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How a visit to the Redpath Museum can help you to survive in the wilderness

by Shanell Fan on

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As the climate worsens and resources become more expensive, younger generations are under more pressure than ever to live sustainably. Fortunately, the Redpath Museum hosts monthly survival workshops informing students on how to live off the land—teaching skills like turning plant fibers into rope, proper beekeeping, or how to make a fire using friction. The McGill Tribune spoke with Marion Dulude, one of the survival workshop coordinators, about the importance of incorporating natural living techniques into everyday life.

MT: Why should students take the time to learn natural survival techniques?

MD: I think it’s really empowering for people to get a chance to harvest, and to get a chance to process, and get a chance to consume something that they’ve made. [It] is very important to get to understand and know our environment, to get to know the wild beings that are there. It is empowering to also know that plants are not just beautiful, but they could be useful for us, and if we’re able to harvest them respectfully and take not more than what we need, then there could be a mutually beneficial relationship.

MT: When would these techniques be relevant for students to use?

MD: These are small, simple skills, but when you combine them all together, it’s actually quite a big bundle of knowledge. [For example], I drink nettle tea every morning, and I don’t have to buy as many vitamins or as many supplements at the pharmacy because I have quite a few that are from pretty common basic medicinal plants around us. People are always amazed [that]  these plants are all around. So I do see it that some of these skills can be integrated right now in your daily life [and] they bring a lot of health, well-being, and awareness.

MT: What are your top three tips for getting into survivalism?

MD: I would start with proximity […] and developing that connection with what’s close to you. [For example], if you want to get into plants, what are the five plants that you can get to know around your home? And then I would say repetition, like [for example], nettle tea, instead of drinking it once and moving on to the next thing, drink it once a week or try integrating it into your life in a small way. And then building communities [and] finding like-minded people and building a community of learners.

MT: What do you hope students who attend the workshops take away?

MD: It’s all about connections to the life that sustains us [and] finding a way to be in this interdependent relationship [with the environment….] There’s so much importance given to humans, that we sometimes get overwhelmed and forget that we are part of this larger whole.

Montreal, News, SSMU

Bill 151 exposes gaps in McGill Policy Against Sexual Violence

by Audrey Carleton on

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At the Nov. 1 sitting of the National Assembly of Québec, Minister for Higher Education Hélène David introduced Bill 151, which aims to prevent and fight sexual violence in higher education institutions. The bill would require all universities in the province to develop a policy against sexual violence that is separate from its other policies and includes guidelines for student orientations, training, and the handling of intimate relationships between students and faculty members.

“The purpose of this Act is to strengthen actions to prevent and fight sexual violence in higher education institutions and to help foster a healthy and safe living environment for students and personnel members,” Bill 151 reads. “To that end, the Act in particular provides for the implementation of prevention, awareness-raising, accountability, support and individual assistance measures.”  

The proposed bill is the product of months of consultations between David and representatives of various stakeholder groups, including the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), Our Turn National Action Plan, and the Association of the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ). McGill Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures, and Equity) Angela Campbell was also present at a number of these consultations, though she is confident that the university’s current Policy against Sexual Violence sufficiently complies with the bill’s proposed guidelines.

“The proposed legislation has symbolic value and stands to make a significant practical impact, foregrounding the shared responsibility that institutions, including post-secondary institutions, have to prevent and respond to sexual violence,” Campbell wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “McGill already meets most of the requirements of the proposed legislation, notably a commitment to mandatory education for all members of the campus community, a stand-alone Policy against Sexual Violence, and an Office that dedicates resources specifically to the support of survivors and to education and awareness-raising about consent and sexual violence.”

McGill’s Policy against Sexual Violence explicitly states that consent cannot be given in circumstances where an abuse of a relationship of trust, power, or authority occurs, such as in the relationship between a professor and their student. However, student offenders are under a different policy than faculty, who are held accountable to the Regulations Relating to the Employment of Tenure Track and Tenured Academic Staff.

After working extensively on improving McGill’s Policy, SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Connor Spencer feels that its structure improperly defines sexual violence and is not “stand-alone,” which she says would require outlining procedures for discipline independent from academic regulations.

“[McGill’s Policy is on] a separate piece of paper, but the procedures are still the procedures under the Code of Student Conduct, and that means that you automatically get transferred to procedures meant for academic infractions,” Spencer said. “It’s not trauma-informed, or survivor-centred, and it just doesn’t have those realities reflected in how those procedures are set out. For the policy to truly be stand-alone, it needs its own procedures as well.”

Further, Quebec’s Act respecting labour standards mandates that the university must keep many of its disciplinary processes confidential, keeping survivors in the dark about how the university handles their cases.

“If we really want to have procedures with professors, there needs to be a change in […] Quebec labour law,” Spencer said. “That’s something that really can only happen at the provincial level anyway.”

Caitlin Salvino, Co-Chair of Our Turn National Action Plan—a guideline encouraging student unions to adopt a pro-survivor stance at Canadian Universities—shares Spencer’s concerns about the importance of having a stand-alone policy. To ensure that action is taken, she believes that the provincial government should also provide formal channels for overseeing proper implementation of the bill at universities like McGill.

“The bill is not going far enough right now,” Salvino said. “It needs to create minimum standards for the policies that they’re mandating […] and there needs to be an oversight body that survivors can make a claim to or make a complaint to.”

 

The McGill Tribune is gathering student input to inform an investigation into the topic of professor abuses at McGill. If you’d like to participate in our survey or provide a tip or testimonial on the topic, please click here.

Instagram, Student Life

‘Anti-Colonial Evening’ revisits traditional Thanksgiving narratives

by Samantha Ling on

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On Nov. 23, Montreal’s Native Friendship Centre was filled with warmth, food, and historical lessons as McGill students and Montreal residents attended an ‘Anti-Colonial Evening,’ organized by Le Frigo Vert and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at Concordia. Instead of partaking in a traditional American Thanksgiving celebration, over 100 people of all ages gathered to learn about colonialism and the importance of resisting land fraud when celebrating the holiday.

Filing in from the windy Montreal weather, the evening’s attendees enjoyed a variety of foods from local cooperatives, including Food Against Fascism and McGill’s Midnight Kitchen. Following the dinner, Submedia TV, a grassroots social justice film collective, presented clips from films on social justice and Indigenous issues. The videos provided a look into the harms of invasive infrastructure plans for Indigenous land, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Alton Gas brine dumping site. These clips gave attendees a glimpse into the struggles many Indigenous populations face, and the continued pervasiveness of colonialism in North America.

For Harley Roquentin, an organizer of the night and member of the Board of Directors of QPIRG Concordia, the mainstream acceptance of Thanksgiving as a peaceful celebration hides the history of colonialism that led to the holiday’s creation.

“The myth that people were kind to Native Americans [is]  so ingrained within Thanksgiving, when really [colonial settlers] committed genocide,” Roquentin said. “That’s not something we should be celebrating. It’s an aspect of humanity and recognition of Indigenous peoples that we’re aiming to do here today.”

According to event attendee Sabrina Xuan, U3 Anthropology, early childhood education played a central role in her understanding of Thanksgiving as a holiday. Throughout her schooling, she repeatedly heard tales of settler-Indigenous cooperation and gratitude, and came to accept this as the truth. The ‘Anti-Colonial Evening’ countered this narrative, sparking discussion about mainstream misrepresentations of North American history.

“I grew up going to an American school, and we were all given a narrative about Thanksgiving and Columbus Day being positive events intrinsic to national development,” Xuan said. “When you know there’s more to the story, I think you should do all that you can to support what it’s really like.”

By the end of the night, everyone left with full stomachs, open minds, and new motivation to get involved in decolonization efforts. Coco Graziani, a recent McGill graduate (in Psychology and English Literature) who attended the event, reflected on the importance of understanding one’s place in the anti-colonial movement.

“It seems to me it’s a special time in the evolution of the way people think,” Graziani said. “I wasn’t aware of the movement or history a few years ago, but I have a feeling that right now it’s reaching everyone. When supporting efforts for decolonization, showing up as settlers is important. It shows one’s effort in knowing more, and recognizing the resiliency of Indigenous people.”

Student Life, The Viewpoint

Viewpoint: Me and my cultural fatigue

by Avleen Mokha on

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Every year, thousands of students move to Montreal to begin their journey at McGill. Although the university’s multinational student body is a blessing for international students, moving to a new place often comes with a cost that goes unnoticed by locals.

When I moved to Montreal from Mumbai, I was stunned by the novelty of living abroad. For the first time, I could spend my evening walking down promenades, switching sides of fries for poutine, or riding a Bixi to class. I was mesmerized by the architecture of the city, the bustling energy on campus, and the variety of accents and languages I’d hear in a day.

However, as I detached from my life in Mumbai, I had to ground myself in Montreal. Once the honeymoon period ended, I realized that finding a sense of belonging here was much harder than I had imagined. I soon became irrationally angry at myself for not adapting to my new environment as fast as I thought I would. In my residence, I was surrounded by predominantly North Americans, and it was difficult for me to keep up with their cultural expectations.

Cultural fatigue, also referred to as ‘expat fatigue,’ feels more appropriate in describing my experience than culture ‘shock,' because the latter implies that the experience of revising cultural norms is instantaneous. The process is actually much slower; I felt isolated every time I’d learn something new about North American culture. I understood that cultures were different in their beliefs, but that left it up to me to decide what I believed in. I was afraid of embarrassing myself, especially in professional or networking contexts.

One of my biggest hurdles to overcome was realizing that my idea of punctuality was quite different from its Western counterpart. In India’s polychronic culture—where many things take place at once—it is normal for plans to change, and certain reasonable delays are tolerable. However, in North America, this isn’t always the case.

I noticed that every time my friends and I would go out for dinner, someone would always make a reservation. Reserving a table was efficient, I’ll admit, but largely felt unnecessary; I had many happy memories of my family passing the time for 20 to 30 minutes before getting a seat at a restaurant. Once, when my mum visited and invited my friends to go out to eat, both her and I showed up without having made a reservation, much to my friends’ dismay. We had reached an impasse: While I expected her to have booked a table, she didn’t see the problem with my North American friends waiting for a few minutes.

I internally responded to the conflict by shaping my behaviour to be more like my colleagues: I began to walk faster, set appointments, and pay closer attention to my time. But I soon realized that while each culture has its own set of implicit norms and expectations, these norms are innumerable. I could spend years here and still be different from someone who was born and raised in Canada—and that’s OK.

Now that months have gone by, I’ve gained more knowledge about Canadian culture: I know that the bus requires exact change, that you stand on the right side of the escalator to stand still, that “Timmie’s” is short for Tim Horton’s, and that “Hey, how’s it going?” is nothing more than a greeting.

I still make little cultural blunders. Once in awhile, I’ll say “see you!” to people I will never see again—like my Uber driver—but instead of cursing myself, I laugh. Every time I encounter something new in Canadian culture, I text my Turkish friend to share my confusion. Spending time with other international students and talking about differences with friends from both cultures has helped me live with the self-doubt I’ve experienced from moving 12,000 kilometres away from my comfort zone.

I wish I could say there’s a clear path for all international students to find their place in a new country, but there isn’t. Having support on campus to cope in a new environment helps, but I’ve come to realize that there’s no point in resisting change—or forcing it. A drastic difference in culture can be difficult to adjust to, but remember that we all embark on journeys, and all our experiences will inevitably change us, no matter how big or small.

Commentary, Opinion

“Bonjour-Hi:” The value of multiculturalism

by Abeer Almahdi on

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Valérie Plante, Montréal’s new mayor, has openly supported providing services to citizens in the language that they are most comfortable with, be that English or French. Plante recently proposed promoting bilingualism in the Société de Transport de Montréal (STM) by providing emergency messages in multiple languages.

However, the current provincial government continues to resist bilingualism. Most recently, Québec lawmakers passed a unanimous motion that calls on businesses to scrap the beloved, “Bonjour-Hi!” and replace it with simply, “Bonjour.” Although this motion carries no legal weight, it demonstrates the rigid campaign to defend the French language that parties such as the Parti Québecois (PQ) continue to pursue. In the motion’s original wording, the PQ went so far as to call the bilingual greeting an “irritant.” PQ Leader Jean-François Lisée promised that, if elected in 2018, there will be a “French language crackdown,” through measures such as creating more language restrictions in the workplace. Where Lisée is wrong is that instead of being seen as an “irritant,” multilingualism is one of the many gifts of a multicultural society and an asset to the province as a whole. The provincial government should see the value in Plante’s ambitions to make Montréal, and Québec as a whole, more inclusive for anglophones and other language minorities.

Montréal is Québec’s largest city. Beyond that, it is a global hub, home to groundbreaking artificial intelligence research, and attracting international attention. Tourists, students, and immigrants come from all over the world, and many do not speak a word of French when they arrive. The 2016 Census found that the number of anglophones in Québec increased by 45,230 from 2011, with over 1.1 million native English speakers—9.6 per cent of the total provincial population—now calling Québec home. In Montréal, the English-speaking population is significantly higher: Only 54 per cent of Montréal households cite French as their primary language. It is becoming more and more evident that Quebecers speak English, too. Eventually, the government will have to stop fighting this reality. Although Québec has a thriving francophone culture, it is not only unsustainable to continue to ignore the province’s language minorities—it disregards the value of multiculturalism as a whole.

Although Québec has a thriving francophone culture, it is not only unsustainable to continue to ignore the province’s language minorities—it disregards the value of multiculturalism as a whole.

Economically, shunning English and other languages is unsustainable, especially if Montréal wants to see growth in the future. Most international business is conducted in languages other than French, such as English. Bilingual workplaces are rising in Québec, and for the rest of Canada, nine out of 10 employees work exclusively in English. In the 1960s, Montréal was booming and on its way to becoming the business capital of Canada. However, increasing regulations and political tensions due to language and sovereignty drove private investment, and some of the most wealthy and educated people out of the province to cities like Toronto. This phenomenon is not unique to Montréal: Between 1971 and 2015, more Quebecers left the province than settled in. By cracking down on English again, Québec is doing a disservice to its own citizens and businesses, effectively sabotaging their means to work or operate throughout Canada and internationally.

Furthermore, the narrative that francophone-focused groups routinely ignore is that of Indigenous languages in Montréal. While Québec’s history has been filled with oppression, forced assimilation, and colonialism, it is unfair to position francophones as the only victims. Indigenous populations have experienced cultural genocide at the hands of the government through oppressive policies like the residential school system. According to the 2016 Census, between 2006 and 2016, Québec saw a 37.5 per cent increase in people identifying as First Nations and a 149.2 per cent increase in people identifying as Métis. In 2011, 20.9 per cent of Canada’s 213,490 total Aboriginal mother tongue population lived in Québec.

The promotion of multiple languages should not be seen as an attack on francophone culture, but as a gift of multiculturalism. In a province where many languages are represented, it is irrational to restrict citizens to using just one, even if it has a strong historical tradition. Quebecers do not say “Bonjour-Hi” to attack Francophones—they say “Bonjour-Hi” to include those whose mother tongue is not French. If anything, Quebecers should add more languages to the greeting, and embrace the multicultural direction that the world is headed in, not actively resist it.

 

 

 

 

Abeer Almahdi is a U1 student studying International Development. Abeer is a Ravenclaw, and a proud mother of a lazy two year-old pomeranian/pekingese mix.

 

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

 
Science & Technology

Breastfed babies are less likely to develop eczema

by Océane Marescal on

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Since the 1950s, breastfeeding has been almost a taboo subject in the United States and Canada. A simple Google search of “breastfeeding” shows top news stories of women being shamed by strangers for breastfeeding in public. This negative response might help explain the low rates of breastfeeding in many developed countries.

In the United States, less than 49 per cent of babies ever receive breast milk and in the United Kingdom, only 34 per cent do. Even more striking, only 17 per cent of American women and one per cent of British women. follow the World Health Organization’s recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for six months.

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, women face a variety of barriers to breastfeeding beyond social stigma and disapproval, including work-related issues, unsupportive partners, and concerns about pain.

However, a study conducted by scientists at King’s College London, Harvard University, University of Bristol, and McGill University have found that breastfeeding can provide a variety of benefits to the child, with no adverse health consequences to the mother.

The study, called PROmotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT), began in 1996 and followed 13,000 Belarusian babies from birth to adolescence to examine the effects of breastfeeding on health. Babies in the intervention group received much longer and much more exclusive breastfeeding than those in the control condition.

The most recent publication to stem from this research investigated two outcomes of the breastfeeding intervention—atopic eczema and asthma—analyzed in a follow-up of the subjects at age 16. The study found that the breastfeeding promotion intervention group saw a reduction in risk of eczema, but no difference between the intervention and control group for asthma.  

Michael Kramer is a professor and researcher at McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, and the Principal Investigator on the PROBIT study. He has been working on this trial for over 20 years and can attest to the wide range of benefits that breastfeeding accords.

“I’m surprised about the beneficial effect [breastfeeding] had on cognitive ability with no similar effect on behavior such as depression, problems socializing, and ability to pay attention,” Kramer said. “There was a general effect on brain development but not on behavior. Also, this [finding] in the paper was surprising to me because the kids that had eczema at age 16 were not the same [ones] that had it early in life.”

Indeed, as Kramer explained, other benefits to breastfeeding included higher verbal IQ at  six and a half years old, significant reduction in gastrointestinal infection in the first year, and likelihood of atopic eczema in the first year of life as well as during adolescent years.

Researchers saw no negative health effects of breastfeeding on the mother. There was no difference in blood pressure, body fat, or body mass index between the mothers in the control compared to the intervention group.

As to why breastfeeding could protect from eczema, even 16 years later, Kramer is not quite sure.

“There are many components in breast milk that affect the immune system and is responsible for protective effects against infections,” Kramer explained. “Oligosaccharides, sugar molecules found in the breast milk, can bind to virus and bacteria. There are also antibodies, lymphocytes, and lactoferrins, but how these molecules might protect against allergic disease including eczema is not well understood.”

The PROBIT study gives yet another reason, besides courtesy and respect, to not criticize women who breastfeed in public. Women should not have to be ashamed of breastfeeding their child or have to hide in bathrooms to avoid negative remarks. Those who decide not to breastfeed should, however, also not fear the reprimand and haughty remarks of mothers who do. However a woman chooses to feed her child, her decision is her own and should be respected.

McGill, News

Minerva schedules cause confusion over semester end dates

by Marie Labrosse on

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Every academic year, the Committee on Enrolment and Students Affairs (CESA) and the McGill University Senate approve the Calendar of Academic Dates, which stipulates dates for the start and end of classes and other important events throughout the semester. CESA and Senate approved the Calendar of Academic Dates 2017-2018 in April and May 2014, respectively.

The Calendar determines the end date for each class depending on its schedule: Classes that met only on Wednesdays were scheduled to end on Nov. 29, while classes that met Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ended on Dec. 6. Moreover, because Thursday, Dec. 7 followed a Monday schedule, classes that met only on Mondays ended on that day.

However, according to Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies Yael Halevi-Wise, this calendar is not widely-used among professors, many of whom instead preferred to use Minerva’s weekly teaching schedules which contain their class itineraries for each week of the semester.

“When I designed the course syllabus before the semester began, [the] first thing I did was consult my personalized Minerva schedule,” Halevi-Wise said. “I planned all meetings and assignments accordingly. It was therefore surprising to find out that what looks like a personalized schedule on Minerva was actually not offering correct information.”

As the end of the semester approached, many professors and students came to realize that the class dates in the Minerva schedules did not match those approved by the Senate for the Fall semester. While different courses end on different dates, only one final date, Thursday, Dec. 7, can be entered into Minerva. Thus, Minerva schedules display classes as if they would be going up until that date, when in reality some of them were supposed to end before.

“The fact that courses on the Minerva schedules do not match the varying Senate last date of classes is a system limitation in that there is no logic in the system to automatically generate the specific end dates on each course based on the various schedule patterns of the courses,” Interim University Registrar (Enrolment Services) Anna Walsh wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

Faced with complaints and confusion, the administration instructed professors to follow the Calendar of Academic Dates 2017-2018 instead of their Minerva schedules.

“There was an email sent around on [Nov. 21] that said that there had been some questions about when the last classes would be, based on the 39 [hours of class required for every three-credit course], the Minerva class schedule, and the key dates,” Associate Professor of History and Classical Studies Lynn Kozak said. “I think that they knew that there was some gap [between those things]. There was some clarity the next day within [the Faculty of] Arts, [explaining] the dates approved by the Senate.”

Although professors have had to amend their course syllabi, Halevi-Wise feels that the burden of the scheduling discrepancy has largely fallen on students.

“Students have very complex schedules,” Halevi-Wise said. “They budget their time very carefully, and if all of a sudden there’s confusion, it affects them when they’re studying for an exam, [working] on projects that they have to get somebody to do, if they [have a job].”

Until being approached for an interview by the Tribune on Dec. 1, Associate Dean (Student Affairs) for the Faculty of Arts Lucyna Lach remained unaware of any errors in students’ schedules. Despite gaps in communication over end dates for classes, the administration recognizes the negative impacts this mistake has had. Lach said she has now brought Arts professors’ attention to the discrepancies in the Minerva schedules via email.

“It has now become evident that it is critical to resolve this issue so that all versions of the Class Schedule and myCourses reflect the accurate end dates on each course section,” Walsh said. “Students and instructors should not be expected to look elsewhere for that information. Enrolment Services will be working with IT early in the new year to have special coding implemented to address this issue.”

 

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