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a, News

EUS Council decides against hosting International Engineering Competition

by William Pang on

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At its Jan. 25 meeting, the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS)council  relinquished its bid to host the International Engineering Competition (IEC) and set dates for their upcoming election. In addition, they heard a presentation from the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President (VP) Finance, Zacheriah Houston, on the SSMU base fee increase special referendum question.

EUS not hosting upcoming engineering competition

The EUS relinquished its bid to host the 2016 International Engineering Competition, an event managed by the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES).

“There has been a lot of miscommunication between us and the CFES […] and besides, it was too much for us to take, especially on the financial side of things,” EUS VP External Jean-Louis Shi said. “The whole point of relinquishing the bid is official to say that [the EUS has] no financial obligation [to host the event].”

Shi noted that EUS will be hosting two other CFES activities: The Canadian Engineering Competition and the Conference of Diversity in Engineering; however, the IEC event will still be organized by Mélanie Laroche–Boisvert, who served as a chairperson of the EUS IEC 2016 committee.   

“Initially the idea was to say we don’t want to [host IEC] anymore, but Mélanie still wanted to continue,” Shi said.

EUS will be providing free room access for Laroche-Boisvert to organize the next edition of IEC.

SSMU membership fee increase

SSMU executives have been making rounds to faculty councils to advocate for a $5.50 increase in membership fee.  On Monday, Houston explained to the EUS that the membership fee has not increased since 2008, and SSMU’s current budget is unsustainable given its rapid growth over the past few years.

“Roughly 30 per cent would go to additional support staff for SSMU, roughly 40 per cent would go to financial stability, and roughly 25 per percent would go to student identified priorities,” Houston said, before elaborating that the fee increase would bring around $240,000 in additional revenue.

EUS President Mariam Hachem questioned Houston on why faculties except for Law, Religious Studies, Dentistry, and Medicine have to pay a higher membership fee. Houston explained that the irregular fee structure is due to historical reasons, and emphasized that no other SSMU fee is structured similarly.

“Personally I am not in favour of the fee structure, and we’re not proposing a proportional increase,” Houston said. “The deputy provost’s office doesn’t allow you to have two questions in one [referendum], so fee restructuring combined with a fee increase, we would get a lot of resistance to that [….]  It could take a year to get them to allow us to have two questions at once.”

EUS executive elections

Council members passed a Policy and Bylaw Review Committee (PBRC) bylaw to set up a nominations committee within EUS and approved their electoral calendar for the upcoming month.

“Elections for EUS execs and representatives to SSMU, the nomination period, which we are already in, is from [Jan. 20] to [Feb. 3],” Hachem announced.  “The campaigning period will be after, [Feb. 8] to [Feb. 14].

Election debates will be held on Feb. 10 in the EUS Common Room.

The nomination period for Engineering departmental executives will be held from Feb. 22 to Mar. 8, with the campaign period held Mar. 14 to Mar. 20.

a, Fact or Fiction, Science & Technology

Fact or Fiction: Is MSG bad for you?

by Lydia Kaprelian on

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It seems like no food is safe anymore. High fructose corn syrup causes diabetes. Swordfish is filled with mercury, a neurotoxin. And the latest bad news? Bacon is a carcinogen according to the World Health Organization (WHO). When it comes to monosodium glutamate (MSG), though, it looks like science is on the side of tasty foods.

Commonly associated with Chinese food, MSG has garnered quite a negative reputation over the years. Its use has been linked to a variety of health problems from headaches to allergic reactions to general sluggishness.

MSG’s bad rap can be traced back to a letter written in 1968 to the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok. The letter, titled “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,” recounted Ho Man Kwok’s experience of eating out at Chinese restaurants, which resulted in him having symptoms of numbness and weakness. Ho Man Kwok speculated that his malaise could be due to the flavouring used by Chinese restaurants.

“The cause is obscure,” the paper reads. “[Some] have suggested that it may be caused by the monosodium glutamate seasoning used to a great extent for seasoning in Chinese restaurants.”

And with that, Ho Man Kwok sparked one of the most pervasive food myths of today: MSG is dangerous.

Nowadays, stigma has caused many Chinese restaurants in Montreal and throughout North America to boast “No MSG” on storefronts and in menus. The label can be found in the grocery store aisles on seasoning salts and pre-packaged foods. The signs and labels are meant to ease customer concerns, but they also feed the fire that MSG should be avoided. As of yet, there’s no rigorous scientific evidence or research to back MSG’s infamous reputation.

Discovered by Tokyo Imperial University chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1907, MSG was created to capitalize on umami flavour. Umami, a flavour outside of the four basic tastes—sour, sweet, salty, and bitter—is hailed as the savoury taste that’s found in foods such as mushrooms, beef, miso and Parmesan cheese. Umami-packed MSG helps to explain the deliciousness of ramen flavouring packets, for example.

It was Ikeda who first attempted to identify this feeling or flavour of umami. He discovered that many of the foods associated with umami contained L-glutamate. Seeking to isolate umami, Ikeda synthesized MSG by extracting glutamate from kombu seaweed and stabilizing the molecule with table salt and water. Glutamate is a non-essential amino acid naturally produced in the human body. L-glutamate refers to the chiral orientation of the amino acid.

If the two components of MSG—table salt and glutamate—are naturally-occurring substances, then what is the big concern over MSG?

As it turns out, MSG’s demise is more than just a story about the difficulties of altering public perception; it is also a story about the misuse of science.

Soon after Ho Man Kwok’s letter to the New England Journal of Medicine was published, a study came out in Science, which implicated MSG consumption in some nasty symptoms. John Olney, a professor at the Washington University School of Medicine, published “Brain lesions, obesity, and other disturbances in mice treated with monosodium glutamate” in which newborn mice were subcutaneously injected—that is, injected under their skin—with about 0.4 to 5 mg of MSG. Following the injections, the mice developed a slew of symptoms ranging from stunted skeletal development to obesity to neuronal necrosis of the hypothalamus.

Though the results did prove that direct injections of enormous quantities of MSG will have harmful effects, it by no means mimicked the way MSG is consumed by humans. For example, Olney injected the mice with MSG whereas humans acquire MSG by eating it. As a result, the human body will metabolize MSG differently than Olney’s mice. This, coupled with the dose the mice received—rates of which would be very unlikely for humans—means that very little of this work can be applied to actual human consumption.

The study performed by Olney is an important lesson when considering scientific findings. While results may have indicated MSG  is causing trouble for mice, it might not mean the same for humans. With MSG so heavily demonized in North America, changing the minds of the public is likely to take a long time. 

a, Science & Technology

The dark secret behind snow pollution

by Sihara Wickremasignhe on

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The white blanket that covers everything and anything after a snowfall may not be as pure and untarnished as it appears. A recent study from McGill University discovered that freezing temperatures and fallen snow can change the way compounds found in air—air particulates—are distributed. Yevgen Nazarenko, a postdoctoral fellow from McGill’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a researcher with the study, explained that snow is the perfect pollutant trap.

“If you go to polluted regions like some cities in China and India […] or even stand near some major roads, especially where they have a lot of diesel engines, you can see the air pollution,” Nazarenko explained. “You can physically see the particulates in the air or you see the brown smog.”

In areas where pollutants aren’t as visible, like Montreal for example, toxins are still absorbed by the snow, making them present in higher concentrations and potentially harmful.

 Nazarenko and his team found increased levels of four specific petroleum-derived chemicals—benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX)—that have been shown to be toxic and carcinogenic. Benzene is quickly and effectively absorbed into the body, causing drowsiness, confusion and headaches. High enough levels (>10,000,000 parts per billion) can lead to death. Toluene and ethylbenzene are eagerly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract after ingestion and can cause kidney and liver problems. Xylenes negatively impact the nervous system, affecting muscle coordination and balance. These monocyclic molecules are small—they can have width of about 240pm. As a result, they can enter the human respiratory and circulatory systems with ease, leading to increased incidences of cancer and cardiovascular pulmonary disease. Snow is an extremely efficient pollutant trap, because it’s a mixture of water and ice.

“Snow is assembled [from] minute crystals with very high surface [areas] and, above -20 degrees Celsius, snow has a quasi-liquid water phase,” Nazarenko explained. “You have a lot of surfaces and various phases for absorption of the solution of substances into the snowpack whereas in water, you have much lower surface area for contact with air pollution.”

Immediate exposure of heated emissions from exhaust pipes to the cool winter atmosphere causes gases to condense into particulate form, which acts to increase snow’s absorption. Despite these factors, many agencies have continued to ignore snow pollution.

“Much of the environmental protection regulations and standards are based on warm temperature research and don’t take into account the presence of snow, cold, freezing temperatures,” Nazarenko said. 

This is because calculating these factors in cold weather can be difficult, expensive, and often inaccurate. To address this problem and isolate vehicle pollution data, the research team at McGill created a system where they eliminated various environmental factors like changes in wind speed, wind pumping—wind blowing through the snowpack—structure of the snowpack, interaction between surfaces like vegetation and buildings, and other pollutant sources. They collected freshly fallen snow from Parc du Mont-Royal which they kept at freezing temperature and measured the pollutant levels in the sample as a blank. The snow was then exposed to diluted exhaust from a gasoline engine and analysed.

 Thus far, this study serves as a starting point for further research.

“Certain chemicals do undergo various chemical reactions due to photochemistry, pollution in the environment and in snow is not constant,” Nazarenko said. “Whatever is absorbed there, whatever your starting pollutants are, is not necessarily all going to remain in that form.” 

More studies have to be conducted to identify the exact type and quantity of pollutants and to determine exactly what the environmental and health implications are. The end result may be that policy makers will encourage research in this field and update emission standards.

5th wave
a, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

The 5th Wave more one singular wave of disappointment

by Celine Renaud-Brice on

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Stop me if this sounds familiar: In a post-apocalyptic nation, one spunky hero sparks a trilogy-long revolution against a corrupt government, as the fate of the world rests upon their shoulders. The 5th Wave proves to be a lacklustre addition to the current trend of young-adult (YA), dystopian thrillers, which includes the likes of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. Directed by J Blakeson and based upon Rick Yancey’s bestselling 2013 novel, the film follows Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz), a 16-year-old survivor of an alien invasion. As one of Earth’s last remaining survivors, she must fend off wave after wave of deadly attacks, including power outages, plagues, earthquakes, and floods—with the eponymous fifth wave being the story’s main focus—in order to reunite with her younger brother, Sammy (Zackary Arthur). An intriguing premise perhaps, but the reality is a generic teenage angst-ridden romance, paired with an alien invasion thrown in as an afterthought.

Love triangles, paper-thin characters, and brooding bad boys galore, The 5th Wave can’t seem to pull itself out of its YA clichés. Too bad though, as the film boasts some genuinely surprising plot turns and impressive special effects. Its main achievement can be traced back to the dilemma many popular book series experience when they become global sensations and movie franchises; which parts to bring to life to satisfy the fans and which to eliminate so as to maintain a coherent narrative. Finding that right balance can be tricky, however, the film manages to successfully juggle its two coinciding storylines, Cassie’s search for Sammy, and Sammy’s training in a military boot camp.

But that’s where the good ends, sadly. Overlooking the story’s obvious similarity to other films of its ilk proves to be an impossible feat. It follows trope after trope of cliché young-adult franchises, like Twilight or Divergent. From hormone-addled teens to truly eye-roll inducing dialogue, The 5th Wave struggles under the weight of its simplistic plot line. A more accurate synopsis of the film should be: Socially awkward, beautiful, (yet unaware of her own beauty) nerdy girl meets aloof, yet sensitive, young man (Alex Roe) with a mysterious past. In the midst of an apocalypse, Cassie must decide which cute boy she likes best, as her hair and makeup remain picture perfect after living alone in the wilderness for a year.

Even less impressive than the plot itself is the film’s highly questionable acting. Moretz seems to make use of only two facial expressions: Gaping mouth and wide eyes (that’s fear) or pursed lips and wide eyes (that’s love). Though, to be fair, she’s not entirely to blame. One has to wonder how people can act convincingly when faced with the line, “My name is Ben because my dad likes Ben & Jerry’s,” to which she replies, “I’m sure your dad loves you more than ice cream.” On the other hand, Maika Monroe, who plays a sassy, rebellious soldier in the boot camp, stands out as a badass, feminist role model, with her sharp quips and no-nonsense attitude. Unlike Cassie, Monroe’s character is strong, independent, and wastes no time ogling boys when the end of the world is nigh.

Ultimately, The 5th Wave starts out mediocre and ends as a derivative, comical farce. The irony is that for a film that emphasizes humanity being the key to mankind’s survival, it’s emotionally truncated characters lack the depth that could ever resemble real life. Best of luck to all in surviving the five waves: Confusion, frustration, tedium, fatigue, and finally, disappointment.

Hateful Eight
a, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Tarantino adds some sauce to the classic spaghetti western in “The Hateful Eight”

by Rebecca Potters on

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When you walk into a Quentin Tarantino film, you can expect three things: Lots of blood, an intricately layered storyline, and Samuel L. Jackson. If you’ve seen The Hateful Eight, you’ll recognize that Tarantino meets those expectations, and then quickly surpasses them. Granted, this movie is not for everyone. It is long, drawn out, and gory; however, if you have the patience and the stamina, it is well worth the watch.

The first chapter the movie takes place inside of a horse-drawn wagon, ushering bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) off to the town of Red Rock so she can be hanged. On the way, they reluctantly pick up Major Marquis Warren (Jackson) and Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). This ensemble of three law-enforcers and a criminal makes for a violently slapstick wagon ride until they reach their checkpoint, Minnie’s Haberdashery, where they’re forced to hole up in the face of an impending blizzard. It is here that the story picks up, and we leave the beautifully shot, snow-covered Wyoming wasteland, and enter the cabin that houses the rest of the cast, and serves as the setting for the rest of the movie.

In Minnie’s Haberdashery, the audience is introduced to familiar actors such as Bruce Dern, Michael Madson, Tim Roth, Demián Bichir, and Channing Tatum. For the remainder of the movie, you get the sense that you are watching a vengeful spaghetti western that has crossed over into Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Everyone is trapped in one room facing existential dilemmas and playing a game of “whodunit?”

Audience engagement is a major component of this specific movie-going experience. Assumptions are made and suspicions rise. Once a culprit seems apparent, suspicions are then disproven with the introduction of a brand new concept or character and it’s back to square one. This technique is how Tarantino keeps audiences on the edge of their seat for the entirety of the film.

If you're unable to see the film in its 70mm glory, the standard 35mm format is still very much worth the watch. The bleak, snow-covered setting in conjunction with the cinematography and panning shots of landscape serve as vehicles of isolation that allow audience members to join the cast in that horse-drawn wagon, and feel the familiar yet fraught dynamic between every character.

Ennio Morricone’s score is so subtly catchy that during the screening, you are almost unaware that there is even music in the background at all; however you will leave the theatre humming the theme that you realize was playing the entire time. The music aids in the suspense and anxiety of the characters for the duration. From the beginning, even before any important events occur, the music gives an ominous impression of the conflict that will inevitably play out over the next two hours. Inspiration for the soundtrack was taken from the screenplay itself, and was further influenced by the Italian Giallo genre, a slasher/thriller genre equipped with elements of mystery, crime or the supernatural.

Overall, The Hateful Eight combines elements of drama, comedy, western, action, romance, and thriller. As Tarantino does so well, the movie was exciting and unpredictable, gruesome yet tasteful, and generally just fun to watch. Even if you are of the faint of heart, the tongue-in-cheek dialogue alone makes up for the generous amount of violence and fake blood. The best advice would be to know when to close your eyes, sit back, and let Mr. Tarantino lead you into his twisted cinematic world.

a, Off the Board, Opinion

Kevin O’Leary’s legacy of ashes

by Christopher Lutes on

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Dragon. Shark. Mr. Wonderful. These are all nicknames of Canadian entrepreneur and TV personality Kevin O’Leary, the unfiltered personification of capitalistic inhumanity. More than usual, he has been artificially inserting himself into the nation’s headlines. O’Leary has offered the tidy sum of $1 million in investment to the Alberta energy sector in exchange for Premier Rachel Notley’s resignation—surely a panacea to counteract the estimated $5 billion that the Canadian economy has already lost with the drop in oil prices. Now, there are murmurs that he may run in the upcoming Conservative leadership race. At first pass, it might seem like a good fit: O’Leary has the name recognition of a Donald Trump, but he’s also poised himself as some sort of paragon of fiscal pragmatism. But to understand why this isn’t remotely true, one need only dig a bit into his history.

After getting an MBA at Western University and working in the sexy world of cat food marketing for Nabisco, O’Leary founded SoftKey International, a children’s game software company behind such classic titles as “Shelley Duvall’s Tales of Digby the Dog” and “Solitaire Antics.” O’Leary’s strategy of packaging SoftKey’s titles as superfluous freeware with paid software or selling them at bargain basement prices eventually worked well enough that SoftKey was able to acquire The Learning Company (TLC) in 1995.

 

 

He’s a celebrity now, living in a world where image is more important than actual achievement.

Under the next three years of O’Leary’s management, TLC ran a deficit of $1.1 billion, but managed to seem profitable through accounting practices that could generously be called ‘highly suspicious.’ O’Leary then sold TLC to the Mattel toy company for $3.6 billion, making himself a very rich in the process. This is seen as one of the most lopsidedly bad acquisitions in business history, kneecapping Mattel’s stock prices, and ended with the company’s shareholders suing management.

Since then, O’Leary has risen to fame as a television personality on Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank, where he’s built a reputation as a proponent of pursuing profit at all costs, the kind of guy who refers to himself as the “Voldemort of Capitalism.” His hedge fund, which is called the O’Leary Fund despite not being run by him—he doesn’t have the licence required to operate a hedge fund—has posted a 17 per cent loss since its inception in 2012. That’s a high rate of loss, even when the recent tanking of the economy is taken into account.

But none of that matters because most people don’t know his history. He’s a celebrity now, living in a world where image is more important than actual achievement. After seeing the kind of publicity Donald Trump has gotten in the US, O’Leary must feel like he has a reasonable shot at becoming the Canadian equivalent. He could not be more wrong.

For the Conservatives, he would be an unprecedented choice—a bombastic political outsider from a party that tends to pick buttoned-down career politicians. The Tories pride themselves on not rocking the boat too much, making their machinations when they’re outside of the public eye. This is a party that had Stephen Harper, the human equivalent of a toast sandwich, as its leader for over a decade. ‘Personality’ is a four-letter word to them, just like ‘compassion,’ or ‘refugee.’ More broadly, O’Leary seems ill-suited to potentially hold the reins on an economy that is supposed to benefit people other than himself. His entire ethos is based around toxic Randian ideas of self-sufficiency and unfettered liberty that don’t play as well in Canada as they do in the US.

Ideally, O’Leary runs for Conservative leader and does to the party what he did to Mattel and The Learning Company in the past, or what Trump is doing to the Republican Party in the present. But he won’t get that far—Canadian politics, thankfully, is not the place where bluster and fame trump performance record and intelligence.

 

 

 

 

Christopher Lutes is a U3 double major in Political Science and Economics. He is an Arts and Entertainment Editor at the McGill Tribune.

 

@McGillTribOp | [email protected]

a, News

Campaigning for SSMU special referendum sees controversy

by Regina Wung on

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Campaigning for the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Winter term Special Referendum is now in full swing, with the polling period fast approaching. This semester, SSMU Council has put forward two questions for consideration: One concerns a $5.50 increase in the mandatory SSMU base fee while the other proposes the creation of a seventh SSMU executive position, vice-president (VP) Operations. The two questions are independent of one another, allowing students to vote for one and against the other, if they so wish.

The special referendum involves a $5.50 increase in mandatory SSMU membership fees per semester. If passed, full-time students in the faculties of Arts, Architecture, Education, Engineering, Music, Management, Nursing, Physical & Occupational Therapy, Science, and Arts & Science will see their fees increased from $44.75 to $50.25 per term, and part-time students in the same faculties will see their fees increased from $22.44 to $27.94 per term. In the faculties of Law, Religious Studies, Dentistry, and Medicine, fees will rise from $33.56 to $39.06 per semester for full-time students, and from $16.83 to $22.33 per semester for part-time students. According to Zacheriah Houston, SSMU VP Finance and Operations, the funding from this increase will be invested in student services, and will extend the clubs fund by $25,000 as well as reduce the cost of the leases of Independent Student Groups (ISG) by 15 per cent.

“The $5.50 increase will generate approximately $245,000 in annual revenue,” Houston said. “This additional revenue will go primarily towards increasing SSMU’s support for student groups, growth in mental health programming, and a greater focus on space improvements in the SSMU Building.”

According to Houston, without the fee increase, the services and improvements that SSMU Council have promised will have to be revoked, and students will potentially face cuts  to services. 

“If the referendum question does not pass, […] we will need to make approximately $100,000 in cuts to the next year’s operating budget,” he said. “These cuts will primarily involve reduced salaries, which translates into fewer available student staff positions and cuts to full-time salaries. These staffing cuts would result in reduced service, including slower room booking approvals and funding disbursements, and the continuation of overburdened executives who are inaccessible and unable to fulfill their campaign commitments.”

According to Houston, an increase in fees now will be able to sustain the SSMU over the next decade. In his opinion, students will not need to expect further increases in membership fees if the $5.50 increase passes.

“The reason that the fee needs to be increased now is that the SSMU has grown dramatically over the last 10 years, and we now have reached a point where we need to slow the growth of the SSMU and ensure that its current operations are sustainable,” he explained. “I do not think the fee will need to be increased again for as long as the SSMU’s operations remain relatively constant; I imagine this will be the case for at least the next 10 years.”

However, some students feel that the proposed increase is unnecessary. A “Vote ‘NO’ to the SSMU Membership Fee Increase!” Facebook event page has been created in opposition to the “Yes” Campaign’s own Facebook event page. A thread organized by the SSMU executives on Reddit has received a number of negative comments on the subject of the proposed membership fee increase. Many express a lack of confidence in SSMU’s contributions to student life. After reading through the referendum, U2 Economics student Fanta Kamara voiced her reluctance to consent to the fee increase.

“I do not think it is needed,” said Kamara. “We pay about $44 per semester in fees already—not including the extra charges for SSMU groups and activities such as the SSMU Equity Fee, Environment Fee, University Centre Fee [….] I’m not complaining about those charges because I think it’s all worthy; I just don’t see the need for an extra $5.50 per semester.”

The second question in this term’s referendum calls for the establishment of a seventh SSMU executive position. If passed, the VP Finance and Operations position will be split into two separate positions. According to the motion regarding the restructuring of executive portfolios, SSMU executives work upwards of 85 hours each week, although they are only contracted to work a maximum of 70 hours per week. Jennifer Moh, U3 Economics and International Development Studies, sympathizes with the SSMU Executive Council.

“Seeing that SSMU executives work 85 hours a week, I would be for adding another [executive],” said Moh. “An average person works roughly 40 hours a week and SSMU execs are working double that.”

For SSMU President Kareem Ibrahim, the introduction of a new executive is the most efficient solution to alleviating the current executive’s workload and serving the students.

“With a team that burns out annually and is stretched very thin, each portfolio consistently features areas in which not enough energy [is] dedicated, simply due to the sheer volume to which they have all grown,” he said. “SSMU’s capacity to deliver adequate services and satisfy student needs depends on a well-functioning executive team which is neither overburdened, nor with poor mental or physical health.” 

According to Ibrahim, in the event that the proposal to create a new executive position is rejected, the alternative options that remain mainly involve cutting student services. 

“Services that our students have come to rely on will have to be reduced in volume, and wait times and costs associated with these services will likely increase,” he said. “Another option we could explore is to hire more student staff, but this is not a great solution either, as these staff need to be trained and actively supervised; both of these tasks require a great deal of people-power, something which the SSMU is lacking at the moment.”

Based on the proposed structure of executive portfolios, the changes that would be taking place if the referendum were passed are relatively subtle. Kamara questioned whether the current structure necessitated change.

“There is a lot of overlap between [the proposed] VP Operations and other positions, which makes me slightly skeptical of the need for it, but I believe that a new SSMU position should be created if it increases the efficiency of SSMU,” she said.

SSMU Council was mandated to create a “Yes” Committee to organize the campaign. To maintain the neutrality of SSMU on this referendum, the SSMU executives were not able to speak as members of the executive council at the same time as they answered questions about the campaign.

“The executive committee was mandated to create a ‘Yes’ Committee in order to ensure that the time we are spending on this campaign is legitimate,” said Ibrahim, on behalf of the “Yes” Committee. “We are not allowed to use SSMU resources for our campaign, which makes sense, as that would advantage us over any other referendum committee, and our time in the office is a SSMU resource, since we are paid using SSMU funds.”

The campaigning period continues through Jan. 29, and the polling period will be open from Jan. 27 until Jan. 29.

a, Sports

From the cheap seats: 56th Woodsmen Competition leaves crowd pining for more

by Elie Waitzer on

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It was a perfect day for chopping wood. The crisp cold made the lumberjacks and lumberjills grip their axes tighter and the crowd huddled closely on the hard-packed ground breathing lungfuls of pine air. Kids climbed on snow mounds and men sipped coffee from their thermoses. In the distance, some students on cross country skis set off across the wide snowy fields of Macdonald Campus. 

The teams hunched over, primed to start their chopping, and the emcee counted down the start of the 56th annual Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition.

The Canadian Intercollegiate Lumberjacking Association (CILA) holds four major events each year and the team with the most cumulative points is crowned the overall winner. On Saturday, McGill competed against Dalhousie, Sir Sanford Fleming College, Algonquin College, University of New Brunswick, and Dartmouth College in the second to last event of the season. The stakes were high, but Sebastien Latraverse, a third-year student in the farm management and technology program at Macdonald campus, was loose and limber among the lumber. 

“We practice every morning at six a.m., we do cardio, run through our events, [… and] basically just chop wood,” he said. 

Despite the pressure and the cold, every athlete competing was completely at home–especially when swinging an axe with all their might at a block of wood between their boots, or steadying a log with their bare fingers inches from a chainsaw. They held their axes in their hands with the easy comfort of a baseball player holding a bat, like extensions of their own bodies; but while a bat can only hit a ball, an axe can keep you warm and give you shelter. 

Unlike the major televised sports in North America, lumberjacking was not conceived of as a game. It’s a set of skills that supported our survival in the wilderness, in a time not so long ago. It’s not something you practiced for fun or for glory. It’s only a sport because one day, some person said to another, “I bet I can chop that tree down with this axe faster than you can.”

Out of the 14 events in the competition, the McGill women’s team won the snowshoe, swede saw, crosscut saw, quart split, and underhand chop events and placed first with the most overall points. The men came third overall, with strong performances in the single buck, snow shoe, and swede saw events. Latraverse was confident about the team’s position heading into the final CILA competition at Dalhousie in February.

“Overall we have a really good team this year, we get a lot of points in every event and that’s what counts,” Latraverse said. 

Not every event involved the cutting or chopping of wood. The most entertaining competition of the day was the water boil, a singles event where each lumberjack is given a small cedar block, a hatchet, and three matches and has to bring a cup of water to boil as fast as possible. The pole climb and the axe throw are pretty self explanatory—and pretty ridiculous to watch. 

Some of the coolest events are rooted in interesting history. Log decking, which involves maneuvering a log up a ramp using a peavey (a logging tool that looks like a trident split in half), was an essential skill for lumberjacks trying to float massive trees down rivers. The underhand chop, where the lumberjack stands on top of a log and must break it in half by hacking into both ends, goes back to before saws were invented and when axes were used to cut wood to the desired length. 

While McGill’s Woodsmen and Woodswomen are mostly Mac campus students, some Engineering students travel back and forth from the Downtown campus, and Latraverse encourages anyone interested to join. 

“A lot of people who have never used a chainsaw or held an axe, we show them what to do, and if you stick with it you’ll get it eventually,” he said.

WUSC McGill
a, Features

Sponsoring a community: The story of a refugee student at McGill

by Albert Park on

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There is an unmistakable trace of excitement in the voice of U2 Pharmacology student, Robert Ishimwe, as he describes his education at McGill.

“[I] couldn’t imagine all this five years ago,” he said. “Being among all these amazing people and resources—it’s like a dream.”

With a smile on his face, he elaborates on what his journey to McGill means to him as a sponsored student.

“We grew up, waking up to see the happy faces of the students who have gotten a chance to pursue post-secondary education in other countries—it’s something we dreamt of since we [were] children,” Ishimwe said.  

There is something unique, yet familiar, about Ishimwe’s narrative. Listening to his story brings back memories of being introduced to new faces for the first time in McGill’s crowded lecture halls. Despite how many diverse backgrounds, stories, and sensibilities existed in one room, the varying experiences of students were overshadowed by an infallible feeling of camaraderie of enthusiastic students freshly acquainted into the McGill community.

imwe was born in Rwanda. He came to study at McGill in 2013 through theStudent Refugee Program, which is part of McGill’s local World University Service of Canada (WUSC) committee, WUSC McGill. The organization is a Canadian non-profit working to provide education and employment opportunities to disadvantaged youth around the world.

On top of his studies, Ishimwe is the vice-president treasurer of WUSC McGill, and enjoys playing intramural soccer and volleyball. Around campus, he is often spotted buried in textbooks at McLennan-Redpath or exercising at the fitness centre.

Ishimwe grew up in the Dzaleka refugee camp in the Republic of Malawi, a country located in southeastern Africa. At the age of two, he was resettled in the camp with his family after they were forced to flee their country due to the Rwandan genocide. To this day, the camp holds around 20,000 people, including Ishimwe’s own parents. Residents are supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and provided monthly food portions, as well as free access to health care. The residents are not given the choice to leave the camp, with law enforcement surrounding the area.

a, News

Starvation in Canada: Food insecurity in the north

by Ashley Kong on

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On Jan 22, the Comparative Healthcare Systems Program (CHSP), a student initiative dedicated to study of public health and comparative healthcare, hosted a public health symposium on the theme of indigenous health. Speakers addressed food security and healthcare services in northern Canada, noting the alarming situations in indigenous communities in the north. 

According to Associate Professor of wildlife biology at McGill University, Murray Humphries, people living in the north often suffer from food insecurity.

“Almost 10 per cent of the [Canadian] population [has] moderate to severe levels of food insecurity,” he explained. “In Nunavut, it’s 36 per cent. More than one in three households are in this state.”

Humphries shared his recent personal experience with limited food options during his time working on a research project in Old Crow, Yukon. 

“[There’s] only one place to purchase food,” he said. “Ten dollars for [a carton of] milk, $26 for [a jug of orange] juice, $16 for apples.”

Katarina Kunhert – U1 Sustainability, Science, and Society –  lived  in Inuvik, Northwest Territories when she was a toddler.

“In Inuvik in the 1990s, a box of mandarin oranges would cost $25 […] and it’s half rotten because it took so long to get there,” she recalled. “In Tuktoyatuk, which is an island a little bit further north, […] the same box of oranges cost $50, but now three-quarters of it is rotten [.…] If you were to buy the same box of oranges in Edmonton, then it would cost $6 and they’d all be perfect.”

According to Humphries, official statistics often do not reflect regional disparities between the northern and southern regions of provinces. The south is populated mostly by settlers, while the north is populated mostly by indigenous people. 

“The higher rates [in the north] are often concealed by the provincial averages,” Humphries explained. “Given that the statistics are particularly alarming for Nunavut, then probably it’s equally as bad in portions of Northwest Territories, Yukon, and especially the northern prairie provinces, northern Ontario, and northern Quebec.”

Currently, the Canadian federal government recognizes three main categories of Aboriginal Peoples: Inuit, First Nations, and Metis. About 1.4 million people in Canada identify as Aboriginal.

John Pringle, nurse and epidemiologist with a PhD in public health and bioethics explained that health is not only about physical well-being, and that food security is not only about having enough food.

“[There are] appalling rates of diabetes, suicides, substance abuse in these [indigenous] communities,” he said. “In [the] Northern Stores [grocery chain], it’s ridiculous how expensive food is; but you know, pop and chips are always on sale.”

According to Humphries, one of the leading causes of food insecurity in the north is difficult transportation.

 “Railways and roads in Canada […] are surprisingly restricted to the south,” Humphries said. “You see vast portions of Canada that are outside the realm of roads or real access. Some [parts] of [the north] are served by winter roads. These are the vast regions of the country that don’t get all-season access.”

Food procurement and retail in the north are currently oligopolized by a small number of corporations. Without competition, food prices stay high.

“The connection between food pricing and transportation costs is complicated,” Humphries said. “In the north, Northern Stores is affiliated with the Hudson’s Bay [….] However, northern residents are already protesting and organizing initiatives to curtail the monopoly [….] A lot of people in the north […] formed Facebook groups like ‘Feed My Family,’ protesting […] the cost of northern foods. Many communities are looking to generate their own cooperatives and food supplies, trying to put the costs down.”

Humphries also drew attention to the lack of health services for people living in northern parts of Canada. 

“In Old Crow, there’s a nursing station,” he said. “The doctor comes once a month. Most people who require hospitalization will go to Whitehorse, Vancouver, or Edmonton.”

Pringle, who worked at a nursing station serving First Nations communities in the Great Lakes District in Manitoba during the early 2000s, pointed out that services for Aboriginal Peoples are not only scarce, but also severely underfunded and short-handed.

“We should have [had] five nurses in that station, but we had two,” Pringle said. “We worked clinics all day and we were on call for emergencies all night, so there were times that we just never slept for days [….] We were getting burnt out. The nurse that worked with me actually died of a heart attack.”

Pringle remarked that the nurses working in these stations are often inexperienced. 

“[When] I just graduated from nursing [school …] I called Health Canada and they paid for me to […] work for at least a year in a First Nations nursing station,” he said. “Of course, when I leave [the Great Lakes District,] they’ll stick some naïve, young nurse to take over for me.”

At the end of the symposium, Pringle encouraged students in healthcare-related programs to join in the course of improving Canadian health services.

“Issues like these are seldom discussed in the academic world,” he said. “But really, we lose the radical reasons [for why] we want to be health professionals in the first place [.…] Keep the fire burning.”

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