On October 1, five Midnight Kitchen (MK) employees were laid off by the SSMU Board of Directors (BoD) without notice. This action came as a shock to the MK employees, the SSMUnion, their labour union, and McGill students who use the service. Following the employees dismissal, all SSMU members were informed of the BoD’s decision via a mass email titled “Reorganization of the Midnight Kitchen Service.”

The email has become a point of contention between MK supporters and those in favour of the reorganization. The email cites that the primary reason for reorganization came from a review of MK’s “operations and finances,” which revealed that only a “small portion” of the budget went towards food. The BoD states the reorganization will be to create more “paid and volunteer” opportunities for students, and also will “no longer be limited to exclusively vegan options.” Though in the email, which includes no concrete plan for how meat will be included in the service in the future, the BoD cites their inclusion of meat as a part of their goal to make “food services more accessible and responsive to all.” The inclusion of meat in the service would not necessarily cater to students who have vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, halal, or kosher diets; however, the vegan and nut-free meals previously provided by MK made their service accessible to a diverse range of people with different diets. To “ensure transparency,” the BoD included MK’s fiscal budgets from 2022 to 2025 in the notice. These budgets were not accompanied by additional context detailing how MK operates, notably excluding how the service receives many donations from food security groups and farms to sustain their operations, outlined in an FAQ posted to the Instagram account @save.mk.coalition. The email also omitted the BoD’s plan for MK’s future and dates where members could expect the service to return.

From this email, many were driven to @save.mk.coalition’s comment section, an account created in solidarity with MK, to share their opinions on MK’s restructuring. Several arguments ensued in the comments of their first post. These responses demonstrated a roughly even split between those for and against the MK’s restructuring. One user left a comment beginning with “It is very disheartening to see the SSMU board-glazers in here celebrating the shutdown of this campus institution.” Others left comments such as “me when 75% of their budget goes towards salaries (crying emoji) but remember they’re a ‘non-profit, volunteer run’ service.”

The comment section under the post has become a microcosm for students’ reaction to MK’s restructuring. Students expressed their inability to understand how MK operated with the organization’s budget reports due to the lack of context in the email sent by SSMU. To combat misinformation, the account posted an FAQ which directly addresses the commenters’ questions. This post draws comparisons between MK and the People’s Potato, their Concordia University counterpart, who is able to serve free lunch four times a week, but primarily due to the fact that they have “a much larger kitchen space and a significantly larger team of staff.”

Nonetheless, there is still ambiguity for what the future of MK will be like. One of the primary concerns of those who utilize MK’s meal services is when they will return. In an email to the McGill Daily, SSMU’s president Dymetri Taylor, stated that the “‘best case scenario’ is that five weekly servings will be undertaken starting the first week of January 2026; however, our more realistic estimate is that it’ll be three servings per week, starting in the first week of January, with an escalation to five servings starting in mid-February.” Despite his announcement, there remains uncertainty on whether or not MK’s new structure will be able to achieve this “best case scenario.” Taylor further estimated that weekly lunches would return by mid- November, leaving students without the service for over a month.

In addition, Taylor clarified what MK would look like after undergoing reorganization. The role of the new Food Services and Hospitality Manager, would be to “manage and guide the service while also serving as a mentor to students,” a role which he compared to the “Gerts Bar Manager and the Gerts Cafe Manager” in his correspondence with the Daily. Though these positions have worked for Gerts Bar and Cafe, Orion, one of the recent MK hires who never received a contract from SSMU to make their position official, doesn’t believe it will work for MK.

In a verbal statement to the McGill Daily, Orion mentions how the format of a singular person overseeing student labor “simply will not work in the MK kitchen.” They, similar to other recent hires, believed that since they were offered a job in September, MK would continue to operate smoothly. Unfortunately, Orion states that they and the other new hires were not given their contracts before learning of MK’s restructuring, despite “a direct promise from Dymetri Taylor during the most recent General Assembly.” Cecelia Callaghan, a U2 student, also mentioned hearing Taylor promise to send the contracts during her speech at the rally following the announcement of the reorganization. Though the BoD claimed the restructuring would afford students “a range of paid and volunteer opportunities,” Cece and the other student hires, as of now, have not been given a role in the reorganized MK.

On October 2, a rally in solidarity of MK took place featuring speakers from SSMUnion, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM), People’s Potato, and two of MK’s recent hires that were never given their contracts. This rally follows directly on the heels of the October 1 inter-union rally held by AGSEM, as well as the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) and the Association of McGill and Professors of the Faculty of Arts (AMPFA), that called out the McGill Administration for their austerity practices in light of the recent budget cuts. In their FAQ post, @save.mk.coalition asks the SSMU for “democracy, accountability, and representation that protects us from austerity.”

In its 22 years of operation, MK has made inroads within the greater Montreal area and among the radical community. Beyond their weekly lunch service, MK has formed relationships with community organizations like QPIRG McGill and Happy Belly, hosted workshops, and maintained a community garden. They have pledged solidarity with Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, and have catered at many different events like QPIRG McGill’s Rad Frosh. These kinds of relationships are extremely important, and caused many commenters to lament the loss of this iteration of the service. One user who ended their comment with “MK provides an invaluable service to the community” sums up the sentiment.

The five laid-off MK employees have been most impacted from this reorganization. Many of these employees had been working at MK for more than five years. Yet, per the budgets attached to email and as mentioned by Orion, they were being paid below the livable wage according to l’Institut de recherche et d’information socioéconomique.

Beyond MK, Queer McGill has also undergone upheavals, such as the emptying of their library room on the fourth floor of the SSMU building. In a statement sent to the Daily from Juno Cinq-Mars, U2 student, and the rest of the coordinators on the Queer McGill team, it was revealed that even after filling out an Office Relocation Proposal, their request for a new library space was “denied,” while the space “appears to be empty and is not bookable on VEMS.” They also point out how these changes “have not benefited us as students, especially queer students, whatsoever. We are constantly being swept under the rug.”

The post SSMU Cuts Midnight Kitchen appeared first on The McGill Daily.

A year later, the Daily met with Delali, the general coordinator of Midnight Kitchen, to discuss the service, the progress they have made in the past year, and their plans for this year. 

The McGill Daily (MD): Could you briefly explain what your association does? What are your main activities and goals? 

Delali: Briefly, our goal is to provide alternative food options on campus. One of our biggest programs is our free lunch program that we do on Thursdays at 1:00 p.m. in the ballroom of [the University Centre]. Our goal is to serve approximately 150 meals this year at each service. But we do a lot of different things. 

MD: Could you explain what an “alternative food option” is?

Delali: Typical food options are grocery stores, restaurants, and stuff like that. And usually there’s a big price tag attached to those things, especially in recent years. Prices keep going up, but it’s not accessible to everyone. Food is a necessity. There was a point where people could access food by growing it themselves or trading for it, but as things have progressed, [this has] become less of an option, or it’s a lot harder for people in the city to grow all of their own food to provide for their family.  So Midnight Kitchen just adds another option that doesn’t require money. 

MD:  Do you feel like the food situation on campus has worsened in recent years, with the inflation of food prices and COVID-19?

Delali: For sure. I feel like even before COVID, prices for food on campus were  pretty steep for a student coming to campus every day. If you weren’t making all of your own meals and you had to buy lunch every day between classes, often people choose whatever is around, and what’s around is usually quite pricey. 

MD:  Have you seen an increase in student demand? 

Delali: Absolutely. A lot of mobilization came from frustration with the current food situation on campus. It’s great that people love our service and use it, but we’re not going to solve the issue as one service. But I feel like there have been new things popping up that are trying to offer alternatives, such as the grocery store in [the University Centre] with cheaper lunches.

MD: How has McGill responded to your actions? Has there been an increase in support? 

Delali: No, we’ve never had support from McGill, and there’s not been an increase. Since we’re a student service, and most of our interactions are with SSMU, we don’t really have a relationship with the administration.

MD: Would you like McGill to get involved and help? 

Delali: Of course, we would love that. 

MD: Can you discuss the fee increase that happened last year? How has that helped? What were the reactions? 

Delali: We’re really happy about the fee increase. Our biggest goal was just to expand our food budget so that we could not only cook with donated food that we get through Moisson Montreal – which is a food organization that distributes food that would have otherwise been thrown out. We do get a lot of free food through them, but it’s also nice to have the option of buying more fresh stuff to cook while keeping an inventory of options of things to cook for students. So in order to make sure that we can still provide all the same services and more, the increase has been really helpful. 

MD: Have you been receiving a lot of student support? 

Delali: Yes, but we always get lots of student support, which is always very heartwarming. There’s always a lot of students who are interested in volunteering with us and helping to cook. Honestly, I wish our kitchen was bigger so we could have more people in the kitchen helping us cook. 

MD: How do these volunteer training sessions work? 

Delali: Usually we will have people come to a training session, happening next week, and then also fill out a little form just so we know that they’re coming. Then, we have a big sheet with the shift times and stuff like that. Usually, shifts are two hours. And anybody is welcome to come – you don’t have to have experience cooking at all. Just an interest, curiosity, and [willingness] to help out in any way.

The Midnight Kitchen Collective will be hosting its volunteer orientation on Monday, September 18, from 5:00–6:00 p.m. at the University Centre (Room 304) and on Tuesday, September 19, from 5:00–6:00 p.m. at the University Centre (Room 302/304). To register for an orientation session, fill out the form on Midnight Kitchen’s website.

The free packaged meal service schedule can also be found on the Midnight Kitchen website. The next free meal service will be held on September 21 at 1:00 p.m. on the third floor of the University Centre. The food provided is plant-based and nut-free, and Midnight Kitchen asks that participants bring a reusable container and utensils.

The post An Interview with Midnight Kitchen appeared first on The McGill Daily.

At the food insecurity meeting, students discussed what they call the “cafeteria crisis.” In 2000, McGill began centralizing food services, starting with appropriating the Redpath Cafeteria from SSMU and the Bronfman undergraduate cafeteria from the Management Undergraduate Society. The following year, cafeterias run by student associations – namely the Arts, Music, and Engineering undergraduate societies – were sold to the university. Since then, several other on-campus cafes managed by students have been closed. In 2007, for instance, the entirely student-run Architecture Café, located in the basement of the Macdonald-Harrington building and known to provide cheap lunches, lost financial oversight to McGill Food and Dining Services. Three years later, the McGill administration permanently closed the cafe. According to the Deputy Provost at the time, the cafe had to be closed because it was not turning a profit. This claim was disputed by the president of the Architecture Students’ Association and the EUS VP-Internal, who said the cafe was making a small profit. But profit was not the point of the cafe; providing good food at a cheap price was. The Provost had said, “The university cannot afford to subsidize anyone’s lunch.” Yet the university can afford to invest over $15 million in corporations implicated in the genocide of Uyghur people in China and over $60 million in the oil and gas industry, and it could afford to pay former president Suzanne Fortier a whopping baseline salary of $470,000. Too bad the McGill administration can’t find the funds in their $1.5 billion – $1,572,467,937.19, to be precise – endowment to ensure students on their campus are happy and healthy. 

In response to the closure of Arch Café, one student told the Daily, “We don’t wanna eat corporatized shitty-ass food.” This sentiment rings true today. However, there is limited support from the university for initiatives that provide accessible and sustainable alternatives to profit-driven food systems. MK provides free vegan lunches every other Thursday, but there are never enough meals to feed all who show up for them. In 2018, due to renovations to the SSMU building, MK was forced to scale back their operations from serving around 1,000 meals a week to 300. In a 2019 Daily article, a representative of MK wrote, “Around 12 p.m. a lineup of roughly 200 people would accrue in front of the serving tables, snaking out of the serving room, around the third floor hallway, and down the stairs. Tupperware in hand, students anticipated a delicious hot lunch.” Since their return in 2022, the organization has been forced to reduce capacity to just 50 meals every other week. Clearly, there is demand for free – or at least affordable – healthy meals on campus, and our university’s inattention to this demand is a sad reflection of its failure to care for the wellbeing of its students. 

Universities are much more than providers of education, as many students rely on these institutions for housing, employment, nutrition, and access to health care, among other things. It is necessary for food to be subsidized to some degree by the university to ensure wide-scale food access. This demand is not unique to McGill, and students across Canada have had to look beyond their administrations to tackle problems related to a lack of affordable food. The Guelph Student FoodBank provides students access to emergency food, anti-poverty resources, and referrals to other financial assistance groups. Meal Exchange at the University of Toronto has been conducting food security initiatives and research since 1993. Sprouts, a student-run organization at the University of British Columbia, works to make healthy, affordable, and sustainably-produced food accessible to students on their campus. Students at Concordia, meanwhile, have founded the Food Coalition, an organization made up of student-run food services committed to “being affordable always” and to critically approaching issues of food security and food sovereignty.

In a 2015 survey of over 1,300 McGill students, almost 80 per cent of respondents reported feeling that food options on campus are unaffordable. Given that rising dining hall prices and reduced operation of services such as MK has led to a decrease in access to affordable food services on campus, it is likely that this statistic remains unchanged. As students, food insecurity not only reduces academic performance but has severe negative effects on mental and physical health. On-campus food security is imperative to the well-being and success of students, and we can’t afford to ignore it any longer. For students at Macdonald Campus, finding affordable food may also be a problem, especially considering the recent closure of the only grocery store in St-Anne-de-Bellevue. As the growing concern suggests, the university is failing to provide students with basic nutritional needs. 

If you are passionate about contributing to the cause of food accessibility, consider volunteering with Midnight Kitchen’s meal service or in their seasonal garden, which operates from May through October, when they begin looking for volunteers. Midnight Kitchen is currently accepting volunteers to join their Food Security Committee. People’s Potato at Concordia has compiled several lists for those looking for food assistance around Montreal, including a food resource sheet by neighbourhood. Every Friday at 12:30, The Yellow Door’s Rabbit Hole Café – by Prince-Arthur and Aylmer – serves a delicious, healthy, and affordable vegan lunch. If you can, donate to community pantries in Montreal to increase food access across the island, such as to the NDG Community Pantry, the Atwater Community Pantry, and the food bank and distribution program in Milton Parc. 

The post Food for Thought appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Their last meeting, which took  place on January 25, focused on the importance of institutional memory in considering campus food prices and accessibility prior to the pandemic, addressing the increase in cafeteria food prices, and the need to spread awareness of the ‘food crisis’ at McGill. 

Wednesday’s meeting discussed the various food related groups at McGill and the importance of joining forces to increase their impact. Organizations like SNAC, Midnight Kitchen (MK), McGill MealCare, and Le Petit Marché Étudiant, all work towards similar goals: providing affordable, sustainable produce to students, increasing food accessibility on campus, diverting food waste, and closing the gap between food producers and consumers. In 2013, the Concordia Food Coalition was formed, which unites disconnected groups advocating for food accessibility within Concordia University. The coalition oversees the Concordia Farmers Market, and incubates student-led initiatives including the Hive Cafe Co-op. They also oversee research on topics related to campus food sustainability and sovereignty as well as extensive needs assessments, surveys and interviews of Concordia food groups. The meeting members noted the importance of looking to Concordia for inspiration regarding their fight for food justice in Montreal. 

Members at the meeting specifically called attention to the need for more research and surveys to get a better sense of the student bodies’ perception on food accessibility. The most recent survey done regarding food and dining services was conducted in Winter 2018, of which the Daily was shared a copy of the results. The purpose of the survey was “to better understand the needs/expectations of the McGill community and identify opportunities for improvement in order to enhance services offered.” Notably, the results show that value for money followed by quality of food and beverages and general cleanliness ranked as the most important aspects of food services on campus, at a rate of 93 per cent, 90 per cent, and 90 per cent, respectively. Specialty beverages and fair trade products ranked as the least important aspects as 46 and 35 per cent of participants respectfully labelled them as ‘not very or not at all important.’ Furthermore, when asked about the performance of certain aspects of food services on campus, 76 per cent of respondents listed ‘value for money’ as ‘fair or poor’, while 6 per cent ranked ‘value for money’ as ‘excellent or very good’. Conversely, customer service and general cleanliness were ranked most frequently as the ‘excellent or very good’ aspects of campus food services at rates of 42 per cent and 40 per cent respectfully. Those present at the meeting called attention to the need for a more recent survey to be done, given the recent rapid inflation affecting food prices and the increased meal plan cost. Attention was also called to the  UBC 2022 Academic Experience Survey that indicated that approximately 40 per cent of undergraduate students and 50 per cent of graduate students feel food insecure. The group at the meeting called attention to the need for a similar study at McGill to assess the status of food security of its students. 

While representatives of Midnight Kitchen were present at the last meeting, none were present at this one. However, the importance of Midnight Kitchen was highlighted. Midnight Kitchen reopened in September after its closure due to COVID. In 2018 Midnight Kitchen had been forced to reduce its operations since March 2018 due to renovations occurring in the University Centre where their base was held at the time. During the pandemic, MK moved its services to focus as an emergency food bank. Prior to COVID, in 2019, Midnight Kitchen was able to serve about 300 meals weekly for pickup, and before 2019, they were serving up to 1,000 meals weekly. Now, that number has reduced to 50 meals per week due to budgetary issues, according to members at Wednesday’s meeting. Beyond its biweekly free vegan lunch offerings, MK provides free catering services for events that align with its political mandate, operates a garden seasonally, and hosts workshops and lectures relating to food preparation and security. Similarly, Concordia’s People’s Potato, a collectively-run soup kitchen offering vegan meals to students and community members, was noted. 

The last issue on the agenda for the meeting concerned the high cafeteria prices. Members at the meeting placed part of the blame for high prices on the privatization of dining services on campus. Most recently, in 2014, the private company Compass became a provider for food services at McGill. While Concordia’s food services are provided by Aramark, which served McGill until 2014, the university maintains multiple student-run food cooperatives including the Hive and Reggies. 

The next food security meeting will take place in person and online on Wednesday, February 8, the location will be determined. Follow @ssmu_ea on instagram for updates.

The post Food Insecurity on Campus appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Midnight Kitchen is a worker- and volunteer-run collective that strives to combat food insecurity and provide food aid on McGill campus and beyond. Their larger goal is to serve as an alternative to oppressive, profit-driven systems of food production and work toward social and environmental justice, according to its mandate. 

Midnight Kitchen has been forced to scale back their operations since March 2018, when renovations on the University Centre building began. As a SSMU service funded by student fees, the organization operates for free out of a kitchen in the SSMU building, but it had to pay to relocate to a smaller kitchen in St. Henri until the building reopened in September 2021. According to an article from 2019 in the Daily titled “Banking on Our Bellies,” Midnight Kitchen shifted from serving about 200 to 300 meals Monday through Thursday to serving about 300 meals for pickup weekly. 

The free meal program was only further reduced by the pandemic. In an interview with the Daily, Midnight Kitchen staff member Delali described their early pandemic programming: “When the pandemic started, we paused for a bit and started a food bank instead as an emergency response to COVID alongside a different meal delivery service in partnership with several different groups.” Midnight Kitchen also received a grant to create a temporary emergency gift card program, which provided some students with one-time gift cards to grocery stores. 

Midnight Kitchen’s free meal pickups were reinstated in the Fall 2021 semester with about 30 meals bi-weeekly, but these ended in the Winter 2022 semester.

There has been great demand since the return of the service in the Fall 2022 semester. Alina Shimizu, U1 Science, told the Daily about her experience at the free lunch service on September 29. She said that “there was a big lineup before it was even 1:00, so the people who actually got there on time didn’t even get meals […] even though I arrived five minutes early, by the time I got to the front, they just had one side left.”

When asked about increasing the number of meals they serve, Delali explained that Midnight Kitchen is “looking to expand but in a sustainable way. We pre-package our meals and try and make it so our staff don’t feel overworked and people don’t burn out.” In the case that staff members get sick, they “want to make it so that it’s still possible to meet the minimum that we said we’d serve, but we’re looking to slowly scale up a little bit through the semester.”

Delali noted that the free lunch services were “as busy as we expected considering there’s not a lot of great affordable food options on campus.” Another Midnight Kitchen staff member, Aishwarya, explained that, “the need is always greater than we can provide […] as there are other obstacles to getting affordable meals near or on campus.”

Shimizu agreed that “food options on campus in general are overpriced, and now that I don’t have a meal plan, I don’t eat on campus because it’s financially smarter to make my own meals […] More services like free lunches would be awesome.” She also added that “the fact the service was vegan was definitely really impressive because some of the on-campus meal options don’t even have a vegan option, just vegetarian.”

These sentiments echo those described in “Banking on Our Bellies” three years ago. The authors pointed out the lack of affordable or diverse food options on campus, citing the 2014–2015 SSMU Student Experience Study that revealed that about 80 per cent of McGill students felt food options on campus were unaffordable. However, they argued that this hasn’t always been the case. In 2001, “nearly every faculty had their own student-run cafeteria or convenience store, the profits of which would help fund the faculty student association” that would serve food at a lower cost until 2000, when “McGill made moves to consolidate food services under the control of the university administration.” This privatization culminated in McGill’s 2004 exclusivity agreement with the Chartwells brand, which switched to Aramark and then back to the Compass Group, the company that operated Chartwells. The authors claimed that this privatization led to the decrease in diverse, affordable food options.

Midnight Kitchen has sought to fill the need for food security initiatives on campus since its inception in 2002, but, as Delali put it, “as a single organization of five staff members, we’re not going to solve food insecurity on McGill campus and McGill does nothing to address it.” Aishwarya clarified that “McGill should make campus more accessible for people, but technically our formal relationship isn’t with McGill but the SSMU … there’s maybe something to be said about food security being a greater goal in their agenda if students feel like that’s a particular issue they want addressed.” 

Midnight Kitchen is running a fee levy referendum in the winter in order to continue providing food aid to McGill students –  and to potentially obtain more funding to expand their services to run more programming or hire another staff member. 

They currently offer three other kinds of programming McGill students can take advantage of: discretionary funding for initiatives whose goals they support, solidarity servings (free catering for community organizations), and a garden to grow their own ingredients. Their community garden on the east side of Burnside Hall operates from May to October, and students are welcome to volunteer Mondays 3:30-4:30 PM, weather permitting.

When the garden closes at the end of October, Midnight Kitchen will begin serving meals weekly, depending on how busy their other programming is. The free packaged meal service schedule is posted on their website: https://midnightkitchen.org/calendar. 

If you are interested in seeing what Midnight Kitchen has to offer, their next free meal service will be held on October 13 at 1:00 PM. They ask students to wear a mask to keep the community healthy and the service running.

The post Midnight Kitchen Returns appeared first on The McGill Daily.

One of the major events contributing to the increase in general agricultural interest, ranging from gardening to farming, was the beginning of the pandemic. Due to the shutdown of many businesses and gathering spaces, communities were forced to find new ways to engage in public spaces and with each other while still respecting social distancing guidelines. As a result, people started valuing their public parks and greenspaces more, especially in urban areas. Not only are public parks ideal gathering spaces because they are outdoors, but they are also some of the most accessible spaces since they are free. As a native New Yorker, I never spent more time in parks than when the city was the global epicenter for COVID in the spring of 2020. New York even temporarily changed its open container policies in 2020 to allow people to drink alcohol in public parks to encourage people to gather outside. This increased use of public greenspaces led to an interest in activities that created or maintained these spaces. In my neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, community members started organizing park clean-ups to gather with others while carrying out a service that betters the quality of the park for everyone. The city service that collected compost was also suspended, and as an alternative a community compost bin was used in our local park. These alternative methods were more self-sufficient and more beneficial as they provided to the local community and connected community members with one another. 

One of the main factors that drives this need for self-sufficiency is the ongoing climate crisis. Those who are aware of the effects that global food industries and their unsustainable practices have on climate change are tired of the lack of action exhibited by governments and other institutions and are searching for alternatives. In fact, climate change puts food supplies at risk. Increased agricultural sites lacking the necessary climate-resilient infrastructure to protect productive land from being lost to droughts or floods. To feed the growing population, we must develop agricultural practices that account for these pressures levied by climate change. It’s important to note that there is no single prevailing solution to these problems as they are developing in real time and  vary across geographical regions. However, one potential solution is to invest in urban agriculture infrastructure. Urban agriculture creates and/or uses greenspaces and food sources in areas where there were previously none, and it diminishes the need for cities to outsource food. The urban farm I worked on this past summer is a rooftop farm that puts space that would otherwise be empty to use. Imagine the amount of food that could be produced if every rooftop in Montreal was turned into a greenspace where crops could grow. Additionally, urban farms have the ability to provide for lower-income communities by offering job opportunities and greater food security. 

Ultimately, the trend of young adults getting involved in agriculture demonstrates a desire to restructure the way in which societies interact with agriculture. As many grow tired of the reliance on massive corporations for food, they are turning to their own abilities to provide for their communities. The development of agriculture is considered by many historians to have triggered a revolution in the way humans live in structured society. Reimagining agriculture, then, would be one of the steps to a reimagined society. Take a second to reflect on what it would mean to be able to live in a city where you can walk to where your food is grown. Envision what it would be like to go to a greenspace in your community where you and your neighbours all work together to cultivate food which you then take home to eat. Obviously, this seems very removed from our current reality, and it does have its limitations – such as the crops allowed for by local climates. It would also require massive amounts of funding. However, if even a small percentage of urban food supply was sourced through urban farming, this would make a big difference. After my three months of urban farming this summer, I began to appreciate the effort and resources that go into producing food like never before. I also enjoyed connecting with other people in my area over our shared interest, and the experience exposed me to a lot of urban agriculture initiatives about which I would never have known otherwise. I think everyone would greatly benefit from access to a greenspace intended to foster and nourish communities. 

If you would like to get involved in in agriculture in Montreal, the city has various community gardens. Near my apartment in the Plateau, there is Santropol Roulant, which utilizes urban and peri-urban agriculture to provide food to those in need. Even at McGill there is Midnight Kitchen, which is a collective dedicated to providing free meals on campus. They have an on-campus garden open to volunteers where food is grown and then used in these meals. Even if you don’t have the time to volunteer, you can always stop by a farmers’ market to support local agriculture and enjoy some delicious produce.

The post Farming for Our Future appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Most McGill students know Midnight Kitchen (MK) as a service that provides free vegan and nut-free lunches to students. Our daily lunch servings are comprised of hearty soups, refreshing salads, rice, and our infamous cake. For over 15 years, Midnight Kitchen has been a source of affordable food on campus for students. However, renovations to the SSMU building have forced MK to relocate and majorly scale back.

On a typical day in our kitchen at the SSMU building, cooking would start at 9 a.m., as staff and volunteers sorted through vegetables, planned the menu for the day, and crafted a delicious meal. Around 12 p.m. a lineup of roughly 200 people would accrue in front of the serving tables, snaking out of the serving room, around the third floor hallway, and down the stairs. Tupperware in hand, students anticipated a delicious hot lunch. The menu of the day would be announced and serving would begin. Music would pump through the kitchen as students ate together, taking a much needed break from the stress of classes.

Lunch was cooked with produce donated by Moisson Montreal, a non-profit food bank that distributes industry surplus to other non-profits for giveaway. In other words, most meals prepared by MK used food that would otherwise have been thrown away. Not only was our daily lunch service a sustainable source of healthy and affordable food for students, our kitchen created a special atmosphere where people could connect, learn new skills, and decompress from the stresses of academic life.

Since the closure of the SSMU building, we have been renting a kitchen off-campus and focusing on other components of our programming: a garden to grow produce for our weekly food bank, educational workshop keynotes, fulfilling catering requests for underfunded McGill groups and community organizations, and funding student and community groups through our discretionary fund. We have developed a new weekly meal pick-up program that operates on campus out of 3471 Peel, but we have shifted from serving about 1,000 meals a week to 300. (See our website to find out more and register for meal pick ups or the food bank.)

MK’s mandate is grounded in an anti-oppressive, holistic approach to food justice. We acknowledge that food and environmental injustice are inextricable from issues of social justice. Canada’s food system is built on the theft of Indigenous peoples’ land and the exploitation of Black and Brown peoples’ labour. It is crucial to understand this history as we consider how to move forward in a time of mediatized environmental crisis. Let’s be real; the crisis is nothing new. It has existed since the formation of “Canada.” In order to address the climate crisis at its roots, we must fight the ongoing legacy of Canada’s colonial governance on Turtle Island and abroad, which exists hand in hand with massive devastation caused by Canadian corporate enterprises that exploit the land and labour of the Global South to drive profits north.

A 2015 survey of over 1,300 McGill students revealed that 80 per cent of students felt food options on campus are unaffordable.

MK opposes approaches to climate justice that are not rooted in intersectionality. We are critical of “zero waste” rhetoric that directs attention away from the systemic causes of food injustice to place responsibility in the hands of the individual consumer and how they can make “better choices” within capitalism. It is ironic when big corporations such as Compass Group promote “zero waste” in their cafeterias, yet contribute directly to environmental destruction by collaborating with infamous polluters such as Nestle, Pepsico, KraftHeinz, and Kelloggs.

Food insecurity at McGill

There is a myth that food security is not an issue at McGill; however, a 2015 survey of over 1,300 McGill students revealed that 80 per cent of students felt food options on campus are unaffordable. Five years later, the landscape at McGill has not changed. It is not uncommon for students to go hungry when trying to balance tuition payments and housing costs. The correlation between nutrition and mood is well documented. The financial aid office at McGill has a handy “Cheap Sheet” that lists cheap food options on campus. However, most of them aren’t healthy options. (Can one entirely subsist off samosas, hot dogs and ice cream cones?) Yellow Door, Snax, and Midnight Kitchen are the clear stand-outs in terms of healthy, on-campus meals.

In researching for a Rad Frosh workshop this year, it was revealed that the Dean of Students’ office was unaware of the changes to Midnight Kitchen’s services since the SSMU building closure. With reports showing a direct correlation between food insecurity and poor health, as well as ability to focus or excel in work or other activities, why is McGill neglecting to invest in food security initiatives? Shouldn’t a postsecondary institution help their students excel by providing them with resources for food security? Concordia University has both student groups and the administration working together to provide emergency food vouchers, two daily lunch programs, food banks, breakfasts, and lists of resources. Why don’t the most vulnerable McGill students have similar resources?

With reports showing a direct correlation between food security and poor health, as well as ability to focus and excel in work and other activities, why is McGill neglecting to invest in food security initiatives?

Midnight Kitchen has existed for over 15 years, trying to answer this question and feeding people along the way. We are a vital student service and have been attempting to meet student needs despite all of the challenges brought on by the construction.

Since the closure of the SSMU building…

The SSMU building has been closed for construction since March 2018. The repairs are a necessary evil; however, this has meant relocation of all student services and clubs. The SSMU building is sorely missed. Clubs and services such as MSERT, the Union for Gender Empowerment, the Flat Bike Collective, and SACOMSS have faced hardships due to the construction. Cited are a lack of storage space, access to rooms for training, gender neutral washrooms, and accessible entrances for mobility-impaired users, among others. This is unacceptable!

The first time MK was informed of the building closure, we were told that the re-opening would happen in January 2019, with the possibility of accessing the second floor cafeteria early while the rest of the building remained closed. This was an imposition we felt capable of contending with; presumably, the unique needs of our service would be prioritized. They were not.

Due to the closure, MK had to find a new location. Ideally, our temporary location would be a wheelchair-accessible industrial kitchen on campus with a room that we could serve meals out of. However, the search for an on-campus kitchen to accommodate us was unsuccessful. The new kitchen, located on St. Henri, has only one tenth of the fridge space, no freezer space, and one fifth of the dry storage space of the old kitchen. Additionally, we are currently paying upwards of $23,000 per year to rent this space.

Since we are not on campus, we have to personally deliver to McGill for distribution or have groups venture to St. Henri, where our new location is, for pick up. Other inconveniences include the inability to host volunteers, hurried food deliveries with confused taxi drivers, endless trips to the grocery store to restock our tiny shelf, and various storage nightmares. All of our new programming has been developed with no clear end in sight. McGill has continually disrespected Midnight Kitchen, as well as all the other clubs and services in the Brown building, by giving “vague updates like ‘it’s not looking good,’” according to SSMU’s VP Student Life, Billy Kawasaki. Construction has been pushed until January 2020, a year from the planned re-opening date.

McGill has continually disrespected Midnight Kitchen, as well as all the other clubs and services in the Brown building, by giving vague updates. 

Part of the problem is poor management and inconsistent communication, but we can’t help but feel that another (big) part of it is the de-prioritization of student wellness. In particular, given that there are so few services addressing food insecurity at McGill, leaving MK without an on-campus home creates a huge gap in support for students. We would argue that this is indicative of a broader pattern of the prioritization of profit over student wellness.

There was a time when things were different…

It is hard to imagine, but McGill once had numerous student-run food services on campus. According to the Coalition for Action on Food Services (CAFS), until 2001, nearly every faculty had their own student-run cafeteria or convenience store, the profits of which would help fund the faculty student association. In 2000, McGill made moves to consolidate food services under the control of the university administration. By 2001, cafeterias operated by AUS, SUS, MUSA, and EdUS were losing their right to exist.

In early 2004, McGill was seeking a single food service provider that would monopolize all cafeterias and food services on campus. Students, staff and faculty organized to demand consultation throughout the process. CAFS was formed to advocate for local businesses and student-run operations on campus. To this end, they consulted with the administration, expressing concerns over possible monopolies on food services and demanding consultation and direct involvement in all related matters. They held round-table discussions, drafted petitions, and organized boycotts. Despite the efforts of CAFS, the administration ultimately signed an exclusivity agreement with the Chartwells brand, operated by Compass Group. Chartwells is a multimillion dollar corporation that dominates food services in postsecondary institutions across Canada and the US. It has a history of abusive labour practices (cited in concerns put forward by the Canadian Union of Public Employees) and investment in contracts with armed forces, prisons, and the oil drilling site Chevron.

Student-run cafes were gradually shut down, culminating in the closure of the cooperatively-run Architecture Cafe in 2010. In the meantime, the five-year exclusivity contract has shifted from Chartwells to Aramark and back to Compass Group in 2014. The result of the privatization of McGill food services is a lack of diverse and affordable options on campus and loss of student autonomy over food services.

The Midnight Kitchen Collective was formed in 2002, in the midst of the privatization. MK was an active supporter of CAFS and collaborated in organizing against the Chartwells contract. Our mandate continues to be rooted in a tangible anti-capitalist and anti-colonial approach to food justice. We secured control over our own kitchen, rent-free, at the SSMU building in 2006, and a fee levy through referendum to support hiring staff and expand the quality of our services in 2007. Our main service has been providing hot, vegan, nut-free lunches to between 200 and 300 hungry students daily, from Monday to Thursday in the SSMU building. We have also hosted skillshares and workshops, welcomed dozens of volunteers, and catered to McGill groups and beyond with our solidarity servings.

Forward movement

What if there were more student-led food initiatives on campus – student-run cafes and cooperatives that offered affordable food and supported small businesses from the Montreal community, independently operated student spaces, supported by the university, where students could socialize and organize?

What if there were more student-led food initiatives on campus […] independently operated student spaces, where students could socialize and organize?

We are inspired to imagine the integration of student needs with a larger vision for a world without oppression and domination. In doing so, we draw inspiration from the revolutionary movements around us. We are inspired by past student organizing, most recently during the 2012 Quebec student strike; by the Concordia Food Coalition’s efforts to create a community food system at Concordia outside of the pursuit of financial profit; by life-giving projects like the Kahnawà:ke Environment Protection Office, whose mission is to foster environmental leadership within their community. The struggle continues, and we’re here to provide fuel for the fight!

Midnight Kitchen is a non-profit, worker and volunteer-run collective that operates out of Tio’tia:ke (unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory) dedicated to providing accessible food to as many people as possible. We aim to empower individuals and communities by providing a working alternative to current capitalist, profit-driven systems of food production and distribution. We oppose privatization, corporatization and other systemic processes that both cause and perpetuate marginalization of certain people. We will provide popular education on issues of social, environmental, and food (in)justice, both inside and outside the collective, and provide space for the exchange of ideas within the community.

We oppose both violent, status-quo food systems as well as green-washed, individualized “lifestylist” approaches that direct attention away from the systemic causes of poverty, environmental destruction, and lack of access to food. By taking the initiative to produce and distribute food in our own communities, we act in the pursuit of social and environmental justice and will support others who share these goals. Our approach to food justice is grounded in anti-oppression with a mandate to center marginalized people.

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The General Meeting consisted of a multitude of announcements from graduate students and other McGill officials, as well as executive reports.

Student Life and Learning

The council meeting featured an extensive presentation by the Office of Student Life and Learning (SLL), headed by Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens.
“I come to Council about once or twice a year,” said Dyens, “usually to discuss the student services budget which we will do again this year, a bit later in November […], but the point of this meeting is to show you a bit of what SLL is and what we do, and then […] to answer your questions about some of the things we do, kind of like a meet-and-greet.”

SLL’s presentation began with an introduction to the office’s objectives, including but not limited to “offer[ing] the best, most innovative and healthiest educational experience in North America,” while “[developing] intellectual partnerships [between McGill’s] faculties, students and the entire McGill community.”

The presentation also touched upon the challenges faced by SLL. SLL detailed its work in negotiating Memorandum of Agreements (MoAs) with the University’s student unions, while simultaneously working on policy development within the university as a whole – notably, with policies that pertain to sexual violence, student academic assessment, medical notes, and plagiarism.

Midnight Kitchen

Council voted on a motion to approve a referendum question on a Midnight Kitchen student levy. While McGill undergraduate students currently support Midnight Kitchen through a $3.35 per semester per student opt-outable fee, graduate students don’t pay any fees to support the organization.

The referendum question asks graduate students if they would “support a student levy of $0.75 per semester to support the Midnight Kitchen, payable and fully opt-outable on Minerva by members of PGSS,” from Winter 2017 until Fall 2018, at which point it will be brought back to PGSS for renewal.

The motion passed unanimously, with 54 votes in favour.

Debate on MCGSS Funding

An amendment of the budget for Macdonald Campus Graduate Students’ Society (MCGSS) funding was brought to Council. It was sent to committee last Council meeting, but was not approved. The amendment to the budget would result in PGSS taking a total of $2,500, or the equivalent of $5.00 per graduate student at Macdonald campus, from the PGSS grants budget line and allocating it to MCGSS. This would subsequently be added to PGSS’ annual budget.

A motion to amend this was brought forward that would take $2.00 per graduate student, instead of $5.00 for Winter 2017. The motion passed.

Thomas Colburn of the Postgraduate Philosophy Student Association (PPSMUA), asked why the MCGSS wasn’t initially allocated any funds. Secretary General Victor Frankel responded that he “wasn’t part of the decision-making process, but I think that’s the most fair thing to do.”

“Essentially, it’s goods and services that we cannot regularly provide to Mac students because they’re [on the MacDonald campus],” continued Frankel, “so this gives them […] a budget line that allows them to run their own events.”

Former PGSS Financial Affairs Officer Behrang Sharif clarified that “it’s not that we are not giving any money [to MCGSS],” he said. “This was the money that was under another name. We had an agreement with MCGSS that this money is going to go to [Macdonald Campus Students’ Society [MCSS] now they are asking for extra money on top of what we agreed.”

Former PGSS Financial Affairs Officer and current Graduate Students’ Association for Neuroscience (GSAN) council rep Erik Larson spoke against the amendment. “The PGSS grants budget is funded by a referendum question. If we collect this money for the grants project at PGSS, this would be the equivalent of taking money out of the needs-based bursary fund or the library improvements fund – all of which PGSS collects and all of which they remit to the intended recipients of it. […] I don’t think that Council can and should take money from the budget line and give it to another organization.”

The debate centered mostly around what funds PGSS was already sending to MCGSS, and how much this new amendment would contribute to MCGSS’s budget. Eventually, the motion was tabled in light of the information brought up at Council.

New energy management program at McGill

At the general meeting, McGill’s energy manager Jerome Conraud spoke about a new energy program at McGill that might affect students during the winter.

“Essentially, you might know that in Quebec, peak demand for electricity is in the winter […] between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., and in the afternoon between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., so to help the utility company, Hydro-Quebec, they have a new incentive program to have customers like [McGill] reduce their power demands during these very cold days [and hours], and that will allow us to not have to purchase electricity at a very high cost from the United States or Ontario.”

Six buildings will be impacted by the energy program: McIntyre Medical Sciences, Penfield 470 (Genome), Wong, and Trottier buildings, and McLennan and Redpath libraries. Conraud assured council members that the heat wouldn’t be turned off completely, but would rather be set at “minimum acceptable levels.” The program will not detrimentally affect labs on campus, but heating will be turned off sequentially in certain areas of the specified buildings to minimize electricity usage.

Conraud acknowledged the disruptive effect this might have on students, but emphasized that the program would assure a $200,000 rebate from Hydro-Quebec by the end of the year, to be invested in energy conservation measures or greenhouse gas reduction measures.

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Six motions were passed, including a motion to endorse CKUT’s existence referendum question, a motion regarding Midnight Kitchen existence referendum question, a motion regarding the creation of a Musicians Collective Fee, and a motion regarding the free menstrual hygiene products policy.

Council also passed a motion regarding the free menstrual hygiene products fee and health and hygiene products fund referendum question, and a motion to approve the 2015-2016 audited financial statements.

Fiat Lux

Library Improvement Fund Commissioner Malcolm McClintock gave a presentation on current library projects and the Library Improvement Fund’s work so far this year. One of McGill libraries’ main projects in the next several years will be the “Fiat Lux,” a re-imagining of the Mclennan-Redpath library complex. This includes a proposed robotic storage center housed under Lower Field that will free up space for students to study.

“Thirty per cent of the books haven’t been checked out in twenty years now,” McClintock noted.

“It might not be for our generation of students at McGill, it might not be for the next generation at McGill, but it’s something that is worthwhile,” he added.

McClintock also discussed that the Library Improvement Fund is providing more amenities to make students’ time in libraries more enjoyable and helpful, such as charging stations throughout the libraries.

“We are looking into specifically more space diversity, as well as […] making sure that all these resources and libraries are really relevant to everybody,” he said.

McGill Mental Health

Following his presentation, which highlighted his office’s projects and efforts toward ongoing issues regarding mental health at McGill, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens summarized his thoughts on the state of mental health at the University, in response to a question from VP Student Life Elaine Patterson.

“We want to create the healthiest possible learning environment,” he said.

Creating such an environment necessitates providing students with faster access to mental health and counselling services, he elaborated. Recently, the University implemented a stepped care approach to mental health.

“We know that there’s actually eighty per cent or so of cases that just need one intervention,” he said. “We’re trying to make this a much quicker process so students get that one intervention as quickly as they can.”

“We want to create the healthiest possible learning environment.”

He further noted that improving mental health requires McGill to review its policies, particularly relating to how it assesses students’ needs, and that greater education within the community (including professors, faculty, and staff) is necessary “to understand, recognize, and not ostracize people with these issues.”

Midnight Kitchen’s discretionary funding

A motion was also brought forward to Council regarding Midnight Kitchen’s existence referendum question. The motion asked undergraduate students whether they “agree to the renewal of the opt-outable Midnight Kitchen Fee of $3.35 per student per semester […] with the understanding that a majority ‘no’ vote will result in the termination of all undergraduate fee-levy funding to Midnight Kitchen […]”

It further asked if students supported Midnight Kitchen in continuing to offer up to twenty per cent of its fee budget in discretionary funding to projects that fall under its political mandate.

“We’re trying to make this a much quicker process so students get that one intervention as quickly as they can.”

Councilors voiced concern regarding this part of the motion, noting that Midnight Kitchen has a recurring budgetary surplus. Midnight Kitchen is a non-profit organization, and should therefore theoretically be breaking even financially.

However, a representative from Midnight Kitchen explained that the surplus was the result of previous members not buying necessary kitchen equipment, such as ovens. The collective is currently working on infrastructure improvements, which will lead to a decrease in the surplus.

VP External David Aird noted that “a lot of organizations function [with a rollover fund]. [So] it does remain a non-profit and […] there are things like capital projects that they can’t accommodate on a yearly budget.”

According to Midnight Kitchen’s budget, it does not typically spend the full twenty per cent of the budget available for discretionary funding, and thus councilors were concerned about asking students to support this part of the motion.

Engineering Representative Richard (Tre) Mansdoerfer expressed his discomfort with discretionary funding. “The expectation is that [students] pay for services,” he said. “I don’t think it makes sense to have discretionary funding for any SSMU service.”

Engineering Representative Tristan Renondin brought forth a motion to change the Midnight Kitchen’s discretionary funding from “up to 20 per cent” to “10 per cent.” This motion passed with three abstentions and none against.

“I don’t think it makes sense to have discretionary funding for any SSMU service.”

Following this, the existence referendum question motion passed with 75 per cent of the councilors in favor, 21 per cent against, and four per cent abstaining.

Free menstrual hygiene products

The free menstrual hygiene products policy will provide pads and tampons, among other products, to those students who need them across campus. Patterson explained the products will be distributed at Healthy McGill kiosks across campus, as well as in the gender neutral and gendered bathrooms.

Arts Representative Maria Thomas spoke in favour of the policy, saying “I think having all these availabilities on campus will be really helpful with the stigma about having a period.”

The motion passed with four per cent of councilors abstaining, which led to Council adopting the policy.

However, the motion regarding the menstrual hygiene products fee and health and hygiene products fund referendum question generated more debate. The motion asks students if they support the creation of a non-opt-outable fee of $0.90 per semester per student to supply menstrual hygiene products to students across campus starting Winter 2017.

“I think having all these availabilities on campus will be really helpful with the stigma about having a period.”

SSMU President Ben Ger noted that at the last council meeting, many councilors were concerned about the amount of the fee. The fee is now lower, as it previously accounted for twenty tampons as well as twenty pads per cycle. It now accounts for ten of each type of product, and “we can then start to gauge after the first year to see which product was used more and increase the purchase of [that] product,” he said.

He further noted that any surplus money from the fee would go toward a separate fund to be reserved to purchase alternative products, such as DivaCups.

Senate Caucus Representative Joshua Chin noted that the motion claims up to 56 per cent of undergraduate students will use the products, but the budgetary calculations accounted for fifty per cent of students using them.

SSMU VP Finance Niall Carolan addressed the budgetary issue, explaining that he discovered after calculating the budget that 56 per cent was more accurate, for which he apologized. But he said he does not believe it will have an impact on the purpose of the fee.

“I think it’s more important that we make a commitment to reevaluate where money is being spent and making sure that it is being spent in the most efficient way possible,” he said.

Science Representative Ashby Gangaram asked for the reasoning behind making the fee non-opt-outable.

Carolan explained that the percentage of students who opt out of fees fluctuates each year, and purchasing products on this scale requires advanced planning. As such, “having the kind of stability of knowing exactly how much money year over year will be available greatly eases our purchasing plan and makes the fund much more manageable.”

“I think it’s more important that we make a commitment to reevaluate where money is being spent and making sure that it is being spent in the most efficient way possible.”

SSMU VP University Affairs Erin Sobat also noted that “there’s a lot of people on campus who wouldn’t use this and don’t want to pay for it. Part of the suggestion is that men or others who don’t menstruate shouldn’t [be able to] opt out of this.” The motion passed unanimously.

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The Coalition held its first public event on February 13: a “heartbombing” under the Leacock stairs, where representatives from SNAX, Midnight Kitchen, the Nest, and the McGill Spaces Project had snacks and information for those passing by.

The online description for this inaugural event outlined the goal of the coalition. “Currently, [student-run food and space] initiatives are vulnerable to the top-down, profit-driven decisions of our administration. We believe that unified, the groups in the coalition will have stronger negotiating power within McGill’s hierarchy and ultimately more influence on campus.”

The survival of student-run services and spaces is an issue that has reared its head frequently at McGill. Last semester, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) negotiations took the spotlight when McGill ordered the AUS-run food kiosk SNAX to “cease and desist” the sale of sandwiches.

Kathleen Bradley, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP Finance and Operations and former head chef at the student-run cafe the Nest, told The Daily that the SNAX controversy helped prompt the development of the Coalition.

“Around the time that McGill told SNAX that they couldn’t sell sandwiches – that was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Around the time that McGill told SNAX that they couldn’t sell sandwiches – that was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back – a whole bunch of students from Frostbite, from SNAX, from the SRC [student-run cafe, the Nest], from a bunch of SSMU services kind of got together,” said Bradley.

“We met with the people from the Concordia Food Coalition, and they shared their experience with corporatized food services and how they’re working against the Concordia administration to make sure that student-run food services are preserved on campus,” she continued.

The Coalition is in the process of drafting a charter that outlines its purpose and values, one of which is to support student-run food services in their interactions with the McGill administration. According to Bradley, advocating for students throughout MOA negotiations is one way this goal can be achieved.

“We were a little bit late to the SNAX game, but hopefully in the future if EUS [the Engineering Undergraduate Society] or another faculty was negotiating its MOA and was having difficulty preserving their student space, the Coalition could come together, do demonstrations, [create] awareness, and put pressure on the McGill administration to put [measures to preserve student space] in the MOA.”

Meldrum added, “If the SNAX negotiations continue to drag as they are, there is still definitely an opportunity for the coalition to participate.”

Bradley listed “coming out to demonstrations if you see them, writing letters to the McGill administration or getting in contact with your faculty and seeing how you can support their student-run food service,” as ways that interested students can get involved with the Coalition.

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Originally expected to reopen within two weeks of the start of the semester, MK remains shuttered because of a problem currently facing many buildings on campus: rodents.

Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP Clubs & Services Stefan Fong characterized the closure as a proactive measure meant to protect the kitchen against any possible pest invasions.

Though MK is, as of most recent reports from Fong, vermin-free, rodent activity has increased in the Shatner bulding, as the recently-completed construction on McTavish and cold weather have forced the rodents to seek alternative housing.

Mice have been reported as far up as the third floor. Fong said that SSMU is addressing this issue head-on because of the extent of last years’ mouse infestation, which affected the entire building. MK has been closed because, as a food service, it is at high risk for an infestation. At this time, no other food services have been closed.

In addition to the potential rodent contamination, MK’s operational permit is also due to expire on January 21, reported Fong. Before MK can reopen, collective members are required to attend a certification course given by Quebec’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, which will be offered before MK’s permit expires.

Ministry certification is a legal requirement for food service in Quebec, but it is something MK has trouble enforcing due to the high turnover of volunteers the collective sees each year.

While MK refused to comment on the issue, a message on the collective’s Facebook page indicated that the closure was “mostly out of the collective’s control.” The post also said that “SSMU is not permitting us to enter the kitchen or give out any food until these changes have been completed.”

This closure is not linked to the vandalism suffered by MK last semester, an issue which has, according to Fong, been resolved. However, the details behind the vandalism have not yet been disclosed publicly.

The kitchen will still be present in room 302 of SSMU on Mondays and Thursdays from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. with free coffee and the occasional film.

The post Midnight Kitchen closed due to rodent risk in Shatner building appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Midnight Kitchen’s existence referendum

Representatives of Midnight Kitchen – a non-profit student-run kitchen that provides free vegan meals for McGill students – came to the Council meeting to discuss their upcoming existence referendum and to request an increased fee levy, both of which are questions in the Fall Referendum period.

Midnight Kitchen is asking for an increase of $1 per undergraduate student in fees paid for the service. Currently, undergraduate students pay an opt-outable fee of $2.25, which comprises 99.3 per cent of Midnight Kitchen’s budget. This increase would go toward offering breakfast, having bigger serving sizes at lunch, and paying their workers a more reasonable wage.

According to information provided by Midnight Kitchen, the service currently serves lunch five days a week to around 250 students per day on a pay-what-you-can basis.

VP University Affairs Joey Shea, Arts Senator Claire Stewart-Kanigan, and Medicine Representative David Benrimoh all spoke on the importance of Midnight Kitchen, especially for lower income students.

“I personally know a lot of students who have survived for the past four years [at McGill] through the use of these services,” Shea stated in support of the increase.

Although he voted in favour of the existence referendum, Clubs and Services representative Élie Lubendo voted against the fee-levy motion. In an email to The Daily, Lubendo noted that there had been a communication mix-up regarding the proposal of the motion, but that he also disagreed with the fee increase.

“I voted ‘no’ because I did not think it was reasonable that students be charged more money, when currently 61 per cent of the budget of Midnight Kitchen is spent on their workers rather than on the services rendered to the students that pay for the service,” he stated. “Midnight Kitchen is a great service and they are definitely needed in this community – hence why I voted for the motion regarding their existence. However, I personally think that to fund the costs associated with their planned expansion, other means of revenue or cost-cutting techniques should be looked into.”

The motions for both the upcoming existence referendum and the fee levy passed.

General Assembly criticized for low attendance

Many councillors were displeased with the low attendance at SSMU’s annual Fall General Assembly (GA), questioning the steps that the executive council took to encourage students to attend the GA.

“All the [executives] have been here for three plus years, they’ve all been to [GAs],” Science Representative Sarah Southey said. “I don’t understand why things weren’t changed, because obviously they need changing.”

President Katie Larson defended her executive team, insisting instead that the executive “can’t [excessively advertise] something that people don’t want to go to.”

When asked on her personal opinion on the attendance at the GA, Larson expressed disappointment. “Obviously it was atrocious, it was terrible […] we had people coming in yesterday to walk in the room, check into quorum, get their free bagel, and leave.”

Second Council meeting held

A second Council meeting was also held on the same night to address the problems caused by the lack of quorum at the previous night’s GA. Since the body was only a Consultative Forum – where there were under 100 students present – neither the motion on the Constitution, nor the appointment of the Board of Directors, nor the approval of the auditing firm could be passed.

According to an e-mail from Larson, “The motion regarding the GA will be on the Referendum ballot this Fall as it was put through Council.”

In addition, Council considered holding a special General Assembly later in this semester in order to appoint members to the Board of Directors. “Council cannot appoint members to the Board of Directors since they legally need to be confirmed at a General Assembly or by the membership,” wrote Larson.

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