As the city prepares for the UCI Grand Prix Cycliste and Road World Championships, ongoing street closures are raising concerns among locals, businesses, and individuals with reduced mobility. The Grand Prix Cycliste is a competition between commercial world and pro teams whereas the Road World Championships is a competition between national teams. These cycling events are among the most internationally prestigious, bringing the best cyclists to the streets of Montreal to compete for international recognition. 

Road closures began on September 5 in preparation for the Grand Prix Cycliste, which occurred on September 13. With the Road World Championships occurring from September 20 to 27, accessibility barriers and mobility challenges have become a topic of discussion. 

The road closures for the Road World Championships will affect 36 kilometres of Montreal streets, including major pedestrian pathways, and will last until October 4. According to the Ville de Montreal website, roads near McGill will face closures, either until October 4 or on select race days. These roads include Avenue du Mont Royal Est, Avenue du Parc, Rue Saint-Urbain, Avenue du Docteur-Penfield, and Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Moreover, students living near the Berri- UQAM metro station will experience closures on roads such as Rue Sainte-Catherine Est and Rue Berri. Those who frequent Parc Mont Royal should also prepare for closures on parts of Chemin Olmsted and Chemin Remembrance. 

On Sunday, I briefly watched the UCI Grand Prix Cycliste from the Plateau and had the opportunity to see many excited Montrealers doing the same. That being said, those with reduced mobility remain concerned about transit access. The CBC reports that during a recent meeting between Ville- Marie borough council officials, wheelchair user France Martin brought up concerns surrounding the inaccessibility of the STM’s paratransit due to the closures. According to CTV News, accessibility advocates have argued that these closures will also affect people’s access to medication, groceries, and homecare. CTV spoke with Steven Laperrière, executive director of Regroupement des activistes pour l’inclusion au Québec (RAPLIQ), an organization which advocates for Quebecois people with disabilities. Laperrière stated that because of the month-long duration of the closures, accessibility barriers are “very complicated.” He argues that the effects of these closures could be detrimental, calling for greater effort from the city to reduce barriers. 

In addition to transit barriers, there are multiple pedestrian bridges where people must climb flights of stairs in order to cross. This includes the bridge at the intersection of Avenue du Parc and Avenue des Pins Ouest. As a result, those in wheelchairs or with mobility challenges can only cross the course with on-site assistance at designated times. This challenge may require significant planning and flexibility from people with disabilities. 

On top of these accessibility concerns, there is a growing conversation among local business owners on how to adapt to the challenge of reduced access for their consumers. CTV reports that businesses on Avenue du Parc have expressed concerns of closures deterring suppliers from reaching their businesses. That being said, some businesses are looking forward to the expected increase in foot traffic from championship watchers. 

The road closures are also sure to obstruct recreational running and cycling routes near McGill and in other parts of Montreal. With the closure of parts of Chemin Olmstead near Avenue du Parc, students will have to find different points of entry to access Parc Mont Royal. One alternative entry is at the top of Rue University near the Upper Residence dorms. Moreover, those who run or cycle near Parc Jean-Drapeau may experience inconveniences as roads such as Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and Pont de la Concorde will also experience closures from September 19 to 21. The city has established multiple measures to respond to accessibility concerns. According to the CBC, Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada stated that “Accessibility for people who rely on services like paratransit is indeed going to be a major issue during these championships because — let’s be honest — it’s going to be a nightmare.” Consequently, the city and event coordinators have agreed that the STM will be permitted through blocked areas to ensure paratransit access. Urgences-santé spokesperson, Geneviève Poirier, told CTV News that there will be “two dedicated ambulance crews, as well as paramedics on bicycles.” 

Bixi has also announced an expansion of bike access to improve mobility around the city. According to the CBC, from September 13 to 27, the maximum duration of rides for monthly Bixi subscribers will increase from 45 minutes to one hour. There will also be a total of 120 stations within 500 metres of racing routes. In addition, the Bixi team plans to adapt their services, by either adding additional bikes or ensuring space at docking stations, to create alternative means of transport in response to the increase in traffic and road closures. Bixi has also created daily maps which show the bike stations and race routes, which are accessible at their website. 

Despite the city’s modifications, students, commuters, and people with disabilities are sure to confront challenges to their daily routines. As race routes change daily, closures remain somewhat inconsistent. In order to stay up to date, monitor the 2026 UCI Road World Championships interactive map on the Ville de Montreal website. It details daily road closures, including changes to local-traffic-only roads and pedestrian crossings from September 19 to 27. Commuter students should also plan their routes on the STM website, which has a detailed travel guide, outlining the disruptions and modifications to regular transit routes. Students should also make use of apps such as Transit or Chrono as these will display live transit schedules and delays due to the Road World Championships. 

While accessibility remains an ongoing concern, the Road World Championships are also an opportunity for McGill students to attend a world-class sporting event for free. The official Fan Village located in Parc Jeanne-Mance is only a short walk from McGill campus. Moreover, all the races have the same finish line on Avenue du Parc. While students can observe the races along race routes, they can also watch the races on giant screens, participate in contests, and buy food and drinks in the Fan Village. These Fan Village perks and race schedules can further be monitored on the UCI Road World Championships website.

The post The UCI Road World Championships: Where Excitement Meets Inconvenience appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Despite McCamman’s recent success, his path to gaining momentum in the indie world wasn’t straightforward. As recently as 2024, he was feeling increasingly stifled playing guitar in the Philadelphia punk band Blood, despite the group having released a full-length album and built a small fanbase. He took a risk by leaving the band later that year, instead moving to New York to be the frontman of his own project: Victoryland.

The ambition which led him into leaving Blood and starting Victoryland drove him apart from many of his musical peers in Philadelphia. But two years on from that move, it has become apparent that he made the right decision. Following the release of My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It, LCD Soundsystem’s frontman James Murphy took a liking to Victoryland, eventually giving them the opportunity to open for the legendary New York band’s North American tour. Their first stop was in Vancouver, where Radio TinTin had the chance to speak to McCamman about what some would call his selfish decision to leave Blood and found Victoryland, pursuing the goal of making “perfect” pop music.

A musician’s decision to leave their band is often characterized as ‘selfish’, and it’s easy to see how an artist could take offense at being described this way. Yet McCamman readily agreed with the label: “I like that you called it selfish, honestly… because it was. I think the inception of this project was me starting to prioritize my own songwriting over songwriting for [Blood], which had been restricting my creative urge to write true hits and accessible [pop] music.”

The abrasive punk sound of his previous band eventually became limiting for McCamman, although it took him a while to realize the appeal of a more “mainstream” outlook. “When I was younger, I really loved experimental music, and I really liked challenging myself [with it],” he recalls. “But when I got older, I think I realized that it takes a real skill to write a simple song that is really infectious.”

“I love music where every part of the song is really satisfying, and you can really do that with music. I think about that a lot — how music can be ‘perfect.’ The appeal of what he calls “perfect” music soon became a fixation for McCamman. “I got really obsessed with how people say they can’t stop listening to a song, and what goes into making [that].”

The notion of “perfection” goes against the grain of most of the independent music realm. Victoryland itself is labeled as an “alternative” band — so how could they be chasing the very “perfection” they’re branded to reject? Their answer is by aligning “perfect” with music that’s accessible, not necessarily mainstream. Making music for the masses doesn’t have to be synonymous with chasing universal appeal or losing creative nuance.

The “perfect” song à la Victoryland can still be deeply authentic, especially in its lyrical content. Using a catchy, danceable pop beat to propose deeper or more psychological themes is something they share with LCD Soundsystem. While the New York band is firmly “alternative,” it’s hard not to dance to singles like the aptly titled “Dance Yrself Clean,” regardless of your musical background.

McCamman loves this dichotomy: “My real hope is that someone is jumping up and down and singing to [our] music, and then slowly realizing what they’re saying is [actually] really gross or violent. Because that is [the] thing about pop music [that] is really interesting to me — the way people feel it before they really hear what is being said.”

The authenticity of Victoryland’s lyrics has become a core feature of their music. The words allow McCamman, a passionate songwriter, to showcase his more unsavoury tastes in a way that to him feels both confrontational and strangely inviting. “If I was to tell you some of the gnarly thoughts I have regularly, I think people would be like, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’” McCamman says with a chuckle. “But everybody has those thoughts.”

Through Victoryland, McCamman seeks to amplify the uglier thoughts that come with being human. Singles like “Here I Stand” channel that same candour into a disregard for outside expectations, turning the abstract aversion into something blunt and immediate. In it, McCamman sings: “Here I stand / Whoever said it’s foolish / Fuck you and everyone else.”

Victoryland’s pursuit of perfection is one that not many are willing to take on, and McCamman is intent on pushing back against the indifference toward ambition that has taken hold in younger creative circles. “The poison of nonchalance and people who are ‘too cool for school’ are everywhere, especially on the East Coast,” McCamman explains, “I really hate that shit.” He pauses, then reiterates emphatically: ”I hate that shit.”

He continues: “Because if you fail and you weren’t trying to appease people, then you didn’t really fail, right? And there’s a failsafe, like, it’s like, ‘Oh, I failed? I didn’t try that hard,’” he says with a shrug. “And, well, you should try for something big and fail really hard, you know? An awesome failure is better than a safe layup. You just might as well go big.”

In terms of his creative ambitions, McCamman leaves no space for guesswork. He is continuing to strive towards making ‘perfect’ music, according to his own definition.

The post Victoryland: The Selfish Pursuit of Perfect Music appeared first on The McGill Daily.

It turns out that much of the reason why we choose to skip reading these documents is by design. Studies show that interfaces push users toward desired outcomes. You may recognize “interface interference,” as obscured information, preselected options, or layouts that steer you toward quick agreement. You may additionally notice the issue of “forced action,” where you must accept terms in order to continue using a service — a dynamic mirrored with Apple, where users cannot access their device without clicking “agree.”

I wanted to explore these findings a bit deeper. Focusing on Apple’s Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) and Privacy Policy, my research draws on a descriptive survey as well as a few in- depth interviews to explore how users make sense of their own consent practices. The goal of the research is not to determine whether or not people should read these policies, but rather to understand how people perceive their role in the process of consenting.

Most participants reported skipping Apple’s T&Cs. Over 70 per cent said they “always” or “often” ignored them, while only three per cent claimed to have fully read one term. Interviewees echoed this sentiment, describing the pursuit of reading these documents as frustrating and futile. Even those who tried reading the fine print admitted they didn’t understand what they read, or felt that the option to decline was a false choice. Others cited time, language, and emotional energy as barriers to reading the T&Cs.

When asked how they felt after skipping the T&Cs, most listed emotions such as indifference, “uncomfiness,” or guilt. Some participants noted that skipping has become so automatic, they rarely think about it, one writing: “I don’t even hesitate anymore. It’s just part of using the phone.” Other times, participants described skipping the T&Cs as a pragmatic response to a system they believed was never designed for them to understand in the first place. This is an important distinction as it shows that many people were not skipping fully reading the T&Cs due to lack of concern. Interviewees expressed discomfort and even embarrassment when reflecting on their habits, despite acknowledging how inaccessible the T&Cs were.

Most participants, even those who felt uneasy about skipping T&Cs, justified their behaviour by downplaying the risks or rationalizing their decision in some other way. A dominant sentiment was that “nothing bad has happened so far,” so the perceived threat seemed unlikely to ever happen. It was difficult to tell if this was a sense of passive trust in Apple or just what participants said to make themselves feel better.

Not everyone dismissed the act of reading these agreements. Older participants were far more likely to have read them, and expressed that doing so was part of being a responsible consumer. Even still, most participants who did not read them believed it was ultimately their responsibility to understand them. Additionally, participants who felt shame in skipping them reinforce the idea that non-compliance is a personal failure, not a structural issue.

Almost 60 per cent of respondents said they do not trust Apple to use their data ethically. Still, most people felt they had no other choice than to accept so that they could participate in modern life with a phone — posing a clear moral dilemma. Despite this, clicking “agree” functions as full legal consent. These findings suggest that responsibility is defaulted to users, even when they lack the time and knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Participants often internalized this expectation, blaming themselves for not reading or understanding. This model is unrealistic and unfair, placing a huge burden on individuals while corporations abstain from taking accountability.

By exploring not just whether users read these documents, but how they justify and interpret their behaviour, this research reveals the extensive cognitive and emotional labour hidden beneath a single click. It’s clear most people skip T&Cs. However, their reasons for doing so are more complex than just apathy. Many described a sense of frustration, futility, or guilt. Over time, users have become so used to skipping these forms, they did not think twice about it. This is reminiscent of cultural anthropologist, Natasha Dow Schüll’s, concept of the “machine zone,” where gamblers interact with slot machines in an automatic, frictionless manner. Similarly, users engage with consent pop-ups as part of a habitual flow; clicking “agree” to keep using their phones and rarely stopping to consider any implications. This is not a failure on the individual level, but a feature of the design.

Ultimately, there is a contradiction at the heart of digital consent. Users are invited to participate in what appears to be a reciprocal exchange — access in return for agreement. However, as Russell Belk notes, this is not real sharing, but pseudo-sharing: a system that preaches transparency despite profiting off of an inequality. Users are not unaware of these dynamics — many feel uneasy and frustrated, but the nature of the system leaves them little choice. Consent is thus more of a ritual than a protection. In a time where trust in tech companies is rapidly eroding and data collection is central to the digital economy, we must ask: who is this consent really serving? And what would it look like to build a system where saying “I agree” actually means something?

The post I Agree (But I Don’t Understand): The Legitimacy of Consent in Today’s Digital Ecosystem appeared first on The McGill Daily.

These differences in cost are continually shaped by provincial politics. In 2023, the Quebec government announced higher tuition requirements for out-of- province Canadian students at English-language universities such as McGill and Concordia, alongside new French-language measures. McGill and Concordia challenged some parts of these policies in court with the Quebec Superior Court delivering its verdict in April 2025. The court ruled the measures unreasonable, finding that the government had not provided sufficient evidence to justify the tuition increase and that the French-language target was nearly impossible to achieve. While the French-language requirement was struck down, Quebec revised its tuition policy and chose to maintain the higher fees in January 2026. The increased out-of-province rates remain in effect for the 2026- 2027 academic year. While students may attend the same university, take the same courses, and may even sit beside each other in the same lecture hall, their different hometowns means they’ll pay dramatically different fees for the same university experience. Tuition, however, is only the beginning of this problem.

The variation in cost of attending McGill as an out-of-province or international student
is also significant, particularly when it comes to the choice of living in residence for first year. At New Residence Hall, for example, a regular double room costs $1,575 a month per
student while a single room costs $1,800. Students also have to purchase a mandatory $6,150 meal plan alongside other residence fees.

Cheaper options exist, such as Solin Hall, where rooms start at $1,135 a month and students cook for themselves; however, they must commute to campus. Some first-years also choose to live off-campus, while local Quebec students who can stay with family may avoid housing costs altogether. For a first-year student already adjusting to university life, these costs can make life in Montreal feel very different from the affordable city they may have imagined.

The rental situation outside residence is more complicated. After years of increasing prices, Montreal’s rental market has begun to show some signs of cooling. Statistics Canada reported that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment fell 5.2 per cent between the second quarters of 2025 and 2026. Still, this does not mean that housing has suddenly become affordable for students. Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation reported that rents rose 7.2 per cent in 2025 and that the city’s most affordable units remained particularly difficult to find. Students already working with limited budgets do not necessarily feel the effects of a cooling rental market following years of increasing housing costs.

McGill itself recommends Milton-Parc, downtown, and the Lower Plateau for students who want to stay close to campus, while pointing students looking to save money towards neighbourhoods such as Verdun, NDG, Hochelaga, Villeray and Parc-Extension. The latter set of options are farther away and are therefore cheaper at the cost of a longer commute.

The most obvious response to rising student expenses is often what I like to label as the “just get a job” choir. While people will often give this response to students facing financial troubles, the solution is not always as simple as it sounds. Montreal cut 21,000 jobs in August alone, while the city’s unemployment rate stood at 6.5 per cent. Although this was comparable to Toronto’s 6.7 per cent and Vancouver’s 6.5 per cent, the sharp monthly loss of employment points to a difficult job market for students who are looking for work. The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 was 12.9 per cent, and among students planning to return to school it was 15.6 per cent nation- wide. For students who do not speak French, the search can be even more limited, 28 per cent of English- speaking adults in Quebec who had recently applied for a job or promotion felt they had been unsuccessful because of language-related reasons.

Working a part-time job during university can be a valuable experience for many students, yet there is a difference between choosing to work part-time for extra cash and depending on a job to afford the costs of university. These hours spent working to afford one’s studies are lost hours that could have been spent studying, participating in clubs, volunteering or simply resting. McGill does provide financial support to its students. Based on university data, McGill offered more than $6.2 million in entrance scholarships to over 2,000 students in its most recent admission cycle. It also distributed $6.3 million in need- based entrance bursaries to 550 incoming students with average bursary amounts increasing in accordance to tuition status. Even though these programs make university possible for students who might otherwise struggle to attend, the existence of financial aid does not erase the larger question of whether the cost of university itself has become increasingly difficult to manage.

Quebec is not unfamiliar with this question. In 2012, thousands of students wore red felt or fabric squares and marched in what became known as the Printemps Érable, or Maple Spring. The protest was mainly organized to oppose planned increases to university tuition as well as concerns surrounding student debt and access to education. The movement secured a key victory in September 2012, when Pauline Marois’ newly elected Parti Quebecois government cancelled the planned tuition increases, fulfilling a central demand of the student strike. Fourteen years later, tuition remains part of the affordability debate but has now grown more pertinent alongside issues such as rising rent, food security, employment, residence costs, and the disparity of costs across many demographics of students.

Montreal is still less expensive than many other major North American university cities. Both these things can be true, while still keeping the door open for debate regarding affordability for the city’s student population. For an international student paying substantially higher tuition, a student relying on part-time work, or someone trying to cover rent without family support, life in the same city, at the same university, can look completely different.

If Montreal wants to continue defining itself as a student city, affordability should mean more than simply being cheaper than somewhere else. It should also mean that the students can realistically and comfortably afford to live and study here.

The post Can Montreal Still Afford the title of Student City? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Content warning: death, violence

September 13 marks twenty years since the 2006 shooting at the Dawson College CEGEP, where one student was killed and 19 others were injured. Two decades later, families and survivors are citing the anniversary to argue that Canada’s legal approach to gun control remains unresolved.

In an open letter, families of survivors and victims called upon the federal government to act on three commitments: completing the ban and removing assault-style firearms, closing the large- capacity magazine loopholes, and strengthening the oversight of handgun exemptions. Their demands ensued decades after major shootings in Quebec triggered debates over firearm regulations. Debates that have been reignited by thousands demonstrating against federal firearm restrictions in Quebec City earlier this year.

The gun control debate precedes the Dawson tragedy. A debate that came to the forefront nationally after the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre where 14 women were killed in a misogynist attack. In its aftermath, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed. In 1995, the federal government adopted Bill C-68 which established the Firearms Act and expanded requirements surrounding licensing and registration.

By the time the Dawson shooting took place eleven years later, Canada already had a significantly broader federal firearm regulation. However, the attack renewed questions about what kinds of firearms could legally circulate in the country and whether further restrictions were necessary.

In 2023, the federal government made the handgun freeze permanent. Under the measure, new handgun registration certificates cannot be issued to individuals. This prevents most new purchases, sales, and transfers, while allowing people who previously owned handguns to retain them. The legislation also expanded the Criminal Code’s definition of prohibited firearms and introduced additional measures related to illegally manufactured firearms and licences in cases involving domestic violence.

Quebec also maintains firearm regulations of its own. Since 2018, the province has operated the Quebec Firearms Registration Service (SIAF). Most firearm owners in Quebec are required to register their firearms with the provincial system, in addition to meeting federal licensing requirements. Prohibited and restricted firearms, however, are registered federally rather than through the SIAF. The distinction means that what is often described broadly as “Quebec gun law” is actually a combination of provincial and federal regulations.

One of the largest ongoing disputes concerns assault-style firearms. The Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program was created to compensate eligible owners who surrender prohibited firearms. Owners who did not participate must dispose of or permanently deactivate affected firearms by October 30 of this year.

For gun control advocates, the removal of these firearms is one of the commitments that remains incomplete. For opponents of the program, however, it has become a symbol of what they view as unfair restrictions on legal firearm owners.

Moreover, this disagreement came into public view on February 28, when several thousand protesters from Quebec and the rest of Canada gathered outside the National Assembly in Quebec City to oppose the federal program. At the demonstration, Sophie Béland, the provincial director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, argued that the program unfairly targets legal firearm owners who are not involved in crime. Other participants described themselves as hunters and sport shooters concerned about losing legally acquired property.

PolySeSouvient, a gun- control advocacy group formed by survivors and families affected by the École Polytechnique massacre, criticized the movement opposing the removal program. The advocacy group argued that the firearms covered by the ban had been prohibited for public safety reasons.

The February protest also raised another question about the shifting discourse of firearm politics in Quebec. Some arguments made around the demonstration emphasized owning firearms for self- defence. This framing is particularly associated with gun politics in the United States, where firearm ownership is constitutionally protected. La Presse investigative journalist, Tristan Péloquin, argued that American political discourse surrounding firearms has increasingly influenced Canadian gun owners, particularly on the idea of possessing firearms for personal protection. This does not necessarily mean that Quebec’s gun regulations are becoming comparable to that of the United States; however, the language used to defend gun ownership in Quebec may be starting to change.

Twenty years after Dawson, the anniversary arrives in the middle of an ongoing debate. This debate that has shifted as Canada and Quebec have introduced layers of firearm regulation that did not exist at the time of earlier mass shootings, while the federal government continues to determine how some of the newest restrictions will be implemented.

For the families and survivors of the Dawson College shooting, September 13 is not only a day of remembrance but also a time to make distinctions between the passing of legislation and its implementations. This renewed distinction places the question facing governments in the present, twenty years later: not only regarding how much gun control policy has changed since 2006, but how much of it remains unresolved.

The post Two Decades After the Tragedy appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Jahn recently published an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, entitled: “Universities should stop treating AI as a cheating problem.” She cites a 2026 study from the Higher Education Policy Institute at Oxford, which found that 94 per cent of UK undergraduate students use generative AI to aid with school work. Moreover, KPMG Canada found last fall that 73 per cent of students in Canada now rely on generative AI for schoolwork, an increase from 52 per cent two years ago. Of the Canadian students surveyed by KPMG, 45 per cent say their first instinct is to use AI when drafting written assignments, a practice of which 48 per cent attribute to the decline in their critical thinking skills.

Academic institutions have begun providing widespread access to specific generative AI models, which Jahn described as a more coordinated approach. For example, McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy provides all students and faculty with access to Claude Pro. However, as Jahn wrote in her article, “[Claude Pro] is a subscription and a training program. It is not a rethink of what a degree is for.” Moreover, certain Canadian professors, for example Jonathan Malloy (Carleton) and Daniel Silver (UofT), have partially opted for assignments that require and engage with AI. Malloy and Silver have similar approaches, essentially having students use AI to produce papers or assignments and then analyze AI’s response.

When asked if she had noticed the impacts of AI on syllabi this year, Jahn acknowledged McGill’s more proactive approach this fall. However, she also stressed the absence of an up-to-date, consistent AI policy across McGill and other post- secondary institutions. Additionally, she noted a move away from take-home papers and a pivot towards in-class assessments. This is echoed in a key piece of feedback from the Max Bell Center’s cohort last year: students need to monitor their use of AI.

This summer, the Max Bell School administration, including but not limited to Director Jennifer Welsh and Associate Director Manuel Balán, presented their faculty with a framework for professors to use when drafting AI policies in syllabi. The framework provided faculty with concrete categories and language, so that these policies (no matter the professors’ individual stances on AI) can all be slightly more cohesive.

Jahn breaks down AI regulation into three possibilities. Option one is an AI-free environment with measures like in-class evaluations and digital locking softwares. Option two is a hybrid model in which students aren’t technically allowed to use AI but have no parameters in place unlike the digital locking software in option one. The school is looking to avoid his as the model as this is what Jahn describes as the “least effective.” Option three is freedom for students to use AI. What is essential is not mixing the models, but using them in tandem, as, according to The Globe and Mail, “the mass lecture model has been failing students long before ChatGPT arrived.” Though this is a newly mplemented framework, the results of which we have yet to see at the Max Bell Center, Jahn notes that professors have greatly appreciated the guidance and structure provided by the Centre thus far. When asked about different approaches to AI use across McGill’s faculties and programs, Jahn emphasized how each program has a distinct disciplinary culture and, therefore, fundamentally different modes of evaluation, with some more challenged by AI than others. The Faculty of Arts in particular, with their heavy reliance on the take-home essay, has been targeted; however, not all arts classes are equally affected because there is no unified approach to regulating AI use. When asked about this, Jahn’s response was clear: “This is ultimately where universities and professors need to step in and clarify the rules.”

Moreover, Jahn was able to tell us more about an AI policy initiative specifically highlighting Canadian students’ voices. This past spring, the Centre for Media Technology and Democracy gave voice to young Canadians on AI policy at Gen(Z)AI: Canada’s Youth Assembly on Artificial Intelligence. Over eight months, thousands of youth crafted policy recommendations concerning AI regulations in Canada and presented them in parliament. I asked Jahn what surprised her most about the responses from post-secondary participants of Gen(Z)AI. Without hesitation, she described the manner in which post-secondary Gen Z students balance hope with realism, as seen in Gen(Z)AI’s role as “the democratic voice of [a generation that has] the most to gain or lose, speaking clearly and in their own name.” According to Jahn, Gen Z cannot afford to not think about AI in the same way other generations do.

Ultimately, what Jahn drove home most was that higher-level administration needs to be specific about the main skills they’re trying to instill in their students. “The fundamental question AI is pushing on us is ‘what are the real skills and learning outcomes we are working towards and how do we…[allow] our students to explore them?’” For Jahn and McGill faculty, exploring looks like moving toward AI-safe examinations. However, this elicits another question of how students can explore newly acquired knowledge if not through cognitive exercise, research, and the process of writing. Jahn has emphasized both in her article and speaking with the Daily the necessity for McGill to formulate a comprehensive AI policy. As we begin to see the impacts of AI usage on Canadian post-secondary students and their syllabi, the Max Bell School of Public Policy has been taking initiative, creating a framework for professors to tackle the troubling waters of AI use.

The post AI and the ‘Syllabus Effect’ appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This year, students are mobilizing again. A petition outlining a motion drafted by McGill student Summayya Kheireddine has been circulating online in student networks. The motion calls on SSMU Senators to advocate for McGill’s exchange program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) to be “neither renewed nor reinstated.” The petition needs 500 signatures for the motion to be presented at an SSMU General Assembly. Kheireddine told the Daily that “The timeline [to draft the petition] is tight. First, you have to decide what to focus the petition or motion on — this took months of Access to Information (ATI) requests, with considerable delay on McGill’s end. Then you have to write the motion itself, making sure it’s well-researched and substantively founded. Once it’s ready, you submit it to SSMU, where it undergoes further scrutiny to ensure it complies with their governance structures and the law…Once your motion is added to the agenda and SSMU handles its internal process, you start convincing people to actually attend the General Assembly and vote yes. ”

One student organizer told the Daily, “Academic exchange programs with Israeli institutions are designed to give students a curated, positive experience of Israel, whitewashing its occupation and denial of Palestinian rights. HUJI is not just a passive party to this whitewashing: it is deeply entangled with the Israeli military and actively supplies the Israeli Occupation Forces (“IOF”) with material support.” Since 2019, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has offered the Havatzalot Program, an exclusive three-year double bachelor’s degree with the Israeli Defence Forces to train students to acquire roles in the Israeli Military Directorate. The program has students choose a first major in either Islamic Studies or Middle Eastern studies, and a second in mathematics, economics, philosophy, or computer science. According to The Jerusalem Post, the program additionally offers “basic combat training, officer training, and training in military intelligence and leadership.”

In 2010, McGill strengthened ties with the university to promote future “collaboration and exchange.” McGill and HUJI have since offered an exchange program between the universities for undergraduate and graduate students wishing to study abroad. According to the motion, the universities signed their most recent agreement in 2017, and it is set to expire in 2028. The motion also states that the universities are required to negotiate renewal terms nine months prior to the expiry of the current agreement, which would be by late 2027.

While the exchange program fact sheet for the 2026-2027 exchange year is available on the McGill Abroad website, the page notes that “Travel to Israel is currently not permitted as the region is a Level 3: Avoid non-essential travel on Canada’s Travel Advisories. As per McGill’s policy, students are not allowed to travel to Level 3 and 4 destinations.” The Daily has reached out to the student coordination advisor for clarification on the current status of the program yet has received no response at the time of writing.

This recent petition mirrors the McGill’s Association of University Teachers (MAUT) endorsement of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions signed last October. A statement from the University senate following this resolution stated that, “As indicated, the resolution does not constitute an official University position. It does not affect McGill’s policies. The University is not reconsidering its existing partnerships with any institutions at home or abroad.” While Kheireddine told the Daily that the current student motion is not connected to the MAUT’s boycott, “both efforts draw inspiration from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), initiated [by Palestinian academics in the West Bank] in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice, and equality.”

Kheireddine calls upon McGill students to participate in the petition and pending motion as well as hold the university accountable for their complicity. “[Our] privilege comes with a responsibility to our fellow students: to uphold and defend the right to academic freedom, particularly when that right is being systematically denied elsewhere. When an institution maintains ties with a university implicated in genocide, operating in part on illegally occupied land, and closely tied to the IOF, that relationship becomes part of a broader question of academic freedom and institutional complicity. As students, we aren’t separate from our institutions, and we aren’t separate from our responsibility to question and challenge the relationships they maintain.”

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Burnside elaborates: “It’s exciting — like with my favourite artists, every time they release a new record, I wanna be like ‘What?’” — his face contorts with a mixture of confusion and disgust — “I want to ask myself, ‘What is this?… They must’ve lost their minds.”

As Burnside alludes to, artists pushing the limits of their musical experimentation can often come at the cost of losing fans. The Strokes are one notable example, having recently altered their sound against the expectations of many of their listeners. Their latest album, Reality Awaits, released in late July, provoked mixed reactions from critics and fans alike. In addition to being touted as the “auto-tune” album, it features a prominent diss to popular music critic Anthony Fantano in the song “Lonely in the Future.” Reality Awaits has achieved an undeniable prominence in the Strokes’ discography — one that can be seen as either a jarring break or a welcome breath of fresh air from the rest of their work depending on the individual listener.

“Every songwriter I know is always trying to challenge and push themselves, some more than others,” says Burnside, “but it’s rare to meet anyone who wants to do the same thing over and over again”.

The reactions of fans, whether positive or negative, can be used as a gauge by artists to test whether they are pushing the boundaries of their own musical landscape to a sufficient extent. While Burnside himself hasn’t been tinkering with the wonders of auto-tune, he has been experimenting with a different emotional palette. His latest record, titled It’s Not Going to be Okay, marks a morbid turn from the more wistful, subdued tone of the rest of his catalogue. Written and recorded in the wake of the death of his best friend, Dean Jendoubi, Burnside used the project to process his grief. Centering an entire record around mortality marked a new direction for Burnside, one he deems significant to
his artistic development.

“You know…you understand how music works after a while, and how melodies and emotions intertwine. Music is like magic, isn’t it? It’s just like trickery. You’re tricking someone’s brain into feeling certain emotions with melodies and chords. But you have to kind of go, ‘Okay, don’t do that. You’ve done that before, or you’ve heard that before. Do try and do something else.’”

Making music that deviates from the norm is a deliberate craft. Commercial success in the music industry can often be crafted from a set of predetermined components that have been shown to work. There are identical melodies in hundreds of songs topping the charts (such as the pervasive “Gen Alpha melody”).

After more than a decade of releasing music, Burnside knows the “formulas” for gaining an audience. “You know all the tricks. You can do all the nice stuff, but you don’t. [In] so much music I listen to, you’re expecting this particular melody, [but] they went the other way even though it’s not as nice. It’s not as ‘done,’” he explains. “They chose to do the sort of grosser thing. And you’re like, ‘ah…I respect it.’ And then you grow to love it.”

In order to be appreciated, music relies on the interaction between the artist and listener, meaning that to some extent artists have to balance taking creative risks with maintaining a universality of appeal to the audience. For Burnside, that conflict is constant in his creative process.

“It’s so hard, when you’re making the music, to choose those paths sometimes. You’re like, ‘if I land on the four [chord] here and do this melody, it’d be really tasty…’ but it’s probably [already] been done. It’s hard to choose the path less taken,” he concedes.

Later, Burnside used the age-old adage “with great power comes great responsibility.” Artists like him maintain the cultural core of our society, wielding their craft to shape people’s everyday emotions. With the current state of our society making it increasingly enticing for people to retreat into the comfort of media and art, artists must continue exercising their creative influence in a meaningful way. Joshua Burnside, for one, keeps us wondering what he’s going to take on next — and how he is going to continue challenging his devoted fanbase, who for now seems to have withstood his attempts to drive them away.

The post The Art of Losing Listeners appeared first on The McGill Daily.

New York City is the City That Never Sleeps. Paris is the City of Light. Chicago is the Windy City. And, according to Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks (2025), Montreal is a City To Waste Away In, before maturing to the Big Kid City: Toronto.

I caught wind of this film in April 2026, a few months into my exchange semester in Melbourne, Australia. As a Montrealer born and raised, I took it upon myself to rave about my city to my peers on exchange who, if they knew anything about Montreal, labelled it “Canada’s French city.” I had hoped that a movie like Mile End Kicks could provide a nuanced, thought-provoking depiction of a city as unique as its namesake. It did not meet my expectations.

Mile End Kicks features Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), a music critic in her early twenties from Toronto who moves to Montreal to write a book on Alanis Morissette. She meets a cast of Canadians immersed in Mile End’s underground music scene. Set in 2011, the film presents a view of Montreal that both glorifies it as the only Canadian city where art can thrive, while also nullifying and reducing the city to drugs, parties, and rude French speakers. The movie misses the mark on what could have been a great way to break barriers between the Canadian anglophone and francophone worlds. Mile End Kicks uses Montreal as the backdrop to a mildly likeable protagonist’s foray into independence, simplistically reducing the city to a music scene built for Albertan male artists feigning tortured souls.

To its credit, the film accurately conveys the highs and lows of moving to a new city as a young person. Following my brief move to Melbourne, I am no stranger to embracing a city head on without fully grasping its culture. Grace is easily swayed by people who act like they know what they are doing. She holds the misconception that moving to a city known for being a centre of the arts, or a place to fall in love, means that every piece of her life will fall into place.

Archie (Devon Bostick), a Prince Edward Islander guitarist and Grace’s eventual love interest, declares Montreal the antithesis of Toronto, describing the two cities as youthfully creative and corporately bleak, respectively. Quebec’s metropolis is consistently reduced to a melting pot for free-spirited, artistic Canadians who will eventually desert it to return to what constitutes real life. However, by the end of the film, Archie consoles Grace by saying that all her tribulations in Montreal would have happened just the same if she had stayed in Toronto, ironically effacing the previously emphasized notion of Montreal’s singularity. Ultimately, since barely any aspect unique to Montreal itself was discussed throughout the film besides its so-called esotericism, I was ultimately led to wonder why the movie was even set here in the first place.

Grace’s grasp of Montreal is also coloured by her exposure to people from Quebec — only two of the main characters. Her roommate Madeleine (Juliette Gariépy) welcomes her to their Saint-Urbain apartment with open arms, a kindness she later takes for granted. While Grace does attempt to learn French, importantly highlighting the need to learn Quebec’s only official language, the film plays into stereotypes of Quebecois people being rude or unsavoury to English-speakers. From the get-go, Madeleine’s boyfriend Hugo (Robert Naylor), describes Grace, in French, as an “anglo” who is “colonizing” Quebec. An opportunity for productive dialogue is missed here, as Hugo’s prejudice against Grace is never addressed or corrected. Moreover, his disdain for her makes less sense when one considers that all his bandmates are also from other Canadian provinces.

Grace asks Archie why “French people,” (the conflation of French and francophone is not lost on me) hate her. He replies that they do not hate her, rather that they do not care about her, and goes on a tirade about needing to speak French to get a job. This scene could have been a learning moment, for Grace and for audiences alike, of the historical framework for such language laws. Instead, Archie’s pejorative attitude toward learning French in a French-speaking province adds fuel to the fire of longstanding misunderstandings. The film does little to ease, or even simply address, the depth of these century-old tensions.

There is a lack of contextualization for anything Montreal. Grace visits an iconic Montreal bagel shop, St-Viateur Bagel, which is oddly empty despite the usual hefty queue at the door. The shop fades into the background of the scene, and so the film misses a talking point regarding Montreal’s culinary history. The Mile End is a hub for young creatives, but the film seldom mentions that the neighbourhood was also built on and sustained by the immigration of Hasidic Jewish and Greek communities, to name a few. The characters scarcely mention any landmarks nor do they really discuss anything other than their own drama. Obviously, this movie is a coming-of-age one, but in spite of it being a film about Montreal, there isn’t a lot of the actual city in it.

For all my qualms with this non-Montreal Montreal, Grace’s time in the city is similar to many McGillians’ and other young adults’ experience. A common topic of conversation on the McGill Reddit page is that students from out of town fail to really leave the Plateau, Milton-Parc, and Mile End area. Young people are not necessarily to blame for this limitation. It’s only natural to want to stay in a safe and fun bubble. Still, there are so many other parts of Montreal to be explored and appreciated; like the centenary houses of Westmount or the crowded Beaubien Street restaurants of Rosemont. For those who live or choose to stay in Montreal, life goes on beyond dimly-lit basement concerts, hangovers, and bagel runs. This film starts and ends with the idea that Montreal is a sort of ahistorical fantasy land for young people to dream in before reality kicks in and they return to their hometowns.

My bone to pick with Mile End Kicks is not related to the plotlines of the movie, but the minimal spotlighting on what I think should have been of central focus: the city on which the whole movie is meant to be based. The movie may be an accurate survey of many young people’s move to a new city. Nonetheless, I left the film with the bad aftertaste of seeing an unsatisfactory depiction of my city, which is as complex as the people that make it up.

The post A (Not-So) Montreal Story appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The main culprit of the next major heatwave: the El Niño effect. This year’s onset of the natural climate phenomenon has been brewing since June 2026, and is predicted to be the strongest one recorded since 1950. This force will lead to an unprecedented spike in temperatures, and its effects will soon reach Canada, if it has not already. Yet, the phenomenon remains misunderstood by many. To cure that confusion, here is a guide to help understand what is to be expected in the coming months and why it will occur.

El Niño: The Agent of Chaos

In brief, the El Niño phenomenon is a natural planetary occurrence that happens in the Pacific ocean, which then affects the entire world. The event tends to happen every 2 to 7 years, and lasts up to 9 to 12 months, which is why we call it an “El Niño year.” In simple terms, the El Niño phenomenon is when the waters in the Pacific Ocean become warmer than usual. This occurs through positive feedback loops where weakened wind patterns cause sea temperatures to warm in the tropical pacific region. These waters do not cool down and self- regulate as they usually do, affecting ocean patterns around the world. Ultimately, this change leads to the disruption of weather patterns across the world. In a podcast episode of The Daily from The New York Times, Chico Harlan describes El Niño as “the biggest reorganizer of the earth’s climate apart from the change in seasons”.

Now, El Niño is a natural phenomenon, and scientists state that it has been occurring for centuries. In the 1600s, locals in Peru noticed tropical fish coming into their seas every couple of years. Although at the time they couldn’t name it, this event was the result of El Niño. This raises the question: if El Niño has been happening for so long, why are we talking about this specific one so much?

The phenomenon is usually measured across a geographical rectangle in the Pacific ocean. This region foreshadows the intensity of the effects we are to expect. Usually, in an El Niño year, we can see a 0.5 degree Celsius gap in usual ocean temperatures. A super El Niño is defined by a 2 degree gap, and this usually causes droughts and unusual storms across the globe. What scientists are currently predicting for the present El Niño, is a 3 degree gap. While there isn’t a scientific term to describe the magnitude of the phenomenon, I guess we could call it a SUPER DUPER El Niño here.

What does this mean for us?

El Niño is currently active, and is rapidly increasing in strength in the tropical Pacific Ocean. However, effects on Canada may be delayed. The last time Canada felt the effects of El Niño was in 2023. That year, Canadians witnessed milder winters with less snowfall, as less precipitation and heat was created from the phenomenon. This El Niño was categorized as a super El Niño. This year, there is an extra degree of intensity, and although it may not seem like it, the effects of this shift are extremely severe. Similarly to 2023, Larry O’Neill, a professor at Oregon State University, tells Canadians to expect limited snowfall and less extreme cold weather this winter. However, the moderate winter is to be mixed in with extreme irregularities as well. Cold and heavy snowfalls are also predicted; a long and steady winter is not in the cards this year. This also means that extreme heat waves are anticipated in the spring and summer. Wildfires will persist and expand quicker in North America, as droughts are also to endure across various regions.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world, and especially countries closer to the Pacific, will be more severely impacted. Almost 50 million extra deaths are predicted from this El Niño phenomenon. These deaths will be due to irregular droughts, disrupting the harvest season. Hurricanes and rainfall patterns will also increase, damaging homes. Basically, El Niño this year is going to create global mayhem. However, El Niño patterns are quite predictable, meaning that the anticipatory funding for agriculture production and early harvesting has already taken place in order to prepare for the event.

Are El Niño and Climate Change Connected?

That is the current million dollar question amongst scientists today. There is no empirical evidence that El Niño frequency is increased by climate change. However, what is certain is that the Earth is already experiencing abnormal weather conditions from climate change, just like the European summer I witnessed this year. These hot temperatures and disruptions will definitely be amplified by the El Niño effect, adding insult to injury. One could say that this strong El Niño year, after an already very warm one, is just very bad timing, and not correlated. However, this year’s extreme El Niño degree can also be seen as a glimpse of what is to come in the 2030s from climate change alone.

The post El Niño: Back and Stronger than Ever appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Good People is an article series highlighting McGill students doing community-oriented work on and around campus. Because it’s important to celebrate good people doing good things.

The World University Service of Canada’s Student Refugee Program is a unique initiative that combines refugee resettlement with access to higher education. Founded in the 1920s, World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to improving educational, employment, and empowerment opportunities for young people globally.

The organization’s Student Refugee Program (SRP) is a student-led sponsorship program that supports refugee students at Canadian universities.

The Daily spoke with Mohammad Alnatour about WUSC’s McGill committee. A Syrian refugee living in Lebanon, Alantour arrived in Canada in August 2022 through the SRP, when he started his undergraduate degree in anatomy and cell biology at McGill. One year later, he became an executive member of WUSC’s McGill committee before leading the group as Co-Chair the following year. Now in an advisory role, Alnatour will start his master’s degree at McGill’s Integrated Program in Neuroscience in January 2027.

We spoke about Alnatour’s involvement with WUSC, the importance of community for refugee students, and why he believes in doing hard things if it means getting to change someone’s life for the better.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): How did you first get involved with WUSC? What drew you to the organization?

Mohammad Alnatour (MA): The Student Refugee Program, one of WUSC’s pillar programs, sponsors refugee students who were unable to continue their studies at home to come study here in Canada. It gives them an opportunity for a brand new life as immigrants here in Canada.

I was a student of the SRP. Before coming here, I was a Syrian refugee in Lebanon. I heard of the program and I applied. I got rejected the first year, and then I got accepted, thankfully, the next year. I was eventually placed at McGill.

MD: I’m curious, what was it like to be part of WUSC upon arriving at McGill? What were your initial impressions of the organization?

MA: Well, for me, I was one of [WUSC’s] beneficiaries at the beginning. It’s a life-changing experience, not just for the person who benefits [from the program], but also for the people around it. During my first year at McGill, I felt I was given so much support that I felt obliged to give back. And this is why I got involved first as a VP Internal, and in the following year, I became the Co- Chair. Right now, I’m in more of an advisory position to advise the new team on how to approach and navigate future plans.

MD: In a nutshell, what kind of activities and events does your organization run?

MA: Our biggest program is the SRP. The program has sponsored over 50 students, with more than 35 of them being active students on campus right now.

The SRP still is our main program. But in the past few years, we realized we needed to do more on campus to engage with the student body, because the program entirely relies on student involvement.

That’s when we started doing more activities, whether that be social activities to foster a feeling of community for the students that we bring here to study at McGill, or advocacy events to highlight the refugee crisis around the world. We’ve also decided to expand the scope of our audience to offer opportunities for students or scholars at risk in general. We have other programs running right now under the committee, like a winter drive through which students can donate winter clothing for students at risk. We also started a French learning program for newcomer students that would like to integrate better into the community.

MD: Either as a WUSC scholar or as an executive member, what has been a highlight of your experience working with the organization?

MA: After coming here and realizing that I would not see my family and loved ones for quite some time while I was studying in Canada, you know, that hits hard. After a couple of weeks, the homesickness really starts to kick in.

But then at the beginning of the semester, WUSC held one of its very special events, very close and dear to my heart, which is simply a fall picnic that we do at the beginning of the semester.

During that picnic, I really felt a sense of belonging and I felt that there was a community for me here, that there was a family for me that would support me during my studies and in my new life. It really started to feel like home, finally.

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

MA: During the SSMU referendum period last year, when we had to campaign to renew the student levy which is our main way of funding the SRP, I would constantly call my parents and tell them how stressful this was. Some nights, I would barely even sleep because peope’s lives would have literally been at risk had this not gone through.

My dad used to always ask, ‘You’re a pre-med student, you already have a lot on your plate. Why do you keep giving this much time and energy to this?’ And I always told him that I was given this chance, and without it, I wouldn’t have been here.

Now, I have the chance to contribute that back to someone else’s life. This is what being a good person feels [like] to me, that even when you are not tasked or asked to do something, if you feel that you can do something that will change someone else’s life, I believe that you should do it.

And this is what I’ve done. Successfully running the referendum means about 18 extra students over the next five years can be sponsored, and 18 extra students mean 18 extra lives that are changed.

Learn more about WUSC McGill and opportunities to get involved on Instagram, @wuscmcgill, through their website, wusc.ssmu.ca, or email wusc.mcgill@ssmu.ca.

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

The post “A Life-Changing Experience”: Student-Led Organization Welcomes Refugee Students to McGil appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Charley Tamagno for the McGill Daily (MD): What’s the day-to-day of an RLF like?

Ksenia Boyer Voutova (KBV):

Right now it’s a lot more intense because we’re doing Welcome Week. Being an RLF feels more like an extracurricular than a job. Because it’s part-time, I still have a busy academic and social life. When I’m working, there’s a lot of different tasks – we either have events or office hours. For the events, we plan them and have to attend them. The office hours can happen from 9 to 5 every weekday. During office hours, you work on project planning and advertisements – whether that be making a poster on Canva, making a reel, [or] replying to student questions on Instagram. We have a lot of meetings, whether that be with our manager or with our teams. There we discuss feedback and brainstorm our next events.

MD: How do the first two weeks differ from the rest of the year?

Olivia Morawetz (OM): You work pretty much full time. Usually, throughout the rest of the year, you work six to 10 hours, and then in the first few weeks you’re working 40 hours. So it’s a full-time gig.

MD: Do you feel like these first two weeks are more rewarding than the rest of the year because you’re really meeting the students? Can you see yourself having an impact?

OM: The first few weeks are definitely the best in terms of visibility. We do hall meetings, where we talk to every single student in the building, and that’s really motivating in terms of making sure that they know who we are and know that we exist. During the rest of the year, attendance really goes down, and it makes you feel like nobody wants to attend events anymore. At the beginning of the year, people are really, really motivated to go to events and meet people and see us and find out who we are.

KBV: I would say there’s still some events in the middle of the year that feel more rewarding than others, especially big ones where you go out of the residence or on trips. You feel more connected to the community.

MD: What kinds of questions are people asking?

OM: Mostly about logistics, either the rules of residence or the events themselves.

KBV: Sometimes they can ask us questions unrelated to residence life, just [because] we’re upper year students at McGill.

OM: I wish more students knew that RLFs are a resource of upper year students who can answer questions about registering for classes or homework or certain subjects. Last year in Upper Residence we did study hall events that were specifically for studying. We would post “I’m going to be at the study hall today, and I’m studying biology,” so that students who study biology can come and ask that person for help.

MD: What was your experience with Floor Fellows in place of RLFs? Do you think there really is a tangible difference between the two?

Note: Before the 2023-2024 school year, Floor Fellows were upper-year students who lived with residents year-round in residences, working more hours than RLFs in addition to being a 24/7 support system. McGill terminated the Floor Fellow program ahead of the 2024-2025 school year.

OM: It’s not just not living in residence — the job changed a considerable amount. There were some union restrictions the first year [after the switch] that made it so that we weren’t allowed to do any job that the Floor Fellows did. We weren’t allowed to put door decorations up because that was something the Floor Fellows did. [Now] it feels a lot more interactive. We have a number of required monthly events. My Floor Fellow didn’t do any events, so I never saw him after the initial meeting at the beginning of the semester. It was very hands-off. The only people that were running consistent events were the council, which I was on. RLFs are definitely more connected and
interacting with the resident community than the Floor Fellows were.

MD: Do you feel like it’s hard to odd template

actually make a connection with the community?

OM: It depends on the person. Yes, because there are specific residents or groups of residents that don’t interact with us at all, and that’s fine. But there are definitely people who I’ve found, after a few years of doing this, who will come to as many events as they can because they just like having free events that they can attend.

MD: How do you pitch events to first years, and is it important for them to attend those events?

OM: I feel like something we’ve been trying to do more recently is asking first years what things they want to see. I think asking students what events they want to see is important, and a lot of them don’t realize that they can message us and be like, “Hey, I want to do a masquerade ball,” and we’ll be like, “Okay, we’ll try and do that.”

Feedback is a really important part of the job. Even when they designed the project planning template, feedback was built into it. You have to write down feedback after every single event. They started doing the symposium last year, which is a place where all the RLFs go to present their most successful and least successful events of the year, and provide feedback on how those went. Then we could take events from other RLFs.

MD: How do you get inspiration for different events?

KBV: A lot of the time, it’s just things we want to do. We all have different hobbies, so Olivia wants to do something and then I want to do something and then we end up having two different events.

OM: Or in previous years we’ve had really good cultural diversity [on the RLF team]. We had specific cultural events because we had people on the team that were part of those communities and were able to let us know that these things were happening.

MD: Do you have a favorite memory or a favorite event?

OM: Well, we did a formal last year, which was our biggest event, and it had a really good turnout in November, which is really rare for our late events. Usually by the end of the first semester, attendance starts to dwindle a little bit because people have made their own friends or it’s exam season and they don’t want to go to things. We had a bar where we had a menu of mocktails that we made [and] we ordered 50 pounds of sushi. It was insane. I was like a waiter running around with sushi. We had a dance floor. We hired a DJ who was a student in Upper. Some guy showed up with a saxophone at one point and was playing that on the dance floor. People were attending it because of the event. Obviously, with that many moving parts, things are bound to go wrong. But the things that went right outweighed the things that went wrong by a million times, and it was a really, really successful event.

KBV: I loved going to the PWHL [Professional Women’s Hockey League] game. It was really fun because it was just different. For a lot of students, it was their first time seeing a hockey game. That was my first time seeing a hockey game. What’s good about these events is that students are able to try out new things.

MD: Is there anything else you would like to add?

OM: I love my job. I love my team.

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We, Gen Z, are the generation who are constantly told by Millennials and Gen X that we have killed the dance floor, that we drink less and date less than any generation before, that AI will be taking over our pointless degrees, and that climate change will kill us before we can have children or own a home. When we do go clubbing to seize the supposedly fleeting days we have left, we open social media the next morning only to be asphyxiated by hundreds of reels with people advising us to go to the gym, hit our protein goals, stay home, and make zero-calorie-low-fat-oat-milk-chia-seed slop for a sweet treat (as you’re watching these reels, you’ve done none of these things). The irony and the pressure are discouraging.

Wellness Anarchism is a term coined by British award winning brand strategist and entrepreneur Tom Garland in 2025. Garland is an expert with over twelve years of experience in consumer research and trend forecasting, and founder of the brand consultancy edition+partners. Garland’s Wellness Anarchist is someone who strives to lead a balanced yet uninhibited lifestyle, ultimately rejecting the overbearing health and life optimization peddled by the mainstream wellness industry. For example, the Wellness Anarchist could be found at their run club, but always finishing it off with celebratory drinks. A term that began as a consumer archetype has evolved into less of an identity and more a
wide range of daily habits. These habits are particularly enacted by Gen Z for a sense of control over the futurity that has been taken from us. Wellness culture, with its traditionally strict, all-or-nothing framework, has thus been met with Wellness Anarchist resistance. The practices Gen Z appear to be using to combat it include, but are not limited to a notable surge in: smoking; short-term and noncommittal relationships; and making frequent, smaller purchases rather than large savings and investments.

Of course, there is something to be said about seeking instant gratification and rebellion, and their historical connection to youth. Disobeying parents’ wishes, sneaking out, or impulsively changing one’s appearance, to name a few examples, have long been staples of youth culture and the tendency to prioritize our immediate desires over future consequences. Wellness Anarchism, even before the term was coined, has always been a means for young adults to manage the stresses and anxieties of being in such a transitional stage of life. But in the year of 2026, we all have much more on our plates than we ever bargained for — and online discourse of Gen Z’s doom, combined with wellness culture being pushed down our throats, certainly isn’t lightening the load.

Two years ago, Substacker Sarah Noack published her article, “Dump your matcha and have a cigarette, bitch,” that now has over 22.5K likes and 4.5K reposts. Despite the conviction in her title, Noack highlights how the Ikarians, inhabitants of one of the world’s Blue Zones (regions with high population longevity), have never engaged in what we know to be wellness practices. Rather, they simply walk or swim instead of going for spin class, they also nap, eat locally produced food, and most importantly, enjoy substances like alcohol and tobacco for pleasure rather than as vices. A portion of Gen Z is arguably no longer just following in the footsteps of our predecessors’ reckless youth but also using these habits as what Noack describes as a “necessary escape.”

The latest Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey from 2022 shows young adult smokers (20-24) decreased from 10 per cent in 2021 to 8 per cent in 2022, and smoking reached generational lows worldwide. However, we do not yet have data from the past year, when smoking cigarettes made a dramatic resurgence online. Whether it’s Kylie Jenner lighting one on the cover of Vanity Fair or countless images of Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams with cigarettes in hand, we’ve all watched the revival of the cigarette as a symbol of rebellion, an aesthetic, and, for some, an escape from everyday pressures.

Earlier this year, the CBC released an article titled “Smoking is making a pop culture comeback (even if the risks haven’t changed),” which fully explains how smoking has made a large return to mainstream media. In the article, Jared Oviatt, who runs the popular Instagram account @cigfluencers, said he saw the pop culture resurgence of smoking as separate from other mundane daily habits. However, through his social media presence, Oviatt has expended time, effort, and energy towards the aestheticization of the cigarette. It works directly in his favour to argue that the pop culture spotlight on smoking has no real effects, hence avoiding culpability for perpetuating smoking as an aesthetic, while maintaining his own habit guilt-free. Oviatt’s prediction of the ultimate demise of the trend ignores the fact that cigarettes are an addictive chemical substance, not something as innocent as a polka dot top from Brandy Melville. While we do not yet have the data to assess the real-world impacts of the cigarette’s cultural renaissance, celebrities can influence what we find cool, what we purchase, and where we go. Hence, it would be naive to say their actions are totally distinct from our own and have no impact on our individual choices.

Where I can agree with Oviatt is his theory on why young people smoke. Oviatt acknowledges that broader economic and social pressures are at play: “The anxiety over climate change, general burnout … it’s all part of it.” There has always been a traditional appeal to doing something taboo, recreationally sharing substances to foster a sense of community, and emulating your idols. Still, smoking has been on the decline for decades now. What’s different today is the pressure our generation faces, and a resulting inability to conceptualize our futures.

What’s more, Gen Z is notably dating less than previous generations, notoriously choosing more low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships. The Atlantic declared that we are in a “Great Romance Slump”, with declining marriage rates and exclusive relationships, with 42 per cent of single adults under 40 in 2019 having never been in a committed relationship. Moreover, Gen Z has been spending more on everyday, smaller purchases to make their day-to-day lives easier, rather than saving for large future purchases. I would argue that the loss of our capacities to imagine a successful and secure future, and our consequent sense of general despair, contribute to a lack of commitment present both in romantic relationships and in the fruits of our spending power. Of course, low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships have always existed. Gen Z has only legitimized this dynamic by giving it a name: the “situationship.” Even then, it appears to be more present than ever before.

Alongside a discernible revival of the cigarette, a decline in committed exclusive romantic relationships and an increase in short-term spending, it seems paradoxical that sobriety is on the rise. A World Finance Report found that Gen Z averages around 20 per cent less alcohol consumption than millennials. There are many possible reasons for this: a better understanding of the dangers of drinking, inflated prices, wellness culture, to name a few. If all of this data is factual, then why do we throw caution to the wind with our wallets, lungs, and love lives, but not alcohol?

No matter how one looks at the data, Gen Z appears to take the hit. We are smoking more, meaning we suck; dating less, meaning we suck; and drinking less. Though supposedly healthier, the narrative remains that we are less fun, and thus suck. In contention, I would argue that it is not Gen Z who is responsible for the death of the dance floor, but our predecessors. With their wellness culture and talk of doom and despair, they have made us the generation of Wellness Anarchism: the same generation that has brought back smoking and rejects commitment more than ever, who will always buy the overpriced latte.

I don’t speak from a place of judgement, but of deep understanding. I am proud to be a Gen Z, so it is hard to be unbiased. But I believe our actions, individual and collective, are valid responses to the state of global affairs, to the overbearing influencers on our phones, and to the way we have been treated by older generations, which has altered our perception of what the future holds and its meaning.

However, as much as these small patterns can bring great relief, we are far from as anarchistic as we may believe. Even if we are using these habits as fleeting escapes from the precarity we face, they are still merely attempts to cope; not, as we saw with Noack’s article, a sign of genuine, carefree living. There is power in Wellness Anarchism, but we are engaging in it out of necessity, not real interest. The $10 matchas are not just simple pleasures, but pinpricks of light amidst a seemingly dreary present and future.

Documentary photographer and poet Sophia Borzilleri articulated it best in an Instagram post, where she described her smoking habit as a means of reminding herself that life doesn’t always have to be taken so seriously, that she can do things that are objectively bad and be at peace with it. This frame of thought counters the dominant narrative in all our lives, that everything is that serious and that everything won’t be okay.

However, Borzilleri adds nuance to this perspective when she says “For me, when I smoke a cigarette, it’s a moment for me to step outside and breathe and realize nothing is that serious. But I want to be able to do that without the cigarette. I want to be able to realize that I don’t always have to be curated, [planned, perfectly healthy] and whatever in order to be okay. I can live in a balance.”

As we begin a new school year, it’s important to be conscious of our habits, not in pursuit of condemning them as either good or bad, but rather to recognize why we engage in certain patterns. Acts such as smoking or spending provide us with a moment of control in a time when we are told we have so little. However, our generation is entitled to living in the present, not because the future does not exist, but because it is something worth looking forward to.

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The move-in and move-out periods generate a significant amount of waste in the Milton Parc neighbourhood. The dumpsters outside of residence halls overflow with cardboard boxes and single use packaging. Piles of black trash bags line the sidewalks from Lorne to Hutchison. Even just the packaging that comes with furnishing a dorm room or an apartment results in a massive amount of trash when multiplied by thousands of students.

The truth is that stopping the move-out mass littering begins at move-in. The reality for many McGill students is that we are temporary residents in Montreal, and many of us will leave the city after graduation. As much as departure seems far away upon arrival, we must remember that many of our possessions will not come with us when we leave.

As university students, how often are we thinking about the afterlife of our belongings when contemplating a purchase? It’s easy to imagine the missing piece for a shared living room or a shoebox dorm room when shopping after move-in. Much less often are we thinking of a piece of plastic that will take thousands of years to break down. The expectation should not be to buy something that will serve its purpose for a few years before being tossed away. Rather, moving into one’s apartment should come with the understanding that we have a responsibility to be sustainable for the sake of our neighborhood, environment, and wallet.

Instead of buying mass-produced items, turn to second-hand. when it comes to filling up your space. In addition to being better for the environment, buying second-hand will likely save you money in the process. Montreal has a vibrant Facebook Marketplace community, where you can find all sorts of furniture and unique decor for low prices, or even free of charge. And once you’re ready to move out of your university apartment, you can easily re-list items online or simply donate them to a local thrif store.

McGill runs its own on-campus thrift store out of University Hall. Launched in 2024 by Student Housing Services with the support of the Office of Sustainability, ThriftMcGill has since received over 10,000 donations including clothing, home decor, books, kitchenware, and board games. All items are free of charge for McGill students, making furnishing an apartment readily accessible.

When moving out, think of non-profit organization Sollicite’s Trash2Treasure initiative: a circular, volunteer-based program which redistributes used furniture and household items to charitable organizations across the island. Since 2017, the organization has dedicated itself to cleaning up the neighbourhood for a good cause. During the late-April move-out season, the team collaborates with the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) to run multiple days of free home-collection services in Milton Parc. Volunteers pick up discarded items, including electronics, furniture, and small appliances, that can be recycled for those in need. In 2025 alone, they collected over 18 tonnes of material and gave new life to 96 per cent of it.

Frosh soon follows the excitement of residence move-in and OAP brings thousands of students to the lower field in the first week of classes. Both events have dedicated coordinators who work with McGill’s Office of Sustainability. In September 2025 OAP earned a gold sustainability certification, while the Management, Engineering, and Music Froshes earned platinum. In order for these events to happen, we have to be respectful and responsible participants and clean up our waste.

The beginning of the fall semester brings a lot of excitement to McGill’s undergraduate community, but we must remember the neighbourhood’s permanent residents while having fun. When attending back-to-school parties or other events in Milton Parc and beyond, dispose of cans, cups, and other plastic waste responsibly. Not only will cleaning up after partying help you avoid fines from your landlord, but it’s the right thing to do for our neighbours and our planet.

Moving into a dorm or returning to an apartment is, for many students leaving home to study, one of the most exciting parts of the university experience. But ultimately, Canada produces nearly five million tonnes of plastic waste each year, less than seven per cent of which is successfully recycled into new products. Bottom line, it is our responsibility to be mindful of the ways we can keep Milton Parc and Montreal clean throughout our time as residents on the island all year round.

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The book has an interesting concept, as it addresses the harsh reality of living with a terminal illness. Noah is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease as a young adult, and his diagnosis catalyzes much of the conflict in the novel as it causes him to push AJ away. While I appreciated the author’s attempt at portraying life with a terminal illness, I felt as though it was only employed superficially as a roadblock to the protagonists’ romance instead of as something essential to Noah’s character.

Rather than portray the difficulties of navigating a relationship while dealing with a terminal illness, the book uses Noah’s diagnosis to pit the protagonists against each other as they disagree about what his medical course of action should be. Noah’s uncertain future is a point of contention between him and AJ for almost the entire novel. While that conflict is understandable and realistic, it never truly gets resolved until the end of the story. The book details their on-again, off-again romance fueled by their opposing beliefs on Noah’s future. However, the story would have been much more compelling had the two protagonists navigated the conflict together, rather than let it tear them apart for thirteen years. After a while, their arguments became repetitive, causing me to lose interest in their relationship. It also felt as though neither of them grew emotionally over the course of the story, and instead remained trapped in the same mindsets they had when they first met. This lack of character and relational development left so much unfulfilled potential for mutual growth and understanding of one another. Hence, the story as a whole fell flat for me.

Moreover, despite AJ and Noah’s bond surviving thirteen years of uncertainty, their situation is not one that should be romanticized. They meet when AJ is in high school, do some improv together, and kiss once before Noah leaves town. AJ is then hung up on him for the rest of the novel—even when she is engaged to another man, and would rather watch Noah, who has become a famous actor, attend the Oscars on television than plan her wedding with her fiancé.

Second chance romances are nothing new, present in beloved romance films such as The Notebook and used to show an unbreakable love between two characters. However, this novel presents AJ and Noah’s bond as something that AJ cannot seem to escape from, even after a decade. While some may find that romantic, I certainly didn’t, and I spent most of the book hoping that AJ would finally get over Noah and move on with her life. Their relationship seemed to hold AJ hostage emotionally, never truly benefiting either character until the end of the novel.

While the romance in itself is undesirable, the book’s main problem is its writing. The first section of the novel follows AJ in the third person during the summer before her last year of high school. The writing, while meant to reflect the mind of a teenager, is at times downright cringeworthy. When AJ first encounters Noah at her job at a video rental store, she describes him as being “so big, he made the DVD case look like baseball cards” (page 12) — an unrealistic and frankly ridiculous line, which is a perfect way to summarize the writing in this novel. Noah can be stripped down to a tall, brooding type while AJ is the quirky loner who pines after him. These tropes have been overdone for decades, so to see them in such a new work — especially one that has received numerous good reviews — is strange and worrisome.

Not only did the juvenile, shallow writing provide an unpleasant reading experience, but it demonstrated the amount of effort that the author put into the development of the protagonists’ bond. On page 33, AJ describes Noah’s eyes as “not ugly” when they change colour in the sun. The lack of effort put into this line irritated me so much that I had to close the book and take a deep breath. Though cliché, this line could have depicted the intimate act of a character observing the small details about a loved one that most people might not notice. However, in this case, the author does not even bother to choose a single compelling adjective to end the sentence with, instead providing us with a useless statement that lacks substance and meaning.

There was potential for Brodie to create a powerful story about navigating romantic relationships in the face of terminal illnesses and the hardships that come along with them. As much as I wanted to love this book, I was disappointed multiple times: first by the poor writing style and then by the weak narrative. Rather than depicting how love can conquer all, this novel showed how no story can conquer a mediocre composition.

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