On Jan. 14, the McGill Senate convened for its first meeting of the Winter 2026 Semester, discussing a proposed codification of the Senate’s electoral procedures, a draft identification policy governing access to university spaces, and McGill’s budget outlook for the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
The meeting began with McGill’s President and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini’s opening remarks, in which he gave thanks to outgoing Provost and Executive Vice-President Academic Christopher Manfredi. Saini announced in November that current Interim Deputy Provost Student Life & Learning Angela Campbell will replace Manfredi beginning Feb. 1.
Secretary-General Edyta Rogowska then presented a proposed codification of Senate electoral procedures, scheduled for approval at the Senate’s next meeting on Feb. 11.
“Historically, Senate elections have been administered in line with […] statutory provisions [and] longstanding administrative practices,” Rogowska said. “While these practices have generally functioned well, they have not been consolidated into a single Senate-approved framework, which these procedures now provide.”
During the discussion, Senator Victor Muñiz-Fraticelli, associate professor in the Faculty of Law, raised concerns regarding the proposal’s ranked-choice voting process.
“The option of not ranking someone is […] unavailable under the current ranking system,” Muñiz-Fraticelli noted. “The truth is, very often, we either have absolutely no opinion about some of the candidates […] or perhaps we have a very strong, negative opinion about a particular candidate, and we would not like to rank them.”
The Senate then discussed the proposed Identification Policy for Access to Properties Owned, Occupied, or Used by the University, presented by Vice-President Administration and Finance Fabrice Labeau. If approved, this policy would allow authorized personnel—such as exam invigilators, faculty and staff, and campus security—to demand students, faculty, staff, and visitors identify themselves by providing IDs or removing face coverings “for a legitimate purpose.”
Amina Bourai, University Affairs Officer for McGill’s Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), expressed concern for what she saw as the “multiple red flags” in the policy.
“We are asking professors and staff to act as quasi-security officers, which is neither appropriate nor safe,” Bourai said. “Even police officers cannot force someone to identify themselves, unless detained or arrested. This policy is going to have a very chilling and punitive impact on students that […] must protect their identity during protests and public events.”
Senator Victoria Kaspi, representative of the Board of Governors, then acknowledged that this policy may help ensure campus security, citing her experience with classroom disruptions involving individuals wearing face coverings.
“[I am] someone who was strongly impacted in [the] classroom by masked intruders who disrupted class and physically blocked my entry to the classroom,” Kaspi shared. “Without any way to identify, anyone from anywhere can come and choose to influence, disrupt, vandalize, or […] affect peace on campus.”
Bourai commented that the identification policy risks discrimination against certain groups.
“It is fully guaranteed that this policy will be applied unequally. Even with training, police officers always fall disproportionately on marginalized people,” Bourai said. “I find it very troubling knowing the steps that this province is currently taking to force the unveiling of Muslim women.”
The meeting ended with Manfredi presenting the Budget Planning 2026-2027 Report. Manfredi’s budget report estimates McGill will deliver a balanced operating budget for the coming fiscal year starting on May 1, 2026, despite its major deficit in 2025.
“Language requirements, immigration changes, and uncertainty around student permit allocations all affect our ability to recruit students,” he noted. “Because more than 80 per cent of our operating revenue is enrollment-driven, even small shifts can have outsized financial consequences.”
Despite the impact of declining tuition revenue, Manfredi emphasized that measures to reduce McGill’s budget deficit should not be conflated with a shift in the university’s priorities.
“It’s not panic-driven crisis management, and it’s not austerity for its own sake. No one involved finds any of that appealing. Ultimately, the goal is to have sufficient resources to reasonably invest in the key elements of our core mission.”
Moment of the meeting
When discussing the proposed identification policy, Senator Donald Morard compared the identification requirements to his own experiences completing his Master’s Degree in Russia under high security presence.
Soundbite
“We may want security, and in fact the majority of us want it, but it cannot come at the expense of people’s rights and entitlements to be treated as equals [….] You cannot balance rights and security.” – Catherine Lu, Political Science professor, on the ID requirement.
