After feeling excluded from campus politics, U1 Political Science student and Conservative McGill Principal Secretary Brendan Steven and U2 History student Kevin Brendan Pidgeon have co-founded a new online newspaper called
the Prince Arthur Herald.
In an interview with The Daily, Steven described his feelings of exclusion from campus politics and highlighted what he sees as close-mindedness around topics such as tuition.
“The tone of rhetoric about tuition hikes has gotten a little ridiculous. … In the roundtable in Quebec City, when government groups and student groups were talking about tuition increases, many student groups simply walked out and refused to discuss tuition increases of any sort. … There was no negotiation and there is no room for compromise…it’s things of that nature where I think conservative students feel ostracized, and so my hope is that the Herald will provide a space for conservative students to feel safe and to feel that their opinion counts.”
The Herald’s online statement of principles outlines a right-wing mandate that includes “the belief in the limitation of state regulation to only the most fundamentally necessary areas of Canadian life;” “the importance of preventing the unnecessary growth of the public sector to ensure the maximum productive potential of the Canadian economy;” and “a dedication to the free market system that has provided Canadian society with wealth, prosperity and opportunity for all.”
Steven added that “we are a conservative newspaper consisting of many conservative writers, but we also have other writers consisting of [a] former President of Young Liberals of Canada, and another one of our columnists is on the board of directors for Queer McGill. … We have conservatives of all sorts, including Social Conservatives, Social Liberals, Classical Liberals, Old Tory Conservatives, and Libertarians.”
Describing the Herald’s politics section, Steven commented that, “Our politics section is structured as an opinion section.”
When deciding on the name for the Herald, Steven said, “ We settled on Prince Arthur for a variety of reasons, including the symbolic fact that the street Prince Arthur cuts through the centre of the McGill ghetto and we want to be a student-centric news source.”
Currently the Herald’s staff do not have plans to go into print, but are exploring the possibility of expanding to radio. The Herald has low operating costs and is completely volunteer-run; the current sections of the Herald’s website are administrative, campus life, culture, politics, and sports.