It was a deliberate reframing of what “America” can mean, delivered on one of the few stages left that still pretends to speak for everyone at once. That’s why the “Benito Bowl,” the fan nickname that spread almost as quickly as the clips themselves, became inescapable this past week. People weren’t only reacting to the performance; they were reacting to what it symbolized, and the people who got to be centred on his own terms: linguistically, culturally, and politically.

Bad Bunny’s rise to stardom make that centering feel especially pointed. He didn’t arrive in North America as a “crossover” project. He arrived as a Puerto Rican artist whose work has always proudly uplifted Puerto Rico and its unique culture. Puerto Rico’s political status makes visibility complicated on contact, as the country is not a sovereign state, but a US territory. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but residents of the island cannot vote for president and do not elect voting members of Congress.

When halftime stopped being background noise

The Super Bowl halftime show usually aims for one thing above all: broad agreement. Even when viewers complain, the show is built to feel familiar and contain recognizable hits, universal cues, and minimal risk. Bad Bunny’s set didn’t play that game. It made Spanish the default language, Puerto Rico the centre, and “America” the hemisphere rather than the brand name. That shift alone explains a lot of the reaction cycle: celebration from viewers who felt seen, and backlash from viewers who felt the centre move without their permission.

One detail made the performance feel less like a medley and more like a statement. During the set, a couple was married on the field, and multiple outlets later confirmed it was a real, legally binding wedding. In a broadcast built around scripted spectacle, that choice landed as intimate and political at the same time: a reminder that legitimacy, belonging, and who gets to be “official” are arguments happening in public life right now, not just in comment sections.

This is what turns a halftime show into a cultural event, not just the fact that “people had opinions,” but the reasons they had them.

Puerto Rico isn’t an aesthetic, it’s the context

Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican upbringing isn’t a footnote, it’s the core of his public identity. References in the halftime show weren’t random decorations; they were modes of insisting Puerto Rico’s belonging at the centre of the story, not on the margins.

What looked like set dressing was actually a kind of geography lesson, not the textbook kind, but the kind you feel. The show unfolded like a moving “tour” through Puerto Rican life: from a sugar cane field to a casita, then into the streets of San Juan, with domino players, block-party energy, and even a piragua (shaved ice) vendor stitched into the visuals.

That choice matters right now because it insists on ordinary Puerto Rican life; not Puerto Rico as a vacation backdrop, a headline, or an American afterthought. Sugar cane hints at the island’s extractive histories and the economic story behind “paradise”; the casita reads as continuity and home in an era shaped by debt crises, austerity politics, and displacement pressures; and the street scenes refuse the idea that Latin identity has to arrive on US television in a simplified, export-ready form.

Even the smaller gestures were calibrated. The light-blue Puerto Rican flag signalled a political lineage many viewers recognized immediately, and “seguimos aquí” (“we’re still here”) landed like a compact slogan of survival. When he spiked a football stamped “Together, We Are America,” the Super Bowl’s most patriotic object became an argument about what “America” includes and who gets to claim it. It was capped off by a billboard that read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” alongside an “Easter egg” cameo that quietly nodded to diaspora memory.

That insistence carries weight because Puerto Rico’s relationship to the United States continues to be politically unresolved. As a US territory, Puerto Rico is tied to US power while lacking equal federal political representation. So when Puerto Rico is centred on the most symbolic US stage, a broadcast typically soaked in national mythology, it can’t help but read as political. Representation becomes less
“visibility” and more “reckoning”: a reminder of who is included, how, and at what cost.

In other words, the controversy isn’t that Bad Bunny “made it political.” It’s that Puerto Rico’s position already is, and has always been, and the Super Bowl simply doesn’t usually invite viewers to sit with that.

A halftime show built to be read

You don’t have to treat the halftime show like a puzzle to recognize it was built to be read. It’s a choice about audience: who is assumed to understand without effort, and who is expected to lean in.

Taken together, these choices make the halftime show feel like something greater than entertainment. They render it a cultural message delivered in the language of Bad Bunny’s characteristic effusive Latin trap: spectacle, symbolism, and the kind of visibility that becomes disruptive simply by refusing to shrink.

Resistance, in plain sight

The temptation with any “art as resistance” story is to hunt for one definitive political message and call it a day. However, Bad Bunny’s version of resistance is often quieter, and, in some ways, harder for a mainstream audience to dismiss. It’s not only what he says, it’s what he refuses to dilute. He made that refusal explicit at another high-profile event before the Super Bowl. At the 2026 Grammys, Bad Bunny used his acceptance speech for Best Música Urbana Album (for Debí Tirar Más Fotos) to denounce ICE and call for an end to what one report described as an “ongoing immigration crackdown,” punctuating it with the slogan “ICE out.”

That’s not symbolism, but a clear alignment with migrants and immigrant communities at a moment when immigration enforcement has become a flashpoint in US public life. And it sits alongside a different kind of milestone from the same night: Debí Tirar Más Fotos also won Album of the Year, marking the first time a Spanish-language album took the Grammys’ top prize.

The resistance here isn’t just “a pop star being political.” It’s a global superstar insisting that Spanish, Puerto Rico (and Latin America at large), and immigrant life aren’t side stories, even in the most mainstream room.

Backlash, then the rumour mill

Backlash was predictable. A Spanish-heavy halftime show on the Super Bowl stage, and a Puerto Rican artist refusing to soften his message, was always going to trigger the usual reactions: “keep politics out of it,” “speak English,” “this isn’t for you,” and the more familiar accusation hiding under all of that: you don’t belong here.

But the backlash didn’t stay in the realm of taste. It moved into the realm of narrative-making, constructed through the spreading of misinformation. In early February, social media users claimed Bad Bunny wore a bulletproof vest to the Grammys because of threats tied to xenophobic hostility. The rumour was investigated and no evidence was found for the “bulletproof vest” claim, explaining that his sharply tailored outfit (and altered silhouette) fuelled speculation.

The point isn’t just that “people online lie.” The rumour frames Latino visibility as inherently dangerous and controversial, transforming a historic career moment into a security conspiracy. This converts prejudice into something resembling concern. It also shifts the conversation away from the actual stakes of Bad Bunny’s work, language, belonging and power, toward whether he’s “too political” to be safe.

In that sense, the rumour becomes part of the cultural reaction: a way of policing what kinds of artists are allowed to be visible, and on what terms.

Why this lands in Montreal too

From Montreal, it’s easy to treat US culture battles as exported noise: loud, constant, and somehow always trending. But the themes that surfaced around Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl and Grammys moments are not uniquely American. They travel and translate because they interrogate fundamental questions: who gets treated as “normal,” what language gets to be default, and who has to translate themselves to be heard.

Those questions land differently in Quebec, where language is never just language, but identity, law, power, and a recurring public argument. This is a city shaped by diaspora, where belonging is lived rather than theoretical.

Bad Bunny’s journey, from a Puerto Rican artist building momentum on his own terms to winning the prestigious Album of the Year at the Grammys and headlining a Spanish-forward Super Bowl halftime show, matters because it shows what art can do when it refuses to stay in its lane. It may not be able to rewrite policy or put an end to structural abuses. But it can shift the centre of the frame, force a mainstream audience to notice what it usually treats as peripheral, and remind people that “unity” without inclusion is just branding.

And maybe that’s the most useful way to read the “Benito Bowl”: not as a victory lap, not as a controversy, but as a moment where pop culture briefly stopped pretending that belonging is uncomplicated.

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When Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on January 20, 2026, the significance of the speech was shaped as much by the venue as by the message. The WEF describes itself as the “International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation,” saying it convenes political, business, and other leaders to shape global and regional agendas. Its Annual Meeting is framed as an “impartial platform” for dialogue on shared challenges. In his speech, Carney frames the present moment as “a rupture” rather than a “transition,” describing an international environment that he argues is already taking shape; and warning it will likely continue to shape state behaviour in the years ahead.

In the same address, Carney references the end of what he calls a “pleasant fiction”: the belief that the world’s most powerful states, particularly major military and economic powers such as the US and China, would reliably submit to limits. He also argues that “middle powers,” including countries like Canada and other mid-sized economies, can still increase their influence by acting collectively rather than seeking individual accommodation. Coverage of the speech described it as unusually direct for a Canadian PM speaking in Davos: the Financial Times highlighted Carney’s framing of “weaponized interdependence” and a world order in “rupture,” while The Guardian characterized the address as a forceful challenge to the “rules-based” framework and a call to action for middle-power coordination. Reporting on the full text and immediate reception also emphasized the speech’s focus on economic coercion and vulnerability through trade and supply chains, with The Independent and Global News both presenting it as a major, unusually blunt intervention for a Canadian leader at WEF.

The remarks landed amid heightened tension in Canada– US relations during US President Donald Trump’s second term, which began on January 20, 2025, and has been widely covered as a period in which the Trump administration has applied more pressure on allies through both security and economic tools. In Europe, coverage focused on Washington pressuring NATO partners to assume greater defence burdens and openly questioned longstanding assumptions about US commitments. In North America, reporting has emphasized the use of tariff threats and trade leverage, including tensions tied to the USMCA review process, as instruments of pressure on close partners such as Canada. While Carney did not name Trump in the Davos speech, The Guardian described the address as a thinly veiled critique of US conduct and the broader erosion of the “rules-based order.”

The political escalation that followed made the subtext explicit. In remarks reported by Canadian and international outlets, Trump asserted that “Canada lives because of the United States,” a line that circulated widely as a reprimand. Carney later rejected this framing in public comments, and emphasized Canadian sovereignty and national capacity. The exchange was framed less as a personal dispute than as evidence of a more openly contested bilateral relationship: the Associated Press linked the rhetoric to looming USMCA review dynamics and tariff threats, while Time situated it within wider disputes over tariffs and sovereignty issues.

The domestic and international political response added to the speech’s impact. In Quebec, the CBC reported the reactions of Premier François Legault as well as other provincial political and business figures reacting mostly favourably to the speech, despite Legault’s history of disagreement with Carney on other issues. Internationally, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly praised Carney’s remarks during her morning press conference, calling the speech “in tune with the current times,” according to multiple reports. The approval from Quebec and Mexico was widely read as politically notable by political commentators and foreign-policy analysts because it signaled support from actors positioned differently within North American diplomacy, at a time when Canada and Mexico both face uncertainty over the future tone and terms of their engagement with Washington.

The economic backdrop is central to why the “rupture” framing resonated. Canada remains deeply integrated in trade with the United States. The trilateral North American trade pact, USMCA, is approaching a major inflection point because its joint review on July 1, 2026 is a built-in decision point that can shape whether the agreement is reaffirmed or becomes a renewed target for renegotiation. This has significant implications given Canada’s heavy trade dependence on the US. The Center for Strategic and International Studies similarly emphasized that the review mechanism can become a political battleground because it creates a scheduled moment for the parties to debate renewal and concessions. In that context, CBS News reported that Carney’s message amounted to a call for middle powers to build a new order “less reliant on the United States,” while Policy Magazine explicitly framed the speech as Canada declaring “strategic autonomy” and warned that autonomy without leverage invites pressure. Both readings situate the address not as a diagnosis of global disorder, but as an argument for diversification and reduced vulnerability.

Taken together, the Davos address and the ensuing exchange with Trump positioned a long-running Canadian debate, to what extent should the country rely on the United States, as a more immediate policy question rather than an abstract geopolitical thought experiment. Carney’s argument, as presented in his WEF address and echoed in subsequent coverage, is that a middle power’s security and prosperity cannot rest on the assumption that the dominant partner will remain predictable, rule-bound, or non-coercive. With the USMCA review scheduled for July 2026, and public rhetoric hardening on both sides, the underlying question raised by the speech is increasingly practical: whether Canada’s approach should aim for a return to a familiar equilibrium or policy should be built around the expectation that the relationship will remain more volatile and openly transactional for the foreseeable future.

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On January 8, Iran went dark. Internet monitors recorded a near-total nationwide shutdown, an abrupt collapse in connectivity that has continued into its third week, with only minor flickers of traffic and tunneled VPN use. The blackout has become one of the state’s central tools for controlling what the world can see.

This matters because when visibility is restricted at this scale, the story of a crisis gets written differently. Facts travel slower, casualty claims get harder to verify, and the state gains time and space to shape the narrative before evidence can circulate.

The internet shutdown began as the protests that erupted in late December swelled into one of the most serious uprisings against Iran’s leadership in years. What started on December 28 as a movement where Iranians proclaimed their anger over soaring prices and the plunging currency quickly turned political. Since then, the country’s unrest has largely been communicated to the world through foreign media reporting and human rights organizations. Footage is rarely shared, and official statements often contradict independent accounts. In the gaps between those fragments lies the central question: what can we actually confirm about what’s happening in Iran right now?

From economic spark to political rupture

Multiple news outlets trace the protests’ spark to economic collapse. The devaluation of the rial and the rising prices of everyday goods has made daily life unsustainable for many households. Early demonstrations reportedly began with shop closures and street protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, then spread beyond the capital.

Following the 1979 Revolution, major protests have often risen initially as a frustration over a specific issue, before escalating into a nationwide movement. For example, the disputed 2009 presidential election and allegations of vote-rigging, rising fuel prices and economic hardship in 2019, and the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 all eventually developed into broader social demands over changes in governance, rights, and the legitimacy of the state. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have described the scale of this unrest as the largest nationwide protest wave since 2022, emphasizing that the ongoing blackout makes independent verification of events and casualty figures far harder than in a normal reporting environment. On January 8, as demonstrations intensified, Iran imposed the nationwide communications blackout, limiting external reporting ever since.

What’s happening on the ground, and why numbers are contested

Three things can be said with confidence based on the convergence of reporting by major news outlets and human rights organizations. Protests occurred across the country, the state responded with repression, and the scale of deaths and detention remains deeply disputed, partly because the blackout makes verification extremely difficult.

Reports describe mass arrests, limits on large gatherings, efforts by authorities to restrict documentation and shape what information can be shared, and accounts of families receiving little or no information about detained relatives. The Center for Human Rights in Iran has reported forced confessions, limits on legal representation, and concerns about an escalating risk of executions for detained protesters.

HRANA (Human Rights Activists in Iran) has also published rolling tallies of casualties. In its January 25 update (day 29 of protests), HRANA reported 5,848 confirmed deaths and 17,091 deaths “under investigation,” alongside 41,283 arrests*. Still, even these figures, and other independent counts, remain difficult to verify fully while the internet blackout limits documentation and outside reporting. This is exactly why the numbers are being contested: in a shutdown, the usual pathways for confirming casualties –– such as local journalists, hospitals, public records, open communication, and video verification –– either disappear or become dangerous to use. When evidence can’t move freely, the state gains an advantage not only in policing the streets, but in controlling what becomes provable. The result is a crisis where uncertainty isn’t just a byproduct of chaos; it becomes part of the landscape of power, because contested numbers delay accountability and leave room for official narratives to dominate.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, have framed the unrest as foreign-backed destabilization and have referred to demonstrators as “rioters,” alongside warnings about punishment and asset seizures. On January 21, Iranian state television issued the first official death toll from the protests, reporting that 3,117 people were killed, a figure widely described as “lower than activist and rights group counts.” In spite of independent estimates varying dramatically, UN-linked statements emphasize that the true toll could be far higher than what Iran’s authorities have publicly acknowledged. In an interview published on January 26, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, described the discrepancy between governmental and independent figures and warned there could be tens of thousands of victims, noting the blackout’s role in obscuring evidence and enabling coercion around casualty narratives. The UN’s broader human rights apparatus has also characterized the crackdown as potentially the deadliest since the 1979 Revolution and has stressed evidence collection for accountability.

The blackout as strategy, not symptom

Internet data strongly suggests the shutdown was deliberate: connectivity dropped sharply on January 8 and has remained severely restricted. But even a near-total blackout isn’t absolute. Starlink terminals, along with other smuggled satellite devices have offered a thin, uneven workaround for a small number of people, and recent reporting says SpaceX waived subscription fees for users in Iran while authorities attempted to jam signals and identity devices. This patchwork connection matters because it highlights what the blackout is designed to do: make communication scarce, risky, and unequal, so the flow of evidence becomes harder to sustain at scale. Thus, Starlink has become one of the main ways footage and testimony escape the blackout for those who can access it. At the same time, the satellite remains illegal inside Iran, and reports have described serious risks for anyone caught using it.

The practical effects are immediate. Protest coordination becomes harder. Independent journalism becomes close to impossible. Evidence of abuses becomes harder to share. Families struggle to locate detained relatives. And international pressure, often fueled by images and documentation, becomes easier for the state to dismiss as misinformation.

How we know what we know in a blackout

In a normal “breaking-news” environment, a reporter might determine casualties through hospital access, local journalists, mobile footage, official records, and on-the-ground observation. In Iran right now, the blackout collapses that system.

As a result, the strongest verification tends to come from three overlapping streams. The first is internet and network monitoring, which can confirm the blackout itself and shifts in connectivity. The second is human rights documentation, such as Amnesty International, UN bodies, and human rights organizations, which tracks arrests, patterns of abuse, and testimonies, often with careful caveats. The third is major international reporting that can corroborate events across multiple independent channels and, sometimes, verify footage through fthe orensic methods.

Social media also matters here. TikTok, Instagram, X, and Telegram channels become important, as these spaces showcase on-the-ground evidence firsthand. However, in a blackout, social media also becomes a space where misinformation spreads the fastest. Old videos recirculate, locations are mislabeled, and timelines blur. Therefore, the responsible approach when engaging with the movement digitally is to tentatively treat most viral posts as leads, until verified by multiple outlets or corroborated by human rights monitors.

What happens next

Making predictions about the future of Iran can be risky in a situation this volatile, but a few short-term scenarios appear plausible. Sustained repression and tighter surveillance could push dissent into quieter forms, including work stoppages and strikes, short-lived flash gatherings, nighttime rooftop chanting, or symbolic acts like public memorials and slogans, which are harder to police at scale. Renewed protest surges are also possible if economic shocks intensify, especially if the public feels the state response has not addressed underlying grievances.

An escalation of pressure from the international arena is another potential risk. Tariff threats, sanction enforcement, and military posturing could harden Iran’s stance and reinforce the state’s claims that unrest is foreign-driven, while also worsening economic pressure on ordinary people. At the same time, international accountability mechanisms may expand. The UN Human Rights Council’s renewed fact-finding mandate signals a growing effort to preserve evidence, even if immediate enforcement remains limited.

International accountability often begins with documentation. Fact-finding mandates can preserve testimony and evidence and map patterns of abuse, which can later feed into targeted sanctions, domestic prosecutions under universal jurisdiction in some countries, or broader transnational justice processes if political conditions change. Immediate enforcement may be limited, but the record matters.

The central truth at this moment

Iran’s protests and crackdown is not just a political crisis, it is also a crisis of visibility. When a country of over 80 million people can be pushed into near-total digital isolation for weeks, the struggle becomes not only over streets and prisons, but over what can be proven, what can be denied, and who controls the story.

That is why the blackout matters as much as the protests themselves. It shapes what the world knows, when it finds out and how easily footage of abuse can be erased –– if it can be documented at all.

*According to news outlet Iran International, deaths have surpassed 36,500 –– making this the deadliest waves of protests in Iran’s modern history.

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City officials framed the budget as both “rigorous and responsible,” arguing that it was prepared in an “uncertain economic situation” and amid concern about a “possible recession.” Martinez Ferrada has said the administration is aiming to keep tax increases in line with inflation while also emphasizing debt management as a central objective. Under the plan, the city administration says it intends to bring its net-debt-to- revenue ratio back to 100 per cent by the end of 2026, an objective it is tying to the cost of servicing debt and the need to finance long-term infrastructure work laid out in the city’s ten- year capital plan.

Municipal documents also stress that council is limiting the tax burden increase “under its control” to 3.4 per cent for both residential and non-residential properties, a distinction the city uses to separate the central administration’s decisions from borough-level components affecting the final bill. The budget’s capital plan is presented as heavily maintenance- oriented. According to the city’s summary, 67.7 per cent of planned investments over 2026 to 2035 are directed toward protecting existing assets, while 32.3 per cent is allocated toward development. The largest investment envelopes by 2035 are projected to be environment and underground infrastructure, at $8.0 billion, and road infrastructure, at $6.7 billion; figures the administration cites to justify the scale of upkeep and renewal required for aging systems.

Homelessness and housing emerge as the most prominent social commitments in the budget’s early reception, with the administration repeatedly signalling their high priority status. The plan sets aside $29.9 million in 2026 to support community organizations working with people experiencing homelessness and initiatives meant to manage “cohabitation” in public spaces. It also includes a longer-term objective of investing $100 million by 2035 to acquire and renovate buildings intended for emergency shelter spaces. Reported comparisons to previous budgets have framed the 2026 homelessness allocation with a marked increase from earlier years, underscoring a shift toward higher recurring spending in this area.

Housing policy is tied closely to that homelessness strategy. Over the ten-year horizon, the city is committing $578.7 million to acquire buildings for social and affordable housing, including $100 million linked directly to homelessness-related housing needs. The administration is also signalling a change in how it intends to push new housing supply. Rather than maintaining the existing ‘20-20-20’ framework for large developments, requiring equal shares of social, affordable, and family housing or a fine, the city has indicated it wants to move toward ‘financial incentives’ and closer partnerships with developers, non-profits, and private builders. Alongside those broader shifts, the budget includes smaller, targeted measures connected to the rental market, including multi-year funding for tenant-rights organizations and an expansion of preventive building inspections that the city says will reach 1,600 buildings in 2026.

Public safety and emergency services are also highlighted as major budget areas, both because of their size in the operating budget and because of the policy debates they tend to provoke. Public safety is presented as the largest share of expenses at 17.9 per cent. The plan includes funding for police body cameras, expanded use of public-space cameras, and increased spending framedasprevention,particularly youth violence prevention and safety measures around school zones. The budget earmarks $15.8 million in 2026 for reducing youth violence and $17.4 million for securing routes around schools. Furthermore, it sets out a longer- term $40-million, ten-year plan connected to body cameras.

Alongside new spending, the administration has emphasized restraint measures and trade- offs. The city has pointed to $79 million in identified savings, largely framed as the result of reviewing municipal programs, and has indicated that hiring will be frozen in parts of the public service. At the same time, the budget is presented against a background of significant debt servicing costs, with 16.6 per cent of the 2026 budget, about $1.27 billion, allocated toward it. Reported examples of the budget’s constraints include some delayed or reduced projects, such as infrastructure work pushed to later years and a reduction in funding for certain mobility-related services.

The budget has drawn conflicting interpretations among political opponents and stakeholders. The official opposition has criticized the proposal as lacking long-term vision and argued that it “smells like austerity,” disputing the administration’s narrative that it represents a fresh start for the city. Other institutional voices have welcomed the emphasis on “rigour,” particularly the effort to document recurring savings and manage limited fiscal room. In statements responding to the tabling, business groups have also pointed to structural pressures, such as a municipal wage bill nearing $3 billion and upcoming collective bargaining, as ongoing drivers of costs that will shape the city’s ability to expand services without further tax increases.

For residents, including students who largely rent and depend on public transit, the immediate effects of the municipal budget will not necessarily be direct. However, the broader pressures it reflects will be closely connected to everyday affordability. The proposed budget underscores a central tension for Montreal’s finances: large portions of the city’s fiscal capacity are absorbed by maintaining and renewing aging infrastructure, even as the operating plan commits new money to urgent social needs such as homelessness and housing.

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More than just a leadership shuffle, Legault’s departure is widely being read as a referendum on the CAQ’s governing project: a blend of Quebec nationalism, French- language protectionism, and secularism. It also reflects scrutiny of the CAQ’s self-styled “managerial” approach; an emphasis on governing like a results-driven administration, foregrounding efficiency, measurable outcomes, and the promise of practical reforms over ideology. That brand has been tested in recent years by high- profile scandals and contentious policy changes, as parties now reposition on issues that have repeatedly become political flashpoints in Montreal, including tuition policy for out- of-province students and French- language requirements affecting English-language universities.

What happens now?

Next comes a CAQ leadership race that will choose the party’s next leader and Quebec’s next premier. In the days following Legault’s announcement, multiple senior figures signalled interest or faced public encouragement: the Minister of Economy, Christine Fréchette, said she is considering running. Finance Minister Eric Girard said he was interested, but that it was too early to say whether he would enter the race. Several CAQ Members of the National Assembly urged Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette to enter the race. While the CAQ runs its leadership selection process, the Legault government will continue to govern during an interim transition period, with Legault remaining premier until a successor is chosen.

Although the general election is scheduled for October 5, Quebec’s premier can still ask the lieutenant governor to dissolve the National Assembly earlier, meaning an early election remains legally possible even under a fixed-date system. The practical effect is a compressed timeline: the next CAQ leader may have months, not years, to define a new agenda and defend it in a province already in campaign posture.

Legault’s premiership: the “manager nationalist” era

Legault’s tenure has been characterized by political scientists as a form of “autonomist and managerial nationalism.” As former Parti Québéquois (PQ) minister and founder of the CAQ, Legault led a party that broke the longstanding legacy of Liberal–PQ. It presented itself as a pragmatic, autonomy-first alternative, promising competence and stability while advancing an assertive agenda on identity and state authority. Over the course of two majority mandates, his government repeatedly returned to defining policy areas: secularism in public institutions, French-language protection, and a harder line on immigration and integration, alongside high- stakes reforms that later became political liabilities, including identity legislation (such as Bill 21 and Bill 96) and major initiatives in public services.

Secularism as a defining, and polarizing, policy area

One of the CAQ’s signature policies is Bill 21, adopted in 2019 as Quebec’s secularism law. The law restricts the wearing of religious symbols for certain state employees in positions of authority while on the job; symbols often cited in public debate include the hijab, turban, and yarmulke/ kippah. This has remained a persistent fault line between the government’s claim to be defending state neutrality and critics’ arguments that it infringes religious freedom and disproportionately affects religious minorities, who are legally protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bill 21 has been especially contentious in Montreal, home to many of Quebec’s most diverse neighbourhoods and institutions, shaping debates about who belongs in the public sphere and what neutrality means in practice. The policy’s legal future is still unsettled at the national level: the Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to hear the constitutional challenge, setting up a major test of both the law itself and Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause.

French-language protection as a central project

If Bill 21 defined the CAQ’s secularism agenda, Bill 96 became its defining language policy. The legislation, assented to on June 1, 2022, overhauled Quebec’s language regime by affirming French as the province’s only official and “common” language, and by amending the Charter of the French language across multiple sectors. Supporters argue Bill 96 is necessary to protect the French language amid demographic and cultural changes. Critics, particularly in Montreal’s bilingual institutional ecosystem, have warned it can restrict language rights and add barriers for anglophones, allophones, students navigating education, and government services.

Bill 96 also reinforced a pattern in the CAQ’s broader approach to governing: the idea that protecting Quebec’s identity and social cohesion require stronger state intervention. This approach plays well in parts of the province, but can land as punitive or exclusionary in Montreal, where bilingual workplaces and institutions are common and where debates about language often overlap with questions of economic strategy and the ability to attract students, researchers, and skilled workers.

“Competence” tested by scandals and public-service conflict

While identity legislation anchored Legault’s political brand, a series of controversies eroded his “steady manager” image. A central example is what has been dubbed the SAAQclic ‘fiasco.’ At a public inquiry, Quebec’s interim auditor general Alain Fortin testified that budget overruns could bring the total for the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ)’s digital transformation project (SAAQclic) to about $1.1 billion CAD by 2027, nearly $500 million more than planned.

Healthcare became another front of political turmoil. Bill 2, adopted in late 2025, tied part of physicians’ compensation to performance targets, which sparked backlash from doctors who argued that the policy shifts the responsibility of access problems onto a strained workforce. The bill became so politically controversial that the government later signalled its openness to amendments while insisting some pay remain linked to patient-service targets.

Why resign now? Converging pressure in an election countdown

Legault framed his resignation as an acknowledgment that voters want change, but reporting around the announcement pointed to deeper turbulence: sustained low polling, internal strain, and a series of controversies that kept the government on the defensive heading into an election year. In an Associated Press interview, political analyst and McGill professor Daniel Béland said Legault is “the least popular premier in the country right now,” attributing this to his unpopular policies and missteps in communication.

The timing of Legault’s resignation effectively allows for a strategic gamble. A new leader can argue that the CAQ is turning the page, but the leader will also inherit the party’s most divisive policies, with little leeway to rebuild trust before voters head to the ballot box.

McGill and English universities: why a leadership change matters in Montreal

For McGill and Montreal’s other English-language universities, Legault’s resignation follows a policy debate that has become a proxy battle over Quebec’s identity, demographics, and economic strategy. In October 2023, the CAQ government proposed a raise in tuition for out-of-province Canadian students and imposed a French-language requirement. These changes sparked immediate pushback from English universities, student groups, and Montreal citizens.

In April 2025, Quebec Superior Court Justice Éric Dufour struck down key elements of the framework, ruling parts of the plan, including the French proficiency requirement, unreasonable and invalid and ordered the government to revise its regulations within a set timeline. The case sharpened a broader question that now hangs over the CAQ’s succession: whether Montreal’s universities will continue to be used as an election-season wedge, or whether a new premier will recalibrate the government’s approach to protect the French language while maintaining Montreal’s competitiveness in research and higher education.

The stakes are practical as well as symbolic: recruitment, retention, tuition revenue, program planning, and the city’s ability to position itself as an international destination without policy volatilities that discourage students and faculty. With Quebec’s campaign season beginning early, Montreal and post-secondary institutions like McGill are likely to remain the central terrain in the province’s fight over what “change” should mean after Legault.

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Behind the scenes, this reaction is not hard to understand. For years, many Venezuelans abroad have described exile as a permanent state of suspended life: careers restarted, families split, and a homeland that feels simultaneously intimate and unreachable. When Maduro was captured, the celebration was not simply political; it was cathartic, an assertion that impunity for alleged state repression and serious human rights abuses is not inevitable.

However, almost immediately, the story was filtered through the attention economy: a flood of posts, some genuine and some fabricated, competed to frame the event in various ways. Some claim it was liberation and long-delayed accountability, many said it was an illegal ‘kidnapping’ and sovereignty violation, others called it a security-and-drug operation. A few posts even layered on oil-motive claims and conspiracy narratives that muddied verification. By January 5, major media outlets and fact-checkers were reporting on and debunking AI- generated images and repurposed videos which falsely presented Maduro in custody or crowds celebrating in Caracas. In other words, both the jubilation and the backlash were real and so was the manipulation of each across platforms online.

Courtroom images, diplomatic backlash, and the legality problem

On January 5, Maduro and Flores appeared in a Manhattan federal court and pleaded not guilty to charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy and weapons counts involving machine guns and destructive devices. Yet, Maduro called the US operation a “kidnapping.” By the time courtroom photos of the two circulated, opinions about the legitimacy and legality of the US intervention had already solidified. The same day, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting in which Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Russia, and China condemned the operation as a breach of sovereignty which set a dangerous precedent.

What makes this event so controversial is that it sits at the intersection of two opposing narratives. The first perspective on Maduro’s capture has underlying moral and emotional justifications because the removal of a leader accused of repression may appear just. On the other hand, the legal and structural complications of Maduro’s capture blurs the boundaries between arrest and war. This view questions the legality of a powerful state seizing a president in a foreign country and reframing the use of force as “law enforcement.”

On January 4, 2026, Chatham House argued that the capture and attacks had “no justification in international law,” emphasizing that the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force is not optional. On January 6, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that the world is “less safe” when such interventions occur and stressed that Venezuela’s future must be determined by Venezuelans.

National governments echoed that same concern. On January 3, China’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply shocked” and “strongly” condemned the strikes and Maduro’s capture as a blatant use of force against a sovereign state. On January 6, Mexico’s president denounced the intervention as undermining democracy and stability in Latin America. On the same day, Russia backed Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s interim leader and denounced what it described as neocolonial threats against Venezuela. None of those statements however seem to have been made in sympathy for Maduro. Instead, they reflect something more complex: a fear of past events.

Why Iraq still matters: a dictator’s fall is the easy part

The argument most often deployed to dismiss these concerns is simple; Maduro is viewed as a dictator, so the means of removing him are treated as less important than the result.

Iraq is a cautionary example of how quickly “liberation” framed by external powers can curdle into a long and violent aftermath. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq under the suspicion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those claims later unraveled: in October 2004, media reports summarized the Iraq Survey Group’s conclusion that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Despite many Iraqis’ welcoming Saddam’s fall, that initial relief did not prevent the rapid unraveling of the Iraqi state. In the first months of the occupation, the Coalition Provisional Authority’s de-Ba’athification policy and decision to dissolve the Iraqi army stripped ministries and security forces of their institutional capacity, left large numbers of armed men unemployed, and helped fuel a growing insurgency and sectarian violence. Over the following decade, that instability and weakened governance contributed to fragmentation, including conditions that enabled al-Qaeda in Iraq and later allowed for ISIS to gain ground.

By December 31, 2011, the Iraq Body Count documented 120,108 civilian deaths from violence since the 2003 invasion, a verifiable minimum that includes killings attributed to multiple actors, not only US forces. Iraq Body Count reports that 15,163 (13 per cent) of those documented civilian deaths were directly caused by the US-led coalition.

The political economy of war also matters here. On August 12, 2008, the US Congressional Budget Office wrote that contractors played a “substantial role” in supporting US military, reconstruction, and diplomatic operations in Iraq. That reliance is not a side detail: it shows how quickly a war can become an outsourced project, where major decisions about security, logistics, and rebuilding are filtered through contracts- arrangements that can dilute accountability and shape priorities in ways that don’t reliably align with democratic stabilization.

The takeaway is not that Venezuela will become Iraq, but that forcefully removing a regime is often the simplest phase in regime change, and that the incentives shaping what comes next, including money, contracts, security partnerships, and resource access, do not reliably align with nation-building or democracy. This is why diasporic Venezuelan rejoicing and international alarm can both be rational responses to the same event: celebration can be sincere and anxiety can have logical roots.

Venezuela’s oil is structural, not incidental

Any analysis of what comes next also has to contend with the central material stake in Venezuela’s crisis: oil. Venezuela is an oil superpower on paper, despite years of declining production. The US Energy Information Administration estimates Venezuela holds about 303 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, the largest in the world. That reality shapes both external interest, internal vulnerability, and the rhetoric surrounding the intervention. In the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture, multiple news accounts emphasized that US officials were already discussing Venezuela’s oil future and that global markets were watching whether Venezuelan heavy crude could flow again toward Gulf Coast refineries. By January 15, the Trump administration had also escalated its sanctions enforcement at sea, with US forces seizing another Venezuela-linked tanker in the Caribbean. Separately, Chevron was reported to be in talks with US officials about expanding its Venezuela operating license to increase crude exports.

Even during the celebrations of Maduro’s capture, some coverage noted an undercurrent of unease about what comes next, especially after Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela temporarily until what he called a “safe” transition could be arranged. This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s how geopolitics works when a country sits atop a resource that powers modern economies. The fear is not simply that the United States removed Maduro. It is that the post- Maduro state will be shaped around oil extraction before Venezuelan civil society can rebuild democratic legitimacy on its own terms.

The worry is not about Maduro, it’s about what follows

By January 6, Venezuela had entered a volatile political transition: Maduro in US custody, Delcy Rodríguez sworn in as interim leader, and an international environment split between celebration among Venezuelans abroad and diplomatic condemnation. On January 14, Trump and Rodríguez each described a phone call as “positive,” underscoring how quickly the US shifted from military action to direct engagement with Caracas. Symbolic gestures quickly became part of official politics. On January 15, opposition leader María Corina Machado presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal during a White House meeting: an attention- grabbing gesture that drew praise from some anti-Maduro supporters, backlash from critics, and a reminder from Nobel officials that the prize itself cannot be transferred. In the days that followed, Rodríguez’s government announced the release of political detainees. These moves were welcomed by Washington but disputed by NGOs, which said the verified number lagged behind official claims. The information ecosystem is already polluted with AI-generated “proof,” making it easier for every side to claim inevitability and harder for the public to judge the legitimacy of the transition.

The central question, then, is not whether Venezuelans are justified in celebrating. Many are, and those emotions should not be dismissed. The question is whether the world is watching the beginning of a democratic transition, or the start of a familiar cycle: dramatic removal, legal controversy, and a battle to control the story, all of which shapes how legitimacy of the transition is granted or withheld.

History suggests that the most consequential phase is rarely the capture. It is the months after the capture, when power is redistributed, violence is either contained or unleashed, and “rebuilding” becomes either a civic project or a contract economy. If unilateral intervention can be normalized by framing it as “policing,” Venezuela will not be an exception, it will be a precedent that other states invoke the next time they decide to cross a border in the name of enforcement.

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For  students  across  Montreal, including  at  McGill, Concordia, UQAM, and Université de Montréal, the surge is tangible: it’s showing up as empty lecture seats, missed shifts, and an illness that’s lingering longer than many expect.

“I’ve lived in Montreal my whole life, so I usually don’t get sick much,” said a McGill student interviewed on January 8, her first day back at school. “But I caught the flu that’s been going around and it left me bedridden for over two weeks. Even talking right now hurts my throat. I’m only starting to feel  normal again — a pretty awful way to spend New Year’s.”

Clinicians  have  described  this season’s rise as unusually sharp. In a Canadian  Press  report,  infectious disease physician Donald Vinh from McGill University Health Center (MUHC) said emergency rooms are “bursting at the seams” as the province grapples with a combination of the flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). He called influenza the “main culprit,” describing  an epidemiological curve that is “downright scary” and rising at a rate that is “almost vertical.”

Quebec’s own surveillance data backs up the sense of intensity. According to the Institute National de Sante Publique Quebec’s (INSPQ) weekly respiratory virus reporting, influenza A detections and test positivity climbed to very high levels in late-December and early-January period. In the week ending January 3, Quebec reported 6,231 influenza A positive tests, and Montreal’s influenza A test positivity was 27.43 per cent. The week prior (ending December 27, 2025) was higher still, with Montreal at 34.31 per cent positivity.

For comparison, in the final week of December 2024, Quebec’s overall influenza test positivity was 8.4 per cent (835 positives out of 10,889 tests). In the final week of December 2025 (Dec 21-27), that figure jumped to 38.3 per cent (6,525 positives out of 17,092 tests), more than 4 times higher than in 2024.

The downstream effect is visible in emergency departments. In the same CBC report on Urgences-santé’s record day, Quebec-wide ER stretcher occupancy was cited at 128 per cent, with Montreal at 135 per cent. At the Centre hospitalier de l’Université  de  Montréal (CHUM), CityNews reported the emergency room was “packed” with 159 patients, and patients on stretchers  were  waiting  an average of nearly 17 hours. These kinds of delays and overcrowded triage areas become harder to manage when large numbers of patients  arrive  with  fever, dehydration, breathing difficulty, or complications that require monitoring.

Public health experts often caution against drawing big conclusions from anecdotes alone. Still, the collision of factors this winter helps explain why so many Montrealers describe the season as unusually disruptive. Influenza activity has been high at the same moment people have been spending more time indoors, over the holidays and through winter weather, before returning to shared spaces like classrooms, offices, gyms, and public transit. At the same time, clinicians have pointed to a broader  mix of respiratory viruses circulating alongside the flu, which adds pressure to urgent  care  and  emergency medicine. And because hospitals are already operating near or above capacity, surges don’t have to be unprecedented to create bottlenecks; they simply have to be sustained. Put simply: even if many influenza cases can be managed at home, a small increase in severe cases, layered onto an already-strained system, can push hospitals past capacity.

Universities are built for close contact: packed lecture halls, shared libraries, group projects, residence  floors,  and  winter commutes. That implication matters when influenza is already widespread in the city.

McGill has previously hosted flu vaccination  access  points  on campus. A November 12, 2025 flu-vaccine clinic run through the Ingram School of Nursing and the Student Wellness Hub administered 112 flu shots in a single day, with organizers describing the goal as making vaccination easy for students and staff.

However, the vaccination clinics in November didn’t fully answer the question  students are  asking  in  January:  what protections  exist  once  people are back in the same rooms, day after day?

Students interviewed on campus said they’re less focused on sweeping mandates and more about   concrete, low-friction options, clear guidance about staying home when feverish, readily available masks in clinical spaces, and easy routes to vaccination and advice.

With emergency services already strained, physicians and public health agencies have emphasized  steps  that  reduce both transmission  and unnecessary hospital visits. One is vaccination: in Montreal, public health authorities state that the flu vaccine is free for anyone aged six months and older who requests it. Another is triage: Quebec health messaging during this surge has encouraged people to call Info-Santé 811 for guidance when symptoms are concerning but not clearly life-threatening, reserving emergency departments for severe cases.

Clinicians  also  continue  to recommend straightforward harm reduction: staying home when sick, masking when symptomatic in crowded indoor spaces, and basic hygiene.  None of these eliminate risk, but in aggregate they can slow spread, and in a season defined by capacity limits, slowing spread can translate into fewer crises.

This winter’s crunch is also landing in a healthcare landscape shaped by earlier tensions. In the fall, Quebec medical students mounted strike action over training conditions and the future of access, with reporting noting fears that policy direction and working conditions could worsen physician availability. Influenza didn’t cause those structural issues, but it exposes them. When stretchers are already full and staff are already stretched, the margin for absorbing a predictable winter surge becomes thin.

For  students  returning  to campus, that reality raises a blunt question: in a city where ERs are routinely over capacity, what does “normal winter sickness” look like now? And for those currently sick, the  answer  is  immediate  and personal: a virus can be ordinary, and still knock you flat.

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For many undergraduates approaching the end of their degrees, the question of graduate, medical, or law school has shifted from a personal consideration into a shared social expectation. It surfaces in casual conversations, family check-ins, and the quiet comparisons students make while watching peers announce acceptances, internships, or job offers. “What’s next?” is often asked with harmless curiosity, but it can land like an evaluation — one that assumes a good student should already have a clear answer. 

That expectation is partly rooted in reality: further education is common, and it is often associated with increased opportunity. Statistics Canada’s National Graduates Survey (Class of 2015) reports that 40 per cent of graduates pursued further post-secondary education after graduation. When a large number of your peers choose to keep studying, it becomes easy for graduate school to feel less like one option among many and more like the default route for anyone trying to stay competitive. 

At the same time, the financial stakes of continuing on are harder to ignore than they used to be. The same Statistics Canada infographic notes that among graduates who did not pursue further education, half had student debt at graduation, with an average debt of $24,000. When debt is already present, committing to additional years of tuition, fees, and living expenses can feel like stepping deeper into a seemingly endless financial tunnel. 

McGill’s own tuition information reflects that rising- cost context, stating that Quebec’s basic tuition rate for 2025–26 is expected to increase by up to three per cent in the following school year. Even if the exact figures vary by residency and program, the trend is clear: education is becoming more expensive, and living costs are rising alongside it. For students who are already stretching budgets, or whose families cannot subsidize extra schooling, graduate studies may be a long- term investment that feels financially out of reach. 

Even for students who can afford further schooling, the modern case for graduate school isn’t simply that more education equals more success. The value of an additional degree depends on each student’s circumstances, including the program, the field, and the funding available. Graduate degrees are not universally well-funded, and the opportunity cost can be substantial: years of tuition and living expenses, years spent away from full-time earnings, and, in some cases, time spent in precarious roles that do not guarantee stable employment afterward. Even in fields where a graduate degree improves long-term prospects, the payoff can be uneven, delayed, and closely tied to factors outside a student’s control. 

Still, for many students, the appeal of graduate school goes beyond prestige. Graduate programs can offer structured training, specialized expertise, mentorship, and access to professions that are closed without advanced credentials. Employment outcomes can also look reassuring in the aggregate: the same Statistics Canada snapshot reports employment rates a few years after graduation of 91 per cent for bachelor’s graduates and 94 per cent for master’s graduates. For students in fields where advanced credentials are essential, the benefits can be concrete rather than symbolic. 

There is also the emotional reality of graduate school, which often gets smoothed over in the glossy version of “the next step.” Graduate training can be deeply rewarding, but it can also be isolating, competitive, and mentally exhausting. A recent Nature feature revisits the longstanding concern about graduate mental health, pointing to research suggesting master’s and PhD students have reported anxiety and depression at higher rates than comparison groups. That does not mean graduate school is inherently harmful, but it does complicate the idea that it is always the safer or healthier option for an uncertain student after college. 

If graduate school is not automatically the solution to uncertainty about what comes after graduation, why does it so often function like one? Part of the answer is cultural: in many academic environments, having a plan is treated as a marker of responsibility and maturity, while uncertainty is seen as a flaw. Students who apply to professional programs are praised for being “driven,” while students who want time to work, rest, or explore may be suggested to explain themselves. The result is a sense of superiority attached to certain post-grad paths, where the most concrete plans, the ones that fit neatly into a title, are treated as more serious than others.

Another part of the answer is fear: not necessarily of work itself, but of making the “wrong” first move. When advice from parents, peers, and even instructors boils down to “just get a job”, graduate school can look like a structured alternative with a clear timeline and a recognizable label. For some students, that structure is genuinely helpful. For others, it becomes a way to postpone uncertainty, an expensive pause button disguised as productivity. 

Adding to that uncertainty is a job market that feels less predictable for graduates regardless of whether they pursue further education, especially as AI reshapes how “entry-level” work functions. Some of the first tasks to be automated or accelerated by AI have been the very tasks that used to help new graduates get a foothold: drafting, summarizing, basic analysis, research support, administrative work, and early- stage content production. The World Economic Forum has highlighted concerns that AI could narrow entry-level opportunities by changing what employers need from junior hires and by shifting which skills are prioritized. The International Labour Organization’s 2025 update similarly stresses that one in four workers globally are in occupations with some degree of exposure to generative AI, and that most jobs are likely to be transformed rather than eliminated outright. In practice, that means graduates may face a moving target: credentials matter, but adaptability increasingly matters too, and even “safe” career tracks can change shape faster than students can plan around. 

The pressure around planning is also not evenly distributed. Students with financial cushioning can treat graduate school as an exploratory option, a chance to pivot or specialize without catastrophic consequences while those without that cushioning have to treat it as a high-stakes bet. International students face an additional layer of unpredictability, as education decisions are tangled with policy shifts, paperwork, and changing requirements. Canada’s study permit cap and the related provincial and/or territorial attestation process has added another moving piece to an already high-stakes decision, increasing uncertainty for many prospective students about timing and eligibility. Even when policy discussions are framed around system capacity, students can be left feeling that long-term plans are increasingly subject to forces outside their control. 

This is where the debate becomes bigger than individual preference. The question is not only whether graduate school is “worth it,” but also whether it is reasonable to expect every graduating student to have a fixed post-graduate plan in a world where costs are rising, pathways are less linear, and external conditions can reshape possibilities quickly. When certainty is demanded in unstable conditions, students may feel pressured to project it: applying to programs they feel lukewarm about, presenting tentative decisions as final, and keeping their uncertainty private. A more realistic culture would hold space for different timelines and alternate definitions of success, without treating one route as inherently more legitimate than others. 

With that in mind, graduating students should be encouraged to think ahead. The real issue is the tone of that encouragement: whether it sounds like support or surveillance. “What’s next?” can be an invitation to reflect instead of a demand to prove one’s worth. When the conversation becomes a test, it encourages fear-based decisions. But when it stays as an unbiased check-in, it helps students make choices based on best fit, resources, and their long- term well-being. 

Graduate school should remain one option among many, neither a default badge of ambition nor a cautionary tale. The most honest approach is also the most human: recognizing that planning is a process, that uncertainty can be daunting, and that a life after college does not have to follow one approved script to be legitimate.

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When the Syndicat du transport de Montréal (STM) workers went on strike earlier this fall from September 22 to October 5, students and faculty across Montreal were left scrambling. Many adjusted their schedules, carpooled, or resorted to costly rideshares just to make it to class or work. Now, with a second, longer strike running from November 1 to November 28, frustration and confusion is mounting.

The STM is demanding improved working conditions, job security, and fairer compensation in the face of budget constraints and increasing service demands. Negotiations with the syndicate’s management have repeatedly stalled, leading to this extended strike action. For the union, walking out again isn’t a rash decision, it’s a last resort after weeks of unsuccessful talks and what many describe as “stagnant” offers from STM leadership.

In response, Quebec’s Labour Minister Jean Boulet appointed a new mediation team, expressing hope it would have a “positive impact” on negotiations. Former Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante likewise urged both STM and the union to “work together in good faith” to resolve the impasse. Yet, despite these interventions, progress remains limited, with un. ion leaders arguing that government gestures do little to address fundamental issues like pay scales and scheduling.

In parallel, the labour tribunal is now being asked to rule on what level of “essential services” the STM must maintain, and the province is preparing legislation aimed at curbing strike tactics in public transit.

However, from a commuter’s perspective, the situation feels dire. Buses and metros are the city’s lifeline, and the impact of service disruptions ripples across college and university campuses. Students relying solely on public transit are facing academic and financial strain, especially those living far from their institutions.

The strike escalation continues: on November 1, STM bus drivers and metro operators halted service entirely for a day, marking a full shutdown of Montreal’s public transit system. The union had also announced plans for additional walkouts on Nov. 15 and 16 if no deal is reached. As the city braces for another complete stoppage, Montreal business owners worry the ongoing STM strike could hurt sales, as fewer customers and employees are able to travel easily to shops and workplaces.

Among students, opinions are split. Some see the strike as necessary labor action, recognizing that transit workers keep Montreal moving and deserve fair treatment as well as safe, sustainable conditions: “If the workers aren’t being heard, this is the only way to make STM listen,” one Concordia student said to the Daily.

Others, however, express growing resentment. To them, the repeated strikes feel like collective punishment: “I get why they’re striking, but it’s really hard not to be angry when I’m late to midterms because there’s no bus,” said a McGill student.

This tension raises a deeper question: who’s to blame? The union, for pushing too hard? Or STM management, for failing to meet basic demands? Many students from universities in downtown Montreal admit they’re unclear about what exactly led to the breakdown in talks, highlighting a broader communication gap between transit officials, the union, and the public.

I’s tempting to frame the strike as a simple “workers versus commuters” issue, but that misses the point. If transit employees are underpaid, overworked, and under- supported, the long-term consequences could be far worse than a few weeks of delays. A demoralized workforce means unreliable service year-round.

Until both sides find common ground, Montrealers, particularly students, will continue to bear the cost of stalled negotiations. With a full shutdown looming and students already facing disrupted schedules, the stakes could hardly be higher. The question now is how many more strikes it will take before STM leadership finally gets the message.

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Hosted at MEM: Centre des mémoires montréalaises from October 21, 2025 to March 15, 2026, the exhibition revisits the neighbourhood where the city’s sex workers’ rights movement began and chronicles how sex-worker activism emerged in the early 1990s, taking root in the Centre-Sud amid the AIDS crisis, police repression, and shifting feminist politics. Through archival materials, interviews, community artwork, and deeply personal objects, the exhibition examines how sex workers have historically occupied Montreal’s urban spaces, resisted criminalization, advocated for safer working conditions, and carved out spaces of solidarity in a city that often renders them invisible.

A movement built on persistence

One of the exhibition’s most powerful through-lines is the sheer longevity of Stella’s activism. As Stella’s longtime mobilization and communications coordinator Jenn Clamen notes, marking a 30-year anniversary for sex worker resistance is inherently remarkable. “It is no small feat for a sex worker rights organization to be standing, and standing strong, 30 years later,” she writes. “The sheer amount of hatred, repression, and structural violence from anti-sex work groups, police, and institutions who turn sex workers away has not changed over the centuries, but has taken different forms… Sex workers have been leading the way for everyone’s human rights for decades.”

Over her 23 years with the organization, Clamen has witnessed sex-worker activism extend far beyond outreach work: from collaborating with anti-AIDS groups on safe-sex videos to advocating for incarcerated women, many of whom had done sex work at some point in their lives. Stella’s solidarity, she emphasizes, is not exclusive; this struggle against stigma, criminalization, and policing is shared across communities.

Humanizing the everyday

One of the exhibition’s most impactful sections grapples with a long-standing dilemma: how to tell a collective story in a culture obsessed with the individual, particularly when it comes to sex work. Curators approached sex workers directly, asking them to contribute personal belongings from both their working and private lives.

One object stands out: a Versace perfume box, first given to a transgender sex worker (kept anonymous for safety) by a client. She later used that same box to store all the money she earned; money that later paid for her first gender-reaffirming surgery. She would continue to repurpose it,
placing inside the empty bottles of estrogen she used during her transition. Therein, the box, worn and delicate, contains an entire life-story in miniature: labour, identity, and survival.

The exhibition finds its emotional depth in objects like these, which are humble and unadorned, yet deeply cherished. They demystify sex work not through spectacle, but through the mundane. As Clamen explains, people often come wanting to know “who the sex worker is,” expecting sensationalism. Instead, visitors encounter everyday items: perfume boxes, clothing, makeup bags, handwritten notes. These items challenge assumptions while revealing the layered realities of those who do this work.

Challenging the narratives we inherit

One of the show’s clearest messages is that sex workers have always been part of Montreal’s cultural fabric. Yet, criminalization and stigma continue to shape almost every aspect of their lives such as housing, banking, parenting, border-crossing, and safety.

The exhibition insists on reframing sex workers’ rights not as exceptional demands but as basic human rights. When visitors see sex workers’ personal belongings arranged not as spectacle but as evidence of ordinary life, the politics becomes personal, and vice-versa. It becomes easier to understand why sex worker justice cannot be siloed from broader struggles against policing, misogyny, transphobia, and systematic inequality.

What stays with you

What affected me the most in the exhibition was precisely this tension: the quiet, grounded humanity of the displays juxtaposed against the scale of the structural violence they represent. Standing before a simple perfume box or a handwritten note, one feels how much of this history has been lived in private, out of necessity, out of fear, out of self-protection. Thus, visitors are asked to sit with the discomfort of their own assumptions, reconsidering harmful narratives surrounding sex work, labour, and community resilience. Moreover, visitors also engage with Montreal’s collective memory, recognizing the inextricable ties between sex worker activism and other feminist, queer, migrant justice, and prison abolition movements in the city.

A living archive

Ultimately, “By and For” functions as a living archive built by sex workers themselves, undiluted by
institutions that have historically erased or pathologized them. It offers not only a record of past movements of resistance, but also a reminder that this resistance is ongoing.

Admission is free, and the exhibition remains open throughout the winter.

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A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Friday, October 10, the first step of a US-brokered plan that ties phased Israeli withdrawals and a major prisoner/ hostage exchange to a sharp increase in humanitarian access. While the deal has paused full-scale warfare, it has not ended violence. Strikes, shootings, and movement restrictions continue to occur, particularly around a newly demarcated “yellow line” inside Gaza. This is a boundary, now being physically drawn on the ground, used to mark areas from which Israeli forces have partially withdrawn but still maintain control nearby. Phase one refers to the initial stage focused on halting large- scale fighting, releasing hostages, and enabling limited humanitarian relief.

The ceasefire agreement is structured in three phases: Phase One pauses large-scale hostilities, facilitates hostage releases, and allows limited humanitarian access; Phase Two envisions wider Israeli withdrawals and the deployment of an International Stabilization Force; and Phase Three outlines a transition toward a longer-term governance and security arrangement. Before the ceasefire, Israeli airstrikes and ground operations were killing hundreds per day, with entire neighbourhoods in Gaza City, Jabalia, and Khan Younis flattened and aid almost completely halted.

What the ceasefire says

The text released by the Times of Israel — the version approved by Israel’s cabinet — sets out the core commitments of the ceasefire. The agreement was conveyed to Hamas through Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediators, who announced Hamas’ acceptance. Israel was required to withdraw to mapped lines inside Gaza within 24 hours of cabinet approval. Within 72 hours of that withdrawal, Hamas would release all living hostages, return the remains of deceased hostages it holds, and share information on those it could not immediately recover. Both sides also agreed to facilitate an information-sharing mechanism via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The annexes reference “humanitarian aid and relief implementation steps” and attach maps of the withdrawal lines. Israel staged its initial pullback on October 10; Hamas released a second batch of living hostages on October 13 as the first exchanges began.

The withdrawal lines marks a boundary from which Israeli forces have partially withdrawn under the ceasefire’s first phase while maintaining control over nearby zones and all border crossings. Al Jazeera’s explainer, which includes the map presented by US officials, estimates that nearly 60 per cent of the Gaza Strip remained under Israeli control during this initial phase. Future phases envision further Israeli pullbacks, the deployment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF), and a transition arrangement, though the mandate and authority of the proposed force are still being negotiated.

How the truce is unfolding

The ceasefire has been repeatedly stress-tested by violence. At the end of October, Israel launched air and tank strikes in Eastern Gaza, citing Hamas violations and a deadly incident involving an Israeli soldier; those strikes killed more than 100 people, according to Gaza health authorities, before the truce was restored. US officials, speaking anonymously, have pressed both sides to prevent the collapse of the deal and have warned that an overly harsh Israeli response or repeated Hamas violations could unravel the truce.

Independent monitors and media reports have tracked a steady pattern of violations despite the truce. By mid-October, local authorities in Gaza had recorded at least 47 Israeli ceasefire breaches, including airstrikes, demolitions, and shootings, that killed more than three dozen people, according to reporting from The Guardian.

Across the Gaza Strip, skirmishes and lethal incidents cluster around the “yellow line”; Israeli forces still conduct targeted strikes and demolitions near their positions; while Hamas and other fighters test the boundary with probing attacks, leaving civilians caught in the middle. UNOCHA’s updates describe “daily detonations of residential buildings” in areas where the Israeli military remains deployed, with casualties reported in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis. The agency also notes the installation of yellow-painted concrete blocks to mark the line as ordered by Israel’s defence minister. Meanwhile, despite some humanitarian improvements, UNOCHA’s Gaza Humanitarian Response (Situation Report No. 24), notes that although relief partners delivered more than 1.3 million meals on 15 November alone, critical needs such as adequate shelter, clearance of explosive remnants, and access to damaged cropland remain severely under-addressed.

International coverage corroborates this yellow demarcation’s emergence and the confusion around it. France 24 describes the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) beginning to physically mark the line “behind which it must withdraw,” even as many displaced residents cannot safely return to homes east of it.

Hostages and prisoner releases

The hostage/prisoner track serves as both the humanitarian core of the ceasefire and its political trigger point. According to UNOCHA’s Humanitarian Situation Update #331 on 13 October the ICRC facilitated the return of 20 Israeli hostages, 1,809 Palestinian detainees, and four deceased Israeli hostages to Israeli authorities. Gaza Humanitarian Response (situation report No. 9 from October 30) notes that the bodies of two more deceased Israeli hostages were handed over, and that the remains of another 11 hostages were then believed to still be in the Gaza Strip. By November 5, however, Situation report No. 14 records that Gaza’s Ministry of Health received 15 additional bodies of deceased Palestinian detainees, bringing the total since the start of the ceasefire to 285, of which only 84 had been identified, and that the remains of six Israeli hostages were still thought to be in Gaza. Disputes over remains and sequencing of exchanges have repeatedly spiked tensions and prompted Israeli reprisals, yet each successful turnover has also helped restore momentum to the deal.

Humanitarian aid

Humanitarian access has improved relative to the pre-ceasefire period, but still falls far short of need. According to UNOCHA’s latest updates (Gaza Humanitarian Response (Situation Report No. 26, from November 20), crossings remain limited, shelter materials remain scarce and large-scale debris clearance and explosive- remnant work are still unmet. Aid partners have delivered tens of thousands of tons of food and other supplies, but significant delivery bottlenecks persist. Reuters reported on November 21 that the World Food Programme has brought in 40,000 tons of food aid, reaching only about 30 per cent of the people in need, and that heavy rain has already damaged stored food as winter approaches.

Earlier UNOCHA updates show the depth of the gap: as of November 6, only 4 per cent of Gaza’s cropland was undamaged and accessible, and aid was entering through just two crossings (Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem and Kissufim). Between October 10 and November 3, UN partners collected over 32,500 metric tons of aid at Gaza’s crossings, yet bureaucratic rejections, convoy impediments, and limited warehouse capacity throttle delivery. UNOCHA also reported 107 relief-item requests rejected during this period, severe damage to water and sanitation systems, including seven wastewater plants out of service; as well as continuing restrictions on essential items such as generators and spare parts. Across the strip, safe access to shelter, water and sanitation, debris-clearance and damaged cropland remains severely under- addressed. Without heavy machinery to clear rubble and explosive remnants of war, many communities remain unable to return or begin rebuilding.

What lies ahead and what will shape the outcome

Key challenges now center on three interconnected issues. One, boundary management: whether both parties will implement a clear, monitored ceasefire zone with visible markers and safe civilian corridors or allow the so-called “yellow line” to persist as a shifting, opaque no-go zone; human-rights groups such as Refugees International and Medical Aid for Palestinians warn such ambiguity risks transforming a temporary security line into a de facto border. Two, humanitarian access: the majority of reconstruction, aid delivery and movement of civilians hinges on unfettered access, bottlenecks and denial of service continue to erode trust in the truce. Three, international oversight: the November 17 UNSC resolution authorizing the ISF and a transitional Gaza governance apparatus raised the stakes for the next phase of the deal, but without credible deployment and accepted engagement rules the architecture remains fragile. Meanwhile, reporting from Gaza shows dozens of Israeli strikes and incursions since October 10, underscoring how contested the deal remains.

Observers now say the sequencing of hostage/prisoner returns is the immediate litmus test of the deal’s credibility, a successful exchange could unlock phase two, while delays or disputes over identity and timing risk reigniting violence.

Bottom line

The October 10 ceasefire is holding in name but contested in practice. It has saved lives by halting the worst of the bombardment, enabling the return of some hostage remains, and creating limited space for aid. However, lives remain at acute risk, particularly along the yellow line and in areas where the IDF is still deployed. The stakes around Phase Two, which is expected to bring broader Israeli withdrawals, an international stabilization force, and a larger humanitarian-access package, have risen since November 17, when the UN Security Council adopted a resolution endorsing the ceasefire framework and authorizing the proposed ISF. Although mediators have framed the truce as a possible foundation for a longer-term arrangement, previous lulls have repeatedly collapsed, and without these steps it risks becoming yet another temporary pause.

The post Ceasefire on Paper appeared first on The McGill Daily.

One reason for the attention gap is systemic. Canadians consume a significant volume of news from the United States, and recent constraints on Canadian news distribution, such as the 2023 Meta news ban, have reduced the visibility of Canadian journalism in global platform flows. Industry analyses note that Canada’s high consumption of news from foreign sources, especially the US’ highly polarized political and cultural debates, pushes attention away from Canada’s own foreign policy. As a result, domestic coverage of Canadian foreign policy receives fewer cycles of sustained interest, with housing affordability, inflation, and health care backlogs dominating domestic headlines, leaving foreign policy with fewer cycles of sustained interest.

At the same time, Canada’s enduring peacekeeping myth contributes to public disengagement from foreign policy. While many Canadians still characterize the country’s foreign security by their blue helmets and international mediation, the reality is quite different. Direct United Nations peacekeeping deployments are at historic lows: as of 2023-2024, Canada has just 47 military and police personnel deployed throughout the UN system. This sharp drop contrasts with past decades of significant participation and suggests that the brand of “peacekeeper Canada” no longer matches practice. To understand how this image took hold, it’s worth recalling that Canada’s peacekeeping record itself has long been uneven. Some missions enhanced stability, while others, such as Somalia and Rwanda, revealed deep flaws in both strategy and accountability. If Canadians believe their country is already a “good player,” in world affairs, the incentive to question its foreign policy becomes much weaker.

Nowhere is the gap between image and practice more evident than in the Middle East, particularly in Canada’s response to the Gaza war and its broader relationship with Israel. On October 27, 2023, Canada sponsored a UN General Assembly amendment that would have condemned Hamas for the October 7 attack on Israel, as well demanded the immediate release of hostages. That amendment, however, failed to secure the two-thirds majority required. In the full resolution that followed, Canada abstained rather than voting in favour or against. The resolution called for an “immediate and sustained humanitarian truce,” but omitted any direct condemnation of Hamas or explicit recognition of hostages. Canada’s official explanation emphasized Israel’s right to self-defence and indicated concern that the draft resolution failed to address issues such as the condemnation of Hamas and the hostages’ release.

December 12, 2023, Canada shifted course and voted in favour of a UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for Hamas’ release of hostages, which passed 153 to 10 with 23 abstentions. Ottawa’s statement referenced “the urgent need to protect civilians” while reaffirming its support for Israel’s security. By June 12, 2025, Canada voted yes on another UN resolution centredaround the protection of civilians and compliance with international humanitarian law, showing that Ottawa’s posture was evolving not toward moral leadership, but toward cautious responsiveness under mounting global and domestic scrutiny as the conflict continued.

Meanwhile, arms and export permit policy moved together in tandem. On January 8, 2024, the Canadian government announced it would stop approving new export permits to Israel amid human rights concerns. In March, Parliament passed a non-binding motion, 204 to 117, calling to halt arms exports to Israel and to work toward the establishment of a Palestinian state within a two-state solution. Rights advocates such as Project Ploughshares and the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights noted, however, that existing arms permits issued before January remained valid, and that the indirect shipment of arms through the United States raised doubts about Canada’s ability to control the downstream use of its exports. These inconsistencies suggest that Ottawa’s restraint was more performative than principled — a move that projected moral awareness while sidestepping the deeper contradictions within its own export system.

Canadian civil society groups and a UN rights committee also raised concerns that Canadian-made arms or components could reach Israel or Gaza through third-party routes, exposing Canada to potential complicity in violations of international humanitarian law. Analysts have pointed out that Ottawa’s export controls tend to be reactive rather than preventive, as the federal government focuses on evidence of prior misuse instead of assessing substantial risks ahead of arms transfers. This differs from the traditional image of Canada as merely passive in world affairs. Passivity, in this case, implies inaction or withdrawal, but reactivity reflects something more strategic: an effort to preserve Canada’s reputation by acting only once public or diplomatic pressure demands it.

Canada’s foreign policy in the Middle East is problematic not because of our government’s overt malice but because of its complacency. Canada has managed to navigate the Gaza conflict deftly enough: shifting votes, freezing new permits, and maintaining humanitarian rhetoric without provoking major backlash. However, this apparent skill in avoiding public backlash and sustaining Canada’s reputation as a balanced actor owes more to low media visibility and selective framing than to Parliament’s coherence or conviction.

While Canada paused new export permits to Israel, investigative reports indicate that Canadian-made munitions have still entered the region via U.S. routes as the country remains among the top non-U.S. arms exporters. In 2023, Canada exported $904.6 million (CAD) worth of military goods to Saudi Arabia, despite the kingdom’s documented human rights abuses. The “lesser evil” label endures because Canada’s action seems modest beside those of larger Western powers, yet limited news coverage and minimal public backlash reveal how invisibility, not accountability, sustains this image.

Canada’s policy in the Middle East remains largely obscured by its reputation for moderation and
a lack of public scrutiny. The lack of direct confrontation with allies or regimes accused of human- rights abuses may look like pragmatism, but it risks eroding the moral foundation of Canadian diplomacy, which is built on the country’s long- standing claim to uphold human rights, multilateralism, and international law. When values that define national identity are not matched by consistent action displaying these ideals, a cautious, low-profile foreign policy becomes a liability.

Though it rarely makes front-page news, Canada’s role in global affairs is far from benign. By characterizing its stance in the Middle East as mild, Canada benefits from its reputation as the “lesser evil” among Western powers. But that image holds up only because its actions often trail behind its values. For Canadians to live up to their self-image, they need to push for change through greater transparency and consistency between values and action, and stronger civic engagement.

The post The Lesser Evil? We Must Question Canada’s Role in Global Affairs appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The countdown to graduation should feel like a victory lap, but for many students it feels more like a cliff edge. As convocation gowns are ordered and resumes polished, the looming question isn’t “What comes next?” but rather “Will anything come at all?” A university degree, once considered a golden ticket to financial stability, now seems less like a guarantee and more like a gamble. Recent surveys show that nearly half of Canadian undergraduates are underemployed, working in jobs that don’t require the very diploma they spent years and thousands of dollars earning.

What, then, does a university degree actually promise today? Is it still a pathway to meaningful work, or has higher education become another costly rite of passage into an increasingly precarious job market?

The Changing Value of a Degree

A generation ago, a bachelor’s degree was widely seen as a near- guarantee of stability. Graduating in the 1970s or 1980s often meant stepping into a secure full-time job: frequently with benefits, pensions, and a clear career ladder. The degree itself was enough to signal competence and open doors.

Today, the picture is drastically different. In Canada, tuition fees have climbed far faster than wages. The average undergraduate student’s tuition has more than doubled in real terms since the early 1990s, while entry-level salaries have remained stagnant. Canadian graduates now leave school with an average of nearly $28,000 in student debt; in the United States the figure is closer to $40,000 USD. At the same time, the job market has become precarious. A bachelor’s degree is no longer the differentiator it once was in the job market. For many entry- level jobs, employers now prefer or require graduate credentials, a pattern researchers call degree inflation. The surge in post-bachelor programs within Canada reflects that shift. While some graduates desperately search for stable employment after finishing school, others find themselves cycling through unpaid internships, short- term contracts, or gig-economy work, in hopes of eventually securing a foothold in their field.

Credential is a major proponent of this crisis: the more degrees people hold, the less any one degree seems to matter. The result is a generation that is paying more, working harder, and receiving less security in return. However, more people going to university isn’t the only cause of the worsening job market.

Structural shifts add another layer that has eroded a university degree’s value: automation has replaced entire categories of work, globalization has widened competition across borders, and decades of wage stagnation and inflation have left young workers scrambling to keep up with soaring living expenses and a labour market that offers less security than it once did.

Student Realities: Stuck between Passion and Security

For undergraduates today, the decision of what to study often feels like a high-stakes gamble. The arts and humanities, once celebrated as cornerstones of critical thinking and culture, are increasingly treated as impractical luxuries.

Ask an English or Philosophy major about their plans, and the nervous laughter that follows is almost as telling as the answer itself. By contrast, STEM or professional programs are framed as “safe bets”, chosen not always out of passion, but out of fear.

Many students describe a sense of quiet resignation when weighing their passions against the financial realities of debt and employability. One might admit to loving history but ultimately choose accounting because it felt like the “responsible” choice. Another, knee-deep in engineering, may confess they never liked math but couldn’t imagine justifying another career choice to their family.

Even within the supposedly secure fields, unease persists: medical students worry about residency bottlenecks, and law graduates contend with an oversaturated legal market where entry positions are increasingly scarce. The trade-off is clear: pursue your passion and risk underemployment, or play it safe and risk dissatisfaction. Either way, a university education is increasingly seen as transactional, its worth measured not by intellectual growth but by marketability.

What This Means for Students

The crisis, then, is not in the degree itself but in the systems around it. Higher education is marketed as the most certain path to financial stability, yet the ground beneath that promise has eroded. Students are funnelled into universities with the assurance that their time and debt will pay off, only to find a labour market that is oversaturated, underpaying, and dicey. The mismatch between one’s expectation and reality is not incidental: it reflects institutions clinging to an outdated narrative while the conditions that once supported it have collapsed.

This raises uncomfortable questions. By touting success stories while ignoring the growing number who cannot secure work in their fields, are universities complicit in setting young people up for disappointment? Should universities be more transparent about employment outcomes? Should higher education rethink its purpose entirely, shifting from promising job security to cultivating adaptability, creativity, and resilience? And beyond academia, what responsibility does society bear in perpetuating the illusion that a degree is the only legitimate marker of success, while offering few viable alternatives?

For students, these contradictions are deeply personal. University students are told to dream big but simultaneously warned to be realistic. They are encouraged to pursue their passions but also chastised when those passions don’t translate into “marketable” careers. Urged to invest in themselves through education only to discover the returns aren’t what they were led to expect. It is no surprise that so many graduates emerge ambitious yet disillusioned, eager to work but uncertain whether the work they desire will ever be accessible.

Where do we go from here?

As graduation season approaches, students will cross stages, shake hands, and hold diplomas with the hope that these pieces of paper still mean something. Yet behind the smiles lingers the quiet fear that the late nights in the library and the mounting tuition bills may not add up to the future they were promised. For some, this fear is already reality: siblings are burdened by debt, friends are stuck in jobs unrelated to their fields, and peers wonder if the sacrifice was worth it.

And yet, education still matters in ways not captured by employment statistics. Universities remain spaces of discovery, friendship, and ideas that shape how we see the world. The challenge is not to abandon the degree, but to confront the system around it. We must demand that institutions be honest about outcomes. We must question economies that value more than profit, and encourage a society that measures success beyond paychecks.

The question, then, may not be “Is a degree worth it?” but “What should it be worth?” That answer is still unwritten. And it is today’s students, fearful of the future but daring to imagine more, who will ultimately define it.

The post Degrees of uncertainty: The Fading Promise of Higher Education appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Thousands of young Nepalis have flooded public squares and government complexes, refusing to back down. This is no longer just about a ban or even corruption. It’s a generational uprising redefining what dissent looks like in South Asia.

Background & Triggers

Nepal has spent the past two decades trying to reinvent itself. After a brutal civil war between Maoist insurgents and the Nepali Kingdom ended in 2006, the country abolished the monarchy and became a federal democratic republic. The abolition of the monarchy and adoption of a federal democratic republic carried promises of peace, equality, and development. This was supposed to be a new beginning. But nearly twenty years later, many young Nepalis see only broken promises.

Nepal’s postwar governments have been marked by instability, elite entrenchment, and a political system that feels increasingly out of touch; elements demonstrating that the democratic experiment has failed to deliver. The federal system, once imagined as a way to decentralize power and ensure inclusion, now feels bloated, unaccountable, and designed to protect elite interests. Gen Z Nepalis were raised in the shadow of civil conflict, promised democracy by the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord and subsequent political leaders. But now the gap between expectation and reality, what was promised and what people now live with, has become impossible to ignore.

The spark that gave rise to the protests came from a viral “nepo baby” campaign: a series of online posts exposing the lavish lifestyles of politicians’ children – from foreign vacations to luxury apartments. This campaign fuelled suspicions that public money and state resources were being siphoned off to bankroll their privileges. In a country grappling with youth unemployment, inflation, and mass migration abroad, the images struck a nerve. Then came the tipping point – Nepal’s government abruptly banned 26 social media platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook after they failed to register under new rules backed by an August 17 Supreme Court order. Officials said registration was needed to curb fake accounts, hate speech, and online fraud. Human rights groups have condemned the move, labelling it as censorship.

Though the ban was lifted just days later, it had already done its damage. By then, protests had erupted across Kathmandu and other major cities. The movement quickly morphed into a full-scale reckoning with power, privilege, and the political system itself.

The Protest Culture

This uprising doesn’t look like the protests of the past, such as the 2006 People’s Movement that ended the monarchy, or the 2015 demonstrations during the constitution-writing process. This time, there are no formal parties leading the charge and no clear figureheads delivering speeches from podiums. Instead, this is a decentralized, youth-driven movement with a language all its own – part meme, part manifesto.

Protesters carried everything from sarcastic meme posters to TikTok-themed placards, turning the symbols of banned platforms into emblems of defiance. This was a rebellion wrapped in pop culture: at once familiar and irreverent. Others wore cosplay or livestreamed the demonstrations on TikTok. The tone of these demonstrations were marked by both biting humour and deep frustration.

This is protest as performance – both online and off. Nepal has one of the highest rates of social
media use per capita in South Asia, and platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become key organizing tools. Young people use viral videos, satirical hashtags like “#NepoKids,” and memes to narrate the movement in real time – framing dissent with irony and creativity.

In recent days, the youthful defiance has collided with government resistance. Security forces have responded with live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannons, and mass arrests. Yet as tear gas clouds rise and gunfire echoes through the streets, the One Piece flag still waves; just this time over barricades, burning buildings, and bloodstained pavement. What began in memes has now become gravely serious.

The Deeper Crisis

The Nepal protests have suddenly become one of South Asia’s most urgent crises. What began as an online revolt has spiraled into the deadliest protest Nepal has seen in decades. Security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing at least 70 people and injuring hundreds more. The military now enforces curfews, soldiers patrol Kathmandu, and protesters have torched government buildings including Parliament, government ministries, the offices of Kantipur Media Group, and even the Prime Minister’s residence.

Although this generation doesn’t remember the monarchy firsthand, they’ve inherited its aftermath: broken infrastructure such as long-delayed irrigation projects, limited opportunities with a youth unemployment rate of over 20 per cent, and a state where nepotism permeates job opportunities, land deals, and contracts. Calls to reinstate the monarchy, heard at some protests, aren’t necessarily about loyalty to kings. Instead, they’re a rejection of the current system’s hypocrisy which limits opportunities for the masses.

On Tuesday September 9, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned under pressure, alongside several senior ministers. On September 12, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed as interim Prime Minister while resistance continues in the streets. Parliament is paralyzed after the lower house’s dissolution and courts are silent as the Supreme Court is now damaged. In Kathmandu, ministries, the president’s residence, and police stations have been torched as curfews and soldiers replace civic order.

At the same time, no unified ideological platform has emerged among protesters. Some want reforms, others want revolution. What unites them is a loss of trust – not just in politicians, but in Nepal’s entire architecture of power.

This situation is not unique to Nepal. Across the Global South, Gen Z is mobilizing outside of old ideologies and institutional frameworks, not because they don’t care – but because they’ve stopped pretending these systems ever worked.

The post The Revolution Will Be Memed: Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising and the Collapse of Political Trust appeared first on The McGill Daily.

From the first room, it was clear that this exhibition wasn’t trying to mimic a concert. It was something else: an interpretation, almost a memory of rock, retold through light, sound, and motion. With 105 projectors and 130 speakers, the space felt like it had dissolved into music. Archival photos and video moved in rhythm with tracks from Bowie, Joan Jett, Green Day, Aretha Franklin, Blondie, The Who, and even Lizzo. It didn’t just play— it surrounded you, filled the floor and ceiling, pressed in from the walls.

The exhibition unfolded in four chapters. “The Backstage” set the tone quietly, almost like tuning an instrument. “The Dressing Room” revealed the personas behind the music, which was part glamour, part grit. Then “The Concert Hall” hit, and everything escalated; a flood of sound and color and movement. It was intense in the best way. I caught myself smiling, as if I’d suddenly been swept into the front row of a live show. The final section, “Backstage Québec,” grounded everything in Montreal’s own musical story – a thoughtful close.

What stayed with me most was the narration. Bacon’s voice had that calm, steady weight to it – almost cinematic. Workman, who delivers the French narration, brought a softness that gave the whole experience a familiar, human feel. Together, they carried the story through decades of rebellion, style, heartbreak, and evolution. This wasn’t just about music—it was about identity, protest, connection.

I walked out into the lounge with that familiar post-concert mix of energy and reflection. The $39 admission fee isn’t small, but it felt earned. This wasn’t a playlist with visuals, it was a curated, emotional archive. A reminder of what rock once was, and still can be.

Amplified doesn’t try to compete with live music, because it knows better than to do so. What it does instead is remind you why Rock and Roll ever mattered. Why people clung to guitars and lyrics and noise as if they meant something. Because they did.

And for me? I left with my ears ringing, my mind turning things over, and a quiet urge to put on a record as soon as I got home.

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