Latest News

a, McGill, Montreal, News

SSMU, CKUT host Federal election candidates debate

by Nick Milum on

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On Sept. 30, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and CKUT hosted a debate between six candidates running to be members of parliament in the upcoming federal election. Rachel Bendayan represented the Liberal Party of Canada from the Outremont riding, Daniel Green the Green Party from the Ville-Marie­—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs riding, Rodolphe Husny the Conservatives from the Outremont riding and Simon Marchand the Bloc Quebecois from the Hochelaga riding. Also present were William Sloan of the Communist Party, and Allison Turner of the New Democratic Party (NDP) who are running in the Ville-Marie riding. The debate focused on three main topics: Education, environment, and economy.

During the education portion of the debate, Turner was quick to inform the listeners about her party’s views on student employment.

“A large number of students end up graduating with a huge debt,” Turner said. “What the NDP wants to do in order to alleviate the plight of that debt is not to have students walk into a society where there are […] few paying jobs […] but to invest in creating 40,000 jobs for students in the coming years.”

Following Turner, Bendayan presented her party’s policy on the same issue.

“The Liberal Party of Canada is going to invest $1.3 billion over three years […] in order to create jobs for young Canadians,” Bendayan said. “I think that’s important because you should stay in Montreal if you want to stay in Montreal; you should stay in Canada if you want to stay in Canada, and there should be good paying jobs for you.”

The debate moved on to environmental issues, which Green spoke about at length.

“One thing that the Green Party really stands for is to reinvest in science,” Green said. “The Harper government has disinvested in science, specifically in environmental sciences. We need more money to be invested in research to really understand what climate change and environmental upheaval will do to Canada.”

Sloan added to the discussion on the environment, showcasing his party’s stance.

“We have to go away from the oil and the gas and the coal,” said Sloan. “We have to go to renewable energies [….] Capitalism will never be able to solve the problems that we have with the environment, so we have to make a radical change.”

The final topic of the debates was the economy, a topic which Husny was vocal on.

“When you’re going to get out of [McGill], you’re either going to start your own company, work for a small-medium size enterprise [SME] or a large corporation if you don’t choose the public sector,” Husny said. “We’re lowering taxes for SMEs, cutting red tape, because SMEs need to grow. We are not going to raise taxes on big corporations, because big corporations are going to affect our capacity to actually attract investment in Canada.”

Marchand expressed disspaointment at the government’s continued emphasis on military spending.

“I’m just sad that nobody here committed to stop investing in the military […] and I think it’s very disappointing to see that,” said Marchand. “We could make a difference that could be positive in our society by not paying billions and billions of dollars for boats or for planes when this money could be invested in our education system.”

 

a, Opinion

Commentary: McGill administration’s response to austerity falls short

by Alessandra Puopolo on

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Given that McGill is currently in a dire financial situation, it is surprising that the administration has not taken a firm stance against austerity. The university has projected that its accumulated deficit will rise to $96.3 million by the end of 2016. McGill’s funding problems are largely due to the reduction in funds by the provincial government, which in attempts to balance its budget, has cut millions of dollars from public spending.

McGill’s stance on austerity has been described by McGill’s Teaching Support Union (AGSEM) President Justin Irwin as one of “happy acquiescence.” While the university has not openly supported the province’s decrease in funding, it has done little to condemn it. The administration has almost taken a sympathetic tone when discussing the Quebec government’s economic woes, and has adopted a mantra of ‘grin and bear it.’ While the provincial government has promised a balanced budget, this should not come at such a high cost to social services—including education.

In the past year, thousands of students and public service workers have taken to the streets to protest the government’s reduced spending plan. Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has condemned the austerity measures and even held a week to raise awareness of the issue. While student unions have traditionally discussed such issues with the government, given the current hurdles facing provincial federations, the university must take a stand in its place.

For McGill to reclaim its position in the global academic field, it must take a strong stance against the provincial government’s austerity measures, and call for funding to return to pre-austerity levels.

The administration could be hoping to weather this storm as quickly and as quietly as possible so as not to harm the university’s reputation. Publicizing McGill’s financial problems could deter potential students from attending the university; applicants may believe that McGill struggles to meets its students’ academic needs. Additionally, taking an openly anti-austerity position may agitate the provincial government and result in further funding cuts in coming years. Regardless, McGill’s silence comes at a great expense to current students who have to suffer through the effects of the budget cuts.

McGill used to be the highest ranked institution in Canada, which in recent years, has seen its ranking in international reports drop. Due to a lack of funds, the university has imposed a hiring freeze for administrative and support staff, postponed all non-essential equipment purchases, and stopped all non-emergency, unplanned funding allocations. Rather than creating new programs for students, the university is struggling to maintain old ones. While McGill has tried to maintain an optimistic tone in its budget proposals, and has reiterated how it remains committed to staying a competitive institution with the best professors and staff, there are clear indicators that the university is struggling to meet its commitments. For McGill to reclaim its position in the global academic field, it must take a strong stance against the provincial government’s austerity measures, and call for funding to return to pre-austerity levels.

A scene from Madama Butterfly
a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Past vs. Present: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly vs. Weezer’s Pinkerton

by Maxime Scraire on

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“Tired of Sex” is the first song of Weezer’s 1996 cult classic Pinkerton and is possibly one the most thrilling album openers of all time. Featuring drummer Patrick Wilson’s salvage stomping—which alone has almost enough power to excuse the band’s latest 15 years of generic pop music—and lead-singer Rivers Cuomo’s terrified screaming of a sex-agenda over distorted guitar feedback, the track is as hysterical as it sounds. It may come as a startling introduction for an LP that shares its name with a character of Giacomo Puccini’s celebrated opera, Madama Butterfly (which recently wrapped up its run at Place des Arts), but listening beyond genre stereotypes and preconceptions, similitudes between the works abound.

In his diary, Cuomo talked about the opera’s central character, B. F. Pinkerton, describing him as an “asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star.” The man cruises from one continent to another in a quest for pleasures, selfishly marrying a hopeful 15-year-old Japanese girl before leaving her, never to return, despite promising her that he would. Following the success of the Blue Album and its mega-hit “Buddy Holly,” Weezer jumped into the rock’n’roll lifestyle, similarly travelling the world in an endless search for meaningless, groupie-related adventures that left Cuomo deeply disillusioned by celebrity. Pinkerton acts as an account of those troublesome times, showing the singer lost in the midst of conflicting feelings towards women, love, and settling down. Unlike the opera, where the young girl serves as the main character, Cuomo has his “Pinkerton character” as the centre of attention, acting more as an anti-hero than a villain. 

Nonetheless, both works examine relationships from the same extremely childish point of view. The opera displays its titular Madama Butterfly as ever hopeful, trusting her lover’s word so much that she waits three years for him to come back. Like many passionate teenaged lovers, she repeatedly claims that she would kill herself if her husband didn’t return. As for Cuomo, he rejects all responsibilities for his bad behaviour, and instead spends most of the album’s length walking the tightrope of hormonal confusion and adolescent misogyny. Moreover, he selfishly refuses to accept that a woman would do to him what he has done to her, and awkwardly stalks a girl without her even being aware of his existence.

Pinkerton’s lyrical rawness is the principal reason why it received such an overwhelmingly poor reception from both the public and critics when it first came out. Cuomo sings so openly about his most intimate feelings that awkwardness on behalf of the listener was inevitable, especially when he wonders out loud how one of his groupies touches herself at night in the middle of “Across the Sea,” or when he acknowledges in “No Other One” that he would drop his girlfriend at any moment if he knew he could get anyone else. 

Puccini’s opera also showcases its hero acting in an uncomfortably crude and direct fashion. More than once, Butterfly threatens to kill secondary characters with a knife for suggesting that B. F. Pinkerton may never come back to her, and spends an unhealthy amount of time explaining to her two-year-old child that it is not his fault that she is about to commit suicide.

The two works conclude on the same note, with Pinkerton lying down crying next to the lifeless body of Butterfly, who ended up slicing her throat after meeting her husband’s new wife, and Cuomo shakily whispering “I’m sorry” to the girls he hurt by doing “what [his] body told [him] to.” 

With Pinkerton, Cuomo has written the perfect reinterpretation: An album that channels specific events and themes of its original source of inspiration while also being deeply personal. Almost 20 years after its release, it stands as one of the most singular albums of all time, a masterpiece that might prove itself just as timely as the opera it’s based on. 

a, McGill, News, PGSS, SSMU

AGSEM ratifies McGill’s Global Offer of Settlement at GA

by Catherine Wang on

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The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) voted at a General Assembly (GA) on Wednesday to ratify the Global Offer of Settlement from McGill. The vote passed 172 to 101. The decision brings to a close a negotiating process that has been ongoing since the expiration of the last agreement on June 30, 2014.  

Guilia Alberini, the AGSEM teacher’s assistant (TA) bargaining chair, explained that although negotiations were handled by a bargaining committee within AGSEM, it was the organization’s members who decided to accept the offer, rather than reject it in favour of a strike.

“The bargaining committee [was] not making a recommendation to members to vote either against or for the final offer,” Alberini said.  “We do not believe that McGill’s final offer addresses many of the concerns of our members expressed throughout the year, above all the issue of TA hours [….] However, voting against the agreement means we must vote in favour of a strike. Therefore, we believe members have the right to be well-informed and make their own decision regarding a possible strike.”

On Sept. 1, McGill submitted its final Global Offer of Settlement to AGSEM, which included improvements on harassment protections and grievance procedures, as well as a retroactive wage increase of nine per cent over four years. According to Alberini, one demand that remained unaddressed in the final offer was TA to student ratios.



“In the last eight years, TA hours have remained completely the same […] while undergraduate student enrolment has been increasing every year,” Alberini said.  “We wanted to index TA hours to undergraduate enrolment, and have some upper limits on how many students were assigned to each TA [….] McGill did not want to discuss any of these issues.”

TAs who were in favour of rejecting the offer and initiating a strike vote raised points about the longer term implications of the agreement, and expressed concerns about how these implications might affect the quality of their work at McGill. Claire McLeish, a TA in musicology, specifically addressed the decline in the ratio of TA hours to student enrolment as an important issue.

“If we accept this agreement, we are basically voting for a decline in the quality of education […] and a decline in the quality of TAships,” McLeish said. “I [want to decline the offer] not just for us, but for the students.”

Trevor Leach, a TA in the Department of Political Science, felt the agreement was satisfactory, given past bargaining results.

“I think if you consider McGill’s position on most of these issues, and what we’ve gotten from them, we’ve done pretty well for ourselves,” Leach said. “There’s a lot of austerity in Quebec […but] despite this, we got the raise [….] It’s not much, but at least it’s tied to inflation.  There’s always room for future negotiations […but] I’m pretty happy with this deal.”

The AGSEM bargaining committee is currently in the process of meeting with McGill’s negotiating team to finalize the new deal, AGSEM President Justin Irwin explained.

“We are going to be in contact to set up a meeting during which we can make all the appropriate final steps to sign off and make this official,” said  Irwin, “It won’t be by the end of the week, but it won’t be too long after that. It will be […] as soon as we can get all the principals in the room to sign off.”

The final deal will be a four-year contract retroactive from 2014, in place until June 2018. Although bargaining for the TA agreement has finished,  Irwin explained that the union still has further work to do.

“This long process has come to an end for TAs,” Irwin said. “However, AGSEM also represents the several hundred invigilators at McGill, and that negotiation process is ongoing. Going forward, that process will be a strong focus of our activities.”

Toronto Blue Jays
a, Baseball, Sports

Point Counterpoint: 1993 Blue Jays vs. 2015 Blue Jays

by Elie Waitzer and Aaron Rose on

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The Toronto Blue Jays just wrapped up their first AL East Championship in 22 years, ending a magical season with a 93-69 record. Could this year’s squad be even better than the beloved Jays of ‘93? 

Click each perspective to read more

1993

Elie Waitzer

PITCHING

Comparing the ERAs of these two staffs doesn’t do this argument justice. You need to take into account the context of different-era ERAs; 22 years is a long time in any sport, but it’s an eternity in baseball. For example, the ’93 Jays’ fifth starter Jack Morris placed fifth in 1992’s Cy Young voting after posting a 4.04 ERA. Last year’s fifth-place finisher, Jordan Zimmermann, posted a 2.66 ERA. In fact, Stephen Strasburg was the only Cy Young vote-getter with an ERA over 3.00 in 2014. 

That’s why we should use ERA-, a park and league adjusted version of ERA that makes it easy to compare pitching in different eras. An ERA- of 100 is league average, and the lower the number the better. Using ERA-, Morris’ 1992 season (80) is almost on par with Zimmerman’s 2014 (72), despite the large gap between their ERAs. 

The difference between the ’93 pitching staff (96 ERA-) and this year’s (92 ERA-) is negligible when you adjust for the scoring environment. Besides, the ’93 Jays featured one of the best bullpens of the ’90s. Headlined by Duane Ward, Danny Cox, and Mark Eichhorn, the team’s relievers led the Majors with a combined 75 ERA. That number blows this year’s mark of 84 out of the water. Among relievers that year, Ward finished first in K/9 (12.18), second in WAR (2.6), fourth in saves (45), and sixth in ERA (2.13).

 

OFFENCE

The ’93 Jays’ offence didn’t have 2015’s murderer’s row of sluggers at the heart of its order, but it had one thing that this year’s Jays did not: Balance. From top to bottom, the lineup featured power, speed, and above all, incredible on-base skills. 

This year’s team doesn’t have a single player with an on-base percentage (OBP) over .400. The ’93 Jays had three, led by John Olerud’s historic .473 OBP, the highest single-season OBP in MLB since Mickey Mantle in 1962. Olerud didn’t win the MVP, but the .122 spread between his (1.072) and Donaldson’s (.950) OPS is the same gap between Donaldson and Shin-Soo Choo. ’93’s trio of Olerud, Roberto Alomar, and Paul Molitor didn’t boast the power of Donaldson, Bautista, and Encarnacion, but they have the advantage in average, OBP, and speed.  Furthermore the disruptive speed of Alomar, Devon White, and Rickey Henderson, the ’93 Jays stole almost twice as many bases as the 2015 team (170 to 88). 

 

DEFENCE

Alomar alone blows the 2015 Jays out of the water. The Hall-of-Famer won 10 of the 11 Gold Glove awards given out from 1991 to 2001, a record among second basemen. If the opposing team somehow got the ball through the infield, they had to deal with the incomparable White in centre field. As excellent as Kevin Pillar has been for the 2015 Jays, his defensive tools don’t even come close to White’s. White, who peaked from 1991 to 1995, is one of four outfielders to ever win seven Gold Gloves. According to Fangraphs’ defensive runs above average statistic, the ’93 Jays posted a slightly better -3.7 (18th in MLB) than the ’15 Jays’ -10.8 (23rd). 

 

X FACTOR

Rickey Henderson came to the Jays in a trade deadline deal on July 31 and immediately electrified the the offence with his supernatural speed. With the Hall-of-Famer batting leadoff, the team kicked into another gear, improving their winning percentage from .619 (60-45) to an utterly dominant .632 (36-21) clip over the remainder of the season. He managed to walk 35 times, steal 22 bases, and score 37 runs in just 44 games, adding a terrifying new component to an already scary Jays attack. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2015

Aaron Rose

PITCHING

 No one can question the 1993 Blue Jays’ bullpen dominance, but the one thing they didn’t have was a David Price! It’s almost unfathomable how dominant the 2015 Blue Jays’ ace has been. The soon-to-be Cy Young winner David Price and his AL-leading 2.45 ERA easily beats the 1993 team’s ace Juan Guzmán, who had a 3.99 ERA. The 2015 Jays have four starters with lower ERAs than Guzmán. In 1993, the Blue Jays gave up an average of 4.6 runs per game, just slightly below the league average, while the 2015 squad has allowed 4.1 runs per game, 13th best of any team this season. This year’s team beats the 1993 pitching staff in every major statistical pitching category including WHIP, strikeouts, and ERA. Sure, Duane Ward was nearly unhittable in ’93, but without a dominant ace, this year’s Jays pitching staff looks far more daunting to opposing offences than the ’93 squad.

 

OFFENCE

The 2015 Blue Jays outscored the 1993 team by 41 runs. The 1993 Blue Jays’ offence was good, excellent even, but in the post-steroid era, this year’s offensive firepower has been historic. In 1993, the Blue Jays had the fourth-best offence in the league. This year, Toronto doesn’t just have the best offence in the league, they’ve scored 128 more runs than the second place Yankees, and 41 more runs than the ’93 team. The top of the lineup is like a death row for opposing pitchers—pick your poison. If Ben Revere and his speed doesn’t kill you, Mount Crushmore has more firepower than the 1993 team ever did. Josh Donaldson is simply a freak of nature, and Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Troy Tulowitzki can each end games with one swing of the bat. It seems almost blasphemous to take anything away from Joe Carter in 1993, but with 33 home runs and a slugging percentage of .489 he would have been another guy on the 2015 Blue Jays. Nobody can doubt how good Toronto’s offence was in 1993, but facing the 2015 Blue Jays is like playing Monopoly against someone with hotels on Broadway and Parkview. It’s possible to make it around the board once or twice, but sooner or later you’ll be overwhelmed by the stacked opposition.

 

DEFENCE

Ever since the Blue Jays removed error-prone shortstop Jose Reyes and moved Chris Colabello out of left field, the 2015 Jays’ defence has been spectacular. Everyone has seen Kevin Pillar’s highlight reel catches—the full speed over the shoulder diving catches he makes seemingly on a nightly basis. Old school Jays fans will froth at the mouth if anyone criticizes  Roberto Alomar, but in baseball the numbers never lie and statistically Ryan Goins is a better second baseman than Alomar ever was. Sure Alomar might have won a golden glove that season, but he did so with a negative defensive WAR and 14 errors committed. Cito Gaston—manager of the ’93 Jays—would have been better off with Ryan Goins at second. This year’s team produced the same amount of double plays while committing 21 fewer errors than the ’93 squad.

 

X-FACTOR

The Blue Jays’ real X-factor is Marcus Stroman. Stroman has been nothing short of spectacular since returning from a torn ACL. He has led Jays’ pitchers with a perfect 4-0 record and an ERA of 1.67 this September. Stroman will be the difference between a first round exit and winning a world series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor's Pick: 1993. As noted Blue Jays historian Drake wisely said, the ’93 Jays went “back to back.” The team had more superstars, a better record, and had more impressive stats in

a, Science & Technology

Vaccines, GMOs, and cell phones: The Lorne Trottier Symposium discusses modern controversies

by Sihara Wickremasignhe on

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Known for his ventures in communicating science to the general public, Director of the Office for Science and Society (OSS), Joe Schwarcz moderated the 10th annual Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium this past Monday and Tuesday at Centre Mont Royal. Every year, the symposium brings together like-minded individuals to discuss a number of controversial topics. This year, speakers included Dr. Paul A. Offit, Dr. Geoffrey Kabat, and Dr. Kevin Folta, who tackled issues surrounding vaccines, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and cell phones, respectively.

The first talk, presented by Offit, who is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on Monday, focused on the fear of vaccinations. The rates of diseases such as measles or whooping cough have dramatically lowered, largely due to the use of vaccinations in the past.

“[Today’s] people grew up in a time when none of these diseases existed,” Offit said. “They have not been exposed, so they are not afraid.” 

This lack of exposure means people aren’t afraid of the repercussions.

“Fear of vaccines stems from a lack of fear of the diseases,” explained Offit.

The second day of the symposium covered the issue of cell phone radiation. Kabat, an epidemiologist from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, spoke about cellphones and their possible relation to brain cancer, which first became an issue in 1993. 

“A man whose wife had died of cancer at a young age went on a popular television program in the U.S. and claimed that her cancer was caused by her talking constantly on her cell phone,” said Kabat in an interview on Larry King Live. “If one looks at all of the evidence that we now have, there is no convincing signal that use of cell phones or exposure to these waves from WiFi is having any harmful effects on health.”

Kabat showcased a number of cell phone-use studies and highlighted that most studies, such as the Interphone study of 2010, showed no trend of increased cell phone use causing brain cancers.

“[Unfortunately,] it is just a fact that positive results—whether right or wrong—get much more attention than negative results,” said Kabat during his talk. “Cell phone activists latch onto positive results but ignore the totality of the evidence.”

A study conducted in 2011 by Lennart Hardell, oncologist and professor at Örebro University Hospital in Sweden, did uncover a correlation between increased cell phone use and the development of cancers. Nevertheless, Kabat explained that those results should be taken with a grain of salt because the cases examined were patients that had filled out reports about themselves, and were taken from hospitals or tumour registries. Consequently, the patients may have been looking for a correlation between cancer and cellphone radiation. 

“[Data can be distorted when you ask] people to remember their use of cell phones going back decades,” said Kabat. “Cases [can report] different information due to recall bias”. 

Folta, a professor of Horticultural Science at the University of Florida, then addressed the safety of using GMOs.

“Our food supply in the U.S.A. has never been more diverse, safe and plentiful,” Folta began. “In 18 years of use in plants, there has not been one case of illness or death related to these products.” 

According to Folta, the fear of GMOs is a consequence of the popular belief that genetic engineering is harmful; however, Folta stressed genetic improvement has existed for decades.

“All existing crops and animals have [already] been radically reshaped by humans,” Folta said. “[Plants can be genetically modified to produce] more variety, a greater crop yield and have added virus resistance and insect resistance.”

These types of genetic modifications have helped reduce the need for pesticide use. Furthermore, they’ve helped prevent vitamin deficiencies because crops can be fortified to be more vitamin rich. For example, golden-rice—a genetically modified strain of rice rich in beta-carotene—is produced and consumed in developing countries, like the Philippines and Bangladesh. 

“Whether you’re for or against GMO labelling, it’s a non-issue,” said Folta. “We can worry about luxuries like that once everybody’s fed.”

Both Kabat and Folta stated that they believe that increased scientific literacy is required within the general media, because more and more, media outlets will favour headlines that yield larger audiences, without considering the facts. Consequently, frustration has grown within the scientific community.

“There’s a strong feeling among scientists that we need to become the media,” said Folta.

Habs fans
a, Hockey, Sports

From the Cheap Seats: NHL Hockey is just as sweet in the pre-season

by Nicole Spadotto on

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I was reminded of the unobtrusive beauty of NHL pre-season hockey when my roommate, Martlet hockey goaltender Brittany Smrke, sent me a text reading: “Hey Nic, super spontaneous, but do you want to go see the Habs vs. Capitals game tonight?”

On a limited budget, we figured pre-season NHL action was the best chance to see a live Habs game. The lower prices make the game accessible to hockey obsessives who can’t afford expensive in-season games, let alone the exorbitant playoffs. A small group of us headed to the Bell Centre—myself, Brittany, Emily (a Martlet hockey defenceman), and two of our Management friends who had just fuelled up at 4 à 7. As the two Ontarians, Brittany and I were teased mercilessly by our Quebecois friends for sporting tricolour and Habs hats.

We arrived at the Bell Centre and quickly learned of the ban on backpacks. A stream of rejects passed us, shaking their heads at Emily, who had her backpack slung nonchalantly over her shoulder. I panicked, worried we would be turned away, and stuffed her backpack into my oversized purse. Inevitably at security, a quizzical guard asked me what was in my bag. Without blinking, I told him it was my sweater. Fortunately, the guard laughed when he pulled out the backpack and let us in with a smile and a fist-bump.

We grabbed our seats in the nosebleeds, took the requisite amount of selfies, and appreciated the full view of the ice surface. I was wedged between the two Martlet players, and we were soon analyzing the game through all three zones—Britt and Emily had the back end covered, noting the Habs’ nice zone and smooth breakouts. I pulled on my experience as a former Martlet forward to appreciate the offence—especially a Capital’s tic-tac-toe play, culminating in captain Alexander Ovechkin sniping top corner.

Our Management friends covered the fan support side. They enjoyed the group cheers and the wave up in the cheap seats. Their joy of being at a Habs game was a heartwarming reminder that hockey is thrilling beyond the X’s and O’s.

Everyone could appreciate star players like P.K. Subban and Ovechkin single-handedly creating scoring opportunities. And though some tactical systems faltered—teams are rusty as they acclimatize to new formations—the breakdowns created odd-man rushes, to the appreciation of the crowd’s seasoned sports fans.

As much as I loved the  tactical aspect, I still found myself caught up in the atmosphere. I was exhilarated by a T.J. Oshie breakaway and the fight between Michael McCarron and Chris Brown. I chuckled at the cute tri-coloured kid dancing on the jumbotron screen. The pre-season matchup was about more than the hockey—it was about feeling in complete unity with cheering Habs fans and feeding off the energy in the stands; enjoying ‘the wave’ was just as important as a perfect Habs tape-to-tape pass.

Apparently the hockey gods wanted to give us more sport: The game extended into three-on-three overtime and then a shootout. Brittany and Emily relished the creativity encouraged by three-on-three format. I agreed, but was more empathetic towards the tiring forwards than the two Martlets. The format requires every player, even attackers, to forecheck and backcheck equally hard—and on the back-check it was obvious that the forwards were increasingly fatigued. 

Unfortunately for us Habs fans, the Capitals prevailed 4-3 on a T.J. Oshie shootout goal. Despite the loss, I embraced the hockey for its richness and variety. And all it took were pre-season ticket prices and a spontaneous text from my roommate.

a, Baseball, Sports

MLB Superlatives

by Elie Waitzer on

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1. Most likely to inject the blood of Zeus into his ACL at the Fall Solstice… Marcus Stroman

2. Most likely to actually be Zeus… LaTroy Hawkins  

3. Most likely to bring a roast boar into the batter’s box… Evan Gattis

4. Most likely to be a baseball… Bartolo Colon

5. Most likely to get a World Series ring… Derek Jeter

6. Most likely to purchase a burial plot in Toronto… David Price

7. Most likely to ask you for a pen in class… Kris Bryant

8. Most likely to be baling hay together on Mac Campus… Billy Burns

9. Most likely to talk you into buying John Voight’s car… Stephen Vogt

10. Most likely to invite you to his son’s Bar Mitzvah… Kevin Pillar

11. Most likely to be a Pixar movie villain… Randal Grichuk

12. Most likely to babysit his neighbour’s kids… Todd Frazier

13. Most likely to be against women’s-only gym hours… Bryce Harper

14. Most likely to live with his mother… Chris Colabello

15. Most likely to camp out in Blackadder Library with a six-pack during finals… Dallas Keuchel

a, Editorial, Opinion

Editorial: Reimagining SSMU to ensure future sustainability

by McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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In the past six months, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has been without the director of its daycare program, faced the resignation of its recently-hired general manager, and most recently witnessed the resignation of the vice-president (VP) Internal. Soon, SSMU’s building manager will be going on paternity leave. This amount of turnover is an anomaly, and indicates the need for concrete provisions to handle vacancies. As SSMU works to cover these responsibilities and hire replacements, it must learn from this experience and work to ensure that there are contingency plans in the future to mitigate the impact of resignations.

SSMU provides a wide range of services, from long-term needs including the representation of students’ interests to the university and the funding for student-run clubs, to the development of short-term portfolios of each year’s executive team. Institutional memory is therefore critical. While the previous general manager, Pauline Gervais, held her position for 12 years, the new hire, Jennifer Varkonyi, resigned in August after just six months. It is important that essential duties do not fall through the cracks, but it should not be at the expense of the executives’ portfolios. As permanent staff resign, go on leave, or inevitably move to different companies, it becomes more difficult for remaining staff to fill in for those positions in addition to their own responsibilities.

The VP Internal portfolio will be divided between VP External Emily Boytinck, VP Clubs & Services Kimber Bialik, and VP University Affairs Chloe Rourke until a new VP Internal is elected, who will have a term that will last from Jan. 1 to May 31, 2016. As a result, the already large workloads of the executives are further increased, making it difficult for them to work on their individual projects. Regardless of who resigns, it should not be such a burden to the remaining executives. The current strategy of reallocating work as resignations occur is clearly not sustainable when this many positions are in transition. There must be a procedure for appointing an interim executive or general manager so that executives, whose terms only last for one year, do not have to abandon initiatives that they campaigned on.

The legacy of this year’s executive should be to ensure that future generations do not have to weather a similar storm.

In the short term, SSMU has no choice but to mitigate the effects of the high turnover. To reduce the enormous workload of executives, more student positions can be created in each executive office to take on the administrative busy work. This will allow executives to dedicate more time to their portfolios. Existing staff members can be trained to take on more responsibilities on an interim basis in the case of resignations. A new executive position that can take on parts of each executive’s portfolio would also reduce their current responsibilities. The discussion must be opened on where current executive portfolios overlap or have similarities, and those facets should be combined under a new position. Such measures will be beneficial even in stable times, as it increases the amount of time and resources that executives can devote to their positions and reducing stress. SSMU members should support the executives in establishing and funding new roles.

It is a given that SSMU’s first priority should be finding staff to fill the open positions, but the changes that are made to address the current gaps need to go further. The legacy of this year’s executive should be to ensure that future generations do not have to weather a similar storm.

Hotel Formes Sauvages
a, Art, Arts & Entertainment

Disturbing, wild, and free

by Evelyn Goessling on

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Featuring an abandoned apartment building, a mysteriously vacant concert hall, and a trash-filled pavilion, André Fortino’s video triptych, Hôtel Formes Sauvages is a journey into the manic, startling, and often disturbing world of performance art. The exhibition—held at the Fonderie Darling’s Gallery in Cité Multimedia—is Fortino’s first show in North America. The main hall is an industrial-style warehouse, featuring exposed piping high above the audience’s head and a vast brick wall on the far end of the room. On the largest wall were three massive projection screens showing the videos. 

The video triptych consisted of three side-by-side screens. The left-most screen showed footage of an improvised performance, Hôtel Dieu (2009), in which Fortino, dressed in a rubber pig mask, explores a series of abandoned sites and interacts with the objects found in each space. In the first scene, he drags a bag of yarn into an abandoned room in an apartment building and proceeds to entangle himself in the yarn. On the right-most screen there was Les Paradis Sauvages (2012). While different, the two videos obviously echo each other in theme and visual qualities. While Fortino covers himself in yarn, in the other video, he stands in a field and frantically tapes wooden mannequin limbs to his extremities. Simultaneously, the artist in both videos attempts to leave, only to find that these objects obstruct his path. 

This is just one example of the recurring similarities that permeate both videos. In each, the artist encounters objects and interacts with and manipulates them in ways that are often startling or disturbing. In another scene, the artist in a pig mask drags mannequin heads around a room, arranging them in a sort of violent, organized chaos. Meanwhile, on the other video screen, the artist roughly drags the limp figures of fellow artists and places them seemingly randomly in an empty warehouse. 

The third component of the triptych was shown on the centre screen. The video was a recording of a dance piece, “Le Corps des Formes Live,” developed with choreographer Katharina Christl.  While the other two videos are complex, and at some points manic in both their audio and video, the dance piece is relatively calm. The inclusion of this video eases the somewhat disturbing nature of parts of the other films by grounding the audience in a more familiar realm of performance art. 

The choreography piece is a filmed version of a live performance by Fortino. While the live and recorded versions were almost entirely the same in content, Fortino’s presence for the performance put the entire exhibition in the context of the artist’s energy, which made it much easier to appreciate the other videos. In the live performance, Fortino contrasted stiffness and explosive movement by leaping up and down excitedly, running at full speed then coming to a sudden stop, and staying still for minutes on end, often twisted into unnatural shapes. Fortino used the entire gallery space for his performance, including intimate interactions with the walls and floor (at one point he spent several moments licking one gallery wall). Meanwhile, the only soundtrack was his heavy breathing, although it was uncertain if this was exaggerated due to the movement, or a natural product of the performance. 

The exhibition was unclear as to whether the artist was actually utilizing cinematography as a medium or simply as a recording of his performances. Just as videos of Marina Abramovic and Joseph Beuys’ famed performances are less than the real thing, it seems unusual and less effective for a Fortino to exhibit videos of an improvised performance. Viewing the video triptych as an object of art itself resolves this issue, although the inclusion of the performance made this point confusing.

Fortino’s endeavours into video for Hôtel Formes Sauvages were not always effective. Had the live performance not occurred prior to the videos, the energy and commitment that was obvious in the performance may have gone by unnoticed. Not only did the exhibition feel inconclusive, but it was difficult to decipher what questions, if any, were raised. The interaction of the artist with various found objects was far too disparate to be seen as one metaphor, and other than the aesthetic style, there wasn’t much connection between the videos and the Fortino’s performance. The exhibition was exciting in its visual qualities, but lacking in relatable substance.

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