Last Tuesday, Nikhil Srinidhi was appointed as another one of two student senators representing the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) following the resignation of the previous senator, Edward Chiang, on Oct. 3.

Chiang resigned because his internship this semester at Research in Motion in Ottawa made it difficult for him to attend EUS and Senate meetings. Haley Dinel, Vice-President University Affairs for the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), said she and Chiang had attempted to work around his schedule throughout September.

“I worked out a plan with [Chiang], during the summer months …  to [arrange] a feasible schedule, with the understanding that he would be on probation during September,” Dinel said.  “During that month, I consulted with EUS [executives] and council, as well as Senate caucus—which informed my decision to ask for his resignation.”

Chiang agreed with the decision and is appreciative of Dinel’s and EUS’s cooperation throughout the process.

“Not being physically on campus was becoming an issue,” Chiang said. “I tried to Skype in on the first EUS council, but it was hard to communicate properly. It was impossible for me to travel to Montreal from Ottawa twice a week. The general consensus from EUS [was] that I simply [could not] fulfill my role effectively.”

According to Dinel, the resignation of senators has occurred frequently in the past. Although faculty representatives to Senate are usually elected, the SSMU bylaws mandate that, in the case of a resignation, a new senator is chosen through an application process. SSMU senators interview candidates, and then select someone for the position by a majority vote.

Srinidhi said he looks forward to working on the Senate, and that his goals include improving the classroom experience of engineering students.

“I believe this will be the perfect way for me to work with like-minded colleagues at the helm of the student body,” he said. “I want to be a voice for the students at McGill—a voice through which they can see their concerns being addressed in a sincere yet effective way.”

Last Tuesday, the Asia Pacific Law Association of McGill (APLAM) hosted Pitman Potter for a lecture on the criminal case of Bo Xilai and the political and legal issues that surround it. Bo Xilai, a former Chinese politician who is now at the centre of the country’s biggest political scandal in decades.

Potter is a legal professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and HSBC Chair in Asian Research at UBC’s Institute of Asian Research. Holding advanced degrees in political science, law, and theology, Potter’s research focuses on Chinese trade and investment, dispute resolution, intellectual property, and human rights.

Known for both his charisma and ruthless ambition, Bo Xilai served as the Communist Party secretary of the Chongqing municipality until March, when he was removed from his post. Allegations against Bo include corruption and abuse of power. In August, his wife Gu Kailai was found guilty in the murder of Neil Heywood, a British citizen and family friend of the Bo’s. On Friday, the Chinese news agency Xinhua announced that a formal criminal investigation into Bo Xilai’s actions is underway.

In his lecture, Potter used the Bo Xilai scandal to exemplify the many ways in which political, social, and legal processes interact in China, which often differ from these interactions in the West. Much of the talk focused on dichotomies in the Chinese system, such as balancing guanxi (personal connections) with the desire for a legitimate and objective legal system.

“Guanxi tends to be a gap-filler for the imperfections in the regulatory system,” Potter said. “There has always been this tension between how much you can bind officials by formal regulations, and how much you allow officials to have discretion in their decision-making, based on their training [and on] on their virtue.”

Another debate involves the health of markets versus public well-being.

“China places great attention on the right to development and the right to subsistence … which invites us to think about what sort of development [we are] talking about,” Potter said. “Are we talking about accumulation, or are we talking about distribution?”

Potter also highlighted the ways in which Western norms deviate from traditional Chinese social practices.

“If we look at the governance structures of [international institutions], they tend to be driven by European and North American norms of liberalism,” he said. “But that norm … is not universal. And it certainly [is] not traditional in China.”

“In the liberal paradigm, governments are responsible to the people,” he added. “In China, governments are responsible for the people.”

According to Potter, corruption is one aspect that is different in Chinese culture from Western cultural norms.

“We need to understand the embeddedness of [corruption],” he said. “And we need to understand without making value judgements … I think we have to look at local conditions, and we have to be very careful not to be judgemental about it because there’s a discourse in the West that says ‘all corruption is bad’ … I’m not saying it’s good, but I think we have to be really careful in understanding the embeddedness of this in a historical context.”

Many audience members reacted positively to the lecture. Colin Monk, third-year law, was particularly interested in Potter’s argument of the need to contextualize corruption.

“I liked when he was talking about how we should not understand corruption and transparency through our Western eyes,” Monk said. “We shouldn’t judge corruption as an [automatically] bad thing.”

Kai Shan, a second year law student and Vice-President Events for APLAM, said she approved of Potter’s method of inquiry, noting that his approach was “explanatory … instead of a judgmental one.”

“I really liked how Professor Potter used the Bo Xilai case to … contextualize the legal system of China,” Shan said.

Potter also offered some recommendations for those seeking to work and live in China.

“Always be [alert] to the fact that local conditions are not going to fit neatly into our little conceptual frameworks—and that’s a powerful and liberating experience.”

2011 short-form census may skew language data

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to replace Canada’s mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey may have skewed new language data derived from the 2011 short-form census.

Last week, Statistics Canada languages expert Jean-Pierre Corbeil analyzed the data, and observed a shift in the established patterns of linguistic change in Canada over past decades. The new data from the 2011 census indicates that between 2006 and 2011, the number of Canadians who speak neither of the country’s two official languages at home increased by 100,000. However, during that five-year period, more than 1.2 million immigrants moved to Canada.

Meanwhile, the number of people claiming to speak English or French, in addition to another language at home, grew by more than a million. According to the Globe and Mail, this discrepancy may result from the omission of questions regarding place of birth, citizenship, and immigrant status in the 2011 short-form census.

These new numbers may make it difficult to assess Canada’s linguistic development and to measure change in the country. Experts have warned that these data shifts will grow more complicated once Statistics Canada receives results from the voluntary survey next year.

Donation to Alberta’s conservative party receives criticism

Alberta’s official opposition party, the Wildrose Party, has called on the province’s Chief Electoral Officer, Brian Fjeldheim, to launch an investigation into the provincial Conservative Party’s 2012 election campaign finances.

According to the Globe and Mail, Edmonton billionaire and Oilers owner Daryl Katz gave the governing Conservatives a single-cheque donation for $430,000 in April. Alberta permits donations of no more than $30,000 to a political party during an election.

“The limits we have in place are designed to ensure nobody can exert undue influence … on those elected to government,” Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith wrote to Fjeldheim in a letter dated Oct. 25. “Their proper enforcement is essential to the health of democracy in Alberta.”

Further complicating matters is Katz’s role in the proposed construction of a $450-million hockey arena in Edmonton, as the NDP has accused Katz of buying the Conservative Party’s support. However, Alberta Premier Alison Redford has long opposed directly funding the project.

In response to calls for an investigation, Redford’s government has announced it will co-operate with an Elections Alberta investigation of the matter.

STM 2013 budget includes fee increases

This past Friday, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) tabled its 2013 budget, which outlined increases in transportation fees for Montreal commuters. This will be the 13th consecutive fee hike since Mayor Gérald Tremblay took office in 2002.

The cost of an STM monthly pass will rise from $75.50 to $77.75, and the reduced monthly pass will increase from $43.75 to $45.50. However, the price of a single fare—currently $3—will not be altered.

According to the Montreal Gazette, STM Vice-Chair Marvin Rotrand said the fee increases will help offset the cost of over 100,000 additional hours of bus service in 2013, which will assist STM in reaching its goal of increasing ridership to 540 million by 2020—up from 405 million in 2011.

Municipal opposition parties have criticized the proposed price increases, arguing that they will not result in improvements in transportation, despite Rotrand’s claims.

Nova scotia questions race-specific elections

Non-African Nova Scotians are facing blame for allegedly defrauding the regional election of an African-Nova Scotian school board representative in the southwest of the province. As a result, the province has begun to re-evaluate the logistics of holding race-specific elections.

Nova Scotia has reserved political seats for minority groups since 1991, and is unique among the Canadian provinces for doing so. In Saturday’s election, citizens of African descent, or parents of children who are of African descent, were permitted to vote.

This past Saturday, 920 people voted in the election—a number, according to the losing candidate, Michael Alden Fells, that is almost larger than the population of eligible African-Nova Scotian voters in the region. According to the National Post, there are currently “no checks in place to prevent ineligible voters from casting a ballot.”

The current provincial NDP government released plans to end race-specific elections back in January.

Canada suspends flu shots

Health Canada has decided to suspend the distribution of Novartis flu vaccines across the country, following the pharmaceutical company’s discovery of tiny groups of viral proteins in several batches of vaccines produced at its plant in Italy.

All the flu vaccines purchased by Canada from Novartis—which are sold in the country as Fluad and Agriflu—come from the Italian production facility. Health Canada will launch an investigation into the situation, and has told doctors and clinics to stop administering Novartis flu shots in the meantime.

Although Novartis has agreed to hold off on the distribution of its vaccines while Health Canada carries out its investigation, the company is confident that its products are safe, having passed quality inspections.

“The aggregation of these proteins is not unusual in vaccines manufacturing,” the company said in their official statement.

Germany, Italy, and Switzerland have also suspended the distribution of Novartis products; however, no cases of illness linked to the vaccine have been reported in Europe to date.