Last summer, amid the shelves of children’s novels in my house, I found a book titled 101 Ways to Find a Ghost by Melissa Martin Ellis. As someone who has always explored and enjoyed anything related to the paranormal, I dove into it. What I found most odd about the book was its meticulous, scientific approach to “ghost hunting.” Ellis imparts some advice in the opening chapter: “Your credibility as a paranormal investigator relies on maintaining your objectivity. Critics and skeptics believe that most ghost hunters are unreliable. Ghost hunters are often labeled as fantasy prone personalities—people who like to make things up.”
I love hearing ghost stories, and I’ve always approached sightings of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena with a curious skepticism. I like to ask questions that could explain occurrences in the story (maybe it was just the wind?), but feel a satisfying sensation of eeriness when there appears to be no explanation. The most horrifying ghost stories I’ve heard have often been from people close to me; objective proof is a difficult concept to insert into this dynamic. My belief in ghosts relies on a certain kind of knowledge, one that is not scientific at all, and is in fact, entirely subjective; it requires me to believe in other people. This kind of knowledge is different from the measurable evidence that Ellis looks for, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
The supernatural and paranormal could be analyzed through a scientific, evidence-based framework and likely, if tested, ghost sightings would prove no conclusive result. But it’s more valuable to view them as folklore. Folklore is defined by Merriam Webster as “traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people.” Today, Reddit threads and Tumblr blogs discussing sightings of Skinwalkers (creatures of Navajo legend) and black-eyed kids (aliens, most likely) are modern communities of people sharing knowledge through anecdotes and word of mouth. These communities value sensory perception as a way of knowing, and oral history as a record of that knowledge. The channels to impart and gain this kind of knowledge aren’t official, and they certainly aren’t considered legitimate or respectable from an academic standpoint. Still, as folklore has always done, these stories reveal a certain kind of truth. They are a form of expression for people to relate experiences, feelings, and perceptions of their lives that are real despite being unscientific.
Believing in ghosts requires me to take the stories that people tell me at face value. It’s a trust in the idea that other people’s perception might yield something valuable. Hearing these stories out also requires an understanding that reality itself is shaped by multiple perspectives, and can be analyzed through many frameworks. Even if someone may be seeing something that isn’t objectively there, they’re still seeing something. To try to explore the meaning or possibility behind that something, instead of just discounting it because I haven’t experienced it myself, is a validating and mind-opening exercise.
Enjoying a ghost story—and suspending your disbelief—is all about getting comfortable with ambiguity. It’s about giving over to the fear of the unknown.
Of course, there will always be people who intentionally lie or try to profit off of others’ beliefs. As such, when collecting qualitative information, one must remain skeptical. Moreover, it is important to distinguish science from folklore. These two ways of knowing can intertwine, and even benefit from each other, but ultimately, they serve different purposes.
Still, Ellis’s words suggest that people who have experienced something considered abnormal are required to prove themselves in order to be believed. Even more so, what Ellis reveals is that most people are highly uncomfortable with what they can’t explain. Enjoying a ghost story—and suspending your disbelief—is all about getting comfortable with ambiguity. It’s about giving over to the fear of the unknown.
So this Halloween, instead of looking outward for proof of ghosts, try looking inward, at your own perception of the world around you. As Stephen King said in his introduction to the 2001 edition of The Shining: “[The] truth is that monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.”
Happy Halloween!
April Barrett is in her final semester studying Anthropology and World Cinemas. She is the Multimedia Editor at the Tribune. I hear her hair's insured for $10,000.
With Christmas family-comedy season beginning to rear its cringey head, our writers prescribe four horror classics to keep your spook-levels up all year round.
Horror Movie with the Best Female Leads: Ginger Snaps (2000)
In a genre littered with disturbing representations of women, Ginger Snaps offers a unique portrayal of meaningful and complex female relationships, and an examination of the bonds of sisterhood. Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald (Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins) are teenaged sisters attached at the hip—snarky loners with a macabre sense of humour and a fascination with death. However, when Ginger gets her first period and is subsequently attacked by a werewolf, she begins a monstrous physical and psychological transformation—and it is up to Brigitte to save her sister.
Ginger Snaps is a fearless, sharp, and truly important feminist contribution to the horror genre—complete with excellent special effects, beautiful art direction, and a darkly-comedic script. Isabelle and Perkins are standouts as the film’s feisty heroines. Director John Fawcett (Orphan Black) forgoes sexist stereotypes—instead delivering a scathing commentary on the impossible double-standard of purity and sexual experience, society’s fear of powerful women, and the stigma against menstruation. If you’re on the hunt for a great creature feature with some pitch-black humor and hard-hitting social commentary, look no further.
Horror Movie That Will Make You Want to Never Have Kids: Dark Water (2002)
If you’re ever considering having children, look no further than the age-old “creepy child” horror film to squash that desire once and for all. Perhaps no subgenre does it better than Japanese ghost stories, most notably in Dark Water. Don’t be turned off by the shoddy American remake—the original Dark Water is a modern horror milestone. Directed by Hideo Nakata (Ringu, 1998), Dark Water is a chilling melodrama about a divorced mother who moves into a derelict apartment building with her young daughter, only to be haunted by inexplicable ghostly activity involving water and a mysterious young girl.
Nakata combines genuinely unnerving images with an emotionally resonant story about failed motherhood, abandonment, and breaking traditional family roles. Most of Dark Water’s terror stems from the expertly-crafted atmosphere, which Nakata accomplishes through his use of cool tones and sepia coloring, and jarring cinematography. Even in the lulls between scares, the film’s pervasive sense of dread and isolation keeps viewers tightly in its clutches until the very end.
The child-ghost is an ominous reminder of the consequences of neglectful parenting and cycles of abuse. Impeccably produced, superbly written, and frighteningly relevant, Dark Water is a challenging tear-jerker that will appeal both to horror connoisseurs and those more hesitant to dip their toes into the genre.
Best Date Night Horror Movie: Paranormal Activity (2007)
Paranormal Activity is the perfect date night horror movie—combining thrills, innovative filmmaking techniques, and a compelling story. Oren Peli’s low-budget film uses a found-footage style to tell the story of couple Micah and Katie, the latter of whom has suffered from strange inexplicable occurrences throughout her life. Micah’s attempt to get to the bottom of this results in a clash with the supernatural forces that are haunting Katie. The experiences faced by the couple push their relationship to the edge.
The good thing about Paranormal Activity is that it’s not too scary; there are enough thrills to make for a solid bonding experience between you and your date, without the risk of losing any sleep. Paranormal Activity also offers good post-film discussions, and there’s a plethora of ‘did you see that’ moments to chat about once the movie ends. Plus, film nerds will appreciate the impressive special effects given the movie’s low-budget.
Don’t judge Paranormal Activity by the series of mediocre sequels it spawned—the original is truly a classic.
Best horror movie drinking game: The ABC’s of Death (2012)
Can’t decide on a movie? Preparing for a Halloween bash? The ABC’s of Death is the modern equivalent of clicking through creepy YouTube videos as a preteen at a 2-a.m. slumber party and eventually landing on “Scary Car Commercial.” By no means a critically-acclaimed film, it is nonetheless rowdy, indulgent, bloody fun. The movie is composed of shorts, each corresponding to one of 26 words starting with each letter from A-Z. Since the anthology is a collaboration between 26 different directors, there’s something for everyone in varying levels of dread—including classic paranoia, body-horror, gore, slasher, and even comedy.
The ABC’s of Death’s segmented structure makes it a great Halloween party movie, and also perfect for drinking games. The rules: Each person has the length of the short to guess the word that characterizes the segment. Each person can only guess once, and after being claimed, that answer is locked in and off the table for anyone else. There’s advantage to an early guess, but slightly more risk. If you guess correctly, everyone else drinks twice. If everyone gets it wrong, everyone drinks once. If anyone screams prematurely, they have to have a bonus sip.
Halloween and creepy creatures go hand in hand, but there’s more to the animal kingdom than the generic vampire bat or black cat. Here are five spooky animals to get you in the Halloween spirit:
Tufted deer
Found in the mountainous forests of China, Tibet, and Myanmar, the tufted deer is a dainty and elusive animal characterized by a small tuft of black fur on its forehead. At first glance, it looks like any other deer—until you notice their fangs. Males have protruding canines, known as tusks, that they use as weapons when competing for territories or females. Though females also have canines, they aren’t as long.
This physical difference between the sexes—called sexual dimorphism—may have been brought about by sexual selection, an evolutionary pressure that acts on an organism’s features, and thus, the ability of an organism to mate.
Despite their fangs, these vampire-like deer must still be careful of predators, and are endangered due to poaching and habitat loss.
Marine hatchetfish
These sea creatures live in most temperate waters around the world. Their large eyes that are very sensitive to light lead them to migrate to shallower waters at night and return to deeper depths during the day, where they hunt by looking for the silhouettes of their prey above them. Through the process of bioluminescence, these organisms create their own light. Using photophores—or light emitting organs that cause bioluminescence—many deep-sea ocean dwellers are able to survive in the deep dark ocean. Since they can live at depths of up to 1,370 metres, not much is known about the deep-sea hatchetfish—aside from the fact that they look like they’re about to suck out your soul.
Vampire finch
A subspecies of the sharp-beaked ground finch that is found in the Galapagos Islands, the vampire finch has developed an unusual behaviour to supplement its diet when seeds and insects are scarce; it picks at the feathers and drinks the blood of the blue-footed booby—a larger bird that inhabits the Islands. They have even been known to do so in large groups. In addition, vampire finches often eat other birds’ eggs by rolling them onto rocks so that they break.
Their behaviour is not as evil as it seems, however—nipping at other bird’s feathers is actually an example of a mutualistic relationship, in which both species benefit from the actions of the other. The finch is able to take in more nutrients, and in the process, remove parasites from the booby’s feathers.
Aye-aye
The aye-aye is found only on the island of Madagascar. A species of lemur, they are thought to be the only primate to use echolocation—he use of sound waves and echoes to determine where objects are in space—to find prey. They spend their lives in the trees and have an elongated middle finger to dig grubs out of holes in trees, and thus fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. Their large eyes and long, spindly fingers do make them look a little creepy; unfortunately, some locals in Madagascar kill the aye-aye because of legends that paint them to be evil spirits.
The aye-aye allegedly sneaks into the homes of nearby villagers and uses its elongated middle finger to pierce through their hearts while they sleep. The fact that the species is completely unafraid of humans does not help their cause.
Assassin spider
Assassin spiders, otherwise known as pelican spiders, are made to kill. Though they are slow rather than stealthy, their long neck and chelicerae—fang-bearing segments that are found on all spiders and allow them to inject venom—enable them to sink their jaws into prey from a relatively long distance. They were first discovered in 40-million-year-old fossils and were presumed to have gone extinct, until they were discovered in Madagascar in 1881. They have since been found in South Africa and Australia.
Humans don’t have to be worried about these creepy crawlies—but other spiders do. They don’t weave a web, hanging instead on a single line of silk at night and impaling wandering spiders with their jaws.
While these animals are all quite spooky, it’s important to remember that their scientific significance is not confined to Halloween scares. Their bizarre traits are the result of millions of years of evolution, and they each play a vital role in nature.
Founded in 1642, Montreal is one of Canada’s oldest and largest cities. Along with its lengthy history come stories of heinous and mysterious acts that inspired ghostly legends, sometimes even changing Canadian history. In the spirit of Halloween, The McGill Tribunehas compiled some of the most famous treacherous tales in history to occur close to McGill.
Beheading in Griffintown, 1879
According to legend, a headless ghost appears searching for its lost head on the corner of William and Murray streets in Griffintown every seven years. The entity is thought to be the ghost of Mary Gallagher, a local prostitute who was murdered in the 19th century.
Mary Gallagher was a working class prostitute living in then-slum Griffintown. On the night of June 27, 1879, she picked up a client, Michael Flanagan, and the two set off to meet her friend and fellow prostitute, Susan Kennedy. The next morning, after a downstairs neighbour reported hearing sounds of chopping and the thud of something falling to the floor, police found Gallagher’s severed head in the bathtub. Flanagan was nowhere to be seen.
Soon after, both Kennedy and Flanagan were arrested for murder, and while Kennedy had first reported that she’d seen a strange man enter her house and argue with Gallagher, this was revealed to be false. The police eventually found Kennedy’s hatchet in her apartment, covered in blood and bits of flesh and hair. Kennedy was sentenced to life in prison, while Flanagan was released from police custody—only to drown in the Peel Basin on Dec. 5, 1879. Meanwhile, Gallagher was buried in a pauper’s grave.
(MTL Blog)
“You have the whole Irish tradition of banshees and ghosts,” Alan Hustak, a former reporter for the Montreal Gazette and author of The Ghost of Griffintown: The True Story of the Murder of Mary Gallagher, told Vice. “The whole story took on a whole different ghostly [aspect] within the Irish community.”
Gallagher’s story was soon propelled from tragic murder to mysterious legend, according to Patrick Lejtenyi, author of the Vice article.
“It did not take long before locals [said] they saw Mary Gallagher’s ghost wandering around,” Lejtenyi wrote. “Everyone in the tightly-knit neighbourhood knew the story of the murdered prostitute, and Irish parents would use the story as a way to threaten their children: Eat your cabbage, or Mary Gallagher will come and get you. Eventually there arose a tradition that Mary would appear every seven years on the night of her murder, headless.”
The Redpath mansion murders of 1901
At the corner of Sherbrooke and Redpath streets lived one of Canada’s most wealthy and influential families, the Redpaths. John Redpath was responsible for building much of the city’s lasting infrastructure, including the Lachine canal, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the library and museum bearing his name on McGill’s downtown campus. Redpath died in 1869, leaving behind 17 children and his second wife.
On June 13, 1901, Peter Redpath, one of John’s sons, came running to his mother’s room, where he found both his mother, Ada Maria Redpath, and his brother, Jocelyn Clifford Redpath, lying in a pool of blood with a revolver near Clifford’s hand. The two were brought to Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), where Mrs. Redpath immediately died and Clifford remained in a coma until the next day when he was taken off life support. The atrocity attracted widespread publicity, garnering coverage from publications as distant as The New York Times and The Calgary Herald.
Two days later, the coroner’s office came to a verdict: Clifford had not been in his right mind when he killed his mother with the revolver. They suspected he had either been under the influence of alcohol or having an epileptic fit during the act. Yet, many Montrealers believe that the murder at the Redpath Mansion was not as simple as the verdict made it out to be. According to The Globe, the police did not inform the rest of the Redpath family, who learned of it indirectly.
(CBC.ca)
Strangely, the investigation that led to the conclusion that Clifford was the killer only lasted two days, and the coroner never addressed two contradictions in the evidence. First, many newspapers reported that Clifford was admitted into RVH—but the hospital doesn’t have him in its patient records. Second, the Redpath’s family physician, Dr. Thomas George Roddick, testified that he examined the bodies immediately after the murder occurred. But according to the Montreal Daily Star, Roddick was in Toronto at the time.
While the case is closed, to some it remains a mystery. “Great Unsolved Mysteries” in Canadian History compiled available data on this case to see if others can fully piece together what happened that night. Today, the corner of Sherbrooke and Redpath has no remnants of the mansion or the suspicious murder that happened within it.
The bloody love triangle of 1967
The 1967 murder of James Drummond Ross received little media coverage at the time, but it was a tragic event that shaped Canadian history. Ross was a McGill assistant professor who grew up in a well-to-do family in Westmount. According to Kristian Gravenor, journalist and founder of Montreal stories blog Coolopolis, Ross, who was gay, was purportedly discreet about his sexual orientation, as homosexuality was still illegal in Canada in 1967. At the time of his death, the 36-year-old professor was seeing a younger man named Henry Bérubé.
But Bérubé was also involved with another man, Michael Jenkins, a freelance photographer who felt threatened by Ross. On the night of Oct. 12, 1967, Ross returned to his home on 1565 Pins avenue to find Jenkins on his third floor balcony. Jenkins swiftly pulled out a 0.303 caliber rifle and shot Ross through the stomach. According to several witnesses living in the area, a bloodied Ross managed to run across the street, where Jenkins finally killed him with a shot to the temple.
(Coolopolis)
Bérubé, who was a witness to the murder, refused to testify against Jenkins and even lied about his involvement with Ross. According to Gravenor, this angered the presiding judge, who detained Bérubé in Bordeaux prison for five months and placed a bail of $5,000, which Bérubé was unable to pay.
“I didn’t have a trial and I was confined in deadlock,” Bérubé told Coolopolis. “I decided to write to John Diefenbaker because he was the best criminal lawyer in Canada [….] He ordered me released right away, [but] I never received an apology or compensation.”
Meanwhile, Jenkins was charged with Ross’ murder. According to both the Montreal Gazette and Coolopolis, Jenkins’ lawyer oddly did not present any defence testimony. The jury only deliberated for 90 minutes before deciding Jenkins was guilty, and he was sentenced with to life in prison.
Ross’ death ultimately led to swift changes in Canada’s criminal code. Homosexuality was legalized in 1969, and the practice of detaining witnesses was limited to 90 days. As for Ross, his story was covered only briefly in the Montreal Gazette and the McGill Daily, where there was no mention of his homosexuality or his relationships with Bérubé and Jenkins.
Gambling with death in 1946
On July 25, 1946 at 1242 Stanley street—near Dorchester Square—Louis Bercowitz went into the gambling house of Harry Davis, who rejected his bookkeeping business, and shot Davis dead.
The murder happened at a time when one couldn’t just go to Casino de Montreal and gamble. Fifty-four years prior to this incident, the House of Commons, lobbied by Christian moralist groups, prohibited almost all forms of gambling. As such, a market for organized crime emerged, and many groups started their own underground gambling operations. Underground gambling was especially common in Montreal’s infamous Red Light District, now known to most as the Quartier des Spectacles.
One of the more prominent members of this gambling underworld was Davis. Far from an innocent man, he ordered the murder of a police informant named Charlie Feigenbaum, who had landed him in a 12-year jail sentence for possession of 852 kilograms of morphine and other drugs. His murder, which occurred in 1935 on Esplanade avenue, across from Jeanne-Mance Park, was one of the first gambling-related murders in Montreal.
(Crime Encyclopedia)
Davis ultimately got away with the murder of Feigenbaum, since police did not have much on the investigation other than a getaway car with no leads. Thus, Davis rose to power as Montreal’s ‘gambling Tsar,’ and from that point onward, everyone had to go through Davis to start their underground gambling business. When Bercowitz came to ask for permission to create an illegal bookkeeping business, Davis refused him, believing that the market was already saturated, and threatening to take care of him, like he did Feigenbaum. Fearing for his life, Bercowitz went to the gambling house and killed Davis. Later in court, he claimed to have committed the murder out of self-defense. The jury seemed to give him mercy on this fact, and charged him with manslaughter, a less serious charge than the crime of murder. He spent 12 years in prison.
This summer, Dalhousie University student and Vice-President (VP) Academic and External of the Student Union, Masuma Khan expressed frustration with the Canada 150 celebration via Facebook, emphasizing solidarity with indigenous students and calling out white students for their continued support of the revelry. The post was reported by a fellow student for its supposed targeting of white people through its harsh language and profanity. Following the backlash, Khan faced threat of disciplinary action. Dalhousie’s Vice-Provost of Student Affairs argued that Khan’s post violated a clause of the Code of Student Conduct, stating that “no student shall engage in unwelcome or persistent conduct that the student knows, or ought to reasonably know, would cause another person to feel demeaned, intimidated, or harassed.” Though the disciplinary action has since been withdrawn, the university has not addressed the regulatory problems that created the situation in the first place: Namely, the student code’s lack of guidelines regarding online speech.
The contentious debate surrounding the blurry lines of free, political, and hate speech in a college setting has been extensively covered: Dalhousie’s Code of Student Conduct includes a provision allowing “peaceful assembly” and “lawful picketing” as political expression. However, it does not extend its reach beyond an old-fashioned conceptualization of political dialogue, and nowhere does it mention speech on the internet. McGill’s Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures is also silent on the issue. In fact, neither code discusses the internet at all, and this is a troubling oversight. The legislative machinery of a university exists to protect its students, by limiting what students can do in university-owned space. Dalhousie and McGill both define their jurisdiction as the physical space of the respective universities. As such, their respective codes of conduct are not designed to administer virtual arenas.
The internet represents a new venue for political conversation, one that is neither public nor private, and one that Canadian universities are not yet prepared to oversee. As long as the internet exists in a regulatory grey area, students—especially student leaders like Khan, who use online platforms to engage with their communities—will continue to be hurt by the selective application of university regulations. Although the definition of what kind of space the internet is—as well as the nature of acceptable speech within that space—is deeply nuanced, universities have a responsibility to their students to define the ways that they will regulate their online activity prior to deciding to take disciplinary action.
The internet represents a new venue for political conversation […] one that Canadian universities are not yet prepared to oversee.
If schools are going to police what students say on the internet, they need to first determine exactly how far their online jurisdiction goes. Arguably, universities have no right to regulate web activity at all. As it stands, the codes of both Dalhousie and McGill apply to the “university community” in the “university context.” If it is decided that certain online activity belongs to that context, and that a school can take disciplinary action against what its students say virtually, then the administration needs to work with students to create comprehensive regulations. Regulatory gaps in regards to internet conduct allow existing regulations to be applied arbitrarily. In Khan’s case, there was no way for her to know beforehand that her post would fall under the category of “unwelcome and persistent conduct” enumerated by the code. As it stands, the language of both the Dalhousie and McGill codes is too flexible for students to know what is acceptable to post and what is not. This leaves too much room for the code to be applied selectively by, for example, students who wish to target other students. This does not create a safe, transparent, or democratic environment for students who are politically active online.
The venues for public speech are becoming digitalized, and, as a result, the lines between public and private are dissolving. Institutions as a whole need to develop realistic machinery for regulating students’ conduct on the internet. Without such machinery, there is too much potential for the unfair targeting of individuals who use their virtual platforms as quasi-public spaces that collapse the personal and political. Students like Khan should not have to wonder whether their online statements will bring them under the scrutiny of their university administration. Dalhousie—and McGill—must do better.
Grace Gunning is a U3 History major, occasional artist, and columnist for The McGill Tribune. She enjoys climbing, gardening, and cheesy 80's sci fi.
On my first day of class in Leacock 26 in Fall 2016, I awaited eagerly to discover what my introductory lecture to McGill University would be like. It was not the lecture that I had hoped for. Instead of receiving an explanation of the supply and demand model, my hearing aids amplified the construction on the Leacock roof, so instead of my professor, all I heard was hammering. This is one of many instances when I felt at a disadvantage for being hearing impaired at McGill. The administration and professors must work to improve the quality of education for students who are hearing impaired or have other disabilities in general, so that their success is not compromised by administrative failure to accommodate students.
I often feel intimidated when I try to seek help for academic issues related to my hearing impairment, given how uncommon my disability is. Growing up in the United States, I was part of roughly 0.0025 per cent of the American population born with detectable hearing loss. Although as a hearing-impaired student, I may be a minority, this does not mean I should accept a lack of support that puts me at a disadvantage to people with perfect hearing.
Without a doubt, my biggest issue last year was the persistent construction noise. The purpose of hearing aids is to amplify the sound of a talking person to a level that is akin to what a person without hearing loss hears. However, when sitting in classes in buildings that were under construction, I found that my hearing aids amplified the construction noise over my classmates and professors. I had to stop wearing my hearing aids because, unsurprisingly, hearing what my professor had to say was more important than the noise of a drill.
Another major obstacle that I face is the inability to hear my classmates’ opinions and answers in large lecture halls—especially if they are physically far away and I cannot read their lips. As I result, I try to enroll in smaller classes, if possible. Still, my hearing impairment should not have to hold me back from participating in classes that I’m enrolled in.
While construction noise is unavoidable, there are measures that McGill can put into place to improve the academic experiences of hearing-impaired students. To replicate what students may miss due to the noise, McGill can offer them a way to access recordings or transcriptions of lectures. For example, the university could place microphones around large lecture halls for students to speak into, and encourage professors to repeat student responses and questions aloud for the rest of room.
My hearing impairment should not have to hold me back from participating in classes that I’m enrolled in.
Despite a general lack of support from McGill, I have received some much-appreciated help to make up for the disadvantages I face in the classroom—especially from the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), where I am registered to receive class notes from other students. While the promptness and detail of these notes have varied immensely, I have also had notetakers go beyond what they had to do. Luckily, in classes where I either did not have a note taker, or the notes I received were subpar, I found classmates who were more than willing to send me their notes.
Although I am grateful for these classmates, the fact that I have had to seek out notes is indicative of flaws that exist in programs, such as note-taking services, that are supposed to be equitable measures to assist students with disabilities. The OSD needs to monitor more closely to ensure the quality and timeliness of these notes. Granted, this is not entirely its fault—the OSD is understaffed, with only 11 staff members for over 1,800 students. In order for the OSD to more successfully run existing programs, McGill University must help by giving the OSD financial support to hire more staff. In a statement in a March 2015 Senate meeting, Professor Anthony C. Masi and Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning Ollivier Dyens explained that the OSD has sufficient resources at its disposal. However, student experiences like mine suggest otherwise.
As a hearing impaired student at McGill, my concerns are twofold: I want to hear lectures and conversations in my classes, and I do not want to be ignored because my disability is not common for people my age. The challenges that come with having an uncommon disability are certainly not limited to hearing impairment, and none of the necessary accommodations should be neglected because I am a minority on McGill campus.
Julia Metraux is a U1 Gender Studies major and news staff writer for The Tribune. She splits her time thinking about dogs and politics.
A cheering crowd welcomed an injured Hillary Clinton to the stage at the Palais des congrès de Montréal on Oct. 23. She opened by jokingly describing her doctor’s orders to heal her recently fractured foot.
“The doctor said rest, ice, compress, and elevate,” Clinton said. “So I said, ‘Yes, and Montreal.’”
Clinton was in Montreal to promote her memoir, What Happened, which describes the 2016 U.S. presidential election from her perspective. She expressed her appreciation for the welcoming Canadian audience, remarking on the uniquely close relationship between Canada and the United States.
“I so admire [Canada’s] commitment to a diverse and open society,” Clinton said. “It must be very reassuring to have a charismatic, compassionate leader who cares about people and policy. I remember what that was like.”
Clinton spoke about her election loss and how she motivated herself to get back into the public sphere. She reflected on what it was like to deliver the concession speech she never expected to give, and compared Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration to getting a root canal but on steroids.
She blamed the outcome of the election largely on former FBI director James Comey’s investigation, the exaggeration of her email controversy, and Russian intelligence hacking. Clinton found Russia’s federal election interference particularly worrying from a global perspective. She equated the Putin administration’s aggressive efforts to undermine liberal democracies to a modern Cold War, propagated through hacking and the spread of false information. Clinton emphasized the importance of holding political leaders accountable.
Clinton also reminded the audience that today’s American political system is still rife with ingrained misogyny.
“The only way we will get sexism out of politics is to get more women into politics,” Clinton said. “Young women have come to me telling me they want to run [for office], and I’ve been encouraging them to do it, but I’ve also been very clear that they have to recognize the double standard is alive and well.”
Clinton commended the activists that participated in the Jan. 21 Women’s Marches, at which over four million individuals worldwide came together to stand up for women’s rights and other social justice causes, although she herself chose not to attend
“I wanted badly to join the crowds and chant my heart out,” Clinton writes in What Happened. “But I believed it was important for new voices to take the stage, especially on this day. There are so many exciting young women leaders ready to play bigger roles in our politics.”
Clinton applauded the new activism that has surfaced following the 2016 election—namely, athletes kneeling during the national anthem—with people standing up for human rights and democratic values filling her with hope.
“We’re on the right side of history,” Clinton said.
Clinton’s critical take on sexism and female involvement in politics resonated with audience members.
“[Clinton] reminded [me] that the glass ceiling is far from broken,” Alexander Bloomfield, U2 Arts, said after the talk.
Other McGill students at the event expressed optimism—after the event, they commended Clinton for her accomplishments and her role as a trailblazer for women’s rights.
“[As the only female presidential nominee for a major American political party, Clinton] holds a perspective that no other woman in the world has,” Alexa Coleman, U2 Arts, said. “She is fiercely progressive and embodies the archetype of a strong, kick-ass, status quo-defying modern woman.”
Clinton encouraged Americans—and Canadians—to continue the momentum she started by standing up for what they believe in, a fitting end to her speech that mirrors the way she signed off on the final page of her book.
“‘What do we do now?’ I said. There was only one answer: ‘Keep going,’” Clinton wrote.
More haunting than any ghoul is the occurrence of entanglement, or nonlocality. Entanglement occurs when particles, also known as various small ‘fields,’ are linked. These fields include electrons, photons, atoms, and even molecules, which share a common history that intertwines their futures. Measuring or changing the state of an entangled particle will modify the state of its linked particle.
To explain this phenomenon with a Halloween twist, McGill physics professors broke down the theory of entanglement, using the metaphor of trick-or-treating. The ‘quantum candy’ represents the particles, or fields, and the ‘colour’ of the candies are entangled.
In this case, because of the way candy is entangled by colour, both trick-or-treaters had to end up with the same colour of candies.
Assistant Professor Bill Coish of the Department of Physics at McGill illustrated this example in an email to The McGill Tribune.
“Minerva and Ada get special quantum candy from a […] candy bowl—one candy each,” Coish said. “The candies are either both red or both green. The strange thing about these quantum candies is that the colour is not predetermined; you can actually do a check […] to show that they don’t have any special colour before Ada and Minerva look into their loot bags. It’s only after they look into their bags that they see if they [both] have [either] a red candy or [green] candy.”
Associate Professor Michael Hilke, also in the Department of Physics at McGill, explains the mystifying concept using the analogy of two quantum ghosts who are entangled by their arms and mouths, one haunting Montreal and the other haunting Toronto.
Using ghost cameras, Hilke photographs the Montreal ghost’s arm and his daughter photographs the Toronto ghost’s mouth at the exact same time. If he photographs the Montreal ghost’s left arm, the Toronto ghost’s mouth will always be captured open. Every time Hilke chooses to photograph the right arm however, the Toronto ghost has a closed mouth. Choosing which arm to measure dictates what the corresponding position of the mouth will be, because of how the features are entangled.
The strength of measurements, or in this analogy, ‘photo quality’ determines the strength of the outcome of the entangled characteristic. So, should the lighting be insufficient to obtain a good photo, and only a blurry indistinguishable arm of the Montreal ghost is captured, Hilke’s daughter will capture a blurry mouth on the Toronto ghost.
It may seem as though one quantum ghost or candy sends a quick secret message instructing the other’s outcome, however, distance does not affect entanglement—so the message doesn’t actually exist.
“The thing is, forces and information can only travel as fast as the speed of light,” Coish wrote. “If [in the candy example] Ada and Minerva are far enough away from each other when they look in their loot bags and they look at roughly the same time, they can rule out the possibility that a signal or force could have travelled the distance between them in that time.”
Coish clarified that experiments have already shown the lack of a signal between entangled fields; experiments using photons, atoms, and electron spins in diamonds have been used to measure said connection.
Hilke explained a scenario in which two particles are entangled, where one remains on earth and the other is sent to another planet. By observing the state of the particle on earth, the extraterrestrial particle’s state is simultaneously modified.
When asked about the quantum realm’s philosophical impact, Hilke’s response may keep some readers up at night. Nothing at the particle level is deterministic; our conceptualization shouldn’t be of a deterministic world, but instead a probabilistic one, in which nothing can be predetermined.
On Oct. 16, a student activist group’s Facebook event titled “Democratize SSMU campaign” appeared on McGill students’ newsfeeds. The group, whose membership is anonymous, formed after the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Board of Directors (BoD) ratified a SSMU Judicial Board (J-Board) ruling on Sept. 17. The J-Board had previously ruled the Winter 2016 referendum motion mandating SSMU to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as unconstitutional. On its event page, which has since been taken down, Democratize SSMU listed its goals: To end abuses of power, conflicts of interest, and the neglect of duties within SSMU governing bodies.
“[Democratize SSMU formed out of] frustration and a desire to change the current composition of many of SSMU’s governance bodies,” an organizer for Democratize SSMU, who chose to remain anonymous to avoid personal attacks, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Frustration due to the fact that they’re not democratic, not transparent, not representative, and very shady in terms of how they organize.”
The group mobilized at the Fall 2017 General Assembly (GA) to submit a motion of non-confidence in SSMU President Muna Tojiboeva to the agenda. The motion came to the floor four days after SSMU Vice-President (VP) Student Life Jemark Earle read a statement on behalf of the other five SSMU Executives at Legislative Council on Oct. 19, asserting that Tojiboeva had acted on their behalf in a non-transparent manner. In response, Tojiboeva alleged that she was a victim of workplace harassment.
According to Democratize SSMU, Tojiboeva’s own miscommunications about the processes for submitting motions to the GA agenda fell in the way of its attempts to put forth the motion. Section 13.2 of the SSMU Constitution requires the BoD, Councillors, or SSMU members to submit motions to the agenda two weeks prior to the GA. While Tojiboeva stated that the GA date was posted on the SSMU website in September, there is no evidence to show that she formally announced this submission deadline to SSMU membership beyond this post. Although all parties were allowed to submit their motions late, each motion subsequently required a two-thirds majority of votes at the GA to be added to the agenda—whereas on-time motions are automatically added, and in turn, voted upon with a requirement of 51 per cent to pass. The motion of non-confidence failed to garner a two-thirds majority—with 61 per cent of students attending GA voting in favour—and as such, was not added to the agenda.
“We, Democratize SSMU, were forced to submit a late motion, faced an uphill battle to get two-thirds majority just to get this on the agenda at the GA,” the organizer said. “[Had Tojiboeva] opened submissions on time, and we submitted our motion on time, and it was automatically on the agenda, and we only needed a simple majority to pass a non-confidence motion, we would’ve had 61 per cent of the vote, and that would’ve passed [….] Had she done her job, the General Assembly would’ve voted non-confidence for her.”
Following the approval of the agenda, the GA moved into regular business, including the approval of the SSMU Auditor and the ratification of the 2017-18 SSMU BoD, whose year-long term begins on Nov. 15. However, while Board members are typically ratified as a bloc, such that members vote to approve or disapprove the entire Board, SSMU VP Internal Maya Koparkar motioned to divide the question. This motion passed, and the nominated directors were ratified as individuals. Of the 10 nominations, seven were ratified for year-long terms, while three members—Noah Lew, Josephine Wright O’Manique, and Alexander Scheffel—failed to be ratified. Both Lew and Scheffel are members-at-large of the current BoD, and were the only two nominated directors who would be returning for second terms.
After the ratification, SSMU members alleged that Democratize SSMU was behind the choice to divide the question. According to Koparkar, dividing the question was an attempt to improve transparency in the selection of the BoD given the controversy over the constitutionality of the Board’s makeup earlier this semester.
“I am definitely not a member of Democratize SSMU,” Koparkar said in interview with the Tribune. “When all of those conflicts were going on regarding the constitutionality of the Board, someone had alluded to the fact that the Board wasn’t democratic because it wasn’t composed of elected members [….] Someone suggested dividing the question as a way of adding legitimacy to this process, which I felt was fair, especially given that we voted on the councillors for BoD in this manner at Council a couple weeks ago.”
The ratification vote occurred just one week after the BoD’s vote in confidential session to suspend VP Finance Arisha Khan for a two-week period on Oct. 16 for a breach of confidentiality. At the meeting, SSMU General Manager Ryan Hughes presented the results of an investigation into suspicions that Khan had leaked confidential information to student media. Hughes showed directors a confidential email that Khan had forwarded to a SSMU member who is not part of the executive and is unaffiliated with the student media. During the vote, Khan was at a conference on behalf of SSMU and said she was not warned of the vote prior to the meeting. The Board’s failure to notify Khan would violate article 6.8 of the SSMU Constitution, which stipulates that a Director shall have the right to put forth reasons opposing the proposed removal from office.
“Noah Lew and Alexandre Scheffel are both members of the Board of Directors that voted to suspend [VP] Khan from the Board of Directors when she was away at a conference on foster care without her being given the chance to defend herself,” the Democratize SSMU organizer said. “In the constitution it says that a Board member can be voted off from their position but they will be notified of the time and place of the meeting and shall be present, [and have] the right to be present to defend themselves. But she wasn’t notified [….] It’s unconstitutional what they did.”
Following his failed ratification, Noah Lew asserted in a widely-shared Facebook status that the students voting against him were motivated by religious prejudice, citing Democratize SSMU’s mention of his name, his affiliation with Jewish organizations, and his conflict of interest in its Facebook event description. Many members of the McGill community expressed anger and disappointment with the alleged anti-Semitism behind Lew and Scheffel’s failed ratification, including David Naftulin, U1 Arts, a vocal member of the Jewish community on campus.
“[Lew] is being ostracized in a political witch hunt because he is active in his [religious] community,” Naftulin said. “I posit that any [member of another] minority group that was active in a mainstream organization that advocated for their community would be under no such scrutiny at SSMU. And that is the anti-Semitism. It is a double standard.”
The allegations of discrimination prompted McGill Principal Suzanne Fortier to issue a statement to the student body on Oct. 25, reaffirming McGill’s values of tolerance and respect. She also detailed the administration’s plans to investigate alleged discriminatory bias or intent behind the results of the vote.
“The allegation is that votes were taken, and that on account of people’s perceived religious affiliation, the vote against [the BoD members] was negative,” Fortier said in an interview with the Tribune. “So, they were singled out on account of religious affiliation. So that is the allegation, and that’s what we will investigate [….] I think we need to ask ourselves the question of, how many people on our campus are subjected to situations that are discriminatory or disrespectful.”
According to the organizer, the BoD ratification was not on Democratize SSMU’s radar when mobilizing students to attend the GA. Rather, the motion of non-confidence was their only goal prior—and the BoD ratification vote only became important once the former motion failed.
“A lot of people […] have made it out to seem that this movement came to the GA to unseat these three directors, which is totally false,” the organizer said. “We came to the GA for one reason, the non-confidence motion [….] The principal’s email makes it seem like we mobilized against those directors, but we didn’t. Democratize SSMU has broad goals of constitutional reform.”
In the week following the GA, Director Jonathan Glustein petitioned the SSMU J-Board to rule the division of the BoD motion unconstitutional, calling for the upcoming online ratification to vote on the new members as a bloc. The J-Board intends to hold hearings to determine the constitutionality of dividing the motion and, in the meantime, all the directors will retain their positions.
Further, the BoD passed a motion to form a committee to investigate anti-Semitism on campus at its Oct. 29 meeting. The committee’s membership will include representatives from Jewish cultural groups.
Faced with an increased demand for student housing this year, McGill Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) has partnered with Evo Montreal to provide first year students with living accommodations. The situation stems from SHHS’ guarantee that all first-year students under the age of 22 and admitted to McGill before a deadline over the summer would receive on-campus housing. Every year, eligible students rank McGill residences in order of their preferences upon paying a residence deposit, and are given a randomly generated lottery number. Students who obtain a lower number had a higher chance of receiving their preferred residence.
In practice, SHHS has a policy of accepting more applications to live in residence than there are rooms available. According to Senior Advisor of Customer Relations for McGill SHHS Susan Campbell, McGill residences annually receive 150 to 250 more room applications than rooms available. Usually, this excess demand is satisfied because approximately the same number of students cancel their residence reservations before moving in. But this year, there were not enough room cancellations to accommodate the excess 140 students. These students were then moved into Evo Montreal, a student residence opened in 2014 and located on Sherbrooke street.
Campbell disclosed that the university does not plan to change its overbooking practice, despite excessive housing demand.
“Unfortunately, we cannot control that some students will cancel or simply not show up for a multitude of reasons after the lottery is held and residence rooms are assigned,” Campbell wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Without [overbooking residences], we would have many empty rooms and we would have many students disappointed that they aren’t eventually assigned a residence, when in fact, there was [a room] available.”
Nevertheless, McGill SHHS hopes to ease first-year students’ move-in process. As for the administration’s plans on reducing the number of students overbooked in the future, Campbell admitted that it is difficult to predict demand and cancellations each year.
“The number of students requesting housing changes from year to year,” Campbell wrote. “We are committed to finding housing for all students who request housing and send us their deposit on time.”
Whereas Evo rates normally start at $775 per month for a 12-month lease, students accommodated at Evo through McGill Housing pay $1,100 per month for eight months. McGill students housed at Evo can run for Residence Council, participate in all Residence Life events, and, along with students living in University Hall and MORE Houses, are part of the MORE’s First-Year Residence Community. The Evo building is comparable to McGill hotel-style residences, but with amenities including an indoor heated pool, a game room, and a theatre. For Kagame Jean, U2 Arts and a floor fellow at Evo, the student residence provides a unique spin on McGill Rez Life.
“Being a floor fellow [at Evo] has been amazing so far,” Jean said. “Students in [Evo] have the opportunity to enjoy what could probably be referred to as extras that other rezs do not necessarily have [….] Moreover, we are never left out on anything [in the] first year residences community.”
While the process of relocating has caused many students uncertainty, many have come to enjoy Evo’s luxuries. Owen Quinn, U0 Engineering, is grateful that SHHS has placed him into Evo.
"I've had a great experience with the whole residence relocation bonanza,” Quinn said. “Even though it took me awhile to get placed here, I'm super happy that I got put into Evo [….] Evo is playing 3D chess while every other rez is playing checkers."
