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Ask a Scientist, Private, Science & Technology

Call off the search for a “normal” brain

by Ali Baghirov on

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A “normal” brain—also termed “neurotypical”—has long been used in cognitive science research as a benchmark for brain activity comparisons. But this distinction between brains actually limits neuroscience research and has long escaped the notice of experts.

Jakub Kopal, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at McGill, researches the effect of genetic mutations on brain architecture and behaviour, and has come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a normal brain—at least in the general population.

“We talk a lot about a normal brain […] and I think these are notions that were used in the literature. This is more like the vocabulary from the 20th century,” Kopal explained in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We are trying to argue now that there is no such thing as a typical brain or a normal brain.”

The idea of a “normal” brain is usually found in studies that look to distinguish between subjects with and without a brain disease. Those with “normal” brains make up the control group—a sample that is not affected by the experimental conditions and is used as a baseline—and are labelled as neurotypical.

“The term [neurotypical] was really focused on WEIRD [Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic] people. Most of the research takes place at the universities, [and] there is a specific [socioeconomic] group of people that go to university,” Kopal said. 

Previous research has focused mainly on WEIRD people, who actually do not make up more than 15 per cent of the global population. Another defining factor of neuroscience research, according to Kopal, is its high cost, which had limited sample sizes to only 15 to 20 subjects per study until the 2000s. 

“[We] need to reduce the ‘noise,’ so [researchers] would focus only on people that are right-handed or meet several other criteria,” Kopal said. “They would put these criteria to homogenize their group to get the strongest evidence. But then it is really not telling you much about the whole population.”

As Kopal explained, the inclusion of only right-handers in studies consolidated a popular conjecture that our language centre is localized in the left hemisphere of the brain. It was only when researchers included left-handers in their studies that it became clear that the lateralization of the language centre in the brain is quite different for lefties—found in the right hemisphere. In this case, narrow sample sizes lead to results that don’t apply to the wider population and are not reproducible in future experiments. 

Lack of reproducibility in current research has been a big motivation for the creation of databases such as UK Biobank and Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which allow us to look at neuroscience research from a more global, inclusive perspective. UK Biobank is a resource with extensive genetic and health data from British patients, while ABCD comprises research focusing on the brain development of children in the United States. These databases have shown that ethnicity, gender, and other socioeconomic and personal characteristics factor into the makeup of one’s cognition. 

“The reproducibility crisis [showed that] we need large sample sizes in order to reproduce our results. And then there was another set of studies showing that the samples we have right now are really WEIRD,” Kopal said. “And this probably means that our results might not generalize to the whole population.” 

A potential application of expanding sample sizes in neuroscience research is using technology to assess risks of developing neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. 

“With the advances in machine learning, we also saw that often our algorithms fail for minorities,” Kopal said. “Our machine learning approaches are really tailored to the majorities and they fail non-stereotypical populations.” 

This is especially critical in the medical industry because physicians must provide high-quality services to diverse patients and need reliable data based on inclusive studies. 

“I don’t want to claim I can predict Alzheimer’s disease if you are of European ancestry, well-educated, have a higher income and you’re a male,” Kopal said. “This doesn’t really serve us as a tool. [We want] a tool that serves the whole population.”

McGill, News

Students, faculty frustrated by administrative changes within Faculty of Science

by Shani Laskin on

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Recent changes within the Faculty of Science concluded with the merging of administrative staff from the Geography, Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS), and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) departments into one administrative pod as of March 13. This decision has brought on significant frustration and stress for staff and students, who cite a lack of effective communication from the faculty and sudden changes to advising and research procedures.

Bruce Lennox, Dean of the Faculty of Science, and Maria Babiak, Director of Administration and Operation for the Faculty of Science, announced the merger at an EPS department meeting on Nov. 11, 2022. The change required the administrative staff of all three programs to move to a shared office in Burnside Hall and reconfigure their workloads to cover all programs rather than just one. 

The administration told students and staff that the changes were implemented to “create redundancy,” meaning that if one or more administrators were away on vacation or leave, the other administrators would be able to cover their work.

The physical move was initially supposed to take place on Jan. 5, but was subsequently postponed to March 13 because the shared office was not yet ready for occupation. While the administrative staff for Geography and AOS were already housed in Burnside Hall, the administrators for EPS moved there from the nearby Frank Dawson Adams Building. 

When contacted about the changes within the Faculty of Science, media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle confirmed that the restructuring was taking place but did not provide further detail. 

Julia Baumgarte, president of the EPS graduate student society, The Adams Club, told The McGill Tribune that the physical displacement of the administrative staff has changed day-to-day operations and put a strain on certain research procedures.

“I know that a bunch of other students in the department […] need frozen samples for their research,” Baumgarte said. “As soon as that stuff [is] delivered, it has to go into a freezer. And if that were to be taken out of our building, those students’ research would be really compromised.”

Many students and faculty members of the affected programs have communicated that this change does not only reflect a difference in workloads or office space, but also disrupts the community and culture within these programs. 

According to William Minarik, an EPS faculty lecturer, the current administrators’ deep knowledge of their respective departments makes for an efficient workplace environment. To Minarik, altering these relationships affects the workplace’s  ability to run smoothly. 

“As a teacher and researcher, I interact daily with our department staff in order to work in these roles,” Minarik told the Tribune. “Our departmental office is the nerve centre of all departmental activities, the hub [….] Students with questions, concerns or other issues currently can visit and immediately talk to a knowledgeable, empathetic, and helpful person.”

EPS associate professor and Wares Faculty Scholar Christie Rowe told the Tribune that many students and staff feel that the delayed timeline of the merger reflects a broader trend of administrative disorganization at McGill. Rowe believes that there was insufficient consultation with the faculty about the essential function of the administrative staff. 

“[B]ecause we’re getting information very piecemeal, it’s not possible for us to prepare in any way,” Rowe said. “It would have been nice to consult with the department about what are the key functions that these admins are providing and what support we really need to ensure that the new system would also address the same issues. But so far, that consultation has been pretty thin.”

Rowe, Minarik, and Baumgarte all pointed out that because these programs are small and tight-knit, the changes have affected their sense of community.

“One of the key elements of my 10 years at McGill has been that we tend to appreciate one another as colleagues through all levels of the university,” Rowe said. “It’s that kind of social network of relying on one another that has made this a really rewarding place to work. And so I’m upset with anyone feeling undermined or feeling not valued in our community.”

Editorial, Opinion

It’s time Quebec funds trans futures, not transphobia

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Just two months ago, McGill students raised their voices against the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism hosting a transphobic talk by Robert Wintemute, whose work at the LGB Alliance denies the fundamental rights of trans people under the guise of protection for cisgender gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. The Quebec government has decided to follow McGill’s lead in letting down trans people and economically supporting the erasure of the community. Quebec’s Ministry of Labour, Social Solidarity and the Family confirmed the province’s funding of Pour les Droits des Femmes du Québec (PDF Québec)—a trans-exclusionary so-called feminist organization. 

It is in Quebec’s best interest to immediately stop supporting PDF Québec. As the organization uses its social media platforms to publicly target and misgender trans activists such as Fae Johnston, their actions discredit the province as a body legislating in good faith.

Despite the province’s claims that they do not support the entirety of PDF Québec’s views, financial support amounting to $143,000 for the 2022-2023 fiscal year makes the statement that, in fact, they do. Among the province’s several competent and inclusive feminist organizations, Quebec chose the only one in support of Bill 21––which prevents civil servants from wearing religious symbols—that also excludes trans people from its bigoted platform.

In 2015, PDF Québec presented a brief to the federal government asking that only trans people who had medically transitioned could change their official gender identification on government IDs. Two years later, in 2017, it campaigned to modify Bill C-16—which aims to protect  gender-diverse people from discrimination—to exclude some trans people, arguing that offering them protection would impede on women’s rights. Quebec’s support of the organization has been ongoing since 2019, with $120,000 to $140,000 of tax-payer dollars going to PDF Québec every year. In the context of increasing hate crimes against 2SLGBTQIA+ people across Canada, Quebec is not protecting its own residents. Instead, the government has explicitly endangered the trans community by not providing them a safe and welcome space to exist, while funding an organization that stands in opposition to their very identity. 

Quebec’s support for PDF directly challenges the idea of Canadian exceptionalism, which elevates Canada as a uniquely socially just country in the international order. But Quebec’s political decisions prove that the country is—step by step—following the repressive path of our neighbour south of the border. American lawmakers are passing transphobic bills at an exponential rate, like bans on gender-affirming care or restrictions on name changes. As they become normalized, these laws provide legitimacy for Canadian provinces to implement their own anti-trans agenda. Rather than offer meaningful solutions to the strained health-care system for trans people in Quebec, the province adds to its deadly inaccessibility. By funding a group that only recognizes trans people who have medically transitioned, Quebec ignores the medical discrimination faced by the trans community and propagates biological essentialism.  For Indigenous communities under the imposition of settler colonial constructions of gender, the money the province funnels to PDF Québec would be better spent decolonizing Quebec health care.   

Quebec must collaborate with and listen to young trans activists like  Celeste Trianon, who runs a legal aid clinic helping trans women in Montreal and is a direct target of PDF Québec’s vitriol. Futures for trans people flourishing in the province must recognize the role played by  trans women of colour in the history of the North American queer rights movement. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy led the 1969 Stonewall Riots and played a key role in the emancipation of gay people in the United States and across the world. The ‘T’ carried the ‘LGB’, and excluding trans people, especially of colour, from today’s feminist movements would be a grave denial of history.


The outcry against Quebec’s trans-exclusionary funding must be infinitely louder. The Montreal student community already rebelled once against McGill’s transphobic talks, and must keep denouncing the powerful institutions that impede upon trans people’s basic rights—human rights. Let’s not forget the individual power that each one of us holds in reaching out to their National Assembly representatives, for a single voice speaking out can go a long way in the collective fight for justice.

Behind the Bench, Sports

No more settling for mediocre soccer

by Anoushka Oke on

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Canada and the United States are often criticized for their lack of soccer culture. Though some cities’ enthusiasm shows that the two countries’ soccer culture is alive and well, the city-concentrated support for Major League Soccer (MLS) and National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) teams is not as pervasive as it could be. 

Unlike most successful soccer leagues, Canadian and American leagues—including the MLS and the NWSL—do not have a system of promotion and relegation. Systems of promotion and relegation typically consist of three or four leagues organized according to strength: The top league is where the strongest teams play, the middle league where average teams play, and the bottom league where the lowest-performing teams compete for a chance to advance. Top finishers of lower-tier leagues are promoted to the next-highest level for the following season, while bottom finishers are demoted to the league immediately below their own. 

If North American soccer culture wants to continue to grow its fanbase, it must implement relegation. Without this system in place, teams drop off to an uncompetitive level of soccer as the top spots in the league become unattainable. Low-performing teams become comfortable with knowing that they will remain in their league with guaranteed access to the financial benefits of playing at the top tier. 

Implementing a system of promotion and relegation eliminates that sense of security. Cincinnati FC, for example, was dead last in the MLS Eastern Conference for three consecutive years, facing few consequences—except the disappointment of their fans—for their consistent abysmal performance. The Houston Dynamo has been the Western Conference’s equivalent to Cincinnati, having placed in the bottom three every year since 2019. Although every team naturally wants to win, teams become complacent when there is no sense of urgency, or incentive, to improve. The threat of relegation would put pressure on teams to maintain a competitive level throughout the entire season because too low of a finish could warrant demotion. 

The prospect of promotion, on the other hand, would be an excellent motivator. Teams in lower-ranked European leagues still have heavily invested fanbases who remain invested throughout the season because winning records in lower leagues could actually move them up. To fans of bottom-of-the-table teams, relegation drama can have the same allure as title-race drama. This highly contentious aspect of European soccer is why so many Canadian and American fans opt to support an overseas team instead of an MLS or NWSL team.

The NWSL does not currently have an affiliated second-tier league, but is in the process of planning for one. Introducing a relegation system could complement the new league and would likely propel the growth of women’s soccer, with fans getting to experience the highs and lows that come with the risk of demotion and the prospect of promotion. 

However, men’s soccer in Canada and the U.S. already has a multi-tiered system, with the United Soccer League (USL) as well as USL League One and League Two sitting under the MLS. So, implementing promotion and relegation shouldn’t be a difficult task. Several USL teams already have thriving fan bases that will continue to grow if the more successful teams have the chance to get promoted to the MLS.

Despite concerns regarding poor USL teams’ ability to compete, performances at the yearly Open Cup, a tournament where MLS and USL teams face off, prove otherwise. Last year’s Open Cup in particular showcased the USL talent, with several teams taking down their MLS opponents to advance to later rounds. 

Promotion and relegation will give newly-promoted teams a chance to compete for the top spots in the MLS—just like how the English team Leicester went from being a second-division team to winning the Premier League in less than five years. The MLS and the NWSL must implement promotion and relegation if they hope to recreate spectacles and capture sustained interest from fans. Everyone loves a good underdog story, so let’s create some in North American soccer.

A previous version of this article stated that the Houston Dynamo came in last place every year since 2019. In fact, they placed in the bottom three over this time period. The Tribune regrets this error.

Campus Spotlight, Student Life

What is good sex to you?

by Lillian Borger on

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When it was announced that a two-time Fulbright-winning Harvard-PhD professor from the University of Alabama was coming to speak at McGill about her new book, most students probably weren’t expecting it to be titled Good Sex. 

But when professor of gender and cultural studies Catherine Roach visited McGill on March 14 to speak on a panel about the book, she was greeted with a room of very interested students and faculty.

“Good sex is good as in ethical, and good as in pleasurable,” Roach said to open up the discussion. 

Her book, which she actually finished writing while on a fellowship here, covers five “manisextos” for how to change the norms around sex as part of the new gender and sexual revolution, including positive sexuality, equity and inclusion, body positivity, consent, and mutual pleasure.

The panel featured three students from McGill’s Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice (GSFS) program—Ashna Naidoo (U2), Céleste Pépin (U2), and Juliet Morrison* (U2)—who each shared their views of the book. 

Naidoo discussed the hookup culture on campus and how gender norms not only create a double standard but make sex positivity impossible for all students. 

“Women who partake in [hookup culture] are seen as promiscuous, […] men as commendable or honourable,” Naidoo said. 

She also expanded on the challenges that racialized individuals face in partaking in sex positivity under Eurocentric beauty standards.

“The binary convention of what it means to be conventionally attractive in [a] university of tall, skinny, and white […] perpetuates exoticism for anyone existing outside of this,” Naidoo explained. 

Roach’s book covers many of the risks bad sex entails. “As we screw around, sex can screw us up,” she writes.

For panellist  Pépin, one of these risk factors is many individuals’ lack of self-awareness and inability to question their intimate preferences. 

“We also need to stop for a second and think about what our fantasies might mean to us […] I’m submissive, I’m dominant, but why do you feel like that?” Pépin said.

According to Roach, so much of sex is based on gendered scripts that circulate and embed patriarchy through pornography and social media. These norms also factor into conversations surrounding consent.

“Full consent [arises] out of egalitarian gender norms,” Roach said. 

According to all three panellists, the book’s accessibility makes it all the more enjoyable. Roach collected various images, sidebars, and quotes from students at the University of Alabama, making the academic content much more legible.

During the panel, Roach and the students discussed the newly re-released McGill “It Takes All of Us” training module. The attending students also had a lot to say on the matter. 

“We can have these great conversations as students here at McGill, but is the administration actually going to take it into account?” said audience member Gabriela Toharia, U1 Arts.

This comes after multiple student groups, including Sex and Self and the Union for Gender Empowerment, expressed their disappointment in a lack of consultation in the program’s redevelopment, with many questioning how a module for improving the norms around sex can be successful without first consulting with students about what those norms are.

In addition to frustration towards the state of sexual health and safety on campus, there was also a resounding hopefulness in the room, with students and staff wanting to improve both the quantity and quality of sexual education opportunities at McGill.

“What are ways in which we can push for more of this education? We need accessibility to those courses and to that education,” said Dominique Magleo, U1 Arts.

“We need to make education so much more fun and accessible, like this book!” said Pépin, adding that “the sexual and gender revolution is for everyone.”

Roach seemed impressed with students’ passion and engagement. She hopes that this book will create conversation about these important topics, and lead them in a positive direction.

“Sex should do good, and feel good.”

If you’re looking to learn about what’s going on with your sex life, have a read of Roach’s new book, Good Sex, on sale at Le Paragraphe, or online.
*Morrison is currently a News Editor at The McGill Tribune and was not involved in the publication of this article.

Student Life, The Viewpoint

Food Q&A: Surviving lunch at McGill

by Harry North on

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Campus food. It’s what everyone’s talking about. High prices, insufficient options, and food quality to rival the mouldy scraps in the back of your freezer. I dread to think what Gordon Ramsay would do if he ever got the McGill Food and Dining Services team by the collar, but I can’t lie, I’d be jolly pleased if he did. 

The campaigns are coming in fast now. Let’s Eat McGill’s community assemblies and student protests are leading the charge to shed light on the food insecurity crisis at McGill. But despite students’ best efforts so far, the university is working at a snail’s pace. Campus food accessibility and quality have not improved. So, since they’re uninterested in addressing this problem sufficiently and quickly, we have a pressing issue: What’s for lunch? 

Here are some affordable options to get you through the day. 

Super Savings ($0-3) 

Midnight Kitchen

Midnight Kitchen, a non-profit volunteer collective, is back and on a mission to increase the accessibility of campus food. Operating out of the second floor of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) building, the student-funded service provides free vegan meals.

And look, I’ve had my fair share of bad vegan food; most are not worth a side eye, but hand on heart, Midnight Kitchen is worth your time. Free, simple, sustainable food that fills you up—take notes, McGill. 

It’s only operating two or three times a month at the moment, as it’s underfunded, but when it is serving, be sure to get there well before 1:00 p.m. because the line will snake fast. 

Homemade sandwiches with ingredients from local grocery stores

Sometimes nothing beats a homemade sandwich. It’s also a smart idea when it comes to lunch-time savings, and when it comes to price, it’s a hard sell to beat Segal’s on St. Laurent for consistent cost savings. 

My advice? Keep it simple. Stick with sandwiches or salads, and let the creative juices flow for dinner. Grilled ham and cheese or a Caesar salad play well for the school day. For me, I like to take inspiration from Marco Pierre White: Sourdough, shallots, anchovies, butter, parsley, and dish-dash-dosh, sorted. You can also mix and match your ingredients with other independent stores. Fruiterie du Plateau, for example, in the Plateau offers cheap, fresh fruit.

Lunch on the go ($4-6)

Super Sandwich

It’s one of our own, as we say. I’ve heard some talk recently that McGill should buy it or allow it to move on-campus. Don’t forget that it’s so super because McGill has precisely nothing to do with it. That and the fresh sandwiches—made in front of you faster than your eyes can blink, and for prices that don’t make you rethink. 

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons on Sherbrooke troubles me. Not in terms of price, quality, or anything in between, but the waiting in the 20-minute desolate line. I find myself fading in and out of reality, lost. Thankfully, Tim’s $4.99 roast beef and crispy onion and  $5.99 BLT brings me back to reality. And, as it’s just across from campus, it’s a great lunch on the go.

Nearby deals 

Metro hot food counter deals

It might seem counterintuitive to say that McGill students should support Metro, which is perhaps one of the main culprits of the latest food price spikes, but their hot food counter on Parc has some great deals, from a $5.29 chicken leg meal on Monday to $4.99 poutine on Thursdays. Portion sizes are also not for the faint of heart, either. 

Sansalizza

Another deal to consider is up Parc Ave: Sansazzlia’s special of the day––a different nine-inch pizza every day for $6.90. Sansalizza is opposite New Residence, but don’t fret about running into first years—they only go at midnight when they’re listening to Drake, high as a kite. 

A short stroll away 

Café Aunja

I’ve mentioned this before in a café recommendations article, but it’s still worth bringing up: An Iranian café-lunch spot on Sherbrooke, a few steps down from street level, offering a range of sandwiches and brunch bites, as well as coffee and herbal tea. 

News, PGSS

PGSS executives debate restructuring responsibilities to ease workload

by Arian Kamel on

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The Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) held its 2022-2023 Winter General Assembly at Thomson House on March 15. Although there were no binding votes or motions passed, attendees discussed the status of the Library Improvement Fund, the potential installation of air-filtration devices across campus, and a restructuring of the PGSS itself.

To start the meeting, Hossein Poorhemati, the current PGSS University Affairs Officer, gave updates on the Library Improvement Fund and addressed concerns about the potentially dwindling library space due to planned construction on the McLennan-Redpath complex as part of the Fiat Lux project. The fund is a recent PGSS project that offers gift cards to students with the best library improvement ideas—PGSS then attempts to implement those suggestions by bringing them to the McGill Library and investing in projects. 

“This construction is taking a lot of resources from the library, so we’re not getting timely responses from the library,” Poorhemati said. “As for the many concerns members have of library space, the library says actual construction will be in two to three years, so there won’t be any issues anytime soon.”

According to the McGill Reporter, construction is set to begin in early 2024.

Following the update, Hannah Derue, a master’s student in neuroscience, brought up the possibility of implementing a small air-filtration Corsi-Rosenthal Box in every Post-Graduate Student Association (PGSA) office, which would cost $5,000 in total. 

“Up to 10-12 per cent of COVID cases become long COVID, so this is something relevant to everybody,” Derue said. “But it is especially significant to make a point that this is also an inclusivity and accessibility problem because COVID impacts certain groups more than others, including our immunocompromised and high-risk demographics, who are members of the PGSS community just like everybody else.”  

The discussion then shifted to Kristi Kouchakji, the PGSS Secretary-General, who wanted to discuss potential changes to PGSS executive titles, such as changing “Secretary-General” to “Internal Governance Officer,” and restructuring committee responsibilities within the next year or two. These changes would hopefully create titles that better represent executives’ responsibilities and curtail executives’ heavy and unmanageable workloads. 

Poorhemati, however, was doubtful of the proposed restructuring’s timeline.  

“Making these many changes in one or even two years would make it almost certain that PGSS would almost collapse [….] my concern is how quick and fast, and maybe some things that work should be left alone,” Poorhemati said. “Focus should be more on students and student problems, and not necessarily about PGSS and PGSS problems. There is a delicate balance between these two and an unclear line here.”

Kouchakji responded that the divide between student and PGSS problems is precisely what needs to be better defined in the roles of different executive positions.

“PGSS is going to collapse a heck of a lot faster if we don’t start addressing some of these issues. Like it’s becoming an access issue. It’s becoming an equity issue. It’s becoming [an] inclusivity issue,” Kouchakji said. “To continue to say, we’re going to expect […] five [executives] to work more hours than they’re being paid for and two of them to work double if not triple the hours they’re being paid for, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a healthy and productive way for us to continue doing things.” 

Moment of the Meeting:

Although there seemed to be general support for Kouchakji’s revamping proposal, a non-binding straw poll revealed that only eight per cent of attendees wanted to be a part of the committee working on the proposal if the motion passes—50 per cent of attendees voted no, and the other 38 per cent said maybe. 

Soundbite:

“I love unions. I think everyone should belong to a union. I think that’s extremely difficult to implement here because half of us are elected and the other half are appointed.”

— Kristi Kouchakji on the difficulties of unionizing PGSS employees 

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘You’ delivers trashy thrills upon British relocation

by Yash Zodgekar on

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“Hello, you” begins the internal monologues of You protagonist Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), accompanying the moment the stalker-murderer fixates on yet another love interest. On its fourth outing, the show inverts this setup: Having fled the U.S. following season three’s calamitous climax—in which he murdered his wife Love (Victoria Pedretti) and abandoned his son—Joe finds himself in London, in the hunt for his obsession, librarian Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). He’s landed himself a new identity as “Jonathan Moore,” a cushy job as an English literature professor, and ingratiation within a group of urban elites. However, the arrival of a mysterious “eat-the-rich”  killer, who begins picking off the group’s members, threatens Joe’s serene old-world excursions. When the killer starts stalking and framing Joe, they assume the mantle of “you,” becoming the subject of his monologues as a gripping game of cat and mouse ensues. 

The hallmarks that made You such an enticing show are still present this time ‘round, but they feel diluted. Once again, Joe only partially obfuscates the sinister and predatory nature of his pursuit of a new romantic interest, socialite and art gallery manager Kate Galvin (Charlotte Ritchie), encouraging the audience to indulge in the knotty moral ambiguity of his viewpoint. Badgley’s performance continues to successfully mine the discomfort induced by Joe’s combination of superficial charm and monstrous actions. However, the chemistry between the two leads often feels forced. This is compounded by the scattergun writing of Ritchie’s character, whose cold exterior gives way to infatuation in sporadic moments largely brought on only when the plot demands it. 

You continues its penchant for satirizing the privileged, using their ridiculousness to provide levity from the more murderous moments. Joe’s faux-intellectualist narrative voice has taken great pleasure in ridiculing New York literary elites, L.A. influencers, and wealthy suburban picket-fence dwellers in past seasons. Season four aims squarely at Britain’s class hierarchy, with the killer embodying this anti-elitism. The new characters, from aristocratic toffs with family crests and country estates to foreign royalty and trust-fund babies, each behave as caricatures of greed whom Joe takes quiet pleasure in deriding. 

You’s class messaging shies away from the overtly political, and has always remained secondary to its plot—no one would mistake its earlier seasons for a Bong Joon-Ho film. That said, its targets in England are stereotypes of such cartoonishly exaggerated proportions that it becomes hard for the satire to land. No character better exemplifies this than aristocrat Roald Walker-Burton (Ben Wiggins) who, during a country retreat, proclaims, rifle-in-hand and without a trace of irony, “I’m going peasant hunting.” 

What the show lacks in nuance,  You still delivers in leaps and bounds of unencumbered thrills. As the season progresses, a series of bolder plot twists ensue—murders, kidnappings, and blackmail pile up while Joe faces the threat, or promise, of justice. These developments are irresistibly compelling, fixating the audience on guessing Joe’s next manoeuvre as various mysteries unravel. Admittedly, the high stakes in these moments ask the audience to suspend reasonable disbelief, and more often than not, depend on events that toe the line between being merely outlandish and outright plot holes. This is not to mention the horrendous writer’s-room-psychology underpinning the presentation of Joe as a sufferer of mental illness, drawing more from popular film tropes than any real medical information. 

Nevertheless, amidst the adrenaline of the chase, these weaknesses don’t detract an awful lot from the viewing experience. In its trashiness, You was never built upon a precise or profound depiction of obsession, mental illness, or criminality. Rather, much like Joe’s own literary rhetoric, these themes cloak what was always a more simplistic show built on raw entertainment, unashamedly stimulating audiences’ fascination with the grim and gory. By this more modest metric, You’s fourth season delivers emphatically upon its mission. 

You Season 4 (Part 1 + Part 2) is streaming now on Netflix.

McGill, News

Post-referendum debate erupts among LSA members over lack of clarity and implications of constitutional amendments

by Madison Edward-Wright on

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After a brief campaign and voting period, the McGill Law Students Association (LSA) announced on March 14 that a change requiring a supermajority—two-thirds of voters—to pass a strike was rejected. Despite the referendum question’s failure to pass, many students are still confused about the implications of the constitutional amendment and are calling for increased transparency from the LSA. 

The question that sparked the most debate among students asked whether voters “agreed to amend the LSA Constitution and Bylaws,” but provided no other details about the amendment and instead directed students to an edited version of the LSA constitution included in a past email. The proposed change to the constitution was that a vote to strike would require a two-thirds majority to pass—ultimately making it harder for students to strike.

Chloe Rourke, a 3L student, found the lack of reference documents linked in the referendum ballot to be particularly odd, considering the referendum questions were extremely brief.

“I’ve never seen a referendum question that referenced a document in an email,” Rourke told The McGill Tribune. “As much as possible, you try and indicate what the substantive changes are in the question [….] I think it’s really important that those are properly contextualized and that that decision be made transparently, that everyone would know what they’re voting for.”

According to an email obtained by the Tribune sent by the LSA Chief Reporting Officer and Deputy Returning Officer to all LSA members, the platform used for voting, SimplyVoting, did not allow the LSA to link to more information on the ballot itself. Emma Linzmayer, the Arts Undergraduate Society Chief Electoral Officer, explained that linking in a referendum question is an uncommon practice, if even possible, that she has not had to deal with. 

“With the pen sketches, each candidate gets 100 words […] it’s about keeping the attention of the voters,” Linzmayer wrote. “So [with] referendum questions […] we just input the question and ask voters yes/no [….] With links, it’s not very explicit in [some] electoral bylaws, but since the word count is so strict, it would be unfair to give some [questions] more persuasion power while others wouldn’t even consider it.”

The move to increase the number of students needed to pass a strike vote stemmed from the LSA strike in early 2022 in protest of the lack of accommodations for students during the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some students were unhappy that a strike was initiated with only a small majority of students—56.6 per cent—supporting the action.

“Over the course of the strike […] and in its aftermath, the LSA conducted substantial consultations [in 2022]—not only among the general student body, but also specifically with students in classes affected by the targeted strike,” LSA President Charlotte Sullivan wrote in an email to the Tribune. “We received a significant number of messages from students advising us that they were upset and defeated by the small margin by which the strike vote had passed.”

Sullivan also disclosed that many students in the classes affected by the strike decided to cross the picket line because they felt that there was not enough support from law students personally affected by the strike to warrant one.

Law students were also taken aback by the short timeframe of this semester’s referendum. On the evening of March 1, students received an email stating that the campaign period would open on March 6 and close on March 9. Anyone wishing to form an official “No” committee—an official group campaigning for a no vote—had to notify the LSA CRO by March 5. 

The LSA was supposed to run this referendum question about the supermajority amendment in 2022, but scheduling issues led to it being postponed. Sullivan noted that because consultations occurred last year, the LSA did not explicitly publish about the changes because nothing was altered from what was to be presented in 2022.


“I don’t think the process was deliberatel non-transparent at all, and we remained available between the publication of the constitutional amendments package and the beginning of voting to answer any questions about it,” Sullivan wrote. “With that being said, if I could change things now, I would have publicized the content of these amendments prior to the beginning of the campaign period.”

Commentary, Opinion

Don’t bet on Montreal’s new casino

by Owen Barnert on

More in Commentary:

Loto-Québec recently announced its plan to install a mini-casino in the old 1909 Taverne Moderne, a three-storey building adjacent to the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal. The casino would include hundreds of slot machines, sports gambling terminals, and several poker tables.

Jean-François Bergeron, the CEO of Loto-Québec, has stated that the casino’s main clientele would be sports fans visiting the Bell Centre, without being exclusive to this demographic.  Several problems arise with such easy access to gambling, with the psychological and socioeconomic impacts being the most troubling. With such ease of accessibility, vulnerable people in Montreal as a whole are more likely to be lured in at the expense of their finances and health. 

Slot machines are some of the most dangerous gambling devices to get hooked on. Specifically designed to addict the user, the bright array of contrasting lights and noises grab one’s attention—and their pocketbooks. Like other forms of gambling, slot machines produce a “variable reinforcement schedule,” whereby the unpredictability of a win causes a person to keep gambling, driven by the hope that the next attempt might be the winning one. And for the over 300,000 Canadians at severe or moderate risk of a gambling addiction, this proposition has a predictable conclusion––disastrous mental and financial repercussions. 

Health officials and government officials have not bought into Loto’s stance and are aware of the risk that gambling poses to lower-income and racialized populations—in Canada, the practice disproportionately affects Indigenous people who partake in particular. While there may be incentives for a new casino to increase the government’s tax revenue, the mental and financial health of the city’s residents must come first, Finance Minister Eric Girard, stated. He also noted that while a casino would help bring in revenue, public health officials should approve it first and ensure that the new casino’s benefits aren’t overtaken by its harmful effects. 

Some Indigenous belief systems stem from gambling’s original purpose to form community and redistribute wealth, contributing to an increase in Indigenous peoples’ vulnerability to gambling addiction. When white European settlers colonized the Americas, gambling became an integral part of culture in North America as they commercialized it. The establishment of a mini-casino exploiting vulnerable populations for their revenue stream would only perpetuate colonialism, especially when considering how the housing crisis disproportionately targets Indigenous peoples in Montreal. 

Companies are aware of these structural factors and weaponize it to target the bottom line, through predatory gambling—the use of gambling to prey on psychological human weaknesses. Often, companies will exploit low-income communities with selective advertising. While the Quebec government promises to reinvest their earnings from gambling into education or other public necessities, history shows that this claim cannot be taken at face value. In the case of the lottery, winnings often do not come from the communities in which they are bought, while their funds are used to supplement a bigger budget. 

While a mini-casino would have an outsized harm on those vulnerable to its predation, the provincial government has a high incentive to approve such projects to benefit from a massive growth in their tax collection. The Montreal Casino paid $1.3 billion in taxes to the Quebec government in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Yet, political parties such as Québec solidaire have opposed the project, stating that slot machines and instruments of gambling are not needed in such an area where there is already a wealth of economic activity. 

While initially, a casino might become an economic boon, it could easily hurt specific populations and the overall financial and mental health of Montreal if left unchecked. A casino would foster widespread gambling addiction and further hurt vulnerable people. In the interest of preventing harm and promoting welfare, Montreal shouldn’t bet on casinos to serve its citizens.

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