This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness. 

The McGill Daily (MD): After graduating from McGill and entering the workforce, you didn’t originally anticipate becoming a journalist. In what ways did your education at McGill and prior experience in economic research prepare you to become a journalist?

Luca Léry Moffat (LLM): To maybe give you a bit of background, in my third or fourth year, I got really into economics. I was doing a different major, did ECON 416 that was about topics in economic development, and sort of fell in love with it and decided to switch to the honours program. By the end of my third year, going into my fourth year, I was pretty set on applying for economic research. As I said in the lecture, I applied to a bunch of different pre-docs; most of which were very academic. 

Then, of course, I went on to get this job at a think tank. It was a kind of pre-doc as a research analyst, but it was at a think tank, so [it was] less academically focused. Policy is a bit different from academia. It’s more about being a messenger between academia and policymakers. So, as an economist, I was reading lots of academic stuff, policy papers, and then trying to communicate it clearly to another audience. 

I think it was actually during my first job when I picked up a lot of the skills that I needed in journalism: the ability to read a lot, synthesize that information, spin a story, figure out what the most important story is, and what the key messages you want to get across are. Something else I got from my first job was a network. So, I started building a network in Brussels, and those people have become invaluable in [my] pivoting to journalism because being a journalist is basically knowing lots of people and getting them to tell you stuff. I mean, that’s literally all it is – anyone could do it. 

I would say that one thing that I got from McGill in the economics program was the ability to use data. I think that has given me a real edge in my journalistic career because not many people can make a graph. Data visualization is something which journalism is really shifting towards. People don’t have [long] attention spans anymore, so we like to see pretty graphs and pictures while scrolling through these interactive articles. The ability to code and knowing how to use an Excel spreadsheet was very attractive to prospective employers. I’d say that’s something I got from McGill which really helped me. 

MD: You mentioned that you were also a graduate of POLI 331. With regards to knowledge concerning Ukraine, Russia, and their histories, what piqued your interest in Eastern European affairs during your undergraduate degree or even when working in economic research? 

LLM: I was talking to Professor Popova about this – I loved my time at McGill. I had amazing professors, learned so much, and got a really good quality of education. Having said that, I feel as though I was taught economics and Russian both quite badly. I don’t think that’s McGill’s fault, I think that’s just education in the West. 

On the economic side, you learn all of this economic theory which comes from the 1970s and 80s. But you don’t really look at finance at all even though finance has, over the last 40-50 years, become such a crucial part of the economic system. International financial flows have real ramifications for the economy, whereas that’s not integrated into a lot of the economic models that we study. On the Russian side, we were studying all of this literature without looking at it through the lens of colonialism. I think in the West, the idea that Russia is an empire is sort of a bit of an odd one when you’re first confronted with it. But actually, it’s one of the last standing empires from this massive period of colonialism. The US still exists, but many of the others have kind of disintegrated, or are now a shell of their former selves. I would study Russian literature and I remember studying, for example, A Hero of Our Time by [Mikhail] Lermontov, and at no point did I stop to consider, “Why is there this Russian guy in the Caucasus? What is he doing there?” Well, of course, it was part of this expansion of the Russian Empire. So, that’s just something which I’ve sort of reflected on since leaving McGill. 

In terms of what piques my interest in Eastern European affairs, I think it was classes like POLI 331 or HIST 226, which were about the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey throughout the 20th century. What I found so interesting about it was how it’s really complicated – borders changed all the time throughout the 20th century, and people moved. After World War I, borders moved and people stayed where they were. After World War II, borders pretty much stayed where they were and people moved. There’s so much packed into European history, which is really difficult to unearth because it’s complicated. The Russian, poli-sci, and history classes I took at McGill started to shed a light on that, or even just scratched the surface of those really complicated events. And it left me hungry for more. 

MD: During the Zoom call, you mentioned that you often feel conflicted as the journalistic field often emphasizes objectivity and neutrality, while the reporting you do and the publication you work for are staunchly supportive of Ukraine’s sovereignty. How do you navigate this conflict and adhere to journalistic integrity while fighting for a cause you feel so strongly about?

LLM: I find no trouble navigating it whatsoever because I think many things can be true at the same time. I’m staunchly supportive of Ukraine. I believe the facts clearly show that Ukraine is in a war for its own existence, that this is a war for two competing visions of society: one is dictatorship, and one is democracy and liberal values, and I am more partial to the latter. 

At the same time, I believe that Ukraine has a lot of work to do when it comes to implementing certain reforms. Some articles I’ve written have been sharply critical of the government. In other articles, I have been less critical or even praised the government. I’m not writing op-eds. I’m a reporter, so I’m interviewing people, I’m putting in their quotes, and I’m telling the story. I [will] always try to tell a story that I believe is factually accurate and where I’ve quoted people in the way that they would want to be quoted. 

At the end of the day, Ukraine is fighting for a future where it’s a democracy and it has its own sovereignty. Freedom of the press is a key tenet of a democratic, rules-based, sovereign state. So I think as a reporter, it makes complete sense that I’m writing articles which [can be] more critical of the government.

MD: To my knowledge, you are proficient in Russian and currently learning Ukrainian. What has the process of learning the Ukrainian language been like for you, and what is it like to report for a primarily English-language newspaper when English is not the official language of Ukraine?

LLM: First of all, learning Russian [at McGill] was amazing because I had incredible professors. I have to shout out Maria Ivanova, I think she’s still there, as well as Daniel Pratt, and a few others. Having had a series of other language teachers since who weren’t so good, it made me appreciate how incredible [my McGill ones] were. At McGill, the quality of education in the Russian department was really phenomenal. I’m really nostalgic about it. 

The process of learning Ukrainian started when I arrived here on the 17th of April, exactly 11 months ago. When I first arrived, I figured that my Russian would be reasonably helpful, even though I understood that people were speaking less Russian nowadays because they’re being invaded by Russia and also wanting to put [the] Ukrainian [language] into the limelight. Kyiv used to be a very Russian-speaking city up until the full-scale invasion in 2022, but has [now] massively pivoted to Ukrainian. You still hear Russian around quite a lot, but out of respect I wanted to learn Ukrainian. For me, it was very clear that a lot of people didn’t want to be spoken to in Russian. As a way of just being respectful, I wanted to learn Ukrainian. 

What I think the most crucial element of learning any language is completely immersing yourself. It’s been very humbling because learning a language from scratch is not easy. Ukrainian is a very difficult language. It’s massively helped me to have such a good quality of education at McGill on the Russian side of things because they’re both Slavic languages. Even though they’re very different, lots of the grammar is the same, [and] lots of the endings are sort of similar. Not having to start from scratch on the grammar side has been really helpful. 

MD: How have you perceived reporting from journalists in Ukraine on the Russo-Ukrainian war to be different from reporting published by Western media? 

LLM: I’m thinking of a time when I went back to the UK last summer, and we had a big gathering [with] a bunch of McGill alumni. I brought back a bunch of caps with the Ukrainian flag on them to give to some friends. Someone said, “Oh, you’re the one who’s working as a journalist in Ukraine,” and made a joke about not being neutral [in the war] because of my friends who had these caps on. I think there is a desire amongst some reporters, and a desire in the public rhetoric of the West, to believe that this war is political and that you can be neutral in it. 

What was always clear to me but really crystallized when I arrived in Ukraine was that this war is happening because of Russia’s intent to erase Ukrainian statehood, erase the Ukrainian language, and to absorb Ukraine as part of Russia. Putin has some really peculiar historical fantasies which all mainstream historians reject entirely: that Ukraine isn’t a real place and that it’s the Bolsheviks’ fault that Ukraine exists. The reality is that Ukraine is a real place. It has people who really care about their country, [and] demonstrably so because there are 900,000 people in the army. There are hundreds of thousands who have been injured or have died defending their country. There are so many Ukrainian civil society activists who care about their language. You see Ukrainian flags everywhere. People have backpacks with Ukrainian ribbons. 

Ukrainian society is complicated. There are lots of different perspectives within the country. But I’m actually rather impressed by the homogeneity in supporting Ukraine, Land] not wanting [it| to be part of Russia, especially in a country that has a long history of entanglement with Russia. Given everything that I’ve just said, it’s pretty easy to define this war as a genocidal war because it is an attempt to erase a nation. And that is the definition of genocide. 

In the Western media, this is not always made explicit. I think it should be made explicit. This is essentially an anachronistic empire. If you know anything about history, you can see this [repeating]. I mean, it rings throughout the ages. If you look at recent history, you can see Georgia in 2008, which Russia invaded. You can see Crimea in 2014. You can see interference in Ukrainian elections in 2004 [and] 2005 (the Orange Revolution). 

Western media sometimes doesn’t always do a good job of portraying that. But for me, those are the facts and a journalist’s job is to report the facts. And it’s very difficult for me to see it from any other perspective. I love hearing other people’s views, even if I find them abhorrent sometimes. I really enjoy trying to understand where people come from. For me, it’s so clear that the facts are [that] this is an imperialistic, genocidal war.

The post Reporting in a Warzone appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In 2026, Deloitte predicts that women will make up less than 30 per cent of the global technology workforce, given that they are consistently underrepresented in academic programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). What is more, women make up only 25 per cent of tech positions on a global scale, as reported by Forbes and the National Center for Women and Information Technology. 

Girls Who Code confronts gender disparity in STEM by making the field inclusive and accessible for women and gender-diverse people. With an eye towards breaking gender barriers, the organization offers computer science lessons and mentorship for elementary and high school students across Montreal. It also runs hackathons for university students, networking events, and workshops. 

The Daily spoke with Girls Who Code executives Jenna Cacchione and Virginia Ceccatelli, U3 students studying Computer Science and Economics at McGill. We talked about the creative side to coding, imposter syndrome, and why young girls and gender-diverse students belong in the computer science field.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): How did you get involved in Girls Who Code, and why? 

Virginia Ceccatelli (VC): I was never really exposed to coding in high school. It wasn’t really a subject that was taught, and I always thought it was scary as a field and very masculine. When I started my studies in International Relations in university, I got a bit of exposure to Python and R and had so much fun with it, so I transferred into Computer Science. I want to give girls the opportunity to get into coding and see that it’s a creative process as well. 

Jenna Cacchione (JC): Similar to Virginia, I did my first year in [another program, Economics,] and then I switched into Computer Science. My high school didn’t have anything computer related…Had I had a program like this, maybe I would have switched into CS a little bit earlier. I really just wanted to give back [by giving] other girls that same opportunity. 

VC: CS really is like learning a language. Like any language, the more you speak it and the earlier you’re exposed to it, it’s so much easier to pick it up. 

MD: That’s a really good comparison. For those who aren’t familiar with your organization, can you pitch Girls Who Code in a few sentences? 

VC: [Girls Who Code] a way to make coding fun and creative, and to change the narrative that [coding] is anything relegated to the masculine sphere. We give back to young girls [by seeing] them learn every week. It’s really rewarding.

JC: [Coding] can be really daunting. Sometimes I look at my computer screen and I’m like, ‘oh my God, what am I even doing?’ For younger girls especially, it can be super intimidating, especially since it’s a male-dominated field. I hope our facilitators can act as big sisters to our students. 

MD: Why is it important that young girls and gender-diverse students have access to program like Girls Who Code? 

VC: In general, the CS field is massively male-dominated. Most role models in the industry are guys. So for us, it’s really to show girls that they can do it; it’s not that hard. For guys, this message is something they might have been told growing up, and for girls, it’s not necessarily the narrative. 

MD: You mentioned that the Computer Science space is predominantly male-dominated. In your own professional and/or academic experiences, what kind of patterns have you observed in terms of female representation and inclusivity? 

VC: I’m not working in the field yet, but through research projects, I’ve found that you have to prove yourself more. If you’re in a room that has seven guys and two girls, the two girls have to prove that they know what they’re talking about, that they can actually do everything that everyone else can. I feel like there’s this constant voice that’s second guessing my abilities as a girl coder. 

JC: I have to agree. I also find imposter syndrome is very much there. Exactly what you said, if you’re sitting at a table with a bunch of men, and you’re the only two girls, I sometimes feel like, ‘I don’t belong here.’It’s a mental challenge. Like, ‘no, I’ve put in the work. I do belong here. 

MD: On that note, what do you hope students will take away from the program beyond practical coding skills? 

JC: I hope that students realize that it’s okay to ask for help. Sometimes you do need guidance. I had tons of [it], and I was very lucky to have had mentors who were part of Girls Who Code. I hope that [these girls are] able to ask for help and possibly find a mentor later on in their academic career. 

MD: Do you have a favorite memory of your work with Girls Who Code? 

VC: In my year of being a facilitator for Girls Who Code, I taught at the same high school and a lot of the girls stayed the entire year. In the beginning, they were shy about asking questions, but it was really nice to see them gradually gain so much confidence. 

JC: I like the fact that our whole executive team is going through the same thing: we’re all looking for internships, we’re all studying pretty much the same classes. It’s nice to have that community. 

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with Girls Who Code, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

JC: To me, being a good person means giving back and helping younger girls. Acknowledging that I didn’t have the guidance or knowledge that I do now, and then giving it to the next person. 

VC: Instead of resenting the system and having to stretch myself to catch up to get to where I am now, I can give these girls what I wish I had. Being a good person also means sticking together as girls and by helping girls realize that they can do it if they want to. There’s nothing stopping them. 

Learn more about Girls Who Code and opportunities to get involved on Instagram, @girlswhocodemcgill, or through their website, girlswhocode. ssmu.ca

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com

The post Rewriting the Code: McGill Students Break Barriers in Computer Science appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Play is critical for children’s physical and mental well-being, but not every child has the same access to recreational athletics and community socialization. Founded in 2000, Right to Play is an international non-profit organization that seeks to protect, educate, and empower children in disadvantaged communities through the power of play. Since its foundation, it has reached millions of children in Africa, Asia, and North America, namely, Canada; with the aim of harnessing play to support youth enduring conflict, disease, and poverty.

Since 2006, students have been the official university representatives of the Right to Play organization at McGill. They volunteer in local Montreal schools to promote inclusive and accessible play, fundraise for the international organization, and run community events like toy and food drives for underprivileged communities in the city. The Daily spoke with Co-President and U3 Biology and Math student Jack Gill about Right to Play. We spoke about his involvement in the club, the importance of play and physical activity, and why curiosity should be encouraged in youth.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for the McGill Daily (MD): I’m curious about your own involvement with Right to Play. How and why did you get involved?

Jack Gill (JG): I’m on the varsity swim team at McGill, so I’ve been swimming most of my life. We train almost every day, sometimes twice a day. So sports and being active have been a really important part of my life. It’s allowed me to develop a sense of community, make tons of friends, and build my confidence in and out of the water. I wanted to encourage that in other kids. I started volunteering in winter 2025. I worked in a class with students who have learning disabilities and autism, to encourage more inclusive play. It was really fun to build connections with these kids and slowly see throughout the semester how they got more comfortable and open with us.

MD: How would you pitch Right to Play to a first year student at Activities Night?

JG: Right to Play is not just a club we founded here. It’s a broader international organization. Their whole goal is to empower kids through play to overcome adversity, especially less privileged kids. In Canada, the branch focuses more on [BIPOC such as] African communities who might not have … access to [the] resources that we do, as well as Indigenous communities who similarly don’t have the same resources or access. Our chapter takes from that. We have a lot of events where we fundraise in order to support local schools and youth groups, as well as give back to the broader Right to Play organization. We also volunteer in schools to encourage active lifestyles and fun activities.

MD: Why is it important for kids to have play in their lives?

JG: A lot of children we volunteer with don’t necessarily have access to play. For those with learning disabilities, their parents try to protect them a lot and they don’t necessarily let them do the things other children would do. It doesn’t necessarily give them the opportunity to learn and be curious. Being able to encourage that and let them try things and maybe fail and letting them explore is really meaningful to me.

MD: Do you have a favourite memory of your work with Right to Play?

JG: At one of our schools where we volunteer, we go sledding on this little hill in the winter. One of the kids at the beginning wasn’t able to get up on his own. We would encourage him to get up, but we’d end up having to help him. But later, near the end of the semester, he was able to start getting up by himself with all of us cheering around and encouraging him. It was just so nice when he was able to stand up by himself and show [that] he was fully independent. And now he’s able to do that all the time. His parents might have just always helped him and would never have let him learn to do it by himself. That was probably my favourite moment.

MD: What do you hope kids will take away from Right to Play programming into university and beyond?

JG: I think just life skills, like being able to be independent and do things on your own and interact with other people. Also a sense of community as well as teamwork and the idea of an active lifestyle. With this generation we’re kind of leaning away from that with technology, but it’s so important.

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with Right to Play McGill, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

JG: I think what it means to be a good person is to be able to listen to people and kids and let them guide you. One of the big things I like with volunteering is not necessarily forcing kids to do things but guiding them and helping them choose their own path.

To learn more about Right to Play and opportunities to get involved, visit @rtpmcgill on Instagram.

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com

The post The Power of Play appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Now that Justin Trudeau has stepped down from the position, current Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in control of this nation- building project. The HSR was mentioned in Carney’s Canada Strong plan and is ostensibly a goal for Carney’s time in office. Trudeau’s administration brought up several large-scale infrastructure and resource projects, such as the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines, without taking any action so far. Now, Carney’s administration has inherited this burdened reputation of unfinished projects. However, American President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his bold stance on Canada’s sovereignty should provide additional motivation for Carney to complete this project. The United States has been Canada’s biggest trading partner for years, but this change in relationship means there is a need for the nation to strengthen pre-existing markets to be able to sustain itself.

Alto, the company behind the HSR, believes the project will be able to offer accommodation for Canada’s rapidly growing population. In addition to faster travel, over 50,000 jobs are expected to be created via the construction of the HSR. The company estimates that Canadians could save up to $570 million in travel efficiency, besides reducing carbon emissions by transitioning to an electric rail system. Furthermore, they claim that the project will contribute an annual $35 billion to the country’s economy.

However, before even beginning construction, the HSR’s design phase alone could last up to four or five years. Accounting for planning and design, the rail line is not projected to be fully operational for another eighteen years. The heavy time investment required by the project is just one of the concerns that Canadians have been voicing around the HSR.

Many farmers question the company’s level of consideration for the long-term impacts of the project on the lands and communities that will be affected by its construction. Similarly, a group known as Alt-NO has formed in opposition to the proposed HSR line. They’ve created a GoFundMe for donations used to spread awareness on Alto’s project. They write, “The Alt-NO committee, composed of citizens, residents and businesspeople, landowners and farmers, has formed to oppose the proposed high-speed rail corridor project being developed by Alto, a federal Crown corporation. We are non-partisan and our opposition is founded in our concern for the serious and irreversible impacts this project would have on farms, natural habitats, and communities in Ontario and Quebec along the proposed routes. This is a 90 billion dollar folly at taxpayer expense.” Members of the group have been expressing concerns with the ramifications of Bill C-15 and its effects, including the expropriation of land, the lowering of property values, and the potential to block residents from their property for the period of construction. Alt- NO are in favour of abandoning the project entirely and focusing instead on pre-existing infrastructure.

Additionally, several online groups have also voiced disquiet over the project’s environmental impacts. A group of ecologists from Carleton University recently signed off on a Facebook post warning against the loss of natural habitat they believe the HSR would cause and questioning whether Alto had a plan to mitigate environmental harm.

Despite public opposition, the planning phase of the HSR project is currently underway. During this pre- construction period, representatives from Alto have been visiting cities and towns for “public consultations” to answer citizen and media questions about the new rail line. Additionally, the company says they plan on conducting field studies and have begun technical design work on the infrastructure.

Alto states that they have “signed several collaboration agreements with Indigenous communities” to mark their progress in “building strong partnerships.” In October 2023, when Alto was working on a High Frequency Rail (HFR) project, the company published a “What We Heard & What We’re Doing” report, which demonstrates an effort to bring Indigenous voices into their project. In this report, Alto acknowledges the involvement of Indigenous people as “essential to its success.” Through the report, Alto gained a concern for Indigenous peoples’ engagement in the project, awareness of economic considerations, and respect for Aboriginal and treaty rights while the HFR project was in motion. Now that the company has transitioned to an HSR project, its ideals have not changed, but there hasn’t been a report released yet. Iori:wase, the publication for the Kanien’kehá:ka or Mohawk Nation, writes that the “Mohawk Council of Kanesatake (MCK) Acting Vice Chief Brant Etienne said the council has not signed up for any of the consultation sessions as of yet.” Nothing is planned, but that’s not to say consultations between Alto and Indigenous groups will not happen.

While Alto has successfully gained federal approval, citizens in the region where it plans to build remain uneasy about the HSL project. 

The post Alto’s High-Speed Rail Project for Canada appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Over the reading break, I had an in-depth conversation with Baybayon on his motivations to run, his campaign strategy, and his upcoming plans for the 2026-2027 academic year.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Sena Ho for The McGill Daily (MD): What motivated or inspired you to run for AUS president? What experiences or moments throughout your time at McGill led you to this decision?

Keith Baybayon (KB): came to McGill with background in student government, because I had served as a student trustee for my school board in Toronto. So I had already done a lot of advocacy work, such as recognizing the pride flag [and Pride Month in my Catholic school board, etc. I had been in important operational and standardized meetings with the school board, which gave me the experience I wanted to take forward at McGill University. I think student advocacy is very important because we’re at a very unique standpoint in our lives, where the systems in place constantly affect us, and we have the least representation at these decision-making tables. Growing up with that mindset, I’ve always wanted to fight for my peers.

I first got involved with the AUS in my first year as a committee’s volunteer, through the Arts Student Employment Fund Committee, as well as the Valedictorian Selection Committee. I wanted to test the waters a little bit of what student government was like in this new environment – because, [Montreal] was just completely different: a new language, new government, etc. I later was elected as Arts Representative to the Student Society at McGill in my second year. That got me more familiar with the environment of how student government actually works. I’ve come to really love the Arts community, because I feel we’re so unique. We have so many different disciplines, and so many different programs under our portfolio, to the point where it’s so diverse – it’s so full of life. And that’s why I wanted to continuously expand my horizons within the AUS and explore more positions to get more involved with the art student perspective at these decision making tables.

Once I leave McGill, I want to, and hope to, leave the Arts community better than I found it.

MD: Was there anything that you observed while being an Arts Representative or Arts Senator, that institutionally you wanted to change as president?

KB: One thing I definitely wanted to change was the structure of power that was distributed within the SSMU I feel like it was just a bit imbalanced. You have, for example, the Legislative Council in which you have all the elected representatives from different faculties. But then you have the Board of Directors (BOD) who have the last say in a lot of the things we try to pass at Legislative Council. I feel like the distribution of power was very imbalanced [because the BOD were elected for different positions that don’t necessarily represent every single faculty, point blank.

Right now, we’re in a review period for the Student Society of McGill University Constitution, which I’ve been able to take part in. There was also the recent plebiscite released to the Student Society [asking] who should have the power of operations. The results [displayed a preference for] Legislative Council over the BOD or the executive committee. I hope to see that implemented very soon. What I’ve been wanting to focus on when entering the Arts Representative role is changing up operations to ensure that whoever gets these positions is elected by the students.

MD: Are there any initiatives in which you are planning to enhance Arts student life and community on campus?

KB: I hope to continue my advocacy work from my role as Senator into my presidency. A lot of things that we at the Senate Caucus focused on has been the Policy on Assessment of Student Learning. The policy was implemented just last year, and because it’s so new, there aren’t really strong mechanisms in place to hold those responsible for enforcing it accountable within their classrooms.

This policy is so important because it protects a lot of rights for students. For example, PASL requires that assessment methods, including their structure, weight, and due dates, be outlined in the syllabus, which raises questions about practices like pop quizzes. Under this policy you also have the right to receive feedback from your assignments or assessments. So I want to create a mechanism in the Faculty of Arts, where we can track violations of this policy. We need to make this clear amongst our faculty, professors, and students, so that they can report these violations, [observe how trends are increasing, and [learn] how to mitigate them.

I see the future of working alongside the Vice President Academic, Lucy, and our senators, who are interested in working on this mechanism. Another thing I’d like to focus on is the state of learning at McGill. A lot of students are very vocal about how these classes with hundreds of kids are just not conducive to learning. Whereas, for example, the Education Student Senate has been a leader in assessing the state of learning for students through capstone projects and experiential learning experiences that I would love to see in the Arts. So, I want to work with the Office of Arts Education on that end to identify the best pedagogical practices for our faculty.

Another aspect on the operational side is accountability. My campaign focused a lot on keeping executives and any student elected positions accountable to their responsibilities and our recently amended AUS Constitution makes it easier to achieve that. I don’t want to take a punitive approach to keeping people accountable. I want to take a more collaborative approach. So I focused my campaign on co-creating an accountability plan with executives, departmental executives, and students of the Arts Faculty to see how we can keep ourselves accountable to our responsibilities and pitches from the beginning of the year.

I want to kind of take some time from now up until September to create a plan in which we can keep ourselves accountable, whether that means identifying what our specific focuses are for the year, alongside our mandates within our positions, [or] doing midterm check-ins, which we already do in Legislative Council, but also making that more public and visible to the general student community.

MD: Switching gears to another tenet of your campaign: student internships. I’m wondering, what steps are you planning on putting in motion to give students better access and opportunity to internships? Considering the present economy and job market, in what ways does the AUS plan to support Arts students financially and in their career prospects?

KB: There’s going to be a lot of collaboration on that for sure. We have our Vice President External that’s in charge of partnerships and postgraduate opportunities. But I don’t want to solely focus on just postgraduate opportunities. An important partner that we have is the Arts Internship Office (AIO) – they provide a lot of opportunities for our students already. I want to make that more visible [since] McGill is notorious for having so many things going on, but students just aren’t aware about them. It could be through a centralized database within the AUS or an internship event where partners of the AIO can come to the AUS to talk.

On the internal side of things, we actually have the Arts Student Employment Fund. This is an opportunity for students to get work experience, like research on campus alongside a professor. This can be very intimidating, I’d say, especially for first or second years who don’t really know much about the processes of requesting for research opportunities. I really want to demystify the Arts Student Employment Fund for students to simplify that process for them, and work with VP Academic on that end.

Another thing I’d like to really promote is cross-faculty opportunities. I feel like we shouldn’t leave ourselves to just the Arts when, for example, the School of Population and Global Health have so many opportunities under their belt, and are constantly promoting it to different faculties. Last semester, I did a Department of Equity, Ethics, and Policy internship. My project was stationed at the Department of Integrated Studies of Education in the Faculty of Education where you have so many different departments working together. I see the power in collaboration, I see the opportunities found in other faculties, and we need to work with each other.

With the upcoming President’s Roundtable of the different faculty presidents, I’d love to garner their knowledge and also their expertise in how we can provide more opportunities for all students using our resources.

MD: What were your main goals during the campaign process to get your message across to students?

KB: To simplify, I had a really fun time doing it just because it’s an opportunity for the students to get to know me. For me, it was more [focused] on authenticity because I’ve been with the AUS for a while now. I know a lot of people can vouch for wanting new leadership, but what was a very important pillar for myself was institutional memory. Over three to four years at the AUS, I’ve seen so many different initiatives and projects take place – I’ve seen a lot of things fail, too.

I was able to work with that in my campaign because I was focused on what’s happened in the past year and how we can improve things for the coming year. I wanted voters to see that the AUS should be a space in which they feel comfortable learning and being in; it should be a society that functions, works reliably, and follows through on their commitments, not just making huge promises during the elections. My platform focused onaccountability, student rights and advocacy, and community engagement. An important thing for me was making accountability a very central expectation because it’s really tough not having any visible outlets for students in the General Assembly. One big frustration I’ve had over the years is that sometimes governance [is not] accessible to students. So that was a very important priority of mine – I wanted students to feel less disconnected from the student society. Whether that means more town halls, more roundtables with, for example, the President and VP Academics to talk about PASL, the Policy and Student Assessment and Learning, or VP Finance to study the finance mechanism for the Financial Management Committee.

Another thing in my campaign was empowering students to build community under the AUS. Over the years, you start seeing the LUTHOUL in voting increase. During my Arts Rep year we had 13 per cent turnout, while this year we had almost 18 percent. Another one of my pillars was to reduce the barriers to student initiatives under the AUS. Making it easier, for example, to start clubs, which you don’t have under the AUS. It could be a future endeavor that is possible after consulting departments, students, and executives.

MD: A more lighthearted question – in terms of your campaign, you had a very clear branding. How did you envision that? Did you come across any obstacles or road blocks throughout that brainstorming process?

KB: I feel like my campaign brief was just an accumulation of everything that I’ve experienced at McGill in the past three years: every conversation, debate, project I’ve taken on, motion I’ve written, etc. Everything kind of led up to that moment because all of these ideas were not created from thin air. It’s been built upon those that came before me.

I’ve shown a lot of appreciation, and I will continue to show a lot of appreciation for the past presidents. I’ve worked with each of them, and I’ve seen their leadership has accumulated over the years too. This year, I just wanted to take that opportunity to show that collaboration is really possible. This platform was really built on the students, because, like a lot of the pillars I’ve mentioned, they were also in consultation with departmental executives or even just my friends, gauging their interests and thoughts.

With my branding and messaging, that was just like my own little twist to it. I’ve seen so many fun, creative things happening online. I remember I did a dance to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Man Child,” because I just woke up one day, saw it on TikTok, and thought ‘let me do this.’ So I called my friend and we did it right there. I felt like taking a fun twist to things was very important for my campaign, because that’s who 1 am.

MD: Are there any future projects or initiatives planned that you want to mention?

KB: I am very excited for my executives – we have so many amazing individuals in these positions, and they’re going to have their own passion projects, too. I’m very keen to support each of them. The president’s role is very all-rounded. I feel like when people see it at first glance, they think, ‘Oh, you’re just the spokesperson and on the operational side of things.’ I want to ensure that the AUS is in a stabilized state so that you can actually do what you want to pursue. Without transparency or accountability, the AUS can fall short on their promises just because we don’t have the internal structures in place. So that’s been a very important focus of mine for these next few months.

Afterwards, I’d love to be able to see all of their projects come into action too [as well as any students that want to do a project with the AUS. I’ve emphasized an open door policy a lot in my campaign. A student can book a meeting with me and I’ll be happy to talk to them. I want to foster that sort of environment within the AUS as a whole.

The prospective executive team will not officially take office until May 1, and are currently undergoing a period of transition from the current AUS board.

The post A Plan for the Future: A Chat with Keith Baybayon appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The theme “Voices and Visions,” set the tone for the evening: one where students could share their experiences with representation, access to resources, and mechanisms of discrimination, all while envisioning a future of equity and opportunity. Grassroots efforts have succeeded on campus: this February marks the ninth year of McGill’s official celebration of Black History Month, a mark of progress in the recognition of Blackness at McGill. But the single- digit anniversary is also an indicator that equity efforts are still in their formative stages.

One of the key topics of discussion at the event was Black student representation at McGill. Many voiced frustration regarding the lack of Black presence in various faculties, as well as the student body. Black people make up over four per cent of the Canadian population, yet many McGill faculties maintain significantly lower representation. Students at the roundtable expressed how seeing members of their community in positions of embodied knowledge is crucial for self-esteem and inclusion. Mauffette Alavo stressed that while the university still has crucial improvements to make, Black excellence remains integral, and more effective publicizing should be done to make the community more visible. Williams further underlined the necessity to target efforts in underrepresented areas, like STEM faculties and executive faculty positions. Both speakers recognized that initiatives of further inclusion need to be led by students. Brittany Williams noted that the university’s administration is highly receptive to students’ demands and encouraged the development of the resources they already have, such as SSMU’s Black Equity Fund, Black student internship, and research summer programs. Key people and projects are in place, but students are the fuel to the fire, the roundtable concluded.

Towards the end of the evening, the discussion progressed towards aspirations for the future. “The support of Black students is not a trend,” Mauffette Alavo asserted. Organizational stability and reliable frameworks guarantee long-term commitments and partnerships, both within the university and with outside partners.

Events like the roundtable and organizations like the BSN, MASS, and ASSA provide spaces for Black students to not only support each other but also to share their knowledge and collectively organize towards common goals. The Voices and Visions roundtable was yet another successful outcome of student-led, community-building initiatives.

The post An Evening of Unity appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill Black Medical Students’ Association of Canada (BMSA) is a student- run chapter of the national organization, which goes by the same name. Founded in 2022, the organization seeks to address anti- Black racism through advocacy for curriculum modification and reform, tackle barriers to medical school admissions by supporting Black pre-medical students, and to foster a sense of community for current Black students.

The Daily spoke with co- president and second-year student of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Britany Mbangi, over her lunch break on the first day of her neurology rotation. We spoke about Black inclusion and representation in the medical community, BMSA’s rapid expansion, and how to be a good person without losing yourself in the process.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): I’m curious to know more about your story. What drew you to BMSA and how did you first get involved?

Britany Mbangi (BM): I knew that I wanted to get involved in a club coming into medical school, and seeing all the Black students at orientation the very first day touched something deep within me. It wasn’t easy getting here. Within the BMSA, we’re all about supporting each other and trying to make the path easier for fellow Black students who are interested in medicine specifically. So it was a no-brainer for me. I was going to join the BMSA by fire and by force.

MD: As Co-President, how would you describe the BMSA in a nutshell?

BM: The BMSA is full of super- motivated, highly-driven people. We’re all about encouraging each other, pushing each other forward however we can, and trying to build connections with people in the community. We all know as visible minorities that it’s not easy to integrate into certain spaces. But we want to make it easier for Black students to join this space. The BMSA is rapidly changing. Last year, my cohort, [the] class of 2028, was the largest cohort that McGill Medicine has had. It’s a long journey, but we believe that little by little, year after year, we do our best to make it better.

MD: Before beginning McGill medical school, was there a specific experience or person who inspired you to join BMSA?

BM: It’s kind of [a] cliché, but ever since I was little, honestly, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I decided, you know what, I’m going to shoot my shot at medicine. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of very strong Black figures in my personal life. The sky wasn’t even the limit — I could do anything if I put my mind to it, and I was very lucky and grateful to have the support of my close family members. It wasn’t abnormal for me to strive to greater heights.

MD: That’s really special that you had that growing up. On a wider scale, why is BMSA important for the McGill community, but also for the medical space at large?

BM: Historically, there has always been a very low number of Black people getting accepted into medicine due to socioeconomic barriers, social challenges, or biases. We cannot brush those under the rug. So having an official space for Black medical students where their voices are heard and where they are seen and supported is so important.

The BMSA really is integral to bettering the education of not only Black medical students, but all students from different backgrounds and cultures. It advocates for an even better medical education and safe space for Black patients, Black students, and Black professionals.

MD: Switching gears a bit, do you have a favorite memory of your work with BMSA?

BM: Oh my gosh. There have been a lot of great moments within the BMSA. I think one of my favorite memories was the welcome event [in] my first year of medical school. The Welcome Event is an annual event for our members across all cohorts, including Med-P and MD-PhD students. It creates space for our new students to connect with returning members and for the broader community to engage with Black professionals. I cannot even put into words [how] I felt when I saw the 25, 26 other Black students in my cohort. This was the first time in my life that I’ve seen so many Black fellow students. Going to the welcome event this year where there were, I believe, over 100 attendees, was amazing.

Speaking of the welcome event, this year the McGill BMSA reached over 100 members across all years. It’s a milestone for us. Just thinking that a few years ago, we were only five students and now we’re over 100, [is] just incredible. It speaks to the work that the McGill BMSA has been doing.

MD: Beyond your graduation from McGill’s School of Medicine, what do you hope will be the lasting legacy of BMSA on future students and the medical space more broadly?

BM: That’s a great question. I would say that I don’t see BMSA as just a student club. I see it as an organization where we strive to better the whole experience around the healthcare system, specifically the medical system for Black professionals, Black patients, and Black students. I would hope that my legacy would be to better this experience, not just for Black people, but for everyone. I hope that the BMSA leaves a lasting positive influence on the healthcare system and encourages people to strive for greatness, [creating] a better environment for all.

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with BMSA, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

BM: Oh my gosh, what does it mean to be a good person? Being a good person to me means being able to make the people around me feel good without losing myself in the process. Although we’re all unique, as Black people, we often have to minimize or filter ourselves to present a more digestible version to the people around us. While that can make you a great person to others, it doesn’t make you a good person to yourself, because you lose yourself in the process.

Learn more about BMSA and opportunities to get involved on Instagram, @mcgillbmsa, or through their website.

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com.

The post Taking the Medical Community by “Fire and Force” appeared first on The McGill Daily.

GardaWorld’s involvement with ICE was revealed last July in a Miami Herald report that detailed how a subsidiary of the Montreal- based firm, GardaWorld Federal Services, was approved as one among ten companies to aid in running Alligator Alcatraz. The company was awarded eight million USD by ICE for the security contract.

Montreal activists — accompanied by Québec solidaire, Amnesty International, and several union representatives from the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN – Federation of National Trades Unions) and the Fédération Autonome de l’Enseignement (FAE) — gathered at Place Vertu, before making the approximately two-kilometre march towards the security firm’s headquarters. A McGill contingency also attended the protest.

The university has historically procured at least $19 million in GardaWorld contracts for campus security services. McGill currently continues to hire security officers from GardaWorld, with job listings as recent as February 4, 2026. Student organizers joined the march with a banner stating: “Garda Off Our Campus.”

McGill students departed from the McGill campus and joined other demonstrators at Place Vertu. The organizers, who have asked the Daily to remain anonymous, elected to create this contingent to encourage students to travel to the protest despite being 55 minutes away by public transit. They sought to highlight McGill’s involvement with GardaWorld in a written statement to the Daily: “McGill contracts GardaWorld to police its students. Students have observed an increased presence of GardaWorld security in the semesters that followed the Gaza Solidarity encampment.”

The McGill organizers further stated that, “McGill has been extremely willing to pay large amounts of money to “securitize” its campus … Considering that a good portion of this money must have gone to their partnership with Garda[World], the students have a responsibility to demand an end to our University’s complicity in ICE’s terrorism, which we know is facilitated by GardaWorld.”

When asked about their personal feelings about having GardaWorld’s security officers on campus grounds, the organizers said that, “we are outraged. It is extremely unsettling to think that the same security guards who follow around students and encroach on their right to protest” work for the same organization that helps “ICE dehumanize and terrorize people in Alligator Alcatraz.”

When asked about why McGill students should mobilize, student organizers responded, “Students should be in charge of what occurs on their own campus.” The contingency outlined future steps that McGill students can take, should they also feel outraged by the GardaWorld contract: “We need to mobilize to show admin that we do not agree with the securitization of our own campuses. We refuse for our tuition to go towards security that we don’t want … our money going towards a company which funds ICE.”

Before leaving from Place Vertu, Celeste Trianon, one of the protest organizers, led a series of speakers to the fore. Each condemned GardaWorld’s collaboration with ICE and their participation in detaining over 6,000 individuals at the South Florida detention centre under inhuman and unsanitary living conditions.

An organizer from Indivisible Québec said, “While ICE operates in the United States, the infrastructure that enables it does not stop at the border. GardaWorld, a corporation headquartered here in Quebec, is one of the private contractors involved in the immigration detention systems.” In 2022, Investissement Québec, a provincial investment agency, invested $300 million CAD in the firm; while nationally, the Canadian federal government has entered into significant, long-term contracts with GardaWorld, including a deal brokered with Canadian Air Transport Security Authority in 2023 for $2.7 billion.

“Let us be clear: when public funds strengthen corporations tied to detention systems, when subsidies and contracts flow without scrutiny, and when profit is made from incarceration that is not neutrality. That is participation,” the speaker continued.

A Montreal local who wished to remain anonymous spoke with the Daily, stating that it was vital for Canadians to show up and protest, “especially when we are seeing this rise in right-wing conservatives who are not afraid to assemble on the other side.” She noted that attending protests such as this one is important for building community and creating active change in the world we live in.

“There’s a lot of action in the US [against ICE], which makes the world think that Canada isn’t doing anything, but we are,” she said. “Canada is also participating in protesting here — that’s why it is so important.”

So far, the protestors mentioned there have been no talks with the McGill administration regarding its affiliation with GardaWorld. The students urged that there is a chance for dialogue should there be more pressure on the University through popular support and direct action. As they put it, “They will not change unless they are cornered into doing so.”

The Daily has reached out for comment from McGill University. As of the time of writing, we are waiting for a response.

Upon arriving at the firm’s headquarters at 5 PM, the demonstrators were met with riot police and GardaWorld’s security staff. According to the Montreal Gazette, the confrontation resulted in officers spraying the crowd with pepper spray and tear gas. At least one demonstrator was arrested, reportedly throwing a piece of ice at an officer before being pinned to the ground.

The post One Thousand Protest McGill-Contracted Security Firm Operating at ICE Detention Facility appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Approached by ICE Out MTL organizers clad in bright orange and neon green vests, protestors and passers-by were offered a slip of paper that asked the question many in Canada  have been struggling with as the US seemed to spiral: “What can we do from Canada?” One such person was Jacob Wesoky, president of Democrats at McGill, who The McGill Daily interviewed prior to the protest. As an American abroad, Wesoky cited combatting this sense of hopelessness as a driving force behind helping to organize ICE Out MTL: “There are a lot of Americans here, and it’s easy to feel powerless watching all of this chaos from afar. But in Canada, we’re not powerless. We still have a voice.”

Olivia, a second-year McGill student who braved the -10 degree weather to join the protest, indicated a similar sentiment: “I wish I could participate in all the protests happening in the US right now. It’s really hard to see everything going on from here and feeling kind of helpless.”

In addition to calls for the abolishment of ICE, bluntly referred to by one speaker as the “new American gestapo,” ICE Out MTL was also intended as a wake-up call for Canadians. As such, Wesoky outlined the details behind Indivisible Québec’s demand in their pre-protest press release to end “Canadian firms’ complicity” in financing ICE. His examples range from post-secondary institutions like McGill to firms based in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. 

“McGill holds over $2.2 million in investments in Palantir, the AI surveillance company that’s behind ICE’s immigration crackdown and the illegal surveillance of millions of Americans. Ontario-based Roshel supplies armoured vehicles to ICE. Montreal-based GardaWorld staffed Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, which was the site of some of the worst human rights abuses in modern American history. Vancouver-based Hoopsuite provides social media services that amplify ICE’s propaganda.” Exemplified by chants of “Quebec stop funding ICE’s crimes.” Participants of ICE Out MTL made it clear that they would not tolerate Canadian complicity in funding and supplying ICE.

At around 1:30 PM, protestors were led around the corner to Dorchester Square, where they were presented with a QR code to contact their MPs in support of the No More Loopholes Act. The bill, first proposed in 2025, seeks to tighten export restrictions for Canadian arms manufacturers. As the website handed out through that QR code during ICE Out MTL puts it, the hope is that the No More Loopholes Act will stop the Canadian funneling of “unrestricted and unregulated arms to Trump’s illegal wars, ICE’s campaign of terror, and Israel’s ongoing genocide.” 

Their breath floating into the cloudless sky, the multigenerational crowd assembled in Dorchester Square cheered and jeered as vested organizers, including Wesoky and lead organizer Michael Lipset, delivered passionate speeches against ICE and in support of immigrants and those protesting in Minneapolis. Lipset, a Montreal resident originally from Minnesota, compared Trump’s America to Nazi Germany and declared, “This is not about border security. This is about state power without constraint.” 

Wesoky made a direct appeal to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in his speech, referencing Carney’s widely covered Davos address: “Part of taking down the sign from the window, part of no longer living within the lie, is recognizing the reality in the United States right now. […] If Canada is the beacon of hope and freedom that you say it is, then Canada will open its doors and protect the rights and dignity of migrants and asylum seekers.” Wesoky also called for an end to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) between Canada and the US, which requires refugee claimants to request protection only from the country they arrive in: “[The STCA exists] under the premise that the United States is a safe country for immigrants to seek asylum. […] The United States does not respect immigrant rights.” 

At around 2:30 PM, protestors walked back to the cramped sidewalk in front of the US Consulate. Despite a reduced headcount, the crowd resumed loudly chanting, shouting through megaphones, and holding up their signs. Refusing to go unnoticed, one person rattled a green tambourine, while another blew through a harmonica. Half an hour later, just before the scheduled end of the demonstration, ICE Out MTL organizers thanked those still remaining and made a final appeal: “Keep making your voice heard. Keep showing up.” 

ICE now has the largest budget of any US law enforcement agency in history. Nevertheless, Wesoky, who began efforts to protest against government-sponsored brutality by organizing a walkout at his middle school following the 2018 Parkland school shooting, seemed undeterred. In organizing ICE Out MTL, he hoped Americans back home could see that “the world is noticing what’s happening in the US, and we’re not going to sit back and just watch it happen.” 

The post McGill Students Rally Against ICE  appeared first on The McGill Daily.

A science student bar has been a work in progress for over four years. Prior students in SUS’s VP External position made efforts to organize a faculty bar, but logistical complications kept the idea from materializing. “The problem that we’ve always had is that we don’t have a good space,” Padilla told the Daily. “Arts has their basement, same for Engineering, and Management as well: they all have really large spaces with limited exits.” The Burnside basement had been the ideal location for a Science-faculty bar, but using the entire open space would have been a fire hazard. Last year, two adjacent Computer Taskforce rooms were reallocated to SUS, which inspired Padilla to present the idea to the SUS executive board.

“It wasn’t the most popular idea, using two study rooms of limited size in the basement of an academic building,” Padilla told the Daily. The SUS executive team began discussing The Lab over the summer, and had prepared to present the idea to the McGill administration by September. Getting the idea off the ground required discussions between SUS executives and McGill staff, including McGill’s Burnside building director, the Spaces Administrator, and administrators from the Science Faculty’s student affairs office and Security Services. After four months of emails, meetings, and negotiations, the idea was approved and planning for opening night began.

The Lab is run by SUS’s pre-existing after-hours committee – which exists year-to-year, planning after-hours events – including Padilla, directors Ella Rikley and Madison Brass, and five coordinators. There are currently 30 student bar staffers, as well as multiple staff photographers. Padilla stressed that organizing The Lab and preparing for opening night was a joint effort across SUS: “I’ve been lucky to get a lot of support from everyone who’s been willing to help wherever it’s needed,” he told the Daily. “It’s been a very collaborative process.”

The Lab’s doors opened only three and a half weeks after being confirmed for operation, a feat Padilla attributes to “an incredible, dedicated team.” An estimated 300 to 500 students came to the basement on opening night. Some waited for over two hours, and many who packed into the adjacent stairway reported line-cutting and rowdy crowds. The organizers, who had an hour to set up the room, did not realize how many people had congregated until the bar was ready to open. For future events, the committee plans to schedule staff to monitor the line during and before opening hours. “The capacity is limited, so we try to work the best we can,” Padilla said. “We definitely had at least twice our capacity show up, which was a little bit intimidating. It was a little scary, but things were good in the end.”

Organizing a student bar is a large undertaking, especially for McGill’s second-largest undergraduate faculty. “There was a lot to do, and very little time to do it. I think everyone really learned how to be overwhelmed and yet still take one thing at a time,” Padilla told the Daily. He added that the launch has also been a learning experience for those involved within the SUS executive committee, and working together to set up The Lab has been another instance of successful collaboration to serve the needs of the Science faculty. “Being thoughtful in our communication and including everyone is the biggest thing that we’ve learned, but I think that’s something that the SUS team is really good at.”

Ultimately, Padilla reported that opening night was a success: they opened, served drinks, and closed without any incidents or destruction to the basement. Beyond the primary goal of having fun, the team’s aim for the bar’s initial nights is “to show SUS, admin, and all the parties involved that this is something that can work.” Padilla described this semester as a “proof of concept,” a demonstration that the space can bring the faculty together safely without disruptions. The Lab’s biweekly schedule was designed for the committee to troubleshoot between events and learn from any setbacks or unexpected chaos, through their own observations and their anonymous feedback form. The team hopes for the schedule to shift to weekly in the upcoming Fall semester, once staffing and routine are solidified.

The Lab will be open five times this semester, including this Friday, February 20. The concept – drinking a warm, two- dollar beer out of a plastic cup in a crowded basement – is shared among McGill’s other student bars, yet The Lab was designed by and for McGill’s Science undergraduates as a place for the community to come together. “It’s a spot that you can go, as Science students, every other week or every week in the future, and know you’ll have friends there and people from your faculty that you can hang out with,” Padilla told the Daily. “I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’re super excited to finally have their own space, ad I hope it continues to be that.”

The post Welcome to The Lab appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The 2026-2027 recommendations were determined by the TAL using a new method of calculation. With the old formula proving inefficient in post- Covid years, the new formula takes inflation and previous rent prices into account. While Eric Sansoucy, spokesperson of the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ) representing Quebec landlords, told the Montreal Gazette that “the balanced solution is at inflation,” it has been shown that if the new formula had been applied to preceding years, excluding 2025, the TAL would have predicted a much steeper increase in rent over the past two decades. Thus, tenants associations have protested against the new recommendations, with Shannon Franssen, interim coordinator of the Coalition of Housing Rights Committees of Quebec (RCLALQ), declaring to CTV News that the new TAL formula contributes to an “inflationary spiral” of rent prices. Franssen explains that, seeing as the new calculation takes previous rent prices into account and rents have increased for the past few years, “rents are going up and justify further rent increases.”

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported that in Montreal, despite an overall easing in the market, rents increased by 7.2 per cent in 2025 — a number significantly above the TAL’s 2025-2026 5.9 per cent recommendation. Steve Blair, community organizer for the Quebec Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants’ Associations (RCLALQ), remarked to the Daily that rents “often go up faster than the [predicted] rate.” Blair explained that it is often difficult to prevent landlords from bumping the prices up as “tenants either don’t refuse, or can’t refuse, or there is a change in tenants.”

This 7.2 per cent increase outpaced the overall increase in income, meaning housing became even less affordable for most. The easing in the market that the CMHC describes is partly due to a rise in new, largely unaffordable, residences, while affordable units remain desperately scarce and are even disappearing from Montreal with further rent increases.

It is in this context of already unaffordable housing and heightening prices that the TAL recommended a 3.1 per cent increase for the year to come. Blair described this increase as only slightly “less bad than last year,” which he had characterised as the “worst year on record by far.”

Nevertheless, these TAL guidelines are only recommendations. As a tenant, you may refute the increase in rent if you deem it unfair or unlawful. In its last fiscal year, the TAL received 22,494 requests to settle a rent dispute. Resources provided by the RCLALQ allow Montreal tenants to more easily calculate how much rent may increase, how to refuse rent increases, and what procedures to follow afterwards. Syndicat des locataires autonomes de Montréal (SLAM), the autonomous syndicate of tenants, also provides support for tenants seeking help or suffering from abusive landlords. The collective actively protested against the new TAL recommendations on January 29 and helped build tenant unions in the city.

Amidst rising rent prices and unaffordable housing, it is important to remember that tenants have rights too.

The post TAL Recommendations and Rent Inflation in Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Founded in 2009, Swimming With a Mission Montréal (SWAM) is a registered not-for-profit organization led by student volunteers. A chapter of the national organization SWAM Canada, it seeks to provide affordable and accessible one-on-one swimming instruction to children with disabilities aged 3 to 18. Instructors are paired with one swimmer for the course of the eight week program. Every week, they teach 30-minute lessons with the ultimate goal of fostering confidence in the water.

The McGill Daily spoke with Co-Presidents Anna Bogdan, U3 Psychology, and Benjamin Lévesque Kinder, U3 Neuroscience. We discussed their motivations for joining SWAM, making sports accessible, and the power of swimming to transform how children with disabilities move through the world.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness. 

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): I want to start by learning more about your involvement with SWAM. Why and how did you join the organization? 

Benjamin Lévesque Kinder (BLK): I got involved in the winter of my first year. I had been a camp counselor many summers in a row during high school, giving swim lessons to kids. One week, I was assigned a girl who had an undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. Her support needs were very high, much higher than the camp had the resources for. She loved swimming. We just wandered around the whole day. It was awesome. When I came to McGill, I learned about SWAM at Activities Night and knew it was something I wanted to do. 

Anna Bogdan (AB): I’ve been a competitive swimmer since I was very, very small. When I was injured, I transitioned over to coaching. When I came to McGill I really wanted to continue. I went to Activities Night and saw that there was a club that was offering swimming lessons for children with disabilities, and I thought it was a great way for me to continue my coaching experience, but also to help out the community in Montreal. 

MD: You both mentioned you found out about SWAM. at Activities Night. As co-presidents, how would you pitch your club to a prospective student member at Activities Night?

AB: SWAM offers swimming lessons to children with disabilities. Typically, a swimming lesson for a child with a disability is upwards of $300, but our lessons are about $45. We’re about the only place in Montreal that offers lessons at this level. You’re partnered up with just one instructor for the entirety of eight weeks, every single Sunday for 30 minutes. You see your child become more comfortable in the water and have more confidence in their own abilities, and become more engaged and happy overall. 

MD: You already touched on this in your response, Anna, but why is SWAM important? 

Why is it important that it exists in Montreal?

BLK: There are a few reasons. This is a demographic for whom it’s hard to get exercise. Getting out of the house and doing activities can be difficult for those with sensory issues. SWAM is conscious of this: we have a lot of staff and procedures set up. We’ve had parents tell us that it’s one of the few places that they can just be somewhere. 

A key reason is affordability. Most of the population cannot afford hundreds of dollars of swim lessons every week. We have a lot of new arrivals to Quebec in our program, people who arrive in Canada and have children who are newly diagnosed, and now they have to adapt not only to a new culture, but also what it means to get the right support for their kids. 

It’s the highlight of my week, every Sunday morning when we do this. Because it’s totally different from everything else I do. To me, it feels like real life again. There’s all this other stuff and none of it is kind of real, but this is.  

You show up, and none of your concerns matter to anyone here. It does become sort of trivial. As a student, you’re thinking about graduation and graduate school in these very long time spans. And then I go to SWAM, and you’re making progress on a week to week basis. I think that is refreshing.

MD: On that note, what have you learned from your work with SWAM that has influenced your own outlook on life?

AB: For me, one of the things that I learned is that progress is not always necessarily linear. It requires a lot of patience and it requires a lot of confidence within yourself. I’ve also learned how important it is to make sure that you’re always there to support and encourage each other. 

BLK: I’ll pick up on the point you made about progress not being linear. There was a scheduling mishap a few semesters ago, where a lesson for my swimmer was moved to a different timeslot. For these kids for whom routine is a big, big part of how they move through the world, it throws them off-kilter. They feel uncomfortable. So there were a few lessons where I struggled to get anything done, and my swimmer was irritable. It was like all the progress we had made was gone. 

But then on the next lesson back, seemingly out of nowhere, he swam unassisted, basically unprompted. He just went after it. I was so surprised. After that experience, we realized that for all of us, progress isn’t linear. We like to think that we’re always making progress upwards and so on, but that’s not true. That’s something that I’ve also carried into my day-to-day life.

MD: What is your vision for the future of SWAM? What do you hope children will take from their swimming lessons and apply into their future lives? 

AB: We hope that SWAM is like a stepping stone to the rest of their lives going forward. We’re hoping that these children not only have more skills to be safer in the water, but we also hope that they can build other skills, for example, social skills and communication skills, to be able to create meaningful connections with others.

BLK: To give a concrete example, one of our swimmers had been with the program for three or four years. His dad told us that he had joined a water polo team for kids with disabilities, and that he would not have been able to do that without the swimming foundation he had built.

It would also be nice at some point to build a relationship with the Special Olympics in Quebec. It is a big problem in the disability space that once you age out, resources go to zero. The amount of money that gets put towards programs for children is huge, but once they turn 18, it’s all over. We also hope to expand the chapter to reach more kids.

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with SWAM, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

BLK: By virtue of our position, Anna and I have become the spokespeople for SWAM. But really, we’re not the good people. The good people are really the almost 100 instructors who come in every week. It’s not easy getting up on Sunday morning at 9 AM to trudge through snow, to do this for some kid, in a city you showed up in less than a year ago. Without all of them volunteering their time, Anna and I would be two people with a logo. SWAM is the team we have behind us.

AB: Although Ben and I are the heads, typically the ones that make the most amount of difference in the community are our instructors. So I think being a good person is being able to help others out. As a university, we have all of these services and resources, so why not use them to serve underserved populations? 

To learn more about SWAM and opportunities to get involved, visit swammontreal.caor @swammontreal on Instagram. 

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com

The post “Swimming With a Mission”: Using Sport for Good  appeared first on The McGill Daily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What happens now?

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

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

Legault’s premiership: the “manager nationalist” era

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

Secularism as a defining, and polarizing, policy area

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

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

French-language protection as a central project

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

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

“Competence” tested by scandals and public-service conflict

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

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

Why resign now? Converging pressure in an election countdown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In preparation for the nomination period, the Quebec Public Interest Group at McGill (QPIRG-McGill), a SSMU-affiliated, student-run social and environmental justice organization, held information session Wednesday January 21 in Leacock 110, on how and why to run for the SSMU. QPIRG staff, SSMU employees, and former SSMU executives gathered to express the importance of active participation in student democracy and to demonstrate what “[it] could look like.” While outlining the requirements for candidacy and explaining how to organize a campaign, the presentation stressed that the main objective of a student union like the SSMU is to make McGill better suited for the needs of its students.

As a non-profit that has supported student and community activism for over forty years in association with the SSMU, QPIRG organized the information session with the hopes of encouraging students to make their voices heard in their union. Full-time QPIRG staffer and McGill alum Nelly Wat expressed to the Daily that although student politics can seem confusing, there are many valuable things that the SSMU can offer to its students. “A student union is what students make of it,” she shared. “Students have a lot more power than they think [they do]. It’s so important for students to be informed.”

Wat continued, “To a lot of students, [getting involved with the SSMU’s affairs] can seem really intimidating; it can seem like ‘there’s so many things to be done, I have so little power, and there’s so many things that can be different. But it’s so possible to make these changes happen, and there are a lot of other students who would be there to support you.”

The SSMU legislative and executive governing bodies have the power to propose motions on allocating resources to student clubs and organizations, determining referendum ballots, adopting new policies, supporting student strikes, and collaborating with local initiatives – all with the aim of representing student interests alongside those of the McGill administration. To ensure that student voices are heard and advocated for, balancing the powers between councillors, executives, and the SSMU members – in general assemblies and student referendums – is essential. To underscore the importance of democratic participation, from staying informed on the SSMU’s affairs to running in the upcoming elections, QPIRG speakers contextualized the SSMU’s history of advocacy as the result of initiatives led by executives who were passionate about social issues. “We have things at McGill, like QPIRG, Midnight Kitchen, and CKUT because there were execs who wanted those things to exist, and therefore they [came to exist],” the primary speaker, a SSMU member of staff, shared in the presentation. She stressed that during this election cycle, students must “make sure that the students elected care about democratic accountability and protect student services.”

While discussing how to get involved with the SSMU beyond the election period, multiple student attendees expressed difficulty understanding how the SSMU operates. “[Transparency] is a huge problem,” the speaker answered. “We need people to know what’s going on in the SSMU, and it’s a high-effort thing to find out, but you can go to legislative council meetings and hear about things that [councillors and executives] are voting on. You can also email your execs; they are meant to represent you and you can discuss what they’re doing.”

“People don’t know what’s going on at SSMU, and it’s a real problem,” the speaker continued to the Daily. “I just think that it’s really important right now, especially around elections, to get the word out in a way that will have an impact on these elections. It does really matter for the future of student democracy.” She added that students often don’t realize the role SSMU plays in their university experience, from activity nights to graduation.  “Engagement is really the only way [to ensure that student needs are advocated for]. If SSMU doesn’t actually represent us, that just gives McGill the ability to go against what [students] actually want.” She urges students to start getting involved through voting, but also encourages them to support a campaign, submit referendum questions, and hold the SSMU’s representatives accountable: “the more people hold them to account, the more accountable they will be to us.

The SSMU also hosted an information session on Thursday, January 22, for students interested in running for an executive position. The presentation covered an overview of the electoral process and gave potential nominees the chance to pose questions to current execs on what working at the SSMU is really like.

For those who missed the info session but are inspired to run for candidacy, the nomination kit, which outlines requirements, is available on the SSMU website under “Elections and Referenda.” Students can also reach out to incumbents to learn more about the details of their position and what being a SSMU executive really entails. The deadline for nominations is February 12, and the voting period will begin on March 9.

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