“There are so many opportunities in our own two countries to continue to push the expansion of the rights and opportunities for women and girls, but particularly for Americans and Canadians to do more to open the doors of progress, to create equality and justice everywhere,” said Clinton.

Clinton went on to describe her transition toward viewing gender issues in economic terms. “I’ve done this work for a very long time and for most of that time, I made what was the argument of morality, the argument of justice, that every person should be respected for the gifts that he or she has, that there shouldn’t be artificial barriers. But then, in the last seven or so years, the economic arguments have become so compelling,” she said.

“We see in every country in the world what a difference it would make to this chamber of commerce, to this country’s GDP, to that in my own country, if women and girls were able to have full access and participate in the economy to the fullest of their abilities.”

Erin Cully, a recent graduate from McGill who attended the event, noted, “The economic argument for gender is a little utilitarian, which is unfortunate.”

Rebeca Cipollitti, a U1 Arts and Science student, shared the sentiment, telling The Daily, “I feel it seems like how women can make it to the top is through business, and I don’t think that is the only issue we should be attacking. I mean, there’s other things that women can help […] like the environment for example – she barely touched on that and I feel like that’s a really important issue.”

Following her speech, Clinton sat down for a question-and-answer session with the President and CEO of GazMetro, Sophie Brochu. Brochu’s questions ranged from addressing Clinton’s stance on maternity leave, to her opinions on the relationship between Canada and the U.S., to her experiences as Secretary of State.

One of Brochu’s last, and more provocative, questions centred around the idea of entering a “new Cold War.” Clinton’s response focused on the need for European countries to gain energy independence in order to be immune to Russian aggression. “The Russians can only intimidate you if you are dependent upon them,” Clinton said.

“What Putin did is illegal. It is against international law. It is not because we gave the poor little Baltic states NATO protection. And people need to say that, and they need to be very clear, that this is a clash of values and it’s an effort by Putin to re-write the boundaries of post-World War II Europe,” Clinton asserted.

Zachary Rosentzveig, a U3 Arts student who also attended the event, said, “I think it’s ironic that she criticizes Putin for beginning illegal wars when she was in Senate when the Senate voted for illegal wars.”

The event concluded with Brochu asking Clinton whether she would run for president in 2016, to which Clinton responded that she has not yet made up her mind.

The post Hillary Clinton speaks in Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Co-founded in 2009 by two graduates of Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute (which studies feminisms and questions of social justice), RCGM started a five-day summer session that culminates in a concert. These summer sessions allow campers to showcase their newly acquired skills and perform original songs. Rock Camp recently announced plans to expand to also include an after-school Youth Choir program throughout the year. The camp’s main goals include teaching both the technical skills to play music and the critical thinking tools to navigate a male-dominated industry. Volunteers facilitate learning with musical instruction, as well as activities such as zine-making and media literacy exercises. By acquiring these critical thinking tools, campers are more able to dissect the lyrics of songs in popular culture and critically examine their musical role models. RCGM is also remarkably accessible in requiring no previous musical knowledge or experience, or even ownership of  a musical instrument – important features for combating a scene that can be quite exclusionary.

Heather Hardie, RCGM’s coordinator, said that, “By giving campers the space where there are no boys around, its amazing how much a transformation happens during the course of the week.” In regards to the camp’s decision to create a space for female campers only, Hardie stated that, “It’s important because the music industry is very male-dominated, and to show female-identified youth that there are women out there making music is important.”

The camp’s structure and organization mirrors the lessons that it tries to convey to campers: among the volunteers, leadership positions are reserved for female, trans*, and gender non-conforming people. Hoping to set positive examples, Hardie mentioned that “a lot of the volunteers who get involved in Rock Camp feel really strongly about this, because I think it is something we wish we had growing up, navigating the music scene as women.”

Entirely self-funded and volunteer-run for the past five years, RCGM has previously only had the capacity to operate as a short-term summer camp. The expansion into an after-school program presents an exciting possibility for fostering communities that can be sustained and built upon. The program, which has thus far been pretty rooted in the Mile End community, is hoping to begin branching out and increasing francophone enrollment. RCGM definitely offers an exciting promise for all young female musicians.

Keep an eye out for one of the choir shows scheduled to take place later this fall. More information can be found at girlsrockmontreal.org.

The post Where girls are free to rock out appeared first on The McGill Daily.

After candidates presented their platforms, as well as the committee chairs of the upcoming referenda questions presented, candidates were asked a series of questions, which were previously submitted in writing to Chief Returning Officer (CRO) Colby Briggs.

The question period was most heated in regards to the question: “Budget cuts are coming, how will you ensure that PGSS members still have access to essential services in harsh economic times and how will you ensure the PGSS executive stays united rather than playing a damaging game of thrones?”

PGSS Equity Commissioner Gretchen King, one of the candidates running for VP Internal Affairs Officer and the only candidate hoping to unseat an incumbent executive, stated in regards to the question: “I think that again it shows a disengagement of the members because there is nothing specific [in ‘the game of thrones’]. It seems fictional and it doesn’t speak to the reality of the situation when there are serious grievances being brought by members about collective oppression and harassment.”

“The current executive takes their positions for granted as suggested by the fact that several nomination statements, including that of the Secretary-General, were not even available on the PGSS website until after the April 17 husting,” she added.

At a Council meeting in April, the executive team moved a motion to censure King over her behavior at a previous hustings in February.

Rosalind hampton, one of the few students in attendance, told The Daily that the “current executive has done everything in their power to discourage and discredit King’s candidacy […] and to maintain the status quo.”

“The current executive takes their positions for granted as suggested by the fact that several nomination statements, including that of the Secretary-General, were not even available on the PGSS website until after the April 17 husting,” she added.

King, who is running against incumbent Michael Krause, focused on her plans to organize consultation fairs, workshops, and speaker series – pointing out Krause’s shortcomings this year in fulfilling those tasks.

In regards to the divided nature of the executive team, King also stated that she would ensure “professional development, contracts for executives and commissioners that could outline mandates, grievance procedures, and mechanisms for accountability. And people should receive more equity training so that the issues do not fester.” Conversely, Krause emphasized his accomplishments this year in terms of planning trivia nights, salsa events, and field trips.

Tensions also arose over a question asked in regards to the role of the current Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney, who is running uncontested for re-election. In terms of how he sees his role on McGill’s governing bodies such as Senate, Mooney stated his position is “more like a trustee,” emphasizing that his approach does not focus strictly on being a representative of PGSS. This notion was challenged by King, who pointed out that the Secretary-General is mandated to be a representative and that this was the result of a students’ advocating for such representation.

In regards to the low turnout of the event, the CRO wrote in an email to The Daily that despite efforts to publicize the event, “turnout still only represents a small portion of our member body – this seems to be the nature of graduate students.”

In an email to The Daily, Krause expressed a similar sentiment: “The low turnout is something we do have to work on. The issue is not only apathy, but also the timing of the husting/election. We are very late in the year and many people are having exams, have to grade, or finish up projects over the summer.”

King, who made a point to highlight the fact that she is the only candidate with a campaign blog, Twitter, and Facebook page, stated: “The lack of advertising of this election and the lack of interest by other candidate is a missed opportunity. From my point of view being out campaigning, I’ve had a great opportunity to hear from the members. I think it is a missed opportunity for the incumbents to engage the members […] There is a presence of my campaign on campus… it has peaked people’s interests’ and that’s what the value of a campaign is.”

The post PGSS candidates’ debate points to disengaged electorate appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Pakesso Mukash alludes to the rivers of Northern Quebec seamlessly. He is a Cree musician, from the last remaining Northern settlement that still has a river flowing through it. At Great Whale River, Mukash says, legends are embedded in their land, like the legend of a doorway within a waterfall that leads to another dimension.

But there is an urgently violent element to this story: a history of unrelenting colonialism. And spiritual connections to the land do not mean that indigenous communities exist in some fictional and romanticized nature-utopia. To many of us, in cities and at universities, colonialism is confined to the past – it is anything but relevant to us. Colonialism seems historical and abstract, a subject whose demise is so far gone we cannot trace it or sense it, let alone feel responsible for it. To others, though, it remains a constant force to push up against or be swallowed by.

In Quebec, the provincial government has devised a strategy by the name of Plan Nord to systematically exploit the resources of the North. Designed to be carried out over a 25-year period with $80 billion in public and private funding, Plan Nord will affect an area of land that is more than twice the size of France by taking advantage of the land through mining, constructing hydroelectric dams, logging, foresting, and building infrastructure to support these activities. Generalizing the detrimental effects and responses by indigenous communities to Plan Nord is impossible – complex policies will affect an untold number of people in ways we cannot understand easily, let alone immediately determine. The indigenous communities whose lands the Plan will colonize – a territory of more than 1.2 million square kilometres –  include more than 10,000 Inuit, 16,000 Cree, over 16,000 Innu, and around 1,000 Naskapi.

It is both the most pressing and – in the anglo university world – the least spoken-about issue. It is the Tar Sands of the East: dispossession of indigenous communities and destruction of the environment in one. Remaining unaware and apathetic means learning nothing from the long history of violence, forcible loss of identity, and racism that characterized, and continues to characterize, colonialism.

With Plan Nord, mining companies and a far-off government whose priorities are linked to these same companies are given access to lands that, already occupied, are only shrinking. Lands like Mukash’s, and the legends that grew from them, are being forever altered – excavated and mined in ways that cannot be undone. Glossing over loss of traditional identity is as shallow as the attempts by mining companies to “restore” by planting trees on top of destroyed land. Restoration cannot take place when something has been systematically burned.

* * *

The struggles of indigenous communities against Plan Nord are rich and diverse. While Plan Nord has in some ways become a gag order, pockets of vibrant opposition have emerged. Just this week, a group of young Innu maintained a blockade of Route 138 in protest of the Romaine River hydroelectric dam being constructed by Hydro-Québec. For millennia, the Innu have fished for Romaine River salmon. The $8-billion construction of the Romaine Complex, the first phase of Plan Nord, includes four large hydroelectric stations, dikes, spillways, canals, and 279 square kilometres of reservoir. Fighting for the same cause earlier this year, 13 women were imprisoned for blockading the route in protest. Hydro-Québec proceeded with building despite the fact that the community voted down two referenda regarding compensation packages. That around forty Innu women walked more than 900 kilometres to Montreal in protest following these events sheds light on the extreme dedication to resistance.

Similarly, this summer at the 36th Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers in Burlington, Vermont, an Innu First Nations Delegation traveled down to vocalize their opposition to Hydro-Québec and Plan Nord. On a different note, hundreds from the Algonquin community at Barriere Lake spent this summer resisting the clear-cutting of their forests – and destruction of traditional hunting lands – by a Montreal-based company being carried out without their consent. In some cases, the government or corporation consults only the ‘officially elected’ representatives of a community, who some have vocalized are prone to pay-offs, and are not necessarily selected through traditional means of appointing leaders. These are only a handful of manifestations of the opposition that made their way to the media.

This, of course, is not to imply that all indigenous communities are against the Plan. As Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel has explained, mired in dire economic circumstances, and sometimes receiving economic incentives from corporations, many communities have (at least in an official political capacity) signed off on Plan Nord. But truly respecting indigenous prosperity does not mean providing jobs whose temporary and hazardous nature may push communities into even more trying conditions. Mining companies may come and go, may attempt to fulfill the insatiable thirst for resources and the resulting destruction, but, in the end, large sums of money cannot compensate for the loss of culture.

Dispossession has been a long time in the making. It seems gold and silver will always be prized without consequences. Proponents of Plan Nord claim that the development will “create” 20,000 jobs in industries such as construction and engineering, overlooking the shortcomings and sexism of this supposed economic growth. These jobs are disproportionately given to men – women make up less than 1.2 per cent of the work force in construction, and less than 14 per cent in the mining sector – not to mention the huge income inequality and higher number of women who drop out of schools.

* * *

Plan Nord is mired in the same heated nationalist rhetoric that surrounded the election. Some assume that because it was the former Premier Jean Charest who initiated Plan Nord, it is now something of the past. Pauline Marois and her PQ government did take issue with Plan Nord, but not because of its blatant disregard for indigenous sovereignty; rather, because it was a bad deal for Quebec. The Plan is often seen as Quebec taking control of its resources. Some have proposed that Plan Nord is, therefore, only a means of colonizing the North so as to ensure the land is firmly Quebecois, should a referendum to secede transpire. The irony of a sovereigntist political party wholly overlooking indigenous sovereignty is endless.

As members of a McGill community, we play an important part in this reality. Privatization is a virus, nothing is sacred and everything is affected. The public university has sold itself to the private sector, to those whose primary purpose is the unrestrained pursuit of profit. Here, mining companies are great friends – our glorious benefactors whose belligerent greed is entirely overlooked. This happy ignorance has repercussions in which we are directly implicated.

* * *

My perspectives on indigenous struggles are necessarily those of an outsider – intellectual and not lived. I can only try to understand the trauma of colonialism from afar, and recognize that the most I can possibly do is work to form solidarity networks and unassumingly provide support on indigenous peoples’ terms. We cannot continue speaking about the North as though it is an abstract concept, open to endless exploitation. Dispossession cannot be undone. It is incumbent on us to see the faces that are standing up to the concrete destruction, those who are literally putting their bodies in its way.

Jacqueline Brandon is a U2 History student and a Commentary editor at The Daily. The opinions expressed here are her own. Send comments or questions to jacqueline.v.brandon@gmail.com.

The post Still we colonize appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Well, yes and no. We still think the traditional opinion piece works best when persuasive: when rhetoric, logic, and facts are arranged in order to sway someone else. After all, political debates are not solved without arguments. But there are more forms of commentary than the six- to eight-hundred word single-issue dissection.

Our section recognizes – in fact affirms – the existence of bias and subjectivity everywhere in the world, and therefore is the natural home of personalized perspectives. Unlike an editorial, which is debated, written, and edited by the 19 editors of The Daily, Commentary, like the rest of the paper, is available for anyone in the McGill community.

Consider: Commentary – the word itself implies discussion and observation (think of a sports commentary or the director’s commentary on a DVD). The purpose of commentary is not just to persuade, but to illuminate. Whereas the value of an expert’s argument lies in the depth and breadth of their knowledge, the value of any person’s commentary lies in the unique perspective each person inherently has. Each of us views the world from a different vantage point, and this variety leads not just to a diversity of opinions, but a diversity of methods, styles, and experiences. Ought a survivor – of anything – be expected to argue in a step by step forumulaic style that their oppression was wrong because x, y, and z? Of course not! The value in their opinion comes from their very lived experience and rhetoric. It is more than possible that someone feels a poem or a passionate tirade of words is the best way to communicate what they have been through. Readers learn not just from argument, but by coming to understand the way another person sees the world, so all styles are welcome in Commentary’s pages.

Of course, we cannot print every piece we receive, nor would we want to, but we see ourselves more as curators than anything else. The most rewarding part of being an editor is taking the time to work through a piece with an author and doing the best to help them produce something they are really happy with. We won’t speak for people, or insist on printing only our own views, but we do want to garner as wide a range of experiences as possible.

Certain perspectives and arguments are more widely read and accepted than others. To that end, we recognize the truth that some voices speak not just louder than others, but are volunteered for publishing more often. Our role is to create a welcoming space for those who are shyer to offer their perspective, those who are marginalized and overlooked in mainstream media. Moreover, and ultimately this remains the most valuable feature of campus-community media, we are not profit-oriented: we can print what doesn’t sell because we think it needs to be read. So, we welcome authors who seek to challenge the status quo and established – and establishment – sacred cows. We want to provide a space for underprivileged and oppressed people to air their voices, in whatever style they wish. The Daily’s Statement of Principles accords with our vision for the section: our goal is to curate a section that is critical and open.

We still welcome those whose lives lived among books and learning enable them to write well-resourced and argumentative pieces about current political issues, but Commentary is also for social change, for mindless rants, for congratulations, and for rage. We welcome those who problematize, and who can show us what we didn’t see before. Remember, the Commentary section can only ever be a product of those who write for it: the more the merrier.

Jacqueline Brandon and Steve Eldon Kerr are this year’s Commentary editors. They can be reached at commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

The post Challenging, criticizing, illuminating appeared first on The McGill Daily.