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Science & Technology

McGill partners with Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees

by Shirley Xu on

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Think about how often you hit “search” on your computer. From course work to finding the best restaurants in Montreal, students surf the net for almost anything. Ecosia, a free search engine, takes advantage of our internet usage by planting one tree per approximately 45 searches. 

Recently, McGill’s Office of Sustainability and IT Services have collaborated to introduce Ecosia to the McGill community as part of the university’s sustainability strategy. Suppose you perform only one search per day: Combined with the 40,000 students at McGill, nearly 900 trees would be planted every day.

“We’re super grateful for the sustainability team at McGill for encouraging students to switch to Ecosia,” Fred Henderson of the partnerships team at Ecosia wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

The McGill-specific extension for Ecosia is free and voluntary, with easy to follow installation instructions. As affirmed on the company website, Ecosia is committed to protecting user privacy by not selling data to advertisers and operating free of external trackers that companies use to generate targeted ads.

Since its inception in 2009, Ecosia has planted 120 million trees worldwide, and the live tree-planting counter on its homepage continues to grow.

“All of our digital activity […] has its own carbon footprint,” Francois Miller, executive director at the McGill Office of Sustainability, wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Everything we do consumes energy, both locally in our homes and abroad where servers […] are located. Through Ecosia, we are giving McGillians an easy way to neutralize the impact of their web usage.” 

Like any other search engine, Ecosia generates revenue from users clicking on advertisements that appear with search results. The ad revenue is used to fund planting projects worldwide: The company supports over 20 tree planting projects across 15 different countries. 

The trees are planted in biodiversity hotspots, areas abundant in unique species found nowhere else on earth. Alarmingly, the natural vegetation in these hotspots has shrunk by over 70 per cent. Ecosia’s planting projects help preserve biodiversity, combat climate change, regenerate depleted soils, and provide food, jobs, and economic stability to vulnerable communities. 

The company has also built solar farms to fuel their browser searches with renewable energy. 

“That way, we’re not just producing enough energy to power all of our users’ searches with renewables—we are producing twice as much,” Joshua Gottlieb, editorial lead at Ecosia, wrote in an email to the Tribune.

Gottlieb explained that reforestation is essential to any climate strategy since trees are the most efficient carbon dioxide absorbers. However, it is also important to avoid invasive species and monoculture, and to work with local communities to ensure the trees survive. 

“However, tree-planting should not be used as an excuse to reduce emissions—there’s no way around that,” Gottlieb wrote.“ We need to stop emitting as well as re-capture past emissions.” 

University students have the potential to create meaningful change, whether it be through small efforts like switching search engines to support reforestation or through involvement in community activism. 

“Ecosia on campus campaigns don’t just help plant trees […], they also help young people get involved in climate action,” Gottlieb wrote. “We hope that our purpose-driven, not-for-profit business model will inspire others to prioritize our planet, and move beyond mere sustainability towards active regeneration.”

Though much more must be done, including divesting from fossil fuels, the partnership with Ecosia is a positive step in McGill’s path to creating a more healthy and sustainable Earth. 

“Since the Ecosia program launched at McGill there have been over 18,000 searches completed through the platform,” Miller wrote. “We are excited as a university to be contributing to this global reforestation movement.”

Science & Technology

2021 could be the shortest year in decades

by Youssef Wahba on

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While most assume that a day lasts 24 hours, this is not entirely true. Scientists believe that the Earth is spinning faster than it has in 50 years, and as a result, each day in 2021 may be infinitesimally shorter.

To understand why this is, it is important to know how the duration of Earth’s full rotation is measured. The Earth follows an elliptical motion around the Sun, completing one full rotation about its axis every 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds. Atomic clocks—highly precise time-measuring instruments—have shown that this value is usually off by a few milliseconds due to variations in Earth’s rotational speed from one year to the next. This is caused by changes in angular momentum, a measure of a body’s spin with respect to its mass, velocity, and radius.

Olivia Jensen, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill, is a geophysicist who studies the mechanics and dynamics of the Earth.

“On short time scales, the length of day increases due to the loss of angular momentum and the redistribution of mass within and over the Earth,” Jensen wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It is not a regular increase.” 

In the past decades, the Earth’s rotation about its axis has been slowing down, causing days to last longer than the conventional 24 hours. The moon’s gravitational pull is responsible for this deceleration; tidal forces caused by the moon induce a frictional force that slows down the Earth’s rotation. This difference amounts to one second every one and a half years, allowing scientists to introduce the “leap second.” Just as leap days are used every four years to adjust for the Earth’s rotation around the sun, a leap second is added to accommodate the delayed time it takes for the Earth to spin about its axis. 

Although adding this leap second would go unnoticed by the average person, it is considered essential for the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the stock market—where trades occur every fraction of a second—to operate accurately. Additionally, it is key to researchers working in astronomy.

However, this year is different. Recent findings have shown that the Earth will spin faster than it did five decades ago, urging scientists to consider the need for a “negative leap second.” Adding a negative leap second to the global clock would mean that the last day of 2021 would end at 23:59:58 rather than 23:59:59 in all time zones. Some experts, including Jensen, believe this change would be premature.

 “I suggest that there will be no need for inserting a negative leap second unless this (faster) rotation continues for years,’’ Jensen wrote.

Studies suggest that this increase in Earth’s rotation speed may be linked to climate change. The increased temperature caused by global warming melts the ice sheets in the geographic North and South Pole, producing excess water. This mass of water redistributes itself along Earth’s axis, resulting in a faster rotation similar to ice skaters who speed up as they wrap their arms around their body.  However, this is not the only way in which the weather could influence the Earth’s rotation speed.

“It is the moment of inertia about the rotation axis that determines the free spin of the Earth,” Jensen wrote. “Major mass redistribution caused by extremely large earthquakes (larger than any so-far seen) could change the spin rate.” 

Although 2021 may become the shortest year ever recorded in half a century, a negative leap second would not necessarily be applied this year. If it were implemented, it would be the first negative leap second added in history.

Commentary, Opinion

It’s time for a new approach to the language debate

by Kennedy McKee-Braide on

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I grew up in a predominantly anglophone West Island suburb. Although my parents’ eligibility under Quebec’s education regulations allowed me to attend English school, a significant portion of my elementary and high school education was in French. But as each year passed and the curriculum changed, I had less and less exposure to the language. Eventually, I got to the place where I remain today, feeling unable to properly communicate in French. Hearing similar stories from many of my friends, I know that I am not alone in this experience. 

For years, my dad encouraged me to take French more seriously—he is a Quebec-born anglophone, but marrying my francophone stepmother and living in the province nearly his entire life has made him both deeply appreciative of Quebecois culture and fluently bilingual. He wants me to experience similar joys and have the opportunity to build a future here, which is far more difficult when your French is lacking.

Nevertheless, I was stubborn––language politics made me feel like I had no future in Montreal because the francophone majority did not want me here. Given how much I love the city, I now regret this attitude and believe that the best way to tackle the language debate is for francophones to see anglophones as allies in protecting the French language, and vice versa. Perhaps if anglophones felt more welcomed and accommodated, more would be excited to learn French. Legislation proposed by Jacques-Cartier Member of National Assembly Greg Kelley and recently picked up by the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government, seeks to offer free French classes to English speakers. This concept offers a vision of a future where well-meaning anglophones can feel supported in their efforts to learn French rather than ostracized because it does not come naturally. 

Still, it would be wrong to claim that all francophones look down on anglophones. Protectiveness towards the French language is valid and understandable in the context of Quebec’s history, and most are merely afraid of losing their culture. But this protectiveness can lead to hostility and discriminatory policies, not only towards Quebec-born anglophones but even more notably to immigrants and refugees. For example, it can be incredibly difficult to find a job or even access some services online, over the phone, or in person without French fluency. 

These practical logistical barriers can also contribute to feelings of unwelcomeness towards those who do not speak French, which is compounded by a lack of resources that might help them conform to the province’s linguistic realities. The problem is not that anglophones disrespect their francophone neighbours or have no interest in learning. Rather, the standard approach and attitude embedded in Bill 101, the legislation governing language issues in Quebec, has left some anglophones feeling like a political nuisance.

While the province does offer financial aid to immigrants for French courses, expanding this offer to Canadian-born English speakers could signal a new era for language relations in Quebec.

Beyond promoting better cultural ties, alleviating the language barrier would make anglophones more likely to stay in the province, which would ultimately benefit Quebec as a whole. The province has long been subject to a “brain drain” whereby anglophone professionals leave due to a lack of opportunities. While this trend is particularly notable amongst graduates of English universities like McGill, similar trends or anxieties have been observed among the general anglophone population in recent years. 

Relations between English and French-speaking Quebecers cannot be repaired overnight. Decades of hostility in the media, in workplaces, and within personal relationships have undoubtedly created lasting tensions for which both anglophones and francophones are to blame. However, if the CAQ’s goal is truly to promote Quebec’s interests and preserve the French language, it may be time for a new approach to this ever-present debate and more accessible opportunities to learn are a good first step. Above all, I sincerely hope that the province’s future includes fewer stories of young people like me, whose disillusionment with language politics pushes them to plan their eventual escapes. 

Science & Technology

31st Soup and Science: Random matrices, weight-loss programs, and green chemistry

by Daria Kiseleva on

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On the week of Feb. 1, the Faculty of Science hosted the 31st edition of the beloved Soup and Science series in a five-day virtual event. Professors from various departments gave short presentations about their research and interacted with online attendees in break-out rooms. 

The McGill Tribune brings highlights of the event, with talks from Elliot Paquette, Bärbel Knäuper, and Marc-André Légaré. 

Random matrices model diverse statistics

Elliot Paquette, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, studies probability with a focus on random matrix theory. 

When certain matrices—arrays of numbers in rows and columns—are multiplied with a vector, a quantity with magnitude and direction, the result can be represented as a product of the same vector and a single number called an eigenvalue. Inputting random values into matrices is a way to model complex problems found in quantum mechanics and number theory. 

This technique, called random matrix theory, was developed in the 20th century when physicist Eugene Wigner discovered that the energy levels of large atoms could be modelled using eigenvalues of large matrices containing randomly generated numbers. These energy levels are the characteristic frequencies of electromagnetic radiation absorbed or emitted by an atom.

“If you take the energy levels of [for example] Erbium and plot them and look at the spaces, you can see a distribution which is well-matched by the predictions of random matrix theory,” Paquette said. “Sufficiently big matrices just tend to look like random ones, and you can use that for lots of things.”

Paquette explained how predicted distributions of random eigenvalues can be observed in stock data, where they can condense large amounts of data to better anticipate changes in stock prices. Likewise, when machine learning algorithms are modelled as complicated matrices, their eigenvalues can be used to fine-tune the algorithms for increased performance. 

Trimming the fat off expensive weight-loss programs

Bärbel Knäuper, a professor of Health Psychology at McGill, studies innovations in behavioural weight loss programs that help prevent obesity-related complications including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. 

Currently, the gold standard of weight-loss interventions that lead to clinically significant weight loss is year-long intensive behavioural programs delivered in one-on-one sessions. However, such programs can be unaffordable to many.

“The research we are doing in my lab is really focussed on ways to make the programs cheaper so that they can be delivered to more people,” Knäuper said. 

One goal is to identify which techniques in existing programs are key components that drive weight loss results. Another facet of Knäuper’s research is matching interventions with the specific needs of individuals. 

“For example, people who eat in response to negative emotions [do not tend to benefit from] control-based techniques,” Knäuper said. “For those populations, we are developing programs that [focus on] higher awareness of how one eats and changing one’s attitude to food and eating.” 

Knäuper’s vision is that weight loss services can be delivered in a “stepped” care approach. 

A patient would begin by using a cheap and accessible eHealth tool, and progress to online group programs, in-person group programs, and finally one-on-one programs only if the previous steps were unsuccessful.

Sustainable catalysts spark a reaction

Marc-André Légaré, a newly hired assistant professor of Chemistry, investigates how industrial approaches to chemistry can become more sustainable. 

One of the 12 principles of green chemistry is catalysis—activating a chemical process with catalysts, small molecules that are not consumed in the reaction and decrease the amount of activation energy required for the reaction to occur.

One challenge to performing green chemistry is that common catalysts are often transition metals, as classified on the periodic table. Since transition metals are rare, extracting and transporting them contributes to pollution, and their high cost discourages chemical industries from adapting catalytic processes. 

“In terms of sustainability, this is a problem,” Légaré said. “So [instead], my group is trying to use abundant main group elements and turn them into potent catalysts”. 

Transition metals are potent catalysts because their atoms uniquely contain both electron-rich and electron-poor regions, which together manipulate the molecular bonds of other substances in the reaction.

One approach Légaré has adopted is binding electron-rich and electron-poor main group elements so that together they can imitate the effect of a transition metal.

Editorial, Opinion

Beware of McGill’s hazardous reopening plan

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Following the Quebec government’s Feb. 4 announcement that universities and CEGEPs would be permitted to gradually reimplement some in-person activities, McGill notified students that Tier 2 academic activities such as some conferences, tutorials, and lectures would resume on campus. Although government officials and members of McGill’s administration have cited students’ mental health as a driving reason behind the decision, administrators appear to be underestimating the reality of the pandemic in the province and the logistical nightmare that reopening campus mid-semester could entail. By encouraging students to return, McGill may be facilitating risky, virus-spreading behaviour and endangering the lives of academic staff who may perceive pressure to facilitate in-person instruction. Students must beware of McGill’s haphazard reopening plan, but the onus is on the institution to demonstrate that it can safely open its doors.

McGill’s embrace of in-person instruction is inconsistent with all of its rhetoric up to this point. Students living in first-year residences are required to comply with strict regulations, and some were temporarily evicted starting Jan. 25 for violating the rules. Yet now, for all of the administration’s harsh discipline of first-year students in residence, more are being invited to classrooms under the same assumption that they will be responsible enough to comply with public health rules. Those who return to campus may neglect safety provisions and relink with classmates, potentially spreading the virus. And although in-person functions will be optional, students may feel pressure to attend them—in spite of their best judgement of the risk—due to the prospect of seeing other people and the perceived advantages of physical instruction.

Montreal is still in a partial lockdown. Considering that the curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. will still be in place and that it will remain unlawful to gather with people from outside of one’s residence, it would be unwise for McGill to create an environment where students may be tempted to forego precautions. 

It is also worth questioning whether some students in Montreal should be able to benefit from physical instruction while their peers who are not in the city cannot. This could create inequities in learning that would not exist under normal circumstances or even if optional in-person classes were available from the start of the semester.

Consider also that students were informed that spring convocation would be delivered remotely on the same day of the government’s announcement. Although a convocation with hundreds of people is a tremendous leap from any of the Tier 2 activities, the fact that it will be online is a reminder that the pandemic is still dangerous and will not disappear any time soon. The reopening is also contingent on the stability of the current public health situation. If cases suddenly spike, which is likely as restrictions are loosened, the decision may be reversed. 

Equally concerning is the university’s apparent disregard for the well-being of its academic staff who may be compelled to teach in person. McGill must demonstrate that they are providing the resources necessary to safely accommodate in-person teaching—it has made a good start by providing mandatory masks for people coming to campus—and to help course instructors surmount the logistical challenges involved in that process.

Although administrators are correct to recognize that social isolation has jeopardized students’ mental health, McGill can extend its support for mental health services beyond simply hosting in-person activities—not least because they would only serve students currently in Montreal. Instead, McGill can safely and concretely commit to alleviating students’ mental health by expanding services like the Wellness Hub’s counselling services or promoting academic solutions as it did in reimplementing the Winter 2020 emergency Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading option. 

Students who choose to attend in-person activities must be cognizant of the dangers and abide by public health ordinances. But McGill will bear full responsibility for the damage it causes if its reopening runs aground against yet another pandemic reckoning.

Arts & Entertainment, Books

How the pandemic has fuelled poetry’s popularity

by Lowell Wolfe on

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The COVID-19 pandemic has altered and halted lives around the world. Whether studying in Montreal or from home, McGill students are experiencing a unique semester that has encouraged, and even forced, adaptation. In response to COVID-19–related challenges, many McGill students have turned to poetry and creative writing as outlets for exploring, understanding, and relating to the strange and often tragic situations in which they are living. 

According to a survey conducted by activeminds.org, 20 per cent of college students said that their mental health has significantly worsened during the pandemic, 48 per cent of college students have experienced financial setbacks, and 74 per cent of students have struggled to maintain a daily routine. The situation at McGill is no different, as students have declared that this situation has become a growing mental health crisis. Poetry allows for students to explore troublesome circumstances and emotions from the safety of their rooms, making it the perfect hobby to adopt during stay-at-home orders. Jana Marie Perkins, a member of Poetry Matters, stressed the unique avenues for articulation that poetry offers. 

“We’re at a point right now where so many people are searching for ways to describe this wave of unprecedented circumstances we’re experiencing right now,” Perkins said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Poetry has been able to address that need in a way that, in our lifetimes, it hasn’t often been called to do.”

For some students, the pandemic has changed their everyday relationship with poetry and writing. Alana Dunlop, the president of Mcsway Poetry Collective, expressed how the pandemic fuelled her already-extant poetic passions and turned a recreational artistic activity into a potential future path. 

“In the summer when I had absolutely nothing to do and I had to move back home with my parents, I was writing a lot,” Dunlop said. “For a while, I was really just writing for fun. I wasn’t submitting to literary magazines, contests, or anything. But I got back into the idea of making poetry a serious thing in my life that could possibly be a career.”

Along with re-evaluating her possible future as a writer, Dunlop found herself using poetry as a tool to explore her emotions and to process the strange contingencies she was experiencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I was looking back at my past and things that had already happened because nothing was going on in the present,” Dunlop said. “I was sitting at home, doing nothing with my parents [….] I was reflecting on things that happened to me in the past [and] I feel as if that really informed what I’m writing now.”

Others expressed how isolation and quarantines allowed them to observe their writing from new angles. 

“It’s interesting to find things to write when you can’t do as much in general and you feel like your life is on pause,” Amanda,* a McGill student poet, said. “You can’t write about life experiences in the same way, so it gives you perspective.” 

Dunlop has noticed that poetry has been increasingly popular, as Mcsway events have particularly thrived during the pandemic. Virtual platforms, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, make artistic collaboration readily accessible for anyone with a computer and internet connection. Since the pandemic, Mcsway’s open-mic poetry nights have been incredibly successful, demonstrating the potential of these applications.

“We’ve moved all our events online, so we have online open-mics once a month,” Dunlop said. “We’ve had amazing turnout to every single open mic, more people than what we’ve had in-person. The great thing about Zoom is that it’s not in a small group. You don’t have to book a room and pay for it. A lot of people can come, we’ve seen 40-50 people at every open-mic and there’s always a line-up of people who want to perform, share their poetry, and connect with people through poetry.”

Furthermore, virtual functions enable Mcsway to foster an encouraging, comfortable environment for performers and audience members. Such features would not be available in the usual open-mic setting, which often take place in cramped bars or cafés.

“A lot of people are more comfortable to express themselves when it’s not in front of a bunch of people and you can hear them breathing, moving, and whispering to each other,” Dunlop said. “The great thing about using Zoom is the chat function [….] At all of our events, we make sure that the audience members are blowing up the chat with really nice things about the performance that they’re hearing. Then, the performer can look at it afterwards and feel uplifted in a safe space. You can’t have that same thing in-person.”

While COVID-19 related circumstances have changed how McGill students enact self-expression, it has also created many challenges for those who seek inspiration from sources now made inaccessible. Many writers feel strained because their meaningful experiences, such as travelling or socializing, are less available or entirely impossible. Michael Garbarino, U2 Arts, is a student poet who finds that the lull of this winter has stunted his productivity.

“My activities are super monotonous during COVID. I spent my day in my room or in the kitchen, basically,” Garbarino said. “It makes you more uninspired.”

On the other hand, some writers are flourishing. For example, the U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb,” was written only weeks prior to its performance, during some of America’s most intense weeks of the pandemic. Dunlop’s poetic adventures during the pandemic empowered her to apply for an MFA in creative writing.

“As readers, we may be appreciating this moment and being comforted by the poetry we find,” Perkins said. “For the poets themselves writing in this moment, it’s very difficult. I don’t know how to reconcile that, but as we’ve seen, there are those for whom this period has been productive as well as challenging.”

How the pandemic will ultimately shape the relationship between people and poetry is still unknown. But, poetry’s surge within the McGill community could be indicative of a more widely-encompassing increase in popularity. The pandemic has caused suffering and challenged students, but a poetic revival could become a positive side-outcome from a difficult period. Poetry’s potential for personal and political reflection and commentary give it potency in the wake of a global catastrophe.

“The theme for this year’s Poetry Matters workshop is poetry and re-emergence,” Perkins said. “A lot of what we’re doing is not only examining how poetry can help us to re-emerge, both during and from this moment, but also how poetry might newly help us to frame our understanding of the post-pandemic world once we come out on the other side of things.”

*Name has been changed to preserve anonymity.

Off the Board, Opinion

Bruised, broken, and behind

by Alaana Kumar on

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“Text me when you get home.” My friends and family said it so often that, when my sister said it that night, it seemed like a suggestion I could ignore. It was 10:30 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, early enough to walk the 20 minutes home. I had done it hundreds of times before, so when she asked if she could call me an Uber, I laughed. I bundled up, hit shuffle on my playlist, and left excited for my late-night stroll— it was 20 minutes I could avoid studying for my economics midterm. I was lost in the class and stressed that I would be hit with a failing mark. Little did I know, I was minutes away from being hit by something much more painful.

I woke up to the flashing lights of an ambulance and panic surrounding me. Confused and disoriented, I started to sit up when I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. A woman in an EMT jacket urged me to lay back down on the pavement, alerting me that I had been hit by a car and my head was bleeding. The rest of the night was a blur. 

I was discharged from the hospital at 5 a.m. with six stitches in my head and every ligament in my left shoulder torn. Despite being exhausted, overwhelmed, and in physical pain, my first thought was whether I would be excused from my midterm. 

I took the next week to focus on my recovery. But, as schoolwork piled up, it became increasingly difficult to relax. I was in my second semester of my third year and graduating on time felt essential. Today, I often wonder why. 

I limited the painkillers to keep myself alert, tolerated the headaches that came with trying to study post-concussion, limped my way to campus with a backpack on one shoulder and a sling on the other, and tried my best to catch up on my school work and missed midterms. My first make-up exam came just nine days after my accident, and all I remember is my concussed head spinning as I held my pen. Later that week, I went to Service Point and requested to withdraw from my economics class with a refund. When my request was denied, I felt defeated.

Thanks to the help of several friends and family who shared notes, carried my backpack, made me dinners, and lent me their shoulders—for crying and lifting objects—I was slowly progressing through the semester. Still, it was not going well. I strongly considered forfeiting my semester tuition and returning home when suddenly, campus life took a drastic turn: The COVID-19 pandemic hit Montreal.

Although the initial switch to remote learning was a harsh adjustment for most people, it was my saving grace. I returned home and began to heal and complete the school year at my own pace. Ironically, the on-time graduation I longed for will now be held as a virtual ceremony. 

After looking back on the past year, I am disappointed in myself for the way I reacted to injuries beyond my control. The pressure I put on myself to graduate on time, to get back up before I was ready, and the blatant disregard of my own pain was unacceptable. Somehow, I became the kind of person that let society dictate my success and believed it would be worth less if it came one year later. Unfortunately, this is the case for many university students.

I learned a lot in 2020, and I am glad to be graduating with the understanding that life is not one-size-fits-all. It took an accident and a pandemic to force me to slow down and prioritize my own health, but it is a mistake I will never make again. 

I am confident that I will someday graduate, find a job, and become a functioning adult. But I am not in any rush because, as I have brutally discovered, it’s not about when you reach your destination, it’s about getting there safely. 

Commentary, Opinion

Sexual health education for young people needs to be prioritized

by Sepideh Afshar on

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Quebec’s ÉduSex Coalition, a sexual health advocacy group, is demanding change in the provincial education program as sexually transmitted infection (STI) cases, domestic violence, and sexual violence have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The coalition contends that fighting these issues starts in the classroom. These health concerns are especially worrisome in a time where classes are online and educators are allegedly not receiving the resources or time to deliver proper sexual education, which is necessary to mitigate stigmas and allow young adults to make informed decisions regarding their health. For many, university is when their sexual activity begins, and it is important that entering students understand concepts like safe sex and consent before they arrive.

While the Quebec government stated that they provided online documents about sexual education, there is not enough time to include the yearly sexual health programming into online curricula. In a poll, the Coalition found that 75 per cent of teachers polled in November 2020 did not receive any training for sexual education courses they were asked to teach. The ÉduSex Coalition is circulating a petition with two major demands: To increase funding to schools so that they can deliver quality sexual education and to implement adequate support systems for educators so that they can develop the skills to address sensitive issues when teaching sexual health. 

Comprehensive sexual education is the starting point in reducing stigmas around sexuality. Open discussions are the best way to prevent discrimination based on sexual and gender identity and to reduce negative connotations around topics such as masturbation, sexuality, and sex itself. Research has shown that proper education about sexuality and gender identity normalizes gender diversity, which can decrease bullying and violence. For example, female masturbation is not often represented in the media, while male masturbation is discussed frequently. But through education, the religious and social taboos around female masturbation can be alleviated and the act can be normalized. 

Sexual education allows young adults to make informed decisions about their bodies by providing them with a better understanding of STIs and consent. Those who understand the importance of safe sex are better equipped to avoid or deal with situations of unwanted pregnancies and STIs. Additionally, cases of sexual violence can be mitigated through education about consent and what a healthy relationsips look like. It is important for young people to understand their own bodily autonomy and the importance of respecting others’ so that they can ask questions and then carry this with them. This kind of education is proven to work: When students lacked access to sexual education in Quebec, the cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea doubled.

The Édusex Coalition is fighting to ensure that young people have the knowledge to make smart decisions regarding their sexual activity, sexual health, and the way they view these stigmatized topics. McGill organizations, including Bodies A-Z, are doing the same. Bodies A-Z is a not-for-profit within Sex & Self whose purpose is to empower students in Montreal through comprehensive and engaging sexual education workshops and seminars. Student representatives go into high school classrooms offering full lesson plans that complement the Quebec Education Program sexual health curriculum, reducing the burden on teachers. While Bodies A-Z’s services are extremely important, their work is only complementary; there must be consistent material and support for teachers to extend the benefits of these programs. Teachers are already scrambling to deliver effective classes online, and without the proper support, this will be another burden on them during an already difficult time. Until comprehensive sexual education is implemented, young people will continue to feel the harmful effects of increased STI’s and sexual violence amongst other avoidable situations.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

How SOPHIE used music to build a whole new world

by Callum Sheedy on

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SOPHIE was an artist who demonstrated that art is not only a source of aesthetic pleasure, but also of revolutionary power. On Jan. 30, Scottish producer SOPHIE unexpectedly passed away at the age of 34, but the artist’s work continues to not only reshape electronic and pop music, but how we understand ourselves, too.

SOPHIE built a reputation as a pioneer of a bold new wave of electronic music often referred to as PC Music or hyperpop. SOPHIE’s sound is simultaneously harsh but pleasant, often toeing the line between avant-garde and pop. Not long after the 2013 single “BIPP,” SOPHIE’s name was featured on production credits for artists like Charli XCX, Madonna, and Vince Staples. In 2017, SOPHIE was cemented as a legend of electronic music with the release of the artist’s first and only studio album, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides.

SOPHIE’s signature sound design was unique in the truest sense of the word—no one had ever heard anything quite like it. Synthesizing every sound from scratch, SOPHIE became known for transmuting the tactile into the sonic, creating sounds reminiscent of latex, rubber, metal, elastic, water, and even bubbles. The highly unorthodox sounds and structure of SOPHIE’s music challenged the conventions of pop music. The use of harsh and unusual textures in pop songs forced listeners to reconsider what pop music, and even music at all, could sound like. It confronted the formal conventions created by a system controlled by mostly white, cis-heterosexual men. In doing so, SOPHIE upended the ideological basis of pop music, and made room for a new era of music, liberated from the cultural hegemony of the past.

For much of SOPHIE’s career, the artist’s true identity had remained a mystery, a name without a face. It was not until the release of the music video for “It’s Okay to Cry,” that SOPHIE came out as a trans woman. With this in mind, SOPHIE’s music shows its true meaning as a trans-liberationist work.

One of the main themes of Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides is identity and transformation. The lyrical content of the album could even be read as the story of transformation, beginning with self-acceptance, dealing with the anxiety and reluctance of undergoing a transition, until emerging from the waters of uncertainty as a new person: Yourself.

Yet, artifice factored into SOPHIE’s discography as much as authenticity did. The tactile sounds and squeaky, high-pitched vocals evoked a sense of fakeness. Even the visual aesthetics, like the covers of the Product singles and SOPHIE’s outfits, make use of plastic. In “Faceshopping,” Cecile Believe (who performs on several other tracks) sings, “I’m real when I shop my face,” referencing the Photoshopping one might do to a picture of oneself, suggesting one could be just as real when they “shop their face.” SOPHIE presented listeners with radical new ideas on what constitutes legitimate identity, especially in a world where so much of identity is dependent upon appearance and conformity. SOPHIE used music to take aim at the concept of artificiality as a pejorative, highly repressive worldview. The abrasive and innovative sound acted as a sort of mind tenderizer, smashing away subconscious preconceptions of what is good and natural, and leaving in their place a politics of radical freedom to self-expression.

SOPHIE’s music was not just different for the sake of being different, but was a revolutionary weapon against the establishment that would see violence done upon many queer people. On Oil’s final track, “Whole New World/Pretend World,” SOPHIE boldly charges into the future, chanting as if at a protest, urging listeners to build a “Whole New World” with the ideas in the track as its foundation. SOPHIE wanted to take listeners into the future, and although the artist will not be there to see it, SOPHIE’s impact will be felt for years to come.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

From the Faculty of Arts to Hollywood producer

by Deana Korsunsky on

More in Arts & Entertainment:

A Scotsman, whiskey executive, McGill alum, screenwriter, and producer walk into a Zoom meeting—well, tune into a Zoom meeting. No, this is not a set-up for a fascinating punchline; it is a delightfully accurate description of The Queen’s Gambit co-producer, Allan Scott, who joined Television McGill’s (TVM) public Zoom Talk on Feb. 4 to discuss his career. 

Scott, B.A. ‘61, tuned into TVM’s Zoom event from the United Kingdom to discuss his journey from McGill University English literature student to co-writer of works like Don’t Look Now (1973) and The Queen’s Gambit (2020). With over 70 students virtually present, Scott answered questions from TVM president Tory Fortunato and then from several participants. Questions pertained to screenwriting, the whiskey industry, professional recommendations, and Scott’s favourite London museums. Scott’s answers consisted of fond McGill memories, brutally honest advice, cheeky one-liners, and praise for the Tate Modern. 

The conversation commenced with Scott recalling his time at McGill, particularly at The McGill Daily. Scott’s duty as features editor was to publish one poem weekly, a role that eventually got him in trouble as he kept selecting poems by a student who had already graduated a few years prior, and was therefore ineligible for publication. One could argue that this instance with the poet in question—Leonard Cohen—proves the age-old adage, “real recognizes real.” Aside from the Daily, Scott participated in McGill theatre and local stand-up comedy, citing a lucky occurrence in which Charlton Heston watched him and his friend perform and praised them on live radio that night. Subsequently, the two embarked on a two-year comedy tour.

Scott recalled how after several years of performing, he and his friend wished to grow in their careers. 

“We said, ‘This isn’t a job for grown-ups.’ So we decided to stop being children,” Scott said. “We sat down and we wrote a screenplay, though we did [something] more important than that. We sat down and we read four or five screenplays of movies that [we’d] seen.” 

This emphasis on the importance of learning and studying both one’s craft and the film industry itself permeated Scott’s stories and advice throughout the Zoom event. Scott continued to reflect on the strategies he picked up over years of working in the entertainment industry.

“I learned a trick when I was working in Hollywood […] doing a lot of script doctoring,” Scott said. “I said, ‘Look, I’m the only British writer who is wholly and entirely collaborative. I will collaborate with anybody who comes in with a good idea.’”

Besides touching on the importance of collaboration in an industry so dependent on stealing, Scott stressed the utility of possessing particular traits—largely, patience. 

“The biggest hurdle in anybody’s career to overcome is idiots, and there are a lot of them around,” Scott laughed. 

Scott did not limit his stories to industry advice. Many excited viewers asked about Scott’s work on The Queen’s Gambit, especially noting how long it took to be greenlighted. 

“Each year, I failed to get the movie made,” Scott recalled. “It always came back to the studio from the financing entity, saying, ‘Chess doesn’t sell tickets.’” 

As it turns out, chess very much did sell tickets. This tale of perseverance within the industry was one of many highlights in TVM’s “Conversation with Allan Scott.” With enthusiasm and just a smidge of sass, Scott walked his Zoom audience through highlights of his career, silly moments with fellow producers, and many pieces of advice imperative to the film industry. It seems inconceivable that one day you might be walking through the doors of the Arts building, and the next, on set of Netflix’s biggest limited series. Yet, Scott shared that all that one needs to make those in-between steps is collaboration, patience, enthusiasm, and of course, not taking “no” for an answer, whether it is greenlighting The Queen’s Gambit, or publishing poetry by some random, talented McGill graduate. 

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