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The poppy ban gets neutrality wrong

by Defne Feyzioglu on

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Everything is political—but not everything should be policed. This is the tension that sits at the heart of a recent decision in Nova Scotia, in which the judiciary ruled that court staff must seek the presiding judge’s permission to wear the Remembrance Day poppy, terming it a ‘symbol of support’ and therefore a potential threat to judicial integrity. By treating a symbol of remembrance as a potential source of bias, the ruling reflects an increasingly expansive understanding of neutrality—one that risks conflating civic expression with a threat to impartiality.

There is a crucial distinction between the appearance of bias and the presence of meaning; this ruling treats them as one. Judicial ethics rightly guard against symbols that relay allegiance to a litigant, a cause under adjudication, or an ideology that could shape ruling. A poppy, however, does not inherently function this way—its meaning is diffuse and collective rather than targeted. Treating it as inherently biased collapses the difference between symbols that influence outcomes and ones that simply coexist alongside them. 

The poppy is political, but labelling it as such is not the same as calling it partisan. Politics refers to how power, identity, history, and the state are organized—it does not refer to a specific party or platform. The poppy embodies narratives of sacrifice, national memory, and wartime identity. That alone makes it a political symbol, even if it is not an overtly partisan one.

Under the same definition, flags are political, as are national holidays, military commemorations, and remembrance in general. Courts themselves are political spaces as well; they interpret laws, settle constitutional disputes, and issue decisions that can shape public policy. Their rulings directly determine how power is distributed and how collective identities are recognized or constrained. Acknowledging this political dimension should reinforce a proportionate approach to neutrality within procedural obligations—such as appropriate attire and use of symbols—in the courtroom. Treating the objective of neutrality as being the omission of all political meaning not only misunderstands both the nature of the courts and the purpose of the civic symbols, but also applies a selectively drawn standard for defining political expression. 

The core issue here is not whether to call the poppy apolitical; it is how far the principle of judicial neutrality should be extended. Judges hold unique decision-making power, and their impartiality must be protected. But instead of clarifying neutrality, this ruling blurs the line between legitimate safeguards and excessive policing of symbols.

The ban sets a precedent where neutrality becomes hyper-sanitized, erasing shared civic or cultural expressions. The judiciary risks creating an environment where staff cannot express any identity or memory, even shared ones. A similar dynamic plays out in Quebec under Bill 21, which prohibits certain public servants—including judges, police officers, prosecutors, and teachers—from wearing religious symbols. The bill targets items such as crosses, hijabs, turbans, and yarmulkes. When certain symbols, often those tied to minority communities, are singled out for removal, neutrality stops being a shield for fairness and becomes a tool that shapes whose identities are acceptable in public life. 

The poppy has never meant one thing to everyone, and its meaning has shifted over time. Originally a symbol of mourning after the First World War, it later evolved into a symbol that honours veterans, and in some circles, it is critiqued as a marker of militarism. That evolution alone reflects a broader conversation about how nations remember conflict; the symbol’s plurality is precisely why calling it ‘apolitical’ flattens its history. Recognizing the political complexity behind the poppy is not disrespectful—it is honest. Yet complexity does not automatically justify restriction. Extending judicial neutrality rules to court staff and banning all political symbolism is a reductive approach that overlooks how ubiquitous and unavoidable political meaning is in public life. 

If neutrality demands the erasure of all political meaning, then it becomes indistinguishable from a void. It asks people to shed their histories at the courthouse door. Justice does not become more legitimate when those who deliver it appear stripped of identity. That is neither realistic nor desirable. 

The poppy’s politics are real, but they are not inherently dangerous. What is dangerous is a fragile conception of neutrality that cannot withstand a symbol of remembrance. A justice system confident in its own impartiality should not fear the influence of the poppy nor the people who choose to wear it. The court’s goal should be to prevent real bias, not to pretend political meaning can ever be fully removed from public institutions.

Features

The cost of McGill’s excellence

by Mairin Burke on

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Over the last two years, McGill has widely publicized its rise in the QS World University Rankings, which most recently identified the university as Canada’s top school and the 27th best worldwide. However, this publicity obscures a jarring campus reality from community awareness: Academic staff continue to call out McGill for the unfair working conditions that underlie such excellence.

For three years, McGill faculties have moved towards unionizing beyond the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT), a body that does not permit academic staff to collectively bargain as true faculty unions would. Unionization has allowed professors—such as members of The Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL)—to formally strike for better wages and protections.

To avoid demonizing faculty strikes at McGill, it is crucial to examine the financial inequities that—until recently—McGill’s non-unionized professoriate has been subject to. Until McGill’s administration properly recognizes its staff contributions, the university cannot be the equitable, leading institution of excellence it proclaims itself to be. 

…

McGill’s professorial salary infrastructure, designed prior to faculty unionization on campus, is just one example of exploitative working conditions at the university. In an interview with //The Tribune//, Dr. Tim Elrick, Director of McGill’s Geographic Information Centre and Committee Chair of the May 2025 Report of the MAUT ad hoc Committee to Examine the Status of Salaries and Benefits at McGill, discussed the high income inequality across the university’s staff salaries represented in the report. 

Using a metric called the Gini coefficient, the MAUT report indicates a “concerning case” of McGill setting aside a limited amount of money to pay all its staff salaries. A few “superstar,” public-facing, tenured professors net very high payouts through a merit-based salary system, while most other staff—often classified as faculty lecturers—earn much less. 

Elrick, moreover, reflected on how McGill “[seems] to be putting women predominantly in low-paid positions” as faculty lecturers or untenured professors, resulting in structural differences in pay between men and women across its academic staff. Income inequality generally, as well as women’s predominant position as lower-paid faculty, is much less prevalent at other Quebec universities than at McGill.

Elrick further discussed how, at McGill, professorial salaries have decreased in real prices since 2016. Meanwhile, at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, median professorial salaries have increased over the same period in an effort to catch up with Canada’s rising house prices.

“This is a very big problem for younger profs [at McGill], [whose] salary cannot keep up [with inflation so that they] cannot purchase a home,” Elrick asserted. “Do profs need to purchase a home? Maybe not. However, rental prices are linked to housing prices. So when housing prices go up, rental prices go up as well.”

…

Under these poor salary conditions, McGill’s employees can expect paltry pensions, as they can only contribute a fixed amount of their salaries to the funds, which is partially matched by the employer. Beyond poor input, the McGill University Pension Plan (MUPP)’s structure reinforces deep inequities that further disadvantage early-career professors while also threatening the stability of even established, tenured professors’ pensions.

Kevin Skerrett, director of Carleton University’s Financialization Research Lab and former Canadian Union of Public Employees pensions specialist, was recently asked by a colleague in McGill’s Faculty of Law to review the MUPP. In an interview with //The Tribune//, Skerrett described McGill’s pension as “technical and complicated,” even with his expertise.

McGill offers a two-tiered pension plan to its employees: One for staff who began working at the university before January 1, 2009 (Part A), and another for all those hired afterwards (Part B). Part A is considered a hybrid plan, combining elements of both defined benefit pensions and defined contribution pensions. Part B can be considered an exclusively defined contribution pension.

Skerrett outlined that, under the hybrid model, McGill guarantees the pensions of Part A employees, legally promising they will receive a minimum payout upon retirement, calculated directly on the basis of their pre-retirement salary and years of work at the university. 

“The employer essentially backstops and secures and guarantees that the plan will deliver what’s promised, [regardless of the value of the employee’s contributions alone], and sometimes that might mean [McGill has] to kick in extra money,” he explained.

Skerrett posited that McGill’s decision to redesign its pension structure was likely due to the 2008 financial crisis, which heavily impacted such investment funds and forced employers like McGill to take on a heavier financial burden to guarantee minimum payouts. For McGill’s post-2009 Part B employees, there is no guaranteed pension amount.

“The only thing that’s secure [in this defined contribution plan] is how much money gets set aside, but no one has any idea what it will end up producing as a retirement income,” he said. “There are no risks for the employer […] of [needing] to contribute more […] even if things collapse [….] It’s a very inferior, much less comforting and secure pension arrangement.”

Skerrett reported that at McGill, the university contributes payments equivalent to between 7.5-8 per cent of an employee’s salary to both Part A and Part B employee pensions, while at other universities, such as the University of Toronto, Queen’s University, and the University of British Columbia, the employer typically contributes between 9-12 per cent. These lower contribution rates further weaken pension security at McGill. When the employer invests less in employee pensions pre-retirement, there is less money appreciating in value over time in employees’ pension funds.

Skerrett emphasized how the stark inequalities presented by McGill’s two-tiered pension model are known as ‘orphan clauses’ in Quebec, which refers to how they alienate newer workers from their employers and older colleagues.  

“[The university is] basically saying, ‘Okay, well, let’s protect our current employees, and let’s screw the young people,’” he summarized.

Additionally, McGill no longer applies indexation, or adjustment for inflation, to its pension plans, meaning neither its staff pensions nor its staff salaries are attuned to Montreal’s rising cost of living. Meanwhile, Skerrett reports, at the University of Toronto, staff pensions account for indexation protection. 

He also pointed out that under changing Quebec legislation through the 2010s, a new pension plan structured like the MUPP would //no longer be legally permitted by the provincial government//. In fact, McGill’s restructuring was not subject to collective bargaining with any of its unions or employee groups, further removing the pension plan from the people who depend on it. 

“McGill in 2009 had a wonderful situation from an employer perspective, which is, they could make whatever changes they want, and they wouldn’t have to negotiate them with nonexistent faculty unions. So they did,” Skerrett stated. “They took full advantage [and] imposed this horrible, very reactionary, inequitable change [….] This is very bad, what McGill has done, and they’ve done it unilaterally.”

McGill’s lack of employee consultation on its pension restructuring is reflected by its current Pension Administration Committee (PAC). Rather than operate under a joint governance structure, where both employers and faculty union representatives would oversee pension management—as the University of Toronto’s plan does—five of the PAC’s nine members are appointed by the McGill administration’s Board of Governors. There is only one annual public meeting that all MUPP members can attend.

“[The PAC] is an utterly employer-dominated structure,” Skerrett asserted. “[The PAC is] also entirely bound by confidentiality, so none of us know what goes on behind its closed doors [….] They are not meaningfully accountable to anybody. By all appearances, the PAC, which is chaired by [McGill’s] Associate [Vice-President] of Human Resources, has never challenged anything the employer decides.”

McGill’s Media Relations Office referred //The Tribune// to the existing, public resources on McGill’s website to find information on the university’s pension and salary systems.

…

The importance of addressing salary and pension inequities impacting both newer and older professors at McGill, permitted by McGill’s bad-faith fiscal governance, represents a moral drive behind campus unionization, perhaps even more than a financial one.

In an interview with //The Tribune//, Associate Professor in McGill’s Faculty of Law and its Faculty of Arts’ Department of Political Science Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli emphasized that the primary motivation behind increasing faculty unionization on campus is the desire for true collegiality amongst staff, rather than financial gain.

“The people who have traditionally been against the unionization of faculty mean by collegiality […] that we settle our disputes over a glass of sherry with the [President of the University],” he explained. “In the few moments when [this] was the case, it was when the university looked very different, [and] generally did not include women, did not include minorities, did not include Jewish people, and certainly did not include people who were outside of the favour of the administration [….] By collegiality, [new faculty unions] mean governance by colleagues, all colleagues, everyone who has an academic title.”

Muñiz-Fraticelli continued by describing this expansive vision of a university where everyone—from contract academic staff to tenured professors—is entitled to participate in governance. He explained that currently, when professors at McGill promoted to the administration receive disproportionate salary increases, they do not return to the professoriate, which erodes the alternation in governance on which collegiality depends and inspires calls for financial justice.

“When the administration […] doesn’t regard us as equal, it doesn’t trust us. We have no reason to trust them in return, and […] this eroded collegiality […] is what eventually led to unionization,” he stated.

Muñiz-Fraticelli discussed how McGill has “been centralizing authority tremendously in James Hall and taking it away from faculties” in recent years, using the 2020 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic as a case study. The administration did not adopt recommendations from both the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health and the Faculty of Law describing how to better equip McGill’s campus to fight the virus.

“During the COVID crisis, I think a lot of us finally realized that we were employees, because we were treated as employees and only as employees by the administration, [who] was beholden more to political pressure [and to pressure] from external donors and public opinion generally,” Muñiz-Fraticelli expressed.

In the ensuing push for true collegiality, respect, and visibility for professors—represented by AMPL’s ultimately successful unionization in November 2022—the stark discrepancies between what MAUT can offer academic staff versus a true faculty union became clear to Muñiz-Fraticelli. 

During AMPL strikes from April to September of 2024, as the union fought for better working conditions in their collective agreement with the McGill administration, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Defence Fund offered AMPL an interest-free loan of $1 million CAD, allowing them to fully pay striking professors’ foregone salaries. 

For Muñiz-Fraticelli, this massive show of solidarity from CAUT and other groups, such as the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université, helped validate that unions are necessary and sustainable modes of labour advocacy.

“[Myself and other AMPL members] broke down crying because we realized that we could win, but winning takes resources, because we all have to have to pay our mortgages during the strike, and the union, with the help of CAUT, covered our net salaries during the strike so that we could hold on until the university met our demands,” Muñiz-Fraticelli described.

…

As McGill increases austerity measures and slashes hundreds of jobs amid financial challenges, public attention often falls on how budget cuts will impact the university’s student experience. Yet a //massive// driver of this student experience is McGill’s professoriate, who, austerity measures aside, have been poorly compensated for their excellent teaching and groundbreaking research for decades.

Campus unions’ emphasis on true collegiality—which would increase transparency and accountability throughout McGill’s community—is a critical step in calling attention to, and inspiring campus-wide empathy in the face of, systems at McGill that put employees second time and time again. The university’s murky salary and pension systems can only be addressed when brought to light. And only when McGill’s administration pushes towards stronger fiscal and governance protections for academic staff can it wear the mantle of excellence in good conscience.

Muñiz-Fraticelli stated definitively that unions—though they may cost professors higher dues than MAUT—provide academic staff the resources they need to fight for and achieve better working conditions at McGill.

“The university originally was a guild, a labour union of sorts,” Muñiz-Fraticelli emphasized. “[Unions] have better and more effective representation, more effective bargaining power, […] the possibility of strikes and withholding our labour. The result is higher benefits, higher salaries and better working conditions. So in fact, you shouldn’t think of [union dues] as just paying more money, but rather as an investment.”

McGill, News

SSMU Fall 2025 Referendum results

by Amelia H. Clark, Eren Atac on

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19.1 per cent of undergraduate students voted in the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Fall 2025 Referendum, passing five of the seven ballotted motions. The Tribune sat down with the referendum’s stakeholders to discuss the results. 

Motion Regarding Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) Services Fee Increase

The Motion Regarding Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) Services Fee Increase, moved by the Student Groups Committee, proposed an increase from $1.66 CAD to $2.19 CAD of the opt-outable MSA fee charged to SSMU members each semester. The increase was rejected in the referendum, with 52.4 per cent of students voting against it. 

The MSA advocates for Muslim students’ rights to religious accommodations at McGill by ensuring halal meals and prayer spaces are available on campus, as well as by providing community programming such as mentorship opportunities. The 53-cent increase requested in the referendum was intended to mitigate the group’s financial dependency on the ticketed events they frequently host, which the MSA states decreases the accessibility of their programming. 

MSA President Hamza AlFarrash stated in a written response to The Tribune that while the association’s goal of creating safe spaces for Muslim students on campus will not change, the motion’s failure shows a discrepancy between the level of support the Muslim community actually needs and the resources McGill and its undergraduates have deemed appropriate for this community. Many MSA services will have to be delayed, significantly scaled back, or halted entirely as a result of the ‘no’ vote.

AlFarrash further expressed surprise at the referendum result, stating that he expected more reciprocal support from other groups that the MSA advocates for.

“We have been consistent and unwavering in our advocacy for Palestine—a cause deeply rooted in our inseparable identity as Muslims […] [whether we were] pushing the administration, including the President at one point, to divest, [or] challenging their tone and language in official communications,” AlFarrash wrote. “I expected more support from our allies, especially those who share many of the same struggles and aspirations for justice.”

Motion Regarding the Student Services Fee

Voters also rejected the Motion Regarding the Student Services Fee; the non-opt-outable fee will remain $204.74 CAD per semester for full-time undergraduate students. Put forth by SSMU President Dymetri Taylor, the motion would have seen this fee increase by 4 per cent each Fall term until 2028, ultimately settling at $230.31 CAD, if passed. The increase was intended to address the costs of services such as the Student Wellness Hub, Campus Life & Engagement, the Career Planning Service, International Student Services, Scholarships and Student Aid, Student Accessibility and Achievement (SAA), First People’s House, and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life; as of this year, these services’ costs have exceeded the revenue the current fee generates. 

In a written statement to The Tribune, Taylor described how the motion’s failure will lead to inevitable cuts to these programs’ resources, increasing work for both the student society and its members.

“It doesn’t affect the SSMU (budgetarily wise); however, it does affect [these] Student Services,” Taylor wrote. “In turn, [we could] see decreases in services offered by the respective departments, whether that’s cuts to employees, events, opportunities, [or] assistance.”

Motion Regarding the Renewal of the Access McGill Ancillary Fee

Taylor also put forward the Motion Regarding the Renewal of the Access McGill Ancillary Fee, which aimed to maintain the fee’s $2 CAD rate until Winter 2031. This referendum item passed, with just over three-quarters of voters in favour. The ancillary fee goes towards Student Accessibility and Achievement (SAA), which is responsible for providing accommodations to students who face disability-related barriers. These resources include exam support, language translation services, and transportation for students with physical impairments. The fee aims to improve the current services offered by SAA, and its passage occurred amid complaints from students regarding unprofessional SAA invigilator conduct.

Motion Regarding the Renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund Fee

The Motion Regarding the Renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund Fee, again moved by Taylor, was approved with a resounding 80.8 per cent of students voting ‘yes’, making it the most popular motion on the ballot. The opt-outable fee, currently costing members $8.50 CAD per semester, is administered by McGill’s Scholarship and Student Aid Office to undergraduate students facing financial barriers. McGill matches each fee payment from students, amounting to an average of $700,000 to 900,000 CAD a year in need-based financial aid available to SSMU members through this fee.

Motion Regarding the Renewal of the Musician’s Collective Fee

Voters also passed the Motion Regarding the Renewal of the Musician’s Collective Fee, moved by Taylor, via a 66 per cent majority. This $0.10 CAD opt-outable fee will be put towards the SSMU Musician’s Collective’s equipment, performance opportunities, and jam room, which are available to any students who pay this fee.

Motion Regarding First Year Fee Renewal Question

The Motion Regarding First Year Fee Renewal Question, moved by Taylor, was approved with 53.2 per cent of voters saying ‘yes’ to the fee. The opt-outable $0.30 CAD charge will come into effect from Winter 2026 through Winter 2031, meant to facilitate the activities of the SSMU First-Year Council. The Council hosts social events, provides forums for first-year discussions, and represents first-year students at SSMU’s Legislative Council.

Motion Regarding Creation of the Gender Affirming Care Fee

The Motion Regarding Creation of the Gender Affirming Care Fee, put forth by Taylor, was narrowly approved by a 51.1 per cent vote in favour. This opt-outable fee will come at a rate of $10.05 CAD per student per year, spanning from Winter 2026 until Winter 2031 when it will be re-voted on for renewal. The fee will provide for an Alumo (previously StudentCare) gender-affirming care insurance plan, which will reimburse students up to $5,000 CAD per gender-affirming procedure, with a cap of $50,000 CAD per plan user. 

This insurance plan seeks to fill the gaps in coverage of gender-affirming procedures under the existing SSMU general health insurance plan. Gender-affirming care was included in the student dental plan starting in 2023, but its cancellation in January 2025 left many students without guaranteed access to this life-saving healthcare, as gender-affirming procedures are often unaffordable without coverage.

Taylor affirmed that the new gender-affirming care insurance plan will be in effect starting in fall of 2026. 

“Conversations have already taken place with Student Care to move forward with the plan, that is the only reason it was on the referendum as well,” he wrote. “Additional time is necessary because of the required work that needs to be done between McGill and Student Care to organise the opt-out process and communicate information.”

Voter Turnout

Reflecting on the 19.1 per cent overall voter turnout, SSMU Vice-President External Affairs Seraphina Crema-Black laid out SSMU’s plans for increasing participation in future referendums. She raised potential ideas such as ramping up SSMU tabling for voting on campus, coordinating with professors to help draw in voters, and preparing clearer resources for students ahead of voting. 

“I recently met with our SSMU Elections team and my Political Campaigns Coordinator to begin planning how we can increase participation in the next referendum,” Crema-Black wrote in a statement to The Tribune. “We know turnout can always be improved, and we’re working on strategies that make voting more visible and accessible for students.”

A previous version of this article stated that the current Muslim Students’ Association Services Fee stood at $1.66 CAD, with the MSA aiming to increase its fee by 53 cents. In fact, the current fee is $1.55 CAD, meaning the proposed increase would have been by 64 cents. The Tribune regrets this error.

Student Life

It’s a Femininomenon!

by Parisa Rasul on

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“You have bewitched me, body and soul,” Mr. Darcy declared, over the striking rain on the rolling hills of the English countryside. Many find that this fictional gesture of romance from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has all but diminished in 2025. Recently, British VOGUE’s Chanté Joseph released an article entitled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” Joseph contends that having a boyfriend has social benefits that women want to maintain, yet the idea of being ‘boyfriend-obsessed’ has become decidedly gauche. For women today, it’s less Pride and Prejudice, and more Pride and Poorly Dressed. The question remains—do the women of McGill concur?

In an interview with The Tribune, Léa Finch, U1 Arts and Science, expressed surprise at this recent sentiment.

“[It] feels like the article kind of came out of nowhere [….] There’s no need to bring down men with it [….] Having a boyfriend doesn’t change you being able to have power and show it off.”

On the other hand, Adhara Scholten, U0 Arts, found the article’s topic to come from ‘somewhere,’ replete with contemporary social context. 

“I think it’s a result of a lot of social […] policies against women, restricting women, [and] a lot of stories […] publicly made about, rape, for example […] Gisèle Pelicot [….] Then we think of [the 4B] movement in Korea. [In the article] the narrative blames women. It asks, ‘are women embarrassing themselves by having relationships with men?’” 

As women’s suffering becomes increasingly public through social media and fourth-wave feminist activism, the world is more attuned to the realities of rape, femicide, and female health. As a result, the flaws of patriarchal government and social institutions have become increasingly apparent. In her article, Joseph wrote that in Western history, a woman’s value was entrapped in a relationship with a man.

This narrative has shifted into an era where society can begin to question these inherently asymmetrical heteronormative roles, and decide whether we should still abide by their social laws. With women no longer requiring a male counterpart to guarantee their basic needs, singleness is a more viable option. However, it is time we start questioning male hegemony instead of blaming women for their lack of a partner. 

Anastassia Haidash, U4 Arts, explained her position on boyfriend embarrassment.

“I don’t necessarily find it embarrassing in itself to have a nice, caring boyfriend, but I find it embarrassing how we’ve kind of come to let ourselves be more disrespected and taken advantage of in terms of these, like, situationships.”

Vanessa Hellsten, U0 Arts and Science, expressed a similar sentiment.

 “[W]hen [women] […] pardon a lot of the man’s mistakes, […] you need to be able to hold them accountable, and yourself accountable.”

Women who are navigating McGill’s dating scene must contend with men’s shortcomings. As Hellsten points out, accountability is especially important in this context, to assure a nourishing reciprocal relationship rather than one sustained out of hegemonic expectations of heterosexual coupling. 

However, without accountability, the rampant misogyny of the ‘male loneliness epidemic’—a patriarchally fabricated notion—continues to fuel the fire of ‘red pill ideology’ and incel culture. Specifically, in the ‘manosphere’—a network of online misogynist groups— men refer to women and feminist ideologies as the stem of male frustration. 

Haidash further observes that embarrassment on campus may stem from the concern that a boyfriend may interfere with academic success.

“It definitely may seem more embarrassing at McGill to have a boyfriend, because […] for women, […] everyone here is so, so insanely devoted to their schooling and whatnot, and having a man get in the way of that is lame and awful.” 

This observation about how having a boyfriend may become an obstacle to a woman’s success is what the manosphere demonizes. Women succeeding threatens the misogynist’s preferred gender hierarchy—one that depends on limiting female autonomy and achievement, and where simply being of the male sex can overtake that achievement. 

These changing gender roles within heterosexual relationships underpin the true question British Vogue’s article is asking, or rather telling us. Women no longer need to, or should, be defined by their romantic male counterparts.

Field Hockey, Martlets, Sports

McGill Athletics’ varsity program restructuring: Town hall updates

by Lialah Mavani on

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Following the announcement of the upcoming varsity review, McGill Athletics hosted a town hall on Nov. 7 to promote transparency for its club and varsity teams. Perry Karnofsky, Athletics Director of Wellness Programs and Facility Operations, and Daniel Méthot, Athletics Director of Sport Programs, led the meeting. 

Karnofsky and Méthot explained that the varsity review has three aims. The first is rebalancing programming and facility allocation between varsity teams, competitive clubs, and recreational activities. The second is consolidating all athletic programs under a single umbrella, which McGill Athletics claims will improve both the competitive athletic experience at McGill and the student experience at McGill’s Sports Complex. 

The third concern, which Karnofsky and Méthot emphasized, is that the review is fundamentally about capacity: With McGill’s current financial and athletic resources, Athletics’ focus is on how to allocate these limited resources most effectively.

Méthot then outlined the process that the review committee is using to reorganize the current varsity structure. McGill Athletics is moving from a three-tier system to a ‘four-group approach’ that aims to more fairly evaluate and accommodate varsity teams that do not align with the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) format. 

Currently, all teams in McGill’s three tiers of varsity status must compete in an RSEQ league. The differentiation between the groups is dependent on teams’ competition formats at the provincial and national levels. For instance, tier one sports must be represented at three academic levels across Quebec: High school, Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP), and university level. Teams identified as tier one must also have a national championship, hosted by U SPORTS. Tier two includes sports that are represented at only the university level, but still have a national U SPORTS championship. Tier three also consists of sports that compete at the university level, but that only have an RSEQ provincial championship. 

While the review process has allowed for more open discussion among current varsity and club teams and McGill Athletics, some existing teams remain in a state of uncertainty and anxiety about getting cut.

Avery Berry, U1 Arts and Science, and forward on the Martlets Varsity Field Hockey team, shared in an interview with The Tribune that she is unsure where this leaves teams like hers. 

“We’re not in the RSEQ. We don’t recruit. We often don’t have as many home games, and we’re fully self-funded. So how [McGill Athletics] would take this into account in the auditing process was pretty unclear,” she stated.

Berry noted that McGill Athletics has not concretely communicated how the restructuring will affect teams, such as Field Hockey, in unique situations. If her team’s status changes, Berry explained, they risk losing key off-season resources such as access to the varsity weight room and Strength and Conditioning coaches, as well as crucial visibility and outreach tools like media exposure.

For club teams like McGill’s Nordic Ski Club, the review does not just determine their competitive level—it determines whether they can operate at all.

Nordic Ski Co-Captains Astrid Scarth-Lella, U3 Arts, and Molly Tinmouth, U3 Arts and Science, said in an interview with The Tribune that the uncertainty around the varsity review has been especially difficult for their team, in part because they feel McGill Athletics is not familiar enough with their club to make an informed decision about its status. 

“They don’t really know our training, our performance, or how we operate,” Scarth-Lella said. “They’ve been very unclear about how many teams are going to be cut or have their status changed.”

Tinmouth added that competitive clubs and teams feel pitted against each other, even though they all offer something vital to the student body.

Despite the administration’s attempts to foster open conversations on Nov. 7, many athletes did not get the answers they were looking for. The goal of the town hall was transparency, but the outcomes it discussed remain unpredictable. As teams await their fates, the potentially precarious future of the next season of McGill Athletics looms large.

Sports Editor Clara Smyrski is captain of the McGill Women’s Field Hockey team. She was not involved in the writing, editing, or publication of any section of this article that discusses Field Hockey.

Editorial, Opinion

Sudan’s genocide is fueled by global and local apathy toward Black lives

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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In April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group descended into a civil war. Since then, both groups have executed large-scale massacres and targeted ethnic cleansing against Black, non-Arab ethnic groups, such as the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa peoples. This genocide—enabled by a complicit international community and funded by the investment portfolios of Western institutions—has killed over 150,000 people, with approximately 9 million displaced internally and 1.8 million fleeing Sudan as refugees.

The ongoing genocide in Sudan reflects the international community’s racist neglect of Black lives and selective disregard for humanitarian crises in Africa. This apathy is clearly mirrored in institutions like McGill, whose refusal to divest from arms manufacturers signals a shameless willingness to profit from global violence against Black communities. 

This pattern of international inaction is not new. Beginning in 2003, General Omar al-Bashir’s regime carried out a genocidal campaign in Darfur that killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced roughly 2.7 million individuals. Al-Bashir, in collaboration with the Janjaweed militia, conducted mass killings of Black Darfurians, destroying villages, poisoning wells, and systematically raping women and children. 

Yet the international community egregiously refused to multilaterally recognize al-Bashir’s campaign in Darfur as a genocide. The UN Security Council issued repeated resolutions calling for the cessation of human rights violations and hostilities, but offered no meaningful enforcement mechanisms, declining to authorize major interventions or impose punitive measures. 

Although al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019, today’s civil war stems from many of the same perpetrators of past atrocities in Darfur. Current RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo was a Janjaweed leader, and many RSF fighters also fought for the militia group during the Darfur genocide. In failing to intervene meaningfully during the previous civil war, international institutions have effectively enabled the next generation of genocidaires. As such, the same power structures continue to carry out genocidal acts against Sudanese Black ethnic groups today.

Although the RSF and SAF’s military actions today each amount to acts of genocide, the international community has again faltered, refusing to take action beyond symbolic recognition and passive investigation. 

In fact, the very abuses that define Sudan’s ongoing genocide as such—the targeted destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group—have been reframed by global powers to justify their own neglect and complicity. Overtly racist framings of the genocide by officials and media as ‘tribal conflict’ minimize the responsibility of Western actors to intervene, and reinforce the devaluation of Black lives in Sudan. 

Canada itself, whose Family Reunification Program has served to reunite refugees who have been torn from their families by crisis and war, has largely excluded Sudanese applicants, substantiating the country’s apathy towards the suffering in Sudan. Canada has pledged to admit merely 4,000 refugees from Sudan, while Quebec has refused to admit Sudanese refugees for residence entirely. 

Canada’s institutional response to the genocide in Sudan reveals a glaringly racist double standard. In 2023, the Canadian government did not place a limit on the number of Ukrainians who could apply for refugee status, empowering over 300,000 Ukrainian refugees to enter Canada, an incredible testament to what is possible through effective, welcoming refugee policies. Yet when it comes to the suffering of Black Africans, Canada’s program to address the refugee crisis in Sudan is capped at a low number, reflecting the country’s discriminatory conceptions of whose suffering is urgent and whose is not.

McGill’s own investments in Lockheed Martin and other weapons manufacturers—which directly provide arms to the SAF and RSF—reveal the same selective morality that governs how Canada and the international community allocate humanitarian support. McGill must immediately cease its funding of the genocide in Sudan, as it did in 2006 when it divested from companies doing business in Myanmar (then Burma), and adopt an anti-genocidal framework that values Black lives with the same urgency as other groups facing genocide and mass atrocity.

For the sake of the over 9.5 million people currently internally displaced in Sudan, the over 21 million trapped in famine, and the millions killed throughout generations of civil war. 

Divestment blocks weapons manufacturing at its source. Even with the recently implemented UN arms embargo, the United Arab Emirates continues to arm and finance the RSF. Unless institutions divest, weapons companies will simply find new backers—sustaining the perpetrators of genocide.

When institutions fail to condemn genocide and choose complicity over conviction, the cycle of suffering, neglect, and violence only deepens. McGill’s investments sustain global violence; divestment from Sudan’s genocide is long overdue.

Science & Technology

World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week at McGill

by Mairin Burke on

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Every year, from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) observes World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW), recognizing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the greatest modern threats to global development and public health. AMR was responsible for 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019 alone.

McGill’s own AMR Centre works year-round to raise awareness about this pernicious phenomenon. Founded in 2021 by Dr. Dao Nguyen, with backing from bodies such as the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity and McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the AMR Centre brings together McGill professors from over 20 different departments to find innovative, interdisciplinary research solutions to AMR. The centre specializes in academic work on AMR diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention strategies. 

The support and funding from WAAW give the AMR Centre a particular opportunity to expand public understanding of AMR with the aim of reducing its emergence and spread. In an interview with The Tribune, McGill PhD Candidate in Microbiology & Immunology and AMR Centre Outreach Team co-lead Sophia Goldman explained what AMR is. According to her, basic knowledge of AMR is the first step in halting the public health crisis it creates.

“[AMR] occurs when microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi and even parasites make changes or adaptations over time to develop the ability to no longer [respond] to the drugs that are designed to kill them,” Goldman said. “In the big picture, this makes infections really hard to treat, and increases […] the spread of disease [….] [AMR] is mainly caused by the misuse and the overuse of antibiotics.”

AMR Centre Outreach Team co-lead and MSc student in Microbiology, Ashley McGibbon, described other factors contributing to AMR’s proliferation.

“Doctors and medical practitioners tend to prescribe antibiotics as the solution for everything, even though they’re only able to target bacterial infections,” McGibbon said in an interview with The Tribune. “[AMR is] also induced by the lack of investment by pharmaceutical companies […] into making new antimicrobials [….] Antibiotics are also used in a lot of agriculture [in soils, which] can promote [AMR’s development].”

Goldman outlined key solutions for preventing AMR on an individual basis: Taking antibiotics as prescribed and especially finishing them completely, keeping up with vaccination schedules to prevent infection, not sharing antibiotics or consuming expired ones, washing hands frequently, and staying home when sick.

McGibbon echoed the power of these independent choices in contributing to communal safety.

“Small actions add up,” she said. “If every person takes the time to make themself aware about this global health issue, it can inspire change and support responsible antimicrobial use, which will collectively help safeguard public health for generations to come.”

This week, the AMR Centre will be holding three public pop-up events to challenge pre-existing notions of AMR: On Nov. 18 at Macdonald Campus, and on Nov. 20 at the downtown campus’ Redpath Library, as well as at the McGill University Health Centre. The Centre will also host a scientific symposium on Nov. 19 exploring solutions to antimicrobial resistance, at the McGill Faculty Club from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

On Nov. 21 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., Dr. Eric Nelson from the University of Florida will run a seminar at the Goodman Cancer Institute discussing AMR diagnostic developments. To round out the week on Nov. 24, the Centre will host an online student roundtable discussion on the WHO’s latest AMR reports from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Throughout Nov. 18 to 24, the AMR Centre will enter anyone who posts themselves wearing blue alongside the hashtag #GoBlueWithMcGill—in honour of the WHO’s AMR awareness “Go Blue Campaign”—into a raffle. In solidarity with WAAW, the McCall MacBain Arts Building will be lit in blue on Nov. 24. 

Goldman emphasized what she hopes the McGill community will most take away from the AMR Centre’s WAAW events.

“Everyone’s interaction and experience with antimicrobials can affect everyone else around them, within Canada and even worldwide,” she said. “Everyone […] doing their little part matters.”

Montreal, News

Protestors rally against police brutality and impunity

by Armen Erzingatzian on

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Content warning: Police brutality, racial violence

Despite freezing rain, a group of approximately 50 protestors rallied in Montreal’s Philips Square at 3:00 p.m. on Nov. 9 to march with the Defund the Police Coalition to denounce instances of police brutality in Greater Montreal this year.

On Sept. 21, 15-year-old Afghan-Canadian Nooran Rezayi was with his friends when an individual called 911, telling emergency services that a group armed with weapons was at the intersection of rue Joseph-Daigneault and rue de Monaco in Saint-Hubert. Officers with the Service de police de l’agglomération de Longueil (SPAL) arrived ten minutes later. Within 58 seconds, one of these officers—whose identity remains unknown—shot Rezayi twice, killing him.

In another act of police violence, on March 30, Latinx man Abisay Cruz was killed by Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officers, who were responding to a call regarding a person in crisis. While three officers handcuffed Cruz, one of them forced his knee into Cruz’s upper back. In a video captured during the altercation, Cruz can be heard yelling, “I’m going to die.” Moments later, he lost consciousness. After being transported to a hospital, Cruz was declared dead. His death is currently under investigation by the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI).

Protesters at the rally directly called out the BEI, Quebec’s police watchdog that investigates potential misconduct. Since its implementation in 2016, zero of the 52 BEI cases concerning police officers who have fatally shot civilians have resulted in charges against an officer. Quebec’s Ligue des droits et libertés has questioned the BEI’s independence, citing its reliance on police services in initiating its investigations, and the fact that the majority of BEI staff come from the policing sector. 

One of the speakers at the rally discussed a recent provincial decision allowing police officers to remain silent and withhold information during BEI investigations. 

“The Court of Appeal of Quebec decided that it was more important to protect the right to silence than the right of the public to information,” the speaker stated. “The police officer who killed Nooran told himself that in Quebec, you can kill anyone, anyhow, as a police officer, because the system is behind you.”

The SPAL, responsible for Reyazi’s killing, has been held in high public regard recently as a reformed, community-oriented police organization. In an interview with The Tribune, an individual at the rally who wished to remain anonymous spoke about these reforms. 

“We’ve seen that not only are they not effective, but they are used by the police to justify further killings, imprisonment, [and] surveillance,” the attendee said. “We [need] to move towards mutual aid. We [need] to move towards systemic changes that eliminate the conditions that lead to […] crime in the first place.”

Another individual, who wished to go unnamed, commented on their experiences with police violence at previous protests.

“You can’t expect the police to police themselves,” they shared, in an interview with The Tribune. “I was forcibly pushed by an [(SPVM)] police officer at the March 15 protest [against police brutality]. I could have been seriously injured [….] My cameras were damaged.”

The individual added that rallies are an important way of fighting police repression and making the cause visible.

“Excessive force shouldn’t happen at all [….] When police brutalize [protestors] and people see that, it has a dissuading effect [on protest attendance],” they said. “We have to put pressure on our politicians.”

In recent times, there has been an increase in heavy and often violent police presence on McGill’s downtown campus, such as SPVM’s presence at Independent Jewish Voices’ peaceful celebration of Sukkot in October, at Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) protests in 2024, and at pro-Palestinian protests throughout 2024 and 2025. 

A 2019 report commissioned by the City of Montreal found systemic bias in street checks performed by Montreal police; compared to white people of the same age, Indigenous, Black and Arab people between ages 15 to 24 were four to five times more likely to be targeted by checks. In 2024, the Black Coalition of Quebec filed a $171 million CAD class-action lawsuit alleging that the City of Montreal was responsible for systemic racial profiling within its police force; a Quebec Superior Court judge agreed.

Some quotes in this article have been translated from French.

McGill, News, The Tribune Explains

The Tribune Explains: Departmental strikes for Palestine

by Sofia Vidinovski on

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In the November 2023 Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Fall Referendum, 78.7 per cent (5,974 voters) of SSMU constituents voted in favour of the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine. Undergraduates also voted to go on strike for Palestine through the SSMU in April 2025 and October 2025. 

Now, in November 2025, students are organizing departmental strikes for Palestine, calling on McGill to divest from companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine, drop disciplinary charges against students involved in pro-Palestine advocacy, and end its research partnerships with Israeli institutions contributing to the oppression of Palestinians. 

As of Nov. 17, 19 departments at McGill have voted to strike or are in the strike decision-making process. The Tribune explains the logistics of these strikes.

Why are departments striking? 

McGill University invests approximately $73 million CAD of its endowment into various companies that are directly linked to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including Lockheed Martin and Airbus. McGill also participates in exchange programs with Israeli institutions, such as the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which develops military technology used by the Israel Defense Forces. Furthermore, McGill campus security has heavily policed pro-Palestine student activists over the last two years, which is why disciplinary immunity for these students is at the core of student strikes for Palestine.

What is the process of getting a departmental strike approved?

Each department has its own constitution that dictates how it can strike. Typically, to vote on a motion to strike, departments must hold a general assembly (GA) that meets a certain minimum number of departmental members—referred to as quorum—to ensure the GA is representative. If a GA meets quorum, departmental members can discuss motions concerning a strike, make amendments, and then vote for or against the strike motion. If the majority of students at the GA vote for the motion, the whole department is considered on strike.

What departments are going on strike? Which departments did not vote to strike at their GAs?

The undergraduate departments going on strike in the Faculty of Arts are Anthropology, Art History & Communication Studies, East Asian Studies, English, Environment (Arts), Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies, Geography, International Development Studies, Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Sociology, South Asian Studies, and World Islamic and Middle East Studies. The Faculty of Science’s striking undergraduate departments are Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Physics, and Physiology. Additionally, Macdonald Campus Agricultural and Environmental Science students are striking, as well as the Computer Science Undergraduate Society.

The departments of Education, History, Linguistics, Mathematics and Statistics, and Religious Studies did not meet the quorum needed to vote for a strike. The departments awaiting GAs to vote on striking are Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biology, Economics (Arts), Neuroscience, Political Science, the Caribbean and Latin American Studies and Hispanic Studies Association and the Electrical, Computer & Software Engineering Students’ Society.

Rather than go on strike, the Faculty of Science Department of Pharmacology passed a motion affirming its solidarity with Palestine and instating a plan to donate 15 per cent of its Winter 2026 proceeds to relief efforts in Gaza through a humanitarian aid organization to be selected by members of the department.

What is the difference between hard picketing and soft picketing?

Departments have announced, via their Instagrams, the unique picketing strategies they will be using during the strike. While hard picketing involves protestors physically blockading classrooms, most departments choose a soft picketing strategy where protestors stand outside classrooms and discourage attendance and participation.

How long will the strike last? What will it look like?

The strikes will occur during the week of Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, with the specific range of dates depending on the department. The strikes call on students to refrain from attending all classes, conferences, labs, and office hours held by their department. Students are still permitted, within the boundaries of the strike, to attend class to take assessments and exams that they cannot miss. 

There will be activities, such as workshops and film screenings, for students to participate in during the strike, hosted by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance at McGill. 

To keep up with the current status of departmental strikes on campus, visit the strike progress tracker.

Science & Technology

Immortal time bias: A source for inaccuracies in cancer prevention research

by Guillaume Delgado on

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Cancer is one of the leading causes of death, and as such, cancer treatment and prevention research has been a large focus of medical professionals worldwide. Over the past few decades, several studies have proposed that metformin—a medication widely used for type II diabetes management—is a potential preventative measure for cancer. 

Unfortunately, the truth is not so glamorous. A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology and led by Samy Suissa, a professor in McGill’s Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Medicine, sought to put misleading claims about metformin to rest. 

“Many studies were appearing reporting that metformin, a treatment for diabetes, could lower the rates of several different cancers,” Suissa wrote to The Tribune. “What got us interested in this issue is that the reported reductions in cancer in these studies were spectacular, simply too good to be true.”

But what caused the misinformed results from these studies in the first place? Suissa traced the misleading results to a study error known as ‘immortal time bias,’ which can inflate the perceived effectiveness of a drug. He pointed to misinformation surrounding metformin and breast cancer as an example.

“Immortal time bias occurs when follow-up of breast cancer patients starts before they initiate metformin treatment. So those that receive metformin are ‘immortal’ between the start of cancer and the start of metformin; they must be alive to receive the metformin.” Suissa wrote. “The problem with immortal time bias is that all these studies started at breast cancer, but then looked at metformin use in the future, thus inherently giving a survival advantage to the women who start metformin.”

In other words, not every breast cancer patient survives long enough to actually reach the point of beginning metformin medicine. However, researchers may retroactively look at metformin use in breast cancer, and not account for the time in the interim when patients stayed alive while not using metformin. In this case, it could seem as though the metformin had a hand in treating the cancer, when in reality it was only useful for those who were able to live long enough to reach the point of taking it. This bias mischaracterizes the effectiveness of metformin as a breast cancer treatment.

Most earlier studies on metformin were observational, with no randomization occurring, and researchers only monitored the health progression of their patients without intervening. As such, Suissa stressed the importance of randomized trials—when participants are distributed by chance into different treatment groups—for producing accurate, unbiased results.

“Many scientists started to conduct randomized trials of metformin as a treatment for cancer, with the largest involving 3,600 women with breast cancer,” Suissa wrote. “Half received the usual treatment for breast cancer along with metformin, while the other half received the usual treatment. They were followed for more than five years and the study found no benefit for the metformin group.” 

Suissa has already begun examining potential misinformation in other major pharmaceutical drugs, and emphasized that both observational and randomized trials are necessary to reduce medical and scientific misinformation.

“Many such flawed studies are now appearing in many medical journals on the potential extracurricular benefits of GLP1 receptor agonists, the family of drugs that the popular Ozempic belongs to,” Suissa wrote. “The studies are also suggesting that these drugs are very effective at reducing all kinds of diseases, including cancer [….] Before expensive randomized trials are undertaken to test this hypothesis, we are undertaking properly done observational studies using rapid cutting-edge methods to confirm that the hypothesis is tenable. We wish to ensure that any time-consuming randomized trials are based on solid data and avoid a repetition of the metformin failure.”

Suissa’s studies will prevent future misinformation regarding drugs such as Ozempic. This will ensure that Ozempic and similar pharmaceuticals are only prescribed for conditions that they are completely able to alleviate or prevent.

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