The popular song has been widely banned for promoting rape and propagating misogyny, especially through the repetition of lines such as “I know you want it” and others more explicit. The motion is not without precedent, either – several universities across the UK have banned the song from their own student union buildings.

“[This song] violates the whole idea of safe space. It’s an example of exactly what we should not accept at McGill,” said Sarah Southey, Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) Representative and one of the movers. She continued, “It’s being played five times a night at Gerts.”

VP University Affairs Joey Shea brought up concerns that the song may act as a trigger for sexual assault survivors, especially given the proximity of Gerts to the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society in the Shatner building basement.

Opponents of the motion protested that a ban on the song would be a direct violation of free speech standards.

“This is as close to censorship as we can get,” claimed VP Internal Brian Farnan, a fervent opponent of the motion.

President Katie Larson also cautioned councillors against the dangers of embarking on the path of censorship, and the difficulties of drawing the line between banning the song “Blurred Lines” and banning all other popular songs with a misogynistic message, stating, “Do you really want to open this Pandora’s box of music banning?”

Farnan motioned to add a sarcastic amendment to the motion, which read, “Be it resolved that SSMU ban all songs that suggest rape culture, misogyny or sexual assault and/or abuse.”

“I just wanted to speak to the fact that I think the intention of this amendment is to prove a point, which I’m not sure is a valid reason to propose an amendment,” Southey responded, adding that the motion wasn’t censorship, but instead, “It’s the fact that SSMU has an obligation and a responsibility to its members to provide a space where everyone feels comfortable.”

After an hour and a half of fierce debate, the motion failed, with 7 votes in favour, 8 against, and 11 abstentions.

“I fully supported the content of the motion,” Farnan said after the vote. “[My arguments] were purely theoretical, surrounding the ability of a student society to ban a song in a building. I think it’s a slippery slope.”

Shea, however, was very disappointed by the motion’s failure. “[This motion] was an opportunity for the SSMU to take a strong stance against songs [that are apologetic for rape] and to educate those members who might not have thought twice about its content.”

Sustainability and Vision 2020 discussed

SSMU Sustainability Coordinator David Gray-Donald was present as a guest speaker to give a review of sustainability practices at SSMU. Gray-Donald highlighted the old heating and ventilation systems in Shatner, and sustainability training for executives, as problem areas to focus on this year.

Gray-Donald also presented on Vision 2020, a sustainability group on campus. He suggested several initiatives, such as holding periodic networking events to foster collaboration and raise the group’s profile, as well as offering more educational content on sustainability within and outside of classes.

Council resolved to go through the proposed initiatives at a further date.

The post SSMU Council tries to ban song “Blurred Lines” from Shatner building appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Series like Culture Shock, said Kira Page, External Coordinator at QPIRG, are important in a “broader context of neoliberalism that is telling people that racism is not an issue – that colonialism is not an issue.”

“At McGill specifically, I think there’s a comforting discourse [about] multiculturalism – that this is a diverse school, it’s all good, there’s a lot of diversity,” Page said. “Representation is certainly a barometer we can use […] but just the fact that it isn’t just white people who go to this school doesn’t mean that people don’t experience institutionalized racism in a McGill context.”

Another motivation for Culture Shock is McGill’s position on unceded Mohawk territory, Page said. “The fact that McGill is on stolen land is not just a historical issue. It’s a current issue.”

See The Daily’s Culture section for more coverage of Culture Shock events, or head over to Multimedia to listen to an interview with and performance by Lady Sin.

“Canada Behind Bars: On the Incarceration of Indigenous Communities”

Written by Hannah Reardon.

Statistics Canada findings show that 30 per cent of female offenders in federal prisons are Indigenous, and this figure is steadily climbing, according to Patricia Eshkibok, one of the speakers at the Canada Behind Bars panel on October 10.

Panelists Eshkibok, Jessica Danforth, and Kawate Tawe, focused mainly on the incarceration of Indigenous women in Canada, while also highlighting the crisis facing Indigenous youth. The “pipeline from school to prison,” as Danforth referred to it, is an intergenerational effect of the residential school system. Many of its effects, such as alcohol and drug abuse, identity loss, and high suicide rates, are all serious and pervasive problems, the panelists stressed, which push Indigenous youth disproportionately out of the education system and into the prison system.

Dismal health conditions, extreme homophobia, racism, and violence are all issues that face Indigenous people within the prison system. However, some efforts are being made to improve the rights of Indigenous people in the prison system. Danforth is the founder and executive director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, an organization that works to protect the health rights of incarcerated individuals. “You don’t lose your right to health as soon as you enter prison. Just because you’re incarcerated doesn’t mean you lose your rights as a human being,” she said.

“Colonization is happening,” said Danforth, adding that racism and loss of identity are day-to-day realities for Indigenous people. There is a pressing need, according to the panelists, to spread the truth [about] the present-day effects of colonization. Raising awareness and fighting for justice for marginalized Indigenous people is the only way to move forward, the panelists stressed. “We are here to speak truth to power,” said Danforth.

For more on the incarceration of Indigenous communities, visit the Life after Life Collective.

“Roundtable Discussion on Solidarity City”

Written by Olivia Larson.

QPIRG McGill and SSMU co-hosted a roundtable discussion on Montreal’s Solidarity City declaration, presented by migrant justice network Solidarity Across Borders. Dozens of public service organizations across Montreal have signed the declaration in an effort to make basic resources such as education, food, and housing accessible to non-status migrants. At the roundtable discussion, representatives from various public service organizations were present to share their successes and to discuss the challenges they have faced in implementing the declaration.

Quebec’s residency clause bars thousands of undocumented children from free schooling every year, pointed out Anne, a CEGEP teacher. She works with the committee on education, which has successfully “made this problem exist” for the government through persistent lobbying in the hopes that the word ‘resident’ will be omitted from the law.

The Food For All committee, a part of the Solidarity campaign, reaches out to food aid organizations and banks, asking them to adopt the declaration and implement a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in regards to immigration status. So far, the committee has had relative success in signing organizations on, and thereby increasing “food justice,” as one representative put it, for non-status migrants.

Several organizations are working with Solidarity City to increase the number of subsidized housing projects across Montreal, and to make shelters for those who identify as trans* or as women safe spaces for those who are undocumented.

The shortage of available social housing for Quebec residents has made the government reluctant to expand the list of people who qualify for public housing, leaving many who are non-status homeless. Shelters have had issues with the Canadian Border Services Agency raiding and subsequently deporting paperless immigrants. The declaration, for both social housing agencies and shelters, has been extraordinarily difficult to implement, as the struggle for increased accessible living is being waged at all levels of government.

Despite myriad obstacles, Solidarity City’s powerful declaration to “fight back with solidarity, mutual aid, and direct action” is making headway in achieving equal status for all those living in Montreal.

For more information on Solidarity City, visit Solidarity Across Borders’s website.

“Race at McGill”

Written by Dana Wray.

Racial microaggressions, systemic and institutional racism, and the specific experiences of racialized people at McGill were all topics of discussion at a workshop co-facilitated by Shaina Agbayani and Annie Chen on October 16. The first half of the workshop, presented by Chen, focused on the basics of racial microaggressions, in addition to systemic and individual racism.

Microaggressions are small, everyday actions – whether verbal, behavioural, or environmental – that are hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights. Although not always done intentionally, the slow accumulation of these microaggressions over a lifetime adds up to a marginalized experience.

Agbayani gave an example of the McGill-centric website McGill Microaggressions, where people at McGill send in their experiences with racism on an interpersonal, often casual and everyday level.

Chen’s part of the workshop also debunked the myth of reverse racism. A term thrown around to describe discrimination against white people, reverse racism is often used in arguments against programs such as affirmative action.

Agbayani focused more specifically on race at McGill, and how racism manifests itself on an institutional, day-to-day, and curricular level. She highlighted that there is an underrepresentation of people of colour within McGill’s faculty, as well as a lack of financial support for initiatives addressing racism, such as the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office.

Agbayani attributed the underrepresentation of faculty and staff of colour at McGill to a “feedback loop” between a lack of diversity in the student body and in staff. “Some [people of colour] who were offered jobs at Counselling Services rejected the offers because they noted that they wanted to serve student populations that [was] more diverse, and they wanted to be a mirror of identity in a position of authority for students of colour, which they didn’t see a lot of at McGill.”

In interviews with a former McGill dean and his daughter, a current staff member, Agbayani said the lack of diversity appeared to be a systemic problem that wasn’t getting any better. “[The former dean and his daughter] haven’t seen much progress [over the past few decades]. They’ve seen a decrease in diversity visibly – not of students, they noted more students of diverse backgrounds – but in terms of faculty and staff.”

According to Agbayani, diversity is used as a superficial buzzword for McGill. “Diversity for McGill [as stated online] would reflect a pursuit of diversity as a pursuit of cosmopolitanism, as opposed to diversity as a pursuit of social justice and [a process of] redressing historical injustices.”

Want to read more on issues of racism at McGill? Read Amina Batyreva’s feature “Colouring the conversation” or read our editorial on racism at McGill. 

“Ongoing colonization: Addressing systemic violence against Indigenous women”

Written by Dana Wray and Anqi Zhang.

At the trial of two men for the brutal murder of an Indigenous woman named Pamela George, the judge presiding over the case lamented that it would be “dangerous” to convict the “bright, promising young men” that were her murderers, and that George was “just a prostitute.”

According to Candice Cascanette, a member of Missing Justice, a Montreal-based organization and the leader of the workshop, this racist and sexist language is common in the media and the broader Canadian society when talking about Indigenous women. In Canada, there are 600 missing or murdered Indigenous women, although some activists argue that the number is closer to 3000. In addition, Indigenous women are five times as likely to face violence, a fact Cascanette called proof of “ongoing colonization.”

“Talking about the colonial present requires us to go to the colonial past,” asserted Cascanette, before giving a brief historical account of the theft of Turtle Island and subsequent colonization. As Indigenous women had power connected directly to this land within their communities, Cascanette explained, they were a threat to the patriarchal European forces, and therefore a target.

More recent practices like the residential school system continued the process of colonization by separating families, forcing Christianity upon Indigenous children, and attempting to destroy Indigenous culture. According to Cascanette, the “cultural genocide” extended past the schools, into the forces – such as the Indian Act – that imposed patriarchy, capitalism, and other oppressive European structures on Indigenous communities.

However, Cascanette also dispelled the notion that Indigenous people were victims without any agency. “There have been over 500 years of colonization and over 500 years of resistance – I just want to make that clear.”

Be sure to read The Daily’s annual coverage of the March for Murdered and Missing Indigenous women. As well, read The Daily’s editorials on the subject: one from October 2013, another from February 2013, and one from October 2012.

“Teach-In Against the Charter of Values”

Written by Cem Ertekin.

In preparation for the October 20 demonstration organized by the Ensemble Contre la Charte Xénophobe Coalition, Aishah Nofal, Bochra Manaï, and Vincent Tao facilitated a teach-in on resisting the proposed Quebec Charter of Values. The event focused on what the Charter is presently, and what social ramifications it could have.

Tao, one of the lead organizers of the upcoming demonstration on October 20, outlined the Parti Québecois’s proposed content of the Charter. The Charter aims to ban the wearing of religious symbols, a goal which Tao critiques as discriminatory. “This is state sanctioned social exclusion of women of faith who need government services,” said Tao.

Manaï, a PhD candidate in Urban Studies at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, said that the Charter has a clear electoral agenda. After conducting research looking at inter-ethnic relationships in middle class neighbourhoods, Manaï has concluded that people see diversity mostly when there is political discussion surrounding it.

Nofal, a second-year Law student at McGill, called the Charter blatantly discriminatory. “The PQ claims that the ban of religious symbols will neutralize [the] public sector. It deprives minorities of choice. They can’t simply discard their beliefs. What this Charter is saying is that some beliefs are suitable while others are not. […] This is really frightening. As a person wearing the hijab, I feel I’m subject to public scrutiny.”

Read The Daily’s coverage of the first anti-Charter of Values protest. 

“Political Prisoners’ Struggles in Palestine”

Written by Ralph Haddad.

Tadamon!’s workshop on October 16 discussed the harsh reality that Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip face when arrested by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Tadamon! – an Arabic word for solidarity – is a Montreal-based collective that works in solidarity with struggles for self-determination, equality, and justice in the Middle East as well as diaspora communities in Montreal and beyond.

As of 2013, there are an estimated 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. These prisoners are illegally held in poorly-maintained facilities, tortured in interrogations, and are subject to immediate maltreatment upon arrest. Israel was condemned by the UN earlier this year for its “abusive” treatment of prisoners, who are also denied family visits, Palestinian-based education, and basic healthcare.

What is important to note is that Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to separate legal systems – Jewish settlers are seen by an Israeli civilian judge, while Palestinians are seen by an Israeli military judge. Furthermore, rates of incarceration for Palestinian children are almost ninefold compared to those for Jewish children in the occupied territories, according to the workshop. Some Palestinians are arrested using administrative detention, supposedly used in times of emergency for strict security reasons (though Israel has an almost perpetual state of emergency). This form of detention allows for prisoners to be prosecuted without trial and charge, and are kept in prison for a period for up to six months, subject to renewal.

Today, there are around 178 Palestinians under administrative detention. The number has decreased “due to international grassroots pressure,” claimed Paul Di Stefano, a member of Tadamon!, “but the number is still extraordinarily high.” He continued that this form of detention allows the state to “circumvent” people’s rights.

According to Tadamon!, Israel also outsources its human rights violations by employing a private security company, G4S, to run its prisons. This privately-owned British security company also provides the IDF with equipment for checkpoints. Pressure in the form of hunger strikes on behalf of prisoners, or from movements such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) are still used today in order to pressure Israel to stop its maltreatment of prisoners and give them better care and humane services.

“Palestinians can be tried as adults as young as 16, and are interrogated by Israeli soldiers,” said Amy Darwish, an organizer for Tadamon!

For more resources, visit Tadamon!’s website.

“Unsettling and Decolonizing: An Introductory Workshop”

Written by Joelle Dahm.

Heidi Pridy and Philippe – who preferred not to give his last name – of the Anti-Colonial Solidarity Collective led an introductory workshop on unsettling and decolonizing, urging settlers to be respectful and effective allies to Indigenous populations on Turtle Island – also known as North America.

After an introduction to the vocabulary of decolonization and the history of colonialism in Canada, and specifically in the Montreal area, participants engaged in an interactive discussion on works by Cree artist Kent Monkman and documentaries dealing with decolonization.

Later in the workshop, Pridy explained that people often react to negative stereotypes, but feel comfortable about positive stereotypes that might glorify the group in question and give it a preconceived identity. “It does not matter if a stereotype is negative or positive. The problem is that it’s is a fixed representation and an abstraction of a complex dynamic.”

“When one group is marginalized, another one is benefitting. We need to understand ourselves as complicit in and beneficiaries of the illegal settlement of Indigenous people’s land,” said Pridy. “This appropriation often leads people to experience feelings of guilt. Guilt is a state of self-absorption that upholds privilege in a lot of ways and can really immobilize people from doing anything. We would encourage people to embrace that discomfort as a sign of a much-needed shift in self-consciousness.”

In special regard of upcoming Halloween festivities, Pridy urged people to be conscious about their self-representation, especially considering “sexy Native women costumes” sold in stores.

“Given the grade of sexual violence against Native women, that is really problematic,” Pridy stated. “Using someone else’s cultural symbols to exercise a personal need in self-expression is an exercise in privilege. That does not mean that cultural exchange never does happen and that we never partake in someone else’s culture, but there needs to be some element of mutual understanding for it to be a true exchange.”

Additional resources for decolonization can be found through Missing Justice, or read Mona Luxion’s column on decolonization and Idle No More in The Daily. 

“Indigenous feminisms and historical and contemporary two-spirit identities in North America”

Written by Hannah Besseau.

On October 10, Molly Swain and Lindsay Nixon facilitated a workshop on contemporary Indigenous feminisms, anti-capitalism, and two-spirit identities. The workshop tackled what Swain described as ‘the sexist and racist colonial values” of Canada’s ongoing violence against Indigenous people.

“We hear a lot about the victimization of Indigenous women, but not a lot about the resistance,” Swain told The Daily. “I wanted to introduce people to the topic of Indigenous feminisms and get them thinking of it not just in terms of within [academic settings], but in their daily lives.”

Swain emphasized environmental degradation and the role of capitalism in the oppression of Indigenous peoples. “Canada was […] founded very much on the principles of resource extraction, pushing further and further inland. […] John A Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, and his project of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was very much an extension of that need to keep pushing and [to] quell Native dissent and any Natives’ resistance to bring these dissenters under the fold.”

According to Swain, “colonialism, misogyny, and capitalism are deeply intertwined.” Decolonization – a continuous process whereby settlers, or non-Indigenous people, attempt to help heal the consequences of colonialism – is a crucial step in the struggle.

“It’s one thing to talk about decolonization and to acknowledge the land that we’re on, but it’s another thing to go out there and actually get involved in the struggles that are taking place, and to learn from those communities to figure out how to engage in a real responsible relationship with these folks. I think that’s a really important aspect of decolonization.”

Swain and Nixon are both co-founders of QPIRG McGill’s new working group, the Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit Harm Reduction Coalition. The group aims to provide resources and materials to Indigenous women and two-spirit people.

“We’re hoping to provide people with free materials such as needles, condoms, as well as resource guides to things like consent, safe sex, good drug-use practice, navigating the prison system, and guides to Montreal services,” said Swain. “Our group is open to Indigenous-identified folks only because we wanted this to be very much work we’re doing for our community.”

Culture Shock also featured a workshop on decolonization for settlers – scroll up to read Joelle Dahm’s article on it. For more information on the Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit Harm Reduction Coalition, contact ndn.harmredux@gmail.com.

The post Culture Shock appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Sustainability at McGill

The meeting opened with a presentation by Arts and Science representative Courtney Ayukawa and recent McGill graduate Lily Schwarzbaum on the ongoing ECOLE (Education Community Living Environment) project, of which the two are coordinators.

According to its website, ECOLE is an ongoing project that aims to create a sustainable living house in the Milton-Parc community. Organizers want ECOLE to be a hub for McGill’s current sustainability community and a model for sustainable living. The project also tries to break down barriers between various environmentally-minded groups on campus.

ECOLE has been in the works for the past couple of years, and is supported by SSMU, Student Housing and Hospitality Services, and the McGill Office of Sustainability. The project will launch for its pilot year in September 2014.

Ayukawa and Schwarzbaum explained that the project was focused on three aspects: living, learning, and community. 8 to  12 students will be living in the ECOLE house, working towards material and social sustainability. Each of these students will also be expected to do an independent research project on the topic. Ayukawa and Schwarzbaum told Council that ECOLE will serve as a much-needed physical space for both sustainability communities in McGill and Milton-Parc.

Applications for ECOLE’s pilot year will be sent out this winter, and despite concerns raised by some councillors, Schwarzbaum insisted that living space in the house will not be exclusive to environment students.

“We really want to approach sustainability from a holistic sense […] so we’d love to see both the diversity of student applicants in terms of their department [of] study but also in the research projects that they’re involved in,” said Schwarzbaum.

Students will not be paid to live in the house, but their rent will be subsidized, and they will receive academic credit for the independent study as well.

SSMU’s finances

Also present at the meeting was a representative from Richter, an accounting firm that has audited SSMU financial reports for the past eight years.

“We gave a clean opinion,” the Richter representative told the Council.

The Richter representative also laid out SSMU’s 2012-13 revenue at $7.7 million, of which $3.1 million came from student fees. SSMU’s expenditure for the same year was calculated at $7 million, resulting in a surplus. However, the Richter representative told Council that the surplus will only account for deficits in previous years.

Gert’s significant jump in revenues over the past year was also of significant interest. “Gert’s revenues went up by almost $300,000 which means students are drinking more,” joked the Richter representative. These revenues will likely be used to cover expenses from recent renovations to the student pub.

Milton bike gates

In one of the motions put on the floor, the Council addressed the issue of the Milton bike gates – a topic that provoked both outrage and bemusement from McGill students earlier this year.

Many of the councillors expressed their frustration with the gates. According to  VP University Affairs Joey Shea, the gates were constructed without informing the Office for Students with Disabilities.

“Basically there are two [options]: you can either bike through the gates, which means they don’t do anything, or bike right up to the gates, get off your bike and get right back on,” said Arts Undergraduate Society President Justin Fletcher, who is filling in an empty AUS representative spot at Council. “These gates do not solve the problem.”

The motion against the Milton bike gates passed unanimously.

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Both Greyson, a filmmaker, and Loubani, an emergency room medical doctor, were arrested by Cairo police on August 16 as they were en route to the Gaza Strip through Egypt. According to family and friends, Loubani and Greyson were travelling to Gaza to work together on an academic and medical collaboration between the University of Western Ontario and Al-Shifa hospital, the main hospital in the Gaza Strip.

As the pair stopped at a local Egyptian police station to ask for directions, according to a website set up by friends and family in support of Loubani and Greyson, they were promptly arrested with no solid charges and put in the Tora Prison, just outside of Cairo.

More than 140,000 people have signed an online petition calling for their release, while high-profile stars took up the cause at the Toronto International Film Festival. Despite the surge of support, including rallies elsewhere in Canada, and media attention, the two remain imprisoned.

Two attendees at the rally, Debbie Margetson and Martha Newbigging, are both friends of Greyson and Loubani, and voiced their disbelief that either of the men would do anything to be arrested.

“We know them personally,” Margetson said, adding that she believed that they were doing nothing but travelling to Gaza to work on the collaboration. “So it’s all the more frustrating and infuriating to know that we know for sure they’re being held without just cause. They weren’t going to do any harm to Egypt, it was a cross-over to get to Gaza.”

According to Justin Podur, the duo’s close friend and emergency contact for the trip, who spoke at the rally, the response from the Egyptian government has been disappointing.

“I think what’s going on in Egypt right now […] there’s an emergency law. They’ve arrested dozens of people. It’s a climate where they’re in a very aggressive kind of mentality and they are not seeing any cost to them for imprisoning people for any period of time. It is not a concern for them,” Podur told the press in an interview.

As of September 16, both Loubani and Greyson have been on a hunger strike in order to pressure both Egyptian and Canadian authorities for their release – but have had little success so far.

According to speakers at the rally, Egypt’s deputy Prime Minister will be in Toronto on a private visit this week to discuss Canada and Egypt’s economic relationship. Supporters of Loubani and Greyson questioned why the government was not making the arbitrary detainment of the two Canadians a major issue.

At the rally, Michael Dworkind, a doctor and colleague of Loubani, asserted that the lack of action was political. “Because they were going to Gaza in an attempt to publicize against injustice in the occupied territory, they are seen as anti-Israel and our government is pro-Israel, so they are turning their backs on [John and Tarek],” Dworkind said at the rally.

At the rally, speakers such as Cecilia Greyson, John Greyson’s sister, colleagues of Greyson and Loubani, and Manon Massé, a member of Québec solidaire (QS), called for increased action from both the Canadian and Egyptian governments.

Among the speakers was the award-winning filmmaker Michel Marc Bouchard, a colleague of Greyson. Bouchard’s eloquent speech in French summed up the general feelings of the crowd: “What kind of nation allows one of its most significant artists to be left in such a situation? What kind of nation lets a doctor, who has dedicated his life to helping people, rot away in one of the worst prisons in the world?”

Massé also announced that QS would be presenting a motion to the National Assembly later in the week to support Loubani and Greyson, and to further pressure the federal government to continue pushing Egyptian authorities to release the two men.

Friends and family vowed that if the two were not released, there would be further protests in solidarity.

“We will not stop fighting for their human rights,” said Andrew Jones, a friend and colleague of Loubani. “We will not stop demanding for their immediate release. We will not forget them. We will only get louder.”

With files from Dana Wray.

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The Charter was officially unveiled by the PQ government last week, and will be brought forward to the National Assembly this fall. Although some opinion polls suggest support from the rural regions of Quebec, it was met with prompt outrage from groups within and outside of Quebec.

The protest began at Place Émilie-Gamelin, where speeches and music energized the crowd, made up predominantly of families. The protesters then slowly made their way west on Maisonneuve all the way to Guy before ending at Place du Canada in the late afternoon.

Most of the protesters wore some of the “overt and conspicuous” religious symbols that would be banned by the Charter, such as hijabs, turbans, yarmulkes, and large crucifixes. As they wended through the Montreal streets, they chanted, “Quebec is not France,” “Marois, wake up, Quebec is not yours,” and “Solidarity to wear veils,” in French.

Not everyone opposed to the Charter participated in Saturday’s protest. Many in the Jewish community did not attend, as Saturday was Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day.

Many of the protesters in attendance believe that the Charter and Marois impede upon their rights and freedoms.

Fatima, a PhD student at McGill in Economics, stressed the importance of choice in society claiming, “I think in an open-minded society we should let people choose what they want, and we shouldn’t tell them ‘you should not be inspired by something specific, like religion.’”

Yasmin, another protester, told The Daily in French that she was there for “the freedom to do what I want, because I am as much a Quebec citizen as others are.”

The Quebec flag was on prominent display throughout the protest, with many of the protesters draping it over their shoulders or fashioning it into head-scarves. One woman who wore a Quebec flag head-scarf told The Daily in French that she was protesting because “we are Quebec citizens,” and “we’re building Quebec for us, and for our children, today and tomorrow.”

Sourad Khattabi, another protester, echoed the sentiment that Quebec was her home, and that she felt betrayed by Marois and the Charter. “We don’t know why [Marois is trying] to implement so many laws that exclude us – we, who chose this country, who chose Quebec, who have made so many sacrifices to come to Quebec and to integrate [into society].”

Many of the protesters expressed not only frustration at the Charter but also at Marois and the PQ in general. Kamal, a protester, complained that Marois had been “in power for one year, and she hasn’t done anything good for Quebec.”

Nawel Abdaoui, a student at Université de Montréal, told The Daily in French that she believes Marois should “concentrate her time and energy on the real problems in society,” such as unemployment.

Sarah, another protester, was adamant that Marois should focus on “real problems” – things such as Plan Nord or poverty in Quebec. “We have [… so much] debt, and now we’ve wasted two million promoting the Charter. It’s wasted money – it’s our money’s that’s wasted.”

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