Volume 100, Issue 24
January 10, 2011 mcgilldaily.com
McGill THE
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19
MCGILL FIRES INJURED WORKER 3 THE PLOT AGAINST PIRGS 12 LIFE ON SATURN’S MOON? 15
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The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
3
McGill fires MUNACA member Union claims University in contravention of Collective Agreement, Quebec law Rana Encol
The McGill Daily
A
fter an almost seven year back-and-forth with McGill, Ron Zahorak, a technician once employed by the university, was fired in late November because an injury limited his lifting abilities. David Roseman, Vice-President of Labour Relations at the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), said that McGill’s refusal to place Zahorak in a job commensurate with his capabilities was in contravention of the Quebec Charter of Rights and Articles 37 and 38 of MUNACA’s Collective Agreement with the University, which stipulate that an employee cannot be discriminated against on the basis of disability. NCS Director Gary Bernstein, who signed the November 26, 2010 letter firing Zahorak, declined to comment. “We do not make public comments on personnel matters,” wrote Bernstein in an email to The Daily. In 2003, Zahorak, then a Security and Telecommunication Technician at McGill Network and Communications Services (NCS), was carrying a stepladder and his tools through the back door of the Arts Building when the ladder hit a four-inch recess in the ceiling, hyper-extending his left shoulder
de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec] said…was allowed,” echoing the words used in the administration’s formal response to the petition. Adrienne Gibson, Quebec Regional Representative of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which has a service agreement with MUNACA, explained that McGill’s position was the result of a “legal grey zone.” “There is this interpretation that…because the CSST is involved in getting injured employees back to work, the CSST has the responsibility of ensuring that the Quebec Charter is applied – and nobody else,” said Gibson. “We’re not talking about a firefighter whose injuries might have posed a safety risk – we’re talking about someone whose limitations are lifting his arms above his head. … It seems crazy that McGill couldn’t find a job within the limitations of the Charter,” said Gibson. Zahorak said McGill did little to help him. “The extent of [McGill’s] help was that they would either call me or email me saying, ‘Look, there’s a posting online that you might be interested in,’ which I was doing on my own anyway,” he said. Zahorak had participated in the expansion of the McGill security system when he started at NCS in 2001. His job was to install, maintain, and configure the relevant software, and teach security per-
“So I went back, and they essentially left me hanging – they refused to reintegrate me, they didn’t pay me, they did absolutely nothing.” Ron Zahorak Fired McGill employee and leaving him with a permanent disability. On December 15, 2010 MUNACA presented a 300-signature petition to the University, demanding that Zahorak be placed in a job. Lynne Gervais, Associate VicePrincipal of Human Resources, said that McGill had made “every possible effort within the constraints of what the CSST [the Commission
sonnel how to use it. “We had it running in a way that we did a lot of upgrades to it ourselves – a lot of homemade stuff. I have a degree in electronics so I did a lot of modifications myself. The system became very personalized to the University,” he said. Last year, Zahorak lost a new software programming position –
which required no physical labour – to someone from outside of McGill, “which once again goes against the Collective Agreement,” Zahorak emphasized. “The guy that interviewed me for the position, I taught him how to use the system – so how do you not give me that job?” Zahorak said. Gervais retorted that “jobs that are given here are based on qualifications. If he didn’t get accepted, that’s because he didn’t have the qualifications.” In an internal newsletter sent December 2 to all staff and obtained by The Daily, MUNACA and PSAC are also disputing McGill’s claim to a “Certificate of Compliance from the federal government’s Federal Contractors Program (FCP),” which is necessary for all provincial employers that receive $200,000 or more in goods or services contracts from the federal government. “This certificate attests that the University is developing a plan to ensure that no person will be denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability,” the memo reads. “Women, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities are the four groups targeted by the government.” “We’re asking the federal government to assess this claim especially in light of Zahorak’s case – and if [the government] has indeed issued a Certificate, to revoke it,” said Gibson. Zahorak had filed a claim with the CSST and received Workman’s Compensation and Long Term Disability (LTD) payments, which worked out to approximately seventy per cent of his original salary. When his LTD payments ran out, Zahorak had no revenue and went on unpaid leave, but was ordered back to work by McGill in November 2010 before he was fired. McGill lost all three hearings. The CLP confirmed Zahorak’s permanent disability, and he received a “back-to-work” order from his doctor in November 2009. “So I went back, and they essentially left me hanging – they refused to reintegrate me, they didn’t pay me, they did absolutely nothing,” said Zahorak. “I’d come into work everyday at 8 o’clock, sit down, read the paper, have breakfast, and wait ‘til 4 o’clock. Occasionally, they would give me a chore. I’d sit here and answer the phone for a while or do
First Last / The McGill Daily Courtesy of Ron Zahorak
Ron Zahorak had been working at NCS since 2001. this or do that. And that went on for several months,” he added. Zahorak claims that, despite his physical limitations, he could still do eighty per cent of his job – and that the remaining twenty per cent “I could probably do – just not repetitively, all day, everyday. But [McGill] said it had to be 100 per cent every day.” “Since November 2009, they’ve completely and utterly raped the Collective Agreement – they didn’t live up to any of their responsibilities whatsoever,” he added. Around this time, Zahorak fell into depression and was put on suicide watch at Lakeshore General Hospital in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. “I had absolutely no revenue; I was a single dad; I had to abandon my apartment; I had to move in with my girlfriend. My girlfriend had to support me and my daughter for an entire year. She doesn’t make all that much – she’s a registered nurse so she makes a halfdecent living – but between the
two of us we have four kids, so 50,000 [dollars] a year for six people – you can imagine,” Zahorak said. “I went from being given complete and absolute access to the entire university – I had more access than security did. I could do absolutely anything I want in the system from my home computer in my living room. If I wanted to be malicious, I could have locked down the entire university from home. So I went from that kind of status and access, to not even being able to be good enough to answer a phone,” he continued. There will be another hearing before an arbiter this year, but no date has yet been set as it is dependent on the employer’s lawyer’s availability. Zahorak is currently working part-time for MUNACA and has taken out student loans to enroll in a programming analyst and internet solutions course at CDI College.
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The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
5
Back in the SSMU of ‘69 P
rominent Montreal-based civil liberties lawyer Julius Grey, began his politically crusading career in an office familiar to most McGill students – that of SSMU President. In 19691970, when Grey presided over the student society, campus politics were different. Grey sat down with The Daily before the winter break to discuss what he sees as an alarming rightward shift in the politics of Quebec, and the world at large. The McGill Daily: You are a former SSMU president, and the Daily’s archives seem to show that you had a good relationship with the administration. Julius Grey: The administration in those days was academic; it was not business. The administration changed during the [former McGill principal] David Johnston years [1979-1994], our present Governor-General. It became much more conservative, much more concerned with fundraising and big business than the actual day to day fraternization between the administration and the academics. We did not have a professional, bureaucratic, business oriented administration. What we had were a bunch of academics who were named, and you’d see them in the faculty club. There was no real difference between [administrators] and the other professors. And when I came back from England and started to teach, I would walk up to Principal Robert Bell and say, “Bob, what’s the policy in this or that.” There was not the same barrier. One of the things that worries me – if you read the Times Literary Supplement, New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and Le Monde Diplomatique – you’ll find all over the world a growing corporate takeover of the university, so that the university is all a matter of corporate money coming into places and sponsoring research. Remember that the research will not be objective. It’s difficult to imagine sponsoring economic research that concludes they should be nationalized. When you say that I as student council president was close to the administration, yes, but it was a bunch of academics. The people I was close to were not at all right-wing, they were all of different views and different shades, but they were all people who wrote books and believed the financing of a university depended not on corporations but on the government. MD: Do you see the new type of administrator as accountable to students? JG: They’re not. They’re not accountable to students; they’re not accountable to faculty. What you’ve got is a growing alienation, a Marxist alienation – a term which I use consciously. The professors are being alienated, the students are being alienated. One day what
From the archives of The McGill Daily
Grey as SSMU president in 1969 will happen is what happened in the middle ages in that everything was in the hands of the church, and then there would be secessions: people forming their own little groups. The real origin of Oxford and Cambridge was that people would gather around informally around some guy who had a somewhat different view of Holy Communion that might be considered heretical somewhere else. And they would discuss it. And the Sorbonne became great because people like Abelard and Thomas Aquinas who weren’t fully orthodox in every possible way, and they too found Aristotle, found some of the Arab philosophy and applied it. What you’re going to have sooner or later is people either seceding from the university, saying all they’re doing is they’re training MBAs or engineers for business, and you’re going to have discussion groups, clubs like during the French revolution – the Jacobin club. Because I don’t think we’ll take it. I’m not interested in a corporate university. I think companies, if they want to participate,
they’re welcome – but on a level playing ground. They’re no different from unions, from other lobbies, and in the end, the university must not become an instrument of lobbies. MD: What do you think of Heather Munroe-Blum? JG: I think she is part of the new system, and I criticize the new system. But I don’t criticize her personally. I think she’s a very able and charming lady. It’s not her fault. It’s that the whole university world and North America has fallen into the hands of corporations. The reason it’s falling more and more into the hands of corporations is because the government is withdrawing. It’s cutting taxes, it’s making savage cuts. All universities have tremendous problems because they had to guarantee pensions. The pensions are fixed return pensions, so [employees] guaranteed X amount of money. Then their investments crashed in 2008, and they have a hole in their pension account. And the government, which is in serious trouble, doesn’t want to fill that
hole. So what they’re saying is “manage, cut, get rid of unnecessary things.” And then what happens of course is the corporations come in and say we’re not all that interested in Latin scholars, but engineering, MBA, Law: “we might be able to fund as long as we can be certain you fund these programs the right way.” But don’t let the university become dependent on a particular lobby. MD: What are your thoughts on the Quebec government’s decision to increase tuition in 2012? JG: On tuition increases, what I want to say is that the present tuition increases are not written in stone. Remember, what I’m paying for my children right now, is virtually the same thing I was paying, with the inflation having doubled. So I’m not saying though that they could not raise the tuition fees a very moderate amount. But there are two things: First of all, if they’re raising it in order to cut the subsidies to the universities, it’s not at all improving the university. The university
will get nothing; they’ll end up with the same thing. It’s relieving the pressure on the government so they can cut taxes for big corporations. It’s people like you subsidizing big corporations, and I certainly don’t want to see that. The second thing is, without being dogmatic, that it’s got to be exactly the amount it was last year, there’s one fundamental principle that without which the left has no sense: there are certain things that have to be accessible to everyone, and the most obvious two things are health and education. The third one is culture. The fourth one – which is not for everybody, but it has to exist – is a minimum income – minimum security that if you fail, fall ill, do something wrong you can’t fall below a certain point, and your children will have the same access to education, health, and so on. In the long run what it does is put the government in the hands of an elite, that doesn’t use the public school system, public health system; they’re not interested in it. They let it fall into complete neglect, and gradually you have the foundation of firm and impenetrable classes: those who have gone to the private schools, the private hospitals and clinics, who have private performances, who go to vacations in private clubs – and the average person who can no longer get there. So without postulating there can never be an increase in tuition, or it can’t go up or down a few dollars, the whole trend of terrible things is McGill’s arrangement of the [self-funded] MBAs, of the University of Toronto’s paying law degree. My God, I shudder at the thought. In 1989 they got rid of the Russian Revolution, and maybe it had gone wrong, and Stalin was a murderer and so on, and all that was true. But now they’re doing away with the French Revolution. They’re doing away with the notion of liberty, equality, and fraternity. There’s no more liberty because there’s a security state around, there’s no equality because they’re allowing the formation of classes and they don’t want to fraternize with anybody. So what we’re doing is watching the undoing of the French Revolution, and I’m asking myself when are people going to wake up and say, “No you can’t keep cutting taxes, and putting in private institutions at all costs.” This is exactly the opposite of what we’ve fought for. I became a moderate in the 60s and 70s because I thought the battle had been won. We got Medicare, the segregation system fell apart in the United States, and so on. But right now the world’s going the opposite direction, and nobody’s saying a word. —Compiled by Erin Hale
6 News
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
WHILE WE WERE AWAY
Thousands of students protest fee hikes in Quebec City Representatives walk out of provincial meeting on post-secondary education Emilio Comay del Junco The McGill Daily
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UEBEC CITY – Despite exams and the first major snowfall of the year, thousands of university and CEGEP students from across the province demonstrated on December 6 in Quebec City against the second Rencontre des partenaires en éducation, a meeting of provincial government ministers, university administrators, and student and labour unions. Around fifty McGill students travelled to the provincial capital to join the protest on a SSMU bus, while over 60,000 university and college students, mostly members of the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) were on strike across the province. The number of McGill students at the protest was lower than the eighty-person turnout organizers originally expected. SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi, one of the organizers, attributed this to the timing of the Rencontre. “A lot of people cancelled at the last minute because they thought they would manage studying for their exams, and the closer it got to the date, the more they realized they hadn’t done enough work,” she explained. The main march led by ASSÉ noisily made its way through the streets near Quebec’s National Assembly, while a smaller rally organized by the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) stayed outside the Hilton hotel, where the Rencontre was being held. After around an hour of chanting slogans against tuition hikes,
austerity measures, and Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government, ASSÉ’s march joined the rally in front of the hotel before dispersing at around 3 p.m. Meanwhile, after half a day of talks, representatives from student, professor, and labour unions walked out of the meeting due to what they saw as the government’s unwillingness to negotiate on proposed tuition hikes. These included representatives from Quebec’s two largest student lobby groups – FEUQ (along with its CEGEP counterpart FECQ), and the Quebec Student Roundtable (QSR, also known as TaCEQ), of which SSMU is a founding member. ASSÉ, the province’s third major student lobby group, decided to boycott the meeting and concentrate their efforts entirely on protesting. At the meeting, the Conférence des recteurs et principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ), along with provincial finance minister Raymond Bachand and education minister Line Beauchamp, called for a fee increase of approximately $500 per year for three years beginning in 2012, according to La Presse. Current tuition for Quebec residents stands at approximately $2,415 per year. The CREPUQ proposal would bring annual tuition fees to around $3,900. Joël Pedneault, a U3 McGill student and a QSR representative at the Rencontre who walked out of the meeting, complained about a lack of dialogue. “The meeting was insufficient to have the kind of debate that should be happening about the future of Quebec universities, which is more than just a one day thing, so every-
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Thousands of university and college students protested the Rencontre. one just walked out,” he said. “People are talking past each other. Some people are saying we should be increasing tuition fees to the Canadian average – you have people saying we shouldn’t be increasing tuition fees at all. There’s a complete lack of consensus about anything really, so there’s no use being in that meeting right now,” Pedneault continued. “We [QSR] were putting forward the fact that we’re against all tuition increases.”
Around the same time as the walkout, a small group of protesters broke away from the main march and entered the hotel complex through a food court before being kicked out by Sûreté du Québec riot police. Carol Fraser, U3 Arts, was one of a handful of McGill students who tried to get closer to the Rencontre itself. “We were trying to get into just the lobby. People were very peaceful – some people were yell-
ing at the police, but nothing more than that,” she said. Police were quick to escort students out of the Hilton complex, but did not arrest any of them. The Gazette reported that students inside the Hilton attacked police with wooden sticks and police responded with batons. However it is unclear if this was the same group of students of which McGill students were a part. The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, although the CBC reported that a single student was arrested earlier in the day for disorderly conduct. Despite disappointment with the Rencontre, which Zaidi described as an “illegitimate meeting” and a “rubber stamp” on planned tuition hikes, the VP External believed the protests “went really well. There were thousands of students, as expected.” She predicted intensified student opposition to fee increases in 2012 when tuition will be allowed to rise faster than the current $50 a semester. “I definitely foresee a general student strike, because these hikes are unlike anything we’ve seen before,” she said. Despite McGill’s less prominent role in the Quebec student movement, Zaidi pointed to the University’s high international population as a potential source of activism. “McGill is somewhat of an international university, and one thing that I noticed that got to students here at McGill more than elsewhere in Quebec is what’s been happening in London, in Ireland,” she said, referring to recent protests against austerity measures and tuition fee increases in Europe. —This article originally appeared online on December 7, 2010.
WHILE WE WERE AWAY
Redmen football player suspended two years for doping Defensive lineman Darcy Pelosse has waived his right to appeal Eric Andrew-Gee
The McGill Daily
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cGill football player Darcy Pelosse will be suspended from university sports for two years after testing positive for a pair of performance-enhancing drugs in tests conducted in June by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES). Pelosse, who played as a defensive lineman for the Redmen for two years, waived his right to a hearing after receiving his positive test result, according to a December 2 CCES press release, and accepted his twoyear suspension from any sport that has signed on to the Canadian AntiDoping Program. Pelosse is also prohibited from training with his teammates for the duration of the ban. Taylor Kuprowski, U2 Engineering and one of the team captains, said he was “disappointed” in Pelosse, but emphasized that
his former teammate was an anomaly on the McGill squad. “It was just disappointing to hear that he had made those choices,” said Kuprowski, a running back for the Redmen. “We pride ourselves on being a clean team, and we are a clean team. So, yeah, I was surprised,” he added. “He was one of the core guys. A great guy in the locker room.” Pelosse, a U2 Physical Education student, declined to be interviewed, saying in an email to The Daily, “I prefer not to discuss [the suspension] as I am trying hard to focus on my studies so I remain a good student.” He added, “It has been a grueling and heartbreaking time for me, my family and my team.” Pelosse did not play during the 2010 season; his last recorded game was in 2009. CCES spokesperson Rosemary Pitfield confirmed that Pelosse was informed of his test result as soon as the samples came back from the
lab, which typically takes anywhere from one to three weeks after testing. Representatives from Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) and McGill Athletics Director Drew Love were also informed of the positive test at that time. The result was kept confidential until the December 2 press release. Pelosse was one of two McGill football players to take a CCES drug test in June. Pitfield said the exact method the centre uses to pick subjects for tests is confidential, but she gave a broad sample of the criteria often used. The centre was privy to the football team’s three-times yearly performance tests, and Pitfield said the CCES looks “for spikes in terms of performance.” Unusual increases in a player’s weight-lifting ability, track times, or weight gains, among other factors, can catch the centre’s eye and trigger a test. Head coach Sonny Wolfe said he hadn’t noticed anything unusual in Pelosse’s performance. “I don’t know that his test scores were…
erratic. He was a strong kid coming out of high school,” Wolfe said. “There wasn’t anything that absolutely would say, ‘There’s something here that’s different,’” he added. Pitfield said that 13 McGill football players were tested between May and October this year. Pelosse was the only confirmed positive test among McGill athletes in that period. The CCES announced 12 positive drug tests for university athletes between July 1 and September 30, including four for “cannabis.” CCES has conducted 1,674 urine tests and 176 blood tests since April. The two hormone drugs that appeared in Pelosse’s urine sample during testing in June, Clomiphene and Tamoxifen, are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Both drugs work to reduce estrogen levels in the body, allowing testosterone to replenish itself. Clomiphene is commonly used as a female fertility drug, and Tamoxifen is a standard estrogen treatment for women
in breast cancer therapy. Wolfe has spoken with Pelosse since the December 2 suspension announcement. He said the defensive lineman is taking things “as well as you can.” “It’s a real tough deal. Something that he’s passionate about has been taken away from him for two years,” said Wolfe. Wolfe added that he sympathizes with Pelosse for the media scrutiny his story has attracted: “It’s the kind of thing you don’t like to see a young man go through.” As for his own reaction, Wolfe said that “there was a small percentage of anger, but it was mainly disappointment.” Asked if he thought Pelosse deserved the sentence he received, Wolfe said, “That’s not my call.” “Certainly the penalties have to be severe enough that it acts as a true deterrent,” he added. —This article originally appeared online on December 9, 2010.
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The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
7
Southern Sudan votes for its life McGill professor Khalid Medani speaks with The Daily about yesterday’s referendum in Sudan
S
udan faced a fateful vote yesterday, as Southern Sudan decided whether to separate or remain a part of the country. The referendum for southern self-determination was a key element of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s civil war in 2005 – the longest civil war to date on the continent, spanning almost five decades. The CPA mandated both free and fair national elections, which were held last year amid allegations of intimidation and fraud on the part of President Omar al-Bashir, and a referendum presenting southern Sudan an opportunity for political self-determination. Bashir’s government has consolidated its power in the north, enforced the Islamicization of Sudan’s judicial system, revoked Sudan’s old constitution, and systematically shut out opposition. The Daily spoke to Khalid M. Medani, an Associate Professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill, ahead of the referendum about his view on the vote, and what it means for Sudan. Medani, who grew up in Sudan and is a frequent visitor to the region, specializes in African and Middle Eastern politics, and has studied various aspects of Sudanese politics.
The McGill Daily: Have you traveled to Sudan lately? What was the atmosphere that you observed there surrounding the referendum? Khalid Medani: I was there this summer and the atmosphere is very tense. There are a lot of different emotions. It’s not easy for people to wake up one day and realize their country is going to be split in two. There are different attitudes in the north and the south. In the south, the southerners are very nervous and apprehensive – many southerners think that the northern government is not going to go through with the referendum in time. Many in the south talk about going back to war if the southern government doesn’t allow them to have this referendum. In the north, there are two different points of view. There are many people in the north who want the south to separate. Civil society in Sudan is very diverse, but in twenty years of Islamicization – and with an Islamic government – a younger generation of Sudanese is increasingly attached to Islam as both a religion and as a primary source of cultural and political identity. There are others in civil society who feel that if the south separates it’s going to have negative consequences in political terms for both regions of the country. These are people who’ve been fighting for democracy for decades and they
say that the northern government is going to continue to be authoritarian and … that in the south the Sudan’s Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) [the predominant political party in Southern Sudan] is also not democratic – it is dominated by essentially one tribe, the Dinka. So there’s that concern among many people about the prospect of these two countries separating but increasingly becoming, or continuing to be, really authoritarian dictatorships. MD: Why do the international community and Sudanese feel that it is so important that the referendum take place on time? If tensions are rising, would it not be best to postpone the referendum? KM: It is my opinion that, if it was up to the international community, they would have preferred to delay the referendum to ensure that it goes through smoothly. Understandably, many in the international community involved in the politics of Sudan are concerned about a number of technical and political problems. I think what the international community is rightly concerned about is that any delay in the referendum will just give the opportunity for those hardliners in the north and in the south to make an excuse of this and to go to war – and it wouldn’t be the first time. I have to admit that the international community is in a bind, but they’re not wrong about this. Any delay could be used very quickly to start arming different proxy militias along the borders – they’re already doing that, both northerners and southerners. MD: Why is the Abyei region so important? KM: Abyei is important because it’s a border region between the south and the north, where you have residents of both Arabized tribes and Africanized southern tribes. Most tragically, in a policy of using militias as proxies to fight the long south-north war, the regime armed Arabized nomads in and around Abyei with the result that the latter were responsible for displacing hundreds and thousands of southerners during the war. Consequently, grave animosities have developed. There is still a great deal of conflict over precious resources – namely water and livestock resources – but the real problem is that much of the oil in the south is in that province. It is for this reason that the people of Abyei have found themselves the focus of international attention, and face the likelihood of a more locallybased conflict if their status is not worked out peacefully following the referendum. MD: Are there southern Sudanese who want to remain a
Medani, who often visits Sudan, specializes in African politics. part of greater Sudan, and do they argue that instead of secession being the solution, the solution is making efforts to democratize Bashir’s regime? KM: The reality is that there’s over two million southern Sudanese in Khartoum, in the greater north and the capital area. We’re talking about two million in a capital city of maybe seven or eight million – it’s not a small percentage. One of the ministers – a couple of the ministers actually – have threatened the southerners by [saying] that citizenship rights will not be given to southern Sudanese in the north if they do not vote for unity. This is quite troubling because it suggests possible attempts and policies aimed at disenfranchising, marginalizing and eventually repressing people who have grown up all their lives in the north. Their solution and their security can only be fortified and ensured in the context of a more politically open system that includes more political parties and includes a participation of civil society. I know people think that is a pipe dream, in the African context in general, because many of these governments are very authoritarian, but they really require legitimacy at any cost and in [Bashir’s] case he tried to fake these [2009] elections. The Bashir government thought that they had the elections in the bag. They were going to allow some political parties, but make sure they had the money, the TV spots, the cars to bring in voters and that they were going to win. Low and behold, as the elections started going on this young man was becoming more and more popular, and by the end he threatened to push Bashir to a run-off. I spoke to this major contender,
Yasir Arman, and he was like the Obama of Sudan. He was a candidate who was a northerner married to a southern Sudanese woman running on the ticket of the southern Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) whose voting block was mostly young northerners, young southerners, and educated people who were voting across ethnicity [and] class lines. As the elections – true democratic elections – threatened the incumbent regime, the Bashir government realized that it had only one choice and that was to say, “Hey, I don’t come back to power: no referendum.” The important point to emphasize is how successful this candidate was in amassing so many votes. So democracy is not a lost hope, it’s something that has been part of Sudanese political culture since the first elections of 1955. MD: What are the perspectives of neighboring countries regarding the referendum? KM: At a larger level, African and Arab countries really don’t like it. Africans are more supportive of southern Sudan’s separation because they have linkages to the SPLM, but that doesn’t mean that they really think that separation is a good idea. Kenyans, more than other countries when I was there, were very critical of this notion of a quick independence, and establishing a new state as if it’s going to work overnight. They are very aware about the refugee problem and what the war has actually done to the south for decades. There are no hospitals, no schools, not enough people to man the ministries that are supposed to be set up. MD: If it is held on January 9, what do you see being the outcome
Courtesy of Khalid Medani
of the referendum? What do you hope to happen in the best-case scenario? KM: What I would hope is that the war fatigue of what was Africa’s longest civil war would take precedence over any potential conflict and especially that local communities in Abyei would … come back to what really was their real relationship between them: the relationship of cooperation and, most importantly, peace, because they are the ones who have suffered the most. I would hope that the international community keeps an eye on the SPLM and the central government, and makes sure that they don’t militarize the situation. I think that it’s important to pressure both sides to put security arrangements in place along the borders, and I think if that happens the war fatigue in conjunction with these security arrangements are the best way to go. That’s what I hope for and I think that’s what’s possible – too bad we don’t have a little bit more time. The worst-case scenario, of course, is [that] the oil issue, in particular, is not settled, and this central government decides that they would profit more from instability than peace. On a more positive note, it’s heartening that the international community is taking such a serious look at the situation. I think [for] most people this [civil war] was a war much worse than Darfur. I think people who are older, even people in the international community, remember it: four decades, two million dead. I’ve visited and it’s a devastation that is really hard to describe. —Compiled by Erin Hudson
8 News
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
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McGill admin brings in consulting firm Controversial McKinsey Co. will offer services free of charge Eric Andrew-Gee
The McGill Daily
T
he Washington, D.C.-based management consulting company McKinsey has offered its services to McGill’s senior administration free of charge to help in the University’s recently launched Strategic Reframing Initiative (SRI). Principal Heather Munroe-Blum made the announcement in a short video circulated to McGill students via email on November 30, 2010. “As it happens, we have several alumni who are senior folks in the McKinsey Consulting Corporation,” Munroe-Blum said in the video. “They have volunteered their services pro bono,” she continued. The SRI is aimed to “advance [McGill’s] progress on top priorities” in five areas including research, enrollment and fundraising, according to Munroe-Blum. The principal indicated that the McKinsey alumni would be used to train McGill employees in the company’s methods. “This is not a one-shot effort,” Munroe-Blum said. “It’s something that we will make endemic.” Munroe-Blum called McKinsey “arguably the best consulting company in the world.” However, she stressed that McGill’s relationship with the firm will not be like those
“This is not a one-shot effort... It’s something that we will make endemic.” Heather Munroe-Blum McGill Principal of American universities, in at least one respect. “One way we’re doing it slightly different than our sister universities south of the border,” the principal said, referring to working with McKinsey, is to work “without hiring in a lot of external people – using the pro bono consulting of our McKinsey alumni – but actually building that capacity and expertise in using these processes right within our organization.” McKinsey has a checkered history advising in the education sector, and has been unpopular with teachers’ unions in the U.S. In 2007, McKinsey recommended that the Minneapolis Board of Education replace the lowest-performing 25 per cent of their schools, or restart them as privately-run charter schools. McKinsey also advised the Board to cut teacher health-care plans to save costs. When Seattle’s school board hired McKinsey to survey their public schools and provide recommendations, teachers banded together
to oppose the move, introducing a resolution against McKinsey to the board’s Representative Assembly. In the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books, author and Oxford scholar Simon Head charged that McKinsey was one of the consulting companies responsible for instituting management programmes in British universities that “dominate” scholars’ lives and demand that “the academy must deliver its research ‘output’ with a speed and reliability resembling that of the corporate world.” McKinsey won its last major contract with an academic institution in November, when the University of Conneticut hired the firm to “examine UConn’s operations and recommend savings and revenueenhancements that could total a significant amount of money to the university.” The consulting firm is being paid $3.9 million and expects to recoup roughly $50 million in savings, according to the chairman of UConn’s Board of Trustees.
WHILE WE WERE GONE
New McGill VP arrives with legal baggage Administrator received mise en demeure from Concordia student days before leaving the school Anna Norris
The McGill Daily
M
WANTED: NEWS EDITOR. SEE PAGE 18 FOR MORE INFO.
ichael Di Grappa became McGill’s new VicePrincipal (Administration and Finances) on November 15, but is still caught up in a legal struggle with students from Concordia, where he formerly held the position of Vice-Pricipal (Services). In Di Grappa’s last few days at Concordia, he received a mise en demeure – a notice of a potential legal challenge – from Concordia student Laura Beach and the organization she co-founded, TAPThirst. Beach, also Sustainable Ambassadors Coordinator for Sustainable McGill, accused Di Grappa of breach of trust over the lack of student consultation on the renewal of Concordia’s beverage contract with PepsiCo. Beach claims that the administration promised, and failed, to consult with students prior to signing the contract. Di Grappa, however, took issue with the idea that the administration had a responsibility to consult with Beach and TAPThirst.
“I can tell you that we always used to consult with the students, we would meet with the CSU [Concordia Student Union],” said Di Grappa in an interview with The Daily. “To me, one of the issues here is, who is the authorized representative here for the students on this issue? It was not clear to us that Miss Beach was that. And I don’t think it was clear to the CSU that Miss Beach was that,” Di Grappa continued. Beach claims that Johanne De Cubellis, Associate Director of Hospitality Concordia, promised her and fellow Sustainable Concordia member Faisal Shennib that they would be involved in the negotiations between the administration and a representative from PepsiCo prior to any decisions on a beverage contract. Beach also delivered a mise en demeure to De Cubellis. Concordia environmentalists have also raised objections to the PepsiCo contract itself, which, in the eyes of groups such as TAPThirst, represents a move away from the years-long fight for a bottled water-free campus. Di Grappa,
however, said that he does not see a contract with PepsiCo and a bottled water-free campus as mutually exclusive. “The issue of a beverage contract…is so much larger than just the issue of bottled water,” he said. “Because it involves whatever commission fee the university receives, and it involves the service on campus, it involves marketing opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, it involves summer jobs for students, it involves scholarships, it involves all the other beverages other than bottled water. … So in my mind, it was never a discussion of, say, until we resolve this issue on bottled water we can’t go forward on Pepsi. ... But out of respect for the discussions that were going on, we said… ‘If the university ever decides that it wants to address the issue of bottled water in a particular way, it still has the option to do so.’ So frankly, I don’t understand what all the criticism is about.” According to Chris Mota, director of media relations at Concordia, there has been no legal action subsequent to the mise en demeure.
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
9
Food bidding process fraught with problems
An open letter from a committee member Morgan Boenke Hyde Park
D
ear McGill, Last year I was invited to act as a graduate student representative on a committee with the mandate of soliciting and evaluating private sector bids to partner with McGill Food and Dining Services in the delivery of food services to a large portion of the downtown campus. My responsibilities in this process were not clearly defined, and this has led to some considerable regrets on my part. Chief among these is the concern that I did not adequately fulfil my implied duty to engage and inform students of potential changes to our food supply. The best evidence I have of this is the disappointment and frustration voiced by members of the Faculty of Law that their independently-operated cafeteria would soon be replaced without consultation by an Aramark installation. On a number of occasions, the administration has reported or commented on the request for proposals process through University-affiliated publications. These articles highlight student involvement and the committee’s alleged unanimity in reaching its decision. These communications have done nothing to benefit the University at large, or to prepare us for the inevitability of further bid evaluations and corporate relationships. Instead, they have the air of well-crafted sales pitches with little intent to inform. As my final responsibility to the University in my role as a graduate representative on the Food Services Request for Proposal Committee, I am submitting this report as an open letter to all students, staff, and faculty. It seems clear that the current reporting process is inherently flawed. The student and faculty involvement needed to properly manage our culinary needs cannot be generated without a more transparent reporting process. Contrary to the opinions presented by Morton Mendelson in the September 2 issue of the McGill Reporter (“Entre nous”), I would argue that the request for bid process was largely a failure. The reasons for this are highlighted in the paragraphs below. The scope of the committee’s mandate was far too limited. The majority of key decisions were made prior to the formation of the committee. Chief among these was the choice to include the Biology and Law Cafés, at that time run by local independent operators, in the larger bundle of locations up for bid. The explanation I received regarding this administrative choice was that it was made because a longer contract was desired, which is a complete non sequitur. We did not forbid or explicitly exclude partial
bids from small business operators interested in a single location. However, the manner in which we solicited bids and the sizeable financial bond required to submit one made it incredibly unlikely that we would receive any from small businesses. In the future, we should support local business owners by earmarking a meaningful portion of our contract solely for local independent bidders. Our committee was too small and did not adequately represent stakeholders. The process did not engage a balanced sample of the McGill population. Excluded from the deliberations were faculty, administration from outside of food or procurement sectors, and maintenance staff. A representative from any building directly impacted by changes in food service should join this committee in the future. Having a professor from the Faculty of Law on the committee is advisable, and
would improve our ability to make rapid legal decisions. The tools we used to evaluate bids were not effective. After hundreds of hours of work from staff and students, our schema for evaluating bids was ultimately of no use in discriminating between them. The information provided by our potential corporate partners was almost entirely sales-oriented marketing material and did nothing to inform us about the true nature of the bidders’ business practices. Further, the evaluation schema we produced was heavily flawed. Although we were able to delineate categories and assign relative weights to them, we did nothing to define the specific application of scores within these categories. Our committee did not have enough time. Working under a constrained timeline prohibited comprehensive debate and forced the committee to be proactive
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
where a more cautionary approach might have been better suited for the task. The contract is up for bid again in June 2013, and beginning the process now would be most beneficial. The committee should have the option of rejecting all bids, with enough time available to refine the details of the request for proposals as needed. Ideally, the bidding process will become iterative, increasing the likelihood that a favourable bid will be presented to us. The voting process was flawed. The selection vote itself was not properly conducted. The votes were not delivered in secret, but rather verbally and in sequence. I feel strongly that my vote was corrupted as I was unable to deliver it successfully without interjection and coercion from other committee members. Certainly debate is a cornerstone of such endeavours, but should not continue to this phase of the process. Lastly, the vote was
conducted immediately following presentations by the competing bidders. This inflated the presentations’ impact, increasing the probability of getting “sold” by a single charismatic speaker. The reporting process is flawed. Little information regarding the details of the process has been made available to the University community at large. What has been presented is largely one-sided and does not in the least reflect the complexity of what transpired. Worse, the administration seems eager to minimize scrutiny by greatly exaggerating the scope of the confidentiality agreement signed by myself and other members of the committee. Only by full disclosure of the process and its flaws can we hope to improve the process. The most glaring omission that I am aware of is the exclusion of my email to the head of the committee requesting a reversal of my vote and further consultation with students from the final report on the committee’s decision. I do not believe this was a matter of oversight. I am hopeful that this report will serve some purpose in furthering McGill’s ability to feed itself in a fashion which reflects our mission statement: “The Mission of McGill University is the advancement of learning through teaching, scholarship and service to society: (…) by providing service to society in those ways for which we are well-suited by virtue of our academic strengths.” I cannot help but wonder in which way our current food service model is fulfilling our obligation to act in the service of society. The dangers of the corporatization of food are manifold. Our explicit support of such business practices leaves us in a most dubious position. It seems clear, however, that McGill has a strong interest in supporting corporate food, coupled with a well-designed strategy for eliminating potential competition. Witness the engineered failure of the Architecture Café. Witness the zeal with which the Biology Café was dismantled and the subsequent inertia which has left the now corporate location vacant since takeover on June 1, 2010. Understanding why we have adopted this position and who ultimately makes the decisions governing our food policy is a matter of great importance to all of us. Student and faculty involvement is needed at this basic level of policy decision making. With regrets, Morgan Boenke Morgan Boenke is a Master’s III Biology student and sat on Food Services Request for Proposals Committee. Write him at morgan. boenke@mail.mcgill.ca. This letter was originally received November 22, 2010, but could not be published until now due to space constraints.
10Commentary
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Keep Meadowbrook green Avrom Shtern Hyde Park
T
he following letter is in regard to the op-ed published recently in the Gazette by Raphaël Fischler, associate professor and director of McGill University’s School of Urban Planning, “Meadowbrook development would be a win-win for city” (Opinion, November 26). In his article, Fischler stated that “Zeal becomes zealotry when green space is treated as sacred, when those who tread on it are viewed as sinners, and when all development is seen with suspicion.” The use of ad hominem words and polemical metaphor based on theology to describe the Friends of Meadowbrook is not warranted. It is fallacious to describe the group as being against all development everywhere. However, the urbanization of Meadowbrook Golf Course would destroy its integrity as a green space. I do not live near Meadowbrook. I am not a golfer. Neither am I a NIMBY activist. I tolerate the countless trains passing by my backyard. Yet I have fought for Meadowbrook’s conservation on and off for the past twenty years. Access to green space is a social justice issue. Quality of life is at stake. Meadowbrook lies next to an active rail yard in Lachine and CôteSt-Luc. There is a dearth of parkland in southwestern Montreal, as it is suffocated by industrial complexes and transportation arteries. It is only right that citizens in Montreal West, Ville St. Pierre-Lachine, St. Henri, and all Montrealers enjoy the health benefits that accrue to
Grace Brooks | The McGill Daily
communities that are close to natural areas. Meadowbrook’s heritage dates back to the 19th century, when railways were granted large tracts of land by government to provide an essential service. One can reasonably argue that once railway land
is declared surplus that it should revert back to public ownership. Fischler, in his Gazette article, references “taking property without compensation,” but at least two Supreme Court decisions side with a municipality’s right to rezone or designate land in the interests and
protection of the greater community. Namely, Entreprises Sibeca Inc. v. Municipality of Frelighsburg and Canadian Pacific Railway Company v. City of Vancouver. As former City of Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan said: “We are very pleased that the Supreme
Court of Canada has upheld the powers of the City to enact the Arbutus Corridor, ODP Official Development Plan, and preserve the Arbutus Corridor” for future transportation and greenway (pedestrian, cycling, or recreational) uses. City councils must have certain latitude to exercise democratic authority where there are conflicting interests. A promoter or speculator does not have an automatic right to develop his land holdings. Fischler cites several benefits of an urbanized Meadowbrook including that of Transit Oriented Development. However, the reestablishment of Sortin Train Station, for example, would impede the fluidity of AMT’s Vaudreuil-Hudson line, (formerly the Dorion-Rigaud commute). The presence of too many stations lengthens timetables and discourages use. Access roads, grade-separated railway crossings and the Little St. Pierre River cleanup would not be borne by the developer alone, but by the public purse. These costs would be externalized: “Nationalize the losses and privatize the profits.” Groupe Pacific’s transit-oriented “sustainable development” belongs in a cleaned-up brownfield like the Turcot lands or in the abandoned Blue Bonnets Racetrack, not in a refuge like Meadowbrook. I invite Fischler to reconsider his position and the City of Montreal to stand firm on its objections to Groupe Pacific’s plans and rezone Meadowbrook as green in perpetuity. Avrom David Shtern, B.A. ’83, MLIS ’87, is a Green Coalition Board Member (greencoalitionverte.ca). Email him at adirondacksub@ gmail.com.
How’s your head? Mental illness is more common than you think, and there’s nothing wrong with it The character of community Adrian Kaats
adrian.kaats@mcgilldaily.com
M
ental illness is a huge, and under-discussed, problem in Canada. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (MHA), “20% of Canadians will personally experience a mental illness in their lifetime.” Given the size of that number, as you might expect, “Mental illness affects people of all ages, educational and income levels, and cultures.” Despite the prevalence of mental illness, what never fails to surprise me is just how little it is talked about, and to what degree it is stigmatized. 2010 was particularly bad for my friends and family. Untreated, growing, and ultimately debilitating paranoia, anxiety, and depression caused
a close friend to drop out of graduate school. His rapid deterioration led his wife to abandon him, taking their newborn child with her. Two years into their relationship, the girlfriend of my 22-yearold roommate cheated on him with his best friend. This triggered a psychotic break which hospitalized him for nearly a month, prematurely terminating his exchange studies and forcing his early return to France. My sixty-something-year-old landlord once again stopped taking the medication regulating his bipolar disorder. After what sounded like a very exciting manic episode, he was found unconscious in his apartment, and was hospitalized for three months. He returned last week in what appears to be just as frenzied a state as when he left. I’m getting really tired of 4:30 a.m. blaring sessions of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
on continuous repeat. Over the course of a few years, I watched as what I thought was my friend’s pot-induced paranoia blossomed into full-blown schizophrenia at the ripe age of 28. Unable to get his condition “under control,” he was removed from the home he shared with his common-law partner and their two young children. My friend’s disease has claimed, among many other things, a number of his teeth and his ability to truly believe that we, his friends and family, are real people. A few things have struck me about the nature of mental illnesses. They have the ability to “take down” the most intelligent, creative, and strong-willed people I have known, just as easily as they can lay waste to those that appear more vulnerable: nobody is “immune.” Like physical ailments, mental problems can develop in a slow, creeping fashion or like a bolt of
lightning. Unlike with physical ailments, those suffering from mental illness and the people around them are often reluctant to believe that these problems really exist – or they believe that the mentally ill are wilfully not controlling them, that they’re “letting themselves go.” That last part, in my opinion, is particularly devastating, because it can prevent the stricken from seeking or accepting treatment when it might benefit them the most. Worse, it engenders the notion that the sufferer is somehow at “fault.” This can cause the stricken to isolate themselves, or cause their friends and family to withdraw contact. True, we humans are peculiar creatures. It is often very difficult for the untrained to try drawing a line between healthy and pathological behaviour and thought patterns in themselves and others, particularly when things turn a bit bizarre.
However, if in doubt, there is no harm in asking yourself or someone you care for, “Are you alright?” If there is uncertainty, there’s no shame in seeking a professional opinion, just like you would do for a dubious wound. It’s very important to understand that, “A complex interplay of genetic, biological, personality, and environmental factors causes mental illnesses,” as the MHA writes. It’s equally important to understand that these illnesses can be fatal. Again, in the MHA’s words, “Suicide is among the leading causes of death in 15-24 year old Canadians, second only to accidents.” A number of resources are available for McGill students. McGill Mental Health can be reached at 514-398-6019 and at www.mcgill. ca/mentalhealth. If you’re not sure and just want to talk, try Nightline, at 514-398-6246.
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
11
In defence of QPIRG
Opt-Out campaign motivated by right-wing ideology Red star over Asia Ted Sprague
ted.sprague@mcgilldaily.com
A
t the beginning of every semester, a group of Conservative mercenaries unsheathes their swords in a bloody campaign to slay QPIRG, one of the left-wing strongholds on this campus. Last semester, the campaign reached its fever pitch when these well-to-do ladies and gentlemen cried foul of being allegedly “attacked” by the radicals for exercising their freedom of speech. Oh the terror! Every time the story is recounted, they insert more details and figments of their imagination until it becomes a thrilling adventure of crusaders for democracy and free speech. It’s no coincidence that the McGill Right is on the offensive now. After squandering trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in bank bailouts, the class these right-wingers represent – the capitalists – seeks to unload the deficit onto the backs of students and workers. With this goal in mind, they act in unison all over the world. Gut
social programs! Crush any resistance! Every right-winger – from the big shot to the newbie – has to do their part, wherever they are. Here at McGill, QPIRG is one of the symbols of resistance, and thus it has to be undermined. The eager young Conservatives, barely out of their teens, relish the opportunity to prove their worth as the future leaders of Canada. This attack is not about QPIRG’s support of Tadamon! QPIRG has been supporting Tadamon! for years. Tadamon! is just a pretext. If it weren’t Tadamon!, they would find another objection. The rabid campaign against QPIRG is informed by the same ideology that motivates the austerity measures that the propertied class seeks to implement. The people who attack QPIRG are standing with those who call for higher tuition fees, healthcare privatization, dismantling $7-aday daycare, and wage cuts. When the motion to support course lecturers’ unionization was brought to Council last semester, Spencer Burger, an active participant in the anti-QPIRG campaign, philosophized that better working conditions would result in lower
productivity on the part of teachers, since the whip of low wages would be removed. Thus unionized teachers run counter to students’ interest. Make them a bit hungry, and they will work harder. These modern slave-owners need to be exposed for who they are and what they actually stand for. Fellow students, for every $3.75 that you save by opting out of QPIRG fees, you should know that you are opting for the Conservatives’ vision of what our future ought to be: longer hours, lower wages, no pension, and no universal healthcare. Don’t you know that you have just sold your future for a mere three cents a day? Don’t you know that in the three minutes that the anti-QPIRG campaign says how long it will take to opt out, you have set yourselves up to work with no pension in sight? The anti-QPIRG campaign is a local front in a larger battle. Take a deep look into your conscience and ask yourselves where you stand. The choice is stark, as stark as clicking or not clicking “opt out” in Minerva. You can’t half-click a mouse. Tom Acker | The McGill Daily
Lo, the Conservative knight slayeth the QPIRG dragon!
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Read more about the anti-PIRG movement on page 12.
12Features
The anti-PIRG campus conser Kristin Li and Niko Block The McGill Daily
O
n January 21 2009, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) held a series of workshops advising young conservatives on how to dominate campus discourse, take over student government, and attack their campus public interest research group (PIRG). In the following weeks, similar workshops were held at Carleton and Wilfred Laurier University. Recordings from the Toronto session were released on WikiLeaks in March of that year. The speakers from the recording are Ryan O’Connor and Aaron Lee-Wudrick, both of whom were active in student politics, and their Conservative Party campus chapter, at the University of Waterloo. In the recording, PIRGs were identified as a major obstacle to Conservative interests. “They use their institutional strength to deride and decry conservative causes,” O’Connor explained. Lee-Wudrick added, “as if we don’t have enough institutional opponents as it was. This is one that, at least in theory, can be defeated.” Drawing on their experiences at Waterloo, O’Connor and LeeWudrick spent an hour sharing ways for, to quote from the title of the Wilfred Laurier workshop, “challenging and defeating PIRGs”. The tactics they recommend include infiltrating the PIRGs, attacking their stances on hot-button issues like abortion and IsraelPalestine, building anti-PIRG coalitions comprised of shell groups, and attacking their sources of revenue. In recent years, such campaigns have been launched by campus conservatives at Simon Fraser University, Dalhousie, four universities in Ontario, and here at McGill. Each of them has borrowed from the OPCCA’s playbook in one way or another.
McGill’s PIRG The ongoing conservative-led campaign against QPIRG McGill primarily encourages
students to opt-out of their annual $7.50 student fee. QPIRG puts this money toward their rent to McGill, their 19 working groups, and a number of research projects they choose to fund. They also publish an agenda for students called School Shmool, and work with the SSMU to coordinate annual events such as Social Justice Days, Culture Shock, and Rad Frosh. “QPIRG has a mandate for environmental and social justice,” said Andrea Figueroa, QPIRG’s external coordinator, “and part of our mandate is an antioppression framework. … So a lot of what we do is support financially other groups that work on different issues that are not necessarily heard.” The QPIRG opt-out campaign, coordinated primarily by Conservative McGill, has been ongoing since 2008. “At first they were crass and saying that these hippies should buy more shampoo,” said QPIRG’s former external coordinator Indu Vashist. “Now they’re saying, with three dollars you can buy pizza and beer and that kind of tactic.” Anna Malla, QPIRG’s internal coordinator, added that QPIRG independently established the opt-out system in the 1980s. In 2007, however, McGill transferred opt-outs onto the online Minerva system, in what QPIRG considers to be a gross violation of their Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the University, which stipulates that QPIRG may maintain control of its opt-out system. The opt-out campaign’s leaders have consistently encouraged students to opt out of QPIRG’s fee because it “represents a radical fringe of the McGill community.” In an interview with The Daily last February, Conservative McGill president Jess Weiser emphasized that QPIRG “does not represent the majority of McGill students.” He repeatedly pointed to QPIRG’s support for Tadamon! – a Palestine solidarity group that supports the removal of Hezbollah from Canada’s list of terrorist organizations – as well as its support for the Chaotic Insurrection
Ensemble – a marching band that espouses anarchist beliefs. Other QPIRG working groups include Campus Crops, Climate Justice Montreal, Justice for the Victims of Police Killings, and a group called End Exploitation, which aims to improve labour conditions for foreign and temporary agency workers. Weiser has not responded to our requests for an interview for this article. Nor has Tribune columnist Brendan Steven – also a member of Conservative McGill and active in the opt-out campaign. (According to his Facebook profile, Steven has previously interned with Peter Braid, a Conservative Member of Parliament representing Kitchener-Waterloo who spoke at the OPCCA’s strategy workshop at Wilfred Laurier. Braid also formerly employed LeeWudrick as his campaign manager. Braid’s office has also not returned The Daily’s interview requests.) For Vashist, the opt-out campaign is “still not getting to the core of the issues about why they oppose QPIRG. They’re not articulating what their political problem is.” QPIRG has found the opt-out campaign’s allegations that their operations are undemocratic particularly infuriating. “Our Board of Directors is elected by students every year at the annual general meeting, and it’s the same way that SSMU councilors get elected,” said Figueroa. “They pick what to fund and what they don’t. They have the same process as QPIRG, so I find that them claiming that just means that they don’t understand how QPIRG works and how our structure works.” Malla added that the opt-out campaign has strenuously avoided open dialogue on the issues of contention. “They’re saying that we’re undemocratic, when they’re not actually trying to engage with any of our democratic mechanisms,” she said. “We tried last year, we contacted everyone from every single group at least twice to try to have a discussion with them; it’s not what they want.” “They don’t want dialogue,” said Malla,
“they want to shut us down”.
Tactics Several other conservative campus groups have also promoted opt-outs as a means of attacking PIRGs’ bottom lines. Many have also attempted to eliminate the PIRGs’ student funding altogether. “What we’re seeing here is very much in line with what’s going on across the rest of the country,” said Malla. In the WikiLeaks file, O’Connor and LeeWudrick encouraged the students to attempt to terminate PIRGs’ student fees altogether by holding a campus referendum. “Getting them off the fee statement should be the ultimate objective,” said O’Connor in the recording. These efforts to eliminate PIRGs’ funding have been tried on numerous occasions by the conservative attack campaigns, but have been met with tough resistance. O’Connor and Lee-Wudrick’s own attempts to de-fund Waterloo PIRG (WPIRG) were voted down at student council, and they never managed to hold a referendum on the question. Last February at Simon Fraser, a group of students organizing against Simon Fraser PIRG (SFPIRG) put forth a referendum question to de-fund the group, but the appeal did not have enough student support and never made it onto the ballot. Likewise, at Dalhousie in 2009, a motion to de-fund and disband Dalhousie’s Nova Scotia PIRG (NSPIRG) was voted down at the most attended Annual General Meeting in the history of the student union. OPIRG Kingston at Queen’s, and OPIRG Carleton have also faced attempts to revoke their fee levy at student union referendums. Jane Kirby, NSPIRG’s resource coordinator, has taken note of the parallels between the anti-PIRG campaigns. “In the spring of 2009, when all this stuff was coming up, I used to be involved at the OPIRG [Kingston] at Queen’s. And I got an email from OPIRG at Queen’s that basically, there was going to be a motion at the AGM [Annual General Meeting]. It was worded almost exactly the same as some of
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Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
rvative conspiracy the attacks we were seeing here.” Similarly, in mid-October Spencer Burger – a SSMU councillor and member of Conservative McGill – attempted to bring a motion to SSMU council that would have instigated a referendum calling for the abolition of QPIRG’s student fee. The question was ruled out of order because, like SSMU, QPIRG is an independent body and has its own MoA with the University.
Misrepresentation Anti-PIRG campaigns often turn to additional tactics that have little, if anything, to do with the political work of PIRGs. At the OPCCA strategy session, O’Connor and Lee-Wudrick encouraged the students to attack the PIRGs using “non-ideological” rhetoric. “Never let it devolve into an issue of free speech,” said O’Connor. “It’s not an ideological bone the conservatives are picking. We’re just concerned about using mandatory fees to fund causes that not everyone supports.” By touting an opportunity to save pocket change, the campaigns have commonly gone so far as to attack PIRGs’ fee structures on bases that are entirely removed from political or ethical disagreements. These are, as Lee-Wudrick said, “a lot easier to sell to people,” because they are approaches that appear non-partisan and non-political. The Waterloo conservatives also encouraged students to de-fund the PIRG by standing in the food court and directing people to the nearby WPIRG office, where they could reimburse their fee and score a “free lunch.” In 2007, the Reagan-Goldwater Society at Carleton likewise set up a table advertising free beer money at OPIRG Carleton. In 2006 and 2007 at Dalhousie, a group called NSPIRG Truth disseminated a list of things students could buy with $4 if they opt out of the NSPIRG fee. Conservative McGill has used virtually identical tactics, encouraging students to opt out not on ethical grounds, but simply for
the purpose of saving some change. Their Facebook page, for instance, features a list of “Things you can buy for $7.50”, which includes things like “4 Packs of Extra gum,” “3/4th of the average club cover fee,” “Hemp String,” and “a Yo-yo.” “Really it’s just that they disagree with our politics and that’s why they are opposing us,” said Malla. “We’re a social justice and environmental justice organization and the fact that this small group of students opposes that, that’s one thing. But that’s not what they’re publicizing.”
Shell Groups Throughout the leaked recording, O’Connor and Lee-Wudrick repeatedly advised against associating anti-PIRG campaigns too closely with the Conservative party. “If you start complaining, people just pin it on you being a conservative,” LeeWudrick warned. O’Connor agreed: “You create your spin about the real issue, and nothing else.” At Waterloo, the spin involved creating a fake anti-WPIRG coalition with shell organizations. Members of the campus conservatives established nonexistent groups like the “Campus Coalitions for Liberty,” and a group called CRAZY! (“Campus Radicals Against Zimbabwe Yes, or something like that,” mused Lee-Wudrick nostalgically. “They were a great shell group.” Likewise, he added, the campus Coalition for Liberty “was really just a front for the conservatives, but it gave us like two voices.”) These groups had virtually no membership or activity whatsoever outside of signing on to the anti-WPIRG campaign. O’Connor additionally joked about telling the media on certain occasions that the Coalition for Liberty had chapters at five different campuses across the country: “We had branches at five campuses. Yeah, we had five people; one at each of five campuses. And they’re all Tories! ... I founded a chapter of the Campus Coalition for Liberty. It was a guy with a computer and a press release.”
The situation at McGill is equally convoluted. Up until recently, the opt-out campaign boasted of the “diversity of clubs” that had signed on to its campaign. Last year the signatories to the opt-out campaign’s “Open Letter to QPIRG McGill” consisted of a motley crew of groups like the Anatomy and Cell Biology Student Association, the Liberal Party of Quebec McGill, Conservative McGill, Free the Children McGill Chapter, and the Student Network for Economic Development. Things seem to have fallen apart to some extent last semester, with the only signatories to the reissued open letter consisting of three Euroethnic student groups (the Swiss, Hellenic, and Italian student associations) in addition to Conservative McGill. None of the administrators of these groups’ Facebook pages returned the interview requests made by The Daily last October. Since then, all of them – including Conservative McGill – as of press time seem to have removed their organizations’ names from the website qpirgoptout.com, as well as the group’s Facebook page.
Takeovers “If it’s possible, in one fell swoop, to take over the Board of Directors [of a PIRG], I think that would be pretty impressive, and you’d be a hero to the conservative movement,” Lee-Wudrick states in the WikiLeaks recording. “It would be a long term, pretty funny undertaking to do.” Last year a student who was eventually revealed to be a leader of the anti-WPIRG campaign attempted, without success, to run for a position on the board. Several students affiliated with Campus Conservatives ran for the OPIRG Guelph Board in 2009, but they also failed to be elected. At Dalhousie, the group NSPIRG Truth attempted to get its members on the NSPIRG Board of Directors. One person was elected, but did not effect significant change due to the consensus-based decision making process used by NSPIRG. Lee-Wudrick and O’Connor point to these
failed attempts as proof that PIRGs are indeed partisan organizations that have no right to students’ money. Emily Aspinwall from SFPIRG disagrees. “Following a certain set of values and stances on issues doesn’t mean you’re partisan. We never advocate for any particular political parties,” said Aspinwall. She added, “Anyone who’s interested in working on social and environmental justice can come and get involved here.” The antagonism that is taking place between campus conservatives and PIRGs across the country is originating with the former, not the latter “I’ve been on this campus for at least ten years,” said Aspinwall of SFPIRG, “and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it in terms of attack on a student-based organization.” It is clear that the opt-out campaign taking place at McGill is part of a much larger and highly targeted effort to undermine PIRGs. The entire purpose of the OPCCA’s strategy workshops was, after all, to encourage such campaigns to spread. Malla sees this trend as having a seriously detrimental effect on campus politics. “Some of the steps that have been similar to different campuses is the fact that councillors were the ones that presented this motion to defund us,” said Malla, referring to the attempted motion by Burger. “Councillors are elected to represent the student body, and they’re listening to a small, small group of extreme conservatives on campus and running with it, and that’s a problem. And that’s been happening on other campuses: the strategies of delegitimizing student unions with stupid motions, pretending there’s a large coalition, when really there’s a small group of extreme conservatives who want to stifle student life.”
Kristin Li worked as media collective coordinator for QPIRG McGill in 2006-2007. Niko Block’s former roommate currently sits on QPIRG’s Board of Directors.
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Science+Technology
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
SCI-DE BAR
Life as we don’t know it The role of the Cassini-Huygens mission in demistifying Titan
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Dark Matter in Faint Galactic Satellites Tuesday January 11, 4 p.m. Rutherford physics, Room 103 Louis Strigari, Stanford University physics professor, will discuss Milky Way satellite galaxies and spectroscopy.
Cutting Edge Lectures in Science: Environmental change in Canada’s Arctic
Prose Encounters of the Nerd Kind
Tuesday January 13, 6 p.m. Auditorium, Redpath Museum Talk by Dr. Marianne Douglas, professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta; reception afterward (free wine and cheese!)
Andrew Komar
andrewkomar@mcgilldaiy.com
A
mere 55 years after Galileo’s landmark discovery of four moons orbiting Jupiter – the first known moons orbiting another planet – Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens peered through his primitive telescope to discover Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. This brilliant orange satellite does not orbit Saturn alone – dozens of other moons have since been discovered – but its distinctive orange tint has intrigued astronomers for centuries. This tint later proved to be due to a thick atmosphere, unique among all known moons in the solar system, and thick atmosphere prevented scientists from observing the surface. The Voyager space probes launched in 1977 were specially diverted to take a closer look, but they, too, were thwarted by Titan’s dense atmosphere. Unbeknownst to the scientists, the atmosphere contains evidence for life. The mystery surrounding Titan’s atmosphere was lifted with the arrival of Cassini-Huygens in 2004. The schoolbus-sized probe has taught us more about Saturn and its moons than we’ve ever known before, but perhaps the most important discoveries have to do specifically with Titan. The mission consisted of a specially designed lander, appropriately named Huygens, that was dropped by the Cassini orbiter to directly observe the surface and to investigate the mysterious atmosphere. The hazy landscape that the Huygens probe imaged was both alien and familiar. It found vast river delta systems
Neuro Film Series: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Tuesday January 11, 4 p.m. Montreal Neurological Institute Hosted by Liam Durcan, Neurologist-in-Chief at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
Freaky Friday: Science and Fiction in Popular Films – The Good, the Bad, and the Robotic hundreds of kilometres long leading into lakes rivaling the largest on earth – but instead of water flowing through the myriad channels, there is methane. Methane is a gas on Earth, but at Titan’s -180 Celsius, and with a thicker atmosphere, it exists as a liquid. The probe’s landing spot was within one of these deltas, and it took photos of water-ice, very cold ice that behaves like a rock, and is way too cold to melt. The water-ice appears to behave in the methane like river rocks do in water on Earth. The descending probe fell through methane clouds, which change in frequency with the seasons, giving more evidence for a methanological cycle – similar to Earth’s water cycle. Planetwide winds form tiny grains of waterice into massive dunes rivaling those found in the Sahara desert. There is even clear evidence of freshly erupted cryovolcanoes – like volcanoes, but instead of molten rock erupting
and shaping the land, it is a mix of liquid water and ammonia. But it is the composition of the gases within the iconic orange atmosphere that could be the smoking gun for extra-terrestrial life. The wispy upper atmosphere of Titan exposes the methane atmosphere to energy from the sun, and this generates complex molecules like ethane, acetylene, and even amino acids. This process also generates free hydrogen, or H2, which is present throughout the atmosphere. However, this concentration of H2 mysteriously drops to zero at the surface of the planet, without any clear explanation as to why. One possibility for this change in concentration could be the presence of microbes on the surface of Titan. This kind of life, utterly unlike anything found on Earth, would have to operate at the average temperature of -180 Celsius
Edna Chan | The McGill Daily
and utilize hydrogen in place of oxygen. The lack of acetylene, a complex carbon gas which should be a layer several meters thick, according to atmospheric concentrations, suggests that these methane creatures could be consuming the chemical. These creatures wouldn’t be much more than very simple life, but they could be distributed across the whole planet, much like our distant ancestors on early Earth that eventually gave rise to us. Conclusive proof of this potentially revolutionary discovery will have to wait for further investigation, but it is currently impossible to rule out the existence of these methanogenic life forms. If they do exist, it means that life could be potentially abundant, and it would put to rest that eternal question: “Are we alone in the universe?”
Friday January 14, 5 p.m. Auditorium, Redpath Museum Adrian Bobb (Art and Design, CDI College) will talk about sci-fi movies; screening of WALL-E will follow.
Excellence in Genetics & Immunology Seminar Series: Guest Speaker Dr. Jean Laurent Casanova Monday January 24th, 1:30 p.m. McIntyre Medical Building, Meakins Auditorium (room 521)
Creative Waste: Treasures to be Found Deep in the Rubbish Until March 6 Montreal Biodome Exibit of 195 toys made from reused materials by children from Canada, Bolivia, Chile, Kenya, Paraguay, and Haiti in an effort to explore overconsumption and waste management.
Aliens and chemistry sets! Run for Sci+Tech editor! Candidate statements due January 23 Email scitech@mcgilldaily.com for more information.
16 Science+Technology
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Spark your knowledge Chemistry prof’s latest best-seller Debbie Wang
Science+Technology Writer
D
id you know that the first vaccine was invented in the year 1,000 B.C. by a Chinese monk who blew powdered smallpox pustules into nostrils to prevent the spread of the disease? Want to learn about the namesake of leading medical journal The Lancet, or how producing chlorine differently can lead to an increase in the general population’s IQ? Ever wondered why you have to shake your ketchup bottle to easily squeeze the condiment onto your hotdog? With answers to questions ranging from the common to the obscure, the best-selling Dr. Joe’s Brain Sparks, by McGill chemistry professor and co-director of the Office for Science and Society Joe Schwartz, is a must read for the science trivia geek. Schwartz has a chemistry PhD and decades of research knowledge,
and he has spent the past 12 years, at the rate of a book a year, bringing the world of chemistry to the average person, no science degrees required. Brain Sparks is 312 pages of brain food structured in mini digestible chapters introduced by questions and followed by a couple paragraphs of detailed and wellresearched answers. The length of each topic – five minutes of reading time – makes it convenient for taking out in between activities, such as before the start of a class, or waiting during office hours. The book is a good read – if you’re motivated to learn science trivia in your spare time. Quite frankly though, after a marathon study session of McGill chemistry, another book on science isn’t the first on my leisure reading list. I find that books completely unrelated to science provide relief from the tsunami of course assignments and readings. That being said, I packed Brain Sparks for my flights back home this past holiday season.
At Schwartz’s book launch held at the McGill library last November, he demonstrated the classic baking soda and vinegar experiment – but used it to launch a toy rocket. He also flashed out a pair of artificial dog testicles (“Anyone know what these are?”) – opaque, plastic, eggsize jellybeans implanted to spare recently neutered dogs the psychological trauma of, well, losing their testicles. Demonstrations and visuals link microscopic chemical processes with their applications, so the layperson can understand the implications of chemistry in our daily lives. Schwartz’s connection to the public is evident – this is a man who has spent much of his career presenting science colourfully to the general population – educating on real life chemistry and dispelling pseudoscientific claims. This book contributes nicely to that end, and I recommend anyone looking to satisfy his or her curiosity for science to pick one up on a Montreal best sellers shelf. Eric Wen | The McGill Daily
Sports
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
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Leveling the playing field The Daily interviews sports writer Meg Hewings on gender equality in sports
T
he McGill Daily caught up with Meg Hewings, author of the blog Hockey Dyke In Canada, sports writer for the magazine Hour, and former McGill Martlets hockey player, to talk about the NHL’s model of hockey, homophobia in sports, and the future of women’s hockey in Canada. Read the full transcript at mcgilldaily.com. The McGill Daily: Despite the fact that women account for forty per cent of hockey fans, as you point out on your blog, why are they continually marginalized by the NHL? Meg Hewings: Well, they probably actually account for more than forty per cent. NHL numbers, and the figures that they have right now across the board...are hovering around 44 to 45. You could basically say that women are equally into sport as men are. And you know – if they actually did see women represented in sports pages, or we saw a range of reporters reporting on different kinds of styles of play in sport – you might actually see that women might take more of an interest in picking up a sports section. Ad execs basically said, “Well, it’s a lucrative market, the men’s game. We’re only going to sell them, and we’re only going to sell a certain brand of masculinity – of hypermasculinity.” That’s what has really defined sport in North America. In a lot of ways, it negates the different ways not only to play hockey, but also that you can do sport in general. The fact that women have been ignored as a potential audience and as potential players is interesting. Look at a sport like tennis, where everyone had this “a-ha!” moment: “Oh right! When we give women prize money and the access to resources and training, they can put on a show that is pretty fucking awesome to watch.” I think that you’re going to start seeing that happen with women’s team sports. But it’s going to be a lot slower. It takes a lot more resources to actually build a team. MD: It seems like women’s sports only make headlines when there are instances of rule-breaking and controversy. What did you think of the media’s response to the Canadian women’s national team and their post-gold medal game celebration on the ice involving beer and cigars at the 2010 Winter Olympics? Do you think that the response would have been similar had it been the men’s national team? MH: Of course not. I mean, when have you ever seen in sport a dynasty in men’s sports that has been made to feel ashamed for celebrating a victory? This just never happens. It never happens that you create a team as brilliant as that Canadian women’s team was, and you get it shat on, basically, to put it in plain
Ali Mackellar | The McGill Daily
terms. This happens in women’s hockey a lot, key moments that could be historical and defining, and where if explained in context could really show you how Team Canada has been leading in a lot of really interesting ways, you see the opposite. I saw the press footage from the press scrum at the Olympics after that game, and all of the questions had to do with that, pretty much. The women were seriously there on the defence. It was really unbearable to watch, to be honest with you. And I can’t imagine that taking place in any other sport. MD: How do you think the macho/homophobic culture in men’s hockey compares to women’s hockey culture? How is homophobia different in both of these contexts? MH: I have a co-ed league now where I get to know guys and their experiences in sport, and, I mean, the locker room is a really homophobic and sexist place – even when it’s small things. That’s not the case for every team. Depending on who the coach is and what kinds of ground rules they lay out about respecting diversity on the team, you get a lot of different reactions. I know a lot of guys that left sport, and hockey in particular, because it is an unbearable environment. At the NHL level, it is a business, and I’m pretty sure that there are gay guys there but they are not visible and they are quiet to themselves. NHL guys, they
don’t know who they are, and if they do, there is a culture of silence and secrecy around those issues. And if someone were to come out, I think that it would do a lot for the sport. We’re seeing a lot around bullying in the U.S., and it really takes someone to take up that space, and ultimately I don’t see why they wouldn’t support them. As far as women’s sports go, women’s sports are a really loaded place for homosexuality. I think that they always have been. They can be really accepting environments on some levels, but there can be tension. There are lots of queer women in sport, gay women, or trans people in sport, and we don’t hear about them. Maybe that’s because they’re being quiet, and also because when you’re an athlete at a high level, you don’t want a lot of attention being drawn from your sporting practice into your sexual life, and I think that’s fair enough. I think that women’s sports have done a better job of that. Although it’s still very quiet – not, “Rah, rah, we have big lesbians on our teams.” MD: Women’s hockey is a different game from men’s hockey, and in the eyes of many, an inferior one. Sports are conceptualized as war, where violence is tolerated – if not encouraged – and hits and fights are what bring in the revenue. How can women’s hockey work to get respect while simultaneously
avoiding the negative aspects of the masculine model of sport? Is this re-conceptualization of sport as we know it really a possibility? MH: The truth is there is no way to calculate the number of NHL fans that have been turned off by some of the goonish behaviour and hits to the head that are really kind of horrific to watch. There is no way to understand how those kinds of hits are damaging to some of the players that we enjoy seeing perform. So, I think that one of the first misconceptions is actually that. There is a whole range of people that would like to watch hockey without hits and fights. Do you want your young child to be playing a sport where they can potentially have concussions and be concussed for the rest of their lives? I think that there is a real tension there, and okay, some people want to see the most hypermasculine of that in their hockey. The NHL has appealed to that for a very long time. [However,] I think the people that participate in hockey and the people who watch it, there is a wide range of people who actually want to see hockey played without those things. Now, hockey without those things is a really exciting game. You might say it’s not real hockey, but well, what is real hockey? And who gets to define what it is? Women’s hockey is a really exciting game to watch when it’s played well: the space gets opened up for them, there is a lot of crisp passing,
exciting play-making – it allows for a range of bodies to participate. The way that Wayne Gretzky got to participate was by putting in an enforcer. What if it was possible that all kinds of different guys could play in the NHL? What if it wasn’t [just the] super beefy and six-foot-eight? We have men’s pro sports on steroids, now, basically. The NHL is amazing calibre hockey, but this argument that people make that women’s hockey is only midget AAA, well, that’s not true. When you watch under-18 national team playing right now, your mind is blown. Any one of these people that make the argument that says that women’s hockey isn’t as exciting or fun to watch haven’t really looked at how well these girls can play. Hockey is yet to have this “a-ha!” moment, and it is in part because of the context of no one actually talking about the difficulties. It’s like we forgot how difficult it was to build an entire league called the NHL, how difficult it was to build hockey globally. There’s no reason that this can’t be the place where we have an international [women’s] pro league. To be honest, maybe I’m deluded, but I think that there’s an audience. It’s just a matter of funding. That is a huge hurdle, especially in women’s sport and leadership. There is a lot that has to come together. —Compiled by Katie Esmonde
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Culture
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
19
Putting the oooh in food How gastroporn brings sensuality to your supper Lena Camara
Culture Writer
G
rease Lightning is a dish that boasts the inspired union, not of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, but of “curly fries topped with chicken nuggets, chicken fried steak, fish sticks, pizza rolls, and a slice of corndog then smothered in melted mozzarella cheese topped with a mixture of chili, bacon, and sliced hot dogs topped with a sprinkling of cheddar.” Questionable gastronomic experiments like this one have drawn a large audience on the internet, propelling websites such as thisiswhyyourefat.com straight into online fame. City University of New York professor Frederick Kaufman is credited with the rise of the term ‘gastroporn’ (synonymous with ‘food porn’), in his essay for Harper’s magazine, “Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the frontiers of pornography.” This essay details the similarities between the camera work and aesthetics valued in photography of both food and pornography. He writes, “like sex porn, gastroporn addresses the most basic human needs and functions, idealizing and degrading them at
the same time.” A number of comparisons between the two come to mind. The photographic technique of deep focus makes everything that isn’t food appear somewhat blurry and unimportant. The food itself is always the sole subject of the photo – we never see it being eaten, it is just there for our viewing pleasure. It is easy to guess why gastroporn sites attract so many viewers. Thisiswhyyourefat.com gives its audience something to laugh at, imagining the various kinds of people who would create and consume such foods. “Where dreams become heart attacks,” is the website’s tagline. Everyone knows that this food is terrible for your body. However its existence, and the possibility of someone actually eating it, is captivating. It’s porn because it’s pushing the boundaries of the acceptable, because it’s obscene. Though the name might suggest otherwise, foodporndaily.com is a tamer and more refined website that posts a quotidian macro-shot of perfectly styled food. The pork loin chop with grilled acorn squash and the sea scallops with orangechampagne braised radicchio are masterful works of gastronomy in their own right, let alone when they are compared to the Cheesy
Photos Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Food photography often uses techniques reflecting those traditionally used in porn. Blasters and Chocolate Cherry Pie Cupcakes that stuff thisiswhyyourefat.com. Foodporndaily.com represents a different facet of the term “food porn.” The foods shown on this site are awe-inspiring; these are things you would gladly eat, if you only you were able to cook so well. The obscenity here is based on an intense desire to partake of the meal, a merciless nurturing of your hunger. This is certainly the dominant kind of food porn on the internet, which has been fostered by renowned sites such as foodgawker. com and tastespotting.com. One of tastespotting.com’s editors, Jennifer Bartoli, is a McGill graduate who started a food blog while still pursuing her B.A., and continued to document her gastronomic adventures when she went on to study at the French Culinary Institute in New York. Blogging is often looked down on as a proper job, but it can open career options for food bloggers. Bartoli pointed out that “food and cooking are as trendy as ever and there are many examples of people who have started with a simple blog and are now working in the food world… I started running a food blog while I was at McGill and it was what made me want to go to culinary school and start a career in food media.” She continued to explain that it is not only a stepping stone for those who want to be professionals in the food industry. Instead, it can be an alternative outlet to a career in food. “A lot of food bloggers are using this medium as a creative outlet. Many have demanding careers by day and blog about their favourite recipes as a hobby.”
In an interview with learnfoodphotography.com, Bartoli outlined the different aspects she considered when deciding which photos to include on Tastespotting. “Lighting, especially in food photography, is absolutely essential. The food has to look the way it’s supposed to look, colours have to be vibrant,” she said, going on to mention that while something may look good in real life, this may not be the case in a photograph. While the audience has it easy, sitting down and lusting after an image, the photographers work hard to make their photos look delicious. It’s an art. As for the term “food porn,” Bartoli told The Daily it seemed relevant, given the “sensory overload when faced with food, [which is] generally pretty sensual.” Many people have questioned the aptness of the handle, and Bartoli conceded that it “might be a little past its prime.” It has been used too much, for such a wide variety of applications, that it no longer encompasses one genre. While sites like foodporndaily.com emphasize the beauty of culinary skill, newer websites such as thisiswhyyourefat.com simply try to cram as many calories as possible onto one plate – going for shock value rather than art. Kaufman explained to onthemedia.org that “part of the big lie of porn and part of the big lie of the Food Network is things are made to look extremely simple when in fact they’re extraordinarily complex.” As with porn, Kaufman went on to detail that the Food Network now considers the 18 to 35-year-old males a key demographic, which perhaps accounts for the popularity of female chefs such as Rachael
Ray and Nigella Lawson. Whether or not these men intend to cook becomes irrelevant, shifting the focus to simply holding their attention. While this demographic trend may be true for the food porn on television, it does not seem to hold true for the blogosphere, judging by the comments on food porn blogs – which come predominantly from women in their twenties and thirties with families. After the success of cooking shows and channels such as the Food Network, it only makes sense that the world of food would meet the world of media. Gastronomy used to belong exclusively to professional cooks; it was prohibitively expensive and confined to the restaurant circuit. Years after Julia Child brought food into the home with her television programmes, networks and magazines specializing in home cuisine began to pop up. Over the last decade, the advent of blogging as a form of mass communication has meant that suddenly food porn belongs to everyone and is easily accessible. Much like sex porn, food porn is not something most people consider as a future career. However, those who are a part of the food photo-blogging world appear to relish every moment of it – Bartoli confirms there exists a “great sense of community when you run a blog.” As for the rest of us, whether it’s the Cheesy Blasters that tickle your fancy, or an amaretto-pear tartelette with almond crumbs that gets your heart rate up, there will always be those who selflessly devote themselves to providing semi-erotic food photography for our shameless consumption.
20 Culture
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011| mcgilldaily.com
ARTifact owns the podium TNC presents the return of the annual multidisciplinary festival Oliver Lurz
The McGill Daily
B
eing an artistic and creative person and being involved in academia certainly aren’t mutually exclusive. Incredulity is hardly a legitimate response to meeting someone who studies chemistry but also likes painting, and the right brain/ left brain dichotomy doesn’t hold much water either. Yet you would be forgiven for thinking it, given McGill’s minimal fine arts courses. Indeed, in having virtually no such programmes (except Music, often seen in academic circles as the most respectable of the bunch) McGill does not work toward bridging this divide, but instead maintains it. The annual ARTifact festival presents a vision of what campus life would be like if McGill embraced the arts more extensively. Starting tonight and lasting until Sunday, the festival is presented by Tuesday Night Café Theatre (TNC). “The first ARTifact festival was Edufest, about ten years ago,” said Spencer Malthouse, TNC’s publicity coordinator. “Every year the festival has grown and changed, with different set-ups each year. This year features
mixed performances each night so that the audience will see a smattering of all that McGill has to offer.” The festival will feature painting, dance, theatre, comedy, poetry, photographs, sculptures, and more. With campus groups Effusion A Capella, Inertia, and McGill Improv performing, along with many individual students, the performances promise to make you envious of all the talent out there. And just to liven things up there will also be a tango performance. ARTifact culminates in an event which Malthouse described as a “hysterical 24-hour playwriting competition.” Not to be confused with a competition to write a play that lasts 24-hours (although this in itself would be interesting), the event requires two writers and a group of actors to invent a totally original piece of theatre in just one day, with one more to rehearse. And if this weren’t enough of a constraint, TNC asks two professors to write a line of dialogue each to become the beginning and ending of the different plays. These plays are written between January 13 at 6 p.m. and January 14 at 6 p.m. Then at 7 p.m. that day each writer puts on their director’s cap, gets
Tom Acker | The McGill Daily
ten actors, and has 24 more hours to direct their own production. The plays are showcased twice, at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on January 15, and are judged immediately following the second performance. This seems a daunting task considering the amount of time and effort which would normally go into
a TNC production, but the results are guaranteed to be worth seeing, and a festival which facilitates this kind of inventive creative expression at McGill is without doubt worth supporting. As TNC put it, “The festival is a heartwarming tribute to the vibrant and engaged artistic community of McGill
University and we would love for as many people as possible to come.” ARTifact festival runs from January 10 to 15 in Morrice Hall. Email tnctheatre@gmail.com or call 514398-6600 to reserve tickets, or buy them from the box office on the night. Ticket price $3 for students.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
21
Creative resolve Although there is a wealth of good opportunities to exhibit art within the McGill community, (Folio and The Veg, the Fridge Door Gallery, to name but a few), if you want to find resources to make your own projects, it’s sometimes best to head off campus. To that end, The Daily has put together what we hope will be a useful guide to ways to get creative in Montreal. In addition to the places below, check out Craigslist for other artists looking to share studio space, or go along to collectives and make friends. We’ve heard nepotism gets you a long way in artistic communities. Ste. Emilie Skillshare hosts open studios on Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m. Their space comprises a silkscreen studio, black and white darkroom, sewing studio, art room, and a button maker. Also hosting frequent workshops and running a zine distribution agency, they’re a fantastic resource for learning craft techniques and getting involved in St. Henri’s queer and ethnic communities. The skillshare is run by a community of artists and activists
Our favourite former industrial loftmeets-art space, Eastern Bloc, is currently accepting submissions to its Salon programme. Hoping to bring back the concept of the ‘salon’ – whereby the art space becomes an intellectual hub for the exchange of ideas – this new project has the express aim of providing emerging artists the opportunity to present their work in an informal setting, for free. Eastern Bloc’s series of monthly salons will allow artists to gain access to the organization’s gallery space, its technical resources and also the organisation’s publicity and marketing capabilities. Eastern Bloc is inviting current and potential members to propose a project, whether completed or in progress, in the new media arts or other emerging practices. If interested, submit your proposals before each salon’s respective deadline. For more information, membership, and submission guidelines, contact info@easternbloc.ca or visit easternbloc.ca.
From Manet and Degas sharing notes on impressionism at Paris’ Café Guerbois in the 1860s, to Hemmingway allegedly writing The Sun Also Rises at the famous Les Deux Margots in the 1930s, cafes have long been a site of important artistic activity and exchange. Every Tuesday, Mile End’s cozy Arts Café honors this artistic legacy by inviting artists to share their talents at a cross-disciplinary open mic night. Starting at around 7:30 p.m., playwrights, poets, musicians, and comedians are encouraged to take the stage, a metaphorical one in this case, testing their various creations on a small and welcoming
Emeline and Annabelle is a dedicated sewing studio that feels more like a cosy loft, only with all the materials you’ll ever need for your sartorial masterplans. Their regular sewing workshops are varied – with tutorials on such techniques as embroidery, buttons, and how to make pyjamas – but can be a bit steep cost-wise. However, they have a free craft night on the first Tuesday of every month. At other times, for up to $10 an hour, you can drop in to the studio and use their resources for your own
who focus their activities around issues of marginalized communities, which has led to some events you wouldn’t see anywhere else in Montreal – such as an upcoming 12-hour movie marathon of the only thing more disgusting than poutine, John Waters. Find Ste. Emilie Skillshare at 3942 rue Ste. Emilie. See steemilieskillshare.com for more information, and a schedule of events. Twelve Hours of John Waters will be held January 16, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
If you’re looking to showcase your musical talent in an atmosphere that couldn’t get more laid back if it tried, then the Mardi Spaghetti night at Le Cagibi ought to be right up your alley. Mardi Spaghetti is a weekly series of improvised music taking place every Tuesday at Le Cagibi. Whether you like to play jazz, folk, rock, or anything else, this night brings it all together within the common theme of improvisation. Each Tuesday night is curated by one of the group’s four organisers: Josh Zubot, Philippe Lauzier,
audience. The entire night builds into a diverse and immersive ode to the arts, while maintaining – perhaps because of the Christmas lights strewn around the cafe’s borders and the family photos nailed to its walls – the intimate and amateur feeling of a friend’s house show. With warm vibes, and yummy snacks and drinks available throughout the show, Arts Café’s Open Mic Night is perfect for that first time debut, or simply a night out with friends. Arts Café is located at 201 Fairmount O., where a skinny tabby cat can usually be found curled up at its door.
Pierre-Yves Martel and Gordon Allen. Since March 2008 they have hosted more than two hundred artists from all over Canada, the U.S. and Europe, but most come from here in Montreal. While in the front room students sit hunched over their coffees and MacBooks, head through to the tiny stage in the back where this wonderfully offbeat improvised scene takes place. If you’re interested in playing, send them an email through Facebook or contact Philippe, Josh, Isaiah, and Gordon at mardispaghetti@gmail.com.
Cat’s Corner is a swingdance community in the Plateau, teaching Lindy Hop, Charleston, and other ways of getting your feet in knots. They host a Downtown Stomp every Friday, with a crash course at 8:30 p.m. Launching yourself into the arms of a complete stranger may seem daunting, but with a combination of DJs and live music – as well as a fair amount of toe-crushing and bashful apologies – the atmosphere is light casual. Cat’s Corner is located at 3451 St Laurent, third floor. Visit catscorner.ca for more information.
Are you tired of seeing your artwork hanging beside pizza flyers and magnetic poetry on your apartment’s fridge? Is your mother still your number one fan? Now is the time to change all that. This January, Mile End’s Redbird Gallery is inviting artists to submit their artwork to its upcoming Nuit Blanche display, “The Black Hole.” Inspired by the idea that art, like science, is a vehicle through which humans make sense of chaos, Redbird is challenging artists to come up with their own creative articulations of the linguistically incomprehensible and experientially unknowable concept of the black hole. Using whatever range of media inspires them, artists are asked to relate their works to any of the Black Hole’s many characteristics and points of interpretation – from the common association of black holes with perceptual distor-
projects. The namesakes met while taking their kids to the park, and the yummy-mummy atmosphere keeps things relaxed and informal – but expect to see more diaper bags than witty politicized totes being constructed on the lounge’s seven sewing machines. They are also a cafe – and closer inspection of the artfully flowery menu on flickr proves it’s cheap, at only $1 for an allongé. Emeline and Annabelle is at 6050 Monkland. For more information, see emelineandannabelle.com.
Effiloché – French for “unraveled” – is a knitting and sewing lounge offering workshops in knitting, sewing, hair pin lace, crochet, and felting. They also let you sit and knit in the store at any time, for free if you buy wool there. They’re well-stocked with supplies, and hold a Stitch and Bitch session every Friday from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Aiming to build a community around experimentation, it’s the perfect place to learn or practice. They work mainly in French, but learning to knit in another language will only make it more impressive when you show off your work. Effiloché is located at 6252 St. Hubert. For more information, visit effiloche.com.
tion to the more abstract relation of black holes – products of an over-accumulation of particles to the point of collapse – with material excess. In addition to these endless possibilities for interpreting the theme, Redbird requires no previous gallery experience from its artists – a detail that will benefit many artists working from McGill’s creative vortex. Interested applicants should send their submissions along with a 300 word artist’s statement and project description to redbirdstudios@gmail.com by January 31. For more information, visit redbird.gallery.org. Le Depanneur Café at 206 Bernard O. – renowned for hosting emerging music acts – is also accepting art submissions to display on their walls in 2011. Email amelie@ledepanneurcafe.com for more information.
Compendium!
22
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | www.mcgilldaily.com
Lies, half-truths, and welcome back! SHIT I FOUND
ASK STUART
Lube: the all-purpose solution Dear Stuart: I left my bike outside for a few weeks, and now everything feels crunchy when I ride. Did my bike get a cold? I tried massaging the crunchy parts, but to no avail. What do you suggest? —In sicness and in hellth Dear In: Don’t worry! It sounds like your bike has caught some fall blues. The recent bouts of cold and rainy weather tend to break down the lubricants that keep your parts nice and healthy. Massaging, or “working” the crunchy parts might actually have made the problem worse. Friction between non-lubricated metal parts can cause damage that will compound itself. Riding with a crunchy bike will just make it crunchier! Getting rid of those fall blues is pretty simple: apply more lube! —Stuart Dear Stuart: It’s fuckin’ cold, but I just can’t stop riding! My bike has been hinting that it has a salt allergy – what can I do to protect it? —Shiverzzzzzzz
Dear Shiverzzzzzzz: Don’t ever stop riding! Your bike isn’t the only thing that finds the salt difficult to deal with. Here’s a way to keep it salt-free: give it a good wash and then melt candle wax onto the rusty patches of the frame once it’s dry. Re-wash it every so often and apply lube on all moving parts every few weeks. Cleaning your bike is well worth the effort, and after a hard day’s ride, there is nothing more gratifying than showering with your bike! —Stuart Dear Stuart: It’s me again, stuck in the bike shed. I took your advice to heart last month, and it was great! My relationship with my bike has flourished, and all my friends have been really understanding. I’m ready to offer my bike a promise-chainring, but choosing is so hard! There are all these different sizes and numbers! How do I know which one my bike will like best? I want this to improve our riding relationship, not make it worse! —Stuck in the bike shed
Hi Stuck: Nice to hear that everything is going swell, and that your relationship is progressing! Chainrings are hard to choose, especially for a bike that has a special place in your heart. Chainrings are the toothed sprockets attached to your cranks. Cranks are able to accept between one and three chainrings. If your bike can accept more than one, you’ll want to discuss whether it is leaving some of the spaces for other riders. Adding more chainrings than your bike is okay with might lead to a heavier relationship and strange tensions between you and your bike. The first thing you’ll want to figure out when selecting chainrings is the gear ratio that you both feel comfortable riding with. This is a really personal thing. Sheldon Brown has a great explanation of this on his website – sheldonbrown. com. The gear ratio that you end up choosing will determine how many teeth the chainring will have. Good luck, Stuck! —Stuart Need advice about bikes and/ or love? Send your question to askstuart@mcgilldaily.com.
From the front page of The Daily’s first issue ‐ October 1911. Got a gripe? fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com
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23
The McGill Daily | Monday, January 10, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
volume 100 number 24
editorial 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor
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Victor Tangermann le délit
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EDITORIAL
WikiLeaks: the future of journalism in peril WikiLeaks was launched in October 2007. Aiming to publish leaked materials in order “to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations,” the site posted its first leaks in December of that year. WikiLeaks is a valuable resource, and efforts to shut it down are troubling. WikiLeaks became well-known last year for releasing a 2007 video that showed U.S. forces in Iraq killing two Reuters reporters, whose cameras soldiers incorrectly identified as weapons. In the past few months, WikiLeaks’ notoriety reached a new level as it leaked hundreds of thousands of documents concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by an announcement that the organization had obtained 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables, which have been slowly released since November. Recent rape allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are extremely serious, but are independent of the merit of WikiLeaks’ work. These leaks have enabled countless journalists (including some at this paper) to gain access to information that would otherwise remain hidden. This kind of increased transparency allows the public to keep the government and other figures in power accountable for their actions. Government transparency has become a serious concern in recent years. In Canada, the law states that Ottawa must respond to access to information requests within thirty days, but, recently, these requests have experienced long delays in delivery. Often they will arrive up to a reported 32 months late, if they are filled at all. A large portion of the requests are outright rejected. There is no lack of political rhetoric calling for transparency – but in a system where it seems that there are few repercussions for breaking transparency laws, WikiLeaks is a much needed bright spot for the future of information. This recent wave of releases has led to an intense backlash from governments worldwide. Many governments – the most vocal of which are the United States and Australia – have begun attacking WikiLeaks, attempting to shut it down. Some American politicians have labeled it a terrorist organization. In Canada, the Harper government has strongly condemned WikiLeaks. China has blocked the site since 2007. In the U.S., authorities have used intimidation tactics to block dissemination of the leaked information. U.S. federal government employees are currently banned from accessing WikiLeaks on both personal and work computers, for example. The Office of Career Services at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs warned students that writing about or linking to the leaks could seriously jeopardize their future ability to work in government positions. Four major U.S. companies – hosting site EveryDNS, and Paypal (owned by Amazon), Mastercard, and Visa, through which WikiLeaks received donations – have dropped the site as a client under pressure from the U.S. government, effectively cutting off both access to the site and its means of funding. The backlash against WikiLeaks is also evident in the U.S. government’s brutal treatment of Bradley Manning, the former U.S. solider who is suspected to be the source of most recent leaks. Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement for 23 hours a day since May 2010 while awaiting charges. He has been denied basic amenities and is prohibited from exercising in his cell. This extreme form of isolation, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, “can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.” As the world becomes more and more inundated with information and new ways to present it to the public, the fate of WikiLeaks goes far beyond the organization itself. WikiLeaks could set the tone for how information about governments is handled in the future, but it depends on the support of people fighting for more access, more information, and more accountability. EDITORIAL
A hundred years of The Daily In October 1911, The Daily opened its first editorial with a declaration: “Here we are, McGill, and we are here to stay.” Though the paper looks nothing like it used to, that prediction has proved true. We tend to think of ourselves pretty differently these days – more critical public forum than self-described “official organ of all University announcements.” At the end of the day, we’re written for and by the same people we were then: “Every member of McGill.” Over the next year, we’ll be marking our centennial in a number of ways; we’ll be putting out a special issue in April, and next week, along with Le Délit, we’re hosting the annual national journalism conference of the Canadian University Press (CUP). Bringing together nearly 400 student journalists from across Canada, Nash, as the conference is usually called, will present everything from big-name media to local, independent alternatives. The Daily helped found CUP in 1938, and we’re thrilled to mark the beginning of our second century by hosting its central event. If you’d like to attend Nash, you can get in for free by volunteering, but sign up soon! Go to bit.ly/nashvolunteer for more information.
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily