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Behind the Bench, Hockey, Sports

What cities would be valuable additions to the PWHL?

by Alex Hawes Silva on

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A recent Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) game between the Montréal Victoire and Minnesota Frost in Denver set a U.S. attendance record, with more than 14,000 fans chanting: “We want a team!” This excitement has sparked conversations about which cities should host the league’s potential 2025-26 expansion teams. Chicago, Vancouver, Denver, and Detroit stand out as strong contenders. Each has a rich sports culture and a passionate audience that could help the league grow and thrive.

Denver is an ideal candidate for a PWHL team because of its established hockey culture, fanbase, and infrastructure for professional sports. The success of the Colorado Avalanche evidences the city’s strong support for hockey, complemented by a thriving recreational scene that sparks interest in the game among youth. Denver’s sports market would offer significant sponsorship opportunities and media coverage, creating a strong foundation for a women’s professional hockey team. 

Denver PWHL fans’ overt support during the Victoire vs. Frost game is a clear tell of their enthusiasm to potentially welcome a team. Additionally, Denver’s diverse and active community aligns perfectly with the PWHL’s goals of growing the game and promoting inclusivity. Expanding to Denver would also strategically extend the league’s presence into the western United States, attracting new fans and strengthening its reputation across North America.

As one of the largest cities in the U.S., Chicago has a passionate fanbase that hosts teams across all major leagues, which would make for a vibrant environment for a new hockey team. The city is already home to a plethora of youth programs, which could help build local talent pipelines. With elite facilities like the United Center and Wrigley Field, Chicago has the infrastructure to successfully host a PWHL team. Its central location also makes it an ideal hub for travel within the league with potential for friendly regional rivalries. 

Vancouver would be another strong option as a host city due to its deep love for hockey and it being one of Canada’s most vibrant urban scenes. As home to the National Hockey League (NHL)’s Canucks and a thriving hockey community, Vancouver has a community of passionate fans who would embrace professional women’s hockey. The city’s picturesque setting and multicultural community would make it an appealing market for players, fans, and sponsors. Expanding to the West Coast also catches the eyes of potential donors for the PWHL, which could help build the league across all facets. Considering its reputation for hosting successful sports events in venues such as Rogers Arena, Vancouver has the means and community needed to host a franchise and grow the league’s presence on the West Coast.

Lastly, Detroit would be a qualified host city for a PWHL team, given its rich hockey culture and passionate fanbase. Known as “Hockeytown,” Detroit has a deep connection to the sport, with a long history of supporting the NHL’s Red Wings and a strong culture of youth hockey. With a community that values the sport as a whole, Detroit fits the criteria of what is needed to support a PWHL team.

Chicago, Vancouver, Denver, and Detroit each offer unique opportunities to help expand the PWHL and elevate professional women’s hockey. Denver’s public display of enthusiasm for a team may prompt the PWHL to prioritize adding them to the league before others. While Chicago’s status as a major sports centre with a thriving hockey culture would attract a large and diverse fan base, the PWHL may prefer a team based on the West Coast to help expand the league’s reach, like Vancouver. As a Canadian hockey hub with a proven track record of supporting women’s hockey events, Vancouver would further solidify the League’s presence in Canada. Detroit, with its deep hockey roots and reputation, offers a perfect blend of tradition and enthusiasm for the sport, but it may not be able to compete with larger fan bases in its area, like Chicago. Looking at the current league, there are three American teams and three Canadian teams, so one could predict that the PWHL would choose to add one team from the US and one team from Canada to maintain a balance for future seasons. All of these cities provide a mix of geographic diversity, supportive fan bases, and resources to help the PWHL continue to grow and inspire future generations of players and would all be exceptional additions to the league.

Science & Technology

Searching for life beyond Earth

by Lana Liquard on

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What does it mean to be alive? Could life exist elsewhere in the universe, and if so, how would we recognize it? 

On Jan. 14, 2025, Dr. Michael L. Wong, Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Science’s Earth & Planets Laboratory, addressed these mysteries during a seminar at the Trottier Space Institute (TSI) at McGill. Wong’s talk, titled Pondering Our Place in the Universe, showcased his interdisciplinary approach, blending planetary science, data science, and philosophy. 

Wong began his presentation by framing the core questions of astrobiology: How does life emerge? And what makes a planet habitable? These questions, he argued, demand a multidimensional approach to better understand life’s inherent complexity. 

Earth’s distinct atmosphere

One of the key focuses of Wong’s research is atmospheric chemistry. Earth’s atmospheric network is distinct from those of other planets. This could be because Earth’s atmosphere reflects a combination of its biosphere and technosphere—the part of the environment made up or modified by humans. Together, these two unique features form a technobiosphere. 

“Earth’s atmospheric network is the most non-random network we’ve observed,” Wong noted. 

This means that although everything in the universe is formed randomly, our atmosphere has the most non-random biochemistry that would be conducive to harbouring life. 

This begs the question: Does life reorganize matter in a universal manner? And if so, it raises intriguing possibilities for identifying biosignatures—chemical traces of life—in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

How do we detect life? 

The next part of Wong’s talk focused on methods to detect life beyond Earth. One method is the use of Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (Pyrolysis GCMS), which uses heat to separate the chemical components of a sample to then analyze it. This approach, Wong explained, offers several advantages: Minimal sample preparation, versatility in extreme environments, and low energy requirements. 

“If there is life on an alien world, it will not exhibit the exact same biochemistry as Earth,” Wong emphasized. 

By training machine learning algorithms on a diverse range of biotic and abiotic samples, Wong’s team achieved an impressive 90 per cent accuracy rate in determining whether a sample contained evidence of life. However, challenges remain, particularly when identifying fossilized life or life concealed within mixtures of abiotic components. 

Ethics of the Cosmos

Wong advocates for the development of astrobioethics, an ethical framework to guide humanity’s exploration of outer space. With private companies, such as SpaceX, accelerating the path to space travel, Wong urged the audience to consider what constitutes moral value in the cosmos. 

“We have an obligation to respect that which is morally valuable,” Wong explained. “The big question is, what actually constitutes moral value in outer space?” 

Should intrinsic value be assigned only to living entities, or do non-living structures with innate complexity deserve moral consideration? These questions are crucial to answer as humans prepare to venture into extraterrestrial environments. 

Looking to the Future

From missions like NASA’s Europa Clipper and Dragonfly to the potential for sample-return missions from Mars and Enceladus, Wong highlighted the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. 

“These missions could revolutionize our understanding of life in the universe,” he said.

Moving forward, Wong hopes to partner with space agencies to continue searching for signs of life in the cosmos. He also aims to bring more attention to the field of astrobioethics to fuel moral discussions on space exploration and interaction with the universe. 

Wong’s seminar offered a thought-provoking mix of innovative science and deep philosophical reflection. By pushing the boundaries of planetary science and ethics, he is paving the way for humanity’s search for life beyond Earth. 

“Astrobiology doesn’t just answer questions about life elsewhere,” Wong concluded. “It helps us better understand what it means to be alive here.”

Letters to the Editor, Opinion

Another Look at PGSS

by Abe Berglas on

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In its Dec. 4 issue, The Tribune published a review of the Post-Graduate Student Society (PGSS) executives The Editorial Board reported on Secretary-General Satish Kumar Tumulu’s lack of initiative (“he has yet to take concrete steps to improve channels for executive and student communications”), but followed it with an uncritical quote from Tumulu about lack of initiative from students to voice opinions about divestment, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), or Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).

Advocacy on these topics has been energetic, consistent, and well-documented. This fall, a motion was submitted to the PGSS’ General Meeting calling for the PGSS to share the Expression of Concern about Israeli companies among all its members. The motion presented on the agenda was changed without the consent of the mover to insert defense of McGill and remove ‘Palestine’ from the title. At the General Meeting, an amendment was made to revert the motion back to its original form and the motion was approved. But after this approval, Tumulu said in an email that executives will not enact the motion. In the same email, he redefined the role of a General Meeting, saying it should only concern itself with financial statements, governing documents, appointments, and removals. This contradicts the spirit of a General Meeting, and also the description on PGSS’s own website, which states, “[t]he General Meeting is the way for members to directly participate in the decision making processes for the society that represents graduate students […] you can also submit agenda items on topics that YOU think are important”. 

Meanwhile, the approach PGSS has taken towards AGSEM has been antagonistic. The PGSS provided AGSEM with no support during the strike and refused to let AGSEM put up posters in Thomson House.  A PGSS member told me they were expelled from a funding working group after being accused of sharing financial information with AGSEM, without being told what information was supposedly shared. 

It does not take in-depth research to reveal the struggles for democracy at PGSS during Tumulu’s term, and I wish the students who have been fighting to be heard at PGSS were acknowledged in the Tribune’s reporting. The Tribune Editorial Board should welcome graduate students to its team, and pay attention to voices that are marginalized by the PGSS’s institutional power.

Commentary, Opinion

Those who decry McGill’s work-hard-play-hard culture have it wrong

by Rhys Jones on

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Four days of activities, DJs, and early rises is a serious undertaking at the end of your summer holidays. Some outsiders raise eyebrows when told that’s how McGill readies students for university life—and yet it sets the tone perfectly for our degree. What better way to work out how many nights you can handle on the trot and still function the next day? Who better to introduce you to student life than upper-year students who’ve been in your shoes? Of course, Frosh wasn’t perfect for everyone, but those who declare that it inculcates a toxic culture of peer pressure and alcohol couldn’t be more wrong. 

Frosh has changed with the times and does a great job of ensuring that the almost 5000 students who partake in the orientation week can move at their own pace. As a first-year, I did Frosh sober (loved it), and became a Frosh leader this year. About half of my froshies hardly touched a drink all week, enjoying the opportunities to dip their toes in Montreal nightlife, make friends over a game of beach volleyball, and explore the city. 

This contrasts with a crew of Québecois first-years I bumped into at the Mont-Royal viewpoint on a morning run back in October. They told me they were doing “scunts”—a portmanteau of “scavenger hunts”—to earn points for their team in one of McGill’s activity weeks. These students had read ahead in their classes so they could spend their day running up mountains, taking shots, and all sorts of other chaos. They told me that so far, it had been the best fun they’d ever had. 

One might wonder how it can possibly be in the interest of those students to miss two lectures to spend a day doing silly drunken challenges. However silly as they might seem, these activities play an important role in establishing community, making friends, and having a good time. A McGill degree isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean students should chain themselves to the library year-round. 

Beyond the classic “you’re only young once” argument—though it is true that you’re not going to be able to squeeze out a 2000-word essay the day after getting home at 3 a.m. forever—life doesn’t get any less busy. Being able to balance academic deadlines with whatever else you enjoy is a vital skill, whether that means getting involved in Intramurals, acting in a play, or running a club—whatever piques your interest. What’s important is making time to do anything other than your essays—if not for the sake of your mental health, then at least for the sake of having something to talk about besides that professor.

A student bar like Bar des Arts (BDA) might not immediately appeal to everyone, but the excitement on the faces in its line reveals that it’s doing a hell of a good job providing respite for stressed McGill students. Frosh and scunts may look like academic self-sabotage, but the 4.0 GPA of the sorority girl who goes out every night (as per the transcript posted on her Instagram for 150 scunt points) evidences the patently obvious truth that McGill students are capable of scheduling their work and their play. 

Some will take it too far and drop a few marks, as has been the case since the dawn of time, but that’s a lesson we all must learn. University is more than simply ensuring you nail your calculus test or can perfectly outline the realist perspective on nuclear proliferation. It’s about learning self-discipline, giving yourself the broad base of experiences you need to tackle an evolving world, and working out who you are. At the end of the day, university is where you make the most of your newfound freedom. Which will you regret more at 30: Dropping down to an A- on POLI 244 because you failed to squeeze in those last couple of readings between a soccer game and a power hour, or having never made the memories at all?

Arts & Entertainment

Arts & Entertainment recommends

by Charlotte Hayes, Kellie Elrick, Shani Laskin on

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The Eternal Memory (dir. Maite Alberdi) – Shani Laskin, Managing Editor

From Chilean director-producer Maite Alberdi, The Eternal Memory follows life partners Paulina Urrutia and Augusto Góngora as they navigate the latter’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The film intertwines the couple’s day-to-day routines with home videos and archived footage of Góngora’s career as a broadcast journalist during the repressive Pinochet regime in Chile. 

In the documentary, Urrutia—an actress, union leader, and politician—reckons with caring for her partner as his mobility and cognitive function increasingly deteriorate while acknowledging the reality that he is slowly forgetting who she is. Through this film, these two beloved figures of Chilean public life literally open the door to their most intimate moments, baring themselves to the world. Urrutia’s commitment to her husband and to ensuring that his legacy lives on is an act of tremendous selflessness. Clips of Urrutia leading Góngora on walks juxtaposed with moments of desperation when he fears his beloved books will be taken away from him emphasize the joy, peacefulness, and immense heartache in the act of loving through the loss of memory. 

In addition to the remarkable love between the Urrutia and Góngora, what sets the documentary apart is the throughline of memory not just as a personal endeavour but as a political tool. Góngora’s career was defined by a commitment to truth-telling despite the threat of imprisonment, torture, and even death. Through his work and activism, Góngora stressed the importance of documentary to fuel action and reconstruction. In a way, The Eternal Memory can be viewed as his final attempt to do exactly that.

The Vegetarian (Han Kang) – Kellie Elrick, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Content warning: Eating disorders, self-harm, sexual violence.

When the novel begins, Yeong-hye is having violent dreams—murder, barn floors soaked with blood, frothing mouths, cuts, faces. She stops eating meat, and eventually stops eating altogether. She gives up sex. She dreams of transforming into a plant.

The Vegetarian is written in three parts, each with one voice: Yeong-hye’s husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. The novel begins in the first person and eventually moves into the third, becoming estranged from itself as Yeong-hye becomes estranged from her own body. She desires to escape the body in order to rid herself of the thing that eats, hurts, the thing men look at, and violate.

Yeong-hye stands on her hands, imagining them as roots in the earth, wills flowers to bloom between her legs, bares her body to the sun, wanting to leave the woman behind and become the tree. The story is a much older one: In an ancient myth, Apollo, god of the Sun, music, poetry, and—most relevant to Kang’s story—healing and illness, falls in love with the nymph Daphne. She tries to flee, but Apollo chases after her. Daphne, terrified, cries out to her father, a river god, who transforms her into a laurel tree. 

But in Kang’s story, there’s no god to save Yeong-hye.

Swan Song (dir. Chelsea McMullan) – Charlotte Hayes, Arts & Entertainment Editor

“Ballet is punk rock as fuck,” says newly promoted corps de ballet member Shaelynn Estrada in the closing moments of Swan Song—and after watching Chelsea McMullan’s docu-series, it’s easy to see why. The series offers an intimate look at the National Ballet of Canada as they take on the ambitious task of mounting an all-new version of the beloved Swan Lake, complete with fresh choreography by their long-time artistic director, Karen Kain.

Over its four-episode run, the series follows Estrada alongside fellow cast members Jurgita Dronina and Siphesihle November as each navigates pivotal “breakthrough” moments in their careers during rehearsals. Swan Song brilliantly showcases the extraordinary mental fortitude demanded of professional ballet dancers, matching their physical endurance and artistic talent. From grappling with mental health challenges to the struggles of immigration and adjusting to life in a new country, the series thoughtfully explores how ballet intersects—both positively and negatively—with the dancers’ personal milestones.
From casting to opening night, Swan Song delivers a comprehensive and unfiltered portrayal of what it truly means to give everything to your art. Blending the intrigue of a gossip-fuelled reality show with the stakes of a high-stakes sporting event, it immerses the audience in the joy and drama that drive one of the world’s most celebrated ballet companies.

Off the Board, Opinion

Making someplace a home 

by Drea Garcia Avila on

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Over the course of my 21 years of life, I’ve lived in nine different houses/apartments; three countries; five cities. But until recently, I couldn’t tell you if I’ve ever lived somewhere I’d call home.

By Merriam-Webster’s definition, “home” refers to one’s place of residence, and also as “the social unit formed by a family living together.” I had the luxury of living in various places and growing up comfortably. I never lacked the essentials, and I was given every opportunity to explore my interests and identity with my parents’ unwavering love and support.

But there’s always been a gap. When my friends talked about their long-standing relationships with their friends and families—visiting grandparents over the weekends, spending holidays with their extended families—I knew this would never be an experience I could share. Moving around as much as I did, the idea of being best friends with my cousins or living next door to friends for so many years that we basically became siblings wasn’t feasible for me.

For all these types of interpersonal relationships, I generally knew but one: A promising—but casual—new friendship cut short by my family’s next move. Though it is now possible to keep in touch over social media, this option was not one I had access to as a child. Besides, nothing comes close to in-person connection; over time and separated by a phone, it seemed my presence in my extended family’s and casual friends’ minds would eventually fade.

Every move, I would make new friends, and after a couple years, we would move again. I felt a piece of myself stay behind with every changing town. Until I was a teenager, I felt like no one cared about me as much as they did their other friends; and how could I blame them? I wasn’t physically there.

My heart has been separated into so many segments, each one being left in different regions and experiences with people who I’ll never see or meet again. So how can home be where the heart is if my heart is fragmented into all these pieces?

If I could never stay in one place long enough to establish a home, what was the point in relentlessly trying to make one? As a result, I avoided over-personalizing my spaces, knowing it was but a few years until I would have to tear down the decorations and repaint the walls. Establishing intimate connections felt similarly futile, as I would eventually have to tear myself away from everyone I’d met anyway. 

As a student and an immigrant, I’ve always felt like I didn’t quite belong anywhere I went. So I’ve had to learn to find the feeling of home in places other than my residence—I’ve been searching for it in the love around me.

The compassion and love my friends and family have shown me created a home in themselves. My friend and her mom once drove 16 hours total from Toronto to Stamford, Connecticut for a weekend visit; my Whitby friends have driven up to Montreal at least twice a year for nearly four years now. With sleeping bags and air mattresses sprawled on the cold floor of my tiny studio apartment, I’m reminded that I’ll likely never find friends like these again.

Though my scenery changes constantly, I will always cherish my chosen family.

So why should I deprive myself of the joy of having a home that’s my own, filled with colourful ceramic dishes, thrifted crystal lamps, and the laughter of my loved ones? With every hand-me-down from my family, personal trinket, or thoughtful act from my friends, I bring a bit of everything—and everyone—I’ve experienced into every place I go, and, in the process, I leave a piece of myself in every place I’ve been. 

With my turbulent living arrangements, I felt like I would never know stability and community; but, with every year, I’m thankful for the tumultuous moves, as every step has been bringing me closer to something that I might someday call home.

Commentary, Opinion

A rejection of New Year’s resolutions

by Luken Castaneda Garces on

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Happy 2025. If you are like most Type A students at McGill, chances are you made a list of New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you’ve also made a mood board, a list of predictions for the year, and a to-do list for the past week. You are not alone. About 49 per cent of young adults aged 18-29 made at least one resolution in 2024. Unfortunately, only about eight per cent of people who make such resolutions accomplish them. 

Many people who fail to meet their resolutions reportedly do so because their expectations are unrealistic. At the core of New Year’s resolutions lies an obsession with achievements, leading people to evaluate time well spent based on what they can accomplish. 

What if, instead of adding to a list of unattainable goals, we got comfortable with trying to achieve less—where might that take us? Would it be so bad to do nothing new and be comfortable with who we already are? Adopting an approach of contentment would emphasize that our lives do not ultimately rely on how many things we accomplish; existing as a human being in the world is more than enough.

The time we have on this Earth is limited. By focusing on our potential future accomplishments, we remain perpetually unsatisfied and unable to appreciate the beauty of the present moment. New Year’s resolutions, as is the case with most goals, exist in the future. While we can take steps in the present to accomplish such goals, our idealized fixation would remain future-oriented—unsatisfied with what currently is and always wanting more as a result. 

Ambition is certainly not a bad thing, but when we set so many goals for ourselves, we fail to admire the beauty of the world in front of us and inside of us. Conversely, rejecting the temptation to add New Year’s resolutions to our endless to-do list compels us to reckon with the boredom and overwhelming vastness of our existence. This can be uncomfortable for many people, a fact that inspires their pursuit of a variety of external outlets to stay occupied. Some resort to books, video games, sports, alcohol, school, work, or resolutions. While some may be more or less positive than others, they are all distractions. After all, being alone with one’s thoughts can be a scary place for so many, and rightly so. 

Our assumed obligation to productivity and self-improvement can feel even more overwhelming when considering the overstimulation of our globalized world. We live in an hyper-connected world in which we can take cross the globe in hours, reach any friend any time with one text or call, or order a new pair of shoes online to be delivered the next day.. New Year’s resolutions tend to fall prey to similar delusions of attainability. But time and effort are not unlimited, and there is only so much we can—or should—try to accomplish. This is a cold, hard truth, but a truth nonetheless. 

By giving up on the goal of perpetual self-improvement, we can find a new sense of worth that does not regard our human experience as a means to an end, but rather an end in itself. So what if we don’t get the perfect GPA, land the best summer internship, attain the killer body, follow the healthiest diet, or amass the highest savings? In the grand schemes of our lives, these goals are almost meaningless, especially in comparison to this beautiful thing we call life; it is inherently precious, and there is nothing we need to accomplish to make it more valuable than it already is.

Off the Board, Opinion

I’ve had enough of yearning

by Amalia Mairet on

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When I open X, Instagram, or Substack looking for something to read, I am often confronted with a series of textbites:

it’s yearning hours what’re y’all yearning for tn

big year for yearning, longing, pining, and obsessing

my playlist for yearning and sighing this month

I don’t know about you, reader, but these make me want to put my fist through some drywall. “Yearning” is yet another in a series of internet buzzwords to grip the nation. Google searches for “yearning” and “longing” have been on the climb for the past two years. The uptick matches a similar swing in melancholic media, with releases like Past Lives and All of Us Strangers, and of course, Normal People, especially the quote: “Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find where it was or become part of it.” On social media, Tiktoks about Sylvia Plath’s fig tree abound.

So, why are we yearning? There seems to be a collective sense of deprivation: Years lost to the pandemic, unfulfilled promises of adulthood, wages which buy less than they ought to. Fewer friends, fewer parties, less sex. Endless hours moping in bed, considering our bored disillusionment with adulthood. Sigh. Yearn.

Many people are fine with being home all day, or almost all the time. It’s okay to rot in bed, to want to rot in bed, to normalize that stasis instead of actively seeking fulfillment. This new attitude wouldn’t be a problem if everyone was happy. But I see the emergence of internet yearning as psychological displacement, a hernia-like, Freudian bubble of dissatisfaction.

In Cruel Optimism, author Lauren Berlant postulates that media trends reflect our attempts to represent affect, to create art which encapsulates the way life feels. Berlant explains that the modern individual feels unsteady, without a rewarding job or pension plan, stable government or a nuclear family. All this ‘yearnposting’ seems like a cultural reaction to our feeling of emptiness and absence. Many relationships—platonic, romantic, economic—feel unreciprocated, unconsummated. They offer little, promise nothing at all, or fall short of what you would want. So, we offer less of ourselves in return. It’s simpler this way. When the world is intolerable, you can always go to bed. Embracing dissatisfaction is easier than reshaping your life. 

And yet: The advent of yearning is evidence that despite our efforts to detach, we still crave meaningful connections and relationships. So, what do we do?

Berlant’s work offers a possible avenue. They argue “all attachment is optimistic,” because it forces us to enter the world. Attachment brings “the satisfying something that you cannot generate on your own but sense in the wake of a person, a way of life, an object, project, concept, or scene.” The opposite of yearning is satisfaction—optimistic attachment provides direction, pointing us toward places that can offer meaning when we cannot create it for ourselves. 

Longing is inherent to the human condition, but the emotion itself is not the beginning and end of experience. Yearning should be a catalyst, a forward step in the broader quest for self-actualization. Your desires should not confine you to your bed but lead you forward. As Berlant advises, the things we long for—people, projects, scenes—are guideposts for where we should invest our time, new places we could attach. Our emotions can be a tool for change, if we allow them to be. Yearning should make you do terrifying, embarrassing, rewarding things. It should overpower the lull of routine, shock you out of complacency. If you feel the pang of absence, don’t post about it. Don’t waste time normalizing or examining the feeling. Start looking for what’s missing.


As Maggie Nelson says in Bluets, “When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.” Do not become a student of your longing. Go looking for the light.

News, SSMU

Provisional injunction against SSMU Policy Against Antisemitism has expired

by Mairin Burke on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s proposed Policy Against Antisemitism sparked intense debates at Fall 2024 Legislative Council meetings, and ultimately faced legal contestation when it was passed on Dec. 5. A Dec. 9 court-ordered injunction prohibiting the policy’s ratification ultimately expired on Dec. 19, allowing the SSMU’s Board of Directors (BoD) to potentially pass the policy this semester.

According to SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Affairs Hugo-Victor Solomon, the proposed Policy Against Antisemitism intends to bridge gaps in SSMU legislation to more sensitively and rigorously address the many forms of antisemitism among SSMU members. A draft of the Policy was initially presented during the Oct. 24 SSMU Legislative Council meeting as a notice of motion. Solomon reported that he had requested consultation on this draft from stakeholders such as McGill’s Hillel, Chabad, Chavurah, Independent Jewish Voices, and the Jewish Studies Students’ Association. Members of some of these groups expressed concerns that the Policy did not use the working definition of antisemitism established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Solomon stated that some of these members then met with SSMU President Dymetri Taylor.

“[They] told the President that all of the executives needed to immediately step down, that they needed to issue an immediate statement apologizing,” Solomon said on if the motion passed.

Taylor wrote to The Tribune that he neither agreed nor disagreed when approached with these requests.

The Policy motion was then debated without approval at Nov. 7 and Nov. 21 Legislative Council meetings, during and between which councillors proposed amendments to the Policy. These recommendations led to the Legislative Council removing multiple passages from the Policy by the end of the Nov. 21 session. 

One of these amendments removed the phrase “between the river and the sea” from the Policy, which had appeared in a clause stating that support for full legal equality for all inhabitants of Israel’s geographic locale would not be considered antisemitic. Solomon explained the removal followed criticism from some McGill Jewish groups.

“Groups like Hillel McGill requested that this phrase be removed in a public letter,” Solomon told The Tribune. “Students felt like that was an attempt to legitimate or provide some kind of tacit support for a political slogan, and as I was able to find other language that accomplished the exact same goal, but without the part of that slogan […] it was removed.”

The Policy was again discussed during the Dec. 5 Legislative Council meeting, unchanged from its Nov. 21 form. The Policy was passed with 16 members in favour of the motion, six against, and two abstaining. 

Less than 24 hours later, lawyers Neil Oberman and Michael Hollander sent the SSMU a demand letter on behalf of groups including McGill’s Jewish Law Students’ Association, Hillel, Chabad, and Israel on Campus. Oberman and Hollander alleged that the vote on the Policy had occurred incorrectly and lobbied for its withdrawal, claiming that affected individuals had not all been properly consulted by SSMU, nor given proper notice that the motion would potentially be passed.

Both parties’ lawyers attended court on Dec. 9, where a judge granted Oberman and Hollander’s request for a provisional injunction against the Policy, set to expire on Dec. 19. SSMU then sent Oberman and Hollander an affidavit alleging that the lawyers had relied on outdated SSMU governance regulations from 2021 to make their case. Oberman and Hollander thus allowed the injunction against the Policy to expire on Dec. 19, requesting that SSMU inform the plaintiff side when the BoD will next vote on the Policy. Taylor confirmed that SSMU executives have not yet established this BoD date while the Policy is reviewed by their lawyers. 

“The SSMU has already approved a budget of $1,000 [CAD] to get a review of the Policy, just to ensure that there are no potential legal concerns, whether those be internal to the SSMU, or external to Quebec law, to ensure that no one’s rights are being invalidated,” Taylor told The Tribune. 

“As the matter is pending before the courts I cannot comment on it,” Hollander wrote to The Tribune. 

Representatives from McGill’s Jewish Law Students’ Association, Hillel, Chabad, and Israel on Campus did not respond to The Tribune’s requests for comment regarding the lawsuit.

Sports, Volleyball

Martlets volleyball push through countless long rallies to beat Laval in five-set game

by Kaitlyn Pereira, Eliza Lee on

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After a surprise victory against previously undefeated Université de Sherbrooke Vert et Or just two days prior, Martlets volleyball (8–9) took to Love Competition Hall on Jan. 12 for a game against Université Laval Rouge et Or. Despite a tough 16-25 loss in the fourth set, McGill triumphed in the final set, winning 15-9. 

Following a strong first set by McGill, Rouge et Or had fought back to win a close second set. With Laval in the lead midway through the third set, McGill began regaining momentum. Decisive hits from outside hitter Rachel Leduc, U3 Management, and strong serves from setter Selima Guidara, U2 Arts, helped the team regain their lead and win the third set 25-21. 

Rouge et Or went on to dominate the fourth set, beginning and ending with long serving runs as the Martlets’s defence waned. In spite of this, McGill claimed an early lead in the fifth set, going 3-0 and forcing Laval to an early timeout. Although Laval managed to regain their footing and fought hard for long rallies, the Martlets powered through to take the final set.

In an interview with The Tribune, Leduc explained that, despite the challenging fourth set, the team went into the final one energized and focused on winning. 

“We really prioritized staying calm, and every point felt like a victory,” Leduc said. “We were going one point at a time, and then as soon as we hit eight first, […] I think we kind of knew we had it in the bag, but we kept our calm.”

Head Coach Rachèle Béliveau explained that the win against Vert et Or on Friday had served as an important motivator for the team going into the game, especially as over half of the team’s players are currently sick. 

“I tried to just keep the energy so that when it was time to push, that we would have the push and then try to recover in the little moments we had,” Béliveau said. “So I’m very proud of them, because it was a really tough situation to deal with, playing […] two of the best teams in the league, and being able to come out with a win.”

Renewed confidence wasn’t the only thing the team took from Friday’s match; Leduc highlighted that during the game against Sherbrooke, the team had experimented with their normal lineup, with position changes such as setter Charlotte Chouinard-Laliberte, U3 arts, hitting right-side. As these changes proved effective in the match against Vert et Or, the Martlets adopted the same strategy going into the Laval game. 

“It was kind of a risk, but it worked really well,” Leduc said. “We’ve always known that [Chouinard-Laliberte] was a good hitter, but she never tried it in a game, so having her on the right side helped.”

Guidara—who had a career-high 45 assists during the game—noted that the Martlets hope to use the momentum from these wins to reach their goal of making the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec playoffs later in the season. The team is currently sitting in fifth place, with the top four teams moving on to playoffs in February.

“We have an underdog mentality. You know, we’re a young team, [and] we won against some of the best teams,” Guidara said. “I feel like right now, nothing is impossible, and we could make it to playoffs.”

Moment of the game:

Martlet power hitter Elyssa Lajmi claimed back-to-back kills early on in the fifth set, reenergizing the team and the home crowd toward the end of the game. 

Stats corner:

Four players had double-digit kills throughout the game: Lajmi, Leduc, middle blocker Emilia Grigorova, and Chouinard-Laliberte.

Quotable:

“I think we just stepped on the court trusting ourselves and trusting every girl, and knowing what we were capable of doing Friday against a top-ranked team.” — Selima Guidara, on the team’s attitude before the game.

The Martlets will return to the court on Jan. 19 to play against École de technologie Supérieureat Love Competition Hall.

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