Sam Reynolds

What started as a small protest in Vancouver and gained momentum on Wall Street became a global force on Saturday, Oct. 15, with occupations taking place in hundreds of cities globally. Montreal’s Square Victoria, in the downtown financial district, became the meeting point for almost a thousand ralliers and 30 to 40 tents over the weekend.

While the spirit of the movement was there, the message was less clear than that expressed on Wall Street. Most signs and supporters expressed dissatisfaction with the financial system and the lack of regulations which led to the financial meltdown in 2009. A few members of MUNACA were in attendance carrying banners, while others were waving Syrian flags. Others raised the issues of higher welfare for unemployed youth, native land claims, and environmental activism.

Angelo Cinquino, a participant who carried a sign saying “Debt is the root of all evil,” acknowledged all the mixed messages of the occupation. “Everyone’s got their own —I’m not going to say agenda—but their own reason for being here, which is [what] I think they intended it to be, but I don’t think the people are getting to the root of the problem, which I was hoping they would,” Cinquino said.

The root of the problem and his reason for attending the protest is Canadian debt, which he believes could be eradicated through a better financial system.

Others at the rally were not concerned by media reports of a the lack of a coherent, unified message.

“It’s always great to see people doing something about things that make them angry. The critique of this movement …  is that there’s no clear project, and I guess I understand that critique, [but] first you have to get together and figure out what you want to do,” Bob White, a professor of anthropology at the University of Montreal, who carried his young daughter on his shoulders, said.

“But it’s hard, one of the problems in the movement is there’s an ethic of consensus, and there’s an ethic of egalitarianism and those things are great. But sometimes they limit the movement,” he added.

Underneath tarps that kept the rain off, free food was handed out by several kitchen collectives, all of whom intended to return with more food for the duration of the occupation. At times, the rally seemed as much like a festival as a political movement, with music blaring and spontaneous bouts of drumming. A medical table was set up mid-afternoon.

“I found out on the internet that every occupy site has a medic site, and I’m a nursing student so I decided to come here. My plan is to come back, all the time I can,” a nursing student who chose to be identified only as Natalie, said.

At 3 p.m., demonstrators moved to the north side of Square Victoria for a general assembly. Since there is no official organization, hierarchy, or leadership within the movement, decision-making was entirely consensus-based.

A few police cruisers blocked off traffic, part of the minimal police presence at the rally. Under Montreal’s bylaws Square Victoria is technically a square and not a park, but overnight camping is still illegal. Police are observing the occupation and no arrests were made Saturday night.

Although most of the ralliers disbanded at the end of Saturday, those who remained intend to stay.

One protestor, a student at Cégep du Vieux Montreal, said he planned to stay “until I get way too cold or beaten up by the cops.”

He went on to explain his reasons for occupying Square Victoria. “Personally, I want the end of capitalism, and I want self-determination, and that’s what’s happening right now, people are gathering and making decisions by themselves. It’s anarchy in the sense that’s defined in the dictionary, not in the sense that the media uses it.”

Until now, students who wanted to avoid crossing the picket line in solidarity with MUNACA could not do so because of their required presence on campus. Fortunately for these students, SSMU proposed an “academic amnesty” measure  to McGill’s Senate that could offer them some protection from any penalties they might otherwise incur.

“Students can suffer academically in an environment when they don’t feel like they have the support that they need,”  Emily Yee Clare, SSMU VP of University Affairs, explained.

This prompted the SSMU caucus in McGill’s Senate to put forth the proposed motion.

SSMU VP Clare believes that students suffer not only from a lack of support because of the MUNACA strike, but also suffer a moral quandry between doing what they believe is right, and attending class.

The motion attempts to address key areas of concern regarding university policy and academic conduct by providing students with the protection and support to express individual perspectives surrounding the strike, at any level of moral and/or ethical conflict. In such cases, an Academic Amnesty would provide students with the choice to abstain from certain academic commitments without penalty.   

“Even if the tendency may be for people to use [this motion] to justify more political, moral and ethical reasoning, we really just want the motion to stand on its own merit,” Clare said.

For some students, crossing the MUNACA picket line presents a moral dilemma.

“Whether you cross the picket line or not is a personal choice, but I think it is one that we should be allowed to make and students and professors who do so should not be punished,” Sean Phipps, a concerned U2 student, said.

“I understand the practical difficulties of this amnesty, but I still feel SSMU is right in pushing for it, even if just on the grounds of principle alone,” Phipps said.

There is some concern that the Academic Amnesty policy could be misused. The motion attempts to address these issues with provisions that make notifications of all future absences mandatory 72 hours in advance.  In addition, there have been restrictions placed on specific academic commitments from which a student can abstain. These include those that will affect the students’ final grade and opportunity of passing a course.

Despite these provisions, some still criticize the motion as being too far reaching, and even detrimental to students.

“By not crossing picket lines to attend university classes, [students] are ultimately just hurting themselves, not making a great stand for humanity,” Chelsea Gilliam, U3 Science, said.  

The motion will be voted on by a secret ballot, which is done to prevent the political dilution of the motion itself and avoid any further disputes which may alter the results in any way. The vote is scheduled to occur at Senate this Wednesday Oct. 19 at 2:30 p.m.

On Oct. 6, the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) General Council passed a controversial motion which allocates up to $4,000 of the society’s budget to provide SUS executives with iPhone 4 devices and paid data plans.

The motion, which passed with a vote of 14-9, had the support of all six voting members of the SUS executive and eight other representatives to the council. In addition to the executive, SUS General Council (GC) is comprised of two science student senators, three representatives from SSMU, and 19 representatives from departmental organizations.

The issue of the paid mobile plans first came up during a reading of the budget in late September, when a council member noticed the amount as a line item, a single expense listed simply as “phone plans.” Prior to the reading, no mention had been made of the executive’s intention to use society funds for this purpose. According to other representatives, the iPhones had already been purchased with signed contracts.

“They bought the [phone] plans [first], and then it was brought to council after that point,” Max Luke, one of two science senators who sit on GC, said. “The budget was up for approval at this meeting, [and] someone asked about the phone plan on the budget. That was really the first time we heard about it.”

Luke suggested that if no one had noticed the line item, it would likely have simply passed along with the general budget.

Following an onslaught of questions from other councillors, the issue was tabled, and the amount was temporarily removed from the budget. Representatives called for more information and a code of conduct regarding use of the phones. Both were presented at the next meeting before the motion passed. The updated motion states that the four executives who already owned iPhone 4s would not be eligible to have their plans paid for, leaving four plans to be covered by SUS.

SUS executives have maintained that the phones will improve communication between them and the students they represent, allowing them to communicate on SUS matters while in class. The phones, for SUS business use only, will remain the property of the society.

Akal Sethi, Executive Revenue Office of the SUS, pointed to collaboration over their last Listserv as an example of the necessity of the phones.

“In the span of three hours, we shot between 20 emails. We were all in class…[but] still in constant communication with each other.”

Elaine Xie, the VP Finance of the SUS, explained that funding for the phones comes from corporate sponsors and not student fees.

“No part of what students are giving us are going to these phones.” Xie said. “We use [sponsorship] money to better our ability to help the students, and we felt that getting these phones … was a way to help the students better.”

Many representatives on the council voiced concern over the necessity of the expensive plans. Anthony Yu, Co-President of the McGill Biochemistry Undergraduate Society, voted against the measure because his organization wanted to see more concrete evidence for how the devices will benefit SUS.

“BUGS thought that more preparation (facts, statistics) and more transparency (notifying everyone before actually getting [sic] the phones, even if it was inevitable) was needed in the affair,” Yu said in an email to the Tribune.

Luke echoed Yu’s concerns, questioning the need for such expensive devices.

“The rationale was that the phones will make life more efficient … but [other faculty associations] and [even] senators get a lot of email as well and manage,” Luke said. “[My vote against it] was really just on principle …  [that and the fact] that they slipped it into the budget …  without really consulting at all.”

While the funding did come from sponsorship, and the executive alleges that SUS events have their own funding and sponsors, that money could potentially otherwise be put towards student services and activities.

“Traditionally that [sponsorship] money has been used for expenditures which enhance SUS. In the past it has also been used for events for students as well,” Luke said.  “I guess you could say that by purchasing these phones you might be detracting from a student event, … [but] it’s not outside the realm of normality to use it for something like phones.”

The meeting minutes of the General Council of Oct. 6, which give specifics on the motion, have yet to be released. Luke felt this may be in response to the public scrutiny the whole issue has received.

“Usually the minutes come out two or three days after GC, [and] it’s been over a week,” Luke said.

Anna Katycheva

This past windy, rainy, weekend, students had a glimmer of hope: their parents came up to visit, and alumni from past years met current students at homecoming.

“Every year McGill welcomes back thousands of graduates for homecoming. Alumni not only get the chance to reconnect with the university and each other; they also have the opportunity to attend dozens of entertaining and educational events,” read a statement on the Alumni Association website.  

Many parents and students took advantage of the weekend as a way to reunite after weeks apart.

“We came to see our daughter here at McGill,” Brad Klassen, one parent who came to McGill over the weekend, said.

“We just wanted to engage into her life, and so when she’s telling stories, we know [what] she’s talking about,” Angela Klassen, his wife, added.

The Klassens, who visited McGill from British Columbia, had not seen their daughter, Christina Klassen, U0, since she began the year at McGill in late August.

Christina Klassen added that she had several friends who were also excited to have their parents come up and visit them.

Another set of parents, the Mendelsons, said that they also enjoyed coming up and seeing how their U0 son has been doing at McGill.

“We went out on a pub crawl with our son last night, and today we went down to the Old Port,” Houston Mendelson said.

“He also introduced us to poutine,” Maggie Mendelson, his wife, added.

Even students who did not have parents coming to visit them seemed enthusiastic about the weekend.

“For students to have their parents here is a good support system,” Obed Cundangin, U0 arts student and New Rez President, said.

“All these first-years are kind of lost, and to have their parents here stabilizes them and helps them put their feet back on the ground.”

Cundangin also encouraged   his fellow New Rez students to go to homecoming last weekend.

“We’re trying to get people out, show some spirit,” he said. “It’s a precedent for the rest of the school year. If we can get people spirited now, then we can get people spirited the entire way through [the school year].”

While new students prepared for their first homecoming, many former students came back to McGill to enjoy the day as well.

“I really missed Montreal and I wanted to see some of my friends so I came [to homecoming],” Damian Burd, who graduated with an MBA with the class of 2001, said.

Burd encouraged all alumni to return to their alma mater.

“If I could,” Burd said, “I would come back every two or three years.”

Sam Reynolds

Montreal may seem worlds away from Libya and Muamar Gaddafi, but McGill professor Rex Brynen would argue otherwise. Having spent the summer in Benghazi as a consultant to the rebel leadership, Brynen is all too connected to the Libyan situation.

Brynen took part in a roundtable presented by the Atlantic Council of Canada on ‘Life After Gaddafi: Prospects for Post-War Libya’ on Oct. 13 at McGill.  The roundtable consisted of five guest speakers debating issues pertaining to the future of Libya.

“The real challenge in constructing and rebuilding Libya will not be physical reconstruction, but institutional,” Brynen said. He explained the need for widespread, functional changes in response to factionalism and cronyism currently present in the Libyan system of government.

“I’m absolutely gobsmacked by how many people have turned up for the event,” Dr. Bernd Goetze, one of the event hosts and director of the Atlantic Council’s Quebec division, said.

The Atlantic Council works to build public knowledge of international peace, security, and NATO through the publication of articles, roundtable and youth events, and competitions.

At this particular event, speakers discussed a range of issues, from personal accounts of Libya’s history under Gaddafi to the much more optimistic current situation from Salhin Gheriani, who concluded that “Libya is full of activity, and you have to prepare to be amazed.”

Dr. Miloud Chennoufi of the Canadian Forces College explained the role of the rebel leadership in the National Transitional Council, cautioning against too much optimism for the country’s future.

“The West is not interested in democracy in the Arab world. It has never been interested in democracy in the Arab world,” he said.

Dr. Imad Mansour, a faculty lecturer at McGill, took a more removed view in questioning Libya’s prospects for peace or violence.

“We are seeing more continuities than ruptures, but the problems will continue,” he concluded.

The final panelist was former diplomat Mr. Paul Chapin.  He took a positive stance, asserting that the revolution will provide peace and prosperity for the Libyans, but emphasized the importance of nuanced foreign involvement.

“We’re not going to make the mistake of coming in and telling them how to run their country,” he said.

After the presentations, the speakers discussed the results of the roundtable.

“I thought it was an excellent discussion,” Brynen said. “There were a broad range of perspectives offered by the panellists, and the large student audience seemed informed and engaged.”

Tom Aagaard, a research analyst from the Atlantic Council, agreed.

“There’s so much momentum behind this issue,” Aagaard said. It was surprisingly easy to get people involved because it’s such a hot topic right now. Although the tone was a little cynical tonight, the council does go for honest and critical discussion with a variety of perspectives.”

Michal Khan, U3 Middle East studies and political science, found the talk especially relevant in its discussion of the impact of policy on the Libyan community.

“Often in university events on politics like these, academics like professors are the only ones involved. So we get the analytic academic side of the story. The strength of the panel in my opinion is that we not only got different academic perspectives but also how the events in Libya impact governments and their officials and the Libyan community,” Khan said.

Sam Reynolds

On Oct. 1, the Bachelors of Arts and Science Integrative Council (BaSIC) asked its students what stance they wanted to take on the MUNACA strike.

When the results came in, the favoured response, with 44 per cent of the vote, was to maintain neutrality. Supporting the strike was selected by 37 per cent. The remainder, 19 per cent, were against the the strike.

As a result, BaSIC decided to remain neutral on the strike.

“We didn’t even discuss it in the executive. At AUS council, our VP external abstained. We would just go with whatever the surveys said,” Hubie Yu, BaSIC’s president, said.

In addition, the survey had an optional and anonymous comments section in which students could post their thoughts about the issue. Some questioned the validity of having a stance on this issue as a student group, while others criticized the lack of a fourth option condemning the strike. One commenter simply said they would rather see the money MUNACA might eventually get put towards more valuable uses like keeping tuition fees down.

Some students were pleased that BaSIC conducted the survey and consulted students before taking a stance.

“It’s just amazing that BaSIC, as an organisation, is willing to engage its membership and find out their views on a controversial topic such as this; it would have been unfair of them to assume their constituents are for the strike,” Brendan Stevens, a U2 political science student  and member of Conservative McGill, said.

Other students wondered why more organisations did not conduct similar surveys.

“Student groups should consult their constituent members, which SSMU did at the General Assembly, but there were only 100 people out of the huge amount that represents SSMU at that and they tend to be the ones who are more politically engaged anyway and more likely to support the strike so it really depends on the organisation,” Grace Khare, a student at McGill, said.

AUS and SUS have not taken positions on the strike due to opposition.

“We haven’t taken a position: there was a motion put forward two councils ago saying that we take a position on the strike, which did not go through,” Jade Calver, President of the AUS, said.

SUS President Akshay Rajaram noted that while the society has not taken a stance, this is as a result of a lack of information on how the strike affects their students.

“We discussed the issues affecting students in general council and with our dean but we haven’t formally taken a stance,” he said. “Depending on the year [at McGill], students are being affected differently in regards to the strike.”

Lindsay Cameron

Lindsay Cameron

To many, the clerical abuse scandal in the Catholic clergy was something that happened in 2002 when media reports were first released, and has only appeared in the public consciousness sporadically since then. This is certainly not the case within the Catholic Church. On Oct. 14 and 15, McGill hosted “Trauma and Transformation: the Catholic Church and the Sexual Abuse Crisis,” a conference which drew together seven bishops, 50 nuns and priests, dozens of academics, and around 20 students to talk about clergy abuse, and how to resolve and prevent it.

“It is significant that this is the first time there has been a major academic conference that is at a secular university,” Dan Cere, a McGill Religious Studies professor and conference co-host, said.

“Most of the conversations that have gone to date [within the Catholic Church] have tended to focus on …  ‘what are the codes, what are the protocols that we need to put in place to stop this?’ They haven’t really looked at what the systemic issues are.”

A study released in May 2011 by the John Jay School of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York looked at statistics of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church from 1950 to 2010 in America. Principal investigator Karen Terry found that incidents of abuse had peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, implying that abuse may not, as previously thought, be endemic within the Catholic Church, but could be linked with particular phenomena of that era.

“We found that the rise in abusive behavior within the Church was consistent with rises in other types of behavior in society,” Terry said.

These included rises in crime, drug usage, divorce, and premarital sex. While Terry emphasized that these behaviors did not cause abuse, the social factors that caused these behaviors to increase may also have contributed towards the increase in abuse in the Catholic Church.

“The dioceses at this point need to continue to provide safe environment programs … but they still need to be held accountable, and they need to increase their transparency in responses to abuse,” Terry said, recommending changes for the church based on the study.

Archbishop Mancini of Halifax suggested that reforms need to be made within the church, including the church’s age-old teachings on sexuality.

“The fact is that sexuality is part of the human condition, and when it is ignored, minimized, or inadequately understood, the result is devastation in people’s lives.”

Instead of ignoring sexuality the way the church has in the past, Mancini urged more discussion on the subject, specifically to allow priests to understand themselves and develop.

Another conference participant, Fr. George Wilson, indicated that the Catholic Church should allow parishoners more power in matters of faith than had been previously granted.

“We should have laymen and laywomen on the board [to ordain priests] making that decision [of who becomes a priest and who does not],” Wilson said.

McGill Student Ombudsperson Spencer Boudreau felt that the abuse that occurred within the Catholic Church could be examined as a case study for other large institutions.

“I think the conference has a message to students that it’s important to speak about any kind of abuse,” Boudreau said.

“I’m in education. A big issue now for example is bullying that goes on in schools and on the Internet … that’s a form of abuse that maybe all of us have to be more sensitive about … I think that we always have to be sensitive to abuse.”

Students felt that the experience was unique and contradicted the views long thought to be true about the Catholic Church’s attitudes towards sexual abuse.

“I think the image from this conference is one that sharply contrasts the one that the mass media has been portraying since this issue erupted … that the church is complacent, that it’s not interested in improvement … but the sense that you get from a conference like this … is that they do care and that they are being proactive…. ” Julian Paparella, a U0 science student volunteering at the event, said.

“As the younger generation, we’re not necessarily directly affected as individuals by this particular issue, but it’s one about which we need to be knowledgable in order that in the future, we may not experience what we did in the past.”