This march was commemorated last Wednesday evening at Thomson House, with three speakers who described their experiences in a movement that changed McGill, a still-majority anglophone university.

“I’ve never been part of a demonstration so large, so electric,” said Mark Wilson, who held the position of editor-in-chief of The Daily for three days in 1969 before being fired by the Students’ Council, the precursor of SSMU Council. At the time, The Daily was not yet independent.

Wilson said that the purpose of the movement at the time was much more radical than allowing students to submit their work in French, now McGill policy.

“The goal was not to make McGill more bilingual,” said Wilson. “It was to expropriate it.”

The gathering, organized by the Commission on Francophone Affairs (CAF) and attended by about 30 people, also included Daniel-Pierre Vézina, who recalled marching in front of the University during his studies.

“A lot of politicians didn’t think it was serious,” said Vézina, but “the protestors really believed what they wanted.

“It was very coherent,” he added, referring to the demonstrators’ remarkable organization. “It’s not the case anymore [with protests these days].”

McGill français, then Opération McGill, currently represents about 18 per cent of students – just under 6,000 – who declare their mother tongue as French. According to McGill enrolment services, 52 per cent of McGill students list English and 30 per cent list another language.

CAF, the current driving force behind McGill français, is less idealistic and more practical in its goals compared to its past incarnation, and has focused this year on increasing bilingualism in student associations. This year, they successfully lobbied for all course syllabi to state that students have the right to submit all assignments in French. CAF also organizes the popular Francofête.

“Now [being at McGill] is easy for francophones,” said Vézina.

But Lucien Lapierre, a former Canadian Senator and host of the influential but short-lived sixties public affairs program This Hour Has Seven Days, said that the movement needs to focus on the University’s place in the province.

“I didn’t want McGill français,” said Lapierre. “I want McGill aux français,” describing how McGill had to recognize it was part of a francophone province and serve the workers of the province.

Lapierre gave an impassioned and almost tearful speech recounting his life in a large, Catholic, rural family with parents who had no love in the world except bettering their children’s lives. McGill, as a gateway to the rest of Canada and the world, needs to be open to francophones, to contribute to the betterment of the life of Quebeckers, and transform Canada into a country that respects the equality of Quebec.

“McGill is the only university in Canada that has to represent Quebec,” he said. “If you leave Canada the way you have found it, I will come back and haunt the hell out of you.”

SSMU VP Internal Julia Webster thought the event was a wake-up call for the lack of francophone representation on campus.

“I think this was a potent reminder of the marginalization of francophone students on campus,” Webster said.

Carman Miller, a former dean of the Faculty of Arts and a current history professor, hired a few years before the protest, pointed to the 1969 Principal’s actions, which framed the protest as a war.

“McGill has rights and will protect its rights,” quoted Miller, recalling Principal Harold Rocke Robertson’s address to faculty and staff at the time, before he then announced that police would surround the large auditorium in Leacock and force people to obey the University’s will.

“McGill represented, rightly or wrongly, what was wrong,” recalled Miller, “and the notion that I was on the wrong side only fed [my will for change].”

The post Forty years of McGill français appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Held Thursday and Friday at the Faculty Club, the conference featured an opening keynote address from Jim Flaherty, the current Finance Minister, and four panels throughout the day Friday.

In a panel titled “Do Media and Public Opinion Really Matter?” Nik Nanos, President and CEO of Nanos Research, one of the top polling companies in Canada, noted a decline in the quality of political discourse in Canada, remarking that national media should shoulder the blame.

“Good politics does not necessarily reflect good public policy,” said Nanos, describing a media sensationalization of simplistic polling questions, eventually causing a political reaction. “Good research presents tradeoffs,” he continued. “If you ask people if they want to lower the GST, of course they will say yes.”

“[Newspapers are] where policy makers test their proposals,” said La Presse editorial writer Alain Dubuc. “We know media can derail a project,” he added, pointg to newspapers’ framing and selection of stories, editorials, and letters to the editor – all of which affect public consciousness.

Moving news to an online medium is also dangerous, according to Dubuc, because it’s incredibly easy for commercial media to track what people are reading about, and shifting their coverage accordingly.

“The topics that are most popular on the Internet are not the most noble,” said Dubuc. “Newspaper newsrooms are the largest producers of news; TV and radio steal our news, and people go on the Internet.”

While Sandra Buckler, the former communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper who presently works as a private-sector consultant, agreed that newspapers are much more reliable as factual sources than blogs. But she also expressed her general disdain for the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery (CPPG) – a group of national press reporters covering federal politics – and instead praised local journalists, akin to the Conservative government’s media strategy over the past three years.

“Maybe there are too many of them [in the CPPG] and not enough news to cover,” Buckler said of the CPPG, arguing that local media tend to editorialize less. She added that the CPPG often focuses on trivial stories and gaffes, rather than more consequential policy issues.

“In this new environment, you’re always on. There’s no room for errors,” she said.

Buckler also spoke to students, lamenting their lack of involvement in campus politics and youth wings of the party, noting that her party did not have a youth wing – something the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Québécois all have. Since youth are the most likely to follow current events from new media sources, such as the Internet, it is paramount that public policy discussions permeate the web.

“It makes me a little depressed when students feel they don’t connect with politicians,” Buckler said.

The post Policy crisis conference questions media’s influence appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Let’s back up two weeks. Hours before polls open in the SSMU elections, Council decided to publicly reprimand Elections McGill, its own independent electoral body – an unprecedented move. The decision addressed Elections McGill’s “failure to meet SSMU standards on bilingualism,” “insufficient promotional activities,” “inaccuracies in print materials,” and “inaccessibility to election candidates and referendum committee members.” For a body that produces nearly all its documents uniquely in English – including its web site and the ads it places in The Daily, gets pathetic turnout at student activism events like general assemblies not involving Gaza and Reclaim Your Campus, and doesn’t even have a list of its members on its web site, that’s pretty rich.

But still, if Elections McGill wasn’t doing its job, it deserved to be censured, no? I mean, if there’s anything more useful than a non-binding motion attempting to shatter confidence in its own electoral agency and distract it from its job on the eve of the election by bickering in public, I don’t know what it is.

Not that it’s all Council’s fault. At its meeting four days ago, Council got to witness Chief Electoral Officer Nicole Gileadi officially present the results of the votes to Council, after which she rightly chastised Council for its childish actions two weeks earlier and then, like the kid taking the ball and going home, announced the entire agency’s staff’s resignation, handed over the keys to the office, and left.

But it didn’t end there. Council was then required to formalize the voting results by adopting the report, normally a routine, uncontroversial event. Instead, councillors got their own ball rolling, ridiculing Elections McGill by proposing to amend the report to include under the section “Significant Achievements” the statement that very few candidates presented themselves for the race. After frequent requests from the Speaker for decorum, Council eventually decided to strike the whole section, and would likely have struck more if not for its concern that its actions might invalidate the razor-thin QPIRG referendum result.

One of the agency’s achievements that Gileadi frequently repeated was the relative lack of campaign violations. Does anyone think this would be the case if the positions were all strongly contested or Jake “not here for the first time in four years” Itzkowitz was around? I suppose it’s possible, given that Elections McGill isn’t even close to having the resources to monitor, let alone enforce, the rules. Here’s a Daily editorial from two years ago that still rings true: “Right now poster restrictions and campaign committee regulations are so stringent – and so frequently broken – that they are indeed meaningless.”

What should Council have done? Along with the five other bylaw changes it is proposing in its next meeting, it should overhaul its electoral bylaws, which now have 30 clauses and a litany of sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, with voting procedures that frequently refer to paper ballot voting, now only used when online voting doesn’t work. As well, the impartial agency in charge of administering a fair election should not be in charge of encouraging people to run against already-declared candidates.

In fact, if officials had actually read the bylaws, they would have discovered that the definition of the “spoilt” ballots so critical to deciding whether QPIRG’s result achieved a “simple majority” – different from an “absolute majority” – is irrelevant, because the ballots in question should have been rejected, not spoilt: spoilt is for when a ballot is found defective before entering the “ballot box;” rejected is for when it’s found not to be a valid vote afterward. Anyone who’s worked a day at a polling station for Elections Canada or Quebec should know that!

Luckily, there’s still one Council meeting left this year, so in a display of good faith, and to prove that Daily editors don’t just whine and complain without offering any constructive help, I’m willing to work with any councillor to rewrite the bylaws from scratch before Council adjourns till the fall. I’m at least mildly hopeful that one of you will take me up on my offer.

Nicholas Smith is a Daily news editor who’s been to the Law Building twice in his life. If you want him to do your work for you, contact him at telso@videotron.ca.

The post Caution: children at play appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the administration made the following statement to The Daily: “We have an agreement to purchase the property called the Four Points Hotel on Sherbrooke Street, which will become part of our residences’ offering.” 

The administrator refused to comment further, and Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson was unavailable for comment before press time.

Confirmation of the purchase followed brief comments by Principal Heather Munroe-Blum at Senate Wednesday stating that the Board of Governors – the University’s highest governing body – had agreed to purchase another residence because it would be more financially responsible than renting spaces to satisfy heightened demand for on-campus housing, as  McGill has done this year, such as at 515 Ste. Catherine.

Built in 1974, the Four Points Sheraton is a 20-storey, four-star hotel with 196 guest rooms and 13 meeting rooms. It was valued for property tax purposes on February 28 at $13-million, and belongs to the Mississauga-based Northampton Group, which owns 17 hotels in the U.S. and Canada.

The hotel has been in the press this year because employee members of Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and the Syndicat des Travailleur(euses) en Télécommunications (STT) have been on strike since  August 25.

A press release issued Tuesday by the CSN, a union federation associated with Four Points staff’s union, highlighted 150 members of the STT joining the hotel’s striking workers on the street and had Jean Lortie – the president of the Fédération du commerce, a grouping of hotel workers and other unions – calling the hotel one of the worst employers in the hotel industry.

“It is not true that we are going to retreat on all fours,” Fustel Dossous, the president of the SST, said in French in the press release. “We want a good collective agreement, and we will have one.”

When informed of the University’s statement, Sylvio Morin, a spokesperson for the CSN, could not contain his astonishment.

“It’s news to me,” said Morin, who then said he needed 30 minutes to discuss with other union members. Morin later relayed Lortie’s reaction.

“We are treating it as a rumour, so we are not commenting at this time,” Lortie was quoted as saying

The Daily called the hotel Friday asking for a reservation in September, however, and the hotel receptionist immediately said the hotel would be closed. When asked whether this was due to the strike, the receptionist, who would not give her name, concurred.

After being informed the hotel was no longer accepting reservations after April 17 due to the hotel’s closure, Morin refused to comment further.

The Daily visited the hotel later that day, and though a staff member at the reception said that he received a phone message from The Daily, he “knew nothing,” and would “keep working,” asking The Daily to call back later.

Vinnie Patel, the CEO of the Northhampton Group, refused to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement between his company and the University.

The post McGill acquires Four Points appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Bridge is a four-person, trick taking card game modelled after Whist and similar to Hearts that involves intense strategy and technique. Contrary to the widely-held belief that most bridge players are seniors, a significant proportion of the estimated 60- to 100-million bridge players worldwide are spry, young enthusiasts.

Christopher Chalcraft, the current president of the McGill Bridge Club, explained that the variety in play is what keeps him playing.

“I like how intricate bridge is,” Chalcraft said. “The more you learn about bridge, the more addictive it becomes.”

While the basics of bridge can be taught in an hour, players are constantly learning new techniques, and playing with new partners and opponents.

“It’s not something that you figure out once and then it’s done,” said Shaz Taslimi, a former president of the club who has been playing for five years. “It does require analytical thinking. You do need to visualize the cards you can’t see.”

But while the game can satisfy the curiosity of the mind, many enjoy playing because of the friendly atmosphere.

“A lot of people start playing because it’s a social activity,” said Julia Evans, one of the four team members who qualified for the Collegiate tournament, who explained that meeting new friends at the table from nearly every McGill faculty has increased the value of the game.

The attraction of the friendly atmosphere is echoed by Paul Linxwiler, the managing editor of the Bridge Bulletin, the monthly magazine of the American Contract Bridge League.

“Bridge is the greatest game because of the partnership element,” Linxwiler said. “Trying to maintain communication between the partnership…that’s an art.”

Linxwiler also remarked that each game being a new experience has helped the game survive in its current form for nearly 100 years.

“Any game you could learn in five minutes is unlikely to hold your attention for a lifetime,” Linxwiler said. “It has an internal complexity and an internal beauty that keeps people playing.”

Chalcraft added that the supposed demographic skew is probably due to the stereotypes attached to the game by people who have never tried it, and that people need only need a few hours to get hooked.

“Bridge is a game of all ages. The reason most elderly probably play it [as opposed to youth] is because they have more time on their hands.”

The McGill Bridge Club meets Thursdays at 6 p.m. in the Trottier cafeteria. They can be contacted at mcgillbridgeclub@gmail.com.

The post Bridge enthusiasts fall outside age stereotype appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Clubs & Services Committee Chair, Sarah Olle, said Choose Life deserves to exist as a full-status club because “their application was complete and extremely thorough,” and because Council has twice agreed that Choose Life is acceptable as a club – once when it voted to approve it for interim-status, and once when it accepted the Equity Officers’ decision not to reprimand the club for its event displaying fetuses at the Y-intersection.

“Their mandate works toward opening up a discussion which, again, the Committee supports,” said Olle. “The Committee continues to believe that this club should not be shut down.”

But Councillor Sarah Woolf said that Council should not approve Choose Life now just because it was approved in October.

“This is not the same debate we had three months ago,” said Woolf. “We could not allow a club to form without seeing what they would do. We can [now] ground our opinion in the club’s actions, not on hypothesis.”

Woolf also pointed out that denying Choose Life the right to exist as a club would limit students’ freedom of speech, and would instead reflect back on SSMU.

“Students have opinions; clubs have goals,” said Woolf.

She went on to compare the issue to blood drives, which were banned in the Shatner Building in 2006 because homosexual men could not give blood, sparking a year-long debate that extended to a General Assembly (GA), a referendum question, and a Judicial Board challenge. Woolf said that even if there are problems with the procedure, everyone could agree that blood drives were objectively good, while that could not be said for showing students who have had abortions pictures of aborted fetuses around campus.

“My constituents don’t want to go around questioning the things they’ve done,” Woolf said.

In presenting the official report that Council eventually approved to change the status, Olle explained that even with approval, Choose Life would still be held accountable for its activities.

“Full status is not ‘permanent’ status,” said Olle. “Both interim and full status clubs are subject to the same scrutiny of SSMU. Any group can be reprimanded or disbanded at any time by J-Board, the Equity Officers, Council, or the Executive Committee.”

Iris Erdile, the SSMU Equity Commissioner and Officer, spoke as a member of the gallery and said that she disagreed with the Equity Officers who decided that Choose Life did not violate the anti-oppressive policy of SSMU, namely President Kay Turner and VP University Affairs Nadya Wilkinson. Erdile compared the event to the recent GA at which students decided SSMU should not engage in divisive political issues, while reminding the room that the equity policy was in the midst of being updated.

“We have a very recent precedent of SSMU members refusing to discuss an issue because it was divisive,” said Erdile.

But Councillors vociferously supporting the club, including Clubs and Services Representative Alexandra Brown, Arts Representative Hanchu Chen, and Law Senator Alexandre Shee, focused on Council’s past nearly-unanimous support of the club’s right to exist – Choose Life was was granted interim status in a 21-to-two vote.

“That right was proven months ago when this legislative body said ‘You provide a unique service,’” argued Chen.

“At the Council meeting where we ratified the equity report, nobody spoke up or raised concerns,” added Brown.

And Shee confirmed with Olle that Choose Life had fulfilled every single criterion for becoming a full-status club.

Chen also answered former Law Senator Erica Martin’s question about whether the Clubs & Services Committee considered constitutionality in those criteria.

“Constitutionality is something we discussed when considering interim club status,” said Chen. “We decided it was constitutional.”

The change from interim- to full-status will allow Choose Life to apply for an office and to the Club Fund, privileges denied to interim groups, complicating booking rooms for events; getting a mailbox, email address, and web space from SSMU; and applying to the Campus Life Fund for money.

The post Choose Life becomes full-status club appeared first on The McGill Daily.

However, a further $10 a year for the Student Services Fee and the Athletics Fee were submitted for approval in a referendum in March, because combined with the other increases, they were more than inflation.

SSMU by-laws allow, but do not require, Council to approve fees that at or under inflation. Fees that are not approved can be rejected or sent to a referendum.

A full-time student taking the standard 15 credits a term will pay $956.30 a year in ancillary fees, which also include the Information Technology and Registration Charges.

Increases to the registration fee for new students – from $60 to $70 for in-province students and from $80 to $84 for others – were rejected mainly because councillors felt it reduced access to the University, although the in-province increase was rejected because Councillor Hanchu Chen noticed, at the last minute, that the increase was well over inflation. Council had the opportunity to send these two fees to referendum as well, but because students rejected similar increases in a fall referendum, it decided to pass a motion stating it would not authorize any increase in registration fees for the 2009-2010 academic year.

However, because the recently-passed Quebec law requiring students to approve ancillary fee increases only applies to McGill students, not applicants, McGill is still charging the higher rate to applicants and will refund the difference for those who actually enroll.

Council also passed a number of changes to SSMU by-laws, which it has failed to pass for many meetings due to a lack of quorum for by-law changes – two-thirds, as opposed to the normal half-plus-one for most business.

Also, one week earlier, immediately after the General Assembly (GA), Council agreed to approve four referendum questions, three of which were fee renewals and increases from last semester that failed to reach quorum.

The questions are a $0.75 per semester increase for QPIRG, and renewals for the $10 per semester Athletics Facilities Improvement Fee and the $19 per semester McGill Undergraduate Student Fund, which includes the Access Bursary Fund, the Library Improvement Fund, and the Campus Life Fund. The last question is on GA reform.

McGill says annual undergraduate society fees range from $289.60 to $563.76.

The post News Brief: Council authorizes, refuses fees, approves referendum questions appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On the same day the budget was released, University of Ottawa Professor Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, pointed out that the amount allocated for broadband expansion is lower than the $500-million over five years that the Conservatives promised during the election, and that other countries are far outpacing Canada.

“By comparison, the Australian government has committed AU$4.7-billion [CA$3.9-billion] to a similar initiative,” he wrote on his popular blog.

The U.S. is also outpacing Canada in expanding access. The stimulus bill that is still working its way through the U.S. Congress at different times has suggested between $3-billion and $9-billion for broadband development in under-served areas—the numbers changing as different versions of the bill are amended.

Canada is also languishing in the middle of the pack of developed countries. According to statistics compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada is behind all the Scandinavian countries, as well as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Korea, in access.

For example, Canada is tenth out of 30 OECD countries for broadband penetration — the number of subscribers per 100 inhabitants — and ranks eighth, with 64 per cent, when the percentage of households with broadband access is considered. On the other hand, Canada is the third-least dense country in the OECD, which makes laying high-speed lines expensive. But, if 90 per cent of the Canadian population lives within a thin band of about 160 kilometres from the U.S. border, and only 64 per cent of the population has access, what is the likelihood that this new funding will actually penetrate into very remote areas?

And the situation is more grim when speed and price are considered. The average advertised broadband speed in Canada is barely half the OECD average, and nine times less than Japan’s. Further, none of Canadian broadband connections are fibre optic cable, which has an advertised maximum of 128 MB/sec in Japan and 13 MB/sec in five other OECD countries – 15 to 150 times faster than the Canadian average.

Canadians also spend the fourth-most for broadband, given comparable purchasing power, with the average monthly price for 128 KB/sec of bandwidth being over US$28.

Nevertheless, the Information Technology Association of Canada, an umbrella organization representing companies that comprised 70 per cent of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, believe that the budget allocation for broadband, while not everything that is needed, will help the economy in both the short and long term.

“This initiative will engage additional funding from other levels of government and the private sector to continue to expand Canada’s broadband network,” said the organization in a press release.

The post Budget stingy on broadband expansion appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and lead architect of the GNU Project – which developed part of the GNU/Linux operating system – stressed that there is an ethical requirement to use software that is “free as in freedom, not as in beer.”

“People are not taught to ask ‘how will it affect my freedom?’” Stallman said of software. “A program is free software if it respects a user’s freedom and the social solidarity of its community.”

He argued all ethical programs must allow the four freedoms: the freedom to run the program for any purpose, the freedom to study how it works and adapt it to your needs, the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour, and the freedom to improve the program and release it to the public to benefit the community.

The vast majority of computer programs are proprietary software, containing licences that make it illegal to exercise some or all of the four freedoms. This leads to ethical dilemmas, according to Stallman.

“Whenever a friend says, ‘I like this program, can I have a copy?’ you have a dilemma,” he said. “[One solution] is don’t have any friends; the other is to reject proprietary software.”

Stallman has always focused on freedom since beginning the GNU Project in 1983 and maintains that software is undemocratic if it fails to provide the four freedoms to users.

In his own life, Stallman tries not to use propriety software, such as Microsoft Word and iTunes. His boycott leaves him unable to use cell phones, taxis with map finders, and most laptops. He admitted in the talk, though, that his flight to Montreal likely used some proprietary software.

“If someone offers you a proprietary program to use, you should say no, for your freedom’s sake,” he said, emphasizing that the relative freedom of programs concern all consumers, not just programmers.

While Stallman supports free software, such as Firefox, OpenOffice, and different distributions of the GNU/Linux operating system, he said that calling these projects “open source” dilutes the emphasis on freedom.

He also encouraged schools to teach students how to use free software, so that students are not locked into using proprietary software from a young age – a preference which becomes costly once they leave school.

“If we want freedom to prevail, we have to fight for it,” he said. “If you teach people about freedom, they’re more likely to care about yours.”

The post Putting freedom back in software appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Two ancillary fee increases, which were not subject to a quorum requirement, split by razor-thin margins. Students voted 53.5 per cent to 45.6 per cent against increasing the application fees for prospective undergraduates, while voting 51.7 to 47.6 per cent in favour of increasing the Student Services Fee – which will increase funding for student health, the Office for Students with Disabilities, and the Student Aid Office.

Though he had hoped for a different outcome, Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Morton Mendelson was happy with the professionalism SSMU displayed during the referenda.

“[Obviously] I was disappointed that one of the items was defeated,” Mendelson said. “I was really impressed with the seriousness that SSMU Council and the Executive took with implementing the process of this referendum.”

Mendelson said that a general lack of information was problematic with the ancillary fee questions.

“I would have liked to be able to explain some of these fees, and explain what I called ‘trade-offs,’” said Mendelson. “If students had more information then that might be useful.”

Even SSMU President Kay Turner and VP University Affairs Nadya Wilkinson admitted during Thursday’s SSMU Council meeting that they had misunderstood a third ancillary fee increase that was not asked due to an error introduced during the drafting process.

“[The administration] thought the fee was inflationary, but they didn’t give us much information to that effect,” said Wilkinson.

Wilkinson added that it wasn’t until a private meeting with Mendelson that she and Turner finally understood the question, which prompted them to reintroduce the increase to the Information Technology and Administrative Charges at Council. The motion passed in spite of objections by VP External Devin Alfaro and LSA VP External Alexandre Shee that ancillary fees should be voted on by students. Mendelson, however, was happy that SSMU will let cost of living increases to ancillary fees be decided by Council.

“I was particularly pleased with the provision that the Executive and Council could approve cost of living increases,” said Mendelson. “SSMU’s definition of ‘cost of living’ was surprisingly refreshing.”

Council members also grilled Elections McGill Chief Electoral Officer Nicole Gileadi over the low turnout, wondering why there were fewer advertisements to commuting students, posters, and polling stations than in previous referendum periods.

Mendelson said there would be more requests for fee increases in the Winter semester – though he would not disclose which fees would be brought to referendum.

“In the winter we’re going to back to students regarding the fees for next term,” he said.

However, the SSMU constitution states that fee increases can only be voted on in the Fall semester unless Council gives two-thirds approval.

The results for fee renewals for the McGill Undergraduate Students’ Fund – which finances bursaries and libraries, the Athletics and Recreation Facilities Improvement Fund, and a fee increase for the Quebec Public Interest Research Group-McGill, were sealed after the questions failed to reach quorum. The questions may be readdressed in the Winter semester, but no earlier.

– with files from Erin Hale

The post Students tightly split on ancillary fees appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Am I eligible to vote?

All Canadian citizens over 18 on December 8 can vote – if they have been a resident of Quebec for at least six months. While this disqualifies most U0 students, most other Canadian students can vote. The six months, however, don’t need to be consecutive – it’s alright if you left for the summer, provided you were living here before June. According to Elections Quebec, students “can apply to vote in the electoral division where they are residing for their studies.”

Am I registered to vote?

Possibly not, so get on that. If you aren’t on the list of electors at your current address by December 4, you cannot vote. Unlike the federal election, there is no registration on election day, so check carefully to make sure you’re registered. Elections Quebec should have sent you a card listing everyone registered to vote at your address. If your name is not on the card, you need to register.

How do I register?

It is explained on your card. If you didn’t receive one, go to monvote.qc.ca/en, Elections Quebec’s web site. Besides checking to see if you are registered, you can enter your postal code and address to see where you can vote and where you can register. Most people must go to the office of the returning officer to register, but those in most McGill residences and the surrounding area – generally, north of St. Antoine, west of St. Laurent, south of Rachel and the mountain, and east of Peel or University – can register at New Residence Hall, at 3625 du Parc. Registration there will be open until Tuesday, November 25, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends. After that, you can register up until 2 p.m. on December 4, but only at the office of the returning officer, and you cannot vote in advance polls. To register you’ll need two pieces of identification, one with your name and address and one with your name and date of birth.

What do I need to vote?

Bring either your health insurance card, your driver’s licence, your Canadian passport, your certificate of Indian status, or your Canadian Forces ID. Based on past evidence, it is likely that many people will say “I forgot my passport, can I use my McGill ID?” or “My Hydro bill and library card worked in the federal election!” but it’s still not going to work, so don’t try it.

Where do I vote?

Polling locations have not been finalized yet, but should be soon. You will receive a reminder card later indicating where to vote, and Election Quebec’s web site will also be updated.

When do I vote?

Polling day is December 8 from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Advance polls are open November 30 and December 1 the same times. Voting at the office of the returning officer is open November 28 to December 4 the times registration is open, except on days with advance polls.

Do I get time off to vote?

McGill has cancelled all its exams on December 8, as required by law; they have been moved to Sunday, December 7. Your employers are required to give you four consecutive hours off while polls are open on December 8, not counting meal breaks, but they can choose which four hours, meaning if you work 9 to 5, most employers will let you leave at 4 p.m. They still have to pay you for the work you miss.

Can I work as an election worker?

Most definitely. There are many, many jobs to fill that require no experience or qualifications, pay between $13.28 and $16.40 an hour, and include paid training. To work you must be eligible to vote. Fill out the form on Election Quebec’s web site or call your office of the returning officer.

Can I vote by mail?

The deadline to register to vote by mail was last night, but it is unlikely you would have been eligible anyway, since voting by mail is for those planning to be outside the province.

Who do I vote for?

As if we’re going to tell you! Attend local candidate meetings, read candidate and party web sites, and find out what positions are most important to you. Make sure you don’t ruin your ballot by filling it out incorrectly. If it’s improperly marked, it’s rejected, just like 40,078 ballots were during the last provincial election!

The post Fall election: take three appeared first on The McGill Daily.

“We can either tolerate it one more time and give this guy the benefit of the doubt, or we can take a stand,” said Arts Representative Stas Moroz, who favoured Pound’s resignation.

Yet while some councillors focused on whether his comments were “racist,” many centred on asking for an apology, as Pound is recognized as having supported aboriginal rights and being in line with student opinion against the administration.

“To kick someone off the administration who has been so great to us is a little overly dramatic,” said Alexandra Brown, a Clubs and Services Representative. “He’s on our side; he’s been on our side.”

Marie-Dominique Giguère, the Social Work representative, noted that aboriginal justice isn’t contingent on punishment.

“In the aboriginal community, justice is restorative,” Giguère said, explaining how those who commit wrongs go before the community and the victims to discuss their actions, ask for forgiveness, and be readmitted into the community. Councillors mentioned how Pound has been more than willing to sit down with students and talk about what he said, as he did the afternoon of Council with the students organizing the call for his resignation.

Because the motion was only about calling for Pound’s resignation, it could not be amended to ask for an apology, or for Pound to meet with Council. After the vote was announced, some councillors tried to amend the agenda to immediately discuss what other measures could be taken, but they did not get the two-thirds majority required. Council did, however, overwhelmingly approve talking about it at their next meeting, on November 27.

A last-minute alteration of the fall referendum questions – which opened Friday morning – was passed in order to strike an administrative charge ancillary fee increase from the ballot. The question, crafted by the administration after several redrafts, asked for a $5.25 yearly fee increase instead of the intended $5.25 per-semester increase. They sent a last minute update two hours before Council asking to double the fee increase – but SSMU could not change the question because doing so, so close to the opening of polls, would have violated their bylaws.

SSMU VP University Affairs Nadya Wilkinson requested Council strike the question entirely.

“The question would be lying to students because it promises things they won’t be able to do with the money they asked for,” said Wilkison.

Councillors then brainstormed ways they could pose the question without violating their rules, even considering suspending their by-laws, which requires a two-thirds majority of Council. Although no one mentioned or seemed to notice that changing the wording of a question or adding a new one would also violate section 26.2 of their constitution – which neither Council nor the Executive can suspend for any reason – Council eventually agreed they should not bend their rules for the administration’s error, especially considering the administration would be unlikely to return the favour.

“If they didn’t feel these questions were important enough to bother proofreading, I don’t think we should be suspending our by-laws for them,” said Wilkinson.

While President Kay Turner said Council could always call another referendum period later this fall – which happened last year when SSMU and the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students’ Society forgot to put up the latter’s expiring fee levy for reapproval – councillors seemed unwilling to fund the extra expense. The earliest that voting for another referendum could have started was December 4, two days after the last day of classes, and it would have continued into the exam period.

McGill may decide to levy their increases anyway – it is allowed to raise ancillary fees by $15 a year without student approval, something they requested to show their good faith, according to Turner and Wilkinson – or it may propose the increases during an exceptional referendum period that Council can approve with a two-thirds majority, likely to run concurrently with the Winter referendum period. Two other ancillary fee increase requests – on the Student Services Fees and the application fees for prospective students – will remain on the ballot.

Council voted to approve two remaining General Assembly questions – supporting the Association of McGill Undergraduate Student Employees and a motion on transparency in military researching – as well as another motion supporting indexing financial aid to the cost of living and tuition increases, and one on SSMU’s constitutional obligations to bilingualism. Former SSMU Environment Commissioner Trevor Chow-Fraser also presented the environmental assessment of SSMU’s building and its operations that he co-wrote with fellow commissioner Derina Man. Council also voted for Haven Books, which has already hit 85 per cent of its projected sales for this year, to continue its operations until its lease expires in February 2011. It is unlikely to break even, but keeping it open will likely be cheaper than closing it and paying the fixed costs until the lease expires.

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Three students at the event – including Macdonald Campus Students’ Society President Emily McGill – separately brought up the need for improved transportation to Macdonald campus. They complained that the McGill shuttle buses fill up during rush hour, leaving many without a seat.

“It’s a wonderful service, but it’s always full during rush hour,” said Rona Strasser, a third-year Parasitology PhD student.

There are over 1,400 McGill students in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, which occupies MacDonald Campus.

Munroe-Blum answered that the University was not willing to spend more money on increasing service.

“Having the people to teach and having the place to teach will take priority over a shuttle bus,” she said.

The principal suggested that students pass a fee levy to expand shuttle service. She indicated expanding the commuter rail service – requiring lobbying to municipal, provincial, and federal governments – was the best long-term solution to transporting students between the campuses.

“There’s no door in the world that you can’t open as principal of McGill,” she later said, explaining the role she could play.

Munroe-Blum highlighted the importance of the West Island campus, and its growing interaction with the downtown campus.

“This campus was the first organization that wasn’t a not-for-profit to hold a conference on global food security,” she said of the September conference organized by the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The Association of Postdoctoral Researchers was unable to get a clear response on whether they would be treated as students or employees for tax purposes. Earlier this month, postdocs were notified they may no longer be eligible for $7,000 income tax exemptions contingent upon their status as students. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) stated in an October letter that they no longer consider postdocs students. Munroe-Blum called the way Canada Revenue Agency has changed its position at this stage irrational.

The principal also allayed Faculty concerns that the economic downturn would affect McGill enrollment, hiring, and pensions.

She pointed to trends that suggested investment in universities would remain high.

“We don’t want to put in place any omnibus or generic cuts or freezes,” she said. “There’s nowhere in the world that every dollar gets leverages as successfully as at McGill.”

Back downtown many were unaware that the Town Hall had happened. The Daily did not see any posters on campus, and many students only received an email invitation a day before the event.

The 48-person shuttle bus that arrived ten minutes before the event was just over half full – about normal for that time of day – and The Daily did not see any SSMU executives or councillors at the town hall.

“I do not believe any SSMU executives went,” said Devin Alfaro, SSMU VP External. “We did put up one poster in the office, but I believe that was because [former SSMU President] Jake [Itzkowitz] and [former SSMU VP University Affairs] Adrian [Angus] were the only featured students on the poster.”

But Munroe-Blum was happy with the meeting, and noted that it was rewarding to get a different perspective at this Town Hall, given its location.

“You’re the judge as to how useful this Town Hall was,” she summed up. “What I loved about the Town Hall is learning about every constituency. This has probably been the best [one] in that regard.”

While 70 members of the McGill community attended, only about two dozen students showed up to the event, largely from Macdonald campus.

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The well-known search engine has integrated departure information for bus, metro, and train service for Montreal, Laval, and the South Shore, allowing users to access routes and times for the quickest public transportation between two points.

Google Maps is a user-friendly system that many Internet users are familiar with, said Marianne Rouette, a spokesperson for the Société de transport de Montréal (STM).

“The reactions were very positive,” said Rouette. “It’s a very well-known tool.”

The system, which can also be accessed on cell phones with an internet connection, will run in conjunction with the STM’s long-standing trip planning system, Tous Azimuts which has been around since 1997. The STM updates Tous Azimuts daily with route and time changes, such as those due to construction, parades, and protests. Google Maps’ schedules are only updated four times a year, when the STM changes its schedules seasonally.

“Tous Azimuts has the operational times; Google Maps has the planned times,” said Rouette.

Tous Azimuts will be equipped with many of the features of Google Maps when it is upgraded to its fourth version in January, according to Bruno Allard, a research associate at the Groupe Madituc of l’École Polytechnique de Montréal – a transportation planning research group that develops and maintains the trip planning software for transit systems both on and off the island.

“Version four will integrate the data from all the systems,” Allard said, adding that data from intercity transportation, such as buses from Montreal to Quebec City, should be added sometime in 2009.

In January, Tous Azimuts will add search tools for addresses, intersections, postal codes, and some named locations, upgrading the system far from its original incarnation on the then-new STM web site.

“It was one of the first systems in the world at the time,” said Allard.

Both trip planners are avaialble at stm.info/English/azimuts/a-index.htm, and a bilingual YouTube video demonstrating the use of transit on Google Maps is at maps.google.ca/montreal.

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Should I vote?

YES!

Where’s my home riding?

Your electoral district – commonly known as a riding – is where your “ordinary residence” is. Elections Canada says that students living away from home may decide if their ordinary residence is either where their parents live or where they’ve escaped to during the school year.

Am I registered?

All registered electors should have received a Voter Information Card (VIC) addressed to them in the mail listing the locations for advance and regular polling dates. Those who have not gotten a VIC are probably not registered.

How do I register?

You can register just by showing up at your voting station on election day. It’s that easy!

What do I need to register?

You need the same proof as you need to vote: a government photo ID listing your address, or two pieces of ID with one listing your address, or a registered elector with ID who lives in your “polling division” (usually a few blocks around where you live) who will swear an oath along with you. Students in residence can get an “attestation of residence” from their residence administrator to prove their address.

When do I vote?

Polling stations are open from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on October 14. The last day of advance polls is today from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. You can also vote at your local Elections Canada office until 6 p.m. tomorrow.

Where do I vote?

The information is on your VIC. If you lost it, go to www.elections.ca, type in your postal code, hit enter, and click on “Where do I vote?”

What if I cannot make it to my local polling station?

You can register and vote by mail. To get your kit, go to any Elections Canada office before 6 p.m. tomorrow. The closest one to McGill is Westmount—Ville-Marie’s, on the tenth floor of the Scotia Tower, 1002 Sherbrooke O., at the corner of McTavish. You will get a ballot, which must arrive in Ottawa before 6 p.m. on October 14. Canada Post may be slow.

Can I get involved?

You can help ensure the fairness of the electoral process by being an election worker at a polling station on election day. You’ll protect democracy and make up to $240 in the process. Elections Canada’s web site and its local offices have more information, and many spots are still available.

Do I have school on election day?

Yes, and it’s a regular Tuesday schedule at McGill. If you work for at a polling station, you may have to lie to your prof about why you missed class – for the first time ever!

Who should I vote for?

Check our editorial section on Thursday, and our spotlights on election issues that we have been publishing throughout the election. And then make up your mind yourself.

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