Well, it’s a landslide. Eighty-one per cent of undergraduate students who voted wanted to keep The McGill Daily and Le Délit alive. We editors are all a little emotional right now, and to be honest, some of us are a tad drunk. But there are shout-outs to be had.
First, we would like to thank everyone who helped us win this campaign. Thank you to the Daily Publications Society’s dedicated Board of Directors, who fought tooth and nail to make sure this newspaper’s 97-year history didn’t end now. Thank you to our committed contributors, who showed up in droves to make classroom announcements, hand out flyers, and put up posters. This campaign was a community-building experience, with our writers, artists, and supporters banding together to save a beloved campus institution.
Most of all, thank you to the 4,634 people who voted to keep your independent student newspapers alive. Without our readers, neither The Daily nor Le Délit would exist. You have given us the strength to continue doing what we do: provide you with McGill’s only autonomous, student-run, bilingual press.
The McGill administration ought to recognize this vote for what it is: an unequivocal, overwhelming mandate from students in support of their autonomous media. McGill wants to put the four major independent student groups – that’s the Daily Publications Society, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group, CKUT Radio, and the Legal Information Clinic – through these existence referenda every five years. This constant distraction will divert our editors’ efforts from putting together a newspaper, prevent our Board members from managing a financially-stable not-for-profit, and jeopardize the livelihoods of our full-time business staff. We hope the administration will come to its senses.
But for now, it’s back to work for The Daily. This campaign was about saving this newspaper, but it was also about outreach; making sure that students were reading the newspaper, helping out, and learning about the issues. We hope you keep reading and keep contributing. And thanks again for keeping us around.