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News, SSMU

McGill students stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Clans

by Chloe Merritt & Pascal Hogue on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Indigenous Affairs Committee and the Indigenous Student Alliance of McGill hosted a response to the Wet’suwet’en call for solidarity against a pipeline project. On Jan. 9, students gathered at the Y-intersection to support hereditary chiefs and the Unis’tot’en and Gidimt’en camps protesting Coastal GasLink’s plans to build a pipeline through their territory in Northern British Columbia (BC). 

The Coastal GasLink pipeline project proposed by TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) will carry natural gas from Dawson Creek to an LNG Canada facility near Kitimat to be turned into liquified natural gas. While construction has already started on parts of the pipeline, protestors are continuing to block access to Wet’suwet’en territory. 

Hereditary chiefs have explicitly opposed all pipeline activity since Sept. 3, 2015. They have been in conflict with TC Energy, Chevron, and Enbridge about pipelines through Wet’suwet’en territory. The BC Supreme Court issued an injunction against protestors, preventing them from denying Coastal GasLink access to the lands. 

In response, the Wet’suwet’en have put out an international call for solidarity to respect Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous peoples as the rightful title holders of the land. The international call began on Jan. 7, the one year anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) raid on protest camps, and lasted until Jan. 12.

As a large part of the pipeline’s route goes through Wet’suwet’en lands, Coastal GasLink has signed agreements with band councils to authorize construction. However, protestors deny that agreements made by band councils serve as free, prior, and informed consent on behalf of the Wet’suwet’en clans they represent. 

Marlene Hale, a member of the Wet’suwet’en Frog Clan, spoke about the differences between the authority of hereditary chiefs and band councils, insisting that hereditary chiefs should dictate access to the land. 

“[A hereditary chief] earns his title,” Marlene Hale said. “A band council chief is only there to do the administration […] they do not tell me what to do on the land”. 

BC is the first province to enshrine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and the Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged the Wet’suwet’en lands are unceded territory. However, the BC Supreme Court granted the injunction on the basis that Coastal GasLink had met the legal requirements to begin building on the land.The five hereditary chiefs blocking the pipeline rejected the injunction. Dini’ze Na’moks of the Tsayu clan urged the BC government to respect Indigenous autonomy and their land.

“In this time of reconciliation, with BC being the first province to legislate UNDRIP, this ruling by a court in BC against Indigenous rights and recognition truly proves that industry, not the people, can control the Province and its laws,”  Na’moks said. “Ultimately, we are our own government, and we decide who [is allowed] on our territory. We are the hereditary chiefs. British Columbia and Canada only have assumed and presumed authority on our lands.”

Tomas Jirousek, Indigenous Affairs Commissioner of McGill, explained the importance of Indigenous sovereignty within Canadian politics, noting that the events at Wet’suwet’en were emblematic to reconciliation. 

“The issue at hand is one of Indigenous sovereignty,” Jirousek said. “Regardless of whether you support pipelines and the resource extraction, or not, we all maintain an obligation to recognize and respect the laws and customs of the Indigenous peoples of those territories.”

Event leaders urged the McGill community to hold federal and provincial leaders and RCMP accountable and to respect Indigenous sovereignty. 

“Solidarity can take place through a few different forums, and will dictate and change the course of events in a few different ways,” Jirousek said. “Not everyone needs to become an activist, or donate money to show solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en. [Solidarity shows] that Canadians refuse to accept this incursion and disrespect shown towards the Wet’suwet’en.”

For students interested in the conflict between the Wet’suwet’en and the BC provincial government and Coastal GasLink, speakers and organizers have provided a supporter toolkit, designed to help allies in their own mobilisation efforts.

Arts & Entertainment, Gaming

McGame Jam highlights video game programming, art, and beavers

by Joey Caplan on

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Designing an entire video game would be an impressive feat to accomplish within a matter of years. This past weekend, however, the McGame Jam, a development marathon organized by Game Dev McGill, condensed the video game making process into just 48 hours of straight development that took place Jan. 10-12. Teams made up primarily of McGill students gathered in the Trottier building to participate in a game jam, an event that hones the skills of artists, programmers, and designers as they endeavour to create an entire video game within the strict time limit. This year’s theme was “Can’t Go Back,” an abstract idea that teams must incorporate however they like into their game. 

Recent Concordia graduate Camilo Ignacio Vides Perez’s take on the theme culminated in an Indiana Jones-style puzzler in which the player must grab a treasure and get out. The catch: The floor falls away after walking on it, leading to some tricky and creative challenges. Perez led the programming and directing on his team, making sure each aspect of the game is both as functional and as fun as possible. One of the most underappreciated aspects of game design, Perez explained, is the core, fundamental design principles of architecture.

“It is so important for a game to have core mechanics and polish so the game can actually be fun,” Perez said. “If we lose sight of the game’s architecture, we don’t have a fun game.”

While working with a larger, more established team would allow someone like Perez access to more resources and staff, he insists that amateur projects like McGame have their own benefits:

“[In a major studio], you don’t have to think about finances. Budgeting isn’t a problem,” Perez said. “But in an independent studio, you have more freedom of creation. You don’t have to abide by what the game studio wants you to do.”

Michelle Samson and Leeza Girolami, 3D and 2D artists, respectively, operate on the opposite end of the game design process. Their team’s game began as a horror title, inspired by the ominous theme of the Jam, but eventually became a project they describe as being at once more sorrowful and funnier than their original idea. 

“We ditched the horror at some point and it became a meme [….] We joked around and deviated into a sad story,” Samson said. 

Their final product focused on a family of beavers forced to relocate due to their habitat being destroyed. When asked about the pros and cons of working at a large studio, Samson and Girolami cited the creative freedom as one of the more enjoyable aspects of independent game design. 

“From what we hear about big studios, you get a very specific type of task; maybe you’ll start to design rocks and for three years you’ll be doing rocks,” Samson said. “Rocks are great, but then you go somewhere else and they say ‘what’s your portfolio?’ and you say 100 rocks.” 

When the teams only have 48 hours, creating a game in such a short window of time means that certain design aspects are often overlooked, and Samson and Girolami see sound design as paramount in order to succeed in giving a game a distinct atmosphere. 

“[Sound] really completes the game,” Girolami says. “A lot of people forget to put in music and that’s always the missing link [….] You don’t want to be stuck in this vacuum.”  

Though it may seem like a tech-heavy event, Game Jams offer spaces for every kind of creative mind, from digital artists and sound designers to storytellers. While programming is essential, it barely scratches the surface of all the work that goes into creating the games we play and enjoy. 

McGill, News

Podcasting as a medium for all

by Hannah Murray on

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For the 20th event in the Feminist and Accessible Publishing and Communications Technologies Speaker Series, podcaster Anna Sigrithur led a Feminist Podcasting Workshop on Jan. 10 in Wilson Hall.

With about 20 participants, the workshop was an interactive and judgement-free space. Sigrithur began by describing the most common podcast formats, breaking down the elements of each. From there, participants worked in small groups to write a short script that could be edited over with sound effects and background music. Sigrithur demonstrated how to achieve desired effects by using the open-load audio-recording and editing application ‘Audacity’ which is available online. Finally, attendees were given time to discuss their ideas for podcasts and share them with the rest of the group. 

The speaker series, organized by Dr. Alex Ketchum, a faculty lecturer at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, is composed of 25 workshops and discussions, seeking to bring together scholars, creators, and people within the communications industry, in order to look at the intersections of digital humanities, computer science, feminist studies, disability studies, 2SLGBTQIA+ history and critical race theory. 

“One of the reasons I decided to start this series was the thought about communities, scholars, traditional forms of academic publishing and even technologies as being sexist, classist, racially biased and inaccessible,” Ketchum said. “The kinds of solutions that [can often seem proper] actually don’t really change these problems, such as open access […] and oftentimes we end up [romanticizing and] fetishizing technological alternatives [without looking] at how that could be perpetuated.” 

Entirely self-taught in the art of podcasting, Sigrithur has no university degrees or formal training, but created the ‘Nordic Food Lab Radio Podcast’ in 2008, and also produced ‘OxTales,’ a series of podcasts from Oxford University’s Symposium on Food and Cookery. 

“I hope that is encouraging to you [and demonstrates how]  you can learn how to do some of these things and really [get] yourself [into podcasting],” Sigrithur said.

The speaker series focussed on two main approaches to accessible publishing and communications. The first involves providing a place for theoretical and activist applications of publishing and communications concepts. The second aims to create a space for workshops and teaching practical communications skills. 

Sigrithur’s workshop fell into this second category, with an overview of the main podcast formats, the tools needed to start your own, and a number of group activities to encourage comfortability with free podcasting technology, as well as brainstorming podcast ideas. 

Sigrithur believes that podcasting is more accessible that many believe it to be.  

“I don’t have any fancy technology [with me today], I [just] have my smartphone [.…] This is because I really do want to emphasize that podcasting, like many things, is not about technology,” Sigrithur said. “It’s about how well you understand the form, how clearly you come up with your ideas, and how well you are able to execute the content.” 

Sigrithur aimed to demystify the notion that podcasts are difficult to create. Many attendees came in with ideas for podcasts that they had for a number of years and discovered that starting a podcast can be done with readily available technology. Colin Maynard-Rier, U3 Arts, commented on the lack of hands-on training of the event, but he still learned a lot from attending. 

“[The workshop could have benefitted from] an opportunity to go through editing on [Audacity] itself,” Maynard-Rier said. “There is really such a low barrier to starting to podcast.” 

The workshop’s focus on the use of technology available online makes the daunting prospect of starting a radio show available to all members of society, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, class, or ethnicity.

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Commentary, Opinion

Point-counterpoint: New Year’s resolutions

by Favour Daka, James Li on

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The McGill Tribune contributors Favour Daka and James Li present their opinions on New Year’s resolutions.

Favour Daka, Against:

People often see the beginning of a new year as a time for reflection, when they can use the lessons of the past year as an incentive for positive change in the coming months. It is also the time where the excitement for New Year’s resolutions peaks. While people’s intentions for creating New Year’s resolutions may be positive, these resolutions can involve poor goal-setting.

Normally, people view New Year’s resolutions as only being valid for a year, which in turn causes people to unrealistically put every goal into a year-long time-frame. As a result, one may not consider ways to motivate and sustain themselves beyond the initial excitement of the New Year. This failure to conceptualize goals requiring more than a year may be why only two out of 10 Canadians manage to complete their New Year’s resolutions. Society’s obsession with instantaneous results obscures an understanding of progress and how it relates to time. New Year’s resolutions often involve the breaking of habits or creating new ones, a process that sometimes requires professional help, but more importantly, requires extensive time. 

New Year’s resolutions have become a standard practice in setting unrealistic goals. Life is spontaneous, and this serves as an important argument against the creation of New Year’s resolutions. Depending on the type of goal, most New Year’s resolutions are often abrupt decisions which aim towards a social standard, be it fitness, finance, or academics. If not fulfilled, resolutions can result in personal and financial costs that can be both damaging and demotivating. Therefore, with the overarching reality that a resolution may expire long before it is actualized, the idealistic characteristics of New Year’s resolutions can lead to negative results.

 

James Li, For:

As students hang up their brand-new 2020 calendars, many will also choose to draft a list of accompanying resolutions for the year ahead. However, there is increasing criticism of the effectiveness of these annual periods for reflection and goal-setting. While there are limitations to this millenia-old tradition and they are not overly comprehensive, the fact that New Year’s resolutions are so embedded in our culture makes them an accessible gateway into a more deliberate way of life. Burdened students may find it hard to get into the routine of reflection and planning, which is why they should start with the New Year.

Once a year may not be frequent, but New Year’s resolutions require work to be maintained on a regular basis and any amount of concerted effort adds up. It is easy to blow over or simply forget any other self-mandated regimen, but the ubiquity of New Year’s resolutions makes them difficult to ignore. Some will argue, though, that these resolutions are far too difficult to keep.

Because there are so many people beginning self-improvement endeavors at this time of the year, these goals offer a support system. From a friend with the same goal as you to the plentiful online resources available, any goal is more likely to be seen through. Yes, there is also abundant joking and criticism of New Year’s resolutions, but these also help normalize an essential aspect of goal-making: failure. The positive coverage provides support and the negative helps people realize it is okay to fail and that they should continue regardless.

For centuries, New Year’s resolutions were mostly religious or moral devotions. Today, they represent an opportunity to reflect and grow. Although the contents of our resolutions have greatly changed, their enduring place in society is their biggest strength. 

 

Science & Technology

Reason and the art of neuroscience

by George Perlman on

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One of the major attractions of academia is the ability to make a career out of learning, where one can pursue a life reminiscent of ancient Greek philosophers or Renaissance polymaths. Of course, following one’s research passions depends on funding. Grant applications and email correspondence shape the everyday life of academics, draining time and energy that would be more enjoyably spent pondering lofty ideas.

McGill professors David Ragsdale and Ian Gold took time off from such drudgery on Nov. 19 at the event ‘Synapses and Skepticism’ to discuss their favourite topics at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy. The two started their academic careers on parallel paths that eventually converged. Ragsdale, a neuroscientist, studied psychology in his undergrad before happening upon the budding field of neuroscience. Today, he contributes to the field through his work on ion channels, proteins that control the movement of electrical signals in the brain. Gold, a philosopher, tackles the puzzle of delusions and the social determinants of psychosis, how human minds make educated guesses about reality, and how these guesses can go awry.

Research on brain function has yielded insight into philosophical questions. Ragsdale cited a famous neuroscience experiment from 1983 that many lauded as definitive evidence that free will does not exist. The researchers measured participants’ brain waves using electrodes on their scalps and asked them to press a button whenever they felt inclined to do so. Using a fast-spinning clock in the participant’s view, they could determine both when the participant felt the conscious intention to press the button, as well as when they actually pressed it.

As expected, the conscious experience of the will to act preceded the act itself. Unexpectedly, though, the brainwave measurements showed a boost in neural activity before the thought arose on a conscious level, indicating that the brain prepared for the action before the participant was even aware of it. 

“While the implications of this study are still heavily debated, its results suggest that our feeling of agency in making decisions is an illusion produced by the brain,” Ragsdale said.

Gold’s research on delusions sheds light on another basic philosophical conundrum informed by neuroscience: How to determine what is real and what is not. In response to a student’s question on the relationship between hallucinations and reality, Gold spoke of a now commonly accepted model of the brain’s role linking sensation to conscious perception. 

“Rather than simply projecting the raw sensory data coming in, our brains process these inputs and construct an altered picture of the world,” Gold said. “This model suggests that our brains make these educated guesses about incoming sensory information that enable us to act more efficiently.”

Optical illusions, such as the famous grey bar, are an example of this process. An objective eye seeing the bar will determine that the bar is the same shade throughout its length. But our brains, primed to detect contrast, produce an image that gets darker from left to right. This process stems from evolutionary pressures that have pushed our nervous systems to produce a useful, rather than accurate, perception of the world.

After two hours of discussion, the event concluded with many questions still circling. Left with a hefty dose of head-scratchers, everyone got back on with their lives, neurons firing all cylinders.

 

Optical illusions such as the famous grey bar illustrate how our brains construct an altered picture of the world.

Science & Technology

Alexa, tell me what you’re thinking

by Doris Tian on

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Amazon announced its vision for home assistant device Alexa to play a more active role as a personal assistant in November. In interviews with The McGill Tribune, Will Hamilton and Jackie Cheung, professors in McGill’s Department of Computer Science, outlined the basics of the technology behind voice-controlled home assistants like the Amazon Alexa and Google Home. 

Alexa’s algorithm first transcribes sound waves. Known as raw speech processing, this procedure employs supervised machine learning, whereby computers are trained to recognize and interpret speech through labelled input data. An artificial neural network with neurons takes in the speech waves and outputs the matching textual transcript. 

The transcript is then translated into a language that the computer can understand, so that the speech input becomes an instruction for the home assistant algorithm to follow. Compared to raw speech processing, the workload instead falls onto AI systems designers, who must provide the home assistant algorithm with a response for all possible voice commands given by the human user. 

“There is a lot of manually curated, manually specified knowledge [involved in this step],” Cheung said. 

As with other voice-controlled devices, the issue of reliability significantly influences design.

“[Tech companies] really don’t want the model to do weird things,” Hamilton said. 

To avoid giving responses that are unexpected or would make the user uncomfortable, Alexa is designed to provide clear answers for every command it is given. As a result, the programming behind Alexa’s responses is considerably less advanced than raw language processing. Alexa’s recent upgrade, which allows it to provide better predictions, operates on the same cautious principle. 

Training the computer to match verbal commands to specific responses is not fundamentally different from programming traditional dialogue. For example, if a user were to make a dinner reservation for two on a Friday night, Alexa’s algorithm would be prompted to ask if the user wants to make a movie reservation after the meal.   

Regarding the privacy implications of home assistants, both Hamilton and Cheung noted that while privacy is a valid concern, a great part of users’ fears concerning their data security may stem from common misconceptions about the home assistant industry. For companies like Amazon and Google, collecting data is not an outrageous deed. After all, they need these data to train algorithms and improve their model. 

Both Hamilton and Cheung agreed that concerns over user privacy also depend on the user’s own risk tolerance.

“Generally, people are aware that these companies are collecting data.” Cheung said. “If they accept this, they will buy and use these devices of their own volition.”

Once customers give access to their information by purchasing these devices, however, Canadian law stipulates very few restrictions on what type of data companies can collect. In an email to the Tribune, Ignacio Cofone, a professor in the McGill Faculty of Law, discussed the issue of giving consumers the responsibility of protecting their own privacy. 

“The idea that, if we rely on consumer consent, consumers will […] manage their privacy risks by consenting only to those things that are beneficial to them has proven, at minimum, ineffective, and at maximum, harmful [to consumer interests],” Cofone wrote.

Cofone’s comments echo statements made by other legal scholars on the role of personal consent in the use of data mining technology. Such scholars maintain that the concept of ‘privacy self-management’ is not enough to protect users from exploitation. 

Neither the technology behind Alexa’s upgrade nor its accompanying privacy issues are particularly revolutionary. Perhaps more groundbreaking are their implications. As these devices become more intimately involved in the private lives of users, the data they collect will construct an increasingly detailed picture of users’ identities and behaviours. While Amazon continues to profit off of user data, the long term consequences of this degree of data collection are not yet understood.

Commentary, Opinion

World War III memes need to stop

by Sepideh Afshar on

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The political turmoil between Iran and the US has created fears for many members of the McGill community. These range from direct impacts on their families in the Middle East to smaller things, such as increased surveillance at airports or train stations. McGill meme pages have been posting jokes about the outbreak of a potential war between the two countries, deeming it ‘World War III’ and ignore the implications of such an event. Jokes making light of a potential war between the US and Iran belittle the real fears that come with war. Though not everybody is personally affected by the issues between the countries, everyone should be able to respect the situation and allow those impacted to fully cope.

The Middle East is not unfamiliar with what happens when the US sends troops. Historically, the US has been extremely brutal in the region—for example during the Iraq war—and chances are that the current conflict will be no exception. The US has a military budget of close to $1 trillion and does not face much of an actual military threat from Iran. In addition, it is important to note that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, has never invaded the United States, has a smaller military budget than Canada, and is surrounded by American military bases. The war would most likely never touch American soil, much less that of Canada, or the context of McGill meme pages. The people who will be affected in Canada are those who will suffer from the probable rise in Islamophobia and xenophobia that would come with a war, just like that after 9/11: This is a scary reality for many members of the McGill community. People everywhere feel the effects of this political tension. Those with Iranian heritage, no matter their citizenship, are being detained at US borders and being questioned for hours. Students who make jokes about “building up the courage to ask their crush out before a war breaks out” undermine these fears.

“People have been defending the insensitive posts by stating that humour is their way of coping, but this is not their trauma to cope with.”

Being so far removed from any actual danger is a privilege that allows people to make these jokes. The US President is threatening to bomb Iranian historical sites, places filled with civilians who rarely see a military presence. No such threat has been made toward American citizens, and if it had, most people would not make these jokes. Canadians are even more distanced from the situation, but again, if the threat was local then they would not find the possible danger humorous. In addition, the Ukrainian flight accidentally shot down by Iran had 82 Iranians and 57 Canadians on board, including a McGill student and two alumni, bringing the pain as close to Canada as it will likely ever get. Because the plane crash directly impacted Canadians and the McGill community, it is no longer seen as fodder for inappropriate jokes. It is a privilege to be able to look at the potential war between Iran and the US and be sure enough about the safety of the people in your life to make memes about it. There should be enough respect in the McGill community to know that making jokes at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of other students is unacceptable.

Living in Canada and not seeing the effects of war firsthand means that many do not understand the gravity of the situation. However, in an institution like McGill with a diverse student body and high academic standards, there should be a higher expectation for students. A school that boasts diversity should not allow students to make jokes about the terrifying experiences of their peers.

People have been defending the insensitive posts by stating that humour is their way of coping, but this is not their trauma to cope with: The fear being felt by Iranians is not the same felt by Canadians. McGill has yet to acknowledge how its community will be affected and their statement about the plane crash in Iran is not enough.  There should be a higher standard set for McGill students and McGill should provide an example of this standard by issuing an adequate statement acknowledging this political tension that has a serious impact.

 

Hockey, Sports

NHL midseason awards

by Adam Menikefs on

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The NHL has passed the halfway point of the 2019-20 season and is steadily moving toward the postseason. Although there are many months of hockey still left to play, the top skaters and goaltenders have already elevated their franchises and are separating themselves from the field for the annual NHL awards.

 

Hart Memorial Trophy (Most Valuable Player): David Pastrnak

Through the first half of the season, Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak has narrowly etched out other Hart contenders such as Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid. The Czech product has led the Bruins to the top of the Atlantic Division and tied for the most team points. Pastrnak currently leads the league with an astounding 35 goals and sits fourth in points with 65. Pastrnak is known for strong postseason performances, and if he continues on his tear throughout this campaign, he could bring home both the Hart and the Stanley Cup. 

 

Norris Memorial Trophy (Top Defencemen): John Carlson

The Washington Capitals sit atop the Metropolitan Division with a league-best 30 wins, led defensively by 11-year veteran John Carlson. Carlson currently leads all defencemen with 55 points, nine more than any other blue-liner. The Stanley Cup Champion will look to continue his dominant start and add to an already fantastic career, while helping the Capitals go on another deep playoff run and avoid yet another early postseason exit. 

 

Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year): Cole Makar

Many first-year players have been instrumental parts of their teams throughout this year, but the most impressive rookie thus far has certainly been Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cole Makar. Makar, the fourth overall pick from 2017, has exhibited tremendous poise on the back end and excellent skating, creating an abundance of chances for Colorado. The 21-year-old Calagrian’s valuable contribution to the Avalanche is demonstrated further by his 33 points, only two behind the lead for all rookies, and 0.89 points per game. Makar appears to be the star defenceman Colorado needs, and with Hart candidate Nathan MacKinnon leading on offence, the future looks bright in Denver with these young playmakers.

 

Vezina Trophy (Top Goalie): Jordan Binnington

Amidst several contenders for the Vezina Trophy, one goalie has taken the league by storm: Jordan Binnington. The St. Louis netminder, who has yet to play a full season, has already led the Blues to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, proving yet again that goaltending in postseason hockey is absolutely essential. This season, the Canadian has led St. Louis to first place in the Western Conference, while posting a league leading 22 goalie wins. Though his save percentage of 0.917 and his 2.47 goals against average are not numbers that immediately jump out, Binnington has simply done what it takes to win; it is undeniable that in the last year, Binnington has been the most valuable player on the league’s best team. A Vezina Trophy would etch Binnington’s name in hockey history.

 

Jack Adams Award (Coach of the Year) : Mike Sullivan

When first glancing at the standings, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ second position in the Metropolitan Division and third in the Eastern Conference is not particularly impressive. Yet, this is a huge accomplishment, as a majority of Pittsburgh’s best players have missed extended time on the ice this season. Future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have dealt with injuries, and many other important players like Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel, and Patric Hornqvist have also been sidelined this season. To make matters worse, their Stanley Cup winning goaltender Matt Murray has played poorly. Mike Sullivan’s decision to start Tristan Jarry was an excellent move and an example of his superb decision making in this difficult time. With all these difficult situations, the man who has led the Penguins to two Stanley Cup victories in the last half decade is proving to be effective yet again and looks good to lead his team another playoff run when his entire core returns.

Commentary, Opinion

Open Letter Against the Face to Face Trip

by Mo Rajji on

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To the McGill community,

We are a group of Jewish student leaders who wish to address the allegations of antisemitism in regard to the ongoing debate over the all-expenses-paid “Face to Face” trip to Israel offered by Hillel Montreal. These concerns have been put forward in Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Councillor Jordyn Wright’s Facebook post, an open letter by 11 SSMU councillors published in the Bull & Bear, and an email sent out by Deputy Provost Fabrice Labeau. While antisemitism is abhorrent and deeply disturbing, criticisms of the trip and consequences for participating councillors do not constitute antisemitism.

It is important for us to address this considering the circulation and breadth of misinformation that has spread beyond the McGill community regarding the nature of participation in the trip. The trip itself and actions of various McGill organizations have also been portrayed in ways that do not reflect the truth, making these discussions unproductive and difficult to navigate.

We are concerned with the Face to Face trip, specifically because it is being funded by an explicitly anti-Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) political interest group, the Maccabee Task Force, and the ways in which ‘student leaders’ were targeted, as revealed in the trip invitation and explained by The McGill Daily. We do not question the abilities of the students partaking in this trip to critically analyze the information presented to them, but we do question the precedent that doing so sets. Accepting this trip sends the message that propoganistic and opaque attempts to influence our campus are tolerated at McGill.

The number of ‘student leaders’ who were offered this trip is also concerning. It is not just Councillor Wright, but also other SSMU councillors, members of the SSMU Board of Directors (BoD), Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) councillors, and Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) councillors. While multiple students have stated that they are participating in the trip in their personal capacities, they were selected for their influence on campus and we believe that is a considerable conflict of interest, despite the SSMU BoD’s ruling on the matter.

Students must recognize Councillor Wright’s potential conflict of interest as a greater concern than that of other student leaders due to her positions on SSMU Legislative Council as a SUS Representative and on the BoD as a Council Representative. No other student attending the trip is a member of both bodies. However, we also believe that the Nov. 28 SSMU motion should have reprimanded other participating students, not just Councillor Wright. While we do not believe that singling out Councillor Wright was antisemitic, we do believe that it was irresponsible and exclusionary. 

We recognize that there are other Jewish students on campus who disagree with our perspectives on the situation, and that precisely is the point of our letter. The Face to Face trip and Israel more generally have been discussed as inherently in the interest of all Jewish individuals, which is not the case. Portraying Jewish people as a monolith with uniform political interests and goals is itself an antisemitic stereotype. The undersigned do not appreciate being spoken for or being used as rhetorical devices to silence concerned students, especially Palestinians. We believe that the allegations of antisemitism are disingenuous, damaging to productive discussion, and purposefully misconstrue the nature of the issue at hand. 

We would like to echo the sentiments of the SSMU and AUS statements on this matter reaffirming discontent with the trip itself. We hope that going forward, the debate is focused on the nature and funding of the trip, concerns regarding democratic integrity and transparency, and the precedent this sets for McGill in the future. 

Sincerely,

Mo Rajji Courtney, RSUS Vice-President (External Affairs)

Abigail Drach, member of Independent Jewish Voices McGill

Adam Gwiazda-Amsel, Vice-President (External Affairs) of SSMU

Maranda Raskin, HSA Vice-President (Internal Affairs)

Madeline Wilson Vice President (University Affairs) of SSMU

 

McGill, News

AUS votes to send out email condemning free trips to Israel

by Tasmin Chu on

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In its final Legislative Council meeting of the fall semester, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) held a moderated discussion about an all-expenses paid trip to Israel offered to AUS members by Hillel McGill, a cultural organization for Jewish students on campus. 

The trips, which were explicitly targeted to McGill student leaders, are funded by the Maccabee Task Force, an organization that opposes the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. During the moderated discussion period, many councillors voiced their concern that accepting the trips as a gift would be inappropriate and would present a conflict of interest. Unlike the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), AUS does not currently have a conflict of interest policy.

Two AUS executives, Vice-President (VP) Finance Stefan Suvajac and Arts Representative to SSMU Andrew Chase, have accepted the trips. Arts Representative Adin Chan, who originally accepted the offer, announced to the Legislative Council that he had withdrawn his acceptance of the trip.

During his opening statement, Sujavac explained that he did not see his actions as inappropriate.

“I don’t believe my acceptance of this trip represents an overreach or abuse of my position,” Suvajac said. “[Regarding] the harm that individuals suggest this trip causes to Palestinian students, I don’t think that I can provide a neat answer to that in any meaningful sense. Although I will say, I don’t believe that I represent all students in any meaningful capacity. I don’t think I have that right.”

Dalton Liggett, VP External of the History Students’ Association, argued against student leaders  accepting trips from any advocacy group.

“My personal political views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are irrelevant to the issue at hand,” Liggett said. “The objective facts of this issue are that elected officials, who are supposed to serve students, accepted a financial gift in the form of trip subsidization from an on-campus interest group [….] Our job is to hold the executive accountable.”

The council moved on to discuss other business, including the suspension of three departmental executives who had not attended mandatory equity training. However, in the last 10 minutes of the meeting, a motion was introduced proposing that AUS release a statement condemning the Hillel McGill trips.

Myriam Driss, VP External of the McGill Environment Students’ Society, explained that the statement would express disappointment with the executives who had accepted the trips.

“We would like to reemphasize to the Palestinian students […] that, even in spite of [the executives’] decision[s], we stand in solidarity with their concerns,” Driss said. “We do not believe that the rules of a policy, in this case, the SSMU Conflict of Interest policy, should [alone] serve as a moral compass [for executives].”

Despite multiple attempts to postpone the motion indefinitely, five minutes after the meeting was adjourned, the motion passed. The statement was sent out to Arts Students in a Listserv two weeks ago.

Flashback:

After debate about whether the AUS executives were selected for the trips based on their influence on campus, Andreas Koch, the VP External of the World Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Student Association, read out the trip invitation sent out by Hillel McGill word for word. Koch noted that the phrase ‘student leader’ was repeated four times in its first paragraph.

Sound Bite:

“[Palestinians] themselves have a claim to the land. It’s their homeland. Yet they do not have a right to visit their own home. So how [should] random AUS executives not only have the right to go visit Israel or Palestine, but [be able to] go free of charge when people who have their homes there can’t even return there? […] Don’t you think that’s a bit offensive to Palestinian students on campus?” —anonymous gallery member.

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