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Student Life

Opening up Saint-Henri’s community fridge

by Josephine Wang on

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A little over four years ago, a previously unhoused man in Saint-Henri came up with an idea to give back to his community. Seeing that there were few resources available in the east of Montreal to individuals in precarious financial situations, he decided to start a community fridge to ensure access to healthy food and reduce food waste. The idea behind the initiative is straightforward: Stationed in a public space, the community refrigerator encourages neighbourhood residents to contribute food.

The fridge has since blossomed into Le Frigo Communautaire Saint-Henri, a community initiative fuelled by donations and loyal volunteers who organize the fridge and prepare food. 

“When I moved back to Montreal three years ago, I found out about the fridge and would bring food almost everyday,” Claude Chevalot, the manager of Le Frigo Communautaire, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We managed to raise money and made meals during Christmas. It went on like this for a while [until] the fridge broke down. We couldn’t put a new one in the same spot [anymore] since the landlord did not want us to.” 

The original fridge was located in Fattal, a cluster of commercial loft buildings populated primarily by low-income individuals. Many residents in the area relied on the community fridge for food. After it broke down, it took Chevalot six months to find a suitable location for its replacement; the new fridge is not far from the original one, located behind Friperie Sidneys at 5165 rue Notre Dame Ouest. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity—with unemployment and poverty rates skyrocketing, healthy groceries have become unaffordable to many. Thankfully, Le Frigo Communautaire is receiving a consistent flow of donations, which has helped the initiative remain up and running throughout the pandemic. 

“Restaurants and food services were closing, so I would often wake up to find boxes of food on every step of my staircase,” Chevalot said. “We would rush to get everything to the fridge [.…] We made more and more partnerships with local merchants.”

As many people regularly frequent the fridge, most of the supplies are quick to run out and some residents cannot arrive in time to access their share. To address the demand, Chevalot puts together weekly food baskets for people in the community upon request. 

With the help of five dedicated volunteers, the project quickly gathered momentum. As Le Frigo Communautaire hopes to prepare more food baskets for families in need, their biggest challenge is finding storage space. 

“We are not a registered charity, which means that we cannot give tax income receipts,” Chevalot said. “The best thing that could happen to us is to have a sponsor who could allow us to have a large storage space. We [also] need volunteers with cars able to carry heavy boxes to help us pick up donations.”

Community refrigerators have been popping up across Canada in response to increasing rates of food insecurity and food waste. Given how the pandemic has aggravated issues of financial precarity, seeing people come together to support their neighbours through difficult times is what makes initiatives like Le Frigo Communautaire so fruitful. Community-led efforts like these put resources directly into the hands of those in need. Mutual aid initiatives like the Community Cooks Co-operative are based on similar principles of community support.

“Right now […] we make gigantic food baskets for over 35 families,” Chevalot said. “Many times people who receive these baskets write to us to tell us that they feel loved and cared for, because we take the time to know them. We will put some surprises for the kids and […] prepare meals to give parents a break.”

If you are looking to get involved with Le Frigo Communautaire, you can donate via Interac using the email address [email protected], bring food to the fridge, or make food donations for the food baskets.

Chill Thrills, Student Life

Montreal lights up with Luminothérapie

by Holly Wethey on

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Under curfew, the city sleeps early. The flame of Montreal’s infamous nightlife seems to have been extinguished, leaving no trace of the nocturnal glowscape it once was.

If you have wandered downtown recently, you’ve likely encountered a series of spinning wheels in Quartier des Spectacles. These glowing rings are no alien spacecrafts––they are part of the public art installation LOOP, which hopes to bring back the light that the city has been missing.

LOOP, the 2016-2017 winner of the Luminotherapié multidisciplinary competition for public art installations, features 13 giant glowing loops, which use visual art, light, and sound to pay homage to Quebec authors and artists.  

Olivier Girouard, the artistic director of Ekumen, the company behind LOOP, began the project in 2017. His background in music helped him create LOOP.

“The tools that you use for live performance and outdoor performance art are basically the same,” Girouard said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to transpose that into bigger space.”

Girouard and fellow artist Jonathan Villeneuve were also interested in creating a public merry-go-round, but could not do so for security reasons. Instead, they found a creative alternative.

“I had just run the Toronto marathon and I was interested in human-powered machines,” Girouard said. “With LOOP, we used that same idea and we took the merry-go-round and flipped it on its side.” 

The artists were inspired by the Zoetrope, a device that predates film reels and uses the same circular motion to produce moving images. 

“We reproduced [the Zoetrope] with flickering light,” Girouard said. “The brain creates the illusion that the images are moving.” 

This year, LOOP took an interesting turn when SODEC, a government organization supporting Quebec’s cultural enterprises, was invited to show a piece at the Frankfurt Book Fair, an event which features a pavilion dedicated to a different country each year. This year, with Canada being featured, SODEC hoped to highlight Quebecois culture in the installation and reached out to the creators of LOOP to do a variation of the piece for the book fair.

“SODEC wanted Quebec to be more represented and approached Quartier des Spectacles to do an installation, and we adapted that this year into a new version of LOOP, with 12 stories all representing a Quebec author or book,” Girouard said. 

Each loop tells its own story, such as that of the children’s book Au-Delà de la Forêt by Nadine Robert and Gérard Dubois. The images depict the tale of a rabbit curious about what lies across its forest and climbs the trees only to find a deer in another forest staring back at him.

Not only does the exhibition feature a wide assortment of literature, but its interactivity makes it unique. The lever-pulling action required to activate the installations keeps visitors warm during the winter months.

“In the public space, interactivity is really important,” Girouard said. “What makes [LOOP] special is the different layers of experience; from a distance it’s a light sculpture, already an experience from afar. When you get closer, you see people activating it and you have the option of activating or not. It’s a combination of the sound, the images, the literature, and the sculpture; a meeting of all that art together.” 

LOOP is not the only installation to light up Place des Arts this year; Entre les Rangs allows visitors to walk through a variety of ethereal winter vegetation, and Nouvelle Lune uses music, shadows, and light to reveal images representing the culture of the Quartier des Spectacles.

Girouard is also behind Coeur Battant, a five-minute light show on Rue St. Catherine that can be seen every night at 6:00 p.m. from different buildings throughout Montreal. 

“I wanted to create a piece in solidarity with the public and artists of Montreal to say that we’re still here,” Girouard said. “It’s a five-minute short story representing the year we’ve just been through—the disillusion, the changes, but with an ending describing better days ahead.”

McGill, News

Ongoing Divest McGill boycott of Metro continues into March

by Signy Harnad on

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Five members of Divest McGill met to picket outside the Plateau’s St-Hubert Metro location on March 8 as part of a boycott campaign launched in summer 2020. The small but energetic crowd wielded signs in front of the store for over one hour, braving temperatures below freezing as they engaged Metro customers and passers-by into conversation about the campaign. 

The boycott Metro initiative, which was kickstarted by Climate Justice Montreal in June 2020, is aligned with Divest McGill’s call for the McGill Board of Governors (BoG) to divest investments from their holdings in some of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. According to Sofia Mucci, U3 Arts and Divest McGill member, the goal of the boycott is to put pressure on BoG Vice-Chair Maryse Bertrand—a key BoG member against divestment—by targeting her personal investments and involvement in Metro Inc.

“We are specifically targeting Metro because the Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors is Maryse Bertrand, who earns a salary from Metro Inc. and wields power there,” Mucci said. “We are putting pressure on her by attacking her financial assets.”

Mucci explained that the boycott campaign relies on public engagement and emphasized the curiosity that some customers have shown toward the initiative.

“Some people will come to us with questions, especially younger people,” Mucci said. “Especially because of COVID, people often really want to have conversations with strangers, so they are willing to talk to us.”  

According to a 2020 report, Bertrand earned a retainer of $131,660 from her investments with Metro and held over half a million dollars in shares. Samuel Helguero, L2 Law and Divest McGill member, explained that targeting Betrand is not the sole factor behind the boycott of Metro. 

“[Metro] is an oligopoly,” Helguero said. “Along with a couple of other industry giants, Metro cut their worker’s pandemic pay, but still, at the end of the year, gave their executives […] the near-maximum bonus they could have given to their five top executives.”

Laura Doyle Péan, L2 Law and a Divest McGill member, hopes that the campaign will help stoke a broader conversation about the BoG’s powerful role within the McGill community.

“We are hoping to find ways to get rid of the Board as it currently exists and replace it with something that would allow […] the McGill community to have a say,” Péan said. “We are looking into recruiting people from different subgroups that form the McGill community and all have an interest in democratizing how decisions are made.”

Helguero said the effectiveness of targeted boycotts lay in their focus on targeting money flows as a powerful form of leverage to influence professionals and key decision makers. 

“When you start targeting people’s financial and professional interests, they really have to think about what they are doing,” Helguero said. “There are only so many people that can be convinced when you have hit the democratic walls, because then you [have to] appeal to the moral and intellectual sensibilities of people [….] Many sit on national banks or on the boards of Metro, or have worked for the fossil fuel industry before, like Cynthia Price Vereaux, who worked for Petro-Canada for 18 years.”

Helguero reflected on the course of the campaign, and looked ahead toward educational initiatives that he hopes will spring from the boycott. 

“Maryse Bertrand is now part of a company [that has] a boycott […] against it by environmental activists,” Helguero said. “Hopefully in the future we will be able to use the boycott as a bouncing off point to talk about fossil fuel investments in Canada.”

 

Fact or Fiction, Science & Technology

Fact or Fiction: Does money really buy happiness?

by Margaret Wdowiak on

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Many communities continue to live traditional lifestyles detached from money-based markets. Yet contrary to popular belief, they lead fulfilling lives and their mental well-being is comparable to individuals living in money-fueled societies. This prompts the age-old question of whether money truly buys happiness.

In recent decades, people with more money have been shown to be happier. Financial insecurity, on the other hand, is associated with stress-related health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure. 

However, skeptics argue that money is not the key to happiness because one can never have enough of it. The more wealth someone has accrued, the more they seek out monetary gain. This occurs because the more money one has, the less effective it is at bringing comfort and pleasure. Research argues that once people have their basic human needs met, the increase in happiness associated with each dollar diminishes. 

There are three main reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, once people are financially secure, they overestimate the value of excess funds—humans are adaptable, and swiftly adjust to new wealth and everything it affords. Therefore, the satisfaction from higher earnings quickly fades. 

Secondly, studies have shown that increased economic standing leads to stress that arises from lifestyle changes that include moving to the suburbs, where longer commute times to and from work induce anxiety. 

Finally, money-fixated societies encourage people to compare themselves to their peers, rendering happiness fleeting; in such instances relative happiness matters more than absolute happiness. 

Another challenge to the notion that money can buy happiness is that high happiness levels have been observed in less economically developed nations. A recent study conducted by a group of McGill researchers found that high levels of well-being can be achieved in minimally monetized societies. 

“In a minimally monetized society, people don’t need money to fulfill their basic needs,” Eric Galbraith, a professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Instead they can grow or forage their own food and build most of their own houses and tools.” 

The researchers compared the subjective well-being levels in the Solomon Islands, a remote island chain in the western Pacific, and that of low-income communities in Bangladesh to high income societies in the West. They conducted a survey measuring emotional well-being, affect balance, and momentary affect. Emotional well-being refers to the mood generated from a particular experience, while affect balance measures the difference between positive and negative emotions. 

To determine affect balance, researchers interviewed participants about the emotions they had experienced the previous day. Data on momentary affect was studied by telephoning participants at random times to assess their emotional state. 

The team found high subjective well-being within minimally monetized societies. 

“We were surprised to find that people in the least monetized society reported being just as happy as people in the wealthiest countries, and reported being much happier than people in monetized societies with low incomes,” Galbraith wrote. 

Solomon Islanders reported sources of happiness such as nature and relaxation, while Bangladeshis emphasized the importance of social and material factors.

“The answers we got from the less monetized societies were more about experience, more about certain activities, and they were less about social ties and economic outcomes,” Christopher Barrington-Leigh, an associate professor in McGill Department of Economics, said in an interview with the Tribune. 

Overall, the study challenges the perception that personal financial growth inevitably leads to increased life satisfaction.

“Our results show that, although people with high incomes are (on average) happier, it’s not the income itself that matters,” Galbraith wrote. “Rather, it’s probably a combination of factors like the freedom to make choices, social recognition, and living within a functioning society that matters.”

McGill, News, Private

Expanding Economics panel considers the importance of decolonizing economics

by Saylor Catlin on

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Expanding Economics, a McGill initiative that aims to promote pluralism within the field of economics, hosted the virtual panel, “Decolonizing Economics” on Feb. 27. Panellists discussed how colonial legacies have influenced economic development and economic theory and suggested ways to decolonize economics from an academic perspective. The event featured Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies, and Carolina Cristina Alves, a research fellow in heterodox economics, both at the University of Cambridge. Joining them was Carol Anne Hilton, the CEO and founder of Indigenomics Institute, an Indigenous economic advisory group. 

Shanaya D’sa, U3 Arts and Expanding Economics co-vice-president events introduced the event’s panellists and spoke on the relevance of decolonization in a colonial capitalist society. 

“Our goal for today is to bring to light the ways in which colonialism has played a formative role in present mainstream economics and economic development so that we can actively decolonize our mindsets and our education,” D’sa said. 

Gopal began the discussion, offering insight into the ways imperialism and monoculturalism have shaped contemporary academic curricula. She explained how post secondary institutions have greatly benefited from the flow of resources and profits produced by colonialism.

“Universities in the West […] were able to accumulate archives, specimens, objects, information,” Gopal said. “All of these things [were] afforded to them […] by colonial knowledge gathering.”

Gopal felt that there is no single way to go about decolonizing higher education and curricula, but emphasized that attention to history is essential.

“Decolonization is meaningless without a set of principles […] that allow it to emerge as a practice that is sensitive to the present and to context steeped in historical awareness,” Gopal said. “There is something still to be said for universities as sites where intellectual and transformative work can intersect.” 

Alves then detailed how heterodox schools of thought—economic theories that diverge from mainstream economic principles—play a role in decolonizing economics by diversifying economic theory. She argued that the normalization of capitalism in economic development theories and the Eurocentric underpinnings of the discipline necessitates heterodox thinking. 

“Economic theories that developed in Europe are the ones that become the starting points for economists to analyze everything,” Alves said. “[These theories are] literally one size fits all. There is this idea that [Western] scholarship […] is the one that is valued, so we exclude local knowledge [and] we do not consider theory […] that is related to scholars from the Global South.” 

Alves argued that universities should acknowledge and integrate non-Western ideas into economics curricula. 

“Representation [of what?] is really about how we understand […] the development of our economic theories,” Alves said. “[We try] to understand who gets to define what we are studying, who gets to define what is economics, and then [we try] to break this intellectual hierarchy that we see in our discipline.”

Hilton concluded the panel by highlighting the ways that Canada’s Eurocentric economy has challenged Indigenous communities and exploring how these barriers could be overcome. 

“Here in Canada, the Indigenous peoples […] are the only ones who have had to fight for the right to an economy,” Hilton said. “There is no other population within this country who have had to express what our rights were across time, what our rights are today, and how we create that economic and legal space today and in our future.”

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, D’sa emphasized the importance of creating space for discussions on the legacies of colonialism. 

“The colonizer [versus] colonized superiority [complex] and [the] power dynamic is something that has seeped through the generations,” D’sa said. “It’s important for us to […] be aware that the economic theory that we study today is […] a byproduct of colonialism to begin with.”

Student Life

The history behind Women’s History Month

by Maya Mau on

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Content warning: Sexual assault

What started as Women’s History Day on March 19, 1911 eventually became Women’s History Month, an international worldwide celebration in March. Today, Women’s History Month prompts us to commemorate the powerful women who have shaped the world and advocated for gender equality. 

Though two lengthy world wars saw women increasingly working outside the home in roles previously filled by men, social and political change was largely pushed to the back burner. Nevertheless, women advocated for their labour to be recognized and for more employment opportunities. During the first celebrations in 1911, over one million people worldwide marched for social reform on March 19. There was a growing consciousness that women should not be confined to the domestic sphere and should have access to the professional world outside the home. 

The United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975 to spotlight the fight for women’s equality. In 1978, a California school district dedicated a week to educating students about women’s contributions to culture, history, and society. U.S. President Jimmy Carter made Women’s History Week official in 1980, and Congress did the same a year later. Six years later, in 1987, a National Women’s History Project petition successfully extended the celebration to one full month.

Although the Canadian government officially recognizes Women’s History Month in October, many Canadians still celebrate women who have made an impact in March. There have been many notable Canadian women throughout history, such as the Famous Five, who advocated for women’s political rights in the 1920s when the Canadian government did not legally recognize women as people. Feminist activists have shaped the Canadian social landscape and paved the way for better legal rights and professional opportunities for women. However, figures like the Famous Five also leave behind a fraught legacy of racism, eugenics, and anti-immigration. In celebrating their achievements, it is crucial to recognize that their advocacy did not include all women. 

Marie-Lynn Mansour, U3 Engineering and McGill Women in Tech’s vice-president (VP) external, and Safiya Rizwan, U2 Science and VP communication, emphasize the importance honouring the women who have fought for gender equality.

“We cherish Women’s History Month as it is a time to honour and recognize the past, [to] acknowledge accomplishments made [in] the present, and [to] work towards improving the future,” Mansour and Rizwan wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “We believe there is no better way to learn than from understanding the history of the struggles women have endured as well as their triumphs. [… In addition,] we believe Women’s History Month is also a time to inspire younger women to become passionate about their rights.”

In celebrating Women’s History Month, it is crucial to interrogate the figures we celebrate and recognize that meaningful feminism must be intersectional. There are many women from marginalized backgrounds who have not always enjoyed the same rights as white women or seen their advocacy recognized––a trend which continues today. Among them is Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who helped other African Americans make their way to Canada in the early 19th century, and founded a weekly publication to assist other escaped and formerly enslaved people. In addition, Edith Anderson Monture, a Mohawk WWI veteran, was the first Indigenous woman to gain the right to vote in a Canadian federal election and the first to become a registered nurse during the war. 

Lea Lepik, U4 Arts and co-president of McGill Women in Leadership, believes that it is particularly important for McGill students to recognize current and past gender inequalities within the university’s community this month. In particular, Lepik noted the crucial context of recent sexual assault allegations on college campuses.

“The fight against patriarchy (among other sources of oppression) is far from over, as is evidenced by the tragic events of last semester in which a string of sexual assaults on campus came to light,” Lepik wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Having experienced on-campus violence myself, this hit close to home as I could, unfortunately, relate to the brave women who came forward. I stand by them and hope they are able to get justice and some peace.”

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Determining the criteria for postmortem organ donation

by Cyril Kazan on

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In the past, a person’s death was determined by the absence of breathing and a heartbeat. However, the introduction of the mechanical ventilator has complicated death determination. In patients with severe damage to the brain, breathing stops, which causes the heart to stop beating. Through life support, doctors can now keep a patient clinically alive by mechanically ventilating them with a machine, even if they do not have a functioning brain. 

“When things cannot get better with time or treatment, all life support does is prolong an inevitable death,” Dr. Sam Shemie, an intensive care doctor at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGill, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “When the patient cannot recover, or cannot recover with any quality of life, there is usually a decision with the family to stop life support.” 

In these situations, doctors often bring up the question of organ donation to the patient’s family. 

“Someone’s inevitable death can still help many other people through organ donation, to prevent death for other people,” Shemie said. 

Some organ donations, like kidney transplants, can be performed with no significant impact on a living donor’s health. When it comes to donating vital organs, the “dead donor rule,” an ethical and legal requirement in Canada and the United States, states that the donor must be deceased before their organs are removed. 

Until recently there was no formal scientific study defining when exactly a patient can be considered dead. The “five-minute rule” was the most widely accepted standard, which simply suggests that doctors should wait five minutes after removing the patient from life support before proceeding with organ removal. 

An international study conducted in three countries including Canada was the first to examine the five-minute rule in great detail. Shemie, who is also the senior investigative researcher of the study, described the goals of their inquiry.

“We wanted to confirm that this is a safe waiting period before proceeding to donation,” Shemi said. 

The results showed that out of 480 patients, there were 67 instances where a resumption of cardiac activity was detected, all within a maximum of four minutes and 20 seconds after the removal of life support. 

“At the end of life, the heart can sputter, stop, and restart transiently to a minor degree before it stops completely,” Shemie said. “But as long as we wait five minutes, it is safe. These transient resumptions are of unclear significance.” 

Organ donation is a race against time, as any unnecessary delay increases the risk of unsuccessful transplantation and deterioration of the organs. The study confirmed that five minutes is a safe waiting time.

“Once the heart stops beating, all the organs that can be transplanted start to suffer, so they have to be removed for transplant very quickly,” Shemie said. “We don’t have to wait more, and we shouldn’t wait less.” 

The most common form of organ donation in Canada remains donation from patients who are brain dead, meaning an absence of activity is detected from electrical measurements of a patient’s brain. It is important to distinguish brain death from cardiac death, where the brain may still have some residual function when life support is removed. In the case of cardiac death, the study has shown that waiting five minutes after the removal of the ventilation machine assures that the patient is dead and that it is safe to proceed with organ donation. 

“[The results] just add to the trust of families, doctors, and nurses,” Shemie said. “If any doctor has ever seen the heart restart beating on its own, they might have some questions or concerns about that. We now have answered this question very clearly. Our goal as doctors is to save as many lives as we can [….] Organ donation is really the intersection of the unpreventable death of one person, and the preventable death of many people.”

Divest McGill Illustration
Montreal, News

Student activists host virtual rally calling for divestment from Line 3 pipeline

by Ella Fitzhugh on

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Content warning: Human trafficking

Nearly 350 students across Canada and the United States attended a virtual student-led rally on March 5 to call for the defunding of Line 3, a tar sands pipeline project set to run from Alberta to Minnesota. The featured keynote speaker Tara Houska, a tribal attorney, Indigenous rights activist, and Couchiching First Nation citizen, along with other student speakers from across North America, called for universities to divest from the project and for students to take action against the pipeline. During the rally, representatives from Divest McGill provided resources for McGill-specific student action.

The Line 3 project is managed by Enbridge Inc., an energy company based in Alberta. Stine Myrah, a student from the University of Minnesota Duluth, detailed the pipeline’s impact on  Indigenous peoples and climate change. 

“Line 3 harms people, particularly the Anishinaabe people whose land the pipeline is being constructed through,” Myrah said. “[The pipeline’s construction] violates treaty rights and ignores Indigenous sovereignty by threatening their lands, food, cultural resources, and traditional ways of life. Pipeline construction is also directly correlated with increased human trafficking in neighbouring communities, particularly impacting Indigenous women, girls, and relatives.”

Myrah also argued that Enbridge showed a lack of accountability surrounding the sex trafficking that the pipeline has instigated.

“Enbridge and state regulators are aware of this direct link between Line 3 construction and human trafficking, but they don’t care,” Myrah said. “They do not value human well-being or human life.” 

The Line 3 pipeline will require 227 surface water crossings in Minnesota. Myrah noted that Enbridge has a track record of oil spills, having been the culprit of the largest ever oil spill in the state in 1991.

During the rally, attendees were invited to sign petitions and participate in calendar jams, which involves spamming bank CEOs with calendar invites to pressure their divestment from the project. Divest McGill also called on McGill students to sign its petition supporting the boycott of Metro Inc. The boycott aims to put pressure on Maryse Bertrand—Vice-Chair of McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) and a key member refusing for the university to divest from fossil fuels—by targeting her personal investments in Metro Inc.

Houska highlighted the importance of divestment from industries complicit in abuses of Indigenous people and exploitation of the land.

“Divestment […] is a very effective thing,” Houska said. “Morality is just not something that the banking industry, the tar sands industry, the big oil industry, the mining industries are really interested in [….] They are the destroyers of the planet, the destroyers of life.”

Houska claims that universities cannot truly be committed to inclusivity if they are investing in unethical companies.

“[It is important to bring] these arguments forward to your colleges and your universities, especially [in] places that are really proud of their social justice programming,” Houska said. “[Universities are] always bragging about their ‘space that is inclusive of all’ [….] Well, why are you a space that is investing in the destruction of Indigenous peoples’ homelands? Why are you a space that is investing in the destruction and theft from my future [and] our futures?”

In an email interview with The McGill Tribune, Zahur Ashrafuzzaman, U1 Arts & Science and Divest McGill representative, detailed McGill’s investments in the project and called on students to take direct action. 

“We know about the impacts of these extractive projects on climate as well as their effects on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people,” Ashrafuzzaman wrote. “McGill must end its complicity in this violence by ending their investments in [the] extractive industry. Beyond that, we can all commit not to bank with the big banks that are funding these projects.”

McGill, News

Tribune Explains: McGill’s changes to campus building ventilation

by Madison Edward-Wright on

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In preparation for the in-person Fall 2021 semester, the McGill administration is working to upgrade campus heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Denis Mondou, associate vice-principal (VP) of Facilities Management and Ancillary Services, maintained that all changes will be made in accordance with recommendations from Canadian public health agencies. 

Why are new ventilation units being installed?

Ongoing renovations of the Stewart Biology Building has made it the centre of McGill’s ventilation upgrades. In addition to various HVAC projects that were planned prior to the pandemic, the building will contain new state-of-the-art laboratories and boast new interior and exterior facades. New HVAC system upgrades have been installed on campus since 2017, notably in Burnside Hall, the University Centre, and the Education Building. As students and staff return to school, the new ventilation units will serve to make campus safer for everyone.

The Canadian government and public health agencies have consistently emphasized the importance of good ventilation and have created guidelines for maximizing the circulation of clean air in indoor spaces. Proper building ventilation is essential for mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks because constant air exchange moves viral particles out of rooms, replenishing spaces with filtered air. 

“In response to COVID-19, McGill has implemented [several] measures regarding the operation of its HVAC systems,” Mondou said.“These [measures] are focussed on maximizing fresh air intake [by] extending the operating hours of the systems.”

How will ventilation systems change on campus?

A major change to ventilation in buildings on campus will entail extending operating hours of the filtration systems. HVAC systems will be turned on “high output” two hours before the school day begins until two hours after the day ends; exact times will vary between building to building. During after hours, HVAC systems will be kept on a lower setting since there will be fewer people in the buildings. 

The new HVAC systems being installed will also have the rating MERV-13, which ranks highly on the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) scale. MERV-13 rated filters are highly effective at trapping smaller particles in the air, including airborne viruses, and will be replaced regularly.

How will McGill fund their ventilation projects?

Conversations on how to fit these ventilation projects into McGill’s annual budget are still ongoing as approval for exceptional COVID-19 expenditures depends on trends that the university notices in monthly spending and revenue. In an email to The McGill Tribune, McGill’s Associate Director of Media Relations Cynthia Lee explained that McGill will consider the expectations of different academic and administrative units when finalizing the 2021-2022 budget. The upcoming university budget will be discussed and put to vote on April 22 by the Board of Governors (BoG).

What do these changes mean for students?

According to Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle, student associations and representatives have allegedly been excluded in the conversations or decisions regarding COVID-19 safety on campus. Frizzle expressed concern over the feasibility of a full-scale return to in-person classes this fall despite the new ventilation installments. 

“I am unconvinced that ventilation upgrades [and changes] are anywhere near enough to compensate for the university’s aggressive plans to return to in-person learning in the Fall,” Frizzle said.

The McGill administration is confident that along with the new ventilation systems, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is sufficient to keep the university’s community safe when students return to in-person classes.

“The health and wellbeing of our community will […] remain a top priority,” Lee said on behalf of the university. “All necessary health and safety measures will continue to be implemented to ensure that our campuses remain safe places to learn and to work in the coming year.”

 

Basketball, Sports

Sylvia Sweeney: Trailblazer, leader, visionary

by Zoe Babad-Palmer on

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Montrealer Sylvia Sweeney has had a career that is nothing short of extraordinary. As a member of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame, World Championship MVP and bronze medalist, an original board member of the Toronto Raptors, member of the Order of Canada, and Canada’s “First Lady of Basketball,” Sweeney has proved to be a tremendously talented athlete. Since retiring in 1984, Sweeney has continued to make an impact outside of the world of sports, telling stories in documentaries and spreading cultural awareness through the arts. It is no wonder that U SPORTS and TSN have honoured her with the creation of the Sylvia Sweeney Award, presented every year to a women’s basketball student-athlete who is well-rounded and dedicated to both athletics and academics.

Sweeney’s first experience with basketball was facing off against boys in her neighbourhood. She would bet them a quarter that she could beat them one-on-one and would happily accept her coins when they underestimated her. Years later, she made waves in the world of Canadian university sports when she set the record for most points scored in a game playing for the McGill Martlets in 1973. Sweeney later played for the Concordia Stingers in 1977 and the Laurentian Lady Vees from 1978 to 1979, taking home the national championship in her final year with the Vees.

When women’s basketball was first introduced to the Montreal Olympics in 1976, Sweeney played for Team Canada. She was made captain in 1979 and led her team to a fourth-place finish at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, which remains the team’s best showing to this day. At the 1979 Pan American Games in Mexico, Sweeney received the honour of bearing her country’s flag at the opening ceremony. The Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame recognized Sweeney’s achievements in 1996, making her the first woman inducted into the Hall for excellence in basketball.

After her basketball career, Sweeney turned her talents to media. She worked as a researcher, journalist, anchor, and sportscaster for CBC and CTV. Sweeney founded Elitha Peterson Productions Incorporated, a motion pictures production company and studio in Toronto. Sweeney also produced several award-winning documentaries, and was eventually named an executive producer of the National Film Board of Canada in 2002. One of her 1992 documentaries, In the Key of Oscar, told the story of her uncle, the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

In addition to sports and media, Sweeney also holds a clear passion for the arts. She studied classical piano in the Department of Performance during her time at McGill, and managed the funk/R&B band Tchukon while working at CBC. She has continued to combine her love for arts and sports, most notably in her production of the 2008 Marriage of Excellence concert series, which featured disabled artists in performances that occurred between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. She recently directed her efforts toward ArtsGames, a global competition that she founded to celebrate artistic achievement in media arts, literature, visual arts, dance, and music. During her 20 years working for the ArtsGames, Sweeney staged several concerts and festivals, including the 1999 Blueprints Arts & Entertainment Festival in Toronto and performances at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic Games.

Sweeney’s mission, whether in her athletic career, media work, or artistic endeavours, has always been to build bridges between communities and foster connections. She believes that excellence should be visible and celebrated, and used as a tool for promoting cultural awareness, acceptance, and education. Her presence as one of the first Black players on the Canadian National Team and one of the first Black women on CBC television has led to a greater platform for Black women in sports and the media, and has opened doors for those yet to come.

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