The three bills brought some concerns from the populations likely to be affected by them; however, it is Bill 20 that is currently holding national attention as it is now under review.

The overhaul

Bill 10, which restructures the bureaucracy of the health sector, passed in the National Assembly on February 7. The bill will abolish the boards of individual health institutions by merging them into 28 regional boards representing multiple institutions. This change posed a concern for some anglophone institutions, as it might negatively impact their representation on the boards.

The ministry attempted to address these concerns with amendments that secure at least one position for a representative of the anglophone community on each board. The amendments led to a largely positive response, though some professionals remain opposed. Sara Saber-Freedman, president for the MAB-MacKay Rehabilitation Centre told CBC, “What Bill 10 does to achieve [healthcare streamlining] is totally, totally unnecessary and very damaging to our institutions and to our community.”

Bill 28 is most relevant to pharmacists, allowing them to renew common prescriptions such as birth control, aspirin, and vitamin D supplements, which would save the government an estimated $133.5 million per year. Jean Thiffault, president of the Quebec Association of Pharmacy Owners, expressed worry that this bill might result in reduced pharmacy hours and job losses, telling Global News, “Pharmacies will close, store hours will decrease, pharmacists will have to cut some staff.” The bill went to hearing on January 23 and is currently under review.

“We believe that working in a group would be much more effective to meeting these needs of the population.”

The most controversial of the proposed changes is Bill 20, “An Act to enact the Act to promote access to family medicine and specialized medicine services and to amend various legislative provisions relating to assisted procreation.”

Bill 20 focuses on two things: an increase in patients for family doctors in Quebec, who would have to take on a minimum of 1,000 patients or face a 30 per cent pay cut; and reducing funding of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which Barrette argues to be a non-essential service.

Bill 20: how it affects doctors

Barrette introduced Bill 20 based on the premise that 60 per cent of doctors in Quebec work less than 25 weeks a year, which is far less than doctors in Ontario, for example. He told Global News: “We would not have to table Bill 20 if doctors were working full-time and were adapting their practices to satisfy the needs of the population.”

However, Louis Godin from the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners contested this statement. “The family physicians in Quebec spend more time in the hospitals. […] The workload of a family physician in Quebec is 50 per cent higher than the workload of a family physician in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada.”

The faculties of medicine at McGill, Université Laval, Université de Montréal, and Université de Sherbrooke have expressed opposition to the current form of the bill, due to concerns with how it will impact the amount of time that practitioners can devote to teaching.

McGill Dean of Medicine David Eidelman told The Daily in an interview that he is concerned about the lack of accessibility of the current health system. “There are changes that are needed to our healthcare system to increase access, and certainly we are ready to work with the Ministry of Health to try and promote that.”

Despite these accessibility concerns, however, he was not supportive of Bill 20. “We have concern about Bill 20 in the way that it is currently structured, in that it doesn’t recognize the role of physicians as teachers. And we depend on community practitioners for a very large part of our teaching, especially in family medicine.”

Julie Miville-Dechêne, president of the Conseil du statut de la femme, also noted that the bill could exacerbate gender inequality. She argued that, because female doctors already earn less than male doctors, “the quotas will penalize women more,” according to the Montreal Gazette.

Eidelman added that, in many universities in Quebec, the number of women medicine graduates is “disproportionately high.” In order to protect the interests of these women and also any other doctors from potential pay cuts, he suggested a model used in Ontario – known as ‘capitation’ – instead of quotas.

“Capitation is where a group of doctors is paid to look after a group of patients, not just individuals,” said Eidelman. “We believe that working in a group would be much more effective to meeting these needs of the population. […] Different people, whether they are women or men, work at different times during their career […] and this can be dealt with by working as a team in a group, rather than trying to look at individuals.”

Access to IVF

Another aspect of Bill 20 that the Conseil du statut de la femme opposed, calling it “paternalistic,” is the restrictions that will be imposed on IVF. Quebec was the first province in Canada to completely include this treatment into its healthcare services in 2010, a progressive step that was nationally and internationally recognized. The initial cost of this provision in 2010 was $32 million, but was estimated to rise to $80 million per year. The current cost of the program, slightly below the estimate, is $70 million per year.

Instead of leaving IVF treatment up to the discretion of the doctor, the bill would restrict the treatment to women between the ages of 18 and 42 who have passed a psychological evaluation. Further, the bill would require patients to have undergone a minimum number of months of unprotected sexual intercourse and intrauterine insemination before being eligible for IVF.

Commenting on these restrictions, Eidelman said, “I think what you’re seeing in the bill is an attempt to put some sort of guidelines and limits on what can be done to try and balance different competing legitimate issues.”

Barrette has said that some exemptions would be added to the bill for women who tried other therapies but failed to conceive. While these exemptions are unclear, they will not include “women who have had a tubal ligation, men who have had vasectomies, or a parent or parents who already have one child,” according to the Montreal Gazette.

Single mothers, as well as gay and lesbian couples, would largely be excluded from access to IVF funding. Mona Greenbaum, director of the LGBT Family Coalition, commented to CBC, “The phone has been ringing off the hook this morning with single lesbians and lesbian couples who are very worried about this and feel specifically targeted.”

Bill 20 is currently under review at the Quebec National Assembly.

The post The expense of health appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Experiences with food insecurity
Claire*, a single mother of two, lives in a 400-person community in northern Nunavut, and shared her experience of facing challenges to acquire fresh and affordable food with The Daily. “I mostly try and eat country food [items in the traditional diet of Inuit and other Indigenous people in northern Canada, such as caribou, fish, or whales], but my children love to eat store-bought food. So I try to buy store food. There are hot dogs, flour, cereal, lard, milk, [and] bread [at the store]. We always run out of bread and milk and other things. There are hardly any fresh fruits and vegetables here, when they finally come in from Churchill, Manitoba, the [transportation company] lets them sit outside in winter. By the time they get up North, they are frozen [and/or spoiled], and still they are so expensive. So we hardly get a choice of vegetables and fruits.”

“I grew up in the North so there were times when we weren’t starving, but we were hungry as kids,” Leesee Papatsie said in a phone interview with The Daily. Papatsie is one of the founders of Feeding My Family, an organization that started by establishing a Facebook group for people in remote Canadian areas to communicate and organize around the excessively high food prices in Northern regions, especially in Nunavut. The Facebook group allows people to share information and to coordinate dialogue and action, but also to create a coherent institutional memory of food prices, as members will share pictures and posts about food prices in their area.

The compiled images of overpriced items and the large number of people in the group talking about their experiences paint a picture of the lack of food security in Canada. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” This includes access to culturally relevant foods (food items that might be specifically desired within a certain cultural group), and the ability to make these choices appropriate to dietary needs and personal preferences.

In Canada in 2011, an estimated 12.2 per cent of households experienced some extent of food insecurity, as stated by PROOF, an interdisciplinary, internationally-based group of food security policy researchers. This was a significant increase from the 11.3 per cent of households in 2007. Moreover, according to the Council of Canadian Academies, “Food insecurity presents a serious and growing challenge in Canada’s northern and remote Aboriginal communities. In 2011, off-reserve Aboriginal households in Canada were about twice as likely as other Canadian households to be food insecure.” It is therefore clear that the experiences of Claire and Papatsie are part of a larger, more systemic problem with food insecurity in Canada.

Causes of food insecurity
Canada faces some specific issues in terms of geographic location, climate, and low population density, with settlements spread far across the country. Due to these circumstances, transport of food and other items into Northern communities is difficult. Papatsie emphasized that the issue is much more severe in smaller, more remote communities. “In smaller communities it’s still quite common to see [expired] food. Part of it too is that the stores have to buy their food and their dried goods once a year, and have them brought in by ship or barge in the summertime.” Being able to order food only once a year, due to climatic conditions and immensely expensive transport, leaves people in these regions often without an efficient food system.

George Wenzel, a professor at McGill’s geography department, has been working with Inuit people for over forty years. In an interview with The Daily, Wenzel explained that only a very small number of people and businesses are actually involved in the process of getting food into the North. “It’s a monopoly situation, at the retail end, at the transportation end. There are only two airlines going up into the North, and only one of them really services most of the communities.” According to a fact sheet compiled by Feeding My Family, two main retailers hold a virtual duopoly in the North: Arctic Co-operatives and the North West Company. In addition, many communities only have one or two stores, which control a large amount of the prices. Feeding My Family states that food prices in Nunavut are about 140 per cent higher than in the rest of Canada, while the revenue is much lower than the Canadian average. To Claire, these are familiar issues. “We [have to] to go out and buy things [quickly], because they always run out of things, like milk products, really fast. But then I get $600 a month, and the $600 I spend is three days worth of food. And we’re out of food already. […] It makes me feel sad. The kids are hungry.”

Papatsie explained that this is not the same for all communities. “We’re pretty lucky with that because we have different stores, [but still] with the food pricing we can spend anywhere between $500 to $600 per week on food, and that takes a big dent on your paycheck. But we’re lucky because we work, both my husband and I, but for people who don’t have proper employment, they’re the ones that have a hard time. Some people struggle from meal to meal sometimes.”

Wenzel thinks that the blame for this issue should not be placed on the business owners alone. “The business of business is profit. The higher the profit the better the business. […] Their job is to sell things and maximize profit; I certainly don’t condone it. If there was more competition there would be a difference, but not that much of a difference.” While more competition could help in bringing prices down and move against the monopoly situation that is prevalent in many regions in the North, it still wouldn’t present a solution to the initial problem, which is the reliance on subsidies. The introduction of capitalism in these regions left wounds that are still not healing. When profit is valued higher than human rights, it opens the way to exploitation and oppression, as was the case during the colonial period.

“Inuit were pretty good living off of the land before settling into communities. Back then, the federal government promised the Inuit that they would get their free education, free housing, and that they would not have to worry about hunger anymore.” –Leesee Papatsie, Founder of Feeding My Family

In the 1950s, the Canadian government began centralizing Indigenous communities under the pretense of bringing them similar services as in southern Canada, such as healthcare and education. However, the result of this was the displacement of Indigenous people, resettlement into communities that were more manageable for the Western colonizers, and forced introduction to Western ideas at the expense of Indigenous culture. The latter took place in residential schools, in which thousands of Indigenous people were physically and psychologically abused, until the schools were closed in 1996. Even now, colonial power structures still exist and are clearly visible in the much smaller percentage of money allocated toward Indigenous schools, compared to public schools, the lower quality of healthcare provided to Indigenous communities, and continuous disrespect of Indigenous land by the Canadian government.

Wenzel highlighted that another part of this colonial legacy was established within food security. “When you brought together what had been, let’s say, a population dispersed in eight communities into one place, it meant you had a higher density of hunters and that meant you began to have a problem with local populations of animals.” Papatsie emphasized that “[the legacy of colonialism] still has an effect today among the Inuit. You know, the federal government basically wanted the Inuit to live in communities, their main reason was so that there’s no starvation. But Inuit were pretty good living off of the land before settling into communities. Back then, the federal government promised the Inuit that they would get their free education, free housing, and that they would not have to worry about hunger anymore.”

In retrospect, the disaster the Canadian-imposed school systems inflicted is very clear, as is the evidence that the Canadian government did not keep its promise of providing food security. Even more than that, by rounding people up together, many lost their livelihood and are in a constant state of unemployment. Claire’s community consists about 400 people, slowly growing. She says, “There is no employment, but there is some construction going on finally. So there is a bit of work for a few months. There are a lot of people who always get hungry and we have to give ourselves assistance.” Wenzel highlights another problem with unemployment in the region. “Money is such a scarce resource, you have an incipient two-class society. People with regular jobs who get reasonable pay, and a larger group of people [who] live on transfer payments, like family allowance, welfare, social assistance, pensions, and so on, which is not a lot of money given the relative cost [of living].”

Failed government initiatives
The colonial legacy of Canada is responsible for many, if not most, of the issues Indigenous people are facing today. The Canadian government tried to take some responsibility by establishing subsidy programs such as the Nutrition North program in 2011. This federal freight subsidy program, which replaced the Food Mail program, has a fund of more than $60 million, and is supposed to subsidize selected food items in specific Northern communities. Food Mail used to subsidize the transport of the food; however, only certain companies were subsidized, which meant that the consumer did not necessarily see a benefit. The new Nutrition North program subsidizes the retailers so that prices at which the retailers sell their produce will change. According to CBC, however, many retailers are making profit from the subsidies rather than using them to make the products more affordable. This comes as no surprise as five out of the six members of the Nutrition North advisory are Conservative donors, as stated by the CBC, with “at least three board members [who] appear to be involved with organizations or businesses that have received federal government funding, either directly or indirectly.”

Tracey Galloway, an assistant professor in the anthropology department at the University of Manitoba, recently published a report called “Nutrition North Canada retail subsidy program meeting the goal of making nutritious and perishable food more accessible and affordable in the North?” in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, claiming that there is “little evidence that Nutrition North is meeting its goal of improving the availability and affordability of nutritious food.” Galloway told the Globe and Mail that “there were two significant issues: first, a lack of transparency in how the subsidy rates for each community [are] determined – what information is collected, how often is that information re-evaluated, how the subsidy level is actually calculated for each community. […] Second, there’s a lack of accountability for demonstrating just how the value of the subsidy is passed on to consumers in the form of lower retail pricing.” Both Claire and Papatsie describe the program as ineffective. Claire says that she didn’t see any decrease in grocery prices in the last three years.

Many Inuit and others affected by the high food prices were getting more and more distressed with outrageous situations, in which people had to pay $28 for a head of cabbage, or $99 for a whole fish, according to Feeding My Family. Papatsie was involved in the organization of protests against the lack of support and accountability of the government in food matters. She told The Daily, “The first protest was in June 2012. That one got a lot of attention among the Inuit, because generally Inuit never protested against anything. It’s the Inuit way to get along with one another, and that’s from the historical part. When the Inuit lived in camps they had to work together to survive. There was not even an actual word for protest. […] In the beginning when we were organizing the protest, we got a lot of, ‘This is not the Inuit way, what are you guys doing?” While the protests are unprecedented in Inuit communities, and therefore have brought widespread attention to the topic, little has happened since then. Many people in Nunavut still do not have enough food.

This is also partially due to the lack of support in form of social assistance and child support payments. Claire explained that she’s disturbed by the apathy of the government. “I’m not receiving support right now, no child support payments. I went to a court and I kept calling the Nunavut government offices, but they don’t pay child support. And we struggle with no food.” Papatsie makes clear that this is not an uncommon situation, “We’ve heard lots of comments on the social assistance not being enough. When [people] get their social assistance, within a week they have no more food in the house. The social assistance is only a band-aid solution for a week.”

“Another thing is that when you do go hunting, it’s a skill that not everyone up here has anymore. And if you do go hunting you know it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to hunt something.” –Leesee Papatsie

Country food and other solutions
The completely ineffective assistance that the Canadian government provides to Indigenous communities is a symptom of their lack of concern for and ignorance of Indigenous rights and needs. Some people in the Feeding My Family Facebook group argue that self-sustenance in the form of greenhouses, a step towards country food, and less dependence on the specific freight subsidies might be beneficial. In a paper called “Conceptualizing food security for Indigenous people in Canada,” Elaine M. Power argues “that cultural food security is an additional level of food security beyond individual, household and community levels.” Cultural food in this case describes traditional food resources, which are also called ‘country foods.’ Papatsie underlined the benefits of country foods in Inuit communities. “Its very common for Inuit to share whatever they’ve caught. That’s always been the Inuit tradition. A lot of it comes from years ago, when there used to be starvation among the Inuit, so the Inuit have always helped each other with hunger. […] Inuit share their food, what they’ve caught. It’s a very common tradition in the North, and I think that is part of the reason why there’s no starvation now[…] There are a lot of family members feeding other family members, not just with country food. If a person didn’t have [food] at home, they would go to their cousins, who would have food, and they would share whatever they are eating.” Claire added that the sharing is not just common between family members, but that hunters, after a successful hunt, “call radio or post on Facebook [and tell others] to come get caribou meat.” The only problem with this is that transportation between communities is sometimes difficult, so some of the meat might spoil.

Hunting in order to get country food is, like most things in this region, quite expensive. Due to the centralized settlements, technology is needed to hunt more effectively and to cover a larger territory. Hunting gear and transportation, such as snowmobiles, are pricey, and not many people can afford the maintenance. Wenzel told The Daily, “[A snowmobile] is like a car: once you drive it off the lot, it also depreciates by a quarter. […] You’re putting in several thousands of dollars in repairs plus fuel in the first year, and then it gets worse after that.” Many stores don’t keep replacement parts for older models, so Inuit have to invest in new vehicles on a constant basis.

While Canada’s 1998 action plan for food security – a document that was drafted in response to the World Food Summit action plan – includes a whole page on traditional resources, there hasn’t been much visible work on part of the government in this area. According to Wenzel, “There is no substantial support for producing traditional resources, traditional food.” Papatsie adds that, “Another thing is that when you do go hunting, it’s a skill that not everyone up here has anymore. And if you do go hunting you know it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to hunt something.” Claire proposes that “[the government] should help more with country food, so that it can be available every week. They should hire a couple of hunters who can go out every week or twice a week. [The government should] give to community, and not just limit it. One caribou is not enough for a lot of people here. [They should] hire a couple of hunters to go hunting for the local people who can’t go hunting, who don’t have the transportation.”

A higher focus on country foods and a subsidization of the gear needed for hunting methods would require understanding and support of Indigenous needs and practices by the Canadian government. History has shown that the government largely fails to empower Indigenous people and to serve them efficiently by creating an environment in which self-determination and reliance can even be possible. It becomes more and more visible that programs such as Nutrition North are not completely altruistic, and benefit the buisnesses, instead of people affected by food insecurity. By introducing systems that leave many Indigenous people in poverty, unable to feed their children, the government is reinforcing colonial, imperialist power structures. The Canadian government owes Indigenous people not only to work with them, but to efficiently work for them in the same way that they would for anyone else in the country: by enabling self-determination and by reinforcing practices and a socioeconomic system designed for these areas, and asked for by the people living in the North.

*Name has been changed.

– With files from Ralph Haddad

The post Food for the North appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Immigrants with disabilities in Canada: discrimination, segregation, suicidal deportation

On November 6, Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) held a workshop titled “Immigrants With Disabilities In Canada: Discrimination, Segregation, Suicidal Deportation.”

The workshop was facilitated by Farhana Haque of the soon-to-be SAB Committee for Immigrants with Disabilities, a project currently in development that will attempt to address the specific issues faced by immigrants with disabilities. The purpose of the workshop was to “debunk what it really means to be an ‘excessive burden’ in Canada, [and] debunk the supposed global initiatives for people with disability,” according to the event description.

Haque opened the workshop by challenging common themes often associated with Canada. “What do we think of when we think of Canada? We think of democracy, we think of freedom, we think of multiculturalism, we think of equality, peace, humanitarianism. What we don’t think of are discrimination, segregation, and suicidal deportation that immigrants with disabilities face.”

The workshop included an overview of Canadian immigration policy, from the Chinese “head tax” of the 1880s (a fee charged to each Chinese immigrant entering Canada) to today’s restrictive provincial immigration quotas. Haque noted that, as current Canadian immigration law effectively does not allow for disabled immigrants, people with disabilities must enter the country as refugee claimants.

While Haque noted that many disabled people support themselves, an emphasis was placed on the crucial role that families play for many immigrants with disabilities in terms of access to education, employment, and support; according to Haque, being deported and separated from this family network can lead to poverty or other dire circumstances. “[It] is like being sentenced to a suicide for the crime of having a disability,” said Haque.

After the event, attendee comments were made available on the SAB committee’s website. People gave suggestions for future workshops and actions by the committees, such as putting more emphasis on debunking what it means for one to be considered a social burden. “This will affirm, though to different degrees, how everyone is a burden and not just people with disabilities,” said the commenter.

—Janna Bryson

Migrant workers in Canada: why everyone should care

On November 6, a workshop titled “Migrant Workers in Canada: Why Everyone Should Care” gave McGill students the opportunity to meet three people who wanted to share their experiences with temporary work in Canada, while exploring the history of temporary foreign workers and migration in Canada.

The speakers were Noé Ricardo Arteaga Santos, a temporary worker from Guatemala; Kike Llanes, who was a temporary worker with International Experience Canada and is now active at the Association des travailleurs/euses temporaires d’agences de placement (ATTAP); and Viviane Medina from ATTAP and the Temporary Agency Workers Association. They emphasized that the Canadian government focuses on creating an underpaid labour force that is easily exploitable. Llanes also stated that the program through which he got to Canada from Spain is “deeply colonial and deeply racist.”

The speakers highlighted that while temporary workers take on innumerable jobs and positions within Canadian society, from working on farms, to childcare, to retail jobs, the Canadian immigration system denies them access to healthcare, education, basic labour protections, and residency.

“The employer has a myriad of rights over the unprotected worker, and the worker becomes a commodity. […] The worker becomes objectified,” said Llanes.

According to the panel, temporary workers live in extreme isolation within Canada. Due to language barriers and a lack of knowledge of Canadian laws, many migrant workers are not aware of their rights, said Llanes. Oftentimes already indebted before coming to Canada, the workers are left to labour in much harsher conditions. They are at the mercy of their employers without the ability to lodge complaints, as they fear losing their jobs and being sent home with no money.

Medina said that women face different issues than men: about 70 per cent of the complaints that women bring to her organization concern sexual harassment.

Llanes explained that the conditions of temporary workers are not improving, with the federal and provincial governments passing bills that impede the rights of migrant workers and make it more difficult for them to unionize.

Llanes added that, as they stand, the temporary worker programs prove to be “a prolongation of colonialism, but with legal paper.”

—Joelle Dahm

Creating a culture of resistance

Last Friday, Kanahus Manuel, a mother and a warrior from the Secwepemc Nation in British Columbia (B.C.) who has been involved in actions to resist colonialism and corporate developments projects, facilitated a workshop on building a culture of resistance to colonialism. The workshop was attended by roughly twenty people, most of whom were students.

Manuel began by highlighting some of the direct action that is currently taking place in Indigenous communities, such as actions to resist the Mount Polley mining disaster in B.C., anti-colonial hip hop and street art, the use of traditional midwives, and the choice to eat traditional foods.

Manuel also screened a short, yet-to-be-released film that depicted the resistance of Manuel, her family, and her community against colonialism. In her community, many people, including Manuel herself, have chosen not to register their children with the Canadian government. These children, called “freedom babies,” will not have social insurance numbers, access to Canadian healthcare, or be in any way recognized by the Canadian state.

“By not registering our children and having these freedom babies, it’s really pushing our people to say what independence and what autonomy look like in our nations,” explained Manuel.

The unregistered children will grow up completely independent of Canada, and learning traditional methods of survival, and will go through traditional ceremonies. Manuel said that they are in the process of training and making alliances with doctors and dentists so that their children will have the care they need without requiring help from the Canadian government.

The film also highlighted the intense police reaction to the resistance that took place at Mount Polley.

After the video, participants were asked to move their chairs into a circle, and Manuel invited everyone present to share their name, home, ancestral lineage, intentions in attending the event, as well as any skills they might have to offer, following the protocol used by the Unist’ot’en Camp (another resistance community in B.C.) whenever new people come to their territory.

“This is enough people, with all those skills combined, to take down the country of Canada if we needed to right now, here in this room,” Manuel said.

“We’re smart enough to do that as human beings with these skills, we are smart enough to do that, it’s just about getting together strategically – that’s the best way to utilize these people’s skills in order to accomplish some of our goals.”

Robin Reid-Fraser, a recent Environment graduate from McGill, told The Daily that the event was refreshing. “I do always come out of these kind of events feeling hopeful and excited because there are so many people who are interested in these kinds of things, and having more of those connections with each other is really great.”

—Jill Bachelder

The post Face to face with social justice appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Due to globalization, Western medicine and capitalist norms spread overseas, where it was often forced on people, without addressing their culturally specific needs. Because of a history of systematic oppression toward these people (not only in the fields of religion, language, and culture), healthcare is colonized, with a clear hierarchy that promotes Western medicine as the ideal.

This focus on Western medicine and the prejudice against potential alternatives are a result of a capitalist, neo-colonial society in which Western supremacy legitimizes the dismissal and stigmatization of alien practices. Our medical practices are typically accepted, irrespective of their failures. For example, many harmful drugs are registered on the market by government agencies because they guarantee a profit for pharmaceutical companies, not because they benefit consumers. The pain medication Propoxyphene is a good illustration of this phenomenon. It was on the market for 55 years, only to be banned in 2010 when renewed examination of the drug revealed that its harmful side effects far outweighed the benefits.

This focus on Western medicine and the prejudice against potential alternatives are a result of a capitalist, neo-colonial society

The way our medical practices are usually legitimized is the scientific method: a hypothesis is put to the test, and then the experiment is replicated to determine the validity of the result. While this method is reliable, and has led to enormous progress in conventional Western medicine, there are other systems of knowledge creation. Unfortunately, medicine in the West only accepts knowledge if it conforms to the scientific method. Any other knowledge is fetishized, seen as mystical and different.

This view is not only racist, ethnocentric, and neo-colonial, it also ignores the needs of a wide array of people, mainly from outside the West, by limiting their healthcare options. Focusing on the needs of a specific demographic in healthcare can lead to inaccessibility for people with different religious and cultural practices. ‘Traditional’ knowledge (if we want to use an umbrella term and generalize the knowledge obtained by a huge variety of peoples) often cannot be defined in the context of the scientific method.

In societies that do not employ this method as the main legitimizer of thought, traditional knowledge has been accumulated over many generations. This kind of knowledge can come from experience, be passed down verbally or by script. According to the paper Traditional Healing and Western Medicine: Segregation or Integration? by Caroline Kangwa, traditional healers do not measure their medicine using the same measures of standardized doses that Western medicine uses. The healers base the dosage on their experience and vary it based on intuition. The fact that the working processes of these kinds of healing systems cannot be understood by Western standards does not make them any less legitimate.

During colonial and missionary times, doctors and missionaries would label people’s beliefs that differed from their own as “belonging to the devil.”

There are also concrete downsides to Western medical practice. In the case of illness or disease, we often focus on quick fixes. Rather than using holistic methods, many are interested in reductionist approaches, which in many cases only suppress symptoms. “Implicit within this practice is the deeply rooted belief that each disease has a potential singular target for medical treatment. For infection, the target is the pathogen; for cancer, it is the tumo[u]r; and for gastrointestinal bleeding, it is the bleeding vessel or ulcer,” according to a group of scholars at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a U.S. government agency. While this might be very effective in some cases, it does not allow for the disease to be seen in its wider context. The scholars continue to explain, “A young immuno-compromised man with pneumococcal pneumonia usually gets the same antibiotic treatment as an elderly woman with the same infection. The disease, and not the person affected by it, becomes the central focus.”

In contrast, alternative medical practitioners will not just focus on the reduction of symptoms, but on long-term changes within the lifestyle of the patient, such as changes in environment and attention to the community to which an individual belongs. Including this perspective in Western medicine could be hugely beneficial.

The dichotomy that exists between Western medicine and alternative or traditional medicine leads to mistrust on both sides. The West does not trust ‘traditional’ medicine, because it often cannot be understood using current scientific thinking. People using ‘traditional medicine’ often do not trust Western medicine, because it is ethnocentric and does not respect different cultural practices and beliefs. During colonial and missionary times, doctors and missionaries would label people’s beliefs that differed from their own as “belonging to the devil.” The oppression experienced by colonized peoples only expanded feelings of mistrust toward practices coming from the West.

Decolonizing attitudes in general, but especially in medical terms, would thus be favourable, as both medical systems could benefit from each other if they were more integrated.

Decolonizing attitudes in general, but especially in medical terms, would thus be favourable, as both medical systems could benefit from each other if they were more integrated. This involves dismantling prejudiced and oppressive attitudes that took root during the colonial era.

However, perceptions of alternative medicine still exist, and they are not helped by a largely negative press in the West. The media usually focuses only on select areas of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy, a practice whose efficacy has repeatedly been called into question by doctors and researchers. Because of this kind of negative attention, people ignore, or at least do not realize, the wide array of disciplines that are included in alternative medicine. These include Indigenous healing practices, chiropractic therapies, massage, or herbalism (the use of plants for medical purposes), all of which, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, can be complementary to Western medicine. If they accompany Western medical practices, these practices could offer people a wider array of options pertinent to their individual needs.

Due to the structures of inequality within our society, however, people, especially from minority groups who do not identify with Western cultural standards, find healthcare systems inaccessible. They cannot access certain treatments because of mistrust of the system and lack of accommodation to their culture. Healthcare should be a universal right – it needs to be decolonized and made accessible to all.

Joelle Dahm is a U3 Environmental Studies student, and can be reached at joelle.dahm@mail.mcgill.ca.

The post Decolonizing healthcare appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Click on each quote to read more.

“This is really the last stage of what has been an immensely long project, starting from the early 2000s and beating so many obstacles along the way [such as] lack of institutional support [and] lack of faculty support. It was really a big student push that catalyzed this.”

Claire Stewart-Kanigan, Arts Senator

After around a decade of advocacy and struggle, McGill finally approved the Indigenous Studies minor at a Senate meeting on February 19. The minor, which will start being offered in the 2014-15 academic year, will provide a chance for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to learn about history, culture, and worldviews, and develop a broader understanding of contemporary issues. Student groups have supported the minor this year, such as when the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) passed a motion regarding support for an Indigenous Studies program, but this is not the only support it has garnered.

Since the early 2000s, advocates have been pressing for the establishment of an Indigenous Studies minor, but were constantly faced with hurdles, such as lack of support from both the University and the Faculty. Since many other universities around Canada have comparable programs, some established as early as 1969, the creation of this minor is a long-overdue step at McGill. The University is complicit in colonialism, which is still ongoing: investment in resource exploitation plans in Northern Quebec is one example. Proponents see this minor as a first step toward a better relationship with Indigenous people, whose rights are still abused by the government and many institutions to this day.

—Joelle Dahm

“It’s not about doing more with less. It’s about finding things we don’t need to do anymore.”

Christopher Manfredi, Dean of Arts

2013-14 saw continued debate over the People, Processes & Partnerships initiative, the Arts faculty plan that would restructure Leacock and adjacent Arts buildings in order to consolidate administrative positions within the faculty. The discussion began in 2012-13 when the faculty unveiled plans to create administrative “hubs” within the Leacock building, though it has since backed down from its proposal to turn the third floor of Leacock into a reception area. This year has seen a continuation of question-and-answer periods and presentations to AUS Council, coming on the heels of last year’s complaints that the faculty had not done enough to elicit feedback from the Arts community.

Critics of the plan, including students, faculty, and non-academic staff, have cited failed examples at other universities. They have also expressed doubt over the feasibility of increased workload for administrative staff, if they were to become responsible for several departments instead of a single department. The administration continues to cite the context of austerity and the Quebec provincial government’s imposed hiring freeze on administrative positions as reasons for moving ahead with the plan. As of November 2013, the plan includes creating two administrative hubs in the Leacock building.

The proposed changes to the departmental structure and organization within the Leacock building are set against the backdrop of parallel changes made at the Ferrier building and 688 Sherbrooke. The Department of East Asian Studies was moved out of its rowhouse on McTavish last summer to 688 Sherbrooke, and the Department of Jewish Studies is expected to follow suit by moving into the Leacock building.

—Anqi Zhang

“A diagnosis can have a major impact on the way one lives, and yet here we have groups of people who can’t access resources if they don’t fit into the proper category.”

Ethan Macdonald, Inclusive Mental Health Collective

The past decade has seen a dramatic major increase in students seeking help at the McGill Mental Health Services (MMHS), following the larger trend of increased mental health issues among university students. Attempts have been made in recent years to improve services at MMHS, with the implementation of non-medicinal anxiety treatment, mindfulness groups, and an eating disorder treatment program. Yet, MMHS’ shortage of staff and expedited care require additional funding and structural reconfiguration in order to address the needs of students who may require long-term care.

Moreover, both Mental Health and Counselling Services, which receive funding from Student Services, have recently suffered a loss of almost $500,000 as a result of the university-wide budget cut. These cuts have put additional strain on an already struggling system. As a result of this, a $20 registration fee for Mental Health and Counselling services was implemented in September 2013. It was removed later in the month after being brought forward to the Fee Advisory Committee in September, since the fee was not approved in a student referendum. Officials from the Mental Health Counselling Services, however, noted that this would not have an impact on the quality of mental health services within McGill.

This February, a new mental health policy focused on creating a mental health network of student resources was adopted by the SSMU Legislative Council. The adopted policy includes a five-year plan, which aims to hire a SSMU mental health coordinator, improve student-accessible resources on mental health, and increase awareness and advocacy of mental health on campus.

—Diana Kwon and Alice Shen

[/raw]

The post Year in review: Health&Ed appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This phenomenon is called the bystander effect and refers to a situation in which the likelihood of a person to help someone in distress stands in an inverse correlation to the number of people present. The larger the number of other possible helpers, the higher the probability for diffusion of individual responsibilities. A study published in the 1998 issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that bystander effect is generally less likely to occur when people have experience in fields that need direct action to help people (nurses, for example). While people with less experience in aiding others, like students, were more likely to react while alone, the overall rate of helping was consistent in nurses, irrespective of who else was there. Preparing people for certain situations was shown to be crucial in overcoming the bystander effect.

“Most forms of structural oppression affect people in ways that are made invisible to people who have the privilege of not experiencing those forms of oppression.”

A 2011 study published by the American Psychology Association showed that the bystander effect was less likely to occur in situations that could immediately be identified as an emergency. This could for example be a scenario with the presence of a perpetrator obviously posing an immediate threat to someone; however, situations where individuals face distress take on a variety of forms, including accidents on the street, physical and verbal attacks, online bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, microaggressions, and more. Situations that might not be perceived as immediately threatening should not be ignored. Kira Page, External Coordinator at the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) McGill, told The Daily in an email, “It seems important to point out that most forms of structural oppression affect people in ways that are made invisible to people who have the privilege of not experiencing those forms of oppression. […] Racism, ableism, homophobia, misogyny, cissexism, classism, and so on are therefore usually situations that students are facing in often extremely isolating contexts.”

Many of these issues have become part of societal norms, and are as such often ignored by people not directly and negatively affected by them. People who were born into this system of institutionalized racism, sexism, and patriarchal power relations, need to take initiative to see beyond this distorted value system that’s perpetuated through our daily activities. As soon as we turn on the TV, Western sensationalist media will bombard us with Islamophobia, when we switch to sitcoms we’ll put up with bad jokes about rape culture, and the ads we’re exposed to, literally everywhere, make us internalize misogyny. We are conditioned from a very young age to think a certain way, but in the end what matters is how we choose to educate ourselves.

There are a variety of organizations at McGill, such as QPIRG, Midnight Kitchen, the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office, the Union for Gender Empowerment, Queer McGill, Healthy McGill, Rez Project, and SACOMSS, that provide students with information, and offer workshops, talks, and film screenings. Page stated that, “McGill students have incredible opportunities at their fingertips to learn about these things. […] Our Culture Shock series, for instance, addresses issues of white supremacy and colonization in the Canadian context. Social Justice Days address a wide range of social justice issues, this year, with a focus on mental health and care. The Radical Skills Workshop series gives people concrete skills for actively engaging in these issues.” The Israeli Apartheid Week that is currently underway at McGill offers a variety of workshops giving insight on problems faced by many Palestinians.

“[… Education and awareness are] clearly part of the equation, but seem to happen at the exclusion of a conversation about actually intervening.”

Even though educating yourself is a first step, Page notes that too much focus on education alone might be problematic, “There is a harmful and self-protective reliance on ‘awareness’ as the only possible or appropriate response to actual, immediately visible and preventable instances of violence. [… Education and awareness are] clearly part of the equation, but seem to happen at the exclusion of a conversation about actually intervening. There seems to be a predilection for understanding ‘anti-oppression’ as the ability to articulate that discourse or ideas are ‘problematic,’ while not understanding anti-oppression as something that actually requires you to step up and act.”

Intervening in situations of distress might seem counter-intuitive for some people. A lot of times, however, intervening does not mean walking straight up to someone and getting into a fight. Even small actions like getting someone else to help, diffusing the attention of a target by spilling your drink, turning lights on and off, or simply making your presence as a witness known might help. A smartphone app called RISE, released by the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre, and other community partners, tries to teach people about how to safely intervene in different situations. The app, which was supported by organizations at the University of Ottawa, shows the user a broad range of scenarios followed by possible responses.

Page does not have the impression that McGill is doing enough to educate people on bystander intervention, or to raise awareness on these issues. On the contrary, she believes that McGill is perpetuating negative influences. “McGill is implicated in these issues, often refusing to protect students being harmed (for instance, in the history of McGill, being more interested in protecting football players than survivors of sexual violence), and also often in actively perpetrating harm against students.”

All of us have heard about incidents where someone was assaulted at a party and no one intervened, making it seem like the assault was okay. And most of us will probably have thought that, if that were us, we would have done something to prevent it. Yet bystander effect is a real problem in our society. It is a very human reaction that most of us have probably experienced at some point. One way to overcome this inaction and start being helpful in precarious situations, is by becoming aware of issues, taking responsibility, and acting on one’s own judgement instead of imitating the reactions of people in our surroundings. And next time you encounter a drunk person harassing someone, you might realize the socially accepted passiveness everyone experiences, and proceed to overcome your own apathy.

The post Everybody doing nothing appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This will mark the first time that a non-Montreal resident has occupied the position. Meighen acquired a bachelor’s degree from McGill and later pursued a career as a lawyer before becoming a senator for the Conservative Party.

According to McGill’s Statutes, the Chancellor is an ex-officio member of the BoG, and is the titular head of McGill University.

The position, which according to BoG Chair Stuart ‘Kip’ Cobbett “is appointed by the Board of Directors on the recommendation and nomination of the governors of ethics committee,” has been almost exclusively held by white, male successors, with the exception of Gretta Chambers, who was Chancellor from 1991 to 1999.

Meighen, the grandson of former Canadian Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, served as a senator on the National Security and Defence committee for six years, until he was asked to resign in 2007. According to CTV News, some viewed this as a forcing out of independent-minded senators by the Conservative government.

“I don’t think [my political affiliation] has any effect on my work at all, in the sense that my active involvement in public political life is over,” Meighen told The Daily. “I stepped down from the Senate after 25 years voluntarily, and I certainly have no intention of running in an election. […] My having been involved in politics, I hope, will help me understand issues, have an appreciation for other people’s points of view [and do] a little more listening than talking.

Meighen’s previous engagement at McGill was as a co-chair at Campaign McGill, an eight-year fundraising campaign that raised over $1 billion. Meighen told The Daily that he wanted to continue such work.

“As far as change is concerned, anything can always be improved. […] McGill does attract people from all over the country and all over the world. It’s pretty daunting […] when you perhaps came from an environment where there was on many occasions counselling, and guidance, and hands-on support, there you are, for the first time on your own. So I think it is very important that students have access to counsellors and guidance. After all, they are the customers of the university. And the customer is always right, so I think that [we’ve] got to bend over backwards to be nice to customers.”

Katie Larson, President of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), told The Daily that the Chancellor does not actually affect the lives of the student body, “unless you have a Chancellor who does something really crazy. The Chancellor usually works with upper-level administration and represents the University. The student interaction with the Chancellor isn’t very high. You see them when you graduate and that’s about it.”

Meighen agreed with Larson that his role would be fairly removed from the students.

“University affairs are the primary responsibility of the chair of the BoG, the other governors, and the principal, and the administration of the University, so I’m not running the place. I’m there to be a cheerleader for McGill and to, I hope, bring some productive or positive judgement to bear on the passing scene and make suggestions. I expect to be at most of the BoG meetings, where I will listen, learn and perhaps intervene from time to time, if I think that I can be helpful.”

The post Board of Governors approves 19th Chancellor of McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Barry-Shaw, who was present at the seminar, is a masters student in history at Queen’s University. In his book, he argues that NGOs were developed as a form of constraining social unrest that came with “squeezing the poor” in developing countries during the 1980s financial crisis, as developed nations used imposed regulations in developing countries to enrich world banks.

“They just wanted to stop the fact that people were rioting and people were resisting them. And they started doing that by [forming] NGOs,” Barry-Shaw stated during the discussion.

He explained how the same methods are used today to contain social unrest resulting from Canada’s mining projects abroad.

“We see this with the corporate social responsibility program [CSR] right now. It is very openly stated that this will help contain social and environmental conflict. That we are going to go in there and build a school and do this kind of palliative projects in and around the mine site and that we are hoping that communities stop resisting mining projects. That’s the stated thing and our government is funding that.”

Rex Brynen, a professor of political science at McGill, responded to some of Barry-Shaw’s arguments in an interview with The Daily, and argued for a more nuanced approach.

“There has been much controversy over the decision of some NGOs to partner with mining companies (and receive [Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development Canada] funding) to do projects in affected countries,” he wrote in an email to The Daily. “Yes, this may be an effort to provide an ethical facade for unethical mining practices, as some have argued. On the other hand, given that mining development is likely to occur anyway, an argument can be made that such partnerships encourage more ethical practice. I would be concerned about this practice, but not automatically opposed to it in any and all cases.”

On Barry-Shaw’s argument for a movement away from NGOs and toward grassroots organizations facing the mining sector, an attendee raised the question of how such organizations could criticize NGOs and collaborate with them at the same time.

“[NGOs] produce things because they have money, they produce reports that grassroots and activists use, as they don’t have money to do that,” the attendee said.

Brynen added to this, writing, “Grassroots activism is useful. It isn’t always very professional or effective. It is rarely any more independent or representative – it is simply accountable to different constituencies. It often lacks the resources to make effective change. It is part of a response, but not the only part.”

Barry-Shaw also emphasized the need for NGOs to move away from funding and toward organizing.

“I think we need to move away from this fixation with money,” he said. “Resources are important in the organization and to mobilize people, but the activism that I found the most interesting that was going on within the NGOs in the 60s, 70s, and 80s was done by people who were idealistic and committed.”

Choudry also noted the importance of avoiding generalization in this particular situation.

“I think one thing that is important to think about is the danger when we’re talking about NGOs to kind of make a totalizing analysis about NGOs,” he said. “It is not like all NGOs are with the mining sector, and most of them have very different histories.”

The post The problem with development organizations appeared first on The McGill Daily.

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Hannah Reardon.

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

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

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

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

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

“Roundtable Discussion on Solidarity City”

Written by Olivia Larson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Race at McGill”

Written by Dana Wray.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ongoing colonization: Addressing systemic violence against Indigenous women”

Written by Dana Wray and Anqi Zhang.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Teach-In Against the Charter of Values”

Written by Cem Ertekin.

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

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

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

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

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

“Political Prisoners’ Struggles in Palestine”

Written by Ralph Haddad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more resources, visit Tadamon!’s website.

“Unsettling and Decolonizing: An Introductory Workshop”

Written by Joelle Dahm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Hannah Besseau.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Culture Shock appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Fossil Free Canada is a partnership between 350.org and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition that urges “universities, religious institutions, city and state governments, and other institutions that serve the public good” to divest from companies involved in the extraction of fossil fuels, such as oil or coal.

Cameron Fenton from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition started the event with a brief history of the movement against tar sands, and discussed the relevance of the growing divestment movement.

“The fundamental goal of this is not simply stopping pollution – it’s achieving justice, and building a more just and sustainable world,” Fenton noted during his speech.

The Tar Sands Reality Check Tour took place during the same week as National Energy Board hearings concerning the Enbridge Line 9 pipeline. Enbridge wants to increase the line’s capacity from 240,000 to 300,000 barrels per day, and reverse the flow from westbound to eastbound. If reversed, the pipeline would carry crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta to refineries in Quebec.

The proposed reversal of Line 9 has sparked a backlash from environmental groups and concerned citizens, especially over a potential for spills. A report published earlier this year by pipeline safety expert Richard Kuprewicz concluded that there was a “high risk” of Line 9 rupturing due to a combination of cracking and corrosion.

According to the Toronto Star, Enbridge’s current response time to spills is between 90 minutes and 4 hours, meaning that the municipalities along the pipeline would most likely be responsible for emergency clean-up.

“Any pipeline that comes out of the tar sands allows for the tar sands to be expanded. It is an imperative that we block each and every pipeline. [Line 9] is not the biggest one, but it’s the one that’s coming through here, so it’s our job to stop it,” said Curtis Murphy, a member of Divest McGill, in an interview with The Daily.

Divest McGill, one of the hosts of the Tour stop in Montreal, is 1 of 14 university divestment groups in Canada. Although concentrated mainly in North America, there are over 300 divestment groups on campuses worldwide.

One of the speakers, former McGill student and activist Audrey Yank, underlined the importance of students and young people in the movement. “Our generation is in an interesting situation. We’re already facing [environmental] change, but we are young enough to actually be involved in it too, to fight it. And it’s not everybody that is in this position. It’s an opportunity for our generation to make this change.”

Anthony Garoufalis-Auger, one of the speakers, and an organizer at Divest Concordia – the newest divest group on Canadian campuses – spoke about strategies for the divestment movement to attract more supporters.

“One step that the divestment movement at Concordia is taking is talking to different student associations, actively […] trying to get the General Assemblies – if there are General Assemblies – to talk about our movement,” he said. “If we can get student associations to talk about this, we can get a lot of people to start getting involved.”

Fenton also emphasized the influence of student activism in the divestment movement. “Last year, a campaign to get campuses to divest from fossil fuel started off in the U.S. and took off faster than anything I’ve ever seen. […] This is happening in so many different places in so many different ways, that we have this new front that we want to pursue.”

In May 2013, Divest McGill presented a petition with 1,300 signatures to McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG), asking McGill to divest from companies that profit from the extraction of fossil fuels or tar sands, as well as the “North for All” plan (formerly known as Plan Nord).

McGill currently invests in a total of 645 publicly-traded companies, of which 35 are involved with fossil fuels, while 14 extract crude oil from tar sands. The stocks and bonds from these companies comprise about 2.5 per cent of McGill’s endowment, according to Divest McGill organizers, which is valued at over $1 billion.

The petition was rejected after the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility – a body that steers University investment toward socially responsible options – recommended against divestment.

Lily Schwarzbaum, one of the organizers of the Tour stop and an organizer with Fossil Free Canada, remained optimistic about the future of divestment at McGill.

“When there is so much visibility and momentum around this idea, I think that the McGill administration will see that there is not even an option about whether or not we should take climate change seriously for the future of our students and our community,” she told The Daily.

Divest McGill continues to pressure McGill to stop investing in fossil fuel industries, according to members.

“Where there is money, there is power,” Murphy said. “[The divestment movement] fundamentally is trying to redistribute power, because there is a lot of power in the hands of some industries and politicians and not enough power in the hands of ordinary people, like students and Indigenous communities. We need to empower those communities because they have not only the skills and the capacity to change things, but the motivation to do so.”

Heather Milton-Lightening, the co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands campaign in Alberta, and one of the speakers at the event, agreed that there is a fundamental power imbalance when it comes to fossil fuels.

“All the environmental legislation, all the changes in Canada were pushed by petroleum producers. That says a lot. That says that the petroleum producers and the people that have money run our country,” Milton-Lightening said. “That is why I really appreciate divestment campaigns and students critically thinking about where the money is.”

“Because at the end of the day, here in Canada, a lot of our strategies need to change. We need to think about who has the money, who’s really controlling the government here in Canada, and who has the ability to give us what we want. And what we want is a new livelihood, a new vision, a new paradigm to move forward.”

The post Tar Sands Reality Check Tour kicks off at Concordia appeared first on The McGill Daily.

From September 23 to 27, McGill hosted its third annual Indigenous Awareness Week, which aimed to create awareness about oft-overlooked Indigenous issues at the university. The week, organized by for the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE), saw over 480 students, staff, alumni, and community members, take part in events ranging from informational talks to interactive workshops and movie screenings.

Allan Vicaire, Indigenous Education Advisor at SEDE, spoke to the importance of the week at McGill. “I think there is a big misconception over what Indigenous people are, we have a lot of international students, and just even Canadians […] we’re not taught the proper history – we’re taught the watered down history,” he said. “We need to break down misperceptions with the truth.”

This year saw a change of the name of the week from “Aboriginal” to “Indigenous”, which, according to Vicaire, “is more of an inclusive term.” Looking to the future, Vicaire stated that the organizers were looking to alter the title once again. “It’s more than awareness […] you also want to talk about the achievements and struggles.”

“‘Who Makes the Call?’ A Panel on Indigenous Identity”

Thursday saw a critical look at the complex questions of identity faced by many Indigenous peoples in Canada, as well as issues of status and inclusion, with a panel titled “Who Makes the Call.” Paige Isaac, coordinator of McGill’s First Peoples House, moderated the panel discussion between Cecile Charlie, Skawennati Fragnito, and Michael Loft.

The panelists discussed their experiences of what it means to be Indigenous, as well as their thoughts on the importance of Indigenous legal status. After the Indian Act was enacted in 1876, many Native people faced the dilemma of being non-status – in other words, they had no legal right to own land on reserves and often faced exclusion from their own band.

In 1985, Bill C-31 amended the Indian Act to grant status to the children of Native women who married non-status men – an issue that directly affected the family of Fragnito, one of the panelists. Still, this did not end the conflicts between the legal definition of identity and self-identification.

Loft, a social worker and associate professor with McGill’s School of Social Work, explained that “bloodism,” or the practice of defining status by the amount of non-Native blood, “didn’t come from our people” but instead stemmed from the Indian Act itself.

“Once you lose your status, you can never get it back,” Loft said, explaining that status was important within a community for inclusion. He also pointed to low high school graduation rates in some Indigenous communities as an effect of a lack of inclusion.

All of the panelists emphasized that identity – and not just the oft-discussed issues of land rights or the Indian Act – was a crucial fight in the struggle for Indigenous rights.

“This isn’t just talking about numbers, or talking about rights, but this is about people,” Loft said.

Written by Arianee Wang.

“Challenges and Barriers for Indigenous Women”

The opening ceremony of Indigenous Awareness Week featured a talk given by Teresa Edwards, Director of Human Rights and International Affairs at the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), on the struggles faced by Indigenous women across the country.

Touching on Aboriginal women and the justice system, missing and murdered women, and domestic abuse, Edwards highlighted the systemic racism within the Canadian justice system. For instance, she noted that one in three females in the federal correctional system is Aboriginal.

Edwards also spoke out against the common misperception that the women who go missing live high-risk lifestyles, stating that instead, “a high-risk lifestyle for Aboriginal women is being an Aboriginal woman.”

Edwards also spoke on the need for allies. When asked by The Daily how a student at McGill might act as an ally, Edwards said, “Education is always powerful. Non-Indigenous people can be great allies – they are going to go into the world and be judges, police, teachers. And they can in turn educate people on the real situation of Indigenous people, good and bad, to make a better Canada for everyone.”

“As an ally you can come to show your support at public, peaceful demonstrations, or on October 4 to honour the many missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada and across the globe,“ she said.

According to NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit Database, which started in 2005 to gather information on missing and murdered women across Canada, there are 582 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women across the country.

Speaking to The Daily on the importance of Indigenous Awareness Week, Edwards stated, “If people knew and had the information they would be in a better place to make decisions and behave differently, and to be more informed with politics, with legislation, all the decisions that they make.”

Written by Jordan Venton-Rublee.

“Restructuring the Indigenous-Crown Relationship in Canada: The Promise of Indigenous Multilevel Governance”

Last Tuesday, Christopher Alcantara of Wilfrid Laurier University spoke at Thomson House about strained relationships between the Crown and Indigenous communities, critiquing at the top-down approach traditionally used by the government under the Indian Act.

Canada has a history of exploiting and oppressing Indigenous populations. The Indian Act, first enacted in 1876 and later amended, is seen as an attempt to assimilate Indigenous peoples to Canadian culture, contributing to poverty and their disempowerment. While it does not govern Inuit or Métis peoples, to this day, the Act remains the main piece of legislation that governs the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Crown, despite a general consensus that the act has failed First Nations as a whole.

This, Alcantara said, is because the Canadian government continues to impose its own vision on Indigenous populations, with little consultation with tribes and band members – though recent developments, such as certain tribes’ transitions to self-governed land ownership, show that this trend may be shifting.

Alcantara argued that a multilateral governance system, in which Aboriginal groups are empowered to create policies tailored to fit the needs of their communities, should replace the current top-down approach of the Canadian government. If Indigenous populations are given freedom of choice, they will be able to experiment with different courses of action and determine how best to proceed in raising the standard of living, he said.

Some audience members questioned the effectiveness of Alcantara’s idea of “slow, incremental change” in making right the wrongs faced by Indigenous peoples at the hands of settlers.

“We must always be motivated by justice,” said Alcantara, but he noted that while large attempts at change may seem appealing, they usually do not work. Through the empowerment of First Peoples and celebration of their culture, Canada may one day see the healing of a nation that has been oppressed for centuries.

Written by Jill Bachelder. 

“Indigenous Health For First Nations, Inuit and Metis”

To close off the talks and lectures of Indigenous Awareness Week, Simon Brascoupé, an adjunct research professor at Carleton University, gave a presentation on the status of health and well-being of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Canada. Brascoupé began the talk by reciting statistics disclosing the relative poorness in both health and healthcare for Indigenous peoples as compared with non-Indigenous peoples.

According to Brascoupé, Inuit infants die at 3.6 times the rate of other Canadian babies; in 2010, tuberculosis had doubled among Inuit infants to 185 times the rate of Canadian-born non-Indigenous infants; and by mid-2010, 116 First Nations communities across Canada were under a drinking water advisory.

The health challenges for Aboriginal, Métis, and Inuit peoples range from a crisis of chronic disease to lung cancer rates. Brascoupé supported the notion that solutions to such problems should be community-based.

Brascoupé also noted the importance of advocacy in improving Aboriginal health, from organizations to individual doctors and researchers.

Aboriginal doctors, such as Malcolm King, do important work in increasing attention to Aboriginal medical care.  These doctors also cite the causes of health disparities as including factors such as colonization, migration, loss of language and culture, and disconnection from native lands.

“I’ve met a lot of Aboriginal people that say ‘I’m on my healing journey, but I’m not healed,’’’ Brascoupé said. “[It’s] because they want to break the cycle of colonization.”

Written by Sarina Gupta.

“Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance”

Friday saw the screening of the documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, followed by a speech from Elder John Onawario Cree. Onawario Cree was present at the 1990 Oka Crisis, a land conflict between the Mohawk, the Quebec police, and the Canadian Army.

Director Alanis Obomsawin took the viewers through the struggle, which started in Kanehsatà:ke and the town of Oka, when the local Mohawk community attempted to protect their sacred land from development as a golf course.

After the Mohawk community decided to barricade the bridges that led to their land, the Quebec police led a raid on Mohawk territory that ended with Mohawk elders arrested and thrown in jail. The film essentially painted a portrait of the people behind the barricades.

During his presentation afterwards, Onawario Cree explained that many people didn’t understand why the Mohawk would stage an uprising. “In the [1990s], there were a lot of promises broken,” he said. “They sign treaties, and don’t honour them.”

“Now, we are protecting the land against the pipeline, but the oil companies do what they want,” he added. “It hasn’t gotten any better – it has gotten worse. We are still fighting for our land.”

Ultimately, he said, “the most important thing that came out of all this was the pride of being a human. Being a human being first, and then being a Mohawk.”

Written by Joelle Dahm.

“Understanding Mohawk: Language and History”

On Tuesday, a group gathered to participate in “Kanien’kéha 100: A Super Crash Course in the Language of the People of the Flint,” a Mohawk language learning session. The session, led by Akwiratékha Martin of Kahnawake, provided a basic introduction to the Kanien’kéha language, its history, and the ongoing language revitalization efforts in Kahnawake and beyond.

Martin, a language instructor in Kahnawake, began his session – as is customary in Mohawk tradition – with the Ohenten Kariwatkwa, or the “words that come before all else.” He then began a brief history of the language and explained the etymology of the name ‘Mohawk,’ a word in the Algonquin language that translates to ‘Man-Eaters.’  For this reason, many Mohawk people prefer to refer to themselves as Kanien’kehá:ka, or ‘the People of the Flint.’

Martin also provided some context for the state of Indigenous languages today, many of which have gone extinct. For instance, there are no longer any living speakers of the Laurentian, Neutral, Erie, and Susquehannock languages, to name a few.

According to Martin, there are approximately 1,300 first language Kanien’kéha speakers today. There are also several Mohawk immersion elementary schools in various Mohawk communities; the schools continue to grade six, after which Kanien’kéha is offered as a second language course.

“While children do develop a solid base of the language […] there is something missing,” Martin said. “Many children do not become fluent speakers due to governmental standards for the curriculum, and most of the children’s parents are not speakers, often turning Kanien’kéha into a kind of ‘school language’ that goes unpracticed in the home.”

Shortcomings aside, Martin highlighted the importance of revitalization projects. Above all, he stressed the “absolute beauty” of the language, emphasizing the meaning that can be awarded to a single word. “Think of any sentence you can,” he urged the audience, “then crush it into one word. That’s how awesome Kanien’kéha is.”

Written by Susannah White.

“Law vs. Justice: How the Courts are preparing the way for one last, fatal, round of treaty negotiations with Indigenous Peoples in Canada”

For in-depth coverage of the talk, see the article “Problematizing Canada’s history” by Ralph Haddad in our Health and Education section.

When Mary Eberts  – a longtime lawyer whose practice is centered on equality and Indigenous rights – began her Wednesday lecture on Canadian law and Indigenous people, she considered the traditional thanks given to the Mohawk people whose ground McGill rests upon. “We as settlers should […] be in a state of perpetual thankfulness,” Eberts said. “But what have we been doing instead?”

As part of the annual Wallenberg Lecture series hosted by the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Eberts focused her talk on “what [Canadians] have been doing instead” – taking the land of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and perpetuating complex legal negotiations over treaty rights.

One of the legal underpinnings of colonization, Eberts explained, was the Doctrine of Discovery, which Eberts described as “a sort of gentlemen’s agreement between the Europeans” that originated during the 1400s to govern the colonization of overseas land.

According to Eberts, under Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, there are still cases of Indigenous rights “that are being decided by the Supreme Court of Canada today [… that invoke] the Doctrine of Discovery.”

Now, in disputes over land rights, the Canadian government requires that Indigenous peoples participate in negotiations that Eberts called inherently unequal. The government employs a “take-it-or-leave-it” approach, she said, and the court system for settling land claims is often terribly slow.

Apart from the legal precedent of land claims and negotiations in history and presently between the Canadian government and Indigenous communities, Eberts criticized the Canadian government for shying away from its past treatment of Indigenous peoples.

Although Eberts conceded she was not an expert on this particular matter, she argued that the historical treatment of Indigenous people constitutes genocide. After listing the five elements of genocide, as per the UN Convention adopted in 1948 – including killing or harming members of a particular group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to others – Eberts said, “Certainly, the intention was there.”

Written by Dana Wray.

“McGill’s Vision: Indigenous Studies Program”

On Wednesday, Haley Dinel and Joey Shea – the former and current SSMU VP University Affairs, respectively – hosted an information session on the University’s ongoing efforts to instate an Indigenous Studies minor, an ongoing effort since the early 2000s.

 The session highlighted the findings from a forum, held by SSMU last November, that brought in participants to discussion a vision for the program. The Indigenous Studies effort will likely see its status as a minor program solidified in 2014.

 As it stands now, the minor would be nestled under the Canadian Studies program. Dr. Will Straw, Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, noted that such a move would help the “disciplinary neutrality” of the program.

One participant asked if the program would use disciplines such as sociology and social work to delve into contemporary problems facing Indigenous people, such as alcoholism and homelessness. “[It’s] a whole slew of really dark issues that First Nations are facing right now,” he said.

Dinel responded that the program, at least for the short term – especially as it was currently planned as a minor rather than a major – could not touch upon every issue that planners might like to see.

“You have to take it in baby steps,” she said.

Straw also noted that, once established as a minor with existing resources, the program would begin to mobilize to grow using outside resources. Straw predicted a move toward a major within two to four years of the program’s inception as a minor.

As for the bureaucracy tying up the program at the moment, Straw said that organizers had foreseen and planned for such an obstacle.

“I think we’ve done our homework,” he said.

Written by Molly Korab.

An earlier version of this article stated that Allan Vicaire is the Aboriginal Sustainability Project Coordinator for SEDE. In fact, he is the Indigenous Education Advisor for SEDE. The Daily regrets the error.

The post Indigenous Awareness Week appeared first on The McGill Daily.

EABC is a collective advocating for access to education for all, as well as a clear and accessible process for families that guarantees them confidentiality and free access to school.

A few members of the collective attended the CSDM’s meeting, while the rest remained outside for a discussion. Jaggi Singh, a member of EABC and a Montreal-based social justice activist, spoke to the crowd over a megaphone.

“There are children here in Montreal, probably numbering in the thousands, who can’t go to school because they don’t have documents. To put that in context, in the States, since the [1980s], all children regardless of immigrant status have [had] the right to attend school.”

“Deportations still happen, and there are still problems, but at a minimum, children are allowed to go to school. Except here in Quebec,” he continued.

With a new directive issued by the Quebec government this summer, education is more accessible to children who lack a permanent code, typically a marker of immigration status. Now, it is sufficient to provide a birth certificate and a proof of residence, such as a hydro or water bill. However, non-status children are still asked to pay up to $6,000 in tuition per year.

The protest was the most recent in a series of demonstrations organised by the EABC to put pressure on the CSDM. Representatives of the CSDM told the crowd that they were neither elected officials, nor in a position to change policy, and questioned why the group was targeting the bureaucracy rather than the politicians.

“They have the power to stop sending people bills, they have the power [to] say that it’s in the directives that we’re not going to ask for your immigration status,” said Singh in response.

Tensions ran high as representatives from the EABC tried to address the CSDM. Some protesters were told they could attend the meeting, only to be blocked by security at the entrance, leading to scuffles and shouting between activists and representatives of the CSDM.

Catherine Harel-Bourdon, the president of CSDM, said in French: “Please note that the CSDM agrees that the education of every child should be privileged, but as a public institution there are laws set by the ministry. […] We are in direct contact with the people, but if you have other requests, you should contact the ministry, because it is the ministry making the rules.”

“We encourage [non-status] families to present themselves at our administrative centre, where we will help them through the administration process in a personalized and confidential approach. During the last weeks, we only received seven families without immigration status at our office,” said Harel-Bourdon.

The EABC replied that there is no clear statement on the issue of confidentiality of documents specifically for non-status families, and criticized the alleged lack of information on the CSDM’s webpage.

“The commissioners say just to ignore the letters, but they don’t understand the situation of those families,” Romina Hernandez, spokesperson for the EABC, told The Daily.

“They see those letters coming again and again and don’t know what is going to happen, or if the education office is communicating with immigration. They live in constant fear.”

The post Education Across Borders Collective protests in front of school commission appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The public discussion began with the ongoing project of creating a greenbelt in the greater Montreal region. A greenbelt is typically defined as protected green space or park that can include forest, wetlands, marshes, and meadows, and that helps keep an urban area such as Montreal pollution-free.

Les Partenaires du Parc Écologique de l’Archipel de Montréal (PPÉAM) – in English, “Partners of the Montreal Archipelago Ecological Park Project” – is an environmental group and coalition working to promote a greenbelt since 2007.

In 2011, the Green Coalition participated in public consultations with the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM). The Coalition submitted a request that the CMM’s Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD) include the creation and protection of a greenbelt. After 400 groups filed briefs in support, CMM ultimately added the goal of a greenbelt to the PMAD’s outline.

Additionally, the PMAD calls for the conservation of 17 per cent of greater Montreal to maintain biodiversity. But Sylvia Oljemark, founding president of the Green Coalition, noted the PMAD’s slow pace.

“We are in 2013 and there is still not a hell of a lot of movement in this plan,” she told The Daily. “Without the greenbelt, there will just be condos as far as you can see.”

In her opinion, many of those condos are unneeded. “To me, that’s only a proliferation of greed,” Oljemark said.

David Fletcher, the vice president of the Green Coalition, added to the conversation by criticizing municipal candidates for a perceived lack of concern for natural spaces.

“[Excluding Projet Montréal], the other electoral candidates in Montreal, with embarrassingly few natural spaces left, have made no mention of a conservation imperative in their platform, and we have heard nothing favourable from Laval candidates either,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher also pushed the need for a green agenda in the upcoming elections.

“We have [the] power to make an impression on the people that govern us and on the people that now seek to govern us,” he continued. “It is clearly very important that we now talk [about] this issue of preserving [natural spaces], and ensure that it becomes part of the political dialogue between now and election day. We need to make sure that it is resounding enough that all of the parties of the provincial level hear the message.”

Other members of the Green Coalition and environmental activists expressed their own concerns, such as the ongoing controversy over the condo development that will potentially destroy Parc Oxygène in the Milton-Parc neighbourhood.

In 2008, a change in zoning laws to allow development on the land put Parc Oxygène – a small green space maintained by Milton-Parc residents – in danger. The Milton-Park Community, the local co-owners’ association, has fought to save the space ever since.

Norman Nawrocki, a resident and active member of the Milton-Park Community, told The Daily that the CMM – which heads up the Land Use and Development Plan – the city council, and a member of Projet Montréal, Alex Norris, all promised to help, but the public had yet to see any tangible results.

“We are still fighting by ourselves – up until two weeks ago,” he said. “Two weeks ago, they decided it was time to take action. Two weeks ago, after four years of non-stop activity by citizens in the neighbourhood, looking for the support of Projet Montréal to back us up against a developer.”

Norris said during the meeting, “What we did upon taking office was to seek assurances that the land will be protected, and we obtained those assurances.”

“Our responsibility is not only to protect green spaces, but also to manage our budget,” he added.

Fletcher ultimately emphasized the holistic nature of environmental reform.

“We’ve all been redefined socially as consumers and workers, there is no other definition for us. We need to stop looking at ourselves that way, we need to start looking at ourselves as valuable human beings that have other dimensions that need to be fulfilled,” Fletcher said. “Green has to stop meaning green bags, and has to start meaning what is in the heart and soul of each one of us, but what we have been deprived of for so long. And that is the opportunity to get out into the nature. […] We’re living in a place for termites and rats, not for people.”

At the end of the meeting, the attendees decided on a declaration of intent, and planned a follow-up meeting to create more elaborate plans for spreading their message and seeking public support.

The post A conversation on green space in Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Demonstrators were invited inside the CSM building, where two representatives of the EABC spoke for their cause in front of the CSM board.

“We want a free education for all children from the kindergarten to university without regard to their migration status,” Romina Hernandez, spokesperson of EABC – which is part of migrant justice group Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) – said in French. “It is still a problem in Quebec that thousands of children can’t register for schools, even if they are born here, because their parents are afraid of deportation. Children that are able to attend a $6,000 a year private school, might never get their diploma because of missing documents.”

This was the second time the EABC had visited one of CSM’s monthly meetings. In February, the CSM responded to the demonstrators that they also thought it was important that every school-aged child in Montreal attended school.

“It is not favourable that children stay at home, don’t learn French, and cannot integrate himself or herself in a Montreal school or Quebec society,” Daniel Duranleau, president of the CSM, said in French.

The demonstrators were told to come back this month with a detailed plan of how the CSM could implement their demands. At the March 27 meeting, the EABC prepared and presented a detailed plan of action to the board.

This plan of action asked the school board to open the schools for every child in Montreal without looking at the legal status, in the same way as Toronto does. Students there only need to provide proof – such as bills or a lease – that they live in Toronto in order to attend school.

Many other countries already recognize the right for all children in all situations to go to school. In the United States, for instance, there is a law that prohibits schools from rejecting a child based on their migration status. In addition, 12 states provide financial aid for non-status children.

The plan of action also asks the CSM to take action with the Ministry of Education in order to ensure that children can keep their permanent code – which uniquely identifies all students that go through Quebec schools – after graduating without any information exchange between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Immigration.

The CSM did not accept the plan of action, however, and were unclear about their actual legal rights in the situation. They said they were unsure what the financial situation would be if the approximately 2,700 non-status children in Montreal suddenly started attending school.

“We in the board completely agree that the best place for a child in Montreal is the school,” said Duranleau in French. “We make the choice to continue our work to meet your claims considering the temporary permanent code. However, the notion of law in Quebec could present a problem in our proceeding.”

After the meeting with the CSM, which once again failed to produce any clear solutions, many demonstrators were upset. They argued that both the board’s mission statement and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which Canada has signed – gives the board every legal right to make an immediate change.

The EABC announced that they would take a more aggressive approach at the CSM’s next meeting on April 24. “They have to realize how urgent the situation is, with hundreds and thousands of children staying at home, isolated, without contact to other children. They are unable to develop their skills, talents, and realize their dreams,” Hernandez said in French. “People don’t need to be afraid of us, we [the immigrants] are here to help build and develop this society.”

The post Education Across Borders collective visits school commission appeared first on The McGill Daily.