On March 1, Christopher Manfredi, the Dean of arts, chaired the first of four meetings, part of the administration’s Open Forum to debate the limits of free expression and peaceful assembly on campus. Despite the clear importance of these issues to students, the first meeting only had just over 30[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Choosing salsa instead of studying
It was halfway through reading week, and I was driving to Trinidad, Cuba in a 1958 Chevrolet with two Italians, a driver from Havana, and my mother, when I realized I wasn’t actually going to get any reading done. My mother and the driver were in a heated conversation about[Read More…]
Neither open, nor a forum
Voltaire, one of history’s finest satirists, once famously quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was “Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an
The SPVM should be called to account for Nov. 10
Last Thursday, the Independent Student Inquiry (ISI) released its final report regarding the events of Nov. 10, following the release of a preliminary report on Dec. 1. The chronology of the events of Nov. 10 is similar to that laid out in Dean Jutras’s report, released on Dec. 15. The[Read More…]
Rick Santorum’s views on higher education are a danger to society
Last week, U.S. presidential hopeful Rick Santorum made a sojourn into the land of utter political bewilderment, admonishing Barack Obama for wanting more American youths to go to college. “What a snob,” the former senator proclaimed, going on to say with Biblical tact that university liberals wish to remake students[Read More…]
The student movement’s last stand?
The Quebec-wide student “strike” is certainly gaining momentum, as more and more student associations vote to join the movement and voice their opposition to the provincial government’s plan to increase tuition. More than 120,000 students will be officially “on strike” (or boycotting classes) as of this week and the confrontation[Read More…]
The new pipeline offers little but a sticky situation
McGill Tribune Why should we, as global citizens, be concerned about a new $5.5-billion pipeline flowing from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta to Kitimat, a coastal port in north-western British Columbia? First, we are consumers of oil. Second, we need to move from fossil fuels to clean[Read More…]
Are the USA and Canada tangoing to different music in the 21st century?
Canada-U.S. relations have enjoyed an eclectic array of descriptions since the International Boundary that separates the two countries was set up in 1783. Pierre Trudeau famously said that living next to the U.S. was like sleeping with an elephant: “No matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected[Read More…]
Student Democracy: The agency of the few
The SSMU General Assembly last week was the latest installment of an institution at McGill showcasing both the theoretical promise of direct democracy and the reality of its own illegitimacy. The theoretical promise comes from the reasonable idea that the student body of a university should have a say in[Read More…]
A Different Approach to Religion
McGill Tribune Around 80 people were shot to death during a political gathering at a summer camp in Norway in 2011. Many have claimed this crime was fueled by religions and that it is exemplary of its faults. There have been mass suicides in the United States led by religious[Read More…]