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Creative, Private, Sports

McGill Tribune Sports Podcast: Ep. 1 – Baseball (w/Eno Sarris)

by Gabe Nisker on

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McGill Tribune Sports Editors Gabe Nisker and Miya Keilin discuss McGill baseball and the MLB playoffs. Then, Gabe sits down with The Athletic’s Eno Sarris to talk about baseball, sandwiches, and much more!

Creative, Word on the Y

Word on the Y – Advice for first years

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The McGill Tribune takes to the Y to ask students what advice they would give to first year students beginning their journey at McGill.

Video by Sofia Mikton with help from Emma Carr, Bilal Virji, and Astrid Mohr

Editorial, Opinion

Supporting survivors means supporting their allies, too

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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This past year has seen momentous changes in the way McGill handles sexual misconduct allegations: The university has hired a third-party special investigator and launched an ad hoc committee regarding student-teacher relationships. However, structural issues continue to persist. On Sept. 21, the World Islamic and Middle East Studies Student Association (WIMESSA) published a statement on their Facebook page announcing that the McGill administration had removed two faculty members in the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) from their administrative positions. According to WIMESSA’s statement, the Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Arts claimed that only an outsider could serve as director without bias, and that Undergraduate Program Director (UPD) Pasha Khan was subject to a conflict of interest after being sued for defamation by colleague Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim. The details are murky, but the message is clear: Two professors face professional retribution for speaking out, and, even as the university attempts to reorganize in the wake of student protests, it upholds a structure that seems detrimental to survivors and their allies.

In its statement, WIMESSA affirmed that it had no prior knowledge of the proposed administrative changes and that it was not consulted. Moreover, WIMESSA student representatives received the news of these decisions on the first day of classes; universities have a tendency to announce dramatic changes at busy times of the year in hopes that students simply won’t pay attention. While the substance of Khan’s purported conflict of interest is obvious, the depth of Hartman’s involvement is unclear. In Apr. 2018, Hartman signed the faculty members’ letter of support for the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU) Open Letter in her capacity as a professor in the IIS. The letters alleges a mishandling of complaints against faculty members in the IIS and other departments in the Faculty of Arts.

McGill’s lack of transparency regarding Hartman and Khan’s departures is concerning. The only information currently available is WIMESSA’s statement on their Facebook page and website, as well as the absence of Khan and Hartman’s names on the IIS website’s list of administrative staff. McGill should have disclosed these events publicly—students’ associations cannot be solely responsible for announcing substantial departmental changes three weeks after the fact. McGill has failed IIS students by leaving them in the dark about departmental changes that directly impact them. Major university-wide changes, like the appointment of a special investigator, are a step in the right direction, but those changes are only as powerful as the administration allows them to be. To see substantive reform, McGill must continue to work with individual faculties and departments to create policies tailored to their specific needs.

If the administration has students’ best interests at heart, they should have consulted WIMESSA student representatives while making the decision to replace Hartman and Khan, or at least notified them in advance that a decision was being made. The disregard for WIMESSA’s input is troubling, since student representatives understand their constituents’ concerns better than distant administrative bodies. Moreover, Hartman and Khan’s replacement serves as a reminder that teaching assistants, professors, staff, and other faculty members are all a part of an academic hierarchy that is conducive to abuses of power.

Due to the lack of official communication on McGill’s behalf, the exact nature of the professors’ alleged conflicts of interest is unknown. Still, Hartman’s removal sets a precedent that supporting survivors is dangerous. Silencing Hartman and Khan will only make students in the department feel less safe and more reluctant in calling out potential abuses in the future. Until the administration demonstrates, rather than just proclaims, its commitment to supporting survivors, its expressions of concern will ring hollow.

Off the Board, Opinion, Private

“Hey, so I did a thing…”

by Caitlin Kindig on

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I found out that I was pregnant on the same night that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. The euphoria of my hometown’s victory was accompanied by a devastating plus-sign on a pee stick. I was 17-years-old. The morning after, I called Planned Parenthood and set up an appointment for an abortion the next week. Carrying the clump of cells growing inside of me to term was never an option. While I have always been pro-choice, it’s one I never thought I’d have to make. It was by no means a tortured decision.

Actually getting the abortion was rather simple. In the United States, abortion rights are decided state-by-state, and I was lucky to have been living in New York when I had mine. In Quebec, abortion is legal, free, and available at any time. However, despite its supposed inclusive and liberal campus environment, McGill offers few resources for those seeking an abortion and only recently formed a support group for those who ‘chose.’ My abortion was accessible, but what I didn’t account for was how lonely I’d feel afterwards.

So, three days after Donald Trump’s election, I went to the Planned Parenthood Centre in the Bronx borough of New York City and took a mifepristone pill to kill the fetus, followed by four misoprostol pills to evacuate my uterus. I had never felt more relieved.

The next month involved heavy bleeding, searing cramps, and violent nausea. While my doctor prescribed three weeks of rest and limited activity, I carried on with my life. I went to school, attended track practice and play rehearsals, and picked up more shifts at my movie theatre job. Hearing back from universities, once a monumental phenomenon, seemed minimal compared to my new mental and physical state. With the exception of a few close friends, I never spoke about the abortion to anyone. I was stunned into silence—I felt as though I had made an incredibly mature decision that I was banned from discussing.

I spent a lot of time reading articles and excerpts written by extraordinarily successful women with booming careers and blossoming families. They all said something like “Hey, so, I did a thing when I was 20…” They all seemed to give the same statistic: One in four women will have an abortion by age 45. They all expressed love and empathy for any woman in a position of reproductive vulnerability, especially young women. I noticed that rarely did anyone my own age talk about the choices they’ve made: Abortion seemed to be a topic reserved for middle-aged women already too successful to be hurt by such a confession. There was no space for talking about the process of abortion, its lasting effects, or the simple fact that my body, which I had not yet grown into, was somehow capable of creating another one.

The space to talk about this minor medical procedure is swallowed by politics. Abortion, and the public’s willingness to address it, should not be a partisan issue. Moreover, public acceptance of abortion needs to continue past the procedure itself; one can hold liberal and accepting views regarding abortion, but those views don’t necessarily translate to a willingness to discuss the topic. At 17, I was not remorseful. I did not mourn the loss of my ‘child,’ and, if faced with the same situation today, I would make the same decision immediately. If I could change anything, however, I would seek help ahead of the abortion.

Until this space is created, you can be someone’s support system. Hold their hair back when they’re suffering from morning sickness. Accompany them to their clinic appointment. Let them squeeze your hand when they’re experiencing contractions. Listen to what they have to say—just be there.

Nov. 11, 2016 will always hold meaning for me, but its significance has changed. I am not ashamed of what I did, nor do I feel I did anything extraordinary by choosing to terminate the pregnancy. For me, this date is one of empowerment, of speaking up, and, now, one of telling my story in the hope that someone will feel less alone. On that day, my personal victory felt much more remarkable than the Chicago Cubs’ win.

Becoming Canadian in Canada
Commentary, Opinion

Where are you from?

by Serina Cole on

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Back at my international high school in Tokyo, I could answer this seemingly simple question with, “I was born in Canada, but I was raised in Japan,” and that would be that. Many of my friends answered with two or three countries and it seemed like a perfectly-appropriate reply. However, my answer became complicated when I first arrived in Montreal this August. When friendly faces would ask me where I was from, I had to pause. Am I allowed to call myself a Canadian, even though I’ve never lived here? Despite having been born in Victoria, B.C and having a Canadian passport, I have spent my entire life in Tokyo. Identifying as just ‘Canadian’ or ‘Japanese’ seemed reductive—like I would be throwing away half of my identity. On the other hand, saying ‘Tokyo’ would be so much simpler than giving a stranger my whole story.

McGill is an inclusive, diverse campus, with students from over 150 countries making up 30 per cent of our student body. Even though we may be a global community, we still categorize students as either ‘international’ or ‘Canadian,’ when there are so many of us who do not fit into either. Even with the plethora of international clubs and associations that cater to foreign students, in-between Canadians are left out because we challenge their categorizations.

While I was in the same position as many of my international friends coming from Tokyo, I still felt a wave of uneasiness, for not completely fitting in. My friends talked about difficulties they faced getting their immigration documents and the culture shock of living in an English-speaking country, but I could not completely sympathize. I was in an entirely disparate situation—I did not have to acquire a Certificate of Acceptance to Quebec (CAQ), but I was ineligible for government insurance. Although I can speak Japanese, English is my first language. Canadians who grew up in Canada already belong and are comfortable, while I was stuck right in the middle.

It is evident, however, that we are making attempts at normalizing mixed-race identity. An excellent example is Patricia Edmonds’ cover story on half-black, half-white fraternal twins for National Geographic’s April 2018 Race Issue. While the article does, indeed, shed a positive light on biracial people, its focus is on the twins’ visible differences rather than their identities and experiences, demonstrating the need for progress in our understanding of racial categorization.

When reflecting back on my own experience as a half-white, half-Japanese student in Tokyo, my appearance was the first thing that set me apart from others when I introduced myself. I still remember attending a Japanese cram school session when I was in grade school and getting called half, or hafu — a somewhat-derogatory term used in Japan to refer to a biracial person—by both the students and teachers. While they would think of the term as a compliment, telling me how big my eyes were and how beautiful my skin was, it made me feel diminished to ‘half’ of a whole and left me feeling like a foreigner in my own country.

As to where I’m from, I still don’t have a clear answer. Both countries are a part of who I am, and yet, I don’t fit nicely into any category. I am in-between, I’m half, or hafu, but never a whole. While I still think that this provides me with my own individuality, a difference that I find exciting, it also leaves me with an eerie feeling of not belonging to a community. It’s nice being different, but social expectations still have to catch up with the realities of global diversity and multi-nationalism.

Montreal, News

Malala Yousafzai addresses Montreal crowd

by Marie Labrosse on

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 Malala Yousafzai addressed an enraptured crowd of fortunate Montrealers on Sept. 26 at the annual Influence MTL 2018 conference, stressing the importance of youth activism and gender equality. The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, took to the stage at Place Bonaventure to introduce Yousafzai and underline the importance of young people fighting for their beliefs.

“Why do so many initiatives come from the youth?” Plante asked. “Why do so many initiatives come from you? You can launch small, medium, and large scale initiatives because all victories and all fights are worthy.”*

In a Q&A session led by Danièle Henkel, female entrepreneur and founder of Les Entreprises Danièle Henkel Inc., 21-year-old Yousafzai reiterated the power of youth-driven change. The Pakistani-born Nobel Peace Prize winner sees the 2012 assassination attempt on her life as a clear testimony to the potential for her advocacy work to enact change.

“I started speaking up and realised that some people tried to get rid of my voice,” Yousafzai said during the event. “Just my voice. They were afraid of it because it was so powerful [….] You do not need to be 45, or 60, or 70 to bring change. You do not need to have qualifications. You can bring change at any age, […] make this world a better place, and ensure that everyone […] has education and everyone has health.”

The atmosphere was charged throughout Yousafzai’s panel: The audience reacted to every word she said, cheering at her statements of support for female education and chuckling at her light mockery of her male classmates’ immaturity.

“Before, I was in a girls’ school so I had not really seen boys of my age,” Yousafzai said. “At university, I saw boys and I realized that most of them are boys [….] We expect them to be more mature but they’re not. I have two brothers and they’re the same.”

Nonetheless, Yousafzai pointed out the pivotal role boys and men can play in reducing the gender gap. Yousafzai reminded the audience that gender inequality is not just a problem in her home country of Pakistan, but around the world, including the Western hemisphere.

“Men and boys need to join this fight for equality, it is not just on women,” Yousafzai said. “It’s about their daughters, it’s about their sisters, it’s about their wives [….] When we educate women, when we give them equality, we are not just helping individually, we are helping the whole society.”

To close out the panel, The McGill Tribune asked Yousafzai about her current experience studying at Oxford University and whether she felt that higher education had enabled her to discover new passions and new facets of herself.

“I’m learning not just the content from the books, not just philosophy, politics, and economics, but also learning from my friends, learning from the professors,” Yousafzai said. “Everyone is doing amazing work, one of my friends has done coding and one of my other friends is raising awareness about feminism [….] You get to find your passion.”

The audience was left feeling invigorated by Yousafzai’s messages of optimism and calls for gender inclusivity. Jason Carmichael, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Sociology, attended the event with a group of other professors who lauded Yousafzai’s compelling performance.

“Her courage is infectious,” Carmichael said. “I think that one of the things that she really brings to the table is her courage of conviction and courage of life. I think there are many people that care about a lot of things; there are very few people who are willing to put their lives on the line for what they believe in.”

 

*Plante’s quote has been translated from its original French by the author.

Sports

Quidditch for the ages

by Owen Gibbs on

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On Sept. 29, McGill and Université de Montreal co-hosted the annual season-opening Vive le Quidditch Libre tournament in Montreal’s Parc Villeray. It was a less-than-ideal start to the year for McGill’s two quidditch teams: McA and Canada’s Finest Quidditch Club (CFQC) placed fifth and seventh, respectively, in a pool of seven teams. Nevertheless, the McGill teams remain optimistic about the rest of their seasons.

Quidditch, the brainchild of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, is a fictional sport that is popular within the wizarding world of her bestselling series. Each team fields a side of seven players. They fly around the pitch on broomsticks, throwing a ball, or ‘quaffle’, through a set of giant rings to score points. They also try to avoid being hit by smaller, rock-hard balls called ‘bludgers.’ One member on each team, known as a ‘seeker,’ chases a small, golden ball called a ‘snitch.’ The game ends immediately once the snitch has been caught.

Within the past decade, this fictional hobby has become a reality: Groups across the globe have organized quidditch leagues, and the real-world game has adopted its own unique charm. This version, however, does not involve any flying. Instead, players run with narrow pipes between their legs, and the golden snitch is a specially-trained person dressed in gold with a tennis ball hanging from their pants, paid $10 per game to avoid getting caught by seekers. The players known as ‘beaters’ run around and pelt their opponents with dodgeballs instead of bludgers.

“I think people take it as a joke sport and just kind of laugh,” McGill Quidditch Team Captain Caitlin Belz said. “I consider quidditch to be just as much of a strategic and athletic sport as any other.”

This season is a special one for McGill Quidditch, as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. As far as university quidditch is concerned, McGill is a pioneer. Ever since Canada’s first official club was first formed on campus, the sport’s popularity has spiked.

“We started by playing in the U.S., and then there was a Canadian league,” McGill Quidditch VP Communications Brooklynn Carey said. 

In fact, the game has grown beyond the university level; two of the teams participating in this tournament were made up entirely of alumni who wanted to stay in the sport.

Participants don’t have to be fans of Harry Potter to get into the sport.

“Not as many people as you would think are fans,” Belz said. “The ratio of fans to non-fans is about 65-35, but we always have a few people on the team that have never read the books or seen the movies, and that number is increasing.”

Around 150 people participated in tryouts this season. Two big pulls for the sport are that quidditch is gender-inclusive, one of very few played at the university level, and that it provides exercise without requiring much athleticism. Often, varsity athletes will play quidditch in the offseason to stay in shape. One such athlete is Ashley Blackburn Ouellette, a former hockey player who got into quidditch after finding the club on campus.

“For an athlete, it [is] a really great sport,” Ouellette said. “I actually fell in love with the sport really fast.”

Though the opening tournament was a bit of a disappointment for McGill Quidditch fans, the season is still young. With such an important anniversary to honour, hopefully McGill Quidditch can make this season a magical one.

A previous version of this article stated that Brooklynn Carey was the VP Internal of the McGill Quidditch team. In fact, she is the VP Communications. The Tribune regrets this error.

Letter to the Editor: No, there is no “quest for monolingual domination” in Québec
Letters to the Editor, Opinion

Letter to the Editor: There is no “quest for monolingual domination” in Québec

by Antoine Milette-Gagnon, Simon Tardif, and Christophe Savoie-Côté on

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On Sept. 18, The McGill Tribune published an opinion piece titled “Quebec’s quest for monolingual domination makes healthcare less accessible.” In this article, the author made dubious and confusing links between Bill 10, font changes on information signs at Saint Mary’s hospital, and what he described as “Quebec’s quest for monolingual domination.” We, the Francophone newspaper Le Délit, and the Organisation de la Francophonie à McGill, seek to react and set the record straight lest such an ill-advised and anecdotal opinion piece cultivate confusion and intolerance among the McGill community.

In 2015, the Québec government passed Bill 10: “An Act to modify the organization and governance of the health and social services network, in particular by abolishing the regional agencies.” Bill 10 is part of a vast reform of the healthcare system engineered by the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ)―elected with stellar majorities in Anglophone ridings like Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG), in which the Saint-Mary’s hospital is located.

Ironically, the PLQ invoked closure, bâillon, to pass Bill 10 and muffle the Parti québécois and Québec solidaire’s opposition to the dismantling of regional agencies. If anglophone communities are indeed worried about the loss of local agencies, this concern is shared by many Francophones. The removal of some local anglophone agencies and the ensuing disorganization of services are consequences of Bill 10, not its purpose.

The constituency of NDG, nonetheless, stands in good posture to voice its concern since Kathleen Weil, minister in charge of the relations with English-speaking Québécois, is currently running for reelection in this same riding.

It is also worth noting that anglophone communities were invited in parliamentary committee before Bill 10 was tabled. Addressing the issue of access to services in English, Article 76 of the bill states that “Each public institution must, in the centres it specifies, develop a program of access to English-language health services and social services for the English-speaking population it serves.”

In fact, no one voiced the alleged determination to make French predominant during debates on the bill at the National Assembly. Purporting that Bill 10 was driven by Québec’s intent of monolinguistic domination is at best ridiculous, if not completely misleading.

Referring to changes in the font size of signs at Saint-Mary’s hospital, the author contends that “legislation like Bill 10 is not only detrimental to [students’] security but is attempting to address an imagined decline in the French linguistic tradition.” We can but call this a misinformed and twisted reading of reality.

How can one pretend to understand the language question in Québec while grounding their analysis in a study that looks at it from a purely market-based perspective, where historical and cultural dimensions have been evacuated? A diagnosis of the state of the French language can not rest solely on a supply and demand analysis. The question is, obviously, more complex than this.

Moreover, the author’s diagnosis of an “imagined” French decline is problematic, as it relies on numbers about Québec residents’ self-assessed ability to sustain a conversation in French. This is not very telling.  Meanwhile, the proportion of Québécois whose first language is French and the number of Québécois speaking French at home are both declining. Another recent study designed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests that almost half of Québécois are functional illiterates. “French is on the rise”—really?

If the author of this opinion piece truly feels concerned by the respect and dynamism of Québec’s linguistic culture, then the impact of his words should probably be weighed more carefully. Changing the signs’ font resulted from an administrative decision; to portray that change as a national “quest for monolingual domination” is dishonest and disrespectful toward Québécois. This sort of presumption can have dangerous consequences, as it fuels confusion and pits communities against each other.

By the way, Montréal is indeed a cosmopolitan city, but it is also part of Québec. And here, French is not just a mere “linguistic tradition”: It is our official language and the basis of our identity.

 

Antoine Milette-Gagnon and Simon Tardif are Editors at Le Délit, and Christophe Savoie-Côté is the President of L’Organisation de la Francophonie à McGill.

Science & Technology

What is divestment?

by Celia Hameury on

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On Sept. 12, the McGill Senate voted to support divestment from fossil fuels. While the term ‘divestment’ is ubiquitous on McGill’s campus, its meaning and implications remain foggy to many.

To maintain financial stability, the Senate reports that McGill invests part of its $1.6 billion endowment into fossil fuel firms. Divestment, as it pertains to fossil fuels at McGill, is the act of selling stocks in companies that make profit off of fossil fuels to convey the institution’s social and environmental responsibility.

Scientists almost unanimously agree that fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming. Fossil fuels are burned for energy, which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide molecules trap heat from the sun in Earth’s atmosphere much like the walls of a greenhouse retain heat. As a result of an increased consumption of fossil fuels to power everyday life, the Earth has become almost 1ºC warmer since the last century.

Nature Magazine predicts that increases in temperature could lead to environmental catastrophes, such as the extinction of up 15-37 per cent of species by 2050 if no action is taken. One-hundred ninety-five countries signed the 2015 Paris Agreement—with the United States as a notable exception—agreeing to undertake ambitious efforts to prevent further rises in global temperatures; this requires keeping CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2050 under 886 billion tons.

Divestment proponents argue that since fossil fuel companies have not agreed to meet the necessary emission cap, supporting them through investment is socially irresponsible.

“McGill has an ethical obligation to not only reduce our own role as consumers of fossil fuel[s] by implementing and improving upon our commitment to carbon neutrality, but also end our role as producers of such fuel by divesting,” Associate Professor Gregory Mikkelson in the McGill School of Environment and the Department of Philosophy, said.

Yet, in the debate on divestment, one counterargument is that divesting alone does not harm the targeted firms unless it is implemented on a massive scale. Fossil fuel companies are worth hundreds of billions of dollars; for them, McGill’s small investment is a negligible sum. If McGill were to divest, the sold shares could simply be acquired by someone else. Moreover, the value of fossil fuel companies does not actually depend on the amount of money invested by shareholders.

“Those companies, their market value comes from the fact that there is an underlying global demand for what it is they do,” Christopher Ragan, an associate professor in  the Department of Economics, said. “As long as the world is interested in buying oil, then […] there is a value to what those companies are doing.”

While divestment might not affect fossil fuel firms, it certainly would influence McGill’s own financial standing. Adding a restriction to McGill’s financial portfolio would make it more difficult to maintain financial stability. Still, there exist alternative, greener investments, which may even be more profitable than fossil fuels.

According to Dror Etzion, associate professor in the Faculty of Management, fossil fuels cost McGill $40 million between 2012 and 2015. This is not too abnormal, as the value of fossil fuel commodities fluctuate cyclically between periods of high and low growth throughout the year. It is, therefore, hard to predict the future potential of fossil fuel shares and judge the full financial effect divestment may have on McGill.

While the environmental and financial effects of divestment remain hazy, one thing is certain: McGill’s divestment would hold great symbolic significance.

“When the alma mater of the Canadian prime minister divests from fossil fuel[s], it will send a powerful signal”, Mikkelson said.

Out on the Town, Student Life

The radical history of Milton-Parc

by Leyla Moy on

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Fifty years ago, real estate developers Concordia Estates Ltd. purchased the majority of the historic buildings that make up the Milton-Parc neighbourhood with the intention of clearing them out to make way for new shopping, hotel, and apartment developments. Angered by this encroachment, a group of local activists protested the construction, claiming it would destroy the character of the community and leave long-time residents without homes. The Canadian Centre for Architecture’s exhibition, “Milton-Parc: How we did it” runs until Feb. 17 and spotlights the neighbourhood’s rich history. On Sept. 27, a panel also titled “Milton-Parc: How we did it” featuring the movement’s organizers accompanied the display.

The Milton-Parc neighbourhood, known by students as the ‘McGill ghetto,’ spans six square blocks, bounded by Hutchison, Ste. Famille, Milton, and Pine Ave. Dimitri Roussopoulos, a curator and the first speaker at the Sept. 27 event, emphasized activism in the neighbourhood as an example of citizen involvement. He also participated in the planning stages of the Milton-Parc protests.

Roussopoulos’ presentation centred around the Committee’s landmark demonstration in May 1972, which protested Concordia Estates Ltd.’s plan to build high-rise, high-rent housing in the neighbourhood. Students can recognize LaCité, the first step in this project of urban ‘renewal’ and the only part of the plan that was actually completed, as the antithesis to the charming, low-rise feel of its surrounding area. Addressing the audience, Roussopoulos paid homage to the historic protest while rallying the audience around the Committee’s ongoing advocacy.

“Milton-Parc is on a land trust, and it is radical [in itself] to have a land trust,” Roussopoulos said. “[It is] contrary to market capitalism […] that [to this day] there is no buying and selling of property in the six block radius. […] We won, and we’re still fighting.”

Activists took to the microphone to recount their roles in the movement. Among them was Henry Milner, who was one of the first to be arrested after the 1972 demonstration. Milner recounted that, during the protest, activists occupied the Concordia Estates Ltd. offices and were jailed for ‘public mischief,’ before the charges were dropped. Milner emphasized the Milton-Parc protest as a catalyst for municipal change movements across Montreal: The ‘70s activism in Milton-Parc was, as many of the speakers point out, part of an international movement.

“[The activism in Milton-Parc] represented the idea of thinking globally and acting locally,” Milner said. “Our generation had a mission to keep neighbourhoods going.”

The accompanying photography exposition reflected a sense of reverence for the activism of years past in a slideshow of black-and-white images of protests and the neighbourhood’s history. McGill alumni Clara Gutsche and David Miller took photos of the Milton-Parc community  for the Citizens’ Committee, which served as background entertainment during the event. These photographs, many of which are also displayed in the hallway cases, both kept visual records of the movement and showed the neighbourhood’s charm in contrast with the stark, modernist aesthetic of the proposed new developments.

This year, on the 35th anniversary of Communauté Milton-Parc (CMP) and the 50th anniversary of the Milton-Parc Citizens’ Committee (MPCC), the legacy of this historic neighbourhood and the activists who fought to preserve it are more important than ever. Still devoted to preserving the community, MPCC seeks to take possession of the defunct Hôtel-Dieu Hospital for social housing, community, and cultural spaces. Alanna Dow, current president of CMP, also mentioned that the community was looking at vacant parking lots as possible co-ops for aging Milton-Parc residents. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Roussopoulos again emphasized that through this work, the group continues to preserve Milton-Parc’s unique character.

“The Milton-Parc project is a six-block downtown land trust on which there are 22 nonprofit housing co-ops and 1500 people in residence,” Roussopoulos said. “All land is owned in common. It is a significant piece of real estate [with a significant history.] […] It is the largest housing project in North America, and not enough Montrealers know this. […] This kind of community project should be replicated in other parts of Montreal.”

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