The sold-out event, which took place at Pollack Hall, was part of a multi-city lecture tour launched on September 23 at Toronto’s Word on the Street literacy festival for Rubin’s new book, The End of Growth.

The lecture, which was moderated by CTV news anchor Tarah Schwartz, opened with a standing ovation as Suzuki and Rubin walked on stage.

Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation and long-time academic, science broadcaster, and environmental activist, told the crowd that he was very happy to finally be sharing the stage with an economist who was bridging the two generally conflicting fields of environment and economics.

“Environmentalists have been told that they don’t know economics,” Suzuki explained. “And it’s true, environmentalists don’t know economics – we just use common sense. But when economists started warning about the end of growth, I knew I wanted to be part of this.”

Rubin, who served as chief economist at CIBC World Markets for over twenty years, opened the talk by explaining the importance of the two critical fuels that drive our economy: oil and coal.

“We attribute the last thirty to forty years of economic growth to our own brilliance,” said Rubin, “when really it has been because of cheap fuel – of which we are out.”

“We can no longer afford the oil that is coming out of the ground. What we’re talking about is not just another recession, it is not twenty to thirty years from now. Our rendezvous with triple-digit oil prices is now.”

“I think from the environmental standpoint I’m bringing some very good news,” Rubin said. “I think we’re talking about a major deceleration in economic growth. Those triple-digit oil prices are going to lead to very green places even if we don’t want to go there.”

During Suzuki’s speech, he explained that we have prized human constructs – such as capitalism and the economy – above the very world in which we live.

“This is the moment for all of us to ask, what is the economy for? Are there no limits to the economy? Are we happier with all of this stuff? We have to ask these questions because I think we stand at an absolutely catastrophic point in our relationship with the biosphere.”

According to Suzuki, human beings have become a force like no other the planet has ever seen.

“No other species has ever done what we are doing now,” he said. “We are now a geological force, altering the world physically, chemically, and biologically. We have lost our understanding of our place on the planet.”

“We are like any other animal on the planet,” Suzuki continued, “in that our most fundamental needs are water, air, and the earth. These are our most vital needs as humans, but what have we done? We have elevated a human construct above the very world in which we live. Let’s go back to the real world we live in.”

When Schwartz asked Suzuki about the most important thing Canadians can do right now for the future, Suzuki immediately responded that we have to “take back democracy and show our leaders what really matters to us.”

The post The End of Growth lecture tour hits Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The case, which contests the legitimacy of two questions passed during the Arts Undergraduate Society’s (AUS) 2012 Winter Referenda, was filed in April 2012 by Christopher Bangs, the chair for the No Committee of the two contested questions.

J-Board Chief Justice Joel Kwan announced 15 minutes into the hearing – which had been rescheduled multiple times earlier that day and finally set for 5:30 p.m. – that the respondents would not be attending.

He explained that although “today was a good moment” for the hearing to proceed, Calver and Cheng had made it clear that they would not appear and did not wish to continue with the case.

Kwan then explained that it would be up to Bangs as to whether or not he wished to proceed with the trial or resort to a “default judgment.”

According to Kwan, a default judgment would still require Bangs to present his arguments and provide a burden of proof for his case. Bangs immediately accepted to proceed, and over the next hour his arguments were presented to Kwan and J-Board members Charif El-Khouri and Rachel Tonelli-Zasarsky.

In his opening statement, Bangs told the J-Board, “I think as this hearing unfolds it will be very clear that many repeated violations occurred. I hope I can prove to you that these violations affected the results [of the election]… These violations are serious, they are repeated, and they are uncorrected.”

Bangs argued that no vote count was ever taken at Council, that Council ratified the questions in English only, and that no announcement was ever posted in a student publication, all of which, he alleged, violate AUS Bylaws.

He also said that the AUS’ failure to publicize the times and locations of polls, as well as their failure to distribute the amended version of the motions – which included restrictions of the campaign period by four days – could have affected both voter turnout and the way that people voted.

In the Petitioner’s Declaration submitted by Bangs on April 17, it was stated that “repeated and systematic violations of the AUS Bylaws by Elections AUS compromise the integrity of the elections, and asks that the Judicial Board of the Students’ Society of McGill University find the conduct of the Respondents violated the Bylaws of the AUS and declare null and void the referendum questions…”

In the respondent’s position, submitted on May 6, it is stated, “the validity of the 2012 AUS Winter Referendum Period is justified. Proper procedures were followed; questions were properly submitted through Legislative Council. Further, Elections feels as though the Referendum Period was properly announced in a way that did not compromise the integrity of the vote, evidenced by the high voter turnout in the referendum period.”

The respondents further alleged, “the petitioner is ultimately biased in his presentation of this case, given previous communications with the respondents during AUS Elections in his position as Chair of the ‘No Committees.’”

Tuesdays’s hearing had been delayed a number of times – over the summer because a full J-Board could not be maintained, and more recently because of complications involving intervener hiring.

The J-Board reserves 15 days from the hearing date to make a final judgment on the case.

The post Bangs v. Calver and Cheng hearing marked by respondents’ absence appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Filed by Christopher Bangs, the Chair for the ‘No’ Committees for the two contested questions, the case pursues former AUS President Jade Calver and former Elections AUS Chief Returning Officer Victor Cheng.

The questions in contestation – which were announced to members of the Society on April 13 – include increasing the majority required to amend the AUS Constitution from a simple plurality to a two-thirds majority, and allowing for online ratification of decisions made by the AUS General Assembly after the assembly takes place.

The SSMU J-Board held a preliminary conference last Friday to address contentious issues, exhibits, amendments, and witnesses with regards to the case, as well as to set a date for the actual hearing.

No date was set, however – during the “contentious issues” section of the conference, Calver expressed concerns that although it had been announced that one of the two interveners being considered for the case had been selected, she was aware of a third candidate who had applied.

Joel Kwan, Chief Justice of the J-Board, stated that he was unaware of a third candidate. In an interview with The Daily, Kwan stated that proceedings would be delayed until the issue at hand was dealt with, but that a hearing would be scheduled as soon as the matter was resolved.

Although the J-Board pushed to have the case dealt with before the 2012-13 academic year began, procedures were delayed due to difficulties maintaining a full J-Board Council over the summer. J-Board members Charif El-Khouri and Rachel Tonelli-Zasarsky – both of whom were present at the preliminary conference – are set to preside over the hearing.

The Petition’s Declaration submitted by Bangs on April 17 stated, “The Petitioner alleges that repeated and systematic violations of the AUS bylaws by Elections AUS compromise the integrity of the elections, and asks that the Judicial Board of the Students’ Society of McGill University find that the conduct of the Respondents violated the bylaws of the AUS and declare null and void the referendum questions…”

Among Bangs’ concerns were the fact that no vote count was ever taken at Council, that the questions were ratified by Council in English only, and that no announcement was ever posted in a student publication.

Bangs explained that given his understanding of Judicial Board procedures, he was unable to file a case against the entire AUS, which is why he filed a position against Calver and Cheng specifically.

The Respondent’s Position, submitted by Calver and Cheng on May 6, stated, “The validity of the 2012 AUS Winter Referendum Period is justified. Proper procedures were followed, questions were properly submitted through Legislative Council. Furthermore, Elections feels as though the Referendum Period was properly announced in a way that did not compromise the integrity of the vote, evidenced by the high voter turnout in the referendum period.”

The Respondents further alleged that “the petitioner is ultimately biased in his presentation of this case, given previous communications with the respondents during AUS Elections in his position as Chair of the ‘No’ Committee.”

Ten minutes into the preliminary hearing, Calver requested that press not be present for the conference. After a five minute recess in order to discuss the validity of the question – in which press was not present – Judicial Board members heard arguments from Bangs and Calver.

Calver, who argued that the negotiations should not be restricted by presence of the media, was opposed by Bangs, who stated that he preferred the presence of media as this was a matter of public dispute, where parties present had acted in a public role.

Before accepting Calver’s request and asking press in attendance to leave, J-Board member Tonelli-Zasarsky referred to Articles 27 and 28 of the SSMU Judicial Board Procedures, which state that “Hearings are open to the public, limited only by […] the discretion of the Judicial Board” and “the Judicial Board has the power to remove anyone from the Hearing if they are disruptive, threatening or offensive.”

Kwan later told The Daily that although the J-Board has decided to accept Calver’s request for the preliminary hearing, doors to the actual hearing, once scheduled, would be open to the press.

The post Bangs v. Calver/Cheng J-Board preliminary hearing held appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Regarding the election of the Parti Québécois (PQ) to a minority provincial government on September 4, council members entered a Committee of the Whole for ten minutes to discuss the impact of a new provincial government for PGSS.

After the discussion, a motion was amended and approved to mandate that PGSS “develop a local education summit here at McGill,” and “advocate for amnesty for students who were charged with disciplinary offences by their university related to non-violent political activity during the student movement.”

PGSS Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney later brought forward an emergency motion, which was passed to mandate for PGSS to support the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) in pursuing a policy of cooperation, rather than antagonization, toward other student federations.

Mooney explained that as a member of FEUQ, PGSS has to advocate the direction of policies it would like to see the Federation take.

Council members also voted unanimously to approve a motion regarding Law 12, which stated that “PGSS draw attention to the undermining of civil liberty and the subversion of the principle of civil liability inherent in Law 12.”

Law 12, previously known as Bill 78, was passed as an emergency law on May 18 by the National Assembly of Quebec. The Law restricted protest activities on or near university grounds, and further required that organized protests of fifty or more people in a public space anywhere in Quebec submit their routes to the police for approval.

Speaking in favour of the motion, Mooney explained that although Law 12 was likely to be repealed by the current provincial government, “it is not okay that it was made in the first place.”

Hasan Nikopour Deilami of the Faculty of Engineering also brought forward a motion for the PGSS to create an electronic referendum in which all members can vote online whether to declare a strike. The motion was voted down.

In March, PGSS voted in overwhelming favour of a three-day strike in support of the Quebec student movement against tuition hikes. The strike, which took place from March 20 to 22, was voted on in a General Assembly (GA) on March 7.

PGSS Equity Commissioner Gretchen King spoke against the motion, stating, “If we have something like the highest authority of PGSS being the GA, and in the process of the GA we have the right to strike votes, then it should be the GA… that has the right to decide how we are going to do that vote… I think it’s unfair to the GA and the democratic principles built up in this organization to take this away from the GA.”

Council members also voted to approve the Executive Workplan for the upcoming academic year. Some of the highlights of this year’s executive plan include addressing and researching the quality of graduate supervision, researching the effects of University-industry and University-community partnerships, improving the quality of representation on the PGSS’ committees and governance, participating in the reform of the Student Code of Conduct set to take place over the next few years, and increasing the sustainability of the Thomson House and PGSS practices.

Correction appended September 13. An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed Gretchen King’s statement to Alexandra Turnbull. The Daily regrets the error.

The post PGSS talks provincial elections, strike, and academic year appeared first on The McGill Daily.

BASiC, which represents the 600 or so Bachelor of Arts and Science (BA&Sc) students at McGill, is technically a department, but, as Yu explains, it is generally regarded by students to be more of a faculty.

“I think people in general identify pretty strongly with Arts and Science,” Yu said. “That’s the interesting part, the struggle between the department and the faculty. If someone asks what your major is, I usually say Arts and Science, but it’s really not a major.”

Yu, herself a History major and double Psychology and Environment minor, said she does not usually refer to these titles, because then people “would assume she was in the faculty of Arts.”

One of the biggest accomplishments for BASiC, according to Yu, was getting a seat on SSMU at the end of this year. BASiC is in the process of elections, and with two candidates running for the position, they will likely have an Arts and Science representative on SSMU Council by next academic year.

“I think it’s a really good first step – I think it was interesting seeing the school recognize us as a separate entity, with the student body giving us our own seat,” she said. “We’re all pretty excited to be represented on a different level by ourselves, because usually we have to go through [Arts Undergraduate Society] AUS or [Science Undergraduate Society] SUS, and the problem is that they don’t necessarily know what we go through.”

“We’re hoping that it will bring more independence on our part,” she added.

On top of getting a seat on SSMU Council, Yu was asked by SSMU President Maggie Knight – who is an Arts and Science student herself – to sit at the Presidents’ roundtable this year, with presidents from other faculties around McGill.

“That was actually surprisingly very helpful,” she explained. “I wasn’t sure that we would fit in, because we’re not technically a faculty, but it was very helpful.” She referred to small faculties such as the Music Undergraduate Student Association (MUSA) as being particularly supportive.

Other successes this year have included the implementation of a new frosh scavenger hunt, run exclusively by BASiC at the beginning of the academic year, and the launch of a new buddy program for Arts and Science students. BASiC is also responsible for putting on two conferences a year – Ampersand and the National Integrative Research Conference (NIRC), both of which went very well according to Yu.

For Yu, another key challenge for BASiC this year was reaching out to students. “Some of the events had pretty low turnout, because it’s hard because we don’t have our own classes. There isn’t a specific class dedicated to arts and science students, so it’s always very difficult.”

BASiC is working to change this. In the past, McGill had a class dedicated to Arts and Science students, and this fall it is being brought back.

Going into the future, Yu hopes to see more independence for Arts and Science students from AUS and SUS.

“We have tried looking into separating from them, it is something we would like to do ideally. It would be nice to bring the community together,” she said. “Right now, we’re at the stage where we’re trying to figure out whether students are okay with giving up some of the resources [provided by AUS and SUS], but having more of their money go back to BASiC. So we’re actually doing a question right now in our elections… about whether students support the idea of increased autonomy or independence from AUS or SUS.”

The post Arts and Science students push for independence appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This Tuesday, McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum sat down for an hour-long interview with reporters from The Daily, Le Délit, and The Tribune in the Macdonald Engineering building. While the interview was officially with Munroe-Blum, McGill Vice-Principal (External Relations) Olivier Marcil and Director of Media Relations Doug Sweet also sat in on the interview, occasionally adding their own comments.

The McGill Tribune: Next year will be your last year as principal of McGill. What are your goals for your last term, and what do you hope your legacy will be?

Heather Munroe-Blum: It’s a good time to be thinking about that. Certainly my goals for the coming year are the major planning initiatives that we have underway – the response to the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement; the completion of the next round of academic planning known as the ASAP Paper; and integrated with that and parallel to it the development of the Strategic Research Plan. Those are the places where we, I think, really stand to now take measures, commit ourselves to them and have some targets that we’ll be reporting back on. And in that regard, the Task Force on Diversity, Excellence, and Community Engagement is really important for me. The other piece, of course, is the follow-up to the Task Force in my first term, on student life and learning, and although we’ve made progress, I think there’s still a ways to go in that. And I guess the other part that’s very important is McGill not just being in Quebec, but of Quebec. You know, we’ve just celebrated our 190th anniversary. We were here before Quebec was a province or Canada was a country, so all the great things about McGill are not just related to what happens within the institution, but where we are. So celebrating that, framing up the ways we’ll express that over the next 25 and 50 years, and at the same time doing the same in the international context. One of the assets that we bring to those who are here – to our students and our professors, but also that we bring to the broader community through McGill – is all the bridges that we create to the rest of the world. So those are some themes.

The McGill Daily: So, it’s been quite the year at McGill…

HMB: Yes, it has.

MD: How do you think the many events of this year have affected McGill’s brand?

HMB: Brand is a very commercial term, and I know it’s the term that’s out there. I think of it as our reputation and our reach, so maybe that’s another way of saying brand. Our reputation and reach have never been stronger. We have way more opportunities that are offered to us than we can respond to, in terms of partnerships, in terms of the wonderful people who want to come here, both students and professors.

MD: As for students who come on campus – to tour the campus and see events going on – do you think that has an effect on them?

HMB: I’ve been talking to them, and their parents may be asking more questions than they are, but the students who come are pretty focused on the mission of the University and their own experience. Even last week, it was interesting that would-be students and parents were communicating with me, and I was saying look, you may want to stay away. The day of [March] 22, you know there was a big citywide demonstration planned, and people just said, well we’ll just readjust our plans, no question about it.

Le Délit: For MUNACA, why has a collective agreement not been signed?

HMB: You know everything that I know about it. I understand there’s a meeting planned for tomorrow evening, and that people are working through the outstanding issues. And let me just say as Principal my hope and my goal is to have this signed and to move on. And certainly for our employees to have access to their compensation.

MT: Following some events this semester, some people have been worried that McGill is a “consequence-free environment.” How would you respond to those people?

HMB: I would say it’s not a consequence-free environment. We’re working very hard to find the right balance between making sure that our core activities are protected, that people are able to do their work, whether it’s students or professors or admin and support staff. And we balance that with the ability for people to express themselves freely, and to demonstrate peaceably. Clearly, there are limits to the latter, and there should not be limits on the ability for people to do their work and carry out their responsibilities here. So there are consequences, and I think we’ve seen some of them in the last week. You know, we’re doing our best to balance this. But I know there’s a concern about this, so you can imagine we’re quite preoccupied with it.

MD: With regards to the recent disciplinary action taken against students participating in strike action, including students being banned from campus, can you comment on that?

HMB: I don’t comment on disciplinary actions, but I think you would see with the banning of students from campus that there are consequences.

MD: Has this measure been taken before?

HMB: I don’t know. What happens from a disciplinary point of view is not normally in a public lens. The University functions, it’s a huge place, we have approximately 50,000 people who make up the daily community on our two campuses, and then more out into the affiliated teaching hospitals. Much of what happens in all respects happens at the local level of the University, so I think what’s happening right now in terms of the issues that you’ve raised, and then the issue of discipline, is having a much more public focus than typically would be the case. So I’m not involved in the day-to-day of disciplinary action.

LD: About the provisional protocol regarding campus protests – when will it end or is it supposed to keep going next year?

HMB: Well, Dean Manfredi’s reporting back in the fall on the outcome of his forums, and also the academic meeting that’s being planned on this matter. There will certainly be some repositioning in the fall.

MT: This year we’ve seen some tension, and I’m sure Dean Manfredi’s open forums are a way of allowing people to express themselves. But also last semester you had a live webcast where you answered questions, and you had a blog.

HMB: Yes, in fact, we’re actually planning some more webcasting. This is something that we’ve had a lot of feedback on, and I seek your guidance too if you have suggestions. Again, with the big community, and then a broader community of family members of our students around the world, alumni around the world, it’s really a challenge to think about how to communicate regularly, not just when there’s something that happens that makes people worried, but all the good things happening too. And it does seem the webcast is a good way to do that, both on a regular basis, probably, so we’re doing one in April, and then I think the plan is again in the fall and the winter to do them.

You all saw one of the reactions to the fall [webcast]…was far more students than ever in my experience saying, ‘Well what about me? What about my voice, what about my interests and concerns?’ And what we don’t want is an extreme to dominate, whatever that extreme is. I mean, the extreme in some years could be partying, and simply partying and not thinking about other issues. It could be just athletics, as many of the American universities find. We have a very diverse student body, smart, able, dedicated, but a whole lot of range of interests and activities. And so the leadership of the University is very distributed, the elected leadership of the constituent members of the University is very distributed, and we need to very actively continue to pursue how best to have a good alignment of that, that allows for and celebrates diversity, while respecting the place and the mission of the University.   

MD: What is McGill doing to investigate McGillLeaks, and will the findings be made public?

HMB: We’re pursuing it fully, so as has been communicated we have very, very deep forensic auditing going on. We have the police involved. And it is unlikely that the results of much of this will be made public, because it’s a security issue. It is interesting how we’ve received [comments] from other institutions commending the way that we’ve handled it… I think overall we feel we’re taking every measure we can to protect people’s privacy, and there will be consequences for those who have been involved in this.

LD: Why did McGill threaten the Daily Publications Society when it is legal under Quebec law to use information that is in public space, even if it is illegally obtained?

HMB: Because it’s a breach of the privacy laws to use that information.

LD: But not for journalists to use that information.

HMB: Well that would be tested in the courts.

Olivier Marcil: We have asked, not only to The Daily, but everybody that has published those documents that have been stolen from the University, to remove the link from their site. Everyone has agreed. It’s not a threat to The Daily.

HMB: It’s our responsibility to protect the privacy of people who work with us and who are part of the community. I would think you would respect that, and I think as part of good journalism you would respect the privacy of people too. It’s your judgement, and it’s your choice. It was a very serious breach… Everybody [received a similar letter], anyone who published anything, and as I said, not just media outlets.

MT: The response of the investigation into Professor McDonald’s asbestos research were to be released at senate last week. Are you able to provide any sort of update?

HMB: The Dean [of Medicine David Eidelman] provided an update at the Board meeting, I think the week before last, and says he will now have received the report from the person who is conducting the investigation. He is now reviewing the report, and he will come out with something in the near future.

MT: Will that information be released?

HMB: Yes, when he comes up with his findings, they will be made public. You remember, it was done decades ago, this research, so it was done in a very different context. And our Dean is a respirologist himself, and has a deep concern about the issues, but the fundamental issue is that of the quality of the research, and that’s being investigated very thoroughly.

MD: Can you tell us when your potential successors for next year will be announced, and what that process will involve?

HMB: The process is underway, which is why it’s announced quite far in advance. It’s an advisory process to the Chair of the Board, who takes a recommendation to the Board of Governors. There’s a broad representation of the University constituents on the advisory committee: students, admin and support staff, faculty, and alumni. And then they look for the best candidate. All of our leadership searches – for deans, for vice principals, for the principal – are done at the international level, looking for the best candidate.

LD: Is anybody else from the McGill administration leaving next year?

HMB: I’m not leaving the University, I’m a professor in medicine, so I’m stepping down as principal at the end of June 2013. The Deputy Provost term finishes around the same time, but he’s a professor in psychology, so we’re not leaving.

LD: Are you sad to leave as principal in this climate?

HMB: Look, I feel very proud of the place and the people across the University, but in the senior team as well, and in our senior volunteer leadership. I’m not leaving the principalship yet, I’ve got well over a year left and I have a big agenda – as we’ve described – between now and then. But today, I think the University is a great place, its reputation has never been stronger, its people have never been more talented, its ability to contribute to society has never been stronger than it is today. I’m very proud.

MT: In the past few months, the portfolio of the Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning has been under review. So far, what will be the main changes to the portfolio?

HMB: I don’t think the Provost has decided yet. He’s doing that review, and of course the Deputy Provost is contributing, as are many, many people across our two campuses. The position of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) came out of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, and I launched that task force because up until that time there was no one with a VP level role whose only preoccupation was students. And in a University that is so known for its research, as McGill is, and has such a breadth of research, having people at the senior table, who for whatever decision we’re making, whatever it’s about…having someone there who’s an advocate and an ambassador for students is really important, and has been embraced by the Provost as well. And Professor Mendelson has diligently done that, so he doesn’t ever let us think about other issues without thinking about the effects on students and the ability to reach out to students, and understand also how different student needs are, whether you’re part time or you’re in a professional program, or you’re an undergraduate or you’re graduate… I think it remains to be seen whether or not there will be a major restructuring, and then there will be very big shoes to fill in finding a successor to Professor Mendelson.

MD: The Quebec budget was recently released and there are no plans, despite student action, to stop the tuition increases. Is McGill still in the same position of supporting the tuition increases?

HMB: Yes, we are. But I absolutely am committed to not talking about tuition without talking about student aid. So the reality is, and you know the facts, but let me just state them very, very simply, that in the year 2016-17, Quebec under this new rise in tuition will be at the average of Canada last year, not this year, but last year. You also know, as students, that there is a shortfall on our resources to do the things that we need to do – support students.

When I became principal, one of the recommendations I took to the Board that they approved, was that for every net new dollar of tuition that comes into McGill, we would take thirty cents and put it into student support, over and above whatever Quebec does. And our advice to Quebec has always been, don’t raise fees unrealistically, raise them realistically, but ensure that there’s student aid for those who can’t afford to pay. And so over the eight years or so that our own McGill policy has been in place, we’ve increased by 500 per cent the amount of student aid available to students at McGill. And with the unfreezing of tuition, we’ve moved only very modestly in terms of students paying a meaningful percentage of the education they receive, even those who can afford to pay more.

I want to say that I don’t support the tuition fees south of the boarder, even in the public universities – they are too high. Even in the public universities, they are too high. If you look at the quality that we deliver on our underfunded basis, what we’re looking for is the average of Canada, notwithstanding that we aim to compete with the best in the world.

MD: It’s been quite hectic in James Admin this year. Is there administrative work that is being moved outside of the building?

HMB: There are about 300 people who work in the James building, they’ve been working very hard to keep up with the workload. During the strike, some of it was moved out. During the occupations, there was a total disruption to work, but nonetheless employees work very hard to keep up with their own responsibilities.

MD: So it’s just business as usual?

HMB: It would be crazy to say its not different coming into a place that is now locked, or [requiring] card access. But I think the system that we’ve put in place, I hope we’re smarter today than we were September 1 with respect to how to protect the safety and security of people on our campus, and allow work to go on without having an undue presence of security. If you think of most public buildings, they have something like the reception desk that we’ve put into the James Building, so it’s actually been much smoother, and I think easier for people to get in and out.

There are three hundred people who come in and work really hard, are in in the morning, stay late at night, who felt completely unsafe in the building, had their space intruded, some of them [felt] physically very threatened. So there’s an aftermath to that. So the new measures I think are allowing access for those who have work in the building, meetings that go on in the building, but added a sense of security for the people who work there and are doing their utmost to serve the University.

MD: Are they permanent measures?

HMB: I don’t know. I think the fall will be a good time to revisit what makes sense, but one of the things we’ve learned – and just looking at what other Universities do, and what other public institutions do – is having a reception desk, and a sign in for visitors is a very normal procedure… Those kinds of standard procedures simply were never considered.

LD: What are the strategies to increase the number of classes offered in French?

HMB: There is opportunity to take French lessons now, for students who don’t speak French.

LD: But it’s really hard.

HMB: It is really hard, it is really hard, and it’s hard in a couple of ways. One, it’s not free for everybody, and two, there are pretty heavy course loads. So, one of the things I know is happening is a consultation about how to do that, and frankly, it’s an issue for our employees too. When I say that we’ve hired over a thousand new professors, over half of them from outside the country, almost all of our new professors are bilingual or trilingual, they don’t all have English or French. I’ve been very happy at how successful its been, hiring so many people from outside of Quebec and having them come with their families, and the majority of them have settled in well, and their children are learning French, and are bilingual. But, there is an issue, and it’s different in different faculties. So Engineering, for example, you know the course requirements leave very little degrees of freedom. The Provost and the Deputy Provost and I just met with the Engineering undergraduate students two weeks ago, and one of the things they were saying is there’s always wonderful other courses to take, but we can’t do it. So I asked, how many of you would be willing to take five years instead of four to get your degree, and the majority of them put up their hands. That was sort of a surprise to us. But maybe there really are ways of moving into a more flexible ways of taking courses that allow those that want to take a bit longer and learn French, or do some other things, take another kind of program in addition to their major, they could do that as well.

I know people don’t like talking about money, in fact people would rather talk about their sex lives than their financial circumstances. But the reality is, when we’re underfunded it means something, and part of what it means is we can’t just choose to do a whole lot of things that we would like to do without getting more resources. If you look at the budget of last week, it doesn’t have much margin to move. New revenues will come with more students, that’s how provinces work. It’s a head count funding basis, it’s not a mission-specific basis, it’s not a quality specific basis per se, so we work to get quality in the context of our funding, and that means some things have to either be paid for on an elective basis – that people chose to pay for them – or we need some help from the government to do that. And I would say French language exposure should be a high priority for the government, I would hope it would be a high priority for students too.

An earlier version of this article quoted Munroe-Blum as saying, “We’ve moved only very modestly in terms of students paying a meaningful percentage of the education they receive, even those who can’t afford to pay more.” In fact, she said “those who can afford to pay more.” The Daily regrets the error.

The post Heather Munroe-Blum meets with student press appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Mooney will be working with Pooja Tyagi, who won the position of VP Finance, and Errol Salamon, who will be the new VP External. Michael Krause will take the position of VP Internal, and Adam Bouchard will hold the position of VP Academic.

“What I heard from all the candidates were coherent platforms, people who clearly want to work for the best interest of the PGSS, who have a very good vision for what’s going to happen next year, and I’m looking forward to working with all of them,” said Mooney.

Current PGSS President Roland Nassim explained, “The challenge next year is really not from the executive, but from the membership.”

“We’ve been put through a lot of tests this year, from the MUNACA strikes to the [James Administration building] occupations, to the demonstration that happened [on March 22], and I think we do have a divisive membership, and the challenge is to try to bring it back together. In order to do that, they need to make sure that they don’t create challenges on the inside.”

When asked about challenges involved with the election process this year, Nassim explained that “we had groups of people that, let’s just put it simply, were likeminded, on both sides of the campaigns.”

“Something we have to deal with next year is trying to put the elections back in a way that they reflect the reality of what’s going on in our membership. I think our members are becoming more politically active, and those are driving some of the elections and some of the candidates, and I think a healthy debate and more freedom to say things should be allowed,” he continued.

Nassim was critical of PGSS policy regarding ‘no’ campaigns, which included a vocal campaign opposing Mooney’s election.

“Unfortunately there are ‘no’ campaigns, and that’s fine, but if we’re going to run ‘no’ campaigns we should allow the [opposing] candidates to respond,” Nassim said. “I think that luxury was not provided to many of the candidates that were running this year. They heard there were ‘no’ campaigns running against them, but they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Simply, our rules say you can’t talk during campaign period. So again, archaic rules in 21st century politics don’t work,” Nassim added.

When asked about the campaign period, Mooney explained, “I don’t like to see any negative campaigning.”

“I think that the candidates ran a very positive, very passionate campaign… Stuff that happens outside of that, I trust the judgement of the elections commissioner; I trust the process we have at PGSS to try to deal with that in the best way possible.”

When asked about his plans for next year, Mooney said “it’s going to be in large part following up on the foundation that [the current executive] laid.”

“I’ve been around for three years in the PGSS now, and I think we had a very capable, very competent executive team from last year,” he said.

Current VP External Mariève Isabel said she thinks next year’s executive “is going to be very different.”

Among challenges for next year’s executive, Isabel listed working with a new constitution, working with the structural changes that have been made in the Society staff, and continuing to mobilize against tuition increases.

The Health and Dental Plan Referendum question passed, meaning the Plan will be renewed for the 2012-13 year.

The post Jonathan Mooney elected PGSS President appeared first on The McGill Daily.

AMUSE was accredited in January of 2010, and represents all casual non-academic employees at McGill, many of whom are students or temporary full-time workers.

According to a press release issued by AMUSE on Monday, “the union looks forward to working with the membership to implement the agreement in fairness and to suit the diverse needs of all members.”

The agreement, which comes after almost a year of negotiations between the union and the University, includes all six of AMUSE’s bargaining priorities, including fair wage increases, priority for AMUSE members for contract renewals and promotions, paid overtime, and paid sick leave.

The agreement will last three years, and ends in 2015.

According to AMUSE President Jaime Maclean, “it was a really basic agreement, our first collective agreement, so there’s not a lot to take issue with.”

However, she added that “there are certain concerns that we will be keeping in mind for the next time we negotiate.”

Farid Attar Rifai, former president of AMUSE, has been a member of the AMUSE bargaining team since before the union entered negotiations with McGill in March 2011.

Although “not very many people” came out to the ratification vote, Attar Rifai explained that “I think it does reflect the general sentiments of casual workers.”

Under Quebec Labour Law, there is no quorum for ratification votes.

The union’s new agreement defines the salary structure for casual employees into three groups, of which most students working part-time will fall into the “all other casual employees” group.

These employees will be divided into three classes – A, B, and C – depending on their job requirements and expertise, receiving minimum rates of pay of $10, $11, and $12 per hour respectively.

“There will be no improvements on the collective agreement, it’s set in stone so to speak,” Rifai Attar explained. “The task of the executives and stewards of AMUSE right now is to ensure compliance from the managers – it’s a huge change and there’s going to be overhaul in the way a lot of departments manage casual workers.”

“You can’t go wrong with the current situation, because there’s a lack of uniform policy at McGill, a lack of sometimes basic right,” he added. “The fact that we were able to put into wording things that were informally given in some departments…was a good thing for a lot of the casuals.”

The post McGill casual employees ratify first ever collective agreement appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On its now-defunct website, McGillLeaks stated that it would release further documents in later weeks.

After publishing an article on March 5, “McGillLeaks publishes confidential internal documents,” on mcgilldaily.com, The Daily received a letter from McGill’s lawyers, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, that evening.

The letter stated that “the documents and information disclosed or about to be disclosed by McGillLeaks are owned by McGill and are protected by intellectual property rights owned by McGill, and their disclosure is in violation of McGill’s rights.” The letter further demanded “that you take immediate necessary measures to remove any link on the mcgilldaily.com website… We also require that you immediately delete any reference to these documents and information and also delete any comment made on them.”

“Please be advised that McGill University is determined to use any available legal recourse to protect its rights and the rights of the third parties and of the individuals affected by this legal disclosure,” the letter continued. “We expect that you will confirm, within the next three hours, that you have governed yourself in accordance with this letter.”

After consulting with its legal representative, The Daily agreed to remove only the hyperlink to  McGillLeaks’ website within the time frame requested.

The DPS explains in its press release that, due to limited funding – as well as the fact that most of its funding is provided by students – “DPS publications will, for the time being, refrain from publishing any hyperlinks leading to the documents and from publishing anything on the actual content of the documents,” in order to avoid legal proceedings with McGill.

“DPS publications may, however, continue to report, comment, or editorialize on the relevant fact as to the existence of McGillLeaks and McGill’s position on and investigations of it,” the press release continues.

The press release adds, “Our decision does not entail, however, that we agree to the soundness of these legal threats, nor that we agree with McGill University’s oppressive tactics. It is lamentable that small independent organizations such as The McGill Daily and Le Délit cannot properly report on matters that directly pertain to their readership because of their limited financial and legal clout.”

“We find the actions and intimidation tactics of McGill University and its legal representatives to be suppressive of our and any organization’s rights to freedom of speech,” the press release concludes.

The online publications Canadian University Press and Milton Avenue Revolutionary Press received similar letters from McGill’s legal representatives after publishing hyperlinks to the McGillLeaks website. Both have removed the hyperlinks.

More recently, on March 13 Dawson College student and representative of the Dawson College Student Union (DSU) Michael Forian received a letter from McGill legal representatives demanding that he remove a post on his Twitter account that referenced content leaked by McGillLeaks.

The letter from McGill’s lawyers demands that Forian “immediately remove this tweet and refrain from releasing, posting and, in any other way, making reference to any confidential information that may have been illegally communicated to you relating to documents stolen from McGill University.”

In response to a tweet that Forian previously posted and has since removed on Twitter stating: “Is that a copy of confidential documents from McGillLeaks in my inbox?”, the letter states that “we hereby demand that you immediately destroy all of said confidential documents that you may have illegally received.”

Forian explained that at this time, he will refrain from publishing further links or tweets regarding the content of the McGillLeaks website, but does not plan on deleting his Twitter post unless further action is taken by McGill. Forian is currently receiving legal consultation from the DSU.

“I was just a little taken aback,” said Forian. “It’s intimidation, and it’s trying to get people to do things that they don’t necessarily have to do.”

The post McGill threatens The Daily with legal action appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The floor fellows were dismissed from their positions nearly two weeks ago due to their involvement in the occupation of the sixth floor of the James Administration building in February.

The decision to fire Buck-Moore and Childerhose was made after a period of consultation with the residence community, which was conducted by Porritt over reading week.

In response to the decision, two letters were delivered to Porritt, one signed by over 300 members of the McGill community, and the other by 61 of the 67 floor fellows.

The first letter states, “While we, the undersigned, understand that there are consequences to the actions taken on campus, we do not believe that the current option being considered by McGill administration is in the University’s best interest.”

Porritt told The Daily in an email that “I do not expect everyone to agree with controversial decisions of any kind, but I do hope people respect the extent of open consultation that I try to make a part of all of the important decisions in residence.”

“I gave the Rez community open access to share their thoughts and feelings and hundreds of people did so with a wide variety of viewpoints. All of them factored into the decision,” he added.

The meeting at Solin Hall, which media was not permitted to attend, took place at 10 p.m. last Tuesday. Around thirty students, Porritt and Acting Associate Director of Residence Colleen Lewis were in attendance.

Although Buck-Moore and Childerhose received invitations to attend – which were also emailed to students on their floors that morning – neither took part in the meeting.

Porritt told The Daily after the meeting that “I had the chance to talk with a lot of them over the course of the consultation period, so this was a chance to follow up with some of them…and let them know the exact details of what the situation is now so that they know, because they’re the ones that are most directly impacted.”

According to Caitlin O’Doherty, a U1 Arts student and resident of Solin Hall who attended the meeting, Porritt provided the students at the meeting with two reasons behind his decision to fire the floor fellows: their insubordination, and the oppression of the sixth floor staff of the James building.

“It was just really frustrating,” O’Doherty said. “[Porritt] kept saying these two things, and it was pointed out that they were very vague reasons.”
O’Doherty also spoke about the consultation, expressing some skepticism about its relevance.

“All the consultation that the administration keeps saying we’re part of, it’s really just a check box,” she continued. “It’s just a reason for them to say they’ve talked to the students, but they don’t have to ever be accountable to listening and following up from the students, and that’s, I think, the biggest problem we were pointing out.”

The meeting in Solin was not the first between the residence community and Porritt in which the dismissals came up. On the afternoon of Sunday, March 4, Porritt attended the Inter-Residence Council (IRC) meeting in Douglas Hall.

D’Arcy Williams, president of Gardner Hall, attended the meeting at Douglas. He said the meeting was called to discuss a letter that Porritt wanted the IRC to sign, which addressed the dismissal of the floor fellows.

“Porritt approached us to sign off on [a] letter that would be sent out to all the residence students,” Williams explained. “Basically, he wanted to use our signature on it as a way to show that we’re trying to be respectful of everyone’s decision, and to move forward from the decision, because what’s done is done.”
When asked whether the subject of the dismissals of the floor fellows came up at the IRC meeting, Porritt told The Daily, “No, because it wouldn’t. Those are personnel issues, and that’s confidential. That wouldn’t come up.”

A portion of the letter was written solely by Porritt, while the remainder was signed by Lewis and IRC president Sam Gregory, in addition to Porritt. Before the meeting, a copy of the letter was made public on Facebook.

According to Williams, the letter was a draft circulated by Porritt to certain members of the residence community as an example of the kind of statement he wanted the IRC to sign.

He also explained that the letter was not intended to be made public.

The portion of the letter signed by Porritt states that, “there have had to be some difficult decisions made with regard to the residence community in the aftermath of the James Building occupation. I hope that everyone will respect and understand that these decisions were made after an extended and open consultation period with the primary stakeholders involved.”

It also clarifies, “My decisions regarding student employment have nothing to do with the Code of Student Conduct [Green Book]. The Code is a separate process that is administered by the disciplinary officer of the faculty involved or, in the case of an incident in residences the hall director is the disciplinary officer.”
Buck-Moore and Childerhose reiterated this point, emphasizing that their dismissals had nothing to do with the Green Book, a misconception that they said has been circulating around campus. Neither Buck-Moore nor Childerhose have had disciplinary action taken against them by the University.

Williams explained that the IRC decided not to sign the letter at the meeting on Sunday, “Not because we agree, not because we disagree, but because it’s simply not IRC’s place. That’s not our role. Our role is to represent the students, and some people thought this was a little bit inappropriate to be brought in front of IRC.”

Buck-Moore commented on the decision, explaining that “I think one thing that a lot of us were confused and concerned about with that, was that that’s kind of inherently a political action, to ask a representative body of other people to support a decision that’s already been made.”

Buck-Moore and Childerhose have no plans to leave their residence accommodations, and will be remaining in Solin until further action is taken.

“Legally, we feel like we’re entitled to [stay] for the time being,” said Childerhose, “and I feel like most lawyers would feel the exact same way.”

The post Controversy over floor fellow dismissals appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The day before, Munroe-Blum also issued her first response to the five-day occupation of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson’s office in the James Administration building. The students occupying, known as the #6party, were evicted by Montreal police earlier that morning.

The Daily spoke with Munroe-Blum by phone Monday afternoon. Click here to read the story on Munroe-Blum’s response to the Jutras Report.

The McGill Daily: Why was your response to the Jutras Report released today?

Heather Munroe-Blum: Well, it was always scheduled to come out right after the consultation with Board. As you may recall from December, I said that I wanted to continue the on campus consultations that began after November 10, and it would have come out two weeks earlier but for the interruption of the Board meeting and us rescheduling it so that we could get that input. And then as you know we were a little preoccupied, so the special board meeting to respond was a week ago today, and it would have been out then on Wednesday so I would have a chance to incorporate some of the feedback from the Board meeting, but then the events of the week overtook it and it didn’t seem appropriate to let it out then. But I did want to get it out fast because we want to start the open fora.

MD: So, if anything, it was delayed because of the events of last week?

HMB: Well, really because of the inability to have the consultation with the Board when it was scheduled, because of reasons you know.

MD: In your response you list a number of initiatives the administration is or has already been undertaking. Were most of these in effect since before the second occupation of James Admin?

HMB: All of them were underway.

MD: Why does the senior administration feel that a stronger relationship with the Montreal Police is necessary going forward?

HMB: Well, you’ll notice that Professor Jutras actually had that as one of his own recommendations, and public universities and any public institution – you could put hospitals and so forth into that group as well, where you have a community of people assembled – should have very good neighbourhood relations, and good relations with the local police. In fact, our relations, of course, have been longstanding. I can’t recall if it was five or six years ago, there was an incident on campus which made it clear that both because of linguistic differences and difference in operational procedures and so forth, we did not have a team relationship with the local police. So efforts were made then, five years ago roughly, to develop a much more proactive relationship with the local police. And that’s added value, you may have noticed, that during frosh week, for all kinds of very positive reasons, we’ve had police on our campuses – during orientation, people come from out of town, that kind of thing. But the events of November 10 showed that depending on the time of day or night that events occur, we had not developed as continuously engaging a relationship with our local police, no matter what shift it was on, what time of day. So we really have been looking at best practices for that. There was a strong sense, with the presence of the riot police on campus and my own meeting with the chief of police just after those events, that the views of the city, especially given the acts of violence in post-secondary institutions – and if you look at the protocols of our sister universities, has had a very different approach to protests and peaceful demonstration than the protocols on our own campuses. And so having had a chance to speak with the chief of police about what might be a values difference, and also an informational difference – because our community is a newer and more external community than many of the other universities and CEGEPS in the city – that there was much more we could do to be proactively informing each other, learning from each other, so that if either good opportunities are there, or in the rare event that there’s a safety issue or a management concern with respect to our ability to secure the safety of the campuses, we know who each other are, we have some things talked out in advance and its not working through it for the first time. So its good community relations is the bottom line on that, and we thought we were there, but you know, you learn from every new experience, and I think it will be a positive outcome.

MD: And will this meeting take place at the beginning of every year?

HMB: No, I really think the notion of what I put in the response is kind of the minimum. The ideal is that we have a much more open, collaborative relationship. And some of, as I say, is developed in the context of the Milton-Parc Community and the University and the police and so forth, to acknowledge it as a University neighbourhood. So that’s kind of to ensure that the chief of police can pick up the phone to the principal and the principal can pick up to the phone to the chief of police. But that’s not what the activity is, the activity is a much more partnered relationship that, you know, to do all of the normal things that we do in the community and the neighbourhood – welcoming big populations on our campus – and that we know each other if things turn in another direction.

MD: I noticed in your response that you referenced the job titles rather than the names of the senior administrative figures. Was there any reason for this?

HMB: No, there was nothing behind that.

MD: Many of your recommendations include increased consultation with the University. Will all of this be done through Dean Manfredi’s Open Forum?

HMB: No, not at all, and, in fact, many new avenues have been opened up through the fall, into the winter, particularly in the second half of the fall. And some are channels that were there, but that we’re using more actively. But I really believe that the Open Forum will be really important to the extent that we can encourage people to come out, given the size of our community and the mission of the University, there will be diverse views. It’s really important to have fora that allow a range of views to be expressed, with us and with each other, but this has to be a broad community undertaking. I hope classes and different groups will be doing all kinds of different things. And at the level of the faculties and the departments it’s very important because those are the day in, day out communities that people live in.

MD: Why were you not on campus throughout the second occupation?

HMB: Well, I was here for a good part of the second occupation. I was scheduled to be out of town, at meetings, on the Tuesday and Wednesday. And I actually stayed in town because of the events on Tuesday – I wanted to stay close. And then I was out for one day overnight and then back on campus on the Thursday.

MD: So is everything back to normal in James Administration with this being the first day back at work since the occupation?

HMB: Look, I don’t think you call it back to normal. We have a whole bunch of people who work here in service of the University who feel their work place is not the safe place it should be, and some who feel quite traumatized by the events. We’re hoping to get back to a sense of people feeling secure in their workplace and able to conduct their service in support of the University, but we’re not there today.

MD: Why did you not release a statement on the occupation until yesterday?

HMB: Because we had an occupation on. We had a team doing their jobs and we had the person leading it, as the main communicator with the community. So, had I felt that there would be value added to that, I would have, but I certainly wanted to communicate yesterday.

—compiled by Jessica Lukawiecki

The post Exclusive: Munroe-Blum on Jutras Report appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Nearly two months after the release of the internal investigation into the events of November 10, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum has issued her response.

The Jutras Report, which was conducted by Dean of Law Daniel Jutras at the request of Munroe-Blum, was released to the public on December 15. The report made six recommendations to University authorities.

The recommendations came in the wake of the November 10 occupation of the James Administration building, which ended with Montreal riot police driving demonstrators off campus using pepper spray and tear gas.

Munroe-Blum has accepted all six of Jutras’ recommendations. In her response, she outlined the various ways that senior administration has already begun, and will continue, to follow the recommendations.

Munroe-Blum pointed out that “the senior administration also has a responsibility to the community to promote and protect this culture and, additionally, to ensure the safety, security, and well being of all on the McGill campuses.”

In response to Jutras’ first recommendation – that “University authorities should provide and participate in a forum open to all members of the University community to discuss the meaning and scope of rights of free expression and peaceful assembly on campus” – Munroe-Blum announced that Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi will be chairing an Open Forum, supported by an Advisory Group.

The Group will include “faculty, students, administrative and support staff, and alumni or other engaged members of our community.” Manfredi will report at the end of his consultation, and the report will be shared with the University’s governing bodies and the McGill community. The Open Forum has a blog, on which Manfredi states that he “looks forward to hearing from all McGillians.”

According to SSMU President Maggie Knight, SSMU has been asked to contribute to the nomination of people to Dean Manfredi’s work group.

“It’s not always completely clear to what extent we are expected to be able to affect what actually happens, versus just listening to us,” she added. “Something [the SSMU] have been striving to communicate is the importance of communicating how feedback from students has been incorporated.”

In an interview with The Daily, Munroe-Blum explained that Manfredi’s Work Group would not be the only venue for consultation with the University.

“Many new avenues have been opened up through the Fall, into the Winter, and some are channels that were there, but that we’re using more actively,” she said.

“I really believe that the Open Forum will be really important to the extent that we can encourage people to come out… It’s really important to have fora that allow a range of views to be expressed, with us and with each other, but this has to be a broad community undertaking.”

Munroe-Blum added that all of these initiatives had been underway since before the second occupation of the James Administration began. The occupation, which began on February 7, lasted five days.

Munroe-Blum has also called for a review of Security Services’ standard operating procedures – to be conducted by Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa – and to be reported to her by April 15.

Referring to the concern raised in the Jutras Report that McGill’s Security Services agents are not clear as to what McGill expects of them in the event of acts of civil disobedience, Munroe-Blum explained in her response that Di Grappa “has implemented appropriate clarifications.”

“[Di Grappa] will make further changes as appropriate, pending the conclusion of his review of McGill Security Services’ standard operating procedures,” she wrote.

In terms of emergency management, Munroe-Blum reported that “some initial steps have been taken,” giving the examples of the “use of available technologies to communicate quickly and effectively with the McGill community.” McGill’s use of the Alertus emergency notification system was announced last month.

Munroe-Blum also referred to the provisional protocol on demonstrations on campus in her response, released publically to the McGill community on Sunday.

The provisional protocol – signed by Provost Anthony Masi and Di Grappa – states that “the events of the last few days clearly indicate the need to issue an interim set of guidelines” regarding campus protests.

“If any type of occupation occurs, and the occupiers refuse to leave when requested to do so, civil authorities will be called,” the protocol states.

According to Munroe-Blum’s response, elements of the protocol may be revisited as a result of the Open Forum, and a formal protocol will be released to the University community by the end of the calendar year.

Finally, Munroe-Blum wrote that “work is underway, and has been since immediately following the events of November 10, to clarify the values and aims of McGill with respect to the relationship with police, to enhance effective communication with the SPVM, and to develop together the most effective means of ensuring the safety of McGill’s campuses.”

She added that she and Di Grappa would invite the Chief of Police to meet with them annually on campus “in order to facilitate and grow mutual understanding and positive working relationships between the Montreal Police and the McGill Community.”

Speaking with The Daily, Munroe-Blum explained that “what I put in the response is kind of the minimum. The ideal is that we have a much more open, collaborative relationship.”

“Having had a chance to speak with the chief of police about what might be a values difference, and also an informational difference…there was much more we could do to be proactively informing each other, learning from each other, so that if either good opportunities are there, or in the rare event that there’s a safety issue or a management concern with respect to our ability to secure the safety of the campuses, we know who each other are, we have some things talked out in advance, and we’re not working through it for the first time,” she said.

Knight explained that “there can be different types of responses to the events that have been seen.”

“One generally results in more security, harder lines, and the other one is – if part of the problem is that people feel the lines are too hard, we need to discuss that,” she said.

“When you have a power imbalance like you do between the administration and students, then it’s obviously easier for the stronger party to be the one to open up,” she added. “So I think it’s not totally clear from the Principal’s statement exactly what will happen in that regard.”

The post Munroe-Blum comments on Jutras Report appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The press conference – hosted by PGSS VP External Mariève Isabel and attended by eight people, most of whom were student journalists – took place on the same day that VP (Finance and Administration) Michael Di Grappa warned, in an email to all staff and students the day before, that tuition demonstrations could intrude on campus.

Di Grappa’s email specifically referred to demonstrations supposedly planned by the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ)  and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) .

The email stated: “We are writing today to alert you to the possibility – however remote – of some turmoil on our downtown campus tomorrow.”

At the press conference, Isabel expressed concern that the message was directed toward  PGSS, explaining that, as far as she knew, the press conference was the only event connected to FEUQ or FECQ that had been planned on campus for Tuesday.

According to Isabel, PGSS is the only McGill student organization that works closely with FEUQ. She added that FEUQ does not come onto campus for events or demonstrations.

“[McGill administrators are] not defending this email,” said Isabel in an email to The Daily. “Rather, they apologized for singling out FEUQ. They mentioned that they didn’t mean to damage anyone’s image.”

According to Di Grappa, the email “was not about anything specific, although there were examples given of some events. We just were aware of a number of activities that were happening in the run-up to the call for the general strike in March, and in light of circumstances in the past, we thought it was important to inform members of the community about this.”

Tuition hike demonstrations have twice this year spilled onto campus: on October 4 and  November 10.

When asked whether the University will continue to send out similar emails regarding demonstrations on and around campus, Di Grappa said, “We’ll think about it on a case-by-case basis, depending on what’s being planned.”

According to FEUQ President Martine Desjardins, the group had nothing planned for Tuesday, although some of its member associations had independent plans for “symbolic action.” Among these was a delivery of 1,625 letters to the Minister of Education by Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) students.

Desjardins confirmed that the only event planned at McGill was the PGSS press conference.

Referring to the email, she said, “We’re not that kind of association. It’s great visibility for us, but it’s not what we’re planning. We reserve the right to make the government back down, but it’s very pacific demonstrations and symbolic actions.”

This is not the first time McGill has been criticized for mass emails sent to staff and students.

“During the MUNACA strike, there were a lot of messages that were sent that were criticized for being biased,” said Isabel. However, she pointed out that this is the first time she has seen a specific student group targeted.

At the press conference, Isabel laid out the PGSS’ plans for the winter semester. “We will continue to campaign against the raise in tuition fees – we are more convinced than ever that it is necessary.”

The campaign includes a conference in March about alternatives to raising tuition fees, and ongoing research on the effects of ancillary fees on students.

PGSS is also planning on participating in the March 22 one-day student strike, a demonstration Isabel hoped will be “peaceful and festive, and humongous.”

The post PGSS announces anti-tuition campaign for 2012 appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Outside, the snow rages against the window panes, blanketing his office,  in 135 Confederation Building, with a sense of calm. The workday is near its end – dusk has settled, but Romeo appears in no rush.

Johnny was taken away from their mother at the age of six and sent to a residential school, where he died less than a year later. All this before Romeo was born.

The conversation slows. I see the pain that crosses Romeo’s features – pain that is not his own, but for his mother. His mother, who for forty years never found out what had happened to her little boy. A ghost she carried with her, a burden that weighed her down.

Until, one day, a nurse approached Emma Saganash, Romeo’s sister and a journalist at the CBC, and said the words that were decades too late.

“I know where the boy is buried.”

Emma set out to find him.

“She had her crew with her, my sister, so they filmed the scene where they were looking for him,” Romeo says. “And we hear the other lady say, ‘well, you are standing on your little brother.’ And she crumbled in the snow – it was winter, and she crumbled.”

A break in the conversation – the impossible decision of whether to tell his mother. Finally, he shows her the film that Emma made of that day.

“I have seen my mom – cry – many, many times. Many times in my life,” Romeo tells me. There are tears in his eyes now.

“But never the way she cried that day. Never.”

***

I begin two months earlier, in the dead of the night, in a rental car with three friends. We are driving to Waswanipi, Romeo Saganash’s home town.

It is November, and the roads are slick with ice. Two feet of snow cover the ground. I have not slept in thirty hours – we have been driving for eight. Somewhere in the last hour, we lost cell phone reception – this is the farthest North I have ever been.

We drive, aimlessly now, through an unknown town, hopeful that it is Waswinipi.

A bright orange sign catches my attention – a campaign poster for “NDP MP Romeo Saganash” – the only reassurance, so far, that I have come to the right place.

We happen upon a health clinic, and I enter, gathering what little composure I can. A lone Cree woman sits in the waiting room. If she is surprised to see me, she does not show it. I should go to the cultural centre, she explains, pointing me in the right direction.

The cultural centre is a log cabin by the river – a light in the window is the only sign of activity. Night descends upon the thick cover of trees that surround the building – our tracks are the first disturbance in the freshly laid snow.

I knock on the door – no answer. Knock again – nothing. But we have come this far – I open the door.

We walk in to a scene of comfort, of familiarity. We have interrupted four people eating dinner, but it is clear we are not intruders. Introductions are made – Claude Otter, who is living in the cabin, a Cree man who had lived in Montreal on and off as a journalist and translator – an old friend of Romeo’s. Claude’s son Gabriel, who was born away from the reserve, but still comes back in the summer for the peace and quiet. Astrid Peacock, a McGill graduate who moved away from home to be a coordinator at Waswanipi’s community centre. And Robin Blanchard, a sixth grade teacher whose longing for adventure and the outdoors has brought him here, to work at Willie J. Happiejack Memorial, Waswanipi’s school.

No one asks why we have come. We are welcomed with all the hospitality of old friends, of family. Lisbeth Otter, Claude’s cousin, invites us to stay overnight with her – one room for the boy and one room for the three girls. Placing a disarming amount of trust in us, she gives us a key.

***

Romeo was raised in the bush for the first six or seven years of his life.

When he was growing up, Waswanipi was just a small village along the river, the central meeting place for all the Cree living in the bush in the surrounding area. At that time it was only home to a few hundred people. Now, he tells me, it has grown to 1,600 or 1,700.

Rich with tradition, much is still kept from the past – the Cree language, hunting, the preparation of food, “walking out” ceremonies that introduce children to Cree society when they learn to walk.

But a lot has changed since his days in the bush.

“In my time, when I was young, I watched my dad build a canoe, construct snow shoes, and I thought that was it, that I was going to become like him.”

“I thought I had no choice when I was young. You know, I said I’m going to become like my father, I’m going to be just like him, and that’s what I’m going to do. And I was glad that I had no choice.”

I am struck by the difference between the boy he speaks of, and the politician, lawyer, MP who now sits in front of me; surprised to hear a denigration of choices from a man who has gained so much from his own.

“Crees now have a choice between the Cree way of life, or participating in mainstream economy. Our young people have multiple choices, and it has an effect on society.”

“After the Quiet Revolution, Quebec had the highest suicide rate in the country,” he goes on. “And it’s a similar phenomenon I think. All of the sudden, the young Quebecker had multiple choices, rather than just being a forestry person or agricultural person. And having the choice in society is something that is hard, for any person. And I think that’s what’s happening in the Cree society as well.”

He tells me about the changes that came with the James Bay Agreement – a 1975 land claim deal between Quebec and the Cree and Inuit peoples – such as a school and a community centre, and restrictions for development on Cree land.

He speaks of how difficult it was to get the government to honour the promises laid out in the agreement.

And he tells me how the village was moved away from the river, because the conditions of the soil would have made it slide into the current.

***

I wake up to the phone ringing. Lisbeth left earlier this morning – left us, four strangers, in her home.

“I’m answering it,” I declare. My friend’s protests follow me as I reach to pick it up – I am overstepping, this is not our home.

“Well, took you long enough to pick up!” Claude booms on the other end. A smile plays at the edge of my lips.

We arrive at Claude’s cabin, and for the first time see the teepees that line the river bank, effervescent in the sunlight reflected off the partly frozen water. Waswanipi is Cree for “light on the water,” a name that comes from the torches the Cree brought on night fishing trips, beacons to lure the fish to the surface.

Inside, the walls of the cabin are covered with old pictures and hunting memorabilia. There is coffee brewing, and Claude is making blueberry pancakes. We help ourselves to food and sit down to eat breakfast – there is not a single pause in the conversation, as Claude tells one story after another. There is a slow pace to the morning, but I’m impatient to get to work – with a notebook full of questions, I would like to interview Romeo’s friends, his family, the children of Waswanipi. I want stories, recordings, as much on the record as I can gather in two days.

But Claude has launched into another story. “There are four parts to every Cree story,” he says. My questions are forgotten.

I reassure myself – there will be time, after breakfast.

But now Lisbeth is asking us to come outside. She is going to show us how to skin a moose.

Entering the tent, my senses are assaulted by the heat and the smell of flesh, and the constant scraping of the knife against the moose skin, a light pink blanket with eyes holes.

Lisbeth teaches my friend Mike, a tall, lanky kid, how to prepare the hide. “After, you soak it, and you scrape it, and you take all the blood off, and then you put it in the frame to freeze it, then you put the lotion, wash it again, put it outside. Then you put in the water, then you pound it.”

Claude can be heard in the background: “You have to earn your dinner! Press hard! It’s already dead anyway!”

Soon Gabriel announces that, next, we will be going skating with Robin and Astrid at the community rink. I am restless – we don’t have a lot of time.

It was not until later that Astrid put into words what I had by then learned through experience. “The idea of time goes slower here,” she told me. “There isn’t the same concept of time as something that you would fill up in a day. It’s just…you let it happen. And when things happen, they happen.”

And she was right – I did get my interviews, later that day and the next morning. They happened naturally, when they were meant to. As Claude told me, “There’s a time for everything. There’s a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to eat, a time to sleep. We have to recognize that. For us, when you’re awake and sitting around, it’s time to laugh and share jokes and tell stories. That’s part of how we get people to know us, we tell stories. I don’t tell you how much I make or my work – that’s irrelevant in my life. It’s not the amount of money I have, it’s how many stories I have in my heart.”

***

Gabriel, Claude’s nineteen year-old son, has lived in Montreal most of his life. However, right now he and his father are living in the log cabin.

His face lights up as he tells me stories of both Montreal and Waswanipi, of his two very different lives. Of music festivals and nights out with his friends. Of hunting trips and killing his first moose.

But it is not all good. They had a giveaway just last week, at the cabin, he explains, and I am caught off-guard by the sudden darkness that has fallen over his features.

“A giveaway?” I ask.

“That’s when somebody passes away, we all gather here and expose all their stuff, and we take an item that we want, and keep it for ourselves to remember the person,” he explains.

“She was sixteen, a girl – she committed suicide.”

By now, Gabriel’s stories were not the only I had heard. With one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country, the Cree school board suffers from a generation of children forced to grow up too fast.

I later asked Astrid what the biggest challenge was for the children growing up in Waswanipi. There were any number of answers I expected – teen pregnancy, high suicide rates, alcohol and drug abuse, violence.

“Anger,” she said, without hesitation.

“So many kids are just so, so angry. You don’t know what’s going to set them off. Sometimes it’s as much as  ‘take out your exercise book’ and they’ll just shut down. Like start shaking, quivering, and have to go outside and do deep breathing, because they’re so, so angry. I don’t know – I’m not sure what it is.

“One of the most interesting things I heard was from a guy named Michael – he’s been living here all his life. What he was telling me, he said it kind of all stems from residential school. Right now we’re at the generation where the parents of these children were the children of the people that were in residential school. And so what he was saying was that, when people were in residential school, they learned to forget everything – give up your religion, give up your culture, your customs… And give up your emotional connection to your parents. You move away, and you kind of forget. And they raised their children in the same manner, not being hugged, no emotional connection. And that gets passed on to these kids right now. There are so many kids that if you try to hug them, they’ll just shy away, and say ‘what are you doing?’ They’ve never done this before. He’s saying that there’s this emotional void that so many kids are feeling. It’s just a hole that’s there, and it makes the kids so angry.”

It wasn’t until much later, speaking to Romeo in his office in Ottawa, that I finally began to understand.

“I find it difficult to imagine just how my mom felt every fall when her fourteen kids were taken away to residential school,” he says. “I just can’t imagine the parents in the Waswanipi community, when all the kids were gone from the reserve. I can’t imagine Waswanipi without kids. I try to put myself in their place at that time, when all of the sudden, one afternoon, all the children were gone from the community.

“I asked my mom one day, a couple of years ago, if you loved me that much, why did you allow them to take me away. And she said, the response was – it would have been boring for you to be the only child in the village, after all your friends have gone.  Which makes sense, I think.

“What’s fortunate in my case is that, despite their efforts, it didn’t destroy me as a person. In fact, in changed me, in a positive way I think. The year I arrived at residential school … I learned that my father had passed away in January. There was an intercom system in the residential school I attended, and one January morning they convened the Saganash family to his office. I knew what was going on – I saw my father sick when I left that August. We walked in; there was five of us in that residential school. And as we sat there I looked and listened to the director explaining that my father had passed away, and that the residential school had no budget to send us to the services.

“That very moment when he announced that, provoked something very strong in me. It was rage, I know. But I didn’t cry in front of him, just to show him that, if I’m going to be stuck in this place for such a long time, might as well try to get the best out of it. And one of those things was being strong. So I did not cry as my brothers and sisters were doing in front of him. I just stared at him, and looked at him, and walked out of the office that way. I was seven and a half. It’s pretty young to realize, okay, if it is what it is, I might as well accept it and carry on. But I am an exception to the rule. It has destroyed a lot of people, including some of my brothers and sisters.”

Of course, I thought. Anger.

***

It’s Sunday, and Mary Saganash, standing no more than five feet tall, welcomes me into her kitchen. Her house is simple, neat. The TV drones in the background, interrupted by the chiming of a clock striking seven.

Claude has accompanied us – Mary speaks only Cree. They greet one another with the tenderness of old friends.

She sits us down at her dining room table. There is a certain hesitation in her demeanour, a reserve in speaking to us. Though she is kind, her eyes appear to drift.

“She says life has changed a lot,” Claude explains to me. “She says she was happier in the bush – life was different, life was easier.”

Again, as when Romeo spoke of the perils of choice for his people, I am struck by this, confused. Here is a woman who had her 14 children taken away to residential school, whose husband died before his time, who continued checking the traps and snares even when he was gone. And yet, “life was easier.” There is no resentment in her voice, only acceptance, and perhaps some sadness. Now she lives alone, and seems to find the present even more trying.

Claude, translating for us, explains.

“She says, kids nowadays, they don’t really listen. And the alcohol abuse has a big impact on the lifestyle here as well.”

“She said she was happier in the bush, and though she said ‘I can’t deny the fact that I too drank,’ but she said life was different, and life has really changed a lot since then.”

Without warning, Mary Saganash rises from the table, and moves to her bedroom down the hall. I am concerned – does she no longer wish to speak with us? Should we leave? But moments later, she returns, with a couple of old leather-bound books in her hands.

She opens the first one, a compilation of notes in near-perfect handwriting, to a page of names and dates – a list of all her children, 14 born to her and three adopted, and the dates of their birth. Romeo Saganash, born October 28, 1963, is the 13th child.

Sifting through family photo albums, one of my friends sitting in on the interview, asks if Romeo got his thick, dark hair from his mother. Mary’s laughter fills the room – though she does not speak English, she understands. And though she has seen much in her eighty years, she has not forgotten how to laugh.

She leads us to the wall in her living room, where photographs of all her children line the walls. Without hesitating, she climbs onto her couch, and begins pointing to the different photographs, speaking to us in Cree.

And though we are not in perfect understanding, I can tell – in a language more profound than Cree or English – how deeply she cares for every one of her children, and just how much she misses the ways of the past.

***

I enter Romeo’s office, and am greeted by a man that I feel I know, though we’ve never met. He wears a red silk shirt, and behind him is a large window that overlooks Ottawa’s Bank Street.

I apologize – I have arrived late, because of the weather. He is quick to laugh it off – “If there’s one thing for sure up North, it’s the weather. It’s the weather that determines whether you can go up, back home.”

Going home is something that Romeo does, he tells me, as often as he can, mostly to see his mother.

“I dropped by – was it Tuesday? – just for an hour in Waswanipi, spoke to the people, thanked them for their support, and then went to my mother’s house to see her, because she had prepared something for me – some food, obviously. And when I left, she said to me – and there was a tone of resignation in her words – she said to me ‘I guess finally, I’ll have to share you with everybody, until the end of my life.’”

The post Light on the water appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The lunch and talk, which was hosted by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, centered around “McGill’s heritage and its ongoing impact on the province of Quebec, the role of universities, research, and graduate diplomas as wealth drivers in our society,” according to a press release.

Eight MUNACA supporters, who individually rose from tables around the room to condemn the actions of the Principal – crying out “shame on McGill” and “please resolve the strike” – were quickly escorted out of the building by security.

Over 100 MUNACA strikers picketed outside of the Sheraton Centre on René-Lévesque Ouest during the lunch.

According to MUNACA VP Finance David Kalant, who was picketing outside, “[MUNACA] is here to send [Munroe-Blum] the message that we’re still on strike – she’s talking all about community at McGill, and we’re part of it, but right now we’re not really part of it.”

Munroe-Blum sat at a table of honour with other guests, including the chair of McGill’s Board of Governors Stuart Cobbett, and editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette Alan Allnutt.

Michel Leblanc, CEO and president of the Board of Trade, opened the lunch by explaining in French that schools, such as McGill, are “part of the wealth of Montreal.”

In speaking about the importance of financing universities, Leblanc pointed out McGill’s role as a leader in its recent changes to the MBA program – which included raising MBA tuition from just over $2,000 per year in 2009 to $32,500 this academic year.

“It is in our interest that we project internationally the quality of training that we can provide. In doing what we did with the MBA program, we did just that, and I congratulate McGill and Heather Munroe-Blum,” he said.

Munroe-Blum, who delivered her speech in both French and English, covered topics such as McGill’s underfunding, competition with other universities and countries, and the strength of the McGill community.

Minutes into her speech, one MUNACA supporter stood and yelled, “Heather Munroe-Blum, is this leadership? Sending in riot police to your campus. I was there that night on November 10. Is that your idea of community?”

Munroe-Blum continued her speech despite being interrupted every few minutes by similar union supporters around the room.

Referring to current difficulties being experienced by the global economy, Munroe-Blum stated in French that McGill, too, experiences “highs and lows, as is evident.”

“In such circumstances, it is good to look back and consider everything we’ve achieved. Fifty years ago, Quebec did not have an organized post-secondary education system… Today Quebec has an exceptional university system,” she said.

“Our economy is only as strong as our education system, and that system is only as strong as the people who support it,” she said. “Students, their families, employers who know the importance of an educated work force, and generous visionary community leaders must support our universities, along with stable, effective, predictable, government support.”

“When you are investing in education, you are investing in your economy … you are investing in healthy civil society,” she added.

Referring to a report that was released at the lunch by SECOR – a Canada-based international strategic management consulting firm – titled “Driving Excellence and Prosperity in Quebec,” Munroe-Blum stated that McGill’s “education and training of highly skilled people” increases Quebec’s productivity by nearly one billion dollars each year.

Kalant spoke to The Daily after the event, explaining that the protests, both in and outside of the building, had been planned throughout the week prior.

Although he did not know how the message was received, Kalant explained that, “the point being, the message was received. We got our message through.”

Kalant confirmed that the MUNACA supporters who spoke out at the lunch were free to leave without consequence after being escorted out of the building.

The post MUNACA supporters interrupt Principal’s speech appeared first on The McGill Daily.