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McGill, News

AGSEM pens open letter condemning continued issues with Workday

by Sequoia Kim on

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In October 2020, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) sounded the alarm over technical issues with the newly implemented Workday Human Resources (HR) system, which left hundreds of employees without pay for months. Two months into the Winter 2021 semester, some McGill employees are still without pay from Fall 2020, others have yet to be paid for work completed since January 2021, and many continue to experience technical difficulties with the Workday interface. In response to persisting issues on Workday, including its decentralized problem-solving method, AGSEM sent an open letter to the McGill administration on March 2 condemning the university’s lack of response to their complaints and set forth several demands.

Although most delayed pay cases were resolved by the end of the Fall 2020 semester, Jessica Rose, AGSEM’s grievance officer, estimates that there are still roughly one dozen outstanding incidents, with new cases arriving in her inbox on occasion.

“I was talking to someone earlier today [and] they have not been paid a single cent for the work they did in the fall,” Rose said. “We just had a partial resolution for somebody who just got paid for work [they] did in the summer [2020].”

After spending much of last semester supporting individuals experiencing payroll issues, AGSEM’s recent letter calls attention to the broader operational and managerial shortcomings of the Workday module. The system’s hiring and registration process is one such shortfall: Employees must be “terminated” from any previous employment before they can register as “hired” for a new position. According to Rose, this setup inconveniences employees who work multiple jobs at the university.

“For Workday, you are supposed to have one profile that covers all [your jobs],” Rose said. “But there is no way for all these different offices who are hiring the same person to coordinate with each other. If different information is put in at those two different levels, [employers] are not going to see it, payroll is going to see it. Payroll does not know where it comes from and […] is not set up to take the initiative to troubleshoot anything that comes their way.” 

While delayed pay was a recurring problem in the Fall semester, Rose was surprised to see employees being overpaid in the Winter 2021.

“[Some employee] contracts were entered for the wrong number of hours, or [employees worked] extra hours but were never actually paid for them,” Rose said. “We are also seeing a ton of issues where people were apparently overpaid. Now McGill is trying to garnish their wages, except there are a ton of errors in the way that they have calculated that.”

Raad Jassim, president of the McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCILU), echoed some of the letter’s frustrations regarding Workday. Reflecting on his experience with the Banner/Minerva system—the HR system McGill used preceding Workday—Jassim felt the previous system was more functional. 

“[In Banner], I could see my taxes, I could see my address, I could see my deposit of salaries, I could see my job description,” Jassim said. “If I want to go back 20 years, it [was] all there.”

Following the transition to Workday, Jassim lost access to previously logged information and could only obtain it by submitting a request to McGill’s HR. Jassim recalled how inaccurate data input caused humorous mistakes, but nevertheless served as a testament to the system’s poor infrastructure.

“Sometimes [Workday states] I am hired in 2020, [and] sometimes I am hired way back in 1990,” Jassim said. “So […] when did I start my master’s at McGill? When I am looking at the data, it shows that I started in 1901.”

Jassim has been assisting MCILU constituents settle Workday-related issues since the Summer 2020 semester and is currently pushing the administration for reforms. One notable reform includes carrying over previous profile information so that individuals are spared from having to re-input data for every new employment session.

“If you reinstate yourself in the onboarding [and] you forget to put your pension plan, […] your retirement savings plan, [or] you do not know how, you will be deprived of the benefits,” Jassim said. “So I am asking McGill [to change this] because I do not want to do that every time. It has to be automatic.”

Mario Roy, president of AGSEM, believes the burden of Workday’s faulty system has fallen on employees and unions, who are left to troubleshoot and resolve a wide array of individual complications.

“I’ve been receiving a lot of comments from the hiring units on the fact that this system is much harder to manage, as compared to the past system,” Roy said. “When we receive complaints from our members, sometimes they have been working hours and hours on the phone trying to resolve something [….] When they call HR it is always a back and forth with the union, with HR, with IT services. [McGill] needs […] to improve [the system] overall, instead of looking at it case-by-case.”

The letter demands that McGill conduct an audit of outstanding employees who have experienced issues with Workday and that the university form a task force to ensure impactful solutions are implemented. Rose stated that McGill should consult with unions and workers on solutions moving forward and urged the administration to streamline Workday’s management.

“We want to see that McGill is putting in the management infrastructure that is needed,” Rose said. “There is no software solution for this, it is a manpower and managerial issue. It has to be something that has central coordination because staff in the hiring units are working as hard as they can.”

In an email to The McGill Tribune, a representative from the McGill administration stated that the university has resolved all known delayed payments from the Fall 2021 semester and is moving quickly to address issues as they arise.

“Since the roll-out of Workday back in August, more than 30 staff members from the [Retirement to Recruitment] team and the HR Service desk, in addition to staff in Payroll, Staffing and Academic Personnel have been focussed on supporting end users and resolving the various business process issues that have surfaced over the course of the fall semester,” the representative wrote. “Since then, a number of measures have been put in place to help ensure the next round of hiring for Winter 2021 goes as smoothly as possible. Enhanced user support and training and process improvements are ongoing and will continue to be a priority.”

Rose maintains that McGill’s response to the Workday situation constitutes a demonstrated failure of leadership on the part of the university. 

“The one comment from our members that keeps ringing in my head is, ‘I feel completely abandoned by McGill,’” Rose said. “It is one thing to be frustrated by the circumstances of the last year, but to feel abandoned is assuming that the university leadership has completely forgotten about you and has moved on from the problem before fixing it. There are people who are taking home six figures who are supposed to be fixing this and they are not.”

AGSEM has filed for arbitration for collective grievances on late payments from Fall and Summer 2021. The union is hoping to reach a settlement with McGill to compensate its members but will move the case in front of an arbitrator if a settlement is not reached soon.

Student Life

Student Refugee Program changes lives through education

by Taneeshaa Pradhan on

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In 1978, the non-profit organization World University Service of Canada (WUSC) implemented the Student Refugee Program (SRP) at Carleton University. SRP is a refugee resettlement program that focusses on financial sponsorship and integration for students hoping to study and work in the country. In the years since, the initiative has grown to support students in over 95 post-secondary institutions in Canada. As part of this program, all SRP scholars gain permanent residency status after they arrive in Canada. This is made possible through the organisation’s status as a Canadian National Sponsorship Agreement Holder with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship. 

The SRP was implemented at McGill in 1986 with the resettlement and integration of one student. Since its conception, the intake has increased to support three new students arriving each year. The management of SRP at each school is delegated to the campus’ Local Committee. The McGill Local Committee is made up of volunteers who ensure that SRP scholars are supported during their resettlement. Alice Ishimwe, U2 Arts and a social work intern at WUSC, explained the role of the Local Committee. 

“While we are assisted by WUSC […], the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the Canadian government, it’s mostly the Local Committee that takes care of the ins and outs of integration for the students,” Ishimwe said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

The student-led Local Committee prioritizes the creation of a peer support network that connects resettled students with one another. Ishimwe described the importance of student involvement in the Local Committee.

“We call it the Peer-to-Peer Sponsorship model,”  Ishimwe said. The big organizations help us with interviews on the ground […] in the camps […], but when students come here they are our responsibility.”

Student-led support begins from the moment students arrive at the airport. To SRP scholars like Manyang Lual Jok, U3 Science, who arrived in Montreal in 2017, these efforts help to create a support system. 

“What makes WUSC unique in terms of integration is the point that […] the first people who pick you up are schoolmates, [ which makes] it easier to interact and ask questions,” Jok said. “For all of us, the first point of contact is always the Local Committee [….] They can go on to become your mentors.”

The SRP program currently relocates students from Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda to Canada and sponsors the students’ expenses for one year, after which they can apply for federal student loans. In the six countries where the SRP operates, there are government-mandated restrictions on higher education. Jeanne-Armelle Uwilingiyimana, U3 Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, explained the necessity of a program like SRP in aiding her relocation to Montreal from Malawi in 2017.

“The whole experience was a life-changing opportunity [….] In my cohort, 250 people applied and 22 were selected,” Uwilingiyimana said in an interview with the Tribune. “It is very sought-after [….] When you graduate high school, you could apply to university but […] the government does not fund refugees or non-Malawians to go to university [….] I don’t see how my future would have been beyond WUSC.”

WUSC McGill recognizes that limited quotas on students admitted through SRP to Canadian universities can leave behind many deserving students during the selection process. Ishimwe explained that in an effort to address this constraint, the upcoming Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) referendum will include a question that asks for an increase in the fees that students pay to support the program. 

“[Currently], each student at McGill [is] paying $2 per semester to help us sustain the program,” Ishimwe said. “We are going to see if we can increase that due to the high number of refugees across the world, especially because of COVID-19.” 

The organization hopes to increase the student fee from $2 to $4 through the referendum. 2018 SRP scholar Gattuoch Kuon, U2 Science, explained the significance of this proposed change.  

“To do good for the world […], don’t see it as four bucks,” Kuon said. See it as four people and their families. You are changing lives.”

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Human Rights Watch Film Festival shares compassion through screens

by Lowell Wolfe on

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From Feb. 18-22, Human Rights Watch Canada showcased a selection of their films for Toronto’s 18th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival, a cinematographic exhibition that celebrates diverse human perspectives from around the world. With COVID-19 disrupting the festival’s typical execution, Canadian cinematographer and festival co-chair Nicholas de Pencier discussed how the team adapted their original vision to a virtual format.  

“This year’s festival looks radically different from last year’s and the many previous years,” Pencier said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We would gather for a number of nights in the winter in a theatre and have that sense of community around films that resonate issues of human rights [….] The whole team has had to reimagine what a festival looks like in the constraints of being limited to a virtual iteration [….] In fact, there [have been] some wonderful bonuses.”

Pencier is referring to the festival’s free charge and its online accessibility for this edition. All five films—A La Calle, I am Samuel, Love Child, Maxima, and Wake Up on Mars—were posted on the festival’s website. Anyone who registered for the event could watch them any time over the festival’s four-day period.

“Before, if there was a film that you really wanted to see and it was a Tuesday night, you had to be free to come down to the Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto,” Pencier said. “This year, if you live anywhere in the country, you can download the film at your leisure, at a time that’s convenient to you [….] That’s a huge bonus in terms of its accessibility.”

The festival’s featured films explored the challenges and hardships that people face worldwide. I am Samuel, directed by Peter Mirumi, follows Samuel, a gay man living in Kenya, where laws and cultural values discriminate against queer people. Samuel is caught between two lives: His relationship with his partner in Nairobi brings him joy; however, his sexual identity creates tension with his family, who are farmers in rural Kenya. The film’s tense display of these difficult circumstances is moving.

“There’s a real sort of buzz about films that are new, that are vibrant, that will inspire you and raise your consciousness about really important things,” Pencier said. “[In] I am Samuel, where the struggles to live a queer identity in certain countries are just so formidable, […] the bravery of people who don’t deny their identity is really heartwarming and edifying to learn about through a film like this. [It] has a really intimate access to the protagonist.” 

Other films, such as Maxima by Claudia Sparrow, showcased environmental injustices and Indigenous sovereignty issues. In Maxima, Indigenous Peruvian environmental activist and farmer Máxima Acuña fights the Newmont Mining Corporation for her family’s right to remain on their land. The film displays beautiful vistas of the Peruvian Highlands, which emphasize the land’s significance to Acuña and her family as they try to protect it from an intimidating and exploitative company.

“I really get a sense of [Máxima] and her personal struggle,” Pencier said. “This Herculean effort that she has to make against an adversary that so many people would give up [on], would be afraid [of], would cave in to, [and] she doesn’t. It’s this wonderfully intimate story and knowledge of her that resonates the much broader theme of Indigenous peoples, the sovereignty of the land that they are on, and the exploitation of their land by huge, powerful colonial interests.” 

The film’s topics, which ranged from struggles for democracy to the lived experience of refugees, shared a humanitarian outlook that brought viewers new perspectives on their own lives, and those of others. 

“As soon as there is an awareness of suffering anywhere in the world, all of us as moral beings have to try and reconcile what we have as capital that we might apply to ease that suffering,” Pencier said. “Film has the power to move you emotionally.”

Creative

The T: “A tense SSMU General Assembly and a Judicial Board hearing on BDS” Mar. 2

by Sequoia Kim on

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This week on the show:

  • The SSMU General Assembly loses quorum, fails to pass Divest for Human Rights motion
  • Legislative Council debates and approves the Divest for Human Rights motion
  • Judicial Board holds a hearing re-interpreting a 2016 Boycotts, Divestments, Sanctions (BDS) ruling
  • An investigation into the curfew’s impact on migrant, undocumented, or temporary workers

Episode links:

Host: Sequoia Kim, News Editor
Guest speakers: News Staff Writer Ella Milloy, Contributor Nina Russell, Managing Editor Sophia Gorbounov
Podcast Producers: Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Alex Hinton, Creative Director Aidan Martin, Editor-In-Chief Helen Wu
Artwork design: Design Editor Chloe Rodriguez

 

content warning, McGill, News

Sex and Self event covers decolonization and destigmatizing Black sexuality

by Hanna Hipwell Serfaty on

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Content Warning: Sexual violence, racial violence, intergenerational trauma, slavery

Sex & Self, a sexual education organization at McGill, hosted the virtual seminar “Decolonizing and Destigmatizing Black Sexuality” on Feb. 21. This seminar was the second installment of their Black History Month “Facing the Facts” series, and featured Jet Setting Jasmine, a clinical therapist and co-owner of Royal Fetish Films, and King Noire, fellow co-owner of Royal Fetish Films. The event was co-hosted by Chelsea Martin, co-founder of Toronto’s Manifesto, an organization seeking to uplift Black and Indigenous communities, and Felicia Gisondi, U3 Education and founder of Sex & Self.

The panellists explored a wide array of topics, including white supremacy, systemic racism, and the history of the hyper-sexualization of Black individuals. All the proceeds raised from the event were donated to the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective, an organization that aims to support BIPOC adult performers and make the adult entertainment industry a safe space.

King Noire began the discussion by noting how diverse ideas about gender, sexuality, and sexual liberation have existed for generations in Africa before European colonization in the late 19th century.

“It is important to note that [in the] civilizations across the continent of Africa, there were many different forms of sexual orientation and ideas of gender,” King Noire said.

King Noire explained the term post-traumatic slave syndrome (PTSS) to the audience, leading into a discussion about how slavery has directly led to the hyper-sexualization of Black individuals. PTSS is a theory that explains the adaptive survival behaviours of Black communities as a consequence of the multigenerational effects of centuries of enslavement.

Jasmine then shared her own interactions with policing and experiences of systemic racism within the adult entertainment industry, noting how certain forms of pornography—like police porn—reinforce negative stereotypes and contribute to the eroticization and fetishization of Black individuals.

“[Police porn] really is a mockery, because there is no resolve,” Jasmine said. “You’re not telling a historical thing that used to happen, you are selling our reality as entertainment, [and] normalizing it by either making it funny or sexualized.”

Jasmine emphasized the importance of reframing sex to be more pleasure-centred for Black individuals. King Noire and Jasmine currently facilitate fetish training and host workshops on a variety of topics, including sex-positive parenting, the importance of consent, and how to stay safe in the sex industry.

“A major key to Black sexual liberation is about us finding pleasure-centred sex,” Jasmine said. “[There are] no models through history of pleasure-centred sex, [since] everything has been done for the utilization of our oppressor. [The key] is allowing Black and Brown people to […] reconnect to spirituality, which was pleasure-centred sex, and the pre-colonial ways in which we connect to our bodies.”

King Noire also spoke about his efforts to steer the porn industry away from the white cis male gaze and the racial stereotyping that the industry perpetuates. His work aims to create a safe space for Black individuals to explore all kinds of fetishes, sexualities, and gender identities.

“What we’ve been working to do is […] to give a voice to Black sexuality and its ranges, [and show] just how broad the spectrum is,” King Noire said.

Gisondi hopes that the event’s in-depth discussion on the intersections of race and sexuality will ignite further conversations and see more people understand their own sexuality. 

“Too many individuals lack a basic understanding of their own sexuality,” Gisondi wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “By providing folks with the historical understanding of how sexuality and race are intertwined, a new dimension to our participants’ understanding of modern-day sexuality in the anti-racist context was achieved.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the proceeds of this event went to BIPOC Project. In actuality, the proceeds went to the BIPOC Adult Industry Collective. The Tribune regrets this error.

The faculty is looking to reduce classes with under 20 people; full-time professors will now teach larger classes. (Alexandra Allaire / McGill Tribune)
McGill, News

McGill announces return to in-person classes for Fall 2021

by Emilia Chavanne on

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On Feb. 23, McGill University announced their intention to return to in-person teaching for the Fall 2021 semester. The return to campus will be a gradual process, beginning with Tier 2 in-person activities which are currently being implemented during the Winter 2021 semester. The administration’s announcement raised many questions amongst students, but gave the McGill community some sense of certainty for the upcoming semester. 

The university stated at a Feb. 26 press conference that the Quebec government has prioritized the return to in-person education to support students’ mental health and improve academic experiences. Associate Provost (Teaching and Academic Programs) Christopher Buddle detailed what McGill students can expect for the return to in-person classes.

“[For] larger lectures, there is a plan that those will be offered online for students,” Buddle said. “Other kinds of activities, [like] labs, tutorials, conferences […] will be planned for in-person, and most smaller classes will be planned for in-person as well [….] Some students might see a blended approach where some of the core components of the class might be online, with other components in person.”

Jemark Earle, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President, was surprised by the announcement.

“Although I do think [this decision] was made a bit early, I do appreciate this advanced notice because it gives a lot of time to make this alternative planning,” Earle said. “It is hard to say if the decision was rushed [….] But it is also important this happened, since last year […], the decisions were made a bit too late.”

The university stated that it made their decision early to allow more time for preparation and to grant students a sense of certainty.

“One of the important pieces that came through in the discussions was the importance of a degree of certainty around what the expectations might be for the fall,” Buddle said. “It comes from some students [or] for potentially incoming students who are looking at a lot of different options for next fall as well and wanting to understand what the universities were doing. It might seem early to many in the community, but I think it’s really a signal that we are confident in our planning”

While Earle believes that many students are excited to return to campus, other organizations are concerned about the risk of exposing community members to COVID-19. Mario Roy, president of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM), maintains that the university did not consult teaching assistants (TAs) on how the mandatory return to campus will impact them.

“We have not been consulted by McGill on this position even though we have requested many times to be consulted before taking such decisions,” Roy said. “Some of the TAs have been requested to come back to work in person and some have been consulted and agreed and in other cases, they weren’t consulted [….] [McGill] does not care about […] the family situation, they only care about the students or members themselves, they do not worry about the people they might be putting at risk.”

Although McGill has a plan in place for in-person academic activities, the rollout of extracurricular activities on campus remains uncertain. Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Fabrice Labeau explained that the degree of in-person activities allowed will depend on how the pandemic evolves.

“We will put a priority on our academic activities to be in-person,” Labeau said. “We will be continuing to plan with different possible scenarios. All the scenarios will have the teaching research components, the core academic activities, and then we will have all the other activities in the plans. In some of these scenarios, it won’t be possible to have an in-person Frosh, and in some other [scenarios], it will.”

News, SSMU

SSMU Legislative Council approves Divest for Human Rights Policy

by Nina Russell on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Legislative Council convened on Feb. 25, where council members voted on the Motion Regarding the Adoption of the Divest for Human Rights Policy. The policy encourages SSMU to lobby the McGill administration to divest from companies that are complicit in a variety of human rights violations. It was initially put forth at the Feb. 16 SSMU General Assembly (GA), but was only adopted in a consultative capacity after approximately 80 attendees left the meeting prior to the vote, causing the assembly to lose quorum. Following 90 per cent approval for the motion at the GA, the coalition that authored the motion released a petition on Feb. 22 to encourage the Legislative Council to vote in favour of the motion.

The policy targets companies such as Puma and Nordstrom, which profit off China’s incarceration of the Ugyhur people in East Turkestan through the use of forced labour camps. Other companies mentioned in the policy include the Oshkosh Corporation, which manufactures vehicles that the Israeli military uses.

SSMU Vice-President (VP) of External Affairs Ayo Ogunremi urged the council to keep the results of the GA in mind when discussing the motion.

“I would note the significance of the motion being approved last week at the consultative forum and […] the fact that quorum was reached at GA last week and then was lost as a result of an exit [of a significant number of students],” Ogunremi said. “The result was 90 per cent in favour of this motion. I think that’s very important to consider going forward.”

The debate period, which lasted for almost two hours, centred on sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3 of the policy—sections that call to divest from arms manufacturing giant Lockheed Martin, and Re/Max, a real-estate company operating in occupied Palestinian territories. Some councillors believed that the policy unfairly targeted Israel, while others argued that this focus detracted from its substance, and defended the policy.

Maya Garfinkel, a U3 Arts student and research coordinator for Students for Peace and Disarmament, argued that the concerns surrounding human rights that were mentioned in the policy are important to McGill students. 

“There have been claims here that [the motion] misrepresents what is going on in Israel and Palestine right now,” Garfinkel said. “I just want to ask, what claim for Palestinian human rights would this council not take issue with? Anything regarding Palestinian human rights is contentious, and the reason that we’re bringing this up is because McGill students are concerned with these issues.”

Councillors on both sides of the issue were optimistic about the engagement in student government that the policy garnered, given that the petition urging the Legislative Council to vote in favour of the motion received 378 signatures. VP University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle noted that the motion encouraged students to voice their concerns on issues relating to student governance.

“While I understand concerns over the disenfranchisement of students, I would say that this is an example of students being engaged, interested, and hopeful [about] participation in student governance,” Frizzle said.

The motion was approved, with 21 councillors voting in favour, four abstaining, and five opposed. 

The Council also approved a motion amending the internal regulations of elections and referenda, which would provide a clear framework for students to organize “No” campaigns in opposition to a referendum question. The motion was approved with 29 in favour, one abstention, and none against.

Moment of the Meeting:

Management Representative Noah Gundermann unsuccessfully moved to postpone the Motion Regarding the Adoption of the Divest for Human Rights Policy as the minutes from the GA had not been distributed to councillors before the meeting, as per SSMU’s internal regulations on governance. No one seconded it, and the debate proceeded as planned.

Soundbite:

“While I understand the importance of [the] SSMU’s mandate to be a leader in cultural, social, and environmental issues, many of my constituents mention this as a reason for being inactive and disillusioned with student government. They’re frustrated when they see most of their representatives’ time being taken up by hot-button global issues when it feels to them that the issues they face on campus, such as the lack of support for sexual assault survivors and inadequate mental health resources, seem to fall by the wayside.” – Libby Williamson, Arts Representative to SSMU, on her reasons for opposing the Divest for Human Rights motion.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Wavelength Winter Festival kicks off with a virtual bang

by Deana Korsunsky on

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On Feb. 20, Toronto-based music festival Wavelength welcomed virtual attendees to the first show of its series. The non-profit arts organization has celebrated emerging artists for over 20 years, featuring local performers at the forefront of its events. This year was no exception: Toronto-based Zoon and Montreal-based Maryze and Backxwash took to the virtual stage to kick off the February music series. The show was divided into three livestreamed YouTube premieres with 30-minute intervals between performances, each artist having pre-recorded their set at their local venues. The resulting joint concert was a smoothly organized and phenomenally engaging success. 

The night’s first performer was Maryze, accompanied by producer Solomon KI on electric percussion. Filmed in the Diving Bell Social Club, Maryze gave a bewitching performance on a stage laden with fairy lights, candles, flowers, and of course, a diving bell. Gracefully moving around the stage while singing hits including “B.O.Y,” “Dis Moi,” and her soon-to-be-released track “Too Late,” Maryze curated an enchanting atmosphere, lulling listeners with her soft, hypnotic melodies. In-between songs, Maryze noted that this was her first performance in months, smiling as she did so.

“It’s really nice to be singing again and playing with Solomon and being on a stage,” Maryze said.

Maryze concluded her half-hour set with a cover of Caroline Polachek’s “Ocean of Tears,” effortlessly hitting every high note, enchanting viewers with the spell-binding atmosphere that she had cultivated throughout the set. 

The night’s second show was performed by Zoon, whose self-described Indigenous shoegaze pop performance contrasted beautifully with Maryze’s witchy, alt-pop tunes. Zoon’s set was filmed in the Toronto music studio Palace Sound, and featured Andrew McLeod on drums, Drew Rutty on bass, and Cole Sefton on lead guitar. The set was a feature film production rather than a recorded concert, heavily intermixing elements of sound, lighting, and camera editing to create a trance-like viewing and listening experience. The setlist was largely instrumental, with Zoon’s soft, nearly lyric-less vocalizations interspersed to highlight the varying melodic tempos. The camera moved between musicians, zooming in and out of their instruments, superimposing Zoon’s mouthing of lyrics in between shots, and blurring performers to create a dazy, ethereal ambience.

Polaris 2020 prize winner Backxwash ended the show on a fabulously demonic note. The Montreal rapper appeared onstage at La Sala Rossa in front of a pulpit and curtains, a tableau backlit in a red hue. Clad in devil horns, dark robes, a cross necklace, a crimson wig, and thick black eyeliner, Backxwash made clear her intention: Deliver to viewers a rebellious, subversive, satanic sermon. 

Armed with what seemed to be the most powerful bass line in existence and a fiery desire to shock and awe, Backxwash gave an incredible performance of—bluntly put—banger after banger. Backxwash performed many of her hits from her album Deviancy, including a rendition of her song “Devil in a Moshpit,” which was so consuming, made viewers forget that they were not, in fact, in a mosh pit. Livestream commenters raved during the performance, with one viewer even pointing out the extent to which Backxwash transported them to her virtual show. 

“[S]creaming at the screen like I’m on the rail at the show,” the viewer commented.

Wavelength’s pandemic premiere epitomized that the live music industry is not dead, but rather hibernating, and it will give its all to break out of the current performance slump. Each artist curated their own unique atmosphere that successfully transcended distance and device screens to envelop virtual attendees. From Maryze’s beguiling vocals to Zoon’s nostalgic instrumentals, to Backxwash’s satanic, digital rave, the evening was a phenomenal success. 

Saturday’s performances can be found here. The Wavelength concert series schedule can be found here.

Creative

Change Makers Episode 2: Alexis Zhou

by Alex Hinton on

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In the second episode of Change Makers, Multimedia Editor Alex Hinton speaks with Alexis Zhou, a U3 Russian & Latin American Studies major, community organizer, and freelance journalist. Alexis recently co-founded the first ever Sunrise Movement chapter in Canada. They discuss the organization’s purpose, future, and how McGill students can get involved.

Features

A petrified stream of consciousness

by Ruobing Chen on

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Content Warning: Vomiting, graphic imagery 

Fear can really humble us. In the face of something that terrifies us, we are driven to confront the cause. This can help us survive––fear is the body’s way of protecting us.

Unfortunately, fear can also be completely removed from any legitimate danger. 

My fear, like those of others, has been a weakness that has paralyzed me, and has continued to limit me.

~

It is often difficult to pinpoint where a certain fear originates, but I remember one particular day in grade school that plays out in my mind as if it were a silent film.

I was with my father at an information session, listening to coordinators discussing the secondary institution and program I was applying for. We were sitting off to the side in a room crowded with people, each of them displaying emotions somewhere between boredom and eagerness. During the middle of the talk, my father began snoring beside me, earning us a few dirty looks, and out of embarrassment I shook him awake. 

Barely a minute passed before I heard the snoring again and I realized that something was wrong. I sprang out of my seat in the middle of the presentation as I saw that he had started to throw up obscene amounts of blood and vomit—enough to scatter the entire crowd to the edges of the room.

I recall that even though I had watched the ambulance carry him out on a stretcher, what had just occurred did not dawn on me until after I arrived home in my friend’s car, like a morbid rush of adrenaline.

~

Although fears may have planted their roots early on in our lives, one rarely realizes the degree to which they manifest until much later on.

It seems as though the more something is dutifully avoided, the more it tends to appear around you—rather, you notice it more frequently, and every encounter stays ingrained within your psyche. I have seen my cat hack out hairballs, listened to friends say they are about to throw up, and heard tales of my grandmother’s nauseating side effects from chemotherapy. I often cannot help but picture myself and those that I love having to go through these terrifying experiences, but they are just transient memories for them. Even for me, it is hard to understand why I fear just another natural bodily process; it is lonely having a niche phobia.

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