The McGill Daily

MUNACA’s Campaign Exposes the McGill Administration’s Greed

2026-10-05T17:42:59Z

The McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), a union with a staff of roughly 1,700 people, represents McGill’s administrative, clerical, and technical support staff, as well as nurses and health professionals. On August 31, after months of negotiation with McGill, MUNACA launched the “Facts are Facts, McGill” campaign in response to the inequitably distributed wage growth across staff positions.

According to the campaign website, salaries of MUNACA staff have increased by 6.1 per cent since the 2021-2022 fiscal year while those of the top 10 highest paid McGill positions have increased by 13.1 per cent. In 2024, MUNACA and McGill’s collective agreement expired; since then, MUNACA has been bargaining with McGill for fairer conditions and pay to no avail.

On May 22, Diana Dutton, Associate Vice President of McGill Human Resources, acknowledged a letter from a coalition of McGill union presidents linked on the MUNACA website, stating, “We remain confident and committed to reaching a negotiated agreement.” In this acknowledgement, she disputed “the erroneous information it contains.”

Demands from MUNACA include freezing layoffs, cutting executive pay, and suspending administrative hiring. Additionally, the union has asked McGill to publicize the actions of NOUS Group — the consulting firm that produced Horizon McGill — and provide MUNACA a place in all discussions.

They are not the first members of McGill staff to request collaboration on fiscal matters with the university. Professor Derek Nystrom, Secretary for the Association of McGill Professors of the Faculty of Arts (AMPFA) and Associate Professor of English, told the Daily last year that the “real solution to [budget] dilemmas is not to hire outside consultants with a track record of taking a wrecking ball through other universities, but in working with faculty, staff, and students here to determine how best to address these challenges.” Largely, the Horizon Plan has been shared with McGill employees through press releases, unilateral town hall presentations, and the occasional Q&A session.

The staff we engage with on a daily basis, who help shape our experiences as students, make up MUNACA. This includes lab technicians as well as employees who manage the university’s athletic facilities, central information system (Minerva), and student services. Some examples of these student services are scheduling, academic advisors, and financial services.

Many McGill staff unions stand in solidarity with MUNACA, including AMPFA, the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE), Association of McGill Professors of Education (AMPE), Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE), Association of McGill Libraries Academic Staff (AMLAS), Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCLIU), Association of McGill Professors of Science (AMPS), Association of McGill Academic Staff of the School of Continuing Studies (AMASCS), Association of McGill Library Academic Staff (AMLAS), and Teaching Support Union at McGill (TSUM) — formerly known as the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).

On February 7, 2025, President and Vice Chancellor Deep Saini, Provost and Executive Vice President Academic Christoper Manfredi, and Vice President Administration and Finance Fabrice Labeau presented McGill’s Horizon Plan. The plan aims to eliminate a total operating deficit of 75 million dollars over three years, ending in the 2027-28 fiscal year. According to McGill’s 2024-25 financial report, the base salaries and taxable income of each of these executives were as follows: $682,267 (Saini), $410,375 (Manfredi), and $322,429 (Labeau). As of 2023, MUNACA staff members were paid between 21.99 and 48.65 dollars per hour. From 2024 to 2025, the two highest paid senior administrators earned more than 23 MUNACA members combined.

The first phase of the Horizon plan had a bullet point for “reducing salary mass,” which Manfredi suggested that McGill might: “delay the filling of vacancies, eliminate overtime, reduce working hours, [the reduction of ] pay … [and] attrition and not replacing staff who leave the university.” He continued, “but we also know… that’s not likely to be enough … Positions will have to be abolished.”

They told students, “Offering the best education to you with minimum disruptions and at the highest quality is an utmost priority for all of us.” Yet as students, the Daily’s editorial board finds that the best education is fostered in a university environment where staff and professors feel that their labor is valued and fairly compensated.

With a goal to “protect McGill’s long-term sustainability,” Saini, Manfredi, and Labeau presented a plan that included cutting 350-500 jobs and pressuring faculties to increase enrolments without adding faculty and teaching assistant support. Retired faculty have gone unreplaced, diminishing course offerings and overworking those who remain.

According to MUNACA, while student enrolment declined by 1 per cent in 2019-20 and 2022-23, management staff grew by 28 per cent. In deliberately allocating funding to executive expansion, McGill has sacrificed the needs of its support and non-academic staff.

With McGill professors and support staff stretched thin, students are suffering too. The Faculty of Arts has already increased course enrollment caps without increasing the number of TAs. This adversely impacts the extent to which students can receive individualized feedback and learning in addition to blatantly overworking TAs. The No More Free Hours campaign launched by TSUM in 2023 stated that, “In some departments, TAs with 45-hour contracts are regularly working twice their hours.” Moreover, the diminution of class assessments means that students have less opportunities to exercise theoretical learning. In GSFS 250, for example, the instructor stated that he has had to eliminate an essay assignment just to keep TAs within their contractual hours.

Head to mcgillfacts.ca to take action in solidarity with McGill’s support workers. There you will find both the emails of several university figureheads and email templates that you can customize based on your priorities as a student. Facts are facts, McGill.

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“Decolonization”

2026-10-05T17:27:14Z

According to Sium, Desai, and Ritskes in Volume 1 of the Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society journal, decolonization entails “reimagin[ing] and rearticulat[ing] power, change, and knowledge through a multiplicity of epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies.” Further, “decolonization demands the valuing of Indigenous sovereignty in its material, psychological, epistemological, and spiritual forms.”

However, the continued oversimplification of the term “decolonization” has watered down its meaning. When only employed as a metaphor, it loses its potency. For instance, you’ll often hear people talk about “decolonizing” a syllabus or “decolonizing” their mind.

The scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explore how the reductive use of the term “decolonization” has become normalized within social justice frameworks. They argue that activists’ inability to question the word’s meaning prevents them from confronting the deeper issue of continued colonialism. As a result, “The desire to reconcile [becomes] just as relentless as the desire to disappear the Native; it is a desire to not have to deal with this (Indian) problem anymore.” Tuck and Yang describe this phenomenon using the phrase “settler moves to innocence,” explained as “strategies or positionings that attempt to relieve the settler of feelings of guilt or responsibility without giving up land or power or privilege.”

One of the methods used in decolonization efforts is repatriation, which Professor Rebecca L. Bourgeois of the University of Alberta’s Anthropology department describes as the “the return of cultural heritage […] from institutions back to their communities.” This “return of cultural heritage” is a laborious, complex process that can simultaneously conjure dark histories just as much as cherished ancestral knowledge for Indigenous communities.

Recently, a few objects have been successfully repatriated. For example, in 2023, the Royal BC Museum repatriated a Nuxalk totem pole back to the Nuxalk Nation. The totem pole was carved by the great-grandfather of the Hereditary Chief Snuxyaltwa (Deric Snow) and has a deep sense of meaning to the Nuxalk Nation. In a quote given to The Canadian Press, a Nuxalk member said “Our history is embedded in these poles, a great history, and when they’re taken, it’s almost as if it’s like our children were taken.”

“Rematriation” has also been raised as an alternative to the word “repatriation” in academic discourse to challenge colonial institutions such as heteropatriarchy. This term highlights the various considerations needed to be made during this return of artifacts. It also demonstrates how this process can look different to every Indigenous culture as each one has different protocols and traditions that need to be respected.

In exploring the nuances of the language surrounding decolonization, the Daily doesn’t claim to know exactly what reconciliation, repatriation, rematriation, or even decolonization itself should look like. As a publication on unceded land with an editorial board of non-Indigenous students the best we can do is to take a step back and ask ourselves: “How can we try to be more conscious of our word usage?”

If you are a non-Indigenous person reading this editorial, we ask you to do the same. Take a step back and question your place on Turtle Island. Read articles and discourse on Indigenous issues, keep up to date with local demonstrations, and draw informed conclusions. Below we have listed the scholarly sources that made up the argument of this article, and we urge you to look further.

“Towards the ‘tangible unknown’”: Decolonization and the
Indigenous future” by Aman Sium, Chandni Desai, and Eric
Ritskes

“Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck, State
University of New York at New Paltz, and K. Wayne Yang,
University of California, San Diego

“Rematriation: Ts’msyen Law, Rights of Relationality, and
Protocols of Return” by Robin R. R. Gray

“Reconceptualizing Repatriation as the Power to Decide” by
Rebecca L. Bourgeois, Kisha Supernant, and Neha Gupta

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Health First!

2026-10-05T17:19:34Z

Content warning: mention of eating disorders

When life gets busy, our physical well-being is the first thing we sacrifice. This problem is the unfortunate reality for many university students. The transition into post-secondary life is a unique circumstance for many of us: acclimating to new responsibilities, increased independence, living alone, a greater courseload…all at once. In the wake of these new and immediate pressures, we usually put our physical health on the backburner. Pulling all-nighters, hours working at a computer screen, and neglecting nutrition are all commonplace — especially at a competitive university like McGill, where we’ve glorified destructive habits and reframed them as necessary sacrifices for academic success.

The effects of these habits on our health are yet to be seen. We’re young, we’re adaptable, we tell ourselves that we can afford to miss a night of sleep — this assignment is just too important! That is exactly the problem: whereas schoolwork yields short-term results, our lifestyle choices can have detrimental effects on our long-term health despite having little consequence in our current day-to day lives.

Sleep debt, for example, is particularly acute among university students. A study found that many university students in North America report struggling to get enough sleep. McGill is no exception — all- nighters are all-too common. In fact, irregular and insufficient sleep is so normalized that the university itself keeps its libraries open 24 hours a day during exam periods. While this is ostensibly to support students struggling through exam prep, it also turns a blind eye to the irreparable damage round-the- clock studying can have on students’ bodies and brain development.

Indeed, neglecting sleep has far worse consequences than we often assume. In the short-term, muscle repair slows and the immune system weakens, making us more susceptible to all sorts of disease, sickness, and injury. In the long-term, sustained sleep deprivation is positively correlated with all-cause mortality, stroke, disease, and a plethora of other somatic diseases and conditions. Just because sleep deprivation is normalized doesn’t mean it’s natural or inevitable. We should find it alarming that we are ready to sacrifice something so fundamental for the sake of productivity.

Similarly, our neglect of proper nutrition is disturbing. Disordered eating patterns emerge in times of high stress; students cite a lack of motivation to cook and a perceived lack of time during exam periods as reasons to resort to ordering expensive take-out, or skipping meals altogether. Food options from cafes, fast food restaurants, or convenience stores can be a quick-fix to fit a meal into a tight schedule. However, when we develop a dependency on these options, we become passive consumers of food rather than active decision-makers in our nutritional habits. Relying on these makeshift meals makes it difficult to develop sustainable and financially responsible habits surrounding food down the line. While McGill has a selection of affordable food on campus, such as SSMU’s free lunch, the majority of their food services include cafes, restaurants, and convenience stores that can be unaffordable for students.

Another result of neglecting nutrition is the normalization of skipping meals and underfueling. This issue is especially pertinent for young women, a major university demographic, who are the most prone to disordered eating. In addition to the destructive mental health consequences, the physical effects of restrictive eating are devastating: higher risk of death, osteoporosis, and low mobility.

An inactive lifestyle exacerbates problems caused by irregular sleep and improper nutrition. Academic work is almost always done sitting behind a computer screen and often spans long periods of time. Although sedentary work doesn’t necessarily result in a completely sedentary lifestyle, students often organize their schedules and other commitments revolving around their academics. It is expected that all else — food, rest, and activity — will be readily sacrificed for one’s desired GPA.

We don’t just take part in these self-destructive habits; we take pride in them. Bragging about getting little to no sleep and eating next to nothing in order to commit to endless hours of schoolwork falsely assumes that when more sacrifices are made, we will be more successful. Meanwhile, eating well, sleeping enough, and making time for physical activity has time and time again proven to better academic performance.

Still, improving grades should not be the main objective of cultivating better habits; a happy and healthy life itself should be the goal. At McGill, once the semester ramps up, it seems like everyone is constantly struggling, tired, and overwhelmed; if you aren’t, then you are seen to “have it easy.” Of course university should still challenge students, but we need to shift academic culture away from glamorizing stress and an overbearing workload. This only leads students to pin success on over- exertion and neglecting their physical wellbeing.

If we want to protect ourselves in a world that prioritizes results over humans, we need to start taking care of ourselves. Eat a sandwich, drink water, take a nap, and go for a walk.

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Searching For a Third Space

2026-10-05T17:10:47Z

As we spend September eating hot dogs on the Lower Field and strolling Montreal’s pedestrianized streets, we experience a city very different from the one it becomes in the winter. In November, when temperatures drop sharply and the first snow hits the ground the entire population retreats indoors. Bike paths become snowbanks, sidewalks narrow, and streets become deserted.

Once the summer and fall festivities wind down, we realize how integral outdoor spaces are to Montreal’s social fabric. Throughout the summer, the city puts on some of its most notable free and low-cost events and activities: movie nights, music festivals, and splash pads in the park. These ‘third spaces,’ locations outside of the home and the workplace with low financial barriers to entry, serve as informal gathering places. Once activities shift indoors, however, spending often becomes central to participation.

With a thriving cafe culture and vibrant nightlife, social life during the Montreal winter hinges on purchasing coffee or drinks. Malls in Montreal’s famous “Underground City” further encourage pedestrians to spend their money indoors.

While nearly half of Canadians report the rising cost of living impacting their ability to afford day-to- day expenses, spending money has become necessary for participation in social life. For young people, going into a store ‘just to look’ is the new way of socializing indoors. Even without spending a dollar, using these spaces in this way centres social life around commercial activity rather than community.

Montreal has been called one of the best cities in the world to be a student. Yet finding the energy to prioritize social interactions is especially hard to do when the heavy winter snow and harsh winds make going outside so challenging. When your view alternates exclusively between the glow of your laptop screen and the barren, grey landscape outside, it can feel easier to stay indoors. If there are no free and easy means of socializing available, making the effort to see friends can feel exhausting. In the time of year when it is easiest to miss human connection, the lack of third spaces leaves us the most alone — an experience many of us are much too familiar with. That’s why third spaces are so important: they provide easily accessible means of seeing old friends and making new ones, and Montreal’s residents deserve more of them all year round.

Below you’ll find a list of financially accessible third spaces available to McGill students in Montreal. These spaces recognize that leisure is a right, not a commodity reserved for those who can afford it.

McGill affiliated:
SSMU Lounge (3480 Rue McTavish, Room 106-A)
QPIRG Alternative Library (3516 Av. du Parc)
Redpath Museum (859 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
James Square (3537 Rue University)

Non-McGill affiliated:
Co-op Bar Milton Parc (3714 Av. du Parc)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1380 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Le Frigo Vert (2238 Rue Guy)
Westmount Public Library (4574 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Esplanade Tranquille (1442 Rue Clarke)

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The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: The Impossible Woman

2026-10-03T22:08:56Z

Sigmund Freud once contended that “Where they love they do not desire and where they desire they cannot love,” ‘they’ referring to men. This framework describes a broader cultural dichotomy in which women are categorized based on whether they are worthy of love or desirable for sex. “Where they love,” outlines the Madonna: a pure, virtuous, and nurturing woman that society deems an ideal partner for men. Women with the qualities to be a wife or mother supposedly hold little sexual value and are limited solely to romantic relations. Conversely, “where they desire,” details the Whore: an overtly sexual, promiscuous, near-animalistic, woman. Women deemed part of the Whore category seemingly do not have the typical chaste traits of a wife or mother, hold very little romantic value, and are exclusively seen as sexual subjects. Within Freud’s Madonna-Whore theory, there is supposedly no flexibility. This rigid framework creates a narrative in which women must actively choose how they want to be perceived and furthermore, valued.

Although it was coined by Freud in the 20th century, the Madonna-Whore Complex is centuries old. One of the most notable historical references of it is in a painting from the 15th century CE titled “The Madonna of Humility with the Temptation of Eve.” An article by Brooke Brownlee, a clinical counselor, introduces the complex by dissecting this very painting. The composition shows Madonna, the Virgin Mary, nursing infant Jesus in her arms. She appears luminescent with a halo and is surrounded by archangels Gabriel and Michael as well as the martyr Saint George, an image of purity. Brownlee describes the Madonna, as “nurturing, motherly, and modest.” The arrangement itself is telling: below the Madonna, in the dark, a lustful and naked Eve dwells. Brownlee describes Eve as “using her naked body as a form of temptation, sexuality, and…[sin].” This is an overt example of the contrast between Madonna and Whore — the former is nurturing, while the latter is corrupting.

Another instance of the complex in history is outlined in historian Anna Clark’s book titled, Desire: A History of European Sexuality where she discusses gender roles in Ancient Greece. Clark breaks down the views of Apollodorus, an ancient Greek writer and scholar. Apollodorus described women’s roles as divided by function: mistresses for pleasure, concubines for care, and wives for legitimacy. However, Clark notes how a woman is never allowed to be all three.

These historical examples show how far back the complex stretches and therefore, how deeply rooted it is in society. While these patterns are often disguised in modern life, Apollodorus’ views surrounding women shows how blatant these ideas were in the past. The Madonna-Whore complex plays a subtler role now, but it systematically persists in the media we consume and therefore, the norms young girls learn to embody long before they learn to question them.

Children’s media embody the Madonna-Whore split in classic Disney films, where kids are introduced to the concept of heroes and villains. Princesses are often gentle, modest and innocent, while female villains are sometimes seductive, vain and sexual. A clear example of this is in The Little Mermaid, where the villain of the story, Ursula, with her dark lipstick and strapless, tight black dress reads as the evil seductress. Ariel, on the other hand, plays the Madonna. She is deserving of love and marries Eric in the end, while Ursula, the Whore, dies. This shows how deeply ingrained the Madonna-Whore Complex is in children’s media, working to socialize them into this fixed structure.

If we turn to pop culture, female celebrities are often forced into binary public images surrounding their sexuality. Britney Spears is a classic example of this. Spears started her career with her debut album and song “…Baby One More Time.” This album was followed by her hit music video where Spears plays the character of a Catholic schoolgirl. The character’s image was promoted as an innocent Madonna, with an emphasis on her virginity. However, the discourse surrounding Spears’ body had already categorized her as the Whore. As argued by Emma Spector in a Vogue article, Spears’ virginity was scrutinized by hungry fans, nosey journalists and news outlets. While the public so desperately wanted insight into Spear’s sexuality, they became outraged once Spears began to embrace it in her later music such as in her sensual single, “I’m a Slave 4 U.” Other cultural observers further argued that “If Britney had been more conservative, she would have been probed and prodded by hungry vultures, but when she confidently embraced her femininity, the crowd wanted her head.” Ultimately, Spears’ experience exposes the fundamental contradiction of the Madonna-Whore complex: women are condemned whether they embody purity or embrace their sexuality. There is no acceptable category for a woman to occupy, only different ways to punish her for failing to conform.

These examples boil down to a single message: before a girl has even begun to understand her own sexual identity, it could have already been moulded by the harsh dichotomy of a reality in which women hardly ever “win.” Although these examples are not all-encompassing of the pressures a young girl may feel to submit to the duality, she may first experience the jarring nature of the split in stories she consumes in childhood, where the gentle princess is rewarded and the glamorous villain destroyed. As she develops, she will further understand how this split functions in the real world, she watches it play out in public where a woman like Britney Spears is both scrutinized as the Madonna and condemned as the Whore.

What is the tangible cost of the Madonna-Whore framework? Research suggests that many women internalize it, meaning they adopt the judgments passed on them as their own, often resulting in shame irrespective of the Madonna or the Whore category. For the Madonna, the cost of the framework regards her own pleasure. A study shows that women who most often endorse the dichotomy rated their partner as more entitled to sexual pleasure than themselves. This sexual shame can be inherent for the Madonna, as she is valued for her purity and maternal nature and thus may never be fully sexually gratified. On the other hand, the Whore experiences sexual shame through her objectification. For her, the cost is being treated as a body and nothing more. In another study, researchers examined 160 couples and found that women’s self-objectification predicted greater sexual emotional labour partnered with lower orgasm rates. This shows that when a woman learns to see herself as an object for pleasing others, she may focus solely on how her sexuality serves a partner and entirely overlook herself.

The effects of sexual shame are not isolated to a woman’s sex life. Vladimir Hedrih, a professor in psychology at the University of Niš, claims that sexual shame in women “can manifest as a negative body image, difficulty discussing sexual desires, or avoidance of sexual experiences due to a fear of judgment.” This is particularly significant since sexuality shapes how we experience emotional and physical attraction, how we connect with our community and understand our own feelings. In a broader scope, it is a core facet of identity. For some women, being disconnected from one’s sexuality through shame can create fractures in one’s own identity.

So if the Madonna-Whore Complex is so deeply ingrained in society, how do we move forward? What does that entail? The Madonna is both rewarded and restricted by purity; while the Whore has sexual freedom, yet is reduced to her sexuality. Maybe the deconstruction of this double bind begins in realizing that the Madonna and the Whore are not all that different. What may appear to be two opposing classifications actually follow the same pattern: society’s constraint of a woman’s sexuality. The view of women should not have to be confined to the limits of choice between these reductive patriarchal models; she can want to be both or to be neither. She can change her mind while exploring her sexual identity, even understanding it differently over time. In other words, women should have the freedom to determine their own relationship with their sexuality on their own terms — without having to sacrifice one form of worth to gain another.

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Shawarm-off!

2026-10-07T01:20:29Z

Whether you’re a first-year or a weary senior, you’ll likely have a cursory understanding of the food options on and around campus.

Chief among them is Chef On Call, fast food gone fine dining, but only in price. During Frosh this will serve you well. Very quickly though, you’ll realize that Chef prices are brutally unsustainable. You’ll go further afield, to Alto, or Poke Monster, maybe Poulet Rouge if you’ve got taste. But even those costs will start to add up, and finally, half-starved, you’ll stumble into a Montreal specialty: a shawarma shop, and you’ll realize that reasonably priced protein does exist in this city.

Welcome to Boustan, Shawarmania and Farrouj Express, among others. These will be, if Chef On Call hubris doesn’t consume you, the bastions of your McGill career. More than just being pragmatic options for your wallet, these places are delicious. Try a chicken shawarma, sided by potatoes with garlic sauce at Shawarmania, as a library study break one evening. Flavourful and filling. Be warned though, gum is a requirement if you’re going back to studying (in public) afterwards.

An easy way to tell that these places are great is that they’re growing. Leading the pack is Boustan, a Montreal institution expanding into the US with locations in Florida and New Jersey and more on the way. Boustan has numerous locations near campus, differing both in their design language and (I find) in taste. New locations now have a corporate sheen that is reflected in the food as well, which is somehow less smoky and less fresh. It’s still pretty good. If you’re looking for what I’d consider the best Boust in the city, you have to go to their original location, on Crescent. It’s a small shop compared to newer locations, but it feels larger in spirit. It’s lovingly adorned with photos of politicians and athletes who dined there in days of yore, and its shawarma remains smoky and fresh in a way that brings you back to those days. This may still be set to change: Emad Saad, the current ruler of the Boustan empire, isn’t today looking to slow down anytime soon, and has recently initiated a major corporate rebrand.

If you’re looking for an up-and-comer that’s gone vertical in the past two years, look east from McLennan and see Shawarmania. It’s a family operation, opened in 2024, that is fresher and more full of vegetables than Boustan. It’s more of a meal and less of a treat. Nowadays, there’ll often be a line, but fear not, it moves quick. In the winter, the double doors open to allow in customers, and with them, a glacial breeze — something loyal Shawarmaniacs will know and appreciate to be worth it.

If you’re looking for an under-the-radar classic, see Farrouj Express. A great pick for students living in New Residence and Metro shoppers alike, it’s fresh and unique in flavour (somehow sweet?). It’s also underground, literally and figuratively. Along with great food, the proprietors offer exceptional community. After only a few times eating there, I was a regular, my name and order memorized.

Don’t take the occasional lines and US expansions as signs of an industry without woes, however. Growing industries are cutthroat, and Big Shawarma is no exception. A friend of mine and fellow industry speculator put it aptly: “It’s tough out there, eat or be eaten right now. In an industry like [shawarma], mistakes mean shuttered doors and boarded windows.” Well said.

The best example of this is the sad demise of Basha, once a darling of the shawarma space. With an outpost just a block from New Residence and a stone’s throw away from the McGill Ghetto, Basha had a clear future. It offered a nearly unbeatable trio deal (shawarma, potatoes beverage) at $9.99. Despite basement-low prices (or perhaps because of them) this Basha now sits empty, not even two years after its One Card-fuelled heyday. Its sign, still visible, serves as a vestige of a simpler time. Basha’s second location near campus, on Sherbrooke, is also shuttered. At this location, there’s no evidence that a Basha ever existed. Its walls have been repainted, its tables redone, now with more glamour. Boustan had arrived.

Zooming out, shawarma in Montreal is special for a few reasons (taste, and variety of choice in every neighbourhood, important among them) but mainly because of how neatly it represents a city that we students all too often see as McGill or not. Shawarma itself (from the Turkish word çevirme, for turning) is an evolution of the Turkish döner, which spread across the Levant in the 1800s. This diaspora, which is particularly concentrated within Canada in Montreal (the city contains more than a third of the country’s Arab population) has brought the practice of shawarma with them. As a senior at McGill, I’ve taken the time recently to open my eyes to the city at large. While doing so, I have been struck by an appreciation for its diversity across languages and customs, and its depth of cultural blending. Shawarma is the paragon of this.

As the city grows colder and more forbidding, look local and find warmth in shawarma. The proprietor will ask if you like it spicy, and if you’d like a drink. Regardless of your answer, you’ll be home.

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I Couldn’t Wait for the Summer and the Warped Tour

2026-10-03T22:45:10Z

There was something special about this past summer in Montreal. The energy of the city was palpable, and the city’s well-established festival scene managed to draw on a rejuvenated Montreal crowd by pulling record numbers of attendees. But none drummed up the nostalgia and united subcultures quite as much as one in particular — the Vans Warped Tour.

Following a 12-year hiatus from Montreal, the Vans Warped Tour returned in full force this past summer as part of a limited run of shows celebrating its 30th anniversary. Founded by music promoter Kevin Lyman, the festival toured nonstop from its inception in 1995 up until 2019, establishing itself as the longest-running travelling music festival in North America and the epicenter for pop-punk, punk rock, and ska culture. To understand how the Warped Tour became a defining fixture of alternative music, we have to look back at the acts, stories, and unique quirks that gave the tour its legendary status.

“A freak show takes the stage”

To look at the Warped Tour through the same lens as other well-established music festivals would be a grave misunderstanding. Tickets are cheap. The tour does not have any official headliners. Lineups are a mix between well-established names within each sub-genre alongside a number of up-and-coming acts, who you can often catch hanging out at their on-site merchandise tents. Set times are announced the day of the show and are posted on an inflatable billboard at the venue.

For those on tour, days were long and sets were short. Bands quickly packed their equipment into cramped vans before rushing off to the next stop as soon as their sets ended. Well-established and mid-sized bands often took smaller paychecks in exchange for the opportunity to stay on tour while some lesser-known bands would cover their own expenses by renting out their unused bus bunks to food an merchandise vendors.

Up-and-coming bands were eager to join in on the action — prompting Lyman, in 1998, to create the longstanding tradition known as the “BBQ Band.” In essence, the BBQ Band was a lesser-known artist or band who, in exchange for a thirty minute set time, would have to buy and cook food for the bands, stage workers, and sponsors.

To put it bluntly: touring was chaotic. Musicians were young, energetic and non-conformist. In its infancy, the Warped Tour may have looked like a travelling musical circus barely scraping by. But in reality, the seeds for an explosion of counterculture had been planted, and no one was more aware of this than the bands who took its stages. The prospect of superstardom was close — and they knew it.

“Maybe it’s not my weekend / But it’s gonna be my year”

The Warped Tour helped launch a number of musical acts into the mainstream consciousness while also benefitting from a time when punk and pop-punk albums were flying off the shelves.

Sublime, who headlined the Tour’s 1995 debut, went from being a club-playing ska-punk band in Long Beach, California to a major international success thanks in part to Warped and their 1996 self-titled album which spent 179 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart. From getting kicked off the tour when the band’s mascot dalmatian, Lou Dog, bit multiple people, to the death of lead singer and guitarist Bradley Nowell just months before the release of their most commercially successful album, the star-crossed icons embodied the madness that was early Warped.

Blink-182 was another band who found themselves at the centre of mainstream success while being a staple of the tour. Having been introduced to Lyman by Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge in 1996, the young, crude and remarkably talented group went from being a lesser-known skate punk band playing in their underwear to pioneers of the pop-punk genre, selling over 50 million records worldwide.

“We’re the somber media darlings”

Ultimately, though, what made Warped such an effective springboard to mainstream success for so many bands wasn’t just the exposure it offered — it was its ability to unite different subcultures into a wave of anti-conformist culture.

We’ve come a long way from shows being overrun by agents of chaos inciting havoc on and off the stage. But the ethos remains the same. Today’s shows bring together young talent, like the Paradox, with renowned veterans, like Sublime, now led by Nowell’s son Jakob. Together, they channel the same angst, rage and, rebellion that made the Warped Tour the celebratory cultural scene it is today.

What makes the Warped Tour so special is not a claim to understand everyone in a world of people longing for acceptance. Instead, the tour’s magic rests in showing concertgoers just how much conformity the mainstream demands — and giving them the freedom to say, “fuck that.”

The post I Couldn’t Wait for the Summer and the Warped Tour appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Theatre Sainte-Catherine: Improv, Workshops, and Comedy as Medicine

2026-10-03T23:02:52Z

Upon walking into Theatre Sainte-Catherine (TSC) you may see one of the following: a workshop, young professionals working, a gorilla costume, a punk rock band, or a man blowing a conch on stage in an angel costume. You may walk into a quiet environment, or a chaotic one. You may recognize a guy on stage from a dumb reel on your explore page.

Personally, I was met by dim ambient lights punctuated by small chatter and the whoosh of drinks being poured when I walked into TSC this summer for my first shift as an intern. It was the second night of Montreal Sketchfest.

Montreal Sketchfest is a two-week-long run of sketch comedy troupes from all over the country, run by TSC’s in-house non-profit called Le Nouveau International. It features Francophone nights, afterparties, and a best-of-the-fest finale in which the funniest, most charming groups take home like the “Best Local Troupe.” 2027 will be the 20th year of Montreal Sketchfest, representing Montreal’s longstanding commitment to comedic innovation and indie theatre.

At my first shift working Montreal Sketchfest, I had no idea what was going on. There were people in funny costumes, dancing crotch-forward, infamous “your mom” jokes, and actors pretending to be weird bouncers — just about anything you could think of.

But it worked. From my seat at the back of the theatre, I was laughing. I was laughing at how ridiculous some of the scenes were but also, how true they rang.

Comedy offers a unique social critique. It humorizes real-life situations and reproduces them through a lens of joy while simultaneously calling attention to society’s flaws.

In one of Key & Peele’s most iconic sketches, Obama Presidential Handshake, Peele plays “Obama,” greeting a crowd of citizens. As he shakes the hands of white supporters, he maintains a rigid posture, a calm voice, and polite remarks. However, once a Black supporter steps in, his entire demeanour changes from one of polite formality to informal familiarity as “Obama” daps the supporter up. The changes become more absurd as he shifts among people of varying race and gender. In exaggerating the contrasts between “Obama”‘s different reactions, Key & Peele satirize the social dynamics and unique pressures faced by Black public figures to cater to all social demographics, drastically switching from persona to persona. They show codeswitching as the navigation between two worlds. Through sketch comedy, artists are able to call attention to and critique true issues they may face.

Cathy Hong Park, author of Minor Feelings, acknowledges this truth, writing in her essay “Stand-Up.” She notes that “[t]here was a transparency to comedy that [she] wasn’t finding in poetry.” Comedy is
blunt and refreshingly honest, which is exactly why it can be transformative.

Kristina Gueverra, creative director at TSC, says in an interview with the Daily, “Comedy is important because it is revolutionary. In order to integrate joy in your life amongst this capitalist, white-supremacist patriarchy, we need to make intentional and conscious efforts to be happy sometimes. Healing is laughing. Comedy is medicine.”

Zooming out of Montreal Sketchfest, TSC boasts the longest running improv show on Sundays with a free workshop and $10 show. As an intern, I created graphics highlighting the entourage of artists, which consisted of both emerging and established Montreal comedians, cast in the weekly show.

TSC as an organization is a bilingual theatre for plays, comedies, music, and films. It is a true representation of indie theatre: local and run by people, for the people. In addition to Sunday Night Improv, it also hosts a free French improv workshop and show on Mondays called “Les Lundis.” By day, TSC is also a cafe with an ever-expanding menu of pastries, and a new visual artist highlighted on its walls.

“I love that [the improv show] empowers not only people who are seasoned [professionals] but also emerging artists … We have people coming back all the time. There’s so much history in these walls, within these bricks,” says Gueverra.

In addition to hosting these open-to-all workshops and shows, TSC provides some of the cheapest rental prices among venues in Montreal, making its space easily accessible for artists to produce shows. There aren’t any “big barriers,” as Gueverra puts it. If you have an idea, you can see it through.

“TSC is such a good representation of Montreal. It’s not just one thing,” Gueverra says before describing the Theatre’s diverse set of programming. I saw first-hand exactly what she was talking about: booking requests from punk bands, small comedy troupes, international stand-up stars, and even a guy who wanted to do a live comedy talk show requiring lottery tickets to enter.

Within a narrow, three-floored building on Sainte-Catherine, TSC demonstrates how art isn’t simply about fancy exhibitions or a critical acclaim — but the act of creating from the ground up.

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“McGill is a Gravesite”: Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera Hold Vigil for Indigenous Children

2026-10-04T13:44:31Z

Mohawk Mothers organize to honour the children allegedly buried on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute and former Royal Victoria Hospital

Four years ago, McGill announced that it would begin the first stage of underground investigation on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). Sustainability Park, formerly called the New Vic Project, was described by provost, Christopher Manfredi, as “the most significant project our university has undertaken since its inception.” The Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) is responsible for the entire site, and has been working with McGill on the project since the site was vacated in 2015.

However, the project has been stalled by fierce resistance and battles in court. The Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera, also known as the Mohawk Mothers, allege that the site holds unmarked graves of Indigenous children. The Indigenous solidarity collective has been fighting the construction since it was proposed, arguing that McGill continues to deny and infringe on the group’s right to investigate those responsible for abuses against Indigenous peoples. “We deserve the opportunity to honour our loved ones and grieve them properly,” the Kahnistensera write on their website.

The group is also committed to searching the grounds for undiscovered evidence related to the CIA’s MK- ULTRA medical program, a series of illegal psychiatric experiments conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 under Dr. Donald Ewan. Victims were given drugs and psychologically tortured for the purposes of manipulating the psyche: speakers at the vigil detailed the program’s use of electroshock therapy to erase victims’ memories and the ubsequent use of “psychic drilling” to reprogram the mind. Activist and Kanien’kehá:ka nation member, Kahentinetha Horn, described the experiments as “sheer scientific cruelty,

The Kahnistensera held their first vigil behind the Allan Memorial Institute on May 23, 2025. The event serves as a way to hold space for ancestors, says organizer CJ, as an answer to the questions of how we can educate and commemorate the site. They held 12 vigils throughout the summer of 2025, and returned Friday, Palestine to North America, known as Turtle Island by many of the continent’s Indigenous peoples. “The same thing is happening in many different places,” a participant shared on the “present-day perpetuation of colonialism” that the Kahnistensera describe.

Horn described the series of vigils as an invitation to pay homage to the people who may be buried there. The vigil began behind the Allan Memorial Institute next to the Morgan pool, which was constructed at the height of the MK-ULTRA experiments. “You can’t just take children and throw them in a mass grave and cover them up,” Horn said during the vigil. She expressed that the vigils are part of the responsibility to take care of those children. “When we’ve completed our mission here, we will come back and have a closing ceremony for them,” she promised.

The general sentiment of the vigil was that non-Indigenous residents in Montreal, known as Tiohtià:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka, are living on stolen Indigenous land. “This whole island of Montreal is Mohawk,” Horn stated. “This land is Mohawk land. [Tkaronto] is Mohawk land too. Ontario is a Mohawk name.” She reiterated that McGill is built on Mohawk land, echoing the Kahnistensera’s statement that “McGill is a gravesite,” and that “it’s all built on blood,” as written in their handout. “I linked to the Residential School System, and that many members of our campus and broader community are deeply impacted by this. Hence, in the spirit of reconciliation, McGill’s work with the SQI is and will always be grounded in caution, and will involve ongoing conversation with local traditional and elected Indigenous leaders.”

The legal battle between McGill and the Kahnistensera has been long and ongoing. In March 2022, the Kahnistensera filed a lawsuit against McGill and the SQI alleging that the former hospital grounds contain unmarked gravesites. An October 2022 court decision from the Superior Court of Quebec granted the Kahnistensera with an injunction that halted development until a proper archaeological investigation could be conducted. Both parties agreed to appoint a panel of three archaeologists, which was mandated to assess and identify the archaeological techniques to be used on the site for the detection of human remains and unmarked graves.

“McGill is destroying evidence and making it harder for people to find their lost family members as we speak,” the @takebacktekanonontak Instagram account, dedicated to solidarity with the Kahnistensera, wrote in a March 2024 post. “McGill is continuing construction regardless of the damage it could cause to those searching for their lost family members and to those wishing to find more evidence regarding the CIA’s MK-ULTRA medical program.”

Nonetheless, McGill maintains that there are no human remains on the site. They deny that Historic Human Remains Detection Dogs (HHRDD) detected remains, and claim that the bone fragments found during the investigation are from animals and hold “no relation to or indication of clandestine human burial.” During a tour of the site at the vigil, the Kahnistensera claimed that many of the fragments were too small to identify, and that the university never performed the lab analysis that they claimed to have conducted. They write in a flyer that several pieces of evidence of human remains have been found, and that McGill, Quebec, and the SQI refuse to respect forensic practices. In the Instagram post advertising the vigil, @takebacktekanontak lists the “results of three remote-sending technologies” used near the Morgan pool, confirmed by Askîhk Research Services (run by the SQI) as “three separate lines of evidence supporting the presence of human remains.” These include ground penetrating radar (GPR), HHRDD, and “subterra grey probe, [which identifies] burials by detecting fatty acids resulting from soft tissue decomposition and changes in soil compactness from digging burial shafts.”

The overall cost of the project, including planning, restoring, and construction, is projected to be 870 million dollars. Amid budget cuts over the past two years, the university has described the Sustainable Park project as “a top priority for McGill…[that] will continue.” “Where is this money coming from?” the Kahnistensera asks. “Where is your tuition going? What are you paying for?”

McGill writes that the allegations that there may be unmarked graves on the RVH site are currently being investigated. “They just don’t know what to do, because we can’t stop,” stated Horn. “We have our duty, we’re not going to stop, we’ll never stop.”

The post “McGill is a Gravesite”: Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera Hold Vigil for Indigenous Children appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Did the Journal Factory Explode?

2026-10-05T21:50:15Z

Have you ever opened TikTok one morning and somehow ended up 16 parts deep into the story of a stranger’s divorce? Before you even know it, you’re able to recount every detail about her husband’s drug addiction and his crazy mother. Yet you haven’t actually ever met the woman, and chances are, you never will. Still, somehow, you become personally invested in this stranger’s story. From a 50-part series on an evil ex-husband to public friendship feuds where they “bring the receipts,” sharing personal stories via social media has become a prominent component of internet culture. However, somewhere along the way, we forgot that some more extreme stories are just meant to be shared among our personal circle. What began as a way to connect with others and find community has evolved into a toxic online environment that encourages the public display of private experiences, not only unsolicitedly exposing viewers to strangers’ trauma but also shaping the ways that we understand privacy.

But why does oversharing even happen? For starters, it can feel good to vent your problems on the internet, as it offers almost instant validation or advice from others. Often, it can even feel easier to share personal stories on social media, as there is a sense of anonymity behind usernames and online profiles that can erase the expectation to meet certain social boundaries. You don’t have to look your audience in the eyes when telling the story, they don’t need to know your history, and you can more easily manipulate your story to generate greater sympathy. As hundreds of likes, comments, and messages flood in, the poster can begin to feel seen by an online community, replacing the support and relatability that may be missing from their personal lives.

Further, the crazier the story, the more likely it is to go viral, which can add to creators’ desire to share wild — and often very personal — life events. In addition to receiving validation from strangers online, there are algorithmic motivations involved with sharing stories with high shock value. For those posting these stories, receiving a higher amount of views can come with the ability to monetize content and get brand deals. On the other hand, social media algorithms keep track of what videos get engagement, and push this kind of content onto more and more feeds. Put simply, sometimes a person will share their story online and receive attention that piles on as the algorithm continues to promote it. Hence, they feel validated and continue to share more. Encouraged by their favorable algorithmic engagement, the people who share these deeply personal stories can turn them into a
series, or in severe cases, their brand. One would no longer simply post to help themselves process complex feelings or life events, but to perform for an audience who will engage with their media.

In a viral series titled “Who Tf Did I Marry,” user Reesa Teesa amassed over 500 million views within three days by sharing her experience while married to a pathological liar. As her story gained traction, the videos began to end on cliffhangers and her retelling of her past trauma began to resemble an episodic entertainment series. Furthermore, her favorable engagement granted her “influencer status” that secured her brand deals and monetization with merchandise containing catchphrases from the series like “I Survived Legion.” Her journey illustrates how social media storytimes can transform deep personal trauma into a commercialized performance and personal brand.

Creators aren’t the only ones contributing to a culture of online oversharing. As viewers, we want creators to “drop the receipts”: get into the nitty-gritty details of their personal lives and provide evidence for them through screenshots of chats, photographs, and so on. As consumers we comment, share, demand updates, speculate, and choose sides. In this way, viewers contribute to an online culture of oversharing by rewarding and encouraging over-vulnerability online simply by engaging with it.

So what? How does oversharing affect both creators and consumers of social media, and what kind of repercussions can come from such extreme vulnerability? For one, excessive disclosure of personal information and experiences can negatively impact the way we view ourselves and the ways that our peers — both online and in real life — perceive us. By posting about traumas and personal experiences for the world to see, we expose ourselves to the judgment of complete strangers. While supportive comments can help us feel seen and heard, they also might condition us to measure the value of our experiences in proportion to other people’s reactions. Over time, it can become easy to associate receiving attention online with the way we are supposed to process deeply personal events and their significance. What is so dangerous about the externalization of self-worth and personal experiences is that vulnerability can feel rewarding when an audience responds positively and disappointing when they do not. This affects our abilities to autonomously discern what is important to us, as we rely more and more on the opinions of strangers to make choices and interpret feelings that ultimately affect us and not them. The more we overshare, the harder it becomes to separate how we feel toward an issue or life event and what we have learned will receive online attention.

Meanwhile, as viewers spend hours consuming other people’s family conflicts and relationship struggles, we become increasingly comfortable treating private experiences as entertainment. Someone’s worst trauma can become just another piece of content to scroll through, desensitizing us to serious topics and life experiences. Furthermore, constantly concerning ourselves with other people’s difficulties can create emotional exhaustion. If our feeds are consumed by recounts of mental health struggles and familial betrayals, we may start to be psychologically affected by experiences that aren’t even ours. Finally, constant exposure to intimate personal details pushes oversharing to become a normal expectation for everyone. This blurring of privacy lines makes us feel entitled to know intimate details from others, both online and in real life. This can strain relationships and harm our understanding of what is meant to be shared and what is not.

But what if you just really enjoy scrolling and posting on social media? While it’s not very realistic to delete all our socials these days (though it is possible with enough determination), we can still implement small strategies into our daily scrolling and posting. Before posting something particularly personal, think twice about whether you are simply seeking validation or actually wanting to share something valuable. Even consumers of social media content can take steps to cultivate a healthier online environment through altering their engagement habits. Engaging selectively allows us to flag oversharing content and disengage from content that feels too personal for social media. In doing so on a large scale, we can teach our algorithms that oversharing doesn’t have to be such a critical component of online entertainment. Lastly, if there is something you desperately want to vent about, maybe consider getting a journal instead of smashing that post button. Not every experience needs a vast audience, and some things are best kept between you, your friends, and a good old-fashioned diary.

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Tex Crick: Indie Through and Through

2026-10-04T20:53:59Z

“It’s definitely been hard being in front of a camera. Even doing this interview is difficult,” Tex Crick remarked to Radio TinTin during his Montreal tour stop with Canada’s indie giant, Mac DeMarco. Soaring to success as an internationally touring musician after signing with Mac DeMarco, Crick offered Radio TinTin a look at how he balances fame with authentic artistic expression.

On December 7, 2025, Crick opened for DeMarco at MTELUS. While such a gig is a remarkable achievement, the significance of this feat seemed to be lost on much of the crowd. Crick noted that while performing his opening set, “the crowd seem[ed] to talk a lot over us,” a distraction which he contrasted with his band’s “very quiet, chill music.”

Crick’s musical language consists of buttery piano licks, introspective lyrics, and measured pacing. He makes music perfect for curling up with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. While he doesn’t exactly make moshing music, one would still expect a greater level of respect from the audience, especially from DeMarco’s fans of lo-fi music. Crick even remarked, “[The crowd talking over us did] make me want to write music that people want to dance to.” Nevertheless, his authenticity ultimately shines through, finally settling on the fact that “[he] still want[s] to write chill music.”

This self-assurance has followed Crick throughout his musical career. Crick grew up in Coledale, a small coastal village in Australia’s New South Wales. “When you grow up in a small town,” Crick muses, “everything seems so much grander… you work hard and dream big.” Eventually, those big dreams became reality for Crick. The singer-songwriter had his first taste of musical success right after graduating high school in 2012, when he toured with Australian pop-rock artist, Kirin J. Callinan, as a backing keyboardist and bassist. While on tour, Crick met DeMarco, and the two eventually became close friends after multiple run-ins at stops in the US and Australia. While Crick would send his recordings to DeMarco expecting nothing in return, DeMarco would offer to mix these recordings in his own studio, polishing them for Crick’s sophomore album, Live… In New York City, released in early 2021.

Crick wrote the cozy pop piano album as an ode to day- to-day life in the city, while he trained as a piano repair apprentice. In fact, he recorded the album using the very piano he dragged off the street and repaired himself. In signature Crick style, he mixed it on an vintage eight-track tape player, not owning a computer at the time. Despite being a major milestone in his career, being that this was his first album released under ‘Mac’s Record Label,’ Crick remained humble when discussing the project. “I hadn’t really ever sung — no one in my family knew I [could]. I kind of just recorded the album to see if I could do it.”

Crick’s stripped-back style followed him into Droplet, his most recent project: a mellow album filled with 27 short, delicate piano grooves and instrumentals. Despite its playfulness and dreamy melodies, audiences weren’t as supportive. The album received a 58/100 rating by audiences on Album of the Year, whereas Live… In New York City received a 77/100. He released it while riding the wave of fame that came with signing with Mac and his successful 2023 complete album release, Sweet Dreamin’, so audiences seemed to have been expecting more. Crick described how “It got some weird reviews because people expected it to be Tex’s new album, but to me, this is a fun little soundtrack I did on the side, all recorded on one keyboard. It’s all very simple and raw.”

Just like any other art piece, music is another form of self-expression. Through deliberate technical choices in instrumentation and structure, the artist is able to communicate what they want to express at that moment — a feeling, a thought, an idea. There are no boundaries to what the right kind of music can or should look like: artists can produce atmospheric vocal albums like Live… in New York City or they can also create fun and playful instrumental projects like Droplet.

Crick’s experimentation with the role music plays as an artistic vehicle has incurred less-than-savoury reactions, via critics and audience reactions on tour alike. Yet, many forget that pieces such as these can serve a purpose outside of just instant gratification. Crick hopes that his music can serve as a source of comfort to listeners above all else: “[When listening to my music,] I hope listeners can relax and forget about the stress in their lives. Just enjoy the music.”

Crick’s work reminds us that an artist’s ability to remain authentic in the face of criticism or apathy is of the utmost importance. His musical quirks are precisely what makes him so charming. It’s this timeless quality that comes about because he’s “really terrible at keeping in touch with new music,” that is actually a strength of his rather than a weakness.

Perhaps the audio clips of the bustle of the streets of Manhattan and the clinking of glasses at a classic New York bar featured in Live… In New York City aren’t designed for a live audience performance, but they immerse you in a moment and feeling that you can’t escape while listening. So while Crick’s stripped-back production may sound unpolished to the general public, its raw flair is precisely what makes his work so fresh in a music scene saturated with ultra-polished production.

Radio TinTin

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Student Start-Up Provides Free Healthcare Resources for McGill Students

2026-10-04T23:18:16Z

Good People is a bi-weekly article series highlighting McGill students doing community-oriented work on and around campus — because it’ s important to celebrate good people doing good things.

It happens to the best of us: a neglected sleep schedule, long hours at the library, or too many house parties can quickly turn a stubborn cold into a serious health risk. In the face of a medical scare, it can be challenging to know where or how to access care, especially for international or out-of- province students.

That’s where HeyDoc comes in. Launched on July 31, 2026, HeyDoc is a free online resource built to guide students through Montreal’s healthcare system. In partnership with GTR Santé, a Quebec-based private healthcare network, HeyDoc’s “speak-with-a-practitioner” function allows students to text or call nurses in real time.

The Daily spoke with co-founders Ella Durno and Shoshana Iny, fourth-year McGill students studying General Management and International Development respectively. We talked about the sources of strain on Quebec’s healthcare system, the importance of accessible and affordable care, and how empathy can change people’s lives for the better.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): I want to start with the basics. Imagine you’re at a house party and a student asks you about HeyDoc. How would you describe it to them?

Shoshana Iny (SI): We’re a startup to help students access care as easily as possible, especially for out- of-province or international students. We both have recognized the difficulties trying to access free, same- day healthcare in Quebec. That’s our goal — just to help as many students as possible.

Ella Durno (ED): I would paraphrase it as their Montreal healthcare concierge. It’s a healthcare … one-stop shop to help navigate the system, no matter their background, their language, their insurance coverage, their age, or gender identity. On top of that, we have an opportunity for them to speak with nurses directly, because sometimes it’s a lot easier and more comfortable to speak to a real human.

MD: Why did you start HeyDoc? What prompted the idea?

SI: We initially became friends through the Integrated Management Student Fellowship (IMSF), which is a year-long program through the Desautels Faculty of Management that brings together students from a variety of faculties who are broadly interested in social impact and positive change-making.

As a part of the fellowship, you have to create a sustainable startup related to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We came up with the idea of wanting to be aligned to SDG 3, which is good health and well-being.

Ella and I built on that vision. We reflected on our own experiences as out-of- province students who have really struggled when … [accessing] different kinds of healthcare in Quebec. And we realized that there would be a real opportunity to help students in Quebec access healthcare more easily. That was when HeyDoc was born.

ED: Coming to a new city and a new province, it can be so overwhelming for so many reasons. When it comes to healthcare, that’s just another thing that you don’t know how to navigate.

MD: You already touched on this a bit, but can you describe your observations about challenges when it comes to access to healthcare among McGill students more broadly?

SI: Looking more broadly at the system, some of the current pain points that we identified during our research is a huge lack of family doctors in Quebec. International student population aside, even people that are already living here are struggling to access family doctors, which is burdening the system. There are huge strains on ERs as a result of that. Because of the family doctor shortage, coupled with the fact that walk-in clinics aren’t really common here, that creates this pervasive issue where there are not a lot of accessible, free same-day health care options.

MD: In the process of launching HeyDoc, were there any challenges that you encountered?

ED: We launched this summer, when we were both working full-time jobs, which was one of the biggest challenges. Initially, it was also a challenge that neither of us had any technical experience in web development.

SI: I think the other part that we both struggled with was just navigating creating a real business, especially as undergraduate students. I’m not in Management; I felt as though I didn’t have any substantial background on the start-up scene or in entrepreneurship. It can be a bit daunting launching this new venture, putting yourself out there, especially on social media, without knowing how people will react.

But it’s been amazing to see the overwhelming support from both friends and family, and also people that we don’t know who come up to us, saying that they wish they’d had this in their first year. That’s really given us the encouragement to keep going forward and trying to grow the platform.

ED: Adding onto that, just the uncertainty of pouring everything we have into an idea that we believed in and not being sure how the community would react was stressful. But since launching, it’s [been] nice to see that there is a big demand for it.

MD: Looking five or ten years down the line, what is your vision for the future of HeyDoc?

ED: I would love for HeyDoc to be known as the go-to resource for students, maybe [students from] other universities as well, trying to navigate the healthcare system in Montreal.

SI: Right now, our focus is as much growth as possible, because that’s how we can positively impact as many students as possible.

MD: The tagline for this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with HeyDoc, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

SI: I think just leading with empathy and having that guide both your personal values and your professional aspirations. That’s always been really integral to my life and what I see for myself in the future. I’m really grateful to have the opportunity with HeyDoc to be putting that into real-world practice.

ED: I was going to say something very similar about being very intentional about your values and how you choose to follow them on a day-to-day basis. That looks different for everyone, but I think if you have strong values and stay true to them, you can make a positive impact.

You can learn more about HeyDoc via email at info@heydocmtl.com, their Instagram page @heydocmtl, or their website, heydocmtl.ca, to make a free account and use HeyDoc’s services.

If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com.

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Language Laws Meet the Ballot Box

2026-10-04T23:38:31Z

At the beginning of September, Elections Québec announced that, for the first time, voter information documents would be mailed only in French. This decision was made to comply with Bill 96, which extended the French language requirement to the civil administration’s communications.

By September 8, this decision was challenged in the Superior Court of Quebec. Justice Sylvain Lussier ordered Elections Quebec to send voter reminder cards in both French and English eight days later. The ruling came after an English-language rights advocate, Geoffrey Chambers, argued that French-only communication limited voter access to essential electoral information and risked skewed participation.

French-only to Bilingual

Bill 96, formally known as the Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, states that French is the official language of the Québec Nation. Correspondingly, the legislation requires that civil administration exclusively use French.

Elections Québec stated that Bill 96 indicated the organization could no longer mail election information in both French and English. According to Global News, the agency had previously sought an exemption from Bill 96 that would have allowed it to continue mailing bilingual documents but that request was denied.

As a result, the agency planned to provide information in English through other means, including a QR code that directed voters to online resources. During the court proceedings, Elections Québec argued that the information itself remained available in English and that instead the issue was whether voters had a right to receive it specifically by mail.

Accordingly, Chamber’s legal challenge against Bill 96’s provisions for Eléctions Québec focused on whether alternatives provided “sufficient” access. The prosecuting lawyer representing the challenge argued that relying on a QR code could create difficulties for people without smartphones or reliable internet access.

The court ultimately ordered Élections Québec to produce bilingual voter reminder cards. Although the ruling did not eliminate the broader language requirements established by Bill 96, it did change how those requirements apply to voter information for this specific election.

What Is at Stake for the Parties?

The dispute also falls within an election in which Québec’s parties hold fervent positions on language and Québecois national identity.

For Parti Québécois (PQ), led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, French-only voter materials fortify a campaign built around affirming Quebec’s national identity, preserving the French language, and protecting the province’s sovereignty. The party primarily appeals to a francophone electorate, and its leader has pledged to pursue a sovereignty referendum whether the PQ forms a minority or majority government. A policy that normalizes French as the sole language of government communication therefore aligns closely with both the party’s message and much of its political base.

The incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ benefits from presenting itself as a defender of the province’s language-law framework. During the campaign, leader Christine Fréchette defended the French-only cards put forward by her party by arguing that English-speaking voters could still find election information in English elsewhere.

The Quebec Liberal Party, whose support includes many English-speaking voters, has taken the opposite position. Liberal leader Charles Milliard, called on Fréchette to change the CAQ’s stance, arguing that equal participation requires equal access, not a system in which one linguistic group receives election information at home while another must search for it.

The controversy also gives the Conservatives an opening to distinguish themselves from the sovereigntist PQ. Leader Eric Duhaime has presented his party as an alternative on the question of Quebec sovereignty and the mail-out dispute.

The policy of French-only mail-out information, put forward by the CAQ, therefore aligns with the interests of any party whose electoral base is less dependent on English-speaking voters, given the inaccessibility of information regarding where, when, and how to vote. Consequently, the PQ and CAQ bear a potential advantage over the other parties that cannot afford uninformed English-speaking voters, namely the Liberals, the Conservatives, and Québec solidaire.

The voter card therefore has become a small but visible example of a much broader debate about how Quebec defines the role of the French language in its public institutions and where the limits of policy should lie when it intersects with access to democratic participation.

The post Language Laws Meet the Ballot Box appeared first on The McGill Daily.

McGill Students Pass Historic Boycott Motion

2026-10-05T13:49:13Z

On September 28, 2026, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held a General Assembly in the SSMU ballroom which presented a motion demanding the academic boycott of McGill’s exchange program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI).

The motion called for “the SSMU General Assembly to compel the President and Vice President of University Affairs to advocate against renewal or reinstatement of the exchange program consistent with SSMU’s existing Policy Against Genocide in Palestine and the Policy on Harmful Military Technology.” While the current exchange agreement, signed in December 2023, is set to renew in 2028, both McGill and HUJI are required to negotiate renewal terms nine months prior, which would be late 2027.

In order for this motion to be voted on at the GA, a quorum of no less than 350 McGill undergraduate students needed to be satisfied. If passed, the motion states that the SSMU President and VP University Affairs will be called on to present “a motion mirroring the language of [the GA] motion” at the Senate meeting, scheduled for January 13, 2027, per the motion.

James Thomas Reid, the SSMU Speaker, called the GA to order and opened the assembly with a brief overview of the agenda. This included various summaries of reports including the SSMU executive committee summer report and the Board of Director report both presented by President Hamza Abu-Alkhair, and a report presented by the accountability commissioner Lounes Azzoun.

Following these announcements, discussion was opened for a finite time, where students were able to ask Abu-Alkhair questions regarding the reports as well as current SSMU activities. The queries ranged from an update on the sudden closure of Midnight Kitchen last year, where Abu-Alkhair answered that SSMU had launched a new Free Lunches program, to questions regarding how to get involved in SSMU. As the questions progressed, more students entered the SSMU ballroom. Reid periodically gave updates on how many more people were needed to meet quorum, causing students in the ballroom to text friends and peers, encouraging them to attend the GA. Reid also clarified that meeting attendance as well as voting was in-person only, standing in accordance with clause 4 in the 2026-2027 SSMU standing rules, which said, “Meetings shall be in person, unless the Steering Committee deems it necessary to be hybrid (in-person and Zoom) for extraordinary reasons.”

At 7:25 PM, quorum was finally met, which led to the end of the question period. A 15 minute recess time was scheduled before the motion was presented, however, this was soon asked to be suspended by a student. The student body voted in favour of this suspension by a large majority, which allowed for the GA to move on to the presentation of the motion. Reid explained how the mover, Sumayya Kheireddine, will be given five minutes to present the motion.

Similarly to last year’s GA, where her motion on the one day strike for Palestine was passed in, Kheireddine opened her speech by stating that, as of September 28, 2026, it has been 1086 days since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza. Kheireddine went on to specify that the motion was not about any particular McGill student or faculty member, but rather about the significance of interuniversity institutional relationships. Kheireddine hence encouraged students to vote “yes” on the motion asking McGill to terminate the agreement between the school and HUJI for two reasons; the first being that through its training of Israeli defence and intelligence, HUJI is a part of the Israeli military complex, and the second being that the campus is located on the ruins of the illegally occupied Jerusalem. She encouraged students to recall McGill’s rich history of academic boycott, arguing one cannot treat partnerships as neutral when connected to a military involved in occupation, genocide, and denying Palestinians’ right to education. She further emphasized that by partnering with this institution, McGill normalizes these violations of human rights.

The time allotted to deliberate this particular motion was 5 minutes. This was followed by a 5 minute question period and a 10 minute discussion period. Both of these periods were quickly suspended by individual students, and passed with a ⅔ majority vote, suggesting that students were eager to move onto voting. Correspondingly, Reid announced the voting period at 7:47 PM. During this time, no one could leave or enter the building. After a few minutes of voting, it was announced that the vote in favour of the motion was passed by a simple majority, and it would thus move on to an online ratification process opening within 7 days of the GA. The room erupted in cheers, chatter, and clapping.

After the GA, the Daily spoke to a few students about the meeting and the passing of the motion. One student told the Daily, “I’m just really happy everyone showed up tonight and demonstrated substantial support for the movement.” They added, “We show up because we deeply care, and this [voting at a GA] is just one avenue we can add pressure [to the university].”

The Daily also spoke to the Speaker, James Thomas Reid about the importance of student politics. Reid said it was his first time speaking at a General Assembly. When asked if he expected the GA to meet quorum, he replied “I did, yes, because it’s a very pertinent affair. It was a very important meeting and I thought a lot of the student body was very much interested in showing up. So it wouldn’t surprise me that we did.” However, he added, “Did I expect the actual suspension of questions and discussions? I didn’t expect it, but also it wasn’t very surprising.”

Regarding the cheers and clapping after the motion was passed, Reid commented, “It’s unsurprising how people reacted. As I said, this is a very pertinent issue and people are very passionate about that. I’m not surprised of the reaction that happened in the General Assembly, but it was my job to make sure that even though that reaction did happen, we [had to] continue to support order. That was part of my job.”

The ratification was sent to the student body on Friday, October 2 and students will have until October 13 to vote. To pass, the ratification must meet the quorum of at least 10 per cent of the SSMU constituency and receive a simple majority vote.

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Beyond the Ballot

2026-10-05T13:45:17Z

Quebec’s provincial election on October 5 will interrupt the academic calendar for many of the province’s students. On August 28, McGill announced that classes, laboratories, and examinations will be cancelled on the day of the election with exceptions for certain health programs and clinical placements. Though the interruption itself will last only a day, electoral results could shape students’ lives long after graduation.

Decisions about tuition and immigration affect where students can afford to study and whether they can remain in Quebec after graduation, yet students in the province do not have equal electoral power over those decisions. Voting in provincial elections requires Canadian citizenship and at least six months of domicile in Quebec, among other conditions. Eligible students can support candidates whose proposals on tuition, university funding, and immigration reflect their needs. Those who cannot vote must navigate the resulting policies without having a ballot to influence who sets them.

For international students hoping to remain in Quebec after graduation, the parties offer different approaches to immigration. According to New Canadian Media’s campaign reporting, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) proposes maintaining annual permanent immigration at 45,000 through 2029, while the Parti Québécois (PQ) proposes lowering that number to 35,000 and prioritizing students and skilled workers already in the province. Québec Solidaire (QS) proposes 70,000 permanent admissions annually and restoring the Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ).

Beyond the parties’ admission targets, eligibility rules determine which graduates can apply to stay. The PEQ currently allows eligible international Quebec graduates and temporary foreign workers to apply for provincial selection for permanent immigration. Its current graduate intake, open until October 31, requires applicants to have obtained an eligible diploma by November 19, 2025, and to meet the program’s other conditions. Students beginning their degrees this fall therefore cannot treat the temporary reopening as a pathway secured for their own graduation.

The PQ’s proposed priority for students already here and QS’s promise to restore the PEQ deserve scrutiny on precisely this point: which students would qualify, under what conditions, and when? An overall admissions target does not answer those questions or guarantee an individual graduate permanent residence. Quebec selects applicants for skilled-worker immigration, while the federal government makes the final decision on permanent residence. Eligible student voters can weigh these competing proposals when choosing their representatives.

Provincial funding helps determine what resources are available for teaching, research,and student support. At McGill’s April 23 Board of Governors meeting, President Deep Saini reported that Quebec’s 2026-27 budget would increase funding for Quebec universities by 5.5 per cent. The board also approved a balanced budget for the 2027 fiscal year while projecting operating deficits of $33 million for the 2028 fiscal year, and a $55 million deficit for 2029.

The parties’ tuition proposals would also benefit different groups of students. According to The Concordian, Québec Solidaire proposes halving tuition for Quebec students during its first term while maintaining current rates for students from outside the province. The CAQ, meanwhile, has defended higher tuition for out-of- province students. A promise to make university more affordable therefore needs to be judged by which students it includes and which students would continue paying the same rates.

Language policy links university funding to another question: how can students from outside Quebec participate in the province’s public life? Under agreements announced in June, Quebec will provide up to $20 million annually across McGill, Concordia, and Bishop’s to support French learning. Beginning with the fall 2026 cohort, the agreements set an institutional target: 60 per cent of out-of-province students in eligible, in-person undergraduate programs should reach level 4 in spoken French on Quebec’s proficiency scale by graduation. Level 4 is the highest beginner level on the provincial scale and involves basic proficiency in everyday communication. If McGill or Concordia misses the target, Quebec can recover a portion of the funding provided, proportional to the shortfall. McGill should explain which French courses count toward degree requirements and provide accessible learning opportunities for students with limited room for electives. A target measured at graduation is only useful if students are given realistic opportunities to reach it.

Learning French can help students follow Quebec’s political debates and participate in them. That participation should include the freedom to question the immigration, tuition, and language policies affecting their lives. McGill’s efforts to encourage engagement with Quebec should therefore give all students, including those who cannot vote, opportunities to discuss and challenge those policies.

For students who cannot vote, participation can include asking questions at public discussions, contributing to student journalism by writing opinion pieces or sharing their own experiences, or working with community organizations. McGill and its student associations can support that participation through bilingual election information and discussions that welcome students with different levels of familiarity with Quebec politics. Students’ concerns should carry weight in university and public debate before October 5 and after the ballots are counted, whether or not they are eligible to vote.

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