In an Academy Award season mostly bereft of controversy, Zero Dark Thirty has filled the void with its brutal and frank depiction of torture. The film, a dramatization of the American military operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, was written based on conversations with people who had first hand knowledge[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Is Fantino making a mistake on Haiti?
This New Year began on a controversial note for Canada’s International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino. According to a story published in La Presse, Ottawa froze aid to Haiti shortly after Fantino’s visit to the Caribbean nation in November. While some current funding will continue, funding on new projects will be,[Read More…]
Students do not want fewer courses
Over the next month, high school, CEGEP, and international students alike will submit their university applications to McGill. As these applications are finalized, however, the McGill to which they are applying will look less and less like the one that we have come to know. Last week, Dean of Arts[Read More…]
Co-operative education: a new kind of degree
October 1957 marked the start of the first co-op (cooperative education program) in Canada. The program started amongst 74 Waterloo engineering students and has since become a trend for university learning. Co-op programs are incorporated into compatible majors, such as architecture and engineering, to give students work experience, thereby making[Read More…]
A reflection on homelessness
It was Christmastime. The snow was falling, bells were ringing, and I was walking to Provigo to obtain my weekly family-sized box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Not too long before, a heart-warming news story had originated from just down the Hudson—New York policeman Lawrence DePrimo was spotted by a tourist,[Read More…]
Vote “yes” for the press
The upcoming existence referendum for the Daily Publication Society (DPS) is an important crossroad. All campus media outlets rely greatly upon the ongoing financial support of the McGill community. In return, campus media plays an important role in shaping the dialogue on campus, offering those at McGill information and perspective[Read More…]
Why Idle No More is good for Canada
It is easy for some to give in to a knee-jerk response to the Idle No More movement and regard it as a petty squabble over access to federal funds, or to look at Chief Theresa Spence’s four-week ‘hunger strike’ of water and fish broth, and see no hunger strike[Read More…]
Budget cuts no different than tuition increases
Last December, we saw a very different side of the Parti Québecois and the students that helped vote it into office than we came to know in 2012. Elected on the shoulders of the student movement, and a recent advocate of accessible education, the PQ struck a major blow against[Read More…]
Divest what? The flawed thinking behind university divestment
A large part of the difference in the policy prescriptions that we see from the Left and Right can be attributed to the logic they apply to political and policy problems. In terms of social issues, we see that those on the Right tend to frame problems within an absolutist[Read More…]
Creating (and fighting) for a more heavenly campus
This Christmas Day, my family found ourselves in the Old City of Jerusalem, the historical intersection of the world’s three great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Although we are Jewish, we walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to see what Christmas was like at one of the religion’s[Read More…]