Well, yes and no. We still think the traditional opinion piece works best when persuasive: when rhetoric, logic, and facts are arranged in order to sway someone else. After all, political debates are not solved without arguments. But there are more forms of commentary than the six- to eight-hundred word single-issue dissection.

Our section recognizes – in fact affirms – the existence of bias and subjectivity everywhere in the world, and therefore is the natural home of personalized perspectives. Unlike an editorial, which is debated, written, and edited by the 19 editors of The Daily, Commentary, like the rest of the paper, is available for anyone in the McGill community.

Consider: Commentary – the word itself implies discussion and observation (think of a sports commentary or the director’s commentary on a DVD). The purpose of commentary is not just to persuade, but to illuminate. Whereas the value of an expert’s argument lies in the depth and breadth of their knowledge, the value of any person’s commentary lies in the unique perspective each person inherently has. Each of us views the world from a different vantage point, and this variety leads not just to a diversity of opinions, but a diversity of methods, styles, and experiences. Ought a survivor – of anything – be expected to argue in a step by step forumulaic style that their oppression was wrong because x, y, and z? Of course not! The value in their opinion comes from their very lived experience and rhetoric. It is more than possible that someone feels a poem or a passionate tirade of words is the best way to communicate what they have been through. Readers learn not just from argument, but by coming to understand the way another person sees the world, so all styles are welcome in Commentary’s pages.

Of course, we cannot print every piece we receive, nor would we want to, but we see ourselves more as curators than anything else. The most rewarding part of being an editor is taking the time to work through a piece with an author and doing the best to help them produce something they are really happy with. We won’t speak for people, or insist on printing only our own views, but we do want to garner as wide a range of experiences as possible.

Certain perspectives and arguments are more widely read and accepted than others. To that end, we recognize the truth that some voices speak not just louder than others, but are volunteered for publishing more often. Our role is to create a welcoming space for those who are shyer to offer their perspective, those who are marginalized and overlooked in mainstream media. Moreover, and ultimately this remains the most valuable feature of campus-community media, we are not profit-oriented: we can print what doesn’t sell because we think it needs to be read. So, we welcome authors who seek to challenge the status quo and established – and establishment – sacred cows. We want to provide a space for underprivileged and oppressed people to air their voices, in whatever style they wish. The Daily’s Statement of Principles accords with our vision for the section: our goal is to curate a section that is critical and open.

We still welcome those whose lives lived among books and learning enable them to write well-resourced and argumentative pieces about current political issues, but Commentary is also for social change, for mindless rants, for congratulations, and for rage. We welcome those who problematize, and who can show us what we didn’t see before. Remember, the Commentary section can only ever be a product of those who write for it: the more the merrier.

Jacqueline Brandon and Steve Eldon Kerr are this year’s Commentary editors. They can be reached at commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

The post Challenging, criticizing, illuminating appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The mainstream media serve powerful private interests through the profit motive. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the modern, “free” press was created by the 19th century capitalist bourgeoisie, who needed a press for their own revolution against the aristocracy. In fact, The Economist was founded by the free trade Anti-Corn Law League in 1843. The profit motive, however, now obfuscates the facts. Driven to publish what sells, the mainstream media focuses on salacious tidbits of apolitical “news” information stripped of any critical content, and ignores the true activities and motives of the powerful. This might not be so bad if we had mainstream alternatives, but we don’t. Over the last twenty years the number of independent Canadian media organizations has drastically shrunk: in 1990, 17.3 per cent of daily newspapers were independently owned, but by 2005, only 1 per cent were. A few large companies such as CTVglobemedia, Rogers, and the CBC  control most of the flow of information to the general public. Today, these companies decide what is “news,” and most of the time define it to mean gossip.

But what of the others, the organizations we trust to remain highbrow? Chris Hedges, foreign correspondent for the New York Times for over twenty years, has argued that “a too comfortable relationship exists on the part of major news organizations like the New York Times with the elite.” Instead of doing their own research, the mainstream media rely on Robert Rubin, Citibank, and the heads of Goldman Sachs for their information. Joan Didion called this charade “insider baseball” – I call it a lie.

Why has the New York Times, one of the world’s most prestigious newspapers, failed so abysmally to fulfill its task? One answer is that the mainstream business model is failing. Revenues have dwindled in the age of the Internet, so newsrooms have cut staff, meaning less time is spent fact-checking. A study in Britain found that, in 2006, only 12 per cent of newspaper articles in the highbrow papers were the result of real investigative journalism; 80 per cent were re-written wire copy or press releases. Moreover, more people now work in PR than in journalism. That is, more people are paid to disguise the truth than to reveal it. In service of profit the media has stopped fulfilling its purpose. According to the CAJ’s own principles, the mass media is unethical.

This is where alternative media comes in. Small, local, and independent media organizations try to make just only as much money as they need. Supported by donations and volunteers, these organizations exist to tell the stories of the people who took on Citibank’s sub-prime mortgages, who were beaten by the police, and whose communities were destroyed by Walmart. They don’t have access to the government or Goldman Sachs, and so have no reason to join in the charade. In fact, academics Michael Boyle and Mike Schmierbach have shown that audiences of alternative media are likelier to be more frequently engaged in protest actions than audiences of mainstream media. The people who make and consume alternative media are the very people who “encourage civic debate to build our communities, and serve the public interest.” The problem is that these organizations are poor and their means of distribution are all owned by large conglomerates. The threat of extinction is never far away.

This is where student media comes in. Student media is alternative because it is distinct from the dominant forms of production, distribution, content, consumption, and aesthetic that characterize the mainstream media. But student media has a ready-made audience and funding base, unlike other forms of alternative media. Easily accessible, student newspapers that tell the stories forgotten by the The Globe and Mail are picked up by tens of thousands of individuals on campuses across the world. Students from a diverse range of backgrounds can read about racism, sexism, and ageism – issues too often ignored by society – and this must continue.

It is vital, therefore, that we support our campus media. We must support The Daily and CKUT. We must use the opportunity student media gives us to critique accepted truths. If you want to read a defense of the status-quo, of mainstream economic thought, or of petty Ottawa in-fighting, then please pick up any mainstream newspaper. But if you want to see what else is out there, use this valuable opportunity to explore the world from different perspectives. In 1988, Professors Delaney Jr. and Lenkowski reported the sad fact that “the typical student is mostly concerned with consumer goods, a career, and sometimes even an education.” Use this space to prove them wrong.

Steve Eldon Kerr is a U3 Political Science and English Literature student. He can be reached at stephen.eldonkerr@mail.mcgill.ca

The post Trying to speak more of the truth, more of the time appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Under the new agreement, which runs until December 2013, UofT and Western will each pay Access Copyright, a copyright licensing agency which provides access to over 22 million published works, an annual royalty of $27.50 per full-time student.

The previous royalty was $3.38 per student, with an added $0.10 per printed coursepack page. The new agreement does away with the per-page royalty for coursepack copying.

According to Stephen Jarrett, legal counsel at Western, students paid an average of $18 a year in royalties, which was in line with the Canadian average.

McGill’s annual copyright fee is $12.45 for full-time students, with an additional charge of $0.83 per credit.

Jarrett told The Daily that Western made the decision to move to a single annual fee because of difficulties identifying digitally-delivered copyright material.

“Quite frankly, an equal amount of copyright material is being delivered over online course management systems as is being delivered physically,” Jarrett said. “We have to get a sense of whether or not the materials that are being delivered are subject to copyright or not, and this agreement buys us a couple of years to look into that issue.”

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has condemned the agreement. In a statement released on their website, the organization argues that the new agreement “allows for the surveillance of faculty correspondence, unjustified restriction to copyrighted works, and more than a million-dollar increase in fees.”

The CAUT notes that wording in the agreements defines copying as “posting a link or hyperlink to a digital copy.”

However, each agreement also explicitly states that “nothing in this agreement restricts the ability of the Licensee…in any way that would be permitted by the Copyright Act, including linking or hyperlinking.”

Jarrett admitted that Western disagreed with Access Copyright over what constitutes copying, and said, “[the agreement’s] wording was a compromise.”

“If there were some judicial determination in the future that hyperlinking requires the permission of the copyright holder, [Western] would be covered under the agreement,” he continued. Jarrett told Western News that there was no provision that “provides for surveillance of academic staff emails.”

The agreement also states that, although surveying of communications content-management systems will be necessary, “Any survey shall respect all applicable privacy laws, including the Licensee’s privacy policies in effect from time to time, and the principles of academic freedom.”

CAUT is also concerned with the agreements because of what they perceive as Access Copyright’s “characterization of the education sector as disrespectful of copyright, despite the sector’s billion-dollar-plus annual expenditures on copyright material.”

CAUT argues that Bill C-11, the Copy Modernization Act that will amend the current Copyright Act, will be passed in the next few months, and that it “will strengthen the bargaining power of [the education] sector with organizations such as Access Copyright.”

Bill C-11, now in its second reading in the House of Commons, would amend Section 29 of the Act to state that “fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody, or satire does not infringe copyright.” Bill C-11’s proposed amendment is the inclusion of “education, parody, or satire.”

Jarrett acknowledged that Bill C-11 will change the Act, but said that Western signed the agreement from 2011 to 2013 in order to be certain they will not infringe on it.

Over thirty Canadian universities have chosen to opt out of new agreements with Access Copyright.

Robert Gilbert, the communications coordinator for Access Copyright, told The Daily that the opt outs, and CAUT’s comments, suggest “that educational institutions decided to opt out of the Interim Tariff in anticipation of the fair dealing exception for ‘education’” that is currently part of Bill C-11.

Access Copyright doesn’t operate in Quebec; its counterpart COPIBEC licenses Quebec post-secondary institutions.

University of Toronto Provost Cheryl Misak declined The Daily’s requests for comment.

The post Ontario universities criticized for new copyright agreement appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I won’t lie. I’m British. One of my favourite meals is fish and chips. I love few things more than eating cod and chips from a seaside “chippy” while being sheltered from the wind along a waterfront. Keeping the chips (there will be no “fries” in this article) away from the seagulls is half the fun. So when The Daily asked me to review the relatively new fish and chips restaurant, I agreed, but sharpened my critical pencil. A couple of obvious criticisms to begin with:

First, Comptoir 21 is a boring name. A good fish and chip shop name ought to be a pun. It is difficult for me to trust a non-punning chippy. My personal favourites include “Lord of the Fries”, “Moby Chip”, “A Salt and Battery”, “The Codfather”, “The Frying Scotsman”, and “Batter the Devil you Know”, I understand these names may not suit the hip mile-end scene, but sometimes it’s necessary to take a stand for what is right.

Secondly, the beer selection is poor. I concede that most chippies in Britain do not have alcohol licenses, but Comptoir 21 does, and it must try harder. “Brit and Chips” in the Old Port not only wins the game of puns, but serves London Pride: a proper British ale. Boreale Blonde, Boreale Rousse, and Guinness out of a can does not constitute a “selection” of beer.

Nevertheless my companion – who did eventually show up – and I made do with a couple of canned Guinesses and waited for our meals. I ordered the $9.95 small fish and chips, and my friend the $5.95 fried calamari. All the fish meals come with coleslaw, a slice of lemon, and your choice of sauce.

We didn’t have to wait long for our meals, but they were definitely freshly cooked. The batter on my fish was exquisite – a gorgeous dark golden hue. It fractured crisply at the touch. There was neither too much nor too little of it. The mark of high quality battering, nuggets of honeycombed batter at the tip of each end of the fish, was clear to observe and pleasing to taste.

The fish itself was more disappointing. My cod was a touch watery and bland, although it still flaked off in pleasingly large chunks. Given the overwhelming flavour of deep fried batter, the cod used should be firm and succulent.

In light of the fact that I was served the blasphemous “fries” and not proper thick-cut chips, the chips were excellent. The hand cut potatoes, still with the skin on, had absorbed just enough oil to remain warm and tempting without succumbing to the disastrous hollow and crunchy cardboard sticks that characterizes far too much of the fried potato world on this side of the Atlantic.

I was delighted to have a very generous portion of creamy tartare sauce to dip both my fish and chips into, and the coleslaw was fine.

I did not try whatever weird ‘paprika’ or ‘jalapeño’ sauce my friend had ordered because I am an upstanding member of the Commonwealth and will not mix such foreign plants with my fish’n’chips. Yet, he did assure me the sauce was more than passable.

The same could not be said about his calamari batter, which was soft and bland. The squid itself was actually fresh, moist, and well cooked. The same care that went into the cod batter was unfortunately nowhere to be found with that of the calamari.

All in all, not a bad fish and chips, despite the numerous and overt blasphemes. I thought the batter outstanding, and although the fish neared mediocrity, these problems can be easily fixed or could have been supplier or seasonal issues. Or perhaps the issue is that we have over fished the cod stocks to near extinction. Meh.

In any case, if you like fish and chips or will probably be stood up at your next date and need a backup plan, I’d give Comptoir 21 a go. Try and sneak in some real beer though. Sheesh.

The post Holy chip! appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The plans first emerged with the publication of the Payette Report last January. Minister of Culture, Communications, and the Status of Women Christine St. Pierre asked Laval University professor and former Radio-Canada journalist Dominique Payette to recommend ways of improving journalistic standards in Quebec. One of the recommendations included in the Payette Report involved creating the title of “professional journalist.”

In the report, the Ministry argues that “the increasing number of news platforms do not guarantee better news quality” because amateur journalists, such as bloggers, are not required to follow the “high ethical standards” of professional journalists.  The Ministry believes that a professional title is in the public interest because it would distinguish professional journalists from other types of commentators.

Under the proposals, “professional journalists” would also have preferential access to governmental sources and meetings.

In April 2011, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Quebec (FPJQ) voted 86.6 per cent in favour of creating a professional title.

Claude Robillard, Secretary General for FPJQ, noted that “with the arrival of the Internet, blogs, social media, et cetera, everyone has begun writing and commenting.”

“Even in newsrooms, information is being diluted with the arrival of all sorts of commentators, such as politicians, ex-politicians, hockey players, and ex-hockey players,” he said.

“We say that, for the public, the difference between someone who has a hidden agenda, and the journalist who isn’t supposed to have any hidden agendas, isn’t necessarily evident,” Robillard added.

However, by the the end of 2011, the FPJQ was divided on the plans.

FPJQ President Brian Myles recently rescinded full support for the title of professional journalist, citing the divisions the plans created within the FPJQ.

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) has critiqued the plan from the start.  In a statement posted on its website, the CAJ writes that, “The Quebec government’s proposal to divide journalists into classes, backed by legislation, and giving one group rights and privileges denied to the other is a fundamental interference by government in true freedom of the press.”

The CAJ also suggested that the plans implied that the public needed the government’s help to distinguish between good and bad journalism.

“Journalists rely on their credibility with their audience, with the public. Ultimately, that credibility does not reside in a journalist’s title or for whom they work. Credibility, whom readers and viewers will trust, comes from the content of their work,” continues the CAJ statement.

Sarah Deshaies, Quebec bureau chief for the Canadian University Press and chief copy editor for the Concordian, argued in a December 7 Ottawa Citizen blog post that the plans would severely hinder student journalism, in particular.

“Limiting the access of student journalists to sources, and privileging certain information to paid journalists, also limits Quebec’s youth,” Deshaies writes. “Student journalists are not only trying to build their craft, but they are also often mandated by the students they serve to report and reflect on student issues, a topic often overlooked by mainstream media.”

Speaking to the Link, Steve Faguy, a copy editor at the Montreal Gazette and creator of the blog Fagstein, agreed.

“Many people see [the word] ‘journalist’ and they think of a newspaper reporter,’ said Faguy. “But journalism is a lot more complicated than that, and it’s only going to get more so. I think it will be impossible for a line to be drawn between ‘journalist’ and ‘non-journalist,’ because I don’t believe such a distinction exists anymore.”

The post Quebec media rejects proposed professional status appeared first on The McGill Daily.

So it was quite a surprise to find myself sitting in a McGill dining hall, rubbing milk all over myself to try and take the sting out of the mask of pepper spray I was wearing. (Milk, it turns out, does the trick far better than soap and water.) That night, November 10, McGill had dominated me in a new way.

The day began unassumingly. A march against tuition hikes, peaceful and even joyous, crowded the streets near campus. I joined up with the McGill contingent a little late, around 1:30, as they walked down Ste. Catherine towards the Berri/UQAM metro stop. By the time I arrived, we numbered roughly a thousand people. Our ranks swelled when we were joined by about two hundred MUNACA members. I saw many people at the march who I hadn’t seen before at McGill protests, and everyone seemed pleasantly surprised by the turnout, especially given the day’s gloomy weather. As we marched, we encountered frequent cheers of support from passersby and sung a range of songs in both English and French. At one point, a Francophone student organizer, who had seen the full scope of the Concordia congregation I’d somehow wandered into, gleefully uttered into his walkie-talkie, “mec, j’ai un vraiment fukton d’anglophones ici.”

As the march of 20,000 students crawled its way back to McGill College, the crowd was in good spirits. I had heard vague plans to move the protest up to the James Administration building to increase awareness amongst McGill students of the tuition raise, but I knew nothing about an occupation. When the march reached the Roddick Gates, I told the people I was with that I was going to a friend’s house on Aylmer to change my rain-sodden shoes. I asked them to let me know if the protest moved before I got back.

On my way to the house, I passed about 10 police on horseback cantering down Sherbrooke. Less than a minute later, a group of police on bicycles passed by the same way. A friend I was with joked about how much better it would be to be a horse-cop than a bike-cop, which probably sums up the genial mood we were in, and how unthreatening we found the police.

About half an hour later (at 4:42 p.m., in fact – I know exactly what time, thanks to my cellphone), as I was tying the laces on a pair of borrowed black sneakers, I got a call from a friend telling me to come quickly to James. I assumed it had something to do with the protest.

My friend and I ran to campus just in time to see the bike police cycling away from the Milton Gates. We saw some friends in a group of people that had formed a human chain around James. My friends beckoned to us to join them. We linked arms right in front of the building’s main doors and asked what had happened. One of my friends told the story of the occupation – how a group of students had made their way into Principal Heather Munroe-Blum’s office, had been treated roughly by security, and then had texted friends, asking them to congregate in front of James.

Just then, I looked over my shoulder and saw about fifty police in full riot gear filing through the Milton Gates in a narrow column. My friend suggested we leave, but he and I remained in the chain.

Something about the scene below was perfectly cinematic: the orange glow of street-lamps dimly lit the square as raindrops bounced off the steel-toed boots of the riot police. For a nice, middle-class boy who has always been taught that the police are the good guys who protect me from danger, the situation carried a hint of unreality.

It was jarring, then, to see police move up the hill towards James. As they came near me, their riot gear came into focus. Some of the police were carrying what looked like rubber-bullet guns. They all had pepper-spray cans that looked like bullhorns fastened to their hips. They wore plastic visors on their black helmets. As they approached, they beat their shields with their batons.

The sound of riot police beating their shields is much louder than I had expected – it produces a terrifying rap-rap-rap sound, like gunfire. On TV, the camera is typically far removed from the action, and the sound is dimmed so the reporter can be heard. But in reality, you have to remind yourself that it is only plastic hitting plastic, despite 10,000 years of evolution imploring you to run.

As the lines formed and the police advanced, one word was uttered more frequently than any other: “don’t”. “Don’t throw,” “don’t grab,” “don’t push,” “don’t punch.” Sometimes we shouted these words at the cops, and sometimes we said them to each other. I saw a young man throw a piece of candy in a pink wrapper at the riot police, an attempt at irony – but even before it fell, protestors were chastising him for inflaming the situation.

As the police approached, some people retreated towards the Ferrier building, but many more linked arms and faced the police. I was still piled up against the front door of James with my friends, but other protestors formed a line perpendicular to the building to face the riot police. It had become us against them, and I didn’t even know most of the people on my side.

Some of the protestors had clearly been in situations like this before; they covered their noses and grabbed water bottles. Other,  more inexperienced people like me left their eyes and noses badly exposed. But then, standing near the doorway of the James building, I didn’t expect to see pepper spray.

The pepper spray came, though, and pretty indiscriminately too. The first person I saw sprayed was standing near me. Before I’d felt it on my eyes, I felt it on my cheeks and down my throat. The word “pepper” is misleading. You might think it is like a really hot curry: deadly on the eyes, but tame against the skin. It is not. It feels toxic. My first reaction was to cough, but the spray stuck firmly to the inside of my throat. I grabbed a water bottle that someone had offered me and took several deep gulps, but the particles were still there, fiery against my skin. My cheeks simultaneously itched and burned. I wanted to scratch, but scratching only made it worse. Still, at that point, I wouldn’t say that I’d been pepper sprayed.

I only had to wait a couple of minutes to earn my battle scars. I had ended up on the very edge of a huddle close to the police line. The group was tightly packed to reduce the angles from which we could be sprayed. To the right of me was a good friend. A cop leaned over our shoulders with a can of pepper spray; we turned our heads away in opposite directions. A second later, the same cop shoved his can between our linked arms and sprayed upwards at our faces. My friend was his primary target, or at least got hit with more pepper spray, but I’m not sure if the cop was particularly concerned who he hit. In any case, he got me pretty badly too. Now I really had been pepper sprayed. It fucking hurt.

At first, the only thing you can do is close your eyes. I shut mine tight and stumbled around to the far side of the group, around the door, away from the action. Someone started pouring water over my face. I had to kneel so they could get it into my eyes. It felt as if my eyeballs were swelling up and about to pop out of their sockets, with my eyelids straining to keep them in. I’m not sure how long it was until I could open my eyes again, but as soon as I could, I moved back to the front of the line.

My vision was still blurry and my eyes still burned, but I was over the initial shock. I soon formed part of a group that sat down in front of the police. It was only when my ass was soaked in an inch of water that I remembered it was raining. I half-jokingly muttered to my friend that we should come back and do this in the summer. A cop who was patrolling behind the line of shields came close to me and leaned over the line of police. I buried my face in my scarf and turned away. I must have looked pathetic. I was too scared of being hit with more pepper spray to risk looking at a cop. Egyptians and Syrians who stare down bullets for their cause are much braver than me. Still, I had no intention of moving.

The police refused many polite requests to speak in English. They didn’t say much to us, but what they did say was mostly in French. The only sentence I heard clearly enough to understand was spoken to a guy next to me, asking him to chuck the wooden part of his sign away. The man didn’t understand, but a girl on the other side of him quickly grabbed the wood and pushed it towards the police so they could kick it behind their lines.

It all amounted to a mounting sense of injustice among the protestors – people who had been pepper sprayed and who were sitting down on their own campus were still prepared to hand back batons to the police who refused to speak English on a predominantly English-speaking campus. Yet the police intimidation did not stop, and that kept us sitting down. We did not want to be intimidated out of our right to peacefully protest. It had nothing to do with tuition anymore, and everything to do with the way the situation was being handled. We wanted to do everything we could do to remain peaceful without acquiescing to police demands. The whole point had become to stay where we were, to peacefully dissent in the face of violence.

But we couldn’t manage to stay put. The police had started using their batons to jab people in the chest. I got it between my shoulder and chest, a painful and unsettling spot. The baton met a tendon just beneath my shoulder, and the force of it pushed my head backwards so that I hit the feet of the people behind me. At this point, our line had begun to fracture – people were standing up and moving back. During this, a police officer pointed behind us and said, in English, “look over there, why don’t you go and help your friends.” He was trying to trick us into moving.  A few minutes later, when the last of us did stand up, I was hit very hard on my calf by another baton.

With their rubber bullets and tear gas, the police could have had us all face down in a puddle in seconds. They didn’t, of course, but given such power it was obvious we were not going to fight, and so their violence was gratuitous. Their presence ensured the safety of everyone, but their use of force ensured injury. For the first time in my life, I had some idea of what it is to be helpless in the face of the law. We knew we could not win, and we knew we must not fight, but we were going to resist. It didn’t feel like a choice. When your voice is silenced, your body is all you have to leave a mark. I didn’t understand that before.

The group of protestors had started to splinter. Some people had run down the stairs of the amphitheatre while others had moved around the corner of James. I saw a group try unsuccessfully to get into Ferrier. The police sensed their opportunity, and, having pushed us around the top corner of the amphitheatre, they charged at us. Every one of us turned and ran in different directions. I ran towards the entrance of the Arts building, and ended up cut off from my friends, who fled down the stairs of the amphitheatre. The police were well trained for situations like this; their charge quickly split us up into smaller groups and effectively ended the protest.

Alone, I ran up the stairs of the Arts building and asked the security guard to let me in to wash my face. He barely acknowledged my presence. Given the obvious pain I was in, I was frustrated, if not  surprised.

As I descended the Arts building steps, I saw another forty or so riot police moving up from the Y-intersection. I had no desire to be caught in the middle of another confrontation, so I walked to the Leacock building. On my way, I passed a girl who told me that I could get treatment in Leacock. When I arrived at the doors, attempting to enter, security again met me with a blank stare of refusal. I later learned the treatment area had been set up in the SSMU building, but misinformation spreads quickly during confusion.

It was just before 5:30 at that point, and I remembered that I had to get to work. The riot police I saw from the steps of the Arts building had moved to the Milton Gates. The situation seemed to have calmed, and I reasoned that I could walk up to the BMH cafeteria through the campus road that runs parallel to University.

When I rounded the top of the amphitheatre, I was surprised at the chaos that remained. The largest group of protestors were now being forced out of the Milton Gates by around 100 riot police. I saw police indiscriminately pepper spraying the front line of protestors as they beat them back. Two plumes of smoke rose near the Milton Gates. I didn’t know at the time that the plumes were tear gas.

It was impossible to distinguish between protestors and bystanders, and given the high police presence around the doors to the McConnell  Engineering building and the clouds of toxic chemicals, I’m not surprised bystanders were subjected to violence.

I asked a police officer to let me walk up to BMH through campus. He told me to wait a couple of minutes, and then, after about forty riot police had charged out the Milton Gates, sweeping protestors out in the process, he let me walk up.

And so I found myself in the changing room at BMH, naked from the waist up, pouring a glass of milk on my face. I slipped on my red McGill polo, and started answering calls from people who remained outside. My friends were bruised, but okay, and had reconvened in BDP to hear each others’ stories over pitchers of cheap beer – a normal Thursday evening, except that our eyes were bloodshot about 12 hours earlier than usual.

The post Pepper spray and milk appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill Daily: Why did you decide to make the film?

Kenneth Thomas: Well I’m a big fan of this music first and foremost. A lot of what I listen to can be connected to three record labels: Hydra Head, Neurot Recordings, and Constellation Records. When I went to the shows of these labels’ bands, I noticed that a lot of the same people showed up, so I started looking for connections between the labels. I found that each of the labels had their own aesthetic and vibe. To me, that is an example of a DIY or punk attitude: the attitude of wanting to do everything yourself and not really caring about major labels or top-forty radio or anything like that. With these labels, I feel that you get more than just the music, you get an overall aesthetic because these bands and these labels value the visual art, which is one reason why it is so great to buy their stuff on vinyl – because it’s not just an album with a picture of the band on the front cover but it’s incredible artwork that one of their friends made or someone who works at the label made. A lot of thought goes into both the music and the presentation of the music, and I, like a lot of fans, really value that.

MD: Presumably, on some level, you also felt that there was a story there that needed to be told?

KT: For sure. In the early 2000s, there were a lot of documentaries about punk rock, and about the Ramones and bands like that, but no one was talking about how those ideas and those attitudes translated into the present. I can’t stand it when people say there is no good music today, or that the punk rock movement is dead, because it’s evolved, and is still very much alive, just being done differently. So I wanted to create something that showed that punk rock and DIY ideals are still alive, and these people are doing it this way today. That was my original intention, and it was spurred on by the fact that, while people knew about these bands, no one was documenting the fact that these bands were doing something special and continuing the DIY tradition.

MD: And you think those ideals are important?

KT: Well, yeah, and the way I filmed this was pretty much in line with the way the bands operate. The film was self-financed – I did it myself because I felt it needed to be done. I never had aspirations to sell this to MTV or VH1. I was making this for the fans, and for people who would have an open mind to discovering new music, and I feel that that is in line with the spirit of punk rock that these bands are continuing, because their primary goal isn’t massive financial gain or massive popularity. They are fully dedicated to the idea of creating and putting out a vision that is uniquely theirs, and I wanted to show that. I don’t think I can do justice to their art or visuals, but I wanted to give people an insight as to what they could expect at a show.

MD: How did you discover these bands and labels in the first place?

KT: Well I used to live in Seattle in the late 1990s, and I had two friends who lived on an island, and I visited them. So I was in this secluded forest, inside a trailer, and my friends put on the first Godspeed [You! Black Emperor] album, and the music and the setting were just so beautiful that I couldn’t concentrate on conversation and I remember thinking ‘when was the last time I heard music so powerful that I had to stop and listen to it?’ I couldn’t just have it on in the background. Once I’d discovered Godspeed I did some research, and discovered this label called Constellation Records, and I kept digging and I discovered another band called Hangedup and then it was just a domino effect.

MD: When you were filming the documentary, what did you learn about the world of independent music that you didn’t know before?

KT: Well, you would think that independent labels would really suffer from downloading, and it has made it harder for everybody in the music world, but I think that the independent labels are a little more connected with their fans than the majors are. The independent labels are unlike the majors because they know their fans, and they know that their fans value actually having a physical item, and so will buy the vinyl. It will always be a struggle to be an independent label, but I found that they were not as affected by the whole downloading thing as I had thought they would be. I think that is because the people who run the labels are really big fans of the music they put out, which makes a real difference in terms of how they sell their music, and the amount of time they put into physical releases in terms of artwork, which is something I think major labels just don’t get in the same way.

MD: What were the biggest challenges for you making this film?

KT: Well, it took over five years to make because I self-financed the film. I couldn’t take time off work to make it, but my workplace was very supportive. I’m a freelance filmmaker and videographer, so I shoot and edit documentaries for a living, which means I had access to equipment. So when Silver Mount Zion was in town, I could borrow two extra cameras and do a three camera shoot. The biggest problem, though, and it was more of a challenge than a problem, was editing. I had over eighty hours of footage, and editing that down to ninety minutes was a big challenge. If I put in everything that I thought was great, this film would be ten hours!

MD: How would you persuade someone who isn’t that familiar with these labels to come to the screening and discussion?

KT: Well, like I said earlier, I remember that when I heard Godspeed for the first time it totally blew my mind. So for those people who haven’t heard of these bands or labels, but who are open to discovering a new kind of music and a new way of thinking about music, I would say they should come to the screening because they will see a snippet of independent bands that are making wonderful music that can’t be easily defined and that affects a lot of people mentally, musically, and emotionally. If they can just get a snippet of that then maybe they will enjoy the discussion, ask about where they can find out more, and then leave and find it themselves. Come with an open mind for new music and you’ll dig it!

The post Doing it yourself and doing it well appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Canadian Government originally proposed the Lawful Access package consisting of Bills C-50, C-51, and C-52, during the last session of Parliament in March, but the legislation died when the federal election was called for May 2. Since then, no new legislation has been presented.

However, according to Michael Patton, a representative of the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, their office will be proposing similar legislation to the original Lawful Access package shortly.

The original package would have enabled state authorities to demand individuals’ basic personal information from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) without a warrant. The legislation would also have required ISPs to upgrade their networks to permit real-time surveillance of their customers’ activities.

In anticipation of the potential proposed legislation, Stoddart wrote an open letter to Toews urging caution.

In the letter, Stoddart outlines her concerns that the previous bills would have expanded “the legal tools of the state to conduct surveillance and access private information,” while simultaneously reducing “the depth of judicial scrutiny” required to access such information.

Stoddart noted that such legislation goes “far beyond simply maintaining investigate capacity or modernising search powers,” because it adds “significant new capabilities for investigators to track, and search and seize digital information about individuals.”

“In the case of access to subscriber data, there is not even a requirement for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information – real names, home address, unlisted numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, and much more – without a warrant,” her letter continued.

Patton, however, explained that the Office of Public Safety’s approach “strikes an appropriate balance between the investigative powers used to protect public safety, and the necessity to safeguard the privacy of Canadians.”

“As technology evolves,” said Patton, “Many criminal activities – such as the distribution of child pornography – become much easier.”

“We are proposing measures to bring Canada’s laws into the 21st century and provide police with the tools they need to do their job,” he said.

In her letter, Stoddart acknowledged that “rapid developments in communication technologies are creating new challenges for law enforcement and national security authorities.” She went on to state that the Internet cannot be a lawless zone.

Scott Hutchinson, a representative of the Privacy Commissioner’s Office, explained that, despite repeated calls, “no systematic case has yet been made to justify the extent of the new investigative capabilities that would have been created by the bills.”

“When contemplating changes that would have such an important impact on fundamental rights and freedoms, the government needs to demonstrate the necessity, legal proportionality, and practical effectiveness of these new powers,” he explained.

According to her letter, Stoddart is worried that “Canadians have not been given sufficient justification for the new powers when other, less intrusive alternatives could be explored.”

Stoddart concluded by stating that “a focused, tailored approach is vital” if the new legislation is not to weaken the “long-standing legal principles that uphold Canadians’ fundamental freedoms.”

Hutchinson noted that other jurisdictions have explored options regarding checks and balances.  He noted several options, such as  “annual reports on the use of powers being tabled in the legislature, external audits on the use of powers, and administrative or even criminal sanctions for the misuse of surveillance tactics.”

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The election struggled to meet quorum, scraping by with 24 more votes cast than the requisite 574, or eight per cent of Arts students.

“It’s been quite the year for the AUS. It can only go up from here,” Tao added. Her acclamation was marked by controversy, however, as her only opponent, Joseph Stonehouse, was disqualified from the election for multiple breaches of AUS election by-laws.

AUS’s Chief Returning Officer (CRO) Sophie Goss announced Stonehouse’s disqualification just prior to the campaign debate, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. Goss announced that Stonehouse had “received his third campaign infraction” for failing to turn up to the debate on time, and was disqualified. Goss added that Stonehouse was “fine with this.”

This disqualification also meant those who had already voted would have their votes reissued, and the question would be re-cast as a simple approval or disapproval of Tao’s acclamation.

In an email to The Daily, Stonehouse said that he “believed that Sophie Goss put the democratic process behind following [the] by-laws,” and that he had “no idea why [Goss] could not wait ten minutes” for him to show up to the debate.

“If she had looked beyond the context of the debate, and broadened her perspective, she might have seen reasons that would have allowed her to forgive my lateness,” Stonehouse continued.

“Frosh was almost ruined because a 19-year-old second-year student ran for VP Events unopposed,” he said, referring to the financial disorganization overseen by Tao’s predecessor, Nampande Londe.

A seperate email from Stonehouse to Goss and AUS President Dave Marshall, obtained by The Daily, revealed that he was not convinced that Goss was an “unbiased” adjudicator.

The email claims that Goss and the rest of the AUS council attended a thanksgiving dinner Tao hosted during the nomination period. He wrote that the attendance of the AUS executives did not “bother” him, as Tao was the interim VP Events at the time. “However,” Stonehouse continued, because the dinner was hosted by “a potential candidate for an election, [Goss] should have remained absent.”

Stonehouse also claimed in the email that he had “zero control over [his] tardiness” because he “needed to sign a commercial contract,” and that “a reasonable and unbiased CRO would have considered this, rather than giving a zero-sum ultimatum.”

Goss pointed out that this was Stonehouse’s third election infraction, and that AUS electoral by-laws stipulate that upon a third infraction, candidates should be disqualified by Elections AUS, unless disqualification is deemed too severe a penalty.

“It was crystal clear to me that because he wasn’t showing up for an important debate which he had known about since the release of the nomination kit [October 4], he had to incur an infraction,” Goss stated.

She acknowledged that Stonehouse did let AUS know at around 4:45 p.m. on the day of the debate that he may be late, and that the next they heard from him was a phone call at 6:25 p.m. letting them know he would be ten minutes late.

Stonehouse also sent an email to Goss at 6:12 p.m., but Goss did not check her inbox until after the phone call.

Stonehouse’s first infraction was for failing to notify Goss that he would not be attending a mandatory meeting on October 15. His second was for failing to supply Goss with a correctly formatted campaign images, despite Goss extending the deadline for him.

Stonehouse also made it known that he is unhappy with the first infraction, and thinks AUS should have reprimanded Goss for taking 36 hours to respond to an email prior to the mandatory meeting he was absent from. Goss claims to have not received the email.

The controversy has overshadowed Tao’s win, and will once again put AUS under the spotlight, as it comes less than two months after the organization recorded a $30,000 deficit from its Frosh. The controversy surrounding that financial loss caused several AUS councillors to consider impeaching the previous VP Events, Nampande Londe, before she resigned citing personal reasons.

In response to the new financial scrutiny AUS will be under, Tao promised to act responsibly with regard to finances, to “not spend where we don’t need to.” She said that “a new tradition” is needed within the AUS, so that lessons learnt could be passed on from council to council each year, something she hopes will prevent future financial disasters.

Stonehouse wished to make it clear that he considers Tao to be “more than qualified” for the job, but that “AUS should have hired a neutral party” because having Goss “working with [Tao] every day” opens up the possibility of electoral bias.

“More importantly,” he continued, “[Goss] should have weighed up ten minutes versus a one-person election. I think the latter is more important to students.”

The post AUS VP Events elected amidst controversy appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The referendum question will ask postgraduate students whether they wish to accept fee increases of $7.50 per semester for full-time students and $4.25 per semester for part-time students, to take effect in January 2011. The increases will give postgraduate students equal access to mental health services and allow additional doctors to be hired to address students’ mental health needs.

PGSS Health Commissioner Jonathan Mooney proposed the question because graduate students currently have access to fewer doctors at mental health services than undergraduates.

The difference arose in 2008 when McGill undergraduates voted in favour of increasing the Student Service fee, which funds mental health services, but graduate students rejected the proposed increase.

Mooney proposed the question in response to complaints raised by PGSS representatives to the Mental Health Services Advisory Board (MHSAB). The complaints specifically addressed the fact that there are two doctors at Mental Health Services for the exclusive use of undergraduates. Mooney claims the result has been “longer wait times and less access to clinicians for graduate students,” so that “some students have to resort to seeing private doctors off-campus for mental health issues, which is often very costly.”

“I decided to ask the question because it is my responsibility as Health Commissioner to address problems that affect the health of my constituents,” stated Mooney. “I’m not convinced graduate students were aware of the consequences of rejecting the fee increase in 2008.”

The new question should clarify the issue to the postgraduate community, who currently make greater use of mental health services than undergraduates.

The fee increase would have no effect on Student Health Services, just Mental Health Services, and Mooney wants to make it clear that if the referendum question were to pass, it would not adversely affect undergraduates.

“The goal and expected effect is to increase the quality of care at Mental Health Services for all students and to ensure that there is no service differential between graduate students and undergraduates,” he said.

The date for the referendum has not yet been set but Mooney expects it be sometime in early November.

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