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Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘Sisters, Dreams and Variations’ brings a gust of Icelandic artistry

by Pascal Hogue on

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There’s a reason why Neil Armstrong decided to spend part of his summer in 1967 salmon-fishing in Iceland—the place doesn’t feel like it belongs on Earth. Iceland is a territory of pure grit, where volcanoes constantly spew white smoke and purple hues of Alaska lupine pepper the landscape. When I visited the country in 2018, it felt alien, like standing on a giant meteor that had crash-landed smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 

In more than one way, Sisters, Dreams and Variations brings this Icelandic extraterrestrial aura to the big screen. The documentary follows multidisciplinary artists and sisters Tyr Jami and Jasa Baka, a pair of budding artists in Montreal. Beginning in 2014, the film tracks their move to Iceland, their great-grandmother’s home, in 2018. Their journey is depicted as a pastiche of vintage family photographs, childish drawings, and extravagant real-life scenes that fully embrace their artistic whims.  

Jasa Baka is a painter, sculptor, and fashion designer with a boundless and prolific creative output. Swaggering around the Plateau with cat-eye glasses and purple lipstick, Baka struts from one art gallery to the next, painstakingly trying to make a name for herself in the Montreal art scene. Her life and work teem with vibrant outfits, cutesy dollhouses, and random colourful knick-knacks. Tyr Jami, a visual artist and musician, splits her time between giving cello lessons and playing every available gig with her folk band Syngja, whether on a weeknight at Casa del Popolo, for a local summer festival, or on a Montreal morning show. The cinematography beautifully captures the sisters’ brimming imagination: Scenes of mundane, daily life are sprinkled with Baka’s playful doodles and refreshed by Jami’s whimsical cello melodies and crystal clear, early-90s Björk vocals. Their creative visions radiate in Montreal’s early-spring doldrums.

But, there is a sense that the sisters lack something in Montreal—not solely because their great-grandmother, Ingibjörg, whose Icelandic lullabies are immortalized on cassette tapes, lulls her great-granddaughters back to their ancestral land. When Jami and Baka finally do visit Iceland, their artistic idiosyncrasies find their echo amid the craggy hills and lonely pastures. The result is an enchanting marriage of nature and craft, myth and rubble, and flurries of phantasmagorical illusions. 

After a Friday night screening at the Cinéma du Musée, director Catherine Legault commented on her film’s intentions.

“I wanted to show [the sisters] through many different perspectives and also show them as artists, what is the life of artists, which is not always easy in Montreal, despite their talent,” Legault explained. “But for them, it is an integral part of their life. It is in all these small aspects of their lives that their art unveils itself. Iceland is an inspiration, but it is not what defines them. And when we got to Iceland, after having planted all the seeds, the idea was to make [their artistry] blossom […] now that we had the keys to understand where they came from and how their style came about.”

Legault couldn’t have spoken more truthfully. If Jami and Baka struggle to find a source of fulfillment in their adopted city of Montreal, they discover it among the geysers of their ancestral home. Sisters, Dreams and Variations is a beautiful depiction of their journey, fusing family and art, while paying homage to a small island that leaves grand impressions.

Legault’s quote was translated from French by the author.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jasa Baka was the violinist of Singya, and that Tyr Jami was a visual artist. Baka is a visual artist, and Jami was the cellist of Syngya. The Tribune regrets this error.

Student Life

Business meets style at Fashion Spectrum Competition

by Maya Mau on

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Fashion Spectrum, Canada’s only inter-university academic competition that focusses on fashion, is underway. Fashion Spectrum welcomes students from four Montreal university management schools—McGill, Concordia, ESG UQÀM, and HEC Montréal—to work with local fashion companies. In creating these partnerships between business students and established industry professionals, Fashion Spectrum aims to provide crucial solutions to modern fashion industry problems with the help of young minds. Past editions have tackled human resource reforms and explored traditional modes of entrepreneurship; this year’s edition focusses on adapting to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Comprised entirely by students, the 2020-2021 executive team brought together students from the four core universities. Among them is Clarisse Dugelay, U3 Management, who is studying strategic management with a concentration in finance. This is Dugelay’s second year in the competition, and she is the only McGill student on the committee. She is currently serving as the Fashion Spectrum Vice-President of Communications. Dugelay jumped at the chance to be involved with Fashion Spectrum.

“This position in communications represented a unique opportunity for me to grow both personally, by working on a subject that interests me deeply in a unique case competition, and professionally,” Dugelay said. 

One benefit of participating in Fashion Spectrum for business students such as Dugelay is the opportunity to synthesize vastly different interests while taking on a leadership position within the program. For Dugelay, this allowed her to hone her competitive side while engaging in the creative aspects of fashion merchandising. Over the course of the past two years, Fashion Spectrum has been an incredible experience for Dugelay, and the benefits have extended far beyond the competition.

 “My favorite [part of] the event was the opportunity to meet students and established professionals that come from different backgrounds, yet share the same motivation, passion, and drive,” Dugelay said. “Today, thanks to my experience during [Fashion Spectrum], I am more confident during presentations [in class]. Being a native French speaker [at an English university] and having a lot of presentations to conduct in my business classes, this was really an important [experience] for me.”

Indeed, networking is a highlight for the 80 students selected to participate. For three months, they will collaborate with each other and will be supported by a mentor who is usually a professional, teacher, or consultant. In addition, they will work closely with some of the 20 local companies who are part of the program, which include La Vie en Rose, Mackage, Lolë, Birks, and Gorski. The wide variety of products that these companies develop and market give participants a breadth of creative freedoms, along with a large array of resources.

In January 2021, the participating students’ journeys will culminate by presenting their cases studies to a jury of panelists. Though the competition is friendly and everyone involved ultimately gains invaluable experiences, there still are winners. Prizes go to the individuals who were the most involved and showed growth over the course of the competition and the teams that worked well together to come up with the most innovative, ethical, and sustainable ideas.

The upcoming edition marks the third annual Fashion Spectrum competition, but its organizational structure has been revamped from its two preceding iterations. Rather than seeing the current COVID-19 pandemic as an obstacle, Fashion Spectrum has embraced it. In addition to ensuring that all social distancing measures are properly maintained, the competition developed the Fashion Forward online crisis program, which encourages participants to imagine possibilities for the fashion industry in a post-COVID-19 world. This adjustment demonstrates solidarity both among students, and between the university and fashion communities in difficult times. In essence, this collaboration is ultimately the core of the competition.

McGill, News

McGill Alumnus Steven Pinker presents McGill’s 2020 Beatty Lecture online

by Tasmin Chu on

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Cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker presented this year’s Beatty Lecture to the McGill community and the general public on Sept. 25. Every year, the Beatty Lecture brings leading thinkers to McGill to present a public talk on a topic of their choice. 

During the online lecture, which drew in nearly 500 live viewers on Youtube, Pinker discussed the concept of human progress and argued that the human condition has been improving overall. Pinker attributed this phenomenon to values from the Age of Enlightenment such as reason, science, and humanism. 

Pinker is the 90th presenter to give a Beatty Lecture at McGill. The lectureship was established in 1952 following a $100,000 donation to McGill University by Dr. Henry A. Beatty. The annual lecture honours Beatty’s late brother Sir Edward Beatty, who was a president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Pinker attained the status of a public intellectual after writing multiple critically acclaimed books on science, psychology, and history. In his Beatty Lecture, he expanded upon ideas published in his 2018 book, Enlightenment Now. 

Citing statistics that show increasing life expectancies, the fall of extreme poverty, and the decline of slavery, Pinker argued that the human condition has markedly improved over the last 300 years. 

“Slavery used to be practiced in every civilization,” Pinker said. “We are living in an unprecedented 40-year period in world history, where slavery is not legal anywhere on Earth.”

Pinker claimed that despite the economic and social devastation caused by COVID-19, it remains essential to appreciate the worldwide response to contain and study the virus in the 21st century. Comparing COVID-19 to previous pandemics, Pinker pointed out it took 15 years to find an effective treatment for HIV and 350 years to find a vaccine for rubella. 

“We identified the pathogen within days of discovery of the epidemic,” Pinker said. “Currently, about 100 vaccines are in development [….] It’s important to realize what an advance this is in a historical context.” 

Clara Saliba,U3 Arts, attended the lecture but was disappointed that Pinker’s talk did not focus on his research in linguistics. She also found aspects of the talk oversimplified. 

“I do agree that the world has progressed, [in the sense] that it’s less violent, safer, a better place to live in than it was a few years ago,” Saliba said. “[But] I found the focus on Enlightenment values and humanism very Eurocentric.” 

Despite Pinker’s popularity, his theory of human progress remains controversial. Following the publication of Enlightenment Now, some critics found fault with the quality of Pinker’s scholarship, citing his historical understanding of the Enlightenment and his claim that countries reduce pollution as they grow more prosperous.  

Pinker has also faced criticism for his cultural views. In July of 2020, hundreds of scholars signed a letter calling for the removal of Pinker as a distinguished academic fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, citing some of his previous statements on racial justice. Among them was one tweet from 2015 in which Pinker wrote, “Police don’t kill blacks disproportionately.” 

During the Q&A session of the talk, an anonymous audience member asked Pinker to weigh in on the “Take James McGill Down” campaign—a student-led initiative demanding the removal of  the statue of James McGill from campus, the founder of McGill who also enslaved people.

“In terms of pulling down statues, I think that’s a product of miseducation,” Pinker said. “We tend to underestimate the situation, the context, the historical period, so we tend to think that bad things are done by bad people. That is bad psychology.”

Daniel Horen Greenford, a Ph.D. candidate in Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University and student of McGill’s Economics for the Anthropocene program, felt that Pinker’s optimistic beliefs are incompatible with the growing climate crisis. 

Greenford, who previously criticized Pinker’s scholarly assessment of climate change in the Montreal Gazette, doubted Pinker’s beliefs that technological leaps will halt climate change. Greenford argued that Pinker’s scholarship defended the status quo. 

“His main thing is cherry-picking things that help push for the narrative that we should stay the course,” Greenford said. “You can’t solve the climate problem without having a more serious restructuring of the economic system.” 

Campus Spotlight, Student Life

McGill’s Indigenous Awareness Weeks return virtually

by Wendy Zhao on

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Song and dance filled McGill’s Lower Field again on Sept. 18, as the First Peoples’ House’s (FPH) Virtual Pow Wow launched the university’s 10th Annual Indigenous Awareness Weeks (IAW), focussed on showcasing Indigenous cultures and traditional perspectives on wellness. Every September since 2001, Indigenous community members across Canada have united at McGill to contribute to the Pow Wow ritual. Previously two weeks long, the events of IAW 2020 were shortened to take place over the span of under a week to adapt to the virtual limitations. 

Most people watched the Pow Wow live from FPH’s social media accounts, while others gathered at a safe distance from one another around the performance on Lower Field and donned masks. The Red Tail Spirit Singers drum group accompanied dancers of all generations, including Don Barnaby, Marian Snow, and Ray Deer and his family. Basked in sunlight, Barnaby addressed the audience. 

“It was supposed to rain, but the Creators said, ‘You know what, they need to go out and put some medicine out there, so I’m not going to literally rain on their parade,’” Barnaby said.

Behind the dancers, the Hiawatha Wampum Belt flag was raised on the McCall-MacBain Arts Building to recognize the land that McGill occupies as the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. The flag emphasized the university’s growing, but still limited, space for Indigenous expressions. 

In his virtual welcome to the Pow Wow, Christopher Manfredi, McGill’s Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic), spoke on the importance of celebrating Indigenous cultures. 

“While [this] cluster of events each September is an important opportunity to welcome Indigenous community members to our university to share in celebration and to raise awareness of Indigenous teachings, cultures, and customs, we are also working hard at ensuring that Indigenous experiences, forms of knowledge, and ways of teaching are integral to the academic fabric of the university,” Manfredi said. 

The final event of this year’s IAW was a virtual discussion on Sept. 24 featuring Healers Geraldine and Mike Standup. The presenters shared their traditional knowledge on the connection between mind and body, highlighting how this bond can improve overall well-being. With the year’s many uncertainties, this wisdom comes at a time when achieving inner reflection and peace is crucial but difficult. 

The team at the FPH have worked to facilitate the expression of distinctly interactive Indigenous cultures through the limitations of a screen. Terry David Young, McGill’s Indigenous Student Advisor, recognizes both the constraints and opportunities created by this new online reality and describes the connection created by face-to-face and hand-to-hand exchanges that is integral to Indigenous culture.

“For Indigenous peoples, there’s always a component of social interaction that’s a part of our cultures,” Young said. “[It’s] a very interactive, hands-on experience [of] dancing, singing, and creating.” 

The loss of these tangible, mutual forms of connection is especially difficult for new Indigenous students at McGill. In previous years, the Pow Wow provided a celebratory space for Indigenous students to feel recognized and welcomed. With this event shifted to an impersonal cyberspace, Young mourns the inability to meet new and returning students face-to-face. 

Despite their constraints, however, virtual platforms have allowed the FPH to engage with and learn from people they would not have been able to before. 

“We’ve accessed Elders from across the country,” Young said. “Adapting online has both widened and limited our reach.”

The image of community may look different for the FPH this year—a grid of faces on Zoom, a sparse Lower Field once crowded with students now dispersed across the country—but moving forward, their team plans to continue expanding the potential of virtual methods to express Indigeneity and nurture friendships among community members. 

“I look forward to next year,” Brady said in his welcome to the live Pow Wow. “Hopefully things will be better, things will be changed, and there’ll be more people because we dance with the people.” 

Students can keep updated on FPH’s events and programs through their social media or website.

 

Campus Spotlight, Student Life

Campus Spotlight: #TakeJamesDown

by ET Wu on

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Anti-Black racism at McGill is institutionalized, and the work of Black student activists is vital in demanding systemic changes on campus. A summer of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the continued police brutality and murders of Black people have brought increased visibility to Black activism around the globe, including at McGill. The Take James Down movement, along with the continued efforts of McGill’s Black Students’ Network (BSN), is pressuring the university’s administration to reconsider their flimsy commitment to racial justice, specifically in addressing anti-Black racism. 

The Take James McGill Down movement was co-organized by Mohammed Odusanya, Sarah Ragab, and Ayo Ogunremi, alongside other volunteers. The movement’s letter to McGill’s Board of Governors, entitled “Enough is Enough,” outlines McGill’s failures to adequately serve its Black community, highlights the university’s negligence towards funding a proper Black or Africana Studies program and condemns the administration’s continued refusal to critically examine James McGill’s history of enslaving Black and Indigenous peoples. Further, McGill has continued to celebrate James McGill’s legacy without acknowledging the enslaved and oppressed people whose land and labour were essential to the founding of the university. 

Among the movement’s demands is the removal of the statue of James McGill near the Roddick gates, and that the administration properly address its namesakes’ history. McGill enslaved at least five people and voted against the abolition of slavery.

Odusanya called on the McGill administration to increase representation of Black people in McGill’s faculties, and make meaningful amends for its role in upholding racist practices. 

“#TakeJamesDown [is] calling for McGill University to meaningfully respond and recognize its role in perpetuating anti-Blackness and excluding Black students, staff and faculty from leadership roles in this university,” Odusanya wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “The statue is a symbol of the university’s valorization of certain people and histories at the expense [of] Black people.” 

Despite the movements’ efforts and public support, Odusanya believes that the administration has been passive.

“In response to a CBC Montreal interview we did in August, McGill said they would not be removing the statue, amongst other things,” Odysanya wrote.  

The administration’s refusal to remove the statue sends a conflicting message: Despite championing a commitment to equity, they have ignored clear statements from their Black student population on how to be more equitable. 

BSN has been involved in the oversight of the Take James Down movement and organized the Aug. 1 protest for the removal of the statue. Currently, they are focussed on reiterating the demands expressed in the Take James Down open letter to the administration. Iyanu Soyege, BSN Vice-President Political, emphasized the importance of recognizing the university’s colonial past. 

“We have come to a moment in time where it is imperative to question the symbols that are upheld and what they mean to marginalized ethnic and racial groups at McGill and in the larger Canadian society,” Soyege wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

Founded in 1970, the BSN provides valuable resources and platforms for McGill’s Black communities. For decades, their advocacy work has gone largely unaddressed by the administration. This failure to respond to its Black students’ needs has highlighted the McGill administration’s disinterest in dismantling institutional racism within the university. 

“The BSN has been advocating for different things such as the increased recruitment of Black students from Montreal, the creation of a Black Studies [or] Africana Studies department and increased Black faculty [members] at McGill,” Soyege wrote. “Most of these demands are not new.  Considering that most of these demands have not been fulfilled, it is reasonable to surmise that the administration has historically failed to take the BSN’s requests seriously.” 

Students can support the movement by signing TJD’s letter through this form. 

Divest McGill Illustration
McGill, News

PGSS panel argues for a fossil-free future for McGill

by Margaret Askey on

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On Sept. 23, the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) and their Environment Committee hosted an online discussion and panel titled “Divestment from Fossil Fuels at McGill.” The panel presented arguments in favour of McGill divesting from fossil fuels, examined what divestment might look like, and delved into the broader implications of divestment.

The three panelists at the event were Dr. Greg Mikkelson, a former professor at McGill who resigned in Jan. 2020 in response to the administration’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels, as well as Dr. Jen Gobby from Climate Justice Montreal, and Talia Martz-Oberlander of Divest McGill.

Martz-Oberlander, a graduate student in experimental physics, presented on behalf of Divest McGill. The organization was founded in 2012 and is composed of students, faculty, and staff at McGill who are calling for the university to withdraw their financial investments in fossil fuel corporations. Martz-Oberlander described Divest McGill’s goals and demands to the audience of 25 individuals. 

“Divest McGill is solidarity-minded, aiming to support Indigenous land defenders,” Martz-Oberlander said. “[We want McGill to] withdraw direct holdings from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, as ranked by reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas. [We call for] immediate divestment from direct holdings in TC Energy, in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en peoples.”

Martz-Oberlander continued to highlight the impacts of McGill’s financial investments in the fossil fuel industry on its community. 

“It’s not just that we have money invested,” Martz-Oberlander said. “This is someone’s home, this is someone’s access to their culture and their people, [threatened by companies] that we’re directly investing in.”

The panellists also criticized McGill’s decision to pursue “decarbonization” rather than divest from fossil fuels completely. 

“The problem with decarbonization is that it directly supports the fossil fuel industry in shirking its responsibilities for climate change and the damage that they’re wreaking with the harms of its products and operations,” Martz-Oberlander said. “Suncor […] is invested at the most primary level in having fossil fuels be burnt, but under ‘decarbonization,’ McGill is still allowed to invest in them.”

Gobby spoke on behalf of Climate Justice Montreal (CJM), a grass-roots organization founded in 2009. CJM pursues climate justice and stands in solidarity with Indigenous communities through direct action and education. Gobby reiterated the importance of committing to taking meaningful action against climate change.

“Divestment is absolutely necessary at this scale and in these institutions if we are going to address climate change in any meaningful way,” Gobby said. “The kind of change necessary is unprecedented.”

Gobby also challenged the notion that investment is a passive enterprise, arguing that through decarbonization, McGill fails to adequately address the environmental impacts of the fossil fuel industry. 

“What [the administration is] doing is making this statement that being invested in an industry that is killing people and putting the future of their students at risk [is] natural and inevitable, instead of seeing it as a social construct meant to benefit the ruling class,” Gobby said.

Along with Martz-Oberlander and Gobby, Mikkelson condemned McGill’s inaction, emphasizing that the administration has failed to fulfill their moral obligations.

“What should make all universities divest are […] moral, political, and financial arguments,” Mikkelson said. “It’s just deeply morally repugnant, morally outrageous, and morally unacceptable to claim credit for trying to reduce your own fossil fuel consumption, but at the same time bank on or otherwise promote the expansion of fossil fuel production.” 

Speaking to the importance of immediate action, Mikkelson drew attention to the fact that climate change is already well under way. 

“It’s happening, we’re in the thick of it,” Mikkelson  said. “It’s only going to get worse unless we deeply transform what we’re doing, and deeply transform our society.”

Addressing the concept of decarbonization that Martz-Oberlander brought up earlier in the event,  Mikkelson shared his thoughts on McGill’s decarbonization efforts.

“I think there’s nothing wrong with decarbonization, I just don’t think that what McGill is doing [is enough],”  Mikkelson said. “Because, as [Martz-Oberlander] pointed out, according to the definition [of decarbonization] that McGill is using, they are only counting the greenhouse gas emissions created by a company in producing their product. But they are completely letting companies off the hook for what happens to their product afterwards.”

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.

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