Five years ago, I met a group of veterans at an Armistice Day peace ceremony, hosted by the U.S.-based non-profit Veterans for Peace (VFP). One of the veterans I met was Dave Logson, who fought in the Vietnam War and has since become the president of our local chapter of VFP in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When I saw Dave over the summer, he told me why he and his fellows at VFP oppose the militarization of Veterans Day (the American equivalent to Remembrance Day). “I think [the military focus] is disrespectful, because what you are saying is, ‘oh, this is really noble and just,’ and it’s awful,” he said. “It was a terrible thing that we did to these people who died in war.”

The disrespect stems from the fact that honouring the military is simply not the same as honouring veterans. The grandiose ceremonies that honour the military assume that soldiers are off fighting wars that are necessary for the U.S. or Canada to survive, that without their sacrifices we would succumb to attacks from terrorist organizations and the like. Many of us know that this is not true: the Canadian and U.S. militaries’ primary role these days is using brute force to ensure economic and political control by the Western world. Both countries’ prolonged involvement in Afghanistan, for instance – over 12 years in both cases – was not only very far removed from the security of people in Canada and the U.S., but has also led to increased turmoil in Afghanistan, the country that the militaries were supposedly trying to rebuild.

While 158 Canadian soldiers died during the mission in Afghanistan, a recent Globe and Mail investigation revealed that 54 veterans have committed suicide after returning to Canada.

The conflation of veterans with military institutions is also questionable because the state, on whose behalf the military acts, is one of the biggest perpetrators of injustices against veterans. Take the case of veteran deportations: the U.S. promises an expedited road to citizenship for immigrants who serve in the military. However, there have been several cases of immigrant veterans being deported because they were convicted of a crime after their term of service had ended; in some cases, the crimes were only committed due to unaddressed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Indigenous veterans and veterans of colour have also widely accused the Canadian state of being systemically racist. Esther Wolki, an Inuk woman who served with the Canadian Armed Forces for ten years, told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) that the racism and sexual harassment she experienced during her time in the military made her want to kill herself. Many Black veterans have also spoken out against racism in the Canadian forces, saying that their service was marred by racist slurs and hateful actions.

The mistreatment of veterans does not end with their service. Both the U.S. and Canada have shown time and time again that they are unwilling to provide veterans with the care they deserve once they’ve come home. While 158 Canadian soldiers died during the mission in Afghanistan, a recent Globe and Mail investigation revealed that 54 veterans have committed suicide after returning to Canada. Yet, the previous Conservative government failed to spend $1.13 billion of the Veterans Affairs budget last year, despite a clear need for services and support. It is shocking that Canada spends billions of dollars every year on military operations, yet cannot see the value in spending on needed care for people who return home scarred by their experiences in war.

In the U.S., veterans wrestle every day with the compensation and benefits programs in place. Vietnam veteran Doug Drews, for example, has struggled to get compensation for numerous medical problems, including peripheral neuropathy in his arms and legs caused by his handling of large barrels of Agent Orange. This is largely due to the complex legal pathways one must follow in order to receive compensation, a system Drews said intentionally keeps veterans from receiving care. “Most people I talk to ask me what they can do about this issue. I tell them to get friends together and stop sending their sons and daughters into the military when the U.S. Department of Defense is involved in protecting private overseas business ventures instead of defending our country,” Drews told me.

The way we celebrate Remembrance Day every year ignores the military’s contribution to the suffering of veterans.

The inadequate treatment of veterans even extends to some charity organizations. Naomi, who served in the U.S. military police from 2002 to 2011 and now works for the charity Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), told me that PVA was the only veteran support organization that helped her husband when he came back severely injured from Afghanistan. Someone from the Wounded Warrior Project did come by his hospital room, but merely offered a t-shirt and shorts, a handshake, and the phrase “Thank you for your service,” before turning around and leaving.

The celebration of the military that takes place on Remembrance Day or Veterans Day is a perfect example of the distorted view we hold of military veterans and the realities of their lives and service. This perception can be seen elsewhere, from the movies and TV shows glorifying soldiers and killing (American Sniper definitely comes to mind) to the impulsive regurgitation of the words “thank you for your service” whenever a politician speaks to a veteran. Whether we’re talking about Parliament Hill or Capitol Hill, the attitude is the same toward millions of veterans in Canada and the U.S.: go where we tell you, do what we tell you, and afterward – don’t expect help, and don’t expect us to reflect on your struggle when deciding whether to send troops elsewhere.

When I was in high school, my friend and I were given a scholarship by VFP to film a protest against the organization formerly known as the School of the Americas, a facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. The school trains “security agents” for the purposes of sending them to other countries, mostly in Latin and South America, these agents have committed many human rights offences for governments supported by American imperialism. Marching up with a group of almost a hundred veterans – who had fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and pretty much every war in between – their families, and their friends, we were stopped from entering the protest site by the police because one veteran was holding the U.S. flag. Though other demonstrators had stilts, clothes racks, and large wooden crosses and were allowed to enter, this veteran could not go in because the stick on their flag was a “potential weapon.” Watching as the police told these people that they could not fly the flag they had been sent to war for, the flag their friends had died for, the flag that had ruined their lives, is a moment I will never forget.

The way we celebrate Remembrance Day every year ignores the military’s contribution to the suffering of veterans. This annual show of militaristic solidarity, with people telling each other to ‘remember those who died honourably’ does nothing to call out the state for sending its young people to fight unnecessary wars, and then neglecting their needs when they come home. Instead, we should be arguing against the military and condemning its carelessness and violence – this is the most respectful thing we can do in memory of people who lost their lives in war.

Jill Bachelder is a U2 student and a former Daily Sci+Tech editor. To contact her, email jill.bachelder@gmail.com.

The post Don’t honour, support appeared first on The McGill Daily.

GMOs are plants or animals that have been genetically altered using DNA from different species of living organisms, bacteria, or viruses to get certain desired traits, including resistance to disease or tolerance of pesticides. When first introduced, GMOs were thought to be the end to world hunger, but there is a lot of debate over whether or not they have met these expectations. Scientists have been examining the safety of GMOs distributed by companies like Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company which accounts for a quarter of the world’s seed distribution. Monsanto has faced intense criticism and global protests from environmental activists, political figures, and local organic and non-organic farmers.

Environmental and social consequences of GMOs

There are several consequences of GMO production that extend beyond food consumption. Firstly, it has been found that growing GMOs increases the use of pesticides. A recent study performed at Pennsylvania State University indicates that the use of neonicotinoids, a pesticide known to be harmful to bees, increased dramatically between the years 2003 and 2011. It reports that in 2011, about 34 to 44 per cent of soybeans and 79 to 100 per cent of corn hectares had been treated with neonicotinoids. This study counters the myth that the advent of GMOs has lead to a decrease in pesticide use, an idea that had been previously supported by studies that do not take pesticide treatment of seeds into account.

The damning implications of the ever-declining bee population demonstrate why pesticide use should be taken very seriously. Several scientific studies report neonicotinoids as detrimental to bee health, and the fact that the growth of GMOs has not only failed to decrease pesticide use but has actually contributed to increasing use is a definite concern.

These laws demonstrate how the legal aspects of GMOs can help corporations extract more wealth from farmers and leave farmers with less power over their own crops.

So, what are the real-world impacts on farmers, especially small-scale farmers who struggle with agriculture’s growing, capitalist, economies-of-scale landscape? In the past year or so, farmers in Ghana have been protesting the Plant Breeders Bill, which would restrict their ability to swap, breed, and share seeds, giving the corporations who develop genetically modified seeds the rights to the seeds’ usage. In addition, Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights Act labels seeds as “intellectual property” that no longer belong to farmers, but to the owner of the seeds’ rights. If Apple sells you a computer, it belongs to you, and you can do whatever you please with it. Why should this not apply to seeds?

These laws demonstrate how the legal aspects of GMOs can help corporations extract more wealth from farmers and leave farmers with less power over their own crops. By losing the rights to their own seeds, farmers are liable to be sued. In 2014, Monsanto had sued over 140 farmers for planting its seed without permission, and settled more than 700 cases. GMO distribution is being seen as a ploy to financially benefit Monsanto at the expense of farmers, especially smaller growers. With this near monopoly on production of genetically modified seeds, GMO distribution can allow large companies to take advantage of small farmers in countries across the globe.

A promising technology for strengthening agriculture

Despite the harms of corporate control of GMOs, there are also advantages that come with having products that are more resilient and resistant to pests. Julia Freeman, a faculty lecturer at the McGill School of Environment (MSE), told The Daily in an email, “In India, for example, the cotton harvest of many farmers was being damaged from a pest called the bollworm [so] that they had very little to lose when the option of genetically engineered cotton came on the market.” The Hawaiian papaya industry was also almost entirely wiped out by ringspot virus, and genetic modification helped resolve the issue by allowing for a virus-resistant crop variation to be cultivated.

In addition to being more resilient, genetically modified foods are also often cheaper to produce because they can be modified to be high-yielding and mature faster than naturally grown produce. For example, golden rice is genetically modified to contain high levels of beta-carotene in order to compensate for vitamin A deficiency. Genetic alteration of rice to increase its vitamin A content has been successfully completed and used to combat vitamin A deficiency in countries around the globe.

Despite ongoing safety debates and conflicting research results on the consumption of genetically modified foods, there is a general scientific agreement that food from genetically modified crops is not inherently riskier to human health than conventional food. Repeated studies have found no threat to human health from GM ingredients, which are found in up to four-fifths of processed food in Canada and some 64 other countries.

Moving forward

“When the technology of inserting a transgene into a new plant was being developed, it raised a whole host of questions that tend to really bother [people,]” explained Freeman. She also pointed out that there were speculations on whether or not scientists were “transgressing a ‘natural’ – or religious, or some other foundational – boundary.”

“How should we navigate the unknown, unlikely, but potentially devastating impacts of the technology?” Freeman continued.

As far as the discussion on the health harms or benefits of GMOs, Freeman also addressed the fact that “it is not very helpful to talk so broadly about GMOs when you’re thinking about the possible risks and benefits of particular genetically engineered crops.” If we shift away from the GMO yes or no dichotomy, we can start to ask questions that are more focused and useful to science.

It is difficult to decipher the entire truth behind the science of GMOs because it requires one to sift through the overwhelming amount of conflicting information available.

We must ask ourselves, will typing in “Are GMOs harmful?” into a search engine result in immediate satisfaction? It is difficult to decipher the entire truth behind the science of GMOs because it requires one to sift through the overwhelming amount of conflicting information available. Some would prefer that genetically altered seeds never leave the laboratory, but this overlooks the potential benefits of the techology, such as decreasing food shortages and increasing vitamin content of our foods. On the other hand, corporations such as Monsanto also contribute to noise in the discussion, as an investigation by AlterNet indicated Monsanto had expressly solicited positive feedback on GMOs from academics.

What is clear is that ultimately, we cannot let manipulation by large corporations eclipse this scientific innovation. If we are to continue research on and usage of GMOs which do have a lot of potential, we must also keep corporations in check and make sure that the use of these technologies does not unfairly benefit them at the expense of small-scale growers.

The post De-corporatizing GMOs appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Several students from the Faculty of Science presented their work at McGill’s Undergraduate Research Conference today.

Starting at 11 a.m., the Arts building lobby was filled with posters as students shared new discoveries in a variety of topics, including catalysis, meteorology, dynamic optimization modelling, and more.

Throughout the day, students’ projects will be evaluated by a panel of judges. Certificates and prizes will be awarded at Moyse Hall at 4 p.m..

The post Conference showcases undergraduate research appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill Daily (MD): Could you talk a bit about your party, your program, and how it’s different from other parties?

Miguel Figueroa (MF): The main point of departure is that we consider the crisis situation of capitalism, not only in Canada, but internationally. […] The Harper Conservatives are probably the most reactionary, pro-war, misogynist, anti-Aboriginal government in Canadian history, so obviously there needs to be an alternative. But the alternatives that are being offered are really quite feeble and tepid, and all within a narrow box of neoliberal economic dogma – the primacy of the market, the idea that business is what creates employment.

We’re the only party in this election campaign that’s talking about the ‘s word,’ about socialism. […] Even the Greens, with respect to transitioning our economic model toward a greener economy, are within the context of finding market-based solutions to this problem, basically upholding the status quo.

Canada’s fundamental transition to a greener economy will involve massive investments in renewable energy and transportation systems to move toward high-speed rail and other forms of massive transit. […] All of these things can only be done, first of all, if the Canadian people own, control, and develop our energy resources socially, as opposed to [these resources] being developed by the private oil monopolies. Secondly, we’ll need that wealth [from nationalizing energy] in order to finance that kind of significant transition in our economy. […] So we call for nationalizing energy.

“The Harper Conservatives are probably the most reactionary, pro-war, misogynist, anti-Aboriginal government in Canadian history, so obviously there needs to be an alternative.”

MD: How do you see the way to move forward in this kind of direction in Canada? What do you see as the best way to put these issues back into public consciousness?

MF: Even one communist in Parliament would change that institution – we could raise things in Parliament that right now aren’t being discussed at all. […] The corporate-run media virtually blacks us out, so it’s very tough, but what we’re finding is that where we do reach people, people have the sense that the system is in crisis and the problems are systemic. People are really searching for alternatives, perhaps more than they have been in a long time.

MD: What is your vision for a socialist or communist Canada? How do you envision it as different from those experiments that might not have been successful in the past?

MF: If you measure capitalism today by its early days, when there was the slave trade, child labour – well, that’s not capitalism today, that was a long time ago. […] But for socialism, that’s [usually] the end of the debate – tried it once, didn’t work. […] The next wave of socialism will be rather different from the earliest experiences, for no other reason than we’ve learned a lot of lessons about the importance, for instance, of working people truly having control and a sense of ownership over the building of a new society. It shouldn’t be built on their behalf, passively.

“The next wave of socialism will be rather different from the earliest experiences.”

MD: What is your party’s position on Canada’s role in colonialism, for instance, as it relates to the occupation of Palestine?

MF: In general, it’s a shameful role that Canada’s playing internationally, a very aggressive, pro-imperialist role. […] We’re the only party in this election campaign that says that Canada should get out of [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)]. […] We call for a truly independent foreign policy based on peace and disarmament.

Our party unreservedly supports and is in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for their right of self-determination, and for the right to have a viable independent state and an end to the occupation, tearing down the wall, ending the seizure of Gaza, the release of political prisoners.

MD: What about Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities here, on whose lands it’s built?

MF: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report says that the [Canadian government’s] policy against the Aboriginal peoples constitutes cultural genocide, and yet our government won’t even recognize that, much less implement the 94 recommendations that the commission proposed. That’s outrageous, so we’re also obviously in solidarity with the struggles of Aboriginal peoples, for the just resolution of their outstanding land claims, for their right to self-determination in the sense that they should be recognized as nations within Canada in the constitution – and so should Quebec and the Acadian peoples.

“In general, it’s a shameful role that Canada’s playing internationally, a very aggressive, pro-imperialist role.”

MD: Earlier, you mentioned democracy, mass participation in the building of a new society and worker participation [in its building]. This is something that goes deeper than just electoral democracy, so what kind of work does your party do between elections and what can other people do to create those conditions today?

MF: We don’t believe in coups or conspiracies, we think that socialism will only come when the majority want it to come and are prepared to act to bring it about. […] We think it’s likely that there will be a convergence of social forces and political forces into a kind of people’s coalition, including the Communist Party, but other left forces as well. For us, the battle of real social change is the battle of ideas, and getting working people particularly to start becoming conscious of their place in society.

MD: Is there something you’d like to say to us specifically as university students? What is our role in this broader struggle?

MF: You have your whole future ahead of you, and it’s a future that is pretty bloody bleak. The cost of housing has exploded, the cost of getting an education, it’s completely out of control. If anybody should be voting en masse it should be young people, because you have the most at stake. I think it’s really important for students to be conscious about what their interests are, but then to go out and express it everywhere: at the polls, but also in your communities, on your campuses, and in social struggles.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post Communist Party leader talks with The Daily appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Indigenous women have not failed their resistance

On September 24, organizers of Indigenous Awareness Week held a symposium on the gendered nature of colonialism and activism by Indigenous women, featuring a talk by Audra Simpson, a Mohawk woman from Kahnawake.

Simpson is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, and author of Mohawk Interruptus, a book about the struggles of Mohawk people in so-called Quebec to maintain political sovereignty. At the talk, Simpson shared one of her new articles, which describes the way society overlooks the Indigenous movements which are organized and led by Indigenous women.

The catalyst for Simpson’s article was a 2004 interview with Yasser Arafat, former leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, who said Palestinians “are not red Indians,” implying there might actually be hope for the Palestinian struggle against colonialism, whereas colonialism has triumphed over Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada. This idea that Indigenous groups have bowed down to colonial forces and are no longer capable of effective resistance, Simpson noted, is commonly held, but is also completely false, and stems from a broader lack of understanding of Indigenous histories and societies.

Simpson described how colonialism is known only by “inaccurate and heroic versions of what is fundamentally a dispossession – a scene of stealing.”

Simpson also described how colonialism is known only by “inaccurate and heroic versions of what is fundamentally a dispossession – a scene of stealing.” She explained how the concept of sharing, perpetuated by stories such as those told at Thanksgiving, paint a picture of equality and camaraderie between settlers and Indigenous peoples, hiding the betrayal of Indigenous nations and the “dismembering violence and wars that raged on for hundreds of years.” Simpson also noted how the treaties between Indigenous peoples and Canada can create the semblance of a consenting relationship between the state and Indigenous communities, which does not do justice to the realities of their tortured and oppressive relationship.

Simpson argued Indigenous peoples have not failed in their resistance of colonialism, and “persist with their sovereignty intact in spite of the grinding historical and political process of settler colonialism.” Groups such as the Sioux have not only been resisting colonialism for centuries, but have continued to militantly defend their territories, saying they will under no circumstances allow the Keystone XL pipeline to pass through their lands. Simpson also noted that Indigenous women spearheaded the movement to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women and play a central role in Indigenous resistance.

Rachel Baker, a French language and literature Master’s student said, “[Simpson] has an ability to frame the issues in a context that is just not available to me as a non-Indigenous woman, and also I certainly don’t have her level of scholarship either. It definitely informed me of the larger contexts.”

The symposium was co-hosted by the the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF). “For us at IGSF, this is not a one-off – this is the start of something that we want to commit to and we want to hear like a beat over the course of the year and over the course of years to come,” a representative from IGSF said during the talk. She noted that IGSF will be offering a course on Indigenous feminisms in the upcoming Winter 2016 semester.

—Jill Bachelder

Truth and reconciliation

The seminar “Reflections on the Truth & Reconciliation with Aboriginal People” took place on September 23. It was facilitated by Michael Loft, a member of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kahnawake and an academic associate at the McGill School of Social Work.

Loft is an intergenerational survivor – his father, Mitchell, attended a residential school for 11 years, followed by Loft, who also attended an “Indian Day School” for three years. At the event, Loft shared his personal experiences of overcoming challenges despite spending his childhood at an Indian Day School. He also spoke on how “respect, responsibility, and cooperation can work” to achieve reconciliation.

Loft described residential schools as “institutions of cultural and linguistic genocide, leaving survivors with no education and emotionally unattached to endure the abuse inflicted upon others and themselves.”

“Even after coming out [of the residential schools], love is so deeply buried in your soul, [it doesn’t] come out right half the time. All you’re left with is the feeling of shame, fear of authority. How do you be cool in a situation like that?” Loft said.

At the seminar, Loft spoke on the significance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as an attempt to understand history, despite it being emotionally draining for the survivors, who have to relive their experiences.

“Even after coming out [of the residential schools], love is so deeply buried in your soul, [it doesn’t] come out right half the time. All you’re left with is the feeling of shame, fear of authority. How do you be cool in a situation like that?”

He showed the audience a poem titled “Monster” written by Dennis Saddleman, a survivor who attended a residential school for seven years.

In the poem, which Saddleman read at a TRC gathering in Ottawa, he compares his residential school experience to a monster that took away his native culture and childhood.

“I hate you residential school, I hate you. / You’re a monster. / A huge hungry monster. / Built with steel bones. Built with cement flesh. / You’re a monster,” Saddleman writes.

Loft encouraged the audience to engage with the poem in smaller groups. “When [Saddleman] talks about that monster, I heard about that monster,” Loft said, adding, “I don’t know how many times I heard about the monster over the course of my career.”

In addition, Loft told the audience reconciliation between Indigenous people and Canadians, although an inevitable process, can only be reached by honouring past treaties and through mutual respect.

Loft said, “There has to be a responsibility somewhere to set that right. […] Let’s settle something. Deal’s a deal.”

—Rayleigh Lee

The post Fifth annual Indigenous Awareness Week appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The event will exhibit the work of professors from the Faculty of Science as well as affiliated interdisciplinary departments. This year’s tentative lineup of professors includes Joelle Pineau, a computer science professor who will discuss her research on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Edward Ruthazer of the Montreal Neurological Institute, whose lab explores how one’s experiences early in life affect brain activity, will also explain his work.

Victor Chisholm, the undergraduate research officer for the Faculty of Science, has been involved with organizing Soup and Science since its inception in 2006. Chisholm told The Daily the event is important because it offers people the chance to learn about the broad range of research happening at McGill. “It allows us to showcase who we are and introduce students to the opportunities that are available to them during their degree,” Chisholm said.

“It’s one of the rare occasions that I had to interact with people that were truly outside of my department and were undergraduates.”

Soup and Science also attempts to create a space where students can network with professors. In the past, Chisholm noted, several students told him they “made connections at Soup and Science that have translated into research opportunities.”

At last fall’s edition of Soup and Science, undergraduate students gave positive feedback about the event, saying it breaks down the student-professor barrier felt so strongly in introductory courses. However, students have often noted the difficulty of procuring a spot; it is usually necessary to arrive at the event early to guarantee admission.

Sofia Lin, a U3 Psychology student, also noted that when she went to Soup and Science in her first year, the research discussed was a bit too technical for her to understand, and as a result she did not feel like she knew enough to start a conversation with the professors. “Maybe because it was my first year, I guess, so I didn’t know what kind of question I should ask,” Lin said.

“It’s a good experience, but in terms of actually talking to [professors] I remember there were so many people, I didn’t actually get to talk to someone,” she added.

Janine Mauzeroll, a chemistry professor at McGill who does research on electrochemistry and the corrosion of various materials, spoke positively about Soup and Science, but noted it could do a better job of introducing undergraduates to research opportunities. The event doesn’t really give students an idea of “how to better get a job in research for the summer or during the semester or something like that,” Mauzeroll said.

“I see [Soup and Science] more as a nice meet-and-greet [with] networking capabilities,” Mauzeroll told The Daily.

However, the event did allow Mauzeroll to meet students from a variety of faculties, whom she would never otherwise have met, outside of introductory-level classes, which have hundreds of students and tend to be impersonal. “It’s one of the rare occasions that I had to interact with people that were truly outside of my department and were undergraduates,” said Mauzeroll.

Ways for new students to try out research

Here are some options available to you for getting involved in research. Keep these in mind as you wander over to Soup and Science.

1. Undergraduate research (Science classes with course code 396): These courses offer students a chance to gain experience in a variety of possible areas. Since you’re not limited to doing these courses through your department, you can explore other areas of interest you might have. Worth three credits, the projects are most often assigned by a supervisor, whom you must find and contact in advance of the Add/Drop deadline.

2. Volunteering in a laboratory: If you like a professor’s research, you can always contact them and ask to casually help out with a project. Make sure to update your resume, and read up on their research before you talk to them to see if it interests you and to show them your motivation to get involved.

3. Emailing profs for research assistant positions: Taking initiative works! It’s often necessary to reach out to professors in order to find interesting research opportunities. Look at what is available on McGill Career Planning Services’ research opportunities database and take note of the professor’s preferred mode of contact, and you might just find some golden projects to work on.

4. Research awards: Of course, you can always apply for research awards in order to take on a project. Awards such as Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Awards (NSERC USRA) and Science Undergraduate Research Awards (SURA) are quite competitive, so this will require you to take time on your application and to find a supervisor well in advance. Most such projects are done at McGill over the summer.

The post Slurp up some science appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This weekend will see the debut of JustHack, a free, anti-oppressive hackathon aimed at using tech projects to help the community. Under the motto of “collaboration, solidarity, and empowerment,” JustHack is the result of collaboration between seven women, all of whom are McGill students from a range of programs, have equity training, and share a devotion to social justice.

Rachel Bergmann – U3 Cognitive Science student, equity commissioner of the Computer Science Undergraduate Society (CSUS), and JustHack co-organizer – told The Daily the event is intended to demonstrate how “there are ways for tech to be used for social good,” noting that JustHack will bring together hackers and activists who will “work with each other and create projects that will make a difference in their own communities.”

“It’s not your typical humanitarian project – we want grassroots efforts,” Bergmann said.

Co-organizer and former Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Equity Commissioner Isabel Lee highlighted the hackathon’s goal of creating an inclusive space for those normally marginalized in the tech community. “Within the hacking world, there is an extremely desperate need for more inclusive spaces for people who are not white or male,” Lee said.

“We want to ensure that we create a precedent for this kind of space to become normalized for future women, future queer people, future men of colour – people who don’t fit into the mainstream narrative of ‘Silicon Valley White Boy,’” Lee continued.

An alternative to corporate hackathons

Both Bergmann and her co-organizer, Chemical Engineering student Tinke De Witte, cited several reasons why it is necessary to create an alternative to the usual corporate hackathons.

To start, most hackathons, especially those geared toward university students looking to join the workforce, are funded by large corporations, such as Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, to name a few, all looking to ‘find the best talent’ and see who will make the best product to help their businesses.

“I think hackathons become a place where you’re encouraged to work for free as much as possible, to work with a company […] and make cool things for them instead of projects coming from within,” Bergmann said.

“We really want people to help build projects to help their own communities instead of building the latest iPhone game that will be a fad for a month or doing something interesting with a big corporation.”

“We really want people to help build projects to help their own communities instead of building the latest iPhone game that will be a fad for a month or doing something interesting with a big corporation,” Bergmann continued.

JustHack will be largely funded by sponsors, as hackathons typically are, but De Witte said the sponsors will not have the power to influence the hacks developed at the event, nor will they give out prizes to their favourite projects, to further limit the corporate influence on the projects.

“We were also quite adamant that our sponsors themselves also follow certain rules as to how they operate their businesses; and also any swag [company merchandise] that they wanted to share at the event needed to be ethically sourced,” De Witte explained.

Creating space in hackathons for marginalized groups

The organizers of JustHack have taken several steps to be as socially conscious as possible throughout the running of the hackathon. All JustHack participants must agree to its Code of Conduct, which outlines social rules, a harassment policy, and the reporting procedure to be used in the event of someone violating the Code. The document covers everything from language that insults people for being less knowledgeable to microaggressions, gender assumptions, hate speech, and sexual harassment.

De Witte said the Code is necessary, as tech fields are often not very inclusive, especially for women, people of colour, people with disabilities, and queer people. “Hackathons might just be a microcosm of those unfavorable percentages and distributions in a small space. It becomes a very visible sort of manifestation of the inequality,” she explained.

“Hackathons might just be a microcosm of those unfavorable percentages and distributions in a small space. It becomes a very visible sort of manifestation of the inequality.”

As a queer woman of colour, Lee said she has often felt “invisible and hypervisible” when attending hackathons. “You’re invisible because the dominant part of the culture does not cater to you and does not think about your needs or accessibility, but at the same time you’re hypervisible because people notice your presence, notice your identity, and have an opinion about it. It is really hard being in that position,” she explained.

Bergmann said, “You read these experiences of people who go to hackathons with these offensive shirts that have fake boobs printed on the front – that really just doesn’t make a comfortable environment for everyone.”

“You’re invisible because the dominant part of the culture does not cater to you and does not think about your needs or accessibility.”

Organizers opened registration to both students and community members to make the event more inclusive, a twist from most hackathons, which are often student-only.

Additionally, participating in a hackathon often means neglecting self-care. De Witte likened some hackathons to a “factory,” where people are expected to code for hours and hours on end, barely sleeping or eating.

Bergmann described her experience, saying, “I’ve been to some hackathons where you’re inside a gym or stadium with only just dozens and dozens of tables set up, and you’re under fluorescent for 36 hours straight, and you’re supposed to code, code, code and drink as many Red Bulls as you can [to] make the best app to win the cash prize. […] That really is not what we want to go to with JustHack.”

To avoid this, all participants will be provided with free vegan meals and there will be set times for people to discuss topics over lunch and take a break. There will also be a quiet room for people to go to if they feel overwhelmed or need to rest.

Confronted by the idea of this alternative space, hackathon veterans had mixed reactions. U3 Computer Science student Andrea Horqque liked the idea of a community-based hackathon, though she wasn’t sure how an inexperienced hacker like herself would be able to help develop hacks to help communities. Having attended three hackathons, Horqque said she personally has not felt discriminated against or uncomfortable in hackathon environments. “I think if anything, there was about one-third women and then the rest men, so it’s not that bad. […] It’s not like I was the only girl.”

“You’ll get a really interesting group of people who might otherwise not come out, so I think that aspect is really cool.”

Megan Beneteau, also a U3 Computer Science student, who has also attended three hackathons, said she really liked the self-care aspect. “I love that they’re doing healthy food, reminding you to sleep and drink water. […] Being healthy is probably more important than creating good code, or getting money, or doing a hack that helps a corporation.”

“You’ll get a really interesting group of people who might otherwise not come out, so I think that aspect is really cool,” Beneteau said. However, she noted that she still thinks corporate hackathons have value, as they provide a “phenomenal networking opportunity” for university students.

Ultimately, Bergmann and De Witte recognized that JustHack is just one small step to creating inclusivity in tech. JustHack is “for people who might be interested in the tech world, but feel that it’s sort of an unwelcoming place,” De Witte said. “[It’s] to show [them] that maybe that doesn’t exist just yet, but you can create spaces like that yourself if that’s what you want to do.”

JustHack will take place in Montreal on September 19. Capped at 100 participants, JustHack organizers say their rosters are full, though you can email them at hello@justhack.io to see if you can snag a spot.

A previous version of the article stated Rachel Bergmann is a Computer Science student. In fact, she is a Cognitive Science student. The Daily regrets the error.

The post Coding for community, not corporations appeared first on The McGill Daily.

But the new sports movie Carter High, aside from bringing to life the epic story of the rise and fall of one of the best high school football teams in history, is different from most well-known sports movies, which raises troubling questions about Hollywood’s portrayal of sports teams. Almost sixty years after the first Black NFL player played his first game, after decades of Black high school football teams, Carter High is the first major movie whose narrative focuses completely on Black athletes and their experiences, without warping their stories to comply with a white narrative, such as in “white saviour” type stories like The Blind Side.

“I think that this story is a good story regardless, Black or white, but [Hollywood] chose not to do it and said they couldn’t do it because it was a Black film.”

The film is set in Dallas, 1988: the site of one of the biggest controversies in football history. The famed David W. Carter High School football team took home the Texas state championship after a tumultuous year of being pulled in and out of the league over questions of one player’s eligibility due to a possible failing grade. The story culminated in 1991, when it was revealed that members of the team had been part of a series of robberies, and the team was stripped of its title.

The other side of this story came to life on screen in Friday Night Lights, a movie about the Dallas team who lost to Carter High at the final game of the state championships. However, this film has been criticized for stereotyping the Carter players, inaccurately depicting them as low-income when, in reality, the students were from middle-class, suburban households, and for suggesting the team “played dirty” when the team was in fact highly respected.

But now, almost thirty years later, Carter High’s story is about to be told on the big screen. Arthur Muhammad, who played on the 1988 team, wrote and directed Carter High, which is scheduled for release in theaters on October 30 in the U.S.. Former Dallas Cowboys player Greg Ellis is the film’s executive producer, and the cast includes Vivica A. Fox, Pooch Hall, and Charles S. Dutton as Coach James, the inspirational leader of the team. The Daily spoke with Muhammad, for whom the production of this film was extremely personal.

The McGill Daily (MD): Why did you decide to tell the story of Carter High?

Arthur Muhammad (AM): Carter was always a story that I wanted to tell. It’s a first-hand account kind of thing. I was actually a junior that particular year, so I interviewed Coach James, who was the head coach, I talked to all of the players that [were] involved [and I had] my knowledge of the events that took place. I found that the story itself is a very compelling story, because it’s something that’s relevant until today, because you have a lot of athletes making bad choices. […] Well, this story kind of sheds light on that, and shows the mistakes that was made by real-life people that were very, very confident, but made some bad choices. So I thought it would be good in that way – that it would help someone else make a better choice.

MD: Does the film provide a different narrative of the events than the media at the time and the movie Friday Night Lights?

AM: I think Friday Night Lights really gave a fictitious portrayal of Carter, even of that whole season; but of course, it’s Hollywood – it was the filmmaker’s, so to each his own. But the thing was that we grew up in middle class households back then. Most of us had two parents, [support of] two families, a house and a home, and we had pretty much new cars even as students, as teenagers. […] We were just a very confident and good athletic football team, but we weren’t playing dirty and all that kind of stuff, no. We were considered a dirty team by no means. Some people, they’d call us a little arrogant, a little conceited, that sort of thing. You could say that, but we were just confident.

I found that the story itself is a very compelling story, because it’s something that’s relevant until today, because you have a lot of athletes making bad choices.

MD: You have discussed in past interviews how the fact that the movie is about Black people has made it more difficult to make. Why did it take so long to get this particular story told?

AM: I think that’s the reason. Matter of fact, there’s this article in the Observer [where the author] actually was saying that he went through the process of trying to get this story made, and it was through Hollywood. As soon as [he pitched the story to people], they’d thought it was a great idea, so he wrote out the treatment and he sent it to them. And in the character description, it showed that the players were Black and this was basically about a Black high school, [then] the people said we can’t do that movie. He didn’t understand why. I don’t understand why. I think that this story is a good story regardless, Black or white, but they chose not to do it and said they couldn’t do it because it was a Black film. And maybe that’s the business side of Hollywood, so maybe it’s show business. They feel that a story like this will not be good for business […] Straight Outta Compton just came out, a film during the same time period, 1988 to 1989, that same time, and it’s done very well, and it’s a true story, again. So I think we have all those same things going for this story.

MD: Can you comment on other sports movies with Black characters, such as Remember the Titans?

AM: In fact that was the seventies, but I guess they feel like that was more of a Hollywood story because it did have a Black narrative in it but you still have a white, racism-type thing going back and forth, so it wasn’t strictly an urban Black film.

MD: Do you think that Carter High will open the door for future movies about Black people and sports and start a conversation about these issues?

AM: It’s my hope and prayer that it will begin that [conversation…] Even with Barack Obama recently, in his process of talking about the criminal justice system and how we have a lot of people locked up for crimes that didn’t involve any violence… I think if you could even see that these 17, 18 year-old teenagers [are] given 15 [to] 20 years is like, you really have taken their whole life away from them. That’s the system. That system that took place in 1988 that gave them that kind of time is still relevant and being implemented today. So I hope it will shed light on that, that this is not a new thing and it’s something that should be really taken a look at.

The post Carter High football team takes to the big screen appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Raad and Sukumaran were denied entry due to their involvement with the Gulf Labor Coalition, a group of artists protesting the conditions of labour on Saadiyat Island, where the working conditions could accurately be described as a modern form of slavery. Here, an investigation from the Observer has reported, workers live in filthy conditions, sometimes ten to a room, and work under militant supervision, unable to leave until they have paid back the “recruitment fee” they were charged in order to obtain these jobs. Companies withhold the passports of their migrant workers and deport those who strike for union representation and fair pay. And for what purpose? To build glamorous hotels and museums for, and often funded by, Westerners, including New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus and an additional location of the Guggenheim Museum that is slated to be the largest in the world. For years, human rights organizations from across the world have been urging the UAE to cease the abhorrent labour practices that occur on Saadiyat Island.

Workers live in filthy conditions, sometimes ten to a room, and work under militant supervision, unable to leave until they have paid back the “recruitment fee” they were charged in order to obtain these jobs.

The UAE’s attempts to stifle the voices of these artists has led to renewed outrage in the global conversation on the UAE’s labour policies, and has increased the push against their abhorrent labour conditions, especially in the artistic community. Raad and Sukumaran have become even more vocal against the UAE, and, in a letter to UAE art institutions and their affiliates, over sixty curators, critics, and museum directors condemned the barring of these artists and stood with them in demanding better working conditions on Saadiyat Island. The UAE may have been able to keep these two from sharing their ideas within its borders, but their oppressive action has helped project the message of these artists to an even greater audience.

This instance of censorship underscores the role of artists when taking it upon themselves to challenge political and social practices that violate human rights. With their craft, artists can channel the deeply felt emotions that are a product of oppression, humanizing the struggles of the oppressed into a medium that everyone can experience. Goya captured the slaughter of Spanish people by the hands of the French in his gut-wrenching painting The Third of May 1808. During the Vietnam war, American artists – Peter, Paul and Mary; Woodie Guthrie; Pete Seeger – fueled the anti-war movement with their songs of peace and justice, despite heavy persecution by the U.S. government. And recently, many high-profile musicians have used their power as performers to protest human rights violations committed by Israel: English/Iraqi rapper Lowkey has put out many songs in solidarity with Palestine and against U.S. imperialism, and a whole host of artists including Pink Floyd, Alicia Keys, and Lauryn Hill have refused to perform in Israel, joining the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and sending a resounding message of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Ultimately, it is difficult to say how the current situation in the UAE will be impacted by this new conversation. Hopefully, the movement against the UAE’s criminal labour practices will build within the artistic community with ties in the region, as more and more people realize that Saadiyat Island’s cultural scene comes at the expense of exploiting workers and violating their basic human rights. Raad notes in his open letter, following his denial of entry, that the Guggenheim has claimed their new location in Abu Dhabi is meant to facilitate cultural exchange. This is impossible if “the very artists who are meant to be included in the expansive view of art history are systematically excluded, banned and deported,” he writes. Realizing this, it is possible that the artistic community, locally and abroad, will continue to push against the detestable labour practices and many may even refuse to display their art within walls built by slave labour. Whatever the course their protest may take, artists, curators, and museum-goers of the world must not turn their backs on the labourers of Saadiyat Island and sit quietly as those who have spoken out on the matter are systematically silenced.

The post Artists speak out against abhorrent labour practices in the UAE appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Simakov’s case

Simakov, who received 47.5 per cent of the vote in the presidential election, claimed that Elections SSMU did not adequately address the alleged instance of libel on behalf of his opponent, SSMU president-elect Kareem Ibrahim. Ibrahim had accused Simakov of being involved in the revealing of controversial comments that Ibrahim had made in a Facebook message thread concerning the gathering of evidence for alleged bylaw infractions by former SSMU presidential candidate Tariq Khan.

The terms of agreement reached in mediation required Ibrahim to publicly apologize to Simakov, which he did on April 13. In his apology, Ibrahim expressed regret and acknowledged that some of the comments he made against Simakov were “unsubstantiated allegations.”

In addition, Bastarache sent a statement over the Elections SSMU listserv publicly censuring Ibrahim on April 28. According to the email, the censure was due to “new evidence” that surfaced after the campaigning period which would have affected Bastarache’s original decision; however, the situation was “not severe enough” to warrant a meeting of the Electoral Review Committee (ERC).

The new evidence in question is that the Facebook post in which Ibrahim had made accusations against Simakov was deleted eight hours after Bastarache originally believed it to have been deleted, she told The Daily.

Bastarache recognized that, with the vote long over, the censures served little purpose beyond informing the public of infractions that occurred during the campaign period.

“It was an agreement that we’d come to where […] we will acknowledge that something has happened, not severe enough to warrant convening [the] ERC or anything else, however if you felt that you had been wronged, we wanted to make that right – and that was the way that [Simakov] felt that things could be made right,” stated Bastarache.

“At the time, it seemed appropriate, however that was also on [April 8], so that was a long time ago.”

Nikoletos’s case

Nikoletos, who lost the VP Internal election by 13 votes, filed a petition at the end of March asking the J-Board to invalidate the VP Internal election and hold another vote. In her petition, Nikoletos alleged that incoming VP Internal Lola Baraldi had not been sanctioned for improper campaigning on Facebook and Reddit. Nikoletos also alleged that Baraldi had violated regulations when she campaigned in the New Residence Hall lobby.

Baraldi was publicly censured by Elections SSMU on March 27, about one week after the election results were announced, for campaign violations in New Residence Hall.

In mediation, Bastarache agreed to formulate recommendations for next year’s CEO on ways to clarify the SSMU electoral bylaws, particularly with regard to campaigning on social media. “A lot of the campaigning is playing out on social media, and it is very difficult to monitor,” said Bastarache, noting that ambiguity in the bylaws in this regard has also been an issue in the past.

Nikoletos did not respond to requests for comment.

Dissatisfaction with process

In an email, Simakov told The Daily that his overall experience with J-Board had confirmed his concerns that “students are unable to access an unbiased judicial process related to matters of politics,” and that the CEO of Elections SSMU “is under no impartial supervision.”

This, Simakov wrote, was based on the manner in which his case was dealt, as after submitting his petition, he was not contacted by “the J-Board or student advocacy office for over a week,” though, according to him, Bastarache was assigned a student advocate less than two days after she filed her response.

“[On April 7] I was notified that the only available time to meet would be within forty minutes, and was connected with my student advocate precisely ten minutes before the mediation session started,” Simakov told The Daily. “Ten minutes is not at all an adequate amount of time to adequately prepare my case.”

J-Board Chief Justice Muna Tojiboeva did not oversee Nikoletos’s case due to a conflict of interest stemming from Tojiboeva’s involvement in Baraldi’s campaign.

The post Two J-Board cases against Elections SSMU resolved through mediation appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The strike started at 7 a.m. and ended around 7 p.m.. Organized by AGSEM, the union that represents TAs and invigilators, the picket was divided into shifts of fifty to sixty people, with each shift lasting around four hours.

Because the union voted to hold a ‘soft’ picket, no one was prevented from from entering or leaving the gym – most invigilators chose to continue with their work, though some did join the picket line as an act of solidarity for their fellow employees.

“Our purpose was really not to disrupt exams. Our purpose was to stand and to make a point, and to get visibility for these issues that we want to talk about,” said AGSEM Invigilator Grievance Officer Jamie Burnett.

“It is just to say, ‘look, we are here’ – it’s not that it’s just for people [directly] bargaining with you, it’s the whole TA union who cares about the outcome of this. We support our bargaining team.”

Physics PhD student and TA Michael Stroebe, who was part of the picket line, told The Daily that visible support for the bargaining committee was one of the main goals of the strike. “It is just to say, ‘look, we are here’ – it’s not that it’s just for people [directly] bargaining with you, it’s the whole TA union who cares about the outcome of this. We support our bargaining team.”

In an email to The Daily, McGill Director of Labour and Employee Relations Robert Comeau was appreciative that the strike did not disrupt finals. “The union has a legal right to exercise this way of expressing their concerns, and we think they handled their strike with the upmost [sic] respect for the rights of our students, who were in exams, and we thank them for it.”

Although some undergraduates had expressed concerns about the potential impact of the strike on their exams, AGSEM TA Bargaining Chair Giulia Alberini told The Daily that students had been largely supportive.

“We were worried that maybe undergrads, being nervous for their exams, [would] not [be] too happy with us being there, but they actually have been very supportive. People have been asking for the stickers to put on their exams, and the day has been very cheerful and joyful.”

According to Burnett, the organizers of the strike were in communication with McGill security and representatives from Labour and Employee Relations to make sure that exams could still go smoothly during the picket.

TAs seek better compensation, student ratios

One of AGSEM’s main bargaining demands is a wage increase of 5 per cent per year. According to AGSEM, McGill TAs are are poorly paid compared to those at their peer institutions across Canada, such as the University of Toronto and York University. TAs at both institutions were on strike for the month of March over funding and working conditions.

According to the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, the minimum funding that graduate students receive has not increased since 2008 and is well below the poverty line for a single adult in Toronto.

“Compared to other universities all over Canada, [McGill has] relatively badly paid TAships,” said Stroebe. “We want to make sure that there’s some leverage, because McGill always wants to compare themselves, not only in Canada, but worldwide.”

“It’s difficult to bargain at McGill, the administration has not always made it clear that they care a lot about student concerns, about worker concerns, so it’s difficult. But we have a lot of support, so I think we can move forward.”

However, McGill’s TAs are better paid than those at other universities in Quebec, which, according to Comeau, is the most relevant comparison.

“We would note that McGill TAs are the best paid TAs in Quebec, and we don’t think the reference market is Toronto,” he said.

AGSEM is also asking the University to include a limit on student-to-TA ratios in the agreement in order to prevent them from increasing further. According to Burnett, this is important for TAs’ working conditions, as well as for the quality of education for undergraduates. “We want to make sure that we have enough time to do our job properly, and that’s something that undergrads care about as much as we do.”

According to Comeau, two conciliatory dates have been set to continue negotiations, although a specific timeline was not given.

Speaking to the nature of negotiations with the University, Burnett said, “It’s difficult to bargain at McGill, the administration has not always made it clear that they care a lot about student concerns, about worker concerns, so it’s difficult. But we have a lot of support, so I think we can move forward.”

[raw]

[/raw]

The post Teaching assistant strike kicks off exam season appeared first on The McGill Daily.

A total of four McGill student associations will thus be on strike on April 2 in conjunction with the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ)’s mass protest against austerity, joining over 100,000 students province-wide. The Association des étudiant(e)s en langue et littérature françaises inscrit(e)s aux études supérieures (ADELFIES) will also be on strike for the day, and the Association générale des étudiantes et étudiants de langue et littérature françaises (AGELF), striking since Monday, will remain on strike until April 3.

LSA’s one-day strike passed by a vote of 310 to 197, with a turnout of 76.6 per cent. The strike vote at the WSSA GA passed by a vote of 39 to 9. The motion included a provision to hold another GA on April 7 to consider the renewal of the strike.

“I think it’s really important that we’re actually coming together as a collective and engaging with the topics that we address theoretically [in our courses], and doing something about it, and doing grassroots organizing,” U3 Women’s Studies and Political Science student Sula Greene told The Daily, “especially in an institution that we all criticize in classrooms and find super oppressive.”

The Department of English Student Association (DESA) also held a GA on Tuesday, but it failed to reach quorum for a strike motion. The GA voted to instead hold a strike vote by secret ballot on Wednesday, but this also failed to reach quorum. Although 57 per cent of those voting voted for a strike, the turnout was only 14.4 per cent, while 20 per cent, or 205 students, was required.

The post McGill Women’s Studies, Law students vote to strike appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The petition was filed the day after Elections SSMU Chief Electoral Officer Rachelle Bastarache announced that an electoral review committee had met to discuss allegations of infractions committed by VP Internal-elect Lola Baraldi. The committee “found that there was insufficient grounds to invalidate the election,” Bastarache wrote in her email to the press.

In a report sent by email to the student body on March 27, Bastarache informed students that while the election had not been invalidated, Baraldi’s campaign expenses would not be reimbursed, and that the email constituted a public censure.

Nikoletos will be appealing the decision of Elections SSMU to J-Board. “We will be asking the Judicial Board to either invalidate the election and call for a re-vote, or to disqualify Lola entirely for the extent of her actions,” Nikoletos told The Daily in an email.

“I am filing this petition to fight for my right to a fair elections process in this endeavour,” she wrote.

“I am filing this petition to fight for my right to a fair elections process in this endeavour.”

The alleged infractions that Nikoletos highlighted centre around events that occurred at New Residence Hall. On March 14, Baraldi was at Lou Lou’s, a cafe located in the lobby of New Residence, helping her friend Louise Smith, who works there. Nikoletos noted that a campaign poster of Baraldi’s had been set out on the counter, and alleged that this was an infraction of campaigning guidelines, which forbid campaigning within cafeterias.

In its report, Elections SSMU stated that it did not consider the New Residence cafe to be a cafeteria.

In an email to The Daily, Baraldi said that the poster was placed on the counter of the kiosk by an employee, and that she took it down as soon as she noticed it.

In addition, Nikoletos claimed that the fact that Baraldi was seen giving out free food would constitute an infraction, especially since she was in the presence of one of her campaign posters. She also asserted that the fact that Smith was reportedly campaigning for Baraldi, telling people who came up to her kiosk to vote for Lola, is also not allowed by the electoral bylaws because Smith is not a SSMU member, nor a member of Baraldi’s campaign team.

Baraldi noted that she did give out several free cookies, but only “when instructed to by the worker, and with no reference or correlations to me or my campaign.” Baraldi also claimed that she did not know that Smith had been telling students to vote for Baraldi, and asked Smith to stop as soon as she became aware.

According to the report released by Elections SSMU, Baraldi was indeed in violation of article 3.3 of the regulations for campaigning in residences (incorrectly identified in the report as a bylaw) by allowing her poster to be on the counter for around three hours. Smith was also in violation of article 14.5 of By-law Book I by placing the poster there. According to the report, “testimony reveals that around 12 p.m., Lola overheard Louise telling people to vote for her and intervened directly, and at this time she also took the poster down.”

The committee also concluded that Baraldi was not promoting her campaign in giving away the “one or two” food items that she did.

Nikoletos further alleged that New Residence floor fellows “were using their influence and access to first-year students in order to garner votes for Baraldi.”

Baraldi denied that she was actively campaigning in the New Residence lobby or using floor fellows to campaign for her, saying that while two floor fellows were on her campaign team, they did not campaign in residence.

The report from Elections SSMU contained no reference to the claim that Baraldi had had floor fellows campaigning for her in New Residence Hall.

“I am fully confident that it was a clean campaign and the allegations held against me more than anything result from a frustration with the close margin of votes,” said Baraldi.

The post Unsuccessful VP Internal candidate seeks election invalidation appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This year’s executive, currently entering the final days of its time leading the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), has demonstrated leadership in areas such as austerity mobilization and support for student-run services, often going above and beyond to advocate for the University to make student voices a priority when making decisions in these areas.

SSMU made a big effort at its general assembly, which was much more organized that the Fall GA, revised the Equity policy in response to issues raised by students, and hosted many teaching events and forums, thus showing an increased push for student consultation this year. However, there definitely remains room for SSMU to improve in this area. Overall, despite bumps along the way, this was a much better year for SSMU compared to previous years.

Click on a position to see its end-year review.

President — Courtney Ayukawa

For many students, the SSMU General Assembly (GA) is the most visible part of the President’s portfolio. Similar to last semester, the Winter 2015 GA was one of the central events of Ayukawa’s term. Indeed, it was very well-organized compared to the fall — while also the site of multiple controversial motions and with an initial turnout of over 500 students, it did not see the same time and security delays present at the Fall GA, and went much more smoothly. However, like the Fall GA, attendance dropped significantly after the first motion on Palestine solidarity, and quorum was lost for the last motion.

Ayukawa was also behind a number of small sustainability initiatives this year, including the introduction of a SSMU composting program and the broadening of the Green Events Coordinator and Green Buildings Coordinator job descriptions. Ayukawa also plans to do interviews with the incoming SSMU executive for the 2014-15 Sustainability Assessment, which will take place in May.

Additionally, Ayukawa has shown initiative in her negotiations with the administration, as she made an attempt to open Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) negotiations with the University one year early. This attempt, however, was unsuccessful due to a lack of cooperation from the administration. She has also been one of the less vocal members of the student Senate caucus this semester. While the bulk of the Presidential portfolio concerns Human Resources and is thus oftentimes less visible, it is important for the head of a student society such as SSMU to have a visible leadership presence, which has ultimately been inconsistent throughout Ayukawa’s term.

VP External — Amina Moustaqim-Barrette

As the member of the executive charged with representing SSMU’s interests outside of McGill, VP External Amina Moustaqim-Barrette has motivated a variety of initiatives this year. Aided by her previous involvement with Divest McGill, Moustaqim-Barrette helped organize SSMU’s involvement with the People’s Climate March, and also initiated SSMU’s affiliation with anti-pipeline group Étudiant(e)s contre les oléoducs (ÉCO), which now represents over 100,000 students across Quebec.

While environmental initiatives at SSMU have quieted down this semester, anti-austerity organizing has picked up. Initiatives such as the recent anti-austerity activities night, actions of the mobilization committee, and the hiring of a mobilization officer are commendable attempts to increase engagement with ongoing issues in Montreal and Quebec. However, the mobilization of McGill students has not been particularly successful — this lack of student interest in the VP External portfolio was highlighted by the fact that no one ran for the position in the first round of SSMU executive elections last week. Although two candidates are now running in by-elections, dwindling student engagement in external issues is a problem that both the current and future VP External should seek to improve.

One of Moustaqim-Barrette’s recent projects has been to explore the possibility of starting a new student federation. In light of SSMU’s disaffiliation from the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ) last year, and the possible dissolution of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), this move to maintain and improve McGill’s connection with other Quebec universities is a necessary step forward.

VP Finance and Operations — Kathleen Bradley

Kathleen Bradley has done well as this year’s SSMU VP Finance and Operations. She succeeded in bringing a more clearly presented budget to Council. A huge change from last year was Bradley’s outreach to the media concerning this year’s budget: when the budget first came out at the beginning of the year, Bradley sat down with campus media and explained it to them in full, demonstrating a clear dedication to transparency and willingness to communicate with students. However, further initiatives to increase the visibility of SSMU’s budget among the student body as a whole, and to make students more aware of where their fees are going, would have been beneficial.

Bradley told The Daily she was glad to help SSMU break even on its budget and see sales rise at student-run cafe The Nest. She said that the continued expansion of student-run operations is one thing she hopes will be continued by next year’s executive as well. At SSMU Council meetings, Bradley has asserted that she expects the Nest to break even next year.

Bradley has done a great deal of work this year to promote student-run operations beyond the explicit demands of her portfolio, and we commend Bradley on her involvement with the Food Coalition and for leading SSMU in its support of student-run services, which have been under constant attack from the administration this year. A minor criticism of Bradley, however, is that throughout the year she has been reluctant to give as much time to campus media inquiries as compared to other members of this year’s executive and past holders of Bradley’s current position.

VP Clubs & Services — Stefan Fong

During his second year as VP Clubs & Services, Stefan Fong has endeavoured to make clubs more accessible to students and to increase student consultation. Fong told The Daily that he hopes that the Club Hub, a club management portal Fong has been developing since his first year in office, will finally be implemented under next year’s VP Clubs & Services, as the research and consultative phases have been completed.

In working toward achieving the Club Hub, Fong obtained constitutions from clubs that he identified as being active this year, thereby updating the list of functioning clubs. Additionally, Fong told The Daily that he wants to see the development of a co-curricular activities record, wherein participation in SSMU clubs would be recorded on a student’s transcript. While this is a worthwhile endeavor, it is still in developmental phases and is unlikely to be implemented this year.

Fong also showed initiative by rewriting the bylaw book for clubs and services. Overall, Fong has been an active member of Council, taking one of the executive positions often perceived as more mundane and very much making it his own. However, Fong has also faced criticism from various clubs and services for failing to consult with them before SSMU imposed clubs regulations. While this is a near-inevitable side effect of improving the organization of the Clubs & Services portfolio, the future VP Clubs & Services should seek to maintain and improve SSMU’s relationship with its clubs to help facilitate future cooperation.

VP Internal — Daniel Chaim

Daniel Chaim has prided himself on amassing larger amounts of revenue than last year’s executive in every social event that he has run as VP Internal, including 4Floors. Although some of the events still ran a deficit, Frosh almost broke even, missing the mark by a margin of only 0.35 per cent.

He also assisted in the restructuring of the Students’ Society Programming Network (SSPN), which increased overall volunteer involvement by delegating more responsibilities to volunteers and giving them more experience with event planning. Chaim noted that he had worked closely with SSPN this year and said that the committee played an integral role in the running of SSMU’s social events.

Chaim has not had many visible accomplishments this year outside of the standard organizing of these events; his proposed publications fee, for example, has as of yet failed to materialize. He has done little to go beyond the minimum requirements mandated by his portfolio; for example, he has failed to use the listserv as a tool to promote political engagement. This lack of drive to do more than the basic requirements of his portfolio was the most concerning aspect of Chaim’s performance this year.

VP University Affairs — Claire Stewart-Kanigan

Claire Stewart-Kanigan has been exceptionally active in student advocacy as VP University Affairs in many ways. On the policy front, she has been heavily involved in the continued development of a sexual assault policy for McGill, has helped update SSMU’s Equity Policy to allow for consultation with relevant student groups, and has worked on formalizing SSMU’s stance in opposition to harmful military research on campus. Stewart-Kanigan has also been central to the successful launch of SSMU’s mental health department.

Stewart-Kanigan has continued work on decolonization by seeking to bring a territory acknowledgement to Senate by the end of the year. Student researchers under her portfolio have also been very active, notably investigating equitable hiring practices at McGill. At Senate, Stewart-Kanigan has continued to provide a strong presence, and has acted as an effective leader for the SSMU Senate caucus.

Student consultation and collaboration have been a priority for Stewart-Kanigan. She has held forums and informational sessions, and has been receptive to concerns brought forward by students such as the women-only gym hours. Overall, Stewart-Kanigan has fulfilled her mandate exceptionally well, and has had a lasting impact on the university.

The post SSMU executive year-end review appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The post Quebec students on strike: a timeline appeared first on The McGill Daily.