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House of Commons Leader Bardish Chagger meets with Liberal McGill

by Lauren Mayes on

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Liberal McGill held a networking event at Brutopia Pub on Jan. 15 as part of Liberal Member of Parliament Bardish Chagger’s campaign. After introductions, Chagger held an open discussion on her vision for the Liberal Party in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election in October.

Anushay Sheikh, director of Liberal McGill, introduced Chagger, emphasizing how her experiences prior to her role as Leader of the Government in the House of Commons in 2018 had prepared her for work at the federal level.

“Ms. Chagger is devoted to inclusion and community building,” Sheikh said. “In her role at Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre, she worked to foster diversity within the community, providing opportunities for social and economic engagement. As the executive assistant to former [Member of Parliament] Andrew Telegdi, she gained a deep understanding of the issues that are important to the residents of Waterloo, including manufacturing, technology, and innovation.”

Chagger began her 30-minute informal conversation by drawing parallels between her early academic career and current work in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet. She has found the government’s commitment to progress inspiring.

“Trudeau says that ‘better is always possible,’” Chagger said. “When I was in school, math was my strongest subject. And I remember, in grade 11 math, I came home with a 98, and my dad was like ‘where’s the two per cent?’ So, when [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau says ‘better is always possible,’ I’m like ‘yeah, my dad agrees, […] so, I’ve continued fighting for that little bit more.”

As Minister of Small Business and Tourism from 2015 to 2018, Chagger was one of three ministers responsible for the department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development until a cabinet reshuffle in July 2018. She currently serves as Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, and is responsible for planning and managing the government’s legislative program.  

Chagger defined her vision of the Liberal Party as a party that continually seeks to refine and improve its mandate. She finds that Trudeau’s leadership is essential to the success of this mandate and expressed pride in her party’s history of advocacy, including long-standing advocacy for same-sex marriage, support for the legalization of marijuana, the development of a carbon-tax policy, and continued argument for regulations allowing physician-assisted death.

Chagger doesn’t see progress as a competitive game, emphasizing the role of international cooperation for Canada. She values free trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for promoting an environment where all parties benefit from a globalized economy.

Giovanni Giuga, a second-year Master’s student at McGill who volunteered on Chagger’s 2015 campaign, described working for her in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

“Just from having a conversation with her, you can tell she’s passionate about what she wants to do,” Giuga said. “She’s done some amazing things with her efforts in community development and improving the Waterloo community [….] I could talk for days [about] how she’s done that prior to her role, and the strides she’s made in that realm are absolutely amazing. She [also] makes all her volunteers passionate not just about politics, but about the political process itself.

Commentary, Opinion

I don’t want to rent a lamp: I need to see a therapist

by Johanna Cline on

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For most people, the decision to see a therapist doesn’t take place overnight. Often, a series of events will knock someone down until dealing with an issue alone is no longer an option. By the time that I decided to trek to the Brown building, my closest friends knew that I had been struggling for months. I had finally reached a point where I did not feel safe in my own mind and needed external support to help me deal with my sense of hopelessness.

So, when the receptionist at mental health services told me that there was a six-week wait to get an appointment, my stomach lurched. Finding the strength to reach out and ask for help does not come easily, and being denied that help can be demoralizing and, frankly, scary. Seeing the panic on my face, the receptionist reassured me that if I came by for drop-in hours I would be able to see a therapist by the end of the day. I arrived the following morning only to be told that all of the appointments were already taken. I started tearing up, but I knew that negotiation was not an option. All of the students before me needed to talk just as badly as I did, and what I was facing wasn’t a malicious plot against my mental health but a shortage of resources.

I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by caring friends. On that discouraging day, my roommate brought home two pages of contact information for local psychologists. I texted the first one on the list and immediately made a booking for the following week. The hour-long appointment cost $195.

Like every McGill student, I hear incessant complaints about our school’s mental health system. The Brown building, which houses McGill’s counselling services, bears a shameful one-and-a-half–star ranking on Google Maps. From cutting the eating disorder program to funding out-of-touch initiatives clearly designed by the neurotypical—think: Spin Bikes and fake plants—the administration does little to  hide that mental wellness falls quite low on their list of priorities. For many students, the once-every-two-week therapy offered by Mental Health Services is insufficient. As a result, students often turn to expensive sessions with independent psychologists. This option only applies to those with $50 to $240 to drop on a one-hour session. The rest of the student body finds themselves out of luck and instead has to keep it together on their own for the 14 days between their McGill counselor appointments.

After intense backlash surrounding former deputy provost student life and learning Ollivier Dyens’ self-righteous hygiène-de-vie sermon, as well as criticism about the decision to cut the eating disorder program, McGill decided to redeem itself with the announcement of its first ever Well Week. Well Week was a five-day period between Jan. 28 and Feb. 1 during which McGill hosted various mental wellness-related events, including a mason jar meal hack, workshops on bullet journaling and studying habits, and yoga classes. McGill administration has also offered students resources like light therapy lamps and miscellaneous workshops as alternative means for improving mental health, especially during the dreary winter months.

While biking and yoga may be useful supplementary tools for coping with mental health struggles, students cannot be expected to handle their issues alone and need accessible recovery programs to put them back on track. McGill continues to invest in half-hearted wellness initiatives while failing to address the needs of students struggling with genuine mental illness. Well Week is yet another misdirected strategy to pacify the growing resentment amongst students in need of greater resources. Having personally gone through the dejection of being denied mental health services, I would not want anyone to feel that same hopelessness. Students need an administration that hears their experiences and takes them seriously with a rigorous dedication to increasing affordable counselling services—not rentable lamps.

Commentary, Opinion

McGill must replace Première Moisson

by Kennedy McKee-Braide on

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At the end of the academic year, Première Moisson’s current lease on their space in the Redpath Library basement will have expired. This news has sparked a debate about whether the lease should be renewed, and, if not, what should replace it. The café, which sells coffee, sandwiches, pastries, and snacks, is notorious for its high prices and mediocre products. The Redpath Première Moisson lease debate highlights the broader issue that McGill fails to provide its students with options that are both healthy and affordable.

In 2014, McGill replaced the Tim Hortons in the Redpath Library basement cafeteria space with a Première Moisson. As the Montreal Gazette reported at the time, students were unhappy with the change, preferring Tim Hortons’ affordable selection. Most options at Première Moisson are expensive for the average student, with the cost for rather small sandwiches climbing up to eight dollars. While McGill boasts about Première Moisson’s quality, citing a ‘gourmet selection,’ students tend to disagree. In January, The McGill Tribune conducted a survey of McGill students’ opinions about Première Moisson: Out of 314 respondents, only 29 said they would want the lease renewed.

Issues with food affordability and quality on campus do not end at Première Moisson. Vendors such as Quesada, Starbucks, and Dispatch often fail to provide food that is simultaneously healthy and inexpensive. There are some alternatives: SNAX, a student-run café in Leacock, is affordable, but payment options are limited, and some students will always opt for one of the chain restaurants around campus instead of paying hefty fees to take out cash from an ATM.  Another alternative, the student-run initiative Midnight Kitchen, offers free vegan and vegetarian meals to students but is currently unable to function due to the renovation of the University Centre. Those living in residence are forced to pay almost $6,000 for a mandatory meal plan. Unlike many other schools, the plan does not provide students with unlimited meals. Not only is cost an issue, but such a system fails to provide students with the option to cook for themselves.

Some may counter these arguments by claiming that students are more than welcome to avoid Première Moisson if they so choose. However, this ignores the reality facing a sizeable portion of the McGill population: While some may have the means to pay for such items, many do not. Financial and economic status should not put these students at a disadvantage.

Others might also argue that it is students’ responsibility to prepare their own meals should they have a problem with the price of food on campus. However, this fails to address the crux of student life at McGill: The pressure placed on students, especially around exam season, can be extreme. There is a well-documented correlation between nutrition and stress levels, fatigue, mood, and alertness. Students often lack the time or energy to take care of themselves when they are overwhelmed with school work. Because Première Moisson is the only option in the McLennan-Redpath library, it leaves students with little choice but to spend large amounts of money to feed themselves during stressful periods. It can be hard to justify extensive meal-prep when coursework is so time-consuming. If McGill truly values the well-being of their students, offering more affordable food options is a good way to prove it.

Students’ position seems to be clear: It’s time for Première Moisson to go. What McGill does next will demonstrate whether it prioritizes student concerns, and McGill should replace Première Moisson with another, more affordable option.

In solidarity with Unist'ot'en
Editorial, Opinion

In solidarity with Unist’ot’en

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Since November 2018, indigenous communities and their allies across Canada have mobilized to show solidarity with the Unist’ot’en camp. The community is part of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in British Columbia (BC) and has been trying to prevent a natural gas pipeline, Coastal GasLink, from building on their territory. On Jan. 24, the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council voted to express support for the Unist’ot’en camp. However, during deliberation at Legislative Council, SSMU’s motion was amended to remove a statement that explicitly opposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Club Councillor Victoria Flaherty raised the concern that the motion excluded students from McGill who may be employed in the oil and gas market in the future. In response, SSMU has adopted a contradictory stance on the matter, not opposing the specific pipeline, but still claiming to support the Unist’ot’en. This is not true solidarity; it is not enough to just express support for Unist’ot’en without being opposed to the pipeline going through their territory.

While SSMU claims that it can support the Unist’ot’en camp without explicitly opposing the pipeline, the two issues are inextricable from one another. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the BC government have used excessive force to make way for construction of the pipeline, launching raids that have resulted in multiple arrests. On Jan. 7, the RCMP entered the camp wearing full tactical gear and weilding assault rifles to counter the peaceful protesters. According to Carleton criminologist Jeffrey Monaghan, internal RCMP documents have referred to the Unist’ot’en as an extremist group. The Unist’ot’en issue goes beyond the construction: It is a violation of indigenous communities’ rights to sovereignty and autonomy. That some SSMU councillors would prioritize future job prospects over this ongoing violence is disheartening.

When external federal issues like the Coastal GasLink pipeline arise, it can be difficult to feel like student voices matter. But, universities have consistently played an integral role in creating change. For example, Quebec’s Bill 151 is the product of months of lobbying and activism by SSMU and the Our Turn National Action Plan. When it comes to protesting the pipeline, a statement of support for Unist’ot’en is the bare minimum, which SSMU has failed to adequately provide.

Lobbying local, provincial, and federal governments is an important part of student unions’ and associations’ duties, and the absence of a vice-president (VP) external hinders SSMU’s ability to fulfill this responsibility. After former VP External Marina Cupido resigned in Oct. 2018, McGill students have been left without an executive whose sole responsibility is to represent their needs outside of the university context. In the case of the Unist’ot’en camp and other indigenous advocacy work, a dedicated VP external position is indispensable.

In the meantime, there are many important steps that students on campus can take to support Unist’ot’en. On their website, the Unist’ot’en camp provide an extensive list of ways to support them, such as donations, need lists, and other resources. On the broader issue of indigenous rights, it is important to support on and off-campus initiatives like #ChangeTheName. Campus groups such as the First People’s House, SSMU Indigenous Affairs, and the Indigenous Student Alliance, which held a demonstration in support of indigenous sovereignty on Jan. 14, are all essential resources for indigenous students on campus, and they deserve students’ utmost support. It is important to educate oneself on how to be an effective ally, listen to indigenous communities, and support their right to self-determination.

SSMU’s decision to amend the motion reveals their hypocrisy. SSMU has been quick to support the #ChangeTheName campaign; however, Unist’ot’en has not received that same kind of support. Expressing solidarity with indigenous peoples means expressing support for all indigenous issues, on and off-campus. Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier announced that she is delaying her decision on whether to change the men’s varsity athletics team name until the end of the academic term. SSMU promptly criticized this announcement, and yet, that they cannot even pass a motion declaring total support for Unist’ot’en demonstrates the emptiness of their solidarity with indigenous peoples. 

McGill, News

Summer exchange course in Israel sparks debates

by Jacqueline Yao on

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The Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Executive Committee has since passed POLI 339. According to AUS, they did not have enough information regarding the course by their Legislative Council meeting on Jan. 30.

AUS has since suspended the result of the Committee vote following allegations that the vote was undemocratic and unconstitutional. AUS is taking statements at secretarygeneral.aus@gmail.com.

POLI 339 Comparative Developed: Topics 1, a Political Science course featuring a two-week exchange to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), has ignited heated debates on campus, resulting in AUS ultimately rejecting the course’s proposed fee.

In a Facebook post on Jan. 26, McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) criticized the university for offering a course at HUJ, citing that the campus is partially located on Mount Scopus, a region in Jerusalem that continues to have a disputed territorial status. SPHR claimed that the course is inaccessible because Israeli border security may detain students with Palestinian nationality, as happened to Lara Alqasem, an American student of Palestinian descent, last year. In a statement to The McGill Tribune, SPHR argued that offering POLI 339 would be hypocritical given McGill’s acknowledgement of its colonial occupation of indigenous land.

“There is a common discourse on McGill’s campus that the university must be held accountable for its complicity in settler-colonialism, and [POLI 339] completely contradicts that,” SPHR representatives wrote. “If this course is approved, it not only trivializes the existence and experiences of Palestinian students at McGill, but it puts efforts of accountability here at McGill in jeopardy and puts the lives of its own students at risk should they choose to participate.”

Israel on Campus (IOC) countered SPHR’s statements in a Facebook post on Jan. 28, maintaining that McGill should give students opportunities to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. IOC refuted allegations of inaccessibility, stating that Arabs make up 16 per cent of HUJ student body and that a Israeli Supreme Court decision last October will limit the use of Israeli law to bar those affiliated with Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), a global campaign against Israel, from the territory. In an email to the Tribune, IOC stressed that studying at the site of the Israel-Palestine conflict encourages critical thinking.

“By fighting against this course, we believe that SPHR is expressing fear,” IOC representatives wrote. “They are scared that participants will come back refusing to blindly accept their opinions as facts. We encourage critical thinking and are happy to see students have the opportunity to study the conflict themselves by hearing, seeing, and experiencing diverse viewpoints on the ground and forming their own perspectives.”

After receiving backlash, McGill’s Political Science Student Association (PSSA) removed its advertisement for POLI 339. PSSA President Bella Harvey asserted at AUS council that the PSSA remains neutral.

“I believe, personally, that students should be absolutely free to exercise their academic freedom to engage in the opportunities [available to them], but they are equally free to express dissent and protest the class,” Harvey said. “[The] PSSA has no control over what classes are offered by the department and cannot stop them from being offered.”

The Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC), which oversees a variety of fees that McGill charges students, had approved the fee before the AUS Council voted against it on Jan 30. During the meeting, critics of POLI 339 argued that the course is not equally accessible for students of Palestinian descent. Others accused councillors of using the debate to express personal grievances and, in so doing, inappropriately deny students academic opportunities. The motion to approve POLI 339 course fees, presented by Arts Representative Andrew Figueiredo, narrowly failed 13-14 in a secret ballot.

POLI 339 will be taught and coordinated by Professors Richard Schultz and Harold Waller, with the Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation partly subsidizing travel costs. The proposed course fee would have had each enrolled student pay $1,000 for lodging, transportation, and remaining airfare expenses. However, given the course fee motion’s failure, it is unclear how the expenses will now be covered.

“[SSMU] only signs off on the fees once they’re approved at the faculty/department level,” Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Tre Mansdoerfer wrote in an email to the Tribune. “[I am] unsure about the POLI 339 fee motion’s next steps, as I haven’t seen a case where [course fees] failed to pass so far this year.”

McGill, News

McGill launches third annual Black History Month celebrations

by Helen Wu on

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On Jan. 31, members of the Black Students’ Network of McGill (BSN) and the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE) launched McGill’s third annual Black History Month at the Faculty Club. The event featured parliamentary poet laureate, playwright, and University of Toronto English Professor George Elliott Clarke as the keynote speaker and included musical performances by harpist Christelle Saint-Julien and Schulich School of Music pianist Daniel Clarke Bouchard.

Black History Month is celebrated across Canada in February to commemorate the achievements and contributions made by black Canadians to building the country’s culture, heritage, and identity. Equity Educational Advisor in Anti-Oppression and Anti-Racism Shanice Yarde acknowledged McGill’s support of Black History Month in her opening statement.

“This is our third annual celebration of Black History Month at McGill, which is really exciting,” Yarde said. “And I know [three] seems like a really small number, but we have to start somewhere.”

Following a prayer and a welcome address by Sedalia Kawennotas, elder of the Mohawk nation, Provost and Vice-Principal Academic Christopher Manfredi delivered a statement on behalf of Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier, addressing Black History Month 2019’s theme of ‘justice.’

“Since the beginning of my term as Provost, I have identified equity and inclusion as my priorities, knowing that the pursuit of these goals is crucial to the intellectual openness and academic excellence for which McGill constantly strives,” Manfredi said. “This commitment to equity bears fruit in different important ways, and tonight is a striking example of this.”

The last speaker to take the stage was Clarke, who stressed the role of higher education in providing the tools and knowledge necessary to revolutionize communities.

“To be an intellectual, to be someone who is schooled in history and in the fundamentals of this society, makes it possible for you to be transformative in a way that may lead to transformation for your communities,” Clarke said. “Never let anyone deny to you the importance of doing scholarship, the importance of doing research, [and] the importance of knowing your history.”

Clarke cited the March on Washington in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and the election of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president, as historical examples of the significant social progress made in the past century. While he believes that the fight for racial equity has made significant advances, Clarke also pointed out the work that remains.

“The March on Washington in ‘63 was not the end,” Clarke said. “If anything, it was just the beginning. A beginning which remains in process. All of us still have a duty to press for equality, still have a duty to press for liberty, for all of the marginalized, down-pressed communities that we have all over this country. We should never accept the idea that change has been accomplished.”

According to Clarke, social change can only come from those who rise up and take action into their own hands.

“If oppressed peoples, if marginalized peoples, if racialized communities, if women, if persons of different sexual orientations, if indigenous peoples are ever going to have real equality and real liberty in this country, we need to understand that politics is war and activists are foot soldiers,” Clarke said.

Clarke finished his speech by reading a selection of his poems. During the subsequent question period, he noted the significant role that Africans and their descendants have played in the success of European societies.

“As much as I can admire the achievements and greatness of so many European cultures, I also want folks to recognize what that [success] was built on, the exploitation it was built on,” Clarke said. “Stop trying to claim that people of colour are inferior, stop trying to claim that we work backwards, stop trying to argue that we deserve to be enslaved.”

The full schedule of events on and off campus can be found here. For more information, please contact Shanice Yarde at shanice.yarde@mcgill.ca.

Features

Looking back, moving forward

by Emma Carr on

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“The McGill Students’ Council affirms the principle that the student, like any other citizen, has the right to information and counselling about birth control, as well as to any contraceptive device he may require,” a 1967 McGill Students’ Council decision reads.

With this decision, the McGill Students’ Council, the precursor to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), acknowledged that access to contraception was a legal right—nearly two years before the government of Canada reached the same conclusion. These students’ decision represented not only a remarkable act of civil disobedience but also set a precedent for making contraception more accessible within the university’s gates.

Bell
Commentary, Opinion

Let’s talk about Bell Let’s Talk

by Kyle Dewsnap on

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On Jan. 30, Canadian social media will be flooded with posts about mental health, spurred by Bell’s annual “Let’s Talk” awareness campaign. Since 2011, Bell has raised over nine million dollars for mental health initiatives, which has helped approximately 2 million volunteers to receive mental health crisis training. Their largest social initiative, Bell Let’s Talk Day, has been a wild success; in the past eight years, their hashtag #BellLetsTalk has been used over 800 million times. Let’s Talk has even provided funding to our own university’s mental health programs. Bell has single-handedly created the largest mental health initiative in Canadian history, but, in doing so, they have trivialized the challenges that people with mental illness face.

Bell Let’s Talk relies on a convenient fiction: That ‘reducing the stigma’ around mental illness is the best way to combat the mental health crisis in Canada. As a result, Let’s Talk and other anti-stigma initiatives have turned mental illness into a one-dimensional issue with a simple solution: Awareness. Unfortunately, being ‘aware’ of this issue isn’t going to stop the discrimination that people with mental illness face.

There is a difference between stigma and discrimination, and, although it’s subtle, it has profound implications on how a community decides to combat social issues like mental illness. The Canadian Mental Health Association provides a clear definition that distinguishes the two: A stigma is a negative stereotype, while discrimination is unfair treatment due to a person’s identity, which includes mental illness. To improve the overall quality of life of people with mental illness, we as a community need to combat both stigma and discrimination. Unfortunately, social initiatives that rely on ‘raising awareness,’ like Bell Let’s Talk, underscore the former while neglecting the latter.

Bell’s ‘anti-stigma’ approach has had a positive impact on Canadian society: 89 per cent of respondents to a survey have reported becoming ‘more aware’ of mental illness since 2011. This is beneficial, since, according to the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, Canada’s current medical infrastructure is not prepared to handle the worsening mental health crisis. For example, over 75 per cent of children with mental health disorders do not have access to specialized care. Canadians have to be aware of these issues in order to address them; but, awareness is no substitute for failing social and medical infrastructure.

While Bell Let’s Talk Day is helpful in raising funds for mental health initiatives, it isn’t going to dismantle the prejudice that those with mental illness face. Instead of simply having a one-day conversation, the community needs to demand that the mental health crisis receives constant attention from our leaders and, in the case of McGill students, their administration. For example, McGill’s administration has slashed funding for its own mental health programs, making services like psychotherapy all but inaccessible to students. Moreover, they have failed to deliver a proper sexual violence policy, despite the fact that sexual assault has been shown to contribute to mental illness. In the face of provincial budget cuts to university funding, McGill’s administrative team reallocated over $2.5 million in fees paid to student services–which are supposed to fund student wellness programs–into the salaries of faculty and senior staff in the 2015–2016 academic year.

This Wednesday, students who believe that they deserve more from their institution should demand more from their administration; actions as simple as sending their faculty’s dean an email stressing the importance of adequate mental health support has the potential to make our lives happier and healthier.

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