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Commentary, Opinion

COVID-somnia is ruining students’ schedules

by Taneeshaa Pradhan on

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As student routines change due to COVID-19, many are noticing disturbances in their sleep schedules. Experts attribute “COVID-somnia” to anxiety surrounding the pandemic, such as feeling helpless in the face of a global crisis. While students at McGill lead efforts to combat these mental health difficulties, educators and administrators must show support by being accommodating and ensuring that students are not overwhelmed by isolation, despair, and loneliness. 

In addition to McGill’s pre-existing culture that prioritizes academic results over mental well-being, COVID-somnia is a dangerous phenomenon. Research reports that this pandemic-induced sleep deprivation, while sometimes motivated by physiological factors, mainly stems from fear and anxiety caused by the disruption of normal routines. Before the pandemic, students connected with peers at communal spaces on campus, but the social lives of everyone are now limited by measures that prevent gatherings. For some students, this is coupled with a change in living environment, ranging from moving in with roommates that are near-strangers or returning home to family. 

Most instructors offer helpful asynchronous learning options for those in different timezones. Despite this, students have to resist allowing lecture recordings to pile up when they choose to take a break from school work. When the boundary between school and the home is blurred, it becomes difficult to find time and space for relaxation. With unfamiliar and overburdened schedules, students resort to revenge bedtime procrastination, staying up late doing leisure activities because they may feel that time has been exhausted by the mental labour of work-related activities.

To counter COVID-somnia, students can benefit from adopting sleep hygiene practices such as creating a space dedicated to attending “Zoom university.” Humans associate brain function to specific environments, which is why studying in bed can make it harder to fall asleep in it. Meanwhile, course instructors should initiate dialogue with students to identify changes that can be made to mitigate the challenges of online learning. During these unforeseen and stressful circumstances, professors can help alleviate stress by eliminating requirements for medical notes and other forms of proof for those in need of extensions.  

For international students, altering normal sleep cycles is often the only way to engage with classes and virtual student life in real-time. Different time zones and living environments create unequal experiences, and some students face even more barriers to a healthy sleep routine than their peers living in Montreal. 

Effectively living in two time zones amplifies a sense of disconnectedness from university life, which can intensify feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Increased screen time also exposes students to blue light emissions, which interrupt circadian rhythms in the body that sync sleep schedules with outdoor light levels. Coupled with COVID-19 anxiety, these hybrid schedules present unique challenges. Meanwhile, student club events are usually inconvenient for those in most other time zones. Students face the dilemma of choosing between attending the event and having an irregular sleep schedule or sleeping at a time suitable to their time zone but missing out on social engagement. 

This general trend of late timings is largely unaccounted for by student organizers due to a lack of alternatives. Student groups tend to host events after school hours to ensure that those in Montreal are able to attend. To find a solution for international students, student services like International Student Services and the Student Wellness Hub can equip students with the tools to manage new and unusual routines. These services can also serve to connect students going through the same experiences.

When addressing challenges posed by a pandemic, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Consequently, trying to replicate pre-COVID realities is inadequate. Instead, improving morale requires abandoning previous conceptions of academic excellence and fostering an environment where students can prioritize something integral to their functioning—a good night’s sleep.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Words with Will lets playwrights talk back to Shakespeare

by Erika MacKenzie on

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Content warning: The following deals with discussions of sexual assault and death.

Words with Will is an annual theatre workshop hosted by Repercussion Theatre Company that explores William Shakespeare’s works through a critical lens. Each year, playwrights are invited to personally engage with Shakespeare and his texts, as well as debut their new projects. This year, Works with Will took place from March 2 to 4 on Facebook Live and showcased the plays Black Fly, created by Omari Newton and Amie Lee Lavoie, and Wardo, created by Jimmy Blais. 

On the first evening of the three-day event, Repercussion’s Artistic and Executive Director, Amanda Kellock, led a roundtable discussion with the playwrights to talk about their upcoming projects and their relationships to Shakespeare’s work. 

Black Fly co-creator Omari Newton noted that his frustration with Shakespeare’s portrayal of BIPOC characters inspired him to write an adaptation of Titus Andronicus. Co-creator Amy Lee Lavoie was also dissatisfied with the lack of agency and dialogue that Shakespeare gave his female characters compared to their male counterparts in the original play. 

In their adaptation, Newton and Lavoie shift the focus away from the Romans and place the attention on the play’s victimized characters, allowing them to gain restitution. Aaron, who plays a minor role in the original play, is a protagonist in Black Fly, and notably speaks in verse with a hip-hop cadence. 

Newton elaborated on why he felt it was important to use hip-hop in this adaptation. 

“I came into Shakespeare [… and] immediately felt a connection to acting in verse because I was a big hip-hop fan,” Newton said. “Part of my work as a writer […] is to make the establishment recognize that urban art forms are as impressive and as worthy of study and reverence as classic works.” 

In the original play, the character Lavinia is sexually assaulted, mutilated, and then left mute for the rest of the show. In Black Fly, Lavinia regains her voice, which allows her the opportunity to condemn her perpetrator. 

During the event’s third evening, Jimmy Blais, the creator of Wardo, discussed how his relationship to Shakespeare as a form of colonialist art inspired him to write Wardo.  

“I fell in love with Shakespeare at a young age […] but later in life I started to question Shakespeare’s position in my life, and I started to see it as an abusive relationship in some ways,” Blais said. “It’s hard to get away from the fact that it’s […] a cultural flag for colonialism.” 

Inspired by the activists who protested the Coastal Gaslink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en lands in 2020, Blais strived to express his frustrations with the RCMP’s treatment of Indigenous people through art, and chose Shakespeare as his target. 

Wardo is the story of an Indigenous teen, Dylan, who ends up in the home of a Shakespeare-loving family after spending much of his youth in the foster care system. The play explores how Dottie, Dylan’s foster mother, has good intentions in teaching her children Shakespeare, but ultimately falls short in recognizing the colonialism embedded in the playwright’s work.

In the scene that Blais showcased at Words With Will, Dottie takes Dylan and his foster brother to Parliament Hill to roast marshmallows. While playing with a stick, Dylan is tragically shot and killed by RCMP officers, jolting both the play’s characters and its audience back to the reality of the systemic racism that oppresses Indigenous peoples in the Canadian justice system. 

When Blais discussed his play, he explained his reluctance to rework an existing Shakespeare text. 

“I didn’t want to do it within Shakespeare’s frame,” Blais said. “There’s a big part of me that’s conflicted, but […] in doing Shakespeare in any form, I am perpetuating this colonialist art [….] I feel like at this point in my career […] I am done doing Shakespeare because of the time and space and resources that we still give it still to this day […] and the only way for me to cut ties with it is to burn it down.”  

Commentary, Opinion

Gratitude alone does not help emergency workers

by Rory Daly on

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Gratitude, like many conventions observed in everyday life, is remarkably pleasant yet wholly unnecessary. No one would lose sleep without it, but small gestures of thanks have their purpose. Whether someone has held the door open or returned a lost belonging, showing gratitude demonstrates care for others and reminds people that they are worth our time and effort. In the context of the pandemic, gestures as simple as giving someone an extra mask can have a similar impact. However, gratitude alone cannot sustain someone. Showing thanks is important, but ultimately does not satisfy fundamental needs, which are going unaddressed for many emergency workers. 

One popular act of gratitude that emerged during the pandemic is Clap for Our Carers. During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, many used applause to express appreciation for front-line health professionals. Organized through social media and performed from open windows and balconies, these events originated in countries such as Italy that were hit particularly hard in the early months of the pandemic. The movement became prominent after it spread to Britain, where it continued weekly until the end of May. Similar tokens of thanks have appeared elsewhere in the world, whether plastered on billboards as in Beirut, or lit-up on national monuments, like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. In Montreal, police even flashed their lights and sounded their sirens in appreciation.

These acts of gratefulness have unfortunately overshadowed the tangible challenges many of these workers are facing. In Quebec, around the same time as these campaigns were taking place, the province was suffering from a critical lack of frontline workers at nursing homes, further compounded by a preexisting lack of funds. This disconnect highlights one of the main issues concerning emergency workers: Rather than viewing them as real people with real needs, they are portrayed as one-dimensional heroes. While that is a positive message, it can conceal the need for extra support to maintain workers’ physical and mental health during this trying situation. The government can regulate overtime rules for individuals who have to work long hours and subsidize extra pay for those working excessive, yet often necessary, amounts of overtime. 

Even as vaccinations are underway, we must acknowledge that the plight of emergency workers will not be remedied overnight. In some parts of Canada, the vaccine rollout has not sufficiently reached frontline workers, with some hospital public relations executives receiving their inoculations first. Similarly, workers who may not be labelled “frontline workers” but who are nevertheless considered essential workers, such as grocery store employees and teachers, have been given no clear message on when they will be vaccinated. Gig workers, like delivery drivers, are also in similarly vulnerable positions, as some see them as independent contractors instead of essential workers. 

Teachers and professors are other examples of people who are forced to adapt their routines and take on more difficult work for the same pay. Not only are instructors expected to teach both virtually and in-person, but they also have to deal with hostile parents who are facing their own difficulties. University professors who are expected to adapt to constantly changing plans face similar issues. For example, McGill’s Faculty of Arts remote teaching guidelines were modified from Fall 2020 to Winter 2021, a change that impacted both professors and students.

There is no question that gratitude can feel wonderful on the receiving end. However, kindness cannot keep someone from falling sick, nor can it ensure they have access to fair compensation. While change is necessary on a systemic level, everyone can do better to show tangible appreciation to workers, from McGill students tipping delivery drivers more, to executives and administrators providing better emergency benefits. Platitudes must not drown out the real needs of essential workers, especially not during a time like this.

Student Life

Opening up Saint-Henri’s community fridge

by Josephine Wang on

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A little over four years ago, a previously unhoused man in Saint-Henri came up with an idea to give back to his community. Seeing that there were few resources available in the east of Montreal to individuals in precarious financial situations, he decided to start a community fridge to ensure access to healthy food and reduce food waste. The idea behind the initiative is straightforward: Stationed in a public space, the community refrigerator encourages neighbourhood residents to contribute food.

The fridge has since blossomed into Le Frigo Communautaire Saint-Henri, a community initiative fuelled by donations and loyal volunteers who organize the fridge and prepare food. 

“When I moved back to Montreal three years ago, I found out about the fridge and would bring food almost everyday,” Claude Chevalot, the manager of Le Frigo Communautaire, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We managed to raise money and made meals during Christmas. It went on like this for a while [until] the fridge broke down. We couldn’t put a new one in the same spot [anymore] since the landlord did not want us to.” 

The original fridge was located in Fattal, a cluster of commercial loft buildings populated primarily by low-income individuals. Many residents in the area relied on the community fridge for food. After it broke down, it took Chevalot six months to find a suitable location for its replacement; the new fridge is not far from the original one, located behind Friperie Sidneys at 5165 rue Notre Dame Ouest. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity—with unemployment and poverty rates skyrocketing, healthy groceries have become unaffordable to many. Thankfully, Le Frigo Communautaire is receiving a consistent flow of donations, which has helped the initiative remain up and running throughout the pandemic. 

“Restaurants and food services were closing, so I would often wake up to find boxes of food on every step of my staircase,” Chevalot said. “We would rush to get everything to the fridge [.…] We made more and more partnerships with local merchants.”

As many people regularly frequent the fridge, most of the supplies are quick to run out and some residents cannot arrive in time to access their share. To address the demand, Chevalot puts together weekly food baskets for people in the community upon request. 

With the help of five dedicated volunteers, the project quickly gathered momentum. As Le Frigo Communautaire hopes to prepare more food baskets for families in need, their biggest challenge is finding storage space. 

“We are not a registered charity, which means that we cannot give tax income receipts,” Chevalot said. “The best thing that could happen to us is to have a sponsor who could allow us to have a large storage space. We [also] need volunteers with cars able to carry heavy boxes to help us pick up donations.”

Community refrigerators have been popping up across Canada in response to increasing rates of food insecurity and food waste. Given how the pandemic has aggravated issues of financial precarity, seeing people come together to support their neighbours through difficult times is what makes initiatives like Le Frigo Communautaire so fruitful. Community-led efforts like these put resources directly into the hands of those in need. Mutual aid initiatives like the Community Cooks Co-operative are based on similar principles of community support.

“Right now […] we make gigantic food baskets for over 35 families,” Chevalot said. “Many times people who receive these baskets write to us to tell us that they feel loved and cared for, because we take the time to know them. We will put some surprises for the kids and […] prepare meals to give parents a break.”

If you are looking to get involved with Le Frigo Communautaire, you can donate via Interac using the email address [email protected], bring food to the fridge, or make food donations for the food baskets.

Chill Thrills, Student Life

Montreal lights up with Luminothérapie

by Holly Wethey on

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Under curfew, the city sleeps early. The flame of Montreal’s infamous nightlife seems to have been extinguished, leaving no trace of the nocturnal glowscape it once was.

If you have wandered downtown recently, you’ve likely encountered a series of spinning wheels in Quartier des Spectacles. These glowing rings are no alien spacecrafts––they are part of the public art installation LOOP, which hopes to bring back the light that the city has been missing.

LOOP, the 2016-2017 winner of the Luminotherapié multidisciplinary competition for public art installations, features 13 giant glowing loops, which use visual art, light, and sound to pay homage to Quebec authors and artists.  

Olivier Girouard, the artistic director of Ekumen, the company behind LOOP, began the project in 2017. His background in music helped him create LOOP.

“The tools that you use for live performance and outdoor performance art are basically the same,” Girouard said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to transpose that into bigger space.”

Girouard and fellow artist Jonathan Villeneuve were also interested in creating a public merry-go-round, but could not do so for security reasons. Instead, they found a creative alternative.

“I had just run the Toronto marathon and I was interested in human-powered machines,” Girouard said. “With LOOP, we used that same idea and we took the merry-go-round and flipped it on its side.” 

The artists were inspired by the Zoetrope, a device that predates film reels and uses the same circular motion to produce moving images. 

“We reproduced [the Zoetrope] with flickering light,” Girouard said. “The brain creates the illusion that the images are moving.” 

This year, LOOP took an interesting turn when SODEC, a government organization supporting Quebec’s cultural enterprises, was invited to show a piece at the Frankfurt Book Fair, an event which features a pavilion dedicated to a different country each year. This year, with Canada being featured, SODEC hoped to highlight Quebecois culture in the installation and reached out to the creators of LOOP to do a variation of the piece for the book fair.

“SODEC wanted Quebec to be more represented and approached Quartier des Spectacles to do an installation, and we adapted that this year into a new version of LOOP, with 12 stories all representing a Quebec author or book,” Girouard said. 

Each loop tells its own story, such as that of the children’s book Au-Delà de la Forêt by Nadine Robert and Gérard Dubois. The images depict the tale of a rabbit curious about what lies across its forest and climbs the trees only to find a deer in another forest staring back at him.

Not only does the exhibition feature a wide assortment of literature, but its interactivity makes it unique. The lever-pulling action required to activate the installations keeps visitors warm during the winter months.

“In the public space, interactivity is really important,” Girouard said. “What makes [LOOP] special is the different layers of experience; from a distance it’s a light sculpture, already an experience from afar. When you get closer, you see people activating it and you have the option of activating or not. It’s a combination of the sound, the images, the literature, and the sculpture; a meeting of all that art together.” 

LOOP is not the only installation to light up Place des Arts this year; Entre les Rangs allows visitors to walk through a variety of ethereal winter vegetation, and Nouvelle Lune uses music, shadows, and light to reveal images representing the culture of the Quartier des Spectacles.

Girouard is also behind Coeur Battant, a five-minute light show on Rue St. Catherine that can be seen every night at 6:00 p.m. from different buildings throughout Montreal. 

“I wanted to create a piece in solidarity with the public and artists of Montreal to say that we’re still here,” Girouard said. “It’s a five-minute short story representing the year we’ve just been through—the disillusion, the changes, but with an ending describing better days ahead.”

McGill, News

Ongoing Divest McGill boycott of Metro continues into March

by Signy Harnad on

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Five members of Divest McGill met to picket outside the Plateau’s St-Hubert Metro location on March 8 as part of a boycott campaign launched in summer 2020. The small but energetic crowd wielded signs in front of the store for over one hour, braving temperatures below freezing as they engaged Metro customers and passers-by into conversation about the campaign. 

The boycott Metro initiative, which was kickstarted by Climate Justice Montreal in June 2020, is aligned with Divest McGill’s call for the McGill Board of Governors (BoG) to divest investments from their holdings in some of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. According to Sofia Mucci, U3 Arts and Divest McGill member, the goal of the boycott is to put pressure on BoG Vice-Chair Maryse Bertrand—a key BoG member against divestment—by targeting her personal investments and involvement in Metro Inc.

“We are specifically targeting Metro because the Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors is Maryse Bertrand, who earns a salary from Metro Inc. and wields power there,” Mucci said. “We are putting pressure on her by attacking her financial assets.”

Mucci explained that the boycott campaign relies on public engagement and emphasized the curiosity that some customers have shown toward the initiative.

“Some people will come to us with questions, especially younger people,” Mucci said. “Especially because of COVID, people often really want to have conversations with strangers, so they are willing to talk to us.”  

According to a 2020 report, Bertrand earned a retainer of $131,660 from her investments with Metro and held over half a million dollars in shares. Samuel Helguero, L2 Law and Divest McGill member, explained that targeting Betrand is not the sole factor behind the boycott of Metro. 

“[Metro] is an oligopoly,” Helguero said. “Along with a couple of other industry giants, Metro cut their worker’s pandemic pay, but still, at the end of the year, gave their executives […] the near-maximum bonus they could have given to their five top executives.”

Laura Doyle Péan, L2 Law and a Divest McGill member, hopes that the campaign will help stoke a broader conversation about the BoG’s powerful role within the McGill community.

“We are hoping to find ways to get rid of the Board as it currently exists and replace it with something that would allow […] the McGill community to have a say,” Péan said. “We are looking into recruiting people from different subgroups that form the McGill community and all have an interest in democratizing how decisions are made.”

Helguero said the effectiveness of targeted boycotts lay in their focus on targeting money flows as a powerful form of leverage to influence professionals and key decision makers. 

“When you start targeting people’s financial and professional interests, they really have to think about what they are doing,” Helguero said. “There are only so many people that can be convinced when you have hit the democratic walls, because then you [have to] appeal to the moral and intellectual sensibilities of people [….] Many sit on national banks or on the boards of Metro, or have worked for the fossil fuel industry before, like Cynthia Price Vereaux, who worked for Petro-Canada for 18 years.”

Helguero reflected on the course of the campaign, and looked ahead toward educational initiatives that he hopes will spring from the boycott. 

“Maryse Bertrand is now part of a company [that has] a boycott […] against it by environmental activists,” Helguero said. “Hopefully in the future we will be able to use the boycott as a bouncing off point to talk about fossil fuel investments in Canada.”

 

Fact or Fiction, Science & Technology

Fact or Fiction: Does money really buy happiness?

by Margaret Wdowiak on

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Many communities continue to live traditional lifestyles detached from money-based markets. Yet contrary to popular belief, they lead fulfilling lives and their mental well-being is comparable to individuals living in money-fueled societies. This prompts the age-old question of whether money truly buys happiness.

In recent decades, people with more money have been shown to be happier. Financial insecurity, on the other hand, is associated with stress-related health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure. 

However, skeptics argue that money is not the key to happiness because one can never have enough of it. The more wealth someone has accrued, the more they seek out monetary gain. This occurs because the more money one has, the less effective it is at bringing comfort and pleasure. Research argues that once people have their basic human needs met, the increase in happiness associated with each dollar diminishes. 

There are three main reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, once people are financially secure, they overestimate the value of excess funds—humans are adaptable, and swiftly adjust to new wealth and everything it affords. Therefore, the satisfaction from higher earnings quickly fades. 

Secondly, studies have shown that increased economic standing leads to stress that arises from lifestyle changes that include moving to the suburbs, where longer commute times to and from work induce anxiety. 

Finally, money-fixated societies encourage people to compare themselves to their peers, rendering happiness fleeting; in such instances relative happiness matters more than absolute happiness. 

Another challenge to the notion that money can buy happiness is that high happiness levels have been observed in less economically developed nations. A recent study conducted by a group of McGill researchers found that high levels of well-being can be achieved in minimally monetized societies. 

“In a minimally monetized society, people don’t need money to fulfill their basic needs,” Eric Galbraith, a professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Instead they can grow or forage their own food and build most of their own houses and tools.” 

The researchers compared the subjective well-being levels in the Solomon Islands, a remote island chain in the western Pacific, and that of low-income communities in Bangladesh to high income societies in the West. They conducted a survey measuring emotional well-being, affect balance, and momentary affect. Emotional well-being refers to the mood generated from a particular experience, while affect balance measures the difference between positive and negative emotions. 

To determine affect balance, researchers interviewed participants about the emotions they had experienced the previous day. Data on momentary affect was studied by telephoning participants at random times to assess their emotional state. 

The team found high subjective well-being within minimally monetized societies. 

“We were surprised to find that people in the least monetized society reported being just as happy as people in the wealthiest countries, and reported being much happier than people in monetized societies with low incomes,” Galbraith wrote. 

Solomon Islanders reported sources of happiness such as nature and relaxation, while Bangladeshis emphasized the importance of social and material factors.

“The answers we got from the less monetized societies were more about experience, more about certain activities, and they were less about social ties and economic outcomes,” Christopher Barrington-Leigh, an associate professor in McGill Department of Economics, said in an interview with the Tribune. 

Overall, the study challenges the perception that personal financial growth inevitably leads to increased life satisfaction.

“Our results show that, although people with high incomes are (on average) happier, it’s not the income itself that matters,” Galbraith wrote. “Rather, it’s probably a combination of factors like the freedom to make choices, social recognition, and living within a functioning society that matters.”

McGill, News, Private

Expanding Economics panel considers the importance of decolonizing economics

by Saylor Catlin on

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Expanding Economics, a McGill initiative that aims to promote pluralism within the field of economics, hosted the virtual panel, “Decolonizing Economics” on Feb. 27. Panellists discussed how colonial legacies have influenced economic development and economic theory and suggested ways to decolonize economics from an academic perspective. The event featured Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies, and Carolina Cristina Alves, a research fellow in heterodox economics, both at the University of Cambridge. Joining them was Carol Anne Hilton, the CEO and founder of Indigenomics Institute, an Indigenous economic advisory group. 

Shanaya D’sa, U3 Arts and Expanding Economics co-vice-president events introduced the event’s panellists and spoke on the relevance of decolonization in a colonial capitalist society. 

“Our goal for today is to bring to light the ways in which colonialism has played a formative role in present mainstream economics and economic development so that we can actively decolonize our mindsets and our education,” D’sa said. 

Gopal began the discussion, offering insight into the ways imperialism and monoculturalism have shaped contemporary academic curricula. She explained how post secondary institutions have greatly benefited from the flow of resources and profits produced by colonialism.

“Universities in the West […] were able to accumulate archives, specimens, objects, information,” Gopal said. “All of these things [were] afforded to them […] by colonial knowledge gathering.”

Gopal felt that there is no single way to go about decolonizing higher education and curricula, but emphasized that attention to history is essential.

“Decolonization is meaningless without a set of principles […] that allow it to emerge as a practice that is sensitive to the present and to context steeped in historical awareness,” Gopal said. “There is something still to be said for universities as sites where intellectual and transformative work can intersect.” 

Alves then detailed how heterodox schools of thought—economic theories that diverge from mainstream economic principles—play a role in decolonizing economics by diversifying economic theory. She argued that the normalization of capitalism in economic development theories and the Eurocentric underpinnings of the discipline necessitates heterodox thinking. 

“Economic theories that developed in Europe are the ones that become the starting points for economists to analyze everything,” Alves said. “[These theories are] literally one size fits all. There is this idea that [Western] scholarship […] is the one that is valued, so we exclude local knowledge [and] we do not consider theory […] that is related to scholars from the Global South.” 

Alves argued that universities should acknowledge and integrate non-Western ideas into economics curricula. 

“Representation [of what?] is really about how we understand […] the development of our economic theories,” Alves said. “[We try] to understand who gets to define what we are studying, who gets to define what is economics, and then [we try] to break this intellectual hierarchy that we see in our discipline.”

Hilton concluded the panel by highlighting the ways that Canada’s Eurocentric economy has challenged Indigenous communities and exploring how these barriers could be overcome. 

“Here in Canada, the Indigenous peoples […] are the only ones who have had to fight for the right to an economy,” Hilton said. “There is no other population within this country who have had to express what our rights were across time, what our rights are today, and how we create that economic and legal space today and in our future.”

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, D’sa emphasized the importance of creating space for discussions on the legacies of colonialism. 

“The colonizer [versus] colonized superiority [complex] and [the] power dynamic is something that has seeped through the generations,” D’sa said. “It’s important for us to […] be aware that the economic theory that we study today is […] a byproduct of colonialism to begin with.”

Student Life

The history behind Women’s History Month

by Maya Mau on

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Content warning: Sexual assault

What started as Women’s History Day on March 19, 1911 eventually became Women’s History Month, an international worldwide celebration in March. Today, Women’s History Month prompts us to commemorate the powerful women who have shaped the world and advocated for gender equality. 

Though two lengthy world wars saw women increasingly working outside the home in roles previously filled by men, social and political change was largely pushed to the back burner. Nevertheless, women advocated for their labour to be recognized and for more employment opportunities. During the first celebrations in 1911, over one million people worldwide marched for social reform on March 19. There was a growing consciousness that women should not be confined to the domestic sphere and should have access to the professional world outside the home. 

The United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975 to spotlight the fight for women’s equality. In 1978, a California school district dedicated a week to educating students about women’s contributions to culture, history, and society. U.S. President Jimmy Carter made Women’s History Week official in 1980, and Congress did the same a year later. Six years later, in 1987, a National Women’s History Project petition successfully extended the celebration to one full month.

Although the Canadian government officially recognizes Women’s History Month in October, many Canadians still celebrate women who have made an impact in March. There have been many notable Canadian women throughout history, such as the Famous Five, who advocated for women’s political rights in the 1920s when the Canadian government did not legally recognize women as people. Feminist activists have shaped the Canadian social landscape and paved the way for better legal rights and professional opportunities for women. However, figures like the Famous Five also leave behind a fraught legacy of racism, eugenics, and anti-immigration. In celebrating their achievements, it is crucial to recognize that their advocacy did not include all women. 

Marie-Lynn Mansour, U3 Engineering and McGill Women in Tech’s vice-president (VP) external, and Safiya Rizwan, U2 Science and VP communication, emphasize the importance honouring the women who have fought for gender equality.

“We cherish Women’s History Month as it is a time to honour and recognize the past, [to] acknowledge accomplishments made [in] the present, and [to] work towards improving the future,” Mansour and Rizwan wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “We believe there is no better way to learn than from understanding the history of the struggles women have endured as well as their triumphs. [… In addition,] we believe Women’s History Month is also a time to inspire younger women to become passionate about their rights.”

In celebrating Women’s History Month, it is crucial to interrogate the figures we celebrate and recognize that meaningful feminism must be intersectional. There are many women from marginalized backgrounds who have not always enjoyed the same rights as white women or seen their advocacy recognized––a trend which continues today. Among them is Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who helped other African Americans make their way to Canada in the early 19th century, and founded a weekly publication to assist other escaped and formerly enslaved people. In addition, Edith Anderson Monture, a Mohawk WWI veteran, was the first Indigenous woman to gain the right to vote in a Canadian federal election and the first to become a registered nurse during the war. 

Lea Lepik, U4 Arts and co-president of McGill Women in Leadership, believes that it is particularly important for McGill students to recognize current and past gender inequalities within the university’s community this month. In particular, Lepik noted the crucial context of recent sexual assault allegations on college campuses.

“The fight against patriarchy (among other sources of oppression) is far from over, as is evidenced by the tragic events of last semester in which a string of sexual assaults on campus came to light,” Lepik wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Having experienced on-campus violence myself, this hit close to home as I could, unfortunately, relate to the brave women who came forward. I stand by them and hope they are able to get justice and some peace.”

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Determining the criteria for postmortem organ donation

by Cyril Kazan on

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In the past, a person’s death was determined by the absence of breathing and a heartbeat. However, the introduction of the mechanical ventilator has complicated death determination. In patients with severe damage to the brain, breathing stops, which causes the heart to stop beating. Through life support, doctors can now keep a patient clinically alive by mechanically ventilating them with a machine, even if they do not have a functioning brain. 

“When things cannot get better with time or treatment, all life support does is prolong an inevitable death,” Dr. Sam Shemie, an intensive care doctor at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGill, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “When the patient cannot recover, or cannot recover with any quality of life, there is usually a decision with the family to stop life support.” 

In these situations, doctors often bring up the question of organ donation to the patient’s family. 

“Someone’s inevitable death can still help many other people through organ donation, to prevent death for other people,” Shemie said. 

Some organ donations, like kidney transplants, can be performed with no significant impact on a living donor’s health. When it comes to donating vital organs, the “dead donor rule,” an ethical and legal requirement in Canada and the United States, states that the donor must be deceased before their organs are removed. 

Until recently there was no formal scientific study defining when exactly a patient can be considered dead. The “five-minute rule” was the most widely accepted standard, which simply suggests that doctors should wait five minutes after removing the patient from life support before proceeding with organ removal. 

An international study conducted in three countries including Canada was the first to examine the five-minute rule in great detail. Shemie, who is also the senior investigative researcher of the study, described the goals of their inquiry.

“We wanted to confirm that this is a safe waiting period before proceeding to donation,” Shemi said. 

The results showed that out of 480 patients, there were 67 instances where a resumption of cardiac activity was detected, all within a maximum of four minutes and 20 seconds after the removal of life support. 

“At the end of life, the heart can sputter, stop, and restart transiently to a minor degree before it stops completely,” Shemie said. “But as long as we wait five minutes, it is safe. These transient resumptions are of unclear significance.” 

Organ donation is a race against time, as any unnecessary delay increases the risk of unsuccessful transplantation and deterioration of the organs. The study confirmed that five minutes is a safe waiting time.

“Once the heart stops beating, all the organs that can be transplanted start to suffer, so they have to be removed for transplant very quickly,” Shemie said. “We don’t have to wait more, and we shouldn’t wait less.” 

The most common form of organ donation in Canada remains donation from patients who are brain dead, meaning an absence of activity is detected from electrical measurements of a patient’s brain. It is important to distinguish brain death from cardiac death, where the brain may still have some residual function when life support is removed. In the case of cardiac death, the study has shown that waiting five minutes after the removal of the ventilation machine assures that the patient is dead and that it is safe to proceed with organ donation. 

“[The results] just add to the trust of families, doctors, and nurses,” Shemie said. “If any doctor has ever seen the heart restart beating on its own, they might have some questions or concerns about that. We now have answered this question very clearly. Our goal as doctors is to save as many lives as we can [….] Organ donation is really the intersection of the unpreventable death of one person, and the preventable death of many people.”

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