UArctic is a multi-national cooperative network of universities, colleges and institutions promoting research and education in the north. Canadian funding to UArctic has been cut to approximately $150,000 from over $700,000.

Federal funding for UArctic has been conditional on the northern territories providing additional funding, which they have not done. Territories have instead spent the money on their own colleges, such as Yukon College, Aurora College, and Nunavut Arctic College.

A spokesperson for the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, an organisation focusing on improving governance in the Arctic, said, “There are severe issues with how resources are shared between territorial and federal governments.”

“[UArctic] doesn’t really fill the needs of the northern youth,” he explained.

UArctic does not grant degrees itself. Instead, it runs programs through over 140 colleges and universities in countries in and around the polar region.

Since its start in 2001, over 10,000 students have enrolled in a UArctic program.

Of the 140 institutions who are members of UArctic, more than thirty are in Canada.  A three-quarter cut in UArctic’s Canadian government funding would reduce the services available to Canadian students, though it is still unclear exactly what form the reduction in services will take.

A decision has already been made to move the undergraduate office from the University of Saskatchewan to the Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia.

In a statement released on its website, UArctic assures Canadian students that “UArctic has already taken steps, however, to ensure the continuity of service of programs.”

These programs include the Circumpolar Studies program, which focuses on the people and issues of the arctic region, and the north2north program, which is an exchange program between northern communities.

These programs are designed to “empower the residents of the Circumpolar North, by building human capital through higher education,” according to UArctic’s mission statement.

Lars Kullerud, president of UArctic, is hopeful that the Canadian government will be convinced to continue its funding. In a statement released on the UArctic website, he comments, “Our Canadian members remain committed with their own resources to continue to be strong partners in this work while we wait for a resolution of the funding impasse in Canada.”

The post UArctic funding slashed appeared first on The McGill Daily.

UArctic is a multi-national cooperative network of universities, colleges, and institutions promoting research and education in the north. Canadian funding to UArctic has been cut to approximately $150,000 from over $700,000.

Federal funding for UArctic has been conditional on the northern territories providing additional funding, which they have not done. Territories have instead spent the money on their own colleges, such as Yukon College, Aurora College, and Nunavut Arctic College.

A spokesperson for the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, an organization focusing on improving governance in the Arctic, said, “There are severe issues with how resources are shared between territorial and federal governments.”

“[UArctic] doesn’t really fill the needs of the northern youth,” he explained.

UArctic does not grant degrees itself. Instead, it runs programs through over 140 colleges and universities in countries in and around the polar region.

Since its start in 2001, over 10,000 students have enrolled in a UArctic program.

Of the 140 institutions who are members of UArctic, more than thirty are in Canada. A 75 per cent cut in UArctic’s Canadian government funding would reduce the services available to Canadian students, though it is still unclear exactly what form the reduction in services will take.

A decision has already been made to move the undergraduate office from the University of Saskatchewan to the Northeastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia.

In a statement released on its website, UArctic assures Canadian students that “UArctic has already taken steps, however, to ensure the continuity of service of programs.”

These programs include the Circumpolar Studies program, which focuses on the people and issues of the arctic region, and the north2north program, which is an exchange program between northern communities.

These programs are designed to “empower the residents of the Circumpolar North, by building human capital through higher education,” according to UArctic’s mission statement.

Lars Kullerud, president of UArctic, is hopeful that the Canadian government will be convinced to continue its funding. In a statement released on the UArctic website, he comments, “Our Canadian members remain committed with their own resources to continue to be strong partners in this work while we wait for a resolution of the funding impasse in Canada.”

The post University of the Arctic funding slashed appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Events kicked off last Thursday night.  420 people on 13 teams from almost every faculty participated. Points were awarded for each event and the winning team, Zeus’ PEKer – representing Phys. Ed. and Kinesiology – was announced at the closing ceremonies on Sunday.

Throughout the Olympics, participants competed in a variety of events including dodgeball, trivia,  a spelling bee, chocolate wrestling, scavenger-hunt and flip cup tournament.

Captains for each team were recruited from the different faculties and worked with the organizers to plan and run the event.  There were also 17 volunteers who helped to make sure that everything ran smoothly.

“There were five volunteers who each ran an individual event and twelve others who helped out.” explained Kate Barker, one of the head volunteers. One of the goals of the Faculty Olympics was to encourage inter-faculty interaction.

“When can we all compete against each other? We never can. This gives us that opportunity,” said SSMU VP Finance Nick Drew.

Christina Sfeir, one of the co-chairs and organizers of the Olympics, celebrated how well the events achieved this goal.

“The reaction from participants has been great. … Many teams have been speaking about having reunions because they enjoyed themselves so much and have been brought closer together with their faculty,” she said.

Expenses for the event were expected to be approximately $21,800 with returns expected to be $17,600.

“Given the events we wanted to do we knew that we would have to spend money for it to be a success,” explained Drew.

The biggest expense was the closing ceremonies, which included a power hour. However, organizers were able to save about $1,700 on the power hour when difficulty getting a liquor permit led to a last minute location change from Circus to Le Drugstore.

Despite losing approximately $2,000 on the event, Drew said that everything went according to plan.

“It was budgeted to lose money,” he said “ We need to spend money to make sure [Faculty Olympics] is something that will last.”
This is not the first Faculty Olympics, however it is the first one to be considered a success.

“The First Faculty Olympics to our knowledge was in 2007 and there has not been one since due to its unsuccessful outcome,” said Sfeir.

As a result of the 2007 failure, this year’s Olympics had to be organized from the ground up, as there was no previous framework to build on.

SSMU’s goal is to make Faculty Olympics an annual event, much like Management’s Carnival or Engineering’s Eng-games.  Carnival has been running annually since the 1980s and generally breaks even.

Sfeir linked Carnival’s economic success to the fact that it’s been running for so many years.

“We are extremely excited about next year and the ideas for new contests are already flowing,” she said. “It will bigger and better with each year so get ready, because Faculty Olympics is here to stay.”

The post Faculty Olympics a success appeared first on The McGill Daily.

“When almost half of the population believes that political ties are considered in the appointment of judges, there is a problem,” said Bastarache in an interview with the CBC.

QuebecLeaks plans on revealing its spokesperson when its site is launched on March 9.  Currently any correspondence with QuebecLeaks is attributed to “Noam Chomsky” – it is unclear who is behind the website.
“Our group is very decentralized and made up of many people… all sorts of people but mostly experts, entrepreneurs and professionals,” wrote QuebecLeaks in an email to Le Devoir.

A spokesperson for QuebecLeaks described to Le Devoir its hopes that a more limited focus on the province will make it more efficient in exposing corruption than an international site like WikiLeaks. “WikiLeaks is a very large organization, it can often take a lot of time for the documents to be sorted, they also can be lost in the sea of information concerning all the other countries in the world.”

QuebecLeaks plans to launch several mirror sites at the same time to keep the site going if the original is blocked.  The strategy is currently used by WikiLeaks, which has over 1,400 functioning mirror sites.

The site’s launch date was originally set for February 16 but was recently pushed back in order to give QuebecLeaks additional time to improve its security and ensure better protection for whistleblowers who postdocuments on their site.

“It is, in fact, an excellent thing for our organization and the citizens [of Quebec]. It shows that the project is growing,” wrote a QuebecLeaks representative on their Facebook page in reference to the launch’s postponement.

QuebecLeaks will join a growing group of regionally focused leak-websites, including BrusselsLeaks, BalkanLeaks, and IndoLeaks; focusing on the European Union, the Balkan region, and Indonesia respectively.

SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi commented on QuebecLeaks: “I don’t know what they will be leaking, but I think it is important for any government to be as transparent as possible.”

All of the leak sites have the goal of eliminating corruption through more transparent government.

The post A new whistleblower site will focus on the Quebec government appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill Daily: How do you define religion?
Olivier Bauer: Religion is a relation between human beings and an absolute sacred one: god, divine principle, or something like that. It is a transcendent relation between someone or something where he or she is sacred…you can name it what you want; maybe it’s God, or the absolute, the divine architect, and so on.

MD: How is sport a religion?
OB: In general, things don’t happen every time as they should. You can be the best player and one time you can score a goal and the day after it could be impossible for you to score…so it seems that there is something more than human in sport in general. It’s not just the skill of the players or the quality of the [equipment]; there is something we don’t know involved in sport. There is a supernatural power that is involved in sport that can help you; it can play with you or against you. It’s a religion because you have to please this supernatural being to make it play with you, not against you.

MD: What factors lead to the creation of a sport-religion?
OB: With the Habs religion, what is very particular is that it is a religion of Montreal and of Quebec. It’s the same as in every other sport; to make the gods play with the Habs. But it’s in a very Catholic way and in a very Quebecker way. For the Habs, the way you pray is the Catholic way because the culture of Quebec is very Catholic. For example, during the playoffs, there are people who go to the Oratoire St. Joseph and they [kneel] because it is the Catholic way to ask for something from God. It takes a Catholic face because we are in Montreal. But probably if you are Jewish or Protestant or atheist you can have another kind of a relation [to the sport].

MD: Religion offers its followers a moral code, does hockey do this as well?
OB: That is very interesting, because in hockey you have a moral code. It’s the man you should be – it’s a very specific kind of virility. You have to be a man and you have to be very strong and you have to be ready sacrifice yourself and you need to fight and you need to be hurt. It’s this kind of morality. It’s very interesting because of the motto of the Habs: ‘Nos bras meurtris vous tendent le flambeau (our bruised arms are holding the torch). I think there is a kind of moral dimension here. It’s not very unusual in Quebec; you know there is this mentality “Nous sommes nés pour un petit pain (we are born for a small loaf of bread).” You have to suffer if you want to win, if you are a Quebecker you have to suffer because everyone is against you. It’s the same on the ice.

MD: What drew you to this topic?
OB: When I arrived in Montreal in 2006, I thought it would be very interesting to work on this topic: the link between the most important cultural phenomenon in Montreal – the Habs – and the religious dimension…my interest was to discover some religious aspect of cultural life and to explain it [through theology].

MD: What has the reaction been to your course?
OB: It was amazing. I remember it was in 2007 and I gave an interview for the newspaper of the Université de Montreal. The day after I got two, three phone calls for interviews… and over the past two years I’ve given, I think, 150 interviews. I was very interested to discover how important it was for people in Montreal. Everyone was saying that the Habs are our religion but nobody had really explained what that means.

MD: By studying sport as a religion, what do you hope to achieve?
OB: Some celebrity, of course, and to be interviewed by The McGill Daily. The first thing is I want to understand. For my part I wanted to understand what that means: the Habs in Montreal. I got a lot of testimonies from people [saying] “I’m part of this religion”, and so I’m a little bit afraid because I think it’s not a very good religion. It’s a very tribal religion. There is a lot of violence and hate, for example between Flyers and Habs. You have to hate Philadelphia and also to hate the people from Philadelphia…I think a religion should promote love and not hate. That’s why it’s not such a good religion. It’s a very selective religion. If you don’t have money you can’t be part of it. You need money to go to the Bell Center, you need money to buy some jerseys. It is also a selective religion on the ice: you have to be the best player. And the last thing is it’s not a very solid religion. The team could be sold and in ten years there won’t be any Habs in Montreal like in Quebec, the Nordiques. So what is there left? That is three critiques I can address to the Habs-religion. That’s why I think it could be better to put your faith and your hope in another religion and maybe in another god.

—Compiled by Misha Schwartz

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In a SSMU Legislative Council meeting on November 11, VP University Affairs Joshua Abaki revealed this latest development in the proposed expansion and renovation of the Cyberthèque. The move will be a collaboration between the library and McGill Food and Dining Services (MFDS).

“It’s part of the master plan and we’ve been working over time to figure out how to…move the food services from downstairs, which is grossly undersized,” said Diane Koen, the Director of Libraries.

She pointed out that the move is still in its initial planning stages and that nothing is finalized yet. “I don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver,” she said.

The new cafe will most likely take the space currently occupied by the IT Customer Services (ICS) lending centre. Funding permitting, the move should be completed in two years.

After the cafe moves upstairs, the Cyberthèque will expand to fill the space, Abaki said.

According to Koen, the move will increase the cafe’s accessibility and foot traffic. An MFDS survey from last year found that the Redpath Café was the most popular food outlet on campus, with 38 per cent of respondents frequenting the cafe more than once a month. In contrast, the SSMU food court and the Engineering Café both had 21 per cent of respondents eating at the locations more than once a month.

The cafe was renovated just this past summer to allow for increased traffic, and students have asked why the administration is spending money on renovating a cafe when it intends to completely move it.

“[MFDS] recognised that in order to handle the flow and the volume…that they needed to do something. They saw that [the summer’s] improvement was not a longterm upgrade,” said Koen.

In other words, they believed that the congestion caused by the former layout of the cafe was too big a problem to put off for several years until they moved to a new location. Koen also said that “it would not have been student money that would have been behind that renovation.”

The funding for the proposed move is still being negotiated and the budget has not been finalized.

MFDS declined to comment, issuing a statement that it was “too early to discuss tentative plans for what may or may not happen to the Redpath Café.”

Stefan Mitchell, a second-year Engineering student, felt confident about the move. “McGill lacks space in everything, if [the move] gives you more space then it’s worth it in the end,” he said.

The post Redpath Cafeteria moving upstairs appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) took the individuals into custody, after which they were taken to an immigration detention centre in Laval, where they are currently being held until the Immigration Review and Board (IRB) can verify their identities.

“The officers were on board the boat at 1:56 a.m.,” said Jacqueline Roby, a CBSA spokesperson. The officers were able to determine that all nine “were in good health…and appeared well fed.”

Last Friday, seven of the nine detainees told their stories to the IRB. The stowaways claimed that they had hid in a shipping container on the ship’s with the expectation of landing either in Italy or Portugal, the Lugano’s two stops before heading to Canada.

The nine were discovered on-board the ship October 4, while the Lugano was en route to Montreal. At that point they claimed to be Iraqi refugees. A later fax sent by the Canadian Maritime Agency determined that they were in fact Moroccan. When the Lugano docked at the port of Montreal on October 7 the stowaways were taken into custody.

The Montreal Gazette reported that they used asthma inhalers to combat bad air quality and that one of the stowaways reported not having slept for seven days. Roby withheld further details regarding conditions aboard the ship.

According to Robert Gervais, an IRB spokesperson, the refugees had “no identification whatsoever…and must be detained until their identities are established.”

Gervais said that the detention review conducted for seven detainees last Friday was filmed, which usually only happens in the case of a refugee claim or if the detainee is a minor. He could not specify whether the seven detainees were claiming refugee status.

According to the CBC, seven of the nine refugees are applying for refugee status. The other two have not, but also want to stay in Canada.

The 1967 Protocol from the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines a refugee as “a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted…is unwilling to return to [their home country].” However, the detainees did not express any fear of returning to Morocco.

Seven of the stowaways will appear again before the review board this Friday, and the other two will appear on Monday. Once their identities are established they will be released from custody unless they are considered a flight risk.

Ever since the arrival of the M.V. Sun Sea and close to 500 Tamil refugees in the port of Victoria this past August, the federal government has been pushing for tighter legislation regarding illegal immigration, especially human trafficking.

The Gazette reported that one of the detainees told investigators that they had planned the entire exploit by themselves without any outside aid. However, it is still being determined whether this case did in fact involve human trafficking.

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