Last Thursday concluded the Winter 2010 student fee opt-out period, which had begun two weeks earlier on January 14, and the current academic year has seen the highest level of opt-outs ever.

Each semester McGill gives students a two-week window during which they can, through the online Minerva service, opt out of several fees that support Students’ Society and faculty association groups and funds, as well as a pair of independent student groups: the McGill chapter of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) and Radio CKUT.

The opt-out system has existed in its current form since 2007, when SSMU and the Student Accounts Office took the system online-although SSMU had wanted the system to be on their website rather than Minerva.

Students have been able to opt out of certain SSMU fees since 2006. Prior to the move in 2007, fewer opt-outable fees existed and opt-out rates were much lower. In Winter 2007, for example, the average opt-out rate for SSMU fees was 0.83 per cent of the undergraduate population.

That number spiked upward when opt-outs were brought online, however, to 6.45 per cent in Fall 2007-the first semester in which the new system was used.

Although opt-out rates have been lower in winter semesters than in fall semesters, there has been a steady year-on-year increase since 2007. The average increased to 9.76 per cent for the Fall 2008 semester, and then to 11.19 per cent in Fall 2009. For the current semester, the average was 10.11 per cent, versus 7.7 per cent in Winter 2009.

Although the trends in opt-out number are clear, the factors driving them are not.

“Opt-outs have gone up every year since they were instituted in 2006,” said SSMU Vice-President Clubs and Services Sarah Olle. “I would attribute much of this to increased awareness of the ability to opt out, and also the aggressive campaigning of certain opt-out groups.”

Chief among these groups is the “QPIRG: Opt-Out!” group, which maintains a Facebook group and a website, and, as its name suggests, encourages students to opt out of QPIRG’s $3.75-per-semester fee.

“QPIRG: Opt-Out!” doesn’t target SSMU groups, but many, including Olle, believe that such groups have the effect of drawing people’s attention to the opt-out process as a whole, which is not in itself a problem.

“Many people argue that people should have the right to opt out of a fee that they would not like to pay for, which makes perfect sense, and I think is totally logical,” said Olle. “The sad thing is that the opt-out numbers across the majority of the fees are consistent … so I think what this indicates is that people who are opting out are usually blanket opting out.”

To support this theory, Olle pointed to the number of opt outs across the seven SSMU fees, including a fee for the Tribune, which were put online in 2007. Despite the fact that these fees ranged from $0.50 (for the Tribune) to $8.50 (for the SSMU Library Fund), and covered things as diverse as referral services and Midnight Kitchen, the number of students opting out has remained consistent across all of them, even with the overall variance from semester to semester. In fact, the SSMU fees with the highest and lowest opt-out rates have never varied by more than two per cent.

“I think that as years go on people become increasingly aware about that capacity, that you can opt-out,” said Louise Burns, CKUT sales manager.

With rising and somewhat unpredictable numbers of students opting out, groups and funds that rely on these fees are finding it more and more difficult to plan their finances.

Groups that fall under SSMU, or one of the faculty associations, such as the Arts Undergraduate Society, have the added security of these parent organizations to fall back on. Because QPIRG and CKUT are independent groups, however, they have no such safety net.

On top of this, QPIRG and CKUT have to deal with opt-out numbers that tend to be higher than those for SSMU fees.

CKUT saw 12.43 per cent of undergraduates opt out of its fee during the recent opt-out period, and 14.13 opt out last September. Though QPIRG did not release their numbers, Burns said that QPIRG and CKUT’s stats are generally very similar.

Increasing opt-out rates have strongly affected CKUT’s finances, and although the station is not projected to run a deficit this year-because of the revenue generated by H1N1 public service announcements-it ran deficits in the two previous years, part of which is attributable to opt-outs, Burns said. Because of the persistent deficits, CKUT is considering cutting one paid staff position.

QPIRG, which was the first McGill group to institute an opt-outable fee, in 1988, has also felt the pinch due to increasing opt-outs. The organization faces the added difficulty of combating the “QPIRG: Opt-Out!” campaign.

“I think the thing that is the most infuriating for me is the claim of the opt-out QPIRG campaign that things are being done on the sly, whereas I think it’s fairly accurate to say that QPIRG has always been an open and democratically accessible organization,” Burrill said.

Although the factors driving the increase in opt-out rates cannot be known for sure, it’s clear that the affected groups and funds are having to adapt to increased budgetary pressures, as more and more students choose to opt-out, for whatever reasons. For Olle, as well as QPIRG and CKUT organizers, the most important thing students can do before they opt out is to inform themselves about the fees they’re opting out of before they do so.

“I would really hope that students would want to support the activities of their fellow students, even if it’s not something that they personally partake in,” Olle said “I think it’s really important that we keep campus life alive, and it’s only through this funding that we’re able to do so.”

Despite the heavy snowfall outside, students and professors showed up last Friday to hear Antoinette Handley discuss how the AIDS epidemic has shaped the moral and political economy in South Africa.

Handley, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, is well-known for her research on the subject.

She opened her presentation by quoting the American political scientist Charles Tilly: “War makes the state, and the state makes war.” She encouraged her audience to think of the AIDS epidemic not just in terms of the government’s response to the disease, but also as a key influence on the South African state.

Using the idea of the body politic, Handley argued that the way a virus moves through society is analogous to the way it moves through the body.

“Like the viruses in our body,” she said, “the epidemic maps onto and traces and feeds off the susceptible contours, cleavages, and pathways in a particular political economy.”

In South Africa, Handley argued, the racial divisions of poverty and the prevalence of labour migration provided such pathways for the epidemic to spread.

Handley also addressed some of the complications facing both the South African government and the private sector in enacting health care policies for AIDS victims, and how these complications have shaped the relationships between businesses and the government.

While many have pointed to “neoliberal” policies as the number one villain of the underdeveloped health care system in South Africa, Handley argued the country’s polarized society is actually at the heart of the health care system’s problems.

Born and raised in South Africa, Handley spent her university years in the province of KwaZulu-Natal during the eighties, a time when the area was embroiled in conflict. Though Apartheid has since ended, many of those tensions still exist.

“Proper debates over the pros and cons of AIDS drugs are often overshadowed by the polarized forces in South African politics,” Handley said. She also emphasized the role of citizens in the shaping of South African health policies.

“There is very little organized and concerted demand for the provision of health care, with the exception of the Treatment Action campaign,” she said. “AIDS is not at the top of the list of what people want given the myriad of challenges that people face, including the accessibility to jobs.”

One of Handley’s main interests lies in what she sees as the disparity between the ways by which we conceptualize the epidemic and what the reality is in South Africa.

“It is not that democracy has failed. Democracy has succeeded on many levels, it is only that people don’t see AIDS as the most important issue out there,” she said.

Amongst those who attended the lecture, Sandra Aigbinode, a master’s political science student, said that the session cleared up a number of things for her.

“I have read Professor’s Handley’s paper on the topic before,” she said. “But I was hesitant about the role of denialism in shaping the actions of the South African government, so I’m glad I came to meet with and talk to her in person.”

Through her research, Handley hopes that people will see the AIDS epidemic in South Africa differently and emphasized the potential of the corporate sector and the state to act in the broader interest.

“Instead of seeing it as merely a social tragedy,” she said, “we should see it as a driving force behind state-business relationship and the implications this has on the average African citizen.”

Students Supporting Wikipedia, a new McGill club, officially received its interim club status on January 21. The group aims to raise money for the Wikipedia Foundation, and offer contributions to the popular web-based encyclopaedia.

The young club currently consists of five executives and eight official members. To promote supporting Wikipedia, the club hopes to hold a party at a nightclub, a Wikipedia inspired trivia event, bake sales, and a charity poker tournament with prizes.

“It kind of sells itself,” said Dillon Beaulne, a club executive. “One of our ideas is to put a donation box in the library and just write, ‘If you used Wikipedia today, put in a quarter. With that selling point during exam time or essay writing time in McClennan or Schulich, it’s going to get filled up because people use it.”

However, the executive members admit that the need to donate to Wikipedia is not at first glance an absolute necessity.

Sarah Olle, the Students’ Society vice- president clubs and services, agreed that Wikipedia does not at first appear as a vital foundation to support, but added that it is something students make use of.

“I would say Wikipedia is used very often by McGill students and that it is good to raise awareness of the fact that Wikipedia does require funding,” said Olle.

The club is seeking to create an atmosphere of gratitude and represent the McGill student body as appreciative of the free knowledge that Wikipedia supplies. The group hopes to express McGill’s thanks to Wikipedia for remaining true to their purpose. The website has remained simple and easy to use, and has not opted to be subsidized by advertising, still functioning on only donations.

The group believes they will capitalize on a “second look” effect once awareness of the club rises on campus. Olle reflected on a situation where this exact situation occurred during discussions with the Clubs and Services Committee on whether to grant the group club status.

“There was some disagreement over what the added value would be and whether this was something SSMU should support,” said Olle. “We put [the application] aside and then we reviewed about four more applications, and in the course of reviewing those applications, we used Wikipedia about six times to look up things in the applications.”

The club does not plan on taking their mission to a level beyond fundraising support. They believe Wikipedia is great for quick background knowledge and help, but realize it is not an official source.

In 2003, Stephen Harper, then the leader of the Canadian Alliance, and Peter MacKay, the Progressive Conservatives’ leader, shook hands to celebrate the merger of their two right-leaning parties. That handshake, political commentator Chantal Hébert argues, changed the Canadian political landscape more than any other event of the decade.

Hébert, a political columnist for the Toronto Star as well as a contributor to Le Devoir, delivered the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada’s annual J.R. Mallory Lecture at the Faculty Club last Wednesday night.

Richard Schultz, the McGill political scientist who introduced Hébert, compared her columns to those of famed Canadian journalists such as Graham Fraser and André Laurendeau, praising the role of such commentators.

“A healthy democracy requires a healthy media sector,” he said. “What is most important to a healthy media sector, I’d argue, is that small cadre of journalists known as political columnists.”

In her lecture, titled “The Shifting Canadian Political Landscape,” Hébert described the ways in which the four major federal parties have attempted to reposition themselves over the past decade.

According to Hébert, while Progressive Conservative leaders such as Brian Mulroney relied on winning ridings in Alberta and Quebec to form governments, the rise of the Bloc Quebecois has forced Harper to focus his energy on winning in the rest of English Canada.

“[The prime minister] wants the party to be solid in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta,” Hébert said. “Within ten years, due to demographics and seat redistribution, it will be possible in this country to craft majority governments without Quebec.”

The Liberals, meanwhile, have been in disarray for far longer than the four years they have been out of power, Hébert argued. Since Pierre Trudeau’s retirement in 1984, the Liberals have faced a united conservative in five elections, four of which they have lost. The only exception, in 2004, occurred while Harper was still rebuilding the Conservative Party after the merger. Even then, Paul Martin’s Liberals only managed to win a minority government.

Shifts have also taken place in the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois since the handshake between Harper and MacKay, Hébert said. Jack Layton’s NDP has been far more willing to engage with other parties than under previous leaders, though Layton has failed to force major concessions from the Harper government.

The Bloc, meanwhile, has pursued Quebec sovereignty with far less vigour than it did in the 1990s. It has become, Hébert said, a “party of sovereigntists” rather than a party actively seeking sovereignty.

In the current political landscape, Hébert said near the end of her lecture, the NDP wants to occupy the strategic position of the Liberals, while the Liberal want to be the Conservatives. The prime minister’s Conservatives, for their part, want a majority government. Everybody wants to be somebody else, she said.

Justin Trudeau, the Liberal MP for the northern Montreal riding of Papineau, served as the keynote speaker at the McGill Model United Nations conference on Thursday. Trudeau, the son of the late prime minister, sat down with the Tribune to discuss his undergraduate days at McGill, prorogation, and his life outside of politics.

Tell me a bit about your time at McGill. Why did you choose to study in English rather than in French?

Because I’d done my high school and CEGEP at [Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in Outremont], so it was all French up until then. I decided that switching it up would be appropriate. Having done my seven years at Brébeuf, all French, I was looking forward to three years in downtown Montreal speaking English.

Did it live up to your expectations?

It did … It’s a real challenge for Montrealers going to McGill, because everyone does all the Frosh exercises, everyone’s meeting friends from all around, and Montrealers are just like, ‘Oh, we know everyone in Montreal.’

You mentioned being involved in the McGill Debating Union. What other activities did you pursue at McGill?

As a first-year, it was debating. After that, I got more and more involved in SACOMSS, the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society, which I hear is still going on. I was one of the early male members of SACOMSS. We defined the outreach program … At the time – it was the early 90s – people were not totally open about a lot of the conversations that Dr. Phil and Oprah have opened up.

Were there any professors who stood out for you at McGill?

I studied English literature, and I took one of the courses that everybody wants to take: this voice and speech course taught by Steve Lecky. … You couldn’t get into this course except by auditioning, and there were all these great McGill thespians in the course. I’d grown up reciting poetry and giving speeches, but I wasn’t much of an actor. [So I told him], ‘The thing is, I can’t act, but I can deliver a speech.’ And so that was something that we worked on instead.

You led a fairly quiet life after graduating from McGill, spending several years as a teacher in Vancouver. What led you to enter federal politics?

I’d always said to myself I’d stay away from politics until I was much older, until I had been able to demonstrate my worth – by writing a book, by starting a company, by doing something that people would say, ‘Okay, he’s actually bringing something to the table other than just being a Trudeau.’ That’s why I’d always pushed off politics.

[After the leadership convention in 2006], I realized that there was a way for me to demonstrate my worth and still be a young person going into politics. I had to pick the toughest riding I possibly could, to pick a nomination that I’d have to fight against strong local Liberals to earn, which I did in Papineau, and then an election against a star Bloc MP to try and win the riding. I set the bar as high as I possibly could, gave myself as tough a challenge as I could.

What have you accomplished since entering Parliament?

One of the first things was that I brought forward a private member’s motion on a national youth service. … We need to look at how we encourage young Canadians to serve their country, serve their communities, serve their provinces, serve overseas. I put this forward. The Bloc and the Conservatives both voted against it, but I felt very good about bringing forward the issue of young people and empowerment in Parliament.

Do you think prorogation is an issue that’s likely to spark an election this spring?

I don’t think prorogation is an issue that is likely to spark an election. The Liberal Party is certainly not interested in an election right now. Canadians have been very, very clear that they’re not interested in an election.

What’s interesting and illustrative about prorogation is what it demonstrates about Stephen Harper. … The Reform Party was created out of a grassroots [movement], a respect for individual MPs and respect for the institutions of Parliament. Stephen Harper has completely flipped all that on its head, and all the principles of openness, transparency, accountability that he once stood for – democratic responsibility – are now sort of punch lines to a joke about him.

– Compiled by Theo Meyer