The cover of Serial Villain advertises “A Dozen Thrilling Illustrated Tales!” below an image of a busty, blue-eyed, red-lipped, gun-toting blonde. This is almost exactly what you will find inside – the stories are all parodies of the thriller genre, and as Tjia put it, are written in a “glib, ramshackle, free-flowing, very straightforward” style. His sentences are short. There is an abundance of exclamation marks. There is gratuitous sex. People get shot! It’s certainly gripping stuff.

In reality, there are only eleven thrilling, illustrated tales, because the twelfth, a story about two boys who are obsessed with carrying out the “Ultimate School Shooting,” was a little too distasteful for Tjia’s publishers at Conundrum Press. Tjia can be a funny guy, if you think things like going back in time and having sex with Hitler’s mom are funny. In one of the stories he had tried to find a non-clichéd way of saying “he knew the place like the back of his hand,” and what he came up with was: “He walked unerringly through the dark room. He knew the place like the tip of his dick.” But in the end this was edited out. “My publisher had a different idea,” Tjia said. “He thought this was really terrible. In all truth, he was right. I read the story again, and it kind of stuck out. Like a penis.”

Many of the stories in this collection of “short stories for mature readers” are about control. From a character who goes back in time to kill Hitler, to a hypnotist who has programmed his wife to have the “Best and Most Intense” orgasm of her life whenever he says “dinosaur stew,” I can’t help but see these tales as a reflection of Tjia’s own control fantasies. Of his events, he says: “I have a lot of fun, because people are doing crazy shit I ask them to. Look at strip spelling bee: I’m getting drunk, I’m being paid, people are taking their clothes off for me, and I’m the only one who can take pictures. This works for me.”

This is reminiscent of one grim scene in “The Best and Most Intense,” the second story of the collection, in which a hypnotist fantasizes about hypnotizing fifteen people into having a group orgy, or maybe committing suicide. While this almost makes Tjia seem like a pervert, pushing people to their limits in his events also gives Tjia the opportunity to empower participants to explore another side of themselves. “I want people to feel like they have control. There are rules in place. It’s like a board-game where you become this person you aren’t normally. What I want to do is give people a very precise gap to jump through…but you can jump through it however you want,” he said.

Because the characters in Serial Villain use each other to further the plot, there is a lack of intimacy between them.  “You can accuse this book of being Hollywood schlop, where there is a plot, and the people are just pawns inside that plot. You are so busy cramming the story in that there is just no room for too much quiet time or intimacy,” Tjia told me.

Despite Tjia’s other work, where he seems to be sensitive to the dangers of portraying stereotypical gender roles, the parodying nature of Serial Villain could have been a good chance to subvert the usual roles that women play in pulpy thriller novels. When I mentioned the word ‘gender’, he looked at me sheepishly and said: “I don’t feel like I’m always going to be an angel in my writing. I do have strong women characters. I know in my next book there will be strong women characters. …People make things, and they don’t always make good things. You can’t always be an angel.”

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Questions focused mainly on budget cuts and the recent protest protocol, as well as the reputation of McGill on the whole as an international institution. Munroe-Blum took the interview as an opportunity to reiterate the fact that the administration is trying its best to preserve academic quality throughout the cuts. She said that the administration has been lobbying the government against the cuts, and that its top priority is to get fair funding. She said that the government cuts are keeping universities “hostage,” and that this was the wrong way of going about cutting government spending – which she felt was important in light of the government’s deficit.

Speaking about the changes at McGill during her tenure, Munroe-Blum said that she thinks the biggest transformative factor has been globalization, motivating universities across the world to do research that “makes a difference socially and economically.”

She felt that democracy is currently in “full bloom” on campus, and she was happy that McGill is such an outspoken community. Student protests, she said, have not necessarily been bad for McGill’s reputation, and when asked about the new protest protocol, Munroe-Blum said that she was proud that McGill had seen “more demonstration in the last 24 months, of all kinds.” She felt that the new protocol managed to support the safety and sense of well-being of students and professors.

The McGill Daily (MD): McGill is the only university thus far that has decided to cut so drastically and immediately. Other universities are either dipping into their capital budgets, waiting on new directives, or counting on the promised $1.7 billion reinvestment. Why?

Heather Munroe-Blum (HMB): [McGill] dominantly delivers programs by our tenured professors, the majority of Quebecois universities run on a very different model, which is very much a chargé-de-cours and part-time student model. There’s no question that it costs more to run a research-intensive, graduate student-intensive university, with a range of professional faculties, and that is our mission […] Our credit rating is a credit rating that Quebec depends on. Quebec borrows money on our credit rating.

Le Délit (in French): Since the quiet revolution Quebeckers have been fighting against deregulating tuition fees, however, you have said that we have been treating tuition fees as a “vache sacrée,” that we have been giving this struggle too much importance. How can you say that McGill is part of Quebec but still have this view?

HMB: I don’t believe that professors should say things they don’t believe, and I look at the different data, and I see that in my first years here a frozen, low tuition fee, did not get accessibility, and it did not build quality. We don’t want American tuition fees here, but I think that it’s very important to be honest about what builds educational strength and what creates degree completion.

MD: The police have been especially heavy-handed with demonstrators this year. Do you think they could have had different tactics?

HMB: I don’t think I need to tell the police or the government how to run their circumstances. I was very surprised last spring that a range of universities in Quebec did not stand up for the right of students to attend their classes. And I did express this in the context of the university system.

MD: When we came in, you asked us “where are the women?” Do you consider yourself a feminist, and if so, what does this mean for you, and how does that translate into university policy?

HMB: I never thought of myself as a feminist or not, but I did hear my mother every day saying, education is the source of all things good. She believed very powerfully in that, and [she] lectured my brothers every day on how to treat women. That was the culture I grew up in. […] I saw in the days after [my appointment as Principal], how powerful it was, not just to women and girls, but to visible minorities, to older men who were immigrants, that McGill, this traditional university that everyone had seen as far off and untouchable, was suddenly open. And it was really a dramatic example, for me, of the power of symbols.

— Correction appended April 5

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In November 2012, Nataros, who is currently on a forced paid leave of absence, received a patient after senior doctors made what he said were “significant life-threatening medical errors.” Nataros, who says he rectified these errors, and thereby saved the patient’s life, is now under fire for questioning his supervisors’ actions.

“As the junior doctor receiving the crashing patient, I acted as needed […] The tertiary hospital which received this patient on transfer recognized the corrective actions I took, as well as the senior doctors’ significant errors that threatened this patient’s life,” Nataros wrote to The Daily by email.

As a medical resident, Nataros, who received his medical degree from McGill in 2012, must work under the supervision of a fully licensed doctor at the hospital he works at. However, Nataros and other residents have experienced humiliation when asking questions of their supervisors, enough that this discourages open communication. This is detrimental pedagogically and negatively affects patient care.

“It’s a shame because there is definitely a culture that discourages medical students and residents from questioning or disagreeing with the decisions of their supervisors. Someone in a position of power can so easily shame and embarrass you if they feel their authority challenged due to the breadth of information in the medical field. It’s the exception to the rule, but it doesn’t take long to become socialized into the fear, and unfortunately there are no really valid avenues to go about removing these individuals from teaching,” another family medicine resident at McGill, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily by email.

McGill is not alone in having allegations against them that they treat their medical residents, who are the first point of contact for most patients that come through the hospital, as subordinates.

“Medical education,” wrote Dr. Pauline Chen in the New York Times in February, “[is] a process often likened to military and religious training, with elder patriarchs imposing the hair shirt of shame on acolytes unable to incorporate a profession’s accepted values and behaviours.”

Nataros, who says that his life is devoted to treating his patients, was put on academic probation in January by Dean of Postgraduate Medical Education Dr. Sarkis Meterissian after receiving two negative evaluations from his supervisors. These negative evaluations were based on perceptions that Nataros was argumentative.

However, many doctors who have worked with Nataros wrote to Meterissian saying that they believed that his standing up to authority was for patient safety. The authors of these letters, however, wished to remain anonymous, fearing the effect that publishing them would have on their careers.

The authors of the character references portray Nataros as a doctor who cares deeply for his patients. They cite Nataros’ commitment to social advocacy, including previous work he carried out with institutions such as the Red Cross and his position as Oxfam Canada’s national youth director. One of the references mentions that Nataros is only willing to challenge authority when his patients are threatened.

Nataros believes that senior staff at McGill affiliated hospitals who feel threatened by residents are trying to distract people from their medical errors by launching personal attacks on them.

McGill’s residency program is currently undergoing a periodic accreditation by the Collège des Médecins du Québec (CMQ), which ensures that the hospitals are properly educating residents. Failing accreditation would mean that McGill would be put on probation and need to undergo further reviews.

Nataros, who is vocal about the problems with McGill’s residency program, was told he was not allowed to be at the meeting with the accreditors due to his academic probation, even though other residents were required to be there.

Nataros’ case has been put in front of the CMQ, which grants residents their license. The outcome of this case will determine whether Nataros will be allowed back into his residency program, however, Nataros says he has not yet been given the chance to tell the CMQ his side of the story.

Nataros hopes he can return to Saint Mary’s soon. “I love Saint Mary’s. It’s what the future of medicine looks like – putting primary care first. I just want to be allowed to return to serve my patients,” he told The Daily by phone.

Citing confidentiality concerns, Meterissian declined requests for an interview.

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The IASL, which was founded in 1951, conducts research for the U.S. Air Force. Their website notes: “For more than a quarter century, the US Air Force has been sending its best and the brightest officers to study Space Law at the IASL.”

Graduates from the IASL often go on to work with major governmental military organizations, such as the U.S. and French Air Forces, as well as major weapons manufacturers such as Boeing.

The group moved to the hallway in front of the Shockwave Physics Group (SPG) in the Macdonald Engineering building, where Cleve Higgins, a McGill graduate who uncovered the SPG’s links to the U.S. military in 2006, gave a presentation on their past and potential current research in thermobaric explosives.

Higgins, who was an activist with the now defunct GrassRoots Association for Student Power (GRASPé), was a founding member of Demilitarize McGill and wrote his thesis on McGill’s military ties.

Isaac Stethem, another member of Demilitarize McGill, told the group about how McGill filed a motion with the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec against 14 McGill students, seeking to disregard several Access to Information (ATI) requests.

“The details of these labs aren’t known anymore. That was one of the things that was included in the ATI requests [that McGill are refusing to provide],” Higgins said.

The last stop was at 688 Sherbrooke, which houses McGill’s Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) laboratory. Kevin Paul, another member of Demilitarize McGill told the group that the CFD has produced research on anti-icing technology and simulation software for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), including attack drones used by the U.S. military.

According to Paul, after an ATI request was filed on the CFD lab relating to their funding by Lockheed Martin – one of the world’s largest military contractors, all mention of Lockheed Martin was removed from their website.

“This raises the question of the research priorities of the academics – whether the academics are neutrally pursuing their interests or the R&D departments of these companies,” Paul said.

Demilitarize McGill and the group moved across the hallway to the offices of Newmerical Technologies, which sells similar software to that developed at the CFD. Newmerical’s President, Professor Wagdi Habashi, is also the director of the CFD lab.

“According to NASA, [the systems marketed by Newmerical] are the ideal solution to the UAV de-icing dilemma, for General Atomics – who are the manufacturer of every attack drone in the U.S. military arsenal,” Paul said.

Today, McGill has no estabished position to evaluate the potential harms of military research, something Demilitarize McGill wants to change.

In 2009, McGill lifted regulations that made researchers who receive money from the military indicate whether the research they were doing had direct harmful consequences. The lifting of these regulations has left the University with no policy guidelines on military research.

“The line on military research [does not] appear in [any] other research policy guidelines at the federal level, or with any of our peer universities,” Principal Heather Munroe-Blum told The Daily in 2009.

But for Alicia Nguyen, a member of Demilitarize McGill, “This is not an acceptable excuse to lack an ethical review.”

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Tune in and learn up!

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The panel was composed of Mohsen al Attar, a visiting professor and human rights lawyer, and Douglas Smith, a PhD student who was a member of Tadamon!, a Montreal-based collective working in solidarity with struggles for self-determination, equality, and justice in the Middle East.

“I’m not interested in the question of if Zionism holds a privileged place within the environment of North American universities, because I think that it does. I don’t think that it is a question whether or not Palestine is colonized, because I think that it is,” Hartman said in her introduction to the panel.

“In many university spaces, to say this is not accepted,” she added. Instead, Hartman continued, the panel would focus on the way in which this privilege manifests itself.

Hartman told the audience that it had been hard to find people to talk at the event, as many people that she had approached didn’t want to talk about these issues in public.

Hartman herself was on the receiving end of political smearing at McGill in February, when her office door was defaced with Zionist slogans.

In 2009, Hartman, along with 81 other Montreal CEGEP and university professors, signed an open letter published in Le Devoir in the wake of the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza.

The letter, which was in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, called for academics around the world to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, and an ending of all economic relations between Canada and Israel.

“We call on the Harper government to re-evaluate its policies and to unequivocally condemn the Israeli siege and assault on Gaza, which constitute serious violations of international and humanitarian law,” the letter read. “We further demand that the Israeli government immediately cease its violence,” it said.

Hartman previously had a copy of this letter posted on her door. Sometime between the evening of February 4 and the early morning of February 5, slogans stating that Hartman was a “lover of terrorists,” and that “Israel has been a state for 1,200 years,” were scrawled across her door.

“I don’t feel personally threatened. I see this rather as a way to silence the issue. My understanding of that defacing is in the context, not necessarily particularly here, but in a broader context of silencing of people on university campuses who talk about the issue of Palestine and Palestinians,” Hartman told The Daily shortly after the incident.

The incident was downplayed by her department, and her colleagues came to a consensus not to say anything publicly about it. Hartman, however, felt that it would have been better to issue a public statement about it.

Hartman said during the panel that many of her colleagues, but particularly students, often do not feel that they are able to speak about the question of Palestine in many places within the university, especially in classrooms.

A member of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill (SPHR), a group that advocates for the rights of the Palestinian people, and organizer of the conference, told The Daily that at McGill, “Zionist discourse has so ingrained itself in the university, you aren’t free to use the ‘anti’ [Zionism] discourse.”

Another SPHR member told The Daily that they actively try to hide their political ideas in their classes in fear of the consequences of voicing them. “People are afraid of talking about it more than any other issue,” they said.

Adrienne Hurley, a professor in East Asian studies who also signed the open letter, asserted to The Daily that McGill had taken a particularly aggressive stance against BDS.

“You have a university that has taken a side, and this is a really clear side. You have these slogans written that echo the political sentiment of the administration, and that specificity is important, ” she said.

Hurley speculated that had a similar political action been carried out in another department, the response would have been much different.

Al Attar, however, said during the panel discussion that the issue of Zionism, which as an idea contains many contradictions, is often oversimplified, and that academics self-censor as a direct consequence of irrational fears that stem from such oversimplification.

“Zionism is not overrepresented in academia, but oversimplification gives rise to the illusion of an overrepresentation of Zionism, and this gives rise to allegations of anti-semitism,” he said.

Smith outlined various cases across Canada and the U.S. where anti-Zionist voices had been silenced.

For instance, in February, around the same time that Hartman’s door was vandalized, New York City officials threatened to cut funding to Brooklyn College because the school’s political science department sponsored an event featuring Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler, both of whom are advocates of BDS. Glenn Greenwald wrote in the Guardian that this type of action was a threat to academic freedom.

Some professors believe that what is allowed to be said on campus has changed as McGill moves toward funding more programs through donors. Abby Lippman, a professor in Epidemiology, told The Daily by phone that “the way you have to go for funding has changed a lot over the years. That has changed the sort of research people can do.”

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By the end of the year, the collection will be removed from its current place in the southeast corner of the main McLennan floor. Its “essentials” will be moved to where the periodicals are currently displayed, and the rest redistributed to the stacks or Redpath basement, according to interim HSSL head librarian Sara Holder.

The decision was made without consultation with faculty or students, and has been met with “opposition” and “widespread dismay” according to history professor James Krapfl.

“It is unfortunate that there was no consultation before this to find out what students and professors do need and want,” he told The Daily.

The relocation of the reference collection comes after the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Improvement Fund gave the HSSL $68,255 to contribute to the refurbishment of the current reference area.

In total, the AUS Improvement Fund gave the HSSL $112,000 this year. $3,745 of this was used to purchase an online e-book collection of travel guides, and $40,000 was used to add 37 study spaces in the Cyberthèque in the basement.

AUS VP Finance Saad Qazi told The Daily by email that these amounts had been ratified by AUS Council after being allocated by the AUS Improvement Fund Committee.

However, for professors who use the reference collection, the situation is less than ideal.

“One of the benefits of having a good [comprehensive] reference section is that you go there looking for something, but then find other, very useful things because they are next to what one was looking for. If things are in the stacks then that possibility is diminished,” Krapfl said.

“It makes sense that all the reference books are in the same place in the library. Ideally they would be close to where there are reference librarians,” he added.

The space currently occupied by the reference collection is ideal for student study space, said Holder.

“That area is particularly nice because there are windows, so there will be natural light. It is a very nice space for students, which is why we wanted to use that space differently. By moving the reference section over, we will be able to make-over this space that students have requested and that they gave us money for,” she told The Daily.

However, professors and students have expressed concerns that the increase in study space should not come at the cost of such an important resource for research.

“If this is supposed to be one of Canada’s five major research universities, it seems absurd that we shouldn’t have a really good reference section in the humanities library,” Krapfl said.

“One of my colleagues compared this to going into a science laboratory and removing all of the equipment, and then still expecting people to do research,” he added.

Krapfl and his students make extensive use of atlases and other reference material that will potentially be moved from the reference section to the stacks.

“I ask students to do assignments within a couple of days with books from the reference section. Given there are eighty students, it’s efficient if the books are in the reference section. If the books were in the stacks and were able to get checked out, I wouldn’t be able to run the assignments anymore,” he said.

On Friday, a committee of English and history professors met with Holder and other librarians to talk about the reference section’s relocation. Joanna Schacter, who is the library committee member for the History Students’ Association, was the sole student present at the meeting.

“The meeting was very final,” Schacter told The Daily. “The conclusion was basically that [the changes would be] happening, and they don’t really have a choice because there isn’t enough space… They said that they spent a lot of money on these online sources, and because of that, they want people to use them more – mostly because they paid for them and they don’t feel that people are using them properly,” she said.

Krapfl told The Daily by email that he was not happy with the outcome of the meeting.

“The head [librarian] of McLennan made it clear that, despite the [English and History] departments’ opposition and widespread student dismay, the decision to downsize and relocate the reference section is not open to reconsideration,” he said.

Holder expressed a very different perception of how the meeting had gone. “There was no opposition expressed in that meeting. Everyone was in agreement that this was a good idea,” she said.

At the meeting, it was decided that professors and students would be able to contact their department’s liaison librarians to say which books they think should be included in the new downsized collection. By doing this, Holder, who as interim head inherited the planned relocation from her predecessor, said that the library was trying to make up for their misstep of not consulting with professors beforehand.

“I do agree with the professors that say that there should have been more consultation prior to this plan and that was a mistake on the library’s part. We are trying to make up for that while still providing the students with what they need,” she said.

Schacter believes that this is not enough.

“Not a lot of students know about this,” she said. “[The librarians] say they are consulting, but the library should find some way to get in touch with students to get their input.”

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This skepticism grew after the Minister of Higher Education Pierre Duchesne asked universities to retroactively cut $124 million from their budgets by April. McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum also said that the summit was a “farce,” and called the meeting “choreographed” in an interview with Le Devoir two weeks ago.

Last year during the student strike, the PQ showed solidarity with the movement and opposed the Parti libéral du Québec’s (PLQ) proposed tuition hike from $2,168 to $3,793 over the course of 2012 to 2017. The PQ won the provincial election on September 4, and immediately scrapped the proposed tuition hike and began planning the education summit.

On the second day of the summit, the PQ announced that they would be increasing tuition fees by 3 per cent annually, starting September 2013. According to Marois, this is the “most just” and “fairest” solution for society. The increase would amount to $65, although many media outlets have reported a $70 indexation. In fact, the $70 figure is an average of the increases over the next five years.

During the Summit discussions, demonstrators took to the streets both days to show their grievances with what is perceived to be the government’s empty gesture. Violent clashes between riot police and demonstrators ocurred both days, with the use of tear gas, pepper spray, and flash-bangs. Altogether, 14 demonstrators were arrested.

Day One

Inside the Summit, which was held at the Arsenal, a contemporary art gallery in Griffintown, civil society groups, student leaders, and representatives from professors’ unions and administrative bodies tackled the four aforementioned areas of discussion during the 12-and-a-half hour meeting.

Corine Trubiano, a student at the Collège de Maisonneuve who was at the protest, told The Daily in French that she did not feel the Summit represented the student population fairly.

“I’m here because I’m angry that the idea of free education is being excluded from the Summit. The ideas they are talking about have been pre-determined; I find that this isn’t including the entire population. ASSÉ and other student associations are not represented here today,” she said.

Over 1,500 protesters took to the streets to protest the two-day summit. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) declared the protest illegal before it started marching south from Cabot Square, where protesters gathered at 4:30 p.m. Riot police and police on bicycles flanked the march almost immediately, along with buses filled with more riot police.

The march snaked through residential streets in St. Henri before arriving at the Summit. SPVM and Sûreté du Québec (SQ) officers filled the parking lot in front of the Arsenal, blocking the entrance. A helicopter circled above, while peaceful protesters chanted anti-police slogans.

La Presse reported on Sunday that the SQ was present at the summit at the behest of Premier Pauline Marois and would be called on if the SPVM felt it needed reinforcements.

“The police presence is completely absurd here. We aren’t living in a police state. Their huge numbers are just increasing people’s anger. It’s brutal, and it’s creating a violent image for our society. That isn’t necessary,” Trubiano said in French.

According to SPVM spokesperson Jean-Bruno Latour, one person was arrested for armed assault after launching a projectile at police. Two people were fined – one for refusing to disperse, and another for putting stickers on a building.

While the SPVM had no information regarding the types of projectiles used, CTV speculated that the projectiles could have been snowballs and paint-filled ping pong balls.

Police chased protesters down to Place des Arts, where some were shoved aside from the Complexe Desjardins and held for a short time. At one point, police fired a sound bomb, also known as a flash-bang, to try to get protesters to scatter.

There were reports that an SPVM officer was injured by tear gas, but the SPVM did not comment on this by press time. Several journalists, including a Concordia University Television (CUTV) correspondent, were pepper sprayed.

The majority of protesters dispersed by around 7 p.m.; however, a group of around 100 protesters regrouped at Place Émilie-Gamelin and started another march east along Ste. Catherine. This protest was immediately declared illegal, and police announced over loudspeakers that everyone had to walk on the sidewalk, or would be “broken up.”

By around 7:15 p.m., this small protest scattered at Beaudry metro. Here, riot police took a break at a local fast-food restaurant and were met with jeers from onlookers.

Day Two

In a significantly larger protest organized by ASSÉ, 10,000 students rallied against the government’s plan to raise tuition annually and were met with rocks, teargas, and flash-bang grenades.

“The Summit was definitely a failure,” Jérémie Bédard-Wien, a spokesperson for ASSÉ ,told The Daily in French. “It failed to answer some of the questions that were raised during the Maple Spring and lacked any sort of depth.”

The demonstration was immediately declared illegal by the police. Approximately 3,000 protesters began to march despite warnings, as the crowd eventually grew to around 7,000.

Starting in Square Victoria, protesters marched peacefully past McGill University and up St. Laurent, before turning east on Pine. Fights flared after demonstrators proceeded down St. Denis and launched snowballs at lines of riot police. Police responded violently and clashes continued near Square Saint-Louis, where demonstrators fought back by linking their arms in a human chain and advancing on police lines. Heavy reinforcement from the SQ intervened to disperse the crowd.

Demonstrators from multiple groups were present, including McGill’s Art History and Communications Studies Graduate Students Association (AHCS GSA). AHCS GSA originally voted to boycott the summit in solidarity with ASSÉ. It was the only student association at McGill to do so.

The protest eventually dispersed, and 13 arrests were made.

3 per cent?

The numbers and words being used by the PQ are misleading. The proposed 3 per cent indexation that many media outlets have reported is linked to the hypothesis that disposable household income will increase by 3 per cent per year. This will lead to a $65 increase next year, but the increase for the following years would be greater. By September 2018, the yearly increase will be at $75, and the total increase in tuition fees will be close to $421.

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McGill Principal Heather Monroe-Blum also said that the summit was a “farce”, and called the meeting “choreographed” in an interview with Le Devoir two weeks ago.

Corine Trubiano, a student at the Collège de Maisonneuve who was at the protest, told The Daily in French that she did not feel the summit represented the student population fairly.

“I’m here because I’m angry that the idea of free education is being excluded from the summit. The ideas they are talking about have been pre-determined; I find that this isn’t including the entire population. ASSÉ and other student associations are not represented here today,” she said.

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) declared the protest illegal before it started marching south from Cabot Square, where protesters gathered at 4:30 p.m. Riot police and police on bicycles flanked the march almost immediately, along with buses filled with more police dressed in riot gear at the rear.

The march snaked through residential streets in St. Henri before arriving at the Arsenal, a contemporary art gallery where the summit is being held. SPVM and Sûreté du Québec (SQ) officers filled the parking lot in front of the Arsenal, blocking the entrance. A helicopter circled above, while peaceful protesters chanted anti-police slogans.

La Presse reported on Sunday that the SQ was present at the summit at the behest of Premier Pauline Marois, and would be called on if the SPVM felt it needed reinforcements.

“The police presence is completely absurd here. We aren’t living in a police state. Their huge numbers are just increasing people’s anger. It’s brutal, and it’s creating a violent image for our society. That isn’t necessary,” Trubiano said in French.

Inside the Arsenal, civil society groups, student leaders, and representatives from professors’ unions and administrative bodies tackled four areas of discussion during the twelve-and-a-half hour meeting – the quality of education and university governance, the research collaboration between schools and communities, the development of university funding, and strategies for the accessibility of education and student retention.

Marois said that she wanted to increase tuition fees by 3 per cent starting next September. This increase would be indexed to families’ disposable income, which would be a $70 increase from what students are now paying. This was the “most just” and “fairest” solution for society, Marois said.

Québec Solidaire co-leader Françoise David, who wore a red square during the meeting, tweeted that the 3 per cent indexation was “indecent” and “unacceptable”.

After standing outside the Arsenal for about twenty minutes, the protesters continued east on Notre-Dame, then north on Guy and up de la Montagne. The march then headed east on Ste. Catherine.

According to SPVM spokesperson Jean-Bruno Latour, one person was arrested for armed assault after launching a projectile at police. Two people were fined – one for refusing to disperse, and another for putting stickers on a building.

While the SPVM had no information regarding the types of projectiles used, CTV speculated that the projectiles, which were thrown by several people, could have been snowballs and paint-filled ping pong balls.

Police chased protesters down to Place des Arts, where some were shoved aside from the Complexe Desjardins and held for a short time. At one point, police fired a sound bomb, also known as a flash-bang, to try to get protesters to scatter.

There were reports that an SPVM officer was injured by tear gas, but the SPVM would not comment on this by press time. Several journalists – including a Concordia University Television (CUTV) correspondent – were pepper sprayed.

The majority of protesters dispersed by around 7 p.m.; however, a group of around 100 protesters who regrouped at Place Émilie-Gamelin started another march east along Ste. Catherine. This protest was immediately declared illegal, and police announced over loudspeakers that everyone had to walk on the sidewalk or would be “broken up”.

By around 7:15 p.m., this small protest scattered at Beaudry metro. Here, riot police took a break at a local fastfood restaurant and were met with jeers from onlookers.

ASSÉ has planned a bigger protest for Tuesday, the second day of the summit, which will meet at Square Victoria at 2 p.m. The Facebook event has almost 4,500 confirmed attendees, dwarfing Monday’s event of just over 1,000 confirmed attendees.

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The summit has been criticized by many who believe that its outcomes have been pre-determined. The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), a student federation representing 70,000 students, boycotted the meeting because free education was taken off the table as a discussion topic.

McGill Principal Heather Monroe-Blum also said that the summit was a “farce”, and called the meeting “choreographed” in an interview with Le Devoir two weeks ago.

Corine Trubiano, a student at the Collège de Maisonneuve who was at the protest, told The Daily in French that she did not feel the summit represented the student population fairly.

“I’m here because I’m angry that the idea of free education is being excluded from the summit. The ideas they are talking about have been pre-determined; I find that this isn’t including the entire population. ASSÉ and other student associations are not represented here today,” she said.

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) declared the protest illegal before it started marching south from Cabot Square, where protesters gathered at 4:30 p.m. Riot police and police on bicycles flanked the march almost immediately, along with buses filled with more police dressed in riot gear at the rear.

The march snaked through residential streets in St. Henri before arriving at the Arsenal, a contemporary art gallery where the summit is being held. SPVM and Sûreté du Québec (SQ) officers filled the parking lot in front of the Arsenal, blocking the entrance. A helicopter circled above, while peaceful protesters chanted anti-police slogans.

La Presse reported on Sunday that the SQ was present at the summit at the behest of Premier Pauline Marois, and would be called on if the SPVM felt it needed reinforcements.

“The police presence is completely absurd here. We aren’t living in a police state. Their huge numbers are just increasing people’s anger. It’s brutal, and it’s creating a violent image for our society. That isn’t necessary,” Trubiano said in French.

Inside the Arsenal, civil society groups, student leaders, and representatives from professors’ unions and administrative bodies tackled four areas of discussion during the twelve-and-a-half hour meeting – the quality of education and university governance, the research collaboration between schools and communities, the development of university funding, and strategies for the accessibility of education and student retention.

Marois said that she wanted to increase tuition fees by 3 per cent starting next September. This increase would be indexed to families’ disposable income, which would be a $70 increase from what students are now paying. This was the “most just” and “fairest” solution for society, Marois said.

Québec solidaire co-leader Françoise David, who wore a red square during the meeting, tweeted that the 3 per cent indexation was “indecent” and “unacceptable”.

After standing outside the Arsenal for about twenty minutes, the protesters continued east on Notre-Dame, then north on Guy and up de la Montagne. The march then headed east on Ste. Catherine.

According to SPVM spokesperson Jean-Bruno Latour, one person was arrested for armed assault after launching a projectile at police. Two people were fined – one for refusing to disperse, and another for putting stickers on a building.

While the SPVM had no information regarding the types of projectiles used, CTV speculated that the projectiles, which were thrown by several people, could have been snowballs and paint-filled ping pong balls.

Police chased protesters down to Place des Arts, where some were shoved aside from the Complexe Desjardins and held for a short time. At one point, police fired a sound bomb, also known as a flash-bang, to try to get protesters to scatter.

There were reports that an SPVM officer was injured by tear gas, but the SPVM would not comment on this by press time. Several journalists – including a Concordia University Television (CUTV) correspondent – were pepper sprayed.

The majority of protesters dispersed by around 7 p.m.; however, a group of around 100 protesters who regrouped at Place Émilie-Gamelin started another march east along Ste. Catherine. This protest was immediately declared illegal, and police announced over loudspeakers that everyone had to walk on the sidewalk or would be “broken up”.

By around 7:15 p.m., this small protest scattered at Beaudry metro. Here, riot police took a break at a local fastfood restaurant and were met with jeers from onlookers.

ASSÉ has planned a bigger protest for Tuesday, the second day of the summit, which will meet at Square Victoria at 2 p.m. The Facebook event has almost 4,500 confirmed attendees, dwarfing Monday’s event of just over 1,000 confirmed attendees.

[flickr id=”72157632861968748″]

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We are alienated by the fluorescence that lights our institution. The phase out of incandescent light bulbs has consequences wider than the empty arguments repeated in the defense of institutional efficiency. This is not just an issue of personal preference: this is the stark reality of how our emotional well-being and our physiologies are bound up with the physical processes of producing light.

* * *

Between 1938 and 1941, General Electric patented and sold the first commercial fluorescent bulbs. Their prevalence can be traced back to World War II, when wartime efficiency required productivity on a new scale. More recently, lighting has again become a political issue. Countries like Brazil, Russia, and Canada are phasing incandescent bulbs by banning their production and purchase. In our opinion, this is abhorrent.

Light is created in fluorescent bulbs by exciting highly toxic mercury vapor. Fluorescent bulbs, unlike the sun and incandescent bulbs, often cast a diffuse light. Rooms lit by fluorescence are devoid of shadow, destroying our ability to perceive depth. Diffuse light also reduces the contrast of everything around us, which causes everything to blend together. How could this not be disorienting? Our shadows are integrally connected to earthly existence – without them, we are only a projection.

Mercury, also known as quicksilver – that metallic substance which used to be found in old thermometers – is highly toxic; exposure damages the brain, kidney, and lungs, causing sensory impairment and lack of coordination. The amount of mercury in fluorescent bulbs is significant – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that rooms should be evacuated for at least 15 minutes if a fluorescent bulb breaks.

Compared to inert, non-toxic incandescent bulbs, which work by heating a filament wire, fluorescent bulbs are much harder to dispose of. They are considered hazardous household waste and require a specific recycling facility to prevent the toxic heavy metals from polluting the environment. While, technically, fluorescent bulbs are more ‘efficient’ at converting electricity into light, the environmental rhetoric surrounding the calls for switching to fluorescent bulbs is moot – especially in Quebec, where we heat our homes for a large proportion of the year. In other words, in cold climates, the heat from incandescent bulbs is not wasted. The sentiment behind switching to the more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs is a band-aid solution in a system that is fundamentally flawed – environmental change will only come from massive shifts in lifestyle. Is dehumanizing our collective spaces worth the minimal ‘efficiency’ gains?

* * *

Certainly there is science that justifies our hatred of fluorescent lights. However, this is not a problem of numbers. For us, this is about interpersonal interaction, this is about being conscious of your self, and feeling grounded in your environment.

Ultra-lit spaces prioritize the visual; our other senses, which we use to connect with each other are left on the sidelines. Professor Conor Sampson, who teaches lighting design in the School of Architecture, described incandescent bulbs as essentially balls of fire. Like the sun, the bulbs emit a broad spectrum of light giving a richer perception of the colours around us. On the other hand, fluorescent lights have a narrow spectrum which turns purples into greys, and blankets everything with melancholia.

McGill rigidly defines the kind of lighting that can be used in its buildings: standardized environments cannot take into account that individuals have varying reactions to their surroundings. Those who just can’t deal with fluorescent light have no place to go; we are pushed into dark corners of the institution. There are alternative solutions that exist – task lighting, for instance, provides individualized and appropriate illumination depending on the task and the space. In libraries, this would take the form of reading lamps, giving people the autonomy to control their own environment. There are many rooms at McGill with an abundance of natural light – why disregard the life-giving potential of this by flicking on the overheads?

What we lose through fluorescent lighting is an ability to navigate through darkness – our perception of other people becomes centred around image. We lose the ability to relate with each other through our non-visual senses. Direct, natural light allows us to experience each other fully, as human beings, not just as bodies in an institution.

Farid Rener and Jacqueline Brandon are News and Commentary editors at The Daily. They wrote this by candlelight and the opinions expressed here are their own. Reach them at farid.rener@mail.mcgill.ca and jacqueline.brandon@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The petition was posted on December 19 on the community action website avaaz.org, and calls on Harper and Governor General David Lloyd Johnston to accept the demands made by Chief Theresa Spence, which would have ended Spence’s hunger strike.

Spence, who was on a liquids-only diet for six weeks while calling for a meeting between Harper, Johnston, and Aboriginal leaders, ended her strike on January 23 after a list of commitments supporting Aboriginal issues was backed by members of the Assembly of First Nations and the Liberal and New Democrat caucuses.

“I really feel [the petition] is still valid, that to let these men know they weren’t instrumental, we were watching and were hoping for a different outcome from them. Maybe they’ll understand,” Rockman told The Daily in a phone interview two days before her departure for Ottawa. “They didn’t respond to Chief Spence, they didn’t do what was needed to its fullness. These are people who are being victimized. I don’t want to call all First Nations [people] victims, but they have been treated atrociously.”

Rockman left from outside John Abbott College, in Sainte Anne-de-Bellevue, at 7 a.m. She was planning for the trip to take four days, first arriving at Victoria Island,where she said she would be saying her “own prayers.” She then planned to continue to Ottawa to try to meet with the Prime Minister.

“I am hoping to get to Ottawa in four days, hoping to arrive on the 18. [In Hebrew] the number 18 spells life…I feel that love will rise on a day that spells ‘life’,” she said.

The march has been dubbed the “Voice of Thousands March” by Rockman. When the petition was first posted, she had originally said the petition would be hand-delivered were it to obtain ten thousand signatures. “There are almost 8,000 people who signed the petition,” she told The Daily. “I think that is still a valid number to be brought…It’s not about me, it’s about everyone.”

Rockman asked community members to join her on the walk, and to support her with food and camping supplies.

“I’m really impressed with the community support. Occupy Montreal jumped in and loaned equipment to people who needed it. They loaned me a tent and a sleeping bag and other stuff like that,” she said.

Rockman was adamant that her actions upon arriving in Ottawa would be peaceful. Upon arriving, she would “go in peacefully and respectfully, I’m not going to be banging on doors, yelling or screaming everywhere, at all. I’m not bringing a whole contingent to be noisy,” she told The Daily.

Rockman, who is “just a regular, everyday Canadian,” told The Daily that her action was meant as a wake-up call for other non-Aboriginal Canadians. “I have the feeling that Canadians need to wake the hell up, and really need to take a stand and be heard and fight,” she said.

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According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, approximately 600 Indigenous women have been murdered or found missing within the last three decades in Canada. 2110 Centre Programming and Campaigns Coordinator Bianca Mugyenyi told The Daily in October that proportionally, this number is huge.

“[If you] extrapolated that [number] to the general Canadian population, even just with 583 cases, that would be the equivalent of 20,000 people that had gone missing. That would be all over the news – 20,000 women missing, it’s an epidemic, right?” she said.

Mugyenyi said that Indigenous activists put the number of murdered women closer to 3,000. She said the discrepancy could be attributed to incomplete police records.

Amnesty International Canada reports that Indigenous women in Canada are five to seven times more likely to die of violence than their non-Indigenous counterparts, but that the majority of these cases go unreported.

The march, which had a higher turnout than previous years, began at the corner of St. Laurent and Maisonneuve with a series of speakers and performances, including the Buffalo Hat Singers, a group of contemporary pow wow drummers.

Melissa Dupuis, a representative of Idle No More, Quebec, noted during the opening ceremony that the government was not doing enough to deal with the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

“Harper needs to understand there is an ongoing crisis in the Canadian territory where basic human rights are being neglected and taken away,” she said.

On February 13, Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights group, released a damning report denouncing a lack of action by the government. The report included testimonies from over fifty Indigenous women who had been roughed up, strip-searched, Tasered, pepper-sprayed, raped, and threatened with death at the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia.

Despite public outrage, the Conservative government has so far been dismissive of the findings. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was reported in multiple news outlets to have said that anyone experiencing abuse should go to “the appropriate police so they can investigate.” They should “just get on and do it,” he said.

The Human Rights Watch report is the latest in a string of non-governmental initiatives to address the systematic abuse of Indigenous women.

Online hacker group Anonymous released a map on February 5 that traces missing and murdered Indigenous women. The map, which uses public data from police crime maps, allows people to fill in gaps in formal information by anonymously reporting cases.

Nina Sigalwoitz, a caseworker at Chez Doris, a women’s shelter in Montreal, spoke at the march about her experience giving workshops at Montreal schools. That morning, she had witnessed a complete lack of awareness among students when she discussed her experience as an Indigenous woman.

“These students didn’t even know that Indigenous people exist! They thought there weren’t any in Quebec,” she said to the assembled crowd.

Mirha-Soleil Ross, a representative from Action santé tranvesti(e)s et transsexuel(le)s du Quebec (ASTT(e)Q), was also invited to speak. Ross gave a speech on her experience as a trans* Indigenous person, explaining how reports about missing Indigenous women are suppressed by people in positions of privilege and power.

Prominent Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel was last to speak before the march began. Gabriel pointed at authority figures as facilitators who perpetuate racist ideologies toward Indigenous people. She noted the pressing need for educational reform that fully acknowledges the Indigenous history of Canada.

Gabriel called for an end to the ongoing colonialism, which she feels is currently put forth by the Harper government and sustained by corporations.

“These tyrants do what they need to do to make a profit. They answer to companies, profit making oil companies, and ignore their people,” she said.

Once the march got underway, it wended its way up St. Laurent, ending at the Parc des Amériques on the corner of Rachel and St. Laurent. The evening closed with musical and spoken word performances, and a closing prayer by Indigenous leader John Cree.

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The motion, signed by five Mining Engineering Co-op students, was moved partly in reaction to another motion passed at SSMU Council on January 24, committing SSMU to lobby the University to divest its holdings in companies connected to fossil fuel production.

The passing of the SSMU motion was “yet another example of how out-of-touch the SSMU is with constituents, including those of the Faculty of Engineering,” the motion read.

The motion also called for the EUS representatives to SSMU, Anna Cybulsky and Farzan Subhani, to work alongside SSMU’s political campaigns coordinator – Christopher Bangs, a spokesperson of Divest McGill, a group that is calling on the university to divest its holdings from companies involved in fossil fuels extraction – to “compel him to reach out to all engineering students to solicit their input and opinions.”

Discussion of the motion followed a presentation given by Bangs, who explained to EUS the impetus for the creation of Divest McGill, and fielded questions from councillors about what divestment would mean, both for the University and engineering students.

“No one has any desire to hurt employment opportunities for engineers,” Bangs told Council. “It’s not the tar sands or nothing, it’s not ‘if we don’t invest in the tar sands, where are the jobs,’ instead, we need a responsible transition from the tar sands to more responsible forms of energy,” he said.

Many councillors expressed concern about the effects that divestment would have on their constituents. Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering Student Society President Dirk Dubois asked Bangs whether Divest McGill was also asking McGill to move away from research in fossil fuels.

“We have no control over, and no desire to hurt anyone’s research opportunities. This is solely focusing on the endowment fund, maybe the pension fund, it is not focused on research,” Bangs replied.

The motion noted that at least 26 of the 60 Mining Engineering Co-op students had been “provided invaluable co-op experience” at tar sands mining companies. Jonathan Aubertin, Co-op Mining Engineering Undergraduate Society president, who has worked in the tar sands in the past, and one of the motion’s signatories, brought a jar full of oil-covered sand to the meeting.

One councillor wanted to add a clause to the motion stating that EUS explicitly would not support Divest McGill’s campaign. However, this motion was voted down by a majority. Dubois also petitioned for the motion to be tabled until next week so councillors would be able to solicit their constituents. This was, he felt, an “inflammatory motion,” with the potential to “piss off a lot of people.”

Councillors were concerned that were they not to pass the motion, they would be “burning bridges,” since the motion passed by SSMU would show McGill engineering students in a poor light in the eyes of many energy companies. Were McGill to divest from these companies, the worry was that they would no longer want to provide research funds to McGill.

“I’d like Council to know that if McGill divests from oil sands companies, no oil sands company would come here for research or for any kind of grants. I don’t see why a company would come here if you take that explicit position that you are not supporting their industry at all,” Subhani told Council.

While the motion passed – meaning that EUS would not be supporting Divest McGill, but would instead be actively supporting the continued extraction of oil from the tar sands – Bangs was still relatively pleased with the outcome.

“The people who voted tonight, feel in some ways like they want to see fossil fuel production done in a more ethical way, which is certainly something we are in favour of,” Bangs told The Daily.

Other items on the agenda included policy changes to Blues Pub, McGill Engineering Competition policies, and a budget review.

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Women only represent 21.9 per cent of the undergraduates in Physics at McGill and about 13 per cent of those enrolled in Honours Physics.

The report follows a 14-question survey conducted by MSPS in response to a Commentary article published in The Daily in October (“Fine Men, Sexist Pigs” October 11, 2012, page 7), which highlighted the negative experiences of a female Physics student at McGill.

“The MSPS made it its objective to investigate further to see if other females and/or students in the department were experiencing similar situations,” read a statement provided to The Daily by the MSPS executive.

The survey was conducted online over a three-day period, and a total of 124 of 346 undergraduate Physics students responded. Twenty-eight of the respondents were female.

The MSPS report also noted that “several students referenced the hypothesis of [former] Harvard University President, Lawrence Summers, that there is an innate difference in mathematical and computational ability between genders.”

Citing confidentiality concerns, the MSPS declined to share the results of the survey with The Daily.

According to associate professor Tracy Webb, who sits on the department’s newly-formed Women in Physics Committee, and who has seen both the survey results as well as the report, the outcome is of no surprise.

“These are issues that women in undergraduate Physics face everywhere,” she told The Daily. “These problems, like a lack of female role models, aren’t just at McGill.”

Webb is one of the six women in the Physics department – a number which she says is actually quite high compared to other universities – and according to her, the department is making a concerted effort to be female-friendly.

The department “recognizes a need for more female role models,” and “all things being held equal,” this is being implemented in its hiring practices, she told The Daily. “Offers are being made and accepted.”

The Women in Physics Committee has begun a mentoring program, hosts talks, and plans events aimed at building a better community for women in the department.

Despite the department’s efforts, the survey indicates to Webb that the culture among undergraduates – and certain undergraduates in particular – needs some updating.

“A few people are clearly making the atmosphere unpleasant,” she said. “There also seems to be an issue with the student lounge, which should absolutely be a safe space.”

According to the report, several female students responded in the survey that they had been the victims of “obnoxious” behaviour in common areas, particularly the Physics students’ lounge.

“In reference to derogatory language and gender specific comments in common areas, the MSPS believes it can be addressed by increasing the awareness of acceptable conduct followed by peer reinforcement,” the report says.

The report, which identified gender equality as being a “social issue,” rather than an “academic” one, concludes that “the MSPS believes there are no official actions required by the Physics Department or the [MSPS] in response to the article ‘Fine Men, Sexist Pigs’.”

A problematic methodology? 

SSMU Equity Commissioners Justin Koh and Shaina Agbayani take issue with the survey’s methodology.

According to Koh, it is problematic that many of the questions were “ideological,” and not instead aimed at investigating “personal experiences of discrimination.”

In equity surveys such as these, “you need to look at people’s particular experiences in order to get the bigger picture,” he told The Daily.

Questions from the survey included “Do you think males and females have a different capacity of intelligence?” and “Which gender do you feel is the cause of sexism?”

“The survey was not constructed to be informative, but rather to identify a general opinion [among undergraduate students] to decide if corrective action by the department and/or the MSPS was necessary,” MSPS executives told The Daily by email. “It is for this reason that not all of the questions were formulated with extreme diligence.”

The report presents “generalized conclusions” made by the MSPS about the survey, but not “rigorous statistical analysis” of those findings.

This is another problem for Koh and Agbayani. “There is no presentation of the overall statistical findings, just selective presentations of what the MSPS deems, from their perspective, the most notable or ‘shareable’ results,” they told The Daily in an email.

The report says that uniformly negative answers to the question “Has a sexual or gender directed comment led to a decrease in your self-confidence at school?” reveal that students’ academic self-confidence has not been impacted by “gender-related remarks.”

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