The third annual TEDxMcGill Conference took place on Sunday Nov. 13, and included talks from 15 inspiring speakers including world-renowned neuroscientist Brenda Milner, Olympic figure skater-turned-McGill MBA student Craig Buntin, and Alain Tascan, co-founder of Ubisoft Montreal. Themed “Redefining Reality,” and broken into three sequential “acts” of five talks each, the event aimed to enlighten viewers by taking them through the process of generating new, influential ideas and bringing them into reality.

The event was independently organized, but operates under the TED brand like hundreds of other TEDx events. Though run almost entirely by McGill students, TedxMcGill is open to the greater community and has been one of the most influential TEDx events in Canada in recent years.  TED, an acronym for “Technology, Education and Design,” is a non-profit organization that hosts global conferences and is committed to spreading world-changing ideas. Some of the world’s biggest figures in politics, science, and business have appeared on the main global TED stage, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and conservationist Jane Goodall.

The speakers at Sunday’s event, though unified by a desire to reshape the world around them, came from a diverse range of fields and backgrounds. Roughly half were McGill students with varied experiences in philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and social justice.

Alex Pritz, U2 environment, talked about a project he started that connects high school students from Montreal to those in the Philippines to discuss pressing environmental issues in their local communities. He travelled to the Philippines, where he taught students video-journalism to help them tell stories and draw attention to issues that matter to them.

Alain Tascan, who founded the Montreal divisions of both Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, recounted his experience from the world of game design and noted that society’s increasing desire for casual social games reflects a changing attitude towards shared social entertainment. He drew parallels between the recent explosion of simple mobile games and the rise of television in the 1950s.

Brenda Milner, one of McGill’s most prominent neuroscientists, discussed the importance of bilingualism to cognition.

“I really believe in languages as a builder of bridges, and as a great joy to oneself,” Milner said. “But what do great scientists have to say about [bilingualism]? They say it’s very good for the brain to do this kind of switching. Multilingualism is not going to protect you from Alzheimer’s, but if you have a multilingual brain … your inevitable decline with Alzheimer’s will be slowed.”

Audience input and interaction are a big part of the TEDx experience. Panel discussions welcome questions from the crowd, and TEDx attendees were encouraged to mingle with each other during breaks and change seats between acts.

June Lam, the event’s curator and director of the speakers team, spoke about the challenges of finding the right speakers, balancing the program between students and other community speakers, and finding a unifying theme to match the talks.

“It was never [about] going for the big names. We never said yes to anybody initially, [not] even the big speakers,”  Lam said.  “We always just said we wanted to develop a talk … and we would work with them to see what their passions were, what ideas they had, and where we could go. If there was a really great speaker, we weren’t going to say no to them just because they were, or weren’t, a student.”

“Once we had ideas of what speakers were interested, we started creating a story, which is …  act one, inspire new ideas; act two, connecting them; and act three, turning those ideas into action,” he explained.

Lam also discussed the addition of spoken word and a short improvised performance in two of the talks. TED talks are typically traditional, evocative speeches.

“As of recent times they’ve had more spoken word—they’ve had more performances,” he said. “It’s become more a culture, and I really embrace that, because I think there’s so much power in performance, and there’s a depth to the words and the performance that and you don’t necessarily get from just a talk.”

Over 20,000 students from all over Quebec gathered on Thursday, Nov. 10 at Place Émile-Gamelin near UQAM to demonstrate against the provincial government’s proposed tuition increases. The Quebec government announced that it would be increasing university tuition for local students by $1,625 over five years.

McGill students gathered at the Roddick Gates before moving down McGill College to join those demonstrating from Concordia. In an opening statement to the demonstrators at McGill, Joël Pedneault, SSMU’s VP External Affairs, explained that demonstrators were there to protest the tuition increase not only on behalf of current  students, but for an entire generation of future ones as well.

 “We’re also here for the people who can’t be here,” Pedneault said. “We’re here for a public education system, one that’s accessible to everybody regardless of their means … we’re here for the future of everyone who’s young, who’s old, who’s about to be born in this province.”

Joëlle Shaw, a McGill art history student and local Montrealer, explained that she was protesting because this was the first year she was almost unable to pay her tuition fees.

“I asked for money from the government to help me out and I got something absolutely ridiculous because they considered that, even if I haven’t been living with my parents for two years, I’m still a dependent student.”

“I’m really happy to see McGill participating because this tends to be considered like a francophone university movement, and it’s not, and [we] need to all be in this together because it affects everyone,” Shaw said.

Picket signs reading “Angry Anglos en grève,” testified to the strong presence of anglophone students from McGill, Concordia, Dawson, and Vanier College. Students from UQAM, University of Laval, University of Sherbrooke, and CEGEP Sainte Félicien near Lac St. Jean demonstrated too. The protest included students from Rimouski, Saguenay Lac St. Jean in Chicoutimi, and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. Not only were there universities present, but Quebec Solidaire, the Quebec University Student Federation (FEUQ), and MUNACA were part of the crowd.

Also attending were seven students from the University of Ottawa.

“We’re here because we want to show solidarity with the students of Quebec. Also, because Quebec is kind of like a model for us. Ontario has the highest tuition fees in all of Canada, so if Quebec tuition fees start going up [it’s a bad sign],” Sarah Eastwood, an international development student from the University of Ottawa, said.

Speaking to the effects this tuition increase would have on Quebec students, Martine Desjardins, president of FEUQ, said it would limit many students’ ability to receive financial aid from the government and that the increase would effectively render 7,000 students unable to attend university.

“For us, it says, is it really the quality and the competency of students that counts or is it their wallets? The answer is the quality of students,” Desjardins asserted.

Simon Gosselin, a representative for La Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), a group of students from the University of Laval, the University of Sherbrooke, and McGill, echoed Desjardins’ statement. 

“The government is fishing in the pockets of students instead of taking real responsibility without a real guarantee for Quebec’s future,” Gosselin said.

The protestors moved from UQAM toward McGill College, where the demonstration ended in front of the Roddick Gates. Montreal police confirmed that four arrests were made in response to the demonstration. These consisted of two arrests for assaults on a police officer, one for obstructing a police officer, and another for municipal violence.

“In general I would say everything went really, really well and smooth,” Officer Jean-Pierre Brabant said. “There was a little bit of mischief [in front of] the [Premier’s] office [building], but except that, nothing more.”

Following the end of the  province-wide demonstration against tuition hikes, 14 students occupied the fifth floor of the James Administration Building wearing hoods and masks. According to Fariddudin Attar Rifai, president of the Association of McGill Undergraduate Student Employees, this occupation allegedly occurred around 4:00 p.m.

Soon after, students outside the James Administration Building learned through social media messages that acts of aggression were occurring inside.

“We heard at that point that the people inside were being brutalized, being dragged on the floor, kicked, kneed in the stomach, that kind of stuff,” Joël Pedneault, SSMU’s Vice-president External Affairs, explained.

“We stress that the only aggression that occurred on the fifth floor of the James Administration Building was by security personnel and directed at us,” the occupiers said in a letter written to the McGill Daily.

“In fact, one of us was scratched down his face and strongly hit in the stomach after being thrown and dragged. Others were forcibly expelled. We caused no ruckus, but only acted to protect,” the occupiers’ letter went on to read.

Principal Heather Munroe-Blum addresed this issue in an open email to the public.

“Security personnel were called to deal with the situation. Over the course of a few minutes, they ushered most of the protesters back to the reception area, but a few refused to leave my office. These individuals were carried out to the reception area under protest, where they were then left undisturbed.”

When asked on Friday morning about this event, Officer Jean-Pierre Brabant of the Montreal Police denied having any knowledge of it. “I don’t have any information on the McGill campus. I know that officers were around McGill campus to protect the building itself, but if there was any altercation between officers and rioters … we don’t have anything on [it],” Brabant said.

He explained that those police who were on site gave a report after the protest which only contained information on the four people who were arrested during the afternoon demonstration.

Activity outside

According to Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning Morton Mendelson, the police were not called by someone from the fifth floor. Munroe-Blum later confirmed that security personnel called the police.

“[At] 4:37, we got word that the police were called. This is when the senselessness began; because it was totally unnecessary to call them, internal negotiations would have been enough,” Rifai said.

In support of those inside, other protestors from the rally encircled the building in an attempt to delay police entry.

“People basically started to move to the Administration Building at McGill to do a support action, a small demonstration, very peaceful,” Pedneault said. “People were wrapping their arms around the building trying to [make] a human chain.” Students from McGill, Concordia, and Dawson were among those present during this demonstration.

“It was a tactic to allow the occupiers inside [to] resolve the issue without police intervention,” Rifai said.

“There were things going on that were of concern and could have been of concern to security,” Mendelson said. “Security are mandated, or certainly allowed, to call the police when they feel there is a threat to people or a threat to property. Those are decisions that have to be made quickly … made on the moment. I don’t know what triggered the decision to do that.”

Police on bicycles arrived on the scene. Both the police as well as the students demonstrating were aggressive towards one another. The police turned away, after a few minutes.

Around 5:00 p.m., approximately 100 police in riot gear arrived through the Milton and Roddick Gates. Montreal Police spokesman Ian Lafrenière, who personally witnessed the confrontations, stated that the riot squad was deployed in response to people throwing boat flares shot from a pistol, along with other objects, at the police. The CBC quoted Lafrenière describing those demonstrating as “just a small group of individuals trying to take advantage of the situation to do something stupid.”

“Once we call the community police, we have no control over the policing measures that are used. As I understand it, no one called the riot squad, but the police have to use their judgment about their own ability to control a situation to prevent harm from happening,” Munroe-Blum explained when she spoke with members of campus media on Monday.

The riot police disbanded the line of students around the building and formed a chain that blocked entrance into the building. Students in front of the police line were pepper sprayed. The police then chased students and threatened them with their batons.

“I saw a police officer kick a protester to the ground and kick him repeatedly in the stomach,” U3 arts student Hilary Brown said. “As the riot police charged down the large steps, I saw them push photographers and other protesters down the hill.”

“I was standing right here filming police helmet numbers and then all of a sudden they started beating us with their shields,” Daniel Seggy, U0 arts student, said. “I got pepper sprayed and then the tear gas came out. They pushed us down those big stairs, which is obviously dangerous. There was repeated trampling and pepper spraying. It was awful.”

During this time some students managed to find a way into the first floor of the James Administration Building where they held a sit-in. According to Pedneault, “[they were] saying they weren’t going to leave until the people on the fifth floor were released.”

Mendelson later questioned the claim that the occupiers were being held, stating, “There were no students being detained in the James Admin. Building by police or by the university. We wanted the students to leave. The students were refusing to leave.”

Students involved i
n the sit-in were forcibly removed by McGill security.

“[McGill security] were concerned about the safety of the situation, and the student  [who was refusing to leave her office]was taken out of the office and then left in a public area with his fellow students, we don’t know if they were students. Some may not have been students,” Mendelson said.

Soon after, riot police charged and dispersed the crowd while more riot police arrived from the Milton Gates. Trapped from the north and west of campus, students were forced into the McConnell Engineering Building. Many ran to wash tear gas from their faces. Police then barricaded McConnell Engineering, trapping at least 20 students inside for several minutes.

The police then allowed students to leave the Engineering Building, but acted aggressively and indiscriminately, pushing students who were leaving classes from McConnell Engineering, as well as those involved in the protest.

 Just before 5:30 p.m., police in full riot gear had blocked entrance to McGill’s campus from the Milton Gates, setting up lines along the east and west sides of Milton and University.

Protestors chanted, “It’s our campus!”

Around 6:00 p.m., police banged batons against their shields and charged into the group of onlookers gathered along Milton near the intersection. The charge along Milton continued past Lorne Avenue, at which point the crowd had mostly dispersed.

The police left the McGill campus by 7:30 p.m. at the latest. The students occupying the fifth floor of the building negotiated their release with Provost Anthoni Masi and Deputy Provost Mendelson. It was agreed that no names would be taken, no disciplinary procedures would be pursued, and no arrests would be made.

Some protestors and bystanders in the area sustained injuries as a result of police actions. Greg Mikkelson, an associate professor in McGill’s department of philosophy and the school of environment, was on his way to pick up his daughter from McGill’s daycare when police clubbed him with a baton and pepper sprayed him.

Ian Macphee, U2 English, and his roommate watched two policemen aggressively push a girl to the ground. Macphee’s roommate tried to help the girl stand up, and upon seeing the policemen closing in on the roommate to push him too, Macphee stood between the police and the two students.

“I stepped in front of them with no look of serious aggression, I made a motion of breaking up a fight, and out of nowhere I was hit in the face,” he said. “Maybe five or 10 seconds later, the tear gas went off right in front of my face. After that I was pretty messed up.”

Later that night, Macphee had to go to the hospital to get stitches on his lip. Due to the shock of the experience, he did not properly rinse the tear gas from his eyes and on Friday night returned to the hospital and was diagnosed with a chemical burn in the eyes.

Immediately following the commotion, SSMU President Maggie Knight tweeted to let students know that they could find support at the SSMU Building. Over 30 students received support from the student society as well as first aid services from M-SERT.

“One girl came in with really bad pepper spray, she had to get her eyes washed for [about] an hour and a half,” Emily Yee Clare, VP University Affairs said. “Lots of students came to the office, they sat there and comforted each other.”

Most students remain in shock over the force used by the riot police.

“I guess a lot of people had thought that in a country like Canada this would never happen,” Pedneault said. “In many countries police are just not allowed on university campuses because it reminds people of a past era of dictatorship and authoritarian rule, and that’s something that was definitely in the back of people’s minds [Thursday].”

Responses

On Friday afternoon, over 50 concerned faculty and students waited outside the James Administration Building from around 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. to deliver a letter drafted by McGill Faculty Labour Action Group (MFLAG) and talk to one of the senior administrators.

“[The letter] is asking for a full and public inquiry into the events of what happened [Thursday]night. It’s asking for the university to put in formal procedures and criminal reporting procedures for all faculty and students abused by cops and security,” Gretchen King, PhD candidate in the department of communications, said. “We’re also asking for legal recourse and resignation of all the administration that approved the police presence on campus last night.”

Following the collection of signatures, MFLAG members were denied entry into the James Administration Building and were told by security that they needed to have an appointment to enter. Offers by a security guard, as well as from VP Finance and Administration Michael Di Grappa’s secretary, to deliver the letter were turned down by the group, who were demanding that an administrator personally speak with the group.

Around 4:30 p.m., the group decided to accept the offer to send two delegates up to Munroe-Blum’s office. The delegates, McGill student Amber Gross, U2 philosophy and history, and Professor Adrienne Hurley returned shortly with a message relayed from the head of the University. Munroe-Blum expressed “distress” at the situation, but had “someone coming in from out of town” and did not have time to meet with the group.

Munroe-Blum addressed the McGill community on Friday afternoon via email, announcing that an independent investigation will be carried out by Dean of Law Daniel Jutras. The principal will receive and make public the results of the investigation on Dec. 15.

SSMU executives also sent an email to students later that evening, which called the police reaction “disproportionate” and detailed a number of resources for students to get help, including SACOMSS and McGill Nightline.

Some faculty members question whether the riot police had the right to be on campus in the first place.

“[The reason] I’m really profoundly upset is that there were policemen inside the campus … This is a space where y
ou can’t bring the cops in,” Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, history professor, said.

However, Studnicki-Gizbert outlined the situation as a possibility for increased dialogue between different groups at McGill.

“What seems to be on the table now [with the administration] is this idea that the university has to have a conversation with itself, especially with regards to what happened last night,” he said. “It has to have an open conversation with all the different people and groups that constitute the university community. I think that’s an opening and an opportunity that we shouldn’t miss.”

Over 1,000 people gathered yesterday in James Square to discuss the riot police presence of Nov. 10 and its impact on the community.  In an open-mic session, students, faculty, and community members offered their own experiences with the riot police and made suggestions on how to move forward and learn from the incident.

The event began at noon, when over a hundred students gathered at the Roddick Gates and peacefully protested the police violence witnessed Thursday evening. Half an hour later, the group marched to James Square and gathered in the area. At 12:45 p.m., the assembly commenced with an opening speech by U2 arts student Taylor Lawson, recounting the events of Nov. 10.

“The intention of this afternoon is to create time and space for people to express and articulate what they experienced, because this is a community issue and we need to work through it as a whole,” he said.

Present at the forum were students, faculty, and senior administrators Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning Morton Mendelson and Principal Heather Munroe-Blum. 

Following Lawson’s speech, organizers played a recording of the sounds of police on campus, recalling the violence and subsequent student confusion that night. The audio clips were taken from videos on TVM and YouTube, and from a broadcast by CKUT radio. There was a minute of silence at the end of the recording, allowing the crowd to reflect and “collectively move on,” as described by TVM’s Molly Bower. 

The assembly organizers then proposed to change the name of James Square to “Community Square,” in order to reclaim the area of the disturbances. Those gathered voted in favour of the new name.

Students and faculty expressed their experiences and suggestions for the future in an open-mic style forum. Although some of the rhetoric was heated, most speakers encouraged communication with the administration and called for dialogue between on-campus groups to foster community engagement.

“An academic community is an environment in which there is a diversity of views, whether it be about tuition increases, MUNACA’s demands, the nature of limitations on speech in various parts of the university, [or] about student tactics in bringing about change in university,” Arash Abizadeh, professor of political science, said. “But it is important that those diverse views find ways to be able to express themselves.”

Matthew Crawford, undergraduate representative to the McGill Senate and one of the 14 demonstrators who occupied the fifth floor of the James Administration Building, also addressed the crowd. 

“The occupation of James Admin is thought to be as controversial as the presence of police on campus—a point of view I find disappointing and shocking in a university,” he said.

Many used the forum to promote free post-secondary education for all. Another recurring theme among the speakers was increased student representation in the administration’s decision-making process.

“While the students are represented in the university’s framework, our presence is insufficient to allow a serious treatment of student concerns,” Crawford said. “Forms of discussion are only open only for the student voice to be subsumed to the ready-made decisions of the administration. What we have is the ghost of a discourse … designed to placate rather than to include.”

Joël Pedneault, SSMU VP External, tied the events of Nov. 10 to broader social struggles.

“I feel like it’s important for us to not forget that Thursday’s protests were not only something that is historic for campus and for McGill, but also something that’s part of a global movement,” he said. “They’re part of a broader movement that has been growing for decades.”

Brian Cowan, an associate professor in the department of history, called the gathering a “moment of learning” and discussed the importance of student and faculty presence with the Tribune.

“This is an experiment in watching a revolution happen right here and now,” Cowan said. 

Last Thursday, Nov. 10, NDP McGill presented “What’s Up on the Hill?”, an evening with the four McGill undergraduates elected to parliament during the May 2011 federal election. Held at Concordia, the event featured NDP MPs Charmaine Borg, Matthew Dubé, Mylène Freeman, and Laurin Liu, who spoke about their recent transition from student life to Parliament Hill. 

“You can’t be afraid of looking for help,” Dubé said. “The day where you feel you have all the answers is the day you don’t deserve to do this job anymore, because no one ever knows all the answers.”

The four expressed disappointment with the different treatment they have received because of their youth. The three female MPs also described challenges related to gender in the male-dominated parliament.  

“Sometimes I do encounter a lot of sexism, and that really frustrates me,” Freeman said. “It’s funny, but at the same time it’s really awful.”

Nevertheless, Freeman was enthusiastic about the increase in female representatives elected this year.   

“It’s really exciting for me to have so many women in our caucus. In the NDP caucus, we’re 40 per cent women,” Freeman said. “But [that portion is] only 25 per cent in the House.”

Despite large changes to Canada’s political landscape—reflected in parliament—the four said that they largely feel supported by their colleagues.  

“Most—I say most—people understand that we’re all there to do the same job, regardless of colour, political colour, or age,” Dubé said.  

However, media portrayal of the four new MPs has focused largely on their youth, something the four find disappointing. Freeman specifically commented on the media’s tendency to question the group’s French communication skills despite the fluency of all four candidates.  

“It was really frustrating, and we have been working to combat that stuff. I hope that people realize that we are competent and we’re working as hard as we can,” she said.  

When not defending their own capabilities, the MPs are working hard to emphasize that there many political issues beyond just tuition fees and unemployment that are pertinent to young Canadians. 

“Usually people say ‘Pensions? That’s not a youth issue,'” Borg said. “But it is, because they’re slowly cutting [young voters] out of collective agreements and they’re slowly cutting them out of benefit packages for jobs, so for the first time we’ve heard people stand up and say, ‘No, my generation needs to hang on to these things.'”

While the MPs each discussed their recent experiences in Parliament, Dubé also drew attention to McGill’s role in their collective political experience. 

“It’s really fun for us to get to come back to where we came from. It has a lot to do with what’s shaped us as parliamentarians,” he said.  

Student engagement was a major theme at the event. The evening was intended to directly connect youth to political events in Ottawa, NDP McGill Co-President Samuel Harris, said.  

“They’re regular people, they’re not just some far-off distant group,” Harris said. “They’re our age, they’re former McGill students, they had to work through university, they had all sorts of the same experiences we have [had].” 

Other students in the audience appreciated the insight the group offered.  

“It was nice to get the perspective [of] people who are just like me,” Sauran Shah, U0 arts and science, said. “Politics often seems like it’s limited to older, experienced people.”

All four MPs are hoping to change this image of parliament, and emphasized increasing youth involvement in Canadian politics as an important goal. 

“Young people aren’t just leaders of tomorrow,” said Liu. “They’re also leaders of today.”