As you rifle through The Tribune’s final issue, I implore you to consider a heavy, urgent, and tender word: Responsibility. For the past academic year, student revolutionaries took on the responsibility to spearhead movements for Indigenous sovereignty and Palestinian liberation, fought against increasing conservatism and fascism across North America, and resisted rising capitalism and repression. At McGill, we faced a university administration that has increased surveillance, authoritarianism, and suppression of dissent.
Considering these constant revolutions, I ask that you consider your responsibility, and wear it as a badge of honour. Responsibility is your power, not your inconvenience. Responsibility emerges from compassion—a care for someone beyond yourself. It is an act of love to be held accountable for seeking justice for another. I ask that you take on the responsibility of harnessing knowledge of injustice and using it to grow in radicalism. Recall that resistance is a form of love, that knowledge is not neutral, and that silence can never equate to safety. Seek responsibility in protest, in print, in persistence. I ask that in every action you take, every story you digest, every word you speak, you remember your inherent responsibility: To speak truth to power. To resist an oppressive status quo. To fight against colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
The Tribune changed my life. I began three years ago as a wide-eyed Staff Writer for the News section, becoming a News Editor the year after. This year, I had the responsibility of leading the largest McGill student paper as its 44th Editor-in-Chief. The weight of that title never sat lightly on my shoulders. The Tribune worked tirelessly to uplift Palestinian students, racialized students, queer students, disabled students, Indigenous students, for every voice the institution tried to erase. We sought to hold our student and university administrators accountable. We sought to teach rigorous and critical journalism as an act of kindness, as an act of education, a pedagogy of truth, and most importantly, as a responsibility.
Student journalism can not function independently of you, our students. I thank you for your dedication to The Tribune’s goals of fostering trust and transparency. Thank you to our contributors and staff writers, photographers, and illustrators for filling our pages with life. Thank you to our Board of Directors for all your work in keeping our ship afloat, financially and administratively. Finally, thank you to all of our editors for bearing the immense responsibility of pouring your care into our day-to-day collaboration, creating exceptional issues from week to week. I am endlessly grateful.
As I sit in The Tribune’s board room and construct this letter at midnight of our last production day, I recall the day I moved to Montreal three years ago. My dad drove me up from Toronto. The journey should’ve taken six hours; he made it 16. He never admitted it, but he was trying to prolong the final day he had with his daughter. Tonight, I feel like him. I take my sweet time chatting with my editors as I do not want the final production cycle to conclude. I pause between reading paragraphs and share a funny anecdote. I look up at our wall of past issues, and I don’t just see print. I see all we’ve learned and built together.
This is a space that taught me how to innovate, how to shed fear, and how to master patience. Most importantly, The Tribune taught me responsibility. To keep showing up. To choose justice, even when it’s hard. To know that my words, and silences, shape the world.
And with this, I leave The Tribune. My writers, photographers, illustrators, editors, and readers—I implore you to remember: Revolution should be your daily rhythm, and responsibility, your fundamental commitment.
—Jasjot Kaur Grewal, Editor-in-Chief
