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Commentary, Opinion

To the cocky cyclist: Traffic laws apply to bikers, too

by Jordan Gowling on

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My roommate recently had a near collision with a cyclist at the intersection of Mont-Royal and Saint-Urbain. She, as a pedestrian, had the right of way; the cyclist did not. As a morning bike commuter myself, I have seen firsthand some of the liberties cyclists take with traffic laws. This is dangerous. While some cyclists may be occupied with getting to class on time or thinking about work commitments, it only takes a few seconds for a collision and fatal injury to occur. In recent years, Montreal has made efforts to provide the proper infrastructure and safety measures to ensure cyclists can share the road. Cyclists must do their part, too, by abiding by the rules of the road.

In 2013, the Montreal municipal government allocated a $10 million annual budget to invest in new bike paths and make certain sections of the city safer for cyclists. In recent years, there has been significant growth in the number of cyclists in the city, with cyclists now representing 2.9 per cent of morning commuters in Montreal compared to 2.5 percent in Ottawa and 2.2 percent in Toronto in 2015. Many McGill students are part of this demographic. This is progress, and as Montreal makes room for cyclists to share the road, positive benefits flow to all types of commuters.

There is a double standard between vehicles and cyclists, however: The former must follow the rules and largely does so, while the latter often behave as though the rules do not apply to them. I see this type of behaviour on a regular basis; for example, bikers often fail to stop at a red light or refuse to slow down for a pedestrian who has the right of way. 

This is concerning. Cyclists operating on the road must abide by traffic laws, because lives are at stake. In a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, Lucy Madison recounts the devastating cycling collision that took her mother’s life on a busy street in downtown Washington, DC. Similarly, here in Montreal, CBC reported a sharp 50 per cent increase in cycling deaths and a 43 percent increase in serious injuries last year. Moreover, a reckless cyclist not only runs the significant risk of injuring themselves, but also of fatally injuring a pedestrian or another cyclist.

 

 

There is a double standard between vehicles and cyclists, however: The former must follow the rules and largely does so, while the latter often behave as though the rules do not apply to them.

The reward of running a red light to save 30 seconds is not worth the increased risk of collision with a vehicle or a pedestrian. One issue is that there is less of an incentive as a cyclist to follow the rules, because the punishments facing cyclists for breaking traffic laws are much less severe compared to those that apply to drivers. For example, a fine for a cyclist that runs a red light is $15 and three demerit points, whereas a fine for running a red light in a vehicle is $100 and three demerit points. This disparity in penalties sends the message to cyclists that their actions are less severe than and cannot do as much damage as those of drivers, but this should not be the case.

Regardless of penalties, there must be a higher incentive for a cyclist to avoid a collision with a vehicle, because logic dictates that the driver of the car will probably be fine, but the cyclist most likely will not. Whether they like it or not, cyclists are operating as vehicles on the road. Road signs and safety precautions are not merely suggestions, but laws that need to be followed in order to ensure the safety of all those within the Montreal community and, correspondingly, McGill. Cyclists can no longer decide the rules don’t apply to them.

 

 

 

 

Jordan Gowling is a History major from Gatineau, Quebec. She enjoys reading, soccer, and drinking overpriced lattes.

 

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

 
Commentary, Opinion

There’s no such thing as free public transit

by Gabriel Rincon on

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A Quebec think tank recently proposed the idea that Montreal should make public transportation free. The primary goals of the proposal, released by the Instititut de recherche et d’informations socio-economiques (IRIS), are to alleviate traffic and carbon emissions. However, despite its findings, it’s not immediately obvious that making transit free would be the best way to produce the desired results, nor the most cost effective.

One of the issues with the proposal is that its author, Bertrand Schepper, drastically underestimated how much free public transportation would cost. According to Schepper, the estimated cost the government would take on was said to be about $620 million—STM’s current revenue from riders—which completely disregards basic economics. When the price of something goes down, the quantity demanded subsequently rises. Consequently, assuming today’s ridership numbers would remain constant completely ignores the additional costs of the increased ridership that would result if public transport were free. Not to mention the added costs of maintaining the capital stock due to increased wear-and-tear. Since there would then be no revenue to cover these extra expenses, the funds would have to come from increased taxation. This would be a burden on all, regardless of how much one uses public transport.

It is important not to underestimate the significance of the revenue generated by public transport. Without the instrument of being able to raise prices or issue a consumption tax on fares, raising funds for improving the transit system would require an increase in general taxes. Thus, the costs of free transit are not as straightforward as the study would make them out to be. For such a cost to be justified, the benefit would have to be massive.

Free services aren’t actually free—their funding comes from taxpayers, even if they don’t benefit from the services provided.

The author argues that making public transportation free would help reduce traffic and carbon emissions from cars. Indeed these are goals that should be promoted, given that Montreal has committed to reducing its carbon gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. It would be a shame if this noble goal were to turn into an empty promise. Still, it is not obvious that making public transport free would accomplish this. One would have to assume that if transit becomes free, people who were previously driving will switch to using public transport. Certainly ridership will increase, but a substantial amount of this increase may be from people who were previously biking or walking. While making public transport free increases the relative price of driving, it also does the same for every other mode of transportation. Those who can afford to drive may continue paying a premium for the convenience and privacy of a car and to avoid the increased traffic on an already heavily worked public transport system. In other words, to get people out of cars, the city should try directly increasing the price of driving to disincentivize it.

According to the study, Montreal grants more subsidies to drivers than it does public transport. Eliminating these give-aways should be the starting point to reduce emissions; there is no obvious reason for the subsidy to exist and it lowers the private cost of driving, which increases demand for cars and, correspondingly, pollution. In fact, drivers should be made to bear the social cost of their activity, and pay a tax for the pollution they're creating. The best way to do so would be an additional gasoline tax since the cost of the tax would be directly proportional to how much pollution the person produces. Additionally, it would make biking, walking, and public transport relatively cheaper than driving.

Free services aren’t actually free—their funding comes from taxpayers, even if they don’t benefit from the services provided. Instead of making public transit free to reduce the number of cars on the road, the government should target the activity that it wants to disincentivize: It should tax the car drivers directly if it is concerned by pollution and congestion. Fundamentally, there’s no sense in forcing a person who walks or bikes to subsidize someone else’s metro trip.

Gabriel is a U2 Economics student at McGill. He loves cooking and sharing his food with his friends and family.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 
Commentary, Opinion

The VP External should support student initiatives, not direct them

by Gabriel Rincon on

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On Sept. 15, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited McGill to inaugurate a new Facebook Artificial Intelligence lab. However important the initiative, Trudeau’s welcome was lukewarm. A group of students, including Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President (VP) External Connor Spencer, protested the Prime Minister’s visit. The protesters accused Trudeau of breaking his promises to Indigenous communities, citing his failure to acknowledge the McGill Pow Wow being held at the same time on Lower Field. Regardless of whether the charge is fair or not, it raises the question of the scope of the VP External’s role when engaging in political protest.

Among the SSMU internal documents that govern the VP External’s participation in the Trudeau protest are the VP External job contract and the Indigenous Solidarity Policy (ISP). A plain reading of either of these texts does not call for participating in student demonstrations, only for supporting student political activities. Moreover, the ISP is narrowly written to ensure SSMU’s involvement in Indigenous communities is focused on consultation, support, and advocacy in McGill policy areas.

However, more important than what the institution defines for the VP External, is what students should expect from the portfolio. As soon as SSMU begins to appear to students as an institution that’s there to serve itself or to disseminate its executives’ preferred ideologies, then SSMU is no longer seen to serve the entire student body.

In recent years, it has become a norm for the VP External to direct student protest. But this should not be the case. A very concrete example of the consequences that can arise from this approach was former VP External David Aird’s participation in an anti-Trump rally—#MakeRacistsAfraidAgain—that became hostile towards an apolitical protest advocating “no hate” in response to Trump’s vitriol. As a result, Aird was heavily criticized for not respecting students’ right to react to Trump’s election in their own way. Instead of allowing students to demonstrate in the way they saw fit, Aird picked a side and supported the vocally anti-Trump reaction which he saw as more appropriate, with poor results. Consequently, SSMU executives—and the VP External in particular, due to their portfolio—must ensure that they don't let their political views distract from their focus on serving the student body.

 

SSMU executives should represent the interests of all students, independent of politics.

The VP External should be there to support student organization initiatives as they relate to interests external to McGill. But, even acting in this capacity, the VP External should remain removed from participating in student ideological demonstrations or campaigns, such as protesting the visit of a prime minister. For the VP External to be able to represent and support diverse student interests, they should try to be politically neutral. The benefit in being apolitical is that it prevents segments of the electorate from becoming disengaged. If the VP External, or indeed any SSMU representative, makes their political leanings public, it risks alienating voters who disagree with their views. More worryingly, it could lead students to believe that SSMU executives won’t support their initiatives if they are ideologically opposed. Students risk becoming even more disengaged if the VP External crosses the line from supporting initiatives to directing student activism.

If the VP External were to lead or begin student organization efforts instead of supporting existing movements, they would effectively be using their position to advance their own ideology. No one would organize students in a direction that’s inconsistent with their political ideology; therefore, a VP cannot actively direct student activism without simultaneously advancing their own personal politics.

SSMU executives should represent the interests of all students, independent of politics. Even if their motives are noble, a VP External should not participate in student protests. To fulfill the spirit of the position, the executive has to remain apolitical, so as not to risk alienating the constituents they represent.

 

 

Gabriel is a U2 Economics student at McGill. He loves cooking and sharing his food with his friends and family.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 
Commentary, Opinion

Rape culture exists: McGill Rez Project must do more to change attitudes

by Caitlyn Atkinson on

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Over the past two weeks, McGill’s first year residents have been participating in mandatory Rez Project workshops tackling topics such as gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. I attended one of these workshops, and what I found was an audience that completely disregarded the importance of the session. A number of students did not wish to participate, and shockingly, many who attended the workshop joked throughout it, encouraging others to do the same. These types of responses are unacceptable, and ultimately reinforce the passive and misinformed attitudes that allow sexual assault to occur.

McGill’s effort to implement a preventative sexual assault program is a good start, but it still fails potential survivors. If McGill wants to take a truly preventative approach, it should organize sexual assault workshops before Frosh week. In recent years, the annual weekend of partying has led to a number of sexual assault scandals across Canadian universities, which ultimately ended in the government requiring schools to update sexual their assault policies. Such measures are necessary, but they are primarily reactive. McGill must recognize that the negative attitude surrounding Rez Project workshops highlights a greater underlying issue: Consent is still a joke to some students, and there are still people in this community who are unwilling to educate themselves on sexual violence prevention. Although the university has little control over the incoming attitudes of students, enhancing preventative measures will result in small and slow changes in these attitudes. McGill’s Rez Project would benefit from a number of changes, such as including an online prevention module or encouraging more audience participation in order to better protect potential victims.

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the most effective way to reduce sexual violence is by conducting all-female workshops that include a self-defence component. Yet, while these skills may be useful, placing the emphasis on such methods of sexual assault prevention still perpetuates “rape culture” by upholding the expectation that victims should prevent themselves from being raped, rather than putting the onus on assailants to not rape or assault others. Moreover, these types of workshops fail to acknowledge that women are not the only ones who are sexually assaulted.

One simple but effective way to increase the impact of Rez Project would be to make the workshops more interactive.The InterACT Sexual Assault Prevention Program had leaders act out potentially dangerous situations and encourage participants to physically intervene or call out suggestions. The 509 university students who participated were surveyed pre-test, post-test, and three months after the session. While the self-reports allow for some personal bias, the results showed significant changes in beliefs and behaviours regarding sexual assault. Most students who participated in the study reported that they were able to better identify actions falling under the umbrella of sexual assault. As a result, they felt a stronger sense of responsibility to intervene. By taking a page from this study and implementing a more participatory portion to their own programming, Rez Project coordinators could have greater success in educating McGill students and protecting them from future harm.

An example to follow is that of Penn State, which has one of the most celebrated sexual assault prevention programs in the US and has introduced mandatory online modules for students to better protect them and their peers. The university has instituted two modules, one focusing on safe alcohol consumption and the other on educating students on sexual violence and domestic abuse. Both must be completed before students can register for classes. The 15-minute, ungraded, pre-frosh registration consent video quiz that McGill currently uses pales in comparison. Requiring students to devote significant time and concentration to sexual violence education before participating in Frosh may not spark a revolutionary change in attitudes among past assailants, but it is one step toward it.

That said, waiting until university to start providing sexual assault and consent education is insufficient. Eliminating the rape culture that perpetuates this violence is undoubtedly a long-term process, and it is one that post-secondary institutions cannot tackle on their own. Rez Project attempts to educate and encourage bystander intervention, but it currently lacks in execution. McGill cannot force every student to care about consent and sexual assault prevention—that is an issue that is deeply rooted in societal upbringing. Despite that, if a more effective Rez Project causes even a portion of the student body to take sexual assault more seriously, it would make for a positive change in campus culture. Until society shifts, it would serve McGill well to take notes from other universities to better protect its potential survivors.

Student Life

How students can better support survivors of sexual violence

by Emma Carr on

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Sexual violence is pervasive on McGill’s campus—according to the Annual Report on the Policy on Harassment, Sexual Harassment, and Discrimination Prohibited by Law, reports of sexual harassment increased significantly during the 2016-2017 academic year. Worse, many students feel ill-prepared to support a survivor when they disclose their experience of a violent or non-consensual sexual act. Consent McGill, an annual campaign running from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5, aims to address this problem.  

Coordinated by the Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support and Education (O-SVRSE), the campus-wide campaign seeks to facilitate a dialogue about how the student population can make the McGill campus safer and more supportive for sexual assault survivors, while preventing future incidents from occurring. Among the activities at the fourth annual Consent McGill was the ‘How to Respond to Disclosures of Sexual Violence’ workshop, designed to equip students with the skills to “respond to and support people affected by sexual violence by using appropriate tools and approaches.”

To learn more about this workshop—which is also offered throughout the academic year for co-curricular credit—and about how students should respond when trusted with a disclosure of sexual violence, The McGill Tribune spoke with Bianca Tétrault, Sexual Violence Education Advisor at O-SVRSE, and the founder of Consent McGill.

The McGill Tribune (MT): Why is learning how to respond to disclosures of sexual violence an important skill for students to learn?

Bianca Tétrault (BT): The way one responds to a disclosure can severely impact the way that [a survivor] processes their experiences. [It] can perpetuate further harm if they are not met with supportive, validating responses. There are so many barriers to even just coming forward, and if [the person listening] holds misconceptions or judgements, or doesn’t use appropriate language, it just further perpetuates the difficulties and barriers for people that are struggling to come forward.

MT: It’s probably hard for survivors to talk about their experiences with non-survivors. If I haven’t experienced sexual harassment or assault, how can I possibly offer this person my support?

BT: I think the first point of reflection as the responder is that this is never about you, so regardless [of whether] you have experienced sexual violence in some way, your experience will always be different from the person disclosing. No one person’s experience is the same, and so it’s not about you or your lived experience, or how you can understand what someone went through. It’s about how you can best support the person talking to you in this moment.

MT: What are the most important things to keep in mind when survivors of sexual assault disclose information to you?

BT: There are four key steps. The first one is [to] listen and believe [….] If you make the conversation about you, or you continue to cut somebody off, they are not going to feel that they can trust you or want to continue talking, so listen. [The] second [step] is [to] believe and validate. You don’t need to know the details of any case or situation, all you need to know is that it has negatively impacted somebody and that you are there to support them. The third [step] is [to] support non-judgmentally, […which includes] checking your misconceptions [and] checking your privileges or your biases. Often we hear the first response being ‘you need to report this,’ or ‘you should tell somebody,’ but that [choice] may not be right for the person disclosing. Ask them how you can best support them. What do they want or need from you? And lastly, [understand] that all feelings are valid [….] I think there are a lot of misconceptions around how someone should act after a sexual assault, and we need to deconstruct [these]. 

MT: What do you do if you feel like you are unable to help the survivor?

BT: Ultimately, we are telling our participants in the workshop that we are not training you to be counsellors or therapists, we are training you to be first-responders. And first-responders are going through the key points that I just mentioned, letting this person know that they are not alone, and that you will support them to get the services […] and trained [professionals] to support survivors of sexual assault.

If you are a survivor of sexual violence or a friend responding to a disclosure, there are a number of campus services available to support you, including The Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support and Education, Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS), and the Peer Support Centre , among others. A complete list of services can be found on The Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support and Education’s website.

 
Off the Board, Opinion

Navigating “just hooking up”

by Jackie Houston on

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To my knowledge, I’ve been on one formal date in my life—and I say “formal date” in the movie-and-dinner, Gilmore Girls sense of the word. It was July in Toronto, and I met him at a midtown pub. I was sweaty, because July in Toronto is sweaty, but he told me I looked pretty anyway. It was a pleasant, if underwhelming, experience.

The plot twist didn’t come until the end of the night, when he turned to me and asked, point blank, “When will I see you again?”

I was taken aback. When would he see me again? ‘Til that point, I’d been under the impression that that sort of directness and sustained eye contact was reserved for marriage proposals. Did this make us married now? Was I even ready for that kind of hard commitment?

My shock at such a seemingly innocent gesture stemmed from a weirdness in the way young people date now: Among—and probably as a byproduct of—other things, we’ve become god-awful at emotional communication. With the normalization of casual sex and the glorification of “chill” within those relationships—or, per a common phrase, hookup culture—it seems like sweaty-palmed confessions have largely evolved into DMs and 2 a.m. “u up?” texts. Maybe that’s just evolution at work: In matters of the heart, our generation has effectively mastered expediency and risk-reduction. The upshot, though, is a warped understanding of how we ought to treat the people we enter relationships with—even when we’re just hooking up.

The idea of 20-something-year-olds being terrible at communicating emotions isn’t new. If it were, When Harry Met Sally wouldn’t have a plot. So long as college-aged people stay as uncertain and vulnerable as we’ve always been, taking the leap of faith that is telling someone you’re into them will continue to be terrifying.

What is new, however, is the increasingly sophisticated number of ways we’re able to avoid making that leap of faith. Calling your crush’s house phone and hanging up as soon as they answer is primitive warfare. Between iMessage read receipts, subtweets, and sniper-like targeted Snap stories, in 2017, our arsenal of feels-evasion tactics has gone nuclear.

In matters of the heart, our generation has effectively mastered expediency and risk-reduction. The upshot, though, is a warped understanding of how we ought to treat the people we enter relationships with—even when we’re just hooking up.

This isn’t meant as a tirade against kids these days, nor as a rejection of hookup culture writ large. In some ways, the dating landscape has changed for better: Casual relationships can be hazardous, but they can also be practical, fun, and liberating.

The problem is when the ways we interact—or don’t—slip into the norms that sociologist Lisa Wade identifies in her book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. Namely, the new common wisdom that for a no-strings-attached relationship to work, every string of respectful interaction with another human also needs to go. Treating a partner with enough dignity to communicate directly with them could be mistaken for catching feelings, or, as Wade defines it, the ultimate breach of hookup rules of engagement. Gradually ignoring this person out of existence is clearly the easier alternative, especially when you can do it from behind an iPhone screen.

However, per some older common wisdom, doing what’s easy isn’t always doing what’s right. Norms of intimacy and sex have expanded and shifted, as have varied means of navigating relationships. Yet, by and large, being honest and respectful with another person still means the same thing that it did back when you first mustered up the courage to talk to your elementary-school crush. It means navigating the emotional grey zone that is “just hooking up” with due care for the human being next to you.

I haven’t seen the guy who wanted to know when he’d see me again in a few years now. When it ended, in the amicable, yet fizzling, way that casual relationships often do, I remember he prefaced the conversation with, “Sorry, I’m really bad at this kind of thing.” He was right—we are. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be better.

 

Jackie Houston is a U3 Political Science and Psychology student and Opinion Editor for The McGill Tribune. She dreams of a world where she can pet any stranger’s dog with no questions asked.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

Science & Technology

Dealing with tragedy thousands of kilometres away

by Ronny Litvack-Katzman on

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Tupperware containers in hand, two Mexican McGill students implored hundreds of strangers in Leacock 132 to spare some change to support relief efforts in the wake of the Sept. 19 earthquake in Mexico City.

Living away from home is not easy, let alone watching tragedy strike from afar.  Challenging routine tasks, such as schoolwork, become unbearable in the wake of tragedy. When the brain experiences uncertainty due to stress, it signals a physiological response, activating the nervous, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems, among others. The adverse changes in brain chemistry can cause physiological trauma that can outlast even the most horrific memories of the experience.

Maritere Hernández,  a U1 student in sociology, knows this feeling first-hand. She is a member of the Spanish and Latin American Students’ Association (SLASA), the same group that spent the last week fundraising for relief efforts in Mexico. Along with SLASA President Ivan Gonzalez, a PhD student in mathematics at McGill, both students have family and friends still living in Mexico City.

“At first I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Hernández said. “I was in the middle of my class and I received hundreds of messages in my family group, and they couldn’t find one of my cousins […] no one knew if she was […] alive.”

In a joint study released by the Université de Montréal and Rockefeller University, a direct connection linked the age at which the traumatic experience occurs and the detrimental effects on development.

“Exposure to stress or adversity during these key vulnerable periods might slow the development of those brain regions for the duration of the adversity,” the study reported. “When measured in adulthood, the reduced volumes of these brain regions could be a strong marker of the time of exposure to early adversity.”

Similarly, Gonzalez described feeling powerless upon hearing the news of the earthquake, as well as in the subsequent days.

“When my father called me I got really scared,” Gonzalez said. “My father is a man who never speaks with a [trembling] voice and for the first time in my 24 years of life, I [heard] him speak with a tremble in his voice. He was really scared.”

Coupled with the everyday stresses of midterms and assignments, a psychological breakdown in young adults experiencing trauma becomes increasingly likely.

The earlier in life that these incidents occur, the longer the brain is bombarded with a prolonged sense of panic, thereby raising steroid levels and inhibiting the functions a student needs to be successful in their studies. The regions that are most affected, the hippocampus, amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex, are the same as the ones used in declarative memory—the retaining of fact-based information—which is an integral component to all facets of education.

“For me the first three days were horrible, Gonzalez said. “I couldn’t concentrate whatsoever and I had to go to a seminar. And I was just sitting there and I said ‘No I cannot be here. I have to be doing something’ and I had to leave.”  

Both Gonzalez and Hernández desperately wanted to be home and help with reconstruction efforts. They decided to do the best thing they could given their situation: Raise money at McGill to support the cause from afar.

Supporting students facing trauma, or donating to the Mexican Red Cross, are small ways that we can make a difficult time easier for our international peers. For those affected by trauma, McGill Counselling and Mental Health services, as well as a variety of SSMU hotlines, are available. Furthermore, the Depression Support and Bipolar Alliance provides many options for grievers and supporters alike.

McGill, Montreal, News

Community Engagement Day promotes solidarity between McGill and local organizations

by Jesse Wu on

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On Sept. 28, the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE) held the sixth annual Community Engagement Day (CED). Programming took place at various locations across Montreal—including on McGill’s downtown campus—and approximately 30 organizations participated, including the Montreal LGBTQ+ community centre, Radical Accessibility Audit Project (RAAP) Montreal, and Seeing Voices Montreal. These organizations collaborated with SEDE to put on a total of 50 projects across the city with volunteer activities, panel discussions, and workshops on current issues such as discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and accessibility on campus.

According to Monika Barbe, CED program coordinator, the program aims to strengthen the partnership between McGill students and community service organizations in Montreal.

“[The goal of the CED] is to continue to plant the seeds of general social involvement and engagement within the community with the hope of opening the McGill bubble,” Barbe said. “Through specific partnerships with community organizations […] the participants get the chance to see with their own eyes […] how groups of people organize themselves to address issues that are important for them and to make changes happen.”

The day’s programming was segmented into smaller sections, including the CED talk series, a cluster of talks that aimed to facilitate dialogue between McGill participants and the general public to critically analyze the relationships between the university and local organizations. One such event was a panel discussion, “Taking Your Knowledge Outside The Classroom: Creating Social Impact In The Montreal Community,” featuring faculty and student speakers from the Desautels Faculty of Management.

Anurag Dhir, SEDE engaged learning and access coordinator, moderated the panel, focusing on academic research on partnerships between community organizations and university students.

“[This panel] critically engages with the idea of knowledge production and sharing that happens between the community and the university when you have university students working with community organizations,” Dhir said, in an interview after the panel. “[It] explores the benefits of [these collaborations] and the tensions that exist as well.”

The panelists shared their personal experiences participating in community organizations and solving problems using data and research. Nicholas Toronga, U2 Management student and one of the panelists, discussed the difficulty of applying his classroom knowledge during his previous involvement with Suspicious Fish, a creative literary and arts collective in Verdun, Quebec.

"When I think about taking knowledge outside the classroom, I think about adaptation,” Toronga said. “This is something that is very challenging, especially coming from the [Faculty of Management], you’re studying finance and you are super excited to use the modules, the marketing, and everything else. Then, you go to the organization and realize that maybe they’re still way behind and you have to work with […] a certain way of doing things. If you don’t acquaint yourself with them, things can go wrong.”

For Elizabeth Thomas, U0 Management, “Taking Your Knowledge Outside The Classroom” familiarized her with local outlets through which she can impact the community.

“[Attending this CED talk] is very important to me,” Thomas said. “I came here to [learn] how other people think [about social entrepreneurship] and to try to understand other people’s views compared to mine. It’s quite interesting that we [all] think in the same way.”

CED’s many volunteer events included a clothing sort at Chez Doris, a local women’s shelter, where McGill student volunteers helped organize clothing donations. One of them, Amy Hunt, is an exchange student from Northeastern University who came to Montreal for service learning. She was encouraged to be part of CED during her lecture for GSFS 200: Feminist and Social Justice Studies.

“I decided to do CED because of my feminism class, so I wanted to get involved,” Hunt said. “I think CED is awesome. If I were here [next year], I would participate again. I think it’s a great program for students.”

McGill, News

‘Victims of Socialism’ presentation stirs up controversy on campus

by Julia Metraux on

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On Sept 25,  George Harbison, chief financial officer of Unitek Learning, gave a talk on the “The Victims of Socialism.” The talk was hosted by the Conservative Association (CA) at McGill University in conjunction with The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Though the event title alluded to a discussion of socialist societies, Harbison’s speech actually focused on past communist dictatorships— the terms were used interchangeably throughout the presentation. He touched on the USSR under Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, China under Mao Zedong, and Cambodia under Pol Pot. His presentation included examples of communist propaganda, images of emaciated and dead bodies, and dramatic background music.

“Make no mistake about it, the millions of deaths caused by these three communist regimes were no accident,” Harbison said. “Communism’s goal of achieving a utopian society with absolute and forced equality for all [was] at such odds with human nature that it required an imposition of brutal and total control by the state over every aspect of the lives of those subjected to it.”

One counterargument to Harbison’s ideas about communism is that the damages the modern capitalist state causes, including environmental degradation and income inequality, are far worse than those caused by past communist regimes. Yet Harbison argued that this was untrue.

“We have been presented with numerical comparisons set forth [of] the sheer magnitude of the number of people killed by three communist regimes,” Harbison said. “To deny this, or to invoke the argument [that] capitalism’s [damages are worse], is to engage in abject intellectual dishonesty.”

At the end of his talk, Harbison took questions from the audience. One audience member asked whether it’s possible for a socialist democracy to succeed, to which Harbison responded by reminding the audience of the overthrow of socialist Chilean president Salvador Allende.

“[Salvador] Allende was a socialist [president in Chile], he was overthrown,” Harbison said. “Then [Augusto] Pinochet came in, not a great guy, did some bad stuff, [but he] put in economic reforms, [and by] 1990 Chile was a highly-functioning democracy. It’s actually up near the top of the Economic Freedom Scale.”

The event’s Facebook page provoked discussion between the event’s proponents and critics. An event mockingly titled ‘The Victims of DeVry University’ was created to protest the CA’s decision to invite Harbison, a former CFO of the Medical and Healthcare group of DeVry, a for-profit university. The event page criticized Harbison’s lack of qualifications to speak about socialism.

In an email to The McGill Tribune, the creator of the ‘The Victims of Devry University’ event, Victor Redko, U3 Science, cited several of Harbison’s articles for Forbes.com and RealClearMarkets.com as evidence of a bias against socialism.

“I made the meme event because I was taken by the absurdity of the campus tories inviting someone whose degree is an MBA focusing on finance and accounting and whose career is mostly focused in the for-profit education industry [to] act as an authority on the history of communism,” Redko wrote. “Especially given the fact that the various pieces [that] he has written for various sites make it very clear that he’s […] on the right end of the spectrum and is likely completely unable to speak objectively on the history of communism or its merits in comparison to capitalism.” 

While the event served to bring attention to the victims of communist regimes, Arts underclassman Sophia Kopnya felt the presentation took advantage of people who lived in communist regimes.

“[This event] essentially equates victims of these regimes to simple analogies to denounce any sort of left-wing politics,” Kopnya wrote. “The fact that people are using the genocide of my people [Ukrainians] to further the idea that any sort of social welfare or social support is by association evil.”

 

McGill, News

Consent McGill highlights the existence of sexual assault and how to react to it

by Caitlyn Atkinson on

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Consent McGill has returned for its fourth consecutive year to provide students with education and support on campus sexual violence. Bianca Tétrault, the sexual violence education advisor at the Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support, and Education (O-SVRSE), continues to lead the campaign with O-SVRSE sexual response advisor Émilie Marcotte and a team of year-long volunteers. Events promoting self-care, survivor support resources, and bystander intervention are scheduled for the ongoing two-week campaign, taking place from Sept. 25 to Oct. 6. 

Bystander intervention workshop stresses importance of speaking up

On Sept. 27 Tétrault and peer educators Felicia Kavuma and Neelakshi Pandey led a workshop to raise awareness of the bystander effect, the human tendency to remain inactive when witnessing acts of violence or injustice if other witnesses are doing so as well. Facilitators provided strategies to correct this behaviour, and defined the role of an active bystander as one who looking for ways to disrupt sexual violence while also maintaining their own personal safety. 

“Bystander intervention [workshops] are proven, through research, to have an impact on campus sexual violence and in reducing it,” Tétrault said. “But not every campus is the same […] so we wanted to make sure the information was going to fit our population, [which is why] the information was tailored by our students.” 

The facilitators also made it clear that bystanders need not be heroes; individuals can only intervene in emergencies if they feel their own safety is not at risk. Even small efforts from bystanders, however, can stop harmful situations. Though intervention ideally occurs before assault ever does, stepping in mid-attack, or even afterward, can be just as important.  

“Some people have been targeted […] because of their social identity and worry about their own safety, so […] that affects our likelihood of becoming an active bystander,” Tétrault said. “But that is why the after part of the situation is so critical. If we can’t do something in the moment, we have a responsibility to follow up with [the survivor]. It may be the only source of support they get immediately after.” 

Resources for survivors explored during networks of support walking tour

Another noteworthy event in Consent McGill’s campaign was the walking tour of survivor resources in Montreal. Departing from the O-SVRSE office, tour guides brought attendees around the city to look at the different offices and resources that survivors of sexual assault can pursue for support. The first stop was the police station PDQ 20, where Constable Giuseppe Bacardi informed the group about the investigative procedures that are needed to verify the validity of a sexual assault. Bacardi’s account highlighted a recurring concern for many survivors in reporting their experiences—that police officers won’t believe them.

“When someone calls 911, police get dispatched,” Bacardi said. “Police officers go over there and basically find out their story […] just to make sure there is enough evidence to sustain a report. This is not to be mean, or cynical, or make people think we don’t believe [the callers], but sometimes, when someone hates another person so much, they can make up any story.” 

Marcotte, who was helping facilitate the tour, then posed a question about the logistical process of filing a sexual assault report, which Bacardi failed to explain sufficiently. The result was an awkward, and relatively tense, discussion before Marcotte and Tétrault politely exited with the group. 

Meanwhile, the three other locations on the tour—Concordia University’s Centre for Gender Advocacy, Montreal Sexual Assault Centre (MSAC), and Project 10—were more in accordance with Consent McGill’s pro-survivor mandate and all emphasized their commitment toward believing and supporting survivors above all else. Though the Centre for Gender Advocacy and Project 10 assist survivors, they are more directly involved in providing resources and safe spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals. MSAC, however, is entirely dedicated to helping sexual assault survivors work through their experiences. Though it is not an alternative to reporting to the police, MSAC can help individuals through the process of filing a formal report. 

“If you come to MSAC, we will support you in whatever route you wish to pursue,” Debbie Trent, the director of MSAC, said. “We do, however, strongly encourage survivors to come in […] and have medical information collected, just in case they change their mind in the future.”

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