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