Inspired by his friend Peter Knegt of QCC Toronto, founder Jeremie Romain has been running QCC Montreal since May 2024. The club first screened at the one-room Cinema Moderne in the Mile End before moving to the bigger Cinema du Parc as of November 2025. “I wanted to start something especially for queer cinema,” he explains in an interview with the Daily.

While programming has in the past included more contemporary titles, such as Mysterious Skin (2004) and 120 BPM (2017), Romain’s main focus for QCC is the history of queerness on screen. “It’s kind of a queer history course, if you will,” he says, “it’s about showing the firsts. [For example,] the first time a character was a known lesbian in a movie, and [was labelled as such].” Although, not everything is about overt queerness as history has not always welcomed an openly queer character on screen, of course. Romain is therefore equally interested in screening films with what he calls queer “sensibilities.” “When you look into it, and you read about the history of the people making movies, you can find out who was queer… and how [that] impacted their work.”

Equally, Romain admits that some representation has not aged well. “In a lot of stuff from the eighties and nineties, the representation is kind of problematic… but it was the first [of its kind] and it was groundbreaking at that time.” It is still “very important,” Romain thus believes, in showing “the history throughout the decades, [and] how stuff changed.”

Genre and tone must also be considered. “I like dramas and intense stuff,” he says, but admits that he’s consciously trying to strike a balance for QCC’s 2027 programming. He has more comedies planned for the upcoming year, for example. “I think the community, at least in Montreal, responds more to [comedies], and it’s just more fun for people… but I still think we need some of the dark [stuff] once in a while, to show the history.” Romain seems to have a quota of sorts to keep his selections varied. “I love to program at least one documentary, at least one film in black and white…not, obviously, all American movies,” he explains. “But there’s only twelve months in the year. I can’t hit everything, but I try to diversify [as much as] I can.”

Next month’s screening of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is both a nod to this comedy-loving audience Romain speaks of, and a choice of personal significance. “[Pee Wee Herman] is kind of the person who raised me,” he shares. “I watched those movies over and over again.” The film, he explains further, is an example of these aforementioned “sensibilities” which queer artists lend to their work. “The character [of Pee Wee Herman] isn’t queer,” explains Romain, “but the actor is… [and he has] a humour and a way of moving that I resonated with as a kid.”

It goes without saying that art and representation go, and have always gone, hand in hand, but Romain sees cinema as particularly well-suited to queer visibility and storytelling. “In terms of art and culture, I think cinema is kinda the thing where you can see yourself represented. For me, when I was growing up, [film] was my portal to culture. I’m from a really small town and that’s how… I saw that other types of people were out there.”

On the whole, Romain says that the reception to QCC has been positive. “When I started the club, I got so many messages, and everyone would [tell] me at the events, ‘Thank you so much for starting this, this was missing in Montreal.’” While the typical showing is a relatively low-key affair, QCC screenings have in the past featured live performances and Q&A sessions with the local queer community. A screening of Paris Is Burning (1990), for instance, included conversation with members of the Montreal ballroom scene. Romain also speaks highly of the audiences, who, apparently, sometimes hold discussions amongst themselves afterwards. “I always ask [if anyone] has seen this movie before, and it’s always fun when basically no one has seen it. That means they’re gonna be excited to talk about it after.”

Romain is also keen to highlight the posters present at all QCC screening, which are exclusively artist- commissioned and custom-made. “I try to pick artists [where] I see something [in their art] that could resonate with the movie I’m trying to book, and it always surprises me how well they turn out.” The posters are then sold at the screenings as a souvenir. “I like that there’s little pieces of this club that…live on elsewhere”.

This month, QCC is celebrating Halloween with a screening of the black-and-white horror cult classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). At the time of writing, 41 of 133 seats remain available. For now, Romain seems proud of the club, but is open to future growth. “I do still feel, even almost three years in, that there are a lot of people who don’t know about the Queer Cinema Club that would probably enjoy it. We’re not as known as we could be, slash should be.”

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane plays Thursday, October 29, 9pm at Cinema du Parc. You can find all of the upcoming QCC programming on their Instagram, @qccmtl.

The post “This Was Missing In Montreal” appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Daily spoke with Kimberly Wong, current director general of SILK, and Gregg Blachford, former president of Gay Line (1993-1996) and director of McGill’s Career and Placement Service (CaPS), about CAEO Québec and the SILK program. We discussed queer education and services for English-speaking schools, volunteering and outreach, allyship, and counteracting shame with queer joy.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Justin Friedberg and Mara Gibea for The McGill Daily (MD): What facilitated the expansion of Gay Line to CAEO Québec and SILK? How did the shifting media landscape’s impacts on the dissemination of information from the ’90s to the 2000s affect Gay Line’s mandate?

Kimberly Wong (KW): Gay Line served an important role from the ’70s to the 2000s; however, there are plenty of resources on the internet now and not many people who love to talk on the phone anymore.

Gregg Blachford (GB): There weren’t many comparable organizations that existed at the time. The original goal of what they were doing, giving information to a lot of people, has changed. Over the decades, many organizations have sprung up to deal with the police, health, and AIDS. The phone line in Montreal was no longer unique […] eventually phones stopped ringing.

KW: The organization transitioned to new opportunities: […] workshops to talk about queerness and sexuality, [and] collaborating with Queer McGill to get volunteers.

MD: The theme of CAEO Quebec’s 50th anniversary celebration is titled “Queer Joy.” What does queer joy mean to you?

GB: Queer joy is about pride, excitement, and fun. It’s about lifting the shame and engaging more with the joy of being gay.

MD: How did shame manifest socially and politically in Montreal’s queer community during Gay Line’s operation?

GB: Near the beginning of Gay Line, in the ’90s, Montreal’s queer life was full of difficult conditions: unsolved murders which the police weren’t taking seriously, raids on saunas and bars, and an AIDs crisis hanging over people’s heads.

MD: In 1993 you, Gregg, delivered a testimony to the Quebec Human Rights Commission on the inquiry into “Violence and Discrimination against Gays and Lesbians in Quebec.” Have any of the issues in your testimony been addressed? What has remained consistent or shifted in terms of the needs of queer communities in Montreal?

GB: Quebec, to its credit, gave the opportunity for the queer community to talk about what was happening and what they think should be happening [with the referendum regarding police violence against queer peoples and spaces]. What’s it like today? On one level, it’s much better: laws have changed, and there are no more police raids — they’ve apologized for the raids in the 70s/80s. What is consistent is the shame that hangs over people’s heads, despite the turn towards positivity in the queer community. Still, the expectation of having to come out and have some reconciliation with your mind is still there.

MD: How has the CAEO Québec facilitated this reconciliation?

KW: Reconciliation is about facilitating that education — making people more comfortable and making spaces to work towards educating different kinds of populations and adapting to the changes they need on the front lines.

MD: One way that CAEO Québec is creating these spaces is through the SILK program, of which you, Kimberly, are a director. Could you tell us a bit about that?

KW: The SILK program provides workshops that are testimonial-based. Queer volunteers go into schools and share about themselves. One of the main ways to connect to students is through storytelling: everyone loves stories, whether you’re young or old.

The program is about getting students to think about other perspectives that they haven’t thought about before. People may not realize their values have come from parents or religion, and some haven’t been exposed to the queer community. As a result, we strive for a safe learning environment where people can ask their questions, even if they’re uncomfortable or antagonizing. It’s a cool way to be able to enact social change through education and young people: if we can plant these seeds at a young age, they can carry that forward for the rest of their lives.

MD: Considering the organization is a non-profit, how vital is volunteering?

KW: CAEO Québec and the SILK program are all volunteer-run, which is very rare. Because we don’t have a specific funding body, there are positives and negatives. We don’t receive money (i.e. grants), but we’re also not beholden to a governing body’s priorities.

GB: The program is inter-generational too! We recently had a party at my house with past volunteers. Volunteering meant so much to them: it teaches active listening, which they’ve used in other areas of their life, making change. “New gay” volunteers get something out of it too… it’s a two-way street. Often students come who are exploring their own gender, sexuality, and identity.

KW: Something nice about the program is that the CAEO Québec takes time to train people and make them more comfortable. It can be a one-time thing, low stakes. Many volunteers feel a lot of satisfaction after speaking to students. We poll anonymous feedback about the workshop, and 95 per cent of it is positive. It is so rewarding to see that, as the workshops are something we would’ve wanted when we were in high school. They can be life- saving in some contexts. The whole thing feels very special, making space for volunteers, community — magic comes from it.

MD: That’s how both of you met working for Gay Line. Would you say these relationships foster lifelong contacts?

KW: Many people become long-time friends. You have Gregg, who volunteered from 1984 to 2007 — truly intergenerational. The program includes very passionate people who want to provide community support, using the privilege they have in their lives. It’s free; it’s volunteering.

MD: Considering Gay Line’s historic ties to McGill, how can students and allies get involved?

GB: The dances run by Gay McGill in the SSMU building were not just for McGill students, but for the whole community. People talked about how vibrant it was and how it made them feel. I was involved with admin to move the university towards better relationships with queer community, including starting the annual return of the Rainbow Reception.

KW: For volunteering, something notable about our organization is that we accept allies in our volunteer pool.

GB: Allies were important then, and allies are important now too.

KW: For SILK in particular, allies can demonstrate why community [exposure is important for] students who may not be able to relate to having close ties to the community.

MD: Would you like to share any parting wisdom after 50 years?

GB: The reason it’s lasted 50 years is because of Kimberly. She held it together when it could’ve fallen apart, which shows how individuals can keep things going. Being so upbeat, positive, and cheerful really helps.

KW: We don’t expect people to come in with perfect skills. Because we work with a marginalized group of people, there has to be more understanding and flexibility. The organization is as strong as the volunteers that make it up. We want the space to be an encouraging sandbox for people to learn, grow, and gain new skills.

CAEO Québec is currently hiring volunteers and SILK workshop facilitators. The next training will take place on November 7, 8, and 14 from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM in downtown Montreal. Students can follow @caeo.quebec on Instagram for more information.

The post Celebrating CAEO Québec’s 50th Anniversary appeared first on The McGill Daily.

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

Finn Jacobsen was in his first year of law school in the fall of 2025 when he and his colleagues formed a community of transgender students at McGill’s Faculty of Law.

The Trans Law Collective — a volunteer-run organization that provides free legal information, education, and advocacy support for trans, non-binary, Two- Spirit peoples, and individuals questioning the gender binary in Quebec — was born out of this group of peers. The Trans Law Collective offers monthly legal clinics, free of charge, on McGill’s downtown campus to help students and Montreal residents navigate the legal process for changing their legal name and sex designation. Beyond clinics, the collective also hosts social events, a pre-law mentorship program, and conducts legal research with an eye towards using the law as a tool of liberation.

The Daily spoke with Finn Jacobsen, second-year law student and the Trans Law Collective’s Vice President of Communications, about the organization. We talked about making legal information accessible, building community, and their organization’s vision for growth and continuity.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): To get started, I want to learn more about you. How did you get involved in this organization? What drew you to it?

Finn Jacobsen (FJ): I’m a second year law student, and this club started up last year, when I was a freshman. A bunch of my first year colleagues and I reached out to the trans community in our first year law class. We were really lucky to have a ton of trans people in our 200 person class. We ended up with twelve people in first year and we made this club. We’re building it from the ground up.

MD: How would you pitch the Trans Law Collective to a student who has never heard about it before in 30 seconds?

FJ: We have three main arms. We do legal research, social events — connecting the trans community and students at McGill — and then we provide services as well. The main service we do is legal clinics, like for name and gender marker changes. But in general, we’re just trying to support any initiatives that involve the intersection of the trans community and the law.

MD: From your perspective, why is the Trans Law Collective important? Why is there a need for these kinds of services for the trans community in Montreal?

FJ: When it comes to legal transition issues, I find the process in Quebec is actually really great. It’s pretty open, but it’s so hard to understand, especially if you don’t have a legal background. It can just stump people when it really doesn’t need to; it can be really confusing. Our clinics get people to feel confident to make the changes that they really need. It’s nice to talk to someone who has done it all before and who can just get you sorted and connected.

Generally, trans people are facing a lot of struggles right now. There’s a lot of laws trying to be put into place that make it harder to be trans. So it’s important that we keep on top of that, stay aware, and take control of the rights that we do have as trans people and as people generally.

MD: Since you launched last year, what has the response been like, particularly to your legal clinics?

FJ: Weve had some pretty great moments. It’s been really cool. We worked with one person who was nonbinary and who didn’t always feel seen in their gender. And then they got to submit all these things [paperwork] to get an X marker on all their IDs and to have their chosen name reflected on all their legal documents. At the end of their time at the clinic, they were super emotional and just really excited to have this done. When you see stuff like that, it’s really moving.

MD: What do you have planned for this school year? What’s in the works for your team.

FJ: We’re having a clinic right now, actually. I just left it to come here. For this year, we’re running bi-weekly clinics off campus in Verdun, at the Centre des Femmes. And then we do monthly clinics on campus to try and be as accessible as possible to McGill students. We’re doing social events too. Trans Tuesdays will be starting up soon, just fun social events for people to hang out.

MD: Imagine a student sees a post for Trans Tuesday but feels nervous about attending the event alone. What would you say to them?

FJ: I’d say it’s probably a lot less intimidating than you think. Everyone in the club is really nice. And everyone who’s ever been to these events is always friendly and happy to chat.

Feel free to bring anyone, like a friend if that will make you feel more comfortable. We just want to give people an opportunity to meet other trans people, queer people, or supportive allies on campus.

MD: What is your vision for the future of the Trans Law Collective?

FJ: We’re just focused on continuity right now. We want to make sure the service stays available, especially on campus. Hopefully, the further we go, we can get more funding, provide more support, and do more legal research, too. The sky’s the limit.

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

FJ: I think for a lot of trans people, it’s just nice to be able to be seen and supported. I feel like the trans community often doesn’t ask for much, it’s just, “let people be who they are and then see them for who they are.”I think that’s what we’re trying to do. Let’s make sure people get access to that.

Learn more about the Trans Law Collective’s services, social events, and opportunities to get involved through their Instagram account, @translawcollective or via their website, translaw.info.

The post Trans Law Collective Dismantles Legal Barriers for Montreal’s Queer Community appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Specific language has always allowed queer communities to avoid hostile attention and identify themselves to one another — in Montreal during the 1980s, for example, a group of lesbian women would picnic in the Plateau under a banner labelled the “spinsters’ circle” (cercle des vieilles filles) in order to escape unwanted scrutiny. The language used by queer people, often marked by double entendres and subtle subversions, came to develop a tenacious ability to subvert harmful intentions. Even the term ‘queer’ itself, originally a derogatory label meaning ‘strange’ was eventually reclaimed and absorbed into the community’s lexicon.

Today, the topic of queer language (such as gender-neutral pronouns) sparks endless debate and culture-war skirmishes; however, what these ideological frays obscure is the significance of accurate representation to individual identity. Pronouns in particular have inherent personal meaning: they are increasingly being used to indicate not only how someone views themselves but also how they wish to be perceived by others. The growing importance of pronouns in describing queer identities makes Quebec’s exclusion of gender-inclusive language in government communications all the
more distressing.

The use of ‘queer’ as an activist term began in the 1990s. Tyler D. Harvey, a PhD student at the Yale School of Public Health, calls the label a “political identity rooted in demands for equality and liberation for [the] community.” To be openly queer is to resist a system that suppresses your identity. The free expression of this identity, therefore, is itself an act of radical defiance. For many Gen-Z members of the LGBTQ+ community, queer appellatives are “not just a matter of communication […] but also educate and influences society as a whole, despite pushback from those in power,” writes English undergraduate student Kayci Resende-Abbott of Suffolk University.

Supposedly justified under the banner of ‘protecting the French language,’ Quebec’s ban of inclusive language in French government communications ultimately denies the identity of gender nonconforming members of Quebec’s queer community. According to Victoria Legault, the executive director of Aide aux Trans du Québec, this restriction excludes those who use the pronoun iel from participation in public life.

Even Jean-François Roberge — the former language minister responsible for this policy — accepts that “[p]eople are gender-fluid. They are who they are, they are who they want to be.” However, by instating this legislation, he has established a precedent of harming and invalidating the very community which he allegedly supports. Although Roberge claims that “we want people to be happy,” his actions tell a different story. In the realm of healthcare, for example, the lack of gender inclusive ianguage has been suggested to deter members of the LGBTQ+ community from seeking care when needed.

This Queer History Month, The McGill Daily’s editorial board reaffirms our commitment to using language that respects the identities of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. Queer individuals deserve to be faithfully recognized and represented by the new PQ government. The following sources and organizations provide useful information on respectful terms and language:

University of Michigan Spectrum Center
McGill’s guide to gender-inclusive language
Glossary of Queer terms
Queer Speak en Français
LGBTIQA+ Multilingual Terminology
Aide aux Trans du Québec

The post Queer Language is Queer Resistance appeared first on The McGill Daily.

There are, of course, little differences between students who live in residence first year compared to those who don’t. Most residences offered by McGill are a five to 15- minute walk from campus. This means that the average student in residence can afford to wake up about an hour or two before their lecture begins. In contrast, a person living off campus with the same morning class would probably have to wake up much earlier to accommodate a longer commute. Moreover, the time it takes to get to class increases exponentially the more they rely on public transportation. For example, a student living in Brossard must take the bus, then the REM, and then walk ten minutes before entering campus, meaning they have to wake up almost an hour earlier than a residence student. This factor also applies when returning home. Many extracurricular clubs and social activities don’t start until after 6 PM, and can drag on until as late as 9 PM. For students belonging to these clubs who don’t live downtown, they have to repeat their morning commute reversed and arrive home as late as 10 PM. To make matters worse, certain forms of transport, like the metro and certain bus routes may feel less safe during later hours, especially for women traveling alone. These factors make it much less convenient for offcampus students to get involved in student life.

Nevertheless, the hours students wake up at and the hours they get home constitute only minor differences between residence and non-residence life. After all, some students may be morning people, for whom waking up early is not a challenge, regardless of how close they live to campus. One could additionally argue that students offcampus make up for the time they lose on public transportation by not having to do the same volume of chores such as cooking dinner or doing laundry, as they may still live with their parents. There is, however, an important distinction between the students living on and off of campus, the most important of which is the volume of social interaction one gets from living in a residence.

Indeed, dorm-life is filled with social interaction. Whether that be a positive factor or not often comes down to the sociability of individual students, but being in proximity to so many people of the same age definitely comes into play in how easy it is to make friends. After all, students living on campus have a wider range of social events they can attend, whether they are organized by the residence or independently by students. This greatly increases students’ chance of developing a sense of community, which may not always be the case for students who still live at home.

Most importantly, more social interaction means more chances to network. It may appear overly cynical to analyze social interaction solely based on its transactional value, but there are simply too many examples of successful business ventures, partnerships, and creative projects that have emerged as the result of a dorm friendship. Websites like Facebook and Napster were created to facilitate socializing and sharing music between students living on campus. Bands like MGMT and The Pixies were formed as a result of dorm-friendships. For students living in residence, this form of networking happens much more naturally, through communal living. This does not mean that students living off campus cannot network, but they may find themselves as easily immersed into McGill’s community in order to develop useful connections.

Furthermore, while McGill’s Quebec-residency tuition brings more class diversity to campus due to its low cost, in comparison to the international tuition, this class diversity becomes virtually obsolete when considering the demographics of residences, which mostly includes out-of-province and international students. While McGill as an institution may be open to class diversity, the university’s residence system still possesses the same flaws as other, less inclusive spaces. Networking, one of the most essential parts of the McGill experience, is ultimately facilitated for wealthier students who can afford to live in residences. While lower-class students may attend the same classes and go to the same events, they simply cannot compete, on a social level, with students who can afford to live on campus. The difference in experience between a student living at home and a student living in residence is therefore not simply a matter of how much time one can sleep and how close one is to campus; it is a socio-economic issue.

Living on campus indirectly advantages out-of-province and international students. Their increased ability to network and their constant social interaction in the residence community, allows for greater career and social opportunities. While this phenomenon is less prominent than in the United States where tuition costs even more, McGill’s student life is unfortunately not free of its own elitist bubbles.

The post The Price of Staying Home appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Pride initiative originated from Poppy Honeybone, the forward midfielder of the team, who felt as though a Pride Game was essential for celebrating and welcoming everyone in sports. Her teammate, Norah Ripple, said the team mobilizes behind causes that matter to its players. In the past month alone, they have also hosted a Truth and Reconciliation Game, as well as a Pink Game to raise funds for breast cancer. 

For the Pride Game on October 18, the Martlets also launched a campaign to support the GRIS-Montreal charity, which seeks to educate people on sexual and gender diversity in Montreal. Keeping the campaign local was a deliberate choice: the players wanted to make an impact that could be seen in their own community. Poppy expresses hope that the initiative would encourage other teams–across Montreal and Canada–to form similar partnerships with queer organizations in their areas. 

This season, the Martlets were the only McGill varsity team to host a Pride match. The team encourages other McGill athletes to follow suit and overtly support causes that matter to them. As varsity athletes, players on the team have a public platform, which they have used to support causes beyond the field. 

The Martlets’ initiative marks a parallel with Canadian soccer leagues as well. Unlike the men’s national soccer team, the Canadian women’s national team actively hosts annual Pride celebration matches, in which players wear Pride-themed jerseys, an initiative that originates at the institutional level. Canada Soccer, the official governing body for Canadian soccer, initiated this tradition in 2023. In men’s soccer, by contrast, Pride campaigns typically depend on individual clubs’ choice to participate. Moreover, major international competitions such as the men’s FIFA World Cup impose strict regulations on kit design and on-field displays, which limit the use of rainbow-coloured jerseys and similar symbols. 

As members of the McGill Martlets noted, advocacy is easier when it is shared across a team: players are more willing to speak up when they know they have their teammates’ support. The Martlets have fostered such an inclusive environment in which players feel comfortable to be themselves, and the team has thus used its games to raise awareness of causes its players care about. 

The post More Than a Game appeared first on The McGill Daily.

According to the campaign website, salaries of MUNACA staff have increased by 6.1 per cent since the 2021-2022 fiscal year while those of the top 10 highest paid McGill positions have increased by 13.1 per cent. In 2024, MUNACA and McGill’s collective agreement expired; since then, MUNACA has been bargaining with McGill for fairer conditions and pay to no avail.

On May 22, Diana Dutton, Associate Vice President of McGill Human Resources, acknowledged a letter from a coalition of McGill union presidents linked on the MUNACA website, stating, “We remain confident and committed to reaching a negotiated agreement.” In this acknowledgement, she disputed “the erroneous information it contains.”

Demands from MUNACA include freezing layoffs, cutting executive pay, and suspending administrative hiring. Additionally, the union has asked McGill to publicize the actions of NOUS Group — the consulting firm that produced Horizon McGill — and provide MUNACA a place in all discussions.

They are not the first members of McGill staff to request collaboration on fiscal matters with the university. Professor Derek Nystrom, Secretary for the Association of McGill Professors of the Faculty of Arts (AMPFA) and Associate Professor of English, told the Daily last year that the “real solution to [budget] dilemmas is not to hire outside consultants with a track record of taking a wrecking ball through other universities, but in working with faculty, staff, and students here to determine how best to address these challenges.” Largely, the Horizon Plan has been shared with McGill employees through press releases, unilateral town hall presentations, and the occasional Q&A session.

The staff we engage with on a daily basis, who help shape our experiences as students, make up MUNACA. This includes lab technicians as well as employees who manage the university’s athletic facilities, central information system (Minerva), and student services. Some examples of these student services are scheduling, academic advisors, and financial services.

Many McGill staff unions stand in solidarity with MUNACA, including AMPFA, the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE), Association of McGill Professors of Education (AMPE), Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE), Association of McGill Libraries Academic Staff (AMLAS), Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCLIU), Association of McGill Professors of Science (AMPS), Association of McGill Academic Staff of the School of Continuing Studies (AMASCS), Association of McGill Library Academic Staff (AMLAS), and Teaching Support Union at McGill (TSUM) — formerly known as the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).

On February 7, 2025, President and Vice Chancellor Deep Saini, Provost and Executive Vice President Academic Christoper Manfredi, and Vice President Administration and Finance Fabrice Labeau presented McGill’s Horizon Plan. The plan aims to eliminate a total operating deficit of 75 million dollars over three years, ending in the 2027-28 fiscal year. According to McGill’s 2024-25 financial report, the base salaries and taxable income of each of these executives were as follows: $682,267 (Saini), $410,375 (Manfredi), and $322,429 (Labeau). As of 2023, MUNACA staff members were paid between 21.99 and 48.65 dollars per hour. From 2024 to 2025, the two highest paid senior administrators earned more than 23 MUNACA members combined.

The first phase of the Horizon plan had a bullet point for “reducing salary mass,” which Manfredi suggested that McGill might: “delay the filling of vacancies, eliminate overtime, reduce working hours, [the reduction of ] pay … [and] attrition and not replacing staff who leave the university.” He continued, “but we also know… that’s not likely to be enough … Positions will have to be abolished.”

They told students, “Offering the best education to you with minimum disruptions and at the highest quality is an utmost priority for all of us.” Yet as students, the Daily’s editorial board finds that the best education is fostered in a university environment where staff and professors feel that their labor is valued and fairly compensated.

With a goal to “protect McGill’s long-term sustainability,” Saini, Manfredi, and Labeau presented a plan that included cutting 350-500 jobs and pressuring faculties to increase enrolments without adding faculty and teaching assistant support. Retired faculty have gone unreplaced, diminishing course offerings and overworking those who remain.

According to MUNACA, while student enrolment declined by 1 per cent in 2019-20 and 2022-23, management staff grew by 28 per cent. In deliberately allocating funding to executive expansion, McGill has sacrificed the needs of its support and non-academic staff.

With McGill professors and support staff stretched thin, students are suffering too. The Faculty of Arts has already increased course enrollment caps without increasing the number of TAs. This adversely impacts the extent to which students can receive individualized feedback and learning in addition to blatantly overworking TAs. The No More Free Hours campaign launched by TSUM in 2023 stated that, “In some departments, TAs with 45-hour contracts are regularly working twice their hours.” Moreover, the diminution of class assessments means that students have less opportunities to exercise theoretical learning. In GSFS 250, for example, the instructor stated that he has had to eliminate an essay assignment just to keep TAs within their contractual hours.

Head to mcgillfacts.ca to take action in solidarity with McGill’s support workers. There you will find both the emails of several university figureheads and email templates that you can customize based on your priorities as a student. Facts are facts, McGill.

The post MUNACA’s Campaign Exposes the McGill Administration’s Greed appeared first on The McGill Daily.

However, the continued oversimplification of the term “decolonization” has watered down its meaning. When only employed as a metaphor, it loses its potency. For instance, you’ll often hear people talk about “decolonizing” a syllabus or “decolonizing” their mind.

The scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explore how the reductive use of the term “decolonization” has become normalized within social justice frameworks. They argue that activists’ inability to question the word’s meaning prevents them from confronting the deeper issue of continued colonialism. As a result, “The desire to reconcile [becomes] just as relentless as the desire to disappear the Native; it is a desire to not have to deal with this (Indian) problem anymore.” Tuck and Yang describe this phenomenon using the phrase “settler moves to innocence,” explained as “strategies or positionings that attempt to relieve the settler of feelings of guilt or responsibility without giving up land or power or privilege.”

One of the methods used in decolonization efforts is repatriation, which Professor Rebecca L. Bourgeois of the University of Alberta’s Anthropology department describes as the “the return of cultural heritage […] from institutions back to their communities.” This “return of cultural heritage” is a laborious, complex process that can simultaneously conjure dark histories just as much as cherished ancestral knowledge for Indigenous communities.

Recently, a few objects have been successfully repatriated. For example, in 2023, the Royal BC Museum repatriated a Nuxalk totem pole back to the Nuxalk Nation. The totem pole was carved by the great-grandfather of the Hereditary Chief Snuxyaltwa (Deric Snow) and has a deep sense of meaning to the Nuxalk Nation. In a quote given to The Canadian Press, a Nuxalk member said “Our history is embedded in these poles, a great history, and when they’re taken, it’s almost as if it’s like our children were taken.”

“Rematriation” has also been raised as an alternative to the word “repatriation” in academic discourse to challenge colonial institutions such as heteropatriarchy. This term highlights the various considerations needed to be made during this return of artifacts. It also demonstrates how this process can look different to every Indigenous culture as each one has different protocols and traditions that need to be respected.

In exploring the nuances of the language surrounding decolonization, the Daily doesn’t claim to know exactly what reconciliation, repatriation, rematriation, or even decolonization itself should look like. As a publication on unceded land with an editorial board of non-Indigenous students the best we can do is to take a step back and ask ourselves: “How can we try to be more conscious of our word usage?”

If you are a non-Indigenous person reading this editorial, we ask you to do the same. Take a step back and question your place on Turtle Island. Read articles and discourse on Indigenous issues, keep up to date with local demonstrations, and draw informed conclusions. Below we have listed the scholarly sources that made up the argument of this article, and we urge you to look further.

“Towards the ‘tangible unknown’”: Decolonization and the
Indigenous future” by Aman Sium, Chandni Desai, and Eric
Ritskes

“Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck, State
University of New York at New Paltz, and K. Wayne Yang,
University of California, San Diego

“Rematriation: Ts’msyen Law, Rights of Relationality, and
Protocols of Return” by Robin R. R. Gray

“Reconceptualizing Repatriation as the Power to Decide” by
Rebecca L. Bourgeois, Kisha Supernant, and Neha Gupta

The post “Decolonization” appeared first on The McGill Daily.

When life gets busy, our physical well-being is the first thing we sacrifice. This problem is the unfortunate reality for many university students. The transition into post-secondary life is a unique circumstance for many of us: acclimating to new responsibilities, increased independence, living alone, a greater courseload…all at once. In the wake of these new and immediate pressures, we usually put our physical health on the backburner. Pulling all-nighters, hours working at a computer screen, and neglecting nutrition are all commonplace — especially at a competitive university like McGill, where we’ve glorified destructive habits and reframed them as necessary sacrifices for academic success.

The effects of these habits on our health are yet to be seen. We’re young, we’re adaptable, we tell ourselves that we can afford to miss a night of sleep — this assignment is just too important! That is exactly the problem: whereas schoolwork yields short-term results, our lifestyle choices can have detrimental effects on our long-term health despite having little consequence in our current day-to day lives.

Sleep debt, for example, is particularly acute among university students. A study found that many university students in North America report struggling to get enough sleep. McGill is no exception — all- nighters are all-too common. In fact, irregular and insufficient sleep is so normalized that the university itself keeps its libraries open 24 hours a day during exam periods. While this is ostensibly to support students struggling through exam prep, it also turns a blind eye to the irreparable damage round-the- clock studying can have on students’ bodies and brain development.

Indeed, neglecting sleep has far worse consequences than we often assume. In the short-term, muscle repair slows and the immune system weakens, making us more susceptible to all sorts of disease, sickness, and injury. In the long-term, sustained sleep deprivation is positively correlated with all-cause mortality, stroke, disease, and a plethora of other somatic diseases and conditions. Just because sleep deprivation is normalized doesn’t mean it’s natural or inevitable. We should find it alarming that we are ready to sacrifice something so fundamental for the sake of productivity.

Similarly, our neglect of proper nutrition is disturbing. Disordered eating patterns emerge in times of high stress; students cite a lack of motivation to cook and a perceived lack of time during exam periods as reasons to resort to ordering expensive take-out, or skipping meals altogether. Food options from cafes, fast food restaurants, or convenience stores can be a quick-fix to fit a meal into a tight schedule. However, when we develop a dependency on these options, we become passive consumers of food rather than active decision-makers in our nutritional habits. Relying on these makeshift meals makes it difficult to develop sustainable and financially responsible habits surrounding food down the line. While McGill has a selection of affordable food on campus, such as SSMU’s free lunch, the majority of their food services include cafes, restaurants, and convenience stores that can be unaffordable for students.

Another result of neglecting nutrition is the normalization of skipping meals and underfueling. This issue is especially pertinent for young women, a major university demographic, who are the most prone to disordered eating. In addition to the destructive mental health consequences, the physical effects of restrictive eating are devastating: higher risk of death, osteoporosis, and low mobility.

An inactive lifestyle exacerbates problems caused by irregular sleep and improper nutrition. Academic work is almost always done sitting behind a computer screen and often spans long periods of time. Although sedentary work doesn’t necessarily result in a completely sedentary lifestyle, students often organize their schedules and other commitments revolving around their academics. It is expected that all else — food, rest, and activity — will be readily sacrificed for one’s desired GPA.

We don’t just take part in these self-destructive habits; we take pride in them. Bragging about getting little to no sleep and eating next to nothing in order to commit to endless hours of schoolwork falsely assumes that when more sacrifices are made, we will be more successful. Meanwhile, eating well, sleeping enough, and making time for physical activity has time and time again proven to better academic performance.

Still, improving grades should not be the main objective of cultivating better habits; a happy and healthy life itself should be the goal. At McGill, once the semester ramps up, it seems like everyone is constantly struggling, tired, and overwhelmed; if you aren’t, then you are seen to “have it easy.” Of course university should still challenge students, but we need to shift academic culture away from glamorizing stress and an overbearing workload. This only leads students to pin success on over- exertion and neglecting their physical wellbeing.

If we want to protect ourselves in a world that prioritizes results over humans, we need to start taking care of ourselves. Eat a sandwich, drink water, take a nap, and go for a walk.

The post Health First! appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Once the summer and fall festivities wind down, we realize how integral outdoor spaces are to Montreal’s social fabric. Throughout the summer, the city puts on some of its most notable free and low-cost events and activities: movie nights, music festivals, and splash pads in the park. These ‘third spaces,’ locations outside of the home and the workplace with low financial barriers to entry, serve as informal gathering places. Once activities shift indoors, however, spending often becomes central to participation.

With a thriving cafe culture and vibrant nightlife, social life during the Montreal winter hinges on purchasing coffee or drinks. Malls in Montreal’s famous “Underground City” further encourage pedestrians to spend their money indoors.

While nearly half of Canadians report the rising cost of living impacting their ability to afford day-to- day expenses, spending money has become necessary for participation in social life. For young people, going into a store ‘just to look’ is the new way of socializing indoors. Even without spending a dollar, using these spaces in this way centres social life around commercial activity rather than community.

Montreal has been called one of the best cities in the world to be a student. Yet finding the energy to prioritize social interactions is especially hard to do when the heavy winter snow and harsh winds make going outside so challenging. When your view alternates exclusively between the glow of your laptop screen and the barren, grey landscape outside, it can feel easier to stay indoors. If there are no free and easy means of socializing available, making the effort to see friends can feel exhausting. In the time of year when it is easiest to miss human connection, the lack of third spaces leaves us the most alone — an experience many of us are much too familiar with. That’s why third spaces are so important: they provide easily accessible means of seeing old friends and making new ones, and Montreal’s residents deserve more of them all year round.

Below you’ll find a list of financially accessible third spaces available to McGill students in Montreal. These spaces recognize that leisure is a right, not a commodity reserved for those who can afford it.

McGill affiliated:
SSMU Lounge (3480 Rue McTavish, Room 106-A)
QPIRG Alternative Library (3516 Av. du Parc)
Redpath Museum (859 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
James Square (3537 Rue University)

Non-McGill affiliated:
Co-op Bar Milton Parc (3714 Av. du Parc)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1380 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Le Frigo Vert (2238 Rue Guy)
Westmount Public Library (4574 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Esplanade Tranquille (1442 Rue Clarke)

The post Searching For a Third Space appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Four years ago, McGill announced that it would begin the first stage of underground investigation on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). Sustainability Park, formerly called the New Vic Project, was described by provost, Christopher Manfredi, as “the most significant project our university has undertaken since its inception.” The Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) is responsible for the entire site, and has been working with McGill on the project since the site was vacated in 2015.

However, the project has been stalled by fierce resistance and battles in court. The Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera, also known as the Mohawk Mothers, allege that the site holds unmarked graves of Indigenous children. The Indigenous solidarity collective has been fighting the construction since it was proposed, arguing that McGill continues to deny and infringe on the group’s right to investigate those responsible for abuses against Indigenous peoples. “We deserve the opportunity to honour our loved ones and grieve them properly,” the Kahnistensera write on their website.

The group is also committed to searching the grounds for undiscovered evidence related to the CIA’s MK- ULTRA medical program, a series of illegal psychiatric experiments conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 under Dr. Donald Ewan. Victims were given drugs and psychologically tortured for the purposes of manipulating the psyche: speakers at the vigil detailed the program’s use of electroshock therapy to erase victims’ memories and the ubsequent use of “psychic drilling” to reprogram the mind. Activist and Kanien’kehá:ka nation member, Kahentinetha Horn, described the experiments as “sheer scientific cruelty.”

The Kahnistensera held their first vigil behind the Allan Memorial Institute on May 23, 2025. The event serves as a way to hold space for ancestors, says organizer CJ, as an answer to the questions of how we can educate and commemorate the site. They held 12 vigils throughout the summer of 2025, and returned Friday, Palestine to North America, known as Turtle Island by many of the continent’s Indigenous peoples. “The same thing is happening in many different places,” a participant shared on the “present-day perpetuation of colonialism” that the Kahnistensera describe.

Horn described the series of vigils as an invitation to pay homage to the people who may be buried there. The vigil began behind the Allan Memorial Institute next to the Morgan pool, which was constructed at the height of the MK-ULTRA experiments. “You can’t just take children and throw them in a mass grave and cover them up,” Horn said during the vigil. She expressed that the vigils are part of the responsibility to take care of those children. “When we’ve completed our mission here, we will come back and have a closing ceremony for them,” she promised.

The general sentiment of the vigil was that non-Indigenous residents in Montreal, known as Tiohtià:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka, are living on stolen Indigenous land. “This whole island of Montreal is Mohawk,” Horn stated. “This land is Mohawk land. [Tkaronto] is Mohawk land too. Ontario is a Mohawk name.” She reiterated that McGill is built on Mohawk land, echoing the Kahnistensera’s statement that “McGill is a gravesite,” and that “it’s all built on blood,” as written in their handout. “I hope some day you take the time to learn the history,” Horn said, urging attendees to listen to Indigenous voices.

In the 2022 announcement of the archaeological investigation of the former RVH site, the McGill Reporter wrote that “the university is mindful that in recent times there have been troubling discoveries in parts of Canada linked to the Residential School System, and that many members of our campus and broader community are deeply impacted by this. Hence, in the spirit of reconciliation, McGill’s work with the SQI is and will always be grounded in caution, and will involve ongoing conversation with local traditional and elected Indigenous leaders.”

The legal battle between McGill and the Kahnistensera has been long and ongoing. In March 2022, the Kahnistensera filed a lawsuit against McGill and the SQI alleging that the former hospital grounds contain unmarked gravesites. An October 2022 court decision from the Superior Court of Quebec granted the Kahnistensera with an injunction that halted development until a proper archaeological investigation could be conducted. Both parties agreed to appoint a panel of three archaeologists, which was mandated to assess and identify the archaeological techniques to be used on the site for the detection of human remains and unmarked graves.

“McGill is destroying evidence and making it harder for people to find their lost family members as we speak,” the @takebacktekanonontak Instagram account, dedicated to solidarity with the Kahnistensera, wrote in a March 2024 post. “McGill is continuing construction regardless of the damage it could cause to those searching for their lost family members and to those wishing to find more evidence regarding the CIA’s MK-ULTRA medical program.”

Nonetheless, McGill maintains that there are no human remains on the site. They deny that Historic Human Remains Detection Dogs (HHRDD) detected remains, and claim that the bone fragments found during the investigation are from animals and hold “no relation to or indication of clandestine human burial.” During a tour of the site at the vigil, the Kahnistensera claimed that many of the fragments were too small to identify, and that the university never performed the lab analysis that they claimed to have conducted. They write in a flyer that several pieces of evidence of human remains have been found, and that McGill, Quebec, and the SQI refuse to respect forensic practices. In the Instagram post advertising the vigil, @takebacktekanontak lists the “results of three remote-sending technologies” used near the Morgan pool, confirmed by Askîhk Research Services (run by the SQI) as “three separate lines of evidence supporting the presence of human remains.” These include ground penetrating radar, HHRDD, and “subterra grey probe, [which identifies] burials by detecting fatty acids resulting from soft tissue decomposition and changes in soil compactness from digging burial shafts.”

The overall cost of the project, including planning, restoring, and construction, is projected to be 870 million dollars. Amid budget cuts over the past two years, the university has described the Sustainable Park project as “a top priority for McGill…[that] will continue.” “Where is this money coming from?” the Kahnistensera asks. “Where is your tuition going? What are you paying for?”

McGill writes that the allegations that there may be unmarked graves on the RVH site are currently being investigated. “They just don’t know what to do, because we can’t stop,” stated Horn. “We have our duty, we’re not going to stop, we’ll never stop.”

The post “McGill is a Gravesite”: Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera Hold Vigil for Indigenous Children appeared first on The McGill Daily.

But why does oversharing even happen? For starters, it can feel good to vent your problems on the internet, as it offers almost instant validation or advice from others. Often, it can even feel easier to share personal stories on social media, as there is a sense of anonymity behind usernames and online profiles that can erase the expectation to meet certain social boundaries. You don’t have to look your audience in the eyes when telling the story, they don’t need to know your history, and you can more easily manipulate your story to generate greater sympathy. As hundreds of likes, comments, and messages flood in, the poster can begin to feel seen by an online community, replacing the support and relatability that may be missing from their personal lives.

Further, the crazier the story, the more likely it is to go viral, which can add to creators’ desire to share wild — and often very personal — life events. In addition to receiving validation from strangers online, there are algorithmic motivations involved with sharing stories with high shock value. For those posting these stories, receiving a higher amount of views can come with the ability to monetize content and get brand deals. On the other hand, social media algorithms keep track of what videos get engagement, and push this kind of content onto more and more feeds. Put simply, sometimes a person will share their story online and receive attention that piles on as the algorithm continues to promote it. Hence, they feel validated and continue to share more. Encouraged by their favorable algorithmic engagement, the people who share these deeply personal stories can turn them into a
series, or in severe cases, their brand. One would no longer simply post to help themselves process complex feelings or life events, but to perform for an audience who will engage with their media.

In a viral series titled “Who Tf Did I Marry,” user Reesa Teesa amassed over 500 million views within three days by sharing her experience while married to a pathological liar. As her story gained traction, the videos began to end on cliffhangers and her retelling of her past trauma began to resemble an episodic entertainment series. Furthermore, her favorable engagement granted her “influencer status” that secured her brand deals and monetization with merchandise containing catchphrases from the series like “I Survived Legion.” Her journey illustrates how social media storytimes can transform deep personal trauma into a commercialized performance and personal brand.

Creators aren’t the only ones contributing to a culture of online oversharing. As viewers, we want creators to “drop the receipts”: get into the nitty-gritty details of their personal lives and provide evidence for them through screenshots of chats, photographs, and so on. As consumers we comment, share, demand updates, speculate, and choose sides. In this way, viewers contribute to an online culture of oversharing by rewarding and encouraging over-vulnerability online simply by engaging with it.

So what? How does oversharing affect both creators and consumers of social media, and what kind of repercussions can come from such extreme vulnerability? For one, excessive disclosure of personal information and experiences can negatively impact the way we view ourselves and the ways that our peers — both online and in real life — perceive us. By posting about traumas and personal experiences for the world to see, we expose ourselves to the judgment of complete strangers. While supportive comments can help us feel seen and heard, they also might condition us to measure the value of our experiences in proportion to other people’s reactions. Over time, it can become easy to associate receiving attention online with the way we are supposed to process deeply personal events and their significance. What is so dangerous about the externalization of self-worth and personal experiences is that vulnerability can feel rewarding when an audience responds positively and disappointing when they do not. This affects our abilities to autonomously discern what is important to us, as we rely more and more on the opinions of strangers to make choices and interpret feelings that ultimately affect us and not them. The more we overshare, the harder it becomes to separate how we feel toward an issue or life event and what we have learned will receive online attention.

Meanwhile, as viewers spend hours consuming other people’s family conflicts and relationship struggles, we become increasingly comfortable treating private experiences as entertainment. Someone’s worst trauma can become just another piece of content to scroll through, desensitizing us to serious topics and life experiences. Furthermore, constantly concerning ourselves with other people’s difficulties can create emotional exhaustion. If our feeds are consumed by recounts of mental health struggles and familial betrayals, we may start to be psychologically affected by experiences that aren’t even ours. Finally, constant exposure to intimate personal details pushes oversharing to become a normal expectation for everyone. This blurring of privacy lines makes us feel entitled to know intimate details from others, both online and in real life. This can strain relationships and harm our understanding of what is meant to be shared and what is not.

But what if you just really enjoy scrolling and posting on social media? While it’s not very realistic to delete all our socials these days (though it is possible with enough determination), we can still implement small strategies into our daily scrolling and posting. Before posting something particularly personal, think twice about whether you are simply seeking validation or actually wanting to share something valuable. Even consumers of social media content can take steps to cultivate a healthier online environment through altering their engagement habits. Engaging selectively allows us to flag oversharing content and disengage from content that feels too personal for social media. In doing so on a large scale, we can teach our algorithms that oversharing doesn’t have to be such a critical component of online entertainment. Lastly, if there is something you desperately want to vent about, maybe consider getting a journal instead of smashing that post button. Not every experience needs a vast audience, and some things are best kept between you, your friends, and a good old-fashioned diary.

The post Did the Journal Factory Explode? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On December 7, 2025, Crick opened for DeMarco at MTELUS. While such a gig is a remarkable achievement, the significance of this feat seemed to be lost on much of the crowd. Crick noted that while performing his opening set, “the crowd seem[ed] to talk a lot over us,” a distraction which he contrasted with his band’s “very quiet, chill music.”

Crick’s musical language consists of buttery piano licks, introspective lyrics, and measured pacing. He makes music perfect for curling up with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. While he doesn’t exactly make moshing music, one would still expect a greater level of respect from the audience, especially from DeMarco’s fans of lo-fi music. Crick even remarked, “[The crowd talking over us did] make me want to write music that people want to dance to.” Nevertheless, his authenticity ultimately shines through, finally settling on the fact that “[he] still want[s] to write chill music.”

This self-assurance has followed Crick throughout his musical career. Crick grew up in Coledale, a small coastal village in Australia’s New South Wales. “When you grow up in a small town,” Crick muses, “everything seems so much grander… you work hard and dream big.” Eventually, those big dreams became reality for Crick. The singer-songwriter had his first taste of musical success right after graduating high school in 2012, when he toured with Australian pop-rock artist, Kirin J. Callinan, as a backing keyboardist and bassist. While on tour, Crick met DeMarco, and the two eventually became close friends after multiple run-ins at stops in the US and Australia. While Crick would send his recordings to DeMarco expecting nothing in return, DeMarco would offer to mix these recordings in his own studio, polishing them for Crick’s sophomore album, Live… In New York City, released in early 2021.

Crick wrote the cozy pop piano album as an ode to day- to-day life in the city, while he trained as a piano repair apprentice. In fact, he recorded the album using the very piano he dragged off the street and repaired himself. In signature Crick style, he mixed it on an vintage eight-track tape player, not owning a computer at the time. Despite being a major milestone in his career, being that this was his first album released under ‘Mac’s Record Label,’ Crick remained humble when discussing the project. “I hadn’t really ever sung — no one in my family knew I [could]. I kind of just recorded the album to see if I could do it.”

Crick’s stripped-back style followed him into Droplet, his most recent project: a mellow album filled with 27 short, delicate piano grooves and instrumentals. Despite its playfulness and dreamy melodies, audiences weren’t as supportive. The album received a 58/100 rating by audiences on Album of the Year, whereas Live… In New York City received a 77/100. He released it while riding the wave of fame that came with signing with Mac and his successful 2023 complete album release, Sweet Dreamin’, so audiences seemed to have been expecting more. Crick described how “It got some weird reviews because people expected it to be Tex’s new album, but to me, this is a fun little soundtrack I did on the side, all recorded on one keyboard. It’s all very simple and raw.”

Just like any other art piece, music is another form of self-expression. Through deliberate technical choices in instrumentation and structure, the artist is able to communicate what they want to express at that moment — a feeling, a thought, an idea. There are no boundaries to what the right kind of music can or should look like: artists can produce atmospheric vocal albums like Live… in New York City or they can also create fun and playful instrumental projects like Droplet.

Crick’s experimentation with the role music plays as an artistic vehicle has incurred less-than-savoury reactions, via critics and audience reactions on tour alike. Yet, many forget that pieces such as these can serve a purpose outside of just instant gratification. Crick hopes that his music can serve as a source of comfort to listeners above all else: “[When listening to my music,] I hope listeners can relax and forget about the stress in their lives. Just enjoy the music.”

Crick’s work reminds us that an artist’s ability to remain authentic in the face of criticism or apathy is of the utmost importance. His musical quirks are precisely what makes him so charming. It’s this timeless quality that comes about because he’s “really terrible at keeping in touch with new music,” that is actually a strength of his rather than a weakness.

Perhaps the audio clips of the bustle of the streets of Manhattan and the clinking of glasses at a classic New York bar featured in Live… In New York City aren’t designed for a live audience performance, but they immerse you in a moment and feeling that you can’t escape while listening. So while Crick’s stripped-back production may sound unpolished to the general public, its raw flair is precisely what makes his work so fresh in a music scene saturated with ultra-polished production.

The post Tex Crick: Indie Through and Through appeared first on The McGill Daily.

By September 8, this decision was challenged in the Superior Court of Quebec. Justice Sylvain Lussier ordered Elections Quebec to send voter reminder cards in both French and English eight days later. The ruling came after an English-language rights advocate, Geoffrey Chambers, argued that French-only communication limited voter access to essential electoral information and risked skewed participation. 

French-only to Bilingual 

Bill 96, formally known as the Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, states that French is the official language of the Québec Nation. Correspondingly, the legislation requires that civil administration exclusively use French. 

Elections Québec stated that Bill 96 indicated the organization could no longer mail election information in both French and English. According to Global News, the agency had previously sought an exemption from Bill 96 that would have allowed it to continue mailing bilingual documents but that request was denied. 

As a result, the agency planned to provide information in English through other means, including a QR code that directed voters to online resources. During the court proceedings, Elections Québec argued that the information itself remained available in English and that instead the issue was whether voters had a right to receive it specifically by mail. 

Accordingly, Chamber’s legal challenge against Bill 96’s provisions for Eléctions Québec focused on whether alternatives provided “sufficient” access. The prosecuting lawyer representing the challenge argued that relying on a QR code could create difficulties for people without smartphones or reliable internet access. 

The court ultimately ordered Élections Québec to produce bilingual voter reminder cards. Although the ruling did not eliminate the broader language requirements established by Bill 96, it did change how those requirements apply to voter information for this specific election.

What Is at Stake for the Parties? 

The dispute also falls within an election in which Québec’s parties hold fervent positions on language and Québecois national identity.

For Parti Québécois (PQ), led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, French-only voter materials fortify a campaign built around affirming Quebec’s national identity, preserving the French language, and protecting the province’s sovereignty. The party primarily appeals to a francophone electorate, and its leader has pledged to pursue a sovereignty referendum whether the PQ forms a minority or majority government. A policy that normalizes French as the sole language of government communication therefore aligns closely with both the party’s message and much of its political base. 

The incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ benefits from presenting itself as a defender of the province’s language-law framework. During the campaign, leader Christine Fréchette defended the French-only cards put forward by her party by arguing that English-speaking voters could still find election information in English elsewhere. 

The Quebec Liberal Party, whose support includes many English-speaking voters, has taken the opposite position. Liberal leader Charles Milliard, called on Fréchette to change the CAQ’s stance, arguing that equal participation requires equal access, not a system in which one linguistic group receives election information at home while another must search for it. 

The controversy also gives the Conservatives an opening to distinguish themselves from the sovereigntist PQ. Leader Eric Duhaime has presented his party as an alternative on the question of Quebec sovereignty and the mail-out dispute. 

The policy of French-only mail-out information, put forward by the CAQ, therefore aligns with the interests of any party whose electoral base is less dependent on English-speaking voters, given the inaccessibility of information regarding where, when, and how to vote. Consequently, the PQ and CAQ bear a potential advantage over the other parties that cannot afford uninformed English-speaking voters, namely the Liberals, the Conservatives, and Québec solidaire. 

The voter card therefore has become a small but visible example of a much broader debate about how Quebec defines the role of the French language in its public institutions and where the limits of policy should lie when it intersects with access to democratic participation.

The post Language Laws Meet the Ballot Box  appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The motion called for “the SSMU General Assembly to compel the President and Vice President of University Affairs to advocate against renewal or reinstatement of the exchange program consistent with SSMU’s existing Policy Against Genocide in Palestine and the Policy on Harmful Military Technology.” While the current exchange agreement, signed in December 2023, is set to renew in 2028, both McGill and HUJI are required to negotiate renewal terms nine months prior, which would be late 2027. 

In order for this motion to be voted on at the GA, a quorum of no less than 350 McGill undergraduate students needed to be satisfied. If passed, the motion states that the SSMU President and VP University Affairs will be called on to present “a motion mirroring the language of [the GA] motion” at the Senate meeting, scheduled for January 13, 2027, per the motion. 

James Thomas Reid, the SSMU Speaker, called the GA to order and opened the assembly with a brief overview of the agenda. This included various summaries of reports including the SSMU executive committee summer report and the Board of Director report both presented by President Hamza Abu-Alkhair, and a report presented by the accountability commissioner Lounes Azzoun. 

Following these announcements, discussion was opened for a finite time, where students were able to ask Abu-Alkhair questions regarding the reports as well as current SSMU activities. The queries ranged from an update on the sudden closure of Midnight Kitchen last year, where Abu-Alkhair answered that SSMU had launched a new Free Lunches program, to questions regarding how to get involved in SSMU. As the questions progressed, more students entered the SSMU ballroom. Reid periodically gave updates on how many more people were needed to meet quorum, causing students in the ballroom to text friends and peers, encouraging them to attend the GA. Reid also clarified that meeting attendance as well as voting was in-person only, standing in accordance with clause 4 in the 2026-2027 SSMU standing rules, which said, “Meetings shall be in person, unless the Steering Committee deems it necessary to be hybrid (in-person and Zoom) for extraordinary reasons.”

At 7:25 PM, quorum was finally met, which led to the end of the question period. A 15 minute recess time was scheduled before the motion was presented, however, this was soon asked to be suspended by a student. The student body voted in favour of this suspension by a large majority, which allowed for the GA to move on to the presentation of the motion. Reid explained how the mover, Sumayya Kheireddine, will be given five minutes to present the motion. 

Similarly to last year’s GA, where her motion on the one day strike for Palestine was passed in, Kheireddine opened her speech by stating that, as of September 28, 2026,  it has been 1086 days since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza. Kheireddine went on to specify that the motion was not about any particular McGill student or faculty member, but rather about the significance of interuniversity institutional relationships. Kheireddine hence encouraged students to vote “yes” on the motion asking McGill to terminate the agreement between the school and HUJI for two reasons; the first being that through its training of Israeli defence and intelligence, HUJI is a part of the Israeli military complex, and the second being that the campus is located on the ruins of the illegally occupied Jerusalem. She encouraged students to recall McGill’s rich history of academic boycott, arguing one cannot treat partnerships as neutral when connected to a military involved in occupation, genocide, and denying Palestinians’ right to education. She further emphasized that by partnering with this institution, McGill normalizes these violations of human rights. 

The time allotted to deliberate this particular motion was 5 minutes. This was followed by a 5 minute question period and a 10 minute discussion period. Both of these periods were quickly suspended by individual students, and passed with a ⅔ majority vote, suggesting that students were eager to move onto voting. Correspondingly, Reid announced the voting period at 7:47 PM. During this time, no one could leave or enter the building. After a few minutes of voting, it was announced that the vote in favour of the motion was passed by a simple majority, and it would thus move on to an online ratification process opening within 7 days of the GA. The room erupted in cheers, chatter, and clapping. 

After the GA, the Daily spoke to a few students about the meeting and the passing of the motion. One student told the Daily, “I’m just really happy everyone showed up tonight and demonstrated substantial support for the movement.” They added, “We show up because we deeply care, and this [voting at a GA] is just one avenue we can add pressure [to the university].”

The Daily also spoke to the Speaker, James Thomas Reid about the importance of student politics. Reid said it was his first time speaking at a General Assembly. When asked if he expected the GA to meet quorum, he replied “I did, yes, because it’s a very pertinent affair. It was a very important meeting and I thought a lot of the student body was very much interested in showing up. So it wouldn’t surprise me that we did.” However, he added, “Did I expect the actual suspension of questions and discussions? I didn’t expect it, but also it wasn’t very surprising.”

Regarding the cheers and clapping after the motion was passed, Reid commented, “It’s unsurprising how people reacted. As I said, this is a very pertinent issue and people are very passionate about that. I’m not surprised of the reaction that happened in the General Assembly, but it was my job to make sure that even though that reaction did happen, we [had to] continue to support order. That was part of my job.”

The ratification was sent to the student body on Friday, October 2 and students will have until October 13 to vote. To pass, the ratification must meet the quorum of at least 10 per cent of the SSMU constituency and receive a simple majority vote. 

The post McGill Students Pass Historic Boycott Motion appeared first on The McGill Daily.