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a, Features

Does proximity yield progress?

by Erica Friesen on

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While the Quartier de l’innovation (QI) has generated considerable interest since its announcement in January 2012, the concept of the innovation district is far from new. From Silicon Valley to 22@Barcelona, cities and governments today are investing billions of dollars in urban redevelopment projects that bring people and businesses together into one physical location.

What many don’t realize is that fostering innovation through physical proximity is not a new concept to Montreal. In 1998, the Quebec government launched a development project in an old industrial area just across the highway from the QI’s location in Griffintown. Called the Cité du multimédia, the venture was initially proposed as a  way to facilitate collaboration in Montreal’s growing multimedia sector. However, it has since faced criticism for turning the district into a mere extension of the downtown’s corporate offices.

So where exactly did this demand for innovation districts come from? And why do some fail, while others succeed?

The history of the innovation district:

While creating better solutions and products has been a recurring industrial goal throughout history, the foundation of physical districts to do so is a much more recent phenomenon.

According to Richard Shearmur, a professor from McGill’s School of Urban Planning, a policy emphasis on “innovation” has evolved over the last 30 years, after developing countries began producing large-scale, cheap goods for western markets in the ‘70s.

“How do you unblock saturated markets to get western people to carry on consuming? By innovating, by finding new things for them to spend their money on,” Shearmur said. “If you emphasize actually trying to produce better products than developing countries, that’s a way of maintaining your [economic] position.”

In the ‘80s, sociologists began to observe that some of the most successful industrial areas throughout history were locations that facilitated collaboration between many small, specialized companies.

“[For example], a lot of gun makers were in a district in [19th century] Birmingham,” Shearmur said. “You had the barrel manufacturers, the firing-pin manufacturers—they were all different companies but they came together to make guns. And their guns were particularly good because there was a lot of knowledge and a lot of specialization.”

This same concept has since expanded beyond manufacturers to encompass all types of innovation and entrepreneurship—from technology and science to cultural and urban development.

“The idea is if you have a group of economic agents who are grouped together geographically, and provided that there is a culture of openness and exchange, these geographic districts will lead to innovative solutions because there’s a lot of information exchange [and] a lot of collaboration between people,” Shearmur said.

McGill and the Quartier de L’innovation:

The QI follows this concept of developing a geographical space that encourages innovation, using an area in Southwest Montreal that includes Griffintown, Pointe Saint-Charles, Saint-Henri, and Petite Bourgogne. Launched in May 2013, the QI is led by both McGill and L’École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), an engineering school located in the area.

“If you look at different universities in the U.S. or even in Europe, you see that [they] are engaging more and more with their communities,” McGill QI Project Director Isabelle Péan said. “For McGill, the objective is really to develop a hub—a living lab—where students can get specific experience [and] develop specific projects.”

The initial stage of the QI was funded in 2012 by several stakeholders: the government of Quebec, the Economic Development Agency of Canada, and the City of Montreal contributed $350,000 each, while ÉTS and McGill contributed $370,000 each.

According to Péan, once this money has been used, the QI will be driven by a non-profit organization that will find funding for its projects, and which will be overseen by the QI’s Board of Directors.

“We want the QI to be led by the community, by people involved with the project,” she said.

Part of this community involvement will come from students, according to Justin Leung, U1 Arts student and member of both the McGill QI Student Working Group and the McGill QI Steering Committee.

“There are incubators, entrepreneurial hubs, [and] start-up houses all over the world, and they’re all trying to recruit the best students,” he said. “We’re trying to build a project with McGill [from] the start, and then provide those resources to the students who need help or need the support.”

Less than one year after the project’s official launch, there has not been a substantial amount of change in the district. However, that may not be surprising given the nature of the project, according to McGill Director of Internal Communications Doug Sweet.

“MaRS [Discovery District in Toronto] has been around since the beginning of the 2000s and it has taken them a decade to get bigger, draw more funding, and produce more projects,” Sweet said. “[The QI is] like a garden being cultivated right now, and more seeds will be planted. [Nothing] has grown up yet because it’s too early.”

Branding, the Cité du Multimédia, and gentrification:

Though the QI is a relatively new project, it is not the first urban redevelopment venture in Montreal to aim to foster innovation and collaboration.

The Cité du multimédia from 1998 aimed to create a central location for the city’s multimedia sector to create jobs and revitalize the Faubourg des Récollets district. The project involved demolishing some of the old industrial buildings in the neighbourhood and constructing new office buildings, which were rented out with salary subsidies for newly created jobs.

However, 15 years later, the Cité du multimédia has faced criticism for failing to realize the goal that the project initially promoted. Due to factors such as expensive rent and conditions on leases, the anticipated small multimedia companies and start-ups never moved into the space, which was instead filled by larger companies.

Shearmur called the Cité du multimédia project an “abuse of branding.”

“[The government] used this branding to get the community on board [and] to get people to accept that they were going to knock down old buildings [and] kick out artists, because [they were] going to have this creative industry in place,” he said. “The Cité du multimédia basically turned out to be an empty slogan for redeveloping a neighbourhood.”

According to Péan, the QI is different from the Cité de multimédia due to the diversity of its stakeholders.

“The idea to bring people from the multimedia sector in one place with tax credits is not so bad,” she said. “But the problem is that if you do nothing to bring different kinds of partners (i.e. not only industry, but academics and people from the community) and try to connect people, no interesting interactions and collaborations will happen.”

However, Claire Poitras, director of the Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre of the National Institute for Scientific Research, said the problem of branding persists in modern urban redevelopment projects like the QI.

“If you want to attract people to a specific place nowadays, you have to […] brand an area with a specific identity because people are going to move to a place that has special features, that is a distinctive place,” she said. “You have to sell the area as you would be selling a product.”

Instead of branding urban areas, Poitras said public decision makers should encourage ways for people to learn more about the urban history of areas—for example, through heritage tours. Otherwise, a brand could lead to harmful consequences, such as gentrification.

“We saw that in SoHo [New York] about 30 to 40 years ago,” she said. “Artists were attracted to it because it was cheap. Once they were there, other people wanted to be there as well, [but] gentrification occurred and the artists had to leave.”

Although other urban redevelopment projects have been criticized for gentrification, Sweet said the QI’s emphasis on urban planning sets the program apart.

“Urban planning is not part of MaRS at all; they’re not there to develop the neighbourhood—they’re there to develop business,” he said. “[The QI is about] trying to improve and help people stay [where they are], and not get forced out by gentrification as has happened in other neighbourhoods.”

For example, one QI project is to create a “laboratory of urban culture” in St. Joseph Church. Instead of allowing the land to be demolished and developed with condominiums, this project aims to repurpose the historic building as a space to preserve and encourage the artistic and cultural communities.

However, former McGill student senator Matthew Crawford, who voiced concerns about gentrification when the QI was announced in 2012, said he still believes the project will have negative effects on affordable housing in the area.

“Neither McGill nor the City of Montreal has demonstrated that it will move forward with this project with the necessary level of planning to make the project socially sustainable,” he said. “There are those who laud gentrification for its ability to rejuvenate neighbourhoods, [but] if the poor are simply swept away to the outskirts, then the process is not truly a rejuvenation, but an attempt to hide the problem.”

According to Poitras, the QI’s impact on the community will depend on how its various stakeholders interact.

“If there’s a good conversation between these types of actors, it should be fine,” she said. “They have to be sensitive to certain social demands they might have from community groups of the area. Some people might not want things to change that much.”

 An outdated concept?:

Although innovation districts like Silicon Valley have received considerable attention for their successes, the technological advances of the last decade have led some sceptics to question their relevance.

“All of the observers up to the 1990s were functioning in an era where, if you were going to collaborate closely with people, you did probably need to be quite close to them because telephone calls were expensive,” Shearmur said.

The proliferation of the Internet, however, has changed the way businesses communicate.

“It’s far more straightforward and easy now for collaborations to occur which have nothing to do with geography,” he said. “So this fact that you actually need to be close together geographically to have these meaningful collaborations to lead to innovation—is that an idea [that] is decreasingly relevant today?”

However, Péan emphasized the continued importance of physical proximity in innovation districts such as the QI.

“Physical proximity is really important; […] crucial interactions are still face-to-face,” she said. “[With] two major universities engaged in developing concrete projects in technological, social and cultural innovation with their students and professors, it really becomes an attractive space. We need a critical mass for people to interact.”

The future of the QI:

Less than a year after its launch, the QI is still in the early phases of development. Despite the uncertainty of the changing way innovation occurs, Péan said the QI could help redefine the innovation district and its place in the city.

“At the QI, we want to develop entrepreneurship of course […] but we are also here to help non-profit organizations, to bring our students within those non-profit organizations, [and] to create links between the community and the university,” she said.

One way of fostering these links is through student engagement. According to Leung, the most important way for the QI to move forward is for students to contribute to discussions that aim to create more opportunities for involvement in the QI by joining groups such as the Student Working Group.

“We want to get the ball rolling,” Leung said. “We want students to know what the project is, [and] we want more and more students who are passionate about the project to join us.”

One goal for student involvement in the QI is through internships. According to Péan, 16 students were placed in internships or research programs relating to the QI in 2013, including four internships in urban planning and five internships in social enterprises.

However, others have expressed dissatisfaction with the way students will be able to engage in the district.

“Structurally, the QI involves applied learning facilities in close proximity to corporate partners,” Crawford said. “By placing ‘resources’ and ‘products’ closer to their ‘buyers,’ McGill emulates the structure of an industry, rather than an institution of education. In doing so, they serve private interests before the public needs of the city.”

Because the Internet now facilitates so much communication, Shearmur said the QI could be more effective if it serves less as an innovation district, and more as a way of showcasing innovative urban planning and social practices.

“These are lines that are quite different from the traditional view of the innovation district as a group of firms, companies, actors, who, through their social connections, are leading to innovation,” he said. “We’ve got to be careful that the Quartier de l’innovation is looking forward and not looking back at these ideas.”

As the district develops, Péan said only time will tell what will come from the QI.

“We really want to increase collaborations and partnerships with local partners in order to create opportunities for enriching our students experience and be engaged as a university,” Péan said. “The project is new, but I’m confident that we will have concrete outcomes in the next few years.”

Correction appended Feb. 4:
A previous version of this article included a quotation that incorrectly stated that there were no internships available in the QI. In fact, there were 16 internships offered last year. The Tribune regrets the error. 

 

a, Men's Varsity, Sports

Basketball: Redmen sweep Gaiters to move into first in RSEQ

by Osama Haque on

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The no. 8 ranked McGill Redmen (8-2) stormed Love Competition Hall Thursday evening, coasting to a 80-67 win over the Bishop’s Gaiters (6-4). In a battle for first place in the RSEQ division, the Redmen emerged on top; Bishop’s intensity level was nowhere close to McGill’s as the home squad’s stifling man-to-man defence and red-hot offence from beyond the arc were the keys to a decisive victory.

The Redmen came out with a bang in the first quarter, setting the tone early with their crisp ball movement and suffocating defence. The home team managed to spread the floor well without forcing any shots. McGill tallied up a 20-4 score midway through the first quarter—which included five three-pointers in transition. However, the more impressive feat was keeping Bishop’s to seven points in the quarter and merely 20 points total by the half.

Yet the second half was a very different story for both squads. The Redmen came out flat, and the Gaiters retaliated with a run of their own as they made appropriate adjustments on defence. Bishop’s outscored McGill by 12 points in the second half and showed some life, but the Gaiters’ comeback run had come too late in the game.

“[Bishop’s] are a very good team,” Head Coach David DeAveiro said. “We happened to shoot the ball extremely well and got up big. You can’t judge them by one half of play. [In] the second half, they kicked our butts. Their coach made a couple of adjustments that were some good ones, and [the team] played with more intensity. They took away some of the things we liked to do, and we didn’t handle it well.”

Along with launching McGill into the  top spot in the RSEQ, the game also marked the first time Redmen senior guard and co-captain Simon Bibeau has scored 20 points or more in a game since October. Bibeau was key to McGill’s victory, leading all scorers with 21 points—including three three-pointers in the first quarter. Rookie guards Dele Ogundokun and Michael Peterkin were also spectacular as they chipped in 17 points apiece in the contest.

However, the journey for first place in the RSEQ didn’t stop Thursday evening, as the team played a rematch against Bishop’s at Lennoxville, Quebec on Saturday, where the Gaiters had previously been undefeated in season play.

“We are going to look at the tape, and [will be watching] the second half [of Thursday’s game,]” DeAveiro said. “We are going to figure out how to beat [Bishop’s] tough defence and learn some lessons [to be] ready to play Saturday.”

McGill was more than ready to play in their second contest of the week as they defended their newly acquired first place position with a 55-48 victory over the Gaiters in front of a raucous Carnival crowd. Co-captains Bibeau and Vincent Dufort led the way for the team, with Bibeau recording 15 points and Dufort posting a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

“It was a huge thing to win back-to-back against Bishop’s,” Bibeau said. “We know that they’re a tough team. We were in the run for first place. We were able to confirm our [first-place position] this weekend.”

McGill will look to continue their three-game winning streak against UQAM at 8:00 p.m. on Feb. 2 at Love Competition Hall.

a, Student Life

The ins and outs of the McGill residence system

by Ellen Cools on

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Often glorified in movies, living in residence is generally considered a rite of passage for all college students.  The idea behind residence systems, however, is to provide a supportive micro-environment within a larger campus to aid in the drastic transition upon entering university.

At McGill, not only do the different types of residences cater to students’ needs and personalities, but hall directors and floor fellows also work hard to make the year-long experience unforgettable.

“It’s a cool environment where you get all of the college experience at once: the studying, the partying, the no sleeping […] and everyone’s in the same situation,” U0 Music student Céleste Pagniello said.

McGill’s residence system is already well-developed to meet the needs of students according to Janice Johnson, Managing Director of Residences and Student Housing.

“There are some schools in Quebec that do a lot of programming, have floor fellows, and hall councils that do some of the stuff that we do, but we do it on a pretty significant scale,” she said.

Currently, each residence has one director, except for MORE housing, which has one hall director for the group of houses. Each building is also home to floor fellows—non first-year students who plan activities and, perhaps most critically, are there for students in times of crisis.

Several changes to this system have been planned for Fall 2014. The modified system will have full-time hall directors who are employed by Student Housing Hospitality Services, and who will be responsible for several halls. There will also be faculty members or other administration that live in halls with students.

This decision has been met with criticism from some members of the residence community concerning the accessibility of the hall directors and a lack of consultation in implementing these changes. Despite the uncertainy surrounding how this system will function at McGill, full-time hall directors are common at other academic institutions across Canada and the United States.

For example, Queen’s University has a Manager of Residence Life, an Assistant Manager, and live-in full-time professional Residence Life Coordinators who are responsible for groups of buildings. Their floor-fellow counterparts, called “dons,” are also upper-year students—even graduate students—who support new students in the transition to university life. These dons and staff live in the residences, in a similar manner to the proposed McGill system.

Similarly, the residence system at the University of Chicago focuses on providing support to their students in residence. Their system includes Resident Assistants (RAs), who are third- or fourth-year students; Resident Heads, who are advanced graduate students or administrative staff; and Resident Masters, senior university faculty members who are there to provide a large, connected support system.

One of the main differences between McGill and other universities is that McGill guarantees residence only for a student’s first year of studies. For example, not only does the University of Chicago guarantee housing for all four years of undergraduate school, it also requires that all first-year students live in residences.

However, Pagniello said she supports McGill’s decision to guarantee residence to only first-year students.

“It’s a good experience for a year, but I think it’s going to be good to move out and really live on our own,” Pagniello said.

At the end of the day, university residences are all about providing the support students need to make a smooth transition from living in a residence to living in an apartment.

“[Residence] allows students to become independent and develop new strengths in a new family-type support system,” first-year Education student Jasmine Segal said. “I feel like I’m more prepared for living on my own next year.”

a, News, SSMU

GA to vote on student academic rights, early access to course info

by Sam Pinto on

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On Feb. 5, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) will be hosting its Winter semester General Assembly (GA). Five motions are scheduled for voting by all SSMU members. The GA needs 100 people present to reach quorum and pass binding resolutions.

Motion Regarding the Guarantee of Freedom of Dress in the SSMU Building

This motion seeks to remove limitations on dress within the SSMU Building and its facilities, limited only by instances where another student’s right to safe space is infringed upon, as determined by the Equity Policy.

“We learned that there [is] no place in the SSMU bylaws that guaranteed freedom of dress,” Morgan Grobin, a U2 Engineering student who started the petition for this motion, said. “Having the opportunity to express oneself through choice of clothing is an extremely important part of individual development.”

According to Joey Shea, SSMU Vice-President University Affairs, the motion is a response to a previous incident involving lab coats worn by members of the Plumbers’ Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO), an engineering student group. Members of the group wear lab coats that sometimes displays drawings that are considered offensive by students. The lab coats are currently banned from the SSMU building.

“There was an equity complaint last year against the PPO Coats; they just have [inappropriate] things drawn on them,” Shea said. “There’s a complaint saying they’re racist and sexist. So the decision of last year’s exec was to ban them.”

The motion also seeks to remove all current bans on any student groups’ choice of dress, including the ban on the PPO.

Motion Regarding Inclusion of Academic Assessment Rights on Course Outlines

This motion seeks to ensure that all professors and faculties adhere to the University Student Assessment Policy, which has been occasionally ignored according to some students.

Some of the rights within the Academic Assessment Policy include the right to submit work in English or French, and the inability for any final exam to account for more than 75 per cent of a course grade.

In order to enforce the policy, the motion urges the university to make these rights more accessible to students.

“The SSMU support[s] the inclusion of an abbreviated outline of student academic rights […] of the University Student Assessment Policy on course outlines,” the motion reads.

Although academic matters are typically dealt with at McGill’s Senate, Shea said she wanted the motion to go through the GA because of the broader basis for student consultation.

“I think the power coming from a GA motion will sort of propel [the motion] and really give us that much more legitimacy in terms of lobbying McGill,” Shea said.

Motion Regarding Sustainability at the SSMU

In Fall 2013, the SSMU removed its mandated Sustainability Coordinator position, which previously oversaw sustainability projects for the society. Instead, Council established an ad-hoc committee on Sustainability.

This GA motion attempts to ensure that a mandate be presented by the Executive to the SSMU’s legislative Council on the future of sustainability by the end of Winter 2014.

According to Shea, a mover of the motion, since the ad-hoc committee has yet to show signs of progress, the motion is intended to reinforce the significance of sustainability at SSMU.

“Not a lot of people ended up showing up at those committee meetings, so this [is] just to further solidify the need for sustainability at SSMU,” Shea said.

Motion Regarding the Timely Distribution of Course Information

In an effort to allow students to properly plan out their semester prior to registering for a class, this motion advocates that online material, such as course syllabi, are available to students prior to the first day of classes either by a university-wide academic policy or by professors.

“Students not currently registered in a class have no consistent way to access this information, as they cannot view online course material for a course they have not yet registered for,” the motion reads.

According to Shea, who developed this motion within the Senate caucus, the SSMU Office of University Affairs will have to negotiate with the McGill administration to see these changes made. Shea said she hopes to see required readings and textbooks, evaluation dates, and course descriptions online before the semester begins.  Shea wants to pass this motion within the GA in order to emphasize it’s gravity.

“There will be a lot of debate [and] visioning within the subcommittee of senate caucus, how we’re actually going to implement this,” Shea explained. “Are we going to ask for syllabi to be available one week in advance, before add-drop, two weeks in advance? [.…] Those details are still left to be sorted out.”

Motion Regarding the TPP and CETA

This motion aims to address two trade agreements currently under negotiation by the Canadian government: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a Canadian-European Union free trade agreement (CETA).

According to the motion, the trade agreements will allow for increased patents for medications, which could potentially increase the cost of drugs in Canada.

“The health and/or financial security of students would be negatively affected by an increase in drug costs due to direct increase to the inability of healthcare plans to cover new drugs to cost, or to increased insurance premiums,” the motion reads.

The motion, initiated by Medicine representative David Benrimoh, asks SSMU to take a formal stance against the trade agreements.

If passed, the SSMU will write a letter to the federal government to express their disapproval of the provisions and lack of public consultation.

a, Opinion

Information sharing merits transparency

by Helin Azizoglu on

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On Jun. 30, Canadian border officials plan to enact an extended data-sharing program with the United States in which more information from travellers at the U.S.-Canada border will be recorded and shared with other federal departments. These measures, which will serve as an expansion of the current “Entry-Exit Initiative,” will use the information-sharing procedures already in place for third-country nationals and permanent residents, and apply them to travelling citizens. The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirmed the implementation of the program, which will be used to track abuses of various benefit programs and potential security threats.

These measures raise new questions about privacy rights and the extent of federal power in these zones. Both countries’ constitutions contain fundamental privacy clauses, which detail the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted search or seizure. The 4th Amendment of the American Bill of Rights and Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are not entirely straightforward in applicability, however, and have unique implications at the border. In the U.S., a “border search exception” allows officers to conduct non-invasive searches without a warrant or probable cause, as McGill student Pascal Abidor learned in 2011 when his belongings were searched after border officials asked him about his Islamic Studies program and his travels to the Middle East. Citizens and tourists alike have a reduced reasonable expectation of privacy at the border, and, alarmingly, officials are not required to err on the side of caution.

What differentiates this issue from other privacy concerns, however, is the fact that the Entry-Exit Initiative involves the use of information obtained at the border in other government agencies. The CBSA has declined to share which federal officials specifically will receive the information, but commented that the practices will follow stringent policies narrowly curtailed to security purposes. Nevertheless, in an area as contentious as border security, the public deserves more transparency on this issue.

This can be better observed by noting the potential consequences of the expanded program.  On the one hand, it could be used to generate more effective security measures and track potential terrorist activities abroad. The CBSA has emphasized that this will be the primary purpose of the program, stating that “access to information will be limited to designated users with an operational requirement”. According to a CBSA briefing note,  “information could be disclosed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to support law enforcement and national security operations. This is of particular interest given the recent media attention on Canadians travelling abroad to engage in terrorist activities.”

The initiative could also be used to track those who may be skimping on social benefit programs by spending long periods of time outside of Canada and thus failing to meet eligibility criteria.

While these are both important causes to address, the measure is also susceptible to potential abuse. Because so many taxation, health services, and citizenship laws are based on residency, some advocates are worried that government officials could use personal information to shape policymaking and legislative initiatives, which would certainly be an exploitation of power.

Because of the far-reaching nature of this program, Canadians deserve to have more explicit information about its implications. This includes knowing exactly what information will be shared with government officials, which departments will have access to the information, how long the data will be kept, and whether personal information will be used for policy purposes beyond straightforward border security. If these details are elucidated, the program has potential to enormously improve national security and make both Canada and the U.S. safer places to live. Until then, however, border officials have some work to do.

a, Arts & Entertainment

POP RHETORIC: Grammys take the easy route instead of going Mackleless

by Max Bledstein on

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Awards shows inevitably feel designed to frustrate fans. The very concept of a group of industry insiders picking a single album, movie, or TV show as the best from a given year almost guarantees that a large swath of people will be unhappy with their choice. However, certain snubs carry a broader cultural connotation, which makes them feel all the more egregious—and the 2014 Grammy for Best Rap Album belongs in that category.

Macklemore’s The Heist—the eventual winner—and prominent challengers Yeezus by Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d City were all nominated for the award. Each of the albums’ content deals with various social issues, though they all use different rhetorical styles to address them; Macklemore raps from a more detached perspective, while the other emcees address struggles that have been applicable to a certain degree to their own lives. Upon examining songs from each of the albums, it’s evident why Macklemore’s message was more palatable to Grammy voters than West’s or Lamar’s.

On Macklemore’s hit single “Same Love,” he explores the homophobia that continues to plague the hip-hop world and society as a whole. Though his decision to raise awareness around these issues is undoubtedly a positive thing, Macklemore comes across as detached from the people he claims to be trying to help. In the song’s opening verse, he explains how he himself is not gay, as if to suggest that him recording the song will lead listeners to be suspicious of his sexual orientation. His lack of empathy limits the capabilities of his advocacy.

By contrast, on good kid, Lamar presents the voice of those who actually experience oppression and discrimination. On “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst,” Lamar writes from the perspectives of three different people who have all grown up in a poor African-American community. “This orphanage we call a ghetto is just a routine,” one of them says. His use of the word “we” situates his song in a totally different context than Macklemore’s. Whereas Macklemore only associates himself with the oppressed when describing how he wants to help them, Lamar expresses the strife he’s actually been through. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates praises Lamar’s approach in his New York Times op-ed column “Hip-Hop Speaks to the Guns,” in which he calls good kid “an album that people grappling with policy desperately need to hear,” and praises it for showing “how gun violence extends out beyond the actual guns.” Rather than criticize injustice from a distance, Lamar shows what it feels like to experience it first-hand.

West takes the opportunity on Yeezus to speak through the voice of an African-American man who doesn’t have to deal with the horrors Lamar describes, but still faces systemic racism in other ways. On “New Slaves,” West says of his oppressors, “They throwin’ hate at me / Want me to stay at ease.” Once again, unlike Macklemore in “Same Love,” West writes from the point-of-view of someone who has to face injustice rather than someone who chooses to try and combat it. Whereas Macklemore decides to help people whom he deems in need of his assistance, West is the one who has people “throwin’ hate at” him and desire for him “to stay at ease” rather than fight back. In Tessa Brown’s recent essay “Yeezy Rising” in The American Reader, she describes West as “A black man [….]who has refused to stay in his lane.” She also refers to his music to be “calling out that there are lanes,” which she pronounces “an offense punishable by media death.” While Macklemore also acknowledges “that there are lanes,” he doesn’t explain how it feels to be put in one.

Clearly, Macklemore’s distanced confrontation of difficult issues played better with Grammy voters than West and Lamar’s accounts of their experiences. Though questionable decisions in awards shows are nothing new, some awards or snubs—such as The Wire never winning an Emmy, or Driving Miss Daisy winning Best Picture over Do the Right Thing—bring with them sad truths about the state of cultural affairs. By granting a Grammy to Macklemore over both Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, the voters have shown that they’d rather hear about someone condemning discrimination than face the bleak reality of its effects.

a, Martlets, Sports

Basketball: Martlets end losing skid at two

by Elie Waitzer on

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6’1” sophomore Mariam Sylla posted 13 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for her seventh double-double this season in just 20 minutes to lead McGill to a 66-43 win over last-place Bishop’s at home on Thursday.

Sylla—the reigning CIS Player-of-the-Year—had help conquering the Gaiters as freshman forward Jennifer Silver emerged as a sparkplug with 11 points off the bench. Silver went an impressive five of six from the free throw line as McGill coasted in the final quarter.

Coming off a rough stretch in which the squad dropped its first two games of the season, Martlet Head Coach Ryan Thorne said his team was thinking solely about the future.

“It’s a different team [than last week],” Thorne explained. “We weren’t concerned and we went after them from the beginning. We knew what our issues were over our last couple of games and worked on them.”

The string of strong practices paid off for the Martlets as they led by as many as 29 points and had three players in double-digits. The story of the game was the lights-out perimeter shooting that sent dagger after dagger into the visitors’ defence.

“The plan was to play inside out,” said Sylla. “I tried to keep the ball deep in the paint and then kick it out to them; and when they’re knocking those shots down, [Bishop’s] is going to move out of the post, so we had a nice balance inside and out.”

After going a dismal five of 17 from three-point land in the first two quarters, the home team found their stroke, raining threes from all over the floor in the final two frames.

Of the Martlets’ 26 attempts from beyond the arc, none was more important than the backbreaker by Marie-Pier Bastrash, a 5’8” shooting guard from Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.  With Bishop’s threatening to close the gap on a 9-0 run late in the second quarter, Bastrash stepped up and swished a three from the top of the key to squash any chance of a comeback.

Hustling down the floor after her shot, Bastrash picked off an errant pass by Bishop’s backup point guard Catherine Rondeau to set up another three—this time by third-year point guard Dianna Ros.

Ros, who had been sidelined for the past two games by a leg injury, contributed 16 minutes off the bench.

“She’s one of our top ball-handlers [and] she understands what I want, so to have her back was big,” Thorne said. “We got an extra shooter [and] an extra playmaker that we’ve been missing.”

In their own end, the Martlets played aggressive defence, disrupting the Gaiters’ attack by forcing heavily contested jump shots and shot clock violations on consecutive possessions.

“We know they like to penetrate, so we tried to get in the gaps and not let them get there,” Thorne said.

The Martlets dominated the boards all night, out-rebounding Bishop’s 51-39. However, according to Sylla, the key to the game was the Martlets’ ball security.

“[The] last few games, we were giving up a lot of turnovers. Tonight, we were able to run our offence and still take care of the ball,” she said.

Beyond cutting down on their turnovers, McGill was able to capitalize on sloppy play by the Gaiters, turning 16 steals into 20 quick points.

Following their win Thursday evening, McGill faced off against Bishop’s once again on Saturday and cruised to a 71-42 win in Mitchell Gym in Lennoxville. The Martlets were buoyed by Gabriela Hebert’s 16 points and 7 rebounds as they maintained their position atop the RSEQ. McGill’s next game is against UQAM on Thursday, Feb. 6 in Love Competition Hall at 6:00 p.m., in what will be a decisive match for first place in the conference. A loss for McGill would mean losing their uncontested hold on first place.

a, News

Holiday Inn to be transformed into privately-owned student residence

by Eman Jeddy on

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Plans to convert the Holiday Inn hotel on Sherbrooke Street into a private student residence were announced last week.

Campus Crest Communities Inc., a student housing developer; and Beaumont Partners SA, a real estate investment company, acquired the hotel located at 420 Sherbrooke on Jan. 15th. The joint venture partnership plans to convert the building into student housing by Fall 2014.

According to a report by Business Week, the acquisition is worth approximately $65 million, and gives Beaumont Partners SA 65 per cent ownership of the venture and Campus Crest 35 per cent. In addition to the acquisition, the two companies secured financing for renovations through a loan deal with the Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America, and Raymond James.

According to the report, leasing is set to begin in Fall 2014.

While Beaumont Partners SA manages the acquisition of real estate, Campus Crest will serve as a property manager for the residents and provide a staff that includes a general manager, leasing manager, and courtesy officer for security purposes for the building.

Ted Rollins, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Campus Crest Communities Inc., said the new residence would provide a high-end housing option unlike currently available student housing.

“Once completed, the property will include a broad array of high-end apartments and expects to attract undergraduate and graduate students by offering an upscale housing alternative with modern, attractively furnished rooms and a range of amenities,” Rollins said. “The property will also offer residents an engaging lifestyle program with an array of fun, diverse activities and events.”

The cost of rent for the new residence has not yet been announced.

McGill’s undergraduate enrollment rose from 24,025 in 2008 to 26,725 in 2013. As McGill continues to experience a gradual increase in student population, the residence may provide an alternative private accommodation for incoming students.

Harris Waqar, a U3 Arts student living at Varcity515—another similarly-designed, privately-owned student residence located on Ste. Catherine St.—was not offered a space in a McGill residence during his first year. He said private residences could provide advantages in light of the increased demand for McGill residence space.

“McGill doesn’t have enough residences to accommodate all their students; they weren’t able to accommodate me,” Waqar said. ‘From that perspective, it can be pretty intimidating and confusing when you come here [to Montreal] for the first time and have to look for an apartment and all that [….] So all these places like Varcity515 will be in a sense a secondary choice or a backup option.’’

The acquisition may also alleviate the pressure on the university’s Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) unit, which opened a new hotel residence, La Citadelle in Fall 2013 to accommodate increasing demand for student housing. The new building was formally a Courtyard Marriott hotel located next to the Holiday Inn, as it’s newest residence to accommodate the increasing demand for student housing in Fall 2013.

Although SHHS signed a lease agreement with Varcity515 this year due to overbooking of incoming students, Interim Director of Residences Janice Johnson, said there are no current plans to sign such an agreement with the newly acquired residence.

“We are certainly aware of the Campus Crest/Beaumont developments, as well as other similar projects, and are monitoring them closely,’’ Johnson said.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Hospitality—Troubles

by Cristian Hertzer on

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There’s something to be said about female vocalists and indie pop, a match so perfect and compatible, that it can usually intrigue the ear no matter how respectable the music really is. Luckily in the case of Amber Papini, lead vocalist of Hospitality, her stylings are both intriguing and respectable.

On their sophomore album, Troubles, Papini and her crew explore emotional complexities and haunting landscapes while moving through decades of pop influence. This time, Hospitality opts for complexity and seriousness when compared with their self-titled debut, which was lauded for its catchy toe-tapping indie-pop sunshine. Haunting yet catchy riffs weave effortlessly through the tracks, naturally complimenting Papini’s prowess.

Troubles is a wistful amalgam of varied inspirations. “It’s Not Serious” adopts a Norah Jones-esque jazz-pop feel, while syncopated pop gem “I Miss Your Bones” reminisces the early workings of Canadian indie heroes Tegan & Sara. The song absorbs—maybe even too wholeheartedly—’80s new wave pop. Riding a buzzing synth, Papini’s airy vocals, and the chorus signifying claps, “Last Words” evokes a desire to star in a hilariously dream filtered ’80s music video featuring Morrisey’s hair. The track may as well be a cut from The Cure or Joy Division. Oddly following this ’80s-style tune is the mystical storytelling ballad “Sunships,” where Amber Papini croons over a crescendo of acoustic guitar and softly spoken trumpet. Lastly, with album highlight “Sullivan,” Hospitality unites with this codeine-drenched loose jazz jam that encapsulates both pop elements as well as technical musicianship.

Although it lacks cohesiveness, Troubles offers an interesting flashback into pop history and never fails to surprise the ear. The album is a definite worthwhile listen and has established Hospitality’s ability to write both young ephemeral pop hits as well as meaningful technical pieces.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Gramatik—The Age of Reason

by Cristian Hertzer on

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Among today’s monotonous, often regurgitated world of electronic music, it is difficult to find something genuinely fresh. Despite this, Gramatik has harnessed the ability to supply interesting, novel sounds in the realm of electronic music. His most recent effort, The Age of Reason, is no exception.

Trading slower, swung electro jazz pieces for grime, grunge, and a plethora of distortion, Gramatik offers up a heavy-hitting banger of an album. Relentless blues and hard rock improvisations are shoved through your consciousness, washed down with all the glitches, wobs, and drill bit noise of a dubstep album. The album demonstrates Gramatik’s skill as a truly inspired producer, but the endless guitar riff motif becomes tired as the album drags on. That being said, The Age of Reason does not fail to deliver with a surprise when it needs to—just as you thought there was no hope.

One song in it becomes clear that Gramatik is turning up. The Billy Squire-esque glam-dripping banger “Torture” sets the tone for the front end of the album and has you head banging as if you were front row at a Sabbath show. Next, the aptly named “Bluestep” delivers an amalgam of improvised blues riffs and high BPM (beats per minute)-drenched dubstep grime. Stepping into more melodic domain, “Pardon my French” refreshingly delivers a funky hook that sends ethereal grooves through your spine, unconsciously making you squirm in your seat.

Despite all the BPMs and grit at the front end of the album, songs like “We Used to Dream” and “Just Jammin’ NYC” allow for a quick breather and a chance to bask in the brilliantly swung electro jazz styles more reminiscent of Gramatik’s earlier work. On album standout “Get a Grip,” Gramatik recruits vocalist Gibbz for a bass-slapped Disclosure-does-electro-funk track that has you tapping your foot and singing along in an instant. As a whole, The Age of Reason is slightly tired in its monotonous use of droning electro rock, but makes up for this through truly brilliant, catchy productions that prove Gramatik is a leading innovator in the electro scene.

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