McGill professor accused of sexual misconduct

Islamic Studies Institute in the spotlight following abuse allegations against professor

On September 2017, stickers warning students about a McGill Islamic Studies professor’s alleged history of sexual misconduct began to appear in women’s’ washrooms across campus. The stickers, put up by a group called Zero Tolerance McGill, prompted readers to send any testimonies of abuse at the hands of other faculty members, noting that the professor named in the stickers was up for tenure.

The professor agreed to answer some of The Daily’s questions on the condition that he remain unnamed. He claimed that the allegations were “categorically untrue” and that he was “deeply committed” to doing his part in order to “make every student feel safe in [his] classroom and on McGill’s campus.” He made no further comments to the Daily.

The World Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Student Association (WIMESSA) executive team for 2016-17 previously wrote an open letter to Robert Wisnovsky (director of the Institute for Islamic Studies) addressing the reputation of the professor. The letter, signed by roughly 50 students, accused the Institute of failing to take allegations of misconduct seriously and urged the administration to not reward the professor with a tenured position.

After The Daily published the first article in relation to this issue, the current WIMESSA executive team released a statement on Facebook expressing solidarity with those affected, and detailing their frustrations with institutional barriers to robust accountability. The WIMESSA VP Finance eventually resigned from her position, citing a mishandling of the professor’s actions as her reason for leaving the exec team. It also came to light that the president of WIMESSA was an employed research assistant of the professor accused. Thus, she decided to remove herself from any further conversations on the matter.

The incident brought attention to the lack of regulations on student-professor relationships as well as the lack of sufficient student consultation in the tenure process.

WIMESSA pledged to organize an open forum on the issue of sexual misconduct wherein students are able to voice their concerns to the administration.

Bill 151/survivor bill of rights

Gaps in Bill 151

SSMU Council unanimously passes Survivor Bill of Rights

In December 2017, the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 151, mandating that all educational institutions, including CEGEPs, must propose a policy addressing sexual assault, including relationships between students and teachers. The Bill was developed in collaboration with student organizations like the Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ), Our Turn, a national student-led action plan to end campus sexual violence, and the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). The policy required that authorities be notified of any sexual relations between a student and someone who may have an influence on their education, like a professor.

However, not all recommendations made to protect the rights of the survivors were included in the final version of the bill, such as a “Defined Stand Alone Sexual Violence Policy,” which would discontinue processing sexual assault cases through the Student Code of Conduct. McGill’s sexual assault policy was graded a C- as it is not a stand-alone policy, and does not provide any avenues for justice if someone is assaulted by a faculty member.

The gaps in Bill 151 prompted community members, including AVEQ’s Coordinator of Mobilization Kristen Perry and SSMU VP External Connor Spencer to write an open letter criticizing the bill, which was later signed by 20 student organizations and 300 individual students. The letter calls for the introduction of “rape shield protections” to protect the privacy of the survivor’s sexual history, student representation of 30 percent on committees, as well as the students being made aware of sanctions put into place for their case.

Measures to ensure reasonable and defined timelines were recommended, such as a complaint process which does not exceed 45 days, and accommodations for survivors to be arranged within 48 hours of sending the complaint. The letter also suggested the creation of an independent oversight body, which would serve to listen to individual complaints put forth on the violation of their safety and/or rights by the institution.

Some of these requests were later adopted by SSMU in the unanimous passing of the Survivor’s Bill of Rights on January 25 2018.

Task Force

Task Force on respect and inclusion addresses free speech

Task Force on respect and inclusion addresses free speech

In November 2017, the Principal’s Task Force on Respect and Inclusion was created. The Task Force was aimed to create “respectful and inclusive debate” in the university context, and how the university can develop “best practices” to handle conflict over issues of speech.

The task force is organized under the office of the Principal, and reports to Senate to provide recommendations after the completion of its research. While the Task Force does not have direct power to enact policy change, it serves as an advisory body to the Principal moving forward. The Task Force is composed of two McGill professors who serve as co-chairs, one undergraduate representative from the downtown campus, one undergraduate representative from the MacDonald campus, one graduate representative, two faculty members and two staff members.

On December 2017, the Task Force held a survey to the McGill community members regarding their experiences on respect and free speech. The language used in the survey prompted criticism, with only a few questions asked about inclusiveness. The consultative process included five closed-door focus groups around different themes throughout January, each composed of twenty students. Group submissions regarding the Task Force was accepted from the general public until the end of January.

In September 2017, the SSMU Board of Directors unanimously voted that the BDS movement violated SSMU’s constitution. Again, in January, an Open Forum on Campus Culture was the site of a discussion on whether or not the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement should be given on campus. Laila Parsons, a professor specializing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at McGill, spoke in support of students’ right to mobilize around the BDS movement, and criticized Principal Suzanne Fortier’s statement condemning the BDS movement after SSMU’s motion to endorse the movement did not pass in 2016.

The Task Force is expected to deliver a final report and submit their recommendations by the end of April 2018, then released to the public by mid May at the Senate.

Colten Boushie

February 2018 saw the acquittal of Gerald Stanley, the man accused of killing Colten Boushie. Boushie was a 22-year-old Indigenous man from Red Pheasant First Nation, who allegedly drove to Stanley’s farm to ask for help with a flat tire. Stanley then shot Boushie, later claiming his actions were the result of a “freak accident.” The acquittal garnered widespread outrage from Indigenous communities and settler allies, with demonstrations across the country demanding justice for Colten.

“How First Nations are treated in the justice system is not right,” said Boushie’s uncle Alvin Baptiste, speaking to the Toronto Star. “A white jury came out with a verdict of not guilty [for] Gerald Stanley, who shot and killed my nephew. This is how they treat us First Nations people. It is not right. Something has to be done about this.”

A vigil commemorating the life of Colten Boushie was held at Norman Bethune Square in Montreal near Concordia University to raise awareness about the injustice of the trial. The vigil was attended by over 100 people, policed by around twenty SPVM officers.

Two weeks after the acquittal of Stanley, Raymond Cormier was acquitted of the murder of 15 year old Tina Fontaine. The not-guilty verdict came even after Cormier’s apparent admission of guilt, caught on tape by the RCMP.
Another vigil was organized in response to Canadian institutions’ denial of justice to Indigenous people.

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The talk, titled “Anti-Indigenous racism and justice in Saskatchewan: challenges and impediments to reconciliation,” was given by Professor Veldon Coburn as an extension of his course “CANS 306: Issues in Native Studies.” Coburn is mixed-race Algonquin from Pikwakanagan First Nation, currently in his first year of teaching at McGill, after having previously worked in both the public sector and at the Conference Board of Canada, one of the country’s largest think-tanks.

“This seems to me very obviously something Canadians should be talking about,” said MISC director Elisbeth Heaman to The Daily. “We don’t live in an ivory tower: when people are really concerned and upset and debating things, there are times and places where the MISC cannot not notice that. We have to help people think through these things. We have to speak to people’s concerns.”

The contents of Coburn’s lecture weren’t originally created for the context of the Stanley verdict, but happened to suit the current political backdrop, focussing specifically on anti-Indigenous racism and violence in Saskatchewan. The talk was attended by students and community members alike, and was tailored to be accessible to those with even a basic level of knowledge on Indigenous issues. Coburn wanted audiences “to understand the pernicious and heinous atmosphere that Black, Indigenous, and people of colour live in every day,” he said in an interview with The Daily. “Not just […] formally through the justice system — – in more than just the legal domain, in everyday life.”

The talk explored an idea inspired by the work of Charles Taylor: the tension between the “two solitudes” apparent in the country, that of settler and Indigenous nationhoods. It also centered on understanding justice as greater than the law alone. “Justice as recognition,” Coburn said, is “recognising one another in our difference, and not demanding homogeneity.” He explained that Indigenous peoples need to be acknowledged as nations, as people, and as a people, in the context of a state built on the dehumanisation of Indigenous people, from the legal system to social media platforms and everything in between.

“Justice as recognition […] is not demanding homogeneity.”

“Our view of justice was somehow thrown into doubt because of the verdict delivered by the jury, but that’s the most narrow perspective on Colten’s life,” Coburn said. “Long before he was born, his family, his community, his nation was subject to a system of domination and oppression under colonialism. […] Four years […] into adulthood he’s dead, and it’s not just the trial in the aftermath of his death, but an entire existence where he was less than equal. He wasn’t recognised as someone who was worthy and deserving of equal concern […] and respect.”

Boushie is one of many Indigenous people killed by racist Canadians, Coburn reminded the room. He brought up the cases of Barbara Kentner, Neil Stonechild, Dudley George, and the violence at Mercier bridge during the “Oka crisis.” This resistance took place over the course of 78 days, leaving a decades-long legacy in its wake. Indigenous protesters, the police, and the Canadian army began the standoff following Quebec government’s authorization to expand a golf course and develop luxury condominiums on disputed land that included a burial site in Kanesatake. These incidents, all violent and racist crimes, are reminders of the way the white-supremacist settler state has been and continues to be responsible for devastating violence against Indigenous peoples.

These cases also illustrate that anti-Indigenous racism is not limited to Saskatchewan alone. Through an analysis of pre-election polls taken in 2015, Coburn concluded that between 20 and 50 per cent of settler Canadians in settler-majority provinces expressed unfavourable sentiment towards Indigenous peoples. “These are nameless people who live in our neighbourhoods,” Coburn said, referring to the widespread and common nature of this racism. Amidst tensions, especially now with the Stanley verdict and the discussions it has re-opened, reconciliation seems near-impossible.

“In [the] two years [since the final Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report], whatever ‘justice’ transpired between white Saskatchewan and Colten Boushie really drove a stake through reconciliation,” Coburn said to The Daily. “My own view is that it’ll be another generation before we begin talking about it more meaningfully.”

He added that the circumstances around Boushie’s life and death are a microcosm of settler-Indigenous relations in Canada. “He never experienced substantive justice — justice as equality, justice as fairness, but also […] justice as recognition,” he stated. “It’s emblematic that that recognition has eluded Indigenous peoples.”

Coburn emphasised that the process of reconciliation, if even possible, would be a long and difficult one. When asked what settlers needed to do to moving forward, he reminded us that, “long before you were born, you were instrumentalised by the crown.”

“Acknowledge us as individuals with national identities, and a shared colonial history. […] Resist racism, understand difference and respect it,” he continued to The Daily. “Reconciliation is hinging on true justice — justice as recognition.”

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Gerald Stanley, a white Saskatchewan farmer on trial for shooting and killing 22-year-old Colten Boushie, was acquitted of second-degree murder charges on Friday evening.

Boushie was a young Indigenous man from Red Pheasant First Nation, who was killed by Stanley when he stopped at his farm to ask for help with a flat tire. At the time of his death, Boushie was accompanied by four friends.

Stanley’s lawyer claimed the shooting was a “freak accident,” which resulted in the gun going off in his hands.

The ‘not guilty’ verdict was met with grief-stricken reactions by Boushie’s family and supporters. Shouts of, “Murderer!” followed Stanley through the courtroom as he was ushered out by law enforcement officers.

“How First Nations are treated in the justice system is not right,” said Boushie’s uncle Alvin Baptiste, speaking to the Toronto Star. “A white jury came out with a verdict of not guilty [for] Gerald Stanley, who shot and killed my nephew. This is how they treat us First Nations people. It is not right. Something has to be done about this.”

“I ask you to try and understand the nearly bottomless disappointment [of the family],” said Chris Murphy, lawyer to the Boushie family. “There is a darkness that exists in this country […] I believe we are going to have feel our way out of it.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould both tweeted their sympathies as well, but made no comment with regards to the steps they would be taking to secure justice for Boushie’s family.

The family has expressed the intent to potentially appeal the decision. Jade Tootoosis, Boushie’s cousin, said in a press conference after the verdict, “We will fight for an appeal. We will fight for an appeal and answers to all of the racism that my family has experienced from the day that Colten was shot until the jury delivered the verdict of not guilty. We will not stop our pursuit for justice.”

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“Resistance, to the BSN, represents the ongoing efforts taken by Black people while living in oppressive spaces,” said Christelle Tessono, V.P. Political Coordinator of BSN, in an interview with The Daily.

“Resistance is powerful and present in the daily lives of Black students, faculty, and staff here on campus. Resistance can be practiced in a wide range of diverse ways, from […] speaking up in class when a Professor or a fellow student is saying something oppressive, [to] teaching a whole class on the legacies of colonialism here on campus to name a few.”

“Resistance is powerful and present in the daily lives of Black students, faculty, and staff here on campus. Resistance can be practiced in a wide range of diverse ways.”

The keynote address at the opening ceremony was delivered by Black activist and post-doctoral scholar Rachel Zellars. Zellars is a course lecturer for the Faculty of Education at McGill, and a prominent member of the activist community. Zellars’ speech revolved around the relationships between Black history, anti-Blackness, enslavement, and disability. She discussed the historical experiences of enslaved Black people who also had disabilities. Her speech was followed by a question period, and a performance by the dance group UpLift.

Over the course of the month of February, a variety of events will take place across the University. The programming includes, but is not limited to, art shows and open mics, discussion panels and public lectures, and the highly anticipated early screening of Marvel’s Black Panther, set to release February 16. The diversity in programming has been curated to reflect the multifaceted ways in which Black history is understood and celebrated by Black communities at McGill.

“During this specific time, it’s about creating and taking up space, to honour and to center and to question and to celebrate Blackness. To me, the subjectiveness is that you can do those things in so many different ways,” said Shanice Yarde, SEDE’s Equity Educational Advisor (Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity). Yarde, along with many other Black women in the McGill community, is one of the central organisers of BHM.

“During this specific time, it’s about creating and taking up space, to honour and to center and to question and to celebrate Blackness.”

Yarde emphasised, in her conversation with The Daily, that BHM had been celebrated at McGill for years before being officially recognised by the institution. BHM has historically been spearheaded on campus by the mobilisation of student associations, and continues to grow in scope.

“Blackness is expansive: people often have a very monolithic view of what Blackness is, or what Black people are, even what Black history is. We don’t have enough time, let alone one month, to really explore that. So to me, resistance is also about resisting this idea of what Blackness is supposed to be,” Yarde adds. “What’s important to me is that Black people are centered in this celebration.”

“What’s important to me is that Black people are centered in this celebration.”

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Concordia University’s English department, and the larger world of Canadian literature (“CanLit”), is facing allegations of a culture of sexual violence, harassment, and abuse of power by professors and writers over the course of several decades. The allegations, outlined in a blog post by writer and former Concordia instructor Mike Spry on January 8, do not identify individuals by name. Instead, they point to a systemic pattern of sexual harassment and exploitation of vulnerable young female writers.

Spry states in his blog post that he has “been witness to and made aware of innumerable instances of unwanted affection, groping, inappropriate remarks, and propositions” over the course of his relationship with the university, beginning as an undergraduate student 14 years ago, up until his time as an instructor at the university from 2013 to 2015.

“A professor/writer harasses a student, and the student remains silent because they need the grade, or the letter of recommendation, or the internship at the prof’s publisher,” Spry wrote. “Both Concordia and CanLit have fostered inappropriate behaviors and environments that have permeated throughout the community.”

Spry went on to admit that he himself had been complacent in this culture of misogyny – both in remaining silent as his friends and coworkers abused their power, and in participating in this culture of abuse himself.

“I demanded respect and relationships I felt I was owed. I dated women inappropriately younger than me. I treated them poorly,” Spry wrote.

Spry’s apparent role in Concordia’s culture of misogyny was made clearer when, in the days following his post, his former girlfriend Julie McIsaac wrote her own blog post about her experiences with misogyny in CanLit. In her post, she described her experiences with Mike Spry, whom she describes as “deeply sexist.”

“He was an active player who belittled and harassed women writers who only wanted to make the same career moves he benefited from. And now his career is likely to benefit from his speaking out,” she wrote.

While the validity of Spry’s presence in this movement has been called into question, following McIsaac’s post, his allegations have been affirmed by many other writers and graduates of Concordia, most of them women.

In fact, Spry was not the first to write publicly about these experiences – in a 2014 essay written for The Hairpin, writer Emma Healey discussed her experience of being in a relationship with a professor at Concordia. At the time, she was 19, and the professor was 34; he pursued her, aggressively and to the knowledge of his colleagues. As Healey describes the relationship, it was unhealthy and violent.

“While the relationship itself was consensual, much of what happened within its borders was not,” she said.

Healey is one of many women who have spoken about similar experiences over the course of the last decade. Most of them have also acknowledged the use of whisper networks as tools of information, in order to warn their peers about predatory men.

“A story like this is a password. Once you say it out loud, doors start to open,” she wrote.

University responds to allegations

Concordia president Alan Shepard announced the launch of a formal investigation, conducted by an external investigator, in response to the blog post. This will take place alongside a university-wide task force to ensure campus safety and well-being.

“I’m profoundly sorry that some of our alumni and students have experienced what they’re reported to have experienced,” Shepard said in a press conference on Wednesday. “I’ve been reading that it’s an open secret, but it was not an open secret to me.”

Shepard’s comments were surprising to some, given that in 2015, a group of alumni wrote a letter to Concordia’s administration in response to Healey’s 2014 article. In the letter, they described the “toxic” culture at the university and its detrimental impacts on women. The letter was apparently received by the Human Resources department, and no action was taken, according to its writers.

Several reporters present at the press conference asked about the steps taken by Concordia to protect students from predatory professors, but Shepard did not speak to the university’s previous or ongoing disciplinary proceedings.

“All investigations are confidential by law and by our policies,” he said, “and I won’t be able to comment on the specific investigation, or people who have been named on social media.”

Shepard also clarified that while faculty-student relationships are not banned at Concordia, they fall under the conflict of interest policy, which requires that relationships of this nature are disclosed to the university. Concordia is currently in the process of expanding their working group and policies around the issues of sexual violence and power imbalance in relationships.

Since the press conference, two Concordia professors named as alleged abusers on social media have been reassigned pending investigation.

Widespread abuses of power across university lines

Concordia is not the only university to face allegations of sexual harassment and violence by faculty members, and a culture of “open secrecy.” McGill has been plagued with allegations of sexual violence by professors for the last several years.

Most recently, a professor in the Islamic Studies department was accused of several accounts of sexual harassment and abuse of power: stickers bearing his name and allegations surrounding his conduct have been found across the campus throughout this academic year.

When asked about these allegations, Principal Suzanne Fortier said, “When it comes to access to information, there are certain things that are to be kept private. You will not hear about investigations […] the absence of information does not mean the absence of investigation.”

Then, in December, a dentist at the Faculty of Dentistry was accused of sexually assaulting one of his patients in November of 2016. The woman who experienced the assault expressed feeling disappointed and neglected by the university’s response to her allegations, stating that she did not feel supported or believed by the administrators investigating her case. No outcome was publicised in that investigation.

McGill Prominent professors implicated in tell-all posts about abusive power dynamics and sexual harassment has not commented on either of these allegations, or the existence of whisper networks amongst women students on campus. Despite allegations of sexual harassment or abuse of power by several prominent professors at the university, the administration has not publicly initiated any efforts to protect its vulnerable students.

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Formation of the QSSA

New business began with the proposal to form a Quebec Studies Student’s Association, moved by VP Internal Rebecca Scarra and President Eric Partridge. The Quebec Studies program is a small department in the Arts faculty, which is currently struggling due to low enrollment that threatens to shut down the program. This point was raised by VP Academic Madeleine Wilson. “The Quebec Studies program is […] being terminated […] because of low enrollment, the faculty is trying to cut the program. I realise that the association being established is trying to prevent that, but realistically, the only thing that will prevent that is getting enrollment numbers up. […] Does the proposed QSSA have any concrete plans as to how this association is actually going to increase enrollment?”

Scarra replied that her conversation with the person who proposed this motion hadn’t included a concrete plan of action. “However,” she added, “I do know that they’re hoping that by having this association, it’ll increase visibility in the AUS and get more people to enroll. They would also like to do collaborative events with other departments in order to raise awareness about this minor and this program, in order to hopefully increase enrollment.”

“The Quebec Studies program is […] being terminated […] because of low enrollment, the faculty is trying to cut the program. I realise that the association being established is trying to prevent that, but realistically, the only thing that will prevent that is getting enrollment numbers up.”

Given that, as the AUS constitution and the motion itself state, “Each Department and Interdisciplinary Program in the Faculty of arts shall be entitled to a Departmental Association,” there was no debate and the motion passed unanimously.

Amendment of the Fine Arts Council (FAC) bylaws

The subsequent motions, regarding the ratification of committee roles and minor amendments to the wording of the fee increase questions for the Fall 2017 referendum, both passed without debate. These were followed by a motion to amend the FAC bylaws, which was the most extensively debated motion of the evening. The Fine Arts Council, as described by Classics Students’ Association (CSA) VP External David Epstein, is “a wide-ranging funding source, […] funding theatre, literature, visual arts, and dance, for groups as well as individual artists.”

The FAC is mandated to consider and review all applicants who seek funding, and this year has seen a record number of new applicants. To accommodate these new demands, the FAC’s motion proposed that the “affiliate” clause of their by-laws be eliminated, in order to widen the scope of applicants the FAC is able to consider for funding. The “affiliate” clause of the by-laws mandates that the FAC give a designated amount of their funding to specific Arts faculty groups every year – Epstein argued that some of these groups are now defunct, and in order to avoid the unnecessary designation of funds to groups that no longer require them, the “affiliate” clause must be terminated altogether.

Debate on this motion saw many parties voice concerns over the unilateral termination of the “affiliate” clause, given that many of the affiliate groups still require funding. Some councillors raised the question of why the entire clause would be terminated when defunct groups could simply be struck from the by-laws. Epstein clarified that the amendment was not intended to target or marginalise specific organisations, and that the by-laws would be rewritten to create clearer funding guidelines which make up for the current, “hastily” and “poorly written” bylaws, as he described them.

As the night of the council meeting was also the deadline to send out funding to these groups, Epstein encouraged the motion to be passed that night itself. However, debate did carry on for a period of time during which department representatives brought up issues of transparency in the amendment process, the lack of clarity regarding the requirements for each affiliate group in the funding process, and the discrepancy between the small number of defunct groups and the large-scale impact of the amendment.

Partridge proposed two amendments to this motion. The first, would, among other things require all FAC funding to be ratified by AUS legislative council. The second proposes that the striking of affiliate clauses be delayed until February 1, 2018, so that only the second semester allocation would be impacted. This, Partridge argued, would allow for affiliate groups forewarning regarding cuts to their funding. Both of Partridge’s amendments passed.

Given the second amendment regarding a delayed striking of the affiliate class, Department of English Students’ Association (DESA) VP External Thomas Macdonald motioned to table the motion til the next AUS Legislative Council meeting in two weeks. This motion failed. After further debate, the original motion passed with Partridge’s amendments.

Endorsement of a “yes” vote in the DPS Existence Referendum

Macdonald then brought forward a motion for AUS to endorse a “yes” vote in the DPS existence referendum. The DPS is the publication service which publishes both the McGill Daily and Le Delit, and is undergoing an existence referendum from November 13-16. This referendum takes place every 5 years, as part of the process of renegotiation of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with SSMU. This year, for the first time in decades, SSMU chose not to endorse a “yes” vote. Macdonald argued that an endorsement by AUS could fill the gap that SSMU left in not endorsing the DPS. “The DPS, McGill Daily and Le Délit privilege marginalised voices and stories, and freedom of press is […] the cornerstone of a robust and egalitarian politic, so I think we should all vote yes.”

A representative from the German Students’ Association requested a brief point of information regarding what a loss of the existence referendum would actually mean for the DPS, to which Macdonald clarified that the DPS would no longer be able to negotiate an MoA with SSMU and would thus completely cease to exist.

During debate, Partridge clarified for the record that the reason for his no vote is that endorsements by the AUS are unprecedented during referendum periods. The question of making the fee opt-outable was also mentioned. Some departmental representatives encouraged a yes vote to this motion, for reasons including the fact that Le Delit is the only Francophone publication on campus, and that the press has a right to continue regardless of political stance. A representative of the PSSA said, “I think that it’s very clear that if the DPS is not renewed, it will end the Daily and Le Délit, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about that […] they will not have the funds to continue to operate. […] I personally don’t agree with the political stance of the Daily, but I firmly believe in their right to exist. I don’t necessarily see this as a referendum on the political stance of the Daily, it’s about voices on campus.”

“I think that it’s very clear that if the DPS is not renewed, it will end the Daily and Le Délit, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about that.”

Partridge requested that the vote be recorded; the motion to endorse the “yes” vote in the DPS existence referendum passed with 33 in favour.

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The University announced Munroe-Blum’s honorary doctorate award in early October, praising her dedication to “accessibility and innovation in higher education for all” and to “breaking down the barriers to learning.” However, on-campus labour unions and SSMU have since expressed their disapproval and opposition to this decision. In a statement released to the press on Friday, co-signatories, the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), the McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCLIU), and SSMU argue that Munroe-Blum’s actions during her tenure “created rifts in McGill’s social and academic fibre that have yet to heal.”

The University’s press release regarding Munroe-Blum’s honorary doctorate described her as “a vocal champion for education accessibility, and increasing financial support for students, academics and research.” In contrast to this assertion, the union’s statement points out the ways in which Munroe-Blum facilitated an increase in pay and benefits to managers and administrative executives, while students and staff on campus were left in financially precarious positions.

During her time as Principal, Munroe-Blum made a $369,000 base salary and earned additional “contract benefits” ranging from $128,000 to $226,000. Now, despite no longer teaching or working at the University, Munroe-Blum has access to a supplementary pension of $284,000 annually, in addition to the $87,000 she receives as part of her regular pension from McGill and the University of Toronto. These funds are paid for in part by the university’s students and employees.

“One of the reasons that the Unions and I are working together on this is the fact that, as I was mentioning before, they mobilise very specific language to champion her work, but that directly contradicts the lived history of what happened,” said SSMU VP External Connor Spencer in an interview on CKUT. “[This language] is not reflective of the true story and history of her work on campus. To just present a very un-nuanced, very basic overview of her work on campus, which ignores a lot of how it affected students and labour unions, is really troubling.”

“[This language] is not reflective of the true story and history of her work on campus. To just present a very un-nuanced, very basic overview of her work on campus, which ignores a lot of how it affected students and labour unions, is really troubling.”

In tandem with the increases in executive salaries and benefits, and, according to the union’s statement, a drastic increase in the number of managers and executives in the McGill administration, students and staff on campus saw cuts to the resources available to them. The union’s statement reads, “Dr. Munroe-Blum led efforts to cut $2 million from staff benefits. This was followed by a massive claw-back of front-line, education, and student support salaries worth tens of millions of dollars when it was decided that employees would bear the brunt of shortfalls in the University’s pension plan.”

The union’s statement acknowledges that Munroe-Blum was proficient in her work as a fundraiser for the University, but goes on to criticise the lack of scrutiny directed at the spending of these funds by the University itself.

“McGill was put on probation by the three principal federal granting agencies because of inadequate financial oversight and processes. McGill’s residency programs were put on probation, as well, notably because of insufficient resources for residents, the very students the programs were established to educate.”

While course lecturers, students, and casual employees made wages below the national standard during Munroe-Blum’s tenure, her impact shaped the experiences of all students on campus, not only those working McGill jobs.

“The truth of the matter is, she actively advocated for tuition hikes, therefore affecting the actual accessibility of education,” Spencer says. “Also, she’s the reason that riot cops were called onto campus in November of 2011…[during] a peaceful protest. In general, a lot of the change in policy around how protest is allowed on campus was under her as well.”

“The truth of the matter is, she actively advocated for tuition hikes, therefore affecting the actual accessibility of education.”

“It’s really frustrating, and it feels a little insensitive – it’s only been a few years since she’s left, we’re still kind of reeling from the implications that her term had on campus, it seems really insensitive to be applauding her when the lived reality of her term is still a very real thing felt by all of our members,” Spencer concludes.

This frustration was echoed by MUNACA Labour Relations officer David Roseman. “It’s pretty difficult for people who’ve worked at McGill during [her tenure] to not have a visceral reaction to the announcement [of her award]. It makes it extremely difficult, when one is supposed to be celebrating somebody… it’s not really compatible with discussing, in a critical way, that person’s career or their actions.”

“It’s pretty difficult for people who’ve worked at McGill during [her tenure] to not have a visceral reaction to the announcement [of her award].”

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Before the question period began, Fortier took the chance to discuss the importance of respect on campus, drawing parallels between conflict and lack of respect in the McGill context and her understanding of the Rwandan genocide.

Speaking of her recent trip to Kigali, capital city of Rwanda, Fortier said, “It is impressive to see a country rebuild itself with a lot of strength and resilience. […] it is a reminder for all of us to be vigilant about respecting other people, no matter what they come from, no matter what their religion is, no matter what their ethnicity is. We need to respect people as equal to us […] when you go to a place like Kigali, or Rwanda in general, you see what happens when you let go of that vigilance, when you let go of those principles. […] Whenever [….] a situation on our campus where I see any signs of this happening, I will not be there watching it passively. We all need to stand up, very clearly, to defend the principles of our university. […] As principal, there is no role in my job that is more important than protecting the principles of our university and making sure that people who come to our university can be assured that they will be treated with respect.”

“When you go to a place like Kigali, or Rwanda in general, you see what happens when you let go of that vigilance, when you let go of those principles. […] Whenever [….] a situation on our campus where I see any signs of this happening, I will not be there watching it passively.”

Bull and Bear (B&B): In September of this year, yourself and Deputy Provost Ollivier Dyens came into a SSMU senate caucus to advocate against the idea of a fall reading week. Why, in your opinion, should McGill be one of the only major universities in Canada to not have a fall reading week?

Suzanne Fortier (SF): We are not similar to many universities in that many students come from outside of the immediate community. […] If you start the semester early or end it later, it has an impact on a very large proportion of our students, and […] when we consult the students, we don’t have unanimous views on whether or not, and how to do it. Some students are worried about paying rent in August, or not having enough time for their holiday break anyway. […] It’s not practical, this is not a cause for us because of practical considerations, and particularly [what] the students we consult share with us.

McGill Daily (MD): We recently recieved a concerning email regarding McGill Mental Health Services. The author says, “McGill has just about eliminated actual treatment services, especially expert psychotherapy services.[…] McGill Mental Health psychiatrists […] are dismayed by recent changes, but are too frightened to act themselves, [therefore] have already left or are planning to leave.” While the new changes involved are well intentioned, students have also expressed discontentment. How does McGill’s administration respond?

Ollivier Dyens (OD): [The author of the letter] has had problems at McGill, […] and I think that would give you some perspective as to who this person is. […] I would find it very interesting that this person tells us what to do at McGill when this person is not at McGill, doesn’t know what’s going on at McGill […] I don’t put a lot of value on what this person is saying, you can look it up for yourself.

Martine Gauthier (MG): Our counselling area is the area that really provides the support for our students, and we’ve increased capacity in that area. We’ve increased capacity for students, […] we’re looking for different ways to expand our services. […] We’d added two case workers […] we’re also going to be adding triage advisors.

“Our counselling area is the area that really provides the support for our students, and we’ve increased capacity in that area. […] We’d added two case workers […] we’re also going to be adding triage advisors.”

Le Delit (LD): So McGill’s policy on sexual violence has been rated a C-, what do you think about this score and how do you plan on making it higher?

SF: We now have a sexual violence policy approved by senate, we were one of the first universities in this province to have a policy. […] It is essential to separate the support that people must recieve right away when they need it, […] from the investigation that must occur. When you’re under a difficult situation, suffering, it’s not the time to assault you with an investigation.

OD: For the first time in our history, there were no reported incidents of sexual assault at Frosh. Somehow, the things we are doing […] are improving. There’s been […] workshops across the university for students. […] The Provost has created an office, we’ve hired another person, there’s an implementation committee that’s been struck, […] there’s also a committee that’s looking at a survey […] these two groups will come together, tell us their recommendations on how to implement many of the recommendations. My concern is not how we compare to other universities, my concern is having the best, safest, most welcoming environment for everyone.

“For the first time in our history, there were no reported incidents of sexual assault at Frosh. Somehow, the things we are doing […] are improving.”

McGill Tribune (MT): In an email you sent to the entire student body, you announced an investigation into allegations of antisemetism at this most recent General Assembly. Can you expand on the mandate of that investigation, and also verify whether you are investigating whether SSMU breached it’s charters or bylaws?

SF: It’s an allegation [of antisemetism], and we have to do the fair thing, and investigate. But I think we have to ask ourselves, how many people on our campus are subjected to situations that are discriminatory, disrespectful, and so that’s a longer piece of work that we need to do, and that’s why the task force has been set up. […] We have a person with whom we will discuss the exact process of the investigation, and the scope of the investigation. […] If a similar situation occurred where all the women had been voted out, I would do the same thing.

B&B: Given the fentanyl crisis that’s currently going on, what steps have been taken to address the Quebec government’s policy on who can distribute Naloxone kits?

MG: Dr. Hashana Perera, who is our director of Health Services, has been very active on this front, and actually began preparations this summer as she saw the trend moving east. So this week we actually finished training, we have as of this week trained a hundred people to actually administer Naloxone. […] Our McGill Student Emergency Response Team (MSERT), […] security, […] floor fellows, […] residence life managers, […] night stewards. We have over 100 […] antidotes on campus.

“This week we actually finished training, we have as of this week trained a hundred people to actually administer Naloxone. […] We have over 100 […] antidotes on campus.”

MD: Issues of allegations of sexual assault against a McGill professor have been unresponsive, relatively, and students investigating sexual violence at McGill are constantly being stopped by the administration. Holding abusive professors accountable is just as important as investigating allegations of antisemetism, why is this not taking place?

SF: People at this university are not fully aware of the laws of our country and province, regarding privacy and access to information. […] When it comes to access to information, there are certain things that are to be kept private. You will not hear about investigations […] the absence of information does not mean the absence of investigation. […] If people ask us questions that we cannot answer, publicly, that is because we have privacy legislation that we must abide by.

B&B: Accessibility is a major concern for students with injuries, or simply mobility issues on campus. What can be done to improve accessibility on campus?

MG: In our OSD, McGill reinvested almost a million dollars. […] We hired a number of positions, among them an accessibility officer. [He] knows our campus very, very well, and is working with another advisor, who is a gentleman who uses a wheelchair, and together they have been […] identifying areas that could be improved through very simple methods.

MD: You mentioned that while we dont hear about [investigations regarding sexual violence], it doesn’t mean that there is no investigation. But we’re talking about multiple faculties, with a range of—

SF: Let me put it very simply. If there is an allegation, a serious allegation, we do investigate. I don’t want to talk about a specific case here. I’ll talk in general. If there’s a serious allegation, we will investigate. Now, we will investigate in the context in which we live, which has a respect for privacy, and a respect for […] universal justice. […] Sometimes people in society in general, and at McGill, want to have a public disclosure when this is not allowed, not permitted, and not appropriate.

“If there’s a serious allegation […] we will investigate in the context in which we live, which has a respect for privacy, and a respect for […] universal justice. […] Sometimes people in society in general, and at McGill, want to have a public disclosure when this is not allowed, not permitted, and not appropriate.”

MD: Yes, I agree with you that we should work within the rules, and privacy and rights are very important, but at the same time, what we’re seeing is recurring patterns of professors. It’s almost become common knowledge to students, and—

SF: This is what you’ve heard. […] If there are serious allegations, we will look into it […] within the authority that we have in a university. We are not a court of law. We are a university. So let’s make sure we understand where we have authority, where we don’t, what we can do, what we can’t. This is the context here.

“We are not a court of law. We are a university. So let’s make sure we understand where we have authority, where we don’t, what we can do, what we can’t. This is the context here.”

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I had briefly met Muñiz and bandmates earlier that day, when they performed at CKUT 90.3 FM’s Funding Drive live show at Dispatch, a coffee shop in the Plateau. Immediately, I was struck by the warmth they exuded as a group. Muñiz’s percussionist, Michael Hojnacki, with whom I had spoken via email earlier in the week, seemed to be all smiles, all the time. His enthusiasm for the band’s music and their future was contagious—I was told, by both Jacqueline and Bianca, that it had been his idea to come to Montreal for the band’s first international tour, after he visited the city this summer and fell in love with it. When he proposed this idea, Muñiz was in treatment for breast cancer, having undergone a double mastectomy earlier this year at only 22 years old.

This is her second battle with cancer—the first took place more than 10 years ago, when she was 11. She is remarkably open about her experiences, writing regularly on her blog through her chemotherapy and actively working in advocacy for cancer patients and survivors. She discusses the bad days, when she feels she has no agency over her body, and the good, when she can see the end of her difficulties approaching. She even tells her readers about the Instagram message she received from a guy who wanted to know, “what went wrong on yo chest.” She replied, “cancer,” and promptly blocked him. “Absolutely nothing is wrong with my chest, I am perfect the way I am,” she writes on her blog. “My chest is a trophy of how amazing my body and I are and everything we’ve been through. My chest looks the way it does because the doctors saved my life and that’s what had to be done. But I love my chest and the way it looks, my scars are badass and if anything, his question/comment made me love myself even more!”

Absolutely nothing is wrong with my chest, I am perfect the way I am,” she writes on her blog. “My chest is a trophy of how amazing my body and I are and everything we’ve been through.

Through all of these trials, Muñiz describes music as part of her healing process—and while her story and experiences are what first drew me to her music, they are only the beginning of her artistry. The first thing that strikes you about Muñiz is her sheer talent; the second is how immediately likeable and kind she is. Standing next to her for a photograph, I jokingly said that I was really intimidated by her beauty (she is, undeniably, stunning)—her response was to immediately compliment me in return, with the joy and familiarity of an old friend.

Seeing Bianca, Jacqueline, and their mother standing side by side, one could not help but be struck by the family resemblance and bond between them. I imagine some artists would loathe to go on tour with their families, but remaining together is a natural thing for the Muñiz family. “I adore my sister,” Bianca says. “I love her so much, I love singing with her, I love hanging out with her, and she’s my best friend. This is just normal for us—being able to do what we love, together, all the time, and having this week dedicated to just that, what more could you ask for?”

Bianca and Jacqueline sound like magic, performing together. On this tour, Bianca was on piano as well as vocals, given the absence of their pianist; and if you looked carefully, you would notice that percussionist Michael Hojnacki was playing with one hand. He had mentioned to me jokingly before the show that he had fractured his left arm in a hit-and-run in New York – this fact didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest, and if it compromised the band’s performance, the audience certainly didn’t notice.

The band has an eerie, insistent sound—I hadn’t really understood their self-description of “avante-pop” until I heard them live. As I see it, the band’s sound can’t necessarily be described by genre as much as by feeling. For me, this feeling is a bit like running to catch a train that’s leaving the station—urgent, quick, full of longing and anticipation. There is a sense of drama to Muñiz’s music, consistently underlaid with intense percussion and bass guitar, taking breaks only to allow for lively saxophone solos. At one point, Hojnacki did a one-handed drum solo—at another, bassist Alex Talarico grabbed a drumstick and played his guitar in a manner vaguely resembling a xylophone. It was a sight to behold, and certainly nothing I’d seen before.

There is a sense of drama to Muñiz’s music, consistently underlaid with intense percussion and bass guitar, taking breaks only to allow for lively saxophone solos.

Listening to the content of Muñiz’s music, it’s also clear that she was a poet before she became a musician. My favourite song of the set, and the titular song in her 2016 EP, is titled ‘Scary Dreams.’ Muñiz introduced the song by describing her inspiration for it—a vivid dream she once had, that New York was under attack. From this dream was born a chaotic, creepy, intense piece of music. She later told me that she has scary dreams all the time, but this one was a particular turning point in her songwriting. She woke up with the bass line in her head, and the song itself is a description of her dream. She recalls the ethereal “purple lights, sparkling lights, shining over my head,” the bloody water filled with bodies, and the feeling of free-fall while New York burned behind her. Nightmares are a recurring part of her life, but this dream stood out to her, and grew into something beautiful.

Muñiz’s experiences with cancer and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy haven’t diminished her ambitions in the slightest. If anything, they have lit a fire within her. “Honestly,” she says, “I feel like cancer and the treatment has had a really positive impact on my music. I feel like it was a real turning point in the way I sing, the way I write and perform.” She goes on to describe how the meaning of her music often dawns on her after the lyrics and sound have come alive. “This is the first song I’ve written that is actually about myself,” she says, speaking of a new single to be released in December, which will be about her experience with cancer. “I’m finally allowing the dark side of everything that’s happening to come out, but in a positive way—to explain how it really feels. I don’t see that a lot, and this experience has helped that happen.”

Muñiz’s experiences with cancer and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy haven’t diminished her ambitions in the slightest. If anything, they have lit a fire within her.

Muñiz’s positivity is disarmingly genuine, especially for someone who has had to experience cancer twice before she’s even 25. Her band—her family—seems to provide a crucial support system through difficult times. “We are literally family—we love each other! We understand that sometimes we’re going to step on each others’ toes, but we have so much fun together—our personalities and the ways we interact together are so important to me.” She pauses for a moment. “Maybe even more important than the music, because it really impacts how we’re going to play together.”

Muñiz’s career is at its early stages, but the band-family has big plans for the future. Muñiz admits to the financial difficulties of touring with the band, but this doesn’t dampen her spirits. Currently, she mostly performs around New York, all the while working on new tracks and planning a tour for next year. Until now, Muñiz may have sung about the anticipation of waiting for life to begin, but it’s clear that her adventure is already underway.

Bianca Muñiz is performing at Le Cagibi on Friday, October 27. To find out more, go to biancamuniz.com or check her out on Facebook, Spotify, or iTunes.

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Crucial anti-racist programming

Culture Shock and Social Justice Days are event series run by the McGill chapter of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG), and co-funded by SSMU. While both have taken place annually on campus for the past 12 years, early versions of Culture Shock, originally run by SSMU alone, were described as misrepresentative of racial justice. In 2006, QPIRG offered to jointly run the program, with a mandate to focus on social justice issues. In recent years the event series has featured anti-racism workshops, as well as keynote speakers like Octavia’s Blood editor Walidah Imarisha, and spoken word artist Joshua Allen, a prison abolitionist and activist.

“Culture Shock and Social Justice Days are all about centering the stories and experiences of marginalized folks,” says Delali Egyima, who has attended and volunteered at the events in the past.

“At the end of each event series, I was always left with the feeling that there’s so much more learning to be done. What I love most about these event series is knowing that the folks facilitating or giving talks are being paid for sharing knowledge that they are usually forced to share for free. Knowing an organization like SSMU sees the importance of creating different avenues for the continuous support of marginalized folks at McGill and in Montreal speaks volumes about their commitment to equity.”

“What I love most about these event series is knowing that the folks facilitating or giving talks are being paid for sharing knowledge that they are usually forced to share for free. Knowing an organization like SSMU sees the importance of creating different avenues for the continuous support of marginalized folks at McGill and in Montreal speaks volumes about their commitment to equity.”

The threat of funding cuts

Until recently, Culture Shock and Social Justice Days have been the only available anti-racist programming on campus funded by SSMU. This social role has been threatened over the last several years due to funding cuts. Until now, SSMU has supported the programming on three fronts: providing monetary funding, co-hiring staff, and offering free space in which to hold events. The letter published by the UGE stated that as of 2015, monetary funding had been reduced from its initial $10,000 to $2,040. In a subsequent interview with The Daily, a QPIRG representative stated that “the ability for QPIRG to book rooms in SSMU for the event series might be taken away as well as the funding.”

In essence, several QPIRG board members expressed concern to The Daily that the withdrawal of part of SSMU’s support could severely reduce the scale and potential of Culture Shock and Social Justice Days. They feared that to lose all three elements of that support – funding, staff, and space – would effectively end the programming.

SSMU’s side of the story

In response to the UGE’s open letter, SSMU’s executive team issued a statement to The Daily. In it, the executives argued that, all things considered, SSMU currently provides QPIRG with an exceptional level of financial and logistical support.

“In the 2016/2017 school year,” explained the statement, “QPIRG was given $2040 from the SSMU Operating Budget, […] $1500 in additional funding for Culture Shock, $1182 and additional HR supports for the hiring and support of a Popular Education Coordinator for Culture Shock and Social Justice Days.”
The executives’ statement also mentioned the funding SSMU provides for QPIRG’s Rad Frosh, and claimed that overall they offer “more supports than provided to any other student group on campus and with a system that is outside the norm of that we offer other groups on campus, making our relationship with QPIRG an outlier in our standard operating procedures.”

Where should funding come from?

QPIRG currently receives funding both from SSMU’s operating budget and from the SSMU Funding Programme, the latter of which is financed through nine different student fees. It seems that SSMU is urging QPIRG to, instead, apply for all their funding for these event series through the Funding Programme.
QPIRG, however, doesn’t feel that this is an adequate solution to budgetary constraints.

“Applying through the Funding Programme is a very unstable model of funding,” a QPIRG representative told The Daily, “as QPIRG would have to incur expenses with no guarantee of what amount of funding we would receive. All of these concerns were expressed by QPIRG in our meetings with SSMU.”

The SSMU executives’ statement continues as follows: “We have also highly recommended that [QPIRG] increase their student fee if they do not feel it is sufficient to cover their operations and programming, and the SSMU would be happy to help support this campaign.”

In reponse, QPIRG staff members told The Daily that to raise their student fee would go against the mandates of both Culture Shock and Social Justice Days, which are intended to be collaborations with SSMU. Crucially, they argued, it would also represent an aquiescence to the very same austerity logic that QPIRG, as an organization dedicated to equity and accessibility, firmly opposes.

“We have also highly recommended that [QPIRG] increase their student fee if they do not feel it is sufficient to cover their operations and programming, and the SSMU would be happy to help support this campaign.” 

Seeking common ground

The future of Culture Shock and Social Justice Days is tenuous and it’s unclear when a final decision will be made. For their part, SSMU’s executive team has declined to comment further on this issue since releasing their initial statement.

Despite the tension between SSMU and QPIRG, however, both have expressed hope for upcoming discussions, and reaffirmed their commitment to anti-oppressive and anti-austerity ideals.
“We have to find solutions to ‘keep the lights on’ within these [budgetary] constraints, especially when efforts to increase our resource pool (such as the SSMU Base fee) are unsuccessful,” said the SSMU executive team in their statement. “While we would like to work towards finding the best possible solution, we need to be able to reach an agreement that works with the actual capacities of all parties involved. As marginalized people on this campus who are dedicated to the same issues, […] we must work together to find solutions to assist one another.”

The QPIRG board and staff expressed similar sentiments, writing in a statement to The Daily, “We know that these SSMU [executives] care about social justice programming and making changes at McGill. So it’s really sad that this is happening and we really don’t want to be fighting them! […] We’d love to work with them on [these programmes].”

“While we would like to work towards finding the best possible solution, we need to be able to reach an agreement that works with the actual capacities of all parties involved. As marginalized people on this campus who are dedicated to the same issues, […] we must work together to find solutions to assist one another.”

 

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The Indigenous Games were first envisioned in the early 1970s, during which the first Native Games were held in Alberta. In 1977, a proposal for the Indigenous Games was brought to the Annual Assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples by now-Grand Chief Dr. Wilton Littlechild, of Ermineskin Cree Nation, and passed unanimously.

The purpose of the Games was to facilitate inter-nation sportsmanship and relations by bringing together Indigenous youth from different nations to make new friendships and renew old ones. In the context of settler-colonialism and the resulting multi-generational traumas inflicted upon Indigenous communities, the Games provide leadership and growth opportunities for Indigenous youth, and continue to serve as a process of healing and community spirit-building between Indigenous nations across the continent.

The organising of the 2017 Games prioritized Call to Action #88 made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which advocates for “all levels of government to take action to ensure long-term Aboriginal athlete development and growth, and continued support for the North American Indigenous Games, including funding to host the games and for provincial and territorial team preparation and travel.” This was part of a greater emphasis on sports as a tool of Indigenous healing and strength, and reconciliation through sport. The theme of this year’s Games was Team 88, a legacy campaign to, “showcase Indigenous contributions to sport in Canada, create a tangible opportunity for all Canadians to engage with reconciliation, and create lasting role models for future generations,” amongst other things. 

Over the past year, however, the Games have faced significant organisational challenges. Stephen Kwinter, President of the Board of Directors of the Toronto 2017 North American Indigenous Games Host Society, said in an interview with the Daily that “usually, host societies have years [to organise the games], but we were dealing [with] […] a tough time frame of less than one year to actually organise the Games…we were able to put together, in very short order, a balanced, professional team.” The organising team was made up of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, and was advised by Indigenous national leaders on how to proceed in a respectful and reconciliatory manner.

“And you have to understand about our budget. Our whole budget was about 11 million dollars, for five thousand athletes. You take a look at the Invictus Games, which has a much larger budget, and they had three years to develop the Games, and 45 people to do it,” said Kwinter, referencing a Paralympic-style sporting event for soldiers and veterans with disabilities, to be held in Toronto later this year. “ Most of the times, in our lead-up, [we] had 14 full-time staff. That shows you what happens when you have confident, excellent, special people. I’m very proud of them.”

The Games have certainly been worthy of that pride. The opening ceremonies of the Games, which took place on July 16, set the tone for the rest of the week’s events. The two-hour event, taking place at York University’s Aviva Stadium, provided moments of pure joy, pride, and entertainment, featuring musical artists such as Taboo (of Black Eyes Peas fame), and the popular electronic music group, A Tribe Called Red, who had the stadium on their feet and dancing. However, between celebratory moments, community leaders and Chiefs speaking at the event were unflinchingly political in their understandings of the Games as a testament to Indigenous resilience in the face of centuries of genocide and oppression.

Chief Stacey Laforme of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, told the audience in his speech at the opening ceremonies, “this is the way our peoples should always be. Happy, proud, and ready for the future. We must remember that we don’t have to change to fit into society, the world has to change to accept our uniqueness.”

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde closed his speech with an encouraging message to Indigenous youth, “Canada just finished acknowledging a birthday of 150 years, and a lot of us said we’re not going to really celebrate, but we’ll participate because we’re going to acknowledge that in spite of 150 years of colonisation, and in spite of the cultural genocide from the residential schools, and in spite of the control of the Indian Act, we’re still here as Indigenous peoples. And it’s you young people, and your children and grandchildren, that are going to write the next story over the next 150 years. And it’s going to be bright, and you’re going to do it in a great way.”

Over the course of the games, many young people did take the opportunity to create history, and make their mark on the world stage. The 2017 Games were the first in NAIG’s history to feature women’s lacrosse, which was ultimately won by team Eastern Door & the North. Additionally, in women’s swimming, four girls from the Yukon team collectively took home nine medals – the product of 16 hours of training a week, according to swimmer Cassis Lindsay. Outside the realm of arenas and medal counts, athletes have been using the opportunity to create long-lasting international (between Indigenous nations) connections with their peers, and represent their communities in the public eye. As emphasised by many of the community leaders supporting the Games, this week has presented a unique and valuable opportunity for Indigenous youth to take the spotlight and inspire other young Indigenous peoples, and encourage them to pursue their dreams. Chief Ava Hill, of the Six Nations of the Grand River, reminded the young athletes that they “are all role models, and all winners just by being here. You are role models for the younger ones watching you, and you are ambassadors for your nation, so wear it well.”

While the Games came to an end on Saturday, the hope is that its legacy will be indelible and longstanding. For the athletes, this has been perhaps the first of many opportunities to represent their nations and teams. For spectators and non-Indigenous people, the Games have been an insightful departure from the monolithic narrative of Indigenous suffering which occupies the mainstream media’s attention, and have also provided better critical awareness of reconciliation than that which has been peddled by the Canada 150 campaign.

The narrative of reconciliation is still one which needs to be thoroughly and critically understood, especially in the face of the increasingly obvious government ineptitude in its handling. The Games presented an opportunity for the next generation of Indigenous peoples to impact the socio-cultural relations between the Canadian state and the nations whose land it occupies. As for audiences, Kwinter’s hope is that the Games served as the first step in understanding reconciliation for many who may not have previously known about such efforts until now. “For the average non-Aboriginal person, it’s a question of white noise – they know about [reconciliation efforts] but don’t want to deal with it. The NAIG provides a forum for dialogue, on the basis of cooperation and and reconciliation. If you don’t know about them, you can’t respond to them. [The Games] give us the great opportunity to showcase Aboriginal cultures and achievements…we want to celebrate the future of these achievements, and we want to do so as a cooperative effort.”

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Since her entrance into Indian cinema in the nineties, Deepa Mehta’s films have danced on the sharp edges of intersecting transnational feminist discourses. Mehta’s reputation precedes her: she is known both in India and in the American film world for pushing the envelope, and for telling the stories no one else is willing to. Born in Amritsar, India, Mehta now lives and works in Toronto, where much of her work is produced. The move was likely in part due to the difficulties she has faced in India as a filmmaker, particularly hostility from religious and political opponents. They saw her work as a threat to the status quo and pre-existing foundations of tradition, and thus sought to bar it from viewership by Indian audiences.

On January 18, Bar Le Ritz PDB screened Deepa Mehta’s Water as the 13th instalment of FEMMES FEMMES, a series of monthly film screenings, which collect donations for local charities aiding women and children. The series is organized by local artists Anika Ahuja and Rebecca Ladds and aims “to highlight strong female presence in cinema,” specifically focusing on the intersections of violence, sexuality, and mental health in feminist discourses.

Mehta’s reputation precedes her: she is known both in India and in the American film world for pushing the envelope, and for telling the stories no one else is willing to.

The Elements Trilogy, Mehta’s most notable and controversial work, began in 1996 with Fire, a film about two Indian women, sisters-in-law, who fall in love with one another while stuck in loveless marriages to cruel and uncaring men. Earth, the next in the trilogy, came out in 1998. It tells the story of a young girl growing up amidst the strife and violence of the 1947 partition of India, after the country gained freedom from the British. Both these films open up dialogues which Indian cultures and people often attempt to suppress – the former, regarding romantic relationships between women, and the cruelty of the heterosexual relationships in which they are trapped, and the latter, regarding the ongoing violence and ethno-religious disputes between Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Parsi people in India. Mehta holds a mirror up to Indian audiences and diasporic communities, forcing us to confront long-held prejudices we perpetuate through tacit approval. She calls Indian cultures out for their xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and the perpetuation of other forms of systemic violence.

While she is critical, I have yet to see a diasporic Indian filmmaker who does justice to India’s beauty in the way Deepa Mehta does. Raised in India and now part of the diaspora, I am moved by Mehta’s depiction of my country: something about it stirs within me the call to return – a reminder that while home is halfway across the world, it is also deep inside my own bones, embodied through the experiences of my mother, and her mother before that, and her mother before that. I find myself simultaneously on the outside of the stories she tells and deep within them. While both the time and locale are outside of my lived experiences, Mehta’s stories occur within a legacy of womanhood built on the experiences of being a woman in India, rooted in Indian cultures and traditions. There is some universality to these experiences, and a part of me would like to hope that Indian women are deeply bonded to one another through these experiences, forming a greater female nationhood. But as someone who no longer lives in India, and who has been alienated to a significant degree by its current political climate, I also find myself outside of this sisterhood. I wonder if Deepa Mehta feels the same way.

[Mehta] calls Indian cultures out for their xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and the perpetuation of other forms of systemic violence.

Water (2005), the last in the Elements Trilogy, is no less controversial than its predecessors. Set in 1938 Varanasi, a city in northern India, Water unflinchingly depicts the experiences of Chuiya, an eight-year-old child bride who is widowed at the beginning of the film. As per a specific Hindu tradition, which is dictated in the sacred texts by Manu, “a virtuous wife is one who after the death of her husband constantly remains chaste and reaches heaven though she has no son.” The film follows Chuiya as she is sent to a widow’s ashram – a concept I find difficult to translate into English, except to perhaps describe it as a communal living space for people bound together by some sort of religious or sub-cultural identity. This is where she meets Kalyani, a beautiful young widow who makes the very human mistake of falling in love with a man when she has been forbidden from doing so, and Shakuntala, a solemn older widow who takes on a disarmingly affectionate maternal role in Chuiya’s life. The film is unapologetically focused on the development and exploration of these women, who exist in vastly different worlds despite occupying the same one.

In Kalyani’s world, her beauty renders her hypervisible to the men around her, to the extent that she is coerced into prostitution by the matriarch of the ashram. These same perceptions of beauty render Shakuntala invisible. With her dark skin and short-cropped hair, she is overlooked not only by men but also by the women of the ashram who take her for granted. With this invisibility comes a degree of agency: as Chuiya enters Shakuntala’s life, the static nature of Shakuntala’s life in the ashram is replaced by a sudden, desperate need to protect the innocence of a child. These maternal feelings enable Shakuntala to act boldly, in a way no other character in the film seems to be capable of.

But as someone who no longer lives in India, and who has been alienated to a significant degree by its current political climate, I also find myself outside of this sisterhood. I wonder if Deepa Mehta feels the same way.

By contrast, Kalyani’s actions often echo those of the men around her, both in love and in violence. Her decisions are influenced greatly by the man she is in love with, who she plans to leave the ashram for – this would have been an escape from the confines of widowhood, had he not let her down in the relationship’s greatest moment of struggle. Her final act is committed in pain and humiliation, informed by her experiences with both her lover and the man she is coerced into having sex with for “the benefit of the ashram,” according to its matriarch. Kalyani’s fate is a terrible one, and the blame for that lies largely with the men who made it so – and yet, her character left me wishing for greater depth and exploration, especially in comparison to Shakuntala or Chuiya. Perhaps this is why the fates of Kalyani and Shakuntala diverge so greatly, despite their origins in the same space. Both women find themselves sacrificing everything for love, as the film comes to a close, but in vastly different ways.

Water is, at its core, a plea for the protection of innocence. Chuiya remains a child despite having been married off in childhood, and widowed not soon after. She remains a child even after being abandoned at the ashram by her parents, who had no other choice according to the dictates of archaic Hindu custom – which they could have chosen to ignore, at the risk of social ostracism. But they do not deviate from what is expected of them. Although the isolation of widows in India is nowhere near as commonly practiced as it once was, it is still acknowledged as a form of social death, in which the widow becomes a shade of her former self, not permitted to interact with others in the same ways she once used to and barely allowed to be herself to the same degree she once was. When Chuiya enters the ashram for the first time, she meets the wicked matriarch Madhumati (who, I might add, is a crucial illustration of the ways in which misogyny can be enacted by and through women themselves) who says in Hindi, “Our holy books say that women are a part of men when they are alive. When husbands die, God knows, half of a woman dies too. How can a half-dead woman feel pain?” To this, Chuiya replies simply: “Because she is half alive.”

Water is, at its core, a plea for the protection of innocence.

At first, Chuiya makes everything around her softer, more open – especially Shakuntala and Kalyani. Kalyani becomes almost childlike when she’s around Chuiya, and this wistful optimism carries into her relationship with the young lawyer she falls in love with. There is hope, in that love, that tradition can be cast aside in favour of an unbreakable bond; that when she wishes to get re-married, which is a sin in widow ashrams, those who occupy positions of authority will step out of her way and allow her to do so. This love is so wrapped up in its own passion that neither of the lovers foresee the violent and traumatic end – dictated by custom and tradition – that they are bound to meet. Water ends on a dark and painful note, reminding audiences that innocence, while resilient, is not unbreakable – especially when faced with the cruelties of misogynistic sexual violence, of which both Kalyani and Chuiya are made victims.

Midway through Water, when Shakuntala is working in service of the local pandit (holy man), he asks her, “Shakuntala devi [goddess], you’ve been working with such sacrifice and devotion for so many years. Has it brought you any closer to self-realization?” To this, she answers gravely, that “if self-realization means a detachment from worldly desires, then no.” He replies swiftly, “Despite this – never lose your faith. Never.” Thus, Water also asks a pivotal – yet often unspoken – question to Indian audiences: what are we supposed to do when our faith fails us? Religion is deeply intertwined with Indian tradition and cultural ideology, but the values present within this rich history often push to the margins the most vulnerable members of Indian communities.

At surface level, Hindu tradition often associates womanhood with Godliness, but this is most often not embodied in the treatment of women by the state and its population. Rampant misogyny places burdens of labour (both emotional and physical) upon women, strips them of their agency and ability, and of course, enables the constant threat of rape culture for women of all ages. All of this has left me torn and confused over my feelings toward my own country. None of these problems are unique to India, and if I catch a non-Indian person criticising the prevalence of misogyny in India while not examining the same situation in their own nation, there will be hell to pay. However, they are problems that I have experienced and seen people I love experience them too. I have never been able to understand how a culture can claim to liken womanhood with Godliness, but still enact such violence upon these same women. To see these realities play out, and to not be able to do anything to help my sisters across the nation, breaks my heart.

If I catch a non-Indian person criticising the prevalence of misogyny in India while not examining the same situation in their own nation, there will be hell to pay.

The place of men in this film is an ambivalent one. Until the last two minutes of the film, I found myself not caring at all for the main male character in the film, Narayan – the young lawyer with whom Kalyani falls in love. One might describe him as a “soft boy,” in contemporary Internet slang – he plays the flute while sitting at the riverside waiting for his true love to arrive at nightfall, he has a picture of Mahatma Gandhi on his wall, and he engages in discourse on the liberation of India from the British and of the widows of India from their own archaic ideas. But where does this translate into action? Narayan’s presence in the film is a passive one – spurring only negative plot points, if anything – that until this point I have mentioned him a grand total of once. I would argue that his presence exists solely to bring the film to its conclusion, which turns the face of the audience toward the hope of a brighter future, one where Chuiya is rescued from the strife of a widow’s life.

The whole film is oriented toward this yearning for something better. I find that this is true for many of the films coming out of India, both in the past and present. This sentiment began even before the independence of India from the British – there has always been a sense that the nation is collectively reaching out, trying desperately to grab hold of a future which promises them better lives. You can see it today in the migration of people from rural to urban India, and from urban India to other parts of the world, in search of a better life. You can see it echoed in stories of the independence movement against the British, in which the whole country was gripped by the fiery will to take back what the British had stolen from them. You can see it in the ways the current government implements unwise and irrational economic and political policy, with the misguided belief that they will lead the country to a better future. You can see it in the love and fervour with which much of the population believes in a God, many Gods, all taking different forms in the vast and diverse systems of belief found across the country.

And you can see it in the way Shakuntala turns her face up to the sunshine in the final moments of Water, watching the departing train that carries her beloved Chuiya away from the pain of the ashram, and into the bright hope of a liberated future.

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150 years of what?

As of 2017, it’s been 150 years since Canada became a confederation under the British North America act: a moment considered seminal in the creation of the state of Canada. Largely ignored within this narrative is the history of all that came before the confederation – mass genocide and oppression of Indigenous peoples, the theft of Indigenous lands and resources, and the violation of treaties set up between the original inhabitants of the land and the invading settlers.
The first Europeans arrived in North America as early as the 15th century, and once the British and French colonial empires heard about the resources present on the continent, their focus was singular – taking the land for themselves. The Indigenous peoples who inhabited the continent were so loathed by the colonists that colonial authorities sought only to eliminate them – either through outright genocide, or through violent assimilation with the intention of ‘breeding out’ Indigenous identities and cultures.

Both pre- and post-confederation, Indigenous peoples had their land systematically taken away from them: when treaties were agreed upon, they were later violated by the Crown, leading to smaller and smaller reserves of land being designated for Indigenous nations. This theft of land goes hand in hand with the systematic elimination of identity and culture. The enactment of this racism, this settler-colonial white supremacy (which is distinct from other forms of white supremacy because of the entitlement non-Indigenous settlers feel for the land they have colonised), is not a thing of the past. It has been present in Canadian legislation and political action through the past few centuries and until today.

Canada’s origins are ugly and shameful. A brief overview of Canadian settler-colonialism is not nearly enough to reveal the brutalities of Canadian colonial history; it does not reveal all that the first Canadians did, often at the command of the crown, to become the ‘true’ inhabitants of the land. For instance, before the establishment of the state of Canada, British soldiers are known to have given Indigenous opponents blankets infected with smallpox, in order to eradicate large portions of the population at a time. Or, for example, from the 18th to 20th century, provincial laws provided monetary rewards (bounties) to white Canadians who scalped Indigenous people – that has yet to be eradicated from provincial law in Nova Scotia. In addition, the Canadian government made a concerted attempt to eliminate what Duncan Campbell Scott, former minister of Indian Affairs (from 1913-1932), referred to as the “Indian problem,” by forcing Indigenous children away from their families and into residential schools, where they were made to rid themselves of their Indigenous identities and cultures, and were subject to psychological, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of the government and church officials. This ended only in 1996.

This is the history of Canada as it celebrates 150 years. And yet, these realities have been erased, and have been replaced with the image of Canadian benevolence. To non-Indigenous Canadians, and to the outside world, Canada is a country full of people who say sorry a lot, play hockey, are kind by default, and are pristine by reputation. Canadians boast that their history of slavery was short-lived and a largely benevolent one – this is untrue, and neglects the two hundred years during which slavery was a common practice among the white Canadian settlers. Canada claims that its history is an inclusive and multicultural one – another lie, given that Canada actively banned immigrants from south and east Asia from entering the country during the early 20th century. Admittedly, these phenomena deserve more than a sentence each in the argument against the idealisation of Canada. In fact, the entire perspective through which Canada is viewed as a utopian society which “has itself figured out,” as I heard someone describe it the other day, needs to be dismantled and reassessed. Where did the myth of benevolence come from? Why has being “not as bad as America,” something we’ve all heard many times, become the standard by which Canadians satisfy themselves? And why, to this day, are these standards being used to shroud the truth?

A celebration of hypocrisy

Canada’s wrongs are not frozen in the past. Looking to the future, all is not well. The Liberal government presented the core tenets of the anniversary as “diversity and inclusiveness, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, the environment, and youth.” But even within these parameters, Canada is failing to live up to its own ideas.

If Canada really intends to be inclusive, the government might want to reassess the country’s role as the second largest arms dealer to the Middle East, and sixth highest arms dealer in the world. Canada likes to be thought of as a peaceful nation, but under the approval of the Trudeau government, $15 billion worth of military vehicles have been sold to Saudi Arabia – a nation declared by many non-governmental humanitarian groups to be in violation of several human rights. Saudi Arabia, with the aid of U.S, funding is leading the ongoing bombing campaigns in Yemen. The largest dealer of arms to the Middle East is the U.S., which cements Canada’s usual position as not the absolute worst, but in this case certainly second in line.

In addition to this, if Canada’s attempts to ‘reconcile’ with Indigenous peoples are sincere, then why is it that as of this year, several Indigenous reserves across the country are still denied access to clean drinking water? As of early 2016, 114 Indigenous communities in various provinces have been issued a total of 158 active drinking water advisories. For many, this has gone on for years, and has not been addressed by the Canadian government.

As for Canada’s environmental policy, which is directly tied to Indigenous rights to land and water, the Liberal government has disappointed many with its most recent decision to approve the development of oil pipelines by Kinder Morgan and Enbridge. In the aftermath of the decision, Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema stated that, “With this announcement, Prime Minister Trudeau has broken his climate commitments, [and] broken his commitments to Indigenous rights.”

Through all of this, there have been some bright spots in Canada’s history – it has served as a home to thousands of refugees, and to discount that role does a disservice to the lives of those who have found solace in Canada. It is also important to note that, for many non-Indigenous Canadians, it can often be a privilege to live here – but to refuse to acknowledge these privileges is wrong in itself.

However, there needs to be a shift in the way we perceive this country. Canada is far from perfect, but somehow, has gotten away with maintaining its shiny, spotless illusion. It seems to me that loving something should mean understanding the ways in which it needs to be improved, and working towards those improvements – is it not possible for Canada to recognise its past in a way that reflects the hidden side of its history? Is there not space in the conversation for improvement that first acknowledges the wrongdoing that has come before it? As of right now, Canada is choosing to look back at only what it wants to see, and look forward without acknowledging the effects of the past – but the country has a long way to go before the exalted image it has created for itself becomes a reality.

The article has been amended to cite the sources initially intended to be included, but which were subsequently omitted due to the error of an editor. The Daily regrets the error.

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In October 2004, in her home country of Hungary, Katalin Lakatos’s eldest son committed suicide after a series of racist encounters with local police that had left him fearing for not only his own safety, but also that of the people around him. Soon after her son’s death, and after filing a complaint against the police, Lakatos herself became subject to harassment by the authorities. Then, in 2011, racially motivated medical neglect nearly killed Lakatos’s second son, according to migrant justice group Solidarity Across Borders (SAB). It was this second incident, and the constant threat of death that hung over her family, that led Lakatos and her family to move to Canada.

The move, however, did not ease the family’s burden. According to SAB, the Lakatos family continued to face discrimination over the next five years, in part as a result of immigration policies specifically meant to keep Roma immigrants out of Canada. They were  subject to a lengthy and painful bureaucratic process that saw Katalin Lakatos’s husband and younger son deported, and Lakatos and her teenage daughter detained in the Laval Immigration Detention Centre. All the while, she only hoped that nothing would force her and her daughter to move back to the country that had terrorized them for so long, and that her husband and son could return to Canada.

The Lakatos family’s story is not unique – they, as members of the Roma community, have faced these levels of discrimination their entire lives. The Roma (or Romani) are an ethnic group that are believed to have emigrated from northern India to the Middle East and Europe between the 6th century and the 12th century, and are currently spread out across the world, with the highest populations present across Eastern Europe, the United States, Brazil, and Turkey. To English speakers, the group is pejoratively referred to as “g*psies.”  No major written records are considered to account for the origins of Roma people, and this has, over the course of several centuries, resulted in their global displacement. Roma people have been systematically barred from gaining legal status and a sense of safety or security in many countries across Europe, and are often forcibly uprooted from their homes by governments steeped in anti-Roma prejudice.

Amnesty International has, over the past decade, released several damning articles and a major report on the state of Roma rights in Europe, detailing individual and systemic discrimination that Roma people face beginning in childhood. There have been reports of segregation and discrimination in the education system across Eastern Europe, including discriminatory curricula that ingrains in young children negative stereotypes about Roma people, and the forced placement of Roma children into programs for low-performing students. Roma people are forcibly evicted from their homes and cities because they are Roma, a notable example being the 2014 change in social housing policy in Miskolc, Hungary, serving to ethnically cleanse the city of its Roma population; and occurrences of anti-Roma violence perpetrated by authorities include police harassment and forcible seizure of property in refugee camps in France, and disproportionate imprisonment and incarceration rates in Greece.

There has been a devastating lack of attention paid to the issues faced by the Roma community by governments across Europe: despite numerous attempts by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and SAB to intervene in the crisis, the hatred directed at the Roma community in Europe continues to run rampant. This far-reaching prejudice is centuries long, but was most visible to the world in World War I and World War II, when Nazi and Communist governments were known to actively conduct the genocide of Roma people, while Canada, the U.S., and Western Europe did little to nothing to aid in the refuge or rehabilitation of the Roma people. Anti-Roma sentiment has been unrelenting and has gone unaddressed, and the community currently faces no prospect of peace.

Canada is touted as a safe haven where refugees face no barriers, and as a shelter where ideals of peace can be actualized. In reality, Canada is no sanctuary for Roma refugees fleeing Europe. Over the course of the last decade, various pro-immigration interest groups across Canada have noted a significant anti-Roma sentiment taking hold of Canadian foreign policy and immigration law.

With the presence of anti-Roma immigration policies, Canada is just as complicit as many other governments across the world in allowing prejudice against Roma people to continue. SAB has also condemned the Canadian government for silently condoning the anti-Roma sentiments perpetrated by neo-Nazi groups across North America and Europe, and for standing idly by while an entire people continues to be terrorised.  

Reports of discrimination and racial profiling by Canadian border security against Roma travellers have increased in number since 2011, and Roma people entering Canada have been subject to humiliating displays of public scrutiny by airport security upon arrival to the country.

Jason Kenney, Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism between 2008 and 2013, is known for implementing a set of changes to immigration law that prioritized trade and the benefit of the private sector over a need-based model that put humanitarian aid first. Kenney’s policy changes allowed entry mostly to “high-skilled” young immigrants who would primarily boost the Canadian economy and be of use to the country. These immigrants were well educated and already fluent in either English or French – they were part of an elite class of foreign workers that the Harper government deemed “worthy” of letting into the country.

Under Kenney, 2012 saw the establishment of Bill C-31 by the Canadian government. This omnibus bill gave the Immigration Minister unchecked power to make the detainment, imprisonment, and deportation of refugees easy and unchecked and took away rights from claimants.The Justice for Refugees and Immigrants Coalition released a joint statement that said Bill-31 was “unconstitutional, undermines our humanitarian traditions, and violates our international obligations.” Kenney said the bill was supposed to protect Canada from “bogus refugees” set out to “abuse our generosity.”

At the same time, the Harper government was changing restrictions on visa permits, including those for members of the European Union (EU). Among a number of economic reasons, this was also done to address the high number of refugee applications coming out of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania – the European countries with the highest populations of Roma people. These countries became the only EU countries to require visas for travel to Canada, although restrictions on Hungarian citizens have since been amended.

According to Global News, nearly 4,000 refugee applicants awaiting status confirmation in Canada were paid to go back to their countries of origin between 2012 and 2014. Of that number, 61 per cent were citizens of Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and most of them were Roma. Global News additionally reports that there were doubts raised by lawyers as to whether the money was voluntarily accepted by many of the refugee applicants who travelled back to their home countries, and advocates and immigration attorneys stated that fear of deportation and incarceration led many to accept the funds out of fear.

The remnants of Conservative anti-Roma sentiment have yet to be eliminated from the new Liberal government’s policies. While there have been significant and positive changes to immigration and refugee laws under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on a systemic level the Roma community faces similar levels of neglect due to no changes being made to anti-Roma policy. There seems to be no end to the prejudice that Roma people experience, even after they have travelled over land and sea.

The Lakatos family has received some measure of peace, as of August 2016. Over the summer, Gilda and Katalin Lakatos faced the fear of imminent deportation. After their initial applications were denied, their appeals went through a bureaucratic process that lasted nearly a year, during which time the Minister of Immigration refused to comment on the state of the appeals process. It was only as of last month that the Lakatos family has received initial approval for the permanent residency application. Despite this turn for the better, they are still faced with thousands of dollars in bureaucratic and legal fees, along with a $3,000 fee to allow for the return of father and son to Canada.

For a family – and moreover, a people – to have to go through so much in their home country only to face the same prejudice and scrutiny in Canada, paired with an arduous and painful bureaucratic process, is unacceptable. Moreover, it is hypocritical to hail Canada as a shelter for refugees when a community so heavily marginalized throughout the rest of the world is also shunned by the Canadian government. It is appalling that a country that claims to stand for the principles of human rights, freedom, and safety for all, would stand by and ignore an entire people who ask only for a small measure of the humanity they have until now been denied.  

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On this day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful rally against apartheid law in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1966, this date was chosen by the UN to represent a call to nations across the world to commit to the fight against racism and discrimination. Alongside marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of this day, today also marks the 15th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Created in 2001 by the UN to outline an extensive and comprehensive framework of anti-racism action and legislation, the Programme was to be implemented globally to improve the state of affairs for marginalized racial groups.

The most crucial aspects of the Declaration focus on the acknowledgement of slavery as a crime against humanity, the role of the government in preventative and remedial work for racialized groups, a primary focus on the narratives of racialized groups, and the call for the involvement of individuals and groups from all walks of life – non-governmental organizations, political parties, the private sector, the media, civil society, and more – to be engaged in anti-racism efforts. The Declaration also voices concerns about the increasing prevalence of religious discrimination, specifically anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

While the Durban Declaration may present itself as a neat and well-packaged ‘anti-racism 101,’ the truth is that the Declaration has been quite ineffective. UN scholars themselves agree that it has done little to nothing to combat growing hatred and xenophobia that have become apparent across the world today. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mutuma Ruteere; the Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mireille Fanon Mendes-France; and the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, José Francisco Cali Tzay stated in a March 17 press release, “Much more needs to be done by governments around the world to protect vulnerable groups and punish the perpetrators. Impunity has become the norm for what are heinous crimes and this is a very alarming situation. We see an alarming increase of hate and xenophobic speech echoing across the globe. Political leaders, public figures and even mass media stigmatize and scapegoat migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and foreigners in general, as well as minorities.”

As disheartening as it feels to say this, they’re right. It’s been 15 years since the Durban Declaration was issued and it feels as if race relations across the world have neither progressed nor plateaued, but have rather regressed. Across the world, the state of inter-ethnic and inter-racial relations has gotten worse, with racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and outright apathy toward people of colour becoming more and more prominent every day. However uncomfortable it is for dominant racial groups to hear, and painful for some marginalized groups to acknowledge, the unfortunate truth is that racism and the legacies of colonialism still haunt people of colour and Indigenous people, shaping their lives and experiences and tipping the scales in favour of the white population.

Where the Durban Declaration has failed

It isn’t necessary to look any farther than outside our windows to see how racism has impacted the lives of people of colour and Indigenous people. In Canada, Indigenous women are three times more likely to be victims of violent crime than any other racial demographic, and at least six times more likely to be murdered. Between 1980 and 2012, 1,181 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women have been recognized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as being part of the epidemic of violence against these women. Even this number is considered to be a conservative estimate that does not take into account the hundreds of potentially unacknowledged cases.

This violence is not a result of independent, contemporary circumstances, but is part of a longstanding pattern of violence against Indigenous women that spans the last few centuries. This pattern is rooted in a legacy of colonialism and colonial patriarchy imposed on Indigenous communities, exhibited by institutions such as residential schools and legislation disenfranchising Indigenous women and taking from them their right to partake in Indigenous leadership. Added to this are a number of longstanding racist stereotypes internalized by the government and authority figures across the country, which render law enforcement ineffective in preventing or aiding in the elimination of violence against Indigenous women.

There is significant and obvious evidence of racism even outside the Canadian borders. In the U.S., patterns of racialized violence are enacted against black people constantly. This epidemic of violence is most commonly associated with police brutality, as the most notable offenders have been white police officers who are almost never penalized for their crimes. However, in the climate of hate exacerbated by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, average-Joe white supremacists are also being armed with the arsenal of hateful anti-black rhetoric they need to legitimize their preexisting feelings and violent actions. People of colour who – with an amount of courage I cannot even begin to fathom – protest at Trump rallies are met with malice and physical and verbal abuse that are sometimes reminiscent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

While, for the first half of his campaign, Trump’s candidacy was treated like a joke, he insidiously built up the vile and racist constituency that has now put him ahead in the polls. Every time a late-night talk show host joked dismissively about Trump, someone watching was given yet another opportunity to internalize Trump’s message to validate their own prejudices. This was never a joke. From the moment it began, Trump’s treatment of people of colour has had tangible consequences – it has been considered the enabling factor in hate crimes in various parts of the country. As the American elections grow closer and the reality of Trump’s popularity becomes clearer, it’s difficult for some to imagine that this is a situation America has to face in 2016.

In the U.S. and Canada as well as in Europe, similar levels of hatred are being directed toward Muslims in reaction to the perceived threat of the Syrian refugee crisis and “terrorism” – which, in reality, is largely a pretense used to justify warfare in western Asia and profit-oriented weapons trade. This was the case immediately after 9/11, and is still the case now. Indeed, there are definitely terrorist attacks that happen and that kill many, and leave families forever altered – but they are certainly not to the scale that the mainstream Canadian and American media like to portray. According to several studies on causes of death in the U.S. and Canada, you are more likely to be killed by falling furniture, lightning strikes, or falling off a ladder than by terrorists. And in regards to rates of terrorism specifically, Americans are more likely to be killed by white extremists than by so called “Islamic” terrorists – the myth of Islam presenting a threat to the West is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of contemporary war, and is a propaganda tool that, in benefiting a select few white elites, has marginalized Muslims across the world.

This is the same ‘threat’ that has legitimized the closing of borders to refugees across Europe – refugees who are, in fact, often fleeing from the same threat they are believed to pose. Syrian Muslims are much more likely to be affected by Daesh than most Americans and Europeans currently are. And yet, refugees are being denied the basic human right to shelter because they share a religion with a terrorist group – a statement that is flawed in itself, as most Islamic leaders across the world have denounced the actions of Daesh and insist that the group is not representative of Islam. Despite this, Muslims all over the world have to pay for the crimes of a select few, and are often subject to spiteful rhetoric and hate crimes as a result.

These issues represent only a small selection of the most visible problems facing people of colour and Indigenous people around the world today, but the systems of racism and colonialism that cause them pervade all social structures and institutions, including McGill. If the racially charged dynamics of life on campus are not apparent to you right now, that doesn’t mean they’re nonexistent; and if you do recognize the structures of racism and colonialism that influence the lives of students and staff of colour, then you’ll understand the scale of the problem. To try to fathom the full extent of racism in this institution is daunting, to say the least. Where does one even begin? James McGill owned slaves – that’s a place to start. From the birth of this institution until this very day, race has influenced the lived experiences of all who enter these hallowed halls, by informing levels of privilege and marginalization, and determining the way students are treated by their peers and their institution. There’s no escaping or denying the impact race has on each and every one of us.

The UN may set up a thorough framework to combat racism, and ratify it and celebrate it for years to come – but how legislation looks on paper and how it translates into real life are two very different things. And the truth is, however comprehensive the Durban Declaration may have attempted to be, it has done little to nothing to improve the realities with which people of colour live. The reason for this could be due to the language and logistics of the Declaration itself, or due to the real-world application of these guidelines to lived experiences. The unfathomable scale of this aspect of our lives is perhaps the greatest barrier to overcoming it. To live within a legacy of racism and colonialism is to have your land, culture, and rights stolen, and to have to continuously fight to be free of the weight of that legacy. This is what racism is – it is real, and it is every day.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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