McGill to act in the face of atrocity, that discomfort is nothing compared to what students and communities in Gaza have been forced to endure.

ChatGPT, three years in How has ChatGPT changed education since its release in 2022?

Ella Paulin Contributor

Across higher education, professors, students, and administrators are grappling with how to respond to the widespread availability of fast, free, and increasingly capable chatbots like ChatGPT. In a survey conducted by The Tribune with 46 McGill undergraduate participants, only one in five students reported not using ChatGPT for class, while 56 per cent reported using it to revise their writing, and a full 21 per cent admitted to using artificial intelligence (AI) to write “part or all” of a written assignment for class.

Despite AI’s ubiquity in modern education, ChatGPT remains a very recent technology. Nov. 30 marks the three-year anniversary of ChatGPT’s re- lease to the public, making it a good opportunity to take a step back and see how exactly we got here.

How did this all start?

A lot can happen in three years—it’s already difficult to recall the initial splash ChatGPT made when it debuted in November of 2022. Chloe Sproule, U4 Arts, recounted some of these early memories in an interview with The Tribune

“I was in the GIC, and it was the evening, and my friend was like ‘Hey, guys, come check this out!’ and we’re all like ‘What is it?’ and he’s like ‘Look at what you can do. This is gonna be the future!’” Sproule said. “What we were doing was like what you would do as a kid with Siri, which was like ‘Tell me a joke!’ That’s the first impulse you have. And then we just wrote little poems about everyone, based on our different friends.”

Sproule’s account was common among users playing with ChatGPT for the first time, as reflected by the tone of early media coverage surrounding the chatbot. Articles from the first week after ChatGPT’s release have a bemusedbut-playful tone, with headlines like “OpenAI invites everyone to test ChatGPT, a new AIpowered chatbot—with amusing results” in Ars Technica, and “The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT” in the New York Times.

Where did ChatGPT come from?

This moment of collective experimentation and play with ChatGPT hints at something that we’ve forgotten over the last three years: The release of ChatGPT to the public was not the sudden birth of a never-before-seen technology. It was the tipping point of text generation from a novel technology in computer science to a legitimately useful tool that was accessible to users without programming backgrounds.

Andrew Piper, a professor in McGill’s Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department, has worked with text generation models since before 2022, and remembers experimenting with earlier models such as GPT-2 and BERT in his classes.

“We played with various writing agents out there that you could use that were pretty terrible, and like, kind of parlour games,” Piper told The Tribune. “Text generation was a curiosity, and then, literally, there was a before and an after.”

While ChatGPT was a big step up in quality, it had another crucial feature: An accessible user interface. Prior to ChatGPT, it was very difficult for a non-programmer to experiment with text generation themselves. OpenAI’s own announcement of ChatGPT from Nov. 30 em-

phasized the conversational, interactive, and accessible nature of their new model.

This isn’t fun anymore

By mid-December, the initial excitement and sense of play had already petered out, with the mood at the New York Times vacillating between existential dread and premature attempts to moralize. Take, for example, these three articles appearing between Dec. 10 and 21 of 2022: “The New Chatbots Could Change the World. Can You Trust Them?,” “Will ChatGPT Make Me Irrelevant?,” and my personal favourite: “How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person.”

After the 2022-2023 academic year, it was clear that this technology would not only shake up society, the job market, and ethics, but also the core of what it means to get a university education.

“I think the intuition that we were pretty cooked was clear early on,” Piper remembered. “Like, a lot of university-level behaviour had just been automated.”

This is when we started to get a wave of think-pieces about the college cheating crisis, as well as more optimistic pictures of a world where AI scaffolds and extends learning rather than harming it. One Atlantic article announces, “The First Year of AI College Ends in Ruin,” while another wonders, “My Students Use AI. So What?”

Three years on, how are students doing?

Like the chatbot itself, research on the impacts of ChatGPT has only had three years to develop, so many findings remain tentative— and in many cases, contradictory.

Some of the split in research findings can be explained by distinguishing studies that introduced ChatGPT in a ‘controlled’ way from those that studied real-world AI use. For instance, a 2025 study ran three trials: One group of students only attended lectures, one only used AI, and one attended lectures while using AI as a study aid. The last group performed signifi-

cantly better on the final exam than the lectureonly or AI-only group. But does this study setup reflect the reality of students’ ChatGPT usage? Results from The Tribune’s survey found that some did, indeed, seem to be using AI in this way, and generally had positive feelings toward it.

“I’m very happy I’m studying at the same time as ChatGPT. Especially for my coding class it has really helped me write code for projects and figure out where I’m going wrong.”

“I am happy to have access to the tool […] it can help me to save time, especially when trying to understand a concept or to understand a wide array of data/information in a short amount of time….”

On the other hand, a significant group of respondents had more negative things to say:

“It makes me uneasy when I give into the temptation to use ChatGPT because I wonder afterwards if my own ideas would have been better or worse than the ones AI gave me.”

“ChatGPT has been a constant temptation in stressful moments. I try not to do so, but when the tool is readily available and I feel desperate for time, it is extremely useful.”

This trend in the survey responses is consistent with other research, including a 2024 study, which found that students who used ChatGPT for a research project experienced lower cognitive load at the expense of lowerquality reasoning and argumentation.

Almost more worrying is research that studies AI usage in the wild, rather than setting up controlled trials. For example, a 2024 study of 387 students found no significant direct correlation between AI usage and their perceived academic performance, whereas it did find a correlation between AI usage and loneliness, as well as a decreased sense of belonging. The authors attribute this partially to “human-substitution behaviour” among students who use ChatGPT, which is also attested in the survey results:

“My ideas tend to be scattered and disorganized—ChatGPT helps me sort through what I’m thinking and put it on paper in a cohesive

way. Alternatively, I could do this with a friend, but I don’t feel comfortable asking someone to do what ChatGPT does for me.”

How about professors?

ChatGPT has also stirred things for professors, with two dominant trends arising: Shifting to oral or handwritten exams that are ‘AI-proof,’ or actively trying to incorporate AI into their curriculum.

Derek Nystrom, professor in McGill’s Department of English, noted that grading any kind of take-home assessment inevitably puts the professor in the position of AI-detector.

“The interesting thing about the ChatGPT essay is that it can, at this point, generate something that sounds like a student who hasn’t been paying a lot of attention,” Nystrom said. “You just have this sneaking suspicion about, like, is this a C paper, or is this a paper that should get a zero because it wasn’t written by the student?”

Tabitha Sparks, another professor in McGill’s English Department, has tried to incorporate ChatGPT into her curriculum by adding a step to her essay assignment where students were instructed to interact with ChatGPT before revising and expanding its responses into their final drafts.

“What really surprised me was that in examining it and discussing with my students, it actually was clarifying for what they should be doing as students of literature,” Sparks told The Tribune. “It got me to write assignments that I think better specified what I looked for as a high level of analysis.”

Overall, though, three years after ChatGPT’s release, the main feeling expressed by professors wasn’t so different from the students: Confusion.

“Everyone’s super confused. It’s hard to know what to do,” Piper said. “We’re all struggling with, like, how do we maintain learning authenticity and learning goals and all that jazz when there’s this super intelligent bot at your disposal, and nobody has cracked that formula yet, right?”

A world in decline: Can ecological restoration reverse the damage?

Investigating how ecological restoration may enhance biodiversity and ecological services

Antoine Larocque Staff Writer

Human activity has degraded or destroyed many ecosystems; an estimated 75 per cent of the Earth’s land surface has been significantly altered by human activity. This degradation contributes to climate change, reduces water quality, degrades soils, and disrupts pollination patterns. Restoration of degraded ecosystems may serve as a solution to recover the services that these ecosystems provide.

Catherine Destrempes, a McGill graduate alumnus working in the Bennett Lab from the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and the Bieler School of Environment, worked with collaborators to investigate whether ecological restoration can restore ecosystem services. She conducted an analysis at the landscape level in the Montérégie administrative region, located south of Montreal and primarily covered by croplands. With ecosystem service modelling, she determined how increasing the scope of natural ecosystems in Montérégie would affect seven ecosystem services, including pollination, water quality, recreation, maple syrup production, and food production.

But what is ecological restoration?

The Society for Ecological Restoration defines ecological restoration as “the process of assisting the recovery of a native ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed.” Restoration typically aims to guide ecosystems toward a reference system, often their pre-disturbance state. It is a nature-based solution for sustainably managing ecosystems, complementing conservation— which focuses on protecting existing ecosystems— in the overarching goal of safeguarding biodiversity.

Together, restoration and conservation are complementary approaches to preserving biodiversity. While the former rebuilds degraded ecosystems, the latter protects biodiversity and prevents extinctions.

Ecosystem recovery is particularly important in biodiversity hotspots—regions with high biodiversity and threatened by human activities. In the 36 hotspots identified by Conservation International, which range from the Atlantic Forest in Brazil to the North American Coastal Plain, less than 30 per cent of the historical ecosystems remain. By increasing the habitat extent for species, they will be more resilient to global change.

The restoration of ecosystems can also improve the connectivity of fragmented habitat patches. This is crucial for allowing species to migrate and facilitating natural flows, thereby making systems more resilient to climate change. It is also generally accepted that creating suitable habitats within any natural patch of land can increase the resilience of species and populations

Restoration ecology is an interdisciplinary field that draws knowledge from various disciplines, including economics, social sciences, and ecology, to assist in

the recovery of ecosystems and the services they provide.

How does ecological restoration work?

Ecological restoration projects begin by setting realistic, measurable, and socially acceptable goals. Since it is typically not possible for ecosystems to recover to their exact pre-disturbance state, it is crucial to determine the target reference state and identify the ecosystem services this state will include. Such services include flood control, pollination, recreation, mental well-being, and climate change mitigation.

To establish goals, key stakeholders must agree on restoration objectives. Local communities must be directly involved so that the objectives align with their needs. Destrembles’ research may bridge the gap between the environmental landscape and human needs.

“[Our] research was more about how we can use [the degraded land] we presently have available and take the most benefit out of it, for nature and for us,” Destrempes said in an interview with The Tribune

Destrempes also supported the connection between social sciences and environmental sciences. For example, to recover ecosystems in farmlands, the farmers’ perspectives on the project must be taken into account.

“The first thing is getting farmers’ opinion on the subject,” Destrempes said. “What do they want to do? What are they willing to be part of? At the end of the day, it is their land. They are the ones deciding. They know these pieces of land way better than we do, and they might have insights from our spatial analyses we would never know.”

Before implementing any intervention, restoration project managers assess the type and magnitude of human disturbances responsible for degradation. Severely degraded systems, such as former mining sites and areas with a history of extensive fires, typically require intensive interventions.

When an ecosystem has not been severely degraded, natural recovery is usually effective and cost-efficient. However, it is less effective in the presence of invasive species, such as weedy grasses. Sometimes, small interventions are required. For example, if fires prevent the growth of native species, fire management will aid the ecosystem in natural recovery.

When natural recovery is inefficient, more active strategies can be implemented. Restoration project managers must gather knowledge about the ecosystem’s functioning to help determine better strategies.

Let us compare two case studies: The recovery of a drained peatland—a wetland where dead plant materials accumulate due to slow decomposition—versus the recovery of a deforested tropical rainforest. The restoration of the peatland requires the recovery of its hydrological flows. In the tropical forest, the lack of animalmediated seed dispersal hinders forest regeneration, indicating that facilitating seed dispersal or introducing plants may be more effective.

Most active restoration strategies have historically focused on vegetation recovery, as plants form the foundation of habitats. Revegetation can occur through nursery-grown seedlings, direct seeding, or encouraging natural seed dispersal by installing structures that attract animal seed dispersers. Local communities can participate in the management of the nursery, tree planting, and seedling maintenance.

“When people are on board, they will take care of these pieces of land,” Destrempes said.

Farmers may be reticent about restoring parts of their land because patches of natural habitats can decrease agricultural yields by increasing shading; however, this may be compensated for by increased pollination and resilience against extreme events. For example, wetland ecosystems store a significant amount of water and can provide water to surrounding areas during droughts. To support farmers in Montérégie, the Alternate Land Use Services (ALUS) Montérégie program can help farmers restore parts of their land.

Environmental monitoring is essential after any intervention, yet it remains one of the weakest aspects of restoration practice. Community involvement has the potential to strengthen this stage.

Importantly, ecological restoration projects should be carefully managed with a landscape-level perspective in mind to ensure that the recovery of one ecosystem does not lead to the degradation of another—a phenomenon referred to as a spillover.

Overall, restoration projects lie at the intersection of social and ecological dimensions. Although these projects are grounded in ecological prin ciples, their success de pends on the involve ment of local people throughout the process.

How may ecological restoration help ecosystem services?

Surprisingly few studies have rigorously measured the impact of ecological restoration on ecosystem services. Weak monitoring of restoration projects, combined with the use of inadequate monitoring in dicators, has limited the evi dence base for effective resto ration practices.

It is in this context that Des trempes’ study comes into play. She found that the recovery of eco systems can yield benefits across the landscape.

“The main thing that we found that was very interesting is that, when we re

store a piece of land, […], it actually has an impact […] in the zone of restoration but also around that zone […],” Destrempes said. “To say it plainly, if we restored [one] field, the surrounding field also had increased ecosystem services [....] We can use [the spillover effect] to our advantage. We can […] put restoration patches [across the landscape] to have a compounded effect.”

She also found that ecosystem services had different responses according to the extent of the area that is restored. Some services were significantly increased by implementing very few restored areas. This suggests that, depending on the specific services targeted for improvement, extensive land restoration may not always be necessary.

A meta-analysis also found that increases in ecosystem services were linked to increases in biodiversity, and that tropical ecosystems typically yielded higher increases in ecosystem services than temperate ecosystems.

It is also important to acknowledge that ecosystem recovery can be a slow process. For example, secondary forests— forests that have regenerated after being destroyed—may require a century to recover their original biomass and around 50 years to recover species diversity.

Altogether, carefully managed and targeted ecological restoration is promising for meeting biodiversity conservation targets. Major global restoration projects are currently underway, such as the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030. From social scientists and economists to ecologists, there is a place for everyone in restoration ecology—be part of

Inclusion done wrong: The backlash against Sky Sports’ Halo account

Sky Sports’ sexist failure in attempting to portray women’s sports exposes how sports media broadly neglects women fans

Alex Hawes Silva Staff Writer

Sky Sports’ short-lived TikTok account, Halo, which was marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis,” lasted mere days before the company quietly pulled the plug due to intense backlash. Originally designed to “create a space alongside Sky’s existing social channels for new, young, female fans,” the initiative instead sparked immediate criticism. But the backlash did not come from sexist sports fans who disagreed with increased representation for women. Instead, the criticism came almost entirely from the audience that Sky Sports claimed it was trying to welcome—and for good reason.

Two early highlight videos quickly showcased the sexism at hand. One clip Sky Sports posted on Halo showed soccer forward Erling Haaland scoring a goal, with the caption, “how the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.” Another featured a clip of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani with the caption, “Thinking about Zohran Mamdani rizzing us and Arsenal up.”

Rather than offering meaningful sports analysis, the account relied on a caricatured and stereotyped idea of what young women supposedly like: Matcha, ‘hot girl walks,’ and ‘rizz.’ The buzzwords were used regardless of whether they had anything to do with the sport that was being featured. The

campaign failed so spectacularly because it treated women not as fans, but as demeaning, superficial stereotypes.

At the root of Halo’s embarrassing attempt at feminism is a longstanding problem within a sports media landscape that still cannot view women as serious fans. Media coverage surrounding women athletes and women’s sports, or directed to audiences of women, is softened and aestheticized by networks—or, in this case, decorated in sparkles. Instead of recognizing women as authentic and knowledgeable sports fans, campaigns reduce them to an overplayed

stereotype, one that executives assume must be reached through pink, girly, and ‘cutesy’ graphics.

Halo’s tone was not youthful or inclusive: It was patronizing. It presented sports as something that women needed to have translated into ‘girl content.’ What Halo completely ignored is that women already exist in sports spaces as analysts, athletes, journalists, and fans—with the same intensity as men. Women care about sport, not because it aligns with trends, but because they love the game.

So when Sky Sports launched its Halo

account built on the idea that women need a separate, softer version of sport to enjoy, it reinforced the stereotypes that women are constantly fighting against.

As Emily Trees, a critic of Halo, said while speaking to BBC Newsbeat , “We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to come away from the stereotypes around women’s sport, and trying to make women’s sport seen as an entity in itself rather than just as an extension of what men can do. We deserve our own space, something that’s ours. We don’t need to be the ‘little sister’ to anyone.”

Instead of inclusion, treating women fans as sports fans first, Halo offered segregation and infantilization.

Moreover, meaningful inclusion means putting women in the room in decision-making, leadership roles. If Halo’s planning team had been composed of women, the account would not have even considered including such content. Women should not just be the target audience; they should shape and create the very narratives and campaigns that are aimed at them.

The demise of Sky Sports’ Halo is not a sign that women do not want sports content tailored to them. It is a sign that they want it to be authentic, respectful, and true to their views around sports. Sky Sports attempted to build a space alongside its main channels, but women do not need a separate space—they need to be at the forefront of the media they care about.

McGill Artistic Swimming makes a splash at home invitational

McGill athletes earn podium finishes across all events at Memorial Pool

Ivanna Zhang Staff Writer

The McGill Artistic Swimming team hosted the McGill Invitational Meet on Nov. 22 at Memorial Pool. The athletes excelled at home, securing podium positions in all five events they entered.

Artistic Swimming, made up of 36 athletes, is divided into a novice group and an experienced group based on swimmers’ exposure to the sport prior to university. Each group competes in three events—solo, duet/trio, and team—while the experienced category also includes an Athlete With Disability solo, bringing the total to seven events in the meet.

Head Coach Lindsay Duncan has led the program since 2013, and entered this eleventh season with a clear approach for the year’s opening competition. In an interview with The Tribune before the invitational, Coach Duncan discussed her expectations for the team in their first meet of the season.

“My goal is for everybody to go into this event with confidence,” Duncan said. “Also, since this meet doesn’t qualify us for anything, it is a good chance for us to try out new things and be a little bit risky.”

In the second event of the day, ten teams from across three schools competed in the experienced duet/trio category, with McGill entering four duets.

Kayla Drew and Alexa Vaillancourt, both in their third year in Kinesiology, have competed as duet partners for three consecutive years at McGill. In addition to their duet event, they

also participate in the experienced group performance.

In a pre-performance interview with The Tribune, Drew and Vaillancourt shared how they hoped to feel about the competition in retrospect.

“Being proud of what we did is very important to us, and [feeling] like we tried our best,” Vaillancourt said.

“We’re going in with the highest degree of difficulty,” Drew added. “We’re really hoping not to base mark. That’s like a massive goal of ours, throughout all the meets, not just this weekend.”

In artistic swimming, a competitor’s final score is calculated based on three categories: Difficulty, execution, and artistic impression.

If any move is performed incorrectly, it will result in a base mark—scoring the lowest possible points for the difficulty score.

Despite some nerves and a tough practice before competition day, Drew and Vaillancourt were satisfied with their performance and hope to stay on top of the competitor pool. The pair achieved their goal of performing base markfree, securing first place for McGill and scoring a total of 148.9000.

“A ritual is that the last practice before a competition always goes whack, and yesterday, that was what happened. Showing up today, you’re like, ‘Okay, we’re not gonna repeat what happened yesterday,’” Vaillancourt expressed.

“We know the competition here today are the same competitors we have to look out for

through the season,” Drew stated. “It’s good to know that we can achieve our goals so early.”

In the third event of the day, Hailey Hertzog secured a silver medal for McGill in the novice solo category. Hertzog scored a total of 83.2767, approximately five points shy of the event winner, Lauren El-Awadi from the University of Ottawa.

Hertzog had entered the meet with one clear goal: Reach the podium. She expressed her overwhelming joy at achieving her goal in an interview with The Tribune

“I was so nervous leading up to it, but everyone was so supportive,” Hertzog said. “When I finally competed, I was like, ‘Okay, I did it!’ I just feel amazing.”

In the experienced solo category, Sonia Dunn delivered one of the day’s highest-scoring performances, earning 160.2146 points to take first place ahead of teammate Clara Thomas, who finished second with 147.6771 points.

In the final two events of the day, the McGill novice and experienced teams placed third and first respectively, concluding their successful home invitational in front of a packed crowd of family and friends. The experienced team delivered the highest-scoring event of the competition, earning 172.8396 points. With a medal in every event they entered, the team opened their season on a confident note, and expressed hope to carry that momentum into the rest of the year.

“My dream would be to have a first-place finisher in each of the events that we enter,” Coach Duncan said. “It’s not always possible, but we are using this competition to build the path to it.”

The fights that made hockey: Revisiting the NHL’s most legendary brawls

Jenna Payette Staff Writer

In the final seconds of a tight National Hockey League (NHL) game between the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers, Detroit’s Mason Appleton shot the puck near centre ice a half-second after the game’s final buzzer blared. Rangers goaltender Jonathan Quick instigated a fight in retaliation; within moments, gloves littered the ice, and a rare bench-clearing brawl erupted in front of a stunned arena.

In today’s NHL, an era polished by speed and analytics, the sight felt almost prehistoric. And yet it was electric. It reminded fans of something the sport has never fully outgrown—fighting and its complicated place in hockey’s identity.

In the NHL’s early decades of the 1920s to 1960s, fights acted as a self-policing mechanism. They protected stars, upheld rules, and allowed players to settle disputes with their fists rather than the rulebook. Fans embraced it as part of the game’s raw, unfiltered culture. There was no need to explain it: Fighting was simply how hockey governed itself.

By the 1970s and 1980s, that fighting norm evolved into full-blown enforcer culture, rife with intimidation and designated tough guys whose sole job was to unleash chaos on command. Brawls became ritualistic, woven into the fabric of bitter rivalries. Nowhere was this more palpable than in Quebec, where the Montréal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques transformed hostility

into theatre. Their notorious 1984 clash—the Good Friday Massacre—became one of the bloodiest nights in Canadian sports history as decades of tension spilled across the ice. The Massacre brought 252 penalty minutes and multiple ejections, as players threw punches, swung their sticks, and went back for round two.

This time also produced one of the most surreal moments in NHL lore: The Boston Bruins and New York Rangers fan fight of 1979. After a late-game scrum, a Rangers fan struck Boston’s Stan Jonathan with a rolledup program. Within seconds, Bruin Terry O’Reilly and his teammates scaled the glass like soldiers breaching a fortress to retaliate. Mike Milbury famously ripped off a spectator’s shoe and used it as a weapon against its owner. The scene remains a mix of shock, chaos, and dark comedy unmatched in league history.

The 1990s brought choreography to the chaos. Fighting became tactical—heavyweights squaring off in predetermined showdowns—but the decade also birthed one of the league’s most emotionally-charged feuds: The Red Wings vs. the Colorado Avalanche. Colorado’s Claude Lemieux’s bonecrushing hit on Detroit’s Kris Draper in 1996 fractured more than Draper’s face—it fractured two franchises. Detroit’s retribution came in 1997, when Darren McCarty hunted down Lemieux, dragged him to the ice and pummeled him as both teams’ benches erupted. A year later, tensions flared again in a cinematic moment: Opposing goaltenders Patrick Roy and Chris Osgood skated

the length of the rink to collide at center ice in a flurry of punches.

The 2000s delivered their own brand of mayhem with the Philadelphia Flyers vs. Ottawa Senators in 2004. Their matchup devolved into a rolling storm of violence— pre-meditated fights off every faceoff, a goalie duel, and enforcers squaring up like gladiators. When the dust settled, the game’s score sheet showed an absurd 419 penalty minutes: Still an NHL record.

Fights were rare in the early 1960s, occurring in just 20 per cent of NHL games, but by the 1980s, every game averaged one fight. (Zoe Lee / The Tribune)

By the mid-2010s, however, the landscape shifted. Concussion research, chronic traumatic encephalopathy awareness, and the rise of speed-first roster building meant fighting dropped dramatically league-wide. Salary-cap realities squeezed out one-dimensional enforcers, and new rules—the fight strap and penalties for removing helmets—further dampened the spectacle. Even brawls like the 2011 New York Islanders-Pittsburgh Penguins melee, leading to 346 penalty minutes, feel like artifacts of a fading culture. Today, fighting survives, but with purpose. It is context-driven: Meant to protect a star, swing momentum, or spark a lethargic bench. Modern enforcers like Ryan Reaves, Arber Xhekaj, and Matt Rempe are skilled enough to justify their roster spots beyond their fighting abilities.

Know Your Athlete: Rebecca McGrath

McGrath holds RSEQ and McGill records for the 50 metre backstroke

Zain Ahmed Staff Writer

When most students are just beginning to wake up, Rebecca McGrath, U1 Science, has already been in the pool for hours—counting strokes, chasing splits, and sharpening the details that make her one of McGill Swimming’s most promising rookies. At only 19, the Psychology major made her presence known once again at the University of Toronto Varsity Blues dual meet on Sunday, Nov. 16, winning gold in both the 50 metre and 200 metre backstroke and qualifying for the U SPORTS Swimming Championships in both, as well as the 4x50 metre relay.

Despite her outstanding results, McGrath insisted the meet felt more like a training test than a peak.

“I kind of knew my race plans,” she shared in an interview with The Tribune. “The whole meet was more like training [....] We were all pretty fatigued, taking the train there and back, and it was our fifth weekend racing in suits.”

In Toronto, team points overshadowed the clock for McGill Swimming. McGrath’s 200 metre backstroke performance was where everything clicked.

“The first 100 metres, I set up my race pretty well, so I was already quite ahead [....] In the end, I knew I would win the race,” she explained. “That was the ultimate goal, not the time as much [....] It was really about whoever

wins the most golds, whoever places better.”

Like most varsity athletes, McGrath has had to learn to manage more than just race strategy in competition. She detailed the setbacks that impact her time in the pool, and which adversity tends to be the hardest to overcome.

“I think it’s always injuries, as well as motivation, but with schoolwork and swimming load, that’s the hardest,” she said. “I dislocated my knee in the summer [....] [I had] to pull back for a bit, and [the impact] never really goes away.”

What steadies her is McGill Swimming’s culture, which blends high performance with genuine enjoyment. McGrath’s path to McGill was shaped in part by her longtime coach Peter Carpenter, now the head coach at McGill.

“I never really thought of pursuing swimming in Canada, it was always the [United] States,” McGrath explained. “But after my recruitment trip [to McGill] and [getting to have] Peter as a coach, […] I love his energy. That’s when I decided I wanted to continue varsity in Canada.”

She credits Carpenter as a major reason she thrives in the program.

“He makes people enjoy the sport. Not only do well in it, [but] he lets us have a good work-life balance, which is so hard to do,” McGrath emphasized.

This fall, McGrath also competed at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Toronto after qualifying at summer nationals.

Racing in heats alongside world record holders was a surreal milestone.

“Everything they do is so insane, [yet] they’re so smiley and relaxed in the ready room. I admire them so much,” McGrath shared.

Balancing elite swimming with McGill’s academics is demanding, but Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel gave McGrath a strong foundation. Not only intense with her academic goals, McGrath has an ever-determined attitude when it comes to the competitive nature of varsity swimming. Looking ahead to the rest of the season, McGrath stays humble but ambitious as an athlete competing at the highest level.

Still, the bench-clearing chaos seen in the recent Rangers-Red Wings clash feels almost archaic. It reminds us that beneath the modern polish, hockey’s wilder heartbeat still pulses, forging identity, accountability, and culture, and allowing fists to say what words or whistles still cannot.

McGill Swimming have come first in three meets so far in the regular season. (Zoe Lee / The Tribune)

“There’s always something to improve, even if it’s just milliseconds. That’s what keeps it exciting,” she affirmed. “I feel like there’s still so much room to grow.”

McGrath did not hesitate to share what she loves most about McGill’s swimming program.

“The team atmosphere,” she exclaimed. “Yesterday we had music on deck, Peter was singing and turning up the volume, and every-

one was enjoying themselves as friends while still working hard.”

In a perfect segue, her advice to future McGill varsity athletes is simple: “Don’t take it too seriously. Have fun. It’s such a fun experience, really.”

With national and international race experience already behind her, McGrath is proving that joy, balance, and belief might be her most powerful tools in the pool.