Volume 98, Issue 32

February 5, 2009

McGill
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The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
AMUSE loses steam
McGill contests the union’s formation
Erin Hale
The McGill Daily
T
he Association of McGill
Undergraduate Student
Employees (AMUSE) decided
to suspend its bid for formal union
accreditation from the Quebec Labour
Board last week, after McGill issued a
formal letter to the Board, threaten-
ing to contest their application.
“We decided that fighting McGill…
would be a waste of our energy, and
we could do more by continuing our
campaign, and then reapply later,”
said AMUSE member and U3 History
student Dan Pudjak.
Academics petition for Israel boycott
McGill professors support call for Israeli boycott
Deborah Guterman
News Writer
P
rompted by recent events in the
Gaza Strip, dozens of McGill
professors and employees have
signed a petition in support of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) campaign against Israel, and
an academic boycott of Israeli insti-
tutions.
Professors from Concordia
University, Université de Quebec À
Montreal, Université de Montreal,
and numerous other postsecond-
ary institutions in Quebec have also
signed the document.
The petition, published last
Saturday in Le Devoir, was com-
piled in response to a January 22
call by the Palestinian Federation of
The grounds for McGill’s objec-
tion, according to Morton Mendelson,
Deputy Provost (Student Life &
Learning), was AMUSE’s manner of
categorizing student workers into
student, non-academic – like gym
employees or floor fellows – and
casual workers; McGill proposed a
division into just non-academic and
casual workers.
Mendelson added that McGill did
not find the union sustainable because
certain job titles could be filled by
non-undergraduate employees.
“The union defines a community
of interest; they define a group that
they think is an appropriate group…
[but] we have jobs where one person
Unions of University Professors and
Employees urging academics world-
wide to denounce the Israeli occu-
pation and its repeated violations of
international law.
Many of the petition’s signatories
expressed exasperation with Israeli
policies, including the continued
blockade of Gaza. They felt boycotts
could be a peaceful way of pressur-
ing the Israeli government to comply
with international law.
“What else is there?” asked
McGill professor and signatory Abby
Lippman. “The UN has provided res-
olutions; Israel hasn’t listened. The
world has condemned what’s been
done; Israel hasn’t listened. This is a
peaceful way of saying ‘No.’”
Adrienne Hurley, another McGill
professor, supported the petition
because of Israeli air strikes on
is a student, and another is not,” said
Mendelson, indicating that McGill
was prepared to propose new cat-
egories to the Board.
“The employer can accept that
that’s an appropriate group, or it can
present an alternative,” he said.
AMUSE member Jacob Feygin,
however, thought McGill’s objection
was just a delay tactic.
“We think the union we submitted
is perfectly viable, and that McGill is
just delaying us by trying to challenge
us,” Feygin said.
This was not the first time that
McGill has obstructed AMUSE’s
efforts to gain accreditation. This
fall, when the union was seeking
Palestinian- and United Nations-
sponsored schools, and an Israeli
ban on reporters, researchers, and
aid workers to the Gaza Strip.
“To me, it’s very important to send
the message that this is not accept-
able, that knowledge is important,”
she said.
The academic boycott, perhaps
the most controversial aspect of the
campaign, seeks to isolate Israeli uni-
versities on the international scene.
According to the BDS website, such
institutions help maintain the intel-
lectual theories and justifications
that underpin the occupation and
Israeli policies of discrimination.
Lippman said the initiative is not
directed at individual Israeli scholars.
She noted, though, that the boycott
would prevent McGill from partner-
ing with Israeli universities, or col-
signatures necessary for its applica-
tion to the Board, McGill withheld
lists of student employees, for legal
and privacy reasons. Working with-
out a formal list, AMUSE organizers
held events – like free beer and pizza
nights – to identify students who
worked for the University.
Further complications with the
application arose because the entire
AMUSE union did not apply for
accreditation at once, as the orga-
nizers decided to only submit a bid
for the non-academic staff section
where they had enough signatories.
According to Max Silverman, for-
mer SSMU VP External and a cur-
rent AMUSE organizer, it was not
laborating on research projects.
McGill Professor Wael Hallaq felt
that Israeli academics have a moral
responsibility to speak out against the
state’s treatment of the Palestinian
population.
“Academics are a little more
detached from the world of politics.
Israeli scholars...are the only group of
scholars in the world that I know that
serve in the army systematically. And
at the same time they are scholars.
They can make a difference,” Hallaq
explained. They can, for example,
become refuseniks. They can criti-
cize; they are in powerful positions.
They are also judges.... They are in
government committees.... They can
work from the inside.... If they can-
not do this much then all of us are
in trouble.”
Launched in 2005, BDS is mod-
News 3
appropriate for the union to apply on
behalf of other internal units – such
as casual and academic workers –
because they did not acquire suffi-
cient signatures from those areas.
Feygin explained that ultimately
AMUSE decided to regroup and submit
their bid later this year, when they have
enough signatures from all sections.
“The game plan is to let it be
known that AMUSE is here and
AMUSE is going to be staying,” said
Pudjak. “Even though that last court
battle didn’t happen, there will be
future court battles, and we’re not
going anywhere.”
-with files from Nicholas Smith
Eva
n
Ne
w to
n/
Th
eM
cG
ill D
aily
elled after a campaign applied to
apartheid-era South Africa, and
is supported by more than 170
Palestinian organizations. It attempts
to pressure the Israeli government
to end the occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza, and to dismantle the
Separation Barrier. The campaign
also calls on Israel to recognize the
rights of Palestinian-Israelis, and the
right of return of Palestinian refu-
gees.
Support for the BDS initiative has
gained ground in Quebec. In June,
L’Association pour une Solidarité
Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), a student
union representing over 42,000 stu-
dents, voted to actively endorse the
campaign. The Federation National
des Enseignants et Enseignantes
du Quebec (FNEEQ-CSN) has also
voted to support the boycott.
 4 News The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009

Shu Jiang / The McGill Daily

Montrealers held
candles during
a vigil last week
in Place Jacques
Cartier in peace-
ful solidarity with
Gazans killed dur-
ing recent Middle
Eastern violence.
All photos except top right by Alice Walker for The McGill Daily

Remembering the victims in Gaza

Scandals plague Concordia Student Union

Money lost, bookkeeper sued, recall petition thwarted, fingers pointed
Terrine Friday mer executive who wished not to be
The Link named. “This is very, very serious
[…] This is not something you play
around with.”
whether funds were improperly or breaches of regulations and a Chief the Canadian Federation of Students,
fraudulently spent or managed. They Electoral Officer who was no longer a who was president of the CSU in
eventually just gave up. student. But it was contested by Chair 2003-2004. He was at the head of the
Ironically, Lyonnais, who is no of Council Jessica Nudo, because she slate of candidates whose succeeding

T
he Concordia Student Union
(CSU) is embroiled in yet
another scandal, this time
involving a $500,000 deficit, a lawsuit
against its former bookkeeper, and a
petition to recall the entire executive
that has been taken to the Judicial
Board.
The union is suing Marie
Lyonnais, a former CSU bookkeeper
and Chartered Accountant, for a total
amount of $363,238.25 for alleged
“negligent behaviour.”
Executives, both current and
from as far back as 2000, have been
pointing fingers at each other and
Lyonnais for financial mismanage-
ment – that, according to the CSU,
caused the union to incur a com-
bined deficit of nearly $500,000 for
the fiscal years ending May 31, 2006
and May 31, 2007.
“These kids don’t know what
the hell they’re doing,” said a for-
But current CSU president Keyana
Kashfi redirected the blame to past
executives.
“They didn’t know where they
[stood], but they just kept spending,”
Kashfi said, “So as long as their cheques
cleared, they kept spending.”
When Fauve Castagna, former
CSU VP Finance, started her term in
the summer of 2007, an audit hadn’t
been filed by the CSU since the 2004-
2005 academic year. The CSU’s bank
accounts were also seized by the
Canadia Revenue Agency just one
month after her term started.
“Certain taxes hadn’t been paid,
and the government was owed large
sums of money in penalties and inter-
est,” Castagna explained. “It was a
nice way to come into office.”
The Gazette reported that the
finances were so disorganized that
forensic accountants hired for an
audit by the union could not decide
longer a member of the Order of
Quebec Chartered Accountants,
was hired by Patrice Blais in 2000
to watch the finances after almost
$200,000 was embezzled by a former
CSU VP Finance.
Mohamed Shuriye, CSU president
of 2005-2006, said he could not have
foreseen the mismanagement by an
employee, especially since he wasn’t
the one in charge of the books.
“For this current executive to say
that we should have questioned the
numbers from a chartered accountant
is unreasonable,” Shuriye said. “I’m
appalled that this executive has the
tenacity to question my judgment espe-
cially since they’re being recalled.”
Patrice Blais, the current Secretary
and Treasurer of the Concordia
Student Broadcasting Corporation,
spearheaded a recall late last fall
after the executive tried to hold a
fee referendum in spite of numerous
said nearly two-thirds of the 3,600
signatures were invalid. The Chair’s
ruling was based on provisions in the
Standing Regulations of the CSU that
were approved only three days before
the petition was submitted by bailiff
at Nudo’s home, because she was
consistently unavailable at school.
Hours after the ruling was issued,
the Chair resigned. The issue is now
at the Judicial Board, at which the
current executive is arguing that it
is too late in the semester, and too
close to the general election, to
remove them from power, and have
a special election to fill the positions
for the remainder of the terms.
“With an election scheduled for
March, the CSU will say, ‘It’s too late
now,’ even though they are the cause
of the delay,” said Blais.
The Chair is now being filled on
an interim basis by Brent Farrington,
the current Deputy Chairperson for
incarnations have swept CSU elec-
tions ever since.
Judicial Board Chair Tristan
Teixeira hopes for a speedy end to
the recall case.
“Hopefully this case should be
wrapped up by the second Monday
in February,” Teixeira said.
The case of the CSU and
CUSACorp, their corporation, against
Lyonnais will be heard at the Palais
de Justice on February 23 at 9 a.m.,
although a bailiff has yet to locate her
to serve her with the lawsuit.
This article is a compilation of arti-
cles from The Link, a Concordia stu-
dent paper, over the academic year,
with files from Justin Giovannetti.
Lyonnais and Nudo have been
unavailable or refused to comment
to The Link for at least a month as
these stories have developed.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
Ghetto Shul out of space
Funding cuts come after long struggle to secure a home
Courtney Graham
News Writer
A
mainstay of the Jewish com-
munity at McGill, Ghetto Shul,
is now in danger of losing its
space in the Plateau, after nearly two
years of real estate limbo.
Hillel Montreal, a Jewish students’
association that promotes cultural
learning, has cut Ghetto Shul’s rent
from its budget.
Jeff Bicher, the Interim Managing
Director for Hillel Montreal,
explained that the Shul cuts were
part of a $185,000 scale-down in the
face of the economic crisis.
“In an analysis of expenditures, if
we don’t change our spending habits,
we’re looking at spending $1.4-mil-
lion, and we’re only bringing in
$1.2-million.”
Ghetto Shul, a student-run and
largely student-funded grassroots
synagogue, launched a fundrais-
ing campaign to make the rent at
its location on Clark in the Plateau.
According to Erin Kizell, students
initiated a phone-a-thon that draws
from their home communities for
pledges.
With activities now split between
the Clark Street Shul and Hillel
House, Josh Tal, Public Relations
Representative for Ghetto Shul and
U3 Cultural Studies, said that Ghetto
Shul has suffered drops in atten-
dance, especially since the weather
has gotten harsh and cold.
Conference examines sustainability with
money in mind
Will Vanderbilt
The McGill Daily
B
uilding sustainable products
is an excellent business deci-
sion, according to both key-
note speakers at last week’s “Awake,”
McGill’s Business Conference on
Sustainability.
About 70 delegates from univer-
sities across Canada attended the
conference, where they participated
in workshops with industry leaders,
listened to two speeches, and attend-
ed a sustainability fair with campus
groups.
In his opening keynote Thursday,
Steven Guilbeault – a founding mem-
ber of Equiterre, a Montreal based-
environmental organization,and for-
mer Greenpeace spokesperson – said
that the effects of human-induced
global climate change on the Earth
could be even greater than scientists
previously anticipated.
“It’s entirely up to us as a global
society to decide how much climate
change we are willing to live with,
along with the consequences,” he
said.
According to Guilbeault, humans
need to immediately attack the root
“It’s not just a synagogue, it’s more
of an environment and a certain type
of community and warmth. We lose
that spark that attracts people with-
out our own space,” said Tal.
Jeff Bicher echoed Tal’s senti-
ments. “Its main group of students
are out-of-towners who are living
in the McGill Ghetto,” said Bicher
describing them as those who don’t
have their own home community to
fall back on, which makes having a
space specifically in the Plateau even
more important.
Full access to an independent
space is crucial to the services the
Shul provides, explained Emily
Foxen-Craft, VP Internal, in a written
statement to the board.
“Though it may seem material-
istic to value a building so much,
it really ties together so many ele-
ments of the grassroots organiza-
tion of Ghetto Shul, unifying its
members, new and old, to a specific
place which they can associate with
their private and communal explo-
ration of Judaism,” wrote Foxen-
Craft.
The Shul’s latest residential pre-
dicament comes after a long struggle
to secure its own space. Two years
ago, a zoning issue forced the Shul
out of a building on Lorne Avenue
in the Ghetto, where it had been
running its operations since it was
founded in 2000. In the following
year, it continued its activities out
of Hillel House, which hosts Jewish
holiday programming year-round on
of the problem – greenhouse gas
emissions – to adapt solutions to
address the global rise in tempera-
tures that 150 years of carbon emis-
sions have already locked in.
“Adaptation is an important thing,
but there are those people who say
all we can do is adapt,” he said. “I’d
like these people to go and explain
to the population of Miami how they
should adapt to a two-metre sea level
rise.”
Praising the developments of
renewable energy and sustainable
transportation initiatives around
the world, Guilebeaut reminded the
audience that even greater shifts in
thinking must take place in order to
substantially cut global greenhouse
gas emissions.
“Even if everyone is driving a
hybrid in 2011, there will be 9-mil-
lion of us then. That’s a lot of cars,
and that’s a lot of metal,” he said. “We
have to rely on more transit; we have
to rethink the way we build our city.”
On Friday night, Robert Weese,
the Vice President of Government
and External Relations at General
Electric Canada (GE), presented his
company’s “ecomagination” pro-
gram, which outlines measures to
help GE and its customers reduce
News 5
Stanley.
Last August, Ghetto Shul finally
got a home of its own when a new
five-year lease was initiated at a loca-
tion on Parc, near Milton. According
to Erin Kizell, VP External at the Shul
and U1 Arts, the space was acquired
with “the generous support of Hillel
Montreal.”
After three months on Parc, the
group was forced to relocate again
after the building next door to theirs
was torn down, exposing pipes that
froze, broke, and flooded the space.
Bicher remained optimistic that
Hillel Montreal would soon recover
financially.
“We are still looking, connecting
with potential donors,” said Bicher.
“We aren’t giving up.”
Kizell was sympathetic to Hillel
Montreal’s financial situation.
“Funding was never guaranteed
by Hillel Montreal; there was no
assurance we would be able to main-
tain the needed or same amount of
donor funding.”
Hillel Montreal facilitated the
donor funding that was given to
Ghetto Shul for their leases and Rabbi
salaries. The Shul’s other sources of
funding include Central Address for
Jewish Philanthropy and Community
Service, a Montreal-based organiza-
tion that works to support grassroots
Jewish communities throughout the Join the call! Toilets for all!
world.
Tal hoped the Shul would find a
BECAUSE : Nearly one billion people — about a sixth
new space with a lower rent some-
of the world’s population — do not have access to safe
where in the Ghetto.
drinking water. One person out of three does not have
access to basic sanitation facilities.
BECAUSE : More than 5000 children die each day from
water and sanitation-related diseases.
BECAUSE : Safe water and sanitation is vital to human
health, promotes gender equality, supports primary
education, and generates economic benefit.
greenhouse gas emissions and other
impacts on the Earth. Come sign our petition at Redpath Library
A central tenet of that program is
to raise GE’s annual revenues from
on February 5th from 10:30 to 4:30
“ecomagination” products to $25-bil-
lion by 2012. According to Weese, his To pressure the Canadian government to hold its
company’s primary motivation for commitment to the Millenium Development Goals and
researching and building sustainable make safe water and basic sanitation a foreign aid
products is its financial incentive. priority.
“Green is green, and we don’t
make any apologies for that,” he
said, referring to the returns made
on green products. “We’re not in this The McGill Daily
business because it’s a responsible
thing to do.... We wouldn’t be in it as a presents
company if we couldn’t make money
out of it.”
The company’s program also
includes goals to reduce company-
wide absolute greenhouse gas emis-
BYLINE MONTREAL
sions by one per cent and use of Hear Journalists Speak!
water by 20 per cent by 2012.
Weese stressed that his company’s FEATURING
ability to adapt to a constantly chang-
ing market has allowed it to survive
for over 130 years.
PATRICK LEJTENYI
“I think ‘ecomagination’ is our lat-
est adaptation to a changing world,” & HENRY AUBIN
Weese said.
The annual conference was orga- February 12. Leacock 232. 5 p.m. Free.
nized by a team of students from
the Management Undergraduate
Society.
 6 News The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009

Saul redefines Canada’s legal origins

Speaker urges recognition of aboriginal influence on Canadian law
Laura Mojonnier executive editor for the McGill Law
News Writer Journal, was happy to see a speaker
challenge the diametric view of law
that’s commonly taught.
“Even in our school, with issues
surrounding our Chancellor [refer-
ring to pre-European Canada as
‘un pays de sauvages’], a

C
anadian philosopher John
Ralston Saul addressed the
aboriginal influence on
Canadian culture and legal tradition
Tuesday at the McGill Law Journal
Annual Lecture, which attracted an
audience of 250-300 people, neces-
sitating the creation of an “overflow”
room where his talk was simulcast.
Saul asserted at the McGill Law
Journal Annual Lecture that Canada’s
legal culture was based on aboriginal
ideas of egalitarianism, welfare, and
justice – and not on tensions between
the French civil code and English
common law. He eschewed the cur-
rent model of Canadian history that
focuses on the French and English as
the country’s founders.
“There’s a classic thing to say,
that we’re a more European country
than the States, but we’re the least
European country in the [western]
world,” he said. “Canada is built on
three founding pillars: anglophones,
francophones, and aboriginals.”
Saul argued that Canadian con-
cepts such as single-tier health care,
legal aid, and even multiculturalism
cannot be traced to Europe, but rath-
“We wanted to invite someone in lot of us are very hesi-
here who would challenge our view tant to acknowledge the
of Canadian legal history,” Murphy contribution of civiliza-
said. “Although we’re taught aborigi- tions that existed before
nal law at McGill, it’s almost seen as European colonization
separate from Canadian law.” and imperialism,” she
In his lecture, Saul also accused said.
the media of tokenizing its coverage But Nam said
of indigenous groups by focusing on she believes that with a
pity-inducing stories about alcohol- lot of re-education – which
ism or suicide rates, trying to make begins with intellectuals
the aboriginal question disappear. He like Saul disseminat-
related the current political climate ing their ideas – the
in aboriginal communities to that of three-pillar model
the francophones in the 1960s. of Canadian iden-
“If you look at the past 50 years of tity could someday
Canadian history, it’s been about the become mainstream.
attempt to reestablish the power of
the francophone pillar,” he said. “One
can say that it’s been pretty success-
ful, whether the country falls apart
or not, because the francophone fact
has been reasserted. But that other
pillar, the original pillar, has been vir-
tually ignored.”
Saul’s theories resonated with
many audience members.
Michael Doxtater, McGill’s only
First Nations professor, said Saul’s
ideas will gain more traction as the Evan Newton / The McGill Daily

er to First Nations’ philosophies that country moves into recession.

the country’s migrants inherited.
The uniqueness of Canadian geogra-
phy makes many European concepts
irrelevant, he contended, noting
that early settlers had to give up the
wheel – what many Westerners con-
sider a sign of “civilization” – for the
canoe when traversing the Canadian
Shield.
“Everything that works in Canada
cannot be traced back to Europe,” he
said. “Every time we try to do some-
thing European, we do conscription,
or ban languages, or racism.”
Shane Murphy, U3 Law and English
“You’re going to have to com-
pletely rethink the way the economy
runs, the way wealth is distributed,
the way we demonstrate our humani-
ty to each other,” he said, adding that
Canadians can find wisdom in indig-
enous models of trade networks and
commerce as the monetary system
begins to collapse.
While Mae Jane Nam, U2 Law, was
impressed by Saul’s reconception of
Canadian history, she said his belief
that Canadians are eager to embrace
a new model of their identity is opti-
mistic.

Religious Studies class was without a professor until yesterday

TA shows was scheduled to miss the first few

weeks of the semester in order to
movies while prof attend a conference in India, but fell
ill and has, up to this point, been
remains ill in India unable to secure a flight back to
Montreal.
after conference Ellen Aitken, Dean of the Faculty
of Religious Studies, wanted to assure
students that despite Sharma’s pro-
longed absence, the course plan was
Henry Gass being followed.
The McGill Daily
“Professor Sharma was in India for
a conference the Faculty [of Religious
Studies] was co-sponsoring,” said
[Ghandi],” said Pokinko, as examples
of different lecture activities.
Yet some students questioned the
relevancy of the material they were
watching to the course as a whole.
“What are we paying for if there’s
no prof? We could watch the movies
on our own,” said a student in the
class, who asked to remain anony-
mous. “The class cost $600, and
$200 [a third of the semester] of that
wasn’t going to anything.”
As of yesterday, Professor
Katherine Young has assumed
ran the class for the first third of the
semester, providing several lectures,
organizing movies, and distributing
assignments, all under the instruc-
tion of Sharma.
“Often grad students and TAs
know the course material best, and
are in the best position to follow the
course plan,” Aitken said.
Pokinko added that the material
presented in class was approved by
the absent professor.
“I’ve been in email contact with
[Professor Sharma],” said Pokinko.
Still, with the midterm approach-
ing students expressed concern over
the content of examinations due to
the relative lack of time spent on
lecture. Because RELG 353 is a high
level course, students committed to
majoring or minoring in Religious
Studies feel particularly worried.
“A decent amount of the [students
in the] class are specialized,” said the
student. “For most people, it’s not
just an elective.”
The midterm has since been
changed to a take-home examina-

T
he students of RELG 353 –
Ghandi: His Life and Thought
– have been without their pro-
fessor all semester, and some in the
class of around 80 students are con-
cerned that the material presented
in their professor’s absence has not
prepared them for the upcoming
midterm.
Professor Arvind Sharma, an
authority on Hinduism and the life
and beliefs of Mahatma Ghandi in,
Aitken. “Suitable arrangements were
made for covering the first few weeks
of class.”
Lecture time, for the past five
weeks, has been filled with film
screenings on Hinduism and Jainism
– including the feature-film Ghandi –
and multiple lectures given by teach-
ing assistant (TA) Tom Pokinko.
“We’ve had class discussions, and I
asked the students to write a personal
response on two aspects of the film
Professor Sharma’s role, a replace-
ment Aitken said the Faculty was for-
tunate to secure.
“Most universities don’t have mul-
tiple professors in single subjects,”
said Aitken. “We were lucky that
someone like Professor Young, who
is familiar with the information, was
available during class time.”
Aitken also supported the instruc-
tion given by Pokinko, a PhD stu-
dent in Hindu and Jain ethics, who
“He advised me to lecture on
Ghandi’s life and the course outline,
interspersed with various concepts
relevant to the course.”
Some students said that the qual-
ity of their learning had not been
affected.
“Everything was really fine,”
said Emily Blake, U2 International
Development Studies. “We under-
stand why the prof has been away,
and the TA has been great.”
tion. Aitken believed that there has
been good instruction in the course,
given the circumstances, and that the
course has been running as planned.
“Generally, courses gel at various
points [and] many students don’t
understand how various concepts fit
together until a few weeks into the
semester,” said Aitken. “When the
professor returns, he will be able to
tie the first few weeks of the course
together.”
 Letters
Heads-up about that
Gaza motion at the GA
I would like to bring to the atten-
tion of the undergraduate commu-
nity a rather important issue that will
be brought up as a motion during the
upcoming SSMU GA on Thursday at
4 p.m. The motion aims to condemn
the bombing of Gazan educational
institutions during the recent Israeli
incursion.
As an educational institution that
takes pride in transcending differ-
ences for the pursuit of knowledge
and the betterment of our commu-
nity, we must take a moral stance in
supporting our fellow students’ right
to education. The illegal Israeli occu-
pation of Palestinian territory has
long hindered and crippled every
facet of Palestinian society, as well as
encroached on basic humanitarian
rights. Furthermore, the recent bom-
bardment has left Gazan society in
shambles, and has been condemned
by international, as well as Israeli
human rights organizations.
I want to stress that the upcom-
ing motion is in no way partisan in
nature and is only intended to show
support for the rights of Gazans to
continue their educational pursuits.
This further serves to uphold McGill’s
reputation as an international institu-
tion that has long advocated diversity
and renounced violations of human
rights.
Jamal Daoud
PhD III Biomedical Engineering
Vote for the Bloc? Ugh
Re: “The Bloc legitimizes Canadian
democracy” | Letters | January 29
After reading David Searle’s arti-
cle on why the Bloc deserves the
support of Canadians, I felt the need
to respond. The argument that the
Bloc deserves our “wholehearted”
support as well as our votes (!) is one
not only lacking in material to back
it up, but also rather outlandish and
excessive.
Our votes? Why? The Bloc does
not represent the views of millions
of Canadians, so why should we vote
for them – to promote national unity?
I’m not sure why supporting another
party, such as the NDP, does not pro-
mote national unity and strength just
as well. Is the Bloc honestly our only
option for ensuring national unity?
I personally have nothing against
Gilles Duceppe; I actually think he is
a very strong leader. But I do bristle
at the argument that the Bloc “legim-
itizes” this country’s democracy.
Giving that praise to only one party
that only runs in one province is not
a very democratic action itself.
Jessica Roberts
U4 Sociology
How backward is our world when the
crazy person is the one who wants to
eliminate senseless waste and death?
Meat is the eco-elephant
Re: “I want my bottled water”
| Letters | January 26
It is great that bottled water has
been removed from the bagged
lunches given by Residence Food
Services. Bottled water is obviously
an unnecessary luxury, potentially
unhealthy and wasteful of our natu-
ral resources.
However, bottled water is small
fish in the giant, sludge-filled lake of
environmentally destructive choices
made by the McGill administration. If
McGill is really looking to eliminate
from their food services items that fit
the afore mentioned criteria – unnec-
essary, unhealthy, wasteful – perhaps
their attention should be turned to
the harvested flesh served three
times a day to the nescient freshmen
it houses.
Animal agriculture far exceeds
bottled water in the devastation it
wreaks on the environment, in too
many ways to even begin to mention
in the 300 words I am allowed to use.
Of course, this will never happen;
people might even say that it would
be “crazy” to remove meat from the
food residence offers, that the kids
need the “nutrition.”
First, how backward is our world
when the crazy person is the one
who wants to eliminate senseless
waste and death? Second, it seems
strange to me that the McGill fresh-
men “need” their seasoned corpses
for sustenance while globally, hun-
dreds of millions of people live rich,
active, long, energized lives free from
the vampiric need to consume an
animal’s rotting body.
At the very least, the administra-
tion can put warnings in front of meat
dishes with facts like, “These pigs
were castrated, de-toothed, de-tailed,
and de-eared without anaesthetic,”
followed by, “Studies have found pigs
to have a greater capacity for intelli-
gence than dogs.” Or “Animal agricul-
ture accounts for 65 per cent of the
world’s N20 production, a greenhouse
gas 300 times more potent than car-
bon dioxide.”
In the discussion on sustainabil-
ity, meat is the elephant in the room.
If McGill wants any kind of credibil-
ity in its efforts toward sustainability,
this is something it has to address.
Kyle Kaplan
U2 Music Technology
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
Re: “I want my bottled water” | Letters | January 26
Your propaganda is so
much worse than theirs
Re: “Deface this!” | Commentary
| January 29
No thanks, Hartlee Zucker, I get
enough propaganda from your side!
I’ll take my propaganda from the
other side, just this once.
Kudos to the McLennan admin for
having the balls not to cave to your
lobby.
Dan Adshead
U3 Political Science & Economics
Apathetic publicity to blame
Re: “No one...campus” | News | January
29 & “Bring tampon... Shatner” |
Commentary | January 26
OK, so I read this little ditty in the
Daily about the alleged Reclaim Your
Campus meeting which “attributed
the low turnout...to general student
apathy.”
Yeah, it’s probably more due to
the fact that no one knew it was hap-
pening. If “advertising remains mini-
mal,” you probably shouldn’t expect
inauguration-type numbers of people
to show up. This is totally the kind of
thing I would be into attending if I
knew about it.
In fact, I happen to know a small
group of students who are about to
embark on a beautiful journey into
the world of democratic engagement
and activism on campus. So they
probably would have gone too, if you
had publicized it a little more. Maybe
try the bathrooms – without the tam-
pon machines there’s nothing good
in there anymore...except maybe the
hand dryers in Shatner; those are
pretty cool.
Incidentally, that article by Sarah
Mortimer was the best thing I’ve read
in this paper in a long time.
Jenna Gogan
U1 Sociology
Send your non-offensive letters to letters@mcgilldaily.com at 300 words or less, and include
your year and program. Please. We like it a lot. (See cover.)
7
Kyle Kaplan Meat is the eco-elephant
We like kids when
they’re born, too
Re: Defending the born |
Letters | January 29
I would like to reply to Mr. Sprague,
who argues that we must defend the
born. He says that pro-lifers should
work toward creating a condition
in which women have access to the
resources they need to raise a child
if they find themselves unexpectedly
pregnant. I wish to assure him that
Choose Life wholeheartedly agrees.
That “abortion seems to be the
only choice” is truly unacceptable
in a society that so highly values
the freedom to choose. No woman
should ever feel that due to her finan-
cial situation she must end the life of
her child.
Indeed, this is the philosophy of
Feminists for Life, a group that chal-
lenges pro-life student leaders to put
themselves in the shoes of a preg-
nant or parenting student and try to
find the basic resources she would
need. Mary Meehan, the speaker
that Choose Life hosted in January,
expressed her support for its work
and provided a list of resources for
those in attendance.
This list, along with information
on other resources for pregnant and
parenting students, is available at
ssmu.mcgill.ca/chooselife. An essen-
tial part of our mandate is to ensure
women know that they do have a real
choice, and that they can find the
assistance they need. We do, howev-
er, recognize the necessity of vastly
improving the current support sys-
tem, and are committed to working
toward this goal.
No matter where you stand on
abortion, I urge you to join us in cre-
ating a community where abortion is
not something any women feels she
has to “choose.”
Natalie Fohl
U2 Biology & Political Science
Choose Life President
 Mind&Body
Why don’t we do it in the road?
A look into the heteronormative
values of public space
Guttural mind
Julie Alsop
H
ey asshole, here’s a good
rule of thumb: if you stumble
upon two girls doing it in a
public space, and you’re not invited,
the most appropriate response is to
leave. That’s right, get out. It is not:
hang around, tell everyone what you
just saw, make rude comments, or
take pictures. Did your mother teach
you nothing?
You’d be surprised at how many
people don’t get this concept. The
first time the lady and I ever hooked
up was at a high school party. Some
fortunate soul stumbled upon us, and
instead of leaving, the response was
something along the lines of, “Hey,
I’m gonna watch this for a while and
then tell everyone at the party that
there is lesbian sex going on upstairs
so they can come and take a gan-
der.” I’m not sure how many people
witnessed the consummation of our
relationship, but that bedroom cer-
tainly seemed to employ an open-
door policy that night. That night
gave way to two major themes of our
coupledom: great sex alongside some
non-consensual voyeurism.
In the years since that fateful
night, I’ve looked up from a street
corner make-out session to: cat call-
ing, guys asking if they can join, peo-
ple telling us “not to stop,” grand-
mother’s gaping, and – on one partic-
ularly memorable occasion – a group
of bros in a car videotaping us with
their cellphone camera. Real classy,
guys. I haven’t exactly compiled the
data, but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t
happen to straight couples. At least
not with the same regularity.
While anyone doing their business
in public should expect a rude aside or
two from passersby, I feel like this kind
of spectator sport is reserved for queer
public displays of affection – particu-
larly the lesbian kind. After all, guys
watching girls kissing is the makings
of a really good beer commercial.
The whole cultural acceptance
of guys thinking lesbians are hot
is a homophobic one. It’s a way for
the patriarchy to assert control over
something it has no place in: wom-
en-only sexuality. By appropriating
these displays for men, lesbian sex-
ual expression is once again safely
contained in a heterosexual domain.
When a guy catcalls my lesbian PDA,
he’s inserting himself into my sexual
experience. But buddy, this shit ain’t
for you, it’s for us. What’s more, such
reactions reestablish public space as
heteronormative.
Physical space is not some weird
apolitical twilight zone. It is actually
inscribed with cultural values that
everything around us – from archi-
tecture to design to our moral codes
of conduct – serves to reinforce. This
could mean something obvious, like
the fact that stairs restrict wheelchair
users from accessing a building; or it
could mean that our normative values
code the majority of public space as
heterosexual. Of course, this demar-
cation is invisible. Heterosexuality is
generally considered the dominant
and naturalized form of sexuality
in our culture, which means that it
often gets a free pass. Thus, hetero-
sexuality can flit through cafés and
parks unscathed. It is only when our
friendly heterosexual space is dis-
rupted by a queer act that the het-
erosexuality of public space becomes
apparent. For instance, just last May,
a lesbian couple was asked to refrain
from kissing at a Seattle Mariner’s
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
Game because some mother com-
plained that “there were children
around.” Honey, those kids are down-
ing corn dogs filled with toxins and
who knows what percentage of rat
remains, and you’re concerned about
some same-sex tongue-on-tongue?
Get your priorities straight.
What exactly is so harmful about
the meeting of sex and public space
anyway? Sure there are real dangers
to sex – such as STIs or throwing out
your back – but there are also real
dangers to that “fork in the eye”
magic trick where you put a creamer
close to your eye and stab it with a
fork and then you pretend that you
stabbed your eye....yeah, that shit’s
weird. Anyway, I digress. Public sex
laws, designed to protect unsuspect-
ing citizens from the danger that
created them, often specifically tar-
get queer sex. Yet, the fact is that
queers have a historical alignment
with public sex. Before urban gay-
bourhoods were created, cruising
grounds were often situated in pub-
lic spaces such as cemeteries, parks
and, most famously, bathrooms. As
recently as 1998, George Michael
was arrested for giving the cock-
eye to a police officer’s private parts
in a Beverly Hills bathroom. Sure,
straight couples get arrested for hav-
ing public sex, but I’ve never heard
of a guy getting arrested for staring
at a girl’s chest. Public sex is queer
sex – in every meaning of the word.
8
Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily
Sex, in its conventional definition, is
private. Moreover, the gradients of
acceptable public displays of affec-
tion for straight and queer couples
diverge in the fact that queer acts
cross over into the realm of exhi-
bitionism much more readily than
hetero ones. Exhibitionism is akin to
fetishsm, and, in my book, fetishes
are covered under that big umbrella
term of queerdom.
What we’re really saying when we
talk about moral decency and public
sex, is that we want to maintain public
space as heteronormative. It comes
own to our culturally ingrained need
to keep all these disruptive queer
acts of girls kissing girls and George
Michael ogling a fellow’s privates
away from the public sphere, where
they may make passersby question
the norms and values written on the
space. As such, public sex of any kind
should be regarded as a political act.
It’s certainly still a dangerous one. In
2005, a lesbian couple kissing on the
corner of St. Denis and Mont-Royal
were gay bashed in broad daylight.
I think it’s time we all answered
the Beatles’ age-old question “Why
Don’t We Do It In the Road?” by tak-
ing our sexuality to the streets in
order to redefine public space as a
safe one for everyone.
Guttural Mind will be back with more
mind-blowing norm-bashing next
week in the Mind&Body section.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009 Mind&Body 9
The few, the proud, the drunken
Does fanaticism toward one beer mean it is truly worthy of merit?

All hopped up
Joseph Watts

O
n February 9 in the small
seaside town of Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, a beer will
be placed on tap in the Portsmouth
Brewery. It reception will ripple
through the sea of beer aficionados
across America. Portsmouth Brewery,
which only produces about 1,000
barrels of beer annually (for com-
parison, Boréale’s brewers produce
around 60,000), releases this beer so
infrequently and in such small quan-
tities that the Internet is buzzing with
anticipation of its arrival.
Kate the Great, as the beer is
called, wasn’t such a hot topic before
December 2007, when the readers of
BeerAdvocate Magazine rated it the
number one beer in America and the
number two beer on Planet Earth.
The magazine is the periodical of
the popular web site beeradvocate.
com, which has over 175,000 mem-
bers, most of whom are self-labelled
beer geeks – lovers, defenders, and
typically drawn to such beers. Yet, on
Monday afternoon, a line will form
around the block at the Portsmouth
Brewery, with people travelling from
afar to secure one of about 900 bot-
tles. If the most recent Kate Day this
past June is an indication, they’ll sell
out within 24-hours.
The anticipation for Kate the
Great is bred at online beer-rating
web sites like beeradvocate.com
and ratebeer.com. Their member
forums overflow with predictions
on changes in ranking (currently the
stout is number five overall online),
the distances travelled to make it to
Portsmouth, and even arguments as
to the motives of beer geeks.
“I am fascinated with the modern
beer geek who has to have everything
– at any price usually – just because it
has been deemed the latest and great-
est on the Internet,” writes one mem-
ber of beeradvocate.com about Kate
the Great. The buzz that a high rank-

Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

sometimes, to a fault, crusaders of
craft-brewed beer. Such an accolade
for Kate the Great created enough
hype to give rise to Kate Day, the
name given to the not-to-be-missed
celebration of its release.
Kate, an Imperial Russian stout,
named after the Russian Empress
Catherine II (an old style which lent
the term “Imperial” to the extreme
beer movement) connotes a beer
more concentrated in flavour, char-
acter, and alcohol.
These extreme styles of beer are
often given very limited releases
because their market base is com-
posed of exactly the type of craft
drinkers who would make such a big
hype. The beer-drinking public is not
ing generates appears to be the main
draw for many drinkers, who respond
to such cynicism with validation – “I
want [Kate the Great] because of the
hype around it. I haven’t had it yet so
I want to try it.”
However, others say that it’s as
much about the journey as it is about
the reward. As much as these beer
geeks believe in drinking locally and
supporting regional brewers, the
thrill of attaining a bottle they have source, beer geeks find the search brewery and saturated the market. At long as the Portsmouth Brewery
heard much about is a major draw. fulfilling. 16th overall on beeradvocate.com, maintains its rarity and there are still
Whether time and money is Montreal’s own Dieu du Ciel! brew- Péché Mortel holds its own, but after beer geeks jonesing for that ultimate
expended in trading for these limit- pub once had its own buzz-worthy seeing it in a beer store on the West Imperial stout, the hype will live on.
ed-release beers – there is an intri- beer. Another Imperial stout, Péché Coast, I knew that it was no longer in
cate trade network made possible by Mortel, elicited as much clamouring the same league. All Hopped Up appears every other
these web sites – or great lengths are as Kate the Great – that is, before It’s hard to say if Kate the Great Thursday. All grail-related mail can be
undergone to acquire the beer at its Dieu opened a large-scale bottling will follow Péché Mortel’s path. So sent to allhoppedup@gmail.com.

The problem with following The Rules

Elissa Gurman in my body. “Don’t call him back;” “If on the New York Times Best Seller out actually doing anything. consisted of waiting for a man to roll
The McGill Daily you are in a long-distance relation- list. People Magazine calls it a “must- According to The Rules, I along and marry her.
ship, he must visit you at least three read” and Mademoiselle touts it as shouldn’t talk so much, or be so Yet that style of waiting, albeit
times before you visit him;” “Don’t “empowering.” Even Oprah endorses funny – men don’t like women who attractively and within view of men,

O
n a recent girls’ weekend, a
friend of mine handed me
what she promised would
become my Bible. She entrusted me
with a copy of Ellen Fein and Sherrie
Schneider’s The Rules?: Time-Tested
Secrets for Capturing the Heart of
Mr. Right, a bestselling dating guide
published in 1995 but still widely cir-
culated among single women.
I cracked it open and began to
read aloud. What I found within this
popular tome truly shocked me: “the
basic premise of The Rules: man pur-
sues woman.”
This opening revelation was fol-
lowed by a litany of rules that scan-
dalized every remotely feminist bone
meet him halfway;” “Don’t ask him
out;” “Don’t cut your hair short –
men like long hair;” “Don’t leave
the house without lipstick;” and so
on and so forth. By rule 43 (“Always
follow the rules”), I was so incensed
that I threw the book across the
room.
“Why’d you do that?” my friend
asked, “you know, this stuff works.”
She was confident that by following
these rules she’d have a serious boy-
friend within the year.
The scary thing is that she might
be right.
The Rules has sold two-million
copies worldwide, is translated into
26 languages, and was number one
the thing.
As much as the rules are appall-
ing from the get-go, what’s frighten-
ing is the idea that they may hold
some truth; maybe men are actually
attracted to women who don’t call,
who let men make all the moves, who
are mysterious and play it cool, and
who, in short, do absolutely nothing
in order to entice or entrap the oppo-
site sex.
Though The Rules purports to be
about helping women be proactive
(“The Rules book can give you con-
trol of your dating life,” according to
Mademoiselle), these rules are in fact
all about passivity and the ways to
make yourself seem appealing with-
are sarcastic. I should leave him
wanting more. I shouldn’t have sex
on the first date, or the second, or
the third. The Rules tells me that
men will like me because of “the way
you smile (you light up the room),
pause in between sentences (you
don’t babble on out of nervousness),
listen (attentively), look (demurely,
never stare), breathe (slowly), stand
(straight), and walk (briskly, with
your shoulder back).” Really? This
model of womanhood sounds eerily
like one straight out of the Victorian
age: one who never oversteps her
place as a sweet domestic ornament.
I’ve always thought that we were
past the time when a woman’s life
is exactly what The Rules seems
to be recommending, and, more
shockingly, what many men who I’ve
spoken with recently on the subject
seem to desire. “Guys like to make
the first move,” a male friend recent-
ly told me.
So, for the sake of science, I tried
to follow The Rules. I tried to smile
sweetly and let men talk over me, let
them call me and kiss me. And it was
fun for a bit. But, truthfully, I think
that these rules of dating are out-
dated. As a modern woman, every
other aspect of my life demands that
I be a go-getter and actively pursue
what I want. Why should dating be
any different?
10 Features
A deadly double stan
Clare Raspopow
The Link (CUP)
I
t’s not the circumstances of Ronald Allen
Smith’s crimes or trial that make his case
noteworthy. A native of Red Deer, Alberta,
Smith killed two men who stopped to pick him
up while he was hitchhiking through Montana
in 1982. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced
to death for his crimes. Nor does Smith’s sen-
tence make him unique. Since 1980, 1,136 peo-
ple have been executed in the United States.
The death row population today is more than
triple what it was in 1982.
Smith’s case stands out from others because
it represents the first time the Canadian gov-
ernment did not seek clemency for one of its
citizens condemned to death on foreign soil
since the practice was instated in 1976.
Until 2007, the government would auto-
matically advocate on behalf of Canadians
sentenced to die abroad. In late October of
that year, the Conservative government’s
Department of Foreign Affairs changed the
policy, stating it would no longer seek clem-
ency for Canadians on death row in demo-
cratic countries where they could expect a fair
trial – neglecting to specify what qualified as
a “democratic country” beyond the U.S. The
decision to request clemency is now decided
on a case-by-case basis. Prime Minister Stephen
Harper stated that on the basis of his govern-
ment’s strong initiatives to tackle violent crime,
seeking clemency on behalf of acknowledged
murderers would “send the wrong message to
the Canadian population.”
The following month, the Conservatives
announced they would not be co-sponsoring a
United Nations resolution calling for an inter-
national moratorium on the death penalty,
even though Canada has consistently spon-
sored similar resolutions every year between
1998 and 2005. Conservative spokesperson
Catherine Gagnaire explained to the Associated
Press that her government believed the resolu-
tion had adequate support already, and Canada
would not vote against it when it came before
the General Assembly. Harper has said that his
government is not interested in resurrecting the
1914 Robert Bickerdike intro-
duces the first abolitionist bill
in Canada. The bill is defeated
for four consecutive years.
1900 1910
A 2007 policy change in Harper’s Department of Foreign Affairs
has endangered Canadians facing capital punishment abroad
debate to reinstate the death penalty in Canada
– that these decisions are just a reflection of his
government’s tougher stance on crime.
Amnesty International has argued that deci-
sions such as these represent a regression in
Canada’s ongoing struggle to promote human
rights. They fear the introduction of grey areas
in Canada’s stance on capital punishment could
endanger Canadian lives.
T he struggle to abolish the death penalty
in Canada spanned over 60 years. Robert
Bickerdike introduced the first abolitionist bill
in Canada in 1914, arguing that capital punish-
ment was essentially state murder, a blot on
Christianity, an ineffective deterrent to crime,
and a brutal and unnecessary punishment.
While Bickerdike’s argument failed to
compel his contemporaries and a motion for
adjournment quickly defeated the bill, he
remained a lone voice of dissent in Parliament,
stubbornly refusing to accept defeat. He tried
to get his bill passed for three more years, and
never succeeded.
Despite rejecting an all-out ban on capital
punishment, the Canadian government did
begin to limit offences punishable by death,
striking rape from the list of capital offences
in 1954. Following this move, pressure against
the death penalty increased in government. For
almost a decade, every session of Parliament
included an abolition bill. This resulted in the
first major debate about the death penalty in
1966. The debate was lengthy, emotional, and
resulted in capital punishment being limited to
murder, the killing of officers of the peace, and
certain stipulations under the National Defence
Act.
On July 14, 1976, after a 98-hour debate, and
despite death threats against abolitionist mem-
bers of Parliament, MPs voted to abolish capi-
tal punishment from the Canadian Criminal
Code, retaining it only for the extreme cases
of mutiny or treason – charges that had never
been pressed against a Canadian. The last ves-
tiges of capital punishment were erased from
Canadian legislation on December 10, 1998,
when the remaining passages making reference
to capital punishment were removed from the
National Defence Act. Only once in the gradual
1920 1930
erasure of the death penalty in Canada has the
possibility of reversal presented itself. In 1987,
under the leadership of Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney, the Progressive Conservatives tried
to hold a free vote for the reinstatement of capi-
tal punishment. The bill was rejected.
Many feared that the loss of the ultimate
punishment would unleash crime and destruc-
tion upon the Canadian public. Contrary to
predictions, the homicide rate did not increase
after 1976. According to statistics compiled
by Amnesty International, the homicide rate
in Canada began to fall for the next 20 years,
reaching an all-time low of 1.9 homicides per
100,000 people in 1998. Yet, the homicide con-
viction rate nearly doubled in the decade after
abolition, possibly, according to some, because
Canadians were more willing to convict indi-
viduals when they weren’t required to decide
between life and death.
T he international community has been
moving toward death sentence abolition
since the mid-1940s. In December 1948, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
detailed the rights and freedoms of individuals
(including the “right to life”), was adopted and
ratified. Since the declaration, 118 UN-member
states have abolished the death penalty; only
78 countries and territories still retain it. The
initial declaration has sparked numerous addi-
tional declarations, covenants, conventions,
and optional protocols to encourage the elimi-
nation of the death penalty.
Adopting numerous resolutions to abolish
the death sentence internationally and still
refusing to extradite people who will be fac-
ing the death penalty upon return, Canada has
always been a solid backer during the interna-
tional push for abolition.
O n the surface, the changes made in 2007
seem minor. Harper has assured Canadians
that the death penalty is no closer to being rein-
stated in Canada than it ever was. But there may
be serious ramifications for our non-interference
in international cases. After the Conservatives’
decision not to advocate on behalf of Ronald
Smith, Irwin Cotler, a McGill professor, ex-min-
ister of justice, and international human rights
1954 As part of a slow move
toward death penalty aboli-
tion, rape is removed from
the list of crimes punish-
able by death in Canada.
1940 1950
 The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009 11

ndard

lawyer, spoke out to the media.“Why would we

now refuse to intervene to protect a Canadian
citizen sentenced to death in an American state,
thereby effectively reinstating capital punish-
ment for Canadians?” he asked in an interview
with the Associated Press.
Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty

Aquil Virani / The McGill Daily

International Canada, heaped criticism on
the decision about Smith, telling the CBC
that Canada was adopting a role as an “active
bystander,” and pointing out the interna-
tional effects that the decision would have on
Canada’s reputation as an upholder of human
rights. Dan McTeague, one-time secretary to
the minister of foreign affairs and an influen-
tial player in William Sampson’s release in 2003,
who faced beheading in Saudi Arabia after
being accused of planting a bomb under a car,
openly criticized the double standard set up
by the Conservatives. “Foreign policy is always
a mirror of our domestic values,” he told the
Associated Press.
Critics see the contradiction exposed by
McTeague as the sticking point. It’s not weak
to have tough standards for Canadian crimi-
nals while still protecting them from punish-
ment abroad that is deemed too inhumane
and abhorrent to be practiced in Canada. It is,
however, inconsistent to condemn a practice
on ethical and legal grounds at home, but con-
done it when another nation perpetrates it. The
ambiguity of the term “democratic country”
itself could pose a threat to Canadians whose
lives hang in the balance.
Where historically, Canadian intervention in
another nation’s decision to use the death pen-
alty was standard, it has now become a judgment
of that nation’s commitment to democracy or
the state of their legal system. Conservative MP
Stockwell Day asked the media: “[Why] inter-
vene to bring murderers who have received
due process in democratic countries back to
Canada?” But as Lorne Waldman, a member of
legal team for Maher Arar – a Canadian impris-
oned in the U.S. Guantanamo Bay – pointed
out after the Smith affair: “You don’t create pol-
icy based upon one individual case. [The death
penalty is] either acceptable in all cases or it’s
not acceptable. And if we reject it, we reject it
for everyone, even the most difficult cases.”

1976 After a 98-hour 1987 Brian 1998 Passages

debate, Parliament Mulroney’s citing the death
votes to abolish capital Progressive penalty in the
punishment from the Conservatives National Defence
Canadian Criminal Code. attempt to reinstate Act are eliminated,
the death penalty completely erasing
with a free vote. capital punishment
The bill is defeated. from legislature.

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

2007 The Department of Foreign

1976 The government adopts a poli- Affairs, under Stephen Harper, states
cy to automatically seek clemency for that it will no longer seek clemency for
Canadians sentenced to death abroad. Canadians facing the death penalty in
so-called “democratic countries.”
12 Commentary The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009

Through destruction, reform

The Shockwave and its purgative effects

The
conversationalist
Rosie Aiello

I
think it’s natural for people to feel
an aversion to destruction and
destructive forces. Let us con-
sider the shock wave: a sudden and
extreme increase in the temperature
and pressure of a medium most often
due to an explosion, or of an object
travelling faster than the speed of
sound. What’s more, the intense
heat and pressure that accompanies
the shock wave can feed exother-
mic chemical reactions between the
highly reactive materials in the vicin-
ity of the shock wave. Such chemical
reactions, in turn, create a detona-
tion wave, additional explosions that
drive the shock wave further. The
fear of explosives and of their sub-
sequent effects is an understandable
fear, fuelled by the natural inclination
toward survival and a century or so of
modern warfare.
Mechanical Engineering profes-
sor Evgeny Timofeev, who specializes
in high-speed flows and shock waves
at McGill University, explained that a
force as destructive as a shock wave
can be used constructively. Shock
waves can act to clean microscopic
electronic equipment by blowing out
the accumulated dust that can harm
its inner-workings. Shock waves also
hold increasing potential for the
field of Medicine. They can be used
to destroy gall stones, and localized
shock waves created by a small laser
can even be sent through arteries to
break up blood clots, thus preventing
strokes.
Talking with him, I began think-
ing about blockages in their many
forms, both physical and psychologi-
cal, both literal and figurative, that I
experience quite often. And I began
thinking that perhaps a little destruc-
tion is good thing, although it might
temporarily leave a zone of intense
pressure and heat, and a chain of
unpleasant chemical reactions in its
wake.
Modernist poet, Mina Loy would
have agreed. Although she may have
had fascist affiliations, she was also
a passionate feminist, believing that
the only route to freedom of thought
and an independent identity for
women required blowing-up tradi-
tional ideas of womanhood and rela-
Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily
tionships. In her Feminist Manifesto,
she expressed such an idea: “lies of Mechanical Engineering professor Evgeny Timofeev explains the benefits of destructive shock waves.
centuries have got to go.... There
is no half-measure – NO scratch-
ing on the surface of the rubbish Her ideas were radical, but not artery, so sometimes do old ideas Rosie’s column appears every other
heap of tradition, will bring about unsound. And as clots need to be need to be destroyed, blown out of Thursday. Send your blown-up bras
Reform, the only method is Absolute destroyed by the shock wave to let corners, to let the new ones flow to theconversationalist@mcgilldai-
Demolition.” the blood flow freely through the freely into our consciousness. ly.com.

HYDE PARK

The XYZs of the economic crisis

Part II of The Daily’s guide to absurd financial realities

Duong Pham arrest in his $7-million home. I’m told Intrinsic Value – According to the tives. A stimulus package is like tak- culture?
that devouring a baby would net him critics of the economic bailouts, this ing a mixture of drugs that may give The rest of the letters don’t have
three months in a minimum security is something produced by the institu- you an amazing high, but if mixed words or terms I can use, so I’ll end

L
is for Lehman Brothers – Think
of this as the story, “The Little
Engine that Could.” Only in this
case, instead of the engine complet-
ing the seemingly impossible task
of dragging a large shipment over
treacherous terrain, it accumulated a
total debt of $700-billion and nearly
destroyed the economy. I think I can,
I think I can!
M is for Madoff – As in Bernard
Madoff, a modern-day Charles
Dickens villain, who through a giant
pyramid scheme stole over $50-bil-
lion from his clients. Some of his
clients include big-time Hollywood
directors, multinational banks, uni-
versities, and charities. While await-
ing trial, he was sentenced to house
prison.
N is for Naked Position – When
you go naked, you take a position.
For instance, owning 500 shares of
General Motors that isn’t protected
from loss or hedged. It’s a fairly com-
mon practice. When an institution
like AIG insurance goes naked, it
loses about $100-billion. Believe it
or not, I did not just put this here to
make a cheap sex joke.
O is for Overnight Rate –
Whenever you hear or read some-
thing about interest rates being low-
ered or raised, it’s referring to this –
the rate at which commercial banks
can borrow money from the central
bank.
P is for Pieces of Paper with No
tions we have bailed out. According
to me, this perfectly describes a uni-
versity degree. So that being said,
where the fuck is my bailout?
Q – How many words in the
English language begin with “Q?”
R is for Real Estate – “Also a
synonym for risk-free investment
because of the relative safety and
stability of real estate. Real estate
investments rarely fall making them
the best place to put your money.” –
A dream I had last night where I was
speaking to a financial advisor from
2003.
S is for Stimulus Package – A
large sum of money invested by the
government in things such as public
works projects and job creation initia-
improperly might do nothing, cause
a bad trip, or kill you. Let’s hope the
Obama Speedball, err $819-billion
stimulus package, doesn’t kill us.
T is for Too Big to Fail Policy –
There are certain things in this econ-
omy that depend on the existence of
a few large firms. Problem is, which
firms make up that list? A more apt
analogy perhaps would be like decid-
ing which member of a pretentious
indie rock band to eliminate with-
out compromising their indie cred.
The monotone lead singer, the weird
chick in the back who does noth-
ing but clap, the triangle player with
the asymmetric haircut, or the bass-
ist who’s always wearing shirts that
make reference to early nineties pop
it off with a thought. We are now
living in a world where the vari-
ous governments of the world have
spent $10-trillion on bailouts to res-
cue their respective financial sectors
because it’s too big to fail after years
of telling us that they’re isn’t enough
money for education, health care, or
the environment. Instead of placing
blame or trying to argue who should
get how much, maybe the question
we should be asking is should any-
thing be allowed to become “too
large to fail” in the first place.
Duong Pham is a U3 Economics stu-
dent. Send him your alphabetic solu-
tions at duong.pham@mail.mcgill.
ca.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
HYDE PARK
Raising a finger to both
sides of the fence
Elinor Keshet
M
y brother was in southeast
Jerusalem when an elderly
mother yelled from her win-
dow, in Hebrew, “This isn’t a place for
you; you should leave.”
He’d been there a thousand times
before and so he paid her no mind.
Soon after, a group of kids began
crowding around his car, laughing,
making it impossible to open the
door without them getting in. After
getting handfuls of pebbles chucked
at him, he finally managed to get
inside the car, but was trapped since
they continued to surround it.
He didn’t dare move the car
because if a single one of those kids
even so much as skinned a knee
and started crying, they wouldn’t be
kids anymore. They would be adults
– adults with guns and rocks and a
cause larger than them – and my
brother is just a short brown kid from
the wrong side of the West Bank. He
finally got out, locked the car, and
pleaded with them to let him get
home to his family in peace.
It has been about four years
since my last visit to Israel, but I still
remember riding my bicycle through
that neighbourhood and buying
fresh laffa at the bakery. I remember
going there with a fella’ just like fif-
ties American sophomores going to
the drive-in. I remember people play-
ing backgammon on the street and
drinking tea brimming with mint
leaves and copious amounts of sugar
that precipitated out at the bottom of
the glasses. Most of all, I remember
feeling safe, and as soon as I heard
this story I felt like I came face-to-face
with the Intifada for the first time.
You see the wall, and you see the
security, but you just don’t get the vis-
ceral feeling of being in danger until
you experience something like my
brother did. Those children didn’t see
my brother as a person, and as a result
of his story, I have a mistrust of the
area’s residents, a sense of hurt about
our predicament, and a feeling that I
am no longer safe. This isn’t because
the news tells me so, or the army
shows me so, but because I’ve seen
the real casualties of war. It is not lives
lost, but the children who are grow-
ing up, being taught that there are two
kinds of people – us and them.
To all of those people spouting on
about Palestinian and Israeli conflicts
like experts with solutions, begin-
ning criticisms with, “If it were up
to me,” and sharing opinions based
on books that get published faster
than one can physically write them
or reports from journalists in bullet-
proof vests with perfect command of
twelve languages; to all of you who
think for a moment there is right and
there is wrong and that the hands
of one are bloodier than the next or
that cause and effect can be defined
Evan Newton / The McGill Daily
and acted on, I have something to
say: While over the years I have sat
silently through what feels like eons’
worth of armchair diatribes and Poli-
Sci studies activism, I am hereby
registering my middle finger to the
rhetoric on all sides of the fence
retro- and proactively.
The true casualties of war are not
necessarily those people killed in
traffic by some nut-job with a trac-
tor, or those open-sewer-dwelling
folks bombed in Gaza. The real dam-
age is that done by the propaganda
and the hate, and the fact that each
child born into the ideology that we
expound represents 80 more years of
burden that the rest of us peace and
freedom-loving folks must shoulder.
On these terms, each child is a sprout
in a fertile ground that will one day be
a forest of nettles through which tra-
verse will be impossible and freedom
will be stopped cold in its ambling
and self-righteous tracks.
I hope that one day we can all
forgive each other and ourselves for
what is ultimately the persistence of
myopic vision. It is not some deep
understanding of the circumstance
and history that will bring peace, but
rather an appreciation of how little
we can know and how utterly naive
we have sounded thus far.
Elinor Keshet is a U2 Cultural Studies
student, and can be reached at eli.
keshet@mail.mcgill.ca.
HYDE PARK
Scorned by my
journalistic sisters
A search for career
advice results in help
from male friends
Kelly-Marie Albert
T
he prospect of graduating in
May has led me to a self-exam-
ination crisis. I like sports and
writing: why not sports journalism?
So crazy it just might work.
I am fascinated that sports con-
nect both local and international
communities. Especially in Montreal,
where la ville est hockey. Montreal
has a large community of sports jour-
nalists, many of whom are female.
These women probably also won-
dered once about the obstacles of
working in a male-dominated field.
They ought to remember their own
hardships and have advice about
what to expect. Of course they would
share their experience with a bright-
eyed young woman to whom they
could pass the torch. Or not, as I
soon found out.
I took a shot in the dark. I emailed
four prominent Montreal-based
sports journalists, two male and two
female. The emails were polite and
inquisitive. I asked broad questions,
hoping for whatever answers I could
get. I asked about their experience
and the volatility of the profession.
Sports journalism is a field predomi-
nantly occupied by men; as a woman,
I framed my queries realistically. I
wanted to know what adversities I
could expect and whether credibility
was an issue.
Within the hour, my inbox had
three replies. The two male journal-
ists offered to meet to discuss the finer
details of sports journalism. Neither
believed that credibility would be an
issue if I worked to always be at the
top of my game. One even provided
better email addresses for one of the
women that I had already contacted
and another female sports journalist.
My chutzpah paid off!
I was feeling pretty good about
We can write if we want to,
we can leave your friends behind,
‘cuz your friends don’t write,
and if they don’t write,
well they’re no friends of mine.
Make friends with The Daily! Write a Hyde Park.
Commentary 13
myself until I read the third response
from one of the women. She wrote
that it wasn’t all free hockey tickets
and good-looking athletes. On the
bright side, she noted, if I was hot,
I could always go into sports broad-
casting. Capping off the patronising
email, I was horrified to find a “lol.”
Why not shoot an emoticon through
my very heart and soul? It was not so
much the use of the expression but
its context. I was hoping for serious
answers and her reply was discourag-
ing. She criticized the broadness of
my questions and when I sent anoth-
er, more specific email, I received no
reply. Thus far, the two other women
that I contacted have yet to answer.
Here’s to inspiring a future gen-
eration and gender solidarity. Is it
possible that brilliant women in their
fields avoid helping fellow women? I
cannot imagine why the prospect of
being my Yoda does not entice these
women to help out a young Skywalker
such as myself. Why wouldn’t they
want to help change the face of their
profession? Perhaps my interest is a
threat, but it seems ridiculous that
the prospect of a young woman with
a modicum of sports knowledge
could strike fear in the hearts of
established women with successful
careers. And could it be that this hap-
pens in all professional fields?
All I was looking for was a little
hope in email form. It is absurd that
the male Baby-Boomer-aged journal-
ists were more willing to help out than
the thirty-something women. Also,
I sent these emails from my McGill
email address, not something silly
like mrs.tony.romo@gmail.com.
I am concerned about my find-
ings; women should be sticking out
for each other, regardless of age, pro-
fession, or looks. We should spend
more time helping each other. So
I must go down this path pseudo-
alone, without the guidance of my
journalistic sisters. However, if this
crazy pipe-dream does take me any-
where, let this article decree that if a
future inquisitive young’un sends me
an email, I will most definitely help a
gal out, without the “lol.”
Kelly Albert is a U3 English Literature
student. Contact her at kelly-marie.
albert@mail.mcgill.ca, especially if
you’re a female sports writer.
commentary@mcgilldaily.com.
 14 Commentary The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009

HYDE PARK

Extreme makeover: greening the PM

David Searle

S
tephen Harper needs a make-
over, fast. Since last October’s
federal election, things have
been going from bad to worse for
our Prime Minister. His public image
needs to change, or he risks being
kicked out of 24 Sussex Drive for
good.
From the fall budget update, to
the prorogation of Parliament in
December, the appointment of a
convincing opposition leader, and
now the awkward unveiling of an
essentially Liberal budget, Harper
has found himself in a precarious sit-
uation that few would have imagined
possible last October.
Although it might seem artificial
and somewhat unorthodox, Harper’s
greatest chance at reinventing him-
self could be by taking a page out
of Stéphane Dion’s “Green Shift.”
With Dion’s exit as Liberal leader last
December, the award for most envi-
ronmentally conscious prime minis-
terial candidate is now up for grabs.
Not that being green pays elector-
ally. Indeed, Dion’s very poor show-
ing last election can be explained
in part by the Canadian electorate’s
lack of commitment to environmen- Mike Rakowski for The McGill Daily

tal causes. We would rather vote for

a candidate who exudes confidence,
leadership skills, and delivers on the
basics like the economy and health
care. Sadly, the environment still
ranks below the personality of our
political leaders.
This is exactly where Stephen
Harper has the greatest deficiency.
When it comes to lacking personal-
ity, he pretty much takes the cake.
And this is where the environment
comes in: Hollywood stars can all
attest to the fact that there is noth-
ing that can gain public sympathy
like going green. Harper’s popular-
ity levels could greatly benefit from
the construction of a couple of high
-speed trains, the slowing of develop-
ment, and the imposition of cleaner
extraction procedures on the Alberta
tar sands, or even by simply befriend-
ing Al Gore. What’s most important is
that he comes off looking human.
More than ever, the leader of the
Conservative party gives the impres-
sion of being an ideologue who
cannot be trusted at the head of a
majority government. Harper’s obvi-
ous misgivings about providing a
significant stimulus package to ward
off a possible depression has only
contributed to this negative percep-
tion. Fortunately for him, conserva-
tives of all stripes – such as David
Cameron of the British Conservative
party and Brian Mulroney, believed to
be Canada’s greenest PM ever – have
become some of the greatest advo-
cates for environmental causes. In fact,
the environment provides Harper the
perfect opportunity to reach out to
a majority of the population without
alienating his Reformist/Alliance sup-
porters.
What’s left to be seen is whether
our federal government will adopt
responsible environmental policies
in an effort to appease international
eco-critics, or whether Conservatives
will have to be forced down that eco-
path by the Obama administration.
The possibility to provide popular
leadership is too great for Harper to
pass on.
That being said, one should not
expect Harper to undergo the green
makeover any time soon, despite its
limited risks and obvious political
benefits. By positioning environmen-
tal interests as inherently contradic-
tory to economic ones in the last
federal election, he has made any
reconciliation with the former highly
unlikely. This is unfortunate from
an environmental standpoint, but
also represents a lost opportunity
for Harper, one that may be sorely
missed in the upcoming months.
David Searle is a U1 History student.
Send green tips to david.searle@
mail.mcgill.ca.

HYDE PARK

Budget recklessly neglects foreign aid

Kyle Bailey a budget which refuses to address increasing faster than inflation, leav- So when Gilles Duceppe sends double total international assistance
the medium-term environmental cri- ing a feeling of being ripped-off at the me a brochure about “le coup” of by 2010-2011. Why aren’t Jack, Gilles,
sis is simply unacceptable. Ditto for grocery store. For some Canadians, it Parliament and Jack Layton harps on and Iggy pointing out that the 2009

I
n some ways, the budget process
was heartening; the threat of a
coalition forced the Conservatives
to deliver a centrist budget, which –
though woefully inadequate – is a step
in the right direction. Sure, I’d like to
see a united majority coalition with a
backbone, instead of a Liberal spine
snapped in half like a broken reed.
As a student of the “what the hell
have we gotten ourselves into” envi-
ronmental school, it’s nice to see that
the popular press and the two oppo-
sition parties with balls – the NDP
and the Bloc – have pointed out that
the many issues of social justice exac-
erbated by pretty much everyone
having less purchasing power.
However, the above indignation
lies firmly in the “bitch with my friends
between classes” category. There is
another omission from the budget
which lies firmly in the “reading this
makes me so pissed off I just have to
post it to Facebook, and angst over
whether my friends share the same
sense of white-hot rage” category.
The price of nutritional staples is
going up all over the world. For most
students, it means that food prices are
means trips to the food bank become
the only option. If you’re one of seven
million people surviving on World
Food Program aid in Zimbabwe, it
means that your ration is about to be
cut in half. It means that your already
inadequate 10-kg per month supply
– still below the recommended mini-
mum of 12 kg per month – is getting
cut in half to about 600 calories per
day. All this, while the average North
American eats about 3,000 calories
per day. Of course, the Zimbabwean
dilemma is just one of the most egre-
gious and visible examples.
about how the most vulnerable aren’t
receiving a huge boost in employ-
ment insurance, I agree – but I’m not
burning with indignation. If our poli-
ticians really want a shining image
of caring for their fellow man, why
don’t they bring up the fact that we,
as Canadians, have a duty not just to
out-of-work Ontario auto workers and
laid-off Quebec forestry workers?
This is, after all, the same govern-
ment which promised to devote 0.7
per cent of its budget to foreign aid.
Last year, it also promised to double
aid to Africa by 2008-2009 and to
budget doesn’t make any reference
to foreign aid?
Looking south of the border, we
see a country in far worse economic
straits than we, but one that is still
excited to renew its engagement
with the world. Here, the govern-
ment, opposition, and the fifth estate
apparently don’t realize that Canada
once did pride itself on being an
international leader.
Kyle Bailey is a U3 Environment stu-
dent, who like to hear from you at
kylebailey260@gmail.com.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
An economic boycott of Israel?
POINT
The world’s lacklustre response
to a humanitarian crisis
Idil Issa
W S
hat happened recently in Gaza? Since
this is well-tilled soil, I will deal with
two pressing issues in its aftermath:
the humanitarian response, or lack thereof,
and an important talking point in the media
post-Gaza offensive, the Hamas Charter.
The current thrust of European “diploma-
cy,” post-Gaza offensive, is focused on weapon
smuggling to Hamas. While some weapons
could have been leaked through the tunnels
between Gaza and Egypt, the tunnels were pri-
marily used to stave off the imminent starvation
of a captive population – which has endured
three years of international sanctions for exer-
cising its democratic right to vote for Hamas –
and to deliver basic supplies, such as oil.
A people must survive somehow, and they
will find ways of doing so. Last year, the UN
deemed the tunnels a “vital economic lifeline.”
The mainstream media’s current attempts to
reduce the tunnels to weapon conduits is at
odds with the facts of the situation, and contrib-
utes to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Rather
than applaud the bombing of the tunnels as a
key plank in the reduction of Hamas’s retaliato-
ry capacity, it should be acknowledged for what
it was – the garroting of the people of Gaza,
cutting off the last tiny air pocket in the depths
of the sea of misery created and approved of by
the international community.
Normally, the global community is expected
to band together after the dust has settled to
impartially tend to the wounded civilians, the
homeless, and the hungry on both sides of any
given conflict. But the BBC has just recently
refused to air a Gaza humanitarian aid appeal
because it fears compromising its impartiality.
And France, led by Nicolas Sarkozy – the one-
time European Union’s Prince Charming – has
directed a French frigate into the waters off
Gaza, not to deliver food aid, but to prevent
weapon smuggling from Iran to Hamas.
Has anyone taken note of the death toll,
which stands at approximately 1,300 Palestinians
to 13 Israelis? Has anyone taken note that it is
more logical to demand an end to U.S. ship-
ments of arms to Israel, in violation of its own
laws which prohibit the use of these weapons
against civilians? Or the imminent starvation of
the Gazans? Justice is so far removed from the
international community’s response, it’s incred-
ible that we remember what it looks like.
Second, the Hamas Charter. The argument
is that Hamas is inherently a terrorist orga-
nization, given its Charter’s express goal of
eliminating the State of Israel. Let us examine
this Charter. “Israel will rise and will remain
erect until Islam eliminates it as it had elimi-
nated its predecessors.” Pretty dire material.
Debate over the Middle East has filled these pages since the Israeli
offensive in Gaza began over a month ago. Below, two students
debate the roots and utility of an economic boycott of Israel.
But what about the Israeli constitution? A State
for Jews – “Every Jew has the right to come
to this country as an oleh.” The 1950 Law of
Return states that dead people of Jewish heri-
tage are granted the right to return, but living-
Palestinian refugees are not – this is equally
problematic.
And let’s not forget that Canada’s
Constitution defines the Queen as the Head of
State. People seem to be completely incapable
of considering the diplomatic realities of the
here-and-now, and are focused on Hamas’s
Charter as though it were white phosphorus:
burning to the touch, and solely responsible
for placing Hamas into the category of terror-
ist organization. Unless people have been get-
ting paper cuts on copies of Hamas’s Charter
lately, it escapes me how this document has
been harming Israel of late. It was Israel that
broke the ceasefire which led to the tragic
Gaza offensive. On November 4, 2008, Israel
attacked Gaza and killed six Hamas fighters.
This was reported widely, in the Guardian
newspaper and even, albeit reluctantly, by
CNN.
Hamas has extended the olive branch to
Israel, and is willing to consider a two-state
solution. And I am searching the horizon des-
perately for any glimpse of a strong Palestine,
member-state of the United Nations, with a
strong, happy, un-oppressed populace. Israel
has made it its aim to prevent the establish-
ment of Palestine, and has actually imple-
mented this aim. Now who’s the terrorist?
And finally, it seems a little rich to me that the
incendiary language of an oppressed people is
used to paint their movement as a movement of
terrorists. As someone from Africa, during the
liberation struggles of the sixties, very incendi-
ary language was used against the oppressors.
This isn’t the point. Stop the oppression. Then
it may make more sense to expect polite con-
versation. But I am pragmatist at heart – I am
in favour of a two-state solution, which will
only be achieved by taking the wind out of
the belligerence and oppression of the Israeli
Government. That is why I am in favour of a
boycott of Israel. Not Israeli people, or academ-
ics – I believe in free speech, and such a boycott
would be unfair. But I am in favour of a blanket
boycott of all Israeli goods and economic deal-
ings. It is high time to force Israel back into the
fold of international law, order, and justice, and
even to welcome it back as a positive member
of the world community alongside a hard-won
new Palestine.
Idil Issa is a U3 Philosophy and Political Science
student. He can be reached at idilissa@gmail.
com.
Commentary 15
COUNTERPOINT
Five things to ignore before
boycotting Israel
Mookie Kideckel And by further impoverishing poor labour-
ers and by pushing into new poverty white-
collar workers, the only possible outcome is
o you want to advocate for an economic increased tolerance and amicability. When
boycott of Israel? I’m not going to try to someone points out that this doesn’t make
convince you otherwise, but I would like any sense, start reading Green Eggs and Ham
to prepare you for the obstacles you’re bound loudly and ask them if they would not also rise
to face. They will be nagging, but pay them no up if they had to eat their green eggs and ham
heed and they’ll often disappear. In particular, in a box.
there are five things you must ignore, or you
risk derailing your entire mission. 4. Ignore the fact that even if a boycott did
address the issue in theory, in practice it would
1. Ignore the fact that your proposal has no not. For this step, just remember that South
moral legitimacy. This one will be tough, but Africa is the only country that has ever exist-
the results are worth it. Your adversaries may ed. When naysayers point out how sanctions
point out to you that, since one of the pri- in Iraq failed to stop Saddam Hussein, or how
mary concerns of those in favour of a boycott sanctions against Cuba left Fidel Castro thriv-
has been the economic blockade of Gaza, it is ing and in fact just pushed him closer to the
hypocritical to advocate economically crippling U.S.S.R., or how sanctions against North Korea
Israel. have not stalled Kim Jong Il’s nuclear program,
They may further insist that since you don’t yell “But South Africa!” and walk away.
advocate boycotts against states with more dire
humanitarian situations, such as Sudan or Sri 5. Ignore the negative consequences that
Lanka, you’re applying an unfair double stan- could stem from a boycott. Remember, our
dard to Israel’s actions. They may conclude that society is not at all reliant on electronic com-
because of these things you do not have a leg to munication devices, computers, or medical
stand on. Just tell them they’re racist and read technology, and we don’t need to buy these
the wrong media, and that leg will grow back things. When people remind you that the Stone
faster than Pinocchio’s nose. Age sucked, just give them some popcorn, turn
on The Flintstones, and walk your car home.
2. Ignore the fact that this boycott is com-
pletely unnecessary. You don’t need to convince Once you master these five simple things,
me that the only reason people defend Israel’s you’ll be well on your way to effective dema-
existence is because they’re brainwashed vic- goguery. Soon you will be able to spread your
tims of the conspiracy between CNN, George message far and wide. Or, you know, you could
Bush, and the Elders of Zion. But some people not.
may not be totally sold on this.
They may dig into their propaganda archives
and point out that Israel is not the only aggres-
sor in the region – that since 1948 Israel has Mookie Kideckel is a U1 History student. Send
faced armed invasion, plane hijackings, suicide pleasant ideological suggestions to mookie.
bombings, and rockets. They may methodically kideckel@mail.mcgill.ca.
recite to you the dominant ideological message
that Israel is not even solely responsible for the
suffering of Palestinians – Jordan and Egypt
have killed Palestinians, Hamas has used civil-
ian facilities for military operations, and Fatah
and Hamas killed over 100 people in their
2007 battle. Once they tell you that a boycott
is therefore totally mis-targeting the incredibly
complex origins of the Middle East conflict,
turn up your satellite feed of Al-Aqsa TV really
loud and drown them out.
3. Ignore the fact that even if there was
a necessity, an economic boycott would fail
to address it. We both know that the people
directly responsible for making Israel’s primary
exports – including jewelry, textiles, and elec-
tronic, communication, medical, and scientific
equipment – are similarly responsible for set-
ting Israeli government policy.
 Culture The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
16

I could hate the sin, but never the theatre

Murder most foul at Tuesday Night Café Theatre
Nicolas Boisvert-Novak maintain for two hours, but the cast
The McGill Daily pulled it off successfully: of all the
laughs, only one felt guilty, and for
all the dramatic lines, not a single

I
f you haven’t yet caught wind of
TNC Theatre’s latest production,
John Logan’s Never The Sinner,
chances are you’re either dead, in a
hermitage, or like the rest of us. And
that’s a shame, because what these
stalwart theatre kids have put togeth-
er is a most captivating foray into the
minds of two amoral young killers,
thoroughly worth our time. Now, if
only it could find an audience.
Not that the cast and crew haven’t
been trying; in fact, they’ve been
pulling out all the stops. But it’s an
obvious struggle: how to get college
students excited about nudity-free
theatre – the cultural equivalent of
non-alcoholic beer? Common sense
suggests staging a high-profile public
execution, but they’ve settled for the
next best thing: a press stunt.
Indeed, the past two Wednesdays
saw the cast, dressed in full 1920s
regalia, attract student attention by
enacting a fictive scene from the
Leopold and Loeb trial, the historical
event that Never The Sinner draws its
story from. Though the happenings
were poorly attended – some blame
the cold, others our collective dis-
dain for culture – the actors frankly
expected as much, conducting the
stunts primarily for their own amuse-
ment, and in hopes that it might give
rise to some word-of-mouth action.
Be that as it may, the scene’s amus-
ing era throwbacks (dopey haircuts,
beige suits, the use of a notepad)
and strident dramatics served as an
excellent entrée to the main attrac-
tion, whose darker tones are offset
by its endearing 1920s flair. That bal-
ance – between entertainment and
art – is a hard one to strike, let alone
one felt forced.
Deserving much of the credit,
of course, is the playwright. John
Logan’s extensive examination of
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb
– two brilliant young men, whose
twisted, passionate love affair com-
pelled them to murder – consistently
refuses the path of least resistance
towards condemnation. The play
would prefer to understand the two
killers. That it does so at such a fluid
pace – cycling through 27 scenes in
the span of two hours – is a remark-
able achievement.
And there to give that achieve-
ment justice was Stephanie Shum’s
direction, underpinned by Andrew
Robert Martin’s (Leopold) and Peter
Farrell’s (Loeb) striking interpreta-
tions of the two central characters.
Sharing the stage throughout most of
the play, the two actors displayed an
exceptional chemistry, ably convey-
ing the symbiotic relationship that Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily
united the killers. Arts steps turn into the mise-en-scène for 1920s murder tale Never the Sinner.
In particular, praise to Farrell for
skilfully skirting the overacting that
Loeb’s extroversion – not to men- François Macdonald, who each inhab- back and forth through time, without attending, as they run the risk of
tion mood swings – sometimes pre- ited a whole panoply of stock charac- losing sight of their roles or failing to distracting the opposite sex for the
scribed. Robert Martin’s introverted ters with rare ease and fluidity. keep our attention. entire duration of the play.
Leopold, meanwhile, stood as the But strong as the performances But not everything was perfect. Still, considering the strength of
play’s strongest display of subtlety, were, Never The Sinner achieved Risks were taken with the seating the performances and the engrossing
making such bashful expressions as much of its success through its metic- arrangements, which divided the quality of the production, it’s an issue
to make me wonder what his parents ulous mise-en-scène, which firmly audience along both sides of the the- that most will look past, and some
were like (I assume very nice). kept its audience absorbed by the atre – probably so as to overcome may not even notice. Truth is, you’ll
Adding to their chemistry was play’s inquiries into human psychol- spatial constraints. Though it gave probably all be too busy question-
Julien Naggar – succeeding against all ogy. The lighting, elegantly handled, the players more room to move, and ing the moral character of the two
expectations in portraying a 67-year- could alter the stage at a moment’s effectively created two focal points killers, and the twisted Nietzschean
old Matlock figure – as well as Kyle notice, turning the courthouse set- along the stage, it also offered both ethics they weakly embody. It’s a con-
Foot, who played the prosecution arrangements from a jail to a car – or halves of the audience the chance suming concern, one that holds the
straight: bloodthirsty and righteous. anything else the script required. to stare right at each other. I would play together and – most importantly
And just as praiseworthy were Kate Meanwhile, actors would quietly slip recommend our most attractive read- – ensures that the viewers will have a
Sketchley, Rachael Benjamin, and from one scene to another, flashing ers to cover themselves up prior to memorable time.

What your momma never told you

Montreal’s biggest sex trade show aims to celebrate the nasty-nasty

Maya Hamovitch and running for three days, the of anal sex.” From information on begins to renegotiate and challenge the ject of sex are deeply rooted, and for
Culture Writer show is now in its 15th year. It is the the taboo realms of bondage, domi- ways in which sexuality is understood, some, the cloak of secrecy cannot be
longest-running adult consumer and nation, and sadomasochism, to the controlled, and repressed. Contrary easily removed. But the show’s orga-
trade show in Montreal, and is as ever-popular we-vibe (you’ll have to to the mainstream view that equates nizers take this into consideration. If

I
n the midst of our long, cold, and
dreary winter, there is a place of
warmth – or perhaps to be more
accurate, heat. This is a place where
choosing the right vibrator is as impor-
tant as selecting the perfect smart-
phone, and where discussing anal
sex is no less common than talking of
yesterday’s weather. It’s a world that
is real, yet rarely explored. Starting
February 6, Salon de l’amour et de
la séduction creates a safe and erotic
space in which you can unearth the
world of sexuality and spice up your
love life at the same time.
Located at the Olympic Stadium
eccentric, exciting, and electrifying
as ever. The show offers a plethora of
stimulating sexperiments combined
with a healthy dose of education.
“Salon de l’amour et de la séduc-
tion offers a unique blend of enter-
tainment, education, and shopping
that you can’t get anywhere else,”
says Michael Singer, the show’s man-
ager. “It’s a whole package, and for
$15 you’re getting a great experience
– fashion show, toys, and a seminar
all in one day.”
A variety of seminars, offered in
both English and French, cover such
hushed topics as “the truths and lies
attend to find out how it works), this
show exposes that which is often dis-
cussed in hushed voices – if at all.
The show provides an open space
where individuals can contemplate
their sexuality and new forms of sex-
ual expression without fear of judg-
ment. Singer highlights the show’s
open and accepting atmosphere,
explaining, “a lot of people are ner-
vous and shy about asking questions.
20,000 people sharing the same
experience makes people feel more
comfortable with their sexuality.”
Though the show may not revolu-
tionize society’s attitudes toward sex, it
sexual openness with pornography
and pathology, this show promotes
the notion that sexuality should be
embraced, developed, and celebrated.
Salon de l’amour et de la séduc-
tion encourages the exploration of
intimacy and helps sexual partners
establish connections with each
other in sensually fulfilling ways.
“Once people come to the show
and realize what is done, people are
excited,” Singer adds. “No one is born
a perfect lover. Sitting in on seminars
like this gives people a chance to be
in a comfortable space.”
The taboos that pervade the sub-
you’re preoccupied by fears of sexual
activity, swathed in guilt from paren-
tal or societal voices, or simply look-
ing to enjoy an open, casual, sexy
event, the Salon de l’amour et de la
séduction show will satisfy your curi-
osity and open new avenues to sexual
health, romance, and intimacy.
Salon de l’amour et de la séduc-
tion runs from February 6-8 at the
Olympic Stadium. Admission is
$15 for each day, and attendance
is restricted to those 18 years and
older. For more information, visit
amouretseduction.com.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
Making nothing
from something
Silvia Kolbowski’s reimagining of French New
Wave classic lacks potency of the original
Daniel Walber
Culture Writer
I
n the world of film, there are
few things more dangerous
than the remake. The decision
to take an artistic accomplishment
and reinvent it to serve one’s own
purposes – as an homage to the
original work, to make it more
“current,” or for any number of
other reasons – is a risky one at
best. While there is, of course,
much more incentive to remake
films of great fame and stature,
the original brilliance will inevita-
bly make it difficult to produce an
adaptation of merit.
And this is the risk that artist
Silvia Kolbowski takes in her short
film adaptation, After Hiroshima
Mon Amour. The original picture
is one of the pioneering works
of the post-war period and argu-
ably the most crucial film in the
inception of the French New
Wave. Marguerite Duras’s power-
ful screenplay, coupled with Alain
Resnais’s visionary use of time and
flashback, creates a work that was
revolutionary at its release and has
maintained its reputation to this
day. How does one remake some-
thing such as this?
Kolbowski’s approach is intrigu-
ing. Her 22-minute video composi-
tion mixes the screenplay and visu-
als of the opening sequence with
reconstructions of pivotal scenes in
the work and interjections of video
footage taken from Iraq and post-
Katrina New Orleans. She supplies
a relatively constant script thst
alternates between lines from the
original screenplay and statements
of her own – reducing Hiroshima
Mon Amour in its entirety down to
less than a quarter of the length of
the antecedent. While Duras’s lines
seem just as potent and profound
when extracted from their original
context, Kolbowski’s words seem
to gloss over the complexities of
the earlier work. She force-feeds
her interpretation of the original
to her audience in an attempt to
set the stage for her somewhat
predictable statements on war, vio-
Read the Culture section / Write for the Culture section
Write for the Culture section / Edit the Culture section
Edit the Culture section / Read the Culture section
Meetings Tuesday 5:30 p.m. / Shatner B-24 /
lence, and love.
Atop of this continuous mesh of
script and simplistic interpretation
– Kolbowski at one point refers to
the female protagonist’s decision
to leave Hiroshima as “common
cowardice” – are a series of recon-
structions of important scenes in
the original film. These contain
extremely sparse dialogue, and
make up the artist’s most success-
ful articulation of an idea in the
work.
The actors, though their delivery
is occasionally quite dead (especial-
ly in English), bring a truly modern
and international feel to the work,
exporting the message of Hiroshima
Mon Amour out of Japan and into
the entirety of the modern world.
And rightly so: the horror of war
isn’t limited to its impact on a spe-
cific place and people, but is rather
a universal tragedy. Yet the incon-
sistency in the dialogue in these
scenes, linguistic and otherwise,
makes the adaptation all that much
less convincing – nevermind the art-
ist’s too-direct and less-than-poetic
articulations.
Unfortunately, Kolbowski does
not seem to think these devices
in and of themselves are enough
for her to make her point, and in
a further attempt to modernize
the film, footage from post-Katrina
New Orleans and war-torn Iraq are
interspersed quite frequently. The
difficulty that arises from putting
footage of a natural disaster into
a film that wants to make a state-
ment about war weakens the over-
all message, turning a potentially
powerful statement about war into
just another critique of the Bush
administration. Furthermore, the
almost visually offensive shades of
purple, yellow, and red that colour
the piece are simply too jarring to
be taken seriously.
This weekend, if you’re thinking
about walking over to Concordia
for the installation, save yourself
the disappointment: rent Resnais
and Duras’s brilliant film in the
original, curl up on the couch, and
make an evening of it. No middle-
man artistic interpretation neces-
sary.
Exhibit at the Montréal, arts, interculturels uses wood and earth to evoke themes of exile and loss.
Unearthing memory
Artist José Luis Torres dishes the dirt on displacement and nostalgia
Alyssa Favreau
Culture Writer
T
omorrow at Montréal,
arts, interculturels (MAI),
Argentinean artist José Luis
Torres’s new exhibit, Continente, will
open. My outing to meet with Torres
did not have an auspicious start, see-
ing as I got lost seconds after stepping
out of the Metro station. A good half
an hour later, and thanks to a very
helpful old Frenchman, I was making
my way to the MAI. I finally got to the
beautiful stone building, complete
with bright purple door and window
frames, and walked inside.
Torres, who came to meet me
as I entered the centre, is a kind-
looking man with a ponytail of
frizzy hair and round glasses à la
John Lennon. In addition to hold-
ing a Masters degree in Fine Arts, he
really did look the part of the artist-
carpenter as he showed me around
in jeans and work boots. Hailing
from Argentina, Torres has lived in
Montreal for the past five years and
his entire approach to art since then
has been based on such concepts as
space, exile and memory.
In Continente, Torres uses earth-
filled wooden casts strewn across
the room to depict the effect that
displacement and reminiscence have
had on him. Although the interac-
tive exhibit had not yet been finished
when I visited, it was still possible to
see how Torres planned to use the
enormous casts to convey his ideas
on immigration. It was perhaps a per-
sonal reaction, but the warm, bright
light, combined with the smell of
earth and wood did lend a feeling of
nostalgia to the gallery.
Speaking French with a thick
Argentinean accent, Torres tells me
that his inspiration did indeed come
from his immigration, specifically the
problems concerning identity and
culture. “The earthen casts are a sort
of metaphor,” he told me. “I employ
traditional Latin American construc-
tion techniques but the material, the
earth, is universal; it represents me.”
To Torres, it is the act of making a
cast that symbolizes the displace-
ment of travel, although the lighting,
layout, and smell also play important
roles in the exhibit, determining how
viewers will interact with it while
contributing to the contrast between
wood and earth, past and present.
Perfectly melding space and art
is a distinct priority for Torres, as he
Culture 17
Courtesy of MAI
tailors each show based on the spe-
cific venue he uses. When asked why
he chose the MAI, he responded that
he found its architecture exciting and
was “very drawn to the structure of
the place.” He was also very much
attracted to the openness and light-
ing of the space and the possibilities
that these characteristics offered
him. Another factor that immediately
appealed to Torres was the multi-
cultural profile of the MAI, as he
felt it lent itself to his transnational
themes.
He also told me how this exhibit
compared to his previous work. “Each
exhibit is a consequence of the previ-
ous one,” he said. “It’s an evolution
of art and images. I take the conclu-
sions I’ve formulated from the previ-
ous exhibit, my reflections, as well as
feedback that I’ve gotten and I use
them in the next exhibit. I continue
the evolution.” Two of these exhibits,
En trànsito and Nomade, were both
recently shown in Montreal, where
Torres has been steadily gaining rec-
ognition.
Whether interested in contem-
porary art or not, I would suggest
paying this exhibit a visit, to walk
through the displays and venture
into the mind of a displaced man.
 Compendium!
Lies, half-truths, and Arch awkwardness
The incredible shrinking campus
Juanita Nestleman
The McGill Daily
B
reak-ups suck. I’ve avoided
them ever since my first
Death-Cab romance in 12th
grade. I haven’t been in any long term
relationships, so the act of breaking
up itself has never been that hard. I
was never dodging a proposal at the
time, and typically a few days of call
screening helped the relationship to
dissolve on its own.
A few days ago, I broke up with a
boyfriend of three months. The rela-
tionship was a flatline romance, with-
out a peak to come down from or to
climb towards. When I sat down to
have the “conversation” with my for-
mer partner, it was met with mutual
agreement, and we shook hands,
parting on good terms.
This is why I’m surprised that the
relationship still haunts me: every
Monday, Wednesday and Friday
before English class, every time I
want a coffee that costs less than bot-
tled water, and every time I take the
green line home from McGill metro.
Though at times – for instance, in a
600-person Intro to Psychology class
– McGill can seem vast and imper-
sonal, after a breaking up with one of
its students, McGill can never seem
big enough.
Case in point: Running into
ManX’s roommate routinely at the
Architecture Café. Roommates are
something that you don’t always con-
sider before selecting a partner, but
should if you want to avoid post-rela-
tionship awkwardness. An ex-mate’s
roommate in the early post-break-up
stage is bound to rub at some fresh
emotional sores. Said roommate will
know exactly who screwed over who
in the relationship, in which case
he will either ignore you upon first
post-break-up meeting (making you
feel like a complete asshole) or offer
an overly sensitive, “Heyyy” (mak-
ing you feel like a complete loser).
Garden of Even
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
18
Either greeting will make you wish
you catalogued the roommate’s full
daily schedule before selecting your
ex-partner.
The second thing you might not
have considered when you chose
Person X, was why it was a bad
thing that you shared similar inter-
ests. Sharing similar interests with
a romantic partner who goes to
the same school means that you’ll
probably be spending a lot of time
together after things between the
two of you have fizzled out. You’ll still
attend the same extracurriculars or
at least the same events. This can be
good if it leads to lots of post-break
up sex. But it can also end up with
one of you, changing your interests
– say, quitting Hillel for Solidarity
for Palestinian Human Rights – or,
like Nicks and Buckingham, turning
your post-break up resentment into
EX-tracurricular success, but at the
expense of other group members
having to endure what would have
been private moments of awkward-
ness or volatility.
Worse than making your club
environment unpleasant, is making
your social environment unpleasant.
Due to the composition of my circle
of friends, I will probably have to
endure numerous gatherings where
both my friends and I try to ignore
the fact that ManX is now fucking
someone else and vice versa.
Sacre-bleu. Alyson Digby for The McGill Daily
In order to avoid the ghosts of old
lovers, I can really only offer one solu-
tion: date someone from Concordia.
If I can tell you one thing about the Post break-up, be prepared to pack a fair trade band-aid to Arch Café.
birds and the bees, it’s that when
that “thing called love” dies between
them it doesn’t make any zombie
resurrection. Neither will a romance
with that guy from St. Viateur bagels
if you’re prepared to go to Fairmont
once things end. But let me just
emphasize again, don’t date another
student from McGill. No matter how
clean your break is, a messy ending is
fated from the start.
Katherine Milbers for The McGill Daily
Sterling Street comes at ya every Thursday. Send supermarket deals to margot.nossal@gmail.com.
The McGill Daily, Thursday, February 5, 2009
volume 98
number 32
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19
EDITORIAL
Happy GA Day, everybody!
Like most before it, last semester’s General Assembly (GA) failed to reach quorum, meaning students get to
debate an entire year’s worth of motions today. And with some students calling for the impeachment of SSMU’s
Speaker of Council over today’s GA motion on Gaza, it seems that a certain divisive issue may just solve the forum’s
persistent attendance problem. Here, we’ll give you our humble opinion on the three new motions, and suggest
that you check our web site for last semester’s endorsements.
Bottled Water - Yes
This motion calls for SSMU to end bottled water sales in the Shatner building, and to push for McGill to do the
same all over campus. It also calls on SSMU to educate students about sustainable alternatives to bottled water,
including bringing their own bottle to fill with tap water, which actually meets higher purification standards than
bottled water.
The environmental damage caused by the bottled water industry is too cumbersome to list here, but it’s huge.
The Daily believes actions like these are long overdue and strongly supports this motion, as SSMU should no lon-
ger tolerate the privatization of the most essential resource on our planet.
Gaza – Yes/No/Maybe so
Assuming the Speaker’s interpretation of the SSMU constitution holds, this motion will call on SSMU to publicly
condemn the bombings of educational institutions in Gaza and for the Society to financially support Gazan stu-
dents. The Daily suggests that the latter clause be scrapped, since the reconstruction of educational institutions is
not SSMU’s responsibility – it’s up to the destructees and the international community. Leaving this clause would
raise further challenges over whether motions specifically impacting SSMU’s finances be permitted at GAs.
The Daily supports the specifics of this motion – such as the condemnation of the bombings of the Islamic
University in Gaza – but this should not be extrapolated to our feelings regarding the larger, intensely complex
issue as a whole. For instance, we also condemn Hamas’s bombings of Israeli communities, but these sentiments
are not reflected in the motion, and adding them would significantly alter its spirit.
We urge you to turn up for this debate, as it will be the most contentious political discussion in a public arena
this year.
GA reform – No
This motion calls for SSMU to abandon its regularly scheduled GAs in favour of an ad-hoc process, in which
GAs would be held only when students feel they are necessary, rather than twice a year.
GAs are still young – only becoming semesterly affairs three years ago – and need time to mature. Students in
and outside of SSMU have worked hard to improve the process’s accessibility, experimenting with times, venues,
and advertising strategies. GAs are by no means perfect, but they have engaged hundreds more students with
SSMU than any other political forum. Three years is hardly sufficient time to fine-tune a procedure that has poten-
tial to be powerful and important to students.
Those interested in breaking the Fall/Winter binary should remember that Special GAs are always a possibility
– especially if SSMU execs orchestrate a walk-out during the regularly planned event. The Daily strongly suggests
students vote against this motion, since we fear that the most likely result of an ad-hoc GA schedule will be no
GAs at all.
EDITORIAL
Police by-laws will only worsen community tensions
If anyone understands freedom of expression, it should be the Montreal police; since the summer, they’ve
made their frustrations over contract negotiations clear with more red caps and bright camouflage pants than
anyone should have to see.
But the police are attempting to restrict citizens’ freedoms with two proposed bylaws: one to prohibit masks at
protests, and another to make it illegal to insult police officers. Supposedly, these proposals aim to deter violence
and encourage respect for officers, yet these draconian measures blatantly violate freedom of expression and are
sure to further deteriorate already precarious relations between police and Montrealers.
The bid to unmask protestors relies on the assumption that a person hiding their face is also committing dubi-
ous acts. Not only is this discriminatory, it’s also wholly unnecessary, as it serves to criminalize non-criminal acts.
If someone is caught committing a crime while concealing their identity, they can be charged under the Criminal
Code. Putting aside potential health risks for winter demonstrations, protestors should have every right to pre-
serve their anonymity, for whatever reason. For example, some protestors may wish to remain anonymous if their
employer holds differing political views.
This proposed ban will also make it easier for police to open files on protestors, and will allow them to film
protests and arrest participants at a later date. These implications will dissuade individuals from feeling free to
protest and will inhibit necessary dissent in our democracy. In addition, we worry that a law regarding face cover-
ings could be used to target religious minorities – a valid concern considering alleged racial profiling in the 2005
shooting of Anas Bennis, who was targeted for donning a skull cap and a djellabah.
Members of the Mayor Tremblay’s Union Montreal party are finding the law too extreme, but police have
requested that it be passed before the rowdy annual Protest Against Police Brutality in March. This would effec-
tively shut down the protest, which is intended to combat racial profiling and political repression.
Coincidentally, the law against insulting police is being fast-tracked for a second review in March. The police
claim that fining citizens for calling them names will prevent confrontation between officers and rowdy drunks
from escalating. We beg to disagree with this flawed logic. If an intoxicated passerby is fined for exercising their
right to free speech, the situation is bound to escalate. While the law is meant to encourage respect toward offi-
cers, it will more likely serve their reputation.
This law leaves officers too much at liberty to interpret what is and isn’t an insult – apparently calling a cop a
pig or a doughnut-eater can be deemed illegal. Essentially, it would give officers the freedom to arrest anyone at
any time.
In neighbourhoods with a history of high tensions with the police – Montreal North, for instance, where
clashes erupted following the August shooting of Freddy Villanueva – both laws are sure to slow or even worsen
the recovery of already damaged relations between citizens and the officers meant to protect them. We urge the
city to rethink these measures before their respective reviews in the coming months.
It should be noted that the police are attempting to develop closer, more positive ties to communities dealing
with high gang participation through their Project Eclipse program. However, implementing either of these trou-
bling by-laws will set any progress two steps back.
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Interested in student issues?

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Nomination period begins Monday, February 9 at 9:00 am

Elections McGill is accepting nominations for the following positions with the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU):

1.President
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3.VP External
4.VP Clubs and Services
5.VP Internal
6.VP Finance and Operations
7. Student Senators
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8. Financial Ethics Research Committee
(3 FERC Councilors)

Elections McGill is also accepting nominations for Yes / No committees for the next set of referendum questions.
Nomination kits are available online at www.electionsmcgill.ca or from the Elections McGill office, Shatner 405.

Nominations are due Tuesday, February 20th at noon.

Shatner, salle 405

Téléphone: (514) 398-6474
contact@electionsmcgill.ca