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Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Trust, community, and the burden of leadership take centre stage in ‘The Grown-Ups’

by Dylan Hing on

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When the world around you changes in an instant, and you’re responsible for the safety of hundreds of young campers, what kind of leader will you choose to be? Tuesday Night Café Theatre’s production of The Grown-Ups, by Simon Henriques and Skylar Fox, explores how personal decisions feed into or destroy belief in one’s own judgement. The show emphasizes the value of community and the courage it takes to trust others while embracing change.

Set at a youth camp in the United States, the show follows a group of camp counsellors during a major civic conflict as they try to shield campers from the troubling news. Most of the counsellors have grown up together at the camp, but newcomer Cassie (Emma Lee, PhD Biochemistry) enters unaware of their dynamic. Though she bonds with them, tension emerges between Cassie’s bold approach to handling camp issues and the protection tactics of the other counsellors. 

Trust remains a constant concern throughout. The camp’s assistant director, Aidan (Johnny Rees), worries that sharing news of the outside tensions will shift the camp’s culture. The counsellors struggle to adjust to changes in both camp activities and their friend group, and this resistance makes it difficult for Cassie to convince the others to embrace her proposed operational changes.

In an interview with The Tribune, director Sol Blanco, U4 Arts, mentioned resonating with the fear characters have of making the wrong choice.

“A lot of people are afraid of saying things or doing things because they think that what they will do or say is wrong,” they said. “But the only way that you can move forward is by doing or saying something, and changing, so there are no wrong answers, only your answers.”

Stage manager Hannah Liben, U4 Science, reflected on the common hardship of letting go, despite understanding the necessity for change.

“It’s all about things changing and things needing to change. And I think that that’s really, really tough for me and a lot of people. But we need to think about it, especially now.”

This conflict between change and continuity, framed through the lens of teenagers grappling with changes to their chosen home, is uniquely touching. Directed in-the-round surrounding a campfire, the production’s community-driven nature shines through. 

Blanco highlighted the show’s collaborative process.

“We are equals every step of the way [….] Everybody provides a little bit of insight on everything,” they said.

The bond between cast and crew results in an intricate portrayal of fluctuating relationships, aided by the show’s staging that replicates both distance and intimacy. Audience members have the same perspective of each other as the actors have of their castmates; we remember to choose to be present with our communities for all they are, rather than worrying about leaving behind the past.

Both on and offstage, choosing to step up has been a common thread. Liben expressed her admiration for the unique contributions of the crew and cast. 

“Even if everything went wrong and we weren’t able to put this on or anything, these people are like, the best people I’ve ever met, including this one,” Liben said, pointing to Blanco.

As the director, Blanco exemplifies a leader’s trust in others’ judgments, noting their own relationship with Liben.

“Every step of the way, I was like okay, I know that Hannah can do this, I wonder what this will look like, let me consult Hannah. And when I say my vision, I also do mean our vision because […] there is no me without Hannah, right?” they said. “I think that that’s what makes this show so special.” 
The Grown-Ups serves as an excellent reminder that compromise and vulnerability bring about a unifying leadership. The bonds of steel the characters share, as well as those of the creatives, are echoed in the warmth evoked in the audience. It feels like a homecoming.

Along Party Lines, McGill, Montreal, News, The Tribune Explains

The Tribune Explains: How Mark Carney’s budget will impact McGill students

by Basil Atari on

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On Nov. 4, Prime Minister Mark Carney released his long-anticipated 2025 budget, which has been criticized for projecting a $78 billion CAD deficit—despite Canada’s stated commitments to reduce its deficit—and for cutting public service jobs. Supporters argue that the new budget will contribute to stabilizing the country’s long-term fiscal outlook, and lay the groundwork for a stronger economy. The Tribune explains the contested budget’s student-specific impacts.

How does the budget affect international students?

The budget makes substantial cuts to immigration levels in Canada, including reductions to the number of study permits the country will issue. This will directly affect universities like McGill that benefit from international talent and revenue from higher international tuition rates. The total number of international student permits Canada offers will fall from 437,000 to 408,000—a 16 per cent total drop from the 2024 federal cap of 485,000 study permits.

How will the cuts to international student permits affect McGill?

McGill is projecting a $45 million CAD deficit for the 2025–2026 fiscal year, a shortfall that has already resulted in layoffs and a hiring freeze expected to amount up to 500 total job losses. The university attributes these financial pressures to declining international student enrolment and the Quebec government’s decision in October 2023 to raise tuition for both international and out-of-province students. The federal budget’s restrictions on international student permits may exacerbate financial strain at McGill.  

In April 2025, a Quebec court overturned the province’s planned Canadian tuition hike, which would have increased these students’ fees by $3,000 CAD, or 33 per cent. However, the required minimum $20,000 CAD provincial pricing for international tuition, along with the government’s ability to redistribute some of that revenue from English universities to French universities, remains in place.

How will the budget affect students receiving Canada Student Grants?

Although 586,000 students received $2.6 billion CAD in Canada Student Grants money from 2023–2024, the 2025 budget allocates only $1.2 billion CAD to these federal student aid bursaries, which offer assistance to full-time Canadian students with financial need. The budget projects further cuts to the program until 2030. 

According to some experts, it is unclear whether these Canada Student Grants cuts are intentional or the result of errors, as they could reverse 2019 Liberal commitments to expand funding for the program.

What are some benefits in the budget for students?

The 2025 budget earmarks some benefits for students and young Canadians. Over the next three years, the government will allocate more than $1.5 billion CAD to student training and employment initiatives. 

The budget will increase funding to help students find jobs through an increase of $594.7 million CAD to the Canada Summer Jobs wage subsidy, which funds youth summer employment. The budget also designates $635.2 million CAD to support roughly 55,000 co-op placements for post-secondary students.

Furthermore, the budget increases funding to help young people receive professional training, allocating an additional $307.9 million CAD to the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, which offers hands-on training and work experience.

The budget plans to provide $40 million CAD over two years to launch an inaugural Canadian Youth Climate Corps, which will provide paid training for youth to engage in climate response work and other sustainability-focused career paths.

What are some benefits in the budget for universities as institutions?

There are also some positives to the budget for universities: It allocates $1.7 billion CAD over the next 13 years for universities to recruit international researchers, assist international PhD students settling in Canada, and improve and fund university research infrastructure. 

Off the Board, Opinion

Love is a verb

by Leanne Cherry on

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Late on a Saturday night of St. Laurent bar-hopping, you walk into the dingy bathroom of Bar Bifteck to find a college-aged stranger kneeling over the toilet. They appear to be alone. You go over and ask if they are okay, offering to hold their hair back or to get them some water. Eventually, they recover, and before you part ways with your stranger, you say, “I love you, get home safe!” But what does ‘love’ mean in this context? 

Love is traditionally defined as a strong feeling of affection and attachment towards something or someone. Even when used as a verb, ‘to love’ is to experience those feelings of affection and attachment, not to communicate some action taken on behalf of the lover. Furthermore, love tends to be reserved for someone (or something) with whom we are intimately familiar—not necessarily romantically, but in the sense that we are presumed to be deeply connected to them.

Under this definition, then, telling your bar stranger that you love them hardly feels justified, for how could you develop such feelings for someone with whom you were only briefly acquainted? It would almost appear to depreciate the value of the word itself, or to misrepresent our socially venerated definition. 

It is in situations such as the sick solo stranger where our restrictive definition of love fails us. Love should not be defined as merely a feeling that we experience ourselves, but as an action which we can perform, one which demonstrates the unrestricted kindness and care that we carry within us. ‘Love’ functions as a verb in the same way that ‘help’ or ‘listen’ does, in that there must be some recipient: To help someone, to listen to someone, to love someone. The closest equivalent to using ‘love’ in this way is to see it as performing an act of kindness—doing something for someone, whether they are your closest friend or a stranger you stumble across, just for the sake of doing a kind thing. By expanding our definition of love, we realize our limitless capacity to pour our hearts into the world. 

This alternative definition is not unrelated to the mainstream understanding of love. I believe that our capacity to love as a verb—as I have described it—may be ultimately rooted in love as a feeling. But the action of love is important for precisely this reason: It is through the action of love that we are able to express the feeling of love within us, to share it with the world around us. Of course, there are moments when it is only possible to feel love for someone from afar, without your feelings ever actually reaching the person they are directed towards. However, when the opportunity to act on love presents itself, we must seize it if we want the people who surround us—regardless of our emotional proximity to them—to feel our love as well.        

This is especially true in an era when anti-empathy campaigns run rampant; it feels as though every day I come across yet another self-assured vlogger purporting that we do not owe each other anything, despite our immense ability—and responsibility—to look out for our peers. When loving someone is depicted as a burden, or a duty unfairly shoved upon us, it only becomes more important to love in every sense of the word.    

So, yes: When you hold that stranger’s hair back, you are, in fact, loving them. Whether it is love that you are experiencing as warmth inside your heart, love that you are doing as an act of kindness, or some wonderful combination of the two, you are exercising your capacity to care. When you write a thoughtful card, when you hold the door open for someone behind you, when you cook for your friends and family, when you give someone a good, long hug—these are all means by which we demonstrate the true beauty and openness of our souls and how capable we really are of supporting one another. These are all ways in which we love. I implore you to act on the love in your heart, in the things you do, in every little corner of your life.

Editorial, Opinion

Montreal’s unhoused population deserves to thrive, not just survive

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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For Montreal’s unhoused individuals, the early-descending freezing temperatures and the predicted high-precipitation winter ahead pose fatal risks, including frostbite, hypothermia, and death. Yet, shelters across the city are already struggling at and over capacity. 

Although Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada has promised to expand housing and healthcare services for the unhoused, the city’s political and institutional apathy towards long-term sustainable solutions to the housing crisis persists. Such inaction upholds a cycle that denigrates the city’s most vulnerable individuals, sustains housing and healthcare insecurity, and fails to properly ensure that humans live with dignity, support, and security.

In Montreal, shelter space for the unhoused population falls far short of growing demand. There are about 1,800 shelter beds available but an estimated 4,690 unhoused individuals, forcing some shelters to offer chairs for the night instead of beds. Just this week, housing rights advocates voiced concerns about the increasing death rate among the unhoused, which had been rising long before the winter months. The persistent occurrence of preventable deaths of those already most marginalized lays bare the failures of Montreal’s housing and healthcare systems. 

In her campaign, Mayor Ferrada promised to end homeless encampments within four years, claiming that they pose risks to the city’s cleanliness and security. However, just weeks after her election, Quebec’s Transport Ministry issued dozens of eviction notices to individuals living in tents along Notre-Dame Street, giving residents only days to vacate. Ferrada’s strategy of dismantling homeless encampments without first prioritizing housing alternatives for their inhabitants effectively criminalizes the unhoused population for circumstances created and upheld by governmental negligence.

Instead of supporting crisis measures, the government has put time and money into violently destroying encampments, inhumanely stripping individuals of all their belongings, and leaving them without any place to go. In this way, the Ferrada government has chosen to address a major socioeconomic crisis by displacing a population it considers unpalatable, relocating these groups to areas where they will be less visible instead of confronting the systemic factors that lead to homelessness in the first place. 

The housing crisis is just one in a web of interrelated systems which mutually compound an individual’s risk of becoming unhoused. In Montreal, Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals are disproportionately represented in these systems. The over-policing of Indigenous populations, for example, leads to overrepresentation in incarceration, which then leads to a compounded risk of homelessness after release. Health disparities incurred by unhoused 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals bear similarly cyclical effects, as a lack of access to proper gender-affirming care and social services leads to increased prevalence of poor mental health, further entrenching housing insecurity. For women, domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness, while children who have been involved in the foster care system are also overrepresented among unhoused youth.  

The Montreal municipal government’s support for the homelessness crisis has come largely in the form of seasonal warming centres and temporary housing. While critical for short-term triage, especially in harsh weather, such temporary fixes must be complemented by equally substantiated commitment to sustainable, year-round housing solutions.

The homelessness crisis is not inevitable—it is curated and actively upheld through political apathy, hostile urban design, and governmental policy. However, that also means that governments, lawmakers, and institutions have the agency to reverse this crisis. 

At the municipal level, Montreal must dismantle its hostile public architecture projects and incorporate cultural sensitivity into police training. The Ferrada government must also set aside funding for housing solutions to supplement provincial funding, instead of relying on the perennial good will of local organizations and shelters. At the provincial level, Quebec must hold itself accountable for pursuing long-term solutions to the housing crisis, as well as seeking improvements to social services and healthcare.

Action need not be limited to government bodies. McGill must commit to conducting comprehensive research aimed at benefitting the unhoused population and ensuring representation in data to best inform future policy. 

Above all, Montreal’s unhoused population must be treated with dignity, respect, and support. Mitigating the homelessness crisis must not be a push to meet the low bar of subsistence, but to ensure that every human being has the foundation to survive, and the resources, agency, and respect to thrive.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

The newest ‘Frankenstein’ adaptation redefines its iconic characters

by Gaëlle Perron on

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Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein hit theatres in mid-October and is now streaming on Netflix. The film is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of the same name, which is a classic in English literature and is often thought of as the first science fiction novel. The story follows the scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) as his macabre experiments bring to life a sentient being, referred to as ‘the Creature’ (Jacob Elordi). 

Del Toro approached this project conscientiously, likening film adaptation to “marrying a widow.” Shelley’s original text—conceptualized by del Toro as a widow’s deceased husband—should be honoured, he explained, but should not immobilize the adaptation. Speaking with Netflix, del Toro metaphorized his intentions a different way, saying Frankenstein is a song he wanted “to sing […] in a different key with a different emotion.” He clearly valued the source material and its cultural legacy, while simultaneously prioritizing his own ambitions for the story.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is aesthetically beautiful, offering captivating costume design and gorgeous imagery of the Arctic. However, the film is first and foremost anchored in its characters. It trades fear and shock for character study, exploring Victor’s childhood and the intellectual interests of Elizabeth (Mia Goth), Victor’s brother’s fiancée and his own love interest. The performances of the main cast reflect this emphasis on embodying characters, particularly in Elordi’s poignant portrayal of the Creature. Ironically, it is precisely the characterizations that I take issue with in this adaptation.

In reading Shelley’s novel, I observed that absence plays a key role. It is Victor’s absence in the Creature’s life that causes the initial tension between the two, the absence of a female companion that plagues the Creature, and, quintessentially, the absence of some unidentified human quality in the Creature that puzzles readers. Moreover, when reading Frankenstein as a birth myth—wherein Victor metaphorically gives birth to the Creature and then abandons him—the absence of the mother figure also stands out.

In del Toro’s adaptation, Mia Goth first plays Claire, Victor’s mother, and then Elizabeth. Hence, as soon as Elizabeth is introduced, she is visually understood to stand in for the missing mother of both Victor and the Creature. She offers the latter the kindness and empathy that Victor lacks and tries to educate him by encouraging him to speak. Elizabeth simultaneously adopts the role of the Creature’s desired female companion. Viewers picked up on the romantic subtext in Elizabeth and the Creature’s relationship, especially in the extended wedding scene, during which they express their love for one another. All the while, Elizabeth is wearing her wedding gown, with its bandage-like sleeves inspired by the costume design in Bride of Frankenstein. 

While Shelley’s novel leaves the character of Elizabeth underdeveloped, del Toro’s Elizabeth is overwrought with significance. Her character fills the absence that is so crucial to Shelley’s tale. She and the Creature act as a mother-son duo, with Oedipal implications, and as the embodiment of the moral good in the film. The Creature, who is aggressive and dangerous in the novel, is not guilty of such violence in the movie. To compensate, Victor remains wholly violent and vengeful until he is on the brink of death, the fear he felt in the novel replaced with cruelty.

Thus, del Toro’s characters operate within a strict binary between good and evil, whereas the novel’s characters manifest ambiguity. Often, scenes that require pause and silence are narrated over by Victor and the Creature, directly stating the moral of the story, preempting the viewer’s subjective analyses. 

Despite flaming dream sequences and gory depictions of Victor’s medical procedures, the film falls flat. Del Toro depletes his characters of their complexity. He excludes the audience from the experience of interpretation and presents them with what he takes to be the moral of the story on a silver platter. As mainstream art and entertainment become increasingly accommodating to binge-watching and second-screening, I was disappointed to find such a rich story and its characters so significantly reduced. 

Sports

Everything you need to know heading into McGill’s fall intramural playoffs

by Aidan Hotte on

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It is the most important time of the semester already, and no, I am not talking about finals (though I guess in some way I am). Intramural playoff season is upon us, and over 500 teams across 14 sports will be battling it out for ultimate victory. As a seasoned and grizzled intramural veteran myself, I can attest that you have not lived until you have experienced the epic highs and lows of McGill intramural sports.

While most students are still recovering from midterms, McGill’s brave intramural participants are putting their bodies on the line for a championship mug, which some consider more valuable than their degree—myself included. Tier 3 pickleball duos are finally getting the hang of what “the kitchen” is, and Tier 1 volleyball teams are getting to relive their high school glory days. Now, to the uninitiated, this might all seem like unintelligible jargon, so let me, an expert, cover some intramural basics.

The McGill Intramurals program has a rich history, dating back to at least the early 20th century. Any McGill student, faculty, or alumnus can participate in intramurals, provided the right fees are paid. The offerings are varied and this fall included badminton, basketball, dodgeball, flag football, cricket, pickleball, roundnet (better known by the brand name Spikeball), three kinds of soccer (11-, 7-, and 5-person variations), tennis, ultimate frisbee, and volleyball. Searching IMLeagues—the McGill intramural online platform—one can also see that there used to be offerings for video games, such as NBA2K, and board games, like Catan, which it is unclear why they cut. Tier 1 Catan would be electric.

There are three categories within every sport: OPEN, open to anyone regardless of gender and using the standard sport rules; WOMEN, open to athletes who self-identify as women, two-spirit, trans and gender non-conforming; and MIXED, also open to anyone, but with maximums of “male-matching” or “female-matching” players, and with slightly altered rules for gameplay. Within each of these categories, there are different levels of play based on athlete experience level. Starting with Play-Fun, which is designed for beginners and does not feature playoffs, tiers then move from Tier 4 to Tier 1, with Tier 1 being the most advanced. Do not fall for the belief that any one tier is better than the others, though: Personal, unbiased experience tells me that Tier 2 Mixed is the most competitive tier—at least for volleyball. 

With these basics covered, and the shroud of mystery surrounding the intramural program now thrown away, let us return to the central topic of this article: Playoffs. The playoff style in McGill intramurals is single elimination—lose once, and you are done. If you make it all the way to the finals and win, you get an intramural champion’s mug. This high-stakes setup results in some thrilling finishes, as anything can happen in a single game. Here are some teams and matchups to watch especially closely as they head into the playoffs.

In Tier 2 Open badminton, “McGill Mayhem BC” are heavy favourites, holding an undefeated record and the top seed overall. However, underdogs 14th-place “Badmint & chips” took out another undefeated team,“Birdie Smashers,” in their first round matchup on Nov. 17, indicating that the bracket may not be as predictable heading into finals as it seems.

Women’s Tier 1 volleyball was predictably a runaway season for “Empire Spikes Back,” who won their 2026 championship match off an undefeated run: A repeat after winning the mug back in 2025. 

In Tier 3 Open dodgeball, the 8th-place “Hot Dodges” took out the first-place team “Men who B” in a shocking first-round upset that had the potential to change the game as we know it. In a continued final playoff push against the second-place “DodgeBallz,” Hot Dodges managed to take the mug.

Finally, the mug race everybody is talking about is Open Tier 1 doubles pickleball. The 5–1 “Pickleticklers” seemed poised to duke it out in the final with “Smash Bros”, also 5–1 in the regular season. But my pick to emerge from the battlefield victorious would actually have been the third-place “Pepinilleros.” As newcomers to Tier 1, but last winter’s Tier 2 champs, they could have very well surprised the tier’s pickleball juggernauts.

These matchups all deliver a thrilling finish to the fall season and act as proof of how high-level McGill’s intramurals are. Overall, though, the most important thing about intramurals is that everyone has fun. They truly do enrich the student experience, and the bonds you form with your teammates are remarkable. However, I would be lying if I said that winning does not matter as well. After all, there are only two kinds of McGill students: Those with a mug, and those without one. 

I wish all teams the best of luck—except the ones playing my team.

Features

Keeping the channel open

by Anna Seger on

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You sit down to write, the blank page in front of you simultaneously inspiring and intimidating: The channel is open, the possibilities are limitless. This stage of the process is difficult and anxiety-inducing, but you know it is an unavoidable part of writing.

//Or, maybe, it doesn’t have to be.//

The impact of computer systems acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to understate. Although conceptual and technological groundwork for AI had been established since the 1950s, progress and usage were largely sequestered in university and government research labs. It wasn’t until the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 that artificial intelligence began to dominate the popular consciousness. As companies and industries scramble to adapt to a new world, the divide between optimism and pessimism surrounding artificial intelligence deepens. AI forces us to confront questions looming over modern existence: What do we want from machines, and what will we sacrifice for it? 

Understanding AI and writing

Although these may seem like unprecedented times, contemporary discourse about AI echoes common concerns from earlier waves of technological development. Historically, new technologies and mediums have stirred fear among artists concerned about their effects on existing forms. 19th-century realist painters cursed the advent of photography, 20th-century filmmakers worried about advancements in computer graphics, and 21st-century writers considered how word processing software changes the way authors write. Through artistic movements and technological revolutions, writing as an art form has adapted and endured. 

Recently, the rise of Amazon and social media has tested the literary field,  significantly altering the relationship between publishers, authors, and readers, and pushing the novel into the modern economy of attention. Mark McGurl, in his book //Everything and Less//, explains how Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) reorient priority from writing innovation to customer satisfaction, contributing to the commodification of literature. Authors become producers, forced to adapt their image and work to the fast-paced marketplace. Readers turn into superficial consumers, captured by promises of entertainment or enlightenment; thus, the marketplace works hard to retain their attention. This attention-driven model restructures the reading experience, orienting it around convenience and constant engagement. To maintain and expand its customer base, Amazon aims to make reading frictionless, promoting an abundance of genre-fiction that caters to users’ niche interests. To make matters worse, Amazon uses machine learning and data mining—subsets of artificial intelligence—to extract data from users’ reading habits for marketing purposes, perpetuating a never-ending cycle of consumption.

The emergence of fiction-writing AI tools should come as no surprise, considering the commodified logic of modern literary production. One such program, widely regarded as the cream of the AI-writing-tool crop, is called Sudowrite. “Blank page, begone!” touts the website’s homepage, promising it can brainstorm, create story outlines, expand descriptions, generate metaphors, suggest character arcs and plot twists, and edit users’ writing. Since the post-Amazon literary landscape has positioned books and authors more as products and producers, the implementation of tools to maximize efficiency is an expected progression. While KDP opens paths to publication for more authors, the digital marketplace is an unstable one. For Amazon authors like Jennifer Lepp, who makes a living churning out self-published “potato chip books” multiple times a year under the pen name Leanne Leeds, using Sudowrite to accelerate the writing process allows her to keep up with the demands of the marketplace and her audience. 

Despite still using the program, in an interview with The Verge, Lepp considered the harmful impact of AI writing tools on her own skills and their broader homogenization of literature. 

“I need to pay attention much less closely. I don’t get as deeply into the writing as I did before,” she said. “I think that’s the real danger, that you can do that and then nothing’s original anymore. Everything’s just a copy of something else. The problem is that’s what readers like.” 

To make a living off one’s art, artists are tied up in the dynamics of consumer demand. How, then, do we reckon with cultural shifts surrounding literary production, and what responsibilities do readers and writers have to each other?

The promises and the problems

In literature, artificial intelligence makes two enticing offers. First, it claims to eliminate the kinds of reading and writing it casts as mere busywork—proofreading, editing, synthesizing, and summarizing—and free up time and energy for authentic artistic and intellectual exploration. Second, it promises to enhance this exploration, acting as an excitable book club buddy or a thoughtful writing partner. 

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Chris Howard, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Philosophy, expressed a cautious optimism about the incorporation of AI tools in creative fields.

“There is still a human element in terms of telling the machine what you want it to produce, and there’s a lot of latitude for creativity in that process [….] You could have an absolute explosion of culture and a diffusion of power from the gatekeepers of culture. Which is really exciting, but I also don’t want to be too rosy [….] I understand the attitudes of artists who feel like there’s some danger to their craft with this,” Howard said.

Using two dozen large language models (LLMs), Sudowrite functions almost like an advanced autocomplete, using data analysis and statistical probability to create sentences by guessing, one word at a time, what comes next. Despite being transparent about how the word processing system works on their homepage, in their FAQ, they answer the question “Is this magic?” with “Yes. But so is life, isn’t it?” 

To some extent, this is true: AI is still somewhat of a black box. It is hard to dissect exactly how deep learning and neural networks function, contributing to a fervour and mystique surrounding AI that strikingly mirrors religion. Tech companies’ insistence on the inevitable takeover of artificial intelligence bears resemblance to the eschatological story of the Rapture: You must get with the program, or get left behind. 

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Alexander Manshel, associate professor in the Department of English at McGill, rejected this narrative and advised against passive acceptance. 

“As with any technology, we’re often told that it’s inevitable, so it’s not if it’s going to change everything, but how it’s going to change,” he said. “But, as with any technology, we have a choice as to whether or not we adopt it, and if so, how. I’ve been really heartened by talking to a lot of not just McGill faculty, but McGill students, who see the value in doing their own complex thinking, their own complex writing.” 

To truly engage in complex thinking and writing, no part of the process can be dismissed as nonessential. By trying to eliminate or accelerate some parts of the process, AI writing tools contribute to the sacralization and romanticization of writing, detaching the work from the art. The actual process of writing is envisioned as an undesirable, but unfortunately necessary step that artists painstakingly overcome to translate their grand visions and ideas into the world. However, AI cannot replicate the craft of artistic creation or the process of critical exploration, which is where art and ideas get their value.

In a piece for The New Yorker on Sudowrite, Canadian novelist Stephen Marche wrote, “For writers who don’t like writing—which, in my experience, is nearly all of us—Sudowrite may well be a salvation.” Beyond the use of “salvation” revealing a quasi-religious zeal for AI, the sentence also points to a broader tension: The sense of distance from art that can emerge when generative technologies partly or entirely mediate creative work. In the creative process, ideas gain meaning by acquiring shape and structure through negotiating with the strengths and limitations of a certain artistic form. Marche’s framing places primary value on ideas in their abstract, inarticulated state, rather than on the interpretive labour required to realize them. To many, this perspective can appear liberating—writers might not need to be skilled in the craft itself if a system can refine their concepts into readable prose. But what Marche and the broader framework of AI writing tools overlook is that writing is not a means to an end. The process itself is both the labour and the art.

The way forward

Individual writers can often feel insignificant against the larger political, economic, and cultural forces influencing the trajectory of literature. But the issues and questions raised by AI writing tools go beyond the specific concerns of the literary field. All of us who engage in reading, writing, and thinking have a critical decision to make.

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Alex Steele, president of Gotham Writers Workshop, a creative writing school in New York City, discussed what is lost in AI writing. 

“AI does not think, it does not feel. It is, quite literally, bloodless,” he said. In his September newsletter, titled “In Praise of People,” he writes, “You, on the other hand, are the proud owner of blood, brain, body, and (most mysteriously) soul. The power of your writing—however imperfect, flawed, messy—will be found there and nowhere else.”

It’s a vital reminder of the purpose of art: To challenge perspectives, deepen understanding, and foster emotional connection through the transmission of human experiences. In writing, we are constantly confronted with the limitations and inadequacies of human language. Amorphous thoughts, feelings, and ideas beam into our brains, and we translate them into the world as we shape them through syntactic structures, diction, form, and style. Through practice and repetition, this process becomes mechanized in our brains. Perhaps this is why we overlook what we sacrifice when we let it become actually automated by machines. 

Agnes de Mille recounts a conversation with fellow choreographer Martha Graham in her biography that echoes Steele’s belief in the value of unique human expression. 

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you [….] And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open,” Graham said. 

AI is, at the end of the day, a technology and a tool. Particularly in the modern labour landscape, its use may soon be unavoidable. But in our personal, intellectual, and artistic lives, we have the power to be intentional about our implementation of AI, choosing how, when, and whether to use it. In our creative communities, we can influence the creation of guidelines, norms, and precedents regarding artificial intelligence. Above all, we must remember what may be at risk, and keep the channel open.

McGill, News

Students organize events and rallies during Shut It Down departmental strikes for Palestine

by Eren Atac, Amelia H. Clark, Asher Kui on

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From Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, 20 departments at McGill went on strike, calling for the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. These departmental strikes, organized by Divest McGill, Divest for Palestine, Working Alternatives McGill, and McGill Admin Watch, occurred alongside programming put together by the Shut It Down strike collective as well as student picketing. The Tribune brings you coverage of some of these programming events.

Wednesday, Nov. 19 – “Tyranny of Structurelessness” lecture

Barry Eidlin, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, gave a lecture titled “Tyranny of Structurelessness,” then led a discussion encouraging students to reflect on the current Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestine. A striking student in attendance made a connection between the present BDS movement and the Indian independence movement.

“Coming from India, our independence movement was supposedly non-violent, but at the end of the day, what led to independence was the fact that [many protests in India were] violent,” the student said. “It’s just extremely easy to ignore ‘perfect’ [non-disruptive] movements.”

Eidlin responded by agreeing that disruption is often the only way to truly make change in activist struggles.

“You do need to disrupt to win,” he stated. “The whole point of social movement is to shake things up. [Movements] emerge when existing channels, the proper channels, are not available. And the way that you create new channels, it’s a process of disruption.”

Another striking student expressed that the difficulty in mobilizing students to hold departmental strikes demonstrates a general student apathy towards the on-campus movement for Palestine, and reflects significant disparities in student representation at General Assemblies (GAs) where departments vote to strike.

“Quorum to vote on a strike for either a department or for the whole undergrad [represents] a very vocal minority that shows up, including myself,” they described. “Most people are not going [to their departmental GAs] because […] they don’t care enough to vote. So then we go on strike because 10 per cent of students have decided we should, but that’s still 90 per cent of students who don’t necessarily feel as passionately about it, and then are frustrated that we’ve gone on strike because a small group of us voted on it.”  

The attendee highlighted that students—even those uninterested in striking—must continue to uphold democracy by participating in discussions about such departmental activist choices.

“[Students] should [still] show up [to GAs] if they don’t want to [strike]. They should show up and vote,” the attendee said. “That’s really […] why, even though we get these strikes passed and it feels successful, ultimately, it’s not really, because [most students] still want to go to class.”

More information on lecture content can be found here.

Thursday, Nov. 20 – Campus restrictions announced

At 6:17 p.m., the Emergency Operations Centre announced that students would need their student IDs to enter McGill buildings on Nov. 21. 

Friday, Nov. 21 – Divestment rally

At 7:30 a.m., protesters gathered in front of the James Administration Building to demand McGill’s administration divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide in Palestine. 

“It’s the [university’s] administrators that are refusing to have conversations with students, or if they do have conversations, they’re totally taken in bad faith,” a protester said in an interview with The Tribune. “So we came together early today to be able to shame administrators as they were coming into the building to show them that we’re always watching them. We’re always going to hold them accountable to the decisions they make. There’s no hiding from the students.”

At the beginning of the rally, five McGill security guards were standing outside the building. One was wearing a bright nylon vest and held a camcorder to scan the crowd. She was identified by one protester in an interview with The Tribune as a member of private security McGill hired in preparation for the strike who, at the beginning of the Shut It Down week, filmed students picketing while wearing civilian clothes instead of an identifiable security uniform.

In an interview with The Tribune, another protestor stated that the level of security McGill has employed during this strike is unparalleled to anything seen in the university’s history, with almost 30 guards at one point employed against ten students who were soft picketing. 

“[Security guards] are the ones that are intimidating students on campus because they cause escalations,” the protestor said. “They’ve been filming students’ faces. They’ve been recording students’ voices. It’s like we live in a surveillance campus.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) stated that the university deploys security to keep protest on campus peaceful.

“When groups choose to protest, University Security personnel are present to remind participants that vandalism, violence, and classroom obstruction are not tolerated, and that compliance with the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures is required to avoid sanctions,” the MRO wrote.

As the rally continued, approximately fifteen more security guards arrived, forming a complete perimeter around the protesters. One marched into the crowd with a camera to get close-ups of students’ eyes: The only identifiable feature left exposed for most in attendance. Still, not one protester left their post. 

Organizers then poured red paint on the pavement in front of the James Administration Building and on their hands to demonstrate how students’ tuition may contribute to McGill’s investments in weapons companies such as Lockheed Martin and Airbus Aerospace. About 15 minutes after the rally ended at 9:00 a.m., McGill staff power-washed the paint away as security trailed departing protestors from rue Milton to av. Lorne. 

In an interview with The Tribune, a third protester cited previous student activists’ success in pushing McGill to divest from businesses with connections to fossil fuels and South African apartheid, affirming their confidence in the current movement for divestment from Israel’s genocide. 

“I’m sure that it’s going to take a long time for us to achieve divestment from weapons companies tied to the genocide in Palestine, but I really believe that we can do it, and I know that everyone else [here] believes in it too,” they stated. “And we need every single student on this campus to believe in it.”

Friday, Nov. 21 – “The Colonial University and its Opps” talk

A former McGill graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, hosted a talk called “The Colonial University and its Opps,” on Nov. 21 at 1:00 p.m. in McGill’s Players’ Theatre. Their presentation covered a broad overview of McGill’s colonial entanglements and their implications for contemporary protests. The talk also explored the history of activism at McGill, focusing on how campus protests have evolved over time. 

The speaker emphasized the role of McGill’s physical presence in the workings of the broader colonial apparatus. They argued that the institution’s buildings and land use are intertwined with global systems of power, rather than being neutral spaces of learning as McGill’s community might believe them to be. 

“I really want to emphasize how [slavery and colonial extraction] are imbued into [McGill’s] buildings and their names,” the speaker stated. “For instance, the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building. The first Baron Strathcona was a British Empire elite. He made all his money through things like the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was key in the colonial encroachment on what is now Iran.”

The speaker then moved to a discussion of past student movements for justice, including the 1980s anti-South African apartheid divestment campaign at McGill. The speaker described this movement as an example of student activism that successfully forced administrative change at the university, but only after years of effort and moments of waning traction for the movement.

“McGill was the first place in Canada to divest [from South African apartheid], but it was not the first place in North America [to do so]. In fact, it was kind of late to the party,” the speaker stated. “A lot of Ivy League universities had already started to divest in the years immediately prior to 1985. Those successes were really mobilizing. People were excited. They felt like their goal was possible again. But those successes were only possible because the student movement at [that] point was pretty mature.”

The speaker then turned to facilitating discussion about more recent protest efforts at McGill. One attendee of the event questioned the effectiveness of the departmental strikes, contrasting them with the 2024 Palestine Solidarity Encampment. They argued that the encampment may have been a more impactful protest tactic, as it had no defined length; it was meant to persist indefinitely until student demands were met. In response, the speaker expressed that while unlimited strikes can be more effective at forcing action from the administration, they also require significantly more planning and coordination to carry out. 

“One of the important things to understand about unlimited strikes is that they’re really hard. [They are] the product of years of organizing [students] to build […] capacity in the student movement, to build the democratic processes in the movement to be able to strike,” the speaker said. “A lot of students don’t understand strikes […] because they haven’t been equipped yet with the knowledge to create their own analyses of the situation, and be able to engage with [striking] in ways other than what McGill emails say.”

Behind the Bench, Sports

Inclusion done wrong: The backlash against Sky Sports’ Halo account

by Alex Hawes Silva on

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Sky Sports’ short-lived TikTok account, Halo, which was marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis,” lasted mere days before the company quietly pulled the plug due to intense backlash. Originally designed to “create a space alongside Sky’s existing social channels for new, young, female fans,” the initiative instead sparked immediate criticism. But the backlash did not come from sexist sports fans who disagreed with increased representation for women. Instead, the criticism came almost entirely from the audience that Sky Sports claimed it was trying to welcome—and for good reason.

Two early highlight videos quickly showcased the sexism at hand. One clip Sky Sports posted on Halo showed soccer forward Erling Haaland scoring a goal, with the caption, “how the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits.” Another featured a clip of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani with the caption, “Thinking about Zohran Mamdani rizzing us and Arsenal up.” 

Rather than offering meaningful sports analysis, the account relied on a caricatured and stereotyped idea of what young women supposedly like: Matcha, ‘hot girl walks,’ and ‘rizz.’ The buzzwords were used regardless of whether they had anything to do with the sport that was being featured. The campaign failed so spectacularly because it treated women not as fans, but as demeaning, superficial stereotypes. 

At the root of Halo’s embarrassing attempt at feminism is a longstanding problem within a sports media landscape that still cannot view women as serious fans. Media coverage surrounding women athletes and women’s sports, or directed to audiences of women, is softened and aestheticized by networks—or, in this case, decorated in sparkles. Instead of recognizing women as authentic and knowledgeable sports fans, campaigns reduce them to an overplayed stereotype, one that executives assume must be reached through pink, girly, and ‘cutesy’ graphics.

Halo’s tone was not youthful or inclusive: It was patronizing. It presented sports as something that women needed to have translated into ‘girl content.’ What Halo completely ignored is that women already exist in sports spaces as analysts, athletes, journalists, and fans—with the same intensity as men. Women care about sport, not because it aligns with trends, but because they love the game.

So when Sky Sports launched its Halo account built on the idea that women need a separate, softer version of sport to enjoy, it reinforced the stereotypes that women are constantly fighting against. 

As Emily Trees, a critic of Halo, said while speaking to BBC Newsbeat, “We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to come away from the stereotypes around women’s sport, and trying to make women’s sport seen as an entity in itself rather than just as an extension of what men can do. We deserve our own space, something that’s ours. We don’t need to be the ‘little sister’ to anyone.” 

Instead of inclusion, treating women fans as sports fans first, Halo offered segregation and infantilization.

Moreover, meaningful inclusion means putting women in the room in decision-making, leadership roles. If Halo’s planning team had been composed of women, the account would not have even considered including such content. Women should not just be the target audience; they should shape and create the very narratives and campaigns that are aimed at them.

The demise of Sky Sports’ Halo is not a sign that women do not want sports content tailored to them. It is a sign that they want it to be authentic, respectful, and true to their views around sports. Sky Sports attempted to build a space alongside its main channels, but women do not need a separate space—they need to be at the forefront of the media they care about. 

Off the Board, Opinion

Self-care is the opposite of revolutionary 

by Helene Saleska on

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We’ve heard the lines and seen the videos probably more times than we can count—“Protect your peace,” “choose yourself”, “cut people off that don’t serve you,” and the one that gives me the most pause, “you don’t owe anyone anything.” 

The latest mental health trend: ‘Radical’ self-care. Originally coined by Audre Lorde as a revolutionary form of survival for Black women in the 1960s, self-care has since been repackaged for mass consumption in the form of self-optimization and healing. It is devoid of its original context, and in the hands of TikTok and Instagram influencers, has become capitalism’s newest way of distracting us from the power of collective action. 

The romanticization of solitude and an obsessive capitalist emphasis on the value of one’s personal comfort and success are implicit in the modern rhetoric of self-care, thereby devaluing connections that may seem less convenient. Of course, there are very real reasons to cut contact with family, friends, or relationships that have been sources of pain and trauma. But embedded within the framework of cutting off relationships that don’t serve you is the postulation that friendships should behave like investments—to be easily discarded when they are no longer profitable.

Through advice for self-optimization, influencers sell you a life designed to avoid pain, friction, conflict, and burden, and all it takes—so they claim—is to cut off the relationships that make you feel anything but good, to remedy negativity with self-isolation and the right products. It’s ‘self-care’ to blow off a friend who’s struggling, because they’re draining for you. Be careful! Their energy might rub off on you and get in the way of your future self.

These messages are also broadcast as healing. If you’ve experienced any of life’s inevitable pains—a breakup, maybe, or a fight with a friend—then pop psychologists will tell you to isolate yourself so as not to infect anyone else with your toxic mindset. This implies that healing is a linear process or an optimized state of mind, but also suggests your trauma is solely your responsibility. Heal first. Become a better friend, a better partner, a better person, and do it by focusing on yourself. 

This sets up an unhealthy dichotomy of you versus everyone else. Whether you’re healing or protecting your energy from others, this rhetoric convinces us that people and their needs are inherently a burden, making us afraid to rely on each other when we need it. This shift towards isolation harms more than just our mental health; it impairs our ability to organize at a time when it’s more important than ever to do so.

“Protecting your peace” doesn’t serve you—it serves the people that capitalize on your consumption, and on your constant quest for more in the absence of authentic human connection. Isolation as self-care obscures the fact that we are all inextricably connected, and that how we spend our time and energy will always have consequences on others, whether we give it out ‘for free’ or keep it all to ourselves. This view of the world doesn’t only come from an innocent desire to take care of ourselves, but from capitalistic values that teach us to be selfish with what’s ours. 

Connecting with each other means negotiating your perspective amongst divergent ones, inevitably bringing friction. If we don’t question each other and ourselves, then we won’t learn to question our systems or authorities. It is through our relationships that we practice navigating the messiness of the world that exists all around us, and where we start negotiating how that world should be.

All of history’s monumental social movements—from the Civil Rights Movement, to women’s movements, to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa—were rooted in relationships and mutual aid, with conversations and arguments over shared meals. Difficult conversations are what made people into revolutionaries, and revolutions sustained themselves through the support that people owed to each other. 

All the self-care you can buy won’t make you a better person or a better friend. We can’t be successful activists if we don’t first forge meaningful and sometimes messy human connections, and we can’t challenge powerful institutions if we run from discomfort or interpersonal conflict.  Maintaining community is self-care, not its antithesis. 

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