The Quid Novi MONTREAL, QC
MCGILL UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LAW - FACULTÉ DE DROIT DE L’UNIVERSITÉ MCGILL
46 05 12 NOV 2024
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR On Going to the Movies Alone Pablo Mhanna-Sandoval | 2L
Last week, I had the pleasure of watching The Wild Robot (2024, dir. Chris Sanders) at the Scotiabank Cinema on Sainte-Catherine. It’s a touching adaptation of Peter Brown’s novel by the same name. Without spoiling the movie–which I recommend you go see in theatres before the end of its run–by the end credits I had been moved. I found it beautiful in its animation and story and in its mining of themes of friendship and identity. As I gathered my empty bag of popcorn and my things, I found myself almost beginning to ask out loud, “So, what’d you think?” There was one problem: I had watched the movie alone. Cinema is in some ways a collective experience. One goes to the movies, sits in a theatre full of people, and is at the mercy of these people’s understanding of theatre etiquette
and basic decency. These people in the theatre laugh and cry together. They lean forward in their seats or forget to breathe together when an action sequence picks up. And, once it’s all over and people pick up their things and walk down the steps to the exit, they discuss the movie together. Cinema is also an individual experience. One goes to the theatre and is touched by the movie in unique ways. One may find themselves acting like the main character of a movie in the following week. One may even find themselves thinking of one of the movie’s scenes during a tax class later that month. This may seem hyperbolic, but I cannot emphasize enough how serious movies can be. Star movie critic Roger Ebert once famously called movies “empathy machines”: “If it’s a great movie, it lets you under-
stand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that, to me, is the most noble thing that good movies can do and it’s a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them.”1 It is true; I had watched the movie alone on Wednesday night. But I had nonetheless started to form the words “So, what did you think” out loud. It seems that as I walked down my row of seats and I drew a breath to speak, I didn’t feel quite that alone. Bryn Mawr Film Institute, “Movies help generate empathy,” June 2, 2020. Press release. https:// brynmawrfilm.org/press/empathy-is-the-first-step/ 1
CETTE SEMAINE... INSIGHTS 2 | THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL CEILING
8 | SO, YOU’RE DOING THE COURSE-AUX-STAGES
4 | HOMME NOIRS, ROUTES ET DROITES: VERS UNE
9 | À PARIS, À MONCTON, À WASHINGTON, À...
JUSTICE RÉPARATRICE Vers un potentiel Arrêt Luamba?
5 | HEADLINES 6 | ON ARGUMENTS AND THE ALBANESE AFFAIR
LE CAIRE???
10 | CROSSWORD 11 | LOVE LETTER TO MY CROCK-POT
Vol 46 ● No 5
THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL CEILING Maddie Adams Alexander | 1L
QUID NOVI • 12 NOV 2024
At the time of writing this, a woman has never been the president of the United States of America. I’m currently watching the TV screen as it broadcasts the electoral votes for each presidential candidate. It sits at 99 votes for Kamala Harris and 177 votes for Donald Trump. Considering my likely audience, the first statement of this article may have prompted you to think, “Do I really care that the United States has never had a female president? Hasn’t Canada already long ago had its first female prime minister?” These thoughts would be both fair and true. Canada’s first female prime minister was Kim Campbell, in 1993, a while before I was born. So, why should we care that the U.S. lags over thirty years behind us when it comes to a woman holding the highest political position within the nation? Why should we really care that there is a chance that this changes this week Well, I won’t insist that you care. But if you’ll indulge 2
me, I would like to tell you why I care. Kim Campbell became the first woman to hold the position of prime minister of Canada seven years before I was born. I did not learn about Kim Campbell until I was in middle school. I don’t just mean that I hadn’t learned her name prior to this, I mean that I had no idea that Canada had already had a female prime minister. When I did learn about Kim Campbell, I did not learn about her inside the walls of a classroom, but instead because my dad had been so kind as to enlighten me at a time when I was full of questions about how the world works. Kim Campbell having been prime minister was not the sole fact of Canadian political history that evaded me at age 12; I also would not have been able to tell you who the prime minister had been before Stephen Harper. I honestly may even be overestimating 12-year-old me’s knowledge in making the claim that I knew that the Prime Minister was Stephen Harper. At that point in my life, I knew the names of more U.S. presidents than Canadian prime ministers.
At age 12, the idea of a woman holding the highest political office in a nation would have felt futuristic to me, despite it having already happened in my own nation and in many others. It would have felt futuristic because it was something I had not yet seen happen in America. At this point in my life, I was still regularly tuning in to Disney Channel to watch re-runs of Cory In The House. As fun as a sitcom featuring a teenage boy living in 24 Sussex with his dad working as the Prime Minister’s personal chef would have been, it unfortunately did not exist. My cultural influences were simply so heavily American, as was and often still is the case for so many other Canadians. While this could quickly spiral into a rant about the lacking civics and political systems education in New Brunswick (and maybe even Canada more broadly), what I actually want to delve into is the evergreen and undeniable global influence of American culture and politics, and consequently just how significant it would be for women everywhere to see a woman as the president of the United States. I believe the current American presidential election to be the most significant presidential election of my lifetime so far. Never in my life have the two presidential candidates appeared to have so much distance and difference between them. The outcome of this election will have global influence and global consequences, regardless of the winner. But there is a particular historical significance that could only be established by the victory of one of the candidates. If Kamala Harris is to be the 47th president of the United States, it will no longer be necessary for a woman to break that glass ceiling. A woman as president of the United States would no longer be a hypothetical fiction. We would no longer be celebrating the mere possibility of a woman as president, we could be celebrating the reality of a woman as president. If Kamala Harris wins this election, anyone born, any girl born, after January 2025 will not have lived a single moment of their lives in which a woman has not held what is often considered to be the most powerful office in the world. While I do not at all intend to diminish the accomplishments of other nations, including our own, who have long since had their first female leaders, and while I do not intend to exaggerate the global power and influence of the United States, I want to emphasize what we have been hearing for weeks: that this could be an undeniably historic moment not just for American women, but for all women. There are, of course, many people, including many women, who do not agree with Harris or share her political leanings and beliefs, or who do not agree with the policies and goals of the Democratic Party. I also want to emphasize that I do not wish to suggest that Harris will somehow automatically or inherently be a better, more effective leader on the basis of sex alone. But regardless of political belief, and with the dismissal of silly debates about which
of the sexes is inherently more equipped for the position (my answer is of course neither!), it still remains true that a Harris victory would be culturally groundbreaking. As someone born in the year 2000, it can often feel as though my generation has been left to inherit all the world’s failings, and that we are responsible for dealing with and solving them as best as possible. My parents were not cognizant of climate change growing up, and my grandparents never worried about housing themselves and their three children on a single income. It feels like previous generations, despite their experiences of very real political and economic hardships, were at least presented with dreams and illustrations of the future that inspired hope and optimism. Maybe I need to expand my horizons, but as of late I often feel that my generation is less inclined to believe in the promises of the future. I think many of us now avoid thinking about the future at times as a method of self-preservation, and when we do think about the future, it is hard in some respects not to be reduced to hopelessness. Despite this feeling of hopelessness that I cannot help but to resort to at times, I have hesitantly embraced hope in the recent weeks when thinking about the American presidential election. Harris, to me, signifies an invitation to hope. My acceptance of that invitation is arguably naive. But if something that once felt like a remote if still technically achievable possibility is now arguably on the precipice of happening, directly in front of us on our TV screens, then it suggests that many other groundbreaking and historically significant accomplishments may be more achievable than we once believed. I cannot pretend to know whether this presidency would be good for the world globally, or even just for us as the United States’ northern neighbors. Maybe I would feel no measurable change whatsoever. But the idea that my hypothetical daughters could live in a world that my grandmothers could only ever tentatively dream about does incite hope in me, a hope that is about more than just this singular (albeit important) matter of the current U.S. election, risk of naivety be damned. I am of the not so humble opinion that it is the dream of so many women, whether it is a quiet dream, or one loudly and often expressed, that their daughters can take for granted that a woman not only can be, but already has been, the president of the United States of America. On this Election Day, I am daydreaming about the moment where my fragile hope transforms into my future daughter’s undoubted reality, in front of my eyes. *This was, of course, written prior to Donald Trump being announced the winner of the 2024 presidential election. The only other thing I would like to add in response to this update is that there is always next time, and a girl can always dream; for representation, for progress, and for the deliverance of the promises of democracy, in any and every country. 3
Vol 46 ● No 5
HOMMES NOIRS, ROUTES ET DROITES: VERS UNE JUSTICE RÉPARATRICE Vers un potentiel Arrêt Luamba? RLB | 1L
D’ici 45 jours, nous serons au fait de si, oui ou non, le Gouvernement du Québec portera en appel la décision historique du juge Yergeau en Cour supérieure du Québec, rendue en 2022 et validée en Cour d’appel du Québec il y a quelques jours. Cette décision conclut qu’une loi autorisant les contrôles routiers aléatoires par la police mène au profilage racial et constitue une atteinte aux droits des individus racisés.
QUID NOVI • 12 NOV 2024
Rappelons que l’action initiale en justice a été intentée par Joseph-Christopher Luamba, un Montréalais noir de 22 ans qui affirme avoir été arrêté par la police québécoise près d’une douzaine de fois sans raison et qu’aucune de ces interpellations n’a donné lieu à une contravention. Ce dernier était, au moment de la demande introductive d’instance, et encore à ce jour, défendu par Me Mike Siméon et l’affaire se retrouve à avoir un soutien de plusieurs acteurs. Rappelons que l’action initiale en justice a été intentée par Joseph-Christopher Luamba, un Montréalais noir de 22 ans, qui affirme avoir été arrêté par la police québécoise près d’une douzaine de fois sans raison, sans qu’aucune de ces interpellations n’ait donné lieu à une contravention. Ce dernier, dès le début de cette affaire, est représenté par Me Mike Siméon, un avocat noir. L’affaire comprend plusieurs intervenants: l’Association canadienne des libertés civiles (intimée – intervenante), l’Association canadienne des avocat-e-s noir-es (mise en cause – intervenante), ainsi que l’Association des libertés civiles de la Colombie-Britannique, la Clinique juridique de Saint-Michel, et la Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, toutes intervenantes dans le dossier. Ces intervenants soulignent le caractère systémique du profilage racial dans les pratiques policières et appuient l’argument selon 4
lequel les interpellations routières sans motif constituent une atteinte aux droits fondamentaux des personnes racisées Dans une province qui nie l’existence du racisme systémique et qui, dans un élan de pseudo-mimétisme des tendances post-Floyd, s’est dotée d’un Ministre responsable de la Lutte contre le racisme – sans ministère ni provisions adéquates pour étudier les racines du contrat racial qui n’épargne pas le Québec –, il n’est donc pas surprenant d’entendre des propos prudents de la part du ministre de la Sécurité publique, François Bonnardel. Ce dernier a déclaré par courriel : « Cette décision pourrait avoir des impacts directs sur le travail des policiers pour assurer la sécurité de la population. Nous prendrons le temps d’analyser le jugement. Nous limiterons nos commentaires pour le moment ». Je n’ai pas trouvé traces de propos du Ministre, Christopher Skeete, responsable de la lutte contre le racisme, bien que ce dernier soit présent à moults galas et événements rassemblant des membres des communautés noires et que ce dernier va même jusqu’à remettre des prix Pour un Québec sans racisme, une reconnaissant visant à reconnaître et à célébrer la contribution d’une personne, d’une organisation publique, d’une entreprise et d’un organisme qui se sont distingués par des réalisations remarquables et un apport exceptionnel à la lutte contre le racisme au Québec. Bien évidemment, on peut imaginer que ni Joseph-Christopher Luamba et les équipes mobilisés dans cette affaire ne sont dans la mire, pour un prix ou une reconnaissance, du Ministre luttant contre un phénomène dont il ne semble pas autorisé à explorer les fondements. S’ajoute au silence, les récents propos d’un animateur de radio qui devrait, à mon sens, être plus au fait de ce sur quoi il s’exprime. Je parle ici de Monsieur Luc
Ferrandez, qui lors de sa chronique sur l’émission 98,5 FM, s’est permis de dire que les interpellations policières sont une simple “vérification de permis” et non une forme de profilage racial systémique. Il est allé jusqu’à qualifier les biais inconscients de “bullshit” et le racisme systémique d’exagéré. Son intervention semblait faire peu de cas du sérieux de l’analyse juridique étoffé du Juge Yergeau. En tenant de tels propos, Ferrandez ne fait pas seulement abstraction de l’impact documenté et concret du profilage racial sur les communautés racisées, mais il ignore aussi les conclusions claires et fondées du jugement Yergeau, qui établit avec force que les pratiques d’interpellation sans motif spécifique nuisent de manière disproportionnée aux personnes noires et racisées. Le jugement, quant à lui, ne repose pas sur une vision théorique du racisme systémique, mais sur des témoignages et des données solides, montrant que ces interpellations discrétionnaires constituent bel et bien une atteinte injustifiée aux droits à la liberté et à la sécurité, notamment en vertu des articles 7, 9 et 15 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Ce que Ferrandez n’a pas compris en septembre, j’espère qu’il le saisira maintenant, car, selon le sondage Numeris de l’été, le 98,5 demeure la station la plus écoutée au Canada. À mon sens, les auditeurs méritent d’entendre des propos fondés sur les expériences vécues des personnes concernées, et les gens ayant le privilège de s’exprimer sur des ondes réglementées par le CRTC doivent assumer la responsabilité de leurs affirmations. Dans ce cas, nous parlons d’une personne qui a été la plus grande autorité gouvernementale d’une administration municipale locale, celle du Plateau Mont-Royal, dans un parti, dit de gauche, et qui aurait dû, à mon sens, développer une sensibilité accrue aux enjeux de justice sociale
auxquels ses concitoyens font face. Dans ce contexte, il est important de rappeler le jugement rendu par la Cour supérieure du Québec le 3 septembre 2024 dans l’affaire Ligue des Noirs du Québec c. Ville de Montréal (2024 QCCS 3241). Ce jugement historique, prononcé par l’honorable juge Dominique Poulin, a confirmé la nature systémique du profilage racial au sein du Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), touchant principalement les communautés noires, arabes, latinos et autochtones. Le Tribunal a conclu que ces interpellations non justifiées par des infractions concrètes découlent de biais institutionnels et de préjugés implicites, entraînant une discrimination disproportionnée et une atteinte à la dignité des personnes racisées. « La Ville ne saurait se retrancher derrière ses policiers ni leur faire porter le blâme de façon exclusive », soutient la juge Poulin, insistant sur la responsabilité institutionnelle de la Ville dans ces pratiques . En conséquence, la Ville de Montréal a été condamnée à débourser plus de 2 millions de dollars en dommages et intérêts aux victimes de profilage racial. Alexandre Lamontagne, un homme noir qui a porté sur ses épaules l’action collective, recevra une indemnisation de 5 000 $ pour l’interpellation injustifiée qu’il a subie le 14 août 2017 (La Presse). La Ligue des Noirs du Québec estime que le montant total pourrait atteindre 170 millions de dollars si toutes les victimes potentielles de profilage racial – évaluées entre 10 000 et 30 000 personnes – déposaient une réclamation . Il est particulièrement paradoxal que la Ville de Montréal tente de nier sa responsabilité directe alors qu’elle finance le SPVM, un service dont le budget prévu pour 2024 atteint 821,5 millions $, soit 37 millions $ de plus que le budget initialement alloué de 788 millions $. Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, membre du comité exécutif de la Ville de Montréal et responsable des ressources humaines, de la lutte contre le racisme et les discriminations systémiques, a tenté de justifier la décision de la Ville d’aller en appel,
en affirmant : « On ne veut surtout pas que cet argent aille dans les poches des avocats et du gouvernement du Québec, qui ne reconnaît pas lui-même le racisme systémique. » Cette affirmation est contestée, puisque les montants non réclamés seraient en réalité versés au Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives, et non à l’État, comme l’a expliqué Alexandre Popovic, militant de la CRAP (Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers). Ce dernier a publiquement dénoncé ces propos erronés, soulignant leur impact négatif sur la percep-
tion publique et la crédibilité de la Ville. Selon Popovic, « Ils disent lutter contre le profilage racial systémique mais vont en appel d’un jugement historique accordant des compensations financières à des victimes de profilage racial systémique ». Pour lui, cette décision de la Ville semble contradictoire avec ses engagements publics en matière de lutte contre le racisme, et les lecteurs de la Presse, tout comme la population, méritent une transparence accrue et des explications honnêtes sur ces enjeux cruciaux.
HEADLINES Caroline Homet | 1L
Every week There’s another bomb threat In a highschool Children huddled under Their desks for 3 hours Making headlines Every week There are more femicides In their homes In the street In the park In broad daylight
Because When America sneezes We catch a cold There’s a hairy orange fist Gripping my guts Spreading a metallic taste in my mouth
Sometimes They make headlines
When I look to the Strong Confident Competent Women With no patience For bullshit Surrounding me
So every night When I call out to my friends Get home safe I’m more and more Scared They won’t
Who confide And share their dreams with me MP Speaker of the house What the hell Why not PM
Across the border Every week A woman dies Because the fetus she carries Might have a heartbeat
My shoulders slouch And I think
So every month My period is late Or I forget to swallow a pastel pill I’m more and more Scared It could be my fate someday
Who would vote For a woman that loud When we are told To become Quiet Quieter Faint murmurs Until we’re Silent? 5
Vol 46 ● No 5
ON ARGUMENTS AND THE ALBANESE AFFAIR Anonymous
QUID NOVI • 12 NOV 2024
This week, McGill hosted Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories for a lecture titled “International Law in Times of Genocide”. In a letter to McGill President Deep Saini on behalf of several student groups, lawyers from Spiegel Sohmer Inc. described the talk as a “hate lecture” and alleged that by allowing the event to take place McGill was failing to guarantee safety and freedom from discrimination for students. The list of student groups opposed to the talk includes the Jewish Law Students Association, who twice shared the letter on their Instagram page in the lead up to the lecture. In addition to being the UN Special Rapporteur, Albanese holds a law degree with honours from the University of Pisa, a Master of Laws in human rights from the SOAS at the University of London, and is pursuing a PhD in International Refugee Law at Amsterdam University’s Facutly of Law. She holds advisory or research positions at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, and the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Albanese has been recognized for her journalistic work covering Palestine and the Middle East. She received the International Stefano Chiarini Award and is widely published, including a textbook titled Palestinian Refugees in International Law published by Oxford University Press. To suggest that someone with such an impressive record of scholarship on human rights issues is an inappropriate, even dangerous, person to host on McGill campus is an extraordinary claim. To describe such an event as part of a “hate conference” is more extraordinary still. Extraor6
dinary claims require extraordinary evidence; no such evidence is found in the letter sent to McGill.
fore calls for the talk to be cancelled since McGill “must not serve as a platform for individuals who incite hate.”
Before turning to the specific allegations made against Albanese, there is an issue that should give pause to members of the McGill Faculty of Law in particular. The letter criticizes a specific McGill Law professor for participating as a moderator for a talk on International Law, thereby participating in a “hate conference”. Though the legal meaning of hate is not addressed in the letter, presumably a hate conference would be a conference which incites or wilfully promotes hatred against an identifiable group.
The opening argument against allowing Albanese to speak at McGill is that she spoke at a conference “held by the terrorist organization known as ‘Hamas’”. Hamas is the governing authority in Gaza. To recognize that reality is not an endorsement of their policy or practice. A UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories who did not engage with Hamas at all could rightly be accused of not fulfilling their mandate to “receive communications, to hear witnesses, and to use such modalities of procedure as he may deem necessary” in the investigation of violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
I will not repeat the professor’s name here, as I do not wish to contribute to any association between them and this asinine suggestion. Rather, I will simply note that the claim that this professor would participate in a hate conference is absurd on its face to anyone who has worked with them or taken their class. Accusing a professor of inciting or wilfully promoting hate is a heavy charge, here paired with a total lack of substantiation. Conflating moderating an event on an important and pressing issue in International Law with endorsement of hate resembles a move designed to limit academic freedom, rather than uphold rights or protect students. As the letter shifts from McGill professors to Albanese, its evidentiary offerings shift from non-existent to merely slap-dash. To justify the demand that Albanese not be permitted to speak at McGill, the letter refers to her previous public statements. These statements are provided as evidence for allegations that Albanese has met with Hamas, denies the severity of their attacks, excuses violence and terrorism, and has been overtly antisemitic. The letter there-
The specific conference referenced in the letter was on the impacts of an Israeli blockade on Gaza, which the cited news article itself describes as “crippling” and causing a rapid deterioration of the standard of living in Gaza. The conference was also attended by Richard Falk, the chairman of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, an NGO. The NGO has worked in Gaza on projects such as We Are Not Numbers, which provides workshops for young writers on how to write English-language articles about their experiences in order to reach Western audiences. Would Richard Falk, himself a former UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, also be an inappropriate guest on campus due to his participation in this conference? Speaking at a conference on the dire humanitarian situation caused by the blockade of Gaza does not seem to be a smoking gun of hatred and antisemitism. The next claim is perhaps the most disingenuous. The letter alleges that
Albanese denied atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th, specifically mentioning rape. As evidence, the letter points to a tweet from Albanese in which she mentions that specific claims made about the October 7th attacks are overstated and unfounded, and that spreading such unverified claims could lead to an escalation in tensions. It is not controversial to note that unfounded or untrue claims can fuel tensions or exacerbate conflicts. Specifically, it is important to note that Albanese cites the Israeli military as her source when disputing the claim that forty infants were beheaded. The Israeli government has not subsequently supported the claim. Construing her call for accuracy when describing events, specifically by framing a response to a specific claim as a general denial of atrocities, twists the plain intent of her words. Even without that legal analysis, describing a tweet urging a cautious approach in a volatile situation as evidence of hateful intent strains credulity on its face. The letter finally references instances of Albanese contextualizing terrorist activity, specifically by apologizing for or justifying violence. In February of this year, French President Emmanuel Macron described the October 7th attack as “the largest antisemitic massacre of our century”. Albanese responded on Twitter that the victims of October 7th were “killed not because of their Judaism, but in response to Israeli oppression”. When her comments were met with condemnation from Israel and France, Albanese clarified, writing: “I regret that some interpreted my tweet as ‘justifying’ Hamas’s crimes, which I have condemned strongly several times. I reject all forms of racism, including antisemitism. However, labeling these crimes as ‘antisemitic’ obscures the real reason they occurred”. It is important to consider that Alba-
nese is speaking as an accomplished lawyer and scholar of human rights, who presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council in March of this year which stated that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is intentionally committing genocidal acts against Palestinians. A UN Special Rapporteur, who has a reasonable belief that a population is undergoing genocide, is not apologizing for terrorism or violence if they describe violence under such conditions as inevitable; they are offering a professional conclusion based on the facts presented to them. To document evidence of genocide and systematic repression and conclude that resistance, including violence, is unlikely would be naive. Indeed, in April the previous three Special Rapporteurs on the occupied Palestinian territories signed a letter to UN leadership in which they described allegations against Albanese as “slanderous” and “personal”. They further noted that while they experienced similar issues during their tenures as Special Rapporteurs, the criticisms of Albanese had a “greater ferocity and mean-spiritedness”. From their experience, they described the attacks as part of a larger effort to “throw mud at the mandate [of the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories] at every available opportunity”. The remarkable lack of evidence for charges of hate and antisemitism suggests that they have a point. The unspoken assumption underpinning the arguments made in the letter to McGill seems to be that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories is, itself, illegitimate, even hateful or antisemitic by its existence. If Hamas, and Palestinian resistance more generally, exist solely because of hate and antisemitism, making any effort to understand their position is an exercise in apologizing for hate and antisemitism almost by definition.
But that perspective does not bear the weight of reality. A horrifying civilian death toll in Gaza, bombings of hospitals and refugee camps justified by Israeli authorities, and rulings from the International Court of Justice that Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian territories violates international law make a belief that there is no need or justification for a Special Rapporteur difficult to support. It seems that slanderous and personal attacks on the officeholder have been adopted instead. Suggesting that antisemitism does not exist within Hamas would itself be an extraordinary claim; arguing that factors beyond antisemitism explain the ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation neither excuses nor denies its existence. And therein lies the issue that runs through the letter: this complaint appears to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. To do so defends the Israeli government from valid criticism of policies which violate the law of armed conflict and fundamental tenets of human rights law. If a UN Special Rapporteur cannot offer a professionally grounded perspective, which may well include criticism of parties involved, on the issue to which they have been assigned, what good could they do in the role? Perhaps such a circumscribed role is the point. A public discussion or legal examination of the situation in the Middle East which cannot offer or engage with criticism of Israel is neither an honest nor useful conversation. Describing such efforts as a hate conference is ridiculous and damaging. As law students, we should be especially sensitive to exaggerated legal arguments deployed to silence substantiated allegations of illegal conduct. McGill Law should be a place worthy of such complex, difficult questions as the application of international law; the spurious legal arguments made by these student groups suggest that we aren’t. 7
Vol 46 ● No 5
SO, YOU’RE DOING THE COURSE-AUX-STAGES Song-Ly Tran | 4L
QUID NOVI • 12 NOV 2024
With eleven minutes to spare, my eyes roved from the red pin on my screen, confidently marking the firm’s location to a drab reception hall, vacant but for abandoned cardboard boxes and real estate signs behind two locked doors. The realtors’ tiny coiffed heads smiled at me diagonally, half shoved inside a box overflowing with packing peanuts. A drop hit the back of my neck. Rain. Brilliant. Being late was not an option. I thanked myself for bringing an umbrella, cursed out the rogue red pin and gingerly ran across the street. An umbrella only does so much when you are nine minutes shy of making a poor first impression at a recruitment event, of having your name tag being the last scooped up at the entrance. But with four minutes until the start of my fourth cocktail that week, I stumbled into a narrow coatroom where a handful of students were freshening up for the night’s marathon of handshakes, disproportionate laughter and cheek-numbing smiles. Wiping the droplets from my glasses, I stepped into a room already abuzz with servers gliding around balancing amuse-bouche platters, recruitment committee members surely observing our every move, partners who have been practising law longer than I have been alive and other students just trying to make a good impression. I participated in the Course-aux-stages in 2L. Most of the time, I occupied the same frustrated and confused headspace, which acutely overcomes a directionally challenged person on the verge of being late for an occasion where punctuality is expected. Since the Course-aux-stages’ 2022-2023 edition, the number and kinds of events have only multiplied, with students being barraged with lunch and learns and mentorship programs in the very first weeks of the academic year. It is a lot to navigate. If you read thus far hoping this article would proffer a roadmap or secret recipe, I am sorry to disappoint. Doubt anyone who tells you there is one. During my Course-aux-stages, I largely improvised, adopted somewhat illogical or incongruent rules and made questionable choices. But hindsight is 20/20. And in any event, I am beyond grateful for the outcome of my Course-aux-stages adventure. This article is simply a testament to the messiness of the whole ordeal and a piece of encouragement for the lot of you who have decided to run the race.
Bouche Not Amused My rules for the above-mentioned style of cocktail event were simple. However, they are far from a prescription of best practice. For one, I never touched the delicious looking amuse-bouches. Instead, I contented myself with 8
watching the salmon tartars, potato croquettes, and grilled chicken skewers pass me by, wanting to avoid figuring out how to take gracious, non-mess-generating bites out of impractically shaped foods. I wanted to avoid having greasy fingers for all the handshaking. And since none of my friends were partaking in the Course-aux-stages at the time, I also wanted to avoid potentially having bits of amuse-bouche stuck in my teeth with no one to tell me they were there. So, I never ate or drank anything except water at events and always went home quite hungry. In retrospect, I might have been overthinking it.
A Piece of Unsolicited Advice What follows is some advice that was passed down to me, which I find valuable and worth sharing. Some students genuinely enjoy these events; others not so much. Nevertheless, actively engaging is a crucial exercise not only to make an impression but to find out where you see yourself working and, mainly, whom you see yourself working with. Partners are a wealth of knowledge and insight. Whereas their hourly rates can reach up to four figures, these events are precious (free) opportunities to peer into their minds and ask questions about, among other things, their mentoring style, their most formative or memorable files, what about their practice most excites and challenges them, or what advice they would give their younger selves. Junior associates and students are those whom you encounter most often starting out. In all likelihood, they will be handing you your mandates, correcting your work and supporting you in the day-to-day as direct superiors or peers. In other words, they are people you want to be able to get along with in tough times and under pressure. There is something to learn from everyone in the room. At least in my case, this outlook helped to relieve some of the pressure of networking. Bloody Heel! At the start of the fall 2022 semester, I bought a pair of nice shoes to wear to events. A pair of shiny black loafers. Heels were out of the question lest I wobble around everywhere. I wore the shoes to many events hoping to break them in. But most evenings, after standing for three or more hours on end, I would arrive home and breathe a sigh of relief as I detached them from my sore, bruised feet. A couple nights before the final “black out” period, the one before call day, I attended a dinner in these shiny black loafers. The end was near. At that point, I felt as though I was just going through the motions, listening and nodding and
smiling. From my understanding, large firms invite up to forty students to these final dinners, but less than twenty receive offers. I wasn’t sure I stood a chance. Rather exhausted, I left relatively early that night around 10:15PM. Others stayed past midnight. Back home, when I peeled off my shiny black loafers, blood gushed out a gash in my left heel, forming a small puddle at the door and trailing behind me as I walked to the bathroom. Now, by no means do I claim this to be a unique experience. New shoes hurt. Sometimes the skin rubs off and sometimes the heel
bleeds. We endure the inconvenience. We suck it up. No problem. Still, it was a surprising amount of blood. The bloody heel is not some sort of badge of honour for securing an articling position. Ultimately, for me, the bloody heel is a reminder that I failed to look after myself through this process. So, to sum up my unsolicited advice to all those running the race: take every event as a chance to learn (and eat), don’t blindly trust red pins on maps and take care of your heel before it bleeds. Best of luck!
À PARIS, À MONCTON, À WASHINGTON, À... LE CAIRE??? Ordren Deko | 4L
L’une de mes rares règles de grammaire préférées dans la langue française concerne la préposition « à » juste avant le nom des villes. La raison pour laquelle cette règle est ma préférée est que, dans 99,9 % des cas, elle s’applique de manière générale, ce qui est atypique en grammaire française. En effet, il n’y a rien de plus frustrant que les nombreuses exceptions à une règle de grammaire ! Ainsi, quelle que soit la ville, vous ne vous tromperez jamais en affirmant que vous avez voyagé à Paris, à Moncton, à Washington, à Bagdad, à New Delhi, à Tokyo, à Anvers, à Luanda, et dans tant d’autres belles villes qui parsèment le globe ! Cependant, il se peut que j’aie menti. Un mensonge blanc très, très innocent (bien que j’aie dit dans 99,9 % des cas et non dans 100 %). Il y a quelques villes qui ont un déterminant, faisant une liste très courte, qui changeraient « à » en « au » en raison de l’article masculin juste avant leurs noms. Elles sont : Le Caire, Le Cap, Le Havre, Le Mans. Mais au-delà de notre ami prépositionnel, pourquoi diable ces villes ont-elles droit à un article défini dans leur nom alors que les autres plus grandes agglomérations du monde n’en ont pas ? J’aimerais mettre en lumière cette divergence unique dans le cas particulier du Caire. L’utilisation de l’article défini mascu-
lin singulier dans Le Caire n’est pas arbitraire, mais résulte de facteurs historiques et linguistiques. Le Caire, connu en arabe sous le nom d’al-Qāhira, se traduit approximativement par « le Victorieux » ou « le Conquérant ». En arabe, l’article « al- » est un article défini, semblable au français aux « le » ou « la ». Dans le cas du Caire, le français a conservé « le », l’article masculin singulier, qui correspond à « al- ». Il s’agit d’un phénomène courant lorsque des villes dont le nom contient l’article défini arabe sont empruntées dans les langues européennes, en particulier dans le contexte de l’influence coloniale ou des échanges linguistiques. Le cas le plus évident est celui de l’Espagne, qui a été à un moment donné sous domination arabe. De nombreuses villes témoignent de cet épisode historique : Alicante, Alcalá de Henares, Almería, entre autres. Un contexte géographique peut également expliquer le cas particulier du Caire. Dans certains cas, le français utilise un article défini avec les noms de ville pour impliquer une certaine caractéristique ou un trait notable de la ville. La ville du Caire peut être comprise comme « la ville victorieuse », car le nom arabe « al-Qāhira » met l’accent sur sa grandeur ou sa victoire. De même, Le Havre (le port) et Le Mans (le
mont) utilisent des articles définis en raison de la nature descriptive ou caractéristique de leurs noms. Et Pourquoi pas d’autres villes ? Pour celles-ci, le nom lui-même ne porte pas d’article défini en français. Le français omet généralement l’article pour les villes, et les noms se suffisent à eux-mêmes, probablement parce qu’ils sont traités comme des points ou des emplacements spécifiques dans l’espace. En outre, ces autres villes n’ont pas la même structure linguistique. La plupart des villes du monde, qu’elles soient en anglais, en français ou dans une autre langue, ont simplement des noms qui ne sont pas accompagnés d’articles inhérents. D’autres villes aux noms arabes (par exemple Damas ou Beyrouth) ne conservent pas l’article défini en français, peut-être parce que leurs noms arabes ne contiennent pas d’article « al- » équivalent de la même manière. En fin de compte, cette norme langagière susmentionnée demeure très simple à suivre. Et même s’il existe un bon nombre de villes qui ont un déterminant devant leur nom, seul le masculin ou le pluriel modifie la préposition « à ». En effet, il n’est pas agrammatical de dire que l’on se rendra à La Havane, à La Rochelle, à La Baule-Escloubac, à La Ciotat ! 9
Vol 46 ● No 5
CROSSWORD
10/30/24, 11:52 AM
Your Crossword Puzzle
Armstrong | 1L
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QUID NOVI • 12 NOV 2024
Across
1. Might stop you vacationing too long 5. Old timey nickname for our library 9. Mill's expertise, abbrev. 10. You probably have too many of these sponsored items 13. What weekends & law grads have in common 14. Corp. student panic period, abbrev. 16. 1L summer employment option 18. Why you don't see your 3L friend 19. Source of the nuisance in Miller v Jackson. 20. Group that many single law students are eyeing 22. Profs union 23. E-CO 24. Loves his dogs 25. House of wedges 26. Degree
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Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net
2. Event with misleading title 3. _ Bike ride 4. Stairmaster street 6. Faculty invaders 7. Where you'll find 4Ls 8. Decider of Canadian legal citation, abbrev. 11. McGill Law mid-March madness 12. Write to graduate 15. Tax Chair 17. For Good 20. October Mixer 21. Worst floor
LOVE LETTER TO MY CROCK-POT Caroline Homet | 1L
The leaves are barely hanging onto their branches. Gusts of wind tangle my perfectly brushed hair within two minutes of walking to the bus stop. It’s dark by the time classes end. Every. Single. Afternoon. The time change means that I’m starving every time I drop my school bag on my kitchen floor. A Noah Khan song has been stuck in my head since Halloween, and that means one thing: it’s Crock-Pot season. I never feel more grateful for my past self than on the days when I get home and supper is already piping hot, ready to be devoured immediately. Although some slow cooker recipes call for a lot of meal prep, most mornings I manage to chop the wilted vegetables hanging around the back of the crisper and throw them into my crockpot in 20 minutes with my eyes half-open. Another cooking hack is prepping everything at night, sticking the pot in the fridge, then adding the
broth and turning the dial to “on” two minutes before running out the door. If you don’t have a Crock-Pot, but enjoy meal prepping on weekends, most recipes can be set to simmer on the stovetop and forgotten about for a couple hours while you read or work on other assignments.
vegetables means that they’ll cost more in your grocery basket too. Bonus: buying seasonal reduces your carbon footprint2. If you’re daunted by the process, here’s a super easy, beginner friendly CrockPot recipe to get you started:
Ingredients
Did you know that Crock-Pot stews, soups, and mashes are perfect for cooking root vegetables, alliums, and squash? Cooking with seasonal vegetables that can be stored for months is a great way to eat (more) affordable, healthy food. When plants are picked at their peak ripeness, they have time to develop their peak nutrient value1. Because of the increased price in fuel, transporting imported fruits and
• 1 spaghetti squash • 3ish cups sauce of choice (preferably with loads of veggies forgotten in the crisper) • 2 cups browned ground beef, turkey, TVP, or tofu.
Instructions 1. Place halved spaghetti squash face down in the slow cooker.
National Breast Cancer Foundation, “A Guide to Seasonal Eating: Winter Edition,” National Breast Cancer Foundation, January 30, 2024, https://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/blog/aguide-to-seasonal-eating-winter-edition/. 1
2. Mix your sauce ingredients in a bowl, then add your sauce over the squash. 3. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours, or for as long as you’re on campus. 4. Allow squash to cool off a bit for easier handling, then use a fork to loosen the strands into spaghetti-like pieces 5. Cook pasta (your brain needs carbs.) 6. Top with cheese, pepper, nutritional yeast, basil, or other favourite toppings. 7. Freeze leftovers as a kind gesture for your future self3. “Seasonal Eating to Beat High Food Prices,” BC Farms & Food, December 8, 2023, https:// bcfarmsandfood.com/seasonal-eating-beathigh-food-prices/. 2
Adapted from “Slow Cooker Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce,” The Lazy Slow Cooker, February 29, 2024, https://thelazyslowcooker.com/slowcooker-spaghetti-squash-with-sauce/#recipe. 3
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEFS | RÉDACTEURS EN CHEF Anna McAllister Pablo Mhanna-Sandoval Jessica Keer Li SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR | DIRECTRICE DES RÉSEAUX SOCIAUX Gabrielle Torrealba ART DIRECTOR DIRECTRICE ARTISTIQUE Souang Wu LAYOUT EDITOR ÉDITRICE DE MISE EN PAGE Camille Duhaime COPY EDITORS | SECRÉTAIRES DE RÉDACTION Faith Dehghan Jacob Kasirer-Kettner Jerod Miksza COLUMNISTS | CHRONIQUEURES ET CHRONIQUEUSES Caroline Homet Ordren Deko Maddie Adams Alexander CONTRIBUTORS | CONTRIBUTEURS RLB Song-Ly Tran Special thanks to Prairie Koo for designing the layout. ~ The Quid Novi is published weekly by the students of the Faculty of Law at McGill University. Production is made possible through the direct support of students. All contents copyright © 2024 Quid Novi.
Les opinions exprimées sont propres aux auteurs et ne réflètent pas nécessairement celles de l’équipe du Quid Novi. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the McGill Law Students’ Association or of McGill University. Envoyez vos commentaires ou articles avant jeudi 17h00 à quid.law@mcgill.ca. Toute contribution doit indiquer le nom de l’auteur, son année d’étude ainsi qu’un titre et un sous -titre pour l’article. Les images doivent être soumises séparément. L’article ne sera publié qu’à la discrétion du comité de rédaction, qui basera sa décision sur la politique de rédaction disponible sur notre Facebook @quidnovi.mcgill.