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Behind the Bench, Sports

The stadium mystique

by Sean Wood on

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I recently had to do a story on the renovated Molson Stadium, so I went to check it out one day. I was moved to recollection as I wandered through the concourses. “Recollection” is an inadequate word; rather, doors in my subconscious opened, emitting rich nostalgic air. I let it out, breathed, and fell under its spell.

I flashed to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium, one of the first sporting events I ever went to. The lingering smell of fried food in Molson’s concourses reminded me of being an ecstatic four-year-old. My dad had announced a few days beforehand that we were going, and my anticipation began then. The day of the game, I checked the clock 20 times an hour while at school. My disbelief of the whole situation grew, and by the time I got off the school bus I was in a near-trance. Arriving home, I donned Phillies clothing and anointed myself with holy paints, so I might be considered acceptable to the other fans. After waiting in traffic, we emerged into the stadium and I saw the perfectly green field—the Holy of Holies.

It was sensory overload. Not only was the grass greener, the lights were brighter and the crowd was louder. The players weren’t just men in uniforms, they were living myths capable of supernatural feats. The evening promised home runs, French fries, and ice cream; it didn’t matter that I’d probably fall asleep in the seventh inning, or that I’d be carried to the car long before the game reached any resolution.  

The door to Molson field was wide open. I’m always amazed at how easy it is in Canada to walk into places Americans consider forbidden; even the high school near my house in Philly didn’t let anyone on its field.  I stood in the middle of the stadium and dreamed that the stands were filled with 25,000 people paying to see me. I ran toward the end zone, made dazzling spin moves, and faked the roar of a crowd with that whispered “EHHHH” noise. The dream of athletic glory is an ineradicable weed; it can lie dormant for a long time, but never entirely disappears.

Sports are a quasi-religious phenomenon. My closest encounters with power and grace didn’t happen in church, but at Phillies games. I’m still residually awed by the stadium experience. It’s tough not to respond to the grandeur of a sporting event. When people tell me that sports are a waste of money, there’s too much star-struck child in me to agree. 

Off the Board, Opinion

James Square – The Last Metal Handrails on Campus

by Iain Macdonald on

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When I arrived at McGill, many years ago, things were a lot different. New Rez was new, students were lobbying against tuition increases, and the administration didn’t feel the need to dig giant holes in order to make me three minutes late to every class. Since that time, things have changed a bit. There’s a new-new-new-new rez, Molson stadium has been expanded (don’t worry, there’s still only one winning team in there), and everywhere I look on campus people are digging holes.

Late in my first year, McGill undertook a project just west of the Milton gates and south of the James administration building, to change a lovely little bee-line from the gates to the Arts building into a “greenspace.” I heard they were also rebuilding the secret tunnel Heather Munroe-Blum and Morton Mendelson use to sneak to Arch Cafe. This two-year project resulted in a lot of jackhammering, little visible change, and a total of 17 extra kilometers of walking for me – according to my pedometer.

Upon the project’s completion, the new “greenspace” was re-opened to the public. I can only assume it’s called greenspace due to the amount of green McGill spent on it. Just last May, the Milton Gates were auctioned off on eBay in an effort to pay for the ordeal. Thanks to Montreal’s weather, it’s really whitespace for the majority of the year.

With the new school year came a number of upsetting choices by the administration, including the closure of Arch Cafe, serious discussion of actually increasing tuition, disassociation of the university with its students – in order to protect the McGill Swoosh, and the purchasing of my apartment as the new-new-new-new-new rez. Little did I know the worst was yet to come.

One September day, when I was on my way home from somewhere, likely my boycott of the food services boycott, I strolled through the whitespace, only to discover that where there had formerly been smooth metal hand rails, there were now wooden two-by-fours bolted into the rail-frames. I was slowed by five seconds on that trip – time I usually saved by sliding down the rails. While inconvenient, I figured this was not a permanent change, and that the slippery, polished metal rails would be back in time.

Now it’s November. The rails still aren’t back. It seems like the decision to switch out the metal in favor of wood was a permanent one. Perhaps they sold the rails to fund the renovation of the Arts building, or bring the Arch Cafe coffee that the administration loves so much back to the office. Either way, the move to get rid of the rails is, in my opinion, the most disgusting, heartless move made by the administration this year. I challenge anyone to give me one way in which wooden hand rails are better than their metal counter parts. Additionally, this move gave wooden rails a stairway-monopoly on campus, driving all metal-railed staircases out of operation.

The worst part about this decision was that, as a frequent user of the whitespace, I was not consulted when the decision was made to get rid of the metal rails. The manner in which the administration made this decision was entirely disrespectful and ignorant of student interest. I would only consider it more insulting if the metal rails were not brought back, and students are not consulted In future decisions of this nature. As the largest single-group using the space, it seems like we should have a say in what goes into making this whitespace our very own.

Thanks a lot McGill. Thanks for slowing me down, making my trip across campus less enjoyable, and making me have to pick bits of wood from my palm as I sit in class every day. In the series of offensive moves made by the higher-ups at our institution, this is the worst of the worst, and I for one, won’t take it. I’m boycotting the whitespace, purposefully walking a route around it – until they bring back the smooth handrails. Give me back my handrails McGill. The whitespace handrails were the last place on campus where I could slip and slide from a to b and, by closing them, the administration has sent a clear message to the students that this is not your whitespace, it’s theirs.

McGill, News

McGill institutes $150 fee for study abroad applications

by Matt Chesser on

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Students applying to study abroad in the 2011-12 academic year will be charged a non-refundable $150 application fee, due to a new policy instituted by the McGill administration this past September.

Applications to study at a foreign university had previously been processed by McGill for free.  

According to Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson, the application fee is intended to act as a deterrent to students who are not fully committed to studying abroad.

“We only want people who are really interested in going [on exchange] to apply,” Mendelson said. “We’ve had a lot of students who decide at the last minute not to go abroad. As a result, other students who would like to go on exchange are left out in the cold.”

Last year, the university received 769 applications to study abroad. As of this August, 162 of those applications had been withdrawn—a rate of approximately 21 per cent. Late withdrawals meant a number of McGill’s international exchange positions went unfilled, due to expired application deadlines for visas and university registration.

Student leaders, however, have taken issue with the fee, which was implemented without student consultation. The fee is non-refundable, so students who cancel their applications or whose applications are rejected will not be reimbursed for the cost.

“A cancellation fee would have made a lot more sense,” said Arts Senator Amara Possian. “If you apply and you’re not accepted, why do you have to pay $150?”

In a memo to Mendelson, Students’ Society Vice-President University Affairs Joshua Abaki and Arts Undergraduate Society President David Marshall argued that the new application fee will “limit access to exchanges, and McGill will probably end up with fewer students going out on exchanges.”

According to Abaki, the application fee contradicts provincial legislation that requires student approval for ancillary fee increases of more than $15 per year. The new fee, he wrote in the memo, “perfectly fits this description.”

Mendelson disagreed with this line of reasoning, however. Because exchange programs are not compulsory, he said, the application fee is not classified as an ancillary charge.

“Students are reasonable—if they knew that a small fee was necessary to improve the services at the Office for International Exchange or to process applications faster, they probably would have been willing to pay it,” Possian said. “This just seems like a sneaky way to fill the budget gap.”

Mendelson acknowledged that the fee was designed to partially recoup some of the costs of operating the Office of International Education, which he emphasizes does not provide services to most students.

But Abaki countered that McGill could have considered other funding sources.

“If the administration needed additional funding to process exchange applications, then both SSMU and the faculty associations would have been willing to consider ways to provide that funding,” he said.

Abaki and Possian also questioned the lack of transparency surrounding the institution of the fee. Neither SSMU nor the faculty associations were informed, and the organizations only learned of the fee when approached by students applying to study abroad.

According to an email from the Office of International Education, the application fee was formulated by looking at registration fees charged by the Group of 13, a collection of Canadian research-intensive universities. McGill’s fee, however, is the third highest among G-13 universities (tied with the University of Calgary), and McGill is one of only three G-13 universities that charges a non-refundable fee before an exchange application has been approved.

“We believe that the fee is not out of line with what is charged by comparable universities,” Mendelson said. “Students will be able to recoup this cost if they are approved for exchange, as they can expect a mobility grant that will more than cover the cost of the application fee.”

The fee will also be waived for students receiving loans or awards from the provincial or federal government, as well as McGill’s Scholarships and Student Aid Office.  

Possian, however, expressed concern that the fee will nevertheless prevent others from pursuing an international exchange—as she did last year at Sciences Po, a university in Paris.

“I had to work three jobs for eight months while I was in school in order to be able to afford to go on exchange,” she said. “An extra $150 might discourage people like me from applying.”

News

Thousands celebrate newly canonized Brother Andre

by Sean Wood on

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Alice Walker
Alice Walker

Olympic Stadium’s postmodern curves have hosted metal concerts, monster truck rallies, and the MLB All-Star Game, but they have rarely formed a cathedral. On Saturday, however, the blue-and-gold plastic seats served as pews as tens of thousands celebrated the canonization of Alfred Bessette, commonly known as Brother André.

The Catholic Church proclaimed Bessette (1845-1937), the founder of St. Joseph’s Oratory attributed with thousands of miraculous healings, a saint on October 17 in Rome. Thirty thousand turned out on Saturday, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Jean Charest, and 58 bishops.   

“He’s more than an ambassador,” said Mayor Gérald Tremblay.  “In Rome, we saw the universal consecration of an exceptional person who transmitted many values to us: the values of justice, the values of love, the values of peace.”

For 40 years, Bessette was the doorman at College Notre Dame, a school run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, a religious order. Though he was frail, uneducated, and not a priest, by the turn of the century his ability to heal had become internationally renowned. Toward the end of his life, he received hundreds of visitors a day. In the six days after his death on January 6, 1937, more than a million people paid respect to his remains.

“[St. Paul said], ‘An artist makes the most beautiful paintings with the smallest of brushes,'” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte in his homily. “It is not a small saint who has been canonized, but a great one. A very great one.”    

Though people widely agree on his virtue, his congregation, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, is the target of one of the latest Catholic sex abuse allegations.  

On Friday, the Superior Court of Canada ruled that Shirley Christensen’s lawsuit against a priest who she claims abused her and against the Archbishop of Quebec should return to the Quebec Superior Court. Others have made similar allegations.

Earlier last week, Robert Corneiller, a representative of the Committee of Pedophile Victims at College Notre-Dame, suggested that the group should have received some of the proceeds from Saturday’s event.  

“[Instances of sexual abuse] are so sad,” said Father Charles Corso, a spokesperson for the Oratory, in regard to sex-abuse scandals generally. “They should not have happened and are embarrassing. So we take them in, we accept them, and we move on, not to forget them, but to ensure that whatever harm was done can be repaired.”

The Oratory is Bessette’s primary legacy. He began to envision a shrine to St. Joseph, whom he believed was the source of his ability to heal, in the late 19th century. The first small chapel was built in 1904, and the current basilica was completed in 1956, almost two decades after Bessette’s death. As a commemoration of Bessette’s ministry, the Oratory remains an international tourist attraction and pilgrimage site.   

In cooperation with the city, the Oratory put ads in the Montreal Metro and on streetlight posts which read “Brother André: A brother. A friend. A saint.” Representatives handed out handkerchiefs to Saturday’s crowd, which they waved during their applause.   

The ceremony was an embellished traditional Catholic Mass.   One of Bessette’s suitcases, a plan of St. Joseph’s Oratory, and some discarded crutches from one of his healings were alongside the altar, which stood in what used to be centre field for the Montreal Expos. Les Petits Chanteurs de Mont-Royal, a children’s choir from College Notre-Dame, provided music.

Though the crowd wore more habits and rosaries than caps and jerseys, it was not limited to the Catholic faithful.   

“André came from a point of view of unconditional acceptance,” Corso said. “He accepted believers, non-believers, people of other faiths. He was interested, of course, that they eventually come close to God, but he just accepted them and listened to them.”

A number of leaders from other faiths attended the ceremony, and the diverse crowd left the stadium in a good mood.   

“At the very end, where … people were cheering,” Corso said, “I started to laugh. I was laughing out of pure joy.”

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

In Concert: Halloween – Rocky Horror Picture Show

by Holly Stewart on

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Holly Stewart

A cold Saturday evening and the first snowfall of the season didn’t stop the line for the Rocky Horror Picture Show from extending around the block. It’s safe to say that those who like it, like it a lot. Dedicated fans were dressed in drag and dishabille, even though fishnets and hot pants don’t make for adequate winter layers.

The show started with a ghoulish rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance followed by a costume contest amongst audience members. Then everyone settled in for the real action. The cult classic was shown on the big screen while the scenes were simultaneously acted out on the stage in front. A live narrator threw in lines that distorted the film’s script. “Where’s your neck?  Are you an armadillo?” he asked whenever the film’s narrator appeared. The acting was even more creative and explicit than the film itself; during Susan Sarandon’s “Creature of the Night,” in which she sings about heavy petting and making out, the onstage actors pantomimed various graphic sex acts.

Audience participation was mandatory: toilet paper, toast, and rice were all thrown at the appropriate moments, and not a single person remained seated during the classic “Time Warp” dance. At the end of the night, the audience trickled out reluctantly, more disappointed that the show was over than dreading the cold weather outside.

Science & Technology, Student Life

Skype vs. Google Voice

by Alison Bailey on

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Whether you’re chatting with your parents, friends, or boyfriend, long-distance relationships have been made easier with chat programs that allow voice and video communication. Skype seems to have taken the lead in the industry, but there are other chatting and video streaming programs that are just as good, if not better. One program that is proving more and more competitive can be accessed through your Gmail account, Google Voice.

 

Skype

Quality: Skype has a high rate of dropped calls and difficulty in reconnecting these calls. It’s also not uncommon for the video to freeze or to lag behind the sound. On the plus side, a fuzzy image might make you look better on a bad day.

Price: Skype is relatively cheap when calling international landlines, but the costs run high when calling international mobile numbers. If you’re not careful, the $14 minimum upload to your Skype credit can run out quickly.

Popularity: With over 500 million accounts in use, the majority of your friends probably have Skype. Calling fellow users is free, which will lower the cost of your Skype usage.

Mobility: Thanks to Skype applications available for iPhones and BlackBerrys, many people can download Skype on their smartphones.

The Multi-Task Factor: When video chatting, the window will remain open and in sight on your screen while browsing other programs. This allows you to keep your interlocutor in sight while checking out perezhilton.com.

Texting: Sending texts through Skype is simple and relatively cheap. Skype charges you per 120 characters and shows you how much each text costs as you are texting.

VS

Google Voice

Quality: Constant streaming with no interruption. The images are clear and there are rarely connection problems.

Price: Until 2011, people can use Google Voice for free when making calls anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, to landlines and mobiles alike. This actually makes it worth it to turn on your computer and sign into your Gmail account instead of using your mobile.

Popularity: Although Gmail has about 176 million users monthly, not everyone uses Google Voice. On top of that, using the video feature requires an extra download.

Mobility: Although less publicized, phone applications for Google Voice are just as readily available as Skype apps. However, a smaller number of users makes downloading the Google Voice application less worthwhile.

Multi-Task Factor: When chatting you have to remain on the Gmail window to keep whoever you’re communicating with in sight. This makes browsing on the internet a game of shuffling around windows.

Texting: At this time, sending text messages through Google Voice is not possible while in Canada.

 

Winner

Skype. The quality of the video in Google Voice is significantly better than that of Skype, but until the number of Google Voice users increases Skype will be the program to use for long distance communication. However, just as Skype steadily replaced Microsoft Messenger, it’s very likely that Google Voice will replace Skype in the near future.

Student Life

Wyoming’s paradise

by Shannon Kimball on

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I’ve always been a city girl. Growing up in downtown Chicago, I only applied to universities in large cities, and once declared Carmel, California—a small ocean town of retired actors and millionaires with a slew of art galleries—the most boring place on earth. This is why it’s so surprising that my favourite place in the whole world is in northern Wyoming.  It’s the only place a city kid can really feel like they know and understand a horse.

My family travels 1,500 miles every summer to ride horses in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains, an isolated extension of the Rocky Mountains. The Bighorns are not easy to get to. The trip involves a flight to Billings, Montana, then a long drive through Montana’s rolling yellow hills. Risk-taking travellers can hop on regional airlines’ prop planes to nearby Sheridan, Wyoming, but frequent storms and high mountains make for a bumpy ride and many cancelled flights. Alternatively, you can road trip on the I-90 across the Great Plains, and then onto US-16 to ascend the Bighorns, which are visible from the grassy lowlands 100 miles away.

The natural elements of the Bighorns are both stunning and devastating. Temperatures can change 50 degrees farenheight overnight. During the summer, hailstorms are common and snow dusts the wildflowers on cold mornings. The dry air on a hot day is akin to a day in Flagstaff, and the wind at the top of the Hunter Mesa forces horses to bow their heads in mercy. The dry air and wind took their toll in 1988, when a fire destroyed much of Bighorn’s forests. As a frequent visitor, it has been astonishing to witness the growth of a new forest, patches of wildflowers amidst young trees, and the return of wildlife to the once singed territory. But patches of grey remain at higher altitudes.

My family has always stayed at Paradise Guest Ranch, but cheaper options abound. Day rides, hiking, and camping are easily accessible.

Paradise’s riding, staff, and scenery are superior, with over 100 horses and a few dozen log cabins nestled in a valley. Snowy peaks, a yellow mesa, and rolling green hills surround the ranch. Guests spend the day riding or hiking the ranch’s trails and getting to know their horses. The high altitude and clear skies allow for incredible stargazing. Once the riding is over for the day, the horses stampede out of the corral and up towards the mesa, where they graze and sleep until the wranglers herd them in at dawn. The wranglers aren’t playing the part of cowboy for the guests, but instead are horsemen and women from the surrounding area. They care much more about the horses than their riders.

These horses are nothing like the burned-out pony you may have ridden as a kid, or the rule-abiding horses in equestrian. Raising them together builds a camaraderie evident even to an inexperienced rider. They look out for each other, and riders wonder if they’re secretly engaging in conversation during trail rides. The riding seems effortless: the horses know how to cross a creek without tripping, how to smoothly jump over a fallen tree, and when there might be a moose up ahead.

That said, riding a horse at Paradise Ranch is not an easy ride, and this is reinforced by the wranglers. Riders must be just as attentive to the trail as to the horses, and not get caught up in the majestic scenery. These horses aren’t docile: they’re smart enough to know the dozens of trails surrounding the area and are always ready to gallop for an experienced rider.

The trails in the Bighorns take riders and hikers through constantly changing scenery. After riding for a few hours in a homogeneous forest, one may come upon a bright red canyon, interlaced with green grass.

My most unforgettable experience came when a wrangler let us race through a valley. He promised us that once we started the ascent up the other side, the horses would become exhausted and eventually stop. (Note: this wrangler broke just about every rule in the book, but everyone survived.) I tied my reins in a knot and let them fall on my horse Modak’s neck, knowing that my guidance was useless; he would know if he had to stop or make a turn. I leaned forward, grabbed his mane, and gave him a hard kick.  

There’s something about being alone in the mountains with a horse, with the howling wind in the distance, that allows the rider and the horse to understand each other. It’s the stuff of epic western movies, but inexplicably unique to each traveler. Being alone with one’s thoughts in such a tremendous landscape lends itself to relaxation, and an incredible feeling of smallness.

If you go:

Paradise Ranch provides guests with an unforgettable experience: they can learn to ride, herd cattle, or just take in vistas while reading a good book. These experiences, however, don’t have to come with the price tag of a week-long ranch vacation. The Bighorns can easily be experienced as a lone road or camping trip. Go to bighornmountains.com to plan your trip.

Student Life

Three leaves + glue

by Alison Bailey on

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Everybody loves Halloween. It’s the only time of the year you can dress up or dress down. Some people opt for a creative costume while others play it safe and go for something more traditional. Whatever you decided to dress as this year, here are some of the best and worst decisions students at McGill made.

The politically incorrect costume: The Chilean Miner

It’s too soon. This costume wasn’t as bad as what I’ve seen in previous years—for example, a distasteful Al Qaeda terrorist, or Hitler. But despite this recent event having a happy ending, it’s still way too early to joke about.

The sluttiest female costume: Mother Earth

This costume is scarily simple: three leaves and glue. To date, this is the best way I’ve seen to leave as little as possible to the imagination. I know girls love to seize the moment to shorten their skirts and flash a little cleavage, but this was truly pushing it.

The sluttiest male costume: Premature Ejaculation.

Simple, to the point, and cheap, in a slightly more appropriate way: a guy without a shirt and his belt unbuckled. Although I can appreciate the wit behind it, this was either a last minute makeshift costume or an excuse for a guy to take his shirt off and show off his abs.

The most popular female costume: Katy Perry

Apart from the standard sexy cop, firewoman, or flight attendant, Katy Perry seemed to be one of the most popular costumes this year. The costume is taken from Perry’s “California Gurls” music video: a bright blue wig, short shorts, and a bra with what looks like two delicious baked goods on top and cherries right in the centre. You get the idea. At least it wasn’t Lady Gaga.

The most popular male costume: Morphsuit

This lycra spandex costume in bright metallic colours covers you from head to toe. And in case you’re wondering, you can drink through the Morphsuit.

The worst costume:

It’s a toss-up between Mother Earth and the girl I saw who wore nothing but corset and a thong.

The best costume: Tetris Team

Groups have a tendency to turn out the best, but you they must have put in a lot of thought into this type of costume. This year the best one I saw was a group of Tetris blocks running around the McGill Ghetto, stopping in the middle of the street and making Tetris formations with each other.

Science & Technology, Student Life

Stealing from the cookie jar

by Iain Macdonald on

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Your online accounts are vulnerable. From Amazon to Yahoo!, your personal information on many of your favourite sites, if used on a public network, can easily be stolen. Thanks to a Firefox plug-in called Firesheep, released last week by hacker Eric Butler, this risk is higher than ever. By installing the plug-in and connecting to a public network, amateur hackers can gain access to dozens of accounts in seconds.

Firesheep steals your identity by stealing cookies (no, not from the cookie jar). Cookies have been used for the last 15 years, and they allow site administrators to remember who certain users are. When you log in to a site like Facebook, your username and password are passed through an encryption algorithm before being sent to the site. This way, even if your information were intercepted, it would be useless. After logging in, however, all of your communication with the site is unencrypted. WEP or WPA encrypt communication, but on a public network, this client-router safeguard is absent.

Imagine your network is a giant room, with one person responsible for handling all communication out of the room. That person is the router. Each computer, or client, would be a person in the room. Over an ethernet connection, each person has a telephone to communicate with the router, so nobody can hear their conversations. With a wireless connection, however, all of the clients must shout their information at the router. In this case, everyone can hear everyone else’s communications. On an encrpyted network, each person uses a secret code to do their transmission, so while a message can be understood by the client and the router, nobody else understands what they’re saying. However, on a public network, this information is not encrpyted. This means everyone in the room can hear what everyone else is saying. All they have to do is listen.

While your computer typically ignores messages not addressed specifically to it, Firesheep uses a library called WinPCap, which listens to all messages that your computer can see on a public network. Firesheep can’t be used to steal your username and password, but when you request a page which requires cookies, your machine sends the cookie to the router in an unecnrypted format. Firesheep, when listening to transmissions, can steal this cookie and remember it. Then, the Firesheep user can simply request the page using your cookie, which will fool the site into thinking that  he or she is you. The amateur hacker can then muck around with your account all they like.

The writer, Butler, said that he didn’t intend for this plug-in to be used in a malicious manner, despite the possibility. Rather, he created it to demonstrate the issues with un-encrypted cookie transmission to these site administrators. Point taken, Butler.

The solution to this problem isn’t to stop using these sites on an unencrypted network. In fact, any site with a social network plug-in, like a tweet or a “like” button, involves this cookie information. While the onus is on site administrators to use SSL encryption protocols to encrypt all sensitive information, you can take security measures yourself until they do. Firefox users can install the HTTPS-everywhere plug-in, which forces Firefox to use the stronger HTTPS encryption whenever possible. Force-TLS uses a similar method of forcing HTTPS encryption. Logging in to a Virtual Private Network can also be used to secure communication with the web.

Firesheep points out a gaping hole in web security. While site administrators might think they’re keeping users safe by encrypting login, they’re fooling themselves if they’re using unencrypted HTTP connections after that point. As Butler pointed out, it’s actually quite easy to steal cookies that these sites use and pose as another user. We can only hope that popular websites fix this issue soon. Until then, it would be foolish to use any non-HTTPS site on an unencrypted network.

Opinion

Release health records, not identities

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McGill Tribune

The Supreme Court of British Columbia is currently deciding whether Olivia Pratten’s inability to access the identity and medical records of her unwitting biological father—a sperm donor 28 years ago—violates her constitutional rights to “life, liberty, and security of person.”  Pratten, a reporter for the Canadian Press, sued to mandate that records be made available to sperm donors’ children when they turn 18. The federal government disagrees, sympathizing with Pratten but contending she has not been treated like a second-class citizen. We agree with the Crown: as current federal legislation mandates, donors’ medical records should be made available to inquiring children, but individual identities should remain concealed.

For various reasons, some more obvious than others, it’s justifiable that a person would want to know the identity of their parents. For one thing, most people just want to know. Many children who are adopted or born from donated sperm have trouble later in life grappling with who they are, where they come from, and what they are doing here. There is a fundamental human need to tell stories, most importantly about ourselves. Not knowing the identity of one or both of one’s own parents can be traumatic. It’s perfectly understandable for people to want to learn the truth.

Another reason is more practical: learning the identity of one’s parents could clear up a lot of questions about medical history, and can therefore help a person take important precautions to ensure they remain healthy. Ignorance of hereditary conditions can lead to serious complications. Knowledge of your family’s medical history can help prevent such tragedies from happening, and should be available to any person who asks.

Despite this, while medical history should be available, there are valid reasons for keeping donors’ identities hidden from their offspring. One issue is that while sperm donations are important for helping many couples conceive, many men who donate sperm do so only for money, and neither expect nor want to be called “Daddy” by anybody. If they knew their identity would eventually be made known to any children their sperm managed to conceive, many of these men would be seriously disincentivized from donating. As sad as Pratten’s situation is, we have to assume it would be even sadder had she never been born.

There is also a serious issue related to retroactivity. It seems dangerously unfair—and potentially a violation of constitutional rights—to assure sperm donors anonymity at the time of donation, and then 15, 20, or even 30 years down the road strip them of that right, in direct violation of the previously-signed agreement. Whatever the psychological issues faced by children ignorant of their parents’ identities, applying this accessibility mandate to donations from the past seems especially indefensible.

One unique complication of the Pratten case is that, according to the Globe and Mail, “The Vancouver doctor who inseminated her mother said he destroyed those records in the 1990s because at the time he wasn’t required to keep such documents for more than six years.” To address precisely this problem, the federal government in 2004 passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which, according to the Globe, “prevents donor records from being destroyed but still allows donors to remain anonymous.” This act does not apply retroactively, as indeed it properly should not.

The case of Olivia Pratten and those in similar situations is confusing and complex. There’s no easy answer, since recognizing the rights of one party seems in the end to violate those of the other. However, it’s unjustifiable to renege on important promises.

To paraphrase Churchill, the current federal legislation, which allows children to see medical records but not the actual identity of the father, is the worst solution to this complex problem, except for all the others.

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