Click on each quote to read more.

“The two main goals [of ECOLE] are to be a model for sustainable living, and […] to serve as a catalyst for a surviving, connected community for sustainability that integrates community outreach, sustainable living, and equity.”

Lily Schwarzbaum, ECOLE coordinator

Sustainability at McGill faced advances and setbacks this year. On the positive side, two important sustainability projects were approved by the University, Vision 2020, and the Education Community Living Environment (ECOLE) project. Vision 2020, which seeks to create a long-term sustainability plan for the McGill community, was approved on March 21.

The ECOLE project, also approved in the Winter semester, aims to create a sustainability hub in the Milton-Parc community and a model for sustainable living. The ECOLE project will operate in a house off-campus, and see 8 to 12 students live there while completing an independent study project. These student residents will receive subsidized rent and academic credit for their independent study. ECOLE will launch its pilot year in September 2014.

However, sustainability on campus also took a hit when SSMU abruptly lost the position of Sustainability Coordinator. The position which entailed working to align the activities of SSMU with a culture of sustainability, was ended in the Fall semester. Since then there has been little movement from SSMU to create a new position.

As per a motion passed at the SSMU Winter General Assembly (GA), the Ad-hoc Committee on Sustainability will make an “actionable recommendation” for sustainability at SSMU by the end of the Winter 2014 semester. After the recommendation is made, it will be the job of the President and executive to look into the feasibility of the proposal and steps for implementation, and an update will then be brought forward to the Fall 2014 GA. As such, much of the work to implement sustainability on campus remains to be seen in the next academic year.

—Jordan Venton-Rublee

“If this isn’t social injury, then McGill needs a new definition.”

Divest McGill banner

Divest McGill was created in 2012 to campaign for divestment from University holdings in the fossil fuel industry. In February 2013, the group submitted two petitions to McGill’s Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR). The petitions – one seeking McGill’s divestment from the tar sands and fossil fuel industry, and the other seeking divestment from companies associated with the Nord pour tous (formerly known as Plan Nord), a natural resource exploitation project started under former premier Jean Charest – gained momentum, with support from McGill student unions, as well as numerous climate justice advocacy groups across the city.

In May 2013, McGill’s Board of Governors rejected both petitions that Divest McGill submitted. The decision was based on recommendations from CAMSR that indicated that the petitions failed to prove “social injury” had occurred under CAMSR’s Terms of Reference – that is, their mandate and guidelines for reviewing the social responsibility of the University’s investments.

Divest McGill continues to be very active working with other climate justice advocacy groups and Indigenous communities who are also opposed to fossil fuel and tar sands extraction in Canada, and raising awareness on campus. This year, the group held workshops, organized a bike protest, and spoke out against the Petrocultures conference hosted by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Divest McGill acted, and will continue to act, as a key player in increasing the pressure on McGill to divest from fossil fuels and become a leader in ethical investments among universities worldwide.

—E.k. Chan and Hera Chan

“It is important to break [the invisibility of equity issues] down. We have to be intentional about it and actually make changes and work against it.”

Sarah Berry, course lecturer

Equity was a buzzword on McGill’s campus this year, at times due to missteps by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) executive and staff. During the first semester, the SSMU executive was met with criticism for its Costume Campaign, which intended to educate students on culturally appropriative costumes, but used posters featuring people wearing the sort of costumes SSMU sought to ban.

Despite both the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Equity Committee and SSMU Equity Committee holding forums on the subject in the second semester, the issue of equity at McGill seemed to become larger than life following a complaint filed toward SSMU VP Internal Brian Farnan over a GIF of Barack Obama included in a SSMU listserv email. Part of the Equity Commission’s ruling in the complainant’s favour was that Farnan would issue a public apology – an apology that took a life of its own, attracting international media attention. Back on campus, SSMU eventually decided to retract the decision to make the apology public at a Council meeting, on “the basis that the apology trivializes the legitimacy of equity and racism on campus,” according to the motion moved.

Efforts by the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) to create a more equitable environment were positive, but flew under the radar for many students. Christopher Tegho, who was appointed Equity Commissioner for EUS in October, worked to educate engineering students on the meaning of equity, rape culture, and safer space through workshops held in the Winter semester. The workshops, held in a mandatory first year course for Engineering students, broke down such concepts for students, many of whom were hearing of them for the first time – a phenomenon that is all-too common at McGill.

—Jordan Venton-Rublee

“[The] industry went on a mission to developing countries to get them to use chrysotile asbestos.”

Kathleen Ruff, anti-asbestos advocate

McGill attempted to address accusations of research misconduct in October 2013, when it hosted a conference on asbestos that included panels and discussions about research ethics and asbestos. The University found itself involved in a long-running academic dispute surrounding the work of Professor John Corbett McDonald, who undertook research in the 1960s and 1970s on the health impacts of chrysotile asbestos. His work demonstrated that the use of this asbestos was safe in controlled circumstances; however, McDonald received direct funding from the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, “an [asbestos] industry-funded body.”

Starting in 2002, numerous scientists began lodging complaints with McGill over the methodology of the research, with some claiming that data had been chosen selectively to give the result desired by industry, and to green-light the commercial exploitation of a cancerous substance.

In response to mounting criticism, the University hosted a day-long conference focused on both asbestos and academic research ethics. Yet while most people at the conference agreed that McGill needed greater ethical oversight in research, no solution was put on the table for discussion, and critics – notably Kathleen Ruff and David Egilman – argued that hosting a conference was not enough and that McGill needed to decide on an ethics policy and retract the study.

Rejection of McDonald’s findings are almost unanimous within the scientific community; however, McGill still refuses to completely retract the paper. To date, critics maintain that the asbestos industry uses McDonald’s findings as evidence for the harmlessness of the substance. This is particularly true in developing countries. The Brazilian government’s position, for example, is that chrysotile asbestos is harmless; this view is based on McDonald’s findings. All that needs to happen to stop the sale of harmful chrysotile asbestos around the world, according to critics, is for McGill to denounce McDonald’s research.

—Emmet Livingstone

“[We should protest] until it is taken seriously by the government [and] they actually put some effort [into] helping these Indigenous women.”

Cleve Higgins, an attendee at the October Sisters in Spirit vigil

Every year, Montrealers take to the streets calling for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. This February, Missing Justice, an Indigenous solidarity collective, organized the annual march, which saw over 500 protesters participate in the march, higher than all previous marches.

Despite the fact that the march has occurred annually for years now, the response from the government continues to be lacking. Even after years of demands for a formal inquiry into the issue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have refused to heed the demands to hold a national inquiry.

Public attention was once again drawn to the issue after the murder of Loretta Saunders, an Inuk woman. In March, to coincide with International Women’s Day, Mohawks blocked CN rail lines in Tyendinaga in a plea for a national inquiry into the issue. Despite all of this initiative, the government is unwilling to take any action.

—Dana Wray

“You reach a point where you realize that there is a huge power differential between SSMU and McGill, and no matter what, we are going to be in this building and they are pretty much setting the terms of the negotiation.”

Joey Shea, SSMU VP University Affairs

It appears that the tipping point that Shea mentions in the above quote has come to pass. After several years of negotiations, SSMU has signed a ten-year lease with McGill for the use of the Shatner building. The newly-signed lease will take effect retroactively, beginning in the 2011-12 school year – the most recent SSMU lease expired in 2011 – and the lease will be in effect until 2020-21.

Lease negotiations have raised financial concerns for three cycles of SSMU executives. At the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, McGill announced that it would no longer pay the entirety of the utilities cost for the Shatner building, and the lease, signed earlier this month, is the first indication of what this means for SSMU. For the 2013-14 year, SSMU will pay an increased rent of $130,000, as well as $100,000 in energy costs. Both rent and utility costs will increase yearly; rent will increase by $5,000 a year for the next seven years, and utility costs will increase with inflation.

In an effort to mitigate the negative financial impacts of these steep rent increases (compare the total $230,000 to be paid out this year to the $110,000 paid in 2010-11 under the previous lease), the SSMU executive attempted to pass a referendum question regarding a Shatner building fee in the Winter referendum period. This question failed to pass, with many questioning the executives’ lack of advertisement of or emphasis on the fee’s importance. Some have also questioned the executives’ role in negotiating a lease that places such a high financial burden on the Society. The building fee may be proposed again in a referendum in the Fall 2014 semester.

—Anqi Zhang

[/raw]

The post Year in review: News appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The blockade, which took place in the Macdonald Engineering building, was organized by Demilitarize McGill, a campus group that protests military research at the university. It lasted nearly four hours before the Service de la police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) ended the demonstration.

“The research creates a process by which McGill invests itself in warfare, because […] military conflicts provide both marketing opportunities and testing grounds for weapons developers and military researchers,” said Kevin Paul, a member of Demilitarize McGill.

“Meaning that McGill benefits when war is being waged by virtue of the wide array of military research opportunities and labs that arguably would not exist without military funding,” Paul continued.

The demonstration remained peaceful for the majority of the time, with most people popping their heads into the hallway to take a gander at the demonstration before carrying on. The Daily approached several students around the site of the blockade for interviews, though they declined to comment.

There were only two instances of brief scuffles between those trying to access the labs and those in the blockade.

One of those instances saw Meyer Nahon, a mechanical engineering professor at McGill, and a researcher with the Laboratory, engage with the demonstrators, telling them that they “have the wrong laboratory.”

Nahon told The Daily that the research being done in the Laboratory “has huge positive applications [and] potential applications. The only way we are going to find out if these applications can come to pass is if we do some research on them.”

“UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] can be used in a hundred different ways. Yes, one of those ways is to do [and] cause harm. But there are 99 other positive things that it can do – so does that mean that you do absolutely nothing? That you don’t do the work?” Nahon asked.

At times the interaction between Nahon and the demonstrators became heated; in one instance a demonstrator told Nahon to “fuck off,” and in response to demonstrators taking photos of him, Nahon wrestled a phone out of a protester’s hand, later giving it back.

Nahon insisted several times that he was “personally opposed to military research.” He added that he believed in open, publicly available research.

“In order to assert my own views, to retaliate – because I’m not going to start breaking down the blockade – I feel the best way to fight back against it is to do more of what they don’t want me to,” Nahon said, referencing a claim he made that he would go out and seek further military funding.

Following the blockade, one of the participants of the demonstration stated that they understood where Nahon was coming from, but that they doubted his assertions of academic freedom.

“I think that there is a very strong case to be made that military-funded research is being funded by the military because it obviously has military applications. Certainly that research can be used for other purposes,” the demonstrator said. “That being said, that doesn’t change the fact that the military has technical problems and therefore commissions research and provides funding for research that presumably will help it overcome these problems.”

The participant also spoke to Nahon’s claim that he was morally opposed to military research. “He claimed to have an ethical opposition to military research, I think that […] if that statement was made in good faith […] you wouldn’t do that, even if you were frustrated with us and our tactics.”

“I guess he presents a dangerous and liberal idea, in that the freedom to research what you want is a freedom that trumps all other freedom,” the participant added. “Like the freedom to not be destroyed by, say, a drone.”

Despite the demonstration being peaceful, McGill security remained watchful, guarding the demonstration on both ends of the hallway and occasionally reading out warnings from what they described as “the higher-ups,” telling the demonstrators that if they did not move, the police would be called.

Around 11 a.m., two SPVM vans arrived at the scene. As soon as the police moved into the hallway, the demonstrators left, with the SPVM eventually giving up pursuit.

When asked why the SPVM was called to campus, Dean of Students André Costopoulos stated, “The demonstration is always fine on campus, expressing an opinion is always fine – obstruction is where we start having a problem. We have a protocol that says if we have obstruction, we have to re-establish the ability of the University to carry out its activities.”

Costopoulos referenced the “Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations on McGill University Campuses,” a document introduced in early 2012 following the occupation of the James Administration building.

The document, which received criticism from student unions, campus groups, and human rights organizations, seeks to govern when and how protests and demonstrations can be held on campus.

In response to the SPVM presence, Paul said, “It sets a precedent that ultimately the University will defend its research activities that are helping the military be able to kill people, through the use of force, [and] through police intervention, repression, and intimidation of students.”

The post Demilitarize McGill blockades site of campus drone research appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Fortin’s resignation is just one of several pressing problems within the student roundtable, which has seen tension between members throughout the year. Recently, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) took first steps to leave the organization, with a motion passed during the February 6 SSMU Council creating a referendum question asking SSMU members whether they wish to leave the roundtable association.

SSMU VP External Samuel Harris noted that since the University of Sherbrooke’s graduate student society, Regroupement des étudiants de maîtrise, de diplôme et de doctorat de l’Université de Sherbrooke (REMDUS) voted to disaffiliate from TaCEQ this semester, SSMU is one of three student associations left in the organization.

“For TaCEQ the thing is, because REMDUS has already left, there are only three associations left, including McGill […] it’s kind of falling apart,” Harris told The Daily.

Additionally, with the loss of REMDUS, SSMU has lost its major ally in the roundtable association.

Regarding Fortin’s resignation, Harris said, “In terms of his job of communications, there really isn’t that much to do communications-wise – or even politically – because [TaCEQ] is starting to wrap up.”

Fortin stated in his resignation letter that one of the issues prompting his resignation was the cancellation of an inter-association congress originally planned for the fall of 2013.

In an interview with The Daily, Fortin addressed the issue, explaining, “We were putting a lot on this congress to make things better at TaCEQ, but in the end it got cancelled, so many people were sad and mad about this.”

Fortin noted that after four months of preparation, the cancellation caused tensions between member student associations.

“SSMU and REMDUS were pretty pissed off about [the congress] and it made for a very unpleasant meetings.”

According to Fortin, this also caused a roadblock for the rest of the work TaCEQ could have done this year.

With Fortin’s resignation, there are only two secretary generals left, but since one of the remaining secretary generals, Xavier Laberge, is from REMDUS, he will also be gone at the end of the month.

“In terms of actual secretary generals, as of March 1, there is only going to be one of three that started the year,” Harris told The Daily.However, he noted that Laberge will be hired back as a paid employee without his former title, as his role of finance and administration is critical to the organization.

Harris said he would be very surprised if TaCEQ elected a new person to fill Fortin’s absence.

“I think everyone kind of agrees there is no point in doing communications and social media if TaCEQ has nothing to announce,” a feeling that Fortin himself echoed, stating, “Right now with the current state and current situation with TaCEQ […] there was nothing really going on with the communication side of TaCEQ.”

As to the future of TaCEQ, Fortin explained that along with SSMU, one of TaCEQ’s two other member organizations, L’Association des étudiantes et des étudiants de Laval inscrits aux études supérieures (ÆLIÉS), will be holding a referendum on disaffiliation in February, leaving only the Confédération des associations d’étudiants et étudiantes de l’Université Laval (CADEUL) in the roundtable.

“It is pretty much the end for TaCEQ, I think,” he said.

SSMU members will vote on whether or not to leave TaCEQ during the SSMU referendum period, from March 14 to 21.

The post Student roundtable turmoil continues with resignation appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Montreal’s mayor, Denis Coderre, campaigned on homelessness, and his suggestions for structural change in treating homelessness show promise. They would include an agency encompassing various levels of government, as well as businesses, community, and health organizations – and an increase in spending on the issue.

At the moment, many community organizations in the city address the immediate and long-term needs of the homeless. Included in this list – which is non-exhaustive and does not include facilities with confidential addresses – are various facilities located in or close to the downtown area. Typical services offered by shelters and day centres, some of the most vital resources available to the homeless, include access to some form of social services, hot meals, clean clothes, and access to showers. Additional resources offered are noted on a case-by-case basis.

The post Winter in Montreal without shelter appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has seen its share of challenges this past semester, but these have resulted in little tangible action on political issues. Attempts to campaign against issues such as the Charter of Values and cultural appropriation failed to gain significant clout. SSMU did finally open up the long-awaited student-run café, but it fell short of expectations. General assemblies have been poorly attended and poorly organized. Although the Legislative Council and the executive are internally cohesive, they have remained distant from the student body.

Katie Larson – President

Katie Larson’s first semester as President has left much to be desired. The SSMU executive has presented a united front, but has accomplished little in the way of political stances. Larson herself has not been particularly vocal in Senate or the Board of Governors, and fails to connect with the student body about relevant issues.

Communication with campus media is also a weakness for Larson, and should be improved upon to better provide information to the student body.

Unlike her predecessor, Larson hasn’t made improvements toward the dismal attendance of the General Assemblies (GAs), and has been criticized by both campus media and Legislative Council for the lack of advertising. However, Larson recognized the GA as a weak spot in an email to The Daily, and said that open discussions on changes to the GA format will be scheduled for this semester.

Lease negotiations continue to stretch on into their fourth year, and although Larson told The Daily that the negotiations were progressing well, due to their confidential nature, it is difficult to know if they will wrap up by the end of this school year.

Larson pointed to the amendment of the out-of-date SSMU constitution, to ensure it was still legal in Quebec, as a success for her and the executive. However, this success did not come without some confusion over the by-laws surrounding the constitution’s approval.

As for next semester, Larson told The Daily she was looking forward to a discussion about SSMU’s sustainability mandate. However, part of this discussion was spurred by the abrupt departure of the Sustainability Coordinator – an issue about which SSMU has not been transparent.

Brian Farnan – VP Internal

One of the main duties of VP Internal is Orientation Week, including Frosh. For yet another year, SSMU and other groups introduced small initiatives that aimed to make Frosh more inclusive of underage and non-drinking students, as well as more sustainable and with more equitable events.

However, one of the biggest failures on Brian Farnan’s part was the $21,000 lost on Frosh. According to Farnan, simple budgeting mistakes – such as failing to calculate PayPal commission, miscalculating taxes on sponsorship, and overspending on new initiatives – accounted for most of the loss. To avoid a similar situation in the future, the responsibility for Frosh’s $200,000 budget will be put into the hands of SSMU’s accounting department instead of students.

Farnan’s communication with The Daily has been poor at best, and he often fails to respond to emails and phone calls. As an elected and paid official, Farnan needs to seriously improve his communication with campus media if he wants to be transparent about his duties.

Samuel Harris – VP External

The VP External portfolio is usually the most politically charged of SSMU’s executive positions. As this year’s VP External, Samuel Harris was tasked with working with the Montreal and Quebec community through various campaigns and associations. One ad hoc campaign, in opposition to the Charter of Values, was slow to get off the ground, though Harris told The Daily that it was limited by the lack of quorum at the Fall GA.

Harris continued the street team project started last year as a part of a community relations initiative during Frosh. Although Harris called Frosh a “mixed bag,” he stated that he believed that there were less noise complaints this year than last.

However, Harris hasn’t followed through on some of his campaign promises, such as opposition to the indexation of tuition and the integration of students into the Milton-Parc community. Although Harris did work on the issues in the beginning of the semester, any further work since that time has not been visible.

Instead, Harris has focused on the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), one of the main student lobbies in Quebec, of which SSMU is a founding member. Harris told The Daily that the promotion of TaCEQ became a case of damage control after the failure to host a TaCEQ congress. However, TaCEQ has faced criticism in the past from campus media, SSMU Legislative Council, and SSMU executives.

In the upcoming semester, Harris told The Daily he would be hosting a forum between Montreal student unions, something that failed to happen last semester.

Joey Shea – VP University Affairs

The VP University Affairs portfolio is primarily in charge of negotiating student affairs at the University level, among other responsibilities – sitting on Senate and University committees, Equity at SSMU, library improvement, and research. Shea has been noticeably vocal at Senate, and has also been transparent and open with campus media.

Shea’s biggest accomplishments of the term include the creation of an ad hoc mental health committee at SSMU with the goal of creating a substantive mental health policy by the end of the year – which Shea expects to see at Council by late January or early February. As well, Shea drew attention at Senate to a surplus in the Student Services budget. Plans to spend the surplus on administrative affairs instead of student services were soon corrected.

Additionally, Shea saw an unexpected turn of events – the sexual assault allegations levelled against three Redmen players in November – as an opportunity to start an important campus conversation about rape culture and sexual assault.

Shea considered one of her bigger failures to be Legislative Council’s failure to pass a motion banning the song “Blurred Lines,” as well as SSMU’s much-criticized Costume Campaign, which ended up misusing cultural appropriation in an attempt to denounce it.

Next semester, Shea will be focusing on passing a mental health policy, as well as following up on the sexual assault allegations, and potentially terminating lease negotiations in conjunction with SSMU’s president.

Stefan Fong – VP Clubs & Services

While not as politically active as his predecessor, Stefan Fong has steadily dealt with the myriad challenges of the Clubs & Services portfolio. Fong told The Daily that he focused on the logistical and administrative aspect of the job, rather than the sometimes problematic dynamics between clubs. Fong has revamped many logistical aspects of the portfolio, including club audits, the room booking system, activities night, and the fourth floor of the SSMU building.

The changes to the room booking system allow rooms to be booked earlier. Fong told The Daily that the new system has received mixed reviews, but that it eased the pressure on both groups and the administrative side of SSMU.

The allocation of offices on the fourth floor of SSMU to clubs faced some problems. According to Fong, problems with a mice infestation and fire hazards complicated the allocation, causing delays and frustration with clubs.

Fong’s most ambitious project for the next semester is the creation of ClubHub, a management portal. Due to the length of SSMU executive positions, it is almost sure that it will not be finished this year, but the initiative is a crucial foundation for the future VP Clubs & Services.

Tyler Hofmeister – VP Finance and Operations

Tyler Hofmeister’s first semester has largely been marked by lease negotiations, SSMU’s budget, and the financial questions surrounding the opening of the new student-run cafe (SRC). Hofmeister’s communication with campus media has been reliable but tenuous, as the VP Finance and Operations requests that all communication be done over email.

Hofmeister faced a deficit of $90,000 in the 2013-14 SSMU budget due to the uncertainty of lease negotiations and utilities expenses, but managed to rearrange it so that the operating budget broke even. This was largely achieved through cutting costs in the General Administration category, as well as executives’ personal budgets, Building, Club, and IT budgets. Hofmeister also outlined a long-term project that he has been working on in which SSMU is doubling the rate of interest on its account holdings, projected to save SSMU thousands of dollars per year. Hofmeister is also working on institutionalizing this approach in order to continue the process.

However, many long-term expenses were shifted, putting forward the possibility that SSMU will face a deficit in the future.

Hofmeister wrote to The Daily in an email that his biggest accomplishment was the opening of the SRC in the cafeteria space formerly occupied by Lola Rosa. The SRC, while certainly a step in the right direction, reneges on former promises by SSMU to create a student space with the new opening, instead opting for a lunch counter. The true success of the SRC in the future will hinge on an ability to create and expand into a space for students.

In an earlier version of this piece, The Daily stated that Tyler Hofmeister rearranged the SSMU budget to project a $50,000 surplus. In fact, this money was transferred into the Capital Expenditures Reserve Fund, and the operating budget broke even. The Daily regrets the errors.

The post SSMU executive midterm reviews appeared first on The McGill Daily.

 In the statement, which was emailed to the McGill student body on November 21, Dyens alleged that the University “did not fully recognize the effect that such events, even if they take place off campus, can and do have on our student population.”

 The three students, who all played on the Redmen football team until the end of this season, were charged over 15 months ago, according to the Montreal Gazette. The Montreal Gazette stated that the paper called the University when the students were charged, however the University claims it did not learn of the incident until May.

 Since the charges have come to light, the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) has been vocal with its demands that the University take action, publishing an open statement as well as a letter in the Link newspaper at Concordia.

In an email to The Daily, SACOMSS Externals Camille Tastenhoye and Kelly Schieder wrote, “SACOMSS feels that this statement is a step in the right direction. We hope to see these measures implemented as soon as possible.”

“I think we misjudged the reaction of our community, and we realized we needed to speak to our community,” Dyens stated in an interview with The Daily.

Dyens continued, identifying student senators as one of the reasons behind the statement’s recent release. “They told us, you should have made a statement saying ‘this is important, we take this seriously’ […].”

In the statement, Dyens also noted that the University is planning to hire a “Coordinator” who will report to the Dean of Students, and work with university groups such as SACOMSS.

“The initiative from the Deputy Provost’s Office (Student Life and Learning) to employ a new, full-time Coordinator regarding sexual assault is an important first step to improving resources for all on campus,” Sarah Turner, Co-Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Women (SSCOW), told The Daily in an email.  

“While the forum is a good first step, we feel it is important to continue working proactively to provide support to survivors in many different ways. This means ensuring that the forum, as well as the other measures specified, are enacted and upheld.”

 The SSCOW is one of five committees that form the Joint Board-Senate Committee on Equity, and recommends University policy regarding under-represented groups.

“I was pleased to see that the Deputy Provost Ollivier Dyens noted that this new position would work collaboratively with the student-run Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS),” said Turner.

However, the University’s effort to reach out to the community was disputed by SACOMSS Externals. “To our knowledge, the administration has not approached us about working together, but we hope that they do,” Tastenhoye and Schieder said in the release.

Additionally, Dyens stated that the University will hold a forum discussing “the issue of consent in [sexual matters].” Joey Shea, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University Affairs, will be one of the co-chairs of the forum.

Shea stated that the forum mentioned in the statement is in its early stages. “One thing that Ollivier [Dyens] did tell me was that he didn’t want to be preaching to the choir […] he wanted it to be for those people who wouldn’t normally be having a conversation about consent.”

“What we really want to enforce and really want to emphasis is a change of culture,” said Dyens. “That we develop a culture of respect and understanding, and that culture stays with you not only when you are on campus but also when you are off campus.”

“While the forum is a good first step, we feel it is important to continue working proactively to provide support to survivors in many different ways. This means ensuring that the forum, as well as the other measures specified, are enacted and upheld,” Tastenhoye and Schieder stated. Additionally, it is important that a sexual assault policy be created for McGill.”

“Personally I’d like to see more resources directed to support SACOMSS which is an incredibly important resource; and also to the Social Equity and Diversity Education office (SEDE) for their crucial work in cultivating a respectful, diverse, and supportive campus,” said Turner.

In an effort to contribute to McGill’s initiatives in reconciling issues of prevailing sexual assault, SSCOW designed and distributed 250 posters detailing resources available on campus for those who have been sexually assaulted, raped, or harassed.

“It’s important information to have available quickly around our campuses,” said Turner. “We wanted to get these up fast given the recent sexual assault charges made against three McGill students, so that all students are aware that SSCOW takes these charges seriously; and so that everyone is aware of the resources and support available,” said Turner.

One of the major criticisms directed toward McGill in the period following the charges is the fact that the University lacks an explicit policy outlining how it responds to sexual assault, nor does it have any policy that mandates support services. SACOMSS itself is a service that runs solely on student and volunteer support.

When questioned as to why McGill lacks such a policy, Dean of Students André Costopoulos explained in an interview with The Daily that “assault is dealt with in the Student Code of Conduct, so any kind of physical abuse, harassment, dangerous activity […] so we do have a policy in the form of article ten of the code of students, including sexual assault.”

“Now should there be a certain article that deals with sexual assault separate from other forms of assault – that is a good question and when we review the policy that is one of the questions we will be looking at,” he said.

However, Costopoulos could not give a set date as to when the policy would be reviewed, stating that “these are living documents that are always open to question and interpretation and changes.”

Dyens echoed a similar sentiment, saying that he didn’t “have an answer to that question, but we realized we needed to look at these policies and procedures.”

“Now we need to keep in mind that it is really important that there is presumption of innocence and due process,” he continued. “These things need to be kept front and centre with everything we do.”

 When asked what she would like to see come of the forum in January, Shea noted, “One of the things that I would like to get people to start thinking about with the forum is, we have had a lot of responses like ‘obviously rape is really bad, and we don’t condone it at all but think of the other side, this has ruined these people’s lives and what if they are innocent, and these poor boys, there is another side.’”

 “[To] start the conversation of why those thoughts and those comments are incredibly harmful and damaging and can’t be disassociated from a broader context of patriarchy and rape culture […] and to start to get people to understand [with the forum] why that is the case.”

The post McGill releases statement regarding rape case appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The keynote presentation, given by Lynne McVey, Executive Director of the Douglas Mental Health Institute, talked about the issue of mental health, as well as stigmatization and stressors for students. “It’s an illness like any other,” McVey told the crowd, pointing to research done by scientists that showed that mental illness is a biological and genetic problem.

After another presentation by Jeff Moat, President of Partners for Mental Health, the meeting broke out into small tables to discuss case studies.

Arts Senator Claire Stewart-Kanigan mentioned that one of the proposals that she put forward at her table was incorporating mental health training into the pedagogical training Teaching Assistants (TAs) receive. “Since you already have that structure institutionalized, it would be easy to add a mental health component so TAs can be supportive and aware of where to direct students.”

However, Stewart-Kanigan was critical of the meeting for overlooking issues related to gender or sexuality present within the cases.

Brian Cowan, professor of history at McGill and a member of Senate, also pointed to the fact that the meeting lacked people who have dealt with mental health issues speaking. “Nobody was speaking to the group who actually had experienced mental illness, which actually struck me as odd,” Cowan told The Daily.

Although there is currently a working group under the Student Services portfolio that brings together different players to brainstorm recommendations, the meeting lacked concrete solutions for the state of mental health resources at McGill.

“I actually would have liked to have known what the University is doing now,” Cowan said. “And areas where it thinks it should improve. That would have been useful, and we didn’t really have a whole lot of that.”

Mental health has been a much-discussed issue on campus recently, and Vera Romano, Director of Counselling Services, was happy that it was made a priority at the meeting. “The number one concern [regarding mental health] of McGill students is anxiety and stress – both academic anxiety and stress, and social anxiety and stress,” Romano told The Daily, referring to a study of McGill students conducted by Romano and Lisa Di Genova.

“Mental health is one of those things that everyone has an opinion [on], they want to talk about it, and it is very prevalent […] I think going into it everyone was ready for discussion,” Elizabeth Cawley, the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University Member Services Commissioner, stated in an interview with The Daily after the meeting.

Cowan noted that the selection of the topic itself was a good sign. “That’s one thing I found quite positive about this whole affair: the simple recognition that this is a problem. If you can’t recognize that you have a problem, you’re not going to do anything about it.”

“All the right things were being said; this sounds like progress to me,” Cowan added. “On the other hand, the devil’s in the detail and there were very few details.”

The post Joint Board-Senate talks mental health at McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

According to the MCLIU President Raad Jassim, the move was a unanimous one, with almost every member of the three units of AGSEM in attendance agreeing to the separation. According to MCLIU’s website, 95 per cent of those at the AGA voted in favour of the creation of a new union separate from AGSEM.

“There are time issues, functionality issues, and grievances issues that are a little bit different, so we thought being autonomous as a unit would strengthen our positions in front of the University, inter-union councils, and certain committees,” Jassim explained to The Daily.

“We are all still in the same classroom, there is no separation there, there is actually more unity there,” Jassim continued, “but we will not be looked at by McGill as one unit. We are three different units, three different functionalities.”

“Unit 3 as its own separate union is something we have been talking about at delegates council, and with executives for 1 and 2, for quite some time. I know Unit 3 have debated it in a previous [General Assembly] of just Unit 3 members,” said Sunci Avlijas, Vice President for AGSEM Unit 1 and 2. “We all have decided that Unit 3 has given interest in running their own affairs autonomously, and Unit 1 and 2 are okay with that.”

“Unit 3 has already been autonomous within AGSEM and they have always had their own executive committee,” Avlijas explained. She noted that this created a more bureaucratic structure for AGSEM, with executives meeting, then having a coordinating committee meet before being able to come to a decision for the entire Union.

“It was all getting a little bureaucratic, it necessitated having a lot of meetings,” Avlijas said. “As well as having an executive committee meeting [every two weeks], we would also have to have a coordinating committee meeting. It just created a lot of time drain for a lot of executives and actually cost [AGSEM] quite a bit of money.”

Course lecturers and instructors became unionized under AGSEM as Unit 3 in August 2011, and have been operating without a collective agreement since then. MCLIU is currently in negotiations with the University for their first collective agreement, and have now moved to conciliation.

“McGill has stopped giving us certain things, and we are not moving because we had a consensus from all our members, so we reached a point where a conciliator has been brought in,” said Jassim.

Major terms that MCLIU is pushing for, according to Jassim, include being able to teach a higher number of courses per year, a system to determine how courses are allocated, and how seniority is calculated.

“There are a lot of detailed issues that we have put forward and we still haven’t concluded the [agreement] – that is why we are seeking the advice of a conciliator,” explained Jassim.

The union, according to Jassim, is filing the request to separate with the Commission des relations du travail, and is awaiting the decision, which could take two weeks to two months to be made.

“At the end of the day, we have three collective agreements, so it was seen and [has] been approved by all the executive committee of the three units, by the bargaining committees of the three units and by the delegate councils of all the three units as ‘this is the best way to go forward, being stronger by each own looking after their own business,’” Jassim explained.

The post Course lecturers and instructors split from AGSEM appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Richard Bergeron – Projet Montréal

Richard Bergeron of Projet Montréal focuses largely on transit issues in the city. Bergeron has a master’s in urban planning, as well as a PhD in regional planning. His transit plan’s most notable aspects include a Montreal tramway, encompassing 37.5 kilometres, that would extend from Côte-des-Neiges to Pie-IX. The tramway, according to Bergeron, is intended to complement the city’s current public transportation system, which he has noted is at full capacity, as well as move the city’s dependence away from automobiles. His transit plan also includes funding through measures such as changing tolls and imposing steeper city parking fees on suburban commuters.

Bergeron’s housing plan includes projects designed to transform vacant space into affordable housing, with the ultimate goal of creating a total of 50,000 homes that will house 100,000 to 125,000 inhabitants. Additionally, Projet Montréal has promised that housing developments would include access to local services within walking distance and a “reasonable level” of green space. New development projects would also be mandated to include 15 to 20 per cent social and affordable housing.

Bergeron recently made headlines  for alleging that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were possibly the work of the Bush administration, though he later distanced himself from the comments.

Denis Coderre – Équipe Denis Coderre

As the leader of Équipe Denis Coderre, Denis Coderre is posed as the current front-runner in the race. Plateau Borough Mayor Luc Ferrandez once called Coderre a “Rob Ford-style politician” – after the embattled mayor of Toronto – with little interest in actually effecting change. Insults aside, Coderre has gained populist support since announcing his candidacy in June 2013.

In the past, Coderre has worked for six terms as a federal Member of Parliament (MP) in Ottawa, filling a number of positions including Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, before he resigned in May 2013 to join the race for mayor.

A large number of Coderre’s councillors come from the defunct Union Montréal party, which ended following the resignation of Gérald Tremblay in 2012 following a massive – and still ongoing – corruption scandal. Other opponents have used the large number of former Union Montreal candidates in Coderre’s party to question his commitment to change.

If elected, Coderre has promised to install an inspector general in City Hall in order to combat corruption, something modelled on the New York City system. The proposed position of the inspector general will, according to Coderre, have the power to launch inquiries and take people to court, and is his answer to the insidious corruption within City Hall.

Like many of his other contenders, Coderre is standing behind the creation of bus rapid transit in the city, an extension of the orange metro line, as well as amenities like wi-fi on buses and cellphone service in the metro.

Marcel Côté – Coalition Montréal

Marcel Côté, an economist, is the leader of Coalition Montréal. He has a background in politics at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels, and also served under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa. Côté received a large boost of support when Louise Harel, leader of the Vision Montreal party, stepped down and instead placed her support behind the Coalition.

While Côté is currently trailing in the municipal polls, he has a historical presence in the city as he was one of the founding partners of SECOR, one of the largest management consulting firms in the country. Côté stated in a Radio-Canada interview this year that “the Mafia is more democratic than the student associations,” something that came up when candidates debated the P-6 by law during the Plateau-Mont-Royal debates.

Côté is a staunch federalist – in 1995, he co-wrote a book on the costs of federalism with the current Governor General David Johnston. Côté is running on the implementation of what he calls a “Quiet Revolution” at City Hall to combat issues like language watchdogs and city hall corruption.

On transit, Côté is more conservative: he believes in utilizing the structures already in place, implementing bus rapid transit (BRT), and creating more reserved lanes for bikes. In regards to housing, Côté has promised that he will create 2,000 more affordable three-bedroom housing units per year in the hopes of keeping people in the city instead of leaving for the suburbs.

Mélanie Joly – Le Vrai changement pour Montréal

The youngest candidate of the front-runners, and the only woman, Mélanie Joly’s campaign slogan and party name is “Le vrai changement pour Montréal,” or “Real change for Montreal.” Joly is also the founder of a group called “Génération d’idées,” a political reflection group targeted toward people aged 20 to 35.

Joly is a strong advocate of implementing a bus rapid transit system (BRT) in order to improve public transit and reduce congestion in Montreal’s busy streets. The BRT would involve around 130 kilometres of rapid bus service, with specially designated bus lanes. In focusing on the BRT, Joly has spoken less directly to other transit initiatives like bike lanes.

Joly’s plans for the city are focused on preventing urban sprawl and keeping families in the city through affordable housing and zoning measures, such as promoting the construction of family units. Housing plans more specifically applicable to students include the promotion of affordable housing and the revitalization of central and downtown Montreal.

Joly also made headlines for coming to the defense of one of her candidates, Bibianne Bovet, a trans woman who came under public scrutiny for her past as a sex worker. However, Bovet was later removed from Joly’s campaign, though Joly claimed that it was because of an ongoing financial investigation.

The post A primer on this year’s mayoral candidates and student centric issues appeared first on The McGill Daily.

According to both Kueper and VP External Bryan Gingras, the EUS Executive found out about the resignation at the Executive meeting on October 3. The Executive then waited to bring the resignation forward to the first EUS Council meeting of the year on October 7, before sending the email out to address engineering students.

As per the EUS Constitution, there will be no election for the new President, as mandated by Section I, Article 20, which states, “In the case of a vacancy in the position of President, the Vice-President Internal shall assume the responsibilities of President until the EUS Council has ratified the nomination of a new President.”

The selection committee, which will include all members of the Executive as well as one representative from each department of EUS, will accept applications for a two week period – lasting until October 21 – before they make a selection.

“The application process is the same as when you are applying for the election, where the President needs to gather 50 signatures from the student body to be put on the ballot,” Gingras stated, adding that anyone who is a member of the EUS can step forward.

“Obviously not everyone will want to run for President, because obviously not everyone is aware of what the presidency of the EUS entails,” he told The Daily in an interview.

According to Gingras, the President’s roles have been divided between the executives “so we will be able to perform with minimal interruption.”

“When we first found out we immediately discussed as an executive, talked to Zac [the former president] to understand where he was with his portfolio, and established who would take on which role in terms of managing things,” Kueper stated in an interview with The Daily.

Kueper was confident that things were going “extremely well” due to division of the roles. The division was something not mandated by EUS constitution, instead a decision made by the executives.

One of the portfolios of the President includes overseeing the state of equity within EUS. When Zac Moreland, the former President, resigned, the EUS was going forward with the selection of its new Equity Commissioner. According to Kueper, EUS VP Communications Luis Pombo stepped in to handle the selection normally handled by the President.

On October 10, the EUS announced that Christopher Tegho, a fourth-year Electrical Engineering student, would assume the position for the 2013-14 academic year.

“I have a plan for the year,” said Tegho in an interview with The Daily. “This semester I want to, in collaboration with EUS and the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE), discuss the issues – social equity issues – within the Faculty of Engineering.”

“It is important because the EUS has a lot of events, especially during Frosh – and even outside of Frosh – where social equity, safer space, needs to be established, in order to include everyone in Engineering.”

Tegho also mentioned his desire to create workshops for EUS next semester dealing with equity and diversity that would deal with issues such as racism, gender, and sexual assault.

Tegho explained that “I noticed that there was a lot of people in Engineering that do not have any idea of what safer space means, or never heard about it.”

“It would be ideal to create this conversation […] whenever I try to have this conversation it ends up (sic) very fast, nobody is interested or it becomes very problematic and we need to shut it down because it hurts people. So I would like to [have] such conversations not end like that.”

The post EUS sees changes early in the school year appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Only a week after invigilators, unionized under Unit 2 of AGSEM: McGill’s Teaching Union, formally signed their first collective agreement with the University, the union has filed formal grievances against McGill.

According to AGSEM, the University put up job postings for invigilators for the final exam period several days before the formal signing ceremony on October 7. However, AGSEM’s grievance lies in the fact that the postings were still open after the agreement came into effect, and that the postings were restrictive.

“Before the collective agreement actually came into effect last Monday, McGill could legally do whatever they wanted in terms of how they advertised the positions.” Jamie Burnett, AGSEM’s Invigilator Grievance Officer, told The Daily. “But as of Monday, October 7, the postings that they had needed to correspond to the criteria outlined in the collective agreement.”

One of the contraventions AGSEM described was that the postings were restricted solely to McGill graduate students. To access the application, potential applicants had to enter their McGill ID and password – something Burnett and Sunci Avlijas, Vice-President for Invigilators and TAs, feel violates the terms of the agreement.

“The position that was advertised on Monday October 7, in our opinion, is a contravention of the agreement, in that it was restricted to graduate students,” said Burnett. The collective agreement, as signed, allows anyone to apply for an invigilator position, and gives hiring priority to those who have worked as invigilators before.

While not all invigilators are graduate students, according to Avlijas, around 90 per cent are. However, in order to ensure that there is equal access to all positions, AGSEM is asking McGill to reopen the posting with less restrictive terms.

However, Avlijas brought forward the fact that it was McGill, and not AGSEM, who originally pushed for the applications to remain open to more than graduate students during the bargaining period.

“I don’t know exactly what their reasoning was [at the time], but to me […] the potential intent of doing this was to downplay the extent to which invigilation is done by graduate students, in order to weaken our argument for higher salaries for invigilators.”

In an interview with The Daily, Robert Comeau, McGill Employee and Labour Relations Director, stated that he was “aware that there are two grievances now.”

“The hard position is that they are grieving a situation that happened before they had a collective agreement,” said Comeau. “So before we signed last Monday, they were not able to grieve the situation. Of course now we have a collective agreement, we will follow it.”

However, Avlijas countered Comeau’s claim. “Now, they were not legally required to follow those rules prior to October 7, but it’s not like they didn’t know about the rules. The person who put up the postings was on McGill’s bargaining committee. She’s one of the people who signed the collective agreement.”

“But they didn’t even do that properly because the postings didn’t close until October 7, and on the 7th the collective agreement was in effect, and so we have filed grievances,” Avlijas added.

Comeau stated, however, that “we had a discussion and an agreement that anything we are not on the same page on, we would agree to meet with what we call the ‘union management committee,’ and we already have scheduled one to discuss the grievances.”

The meeting, scheduled for early November, according to Comeau, would be the chance for the University to address “the way that we will be applying the selection process for this year[’s] exam period.”

“I have no doubt we will find a solution,” Comeau said.

“All we want McGill to do is reopen the applications,” Avlijas stated to The Daily. “There is plenty of time to do that before December, [allowing] anybody to apply, and following the rules set out in the collective agreement.”

“It doesn’t actually cost McGill any money, it just is a matter of respect [for us and] for the collective agreement.”

Since 2010, invigilators have been unionized under Unit 2 of AGSEM, and had worked without a collective agreement until two weeks ago. The agreement was the first to be signed by Unit 2, which represent invigilators. Unit 3, which represents course lecturers and instructors, negotiates agreements separately.

“We’re pretty happy that it’s signed, we’re not entirely happy with a lot of terms, but we’re glad to have a collective agreement, and we’re looking forward to the next negotiations, which will not be so limited,” said Avlijas.

Some of the terms that the union was less pleased with include salaries, which, despite plenty of negotiations, still sit at $10.65 an hour – among the lowest in the province.

While the agreement was initially ratified in May at the AGSEM General Assembly, problems followed the invigilators over the summer prior to the official signing of the contract in October.

Comeau told The Daily that he believed “both parties were happy when we were able to finalize their agreement,” and acknowledged the fact that “it took a long time, because we negotiated, we went to conciliation and at the end we finished with the arbitrator.”

“Unfortunately we didn’t actually reach an agreement with McGill on the final version to sign until August, because McGill kept on asking us to remove entire articles from the agreement in principle which we signed in front of the arbitrator. And we couldn’t do that, because our General Assembly already ratified it, and also we wouldn’t agree with it because it’s not fair,” Avlijas stated.

With files from Dana Wray.

In an earlier version of this article The Daily incorrectly stated that AGSEM: McGill’s Teaching Union came to their first collective agreement. In fact it was the invigilators, Unit 2 of AGSEM , who came to their first collective agreement with the University. In the same article, The Daily wrote that invigilators filed grievances two weeks after signing – however grievances were filed one week after, on October 15. The Daily regrets these errors. 

The post Invigilators file grievance against University appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Centre for Gender Advocacy’s “Another Word for Gender” series closed with an emotional keynote event on October 3 – a talk by Glen Canning, the father of Rehtaeh Parsons, about the failure of the justice system, and the forces that normalize sexual assault in Canada, including victim-blaming.

Canning told the audience of around 100 people in the Shatner Ballroom that it was his first time speaking in front of a large group of people, but that he wanted to share the story of his daughter.

Parsons’ case first gained media attention last year, following the teen’s suicide after aggressive and prolonged bullying in response to her sexual assault. In November 2011, Parsons was gang-raped after attending a house party. A cellphone photo of the rape was shared days later by students at her school across social media sites.

According to her father, the photo was taken by one of the rapists and was not only shared at her school but across her district.

“It was going everywhere, and everyone knew about it,” said Canning, adding, “She wasn’t just raped, she was humiliated and destroyed.”

Not long after the photo was shared with the community, Parsons and her family came forward to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to report the incident – which is where the victim-blaming began, Canning said.

“I think it is outrageous that this happened, I think it’s inexcusable for the police to bungle this case the way that they did, and they did it right from the start.”

The investigation went on for one year, with few updates given to the family and no arrests made. The case was declared closed in March 2012, without questioning or consulting any of the people who were involved with the allegations of sexual assault.

The police told her mother when the case was deemed closed that “there [were] mistakes made that night, and Rehtaeh made mistakes too.”

“They were essentially saying she shouldn’t have been drinking at that party, and to us that is just wrong. It didn’t matter what she did that night, no one had the right to rape her,” said Canning.

He noted that his daughter was heartbroken by the case being closed. “She felt she did the right thing by speaking up and it was used against her.”

Parsons, Canning revealed, turned to drugs and self-harm to cope with the pain and feelings of isolation spurred by the events. Eventually, Parsons and her father decided that she would seek medical treatment at a local hospital.

Canning also pointed to faults in the hospital system. “Taking her to that hospital was the biggest mistake of my life,” he said. “I think she learned nothing in that hospital that she could use to cope with the issues she was going through.”

“The hospital that she was admitted to treated her like a drug addict because [the drug treatment program] is the only program they offer teens that age,” he told the audience. “So you have to be a drug addict, you are not a sexual assault victim.”

Not long after she was admitted, Parsons was discharged. She committed suicide shortly thereafter. Canning believes that her time in the hospital made her worse off.

Shortly after her death, her mother posted a Facebook status regarding her suicide that quickly gained international media attention, with her parents receiving calls from CNN and MSNBC.

However, not all the attention was positive. A “Support the Boys” campaign started in the community, with people rallying around the assault suspects, declaring their innocence.

The group printed signs and went to the police system to protest, alleging that Parsons lied. They also created Facebook groups claiming that since the boys were “good-looking [and] cool guys, that she probably wanted her assault because they never would have committed the crime,” Canning explained to the audience.

The cyber-bullying continued even after Parsons’ death – Facebook groups were created with tormenting titles and photoshopped pictures mocking her suicide. Some of the content was sent to her family.

When Canning wrote a letter to Facebook to take down one of the groups, they responded that the group did not “violate their standards.”

Canning posted the message on his blog, where it was picked up by the hacktivist group Anonymous. Anonymous tracked down the Facebook group owners and shut down the groups.

Charges of creation and distribution of child pornography have now been laid against two of the boys. “[However] despite them sending it to hundreds of kids, who then sent it to hundreds of [other] kids, [those are] the only two charges they came up with in this entire thing.”

Canning is adamant that the police never investigated the sexual assault aspect of the crime. “For them to say they have no evidence to substantiate a charge of sexual assault is a blatant failure on the side of the police to do their job.”

“This is just wrong, this is a failure in a system here. Her school didn’t even call her once, the police never investigated her crime at all.”

Canning hopes that by talking about his daughter’s case, change will occur. He noted that the sexual assault centre he took his daughter to prior to her death is faced with wait times of several months and is desperately in need of funding. “[It is] inexcusable that this is happening in our community and people aren’t getting the help that they want.”

“We have a problem in our system in Nova Scotia with young people, because they don’t know what consent is, what healthy relationships are,” said Canning. “They don’t know what healthy sex means, they don’t know about respect or empathy or compassion.”

“I think there is a failure in investigating sexual assault in Canada, and hopefully by sharing our daughter’s case we can highlight that and we can try and fix it. We are not going to be able to do that though if we don’t admit it is broken.”

With files from Hannah Besseau.

The post Rehtaeh Parsons’ father speaks at McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The governors typically meet twice a semester, in addition to the one joint BoG-Senate meeting per semester. The composition of the board is heavy on McGill alumni and prominent figures in Montreal – there are also two student representatives, Jonathan Mooney and Katie Larson, who head Post-graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) and the Students’ Society of McGill University, respectively.

Fortier opened the meeting with remarks on her new position as principal, telling the board, “I came back to be a part of a community, a full member of a community, to face our challenges together.”

The principal also mentioned that she was happy with the success of Orientation Week, even having taken part in some of the activities herself, although commenting that there were “some incidents we would have liked to not have had.”

On the open session docket was mostly housekeeping, approval of agenda minutes from May – when Heather Munroe Blum was still acting principal in the position of  Vice-Chancellor of the BoG – as well as announcements from the previous week’s Senate meeting.

Fortier reiterated her remarks made two weeks ago at Senate regarding the University’s stance on the Charter of Values. “There are very good, strong policies at the University protecting and respecting diversity and expression,” she said.

Also discussed was the recent meeting held in Quebec City between Quebec universities and the Minister of Higher Education, Pierre Duchesne. The meeting was, according to Vice-President (Communications and External Relations) Olivier Marcil, between “administrators of universities, chairs of different boards of universities, leaders of unions, and student union leaders.”

Marcil told The Daily that the Minister, “wanted to discuss the orientation and priorities for the year that is coming.”

According to Marcil, Duchesne announced at this meeting the PQ had planned a $1.7 billion investment to universities across the province for the 2014-15 – an increase in support of around 8.5 per cent.

“We were concerned because of the budget of Quebec – we had some concerns that […] reinvestment would be put at risk. However, [Duchesne] confirmed that the reinvestment will happen,” he said.

The $1.7 billion will be spread out among the province’s universities, Marcil explained. When asked by The Daily how much McGill is expected to receive, he stated “a fair share” – though it is unclear at this point in time how the money will be broken down.

In November, the University will meet one-on-one with the Quebec government again to set a bilateral agreement between the University and the government.

“It will be the first meeting between the new principal and [Duchesne],” said Marcil, adding, “The government wants to link the new money coming in with objectives, and the government plans to negotiate with each university according to their own mission and own strengths. McGill is very open to the approach.”

“We are sure that under that model McGill will secure some good financing for our students, profs and researchers” Marcil continued.

Additionally, the BoG discussed the upcoming joint Senate-BoG session where, Provost Anthony Masi announced, there would be a joint review of mental health and stressors on students, examining the “risk factors” contributing to student mental health.

Despite happening the same day, the ratification of the Principal’s five-year contract by the BoG – which notably revealed Fortier’s salary – went unmentioned by the members.

The next BoG meeting will take place on November 28.

The post McGill Board of Governors convenes for first meeting of the year 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.

Oanes continued to explain that the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC) was seeking to create the largest open-pit gold mine in Europe in the Rosia Montana area in Transylvania. Oanes also noted that the project is 80 per cent owned by Gabriel Resources, a Canadian company based in the United Kingdom.

“We want Canadians to know that mining companies from Canada a lot of times don’t always act ethically and morally in countries that are less developed, or maybe [where the] legislation isn’t as good,” she said.

 * * *

 Over 7,000 kilometres away, in Bucharest, Romania, a mining project was finally greenlit on August 27 after 14 years on the backburner. Days later, on September 1, activists and citizens began to take to the streets to protest the project.

Alexandru Predoiu, one of the organizers of the protests and a member of Militia Spirituala, a non-governmental activist organization, told The Daily, “On the first night [that] we saw the law had been drafted, had been put into Parliament, some other people put together a Facebook group calling for protests.”

Predoiu, who is based in Romania, explained the bill that allowed the mining project to go forward. “It’s a special law that exempts [RMGC], the gold mining company, from environmental laws, constitutional laws – it just offers them the project on the table.”

“We are marching through the streets, through the capital and the cities to let people know.”

Demonstrations quickly spread across Romania in the following weeks, with protests being held in major cities like Iasi and Brasov. In Bucharest, numbers have swelled at Sunday night protests to as many as 25,000 people, with thousands more taking to the streets across the globe in solidarity protests in places like Gezi, Turkey, and London.

* * *

 The Rosia Montana project would see 500,000 ounces of gold extracted per year over a period of 16 years, according to the company’s website. The region has seen mining taking place as far back as Roman times, up until the present day, with mines in the area previously being used during the Communist period.

One of the main reasons people are upset about the project, according to Vicentiu Garbacea, another activist based in Romania who has been present since the protests began, is due to the way the mining will take place.

“This project means digging an accumulation lake, with a huge surface, that is going to be full of cyanide,” he said.

Garbacea noted that Romania has already dealt with an environmental accident involving cyanide mining – a project that was a joint venture between an Australian company and Romania. In 2000, a mining accident occurred when cyanide from the nearby Baia Mare mining project spilled into a river, causing massive environmental damage. Many considered the accident to be the worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl.

“You cannot do anything with the area after cyanide, except for possibly freezing the soil forever,” Garbacea noted. “Cyanide gets into the water, it gets into the earth, it affects everything.”

The Rosia Montana project would also see the destruction of three villages and four mountains in the region – involving the uprooting of thousands of people from the region and the destruction of ancient Roman mining galleries. Garbacea noted that the company, not the government, would be in charge of moving people.

Garbacea explained that the protests are not merely aimed at the mining project, but also at the systemic corruption present in the Romanian government.

“It’s an escalation of many things, mainly state corruption, and aggressive Western capitalism,” he said.

Garbacea believes that government corruption allowed for the project to begin in the first place, despite the fact that the current government’s campaigns centred around opposition to the project.

“Since the so-called revolution in 1989, nothing has changed. All the people and all the politicians are linked to the former Communist party,” he said. “We have had no change of system – just the name changed.”

Romania is currently lead by the Social Democratic Party, under the leadership of Prime Minister Victor Ponta. The country began its transition to democracy in 1989, when over 40 years of communist rule ended with a series of protests across the country and culminated with the execution of former leader Nicolae Ceausescu.

Despite Garbacea’s view of the government, Maria Popova, a professor of Political Science at McGill, noted, “[The Romanian government] is a democratic regime; it is not an authoritarian regime that is going to crack down and wipe out dissent and go ahead with whatever they want to do.”

While both Garbacea and Predoiu are firmly opposed to the project, the same could not be said for all Romanians. Gold miners in the Rosia Montana region were involved in a five-day protest underground where they blockaded themselves in a mining pit 300 metres below ground, and threatened to go on hunger strike if the mine did not go ahead.

Additionally, the CEO of Gabriel Resources announced that he would take legal action against the Romanian government if they did seek to stop the legislation that would allow the project to go ahead.

In recent days, the government has begun to reconsider the draft bill put forward on August 27, with the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, calling it “unconstitutional,” according to several Romanian media reports.

* * *

 According to Predoiu, the nightly protests have remained non-violent, with people marching on the streets in large numbers every Sunday night. During the rest of the week, University Square, where people have been meeting in downtown Bucharest, is kept ‘alive’ with teach-ins and volunteers handing out leaflets.

Despite the large number of demonstrators – last week, 25,000 people protested in Bucharest – the protests have remained peaceful.

“This is a great accomplishment, because there had been protests last year that had turned violent, but this year, because of us, because of the protesters, we have just gone for a peaceful cultured protest,” explained Garbacea.

“There has been no reason for violence, beside the normal pushing, maybe a bit of pepper spraying when [the police] feel threatened by the numbers of the crowd,” he continued.

Predoiu listed four of the protesters’ specific goals: shutting down the legislation that would approve the project, banning cyanide mining in Romania, declaring the area a UNESCO heritage site, and making the current government step down from power.

The legislation is currently on hold, according to Garbacea, and a special committee was convened “of representatives from [the] parliament, the opposition, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], the company [… and] civil society involved, in order to debate the pros and cons about the mining bill.” The committee has until October 20 to determine whether or not the bill will move forward.

Predoiu believes that the government expects, with the convening of the committee, the diffusion of civil tension – but stressed that the determination of the protesters would win out.

“We are going to go on until all the demands are met. […] None of those points are negotiable.”

Despite the odds, both Predoiu and Garbacea were proud of the social mobility that has been achieved so far in Romania and across the globe.

“It has evolved into a culture of peaceful protest,” Garbacea remarked. “We have been meeting every night, playing, singing, mostly having concerts, a string quartet played a couple of nights.”

“I feel very proud about my generation, that we managed to unite finally for a cause, for something that affects us all,” said Garbacea. “There is nothing political with this protest, there is nothing to gain. We are protesting for basic human and civil rights, the right to clean environment, the right to clean air and not be poisoned.”

The post Canadian gold mining in Romania appeared first on The McGill Daily.