Volume 100, Issue 20

November 15, 2010

mcgilldaily.com

McGill
THE

DAILY
Upside down since 1911
FIRST NATION
Published by The Daily
Publications Society,
IN A STATE OF
EMERGENCY 5
a student society of
McGill University.

Tony Blair in Montreal 3

Talking to a Mohawk warrior 12
McGill’s gender neutral theatre 16
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The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
McGill joins Blair initiative
Former British prime minister speaks on eight-school Faith and Globalization program
Mari Galloway
The McGill Daily
S
peaking to a Montreal audi-
ence Friday, former British
prime minister Tony Blair
discussed the importance of inter-
faith dialogue as McGill formally
launched its partnership with the
Faith and Globalization Initiative.
Established three years ago by the
Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the ini-
tiative is aimed at creating an intel-
lectual and academic framework
for understanding the relationship
between faith and globalization.
In a discussion moderated by
CBC host and McGill Religious
Studies graduate Evan Solomon,
Blair explained the ideology of the
initiative, and fielded questions
from the audience on the changing
role of religion in society.
For Blair, globalization is both
an opportunity and an unstoppable
force. He also believes it is a phe-
nomenon that has exacerbated the
need for greater religious under-
standing, and the inclusion of reli-
gion in the realm of politics, he said.
“Does religious faith become a
means of providing civilizing val-
ues to civilization and thereby be a
force of progress, or does religious
faith become a badge of identity in
opposition to those who aren’t of
the same faith?” asked Blair. “I think
this is the dominant question of the
21st century.”
According to Blair, distinctions
Council passes new SSMU equity policy
Extensive debate centres around striking the word “inoffensive”
Queen Arsem-O'Malley
The McGill Daily
S
SMU Council voted Thursday
to approve a new equity pol-
icy. The policy passed after
significant debate over two amend-
ments tacked on by Arts councillor
and Conservative McGill member
Spencer Burger.
Equity Commissioner Emily
Clare applauded Council’s final deci-
sion, saying, “I think the best policy
went through today,” although the
legislative process involved “a lot of
give and take.”
The new policy is the product
of work done by the 2009-2010
Equity Committee and Rebecca
Dooley, former VP University
Affairs, who returned to Council
to see the policy passed. “I’m
ecstatic,” she said. “That policy
is the result of a lot of time and
energy put in by a lot of different
people.”
She added that the new policy
is “far, far superior to the previ-
ous policy,” implemented in 2008,
between left-right political ideolo-
gies are increasingly subordinate
to the basic question of whether a
society is open or closed to cultural
and religious differences. Successful
integration and public policy will
rely on societies’ attitudes toward
diversity, and their ability to find
commonality irrelevant to one’s
faith, or lack thereof, said the for-
mer prime minister.
“If you want to be a leader today
in politics, in business, in civic soci-
ety, you can not be religiously igno-
rant. You may not agree with it, you
may not even like it, but you’ve got
to know about it,” said Blair. “Even
if you don’t believe in someone’s
faith, you can respect their right to
believe, that it is an alternative path
to salvation, and in respecting that
you get quite close to respecting
their spirituality.”
Blair maintained that religiosity
continues to grow despite predic-
tions that it would decrease as coun-
tries became more prosperous.
“Within debates about our soci-
ety, religious faith is an issue, it is in
the public space. So the question is
not whether it is there; the question
is what it is doing when it is there
and what are the rules that guide
proper debate.”
McGill is currently the only
Canadian university to be invited to
participate in the initiative, which
includes seven other universities
such as Yale, Durham (U.K.), and
the National University of Singapore.
In August, five McGill students trav-
partly because it is “easier to under-
stand.”
Approval was scheduled for
the previous Council meeting, but
was ruled out of order, since the
Steering Committee had not read
through the policy twice, as neces-
sary. The document was endorsed
by the Steering Committee dur-
ing their report to Council on
Thursday, however.
The new policy outlines SSMU’s
background, history, and develop-
ment of equity policies, and lists
SSMU groups and services that hold
a “strong commitment to equity,
safety, and the creation of safe(r)
spaces for its membership.”
An appendix also includes rele-
vant sections from McGill’s Charter
of Students’ Rights, and previous
SSMU policies that “deal with vary-
ing aspects of discrimination and
harassment.”
The policy applies to all mem-
bers and staff of SSMU, including
all activities, events, and funding
allocated by the Society. It seeks to
provide a “functional anti-oppres-
sive environment” and outline the
Blair spoke at the former Windsor hotel on Peel.
elled to Singapore to discuss inter-
university collaboration within the
initiative.
Earlier Friday morning, Blair
spoke to a 300-level special top-
ics course on Religion and
Globalization co-taught by profes-
sors Daniel Cere and Ellen Aitken.
Cere explained that faculty mem-
bers stepped back and the “whole
class was run by the students.”
responsibilities of SSMU.
Procedures for submitting
complaints are outlined, which
are investigated first by the four
Equity Officers, who are the Equity
Commissioner and three members
of the Executive Committee. The
committee can make recommen-
dations to Council, which then has
the option to discipline offenders,
including a suspension of financial
support from SSMU.
Clare prefaced Council debate
by explaining the strength of the
policy.
“We’re taking the equity policy
as a signal of change of how equity
will be run at McGill. We want it to
be a lot more accessible to students,
and we’re taking this as the starting
point,” she said.
Myles Gaulin, Policy and Equity
Coordinator for Queer McGill, also
spoke in favour of the policy, say-
ing that despite advances in equity
practices, “McGill can still be an
oppressive, intimidating environ-
ment for many people.”
Debate centred around
Burger’s three proposed amend-
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Students from a variety of disci-
plines conducted interviews with
Blair on the intersections between
religion, law, gender, and globaliza-
tion.
According to Cere, a member of
Blair’s team, Drew Collins, said that
this particular experience was one
of the best exchanges with univer-
sity students that Blair had had.
Cere added that the course
ments to the policy. The first,
written in coordination with the
Equity Committee, changed the
policy’s definition of “oppres-
sion” to, “the exercise of power
by a group of people over another
group of people with specific con-
sideration of cultural, historical,
and living legacies.”
Clare supported the change,
arguing that it “highlights nuances
dealt with in an equity complaint.”
“It’s a simple amendment, but I
think it really strengthens the equi-
ty policy,” she added.
A second amendment, which
required extensive negotiation
amongst councillors, moved to
strike the words “inoffensive,” “col-
legial,” and “respectful” from the
description guiding acceptable dis-
cussion between students and stu-
dent groups. Of the three terms,
Council only struck “inoffensive,”
from the passage in question.
Burger said that the inclusion
of his amendment is “a big step for
freedom of speech on McGill cam-
pus and on university campuses in
general.” He added, “SSMU does
News 3
methodology was fairly unique:
each week, students write a 500-
word blog entry, and they are
encouraged to interact with each
other on the internet.
“Some of these blogs will go
up on a secure blog site that will
allow these students to interact
with students at Yale, Peking,
other parts of the world – pretty
appropriate given the theme: reli-
gion and globalization,” he said.
Cere felt that the initiative
signalled the beginning of a new
program of research and study at
McGill.
“There are so many areas where
religion interacts with culture – reli-
gion and law, religion and politics,
religion and gender issues – these
points of interaction will probably
be future areas of research avenues
for teaching and collaboration,”
said Cere.
Juliette Dupre, a U1 Arts stu-
dent, was a member of the McGill
contingent who participated in the
Singapore conference.
“Especially considering how
important religion is to such a large
number of people, not only in their
private lives, but as an influence
over the way that they think and act
and how they choose to live, this is
an extremely important initiative,”
said Dupre.
“I think this is a good start on an
important problem, and I think it’s
an ambitious start. Ultimately it is a
very interesting initiative for McGill
to be involved in.”
not have the right to censor some-
one based on the perception that
what someone says is offensive.
This equity policy is still somewhat
jumbled, but I hope the acceptance
of my amendments will make free-
dom of speech a much more inte-
gral part of our campus.”
A third amendment, which
failed, sought to add a section of
the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms to the equity policy. The
section described the fundamental
freedoms of Canadians.
The policy was passed with a
large majority of councellors vot-
ing in favor of adoption. Clare high-
lighted that the policy “situated
equity in general in the context of
the history of McGill,” and shows
that “SSMU has been a leader in
equity.”
The amendments that passed
“do not have a negative effect on
the policy,” she said. “The discus-
sion that happened was really use-
ful for a lot of people on Council to
understand what the equity policy
means to our members and our
organizations.
 4 News
Montrealers protest G20 summit
Activists voice opposition to austerity measures in Quebec and worldwide
Eduardo Doryan
The McGill Daily
H
undreds gathered at
the intersection of Ste.
Catherine and Atwater
Friday to protest the Group of
20 (G20) meetings taking place
this week in Seoul, South Korea.
Brandishing signs in French
declaring “NO to the G20” and
“the real terrorism is capitalism,”
protesters marched east through
downtown to denounce the sum-
mit of finance ministers and heads
of government.
The protest was organized
by Anti-Capitalist Convergence
(CLAC, its French acronym), a
coalition of self-declared anti-
capitalist and anarchist organi-
zations in Montreal. CLAC has
operated continuously since
2000, when it was formed to
mobilize protesters for the
third Summit of the Americas in
Quebec City. Its member groups
include the Indigenous Solidarity
Committee, the Regroupment
Anti-G20 Étudiant (R AGE), No
One is Illegal, and the Communist
Libertarian Union.
Sarita Ahooja, spokesperson for
CLAC and a member of No One Is
Illegal, spoke to the crowd before
the march describing the event
as one of hundreds of “protests
around the world to denounce
capitalism, misery, and poverty,” as
GET FREE TICKETS
The protest was in solidarity with arrestees at the June G20 in Toronto.
well as “the imposition of measures
that contribute to impoverishment
[and] only serve to fuel generalized
social discontent.”
Others at the march echoed
her sentiments. Aaron, a local
protester, voiced concern over
recent “austerity measures
which have real and terrible
consequences in people’s lives,”
and that he was happy with what
he described as “a loud display
of resistance [to such measures]
here in Montreal.”
Aaron explained why he
thought G20 members – includ-
ing the governments of France,
Germany, and Britain – were
implementing austerity measures,
saying, “Because [the G20] rep-
resents the interests of wealth.
We live in a neoliberal age where
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First come, first served. Student ID required.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
David Huehn | The McGill Daily
there’s a huge transfer of wealth
from public coffers into private
hands, even in Quebec.”
Jean, another protestor, put
it more bluntly: “It’s all about the
money.”
The summit this year focused
on the looming specter of a cur-
rency war between the largest
economies in the world. Relations
between the U.S. and China have
been especially tense during the
lead-up, in particular on the eve
of a $600-billion injection into
the U.S. economy by the Federal
Reserve, which other nations have
criticized due to the possibility of
stimulating high inflation in the
future by keeping the U.S. dollar
artificially low.
According to its website, the
G20 nations account for ninety per
cent of global gross national prod-
uct, eighty per cent of international
trade, and two thirds of the world’s
population.
The G20, and its predecessor
the G8, have long drawn contro-
versy due to the high-level security
measures imposed on host cities.
“This demonstration categorically
denounces the repression experi-
enced last June in Toronto,” said
Ahooja in reference to the over one
thousand arrests made during pro-
tests at this summer’s G20 summit
in that city.
In a phone interview after the
event, she added that at least two
attendees were arrested over the
course of the evening’s protest.
“They are bent on criminalizing
people who are there to contest the
order of things,” she said.
Ahooja concluded with a major
theme of the protest: “We think
society should be organized in a
horizontal way, so that people can
have a decent living, with dignity,
so that there’s justice for everyone,
and not just for the few.”
365 days
to the
next
G20...
Cannes,
France.
news@mcgilldaily.com
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
First Nation struggles to maintain order
State of emergency declared October 21 in isolated Ontario community
Erin Hudson
The McGill Daily
C
hief Lewis Nate of the
Eabametoong First Nation
(pronounced Yab-mAh-
tung) was tired during his inter-
view with The Daily, because
there had been another fire in
his community the night before.
On October 21, he declared the
Eabametoong – which has a pop-
ulation of 1,200 and is one of 28
remote fly-in communities in
northern Ontario – to be in a state
of emergency.
“It kind of escalated, the last
two homicides that we had…also
the amount of drugs that [are]
coming into our community,”
Nate said in describing the situa-
tion before October 21. “It’s com-
pounding into one big problem.
It’s not something that happened
overnight…but it was just too
much to handle – we’re a small
community.”
“Right now it’s pretty hard to
work when you’re numb from all
this stuff and it’s hard to get moti-
vated,” Nate continued.
“We didn’t only have these two
homicides, we’ve had 13 deaths in
the last eleven months. If you have
one death…that’s hard, but when
you’re having a lot of deaths, you
know, that’s really, really hard…
You’ll get numb.”
According to Sergeant Jackie
George of the Nishnawabe-Aski
Police Services (NAPS), the prob-
lem of prescription drug abuse in
Eabametoong has been noticeably
increasing for the last five years. But
in the view of Denise Fontaine, prin-
cipal of John C. Yesno Education
Centre – which teaches 336 Junior
Kindergaten to Grade nine students
and was the site of an arson in late
September – the events prompt-
ing the declaration of emergency
occurred suddenly.
“In a very short time…[people]
just started acting out, and I really
do believe it was displaced anger
[and] frustration – [there is] no safe
outlet for expressing frustration
and anger…[so] that expression of
anger trickles down to others you
didn’t intend,” said Fontaine.
State of emergency
The arson of John C. Yesno
resulted in the school’s closure for
three and a half weeks along with
$200,000 worth of smoke and water
damage. The arson was bookend-
ed by two murders of local youth.
Other recent incidents include the
fire-bombing of a church minis-
ter’s house while five people were
inside.
“It seems to be the perfect
storm...all of the conditions that
already existed that are compelling,
complex and dire are boiling over
in this community,” said Nanda
Casucci-Byrne, Chief of Staff in
the Ontario Lieutenant Governor’s
Office.
The grade nine class at the John C. Yesno Education Centre that has recently been the target of arson.
Casucci-Byrne added that in
her eight years at the Lieutenant
Governor’s office she had never
before heard of a community
declaring a state of emergency.
Nate explained the process
behind his declaration: “We were
having conference calls before
that…to see how we could get
help, but that wasn’t going any-
where, so that’s we decided…we
had enough of talk we wanted to
bring it to light- admit that we have
a problem.”
In response to the declaration of
emergency, Eabametoong received
two Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)
officers to help the five currently
policing the community. One OPP
officer stayed for two days; the sec-
ond officer is estimated to remain
in the community for up to five
weeks.
“It’s short-term assistance for
our police service,” said George.
“The Nishnawabe-Aski Police
Service, we have jurisdiction there.
We have five members there but we
need [to] double that. And we can’t
double it because the federal and
provincial bodies are not coming to
the [negotiating] table.”
“[The OPP officers] accom-
pany local officers during their
shifts, they just ride together and
learn from each other,” said Band
Administrator Andrew Yesno.
Yesno also noted that the OPP
officers help maintain 24-hour
policing, “whereas before we had
officers work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
and then 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. And then
there was always a gap between 4
a.m. and 6 a.m. where there was no
police.”
Response to the crisis
After Eabametoong’s declara-
tion prominent vistors flooded the
community. Chris Bentley, Minister
of Aboriginal Affairs, was among
them. So was Ruth Ann Onley, wife
of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor
David Onley, who came with Sharon
Johnston, Governor General David
Johnston’s wife.
Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada (INAC) and Health Canada
officials visited the community on
November 5, and Greg Rickford, MP
for Kenora, the local riding, visited
last week.
Rickford acknowledged that
structural issues were behind the
recent violence. “It’s the underlying
issues that give rise to [these acts]
that we are ultimately interested
in,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of response
from people in Canada to help,”
Yesno said.
“We want to be there on a per-
sonal basis...it means a great deal to
express our support on a tangible
basis,” Casucci-Byrne said. “[The
visit was] trying to let them know
that people care, that they’re not
forgotten, that others are listening.”
However, some are still pes-
simistic about Eabametoong’s
position. Nate recalled seeing a
headline in the Toronto Sun that
read “Fort Hopeless” (Fort Hope
is another name for Eabametoong
First Nation).
“Now what kind of message is
that to the people? We’re not hope-
less,” Nate said, “I’d rather be here
than any place else in the world.”
He is not taking the derision to
heart, though. “You’ll always get
that negativity no matter what,”
he noted. “Anytime you want to
make a change people will act
negatively.”
In an email to The Daily, INAC
Communications Officer Peter
Sero said the ministry was com-
mitted to investing $400,000 in
Eabametoong.
“[Funds will] help because we
don’t budget for crises like homi-
cides,” Yesno explained. “We get a
limited amount of funds every year
and what we do is we create a bud-
get and make sure that we still get
…[all the] basic things to make a
town run, but we don’t really bud-
get for emergencies or for having to
charter for counselors to come in or
trauma units.”
Going forward
Yesno said that money originally
allocated for services such as water,
sewage, and road clearing has been
spent on combating various crises
the community has faced. Nate
said that up $174,000 of the band’s
funds have been spent in order to
deal with the recent string of emer-
gencies.
Some in the community are
skeptical that the INAC funding
will make a dent in Eabametoong’s
problems.
“Nobody believes in long-term
plans – they say they do but they
don’t supply funding for long-term
projects,” Fontaine said. “There’s a
fictional belief that Aboriginal com-
munities get whatever they ask for.”
“We’re not looking for the quick
fix, we’re looking for sustainabil-
ity… Our kids need opportunities
that they don’t get, that are easily
available outside of a fly-in commu-
nity,” Fontaine continued, referring
to benefits students could have
from external professionals leading
workshops.
“We’re not just asking for money,
we’re also asking for the resources
… I think that’s one of the big mis-
conceptions out there that we’re
just asking for money but that’s not
the reality,” added Yesno. “We want
the professional help to come and
help us, and to help us turn this
around.”
News 5
Courtesy of Kevin Bykkonen
Nate sees a bigger dilemma
facing his community. “I think the
number one [is] going back to the
land. [There are] two things that
we [have] lost: one is the connec-
tion to the Creator, and the sec-
ond was the connection to our
homeland, to the traditional area,”
he said.
Nate outlined a seven-point
community development plan that
has been forged through ongoing
discussions between members of
the council and community mem-
bers.
“We’re meeting with the people,
especially our elders and youth
because they’re the forgotten lot,”
Nate said. “We haven’t really had
contact with them over the years…
we’re kind of losing touch with
them. The engagement with the
seven-point plan [and] the owner-
ship will come from them. If it’s
going to work, its going to have to
come from them, not the chief and
council.”
Nate and Fontaine emphasized
that internalized tension and emo-
tions are a factor in the outbursts
they have seen this year.
“Things have been happening
over the years and a lot of inter-
nal stuff too that needs to be dealt
with,” Nate said. “There are some
things maybe that are uncomfort-
able, things that will come out. So
I’ve got to walk that fine line too,
I’m offending some community
members because of this…because
you know the truth hurts: that is
the bottom line.”
“We have to start talking life into
our community,” Nate continued.
“All we’ve been talking about
is this person’s dead or this pre-
scription drug issue and so forth,
we’ve got to start talking about
other things – about the future
that lies ahead.”
 6 News The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Students pass
referendum questions
Voter turnout barely reaches quorum
Anna Norris or festival on campus that includes said that in the original concept it
The McGill Daily all faculties and departments and was not: “It started out as a non-
that’s the core thing: it’s about com- opt-outable fee, and then through
munity building. ... It started as consultation with various people it

T
he McGill student body voted
to pass all three fall referen-
dum questions, approving
the renewal of the fee for SACOMSS
(Sexual Assault Centre of McGill
Student Society), the creation of a
SSMU Charity Committee, and vot-
ing yes to the plebiscite question
regarding a SSMU councillor for the
Arts and Science faculty. The num-
an idea to raise money strictly for
international aid, but as I spoke to
more and more departments and
faculties in September and October,
I realized that it’s best to open it up,
because there are so many views on
campus.”
The concept has expanded to
include both international and local
aid, which will be supported by two
devolved into an opt-outable fee.”
Although the plebiscite question
is not binding, the results showed
support for a separate SSMU coun-
cillor for Arts and Science students,
a faculty whose numbers are cur-
rently under the 2,000-minimum
for a faculty to be represented at
SSMU Council.
Clubs and Services Represent-

Get carded now for 6 pak ber of voters barely passed the 15
per cent quorum, with 15.2 per cent
different initiatives: the Charity
Fund and Charity Week. The Fund
ative Maggie Knight, one of the
councillors who submitted the

savings all year long. of students voting.

The SACOMSS fee renewal,
which takes place every three
ISIC holders save up to 50% on the adult regular Economy fare with years, had the highest percentage
a VIA 6 pak – six one-way tickets between the same two stations. of student support, with 79.5 per
Book early! Tickets issued with a 6 pak are subject to advance purchase and limited availability. cent of voters choosing to renew
the $0.75 fee.
The creation of a SSMU Charity
Committee, which passed with 75.8
Get student discounts with per cent of the vote, was initially
proposed by Max Luke, a student
Available only at Voyages Campus. who sits on a Senate subcommittee
on the environment.
Come in or call today. voyagescampus.com “It was an idea of mine in late
McGill University, 3480 rue McTavish 514.398.0647 August,” said Luke. “Initially I had
the idea to create a charity week
ON–4499356/4499372 | BC–33127/34799/34798 | QC–7002238 | Canadian owned.
will be directed mostly at interna-
tional aid, and the Week aimed at
work in Montreal.
“For the the Charity Festival,
I’ve also formed a partnership with
a Masters’ student in the school
of Social Work, who is doing his
thesis on credible financial flows
within the United Way Montreal.
So they’re affiliated with 300-some
local organizations. That’s going to
be a big part of the charity festival,”
explained Luke.
The fee for the Charity
Committee is $0.50 per semester
and is opt-outable, although Luke
question to Council, said that the
process of consultation taking place
will now lead to another referen-
dum question.
Knight told The Daily, “We’re in
the process of consulting with all
the stakeholders very thoroughly...
to make sure that if we take this to
a referendum in the winter – which
would be what we would have to do
in order to amend the constitution
to include a seat for Arts and Science
students – that we would have a very
strong plan, that everyone would
have a good degree of certainty
about what it would look like.”

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Rides/Tickets, Lost & Found, Personal, Lessons/Courses, Notices, Volunteers, Musicians, etc.
n honor of Remembrance Day, Spencer Burger, an Arts repre- any respectful Canadian would do.
Council passed a resolution last sentative and author of the motion, … I find it extremely insulting not
Housing Thursday that calls for SSMU addressed concerns that his resolu- to honour veterans.”
to remember and appreciate the tion was too divisive to be debated In response to the amendment’s
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“Whereas, 152 Canadians have died Canadian men and women in uni- accountable,” in the view that
your name, McGill ID number and classified
text at addesign@dailypublications.org in the war in Afghanistan, and con- form. It’s an important issue on supporting such an amendment
Employment mcgilldaily.com/classifieds tinue to fight in defense of Canada,
liberty, democracy, and human
campus and for students.”
Anushay Khan, SSMU’s VP Clubs
was humiliating for SSMU. Cathal
Rooney-Cespedes, the Speaker of
rights.” and Services, voiced her opposition Council, struck down this motion,
MASTER SCHOOL OF
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Lessons/Courses Many Council members pointed to the resolution during Council, deeming it out of order.
out that the mention of the war in stating that as an entity that repre- The resolution passed by a large
Bartending and table service courses
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Job reference service www.collegecanada.com issue with the resolution’s implicit whole, SSMU does not have a right struck out the words, “and continue
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514-849-2828 Any Language Course: 7.00$/hour support for the war. Maggie Knight, to take a stance on a political issue. to fight in defense of Canada, liber-
www.Bartend.ca TESOL Certification Recognized by a Clubs and Services Representative, “I don’t think that this body ty, democracy, and human rights.”
(online registration possible) TESL Canada. explained her reasoning for sup- [Legislative Council] has the Knight defended the removal of
TOEFL iBT, GMAT, MCAT, TEFaQ, porting an amendment that would authority to represent one side’s the clause in an interview with The
Have you had a TEF preparation.
strike the second half of the contro- point of view or the other, and that’s Daily.

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versial clause.
“I’m in general support of
remembering the sacrifice made by
soldiers. However, whether or not
the war in Afghanistan is in defense
of Canada is highly up for debate,”
she said.
Radney Jean-Claude, the Social
Work representative, echoed
Knight’s sentiments, saying,
“What’s important is to remember
the sacrifice we made in the war,
but including the words ‘and con-
why our clubs exist. As long as [the
resolution] continues to say that
Canadians die fighting for defense
of liberty, democracy, and human
rights, there’s a problem, because
it’s something a lot of people may
not agree with,” she said.
Eli Freedman, a Management
representative, spoke in support of
the un-amended motion, justifying
his views in an emotional plea to
council.
“I’m deeply disturbed that we
“What we tried to do by argu-
ing on behalf of an amendment to
replace the controversial clause was
to allow us to support the sacrifice
of veterans without having a politi-
cal aspect,” she said. “I think that
many people would not unilaterally
support the actions of the Canadian
military, and I think that to truly
value the sacrifices of our veterans,
we need to disconnect their sacri-
fice from the politics of the particu-
lar conflict they’re involved in.”
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com News 7
SSMU supports Arch Café proposal
Council upholds students’ right to govern their space
Maya Shoukri tracted while voting. nize the effort and the time these from student-run food services. incredible amount of time to draft
The McGill Daily The resolution further stipulat- students put into writing the report, Lauren Hudak, Science repre- this document,” she said.
ed that SSMU would be required to and more importantly, to applaud sentative and co-author of the Responding to questions about
submit a formal letter in support of their initiative.” motion, addressed the adminis- whether or not a declaration of

S
SMU Council passed a resolu-
tion Thursday affirming the
Soceity’s support for a pro-
posal to reopen the Architecture
Café. The motion was tabled by
the Engineering Undergraduate
Society (EUS) and the Architecture
Students Association (ASA). Under
the plan, the Architecture Café
would become an EUS-run service.
Only three councillors abstained
from voting on the measure: Nick
Drew, Eli Freedman, and Spencer
Burger, who admitted to being dis-
the proposal to both the EUS and to
the McGill administration.
“The administration closed the
Architecture Café due to financial
reasons. It did not consult with stu-
dents, and we now have Engineering
and Architecture students who
want to engage with the adminis-
tration and try to solve this issue
so that they won’t have to close the
Arch Café,” said Gustavo Marquez,
Engineering representative and co-
author of the motion. “I think it’s
extremely important that we recog-
The proposal, jointly authored
by members of the EUS and ASA
before the latter organization offi-
cially joined the EUS as a depart-
mental association, contained an
elaborate outline of how the Arch
Café would function under EUS,
citing other successful EUS endeav-
ours, such as Frostbite and Copi-
EUS. The proposal was rejected
by the administration on October 9
in a response from Deputy Provost
Morton Mendelson, who explained
that the University is shifting away
tration’s rejection of the proposal,
while maintaining that SSMU should
support the student initiative.
“Mendelson said that even
though he liked the effort that had
been put into [the motion], it was
ultimately rejected because the
McGill administration has moved
away from student initiatives.
However, we [the authors] still
think it’s a very important endeav-
our, because instead of just saying
we’re going to support something –
both the EUS and the ASA took an
support for the proposal would be
effective in re-opening the Café,
considering the administration’s
apparent lack of approval for such
a project, Hudak stressed that,
“SSMU’s support is critical, because
[it] has a great deal of power and
influence.”
SSMU President Zach Newburgh
went on to note the symbolic nature
of SSMU’s support for the proposal,
saying “The motion exists simply to
support the right [of student societ-
ies] to govern their own space.”

Jihad, frame by frame

McGill PhD students study terrorist recruitment videos from Central Asia and East Africa

L
ast Friday, Christopher Anzalone and Aisha Ahmad hosted “Insurgent Media: Somalia & Afghanistan/Pakistan.” The screening featured three films produced by the media outlets of
Somalia’s al-Shabab, and the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. Anzalone is a PhD candidate in the institute of Islamic Studies and has collected and studied insurgent films from across
the Muslim world. Ahmad is a Ph.D candidate in Political Science, and has extensive knowledge of the Somali and Afghan conflicts.

The McGill Daily: Why is it
important to study insurgency pro-
paganda as source documents?
Christopher Anzalone: The
reason I study them is because it’s
important to know and to under-
stand and to analyze how these
movements and these groups basi-
cally – number one – define them-
selves, and – number two – how
they interact with audiences which
they are addressing. Both the peo-
ple they are fighting and the people
that are allied with them, and the
people they hope will be allied but
are not at the moment. The best
way to do that is through primary
source documents. I think it’s very
important to look at them as much
as possible without having them
mediated in any way. Not to read
an article about them – of which of
course there are lots when Osama
bin Laden or [Ayman] al-Zawahiri
releases something – you’ll see doz-
ens or hundreds of articles about
that. They’re important, but just like
any document you would look at,
you’re not going to read just what
somebody else has to say about it. If
you have access to [the document]
and can use it, you should really do
that yourself, because it’s always
going to be shaded.
MD: Why do you think films like
these aren’t studied as much?
CA: The policy people [study
them] a lot. There are academics who
study them. It’s certainly a field which
is starting to grow, and there’s much
more room for growth in terms of
the academic study. A lot of the policy
people, not all of them, but many
of them, don’t have as much back-
ground in either the regional or the
religious topics to unpack some of
the things [in the films]. I think there
should be more of a conversation
between the more traditional aca-
demic and the more policy-oriented
kind of stuff.
MD: How has the internet affect-
ed these types of propaganda films?
CA: [The films] exist before,
for example in Afghanistan in the
eighties, but they would be on
video cassette or news channels
playing the footage. The internet
though, the really revolutionary
thing about it, is the freedom it
gives over the [process of] dis-
tribution. Before then, when
Al-Qaeda Central [al-Qaeda’s
media outlet] was delivering tapes
to Al-Jazeera, they still do that
for some things. A couple of bin
Laden’s tapes were delivered first
to al-Jazeera first through video
tape or DVD-R, but the bulk of
the stuff now doesn’t have to go
through [these channels]. They
know that the websites where you
can get these videos are moni-
tored either by governments – I’m
sure the U.S. and the Canadian
as well, and by academics and by
analysts as well. But to reach their
audience, their supporters now,
they don’t have to rely on some-
one else to decide whether to
show it or not. Distribution and
how they can reach audiences is
the most important change.
MD: People in North America
have probably seen bin Laden’s
face thousands of times since 9/11.
We now have a generation that has
grown up with the War on Terror.
But we never hear his voice. What
kind of impact does that has?
CA: Even comparing bin Laden
or al-Zawahiri, they all have very
different ways of speaking. Bin
Laden is the most, in my opinion,
conversational. Even when he’s
speaking to you, it feels like he’s
speaking in a conversation. When
al-Zawahiri speaks, it feels like
he’s speaking to you. On film, he
does all these [aggressive] hand
motions that reinforce that. But
bin Laden has a much more calm-
ing voice. I think it’s really impor-
tant to understand that, and that
just can’t be captured by reading
about bin Laden.
The McGill Daily: Why do you
study these types of documents
that are so rarely looked at?
Aisha Ahmad: The information
operations in insurgencies are an inte-
gral part of the battle for hearts and
minds. Unless we look at both sides of
the propaganda war in conflict, we’re
not going to necessarily understand
why populations living under insur-
gencies may shift their political opin-
ions in favour of an insurgency rather
than in favour of the government.
Understanding domestic public opin-
ion in civil wars means that we have to
understand what people are talking
about, how people are understanding
the conflict. The competition for the
narrative is really important, so essen-
tially these films allow us to start to
have a discussion about the competi-
tion that we’ve had over the narrative.
NATO has certainly worked hard
trying to present the conflict to the
Afghan people in a certain way, to
the Pakistani audience in a certain
way. The African Union has tried to
present the conflict in Somalia to the
domestic audience in a certain way.
But insurgents also have a response,
and that response, at times, has been
more effective and compelling in get-
ting the support of the domestic audi-
ence, which is so coveted. It’s impor-
tant to understand how they’re fram- Courtesy of Christopher Anzalone
ing the conflict. [The videos] also give Stills from a Pakistani Taliban propaganda film.
us an insight into what they might
want to gain from the conflict; what ery, myth, symbol factor in develop- anything that was actually just vile.
their objectives are. It also gives us ing the narrative around an insur- I do know that people who study
an insight into their recruitment and gency, and building momentum for information operations do do this,
mobilization strategies. an insurgency, affecting domestic but we as a community of scholars
MD: Why do you think that political opinion in a contested situ- are still relatively new to the study
these types of primary source doc- ation. So when the political contest of information operations. This is a
uments aren’t more widely studied on the battlefield is ongoing, it’s akin new area for us, but we really need
in North America? to an election campaign, in a way. to invest more effort into doing this,
AA: I think that they ought to Both sides are making their pitch. especially given that – on the whole
be studied by students of Political I think the reason, maybe, that we – Western or NATO information
Science. I came up with the idea shy from watching things like this is, operations have not fared as well in
of doing this because I’m a TA for number one: to be quite frank, they the battle for hearts and minds as
POLI 442, International Relations are violent, and the violence is real, have counter-propaganda.
of Ethnic Conflict. In talking to my as opposed to Hollywood. We were
students, they were all really inter- very careful in the selection of films —Compiled by
ested to know how narrative, imag- to make sure that we didn’t choose Michael Lee-Murphy
 Commentary
Apple, Ikea, Motorola...
The nefarious side of certain technologies
The character
of community
Adrian Kaats
adrian.kaats@mcgilldaily.com
A
t the risk of offending every
white person, I’d like to
express my frustration with
the ubiquity in the student milieu
of products from three companies:
Apple, Ikea, and Motorola. With a
bit of research, I think that most
people who are troubled by either
the “military-industrial-academic com-
plex” or globalization would come
to realize that these are companies
to be avoided.
Apple is no longer the benevo-
lent underdog of the tech world
that made superior products, but
somehow couldn’t break into the
average consumer market. Au con-
traire: in May, with a market capi-
talization of $227 billion USD, Apple
took Microsoft’s crown as the queen
of tech. This was accomplished in
part by ditching its proprietary hard-
ware, opting instead to equip its
Macs with Intel guts. Not only is a
great deal of Intel’s Pentium technol-
ogy designed and manufactured in
Israel, this hardware is also the exact
same junk you find in PCs. Worse,
Apple’s “brilliant” operating system
(OS), adored by its consumers, is
actually just a flavour of Unix, the
proprietary counterpart of Linux.
They are selling otherwise totally
free, open-source, community-built
and supported software at an exor-
bitant price. When you buy a Crapple
computer, you are paying a massive
premium for a con job: ultra-clever
marketing and the slick aesthetics
of a plastic casing house a computer
Caught red-handed
The perils of plagiarism, and who can help
Kerwin Myler
Hyde Park
T
hirty-two students enrolled
in Physiology 320 – wasn’t original? All my lovers had
“Biomechanics of Human
Sexuality” – were paraded before a
Committee on Student Discipline
this past Wednesday. The charge:
reproducing sexual positions from the
Kama Sutra, an ancient Hindu text on
human sexuality, and sensuality with-
out using proper references.
Kerwin J. Myler, a third-year Law
student and senior advocate at the
Student Advocacy Service located
in the Shatner building, defended
the shocked students who couldn’t
get over how their term project had
landed them in hot water.
running essentially free software
on hardware priced at about three
times that of an equivalent PC.
iPhones and iPods are even worse.
The iPhone is the glitchiest piece of
garbage you can piss away $700 for.
It freezes regularly, doesn’t support
standard stuff like Flash (wtf?), has
abominable reception, and its bat-
tery can’t be changed unless you
know how to solder. iPods are noth-
ing more than offensively overpriced
standalone versions of the media
players that are usually integrated
into the average smart phone. I can’t
even begin to describe the ridicu-
lousness of the iTouch’s mere exis-
tence in the marketplace. Finally,
consider that Apple makes a great
deal of these products at companies
like China’s Foxconn. I’ll save you a
search: Foxconn has a serious prob-
lem with employee suicide. Recent
research from Chinese universi-
ties has indicated that Foxconn has
really bad labour practices – working
conditions are unsafe, it forces copi-
ous amounts of illegal overtime on
its workers, and perpetrates several
other forms of worker abuse, includ-
ing violence.
Although it is committed to a
number of sustainability initiatives,
we shouldn’t forget that Ikea is a
monstrous multinational corpora-
tion selling mostly crap that breaks
(particularly if any part of a product
moves). If you’ve ever wondered
where all that beautiful stuff comes
from and where it goes to, the answer
is every corner of the globe. In 2009,
Ikea was operating 301 stores around
the world, and had a revenue of about
$37 billion USD. Again, labourers and
the environment suffer as thousands
of tons of cargo needlessly circle the
“All we wanted to do was create
an attractive sex ed book for fresh-
men. I mean, they need it!” com-
plained one visibly upset student.
“How was I to know that my move
always told me I was like nothing else
in bed!” lamented another student.
While the course instructor
admitted to having authorized
group assignments, she said she
had not given the green light to
group sex, “no matter how tastefully
presented.”
Most importantly, the professor
alleged that principles of academic
integrity had been violated when
the students failed to give credit
where credit was due. Only 11 of the
97 positions depicted in the glossy
full-colour guide could be said to be
A lot of lefties buy from companies they probably wouldn’t like very much if they knew more.
globe from pools of cheap material
and labour, to markets that bear high
consumer prices. Ikea is the face of
a globalized economy, its products
making their way into millions of
homes, including those of “anti-cap-
italist” and “anti-globalization” activ-
ists.
My favourite, though, is
Motorola. The development of
the Android OS has allowed sev-
eral companies to produce smart
phones competing with Apple’s
iPhone. In some cases that’s a good
thing, but not when it comes to
Motorola, whose Milestone smart
phone gave the company record-
original, stated the professor.
Tellingly, two students were
immediately vindicated because, by
mere chance, ornately framed vin-
tage paintings of quotation marks
had been on the walls on either side
of them as they posed in the “ripe
mango plum” position. Considering
the context, that was considered to
be adequate acknowledgement of
the non-originality of their contri-
bution to the assignment.
“All these students had the pur-
est of intentions,” pleaded student
advocate Myler. “They may have
inadvertently replicated certain
postures in the Kama Sutra, but
the necessary intent to deceive, as
required by §15(a) of the Code of
Student Conduct and Disciplinary
Procedures, was missing.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
breaking sales. The problem is,
Motorola likely wouldn’t exist in the
absence of military contracts. Tons
of military and police telecommu-
nication equipment is produced by
Motorola; in fact, they invented the
first portable telecomm device, the
walkie-talkie, for the military.
When we go to buy something
that is highly visible in our day-to-
day lives, it pays to do some home-
work. Not only are we easily fooled
by beautiful marketing and pack-
age design, we may be contribut-
ing substantially to the corporate
“ha-ha factor.” I often picture the
“chiefs” of our economy laugh-
“Not so!” argued the disciplinary
officer for the faculty. “This was not
just a case of sloppy citation work,
but entirely unacceptable research
methodology.”
The student advocate built the
case for a lack of intent to deceive
by having the students relate how
they had done their research. The
Committee on Student Discipline
was satisfied with the arguments
that “nobody thought it was neces-
sary to dig deeper than the Marquis
de Sade,” and that “if the French
hadn’t come up with it yet, nobody
had.” Accordingly, they were jus-
tified in thinking that they had
indeed come up with some innova-
tive “moves.”
Incredibly, Student Advocacy
Director Daniel King stated that
8
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
ing about people drafting boycott,
divestment, and sanctions posters
on their Macs, while sipping organ-
ic, fair-trade coffee brewed in their
FÖRSTÅ, and “tweeting” the evils
of the military-industrial-academ-
ic complex from their Milestone.
What a farce. In particular, when I
see “activists” of various kinds casu-
ally turn to these sorts of products,
I barf in my mouth a bit. Five min-
utes of research into probably the
most expensive consumer goods
they own should have been enough
to lead them elsewhere. Clearly,
however, aesthetics, marketing, and
sheer laziness win the day. !
this was just “another run-of-the-
mill case” for their service, which
won the SSMU award for campus
group of the year in 2005.
In a related matter, the McGill
Legal Information Clinic is now
being called upon by the same
group of students to fend off allega-
tions of intellectual property viola-
tions made by the Indian Consulate
on behalf of the collective rights
holders of the Hindu heritage.
Kerwin Myler, Law III, is a senior
advocate at the Student Advocacy
Office. The views expressed here
are his own. Write Kerwin at:
kerwin.myler@mail.mcgill.ca.
Ted Sprague’s taking a break this
week. Catch him next Monday!
 Letters
Health Services has room
for improvement
Re: “Health Services does good work” |
Commentary | November 4
McGill Health Services isn’t
excellent. Since writing my Hyde
Park, I’ve heard stories far worse
than my own. The students I
talked to had to take matters
into their own hands and go to
another health care centre.
I would hope that the medical
institution I pay for takes far better
care of me than sending me home
with a prescription and telling me
to come back “if symptoms worsen.”
When you have pneumonia, you
can’t wake up at 7 a.m. to drag your-
self to Health Services before every-
one else gets there. You just can’t.
To truly “err on the side of safety,”
the doctor could’ve done a lot more.
I will use this space to give Pierre-
Paul Tellier two pieces of advice:
1. Allow for more special-
ized attention of specific cases,
such as follow-up appoint-
ments, referrals, and informa-
tion about each patient’s case.
2. Since my experience, I’ve
been told by students that there
are plenty of walk-in clinics all
over Montreal that are covered by
my health insurance. Why didn’t I
know about this before? An institu-
tion that’s under-staffed and over-
worked should provide patients
with the advice to go elsewhere.
As it is, I have my Belgian health
care to thank that I’m still alive,
not Health Services. They don’t
excel, and for me, they weren’t
even adequate. The simple fact
that the treatment I got elsewhere
was far better than that which I
got at McGill shows that there is
quite a bit of room for improve-
ment. And if there isn’t any room
for improvement (Health Services
is squished into a tiny townhouse,
after all), then Health Services
and its staff should inform stu-
dents about their alternatives.
Aaron Vansintjan
U3 Philosophy & Environment
(Joint Honours)
McGill School of Environment Journalist
Secretary, Daily Publications
Society Board of Directors
FormerProduction & Design editor
Unless it examines Arab
role, NGO not very good
Re: Palestinian prisoners’ advocate
speaks at McGill | News | November 8
Last week, The Daily cov-
ered a visit by Ala Jaradat from
ADDAMEER, an NGO fighting for
human rights and prisoner support
for Palestinian prisoners. According
to its website, it strives to build a
“free and democratic Palestinian
society” and believes in the “respect
of human dignity as a priority.”
ADDAMEER’s stated adjectives are
honourable and I would like to sup-
port them in achieving these goals.
Whether it is the Middle East
or Canada, the high principles of
supporting human rights, right to
free speech, political activity, and
civil liberties are ones that every
society should provide to its citi-
zens. In light of these objectives, it’s
interesting that ADDAMEER fails
to recognize the degradation of
Palestinian prisoners in Arab coun-
tries. Since 1948, Palestinians have
been treated as inhuman subjects
of Arab populations, rather than
embraced by their so-called brother
states. They have few political free-
doms or civil liberties in these Arab
states that have done nothing but
attempt to quiet their demands for
a Palestinian state. The leader of the
pan-Arab nation, who promised the
Palestinians a homeland, leader of
Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, signed
a peace treaty with Israel without
any consideration for the fate of
the Palestinians. Jordan later fol-
lowed suit – a country that took
the most moderate position in the
Arab-Israeli conflict out of fear that
Palestinians might actually demand
something from their government.
If ADDAMEER works toward
revealing these inequalities,
I’m happy to support them. If
they are just another NGO that
ignores the role Arab states have
played in the degradation of
Palestinians, then I must believe
that their motives are not honest.
Vicky Tobianah
U3 Political Science and English
Literature (Joint Honours)
McGill Daily news writer
McGill Tribune columnist
Not only does your article criticize people
less privileged than yourself for actively
seeking information and expressing their
political opinion, it ignores the larger
social issues surrounding illiteracy.
Dialy mistittles columm;
lumberjacks
Re: “It’s prob the full course
load” | Letters | November 4
Excited to dive into last week’s
literary supplement, I eagerly
opened a copy of The Daily only
to be dismayed upon reading U4
Education student Jessica Patterson’s
letter to the editor lambasting The
Daily for, as she put it, being riddled
with errors. Alas, Jessica Patterson
is right: my monthly science column
“The Split Brain” ran last Monday
with the erroneous title “The Spilt
Brain” – as if brains, which normally
reside securely in the skull, were a
liquid that could be sloshed around
and/or spilt. I suspect that it was
this error, and this error alone, that
drove Jessica to ignore all the won-
derfully-written articles in Monday’s
issue and write her angry letter.
Kudos to her for doing so! I do, how-
ever, take issue with her assertion
(in postscript) that Canadians would
never wander around the woods
wearing skinny jeans. I can, in fact,
provide photographic evidence
(see the web version of this letter)
of one Canadian doing just that
from a Facebook album I created
last spring titled “Lumberjacking.”
Note the skinny jeans, boat
shoes, and wooded setting.
Daniel Lametti
PhD IV Psychology
Friends in far-off places
Re: “It’s prob the full course
load” | Letters | November 4
really good
i have a very good friends in china,
they sell all kinds of brand new
original products
we have do years business
now i would like you to
share my happyness
just do it now , and go their site to
choose your favorate products
sure you will like it and earn more !!
welcome to: <link-theworld.com>
don’t miss the chance
Ahmed Jaber
Received via e-mail
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Re: “Marketing democracy” | Commentary | November 8
Privileged democracy
Re: “Marketing democracy” |
Commentary | November 8
By saying “real movements
require intellectual foundations,
which in turn, requires substan-
tive communication,” do you mean
the time, access and money to buy
the New Yorker, read Malcolm
Gladwell’s article on social media
and democracy they published, and
then write a column in The McGill
Daily about social media and democ-
racy? Not only does your article
criticize people less privileged than
yourself for actively seeking informa-
tion and expressing their political
opinion, it ignores the larger social
issues surrounding illiteracy, such as
lack of access to quality, affordable
education in many parts of Canada
and the United States. Intellectual
elitism seems like a bigger threat to
informed democracy than Facebook.
Sincerely,
Camilla Grudova
U3 Art History
P.S.: For someone writing
about innumeracy, does it
make sense to use data from
2003 to argue against a website
(Facebook) established in 2004?
More creativity in disputes
Re: “Shame and confrontation” |
Commentary | November 8
It looks like another arc in the
Israel-Palestine issue on campus. In
my time at McGill I’ve felt a lot of
tension about Israel, with accusa-
tions, justifications, and defenses fly-
ing everywhere. Who is right? Who
cares? None of us are really experts
on the case, yet we use phrases like
“genocide” and “terrorist” loosely,
as if we actually knew the reality
on the ground – we really do not.
I’m making a call-out for people to
stop trying to create a stir, just for
the sake of activism, and try some-
thing new for once: learning some-
thing with your mind unclouded.
Articles and letters about this
in the past have taught little about
the actual issue, which needless
to say is a complicated a dilemma.
Israel cannot simply pull out of
Palestinian territories in one day,
which is what led to Cast Lead, but
The Daily publishes letters. Send them: letters@mcgilldaily.com. Three hun-
dred words or less, from your McGill email account. Only rule: no hate, so
keep the racism, misogyny, homophobia, et cetera, out of here.
9
Camilla Grudova U3 Art History
It ain’t The Daily, it’s the DPS
Re: “What’s up with the corporate
ads, Daily?” | Letters | November 4
Dear Jonathan Cohen,
I agree with you that The Daily
shouldn’t run overly corporate ads.
I’m getting a little annoyed with a
persistent Bank of Montreal ad.
However, you should redi-
rect your attention to the Daily
Publications Society Board of
Directors (BoD). The edito-
rial boards of The Daily and Le
Délit don’t make ad policies.
Members of both edboards have
seats on the BoD, but it is also
filled with members at large
from the McGill community.
So direct your comments to
chair@dailypublications.org.
Erin Hale
U3 Philosophy
Former Coordinating News editor
I feel advocacy often wears this
position implicitly. At the same
time, is Israel completely just? Hell
no, and saying so is useless as well
– Israel is certainly more humane
in its counterinsurgency than
almost any country in the world.
At a school like McGill, protest-
ing the presence of three soldiers
just alienates the community. Maybe
I can’t expect much more from
campus politics, and I’ve avoided
them for this exact reason but
I have to agree with last week’s
Hyde Park by Matthew Kassel. You
preach to the choir when you use
old, questionable terms which
take as back to square one of right
and wrong. Whatever side you
stand on, let’s see some creativity,
throw away your old notions, and
find better venues for dialogue
and insight, not just malcontent.
Elan Spitzberg
BA 2010 Geography
Geography research assistant
 Science+Technology
Critically assessing miraculous cures
Why we should be cautious of bad science
B
en Goldacre is the author
of the Guardian column
Bad Science, and a book of
the same name. He has studied
medicine, philosophy, and sci-
ence and still teaches to medical
students and junior doctors at the
University of Oxford. His focus is
epidemiology, the study of patterns
in health and illness. He spoke at
the Lorne Trottier Public Science
Symposium on October 18.
The McGill Daily: Your speech
focused on how the mass media
gravitates toward pseudoscience
and on how pseudoscientists abuse
the impoverished and uneducated
in the name of profit. Why do you
think the media and these charla-
tans have used each other so suc-
cessfully to spread misinformation?
Ben Goldacre: [The media]
knows what the public wants.
What’s so interesting about the
whole situation with these claims
being so seductive is that they
reflect deeper needs in all of us, like
easy answers to problems that don’t
have easy answers.
When I look at how quacks
interact with patients, what I see
is a very old fashioned version of
medical paternalism. I see people
firstly giving fake reassurance to
patients and I see people exploit-
ing power dynamics. I see people
saying, “Don’t worry, everything’s
going to get better because I’ve
given you this treatment and here
is a very elaborate, very technical
explanation of why you’re going to
get better.”
It’s the kind of thing that doc-
tors used to do about fifty years
ago. Doctors would emphasize
to patients that they have special
access to special information by
using deliberately exclusionary lan-
guage. I just don’t think doctors do
that anymore. In general, we teach
medical students not to.
I’m not sure there are many doc-
tors around who wish to go back
to the days where we misled our
patients by using really exclusion-
ary language, but it is interesting
that there is a market for that.
MD: Richard Dawkins has writ-
ten that debunking is often seen as
totally unsexy by the general pub-
lic. Can you think of any ways that
debunking pseudoscience could be
sexed up to appeal to the masses?
BG: I think he’s completely
wrong, actually.
When I set out, I wanted to find
a way to write about that and I knew
that also you had to be aware that
journalists know that the public like
things like personal stories, con-
flict, and controversy.
So, to me, pointing out where
people have got things wrong is a
gimmick that allows me to write
about how experiments work and
what the strength and weaknesses
of different experimental methods
are by putting them in a real world
context.
To a certain extent, debunking
is what I happen to end up doing
when I write in that way about
things, but I wouldn’t say that
makes it less attractive. If anything,
that is the hook that gets people
interested.
In the U.K., the book has done
bizarrely well—it sold a quarter of
a million copies and got to number
one of the nonfiction charts—and
it’s basically an epidemiology text-
book!
It uses human interest stories, it
involves controversies, and involves
showing people how things really
work behind the often quiet, bland
assertions that people make. It
pricks authority.
It narrativizes what science is
all about: critically appraising the
evidence for somebody’s claims,
beliefs and practices. That’s what
we do all day at academic confer-
ences. Debunking is the form of
popular science that is closest to
the reality of what actual academic
scientists do.
MD: You, and your employer,
the Guardian, were unsuccess-
fully sued for libel. You attacked
Matthias Rath in print for his
role in speeding AIDS denialism
in South Africa and he retaliated
with litigation. What are the major
flaws with libel laws and why are
they wholly inconsistent with sci-
ence?
BG: In the U.K., we have a prob-
lem in that our libel laws are par-
ticularly vicious for investigative
journalists who want to write about
somebody’s shifty activities.
In medicine and science, you
encourage people to try and pick
holes in your ideas and evidence.
Unfortunately, libel laws make it
more difficult because often you
Ethan Feldman | The McGill Daily
hear “the very fact that you’re dar-
ing to question my assertions is
libelous and defamatory, and now
I’m going to sue you.”
For example, I was sued by this
guy, Matthias Rath, and I would
actively encourage people to read
the story, it’s extraordinary. ... In
the U.K., there have been more
insidious examples, like a cardiolo-
gist named Peter Wilmshurst who is
being sued by an American compa-
ny called NMT Medical because he
exposed their claims as false.
The idea was that by closing
a hole in the heart, you might be
able to prevent some sufferers of
migraines from having migraines.
So, they ran a trial, which was obvi-
ously flawed.
Peter was the lead investigator in
that paper, but was sidelined after
he raised concerns about the way
things were being done and the way
the results were being reported. He
didn’t come out dramatically as a
whistleblower, he just presented
the results from that study as he
honestly and faithfully believed
them to be. That conflicted with
the results that the company itself
had and they’re now suing him in
the U.K.
I think that any doctor or aca-
demic who sees this will say, “Maybe
I needn’t do the same thing, if I’m in
the same situation.”
Libel laws stop people from
being able to raise concerns about
the evidence for other people’s
practices and ideas. When we’re
deprived of accurate information,
or alternate perspectives, people
suffer or die and that’s really bad.
I think libel laws have to exist
somewhere along the line, but I
think that you can make a very
strong case that science and medi-
cine deserve some sort of special
treatment. There’s public interest
when people discuss their cause for
evidence.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
MD: Now that you’ve success-
fully defended your libel case, could
you please explain briefly why
Matthias Rath is a real dirtbag?
BG: That’s not a difficult ques-
tion to answer.
MD: I know you have a man-
sized pile of documents on him.
BG: That’s true, I do! He’s a real
interesting case. I am pretty relaxed
about people peddling bullshit in
the West. I think it’s more interest-
ing than it is bad and wrong.
But this guy, Matthias Rath, pres-
ents a kind of challenge to that kind
of perspective, which is the to the
kind of right-thinking, non-histrion-
ic view that people have about alter-
native therapies because he took
the basic principles of your typical
vitamin-pill-peddler, or nutrition-
ist, or naturopath in the West – in
America, and Canada, and Europe –
and took these ideas to an environ-
ment where things really matter.
South Africa is a country that has
been ruined by HIV/AIDS . One per-
son dies of AIDS every two minutes
in South Africa, and that’s such a
huge number that it’s actually diffi-
cult to get your head around it.
It seems to me that if you’re
going to go somewhere making
claims that you have a serious treat-
ment for AIDS, then you had better
make very sure you have extremely
strong evidence for that, especially
if you’re going to a country where
the stakes are as high as South
Africa.
When Rath went there, he took
out full-page adverts in national
newspapers saying that anti-retro-
viral drugs are a conspiracy from
the pharmaceutical industry to kill
off black people. His answer to the
AIDS epidemic, of course, was vita-
min-pills.
That’s a problem in itself, but at
the time, South Africa was being
led by Thabo Mbeki who was intro-
duced to the central tenets of AIDS
Denialism by Matthias Rath’s right
hand man, a champ called Antony
Brink.
Between 2000 and 2005, the
South African government made
claims that HIV is not the cause of
AIDS. They refused to roll out anti-
retroviral medication to those who
needed it. It was a complete disaster.
The fact that he was able to sue
me in the U.K. and waste a lot of
our time is pretty objectionable.
The only real sensible response
I could have to that was: after we
won and after I had wasted so
much time defending my case,
now that I know so much about
him, I felt morally obliged to put as
much of it as I could in the public
domain, which is why I’ve made
the story available freely under
creative-commons licence. I had to
bully my publisher into letting me
do that, so it’s all there and free to
10
download for anyone who wants to
use it in any way.
MD: There are many people
who, in the name of anti-colonial-
ism, will claim relativism to be fact
and, in the same breath, liken sci-
ence to religion. Why do the privi-
leged class fear being racist to such
an extent that they are reluctant to
admit that any human society with-
out penicillin, for example, is uned-
ucated or ignorant?
BG: I think a lot of it is about
decadence. It’s about living in an
environment where your kind of
divorced or disconnected from the
realities of the origins of technolo-
gies and ideas that have afforded
you the cultural existence that you
have.
These aren’t entirely abstract
things and they have real world
applications all around us all of
the time. That’s how we know how
to make an airplane or drugs that
work and anyone who attempts to
theorize your self into your navel
has to bear in mind that there is
this proof right in front of you that
these ideas are functional.
As for how to talk people out of
dumb ideas, I don’t think there is
any one way to go about it. Everyone
has their own silly ideas for their
own silly reasons. People have to be
disabused of them on a one-to-one
basis.
MD: I find an irony in that rela-
tivists will defend magical thinking
in non-Western contexts, as if these
cultures have access to some spiri-
tual force that we’re are not privy to.
In some sense, these people must
be prejudiced.
BG: Recently, one of the most
interesting illustrations of that was a
video on YouTube of a couple who
had their marriage reblessed in the
Maldives. The people who were
supposed to bless them were actu-
ally hurling abuse at them with com-
pletely straight faces.
It’s a strange fantasy that some-
body else’s culture is somehow spir-
itually in touch with some earthy
meaning that our lives lack.
A lot of the time, when people
profess to have an affection for the
kind of approach that other cul-
tures take toward spirituality, what
they’re actually doing is pursuing a
kind of paternal caricature of what
they imagine other people’s cul-
tures are really like.
—Compiled by Ethan Feldman
Goldacre’s book Bad Science has
been republished with the addi-
tion of a chapter on Rath which
was originally banned from pub-
lication in respect of the then
unresolved libel case. The chap-
ter is now freely available for at:
www.badscience.net/files/The-
Doctor-Will-Sue-You-Now.pdf
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com Science+Technology 11

Practical fractals
Looking back on Mandelbrot’s contributions to math and beyond
Alex Bratianu-Badea z-axes that we all dread as uni-
Science+Technology Writer versity students) – but they can
be used to model commonplace
things like clouds, coastlines, and

H
istory is a thousand teach-
ers, and we would certainly
do well to pay attention to
lessons imparted to us by its promi-
nent figures. One such figure is
Benoit Mandelbrot who, on October
14, 2010, died from pancreatic can-
cer at the age of 85. Mandelbrot will
be missed by many – but his impact
will remain forever inscribed in his-
tory books.
Throughout his lifetime,
even traffic.
Consider Ste. Catherine on a
crowded day. Look every other
car, then every three cars, then
every four, five, six and so on. If
the traffic looks the same – name-
ly, a line of cars, no matter how
much you zoom out– then a frac-
tal is present.
Fractals are more than simply
amusing: they have a rich breadth
of applications that have gone a long

Grace Brooks with Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

Mandelbrot made many contribu-
tions in fields ranging from fluid
dynamics to information tech-
nology to economics and finan-
cial markets. His most significant
achievement, however, was in
mathematics where he defined
the Mandelbrot set and coined the
term “fractal.” Now, weeks after
Mandelbrot has left us, his intrigu-
ing bequest warrants appreciation.
A fractal is a geometric shape
that is defined by the invariance
of scale: if you look at a figure
and then look at it again under a
microscope and you see the same
shape, you’ve got yourself a fractal.
Fractals are regarded as infinitely
complex and irregular to the point
that they cannot be described in
Euclidean geometry (the x, y, and
way in numerous disciplines. Take
Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia.
In 1992, the disc version contained
several thousand articles and pho-
tographs, as well as hundreds of
animations and maps. Yet Microsoft
managed to cram all of this into less
than 600 megabytes of data. That’s
the equivalent of a little over one
hundred songs or one relatively low-
First Last / The McGill Daily
quality movie. How did they achieve
this? The data was compressed using
the principles of fractals. every 36 seconds. The shape of System). Go out further and you ous advancements in science and
Or how about medicine? To the data would look the same, yet have a cluster of such systems. Even mathematics, as well as several
track esophageal pH, measure- would be achieved with only one further, galaxies. Further again, clus- other fields, can be attributed to
ments can be made once every six sixth of the measurements. ters of galaxies. And finally, gigantic the application of fractals. For this,
seconds for 24 hours. But fluctua- As a final example, let’s look at the superclusters. Keep zooming out, we have Mandelbrot to thank. And
tions in esophageal pH are consis- universe. It too is a fractal! Consider and the picture remains roughly the although he will be dearly missed,
tent with fractal patterns. Instead a planet with a moon revolving same: clusters of celestial bodies, he will be remembered for his
of taking the pH every six seconds, around it. Zoom out and you have a held together by gravity. inquisitive mind and his ingenious
measurement could be made, say, star system (ours is called the Solar There is no doubt that numer- discoveries.

Is global warming good for Canada?

Addressing misconceptions: the realities and the subtleties of climate change
Jonathan Katz climate change. On November 11,
Science+Technology Writer Sauchyn gave a lecture titled “How
Might Global Warming Affect the
Variable Hydroclimate of Western
Canada?” as part of the Cutting
The top five worst natural
disasters in Canadian history,
when sorted by economic impact,
are four droughts and the Great
Ice Storm of 1998, according to
years of drought, and more floods.
Drought has been a historic
problem in the Canadian prairies –
just look at the plant life. There are
very few trees that grow in the prai-
late 19th century, the population
in Saskatchwan thrived, blossom-
ing from one hundred thousand
to one million people in just thirty
years. After this boom in popula-

T
he average annual tempera-
ture on the Earth has incre-
mentally increased since
1976. The emerging scientific con-
sensus, based on computer model-
ing, is that this climate trend will
continue for the foreseeable future.
Despite many scientists’ prophe-
cies of doom, the assumption that
this bodes well for Canada and
other northern countries still per-
sists. According to Dave Sauchyn,
a professor of Geography at the
University of Regina, this logic is
faulty and ignores the subtleties of
Edge lecture series at the Redpath
Museum.
At the beginning of the lecture,
Sauchyn presented a comment
made by Robert Mendelsohn, an
economics professor at Yale: “If
you add it all up, it’s a good thing
for Canada,” meaning Canadians
will weather global warming better
than most other countries. Sauchyn
spent the remainder of the lecture
debunking Mendelsohn’s state-
ment, presenting various studies
and simulated weather models
that suggest otherwise.
Sauchyn. Canadian droughts are
devastating because they blight
the crops on the prairies, causing
billions of dollars of losses over
a single growing season. This is
important to understand because
computer modeling performed
by Sauchyn’s collaborator, Elaine
Barrow, an investigator at the
Canadian Institute for Climate
Studies, reveals that the future cli-
mate will not just be warmer with
more precipitation, but will include
an increase in extreme weather
conditions. There will be more
ries. A study conducted by Sauchyn
examines trees in wet regions
within the prairies. Measuring the
thickness of the tree trunks’ annu-
al rings, he was able to approxi-
mate how much rainfall there was
each year dating back to 1063 CE.
The record revealed that over the
course of the past millennium the
amount of precipitation per year
swung between extremes: years
of drought, and years of flood.
Sauchyn explained that after sev-
eral consecutive years of unchar-
acteristically high rainfall in the
tion, there were years of drought.
The population ceased to grow any
further.
Sauchyn concluded his talk
by suggesting the need for more
research dedicated to planning
solutions for the future climate
changes. He underscored the need
to learn to adapt, and suggested
diversifying and experimenting
with new crops. He proposed
stricter irrigation legislation and
the increased use of alternative
water resources, such as man-
made lakes.

Loving you is not just luck or illusion

It’s in the make-up of our DNA
It’s not by chance we make the perfect solution
Write for Sci+Tech baby, you know it’s destiny’s way
scitech@mcgilldaily.com
12Features

What it means to be a warrio

Thomas Deer is Cultural Liason for the Kahnawake Cultural Centre, in But in terms of the men’s responsibility acquainting these children from the crib that
and the warrior’s responsibility, we under- this is their duty and responsibility in the
Kahnawake, Quebec. He is also a former Secretary of the Kahnawake stand that because there’s not such a solid society. The actual term “warrior,” or “war-
Warrior’s Society. “All Mohawk men are born warriors; it’s their connection, they have to carry a token of rior society,” is I guess a more contemporary,
choice whether they’ll fulfill that role in society,” said Deer. “It’s still their home on their back, which is the title prolific title that was self-applied at a time
we call Rotisken’rakéhte. It’s almost like when we needed, I guess, a psychological
my role and responsibility as a Mohawk man to be a warrior.” The we carry this piece of soil or this earth on advantage.
Daily sat down with Deer in his office in the Cultural Centre, to talk our backs, so we always have a connection MD: What role do Mohawk warriors
about war, warriors, and Mohawk history. to our home. play nowadays? Against what sort of threats
But it’s understood that the men are do Mohawk warriors defend their com-
going to have to leave their homes at certain munities?
The McGill Daily: Historically, what role from east to west, and that’s the same times, for certain roles and responsibilities. TD: Usually when someone asks me what
have Mohawk warriors played in the Nation’s orientation of our Confederacy. So when One is to be defenders or protectors of the is the role of the warrior society today, I’ll
culture? we equate that with the movements of the Confederacy. So if at one time there is, for say it’s a voluntary vanguard of community
Thomas Deer: The role of the warriors sun, it also mimics the role of the men in example, trouble in a neighbouring Iroquois men, made up of fathers, sons, uncles, broth-
in our communities has changed depend- the community. community, or Haudenosaunee community, ers, everyday type people. But when there’s
ing on the era. The whole idea of the It’s really described when we have a that we would dispatch men to support a threat to the community, to the Nation,
Iroquois Confederacy was to unify people naming ceremony today, in the longhouse. [them]. or to the Confederacy, these men will band
who wanted peace. So, by that token, the When a boy is named, he is walked across The second role is that as a provider together and organize, and they’re going
warriors were always a defensive force. the length of the longhouse from the east for families. So at certain times of the to protect and defend the territory of the
Of course we’re using the English term to the west, and then back from the west year—especially in the fall and winter—it’s Haudenosaunee. If we look at the Oka crisis,
“warrior,” but I don’t think that that term to the east, and when they name women a time for hunting, so the men would go this community took action when we see our
really does justice to this society of men they don’t do that. I remember when I was on hunting parties, and they would leave sister community of Kanasetake attacked. [As
who band together at times to help the younger I asked some of the elders why the community for a certain amount of providers in] in contemporary times, we see
community. In our language we call them they walk boys and not women, and they time so they could bring back food for that a lot of Mohawk men are ironworkers,
Rotisken’rakéhte. In our language oken- said that the reason was it has to do with their families. and they go out to cities like New York or
ra means soil, and it’s a root word of their relationships, and the different roles And the third thing that would take Detroit, and they’ll work high steel – build-
Rotisken’rakéhte, and it’s almost saying and responsibilities they have in a society. us away from our homes is diplomacy. As ings, skyscrapers – and the money they make
that there’s a bag of soil slung on [the war- They say that the women are closely spokesmen for the village, for the Nation, they bring home to support their families.
rior’s] back, and the premise behind that related to the earth, closer than men any- for the Confederacy, the men are expected Today, in our fight to be recognized as a
is that in our culture the men aren’t as way, and where they place their feet on the to do acts of diplomacy. So these three sovereign people, there’s constant attacks at
closely connected to the earth as women ground there’s always this connection, and things will take us away from our commu- our ability to perform as a sovereign nation.
are. that’s why it’s the women’s inherent respon- nity, from our home. For example, in 1988 Canada dispatched an
So, for example, they say that the men’s sibility to be the caretakers of the earth, so So when they’re walked from the east to RCMP Swat team to shut down the tobac-
relationship is closer to that of the sun, anything that has to do with the land, it’s the west, and back to the east again, in the co industry in the community, an industry
and if you look at what we call our big the domain of the women, including our ceremony, when they’re babies, small chil- that the community believes is its inherent
brother the sun, he’s always travelling economy, which is basically agriculture. dren, that’s the reason. It’s almost like we’re right. So at that time, when these foreigners

or
came into our territory, the warriors banded
together and repelled the assault. It led to a
two-day occupation of the Mercier Bridge,
and I remember really well, it was a constant
threat of invasion. It ended up culminating
into what became the Oka crisis, when our
neighboring community of Kanasetake was
protesting the expansion of a nine-hole golf
course. When the attack was initially made,
we had men that were there supporting the
people in Kanesatake, but in this commu-
nity, it was the warriors from this community,
who decided that the best way to support
them was to block the Mercier Bridge and
all entrances into our territory, as a means to
prevent a second assault, a violent assault, on
the people who were occupying the forest at
the time, the pines. So in terms of relevancy
today, I do think there is a lingering threat of
violence that could be directed toward our
communities, because we maintain this posi-
tion of sovereignty. We believe that we are a
sovereign people; we don’t believe that we’re
Canadians.
MD: What significance does November 11
have in Mohawk culture?
TD: Eleventh of November? The only thing
I can think of is that the Treaty of Canadaigu
was signed in 1794. There are a lot of veter-
ans in this community. We had people from
this community who fought as far back as the
American Civil War. I have a great-great-great
grandfather who was shanghaied into fighting
for the North during the Civil War, and then
I had an uncle who was in the U.S. Army,
who just retired from the U.S. Army – I don’t
think there are too many people who would
join the Canadian Forces in this community. I
think that the community does have a proud
military tradition, but I don’t think that we
would associate people’s participation in, for
lack of a better word, foreign militaries, with
the duties and responsibilities of traditional
warriors. I would make a distinction there. If
people wanted to go join the Canadian Army
or U.S. Army – most likely the U.S. forces – I
think that they did so on their own free will,
and I don’t think they did it out of any need
to fulfill a traditional role and duty.
MD: Are the Mohawks considered more
war-like than other First Nations? Why is this?
TD: I’ve often heard that. I think it’s a
claim that a lot of different native Nations will
say about themselves anyway, but I do tend
to believe it’s true amongst Mohawks. I think
that we’re very nationalistic, and I guess, for
lack of a better word, we don’t take any crap.
I think there’s no doubt about it. There’s
a big ego connected to being a warrior, a
Mohawk. There’s a flip side to that, which
has had some very dangerous results for us
in the past.
The American Revolution crippled the
Confederacy for a number of years, and the
reason was our warriors wanted to fight in the
war, but our Chiefs, our leadership, actually
proclaimed neutrality during the conflict, and
it was private – “renegades” I’ll call them – led
by, for example, Joseph Brant [who fought for
the British]. Each of our Nations ended up
raising private fighting forces to engage in the
battle. So it’s difficult because the [Chief ’s]
leadership isn’t binding, to the extent that it’s
up to the people whether they’re going to fol-
low the rules or not, and during the American
Revolution, the warriors chose not to follow
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
them. So it exposed an unfortunate flaw in
our political organization. Ideally, even today,
the warriors are supposed to be accountable
to the leadership, supposed to be account-
able to the longhouse – our traditional gov-
ernment – to the Chiefs, to the clan mothers.
They’re supposed to take orders from these
people, but at times I guess the warriors
can get ahead of themselves, and this was
true during the American Revolution. If we
could learn from our mistakes we should
have never got involved in the conflict, and
we should have maintained what our con-
stitution teaches: that we bury the weapons
of war amongst ourselves, and we’re never
supposed to raise them, and I think we lost
this notion that we’re supposed to be a self-
defensive force, a defense force. So there’s a
flip-side to being war like, or fierce. Sure, we
might not take any crap, but it could be self-
destructive sometimes.
MD: What are your personal thoughts on
the War on Terror? How have you as a com-
munity been affected?
TD: Well, the first thing I’ll say is how
the community was affected. We have a
lot of people who ended up fighting in
Afghanistan – which to me is the War on
Terror. I think the War on Terror is a noble
effort, resulting from the devastating attack
in New York on 9/11. New York City, it’s
our traditional homeland too. We might
be at odds with the Canadian government,
the U.S. government, the fact is that we’re
all co-existing in this territory. So when the
War on Terror was committed to, I don’t
think a lot of people had a problem with
it. One way that it affects us today is we
13
Henry Gass | The McGill Daily
have trouble crossing the border as native
people. Our own traditional territory, which
spans Canada and the United States, we’re
expected to have a Canadian passport to
travel back and forth. We never acquiesced
to Canadian citizenship or U.S. citizen-
ship. That’s a result of the War on Terror,
to improve the safety of the borders, and
stuff like that. So we live with those affects.
But I think the idea that was behind the
War on Terror, I don’t think anybody in our
community’s really going to be opposed to
something like that. I think people were
opposed to Iraq though. I think a lot of
people in the community think that the
recent Iraq War was a waste of time, kill-
ing for nothing, another conflict that we
shouldn’t have been involved in. So I would
definitely make a distinction between the
War on Terror and Iraq, and I think people
in the community would make that same
distinction.
There’s a popular t-shirt that’s around
the community, when this whole terrorism
craze started, and it’s a picture of some native
people, and it says: “Fighting Terrorism since
1492,” and that we’re the real Homeland
Security, and that the Warrior’s society is the
real Homeland Security. I’ll think in those
terms too. I don’t think people in the com-
munity here don’t have a problem with the
War on Terror because we believe that we’re
under constant terror of Canada and the
United States. Like I said, there’s a lingering
threat that some armed force is going to
come into this community.
—Compiled by Henry Gass
 Sports
Deer factor
Ben Makuch challenges the perception of hunting as a blood sport
Paging Dr. Gonzo
Ben Makuch
benmakuch@mcgilldaily.com
T
here’s all this talk about
early morning sunrises,
but they aren’t nearly as
impressive as an early morn-
ing moon. Sitting stoically in a
dying night, fading slightly, with
its phosphorous and blue glare
still spreading over the ground.
They can illuminate shadows in a
way that nothing else can, while
hewing every daylight detail just
enough to make you think of
them differently. You need a min-
ute to understand this type of
moon. I can’t say I’ve taken the
time until about a week ago, when
I went hunting in a small town
just outside of the LaRose Forest,
which is west of Hawkesbury if
you’re familiar with Jean Leloup’s
famous tune “I lost my baby.”
Trust me when I say that
there wasn’t anything sadistic
about the whole thing. I wish
I could recount to you a story a
la Arnie in Predator or tell you
how I capped Bambi’s mom and
I didn’t even flinch, but either
one of these stories would be a
lie. No deer were harmed in the
making of this article and it was
rather one of the more peace-
ful experiences of my life that I
can think of. Yes, I had to smear
myself with deer urine and apply
my torso with scent killer; and
yes, if any of my other fellow
hipsters had seen me in hunting
attire that cold October morning,
I may not ever find myself on St.
Denis again without some seri-
ously ironic stare-downs. But for
me, this was the risk that needed
to be taken in order to reconnect
with my hometown.
Driving along the deserted coun-
try road I noticed the late autumn
fields had been harvested and a
glaze of frost tinted the ground. A
place where I had once noticed a
lush forest over a rolling hill, now
had housing developments and an
ever-creeping barrage of construc-
tion crews closing in on the remain-
ing forest. The scene reminded me
what it would be like if Wil-E-Coyote
had ever caught Road Runner for
dinner.
“I think I’ve been gone a year
maybe and there are already new
’burbs. I mean, what the fuck
man?”
“Good for us though,” said
Mathieu, my cousin and partner
in crime for this little operation.
“It was all the deer-land in there.
Can tell by the buck marks on
trees. Everybody thought they’d be
scared off near LaRose where we’re
going. Then again maybe not.”
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
14
“Maybe not?”
“Not a lot of deer this year.
These houses you know... It’s been
throwing everything off.”
In hunting deer you need to
rise early in the morning before
they wake (normally around 4
a.m.), to place yourself between
them and their habitual high-
ways that lead to grazing lands in
hopes of a somewhat ambushed
attack along these corridors. Key
to all this is a whole lot of wait-
ing. And we did just this, parking
the car and inserting ourselves a
half-kilometre from where they
probably nested. The woods
are so abandoned that early in
the morning, you feel like an
explorer. Wilting frames of pines,
cedars, ash, and black spruce are
all yours if you walk underneath
them.
My cousin and I, entirely scent-
less and completely undetected,
slipped through the dead leaves
and an increasingly autumnal for-
est until we found our position at
a hunter’s hide. It’s a strange feel-
ing to be perfectly blended into
the terrain; noticeably more of an
organic feature than usual. Most
animals distinguish us by smell
alone. Stripped of our fragrance
by human cleverness, and given
the right amount of stillness,
we could be no different from a
dead log. As we approached the
hide, we were careful to be silent
and sat slowly into a position we
needed to maintain for upward of
two hours. As any hunter knows,
a slip of the hand can startle the
prey. Mathieu was calm, scour-
ing the cracks in between twigs
and the slowly whimpering
trees, already hunting the land,
his cross-bow tightly squeezed
in between his arms. He is a big
Eli Sheiner for The McGill Daily
man, my cousin, with a strong
jaw-line and a steely pair of eyes
engineered finely into his skull. I
was not so calm. Picture the skin- or a redneck either – he did an correlating these statistics with I get to see? Apparently this vari-
ny wannabe-artiste in a camou- English literature degree writ- hunting limits, deer populations ety of bad-ass dog have the loner
flaged chair not really sure what ing an honours thesis paper on can flourish. Because let’s be stylings of a coyote, conflicting
to do. My breath is slowly enter- Gertrude Stein. Looking at him, honest, like any circle of life you with the pack mentality of other
ing the atmosphere, and I’m try- the primal hunter holding the need a predator – and we’re just wolves, equaling the potential
ing desperately to keep my neck fate of an animal with his trigger that. And how about the suburbs? end of wolf-packs. Whatever they
screwed concretely into a single finger, juxtaposed by, say, Stein’s Don’t let them off the hook that were I can tell you the result is
position while my bladder leaks Three Lives, is quite the contrast easily. Nobody is throwing red a beautiful creature mysterious-
driblets of piss. And believe me indeed. My point being that not paint on any minivans or Timbits ly lost in it’s own design. They
it’s easy to startle, every cracking all hunters are bloodthirsty hicks hockey players as far as I know. sniffed about, not noticing our
leaf sets your heart racing, and some are admittedly, but not the So think about it, one murderous scent, walking closer to the hide
in all the silence even a squirrel majority. Some, apparently, can shot of a crane can do more to at an unnatural distance with-
can seem like a buck trampling be feminist literary-critics. It’s an the death of a deer than Jim-Bob out there being black bars and
through his kingdom ready for a eclectic group. It’s an oversim- from Lanark County. an admission fee. Not being able
duel. plification to label the sport of Just then, as we had fresh to resist my curiosity any longer
After an hour Mathieu pat- hunting savage and uncivilized. delicious cigarettes ready to fire I moved my gaze for a stronger
ted through his chest pocket Not every time a hunter hunts is up in our mouths, three wolves look. But the creaking of my neck
and whispered, “smoke break.” an animal killed. In fact it rarely came so near I can’t imagine I’ll gave me away and the jig was up.
I couldn’t have been happier to ever happens once for most hunt- ever see anything this impressive They ran away without a second
hear that and I wasn’t going to ers in a season. Not only that, tag again. I’m told this sort are “brush thought. I’m not sure where they
argue whether or not it would limits are regulated by govern- wolves,” a mixing of coyote-wolf went, but they were probably
keep the deer away – he was far mental geologists who maintain that risks the utter extinction of brothers or cousins together on
more the expert. Might I add that and record data on the health the pure wolf. But who am I to be the hunt, searching for the same
Mathieu isn’t a knuckle-dragger of deer herds in the area, and by picky about what kind of wolves thing we were.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Shoot and miss
Score: A Hockey Musical attempts to address social issues in hockey, and fails
Kady Paterson
The McGill Daily
“W
e’re proud Canadians
/ and we’ll always find
a way / to play hockey
/ the greatest game in the land.”
Score: a Hockey Musical never
lets its viewers forget this. Best
described as High School Musical
on ice, Score is the story of Farley
Gordon, a home-schooled teenager
who has never played a game of
organized hockey. After being dis-
covered and called the next Sidney
Crosby, Farley joins a league only to
be bullied for refusing to fight. The
movie centers on Farley’s struggle
over whether to fight, and the con-
flicts that arise with his team, par-
ents, and best friend. Score oozes
with nationalistic pride and encour-
ages a dialogue on fighting in hock-
ey and masculinity, but in the end
missed its mark by remaining whol-
ly superficial.
Although the movie was clearly
intended to be as “Canadian” as
possible, the excessive use of ste-
reotypes is overwhelming. Songs
include references to Tim Horton’s,
Canadian hockey players, Kraft
Dinner, and specific Canadian geo-
graphic features (like Red River
floods). The filmmakers were obvi-
ously attempting to mock the exist-
ing stereotype, but they only suc-
ceed in exacerbating its portrayal in
mainstream media.
Whatever the use of stereotypes,
the focus of the movie is fighting
in hockey, and by extension mas-
culinity. The debate serves as the
major theme, and rightly calls into
question the place of violence in
Redmen hockey wins
Photo by Victor Tangermann
The McGill Redmen hockey team beat
University of Toronto 9-2 on Friday,
November 5 at McConnell Arena. They
are currently at the top of their division
with a 12-0 record. See the full photo
album on The Daily’s flickr account at
flickr.com/photos/mcgilldaily.
—Eric Wen
Campus Eye
organized sports. Farley’s admitted
pacifism became a problem early on
in his hockey career – his scoring
talents overshadowed by the frus-
tration of his team and coach. After
quitting and rejoining the team,
Farley comes to the decision to
“hug it out,” much to the homopho-
bic disdain of his teammates and
opposition. The team’s coach (in
song) claims that, “hockey without
fighting is like Kraft Dinner without
cheese.” This theme is represented
throughout the hockey community
in the movie, with characters sim-
ply not understanding how hockey
could exist without fighting, a com-
mon sentiment. Traditionalists of
hockey believe in fighting as a way
of settling scores in a fair face-to-
face way, instead of through an
underhanded illegal hit later in the
game. Score shows that a player
can minimize their role in hockey
fights. When Farley does end up
in a fight, he soon realizes that he
would prefer to be recognized for
his skill alone.
Although this does help the
image of hockey as a sport of force,
the rest of the hockey community
in Score remains unchanged in its
views on fighting and neglects the
issue of masculinity. Farley’s paci-
fism is acknowledged as a rarity,
and the traditions of hockey are
upheld. This acceptance of fighting
as a norm is the true pacifism in the
movie, as the filmmakers unfortu-
nately present no real questioning
of the roots of the issue. Farley is
warned that, “when someone chal-
lenges your manhood / you go toe-
to-go.” The suggestion that Farley
needs to fight or “go lace up his
toe-picks,” gives the movie a tone
Sports 15
W HAT ’S ON TAP
THE SPORTS BAR
Martlets Basketball vs Bishop’s
November 19, 6 p.m.
Bishop’s, Lennoxville, QC
Redmen Basketball vs Bishop’s
November 19, 8 p.m.
Bishop’s, Lennoxville, QC
Redmen Hockey vs York
November 19, 7 p.m.
York, Toronto, ON
Marlets Hockey vs Saint Mary’s
November 20, 3 p.m.
McConnell Arena
R ESULTS
Marlets Soccer vs UQAM
Quebec Semifinal
L 2-1 November 5
Molson Stadium
Redmen Rugby vs Sherbrooke
Quebec Semifinal
W 69-10 November 5
Molson Stadium
Redmen Soccer vs UQAM
Quebec Semifinal
L 3-1 November 5
Molson Stadium
Marlets Basketball v Saint Mary’s
L 46-60 November 7
Saint Mary’s, Colchester, VT
Marlets Hockey vs Carleton
Talia Klein for The McGill Daily W 6-1 November 7
McConnell Arena
of hetereonormativity that is not- ridiculed and little room is provid-
so-subtle and unsettling. The idea ed for more progressive attitudes. McGill Women’s Rowing
that certain sports or activities are Score attempts to address impor- Canadian Rowing Championship
categorized by gender is upheld tant issues around sports, but in 5th in Lightweight Coxed Four
by the movie. Characters that fail failing, simply upholds existing November 7
to live up to their gender roles are standards. Victoria, BC
 Culture
Playing a different role
Gender-neutral casting is becoming common in McGill theatre, but not everyone is down
Lyndon Entwhistle
Culture Writer
L
ast November, Tuesday Night
Café (TNC) Theatre’s restag-
ing of Harold Pinter’s The
Caretaker starred Joy Ross-Jones,
Amanda McQueen, and Melissa
Keogh as two brothers and an elderly
male vagabond who find themselves
in close quarters. The three female
actors embodied the male roles with
style; The Daily’s own Johanu Botha
declared director Laura Freitag’s
cross-gendered casting decision “a
success,” and the Tribune called
the play “completely engaging.”
Caretaker was not the only produc-
tion last year to employ gender-neu-
tral casting – TNC’s The Secretaries,
The Bald Soprano, Players’ Henry
VI: The Rise of York, and the Theatre
Laboratory’s The Good Person of
Sichuan also followed suit.
While Freitag’s gender-neutral
casting served to heighten the
theme of muddled identity under-
lying Pinter’s work, in an interview
with The Daily, she identified two
primary factors in her decision: the
predominance of male roles in the-
atre, and the abundance of female
dramatic talent at McGill. “The best
characters – the most complex, the
most interesting – were always writ-
ten for men,” said Freitag, comment-
ing on a patriarchal practice that is
only slowly beginning to fade.
The dramatic arts, after all, are
generally geared toward a male
audience – it is uncommon for
works to feature more than two
female characters who not only
speak to each other, but speak to
each other about something other
than the men in the play. Gender-
neutral casting offers girls the
chance to try their hand at embody-
ing a wider range of characters than
they would otherwise be restricted
to, often forcing them, and their
audiences, to abandon their con-
ceptions of the beautified actor.
“I cast women [in The Caretaker]
CULTURE
BRIEF
Power play
Like many Canadians this time
of year, David Fennario is thinking
about war. His vision, though, is
more class politics than pomp and
poppies, and he’s hoping Bolsheviki
– his first play in five years – will leave
audiences reconsidering Canada’s
war legacy.
Bolsheviki is the tale of Rosie
Rollins (played by Robert King), a
veteran of World War I and a native,
Directors at McGill usually only opt for gender-neutral casting when it suits their vision of a play.
who weren’t afraid to look ugly,”
said Freitag.
Not only does gender-neutral
casting sit well with the student
body’s general belief in the prin-
ciple that students deserve equal
rights and opportunities, but direc-
tors are loath to turn away skilled
actors on account of their gender.
Jordana Weiss, executive director of
Players’ Theatre, said “gender-neu-
tral casting begins with equity in
the casting process. After audition-
ing talented female after talented
female, directors are more willing
to explore the artistic results [of
cross-gendered casting] when faced
with these numbers.”
Freitag agreed, claiming “there
like Fennario, of Point St. Charles.
One evening, on Remembrance Day,
1977, Rollins begins to piece togeth-
er his story for a Gazette reporter
writing a piece on Vimy Ridge. What
emerges is a darker retelling of the
war, one which abandons the grand
narratives of heroic nation-building
for an account straight from the
trenches.
For Fennario, the battle at Vimy
Ridge, which saw more than 3,500
Canadians killed, whitewashes the
reality of a war motivated not by
pride or honour but by economic
interests. “The rank and file were
there because they’d been told it
was a fight for democracy,” he said,
are slightly more female actors at
McGill than males, and females
tend to be quite a bit more tal-
ented.” James Thorton, TNC’s
executive director, attributes this
phenomenon to the fact that girls,
on average, begin performing at a
younger age than their male coun-
terparts, resulting in a deeper tal-
ent pool of female actors. A quick
survey through the play listings of
recent McGill productions lends
credence to Freitag’s view that
“there is greater repetition in male
casting at McGill.”
This is not to say that gender-
neutral casting only runs one-way.
Mr. Thorton played Mrs. Smith
in TNC’s production of The Bald
“but it wasn’t. It was divided by
class. The interests of the officers
within the army were not the same
as everyone else, because they
were going to go home and join
the elite.”
Today, Fenarrio said, this same
elite “celebrates and insists we cel-
ebrate with them the idea that they
could make men fight for them, they
could make people die for them.
What did we get from it? We were
promised a world of democracy, the
war to end all wars, jobs when we got
back. All we got, though, was two
minutes of silence a year.”
Fennario’s family arrived in
Montreal a century ago, and his roots
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Edna Chan | The McGill Daily
Soprano last spring. Recounting
his role in Eugene Ionesco’s surre-
alist masterpiece, which challeng-
es the language and conformity
ingrained within modern society,
Thorton said there was “a deliber-
ate ambiguity involved in casting
me as a female. It called atten-
tion to the fact that ‘Mrs. Smith’ is
merely two conjoined words that
refer to something, which, in this
case, was someone dressed as a
man behaving with more effemi-
nate gestures.” Cross-gendered
acting does not necessarily entail
dressing as a member of the oppo-
site sex: Mrs. Smith was decked out
in plaid slacks, a vest, and a tie. As
Freitag put it, cross-gendered act-
stretch across the city’s anglophone
working-class southwest. His sharp,
often political plays have made him
a central figure in Canadian theatre
since his first piece, On the Job, pre-
miered in 1975.
That his latest work arrives at a
time when thousands of Canadians
are still in Afghanistan is no coin-
cidence, and Fennario is quick to
point out that the problems of the
First World War haven’t disappeared.
Afghanistan, like World War I, is
backed by the rich and the powerful
and fuelled by “the same drive for
markets and profits.”
Bolsheviki, then, serves as a warn-
ing. “They want bigger and better
16
ing is “an exploration of the ambi-
guities of gender rather than sexu-
ality.”
Despite broad support, however,
the practice is definitely not ubiqui-
tous in McGill theatre productions.
Players’ production of 12 Angry
Men, which runs until November
20, features an all-male cast. “I never
knew that I wasn’t going to cast
girls,” Natalie Gershtein, the play’s
director, claimed. “It was ultimately
a stylistic and logistical choice.” The
play’s auditions attracted nearly
fifty females, and roughly the same
number of men, all reading for male
parts. Although a handful made
call backs, every female actor was
eventually turned down (the entire
crew, funnily enough, is female).
“Unfortunately, few females could
properly embody a man, with one
exception,” said Gershtein, “So I
considered the idea of one female
and eleven males…but I realized
that if I cast a woman, I would have
to spend additional time helping
her to fully embody a male, in addi-
tion to layering on the character,
and I barely had enough time to
work with the guys as it is.”
Perhaps McGill theatre is not
as blind to gender as many might
wish. Directors appear, for the most
part, to employ gender-neutral cast-
ing either when it leaves the main
underlying themes of their plays
untouched, or serves to enhance
them. Freitag, for example, intends
to have actors cross genders in
the upcoming Attempts on Her
Life, written by Martin Crimp, with
which she intends “to criticize the
social construction of a singular
identity and the absurdity of it.”
Gershtein was acutely aware that
casting a lone female in 12 Angry
Men was “a statement that I didn’t
want to make…I didn’t want to pin
women up against men.” Gender-
neutral casting remains a thematic,
or even a political, commitment,
and not always one that a director
believes to be in their play’s best
interests.
wars,” Fennario said, and the con-
flict in Afghanistan may just be the
beginning. “That’s why it’s important
to fight them when they’re small,
when you can oppose them.”
But despite the play’s heavy sub-
ject matter, Fennario says Bolsheviki
is anything but humourless:
“Essentially, Rosie takes a piss on
Vimy Ridge, and people piss them-
selves laughing at it.”
—Sheehan Moore
Bolsheviki is playing until
December 5 at the Bain St. Michel
(5300 St. Dominique). Visit infini-
theatre.com for more details.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com Culture 17
The truth about innocence
Players’ 12 Angry Men reveals the frailty of evidence

Ed Dodson This system has survived for constantly suggesting the signifi-
Culture Writer a reason – there is certainly a use cance of his perspective beyond the
for this legalistic form, even whilst confines of this room, this case, this
it is fraught with so much danger. play. The old man, the first to be

M
ade famous by Sidney
Lumet’s 1957 film, 12
Angry Men was origi-
nally performed as a 1954 teleplay,
scripted by the American film and
television writer Reginald Rose.
This enduring courtroom drama is
now being revived once again by
our very own Players’ Theatre. A
fascinating exploration of one bas-
tion of democracy – trial by jury –
its subject is dramatically widened
to incorporate the impossibly frail
distinctions between fact and sub-
jective emotions, transcending the
confines of setting and plot.
From beginning to end, the
audience observes a 12-man jury
trapped in a solitary room. We, like
the jurors, cannot leave until a deci-
sion is made. The question: Is an
unnamed young man to be found
guilty or not guilty of murdering his
father? Left to interpret, debate, and
get suitably angry about the case,
we follow the intricacies of colliding
perspectives. One juror votes not
guilty, opposing the others’ guilty
verdicts. Thus unfolds the quest
to unfold the truth and to consider
the life-or-death implications of the
term “considerable doubt.”
Of course, the play is dated, for
Canadian citizens at least, by the
impending form of punishment: the
death penalty. However, not only is
this obscene punitive device still in
place just south of the border, but life
imprisonment, whilst not death per
se, amounts to as much in many cases.
Politically, ideologically, socially,
we still regard the gathering of evi-
dence, the debate of this evidence,
and the presentation of it in the form
of a unified judgment as the process
of producing truth. The fundamen-
tal problem of the play is how far
empirical evidence can be a satisfac-
tory basis of our society’s system of
truth, especially as an electric chair
buzzes in the background. This is
our method – intrinsically linked
to social institutions, none more
so than universities, of course – for
understanding the enigmatic world
sprawling uncertainly before us.
Whilst Rose’s script contains the
play’s essential ideas, acting and pro-
duction are vital to provoking person-
al reflection, through transforming
linguistic profundity into dramatic
tension. The arguments must be sin-
cere and fearsome. Indeed, they are.
Matthew Banks does an excel-
lent job as (arguably) the angri-
est man around the table. Visibly
wrapped up in personal turmoil
regarding his son’s violent tenden-
cies, his judgment is emotionally
marred. We can see this anguish
in his disturbingly contorted face
and stubborn, yet ultimately vulner-
able, swagger. The persuasiveness
of the protagonist is vital, of course,
in attempting to convince his elev-
en fellow jurors. Played subtly by
Rowan Spencer, he slowly works
his way around the table, using elo-
quence, not arrogance, to articulate
the logic of “considerable doubt”,
persuaded of potential innocence,
is stunningly played by Gerard
Westland. Complimented by effec-
tive make-up, he is transformed
into the guise of a bodily weak,
but intellectually precise, citizen,
whose soft-spoken voice goes from
being shouted down by the “loud-
mouths” to becoming a beacon of
liberty and much-needed rationale.
Music, lighting, and costuming
are wisely kept minimal, so as to
not distract from the intense drama.
Everything looks authentic, espe-
cially the slick 50s haircuts which
wonderfully emblematize respec-
tive characters. Anger equals wild
bushy facial hair, just as smooth and
neat cuts accompany the logicians
on other side of the debate.
Not trying to emulate the film’s
portrayal, but working directly from
the script, Natalie Gershtein has
done a good job of revitalizing this
important drama. Unfortunately,
one can never escape the limita-
tions of a thoroughly unambigu-
ous, moralistic play. There is a clear
didactic message and no question
as to where the play positions the
audience; we are led to vote not
guilty. Whilst this restricts the play
from what may be deemed “high
art,” drama of this kind is still much
needed (and appreciated). From Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
McGill’s lower field, to London’s constant circulation. This type of
Conservative Party headquarters, drama effectively contributes to an Twelve Angry Men is playing
to the streets of Greece, in this understanding of the wider (and November 17 to 20, 8 p.m., on the
so-called age of austerity social perennial) significance of challeng- third floor of Shatner, in Players’
justice debates and protests are in ing power and seeking truth. Theatre. Tickets are $6 for students.

Power of the lens

Wapikoni Mobile project enables aboriginal youth to make their own films

Laura Pellicer explained to The Daily why she important as well.” addressing issues that contribute of the community and helps to get
The McGill Daily feels the program has been such In order to attain a high level to the social marginalization of people talking about some of the
a success. “Social workers are the of quality, the travelling studio is their communities. Some of the serious subjects that are breached
first team members to arrive in decked out with an impressive films produced in 2010 centred on in the films.

F
or eight months of the year,
two trailers equipped with
state of the art audio and
visual production gear tour aborigi-
nal communities in rural Quebec,
recruiting young aspiring filmmak-
ers. The Wapikoni Mobile Project
was initiated seven years ago by
Quebec film-maker Manon Barbeau,
and aims to provide an innovative
means of self-expression for teens
and young adults living in these iso-
lated communities, while remain-
ing a program that is “run by and
for Quebec First Nations peoples.”
The medium of film is an effective
tool for this generation of aboriginal
youth that are stuck straddling two
worlds: adolescence, in all its own
challenges, and life as a member of
aboriginal communities rooted in
tradition.
Céline Brassard, an administra-
tive assistant for Wapikoni Mobile,
the community,” Brassard said in
French. “They circulate in the com-
munity, let people know the studio
is coming, and recruit youth who
are interested in making films.”
Where social policies developed
at the governmental level have
failed, Wapikoni, with its innovative
approach and use of contemporary
media, seems to be an effective tool
for reaching aboriginal youth. The
youth gain technical knowledge
while developing leadership skills
and general self esteem. Some even
return to the program as employ-
ees, working as assistant trainers to
help younger generations on their
projects.
It is not just the social inter-
vention aspect of the project that
has contributed to its success.
“The program has a double man-
date,” said Brassard. “For Manon
Barbeau...the artistic aspect is very
array of equipment including three
Sony PD-170 cameras, two editing
stations equipped with Final Cut
Pro, and a musical recording stu-
dio. The young filmmakers who
have participated over the years in
the Wapikoni project have been the
recipients of over forty local and
international film awards.
After the arrival of the
Wapikoni social workers, a team
of young professional filmmakers
enter the community and stay for
a four-week period. The profes-
sional cinematographers act as
mentors and provide hands-on
training that allows the youth
to effectively produce their own
films. The end result is an array
of short films, music videos, and
recordings that showcase the
extraordinary talents of these
burgeoning artists. The young
filmmakers do not shy away from
the traumatic legacy of residential
schools, the fight against addic-
tion, and tributes to friends who
had passed away. Others dealt
with more lighthearted subject
matter. “There are a lot of positive
subjects like maternity, the joy
of family, rediscovering identity,”
said Brassard. These films work to
combat aboriginal stereotypes by
emphasizing the universal aspect
of human experience.
The short films and music are
produced in a number of aborigi-
nal languages, as well as French
and English. As Karine Gravel,
an on-site coordinator for the
project, told The Daily, Wapikoni
Mobile is a catalyst for communi-
cation. “At the end of the month
we do a presentation where the
elders can come and appreciate
the work of the youth,” she said.
This event brings together much
Despite the challenges that
Wapikoni faces in creating an
autonomous program run by
aboriginals, the benefits of the pro-
gram are apparent. The Wapikoni
Mobile project has even been rep-
licated by indigenous communities
in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. “[The
youth] have to stop and ask them-
selves what they have to say,” says
Brassard. Although this process
can be challenging, the result is
well worth it. “They realize they
are more proud than they thought
of their communities.” Hopefully
this renewed pride will empower
the next generation of aboriginal
leaders.
Wapikoni Mobile is currently
recruiting young social workers to
act as on-site coordinators for the
project. Visit their website for more
information, wapikoni.ca.
18Culture The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Kitchen sermons for the 
teenage soul
Self-help literature gets personal for Anna Leocha

O
n the morning of November
7, 2009, my mother sat
down with her coffee and
wrote me an email from the kitchen
table. It was not unlike the many
emails she had sent me before:
“GOOD MORNING MY BEAUTIFUL
DAUGHTER IN HER JUNIOR YEAR
OF COLLEGE!!!!!” read the subject
line. My mother is fond of capital let-
ters, exclamation points, emoticons,
and hyperbolic language of all kinds.
She likes to send me lengthy emails
because she knows I will read them,
and she doesn’t keep a journal where
one would otherwise filter these
kinds of things. In these emails,
my mother streams the various
bits of wisdom and inspiration that
she gathers throughout her week.
Sometimes they include experiential
knowledge, but often they include
poignant excerpts from books she
has read. These excerpts and her
commentary on them always speak
to an episode I happen to be going
through at the time of their recep-
tion. They are what one would call
“motivational,” or, dare I say, “self-
help” emails. But my mother prefers
to call them “Kitchen Sermons.”
On this particular day in
November, she is reading from
Simple Abundance: A Daybook
of Comfort and Joy. “I decided to
get up before the rest of the fam-
ily this beautiful November morn-
ing,” she writes. “I wanted a little
meditation time to drink my coffee
and read the daily passage from
my book.” Simple Abundance is a
heavy thing with hard covers and
an attached pink ribbon. It offers
inspiration for every calendar day.
On November 7, the headline
is “Rising to the Occasion” and
my mother lovingly transcribes
the passage for me in her email.
Apparently, at the time, I was strug-
gling with insecurities that were
Anna Foran for The McGill Daily
preventing me from mobilizing
myself. I cannot recall what about. is full of questions and exercises that – magic bullets and UN-BE-LIEV- mental state. These books, such as help books like Edgecombe’s claim
College has inevitably been a series will reinvigorate your sleeping spirit ABLE carpet cleaner – continuing David Burns’s Feeling Good, lay out to provide. Our generation cham-
of crises spotted with good friends and motivate you to pursue your on despite my revulsion. Five pages interactive exercises that the reader pions efficiency, stability, and the
and a good bike. I haven’t read a dreams no matter how BIG or small. in, Edgecombe tries to hook us by is intended to follow in order to feel high-functioning individual. We are
self-help book since Chicken Soup Her advice was nothing my elementa- suggesting that there is a steamy results. “These methods work best quick to diagnose ourselves when
for the Teenage Soul. I was twelve ry school guidance counselor hadn’t love story in her book to help the when they are done in conjunc- we feel that we are not operating to
then, I also used a glitter stick on told me before and I stopped reading readers get “though [sic] it.” I read tion with a professional who can do our full capacity or not exhibiting
my eyelids every morning. about twenty pages in. this paragraph to my roommate, check-ups,” said Baker, “it’s difficult a positive mental attitude. These
To me, the self-help genre whistles Boost: Powerful Tools to complete with typo. “What a waste to do it alone.” books become a panacea. But what
to the tribe of Oprah Winfrey’s Book Re-energize and Re-engage You of time,” she declares, “writers, edi- For me, this is the salient point. is wrong with a good ol’ sulk? Does
Club followers. It is the glossy cover; it and Your Team in Crazy Times by tors, publishers, readers...” I close I can search “self-help” on the the sun always need to shine?
is the oversized picture of the author Linda Edgecombe (author of Shift or Boost before she can finish. internet and Google will deliver And then there are people like
in the forest; it is the complementary Get Off the Pot) promises its readers I do not claim to be exempt me 21,800,000 results. The self- my mother. A person for whom
disc for the car; and it is usually read improved health, wealth, and hap- from needing “help” or “guidance” improvement section in Paragraphe books like Norman Vincent Peale’s
before or after yoga. The two books I piness. It too addresses the reader and I do not resent the existence bookstore contains enough vol- The Power of Positive Thinking
was given to review for this article did with a series of questions: “Do you of the genre that caters to these umes to fill the rest of my days. have become cornerstones in her
nothing to challenge this stereotype. need to give you and your organi- needs. The goal of self-help books Despite the excessive availability of optimism, and dear friends in her
Dream Bigger by Julie Wise begins zation an energy boost? Do you is happiness, and if they work support out there, do we feel any library. To these people, I say: keep
with the question, “Did you day- want to feel revitalized and posi- for you, I think that is a positive less alone? How do we find advice reading! As Baker asserted, “People
dream as a child?” followed by, “Do tive? Have an emotional connection thing. Ted Baker, director of McGill that works for us in the ever-expand- need to do what works for them.”
you remember the magic of imagin- to your work and family? Be driven Counselling Services, discussed the ing market of self-help? I find the For me, that means continuing to
ing you could fly like an eagle?” The to be outstanding in your field?” If success of self-help books that use ubiquity of the self-help genre suf- turn to the Kitchen Sermons: those
book, which is about learning how so, “Then read on!” I do everything the cognitive behavioural approach focating and insincere. I reject the distilled, personalized labours of
to rekindle “the magic of dreaming” I can not to think of infomercials to guide readers back to a positive neat, packaged solution that self- love.
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Imaging imagination
Parisian Laundry exhibit revisits childhood in St. Henri
Christina Colizza
The McGill Daily
T
o appreciate Adrienne
Spier’s Grade and Jennifer
Lefort’s Make-Believe, exhib-
its at Parisian Laundry, one must
view them with the imagination
of a child and leave the cynicism
of art criticism at home. Parisian
Laundry celebrates this past
October’s Women’s History Month
with Spier’s foray into discarded
materials and Lefort’s fluid abstrac-
tion. As Spier fascinates us with the
artistic genius of mundane school
desk scribbles, Lefort’s paintings
feel something like cloud watching
during recess.
A mixture of found objects
and photography, Spier’s Grade
concerns itself with all that soci-
ety has thrown into the trash. She
revives value from what Western
culture discards, creating mean-
ing in the everyday wood objects
that stockpile and organize pieces
of our personality.
Almost reaching the twen-
ty-foot ceilings of the gallery,
“Floorboard” recognizes the
memories and marks made on
what was once a kitchen or liv-
ing room floor. By stacking floor-
boards on top of eachother, we
can see the effect we have on the
hard materials of our surround-
ing. Nicks, spilled wine, that time
Dad dropped that heavy pan...
Our subconscious runs free,
remembering the events on our
own floors and seeing in Spier’s
work the detailed histories of
every piece of wood.
Spier continues this concept in
A brand-new old soul
Aloe Blacc finds the political power in music
Tiana Reid
The McGill Daily
S
oul music, a sound that has its
roots in the black experience,
is a genre drenched in his-
tory. Soul grew out of the African-
American struggle, and at the same
time invigorated black pride and
racial awareness in the cultural
imaginary of the Civil Rights era.
Aloe Blacc, born Egbert
Nathaniel Dawkins III, is a musi-
cal artist signed to indie record
label Stones Throw Records, whose
music is wholly in conversation with
the past. It’s not surprising that his
sophomore album, Good Things,
has been compared to the work of
game-changers like Marvin Gaye
and Curtis Mayfield.
Due somewhat in part to the
proliferation of micro-genres
on music blogs, artists are rarely
assigned one genre these days, nor
is it necessary that they should.
“3 Bedroom Apartment,” a tableau
of deconstructed furniture. The
individual pieces are a dresser and
two night tables with varying sizes,
shapes, and colours within them. A
bedroom may just be a room, but
“3 Bedroom Apartment” asks us to
question how easily we disregard
these pieces of furniture when we
are done with them. Too often we
overlook the beauty of a night table
that has slept beside us for years,
or a dresser faithfully holding our
clothes through whatever style
changes we make. The pieces have
a dynamism closer to the socks,
condoms, and late night reads of
the people who use them than sim-
ple pieces of wood. As Spier points
out, no one knows us better than
the things we throw away.
Her photography, too, contin-
ues this revival of our waste in her
“Inside Desk Series.” Photographing
the boards of school desks, Spier’s
work sees the beauty in every “suck
me,” or penis drawing, down to
band doodles such as PANTERA in
block letters. Upon a closer look,
poetry emerges in the confessions
of prepubescent love and wood-
carvings claiming, “I got the key
to Gramercy Park.” No message is
left unimportant or abandoned,
causing the viewer to unearth lay-
ers of adolescence with their own
mental eraser. What appears from
the crusted bubble gum, band-aids
and strange animals with dicks is
a distinctly Montreal student body.
Graffiti letters spell out “Haiti #1,”
we learn “Matusia is prettiest in
the world,” and “Greece” appears
alongside “Quebec.” One student
described, this “Endroit cruel où
enfants souffrent.” “A cruel place
How do artists like Blacc, then,
negotiate the newness of an old
sound? In many ways, the emer-
gence of the term “neo-soul” in
the late nineties marked a striking
commercialization of soul music.
Coined by former Motown Records
president Kedar Messenburg, neo-
soul didn’t present anything par-
ticularly new in terms of music,
but rather, reflected new mar-
keting strategies for artists like
Lauryn Hill, D’Angelo, and Macy
Gray. Simultaneously, however,
neo-soul offered an “example of
black self-determination in an
industry that is still defiantly wed-
ded to narrow definitions and
images of black folks,” said writer
Tyler Lewis in a PopMatters review
of Bilal’s latest album Airtight’s
Revenge. Interestingly, the USC-
educated Blacc has coined a term
of his own to describe his music:
“brand-new-old-soul.”
Brand-new-old-soul calls atten-
tion to soul’s never-ending dialectic
The works in Jennifer Lefort’s Make-Believe recall the easy fun of childhood.
where children suffer,” becomes a
contemplative place for adults to
remember such naive suffering of
long ago.
Lefort’s paintings, on the other
hand, recall the fun of “abstract”
day in art class – only matured
and perfected. In one room, her
paintings hang from simple clips
with the ripped edges of a spiral
notebook still intact. Too casual?
Shouldn’t she be taking her art
more seriously? Lefort’s work
answers for itself: you should
be taking yourselves less seri-
ously. With titles such as “Brown
Cave with Many Different Cloud
between past and present. Citing
heroes like Mayfield, Bill Withers,
and Al Green, Blacc’s music is, in
every respect, in dialogue with
the past, but he insists that he still
wants to “create something unique
that has a quality of its own.” Blacc
discussed his relationship with clas-
sic soul in an email to The Daily: “I
am a disciple of great and classic
soul artists and my goal with this
new album is to carry on an impor-
tant tradition in soul music of mak-
ing songs with social and political
commentary.”
Aloe Blacc’s music videos, like
“Femme Fatale” and “I Need a
Dollar,” make musical references
and aesthetic allusions to nostalgic
black music, while simultaneously
exploring a very current urban
life. This is not to say that Blacc’s
music is overtly militant or radical;
instead his lyrics aim to prolong
the tradition of slave music, as tes-
tament to its power in early Civil
Rights movements.
Systems” and “Green Cave with
Confetti Hailstorm” we see an
imagination at work. She inter-
mingles colours and textural
styles with drips, swaths, and
globs of paint creating these
“make-believe” places. Lefort’s
true talent lies in her ability to
look at things with the eye of a
child. One can imagine in “Peach
Cave with Yellow Spots” the thrill
of a child splitting a peach and
discovering the universe of a pit
for the first time. Despite many
degrees, awards, and children of
her own, Lefort is a kid at heart,
thus producing a whimsical yet
However, Blacc’s political angle
extends beyond a necessity to stay
true to the idea that the “soul is
political.” For Blacc, the responsi-
bility to address social and political
issues isn’t restricted to his music. “I
think every adult with a conscience
has a responsibility to address polit-
ical and social issues. Whether you
are a day labourer or a filmmaker,
it’s important to be aware of the
issues that affect your life,” said
Blacc
While the genre of modern
soul, or neo-soul, or whatever you
want to call it, may lack the politi-
cization of days past, it could be
argued that this was a natural con-
sequence of having entered the
mainstream. Even in its infancy,
soul was entrenched in debates
surrounding the effects of com-
mercialization. Alongside the
politicization of soul music for the
Black Power Movement, soul was
often considered to have made
the commercialization of black
Culture 19
Courtesy of Parisian Laundry
ripe body of work.
Spier and Lefort’s work brings
a glowing vitality to the Montreal
art scene this month at Parisian
Laundry, indicative of the return to
Neverland that this exhibition aims
to induce. With sunshine pouring
in through floor-to-ceiling win-
dows from a St. Henri sky, Parisian
Laundry is surely a place to let your
imagination run wild.
Grade and Make-Believe will be
showing until November 27 at
Parisian Laundry, 3550 St. Antoine
O. Opening hours Tuesday to
Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m.
music (and black culture) possible,
due to its “cross-over appeal.” The
very song that has been hailed as
the recession anthem, Blacc’s “I
Need a Dollar,” was picked up by
the HBO series How to Make It in
America, bringing his music a far
wider audience. “The soul artist is
an archetype that exists and is well
understood. Fortunately, a new
music lover is born everyday and
the tastes of music fans are broad-
ening, so I imagine artists will not
have to be so strict with genre-cen-
trality,” said Blacc.
Aloe Blacc’s music doesn’t sim-
ply resist classification, it exempli-
fies his self-determination in creat-
ing a space of brand-new-old-soul to
call his own.
Aloe Blacc will be playing live with
his band The Grand Scheme at
Le Belmont, 4483 Saint Laurent
Boulevard, on November 16. Visit
lookoutpresents.com for more
information.
20Culture The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

The art of typography

How letters can have a cultural impact, for better or for worse

Oliver Lurz proliferation of Comic Sans is worse

The McGill Daily than the spread of bedbugs. Indeed
it is seen as an epidemic in some
circles (read designers). Recently,

B
y the time you have finished
reading this newspaper, you
will have seen at least a dozen
different typefaces, more if our
Compendium! editor is in a good
mood. Fonts are everywhere, capa-
ble of manipulating our response to
the message they convey. Consider
the same sentence in two different
fonts. “Will you marry me?” (sub-
text: I am normal and serious and
dependable) becomes “Will you
marry me?” (subtext: Let’s elope
and live in a theme park, don’t for-
get your clown shoes!). Type design
is a language unto itself, and has
implications far beyond aesthetics.
Marshall McLuhan had it right: “The
medium is the message.”
The appearance of text has
never been neutral. Different hand-
writing has existed since the birth
of the written word, and it was not
long after Johannes Gutenberg
invented the printing press in 1439
that font styles began to diversify
further. Fast-forward to the mid-
1980s and desktop publishing
gives us the font menu. Now even
the most basic word processing
software has hundreds of varieties
and styles of text to choose from.
This ubiquity has led typogra-
phers to coin the phrase “Type is
everywhere.” I’m not very good at
estimations but I’d say that in your
lifetime you’ll probably see tens of
billions of typed letters. It’s impor-
the internet campaign “Ban Comic
Sans Movement” has been very
vocal on the subject. Created in
2003, this group has the explicit
aim of “putting the Sans in Comic
Sans.” Their manifesto states, “We
believe in the sanctity of typog-
raphy and that the traditions and
established standards of this craft
should be upheld throughout all
time. From Gutenberg’s letterpress
to the digital age, type in all forms is
sacred and indispensable.”
To the movement’s members
– and there are many of them –
Comic Sans is both unacceptably
childlike and too often used inap-
propriately. One of the founders of
the movement, Holly Combs, said,
“Using the typeface Comic Sans is
like turning up to a black-tie event
in a clown costume.”
The much maligned font was
even included in Time magazine’s
“50 Worst Inventions” list. Poor
thing. I think people are perhaps
getting overly worked up about
this jaunty, informal typeface.
Mike Lacher recently posted an
impassioned and timely defence
of Comic Sans on mcsweeneys.net
which called for a much-needed
sense of fun in the community
of typeface enthusiasts. His first-
person monologue retorts, “You
think I’m a malformed, pathetic
excuse for a font. Well think again, Grace Brooks | The McGill Daily
nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, perhaps if only for its sometimes the history of the typeface, inter- of, say, a headline font.
incongruous absurdity. spersed with interviews from vari- Ultimately, different designs

“I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the

Next on this quick tour of
the type world we move from
the almost universally reviled
best thing to happen to hap- to the overwhelmingly adored.
Helvetica, designed in 1957 by Max
pen to typography since Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann,
is the paragon of international Swiss
ous designers and a soundtrack
by Fourtet, Battles, and Caribou
amongst others. The film was
released in 2007 in selected cine-
mas in New York, London, and San
Francisco and has since become
widely acclaimed. In the context
serve different purposes and I
don’t think this culture of so-
called good and bad fonts creates
an especially useful discourse.
When the inventor of Comic Sans,
Vincent Connare, was asked why
it has become so popular, he

Johannes fucking Gutenberg” modernism. The aim was clarity,

Mike Lacher mcsweeneys.net
tant, then, that the right typeface is
used, and woe betide anyone who
should misuse one.
A telling example of this is the
story of Comic Sans. To some it
is just a friendly, round-edged, and
harmless typeface, yet to others the
and I’m the best thing to vhap-
pen to typography since Johannes
fucking Gutenberg.” Though the
typeface is often used wildly inap-
propriately (I’ve even seen Comic
Sans inscriptions on gravestones) I
believe it has its place in the world,
with no serifs or distracting decora-
tive elements, just mathematically
perfect characters. Essentially it’s
everything Comic Sans is not and
is used worldwide from companies
like American Apparel and Apple to
NASA and the U.S. government.
The emblematic status of
Helvetica was recently confirmed
by an independent documenta-
ry film about the Swiss typeface
directed by Gary Hustwit. Simply
entitled Helvetica, it centres on
of all this acclaim I find Helvetica
powerfully underwhelming. For
one thing it looks just the same
as Arial: incongruous to the point
of invisibility. American typeface
designer Jonathan Hoefler reit-
erated this: “Helvetica is hard to
evaluate. It’s like being asked what
you think about white paint. It’s
just... it’s just there.” This is by no
means a bad thing; a good text font
should be unassuming and facili-
tate ease of reading, as opposed to
the attention-grabbing properties
replied rather succinctly, “Because
it’s sometimes better than others,
that’s why.” Comic Sans was as
perfectly designed for its purpose
(joviality et cetera) as Helvetica
was for its purpose (clear legibili-
ty). And anyway, as Lacher’s Comic
Sans persona states, “You think
I’m pedestrian and tacky? Guess
the fuck what, Picasso. We don’t
all have seventy-three weights of
stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting
on our seventeen-inch MacBook
Pros.”

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office on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
This is real so take a chance, and don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back
 Art Essay The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
21

Ming Lin
 Compendium!
Lies, half-truths, and animals riding bicycles
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
22

ASK STUART
A raunchy rusty ride
Dear Stuart:
My partner’s bike has been breaking out in rust
patches recently. I have been scared to leave my
bike next to theirs in case it is contagious. How can
I prevent my bike from contracting those ugly brown
patches?
—Ferris Oxide
Dear Ferris:
In the mid-2000s, rusty frames started popping
up everywhere, most notably in student ghettos
and hipster circles. Luckily, there are a few ways
to avoid getting “those ugly brown patches” on
your bike. The first technique – as advocated for
by many in the Midwest – is to abstain from riding.
Simply place your rustless bike in a garage or attic,
and it should stay that way. While this is a surefire
way to keep rust off your bike, you miss out on all
the fun that riding brings. If you are determined
to ride, you can protect your bike from rust with
candle wax or a fresh coat of paint, which both
have a 97 per cent success rate. If you ride your
bike in the rain or snow, dry it off after, and be sure
to grease and lubricate all the important bits on a
regular basis.
Rust isn’t contagious; however, be aware that
placing your bike next to your partner’s may dam-
age your paint job and expose your frame to the
dangers of the elements. You can counteract this
by wrapping your frame in a shock-absorbent
material like old inner tubes. Protecting your
frame will allow you to have many more years of rust-free Dear Size:
riding. You need to adjust it or swap it for a smaller one. In this
—Stuart situation, communication is key. You don’t want to offend
your bike or make it feel inadequate about the size of its stem.
Dear Stuart: Make sure it knows that the changes you’re making are going
My bike’s stem is too long, and it leaves me in pain to improve the ride and the relationship.
every time I ride it. What should I do? —Stuart
—Size Matters
Dear Stuart:
Every time I see a mountain bike posted on
Craigslist my palms get sweaty and my face
flushes. I e-mail the seller and refresh my inbox
constantly, anxiously awaiting a response. But
when I go see a bike, all the flaws surface, and
I can’t bring myself to take it home. Am I too
judgmental? Will I ever find the one?
—Luss T.
Dear Luss:
While it’s good to have certain standards, it’s
important to realize that not every bike is perfect.
Maybe you’ve built up a fantasy bike in your head
that doesn’t exist. Think about what’s crucial for you
to enjoy your potential relationship with a bike, and
recognize that you can change decent bikes into awe-
some ones with the right parts and tools.
The Flat has some great pointers on choosing
that perfect match: theflat.wordpress.com/buying-a-
used-bike.
—Stuart

More questions for Stuart? What do you think of the crossword?

Inquiring minds want to know.
askstuart@mcgilldaily.com Send your feedback to compendium@mcgilldaily.com.

Now I know
Across 51. Speaker’s platform 31. Unpleasant procedure
Miss Nomer 1. Shrek, e.g. 52. Digestive system part 32. Most hippie-like
5. Lowlife 56. Word with side 33. Pimps
! " # $ % & ' ( ) !* !! !" 9. With only a little milk or satellite 35. FedEx
13. Prepare a meal 57. Six-stringed instrument 36. King ___ tomb
!# !$ !% 14. Hawaiian tuber 58. Wood sorrels 37. What Pixar uses
15. Black, in poetry 59. Coin opening 39. Like some remarks
!& !' !( 16. A very tying question? 60. Shade trees 40. Gallery display
19. X-ray units 61. Whip mark 41. Chess piece
!) "* "! 20. Spell-off 42. Alpine songs
21. Celebrate Down 43. Wanders (about)
"" "# "$ "% 22. Encourage (on) 1. Like stop signs 44. Common things to catch
23. By way of 2. Comment from 45. Be of use to
24. With the least delay Charlie Brown 46. Midsection
"& "' "(
26. A secure way of 3. Holds up 50. Half the alphabet
not remembering? 4. Barely get, with “out” 51. Chop up
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29. Member of a cer- 5. Fishing spot 53. “___ had it!”
tain church 6. Birthday dessert 54. Nada
#$ #% #& #' 30. 2nd in command 7. Ashes holder 55. Haul
31. Gym unit 8. Farm cry
#( #) $* Solution to “Here’s to morning light”
34. Highlander 9. Watch mechanism
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38. Little helper 12. Prepared to & - & ( . " , ( 2 - * 1 / & .
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stances for felines 24. Distort 0 4 # % & - # $ & %
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 15, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
19
volume 100
number 20
EDITORIAL
editorial
3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Problems facing First Nations
Montreal, QC H3A 1X9
phone 514.398.6784
fax 514.398.8318
need long-term solutions
mcgilldaily.com
On October 22, Eabametoong First Nation chief Lewis Nate declared a
coordinating editor state of emergency in his community, on the Fort Hope reserve in north-
Emilio Comay del Junco
coordinating@mcgilldaily.com ern Ontario. Over the last year, there have been three homicides, various
cases of animal cruelty, and fifty cases of arson, one damaging the only
coordinating news editor
Michael Lee-Murphy school on the Fort Hope reserve. Prescription drug abuse has been on the
rise and is one of the underlying factors in the current spikes in violence.
news editors
Eric Andrew-Gee
Rana Encol Last week, the Eabametoong were “still waiting for Canada’s prime
Henry Gass minister to acknowledge [their] state of emergency.” When federal
features editor response to crises south of the border – whether in New York or Haiti
Niko Block – has been within hours, there is no excuse for such a delayed nation-
commentary&compendium! editor al response to a crisis happening on aboriginal Canadian land.
William M. Burton
coordinating culture editor The plight of the Eabametoong echoes that of other northern Canadian
Ian Beattie communities, which have been plagued by youth gang violence and homi-
culture editors cide that attract national media coverage and police resources, but no long-
Naomi Endicott term commitment to address the enduring root problems. Youth in Cape
Sarah Mortimer
Dorset, an Inuit hamlet of 1,200 on Baffin Island, Nunavut, have been charged
science+technology editor with two murders – but as the Globe and Mail notes, “More often... young
Shannon Palus
men in small Northern communities turn guns on themselves.” The suicide
health&education editor rate among 15-to-24-year-old men in Nunavut is 28 times higher than the
Joseph Henry
rest of the country, yet the territory has no suicide prevention strategy.
sports editor
Eric Wen
Closer to home, Native activists and police squared off over the town
photo editor Oka’s plans to expand a gold course onto traditional Mohawk lands. At
Victor Tangermann
least one person died during the dispute. Twenty years have passed since
illustrations editor the Oka Crisis, yet members of the Mohawk Community at Kanesatake
0livia Messer
lament that institutional racism continues. One speaker at “20 Years
production&design editors Since Oka: Kanienkehaka Communities in Resistance,” a panel discus-
Sheehan Moore
Joan Moses sion held in May of this year, testified that drug raids conducted by the
RCMP target soft drugs – such as marijuana sold outside of the community
copy editor
Courtney Graham – but willfully pass over hard-drug dealers, meaning that heroin, cocaine,
and oxycontin remain inside and ultimately harm the community.
web editor
Tom Acker
Although Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has committed $400,000
cover design
Olivia Messer to provide private security, equipment, and repairs to Fort Hope, there
needs to be more than a purely reactive response. Police can patrol
le délit
Éléna Choquette the streets, but they cannot treat mental health or drug addiction.
Mai Anh Tran-Ho
rec@delitfrancais.com Speaking at McGill this month, former Prime Minister Paul Martin pointed
Contributors out that only forty per cent of Aboriginal on-reserve school students gradu-
Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Grace Brooks, Edna Chan,
Christina Colizza, Edward Dodson, Eduardo Doryan,
ate from school. The statistics speak to a discriminatory system: on-reserve
Flora Dunster, Lyndon Entwhistle, Ethan Feldman, schools are administered by the federal government and receive twenty to
Susannah Feinstein, Anna Foran, Mari Galloway, Erin
Hudson, David Huehn, Adrian Kaats, Talia Kleiner, forty per cent less funding per-capita than their off-reserve counterparts,
Anna Leocha, Oliver Lurz, Ben Makuch, Kerwin Myler,
Anna Norris, Kady Paterson, Laura Pellicer, Tiana
which additionally benefit from the support system of school boards.
Reid, Naomi Schaffer, Eli Sheiner, Maya Shoukri

First Nations are trying to advance their goals of self-sufficiency and

self-determination in an inhospitable climate. Native communities from
Oka to the Okanagan Valley in BC have tirelessly resisted unilateral
development on their land, investing time and scant legal and financial
resources that could be otherwise applied to their long-term problems.
The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the
The time has come for governments to adopt a policy of genuine coop-
Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit eration and consultation in addressing these problems, and to real-
organization whose membership includes all McGill
undergraduates and most graduate students. ize that short-term security solutions are tantamount to occupation.
3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26
Montreal, QC H3A 1X9
phone 514.398.6790
fax 514.398.8318

advertising & general manager Boris Shedov

treasury & fiscal manager Pierre Bouillon
ad layout & design Geneviève Robert
Mathieu Ménard
dps board of directors
William M. Burton, Emilio Comay del Junco,
Humera Jabir, Whitney Mallett, Sana Saeed,
Mai Anh Tran-Ho, Will Vanderbilt, Aaron Vansintjan,
Sami Yasin (chair@dailypublications.org)

The Daily is proud to be a founding member

of the Canadian University Press.
All contents © 2010 Daily Publications Society. All rights
reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibil-
ity of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the
views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised
in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.
Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.
ISSN 1192-4608.
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