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News, SSMU

SSMU’s legislative council passes motion on communication practices

by Ella Milloy on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held their second legislative council meeting of the Fall 2020 semester on Sept. 24. With the online semester in full swing and COVID-19 safety measures continuing to affect in-person meetings, SSMU met via Zoom to debate and vote on the approval of five new motions. Despite a few technical difficulties at the start of the session, the council was able to proceed with the evening’s agenda smoothly.

The Motion Regarding Equitable Communication Practices was the only motion debated at length during the meeting. Brought forward by Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle, this amendment seeks to revise SSMU’s Equity Policy to ensure accessibility in SSMU’s communication practices.

“This motion is arising from some concerns that were raised over the past few years regarding the reoccurrence of tone policing and general inaccessibility in SSMU politics,” Frizzle said. “Since 2016, there have been repeated articles in the Tribune and the Daily citing concerns [in] emails from female SSMU representatives concerning the pattern of tone policing.”

The amendment to the Equity Policy would add a clause to protect individuals’ ability to express themselves using their preferred word choice and tone, so long as it does not violate SSMU’s Equity Policy, which prohibits hate speech, harassment, discrimination, and abusive language. The motion was approved, with 15 SSMU representatives voting in favor of the amendment.

“I think it’s a great initiative put forward by the VP University Affairs,” Arts Senator Darshan Daryanani said. “[Student politics] has in the past been very inaccessible for BIPOC and other marginalized communities. I think it is the council’s responsibility to ensure that we are able to provide a safe space in the right manner, while still upholding SSMU’s values and ensuring freedom of expression.”

The meeting came to a close with councillors from five faculties summarizing the work of their respective representative bodies. SSMU President Jemark Earle, along with other SSMU executive team members, presented their reports to the council to highlight their achievements from this year so far.

Moment of the meeting:

As SSMU continues to adapt to the virtual meeting format, Speaker of the Council Lauren Hill reminded councillors to refrain from using the chat as a means of communication during the meeting due to its informal nature. Councillor Daryanani engaged in “virtual cross-talk” during the council’s Approval of Minutes, leading to the subsequent disabling of the chat by Speaker Hill to avoid future disruptions. 

Soundbite:

“I appreciate the background of [the Motion Regarding Equitable Communication Practice], particularly when it comes to contextualizing the public side of SSMU [….] I am concerned […] about the context in which profanity is used and perhaps a greater need for precision in delineating where profanity is actually appropriate, […] where it can actually be used to further silence other members. I myself have been in many workspaces where I have seen male co-workers target profanity in rather disturbing ways at femme-presenting co-workers of mine, and it’s important to me that we bear in mind the contexts in which we approve of or disapprove of the use of profanity.” – Jake Reed, Engineering Representative to SSMU

McGill, News

Academic panel presents perspectives on environmental racism in Canada

by Respina Rostamifar on

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While recent demonstrations such as BLM marches, the Scholar Strike, and environmental protection protests call for a racial reckoning, many scholars have been prompted to explore the link between environmental degradation and racial injustice. On Sept. 24, McGill’s Research and Sustainability Network (RSN) hosted a panel of academics to discuss environmental racism in Canada. 

The panel, titled, “An Academic Perspective on Environmental Racism in Canada” featured Dr. Ingrid Waldon, an associate professor at Dalhousie University; Dr. Dayna Scott, an associate professor at York University; Dr. Deborah McGregor, also an associate professor at York University; and Larissa Parker, L3 Law.

The panel opened with the speakers outlining various research strategies that are currently used to examine instances of environmental racism in Canada. Deborah McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice, explained the importance of using multidisciplinary research approaches.

“We need interdisciplinarity,” McGregor said. “When [we]’re trying to respond to the real world and the real things that are happening, they are not nicely disciplined in the way that academia is set up. We have to respond in these different ways, at different scales, to different people.”

Waldon, who researches the ongoing environmental racism patterns affecting the Mi’kmaq and Black communities in Nova Scotia, pointed out the importance of distinguishing between environmental justice and environmental racism.

“While [conducting] my research, I noticed that there was a preference [for] the words environmental justice and a hesitance to name race,” Waldon said. “It made people uncomfortable. Justice is what we need to get to […], but we also have to look at the illness. To me, environmental justice is the medication. If Indigenous communities across Canada and Black communities are disproportionately impacted, then race must have something to do with it. You’ve got to centre the idea of race because then it makes people more aware of the problem.”

The panellists also highlighted the current systemic structures that perpetuate environmental racism.

Parker drew upon her experience as a law student and environmental activist to describe her experience with racism embedded in the Canadian legal system.

“It’s a mix of power and privilege,” Parker said. “The legal system is built on who holds privilege. These things dictate where polluting activities will be placed. You see these privileges, not only in our legal system but in all of our institutions.”

Scott, Canada Research Chair in environmental law and justice in the green economy, emphasized the importance of recognizing the current policies that uphold racist outcomes.

“When I think about the air pollution regime, it’s not like you could read Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act and racist doctrine is going to spring off the page,” Scott said. “You have to understand how that regime works in practice and see where environmental disparities are falling in practice. Understanding structural racism is recognizing that the current structure produces racist outcomes.”

Waldon stressed both the crucial role of polices, and the current institutions that fail to acknowledge environmental racism.

“How can the environment be racist? It’s policy that can be racist,” Waldon said. “It’s an environmental assessment that doesn’t take into account issues impacting these communities that can be racist. Policy comes out of ideology, and there [is] a lack of understanding of how racism was embedded [by racist ideologies].”

At the end of the discussion, the panellists made a statement regarding transformative change and the role of community groups and grassroots movements in demanding environmental justice.

“Relying on the government to address environmental racism is problematic because it is not truly transformative,” Waldon said. “[Structural inequality] is about profit, and you can’t fully rely on those who are benefiting off the current system to make transformative change. You need both legislative action and demand from the streets.”

Soccer, Sports

Larger rosters and greater physical demands are reinventing football in Europe

by Karan Kumar on

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The past decade has seen a dramatic transition in the English Premier League and European Football in general. The worldwide popularity of the game has made football clubs, especially those at the top, wealthier. For example, the operating revenue for Manchester United FC has increased from 518 million euros in the 2014-2015 season to 711 million euros in the 2018-2019 season. The desire to win prestigious titles like the Premier League and Champions League has led clubs and leagues to make significant investments and changes in selecting players and hiring managers.

The plethora of cup and league titles to compete for has prompted clubs to expand their rosters. Chelsea FC, one of the most prominent English clubs, currently has 29 players on their squad for the 2020-2021 season. In a recent interview with Chelsea TV, club manager Frank Lampard highlighted the importance of a larger squad. 

“It’s always a tough element of the job at this moment at this level, because we need a big squad because we are going to be competing on so many levels, and players want to play week in, week out,” Lampard said. “I need those options. It’s a long season and we need different ways of breaking down teams.” 

While more competitions present more opportunities to play, they also come with more opportunities for injury. Larger squads are necessary to allow for more options while competing  and to give players the chance to recover. Current Premier League champions Liverpool FC has a squad of 35 players for the 2020-2021 season.

Another recent trend, hiring young ex-players to fill management positions, is also popular with several top clubs in European leagues. Examples include Zinedine Zidane for Real Madrid, Frank Lampard for Chelsea, Ole Gunnar Solskjær for Manchester United, and Mikel Arteta for Arsenal. Owners of top clubs are putting more faith in players-turned-managers than the conventional choices available to them. Recent ex-players are more in tune with the demands of the contemporary game and can understand players better, allowing them to lead their teams to perform at the highest level possible.

European football has also become more physical over time, as managers expect higher levels of fitness from players. Cesc Fabregas, an extremely technically gifted player, reflected on the preference given by managers to physically strong and agile players over technically gifted ones in an interview with BBC Sounds. 

“When Antonio Conte [manager] first came to Chelsea, I didn’t really play the first three months,” Fabregas said. “He made it clear that he wanted another type of midfielder, [someone] strong and physical. They signed another player [and] I didn’t play the whole season. I had an injury as well and didn’t really feature at all. ” 

A large squad for teams can lead to more interesting formations in different competitions. Managers who were once players can be more empathetic towards current players about the challenges of the modern game. A more physical game can make the already existing rivalries between clubs more riveting. This transition in European football will hopefully lead to a more exciting future for the world’s most popular game. 

Hockey, Sports

Highlights from the NHL Bubble

by Sarah Farnand on

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As the 2019-2020 NHL season comes to a close, it is worth reflecting on lessons from a playoff season that will surely be remembered for years to come. 

Other professional sports leagues, such as the MLB, demonstrated that without a “bubble” to compete in, professional sports seasons would never last in the COVID-19 era. However, the process of creating a bubble is much more difficult than it may seem on the surface. Organizing 12 teams to play on one rink without coming into contact with each other off the ice takes rigorous planning and adaptability. To minimize travel and the risk of contracting COVID-19, the NHL playoffs were constrained to two hub cities: Edmonton and Toronto. Locker rooms and team benches were thoroughly sanitized between games to prevent transmission from team to team. Extraordinary circumstances require out-of-the-box thinking. 

While the situation may not have been ideal, with many players away from their families and no in-person game attendance, players were excited for the opportunity to play again—and the fans were even more excited to watch. In an attempt to energize the silent, empty arenas, broadcast teams used fake noises to simulate the presence of fans. To keep the mood upbeat, the NHL also put electric fans in some of the seats as a joke. When Connor McDavid scored a hat-trick in Game 2 of qualifiers against the Chicago Blackhawks, the league had staff threw hats on the ice to compensate for the missing fans. Despite this, some critics were concerned about the effect that the absence of fans would have on the energy in the arena and the players’ performances. While there was a noticeable lack of fans and crowd energy, it only minimally affected players’ intensity and focus. With the help of some upbeat music, encouragement from teammates on the bench, and the allure of the Stanley Cup, players brought high caliber competitive play every night. Each game, whether it was a blowout or a five-overtime thriller, was exciting to watch.

The lack of a crowd did not stop each player and team from playing the kind of hockey that kept fans on the edge of their couches. Facing elimination, the Toronto Maple Leafs were down 3-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets in game four of the series. With just 23 seconds left, they tied the game, forcing an overtime that kept them in the playoffs. 

In the Stanley Cup Finals, the Dallas Stars, also facing elimination, came into game five determined not to go home that night. After a gruelling game and two overtime periods, the Stars won the game, avoiding elimination and keeping their Stanley Cup dreams alive. 

As for how the next season will proceed, there are still many unknowns. The bubble playoffs were successful because travel was unnecessary and teams were isolated from the public. Having teams go back to their home cities and forcing travel across the continent for games could lead to major issues regarding player and staff health. The NHL pulled off the 2020 playoffs; now, the challenge will be safely bringing the sport back outside of bubble cities.

Creative, Podcasts

What’s open at McGill? (Podcast)

by Alex Hinton on

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Features

My big, fat online identity crisis

by Kaja Surborg on

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I was 11 years old when I created my Facebook account. That was over 10 years ago,  and since then, I have been broadcasting a highlight reel of my life for the world to see. Undoubtedly, beginning the moment that I clicked the green ‘Sign Up’ button, being constantly plugged into social media for nearly half my life has shaped who I am today. Social media—and its influences on me—have evolved through time and place, manifesting on new platforms, but have remained a constant presence. My time and attention was, and still is, a product being sold to the companies behind advertisements on these platforms. The more user data that the algorithms of these sites collect, the more revenue they can generate by accurately predicting what content will keep users engaged. My social media use has become a habit, a natural part of everyday life, and I barely remember a time without it.

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

A new approach to addressing urban homelessness

by Margaret Wdowiak on

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The homelessness epidemic continues to affect over 235,000 Canadians each year, most of them in major cities. Despite some efforts from municipal governments and charitable organizations to address the staggering number of unhoused Canadians, this figure has continued to rise annually since the late 1980s. However, a new study published by researchers in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry showed that an unconventional, cost-effective strategy could help overcome a number of persistent roadblocks in finding long-term housing for individuals.

The study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of the “Housing First” strategy, which consists of finding permanent housing for individuals in addition to providing a rent supplement, prior to addressing other concerns such as physical and mental health problems. McGill researchers sought to test this novel strategy alongside existing programs, such as Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), and compare their outcomes with these conventional methods.

“The aim […] was basically to find out to what extent did delivering ‘Housing First’ services reduce the use of other services,” Dr. Eric Latimer, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill, said in a phone interview with The McGill Tribune.

This study was part of a larger ongoing research project, At Home/Chez Soi that aims to provide practical, meaningful support to Canadians experiencing homelessness and mental health problems. The four-year national research project found that the “Housing First” approach was more conducive to helping unhoused individuals secure long-term housing in comparison to more conventional housing and support services. 

“You help the person get an apartment and you keep on supporting them for as long as necessary so that their lives move forward,” Latimer said.

From Latimer’s perspective, providing ongoing support for unhoused Canadians sets the “Housing First” model apart from prior initiatives. 

“[The goal is] to really be there for them, to help them not only get an apartment initially, but to remain housed, and furthermore […] to progress in their lives and move ahead with goals that are meaningful for them,” Latimer said.

This continuous support strategy can be realized with the aid of an Intensive Case Management (ICM) team for people with moderate needs who encounter fewer barriers to rehabilitation. Individuals needing more intensive assistance can follow ACT plans. ACT teams, which are more specialized, cost significantly more than ICM.

Latimer and his colleagues showed that investing in a “Housing First” approach is cost-effective, particularly when assisting high-need individuals experiencing acute mental illness. This strategy reduces the cost of interventions and decreases reliance on more costly public services like emergency shelters.

Unfortunately, despite the clear advantages of implementing the “Housing First” strategy along with existing ACT teams, many cities and provinces are reluctant to adopt the model.

“When the government decided to fund these ‘Housing First’ services, they were only willing to fund it for moderate-needs individuals,” Latimer said. “ACT teams fall too clearly [within] provincial jurisdiction.”

Though the federal government has left it up to individual provinces to fund the new strategy, it has provided little to no financial incentive for municipalities to do so. According to Latimer, cities and provinces often fail to provide adequate services and funds for high-needs individuals. 

“In Montreal, only one team serves people who would be considered high-need [under] the ‘Housing First’ [strategy], but it does so without rent supplements and in a time-limited way, so it is not ideal,”  Latimer said.

The results of the At Home/Chez Soi research project could inject new vigor into the nationwide campaign to end homelessness in Canadian cities.

Science & Technology

Searching the stars for supermassive black holes

by Jonathan Giammaria on

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Until 2019, no one had ever seen a black hole outside of artistic renditions and theoretical simulations dating back to the 18th century. On Apr. 10, 2019, after years of collaborative work, over 200 researchers from 60 institutions around the globe unveiled the first image of the supermassive blackhole Messier 87 (M87), taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. Daryl Haggard, a professor in the Department of Physics at McGill, is an expert in the study of supermassive black holes and contributed to the global initiative behind capturing M87’s photo. On Sept. 10, Haggard gave a virtual talk, “Observing Black Holes Large and Small,” discussing the science of black holes and the techniques that the group used to capture their groundbreaking photograph.

A black hole is a mass in space that has a gravity so strong that nothing can escape its pull—not even light. The gravitational force of a black hole is so powerful that it extends to the region of space which surrounds the black hole itself, an area called the “event horizon.” Supermassive black holes often form as a result of stellar explosions. Haggard explained, however, that the largest black holes can form through other means, such as when neutron stars—collapsed cores of much larger stars—merge together or join with smaller black holes. A black hole’s extreme gravitational pull results from the drastic disparity between the mass and volume that these explosions and mergers create.

“[M87] has 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun, packed into something that is the size of our solar system, and that’s what makes it a supermassive black hole,” Haggard said during her talk. “The volume that [planet Earth] would be packed into to make [it] into a black hole is something like the size of a sugar cube.”

In order to capture M87’s photo, the team behind the Event Horizon Telescope employed a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). In this process, scientists connect radio telescopes positioned over long stretches of land––referred to as a baseline––allowing each installation to work as though it were a single pane of glass in the lens of a broader telescope. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Haggard explained that VLBI had previously been set up along the West Coast of the United States to capture images of the interstellar areas around black holes. To focus on the event horizon itself, researchers had to expand their baseline.

“This amazing discovery was […] all made possible by this truly international suite of observatories,” Haggard said in her talk. “It requires a network of telescopes that span the entire globe to get a kind of a quasi-dish that has the diameter of our whole Earth.” 

Given black holes’ preclusion of light itself, the question remains as to how researchers can image them while using light-sensitive instruments. Even new methods for observing black holes, such as VLBI, record only photons, the elementary particles of light that surround the black hole’s event horizon, and not the black hole itself.

In M87’s photo, the stable orbit of photons surrounding the black hole, or accretion disk, appears as a blurry ring of orange light with a bottom half that is brighter than the top. This variance in brightness is due to a Doppler effect-like phenomenon. When photons in orbit of a black hole move towards Earth’s telescopes, their frequency is at its highest, and the light appears more vibrant. 

At the end of her talk, Haggard explained that in future experiments, researchers hope to take images of M87 with greater visual acuity, which has so far been limited by Earth’s baseline. 

“We really want better resolutions, we really want to see all those pretty little photons in data, not just in our simulations, we need a longer baseline,” Haggard said. “If we want a really long baseline, […] going to space might allow [us] to extend that baseline and actually get a more high-resolution image [….] There’s a lot of great food for thought in thinking about next-generation instruments.”

Commentary, Opinion

SSMU’s partnership with Amazon disregards student concerns

by Sepideh Afshar on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) recently announced a partnership deal with Amazon, which included a promotional code for students, in a now-deleted post on their Instagram. The student union faced backlash from students, with many questioning the ethics of a collaboration with a corporation known for exploiting its workers and contributing to the climate crisis. Though SSMU has since issued an apology, their actions highlight the importance of properly vetting all decisions made within their organization, especially when its mandate is to represent students.

Amazon is becoming increasingly known for its problematic unethical practices. One of the company’s most prominent problems is its terrible working conditions. In February 2019, workers at a New York warehouse were given two 15-minute breaks, despite that length of time constituting the walk from the warehouse to the break room. Additionally, many have claimed that managers often ignore workers’ disabilities and accessibility issues, upholding an unsafe work environment. The brutal work conditions can also include 60-hour weeks due to mandatory overtime.

Beyond its shameful treatment of its employees, Amazon has a disastrous environmental record. While other major tech companies such as Google manage to use 100 per cent renewable energy sources, Amazon powers 50 per cent of their servers with fossil fuels, demonstrating blatant neglect and indifference on their part in climate change. Even worse, the company’s lack of concern for the environment is sometimes more explicit: Amazon advertises its AWS machine learning as a tool for expediting oil drilling and production. As the third-richest company in the world, Amazon has the means to pay its employees better and to commit to more environmentally safe practices, but chooses instead to ignore valid concerns in favour of pursuing profit.

As the backlash facing Amazon is widespread, it is unlikely that SSMU simply did not know about it. This mistake appears to be a case of SSMU seeking monetary gain from a sponsorship with a major company and hoping that nobody would notice the problematic nature of the agreement. Even if they truly did not understand the implications of working with a company facing calls for boycott, SSMU is clearly missing a vetting process for their social media posts. Clearly, SSMU can benefit from somebody tasked with researching the implications of their decision to avoid another blunder. As representatives of McGill students, SSMU should be doing the bare minimum of vetting their partnerships. 

SSMU should advocate for and represent the interests of McGill students. While the society holds progressive values, they need to be consistent in doing so. Their sponsorship with Amazon was not representative of the values of the student body. It is ironic that SSMU has tried to partner with Amazon while preaching accountability and sustainability on their website. This is not the first time SSMU has been in trouble for the lack of research going into their decisions. Just last year, inaccurate French translations were noticed in their newsletters, creating difficulties for Francophone students. The similarity between the two instances is that both cases are mistakes that are easy to catch and should never have been made in the first place. In a bilingual province there is no reason to have improper French translations the same way somebody within SSMU should have caught the ethical implications of partnering with Amazon.

Sharing the promotional code was a complete failure by SSMU and violates many of the values that they claim to hold. It should not be up to students to remind SSMU to do the right thing, as the Society should be the ones holding themselves accountable. SSMU has said that they will be coming out with formalized steps to combat this, but this should have been done long ago. An apology is meaningless when Amazon’s issues are so widespread. While they have acknowledged their mistake, we still await the concrete steps SSMU will take to ensure that this does not happen again. 

Off the Board, Opinion

Life as an atheist liberal feminist in the American South

by Caroline Shelton on

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For as long as I can remember, I have been described with juxtapositions: Short yet bold; quiet yet opinionated; Southern yet Democrat; young yet informed; petite yet strong. Once you add feminist and atheist to the list, I become even more of an enigma. Growing up in the southern United States, I had been told either explicitly by family or implicitly through societal standards that I was too outspoken in my differences. My words and beliefs do not match my petite, 5’0 appearance, but to the closed-minded, they are supposed to. “You should be seen and not heard.” “Just humour him,” or “put your private school pride in your pocket,” were common as well. Little did the naysayers know, putting me down only strengthened my views and my confidence in myself. Not everyone is motivated by the rude words of others, and I understand why. It hurts when people expect you to fall into line at the cost of expressing yourself. Sometimes, it can be easier to keep the peace. Most people choose not to rock the boat with family. That’s where I have to disagree.

I remember a simpler time, back in 2010, when I created my Facebook account. One of the first things I posted was a meme about why a blank Bible is better than a written one. I quickly learned the typical response from my family members that was to come every time I posted about one of my radical beliefs: “HOW DARE SHE?!” An atheist does not simply joke about the Bible in a family full of Catholics—what heresy! God forbid I go to Hell for a sense of humor, but I digress. This was just the beginning, and the mildest, of my family’s reactions to my burgeoning, atypical beliefs, and my identity as what I deem myself to be now: An “atheist socialist liberal feminist”—the most dangerous combination to any southern Republican. 

Then came the 2016 election. I was five days shy of being able to cast a vote, but nothing at the time was more important to me than electing our first female President, who could have been Hillary Clinton. I was informed on policy, current events, and what I wanted for our country: Inclusion, tolerance, racial justice, and female representation in government. But none of that mattered. To my family, I was a teenager unqualified to vote and therefore unqualified to have such opinions. Discussions about politics devolved into personal attacks. I was now not just an atheist, but an unpatriotic anti-American as well. Those close to me told me to move to Canada if I was unhappy at home, and I told them to watch me.  

It’s been three years since I moved to Montreal, and here I am again facing the same dilemma. It’s groundhog day: I can hold my tongue for the sake of family, or I can voice my opinions, disregarding the consequences. Though it may be difficult, I will always choose the latter. Coming to McGill has helped me find my voice, without being afraid to use it out of fear of familial strife. It took me 18 years and immigration to Canada, but I am now finally able to surround myself with like-minded people. McGill and Montreal’s international and diverse community has taught me that I need to speak up not only for myself, but also for our futures, whether on a local, national, or global level. I will take whatever comes my way; I can handle it. That’s because the current issues of racial justice, climate change, sexual harassment, misogyny, and unequal pay, to name a few, are no longer issues we can watch from the sidelines. So from here on out, I’ll be at every march, every rally, and every demonstration. 

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