Volume 100, Issue 21

November 18, 2010

mcgilldaily.com

McGill
THE

DAILY
Faux-letariat since 1911

Published by The Daily

Publications Society,
a student society of
McGill University.

RUE 
FRONTENAC 
Page 8

Admin charges grads for

study space 3
New Turcot takes heat 5
Language departments
face merger 10
Multilingual poetry in
Montreal 12
 2 News
Drinking games debated at council
Councillors move to strike discussion from minutes, concerned about SSMU liquor license
Maya Shoukri
The McGill Daily
P
art of a report SSMU’s
Executive Committee re-
leased to Council last
Thursday approved certain drink-
ing games in Gerts, prompting
extensive debate amongst coun-
cillors. The discussion was subse-
quently struck from Council’s min-
utes and several SSMU executives
told reporters from The Daily not
to report on the subject.
Many councillors and execu-
tives were concerned that the
committee’s decision about drink-
ing games was illegal and could
jeopardize SSMU’s liquor license,
which is being negotiated with the
administration as part of SSMU’s
Memorandum of Agreement (MoA).
Quebec’s Régie des alcools regu-
lations state that “drinking games
that encourage excessive consump-
tion over a short period of time are
prohibited.” Permit holders who
violate this policy are fined for their
first three offenses and can then be
called before the Régie where, if the
board finds they are not responsi-
bly serving their patrons, they could
lose their permit.
SSMU President Zach Newburgh
addressed this law in an interview
with The Daily, claiming that it is
ambiguous with regard to certain
drinking games.
“I would say there’s definite-
ly a grey area in the law about
what constitutes the rapid con-
sumption of alcohol. For indi-
viduals who are having a good
time, there should be a degree
of lenience, and I think that this
degree of lenience has certainly
been applied to other bars across
the city of Montreal. Why not
Gerts as well?” he said.
The report in question, which
is signed by Newburgh and avail-
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able to the public, stipulates that
“The executives approved that the
following games shall be permitted
in Gerts: power hour, card games,
chanting and drinking, and quar-
ters.”
Newburgh clarified his reason-
ing for approving the games: “We
are not in any way promoting or
permitting any kind of games that
resemble beer pong, flip cup, or
king’s cup, any of these that really
would be blatant violations or at
least be very questionable viola-
tions of this grey area in the law.”
He continued, “Upon the
request of an incredibly large
number of students to play certain
games in the bar, we chose that it
may be appropriate for these games
[in the report] to be played because
it’s very difficult to tell whether or
not they’re drinking games.”
Amara Possian, a councillor and
Arts senator, described her surprise
at the executive committee’s deci-
sion. She explained the potential
legal implications if the report was
passed.
“I’m not sure why the executive
committee thought it was appropri-
ate to bring this up at Council,” she
said.
“By officially allowing drinking
games in Gerts, SSMU would be
jeopardizing their liquor permit.
The fact that the executive openly
stated, in Council, that they were
allowing these specific drinking
games because they didn’t look like
drinking games makes the situa-
tion much worse, because it makes
it seem like they were trying to
undermine the law.”
In an email to The Daily, Arts
representative Zach Margolis coun-
tered Possian’s assessment.
“No one is trying to fly under
the radar to avoid provincial laws,”
he wrote. “This was just some-
thing that was not fully thought
through before being brought
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no intention of trying to circum-
vent Quebec law; as I understand
it this was simply an attempt to
ensure all of our rules are enforce-
able and to avoid any confusion by
patrons of Gerts.”
“As no decision or change to our
regulations was made, this does not
impact our relationship with McGill
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
or the Quebec Régie des alcools in
any way,” he added.
When it came time for Council
to vote on accepting the execu-
tive committee’s report, a decision
was made to divide the question,
allowing for the section of the
report pertaining to the approval
of drinking games to be commit-
ted to the Operations Management
The
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Committee and separated from the
remainder of the report.
The committee is composed of
Management representative Matt
Reid, VP Finance and Operations
Nick Drew, SSMU General Manager
Pauline Gervais, Possian, and
Margolis.
Possian spoke to The Daily
about Council’s decision to move
the discussion to a committee.
“Ultimately, this is somewhere
where Council did its job very well.
We caught the executives’ mistake,
and by dividing the question and
not passing the part of the execu-
tive committee’s report regarding
drinking games, we stopped SSMU
from jeopardizing its liquor per-
mit,” she said.
Despite the fact that Council did
not pass anything regarding drink-
ing games at Gerts, Drew empha-
sized the risky nature of making
the debate about drinking games
public.
“I’d just like to stress that this
report [on the Executive’s approval
of certain drinking games at Gerts]
is a highly sensitive issue, because
we’re negotiating our lease with
the administration,” Drew told
Council Thursday. “If they knew
that we were thinking about allow-
ing this, we might lose our alcohol
permit. I just want to make sure
[Council] is aware of the implica-
tions of making this information
public and not confidential until
our MoA is signed.”
Newburgh admitted that it was
inappropriate for the issue to have
been discussed at Council.
“Ultimately this piece of infor-
mation should’ve been discussed
and decided upon by the opera-
tions committee, rather than in the
Legislative Council forum. Each
of our operations should have the
autonomy and independence to
be able to work with and deal with
such issues,” he said.
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com News 3
Graduate students paying for study space
Study carrels in Ferrier to cost $200 for the year
Anna Norris Research and Graduate Studies for that, for the majority of the rentals,
The McGill Daily the Faculty of Arts. Graduate stu- the student will not pay the fee.
dents are given the opportunity to “There’s an option for the stu-
apply for the spaces, which will cost dents to do it, because I wanted that

M
cGill graduate students
are now being charged for
study space in the Ferrier
Building. Principal Heather Munroe-
Blum was surprised when the issue
was brought to her attention at the
principal’s town hall last Tuesday.
Emily Essert, PhD 5 in English,
who informed Munroe-Blum of the
issue, expressed her offense at the
offer of study space for rent. “What
I have found in my time here as a
graduate student – which is vastly
different from what I had expected
arriving – is that we are a department
of have and have-nots,” she said. She
explained that for graduate students,
“one of the more recent options
has been paid study space, offered
in Ferrier. Which, frankly, just isn’t
appropriate.”
Munroe-Blum was unaware that
an offer of study space for rent was
made to Arts graduate students
in a November 8 email from Juliet
Johnson, the Associate Dean of
$200 for January to August 2011.
Johnson, however, said that
the offer is an attempt to give Arts
graduate students the study space
which, as Essert pointed out, isn’t
always readily available.
“The controversy is actually a little
bit surprising to me, because I made
this decision specifically out of equity
concerns,” said Johnson. “There are
only twelve spaces, and there are
over 800 graduate students in the
Faculty of Arts. … There’s no space in
Arts that is actually accessible to any
needy graduate student. So I wanted
to make sure that these spaces would
be allocated on the basis of equity.
So what I want in these spaces [are]
people who are really going to use
them every day – graduate students
who really need the space.”
The fee, said Johnson, is an
attempt to ensure that the study
space won’t be wasted, as well as to
raise money for Arts graduate student
travel awards. Johnson is also hoping
option to be there, but the idea real-
ly is that the department or supervi-
sor [pays the fee]. And that’s simply
because if the space is free, then it’s
not necessarily going to go to the
people who really care about it. ...
This tiny fee is, I think, going to be
enough to keep people from taking
spaces who really only want to use
it a couple hours a week.”
Essert, however, insists that a
study space paid for by the depart-
ment is little better than a space paid
for by a student. “I still think that’s
inappropriate,” she said, “because
our department doesn’t have money
for that either. The departments are
also constantly saying, ‘We don’t
have money for this, we don’t have
money for that,’ so I don’t know
where they would suddenly find Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
extra money to pay for study space.” The Ferrier building, site of the space for rent.
“All grad students deserve a
place to work,” Essert said. “It’s your books and you’ve got to have ple can pay for, it’s a necessity. The
not a privilege, it’s a necessity. You a quiet place to work in. That’s not idea of charging for a necessity like
have got to have a place to store some kind of special frill that peo- that just struck me as absurd.”

Payday for SSMU clubs

Debating Union, Conservative McGill, SPHR to receive less than half of their request
cates money based on a club’s
Queen Arsem-O’Malley
The McGill Daily membership, level of activity, abil-
ity to generate revenue, and ben-
efit that the group provides to the
allocated to any single club in the with other campuses and in the does not fund club requests for
report. Debating Union Treasurer greater Montreal region, and we do refreshments unless it is part of
Michael Stepner noted that the club an enormous amount of outreach the group’s mandate, as with a
will have “some tough choices in work as well,” said Teed. culture-based group. She further

T
he SSMU Funding Committee
allocated over $14,000 to 16
different clubs in its latest
report, as approved by Council last
Thursday. According to the SSMU
website, the Club Fund for 2010-
2011 amounts to about $48,800.
Some of the clubs applying for
funds received less than half of
their requested budget, including
the McGill chapter of Solidarity for
Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR),
the Ismaili Students’ Association,
the Orthodox Christian Fellowship,
Conservative McGill, and the McGill
Debating Union.
The Funding Committee allo-
McGill community. In order to
apply for funding, a group must
be a full-status club of SSMU, and
provide a detailed budget and
budget defense to the Committee,
which includes VP Finance and
Operations Nick Drew, VP Clubs
and Services Anushay Khan, and
Clubs and Services Representatives
Maggie Knight and Max Zidel.
Groups can apply in the fall or win-
ter semester.
Councillors questioned in partic-
ular the committee’s decision about
funding for the Debating Union.
The group requested $13,500 and
received $6,000, the largest amount
the semester ahead as we decide
how best to spend the money we
have,” as the Union “is currently the
largest it has ever been, and grew
significantly this year.”
Conservative McGill request-
ed $600 and received $145. SPHR
received ten per cent of its request-
ed $2,000. Justyn Teed, VP Finance
for SPHR, said that the group was
surprised at the amount, about
$700 less than what SPHR received
for the 2009-2010 academic year.
“SPHR is one of the most active
clubs on campus. We host a lot of
events here at McGill, we’re very
active in co-sponsoring events
“[The decrease in SSMU fund-
ing] is going to hurt our organiza-
tion definitely. We’re going to have
to either cut some of the initiatives
we had planned or find alternative
ways to get the funding we need,”
added Teed.
In late October, the Concordia
Student Union released a $92,000
club budget. Concordia’s The Link
reported that the Muslim Students’
Association received the largest
sum, at $8,000, while the Concordia
chapter of SPHR received $6,000.
Knight explained that the dis-
crepancies for some groups could
be due to the fact that SSMU
stated that if a club is dissatisfied
with the committee’s decision,
the group “can appeal and explain
why [the amount received] wasn’t
fair.”
Money from the Campus Life
Fund, Green Fund, and Ambassador
Fund was also distributed, in addi-
tion to the Club Fund. Applications
for funds other than the Club Fund
have a rolling deadline.
Rad Frosh, Urban Grooves
Dance Project, and the Arab
Students’ Association will have to
wait for their funding as their appli-
cations were incomplete and there-
fore postponed for later discussion.

Funding requested
$2,000
00
Funding received

3,5
$1
$60
0 $200
$145 $6,000
Conservative Solidarity for Palestinian McGill
McGill Human Rights Debating Union
 4 News The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

International students struggle to remain legal

Immigration documents are difficult, complicated to renew
Humera Jabir two months for her documents to
News Writer be reviewed.
“I was under the impression that
I wouldn’t be able to go home for
I had my faith restored in McGill afterwards to finish it,” she added. McGill students. Communications
administration. It’s the first time Michael Kirwin, an advisor at Advisor for the Quebec branch
I thought someone gave a damn International Student Services, of Citizenship and Immigration
that I was able to leave the coun- commented on the delays. Canada Julie Lafortune, however,

F
or Meryl Draper, the process
of applying to renew her
study permit has proved to
be quite the ordeal. Without prop-
er documentation, Draper would
have been unable to head home to
the U.S. for Christmas this year, or
would risk the possibility of being
de-registered from McGill, and
banned from Canada for the fol-
lowing year.
International students in
Quebec are required to renew
their federal Study Permit every
three years. In order to do so, they
must first apply to Immigration
Quebec to renew their Quebec
Acceptance Certificate (CAQ).
Immigration Quebec advises
students to apply three months
before their permit expires, but
delays and complications have left
some McGill students waiting for
over six months after submitting
their applications.
Draper applied for her CAQ last
May, three months before her appli-
cation expired. Five months later,
she received notification that there
was a problem with her application,
and that it would take an additional
Christmas, which would have been
devastating to me. … This measly
little paper was holding me back,”
Draper said.
Without her CAQ, Draper was
considered to be under “implied
status,” meaning that she couldn’t
leave the country, or Canadian
immigration would de-register her
from McGill and she would not be
allowed to re-enter Canada.
“It’s like being held hostage, and
now you are intruding on my fam-
ily time, family time that means so
much to me. It is emotionally drain-
ing,” she said.
Draper’s case only turned
around when she approached Dean
of Students Jane Everett for help.
“[Everett] answered my email
within five hours of receiving it. A
week later I got a personal call from
someone at Immigration saying they
made a mistake, and that they were
sending my permit,” said Draper.
“I am assuming that getting a
personal call from Immigration
is unheard of…so I am sure that
me getting the Dean involved
had something to do with it.
Talking to her was the first time
try,” said Draper.
Draper is not the only student
who has been delayed in having a
permit renewed. Kristina Litvin,
from Boston, Massachusetts, also
submitted her application last May,
three months before it was due to
expire. Her application was sent
to the wrong address three times.
Uncertain of the status of her appli-
cation, Litvin went to McGill’s new
Service Point to find out whether
or not she could leave the country
to go home for Thanksgiving week-
end.
“According to Service Point, it
wasn’t a problem. I just had to print
out my statements saying I’d already
applied. When I asked the same ques-
tion to Canadian Immigration, they
practically laughed at me,” said Litvin.
“According to Immigration, leav-
ing the country means I’d ‘volun-
tarily revoke my implied status’ and
would only return into the country
as a visitor. I would be banned from
my classes. When asked what would
happen if I kept going to classes, I
was told that my degree would
be suspended and I wouldn’t be
allowed in the country for a full year
“I don’t want to bash
Immigration Quebec, but I think
they have been very inconsistent.
Some people have gotten it early,
some people don’t hear back
until May, and it is going to their
Montreal address when they are
home. We get as frustrated as stu-
dents do,” said Kirwin.
“We don’t have the power to
accelerate the processing,” he con-
tinued. “What we do do is that – if
we find that a student file has been
unfairly treated – we can try to help
students contact people to find out
what is going on.”
Kirwin emphasized, however,
that students waiting until the last
minute and incomplete or incor-
rect applications cause the great-
est number of complications.
International students must dem-
onstrate that they have the financial
capacity to pay full tuition, as well
as an additional $11,000 of liquid
assets, documentation that takes
time to compile.
Immigration Quebec did not
respond directly to The Daily’s
questions about the inconsistencies
in processing time experienced by
recommended that students submit
their documentation at least thirty
days before the expiry of their
permit, and assured that students
whose permit expired before they
received a response could continue
to legally study in Canada until they
received a decision.
For students like Meryl Draper
and Kristina Litvin, who submitted
their applications well in advance of
the thirty-day deadline, the bitter-
ness of their experience remains.
“What bothers me isn’t the pro-
cess itself. Every country has their
own codes and processes for immi-
gration, and it’s never a walk in the
park,” Draper said. “But it’s the com-
plete lack of communication and
knowledge, both internally, within
the departments, and to the appli-
cants. When you try to get help, the
people whose job it is to help you
just don’t know.”
“McGill’s the exact same way.
You’d think that an internal institu-
tion of 30,000 students would know
a thing or two about the nineteen
per cent of their students who are
international, but they have no idea,
and no one cares to find out.”

Montrealers demand a province

wide code for healthy housing
Students would stand to benefit
Laura Pellicer
The McGill Daily
limitations of the current system in encounter.
a written statement. The office does not keep sta-
“When people live in a munici- tistics on the number of students
pality that is lacking health regula- who report health and sanitation

A
pproximately one hun-
dred protesters took to
the streets outside of the
Union des municipalités du Québec
at 680 Sherbrooke Tuesday morn-
ing to demand provincial housing
reforms. The Regroupement des
comités logement et associations
de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)
organized the protest to garner
support for establishing a province-
wide housing code.
“We think it would be a demand
that would be easy to achieve. What
we need is the political will for a
new housing code,” said one pro-
tester.
According to a RCLALQ press
release, there are currently 1,100
municipalities in Quebec that
lack any kind of legislation per-
taining to the health and main-
tenance of rental properties for
tenants. The group recognizes
that there are a number of effec-
tive housing codes in Quebec
municipalities but argues that the
lack of province-wide rules puts
some Quebeckers at risk.
France Edmond, a representa-
tive for the RCLALQ, expressed the
tions, the tenants’ only recourse
is the Régie du logement which is
already grappling with a serious
problem of delays,” said the state-
ment in French. The Régie is a spe-
cial tribunal that settles disputes
between tenants and landlords.
Jean-Pierre Leblanc, the Montreal
spokesperson for the Régie du
logement de Québec, spoke on the
Régie’s role in establishing province-
wide housing legislation.
“Right now we work with the
municipal regulations,” Leblanc
explained in French, adding that
he felt that the municipal legisla-
tion in Montreal is effective.
“Even though there is no [pro-
vincial housing code] there is still
the Régie du logement that will
help direct tenants to the appropri-
ate recourse for their complaints,”
he said.
McGill’s Off-Campus Housing
office provides advising services for
student tenants. Pamela, a repre-
sentative from the office who asked
that her last name not be given, list-
ed “vermin, mould, and moisture”
among a number of health-related
housing problems that students
problems in their apartments.
“We do have students in the
office with this problem. Is it a lot? I
wouldn’t be able to say that because
there are also many students who
do not report it. Either they don’t
know their rights, or it’s okay for
them to live in this condition,”
Pamela said.
There are a number of ten-
ants’ rights organizations in
Montreal, however these groups
must still go through the Régie
du Logement in order to file offi-
cial complaints, which can be a
lengthy process.
“To go to the Régie if your
problem is not serious [will take]
you easily 18 months,” explained
Pamela.
Pamela believes a province-
wide code would streamline
the health-related housing com-
plaints process.
“I think it will be beneficial for
both the tenants and the govern-
EXP SURE
ment. For the government it will
[mean] less tenants filing against
Tam-Tam
landlords for health problems. And Victor Tangermann
for students, they will have better The Daily wants to print your art. Submit to photos@mcgilldaily.com.
living conditions.”
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com News 5

Demolition to proceed under revised Turcot plan

Niko Block | The McGill Daily

Niko Block of the unique requirements of one timonials] to the commission dur- [of this ramp] is that it maintains For Zovile, the bus lanes are not
The McGill Daily of the highway ramps. The ramp ing the five-day hearings, and five the eight lanes of the Trans-Canada enough. Like many contemporary
must duck under a number of other months later the BAPE published highway,” he said. “Standard con- urban planners, climate change and

T
he province has come under
fire from environmentalists,
urban planners and St. Henri
residents alike since its $3-billion
blueprint for the Turcot interchange
was unveiled last week.
A nearby residential building
at 780 St. Remi will be expro-
priated and demolished as part
of the plan; the only guaranteed
public transit expansion will be a
laneway in the centre of the Ville-
Marie expressway; and there will
be no reduction in the vehicular
capacity of the highway network.
These are just a few of the critics’
complaints.
Dozens of the 150-odd residents
of the building slated for demolition
aired their questions, comments,
and grievances to a panel of repre-
sentatives from the Ministère des
transports du Québec (MTQ) held
Tuesday in Verdun. The prevailing
sentiment in the audience was that
the province had not adequately
considered alternatives that would
have avoided the expropriation.
“These $3 billion are extraor-
dinary means,” said one man in
French. “Why can’t you take that
$3 billion to save these people’s
homes?”
Alain-Marc Dubé of the MTQ’s
Turcot office responded that the
building must be destroyed because
overpasses before soaring upward
to avoid the railroad tracks that
run along the ground under the
interchange.
“It’s not that easy to under-
stand,” said Dubé after the discus-
sion.
For architect Pierre Zovile, who
has lived at 780 St. Remi for 12
years, the expropriation and envi-
ronmental concerns surrounding
the new Turcot are part and parcel
of the same problem: the province
refuses to reduce the expressway’s
traffic capacity.
“If you don’t reduce the volume
of the Ville-Marie by fifty per cent,
this whole thing with the Turcot will
be a catastrophe,” he said.
In 2007, the MTQ released its
first plan for the interchange, which
would have increased its traffic
capacity from its current 290,000
vehicles per day to approximately
320,000. It also included virtual-
ly no plans for improved public
transit along the east-west corridor
and slated 780 St.-Remi and about
sixty other nearby housing units for
demolition.
The immediate backlash led to a
public consultation in June 2009 by
the Bureau d’audiences publiques
sur l’environnement (BAPE). Urban
planning students, local residents,
and concerned environmentalists
submitted over 100 memoires [tes-
its report calling upon the MTQ
to revamp the project. Notably, the
BAPE demanded that the final plan
included no housing expropriations.
But for Zovile, among many
others present at Tuesday night’s
forum, the new revised plan is
barely distinguishable from the
original. In recent months he has
worked alongside urban planner
Pierre Brisset, who released a com-
prehensive alternative design for
the interchange called “Turcot 375”
last March.
According to Brisset, the MTQ’s
public transit plan is almost identi-
cal to its 2007 scheme. “Compared
with the new configuration, the
footprint is exactly the same as
the configuration of ramps [in the
original plan],” he said. “All they did
is simply foreshortened one ramp.”
He also expects that the new
public transit system – the bus lanes
along the Ville-Marie expressway
– will be extremely dysfunctional,
since there will be no easy way
for the buses to access commuter
stops, and since they will have to
travel at a maximum speed of just
sixty kilometres per hour.
Another major concern for
Brisset is that the ramp in question
will run only two feet away from
some of the structures that were
initially slated for demolition.
“Their obsession with the curve
nectors don’t need to have such a
wide radius.”
Turcot 375 calls for a tremen-
dous expansion of public transpor-
tation networks throughout the city
– most notably a light rail transit
system – and would reduce the
Turcot’s capacity to 180,000 vehicles
per day.
“I understand that people get
scared when we talk about reduc-
ing the traffic volume,” said Zovile,
but “there’s no way to escape mass
transport.” He added that there is
no feasible way for the city’s traffic
infrastructure to accommodate the
several thousand new cars that hit
Montreal’s streets each year.
Réal Grégoire, a spokesperson
for the MTQ, defended the deci-
sion to maintain the Turcot’s cur-
rent traffic volume. “We’re main-
taining the traffic capacity because
it’s important for the economy of
this province,” he said. “We expect
that any future growth in traffic
volume we will transfer to public
transit. … We hope [that] with
reserved lanes the buses will be
more popular for people from the
West Island.” The new plan also
delineates areas where east-west
light rail transit could be installed,
though the realization of those
projects is contingent upon both
the federal and municipal govern-
ments.
rising oil prices are among Zovile’s
foremost concerns for any long-last-
ing urban infrastructure projects.
“$300 for a barrel of oil is the only
thing that can really save us,” he
said. But most urgently, he doesn’t
want to see his apartment building
bulldozed.
Nor does Michel Charbonneau,
who lives a few doors down from
Zovile. Charbonneau has also lived
in the building for over a decade,
and is skeptical that he’ll get a
decent deal out of the expropria-
tion. As in all of the loft apartments
in his building, his ceilings are 16
feet high, and the windows allow a
huge amount of natural light into
the space; his apartment is densely
populated with plants.
“Maybe it would make sense if
I were already in a three-and-a-
half and it had cockroaches,” said
Charbonneau, “but right now I’m
the world’s biggest loser.”
The government is only obli-
gated to pay the displaced lessees
the equivalent of three months rent
at their new apartments, and an
undefined additional sum based
on the assessed quality of their
apartments. It remains unclear how
much money will be paid to the
owner of the building.
For his part, all Charbonneau
expects is “three months rent and a
boot in the butt.”

Above: Pierre Zovile addresses the panel of representatives

of the Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) on Tuesday
night. Zovile and approximately 150 of the other residents of
780 St. Remi will lose their homes as a result of the MTQ’s
new plan for the Turcot interchange.

Left: 780 St. Remi rectangle is the highlighted in grey right of

the letter “C”. The other highlighted buildings (below the let-
ter “O”) were also slated for demolition in the MTQ’s original
2007 plans. Following the blueprint unveiled on November 9,
however, it appears they will evade the wrecking ball.

Courtesy of Pierre Brisset

 Photo Essay The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
6

Mafia funeral,
media circus

N
early a thousand people
attended Monday’s funer-
al of reputed Mafia boss
Nicolo Rizzuto in Montreal’s Little
Italy. Rizzuto was shot last week in
his home.
Images of Rizzuto and his funer-
al have dominated the front pages David Huehn | The McGill Daily Max Dannenberg | The McGill Daily
of Montreal’s newspapers for the
past week. Scores of press photog-
raphers and television crews cov-
ered the funeral, several Daily staff-
ers among them. Rizzuto’s service
was held in the same church, Notre
Dame de la Défense, as the funer-
al of his grandson, Nick Jr., earlier
this year. The church has been the
site of several Mafia funerals over
the years. Numerous private body-
guards, as well as the police, pro-
vided security for the event in what
the Gazette reported as a “manoeu-
vre that looked coordinated and
rehearsed.”

— Michael Lee-Murphy

Robert Smith | The McGill Daily Michael Geary for The McGill Daily

David Huehn | The McGill Daily

David Huehn | The McGill Daily

 Commentary
We are living in a Panopticon world
Knowledge is power – power to control the narrative
The gadfly
Shaina Agbayani
shaina.agbayani@mcgilldaily.com
O
h, academia. At what
should be my peak period
of commitment to you, I
betray you for suspicion that you
take yourself too seriously – getting
high on your own abstractions, trip-
pin’ out on your belief in your theo-
ries’ political import.
This, I declared aloud after review-
ing the seminal feminist text Under
Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship
and Colonial Discourse, by C. T.
Mohanty. While commendable for cri-
tiquing Western feminism’s penchant
for typecasting non-Western women
as victims requiring lofty Western
mores and assistance, Mohanty’s pen-
chant for stressing the “urgent” politi-
cal magnitude of feminist theory irked
me. “Urgent” indulgently mischar-
acterizes the political dimensions of
feminist theory, often inaccessible for
its protagonists – those to whom it is
most practically relevant.
My concern more broadly speaks
to modernity’s insatiable desire to
intellectualize, classify, patent every-
thing into systems of knowledge – a
tendency Foucault detects in The
History of Sexuality. He observes the
foregrounding of ritualized confes-
sion in modernity’s pursuit of knowl-
edge – its production of “truth,”
through science’s categorizing sub-
jects to extract “knowledge” that is
servile to order, rather than amenable
to truth. I was really feeling Foucault,
irked by our fixation on embedding
“facts” about ineffable climactic expe-
riences into knowledge systems.
“Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”
Jon Booth
Hyde Park
T
he word apartheid is one of
the most controversial parts
of the Palestinian solidarity
movement. Opponents of the boycott,
divestment, and sanctions (BDS) cam-
paign claim that the word apartheid is
a slur used solely to delegitimize Israel.
We in Tadamon!, however, believe this
term is an accurate legal description
of the Israeli state, and do not shrink
from using an accurate term because
it is controversial.
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word,
first used to describe the system of
racial separation and oppression in
white-ruled South Africa. In 1973,
the International Convention on
the Suppression of and Punishment
of the Crime of Apartheid created a
more generally applicable definition,
characterizing the crime of apartheid
as “inhuman acts committed for the
Systems generated by the state to
control histories about, among other
things, sexuality. Histories those in
power want to narrate.
This disparity between govern-
ment-imposed histories and those
organic to a group of peoples was
delved into by Yale political scien-
tist James Scott in his September
presentation at Concordia. In
“The Art of Not Being Governed:
An Anarchist History of Upland
Southeast Asia” (the title of his book
on the same topic as well), Scott
proposed that modern state-making
is an avatar of internal colonialism.
He proffered an alternative outlook
on history from the peripheries of
the stateless, indigenous peoples
of Zomia (the upland region of
Southeast Asia inhabited by dispa-
rate, nomadic ethnic groups), chal-
lenging us to re-define our narrow
historical conceptions of civilization
to realize that “civilization” is a nar-
rative for control that benefits the
coterie (1) who define civilization
and declare it the shit; and (2) who
in its name, usurps the history and
land of the peoples they civilizes. He
suggests that Zomians espouse oral
histories and traditions rather than
“intellectualized,” written ones to
escape state control since under it,
the evolution of peoples’ histories
occurs on corporate, coercive terms.
Classification makes this coer-
cion easier. India has suddenly
interested itself in and has increas-
ingly categorized India’s predomi-
nantly indigenous Maoist groups
(also called Naxalites) as “terrorists”
since 2005, despite extensive indig-
enous histories of resistance that
greatly predate Mao. This coincided
with the discovery of lucrative min-
purpose of establishing and main-
taining domination by one racial
group of persons over any other racial
group of persons and systematically
oppressing them.” We believe that
Israel is an apartheid state because
it commits inhuman acts to maintain
the domination of Jewish Israelis over
all other groups, actively oppressing
Palestinians living in Israel and the
Occupied Territories.
Israeli apartheid, like the
Palestinian population, is divided in
two. There are discriminatory laws
and actions targeting Palestinian
citizens of Israel, and there is the
militarily enforced apartheid of the
West Bank. The ever-changing bor-
ders of “sovereign Israel” contain
approximately 1.5 million non-Jewish
Arabs. In theory, the Palestinian fifth
of Israel’s population has full equal-
ity, but the reality is very different.
Palestinians living in Israel suffer both
from discriminatory laws and from
the discriminatory application of sup-
ing sites in Maoists’ lands and the
government’s ratification of treaties
with mining corporations. Maoists,
defending peoples and lands only
now significant to India because
they lay atop trillion-dollar baux-
ite mines, are justifiably seditious
in order to defending their rights
and land. Weeks after the ratifica-
tion, tribal peoples’ militias were
unleashed, burning hundreds of
Maoist-defended villages.
This violent, inexhaustible desire
for knowledge, classification, control
over everything – land, libido, non-
Western women, “terrorists”, intellec-
posedly neutral laws. The Absentee
Property Law of 1950, for example,
has been instrumental in the theft of
land from Palestinians over the last
sixty years. It allows the Israeli gov-
ernment to claim land by declaring
the owner “absentee,” a designation
that is only applied to Palestinians
(including those forced off their land
by the Israeli army). A recent example
of an openly discriminatory law: the
Nationality and Entry into Israel Law
of 2003, a supposedly temporary law
which has been extended indefinitely
since its passage, specifically forbids
the spouses of Israeli Arabs from
gaining residency in Israel if they
are from the Occupied Territories,
Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or Iraq. The list
of discriminatory laws continues to
expand, with the purpose of main-
taining the domination of Jewish
Israelis and oppression of Palestinian
citizens.
The situation in the West Bank is
much worse. The West Bank is not a
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
tual “property” – reflects the moderni-
ty forecast by Bentham in 1785 when
he conceptualized the Panopticon
– an Orwellian architecture where-
in prisoners cannot tell when they
are being watched, which Foucault
indexes in Discipline and Punish as a
metaphor for hyper-regulative auster-
ity measures that compel individuals
to acquiesce to institutions’ value sys-
tems. Our totalitarianesque affinity
for researching and monitoring forges
a Panopticon culture obsessed with
knowing and classifying the “every-
thing” most beneficial to those who
extract and often least so for those
contiguous area of Palestinian control,
but consists of islands of Palestinians,
living in a sea of Israeli-only high-
ways, settlements, check points, and
closed military zones. There are more
than 120 illegal Jewish settlements
throughout the West Bank. The set-
tlers, unlike Palestinians in the West
Bank, are Israeli citizens, and Israel has
created a huge system of settler-only
infrastructure to facilitate movement
to Israel proper. Palestinians, on the
other hand, have almost no freedom
of movement, and even the shortest
inter-city trip can take hours if one
encounters a checkpoint, making nor-
mal life in the West Bank impossible.
In addition to the brutal occupation,
Israel also engages in environmental
apartheid, notably with regard to water
rights. Though Palestinians make up
ninety per cent of the population of
the West Bank, they only control 17 per
cent of the water. The rest is used by
settlers or piped into Israel proper. The
West Bank’s water fills Israeli pools and
7
Stacey Wilson | The McGill Daily
from whom it is extracted.
But heck, this article is so a prod-
uct of the privileged knowledge
systems that omniscience-obsessed
culture affords me. As my homeboy
De Rrida rhymes, “We cannot utter
a single destructive proposition
which has not already slipped into
the form, the logic, and the implicit
postulations of precisely what it
seeks to contest.” I am, inescapably,
the offspring of (philosophy-minor-
because-a-major-would-mentally-
unhinge-me) histories that, I real-
ize, get me high on abstractions.
Academia, let us reunite. !
waters Israeli lawns, while Palestinians
are forced to truck in clean water for
drinking and irrigation. The oppres-
sion of Palestinians in the West Bank is
systematic and horrific.
Israel’s goal, with all of these
laws and actions, is to maintain the
domination of Jewish Israelis over
all Palestinians.
I am certainly not the first per-
son to refer to Israel as an apartheid
state. In 1961, Hendrik Verwoerd,
then prime minister of South Africa
who helped develop and implement
apartheid policies in his country, said,
“Israel, like South Africa, is an apart-
heid state.” The message now, as it
was then, must be “End Apartheid!”
Jon Booth, U2 Economics and
History (Joint Honours) student,
is a member of the Tadamon! col-
lective. You can email him at jona-
thon.booth@mail.mcgill.ca. For
more information on this view-
point, you can visit tadamon.ca.
 8 Features
Rue
Frontenac
New life in a
dying industry
By Lola Duffort
T W
he fourth issue of Rue
Frontenac’s print edition hit
the stands this morning. Rue
Frontenac is a free, weekly,
French-language tabloid. Its
content is all original, and will
be entirely free of wire-content and adver-
tisements. But Rue Frontenac is more than
just the vanguard of independent journalism
in Quebec right now – it’s part of a difficult,
protracted, and as-yet unresolved fight for
press room autonomy and fair labour prac-
tices.
Frontenac began in January of 2009 when
the Journal de Montréal locked out 253 of its
workers following the failure of management
and the union – the Syndicat des travailleurs
de l’information du Journal de Montréal
(STIJM) – to agree upon a new contract. The
management of the Journal – a Quebecor
Media publication and Montreal’s biggest
French-language print daily – wanted to lay
off 75 people, on top of slashing their salaries
and benefits.
This is Quebecor’s 13th lockout in a little
over ten years, and each conflict has had
some sort of compounding influence on
the next. During the 15-month lockout at
the Journal de Québec, which was finally
resolved in July of 2008, its unionized journal-
ists had started their own independent pub-
lication, Média Matin Québec, as a pressure
tactic against their employer. The journalists
at the STIJM decided to adopt this strategy –
and Rue Frontenac was born.
The STIJM named their newspaper after
the street where the Journal is located, but
also in keeping with their spirit of resistance.
Pascal Filotto, secretary general of
the STIJM and a Frontenac desk editor,
explained the history behind the name.
“Frontenac was the governor of New France
when the British tried to invade in 1690.
They parked in front of Quebec City, and
there was a siege, and after a while [the
Bristish commander] sent his envoy to
demand that Quebec surrender. Frontenac
said, ‘Tell your master we’ll answer him by
the mouths of our cannons.’”
The publication’s logo is a cannon, and
their slogan is “par la bouche de nos crayons!”
– “from the mouths of our pens!”
Unlike Média Matin Quebec, which was a
print publication at the outset, Rue Frontenac
had been exclusively online until four weeks
ago, but has nonetheless established itself
firmly in Montreal’s media landscape and
garnered a reputation for investigative report-
ing. The website first made a name for itself in
2009 when it broke a scandal involving illicit
campaign fundraising by municipal politi-
cian Benoît Labonté. The story led him to
resign from his post at Vision Montréal – the
main opposition party at city hall – and sub-
sequently drop out of the Sainte-Marie city
council elections.
Jessica Nadeau, a Frontenac reporter who
covers environmental news, spoke about hav-
ing the freedom to pursue stories in an
in-depth manner. Last summer, she wrote a
series of stories about the shale gas wells that
have been popping up along the St. Lawrence
River – sometimes in very close proximity
to residential areas. “And now shale gas is a
pretty big story, I’d like to think I can take
some credit for that,” she said.
A
ccording to André Forté, the union
adviser for the Confédération des
Syndicats nationaux (CSN), the
STIJM’s parent union, it’s perfectly
understandable for an employer to try and
cut costs in a difficult financial situation – but
the Journal isn’t having any money problems.
Quebecor likes to invoke the difficult situ-
ation facing the print media today as a justifi-
cation for its decisions to lock its workers out.
In a recent press release, they reminded read-
ers that their decisions about the Journal are
being made in the “very difficult context of
the print industry.”
They aren’t lying about the “difficult con-
text” of print media. Management at La Presse,
the Journal’s rival publication, threatened to
shut down last fall unless its union made
some concessions. The Gazette, Montreal’s
most popular English daily, switched to a
smaller-sized paper last spring as a result of
financial difficulties.
But La Presse’s management was forced
to disclose its financial accounts during
negotiations, and the Journal’s manage-
ment has refused to do so. Forté points out
that the Journal’s readership, according to
Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank)
numbers, has actually gone up over the past
year. And while Quebecor has seen a decline
in revenue in its media division because of
declining circulation and flatlining advertis-
ing sales, it has not released any numbers
about the Journal’s financial situation. Also,
the Quebecor empire as a whole is doing
very well – it posted a 19 per cent rise in net
income last Tuesday, which amounts to $82
million in profits this quarter alone.
“They don’t need to save money…their
new vision is to have one guy write one article
for QMI [Quebecor’s news agency], and to
reprint that in every Quebecor publication,”
said Forté.
This means no diversification of content,
and very little in-depth coverage of any local
news.
“I mean, right now they want 17 journalists
back. That’s less than any other newsroom in
Montreal. It’s ridiculous for a paper the size of
the Journal,” said Forté.
Quebecor Media is one of Canada’s largest
media conglomerates and its biggest news-
paper publisher. Its subsidiaries include not
only newspaper chains but a television net-
work, internet and cable provider Videotron,
publishing and printing companies, magazine
distributors, and movie rental stores.
The aspirations of Quebecor CEO Pierre-
Karl Péladeau to own a prospective Quebec
City hockey franchise, and to establish a
right-wing news outlet called Sun TV News –
often referred to as “Fox News North” – have
worried those who see its potential political
implications.
“[Quebecor] controls forty per cent of the
media in this province,” said Filotto. “It’s the
biggest newspapers, the biggest TV stations,
they’ve got massive clout and power. They
could become a major player politically if they
wanted to.”
hen the conflict first started,
Quebecor’s deal to the union
included layoffs primarily of
employees in the accounting
and classifieds department – as well as fewer
rights for new hires, and the employer’s right
to reassign employees to produce online
or multimedia content. Quebecor, on the
whole, sought to revise over 200 articles
in the union’s contract. Almost two years
later, the union is willing to concede to
some of Quebecor’s original demands. They
refuse, however, to concede to the new
demands Quebecor has since put on the table
– demands that include the layoffs of roughly
eighty per cent of the original personnel, and
a non-concurrence clause that would have
prevented those fired by Quebecor from
working for a competitor (such as La Presse
or Le Devoir) for up to six months after their
contract’s termination. The non-concurrence
clause would have shut down Rue Frontenac
– both the website and the print edition.
Quebecor’s latest offer, which the union
rejected by a resounding vote of nearly ninety
per cent, not only galvanized the STIJM and
the CSN into declaring a boycott campaign
against the Journal, but it has also garnered
their cause quite a bit of political and pub-
lic sympathy. Several politicians and unions
across the province have come out in support
of the boycott against the Journal. The rejec-
tion of Quebecor’s last offer roughly coin-
cided with the publication of Rue Frontenac’s
first print edition. Ad space was sold out days
in advance, thanks mostly to union ads.
“Usually it would be unusual for a union to
declare [a] boycott, but the amount of public
sympathy we got after Quebecor’s latest offer
came out convinced us it might be effective,”
said Filotto.
The boycott has monopolized most of the
STIJM’s time since it was launched. STIJM
representatives, such as Filotto, are either
spending their time mobilizing unions across
the region or trying to catch the public’s
attention. On November 10, for example,
STIJM members went to the Bell Centre
before the hockey game to distribute copies

of Rue Frontenac and to collect signatures
for the new CSN petition. The petition autho-
rizes the CSN to notify businesses advertising
in the Journal of the signatories’ disapproval
of their marketing choices and also asks the
provincial government to push for the mod-
ernization of anti-scab laws. The CSN has also
organized a march for December 4, which will
start at the Parc La Fontaine at noon and end
at the Journal’s offices.
On top of it all, the union is looking for
an update to Quebec’s anti-scab law. Despite
locking out virtually its entire newsroom, the
Journal continues to publish. According to
the Quebec Labour Code, which stipulates
that a company can’t hire replacement work-
ers during a strike or lockout, they shouldn’t
be able to do this. The Journal has been get-
ting around the Labour Code by publishing
wire content from their news agency QMI,
which was established a short time before the
lockout began. Aside from a few columnists,
who weren’t part of the STIJM and stayed on
after the lockout, most of the content in the
Journal is now funneled in from the news
agency. The Journal has been able to fill its
pages without technically breaking the law.
Representatives of the STIJM and the CSN
were in Quebec City last month, presenting
the National Assembly with a petition, signed
by some 24,000 people, demanding that the
anti-scab law be amended to suit the modern
labour environment. The assembly unani-
mously passed a motion proposed by Amir
Khadir, the MNA for Mercier, to study how
the law should be updated. Filotto worries,
however, that the law won’t see an update
before the conflict’s conclusion.
T
hings at the Journal haven’t always
been this bad.
The magazine L’actualité recent-
ly ran an article written by Paule
Beaugrand-Champagne, who was editor in
chief at the Journal from 1998 to 2001. It was
titled “Requiem for the Journal de Montréal.”
In it, she highlights the stark differences
between Pierre Péladeau, who founded the
Journal de Montréal, and his son, Pierre-Karl
Péladeau, who has been the head of Quebecor
since his father’s death 12 years ago.
“Pierre Karl,” she wrote in French, “is in
the process of destroying his father’s favorite
achievement, [the Journal], which is the
origin of the very empire he now leads like
a czar.”
Under “Monsieur P.” as Pierre Péladeau
was affectionately called by his employees,
labour and management maintained a healthy
relationship. “Monsieur P” had started the
Journal during La Presse’s 1964 strike, and
wanted wholeheartedly to avoid labour dis-
putes within his own publication. He gener-
ally conceded to most union demands, and
over the years the STIJM had acquired for
its members one of the best contracts in the
business – in all of North America, according
to Beaugrand-Champagne. But Pierre-Karl’s
ascent to his father’s throne has marked radi-
cal departure from the old way of doing busi-
ness. Beaugrand-Champagne points not only
to deteriorating labour relations between
management and the unions, but to the rise
of corporate influence in the newsroom.
Quebecor is well known for using “conver-
gence” tactics as a successful corporate strat-
egy, which involves different divisions (or sub-
sidiaries) in the company working together
to Quebecor’s general benefit. For example,
smart phones on the company’s new wireless
network have access to Quebecor TV chan-
nels. However, in the context of the news-
room, this can have worrisome implications.
The Journal, along with other Quebecor
publications, is being increasingly used as
promotional fodder for the rest of the com-
pany’s products. The change came slowly
at first, according to Beaugrand-Champagne
– in the form of “suggested” stories – but
quickly became less subtle. Especially in the
entertainment sections, reporters have been
encouraged to hype up shows such as Star
Académie, a reality show featured on the
television network TVA, a subsidiary of the
Quebecor empire.
Having worked at the Journal nearly ten
years, Filotto has seen the full scope of this
shift in corporate attitude.“Most of us weren’t
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
hired by Pierre-Karl, we were hired under the
previous administration, and there wasn’t this
much corporate influence in the newsroom.
Péladeau was the owner, but as far as the
newsroom was concerned, it was live and let
live. There wasn’t that many editorials, there
was no moralizing. You see more of that now.”
Lyne Robitaille, the Journal’s editor in
chief, recently did an interview with 98.5
FM’s Paul Arcand on his morning radio show
Puisqu’il faut se lever. She was asked exactly
how many people the Journal wanted back,
and specifically, how many locked-out jour-
nalists were expected to see the inside of the
Journal’s offices again. She explained that
the Journal’s business model had evolved
in recent years, and that those who would
be brought back to work would be those
capable of adapting to this “new model.” “We
no longer talk about journalists now,” she said
in French, “we are talking about producers of
multimedia content.”
Nadeau, who has been working as a jour-
nalist for nearly ten years, was unsettled by
Robitaille’s statement. “That shocked me.
Because I’m a journalist. I am not a producer
of content. I studied in journalism. I have a
code of ethics. I have a career. I’m paid – and
I’m paid a good salary, to think, to analyze,
to [be] able to turn in stories. But above
all, at base, I’m here to think. If you tell me
that I’m no longer a journalist, that I’m just
a ‘producer of content’, well, then I can
understand why you’d want to pay me $17 an
hour. Because what’s a producer of content?
It’s someone that rewrites press releases. But
that’s not my job.”
The Quebec Press Council, the non-profit,
non-governmental organization devoted to
upholding the media’s responsibility to provide
quality reporting, is responsible for reviewing
complaints filed by the public about ethics
and standards in print and broadcast media
across Quebec. When it released unfavourable
rulings about incidents in Quebecor publica-
tions earlier this year, Quebecor responded by
pulling out of the Press Council entirely. It then
threatened to sue the Press Council should
it continue to review content produced by
9
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
Quebecor Media outlets.
The STIJM’s previous contract includ-
ed several stipulations designed to keep
corporate influence out of the newsroom,
stipulations which Quebecor would like to
see omitted in whatever deal is eventually
reached.
M
any at Rue Frontenac would like
to see their publication become
a permanent fixture. As it stands,
Quebecor only wants 17 jour-
nalists, four photographers, and a handful
of office workers to return. Many at Rue
Frontenac see the publication they’ve started
as a possibility for employment once the con-
flict is ended and a number of inevitable lay-
offs are rolled out. Several couldn’t imagine
going back to the Journal under the condi-
tions established at the Journal.
“With Rue Frontenac, we’re rediscovering
the freedom we once had at the Journal,”
said Patrick Gauthier, a desk editor at Rue
Frontenac.
However, while those at Rue Frontenac
would certainly want to see their publication
become its own private entity, independent
of the union, upon the conflict’s resolu-
tion, they still aren’t sure about Frontenac’s
viability. As it stands, Rue Frontenac is able
to pay for most of the costs incurred by its
operation – except for salaries. The STIJM
pays all of its members 76 per cent of the
salary they received while working at the
Journal out of a strike fund. Rue Frontenac
makes its money from advertisements online
and in print, as well as through donations.
They will either need to start charging for
their product, or develop a stable source of
revenue from a steady stream of advertisers
– or both – if the tabloid is going to survive
in the long run.
Rue Frontenac is available at news stands
across the city, including one at the Basha on
the corner of Sherbrooke and University. And
it’s the darling of Quebec’s non-Quebecor
media world. The paper has a lot going for it,
and it has proved resilient beyond any reason-
able expectation – for now, at least.
 Health&Education
The cultural conglomerate
Joseph Henry reports on the proposed merger of four language and culture departments
A
cting on enduring motiva-
tions, the Faculty of Arts has
recently embarked on a pro-
cess of amalgamating four language
and culture departments: German,
Hispanic, Italian, and Slavic and
Russian Studies. The plans are
currently being deliberated by a
confidential working group led by
Associate Dean Suzanne Morton,
and while many are excited about
more interdisciplinarity, several
faculty members and students have
raised serious opposition to the
plan.
The new focus on a possible
merger breaks a long-running atti-
tude of “benign neglect” on the part
of the administration, as Morton put
it.
“What’s happened over the past
few years is departments lost posi-
tions,” offered German Studies chair
Karin Bauer. “[People retired], left, and
they were not replaced. So now we
have some very small departments.”
The department of Russian and Slavic
Studies presently has two permanent
faculty members, Italian Studies three,
German Studies four, and Hispanic
Studies six. According to the chair of
Italian Studies Lucienne Kroha, the
current situation is one “the adminis-
tration has helped to create.”
Yet according to Morton, “[It]
doesn’t make sense to have a
department of three. Is that really
serving students’ interests? Are
there ways in which [we] can actu-
ally think about doing things differ-
ently or cooperatively? I think it’s
an attempt to bring vitality and an
opportunity to add resources.”
Differing perspectives
Some voices are optimistic
toward potential benefits. “German
Studies was the department that
from the start really felt positive
about the possibilities that merger
might offer,” Bauer said. “The excit-
ing part of a merger is to think of
new programs for students, to
develop new opportunities, new
ways of teaching, new ways of
research.”
Menemsha MacBain, an under-
graduate representative to Morton’s
working group, noted that a possi-
bility “in which [she’s] particularly
interested” is the opportunity for
“interdepartmental” team-taught
courses.
However, not everyone shares
similar outlooks. The Hispanic
Studies department in particular
has presented the most unified
departmental opposition to the
merger, citing budgetary failures
and an incompatibility between the
other departments and research in
Latin American culture studies – a
popular area of study in the depart-
ment.
As Hispanic Studies graduate
Sophie Bégin described, amalga-
Based in Sherbrooke 688, Hispanic, German, Italian, and Russian and Slavic Studies departments would merge under a new plan.
mation would constitute a regres-
sive move. The department serves
as a reference point for hispanic
studies in Canada, Bégin explained.
“Bringing down this department
for [pragmatic] issues would bring
down hispanic studies in Canada.”
Cuts to funding have also con-
tributed to Hispanic Studies’
decision to refuse the amalgama-
tion plan. “The proposal was too
underfunded to accept in its form,”
explained Amanda Holmes, the
department’s chair.
Students across departments
have also noticed the risks of such
consolidation. “If it leads to a depart-
ment that is productive in its active
criticism of studying countries based
on nationalism, that would be cool,”
offered German and East Asian
Studies undergraduate student
Carol Fraser. “However, if it leads
to a diminishing of specialty and a
dilution of language-learning, that
would be a huge loss for McGill.”
Alessandro Giardino, the gradu-
ate representative to the working
group and Italian Studies language
instructor, echoed a similar senti-
ment: “We are afraid that the merg-
er might be an attempt to cut out a
certain specificity that comes with
the language and the culture.”
Common ground
Despite their different attitudes,
all four departments are concerned
about ramifications the proposed
merger could have on language
instruction funding, a problem
already aggravated in previous years.
“The cuts to our language
teaching had a significant impact
on our ability to respond to stu-
dent demand,” Bauer said. Kroha
identified “a significant reduction
in language instruction” within
the administration’s proposal
for amalgamation. Holmes noted
that with the plan’s cuts, “we
wouldn’t have the same language
teaching capacity.”
The effects of decreased lan-
guage instruction seem to create
their own cyclical consequences.
Kroha noted that a reduction in lan-
guage instruction leads to a reduc-
tion in potential program students,
and thus smaller departments
in general. A number of spots in
language courses must then be
reserved for Arts students who
could potentially become majors.
Also, as Bauer noted, some
Management and Music programs
require German language instruc-
tion. “They will not be able to
graduate if they can’t take German
courses,” she said.
Some have also found the
administration’s lack of sufficient
support for language antithetical
to McGill’s concern with its inter-
national reputation. “For a univer-
sity that wants to be international,
that wants to be research-intensive,
that wants to [do] cutting-edge
research, it’s somehow unthink-
able [that] you can’t study the lan-
guage you need to fulfill your pro-
gram requirements, or to do your
research,” explained Bauer.
Graduate students
Decreases in language instruc-
tion would also mean fewer gradu-
ate students teaching among the
four departments, a demographic
perhaps most at odds with the
merger.
According to Kroha, less teaching
opportunities (and the wages that
go along with them) would mean a
lack of competitive edge in an insti-
tution that already gives graduate
students low funding opportuni-
ties. In a drafted statement, German
graduate student Nina Gerschack
wrote “compromising our ability to
teach seriously affects our ability to
effectively secure teaching positions
once we finish our degrees.”
Morton again located the lack of
graduate support in a wider context:
“We would all like more resources
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
to get the very best graduate stu-
dents. So I don’t think in any way
that’s unique to language.”
But the current proposal would
also add four new tenure-track posi-
tions for the combined department
and potentially faculty lecturers for
language instruction. Bauer noted
that the interdisciplinary possibili-
ties of new tenure-track faculty “can
help make this unit more coherent
in the sense that you can hire peo-
ple who already maybe cross some
boundaries.”
“We haven’t decided,” Morton
said, “but the belief [is] that perhaps
that is a way to actually improve the
quality of language teaching,” sug-
gesting an improvement over grad-
uate student instruction.
Speaking about German Studies,
MacBain said that, “We love our
grad students dearly, but I’ve asked
around about this, and the phrases
I most often hear used to describe
their teaching skills are ‘mixed bag’
and ‘hit or miss.’”
In contrast, Gerschack cited the
“demand for additional sections”
and “feedback from undergradu-
ates” as evidence to the contrary.
Similarly, Holmes mentioned the
positive feedback from course
evaluations in Spanish graduate
instruction.
Local issue, global pattern
The merging or abolition of small
departments has become wide-
spread among institutions around
the world. “We are not being terri-
bly innovative in this; we are really
following the pattern,” Morton said.
Middlesex University in London
intends to close their philosophy
department, as part of the United
Kingdom’s enormous cuts in teach-
ing expenses. Similarly, several
language, theatre, and classics pro-
grams at the State University of
New York (SUNY) Albany may be
cancelled.
Closer to McGill, over the course
10
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
of the summer, the University of
Toronto Faculty of Arts And Science
aimed to conglomerate East Asian
Studies, Germanic Languages and
Literatures, Italian Studies, Slavic
Languages and Literatures, Spanish
and Portuguese, and the Centre
for Comparative Literature into
a new “School of Languages and
Literatures.” Thomas Keirstead,
chair of East Asian Studies at the
University of Toronto, identified a
global trend towards viewing such
departmental amalgamations into
such “economies of scale.”
The faculty’s plan was met
with a rapidly mobilized academ-
ic response from professors and
students, including the creation
of town hall meetings, a website
archiving all information related to
the merger, and a plan for outreach
across the university. Ultimately,
the faculty reversed its decision and
retained the departments.
In comparison, McGill’s move
toward amalgamation has been
unadvertised, save in emails on cer-
tain listservs to find student repre-
sentatives for the working group. As
Fraser wrote in a petition to Dean of
Arts Christopher P. Manfredi she cir-
culated in German classes, “…to my
current knowledge there has been
no explicit notification to students
in my department, either by emails,
announcements, or postering.”
However, there is still ample
time for discussion. According to
Morton, a report will be sent to the
Dean by November 30. The Arts
chair meeting will happen after,
“at which point it will eventually
be brought to Faculty. At that point
there’s some public discussion,”
Morton said.
As Keirstad said, “There’s some-
thing to be said that elite institu-
tions devote themselves to fields
whether they’re popular fields of
inquiry or not. …Part of being a
world-class institutions is support-
ing minority fields of inquiry.”
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com Health &Education 11
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 Culture
Comprehension problems
Montreal has become a multilingual city, but its literary scene is still catching up
Tim Beeler
The McGill Daily
O
n October 29, the DHC/
ART Foundation for
Contemporary Art put on
a unique spoken word event at the
Musée des beaux-arts. The evening
entitled “Early Warning Systems,”
was billed as a bilingual homage
to American artist Jenny Holtzer
and showcased six Montreal poets.
On the bill were three readings in
English and three in French, pre-
sented in alternating order, with
no translations or visual aids. What
made the event so special was
the manner in which it presented
itself – as a political statement and
an experiment in bilingualism.
Crowded on a Friday night, this
showcase of young talent bodes
well for the future of the literary
scene in Montreal, with its ever-
growing linguistic diversity.
Carmine Starino, one of the
three anglophone poets and the
coordinator of the event, made it
clear that the billing was entirely
intentional. “I’ts so hard to take
your own language for granted in
a city where a variety of languages
are spoken fully and without anxi-
ety,” he said over the phone. When
asked about the lack of transla-
tions he replied, “That was part of
the experiment – if you get it fine,
if you don’t, you don’t. The feeling
was that – not that any one of us
articulated it – we had a sense of
maturity about the city, about our
sense of self. We didn’t feel like
we had to spoon-feed everything
to the audience – it was billed as a
bilingual event. Also, the idea was
that the poets would be able to
work in their own language with-
out...translation.”
It seems that writers other than
Starino share a similar sentiment
about bilingualism in Montreal.
Sean Michaels, novelist and co-
founder of the Montreal-based
music and microfiction blog Said
the Gramophone, told me about
his experience as an anglophone
in the literary scene. “I’m grateful
for this city, and for the richness
of Québécois culture. I think if
you live in Montreal, you should
make an effort to understand at
least a little of both French and
English. I write in English, but try
to read French books as well, and
see French theatre.”
In spite of the success of “Early
Warning Systems,” others were
more pessimistic about the anglo-
phone literary scene becoming
more bilingual. “I don’t know
how that would happen,” Starino
told me. “It’s such a work to put
together any event and then, on
top of that, to have to budget in
a quota of bilingualism is just that
much more difficult. I guess they
should do it only if they feel it nec-
essary.”
What few bilingual events
there are in Montreal tend to
present languages side-by-side,
with little or no attempt to make
the content accessible to mono-
lingual members of the audience.
This is not to say that such events
do not exist. Starino mentioned
attending an integrated festival
in Rome that successfully incor-
porated writers from around the
world. “They had this huge screen
in the back that ran simultane-
ous translations as the authors
read. … I thought it was fantas-
tic,” he reflected. However, here
in Montreal, different languages
remain decidedly separate in lit-
erary events – even when they
appear at the same festival.
Blue Metropolis, Montreal’s
multilingual literature festival,
features writers and speakers in a
wide range of languages in a way
that mimics the distribution of
communities in the city. “We rare-
ly translate, preferring to bring in
the public that speaks and under-
stands the languages of our events.
That, so far as I am aware, makes
us unique in the world,” wrote
Linda Leith, the festival’s artistic
director, in an email to The Daily.
When asked about the future of
multilingual events in the city, she
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Edna Chan for The McGill Daily
replied, simply, “I think there is
room for events of many different
kinds. A lot depends on the writ-
ers and the language(s) they work
in; also of course on audiences.”
While it seems redundant to
say that the future of a multilin-
gual literature scene would be
dependent on the languages of
those who are a part of it, such
an observation does put par-
ticular emphasis on the poten-
tial Montreal has to foster such
a community. Michaels wrote to
me in his reply that, “Yes, I think
[Montreal]’s in a fairly unique
position. But I don’t think this is
acted upon. Mostly, I guess, due to
the anglo/franco scenes’ relative
indifference to each other – but
also because fluent bilingualism
is rarer than you might imagine.”
Starino made a similar com-
ment: “I don’t know if we would
be a role model for other multi-
lingual literature scenes – I think
we’re a role model for the rest
of the country...I think we’re a
glimpse into the future for liter-
ary scene in other cities. As immi-
grants pour into other Canadian
cities, the writing and the sense
of otherness is going to change.
Canada is still very much a mono-
lingual country – I know we’re
officially bilingual, but it’s true.
We’re the only city in Canada
where the citizens are forced to
12
live around so many different
soundscapes.” Starino’s comment
speaks to another problem in
Montreal’s literary scene. Even as
the anglophone and francophone
scenes show sparks of conversa-
tion and integration, many other
languages remain marginalized.
Blue Metropolis remains unique
in its effort to integrate writing in
languages like German, Spanish,
Arabic, Portuguese, and Italian,
though all of these are spoken in
Montreal.
As an anglophone, sitting in the
auditorium made me think only of
my own inability to understand
the poets who were speaking in
another language – not about
the lack of translations or visual
ques. Indeed, the maturity that
Starino mentioned came through
in full form. This gives rise to
another interesting idea: Is it the
tensions between Montreal’s dif-
ferent linguistic groups that make
Montreal’s literary community so
vibrant? Starino seemed to share
the sentiment: “I think as a writer
living in Montreal, its just hard
not to write without the sound of
French in your ear or the sound of
any other language, whether we
want to or not – the force is in the
city to make us more bilingual,
to absorb other sounds other
acoustics into our work. … We are
already part of the experiment.”
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
Behind the scenes
The hidden world of McGill’s hardworking theatre tech crew
Ben Fried
Culture Writer
T
he latest production by the
English department’s Drama
and Theatre program was
unveiled last night at Moyse Hall.
The play is Measure for Measure,
and the shrunken of soul (or the
most fed-up of fifth-years) might
consider Shakespeare’s themes of
hypocrisy, repression, and dubi-
ous sibling love rather well suited
to English studies at McGill. If
so, then the department’s twice-
yearly productions, and genuine
collaborations between supervis-
ing professors and committed stu-
dents should be a rebuke to such
cynicism. The most visible aspect
of Measure’s multimedia staging,
however, is also the least publi-
cized. The technical arrangement
of sets, lights, sound, and props is
the assigned class work of the little-
known course “Stage, Scenery, and
Lighting.” Its students are responsi-
ble for mounting every show, and its
confines offer a training and meet-
ing ground for many of the techni-
cians underpinning the McGill stu-
dent theatre community.
The course has been taught for
the past 15 years by Keith Roche.
A graduate of the National Theatre
School and the owner of his own
production company, Roche
describes the year-long course as
part “boot camp” and part “prac-
tical exam.” Students arrive with-
out any required experience,
work on their production skills in
Moyse Hall’s cavernous workshop,
and then, in four weeks, build a
show. The first semester’s class is
designed along the lines of a vac-
cination – sudden exposure and
quick adaptation – while the sec-
ond leans more toward student
responsibility. There are few equiv-
alent courses at McGill. Alongside
Catherine Bradley’s “Costuming for
the Theatre” (also geared toward
the biannual shows) and Myrna
Wyatt Selkirk’s courses in acting
and directing, Roche’s class rep-
resents one of the very few arenas
for practical experience and profes-
sional development in the Drama
and Theatre program. “Our goal,”
he says, “is to give the students as
much experience as possible and, at
the same time, to change the way
technicians are viewed. The work is
not just fun, it’s a job.”
In the case of Measure for
Measure, the job has been as seri-
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ous and time-consuming as any
other. The technical side of theatre
begins with the director’s concept,
a fairly complex one for professor
and Measure for Measure director
Patrick Neilson, involving a building
in renovation and two sets of pro-
jections. The set is first developed
with scale drawings, modelled by
a cardboard maquette, and then
built in the workshop before being
disassembled, moved on stage, and
put back together. Light and sound
designs take shape simultaneous-
ly. Aside from their regular class
time and homework, students put
in an extra ten hours a week and,
during the days prior to opening,
attend rehearsals from six in the
evening until midnight. Jordana
Globerman, a veteran of last year’s
class and the assistant set designer
this time around, points out that
“the demands are very intense for
this class, but that is what is needed
for productions of this calibre to
come about.”
Money also helps. Roche
receives up to $1,500 from the
English department per show, but
any surplus needs must be met
through bake sales, Moyse Hall
rentals, and general scrounging.
As Roche says, “We beg, borrow,
and steal.” He often buys mis-tint-
ed paint at half-price and tries to
avoid delivery charges. At other
student theatres, budgets are even
tighter. Shows at Players’ Theatre
and Tuesday Night Café Theatre
(TNC) work with about $700
apiece. Even so, all of McGill’s
theatre groups are on fairly good
terms and often share equip-
ment and personnel. Moreover, in
tech, as with acting, half the fun
comes from improvisation. Peter
Farrell, joint technical director of
TNC along with Eric Chad (cur-
rently Roche’s student), recalls
once stealing a door frame from
a Leacock construction site. On
another occasion, he bought an
electric hand-cleaner from Home
Depot, used it for 24 hours, and
then returned it. Moments of simi-
lar backstage inspiration, Farrell
says, are known in the business as
“techgasms.”
If you’re anything like me, the-
atre holds for you both the allure and
the fear of performance. I slipped
sideways into tech through shyness,
but that is not the most common
route. Technicians and designers
are artists in their own right, mix-
ing science and self-expression, and
their work gives as much life to the
Culture 13
stage as the director’s vision or the
actor’s presence. “Some people in
tech don’t even like theatre,” Farrell
tells me, but most, like Globerman,
find backstage a place “to be cre-
ative visually, work with your hands,
and learn from and collaborate with
many other creative and talented
people.”
Different hopes burn for the
future of McGill’s student the-
atre. Roche would like Drama
and Theatre to develop into a
full-fledged professional school,
along the lines of the Music
Faculty, while Farrell and Chad
want to see a greater investment
in McGillSTAGE, the five-year-old
collaborative venture between
theatre groups. Josh Teichman,
technical director at Players’,
student labourer on Measure for
Measure, and professional tech-
nician since the age of 14 (hired
because the boss thought his
name was “Techman”) simply
desires “publicity for the theatres
themselves and more people to
work the shows.”
To get involved in the backstage
work of student theatre, email a
group’s tech coordinator or sidle up
to a show’s director. Those in search
of multiple techgasms should register Alex McKenzie | The McGill Daily
for “Stage, Scenery, and Lighting 2.” Some of the theatre’s most important roles stay out of the spotlight.
2010 mellon lectures
Thursday 18 November at 6 pm
Maristella Casciato
Senior Mellon Fellow
Professor of Architectural History,
School of Architecture “Aldo Rossi” at Cesena, University of Bologna
Introducing Pierre Jeanneret — architect,
designer, educator — in Chandigarh
in English
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920, rue Baile, Montréal Info: 514 939 7001 ext. 1408 www.cca.qc.ca/mellonlectures
Paul Desmarais Theatre. Admission is free but seating is limited.
The CCA gratefully acknowledges the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
14Culture The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Heartbreak motel
TNC’s production of Suburban Motel is all over the map
Eric Andrew-Gee gritty to a fault. Some of the time If in Problem Child RJ laments
The McGill Daily it doesn’t feel like Benjamin, for the world’s lack of justice, Rolly’s
example, is acting at all: she deliv- gripe here is plain bad luck: the
ers lines in the mushy, mundane play unfolds as a comedy of errors,

O
n the small round stage
fenced in by rings of pokey
little chairs, dimly lit and
sparsely decorated, Tuesday Night
Cafe’s (TNC) Suburban Motel:
Problem Child & Criminal Genius
is all fireworks. We get a roar-
ing drunk hotel manager; an ex-
con prone to throwing tantrums
about what he sees on daytime
talk shows; a histrionic, red-faced
female thug who hurls abuse like
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas; and a
greasy small-time crook who talks
with the speed and precision of a
careening bob-sled.
Student director Johanu Botha
culled his wild, sometimes jarring,
“double feature” from a string of
six short plays, collectively called
Suburban Motel by the Canadian
playright George F. Walker. Both
parts of the double feature take
place in the same motel room, and
orbit around the motel’s manager
Phillie (Cory Lipman).
The first, Problem Child, seems
unclear as to what it wants to be.
The story of RJ (Adam Finchler)
and his alcoholic partner Denise
(Rachael Benjamin) trying to get
their baby back from a priggish
social worker is utterly sincere to
the point of hyper-realism. Denise,
for example, with her perfect valley
girl cadences, is played with eerie
accuracy by Benjamin. Anyone who
has seen a very depressed and very
drunk person clamoring for atten-
tion will cringe at Benjamin’s perfor-
mance.
Parts of the play, in fact, are
almost aggressively unlyrical,
way people speak on a daily basis.
This was a deliberate aesthetic.
But realism doesn’t have to pre-
clude performance, as it some-
times seems to do in the play.
On the other hand, the play flies
into the realm of the absurd too
often for a work so rooted in the
soot and sorrow of post-industrial
hardship. At one point, Denise for-
gets that RJ’s mother is dead. It’s a
detail that is just slightly, but notice-
ably off.
This dissonance can be effec-
tive. Using a boring suburban set-
ting as a straight man for lunacy
is an age-old formula – think of
the plain normalcy and through-
the-roof hijinks of Joel and Ethan
Cohen’s Fargo. But when Botha
told me in the lobby of the Islamic
Studies building before the play
that he had chosen the grimmest
and funniest of Walker’s six short-
takes, he might have added that
he chose to stuff both tones into
each play.
The second play of the double-
feature, Criminal Genius, suf-
fers from the same odd mixture
of madcap and quiet misery. A
father-son combo of cheap crooks
– Rolly (Teis Jorgensen) and Stevie
(Marko Djurdjic) – fail at their
assigned task of burning down a
building owned by a local crime
boss. They are incessantly scold-
ed for their failure by their bull-
doggish arsonist in-chief, Shirley
(Tara Richter Smith). Like Problem
Child, Criminal Genius ends with
a completely ludicrous and not-to-
be-divulged fit of violence.
as the hapless criminals stumble
into worse and worse predica-
ments. Shirley has some great lines
of raw sarcasm and vitriol (mostly
aimed at her foil Rolly) and in both
plays, Phillie is brilliant as a motel
manager ever engaged in a self-
imposed game of Edward Forty-
Hands (Lipman’s use of the set’s
doorframes to prop up his drunk
body is almost balletic). There
may even be too much humour,
or too much attempted humour,
in Criminal Genius. Sometimes,
as the excellent cast one-up’s each
other with ever louder and more
outrageous outbursts, the signifi-
cance of what the actors are saying
gets drowned out.
Suburban Motel suffers from
a kind of schizophrenia: it is at
once a brooding, heavy-breathing
drama and, before you know it,
floats off into dizzy, violent farce.
Which is not to say the play falls
apart: both of its split personali-
ties are charming in their way. The
cast is uniformly talented, and
Finchler and Smith give especially
smart performances. But they’re
battling their material: the sincere
and the absurd sit so uneasily, one
beside the other, in the play. No
amount of skill on the actors’ or
director’s part can reconcile this
fact.
Suburban Motel is playing at TNC
Theatre November 17 to 20 and
November 24 to 27. For ticket res-
ervations email tnctheatre@gmail. Courtesy of Adam Scotti for Leacocks
com. See the full version of this
article at mcgilldaily.com.
Tara Richter Smith gets trigger-happy in TNC’s Criminal Genius.

Ek het die antwoord

South African band Die Antwoord reappropriates Zef culture
Alexis Nigro suburbs of Cape Town. Originally
Culture Writer available through an open source,
their album $O$ has been distrib-
uted by Interscope Records since
dian known for self-loathing jokes that has been placed on working “No Glove, no Love” is the
about Zef culture – the same cul- class Afrikaners since the end of post-Mandela HIV awareness slo-
ture his band now parodies. apartheid. Outside of South Africa, gan. Umthondo Wisizwe was the
The best translation of Zef from however, this message often goes African National Congress militia

L
ast month, Montreal’s
Metropolis theatre hosted
South African Zef-rave-
rap music trio, Die Antwoord.
The group presents an intel-
ligent musical satire of a South
African subculture known as
Zef. Unfortunately, many of Die
Antwoord’s North American fans
are unaware of this aspect of the
band’s art.
Die Antwoord is comprised
of Warkins Tudor Jones (Ninja),
Anica (Yolandi Vi$$er), and the
elusive DJ Hi-Tek. Their pseud-
onyms are not just stage names,
but whole personas that the trio
stick to in every public appear-
ance. Beginning as a YouTube
sensation, Die Antword hails from
the notoriously poor Cape Flats
this past summer, launching the
band’s international promotional
tour.
In terms of sound, Die Antwoord
combines Europop vocals with
punchline-filled rap performed
in both Afrikaans and English. It
is, whatever the description will
lead one to believe, quite catchy.
Ninja’s rhymes are entertaining and
smooth; Vi$$er’s vocals range from
pixie to harpy; and Hi-Tek rounds
out the sound with simple beats and
booming base. A mixture of nine-
ties synth and Afrikaans rap tread-
ing somewhere between Weird
Al and Eminem, Die Antwoord’s
sound is unconventional but totally
palatable.
Prior to his Ninja character,
Jones was a locally famous come-
Afrikaans is perhaps hick or com-
mon, but the term is a bit more
nuanced. “Zef” is derived from
the apartheid era Ford Zephyr, an
inexpensive car available to white
South African mine workers and
farmers. In modern South Africa,
Zef connotes poor Afrikaners from
the Cape who wear last decade’s
Puma catalogue, drive 1980’s GMs,
drink cheap lager, and loudly enjoy
electronic music on their lawn. In
essence, Zef refers to South Africa’s
“white trash.”
Though Die Antwoord is mainly
known for satirizing Zef culture, the
band also uses it as a way to reclaim
Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid
South Africa. By poking fun at the
culture in which they were raised,
Die Antwoord rejects the stigma
unnoticed.
Die Antwoord’s latest single,
“Evil Boy,” for example, draws in
international audiences through
the video’s outrageous phallic
imagery, though the message of
the song goes deeper. “Evil Boy”
not only mocks circumcision in
Xhosa and Catholic culture, but
also takes a shot at South African
President, Jacob Zuma – who was
accused of raping an HIV positive
woman without a condom. The
chorus goes as follows: Yooo! Evil
Boy!/Why is your incanca (trans:
penis in Xhosa) so big?/All the bet-
ter to love you with!/No glove, no
love!/If you don’t believe me/Take
your dirty hands off my umthondo
wisizwe! (trans: spear of the nation
or people in Zulu).
under apartheid that had Zuma
among its ranks. The whole cho-
rus is a direct and pun-filled refer-
ence to Zuma’s 2005 rape charge.
Die Antwoord also lampooned
recently-deceased white suprema-
cist, Eugene Terre’Blanche, in their
song “Super Evil,” and joked about
Afrikaner stereotypes in their sin-
gle “Wat Pomp”.
Even if you don’t get the topical
humour and political message of
Die Antwoord’s music, it’s worth a
listen. A few Wikipedia searches will
provide you with enough context to
understand the band’s references.
Just remember that the woman on
stage rocking a mullet and gold
spandex is as witty and informative
to South Africans as Jon Stewart is
to Americans.
The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com 15
volume 100
number 21
EDITORIAL
editorial
3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Radical reform needed on Turcot
Montreal, QC H3A 1X9
The Ministère des transports du Québec (MTQ) unveiled its lat-
phone 514.398.6784
fax 514.398.8318 est plans to renovate the crumbling Turcot interchange last week. The
mcgilldaily.com Turcot is a tangle of three highways – two urban expressways and
coordinating editor the Champlain Bridge – that has been slowly rotting since it was con-
Emilio Comay del Junco structed with low-grade concrete in the sixties. It first became the tar-
coordinating@mcgilldaily.com get of much-needed renovation plans by the province back in 2007.
coordinating news editor
Michael Lee-Murphy The MTQ’s 2007 plan met vehement opposition from local resi-
news editors dents – the proposals would have increased the Turcot’s capac-
Eric Andrew-Gee ity and demolished hundreds housing units. The new $3-billion plan
Rana Encol
Henry Gass will still destroy over a hundred dwellings, increase the interchange’s
car capacity, and mire St. Henri in construction for years to come.
features editor
Niko Block
Until last year, Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay rejected the province’s
commentary&compendium! editor
William M. Burton plans, going so far as to join opposition parties in city hall and the mayors
of the region’s other cities in demanding a better proposal from Quebec
coordinating culture editor
Ian Beattie City – one that included Projet Montréal’s propositions for reducing traf-
fic by forty per cent, no expropriations, and greater public transit. Now
culture editors
Naomi Endicott Tremblay has gone back on his word and thrown his weight behind the
Sarah Mortimer MTQ’s project, which fails to take into account local residents, the environ-
science+technology editor
ment, or sound urban planning. When Richard Bergeron, Projet Montréal’s
Shannon Palus leader and member of the city’s executive committee for urban planning,
health&education editor
refused to support the new project, Tremblay forced him to resign.
Joseph Henry
sports editor
Promotional materials for the new plan are cloaked in “green” rhetoric and
Eric Wen imagery, yet the plan contains no budgetary commitments to the proposed
photo editor
streetcar line, suburban train, park, or bicycle path, among other improve-
Victor Tangermann ments. An exclusive bus-and-taxi lane – an attempt to facilitate public transport
illustrations editor
– does not even run straight to its downtown destination and restricts access
0livia Messer to on- and off-ramps. The planned Quartier du Canal – a neighbourhood that
production&design editors
would sit between the Lachine Canal and the Turcot – would be surrounded
Sheehan Moore by heavy industry and a planned a bio-methane plant, which according to cur-
Joan Moses rent laws must be 400 metres away from any housing. As Bergeron has said,
copy editor when it comes to greening initiatives, this plan “is a tremendous fraud.”
Courtney Graham
web editor The provincial government has been missing the point for three years in
Tom Acker their attempts to compromise on Turcot renovations. Repairing the Turcot
cover design to get another 50 to 100 years of use out of it without reducing its automo-
Olivia Messer bile capacity and dramatically increasing public transit funding is a misap-
le délit propriation of government money and a major missed opportunity to change
Éléna Choquette the way the city works. Certainly, the interchange is vital to Montreal’s
Mai Anh Tran-Ho
economy and residents of the suburbs, and thus needs to be fixed – but to
rec@delitfrancais.com
maintain the status quo is not an option. Downtown Montreal needs by all
Contributors
Shaina Agbayani, Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Tim Beeler,
means to remain accessible to residents of surrounding areas, but the means
Jon Booth, Edna Chan, Christina Colizza, Max of access need to shift away from highways and toward public transit.
Dannenberg, Thomas Dashwood, Ethan Feldman, Ben
Fried, Michael Geary, David Huehn, Humera Jabir,
Jessica Lukawiecki, Oliver Lurz, Alex Mckenzie, Alexis
Nigro, Anna Norris, Laura Pellicer, Adam Scotti, Maya
A solution to such unnecessary congestion and pollution can be found in
Shoukri, Robert Smith, Stacey Wilson Toronto’s plan to create a suburban light-rail system connecting suburban resi-
dents to the city. Other cities around the world – like Paris, Seoul, Barcelona
and Vancouver – have found similarly inventive ways, like improved com-
muter trains, to reduce car traffic while bearing citizens’ mobility in mind.

With Montreal’s award-winning public transportation system, the improve-

ment and extension of these services to the suburbs should more than ade-
The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the quately alleviate the issues of congestion and accessibility for suburban resi-
Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit
organization whose membership includes all McGill dents working in the city. Instead of pouring billions of dollars into a project
undergraduates and most graduate students.
that entrenches automobile use and will see people lose their homes, invest-
3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 ment in public transportation needs to be made the first priority in balancing
Montreal, QC H3A 1X9
the need to preserve access to the city while reducing traffic in the long-term.
phone 514.398.6790
fax 514.398.8318

advertising & general manager Boris Shedov

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

The Daily is proud to be a founding member

of the Canadian University Press.
All contents © 2010 Daily Publications Society. All rights
reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibil-
ity of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the
views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised
in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.
Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.
ISSN 1192-4608.
 Com pen dium ! The McGill Daily | Thursday, November 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com
16
Lies, half-truths, and I’m so high right now

Separated at birth?

Greek students protest austerity measures! PLUS 100

Protest also a commemoration of failed student 
uprising in 1973 PLUS 20

Dragon  Boat  Club  gets  all  the  funding  they  PLUS 5

requested!! ($2,000!!!)

Dragon Boat Club??
EVEN

Admin forces grad students to pay $200 a semes‐
ter for study space MINUS 200

HMB  reveals  the  fact  that  she  has  next  to  no 
comprehension of student life when she admits 
she didn’t know about the fee until the last Town  MINUS 100
Concept: Télésphore Sansouci / Photo: Bikuta Tangaman | The McGill Daily Hall
Hispanic, Slavic and Russian, German, and Italian 
studies are in merger talks EVEN

Fridge Door Gallery opens again PLUS 50

Petition  for  Jean  Charest  to  resign  gets  tons  of 

signatures!! PLUS 100

TOTAL MINUS 25
LAST WEEK’S TOTAL PLUS 50

Something I drew
in a meeting

Concept: William M. Burton / Illustration: Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

of wax, his hands almost melting

one-hundred word story into the linen of his pants. He didn’t
one-hundred word story seem to move; she fluttered around
one-hundred word story his grim twelve-o’clock face. I went
back to my articles, this week two
one-hundred word story girls were smashed against a wall
one-hundred word story at their elementary school when an
old woman stepped on the wrong

I REMEMBER IT WAS IMPORTANT TO PUT

myself behind my bedroom
wall, so I couldn’t see her stand-
ing up so uptight and prim near
him. He sat like a man made out
pedal. Better than last week’s toy
recall. Then she laughed especially
hard, and the screwtop off the wine
bottle fell on the floor.
—Joseph Henry
Télésphore Sansouci | The McGill Daily