McGill Tribune

Spencer Burger, Faculty of Arts representative to the Students’ Society, ran for his position and was ultimately elected on a platform of transparency, creativity, and principled leadership. As an Arts and Science student represented in part by Councillor Burger, I would like him to be transparent about his motives in putting forward a referendum question proposing that SSMU annul the Quebec Public Interest Research Group’s opt-outable fee of $3.75.

Burger was quoted in the Tribune last week saying, “This is a resolution not to take a side on this issue, but to put it out there,” and that the question was intended to “allow students to weigh in on the debate.” I find it difficult to see this as transparent, given the incomplete and biased picture painted by the whereas clauses of the proposed question and the fact that there are many potential ways for students to contribute to debate that are more engaging and less polarizing than an online referendum question.

The proposed question oversimplified two very complex issues. (Namely, the status of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and the tactics of the Zapatista movement in Mexico.) It discussed funds to two working groups, amounting to a total of 0.87 per cent of QPIRG’s total budget, but made no mention of QPIRG’s numerous working groups, which include B. Refuge, Barriere Lake Solidarity, Campus Crops, Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble (a marching band), Climate Justice Montreal, Filipino Solidarity Collective, Greening McGill, KANATA, Milton Parc Ad Hoc Committee to Save Parc Oxygene, QTeam, and the Montreal Media Co-op.

The proposed question also stated that students are “deeply disturb[ed]” by QPIRG’s actions. Since this was to have been a Council-initiated question (rather than a student-initiated question requiring 500 signatures), we know of only four disturbed SSMU members. The whereas clauses include no information as to how many other students have voiced their concerns. As a constituent of Councillor Burger’s, I have received no invitation to provide my input. I am not trying to trivialize the body of students with deeply held concerns, but merely to request additional transparency to prevent the perception that this question was ideologically driven, put forward by a member of Conservative McGill who also happens to be a SSMU councillor.

If the Opt-Out Campaign is indeed concerned with the way that QPIRG operates, then let’s have a meaningful and mature debate about those concerns. Mounting an extensive opt-out campaign which provides minimal and biased information on what QPIRG does (and no information on the benefits that QPIRG provides to McGill students) and attempting to financially cripple an organization in which many McGill students are involved only polarizes the debate. This approach is unlikely to move us towards a solution to this ongoing issue.

By providing incomplete and misleading information in the proposed referendum question, it appears that a small group of councillors were attempting to undermine the democratic process, which relies on a well-informed electorate. It would have been a shame if ill-informed students had voted “yes” and an entire section of student life at McGill had been silenced. I await and would welcome Councillor Burger’s explanation of how his recent statements embody the ideals of transparency, creativity, and principled leadership for which he supposedly campaigned.

Maggie Knight is a U3 Environment & Economics student, a Clubs & Services Representative on SSMU Council, and a former member of Greening McGill, a QPIRG working group. She can be reached at [email protected].

Umbrellas amaze me.

 They’re just one of those inventions that make you stop and wonder.  They aren’t as mind-blowing as, say, photocopiers—they staple and collate!—or mirrors that don’t fog up in the shower. But still, umbrellas are awesome.

For one thing, there’s their ubiquity. I always thought that the inevitable appearance-en-masse of umbrellas whenever rain starts was something created by Roller Coaster Tycoon to force you into buying those over-priced information kiosks.  As is becoming clearer every time it rains in Montreal (read: every single day) though, those devious RCT architects were right. People seem to have an umbrella ready to pull out at the first droplet. Apparently I am the only person who faces an existential dilemma when deciding whether to pack—and where to put—an umbrella in the morning.

Umbrellas are also surprisingly diverse. There are big ones and small ones, those with buttons and those that are impossible to open, ones with swear words that pass for appropriate because I don’t speak French, and those ones with frog eyes on top. And somehow, no matter what, they always keep out the rain.

Well, sort of. If you were outside during the onslaught of slightly more miserable weather than usual last Friday, you probably noticed the impromptu umbrella graveyard erected across the city.  This indicated the most important point about umbrellas: they are, unavoidably, barriers.  And not just to the rain.

My umbrella didn’t break on Friday. But after about 20 minutes of summoning my reserves of herculean strength to walk against the twister strength winds I decided to save my energy for the daily battle with my door-lock that doesn’t work properly, acknowledge that having dry shoes was a pipe dream, and put my soaking umbrella somewhere it couldn’t be harmed.  

Life without an umbrella was a whole new world. Not that this was my first time. During the last major rainstorm of the summer, I walked home from the Eaton Centre sans shoes, shirt, or umbrella. But I always forget how liberating it can be to put the umbrella away.  Suddenly, I saw people’s faces again. I didn’t have to hold my arms in the air, propping up my insularity from the rest of the world. Instead I let them drop comfortably back to their place at my sides. I just pulled up my hood (ok, yes, I did have a raincoat), straightened by back, and let the rain fall down like Hilary Duff.  It was great.

It’s kind of strange, actually, how terrified we are of the rain. Yes, it can be cold and unpleasant. True, it can make people incredibly sick.  And fine, rain can destroy clothes and shoes and make jeans feel less comfortable than when they put that show about tattoos on at the gym and you’re trying not to throw up on the stationary bikes even as half your effort is devoted to keeping your feet on the pedals because for some reason none of them have foot straps. And while we’re discussing the gym why do they put the music so loud when they know everybody just wants to listen to their iPods?  But I digress.

I guess the real reasons umbrellas amaze me, for the same reason that obsessions with clothing or cars fascinate me, is that they represent this insatiable desire to cover up what’s common to us. Different clothes obscure the fact that the one thing all people have in common is their skin, fancy cars hide the universality of the need for transportation, and umbrellas are a literal force field against what can also deflected with a simple rain jacket, or can even be pleasant in the right circumstances.  Which is not to say we should stop using them, any more than I’m going to stop buying new clothes or eyeing nice cars. Individuality is great too, and I will always be a fan of not getting pneumonia. But, as a self-important opinion writer, I like to think that everything that catches my eye must have some broader meaning. So if there’s anything to conclude from the legions of discarded umbrellas and the liberation of not carrying one the other day, I guess it would be as follows:

Why does it rain so freakin’ much in Montreal?

And when are we going to start coming up with ways to enjoy our common surroundings instead of trying so hard to avoid them?

Reclining on my couch a few nights ago after a long day at the Trib office, I exhaled deeply upon reading the news that the Obama Administration will continue enforcing federal drug laws in the state of California even if its voters next month pass Proposition 19. If passed, this referendum would legalize the use of marijuana for non-medicinal purposes, and permit the financially-beleaguered state to tax and regulate its sale. I reacted thus not because my lungs were filled with a righteous rip I may or may not have previously taken off a spliff, but because I’d been waiting for months to see what the Obama administration’s take on the issue would be, and was seriously disappointed when I found out what it was.

The story of the congressional elections taking place November 2 will be one of serious loss for Obama and the Democrats, mostly because of something called the “enthusiasm gap,” which describes why the Republicans seem to be so excited for the election and the Democrats so deflated. Observers point to statistics showing that Obama’s base—everyone from the taken-for-granted African-American voters to the normally apathetic college-age crowd—is largely alienated and unmotivated to come to the Democrats’ rescue. As a member of the latter group, I think I may be able to explain that absence of motivation. And it’s not caused wholly by the spliff.

Obama rode into office on a wave of support from people very much like me: blue-state, progressive-leaning, 18-24 year olds who thought he was pretty much the shit. That’s how I remember most people my age expressing their support for him: he was the shit, or unfathomably cool. Even still I think of Obama the person as fundamentally committed to the proliferation of good vibes as he is to ceasing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We know for a fact that he sneaks cigarettes in the Rose Garden because the Mrs. won’t let him smoke in the house. He called a cop “stupid,” and then placated him with beer. Stevie Wonder basically lives at the White House. To all appearances, Obama is my kind of president.

As a passionate Obama supporter since the day after the Iowa caucuses, I remember being extremely sensitive to every insinuation that my loyalty was more religious than rational, essentially no more thought-through than my decision to like or not like any other pop culture trend. I was extremely piqued when Hillary Clinton mocked the Obama campaign in New Hampshire, by summarizing its message as, “Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.” She was so frustratingly right—that’s exactly what it felt like.

By most accounts, the enthusiasm gap is the result of Obama’s failure to follow through on specific campaign promises (closing Guantanamo Bay, not drastically extending the powers of the surveillance state, etc.), as well as a more abstract buyers’ remorse unrelated to any explicit utterances by Obama himself.

If so, it seems this liberal disillusionment is the inevitable result of the realities of the American political system, and can be more or less conceptually disconnected from the actual political figure that is Obama. As the former New York governor Mario Cuomo has noted, a politician campaigns in poetry but governs in prose. If our reaction to buzzkilling Obama policies is, “This aggression will not stand, man,” that’s fine – but it’s not really a serious response.

Especially now that corporations can secretly contribute as much as they want to sway elections this way or that, the American political system doesn’t allow for the kind of transformational change that young progressives like myself wanted to see on the blank slate that Obama the candidate admitted he was. In light of the fact that the alcoholic beverages lobby is the primary contributor to the anti-Prop 19 campaign, it’s not very interesting to condemn Obama or the dozens of other major political figures who have lined up against the initiative.

Obama has seriously harshed my groove in the last two years—on the marijuana policy and many other far more important issues, too. But what did I expect? At this point, I barely even remember.

Last summer, while casually lounging with my friends on a bench in Washington Square Park after a night of partying in New York’s East Village, I came face to face with three policemen hovering over us.

“What are you doing here?” one of them said.

“We are just sitting,” I said. It was the truth. Granted, we had probably partaken in a few slightly illegal activities throughout the night: underage drinking, a toke of a joint, and I suppose identity fraud if you want to get very technical. But now we were just sitting. Three girls chatting on a park bench can hardly even be considered loitering.

“Didn’t you see the sign? You can’t be here past midnight.”

“Sorry, we didn’t realize,” I said as earnestly as possible.

“Well you can tell to that to the judge. If you fail to show up in court by the given date, there will be a warrant out for your arrest.”

As the first cop smugly filled out my pink summons—the offence noted a “failure to obey sign”—the other two proceeded to fill out those for my companions. The following week, I schlepped myself down to the New York City Courthouse where I waited for hours and hours only to get the stamp of acquittal from a mindless bureaucrat. But as I sat in the massive room with all the other people who had—perhaps unfairly—been sentenced to a day at the courthouse for petty crimes and misdemeanors, I began to ponder what was suddenly taking place in my mind.

This was my first brush with the law, and as minor and silly as it was retrospectively was, it nonetheless left me sure that I never wanted to experience anything like it again. No longer did I look at police as my friendly neighbourhood protection, but instead walked quickly by, hoping they did not catch me in my latest “criminal” act. No longer did I feel, skipping through the city on a Sunday afternoon, that I was on the side of the law—that the police had nothing to do with, and were only there to protect, law-abiding citizens like me. In the words of Michel Foucault, I suddenly became a “delinquent.”

Although I knew there was no way I would actually be punished for this ridiculous non-crime, as I waited in that room I began to experience a lurching in the pit of my stomach as if I were a criminal awaiting the death sentence. The critical theory I had read in the classroom suddenly leapt off the pages and into my own reality. I had become acutely aware of Foucault’s obscure “Panopticon”—every act I engaged in was executed with utmost docility, in case some figure of authority was lurking around the bend. In the subsequent months, I counted my change several times before handing it to the cashier, waited for every green light (and nobody does that in New York), and even avoided going to bars until I actually turned 21.

It goes without saying that minority groups and illegal immigrants have long borne the burden of arbitrary policing and unjust state authority in ways that I, a middle-class white girl, can never begin to truly understand. It would be ignorant to pretend that my brief run-in with the law has given me any right to feel angry with my government, or to attend anti-police rallies. But I certainly now have a greater respect for groups like the ACLU that work to hedge laws like those passed last summer in Arizona, which suddenly turn innocent people into outsiders, enemies of the state and delinquents rather than fellow citizens of the world.

Sometimes it’s useful to jump off the ivory tower and into the school of life—to personalize arbitrary questions of authority and power into something rudimentary and practical. As a professor of mine once said, “You don’t have to explain the theory of communism to a factory worker.”

McGill Tribune

In the face of growing fears concerning global climate change, and the possible repercussions we may experience, the idea that the human population has grown too large is one that is gaining acceptance.  Meanwhile, politicians are playing word games, relying on semantics to assure us that this is not the case.  Consider the term “carrying capacity.” The current definitions refer to how many people Earth’s resources can support, including future generations.  There is no mention of the allowance of other ecosystems and organisms to also be supported, and only a vague reference to the other strains the human population places on the planet, outside their use of the resources. These are imprecise and ambiguous definitions, meant to instill in us the impression that we are still well within carrying capacity and that there is nothing to worry about.

What the Earth can or cannot support is a complex issue and one that is not simply boiled down to resources, finite or not. An improved definition—one which drives a new comprehension of the human relationship with the environment—is needed so as to truly understand how we can live sustainably on the planet. This definition must include the carbon dioxide emitted, not only from industrial uses and technology, but from the breath of six billion people, their pets, and the livestock needed to sustain them.  It must include the other natural consequences of supporting these people, such as the waste and runoff from the livestock and agriculture. It must also include the ability of Earth to sustain not only the human population, but the populations of all other organisms in existence. It must make clear that humans have to coexist with all other species, and not continue to act as the dominant, subjugating power.

According to the existing definition, in all its infinite wisdom, scientists have been able to determine that Earth can support anywhere from two to forty billion people.  Some have realized how incredibly laughable that is and have kindly narrowed it down to ten to twenty billion people. All seem to be in agreement that we are still within carrying capacity. But what would the consensus be if we were to redefine carrying capacity, clarify its terms, and be realistic? The answer is that we would find that we, to understate it, are in a slight bit of trouble.

McGill Tribune

Walking through the Quebec Public Interest Research Group building is like stepping into a different world. Posters entitled “No Olympics on Stolen Land,” “No to Canada-U.S. Imperialism,” and Middle East maps without Israel deck the walls of their hallways.

QPIRG is a student-funded organization that collects tens of thousands of dollars in fees from McGill University students. It is supposed to be pursuing the “interests of students on issues of public concern.” But QPIRG doesn’t focus on mainstream issues of public concern. Instead QPIRG takes stands on issues that the majority of McGill students either oppose or are indifferent to.

This is especially true for QPIRG’s interest in foreign affairs, which manifests itself in support of groups that commit violence and terrorism. For example, QPIRG funds “Tadamon!,” an anti-Israel organization that supports de-listing of Hezbollah, which has pledged to annihilate every single Jewish man, woman, and child on Earth, as a terrorist organization. QPIRG also funds “Students Taking Action in Chiapas,” an organization which actively supports the violent Mexican Marxist Zapatista rebel movement, and seeks to bring “the struggle back home” to Canada.

But QPIRG does not stop there. QPIRG also considers Canada an apartheid state and marks “Anti-Canada Day” on July 1 as well as FLQ bombings in its published “School Shmool” organizer (printed with student money).

There are currently two sets of rules for student political organizations at McGill: one applies to QPIRG, and the other to everyone else. For the latter category, campus political groups such as Liberal McGill apply for funding through SSMU. They are accountable to SSMU equity policies, and receive a few hundred dollars. Each political group gets approximately the same funding. However, QPIRG operates by different rules. Instead of having to apply for funding, they are able to directly levy students and raise over $125,000 for their own campaigns. They are not subject to SSMU equity policies, and are not accountable to anyone but themselves. This allows them to outspend every single other political group by a ratio of 100:1. If QPIRG was truly a student group, the levy could be justified; however, considering that they are an explicitly political organization that uses student money to conduct fringe political campaigns, it is wrong for them to directly levy students.

None of this is to say QPIRG does not do any good in the world. They do provide support to the gay community, for example, and that is an effort that should be commended. But they undermine all the genuine good they do by abusing their mandate to pursue the petty political causes of their directors and motivated interest groups.

If QPIRG wants to undermine the Opt-Out Campaign, don’t rip apart their flyers. Don’t attack their tables. Instead, be a student organization for all students. Commit yourselves to academic debate; not one-sided propaganda events like “Culture Shock,” which refuse to entertain opposing views. Stop funding extremist groups and get back to what really matters: support for charities, support for students who feel marginalized, connecting McGill students to the city of Montreal, and support for truly academic research.

Spencer Burger is U3 Joint Honours History and Political Science student. He is currently the Arts Councillor to SSMU, and a member of the Opt-Out Campaign