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McGill, News

Board of Governors discuss preparations for in-person classes

by Ella Milloy on

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McGill University’s Board of Governors (BoG) convened for its first meeting of the Winter 2021 semester on Feb. 11, where it discussed plans for the Fall 2021 semester and McGill’s key performance indicators in multiple areas, such as academics and sustainability. Notable topics of the meeting included the Building and Property Committee’s report on the New Vic Project, the Fiat Lux Library Project, the Stewart Biology West Wing Redevelopment project, as well as a report by the Finance Committee regarding the 2022 budget.

At the start of the meeting, members of the Board discussed whether vaccination would be mandatory for those hoping to return to campus after the summer. They also deliberated the ongoing preparations for the Fall 2021 semester, and how in-person activities will be held during the rest of the Winter 2021 session. Provost and Vice Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi raised concerns that international students may have for the return to in-person activities in the fall and shared the Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal Academic (OPVPA)’s plans to facilitate a smooth transition.

“We are actively working on our scenarios for the fall,” Manfredi said. “We know that Fall 2021 won’t look like Fall 2019, but it also can’t look like Fall 2020. We are looking at what the thresholds would be for in-person teaching activities, and how we can reconfigure our course schedule and our use of classrooms to give us maximum flexibility. Our objective is to have as much happen in-person on campus in the fall as we can.”

The Board assessed the various ongoing construction and renovation projects at the university. After the Building and Property Committee provided a brief update on the New Vic and Fiat Lux Library projects, the Board approved a request to proceed with the Stewart Biology Building West Wing’s redevelopment, which includes a full interior renovation. 

Vice-Principal of Administration and Finance Yves Beauchamp addressed budgetary adjustments necessitated by COVID-19, such as ventilation upgrades.

“In all our new designs [for the project], we will need to consider all of those [COVID upgrades],” Beauchamp said. “This will be something [our team] will be discussing [….] There will be staff working on [amassing] all the knowledge we can gather, [including] the best practices regarding space, mechanics, and flex times. We will [collect] all of that information in order to advise on future projects.”

Provost Manfredi presented McGill’s planned budget for the 2021-2022 year. For the 2021 fiscal year, the committee found no red flags in the expenditure or revenue reports that suggest exceeding McGill’s predicted deficit of $13.1 million. The Finance Committee will move the 2022 budget for approval at the Board’s meeting on April 22. 

Moment of the Meeting: 

Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier discussed the Faculty of Management’s new Couche-Tard store. Built as a retail innovation laboratory, the Couche-Tard at the Bensadoun School of Retail Management uses new technologies which allow students to visit and shop without having to stop by a cashier. The new store is located on the ground floor of the Bronfman Building.

Soundbite: 

“The process in building the fiscal [2022] budget is proceeding as planned. In fact, we have essentially finished the preliminary work of working with the faculties and the main administrative units to understand their needs for the [2022] fiscal year in their position. We’ve gathered all the data and done all the consultations we need to do to start putting together a budget for [2022] [….] We’ve developed pessimistic, realistic, and optimistic scenarios [for] each of the [key drivers of revenue] [….] We are using those scenarios [to help build the budget].”  – Provost Christopher Manfredi on the process of developing the 2022 budget in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Basketball, Sports

Movie night: Five exceptional basketball movies

by Adam Burton on

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Sports have a long history on screen, and while there has been a long list of unfortunate misrepresentations of various sports, there has also been an abundance of fantastic movies that remind us of what we love about competition and the blood, sweat and tears that go into being the best at anything. 

At their best, these movies use basketball as a tool to develop character, raise stakes, and highlight hard work and pride. For anybody who needs a break from coursework or just misses pick-up basketball, The McGill Tribune has compiled a list of the best basketball movies to provide that cathartic release needed at the end of a long day of Zoom classes.

White Men Can’t Jump

White Men Can’t Jump is a funny yet serious movie that tells the stories of two men making a living in several now-iconic neighbourhood courts in 1990s Los Angeles. 

Throughout the movie, Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) takes advantage of the stereotype that he is not good at basketball because of the colour of his skin. This goes wrong when Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) catches on and looks to team up with Billy to scam unsuspecting players. 

To say this movie is about basketball is like saying The Godfather is about pasta. This movie is about cultivating friendships, making hard choices, and overcoming differences. On top of that, the movie features Rozy Perez and has fantastic basketball scenes. 

Love and Basketball

Love and Basketball is less about basketball than it is about a connection that binds two people whose love of the game surpasses everything else. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) grow up next to each other, and while they come from entirely different backgrounds, they share a love for basketball. When they finally part ways after college, the two are unable to dismiss their connection to one another, and eventually rekindle their relationship after their professional careers. 

This movie gives a heartfelt depiction of the struggles that college athletes face when weighing the importance of an education against the glamour of a professional career, and the gender disparity in the world of sports.

He Got Game

He Got Game delivers a powerful, thought-provoking experience in line with what many have come to expect from director Spike Lee. This 1998 film features Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen) as a top high school basketball player, and his father Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington), a convicted felon, who tries to persuade his son to accept recruitment to the State Governor’s Alma Mater in return for his release from prison. 

This movie highlights several topics. Themes of inequality, corruption, and family duty are rife, and the cinematography and acting are exceptional, especially when considering this was NBA player Ray Allen’s acting debut. 

Semi-Pro

This masterpiece of a comedy was Will Ferrell’s last movie in a string of sports-themed comedies. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit-wonder musician who owns and plays for his own ABA Basketball franchise in Flint, Michigan. Will Ferrell’s antics and the absurdity of his team management make this movie a delight to watch, while covering an important moment in basketball history that occurred when the NBA acquired the ABA, consolidating the leagues, and marking the end of small market teams. 

Space Jam

It is difficult to write a list of the best basketball movies and not include this cultural touchstone. Space Jam begins with the alien abduction of Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, and Muggsy Bogues. Their basketball talents are transferred to a group of aliens that form their own star team after they were challenged to a game by the Looney Tunes. With the help of Michael Jordan, the Tunes have no choice but to defeat the aliens in a game of basketball and save themselves from abduction. 

The star power of the cast and the combination of live action and animation make the film a spectacle to behold and a classic that holds up to this day.

content warning sa, McGill, News

Sexual Violence Awareness Week emphasizes healing and support for survivors

by Juliet Morrison on

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Content warning: Mentions of sexual violence.

The Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) held its annual “Sexual Violence Awareness week” from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6. The event aimed to provide a safe space for healing and to and equip attendees with tools to better support survivors. The week featured a variety of workshops and information sessions hosted on Zoom, culminating with their “Fire with Water” art show on Saturday night. 

The week kicked off with a workshop, reserved specifically for survivors, that aimed to provide a safe atmosphere for discussion on trauma and experiences of sexual violence. Facilitated by Malek Yalaoui, a Montreal-based advocate and special projects manager at McGill, the workshop explored artistic self-expression and invited participants to share their experiences and feelings about sexual violence. 

Feb. 3’s “Know your Rights” workshop focussed on the various reporting channels for disclosing experiences of sexual violence available to McGill students. Hosted by SACOMSS special events coordinator and U3 Arts student Kirsten Vanderlinde, the event detailed other support that might be helpful for survivors, such as counseling or attending survivor support groups. SACOMSS also emphasized other available routes outside of formal reporting. 

“We decided to host this workshop in hopes of clarifying the very complex and long policies that McGill has in place for reporting sexual violence as well as to help individuals understand a bit more about what could happen if they choose to report to the police,” Vanderlinde wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “We encourage survivors to explore all their options and choose what they feel is best for them as there are often many factors to consider when reporting instances of sexual violence.”

During the a workshop “Supporting Survivors,” speakers dispelled several common myths about sexual violence and shared advice on how to best support survivors. Sara Ghandour, SACOMMS special events coordinator and U1 Medicine and Health Sciences student, underscored the necessity of having strong support systems, especially as survivors may field unresolved trauma when speaking about their personal experiences.

“Unfortunately, for many of us, it is likely that at some point in our lives [or] a loved one will seek support after experiencing an instance of sexual violence,” wrote Ghandour in an email to the Tribune. “These situations can be incredibly stressful, uncomfortable, and intimidating for survivors as well as their supporters [.…] After all, when a loved one comes to us for support, it is only natural that we would want to do our very best to provide them with it and avoid causing any more harm.” 

During “Consent and Comfort in Romantic Relationships,” speakers discussed the impact of sexual violence within relationships. Ghandour detailed how to set healthy boundaries with partners and establish preventative measures in an email to the Tribune. 

“The workshop was intended to create an open discussion on what it means to be in a healthy, comfortable relationship, where consent is regularly maintained, partners respect one another and each others’ boundaries, and both parties feel safe,” Ghandour wrote. “The workshop aimed to broaden preconceived notions on what [it] means to have consent in a relationship and expand from the traditional discourses surrounding consent with one time partners that we often hear about.”

The presentation also discussed the importance of consent in long-term relationships, noting that its absence can lead to sexual coercion and violence. Kennedy Randall, U2 Arts and SACOMSS volunteer, went over different scenarios of consent in non-romantic situations and highlighted the importance of respecting the personal space and boundaries of others. 

“Boundaries are an integral aspect to consent, and [are] important in achieving comfort and consent in relationships,” Randall wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Setting boundaries is an important part of any relationship, not just a romantic one [….] Ultimately, boundaries are to protect ourselves and our well-being, and to promote accountability in our relationships.”

**For more information on reporting instances of sexual assault please refer to the Office for Sexual Violence Response, Support and Education (OSVRSE) or the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS).

Chill Thrills, Student Life

Diving deep into Datamatch

by Holly Wethey on

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Last year, I let an algorithm decide the fate of my love life: My relationship with my now-boyfriend was not the product of a chance encounter, but rather the result of a mathematical calculation. The forces at play will always be mysterious to me; it’s hard to imagine how a series of goofy questions can generate a lasting relationship with a compatibility score of 99.82 per cent.

It’s likely you’ve already heard about Datamatch, a Harvard University-based dating service that has a chapter at McGill. Considering my personal connection to this matchmaking service, I decided to take a deep dive into the platform.

Participants take an entertaining survey, and the team of “Datamatch Cupids” uses a secret algorithm to generate a list of matches for each participant. The matches are then released on Valentine’s Day. 

Anthony Schokalsky, U3 Arts, brought the matchmaking service to McGill, which is currently the only university outside of the U.S. to offer it. 

“I was scrolling through the Harvard subreddit in Fall 2018 and saw Datamatch being discussed and thought it was pretty cool,” Schokalsky wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “So I emailed the Datamatch exec asking them if they’d be interested in bringing it to McGill [….] I then became campus lead (or a “campus cupid” as we’re often referred to) and helped launch it at McGill for the first time last year.” 

According to Schokalsky, McGill is similar to some of the other universities that have taken part in Datamatch.

“I liked the idea of a university-exclusive dating app, which kinda felt like an early Facebook vibe,” Schokalsky said. “Plus, I feel like McGill has always had this tangential connection to East Coast [university] culture, so it just made sense to me that we’d be a part of Datamatch.”

Mariam Hegazy, U1 Arts, is a 2021 Datamatch McGill Campus Leader. According to Hegazy, the platform is great for those who have given up on dating apps. 

“It takes away the embarrassment and awkwardness of first contact,” Hegazy said. “Whether it’s a serious way to find love depends on the person […] but there’s a funny dynamic where someone will say that they’re doing it for jokes, but they actually do want to meet someone.”

Indeed, the joking nature of the questions helps to keep the platform lighthearted. 

“Campus leads make the questions, using those from previous years as inspiration. We made it McGill specific and we tried to inject a lot of humour in the air,” Hegazy said.

With campus activity shifting online this year, Datamatch now allows users to share their location and offers the option to participate in virtual dates.

“Participation numbers have more than tripled this year,” Hegazy said. “There’s an increase in the desire to meet people now [that] you don’t get that same social interaction these days, and people are really vying for that, so the demand has definitely gone up.” 

A glance at the Datamatch Instagram page shows McGill to be in fourth place with 1993 total individual users as of Feb. 10, just a few places behind Harvard University. 

Unlike other dating apps, the limited number of choices on Datamatch also encourages participants to contact the matches they do have, pushing them to “shoot their shot.”

If that isn’t enough to sell the platform, perhaps the free food is. This year, Datamatch has collaborated with Montreal restaurants to bring all users discounts on meals, as well as offer a draw for couples to win a gift card. Among the restaurant sponsors are Chef on Call, Falafel Yoni, and Café Nocturne.

After my deep dive into Datamatch, I still haven’t uncovered the secrets of the algorithm. But maybe I don’t need to understand all the calculations and considerations in part responsible for my relationship. Maybe, that’s the beauty of it: Like the website says, the mysterious forces behind this matchmaking service are certainly open to interpretation. 

Creative

The T: “Tier 2 Rollout and Schulich COVID-19 Risk” Feb. 12

by Sequoia Kim on

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This week on the show:
• McGill announces gradual rollout of ‘Tier 2’ academic in-person activities
• Some Schulich students allege that a recent in-person ensemble rehearsal posed a COVID-19 risk

Episode links:
• McGill plans to implement Tier 2 in-person academic activities, by News Editor Kate Addison
www.thetribune.ca/news/09-02-2021/

• Beware of McGill’s hazardous reopening plan, by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board
www.thetribune.ca/opinion/beware…-plan02092021/

Host: Sequoia Kim, News Editor
Guest speaker: Kate Addison, News Editor
Podcast Producers: Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Alex Hinton, Creative Director Aidan Martin, Editor-In-Chief Helen Wu
Artwork design: Design Editor Chloe Rodriguez

Creative, Video

Connecting on CourseLnk

by Noah Vaton on

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Staff producer Noah Vaton speaks with Seb Danson, a second year computer science major who partnered with his friends to develop CourseLnk, an app designed to help students connect with their classmates.

Features

Our collective impulses

by Shafaq Nami on

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As students, we often become accidental archivists: Whether it be old class notes or miscellaneous campus merch, our lives are often full of these collections. Sometimes, the collections that initially appear to be trash become treasured. Students also move a lot, resulting in an annual cycle of packing and unboxing, which makes it difficult to sustain one’s collections. Getting rid of belongings should be easy, but sometimes parting with the things one spent time and money collecting seems impossible.

 

I have been collecting books ever since I first learned to read, and it was not until I moved away for university that I even considered giving them up. Moving halfway around the world to attend university sounded like an adventure, until I realized that I had to fit my whole life into two 23-kilogram suitcases. I had not reread many of the books in my collection in years—being too busy with academics, life, and discovering new books—and they were certainly too heavy to transport to a new continent, just for them to collect dust. When I was younger, I defined myself through my books, as they offered me much needed company and adventure. While it was daunting to say goodbye to something I had treasured for years, moving away and travelling gave me a new perspective.

The tendency to collect is certainly not restricted to me, however. In fact, humans have been collecting things ever since they developed the ability to store more things than necessary for basic survival. The different objects people collect as well as the motivations behind these collections intrigued me, so I began investigating what factors inform this phenomenon.

Most human behaviour like collecting is rooted in biology and evolution, evolved from years of survival and self-preservation. Richard Koestner is a professor at McGill’s Department of Psychology whose research focusses on personality and motivation.

“There is an evolutionary explanation that has been offered for almost all human behaviors,” Koestner wrote in an email to //The McGill Tribune//. “I would guess it is largely genetic and […] does confer some broad fitness advantage to individuals, and that there is an advantage to groups if there are some people [present] who collect and organize things.’’

Science & Technology

McGill partners with Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees

by Shirley Xu on

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Think about how often you hit “search” on your computer. From course work to finding the best restaurants in Montreal, students surf the net for almost anything. Ecosia, a free search engine, takes advantage of our internet usage by planting one tree per approximately 45 searches. 

Recently, McGill’s Office of Sustainability and IT Services have collaborated to introduce Ecosia to the McGill community as part of the university’s sustainability strategy. Suppose you perform only one search per day: Combined with the 40,000 students at McGill, nearly 900 trees would be planted every day.

“We’re super grateful for the sustainability team at McGill for encouraging students to switch to Ecosia,” Fred Henderson of the partnerships team at Ecosia wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

The McGill-specific extension for Ecosia is free and voluntary, with easy to follow installation instructions. As affirmed on the company website, Ecosia is committed to protecting user privacy by not selling data to advertisers and operating free of external trackers that companies use to generate targeted ads.

Since its inception in 2009, Ecosia has planted 120 million trees worldwide, and the live tree-planting counter on its homepage continues to grow.

“All of our digital activity […] has its own carbon footprint,” Francois Miller, executive director at the McGill Office of Sustainability, wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Everything we do consumes energy, both locally in our homes and abroad where servers […] are located. Through Ecosia, we are giving McGillians an easy way to neutralize the impact of their web usage.” 

Like any other search engine, Ecosia generates revenue from users clicking on advertisements that appear with search results. The ad revenue is used to fund planting projects worldwide: The company supports over 20 tree planting projects across 15 different countries. 

The trees are planted in biodiversity hotspots, areas abundant in unique species found nowhere else on earth. Alarmingly, the natural vegetation in these hotspots has shrunk by over 70 per cent. Ecosia’s planting projects help preserve biodiversity, combat climate change, regenerate depleted soils, and provide food, jobs, and economic stability to vulnerable communities. 

The company has also built solar farms to fuel their browser searches with renewable energy. 

“That way, we’re not just producing enough energy to power all of our users’ searches with renewables—we are producing twice as much,” Joshua Gottlieb, editorial lead at Ecosia, wrote in an email to the Tribune.

Gottlieb explained that reforestation is essential to any climate strategy since trees are the most efficient carbon dioxide absorbers. However, it is also important to avoid invasive species and monoculture, and to work with local communities to ensure the trees survive. 

“However, tree-planting should not be used as an excuse to reduce emissions—there’s no way around that,” Gottlieb wrote.“ We need to stop emitting as well as re-capture past emissions.” 

University students have the potential to create meaningful change, whether it be through small efforts like switching search engines to support reforestation or through involvement in community activism. 

“Ecosia on campus campaigns don’t just help plant trees […], they also help young people get involved in climate action,” Gottlieb wrote. “We hope that our purpose-driven, not-for-profit business model will inspire others to prioritize our planet, and move beyond mere sustainability towards active regeneration.”

Though much more must be done, including divesting from fossil fuels, the partnership with Ecosia is a positive step in McGill’s path to creating a more healthy and sustainable Earth. 

“Since the Ecosia program launched at McGill there have been over 18,000 searches completed through the platform,” Miller wrote. “We are excited as a university to be contributing to this global reforestation movement.”

Science & Technology

2021 could be the shortest year in decades

by Youssef Wahba on

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While most assume that a day lasts 24 hours, this is not entirely true. Scientists believe that the Earth is spinning faster than it has in 50 years, and as a result, each day in 2021 may be infinitesimally shorter.

To understand why this is, it is important to know how the duration of Earth’s full rotation is measured. The Earth follows an elliptical motion around the Sun, completing one full rotation about its axis every 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds. Atomic clocks—highly precise time-measuring instruments—have shown that this value is usually off by a few milliseconds due to variations in Earth’s rotational speed from one year to the next. This is caused by changes in angular momentum, a measure of a body’s spin with respect to its mass, velocity, and radius.

Olivia Jensen, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill, is a geophysicist who studies the mechanics and dynamics of the Earth.

“On short time scales, the length of day increases due to the loss of angular momentum and the redistribution of mass within and over the Earth,” Jensen wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It is not a regular increase.” 

In the past decades, the Earth’s rotation about its axis has been slowing down, causing days to last longer than the conventional 24 hours. The moon’s gravitational pull is responsible for this deceleration; tidal forces caused by the moon induce a frictional force that slows down the Earth’s rotation. This difference amounts to one second every one and a half years, allowing scientists to introduce the “leap second.” Just as leap days are used every four years to adjust for the Earth’s rotation around the sun, a leap second is added to accommodate the delayed time it takes for the Earth to spin about its axis. 

Although adding this leap second would go unnoticed by the average person, it is considered essential for the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the stock market—where trades occur every fraction of a second—to operate accurately. Additionally, it is key to researchers working in astronomy.

However, this year is different. Recent findings have shown that the Earth will spin faster than it did five decades ago, urging scientists to consider the need for a “negative leap second.” Adding a negative leap second to the global clock would mean that the last day of 2021 would end at 23:59:58 rather than 23:59:59 in all time zones. Some experts, including Jensen, believe this change would be premature.

 “I suggest that there will be no need for inserting a negative leap second unless this (faster) rotation continues for years,’’ Jensen wrote.

Studies suggest that this increase in Earth’s rotation speed may be linked to climate change. The increased temperature caused by global warming melts the ice sheets in the geographic North and South Pole, producing excess water. This mass of water redistributes itself along Earth’s axis, resulting in a faster rotation similar to ice skaters who speed up as they wrap their arms around their body.  However, this is not the only way in which the weather could influence the Earth’s rotation speed.

“It is the moment of inertia about the rotation axis that determines the free spin of the Earth,” Jensen wrote. “Major mass redistribution caused by extremely large earthquakes (larger than any so-far seen) could change the spin rate.” 

Although 2021 may become the shortest year ever recorded in half a century, a negative leap second would not necessarily be applied this year. If it were implemented, it would be the first negative leap second added in history.

Commentary, Opinion

It’s time for a new approach to the language debate

by Kennedy McKee-Braide on

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I grew up in a predominantly anglophone West Island suburb. Although my parents’ eligibility under Quebec’s education regulations allowed me to attend English school, a significant portion of my elementary and high school education was in French. But as each year passed and the curriculum changed, I had less and less exposure to the language. Eventually, I got to the place where I remain today, feeling unable to properly communicate in French. Hearing similar stories from many of my friends, I know that I am not alone in this experience. 

For years, my dad encouraged me to take French more seriously—he is a Quebec-born anglophone, but marrying my francophone stepmother and living in the province nearly his entire life has made him both deeply appreciative of Quebecois culture and fluently bilingual. He wants me to experience similar joys and have the opportunity to build a future here, which is far more difficult when your French is lacking.

Nevertheless, I was stubborn––language politics made me feel like I had no future in Montreal because the francophone majority did not want me here. Given how much I love the city, I now regret this attitude and believe that the best way to tackle the language debate is for francophones to see anglophones as allies in protecting the French language, and vice versa. Perhaps if anglophones felt more welcomed and accommodated, more would be excited to learn French. Legislation proposed by Jacques-Cartier Member of National Assembly Greg Kelley and recently picked up by the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government, seeks to offer free French classes to English speakers. This concept offers a vision of a future where well-meaning anglophones can feel supported in their efforts to learn French rather than ostracized because it does not come naturally. 

Still, it would be wrong to claim that all francophones look down on anglophones. Protectiveness towards the French language is valid and understandable in the context of Quebec’s history, and most are merely afraid of losing their culture. But this protectiveness can lead to hostility and discriminatory policies, not only towards Quebec-born anglophones but even more notably to immigrants and refugees. For example, it can be incredibly difficult to find a job or even access some services online, over the phone, or in person without French fluency. 

These practical logistical barriers can also contribute to feelings of unwelcomeness towards those who do not speak French, which is compounded by a lack of resources that might help them conform to the province’s linguistic realities. The problem is not that anglophones disrespect their francophone neighbours or have no interest in learning. Rather, the standard approach and attitude embedded in Bill 101, the legislation governing language issues in Quebec, has left some anglophones feeling like a political nuisance.

While the province does offer financial aid to immigrants for French courses, expanding this offer to Canadian-born English speakers could signal a new era for language relations in Quebec.

Beyond promoting better cultural ties, alleviating the language barrier would make anglophones more likely to stay in the province, which would ultimately benefit Quebec as a whole. The province has long been subject to a “brain drain” whereby anglophone professionals leave due to a lack of opportunities. While this trend is particularly notable amongst graduates of English universities like McGill, similar trends or anxieties have been observed among the general anglophone population in recent years. 

Relations between English and French-speaking Quebecers cannot be repaired overnight. Decades of hostility in the media, in workplaces, and within personal relationships have undoubtedly created lasting tensions for which both anglophones and francophones are to blame. However, if the CAQ’s goal is truly to promote Quebec’s interests and preserve the French language, it may be time for a new approach to this ever-present debate and more accessible opportunities to learn are a good first step. Above all, I sincerely hope that the province’s future includes fewer stories of young people like me, whose disillusionment with language politics pushes them to plan their eventual escapes. 

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