After watching last week’s debates, inerviewing each candidate, and rigorous debate, the McGill Tribune Editorial Board humbly presents our sixth annual SSMU election endorsements. This year’s election differs from past years in that all but one of the positions is contested. This means that students have a real choice. We hope you will keep our endorsements and our arguments in mind when voting, but ultimately it’s up to you. Vote online at https://ovs.ssmu.mcgill.ca/ or at any of the polling stations listed on page seven. Polls close Friday, March 11, at 5:00 p.m.

After much deliberation, the Tribune endorses Cathal Rooney-Céspedes for the position of Students’ Society president. Although we were divided on the decision, the majority of the editorial board ultimately believes he will be most effective in implementing needed changes within SSMU. He is a candidate that understands the limitations of both the role of the president and SSMU as a whole.

Between coordinating Frosh, his long-time involvement with Model UN, and his role as speaker of Council, Rooney-Céspedes has been involved in many different aspects of McGill student life. This will allow him to bring various perspectives to his position. As speaker, he has gained valuable knowledge of process and procedure.

One of the most promising items on Rooney-Céspedes’ platform is his position on communication. Campus politics too often devolves into pettiness, with individuals attacking each other and failing to compromise. As an articulate pragmatist, Rooney-Céspedes will ensure the SSMU isn’t distracted by divisive ideological issues. If next year’s president can encourage collegial debate they will be making significant progress towards changing SSMU’s culture for the better.

The president’s main role is overseeing their executives. To lead a group of often strong-willed people, the president must be willing to negotiate and compromise. Some of us are slightly concerned that Rooney-Céspedes can come off as cold and condescending. We hope he is able to project an approachable persona to his fellow executives, councillors, and constituents, as this is key for a SSMU president.  

Maggie Knight has extensive SSMU experience. She has consistently demonstrated that she is a natural leader, with an impressive ability to get things done. She exhibits admirable commitment and dedication to everything she becomes involved with.

Yet we are worried that some of Knight’s goals will continue to bog SSMU down in the culture of unrepresentative politics and indecisiveness that have frustrated us for so long. Students have shown themselves to be alienated by hostile GAs, overly bureaucratic politics, and student leaders who condescendingly dismiss non-political interests as “apathy.” Knight is well-intentioned, but many of her solutions have already been tried with little success. She is devoted to large amounts of consultation, prolonged discussion on the GA, and new measures to bring students into SSMU politics. This type of approach appeals to some students, but they are already involved. The biggest barrier to entering SSMU politics is not systemic exclusion but lack of interest. Rooney-Céspedes has shown a keener awareness of this, and more willingness to try innovative means of enhancing student life. This, after all, must be the goal of any SSMU executive, whether through discussion forums or social events. It’s impossible to say whether or not he will be able to engage the interest—at the risk of sounding a little Nixon—of McGill’s silent majority. We do know, however, that the old approach is ineffective; a new vision is at least worth a try.

Although the SSMU president is limited in what they can accomplish in relation to the McGill administration, we believe that Rooney-Céspedes’ negotiation style and approach will be the most effective. Professor Mendelson is articulate and intelligent and has little patience for antagonism or unrealistic demands. We have faith in both candidates’ rationality. But Rooney-Céspedes’ demonstrated impatience for nonsense at council and his articulated commitment to collaboration and discarding the traditional us-versus-them approach to the administration gives us confidence that he has the best chance of having even a limited impact.

One area where Knight is more experienced, knowledgeable, and has articulated a more concrete plan, is in sustainability. We hope that if elected, Rooney-Céspedes will look to implement some of these ideas.

Ultimately, next year’s SSMU president must be able to lead a team of executives, repair the tone of campus debate, and negotiate with the administration. Knight is certainly experienced and competent, but in these areas, Rooney-Céspedes has the edge.

McGill psychology professor Baerbel Knaeuper’s research on the role of visualization techniques in shaping food habits has fast become the latest fad in the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. The basic idea is to have people try to imagine what and how much they are going to eat in detail before meals. In the pursuit of “easy-to-apply techniques that people can and will use in their everyday life to eat healthier and resist temptations,” Knaeuper borrowed visualization techniques common in sports psychology. Athletes’ mental rehearsals of their performances prior to competing in order to yield better results has “the potential to be applied to a whole range of health behaviours,” said research coordinator Michelle Roseman. Funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Knaeuper’s hypothesis was tested on 177 undergraduate students from McGill’s New Residence Hall. With the goal of increased fruit consumption, results illustrated that the use of visualization techniques increased consumption from 2.23 to 3.85 servings of fruit a day. ‘The study suggests that by performing simple cognitive strategies, humans can change important health-related behaviors. “The beneficial aspect of imaging one’s plans is that it can be done anywhere, at anytime, by anyone,” said Julien Lacaille, a graduate student member of the research team. The correlation between likelihood of success with the use of visualization techniques (in this instance when, where and how they would buy, prepare and eat the fruit) is promising. But Roseman pointed out that although “more research is needed, this combination of action plans and visualization could also be used to help individuals achieve other health-related goals- such as getting more exercise.”

After several months of consultation, review, and discussion, the new plan for McGill Orientation and Frosh week was revealed last Thursday. With a new, more unified vision of what orientation should be and certain scheduling changes, Orientation Week aims to be more cohesive, and will connect the academic orientation, formally known as Discover McGill, with the more party-oriented Frosh activities.

Next year, classes will start on Thursday September 1, with move-in day taking place the previous weekend of August 27. In order to fit the traditional orientation week activities into the limited time frame, several changes have been made.

Rez Fest will be held on Sunday August 28, followed by three days of academic orientation until the first day of classes on Thursday. Faculty froshes will begin that Friday and last until Sunday night. On Monday, SSMU-sponsored events will take place.

“[We’re] trying to maintain events as they are, but just showing that there’s a bigger chain that runs through all of it, that this is the orientation week,” said Riley Dalys-Fine, Survey and Report coordinator of the First Year Transition Network in the Office of the Executive Director of Services for Students.

Orientation leaders will lead a group of first-year students for the entire week, rather than for just one portion of the orientation.

Leaders will be selected based on a collective vision of what the faculties, the First-Year Office, and SSMU believe the ideal leader should be and how he or she would handle orientation. Because leaders will be in charge of the same group throughout the entire week, they will be expected to be more well-rounded and better prepared to handle a variety of situations.

“The idea is to give the leaders a little bit more of a mandate,” Dalys-Fine said. He added that there are already many highly committed and mature Frosh leaders and believes that they will be willing to accept more responsibility and thrive under it.

“We believe that they [will] see potential for fun throughout the whole week,” he said. “[We believe] that they’re going to enjoy the whole job.”

Anurag Dhir, coordinator of the First-Year Transition Network and the Community Action Toolkit in the Office of the Executive Director of Services for Students, pointed to the importance of the leaders and coordinators in the success of an event like Frosh.

“It’s the coordinators and the leaders that make this event what it is,” Dhir said. “So if we can support them and empower them to make this event the best that it can be, then I think the students need to take that ownership. But they can’t do it alone, and I think that’s where the administration can come in and provide that support for them, offering resources and tools.”

Tom Fabian, VP Internal of SSMU, agreed with Dalys-Fine, saying that the mentality for frosh leaders needs to be altered.

“We have to get out of the mentality that it’s just a binge drinking opportunity for a bunch of leaders,” Fabian said. “They have the opportunity to be a role model or mentor for the [first-years] for the entire week.”

Fabian also explained that he has been interested in condensing SSMU Frosh into one day for some time.

Fabian said his goals going into this process to decrease the focus on drinking and to ensure that the administration is aware of all orientation ideas throughout the planning process so there won’t be any serious problems during the actual Orientation Week.

Jana Luker, executive director of McGill Student Services, said the administration has been a part of the orientation reimagining process from the beginning, and so far everyone has been pleased with the methods of consultation that have gone into these changes.

“From the administrative perspective, if the students are feeling at the end of it that they’re oriented and better prepared to start university then that’s what matters,” Luker said. He also explained that the administration’s main role in most of the discussions has been to give students a forum for discussion.

Although some of the changes being put into effect are the result of the condensed schedule, others had been in development for many months before the schedule was announced.

“We were still going to be doing this working group anyway,” Dhir said. “But when we found out the schedule was changing, it was a bit of a wrench, but at the same time, I took it as an opportunity, saying, ‘Oh man, now we really have a chance to work with a clean slate, we can actually re-imagine this from the day one.'”

What is wrong with the SSMU? What things would you fix?

We promote this mentality both internally and externally of “us versus them,” and even at times “good versus evil.” And it’s just so combative and so inconducive to real progress and it gets to the point where people not only get coloured into these certain spectrums, but also, it’s almost as if only one side can win. It’s either us or the administration, its either QPIRG or Conservative McGill, one councillor or another, and it marginalizes the minority and it doesn’t really do anything for the student body. And ultimately we spend so much time combating against each other when we should really be working with one another and we don’t do enough of that.

How would you tackle GA reform next year?

You can implant short term mechanisms to change stuff like marginalization of the minority, things as simple as: if one third of the body wants to go to an online vote, then you should be able to go to an online vote, if we hit room capacity and people still want to get in, by default you go to an online vote. However, there are two overarching issues: the SSMU doesn’t provide proper forums for discussion and if anything, the GA is used as a fallback for frustrations people feel, whether its issues that have to do with the SSMU or issues that are completely external to the SSMU. The second is student apathy. The reason we don’t hit quorum is not because the GA isn’t advertised well enough, it’s not because the motions aren’t advertise well enough, it’s just that students don’t care. And is this a book you can rewrite over one year? No, but promoting that sort of culture will ultimately benefit the GA.

What do you think SSMU should do about Jobbook?  

Letting the past issues regarding [President Newburgh] and Jobbook overshadow the possibility of there being an amazing service for students would really come at the detriment of bettering student life and if the contract is amazing and if the council or executive or whoever decides that this is something that could truly benefit student life, then we would be failing our student body in not signing on to something like that. But it depends on the contract, it depends on the service. But we have to understand that we’re only here for four years and that our relationship with Jobbook will ultimately extend so much farther down the line and we can’t look at the situation in such an enclosed bubble.

One of the president’s most important goals is being a liaison to the administration. What is your relationship like with administrators such as the principle, deputy provost and provost?

I think we take a very negative approach in the way that we address the administration. We often times take such an entrenched stance in our issues without being able to understand the issues that they are facing as administrators and as people who are trying to not spend money that they don’t have. 

How will your experience with SSMU influence your approach if you are elected?

I’m very aware of the fact that many students don’t understand SSMU. We need to be making ourselves much more accessible in a variety of ways to reach a variety of audiences. I think there’s a big chunk in the middle that if we made it easier, if we decreased the barriers to participation, if we decreased the burden on students to understand how SSMU works, and instead said “Hey! We want your input on this thing specifically, and this is how we’re going to take your information and enact it,” then we’d probably get a lot more participation. And I know that people say that every year, but I have had great success building up the environment side of SSMU. I’ve been able to do this in a microcosm of SSMU, and I hope I would be able to extend that model to other committees and other things SSMU does.

What are your thoughts on the GA?

You probably know how I feel about the GA. It absolutely needs reform. I wasn’t very happy with the way in which the attempt at reform was made. My approach is let’s warn people in advance, let’s set up a very distinct way of soliciting feedback, then take this feedback and write it into a resolution and put that to referendum. If we can’t make it work, then we should abolish it. But I don’t think we’ve given it its best shot yet. Surely we can come up with some sort of way where we can have a disucssion about important issues on campus and vote on them in a way that is democratic and inclusive.

Do you think SSMU should sign a contract with Jobbook?

Should we get rid of Jobbook entirely? Not necessarily. It could be a great service for students. On the other hand, for those students who are very upset about what happened, it’s not going to increase their trust in SSMU if SSMU then goes and signs a contract with a company with which they’ve expressed displeasure. It really comes back to consultation. Unfortunately we don’t have all the details, so it makes consultation very hard. Currently, I would be concerned about signing a contract with Jobbook just because I don’t think we’ve sufficiently addressed the loss of trust from some parts of the student body.

How important is it for the president to have a good relationship with the administration?

It’s very important to have a professional relationship with the administration. In other forums I’ve had the experience of going into meetings, being hard hitting, at times when necessary, but you keep your cool even if they tell you things you’re pretty sure are a blatant lie and you proceed. Sometimes it’s about collaboration. I think we need a more nuanced approach; sometimes we need to collaborate, but there are other times when our interests fundamentally do not align, and then it is our job to represent in the interests of students, because we are a student society, and it’s our job to speak up for ourselves.

If you could go back in time and high-five one person, who would it be and why?

Elizabeth the First, because she was a strong female leader, and she defeated the Spanish Armada.

On February 15th, the Arts Undergraduate Society announced that the administration was withholding $90,000 in student fees from the organization due to a failure to submit financial audits from the past several years in the allotted time.

David Marshall, president of the AUS, and the rest of the executive have been trying to rectify the situation ever since, working with Robyn Wiltshire, director of the deputy provost (student life and learning) office.

There was some good news this past week when the deputy provost’s office said the money would be delivered.

“We haven’t received our fees or heard specifically when we will get them,” Marshall said in an email to the Tribune. “However, the deputy provost’s office has informed us that they are forthcoming on the basis of information that we are able to provide them information about this year’s financial practices, not those of years past.”

In the meantime, the AUS has taken steps to try and mitigate the effects of the financial loss in the short term.

“I’ve taken lots of personal liability,” Marshall said. “This might limit student involvement [in the AUS] because students might not want to be involved if they have to extend their credit limit and take on debt for the sake of the society.”

On top of paying for events with their own money, the AUS executives are working with their new auditors to obtain the required documentation the university has requested.

“We hired new accountants because our old ones weren’t satisfactory, we’ve been working with this new audit team since October to get the last three years of financial statements in order,” Marshall said. “[Getting new auditors] wasn’t just to cover ourselves, it was to have better financial practices for the future.”

These new financial practices seem to be paying off, with the administration saying they will release the funds soon. Although the administration said they understand that this is affecting students this year who have paid the fees, there is no exact timetable for when the funds will be turned over. However, Marshall was careful to note that practices are being put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“[The administration] are being responsive, [but] they want more reassurance about future projects than about past sins.”

Since the mid-90s, Arts students at McGill have been required to fulfill the requirements of both a major and minor in order to graduate. This, along with several other components of the Arts degree program, may soon change if the proposals from a Dean of Arts Working Group are implemented. While the recommendations are not final or binding, they have instigated discussion and could have a serious impact on future McGill students.

The proposed changes are in response to a number of issues. Andre Costopoulos, Associate Dean of Arts and head of the working group, said that due to increasing enrollment, decreasing administrative support, and flat academic hiring, there is more pressure on students, professors, and administrators.

“If we keep doing things exactly the way we are doing them now, we are going to be affected by those pressures,” Costopoulos said. “So what we need to do is see how to organize ourselves in order to meet our academic objectives.”

Costopolous was directed by the Office of the Provost in fall 2010 to establish a group to study these pressures and recommend how to address them. The group consists of students, faculty, and other university personnel and its suggestions were made public to both faculty and student societies in February.

According to the draft proposal, the major areas affected by changes would be the first-year program, advanced standing credits, and the mandatory minor for all Arts students. The first year program would focus on teaching students certain skills, like essay writing, that are necessary for success later in the Arts program.

According to Costopoulos, eliminating the mandatory minors would prevent students from being forced to complete a program in which they are not interested.

“We end up in a situation where we have essentially service minors—minors that exist because students have to take them. Academically, that doesn’t make sense,” Costopoulos said.

If mandatory minors were eliminated, Costopoulos said, students would still be free to pursue a minor, but they would also be able to pursue course configurations that do not fit into the current program configuration.

The final change under discussion would allow students to decline advanced-standing credit during their U1 year, permitting them to complete a full four year program of study at McGill. Devon Willis, a U3 joint honours political science and environment and international development studies student and member of both the working group and the Arts Undergraduate Society Council, thought this would be a positive change. As a CEGEP student, she felt that only three years at university was not long enough.

“Just because students did CEGEP, or did advance credits, does not mean that university is any less foreign to them,” Willis said. “It takes adjusting no matter whether you have those 30 credits from high school, or two years experience at a CEGEP.”

In describing the original aim of the working group, Willis said the goals were to “cut costs, [and] to streamline the Arts degree to make the administrative costs lower. However, all the professors and councillors in the [working group] were very idealistic in their desire to improve the undergraduate experience.”

Amara Possian, an Arts senator, said she was impressed with the way in which the proposals were handled.

“I’m really happy with the process,” Possian said. “The associate dean sat down and asked himself ‘Who needs to be part of this discussion?’ [He] brought them all in, put them in a committee, and then spent months drafting suggestions.”

Both the members of the AUS and Costopoulos cautioned that none of the suggestions were certain to be implemented and, if any were adopted, they could take years to be instituted. However, Costopoulos said “Some of them (the changes, specifically the dropping of the mandatory minor) could be implemented as early as September if the Arts faculty accepts them.”

All stressed the need for student input on changes.

“It’s really important that students speak to the students who are sitting on these committees if they have any huge problems with the changes,” Possian said.

On February 28, the British Council and the Migration Policy Group published a study that ranked Canada third in the world for its policies on immigrant integration. The study compared Canada to 29 other countries, including all European Union member states as well as Norway, Switzerland, and the United States.  

The British Council and the Migration Policy Group are organizations that track immigration policy in various countries across the world. Their study brought together 100 researchers to look at different categories of integration experienced by immigrant workers and their families. These included access to education and the labour market, ability to reunite with family, the possibility of permanent residency, and political rights.

The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) was used to benchmark whether governments grant equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities to all their residents. The aim was not to measure change in the influx of migrants to the 31 countries, but to determine which practices most benefitted these migrants.   

A press release on the report noted that having high standards was critical. “Successful integration helps create more competitive and cohesive societies,” the report said.  

Overall, Canada received 72 points out of a possible 100, which ranked the country behind Portugal, with 79, and Sweden at 83.  

The report cited the federal government’s recent focus on recognizing the education and credentials of immigrants as the reason Canada moved up two spots from last year.  

Canada scored highly in the education category, as its English as a Second Language programs often successfully address the needs of immigrant children. Canada’s labour mobility also earned a high score.

“Migrant workers and their families have some of the best labour market opportunities in Canada. Foreign residents and nationals have the same right to work in any sector, start a business and use public job services. All have the same working conditions and access to social security,” the report noted.

Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, said that these findings should be interpreted with caution.  

“We need to look at the overall rankings and not be satisfied with being third best on the list,” he said.  

While Canada has some of the strongest policies in place to ensure immigrant integration, the study revealed many other areas where it can improve. The report recommended policy adjustments such as removing the extensive backlog for processing immigrant applications, recognizing that non-citizen residents should be given the right to vote, and providing leaders of immigrant associations with the chance to inform integration policy through consultative bodies.  

Howard Duncan, director of Canadian immigration studies organization Metropolis said that the study’s findings should be examined carefully, and noted the increasing demand for skilled immigrants.

“One thing we’re seeing, not just in North America and Europe, is a growing competition for immigrants who have a high level of skill,” Duncan said. “The competition for migrants is going to be, in part, won or lost in terms of integration policies.”  

Morton Weinfeld, a professor of Canadian Studies at McGill University, said integrative immigration policies benefit Canada by helping to avoid some of the high-profile problems found in Europe, including the rise of explicitly anti-immigrant parties. However, he was also skeptical of MIPEX.

“I’m not sure how meaningful all this is,” Weinfeld said. “Sweden does have an anti-immigrant backlash, and Portugal is not known as a major migrant-receiving country.”  

According to Weinfeld, “Canada is lucky,” because immigrants  to the country tend to be relatively educated, it does not have many illegal immigrants, and it has not had a major guest worker program like Germany.  

“Unlike Europe,” he said, “we are really an immigrant society with lots of experience in dealing with immigrant integration.”

Canada admitted a record number of over 280,000 immigrants in 2009—the largest number in 57 years.  

The top 10 countries in the study, in order from best to worst rank were Sweden, Portugal, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Spain, the U.S., and Italy.

The bottom 10 in the study were the Czech Republic and Estonia, Hungary and Romania, Switzerland, Austria and Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Cyprus, and Latvia.

Alice Walker

After a warm introduction, Jay Naidoo, clad in a dress shirt and leather jacket, addressed a collection of about 100 students who gathered in the Bronfman Management Building on Thursday evening.

“What do you want to talk about? Well … OK, what does the future hold?”

At an event organized by the International Relations Students’ Association of McGill, this was one of several big questions that was asked by Naidoo, a former minister in Nelson Mandela’s post-Apartheid cabinet, current chairman of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and human rights advocate. Rather than a lecture, Naidoo referred to the event as an “open house,” a forum in which he could respond to students’ questions and address what the audience was interested in discussing.

“He came to McGill for free,” said Lorenzo Garcia-Andrade, the speaker’s chair at IRSAM. “He said he considers universities ‘the nurseries of democracy.'” Garcia-Andrade’s position is a new one, having only been created this year. It is part of IRSAM’s drive to create a more externally oriented, but McGill-focused, portfolio within the student group.

Initially, Garcia-Andrade had envisioned a panel of speakers with different historical perspectives on apartheid. He quickly realized, however, that Naidoo “could [have] a whole conference on his own.” The range of topics Naidoo covered seemed to reflect the length and breadth of the entire International Development Studies curriculum. He discussed his own experiences in South Africa, the current upheaval in the Middle East, women’s empowerment, education, and grassroots organization, and the dangers of malnutrition for infants. Despite the talk’s broad range, the entire discussion seemed to go back to one important point: there are systemic challenges to global welfare. Naidoo believes that it’s up to the next generation to do something about these problems. “The system is broken,” he said several times throughout the discussion.

The charismatic Naidoo also occassionally elicited laughter from the audience with his commentary. “You all obey the rules here,” he said. “In Africa, a traffic sign is a bit of a guide. In Bangladesh there’s no guide, even. You just drive!”

For all his comedic timing, he made it clear that he is unwavering and serious about human rights issues. “It was offensive to have [institutionalized racism in South Africa] just like it is offensive to me today to see people dying of starvation,” Naidoo said.

In addition to his staunch advocacy for the union of pragmatism and humanitarianism, Naidoo emphasized the importance of human agency. “[This is] the question we have to ask ourselves: Are you going to fit in or are you going to change [the world]?”

The Egyptian revolution, he said, is another chapter in the never-ending struggle for a better world. Global solidarity, he said, in combination with democratic grassroots organizations and strong leaders succeeded in overthrowing South African apartheid. He added that any changes in the future will also require international pressure and internal agency.

Alia Jan, a U1 anatomy and cell biology and international development student, found Naidoo motivational, particularly with respect to his emphasis on students’ roles in development and his stance that female empowerment is key to development everywhere in the world.

A UQAM student attending the lecture said he’d come to the discussion already believing in activism and agency but that it was encouraging to hear that someone from an older generation still held to similar ideals. “In a sense I’m an old guy now,” Naidoo said. “I represent an old fight. I think the issue about you is what do you stand for? What is the value you see in the world?”

In the end, he said, the decade to come will be defined by the revolution of Arab youth seizing their future. “And that’s why I’m excited.”