News

Vanessa Annand — The Martlet (University of Victoria)

VICTORIA (CUP) — If a picture says a thousand words, people said a lot about climate change on May 5.

Through the environmental activist website 350.org, concerned citizens from around the world took part in a day of climate action called Connect the Dots. Participants from hundreds of cities on nearly every continent posed for photographs in which they highlighted ways that climate change has affected their communities — and the ways it could affect them in the future.

“I think the idea is to put a human face on climate change. There’s all these severe weather events going on around the world, and they’re not being reported on as connected to climate change,” says Graham Girard, one of the organizers of the Connect the Dots event in Halifax.

Approximately 60 Haligonians turned up to listen to guest speakers, including NDP environment critic Megan Leslie. Attendees then posed for a photo with blue bags held up to their necks to illustrate the levels to which water is expected to rise in Halifax in the next 110–150 years.

“We’ve had continuing record-low ice levels in the Arctic. Here in Nova Scotia, there’s been increased erosion,” said Girard. “Over in Dartmouth, a large storm ... completely eroded the shoreline and undermined the train tracks. These are severe storms that have severe impacts, and they’re happening all across the country.”

Meanwhile, in Fredericton, organizer Caroline Lee instructed approximately 40 people to pose in front of the Saint John River with signs that read “Three 100-year floods in 20 years.” Lee said the river typically drastically floods its banks once every hundred years, but in the past 20 years, those floods have been more frequent. She connects this up-tick to climate change.

According to a 2012 poll commissioned by researchers at Yale University and George Mason University, Lee is not alone. The New York Times reported that, “When invited to agree or disagree with the statement, ‘Global warming is affecting the weather in the United States,’ 69 per cent of respondents in the new poll said they agreed.”

“This event is really timely, actually, because concern about environmental issues has really declined in recent years,” said Lee. “When the economy goes down, that becomes a priority in people’s minds. It’s important to highlight that without healthy people and without healthy communities, we can’t have a healthy economy. Climate change shouldn’t be at the bottom of the list here.”

In Egypt, people gathered in Cairo and Alexandria. Cairo event organizer and 350.org Arab world co-ordinator Sarah Rifaat told The Martlet via email that the 30 to 40 person turnout was lower than expected.

“Violent clashes in [the district of] Abbasiya between protesters and the army ... affected the mobility of many people across the city. There were supposed to be bicycle groups coming in from different parts of the city, but our cycling partner pulled out at the last minute for fear of the safety of the cyclists,” wrote Rifaat.

Still, participants constructed an aerial art piece of a giant Pac-Man eating three dots that represented two leading causes of climate change — fossil-fuel powered electricity and transportation — and one major climate impact on Egypt — crop failure due to changing weather.

More photos can be viewed at climatedots.org.

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News

Justin Smirlies — The Cord (Wilfrid Laurier University)

WATERLOO (CUP) — The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is not letting their guard down against what they believe is a violation of academic freedom.

On April 27, CAUT’s council and membership passed a motion that could potentially mean the imposition of a censure on Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) and the University of Waterloo (UW) if the two institutions don’t loosen their academics ties with the Centre of International Governance and Innovation (CIGI) at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

“We had a very lengthy discussion of the issues,” explained Jim Turk, executive director of CAUT, noting that if the universities don’t amend their governance agreements with the Balsillie School they will put forward another motion to censure in November.

“The motion passed with only one vote against. It passed overwhelmingly. The only voice against was the president of the University of Waterloo faculty association.”

CIGI, the Balsillie School and the two universities believe that CAUT is making outlandish claims about the governance documents that were passed by the senates of UW and WLU.

CAUT maintains that Laurier’s and UW’s affiliation with CIGI, specifically in regards to CIGI’s position on the Balsillie School’s board of directors and research chairs, has too much of a role in the school’s direction for research.

“We disagree with their point of view about the document,” stated Deb MacLatchy, the vice-president: academic and provost at Laurier. “All we’ve seen is a motion, so there’s still no definition of what they think is wrong with the governance document in regards to failure with academic freedom.”

Thomas Homer-Dixon, the CIGI chair of global systems at the Balsillie School, strongly disagrees with the stance of CAUT and openly questions their motives.

“I think CAUT’s position is fundamentally misguided, [CAUT is] wrong not only on the facts in terms of the nature of the agreement between the three institutions, but also, frankly, CAUT’s position includes quite extraordinary factual misrepresentations and outright innuendo about the nature of the agreement,” he said.

To Homer-Dixon, the motives of CAUT are not clear. He added, “The real issue is, why are they doing this? What’s going on? What’s their agenda?”

With the timeline of six months, Turk hopes that WLU and UW take this motion strongly into consideration and that they come to a “satisfactory solution.” York University — which was originally under the threat of a censure by CAUT in March — recently dropped a potential research deal with CIGI.

“So, in our view, a donor, corporation, a private think-tank has no business being at the table of the discussion of those things [academics],” Turk added.

Fred Kuntz, the vice-president of public affairs at CIGI, asserted that all the documents with WLU and UW protect academic freedom. In addition, the preliminary documents with York allowed everything to be governed under York’s existing policies and practises.

“It appears to me that they are launching attacks on the senates [at WLU and UW] which include their faculty members at Laurier,” he said.

When asked if an actual censure would tarnish the reputation of WLU and UW, Turk replied by saying, “Absolutely.”

“But we’re not in the business of wanting to censure places, we’re in the business of fixing problems,” Turk continued.

The two universities and CIGI think otherwise.

“I think the two universities will shrug and move onto their business, I don’t think it’ll mean much to them,” said Homer-Dixon, adding that this may have more of a detrimental impact on the Balsillie School. “I think, given that the Balsillie School is still a young and a fragile endeavour, it’ll have more consequences on us, in terms of student recruitment.”

Though the universities have rejected the motion by CAUT, Turk plans on discussing with the president of each university in the hopes of getting what CAUT wants.

“We’re really hopeful that the administrations will talk,” he concluded. “There’s no indication that they wouldn’t enter into discussion to find a solution.”

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Arts

Esther Tung — The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

BURNABY (CUP) — Back home in Pakistan, Shahnaz Asfar had been running a kindergarten for students who came from low-income families for over five years. Six months ago, she left the school in the hands of one of her trusted teachers, packed up her belongings, and moved to Vancouver to be closer to her two sons.

Asfar had taught in Pakistan for over two decades, but her prior experience and certification were not recognized in Canada. Towards the end of her Early Childhood Education and Montessori courses, a friend who worked for Immigrant Services mentioned Fusion Kitchen to her, a new social start-up that was looking to employ immigrant women to teach cooking classes on their own culture’s cuisines.

“Fusion Kitchen is a platform for these women to develop transferable skills, self-confidence, and have an opportunity to gain Canadian work experience,” said Chantelle Buffie, co-founder of the venture.

The first class, which was held on May 4, was sold out with an attendance of about 18 people. Participants split up into smaller groups and learned the recipes under Asfar’s direction. “People really enjoyed learning how to cook from an actual person from the actual culture, rather than some professional chef,” said Buffie.

“I love cooking very much, and I wanted to share my recipes,” said Asfar, who is now 60 years old, adding that she enjoyed teaching kindergarteners as much as adult students in the class.

Buffie met Sonam Swarup through Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) SFU, a business club on campus with an entrepreneurial spirit. Both held executive positions on SIFE for the past year, but Fusion Kitchen is a separate project, brainstormed during a social entrepreneurship class.

Picking the demographic to help was the difficult part. At first, they considered targeting immigrant women who had come from a past of domestic abuse, but then broadened their scope to include all immigrant women because of complications surrounding the women’s situations. Both Buffie and Swarup are first-generation Canadians, so immigrant women seemed like the natural choice.

The two women received $1000 in start-up funds from SFU's Beedie School of Business as part of a competition in the class, and also got a grant from Ashoka Youth Venture. Neither Buffie nor Swarup keep any money made from the class fees, which were $65 per person for Asfar’s class. Both students juggle this on top of work and their other extra-curricular activities.

Once the cooking classes finds steady legs, they would look into having external individuals to come in and teach certain skills to the women, such as the logistics of running a class, said Buffie. As one of their first teachers, Asfar will continue to act as a peer mentor to other women who will come to teach some of the classes.

“Come hungry, come curious”, advised Buffie on Fusion Kitchen classes in a blog post.

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News

Jonny Wakefield — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — American students may have been surprised to see the name Barack Obama in an email from UBC.

Late last month, UBC sent a broadcast email to U.S. students informing them that interest rates on their government loans could double without congressional action.

“The 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which capped interest rates of subsidized U.S. loans at 3.4 per cent, is set to expire on June 30, 2012,” wrote Jonathan McCauley, UBC’s manager of student services and policy, in the email. “The expiration of this Act would raise interest rates back to the original 6.8 per cent, unless the U.S. Congress can pass a bill before July 1, 2012 to extend the current interest rate by one year.

“No matter your political stance, I want to invite you to contact your representative in Congress by phone, email, Twitter or Facebook and have your voice heard on an issue that may directly affect you,” he wrote.

UBC wanted to ensure American students were aware that the cost of repaying their student loans could increase, said Anne Dewolfe, director of Student Financial Assistance and Awards. According to Dewolfe, the cost of paying off the average student loan could increase by $1000 if new legislation is not passed.

Emma Thompson, a Sauder student from Colorado, said she took out close to $5000 this year in government-subsidized Stafford loans. She said that an increase in interest rates would hurt, but that she would take on more debt in order to graduate. According to The New York Times, the average student with Stafford loans graduates with close to $13,000 in debt.

“It wouldn’t be ideal, but if I had to to pay for school, I would make that sacrifice,” she said. “But I’d really like to not pay double.”

Thompson said she was happy that UBC was keeping students informed, especially during exam time. Dewolfe said the university was concerned that exam-addled students might be blindsided by news of a rate increase.

“If a bill does not pass, then we didn’t want to be criticized later as not having advised students,” said Dewolfe. “They could have taken some action if they wanted to. And if they don’t, that’s fine too.”

Around 450 UBC students receive loans subsidized by the U.S. government, said Dewolfe. She said UBC processes and disperses close to $7 million per year in student loan money from the U.S. Department of Education.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill that would take $5.9 billion from the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Obama’s health care reform bill, to maintain the 3.4 per cent interest rate. Democrats favour a plan to maintain the lower rate by closing tax loopholes for wealthy business owners.

Obama has said he will veto the Republican proposal.

“We certainly hope that Congress sorts this out and that the interest rate will stay low,” said Dewolfe. “Canadians enjoy a pretty good interest rate, and we’re just hopeful that the Americans will continue with the low rate they’ve had.”

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Arts

Sunny Thorne — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — From Coachella to Electric Daisy Carnival to Sasquatch and more, outdoor music festivals are one of the best parts of summer. With non-stop music, parties, camping and drinking (and other, less legal forms of escapism), there is really no better place to see the most fabulous and questionable expressions of personal style.

In anticipation of a festival-filled summer with great music and hopefully better fashion, here is a brief list of festival fashion do’s and don’ts.

DO connect with your vintage roots. Music festivals evoke an old-school feeling that can be expressed through a variety of great style choices. Here’s an opportunity to wear that awesome retro band shirt you found at an overpriced vintage store or that hippie fringe vest you stole from your mom’s closet.

There is probably no better occasion to let your hair down and express your inner flower child or rock and roll god/goddess. After all, when else will you have the excuse to sport hippie head bands, flower crowns and fanny-packs all at the same time?

DON’T advertise your love of acid trips through your choice of chapeau. For the love of all things aesthetically pleasing, can we please address the SpiritHood?! These handmade, faux-fur hat/scarf combos (available in wild roadkill varieties such as hawk, leopard, wolf…and yes, panda bear) are a fashion choice that cause even the most style-blind individuals to stare in confusion.

If the ridiculousness of a stuffed animal resting on your head doesn’t deter you, perhaps the problematic marketing of the “Navajo spirit” should raise some alarms.

Not only are these hats offensive to the eyes, they are actually offensive to the cultures they claim to express. You will not embody the spirit of the owl. You are not a wolf. You are just a fool who shelled out $150 to look like a hybrid teddy bear.

DO try something funky in denim. Music festivals are a perfectly appropriate environment to shed your everyday jeans and don a pair of cutoff shorts instead. Denim allows you to express your inner wild child, so channel some Nirvana or Courtney Love.

Whether you shred them, embroider them or stud them, you can’t go wrong; 90s grunge, in the form of oversized denim jackets and acid washed jeans, is definitely coming back in style.

Paired with flip-flops for the California surfer look, or with combat boots for a more punk-rock twist, denim is a versatile and incredibly comfortable style choice for those long, hazy festival days.

DON’T dress like a glowstick. Avoid the highlighter tees and the sunglasses at night. This is not A Night at the Roxbury and you are not fooling anyone, “bro.” While those who enjoy their hallucinogens might express their inner National Geographic, festival “bros” seeking heavy basslines and techno anthems stick out like a sore…jaw?

And ladies, never ever get caught in a photo with a pacifier. The 90s are over, and so is your infancy. Let the raves RIP.

DON’T get a Skrillex haircut. This “techno-mullet” is not only passé, but really quite hideous. The fact that you like the sound of robots copulating with the occasional T. Rex shriek followed by a “siiiick bass drop” does not need to be advertised on your head. In fact, all that your patchy scalp brings to mind is the hair-clipper prank in Jackass. Don’t cut it off…Just cut it out.

Armed with these fashion guidelines, you can now go dance your heart out in the sunshine, confident that you look as great as you feel. Let the festival fun begin!

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News

Kelly Thoreson — The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

BURNABY (CUP) — On May 4, SFU announced that it had been recognized as the second Fair Trade Campus in Canada, following UBC’s designation in May 2011.

Fair Trade is an internationally recognized certification for products such as coffee or chocolate that that attempts to promote higher wages for producers and environmental standards.

The criteria required to become a Fair Trade Campus includes serving only Fair Trade certified coffee at all vendors directly controlled by the university or student government, clearly marking all Fair Trade products at these locations, promoting Fair Trade and maintaining a committee to enforce these standards.

The vendors who have agreed to adhere to these standards include all Simon Fraser Student Society food and beverage operations, as well as outsourced providers. Tim Horton’s hasn’t agreed to commit to these requirements, but they have internal ethical purchasing policies of their own. Independent businesses aren’t required to adhere to these rules, but many of them do offer Fair Trade products.

Executive director of ancillary services Mark McLaughlin is motivated to continue with Fair Trade initiatives on campus. “We haven’t reached the finish line,” he said. “We’re just out of the starting gate, and just watch us. We’re really going to try and push hard on this.”

Outsourcing all of its food operations to third parties such as Chartwells, SFU faced challenges convincing vendors to switch to Fair Trade products. UBC, on the other hand, operates most of their own food programs. McLaughlin explained that SFU will help blaze a trail for universities across Canada in a way that UBC might not have, because the majority of institutions also outsource their food operations.

Nezam Alavi, a former member of Engineers Without Borders, which has been instrumental in reigniting the Fair Trade movement on campus, would like to see other universities follow the examples being set in B.C.

“With Vancouver being the first [major Canadian] Fair Trade city, and UBC being the first [Canadian] Fair Trade Campus, SFU shows that the West Coast is really driven on these issues. I think it’s time for those on the East Coast to show what they’ve got.”

The pivotal point for the student-led initiative for Fair Trade at SFU occurred in 2011 when President Andrew Petter held a “hallway chat” to discuss possible improvements to the university. The event was crashed by a group of student representatives from various campus groups dressed as superheroes demanding a commitment to Fair Trade products at SFU.

Alavi argued that it was important for students to be leading these demands because they are the main consumers on campus. Jeff McCann, SFSS university relations officer and a member of the Fair Trade Committee, agrees with the importance of student involvement and suggests that students follow the example set by the “Justice League” of superheroes.

“Students should be empowered to make statements about things that they want changed about the campus community,” he said. “Vocalize that and get that in the hands of somebody who can make a difference.”

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Opinion

Bree Rody-Mantha — The Cord (Wilfrid Laurier University)

WATERLOO (CUP) — The Ontario Ministry of Education has implemented a “credit cap” that would prohibit secondary school students from attending high school after they have completed 34 credits.

As a post-secondary graduate who reaped the benefits of attending high school for five years, my feelings on the subject fall somewhere between disappointed and disturbed.

When Grade 13 was phased out in 1999, many students in my hometown chose to still stay in high school for five years to develop a better sense of what direction they were heading in. I was one of those students.

A lack of direction wasn’t my only contributing factor in deciding to stay behind. I wanted a chance to make some more money through part-time jobs. I also wanted to pour some more attention into my extracurriculars such as dance and theatre. I needed to mature quite a bit more before leaving.

Most importantly, my parents were beginning to worry about the prospect of having three children in university at the same time.

My own sister, a 2002 graduate, was the only one of my siblings who chose to do her high school education in four years — despite being a student in the five-year program. She chose to fast track, largely to avoid the competitive double-cohort of 2003, and went off to major in biology. In a tragic twist of irony, my sister ended up dissatisfied with biology and switched her major to physics and radiation therapy, which she was unable to transfer any credits to and ended up costing her another two full-years in school.

She is not the only person I know who has lamented rushing into university. I know countless students who have left school, changed programs or simply spent their four years in school completely depressed knowing that they were in a program that was not to their best interest.

I have also had many conversations with friends who have said that they would have taken a fifth year of high school had they even been made aware of the option. Many schools, unlike my own, seldom presented the idea of a fifth year as a plausible alternative for unsure students and even treated the option like a last resort for failures.

With the provincial government behind this stance, students have become even more discouraged from staying behind should they be unsure of their future.

The government justifies the credit cap by stating that they are attempting to encourage students to determine their future goals at an earlier age. This is exactly what causes problems for a lot of students. Teenagers are asked before they’re even pubescent to determine exactly what path they should be taking.

Had I listened to my fourteen-year-old self about career goals, I would be miserable in pursuit of a law degree — assuming I hadn’t dropped or failed out of my program.

University — news flash — is a huge expense. The fact that parents are willing to put thousands of dollars a year into a future their child is unsure of, saddens me. The education system further perpetuates the problematic idea that everyone progresses and matures at the same rate, and those who do not follow this rate are punished.

Of course, the fifth year is not right for everyone. Some students are naturally more mature or more sure of what they want to do with their lives. But the option should still be there, and should still be presented as a valid and viable alternative. Why shouldn’t students be encouraged to dip their feet into everything they can while it’s free?

The government thinks that it’s a travesty that nearly 13 per cent of high school graduates returned for another year after earning their diplomas last year. To me, I see that 13 per cent as a group of students who are avoiding potential depression and anxiety over program changes and dropouts over the next four years.

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Arts

Will Johnson — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — “There’s no point writing about the past unless there’s some sort of contemporary resonance.”

These may seem like strange words coming from Irish novelist John Boyne, who has almost exclusively written about the past and achieved worldwide recognition for his book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was set during the Holocaust. But during a stop in Vancouver to promote his World War I novel The Absolutist, he told The Ubyssey that he’s always looking for parallels between the past and the present.

“I don’t want readers to look at this and go, ‘Oh, he’s writing about the Iraq War,’ because I’m not,” said Boyne. “But I always write with one eye towards what’s happening now.”

The Absolutist tells the story of two teenagers, Will and Tristan, during the war. And though the conflict has already been written about exhaustively, Boyne felt there was more to learn.

“We’re continually told that these memories should be kept alive, and we can’t forget. The point comes when all the people who were there are no longer with us. Are we just supposed to stop? Have we said everything there is to say? I think if you have something to say, say it.”

Boyne said there were two elements of his story that he feels have been under-represented in past literature. The first was the role of conscientious objectors, and the effect their actions would have on their families back home.

“Other soldiers from a town would of course be out dying. How would the parents, or the sister of the boy that laid down his guns, be treated?” said Boyne.

The second element Boyne felt had been overlooked was the gay relationships that must have existed between men fighting in the trenches.

“In the intimacy of war and the horror of the trenches, relationships of one form or another must have formed. And this was something I’d never read about, so I wanted to explore it,” he said.

Boyne felt this topic was especially relevant, as the United States is currently grappling with the recent overturning of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." During the First World War, homosexuality was illegal. And though we’ve progressed significantly, Boyne said he was amazed at the level of hatred towards homosexuals that still exists in the military.

“The unsettling thing is that it’s nearly a century later,” he said. “A couple of months ago I was watching the Republican primaries, and it was one of those meetings where they had three or four candidates on stage. They had a soldier on the screen from Iraq. The audience goes crazy applauding. Then he prefaces what he’s saying by mentioning he’s a gay soldier, and they boo him.”

Boyne was disgusted.

“I found it stunning that the audience would respond that way. Later that day, that soldier may have been killed,” he said. “The level of hatred is amazing. I mean, it’s one simple fact about who he is.”

Boyne feels conscientious objectors are equally controversial. In fact, the title of the book refers to individuals whose beliefs are even more extreme, and rather than serving as stretcher-bearers or helping out beyond the front lines, they refuse to participate in the war effort at all. His character Will is one such person.

And Boyne felt Will’s story was an important one to tell.

“War, simply put, is not a good thing,” he said. “Most people, surely, should be opposed to war.”

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Humour

Geoffrey Line — The Martlet (University of Victoria)

VICTORIA (CUP) — Since the release of The Avengers — a superhero flick that unites multiple Marvel characters and marks the culmination of decades of marketing — Hollywood executives have been scratching their pates.

They collectively wonder: which hero is next?

Cash cows like X-Men and Spider-Man have been revamped. Lesser-known characters have already been mined (before 2008 and Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man wasn’t a hot name). Last summer, Marvel dragged out a demigod from Norse mythology for mainstream audiences. There’s even talk of Ant Man coming to the silver screen.

Who does Hollywood turn to now? An unofficial source has leaked the most likely candidate: the Bystander.

Like the characters in The Avengers, the Bystander has appeared in previous superhero films. This excites producers, and it’s good for audiences. He’s already set up: the fabric of the Bystander’s character exists in audience members’ imaginations before they enter the theatre.

Perhaps you’ve seen him scrambling away from a streetside explosion? Craning his head back to glimpse hero and nemesis duke it out atop a skyscraper? Just trying to get to work when his goddamn train gets hijacked? Tearing up when it looks like the spandex messiah is going to die?

Studio execs have big plans for the Bystander. He’s got all the prerequisites of any Marvel or DC hero: costume, love interest, story arc. He always wears a beige trench coat. Sometimes he totes an umbrella. He is often seen munching a hot dog or washing souvlaki down with some cola. His face is stubbly, and when he moves, change jangles in his pockets.

The Bystander’s romantic interest is downplayed. The two aren’t going to exchange any dialogue. The film as a whole is going to air on the artsy side. Expect a lot of silence. It’ll accentuate the surround-sound ka-boom of explosions. Audiences will still know who the Bystander has feelings for — there, that one: the Girl on the City Bench. They will know this by the way he lowers his newspaper and peers over its edge, less like the neighbour of Tim the Toolman Taylor, and more like Jack sketching naked Rose in Titanic.

Advertising consultants are unsure of their exact angle. As it stands, there’s a mockup poster of the Bystander walking about his daily life with a tagline below: Something Might Happen.

Not a whole lot’s going to happen actually. Writers have pitched the script as Phone Booth meets Waiting for Godot. There will be a lot of time lapse. There will also be a lot of mundane activity — visiting urinals, tying shoelaces, picking pennies up off of the sidewalk — until the film builds to its climax. Until that falling cinderblock just misses the Bystander’s shoe, and he and the Girl on the City Bench look on, dumbfounded. He says nothing. And later, he goes to the movies.

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News

Kalina Laframboise — The Concordian (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Quebec’s Education Minister Line Beauchamp announced her resignation in a press conference Monday afternoon.

Beauchamp stepped down both as education minister and deputy premier in what she stated was a personal decision. Beauchamp is also stepping down from her position as a Member of the National Assembly and is reportedly leaving politics entirely.

She stated that her last conversation with student leaders on the issue of the very controversial tuition hike made her lose confidence in the possibility of reaching a compromise.

“I am resigning because I no longer believe I’m part of the solution,” she said at the press conference.

Also present at the conference was Premier Jean Charest, who saluted Beauchamp for her “patience, courage and determination.”

“I’m sad over [Beauchamp's] decision,” Charest said. “I wanted her to stay with us and work with us but as she expressed, it’s a personal decision.”

Shortly after Beauchamp's announcement, Michelle Courchesne was sworn in to replace her. Courchesne preceded Beauchamp as Minister of Education, Sport and Leisure from 2007 to 2010.

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News

Laurent Bastien Corbeil — The McGill Daily (McGill University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — The Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) defends the use of plastic bullets in recent demonstrations despite criticism from social justice groups, civil liberties associations, and even police reports.

The SPVM fired plastic bullets at protesters during the May 1 anti-capitalist demonstration and on April 20 during protests against Plan Nord, the provincial government's resource extraction plan.

Plastic bullets are normally fired from single-shot launchers or multiple-launchers such as the Anti-Riot Weapon Enfield, or ARWEN 37.

While The Daily was unable to confirm which type of launcher is normally used by the SPVM, a 2006 document from the École nationale de police du Québec reveals that some officers are trained to use the ARWEN 37.

Single-shot launchers and multiple-launchers like the ARWEN 37 are controversial policing tools.

A 1998 report from the Toronto police states that “numerous deaths” have been attributed to the “improper use of these weapons at close range or unintended strikes to the head [and] neck.”

Police Ordnance Company Inc., which manufactures the ARWEN 37 in Canada, states on its website that the weapon is the first less lethal weapon to combine “lightness, high accuracy and the ability to fire up to 5 shots without reloading.”

However, the Toronto police department expressed doubts in 1998 over the validity of the claims made by manufacturers.  A report compiled by its Public Safety Unit emphasized the lack of accuracy of projectile launchers.

“Accuracy is a problem with this gun,” it read. “It is acceptably accurate at 7 metres but by 18-20 metres, the weapon suffers greatly.”

According to the Quebec Civil Liberties Union, the inaccuracy of these weapons makes them potentially lethal regardless of the distance between the officer and the target.

“At a distance where the weapon is accurate, the launcher can’t be used because the kinetic impact would be deadly,” a 2002 document read.

“At a distance, where according to the manufacturer the weapon is less deadly, the weapon is inaccurate and becomes lethal,” it continued.

In an interview with The Daily, SPVM sergeant Laurent Gingras said that police only use plastic ammunition when officers are being “physically assaulted” during crowd control operations.

“We normally use plastic bullets when officers are being kicked or rocks are being thrown at them,” he said.

According to a report by the Quebec Civil Liberties Union, plastic bullets “should not be utilized for crowd control, but only against individuals who pose a serious threat to police.”

The hurling of projectiles at police, the report claimed, does not constitute a “serious threat.”

“The use of plastic bullets is neither reasonable nor justified because of the risk of injuries and death associated with it,” it said.

Sergeant Gingras said that being hit with a plastic bullet was similar to “getting hit with a good Charlie horse.”

The 1998 Toronto police report noted that “many low lethality munitions perform inconsistently.”

“A particular danger is that the advertised velocities of the projectiles are often significantly inaccurate. Rounds that fall below advertised velocities may not incapacitate a subject. Rounds that are significantly faster than advertised may kill,” the report said.

It went on to state that the cost of the ARWEN 37 is “prohibitive, each weapon costing several thousand dollars.”

“Ammunition, including that needed for training purposes is also extremely expensive, some costing upwards of $30 per round."

François du Canal, a member of the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality, told The Daily that plastic bullets are “one of the more dangerous so-called ‘non-lethal’ tools of ‘crowd control’ used by police.”

Du Canal said that Éric Laferrière lost his voice because he “received a plastic bullet in his throat during the protests in Quebec City in 2001.”

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Toronto Police, Use of Force Committee Final Report, 1998

News

Laura Rodgers — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — Political fundraising dinners have landed a particle physics lab at UBC in hot water.

TRIUMF, the Canadian national physics laboratory located at UBC's Vancouver campus, donated a total of $1950 to the B.C. Liberal Party in the form of tickets to fundraising events in 2011. These donations have come under fire from IntegrityBC, a British Columbian political watchdog group, as well as the B.C. NDP — both of which claim that, as TRIUMF is a registered charitable organization which receives taxpayer dollars, the donations should be returned.

According to TRIUMF’s director, Nigel Lockyer, the donations were made so that he could attend a handful of B.C. Liberal fundraising receptions in order for him to speak with Liberal MLAs Moira Stillwell and Richard Lee, as well as B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

“It’s a cost-effective, time-effective way to interact with the people in the government. That’s the way the system works,” said Lockyer.

TRIUMF, which is a joint venture between 17 Canadian universities, is a registered non-profit charitable organization in Canada. This organization is also linked with TRIUMF Accelerators Inc., which holds the facility’s operating licence, and TRIUMF Technologies Inc., a for-profit technology commercialization arm.

Lockyer stated that, although the lab does not receive any funding directly from the provincial government, he feels lobbying them is still important.

“We want to be sure that if there’s a phone call from Ottawa to Victoria and they say, ‘We’d like to ask you about TRIUMF,’ they know what it is, and they say it’s an important laboratory for us,” he said. “We have to be viewed as valuable to the province in order to get federal money.”

In total, TRIUMF receives about $55 million per year in public funding from the federal government, according to Lockyer. Their commercial profits total roughly $1 million each year.

TRIUMF CFO Henry Chen was adamant that no taxpayer dollars were used for the donations. “It’s not from taxpayer money, it’s other revenues that we generate,” he said.

According to Tim Meyer, TRIUMF’s head of strategic planning and communications, “the contributions were made from TRIUMF, the registered non-profit organization.” Meyer further clarified that the money came out of what he called a “segregated, non-public account.”

“Registered non-profit charities can make political contributions. There’s no law against that,” said Meyer.

However, Nola Western, the deputy chief electoral officer with Elections B.C., contested this statement. “It doesn’t matter what the source of the money was, what account it came from, a charitable organization is not permitted to make a political contribution,” said Western. “[A charity] is prohibited from buying tickets to fundraising functions for political parties.”

B.C. NDP caucus chair Shane Simpson also criticized the donations.

“I think that the suggestion that you can separate those dollars in some way justifies it is problematic. I think TRIUMF should accept that that’s just not an avenue that should be available to them because they get significant taxpayer money to fund their operation,” said Simpson.

Simpson said some of the onus should be on the Liberals themselves. “The Liberal Party of B.C. should not be accepting money from charities, and if it came from a charity, then they are obliged to give it back and they should do it as soon as possible,” he said.

“It would be better if they just felt confident they could get to the government without having to pull out their chequebook to do it.”

Dermod Travis, director of IntegrityBC, agreed. IntegrityBC is a provincial electoral-finance watchdog group, which initiated criticism of the donations. “Charities don’t cherry pick; that this fund comes from this person, and this donation comes from that person, and therefore we can take this little bit of money and give it to that political party and get away with it,” said Travis. “If TRIUMF is saying that effective lobbying is only done by making political donations to the party in power, we would have some very serious concerns with such a statement.”

Although the ultimate source of the funds may differ, Travis likened these donations to those made to the B.C. Liberals by SFU director Wilf Hurd. The cost of Hurd’s donations, just over $2000, was reimbursed to Hurd by SFU, but after the Vancouver Sun reported on the issue, SFU altered their policies to prohibit similar donations in the future.

Although Lockyer insisted the two instances were different due to where the money came from, he also played down the importance of both. “This is really how the world works, but you can see, in our case, it’s not a lot of money,” Lockyer said. “I remember for SFU, it [was] not a lot of money either.

“If we spend $1000 on average [per year] out of a million dollars it’s not a lot,” Lockyer added. “I really don’t think this is something that we want to stop doing.”

B.C. Liberal advanced education minister Naomi Yamamoto declined to comment on the matter.

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Humour

Bestcrosswords.com

(CUP) — Puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission. Please print the above statement with the puzzle.

Across

1- Mother of Ares; 5- Birthplace of Muhammad; 10- Actor Tamiroff; 14- One of the Baldwins; 15- Sign up; 16- Get up; 17- Letter opener; 18- List of candidates; 19- Narrate; 20- Large wine bottle; 22- Donates; 23- Prefix for small; 24- Neighbor of Cambodia; 26- The cruelest month?; 29- Affluent; 33- Salivate; 34- Evidence; 35- For each; 36- Long time; 37- For _ (cheap); 38- Room in a casa; 39- Precious stone; 40- Become less intense, die off; 41- Bay; 42- Costume; 44- Deputised group; 45- Polite address; 46- Amoeba-like alien: The _ ; 48- Rescues; 51- Capital of Queensland Australia; 55- Banned apple spray; 56- Encore!; 58- Native Nigerians; 59- Pealed; 60- Actress Taylor; 61- Antitoxins; 62- Joint with a cap; 63- Sailing hazards; 64- Prefix with sphere;

Down

1- Pilgrimage to Mecca; 2- Gen. Robert _ ; 3- Back; 4- Part of the shoulder joint; 5- Subatomic particle; 6- China's Zhou _ ; 7- Jam-pack; 8- Portable bed; 9- Draft choice; 10- Painter, e.g.; 11- Capital of the Ukraine; 12- Wight, for one; 13- "Alice" diner; 21- Beak; 22- Ball game; 24- Sierra _ ; 25- Sleep like _ ; 26- Saying; 27- Primp; 28- Chambers; 29- Penned; 30- October birthstones; 31- Strikes out; 32- Take to the soapbox; 34- Sacred song; 37- "Dancing Queen" quartet; 38- Haughty; 40- Latin I word; 41- Wall St. debuts; 43- Come out; 46- Lasting a short time; 47- Queues; 48- Cutty _ ; 49- Astronaut Shepard; 50- Windmill blade; 51- Cause of ruin; 52- Busy as _ ; 53- "Cheers" regular; 54- Morales of "La Bamba"; 56- Part of ETA; 57- "Fancy that!";

News

Erin Hudson — CUP Quebec Bureau Chief

MONTREAL (CUP) — Quebec students are heading to polls this week to vote on the government's latest offer which, if accepted, could end the province's three months-long tuition strike. Out of the 83 striking post-secondary student associations who voted by Thursday morning, onlytwo — Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles and Cégep de Rimouski — have accepted the offer.

The offer was presented last Saturday and was agreed upon by the Quebec government and the four major student associations representing students at the provincial level. Though many students have yet to cast their ballot, thus far, the offer has been almost unanimously rejected.

Details of the proposal were announced publicly Saturday night in a press conference with three of the major Quebec student associations: the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the temporary coalition for the Association Syndicale pour la Solidarité Étudiante (CLASSE).

After 22 hours of negotiations, student representatives agreed to take the government's offer back to their memberships to vote on, which would see tuition increases, but would create a council of university stakeholders that would recommend ways to cut a nearly equal amount of ancillary fees for students.

“We’re talking about a theoretical tuition freeze,” said Léo Bureau-Blouin, president of the FECQ, on Saturday, adding that “it has to be clear that the strike is not over.” He added that, though he felt the offer would have a “real impact for accessibility,” it was “not a total win for us.”

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesperson for CLASSE said that none of the student associations were going to push their members to accept or refuse the government’s offer. All three of the Quebec student associations consult their members via general assemblies.

“We think it’s the responsibility of the students on strike. It’s a question of respect for them, and the energy they are putting into the strike for twelve weeks,” Nadeau-Dubois said. “CLASSE will present the offer for discussion and debate among its members.”

He responded to a question regarding the time frame of the student associations’ decisions stating that “after 12 weeks of being on strike, we will take the time to decide.” About 173,508 Quebec students are currently participating in the general unlimited strike, which began on February 14.

Since the offer was presented Saturday, FEUQ's Desjardins has called for the offer to be re-written while Nadeau-Dubois from CLASSE has called the government's public statements regarding the offer as "extremely insulting." Bureau-Blouin echoed sentiments expressed also by Desjardins regarding the "grey zones" left open to interpretation within the offer's text. Neither CLASSE, FECQ nor FEUQ have issued recommendations to their members regarding whether to vote for or against the offer.

Additionally, a document alleging that government representatives purposely created a “sense of urgency” in order to speed up the negotiations and pressure student representatives into signing a document they did not agree with, was made public on Sunday. The document was released online by Antoine Bouchard, a student who claims to have close ties to CLASSE. Speaking to The McGill Daily, he said the document was obtained from Philippe Lapointe, CLASSE's student negotiator, however the author's identity remains unconfirmed. Bouchard said the document was emailed to members of CLASSE Sunday night.

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News

Kevin Willemse — The Link (British Columbia Institute of Technology)

BURNABY, B.C. (CUP) — Computer Science Technology (CST) students at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) are speaking out against a physical education component of their program, a requirement not asked of students in any other program at the institute. The unusual practice has some students complaining of discrimination.

Students enrolled in the CST program have to spend 45 minutes per week in the gym as part of their course, with little supervision or guidance, other than being expected to break enough of a sweat to convince the instructor to sign an attendance and participation sheet.

“It’s ridiculous,” said BCIT Student Association of School of Computing and Academic Studies chair Marwan Marwan. “We’re adults, we should be given the option of how best to look after our health and spend our time [at BCIT]. We’re being lined up like schoolchildren with a piece of paper for our instructor to sign, so that we can be let out of [gym] class.”

CST students can be held back from course graduation if their sheets are not signed off on by the end of the semester. For this reason, attendance is high, though it has been reported that many students simply find a quiet spot to stay out of sight and catch up on schoolwork until handing their sheets in for signing.

“This sometimes forces students to lie to their instructors [about exercising] because they know they simply have more important things to do,” said Marwan.

Some students have said that their biggest concern is a feeling of discrimination caused by the mandatory nature of the course, which has led to a petition to abolish it from the CST program. Alex Lee, who acts as the BCIT Student Association’s School of Computing councilor, believes that enforcing the class as a CST prerequisite is simply unfair.

“We feel that it’s really important to bring fairness and equality across the board for all BCIT students, but currently that’s not happening because we are forced to have mandatory gym,” Lee told The Link. “It’s something that’s not forced upon anyone else.”

Marwan and Lee agreed that the practice of isolating CST students for physical education is based on stereotypes. They said that if it was in the best interests of students, those studying finance, business, or even the natural sciences could be similarly characterized as leading the sedentary lifestyle associated with information technology professionals.

“The idea actually came from [the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology] a few years back, where it was very well received,” says associate dean of CST Brian Pidcock.

According to Lee and Marwan, 90 per cent of petitioned students have signed against the class.

“The course will come under review at our upcoming executive meeting ... and this would probably be considered a minor change,” Pidcock told The Link.

“CST students feel they should participate in physical activity on their own terms and in their own time, since that’s the respect and courtesy given to students in BCIT in all other faculties,” said Lee.

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News

Erin Hudson — CUP Quebec Bureau Chief

MONTREAL (CUP) — The Quebec government and the four major associations representing Quebec students have come to an agreement, which if accepted by students throughout the province, could see the end of a nearly three month-long tuition strike.

After 20 hours of negotiations, student representatives agreed to take an offer back to their memberships to vote on. The proposal would see tuition increases, but would create a council of university stakeholders that would recommend ways to cut a nearly equal amount of ancillary fees for students.

Details of the offer were announced publicly Saturday night in a press conference with three of the Quebec student associations: the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the temporary coalition for the Association Syndicale pour la Solidarité Étudiante (CLASSE).

“We’re talking about a theoretical tuition freeze,” said Léo Bureau-Blouin, president of the FECQ, on Saturday, adding that “it has to be clear that the strike is not over.”

About 173,508 Quebec students are currently participating in the general unlimited strike, which began on February 14. The strike will hit the 12-week mark this Tuesday.

Bureau-Blouin also said that though he felt the offer would have a “real impact for accessibility,” it was “not a total win for us.”

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesperson for CLASSE said that none of the student associations were going to push their members to accept or refuse the government’s offer. All three of the Quebec student associations consult their members via general assemblies.

“We think it’s the responsibility of the students on strike. It’s a question of respect for them, and the energy they are putting into the strike for twelve weeks,” Nadeau-Dubois said. “CLASSE will present the offer for discussion and debate among its members.”

He responded to a question regarding the time frame of the student associations’ decisions stating that “after 12 weeks of being on strike, we will take the time to decide.”

The government’s offer

This latest offer would maintain a $254 annual tuition hike for seven years — a higher total increase than the government initially planned — but would create a provisional council of Quebec universities that would attempt to find savings at universities and then use them to cut ancillary fees paid by students.

The proposed council, which would make recommendations to the Ministry of Education by December 31, 2012, would have a mandate to examine “possible theories for the optimal use of universities’ financial resources and to demonstrate, should the case arise, reoccurring savings that can be made available.”

It would specifically scrutinize outsourcing of campuses, spending on publicity, real estate holdings, administrative personnel, accountability and the transfers of funds. The provisional council would also recommend the composition for a permanent council.

“We believe universities have the means,” Bureau-Blouin said. “We’re saying that it’s possible to free up billions and billions of dollars, and [have] that money be reinvested into students.”

“What’s important for us is the amount that students will have to pay,” he said. “The message that we’ve had since the beginning of the strike is that the tuition hike is not necessary.”

The provisional council would consist of 18 individuals. The four student associations that participated in negotiations would chose four representatives, with three others chosen by the Ministry of Education, and the rest coming from the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec (CREPUQ), major Quebec unions and the Federation of Cégeps.

Under the offer, the government would pay $125 in ancillary fees for every full time student in the fall 2012 semester as part of a “temporary measure” that will continue until the council delivers its recommendations to the Ministry. The offer states that, in the absence of the council’s recommendations as of December 31, 2012, the temporary measure will also apply to the winter 2013 semester.

The tuition hikes, which students have been protesting since they were announced officially in Quebec’s provincial budget in March 2011, are currently slated to amount to $325 per year over five years for a total increase of $1,625. The hikes are to go into effect September 2012.

Minister of Education Line Beauchamp also spoke with media on Saturday evening. She described the negotiating environment as “very difficult.”

“The leaders of the student [associations] never moved their position,” she explained. She added that, under the circumstances, she was satisfied with the offer presented Saturday.

FEUQ President Martine Desjardins stated in French that the offer is the most that can be done notwithstanding an election. The last provincial election was held in December 2008, making the latest date Quebec’s Liberal government could call an election December 2013, as the government cannot exceed a term of five years.

The final document in the offer states that the student associations will submit the “offer in principle” to their members for consultation. “They will not engage in organizing demonstrations connected with this agreement,” the offer reads.

At least two Facebook events call for the thirteenth nightly demonstration in downtown Montreal to be in protest of the government’s offer. One of the events is titled "Demonstration against the government's offer: freeze or strike.” Both events are organized by groups autonomous from the student associations.

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Le texte négocié par les associations étudiantes

News

Queen Arsem-O'Malley & Erin Hudson — The McGill Daily (McGill University)

Over 100 people, including a busload of McGill and Concordia students, were arrested last night in the wake of a protest against the Quebec government's proposed tuition increases.

Around 4,000 protesters travelled to Victoriaville, Quebec yesterday for the start of the Quebec Liberal Party’s general council meeting, while in Quebec City, student leaders negotiated with the government concerning the ongoing unlimited general strike.

The confrontation between police and protestors turned violent, with at least 106 arrests were reported as of Friday night.

The Liberals’ general council was originally to be held in Montreal. However the location was changed to Victoriaville on April 29. Liberal Party communications director Michel Rochette told The Gazette that "Victoriaville is a much more open site. We don't want people impeded at the doors in case there is a demonstration." 

Protestors gathered in Victoriaville late Friday afternoon where Quebec Premier Jean Charest was set to address the council at 7:20 p.m. The provincial police force, Sûreté du Québec (SQ), had secured the perimeter of the hotel by the time busloads of protesters started to arrive at around 4 p.m.

By 6:30 p.m. protesters broke through barriers — police secured the area, and the protest was declared illegal. In the coming hours, violence escalated between police and protesters.

Reports from the scene state that protesters pushed through barriers and threw projectiles at police lines. Rubber bullets, CS gas, and smoke grenades were deployed by the SQ. Ambulances were called to the scene, and at least five protesters were admitted to the hospital. Radio-Canada video footage also shows one police officer being hit by protesters. According to The Montreal Gazette, an SQ spokesperson reported earlier this evening that there were 11 injuries; 7 protesters and 4 police officers.

Around 9 p.m., Concordia campus television station CUTV ended their live broadcast stating that the protestors were dispersing. Busloads of protesters began leaving the city.

Based on reports from Le Délit’s reporter on the ground, a bus carrying McGill and Concordia students was the last to leave. The bus was escorted back to Victoriaville by police, and passengers were placed under arrest.

The passengers allegedly under arrest were unable to be contacted, but included two journalists from Le Délit and The Link though it has been confirmed that neither journalist will face charges. Students participating in the eleventh nightly demonstration in the streets of Montreal held a solidarity sit-in on Mont Royal and St. Denis for those who were arrested in Victoriaville.

An SQ officer who spoke with The Link confirmed that three buses had been arrested. The passengers were being taken off the buses in pairs, identified and questioned. The officer said that most would be eventually released, but it could be “some hours.” He said that he believed most would be charged, but could not specify what the charges would be. Those charged, he said, would be released and required to appear in court at a later date.

There are unconfirmed reports of at least two buses returning from Victoriaville being stopped and their passengers arrested. A solidarity sit-in for those arrested occurred last night in Montreal.

The strike has lasted for eleven weeks and about 173,508 students, represented by the large temporary coalition of the student association ASSÉ (CLASSE), are currently on strike against tuition hikes set to begin this September.

Meanwhile in Quebec City, representatives from the four major student associations involved in the student strike met with the Minister of Education yesterday at 4 p.m. The student associations present included CLASSE, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ).

The government presented an offer to student leaders on April 27 which would raised tuition by $254 for seven years as opposed to the government’s planned hike of $325 over the next five years. CLASSE presented its counter-offer on Thursday morning with FEUQ and FECQ presenting a separate proposal. According to Radio-Canada, last night’s negotiations continued until this morning.

The Liberal’s general council meeting in Victoriaville will continue until tomorrow afternoon with both Premier Jean Charest and Minster of Education Line Beauchamp in scheduled to participate. Beauchamp is set to address the council at noon today.

– with files from Riley Sparks

News

MONTREAL (CUP) — Ahead of a reported meeting scheduled to take place on May 4 between the governments, students and rectors, the main student groups in the fight against tuition increases have presented separate but similar counter-proposals to Premier Jean Charest’s own offer.

The Coalition large de l'Association pour une solidarité syndical (CLASSE) presented its offer Thursday morning, two days after the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) jointly presented their own.

CLASSE is calling to cut research funding and turn half of it towards teaching, halt spending on advertising, freeze hiring and pay increases of university administrators and rectors, and impose a moratorium on construction of satellite campuses. The savings from the first two measures — estimated by CLASSE to add up to $160 million — would go towards eventually setting up free tuition, said spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

CLASSE also proposed a bank tax that would go towards paying for education, which would increase from 0.14 per cent to 0.7 per cent over five years, adding up to $400 million.

Alongside the funding changes, CLASSE also pushed for an open forum on education for the upcoming fall.

“Since the beginning of the strike, the public debate has been a semantics debate, a numbers debate, and we think we should have a debate of ideas, a debate of principles on what we want for our universities” said Nadeau-Dubois.

Though the FEUQ and FECQ presented a separate proposal, this doesn’t mean the groups are no longer on the same page, said Nadeau-Dubois.

“We agree with a lot of their measures. [...] I think everyone is working in the same direction.”

FEUQ and FECQ’s proposal has seven points: a five-year moratorium on building satellite campuses, the creation of an independent group to evaluate universities, an analysis of the relationship between universities and business, and an open forum on education. When it comes to finances, the two groups want a tuition freeze in 2012 dollars, a two-year moratorium on tuition fees and university funding and to free up $189 million of university spending to redirect towards education.

Education Minister Line Beauchamp reacted publicly to the FEUQ and FECQ proposal, saying she was puzzled and disappointed.

After around 10 weeks of ongoing strikes and protests, Charest presented on April 27 an offer with Beauchamp, only to have it rejected by most students as an “insult” — mainly because the tuition hike will be even more than what had been planned.

Besides improving loans, Charest's main offer is to scale increases of $1,778 over seven years instead of $1,625 over five years, the planned-for increase set in the 2011 provincial budget. Instead of tuition rising by $325 each year for five years, it would increase $254 a year over seven. Repayments on loans would also be indexed to a graduate’s income.

“There is absolutely no movement from Madame Beauchamp on the issue of tuition fees,” said Nadeau-Dubois of the offer. “She’s putting no money on the table, in fact.”

In complying with a FEUQ request, the government would create a council to evaluate university management.

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Montreal for a fourth night in a row after Charest’s proposal, capping off a tumultuous week for the student movement. The ongoing nighttime protests in Montreal’s downtown area have now become a routine event; some have ended peacefully in the early hours in the morning, others have resulted in clashes between police and protesters and arrests.

Earlier that week, it looked like the government and students would be moving forward on the debate: after days of pressure, CLASSE publicly condemned violence and vandalism, a concession Beauchamp had asked of all groups.

Within hours after the announcement, negotiations had begun with four students groups: CLASSE, FEUQ and FECQ and the smaller Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ). Student leaders were optimistic.

Beauchamp had asked for a "truce" from student groups for a period of time during negotiations, but talks soon broke off when she kicked out CLASSE, saying the coalition was supporting violent protests on its website. In a release, Beauchamp stated that CLASSE had removed themselves from the table by posting about a protest, but she would continue to meet with the remaining student groups. However, the other three followed CLASSE, and after a few days of meeting, the negotiations came to a halt.

Charest’s Liberal Party meets this weekend for a conference that was initially planned for Montreal; however, anticipating protests, it has been moved to Victoriaville.

Students are vowing to be there regardless, with some groups chartering buses and arranging lifts to the town, about two hours’ drive east of Montreal.

News

Lee Richardson — CUP Ontario Bureau Chief

TORONTO (CUP) — Plastic water bottles are set to be phased out at York University as part of a campus-wide sustainability drive.

In an effort to reduce the environmental footprint of both campuses, a plan to replace all plastic water bottles with refillable bottles and refill drinking stations is being set.

This follows similar eliminations of water bottles at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University.

“We’ve done a bit of research on what other universities have done,” said York environmental studies professor Ilan Kapoor, who is also chair of York’s sustainability council.

“I know certainly at U of T and Ryerson they found that there was a bit of a backlash because there weren’t available alternatives to water bottles, and that’s why we wanted to call ours a phase-out rather than a ban.”

That means a predicted doubling of refill water stations over the next three years, for when the complete phase-out is completed by September 2015.

“It's something that has to be supported as a whole across a campus,” said Beth Savan, sustainability director at the University of Toronto’s St. George campus. “What happened [at the University of Toronto] is that first it was initiated by students, it was picked up on by staff and it also has the support of the facilities.”

The decision to phase out water bottles was reached by a committee that consists of student, faculty and staff representatives from across the university, according to Kapoor.

“This is a kind of a collective decision making process,” said Kapoor. “We wanted to take kind of a holistic and a sustainable approach.”

Kapoor added that he acknowledges that while bottles will be cut from campus vending machines and food service areas, there is still the fact that students can simply bring in their own from off campus.

“At some point, we have no control over what individuals choose to do,” said Kapoor, adding that there will be educational drives to promote awareness of the phase-out. “All we can do is inform them so they have some choices,” Kapoor said.

Other issues raised against the practicality of cutting water bottles from universities include the consumer right to choose what they want, and the idea that instead of buying water, students in a rush will simply choose less healthy drinks from vending machines or food service areas.

According to McGill medical and law faculty member Margaret Somerville, there is also an ethical debate surrounding the eliminating of water bottles.

“People with small-L liberal values who are usually the politically correct crowd, they are very pro-environment and they’re very pro-individual autonomy,” said Somerville. “They’ve got a conflict of values within their own values because banning plastic water bottles is contrary to individual autonomy and individual rights to decide.”

Somerville added that renaming what is effectively a ban on water bottles could lead to different results. According to Kapoor, both U of T and Ryerson felt a backlash from students when they both imposed what they called a ban. Calling it a phase-out, according to Kapoor, will hopefully stop this backlash.

“That’s the euphemism approach. Call it something different and everybody thinks its ok,” said Somerville. “Language affects our emotions and our intuition, and… a choice of language can seriously affect what we see as ethical or unethical.”

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News

Lee Richardson — CUP Ontario Bureau Chief

TORONTO (CUP) — A school within the University of Toronto could be the first post-secondary institution in Canada to eliminate the letter grading system.

Instead of the traditional A to F letter grades, a new system would see students in the faculty of law at the U of T being graded with wider-ranging honours, pass or fail decisions.

The proposed idea has been accepted at the university level. Final tweaks are being made by the law school’s dean, which will have to then be approved by the faculty of the law school.

According to faculty of law assistant dean Sara Faherty, the shift means that students will be able to further concentrate on their work without worrying over studying certain aspects of the course.

“Rather than raising their hands and saying, ‘Is this going to be on the test?’ we wanted them really diving into the material,” said Faherty. “I don’t think this is a grading system that would work at every school.”

Faherty added that in the process of developing the grading system, research was done into several U.S. law schools at universities such as Yale, Harvard and Stanford that already use a similar system.

The new grades, instead of the usual letter grades, would be high honours, honours, pass, low pass and fail.

“If you’ve got a particular student body, you’re not going to worry about whether they’ve done the reading or whether they understand the vocabulary of the text," Faherty said in reference to the high academic focus of the U of T's law school.

"Then, that liberates you from having to spend so much time on sorting through them and ranking them.”

The change in the grading system has also highlighted the idea of stress levels in students, as many raise concerns over what particular grade or cumulative GPA they will receive. The grouped grading system could be seen as a method of eliminating these worries, saving students from added stress.

“That was certainly one of the driving concerns when we sat down to look at our grading system,” said Faherty.

However, some have asked whether stress over the difference between an A- and a B+ is the biggest concern for students.

“I’m not sure that just eliminating the traditional letter grades … would have a significant impact on student stress level,” said University of Toronto faculty of medicine professor Mel Borins. “I think it would be a minor kind of shift.”

“I think that’s … sort of like, the wallpaper got changed but nothing changed inside the room. It’s like you’re in a cell and you rearrange the furniture, but you’re still in a cell,” Borins added.

Major causes of student stress, according to Borins, do not revolve around certain grades but more personal issues.

“Students are stressed out mainly around issues of money … whether they’re going to find a job if they do pass all their courses, there’s the stress of family life and their love life, and … the huge workload that sometimes they have to deal with.”

“You can get the best marks, you can be the brightest student — but if you can't pay the tuition, you can't support yourself while you’re going through school and you have to work two jobs, that’s not conducive,” added Borins.

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Arts

Taylor Rocca — The Omega (Thompson Rivers University)

KAMLOOPS (CUP) — Sooraya Graham is a normal student just like anyone else at Thompson Rivers University (TRU).

She goes to class and does her assignments, just like any other student.

She never realized that with her most recent assignment she would start such a controversial cultural discussion that ultimately saw her art being damaged and improperly removed from a class display.

Coming from Northern B.C., Graham is a Canadian Muslim and a fourth-year fine arts student.

Like many other artists, all she wanted to do was foster discussion using her artwork.

With the events that have transpired since she first displayed her work, Graham has people talking not only at TRU, but also throughout Kamloops.

“People think I am so foreign, so different and they can’t relate to me somehow,” Graham said. “But at the same time, I’m just like an every-other-day Canadian girl. I do the same things, I wear the same things just underneath [the veil].”

Graham’s art depicts a Muslim woman holding a bra.

The woman in the piece is wearing a niqab, the traditional veil or cloth that many Muslim women adorn to cover their face.

“With my artwork, I was trying to create a discussion point for Muslim women, for veiled women and to kind of show light of how we are just normal women," Graham said.

“I wanted to have an image that displayed something that every woman could relate to.”

Graham completed the class assignment and with the help of professor Ernie Kroeger, she displayed her work alongside other classmates’ assignments within the fine arts department on TRU campus.

Shortly after the work was put on display, it came to Graham’s attention that the piece had been removed from the wall upon which it was hung.

“We’re always told that our voice is important and that we can say something with our art,” Graham said. “It is shocking when someone tries to silence that.”

After contacting the chair of the fine arts department, Lloyd Bennett, Graham was informed that a business card had been left behind in place of the art.

The card belonged to a staff member at TRU World, and she was shocked at that revelation.

“I did not expect to hear that,” Graham said. “I thought maybe [it was] someone who would not understand [the artwork] versus someone who is expected to show a different type of behaviour.”

According to TRU administration, the artwork was not taken down in an official capacity.

“There was an individual that was offended and she took the artwork down,” said Christopher Seguin, vice-president of advancement for TRU.

“That TRU World staff member was acting on an individual basis.”

The artwork was eventually returned to Graham, though not unconditionally.

“The person [who removed the art] had gotten in contact with Lloyd and they had my image,” Graham said. “They weren’t willing to give it to me if I was going to put it back on the wall. They were holding it hostage, I guess you could say.”

In an ironic twist, this development was right in line with the motivation that Graham had when she was initially inspired to create the piece.

“With art, there is always going to be a little controversy,” Graham said.

“You can dislike it, you can argue about it, but to physically get in contact with an art piece and rip it down and destroy it, that is such an invasion of my personal space as an artist — to have someone censor what I can do.”

According to Seguin, it was more miscommunication than censorship that resulted in Graham’s work being removed from the wall.

“In no way did TRU at any point want to censor an artistic piece of work,” Seguin said. “We honestly thought it was a poster being tagged up on a board that we had to investigate.”

The only question involved with that assertion is that Graham’s artwork is much larger than the size of a standard U.S. letter-sized poster and was hung as a part of a class display of visual arts assignments.

The question remains as to how it could be mistaken for a poster to begin with.

The TRU World staff member responsible for removing the artwork was unavailable for comment.

Graham wears the niqab as a personal choice.

She believes that some people in Canada have the misconception that women who wear the niqab are somehow oppressed or forced into doing so. That is a part of what motivates her art.

“In a lot of Western media, you often see the veiled woman as oppressed, or as a fundamentalist, or this pacifistic woman,” Graham said.

“And that’s not the case. I think it’s something that needs to be broken as a stereotype.”

The wearing of the niqab started as a Bedouin tradition, originally being more of an upper-class, Middle Eastern tradition as opposed to just an Islamic tradition.

In general, the niqab is not enforced — it is merely a choice, part of what Graham wanted to shed light on.

“I am a huge activist for naqabi rights ... I think it should be a choice for any individual,” Graham said. “I don’t think women should be forced to wear the veil, but I don’t think women should be forced not to wear the veil either.

“I’m just saddened that individuals decided that they did not like this discussion and that they did not want to participate in this discussion,” Graham said. “They wanted to take it right off the table, or the wall.”

Graham explained she uses her art to try to give a voice to the Muslim woman.

“That’s part of being Canadian; it’s to create a discussion point. If we stopped talking about things just because we don’t like it or it makes us feel uncomfortable, we would get nowhere," she said.

“This is such a multicultural country and I had pride seeing that veiled woman up on the wall because it did create discussion in my classes, and I was able to explain more about the veil and the history of the veil.”

As of April 2, Graham’s artwork had been returned to the display in the TRU Art Gallery.

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News

Laurent Bastien Corbeil and Henry Gass — The McGill Daily (McGill University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Police clashed with protesters for the second time this week as negotiations broke down between provincial student associations and the Quebec government.

The breakdown came after Education Minister Line Beauchamp barred members of the Coalition de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) from participating in talks.

The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) left the negotiation table in solidarity with CLASSE.

The protest

More than 5,000 protesters gathered at Place Émilie-Gamelin at around 8:30 p.m. on April 25 before marching through the streets of downtown Montreal.

The demonstration remained calm until protesters reached the intersection of Ste. Catherine and Guy. Demonstrators overturned garbage bins, smashed bank windows, and hurled rocks at police cars.

Riot police intervened at around 10:30 p.m. by detonating concussion grenades, throwing tear gas canisters, and charging the protesters at the intersection of Ste. Catherine and Metcalfe.

After regrouping on Sherbrooke, demonstrators marched down St. Denis and clashed for a second time with police on René Lévesque.

Beer bottles and rocks were thrown as demonstrators scattered before charging riot police.

The crowd dispersed at around 12:00 a.m.

Small altercations between police and demonstrators continued throughout the night.

Around 60 protestors were arrested at 1:30 a.m. on the corner of St. Dominique and des Pins after being kettled an hour and a half earlier.

According to the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), a total of 85 people were arrested.

The truce

Beauchamp accused CLASSE of breaking the “truce” she called for on April 23 as a condition for negotiations. Under the “truce,” CLASSE was told not to hold any demonstrations during a 48-hour negotiation period.

Students held a demonstration on the evening of April 24 that ended in a smashed HSBC window and several arrests.

“This demonstration was announced on the site of the student association called the CLASSE,” Beauchamp told reporters in a press conference the next day.

“We cannot pretend today that they have dissociated themselves. I consider therefore that the CLASSE has excluded itself from the negotiation table,” continued Beauchamp.

Three smoke bombs were also detonated on the morning of April 25, one each in the Lionel-Groulx and Henri-Bourassa metro stations, and one in the Complexe Desjardins.

Students' Society of McGill University vice-president external Joël Pedneault said excluding CLASSE “is possibly the worst move [the government] could have done at this stage.”

“At least in Montreal, the vast majority of student activists and people who are involved in the strike are with CLASSE and support CLASSE, so it definitely won’t reduce the amount of conflict related to the strike,” said Pedneault.

CLASSE, considered the most radical of the major student associations by the government, denounced violence carried out during the 10-week-old student strike, but refused to condemn civil disobedience or acts of self-defense.

Nadeau-Dubois responded to Beauchamp’s offer of a truce on April 23 by neither accepting nor rejecting the offer.

"Spokespeople for CLASSE — of which I am one — don’t have the power to take a position on a truce, nor to constrain the 180,000 students on strike and order them to stop mobilizing,” Nadeau-Dubois said in a press conference on April 23.

“So the truce that she has asked for is de facto in effect,” he added.

Nadeau-Dubois has insisted that CLASSE had not planned any actions this week, and, while Tuesday’s demonstration was announced on the association’s website, CLASSE was not involved in its organization.

Pedneault said CLASSE “could have taken a clearer line” on the truce offer.

“They could have rejected outright the truce and said they’re still going to be at the negotiation table, or something to that effect,”

In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Nadeau-Dubois said Beauchamp “doesn’t want to talk about the tuition hike.”

“This decision by Madame Beauchamp is obviously another strategy to sabotage the discussions,” he added.

— With files from Jordan Venton-Rublee

Check out two videos the Daily captured on April 25, below.

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Arts

Sofia Hashi — The Fulcrum (University of Ottawa)

OTTAWA (CUP) —The JUNOs have come and gone another year. Awards have been handed out — some artists have been left snubbed and others left with shining trophies. But one thing that seemed to trail behind the glitz and glamour of the awards ceremony was the music itself.

As I found myself waiting to take my seat in the press box at Scotiabank Place on April 1, I couldn’t help but notice some major absentees from the list.

Justin Bieber, Drake, Avril Lavigne, Michael Bublé, The Sheepdogs and many other big-shot Canadian celebs were missing at both the JUNO Awards broadcast and gala dinner. This is quite perplexing seeing as they were all up for the “important” awards of the evening, like Single of the Year, Best Album and Fan Choice.

While some of these artists were touring, it’s strange that most would ignore recognition in its highest form here on their home turf. Were the Biebs or Drizzy absent from the Grammys? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

It’s appalling that these Canadians didn’t think it was necessary to attend an award ceremony honouring their music in Canada. How else is Canadian music going to grow and continue to flourish if it doesn’t get the support from its own top artists?

The blame can’t be directed completely at the musicians. The heads behind the JUNOs need to be held responsible as well.

Take the Album of the Year award, for example. This is arguably the most coveted prize of the night, and which artist got top honours? Michael Bublé, for his album Christmas. That’s right — a freaking Christmas CD got the Album of the Year award, and like Deadmau5 said, “That better be one hell of a Christmas [record].”

This is insulting to other musicians who made an actual body of work in 2011 and not some compilation of popular Christmas songs.

Last year’s JUNOs weren’t any different. When Drake hosted the show just one year ago, he was up for two awards, but left the ceremony empty-handed. Yet this year, with no Drake in sight, the Young Money Cash Money Billionaire rapper found himself one JUNO richer. What’s up with that?

This isn’t the first time some JUNO nominee didn’t win when they attended the awards show, but did when they didn’t. It seems as if the JUNOs ceremony has a way of alienating its attendees and making them want to conveniently book tours and other gigs during this time of year.

It was a slightly pathetic showing at this year’s JUNOs and the only way it’ll change is if we take pride in our music. That means musicians should do their part and show up — really, it’s the least they can do with such a big honour bestowed upon them — and JUNO heads should give awards to people that deserve them. No Christmas records for Album of the Year, please — that’s just offensive to all of Canadian music, nominated or not.

For the JUNOs and Canadian music to grow, we need to take it more seriously. Simply put, audiences and artists should demand more from the award ceremony and not be complacent with mediocrity. More big name artists should show up and awards should go to deserving recipients — no offense, Bublé. If we want to celebrate the JUNOs for another 41 years, we need to take the award show seriously and not view them as an afterthought to the Grammys or the Brits.

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News

Sarah Deshaies — CUP Quebec Bureau Chief

MONTREAL (CUP) — What a difference a week makes. Days after Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp first offered to discuss with students, an initial meeting took place in Quebec City on April 23, with all major student groups present.

This meeting is a first after more than 10 weeks of student strikes and protests in the province.

A second meeting is taking place on April 24, though the strike will continue. Beauchamp extended an offer to meet on April 15, inviting the Fédération étudiant universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Fédération étudiant collégiale du Québec (FECQ). Not invited to the table was the more radical Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale (CLASSE), a major student organizer that represents almost 180,000 students on strike. One of Beauchamp’s conditions was that students would have to denounce violence and vandalism, something CLASSE declined to do; FEUQ and FECQ said they would not meet without CLASSE present.

Even the next day, in the wake of a series of attacks on minister’s offices and homes and the metro system, CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois refused to follow Beauchamp’s request, though he said his group had nothing to do with the incidents.

CLASSE would only denounce violence if its member groups voted on it, Nadeau-Dubois said.

Students and other activists staged protests on Friday and Saturday outside the Palais des Congrès, where the Salon Plan Nord, a job fair centred around provincial plans to invest in Quebec’s north, took place. Over 100 protesters were arrested after violent clashes with Montreal police over both days. In one incident on Friday, protesters were accused of throwing rocks from an overpass to a nearby highway.

CLASSE and its lead spokesperson’s refusal to do the one thing that might get the coalition a seat at the table even spurred its own Twitter joke, #gnddoitseprononcer.

But on April 22, CLASSE members decided to condemn violence, after hours of discussion culminated in a unanimous, late-night decision.

“The position we took to last night was to clearly denounce and condemn any act of deliberate physical violence towards individuals,” said Nadeau-Dubois said at a Monday morning press conference in Montreal. “As a progressive and democratic organization, we cannot subscribe to those actions.”

Nadeau-Dubois made specific reference to the rock-throwing incident as unacceptable. But acts of civil disobedience will continue.

“We think that the principle of civil disobedience has made Quebec civil society a little bit more just and little bit more free than other societies,” said Nadeau-Dubois, who spoke while four CLASSE representatives were on route to Quebec City, though at the time they were not sure if they would be allowed to attend negotiations.

“It’s a very big decision,” CLASSE co-spokesperson Jeanne Reynolds said of the organization's unanimous vote. Debating it was “important to allow all students to reflect on the question, not just having a few people sending a message to the minister.”

In response, Beauchamp asked that students should suspend their activities. “We all need to act in good faith. If social and economic disruptions continue, the students who endorse them will be excluding themselves from talks,” she said in a statement.

But strike action and protests will continue as planned.

Beauchamp asked students to discuss the management of universities, but not upcoming tuition increases.

The student delegation includes four members of FEUQ, including president Martine Desjardins, who declined an interview through a spokesperson as negotiations were ongoing.

According to Le Soleil, a fourth student group joined in on negotiations: the Table de concertation de étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), which represents student unions at McGill, Laval and Sherbrooke Universities.

Though it has not been recognized as an official student group, TaCEQ secretary-general Simon Gosselin said last week that the group hoped to join in negotiations.

TaCEQ representatives could not be reached for comment.

Quebec students have been protesting and striking against tuition fee hikes slated to begin this fall, with an increase of $325 per year over five years.

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Opinion

Blair Woynarski — The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan)

SASKATOON (CUP) — A little over a year ago, I decided to buy an issue of Playboy.

The precise reason for this decision is a little fuzzy, but I believe it had something to do with viewing it as a rite of passage. At 21 years old, I had never flipped through a Playboy in my life, and it seemed that I was missing out on a big aspect of popular culture.

The weeks spent waiting for it to arrive in the mail were characterized by strange emotion. I went out to check the mailbox every day — not because I was dying with anticipation, but rather because I didn’t want my roommate to bring it in first. I felt like I was carrying around a weird, dark secret, or that I had crossed some sort of unforgivable divide into a world of perversion. But then one day it arrived, and it is hard to say what my reaction was. It wasn’t excitement, nor was it disappointment; it was a neutral, calculating sense of, “So this is Playboy. Huh.”

One of my first thoughts was, “Wow, this really is just like a normal magazine.” It had advertisements, advice columns, whatever. But as I looked a bit more closely, I discovered something much more shocking. I discovered that it had more literary merit than most of what I could find on the magazine racks.

Don’t believe me? That’s fine. But let me ask you this: who was the most talked-about woman in Playboy last year? While you might not have a specific answer, chances are you are forming a vague mental impression. I can guarantee you are not thinking of the 89-year-old former dean of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas, who was the subject of a Playboy interview last April and ignited controversy with her anti-Zionist comments. But that, in fact, is the correct answer.

The time-honoured Playboy interview has, over the years, dealt with many notable figures, including Bill Cosby, Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, George Carlin, Anne Rice, John Lennon, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Fidel Castro (twice). Even vitriolic conservatives Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have deigned to be interviewed.

On top of that, I’ve read articles on the Arab Spring, asteroid mining, shark attacks, the making of Scarface, and the meth empire created by actor Tom Arnold’s sister. Playboy's journalists not only produce great content, but they also track down intriguing stories that are not picked up anywhere else. So the question is: why does it still come delivered in a blacked-out plastic bag?

Criticism seems to come from two sources. One is an old, conservative generation that feels the need to stamp out boobs wherever they arise, but is still content to let the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition fly off newsstands across the continent. The other criticism is from a younger generation that finds buying Playboy to be the most ridiculous thing in the world when it’s so easy to find pictures of naked women online. And this group elucidates my point perfectly: Playboy lost its “dirty pictures” niche a long time ago, and it keeps going simply because of its strength as a publication.

I am not defending Playboy against any and all criticism. There is plenty you could write about “bunny culture” and its effect on women (though I do not feel competent to weigh in here). I am concerned primarily with the magazine, and the magazine is certainly no more damaging to women than the plethora of publications specifically directed at them.

I find myself staring at a Cosmopolitan cover every time I get my haircut, and frankly, it embarrasses me. They all run together in my memory, but I can recall tags like, “10 Things Guys Crave in Bed,” “9 Times You Won’t Burn in Hell for Being Bitchy,” “‘My Gyno Talked to my Vagina’ and Other Doc Shockers” and countless hard-hitting “Sex Surveys.” Of course, none sticks out more prominently in my memory than “The Butt Facial.” Any woman could read that in public without attracting a sideways glance, yet I would be a pervert for reading an interview with Jon Hamm just because of a partially obscured title printed across the top of the cover.

None of this will change, obviously. I will still furtively ferry my magazine back to my apartment when no one else is around, and I will still peruse deep and thought-provoking articles about solar energy or North Korea while kitschy nude cartoons smile from the opposite page.

I make the following confession: I read Playboy for the articles. Judge me as you will.

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News

Siobhan Fleury — The Watch (University of King's College)

HALIFAX (CUP) — You’re sitting in class and you have to go. You cross your legs, side-step out of the room as quietly as possible, and sneak down the hall to the washroom.

But what happens if there isn’t a washroom for you?

For transgendered people, male and female washrooms don’t work. Most washrooms are for cisgendered people, or people who identify with the same gender as their biological sex. This, says two Dalhousie University students, excludes transgendered people.

Shay Enxuga and Jake Feldman are not cisgendered, and frequently face this issue. Enxuga says Feldman puts it well: “He was talking about how you have to go pee, just like everyone has to go pee, and you’re looking at these two options and neither one is made for you. There’s a sense that the world isn’t created for you, and a feeling of invisibility.”

“Trans-people experience very real emotional and physical harm when it comes to gendered bathrooms. There are some assaults and violence, but also a lot of anxiety and fear,” said Enxuga.

Exasperated and frustrated, the two started the Gender Neutral Bathroom Challenge, inviting people to use only gender-neutral bathrooms for the entire month of April.

“We were just talking about feeling a sense of frustration and wanting our friends and people who identify as allies to think about their access to bathrooms as a privilege,” said Enxuga. “We thought that this would be a way for them to get some first-hand experience.”

Liz Fraser, a King’s University grad living in Hamilton, Ont., took the challenge, and she’s caused change already.

When at an art exhibit one night, she noticed a pair of single-stall gendered washrooms. Fraser asked if there was someone she could speak to about it.

“Would it be possible to remove those signs in order to better include trans and genderqueer people in this space?” she asked the manager.

Her request was met with a polite and willing response. The manager, who said that they had never thought of it, removed the signs immediately.

In an interview with The Watch, Fraser said that she felt apprehensive about asking for the signs to be changed before taking action.

“I felt like I would be perceived as confrontational, and I’m not a confrontational person. At first, I was feeling like maybe I should just leave it, because it didn’t affect me, but that isn’t really what the challenge is about.”

Fraser is cisgendered, but she has long been involved in gay activism and feels it is important to be supportive of queer communities.

Being cisgendered, she says, comes with a certain amount of power.

“The fact that I was able to go ask about [the gendered washrooms] was an expression of privilege,” she said. “I also think that if I am hesitant to use that power, then I’m in a sense abusing it.”

The creators of the challenge, however, were hoping for such a response.

“As with any system of oppression, it’s not the people who are oppressed who are making themselves oppressed,” said Enxuga. “The main purpose is just to create more gender neutral bathrooms. Often, it’s trans-people who do that work, but we want to have cis-people working in ally-ship with trans-people.”

The challenge started as a Facebook event Feldman created, and now has the support of over 800 people from the Maritimes and beyond.

“It spread like wildfire on the Internet, and neither of us were expecting that. Jake thought that maybe 15 people would try it. I thought that maybe 100 people would,” said Enxuga.

The two creators said they encourage people to talk the discrimination of gendered bathrooms and help change that. They say that’s happening.

“I have heard people talk about being excited when they find gender neutral bathrooms,” said Enxuga. “I’m so happy. It’s been way more successful than I ever thought, which feels great. We’re getting a lot of people saying, ‘I’ve never thought of this before.’”

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Opinion

Jacey Gibb — The Other Press (Douglas College)

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CUP) — Everyone knows that kids are a bunch of impressionable sacks of flesh. They're so eager to absorb new information that a lesson's content is often unquestioned. While in the midst of a recent board game session with my little brother, I began to realize just how many alarming lessons can lie within a game's instructions.

The most obvious example of this is in The Game of Life (made by Hasbro), which is specifically designed to walk you through the successes and failures one can expect over their lifetime. Nowhere else are society's basic norms laid out so blatantly for you. STOP! Get married. STOP! Buy yourself some real estate. Both are unavoidable in The Game of Life, even though real life quickly teaches us that not everyone has a ring and a mortgage to their name. The game enforces a traditional lifestyle, without much room for individuality. At the game's end, it doesn't matter how many kids you had, that you won the Nobel Peace Prize, or that you enjoyed everything along the way; the winner is whoever has accumulated the most wealth — because everyone knows that money is the most important thing in life.

The same can be said about Monopoly (Parker Brothers), everyone's favourite form of capitalism in a box. Your goal is to buy up as much real estate as possible, build up an empire on your monopoly of properties and force your competition into declaring bankruptcy. Sounds a bit like the Vancouver or Toronto scenes, doesn't it?

While we're on the topic of games that take an eternity to play, Risk, the game of strategic conquest (also made by Parker Brothers), revolves around players' abilities to dominate their opponents and wipe out armies until they've successfully conquered the entire world. I'm not a fan of war glorification and war in general, so that might explain why half of the times that I've played Risk have ended in myself and another player simply declaring world peace. Either that or the game takes an unbearably long time to finish.

My favourite board game of all time is 1313 Dead End Drive, a lesser-known game by — you guessed it — Parker Brothers. Rich Aunt Agatha has recently passed away, and your goal is to murder everyone else and escape with the most money. While everyone starts with $1 million, that's not considered a sufficient sum to be a winner. Greed is incredibly prominent in the game, while homicide is strongly encouraged.

There are a few games that actually endorse healthy habits and reward ethical qualities. Scrabble encourages proper spelling and rewards people with extensive lexicons, while Scattergories forces players to think creatively. Even Sorry found a way to incorporate proper manners instead of just having players massacre each other until there's only one person left.

People may argue that these are all just games and shouldn't be considered influential, but if violence and mature subject matters in other media are considered dangerously suggestive, then aren't board games also agents of influence?

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News

Sarah Deshaies — CUP Quebec Bureau Chief

MONTREAL (CUP) — In the wake of fresh vandalism, the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale (CLASSE) has refused to denounce vandalism as a means to combat tuition increases in Quebec.

CLASSE has been excluded from proposed talks with Education Minister Line Beauchamp because of this stance, while the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and its cousin, the Fédération étudiante collègiale du Québec (FECQ) have been invited.

CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois accused the minister of trying to “divide and conquer” student groups in order to weaken the movement.

“We find it unacceptable that our coalition, which represents 47 per cent of the people on strike right now, is being rejected from the negotiation process,” said Nadeau-Dubois on April 16. “If our coalition is not part of the solution, there won’t be any actual solution to the student strike.”

After two months of ongoing students strikes and protest action, Beauchamp has agreed to sit down with students — but with a couple of caveats.

Unsuccessful in gaining an audience with any provincial ministers since late 2010, FEUQ asked for an independent commission to look into the management of universities. On Sunday, Beauchamp consented to FEUQ’s request — provided tuition increases are not on the table, and CLASSE is not at the table.

Earlier on Monday morning, there were failed attempts to firebomb ministerial offices in four different locations around Montreal. No one was injured. Red paint was found at the scene, leading police to suspect that the student movement was involved as the colour has come to symbolize the movement.

On April 13, Beauchamp’s office was broken into and vandalized, and seven people were arrested in connection to the incident. Also early on April 16, several men were arrested at Cégép du Vieux-Montréal, two for breaking and entering, and a third for mischief. Three out of four metro lines were paralyzed when individuals, masked and dressed in black, threw bags with bricks on the tracks and some riders also pulled the emergency stop levers — but the police have not connected this incident to students. A second attack took place in the metro on April 18 when someone released a smoke bomb.

Nadeau-Dubois “disassociated” his group from the incidents, saying they would never resort to violence and vandalism. But he refused to condemn them, saying that CLASSE’s members would have to decide to denounce vandalism before he as a spokesperson could publicly do so.

In response, Quebec Premier Jean Charest slammed CLASSE later in the day. “This is not acceptable and there isn’t an elected official in Quebec who should accept this," he told reporters. "If we don’t put our fist on the table and say we can’t accept these things, when exactly will we?”

On April 18, FEUQ lashed back in a press release, faulting the government for not denouncing violence by police and private security against student protesters across the province or intimidation by private security firms hired by university administrators. Students have been injured in protests, including one man who almost lost an eye after a hand grenade exploded.

In the release, FEUQ claimed Beauchamp "has not condemned the university administrations that hire private security firms who intimidate professors and students, almost aggressive to the point of physical violence."

FEUQ has said they will not speak with Beauchamp without CLASSE. FEUQ and FECQ are affiliated groups recognized as the “official” student groups and negotiating partners with the provincial government. CLASSE, on the other hand, which has been a more relatively radical voice, is an umbrella group.

CLASSE is still open to talks, whether or not Beauchamp or Charest are interested.

“We’re ready to come to the negotiating table and discuss with the minister,” said co-spokesperson Jeanne Reynolds. “That’s how we'll calm things down.

One student group heralded Beauchamp’s offer, though they were not invited by the minister, either.

“We have things to say, we have projects to finance universities. We’re going to try and be there,” said Simon Gosselin, outgoing secretary-general of Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TACEQ), a group that represents 65,000 students at McGill, Sherbrooke and Laval universities, but are not recognized as official by the government.

In a press release, the Mouvement des étudiants socialement responsables du Québec (MESRQ), a 3,000-member strong Facebook group of students for tuition increases, accepted Beauchamp’s offer warmly, saying that FEUQ and FECQ would be capable student representatives in the negotiations.

But their release added that it would be “unacceptable” for CLASSE to be invited: “By their actions and refusal to condemn violence, CLASSE removed itself from the discussion.”

Before Beauchamp’s latest invitation, the only concession the government had offered was to improve the loans and bursaries program, which was turned down by FEUQ, FECQ and CLASSE in a united front.

When asked whether planning traffic-stopping marches might cause students to lose public support, Nadeau-Dubois replied, “If we could hire lobbyists to send a blank slate to the government, we would. The problem is — we can’t.”

More student protests are planned in the coming days. On April 20, students will confront Charest outside of the Plan Nord salon, which is designed to highlight Quebec’s plan to develop the northern part of the province. Students will also join in on an Earth Day march this Sunday, April 22.

Thousands of university and CEGEP students have been striking across Quebec over the last 10 weeks to protest upcoming tuition increases. In 2010, the provincial government announced tuition would increase by $325 a year, beginning this fall, over five years for a total of $1,625. Quebec university undergraduates currently pay the lowest tuition fees in Canada, and will likely still pay the lowest fees after the increases.

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Opinion

Leah Scheitel — Capilano Courier (Capilano University)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — There seems to be an uprising of TV shows featuring one girl amongst the ranks of men (The Big Bang Theory and Zooey Deschanel’s New Girl, to name a few). These shows are likely representations of the offices where many TV shows are written, with one quirky female amongst an entourage of men.

In a book about the history of Saturday Night Live (SNL) called Live From New York, political satirist and one of the original writers of SNL Al Franken is quoted as saying, “Saturday Night Live was a very positive experience for all of us. It was really just a wonderful fucking thing for everybody.”

“All of us” was apparently non-encompassing. Men have a very different experience working at SNL than women. On the next page of the same book, Janeane Garofalo, who worked on SNL from 1994–95, explains her reason for leaving the show, stating, “Life is a boy's club. So SNL is a reflection of that. I’ll admit that I was not ready to deal with that wall of resistance.”

This boy’s club scenario is not specific to SNL. In 2009, there were no women writers on the The Jay Leno Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. There was one on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: his younger sister, Lynn Ferguson. The lone female writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the host's girlfriend.

Late night TV isn't the only sector of television that suffers from a lack of female writers. Amongst prime-time TV writers, a mere 15 per cent are female, down from 35 per cent in 2006. Since the writers' strike in 2007, the female writer has become a dying breed — and apparently to be a female writer for late night TV, you may have to be related to the host or sleeping with him.

The main detriment of losing female writers is that female characters are being primarily written by men, and therefore can be easily misrepresented. Men will be more inclined to write their ideal female characters instead of more realistic females, as a woman could write from experience. This may fuel the demeaning ideal of the “perfect female,” which is already a symbol in mass media: a size-four woman who can eat endless amounts of potato chips and not get a belly, who looks perfect in the morning and wakes up without morning breath, and who never suffers from PMS. If young females see these characters, they may strive to be more like them, creating a new kind of Barbie syndrome.

In an article in the Huffington Post, Maureen Ryan pinpointed advertisers as one of the main reasons why the female writer is becoming increasingly rare. "We're not making art out here, we're making programming that allows networks to sell ad dollars," says Jill Soloway, one of Ryan's sources and a writer for Six Feet Under and How to Make It in America. “The only ad dollars that appeal solely to women only are diapers and cleaning products.”

Male writer Kurt Sutter echoes that view in an interview on Vulture.com: "Just look at the primary measuring statistic for a viewing audience; the only statistic that matters financially — males 18–49. Networks demand that shows be aimed at that target audience. They have to. That's what advertisers demand of them. No ads, no TV. So by default, for the most part, we are creating television for white guys," he says. And who better to write for white guys between the ages of 18–49 than white guys in that exact age bracket?

With advertisers meddling in the creative process of television writers, the chance of seeing an increase in females writing for network television is slim. As Jill Soloway explained to Maureen Ryan, “Sometimes I watch Louie, which, for my money, is one of the best shows I have ever seen on television, and wonder if … a network would air a show where a woman was talking about masturbating and farting (in an awesomely deep way, mind you). The answer is no — not because networks hate women, not because studios refuse to hire women creators — but because there is no brand that would be willing to be associated with the idea of such an antiheroic woman."

You can help fix the root of the female writer problem by supporting stations that support female writers. That might mean donating to a public broadcaster. The chances of seeing more female writers on programs created for publicly funded television, such as PBS, are greater. Maybe, instead of tolerating “ideal” female characters written by men, we should contribute to ideal television networks that have creative control without interference from advertising bullies. Such networks can foster female writers and their realistic female characters.

We know that there are good female writers. They just need a broadcaster that won’t be prejudiced against the type of women they represent and write about. Until men and advertisers are comfortable hearing about strong women who menstruate, we won’t be seeing it on network television.

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Science & Technology

Jessica Lampard — The Martlet (University of Victoria)

VICTORIA (CUP) — When I first heard about genetically-modified (GM) food, I reeled at the ingenuity of customizing a food product through the very source: DNA. The prospect sounded like something from a science fiction film. To be honest, it was a little unnerving. For the time being, though, I shrugged off the idea that I might personally have eaten GM foods. I assumed I’d know one if I saw one.

When I later read that Canadian grocery stores are teeming with the stuff, I was less than thrilled. Why had I never seen any labels advertising GM ingredients? Where were all these futuristic foods hiding?

After some investigation, I found out GM foods often look and taste just the same as non-GM foods and, despite this fact, the Canadian government doesn’t require them to be labelled as such.

In other words, we’re basically stripped of the ability to choose what we prefer to buy — GM or non-GM — as soon as we enter a grocery store. The shelves are lined with laboratory-born creations. In fact, roughly 70 per cent of the processed food sold in Canada contains at least one GM ingredient. But trying to identify them is futile unless you’ve first done some research. And even then, the task is somewhat hit-or-miss.

A short history of GM

GM food made its world debut in 1994, two years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration dubbed it “not inherently dangerous.” The ground-breaking first GM food was the Flavr Savr tomato sold in the United States, which was designed to stay fresh longer than the average tomato. Canada began selling GM food in 1996, and now ranks fourth among the world’s top GM producers after the U.S., Argentina, and Brazil.

The only four GM crops grown in Canada are soy, corn, canola and sugar beet; but multi-ingredient snacks such as cookies, pizza, chips, etc. often contain at least one of those four crops in some form or another. For example, sucrose is made from sugar beets.

It’s easy to see why controversy has been buzzing since the start, given that GM is pretty much all around us in disguise. Opponents warn of potential danger — including risk to our health and to the environment — while supporters say GM food could actually boost overall health of the world population and do the environment some good.

The science behind it

Let’s back up for a moment to review some basic biology. Every life form has unique genes, and it’s the genes that determine the unique set of traits, or characteristics, an organism displays.

For instance, for each of your own traits — such as your hair colour, height, whether or not your skin is freckled, etc. — there is a specific gene or sequence of genes to thank. If you replaced just the genes that determine eye colour, you would appear unchanged except for your eye colour.

Similarly, there’s a gene (or genes, depending on the trait) responsible for each trait in other life forms, such as plants, as well. When genetically modifying, scientists basically aim to slice out the relevant genetic material from one organism and insert that material into another organism. After the act is done, the enhanced organism can pass along its new genes by reproducing, just like natural life forms.

Gene swaps are usually performed between same-species organisms (i.e., plant to plant), but it’s possible to mix the genes of any life form regardless of species. Corn that’s been given DNA from bacteria is just one example.

GM on the farm

For centuries, farmers have been selectively breeding their crops to produce hybrids — new plants that display characteristics of both parent varieties. The process of naturally attaining an ideal hybrid can take years, as there are often bad traits passed along with good traits. But GM allows farmers to grow new versions of crops that are guaranteed to display certain sought-after traits. Nowhere are benefits more immediate than on the farms where crops take root and grow.

One of the most common GM crops is pest-resistant corn. This corn contains genes from a type of bacteria that produces protein lethal to insects. Among other common GM crops are those with a tolerance to toxic chemical sprays. These weed-killers would normally kill the crops along with the weeds.

Farmers can also grow GM crops made to thrive in soil that would otherwise be too dry or salty to support life, and crops immune to plant diseases. The appeal to farmers is clear. They can potentially reap more product than usual at harvest. To sum it up, farmers can theoretically cash in on GM crops — at least in the short term.

Control issues

Although sometimes farmers manage to benefit, choosing to grow GM can, in some cases, lead to financial loss. This outcome often occurs when the companies that sell the GM seeds controls how those seeds are used.

A small number of companies are responsible for supplying the majority of GM seeds. The largest of these companies is Monsanto, who also owns the patent to a popular brand of weed control products known as Roundup.

Monsanto exerts considerable control over the use of its products. According to the Centre for Food and Safety, before buying Roundup Ready seeds farmers must sign an agreement, specifying that they “will not save and replant seeds produced from the seed they buy from (Monsanto).”

In other words, buyers must agree to let the seeds produced by their GM crops go to waste. Presumably, they will buy new seeds every year from Monsanto — making this rule very lucrative for the company. Also, Roundup Ready seeds always must be bought from Monsanto, not purchased indirectly through other farmers.

When Monsanto believes its rules have been violated, the company has a history of taking legal action against the farmer in question. One of the most well-known cases occurred when farmer Percy Schmeiser was found to have illicit canola growing in his fields. Schmeiser said the GM seeds had blown over from a neighbouring farm. Monsanto, however, wanted Schmeiser to pay a fee regardless. The company went forward with a trial despite having zero proof that Schmeiser had illicitly obtained the GM canola.

The fact that GM crops can and do spread via wind gives credibility to Schmeiser’s claim. Such a natural phenomenon may account for many of the cases in which Monsanto has pursued legal battles with farmers for allegedly obtaining GM seeds illegally. According to Monsanto, the laws are in place to protect licensed growers.

To eliminate any chance of replanting seeds or otherwise using them for personal profit, a new type of GM seed has been developed that produces sterile crops. If these “terminator seeds” are put on the market, the farmers who plant them will have no choice but to re-purchase a new supply every year.

Safety testing and health

While benefits to companies that sell GM products are clear, benefits to the rest of us are up for debate. A concern among some experts is the way the Canadian government tests GM foods for safety — namely, that it does not. Instead of performing independent tests on each new GM food, Health Canada relies heavily on information given by the GM companies themselves about their proposed products.

Also, a concept called “substantial equivalence” is relied upon during the safety assessment process. Health Canada compares the proposed new GM food to non-GM foods that have been around long enough to be accepted as safe, and factors the degree of similarity into the decision.

Many people see such screening methods as simply not good enough given that, according to certain scientists and organizations such as the World Health Organization and Greenpeace, there are potentially unique health risks from GM foods.

Greenpeace, for example, lists on its website that “development of antibiotic resistance, allergic reactions, nutritional changes, creations of toxins” are among the possible health hazards of GM, and also asserts that GM food is “a giant genetic experiment with unpredictable and possibly irreversible risks.”

But the experts are divided on whether or not GM food is safe for humans to eat. Perhaps the real cause for concern, according to the scientific report “Beyond risk: a more realistic risk assessment of GMOs,” which was published by The European Molecular Biology Organization in 2008, is that the public is excluded from meaningful discussion about what safety means to them.

“Scientific experts ... are certainly not experts at determining and evaluating what the public might consider to be acceptable types of risk for several reasons,” according to the report.

And while the report also indicates that an open discussion about safety could have its own problems, such as varying degrees of scientific knowledge and difficulty coming to a consensus, the authors conclude that “it seems more compatible with the values of a democratic society to overcome these problems rather than to simply eliminate the public from decisions that will have a significant impact on their lives.”

After all, no tests have been done to prove long-term health effects of GM food — although we, the consumers, must deal with whatever impacts come about. Many people feel that they haven’t been adequately engaged in decisions about whether growing and selling GM foods in Canada is even a good idea.

GM food in the spotlight

Despite not being asked an opinion directly about whether GM foods are safe, the public is nevertheless finding ways to weigh in. Some of those who favour GM feel there’s a modern witch hunt underway, and indeed there are articles that have misreported scientific findings by citing the dangers of GM to health when, in fact, the original studies did not support those claims.

But scientific studies, and the articles reporting those studies, do sometimes merit a second look. For instance, a recent independent study done in Quebec found that traces of Bt toxin (the active ingredient in GM pest-resistant crops) can survive in the human bloodstream. This finding counters a previous belief that the Bt toxin would break down within the digestive system.

The Quebec study sampled blood from pregnant and non-pregnant women, and found that high percentages of the women in each test group — 93 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively — carried the toxin. What’s more, Bt toxin was also found in 80 per cent of the fetuses, raising concern that GM material could be passed down like our own DNA. This situation isn’t proven to pose health risks, but the researchers have recommended further testing.

On the other hand, there’s evidence to suggest that GM food could actually improve health. For example, scientists have developed a variety of rice that’s rich in vitamin A —the vitamin necessary for good eyesight. The goal is to donate this “golden rice” to undeveloped countries, where every year upwards of 250 000 children go blind because they lack vitamin A.

There’s also a special debate related to how genetic-modification technology could help undeveloped countries in a broader sense. Specifically, GM food is sometimes looked to as a solution to world hunger due to high crop yields and plants that can grow in harsh conditions.

But negative public opinion has kept countries such as Africa from fully accepting GM food. For instance, when a drought-stricken Africa and citizens were faced with starvation, Zimbabwe and Zambia turned down offers of free maize from the U.S.A. “simply because the maize was GM,” according to the report “Response to issues on GM agriculture in Africa: Are transgenic crops safe?” published in 2011 on the website BioMed Central. Similarly, “golden rice” has failed to reach its target population thus far in part because of the bad press surrounding GM.

Environmental impact

Effects on the environment are closely tied to effects on human health. Unsurprisingly, there’s a similar amount of conflict about the environmental impacts of GM food, with both opponents and supporters.

Given that GM technology is effective and can produce fast results, it makes intuitive sense that it might also be hard to control. One concern is that GM crops will outcross with neighbouring non-GM crops, spreading their seeds through pollination and wind. Some people worry the situation could lead to non-GM crops being overtaken by GM crops altogether down the line.

Another potential problem is the possibility of creating “superweeds.” As discussed, it’s hard to predict what will happen when mixing DNA in the wild. There’s concern that weedkiller-resistant crops will eventually, through the process of mating with wild plants, over time lead to super-resistant weeds.

Basically, if the worst-case scenarios described by GM opponents actually pan out, biodiversity and the balance of the ecosystem could wind up broken beyond repair.

However, studies have found that fewer chemical sprays are used in GM farms versus non-GM farms. The fewer chemicals used, the less toxic waste left over. So GM could potentially reduce chemical pollution in the environment. But since no long-term studies have been done on the environmental effects of GM crops, there’s no hard evidence to back up any of these claims.

Labelling

Canada is one of the only developed countries, along with the U.S.A, not to require mandatory labelling of GM foods. This stance varies from the United Kingdom, where GM foods are required to be labelled under a “precautionary principle.”

In Canada, the government allows companies to decide for themselves whether they want to include “contains GM ingredients” on the labels of GM food. In other words, labelling is voluntary in Canada and virtually non-existent as a result.

But it appears voluntary labelling has been unacceptable to most consumers from the beginning. In 2003, 88 per cent of respondents to a scientific poll conducted by the University of Maine and The Ohio State University wanted mandatory GM labels. And today the trend continues, with online polls routinely showing a marked desire for a mandatory labelling law.

Speculation

The pro-con GM debate comes down to is this: there are real, noteworthy findings that support and oppose each argument, and along with the facts, there is much speculation.

Perhaps the biggest speculation lands with us. We have no choice but to guess which foods might have GM ingredients, or to ignore the possibility. And we’re likely to keep guessing in the future. By not making labelling mandatory in Canada, it’s impossible for the government to accurately chart the long-term effects — disastrous, wonderful, or somewhere in between.

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Humour

BestCrosswords.com

(CUP) — Puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission. Please print the above statement with the puzzle.

Across

1- It's a wrap; 6- Snack in a shell; 10- Drinks (as a cat); 14- HI hi; 15- Poet Pound; 16- A dish with many ingredients; 17- Extra-terrestrial being; 18- It's got you covered; 19- Commendably; 20- Seaport in S Crimea; 22- Be of one mind; 23- Heating fuel; 24- Historic county in E Scotland; 26- Actress Peeples; 29- Switch ending; 31- Genetic material; 32- Aries or Taurus; 33- Depilatory brand; 34- Cash in; 38- Eastern nanny; 40- Become an ex-parrot?; 42- Canadian gas brand; 43- Flowering; 46- Goddess and sister of Ares in Greek mythology; 49- Loss leader?; 50- CD forerunners; 51- Sled; 52- Charged particle; 53- Small fish; 57- Voting-pattern predictor; 59- Commerce; 60- Gus McRae's occupation in "Lonesome Dove"; 65- Architect Saarinen; 66- Prefix with meter; 67- Angry; 68- Again; 69- Defense grp. since 1949; 70- Taboos; 71- Mend with rows of stitches; 72- Ollie's partner; 73- Huge;

Down

1- Swedish auto; 2- _ breve; 3- Agitate; 4- Lots; 5- Durable yellow fabric; 6- Resembling a monster; 7- Northern arm of the Black Sea; 8- Frog sound; 9- Bumbler; 10- C or D, for example; 11- Olds model; 12- Heaps; 13- Mends a shoe; 21- Zhivago's love; 22- Actress Heche; 25- Discount rack abbr.; 26- Final Four org.; 27- Metrical foot; 28- Asian sea; 30- Bay window; 35- Actor Morales; 36- This, in Tijuana; 37- Complain; 39- Limitation; 41- Outburst; 44- Mayberry moppet; 45- AOL alternative; 47- _ Rhythm; 48- Marketing; 53- Lieu; 54- Boxing venue; 55- Less common; 56- Acclaim; 58- Vive _ !; 61- Kofi _ Annan; 62- "Give that _ cigar!"; 63- Lots and lots; 64- Hotbed; 66- Ques. response;

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News

Arshy Mann — CUP Western Bureau Chief

VANCOUVER (CUP) — A bill that would allow post-secondary boards in B.C. to oust governors has become law despite stringent opposition from student, staff and faculty organizations.

Bill 18, which amends a number of laws that govern post-secondary institutions, has received royal assent in the province. Since it was first brought to the legislature last autumn, critics have alleged it undermines the role played by those who work and study at B.C. institutions.

“This is absolutely anathema to what a university is, to be shutting down contrary points of view,” said Robert Clift, executive director for Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C.

The act allows post-secondary boards to oust a member with a two-thirds vote and bars elected representatives from serving as the chair of a board. It also restricts members from sitting on both the Board of Governors and a union or association that engages in collective bargaining with the institution.

While the Ministry has said that these changes are necessary to prevent conflicts of interest, these groups argue that this is a blatant attack on students, staff and faculty.

“It’s remarkable that we’re seeing this bill … be an act of the legislature now, despite the fact that every key stakeholder group — students, staff and faculty — are adamantly against [it],” said Kyle Warick, vice-president external of the University of British Columbia's student union, the Alma Mater Society.

Since the bill was tabled in November, an amendment was made to it that allowed provincially appointed board representatives to also be voted out by a two-thirds majority. However, Clift argued that because the elected representatives of most boards usually make up less than a third of the total members, this means little in practice.

“It’s not possible for the elected members of the board to get together and oust an appointed member of the board, but it’s still possible for the appointed members of the board to get together and vote out an elected member. So that dynamic hasn’t changed.”

Both Clift and Warwick claim that when their organizations sat down with the Ministry to discuss the bill, their concerns were largely ignored.

“When we brought forward logical arguments, they haven’t been taken into consideration fully, even when we have met with the minister,” said Warwick.

According to Clift, the Ministry ignored many inconsistencies within the bill. For instance, although a faculty or staff member can’t be an executive of a group negotiating with the university, they can still sit on the bargaining committee.

Clift said that if any university, college or institute board used the new powers to oust an elected member, it would create discord.

“Clearly they want to pick a fight, and they’re going to get a fight if any faculty member, student or staff is affected by these changes. I think the government is going to see something that they didn’t anticipate,” he said.

-30-

Humour

BestCrosswords.com

(CUP) — Puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission. Please print the above statement with the puzzle.

Across

1- Martini's partner; 6- Commoner; 10- Horrors!; 14- Choreographer de Mille; 15- Accent; 16- Make-up artist?; 17- Chimes; 18- Entr' _ ; 19- Big do; 20- Conical native American tent; 21- Causing horror; 23- Actress Peeples; 25- Author Rand; 26- "A Hard Road to Glory" author; 29- Invitation letters; 32- Biblical mount; 37- USN rank; 38- Chip in; 39- Optimally; 40- Cause light to pass through; 43- Add fizz; 44- Caspian Sea feeder; 45- Edge; 46- Passover feast; 47- Old Dodge model; 48- IRS IDs; 49- Attorney's org.; 51- Writer Hentoff; 53- Highly productive; 58- Started; 62- Bunches; 63- Sup; 64- Eat away; 65- Decant; 66- Cornerstone abbr.; 67- Negatively charged particle; 68- Bluesy James; 69- Foot covering; 70- The house of a parson;

Down

1- All ears; 2- Arch type; 3- Break, card game; 4- Greek goddess of the moon; 5- Japanese immigrant; 6- Egyptian deity; 7- Bananas; 8- Snare; 9- Drunken; 10- Minnesota's St. _ College; 11- LP player; 12- Bust maker; 13- Acapulco gold; 22- Infuse; 24- "L.A. Law" lawyer; 26- Take the role of; 27- Carousal; 28- Accumulate; 30- Letters on a Cardinal's cap; 31- Soft palate; 33- Son of, in Arabic names; 34- Approaches; 35- John of "The Addams Family"; 36- Units; 38- Stellar; 39- At full speed; 41- Not for a Scot; 42- Coffee container; 47- Uncouth; 48- Breastbones; 50- Waits; 52- At right angles to a ships length; 53- Scheme; 54- Defeat decisively; 55- Other, in Oaxaca; 56- A big fan of; 57- Give up; 59- Enter; 60- Brouhahas; 61- Branta sandvicensis; 62- Big brute;

-30-

News

Piper Whelan — The Gateway (University of Alberta)

EDMONTON (CUP) — A University of Alberta dean says that recognizing the importance of agricultural research is a growing challenge, following $309 million in cuts over three years announced to Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada (AAFC) in this year’s federal budget.

John Kennelly, dean of the faculty of agriculture, life and environmental sciences (ALES), says the amount of funding for agricultural research has declined in recent years relative to the need for funding — a trend apparent in this year’s budget.

“Canadians are part of the global community, and we have a responsibility and an opportunity to do our part to help feed the world. In your lifetime, that’s going to be one of the major challenges facing society,” Kennelly said.

The budget reduction represents a 10 per cent cut to Agriculture Canada’s funding. Further details of the budget cut will be released in May, giving producers a better idea of its impact.

“Just to put it in perspective,” Kennelly said, “Agriculture Canada accounts for something between 30 and 40 per cent of all the agricultural research in the country. Of course, any cut to that national effort is bound to impact agricultural research across the country.”

These cuts come at a time when world leaders in agriculture need to look towards increasing food production to feed a world population that will possibly increase by billions in the next 50 years, Kennelly said.

“That’s a huge challenge — to actually meet the needs of that number of people so that there is food, and at the same time to actually reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture.”

That makes it a doubly difficult accomplishment, Kennelly said, when it’s not just about increasing the food supply, but also about paying attention to the environmental footprint of agriculture.

Kennelly said he hopes the federal government will recognize the importance of research advancements in meeting this challenge, especially in terms of food security.

“Canada has an opportunity to actually grow the economy by increasing its ability to produce food, and at the same time, do a good thing by helping those countries that are not self-sufficient at the present time to meet their food requirements,” Kennelly said.

The challenge of feeding the world and developing more sustainable practices, Kennelly argues, provides promise to young people looking to get involved in all aspects of agriculture in order to position Canada as a global leader in agriculture.

“It’s a very exciting time for people that are in agriculture and food, because it’s going to be one of the great challenges that we face over the next half century in how to feed that growing world population,” Kennelly said.

“For people who aspire to make a difference in life, there is no better place to do it than to get involved in some aspect of agriculture.”

Patrick Girard, media relations for AAFC, said they have already started to work on implementing the measures outlined in this year’s budget.

“AAFC is focusing on changes that will continue to drive the future prosperity of our farmers and the agriculture industry,” Girard said.

He added that many changes will improve the way AAFC works, making it easier for farmers and industry to do business with the government and in the marketplace, although he did not specify how.

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Opinion

Natalie Serafini — The Other Press (Douglas College)

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CUP) — As a feminist, I field many awkward questions: “Do you shave your legs?”; “Are you a lesbian?”; “Why are you a feminist — isn’t it over?”

I ignore some questions, but the American birth control controversy is a prime example of why feminism is relevant. The Obama administration has proposed making birth control accessible to all women by having it covered by healthcare companies. So if you’re an employer providing healthcare, contraception must be a part of that care at no extra cost to women. Despite the popularity of this proposal (even 61 per cent of Catholics who were polled in February said they were in favour of it), there has been a huge backlash, with some people saying it’s ridiculous.

Well, it isn’t ridiculous, and I’m going to tell you why.

Contraception is incredibly important for women who want to choose if and when they have children. I’m 18 years old, and I don’t want kids for at least another decade. I imagine other women — even if they want kids sooner — probably want to make that decision for themselves. And let's be honest: the choices available to pregnant women are pretty limited: keep the baby, give the baby up, or abort. Women who have access to birth control are less likely to find themselves in the position of having to make such a difficult and painful decision. They’ll be able to put off having kids until they’re ready.

Contraceptives can also be necessary for health. Sandra Fluke, a law student from Georgetown University in Washington D.C., has been active in this controversy, talking about a friend who needed contraception to prevent cysts from growing on her ovaries because she had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). The woman was unable to get contraceptives because of problems with the insurance, and she actually lost an ovary. If health issues can be resolved simply through access to birth control, it’s clear that contraceptives should be available to women. Did you know that some healthcare companies cover the costs of erectile dysfunction (ED) medication? As far as I know, the consequences of limited access to Viagra aren’t as long-term or potentially devastating as limited birth control. ED is kind of a small matter compared to PCOS.

I’ve also heard that feminists are “hypocritical” for wanting birth control and wanting the government to stay out of women’s uteruses. Birth control lets women choose if and when they have children. The requests that government stay out of their uteruses — and not dictate decisions related to women’s bodies — also let women make their own choices. I don’t see any hypocrisy in these appeals for autonomy.

And then there’s conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, who made headlines for calling Fluke a “slut” and saying, “[i]f we’re gonna pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex ... we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” Limbaugh has also made headlines for being stopped returning from the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra. June Carbone argues in The Huffington Post that, thanks to the intricacies of the uninsured subsidizing the insured in America, taxpayers may well be paying for that Viagra. I would say, “Hey Rush, since taxpayers are paying for your Viagra, and thus paying for you to have sex, how about you post the videos online so we can all watch,” but I don’t want to sink to his level — also, I’m afraid he would take me up on the suggestion.

You might think that contraceptives aren’t that expensive, but according to Fluke, contraceptives could cost as much as $3,000 over the course of university enrolment without coverage. Foster Friess’s suggestion that women use Bayer aspirin — apparently back in his day, “the gals put it between their knees” — while inexpensive, isn’t exactly a viable option.

You might think taxpayers shouldn’t pay for contraceptives, but as Carbone writes, “[s]ince the Obama administration decision was based on a calculation that this would result in lower healthcare costs overall, it would not raise the premiums paid to insurance companies ... It is infinitely less expensive to fund contraceptive services than to pay for pregnancy and childbirth — or avoidable hysterectomies.” There you go! The birth control reform actually saves money!

I don’t really mind the questions as to whether I’m a man-hatin’, hairy-legged Femi-Nazi — honestly, they just make me laugh. What I’m not fond of is the idea that feminism is no longer relevant, especially with regards to this controversy. Birth control is a means of adding control to women’s lives. Even if you’re against contraceptives for yourself, hopefully you recognize how important this healthcare proposal is.

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News

Henry Gass — The McGill Daily (McGill University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Quebec Minister of Education Line Beauchamp unveiled a new student aid plan last Thursday morning, aimed at appeasing the almost 180,000 students currently on strike across the province.

Since the proposal does not address the government’s planned five-year $1,625 increase in tuition fees, however, some student associations believe the offer is unlikely to end the strike. The strike has been ongoing for over six weeks.

Students' Society of McGill University vice-president external Joël Pedneault said student associations in Quebec have laid “a pretty clear groundwork” for negotiations with the government — that the government agree to freeze tuition fees, if not eliminate them entirely.

“That whole spectrum of possibilities has just been excluded by the government,” said Pedneault.

“The sense that I’m getting from student organizations in Quebec is that this is not an interesting offer,” he continued.

The government’s new plan would extend student bursaries and allow students with an annual family income over $60,000 to borrow under the aid program.

Pedneault said the proposal “in absolute terms isn’t a bad thing, but I would hesitate to even call the proposal the government made this morning a step forward.”

“It will allow more people to be in debt, but that’s precisely what people are concerned about right now when talking about the tuition increase,” said Pedneault.

The plan also calls for the repayment of student loans proportionate to the income of graduates.

Pedneault said the second proposal has been floated in the past.

“People have been preparing for this eventuality for years at this point, and many student associations have positions specifically against what the government just proposed,” he said.

The changes in student aid would cost a reported $21 million over five years, with the money coming from provincial grants to Quebec universities.

The planned tuition increases would almost double Quebec fees, but they would still remain below the Canadian average.

Beauchamp told reporters in Quebec City on April 5 that the plan would be “a gain for many students and their families,” according to the Montreal Gazette.

“The government of Quebec is firm and convinced that students should pay their fair share,” Beauchamp told reporters.

“The debate now is in the student community,” she continued.

Pedneault said that he hoped the student movement continues to demand reforms that “actually concretely reduce the debt loads that students face.”

“The gap between demands of many student associations and what the government offered this morning is still very, very big,” continued Pedneault. “The strength of the current movement is that it’s very impervious to this kind of semi-offer.”

Pedneault predicted a new offer from the government could be forthcoming. According to Pedneault, if student strikes at CEGEPs continue to this week, the government will have to reopen collective agreements with professors in light of a possible extended or cancelled semester. The current collective agreement allows CEGEP professors two months’ vacation during the summer, according to Pedneault.

Reworking those agreements would “be a massive jigsaw puzzle,” said Pedneault.

“So the government better make another type of offer very soon, since I don’t see many student associations budging from what was offered,” he added.

Read the original story here.

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Sports

David Murphy — The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Hockey Renaissance woman and former Concordia Stinger Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux lapped a life goal last month, winning the Clarkson Cup — for a third time.

The competition, however, wouldn’t have even come into fruition without Breton-Lebreux, who played a leading role in the development the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL).

Captain of the Montreal Stars, Breton-Lebreux and her CWHL team went undefeated in the Clarkson Cup — the Stanley Cup of women’s hockey — winning it for the third time in four years.

“We knew it was going to be physical and tough, we got the better of [them],” said Breton-Lebreux, listing off significant plays in the game with uncanny accuracy. Her voice rises in excitement when she talks about the final, where her team overtook the Brampton Hockey Club 4-2.

“We were just on our game that day,” said the 34-year-old.

It’s arguable, however, that she’s never really off it.

Breton-Lebreux has a hockey curriculum vitae that would make Montreal Canadiens captain Brian Gionta jealous. She started off making the under-18 Quebec provincial team at the age of 15, and would regularly play at Concordia’s rink for tournaments in the early-to-mid ‘90s.

“It was during Concordia’s glory days and I said to myself, ‘Wow … one day I’m going to be the captain of the Stingers,’ and that became my goal.”

It was a goal she completed in style. Breton-Lebreux was captain of the Stingers and went on to win two national championships with Concordia under current long-reigning head coach Les Lawton. In 2001 she also won a slew of awards, including a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) All-Canadian award.

“She came [to Concordia] and had trouble conversing in English,” said Lawton. Breton-Lebreux, who’s from the small town of Saint-Zacharie, QC, overcame that speed bump, and culminated by graduating with a sociology degree.

“She’s a very dedicated athlete — not only athletically, though, but academically too. She was probably one of the hardest working athletes I’ve coached,” said Lawton.

But overcoming obstacles and completing goals is a constant theme Breton-Lebreux’s life.

Part of Canada’s B-team in 1998, a team that practiced against the women who went on to earn silver at the Nagano Olympics, she was eventually dropped from the national squad after graduation.

“I was always among the top ten scorers in leagues, but never got to make it [to Team Canada],” said Breton-Lebreux wistfully. “My dream was always to compete at a national team level.

“The year Team Canada released me, I kind of lost hope that I would have that chance.”

But while Breton-Lebreux came close to abandoning her dream of representing Canada, she eventually did receive a call to play hockey for Canada — just not on ice. In 2006, the Canadian Women’s Roller Hockey team invited her to play in the World Championships. She won there, too.

And after completing this goal there was only one more thing to do, which was to win the National Women’s Hockey League championship again, which she did, also in 2006, scoring the game-winning goal for the now defunct Montreal Axion.

The sticks she played with during those games now lie in Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame, but despite that honour, Breton-Lebreux was soon faced with a pressing issue — one season later, she didn’t have a league to play in anymore, as the NWHL collapsed in 2007. Teams were losing up to $150,000 a year, and there was little to no structure — rookies could join whichever team they wanted, and there was no balance in pay. Some players didn’t get paid at all, as stadiums remained, for the most part, empty.

That’s when the entrepreneur in Breton-Lebreux woke up. The only other option to play regular hockey at a competitive level was to go west, which wasn’t a possibility for many. With guidance from six other players, two from Team Canada, a new league emerged — the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

“In 2007 we had a tough year, it was really a bit stressful,” she said.

Breton-Lebreux had to do everything — she was a league co-founder, general manager of the Montreal Stars (one of the seven new teams), as well as a player and the captain, too — like a super-charged version of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Mario Lemieux, who returned from retirement in 2000 after becoming the team’s owner and played for five seasons as a player/owner.

“Some games, we would be like, ‘Do we have enough pucks for warm-up? Is there a DJ to play songs during the game and intermission?’” said Breton-Lebreux, who decided to start working at Concordia’s Le Gym at the same time.

“It grew, as well as my work … everything was just growing, both on and off the ice for me.”

The league has made strides over the last five years thanks to guidance from National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman and the creation of three new teams. Social media’s helped, too, leading the way for more advertisement opportunities and even spots on sports networks — this year’s Clarkson Cup was played on TSN.

“What we’ve improved the most is the level of play has gone up big-time. [If you watch] clips on TV, the passing, the nice plays, it’s fast. … We have offensive talent that we’ve never seen before,” said Breton-Lebreux.

“This year for first time we had a league banquet. Last year we just had a soiree, nothing much. Now it’s a red carpet banquet. [We had] steaks and crab to eat. [It] sounds like [we’re] celebrities.”

Breton-Lebreux is now Concordia’s strength and conditioning coach, guiding players from a range of sports to accomplish goals she sets from day one of training, something she’s been doing for herself for decades.

“I think she’s a big part of the department, not only women’s hockey but she’s training the bigger and best athletes,” said Lawton. “Working with some of the top female hockey players in the country, she brings that to our team.”

One of those players is Catherine Rancourt, a right-winger on the Stingers women’s hockey team. She’s a grinder, just like Breton-Lebreux, but she also put up a team-leading 11 points this season.

“We had a special relationship. She sees herself in me, I think,” said Rancourt. “She was pushing me a lot. I was always listening to what she was saying.”

“And [she] corrects you if you do something wrong, and just makes you want to do better,” teammate Maggie McNeil interjected. “It’s never personal, because [she’s] doing it to make you better.”

“Seeing her achieve something like [winning the Clarkson Cup] also makes me want to achieve something like this, but maybe not just on the ice.”

Winning the Cup certainly has off-ice advantages. The Montreal Stars have been named the Personalité de la semaine by La Presse, joining a list that includes names like the Montreal Alouettes’ Anthony Calvillo, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villeneuve and Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo.

“Because of the league, I’ve been able to do things,” said Breton-Lebreux. She’s been invited to press conferences at the Bell Centre, met several Montreal mayors over the years and she has the opportunity to host an annual breast cancer awareness fundraiser on behalf of the CWHL.

“I’m blessed to have my teammates beside me through rough times and good times. That’s why we’ve been successful.”

Read the original article here.

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Opinion

Megan Gibson — Nexus (Camosun College)

VICTORIA (CUP) — A lot of drivers have this narcissistic notion that they are the best motorists in the world. It’s as if they believe Jeff Gordon taught them to drive, when, realistically, most drivers behave as if they’ve ingested Charlie Sheen’s tiger blood.

Worse yet, some of these same people text behind the wheel, when the vehicle’s actually in motion. It really ought to be illegal to text and drive. Oh, wait: it is. Well, it's illegal everywhere in Canada except Nunavut, anyway. There’s even a penalty of sorts: in B.C. it's a measly fine of $167 and a three-point penalty.

According to the B.C. government, from February 2010 to September 2011, 47,000 drivers were caught with a mobile device in one hand and a steering wheel in the other. Of those caught, 1,300 were texting. Clearly, many drivers still don’t understand the severe impact that texting while driving can have.

In 2010, distracted driving was a contributing factor in 104 collision fatalities in B.C., according to the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA).

More recently, in Quebec, a young woman drove into the back of a truck while texting with her fiancé. She’s dead now.

Imagine how awful her fiancé feels. Imagine if she had taken more lives than just her own. He’d feel even worse.

Sadly, many people who hear this story won't heed its warning and will continue to text and drive. But people would be much less likely to ignore the laws if the fines were heftier.

Better still, why not prevent texting while driving from happening in the first place? Car manufacturers could work to create a mechanism, a mobile deactivator that turns off cell phones as soon as the ignition is started.

And that’s what society has come to: drivers need to be treated like children so they will behave and obey the rules. Misbehave and toys start being taken away. Continue to misbehave and privileges will be revoked. Misbehave again, well, there’s a nice 10 by 10 cell where a lengthy timeout could be served.

Maybe drivers would understand the stupidity of texting while driving if they had to spend time in jail with a seven-foot tall skinhead named Hanz.

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News

Henry Gass — The McGill Daily (McGill University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — You know it has been a difficult year for the McGill Medical Students’ Society (MSS) and its president Esli Osmanlliu when the MUNACA strike wasn’t the most trying strike of the academic year.

“It’s been a quite challenging year for me and the students in general,” said Osmanlliu.

The oldest student society at McGill — it has existed, in various forms, since 1859 — the MSS entered the academic year in the shadow of a potential strike by Quebec medical residents. With the Fédération des médecins résidents du Québec (FMRQ) demanding wage parity with residents in other provinces and a reduction in the length of on-call shifts, Osmanlliu and the MSS were left with little time to take a formal position.

“[The strike] was quite important in terms of the educational impact it had on clerks,” students in their last two years of pre-med, said Osmanlliu.

“Residents have a crucial role as teachers in the hospital setting,” he continued. “It’s a four-year program — you can’t afford to lose your rotation. You might never again have exposure to that specialty.”

The FMRQ strike lasted only a few hours. The MUNACA strike, however, would have a longer and more severe impact on the MSS. Osmanlliu said the MUNACA strike “was hard on different levels.”

“Very basic stuff like booking a room for a conference or a meeting, all this took much more time, and the people with whom you’re used to interacting suddenly changed,” he continued.

Osmanlliu helped the MSS form a committee tasked with informing students of the impacts of the strike and advocating for its cessation.

Outside of these unique disruptions, Osmanlliu had to further contend with the perennial MSS issues of underexposure and membership workload. He described the undergraduate medicine curriculum as “pretty dense,” and something that can often make it difficult for MSS members to get involved in the greater McGill community.

“[The workload] makes it harder to reconcile everyone’s agendas and everyone’s schedules,” said Osmanlliu, who himself has to balance his duties as MSS president with his coursework and hospital shifts.

Osmanlliu said he has been trying to involve the MSS more in the McGill and Montreal community primarily through supporting student projects. To this end, Osmanlliu started the Community Involvement Program — comprised of 38 student-led groups and clubs — to support students institutionally and financially consolidating projects.

“This year we’re really making a push to facilitate student projects which go a bit more in the sense of community outreach,” he said.

Osmanlliu said the MSS was also pushing for more inter-professional and inter-disciplinary projects involving other McGill faculties as a means of outreach.

“You really realize once you enter the clinical world it’s all about inter-disciplinary teamwork,” he said.

Osmanlliu has also taken steps towards improving MSS governance. The MSS has created a roundtable for student clubs to solicit feedback, and has created the Committee for Strategic Planning and Community Involvement, a 14-member committee with representation from all four undergraduate years. The committee is empowered to make budgetary and political decisions.

“[With] student societies, one of the biggest problems is the very high, very fast turnover rate, so trying to overcome that and making sure that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every semester, we put forward this committee,” said Osmanlliu.

The MSS has been quiet politically this year, with the exception of a March 20 strike General Assembly (GA). More than 25 per cent of MSS members attended the GA, according to Osmanlliu. The vote for a one-day strike for the March 22 provincial day of action failed.

“I think students felt that student democracy won that night, and people realized that the MSS is there to represent everyone, and it’s very positive for a student society — the outcome of that GA,” he said.

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News

April Hudson — The Gateway (University of Alberta)

EDMONTON (CUP) — It started with a note, carelessly left on a bench on campus — or so it seemed.

It was an enigma that piqued the interest of passing students and urged them to visit a certain website. Posters appeared in the weeks that followed, tacked up in buildings all around campus. Loose notes fluttered from seat to seat, all bearing the same cryptic message: “Are you single?”

It turns out the answer is yes — hundreds of students are single and ready to mingle on Connections on Campus, a dating website exclusive to the University of Alberta community.

Website creator Tyler Lazar said the website was originally supposed to be a reading week project. Having read numerous flirtatious messages in The Gateway’s Three Lines Free and getting a general awareness of the dating scene on campus, Lazar realized there would be a market for a dating website.

“I see a lot of people writing, ‘Oh, I wanted to talk to you, but I was too shy,’” Lazar said. “It just kind of came together.”

The second-year engineering physics student said the website doesn’t necessarily provide a solution to students’ dating woes. Rather, it offers an alternative way of meeting people that might work better for some students.

“After the idea occurred to me, I did some Googling and found that there are already a few college dating sites in the U.S. that each operate at several universities across the country. I figured, why not here?” Lazar said.

But the main difference between those websites and Connections on Campus is that his site only allows student with a U of A email to register, filtering out any unwanted users, Lazar said.

The site was originally called “U of A Connections,” but Lazar said he had to change the name for copyright reason.

Although Connections on Campus is the first website Lazar has started from scratch, it’s already attracted 450 active members, a number that he expects will grow significantly in the future.

“I’ve decided to keep a low profile, and until recently, only a couple close friends have known it’s me behind this site,” Lazar said.

Lazar said he’s never used a dating website before, and doesn’t plan on making a profile of his own either.

“I think making a profile on my own dating site would feel kind of wrong, you know?” he said.

Some of the future features Lazar intends to improve include multiple profile pictures, and a live-chat system, as well as advertisements.

“Basically, my goal is [that] I would like to monetize the website by putting advertisements on it eventually, if I could get enough traffic,” Lazar said. “Based on how much I’m getting right now, I could probably get a couple hundred bucks a month, but I’m just going to wait until summer before I worry about that.”

Students can access the website at connectionsoncampus.net.

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News

Daryl Hofmann — The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan)

SASKATOON (CUP) — After toiling away on a research paper, it can be disheartening to have it simply graded and handed back.

A group of 12 students at the University of Saskatchewan understand that frustration and have laid the groundwork for an undergraduate research journal for the university. The journal will allow students to have their research published and peer-reviewed.

The Research Learning Community (RLC), which includes students from a variety of colleges, has met weekly throughout the year to investigate the feasibility of an on-campus undergraduate publication.

They submitted their 10-page proposal to U of S associate vice-president of research Jim Basinger last week.

Sarah Marcoux, a fourth-year rural and urban design major and co-author of the proposal, said undergraduate students are realizing the importance of thorough research and looking for a way to go beyond conventional coursework.

“Research gives you the opportunity to examine everything you’ve learned, pick out what’s relevant, seek out missing knowledge and apply it in meaningful ways based on your own curiosity,” Marcoux said.

The proposal includes plans for the appointment of a full editorial board, consisting of an editor-in-chief, a team of senior editors, a layout manager and a marketing manager.

A website would be launched to accept and publish articles. And a list of graduate students and professors who are willing to associate themselves with the peer-review process would be compiled.

Submissions would be “completely open” to all undergraduates on campus, Marcoux said.

The RLC is asking administration for monthly office space, two computers, furniture, online server space and one paid staff member.

Basinger, who accepted the RLC’s proposal March 28, said the university is continually looking at ways to enhance students’ research experiences. Although the university had not previously considered starting an undergraduate journal, he said it “fits in” with the school’s recent research initiatives outlined in the Third Integrated Plan.

Basinger said the RLC must now flesh out the proposal, essentially creating a full business plan detailing how to secure resources and how to put the journal into practice.

He said finding the resources to pay one full-time staff member will be the most important financial commitment.

“You need one person that can provide continuity year after year, and also provide the hands-on work that is required to receive papers, ensure they are processed properly and then assembled into the journal’s style,” Basinger said.

Basinger said the success of the journal will rely on the contributions made by both the RLC and the university over the summer. He will refine the proposal and consider taking it to senior administration for funding in the coming months.

“It’s really important that this not just sit on the desk somewhere. It’s key that there are people continuing to work and push this forward,” he said. “I’m not making any promises. But I feel this is a good opportunity and I would hope we are able to pull something together. This is a pretty exciting plan.”

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Arts

Rebecca Ugolini — The Concordian (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — “What people need to understand is that our protest is about taking to the streets, learning about education in the streets, and discussing the future of our Quebec universities,” said professor Anna Kruzynski of Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs during her speech at the university's Zombie Walk/Strike Open-Mic on March 21.

As I listened to the various speakers — students, activists, professors — speak to the crowd that had amassed in front of Concordia's Hall building, and as I spoke to people and photographed their signs and protest materials, it became clear to me that the tuition hike issue is also an arts community issue.

“Universities are following the corporate model of management, turning our education into a business venture, a product in a retail store,” Kruzynski said, “and that means that private funding for research will likely go to [the sciences],” leaving arts programs underfunded.

Although I won’t get into my own views on the strike here — there isn’t enough space or time — I’d like to talk about the art projects, body-painting, and protest signage that students have created in response to the tuition hike issue.

From the elegant to the wacky, and all the way to zombies, the art related to the strike sends a vibrant and powerful message: that art is important and worth funding, a vital part of personal response, and a highly-visible medium for expressing dissent.

1) POP ART: Some of my favourite signs put a new twist on an old work of art, such as a “Non à la marchandisation” poster which rebranded Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Condensed Soup piece as “Education Soup,” alluding to the pre-packaged and “canned” education that protesters like Kruzynski attribute to “corporate-model universities.” Also spotted: A Mona Lisa with the caption: “Le secret de son sourire? L’éducation accessible!”

2) PAINT ON: Improvised studios took shape along the de Maisonneuve Boulevard pavement, showcasing the widespread use of red as the strike’s colour of choice. The sight of students painting one another in anticipation of that day’s zombie walk highlighted the collaborative effort of the strike project.

3) PORTRAIT GALLERY: I spotted Hannah, an English major at Concordia, in front of the Hall building sketching students who posed for her impromptu exhibit entitled Portraits for Strikers. The dignified and simple portraits illustrate that artistic response is varied both in subject matter and in form, and that non-visual arts students also feel creatively compelled to participate in the strike.

4) PAINTED FACES: What was all that painting for? Student Lea shows off her zombie makeup, complete with dark under-eye circles, a bloody mouth, and a dress smeared with black paint and plastered with protest slogans. The zombie march organized by fine arts students was definitely one of the most creative elements of the protest against tuition increases.

5) PURL’N’KNIT: As a lover of knitting, I couldn’t help but notice two female students sitting a little aside of the main action, knitting and crocheting away. Weaving and Time, a project proposed by Katrina Habrich, Hope Phillips and Katherine Spooner-Lockyer, plays on the work of fibre arts in joining and weaving together to symbolize the unity of students during the strike and protest period. The best part? The girls plan to create a huge sweater that can only be worn by several students at once — not that the protesters will need it with the weather we’ve been having.

6) POPULAR POETRY: English department students held a poetry reading/open-mic on the corner of Mackay Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard, reading both from personal poems and from personal favourites. Two students held up a banner that read: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire,” quoting William Butler Yeats.

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Science & Technology

Tim O'Brien — The Muse (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

ST JOHN'S (CUP) — Decline in moose numbers

Newfoundland’s moose population has dropped to approximately 115,000 from 1997 levels of 150,000, according to the province’s environment minister.

Environment minister Terry French recently made the public announcement regarding the decline of the moose population, stating that the drop is attributed to the number of hunting licenses in Newfoundland.

French says that the government has increased the harvest numbers significantly in the past couple of years, stating that the increase is between 6,000 and 7,000 animals.

However, he maintains that the population is still healthy, even though the harvest has taken a toll on the population.

The decline in numbers has prompted the provincial government to start a five-year moose management plan to begin in 2013.

More teens, young adults using condoms

A new Statistics Canada report says that condom use is increasing among teens and young adults, but that a significant amount of the population are still not using protection.

The recent study by the agency’s Canadian Community Health Survey found that 68 per cent of sexually active Canadians aged 15 to 24 reported using condoms in 2009–10, showing a six per cent rise since 2003.

Although 80 per cent of teens aged 15 to 18 reported using condoms, only 63 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 reported condom usage.

The report also shows that provinces and territories above the national average include Ontario and Alberta (both 73 per cent), the Northwest Territories (78 per cent), and Nunavut (79 per cent). Quebec and Manitoba fell below the national average at 60 and 65 per cent, respectively.

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Sports

Nick Murray — The Brunswickan (University of New Brunswick)

FREDERICTON (CUP) — After a great weekend of Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) hockey, teams are back home crunching down for the final stretch of the academic year.

Over the championship weekend, there was triumph, heartbreak and upset, but a national championship wouldn’t be a true tournament without some form of debate.

One of the many hot topics around the University of New Brunswick's Aitken Centre was about the format of the tournament.

As it stands now, the current format makes every game essentially a must-win. If you lose your first, but win your second like the Moncton Aigles Bleus did, you’re forced to watch from the stands as your tournament fate unfolds on the ice before you, and ultimately the winner of the pool is based on goal differential if there is a tie.

Many coaches, players, and delegates who were asked about the format during the tournament agreed it was too short and more games need to be added to the schedule.

However, the other side to the argument is that the premise of the CIS is academics come first, and if more games are added, then athletes will be missing more classes.

Talking with various players around the tournament, many of them felt as though more games needed to be added.

Western Mustangs goaltender Josh Unice said he’d like to see more games over the weekend which he thinks would create a better atmosphere for fans, and feels as though his academics wouldn’t be affected by a longer tournament.

“Instead of it being more of a round-robin tournament, maybe eliminate the bottom team of each pool and have a crossover game,” he said. “Teachers [at Western] do a great job of sending out notes and keeping us prepared on what we missed, so I don’t think that the length of the tournament would affect us student-athletes as much as they say.”

This year, the Saskatchewan Huskies left for the tournament Monday morning and therefore missed a full week’s worth of classes. It’s understandable why they left that early considering they crossed over two time zones. However, the Western Mustangs also left Monday to have three days to prepare for the tournament, despite only crossing one time zone.

Huskies captain Kyle Ross was one player who said the format was fine for his team.

“I don’t mind the format actually,” Ross said. “It’s pretty much do or die. You have to come in and win right away. If you don’t, you’re in big trouble. If our country was smaller and the travel wasn’t as bad for some teams, then maybe you could have more games.”

Huskies head coach Dave Adolph felt differently than his captain and argued that most teams are missing a full week of classes anyway; therefore, adding more games makes sense.

“Most teams arrive Monday or Tuesday anyway,” Adolph said. “So we’ve always argued that the kids are going to sacrifice five days of school for a chance to win a national championship. So why not extend it and allow everybody to have a round-robin format.”

Adolph also gave credit to the “student” aspect of his players and said they prepare themselves accordingly in the classroom before the tournament.

“Let’s not forget that school’s over in a week,” Adolph added. “Most of these guys have planned ahead, their assignments are done, their midterms are taken care of, and really what they’re missing is the preparation time for their finals, and in a lot of cases exams don’t start until [the first week of April].”

McGill’s Marc-André Dorion, who was named as a CIS top-eight Academic All-Canadian, also shared Adolph’s view with regards to starting the tournament a few days earlier.

“If they started the tournament a day or two earlier we could deal with that [as students],” Dorion said. “I think we could deal with it because one or two days won’t make a big difference on our studies and the format is pretty short already. If you don’t win your first game, your chances of making it to the finals are pretty slim, so hopefully one day it will change.”

When asked about his view on the tournament, McGill head coach Kelly Nobes said with the resources available to his players, they wouldn’t be affected as students.

“You learn to play within that format,” Nobes said. “There’s certain constraints with these guys being student-athletes, but our guys make adjustments to their schedules and get a lot of lectures online. So I don’t think [one or two days out of the classroom] would be that big of a deal.”

UQTR veteran Maxime Lévesque, who already competed in one University Cup two years ago, feels from a hockey standpoint an extra game or two is needed, but from an academic standpoint the format is fine.

“I think the current format is consistent with the way that the CIS playoffs work,” Lévesque said (translated from French).

“However I think that an extra game would be appreciated by the players because if we lose our first game, it’s very hard to make the finals. I also think the format is good for academic purposes, but if they added an extra day we’d be fine in the classroom and it would be well worth it.”

Aside from the academic concerns of extending the length of the tournament, UNB athletic director John Richard argued the financial repercussions of extending the tournament must also be taken into account.

“Adding more competition days also adds more travel days,” Richard said. “It’s not cheap to send 40 people on the road, so you have to make the most of the time you do have.”

Finally, the CIS’ response to the discussion on format change is an optimistic one. CIS president Leo MacPherson said the current format is complicated for everyone and having a simplified round-robin format is feasible, and is something that is currently being reviewed by the CIS.

“I don’t think that the current format is really ‘fan friendly,’” MacPherson said. “I think it will add more credibility when we have something that’s simple for the average fan to understand. Right now we even have administrators that are asking ‘what’s the tie-breaking process’ and we need to avoid that.”

Regarding the issue of pulling the athletes out of the classroom, MacPherson said the “rule of thumb” for teams travelling is that for every hour of time zone change, teams need one day to recover; and in cases like Saskatchewan or teams from British Columbia, the players will be missing a full week of classes, regardless.

If the tournament were to be moved up a few days, where teams would arrive Friday or Saturday — essentially missing the same number of classes, as they are now — the problem still remains the financial strain on the schools.

“If we moved the tournament up a few days, that would solve the academic problem,” MacPherson said. “However it’s the additional costs that then becomes the problem. There is a balance to be achieved here, and keeping it simple for the participants and fans is key.”

MacPherson said he’s confident a new format is on the horizon, and the proposal for the new format is similar to what Unice described.

“What the coaches would like to see is two pools of three where you play the other teams in your pool, and then you cross over with the other pool. This way you get legitimate semi-final games and we would add at least a day to the tournament, perhaps two.”

Though the proposed format may not be implemented until after 2014, mainly because Saskatchewan placed its bid under the current format, MacPherson said a change is likely to happen.

“I think that if it’s a day extra, what you gain offsets the additional costs,” he added. “I’m optimistic that it can change and that it will change.”

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News

Corey Pool — The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Approximately 50 people were arrested following a demonstration that began early in the morning at Square Victoria and weaved its way through downtown Montreal on April 4.

Among those arrested was Concordia University Television Program director and cameraman Laith Marouf, who along with two other reporters was live-streaming the action.

“The demonstration was basically finished,” says Sabine Freisinger, CSBC reporter and former CSU president. “Riot police then circled the demonstrators, and we were there trying to film.”

According to Freisinger, police became aggressive, hitting demonstrators with batons and using pepper spray on the crowd.

“We were filming all of this and saying that we were live — that’s when they grabbed our cameraman, Laith,” said Freisinger. “We were doing our jobs as journalists.”

“They didn’t want people to see live what the police are doing in the streets of Montreal against students.”

There have been several reports of excessive violence used by police during this demonstration. One McGill student is currently hospitalized at L’Hôpital Notre-Dame after reportedly being struck by riot police.

After leaving Square Victoria, the demonstration entered both the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the Eaton Centre. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal reported that pyrotechnic devices were used at both locations.

The demonstration then took to McGill Metro and resurfaced at St. Laurent Metro, where police and riot police using the kettle tactic began breaking up the group and making arrests.

As of 1:30 p.m. some of those arrested had started to be released.

Check out video coverage from CUTV below, and read more coverage from the Link here.

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News

Joel Ashak — The Concordian (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — If the Quebec government hoped to see the student movement against tuition hikes lose momentum with the end of the academic year, student leaders say they should think again.

Despite the Quebec Liberals’ attempts to appease the student protesters with first signs of interest in negotiating and promises of bursary bonifications, the government is currently taking increasing heat from businesses, universities and citizens, being urged to quickly find a solution to the ongoing stalemate.

Two weeks ago, the head of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec warned that an extension of the winter semester would have repercussions on the number of students filling summer jobs, and would result in a serious blow to the province’s tourism and economy. Last week, the rector of the Université du Québec à Rimouski also urged Minister of Education Line Beauchamp to re-establish a dialogue with students and proposed to name a mediator.

“In this context of pre-elections, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the Charest government to maintain their position [in favour of tuition hikes],” said Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec president Martine Desjardins. “The government is expecting the movement to lose steam, but what we see is an increasing number of strike votes and an intensification of the movement.”

At Concordia, despite a one-week general strike and sporadic disruptions of classes and exams, the movement led by the Concordia Student Union will likely have no effect on the university’s academic calendar. Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said the movement was not disruptive enough to make the university consider an extension of the winter semester.

In other universities, however, administrations are forced to adjust their schedules due to as much as eight weeks of general strikes in some cases. UQÀR, Université du Québéc à Montréal and Université de Montréal are looking into extending the winter semester by at least a month and are hoping for a return to classes by April 16.

“Cancelling a semester would have disastrous economic consequences for universities and CÉGEPS,” said Desjardins. “It would mean having double the number of students next year, double the amount of professors and double the entire costs.”

Many departments in these universities have voted for an unlimited strike until their demands are met or until their student union puts an end to the movement. Added to that, the major student associations are informally respecting an agreement of non-denunciation and non-negotiation, where associations cannot question the legitimacy of other student groups’ actions, nor can they initiate negotiations with the government without the presence of all the major associations. The return to classes will likely depend on the government’s decision to negotiate with students.

For Desjardins, the threat formulated by Beauchamp warning students of academic consequences after the massive March 22 protest only proved the Liberal government had its back against the wall.

Beauchamp opened the window for negotiations for the first time last week saying she was ready to talk about improving the loans and bursaries program, but was adamant in her refusal to contemplate a tuition freeze.

“I cannot sit down at a table with students and discuss the topic of ‘to whom are we passing the bill to,’” Beauchamp told La Presse.

Although Desjardins praised Beauchamp’s effort to initiate negotiations, she said raising conditions for the talk was a bad start.

Desjardins also said that student mobilization against tuition hikes will continue to grow and actions will continue to be organized week after week, depending on the context and government responses.

“So far, it doesn’t look like we are stopping anytime soon,” she said.

At Concordia, there are still no signs of a petition that would initiate a third general assembly in order to vote for a continuation of the strike among undergraduate students. Concordia Student Union vice-president external Chad Walcott said that even if a GA was to be held by the CSU, “it would be very difficult [in the context of the end of the semester] to mobilize enough people in time in order to meet quorum.” However, Walcott said that the CSU would still participate in other organizations’ movements and said the union was ready to provide the necessary resources to students who “are keeping the movement alive.”

The major actions planned by student organizations so far are a protest in Premier Jean Charest’s Sherbrooke riding on April 4 and an outdoor show in downtown Montreal on April 5.

Information about future actions will be posted on the FEUQ’s, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec’s and the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante’s websites.

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News

Shane Magee — The Aquinian (St. Thomas University)

FREDERICTON (CUP) — The expected budget-day bomb was a dud.

Student leaders had feared cuts to university funding and tuition increases before the 2012–13 New Brunswick budget was released last week.

But the budget gave almost no indication of government plans.

The only thing confirmed is that universities will be able to increase tuition for Canadian students by $175 next year.

The lack of detail surprised student representatives.

The department of post-secondary education has been reviewing student financial aid programs this year.

Mark Livingstone, president of the St. Thomas University students’ union, said the department was falling behind in its review but didn’t expect such a lacklustre budget.

After reviewing it, Livingstone went back through the records.

“This budget was the first time in about 10 years that students were not mentioned,” he said.

The department of post-secondary education offered little explanation.

Joey O’Kane was also unhappy.

“I’m disappointed with the government falling behind,” said O’Kane, president of the New Brunswick Student Alliance. NBSA is a provincial post-secondary lobbying group representing nearly 16,000 students.

“It is disappointing — they did miss an opportunity to invest in students.”

Marie-Josee Groulx said there is “no reason in particular” why PSE is not in the budget or in the speech delivered by the finance minister last week.

Groulx, spokeswoman for the Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour department, said students will have to wait a few more weeks.

“There is good news for students that is going to be coming in the next few weeks,” she said.

She couldn’t offer any specifics, just that it’s about changes to financial aid programs. She said it will also provide things student leaders like O’Kane have asked for in meetings with the government.

“There will be a lot of details when the minister does her budgetary estimates sometime this spring,” said Groulx.

But that doesn’t satisfy O’Kane.

“It is unacceptable if they release the budget while students are away for summer vacation,” he said.

St. Thomas University is also in the dark about changes and that has left the university’s budget for next year unfinished.

“We were surprised not to see any specific mention in the budget documents, as far as I’m aware of, of students,” said STU spokesman Jeffrey Carleton.

“We’re waiting just like students to find out what changes.”

He said the university has an idea how many students will be enrolled next year – which provides revenue – but is working to produce a budget that turns a profit.

He hinted that cost-cutting measures may be coming, but would not provide specifics.

“We know we’re going to have to make some decisions about priorities and make decisions about the strategic direction of the university.”

Carleton said it isn’t extraordinary for the university to not have a budget in place until students are already gone.

“Because of the unknowns, it is too early to say what this will mean for students.”

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Français

Annie Li - Le Délit (Université McGill)

MONTRÉAL (PUC) — À la recherche d’une destination exotique pour vous dépayser cet été? Pourquoi donc pas la Minganie? Il ne s’agit pas d’un département français d’outre-mer, mais bien d’une région peu connue du Québec, faisant partie de la Côte-Nord, et dont le joyau est l’Archipel-de-Mingan, géré par Parcs Canada. De grands espaces à explorer en perspective, le nombre d’habitants étant si peu élevé qu’on s’imagine être le premier aventurier arrivant dans une contrée vierge… en voiture. Voyager en Minganie, c’est aussi l’occasion de se familiariser avec la culture innue, de se mettre au parfum des luttes sociales et du développement économique d’une région qui a tant à offrir.

En partant de Québec, la route est facile à suivre: il n’y en a qu’une, la 138 ou la célèbre Transcanadienne. Cap vers le nord-est. La route est longue lorsque l’on part de Montréal. Une petite pause dans la région de Manicouagan avant d’arriver en Minganie est de mise pour s’acclimater au rythme de la Côte-Nord. À Bergeronnes, on peut s’arrêter pour la nuit au camping rustique Mer et monde Écotours, où les sites de camping offrent une intimité toute chaleureuse.

L’écotourisme ou le tourisme responsable est une forme de tourisme qui vise à faire découvrir un milieu naturel tout en préservant son intégrité, qui comprend une activité d’interprétation des composantes naturelles ou culturelles du milieu (volet éducatif), qui favorise une attitude de respect envers l’environnement, qui repose sur des notions de développement durable et qui entraîne des bénéfices socioéconomiques pour les communautés locales et régionale. En effet, le tourisme hors des sentiers battus est une façon pour les petites entreprises de la Côte-Nord d’attirer les visiteurs du Québec et de France et le camping de Bergeronnes en est un bon exemple. Il est possible de s’installer sur des plates-formes de bois à flanc de rocher, avec une superbe vue sur le fleuve. Lorsque le soleil se lève, on a l’impression d’entendre des chevaux s’ébrouer à l’extérieur de la tente. On sort alors en courant; ce sont plutôt les baleines qui offrent un merveilleux spectacle dans le St-Laurent.

C’est aussi l’occasion de s’initier au kayak de mer. Le kayak de nuit est une manière originale d’observer de près le phénomène de la bioluminescence marine. Grâce à des organismes microscopiques émettant de la lumière et vivant en symbiose sur les baleines, celles-ci deviennent visibles sous l’eau la nuit. Pour les initiés ou les intéressés, il est aussi possible de suivre la Route des baleines en pagayant de Tadoussac à Natashquan.

S’ensuit une longue route de neuf heures pour arriver à Havre-St-Pierre, la «métropole» de la Minganie, forte de ses 3301 habitants, et situé à 651 kilomètres de Tadoussac. Avant d’y arriver, on s’abreuve des magnifiques paysages, toujours en longeant le fleuve. On traverse les magnifiques falaises du secteur des Panoramas entre Franquelin et Baie-Trinité. Les gourmands sont facilement comblés en s’arrêtant aux cantines qui offrent, en plus des éternelles frites, des spécialités locales comme la guédille au crabe frais (variante du hot-dog avec du crabe à la place de la saucisse). Si on a le temps, on arrête à Sept-Îles pour visiter la Maison de transmission de la culture innue, ou Shaputuan. Les Innus, ou anciennement Montagnais selon la désignation européenne, sont la nation autochtone la plus populeuse au Québec. À la sortie de Sept-Îles, une poignée d’Innus manifestent contre le Plan Nord et le barrage de la Romaine sur les rebords de la route 138 et ce malgré le fait qu’Hydro-Québec ait élaboré une opération de charme auprès de la population en promettant des retombées économiques par la création de plusieurs centaines d’emplois.

Madame Dupuis, qui opère le Gîte Dupuis dans sa maison d’Havre-St-Pierre, dit dépendre de l’afflux de travailleurs saisonniers, c’est-à-dire de la construction, afin de boucler son budget annuel. En Minganie, on est conscient des répercussions environnementales et des impacts sociaux du méga-projet hydro-électrique et de l’exploitation minière. Par contre avec les travailleurs, arrive l’argent. Gilles, l’homme-à-tout-faire du Camping de la Minganie, dit cependant que le projet de la rivière Romaine ne profitera pas tant à la région, puisque ce sont surtout des travailleurs de l’extérieur qui seront embauchés.

Après Sept-Îles, les villages et les réserves innues se font plus éloignés les uns des autres. Les descendants d’Européens qui peuplent la côte sont les Paspéyas originaires de Paspébiac en Gaspésie, et les «Cayens», les Acadiens des Îles-de-la-Madeleine, entre qui règne une rivalité amicale. En traversant les réserves innues, on y voit parfois des pancartes prévenant de l’effet de l’alcool et des drogues sur la santé. Elles mentionnent aussi que ces derniers n’ont pas leur place dans les communautés.

Les Innus avaient toujours subsisté de la pêche et de la chasse, pour ensuite se tourner vers la traite des fourrures et la pêche commerciale contre des biens matériels. Avec le retrait de la Compagnie de la Baie-d’Hudson, le vingtième siècle voit arriver l’industrie forestière, puis hydro-électrique, et finalement minière. Après ces brusques changements, les amphétamines, la marijuana et l’inhalation d’essence font aujourd’hui des ravages chez les jeunes. Il reste donc encore bien du travail à faire pour améliorer l’équilibre entre transmission du savoir ancestral et vie moderne, tout en favorisant des liens étroits avec les cellules familiale et communautaire, et en maintenant une participation active dans le Québec actuel. Une des solutions apportées est la mise en œuvre en 2011 du Programme de langue innue au primaire, élaboré par l’Institut Tshakapesh et le Ministère de l’Éducation, des Loisirs et du Sport, afin de renforcer l’identité linguistique et culturelle des jeunes Innus.

Après la traversée de l’embouchure de la rivière Romaine, c’est l’entrée de Havre-St-Pierre qui vous accueille. C’est l’endroit idéal pour découvrir la Réserve de parc national du Canada de l’Archipel-de-Mingan, parc d’une trentaine d’îles et d’un millier d’îlots de calcaire, merveille unique au monde trop bien cachée du public. Le centre d’interprétation, où tous les kiosques des compagnies touristiques ont pignon sur rue, est facilement accessible. On monte sur le navire fabriqué des mains du fondateur de la compagnie et après un voyage de 45 minutes, on débarque sur l’île Niapiskau, qui abrite parmi les plus beaux monolithes, et où une guide de Parcs Canada explique l’histoire géologique de l’Archipel-de-Mingan, formé de calcaire il y a de ça 400 à 500 millions d’années. Par la suite, une petite formation botanique est donnée sur l’île Fantôme, où on peut reconnaître des dizaines de plantes de bord de mer. Certaines sont uniques en raison du calcaire dans le sol. Il y pousse entre autres la campanule à feuilles rondes, l’iris à pétales aigus, le thé du Labrador, la mertensie maritime au délicieux goût d’huître, et le séneçon faux-arnica. En fait, la flore de l’Archipel compte 400 espèces différente, dont 100 qui sont considérées rares. On y trouve de plus des fossiles de céphalopode et de gastropode dans la roche.

De retour sur le bateau, le guide pêche des oursins en plongeant une vadrouille dans le fleuve. Il faut oser goûter à ce délice des mers, la partie orange goûtant comme un caviar fin et délicat, une véritable révélation. Le guide dit d’ailleurs que les pêcheurs de la Côte-Nord font du commerce d’oursins à fort prix avec le Japon.

Il faut rester plusieurs jours dans le coin pour profiter pleinement de ce que l’Archipel a à offrir. Les plus aventureux parcourront les îles en kayak et camperont seuls sur une île, alors que les biologistes en herbe feront une sortie en mer avec les scientifiques de la Station de recherche des Îles Mingan. D’autres découvriront les fonds marins du golfe du St-Laurent en plongée sous-marine : concombres de mer, longs laminaires, étoiles de mer, anémones, méduses.

Plusieurs compagnies offrent à partir de ce village des excursions en pneumatique vers l’île aux Perroquets en passant par des îlots occupés par des guillemots, des mouettes, des macareux moines, emblème de l’Archipel, et des loup-marins (phoques), jadis chassés par les Innus. Par la suite, on débarque sur l’île Nue avec la possibilité de faire le tour de l’île à pied pendant quatre heures (7km). Les paysages sauvages sont d’une extrême beauté et ce, tout le long du littoral formé de roches et parfois de sable. L’île est dite nue car il n’y pousse aucun arbre, seulement de la végétation de lande. L’écosystème est si fragile que le visiteur n’a le droit que de marcher en bordure de mer. Par journée ensoleillée, le décor semble irréel, les monolithes saillent clairement dans l’air pur, la blancheur du rivage et le lapis-lazuli de l’eau n’ayant rien à envier à Cuba. Entourés de ces géants de calcaire, on ne peut que se sentir humble devant une nature si majestueuse.

Au gré de ces journées de découverte paisibles, il pourrait arriver de vouloir rouler jusqu’à la mythique Natashquan. Dans ce cas, il faut penser au niveau d’essence de la voiture car les stations-service sont rares le long des 150 kilomètres de tourbière qui séparent Havre-St-Pierre du village de Gilles Vigneault. Jamais autant de mouches ne se sont écrasées sur un pare-brise… On songe aussi à louer l’audioguide routier Sur la route de Natashqua au bureau d’information touristique de Havre-St-Pierre avant de partir. Natashquan est un joli village en bord de mer, entouré de dunes de sable rouge et noir et de hautes graminées. L’eau de l’océan plus chaude qu’ailleurs crée un microclimat particulier dans cette ville. La Minganie est aussi le pays de la chicoutée, petite baie arctique de couleur orange poussant à ras le sol. À la Crèmerie La Chicoutai, il est possible de déguster des tartes et de la crème glacée molle à la chicoutée tout en longeant la mer sur une promenade de bois. Au campement Montagnais Manteo Matikap à Natashquan, on a l’occasion unique de se familiariser avec l’univers des Innus en dormant dans une de leur tente traditionnelle sur du sapinage. D’autres activités offertes permettent aux voyageurs de déguster des mets traditionnels en compagnie d’aînés, une initiation à l’artisanat et à la préparation de la banique, un pain amérindien sans levure, et du poisson fumé.

Loin de tomber dans la folkorisation des Innus, Manteo Matikap permet d’améliorer la cohabitation fragile entre Innus et descendants d’Européens et de favoriser le dialogue en faisant tomber les préjugés. Natashquan n’est évidemment pas le seul village qui vaille le détour: si on veut repousser les limites, il faudra alors prendre le bateau pour sillonner la Basse-Côte-Nord, ou aller visiter l’intrigante île d’Anticosti qui hante la brume au loin.

À l’été 2011, le nombre de touristes était généralement en baisse en Minganie, selon les opérateurs rencontrés. Le gouvernement du Québec a d’ailleurs dévoilé en novembre dernier la Stratégie touristique québécoise au nord du 49e parallèle: Culture et espaces à découvrir, dotés de futurs investissements de 70 millions de dollars. Ce sera à nous d’aller à la rencontre du Québec et ses multiples nations, ses richesses naturelles cachées, ses saveurs inattendues et pourtant si près d’ici. Le tourisme responsable est une belle façon de faire tourner l’économie locale et de bâtir des ponts entre les régions du Québec.

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Retrouvez l'article original sur le site du Délit.

News

RJ Reid — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — A UBC group has been brewing up a storm of support from Vancouverites against the Enbridge pipeline project.

Environmentalist organization UBC Community 350 (UBCC350) helped organize “Storm the Riding” on March 31, which saw volunteers canvassing homes in Christy Clark’s Point Grey riding. Volunteers collect signatures to show opposition to the project and the need for Clark to take a position on the potential pipeline.

“We believe she [Christy Clark] hasn’t taken a strong enough stance either way, for or against. Obviously we’re against it and we want to push her to say no it’s not acceptable to have an oil pipeline on our waters,” said Annie Rilkoff, a member of UBCC350 and one of the organizers of the event.

The group of 160 then marched down Alma St. from Almond Park to Clark’s constituency office on West 4th Ave to present their petition.

Clark herself was not present at her office, a point which elicited boo’s from the crowd, but a representative was arranged to receive the signatures.

Oliver Holt, a third-year UBC student, spent Saturday morning collecting signatures. He said that people at ten out of fifty houses were willing to sign the petition.

“The people we did talk to we’re pretty concerned and on the same page so in that regard the day was a success.”

Canvassers reached between 4,500 to 5,000 homes in the morning, and George Hoburg, UBC forestry professor and co-founder of UBCC350, estimates they collected 1800 signatures, with more expected from the online petition.

“The goal of the day was to collect enough signatures to present to Christy Clark from her constituents as a united front, and also to disseminate the idea of opposing the pipeline,” said Rilkoff.

If approved, the pipeline would move fossil fuels from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia.

Hoburg said that the volume of fossil fuels that would be transported through the pipeline is more than all of the carbon currently produced in B.C. “The amount of carbon flowing through that pipeline is going to end up in the atmosphere, and British Columbia doesn’t want that.”

But Hoberg said he thought the day was a success. “Our mission is to convince politicians that we, especially young people, care about climate and vote on climate and I think if you see who is here and the commitment here you can see that that’s happened,” he said.

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Arts

Demi Begin — The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — In a world where even the red, flowing Rolling Stone emblem is having trouble moving magazine copies off the rack, Mark Richardson is feeling optimistic about the future of music journalism.

Editor-in-chief of the world’s best-visited independent music writing website, Richardson’s at the helm of a ship that is retaining many tricks of the old media’s trade, while succeeding in the new.

Pitchfork maintains tight editorial control, doesn’t have comment sections on its articles, and doesn’t tweet back at its followers. In many ways, it’s still a magazine, rather than a website.

And yet it’s the de facto taste-making music site of the 21st century. A Pitchfork review can make — or break — a musical career. Pitchfork is at the top of its game.

Even though it now all seems rosy, it has not always been that way for Richardson. When he started out as a freelance writer, the Brooklyn resident couldn’t afford to be picky.

“I would write about whatever I could for money,” he admitted.

Despite living and breathing music and music journalism, it took him several years to refine his writing style. Then, in 1998, he went from odd writing jobs to writing steadily for the then-three-year-old website.

When Richardson talks about it, it seems as if he can’t believe himself how much time has passed.

“You know it was very, very small back then, it was just this tiny thing,” he stressed. “So when I talk about writing for Pitchfork in the ‘90s, it was just a really different world.”

Fast-forward through the last decade and newspapers and magazines are now in precarious financial positions, while the Internet has taken over. Pitchfork itself is getting more than 4 million unique visitors a month.

Still, for the head of such a depended-on news source, the cultural addiction to a no-cost, 24-hour news cycle has some drawbacks.

“I don’t really love the second-by-second, chit chat commentary. If someone is a reporter …, they might be excited at, like, 10:00 p.m. that something happened, and they have to sit down and write a story. I get a message at 10:00 p.m. when something happens and I’m like, ‘Huhhhh.’”

Richardson added that having to be constantly connected is probably the element he dislikes the most about his job. Pitchfork, for its part, doesn’t update on weekends.

As much as the site has become a staple of the web for many media-minded netizens, its social media cousins Twitter and Facebook are not on his list of favourites.

“I don’t crave the 24-hour cycle stuff. I would rather sit and stare at the window for an hour,” he admitted.

“In my dream life, I’m in a quiet study, thinking and writing and undisturbed. I don’t really love having to be plugged in all the time.”

Although the non-stop flux of information can be overwhelming for some, it’s also undeniably affecting the way print journalism is perceived. In a society where information is instantaneously updated and accessible, print media slowly losing its relevance.

“I think print still has some advantages visually, with tactile experiences and longer pieces and those type of things,” Richardson said. Still, he acknowledged that the newspaper’s heyday is unlikely to return, but he held out hope for the industry, explaining that it simply has yet to figure out a new, more profitable, business model.

“I feel like there’s a possibility that there’s something looming that we haven’t quite envisioned yet, that will be of higher quality than things are now… At least, I hope so.”

Whatever the situation for the publications themselves, the reality for the people who hoping to break into them is something else entirely. It can be difficult to hold out faith in your craft when you can’t seem to find any work.

Journalists are the new actors; many people want to do it, but only a few, either the hardest-working or most talented, will make it. Pitchfork’s success story is certainly refreshing to journalists hoping to find some work — preferably paid — in an industry of temporary gigs and unpaid internships.

To them, Richardson has only one bit of advice: patience.

“If you love to write, and especially if you love writing about art and culture, there’s nothing wrong with doing that part-time, for months or years,” he said, pointing out that publications will be willing to pay writers money for their writing when they’re good enough to get noticed.

That being said, the one question every journalist is looking for an answer is simple; what does one have to do to get a job in the business? The answer, according to Richardson, isn’t all that surprising.

Every year, Pitchfork, like countless other publications, puts out a call for interns. And, putting things simply, those interns who succeed and stand out will eventually move up the ladder, paving the way for the Mark Richardsons of the future.

“It’s not too much of a mysterious process, other than we’re looking for people that want nothing more than to be involved in the world of music journalism, and also seem like they are going to work really hard,” he noted.

“Making it clear that you want to do whatever you can to help is the best thing. Those are the interns you tend to notice more, pay attention to, and then eventually want to help out.”

— With files from Alex Manley

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