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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Council voted on four motions: one regarding commissioner roles and duties, another regarding the appointment of a PGSS sponsorship commissioner, followed by a motion regarding the library improvement fund, and finally a motion to amend the PGSS budget. Three motions passed, two of which were amended. The motion regarding the sponsorship commissioner was tabled.

Kathleen’s friends

The council heard a presentation from Kathleen Godfrey, a representative of Kathleen’s Friends, an organization connecting intergenerational students to improve social and mental well being on campus. The initiative was started in partnership with McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL) and the undergraduate and graduate student communities.

“MCLL […] is primarily a retiree community. […] Essentially, what we are trying to do together with some funding from the dean’s office is start intergenerational conversation and community on the McGill campus,” said Godfrey.

Godfrey mentioned that Kathleen’s Friends is currently expanding, and may be seeking endorsement from the PGSS in the future.

“We’re trying to create a team […] of undergrads, grads, […] and older learners at McGill to try to enhance […] learning,” Godfrey explained.“We are going to […] try to formalize this group in a partnership […] under whatever heading that makes sense to the Dean of Students office. […] I’m bringing this to PGSS and other grad students perhaps down the road seeking some endorsement.”

Motion to amend PGSS activities manual

The motion to amend the PGSS activities manual to amend the role and duties of PGSS commissioners was presented by Matthew Satterthwaite, the PGSS’ Financial Affairs Officer.

“We’ve come to the realization that the way commissioners are currently positioned within the PGSS is no longer sustainable, Satterthwaite explained. “Portfolios have expanded so much [..] over the past years that they [commissioners] now need more support from executives. […] You have commissioners who are working 30, 40 hours on certain portfolios, and that’s no longer sustainable.”

“The spirit behind these amendments is to better define the role and the scope of the role of the commissioner portfolio within the PGSS [and] align portfolios to allow support directly from the executives,” continued Satterthwaite.

According to Satterthwaite, the motions have been endorsed by the executive committee and approved unanimously by the commissioners caucus. According to PGSS Secretary General Maria Tippler, several commissioners have left their positions throughout the semester, prompting the motion.

However, concerns over the autonomy of the commissioner role was raised amongst audience members, prompting a debate on the issue. One of the audience members pointed out that one of the clauses consists of co-chairing meetings of executives and commissioners in portfolio meetings.

“The reason they were made co-chairs was to give executives a seat on that committee, in the case the commissioner can’t be there, responded Satterthwaite.“It’s just a way to place the executives in the meetings when required.”

Satterthwaite emphasized that the executive member would be a non-voting chair, and that commissioners take up to 3-4 hours to prepare for an Annual General Meeting (AGM), which could be allocated to portfolios if reporting was deferred to executives.

However, multiple councillors raised concerns that the role of the co-chair, and the reporting relationship to the executive was not clearly defined.

“All I see here is just a […] change in the reporting relationship where commissioners are no longer accountable to council, but rather […] to the executive. […] how does this define their activities more? Because that’s not what I see here,” said Amir Nosrat, PGSS Environmental Commissioner. “[In] PGSS, there is debate on whether we concentrate power or distribute power.

“This is to me is about concentrating power […] and authority,” he concluded.

Bradley Por, the Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA) representative, questioned why the proposed motion would place commissioners under the supervision of executives, as opposed to the current system, where the commissioner would report to the council.

“By using the word supervise, it actually does imply a power […] when somebody supervises someone else, it […] impl[ies] authority.”

Satterthwaite responded to Por by explaining that the intention was for the executive to “be more hands on and collaborative.”

Por also pointed out that the motion also changes the way in which commissioners are dismissed in writing.

“It […] does give power objectively to the executive in the text by writing the word supervise in, by writing in that executive can remove them from office even though it has to be ratified by the council,” Por stated. “They didn’t have that power before. It definitely, concretely, in writing, gives executives more power than the commissioners.”

After a lengthy question period and debate regarding the PGSS activities manual, the motion was amended to strike all items except for the whereas clauses and item 5.7, a line specifying the pay and hour of the commissioner. According to Satterthwaite, the motion would increase the commissioners’ salary by $200 per year, which would be reflected in the subsequent year’s budget. The motion was passed with three abstaining and one opposing vote.

Motions passed

The motion to create a PGSS Sponsorship Commissioner position supervised under the Financial Affairs was tabled after several councillors mentioned “there needs [to be] reflection on the relationship of the commissioner to council to executives.” For similar reasons, the motion to amend the Library Improvement Fund was also amended to exclude the clause concerning the Library Improvement Commissioner. The motion to amend the budget was passed without amendments.

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Treatment of child prisoners

“Israel does not differentiate between the child, the elderly, the women,” said Omar Ben Ali, a speaker and Palestinian refugee participating in the event. “In the eyes of the Israeli occupation, every Palestinian is an enemy. Every Palestinian must be punished.”

Ben Ali, who is from the Jenin region of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is currently stateless because of the Canadian government’s refusal to recognize his claimed refugee status.

Ben Ali emphasized that the Ahed Tamimi case is not an isolated incident, as all Palestinians under occupation, including his wife and children in Palestine, are at risk of violence.

“When I see Ahed al-Tamimi, I see five daughters of mine”, said Ben Ali. “Every second, I have a fear that my daughter will be subjected to what Ahed al-Tamimi is subjected to. Not just my daughters, but […] all Palestinian children.”

According to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, approximately 700 children are put on trial in military courts each year. Recent cases include the detainment of Abdel-Raouf al-Bilawi and Razan Abu Sal, two 13-year-olds, who were sentenced to four months in prison in January this year for throwing stones at occupation forces. They are reportedly the youngest Palestinian prisoners to date, and the youngest prisoners in the world.

Both al-Bilawi and Abu Sal live in the occupied West Bank, like the Tamimi family members, where Human Rights Watch have documented multiple cases of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) being physically abusive, and where the Tel Aviv based Haaretz has reported on allegations of IDF officers purposefully disabling Palestinian youth.

“With Ahed Tamimi we have a young person who happened to be born Palestinian, who happened to be born into occupation of her land, who happened to be born into the resistance struggle of her people for freedom and justice,” said Dolores Chew, another speaker at the event told the audience.

In Israel, there are two distinct legal systems in operation: the civilian legal system applied to Israeli citizens and a military court system applied to the Palestinian population.

According to the prisoners rights group Addameer, there are currently 350 Palestinian children in Israeli detention. According to a study published on October 2017 by Israeli rights groups HaMoked and B’tselem, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) incarcerates Palestinian youth under harsh conditions, such as night interrogations without the presence of a guardian or a legal counsellor. The report states that 91 per cent of interviewed minors were arrested at night, and minors were not made aware of their right to remain silent, or their rights to counsel. Such detainment is unlawful: Israeli law prohibits night interrogations.

Moreover, Israel, as a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, is obliged to uphold international juvenile justice standards which mandates that “[t]he arrest, detention, or imprisonment of a child […] shall be used only as a measure of last resort.”

Chew noted that while minors are unlawfully arrested and interrogated, “soldiers […] have authority from the Israeli state to invade homes regularly, vandalize the contents, destroy food, terrorize children asleep in their beds and shoot them in the head. All this with absolute impunity.”

A report published by Breaking the Silence, a non governmental organization (NGO) run by former Israeli soldiers, mentioned the discretion given to soldiers to open-fire and identify targets, which led to massive casualties of unarmed Palestinians.

“It is the Israeli state declaring ‘we can do this to you and get away with it’,” said Chew.

“With Ahed Tamimi we have a young person who happened to be born Palestinian, who happened to be born into occupation of her land, who happened to be born into the resistance struggle of her people for freedom and justice”

Right to resist

This state-sponsored military campaign on Gaza operates in areas which are legally under Palestinian authority. Most of the attacks perpetuate the persecution of Palestinian children in villages within the West Bank.

The Palestinian West Bank is currently separated into three administrative divisions: Areas A, B, and C. Each division operates under varied levels of civil control by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli occupation forces. Areas A and B comprise respectively of only 18 and 22 percent of the West Bank, and are supposed to be administered under the PA. The remaining 60 per cent, Area C, is occupied by Israeli forces, and is considered to be illegally administered under international law. Nabi Saleh, the village where the Tamimi family resides, is part of the former division under PA control. However, the Israeli state maintains de facto authority and governance through raids conducted by Israeli soldiers to arrest and detain Palestinians. Chew stated that Palestinians under the occupation have the right to resist these actions.

“The […] Zionist state of Israel flagrantly violates international law,” she said. “The occupation of Palestine is the longest military occupation in modern history. Under international law, people under occupation have a right to resist. Therefore what Ahed and other Palestinians do to resist occupation is their legitimate right under international law.”

*Anna, a Palestinian student present at the rally told the Daily in an interview, “International law grants Tamimi, and many other Palestinian activists placed under PA division control the right to legally resist the presence of Israeli soldiers […] on their land. It is important to distinguish ‘aggression’ from ‘legal resistance against colonialism.’”

According to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314, the definition of aggression does not “prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom, and independence […] particularly [of] peoples under colonials and racist regimes […] nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support.” Moreover, the UN has recognised the right for occupied populations to use legitimate armed force to see “liberation from colonial and foreign domination” in numerous occasions.

“The Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal, and has always been colonial,” said Anna, referring to the Israeli state’s decision not to withdraw from Palestine in 1967 despite a unanimous decree of the UN Security Council to adopt Resolution 242, which called for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied.”

Under international law, people under occupation have a right to resist. Therefore what Ahed and other Palestinians do to resist occupation is their legitimate right under international law.”

Inaction from the international community

“As Western governments are supporting the Israeli occupation, what will become of us?” asked Ali. Ali claimed refugee status on arrival in Canada almost ten years ago, a status which has been denied despite being unable to return to Palestine due to the occupation. He subsequently applied for immigration status under humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but that however was too refused.

One of the speakers, Andrew Welsh pointed out that Canada currently does not recognize the existence of a Palestinian state.

“It is not a coincidence that in 2016, the Trudeau government passed a motion condemning the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] movement,” said Welsh.

In February 2016, Canada’s Parliament passed a motion condemning the BDS movement, a grassroots movement seeking a peaceful resolution to the Israeli occupation.

“We need to be in solidarity, with those that are fed up,” said Welsh in French. “Fed up by the lies of the government, that claims to have no money to finance the creation of jobs, but has the money to build new weapons. Canada is going to increase its military budget by 70 percent. A part of this budget will go in the support of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

Anna explained in an interview to The Daily how the extent of apathy of Palestinian human rights is reflected in the international responses towards cases like Tamimi’s.

Anna stated that the content and amount of information, or lack thereof, published in Western news sources such as the New York Times and Newsweek further reflects the inaction of the international community.

She explained how, for example, Tamimi’s trial was postponed from January 31 to February 6 and finally to February 13, but “Western news sources have, for the most part, refrained from publishing the news of this postponement.” Anna illustrated her point by noting how an article published by the New York Times (NYT) on February 4 regarding the change of date of the trial was taken down.

In an article published in December 22, 2017, the NYT included the perspectives of several Israeli figures, such as Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research and education institute, who stated that “when you see yourself as under permanent siege, your greatest fear is the loss of deterrence.” However, Anna told the Daily that this statement does not reflect the experiences of Palestinians because “Israeli occupation forces control the movement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and Palestinians are thus the people under siege.”

Active support and worldwide protest

“For those of us living at a great physical distance from Palestine where we don’t experience the heel of a military boot on our necks,” stated Chew, “it might have seemed that things were relatively quiet, relatively peaceful but the […] [Israeli airstrikes] on Gaza just a few hours ago are a reminder that this is a state of continuing war and civilians including children are the targets.”

On the day of the rally, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes overnight in the Gaza strip, killing two Palestinians in an Israeli tank fire. The same day, two Palestinian teenagers were killed near Rafah, the southern region of the border, for approaching the border in an allegedly “suspicious manner.”

“We need to make people aware that even when Palestine drops out of the news for us over here, Palestinian people have to live the daily indignities of occupation,” continued Chew.
“You are the ones who have to stand for the Palestinians,” continued Ali, echoing Chew’s words and stressing the importance of international solidarity. “Because even Palestine’s children no longer trust in these [Western] governments.”

“Palestine’s children only call for the people, those who are free all over the world,” said Chew, quoting resistance movements such as “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS),” which have been “called for by the people of Palestine.”

“We need to make people aware that even when Palestine drops out of the news for us over here, Palestinian people have to live the daily indignities of occupation”

BDS was formally nominated for the a Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian parliamentarian Bjornar Moxnes, backed by the support of his party, the Rødt (Red) Party. BDS is currently active in Montreal among other resistance groups such as Tadamon, an organization in support of Palestinian human rights.

“We must continue the pressure, there is an end in sight. […] Ahed, we send you our love and deepest solidarity,” concluded Chew.

*Names changed to preserve anonymity.

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The building in question, located at 7300 Hutchison, was purchased by the BSR Group last year, illegally pushing out residents with 32 days’ notice to vacate the building, as well as many associations. The 70 unit apartment complex will be listed according to housing “market prices.” Housing prices are  expected to increase with the opening of the new Université de Montréal campus in 2019. In response, community groups in Park Extension have mobilized against the gentrification of the community and eviction of residents.

“Some places didn’t even have heating for months, […] no maintenance, no garbage collection, […] tenants started to have mice and rat problems.”

Intimidation and eviction of tenants

While the BSR group currently lacks a permit for construction work on the building, community members have alleged that Ron Basal, the project manager and BSR director, has been illegally evicting tenants to pave way for the apartment project since last year.

“There’s a lot of people in the community that are very concerned because of what is going on with the 7300 Hutchison […] He started intimidating people into leaving, and evicting them without respecting the leases,” stated  Bernadette*, a member of Parc-Ex Contre la Gentrification, a group opposed to the redevelopment.

Tenants who had  a lease agreement with the previous property owner were not informed of the transaction by BSR. On March 8, 2017, the building was registered under Baruch Basal in the Quebec business registry. Since then, the BSR Group has claimed to have changed the terms of leases that now run on a monthly basis.

“People sometimes don’t know what their leases are, […] what their rights are,” said Bernadette. “Tenants have been evicted by various methods. They were called, and asked to leave the building.”

Residents received eviction letters and were told to vacate the space by construction contractors. Maintenance of broken amenities have stopped, further pressuring the tenants to leave. The freight elevator, which broke down after a basement flooding last March, was not repaired, forcing elderly tenants to leave the building.

“They weren’t going to climb four, five flights of stairs to go there [to the upper floors],” said Bernadette.

This January, the landlord threatened to cut off water, gas, and electricity for tenants who refused to leave. Currently, there are only a few residents left in the Plaza building, who will be forced out in July, when their leases terminate.

“By actually not even providing the basic services in the building people pay for […] some places didn’t even have heating for months, […] no maintenance, no garbage collection, […] tenants started to have mice and rat problems,” said Bernadette.

City response to illegal construction

The Montreal Police has halted BSR’s construction twice, with notices and fines, ranging from $1000 to $2,800 under Quebec law. However, according to John*, a Parc Ex resident, Basal broke leases, and circumvented authorities by working at night.

“As a neighbour […] it makes me very mad that something like that can happen and the authorities are okay, and giving him a permit to [continue].”

Bernadette told The Daily that the fines do little to halt construction, and that the BSR are expecting permits from the city soon.

“He had fines, but they’re such small fines for him it doesn’t mean anything,” told Bernadette.

Adeel Hayat, a resident of Parc-Ex criticized the city’s inaction in response to the construction and BSR’s treatment of residents.

“The city is going to do what? […] put a little sticker on his door saying, ‘Hey, here’s a fine of a few hundred dollars, please don’t do that.’ What does this say to the people here? […] that people who buy this place can break the rules and do whatever the hell they want? […] and even the people who […] enforce those rules won’t say anything! What does that say?”

Hayat also expressed anger over the amount of policing during the protest: ten police cars surrounded the area, with five accompanying the march.

“Instead of giving us any idea of what they could do to help us, […] they deployed this many police [officers],” said Hayat.

Hayat emphasized that the Plaza Hutchison is located in eye’s view of the borough city hall, where the Comité Consultatif d’Urbanisme’s (CCU) meeting discussing Basal’s permit request was taking place.

“In the matter of few months, the new owner who bought the building […] he really feels like he can […] he can do construction in eye’s view […] from the building that gives permits right across the street.”

“We want to send a message to all developers that […] projects like this are not welcome here and that we will resist them wherever they show up.”

CCU meeting

A recommendation for a permit by the CCU will pave way for it to be potentially adopted at the next borough meeting, allowing further construction. The meeting held on February 13 was closed to the public. Bernadette told The Daily: “the CCU, the identity of its members, the agendas […] are absolutely not transparent. […] What we’re not comfortable with is the fact that […] their meetings are not public.”

The day of the protest, the city hall doors were guarded by police officers to prevent entry. After being individually patted down, protesters were allowed inside. Eventually, Bernadette was allowed to speak to the council, but noted that the document elaborating the communityís position to the council was not adequately considered.

During the meeting, Bernadette asked Sylvain Ouellette, the councillor for the Francois-Perrault district, whether the council had read the community report. According to Bernadette, Ouellette mentioned that he had given ‘the big lines’ of the document to the council instead of distributing the full, 4 page report.

“Are you serious?” said Bernadette, “urbanism is not only about bricks and tiles […], it’s also about the usage of the community.”

“We think that the borough should take responsibility for what’s going on,” said Bernadette. “It’s right in front of their door, they know exactly what is happening, they see the tenants being evicted one after the other, they […] see the demolition and construction without permit.”

Concerns over gentrification

“We want to send a message to all developers that […] projects like this are not welcome here and that we will resist them wherever they show up,” said Amy* a spokesperson of Parc-Ex Contre la Gentrification.

Amy put forward the negative impact of the building’s closure on marginalized communities, such as immigrants who depend on the Carrefour de Liaison et d’Aide Multiethnique (CLAM), one of the last associations left in the building. CLAM is an immigrant and refugee resource centre offering French-language courses for newcomers.

“Parc Extension [has] historically been a place where many […] recent immigrants and low income people of colour have tended to settle,” they explained. “Parc-Extension is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada. […] Basically, what Ron Basal is planning to do is to build small luxury apartments that are far too expensive for most people in the neighbourhood to live in.” The 2013 Centraide survey confirms that Parc-Ex is one of the most underserved communities in Canada.

The plaza has been an informal community centre housing various associations for over twenty years, which are now mostly relocated or closed down due to eviction.

“Plaza Hutchison has been a community space, it has housed community organizations, and language schools, and radio stations, and religious spaces, and small businesses for many decades,” said Amy. “We believe that […] these kinds of projects are not at all what Parc extension needs, and we will fight to keep them out of the neighbourhood.”

*Names have changed for anonymity.

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Yagayandi, a second-year social work student, began the discussion by recounting his childhood in a refugee camp in Malawi. He described his first-hand experience with volunteers who oftentimes came to the country with “good intentions,” but approached their experience in a way that does not take into account their “positionality”.

“When you are going there as a white person, you have power,” he said.

Yagayandi mentioned the importance of being mindful of such power dynamics when asking for consent from a local community member. “Now, if you ask a kid, ‘can I take your photo’?, they are not going to say ‘no’, they are going to say ‘yes'”.

“But do they actually mean the ‘yes’? […] Check consent vis a vis [their] positionality and power,” in order to respect the community they are working in.

“But do they actually mean the ‘yes’? […] Check consent vis a vis positionality and power.”

Yagayandi emphasized that people engaged in voluntourism (described as a form of tourism where travelers participate in volunteer work) should be aware that realistically, their short period of time overseas will not make a significant difference on the state of the country or its people.

“I was in a class once when someone gave a presentation saying, ‘I was in Kenya for four months, empowering people’, but […] how is this even possible? […] You empower people by knowing their strengths, but how do you know their strengths and expect to empower them in four months?”

Yagayandi stated that McGill should focus on ensuring that students are aware of the space they are occupying within the country they are touring, and the reality of their impact. In order for volunteers to recognize their place in a foreign community, they must acknowledge that they do not have the power to “empower” people in the community in a short period of time.

Yagayanandi described this rhetoric of “facilitating empowerment,” which requires volunteers to answer the question, “Did you actually empower people, or are you fitting the narrative?”

“Did you actually empower people, or are you fitting the narrative?”

Mackenzie, a fourth-year Sustainability, Science, and Society student, described how the “origins of international development [comes] from colonialism,” and how, “Development still focuses on western powers bringing change and development to its former colonies.”

Mackenzie discussed the inherent problem with language used by Western powers such as “developed or developing” when referring to countries overseas. She mentioned that such categories indicate that “Western superiority is still present”. Mackenzie noted that regions deemed as “developing” have been, “actively underdeveloped by the people who prospered”.

Mackenzie, like Yagayandi, also expounds on the importance of volunteers situating themselves and their experiences in the context of the community they are touring. “The biggest impact you can [have] is absorb[ing] what you learn and apply[ing] it… You are going to get infinitely more than you can give,” says Mackenzie.

She also mentioned the importance of working with organizations that focuses on local social enterprises or businesses.

Mackenzie spoke about the Kumvana program, which translates to, “unite so we may discuss and understand” in Chichewa, which, “facilitate[s] cross-cultural understanding and leadership understanding for…African… social entrepreneurs.” The Kumvana program is different from traditional fellowships because, “it actually brings people from the Global South to the Global North,” explained Mackenzie.

“The biggest impact you can [have] is absorb[ing] what you learn and apply[ing] it…you are going to get infinitely more than you can give,”

Lasnes, a member of the Tanzanian Tourist Board, recently spent three months in Tanzania with the organizations Village Monde and Uniterra working with local ethnic groups to help develop cultural tourism in the region. He spoke about how tourism can work as a development tool, but how it can also be harmful to the local economy, especially in the form of voluntourism.

People come to the country to see the “national parks,” for example, but oftentimes the guided tours are run by large companies from the United States or Europe, and the money does not stay in the country, which perpetuates the dominance of large corporations in foreign regions.

“A good tourist is better than a voluntourist,” concluded Lasnes.

“A good tourist is better than a voluntourist.”

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Out of the 3,600 members of FMRQ, a professional union representing medical resident associations from the universities of McGill, Montreal, Sherbrooke, and Laval, 97 percent voted in favour of a strike, with 99 percent of McGill residents voting in favour. According to Christopher Lemieux, the president of the FMRQ, this is the highest proportion of favorable votes from Quebec’s four medical residents associations.

Negotiations between the Quebec’s Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS; i.e. ministry of Health and Social Services) and the FMRQ started eighteen months ago, in the fall of 2016. After 16 meetings between the two parties, and an intensification of negotiations in late 2017, they reached a stalemate in December 2017 as the government’s position had remained mostly unchanged. The last collective agreement between MSSS and FMRQ has expired March 2015.

Union demands

Medical residents are workers of the health system employed by hospitals, but affiliated with a university. *Robert, a medical resident at McGill University Health Centre, told The Daily that medical residents are paid a fixed annual salary, without remuneration for overtime work.

“In theory, we’re not even employees,” said Robert. “If a nurse who is an employee is expected to work, let’s say forty hours per week, and any hour over that, they have to get paid overtime. A resident is expected to just take their salary and work as much as their supervising doctors tell them to.”

Under the 2015 collective agreement, a first year resident earns a fixed salary of $44,552. The salary is calculated on an annual basis rather than an hourly basis. The yearly wage, when factored in with the 72 hour per week workload, amounts to 11.9 dollars per hour of pay. As of May 1 2018, this will be less than the new provincial minimum wage of twelve dollars per hour.

According to Lemieux, residents’ salary is on average twenty seven percent less than what a Specialized Nurse Practitioners (SNPs) would earn with the same amount of experience.

“SNPs fully deserve their salary, but […] we wish […] for the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux to acknowledge the importance of medical residents in Quebec’s health care system.”

“We wish […] for the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux to acknowledge the importance of medical residents in Quebec’s health care system.”

The FMRQ are demanding a 17 percent increase in remuneration for medical residents. According to Lemieux, residents in the province of Quebec have the lowest salaries in Canada; there is a thirty percent gap in wages between Quebec and other provinces.

“The MSSS has never accepted the comparison with other provinces, because they argue that the cost of living is lower in Quebec than in other provinces.”

Residents are also asking for a new contract for maternity leave, as medical residents do not receive their full salary amount on leave.

“The MSSS only calculates their remuneration on [a] leave bas[is] on their base salary, and not counting bonuses. These account for about twenty percent of medical residents’ salary. As a consequence, female medical residents are disadvantaged relatively to other professionals when they go on maternity leave. We have fought on this point for a while, but still have not reached a satisfying agreement.”

“The MSSS only calculates their remuneration on [a] leave basis on their base salary. […] As a consequence, female medical residents are disadvantaged relatively to other professionals when they go on maternity leave.

72 hours of work per week

“On average, medical residents work 72 hours per week; it is difficult for us to work more,” told Lemieux, emphasizing a need for change in working conditions.

“It is not rare for medical residents to remain on duty for 16 hours straight more often than the legal limit of six times over a 28 day period. Yet, the ministry wants us to work more, and to decrease our salaries. It is simply unacceptable.”

“It is not rare for medical residents to remain on duty for 16 hours straight, more often than the legal limit.”

In 2009, Quebec outlawed 24 hour shifts for medical residents in response to a grievance filed by McGill residents, as shifts longer than 24 hours endanger both patients and residents. This point was reiterated in the case against the McGill University Health Centre in 2011, where 24-hour shifts required of medical residents were deemed to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to the evidence used in a case led by the FMRQ against the McGill University Health Centre, medical residents are 2.3 times more likely to crash their vehicles after working 24-hour shifts.

According to the evidence used in a grievance case led by the FMRQ against the McGill University Health Centre, medical residents are 2.3 times more likely to crash their vehicles after working 24-hour shifts.

Lemieux mentioned that medical residents are also responsible for multiple duties which include teaching medical students, and various academic obligations. “We are still in transition on certain points. Consequently, after work, we have readings to do, presentations to prepare, and research projects to work on,” said Lemieux.

“Fifty percent of residents present burnout symptoms, which is worrying. The medical profession has changed over the last twenty years: it is time for the ministry to acknowledge that and to reform the framework around the profession.”

Robert commented that the Quebec health care system systematically relies on residents, but is “designed […] for the government to save a lot of money.”

“It is time for the ministry to acknowledge that and to reform the framework around the profession.”

In 2015, the Quebec government passed Bill 10, abolishing individual health boards and merging 28 regional health boards to centralize the decision-making process. The bill, which cut 1,300 administrative jobs, was expected to save the government $200 million per year. Bill 20 was subsequently introduced among other budget cuts, which proposed minimum patient quotas on family physicians. The Critical Disability Studies Working Group (CDSWG) criticized the policy in an open letter, as the quotas would cut out support services, “cutting budgets and staffing in an already overburdened system.”

“I don’t think the public realizes how the health system and the ability to see patients is built around that,” told Robert. “There aren’t enough personnel that are seen fairly and treated with normal working conditions to cope with the demands, it’s not set up that way.”

“The reason that the residents’ strike ended just after 4 hours a few years ago is because without residents, the health system collapses.”

“The reason that the residents’ strike ended just after 4 hours a few years ago is because without residents, the health system collapses.”

On September 19, 2011, the FMRQ had mandated a strike during salary negotiations with the government. The strike, which occurred from 8am to around 11:30 am resulted in an agreement which included a 20.3 percent increase in salary over five years, and a 6 percent annual increase in salary, a doubling of on-call hourly wages, and a $210 teaching stipend for every rotation.

Lemieux told the Daily that the MSSS is currently unresponsive, and ignores medical residents’ demands. However, the FMRQ will not call a strike yet.

“Medical Residents Associations have voted in favour of supporting a strike if we need to call one. However, we are not there yet. We want to give the ministry the chance of coming back to us in good faith, with serious reform proposals. […] We want new people around the table of negotiations because those that are here are not responsive to our demands, and do not attribute value to the work of residents.”

“We are not there yet. We want to give the ministry the chance of coming back to us in good faith, with serious reform proposals.”

Working Conditions

Alongside having to work long hours, medical residents are subject to the stress of being constantly evaluated by their superiors. A 2017 survey revealed that 40 percent of medical residents had been intimidated by their superiors, and other hospital professionals, into working more.

Robert explained, “you’re basically evaluated all the time. […] Imagine if you’re at a job, just working, and everything you do in that job […] is being supervised. […] So no matter how tired you are, whether you haven’t eaten, which is common, you’re being evaluated. […] it takes a toll.”

Surveys done between 2008 and 2011 showed that between 45 and 50 percent of Canadian medical residents have been victims of harassment, intimidation, and mistreatment during their residency. A 2013 survey done by Resident Doctors of Canada found that medical residents often experience yelling and shaming, racist and homophobic remarks, as well as negative and unconstructive feedback.

Robert told the Daily, “who are you going to complain to? Your supervisor? The one [who’s] writing these [evaluations]?”

“Who are you going to complain to? Your supervisor? The one [who’s] writing these [evaluations]?”

He further explained: “I work really hard, but I burn out, because it is so important for me to impress my supervisors, and it’s like a bit of a pathology because I’m obsessed [with] it. […] At the end of the day, when you come home, and you have a relationship, you have friends, family, and you’re just burnt out. You’ve worked to get this for 72 hours per week.” A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that thirty percent of medical residents have depressive symptoms, as opposed to eight or nine per cent in the general population.

“The [residents] are seeing patients frantically, working furiously to get these kind of scores, so that they can […] achieve their dreams […] they’ve been treated in this way so that the system works,” said Robert.
Robert detailed the evaluation criteria residents are subjected to, which determine a resident’s evaluation for each shift.

“The [residents] are seeing patients frantically, working furiously to get these kind of scores, so that they can […] achieve their dreams. They’ve been treated in this way so that the system works.”

“How was I as an advocate? Did I get on the phone and, if their patients don’t get the stuff done, am I calling and yelling? […] did I read enough? […] did I critically appraise the literature? […] was I honest? Was I sensitive? Did I have responsibility? Did I communicate with compassion and empathy? Did I realize my own limitations? Did I seek advice when needed? Was I ethical? […] You get marked on all those things by each doctor you work with.”

“Was I honest? Was I sensitive? Did I have responsibility? Did I communicate with compassion and empathy? Did I realize my own limitations? Did I seek advice when needed? Was I ethical? […] You get marked on all those things by each doctor you work with.”

Robert mentioned that professional expectations contribute to a disregard of personal needs, which is a normalized working condition for residents.

“It’s a job for which you get minimum wage but your whole future depends on it, and […] the stress of being constantly evaluated… constantly. If you make a decision to go to lunch instead of seeing an extra patient, you wonder how that’s going to reflect. […] The way that I get these [scores] is by sacrificing meals, not going to the bathrooms, and putting my needs last. […] we’re used to doing this. […] So you’re really being evaluated on an insane number of things, all the time.”

“If you make a decision to go to lunch instead of seeing an extra patient, you wonder how that’s going to reflect. The way that I get these [scores] is by sacrificing meals, not going to the bathrooms, and putting my needs last. […] we’re used to doing this.”

Gender based intimidation

*Janet, another medical resident, spoke to the Daily about gender-based intimidation. “There’s still a subculture that’s not really spoken about that glorifies stereotypically masculine traits as better than stereotypically feminine traits. […] It’s very patriarchichal. […] It’s a strange dynamic because the majority of the residents and medical students are women, but more staff are men with […] preconceived notions about gender roles,” said Janet.

“There’s still a subculture that’s not really spoken about that glorifies stereotypically masculine traits as better than stereotypically feminine traits.”

According to a Canadian Medical Association survey done in 2017, the proportion of male and female doctors is almost equal (48 percent female; 52 percent male). Women are a majority in younger generations of doctors until the 45-54 age group. Senior professionals remain largely male supervisors, who conduct evaluations on a board range of criteria from ‘Interprofessional relationships with physicians’, to ‘sensitivity & respect for diversity’. Janet told the Daily that female residents “negotiate the role of being taken seriously” as medical professionals, but are pressured to “do the song and dance” as students who are evaluated by the same supervisors over a multi-year process.

“We’re being graded by these people, so we have to be able to laugh at their jokes, and go along with what they say, even if it’s inappropriate. […] it’s difficult because we have no objective body of people we can talk about that to.”

“We’re being graded by these people, so we have to be able to laugh at their jokes, and go along with what they say, even if it’s inappropriate.”

“It’s exhausting. […] It’s also true in a lot of different fields. It’s not unique to medicine, but it’s […] something we have to contend with.”

Robert concluded, “[The health care] in Canada is free, and there’s a lot of great things about it, but it needs to be more humane for the people that work in it, and that will improve the quality of care for patients in it too.”

“It [The health care system] needs to be more humane for the people that work in it, and that will improve the quality of care for patients in it too.”

*Names changed to preserve anonymity

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Connor Spencer – VP External

The VP External is responsible for representing McGill students’ interests at the municipal, provincial, and federal level and lobbies on the behalf of SSMU. She’s responsible for SSMU’s political campaigns and maintains active communication between student associations, civil groups and campus labor unions. As of yet, SSMU is not a member of any active student federation, but holds observer status with the Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ). As such, the VP External attends AVEQ meetings.

During the Fall semester, Spencer oversaw the hiring of the Sexual Violence Policy Coordinator, a full-time contract position within SSMU dedicated to sexual violence prevention work on campus. Spencer also works with the Community Affairs Commissioner who is currently working on establishing student co-ops to provide alternative housing to Milton-Parc, which can be financially straining for students. Spencer also mentioned that student inhabitants may contribute to gentrification and noise pollution in the area, which has been a recurring issue for the past few years.

This winter semester, Spencer hopes to focus on Indigenous Affairs. “There is an event series we created […] to get Indigenous Affairs off the ground,” said Spencer, referring to the Indigeneity and Solidarity events, which will feature film screenings, workshops and conferences. There will also be a guide released for settler students articulating “how to navigate Indigenous affairs on campus in a way that doesn’t overburden Indigenous groups on campus.” The event is scheduled for next Monday, on January 15.

In terms of community affairs, Spencer is overseeing the launch of the McGreen Project. The project will provide a service to collect old furniture from students on move out day, furniture which will then be refurbished and sold to international students in September at an affordable rate. In conjunction with the McGreen Project, Spencer is launching a waste management campaign for Milton Parc residents and students. “Over the last couple of years, there has been some […] confusion on where residents should go if there are noise complaints.” Spencer is working toward a plan in conjunction with the Community Affairs Commissioner, the Dean of Students Chris Buddle, and the former Deputy Provost & Student Life and Learning Ollivier Dyens to consolidate a plan.

Spencer will be launching a campaign informing students of the Quebec student movement, the importance of provincial representation, and why McGill students are part of provincial associations. SSMU is currently not affiliated with a provincial student association. However, an affiliation referendum will be held this semester to determine whether SSMU will be associating with Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ), or L’Union Étudiante du Québec (UÉQ). “It seems to me that before we can make a decision between which student association we want to associate ourselves with, we first have to have a campaign informing students why they should care, […] and why it’s important that we join a provincial student association,” said Spencer.

Isabelle Oke – VP University Affairs

The SSMU VP University Affairs (UA) serves as the primary liaison between the McGill administration and the undergraduate student body, advocating on the latter’s behalf at monthly Senate meetings and maintaining open lines of communication between on-campus student group and SSMU representatives. The VP UA’s portfolio also includes heading the library improvement fund, the SSMU Equity Committee, the academic roundtable, and the SSMU research and advocacy committee.

One of the office’s main projects this semester is the “Know Your Rights” campaign. This campaign will focus on unpaid internships by “getting people thinking about how internship policies are strangely set up against students” as Oke puts it. The campaign will additionally begin to bring attention to open educational resources, which include “anything you can use in classroom for educational purposes that has an open license.” Free material is available online, but textbooks are still mandatory for many classes, and often expensive. The University Affairs office will present the “Textbook Broke” social media campaign in different faculties, which will encourage students to take pictures of their textbook receipts and post them online.

Over the course of the semester, Oke hopes to lay a solid foundation for the establishment of a sanctuary campus program at McGill. This program, already in place in some American universities, hopes to provide a safe space for students and people lacking legal documentation. For the past semester Aishwarya Singh, the SSMU Policy and Advocacy Research Commissioner, has been doing research regarding the documentation requirements for students. “Right now, if a student’s visa expires, he or she is immediately de-registered from the university,” explained Oke. “In this case, the idea would be to implement a system where students in the process of renewing their visa would be able to still submit assignments.”

Oke also hopes to mobilize students around what the ideal library would look like. In the future, McGill will demolish the McLennan library to build a new, more modern one. Oke wishes to gather as many student opinions regarding what the new library should look like, in order to recognize their visions.

Maya Koparker – VP Internal

The VP Internal is in charge of the official SSMU listserv and primarily oversees communication between SSMU and its members. Furthermore, Koparkar works with the First Year Council (FYC) to help first-year students plan campus events. Last semester, Koparkar oversaw the joint Downtown-MacDonald campus Halloween event in collaboration with other student organizations. Event planners underwent training on being active bystanders, resolving conflict, and planning accessible and inclusive events on campus. The Fall semester also saw the launch of the new and improved SSMU website, which was redesigned to streamline the user experience.

This Winter semester, Koparkar is working on new, practical guides to better assist student organizations and SSMU. “I’m planning to create a how-to guide for social media and communications at SSMU,” said Koparkar. The guide would provide incoming students with information about different media sources for various types of services, as well as strategies for running campaigns. On a larger scale, Koparkar is hoping to create an event-planning guide outlining resources, best practices, and sustainability. The event planning guide is to be available as a checklist for all McGill students. “This would be something that anyone can use. […] it’s good for executives to come to one another if they have questions, but having it codified and providing some documentation that people can refer to […] easily would be a good thing to do.”
With the mid-semester Faculty Olympics on the horizon, the VP Internal hopes to ensure that the event is financially feasible, as the incipient closure of the SSMU building means SSMU will be operating outside the building, and will thus incur larger unforeseen financial costs, unlike previous years. Koparkar hopes to see the continuation of inclusive events on campus, which were a large part of her election platform last year. “We have our signature events, but there is also room to improve,” said Koparkar.

Looking ahead towards transition, Koparkar mentioned that SSMU may have more involvement with Frosh 2018 than in previous years and is in conversation with Campus Life and Engagement (CLE). Koparkar is also currently liaising with the office of the Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning to allow for better relations between administrative services and the student body.

Jemark Earle – VP Student Life

The VP Student Life position is relatively new, created in 2016 when several executive portfolios were restructured. It deals with clubs and services, mental health initiatives, and independent student groups. One of Earle’s major responsibilities is to organize Activities Night, which has been highly successful so far: Fall Activities Night broke attendance records, featuring over 300 groups and clubs.

Winter Activities Night this semester will take on January 16-17. Earle is optimistic about the event, although it will feature slightly fewer clubs and groups than the Fall version and will run for only two days. This time around, Earle is working on a partnership with the newly-launched SSMU Eats app to provide hot drinks for students waiting in line outside.

Activities Night will coincide with another key event for the Student Life portfolio, Mental Health Awareness Week. Earle will be partnering with different groups and services such as Students In Mind, who will be taking the lead on the closing days of the event series. “On the Advocacy and Outreach Committee, we have various members who are part of their departmental health committees,” said Earle, “so we’ve gotten fresh ideas, and we’re collaborating with different departments on some of the events.” In contrast to previous years, he and his organizing team have tried to vary the types of events held during Mental Health Week to attract more students, and to make them more accessible by, for example, scheduling more events in the evening rather than during class time.

A major challenge facing Earle is the SSMU building closure. Last semester, he and his team initially did a poor job of communicating relevant information to building tenants and students at large, sparking confusion and anger. Now, however, it seems that things are going more smoothly – according to Earle, locations have been found for most SSMU services.

“We’re working on getting space for everyone who is a tenant of the building,” he told The Daily. “There are a few outliers that require specific needs, such as Midnight Kitchen, the Players’ Theatre, the Musicians’ Collective, […] so we’re still working on those because they […] can’t just go into any building. […] We’ve spoken to the groups, and […] if worse comes to worse, they would change their programming for that period of time. […] Hopefully, by the time September rolls around, we’ll have at least the first few floors back.”

Muna Tojiboeva – President

The president coordinates the activities of SSMU and determines the long-term vision of the society. Over the fall semester, Tojiboeva has worked on increasing SSMU’s representation at the University level on various committees.

This winter semester, Tojiboeva will be conducting consultations with stakeholders on campus to strengthen the role of the Francophone Affairs committee. The Francophone Affairs Committee, created in the fall, and having met several times throughout the semester, are currently discussing what resources are available or needed for Francophone students at McGill. By the end of the semester, Tojiboeva hopes to come up with recommendations to “ensure the long-term stability and continuation of this project in years to come.”

One of Tojiboeva’s main projects is to increase student representation at the Board of Governors (BoG) level by increasing collaboration among elected members of the Board. The BoG, a body which has final authority over academic matters at the university, is comprised of representatives from various campus groups. Undergraduate students are represented by the SSMU president, who is one of the 25 voting members. One of Tojiboeva’s initiatives, the Pre-Board meeting, will allow students to discuss important agenda items in advance to the BoG meeting. “I am focusing on the implementation of pre-Board of Governors meetings so that students are able to contribute and have a say about what goes on at the highest decision-making body at McGill,” said Tojiboeva.

The SSMU president will also be updating the internal regulations of the Judicial Board, “these [internal regulations] have not been updated since 2012 and still refer to governing documents that no-longer exist,” told Tojiboeva.

Lastly, Tojiboeva will be continuing her work with Spinyt to develop the SSMU Eats App. The SSMU Eats app will allow students to save up to 70 per cent on restaurant meals, and allow restaurants to liquidate food at the end of the day to reduce food waste.

Esteban Herpin – VP Finance Candidate

The VP Finance is responsible for the overall financial stability of SSMU and more specifically administers the Society’s investment funding group. The position has been vacant for two months, since the resignation of Arisha Khan on November 16, 2017. Following Sarah Abdelshamy’s withdrawal from the VP Finance by-election this term, Esteban Herpin, a third-year Finance student and a former member of the Management Undergraduate Society’s (MUS) Corporate Relations team, remains the only candidate for the position.

On January 12, a public candidate Q&A was held, during which Herpin answered questions from SSMU executives and students. When asked by VP External Connor Spencer, “What type of relationship do you feel the SSMU executive should have with the administration?” Herpin mentionned that SSMU should work with the administration wherever possible.

Herpin was particularly concerned with mental health on campus, saying, “I think that [mental health issues on the McGill campus are] very intense from what I compare with other people in [different] parts of the world and Canada, there’s the issue of stress.” If elected, Herpin hopes to improve upon mental health by asking the McGill administration to have “more data and more surveys on how students feel throughout the semester, and [to use them] more effectively.”

Herpin’s election platform additionally emphasizes more support for students struggling with mental health: he mentioned the inadequate resources dedicated to mental health, which, according to Herpin, amount to $0.40 per semester per student. However, regarding student fees overall, Herpin claimed that he “would like to cut down costs, just in general.”

Part of Herpin’s platform comprises increased funding for clubs, emphasizing operational changes aimed to provide a net benefit for students. In the Fall semester, the only funding towards Culture Shock, a weeklong event series that address issues of race, colonialism, white supremacy, and xenophobia for students of colour, was cancelled. Herpin was not aware that the funding for Culture Shock and its parent organization Quebec Public Interest Group-McGill (QPIRG) had been removed. However, he responded that he would like to “take meetings with those students” following a question on accessibility for racialized students during the Q&A.

Other aspects of Herpin’s platform include financial transparency and investment. The election results will be announced on January 18 after a three-day polling period.

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“I took part of a collective action along people in Europe and in Canada in order to push finance actors to divest from Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. Our action in Montreal has lighted up Caisse de Dépot et de Placement du Québec’s investment,” said Guillaume Durin, a member of the Stand Up with Standing Rock.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline
The event was organized to condemn CDPQ’s affiliation with Fluxys, a Belgian based natural gas infrastructure company which owns 16 per cent of shares in the TAP. According to a petition by Climate Justice Montreal, CDPQ has invested 16.2 billion in oil and gas last year. Moreover, 16.4 per cent of the CDPQ’s public equity holdings were in carbon-intensive energy and materials sectors. This has prompted criticism against CDPQ, such as the petition “Get off my Caisse”, urging CDPQ to obtain informed consent on any resource extraction project taking place on Indigenous territories. This September, a protest was organized by various grassroots to speak out against CDPQ’s investment practices.

While TAP is a project based overseas, CDPQ signed an agreement in 2011, allowing the CDPQ to acquire a stake in Fluxys, with a capital increase of up to €150 million. The same year, CDPQ increased their investments with an additional €210 million, raising its stake from 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

“The [CDPQ] owns shares of the company Fluxys who is one of the main developers of [the] TAP,” said Nicolas Chevalier, the Co-Founder of Leap Montreal. “This project directly puts the local environment [at risk] but will have a global impact as well. In a context of global […] warming and where an effort has to be made from the bank to invest in renewable […] energy, TAP does not have its place.”

Earlier this year, the CDPQ announced a “decarbonated” policy, a mandate to increase investments in low-carbon assets by more than $8 billion, and commit to cutting its carbon footprint by 25 per cent per dollar invested. However, according to Durin, CDPQ still owns 19 per cent of Fluxys, which makes CDPQ complicit in a “climaticide project.”

International solidarity
The event held on November 15 was part of an international effort to pressure financial groups owning TAP shares to divest. The Paris agreement signed in April 2016 commits countries to ensuring that the global average temperature does not increase by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

“TAP is not a local issue. It is not even a European issue anymore,” explained Chevalier. Given that existing fossil fuel operations already exceed the carbon budget, NGOs like 350.org published an open letter, arguing that the TAP would sabotage the European climate targets agreed upon during the Paris agreement. However, the TAP began its construction in Albania in July 2015.

On October 23 2017, 15,000 scientists from 184 countries endorsed a global warning regarding the urgency of the climate crisis and its imminent effects. The letter addressed to the president of the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, calls on the European Union to immediately withdraw its support for the TAP, stressing that the ‘TAP would lock Europe into fossil fuels for decades’. On November 14, the European Investment Bank approved a 9.2 billion budget financing climate action projects in 16 countries.

Chevalier hopes to extend these efforts to Montreal, demanding that actors such as the CDPQ do not participate in the financing of the TAP. “Activists in Canada have joined the wave of protest against the mega gas pipeline,” said Chevalier.

“With citizens’ action and commitment, climate justice can be achieved. Disinvesting is one of the key elements to go forward with this goal,” said Isabelle L’héritier, a member of L’eau de la Terre c’est sacre. L’héritier emphasized Montreal’s support for mobilizing against the TAP, with activist groups such as the Coalition for Climate Justice Montreal and Leap Montreal.

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National Assembly motion for the financial compensation for education students

Four days after the strike on November 10, policy demands were brought to Quebec’s national assembly by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois from Québec solidaire, Coalition Avenir Québec, and the Parti Québécois. The motion essentially asked the government to consider a financial compensation policy for student internships in education studies. While the motion was passed unanimously, the demands concerned financial compensation for education courses in their final year, as opposed to the demands concerning the remuneration for all workers announced at the mobilization on November 10, backed by over 60 organizations in North America.

Sandrine Belley, the spokesperson for Campagne sur le travail étudiant (CUTE), an organization which coordinated the strike, told The Daily, “we want to be recognized as workers,” which would require a change in Quebec’s labour code, which currently does not recognize interns as workers.

Kristen Perry, AVEQ’s Coordinator of Mobilization and Associative Development, mentioned that change in Quebec’s labour code is a long term goal for AVEQ.

“All interns should make a living wage, and all working people should be paid for the work they are doing and a fair wage, protected under the labour code,” she said. “Right now, […] interns are specifically excluded from the labour code, which means that they don’t have to be paid, but they are not considered workers. […] What we’re looking to do is to more specifically to change […] the labour code.”

“Interns are specifically excluded from the labour code, which means that they don’t have to be paid, but they are not considered workers. […] What we’re looking to do is to more specifically to change […] the labour code.”

Co-option of movements concerning unpaid internships

Following the November 14 motion, many organizations expressed support for financial compensation for education students. However, this also resulted in concerns over demands being misconstrued, diluting the conversation of unpaid internships to strictly financial compensation.

“We wish to highlight the difference between financial compensation and remuneration as they relate to unpaid internships: whilst compensation seeks to simply add to student financial aid, the fight for remuneration demands a living wage for hours worked, in addition to attaining better working conditions,” read AVEQ’s statement. It also emphasized that the motion “excludes the multiple other fields where mandatory internships are unpaid, as well as any internships that fall outside of the scope of mandatory in-program training, and has no mention of ensuring protections of interns as workers.”

“Whilst compensation seeks to simply add to student financial aid, the fight for remuneration demands a living wage for hours worked, in addition to attaining better working conditions.”

The statement also expressed concerns of organizations and campaigns that may detract from students organizing on the ground in favor for a living wage, as opposed to a stipend.

For example, Campagne de revendication et d’actions interuniversitaires des étudiants et étudiantes d’éducation en stage (CRAIES), as opposed to the CUTE campaign, advocates for financial compensation for education students in their final internships. CRAIE, with the Quebec Student Union (QSU), put out a press release with the Minister of Higher Education on November 14, requesting $330 per week for education students’ fourth field experience internship. According to AVEQ’s statement, the field of experience internship currently under study at the National Assembly is around $8.25 per hour, with a minimum of 40 hours of work a week. This falls short of Quebec’s minimum wage of $11.25, which is considered to be an insufficient living wage by numerous studies such as Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques (IRIS).

In response to the motion, the Minister of Higher Education Hélène David publicly opened the possibility for further discussion for the remuneration of internships in general, rather than focusing on one area of study. The increased profile of the issue is largely due to the mobilization on November 10, which increased pressure on the provincial government to address the issue of unpaid internships.

More work needed at McGill

Connor Spencer, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP External told the Daily that unpaid internships are an accepted practice at McGill,

“It’s something that’s seen as a normal practice. […] We need to [..] challenge the mentality of [unpaid internships] as gaining experience, and that is the reward the comes out of it, and understand that it is actually exploited labour. […] That kind of mentality feeds off of those who are already in precarious positions […] but most often students that need to work in order to be able to go to school, and students who are in certain faculties over others. […] Where we see a lot of unpaid internships are in education, which we know is disproportionately has a higher representation of women and people of colour working in that faculty.”

“The mentality that we should be challenging the fact that folks are still doing unpaid internships is very new on campus. […] It’s important that we join that fight as McGill students because I think often, a lot of the exploitation that happens on this campus goes unnoticed and uncalled out.”

“The mentality that we should be challenging the fact that folks are still doing unpaid internships is very new on campus.”

Spencer mentioned that because unpaid internships are perceived to be common practice, more work needs to be done on campus. SSMU adopted a motion to develop a policy against unpaid internships on March 2015 at the Winter General Assembly.

“The policy on unpaid internships […] upholds the rights that students have and condemns unpaid internships, and it mandates the VP external to raise awareness, […] [through] conversations, and campaigns. […] However, there’s not much else in that policy,” said Spencer. In order to create actionable items from the SSMU policy, SSMU would require additional tools and resources from the university.

“Unpaid internships are illegal in Quebec. Most people don’t know that,” said Spencer. The Act respecting Labour Standards states that a minimum wage requirement does not apply for “trainees” and “students” interning outside of the school context.

“Our university needs to take a stance on as well, [by] not letting unpaid internships be advertised to students,” said Spencer. While McGill’s Career Planning Service (CaPS) does not approve advertisements for unpaid internships, this does not apply for non-profits of NGOs.

“I think we need to be lobbying the university, [put] checks and balances in place, and have awareness campaigns,” said Spencer. “We don’t necessarily have w resources dedicated to that beyond the words of this policy. […] So I think we need to have a much larger conversation. […] but the resources aren’t there to actually make that happen. […] If we truly want to, as a union, commit to this, we need to have a larger conversation of how we’re going to achieve this among our membership.”

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375 years of racial subjugation

Maynard spoke to the audience about racial profiling in Montreal, and the legacy of racialized violence in Canada.

“While it’s important to talk about anti-Blackness as a national crisis and a global crisis, […] it’s also important to think of [anti-Blackness] as a local crisis, as one that impacts our day to day lives here,” said Maynard.

“Montreal very recently celebrated its 375th anniversary, and this […] is an opportunity for us to reflect on the long standing racial violence […] that brings injustice of profiling Black communities. […] Disproportionate punishment to Black communities that have really been a part of this city’s fabric since then.”

“Disproportionate punishment to Black communities that have really been a part of this city’s fabric since then.”

Maynard noted that James McGill, the founder of McGill University, had enslaved Black and Indigenous people, contributing to a “longstanding legacy of racialized violence, domination and dehumanization.”

Maynard highlighted the ways in which racial profiling is perpetuated in Montreal: “If we think about the neighbourhoods that we’re living in, the populations with the highest percentage of Black communities in St. Michel and Montreal North today still are not only subject to extreme levels in terms of policing, but drastically underserved in transit, jobs, and housing.” According to a report by Centraide, around 30 per cent of the Montreal North residents live below the poverty line. Activist groups in the region have voiced concern on a “systemic anti-Black racism” in Quebec following the death of Bony Jean-Pierre, who died after being shot by police in Montreal North.

In addition to the harms of anti-Black racism in Black communities, Maynard noted that communities such as Burgundy and Cote des Neiges have been gentrified, disproportionately affecting Black and other racialized residents. She noted such “geographies of injustice” perpetuate racial profiling.

“This is a long-standing pattern of Black people [who] are being killed in the hands of the police, [who] are not being represented as a local crisis that [they] absolutely must. […] When we’re talking about celebrating 375 years of this city, we also need to be talking about what it means to be living in a city with 375 years of […] racial subjugation and over-policing of Black communities,” said Maynard.

“When we’re talking about celebrating 375 years of this city, we also need to be talking about what it means to be living in a city with 375 years of […] racial subjugation and over-policing of Black communities.”

Racial profiling beyond carding

Maynard referred to an internal report by criminologist Mathieu Charest, which states that the chances of a Black youth being stopped by the police in the north part of Montreal is at 40 per cent.

The percentage is drastically lower for white youth, at merely 5 per cent. While the report was commissioned by the police after the shooting of Fredy Villanueva by a Montreal police officer in 2008, it was rejected by the Montreal police when leaked by La Presse.

Maynard stressed the importance of looking beyond statistics and visible forms of police violence despite the “massive” discrepancy highlighted by the report.

“We only focus on spectacularized kinds of events, for example, police killings, police violence. We miss all of the kinds of daily rituals of violence that occur […] without death, including racial profiling. […] There are so many other kinds of policing and profiling that don’t necessarily [..] get put into this framework because it doesn’t […] result in a body. […] We need to look at racial profiling in a broader sense, not just law enforcement.”

“We only focus on spectacularized kinds of events, for example, police killings, police violence. We miss all of the kinds of daily rituals of violence that occur […] without death, including racial profiling.”

She continued, “what the statistics don’t convey is the […] humiliation and shame that comes with being stopped by the police. […] The inability to actually be in public space without fear of harassment or actual lived harassment is […] ultimately […] a form of violence.”

“We need to look at racial profiling in a broader sense, not just law enforcement.”

Maynard noted that racial profiling is also a “gateway” for other forms of violence. “We need to expand this definition of what is actually happening in schools,” said Maynard, noting the importance of thinking beyond carding as an indication of anti-Black racism.

“What anti-Black racism means is that, […] for us, policing is everywhere. So it’s absolutely necessary for us to realize this when we talk about what it means to strategize against the onset of racial profiling. […] If we focus our energy only on the issue of carding while ignoring the broad, sweeping things that exist beyond that, I think we will be doing a disservice to ourselves.”

According to a report by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, Caribbean background students were three times more likely to be labelled as student with special needs. “This is the kind of profiling, […] pushing youth out of access to decent education […] as a certain kind of harm,” said Maynard.

Definition of Policing

Cole spoke about the boundaries of law enforcement, and the ways in which policing is perceived by the public.

“What I want to talk about today is this idea of the definition of policing. […] What is it in real life? What is it in the public consciousness?” asked Cole.

“Teachers, nurses, bus drivers, social workers, universities. […] You can find any walk of life that you’re going to have a conflict with one another. But only the police are told that it’s part of their job, you can kill. […] What if we stop arguing about whether they have the training (which they don’t)? Whether they should carry a rubber bullet gun or a taser, weapons? None of which they should have.”

“Teachers, nurses, bus drivers, social workers, universities. […] You can find any walk of life that you’re going to have a conflict with one another. But only the police are told that it’s part of their job, you can kill.

Cole referred to the the Toronto Board’s recent decision to temporarily suspend a program that allowed armed police to surveil in high schools. “What’s been happening in Toronto recently [is] […] we are pushing back against a ten year police in schools program [that] finally got suspended in the Toronto district school board,” said Cole.

The School Resource Officer (SRO) program was implemented in 2007 to improve student and police relations, but was put up for review after community members published a report detailing the negative impact of the SRO. Subsequently, the SRO has been been criticized for alienating racialized students and criminalizing undocumented students.

In June, groups such as Black Lives Matter and Not Incarceration called for the abolition of the SRO at a board meeting, halting the program. The Toronto District School Board will be conducting a written survey for participating schools to evaluate the SRO.

“But what we’re seeing is that it’s principals and teachers, not just the police who are driving this conversation to have police in schools,” said Cole. He emphasized the importance of re-defining policing to prevent racialized violence perpetrated by police institutions.

“As a description of policing; don’t kill, don’t maim, don’t arrest children who are in school, don’t report children who are in school to the border agency. […] This is where we have to go. […] If we take away the option to kill, all the anti-Blackness starts flooding in as an excuse to why we can’t do it. […] ‘What is the police’s job?’ […] We seem to want to pretend that […] we agree that police should be not reporting undocumented children who are going to school [..] but when we say ‘let’s make that part of the job’, they [respond], ‘no […] what if’. […] That’s the way I see anti-blackness manifest itself.”

Cole referred to Toronto activist Sandy Hudson, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, in a conversation on “what it means for Black people to receive care, rather than policing.”

“ I start to think about what is the definition of a police officer, and what happens when we start to challenge that definition,” said Cole. He noted that the suspension of the program is not only a push against anti-Black racism, but also re-examines the definition of policing. “The definition of their jobs are up for discussion right now,” he noted. “When we try to turn policing from the abusive institution that it is now to an institution that could actually care for people […] the white colonial settler state […] gets scared.”

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Barriers in resettlement

Danny Yeo, the president of HanVoice Ottawa, spoke on the challenges resettlement poses to many North Koreans, specifically, the difficulty of working around the immigration regulations of surrounding countries.

“When North Korean refugees […] defect from North Korea, their goal is to get to Thailand. […] It’s known as a safe haven, and more than 90 per cent of refugees end up there,” said Yeo, “In China, if they get caught, they will be deported back to North Korea.”

Thailand has become a popular transit destination for North Korean resettlement. In the first six months of 2016 alone, 385 North Koreans entered Thailand. While the Royal Thai Government (RTG) does not recognize North Koreans’ refugee status, they permit illegal entry.

Throughout the migration process, refugees face the risk of deportation back to North Korea. The North Korean government considers unauthorized departure a criminal offense, meaning that returning to North Korea leads to prosecution. Many choose to cross the eastern border out of the country, using a paid broker for travel arrangements. This route involves travelling through China, where North Korean refugees are considered economic migrants instead of asylum seekers.

Yeo explained that North Korean citizens face limited options after leaving the country. “Another problem is that when they arrive [in] Thailand, they only have two options; South Korea [or] the US,” said Yeo. “Currently, the US is not the best place to go, because of the […] administration. […] The process is very long, whereas South Korea is very quick.”

Under the South Korean Constitution, all North Koreans are recognized as South Korean citizens. Even so, North Koreans in South Korea face marginalization and other barriers in resettlement.

“In South Korea, there is another problem. […] There is a lot of discrimination against the refugees.” said Yeo. “Most North Korean refugees […] come as single mothers, meaning that […] they themselves struggle to get by. […] Even at home, […] North Korean children do not receive [adequate] attention and help. Even the education system is very competitive.”

Yeo told the audience that HanVoice has been in talks with the Canadian federal government about establishing a program that would allow Canadians to sponsor North Korean refugees.

“We wanted to create an opportunity for these North Korean refugees to come over to Canada. [We] not only have a strong Korean-Canadian community, […] but I’d like to believe that Canada will take care of people who are displaced.”

Canada has historically shown favorable policies towards North Korean refugees, with a 90 per cent acceptance rate in 2011 and 2012. However, the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) began rejecting applications in 2013 and 2014, citing that South Korean citizenship is guaranteed to North Koreans by default. In 2014, only one out of the 327 refugee claims was accepted.

“We wanted to create an opportunity for these North Korean refugees to come over to Canada. […] I’d like to believe that Canada will take care of people who are displaced.”

Ellie Cha’s story

“Today I am here to share my story as a North Korean refugee,” said Cha. “I remember my first visit to Pyongyang. I remember the busy men and women rushing down the streets to ride shiny new buses to work. […] Young children playing by the grass. But, most of all: I remember my father. I remember walking up the steps of his university holding his hand. I remember his sharp suit, a uniform worn only by the very best in the country.”

Cha’s father was a high-ranking official before falling out of favour with the North Korean government. He was subsequently dismissed from his position as the vice president of a large mining company. The family’s socioeconomic situation deteriorated after this, and they decided to leave North Korea and seek asylum in South Korea.

“We would no longer be cared for in a way we were for the past eight years. […] In North Korea, our family had no future anymore, especially for me and my brother.”

The family initially planned to travel to the South Korean embassy and request asylum in Vietnam. However, the family was found by Vietnam authorities and detained, then sent to the Chinese Border. After five failed attempts to enter Vietnam from China, the family decided to enter South Korea through Thailand, where they met South Korean embassy officers. During this process, Cha was separated from her family for several days, during which her mother suffered a high fever and malaria.

“From North Korea into China, to Vietnam, to Laos to Thailand, and into South Korea. The world felt big. But, I’m here to tell you — still, there’s no space for me and my family. As a refugee, my journey continues. We’re still searching for [a] home. It is only last year that my family finally had the time to reflect and talk. Not as refugees trying to survive, but [as] people, a family, trying to move forward.”

“It is only last year that my family finally had the time to reflect and talk. Not as refugees trying to survive, but [as] people, a family, trying to move forward.”

Empowerment, not victimization

When asked what motivated her to pursue advocacy work, Cha recalled meeting others who “did not know that their [refugee] life was not normal.”

Such experiences led Cha to promote human rights for North Korean refugees. “From these experiences I [have], and heard, I couldn’t shut my eyes from [these] people who will have the same experiences as I did. […] Personally, I am not an extrovert, I am an introvert and don’t like doing public speaking. […] But if I don’t do this, if we don’t do this because we don’t like it, who can do it? That’s why I decided to do advocacy.” Cha is currently pursuing a media communications degree at Seoul University in South Korea. She worked as an intern in the office of Senator Yonah Martin, and has spoken in multiple universities about her experience.

Cha emphasized the importance of empowering North Korean activists as the leaders of their own movement, “North Korean refugees […] can act as a bridge, and as a main voice […] [representing] North Korea. […] When people just see us as victims and media or organizations paint us as victims, they can get more attention, but that’s it. We cannot see any changes. […] but when you see them as a powerful potential, North Korean refugees can [assume] an important role as agents of change, said Cha.

“North Korean refugees […] can act as a bridge, and as a main voice [representing] North Korea.”

“Only five years ago, I was just a victim by regime. Even when I first arrived to South Korea, I considered myself as a victim because people looked [at] and treated us as victims. But there [were] some people who supported, encouraged me. […] I [was] empowered to become an agent of changes and to help my homeland. […] It is not because I have a special ability, I am just one of [the] 23 million North Koreans. So, if I can do this, my family, my friends can do this, and all […] 23 million people in North Korea can do [the] same things to make North Korea’s change. […] And I believe that change starts in a small step.”

Cha concluded her testimony with a reminder of shared humanity. “I believe that I will end my journey in a free North Korea. […] I don’t want you to feel sorry or pity hearing my stories. My story is not one of weakness. My story is one of great strength. It’s one of great power; the power of parents’ sacrifice for their family. The power that resides in our shared humanity, […] including North Koreans, this humanity gives us the same chance to live.”

“My story is one of great strength. It’s one of great power; the power of parents’ sacrifice for their family. The power that resides in our shared humanity, […] including North Koreans, this humanity gives us the same chance to live.”

An earlier version of this article incorrectly mentioned that more than 9 per cent of North Korean refugees end up in Thailand, when in fact, more than 90 per cent of North Korean refugees end up in Thailand. The Daily regrets the error. 

Editor’s note: Some quotes have been modified in consultation with the speaker for clarity reasons. 

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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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Support group for racialized and ethnic minority students

The event launched a new Support Group for Racialized and Ethnic Minority Students; the support group aimed to create a facilitated space for racialized and marginalized students, as well as provide a non-judgemental environment where students can reflect on their identities and share their experience on campus. The theme of conversation in the group’s weekly meeting would be based on the needs of the group present that week. Students who identify as Black, as Indigenous, as people of Colour, or members of a racialized minority may access the group through McGill Counselling website.

“I think [the support group] is a very important safe space for students where they can come to talk about their experiences […] of microaggressions, […] feeling invisible, […] feeling denied, or feeling frustrated, […] whether it is from faculty, or their experience of the institution as a whole, or from classmates. It’s not about a fight or rebellion, it is about taking the time to stop and talk about how it has affected people and relations with each other. […] I can attest to the power of being witnessed, of being heard, of being able to understand and identify the oppression coming from outside. This can be very empowering versus internalizing it, and feeling very distraught inside.” said Boyard.

“It’s not about a fight or rebellion, it is about taking the time to stop and talk about how it has affected people and relations with each other. […] I can attest to the power of being witnessed, of being heard, of being able to understand and identify the oppression coming from outside. This can be very empowering versus internalizing it, and feeling very distraught inside.”

Boyard told The Daily that the support group is “part of an ongoing process” to address mental health for marginalized and racialized students at McGill saying that, “[the support group] addresses the issues related to the system and the structure that we have right now, which is meant to protect the privileged. […] I think up until now, there hasn’t be a space in this institution where they have a chance to do that.”

Power structure activity

After the panel discussion, the facilitators led a power structure activity where participants created a sculpture with objects in the room. The structure depicted a situation where one object had more “power” than others; one chair was placed above a table with five chairs on the floor surrounding one water bottle. Participants then reflected on which object had the most power and construed a definition of power based on the structure. One participant named the sculpture “Power Struggles”, as it represents a hierarchy with “no competition that contains “the power in structure.”

Delali Egyima, a psychology student in her third year at McGill commented on the parallels between “Power Struggles” and the McGill power structure. “I found the power structure to be very telling of […] the structure we all see of marginalized people and the different ways in which we are marginalized. […] With the McGill structure, there are some power structures that we can’t see and we aren’t told about such as the SSMU [Judiciary] board.”

While participants were encouraged to reflect on power structures, they were also directed to move the objects in such a way that represents the changes that would make the McGill community more inclusive. The participants placed all six chairs in a circle surrounding the water bottle, with the table flattened on the floor. The first set of changes were described as “equality”, “reform”, and “reparation” by the audience.

“I found the power structure to be very telling of […] the structure we all see of marginalized people and the different ways in which we are marginalized. […] With the McGill structure, there are some power structures that we can’t see and we aren’t told about such as the SSMU [Judiciary] board.”

Yasmin Beydoun, a student in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill, spoke about the importance of improving inclusivity at McGill, “I think [reforms on the sculpture] symbolize progress but also resilience […] I think it’s a start but I also acknowledge a lot of the work is on these […] Black Indigenous racialized folks, also folks who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, disabled communities. […] We’re still the ones doing the work. It is being pushed forward by us, for us.”

“I think [reforms on the sculpture] symbolize progress but also resilience […] I think it’s a start but I also acknowledge a lot of the work is on these […] Black Indigenous racialized folks, also folks who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, disabled communities. […] We’re still the ones doing the work. It is being pushed forward by us, for us.”

She also relayed the importance of acknowledging how more support for students is needed, “The system is still not doing all that it can to support and to further our mental health and wellbeing in general.”

“Systems are everywhere whether or not they are apparent to us or whether they are implicit. We live in a society that is structured, so […] McGill is a structure within itself, and these […] oppressive layers do exist, and in different ways […] To be able to have this space where we can visually dissect a power structure was […] powerful to see.”

Thrival over survival

The final sculpture was a circle shaped system with the chairs turned every other way, and the water bottle placed in the middle. The table was removed from the sculpture. Participants described the last sculpture as “community”, “peace” and “reconciliation”. One noted that the word “safety” comes to mind.

Shanice Yarde, the equity educational advisor at the SEDE told The Daily, “Through my work as an equity advisor, I see creating spaces for students of color, […] for racialized communities, […] as part of the work […] to not only speak their truth but to be validated, affirmed, and to feel that this is a place where […] they can be well in, and thrive.”

Yarde described “thinking about thrival beyond surviving” as a key part of a “cultural shift at McGill”.

“I think a lot of people are just fighting to survive at McGill,” continued Yarde. “I am interested in what the shifts should be in order to thrive, and to be well and happy. […] I think about Alice Walker quote, ‘the most common way people give up power is by thinking they don’t have any.’ […] An activity such as this, in a space such as this, affirms that we do have power even if it feels like we don’t […] The specific power activity […] was an opportunity to move a chair, to move a table, and to […] make the shift. […] This day is one piece of that.. [….] It means to recognize the power, to use it in ways that will enable our thrival.”

An earlier version of this article failed to mention that a fourth speaker, Helen Ogundeji had participated in the panel. The Daily regrets the error.

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The Board of Directors is the highest governing body within SSMU and is responsible for running the business affairs of the society and ratifying certain political decisions. The constitutionality of the Board has recently been called into question because there are only three SSMU Execs currently serving, which is one too few, and eight members at large, which is four too many.

BDS is a pro-Palestinian movement that works to eliminate international support for Israel in its continued occupation and oppression of Palestine. BDS McGill is an on-campus branch of the movement that fights for the university to boycott, divest from and put sanctions on Israel.

Conflict of interest question

During question period, Councillor Vithushon Thayalan addressed a potential conflict of interest in the BoD’s ratification of the BDS reference. The reference declaring BDS unconstitutional was first issued in 2016 by the SSMU Judicial board. The board ruled that BDS violated the SSMU Equity Policy. At the time, current SSMU President Muna Tojiboeva, served as one of the three judges who was assigned to the case. Tojiboeva currently sits on the BoD, which almost unanimously ratified the BDS decision September 2017.

According to SSMU’s conflict of interest policy, councillors with a conflict of interest must abstain from voting “on matters materially connected with their employment at the Society.” Failure to comply may result in a temporary suspension, a formal apology, or removal from the office.

When asked why she did not abstain from voting on the constitutionality of BDS, Tojiboeva answered, “I don’t have a personal conflict of interest because I don’t derive any personal interest from the [BDS] decision, I also don’t derive any financial gains from the decision.”

Missing BoD minutes

Referring to the same BoD meeting, SSMU VP External Connor Spencer asked Tojiboeva whether the Council can expect a report from the BoD on the BDS ratification. While such a statement has apparently not been prepared, Tojiboeva told Council that the meeting’s minutes addressing the ratification were already available online. However, a student present at the meeting confirmed that the last available meeting minutes were from April 2017, and thus that the minutes regarding the BDS decision were still unpublicized.

In response, SSMU’s General Manager, Ryan Hughes, pointed to some technical difficulties in transferring from SSMU’s old website to its new one. While the soft launch of the new website is scheduled for next week, Hughes explained that the minutes would still “not necessarily be available to the public.”

When reminded by SSMU VP Internal Affairs Maya Koparkar that the BoD must publicize minutes as well as report to council on all BoD decisions (per section 1.7 of the SSMU constitution), Tojiboeva answered, “I was unaware that a report needed to be made in terms of our presentation to Council.”

“I was unaware that a report needed to be made in terms of our presentation to Council.”

The BoD’s lack of transparency

Further into question period, SSMU VP Finance Arisha Khan asked Tojiboeva why the SSMU Speaker has not presided over BoD meetings. While the Speaker may not vote or be counted towards quorum, section 11.6 of the SSMU Constitution requires them to preside over all BoD, General Assembly (GA), and Legislative Council meetings.

In response, Tojiboeva claimed that the Speaker no longer facilitates BoD meetings since the Constitution was amended in March 2017. The amendments in question allow President Tojiboeva to chair the BoD instead of the Speaker, while retaining voting and quorum rights.

An audience member questioned the validity of amendments, however, pointing out that “[the] Winter GA didn’t reach quorum, so the constitutional amendments couldn’t have been made.”

“[the] Winter GA didn’t reach quorum, so the constitutional amendments couldn’t have been made.”

Tojiboeva then clarified that the amendments were ratified through an electronic vote after the GA. However, the documents regarding the motion are not available on elections SSMU. Neither is the BoD resolution book, which has not been updated since 2016. The question of the resolution book was brought up during the last BoD meeting, according to Khan.

While Tojiboeva recognized the concerns regarding the unpublicized documents, she did not provide a clear timeline on when the resolution book would be updated.

“I think that’s a very valid concern and we should address this seriously. In terms of the timeline […] I would like to inquire my secretary general who would most likely be addressing the issue […] because […] in terms of my own capacities as President, I would not be able to address this immediately on my own time.”

Motion regarding nominations to the BoD

A motion to appoint SSMU VP Student Life Jemark Earle to the BoD was passed, effective immediately. In order to maintain the requisite 12 member composition on the BoD, one member-at-large will resign from their position. The resignation is to be decided at the next BoD meeting.

“The approval of the VP Student Life is immediately necessary to have a functioning BoD,” said Koparkar. At the time of the BDS ratification, the BoD was composed of three SSMU executives and nine members-at-large instead of the required four executives, four members at large, and four councillors. The constitutionality of the BDS decision has been contested due to the composition of the BoD.

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On Tuesday, September 19, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit South Central Mexico. The epicenter of the quake was in the state of Puebla, located approximately 120 km from Mexico City. As of Friday, September 22, death tolls stood at 282, 137 of whom died in the capital. This number is expected to rise as efforts to clear rubble continue and more bodies are found. Victims of the earthquake also face the threat of aftershocks, which could be acutely harmful given the structural instability caused by the initial strike.

The quake also devastated infrastructure, leaving whole communities homeless. The Puebla area is facing the most damage with 1,700 homes declared inhospitable and in need of demolishing in the coming months. Desperate families affected by the housing emergency are making pleas on social media for humanitarian aid. The government is struggling to deal with the widespread destruction.

Destruction within Mexico City is widespread, and at least 44 buildings were levelled by the quake. The damage in the capital is partly due to the high population density, but the impact of the earthquake was magnified by its geography. Mexico City is built on an ancient lakebed made of clay, which amplify seismic waves. As a result, tremors reverberate through the area with a devastating effect. The Mexican army and navy entered the city in the aftermath of the quake to participate in the relief effort. People still need to be rescued from collapsed buildings, and unstable structures need to be demolished.

According to some, the army has caused added turmoil in the city by prematurely demolishing certain buildings, without adequately attempting to rescue people who may have been trapped.

The most recent quake occurred less than two weeks after the 8.1 magnitude quake, which was the most powerful earthquake in the country in over a century to reach the Southern coast of Mexico. While the timing of these events are very close, most experts claim that the timing is coincidence. Both quakes were caused by shifts in the Cocos plate, located just off the coast of the continent. The Cocos plate is gradually pushing underneath the North American plate, causing a massive pressure increase which is sporadically released in these destructive tremors. Shifts in these tectonic plates are a constant reality for Mexico, and while the cause of these two recent quakes are the same, their timing is coincidental.

With material from The Guardian, NPR, ABC, and Al Jazeera.

Tensions rise ahead of Catalan independence referendum

Catalonia’s government is scheduled to hold an independence referendum on October 1 which will determine whether Catalonia can leave Spain.

Spain has attempted to block the referendum by ordering suspension, arresting 14 senior officials from three government buildings, and raiding print shops to confiscate referendum ballots. Legal measures were taken to prevent advertisements from being released to media sources, and prevent delivery companies from distributing pamphlets. Madrid has declared the referendum unconstitutional, and warned that anyone who participates in the voting will be indicted.

In response to the crackdown, thousands of protesters gathered in the streets of Barcelona, followed by a solidarity rally in Madrid. The Spanish government and prime minister Mariano Rajoy have been criticized for being anti-democratic. Rajoy argues that the Spanish Constitution of 1978 makes the country is indivisible, and therefore, has no provision for a self-determination vote. This did not stop Catalonia from taking legislative steps to develop its own law on self-governance.

Recent tensions between Madrid and Barcelona have consolidated an image of unified pro-independence sentiment. However, unlike desire for the referendum, the separatist cause is fragmented among voters. In a public survey commissioned by the Catalan government in 2015, 41 per cent of Catalans were in favour of independence. During the 2014 referendum, the low turnout of 2.2 million out of 5.4 million voters showed that the ‘No’ voters boycotted the poll.

Support for an independent Catalonia began after 1939, when the dictatorship of Francisco Franco restricted the Catalan language. Separatist sentiment abated temporarily after Franco’s death, with the return of democracy, only to rise again in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Separatists believe that Spain’s central government allocates less to Catalonia than the province contributes financially to the rest of the country; while Catalonia makes up 16 per cent of Spain’s population, it accounts for 19 per cent of the national GDP.

Catalonia is proceeding with the referendum as planned, and will legally declare independence from Spain within 48 hours if the vote is won. It is unclear whether the Spanish government will eventually resort to article 155 of the constitution, an unprecedented move which would allow Spain to directly intervene with Catalonia by deploying national police.

With material from The Guardian, NPR, and The Financial Times.

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