Dan Shiner, a co-founder of the TEVA Recycling initiative, eyed the stack nervously. “Everything in that recycling bin is probably going to the garbage, and I can tell you why,” he said. He’s referring to paper, glass bottles, plastic cups, newspapers – all items stamped with a recycling logo. He explains that unlike municipal recycling – which offers a carte blanche to put anything and everything in the green bin you have in your apartment – McGill has a blend of rules and contracts that makes recycling a different exercise altogether. For the past 10 months, Shiner and a small, dedicated team of management undergrads – Emily Tiechman and Ryan Borenstein – have been designing tools to mitigate the issue.

“When I see an overflowing bin, it reminds me of an overflowing world,” Shiner said. “The reason I recycle is because I’m nervous about where we’re going to put all our stuff.”

Armed with a colourful education campaign, their pilot project in McLennan Library (officially the Humanities and Social Sciences Library) could, if successful, divert large amounts of recyclable products from landfills. Beginning today, a series of informative posters and nine mega-bins will replace stand-alone garbage bins and the misused recycling bins throughout the study area.

A quick survey of administrative opinions at McGill gives the sense that the University was waiting for this godsend of a project to land on their doorstep, since it addressed a long-standing problem on campus.

In the past five years, McGill made considerable investments to installing indoor and outdoor heavy-duty bins for recycling, but nobody was instructing students on the specifics of how to use them.

“They came up with ideas about how to promote visibility and awareness [about recycling],” commented Jim Nicell, Associate Vice-Principal (University Services), of the student-led TEVA project.

“It’s a great example of a synergy [between students and the administration],” he added. With McGill Libraries backing it, the project’s effectiveness could signal its introduction to all campus libraries.

But eco-oriented students on campus probably didn’t catch wind of this initiative until a few weeks ago, when Shiner and his team started advertising their project launch.

Jonathan Glencross, Sustainable McGill coordinator, was impressed by the group’s ability to isolate a specific problem on campus and craft a solution to address it. “It was based on a campus need, which is good,” he said. “Lots of campus groups perceive a global need and try to rubber stamp it locally.”

There are three large misunderstandings about recycling on campus. The first misconception is that the University gets the City to pick up its waste. In fact, McGill, a small city of 238 buildings, like any large institution, contracts its waste disposal to a private waste collector. Embedded in that contract is a finicky set of rules that qualify what counts as recyclable goods.

“People are looking for a universal principle of what can and can’t be recycled, but that doesn’t exist,” Shiner explained. “You have to learn new rules on campus, or anywhere you go.”

Since recycling programs are municipally governed, every time you move you’re required to conform to local conditions and provincial guidelines; city-to-city consistency is nearly impossible and impractical.

Many haven’t adapted to McGill’s recycling do’s and don’ts. The second misunderstanding is just that: many people don’t know what can or can’t be recycled. This means that a lot of well-intending people are polluting McGill’s system. Contaminated recycling bins have been lowering the tally of waste that gets converted into new materials; dropping the wrong item in the wrong bin could easily banish its entire contents to the landfill. McGill channels its waste into three streams – clean paper, plastic-metal-glass, and trash – and contamination between these streams is ironically high in libraries, an area where food and drink aren’t allowed.

Emotions have flared in the past when students noticed custodial staff throwing recycling bin contents in the garbage. The anger was misdirected, however. It’s not in the job description of either McGill staff or waste collection staff to straighten out people’s disposal errors.

“We’ve seen many instances where the contamination is so high that the person would be irresponsible to put it with the recyclables,” said Nicell.

Putting things in the right bins has an economic value that goes beyond their ability to be recycled, as McGill pays a lower fee to the contractor for high-value recyclable goods – like clean paper and newsprint.

Dennis Fortune, University Services Sustainability Director, confirmed that McGill simply didn’t, and probably wouldn’t, have the capacity to sort its own recycling bins. “We don’t have the facility,” he said. “The best thing is to take it to a transfer station where they’re doing the sorting.”

The root of the contamination issue is attributed to the third unfortunate unknown about recycling on campus: if you don’t know which bin to drop it in, throw it in the garbage. The roster of non-recyclables includes used pizza boxes, coffee cups and lids, milk cartons, waxed paper, plastic cutlery, Styrofoam cups or trays, and Iced Cappuccino cups. 
“Some people use [recycling] as a personal statement about what should be recycled,” Nicell said. Let’s say you’re standing there with your used coffee cup, made of paper and plastic, and because you believe it ought to be recycled, you drop it in the paper bin. That’s a bad move.  
“If everyone knew where coffee cups and lids went – both in the garbage – recycling would be a hell of a lot better,” Shiner said.

Recycling is good for the environment, but it’s largely a feel-good action. Ask anyone with a strong science or environmental background, and they’ll tell you that recycling is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to initiatives to create sustainability.

“When I say the word ‘sustainability,’ it’s incredible the amount of people who start talking to me about recycling paper,” said Glencross. “I’m talking about the ability for our entire species to continue over the next hundred years and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s great that you recycle!’”

 Recycling is like a gateway drug, Glencross told me. Once you understand the process of recycling – and how much energy and pollution are created in recycling materials – you start reducing and reusing more; recycling is the third step in a whole series. “Recycling is just diverting waste. It’s the lesser of two evils,” he said.

An obvious starting point for waste reduction could be our paper output. Last year alone, McGill estimated it printed some 150-million odd pages, accounting for around 60 per cent of its waste stream. Once you wrap your head around the magnitude of that number, consider the mismatch in our recycle rates: as of September, only 38 per cent of McGill’s waste is being diverted as recyclable goods according to its audits, falling short of the 65 per cent provincial target.

 “I tell my students [that] your eye shouldn’t be on your recycle rate. The emphasis has to be on reduce, not recycle,” said Nicell, who doubles as a civil engineering professor and has taught solid waste management.

Glencross, who’s the green force behind projects like the Food Systems project and the new Sustainability Fund, had some suggestions for putting sustainable goals into operation. McGill has a lot more information on its waste audits than ever before, and should continue to publish the data publicly. Making waste audits or recycling faculty- or building-specific on a manageable scale would also sensitize people to their waste habits. “It’s kinda like a diet, where if you don’t have a scale, how can you lose the weight,” Glencross said, adding that allowing people to monitor their progress could be an effective strategy.

Part of this strategy may be realized under a new sustainability policy, which is set to surpass the less-effective environmental policy.

“Our objective is to make sustainability a reflex, not an afterthought,” explained Nicell, “It will only be embodied if people are doing the rethinking and reducing.”

Nicell and his team are talking about a full-scale cultural move toward sustainability at McGill, which will be a tough project to say the least. Part of educating McGill about proper recycling will be undoing certain previous “knowledge” about trendy or mainstream “sustainable practices” that are in fact detrimental. The social pressure to be an eco-conscious citizen and to do one’s part by recycling now needs to come with a specific, localized knowledge about how each system works. Ignorance about these issues isn’t helping anyone.

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Quebec currently faces a $3.9 billion deficit, and introducing tuition is just one strategy intended to help get Quebec out of the red by the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Finance Minister Raymond Bachard proposed the plan on September 26 at the Liberal Party’s pre-budget briefing.

The prospective fee has elicited a strong reaction from several student groups. Public CEGEPs were introduced in 1967 and provide cost-free education to approximately 170,000 students across the province.

The provincial government currently provides 90 per cent of the funding for public CEGEPs. Quebec students who want to pursue post-secondary education must attend CEGEP in order to qualify.

Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) President, Xavier Lefebvre-Boucher, argued that the government is damaging their long term interests as Quebec risks losing its position as the province with the highest proportion of students enrolled in post-secondary programs.

“This tuition would hurt accessibility,” Lefebvre-Boucher said, indicating that many 16- and 17-year-old students would not be able to afford the proposed fees. “We can’t afford to decrease the number of graduates in Quebec.”

The idea of students paying for their first year of CEGEP – the equivalent of Grade 12 in other provinces – is worrying to some who feel it shows a government neglect of public education and training.

Christopher Monette, Executive Secretary of the Dawson Student Union, which represents over 7,500 anglophone CEGEP students, echoed this sentiment.

“[Quebec] is a leader in terms of accessible education, and we shouldn’t be jeopardizing this for a quick fix to the deficit,” Monette said.

Despite the flurry of opposition from CEGEPs and faculty-level associations, it is unlikely that tuition fees will be instituted anytime soon. Not even a bill yet, the proposal will have to undergo the slow process of public consultations before its introduction to the Quebec National Assembly.

There is also a concern among students that education is no longer seen as a provincial priority. A series of tuition hikes or deregulation measures in the past years point to rising barriers to accessible education in the province. However, Catherine Poulin, Press Secretary for the Quebec Ministry of Finance has denied that there is a hidden agenda behind the government’s approach to education issues. Poulin stated that public consultations on CEGEP tuition and other budget items may be held as early as November.

CEGEP student groups may soon find themselves in a battle with the provincial government to ensure that students do not have to pay for their education out of their own pockets. Recent protests by students associations against Bills 38 and 44 – which would drastically alter the governing structure of CEGEPs and universities across Quebec – are indicative of broad-based discontent with the Liberal Party’s approach to post-secondary education.

The FECQ and other organizations are currently demanding that the Liberals release a public statement on whether they will introduce their proposal as a bill. Monette and others have said that they are prepared to actively defend their interests if the Liberals do decide to move on this.

“I’m an optimist,” Monette said. “I think that the CEGEP student unions are going to [conduct] a good fight, and I do believe that sooner or later we’ll get the message through.”

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In their 2006 White Paper, which laid out priorities and policy guidelines, McGill emphasized that graduate students were “an essential part of [our] research mission” and pledged to step-up their retention, supervision standards, office space, and funding availability for grads student.

But Daniel Simeone, the president of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), said that many graduate students feel short changed when it comes to office or lab space, funding options, and faculty supervision.

A glance at statistics from the McGill ombudsperson’s report, presented at Senate on September 16, clarifies this issue: 40 per cent of claims filed with the ombudsperson last year came from graduate students. Taking into account that grads compose roughly one-fifth of the university population, this figure represents a disproportionate amount of concerns.

Ombudsperson Professor Spencer Boudreau, who’s been in the position for nearly a month, explained the imbalance as an effect of the highly intense nature of graduate students’ worries about supervision.

“If something goes wrong during your graduate degree, the stakes are so high,” Boudreau said. He was unable to comment on the trend of concerned grads.

However, Richard Janda, McGill Law professor and president of the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT), thought more could be done overall to improve the quality of the supervision experience, which he identified as a critical problem.

“We certainly have the capacity [to improve the graduate experience,] and we all believe in its importance,” Janda said. “Whether there’s an adequate commitment is another question.”

There is movement afoot to improve graduate supervision with best-practices workshops and panels geared toward both faculty and students. In a presentation made to Senate last April, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Martin Kreiswirth indicated that although most graduate students had a positive experience with their supervisors, McGill was still out-of-step with the current best practices.

“[Supervision] is a priority for PGSS and for McGill University, so we’re very excited by some of these workshops,” Simeone also noted.

The PGSS is also hoping that graduate students will see their space concerns swept away as McGill prepares to invest considerable resources into updating its research facilities.

“We’re asking that graduate student space is a priority in the design and redesign of university space,” Simeone said.

McGill seems committed to their White Paper plans to push ahead with the growth of their graduate program, with an eye to improving services as well.

In an email to the Daily, Dean Kreiswirth emphasized, however, that the University is being responsible about admissions by balancing the staff, support, and space required for graduates.

“High-quality graduate research student enrolment is based not just on increasing admissions, but on evidence-based ‘Strategic Enrolment Management’,” Kriesworth noted.

As McGill is vying for a top slot on the world stage as a leading research centre, there’s no doubt that they will need to build their graduate base. During an interview with Macleans, McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum and the other leaders of the Big Five, an elite academic quintet of schools, requested funding to boost their institutions’ capacity to train graduate students.

The Big Five’s pitch for more money and special status as graduate magnets didn’t quite catch with most provincial governments, who by-and-large control the purse strings for post-secondary funding. Most Canadian universities, including McGill, also witnessed their endowment funds shrink considerably last year, leaving them in a financially strained position to absorb a high influx of new staff and expand their services.

McGill has committed to making the graduate experience a world-class one, and we should expect that the services required for students to excel are part of that mandate.

Connecting the Dots is a bi-monthly news analysis column

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For years, students in Royal Victoria College (RVC) and Upper Residences – Molson, McConnell, Gardner, and Douglas – had been curious as to why their cafeteria system only had limited hours of operation, no weekend food services, and a fixed, albeit large, portion of food at each meal – a system that generated a lot of waste.

Administrators are now saying that they’ve responded to years of student feedback by extending dining hours until 10 p.m., keeping the cafeterias open on weekends, and providing more flexible meal options. All residence students now have declining balances and are permitted to spend 85 per cent of their funds at their home residence, and the remaining 15 per cent at campus food spots. This split ensures that McGill Food and Dining can cover their contractors’ fees at each location.

Students are still dissatisfied, however, due to hikes in food prices. A standard dinner costs around $13, and students are charged extra for healthy items like salads – which used to be free and unlimited – and fruit. Instead of paying extra – like $1.05 for an apple – some students are eating less and complaining that food services are overpriced and monopolistic.

The meal plan is mandatory for all students in the Upper Residences, RVC, New Rez, and Carrefour, and each is serviced exclusively by McGill Food and Dining – a new centralized body comprised of the former Residence Dining and McGill Dining offices.

Concerned students have already prompted McGill Dining to tweak their price system. Yesterday morning, students arrived for breakfast to find that all meal prices had dropped by an average of $2 – a small victory.

Part of this development can be attributed to a petition started by Patrick Dibb, a resident at McConnell who quickly garnered the support of 120 of his peers.

“Various meal options were ridiculously overpriced,” he said. “They were wringing us dry on every single little thing.”

Dibb, however, was not able to get his petition accepted by anyone in the administration, and admits that the petition’s role will be negated by the election of Food Reps from each residence.

There are still several kinks to work out in the new dining system. Floor fellows who were familiar with the old system are now complaining that the sense of community around the dinner table has disappeared with the extended meal times.

In addition, students from RVC are finding it difficult to manage without their cafeteria at Sherbrooke and University – an ideal lunch spot for students during the day – which is closed for major renovations and won’t be open until January 2010.

The new Carrefour residence only has breakfast and snack service, and their residents must travel to New Residence Hall to eat most meals.

As with most shocks to a system, it appears that the adjustment of students and staff to the new system has been slow. With luck, students’ feedback will be duly noted by the administration throughout the year, and McGill Food and Dining Services will eventually establish a viable and pragmatic arrangement.

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Until recently, McGill had one of the strictest student residence alcohol policies in Canada, but only loosely enforced the guidelines. Now, the new Executive Director of Residences, Michael Porritt, is determined to close the gap between policy and practice – just one example of a changing philosophy that’s hitting McGill Residences.

Hired in November 2008, Porritt – a seasoned administrator with over ten years of experience at Trent and Winona State University – has been accused by several of his staff of bringing sweeping changes to the culture of residences, failing to communicate effectively, and trying to fix a system that some McGill floor fellows claim isn’t broken.

“We’re open to changes that we feel will improve the community for our first-year students, but we also hold core values – like respect – that are non-negotiable,” said Graham Smith, a MORE House floor-fellow, explaining that residence life has followed a harm reduction strategy and established close-knit communities of trust. “That is what McGill Residences are based on, and that’s why we’re so concerned about what might change.”

In his capacity as Director, Porritt oversees a $27-million budget, with 2,600 students housed in 30 buildings, served by over 215 employees -– including 70 floor fellows.

“Right now, a lot of the house rules are kind of ambiguous and vague,” he said, explaining that students needed a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities. “You can’t have gaps between policies and procedures.”

According to Morton Mendelson, Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) – to whom Porritt reports directly – the administration wants to see a more consistent application of respect and responsibility.

“We have found that the understanding of how respect translates into action varies considerably across Residences,” Mendelson wrote in an email to The Daily. “Through wide consultation, which has already begun, Mike Porritt expects to strengthen the understanding of respect and its links to action.”

One outgoing floor fellow, who expected to get fired if his name was used on record, charged that hiring Porritt was an extension of McGill’s fears of liability.

“Mendelson is trying to direct what should happen through Porritt and through Porritt’s experiences, but unfortunately it’s different from the way we work here,” he said. “Porritt wants us to take on a more disciplinarian role [which will] hurt the ability for students to come to us and relate to us.”

He explained that the harm reduction strategy that encourages open dialogue and safe space also reduces McGill’s liability, and that Quebec liability law has covered grey issues in the past.

“We’re covered by liability laws because they are vague and work for us. He seems to be stringent on the need for [more specific] rules, which unfortunately will result in more qualms down the road,” he said. “As stuff is driven underground, it will become more of a problem.”

When he came on the job, Porritt introduced a Residence Life Advisory Group (RLAG), which he says, along with University Residence council, will keep the Residence administration from making decisions in a vacuum.

But one returning floor fellow, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing their job, explained that sitting on RLAG was frustrating because one third of the floor fellow’s efforts are spent fighting Porritt’s policies, taking away from valuable time with students.

“Being on that committee is 100 per cent defensive; it’s always an issue of doing damage control to what he’s bringing in” the floor fellow said. “There’s a lot of us taking our own minutes so we can say ‘no you didn’t say that,’ and ‘no, we didn’t say that.’”

Porritt has maintained that he has followed an open listening policy from the beginning.

“If I made a bunch of changes on the rez life side in the middle of my first year without doing a lot of listening, I would have been run out of here and I would have deserved it,” he said.

But the revised alcohol policy he proposed for residences – which tightens rules on serving, parties, and areas where students can drink, like certain common areas and building stairwells – was heavily criticized and amended by committee members before clearing RLAG.

“We have been able to fight back on policies, but on a larger level, we can’t fight back [against] everything he says all the time,” the floor fellow said.

“His inability to communicate with his staff and respect that we have opinions outside of RLAG is really troubling,” the floor fellow added, echoing statements made by other floor fellows.

Kate Wardell, a floor fellow from Gardner Hall, a residence above Pins, emphasized the unprofessional work environment she found herself in this year.

“He’s treated us like a group of kindergartners – he does that with the [residence] directors, too,” she said, adding that their positions carried large amounts of responsibility.

“I think he doesn’t understand what we do,” Wardell continued. “He thinks we have a part-time job, [but] we’re constantly on call and I don’t think he understands that.”

Another floor fellow explained that Porritt had suggested charging floor fellows rent for their rooms in residence – where they currently live for free. He proposed their rent be discounted in relation to first-years’, or that they pay rent and receive a small stipend. Floor fellows stressed, however, that their concerns weren’t driven by money worries.

Porritt acknowledged that he faced challenges this year, but maintained that many of the residence staff were still respectful of his leadership.

“There are lots of people who are very wary of ‘the new guy,’” said Porritt in an earlier email to The Daily. “The vast majority [of staff] have been very supportive and even excited to talk about how we can put their ideas into action.”

With a genuine concern for the future of residence culture at McGill, Smith stressed that their tenuous work relationships weren’t the driving reason for their concern.

“This is not a personal vendetta. It’s about a community that we value and cherish so much, and that thousands of people have valued as a really formative year.”

In the original version of this article, the by-line read “Proposed changes to alcohol policy will limit drinking in common areas” – which is a mistatment. While this was policy proposal was in an earlier draft, it has since been removed from the RLAG document.

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The 25-member team, also registered as a SSMU club, was obliged to pay off $7,000 of debt to last year’s team captain after she personally funded the team’s skyrocketing expenses – a result of McGill’s 2006 Travel Policy for Varsity Athletes, requiring the team to hire buses to travel.

Ski team treasurer Carter Berton, estimated that weekly buses cost the team $350 to finance their bi-weekly training sessions and weekend competitions, on top of membership expenses, training equipment costs, and race entry fees.

“The frustrating part is that McGill Athletics hurt us with their policy, but they don’t recognize us with the funding we deserve,” Berton said, explaining that club teams are responsible for all their own revenue generation. “We’re a good team and we place well [in competitions], but McGill doesn’t see that and reward us.”

While the team’s fall fundraisers normally subsidize the roughly $700 membership fee, the team was required to raise the membership cost to $1,000 and apply for SSMU funding.

Despite recognition as a McGill varsity team, the alpine team only receives $400 per year from McGill Athletics, due to the tiered structure of funding. Fully-funded tier-one teams, like Redman Football, and partially-funded tier-two teams often receive the bulk of Department of Athletics resources. The alpine ski team is one of 30 tier-three club level teams that receives scant funding from the University, some of which still carry the varsity label.

According to Megan Kidston, this year’s co-captain, this reality makes McGill the only school on the Quebec race circuit not properly funded by its athletic administration.

“We’re trying so hard to be a competitive team, but we keep getting thwarted by McGill Athletics,” said Kidston, explaining that funding expenses distracted the team from working at their sport. “It’s like McGill is holding back their own athletes from competing the best they can.”

Kidston cited cost-saving examples like training with a half-course of ski gates, or commuting daily to ski races rather than staying overnight at weekend meets, because the team couldn’t afford to keep the bus and the driver with them overnight.

While many club-teams experience under-funding, Lisen Moore, Manager of Intercollegiate Athletics, saw the 1990 introduction of tier-three club-level teams as a positive improvement to athletic life at McGill.

“When the club-team option was presented, it was seen as very positive because it provided more opportunity for students at McGill to get involved with intercollegiate athletics,” Moore said, adding that McGill had to make hard choices about where to allocate their athletics funding.

But SSMU VP Clubs & Services Samantha Cook criticized the Athletics allocation structures.

“McGill Athletics priorities mean that they’re putting most of their money where it’s not conducive to giving the most people the most access,” Cook said, pointing out that club members ended up paying out of their pocket to compete. “It’s really upsetting that it’s one more thing [at McGill] facing under-funding, meaning that students who want to engage often can’t.”

SSMU’s Finance Committee has a special bylaw provision for funding tier-three Athletics teams. This year they gave funding to women’s field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, women’s squash, McGill tennis, McGill racing, McGill Nordic ski team, McGill varsity figure skating, and the McGill cycling team.

“Some of the tier-three teams have the best records too, better than some of the big name sports,” Cook added.

But many are hopeful that the Intercollegiate Athletic Structural Review due out in April, after an 18-month advisory process featuring town halls, consultations, and opportunities for input from the Varsity Council, will improve the tiered system.

“April will give us better direction to whether people will be back in the same categories, what criteria needs tweaking, and what additional money needs to be allocated,” Moore said.

Berton was hopeful that the alpine team would eventually gain first-tier status, especially as they finished a close second in the Quebec circuit this year.

“This whole issue makes us want to move up in the tier-level, because we’re a good team, and we need more funding so these issues don’t happen again.”

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Women in the federal public service may soon see their right to pay equity negotiated away at the bargaining table, which some say will critically undermine women’s internationally-recognized human right to equal pay for equal value of work.

According to the Harper government, Canadian taxpayers have covered over $4-billion in pay equity disputes and settlements heard at the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) since the right for equal pay was introduced in 1977. The government’s proposal – known as the Public Service Equitable Compensation Act – would forbid CHRC from hearing pay equity complaints from federal public servants – a body of 400,000 workers – and instead make it an issue for negotiations during collective bargaining, claiming that both the employer and the union will be responsible for ensuring equitable compensation.

The Act is rolled into Bill C-10 – the Budget Implementation Act, which includes urgent provisions for an economic stimulus – which cleared the House of Commons on March 4, despite criticism from all three opposition parties, and moved to the Senate the same day, where it presently being studied.

The Act received heavy criticism in the Fall Economic Update, contributing to a decision to prorogue Parliament.

Removing a Human Right

Patty Ducharme, the National Executive Vice-President for Public Service Alliance Canada (PSAC) – a 166,000-member union that represents federal public service workers – was furious that a convention of the Canadian Human Rights Act might be removed.

“You’re negotiating a human right at the bargaining table,” said Ducharme, explaining that pay equity may just get swapped in favour of other benefits. “It’s oppressive. It’s repressive. It’s ideologically-driven and heavy-handed.”

PSAC believes its members may be further jeopardized because the union is not allowed to assist its members in filing a pay equity complaint without receiving a $50,000 fine.

“Last time I checked, unions have a mandate that says they must represent their members,” said Ducharme. “There’s no public servant employee who has pockets deep enough to take on the federal government.”

In 2000, after over 20 years in court, PSAC settled the largest pay equity case in Canada, leaving the federal government accountable to paying PSAC members $3.2-million in wage-gap differences and interest.

Sue Genge, National Representative (Women and Human Rights) for the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), a federation of unions nation-wide, agreed that the bill has put PSAC in a difficult position.

“They’re caught,” Genge said. “PSAC has to represent their members, but they’ll be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars if they do.”

Ducharme admitted that PSAC was unsure how to proceed if the legislation passed through the Senate.

“To bring a pay equity case requires a lot of research studies,” Genge explained, noting that funding had been cut from many women’s groups that provided support during pay equity complaints. “You can’t only know how you do, but how everyone else does relative to you.”

Two Rights Regimes

“There will now be two regimes of pay equity in Canada,” explained Genge. “Federal public service workers will be subject to new legislation, while other federal sector employees – like crown corporations – will still be able to file under the Canadian Human Rights Commission.”

Over 80 female lawyers, academics, and professionals sent a letter to the Harper government urging the removal of the Act from the budget, on the basis of human rights violation.

“It undermines, rather than fulfills, the commitment to eliminating sex discrimination from pay practices, and does not provide women federal public servants with effective access to a remedy if their rights are violated,” the letter read.

Canada’s position on pay equity lies in stark contrast to recent policy shifts in the United States, as Obama’s first bill signed into law on January 29 improved the conditions for women to sue over pay equity.

“Obama committed to not balance the budget on the backs of working women, which is exactly what this government is refusing to say,” said Ducharme. “It’s a very sad day when we in Canada allow the removal of human rights from a section of our population.”

Non-equitable expansion

While the current bill targets federal public service workers, London, Ontario Member of Parliament Irene Mathyssen, the NDP’s critic for the Status of Women, was concerned that this federal policy shift could expand to other federal sectors or set a precedent for provincial legislation, where labour law issues are regulated.

“It sends a bad message to provinces and territories that proactive pay equity doesn’t matter,” said Mathyssen. “It tells employers that this government isn’t going to fight for women.”

Genge noted that the Harper government’s focus on federal public service workers may expand.

“If they can get away with this, then they will keep pushing [pay equity reform] to other sectors.” Genge said.

Mathyssen and others called for a proactive approach to pay equity – forcing employers to pursue strategies for equitable compensation, rather than operating on a complaint basis.

In 2004, the Federal Pay Equity Task Force – appointed by the Federal Ministers of Justice and Labour to review the equal pay provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Equal Wages Guidelines in 1986 – released their recommendations for adopting a more proactive pay system federally after a three-year-study, none of which have been implemented by the Liberal or Conservative governments, the latter of which has presided over the removal of the Task Force’s report from the Department of Justice’s web site.

“The Act makes it appear that the government is legislating to advance pay equity, yet many dimensions of the new legislation will undermine existing protections,” explained McGill Law professor Colleen Sheppard.

“Law reform should enhance rather than undermine existing human rights,” Sheppard said.

Presently, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba have proactive pay equity laws.

Harming recruitment

With a large wave of expected retirees from federal public service jobs in the next five years, Mathyssen expected that the Act would diminish recruitment of women to the federal sector.

“It sends some really upsetting messages to young women who may have considered a job in the federal public service,” Mathyssen said. “It’s telling young women that there is no future here.”

Canadian women with university degrees earn 68-cents on the male dollar – an average 2.5-cents below women’s earnings nationally, according to statistics from the CLC. Unionized women receive 93-cents for every male dollar, on average.

“Young women are starting to recognize the ‘gapzilla,’” said Genge, noting that most don’t note the profound difference in wages that still exists.

Systematic Inequality

Mathyssen explained that the Act was part of a trend to systematically undermine equality for women.

“Their reforms are part of a trend to cut out women’s rights,” she said. “I’m expecting that we’ll once again be censured by the United Nations, and that will be the umpteenth time in the past few years that we’re going to hear that Canada isn’t doing enough for the status of women.”

“This government is profoundly anti-equality and anti-women,” Genge agreed. “We’re talking about the removal of a right.”

Both were expecting that either a change in government or a court challenge on the basis of violating human rights would be necessary courses of action if the Bill passed the Senate.

“There is a significant fight ahead,” Mathyssen said.

………………………………………………

The changing status of women under the Harper government

1) Stopped funding to the Court Challenges Programme

2) Changed funding criteria for Status of Women Canada’s Women’s Programme, precluding support for advocacy or lobbying for law reform

3) Cancelled the Status of Women Independent Research Fund

4) Ended child care agreements with the provinces

The article originally stated that PSAC was granted $3.2-billion in settlements, rather than $3.2-million. The Daily regrets the error.

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I had walked past their building on Ste. Catherine and Bishop dozens of times in my three years in Montreal, without ever taking stock of what function this place served. Easily-accessible to the entire population of Montreal, their building celebrated military culture nestled into civilian life.

Just as I have bypassed this military infrastructure undeniably present in civilians’ daily lives, so too have I unconsciously waltzed right past those who flesh out the ranks of our national security service. When my friend told me that he was enlisting in the military for this summer, it struck me that not only was military involvement likely more prevalent than I had thought, but that the bulk of the Canadian Forces’s young privates and officers were probably concentrated on university campuses.

Since the closest I’d ever come to military culture was Boy Scouts – which barely counts – and I had been raised in a family void of military heritage, I decided to design my own version of Basic Training – the rudimentary boot camp that all military personnel must complete. For my adaptation, I spent a week corralling students in the military into shoebox offices around campus, where we exhausted topics from rank structure, to strategic military objectives, to breaking up with girlfriends, and to the mission in Afghanistan. In these discussions, the presence and importance of the military began to sharpen, and its interface with public life started to come to the fore.

The students I targeted – who balanced their service commitments with their schoolwork – were all involved with the military as reservists. Even though some were non-commission while others were commissioned officers – two diverging streams in the rank structure – I was hoping that an overarching theme to their service would come out of the woodwork.

Not surprisingly, I found little consensus in their motivations for enlisting, the trajectories of their service, or their plans for a military future. There are, however, some converging characteristics: these guys are professional; they’re articulate and efficient; they answer questions in an orderly and procedural manner; they’re pacifists; and they have all noticed that their military mindset has bled into their civilian lives.

At first, I found the idea of a fused military-civilian headspace hard to accept. To me, the demands of being both a student at McGill, where one runs on their own schedule in an environment where incredibly open thinking is endorsed, and a reservist, placed in a tightly-controlled chain-of-command, would seem to signal a clash of cerebral approaches. But those I met assured me that discipline and the managerial tools provided through military training blend into their civilian mindset.

“There’s a military way of going about things, you look at all of your courses of action, your constraints – that is easily applicable to daily life,” explained Paul Delplace, who carries the titles of both U2 Political Science and 2nd Lieutenant and Recruiting Officer for the Royal Montreal Regiment.

Reservists are based out of regiments located around the city, most of which fall under the command of 34 Brigade. At minimum, the reservists clock one night a week, and spend one weekend a month at a base outside of the city. But Delplace explains that most people, including himself, do a lot more.

“If you like the military, it’s addictive work,” Delplace stated. He had squeezed our conversation between his military recruiting duties and his looming midterm study block. “[The military is] very goal-oriented, and if you’re a keen guy then you can thrive in that environment.”

Delplace joined the non-commission ranks of the reserves right out of high school. Later, he became a commissioned officer and adopted a recruiting role. For Deplace, leaving the regiment does not necessarily mean leaving his work at the door; the nature of his position as a recruiter means his civilian and military lives often overlap.

Most student recruits also dedicate parts of their summers to training programs. In fact, these summer programs are not only where most pick up their first military experience – they serve as the large stumbling blocks for adapting from a civilian to a military mindset.

Talking to Michael Abravanel, a 22-year-old Concordia graduate student, it became clear that transitioning from a civilian to military culture could be incredibly challenging for somebody who didn’t grow up with a military family.

“I didn’t know anything about the military,” admitted Abravanel, who signed up as a reservist following his first year in CEGEP at Dawson College. “It was incredibly difficult to adapt to military culture.”

Abravanel pointed to the strictly hierarchical structure of operations at the base, where everyone ranked higher than him and strict protocol was always adhered to.

“You’re on the clock all day, you’re always doing what you’re told,” he explains during our phone conversation. “The concept of ‘its not your time, it’s the military’s time’ was really hard to adjust to.”

For those with family histories of military involvement, and role models with military experience, acclimatizing to this culture was never as challenging.

Jeff Vavasour-Williams, U2 History and Religious Studies, admitted that he knew what he was getting into when he enlisted – his dad was an air force reservist for six years. Despite his preparedness, backlogs in processing his file have prevented him from starting training. He explained that he was hoping to complete his training part-time over eleven straight weekends this semester – a schedule killer, he admitted – but is now expecting to start officer training this summer.

Like several others at McGill, Vavasour-Williams is based at Black Watch – Montreal’s token Highland regiment. Because he’s seeking officer rank, he needs to be completing his university degree at the same time.

“For people who are unaccustomed to a chain of command, adjusting to this strict formation might be a bit of a culture shock,” he admitted. “There is a certain headspace that you have to go into work with. You need to turn up the discipline, and efficiency is absolutely key.”

But for David Naughton*, a graduate student in political science, reconciling his military and civilian selves put a strain on his experience.

“Your identity is removed right away; you need to conform,” he explained. “They mold you to become what they want you to become – you can’t stay as you are as a civilian.”

Naughton added that the intensity of an eight-week training program over the summer made it necessary that he accept the military’s indoctrinating principles, but as he returned to school that year and the summer experiences faded, it was increasingly difficult to switch to numbly responding to orders at the regiment.

“It’s hard to become gung-ho again,” he explained. “You keep moving back to being a civilian, and it’s hard to find a balance between those two poles.”

Naughton also pointed to the effect of a uniform in perpetuating the military psyche.

“After being through a summer of sleeping an average of four to five hours a night, you feel like Superman. So putting on the uniform and going to regiment, you do feel different,” he said. “I’ve seen people in uniform kind of gain a foot; they just feel more confident. Then you see the same people in civilian clothes, and you’d never suspect it – it’s two different worlds. “

But for Nikolas Mouriopoulos, U2 Honours History, who’s serving in the non-commissioned reservists, he not only completely separates his military and civilian life, but he doesn’t find it difficult to operate between the two.

Mouriopoulos admitted that most students at McGill neither understand nor appreciate the diversity of functions that the military serves, and he fired off a list of people’s common stock reactions to his involvement.

“One, from a lot of guys, is ‘what’s it like shooting the guns?’ Two, ‘so you’re training to be a killer right?’ Three, ‘are you going to be sent to Afghanistan?’” he said.

We spoke about the pacifist culture that universities attract, which we agreed contributes to a misunderstanding of the military’s role. Mouriopoulos added that the perception of soldiers as killers provides a very negative and simplistic view of the military.

As for Afghanistan, the nature of Canada’s voluntary military force means that reservists must sign up for an engagement overseas. While some enter the reserves without any intention of going on a tour abroad, some welcome the opportunity.

Dainius Šileik was pursuing his Honours degree in East Asian Religious Studies at McGill when he decided to go take some time off, adopt full-time military responsibilities, and post abroad on his first tour to Afghanistan. Now serving at Valcartier Base, north of Quebec City, he’s training with the Vandoos as he prepares for his role in a “battle group” in Afghanistan – which will provide force protection at the request of the Afghan government. He admitted that this is pretty uncommon.

“My experience is unique in that I’m a reservist stepping into a conflict with the battle group, something that wasn’t common before for a reservist to do,” he explained in an e-mail.

A lot of reservists see the military as more than a chance to engage in combat, looking for opportunities for leadership, skills-building, and a strong bonding culture among regiments – plus it helps with the costs of education. As a reservist and a student, one can see up to $2,000 of one’s tuition subsidized. If one was to go full-time while pursuing his degree, or commit to five years of service upon graduation, this would be ramped up to full tuition subsidization, complete with room and board stipends, plus an additional salary. Most of the people I encountered pointed to tuition subsidization and the funding provided through their training camps and regiment hours as a bonus, rather than a sticking point.

Both Abravanel and Naughton, now graduate students, eventually realized that they wanted to prioritize school over their service commitments. Abravanel outlined the difficulties he encountered trying to get out.

“The only thing more challenging than joining the military was leaving the military,” he explained, recalling the reams of paperwork and the pressure from the officers and his peers to stay. “When I finally decided to leave though, people were very respectful,” he added.

Respect is a big deal in the military. In an environment where everyone is trained to be strong and develop leadership skills, it seems like it would be impossible for it to function if there wasn’t a hierarchical structure based upon respect – you don’t do what you’re told because you’re told to, you do it because you respect those in higher ranks.

Those who are out of the military, though, like Naughton and Abravanel, continue to respect the military’s role, remarking that it wasn’t for them, and praising the voluntary nature of reserves that allowed them to duck out.

Even those civilians who find themselves at odds with the military’s role largely retain a respectful attitude toward its operations. When asked whether he often has to justify his role in the military to others, Vavasour-Williams immediately jumped to the example of his mother.

“My mother does not approve at all, zero per cent,” he said. “It’s just that she doesn’t want me to be the one, though, not that she doesn’t support the military. We’ve come to agree that militaries are a necessary evil and that the world would be a better place without them. Killing somebody is unequivocally evil, but sometimes, it’s the right thing to do,” he explained, lamenting that no intervention happened in Rwanda.

“There’s an ethos surrounding the military,” he told me, “guys want to be soldiers doing the right thing.”

When I asked him what the appeal is of being the person responsible for “doing the right thing,” he paused before giving his answer.

“My view of the Canadian military is that our interventions in the international field have been morally justified, and quite frankly the right thing to do,” he said, citing Canada’s role in WW2, its UN forces in Korea, and its peacekeeping troops in Cyprus, Croatia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. “But a mission to Iraq? Well there, I would have wholeheartedly disapproved.”

For every conversation that I had during my military education mission, I knew that there was another I was missing; the discourses that I brought together failed to capture the diversity found in the ranks of the forces. By sheer coincidence, those I interviewed were all white Canadian men who were working on a degree in an Arts faculty. I missed the women in uniform, those with multi-ethnic backgrounds, and those that had undergone a full military college experience.

As I walked out of the recruiting centre and back into the Montreal drizzle, I was hyper-sensitive to the diversity of people walking along St. Catherine, and hypothesized as to whether they would one day enlist. There isn’t the black-and-white distinction I expected to discover between the military and society; the Forces are very much integrated and reflective of Canadian culture.

“The common theme in the Canadian Forces is multi-cultural, multi-everything,” emphasized Delplace. “We are like the crucible, where everything comes in but at the end of the day, we all get along, we all get the job done.”

*name has been changed

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During Senate last Wednesday, the McGill Global Health Network (MGHN) – an agglomeration of interdisciplinary groups including Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), McGill International Health Initiative, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), McGill Global AIDS Coalition, and McGill Nurses for Global Health – succeeded in placing their question on McGill’s IPR review in the Senate agenda, which was asked by Law senator Faizel Gulamhussein.

As McGill receives considerable public and private funding for its health research, equitable licensing would allow corporate companies that invested at McGill to profit from the University’s research in the developed world, but would permit the University to work with generic companies in the developing world to produce cheaper medicines for at-risk populations, according to a report by UAEM.

“Universities do the vast majority of the early pipeline research that’s then taken up and used by health care industry actors,” explained oline Twiss, Law 3, and a member of the HRWG, who was present in the Senate gallery.

“It’s really important that licences at the early level are developed as open and as broadly as possible as to maximize the dissemination of innovations,” she said.

With a Senate response from Vice Principal of Research and International Relations, Denis Therien, MGHN was given the green light to meet with members of the working group for IPR review – something that UAEM has been trying to secure for over a year when they sent a letter to VP Research that went unanswered. UAEM McGill has modelled their initiative after one began by UAEM Yale to introduce such licensing with the university’s patent and intellectual property arrangements.

“We’re totally open to meet with MGHN,” said Therien at Senate. “They have a very interesting point of view, and we want to see how we can continue the conversation.”

However, Therien explained that the University was also considering the interests of other actors and had informal interaction with faculty members, private companies, and government bodies.

“At least we have this as a concrete step to ensuring that the University has [equitable licensing] in mind,” said Jake Hirsch-Allen, Law 3, and a member of HRWG.

The IPR review will include an overview of policy committees and a committee inside the Office of Technology Transfer, in addition to the Senate Steering Committee of Technology Transfer. Therien thought this process would allow McGill to develop its priorities.

“We’re not entering the review with a fixed agenda,” said Therien, adding that no forum has addressed this question in depth in the three years he has been in his position at McGill. “It will be part of the review to establish these priorities, [but] they will certainly be different than they were ten years ago, because the world has changed.”

The McGill Board of Governors (BOG) and Senate jointly review McGill policies, and this year’s focus has been on IPR. The review bodies had a false start early last fall when their attempts to strike a working group failed. The joint Senate-BOG committee held its only meeting in October. Currently, the composition of the new working group is being established and is expected to meet shortly, although no date has been fixed.

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From all over the world, a pilgrimage of supporters calmly waited in anticipation to witness the historic ascent of the first black U.S. President, though their tranquility was perforated with intense displays of pride, relief, and jubilation.

The masses, stretching back from the Capitol Building where the swearing-in occurred, cheered appropriately with the entrance of Congressmen, Senators, and other dignitaries – which many viewers watched from the two dozen jumbotron screens erected on the Mall.

A brief display of negativity occurred with the entrance of outgoing-President George W. Bush. Some booed, though most remained respectively silent.

Spectators held their breath for Obama’s address to the nation, which soberly and sincerely called on the American people to commit to a new age of action and responsibility.

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America,” the new president proclaimed. “For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.”

With the official announcement of Obama’s inauguration, the crowd once again erupted into cheers, and furiously waved their freely-distributed American flags.

A Bermudan man, who had traveled to Washington to witness this event, captured the spirit of the crowd well.

“Today is a new day,” he said. “Now there is hope for change.”

A commercialization of the historic event was found on the sidewalks: inauguration paraphernalia t-shirts, oversized buttons, caps, and posters, all to commemorate the symbolic day of change.

The cheering quickly died down, though, as many began to automatically drift away.

With many recognizing the President as a sign of change, and endowed with their full confidence, the populous sensed their work was done: America had elected Obama. They could go home.

Suddenly Washington was faced with two-million lost people, who either could not access transit, or were impeded by barricades set up by over 8,000 security personnel on the northern side of Mall. The smiling crowds – both cold and tired– moved slowly, with little yelling, chanting, or pushing. No arrests were made at the inauguration.

Tuesday’s event was the final of three days of the inauguration program. On Sunday, burgeoning crowds inched toward the Lincoln Memorial for a patriotic concert featuring performances from international artists, actors, and actresses.

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According to David Edwards, director of Career Services at Queen’s School of Business, banks recruiting on campus are posting fewer positions this year.

“In the big picture, all the national banks came back and continued to post the same sort of jobs,” Edwards said. “But some have indicated that they’re hiring for a third less positions this year.”

At Queen’s, as at most Canadian universities, finance students represent the largest percentage of hires within the Faculty of Management. Many graduates rely on bank recruitment sessions to secure interviews leading to job offers.

McGill students are feeling the crunch as well, as the McGill Finance Ambassadors (MFA), a student-run club which routinely takes finance students on banking tours to big finance centres to help students find jobs, has cancelled its January banking tour to London.

“Banks were laughing at us when we called them to see if we should come by,” said Clovis Couasnon, chairman of MFA.

Couasnon cited similar problems at Harvard and Princeton, where their traditional banking tours to Wall Street have also been cancelled.

He added that while banks are still actively publicizing on campus, they won’t necessarily hire as many students.

“It’s part of their image: they don’t want to look like they’re not hiring,” he said. “They’re still doing interviews [with prospective hires] because they’re hoping they’ll meet a genius.”

But according to Marie-José Beaudin, executive director of Career Services for the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill, finance graduates in future years may be scrambling for fewer positions than the 2009-2010 class. As recruiters scheduled this year’s visits to Canadian campuses before the markets crashed, many graduates have already had offers extended.

“I’m more concerned that those people who are going to be affected are those with internships this summer – and maybe also in a year from now,” said Beaudin.

Yet Linda Gully, director of Bachelor’s of Commerce Career Services at Sauder School of Business at UBC, noticed that students – especially those graduating – were growing concerned.

“Students are realizing that they might have to go to plan B if plan A doesn’t work out,” Gully said. “They’re looking at alternative ways to enter the finance industry, [but] they’re keeping up their networks.”

But Beaudin remained certain that the current hiring downturn was only part of a market trend.

“This is a cyclical situation. If students change the direction of their lives, it’s because they’re not passionate enough,” she said. “There’s always place at every level for very good students.”

According to Gully, the Canadian banking system has certain safeguards that will protect it from feeling the impact of hiring cuts as intensely as the U.S.

“We have a much different, and more solid banking system,” said Gully. “But we’re certainly not going to be immune [to effects from U.S. markets.]”

The big five Canadian banks – CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, TD, and BMO – are likely to maintain a steady level of hiring, even as the economy slows, to meet Canadians’ daily banking needs. But investment banking, much of which occurs in larger banks in Canada, is more likely to take a precipitous fall since it is highly sensitive to the market effects.

Edwards noted, however, that banks will still be cautious with their hiring.

“There hasn’t been the same massive layoffs,” he said. “But they’re playing very conservatively while going forward.”

All three career directors recommended that students continue to develop strong quantitative skills by pursuing further education and certification, and diversifying their interests to open up alternative employment sectors.

Beaudin stressed that passionate students may need to compromise on salary figures or accept working in their second-choice position until things level-out.

“For the students that are graduating right now, it might look very gloomy. But they have to remember that they have lots of assets,” added Beaudin. “This is what employers are looking for, regardless of the timing.”

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Barbara strides in, too prim and perky for 6 a.m. I get the once-over before she attacks my curls with a ferocious blast of hairspray, pulls my eyelids taught, and traces two thick streaks of black across them, snaps open her purse to retrieve her dark lipstick, and makes a quick job of my pale, pouty expression. She nods with a grim satisfaction and escorts us – me, Miss Small Town Ambassador and my Runner Up Princess – to the parade grounds.

Although I was a pageant queen at 17, boy scouts, organized sports, and math homework had defined my teenage years. The contest was pitched as a resume-building experience, and I had been promised it was about public speaking. I didn’t blink at the contract, in which we swore that we were single, had never been married, and were not mothers. Naively, I had locked myself into this conservative notion of pomp and circumstance. I also didn’t expect to win.

After I won, Wenatchee, Olympia, and Tacoma, Washington, carved out my weekends. There, festival brunches with low-fat muffins and small talk on the fairgrounds with neighbouring pageant winners occupied my waking hours. The big Saturday parade, the hallmark event of each weekend, consisted of myself and one other girl rolling down Main Street, caged in a big, shiny float. Spectators clapped along to “Celebrate Good Times,” on repeat. Little girls with looks of awe waved fairy princess wands at me, and I patronizingly waved back.

I felt like I had been conned. This was not the glorified public-speaking contest I thought I had entered. Even though three-quarters of the competition was based on speech presentation, my lips were sealed as soon as I was crowned. Instead, I was toted around Washington State, feeling awkward and embarrassed in my long white gloves, glittery tiara, and gold-trimmed sash. I never knew what to do with my hands.

At the pageant contest in April, we had hooked our arms under the grandfathers of the community, who were clad in red tweed jackets, and glided past our friends and family seated at folding tables and chairs to the hastily-erected stage. In front of the audience, we twirled, posed, entertained, honoured our brave police force, and thanked our sponsors. They showered us with flowers, certificates to tanning salons, stationary kits, and mass-produced jewelry. Most of the girls wouldn’t talk to me after I won; we all went home in tears.

Post-pageant, however, our duties continued. We had lunch with the mayor, we cut ribbons at city events, we sat front-row at lacrosse games, we rode in antique cars on cold Sunday mornings, we planted roses with “visiting royalty,” we sold raffle tickets in dead-beat malls, and we served tea to retired pageant queens.

But things were not all rose-tinted. When I won, the local newspaper ran a front-page colour photograph depicting my pained face – like I was watching my mother back over my dog.

Mid-reign in July, the Festival committee noticed my strained smile, and asked me to write a letter evaluating the program. When they received it, they called an emergency meeting over my scathing, straight-talking answer. I called them a conniving elitist faction in our community, promoting backward-minded conceptions. I said they were monopolizers who seized our individuality and used our suite of seven intelligent girls as the city’s accessory. I said if I wasn’t going to have a chance to do any public speaking post-victory, then they should have made it a bathing suit competition. I said that the drama and backstabbing they fostered among us girls was childish. I said they were misguided to believe that we found it rewarding to sit with our ankles crossed, under parasols, smiling back at our subjects.

It’s hard to convince people that I’m not a beauty queen. It’s harder still to convince them that, despite the glitter, sweet smiling, and twirling, I never was.

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“I have been contemplating resignation for a while,” Silverstein stated in a SSMU press release. “I will continue to work with SSMU, the other executives, and the office staff to help facilitate a smooth transition.”

He gave no further indication of why he resigned.

Silverstein won the portfolio by acclamation during a by-election process after VP-elect Peter Newhook resigned before his term began.

According to Rushil Mistry, who considered running for the position last spring, the portfolio had an overwhelming task list.

“It’s a really a big commitment and a lot of people don’t recognize how much work it is,” he said. “Not only are you dealing with SSMU finances, but you’re dealing with Haven [Books] – which was a terrible investment – and SSMU’s $1-million investment fund.”

According to SSMU President Kay Turner, it will be incredibly difficult to transition a new VP Finance, as SSMU executives rely on their first three months in office – June, July, and August – to familiarize themselves with their portfolio.

“Not only are they not going to have the summer [to adjust], but it’s going to take all of second semester for them to learn how to do their job,” Turner said.

Despite this challenge, SSMU Council will discuss his resignation in confidential session tonight, and elect a new vice-president from amongst its members, provided there are applicants, on November 27. Both Silverstein and Turner have indicated that they will make it a priority to make the new executive comfortable in their position.

Should no replacement be found, however, Turner felt confident that SSMU would be able to compensate by hiring a secretary general, an additional finance commissioner – a non-political position – and transferring responsibilities and powers to the President.

“SSMU isn’t going to fall apart because we don’t have a VP Finance & Operations,” she said. “We can still provide good service to students and good representation.”

She explained that most major decisions are made after consultation with the executives of committees– so the way SSMU makes decisions is not contingent on whether or not they have an executive.

The most challenging aspect of Silverstein’s resignation, according to Turner, will be ensuring operations run effectively in the committees on which the VP Finance traditionally sits – investment, finance, financial ethics research, budget, and operations.

After repeated requests for interview, Silverstein refused to comment.

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On Friday, the administration notified SSMU President Kay Turner that the directive – which prohibits curricular and co-curricular travel to potentially dangerous regions and countries – was an administrative decision and outside of the purview of Senate.

“This raises an interesting question about what is and isn’t in the purview of Senate,” said Nadya Wilkinson, SSMU VP University Affairs. “It’s worrying if the administration can randomly decide what their governing bodies could or could not consult on.”

According to Alex DeGuise, PGSS VP Academic, allowing the directive to exist without student and faculty input was troubling.

“I think people are going to be upset,” Deguise said. “We understand that safety comes first [with the directive], but people need to be able to do their research.”

The directive as it currently stands prohibits undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral fellows from undertaking McGill-sponsored travel for research purposes or internships.

An updated version of the directive was intended to be available by the end of October, but it no longer carries a definite release date. Once ready, however, a mechanism for feedback from administrators, faculty, and students is supposed to be introduced.

Wilkinson insisted that Senate was the appropriate venue for debate which the directive would need in order for consideration of the complexity of the policy to take place.

“For this not to choke academic life on campus, it would need to come to Senate to be discussed,” said Wilkinson. “It needs widespread consultation due to its effects on the lower levels of the University’s hierarchical structure.”

SSMU and PGSS are planning to work with other Senate members in responding to the administration, but have not yet indicated what action they will take.

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“And you shouldn’t eat it until the industry cleans itself up,” Stewart added.

Farming of Atlantic Salmon – a non-native species to the Pacific – took root in B.C. during the late eighties due to the ideal conditions found in sheltered inlets and bays.

A Norwegian-owned company, Marine Harvest Canada, is typical of the industry. During the 20-month growing cycle for salmon, the company feeds its stocks fishmeal, a combination of processed fish and fish oil that comes in pellet form from fish farms in Chile or Peru.

According to Alexandra Morton, a marine biologist with the Raincoast Research Society, the use of fish meal requires a large amount of energy for processing, shipping, and feeding.

“You’re fishing huge stocks of fish that could be eaten directly by humans, instead of used to feed other fish” Morton said.

Clare Backman, Environmental Relations Director for Marine Harvest Canada, said a dye-colourant – SalmoFan – is often added to fish to mute the grey tint typical of the farmed species to make them resemble their shrimp-fed wild counterparts.

Backman said he did not doubt the safety of the additives, and that Canada has no regulations requiring a label to inform consumers of the dye.

Despite potential uncertainties regarding the dyes, marine activists are more concerned with the environmental degradation of the B.C. coastal ecosystem.

In 1988, the federal government transferred responsibility and oversight of fish farms to provincial governments. But Morton said there are no provincial regulations against waste dumping, and wild salmon stocks are hurt by escaping and diseased farmed fish.

“Every time there is an issue, the provincial and federal governments are pointing at each other,” Morton said. “If it went to the federal government, they would be responsible for environmental effects outside the pens.”

According to Stewart, fish farm location is problematic because fish faeces and waste are dumped straight into the ocean, and that sea lice, small marine parasites, pose an even larger problem because they breed quickly in overcrowded salmon farms.

“Sea lice on the farmed fish produce millions and millions of eggs, and the effect on wild salmon is causing a huge decline in cascading effects on the entire ecosystem,” she said, adding the fish are often treated with antibiotics, some of which aren’t legal under Health Canada.

“Companies are getting emergency use permits [for antibiotics], but they do it all the time and it becomes standard operating procedure,” she said.

While there is no evidence of interbreeding between the five kinds of Pacific salmon and the farmed Atlantic salmon, farmed fish escapes can hurt the wild stocks by competing for food and destroying river beds where wild salmon lay their eggs.

Backman said his company adhered to regulations and maintained environmental sustainability measures.

“We’ve been a leader in working with the regulatory community – there’s a zero tolerance for escapes.…We use the strongest nets available.”

Backman added that he didn’t think regulatory oversight would change because the current system was highly comprehensive.

“The current provincial regulation system is the most stringent in the world…. I don’t know how they would improve that,” she said.

Pamela Parker, Managing Director for Pacific Salmon Forum, a seven-person research team commission by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell in 2004, said the current debate over fish farms demonstrated public skepticism.

Stewart recommended a move to on-shore farms using containers would preserve jobs and lessen the environmental impact.

“There’s a tremendous number of pressures facing our wild salmon: overfishing, habitat destruction, and now climate change,” Parker said. “We’re tipping these stocks over the edge…and it’s imperative that we fix those threats that we can.”

The B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands declined to comment for this piece, and the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans was unavailable before press time.

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