The Tribune
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4 2025 | VOL. 45 | ISSUE 9
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Artistic gems within the depths of Montreal PG. 7
Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University
OFF THE BOARD
My acoustic coup against the classical
THETRIBUNE.CA | @THETRIBUNE.CA
FEATURE
Rethinking drinking
PG. 11
PGS. 8-9
NEWS
Ramos highlighted the Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines as a step toward equity in academia, noting its gaps in representing gender-diverse people. (Zoe Lee / The Tribune)
Language seminar for Queer History Month emphasizes the power of inclusivity
Department of Family Medicine seminar discusses language’s role in fostering inclusion within professional spaces PG. 3
Medical workers say care can’t be quantified—and McGill must uphold that EDITORIAL
The Tribune Editorial Board
O
n Oct. 25, François Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government called a special session to expedite the passage of Bill 2. The bill was pushed through the National Assembly just after 4:00 a.m., despite widespread opposition from doctors, medical students, and healthcare unions. Bill 2 will overhaul how physicians are paid, linking their income to performance indicators, such as the number of patients treated and classifications of the patients’ ‘vulnerability.’ Instead of incentivizing high-quality
patient interactions, clinical teaching, or medical research, this bill rewards what is easily measurable and superficially ‘efficient.’ The legislation also grants inspectors the power to enter medical offices and access patient records without warning, and threatens doctors who protest these stipulations with fines ranging from $20,000 CAD per day for individuals to $500,000 CAD per day for professional groups or associations. By attaching these daily fines to any form of dissent regarding this harmful legislation, the CAQ has turned doctors’ public protest—a right protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—into a punPG. 5 ishable offence.
Trust your gut: How your gut microbiota uses the foods you eat to prevent disease SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
PhD student Arianna Giurleo investigates bacteria to improve cancer patients’ treatment outcomes
Michelle Yankovsky Staff Writer
H
idden deep within the human digestive tract lies a dynamic and complex population: The gut microbiota, a community of over 100 trillion microbial cells that influence the body far beyond digestion. Consisting of bacteria, viruses, eukaryotes, and archaea, a diverse microbiota has been shown to have many ben-
eficial health effects, particularly in patients with cancer. But which of these countless microbes are responsible for transforming the beneficial compounds we get from our diet into molecules that can improve treatment outcomes? This question has been the focus of researchers such as Arianna Giurleo, a secondyear PhD student in McGill’s Pharmacology and Therapeutics program and member of the Castagner Lab. PG. 14