This past week, Montreal’s new mayor, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, announced her first budget, in which she plans to triple spending on homelessness initiatives. Her new Tactical Intervention Group on Homelessness (GITI) commits $29.9 million CAD to policing infrastructure, surveillance in public places, and social workers. Despite the increase in allocated[Read More…]
Commentary
Keeping Montreal alive means letting shops stay open late
It’s 7 p.m. on a Saturday night, and you have nothing to wear. Rushing out the door, you take to St. Laurent in search of the perfect, innovative solution to a closet lacking inspiration: Another black top. Yet, no matter where you look, every store is closed: La Caravane, CUL-DE-SAC,[Read More…]
The Big O could be more than a costly relic
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. To this day, the Olympic Stadium, also known as the Big O, remains one of Montreal’s biggest architectural and cultural landmarks. Featuring the world’s tallest deliberately leaning tower and over 50,000 seats, the stadium is impractical to maintain from[Read More…]
New Year, same (institutional) burnout
January, colloquially known as the month of new beginnings. Planners for the calendar year fill the bookshelves, wellness advice on how to ‘improve’ flood TikTok and Instagram For-You-Pages, and even McGill sends out communications encouraging students to return to campus with better habits and a renewed zest for academia and[Read More…]
Sexual assault survivors should not have to ask for safety
On Dec. 29, the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) banned convicted Catholic priest Brian Boucher from several parts of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (CDN-NDG) and the Town of Mount Royal, after he repeatedly crossed paths with an individual he had sexually assaulted. The individual said that encountering Boucher caused discomfort. They noted that[Read More…]
Quebec’s winter crossings are a policy outcome, not a one-time crisis
January, colloquially known as the month of new beginnings. Planners for the calendar year fill the bookshelves, wellness advice on how to ‘improve’ flood TikTok and Instagram For-You-Pages, and even McGill sends out communications encouraging students to return to campus with better habits and a renewed zest for academia and[Read More…]
Bill C-3 forces adoptees to reconsider their national identity; Canada should too
On Nov. 20, the House of Commons passed Bill C-3, drastically altering the Canadian citizenship process. The bill, also known as the “Lost Canadians Bill,” expands access to citizenship for over 115,000 people born abroad. Previously, second-generation Canadians born outside of Canada couldn’t inherit citizenship from a naturalized parent. Now,[Read More…]
Without redistributing power, repatriation of artifacts remains incomplete
Reconciliation should not come with an invoice. The Vatican’s decision to return 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canada is being described as a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.” Yet when the Catholic Church maintains control over the timing, framing, and logistics of the return, even forcing Indigenous communities to[Read More…]
Cutting teaching assistant funding will hurt learning
With first- and second-year classes averaging 69 enrolled students—and many required classes tallying in the hundreds—McGill must create more opportunities for students to collaborate in smaller sections. The benefits of small-group learning have been widely documented; it is in McGill’s best interest to draw money from its endowment to expand[Read More…]
When Ottawa cuts, Kahnawà:ke pays
Through Bill C-5’s ‘Building Canada Act,’ the Carney administration aims to achieve extensive economic development projects—though without respect for Indigenous rights and sovereignty. When critical funding for Indigenous services is placed on the chopping block, Indigenous communities have no choice but to take sovereign action to secure for themselves what[Read More…]