They believe that Western reporting on Japan’s triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident – was crippled by a lack of preparedness and journalistic resources in Japan. The consequences of which have been a reporting style from some media outlets which sensationalizes and generalizes the Japanese experience.

“Part of the initial problem was that they wanted to report on this event but they didn’t have anyone who could speak Japanese, so then they start, you know, madly scrambling around looking for people and they picked really strange people,” said Thomas Lamarre, a professor in McGill’s department of East Asian Studies.

“It seemed like their lack of ability to get anyone to speak helped shape the kinds of things they would say subsequently,” he added.

The idea of the Japanese as stoic, or having samurai-like qualities, surfaced early in stories such as ABC’s “Nuclear samurai recalls meltdown struggle” or the Melbourne Herald Sun’s “Japan nuclear crisis: Atomic samurai not afraid to die.”

“Their experience is being generalized in two ways: the emphasis on their Japanese-ness – going much further with the samurai cliches than the more subdued Japanese press has – and a hesitance to interrupt the heroic narrative,” said Matthew Penney an associate professor at Concordia specializing in Japanese history.

Reducing the Japanese experience to cliches overshadows important issues and trivializes the significance of the individual’s experience, explained Lamarre.

“It gives you this huge distance, this kind of mastery of knowledge. It objectifies people, it takes real courage and transforms it into national narrative,” he said.

“Obviously it portrays this really kind of simple picture of what the Japanese are like that is easy to digest for foreigners, like ‘Oh, all Japanese are stoic, so this is how they are going to deal with things,” he added.

Striking a balance between accessibility and accuracy is a long-standing battle in journalism.

Ian MacDougall, a Canadian freelance journalist in Japan, said it’s difficult for journalists to not simplify their coverage.

“Television, in particular, is always up against the attention span of its audience. If that audience has a broken leg in its understanding of Japan, you need to give them crutches. Newspapers can do more, but there are only so many column inches available,” he wrote in an email to The Daily.

MacDougall also pointed to financial constraints placed on news bureaus.

“Ideally, you would have a large number of experienced full-time reporters and a network of stringers, all who are fluent in Japanese and well-connected in the community. You would also have a desk staff back home that had the wit, the experience, and the time to background themselves on the area,” said MacDougall. “That never happens, of course; you go with what you have, and you react as best you can to what is coming across the desk.”

Stephen Northfield, the foreign editor for the Globe and Mail, acknowledged the dangers of gross generalizations, but maintained that contextualizing a country’s unique social or political contexts is one of the great insights that foreign correspondents can provide their readership.

“I would agree with the criticism that if people drop the idea that Japanese people are stoic people culturally and so nobody is going to be showing any emotion or any sort of concern about this and that. If anybody made a sort of blanket statement that’s obviously not true,” said Northfield.

“I think if people said that generally speaking there is a political context of stoicism, and I think that it is probably accurate that politically there is a tendency for them to try and present the face of calm and assurance that we saw,” he added

Most recently, the political and social response concerning the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has dominated Western media at the expense of much of the humanitarian context.

“The media outside Japan has been overemphasizing the nuclear accident,” said Penney. “Coverage from some corners has been seeking to contradict Japanese government and TEPCO accounts, not to help resolve the problem.”

MacDougall agreed that the nuclear accident has eclipsed most other news from Japan.

“A few things have thus got lost in the shuffle…for example some of the good news, such as how quickly road, rail, and air links are being restored,” he said.

“The effect has been a lot of sensationalized fear-mongering.”

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Gill won by a margin of 350 votes. Your Concordia won the majority of seats on council, and the student seat on the Board of Governors. The opposing slate, Action, took all six seats from the John Molson School of Business. Precise numbers are not yet available, but Concordia’s The Link reported that voter turnout was on pace to set record-high voting levels.

However, since voting closed some students have come forward stating that they received multiple ballots when voting.

The Link published an email sent to them by student Mihai Cristea on Thursday, explaining how she had been supplied with multiple ballots. Unlike McGill, the CSU conducts elections with physical ballots and in-person voting Cristea also sent the email to the CSU’s Chief Electoral Officer Oliver Cohen, the presidential candidates for Your Concordia and Action, and other campus media outlets.

“When I voted [on Wednesday], after having signed in, I was given ten ballots–one for Arts and Science Senate candidates, one for Arts and Science Council candidates, [but] two for Board of Governors candidates, two for CSU executive slates, two for the first set of referendum questions, and two for the second set of referendum questions,” wrote Cristea.

In the days leading up to the vote, the election grew increasingly controversial. In fact, the final day of campaigning was cut six hours short amidst allegations of voter intimidation, campaign violations, and vandalism against campus media.

“Up until about a week ago the campaigning was competitive but not malicious, and those things changed very quickly,” said Gill. “I think that when the other team realized there was a chance of us winning, tactics got a lot dirtier. There were rumors being spread that were patently untrue, accusations about me getting arrested. Never was, never been arrested.”

There were reports from students who claimed they saw members of Action campaigning within twenty feet of polling stations – a practice that is a campaign violation.

Campus media have also been the target of vandalism during the campaign. Concordia University Television (CUTV) had two televisions damaged – one when a magnet destroyed the screen, and the other when a wire was torn out and frayed.

CUTV station manager Laura Kneale believes the vandalism was politically motivated.

“A lot of people have come to talk to us about these things, and a lot of them have alluded to a link with the political situation, and we definitely think there would be a link between these two things just because of how hostile the elections have been. But in terms of a specific person I really couldn’t say,” she said.

Gill believes that The Link was targeted specifically because she is in a relationship with former editor-in-chief Justin Giovannetti. While she acknowledged that it was unfortunate that the newspaper was targeted, she maintained that Giovannetti has never been involved with any of the newspaper’s coverage of her campaign.

“I guarantee that if I weren’t a women nothing like that would have ever happened. But there is this assumption that the only reason that I could possibly be politically influential is because I am sleeping with a journalist, and not because I have political ideas of my own,” she said.

Before the vote was counted Thursday, Cohen said he was not overly concerned with any of the conflicts, attributing them to the nature of the political arena.

“I can assure you that there are no electoral violations, everything is being managed accordingly. Whatever issues do come up between the parties, obviously we deal with that between those parties and make sure that whatever that issue is, is resolved,” he said.

“In regards to the safekeeping of the ballot and the ballot boxes, we take the highest security measures probably in North America,” he added.

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The CSU is suing the CFS, the largest student lobby group in Canada, to force the federation to recognize its decision to secede. In March 2010, the CSU held a referendum in which students voted 2,348 to 931 to leave the CFS. The federation has refused to recognize the results of this referendum, and maintains that the CSU is still a member.

“It’s not a choice. CFS forced us to go to court since they are denying us a fundamental right provided by the Charter. We need the court to settle this once and for all,” wrote Heather Lucas, CSU President, in an email to The Daily.

According to Concordia’s newspaper The Link, CSU executives have warned their Council that the court case will likely continue for at least two years, and will cost at least $220,000.

The CFS maintains that the CSU owes the federation $1,033,278.76 in unpaid fees, and refuses to recognize a referendum until the CSU repays its debts. The CSU has refuted these claims.

“We decided to dismiss [the debt] because we have all the paperwork to back our argument [that] we don’t owe them anything,” Amine Dabchy told The Daily last March, while acting as CSU President.

CFS National Chairperson David Molenhuis denied that the federation had violated any bylaws.

“The Federation is defending the bylaws of the organization adopted by members. The Federation maintains that the allegations made are frivolous and without merit,” he wrote in an email to The Daily regarding the suit.

McGill’s Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), one of the other eight unions involved in litigation against the CFS, has been in court for over a year with a similar lawsuit.

PGSS’s case has been ongoing since February 2010, when it asked the courts to require the CFS to set a date for their referendum vote. In March 2010, 86 per cent of PGSS members voted to secede from the federation in a referendum condemned by the CFS. The PGSS is currently in court to force the CFS to recognize the referendum’s results.

“For the moment, the PGSS is still working at making sure that the referendum is being recognized. The case should be inscribed in June 2011, and so the trial in court could go maybe next year in spring 2012,” said Marieve Isabel, who is running acclaimed for PGSS VP External.

Both the PGSS and CSU have accused the CFS of acting undemocratically. Each of the groups is seeking $100,000 in damages.

“We want the courts to condemn the CFS to pay two plaintiffs in the way of punitive damages pursuant to section 349 of the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the sum of $100,000, because of their violation of the right under article three which provides the freedom to associate,” said Philippe-André Tessier, a lawyer for the CSU, in The Link.

The CSU is currently in the midst of elections. However, if elected, both presidential candidates have promised to continue with litigation against the CFS.

—With files from Jessica Lukawiecki

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Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff introduced the motion of non-confidence in Parliament early Friday, which also charged the government with being in contempt of Parliament. The citation for contempt of Parliament was the first of a Commonwealth country’s government.

“I have to inform the House that the official opposition has lost confidence in the government. Today with this motion, we ask the House to do the same, to find the government in contempt and to withdraw the confidence of the House,” said Ignatieff, addressing the House.

The vote passed 156 to 145, ending Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s five-year minority government. Pressure has mounted on the Conservatives in recent months, as opposition parties have condemned the federal government for its management of the economy, its secrecy, and misuse of cabinet confidence.

Earlier last week, a committee of MPs handed the Conservative government Canada’s first-ever contempt ruling as a result of the government’s refusal to publicize the full cost of legislation regarding corporate tax cuts, proposed crime legislation and F-35 fighter jets. This helped pave the way for the motion introduced by Ignatieff on Friday.

After the motion, Harper moved to adjourn Parliament. In a press release shortly after the vote, Harper expressed his disappointment.

“There was nothing in the Budget that the Opposition could not or should not have supported,” he said. “Unfortunately, Mr. Ignatieff and his coalition partners in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois made abundantly clear that they had already decided they wanted an election instead, Canada’s fourth election in seven years, an election Canadians had told them clearly that they did not want.”

In his speech to the House, Ignatieff stated that the Harper government had forced the Liberals’ hand on the matter.

“To those who say an election is unnecessary, we reply we did not seek an election. But if we need one to replace a government that doesn’t respect democracy with one that does, I can’t think of a more necessary election.”

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Members of the delegation also challenged what they view as the federal government’s complete double standard: investing heavily in public safety services across Canada, while cutting funding for First Nations’ services.

“The pillars of their political platform – ‘you do the crime you do the time.’ These cuts are totally disrespectful and insulting in terms of policing service for First Nations communities. They are a total contradiction to the direction taken in terms of the rest of the country,” said Lloyd Phillips, chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake and spokesperson for the Assembly of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) Public Security Portfolio.

Funding for First Nations police services is established through tripartite agreements between the federal and provincial governments and First Nations. For the past two years the federal government has delayed the negotiation of a new tripartite agreement in anticipation of a comprehensive review of First Nations policing in Canada. In its place, the federal government has temporarily implemented successive one year funding agreements.

According to Phillips, First Nations police services are already extremely underfunded, especially in Quebec, which receives “the bare-bone minimum of funding required.”

“A 19 per cent decrease equates to about $2.8 million, and greatly jeopardizes the ability for people to do their job. Especially for smaller forces it means the possibility of laying off people. In terms of larger forces [it] jeopardizes the ability to carry out large scale investigations,” he said.

At a press conference on Parliament Hill, Shawn Atleo, chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), spoke of the need to create a more secure funding system.

“Currently, with the end of each fiscal year comes a threat to whether or not a community will be able to maintain its police services. Clearly we need to look at a different approach that would provide stable, multi-year agreements with a proper funding base to avoid jeopardizing the safety and security of First Nation communities,” he said.

At the press conference Steve Launière, the president of the Association of the First Nations Chiefs of Police of Quebec, added, “If this decision materializes within the scope of the next budget, there will be serious repercussions. This decision will jeopardize the policing services in the communities and, as a consequence, it will have an impact on criminality and social peace.”

While in Ottawa, the delegation, had hoped to obtain a meeting with Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety.

“Several requests were made by regional chiefs and the community, but unfortunately Minister Toews has been extremely elusive,” said Phillips.

In an email to The Daily, Toews’s office wrote: “Our Government continues to support the First Nations Policing Program, which has made a significant contribution to improving public safety in First Nation and Inuit communities for close to 20 years.”

However the office refused to go into detail about funding cuts, stating, “We cannot speculate [on] the outcome of budgetary decisions.”

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Jean-Noé Landry, one of four co-founders of Montréal Ouvert, spoke to The Daily about the advantages of implementing such a policy in Montreal.

The McGill Daily: Cities such as Ottawa have created open data policies, which have led to the creation of websites and iPhone apps concerning municipal facilities and services. How does the open data policy allow individuals to create such resources?

Jean-Noé Landry: Well, all the civic information would be put into a centralized website. Other cities have done this as well, where you will see all the catalogues of data in a format that is free to be accessed. When you have precious data – data that is untampered – posted on that website in a permanent way, developers can modify it, use it and share the information back. So in that way it’s a very simple website.
The key thing here in what were talking about is the change in how to manage information, the change in behaviour. I think whenever you have change like this, every organization is going to have its inhibitions, but we’re here to share the positive experiences of other cities as well. Setting up the website is a mechanism by which to do this.

MD: Montreal has been slow in adopting an open data policy compared to other major Canadian cities, such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Edmonton. Why do you think Montreal has been more reluctant about this policy?

JL: To be fair, you do need to look at how many cities there are in Canada. If there are ten cities that have done this there are still about, what, 170 cities across Canada, who have not. But, hopefully, Montreal will be able to learn from the experience of other cities. We want to work collaboratively to help the city. It is behind, I’m not going to lie. Other cities in Canada are doing this…[but] all bureaucracies are going to be different; they are going to want to take the time to evaluate the feasibility of this. Obviously this is something that should have been done yesterday, but we’ll respect the process and try [to] put pressure to encourage them to work. There is a demand for it, and we really hope that the city recognizes that this is an approach that the city needs to take on.

MD: What kinds of services and benefits can Montrealers expect to see from open data?

JL: As residents of this city there are a lot of services that are accessible to us. But for each service there is information that organizes that service itself. We’re talking about schedules; we’re talking about the location of water fountains, parks, community services, [and] skating rinks. We understand that this may take time…not all citizens have the knowledge or knowhow to use that information in a way that is understood and a way that makes the services more accessible. So the thing is to connect with administrations, and then citizens can also innovate.

MD: With the growth of social media and professional blogging sites, more and more people are getting their information through non-traditional outlets. Open data is another way to access information through less orthodox means. How do you feel about the trend toward a more citizen-oriented or populist media?

JL: If we look at trends – especially with youth – in terms of their public participation, I think it’s to the city’s advantage to have two-way interaction or an active mechanism where residents are able to meet their needs and give ideas about how to interpret data; where we are able to realize the kind of vision that Montreal has for itself. The data is an outlet for this relationship to change and become more dynamic…it’s really a trend we’re seeing across Canada, and across the world.

—Compiled by Mari Galloway

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Bill S-10 is a piece of legislation meant to target organized crime, but it would also introduce mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug possession. It is just one of several government bills that aim to change the Criminal Code of Canada and introduce tougher sentencing.

Consequences of tougher sentencing

“We will see more people in for longer periods of time with fewer opportunities for them to get out, earn their release, and be in the community contributing,” said Kim Pate, executive director of Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, referring to mandatory minimum sentences.

Liberal MP and public safety critic Mark Holland also spoke of the ineffectiveness of tougher sentencing.

“The problem is not only that it is egregiously expensive, it actually diminishes the amount of money in a general sense for rehabilitation and programming,” he said. “It actually drives up the recidivism rate so you actually have less safe communities. In the ultimate irony, you spend billions and billions of dollars to create a less safe country.”

“The rhetoric is that it will affect the crime rate,” said Pate. “[But] if that was a remedy for creating safer communities, then presumably the United States should be the safest place in the world to live.”

According to Statistics Canada, police-reported crime in Canada has continued to decline in both volume and severity for over a decade. In 2009 Statistics Canada reported that the Crime Severity Index (CSI), measuring the severity of police-reported crime, declined 4 per cent in 2009 and stood 22 per cent lower than in 1999. Statistics for 2010 have yet to be published.

Justin Piché, a Carleton University Ph.D. candidate who researches the Canadian justice system, said, “In the context of a fiscal crisis and decades worth of declining police-reported crime rates, to me it makes little sense to be pursuing a prison expansion agenda at this time. … It is the most costly way to address the complex conflicts and harms in our communities that we call crime.”

Projected Costs

According to a June 2010 report released by the Parliamentary Budget Office, the cost of just one bill, the Truth and Sentencing Act – which limits credit given to prisoners for time spent in custody before and during trial – is expected to exceed $5 billion. According to the report, it will also require the building of about 4,189 federal jail cells at a cost of $1.8 billion over the next five years.

This greatly exceeds government estimates, which projected the act would cost only $2 billion over the next five years.

When asked about the significant differences in projected costs, Parliament Budget Officer Kevin Page explained, “[The government] said they could reduce the cost by looking at double bunking. We assumed that we would maintain capacity rates at the different prisons at roughly the same rates when we did our calculations.”

The process of double bunking – which according to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’s CBC statement “is not a big deal” – violates prison standards set by the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

It is also reported to lead to increased incidents of institutional violence.

In June 2010, Howard Sapers, the correctional investigator appointed by the government to review the Correctional Service of Canada’s polices, published a report revealing that double bunking in Canadian penitentiaries has increased by 50 per cent in the past five years.

The report revealed that exemptions to UN prison standards are also made in “segregation cells,” where two inmates must share space designed for one for up to 23 hours a day.

“Given high rates of mental illness, drug addiction, violence and criminal gang membership, it is difficult to see how double-bunking can be viewed as a correctionally appropriate or sustainable solution to crowding pressures in either the short or medium terms,” Sapers’s report stated.

Effects on the mentally ill

According to Sapers’s report, “the prevalence and rate of mental illness in the offender population far exceeds that of general society. We estimate at least one-in-four new admissions to federal [correctional institutions] present some form of mental health illness.”

An internal Correctional Service of Canada report, obtained by Postmedia News, stated that to handle increasing inmate populations CSC will hire more than 3,000 employees, only 35 of whom will be health professionals.

“People who suffer from mental illness are people who desperately need other forms of help, but unfortunately the police have nowhere else to put them,” said Holland. “They wait for the negative interaction with the community, or for them to break a law, and then they use prisons as a repository for the mentally ill because they have nowhere else to put them.”

“The problem is particularly severe for mentally ill female prisoners, large majorities of which have suffered sexual or physical abuse,” said Sapers.

Two-thirds of incarcerated women suffer a substance-related abuse or disorder, and one-third have been psychiatrically hospitalized in the past. Ottawa-based lawyer Michelle Mann, who specializes in native and women’s issues, commented on the need to prioritize “corrections” instead of incarceration.

“Building more prisons, building more beds, and increasing capacity will not help. That isolation will hurt because you are just going to have more people incarcerated,” she said. “Ultimately we need to find more alternatives to incarceration, more use of community corrections rather than incarceration, particularly for nonviolent offenders.”

For Piché, the problem with Canada’s justice system is both practical and ideological: “What we’re seeing is a government that is more concerned with punishing people than helping them reintegrate into society in ways that would be beneficial to the communities where they return.”

The office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews could not be reached for comment.

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The investment is expected to create as many as 3,500 additional student summer jobs this year by encouraging not-for-profit organizations, public-sector employers, and small businesses (with fewer than fifty employees) to hire full-time students.

The program aims to help full-time students aged 15 to 30 to find summer employment, but there is no mention of compensation for part-time students or support for year-round student employment. The Conservative government already invested $10 million in the CSJ program in both 2009 and 2010 as part of their Economic Action Plan, yet, according to Statistics Canada, both of those years saw some of the highest youth unemployment rates on record.

“The economy remains the Government of Canada’s top priority. That’s why we are supporting the creation of more jobs for young Canadians, so they can find employment and gain the skills and experience they need to succeed,” wrote a spokesperson for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada in an email to The Daily.

Although NDP youth and post-secondary education critic Niki Ashton agreed that any focus on student unemployment is an important first step, she insisted that the current Conservative plan does little to address the sources of the problem.  It is a plan that she said lacks ingenuity and vision.

“Stephen Harper and his government claim to be good economic managers while they are leaving our generation and young people out in the cold by failing to take head on the problem of youth employment more generally,” she said.

According to Ashton, student unemployment needs to be addressed as part of a larger plan for a more sustainable Canadian future. “A lack of employment out there for young people to access does not bode well for the next generation’s ability to move forward. We are calling for an economy that is sustainable, a green economy, an economy built on research and development within our own institutions and our post-secondary institutions.

In an interview with the Canadian University Press, Dave Molenhuis, national chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students, agreed that while the CSJ program is good news for full-time students, there is still a desperate need for programs that support those who are in school part-time.

“Looking at who is a part-time student, especially [in] today’s economy, [it] includes mature students, students with dependents, students with disabilities, as well as those requiring re-training,” said Molenhuis.

“These are students who can only complete their studies on a part-time basis because of financial circumstances, because they have to work during the school year in order to be able to afford the costs of living and afford the increasing cost of post-secondary education,” he added.

Myriam Zaidi, SSMU VP External, also acknowledged that while the investment is a good first step, it is nowhere near a solution to students’ financial issues.

“I think that $10 million invested in student employment is great, but I also think that the federal investment in education is extremely low,” she said, emphasizing the need to place a greater focus on the increasing cost of tuition.

“If post-secondary education was not as expensive, students would be less pressured to find student jobs during the summer. Because even if students do find jobs over the summer, they will still have trouble paying for tuition during the year,” she said.

Provincial government aid allocated for students in Quebec greatly surpasses funds allocated by any other province in Canada – more than triple the second highest recipient, Ontario – according to a University Committee on Scholarships and Student Aid report submitted to McGill Senate for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

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The lack of student consultation on controversial issues such as the closure of the Architecture Café was likely one of the main motivations for the Work Group. It was created by Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning Morton Mendelson – who was conspicuously absent from the meeting – with a mandate “to broadly consider, and make recommendations about, the methods used to consult and communicate with students.”

Engineering Senator Andrew Doyle commented on the nature of existing consultation committees.

“Committees deal much more with the how than the what. It is very difficult for a student representative to actually add an agenda item to a committee, and I think part of the frustration of students is that we’re always talking about what the administration wants to talk about, and not what we want to talk about.”

The open forum was organized to allow students to contribute ideas and suggestions to the committee, which will submit its recommendations to Mendelson in February. The atmosphere of the forum remained largely respectful and constructive, though frustration was palpable over what one student referred to as the “kids vs. grownups attitude” with which the administration deals with students in regards to decision making processes.

Students repeatedly stressed the difference between consultation and being involved in consensus building. Forum moderator Finn Upham – a graduate student and committee member – said the difference came to whether “students want to be customers or community members in terms of decision making.”

Many students referred to the current decision-making process as a system that weighted the power away from students in a way unacceptable for a university.

“The University and administration takes pride in the fact that we have some of the smartest students from across the country at this university. We are very capable of taking matters seriously and contributing to the process,” said Arts Senator Tyler Lawson.

The audience was quick to accede that it was clear that students and administration would not always agree. However, many saw this as irrelevant to the fundamental need to be consulted and have clear access to information about campus issues.

In his closing remarks, the chair of the Committee, Physics professor Paul Wiseman, said that he was “incredibly impressed in terms of the constructive atmosphere.”

Joshua Abaki, SSMU VP University Affairs, and the student representative for the committee, thought the forum was effective.

“I felt that this meeting was very, very helpful. We got a lot of really, really good comments, especially on where things have gone wrong. I am looking forward to the next meeting, and looking at how we can integrate the solutions that were suggested,” said Abaki.

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In a discussion moderated by CBC host and McGill Religious Studies graduate Evan Solomon, Blair explained the ideology of the initiative, and fielded questions from the audience on the changing role of religion in society.

For Blair, globalization is both an opportunity and an unstoppable force. He also believes it is a phenomenon that has exacerbated the need for greater religious understanding, and the inclusion of religion in the realm of politics, he said.

“Does religious faith become a means of providing civilizing values to civilization and thereby be a force of progress, or does religious faith become a badge of identity in opposition to those who aren’t of the same faith?” asked Blair. “I think this is the dominant question of the 21st century.”

According to Blair, distinctions between left-right political ideologies are increasingly subordinate to the basic question of whether a society is open or closed to cultural and religious differences. Successful integration and public policy will rely on societies’ attitudes toward diversity, and their ability to find commonality irrelevant to one’s faith, or lack thereof, said the former prime minister.

“If you want to be a leader today in politics, in business, in civic society, you can not be religiously ignorant. You may not agree with it, you may not even like it, but you’ve got to know about it,” said Blair. “Even if you don’t believe in someone’s faith, you can respect their right to believe, that it is an alternative path to salvation, and in respecting that you get quite close to respecting their spirituality.”

Blair maintained that religiosity continues to grow despite predictions that it would decrease as countries became more prosperous.

“Within debates about our society, religious faith is an issue, it is in the public space. So the question is not whether it is there; the question is what it is doing when it is there and what are the rules that guide proper debate.”

McGill is currently the only Canadian university to be invited to participate in the initiative, which includes seven other universities such as Yale, Durham (U.K.), and the National University of Singapore. In August, five McGill students travelled to Singapore to discuss inter-university collaboration within the initiative.

Earlier Friday morning, Blair spoke to a 300-level special topics course on Religion and Globalization co-taught by professors Daniel Cere and Ellen Aitken. Cere explained that faculty members stepped back and the “whole class was run by the students.” Students from a variety of disciplines conducted interviews with Blair on the intersections between religion, law, gender, and globalization.

According to Cere, a member of Blair’s team, Drew Collins, said that this particular experience was one of the best exchanges with university students that Blair had had.

Cere added that the course methodology was fairly unique: each week, students write a 500-word blog entry, and they are encouraged to interact with each other on the internet.

“Some of these blogs will go up on a secure blog site that will allow these students to interact with students at Yale, Peking, other parts of the world – pretty appropriate given the theme: religion and globalization,” he said.

Cere felt that the initiative signalled the beginning of a new program of research and study at McGill.

“There are so many areas where religion interacts with culture – religion and law, religion and politics, religion and gender issues – these points of interaction will probably be future areas of research avenues for teaching and collaboration,” said Cere.

Juliette Dupre, a U1 Arts student, was a member of the McGill contingent who participated in the Singapore conference.

“Especially considering how important religion is to such a large number of people, not only in their private lives, but as an influence over the way that they think and act and how they choose to live, this is an extremely important initiative,” said Dupre.

“I think this is a good start on an important problem, and I think it’s an ambitious start. Ultimately it is a very interesting initiative for McGill to be involved in.”

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According to Director of McGill Food and Dining Service (MFDS) Mathieu Laperle, the cutbacks are a result of McGill’s contract with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the administration’s hands are tied when it comes to cutting students’ shifts.

“We have a union contract agreement, so we have to respect the contract agreement. We have a union agreement [that] we have to go by seniority… It is a normal process,” said Laperle.

Laperle added, “What we did was to renew our needs. There are more and more people who have started to use [Royal Victoria College] instead of BMH, and we’ve seen some changes in terms of the patterns and the habits of the people. So it’s a normal process. This is something we do every year because at the start of the year we don’t know the habits of the people. If there is a need [for employees] there is no problem, but if there is no need there is no need. We aren’t creating jobs just to create jobs.”

However, some student workers are less concerned about shift cutbacks than a new policy that limits the number of times a person can switch their shifts to five times a semester.

For one student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the cuts in shifts are bringing his work in to conflict with his academics.

“The problem is that they aren’t outright firing us. What they are doing is they are giving us shifts that are impossible or really difficult to do,” he said. “They aren’t considering availability, which is an issue because ultimately I’m here to go to university, and if I were to do their shifts I would have to seriously sacrifice that.”

The limited shifts will also affect his work permit. “I am an international student and so we’re only allowed to work on campus,” he said. “To be able to work on campus you need to get a social insurance number from the Canadian government, and when they give it to you, it’s on the basis that you are going to be in an employment in a place for a certain amount of time. Also they are not just going to reissue you one if you lose your job quickly.”

Currently there are just under seventy students on schedule at BMH. This number is up from previous years when the average number of employees was around 40 or 50, according to Susan Campbell, Associate Director of Food and Hospitality Services.

Some students are wondering why MFDS would inflate the number of hires just to downsize two months into the school year.

“Basically everyone has lost shifts,” said Steve Eldon Kerr, a U2 Arts student and Daily writer employed at BMH. “They hired too many people, so they had to cut down. They have said that if you really need the money they will give you more shifts, but I just really don’t know how they are going to do that.”

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Experts from nine provincial ministries, as well as representatives from Gaz Métro and the Quebec Oil and Gas Association, spoke about the shale gas industry and fielded questions from the public at the sessions, which were held Monday and Tuesday in the town of Saint-Hyacinthe, east of Montreal.

Opposition politicians have criticized Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government for going forward with shale gas extraction before conducting research into the procedure.

Martine Ouellet, Parti Québécois MNA for Vachon in Longueuil, told The Daily, “The Quebec government does not have studies on how this will affect pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.”

“That’s the problem: there is a lack of information,” she continued. “If you look at the hearings, they kept repeating, ‘We don’t have that information, we don’t have that information, we need more information.’ There are no studies. The public has not been consulted enough, and what we really don’t understand is why the government is listening so closely to the industry and not to citizens.”

Extraction of shale gas, a previously inaccessible type of natural gas found in shale rock deep below the surface of the earth, has taken off recently in Quebec due to technological advances and a process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Companies drill a well to access the gas, into which they inject millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals under high pressure, creating fissures that open the gas flow. 
Questions remain about how drilling will affect Quebec’s plans to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Industry and government representatives have marketed shale gas as a “cleaner” fuel. However, Natural Resources Canada has warned the federal government that fracking could increase carbon dioxide emissions, interfere with wildlife habitats, and deplete freshwater resources.

In the U.S., shale gas drilling has caused water contamination so severe that people living close to drilling sites could actually light their tap water on fire. 
Some companies, such as Talisman Energy and Junex, have begun testing the viability of the gas reserves in the St. Lawrence Valley, and so far the government has issued 600 drilling permits. The province has ordered its environmental protection agency, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), to review the practice and to report to government officials by February.

However, critics say BAPE has not been given enough time to do a detailed study. A group of former BAPE members wrote an open letter published by the CBC last Friday, stating that the agency’s mandate “imposed constraints such that BAPE had neither the time nor the resources to stimulate rigorous and credible public debate.”

“Not only don’t we have enough time for proper study, but the documents are ridiculous,” said Kim Cornelissen, a spokesperson for the environmental group Jour de la Terre. “[In] examining shale gas we are not saying if it is good or not. We are saying we will do it, [but] how do we do it? It doesn’t make any sense.”

In a recent interview with the Gazette, Steven Guilbeault, deputy director of the environmental group Equiterre, wondered why the government was not taking more time before beginning drilling.

“There’s no rush. The gas is not going anywhere,” said Guilbeault. “It’s not going to evaporate. It’s not going to migrate to some other provinces or U.S. states. It’s going to go stay there. What’s wrong with taking six months, or a little bit more, to study this thoroughly?”

Cornelissen pointed to the close relationship between the provincial government and industry executives as a possible reason for the hurry.

“[Former Hydro-Québec president] André Caillé and other industry leaders [are] really close to the government, so they are in a really good place to say [to the government], ‘You know, we know what we are talking about.’ It’s like it’s between family,” said Cornelisson, who nevertheless remains optimistic about halting development.

“I think that the people are way wiser than this trick that says we must have shale gas. I don’t think it will work.”

There is now a petition before the National Assembly to ask for a moratorium on drilling. The next public shale gas hearings will take place in mid-November.

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The report, dated March 2009, confirms what many activist and community groups have been saying – that black males in certain Montreal boroughs are much more likely to be stopped and questioned by police than their white counterparts. The study, written by criminologist Mathieu Charest for the SPVM, shows that by 2007, 30 to 40 per cent of young black males in areas such as Montreal North and St. Michel had undergone police identity checks, compared to five to six per cent of white males. 
In the immediate aftermath of the leak, the SPVM was quick to deny that racial profiling is as widespread as the study suggested. They claimed that the numbers were skewed despite the fact that the conclusions were derived from approximately 163,000 records of interactions, or “contact cards,” filled out by police officers between 2001 and 2007. 
However, in an interview with the Gazette last week, Parent broke from the SPVM’s long tradition of denying discrimination among the police force by admitting that racial profiling is a problem that the force needs to address. He pointed specifically to police street squads – such as a unit known as Project Eclipse – which needed to be restructured so as to place less emphasis on targeting certain types of youths and instead go after “hard core” suspects.

“I had a talk with Eclipse. I met with them, and we [told them to imagine themselves] in the place of those people who were targeted over and over as part of racial profiling,” Parent told the Gazette. “In years past their mandate was strongly about enforcement. I think [Eclipse] should continue as a team, but maybe we’ll merge them with investigation units in a way that is much more concentrated on what we want, which is to find really hardcore suspects.”

A report released the same week as Parent’s appointment shows that while muggings and crimes against property are down, the number of drug dealers in Montreal has ballooned over the last ten years. The number of crack cocaine dealers alone has skyrocketed from around 514 in the late 1990s to 2,998 in 2007-2008. Parent said that such changing crime patterns would be addressed as the force looks to shift its focus this fall.

Unfortunately, activist groups who have and continue to fight racial profiling by the SPVM, such as the Coalition Against Repression and Police Abuse, remain wary about how much change Parent will actually be able to effect.

“[Racial profiling] is clearly a much bigger problem than the authorities would like us to believe. We have to remember that the police tried to hide this report, and we only saw it as a result of a leak to the media,” said Alexandre Popovic, a spokesperson for the coalition.

“Therefore we are apprehensive about whether the new police chief will actually crackdown on this issue. We really have to wait and see,” Popovic added.

The SPVM declined to comment to The Daily.

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On Monday, SSMU President Zach Newburgh and VP (University Affairs) Joshua Abaki met with Mendelson to present him with a memorandum showing that 80 per cent of undergraduate Architecture students are in favour of re-opening the Architecture Café.

“When I came out of the meeting, Josh and I had both left with the understanding that the deputy provost was going to reconsider his decision,” Newburgh said. “This was confirmed by his statements, which was ‘I will consider this advice and reconsider’. … He said that, point blank.”

Mendelson has publicly denied that he said in the meeting he would reconsider closing the Architecture Café.

Asked if this meant Mendelson was lying, Newburgh said, “Yes, that would be correct.”

Since the administration decided to close the Architecture Café this fall, student outrage has centred as much on the handling of the closure as the closing itself. Students have repeatedly cited a lack of consultation as one of the most contentious issues in the café’s closure. 
“In the original memo that we got from the dean of engineering, which heralded the official communication of the decision to students, the strongest argument made for closing the café was that the architecture students wanted a study space. However, as the decision was made in the summer, architecture students were actually not consulted,” said Abaki. 
According to the 2006 Principal’s Task Force on Student Life and Learning: “The Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) and the Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) should engage in broad-based consultations, through a round table or other appropriate mechanism, to streamline procedures and decision processes for the reservation of university space by student organizations wherever possible.”

Mendelson said that “there is no link between the Task Force recommendations and the administrative decision to close a money-losing food operation, especially where the space is required for other student activities. While I am certainly open to listening to arguments and suggestions regarding the positions taken by the University, nothing has persuaded me that I made the wrong decision.”

Despite Mendelson’s position, students remain hopeful about the possibility of the café reopening. A protest, called “Rally for Saving the Architecture Cafe!” on Facebook, is scheduled to be staged outside Leacock on September 22 at 2:30 p.m. The Facebook event for the protest had over 1,000 confirmed attendees when the Daily went to print.

On September 7, the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) and Architecture Students Association (ASA) sent a joint memorandum to Mendelson proposing that the café be put under the supervision of the EUS, which has a strong history of running successful business operations. 
“The ASA is relatively small, given other departments, but on principle it’s really important. It’s the last student-run café and people identify with that. People see the corporatization of the school, the closing down of student-run services in the name of financial efficiency or whatever buzz words that Voldemort [Mendelson] is using these days,” said Arts Senator Tyler Lawson. 
“What kind of administration is going to operate in stark ignorance of the students’ desires?” asked Lawson. “It’s important that this rally sets the tone for the rest of the year. We intend to mobilize students…[and] effectively take back this institution, what’s ours.”

The post Newburgh says Mendelson lied appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The result of a movement spearheaded by McGill students, the SPF is a parity committee created to support environmental initiatives by McGill students and faculty members. The SPF has a budget of about $2 million over three years.

“It is a wildly genuine partnership of students and administration, not just because of the way the funds are set up but also because the committee itself is made up of four students and four members of the university administration,” said SPF coordinator Lilith Wyatt.

Emily McGill, a staff member of the Macdonald Ecological Garden, described how some of the money is being spent. She said the garden improves the local community’s access to locally grown food, and increases academic agricultural knowledge throughout the community by emphasizing research projects and holding various workshops, lectures, and tours of the garden.

In addition to the SPF, the administration recently embarked on a number of other initiatives aimed at making campus more environmentally sustainable, including making McTavish a pedestrian-only zone.

Chris Wrobel, a coordinator with the McGill Post Graduate Environment Committee, said that some practical elements in the University’s approach to sustainability are missing, however.

“I think it is a bit of a show. They have some showcase projects like the closing McTavish, but there are a lot more basic things they still have to tackle, like improving recycling efficiency,” he said.

According to Wrobel, McGill needs to become a lot more aggressive in incorporating more sustainable forms of energy and educating students and staff on how to reduce their energy use.

“Students need to be consulted a lot more on projects going on at both campuses. We don’t know…what they are doing and we certainly would like to have more input.”

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