McGill
DAILY
THE
Volume 98, Issue 30
January 29, 2009
Armed and dangerous since 1911
Art’s curtain call
Features
10+11
Harper’s faulty budget
Editorial
19
News
2
The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009
Henry Gass
The McGill Daily
Canadian students 13-billion dollars in debt
Quebec has lowest provincial average
S a l l y L i n / T h e M c G i l l D a i l y
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ast week the amount of debtCanadian students owed tothe Federal Government for student loans surpassed $13-billion.Rising student debt has beenbrought to the foreground due toCanada’s current economic crisis.Quebec’s debt averages are thelowest in the country, at $13,000 per person who has student debt. TheMaritimes have the highest regionalaverage at $28,000. Approximately 360,000 studentsare currently taking out loans fromthe Canada Student Loans Program,but an extra $5-billion is taken outfrom provincial loan programs andmore still from other loans, includ-ing from credit cards, banks,and family, resulting in abroad spectrum of studentdebt volume across thecountry.“[The studentloan process]is all so confus-ing for young stu-dents,” wrote JulianBenedict, co-found-er of the Coalitionfor Student LoanFairness (CSLF), inan email. “[Studentsare] just trying toget their education without falling into adebt trap.”Many believe thatthe effect of studentdebt runs deeper thanmonetary and academicconcerns.“[Student debt] affectspeople’s health, thechances of their completingtheir degrees, and their impact on society,”said Katherine Giroux-Bougard,Canadian Federation of Students(CFS) President. “Students with a lotof debt are less likely to contribute tothe economy, and are less likely tobuy houses, start a family, and raisechildren.”The solutions to rising studentdebt vary widely, from tackling thedebt itself, to lowering to interestrates, which are presently about onethree per cent above bank lines of credit, to lowering tuition fees.Giroux-Bougard and the CFS’s ini-tiatives are based on increasing thefunding channelled to postsecond-ary education via the Canada SocialTransfer, increasing graduate stu-dent funding and financial supportfor First Nations students, increas-ing funding for the Canada Summer Jobs program – designed to helpstudents get jobs during the sum-mer to help pay off debt.The goals for Benedict and theCSLF, the only national non-profitorganization in Canada whosemandate is focused on student loanborrowers, include democratizingthe student loan system by callingfor an ombudsperson office, elimi-nating high interest rates on loansin repayment, abolishing interestduring the six-month grace repay-ment period following graduation,and improving debt reductionmeasures.The issue of student debt inCanada is broad and diverse, andlikely will not be solved quickly or comprehensively. Giroux-Bougard was concerned that if high stu-dent debt isn’t tackled soon, itcould have far-reaching conse-quences for the already crip-pled Canadian economy.“Tuition fees increase year after year,” saidGiroux-Bougard. “We’reon a slippery slope inCanada.”
News
The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 29, 2009
3
Overloaded myMcGill crashes
System designed to service only five per cent of student body at one time
S
tudents and staff have consis-tently had problems accessingthe myMcGill portal throughout January due to a higher than expect-ed demand on the system. Accordingto Doug Jackson, the Director of Information System Resources,myMcGill has been experiencingproblems since the first day of thethis semester.“The portal has been going inand out of service for the past two weeks,” said Jackson. “Each day, thesystem has been easily down a mini-mum of one to two hours.” Jackson explained that the hard- ware housing the portal simply couldnot cope with the high number of users.“When the system was first puttogether, we anticipated an averagenumber of 3,500 users at one time,”said Jackson. “However, that num-ber increased to 6,000 last Fall andincreased again this Winter.”The system collapsed primarily because of high usage during thecourse change period, a shift thatNetwork Communication Services(NCS) – which provides campus- wide access to the Internet andMcGill central systems – was unpre-pared for.“Initially, we assumed thatabout five per cent of the studentpopulation would access the por-tal at any given time,” Jackson said.“However, it turned out the portalis much more popular than we firstanticipated.” Jackson added that improving thesystem afterward proved to be a dif-ficult task. While NCS did not receive com-plaints during myMcGill’s downtimedirectly, the Information Technology helpline did receive several.“Everyone uses myMcGill – students, academic staff, andadministrative staff,” said Jackson.“Complaints were heard from allconstituents.”Currently, the portal is up andrunning again, as the number of users normally drops after thecourse change period. Jackson,however, is looking for a morepermanent solution to myMcGill’scapacity problem.“We’ve been working on a projectsince last Fall to increase the number of users the portal can handle,” said Jackson. “Unfortunately, we couldnot finish the project by the begin-ning of January.”The project is still in the worksand will be launched in lateFebruary, during reading week, when the number of myMcGillusers is low.
Kartiga Thiyagarajah
News Writer
O
nly four people attendedthe re-launch of Reclaim Your Campus (RYC) thisMonday – three were representa-tives from McGill unions, and thelast was from CKUT, a campus-community radio station.SSMU VP External Devin Alfaroand coordinator of RYC, attributedthe low turnout at the meeting togeneral student apathy.“I would like to see this turn into astrong group, but people are not will-ing to put in enough time and effortto make it work,” he said.“If a student organization loses itsspace on campus, it’s easy to bringpeople together and turn their anger into a campaign for change, but whenthere isn’t a specific issue that unitesstudents, it becomes difficult to moti- vate them.”But with such a low turnout atthe meeting, little progress could bemade on the group’s mandate. Alfaro launched RYC last semes-ter to give a voice back to students,in response to concern that their interests are being ignored by McGilladministration. But, after holding ademonstration in September againstMcGill’s union relations, a Board of Governors staffed by appointedmembers, and undemocratic admin-istrative decision-making processes,interest in the group dwindled andthe campaign collapsed. A meetinglater that month was attended by only 20 people, a small fraction of the approximately 100 people at thedemonstration. Attendees at this week’s meetingaired grievances against McGill anddiscussed ways of using the media toput pressure on McGill administra-tion and push for change.Maria Ruocco, President of McGillUniversity Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), that repre-sents lab technicians, librarians, andporters, shared her experience of working with the media.“Bad press does work; you haveto hit the Principal and you have tohit key dates. By using the local andnational media, your discontent willbe registered. McGill has a great rep-utation worldwide, and the admin-istration does not want it to be tar-nished,” Ruocco said.Dan Pujdak, a representative from Association of McGill UndergraduateStudent Employees (AMUSE), dis-cussed plans to launch a “Screwedby McGill” essay contest later thissemester that would give studentsa venue to express their issues withMcGill and to increase awarenessabout the widespread discontentamong the student body. While a second meeting for thissemester was not scheduled, andadvertising remains minimal, Alfaroremains committed to the conceptof RYC.“The problems that sparkedthe campaign last semester arestill very pressing. The whole ideaof the group is to draw the linksbetween different organizations atMcGill so they can work together to overcome difficulties they share with the McGill administration,” Alfaro said.
No one wants to reclaim their campus
Student interest in SSMU activist initiative continues to steadily decline
Lucy Mair
News Writer
Rachael Wine / The McGill Daily
Users attempting to accessMinerva via myMcGill at thestart of the semester, coupledwith a new mass of users fromthe removal of the myEmailtab from the McGill homepagesend the system more concur-rent users than ever before.Unable to handle the extrausers, myMcGill goes offline,at times without anyindication of how to accessits services individually.Users are forced to find McGill’sweb resources in their old, dis-persed locations on
mcgill.ca
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McGill Daily 98_30_29JAN09
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