Darlene Lannigan, the personal assistant for Conservative MP candidate Lawrence Cannon in the Pontiac riding, made comments perceived as racist to Barriere Lake teacher Norman Matchewan.

According to the Barriere Lake Solidarity, a collective of both First-Nation and Canadian activists, Lannigan chastized the Algonquin community for its chronic substance abuse.

“[The] problem in the community is too many drugs, alcohol, incest, and violence,” said Lannigan during Cannon’s official campaign launch in Maniwaki, Quebec.

Norman Matchewan – who sat on Wednesday’s panel – convened with other community supporters to represent their demands at the September launch. According to a Barriere Lake Solidarity press release, Lannigan told Matchewan conditions in which he would be welcome at future meetings: “If you behave and you’re sober.”

Michel Thusky, a Barriere Lake spokesperson and the second panel member, explained on Wednesday that Lannigan’s racist comments were unnecessary.

“We don’t deny that alcohol and drug abuse exists in our community, but they also exist in every city or town,” said Thusky. “We have our own ways of addressing it.”

The Barriere Lake Algonquin community is fighting the decision of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs who appointed leaders in conflict with Barriere Lake political custom, replacing the community’s Customary Chief and Council.

The Barriere Lake community is also pushing Canada to honour a Trilateral agreement signed by the provincial and federal government to promote sustainable development in the area.

“We must fight for our rights, what we believe in, what our ancestors taught us,” Thusky said during the panel discussion.

The agreement was signed in 1991 and breached in 2001.

Barriere Lake Solidarity volunteer and former Daily editor, Martin Lukacs, criticized Indian Affairs for disregarding the Algonquin community’s demands.

“There’s no public oversight; there’s no public concern,” Lukacs said.

The community is resisting Cannon’s re-election and will continue campaigning in the following weeks.

The post Algonquins speak out in campaign appeared first on The McGill Daily.

London, Ontario banned the sale of bottled water in city buildings and arenas on August 18, prompting Toronto, Kitchener, Ontario, and Vancouver to consider similar actions.

While the city has not ruled out the possibility of the ban, Alan DeSousa, responsible for sustainable development within the Executive Committee of Montreal, is hoping that the city will decide to charge consumers a deposit tax on bottles of water to add a monetary incentive to recycle. The plan was outlined in a proposal presented to the Quebec government on February 19.

The committee has yet to hear back from the province about the proposal.

Improving Quebec’s recycling program would alleviate the need to ban bottled water, explained Richard Goulet, spokesperson for Recyc-Quebec, a society created by the provincial government to help implement recycling and waste recovery programs.

“The big issue is not whether it is good or not to cut down on [bottled water] circulation, it’s whether we can increase our recycling programs,” he said.

Goulet said that over one billion bottles were in circulation throughout the province, but that recycling rates of up to 70 per cent meant that most did not end up in landfills.

Zoe Maggio, head of the anti-privatization Water Program at the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based think tank, was not convinced that recycling nullifies the negative environmental impact of bottled water use.

“It’s really important to consider the other environmental impacts [of bottled water]– like production and transportation – that are releasing a ton of greenhouse gases into the air,” Maggio said,

She added that as low as 33 per cent of water bottles in Canada are recycled.

Safe to drink?

While Maggio maintained that bottled water is not necessarily safer or cleaner than municipal tap water Justin Sherwood, President of Refreshments Canada, the national trade association representing 30 packaged beverage brands, disagreed, refuting claims that bottled water – the safety of which is regulated under Health Canada Food and Drug Act – was tainted.

“To say that because it’s regulated under a different piece of legislation and is therefore inferior is completely false,” Sherwood said about the fact that municipalities monitor inspections of their own tap water.

90 per cent of the bottled water industry is spring or mineral water that undergoes an ozination process before being capped. The remaining ten per cent is taken from a potable water source, such as municipal tap water, demineralized through a multi-million dollar purification process.

DeSousa added that Montreal prioritized a high quality of water, and water fountains in public places.

“Montreal’s water is very good to drink,” he said. “We’re very proud of our water.”

Bottled water all dried up? Grab a soda instead.

Elizabeth Griswold, Executive Director of the Canadian Bottled Water Association, called London’s decision to ban bottled water highly symbolic.

“It was an easy decision for them to make it look like they were doing something for the environment, when in fact they were doing nothing,” she said.

Griswold pointed to a study conducted in May by Probe Research Inc., a marketing research company, which showed 70 per cent of consumers who purchased bottled water did so as an alternative to buying other packaged beverages – not tap water.

“[Municipalities] are sending the wrong message at a time when our society is dealing with substantial concern about diabetes and increasing obesity rates,” she said. “People are not going to turn to the tap, they’re going to turn to other packaged beverages.”

Maggio, however, insisted that there was no such correlation.

“There is no evidence that by taking away bottled water as an option, people will resort to sugary drinks,” she said.

The Nestlé Group, Canada’s largest packaged beverages retailer, reported the only sector that showed a decrease in sales in the first half of 2008 was bottled water, down 1.1 per cent.

Sherwood argued that removing the option of bottled water from the market was unfair to consumers.

“Municipal politicians and activists are saying we don’t like this product, and so it shouldn’t exist. Where does that stop? You’re taking away consumers’ right to choose.”

The post Montreal not to ban bottled water, yet appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On April 2 a white male in his forties stabbed a female McGill student, who survived and was hospitalized, in an alleyway behind Aylmer and Prince Arthur. An unsubstantiated rumour of another stabbing in the Milton-Parc area on April 10, followed by an attempted suicide in a park near Hôtel-de-Ville and Prince Arthur on April 11 and two reports of recent sexual assaults, escalated concerns among students that the events were connected.

However, Stéphane Bélanger – police commander for Station 38, which oversees the Milton-Parc area – said that there had been no information about an April 10 stabbing, and that the April 2 and April 11 incidents were unrelated.

“The events have nothing to do with each other; they’re not related,” Bélanger said. “It’s not one person committing all these acts.”

Still, SSMU executives are charging that the police have been slow to respond to students’ concerns, and were not forthcoming with information about attacks in the area.

“While [the police’s] reasoning might be that they don’t want to cause a panic by overwhelming people through releasing information, the way in which they’re going about it isn’t helpful,” said Max Silverman, SSMU VP External Affairs.

According SSMU executives, the account of the April 2 assault first indicated that a man – not a woman – had been “slashed” during a robbery. The account then changed to a woman being robbed, and the latest police report, according to a McGill announcement released Monday, states that a female McGill student required treatment in a hospital “for injuries inflicted by a knife.”

A roommate of the April 2 victim, who wished to remain anonymous, was furious at the police’s original report.

“They had been telling everyone that it was a hoax,” she said. “It wasn’t a robbery like the police said – [the assailant] was intent on harming her.”

The source said her roommate was dragged into an alley off Prince Arthur near Alymer and repeatedly stabbed in the leg and arm. The man took some of her money from her purse.

The victim was hospitalized, and within a week withdrew from McGill and returned home.

Silverman and SSMU President Jake Itzkowitz argued that the police have been difficult to contact. Station 20 on Prince Arthur and Hutchison, which had formerly looked over the area, shut down in March without SSMU’s knowledge, and public spokespersons do not work on Friday afternoons or on the weekend.

Itzkowitz accused the police of trying to keep a tight lid on what may be a dangerous situation.

“I’ve gotten enough [information] that what I’ve heard from the cops – ‘Don’t panic, everything’s fine’ – doesn’t fly,” Itzkowitz said.

Bélanger insisted, however, that the area was safe.

“It’s not necessary to say it’s a dangerous area because that’s not the case,” he said.

McGill Dean of Students Jane Everett and her office have been working through McGill Security to collaborate with the police. Everett maintained that students do not need to feel in danger of an attacker on the prowl.

“People don’t have to be worried about a predator,” Everett said. “If there was a pattern, [the community] would have heard about it already.”

The April 2 case is under investigation, and no charges have been laid.

Rumours circulating

After rumours began to circulate of the supposed April 10 attack, SSMU Management Councillor Barbara Dourley created a Facebook group on April 11 warning of the attacks and calling on students to be careful walking home at night. The group quickly attracted around 3,500 members.

But since then, no victims or witnesses have come forward from the alleged second attack.

Pierre Barbarie, Associate Director of McGill Security, regretted the way in which information was shared among students.

“There was lots of misinformation, unfortunately, and speculation,” Barbarie said. “That can happen with that type of communication.”

Katarina Lup, U0 Psychology and a resident of New Residence Hall, said the internet rumours sparked fear among students.

“The Facebook group really did initiate a lot of fear,” she said.

But SSMU Management Councillor Kelly McAndrew maintained that it was important for students to know about the events.

“The whole idea of why any information was passed along was to let people know that this happened and that [they] needed to be safe,” she said.

Some students feel they have been denied access to all the facts.

Ada Best, U1 Mathematics, who lives near the site of the first stabbing, asked that more be done to set the record straight.

“We still haven’t been given any real information, only that [other attacks are] not related,” Best said. “I just wish that all the information would come out so the students wouldn’t have to speculate anymore.”

SSMU has been working with Walksafe, a student-run organization that escorts students walking at night, to assist worried students. Usually averaging 180 walks a year, Walksafe has been doing up to 20 walks per night since assault reports started surfacing and is trying to recruit past volunteers to help with the rapid increase in calls.

While Walksafe only operates until 12 or 1 a.m., McGill Security is available to accompany students 24 hours a day within a 10-minute walking radius of campus.

Itzkowitz said SSMU is investigating ways to employ SSMU Security officers in the area.

He urged students to pressure the police to release further information on the reported assaults.

Barbarie said that students should feel comfortable calling both McGill Security at 514-398-3000 and 911. McGill Walksafe can be reached at 514-398-2498.

– with files from Kelly Ebbels

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In a formal complaint filed in January, the Spanish and Latin American Students Association (SALSA) accused MUSA of stealing 10 bottles of wine from their shared office, an estimate increased to 14 bottles in February. After discussions with MUSA, VP Clubs & Services Marcelle Kosman and Head of Security Wallace Sealy revoked the club’s space privileges, hurting their chances for securing the space this upcoming academic year.

“There are no rights in question. No club has the rights to office space. They get given those privileges,” Kosman said.

But MUSA executives accused SSMU of acting without a proper investigation, and the case wound up before the Society’s Judicial Board – a body of five upper-year law students nominated to serve one-year terms.

Outgoing MUSA President Artem Luhovy maintained that his club had not committed theft.

“There is no evidence that it was anybody in MUSA who took the wine,” he said.

An interim hearing at the Judicial Board on Friday turned the decision back to SSMU Council, who could overturn Kosman’s decision if desired. The Board has issued MUSA an injuction which allows them to retain their office space temporarily.

Alexandre Bien-Aime, MUSA’s student advocate, said the club will appeal Council’s decision and return to Judicial Board after April exams if Kosman’s decision stands.

After the allegations surfaced, Sealy conducted an investigation and concluded that the theft had resulted from an access-control problem – meaning students without direct access to the door code had been permitted entry to the club office, causing a security breach.

Luhovy was permitted extra time to respond to the charge, as it came during MUSA’s national conference of Ukrainian students’ associations. None of the statements that he collected from club members identified specific individuals responsible for the theft.

Kosman’s administrative decision finds MUSA accountable as a whole.

MUSA approached SSMU with a proposal to restrict office access to MUSA executives only, but Kosman said it was problematic since it would absolve executives of responsibility.

“It removes their responsibility for their club members,” she said.

In response, MUSA moved to bring the contested decision before the Judicial Board.

However, it is unclear whether the case can be checked at the Judicial Board, because under SSMU by-laws, matters of theft must be resolved by the Head of Security and the General Manager. Roberto Ghignone, U3 Law and an employee at the Student Advocacy Office, said that despite this by-law, administrative decisions had been brought to the Judicial Board in the past.

Kosman was frustrated that her decision may be overturned.

“It’s unacceptable for the [Judicial] Board to take away my right as VP Clubs & Services to penalize clubs who abuse the Constitution,” she said.

Luhovoy said the incident was unfortunate, pointing out that it both tarnished the club’s reputation and distracted it from other work.

“This issue is interfering with the rest of our club’s activities this semester,” said Luhovy. “It’s getting in the way of our fundraisers for orphans and radiation victims in Ukraine.”

But Kosman stressed that many clubs do not have office space, and that clubs should not abuse the privilege of free office space.

Until the issue is resolved, SALSA and MUSA will continue to share their club office space in Shatner – a possible sore spot, since SSMU is not punishing SALSA for liquor possession, which violates SSMU’s liquor license.

SALSA executives did not return The Daily’s requests for comment. Sealy refused to comment.

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Undergraduates voted in the fall General Assembly (GA) for SSMU to prioritize space distribution in the Shatner Building, requiring that any commercial activity in Shatner be either run by students or contracted to socially responsible companies.

They also voted in the fall referendum to increase the SSMU base fee by one dollar “for the purposes of improving student space” – bringing in an extra $19,800 this semester.

But as the expiration date for the lease for Shatner’s Caférama nears, and the SSMU Operations Committee prepares to finalize its recommendations, many are questioning whether the Society has done enough to prioritize student space in the process.

Making student space

Three student groups and four commercial initiatives are now vying for a three-year lease to replace Caférama.

So far SSMU has made no indication that it would prioritize student operations in the Shatner café space – a move that has troubled those that brought the motions and referendum questions.

“When we [students] mandate SSMU to do something, that needs to be something that they follow up on,” said Kira Page, a member of Grassroots Association for Student Power (GRASPé), which helped introduce the mandates.

Dave Schecter, SSMU Clubs & Services Representative to Council, said, given the GA motion and referendum question, SSMU should use the money for student-run operations.

“The context the fee was situated in… shows that students are pushing [SSMU] to use the money in a certain way,” Schecter said.

But the GA motion and referendum question are entangled with SSMU’s other mandates: to support clubs and services, and to ensure a level playing field for all bidders for the space, according to SSMU President Jake Itzkowitz.

“Balancing all of those mandates is not easy,” Itzkowitz said. “We’re not going to make everyone happy; that’s just not going to happen.”

Marcelle Kosman, SSMU VP Clubs & Services, explained that there has been increased pressure to use Caférama for student space, following the recent selection of smoothie vendor Liquid Nutrition for room 108, also on the first floor of Shatner.

“The feeling has been to cite 103 [the Caférama space] as an opportunity to make up for 108,” she said.

But under the strain of SSMU’s tight fiscal year, SSMU VP Finance & Operations Imad Barake identified financial pulls like Haven Books and Gert’s as potentially limiting further student operations.

“From a financial viewpoint, we cannot sustain appropriate levels of funding to our programs if we are to start a third student operation,” Barake said.

He maintained that supporting “student space” doesn’t require backing a student-run operation.

“It’s still student space whether it’s rented or it’s student-run,” he said.

Schecter argued, however, that SSMU executives and Council were forgetting their constituency.

“[SSMU] shouldn’t be telling students what to do, students should be telling [SSMU] what to do,” Schecter said.

What consultation?

But there has been a lack of consultation about the use of SSMU’s $20,000. The Space Fee Committee – an organization created in January to address the increased funding – has yet to meet with quorum.

The Committee’s mandate includes adhering to a procedural timeline of open meetings, and holding town halls and public consultations to discuss the Caférama proposals. The Committee has not held any public consultations.

Yahel Carmon, the Speaker of Council and the Chair of the Space Fee Committee, excused these shortcomings due to a sharp learning curve facing the committee.

“The timeline became difficult to adhere to and was unrealistic to accomplish,” Carmon said.

Itzkowitz said that any student group bidding on the Caférama space could have applied to use the $20,000. But without a consultation process, the claim seems tenuous. Further, SSMU did not spend money to advertise the fund’s existence, and only encouraged student groups to submit proposals to access the fee.

Because there were no bids to use the fund for student-run operations in room 103 of Shatner, the money will instead be delegated to improving common areas around campus.

The Space Fee Committee is currently reviewing four proposals for the $20,000 – from Gert’s, the Engineering Undergraduate Society, the Music Undergraduates Society, and space improvement for the fourth floor of Shatner. The Committee intends to make a recommendation to Council by the end of the semester – three weeks behind schedule.

Carmon acknowledged the possibility of supporting student-run initiatives in Shatner using the money.

“There was discussion about re-mandating how that $20,000 would be spent, and if it were to go to 103 as it relates to improving student-space,” Carmon said.

But the decision will ultimately be a job for next year’s executive and Council, he said.

“Executives of next year’s Council are going to have to rethink how they approach [the fee],” said Carmon.

The post SSMU drops ball on prioritizing student space appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The injunction, which lasts until March 27, was imposed by the UQAM administration last week and approved by the Quebec Superior Court on Tuesday. It aims to prevent UQAM’s 14,000 striking students from disturbing the regular class schedule, or demonstrating within 100 metres of campus.

Tuesday’s human chain assembled just outside of the 100-metre boundary. Any infringements on the injunction can result in a $50,000 fine.

“We’re going to respect the injunction within limits,” said Eve-Lyne Couturieu, communications officer for the striking Association facultaire étudiante de science politique et droit at UQAM

“We’re also going to look for other means to proceed,” she added. Another protest is planned for today at 2 p.m. in Berri Square.

Strikes and demonstrations began breaking out at UQAM last semester, as part of a provincial movement against the defreeze of tuition fees.

But the movement eventually shifted focus to oppose cost-cutting plans forwarded by the UQAM administration that aim to pull the university out of its $350-million debt.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, hired by UQAM to draft a plan de redressement, released its final financial plan on March 5. Among other measures, the report calls for increasing student tuition fees, cutting 77 teaching positions, and freezing employee salaries.

Claude Corbo, the rector of UQAM, has maintained that the plan is not final.

The plan was in its formative stages since February; since then four of the seven student faculties at UQAM have initiated strikes. The first was l’Association facultaire étudiante des sciences humaines (AFESH), which voted to begin an unlimited strike in February.

UQAM imposed the injunction in response to protests last week, when students disrupted an administrative meeting that was considering failing striking students.

Dominique Guay, VP Internal of l’Association facultaire étudiante des langues et communications, argued that it was too soon for striking students to return to class. Guay and two other students were suspended earlier this month for admitting their involvement in strike actions.

“If we go back to class now, we scrap all the efforts we’ve made in the last five weeks,” Guay said. “It’s worth nothing right now because we have no contract signed.”

Professors have also come behind for the striking students, some writing an open letter in support, and some joining student demonstrations.

“It was a really big deal for us to get the professors support,” said Valerie Reine-Marcil, communications officer for AFESH. “There was much too much control in the injunction.”

Student negotiations with the administration will continue Monday. The UQAM administration has stated that funding cuts will not threaten the survival of any programs.

According to McGill student Zoe Page, the radical student group GrassRoots Association for Student Power plans to use the UQAM strike as an example when mobilizing McGill students.

“There isn’t a strong enough movement for solidarity [at McGill] with all the students in Quebec,” Page said.

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