On Feb. 22, McGill University and the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) announced that they had come to a tentative agreement on both the economic and non-economic issues affecting casual workers at the university. The proposed agreement, which needs to be approved by a ratification vote at AMUSE’s next major meeting, includes provisions for wage increases, paid overtime, and sick leave, as well as modifications to the existing hiring and firing process for casual labourers on campus.

According to a press release by McGill University, this will be the first collective agreement for AMUSE, which represents roughly 1,500 casual labourers on campus. These negotiations took a year to complete.

“Something that we keep in mind is that a lot of the advantage to holding a casual position is that it can be a short-term thing … and you’re looking for flexibility in that job a lot of the time,” Jaime Maclean, current president of AMUSE, said.  “But there’s also a lot of inequality between positions on campus, and without a labour union to police the working conditions of their members, an employer can easily take advantage of their employees.”

Maclean, however, was quick to state that while McGill hadn’t been taking advantage of their casual employees, there were still problems in wage equality and job demands that emerged some years ago, leading directly to the creation of AMUSE and the beginning of collective bargaining.

“While there are obviously people who just work once a week and don’t mind that, there are a large number of people who work full-time at McGill in the same jobs as MUNACA workers,” Farid Attar, former president of AMUSE, noted. Attar is also a member of the bargaining team that negotiated the agreement with McGill.

Attar added that AMUSE aims to maintain this flexibility for the employees who benefit from it, while also increasing job security, benefits, and general working conditions for employees who have put four years of their life into their work.

AMUSE’s bargaining committee was elected at their first general assembly in Nov. 2010, whereupon they attempted to draft the terms of the initial agreement. It wasn’t until March 2011 that serious back-and-forth negotiation began. Bargaining on the non-economic issues continued throughout the year until they were finally resolved in Dec. 2011. On economic issues, however, bargaining quickly reached a stalemate, requiring both parties to call for conciliation.

Altar explained that conciliation brings in the government as a neutral third party, in order to introduce a fresh perspective and restart negotiations. 

In this agreement, some of the benefits gained in the non-economic sphere included written contracts, paid sick days for full-time workers with six-month contracts, priority for AMUSE members for contract renewals and promotions, and paid overtime.

More thought was put into considering wage increases, with the membership of AMUSE categorized into three main groups, each of whom are going to see minimum wage increases under this agreement, as well as minimum yearly increases, with the first increase scheduled for the signing of the agreement. For those workers who are already paid above the minimums mandated by the agreement, there is no danger of losing wages.

“People have to come to the ratification vote,” Attar stressed. “Ultimately it’s not the bargaining team who decides, it’s the membership that gave us the mandate to bargain with McGill­—if you want those wage increases, if you want those job securities, you’ll have to come to the ratification vote … during that time, we’ll answer all the questions they have.”

The ratification vote for AMUSE’s collective bargaining agreement is tentatively scheduled for mid-March, with one session to take place in the afternoon and one at night.

On Feb. 29, SSMU hosted an open forum for students to discuss the Quebec student movement mobilizing against proposed provincial tuition increases. The event offered students a venue to ask questions and gain some clarity on the issues, such as the driving forces behind the movement.   

“I feel like often people think that the only issue is the rise in tuition fees, but don’t understand the full impacts and the ideological problems behind that—the real reason why people are actually fighting for this,” Joëlle Shaw, an honours art history student, said.  

With a 20 person turnout, the forum had a range of students in attendance from the faculties of science, arts, and education, and included international, in-province, and out-of-province students.  The discussion aimed to be a safe space for people to offer perspectives and share opinions on what students felt were some of the core issues at hand. Joël Pedneault, SSMU VP External Affairs, led the discussion.   

“We need to talk about how us going on strike will strategically make the student movement support us more,” Pedneault said. “The question is, how we can put these discussions into practice and actually begin to mobilize and get involved with the student movement?”   

From accessibility of education and government subsidies, to the distribution of loans and bursaries, students tried to understand the sources of the call to action.    

“I think that there is certainly a division between people who support the strike and those who want free education, and those who [simply] want accessible education … I think that’s a distinction that is not made enough,” Shaw said. “I want to pay for tuition and I don’t think education is a right, however I think that as a society it is our duty to ensure that the privilege of education extends to as many people as possible.”  

What came to the forefront of the debate was the number of discrepancies and differing perspectives surrounding the student movement. From numerous sources of information, stories were varied and student concerns were many. However, one thing that remained evident was an invested interest and desire on the part of students to learn more about the present issues affecting the community.     

Although several faculty student society constitutions do not specify the quorum needed for strike votes, some students argued that the typical quorum of 150 students would not be representative of the student body. 

“We aim to have many times [that number] in attendance, as many students as possible, to make the GA as representative of the AUS membership as possible,” Kevin Paul, U3 arts, said. 

The forum then moved to discuss the position the McGill student body holds within the provincial, national, and international context, and the university’s contribution to the discussion of provincial tuition increases.  

“Because we are the university with the most non-Quebec Canadian students in the province … it puts us in a dangerous situation where we may start pitting Quebec students against non-Quebec students, exacerbating existing tensions in the Quebec student movement,” SSMU president Maggie Knight said. “We should be thinking to build bridges instead of divide students.”   

“These issues need to be discussed and I think if we refuse to discuss those properly then we’re doing ourselves a disservice and provid[ing] unnecessary polarization,” she said.

On Tuesday Feb. 14, the SSMU Judicial Board (J-Board) invalidated QPIRG’s fall referendum question. The J-Board ruled the question to be unconstitutional because it dealt with two separate questions, asking students to simultaneously support QPIRG’s continued existence, and a change to make the organization’s fees opt-outable only in person.

In an email to the Tribune, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson said that he accepts the J-Board ruling as consistent with the administration’s view of the fall referendum. He suggested that the J-Board ruling may signal the end of negotiations with QPIRG.

“As I understand it, the J-Board’s decision means, in effect, that there are now no valid referendum results, so that leaves us with nothing to discuss [with QPIRG],” he said.

Kira Page, McGill alumnus and member of the QPIRG board, said that negotiations with the administration continued via email before reading week, with no indication that the administration had been affected by the J-Board ruling. According to Page, QPIRG did not submit a question for the winter referendum.

“By the time the J-Board decision came out, we would have had to write a referendum question, have it approved by Morton Mendelson and Elections McGill, and collect 700 signatures in two days, so that was not actually doable at that point,” Page said. “It wasn’t an option we were able to go forward with. But I think the reason we weren’t doing that in the first place was that we stand by the referendum results from last semester.”

Regarding the J-Board results, Page said that QPIRG is “dismayed and disturbed” by the ruling. The group has not yet released an official public response to the ruling.

Petitioners Zach Newburgh and Brendan Steven stated in a press release that they are “satisfied” with the results of the J-Board hearing. However, the decision cannot be finalized until it is ratified by SSMU’s Board of Directors (BoD). In their press release, Newburgh and Steven call on the board to affirm the J-Board’s decision.

“The integrity of the SSMU’s referendum process demands [the decision’s ratification],” they said. “The SSMU cannot set a precedent, which allows referendum questions to stand when they do not provide members of the SSMU with a clear choice when voting.”

According to SSMU President Maggie Knight, the BoD will debate the ruling during their Mar. 1 meeting, and the decision will be ratified unless 4/5 of the directors vote against it.

The J-Board, however, did not fully support Newburgh and Steven in all aspects of their petition. The decision rejected the second part of the petition, which questioned the impartiality of Elections SSMU chief electoral officer Rebeca Tacoma’s actions throughout the fall referendum period.

“Where an administrator with a level of expertise is making a decision within his or her jurisdiction, the decision must be given a high level of deference,” the J-Board’s final judgment read. “It is unrealistic to assume that a CEO, a student, with the help of a few staff members, can be everywhere at once … [to judge her based on this assumption] would be impractical and unfair.”

Tacoma said she had mixed feelings about the J-Board’s decision. While she was relieved that the J-Board supported her decisions throughout the fall referendum period, she acknowledged disappointment that QPIRG’s referendum question was ruled unconstitutional.

“It’s been a very long process, and although it was not the most pleasant process for me personally to go through, I think [the case] was important for SSMU because now we’re realizing a lot of flaws in the system that we didn’t realize [were there], because this kind of case has never really happened before,” she said. 

Tacoma listed the extension of the case beyond the fall semester and the temporary suspension of the J-Board’s activities in January as problems arising throughout the case that have caused SSMU to look more closely at the system. However, Tacoma doesn’t feel that the results of the case will have much effect on the upcoming referendum period.

“The ruling really only creates a precedent for questions where there might be two issues involved, and that’s not really common,” she said.

SSMU President Maggie Knight said that the case has been a learning process for everyone involved.

“This case has presented many challenges in terms of the current Judicial Board system and highlighted the challenges that I came into office intending to fix but which I had not been able to change before this petition started proceedings,” she said. “It’s a controversial issue that touches many people deeply and evokes a lot of emotions.”

The Feb. 15 meeting of McGill’s Senate included discussions on Principal Heather Munroe-Blum’s responses to Dean Jutras’ recommendations regarding the events of Nov. 10 and the administration’s refusal of the CKUT and QPIRG fall referenda results.

Closed to the public, the senate meeting appeared to be a response to events on campus surrounding the James Administration Building occupation, which had ended a few days earlier. Only senators and one representative from each campus media source were permitted entry to the meeting’s chambers.  While the proceedings were live-streamed to a viewing area in the Redpath Museum, the content was not recorded or saved for later viewing.

The governing body voted first to approve the closing of the chambers and the live-streaming of the meeting to Redpath.

Senator Barney questioned whether there was a reason to believe that a threat of disruption existed to justify the closing of the chamber, but the vote passed.

In her opening remarks, senate chair Munroe-Blum reiterated her intention to serve as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill until the end of her term in June 2013.

“Rumours of my resignation have been greatly exaggerated,” she said. 

Munroe-Blum went on to address the recommendations of Dean Jutras’ investigation into the events of Nov. 10. She told senate that the senior administration has accepted all six of the report’s key recommendations, notably those which call for a change to how security services deals with protests and occupations, and those which call for a discussion of how dissent may be expressed on campus.

She put the recent James Administration Building occupation into the context of the administration’s plan to move forward from Nov. 10.

“[The] occupation is not the way differences in opinions are expressed,” Munroe-Blum said. “At the time of eviction, there had beenfive days of disruption to university activities, with 300 employees in [departments like] finance and graduate research displaced. After numerous discussions, [both parties] were no closer to a resolution.”

“The decision to evict was not an easy one … [but] we are glad it went peacefully,” she said. “Even as we value [the right to freedom of expression and speech], everyone has the right to study or work in a place where they feel safe and secure, and we have a responsibility to ensure that they have this.”

“The staff in James Admin remain on edge,” she added.

Munroe-Blum also updated senate on developments to the Strategic Reframing Initiative (SRI)— a process led by the principal which aims to take steps to maintain McGill’s place as a world-leading academic institution.  The project, which began in October 2010, calls upon the voluntary help of former alumni—now consultants with McKinsey & Company­—to review and streamline the university’s operations and management of resources.

Munroe-Blum cited initiatives like energy audits, pilot projects on alternative budgeting approaches for faculties, and increased fundraising efforts as examples of changes that have been made.

Arts Senator Jason Leung brought forward a motion regarding the recent QPIRG and CKUT referenda which questioned how to best guarantee that democratic decisions made by students can be assured in the future.

In an extended statement before Senate, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson reviewed in detail the history of online opt-outs at McGill, past precedents of student referenda which requested continued existence of organizations, and reasons for the administration’s refusal of last term’s referenda.

Mendelson noted that, in most years, student groups consult his office on the viability of their questions.

“CKUT and QPIRG did not do so before proceeding,” he said. “When the questions were published, [the groups] were informed by my office that they were problematic.”

He went on to explain how, in the view of his office, the questions are problematic because they ask more than one thing, requesting a change in how opt-out fees are collected while simultaneously asking whether the groups should continue to exist.

Mendelson noted that students could agree with one of these statements, but not the other, and since they had no way to indicate that, the process was undemocratic.

More generally, he explained that the administration is not bound by these referenda, since questions that “may be viewed as linguistically problematic, confusing, not implementable, or addressing issues over which students do not have authority” cannot be accepted.

Senator Barney, who also sits on the board of CKUT, compared the referendum questions to the first motion passed at the senate meeting, which also contained two questions in one vote, as the motion simultaneously closed the senate chamber and broadcasted its proceedings.

“[We are] sending mixed messages about what we demand in terms of clarity,” he said.

At the time of senate, an agreement with CKUT had already been reached, and the referendum vote from last term will be accepted to affirm the group’s existence. To change their funding, CKUT is running a question in the upcoming winter referendum. QPIRG is still in negotiations with the administration and will not be running a question in the winter referendum.

On Feb. 14, approximately 300 student demonstrators marched through McGill’s downtown campus following UQAM’s vote for an unlimited strike. UQAM is one of many universities and CEGEPs in Quebec that have voted to go on an unlimited strike to protest the Quebec government’s plans to increase university tuition fees for local students by $1,625 over five years.

According to numbers from the Coalition Large de l’Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (CLASSE), by Feb. 27 over 65,000 students in Quebec were on strike, and more student associations are scheduled to vote in upcoming weeks.

“UQAM, McGill, same struggle,” the demonstrators chanted as they marched through campus. The students protested in front of the James Administration Building and marched through the McConnell Engineering Building before continuing the protest through McGill College Ave. and down St. Catherine Ave. towards UQAM.

Olivier Lamoureux, a second-year graduate student in sociology at UQAM explained that the protest followed a General Assembly vote to initiate the unlimited student strike.

According CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, each student association can vote for or against the strike in a General Assembly or a referendum.

“Classes [are] suspended but only for the time that students want [them] to be suspended,” he said. “Students vote if they want to go on strike and vote for the duration of the strike also. All the decisions are democratically taken.”

Whether each administration participates in the student strike and cancels classes is up to each university, but Nadeau-Dubois noted that so far, most universities have cancelled class in accordance with the vote.

Miriam Gaumond, a photography student at Concordia who marched through McGill, said that she supported the unlimited student strike.

“We are already in the red, so in five years it’s going to be much worse,” she said. “The problem is we don’t have parents who help us, we are independent. The government helps us, but not that much, and if the government raises the price of university, I don’t know how I [will] make it.”

Although McGill is currently not part of CLASSE, the students in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) recently voted in a special referendum in favour of amending the AUS Constitution to make the General Assembly the highest governing body of the student society, making the AUS eligible to join CLASSE in accordance with the coalition’s bylaws.  

On March 2, McGill’s Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) will hold a General Assembly that will discuss the formation of a strike committee, among other motions.  

—Carolina Millán Ronchetti

Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune

 On Feb. 15, AUS council focused its discussion on issues revolving around the motion to create an AUS strike committee, and the accessible education motion for the AUS to take an official position against tuition increases. Although often close to losing quorum, the semester’s lengthiest council meeting resolved the debate with a majority voting in opposition to both the strike committee motion and the accessible education motion.

Those in favour of the motions sought to promote accessibility, to protect those who cannot afford higher education, and to counter the consumer ethos of the current state of education. 

“I voted yes [to the creation of a strike committee] because I believe non-action on tuition hikes is synonymous with being pro-tuition hikes,” Hyun-Soo Lim, VP Internal for the African Studies Students’ Association, said. “I do believe these hikes may be that difference that prevents a willing student from pursuing higher education. While I know there are many on campus that won’t be as adversely affected by these hikes because they can afford it, we simply can’t ignore the grievances of a significant population who will be forced to give up education.”

Others sought to amend the motion for the strike committee, even though the original movers were not present, in the hope that a majority of councilors would vote in favour of it. Although a straw poll taken in the middle of an informal discussion session showed that a majority of councilors did not agree with the motion, councilors debated several amendments, including the creation of a fixed space for the committee and the creation of an anti-strike committee. Although the amendments did not enable the motions to pass, AUS President Jade Calver noted that the discussion process matters most in order to defuse the tension on campus.

“With regards to the strike committee question, I felt that it was important to support arts students in their initiative, and that supporting the question would have helped to close the gap within the student body over the current tuition hike and strike debate,” Calver said of her ‘yes’ vote. “I hope that, even with all the tension on campus, students in the faculty of arts will be able to come together through constructive dialogue.”

However, those in opposition did not agree that these issues should be discussed indefinitely, especially issues such as the accessible education motion, which has been presented before in a similar form. Those in opposition said that students should realize that we need to play an equal part in providing for a world class education. While education should remain accessible, it should also not be unreasonably cheap, to the point of refusing indexing to inflation or increasing funding to student aid.

“I am gratified to see that I am far from alone [in] my views,” he added. “Many other councilors … have echoed my position, noting that while they do not like paying tuition fees they recognize that we students must be willing to pay [our] fair share to continue receiving the first-rate education for which McGill is justly renowned. Let’s also recall that 30 per cent of the proposed increases will go to student financial aid. I think that’s important to note.”

Other motions of note included a motion to create a new Arts Dry Frosh event next year. While the Dry Frosh motion is not binding on next year’s executive, Justin Fletcher, the proponent for the motion, hopes that it will inspire new leadership from next year`s executive to increase accessibility to underage participants. 

“My vision is an event which anyone can attend—underage [or] of age,” Fletcher said. “I believe that AUS should take a leadership role among faculty associations in planning such an event. It sets up a framework for planning an event that is not exclusive based on age.”

Victor Temprano / McGill Tribune

On Feb. 16, McGill’s Office of Sustainability held the third of four Sustainability XChange sessions, discussing the McGill community’s impact on climate change and ways to reduce its overall carbon emissions.

Jerome Conraud, an Energy Manager at McGill, opened the session with a presentation on McGill University’s level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the year 2010.

Currently, definitions of the scope of emissions are not finalized, and many categories of emissions are loosely defined, leaving room for interpretation. Conraud emphasized that his office is examining the process.

Conraud stressed that McGill’s greatest burdens on the community-at-large are “scope one” emissions  which include emissions from heating, ventillation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC), refrigerants, McGill-owned vehicles, and livestock. These emissions cause over three fourths of McGill’s total emissions making them the most environmentally damaging.

“If [emissions are] “scope one,” then we are directly responsible, and we should report on that,” Conraud said. “The goal is to show that we are a good part of the community.”

Emmanuelle Lapointe, a visiting faculty member with McGill’s faculty of engineering’s school of architecture, explained that McGill requires distributors of construction materials to make information about their impact available to McGill via the Internet. This measure increases accountability when planning campus-wide renovations or construction projects.

“All distributors of construction materials who provide to McGill … can go on that website and input their products,” she said. “It gives us their environmental and health [risks].” 

Lapointe added that McGill reuses as many materials as possible.

While various federal, provincial, and municipal governments require in-depth reviews of McGill’s GHG emissions, the university has also cultivated ties with other schools in reporting to various environmental NGOs. Conraud added that he hopes to present a review— one more thorough and accessible than all others—for the McGill community.

Kathleen Ng, McGill’s Environmental Officer, argued that the provincial government, which provides McGill with the majority of its funding, increasingly makes the job of the Office of Sustainability more difficult as McGill’s environmental performance consistently exceeds provincial expectations.

“Because our operating budgets for electricity are given by the Ministry of Education, and we do not use all the money allocated, they cut our budgets,” Ng said.

In addition, while the university continually decreases its ecological footprint at a minimal cost, McGill has had to search for cheaper energy. A number of attendees raised concerns after viewing Conraud’s presentation over the sources of energy used by the university.

“Approximately 50 per cent of all the energy we consume [comes from] fossil fuels, and the answer [to why that is the case] is that it is cheaper … Some students were promoting carbon neutrality, but that would be expensive,” Conraud said. “McGill as an institution and a community needs to define what our goals are.”

Ng underlined the need for student intervention. McGill staff seek change in the McGill community, but students, she said, who carry the most weight, rarely participate in discussions.

“We used to have a committee on the environment with students, staff, and faculty to brainstorm ways to keep the lines of communication open,” Ng said. “What we are interested in seeing is getting students engaged … towards finding alternatives to what we already have.”

As the university’s clients, she continued, students’ suggestions and concerns often carry more weight on campus than those from staff and faculty.

“Sustainability is everyone’s job,” Ng said.

On the morning of Feb. 16, students and other activists gathered outside the Montreal Stock Exchange to protest the privatization of public services in Quebec, including issues such as rising Hydro Québec prices, healthcare costs, and tuition fees. The protest culminated with police pepper spraying some of the the activists.

The activists united as one group under the title “The Coalition Against User Fees and Privatization of Public Services.” According to their website, the coalition is composed of 156 community organizations, unions, and student and feminist groups.

The group hoped to raise awareness for its causes by preventing employees of the stock exchange from arriving to work for the day. The protest began at approximately 8:00 a.m. and quickly spread from the front of the Montreal Exchange to the adjacent Delta Centre-Ville Hotel.

In front of the Exchange, a crowd of a few hundred students and other social activists held up banners and signs while chanting slogans, placing themselves in front of all entrances and denying entry to the building.

“We’re here to contest the raise in tuition,” a protestor from the Université du Québec à Montreal’s (UQAM) student union AFESH (L’Association Facultaire Étudiante Des Sciences Humaines) who requested to remain anonymous, said. “It’s about accessibility—we have a lot of parents at UQAM, and we’re fighting strongly for them so they can support their kids and have an education also.” 

The group was carrying a banner and had positioned themselves to block the entrance of the underground parking area connected to the Exchange.

“We want education to be accessible for everyone and that’s our main goal,” Anne Sarah Brian, a student from Collège de Maisonneuve, said. “We want the government to return to the fees of 2007.”

“We want the government to tax the natural resources of this country … it’s not a lack of funds. It’s the fact that the funds are not put in the right places,” Corinne Trubiano, another protestor, said. 

Around the back of the building, the situation was less peaceful. Many employees of the Exchange had been using the attached Delta Centre-Ville Hotel to reach their workplace, so protesters had blocked it as well. By 11:00 a.m. there was a tense standoff between police and protesters, with police cordoning off the hotel entrance from two groups of protestors who had gathered in the driveway.

“This is really where the main confrontation is,” McGill student Becca Yu said. “We’re hoping that by shutting down this building for the day, it’ll put pressure on the government to reverse these policies … without actually directly blocking the building, it’s so easy to just ignore a big crowd of people.”

By 11:30 a.m. the Montreal police decided to extend the cordon around the hotel in order to allow hotel guests to enter and leave. Starting on the right side of the entrance, they pushed protestors back out of the driveway so that guests, including a children’s hockey team, could leave the hotel.

At roughly 11:45 a.m. this tactic was repeated on the other side of the hotel entrance, but police met greater resistance and were actually pushed back by the crowd of protestors for some time. After addressing them through a megaphone, police used pepper spray to clear the protesters.

“They pushed us further and further away,” Dan Parker, coordinator of 99%, the official publication of Occupy Montreal, said. “Some of the more militant activists started pushing back and of course that’s when the pepper spray came out and people started running for it. Fortunately, there [are] medics here and they’re taking care of people with Malox.”

By 12:15 p.m., the protestors from the front of the Montreal Exchange joined those who had been blockading the entrance to the Delta Centre-Ville, and proceeded to march around the area, stalling traffic for a while.

“University is a good time [for students] to get involved, and especially to fight the tuition costs being raised,” Parker said. “I would invite all students to find out from their local organizations who are mobilizing around the tuition fees to find out how it relates to the privatization of our services … Education is a right, and we shouldn’t watch more people get more in debt and lose their access to education.”

Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune

On Feb. 15, a group of Montreal activists called the Raging Grannies staged a singing protest at the Roddick Gates to condemn the asbestos industry’s influence at McGill. The Grannies sang about the harmful effects of asbestos and criticized the use of Canadian taxes to support projects like the planned reopening of the Jeffrey Asbestos Mine in Asbestos Quebec, which would facilitate the export of asbestos to countries where its use is not regulated.

“Fee, fie, fiddlie-i-o, our taxes have better places to go,” the women chanted.

They also condemned the asbestos industry with chants like “stop exporting death from Quebec!”

The protest follows anti-asbestos activists’  call for the removal of asbestos exporter Roshi Chadha from the McGill Board of Governors. Chadha took a leave of absence from the board in early February, following two letters to McGill calling for her removal—one from medical doctors and health care researchers and one from individuals who have lost family members from asbestos-related diseases. Chadha is the director of Seja Trade Ltd., a company that exported asbestos from the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, until the mine’s operations were suspended last fall. Her public relations agent has stated that the company is not responsible for what happens as a result of the asbestos once it is overseas.

Elizabeth Vezina, one of the Raging Grannies, said that she was very concerned about what effect asbestos has outside the McGill and Montreal communities. Companies like Chadha’s export asbestos to developing countries like India, where the material is used for purposes such as cement roofing in schools. While the use of asbestos is outlawed in Quebec, there are no regulations stopping mining companies from exporting it elsewhere.

“There’s no such thing as safe handling of [asbestos],” Vezina said. “We’re sending it to countries that don’t have the same regulations as we do here. We’re spreading misery.”

The protest comes following demands for an independent investigation into McGill’s ties with the asbestos industry. In 1965, the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA) partly funded the research of McGill Professor of Epidemiology J.C. McDonald on chrysotile asbestos, which makes up 95 per cent of asbestos sold in the world and 100 per cent of the trade in the past two decades. 

This research has been criticized for minimizing the negative health effects of asbestos, and for its continued use by lobbying groups to defend mining and exporting asbestos. Dr. David Eidelman, Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and dean of medicine issued a statement about the controversy. 

“It is true that Prof. McDonald drew different conclusions about the possible safe use of asbestos than most authorities do today,” Eidelman wrote. “Holding scientific views that are different from those of the majority does not constitute research misconduct.”

Eidelman recently announced an internal investigation of the research, to be led by Prof. Rebecca Fuhrer, chair of the department of epidemiology. 

As an asbestos exporter, Chadha is seeking to reopen the Jeffrey mine, which provided more than half of the funds for QAMA before its activities were suspended last fall. However, there is strong opposition to the project. The Quebec Medical Association has stated that this project goes against public interest and will lead to asbestos-related deaths, and all of Quebec’s Directors of Public Health agree that the project will increase asbestos-related diseases.

Although plans to reopen the Jeffrey mine continue, Vezina feels encouraged by growing opposition to asbestos use in India.

“There are many groups in India working very hard to get the import banned, so once they get the mine up and running, hopefully they won’t be able to export [the asbestos] anyway,” she said.

While asbestos might not be a daily concern for McGill students, Vezina feels that it is nonetheless important for them to know what is going on at their university.

“Students have all kinds of things they should be standing up to; we really hope that your generation will start to make some differences. The corporations’ control over finances of the university and over the government is too much; we need to start saying no,” she said.

Lotfi Gouigah, a second-year graduate student in communication studies who observed the protest, agreed with the Grannies.

“I think it’s important to be graduating from a university that is not linked to big lobbies that influence its research findings,” Gouigah said. “We should make sure that research is independent. Students should take a stand.”

On Thursday, Feb. 16, the ‘Mod Squad’ formally convened for its first meeting to discuss the need for moderation in the face of rising campus radicalism. A movement initiated through Facebook by Beni Fisch, McKenzie Kibler, Harmon Moon, and Brendan Steven, the Mod Squad aims to work towards the restoration of a non-confrontational, peaceable atmosphere on campus and in the student body.

“After the ‘We Are McGill’ event, we realised that these radical students were more organised and more willing to be more spectacular in what they were doing, and the people who disagreed with them weren’t organised enough. And that’s when we started planning,” Moon said. “The James Building occupation sparked … massive support that we tapped into … This is the moment for the majority to stand up, and we’re riding the tiger on that and just not letting go.”

Many students voiced disagreement with the tactics of the recent occupation of the James Administration Building, which lasted from Feb. 7 until Feb. 11, and the ‘Mod Squad’ intends to lend a voice to what they call the “silent majority.” A diverse number of students attended the meeting, including elected Arts Representative Isabelle Bi and former SSMU President Zach Newburgh.

“I think it’s quite disrespectful that some people are hijacking the institution that I am proud of,” Jesse Kuri, a U3 political science and economics student who attended the meeting, said.

Introductory in nature, the meeting focused on defining in more explicit terms the direction of the organisation. Hoping to fundamentally differentiate themselves from the ‘Mob Squad,’ a student-run mobilization committee, the meeting discussed changing the organisation’s name to one that is more collaborative in nature than antagonising. It was continually stressed that it is not the motivation behind the ‘Mob Squad’ that’s considered misguided, but the tactics. 

The ‘Mod Squad’ discussed a more long-term goal of establishing a platform for open and reasoned discussion in lieu of confrontational tactics.

“We have to focus on bringing back a sense of calm. A lot of what has been going on in February, especially what happened in November too, [has generated] a sense of hysteria … that this is Egypt, that this is the Arab Spring … that we have to bring down the administration. This [organisation] is acting as a counterforce to that,” Moon said.

After raising concerns about the way a “vocal minority” monopolises debate at General Assemblies, the meeting also focused on a more representative and less “co-optable” SSMU.

“We want a more collaborative relationship with the administration … many people wouldn’t like occupiers to be on the SSMU council … Matthew Crawford [an occupier] is a senator on the front-line, representing the arts faculty, negotiating with the administration. Obviously this compromises his representative position,” Steven said.

Afterwards, the organisers expressed satisfaction with the meeting.

“I’m very happy with how this went. It was really good to get everyone in a room,” Moon said.

Attendees also expressed hope for what the movement could accomplish for the student body. 

“I just hope that once we have this dialogue going, we can let the student body know what we stand for, and offer an aspect of truth, a perspective amidst everything that’s happened,” a student who wished to remain anonymous said.