McGill Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) is considering a switch to an All-You-Care-To-Eat (AYCTE) meal plan model in dining halls for students living in residences, to be implemented tentatively at the start of the Fall 2023 semester. 

The current model – mandatory for students living in all undergraduate residences apart from Solin Hall – is a declining balance plan. The plan essentially functions as a debit card, with students having to budget their allowance throughout the year. For first year-students in residences, the current plan costs $6,200 in total, which includes the mandatory meal plan, a $975 administrative fee, and $500 OneCard dollars. The Daily spoke with three students regarding details of the AYCTE model, the student consultation process, and whether the plan has potential to mitigate concerns of first-year students regarding food access on campus.

Throughout the past semester, there has been an increase in concerns among students surrounding food prices and quality within residence cafeterias. “Lets Eat McGill,” a campaign with the goal of creating affordable, sustainable, and cooperative food options on campus, arose partly due to the concerns first-year students have about having enough to eat. 

At an assembly on food insecurity, hosted by Let’s Eat McGill on March 8, students expressed their frustrations in accessing food in residence cafeterias. Students mentioned struggling to budget in a way that allows for the plan to last the entire year. This is challenging given that the meal plan is only enough for two meals a day due to high cafeteria prices. Students also expressed their disappointment with the limited variety and low-quality options that often do not reflect the high price of items. One student said that food rationing and skipping meals has become the norm for many living in their residence. 

Kerry Yang, VP University Affairs at SSMU, has met with SHHS and relayed information from their February 24 meeting to the Daily. Yang believes this switch to an AYCTE meal plan model will be a step in the right direction within residences because it might help with the current plan being either too much or too little money for students. According to Yang’s meeting with SHHS, he told the Daily that SHHS began to review the current model in September and that SHHS is quite serious about the AYCTE switch. Once students are enrolled into the meal plan, they will be able to swipe their card whenever they want to access the cafeteria. Additionally, the model is only dine-in, with hopes to reduce the use of packaging and single-use containers. SHHS also hopes the dine-in model will encourage students to socialize. Those not enrolled in the meal plan, but who may still want to access the cafeterias, will be required to pay an entrance-fee. According to Yang, SHHS are still working out the details of the plan, and weighing different options for students. Further details about the plan will tentatively be posted in May and will be ready to be rolled out in the new academic year.

The Daily spoke to Liam O’Connell, the Food Representative on the Environmental Residence Council, about the prospective ACTYE plan. As the food representative, O’Connell attends University Residence Council (URC) meetings to advocate for improved sustainability practices, increased variety, and affordability in pricing within residence cafeterias. According to O’Connell, members of SHHS started developing this new model in response to students wanting a change from the declining balance plan currently in place. He expressed that SHHS is open to ideas and change; “I just feel like they don’t have these ideas,” he says, “so if people have any ideas, it would be very helpful for them to tell SHHS and talk about it.”

O’Connell says that although he has attended most meetings that took place, “a lot of it has been going on behind the scenes … without students.” Student consultation regarding the plan has been limited to the food representatives on residence council, per O’Connell.

Marcel Bendaly, VP External at RVC, told the Daily that “since we [RVC] are the main cafeteria on campus, I have heard a lot of stories of people foregoing their meals or skipping meals or budgeting to extreme lengths because of the food security issues.” When the Daily asked Bendaly if he believes the AYCTE meal plan will remedy the food issue for first-year students living in residences, Bendaly said in interviews with media outlets regarding food security, McGill’s response has been to refer to the AYCTE model. Bendaly said that the pricing and sustainability details of the plan are still unknown: “they have not defined exactly what it will be like. All they have given us are just the usual marketing slogans that students will have to select from natural or whatever locally sourced, that sort of thing,” said Bendaly.

Bendaly also commented on McGill’s lack of collaboration with student groups: “If McGill does really want to provide us with a good solution to the food insecurity issues, it would start first by working with the student groups, which are tackling the issue and establishing some sort of rapport where we are able to review the plans they have, give our opinion on them and be agents and actually changing that into something that would be good for students.” Such groups may include Midnight Kitchen, Let’s Eat McGill and Macdonald Student-Run Ecological Gardens.

The post Switch to All-You-Care-to-Eat Meal Plan Being Considered appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Daily spoke to Adore Goldman, a sex-worker involved in SWAC,  a Montreal-based advocacy group created by and for sex workers, that demands full decriminaliztion and better working conditions within the industry. Although PCEPA supposedly grants sex workers immunity (as written in subsection 286.5(2)), Goldman explains that the law’s broad definition of “third parties” – everybody who benefits from the income of a sex worker, per Goldman – leaves room for criminalization. “As soon as we are working with colleagues, we can be considered as third parties. So if we share a working space, we can be charged. It can criminalize our roommate, our boyfriend or partner. It criminalizes people we can hire as a [sic] driver, or anybody who works for our safety, ” Goldman says. Goldman also explains that criminalizing clients presents a safety concern, as clients become less willing to disclose information about their identity: “We have a mechanism within the community to inform each other when a client is dangerous, but if the client is not willing to provide information about their identity, we cannot do this.” For example, Stella, a Montreal organization for sex workers, provides a form where workers may report information about aggressive clients  – and keeps a record of these clients for improved safety. Client anonymity preventing the spread of pertinent safety information reduces the negotiation power that sex workers have in regards to condom-use and other limits, per Goldman. 

The rally was organized following the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform’s (CASWLR) first public hearing at the Ontario Supreme Court on October 3. Composed of groups from across Canada, the sex worker’s rights organizations are challenging the constitutionality of PCEPA under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

According to the CASWLR, as written on their website, “decriminalization is one part of our larger struggle for the recognition and actualization of sex workers’ rights,” especially as  “Indigenous women and youth, people who are immigrants (particularly racialized women) and trans folk (especially trans women)” are more greatly targets of stigmatization, police harassment, and criminalization. Activists claim that sex workers are being put at greater risk for harm and exploitation under PCEPA – rather than being protected. 

In their press release, activists at SWAC explain how they can be better protected:

“The decriminalization of our work would allow us to have access to labor rights, as is the case in other industries. […] This status of worker […] would allow sex workers to benefit from adequate protections in case of accident and parental leave, but especially to hold employers responsible for the safety of workers in the workplace, and allow sex workers to organize among themselves. We could denounce situations of harassment and abuse through the legal mechanisms in place.”

Labor rights and protection from policing has been the focus of sex work advocacy across Canada. In September 2021, staff at Maggie’s Toronto Sex Worker Action Project – an advocacy group run by sex workers – joined the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Unionizing will allow Maggie’s to better address racism, transphobia, and low wages. Maggie writes that unionization “is especially crucial for queer and trans, Black, Indigenous, and sex workers of colour at our organization who have not had the same privileges, access to employment, fair working conditions or labour rights.” In Vancouver, following the continued police harassment of sex workers and refusal to accept training, the Living in Community sex worker organization removed the Vancouver Police Department from their steering committee. Goldman says SWAC will be planning more actions until there is a more immediate government response. Sex worker and SWAC Activist Mélina May says “While sex workers and their allies have reminded the government of the urgent need to act over the past few years, the government continues to ignore its responsibilities to protect our safety and fundamental rights.”

The post Sex Work Autonomous Committee Holds Decriminalization Rally appeared first on The McGill Daily.

At the public assembly, community members had the opportunity to hear from candidates on how their platform will support the proposed redevelopment. Candidates in attendance were Ruba Ghazal of Quebec Solidaire, Jennifer Maccarone of the Quebec Liberal Party, and Chantal Rouleau of CAQ. 

The Daily spoke with SCU president Dimitrios Roussopoulos to gain more insight about the project’s conception and future.

Closing of Hôtel-Dieu and History of the Hôtel-Dieu site

Roussopoulos explained that the Quebec government, “in its misguided sense of priorities,” decided to merge, and subsequently close, a number of major hospitals in Montreal in order to build two “super- hospitals” – the French-language hospital CHUM in south east Montreal, and the McGill University Health Centre in lower Westmount/Notre-Dame-de-Grace. The construction for CHUM began in 2010, and in 2013 the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) announced the “surplus” status of Hôtel-Dieu. The merger would consolidate resources and medical equipment with the goal of ultimately better serving the health system. But the decision sparked backlash from Montreal residents, according to Roussopolous, on the basis of long wait times in emergency rooms across Quebec, and 41 fewer spaces at the new CHUM. Hôtel-Dieu and the Royal Victoria Hospital, along with five other hospitals, were subsequently closed.

In 2017, the Sisters of Saint Joseph – the religious order which served the Hôtel-Dieu before health services were managed under the MSSS – sold 400,000 square meters of this land, apart from one pavilion, to the City of Montreal. The SCU was then able to present their initial proposal to CHUM management. The closed pavilions of the hospital were temporarily reopened in March 2020 to provide specialized clinics for COVID-19 patients, to offer COVID-19 testing, and to temporarily function as a shelter for unhoused people.

Roussopolous says, “there were three major pavilions that were abandoned and this huge parking lot. And so people in the Milton-Parc neighborhood […] were concerned not only about the future of all this space, but also the urgent need for more social housing.”

According to Roussopolous, the initial coalition was formed in 2013 by Lucia Kowaluk, an important activist in the Milton-Parc community. It “[consisted] of various housing groups which eventually took on the task of putting forward both a vision and an architectural plan [sic] to turn the abandoned pavilions and the parking lot into a major social housing project.” 

Further Action

The Daily asked Roussopolous what’s necessary in terms of government policy and financial support  to move forward: “what is needed is for […] the provincial Ministry of Health to do what it announced that it wanted to do, namely to give all of this space and these pavilions to the City of Montreal.” Although the City of Montreal is interested in assuming control over the site, there remains a political deadlock between the provincial and municipal government, per Roussopolous. Until a development plan is put into effect, the City requires money “from the provincial government to maintain the empty buildings over two or three winters,” which includes heating and electricity. Although the CAQ  had issued a statement before the last election that they would collaborate with the SCU to realize the project, Roussopolous describes the CAQ as “dragging its heels.” 

Student Participation

Considering the number of students who live in the Plateau, Roussopolous spoke on what McGill students can do to aid the project, stressing the importance of public exposure. 

“The attention of McGill students and their participation in creating a campaign of public pressure, either through your student council or through your media tools that you have on campus, is extremely important. The students have to show that they’re interested in helping, not just interested in benefiting from the eventual success of the project,” stated Roussopolous. Making more people aware about such an opportunity for public housing, and putting public pressure on the government and the MSSS to come toward an agreement is crucial for the project to move forward. He pointed to the Milton-Parc project, which started in 1968 and finally succeeded by 1980 – “with the support of a lot of people, including McGill students, we succeeded to create the largest non profit cooperative housing project on a land trust in North America and thousands of people benefit from it. So again, it takes that kind of collaboration and support.”

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In the following semester, undergraduates from the School of Social Work and graduate students from the Faculty of Education and Law went on strike due to having similar health and safety concerns with the return to in-person learning during the surge of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in Canada. Despite the calls of student activists, the University never implemented a vaccine mandate, accommodations remained minimal, and in-person learning continued from January 24 through the end of the Winter term.

From March 7 to March 17, Divest McGill staged #OccupyMcGill – an occupation of the McCall MacBain Arts Building where students slept in tents for ten nights and hosted programming during the day. These students called on the University to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, to divest “from colonial projects like the coastal gaslink pipeline trespassing on unceded wet’suwet’en territory,” and to democratize the Board of Directors.

Also on March 17, Floor Fellows in the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) went on strike for a more equitable collective agreement, which included a higher minimum wage.

Following more than two weeks on strike, AMUSE reached a tentative agreement with the University.

Students advocating for more equitable policies and practices at their institution have historically served as a primary catalyst for change at McGill. Below are some of these instances, sourced from the Feminist Student News and Protest Archive (SNAP), “a collection of materials related to student activism around sexual violence, primarily on the McGill University campus.” These cases exemplify how decades of student advocacy has been met with much delayed and minimal response from the University.

In 1991, the McGill Native Awareness Coalition (NCA) attempted to change the name of the McGill’s men’s varsity athletics team. The name evoked an anti-Indigenous stereotype, combined with the logo which featured anti-Indigenous imagery. Before 1991, McGill’s athletics teams had been colloquially known as other anti-Indigenous names as well. It wasn’t until the 2017–2019 Change the Name campaign that the name formally changed. The campaign was led by Tomas Jirousek, an athlete, Kainai Nation and Blackfoot Confederacy member, and the SSMU Indigenous Affairs commissioner.

In 1991, students of the McGill Sexual Assault Centre (MSAC) called on the University to implement a sexual violence policy – cases of sexual assault were then being addressed under the general policy. Sylvia Di Jorio told the Daily, “It is insulting to equate being raped with being punched in the face […] McGill’s assault policy does not address the trauma and impact of rape.”

According to the Sexual Assault Policy Working Group (SAP), it was not until 2016, after three years of drafting, that a sexual assault policy was adopted. The policy aimed to be pro-survivor, accessible, and intersectional; however, the policy has been criticized for not putting survivors first, or for not being followed up with practice and adequate funding of resources. The policy was reviewed in 2019 and was last up for renewal in March – McGill has not posted any further updates, and the next review date is unknown.

The post Last Year’s Student-Led Activism on Campus appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Quebec’s Bill 2, adopted June 7, will allow trans people to change their sex designation on identification documents for free, will introduce “X” markers for non-binary people, and will permit trans parents to change their label of parental designation starting June 17. Celeste Trianon of the Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA), in conversation with the Daily,  describes Bill 2 as “a nightmare turned victory.” The bill was initially “going to set back trans rights by over a decade here in Quebec,” but now, according to Trianon, it will create positive changes for the legal recognition of trans and non-binary people in the province. 

The bill, originally introduced to the National Assembly by Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette in October 2021, has since been subject to extensive amendments following protest from the trans community. Notably, the original bill proposed the inclusion of a gender marker, in addition to a sex marker, on identification documents: an individual’s sex designation could only be changed if they had received gender-affirming surgery, which had the potential to legally out someone as trans. This proposed bill was also harmful for intersex people: the creation of an “undefined” sex designation would encourage parents and doctors to force intersex children to undergo intersex genital mutilation, as Trianon told the Daily in a previous interview. Both this surgical requirement and the “indeterminate” marker for intersex people were removed from the final bill.

The initial version of Bill 2, described by Trianon as having been “written with complete disregard for the trans community,” was met with bold opposition. Trianon reported that coordinated community action across the province – which included outreach to politicians, media interviews, meetings at the grassroots level, the creation of the Pas de Recul campaign in collaboration with the Conseil Quebecois LGBT, more than 35,000 emails to Members of National Assembly (MNAs), and more than 40 briefs submitted to the National Assembly – made the bill what it is today. “I remember very clearly the day the bill was first introduced, the whole community sounded the alarm … It was really t​​he most massive and the most rapid response to a bill that I’ve ever seen from the trans community,” Trianon told the Daily.

Trianon stressed the importance of understanding the bill’s harmful origins and expressed frustration that it took six months for the amendments to be presented: “Imagine six months of the stress of not knowing the status of your rights … I think it’s important to remember just how distressful [sic] it was for our community at the time,” she says. Trianon reported that they received the amendments from Quebec Solidaire on May 9. The amendments addressed the primary concerns with the bill, but further positive changes came as a result of continued conversations with politicians about Trianon’s personal concerns, those of the community, and those of CGA’s lawyers.

Starting June 17, an “X” designation will be available for non-binary people, trans and non-binary parents may change their parental designation from “mother/father” to “parent,” and marker changes will be more accessible as they are available for free for those changing their marker for the first time.  As having a corrected sex designation on identification documents is often a prerequisite to obtaining employment and housing – “you’d be kind of stuck in this feedback loop where you don’t have money to change [your marker] and yet not be able to get a job because you don’t have a changed marker,” explained Trianon. The fee removal helps end this cycle. 

Trianon emphasizes that despite the multitude of positive changes, the bill is not without its limitations. Namely, there is a possibility for trans parents to be outed, as children older than 14 are allowed to object to their parents’ change of label (e.g., from “mother” to “father”) – in this case, the parent will be assigned the “parent” designation rather than the desired “mother” or “father.” As the “parent” designation remains new, those with the label risk being outed. The bill is also restrictive in that a non-binary person is not allowed a mother/father designation. 

Barriers also remain for trans youth, per Trianon, as the requirement for a consultation with a psychologist or other health or social service professional is currently being challenged at the Court of Appeal. “We’re looking forward to see how that changes in the future and we’re hoping the requirement gets botched,” Trianon says. Further, the process of filling out forms may be difficult and tedious, which poses an issue of accessibility. It can take three to six months to receive the change of sex designation certificate and another three months to receive a piece of government-issued ID, in addition to a mandatory 30-day waiting period upon filing. 

Bill 96 further complicates this process, as the applicant must submit a French translation of their birth certificate through a certified translator – the costs of which are not covered by Bill 2. In the case that someone does not have a birth certificate, or an alternate piece of ID recognized by the courts, the process is nearly impossible. Trianon says that “the process of being able to change your gender markers needs to be as simple and as accessible as possible to everyone. And currently, the process is anything but that.”

Trianon expressed frustration with the “artificial and arbitrary waiting periods which really [make] the procedure much longer,” adding that she wishes the National Assembly would have touched on this additional “layer of inefficiency within the CAQ’s [Coalition Avenir Québec’s] whole operations.”

To conclude our interview, Trianon brought attention to the inaccessibility of gender-affirming care in Quebec; legislation that removes barriers to medically transitioning, as exists in Yukon, and ensures a gender-affirming care model among health practitioners is a high-priority demand for trans people. Although Bill 2 addresses legal recognition, issues relating to access to jobs, health care, and housing are not explicitly addressed. “Even though having a correct gender marker will really facilitate that, I really do feel like it is something which needs to be explored in the future, whether by innovative government agencies or by the National Assembly itself.”

On June 17, CGA is hosting a training workshop in English and French to give an overview of Bill 2 and to explain the process of changing your marker.

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Located on De Maisonneuve Boulevard in Borough Ville-Marie, a few blocks from the Saint-Laurent metro station, the community garden of Habitations Jeanne Mance is brimming with flowering plants, onion tops, and tomato vines. The City of Montreal currently maintains 97 community garden sites, the number varying  per neighbourhood  – one garden per 61 households in Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, one per 113 households in Ville-Marie, and one per 149 households in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood, according to Dubé. 

Habitations Jeanne Mance is Quebec’s oldest public housing project, and its garden offers residents lower-cost access to fresh produce through purchasing a plot. Plots are allocated by street address, and gardeners are provided with soil, compost, gardening tools, and a watering source. Gardeners must follow a variety of rules, including maintaining the garden through regular weeding within their plots and along pathways, checking for pests and invasive plants, and participating in scheduled clean-ups. Community gardens are essential food services in low-income and marginalized communities. In Ontario, gardens were officially declared to be essential food services during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as the province announced the closure of recreational spaces, which initially included community gardens. Fresh produce grown and accessed by a neighbourhood community has been shown to increase the proportion of vegetables in diets, to have benefits for physical and mental health and well-being through fostering active involvement in gardening as an outdoor physical activity, and to foster connection with other members of the community. 

Unfortunately, residents can expect to be on the waitlist for years before having access to a garden plot. Dubé reported to the Daily that wait times for a plot in Plateau-Mont-Royal are generally three to five years, according to 54 per cent of respondents – while some have been waiting for two years (19 per cent), and others for six to ten years (16 per cent). Borough councillors  have expressed that expansion of urban agriculture is obstructed due to the limited availability of  public land. According to Dubé, garden plots in De Lorimer and Mile End neighbourhoods are divided in two to accommodate  more gardeners – but this is not an adequate solution.  More land needs to be allocated for urban agriculture initiatives, addressing the cause of long wait lists rather than implementing a temporary solution that divides the already limited space there is. Dubé emphasizes that “we cannot relate community gardens to food security if we don’t have the space to develop them.” Currently, the community gardens in Montreal emphasize the individuality of plot ownership: the rules state that although “gardeners may help one another on occasion,” they “may not work on another gardener’s plot on a regular basis.” And although plots are allowed to have a co-gardener, there can only be one and they can only serve as a temporary replacement for the main gardener. This restriction of one-gardener-per-plot, which has contributed to the reduction in plot sizes, severely limits the potential reach of urban gardens within their existing space and number.  In order to shorten wait times and allow more people to engage with the garden, the Toit Vert recommends “offer[ing] options for collective gardening or involvement in other urban agriculture projects.” Collective gardening differs from community gardening in that a group of people cultivate the garden together rather than own individual plots. Without increasing the amount and size of gardens, such a collective approach to gardening could better accommodate marginalized communities who would benefit from urban agriculture. 

Dubé imagines urban gardens to be a pathway toward a sustainable food system in which the “production, processing, distribution, [and] consumption of food products as well as the management of residual materials” are integrated into a local and collaborative network. Dubé attests that a 2021 survey by the Urban Agriculture Lab of Plateau-Mont-Royal found that “vegetables grown in community gardens contribute to a good proportion of fresh fruit and vegetable consumption for some members, but – unfortunately –  not enough to fully feed their households. Fruits and vegetables from the community garden represent between 25 per cent and 49 per cent of the total fruits and vegetables they eat during the growing season for 30 per cent of survey respondents.” Although this is a substantial increase from just the past two years, gardens are not currently a reliable food source because they are not allowed the space to grow. If gardens were to be adequately publicly funded and meaningfully expanded, the future could look like a garden in every neighbourhood. Dubé hinted at potentially establishing a garden for the Milton Parc community at the “Royal Vic site,”  what used to be the Royal Victoria Hospital, land which McGill currently plans to privatize and convert into a Sustainability Sciences and Public Policy centre. 

Funding 

In February, the City of Montreal announced an investment of $10 million over the next 10 years for urban agriculture projects. The money will be put toward the renovation of gardens, expansions, and the installation of compost bins. In order to access this funding, boroughs can submit proposals to the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience. As well, Montreal’s 2021 to 2026 Urban Agriculture Strategy notably aims to expand cultivated land from 120 hectares to 160 hectares, to develop urban agriculture in schools, and to increase the number of urban agricultural businesses. Magali Casaubon, the Urban Agriculture Program Manager at Santropol Roulant, speaks to the shortcomings of the plan: “it is important to remind the city that in order to move forward with the AU 2021–2026 super strategy, it must also ensure that it provides funding for human resources, particularly for community organizations that are already active and supported by individuals who are living with job insecurity from season to season.” The city has also been a proponent of “unconventional” greening initiatives, such as in alleyways known as “Ruelle Verte.”  Although this could aid with the urban heat island effect (UHI), growing in alleys is not effective on a larger scale due to limited water and sunlight. As well, green alleys have  contributed to “urban renewal,” also known as gentrification, efforts. Dubé added that “the Milton Parc community has been waiting to get its own community garden” because the Toit Vert as well as other green initiatives across Milton Parc are “great projects, but they do not address food security needs.”

Gentrification 

However, greening initiatives across Montreal – notably, the conversion of industrial land by the Lachine Canal into recreational space with bike and walking paths following its designation as a national park in 1976  – has provided sought-after green infrastructure that facilitates gentrification through land speculation and eviction of low-income residents. Publicly-funded greening projects promoted by activists and borough councillors as well as those involved in the Eco-quartier program, have inadvertently displaced low-income and racialized populations while being ineffective in addressing the issues they intend to. Ville en Vert, a project funded by Eco-quartier to combat the UHI,  in the Villeray-Saint Michel-Parc Extension is one such example of this. The project was initiated to reduce the UHI, which occurs when densely paved and constructed areas of a city absorb and retain greater UV radiation than vegetation and natural land cover would, resulting in higher overall temperatures in densely urban areas with little green space. This increases energy costs for air conditioning, pollution levels, and, in some cases, heat-related illness. 

A 2021 research paper titled “The Impacts of Green Gentrification on Homelessness; Urban Greening and Displacement in Parc-Extension Neighborhood of Montreal” reported, however, that the developers of the Ville en Vert project did not  consult Parc-Extension residents or local organizers regarding the project in terms of adequately addressing the sustainability needs of the community. Residents and organizers expressed feeling disappointed with the organization of the program, citing that it failed to integrate feedback, lacked the capacity to invoke environmental change residents could actually benefit from, and had no intention of reflecting the needs of residents. Environmental concerns, such as UHI, ultimately need to be addressed as intersectional social issues – undesirable land uses, zoning, and toxic waste disposal, among other  environmental decisions, have historically deliberately targeted and disproportionately affected low-income people and people of colour, especially Black and Indigenous peoples. The paper cited that the Ville en Vert project “did not emerge as a solution designed to address the problem of UHI in its complexity but rather as a result of applying a pre-existing solution to a ‘problem’ that is high on the political agenda,” and its adverse “inadvertent” effects of intensifying gentrification outweigh its negligible effects on the UHI. The city’s transformation of alleys into “Ruelle Verte,” in the absence of meaningful rent control, have had a similar effect. In order for greening projects to be beneficial, it is essential that projects are community-led or that members are given a seat at the table, in tandem with anti-gentrification efforts, housing rights, and ways to address other socio-economic needs. 

Accessibility 

Gardens across Montreal have a varying number of plots which are accessible to people with disabilities. There are many ways to make gardens more physically accessible for people with disabilities as well as for anyone unable to crouch for long periods of time – ultimately increasing community involvement in the garden space. Along main pathways and entrances within the garden, accessibility measures should maintain smooth paths that are wide enough for a wheelchair or have accessories such as ramps and railings. Additionally, vertical gardening techniques and raised-beds allow gardeners to stand or sit on a chair, rather than crouch – such beds of varying heights are implemented at the Santropol Roulant. Beds can also be elevated to allow a wheelchair to be positioned underneath the planter while the gardener has access to the entirety of the bed. Ultimately, more needs to be done across the community gardens of Montreal to ensure improved physical access.

Engaging in Urban Agriculture

To start your own garden, look to the Macdonald Campus Seed Library, which allows students to borrow a variety of flower, herb, and vegetable seeds with the option to “return” them at the end of the season. Volunteer with the Santropol Roulant and participate in the activities of the Toit Vert Solitaire (join the Facebook group: Les Jardins collectifs de Milton Parc / Milton Parc Community Gardens). Further, students can advocate against the privatization of the Royal Vic and in favour of keeping the land in the public domain, democratically managed to serve the social, economic, and ecological needs of Milton Parc residents.

The potential that urban gardening has in creating sustainable and community-based food systems in Montreal is immense. Although gardens wouldn’t be able to operate for around six months of the year, the summer and fall months could serve as a time of cultivating connection between people and between the earth through digging, weeding, shovelling compost, planting lettuce and watching it grow, and taking a squash home only to realize its the best-tasting squash of your life. However, the development of gardens has real limitations, such as funding, space to allow expansion, and the physical accessibility of the garden space. As well, it is important to consider the possible gentrifying effects that gardens can have. Although gardens are in line with the needs of residents in various neighbourhoods, as indicated by the hundreds of people on the waitlist for a plot, greening initiatives coupled with poor rent control across Montreal have historically raised property values and resulted in the eviction of low-income residents. As a participant of a garden collective has said via Dubé, “Having a garden would make my life very happy every day. Meeting my neighbours, taking care of the plants, sharing my harvests by preparing meals for my friends and relatives, the magic of seeing what I have planted grow day after day.”

The post Digging Into Urban Gardening in Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

It was a Thursday night when we met Dameer at Else’s. He gave us both a hug as we stood among the snow, briefly chatting before turning our attention to the queue outside the door. We decided to head elsewhere, and a walk down St. Laurent brought us to a cozy pub on Prince-Arthur. We were seated at a table next to a club’s trivia night, which became a running joke throughout the evening… “I feel like this is what my parents think I do on a weekend,” he joked. 

The McGill Daily (MD): What kind of music do you listen to? Let’s start with that.

Dameer Khan (DK): You know, that’s like a crazy question to ask a musician because it’s everything all the time. I get really engrossed with whoever I’m listening to. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Dionne Warwick, I love Dionne Warwick with all of my heart. I’ve been listening to Dionne Warwick too much. I’m going through a bit of a break up right now, that’s why. It’s great, just like self deprecating, gets in your feels. I’ve also listened to a lot of Dijon, a producer out in LA. Listening to a lot of [Montreal-based] rapper Skiifall, he’s my favorite artist in town right now. Yeah, it changes all the time.

MD: What does your songwriting process look like?

DK: It changes every time. Sometimes it starts with a tune, sometimes it starts with words. My song “Sun” started with a Charles Bukowski poem…I don’t know if that’s a red flag or whatever. I have Nietszche tattoos, that’s a red flag, too. I’m full of red flags. I’m not into Nietzsche anymore, I half regret these. 

So I was reading a Charles Bukowski poem, and he was talking about something along the lines of using knives as a metaphor for trauma. He was like, “this knife was stuck into me in 1971 when this girl got me, this knife was stabbed into me in 1953 when my mother did whatever to me.” I thought that was really fun. So then I wrote the line “Stick your steely knives from 1985.” My song is about familial generational trauma – my mom, who grew up in a very abusive household, had knives stuck into her in 1985 when she was a kid, and she took them out and stuck them into me. And that’s how trauma moves from generation to generation.

So sometimes it starts with a word, and then I’m really inspired by that, and a whole song will come out of that. Sometimes it’s a tune. Sometimes I hum a melody in my head or I find a riff on my guitar. And once you get good enough at music, melody starts to sound like words. Certain consonants and certain syllables and certain words will fall perfectly. You develop a sort of instinct of translating melodies into words and seeing what works.  

MD: How long have you been playing music?

DK: I come from a very musical family. My father’s a musician; he [and his brother are] in a very famous band in Bangladesh, Renaissance. My dad put me in guitar classes when I was nine or ten, I think. I started producing around 14 or 15, started uploading stuff around 15, 16, 17. And at 18 I got my record deal. 

I grew up in Bangladesh, and in 2017 I moved to Malaysia. I lived in Malaysia for four years, and then I lived in Ghana for a few months. The Bangladeshi music industry is very underdeveloped, so I knew I would never be able to make it just from Bangladesh. It’s changing now, but it felt like that when I was a kid. So as soon as I started gaining some confidence in my production, I would send it to big YouTube channels, labels, music blogs, and stuff like that. I would send them as little Hail Marys. I just kept sending them and years passed by and one of them finally replied. And that’s the company that eventually signed me.

MD: We saw on your Instagram that you recently left your label. Why did you decide to go indie?

DK: The label setting didn’t work for me. It took a really long time to put out my first EP, For We Are Distant. They were lovely people, though, and taught me everything I know about the music industry. It was a great stepping stone; I think if you’re a young artist, there’s nothing wrong with getting that initial deal to get your first project out. So you get good quality studio sessions, photoshoots, music videos and stuff like that. It’s a good first step to take. Then when you gain your control, you can always go indie. It’s never been easier to go indie.

MD: Why do you say that, that it’s never been easier to go indie?

DK: The music industry as we know it really sort of starts in the ’50s. And the thing about music contracts – and I have a feeling contracts in any creative field – is that they don’t stay up to date with current events. The contracts artists get when signed to a label are often quite archaic. They’re templates from contracts that were written decades ago. Slowly, slowly things change and things get added. Like, when MP3’s first came along, you started having MP3 clauses. When streaming first came along, you had piracy clauses and download clauses. When CDs started going away, you had less words about physical sales. But they lag behind significantly. So labels would give you a deal, let’s say you get 15 per cent? Fifteen per cent to 20 per cent is an average deal these days for an artist. But back then, you had to pay for shipping of your vinyls, for vinyl pressing, for various distribution, you had to pay each vinyl store the specific rights to sell your product. There are various other costs and certain things used to cost a lot more.

But as the world has digitized and the music industry has developed, labels have lesser overhead and lesser costs. Most labels don’t even press vinyl anymore, it’s all online. You just need to upload something, pay the distributor to plug it to Spotify playlists. How that works is that you have artists, you have labels and you have the streaming companies, but there’s a middleman between the streaming companies, and those are distributors. So most of the major labels have in-house distribution. If you go to a smaller label, chances are they work with an independent distributor, the biggest of which is called The Orchard. That’s who I work with right now, and who I used to work with when I was with my label. 

So to this day, labels don’t have the cost they used to, but they’re still going to hand you a contract that’s similar to what they used to be in the 80’s. They’re handing you an archaic contract, but the situation is different.

But today we have SoundCloud. Today we have Distro Kid. You don’t need to pay a distributor anymore, you can pay through Distro Kid and anybody can upload to Spotify. You get people blowing up on TikTok all the time now. My manager has a distribution deal with The Orchard, so I don’t need a label to send to [them], I can send them myself because [they are] an independent distributor that allows anybody to set up deals with them. 

The other really enticing thing about being indie is that you can create your own team. So we have a freelance graphic designer right now. As this project starts to go and we start to make more money, we’re going to start to bring more people on board: an independent social media manager, an independent PR person, an independent brand dealership person or sync person. You have that autonomy. You have that modularity where you can move things around and you can make your own team. 

Imagine, I grew up in Bangladesh and my label was based in Berlin. I love them, but they’re all white boys. If I’m indie, I could construct my own POC team full of people from parts of the world that understand what I went through and understand my worldview and my lived experience. So that’s how the music industry is changing, and it’s great. I’m all for it. This is the golden age for music, or is at least on a precipice of being a true golden age I think.

MD: Tell us about your new song, “Bashbo Bhalo.”

DK: It’s my first independent release, and my first song in full Bangla, my native language. It’s a song I’m super, super proud of. It’s a story about an old man who’s just lost his wife. He’s at the end of his life and he’s been married to her for so long, that now that she’s not in his life anymore, he’s in a limbo. He’s confronting matters of death and existentialism and love. But it’s not a longing for death, it’s more like, “I can’t wait to be with you again, so when death comes rapping on my door, I would take him in with open arms because the only thing that matters to me is to be with you.” This was written during a time when a lot of elder relatives were passing away from [COVID-19] in Bangladesh, and it just made me think, like, “what happens when you lose someone that you love so much and what happens when both of you get sick with COVID and one of you passes before the other and you’re like, is it coming for me, too, maybe I kind of hope it’s coming for me because I’m in pain.” So, it’s about “one day I’m going to hear the tune of your voice again,” and stuff like that. It’s an optimistic song in the end. 

MD: How do you incorporate language into your music?

DK: In my EP, I had seven songs; all of them were in English except “Amaar Jaan,” which was mostly in English, only the chorus was in Bangla. “Amaar Jaan” didn’t do the best streaming wise, but it sure did the best cultural impact wise in Bangladesh. That’s the song that put me on the map in Dhaka. [In the Dhaka scene,] that’s the song that everyone really got to know me through. And it’s [definitely] my most popular song in Dhaka. I did my first ever live show this winter and that was my last song, and it was electric. Everybody knew every word; it was crazy.

MD: How have the places you’ve lived influenced your creative process?

DK: Wherever I go, I try to absorb as much of the artistic culture I can –  not just musical, but film and art and dance. I really want to be a multidisciplinary artist.

When I went to Malaysia, I was introduced to so much Chinese music, Japanese music, Korean music, Thai music, Cambodian music, Indonesian music, Sri Lankan music, all sorts of cool shit. And then when I went to Ghana, that was awesome because it opened me up to the music of Africa. I’m primarily a guitarist, I’d say; some of the traditional folk guitarists from Mali are so interesting, they play the guitar in a completely different way, with different tunings and stuff. The desert rock that’s coming out of the sub-Saharan area of Africa, like Niger and Chad. There’s a band called Mdou Moctaur, which is a band from Niger, they’re absolutely awesome. They make desert rock. Then I got introduced to people like Tony Allen and Fela Kuti, who are like the fathers of Afrobeat. And then you get more into reggae, modern African hip hop, African trap, African drill and African folk music. It’s been absolutely wonderful. I try to just take in as much as I can. I’ve been to the UK a lot too, I love UK music so much. Listen, this is like my world. I surround myself with as much music as I can 24/7.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Students hired as Safety Ambassadors and Student Navigators were invited to reapply under different contract conditions. Employee A told the Daily that this new contract, set to begin February 13 and end April 30, employs students solely under the title of Student Navigator and reduces the hourly pay and maximum hours students are allowed to work: from $20/hour for 20 hours a week to $15.23/hour for 15 hours a week – a 25 per cent reduction in total salary. As all students working at the library are employed through Work Study, the negative impacts of this sudden wage reduction are far-reaching. Employee A, a student affected by the pay cut, expressed that the simultaneous reduction in hourly rate and maximum weekly hours “was the worst part.” 

The duties of Safety Ambassadors included scanning vaccine passports, checking Fast-Pass stickers on student IDs, and fulfilling the additional library duties of a Student Navigator. Student Navigators shelve returned books, retrieve requested materials, repair books, and ensure that each book in the library has an accurate barcode. In their justification of the pay cut to students, McGill stated that the Student Navigator position is “not as complex as the Safety Ambassador hence the lower classification and rate.” However, Employee A told the Daily that “those who were hired as both Safety Ambassadors and Student Navigators initially did mixed duties, but by the end of November we were all, both new hires and old, doing the job of Student Navigator nearly 100 per cent of the time.” Essentially, the tasks that many students are responsible for remain unchanged under the new contract. 

Having reached out to the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE), Employee A explained that AMUSE has been in conversation with McGill Human Resources since the February 12 notification. In a statement to the Daily, James Newman, President of AMUSE, said that the union considers “the arbitrary and capricious cutting of pay and hours to be absolutely unacceptable, especially during the throes of the pandemic with rising inflation and cost of living expenses making life so much harder for our workers. We will take all measures necessary and appropriate to fight for fair wages for our workers and against these devastating cuts.” AMUSE has yet to receive a response from McGill HR to clarify the situation and “reach a just and equitable solution to these members’ issues.”

The Daily reached out to the Work Study department at McGill University to discuss the matter, to which they commented:

As part of the Work Study Program, the McGill Library hires students to perform various tasks, including digitizing cultural heritage materials, organizing archival collections, and researching artwork to writing Library blog posts and social media posts, and acting as information assistants.

In October 2021, when the vaccine passport became mandatory to physically access library spaces, a number of students who had been hired on as Student Navigators were temporarily reassigned into a different position category (with a different pay grade) to work as Safety Ambassadors and help deal with lines and the Fast-Pass registration during this transitional period. Since that time, McGill has gradually introduced its Fast-Pass program, allowing to bring a number of Safety Ambassadors back into their original hiring position category as Student Navigators.

This statement does not acknowledge that the pre-pandemic hourly rate for Work Study library employees was $5 greater than that stipulated by the current contract. “This is a huge deal for us as far as adding an undue amount of stress,” Employee A said. “We’re already students. We’re focusing on getting a degree so we can get a job that would allow us some sort of financial freedom, and then we have a job on top of that already because we need to pay for living while we are studying.” As of March 9, there have not been any updates to the situation. 

The library “couldn’t function without us, but we sure as hell don’t feel appreciated,” Employee A writes.

A previous version of this article stated that the pre-pandemic hourly rate was greater for Student Navigators than stipulated by the current contract. The article has been updated to encompass the Safety Ambassador position as well.

The Daily regrets this error.

The post McGill Cuts Work Study Contracts Short appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Public Transport

The Montreal metro sees 1.36 million passengers per day, and is a key mode of transport for getting to cultural events. Following an audit of the accessibility of the Montreal metro, it was found that only 16 of the 68 metro stations have an elevator in at least one entrance, 32 have at least one entrance without an escalator, and 18 have escalators that either only go up or down. 

Recommendations for train accessibility include:

• Wider doors to allow easier wheelchair embarkment/disembarkment

• Increase height of doors and ceilings

• Contrasting colours for better visibility and object identification

• More and better-positioned hand grips

• Wheelchair spaces in each car

• Visual and automated information indicating stations, connections, and opening/closing doors, as well as tactile information screens 

• A low floor with installed gap fillers

• Spacious toilets on trains/train platforms 

• Promote current accessibility with accessibility symbols

Virtual Events

The pandemic has allowed increased access to events for people with mobility difficulties, as many events continue to be virtual. However, online events can still be inaccessible for those with vision, hearing, and learning disabilities. 

Recommendations for virtual event accessibility include:

•Include contact information on website or event page to request an access accommodation, and ensuring that it is convenient to request accommodations

•Promote current accessibility with accessibility symbols

•Enable live captioning 

•Provide a sign language interpreter

•Provide visual/audio description (for example, narration and captioning of the visual images in event)

•Insert alternative text on all images

•Provide accessible visual material: legible font style and size, image descriptions on presentation, blank space at the bottom of slides to ensure that live captions are not covered/hard to read

In-person Events and Event Spaces

Museums especially are often hard to navigate for wheelchair users. 

Recommendations for in-person event accessibility include:

•Consider if there is an accessible metro station and if there are bus routes close to the space

•Use contrasting colors and legible, large font on marketing materials

•Offer accessible versions of all programming (larger print programmes and captioned videos)

•Allow people with disabilities to pre-book transportation after the event

•Closed captioning and sign language interpretation during the event

•Removable seats to allow greater wheelchair mobility

•Check that automatic doors, elevators, ramps, escalators and handrails

 are available at the site

Further Resources accessibility information and local organizations:

Accessibility Guidelines for Organizers & Facilitators (Accessibilize Montreal and the Centre for Community Organizations)

Accessibility Toolkit: A Guide to Making Art Spaces Accessible (Professor Anne Zbitnew, Humber College and Tangled Art + Disability)

Accessibilize Your Event (Olivia Dreisinger)

VIBE: Challenging Ableism and Audism in the Arts (Critical Disability Studies Working Group, Concordia University)

The Radical Access Model of Disability (Community-University Research Exchange Montreal)

The post Making Culture More Accessible appeared first on The McGill Daily.

 From 2020 to 2021, the average rents of a 4½ and 5½ in the area had increased by 17 per cent. Activists attribute this rise in rent prices to an influx of students into the neighborhood, following the establishment of the Université de Montréal MIL campus. 

The architecturally hostile details of the proposed plan (some aspects never implemented) are revealed in email deliberations – translated into English by Ricochet – between Julie Gregoire, a municipal official responsible for community development, and a local property owner:

“Many colourful gardening / urban agriculture bins are found along your building to restrict people living in a homeless situation and prevent them from doing their business there, a guardrail would be welded all around the metal structure above the small wall at a height and at a strategic angle to prevent people in a situation of homelessness from sitting or lying down […] As an alternative, benches would be set up near the street for them. There would also be very large decorative rocks strategically placed in the most problematic places where you regularly find people or their feces.” 

The borough refused to release emails by elected officials, specifically Mayor Valerie Plante and former Mayor Denis Coderre. 

Plante’s model of social cohabitation, a phrase she’s employed many times, essentially refers to accommodating tourists and the new richer residents of gentrified neighborhoods, while doing the bare minimum to accommodate unhoused individuals, often in response to negative public opinion about anti-homeless initiatives. In August, she announced the pilot of the Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team, launched in Ville-Marie. Specifically targeted toward intervention to de-escalate potential conflicts in public space, the project is an attempt to take the responsibility of conflict mediation off SPVM, who do not receive specialized training in this area. The Parc Azellus-Denis bench removal was incited by 32 complaints to SPVM about unhoused people gathering and resting in the park. In an interview with Ricochet, David Chapman, director of Resilience Montreal, questions how realistic cohabitation really is if the innate response of new residents is to call the police on unhoused individuals interacting with public space. He says that ten years ago, it would not have been a problem “when someone who is homeless is sleeping on a bench.” The individual only becomes viewed as a problem “when you have a bunch of [expensive] condo developments move into the neighbourhood,” changing the makeup of the neighborhood, resulting in “people calling the police about that person sleeping.” Chapman further comments on the structure of government revenue collection, housing and taxation: “If you’re living in a wealthier area of the city […] your property taxes are a significant amount of money, and with that comes a certain sense of entitlement. People have a sensibility — ‘I’m entitled not to have to look at homeless people.’ The city will get a certain amount of pressure, because after all these are the people who are keeping the officials in business. […] So much of the bill for local infrastructure is being paid by these wealthier populations. And so yes, the pressure is to keep these populations happy and sometimes to go beyond what is socially responsible in order to keep them happy.”

Often referred to as “revitalization projects” by city officials, such hostile architecture has been popping up all over Montreal – not only making the city less hospitable for homeless populations, but also for people with disabilities and the elderly. In Toronto, examples include the absence of amenities that would allow people to stop and rest, such as picnic tables, public bathrooms, and comfortable benches. However, benches separated by more than one crowded armrests have been argued against by the City of Toronto to support accessibility by making upward and downward movement easier. 

Cabot Square, long serving as an informal gathering place for Inuit and First Nations people, has also been a target of defensive architecture. The square’s downtown location near the St. Lawrence River has made it a prime spot for new real estate developments. So, it was no coincidence when hostile benches were installed in July 2020 – armrests separated the benches into individualized seating spaces, reading “repos 15 min,” or “rest 15 minutes.” Nakuset, director of the Native Women’s Shelter – located a few blocks away from the square – tweeted “no resting allowed at Cabot.” The negative public response lead Plante to have the benches removed a few days later. 

In November of 2019, the Daily reported that “defensive design has moved faster through the Montreal metro stations than their trains do.” With many metro stations providing leaning bars to stand against in lieu of benches, Montreal is making sure that metro stations do not serve as a place of respite throughout the harsh winters. In February, despite the closing of many shelters and capacity restrictions as a result of the pandemic, STM boarded up a popular resting space for unhoused individuals at the Bonaventure metro station.  

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Jennifer Hiseler of Accessibility Toronto argued against benches separated by several armrests. The article has been updated to be more accurate.

The Daily regrets this error.

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In the context of substance use, harm reduction is the practice of providing the resources to allow an individual to safely do so – acknowledging that “individuals coping with addiction and problematic substance use may not be in a position to remain abstinent from their substance of choice,” according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. Harm reduction means providing medical and social services to substance users without judgement in an effort to destigmatize drug addiction, applying a health-oriented approach rather than criminalization. Stigmatization as well as criminalization especially affects low income, unhoused drug users, as well as drug users with mental illness. 

Safe injection sites – supervised facilities that allow safe drug consumption – consist of rooms or booths where individuals are able to consume any substance they need to in a safe environment, reducing risk of overdose and disease transmission; “nurses or trained professionals are on hand to help assist them, whether that be in actually administering the substance […], assist them in the post-adminstration process, as well as providing resources on wound care and on how to decrease your consumption, if that’s what the individual wants,” Fiamegas said. Chabot added that safe injection sites provide clean needles and clean tourniquets, preventing the spread of blood-borne diseases that can be spread through injection and have been harmful in the opioid crisis (such as hepatitis and HIV). There are currently four safe injection sites in Montreal: CACTUS, Dopamine and Spectre de Rue are fixed, while L’anonyme is a mobile site that serves the Downtown, South-Central, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, West-Central and South-west neighborhoods. 

In November 2020, Vancouver city council approved a motion demanding that the federal government decriminalize illicit drug possession in response to what Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart predicted “to be the worst year yet for overdoses”of illicit drugs. Stewart stated that this approach was “urgently needed.” The proposed “Vancouver model” was submitted to Health Canada in May 2021, involving a higher criminalizing threshold amount, and instead connecting people with services to decrease substance abuse on a voluntary basis. However, the proposal has faced criticism for its lack of consultation with drug users – the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) calls instead for complete elimination of threshold amounts, which would mean full decriminalization. 

Mylène Drouin, Montreal public health director, released a report in November 2020 which showed the increase of substance abuse in the Montreal area during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report, along with Vancouver’s motion, has led Montreal city councillors Marvin Rotrant and Christian Arseneault, joined by organizations involved in drug dependency, to push for the decriminalization of drug possession in a January 2021 council meeting. The Association des intervenants en dépendance du Québec (AIDQ), the Association québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des utilisateurs et utilisatrices de drogue (AQPSUD), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSPD), and the Table des organismes communautaires montréalais de lutte contre le SIDA (TOMS) as well as the HIV Legal Network (HLN) urged “the City of Montréal to take concrete action to decriminalize the simple possession of drugs for personal use” and urged the Plante administration to support the City Councillors’ motion. 

The Public Health agency of Canada further echoed that the pandemic has exacerbated opioid-related harms – specifically due to decreased health service provisions. Fiamegas explained that many safe injection sites weren’t allowed to be open due to “essential service” restrictions, were open for shorter hours due to the curfew in Quebec, and were limited in the amount of people they could treat due to social distancing guidelines. In statistics specific to Ontario, pandemic opioid-related harms disproportionately impacted marginalized and racialized populations. 

Quebec’s national opioids overdose prevention and response strategy involved making naloxone kits available for free and without a prescription at any pharmacy. The injectable kits include two doses of naloxone, alcohol swabs, retractable safety syringes, a pair of nonlatex gloves, an instruction manual, and a mouth guard for potential mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Kits are also available with two doses of intranasal naloxone spray. Richard Davy shared a step-by-step instructional video with The Montreal Gazette on physical signs that can indicate a potential opioid overdose, how to administer Naloxone, and information on Naloxone kits. 

Montreal-based organizations committed to harm reduction include Plein Milieu, which works directly with harm reduction among drug users, the unhoused population and youth 12+, and Head and Hands, an organization that provides medical, legal and social services to Montreal youth. McGill specific harm reduction resources include MNCS, McGill Student Emergency Response Team, a group of student volunteers that provide free first aid services to the McGill and Montreal community, and McGill’s Making Drugs More Accurate, a campus organization that provides free drug checking kits. 

The post Naloxone Saves Lives appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In 2020, the Public Library Association (PLA) surveyed the technology capacity, infrastructure, budget and staff of public libraries in the United States to get a better picture of the library’s role in digital equity – a “launch pad for […] exploring technology application, services and devices.” Their Public Library Technology Survey found that 32.6 per cent of public libraries offer internet hotspots for loan, more than 88 per cent provide some kind of formal or informal digital literacy programming, and 36.7 per cent have dedicated staff for digital literacy and technology programs. Digital literacy training ranges from one-on-one help with general computer skills and internet use, to coding and website development classes. Further, libraries have a significant role in providing access to employment resources, online health resources, and online language learning. However, the survey found significant resource disparities between urban, rural, and suburban libraries – disparities include bandwidth capacity, scope of available technology, and staff. 

The Toronto Public Library (TPL) conducted a similar survey of libraries in the territory known as Ontario in 2016. TPL wrote that “digital inclusion is now a stated part of Toronto Public Library’s mandate, one [TPL is]  aiming to strengthen over the next five years, though they’ve been providing access for nearly as long as there have been publicly available computers.” 56 per cent of survey respondents who otherwise would not have had access to technology used technology at the library, and 36 per cent of respondents who used technology services related to workforce development did so to develop job-finding skills. The survey noted that broadband and connectivity issues are most disparate in rural regions and/or for low-income populations, and specifically for First Nations communities.

First Nations Technology Council, a North Vancouver based non-profit, reports that only 25 per cent of Indigenous communities in BC meet the standard minimum high-speed broadband of 50 mbps download speed and 10 mbps upload speed. Royal Bank of Canada records similar statistics nationwide, reporting that only 24 per cent of households in Indigenous communities across Canada have access to quality, high-speed Internet. More than 500 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities within Canada also do not have access to a public library- of the 133 First Nation communities in Ontario, only 46 have public libraries. The libraries in communities that do have access are inadequately resourced, limited by a low budget. Unlike other libraries in Ontario, libraries in First Nations communities are not funded by tax revenue – library funds are instead taken from those allocated for ‘on-reserve’ education and are distributed by the provincial ministry of tourism, culture, and sport to existing libraries. Ontario region ‘on-reserve’ education receives over 30 per cent less funding than that designated for education ‘off-reserve.’ In 2017, the National Reading Campaign submitted a federal funding request to the Ministry of Finance to “establish and enhance libraries within Indigenous communities” – the appeal was for “a three-year, $90m fund to construct libraries, and an additional fund (approximately $6m/year) for operational costs.” The request was submitted under the context of the Trudeau government’s supposed $1.2 billion commitment to invest into social infrastructure in First Nations, Inuit, and Northern communities – the plan outlined in chapter 3 of Budget 2016, and expanded to $18 billion in Budget 2021. The request submitted that the Ministry of Finance should support the Ministry of Indigenous and Northern Affairs in “an initial three year commitment […] to build 10 libraries a year,” a “goal” that “would create 30 libraries, and as a result, an additional 15% of Indigenous communities would have access to a public library,” which would mean access to digital training and employment opportunities. 

The PLA survey reported that when libraries were forced to close due to the pandemic, “many boosted their Wi-FI signals” and made technology available for loan. Likewise, TPL initiated their WiFi On Wheels program which “offer[ed] free WiFi from their bookmobile in parks in neighborhoods hit hard by the virus.” Choosing to attend school or work online is not an option without internet access at home, and so this service is essential for many of those at risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms. 

Library technology services are essential for Indigenous, poor, and rural communities – and so libraries and digital equity initiatives should be expanded within these communities. Initiatives such as Chicago Public Library’s YOUmedia lab, a learning space for teenagers to engage with graphic design, photography, video, music, 2D/3D design, and STEM.

The post Bridging the Digital Divide appeared first on The McGill Daily.

For one, the report alleged a misuse or underuse of funds by student Services without “indicating the frequency and the severity of the misappropriated funds,” Prevost said. Prevost further explained that “stringent financial guidelines” already exist within SSMU to “prevent misappropriation of funds” – “all requests must be approved by the Service, the VP Finance of SSMU, and the accounting department,” which would prevent misappropriation “if conducted properly.” Financial issues due to SSMU neglecting to follow protocol supports Rajji Courtney’s claim that student dissatisfaction is caused by internal governing issues. According to Rajji Courtney, SSMU “governance is a mess and there are scandals every year,” giving SSMU a “poor reputation” which causes the “pushback” over fees that “SSMU Services often face” – for Prevost and Rajji Courtney, the issues lie within SSMU governance and not in Services. Rajji Courtney believes the report implicated Services as a scapegoat, characterizing them as “financially burdensome and irresponsible when in fact [Services] cost a full time student less than $20 per academic year.”

Further, SSMU reports that they consulted student Services as part of their investigation, but according to Prevost, such consultations were made on short notice and the resulting feedback from student groups was not taken into account. “The ‘recommendations’ presented in those consultations meetings were the same that were included in the report,” according to Prevost. The current recommendations include expanding Legislative Council powers, as stipulated in recommendation #3, which would allow the council to “freeze,” “reduce,” and “terminate fees.” Prevost views this expanded power as “an existential threat to SSMU Services” because of its potential to “effectively defund” Services in their “entirety,” while “[disregarding] the will of the McGill Undergraduates who voted to support those initiatives.” Recommendation #4 of the report proposes a change to the process of introducing or increasing Ancillary fees, seemingly to end the practice of Services pulling “possible expenses out of thin air to justify” an increased budget and fee amount, in the words of the report. Prevost not only believes this to be a “hyperbolic statement that weakens the legitimacy of the report,” but claims that for most Services, this is simply not true. Prevost says:

“Speaking of our own Service, the UGE has only sought to increase its budget once since its consolidation in 2006, and the fee we proposed allowed us to go move from a bare-bones Services without the funds to upgrade its library nor purchase appropriate supplies for its cooperative, to one that has the funds to properly train volunteers, supplement our existing services, and expand into other areas.”

Prevost’s ultimate stance on the provided recommendations is that if they “were to go through as they currently stand, it would make daily operations of SSMU Services inherently more difficult.” Instead, Prevost proposes “hiring more personnel who review and respond to cheque requisition & purchase order forms” and instituting “mandatory review timelines.” Rajji Courtney also hopes that the recently hired Services Finance Coordinator will “enable the financial processes […] to move more quickly and smoothly.” Prevost claims that SSMU’s “highly unresponsive […] Financial chain of command” has hindered UGE’s operations.

Prevost also characterized SSMU’s student survey, which informed the findings and conclusions of the report, as problematic because it was not representative of the student body. The survey did not control for gender, year of study, program, faculty, or if the respondent was an undergrad at McGill. It also did not prevent users from submitting their responses multiple times. For UGE, “the survey is anecdotal at best.”

Although the “report itself doesn’t hold any power,” Rajji Courtney says, it does have influence “if it is taken seriously and considered as reputable” among the voting members of Legislative Council – especially when many “in SSMU governance have very little understanding of the work of Services,” yet are making decisions which could be “actively harmful to the functioning of the non-governing bodies of the SSMU.” 

Since the report’s publishing, UGE has spoken to some SSMU members and they were receptive of UGE’s criticisms, according to Rajji Courtney. Despite the newly hired Services Finance Coordinator, “the future of SSMU Services rests entirely in the hands of elected representatives and whether they decide to enact the recommendations included in the report,” says Prevost.

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Professor Cofone spoke on the surveillance of the “COVID Alert” app potentially creating an uneven distribution of who is surveilled and on how aggregated data from multiple platforms can encroach on people’s privacy. Although monitoring through contact tracing is necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19, the distribution of surveillance is determined by which groups have downloaded the “COVID Alert” app, he explained. Groups with lower rates of smartphone ownership, such as the elderly and those in lower-income brackets – although more at risk of contracting and being severely impacted by the virus – are under-surveilled by smartphone-sourced data, Cofone said. He also brought up the prevalence of over-surveillance of ethnic and racial minorities, which he claimed is a risk with any data collection platform, but in his opinion, not necessarily “COVID Alert.” The U.S. has seen such over-surveillance and racial profiling with the Patriot Act, according to Cofone.

While he supports contact tracing, Cofone warned against government agencies solely relying on the app because of installation rates that are low and do not reflect Montreal’s population demographics, as well as individual negligence to report a positive test result on the app, if installed. 

Dr. Andermann highlighted the idea of distributive justice within the ethics of public health framework, asking, “Is the distribution of harms and benefits [of COVID-19 intervention] fair?” She noted that the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms protects individual freedom and privacy, unless that freedom and privacy is at the expense of others, giving an example of such an expense by pointing to Chapter VIII of the Public Health Act. The chapter states that a report of infection “must indicate the name and address of the person and contain any other personal or non-personal information prescribed.” For Andermann, stringent privacy laws are a necessary tradeoff for the protection of public health, especially when there is an incongruence between who exercises freedom and champions privacy laws and who is affected the most by the virus.

El Emam spoke on possible ways to keep data private and still useful, in order to meet privacy concerns. He gave an example of the use of what he referred to as “deepfakes for data” in South Korea: fake data that is made to mimic real data without releasing personal information. He believes it’s possible to enhance the privacy and usefulness of health data in Canada, but a lack of generally accepted standards for health data sharing and a lack of infrastructure for data storage and refreshment are current obstacles to El Emam’s vision of harnessing mass health data for precision medicine.

Ultimately, in the words of El Emam, and as the other panellists agreed, “health data sharing is important, especially in the context of a fast-moving pandemic.”

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