Articles by Ellen Lurie

Blackface at McGill

From 1906 to 1946, McGill student newspaper archives record definitive evidence of blackface on and around campus. Although the majority of clippings publicize nearby local theatre productions of minstrel shows, several excerpts explicitly describe blackface performances as taking place at McGill. Persisting in Montreal today, blackface is a form of[Read More…]

Know Your Artist: Stina Baudin

Based in Montreal, Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist Stina Baudin combines textile, sound, written text, and archival data to represent Black and Afro-diasporic identity. She describes her approach as bricolage, a mixed media practice that transforms readily-available materials into a composite work.  In an interview with The Tribune, Baudin shared how she[Read More…]

A conversation with Ehab Lotayef: A lifelong voyage to the conscience of humanity

On May 14, 429 activists carrying more than 11,000 kilograms of humanitarian aid set sail to Gaza from Marmaris, Türkiye, to protest against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Two Palestinian solidarity activist coalitions—the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC)—organized this[Read More…]

‘Kanga I, II, III’ brings Projections: SANKOFA’s afrofuturist vision to Trottier

Tanzanian-American-Canadian artist Shanna Strauss’s screenprint triad Kanga I, II, III joined the student-led digital art exhibition Projections: SANKOFA on Feb. 23. Displayed in the Lorne M. Trottier Building mezzanine, the Kanga series combines negative space with vibrant colour to assert the unifying power of shared cultural identity.  Projections: SANKOFA is[Read More…]

How can I show you I’m doing better if there’s nothing good for me to do?

Canada’s prison system is predicated on rehabilitation and reintegration—yet, the country’s own correctional service is defunding the most integral program to realizing that aim.  Correctional Service Canada (CSC) has announced the suspension of its federal prison education program in Quebec correctional facilities, effective June 30, 2026. At present, Quebec offers[Read More…]

Great pitch, terrible news

In The Tribune‘s Slack, ‘that’s great!’ doesn’t usually mean there’s good news. Coming up with pitches for our paper requires a particular analytic perspective. Examining politics, social life, and culture through the lens of journalism can instill a habit of reading the news in search of something controversial; something sensationalizable.[Read More…]

White supremacists cannot be trusted with coercive state power

Trigger warning: Mentions of racial and sexual violence WhiteDate, advertised as a “dating platform for white people with traditional values,” is a white supremacist, neo-eugenicist, ethnonationalist propaganda network impersonating a dating app. An investigation has revealed the presence of military and elected officials on this platform, posing a profound threat[Read More…]

Canada must criminalize coerced sterilization and confront its propagation of colonial violence

In 2005, Montreal practitioners performed a nonconsensual hysterectomy on Quebec Senator Amina Gerba, resulting in irreversible infertility. Gerba would not learn she had undergone this procedure—a clear violation of her medical rights and autonomy—until over a decade later, when, during an unrelated procedure, her gynecologist discovered she lacked a uterus.[Read More…]

Canada, union-busting won’t fly

On Saturday, Aug. 16, over 10,000 flight attendants went on strike in protest of Air Canada’s longstanding refusal to pay employees for their “ground work,” a term describing the labour obligations flight attendants execute while preparing the aircraft prior to take-off and after landing. The average flight attendant completes over[Read More…]

Canada must look to its own history—not the United States’—when forming solutions to the fentanyl crisis

First distributed in the 1960s as an intravenous anesthetic, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. As one of the world’s most frequently used opioid analgesics, fentanyl’s high potency poses a severe risk of overdose, particularly when consumed unknowingly through dealer lacing. With a mere[Read More…]

In the wake of Trudeau’s resignation, U.S. political polarization should serve as a cautionary tale

A widely unpopular progressive party leader, having unsuccessfully attempted to fend off a populist conservative challenger, is forced to step down for the sake of his party’s re-election prospects. Wait, who are we talking about? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation on Jan. 6, 2025 shares eerie resemblance with former[Read More…]