The Tariq Khan Drama

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) saw its fair share of the short-lived SSMU President Tariq Khan this year. Elections SSMU invalidated Khan’s election as SSMU President on April 1, 2014 – a week after he was elected president by a margin of only 78 votes – due to SSMU bylaw infractions committed during his campaign. The violations included the participation of individuals external to SSMU in his campaign, the sending of unsolicited text messages to the public – for which he had been censured on March 21, the last day of the campaign period – inconsistencies in campaign expenditures, and the impingement of the spirit of a fair campaign and of the voting process.

Following his invalidation, Khan filed an appeal with the SSMU Judicial Board (J-Board), which upheld his invalidation on April 29. Khan later took this issue to the Superior Court of Quebec and filed a request on May 29 for a preliminary injunction to reinstate him as SSMU President until the full hearing for a permanent injunction. The Court dismissed his application on June 3, reasoning that his reinstatement would have incurred additional costs and caused undue inconvenience on the part of SSMU. Khan later withdrew his court case in October before its full hearing due to financial motivations and the decreasing timeliness of the case.

Khan resurfaced on the first day of the 2015-16 SSMU elections when screenshots of a Facebook conversation were released on reddit, revealing recently-elected SSMU President Kareem Ibrahim’s suggestion to hack Khan’s Facebook account last year. Upon news of the screenshots, he revealed his intentions to update the police report that he filed after his account was allegedly hacked on March 27, 2014.

—Emma Noradounkian

Campus unions get moving

Compared with 2011’s McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) strike, the past few years have been fairly quiet on the union front. This year, however, has seen a flurry of activity at McGill unions.
Floor fellows began a union drive over a year ago in November 2013, driven by the University’s earlier push for a change in residence models. Since then, floor fellows have succeeded at forming a union, and joined the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) last May. The process, however, has not been without hiccups: this January,collective agreement negotiations between the University and the floor fellows bargaining unit stalled over the exclusion of the “core values” of floor fellows (namely their anti-oppressive mandate and harm reduction approach) from the proposed agreement. The negotiations have started again and are currently ongoing.

McGill’s Teaching Union, AGSEM, has also been working to unionize undergraduate teaching support staff, which include course graders, note-takers, and teaching assistants (TAs). Despite receiving support from post-grads and undergrads, the process has not been without tensions: McGill challenged AGSEM’s promotion of its own union campaign due to disputing interpretations of the Quebec Labour Code. At the date of publication, the union drive is still ongoing.
This year also saw a merger between AMUSE and MUNACA, despite some internal trepidation over their differing sizes. Joint bylaws are on the way.

—Molly Korab

“I cannot celebrate the status quo of mental health support at McGill.”

The mental health landscape at McGill for the 2014-15 academic year has been a disappointing one. Though a working group was struck under the purview of Senate in October 2013, most of the recommendations issued by the group in June 2014 have yet to be implemented. Of the 36 initiatives on the roster, only two have been completed, the first being the development of a student services app, and the second publicly presented only as “further [development] of a robust early alert program.”

While both the administration and student government have been pursuing mental health services reform, they do not appear to be working closely. SSMU VP University Affairs Claire Stewart-Kanigan told The Daily in October, around the time the University announced its intention to create a ‘wellness portal,’ that the relationship between the two was “a consultative arrangement, not a partnership. Given that SSMU is named as a partner on the website, consultation is not enough.”

There have been no updates on the ‘wellness portal,’ projected to be launched in Winter 2015.

Most of the visible events that have taken place this year – in particular, the second annual Students In Mind conference on mental health in October and the Mental Health Awareness Week in November – were largely student-driven and student-led initiatives. Additionally, the most vocal advocates for mental health reform have been students.

In addition to managing the planning and execution of the Mental Health Awareness Week, Stewart-Kanigan oversaw the successful launch of SSMU’s new mental health department, which involved the hire of a coordinator and the development of a mental health listserv to promote peer and professional support services for students and forward student-led anti-stigma initiatives.

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—Emily Saul

Tense debates at General Assemblies

After years of SSMU General Assemblies (GAs) that have failed to reach quorum or present particularly political motions, portions of this year’s GAs saw huge turnout – with over 700 students attending the Fall 2014 GA and over 500 students at the Winter 2015 GA – as well as plenty of controversy.

Most notably, both GAs saw motions that poked at the long-dormant Israel-Palestine divide on campus. At the Fall 2014 GA, a motion to stand in solidarity with the people of the occupied Palestinian territories and condemn Israel’s violence toward Palestine over the summer was postponed indefinitely, with 402 in favour and 337 against, after hours of debate. At the Winter 2015 GA, a motion to divest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories garnered the endorsement of many campus groups (including The Daily), but failed by only 64 votes.

Despite the intense attention given to these two motions, a number of other political motions passed, mandating SSMU to take action on diverse issues such as unpaid internships, military research, climate change, and austerity. SSMU also saw a J-Board challenge after the contentious postponement of the Fall 2014 Palestine motion, where the judicial body ruled that simplified standing rules should be adopted and publicized at GAs to better facilitate debate.
More broadly, this year’s GAs have prompted a campus-wide (and still ongoing) dialogue on the political role of the student union – which most notably played itself out in the recent 2015-16 SSMU executive elections – with some students questioning whether SSMU should take stances on ‘divisive’ political issues.

—Dana Wray

Students against austerity

This year has seen a whirlwind of opposition against austerity measures and budget cuts set in place by the Liberal provincial government, which have reduced funding to social services, including welfare, healthcare, and education. In the fall, as part of an ongoing push that began even before this academic year, students at UQAM organized a group to allow students and community members to work together to protest these cuts: the Comité Printemps 2015, which helped mobilize around 80,000 students to go on strike on Halloween, and over 80,000 students planned to strike against austerity during March and April. This mobilization has not evaded McGill, as French language and literature students recently voted to go on strike for a week, and other departments have planned strike votes.

These student initiatives contrast with the stance taken by the McGill administration, which has been accommodating of austerity measures. McGill has been making cuts of its own, after undergoing $45 million in cuts from the provincial government over the last four years. The results of these cuts have been felt by workers at McGill, as the administration has set up a hiring freeze, decreasing the number of jobs available, and increasing the workloads of many employees. To combat the administration’s decrease in the number of full-time jobs at McGill, as well as the fact that many positions with benefits have been replaced with lower-paid, part-time jobs that do not receive benefits, AMURE recently voted to start a fund for counselling services for its members.

In response to the austerity measures taken by both McGill and the Quebec government SSMU and the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) have taken stances against the government’s measures and asked McGill to oppose these huge cuts. At the SSMU Fall 2014 GA, students voted to add advocating against austerity to the portfolio of the VP External, and SSMU has since hosted an anti-austerity activities night to show students just how wide-reaching the damaging effects of austerity can be.

—Jill Bachelder

Sustainability at McGill

Many important initiatives that began in previous years were continued and strengthened over the course of this one. Divest McGill helped organize a bus to take McGill and Concordia students to the People’s Climate March in New York City, where over 400,000 people marched in the streets of Manhattan to protest the United Nations Climate Summit and raise awareness about global warming. Divest also submitted a new petition for McGill to divest from fossil fuel companies to the Board of Governors (BoG), making a comeback two years after its first petition was presented to, and rejected by, the BoG. In addition, over 100 faculty members signed on to an open letter submitted to the BoG in support of divestment.

SSMU also continued its efforts to promote sustainability on campus, starting a composting program in the Shatner building, and joining Étudiant(e)s contre les oléoducs (ÉCO), after the a motion passed at the Fall 2014 GA that mandated SSMU to stand alongside groups combatting climate change.

Finally, the McGill Office of Sustainability launched its Vision 2020 program, an initiative aiming to create a more sustainable McGill by the year 2020.

—Jill Bachelder

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As with most terms that deal with sensitive topics, there is no agreed-upon definition of safe(r) space. The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Equity Policy sums up this concept as recognizing and proactively challenging the systemic disadvantage and discrimination from which certain groups benefit. Essentially, safe(r) space is for those who face marginalization and oppression – such as racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and so on – based on assigned or asserted identities, which often intersect and compound. It is a place where privilege, or the unearned relative benefit that some groups and individuals enjoy as a result of discrimination or oppression of marginalized groups, must be recognized and dismantled. Safe(r) space is not merely an adjective, a designation, or a static characterization: it is an active process that requires constant vigilance and unlearning of problematic behaviours and thoughts. As my friend and former colleague Hannah Besseau wrote in “The case for safe(r) space” (November 24, Commentary, page 18), “Experiencing safe[r] space is an individualized experience [… it] is – more than anything – a goal.”

Groups and individuals, especially in self-described ‘radical’ or ‘anti-oppressive’ spaces – and I include The Daily in this – need to stop co-opting a powerful tool for fighting against oppression, and turning it into empty words and rhetoric.

Unfortunately, this very real and valuable goal is often used simply as empty rhetoric – whether well-intentioned or not. Too often have I seen people like myself – white, educated, middle-class, cis, and privileged in other ways – use the term safe(r) space (or safe space) as a kind of declaration that they are morally superior to and smarter than everyone else. It’s kind of like allyship, the process of standing in solidarity with an oppressed group and challenging one’s own unearned privilege. People run around labelling themselves proudly as allies, or as proponents of safe(r) space, and then do nothing to actually back up their words. When the time comes for action – to call out privilege, to stop violence – these same people are suddenly not there. Like allyship, safe(r) space is twisted into a label or a belief system that is used by people to prove how ‘different’ they are from the rest of the privileged group in question. Or, more concerningly, very privileged people misunderstand safe(r) space to mean a comfortable space. If you have privilege, you will probably be uncomfortable in these spaces, because they fundamentally challenge the very systems of institutional oppression in which you are complicit. And often, if you have privilege that others in the space do not, your mere presence will create an unsafe space – sometimes, part of creating a safe(r) space is removing yourself entirely.

Obviously, I can’t speak to every case. There are many groups and people at McGill who are dedicated to creating safe(r) spaces for themselves and people they interact with, who understand that this is a difficult and constant process that will never be totally ‘right.’ But these are not the people or the groups that I am addressing. Instead, this is directed toward those who hold a significant amount of privilege in society, and pay only lip service to the concept of safe(r) space. Even good intentions can’t erase how harmful this can be. Often, people who adhere to this concept, or respect spaces that proudly promote this concept, can feel better about themselves, as if they are above the kind of violence enacted by systems of oppression. Let me be the first to tell you: you’re not. We’re not. We are complicit in these systems of oppression, and merely agreeing that safe(r) space is necessary is not enough. We have grown up in a society governed by oppressive structures and institutions, and have been socialized into them. You can’t undo your own socialization in one night, or even in one year. And no, saying out loud to a room, ‘I recognize that I am complicit in these systems’ does not actually make you any less complicit in them, nor does it stop such violence. This is only a small part of a lifetime process of constantly fucking up and re-educating yourself, over and over again.

Like allyship, safe(r) space is twisted into a label or a belief system that is used by people to prove how ‘different’ they are from the rest of the privileged group in question.

Nor is it helpful to focus solely on the micro: as an editor and a writer, I subscribe completely to the idea that words are intensely powerful, and that we need to change our language to reflect our ideals and values. But I also believe that people can get distracted by issues of language and fail to look at their own actions, and the more insidious actions of the people around them. The Daily does not escape this criticism, and as an editor for the last two years, I am fully complicit in this. It’s all well and good that we can point to words on the page and say ‘that’s ableist,’ but if we have group meetings in an inaccessible building, are we actually doing much? I don’t mean to say that changing language should be left behind in the dust, but rather that it needs to be paired with the active acknowledgement and condemnation of actions and systems. Otherwise, the people for whom you are trying to create a safe(r) space will realize very quickly that it’s all about assuaging your own guilt and about looking good in front of everybody – it’s about proudly announcing that you are anti-oppressive, rather than actually tearing down oppressive structures. The betrayal that comes with realizing a supposed safe(r) space is actually just an empty label is extremely harmful; people can begin to think that the microaggressions they experience or the very real ostracization they feel is all in their head.

Most important for creating a real safe(r) space as a person with privilege is challenging oppression from fellow privileged people. For example, I, as a white person, have a responsibility to call out instances of racism from fellow white people. Instead of simply saying, ‘that’s not safe(r) space,’ and subsuming specific instances of violence under a blanket term, those with privilege should call the problem what it is. Otherwise, dialogue is shut down, and all that is proffered is guilt, rather than an opportunity for change and re-education. I want to emphasize when I talk about calling people out and giving them resources, I speak specifically to people with privilege. The burden of education should never fall to those who are already marginalized.

Despite all these criticisms, safe(r) space is a process and a goal that I strongly believe in. The argument that the outside world isn’t ‘safe’ and so safe(r) space is a waste of time is truly a crock of shit – safe(r) space is a deliberate creation, where groups and individuals strive to combat these systems of oppression. At its most basic, the goal of safe(r) space is to offer a refuge from the storm of the so-called ‘real world’; it is meant to give people a place where they can feel comfortable, have their opinions validated, and not have to face (as many) disempowering and harmful incidents. University is probably the place where we, as students, have the most agency to build our own spaces and create our own rules. And to those who say that safe(r) space is too complicated, that we’ll never get it right: you’re absolutely correct, we’ll never get it ‘right,’ because it isn’t possible to completely leave behind systems of oppression that have governed our lives for centuries. But giving up on something because it’s difficult isn’t the answer. The most important things in life are complex and require a lot of effort, not just words slapped onto pages or uttered without a second thought – and building safe(r) space is one of them.

Author’s note: I am indebted to all the people who have talked about safe(r) space with me, and to all the resources offered by anti-oppression activists and people who dedicate their lives to making this world a bit less violent every day. My opinions are constantly shaped and informed by the work and the experiences of other people, and I can by no means take credit for them.

Dana Wray is the Coordinating editor at The Daily, but the opinions expressed here are her own. To contact her, please email danawr4@gmail.com.

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“The fact that there [are] gender neutral bathroom[s] means that people can just go evacuate bodily fluid without fearing for their lives,” Gabrielle Bouchard, the Peer Support and Trans Advocacy Coordinator at the Centre for Gender Advocacy, told The Daily.

According to the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) Office’s website, “A gender-neutral washroom is a single-person facility which is not labelled male or female but rather is available to anyone, no matter what their gender identity or biological sex.”

The shift to include gender-neutral washrooms is part of a burgeoning trend across Canadian and American campuses. Concordia students and groups have been fighting to include gender-neutral washrooms for over five years. Resources also exist to direct people to existing gender-neutral washrooms, such as SEDE’s comprehensive list of locations on McGill’s campus, and Refuge Restrooms, an international crowdsourced site that offers information about washroom accessibility in general.

Reflecting on their personal views, Leela Scott, the co-op coordinator for the Union for Gender Empowerment and a representative on the oversight committee, wrote in an email to The Daily, “These spaces are important because despite being in an academic institution surrounded by people who would like to think of themselves as very educated and accepting, there are still a lot of really toxic behaviors and opinions present.”

“Even in universities, trans and gender non-conforming people have been subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional violence for using what someone decides for them is the ‘wrong’ bathroom,” they said, adding, “More commonly, a well-meaning person telling someone ‘I think you’re in the wrong bathroom…’ can be very traumatizing for a trans or gender non-conforming person.”

The Redpath Library renovation project did not always include plans for a gender-neutral washroom. Faced with problems securing funding, the Library approached the Library Improvement Fund last year, which is a SSMU fund of student fees and alumni contributions allocated toward capital improvements in McGill’s library.

“As the goal of the fund is not to take over the financing of operational projects from the University, we felt that it would be inappropriate to cover the cost of the entire renovation,” explained Erin Sobat, the Library Improvement Fund Coordinator, in an email to The Daily. “The committee that allocates the fund, which is comprised of student fees matched with alumni contributions, agreed to provide partial seed money in March ‘on the condition that a gender-neutral washroom be included in the redesign.’”

The majority of the members on the oversight committee for the renovations – which will review architectural plans, budgets, and timelines among other things this year – are university staff, but there are also three students, a significant inclusion according to Sobat.

However, Scott told The Daily that they felt tokenized by the committee regarding the fact that they identify as agender, as well as the fact that they have a previous background in gender issues.

“I’m a bit disappointed by the seeming lack of knowledge and research many of the others have. Obviously I know not everyone is interested or has the time to know everything, but gender is a part of this project (as it is with any project, really) and I think it’s their responsibility as paid employees to be aware of these things.”

Gender-neutral washrooms across campus

According to Chuck Adler, the director of Campus and Space Planning (CSP), the Redpath Library project’s inclusion of gender-neutral washrooms was spearheaded by a SEDE report released in the fall of 2013. SEDE compiled a list of locations that had gender-neutral washrooms, as well as those that could be easily changed into gender-neutral washrooms through signage changes, among other things. The Office also looked at the universal access to washrooms on campus, another dimension of the project.

“I thought the teamwork between the SEDE Office, our office [CSP], and the students was really great,” said Adler. “I think it’s a good sort of framework for the University to advance.”

Over the next year, Adler said that CSP will be looking at securing funding for signage, locks, and other basic changes so that they can further convert washrooms on campus.

When asked whether the University has plans for having gender-neutral washrooms in every building, Adler said, “We haven’t projected that far down the road yet […] we’re going to follow the priorities of [SEDE’s report]. That will probably take us through the next year or so, and I guess we’ll reassess it with SEDE to see if we’re still missing needs or not.”

Scott felt that McGill’s progress still left a lot to be desired. “Unfortunately, change comes rather slowly in an institution like this,” they said. “While policy says they’ll strive toward having a ‘gender-neutral’ washroom on each floor in each building, right now some buildings have none, and many others only have [one].”

Although single-stall, gender-neutral washrooms are generally widely welcomed, there are also a few criticism. Bouchard raised concerns that if the gender-neutral washroom were located near gendered (men’s and women’s) washrooms, the person could inadvertently out themselves as trans or feel uncomfortable.

Scott added that they had raised concerns about the original plan for the Redpath Library renovations, which was to have men’s and women’s washrooms along with a single-stall washroom. The committee changed the design to include two gender-neutral stalls, but Scott pointed out that this overlooked the potential for safety problems, adding that they were looking into implementing multi-stall, ‘all-gender’ washrooms along with Sobat.

However, overall, Scott said that the renovations were a good step. “Access to washrooms is something that is often overlooked when thinking about how to make an institution safer because it seems so basic, but really – how many times a day do you go to the washroom? When it’s something you can do easily, without fear, you don’t think about it. But when it’s difficult and/or unsafe it can really affect your life and that’s really unfair.”

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The Daily has obtained from an anonymous source a copy of a declaration submitted to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Judicial Board by an unnamed petitioner regarding alleged campaign violations by Tariq Khan, who won the 2014-15 SSMU presidential election by just 78 votes. The petition has since been retracted because of Elections SSMU’s decision to invalidate the presidential election results.

The declaration identifies Ben Fung, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Elections SSMU – the body responsible for overseeing elections and referenda – as the respondent. The petitioner claims in the declaration that numerous requests – based on grounds similar to those provided in the declaration – were made via email for the CEO to invalidate the election, but were ignored.

The desired result of the Judicial Board case was for Elections SSMU to remove Khan from office and to either elect the runner-up or hold a by-election, according to the petition.

On April 1, independent of the Judicial Board case, Elections SSMU invalidated the results of Khan’s election, citing multiple campaign violations, and declared runner-up Courtney Ayukawa the president-elect. Because Khan’s election was invalidated while the petition was still in preliminary stages, the petition has since been retracted from the Judicial Board by its movers.

Although Elections SSMU refused to release details of the infractions for which it disqualified Khan on April 1, Fung told The Daily, “Obviously there would be overlap between the concerns that were brought up by students and the concerns that we investigated. So if someone had submitted evidence to this group of individuals who launched this [Judicial Board] case, it’s not unlikely that they also submitted this evidence to us.”

However, Fung added, “The complaints and the concerns that were brought up in the Judicial Board document [are] not a comprehensive representation of the concerns that Elections SSMU has with Mr. Khan’s campaign.”

Students have expressed their discontent with Elections SSMU’s decision to keep information about the infractions quiet. In a question-and-answer period held on April 2, Fung said that Elections SSMU’s confidentiality rules prevented him from disclosing information.

Fung added in an interview with The Daily on April 6 – in response to the leaking of the Judicial Board declaration – that Elections SSMU had not been given the permission of all of the individuals involved to release any details.

In addition to claiming that Elections SSMU ignored requests to invalidate the election results, the declaration alleges that the “penalization [… of Khan did] not adequately reflect his disregard for the Elections By-Laws throughout the campaigning period.”

This refers to the public censure issued by Elections SSMU to Khan on March 21, the last day of the voting period. Khan was censured for having “explicitly asked a non-campaign committee member to send unsolicited text messages to members of the public,” a contravention of bylaws 14.10.5 and 14.2, according to an email sent out to the student body by Fung on behalf of Elections SSMU.

“Considering [Khan’s] numerous previous violations and the time sensitivity of information as it relates to voters’ decision-making, a public censure on the final day of voting does nothing to affect the ultimate result of the election,” the petition states. “Further, Mr. Khan won by a small margin of [78] votes, clearly demonstrating that any and all campaigning activity benefitted him and could be attributed to his victory [sic].”

Fung, Ayukawa, Bradley respond to document’s release

When asked to comment on the fact that multiple emails addressed to Elections SSMU were included in the Judicial Board document, Fung told The Daily, “These were only emails to Elections SSMU. We didn’t comment on any of these, unless they were specifically related to our investigation. We weren’t involved in the Judicial Board case at all; in fact, the Judicial Board case was launched against us […] we weren’t involved in the preparation of [the Judicial Board declaration] at all.”

Both the current president-elect Courtney Ayukawa and incoming VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley told The Daily that they were disappointed that the information was leaked.

“I think it’s too bad that the information had to be made public this way,” Ayukawa said, adding that she would have preferred to see it come out at the end of the Judicial Board case or when Elections SSMU decided to release details.

Bradley seconded this sentiment. “The [Judicial Board] case has already been [retracted] and the contents [of the declaration] should have, as I always intended them, [remained] confidential and between the parties it pertained to,” she told The Daily in a statement.

Both Ayukawa and Bradley emphasized that neither of them, nor Elections SSMU, had leaked the document, but refused to comment further on the document in question.

Khan could not be reached for comment by press time.

The declaration in question has been redacted by The Daily to protect the identity of third-party individuals.

Facebook, email screenshots detail alleged infractions

According to the document, in the 12-day campaigning period, Khan had ten election bylaw violations lodged against him, as well as one sanction. The violations of which Khan was accused include intimidating other candidates, campaigning in spaces specifically prohibited by electoral guidelines, and beginning his campaign prior to the start of the campaign period.

In one of the emails included in the declaration as evidence, the sender claims that further violations may not come to light “because of this culture of fear and intimidation [Khan] has brought into this campaign period.”

A separate email corroborates the allegations of intimidation tactics. The sender states that a non-SSMU member organized meetings with Khan and other candidates – whose names have been redacted – and threatened other campaigns if they did not drop out. According to the petitioner, this behaviour is a violation of bylaw 14.5, which states that candidates “should conduct themselves with full respect for their opponents.”

According to the declaration, individuals who are not members of SSMU allegedly campaigned for Khan, which contravenes bylaw 14.2. The declaration identifies one individual who changed their profile picture on Facebook as a promotion for Khan and closed a Facebook group to prevent other candidates from posting, and another individual who publicly campaigned for Khan and engaged in meeting scheduling on his behalf. Both of these individuals were not part of SSMU’s undergraduate membership at the time of these actions.

The declaration also identifies multiple alleged violations of bylaw 14.4, which states that campaign members cannot abuse their power in any group to provide greater exposure or resources to the campaign. An individual campaigning for Khan pinned a post supporting Khan to a McGill-related Facebook group of which they were the administrator. Campaign materials were also posted in several closed Facebook groups.

In addition, individuals campaigning for Khan were accused of interfering with other candidates’ campaign material. While invigilating an examination, one campaign team member allegedly erased a message on the board supporting Austin Johnson and replaced it with a message supporting Khan.

Another individual – a Facebook group administrator – allegedly removed a post supporting Ayukawa from the group, but allowed a post supporting Khan, and then changed the visibility of the group from “open” to “secret,” thus preventing other candidates from posting.

A student provided a testimony alleging that when voting started, Khan waited for students to come out of the elevator in the Schulich Library, presented them with an iPad, and suggested that they vote for him, and then stood by them as they voted, giving them no privacy. Another email from a different student details similar tactics on a separate occasion, this time with a member of Khan’s campaign team. These actions are alleged infractions against bylaw 14.6, which forbids campaigning “within the vicinity of the polling stations.”

In the declaration, Khan is also accused by multiple different testimonies of offering to secure funding for groups if elected president.

In one letter, accompanied by screenshots from a Facebook group, a student, whose name has been redacted, alleges that Khan promised to give funding to certain groups. Another email claims that Khan implicitly offered the complainant a job if they dropped out of the race.

On March 18, Elections SSMU censured VP Clubs & Services candidate Sandhya Sabapathy for similar behaviour. Fung indicated in an email sent to the student body that Elections SSMU considers “offers to secure […] jobs and positions of note” as infractions to bylaw 14.5 and bylaw 14.10.4, which prevents candidates from offering gifts.

Update: On April 7, Khan released a statement to the media regarding the invalidation of the election.

“On April 1st, 2014, Elections SSMU sent all students a message announcing my invalidation as SSMU’s President-elect. I will be the first to acknowledge that my campaign has not been without fault and first to express the importance of respecting both the spirit and technical aspects of democratic process.  However, I must express my firm disappointment with the nature, language, and methods through which accusations have been levied towards not only my campaign but also my person. I wish to assure all members of the Society, regardless of their participation in the election, that I am taking these claims very seriously.

I will be working closely with an advocate to take swift and appropriate actions to ensure that, for at least my part, I have and will continue to do all I am capable of for democracy on McGill’s campus to remain undeterred.”

– With files from Laurent Bastien Corbeil

[gview file=”https://www.mcgilldaily.com/files/redacted_jboard_petition.pdf”]

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The candidates

Evelyne Abitbol, a candidate in the riding of Acadie – which is currently held by the Parti Libéral Québécois (PLQ) – represented the Parti Québécois (PQ), the party forming the current government, who called the election in early March.

Geoffrey Kelly, a current representative for the riding of Jacques-Cartier for the sixth consecutive term, represented the PLQ, who were ousted from power in an election nearly two years ago in September 2012.

The representative for Québec solidaire (QS), Molly Alexander, is running in the Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne riding.

Joseph Dydzak, a candidate for the riding of Vimont, was present to represent the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

Candidates address voting controversy

Candidates commented on the recent controversy over students voting in the elections. Students have reported that they have been turned away from registering to vote, with election officials claiming that they are not domiciled because they are only temporary residents of Quebec.

On March 23, according to CTV, several PQ candidates, including Léo Bureau-Blouin, claimed that the election was being “stolen” by voters from outside of Quebec, especially new university students.

While Abitbol stated that electoral officials should take care of this controversy, Dydzak accused the PQ and its leader, Premier Pauline Marois, of “[trying] to make political capital out of it. […] If people fulfill the rules, they have the right to vote, and if they don’t, they don’t. That’s [the Directeur général des élections du Québec’s] job, and it shouldn’t be politicized.”

Alexander claimed that the people turned away from the electoral office were not just anglophone students, but also new francophone students.

“One of the five ridings where the complaints were made by the PQ was Sainte-Marie–Sainte-Jacques, where Manon Massé of Québec solidaire has a strong chance of beating the PQ incumbent, Daniel Breton […] Why? Because it’s new students […] and the Parti Québécois is afraid that the student vote will not come to their side this time, contrary to 2012.”

Funding for research

On higher education, candidates were asked about their plans to increase funding for research and universities in general. Last year, the PQ cut $250 million from university operating grants, leaving many scrambling.

Dydzak outlined the CAQ’s plans to focus on involving business in research, and encouraging more applied research that could be profitable.

Alexander disagreed with the CAQ’s plans, telling the room that QS wanted “to preserve higher education’s autonomy and academic freedom by preventing private sector interference.”

As QS’s mandate also states, Alexander said that her party planned to make education free and accessible for all, and to improve both the amount of financial assistance available and the ease of qualification for this assistance.

Abitbol pointed to the PQ’s role in abolishing the so-called “abusive increase of tuition fees,” referring to the PLQ’s plan for tuition hikes of $1,625 over five years announced in 2011. Abitbol also told the room that the PQ planned to re-invest $1.8 billion over 5 years until 2018-19, although Kelly later criticized them for no concrete indication of this investment.

Kelly attacked the PQ’s claims that they were investing in research, pointing to $250 million in cuts from universities across Quebec. “In the last 18 months, we’ve seen a government that has reduced funding to our universities,” he said. “The government cut funding to research by $62 million last year – then they put [$26.5 million] back and said, ‘Aren’t we generous.’”

Instead of focusing only on research, Alexander also pointed to the problem of large class sizes and fewer professors, calling for more oversight over the internal finances of universities.

“I think that there is an important need to review the management of finances and funding allocation in all universities in Quebec, to put priority back onto actual education, and not necessarily emphasizing the money-making research departments.”

Charter of Values

The next topic of discussion was the proposed Charter of Values, a bill that has been contentious since its introduction in 2013. The proposed Charter would, among other things, ban the wearing of certain religious symbols for those employed in the public sector, including professors, daycare workers, and judges.

While Abitbol tried to defend the Charter as a necessary instrument of state secularism, the Charter was roundly criticized by the three other representatives and students at the debate.

“[Abitbol] says that [the Charter] is popular. Well, protecting the majority rights will always be popular,” Kelly said. “But the reason we have charters of rights in our society is to protect minority rights. Minorities, by definition, are often unpopular in societies – that’s why we need charter rights to protect them. So if you have a poll to say the charter is popular, it’s irrelevant to the debate.”

While both Kelly and Alexander were staunchly against the Charter or any reiterations, Dydzak instead proposed an amended Charter that would implement “reasonable limitations,” such as banning judges or police officers from wearing religious symbols. When Kelly insisted that it was a non-issue, as many of these professions already have internal rules, Dydzak claimed the CAQ’s suggestions would “codify existing practices.”

Abitbol was also unable to defend the Charter to students when pressed on her comments that the Charter would not affect them. In response to a question in French from a student, which addressed how students in co-op, in medical school, or in other public sectors would be affected, Abitbol said, “Unfortunately, these are public institutions, and these public institutions need to stay neutral […] It’s not religion’s job to impose orders on the state, but for the state to impose its own ideology [of secularism].”

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“The two main goals [of ECOLE] are to be a model for sustainable living, and […] to serve as a catalyst for a surviving, connected community for sustainability that integrates community outreach, sustainable living, and equity.”

Lily Schwarzbaum, ECOLE coordinator

Sustainability at McGill faced advances and setbacks this year. On the positive side, two important sustainability projects were approved by the University, Vision 2020, and the Education Community Living Environment (ECOLE) project. Vision 2020, which seeks to create a long-term sustainability plan for the McGill community, was approved on March 21.

The ECOLE project, also approved in the Winter semester, aims to create a sustainability hub in the Milton-Parc community and a model for sustainable living. The ECOLE project will operate in a house off-campus, and see 8 to 12 students live there while completing an independent study project. These student residents will receive subsidized rent and academic credit for their independent study. ECOLE will launch its pilot year in September 2014.

However, sustainability on campus also took a hit when SSMU abruptly lost the position of Sustainability Coordinator. The position which entailed working to align the activities of SSMU with a culture of sustainability, was ended in the Fall semester. Since then there has been little movement from SSMU to create a new position.

As per a motion passed at the SSMU Winter General Assembly (GA), the Ad-hoc Committee on Sustainability will make an “actionable recommendation” for sustainability at SSMU by the end of the Winter 2014 semester. After the recommendation is made, it will be the job of the President and executive to look into the feasibility of the proposal and steps for implementation, and an update will then be brought forward to the Fall 2014 GA. As such, much of the work to implement sustainability on campus remains to be seen in the next academic year.

—Jordan Venton-Rublee

“If this isn’t social injury, then McGill needs a new definition.”

Divest McGill banner

Divest McGill was created in 2012 to campaign for divestment from University holdings in the fossil fuel industry. In February 2013, the group submitted two petitions to McGill’s Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR). The petitions – one seeking McGill’s divestment from the tar sands and fossil fuel industry, and the other seeking divestment from companies associated with the Nord pour tous (formerly known as Plan Nord), a natural resource exploitation project started under former premier Jean Charest – gained momentum, with support from McGill student unions, as well as numerous climate justice advocacy groups across the city.

In May 2013, McGill’s Board of Governors rejected both petitions that Divest McGill submitted. The decision was based on recommendations from CAMSR that indicated that the petitions failed to prove “social injury” had occurred under CAMSR’s Terms of Reference – that is, their mandate and guidelines for reviewing the social responsibility of the University’s investments.

Divest McGill continues to be very active working with other climate justice advocacy groups and Indigenous communities who are also opposed to fossil fuel and tar sands extraction in Canada, and raising awareness on campus. This year, the group held workshops, organized a bike protest, and spoke out against the Petrocultures conference hosted by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Divest McGill acted, and will continue to act, as a key player in increasing the pressure on McGill to divest from fossil fuels and become a leader in ethical investments among universities worldwide.

—E.k. Chan and Hera Chan

“It is important to break [the invisibility of equity issues] down. We have to be intentional about it and actually make changes and work against it.”

Sarah Berry, course lecturer

Equity was a buzzword on McGill’s campus this year, at times due to missteps by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) executive and staff. During the first semester, the SSMU executive was met with criticism for its Costume Campaign, which intended to educate students on culturally appropriative costumes, but used posters featuring people wearing the sort of costumes SSMU sought to ban.

Despite both the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Equity Committee and SSMU Equity Committee holding forums on the subject in the second semester, the issue of equity at McGill seemed to become larger than life following a complaint filed toward SSMU VP Internal Brian Farnan over a GIF of Barack Obama included in a SSMU listserv email. Part of the Equity Commission’s ruling in the complainant’s favour was that Farnan would issue a public apology – an apology that took a life of its own, attracting international media attention. Back on campus, SSMU eventually decided to retract the decision to make the apology public at a Council meeting, on “the basis that the apology trivializes the legitimacy of equity and racism on campus,” according to the motion moved.

Efforts by the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) to create a more equitable environment were positive, but flew under the radar for many students. Christopher Tegho, who was appointed Equity Commissioner for EUS in October, worked to educate engineering students on the meaning of equity, rape culture, and safer space through workshops held in the Winter semester. The workshops, held in a mandatory first year course for Engineering students, broke down such concepts for students, many of whom were hearing of them for the first time – a phenomenon that is all-too common at McGill.

—Jordan Venton-Rublee

“[The] industry went on a mission to developing countries to get them to use chrysotile asbestos.”

Kathleen Ruff, anti-asbestos advocate

McGill attempted to address accusations of research misconduct in October 2013, when it hosted a conference on asbestos that included panels and discussions about research ethics and asbestos. The University found itself involved in a long-running academic dispute surrounding the work of Professor John Corbett McDonald, who undertook research in the 1960s and 1970s on the health impacts of chrysotile asbestos. His work demonstrated that the use of this asbestos was safe in controlled circumstances; however, McDonald received direct funding from the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, “an [asbestos] industry-funded body.”

Starting in 2002, numerous scientists began lodging complaints with McGill over the methodology of the research, with some claiming that data had been chosen selectively to give the result desired by industry, and to green-light the commercial exploitation of a cancerous substance.

In response to mounting criticism, the University hosted a day-long conference focused on both asbestos and academic research ethics. Yet while most people at the conference agreed that McGill needed greater ethical oversight in research, no solution was put on the table for discussion, and critics – notably Kathleen Ruff and David Egilman – argued that hosting a conference was not enough and that McGill needed to decide on an ethics policy and retract the study.

Rejection of McDonald’s findings are almost unanimous within the scientific community; however, McGill still refuses to completely retract the paper. To date, critics maintain that the asbestos industry uses McDonald’s findings as evidence for the harmlessness of the substance. This is particularly true in developing countries. The Brazilian government’s position, for example, is that chrysotile asbestos is harmless; this view is based on McDonald’s findings. All that needs to happen to stop the sale of harmful chrysotile asbestos around the world, according to critics, is for McGill to denounce McDonald’s research.

—Emmet Livingstone

“[We should protest] until it is taken seriously by the government [and] they actually put some effort [into] helping these Indigenous women.”

Cleve Higgins, an attendee at the October Sisters in Spirit vigil

Every year, Montrealers take to the streets calling for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. This February, Missing Justice, an Indigenous solidarity collective, organized the annual march, which saw over 500 protesters participate in the march, higher than all previous marches.

Despite the fact that the march has occurred annually for years now, the response from the government continues to be lacking. Even after years of demands for a formal inquiry into the issue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have refused to heed the demands to hold a national inquiry.

Public attention was once again drawn to the issue after the murder of Loretta Saunders, an Inuk woman. In March, to coincide with International Women’s Day, Mohawks blocked CN rail lines in Tyendinaga in a plea for a national inquiry into the issue. Despite all of this initiative, the government is unwilling to take any action.

—Dana Wray

“You reach a point where you realize that there is a huge power differential between SSMU and McGill, and no matter what, we are going to be in this building and they are pretty much setting the terms of the negotiation.”

Joey Shea, SSMU VP University Affairs

It appears that the tipping point that Shea mentions in the above quote has come to pass. After several years of negotiations, SSMU has signed a ten-year lease with McGill for the use of the Shatner building. The newly-signed lease will take effect retroactively, beginning in the 2011-12 school year – the most recent SSMU lease expired in 2011 – and the lease will be in effect until 2020-21.

Lease negotiations have raised financial concerns for three cycles of SSMU executives. At the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, McGill announced that it would no longer pay the entirety of the utilities cost for the Shatner building, and the lease, signed earlier this month, is the first indication of what this means for SSMU. For the 2013-14 year, SSMU will pay an increased rent of $130,000, as well as $100,000 in energy costs. Both rent and utility costs will increase yearly; rent will increase by $5,000 a year for the next seven years, and utility costs will increase with inflation.

In an effort to mitigate the negative financial impacts of these steep rent increases (compare the total $230,000 to be paid out this year to the $110,000 paid in 2010-11 under the previous lease), the SSMU executive attempted to pass a referendum question regarding a Shatner building fee in the Winter referendum period. This question failed to pass, with many questioning the executives’ lack of advertisement of or emphasis on the fee’s importance. Some have also questioned the executives’ role in negotiating a lease that places such a high financial burden on the Society. The building fee may be proposed again in a referendum in the Fall 2014 semester.

—Anqi Zhang

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“We are pleased with the compromise with McGill.”

Sean Cory, president of the Association of McGill University Research Assistants (AMURE)

Satisfaction with compromise is not something our writers are used to hearing from unions on their negotiations with the University. Nevertheless, in January of this year, Sean Cory, president of the Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE), expressed satisfaction with an agreement made between labour unions and McGill to avoid harsh salary decreases for low-paid employees, which would have otherwise occurred as a result of proposed changes to the payroll frequency. The payroll compromise has been a high point in a relatively slow, and at times frustrating, year for labour at McGill.

This year saw the beginning of a campaign by AGSEM: McGill’s Teaching Union to unionize note-takers, graders, tutors, and undergraduate course assistants, responding to concerns about their current pay and work conditions. In October of last year, AGSEM’s invigilator unit also unenthusiastically signed its first collective agreement – though it filed a grievance against McGill only a week later when the University violated the agreement – while AGSEM’s course lecturer unit split off to form an independent union.

The years-long back-and-forth between unions and the administration over pay equity escalated this year in a challenge of the University’s pay equity adjustment calculations for 2001-05 by the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA). This concluded in an agreement that will give McGill until February 2015 to account for employees who were not considered in the first round of calculations.

Beyond our own campus, at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), we watched for a full three weeks in January as professors and library staff went on strike mainly to advocate for fairer salaries for UNB professors. The Daily editorialized on the issue, urging students to resist an all-too-common rhetoric that pits students’ interests against those of workers.

This year, like any other, McGill unions have negotiated for their members’ best interests. These institutions provide a level of support and bargaining power for many workers at the university, and their value cannot be ignored by the student body that shares its space with these groups.

—Jill Bachelder and E.k. Chan

“The motion was clearly an abuse of power on McGill’s part […] They basically wanted to have the law rewritten to suit their needs.”

Mona Luxion, ATI respondent

This year saw a continued struggle to access information at McGill – but the fight is not yet over. In January, the University settled a case that had been before the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec since last year, agreeing to uphold long sought-after access to information (ATI) requests, and release documents related to military research, fossil fuel investments, and sexual assault complaints, among others.

The settlement came after the University refused to uphold such requests, instead accusing students, journalists, and other interested parties of filing requests in a “systematic” and “abusive” manner. In arguing its case to the Commission, the University requested the power to deny all future requests from a blanket group of students and their associates. This power, however, is legally unprecedented, as only the Commission can make that sort of delegation.

The Commission ruled against the University in October, though the University sought an appeal – which later turned into a settlement, something respondents alleged was a “decision to cut its losses.” According to the settlement, documents would be released starting at the end of February up until the summer.

The most recent documents released by the University have been heavily redacted, to the point of being unreadable, due to concerns about the release of information related to third parties. The next few months will tell if information continues to be limited, or if the long-standing requests will finally be fulfilled.

—Molly Korab

“Direct action costs them money, and the more expensive we make it for them, the closer we get to winning.”

Amanda Lickers, organizer at Swamp Line 9

Two years after the protest-heavy academic year of 2011-12, direct action continues to be a tactic of choice for student groups. However, direct action has also faced a increasingly hostile environment courtesy of the administration. In 2013, McGill adopted two documents, commonly called the protest protocol, that limit the scope and the types of direct action on campus. Outcry from campus and civil rights groups did not alter the protocol, and it still remains in effect today.

Some campus groups, such as Divest McGill – which seeks to pressure the University to divest from fossils fuels – and Demilitarize McGill – which aims to stop military research at the university – still protest on campus. In addition to workshops, petitions, and other forms of action, Divest McGill held a bike rally earlier this year. The group Support Our Staff at McGill (SOS-McGill) also handed out letters outside of a Senate meeting. February saw the blockade of the Petrocultures conference, where demonstrators unfurled a banner outside the Faculty Club to protest fossil fuel extraction.

The bike rally, the demonstration outside of Senate, and the Petrocultures blockade went off with little to no blowback from the administration, but not all demonstrations got off scot-free. A few weeks ago, on March 14, Demilitarize McGill blockaded the Aerospace Mechatronics Laboratory after revelations that some researchers in the Lab conducted military-funded research related to drones. The peaceful blockade lasted almost four hours, but the administration eventually called the police to campus to shut down the protest.

—Dana Wray

“The Charter of [rights and freedoms] protects the right to freedom of expression, but there is no right to protest.”

SPVM spokesperson Jean-Bruno Latour, in French to La Presse

Although the municipal bylaw P-6 has been in effect since 2001, the city only saw the grim results of its stipulations on March 15, 2013 when the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) used the bylaw to shut down the annual anti-police brutality march.

On that date, the police kettled – sectioned off and detained different parts of the crowd – and doled out fines of $637 to the demonstrators. According to the SPVM website, bylaw P-6 prohibits any participant at a demonstration – defined as an assembly, parade, or gathering – from covering their face; this includes scarves, hoods, and masks. Additionally, it is mandatory to disclose the location and itinerary of a demonstration to the police at least 24 hours beforehand. Failure to comply with these requirements results in the demonstration being declared illegal, and potentially a heavy fine for demonstrators.

The bylaw was most visibly enforced at the height of the Maple Spring – the Quebec student strikes of 2012 – and has since been cited by many as extraordinarily repressive. Last year, 78 community groups endorsed a public statement issued by the Anti-capitalist convergence in Montreal (CLAC) that called for solidarity against police repression in Montreal. Although the bylaw is largely associated with the Maple Spring, its enforcement continues to make waves, such as during this year’s anti-police brutality march, which was shut down within minutes of its initiation.

Currently, collective defences and class action lawsuits that plead not guilty are challenging the legality of the arrests and the conditions of detention in last year’s kettles. The lawsuits are just beginning to be heard in court, and many other individuals are challenging their tickets without a lawyer. CLAC, an advocate for individual challenges of tickets, continues to host workshops, sharing information on how to defend oneself, and what to do in case of arrest.

—Hera Chan

Year in review: News | Commentary | Culture | Features | Sci+Tech | Health&Ed | Sports

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With only 78 votes over his closest competitor, Tariq Khan was elected as Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President for the 2014-15 academic year. The vote was fractured among four candidates, with Khan securing 29.8 per cent, Courtney Ayukawa securing 28.5 per cent, Austin Johnson securing 24.5 per cent, and Aaron Friedland securing 17.2 per cent.

Voter turnout was 31.4 per cent, a slight improvement over last year.

All of the referendum questions passed, except the questions regarding the University Centre building fee, which seeks to alleviate the financial burden placed on SSMU by the terms of the lease signed this year with McGill. This result leaves SSMU in a state of uncertainty about its finances.

Khan’s platform revolved around accountability at SSMU and creating more jobs on campus for students. In debates, he underscored his commitment to creating more work-study positions and internships on the wider campus and within SSMU.

“I feel as if this is a victory of diversity, it’s the toughest thing that I’ve done in my life and there’s a lot of trust that needs to be won, built,” Khan told The Daily, but added that there was work to do on creating a cohesive executive. “I think we have a very strong team, but we need to obviously sit down together, we have to earn each other’s trust.”

Prior to being elected as President, Khan served as Engineering Representative to SSMU Council during the 2011-12 academic year. This year, he was the Interest Group Coordinator, where he worked under the Clubs & Services portfolio.

On March 21, during the campaign period, Khan was publicly censured by Elections SSMU for having students who were not on his campaign committee send unsolicited text messages.

Running unopposed, Claire Stewart-Kanigan was elected as VP University Affairs with 92.1 per cent of the vote. With extensive experience as Arts Representative to SSMU, Arts Senator, and working with ethical purchasing plans and equity policies, Stewart-Kanigan focused on bringing a strong student voice to the administration.

“I’m really excited to have a really diverse team of folks to be working with next year,” Stewart-Kanigan told The Daily. “The results totally caught me off-guard, so I’m looking forward to figuring out and seeing how that will all work.”

The position of VP Clubs & Services went to Stefan Fong, the incumbent VP, who ran for a second year – an unusual move for the SSMU executive, where positions usually see a high turnover rate. While his opponent Sandhya Sabapathy ran on a platform of creating a more accessible clubs portfolio, she was also publicly censured for offering “to secure jobs and positions of note” in exchange for campaign support, according to an email sent by Elections SSMU.

Fong took a share of 56.1 per cent of the vote, and Sabapathy took 43.9 per cent.

“I feel good, I can finally go back to work now which feels really good,” Fong said, adding, “The fact that the building fee didn’t pass is something that I’ll have to deal with next year.”

Kathleen Bradley, the only candidate for VP Finances & Operations, clinched the position with 93.1 per cent of the vote. Bradley has had experience in sustainable food initiatives, such as the McGill Farmers’ Market, and has held a position as a head chef at the student-run café The Nest, in addition to working under the portfolio of her predecessor Tyler Hofmeister.

“We’re definitely going to have to have a talk about campaigning integrity, but I look forward to working with the executive this year,” Bradley said when asked about the team.

Divest McGill member and current SSMU Campaigns Coordinator Amina Moustaqim-Barrette won the position of VP External, taking 60.2 per cent of the vote. Her opponent Enbal Singer, who spent the past year as AUS VP Internal and Community Affairs Coordinator at SSMU, won 39.8 per cent of the vote.

Moustaqim-Barrette’s election comes in the wake of SSMU’s impending disaffiliation from the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), a student roundtable that has served as one of SSMU’s links to greater Montreal and Quebec.

J. Daniel Chaim won the position of VP Internal, for which he ran unopposed. He took 90 per cent of the vote. Chaim spent the previous two years working with Arts Orientation, as the sponsorship coordinator and the operations coordinator.

Referendum questions regarding the creation of fees for Organic Campus and SSMU First-Year Council both passed. Questions regarding the renewal of the Athletics and Recreation Facilities fee, the SSMU Ambassador Fund, the SSMU Access Bursary Fund, the SSMU Campus Life Fund, and the SSMU Library Improvement Fund, all passed.

Questions regarding the existence of, and a fee increase for, the Legal Information Clinic at McGill passed. Students also voted in favour of disaffiliating from the Quebec student roundtable TaCEQ.

However, the question pertaining to the lease of the Shatner building, which asked for a fee of $6.08 per full-time student to pay for increased costs, only secured 46.4 per cent of the votes in favour, with a 34.2 per cent abstention rate.

­—With files from Lauria Galbraith

Referendum questions and results

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Check out The Daily’s endorsements for the 2014-15 executive here.

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“I cannot just decide and say ‘I’m going out, I’m going downtown,’” said Tshuma, a member of the group Accessibilize Montreal, which tries to raise awareness about discrimination against people with disabilities in the city. “I have to call special transport, and I have to plan all my days in advance. That’s why I’m limited in Montreal.”

Accessibility in Montreal is an issue often overlooked by large swathes of the population. “I’ve realized that there’s a lot of ignorance,” Tshuma said. “If you don’t have a friend or a family member that has a disability, [certain things don’t] ring a bell in your head.”

“The thing that [Accessibilize Montreal is] asking for, perhaps the most, is just openness among Montreal residents,” said Aimee Louw, co-founder of Accessibilize Montreal. “Just […] hearing our message and trying to make things more inclusive for everybody.”

Accessibilize Montreal was born out of discussions with Louw’s friends about different experiences of accessibility in Montreal. Although the group is still fairly small, Louw said that membership is not identity-based. “It’s cool to have such diverse perspectives too […] and it only strengthen[s] how we view accessibility.”

The group currently blends traditional political activism, such as lobbying for changes in infrastructure, with workshops and “Strateg-teas,” or meetings where members can share their stories.

“We also want to change the mindsets of people in Montreal, because it’s one thing to have a physically accessible place for people with physical disabilities, [but] it’s another […] to have an accessible or open perception of people in Montreal,” Louw said.

Access to the public transportation system managed by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is one of the focal points of Accessibilize Montreal. Currently, there are only seven metro stations that have elevators, and although a few bus routes are wheelchair-accessible, information is often unavailable or incorrect.

Accessibilize Montreal has started to organize “Question Bombs” at the question and answer components of monthly STM board meetings. Prior to the group’s participation, Louw explained, most of the people at the question and answer sessions were people with disabilities, “a sign that things need to change.”

“I’m going to be honest, it’s a slow process […] there have been hundreds of people, if not more, fighting for it since the beginning of the STM; it’s not a new fight,” Louw said. “But what we’re hoping to bring is some more public awareness so there’s a stronger base of support for it.”

According to the CBC, the STM is behind on a ten-year transport plan adopted in 2008, which pledged to renovate three metro stations per year. The plan is currently behind schedule due to a lack of funds, according to a City of Montreal employee.

Money is often cited as a barrier to renovations of the current STM service, Louw said. “In any big institution, I find that excuses for not making things better are because of finances. So there’s pretty much a unanimous statement that there just isn’t enough money to make the regular transit [and the paratransit] system more accessible.”

Accessibility at McGill

At McGill, the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) helps students with physical, mental, and other disabilities. For smaller accommodations, such as switching the classroom for a course, students contact the OSD.

After years of questions about how to effectively handle bigger requests from students with physical disabilities, the Universal Access Capital Projects Working Group was formed. With a budget of around $400,000, according to Frédéric Fovet, director of the OSD, the Working Group will channel any requests for renovations or other large-scale projects.

The next impending project – renovations to make the First Peoples’ House accessible – will take place in the summer. A project to renovate Morrice Hall was approved by the Working Group on February 10, and a project at Otto Maass Chemistry building is undergoing a review process.

According to Louw, there are significant barriers to making McGill’s campus more accessible, and McGill’s administration is one of them. She pointed to McGill’s alleged unwillingness to renovate the CKUT and QPIRG building on University as an example of “McGill […] putting aesthetics above universal access, which is a big problem.”

However, according to Fovet, McGill’s hands are tied by strict municipal regulations regarding alterations to a building’s historical appearance. “At [the] First Peoples’ House, building a ramp on the front was never an option,” he said. “That’s why they started looking at access through the Brown building, and going for the first floor instead of going through the street [entrance].”

“Universal access to all the buildings is unfortunately not feasible, simply because if you did a tally of the costs, it would go beyond anything that McGill has available, or that even the government would be willing to provide,” Fovet said, estimating the cost of renovating one of the historical houses on Peel or University at over $1 million.

“It’s not just McGill, it’s something that affects the whole city and province, the […] lack of interest in disability. But it is surprising given that it’s a place of learning and a place of openness and free talk,” Louw said.

Fovet was hopeful overall about the state of physical accessibility at McGill. “I can’t tell you it has been great in the past few years, because nothing much has happened,” he said. “Thankfully [now] there is movement that is actually […] going in the right direction.”

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Council approves Midnight Kitchen referendum question

McGill Graduate Association of Political Studies Students representative Lorenzo Daieff presented a motion at Council to include a question in PGSS’s upcoming referendum regarding a fee levy for Midnight Kitchen. The proposed opt-outable fee would be $0.50 per student per semester, a lower fee compared to the undergraduate fee of $3.25.

Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney noted that PGSS already makes yearly transfers to SSMU for the usage of SSMU’s building and services by PGSS members. A representative from Midnight Kitchen responded that Midnight Kitchen does not have access to that money and is funded exclusively by student fees. Some confusion arose over the purpose of this transfer.

The motion passed with around ten votes against, and the question will be in the upcoming referendum period.

New application system for grads

To mitigate the costs of uApply, a new graduate applications system that will be ready for the Summer 2014 term, Council voted to include a question in the upcoming PGSS referendum to increase the current graduate application fee for all new applicants to $120.

uApply costs $5 million to develop and will require $320,000 in maintenance and support over the coming years, according to the motion submitted to Council. Mark Quinsey from uApply pointed to several benefits of the new system, including ease of document submission, electronic reference letters, and more communication with applicants, among other things.

According to Martin Kreiswirth, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and Associate Provost (Graduate Education), McGill did a survey in 2008-09 to find out the reasons why students didn’t come to McGill. One of the reasons was that “it took too long [for students] to get their offer.”

Application fees will also be eliminated for students who ‘fast-track’ to a PhD without completing their Masters degree. However, students who get a PhD separately, or those in the qualifying year of their Masters, will still have to pay a fee.

Funding allocation process too burdensome, associations say

Hanno Erythropel, Chemical Engineering representative, brought up concerns about “stricter rules” surrounding the funding process for PGSAs. Currently, all events must be approved by the PGSS before funding is granted, which has become increasingly burdensome for the associations, according to several different Council members.

Mooney explained that this process has been put in place because PGSS has unlimited liability for any of the actions of the PGSAs, and so they had been legally recommended to pre-approve all expenditures and events. This is due to a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed with the McGill administration in 2012 and set to expire in 2016.

Ge Sa, Mining and Materials Engineering representative, brought up the possibility of incorporating a student association independently so that it could manage its own fees. Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens noted that, while indeed possible, this would impose a heavy administrative burden.

Dyens added that negotiations for a new MOA regarding fee management were underway, but that PGSS and the University had yet to come to an agreement.

Fees reallocated due to changing needs

Council also adopted a new fee structure for PGSS, which did not increase the total amount of fees paid but reallocated the money. The changes were split into three separate motions, with the first addressing the need for a $1.51 increase per student, per semester for the PGSS Regular Membership Fee.

Mooney explained that the increase was due to negotiations between PGSS and McGill over a new lease for Thomson House, which McGill owns. “One of the things that will change between the current lease and the one that we will sign would be that we would be responsible for paying a portion of the utilities cost. [… However] we have the Sustainable Thomson House initiative, and we plan to make upgrades to Thomson House to make it more sustainable and consume less energy.”

The PGSS Grants Program saw an increase of 81 cents, per student per semester while the fee for the Needs Based Bursary Fund decreased to $1.01 to reflect a shift to an endowment fund.

Council also approved a referendum question regarding the renewal of the PGSS Health and Dental Plan and a referendum question asking for a non-optoutable fee of $3 for the Athletics Building Improvement Fund, which will go to toward a turf improvement project on the McTavish reservoir.

Council additionally endorsed the proposed PGSS member code of conduct and harassment policy, and a proposal from the University and the Library that the McLennan Redpath Terrace be smoke-free.

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Freedom of dress

A Motion Regarding Freedom of Dress in the SSMU Building was brought to Council after the Winter 2014 General Assembly (GA), where it was presented, failed to meet quorum, and instead passed in a Consultative Forum.

The motion was moved by a petition and originally stemmed from a ban on the lab coats of the Plumbers’ Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO), an Engineering student group, due to offensive writing or drawings on the coats.

VP University Affairs Joey Shea pointed out that although the motion claimed freedom of speech was an integral part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “In Canada, one’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression is limited […] so for example, hate speech is not allowed.”

The motion was divided into three separate resolved clauses – one which stated that freedom of dress should not be infringed upon, one which stated that bans should proceed on a case-by-case basis, and one that overturned the standing ban on the PPO’s lab coats. All three resolved clauses passed.

The TaCEQ crisis

On January 24, 73.2 per cent of the University of Sherbrooke’s graduate student association, Regroupement des étudiants de maîtrise, de diplôme et de doctorat de l’Université de Sherbrooke (REMDUS) voted to disaffiliate from TaCEQ, a result that was later ratified by a GA of its members. The departure of REMDUS leaves SSMU without its main ally, SSMU VP External Samuel Harris told The Daily in an earlier interview.

When asked by a councillor about alternatives to TaCEQ for SSMU, Harris responded, “I don’t feel any other association right now suits the needs of SSMU members, especially because of the cost – we’re paying upward of four to five dollars per person, that’s around $80,000 [total].”

A motion regarding the creation of a referendum question to disaffiliate from TaCEQ passed.

Cover charges for charities

Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) VP Internal Sahil Kumar was on hand to present the Motion Regarding Gerts Retainment of Cover Charges. Currently, Gerts collects 50 per cent of cover and coat check charges. However, Kumar argued that groups hosting charity events that planned to donate 100 per cent of the proceeds of the cover and coat check charges to charity should have this commission waived if they advertised sufficiently in advance.

SSMU VP Finances and Operations Tyler Hofmeister disagreed strongly with the motion, adding that Gerts is also facing a $26,000 deficit – $13,000 over the budgeted deficit.

The motion passed after being amended to require that Gerts make its booking procedures more transparent and simpler for charities who wanted to book an event.

Referendum questions regarding fees

A Motion Regarding SSMU First Year Council (FYC) Fee Referendum Question resolved that a referendum question be asked to levy a $0.50 opt-outable fee to create a First Year Fund. With around 6,000 first year students, the FYC has a budget of only $3,000, limiting its ability to provide events and help, according to Services Representative Élie Lubendo.

Lubendo explained that due to exchange, transfer, and U0 and U1 students, it was “impossible” to charge only first-years, and pointed out that although the FYC targeted first-years, it technically serves the entire McGill student body.

The Motion Regarding Athletics and Recreation Facilities Referendum Question, which resolved to renew the non-opt-outable Athletics and Recreation Facilities Improvement Fee of $10 per semester, faced some frustration from councillors.

Arts and Science Representative Courtney Ayukawa expressed concern that this fee came on top of the already-existing $127.75 fee per semester for Athletics. Farnan explained that the $10 fee paid for various updates and renovations.

Due to the financial cost of complying with Quebec labour laws, Organic Campus brought forth a motion asking for a referendum to create a $0.22 opt-outable fee per student per semester. According to calculations by Organic Campus, its prices would have to rise threefold to compensate without a fee.

Arts Representative Ben Reedijk objected to the fee levy on the grounds that, as a business, Organic Campus should be able to satisfy its own financial needs.

However, VP Clubs and Services Stefan Fong pointed out that Organic Campus is in fact a service, not a business.

As the potential end of the four-year long negotiations for the lease of the Shatner building looms, the cost of rent and utilities is projected to increase immediately with the new agreement and on a yearly basis afterward. To deal with the increasing costs, Council approved a referendum question to ask for a University Centre building fee of $6.08 per full-time student, which will be indexed to increase at a rate of 5.6 per cent per year.

All three motions passed, and will be asked as referendum questions in the Winter 2014 referendum period.

Motions regarding the renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund, the SSMU Ambassador Fund, the SSMU Campus Life Fund, and the SSMU Library Improvement Fund all passed, and will appear in the Winter 2014 referendum period.

The post SSMU Council addresses freedom of dress, Quebec student roundtable appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The first motion concerned students’ Academic Assessment rights, and resolved to include the rights on course outlines and in the Student Handbook in a bid to increase awareness. The motion passed without debate.

To address a lack of action by SSMU’s Ad-hoc Committee on Sustainability, a Motion Regarding Sustainability at SSMU resolved that the Committee make an actionable recommendation by the end of Winter 2014. The motion passed without debate.

The third Motion Regarding the Timely Distribution of Course Information also passed without any debate. The motion resolved for SSMU to lobby the administration to make course information available “as early and as accurately as possible” to help students better balance their course loads.

The only debate of the night arose over the Motion Regarding the Guarantee of Freedom of Dress in the SSMU Building, which was moved by petition in response to a blanket ban enacted by SSMU on the lab coats of the Plumbers’ Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO). The motion resolved for all standing blanket bans to be lifted, and for offensive garments to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The efficiency of this system was challenged, and several attendees questioned why the PPO wouldn’t take responsibility for the inoffensiveness of their own lab coats. The motion was passed, but only as a Consultative Forum, as quorum was not met.

A fifth motion regarding the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was deemed external by SSMU’s Steering Committee, therefore requiring a quorum of 500 students to enter debate, which was not met.

[raw] [/raw]

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The AUNBT has been without a contract since March 2013. Currently, strikers rotate on three-hour shifts, and collect around $100 per day for picketing from strike support funding.

As of press time, no date has been set to resume negotiations – and AUNBT President Miriam Jones isn’t optimistic. “We are getting signals from UNB management that they intend to take a hard line and drag things out then ask the government to legislate us back to work.”

The relationship between the AUNBT and the UNB has deteriorated in recent years, according to Jones. “[The relationship] has become less collegial as UNB administration has embraced corporate-style management practices.”

UNB locked out strikers on January 14. UNB has also hired a private security firm, AFIMAC, that specializes in providing security for “image conscious” companies during strikes.

“It’s appalling,” Jones said about AFIMAC in an email to The Daily. “They are a multinational firm that openly advertises a series of services that we see as heavy-handed and anti-union.”

One of the main issues in the negotiations involves full-time salaries. Annual salaries for UNB professors are thousands of dollars less than the average of professors at 14 similar universities across Canada, such as Queens, McMaster, and Concordia.

In an interview with the New Brunswick Media Co-Op in December, AUNBT Jones said the university has lost 48 teaching positions over the last decade, and yet has added 84 non-academic jobs in the same period.

UNB has maintained that there is not enough money to meet the union’s demands. However, undergraduate student Cody Jack – who is also a member of the Fredericton General Membership Branch of Industrial Workers of the World, which is supporting the strike – disagreed.

“[As] with the government, there is always money. It is just where you decide to put the money,” said Jack in an email to The Daily.

Jones agreed. “Academic employees could achieve competitive wages without affecting tuition or other employee groups if the UNB management changed its practices.”

AUNBT has seen mixed messages from students.

The UNB Student Union (UNBSU) voted at a January 12 council meeting to stay neutral during the strike, but expressed its disappointment with both AUNBT and UNB on their website on January 13.

On January 24, the Brunswickan reported that around 120 UNB students protested as part of the “Get Back to the Table” campaign organized by the UNBSU. However, there is still support for the strikers from some students, as seen on Facebook pages supporting the AUNBT.

“Students have been visiting the picket lines, bringing coffee and food to students [but] a small minority has been choosing the path of yelling obscenities at strikers,” Jack wrote to The Daily.

“Students are getting a string of messages from the administration and they don’t know what to think,” Jones added.

AUNBT has seen support from other unions, including a $1 million donation from the Canadian Association of University Teachers Defence Fund. “AUNBT has found tremendous solidarity from other academic unions across the country, McGill included,” Jones wrote. “Support from other unions gives our members encouragement in what is a very stressful period.

At McGill, professors are not unionized, and so would not be able to strike in a situation similar to the one in New Brunswick, but they are still represented by the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT).

MAUT President Ken Hastings said that there are benefits to not being unionized. “A benefit of not being unionized is the flexibility to deal with issues one by one instead of in a single collective agreement that must cover everything.”

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Montreal’s mayor, Denis Coderre, campaigned on homelessness, and his suggestions for structural change in treating homelessness show promise. They would include an agency encompassing various levels of government, as well as businesses, community, and health organizations – and an increase in spending on the issue.

At the moment, many community organizations in the city address the immediate and long-term needs of the homeless. Included in this list – which is non-exhaustive and does not include facilities with confidential addresses – are various facilities located in or close to the downtown area. Typical services offered by shelters and day centres, some of the most vital resources available to the homeless, include access to some form of social services, hot meals, clean clothes, and access to showers. Additional resources offered are noted on a case-by-case basis.

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