Michael Paolucci

Michael Paolucci

A motion to censure SSMU VP External JoÃl Pedneault failed at SSMU Council’s meeting last Thursday, March 29, with a narrow vote of 11 for, 11 against, and one abstention.

The motion, submitted to the floor by nine movers, cited several reasons to censure Pedneault, including his use of SSMU funds to print materials promoting a student strike, his decision to grant students and members of Coalition Large de l’Association pour la Solidarite syndicale etudiante (CLASSE) after-hours access to the SSMU office, and his participation in picket lines at other Montreal universities. The motion also referenced the fact that last week the administration excluded Pedneault from the university campus for five days.

The motion was addressed during confidential session and then debated in an open session in front of a full gallery, which included members of campus political groups, including the Mobilization Committee (Mob Squad) and the Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC).

In a subsequent vote, Council voted against debating in confidential session.

Kady Paterson, education representative and a mover of the motion, said that the motion was drafted on the day of Council. 

“It’s us [movers] trying to keep our executive accountable and make sure that our constituents’ opinions are heard,” Paterson said.  

SSMU president Maggie Knight opened the debate by emphasizing the gravity of a motion to censure.

“Censure implies misconduct. It implies that policies [and]  rules have been violated-not that somebody’s actions were disagreed with,” Knight said. “Regarding the concerns around VP Pedneault’s political actions, I think it’s very important for the SSMU as it goes forward [to consider] that no executive, councillor, or any other member of the society be a scapegoat for policies people disagree with.”

Knight, who stated she would vote against the motion, continued to refute the clauses identifying the reasons for the censure. Among her reasons, she noted that allowing student activists supporting a SSMU mandate to use SSMU printers “could be entirely appropriate.”

“I’m not clear that [granting after-hours access to CLASSE members has] been proven to be true,” Knight said. “To my knowledge, there’s no written rule that says this is not allowed to happen, therefore it is not a specific violation.”

Senator and VP University Affairs-elect Haley Dinel explained her rationale for being a co-mover of the motion.

“It’s because of the actions, not because of the person,” she said. “It’s mainly because a lot of students this year have felt that the way the VP External portfolio [sic] has acted and has not [represented] undergraduates as a whole.”

Some councillors raised concerns of the lack of clarity of some current SSMU mandates.

 “I think a lot of actions are being defended by the current mandate of [promoting] accessible education,” arts representative Joshua Fagen said. “Like councillor Hernandez was saying, ‘accessible’ is an extremely vague word. It’s very much open to interpretation.”

Several councillors were vocal about their concerns with the motion.

“I feel that this resolution to censure VP Pedneault would effectively mandate him to not do his job, which to me [is] a contradiction of what we should be promoting the executives to do,” Carol Fraser, VP Clubs and Services, said.  “The pull of Council is to promote executives to do their job. If this resolution passes, I don’t know exactly what VP Pedneault is expected to do.”

Arts representative Justin Fletcher described the atmosphere during debate as tense and emphasized the small margin of the final vote.

“It was crazy to hear that it was a tied vote with one abstention,” he said. “I think it reveals some of the divided sentiments on campus.”

Following the meeting, Pedneault said he was surprised that the motion was submitted.

“A lot of concerns they raised, I never had even gotten an email about,” Pedneault said, referencing the clauses regarding after-hours use of SSMU facilities. “The most shocking part of it was the allusion to disciplinary proceedings against me on campus,” he added.

“The discussion at SSMU is, ‘do we censure JoÃl Pedneault, in part because he was censured by the university in some way?'” he said. “I don’t see how it makes any sense in terms of challenging power dynamics and abuses of power, and I think it’s a real shame that that’s the discussion we have tonight instead of ‘do we condemn the university’s arbitrary exclusion of three students from campus for no clear reason and no clear procedure?'”

Both Fletcher and Paterson noted that the debate might have been different had it occurred in a confidential session, without the pressure of a majority pro-strike gallery.

“I think it’s fine that [the motion] didn’t pass,” Paterson said. “I think the point was to voice our concerns and air our problems, and actually give them some weight … I think that’s what we’ve done. Passing doesn’t matter.”

 Pedneault noted that he will continue to support the strike and the Quebec student movement against tuition increases.

 “If the censure motion had passed, I think I still would have been able to walk with my head high,” he said. “I don’t see myself as having committed anything wrong, overstepping any boundaries or going against SSMU mandates.”

Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune

Michael Paolucci / McGill Tribune

Last Thursday, March 29, a four-pronged student demonstration wound its way through downtown Montreal in a festively themed demonstration that aimed to disrupt the economic activity of the downtown area and highlight several political grievances of the students.

The protest, called Manifestation la Grande Mascarade, was organized by la Fédération Universitaire et Collégiale des Étudiant-es Révolté-es (FUC*ER), and promoted by the Coalition Large de l’Association pour la Solidarite syndicale etudiante (CLASSE).

Organized around the concept of a masked ball, the protest was divided into four groups with each assigned a specific colour and a specific issue to criticize tuition fee increases, police brutality, strike- breaking tactics, and the non-representative stance of several Quebec student unions during the student strike.

In accordance with the masquerade theme of the protest, many participants wore colourful masks and costumes, drawing on the French tradition of the “charivari.”

“In popular contexts, the charivari was a moment when villagers donned costumes and masks and heckled a person in their home in order to criticize their conduct,” CLASSE’s announcement of the event said. “[This protest] will reappropriate this practice by invading the heart of Montreal in order to paralyze the economic and governmental elite, who are deemed illegitimate and harmful for the community.”

Starting around noon in Phillips Square, the protest split into the four groups, which headed in different directions around the city’s downtown. Protesters were largely peaceful, singing, chanting, and playing instruments to attract the attention of bystanders.

“We’re trying to protest in a festive way, without violence,” Steve Melanson, a protester and teacher at the CEGEP Regional De Lanaudière à L’assomption, said. “The violence is symbolic in the way we dress. In the old times, when a family did something wrong, [people] did not go to that family and attack them, but they’d go in front of their house and make noise and sing something … So it’s a symbolic protest.”

Some protesters also overturned construction signs or moved objects on the sidewalk into the middle of the street. Many storeowners and observers smiled or applauded as the demonstration passed along main streets like St. Catherine and Sherbrooke.

Around 2:30 p.m., the four groups converged at Place des Arts, before moving to Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), where protestors played music, danced, and burned an effigy of Quebec Premier Jean Charest.

In addition to the tradition of the charivari, some protesters pointed the masquerade theme as a response to Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s recent comments about the use of masks in protests. Tremblay said he was “disgusted” by the violence of the March 15 anti-police brutality march, which included an overturned police car, damage to several stores along St. Catherine, and over 200 arrests.

“If people want to demonstrate and have legitimate demands, no administration has done more to promote participative democracy,” he said in a press conference after the anti-police brutality protest. “That said, I take for granted that people who want to demonstrate can do so with their faces uncovered.”

In 2009, the Service de police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) asked that Montreal create an anti-mask law, but the law was never adopted because of concerns that it infringed on personal freedoms. Other cities like New York, however, have and enforce anti-mask laws.

Tremblay has announced that Montreal’s public security commission will be investigating every aspect of public demonstrations, including the use of masks, in an effort to prevent the recurrence of violent incidences like those of the anti-police brutality march. 

Protestor and UQAM student Guy Benoit-Fournel said that the idea of prosecuting student protestors for wearing masks would be problematic.

“Wearing a mask can be a form of expression, which is covered under freedom of expression,” he said. “If you tried to put this in the regulation of the city, you would give an arbitrary power to the police to decide whether someone wearing a mask is legal or not … And in the criminal code, if you cover your identity to commit a criminal infraction it’s already a crime, so there is no need for [this regulation].”

The Inter-Tribal Youth Centre (ITYC) was closed indefinitely on Friday, March 30 due to funding shortages. The ITYC was located in the basement of its parent organisation, the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal (NFCM), and together they constituted the frontline in sheltering Montreal’s urban aboriginal community.  The ITYC was the only aboriginal centre available in Montreal to address the needs of aboriginal youth, and offered services ranging from healthcare to cultural development.

ITYC assistant co-ordinator Erin Montour explained that the centre provides programs including life skills development, goal-setting, leadership development, and cultural development.

“These activities have been pivotal in allowing our youth to reach their goals and succeed in their lives,” Montour said. “Our centre is an essential space where youth can make ties with their community in urban Montreal. Our closure is a devastating loss for the well-being of our youth.”

These national shifts in management and administration eventually led to a decision by the Provincial-Territorial Association and the Regroupement des centres d’amitié autochtones du Québec (RCAAQ) to suspend NFCM’s provincial membership, limiting the centre’s access to AFCP’s core funding of $171,237 for the fiscal year of 2011-2012 and beyond. The decision essentially terminates NFCM’s operations-including the ITYC.

“The implications and impact in terms of cultural loss and access to programming and basic services … are particularly serious for Montreal’s urban native community,” NFCM’s executive director Brett Pineau said.

In an effort to reverse the effects of RCAAQ’s decisions, the NFCM are organising a letter-writing campaign, as well as circulating petitions to reinstate funding for the centre. Allan Vicaire, the project coordinator on the Aboriginal Sustainability Project supported by the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) of McGill University, wrote a letter to RCAAQ to support NFCM’s cause.

“The Native Friendship Centre of Montreal and Inter-Tribal Youth Centre are valued partners in our efforts to foster awareness of aboriginal issues on McGill campus and throughout the Montreal Community,” Vicaire wrote in the letter to the president, executive director and members of the RCAAQ. “As part of our obligation to sustain local aboriginal presence and maintain a vital community, I ask you to reconsider your decision to cease funding for [NFCM and ITYC].”

NFCM is also organizing community mobilization and action, with a Grassroots Day of Action and Mobilization planned at their centre on Thursday, April 4 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Michael Paolucci / McGill Tribune

Last Thursday, March 29, SSMU Council discussed the status of the lease on the Shatner Building.

 “We’ve been in negotiations about the lease since our mandate was not renewed some time in the first semester,” Emily Yee Clare, VP University Affairs, said.

 Last November, Council voted against accepting the administration’s current lease proposal, meaning that SSMU currently does not have a signed lease for the Shatner Building.

 In a closed council meeting, the council produced two mandates. The first stated that their general manager Pauline Gervais should attend all their lease negotiations and the second that they should release a public statement about the state of negotiations.

 “We didn’t get a lot of helpful response from the university for a while, but over the last few weeks we have started negotiating more successfully over key concerns,” SSMU President Maggie Knight said. “Our key concerns … largely address issues of financial security and for SSMU to be able to plan for its financial future. We are responsible for utilizing students’ money effectively.”

 “There will be a huge increase on SSMU’s side in terms of investment,” Clare said. “In Fall 2012 we will be likely going to referenda for the fee increase.”

 Knight explained that the increase will most likely take the form of two fee levees.

 “One will be an increase to the SSMU base fee to cover utilities costs, as the university is adamant that SSMU must pay for an increasing amount of its utilities,” Knight said. “[There may also be] a more short term fee levee to cover a capital investment in the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system.”

 Knight estimated an increase of five to 12 dollars per student, but emphasized that that is only a rough estimate as they are still in negotiation with the university.

 “If we’re a student union trying for accessible education, of course we want to keep fees down,” Clare noted.

 The council also discussed the student strike actions that have taken place at McGill.

A few people in the gallery expressed concern over the role that SSMU Council members and SSMU resources had played in the recent student actions.

 “Exactly how much of those funds were allocated to Mob Squad?” Kayla Herbert, U1 English, asked on hearing that some SSMU funds were put towards promoting accessible education.

 VP External JoÃl Pedneault explained that it would be impossible for SSMU to directly support Mob Squad, as they are not an official group.

“Mob Squad doesn’t exist the way people think it does,” Pedneault said. “Mob Squad is a Facebook page, a listserv. You can’t cut a check to Mob Squad, for example.”

 Shyam Patel, SSMU VP Finance and Operations, was unable to access the finance files during the meeting but encouraged any students with questions about the way SSMU money is spent to come to his office hours.

 The council also discussed the departmental strikes and picket lines and their effects on students.

 Senator Haley Dinel expressed concern over the complaints she received from students who were prevented from reaching their classes by hard picket lines.

 “I’m having a really hard time knowing what to tell them when they call me in a panic telling me they can’t reach their classrooms,” Dinel said. “They essentially don’t know if they have a space which is a safe space on their campus … When I have students coming to me saying they don’t feel safe in their buildings, that’s when I get concerned.”

“In regards to hard picketing, that is no way to garner support for your cause,” arts representative Justin Fletcher said. “Don’t interfere with their lives. Don’t drum, that is not a way to get anyone on your side.”

 Later in the discussion, a motion was put forward to release a statement condemning hard picketing. The motion did not pass, however, as council members raised concerns about respecting the authority of student associations.  

On March 27, Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi held the third of four open fora at Macdonald Campus. In addition to a group of about 30 attendees, most of whom were faculty members and staff, Provost Anthony Masi and Deputy-Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson were also present.

The Open Forum project was mandated by Principal Heather Munroe-Blum following Dean of Law Daniel Jutras’ report on the events of Nov. 10. In his report, Jutras recommended the creation of activities that would allow the McGill community to debate “the meaning and scope of the rights of free expression and peaceful assembly on campus,” as well as issues like the securitization of the university.

“I know in a bucolic atmosphere like Mac campus these may seem like downtown issues-protests, picketing and various activities like that,” Manfredi said as he opened the discussion. “But it seems to me that it’s important to get the views of the entire university community, which includes Mac campus. And Mac campus may in fact have its own issues around these lines that we’re not aware of.”

Manfredi asked whether there were any areas in Macdonald campus that are particularly vulnerable and should perhaps be out of bounds for protesting. A professor who could not be identified noted that the greenhouses should be out of bounds, as sensitive research going on there, on issues like genetic engineering, might be compromised by disruptions or alterations of the space. 

Some professors noted that the tone of McGill MRO’s have not been conducive to dialogue.

“As a professor you felt caught in the middle between the colleagues that we felt very close to and the university’s position,” Tim Johnson, professor of dietetics and nutrition, said. “And the messages we got via email set a tone that certainly made me feel like I better not speak out on an issue like this. This dampens our enthusiasm to express ourselves on a number of issues.”

Manfredi brought up the securitization of campus and alluded to the security issues of Macdonald campus, including recent attacks on homosexual students. Professor Carolyn Begg expressed concerns that the community was notified of the attacks seven hours after they occurred, noting that community members often worked late at night.

“[The issue is] security on the campus-it’s almost the opposite problem [as in the downtown campus],” she said. “There’s a lot of access, and it’s about my personal security, not from students, but from outside people.”

George McCourt, a professor with the McGill school of environment, suggested that the intimate environment provided by Macdonald campus means that students view their relationship to the university community differently than students at the downtown campus.

“I think there’s more of a [sense of] community out here, [whereas] the students downtown see themselves as anonymous,” he said. “When you’re anonymous [or] you’re having a conversation with someone who’s anonymous, I think your reaction is quite different than out here when you’re having a conversation with a student.”

According to McCourt, this sense of anonymity could lead some students, such as the Nov. 10 occupiers of the James Administration Building, to use more radical tactics to have their voices heard. Manfredi then asked the audience what could be done to lessen the sense of anonymity at the downtown campus.

Begg said that one of the reasons Macdonald campus has such a strong sense of community is because professors engage with students on levels outside of the lecture hall-for example, by becoming involved with student groups.

Gary Pekeles, director of the McGill University Health Centre’s Northern and Native Child Health Program, suggested that part of the reason Macdonald campus has  a  strong sense of community is because their small size and population makes the campus much more manageable than the downtown campus.

“[At the downtown campus] there is variability within day-to-day encounters and the intimacy of those encounters, but somehow, within the dynamics of the large strike in particular, there is a dampening of that effect that doesn’t exist here [at Macdonald campus] because of our isolation,” he said.

Much of the forum focused on the terminology associated with the university community. According to Associate Vice-Principal Jim Nicell, one of the main problems facing McGill is how the university sees its own role in the community.

“We’ve evolved to be more and more of a rule-based organization, and there’s a sense that we need to get the rules right so we can get everybody organized, and then all we have to do is behave by the rules,” he said. “But once we get a set of rules, life becomes black and white, and I don’t think the issues we’re talking about are really black and white.” 

A Special SSMU General Assembly (GA) scheduled for this past Wednesday, March 28, was cancelled after the undersigned councillors withdrew their petition. The assembly was called with the knowledge that there might be a motion for a strike vote, but at the time of its cancellation no such motion had been submitted, a contributing factor to the decision to withdraw the petition.

 A petition to hold a Special GA of SSMU can be submitted to the speakers of council signed by eight SSMU Councillors, or 200 members of SSMU, who must be from at least four faculties or schools (with no more than 50 per cent of signatures coming from any one faculty or school). According to speakers of council Nida Nizam and Michael Tong, eight councillors signed the petition for the GA.

 Adam Winer, one of the undersigned councillors on the petition, said that the movers of the petition had decided to withdraw it.

“The GA would likely have revolved around a student strike, although no motion, to my knowledge, was submitted to that effect before the cancellation of the GA,” Winer said.

 SSMU President Maggie Knight noted that the speakers did not receive further interest in submitting a strike motion.

 “There was no concerted effort to create a strike motion,” Knight said. “And the speakers had not received any other indication of interest in submitting motions.”

SSMU VP External JoÃl Pedneault suggested a reason for  the lack of interest in a SSMU strike motion for the GA. 

“At SSMU, even if there’s massive turnout it’s always going to be a small proportion of the [student body],” he said. “I feel like people preferred [holding GAs] at the department or faculty level.”

 A ‘yes’ vote on a strike motion would have enabled all undergraduates at the downtown campus to go on strike, joining the more than 200,000 Quebec students currently on strike in protest against the Quebec government’s planned tuition increases.

 Aside from the fact that no motions were submitted, there were other concerns that led to the cancellation, including the difficulty of finding a practical location and time for an assembly of this size.

 “[The 500 person quorum] is larger than any space available in the SSMU Building,” Knight said. “I believe the petitioners … wanted to establish a date and time where it was possible to book other spaces on campus, as it is difficult to book multiple large lecture halls at short notice.”

 Student responses to the planned General Assembly were also taken into account when deciding to withdraw the petition.

 “Some students had raised concerns about the timing of the GA falling at a very academically heavy point in the semester,” Knight said.

 “The special General Assembly would have been an excellent way to encourage student dialogue on the strike and any other topic,” Shyam Patel, VP Finance and Operations, added. “However, the time constraint was not ideal.”

On March 28, the faculty of religious studies hosted an event co-sponsored by the Canadian Christian-Jewish Consultation to discuss the question: “Do our sacred texts promote religious intolerance?” Held in the Birks Heritage Chapel, the panel featured Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, Professor of Biblical Studies Ian Henderson, and Imam Habeeb Alli, who shared how their respective experiences and religious training has shaped their views of the potential relationship between sacred texts and religious intolerance.

“Understanding the various factors that contribute to intolerance and violence among and within religious traditions is an important research question in religious studies,” Ellen Aitken, dean of the faculty of religious studies, said. “In light of the central role of scriptures and sacred texts in many religions, it is essential to explore how such texts are used not only in ways that are beneficial but also [serve] to divide and harm.”

Throughout the evening, all three scholars highlighted the particular importance of interpretation by sharing passages from sacred texts that could be read as promoting intolerance depending on the interpretation. Grushcow shared the troubling story of Phinehas in Numbers 25, Henderson discussed early Christian-Jewish relations referenced in 1 Thessalonians 2, and Alli cited some violent passages of the Qur’an used to promote intolerance, war, and even wife-beating.

“It is how we choose to read that is key,” Grushcow said. The scholars agreed that in each of the cases presented the way in which the text is read is crucial to understanding its meaning and purpose.

Henderson encouraged the audience to address sacred texts like tools.

“[Sacred texts] are intelligently designed, and thus we need to discern their purpose [in order to understand them],” he said. “These texts cannot mean anything [we] want [them] to mean.”

One English literature and religious studies student, who could only be identified as Mark, thought this metaphor was the defining moment of the night.

“I think that Professor Henderson’s idea of ‘Sacred Texts’ being collections of tools, or implements that can be used in different ways, was especially insightful,” he said. “It’s not a matter of ‘sugar-coating’ a religion to find a more humane approach within the passages of its scriptures, but rather a matter of continuing the millennial tradition of discovering different meanings in its pages.”

Alli then described his work battling religious intolerance brought about by improper interpretations of the Qur’an. He explained the dichotomy between Salafists and rationalists, and how difficult verses such as “slay them wherever ye catch them,” have often been misquoted and misused.

Throughout the night participants in the discussion came to the consensus that the question of a link between sacred texts and religious intolerance is not a simple question to answer-it is still a very prominent dilemma that members of all three faiths face. However, scholars and students alike agreed that, while we should cherish tolerance, it should not be viewed as an end goal, but rather as the start of something better.

“As a Christian, I think there [are] definitely parts of the Bible where it does seem to suggest intolerance, but I am often reminded by peers to look at the bigger picture: what does God have in mind for these people?” Victor Lam, U1 in McGill’s sustainability, science, and society program, said. “Tolerance is a first step, but in tolerating others, we must also learn to accept others.”