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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Hundreds rally to save Arch Café Largest student protest on campus in years Henry Gass The McGill Daily
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ver 300 students gathered outside Leacock yesterday to protest the closure of the Architecture Café, one of the last student-run food providers on campus. The protest began half an hour before the first Senate meeting of the year – which took place in Leacock 232 – and descended to the steps of the Macdonald-Harrington building (former home of the Arch Café), wound down to the Roddick Gates, and finally dissipated at the Y-intersection in the centre of campus. Student senators walked through the rally outside Leacock, and SSMU President Zach Newburgh briefly addressed the hundreds of students from a coffee cart brought by Midnight Kitchen. “Thank you for helping us send the message that we will not rest until the Architecture Café is reopened,” said Newburgh through a megaphone. “This is just beginning,” he said. A group of engineering students massed at the centre of the rally, banging hard hats together. The Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) and the Architecture Students’ Association (ASA) have proposed that the café reopen under joint ASA and EUS management in a September 7 memorandum addressed to Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson. Former manager of the café Carly Roualt, ASA president Kyle Burrows,
EUS president Daniel Keresteci, and president Newburgh are signatories to the memorandum. “We have a history of running good establishments…of making a small profit,” said EUS VP Internal Allan Cyril. “[But] we still think [the Arch Café] was making money.” Mendelson has insisted that the café was losing money, but has until now refused to make the Arch Café’s accounts public. Student signs called for the administration to open up the Arch Café’s accounts, writing “Show us the books: Full Disclosure,” and “Show us the numbers or give us back the Architecture Café.” “We don’t want fast food anymore. Arch Café was the last student-run food service on campus [sic] and we really want it back, cause it was really good food and its really cheap,” said Cyril. Cyril was among three Engineering students who said they would be willing to work at the Arch Café if it was brought under EUS management. Midnight Kitchen was also a vocal presence at the rally. Members of the collective and volunteers unfurled a “Midnight Kitchen” banner from the roof of the Leacock extension, before being kicked off the roof by a security guard -- one of several who circled the rally. Dana Holtby, a volunteer with Midnight Kitchen who was on the roof, said that “we probably weren’t allowed up there anyway.” Holtby emphasized, however, that she was not at the rally representing Midnight Kitchen.
“I’m here because I’m pissed off about what the McGill administration has done, in terms of backdoor deals over the summer…and taking away the only student space we have left, really. I’m really, really angry.” Midnight Kitchen brought coffee and cake to the rally, and Alex Briggs, a member of the collective, expressed concern that the Midntight Kitchen could be next in line to be closed. “We’re the only [student-run café] left,” said Briggs. “[But] we’re under SSMU, so we have some protection.” According to Briggs, however, that doesn’t provide Midnight Kitchen any added security. “I’m sure if the admin wanted to shut us down, they would,” said Briggs. Midnight Kitchen also announced a “Corporate Food Boycott Strategy Session” slated for
Monday at 7 p.m. in room 403 of the Shatner building. “This is not just about one café -- it’s about the continued corporatization of our campus,” said Holtby. “We don’t wanna eat corporatized shitty-ass food.” Security guards followed the rally on its route around campus, blocking the entrance to the MacdonaldHarrington Building as protesters massed below them. The guards refused to comment on their specific duties, but they kicked Daily photographer Nate Mosseau out of Leacock at the beginning of the rally. “I was on the second floor [of Leacock] taking pictures of the rally. A guard asked me if I was a tourist. I said I wasn’t a tourist, and he told me I couldn’t take pictures then. I told him that was silly…[and] that I was taking pictures for The Daily. He said I needed to show some ID to prove that,” said Mosseau.
Principal Heather Munroe-Blum and Provost Anthony Masi skirted the protest on their way to the Senate meeting. “It’s just part of life in university,” said Munroe-Blum as protestors yelled and banged drums metres away. Masi refused to comment. Michael Lipsitz, a member of the Arch Café Mobilization Committee, said that it was in the administration’s interest to accommodate student desires. “I think if they don’t listen, everyone’s going to realize that they don’t give a shit about us, and I don’t think they want that,” said Lipsitz. Referring to the size of the rally, Lipsitz asked, “When is the last time this happened at McGill?” —With files from Eric AndrewGee and Michael Lee-Murphy
Clockwise from left, Flora Dunster, David Huehn, and Stephanie Lopez for The McGill Daily
4 News
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Student concerns dismissed at first Senate Newburgh’s Arch Café motion deferred to Senate Steering Committee Salman Hafeez News Writer
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tudent Senators grilled McGill administrators at the first Academic Senate meeting of the year yesterday in Leacock 232, while an estimated 300 students protested outside against the sudden closure of the student-run Architecture Café. Of the many issues discussed at Senate, the Architecture Café was debated the longest. “80 per cent of the architecture students want the café to remain open,” said Arts Senator Amara Possian, who first brought up the issue. “[The closure] contradicts the wishes of many students. That is why there is a protest outside.” Other student senators also argued for reopening the café, with SSMU VP (University Affairs) Josh Abaki reminding the chair that the Student Task Force on Life and Learning “stress[es] a student cen-
tred university.” In reply, Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson reiterated the administration’s stance on the issue. “The café was operating on a loss… After three years when the ancillary services took over, the café was financially and managerially unsustainable,” said Mendelson. He also stressed that student organizations were provided with spaces in the past to run operations for some time. These organizations ran into similar financial problems, and had to be taken over by the University. Mendelson also took issue with the preamble of the question presented in the agenda, stating that he did not understand why the students were so concerned with a space whose area is, “less than a half percentage” of the total social space on campus. Mendelson said that students have “common rooms, and even the group workspaces are used for social interaction from time to time.”
When SSMU President Zach Newburgh started to present a resolution regarding the café, it was immediately struck down by the Chair of Senate, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum, on the basis that Newburgh was out of order. Newburgh appealed the Chair’s ruling. A vote was held on whether to uphold or dismiss the Chair’s decision, and the appeal was struck down with only the student senators voting to support Newburgh. Abaki also broached the deregulation of international tuition for French as a second language courses. Mendelson said that McGill had been subsidizing the French courses for foreign students for a few years, but with deregulation of fees it was no longer possible to do so, as the government funding was no longer there. “The University is severely underfunded. It can not simply afford to deliver services like this for free...and we can not afford to forgo revenue without charging.”
Abaki argued that the decision was made suddenly, without any student consultation and that “registered international students had been expecting to pay the Quebec rate.” In response, Mendelson said that, “for the summer term, students who were newly registered for the programs were notified in early May,” but did admit to there being a “slip-off in the communication.” Provost Anthony Masi also added that “setting tuition is not a policy issue for which a student consultation is needed, but an administrative responsibility.” Arts Senator Tyler Lawson also went after the administration on tuition, pointing to MunroeBlum’s presentation to the National Assembly’s Commission de la culture et de l’éducation September 7. “McGill was the only institution that prioritized graduate education and infrastructure,” said Lawson, referring to the series of presentations given by Quebec universities
to the Commission. “Improving the infrastructure…and subsidizing graduate education at [the] expense of undergraduates doesn’t make the academics better.” The principal responded that graduate education has been neglected and “really needs serious attention with respect to our mission.” She also mentioned measures aimed at decreasing facultystudent ratios, and hiring and retaining tenure-track faculty to enhance the undergraduate experience. Several motions and reports were deferred to the next Senate meeting, scheduled for October 20. At the end of yesterday’s meeting, Newburgh again tried passing a resolution – aimed at “creating an ad-hoc committee” that had a diverse representation from both the administration and the students – with regards to the Architecture Café issue. Munroe-Blum deferred it to the meeting of the Senate Steering Committee, which will meet Wednesday, October 13.
Administration targets TVMcGill and McGill First Aid University wants names changed; cites liability concerns Maya Shoukri News Writer
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he McGill administration has submitted a demand for some student services to remove the McGill name from their titles, sparking an outcry from the groups affected by the decision. The most recently affected student services, TVMcGill and McGill First Aid Service (MFAS), have expressed consternation over the impending name change. The University maintains that such changes have to be made to avoid liability. In an interview with The Daily, Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson said that because TVMcGill never requested permission from the
administration to use the McGill name, it is therefore illegal for the service to continue doing so. He said that individual clubs and services have to make their justification and reasoning for using the McGill name in their titles clear in their Memorandums of Agreement (MoA) with the University. Mendelson went on to explain the administration’s perspective on the use of the McGill name and brand. “The University has the copyright of its name and it holds the brand on the name and the logo. The University has to protect the brand and the logo very vigorously so that it has true meaning, in the same way that Nike would do everything possible to protect its swoosh,” he said. However, student services having the McGill name severed from
their group titles do not understand exactly what sort of liability their services entail, and feel marginalized by the administration. Nicole Edwards, the director of MFAS, stressed the inconvenience such a change would have on the quality of their service, and explained her opinion on the matter. “We think that changing our name is an unnecessary and unreasonable request,” she said. “Setting aside the costs associated with changing our name, we feel that they are trying to discredit us entirely. Asking us to change our name implies they do not trust us as students and as the much-needed service that we are providing to the University. We have been well-established as MFAS for ten years. A name change would not be inconsequential.” Mendelson maintained that
despite accusations to the contrary, the McGill administration is predominantly focused on student life and welfare, citing numerous administrative initiatives to provide SSMU and PGSS with more funding in regards to their building occupancy. Mendelson insisted that the removal of the McGill name from multiple student services’ titles has nothing to do with the administration’s opinion of said services, and has more to do with preventing confusion regarding whether or not the University is directly affiliated with the organizations. “Over the past couple of years, we [the administration] have let students know that student groups can use the McGill name. We want student groups to see themselves as associated with the University, as so
many of the groups do such good activities. It gives the University its pride to be associated with a student group, but we want the [McGill] name to be used in a way that doesn’t create confusion about the group or McGill’s role in the group.” In order for TVMcGill to retain its current title, the service would have to make a disclaimer clarifying its independence from the administration more readily available on the station and on its website. TVMcGill President Carter Li declined comment regarding the station’s impending name change “due to the delicate nature of the situation.” “We do not want to jeopardize our standing concerning this situation,” he added.
I THINK I’M BIG MEECH. I THINK I WRITE FOR NEWS. MEETINGS MONDAY @4:30, SHATNER CAFETERIA
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Cyclists dying for a change Bike activists stage theatrical protest near McGill campus for Car-Free Week Laura Pellicer News Writer
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n estimated 150 to 300 protesters lay motionless and covered in bloodied bandages at the corner of Ste. Catherine and McGill College at 6:15 p.m. on Wednesday. They later rose from the dead and marched down Ste. Catherine, chanting, “Get off your ass and save some gas. Fuck the car, it’s not that far!” This was the scene at the annual die-in organized by Montréal à Vélo Collective. The display of political theatre attracted dozens of downtown Montrealers including bike couriers, business people, and families. Laurent Levesque, the organizer of the event, explained the purpose of the die-in. “We do this to symbolize the consequence of car culture in our society, the greatest [consequence] obviously being death,” he said. Levesque was quick to point out that Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montréal, the current municipal government, has implemented “many measures to promote biking and walking.” “They are doing a lot to make people feel safer, but what we can see in the statistics is that they’re not actually safer,” he said. Participants reported encounters with aggressive or careless drivers that resulted in injuries.
Alexandre Hupé, an UQAM student, explained how he had been hit twice by cars that turned at an intersection without first ensuring that the bike path was unoccupied. On September 16, a woman was fatally hit by a garbage truck while biking on Jean-Talon near St. Denis, the fourth death of a cyclist in Montreal this year. In 2009, automobiles killed a reported 515 people in Quebec. Eva Dawson, an event organizer, began the protest with an impassioned speech condemning the city’s efforts towards increasing cyclist and pedestrian accessibility in Montreal as “pervasive green washing.” The current municipal government has been experimenting with pedestrian zones in downtown Montreal. This year, the Gay Village was car-free from May 26 to September 13. The City of Montreal’s 2010 budget also outlined the goal of increasing the network of bike paths to over 800 km by 2013. Despite these advances, upcoming construction plans for the Bonaventure Expressway, Turcot Interchange, and Highway 30 extension are still centred on traditional automobile transport while including only the minimal public transport element of bus lanes. The solution, according to Montréal à Vélo, is to reduce the number of cars on the streets. Police on bicycles monitored
the demonstration which circled Phillips Square. The protest was one of the events marking Car-Free Week in Montreal. The Agence Metropolitaine de Transports (AMT) was a major sponsor and organizer along with the Montreal Urban Ecology Center and the Goethe Institute who have organized Car-Free Neighbourhoods Week, which fea-
tures environment-related expositions and activities. Saturday will also see the closure of a number of roads in the downtown core. Roads in the downtown core were blocked off from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, creating a “pedestrian friendly zone.” Sections of Ste. Catherine street were lined with grass, symbolizing the ecologi-
cal benefit of limiting car-emissions in urban centers. Various intersections have recently been marked for the occasion by the work of Peter Gibson, the street artist and urban activist better known as Roadsworth. The car-free perimeter extended from Bleury to McGill College and from de Maisonneuve boulevard to René-Lévesque.
Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft | The McGill Daily
Activists lie down in anti-car protest at McGill College and St. Catherine.
QPIRG website altered by unidentified hacker Conservative McGill led opt-out campaign renewed a day later Andra Cernavskis News Writer
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n unidentified person or group hacked into the Quebec Public Interest Research Group’s (QPIRG) website last Tuesday, changing the group’s
Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan, a QPIRG board member, told The Daily, “The groups who have been organizing against QPIRG in the past are well known and have been pretty public about it. That is not to suggest that hacking came necessarily from those groups.” Following the hack, the link on
“It is a campaign that is trying to suck the money out of our organization.” Anna Malla Internal Coordinator at QPIRP homepage, in what appears to be an escalation of the nearly two year old-campaign on the part of a range of student groups on campus to encourage student opt-outs from QPIRG’s $3.75 a semester student fee. QPIRG could not confirm that last week’s hack was related to the opt-out campaign, saying they are still in the process of discovering what happened themselves.
QPIRG’s website titled “Working Groups” sent users to a webpage for Tadamon!, a pro-Palestinian organization affiliated with QPIRG that labels Israel an apartheid state. Clubs as diverse as Conservative McGill and the McGill Hellenic Students’ Association accuse QPIRG of supporting radical political positions that “mainstream” students would not naturally support. Fliers encouraging students to
opt-out of QPIRG’s student fee have also been left in buildings on campus, including Leacock and Redpath, throughout the past week. Outgoing Conservative McGill President Jess Weiser did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment. The opt-out campaign, officially luanched on September 15, has developed a well organized web infrastructure; the Facebook group “QPIRG: Opt-Out!” features a 50-second video guide to opting out of student fees, including QPIRG and “Vegan” [Midnight] Kitchen, as well as a six-step guide to the opt-out process on Minerva, which the Facebook page says takes “less than three minutes.” The QPIRG Opt-Out Campaign circulated an open letter addressed to QPIRG last night, signed by Conservative McGill, Free the Children McGill Chapter, and Swiss Club McGill, among others, decrying some of the research group’s political positions as “bigoted.” The letter’s coda reads, “We will no longer contribute to an organization that promotes hate, rejects student input, and neglects its stated aims.”
Ronderos-Morgan said the efforts of the individuals and groups involved in the opt-out campaign are “disingenuous.” “I find it kind of hilarious [that these groups use the arguments they do] because they receive money from SSMU and faculty associations,” said Ronderos-Morgan. “Conservative McGill, for example, received $750 of student money last year from SSMU, and students had no option of whether or not they wanted to opt-out of that. A lot of students on campus don’t find conservative politics very
available for groups to add to student life without having to do bake sales all the time.” Echoing Ronderos-Morgan’s chagrin with the groups involved in the campaign, Anna Malla, Internal Coordinator at QPIRG, said “we are not opposed to students knowing how to opt-out, but we are opposed to the fact that there are fliers being distributed all over campus that don’t give any information about who we are.” “Students are finding out about a way to save money as opposed to finding out about who we are and
“We will no longer contribute to an organization that promotes hate, rejects student input, and neglects its stated aims .” Open letter to QPIRG from Opt-Out Campaign appealing and yet their money is going to fund Conservative McGill. ... Students don’t really have the option to opt-out of that because it makes sense for there to be funds
what we do,” she continued. “It is obviously not a campaign that is trying to inform students. It is a campaign that is trying to suck the money out of our organization.”
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Premier caught in scandal over judge appointments Key witness supports accusations of influence peddling in the courts Alexia Jablonski News Writer
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lready facing record-low poll numbers, accusations of corrupt fundraising, and an unpopular budget, Premier Jean Charest and the Quebec Liberal party are now threatened by new evidence that confirms allegations of influence peddling in the judicial appointment process. On Monday September 20, former associate deputy minister in the justice department Georges Lalande corroborated claims that former justice minister Marc Bellemare received undue pressure from Liberal fundraisers to select particular judges. He was called to testify as part of the Bastarache Commission, an investigation into Bellemare’s claims that has prompted a majority of Quebeckers to support the Premier Jean Charest’s resignation, making the likelihood of a Liberal re-election in 2012 appear dim. Charles Rondeau, one of the fundraisers mired in suspicion because of their lobbying efforts, testified before the commission Tuesday. Rondeau said that he
had asked Bellemare to appoint an old schoolfriend Chief Judge of Quebec, but added that his request was casual and that Bellemare was unsurprised to receive it, contrary to Bellemare’s claims. Franco Fava, another fundraiser implicated in Bellemare’s accusations, denied all of Bellemare’s and Lalande’s claims. He said that he didn’t know any of the three judges who were appointed. “It’s not something that interested me, the nomination of judges,” he told the commission. In April, Bellemare alleged that while serving as Minister of Justice in 2003 and 2004, he was pressured by Liberal fundraisers to appoint three judges: Michel Simard, Marc Bisson and Line Gosselin-Després. He claimed that he reported these problems to Charest, and was told to do as the fundraisers said. The government launched the Bastarache Commission on April 14 to look into these accusations, and Bellemare’s cross-examination began on August 30. Bellemare’s testimony was on shaky grounds through Monday. His former chief of staff and former press aid testified that Bellemare had never told them about fac-
ing “undue pressure” from Liberal fundraisers. His description of the timeline of appointments did not hold up under cross-examination, and was shown to be implausible in parts by Globe and Mail reporter Daniel LeBlanc. He also did not convincingly explain why he waited six years to reveal this information. However, Lalande’s account confirmed many of Bellemare’s claims – especially concerning his meetings with Liberal fundraiser Fava – with notes from his personal agendas. “Marc Bellemare does not understand that we need to appoint our friends, in justice just like everywhere else,” Lalande quoted Fava as saying. “They’re beating down the doors after nine years in opposition.” Lalande stated that Fava had recommended Simard as a candidate for Assistant Chief Judge of Quebec Court, and Gosselin-Després for the youth court. Both these candidates were later named to the bench. Throughout the commission, public opinion has been starkly in favour of the former justice minister. A recent Léger poll revealed that 58 per cent of respondents believed Bellemare, compared to only 14 per cent in support of Charest. In an ear-
lier poll, 57 per cent of Quebeckers supported Charest’s resignation. “You have to look at those numbers ... in the context of the political reality,” said the Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, Professor Antonia Maioni. “Jean Charest is a very unpopular premier. His government is not doing so well. So I think many Quebeckers are prepared to think anything negative about Jean Charest. I don’t think it’s an all-out endorsement of Bellemare. I just think that many people are unhappy with Jean Charest’s leadership, and therefore ready to be suspicious in what seems to be choosing between one and the other.” In addition to this controversy, Charest’s government has been plagued by accusations of corrupt financing in the construction industry. A provincial police investigation – called “Opération Marteau” – is already examining this issue. “The political context of Quebec was, and still is, very ‘chargé’ because the Liberal party is having a hard time at the polls,” Maioni said. “It’s been suffering from a lot of attacks by the Parti Québécois in the National Assembly. ... There’s been a lot of pressure on Charest
from journalists and opponents and interest groups to actually have a commission, but a commission on the construction industry, not on this. So when all of these accusations started to come out, what Charest did was appoint a commission, but the commission was not to delve into Liberal fundraising...but rather to make sure that the nomination of judges is still transparent and democratic.” The Bastarache Commission’s ruling will be announced by October 15. It remains to be seen how high public dissatisfaction will affect Charest’s position within the Liberal caucus, and whether the Liberal party can regain public support before the 2012 provincial elections. “Barring really unforeseen circumstances, [the Liberals] will probably hold their majority [in the National Assembly]...until the next election,” Maioni said. “Whether Jean Charest will be Premier, that’s a separate question. I’m not sure that Jean Charest will last as leader of the party until the next election. ... However, once the election is called, I think there’s a very real possibility that the Parti Québécois will win.”
SSMU report details history of self-funded tuition model Research explores connection between higher tuition and accessibility Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily
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study commissioned by SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi, released September 10, sheds light on the effects selffunded tuition models have had on the professional schools of two Ontario universities over the past decade. The report finds that higher tuition at the University of Western Ontario medical school and the University of Toronto law school, on the heels of the deregulation of Ontario tuition for professional schools in 1997, resulted in more wealthy students and fewer poor students enrolling in the programs. SSMU commissioned the report, written by McGill graduate student Rachel Gotthilf for a $500 fee, as lobbying firepower in the ongoing dispute over the steep hike in tuition for McGill’s MBA program. This past year, McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management raised MBA tuition from $1,700 to $32,500 in what Dean Peter Todd has called a “pilot project” of higher tuition models at McGill. Administration officials have consistently rejected claims that higher tuition will
negatively effect accessibility. Still, then Minister of Education Michelle Courchesne threatenedto cut over $3 million from McGill’s general funding last April for violating Quebec’s policy of educational accessibility. At the time Todd denounced the ministry’s plan for funding cuts as punitive. “Their [the provincial government’s] view is that other McGill students should pay for this, and we don’t think that is correct or appropriate,” he told The Daily. “Unfortunately, it is likely that the MBA will continue to be subsidized by other students at McGill, a situation we believe is unjust and needs to be changed.” When Ontario deregulated professional school tuition, the cost of professional programs (dentistry, medical, law) skyrocketed. At Western, medical school tuition increased by 40 per cent to $14,000. Administration officials there argued that the increase was justified because of “higher earnings expectations,” the report found. Zaidi pointed to this as evidence of an impulse on the part of the administration to expand the use of self-funded models, in which the cost of a program is paid for by tuition rather than government sub-
sidies, into other faculties at McGill. “The motivation behind the shift to a self-funded tuition model in law, and medicine [in Ontario] are the same with the MBA,” she said. “[The report] tells us it’s not a question of the program, it’s a question of ideology.” The report goes on to detail the changing economic character of Western students after tuition deregulation. The study claims “as tuition increased over a four year period, the average annual family income of medical students increased from $80,000 to $140,000.” The report also cites studies showing that the proportion of medical students coming from families with incomes of less than $40,000 across Ontario dropped “dramatically,” from 23 to 10 per cent in the years following tuition deregulation. The percentage of students who were the first from their family to attend a professional school decreased with the tuition hike, the report shows. A 2005 StatisticsCanada study cited in the paper found that after Ontario’s 1997 deregulation, the children of parents with graduate or professional credentials became twice as likely to enroll than before, while the enrollment of students from families without credentials remained relatively unchanged.
“It tells us it’s not a question of the program, it’s a question of ideology.” Myriam Zaidi SSMU VP External
Around the same time, the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law doubled its tuition. Administrators there sought to offset adverse effects on accessibility through a series of measures, including massive increases in financial aid, the expansion of internship programs, increased student-professor ratios, and a retroactive student aid policy for graduates entering the non-profit sector and earning less than $45,000 a year. According to the Desautels Faculty Management’s Director of Marketing and Communication Ron Duerkson, the faculty is “currently finalizing funding and scholarship options specific to those in the non-profit sector,” although he declined to provide specific figures, saying that the options would be available starting next fall.
Officials at the Faculty of Management’s career planning service were unable to provide numbers as to how many of McGill’s MBA graduates go into the non-profit sector, but maintained that the number was relatively small. According to employment data from the faculty, the average yearly salary upon graduating from the MBA program is $79,000. Zaidi insisted that the number of graduates going into the non-profit field was irrelevant. “Without a doubt, some students will not have the freedom to pursue an MBA at McGill because of their household’s income, which goes against the model that Quebeckers opted for, a model focused on accessibility,” she wrote in an email to The Daily. —With files from Eric AndrewGee
7 News
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
7000 Academic Year
2010/2011
6000
5000
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2000 Source: Statistics Canada
Average undergraduate tuition fees for Canadian full-time students
2009/2010
1000
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Newfoundland and Labrador
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Canada
Quebec tuition rising faster than national average Students across Canada paying more this school year
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uebec no longer has the lowest graduate tuition in the country, and Quebec undergraduate tuition is rising at a higher rate than the national average, according to a report released by Statistics Canada (StatsCan) last Thursday. Universities in Quebec still have the lowest undergraduate tuition in Canada, at an average of $2,415 a year. However, undergraduate tuition increased by 4.6 per cent from last year, the fourth highest rate in the country. Graduate tuition in Quebec, meanwhile, jumped by 6.4 per cent from last year to $2,600 – more than a hundred dollars more than the graduate tuition rate in Newfoundland and Labrador, which now offers the cheapest graduate tuition in Canada. Only
Ontario saw a more precipitous increase in tuition rates for graduate students than Quebec. Quebec universities also raised tuition for international students by 10.3 per cent, the second biggest increase of its kind. Saskatchewan led the way with a hike of 25.2 per cent. The StatsCan data, compiled from May to June 2010 and covering the 2010-2011 academic year, showed that undergraduate tuition across Canada rose 4 per cent from 2009-2010, while graduate tuition across Canada jumped 6.6 per cent over the same period. Inflation increased by 1.8 per cent during the period being measured.
More of the report’s findings include: • Canadian undergrads are also paying more in compulsory fees (e.g., ancillary fees): $702 on average, up from the $656 they paid on average last year.
• At $2,456, Newfoundland and Labrador charges the least for graduate programs at Memorial University, which is the only university in the province.
• Ontario universities raised tuition on undergraduates and graduates at the highest rates in Canada, 5.4 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively. Ontario also has the highest undergraduate tuition in the country, at $6,307, more than $750 higher than the next most expensive province.
• The Canadian average for MBA programs is $21,118 – more than $11,000 less than McGill’s MBA program.
• The most expensive undergraduate program Canada-wide is dentistry, coming in at $14,701 for the 2010-2011 year.
• Although it decreased by nearly $350 from last year, Nova Scotia still has the highest graduate tuition in the country, charging $7,350. Visit mcgilldaily.com to see the rest of StatsCan’s report.
—Compiled by Eric AndrewGee
New shit has come to light. Write for News. news@mcgilldaily.com
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Can it be free or not? University education shouldn’t cost a dime Ted Sprague Hyde Park
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cGill has a deficit, thus it has to seek a greater source of revenue. In this case the administration has chosen to increase tuition fees. In general, this is true of the whole province of Quebec – and across Canada – as our government is in a deep financial hole. Tuition fees are on the rise everywhere we go. However, if we confine ourselves just to this elementary truth, then we are doomed. We will be stuck endlessly debating among ourselves how to prioritize the scraps of fund-
to take it. It is there, but spent on the war in Afghanistan. It is there, but spent to bail out the banks during the last recession. It is there, but given away as tax breaks for big corporations. This is where we have to look: in the banks and the corporations, in the pockets of the rich, not those of the poor. For those who argue that education is a privilege and should thus bear a price tag, we should just leave them be. If they want to pay for it, we will take their money as a private donation to the University. In the meantime, there is a viable option for all of us, but choosing this path is not free, because it has to be fought for. Opting to set free
We are fighting over the crumbs that fall from the table, failing to see the feast laid on the table. Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
More bang for your buck QPIRG’s work enhances the university experience Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan Hyde Park
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ast year, I wrote a Hyde Park comparing QPIRG to SSMU (“Conservative McGill doth protest too much,” February 8, 2010). It had become clear to me then that certain student groups didn’t fully understand QPIRG and, by consequence, contradicted themselves in their critiques of the organization. In some ways QPIRG and SSMU are similar. For example, both are student-funded and student-run; both operate as umbrellas for a variety of student and campus-community groups, giving them space, administrative support, and, most importantly, funding; both print planners at the beginning of the year... However, I confess that my argument last year was rather reductive. In fact, QPIRG and SSMU are also quite different, notably with regards to their political objectives. SSMU is the student government and official representative of all downtown undergrads; it seeks to provide students with services and representation. QPIRG is a student-run public interest research group (PIRG) with a social and environmental justice and anti-oppression mandate. The PIRG “conducts research, education, and action on environmental and social justice issues at McGill University and in the Montreal community.”
QPIRG, and its working groups, play a vital role in campus-wide dialogue on issues that are underrepresented, be they related to class, queer people, people with disabilities, immigrants, ecological sustainability, et cetera. McGill students benefit from the opportunities to learn and share skills within QPIRG working groups, or to research in the alternative resource library. Student-run working groups have brought campus “Car-Free Day” (Greening McGill), urban agriculture programs (Campus Crops), a native studies journal (KANATA), panels at “Social Justice Days” (held in January), a speakers series on the Israel-Palestine conflict, awareness on aboriginal colonization and the situation of Filipino migrant workers in Canada... And the list can go on. QPIRG provides a space dedicated to causes and people that are marginalized in our university and society at large. In short, QPIRG and the organizations it supports provide space for furthering critical discourse in our university – which ultimately enriches the educational and social experience of your years at McGill. Confronting social injustice and environmental degradation are always highly contentious and difficult processes. There will always be heated debate and students that disagree with one another. Occasionally, I have disagreed with the methods and messages employed by QPIRG
and some organizations within it. But I value the contributions that these groups have made to my university education outside of the classroom. I value the existence of events such as the speaker series “Culture Shock” (this year from October 4 to 15 – check the QPIRG and SSMU websites for details!) because they challenge my own perspectives and the positions forwarded by my professors and textbooks. So, returning to the original question, how are the political objectives of SSMU and QPIRG different? SSMU is, by its nature and its democratic structure, a majoritarian organization: it functions like a union and must represent all students. QPIRG, as stated earlier, preserves space and funding for minorities and their causes. In other words, while SSMU’s raison d’être is to give voice and representation to the majority, QPIRG’s is to give voice and representation to the voiceless. When the voiceless are heard and when alternative causes have a place to flourish, you get more education for your money – and our university, hopefully, becomes a more just, sustainable, and tolerant place. Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan is a former SSMU VP External, a current QPIRG’s board member, and a U3 Political Science student. The views expressed here are his own. Write him at sebastian.ronderosmorgan@mail.mcgill.ca.
ing that we receive in post-secondary education – should McGill be research-oriented or undergraduate-oriented? Should the part-time teachers – low-paid as they are – get a raise at our expense? At the end of the day, we are pitted against each other: undergraduate versus graduate, student versus faculty, et cetera. We are fighting over the crumbs that fall from the table, putting our heads down, nibbling what’s on the floor for so long that we fail to see the feast laid on the table. There are actually enough resources in our society to ensure free, quality, accessible education. There is no reason that we should choose between those three qualities. It can be free, ensuring that everyone regardless of their economic status can enjoy an education, and at the same time it can be of high quality and coupled with top-notch research. With this clear goal of free education, we don’t need to argue about how affordable affordable is, occupying ourselves with bargaining over the appropriate amount of tuition fees. Is it $2,000? Is it $2,500? The money is there; we just have
education as our fundamental principle requires the greatest sense of sacrifice from the students, which is to engage politically and mobilize. It is a sacrifice today for gains tomorrow. The sceptics will howl that this is an impossible dream. Let them wallow in their own cynicism while we will continue to dream of a better society, one that can provide every person with an education. Hasn’t our society always been built upon great dreams and the struggle to realize them? Education can be free. It can be of high quality and accessible. This principle, however, doesn’t preclude us from the immediate struggle to stop the increases in tuition fees proposed right now. But we cannot be on the defensive all the time; it is high time to be on the offensive. When they say they want to unfreeze the fees, let them thaw altogether and we will flush them down the drain. Ted Sprague is the pseudonym of a Masters II student in Chemical Engineering. He can be reached at ted_sprague@yahoo.com.
September 23, 2010
Dear Reader, I need a back massage. And I’m hungry. And I’m lonely without you. You’ve been good to me these past few weeks; don’t give up. I just want you so badly, nobody can do it for me but you, nobody, baby, nobody. Write me again, write me again, write me always. Three hundred words or less. No hating. Just love. Just love. Love, letters@mcgilldaily.com
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
9
Creativity in the age of academic production Profit-driven university standards are shackling inventive thought Adrian Kaats Hyde Park
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he work that has propelled the evolution of societies where the pursuit of technological development is possible arose from disciplines having little to do with applied science. Observation has led me to believe that arts and humanities researchers have little difficulty accepting and contextualizing the role of technological development in society, even if they don’t necessarily grasp its subtleties. However, those preoccupied with technological development appear to disdain the arts and humanities; they have difficulty accepting the primordial importance of those fields for the growth and maintenance of robust, healthy societies. The lack of mutual appreciation – hopefully not intentional – likely arises from the following ill-posed question: Who will consume the products of research, what is its commodity value, and how quickly can it be produced? This is the antithesis of curiosity-based valuation that has heretofore underscored academic discourse. A body of research is now ascribed a value based on its ultimate potential for mass application – and thus consumption. Unfortunately, the work generated in the arts and humanities is often not readily convertible into mass-consumable products, whereas technological developments, no matter how small, are easily placed within a production chain which – it is assumed – will yield something tangible and of practical value to society at large. These notions are a
consequence of a production logic that has no place in academia. Its effects are far-reaching and corrosive across all disciplines. While the arts and humanities are starved of the cash providing basic sustenance for thinkers to think and create, the bureaucracies supporting the development of commercializable research is accelerating. At McGill, the Office of Technology Transfer, responsible for patenting and selling the University’s research, has more than doubled its capacity in recent years, and has moved into the same building as the Research Grants Office, where applications for government funding are vetted. In Canada and Quebec, the federal and provincial granting agencies funding applied science are pumped full of cash, while those funding the arts, humanities, and social sciences are drained. The process of grant application has itself been commodified. Importance is increasingly placed on the applicant’s number of publications, instead of quality and relevance. In turn, this emphasis has commodified the process of academic publishing. The number of academic journals and the volume of frivolous content is growing exponentially. As the publication cycle shortens to fuel this growing beast, the goals giving rise to publications have become increasingly short-sighted. The fragmentation and disjointing of academic discourse is edging out the “long thought,” largely responsible for deriving the integrated visions guiding sensible, careful, and balanced societal development. Along with the disposal of “long thought” comes the marginalization of curiosity-based research, its
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
The university is becoming more and more like a factory. funding, and its practitioners. As those who held the reigns of stable, long-term academic discourse disappear, the frenzied pace of commodified research accelerates, ultimately transforming the university into a factory. In a factory, there is no place for arts, humanities, the pursuit of curiosity, or creativity; there are only labourers, foremen, and management with specific and discrete tasks. To break the back of this trend, we must understand the universal importance of unfettered curiosity and creativity, regardless of discipline and regardless of short-term mass application and economic
THE DEADLINE FOR COLUMNISTS APPLICATIONS TO THE DAILY HAS BEEN EXTENDED. Applications are now due at midnight on September 29. e are looking for four columnists – two weekly, two twice-monthly – to write in the Commentary section. Particularly prized are those columnists who have a project that is out of the ordinary, who speak from a perspective that is often silenced, marginalized or ignored by most media. We’re looking for unique vantage points. We’re looking for anybody who feels they have something important to say that’s not being said, or not being said often enough. People who will bring thought-provoking commentary to the McGill community. ALL APPLICANTS WILL BE GIVEN EQUAL CONSIDERATION. Think you have what it takes? (It doesn’t take a lot.) Submit a 1-page letter of intent, along with a total of three (3) writing samples: 1-2 sample columns (what your column would look like) and 1-2 writing samples (other stuff that can confirm your writing abilities). (A total of three pieces only.You can decide the combination: 2 sample columns and one writing sample or two writing samples and one sample column.) What should be in your letter of intent? Who you are, what you plan on doing with your column, why you plan on doing that, and how you’ll get it done. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch: commentary@mcgilldaily.com. We’re also still looking for a readers’ advocate. Drop us a line if you’re interested. Et on est encore à la recherche d’une chroniqueuse/d’un chroniqueur francophone. Envoie-nous un courriel pour plus d’infos.
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value. It is not too long ago that the relative importance of arts and technology were in opposite positions. It is lesser minds that ask of the arts, humanities, and social sciences, “What is your immediate function and value?” without feeling humiliated by history. It is a tragedy that such idiocy is making its way into public policy, resulting in the gutting of the supports – material, financial, and social – for the minds and bodies dedicated to exploration of the human condition and its expression. How can “practical” researchers of all kinds sit idly by while their colleagues are disdained and marginalized? The short-term “profitability”
of the expansion of technological capacity at the expense of human, and ultimately societal, innovation and reflection is a long-term disaster. As the new “academic” factory arises, how does an Einstein fit in, idly dreaming about flying through space on a beam of light to conjure up special relativity? We are living through the onset of a truly grim future. Adrian Kaats is a PhD II engineering student, and he is a member of several PGSS committees. The views expressed here are his own. Write him at adrian.kaats@mail. mcgill.ca.
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10 Features
Sinfully Gaysian
Ethnicity and sexuality i Ryan Thom Features Writer
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t’s summer in Montreal, and I am spending what passes as a typical evening in the Village for me – which is to say, I am swirling in the pulsing sea of a gay nightclub, to the heartbeat pulse of yet another Lady Gaga remix. I’ve been a fairly regular clubgoer since the tender age of fifteen and despite the many issues of racism, sexism, and discrimination that are blatantly apparent in the multitude of gay communities that exist from city to city, the call of the Village – any Village, from Vancouver’s Davie, to New York’s Greenwich, to our own dear Village Gai – still holds more than a trace of a siren song for me. Beneath the rainbow banners, I imagine I have agency at last. I can be whoever I want: pretty boy, princess, biker guy, drag queen, mysterious, wild, androgynous, fabulous and fancy-free, femme, butch. Anything I want to be, I can be. I am looking for sex, for sin. And just as I am riding high on a wave of self-affirmation, full of confidence in my own sexuality, a lean, muscle-bound, shirtless white man sashays up to me, grabs my hips, and whispers in my ear, “Hey baby...I’m really into Asians.” And this one little sentence is enough to send my self-esteem plummeting into freefall.
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he interaction and intersection between sexuality and ethnicity is a phenomenon that all too often falls by the wayside in mainstream discourse on sex – and I’m not just talking about academic literature. Television shows like Queer as Folk and the more recent Glee, chick-lit magazines like Cosmo and Elle, even the music videos of the village goddess herself, Lady Gaga, are all examples of popular media riddled with overt and subliminal messages about sex, none of which address the issue of race seriously. Instead, media consumers are treated to oh-so-tongue-in-cheek representations of people of colour as typified representations of hypersexual, sexually stunted, or otherwise ridiculous stock characters. Take the recent pop-music prime-time television sensation Glee, for example: the people of colour in the main cast comprise a busty, “sassy” black female, a self-effacing Asian
wallflower who purposefully puts on a stutter to keep people at a distance, and a boy who is actually referred to on-screen as “Other Asian.” Not one of these characters is given a functional – or even prolonged – sexual relationship in the first season, while white-as-snow characters Rachel and Finn go through a dramatic exploration of teenage relationships histrionic enough to bore even a seasoned soap opera buff. But then, much of Glee’s humour seems to be slyly aware of the racial marginalization present in the show (“Other Asian”? Really?), so that must make it excusable. After all, where would televized humour be if non-white characters were given complex, nuanced sexual lives? Or full personhood? It’s probably better to leave “Other Asian” in his safe, no-name brand, nonsexual box.
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cratch the surface of racism in television, and one will almost always find roots in real-life institutions. McGill students don’t even need to leave campus. Sinfully Asian – from which yours truly shamelessly stole the title of this article – is a popular eatery on campus that offers a wide range of Asian culinary experiences, from Vietnamese noodles, to crunchy chow mien, to sushi. Don’t get me wrong – I’m as addicted to those fake Chinese dishes as much as the next tom-yum soup guzzling, bubble-tea-swilling person. The name, though, sticks in my throat just a little. Sinfully Asian? Is there just so much Asian in one place that it’s...sinful? “It’s because Asians are exotic and dangerous,” says Medical Anthropology major Lisa Michfield, with a sly wink. “When they aren’t
doing math or playing the piano, they’re having great, big Asian orgies and licking sweetand-sour sauce off of each other. Obviously.” I have to laugh; it’s funny not so much because it’s ridiculous, but because, in my experience, this is fairly close to the way a great deal of the general public seems to view my ethnicity.
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hat this translates to in terms of day-to-day (or night-to-night) interaction in the bars and clubs of not only the Village or Montreal, but Western urban environments in general, is the marginal polarization of “outside” (translation: non-white) ethnicities. In plain terms, as an Asian gay man, I am all too often limited to certain roles: the nonsexual sidekick to my white friends (I have been turned down for a dance or date by guys who, with great gentleness say, “Don’t be hurt. I’m just not attracted to Asians, that’s all,”) or that of exotic Oriental fetish, a jester in the sexual court of nightclubs, fodder for the rice queens. That minority ethnicities are marginalized in North America is hardly a new revelation: for years, the concept that I am a member of a “model minority” – the “smart, hardworking Asians” – has been
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
in the Village hammered into me, resulting in my now mostly useless skills in the areas of classical piano and mental calculation of five-digit sums. That my perceived personhood, and that of hundreds of thousands of North American people of colour, is limited to caricature and stereotype, is something that every “child of colour” learns intuitively, usually around the age of three. What is particularly heinous to me, however, is that even in supposedly “safer spaces” like the Village, even so intimate and private a realm as sexuality is still dominated by racism and race-awareness. As queer Canadian-born Asian writer Andy Quan puts it, “How about being Asian and gay without apology, without having to explain myself?” The marginalization of ethnic minorities is particularly evident in pornography; many porn sites have a specific section dedicated to “Asian movies,” wherein male and female Asian actors “act the role of the mythologized geisha or ‘good wife’ as fantasized in the mail-order bride business,” as cultural studies writer Richard Fung puts it in his paper, “Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Porn.” Now, what people watch in their own time doesn’t particularly concern me. What does concern, anger, and insult me is when people
in a sexualized space like a bar or club expect me to live up to their fantasies because of the shape of my eyes or the colour of my skin.
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ike George, a McGill student and good friend of mine, gay and halfAsian, takes a decidedly more optimistic stance on what he calls “the whole race shebang”. “If it gets me cute guys, then why should I worry about my ethnicity?” he says. “It’s a part of me, and I’m proud of it. These stereotypes are something that everyone has to work with, and we can embrace the parts that we want to. Of course my sexuality would be perceived differently if I were white – but that doesn’t mean it would be better, or that my freedom is more limited than anyone else’s. Hey, being Asian is hot, and everyone knows it!” And he has a point. The line between stereotype and cultural self-identification is easily blurred, especially when the word “exoticism” seems to entail desirability. Is it indeed possible to reclaim aspects of the Asian stereotype so that I am sexually empowered, instead of oppressed, by it? Furthermore, is this something that people of colour can or should aspire to? Writer Tom Waugh points out that the Asian male body is often used in gay porn “in the same way that lesbianism is used in heterosexual porn,” an apt assessment that seems particularly relevant to this
question. In pornography then, the perceived hypersexuality of the Asian character exists only as kink, a fetish for the gratification of white males. Extrapolate that fiction to a sexual arena in real life, and the difficulty of using this stereotype of the Asian whore in an empowering manner becomes clear – because my ethnicity is not a kink. The white man who has sex with me and then exclaims rapturously that “you Asians are so smooth” is, in effect, reducing my personhood in the same way that Glee reduces that of Other Asian’s. My name is irrelevant, my sexual experiences meaningless. All that matters is that I am smooth and almond eyed and probably a samurai, and all of this is only important because it pleases him. It’s kind of hard to derive any empowerment from that paradigm. “I’d say that ethnic identity and ethnic stereotyping are very different things,” Fung wrote in an email interview. “However, these two can often become confused as those of us living in the diaspora can often only perceive our ethnicity in the broadest strokes. I long ago stopped trying to define what about me is Chinese, Trinadadian, or Canadian.” In other words, rejecting the sexual stereotype that people can attach to my body is not equivalent to rejecting my ethnic identity. Moreover, only I can decide what my identity is – and I don’t have to decide if I don’t want to. So what, then, are people of colour who want to be viewed as complex, sexually nuanced persons to do? What recourse does a little gaysian boy, out in the Village for sex and sin, have?
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’m really into Asians,” says the shirtless white guy. He has put his lips on my neck, and his hips are beginning to brush against mine. I reach up, take his face in my hands. Raise his eyes to mine so that he looks at me, really looks, for the first time. I smile. “I’m really not into racists.” I turn around, and this time it’s my turn to sashay – I sashay away. It’s summer in Montreal, and the club is full of the scent of smoke and sweat. The air tastes like pennies. Once again, I am swirling in the nightclub’s sea, swinging my hips to the heartbeat pulse. Listening to the Village sing its siren song, anything you want to be, you can be, biker, gay boy, princess, queen, sexy, sinful – anything you want to be, you can be.
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
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Letters
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Re: “First Contact” | Commentary | September 13
McGill – one of the most expensive and hardest Canadian universities to get into – is not in any way a community that should be praised for its diversity Tiana Reid U3 International Development and Communications
McGill’s diversity is whitewash Re: “First Contact” | Commentary | September 13 Adam Banks’ eager foray into the cultural enlightenment of his first weeks in university is a total eye-roller. The way in which exposure to contact with the other is bleakly presented may even be enough to make other students feel good about themselves for attending such a “diverse” school. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure McGill’s student body is relatively multicultural compared to Banks’ Ohio upbringing, as he suggests. From having grown up in Toronto public schools, it’s safe to say that McGill – one of the most expensive and hardest Canadian universities to get into – is not in any way a community that should be praised for its diversity. Black people are the largest visible minority group in Montreal – something you would hardly believe judging by the McGill student body. While McGill certainly does have a large international student body, it’s hardly as racially and culturally diverse as it should (or could) be. Just take a look around your next class, at your peers, professors and TAs, and you’ll see what I mean. Tiana Reid U3 International Development and Communications
Admin, why dost thou quash student initiative so? Dear McGill Administrators, It has just been brought to my attention that the Arch Café, one of the best-run and most-loved student cafeterias on the McGill campus, is AGAIN at risk of being closed down. I am shocked and dismayed to see that this has become a recurring issue. I thought this problem was put to rest a few years ago when I was a McGill student. If the attempt is to simply hit on a year of apathetic students to push this through, I doubt you will be successful any time soon. I realize that we have entered a world where education is big business, so it may be best to present this issue in business terms. As they are the University’s principal source of income, I doubt it makes good business sense to alienate students and alumni to satisfy the interests of your cafeteria provider. Let us make no bones about this decision; quiet study spaces are available all over campus; one more or less in the MacDonald-Harrington building is not the main objective here. Not only does Chartwells provide food that is unhealthy, expensive, and unappetizing, but it has a stranglehold on food provision at McGill, which I for one would be glad to see challenged by much more than a small café in the basement of the Architecture building. The Arch Café never was and never will be any competition to Chartwells. However, it is a great student-run enterprise that not only provides affordable, nutritious food, but also fosters entrepreneurial and community spirit and student ownership. Shouldn’t McGIll, with the importance it places on its reputation as a front-runner in education, be encouraging initiatives such as the Arch Café? Or is McGill no longer interested in turning out dynamic, successful professionals who will in the future have both the ability and interest in supporting the University? I know that a McGill that makes this statement against personal choice and independent enterprise is not something I wish to support in the future.
History repeating
Where’s the beef, Daily et al?
Young alums getting bad vibes
I have been reading with interest – and watching in horror – the ongoing crisis of the Architecture Café’s closure. While I wish nothing but the best of luck for students organizing the rally, the petitions, et cetera, I can’t help but reflect that we’ve been here before, we’ve used these tactics, they’ve saved us bits and pieces of student life, and in the end, we keep losing. Yes, we should keep fighting these individual fights, but without an eye to larger goals of a collegially – to say nothing of democratically – run institution (crazy-sounding idea in this day and age), we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past over and over and over. SSMU and the ASA can complain all they want about Mendelson’s “lying” about reconsidering his decision or the way he arrived at this decision, but in the end it was SSMU and ASA’s insistence on “compromise” over the café in the last round of this fight that landed us in this situation. Further – just like almost every year before this – SSMU has a President and a VP UA elected on a platform of – and insistent on – “good relations” with an administration hellbent on destroying any semblance of student life (to say nothing of power, autonomy, et cetera) on campus. Maybe it’s just me, but my mind can’t handle that kind of cognitive dissonance. So I wish you luck, dear students, in your efforts to repeatedly run into this brick wall, never contemplating perhaps it’s time to take down that wall... or at least go over it.
The current fad seems to be to decry the closure of the Architecture Café. But what strikes me is that, while everybody is saying how terrible it is – students, The Daily, the SSMU – nobody seems to have made a thought-out evaluation, or to be proposing a concrete remedy for the Café’s financial problems. The Admin are evil ogres who steal our rights and eat children alive at satanic rituals at the full moon. But are they? Keeping the café open may actually be a bad idea. (Big fat disclaimer: and the Admin may be wrong, and keeping the café open may actually be a very, very good idea.) Students, Daily, SSMU, I love you, but you sound SO one-sided and biased (sorry, but you do), so how can we trust your judgement? You may have spent ages evaluating the pros and cons of keeping the café, but then make it sound like that. You’re very happy to castigate the hateful, child-eating admin, but have you spent the time and consideration to write a detailed business plan proposing to save the café’s finances and explaining why your plan will work where all the others failed? No, you’re organizing protest rallies. Guys, the admin already know that many students liked the café. They don’t care because they think they know better. And they may be right: money is a big consideration. Are you seriously suggesting that you can succeed at making money where all have failed, or, if that’s impossible, that we students should subsidize this failing café? Let me stress that I take no sides; I simply want people to be evaluative and realistic. I’ve been imposed brevity (grrr, annoying 300-word limit), but if anyone disagrees I’ll happily elaborate by submitting a more comprehensive commentary piece to The Daily.
While students have come and gone through the Roddick Gates over the years, one thing remains the same: the McGill Administration continues to sabotage the student community. As an alumnus with very fond memories of my time at McGill, especially in the Arch Café, I want to give back to McGill. But how can we alumni give money to an administration that does not respect the very aspects of student life that make us want to give the money in the first place? Sure, Arch Café isn’t something the administration can put on the cover of the alumni magazine like a new building or Rhodes scholars, but the act of closing the Arch Café with little communication with the student body has a serious detrimental impact on relations with young alumni.
Max Silverman B.A. (Honours) 2010, Canadian Studies
Benjamin W. Heumann B..Sc. 2004 M.Sc. 2007
I litter, therefore I cool To the many a student et cetera who, like me, take joy in perching outside of Redpath on nice days with their Timmy’s coffee and bagel: Please continue to abstain from making the 10-foot expedition to the trash can to discard your waste, as I will continue to quietly contemplate my longing to possess that air of toocoolforschoolness, which you flaunt about so coolly. Zack Sleep U3 History and Political Science (Joint Honours)
Sam Baker U1 Math and Economics (Joint Honours)
Claire Frost Master of Urban Planning 2007
What do you think? Let us know. The Daily will publish all letters that are 300 wrods or less and sent from your McGill account. Except for hateful ones: The Daily does not print letters that are antisemitic, misogynistic, transphobic or otherwise hateful. Send them to letters@mcgilldaily.com.
Health&Education
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Infantile traumas New research assesses newborns’ physical pain Megan Galeucia The McGill Daily
an adult can verbally self-report on these features using a scale of one to ten, an infant must be assessed differently. Remarkably, there are currently about 40 forms of pediatric pain evaluations, yet most are based on a few basic criteria: facial expressions, heart rate changes, oxygen saturation, and crying. Pediatricians assign numerical scores to each category to sum up a total pain rating. The most common forms of child pain assessment are the FLACC (Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, and Consolability) scale for children and infants and the PIPP (Premature Infant Pain Profile) for premature newborns. New research on brain activity in infants will hopefully become another valuable pain assessment tool. Various brain imaging studies focus on whether pain signals generated by stimuli reach the somatosensory cortex, the part of the brain responsible for perceiving bodily sensation in infants and pre-term neonates. According to Johnston, the most comprehensive way to assess pain in infants would be to zero in on “a combination of behaviours and physiological changes and brain activity.” Though many painful procedures continue to take place, babies all over the world are in luck. Recent research findings and clinical studies have proven numerous successful techniques to ease infant suffering that are neither costly nor require a visit to the pediatrician.
I guess Mary Poppins knew it all along – “just a spoonful of sugar” can do wonders. Anything sweet with about 24 per cent sucrose will release pleasurable endorphins that distract from the feeling of pain, explained Johnston. The best method is dipping a pacifier into something sweet; released endorphins combine with serotonin released from the sucking action. However, there are limits to the benefits of sucrose. As Julie Brouillard of the Acute Pain Service Department at the Montreal Children’s Hospital described, it only works for mild pain or pain occurring during a short period of time. The “sweet taste” technique can be combined with another method to calm a baby in pain commonly called Kangaroo Care, when a mother holds her naked baby against her bare chest and wraps around them both something warm like a blanket (fathers may use this technique as well, but the results for pain reduction are not as successful). Breast-feeding a baby with the same skin-to-skin contact can have similar pain-reducing effects during stressful immunization or intravenous medical procedures, said Johnston. Brouillard explained that it’s also a good idea for parents to prepare children going through procedural pain so the pain does not come as a suprise. However, too much information about an upcoming surgery or other medi-
Yasemin Boluk for The McGill Daily
C
rying is the language of infants. Regardless of place or time, parents have faced the puzzling task of discovering the reasons behind their child’s tears. Most often, babies cry because they are hungry, cold, or tired, but sometimes they’ll cry because they are in pain. Perhaps surprisingly, infants undergo numerous painful procedures. For starters, birth can be quite a traumatic and painful experience in itself. Additionally, doctors give all newborns a heel stick – a procedure that draws blood sample from the heel sometime during their first 72 hours of life. Afterward, the doctor decides what other kinds of pinches and pokes the infant will endure from vitamin K injections to punctures in veins. Premature infants generally experience between one and twelve painful events a day, according to Celeste Johnston, a professor and researcher at McGill’s School of Nursing. While anesthesia is commonly used in major pediatric surgeries, a great deal of medical literature suggests a lack of local anesthetic use in minor surgical procedures. For example, one study found that while adults receive local anesthetics for spinal taps, newborns rarely ever do. These and other issues concerning pediatric pain were addressed at the 13th World Congress on Pain that took place in Montreal this past August. Many researchers from the conference, including Johnston, are currently looking at ways to manage and, in some cases, prevent babies’ many unnecessarily painful experiences. A few telltale signs distinguish a baby’s bawl of pain from other cries, explained Johnston: the baby grimaces with eyes squeezed shut and mouth open (this universal “pain face” was recorded by Darwin well over a century ago), and lets out a harsh high-pitched and shrill cry while pulling in his or her limbs close to the body, growing tense and tight. Less visibly, the baby’s oxygen decreases and their heart rate increases simultaneously. Though significant, these signals do not tell us much about the pain’s intensity or duration. While
cal procedure can make a child overly anxious. When administering shots or conducting operations on infants and young children, doctors are faced with the ethical considerations of balancing the risk of administering medication with the child’s level of pain. Infant pain only became of medical interest in the 1980s, leading to a set of guidelines for the treatment of procedural pain, a measure jointly established by the American and Canadian Pediatric Societies. The code includes many of the aforementioned techniques as well as the obligation for doctors and researchers to present all treatments available to the parents of infants, even when they may personally disagree with the use of drugs. In fact, there are lasting negative effects in ignoring or reducing infant anesthetic use. Infants whose first few years of life are characterized by painful events and lack of care may suffer long-term consequences. Johnston, whose research
on neonatal care relates directly with this malady, says that infants may develop a “learned helplessness” similar to adult depression. They do not respond vigorously to stimuli, even painful ones, and typically have a low energy level. These babies often grow up with altered pain processing abilities. While their pain threshold is higher than most children’s, they tend to experience very painful events with a higher intensity and lower tolerance. Simple measures taken by parents can easily prevent these ramifications. Being aware of a baby’s cry and holding them close can make all the difference. Even distracting a child by telling a story or singing a song during a painful procedure will help, said Johnston, significantly more so than empty words of solace such as “Its going to be okay.” Now more than ever, with studies like Johnston’s and conferences addressing the topic of pediatric pain, crying infants are being given a voice.
Health & Education/Science + Technology Meetings Thursdays at 5:30, B-24 SSMU Building
14Health&Education
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Bloodsucking bedfellows Resurrected bedbug infestation presents a real threat The McGill Daily
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t took a 20-word tweet to send the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival into an uproar before it even began: movie critic James Rocchi’s assertion that “... Torontonian friend got, yes, bedbugs at the Scotiabank [festival venue] – aka where all press screenings are.”
Cyber-hysteria ensued as the news spread, garnering headlines like “Icky! Toronto Film Festival Infest [sic] With The CreepyCrawlies!” on widely read gossip site perezhilton.com, even as the festival’s organizers struggled to put a lid on what was, in fact, a false alarm. The hours of needless frenzy were indicative of a much larger issue – a bedbug panic that has gripped North America following a summer of resurgence for the nocturnal bloodsuckers, who have found their way into retail stores, libraries, and even a Times Square movie theatre.
for the past 50 years and is now making an impressive comeback.” The resurgence has been tentatively attributed to the pests’ evolved resistance to insecticides. A 2007 University of Kentucky study found a “widespread” resistance among bedbugs to common commercial insecticides – which likely developed during their near half-century of inactivity – and the authors added ominously that “without development of new tactics for bedbug management, further escalation of this public health problem should be expected.” Increased international travel may also be helping bedbugs spread. A 2008 Danish study noted that from 2003 to 2007 bedbug inquiries in Europe were most frequent between July and November, and then spiked again in January (following Christmas holiday travel). Bedbugs “hitchhike” easily on travellers, and their clothing, and a 2010 National Pest Management Association (NPMA) survey of exter-
minators concluded that once they settle into a domain, the bloodsuckers are “THE most difficult pest to treat.”
“It takes only a pregnant female hiding in your [suitcase] and brought back to your apartment to start an infestation,” Boucher wrote. Once inside, “the population builds up very rapidly.” Despite the fact that bedbugs are very unlikely to transmit disease, they tend to leave painful bites on their sleeping victims and the NPMA survey warned that “the emotional and mental toll of experiencing a bed bug infestation can be severe.” “It was a horrible experience,” said Greg (not his real name), a U3 chemistry student who discovered bedbugs in the previous tenants’
furniture a week after moving into his new Plateau apartment. Greg’s apartment was fumigated twice to no avail, and he eventually began sleeping in a turtleneck to avoid bites on his neck. “They’re like little ninja bugs,” he added. “You can never find all of them.” The bedbugs’ spread can be worsened by residents’ reluctance to discuss or report them early on. Montreal Public Health’s most recent bedbug publication reassures tenants off the bat – “any house, apartment, or building can be a haven for bedbugs. No need to be embarrassed if these bugs end up moving in with you.” “People are sometimes ashamed to have insect problems in their house,” Boucher wrote, “but bedbug infestation has nothing to do with unsanitary conditions.” The scarcity of comprehensive research on bedbug proliferation has only compounded the issue, and the situation is so worrisome that Ontario MPP Michael Colle is
organizing a “bedbug summit” on September 29 at the Ontario legislature, that he hopes will draw federal attention and resources to the issue. “There’s no data or hard scientific facts about the proliferation,” Colle told CTV Toronto, citing the bedbug scare at the Toronto festival. “[The federal government] has got to be involved in getting a national health strategy to deal with this thing.”
Boucher agreed that increased public focus will only help the situation by urging increased awareness and research. “I think it is a good thing that the media are talking about it,” Boucher wrote. “There are people working on improved detection techniques and better control methods…so I am thinking that [hopefully] the problem should not become that much worse.”
Illustrations by Naomi Endicott | The McGill Daily
John Lapsley
“It’s a bit surprising,” wrote Stephanie Boucher, curator of the Lyman Entomological Museum at Macdonald Campus, in an email to The Daily. “The bedbug situation … was almost completely eradicated
Hallowed halls of the Cyberthèque What do we lose when we sacrifice character for utility in library design? Naomi Endicott The McGill Daily
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he difference between a raven and a writing desk lies in their respective pedagogical functions. While the former may only be relevant to students of ornithology or Edgar Allen Poe, the latter is an all-toopresent part of life for every student. The table you’re writing on may seem like the least of your worries when that essay is just not happening, but library design has the potential to dramatically affect studying experience – for better or for worse. Over the summer, the Blackader-Lautermann library got a makeover. Large wooden tables – big enough to host four students and their respective MacBooks,
with enough room to spare to keep the volumes of Voltaire and Rousseau separate and content – were replaced with grey slabs of some material that has probably never been near a tree. McLennan and Redpath are going the same way. The wooden carrels have been replaced by more grey tables, with translucent plastic sheeting doing a bad job of preventing distraction. Sounds are less muffled. The chairs are moulded to fit a spine slightly more curved than my own. The camaraderie that springs from having to duke it out over a power outlet – and the universal love that burgeons in everybody’s heart for the one person who thought to bring an extension cord – has gone. Putting my fear of change aside, recent upgrades to library furniture at McGill certainly
reflect a trend of shifting thought within the field and philosophy of education. There are three issues of import within this philosophy: liability, fanatical desire for improved performance, and a belief in the ongoing battle of education versus apathy. When I was at nursery, we were taught how to spell and then we sang songs about bluebells and executions. If we fell over and scraped our knee, no one batted an eyelid. Nowadays, if a child so much as spills water on him or herself there are a plethora of forms to fill out for liability purposes, from “injury: got wet,” to “treatment: a cuddle.” Ridiculous extremes of liability dog the education system all the way through to university – as is so evident in McGill’s ongoing dealings with various student groups. As far as personal study goes, a library is
the most important resource for students. If a library looks bad, it reflects badly on the institution. Schools and universities are all about appearances, and several highlighter-coloured ottomans and an army of sleek new desks seem to do the trick. Popular rhetoric insists that good study spaces equal better results. It is maybe for this reason that the Cyberthèque – with its ass-numbing fast-food booths, voyeuristic alien pods, and gigawatt fluorescent lighting – is consistently busier than, say, Birks reading room. Reminiscent of 1920s Ivy League colleges, its solid wood tables and brass lamps provide comfort, healthier lighting, and utter silence. This dream-library is made all the better by a lounge just steps downstairs, complete with microwave, to compensate
for not allowing food near the books. Seemingly not harassed by the University, Birks is so old that you have to take your shoes off to protect the floor – and the fact that the whole study experience is exponentially better than that of the Cyberthèque is testament to the redundancy of making libraries modern for modernity’s sake. As for education versus apathy, I doubt that a new colour scheme is going to get students racing for the stacks, incorrigibly keen to do their readings for once. What makes students want to study is not good furniture, it’s good teaching and a well-structured, interesting course. The most a library can contribute is a welcoming and industrious atmosphere – something that cannot be achieved by harsh plastic and distracting gimmicks.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Indigenous autonomy takes off Cree-owned airline sets precedent for First Nations businesses Abby Plener Culture Writer
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ineteen-seventy-five was a year of historical changes in the relations between the James Bay Cree and the rest of Canada. After a host of court battles and rounds of negotiations, the Cree chiefs signed the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, allowing the massive James Bay Hydroelectric Project to take place on their land. In exchange, the Cree were granted $225 million in compensation, and Quebec ceded control of much of the Nord-duQuébec region to the Cree and their northern
Council of Crees, the Cree’s decision to sign was simply an effort “to get into Canada on terms that were best for our people”. While discussing the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement with the TelegraphJournal earlier this year, Norman Gull – a history professor at McGill and Carleton universities – explained that “all the Cree leaders understood that it was a compromise. It was a deal and you do the best you can”. With the success of Cree-owned business ventures like Air Creebec, it’s clear that the “compromise” is paying off. The concept of Air
Bay Agreement towards economic development throughout Eeyou Istchee. Initially, Air Creebec was only 51 per cent Cree-owned, while the rest of the company was owned by Canada-based Austin Airways. Former Air Creebec president and CEO Albert Diamond, speaking to Northern Ontario Business magazine in 2006, said, “it [took] guts to say we [could not] do it on our own.” With the help of Austin Airways, Air Creebec gained the necessary know-how of the airline business and bought out Austin Airways’ share in the company in 1988, completing one of the largest commercial transactions by a Canadian indigenous group. While Air Creebec continues to be successful, the per-
sometimes implementing mutually beneficial arrangements in which jobs are created for those belonging to the communities where resources are being used or shared by outside companies. Recent history has been marked by an important change in attitude towards First Nations political rights – a change that has triggered much academic study. University of Calgary professors J. Rick Ponting and Cora Voyageur believe there is reason to be hopeful for the future of indigenous rights, as these communities “have moved from a position of marginality” to one where their needs must be considered by policy-makers and Canadian society as a whole, an argument they pres-
All of the company’s profits go to CREECO – managed by the Board of Compensation – which then distributes the money to all Cree communities within the region in an equitable manner. Because Air Creebec now has a monopoly over airline services in northern Quebec, they are able to keep their prices down and make their service as affordable as possible for their communities. One of the objectives of the Air Creebec board is to help create opportunities for Cree employment. As a testament to this, currently 10 to 15 per cent of the company’s staff are Cree – hailing from both Quebec and Ontario – including many of their pilots. Additionally, all the board members of Air Creebec are Cree, as are all the employees and board members of both CREECO and the Board of Compensation. Happyjack said Air Creebec
Olivia Messer with Naomi Endicott | The McGill Daily
indigenous neighbours. Within the Eeyou Istchee territory, the Cree maintain authority over education, health care, transportation, and law enforcement. Initially, many First Nations communities outside the region were deeply disappointed in the Cree’s decision to accept an outof-court settlement in the dispute of the James Bay hydro projects. The Cree were criticized for failing to explore other options that would be more beneficial for the people, and for accepting greater self-governing powers from the same authorities that sought to limit their autonomy in the first place. However, as explained to the Senate in 2008 by Bill Namagoose, Executive Director of the Grand
Creebec sprang from discussion among Cree leaders over how to put the compensation they received to good use. The idea of launching an airline was suggested in order to serve Cree communities, some of which are remote and are only accessible by air. The opportunity to implement this idea came in 1982 when the Cree Regional Economic Enterprises Company (CREECO) was formed as a subsidiary of the Cree Board of Compensation (one of three indigenous-owned development corporation set up to administer part of the compensation payment) in order to use the compensation received in the James
ception of the James Bay Agreement has shifted significantly over the years. Gull explained that, “What was initially seen by many as a bad deal, is now often praised as a good deal, because the Cree have a truly unique relationship with the province through an agreement of self-government and transfer of services.” Current Air Creebec president Matthew Happyjack said that, in recent years, “People [have come] to understand [the agreement] more, people understand it as a model.” Happyjack further explained that it is increasingly common for companies to negotiate with indigenous groups if the company’s plans are to impact their communities,
ent in the Canadian Journal of Native Studies. The historic James Bay Agreement was also cited by Scott Klinger, Director of Corporate Engagement for First Nations Worldwide, as an example of “changes [in] the historic balance of power between indigenous peoples and corporations.” First Nations groups are no longer doomed to be an afterthought in corporate development, but are increasingly viewed as equal business partners who can set the pace toward their own development. Though it took Air Creebec 11 to 12 years to turn a profit, Happyjack explained that the company’s board members were always confident in Air Creebec’s potential – “they still had faith.... We persevered and managed to turn it around.”
integrates Cree values in their decision-making processes by “understand[ing] the situations people are [going through]” and having “passion and compassion too when things happen to employees.” In the future, Air Creebec hopes to promote tourism in the Eeyou Istchee region by partnering with the Cree Outfitting and Tourism Association (COTA). Moreover, Happyjack hopes the company can establish a greater presence in the Cree communities themselves by moving its head office from Val d’Or, in AbitibiTémiscamingue, to a location within the territory. This move would create more jobs in those communities, support local economies, and in Happyjack’s words, “Bring back home the company.”
16 Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Filming reality International Black Film Festival seeks to correct media portrayals of black culture Ian Sandler Culture Writer
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he impoverished black youth takes up a life of crime in an attempt at fortune. Raised by the streets, his rough appearance betrays his age. Smothered by the gang colours that determine his life or death, he does what he must. The movie continues, and the stereotypes ensue. Is this what “black” is? Is 50 Cent our culture’s exemplar of black identity? In the shadows of gangster rap and constant media coverage of urban violence, the black experience is treated to an unjustly one-sided view. Increasingly favoured by the Hollywood machine, a picture of realistic black identity seems to be missing. If the media can redeem itself from this inequality, it has done it in Montreal. The Montreal International Black Film Festival, running from September 22 to October 3, attempts to answer this cultural question with honesty and acceptance. Boasting 125 films by directors from all over the world, the festival aims to represent all sides of the elusive label “black culture.” Formerly titled the Montreal Haitian Film Festival, the event has taken a new turn in its sixth year, receiving hundreds of entries from black communities worldwide. In its emphasis on independent filmmaking, the festival targets all aspects of black culture.
Fabienne Colas, the festival’s founder, remarked, “We’re here to show the other reality that we don’t see in the mainstream media, the positive, the good – that’s not sellable in the news.” With no limits placed on their content, the festival intends to permeate all audiences, and hopefully enlighten them in the process. Colas hopes not only to reach the black citizen, but “to show and to share black realities with everyone; black Montrealers, white Montrealers, Latino Montrealers – everyone.” The idea of a “black” culture proves a tricky one. Can any race truly have a universal culture, spanning continents and peoples, traditions and faiths? Do black people in Canada share a common bond with black people in Kenya, purely through their “black” ethnicity? Colas believes that culture can, and has, in the black community, transcended the limitations of geographical separation. “There is a black culture with several legs,” she The festival seeks to empower black artists by featuring independent explained. “You can say there’s one black culture in Africa, one here, local culture instilled from birth. common ties of ethnicity, the ways one there, but all black people still The festival conveys a message of in which we perceive each other are have these roots, this African cul- universal black unity, but this goes also influenced by the communities ture inside of you.” As the black toe-to-toe with how people inter- we personally experience. In the daunting sphere of race film festival movement continues act within their own immediate to grow, with events in nearly every cultures. Keeshon Mayers, a fourth and ethnicity, a label can suffomajor North American city, the -year student at McGill and native cate. The Montreal International notion of a universal black culture of Montreal, remarked that, “When Black Film Festival tries to avoid you talk to other black people, such simplification by presenting gains ground. If black culture does shape all there is a difference. We might say a multitude of perspectives, from those associated with the ethnic- there’s not, but there is.” Though the festival’s opener The Silent ity, it also shares a place with the we may believe we are shaped by Army, a look at child soldiers in
Alex Mackenzie for The McGill Daily
film. Africa, to personal stories of what each filmmaker feels it means to be “black.” As Mayers said, “Like most cultures, there is a bad side and a good side. The bad side is portrayed enough I think it’s time for the good side.” The International Black Film Festival is running until October 3. Visit montrealblackfilm.org for more information.
Art that is just, but not just art Artist Action for Education in Palestine mobilizes artists Seble Gameda The McGill Daily
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usic as resistance; it’s an age-old concept. Throughout history, artists have been vocal in demanding social change; be it Brazilian Capoeira as resistance to slavery, soul music of the civil rights movement, or Buffy Sainte-Marie’s calls for indigenous rights. In a more contemporary form, Montreal artists will perform tomorrow night in solidarity with the upcoming World Education Forum to be held in five cities – four in Palestine, one in Lebanon. Tadamon! – a Montreal collective that works in support of social justice struggles in the Middle East – is organizing the Artist Action for Education in Palestine solidarity concert. Stefan Christoff, the main
organizer, has combined the talents of a range of socially engaged Montreal musicians, including Kalmunity Vibe Collective, Norman Nawrocki, Valerie Khayat, Paul Cargnello, and Jai Guru. The show will feature a variety of musical genres from jazz, to reggae, to poetry, to folk; encompassing the wide range of talent amongst these politically-active artists. “We felt it was important to support [the education forum] because it’s an opportunity for people from every continent to gather in Palestine in a symbolic expression of support for the Palestinian people living under occupation, and also to highlight the issue of education,” said Christoff. Accessing education in Palestine has become increasingly difficult due to Israeli military checkpoints, lack of funding, and restricted access to building materials for schools.
Christoff looks at Palestinian struggle on a universal level. “I think that Palestine is a symbol of a lot of what we’re seeing in the world today in terms of disparity of wealth, in terms of political power in this world.” The education forum provides an excellent opportunity to challenge these inequalities and to help to create new ways of achieving equality and justice. This concert will primarily serve to raise awareness and spark new thought and discussion around the upcoming education forum in Palestine. Performer Norman Nawrocki touched on the transformative possibilities of art in this sense, and the multiple ways in which it can permeate into society. “Art can be used either as a mirror to reflect our reality, [or] an alarm clock to sound the alarm of things we should pay attention
to. It can be used as a hammer to whack misconceptions. It can be used as a flashlight to shine light on issues that people otherwise aren’t aware of. There are so many ways we can use art in our work as socially engaged artists,” he said. Kalmunity, a collective that provides both an artistic and political space in Montreal, will also be sharing its improvised and organic talent as it contributes to the global public education discourse. The collective welcomes a range of artists to share diverse experiences and perspectives. Jahsun, Kalmunity’s founder, highlighted its main goals of “finding a space for everyone to be themselves and still move for a common goal, which is expression, which is the right for you to be free and the right for me to be free.” The collective’s goals of personal libera-
tion and free expression connect with the Palestinian cause as they advocate for freedom in all senses of the word. As methods of resistance and struggle become increasingly creative, the power of song is undeniable. “Songs resonate,” said Christoff. “Music and culture resonate in a way that’s very unique. Increasingly we’re seeing artists expressing their support for Palestine in a really dynamic way around the world.” In this way, the concert will serve as a tool to shed light on the challenges of access to education in Palestine, while also offering a space to think and create dialogue for change. Artist Action for Education in Palestine takes place at 9 p.m. on Friday, September 24 at Cabaret Mile End, 5240 Parc. Suggested donation is $10-20.
Want to write? Culture meetings are Tuesdays at 5:30 in the Daily office (Shatner B-24)
Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
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Setting wheels in motion Solin’s new student-run bike collective Jane Gatensby Culture Writer
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ontreal is a city made for biking, and everyone’s doing it. But for the 288 students in Solin Hall, McGill’s most remote residence, the experience can be daunting. Solin’s neighbourhood, St. Henri, is seriously lacking in bike amenities, and McGill’s on-campus bike shop, The Flat, gets pretty busy. The solution is La Cave, a new bike collective for Solin students. The collective is the brainchild of Scott Baker, a former Solin floor fellow who suggested the idea at a party, enlisted his friends, then graduated and left them to deal with it. The team of volunteers running the collective consists of two other Solin fellows, Danji BuckMoore and Matt Park, as well as their friends Jesse Bourns, Matthew Vaslev, and Connor Bayes. Bourns spent the summer applying for grants from McGill’s Sustainability Projects Fund and SSMU’s Green Fund, which allowed them to set up a room in Solin’s basement. Now complete with
three bike stands and “every tool under the sun,” La Cave offers Solin residents an impressive variety of services. Every Saturday, Solin residents can come by and fix bikes with the help of trained volunteers, buy parts and helmets at subsidized prices, and attend workshops on skills like bike repair and winterizing. The idea is to promote utilitarian transportation with zero emmissions, to instill a passion for cycling in first-year students, and to give residents that “great, empowering feeling” of being able to fix a bike with their own two hands. La Cave’s coordinators also help students find bikes to buy, and joining their listserv will give access to the best of internet bike classifieds from around the city. In a year or two, the coordinators say they’d like to expand the collective and make it University-wide, but Solin’s security concerns could make that difficult. For now, the shop will be available to Solin residents every Saturday from noon until five. If you’d like to get involved, email lacavecollective@gmail.com, and check out their Youtube video for more information.
David Huehn for The McGill Daily
Solin Floor Fellow and La Cave co-coordinator Danji Buck-Moore tends to an ailing bike.
Voices of the Quiet Revolution The Daily talks to Sean Mills, Quebec historian Sean Mills is a historian of the Quiet Revolution. Mills is currently a postdoctoral fellow at New York University. His book The Empire Within, published earlier this year, gives a history of activist movements in Montreal during the 1960s, with an emphasis on black politics, the women’s liberation movement, and the labour movement. The McGill Daily: Your book shows that the Quiet Revolution was not as ‘quiet’ as some would think. What are some of the historiographical errors that you seek to correct in The Empire Within? Sean Mills: First of all, I would say that I don’t exactly see historiographical errors, necessarily. As historians, we operate in the field of debate. So other people have different understandings and different interpretations of the Quiet Revolution, and now I’m attempting to add my own interpretation of it. I think that often when we think about the Quiet Revolution, we think about the internal developments of Quebec society, rather than the broad global context in which Quebec society developed. I think that the global context of decolonization needs to be understood. The second aspect of the historiography of the Quiet Revolution I attempt to add is a focus on the complexity of interactions between different groups within Montreal itself.
For example, within the historiography of the Quiet Revolution, the history of black Montreal is almost completely marginalized. Also, it is seldom that we recognize the very important roles of the anglophone Left, of community organizers, gender issues, the women’s liberation movement, and even, to some degree, the history of the labour movement. MD: You suggest in your book that the anti-colonial movement within Quebec appropriated a language of anti-colonialism that is put forth by thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi. Talk about this idea. SM: In the 1960s, there was a great deal of pluralism within new nationalist movements that were emerging. But when we speak of neo-nationalism, we are often talking about the arrival to power of Jean Lesage and the provincial Liberals in 1960, and the sweeping reforms that they enacted. We also think of the founding of the Parti Québécois in the late 1960s, linguistic battles, federal-provincial conflicts over jurisdiction, the growth of the Quebec state, et cetera. To at least some degree, many neo-nationalists made use of anti-colonial metaphors, but they are all quite different than the movements that I talk about in my book (although there was certainly overlap between the two). In my book I discuss the rise of oppositional social movements in
Quebec, almost all of which drew centrally on anti-colonial ideas, and I see them as operating very much within a logic which is substantially different than that of neo-nationalism. It’s a logic that situates itself in a larger global discourse of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, and drew on different strands of radical humanism: in many ways, it acted as a critique to neo-nationalism, [and] the neo-nationalist structural reforms of the 1960s. The various movements that I discuss were certainly very critical of the Liberal party, [and] of the Union Nationale when it came to power late in the 1960s. The Quebec labour movement, which brought forward and adopted these anti-imperialist analyses throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, had a very conflictual relationship with the Parti Québéecois, which continued when it came to power in 1976. The various movements of the left – grassroots organizers, women’s liberationists, labour organizers, anti-racist activists – really did operate on a different logic than the dominant, state-centric neo-nationalism of the Quebec Liberal party. MD: McGill was also a flashpoint within the linguistic debate of the 1960s. Why do you cite Opération McGill français as an important moment within oppositional politics in Montreal? SM: Operation McGill français
“...when we think about the Quiet Revolution, we think about the internal developments of Quebec society, rather than the broad global context in which Quebec society developed” Sean Mills Historian of the Quiet Revolution became an important moment in the 1960s for a number of reasons. It was important partly because it was really the beginning point of a time in which language politics would be played out in the streets in Montreal. It was also important, because it brought many oppositional groups to work together for the first time. The origins of Opération McGill français are quite well-known: the debates around language and schooling that broke out in Saint-Léonard, the crisis in the newly-created CEGEP system; the growth and radicalization of Quebec’s labour movement. But it also has another origin, one which is not often explored in depth. And that’s the rise of oppositional move-
ments at McGill itself. The activists at McGill, especially those gathered around The McGill Daily, developed an analysis of language which put the devaluation of the French language and the unequal relations between French and English in an economic context, emphasizing the power of American and English-Canadian corporate capital. And so, finally, Opération McGill was important as it really popularized new arguments about the economic and cultural marginalization of French Canadians in Quebec, and these arguments would significantly shape developments in subsequent years. — compiled by Laurin Liu
Compendium!
The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 23, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
18
Lies, half-truths, and why is Métromètre always so depressing?
Sugar dick daze
Pogo New
PLUS 203
Big ol’ rally to get Arch Café back SSMUburgh looking fine with his suit at the rally Admin makes abundantly clear that student opinion means jack shit to them
one-hundred word story
C
hain smoking out the car window, five butts on the ground already and already five nights since she left. You cast down the sixth butt and peel an orange. Everything you own is in the back seat, pressing on your mind, meowing from time to time. The cat is the most pressing matter. What to
do with 16 pounds of fur and gristle and organs in miniature? There, on your to-do list – iPhone screen plastered with fake notepaper, little boxes not yet filled with fluorescent ticks – it sits right above “call mom.” The screen turns sticky with the orange’s juice. —Naomi Endicott
The nefarious brown bloc strikes again!
F
uck this! Can people seriously not flush? Now, I’m all for “If it’s yellow, let it mellow,” but IF IT’S BROWN, FUCKING FLUSH IT DOWN. I am sick of seeing other people’s turds in McGill restrooms. Turd 1: McLennan/Redpath library, across the hall from the fishbowl, you know, the restroom by the copy room and the stairs to the (formerly trendy, now awkwardly semi-renovated) Blackader Library. It was ON THE FLOOR. That is just plain unsanitary. Turd 2: 688 Sherbrooke O., just lyin’ there in the toilet, no attempt to flush whatsoever. Get your shit together. Literally. I am sick of your dirty fuckin mess, turd-layer!!!!!!!!!
compendium@mcgilldaiy.com
MINUS 200
Masi says that setting tuition doesn’t require student consultation
MINUS 200
Mortono Mendelson says the Arch Café dossier won’t be reopened Cat-bin lady in Britain charged with animal cruelty Police state being entrenched through its deft mobilization of our love of cats Admin tries to force TVMcGill to become TV-SSMU Admin fails to realize TV-SSMU still has the word “McGill” in it “Don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal postponed because of wily Republicans!!! Stephen Harper dons glasses because his contacts wuh getting dwy
MINUS 100
S.H. looks significantly handsomer
Compendium! has grand plans: comics Wednesdays. Send me your comics and I’ll print them, along with our regular feature, “Sugar dick daze.”
PLUS 5.5
I think I have a crush on S.H... Long-gun registry survives... for now
PLUS 10 MINUS 15 MINUS 50 LOL MINUS 50 EVEN PLUS 2 MINUS 3 PLUS 50
TOTAL
MINUS 347.5
LAST WEEK’S TOTAL
MINUS 424
Métromètre is a weekly quality-of-life index. Let us know if you want to see something on the index: compendium@mcgilldaily.com. This week featured consultation from the inestimable Ivanna Bedonkadonk.
Admin is fucking inconsistent
M
cGill is so committed to the environment that cars have been banned from campus. McGill is so committed to student health that the Redpath caf was revamped to appear more healthy (spoiler: the food still costs an arm and a leg). So what the FUCK is a Vitamin Water van doing on campus besides violating a ban, distributing sugar water that is marketed as beneficial to my health, and disrupting my lovely afternoon of ledging? The same security guard that made me get off my bike let the Vitamin Water guys drive through on the gate? Fuck that!
The Service Point blows
F
uck the Service Point. For starters, it’s an abomination to suture this monstruous, pomo, “smart-looking,” Ikea-style, aesthetically revolting glass cage/appendage onto the love-it-or-hate-it, at-least-it-was-consistent McLennan building. The ridiculous lines – the deceptive numbering system (A, B, C, D – so that you won’t realize that you are four hours from being served) – the unhelpful staff (I know they’re overworked, pressed for time, probably pressured by McGill to work summarily fast, but if someone’s looking for documents, don’t just fucking point them in the direction of a website: show them! help them understand!) – the sickening powerknowledge relationship (excuse me, international student, poor student, I am about to lay some devastating knowledge on you, so save your sob story; no, I don’t care if you don’t understand your health care or can’t pay your tuition, prepare for a smack-down).
Mallory Bey for The McGill Daily
You can find more of Mal’s work at malbouge.blogpsot.com.