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Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Something wicked this way comes!

by Jamie Xie on

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It’s good to see me, isn’t it? I’m a certified sentimental fan and infamously famous son of a witch. If you were to ask me my favourite musical, I’d answer like a mother would if asked her favourite child: I love them all equally but differently. Of course, I would be lying. In a film where no good deed goes unpunished, and the gold standard is a bygone dream, Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked stands out as a musical that not only defies gravity but expectations themselves. Upon hearing about the adaptification of Wicked to the silver screen, I was so happy I could’ve melted. 

A tale of change which is as tragically beautiful as it is beautifully tragical, Wicked centres the untold story of the not-so-friendly friend of Dorothy’s: Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba Thropp, and her relationship with Good Witch of the North G(a)linda Upland. Cleverly named after the author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, Elphaba endures the trials and tribulations of Oz all while acting, dancing, and singing—oh my! Through subversion and references, the adaptation expands on the preexisting world of Oz to remind us that there are two sides to every story. Wicked is representative of a New Age fascination with antiheroes and their origins, a genre of story that seems to be here for good. It is an invitation to return to a popular classic with new infinity glasses and reexamine our own perspectives.

Wicked is the musical on everyone’s mind, and as the story has worked its way into the hearts of so many, it has inevitably managed to get on some nerves. In a wonderfully weird interview between journalist Tracy Gilchrist and Wicked costars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the phrase “holding space” took flight, igniting public discourse from internet cynics who point out the over-the-top saccharine sentimentality of theatre kids. The interview drew fame from Gilchrist’s tenderly “cringe” questions and Erivo’s emotionally-charged response to hearing that queer people are finding strength in “Defying Gravity,” a renowned song from Wicked about rejecting social convention and embracing otherness. Grande reaching out to comfort Erivo by clasping her index finger and gently tapping has since become its own viral image, recalling the Sistine Chapel’s Creation of Adam. Grande and Erivo have since discussed the hand-holding in a Variety interview. 

“I didn’t know what any part of it meant, I didn’t understand the first sentence and then I definitely didn’t understand how you responded. And I just wanted to be there. Because I knew something big was happening and I didn’t know how to be there,” Grande recounted. 

“After a while, I didn’t know how to be there,” Erivo said. 

In many ways, Wicked has become the poster child for the modern pop musical. By interpreting  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Wicked cleverly works within the confines of a world audiences are already familiar with, while also delivering its own story with unique moral takeaways. It thus escapes the pitfalls of being a regressive screen-to-stage-to-screen adaptation. With Wicked available to stream on digital video-on-demand services, we can rejoycify and say there’s truly no place like home.

Though Gregory Maguire’s book tackles dark, uncomfortable political issues, including fascism, terrorism, and a newly introduced Ozian apartheid state, the adaptation fixates primarily on worldbuilding. The musical does a lot to sanitize the original story and make it more palatable to audiences by removing themes of sexuality and violence, erasing allusions to religious extremism, and focusing instead on forbidden romance. The movie adaptation strikes a masterful balance between Maguire’s macabre world and Schwartz’s family-friendly matinee. Wicked is able to fully engage with the more radical themes of its predecessors to feel more relevant than ever as we arrive on the precipice of great political change.

But remember, my sentimental friend—a musical is not judged by how much it is loved by others, but by how much you love it.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

A Complete Unknown’ is a love letter to Bob Dylan’s anachronistic genius

by Lulu Calame on

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My expectations were high when I sat down to watch A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet. Dylan’s career is one of the most monumental in music history, and Dylan himself—with his nasally voice, stoic affect, and famous dexterity on the guitar—is singular in every regard. But by the time I left the theatre, Chalamet, along with his co-stars Monica Barbaro, Edward Norton, and Elle Fanning, had exceeded every expectation.

The film follows Dylan (Chalamet) from his arrival in New York City in 1961 to his controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It portrays his first small gigs at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village from which his fame quickly sprung. Woven through his rise to stardom are his romances with Sylvie Russo—a stand-in name for the real-life Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning)—and musician Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), his friendship with fellow folk musician Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and his explosive fame in the folk world—and eventually beyond it. 

If the saying “show, don’t tell” applies to films as well as writing, then Mangold’s interpretation of Dylan’s early career should be the textbook case. Each actor so wholly embodies their character that they could have spent the entire film drinking a cup of coffee and one still could have seen clearly into Dylan, Baez, or Seeger’s souls. While Chalamet’s performance embodied Dylan’s genius, it also brought to light his human flaws and pretension. “You know,” Baez says to Dylan in his bedroom one morning, “you’re kind of an asshole.” Dylan only chuckles.

Mangold synthesized Dylan’s rise to stardom, his brooding frustration with the folk scene, and his reluctance towards emotional vulnerability in a tight, seamless narrative fuelled by the characters themselves, and illustrated through moments whose beauty is in their simplicity. One evening, Dylan runs into a man named Bob Neuwirth (Will Harrison) who invites him to his band’s gig downtown. Watching the energetic Neuwirth play electric guitar from the corner of the Irish bar, Dylan begins to crack a rare smile—a moment cut short when the blonde woman in front of him turns and screams, “IT’S BOB DYLAN,” and chases him out of the bar. That night would spark Dylan’s signature rebellion against folk music and inclination towards electric guitar, culminating in the film’s climactic Newport Folk Festival performance.

Amidst the effortlessly evolving plot, the artfully chosen settings in Greenwich Village, the detailed recreation of Newport, and the beautifully unadorned cinematography, it is Chalamet’s musical talent that is the most striking. Dylan is known for his swinging, nasal voice and his clear finger-picking control of the acoustic guitar. Where many biopics would use original tracks over which the actor would lipsync, Chalamet sang every note of the film himself. But, most impressive of all, is that he performed the songs live on set. To even approach the mechanics of Dylan’s musicianship is impressive enough, but to do so, as Chalamet did, with complete control—enough to take creative liberties himself that one can easily imagine Dylan might have made—is almost incomprehensible. 

Between grasping at soon-to-be-famous lyrics on a hotel notepad in the middle of the night, or playing simultaneous guitar and harmonica in front of 10,000 people at the Newport Film Festival, Chalamet literally did not miss a beat. His co-stars didn’t either; the talent of Norton and Barbado alongside Chalamet came together in moments of palpable joy on screen—like when Barbado sings ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for the first time with Dylan on his bed, harmonizing with the soon-to-be-famous chorus, or when Seeger joins Dylan’s acoustic guitar with his banjo amidst high-end party-goers eager to hear Dylan play. 

A Complete Unknown is a masterpiece of a love letter to Dylan’s career, to the 1960s, to political and musical revolution, and to raw genius.  

Science & Technology

Unveiling the adaptive roles of autistic behaviours

by K. Coco Zhang on

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Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder, affects approximately one in 100 children worldwide. It constitutes a diverse group of brain development conditions that impact how individuals perceive and socialize with others, often leading to differences in social interaction and communication in comparison to their neurotypical peers. 

One of the hallmark features of autism spectrum disorder is the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviours and interests (RRBIs). 

According to Stephanie Lung, a PhD candidate in McGill’s Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, one characteristic of RRBIs is repetitive motor behaviour, such as hand flapping, finger flicking, and feet flexing.

“Another characteristic of RRBIs is insistence on sameness. This can translate into behaviours like eating the same food every day, having to sit in the same room every single time, or sticking to a specific routine. Any changes to the routine can be overwhelming,” Lung said in an interview with The Tribune. “The third characteristic is exceptional knowledge in a very specific area that could appear developmentally inappropriate.” 

Interestingly, RRBIs serve regulatory purposes for autistic people. Present from early childhood, RRBIs are associated with developmental benefits, and their continued presence beyond early childhood suggests that they may serve adaptive functions.

To gain a deeper understanding of RRBIs, Lung and her team recently conducted a study that examined the current literature and investigated the primary functions of RRBIs in autism.

Drawing from key evidence in existing literature, Lung found that RRBIs serve several important functions for autistic individuals, one of which is sensory regulation. Compared to non-autistic populations, autistic people are more sensitive to changes in environmental stimuli.

“For example, they may be exceptionally sensitive to bright light or loud noises. If the clothes are not soft enough, they will not wear them. If there is a droplet of water on their clothes, they have to pick it out right away,” Lung explained.

Due to these sensory sensitivities, the study highlighted a need to provide a calming environment for autistic children so that they can optimally learn and process information. A Snoezelen room, for example, provides an environment with light, sound, and touch stimuli designed to help reduce agitation among people with autism.

Another important function of RRBIs is to manage elevated levels of anxiety, which are common for autistic people. Anxiety in autism is often associated with unpredictability and sensory processing issues, such as loud noises, physical touch, and specific food textures or tastes. Repetitive motor behaviours can serve as a calming strategy, helping to temporarily disconnect autistic individuals from unpleasant sensory experiences and alleviate anxiety related to sensory overload. 

Furthermore, the study suggests that RRBIs, particularly insistence on sameness, play a role in establishing familiarity in unpredictable surroundings. The adherence to a known routine or ritual reintroduces certainty to a changing environment, thereby alleviating feelings of fear and anxiety associated with the unknown and chaos.

Lung’s research sheds light on the constructive characteristics of RRBIs, contrasting with the broader literature that often focuses on their interfering impact. The identified functions of RRBIs can serve as criteria for evaluating the usefulness and effectiveness of existing behavioural interventions for autism.

Although Lung’s paper strives to be systematic and comprehensive, it primarily includes studies from Europe and North America, potentially limiting the cultural representativeness of perspectives on RRBIs. Additionally, the exclusion of non-English studies restricts the inclusion of non-English-speaking autistic experiences. 

“Future research should also explore how these behaviours vary across different age groups, life circumstances, and cultures,” Lung added.

Features

Curiosity in crisis

by Kellie Elrick on

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Language, literature, and “What the hell are you going to do with that degree!?”

Written by Kellie Elrick, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Designed by Mia Helfrich, Design Editor

This fall, security guards flooded the campus, the West Coast burned, the library sat empty of books, and thousands of students walked into classrooms to study art and literature and film.

When I was applying to university, I thought I wanted to study oceanography, or marine biology, which morphed into an interest in primatology, then anthropology and archaeology, and eventually into languages and literature. I stumbled across disciplines, taking courses in physics and classics and Japanese poetry, relentlessly confused and at one point registering for a class only to discover that it was in fact being taught in Africa. I eventually landed in McGill’s Liberal Arts major, wracked with doubt and joy.

Anita Parmar, Co-Director of McGill’s innovative education space Building 21, also began university torn between the humanities and sciences, and ended up with a PhD in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics.

“I distinctly remember in high school thinking, well, artists use art to dive into their understanding of the world. Authors or storytellers write stories. And all those philosophers use philosophy. I chose physics [….] I think there is this fundamental wanting to understand the world,” Parmar said in an interview with The Tribune.

Inversely, Anastassios Anastassiadis, a History and Modern Greek Studies Professor at McGill, studied physics as an undergraduate student at a Liberal Arts college before ending up with a Doctorate in history.

“The important elements in physics are space and time [….] And, as a matter of fact, it’s the same thing for history,” said Anastassiadis in an interview with The Tribune.

The questions I wanted to explore through science—how we understand landscapes and animals, how to change our relationship to the natural world, how we ended up in this ecological crisis—are in many ways the same ones I’m exploring now through the environmental humanities.

Disciplines are often different versions of the same questions, the same sentiment in different clothing.

“I think that I’ve learned so much more about, let’s say, philosophy, from my English degree than when I actually took Philosophy classes. And I’ve learned so much about history that I did not take away from my History classes,” Gaëlle Perron, a U3 Honours English Literature student with a Classics minor, said.

But increasingly, students do not only come to university to understand the world; they come expecting prospects in return. And what’s education for, anyway? To learn hard skills, or how to live? To become a better person, or an employed one?

“From the 1980s onwards, we had this development of the corporate university,” Anastassiadis said. “Now the idea is not that education is a public good that has to be provided, but education is a consumption.”

My friends and family will ask, for instance, why I decided to study literature in Italian, a language that is not my own, and why I decided to write an honours thesis on Natalia Ginzburg, and what within her work could possibly be so important to me. The answer is that I still don’t know—it’s the unknown that propelled me into the humanities in the first place. I read her six-page essay “Winter in the Abruzzi,” and somehow felt that when I looked up from the last page, things around me had changed—I had emerged from the text a different person. I wasn’t sure how it happened. I had to try to understand it.

I’ve heard a few times that humanities graduates make good CEOs, which never resonated with me. I didn’t want to be a CEO; I wanted to read novels. Learning languages does not come naturally to me. But, very simply, they bring me joy, and open up my life.

Pasha Khan, now an Islamic Studies Professor at McGill, initially accepted an offer to study Computer Science as an undergraduate.

“I kind of cried and wept and threw a tantrum, and my parents allowed me to do an English Lit degree. So it was out of love. It was out of desire for literature, for language. But it was never really about the English language as such. During my undergraduate degree, and even before that, I was relearning the languages of my heritage […] I learned to read Urdu. I learned to read Punjabi, both scripts,” Khan said.

I feel fundamentally that the end goal of education should not just be to make enough money that you can buy something to dry your tears with. I’ve encountered numerous times the sense that happiness is impractical; meandering curiosity is a hindrance on the path to employment; learning for joy is a treat for only society’s most privileged. However, it’s also what Ginzburg, a Jewish writer and intellectual who suffered under Italian Fascism, wanted for her children: “Not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.” Ginzburg knew hardship; she knew pain—the Fascists tortured and killed her first husband—and yet she wanted her children, above all else, to be curious, and to love.

I often feel like the world is—for a lack of a better term—going to shit. But then I stumble across Gaspara Stampa in 16th-century Venice, writing about being heartbroken and hopeful and lost, asking and struggling with the same questions that I have now. When stories reach through time, across land and language, and somehow end up with us, I can’t help but feel that it means something.

“You’ll hear about Orpheus in Hozier’s music [….] Why are we so obsessed with this man that goes back to save his wife, and then looks back at her? Why does that speak to humanity thousands of years after the original myth was written?” Perron said.

My paternal grandmother was supposed to attend St. Olaf College and become a wife, or a Lutheran nun. Instead, she got a scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin. She studied nursing, then education, and somewhere along the way, she read The Golden Bough. The book changed everything; she quit the Young Republicans’ Society and the Young Lutherans’ Society and joined a theatre group and started skinny dipping and married a Canadian soil physicist and travelled lots.

She’s now 87 years old and has dementia, and there are lots of things we can’t talk about anymore. But books are one of the things that stayed. We can talk about novels she read when she was young and that I’m reading now, and she remembers everything. The humanities stayed with her throughout her whole life. Perhaps the intangible, subtle, wide-ranging nature of its impact is precisely what has allowed it to last.

During an anthropology lecture, my professor sent us outside for a few minutes, asking us to look at the world ethnographically and notice things we hadn’t before.

The next day, walking out of Parc La Fontaine, it really did seem as though I had never laid eyes on these streets before: The trees and brightly coloured doors and balconies seemed completely novel. It was only when I hit Boul. St-Joseph that I realized I had in fact walked the wrong way out of the park, and had not unlocked a new register of perception; everything was actually new, and I felt very, very silly.

The humanities can teach students how to exist in the world, how to be fulfilled, how to be good. Reading has altered, on an essential level, the way I am—but this has its limits.

Fiction is much more difficult to put into practice. Tolstoy’s argument for abstinence in The Kreutzer Sonata had such an effect on one 18-year old reader that he castrated himself, and dedicated his life to farming a small plot of land. When he was 30, he went to visit Tolstoy’s estate, and discovered that the great writer—who asked “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” and concluded six feet (enough space for a grave)—lived on a sprawling estate, and had around a dozen children.

Sophia Tolstaya’s diary from Aug. 31, 1909 recounts the reader’s visit: “He was obviously very hurt, said he wanted to cry, kept repeating, ‘My God, my God! How can this be? What shall I tell them at home?’ and questioned everyone, seeking an explanation of this contradiction.”

Last spring, lectures became punctuated with protests. My classes kept going, as protestors proclaimed through the door that there was a genocide going on in Palestine; that McGill was exploiting its TAs; that there were unmarked Indigenous graves on the grounds of the university’s New Vic Project. It was hard not to feel like the real world—where the things that mattered were happening—was somewhere out there.

I didn’t know how to reconcile all the images around me, scrolling past shiny red shoes and libraries in Europe and wildfires and floods and cats on windowsills and my friends travelling and drinking and dancing and hippopotamuses and protests and rubble.

“So maybe I’m studying theories of injustice, but can I actually ever apply any of this to solve a problem of injustice in the real world?” wondered Elisia Wong, a U2 Joint Honours English Literature and Political Science Student. “I think I’ve slowly come to realize that it’s not really about whether or not that whole thing transposes onto the outside world, but I’m learning little things that […] can help me navigate it […] I think that there is real value in understanding what the consequences that you want are and what is possible.”

The realm of beauty, fiction, and language is also fundamentally imaginative, and therein lies a kind of power to think beyond material conditions and understand minds that are not our own.

There are times when big-picture thinking feels very small—I still struggle sometimes to justify my education to my family. My maternal grandparents don’t know what I’m studying. They never learned English, and no one in my family knows how to say “Liberal Arts” in Cantonese. “I told them you study history, and other things,” my mother said. “Even if I explained it, they wouldn’t understand it.”

They gave up their whole lives for their children and fled their country on foot and worked in factories, inhaling toxic fumes, and now I study paintings in buildings with stained-glass windows.

When my grandmother died, my grandfather started spouting stories about their lives before they immigrated. I didn’t know how to explain that this was what I wanted to study—people, places, languages—that the world of the humanities was not that far from ours. But justifying the study of marginalized voices, the literature of oppression and resistance, to people who had actually lived through these things somehow rang hollow.

I don’t know what my role is in all these stories and paradigms; I live at some sort of crossroads between identities and privilege and oppression that I can’t quite get at. I’ve spent most of my life terrified that I’m not “getting” what I should from my identity. That I’m not who I say I am because I’m not feeling the right kind of pain.

Grasping at these intangible things that affect me in ways I don’t understand—race, power, art, science, family, history, language, poetry—may be the only way to begin figuring out what I’m doing here. Curiosity asks us to think beyond transaction: To give yourself over to questions and problems and pain bigger than yourself and expect nothing in return.

“We have to allow people the margin of thinking uselessly. If you’re driven only by what is concrete— ‘I need to have an answer today!’—we don’t allow our minds the liberty and the capacity of being imaginative,” said Anastassiadis. “Human evolution requires the capacity for our mind not to function according to what has been passed down to us, and what we have been asked to do, but [rather] what we’ll be able to invent ourselves and to imagine.”

The lovely ambiguity and contradictions of the humanities, of studying poetry in times of crisis, trying to understand lives that we can’t live, making sense of the endless stream of information and images being thrust upon us, asking how things can be so beautiful and so terrible all at once, learning to live in new languages, dreaming of a future in a world where tomorrow is uncertain, are a fundamentally true expression of the contradictions and complications within the real world, and within my own life.

“I think anybody would say that the most interesting questions,” Parmar said, “are the ones that seem impossible.”

McGill, News

Board of Governors’s CSSR does not recommend McGill divest from companies in business with Israel

by Eliza Lee on

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At a Board of Governors (BoG) meeting on Dec. 12, The Committee on Sustainability and Social Responsibility (CSSR) presented a report that did not recommend that McGill should divest from companies with financial ties to the Israeli state.

CSSR Chair Alan Desnoyers presented the report to BoG, which the committee compiled in response to an expression of concern (EoC) that the Secretariat received on June 25. This EoC demanded that the university divest from companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine, which they claimed constitutes social injury. 

Desnoyers explained to the BoG that the committee did not recommend divestment because it did not find that such companies caused social injury. According to the CSSR’s terms of reference, social injury refers to “the grave injurious impact” of a person’s activities on others or the environment. As Desnoyers noted, the terms of reference state that a person will not be deemed responsible for social injury for doing business with those who directly cause it. Under these terms, the committee found that private entities with financial ties to the Israeli military do not necessarily cause social injury.

In response to a question on the university’s plan for sharing this information with staff and students, Vice-President (Communications and Institutional Relations) Philippe Gervais explained that McGill was planning on sending communications to the McGill community in the coming days. Gervais noted that many students, including those who would have otherwise protested in response to McGill’s decision, will be busy studying for exams or will be out of town for the holidays.

“We’re planning on […] a quiet communication to the community,” Gervais said. “We’re not hiding from it, but we’re not promoting it widely.”

Desnoyers went on to note that the CSSR is also working on a report in accordance with their mandate to evaluate “the question of divestment from direct investments in companies that derive a dominant portion of their direct revenues from the production of military weapons regardless of the countries in which they operate.” McGill committed to considering divestment from weapons manufacturers on June 18, during negotiations with representatives to the Palestine Solidarity Encampment. The CSSR expects to table their report on this item at the next BoG meeting on Feb. 6.

Desnoyers also shared the CSSR’s recommendation to the BoG that it endorses the 2025-2030 Climate and Sustainability Strategy. This strategy will follow the 2020-2025 strategy, and seeks to enhance McGill’s environmental commitments and sustainability. It is focused on improving four areas: learning and research, physical environment, resource management, and community building. In addition to existing long-term commitments—such as reaching carbon neutrality by 2040—the 2025-2030 strategy includes new commitments to “increase climate resilience” and “become a nature positive university.”

Provost and Executive Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi also gave a presentation on behalf of the Finances and Infrastructure committee to the BoG. Manfredi explained that the committee recommends a final fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget with a deficit of $15 million CAD, with a $5 million CAD contingent. Due to a number of changes in funding—including tuition hikes for out-of-province students—budget projections predict that the deficit will reach $44 million CAD by FY2026.

Manfredi also presented financial plans for FY2026, and estimated that McGill will need to make roughly $45 billion CAD in budgetary corrections during that year to have a balanced budget. Proposed methods of addressing this deficit in FY2026 include increasing tuition for out-of-province students in professional programs, reducing staff, and lowering the amount of the operating budget going toward student aid.

Another topic discussed at the meeting was the potential impacts of the provincial government’s adoption of Bill 74. This bill grants education ministers greater power in restricting the number of international students post-secondary institutions take in. In his opening remarks, McGill Vice-Chancellor and President Deep Saini stressed that capping international student numbers would diminish the rich perspectives of international students in classrooms, violate the academic freedom and autonomy of universities, and threaten the research sector—which relies heavily on international students. 

“In my view, […] this legislation poses an enormous risk to Quebec’s future,” Saini said. “[International students] enrich the nature of discourse in classrooms [and] bring talent that is not locally available.”

Moment of the meeting

Saini explained that the government will likely announce a scenario for restrictions on international students in January 2025. One potential scenario would see international student intake capped at the number who entered in Fall 2024. Saini emphasized the harmful effects of such a limit, and noted that McGill and other Quebec universities are collaborating to present alternative scenarios to the provincial government.

Soundbite

“It’s a question of reprioritizing as we reprioritize everything […] to realign our expenses to what we can afford to make sure these important points do not get dropped [….] We’re not talking about humongous investments that are going to change the face of the budget.”— Vice-President (Administration and Finance) Fabrice Labeau responding to a question on the impacts of the Climate and Sustainability Strategy 2025-2030 on McGill’s finances. Labeau expressed that he was optimistic about the plan, stressing that many of the projects it outlines entail relatively small expenses for the university.

News, SSMU

Students call to impeach SSMU President Dymetri Taylor following mishandling of students’ motions for special strike

by Amelia Clark on

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At a Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) General Assembly (GA) on Dec. 5, 356 undergraduate students passed a motion of impeachment against SSMU President Dymetri Taylor. The motion called for a referendum on the question of whether or not to remove Taylor from office on the grounds of impropriety and mishandling of duties. The motion claimed that Taylor obstructed the society’s democratic process by misrepresenting its legal limitations.

150 undergraduate students signed a motion submitted by a member of Students’ for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) at McGill to SSMU on Nov. 5, requesting a Special Strike GA to vote on whether constituents would participate in an international student strike for Palestine. SSMU’s Steering Committee denied this motion on Nov. 6, claiming that the wording was nearly identical to that of the Policy Against Against Genocide In Palestine (PAGIP)—a policy passed in the Fall 2023 referendum and subsequently suspended in an injunction, impeding SSMU’s ratification. The Steering Committee claimed that because of the similarities in wording, the motion seeking to hold a referendum on the strike would therefore be liable to the same injunction constraints, making it illegal to pursue under Quebec law. Taylor then stated that for SSMU to facilitate the GA the language changed in the motion would result in it having nothing to do with solidarity for Palestine, stating that otherwise he and SSMU could be held legally responsible for violating the injunction restraints. 

SPHR put forth a revised motion on Nov. 13. SSMU rendered the motion null, stating that the time required to ensure it did not violate the injunction would make it no longer feasible to hold a Special Strike GA and a referendum vote before the organized international strike began on Nov. 21.

On Nov. 27, an anonymous source claiming to be a former member of SSMU’s 2023-2024 executive board sent an email to SPHR, The McGill Daily, and The Tribune expressing concern that Taylor had misrepresented SSMU’s ability to take a stance on the genocide in Palestine in his refusal of the Special Strike GA motion. The source also provided a legal advice document from SSMU’s lawyers, including advice received on Palestine-related issues. As the former board member noted, the document outlined that SSMU and its executives could organize and participate in events showing support for Palestine without violating the injunction as long as they used terms other than those used in the PAGIP. 

“No board member or Officer of the Society should therefore be making the claim that the court order against the [PAGIP] constitutes a blanket ban on SSMU taking Palestine-related positions,” the former board member wrote. “They CERTAINLY should not be using this excuse to block students from exercising their constitutionally-mandated, democratic prerogatives.”

Outside of the Special Strike GA motion submitted, which called for all undergraduate students to strike, individual student societies such as the McGill Students’ Geography Society (MUGS), Philosophy Students’ Association (PSA), and Anthropology Students’ Association (ASA) held GAs which passed a motion to picket classes on Nov. 21 and 22. 

The student who put forward the motion of impeachment presented the case at the GA on Dec. 5, outlining how SSMU’s non-participation in the Student Strike for Palestine affected SPHR’s movement. 

“This strike motion should have placed the entire SSMU student body on strike for Palestine during the week of Nov. 21 [….] This was a historic landmark for the student movement for Palestine and Montreal. Dymetri [Taylor] knew this and denied students the right to take action,” the student said at the GA. “This constitutes an undeniable abuse of power.”

In an interview with The Tribune, Taylor explained that he had misunderstood SSMU’s capacity to support Palestine due to in-person legal advice given during and before the interrogation and examination of the PAGIP injunction, which didn’t align with the legal advice given on paper. As such, he stated that the charges made against him in the impeachment motion didn’t reflect the intent of his actions.

“Delinquency of duty, more or less, means I’m not doing my job. Impropriety means I’m purposely lying. I’m not lying when I’m saying that I did generally think and misunderstand as to the ramifications of the ‘Policy Against Genocide’ versus going on strike,” Taylor said. “I have spent around 60 to 70 hours a week in this office just trying to do what I can. […] I’m a student. I make mistakes. I’m not infallible.”

He further stated that if he remains in office, he intends to address his past actions and regain the student body’s trust through working with an Accountability Coordinator.

“There’s other things than going straight to impeachment. We have the accountability committee for a reason,” said Taylor. “And while I have my own ideas as to what I can do, I’d ask what would you [the accountability committee] recommend or mandate that I have to do to ensure that this isn’t happening?”

An SPHR representative spoke in favour of Dyemtri’s removal in an interview with The Tribune, stating that SSMU had a responsibility to represent students’ voices on Palestine-related issues when asked and able. 

“The problem we have now is that our student union functions more like a corporation than a real representative body,” the representative said. “The SSMU can publicly take a stand in support of students and their fight for divestment […] as well as operate as an organized channel through which students can do actions like striking or boycotts or otherwise organized acts of solidarity.”


On Dec. 17, SSMU announced that students voted not to impeach Taylor with 58.6 per cent of the vote in the referendum. A total of 16.9 per cent of the student constituency cast a ballot. Taylor will thus continue his tenure.

McGill, News

McGill Senate concludes 2024 with reflections on guest speaker policies and financial standings

by Jenna Durante on

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McGill’s policy on controversial speaker events, the university’s projected $45 million CAD deficit for fiscal year 2026, and the school’s fundraising standing were among the topics of discussion at the university Senate’s final meeting of the calendar year on Dec. 4.

The meeting commenced with two memorial tributes to the late Professor Philip E. Branton of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and Professor Jon Bradley in the Faculty of Education. 

The Senate moved to discuss the policy on speaker events after a Nov. 25 directive paused invitations for in-person extracurricular events until Jan. 1. This policy came in the wake of outcry at McGill’s decision to host Mosab Hassan Yousef for a talk, who students denounced for his past Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian remarks. This controversy over a speaker—an issue not unique to McGill—prompted Senators to question the decision-making process, expressing concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation with academics and students. 

Interim Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Angela Campbell explained the decision followed a death threat, and provided no further information. She acknowledged the difficulty in managing the situation, emphasizing the need for community consultation.  

“Between now and Jan. 1, when this pause ends, a process will have to be put in place whereby this community decides whether or not we say no to particular speakers. Senate was invited to comment on that last month, it did not,” Campbell explained. 

While Campbell suggested that some individuals have pointed to hate speech as a potential boundary for rejecting speakers, she stressed that the topic requires further discussion. 

Senator Victor Muñiz-Fraticelli replied, stating that the Senate engaged in an open discussion on the topic earlier in the month. However, Campbell clarified that no final decisions or policy was established detailing the university’s response to hosting controversial speakers. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Dean Lesley Fellows concluded the discussion in the interest of time, highlighting its significance and suggesting that it will continue in the future. 

The meeting turned to Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic) Christopher Manfredi, who presented the budget planning report for 2025-26 and revealed a projected deficit of $45 million CAD for the 2026 fiscal year. Looking to the future, Manfredi attributed this deficit to an estimated 2 per cent annual increase in revenue juxtaposed with a 3.5 to 4 per cent annual increase in expenses for fiscal years 2026 to 2028. Several factors are contributing to the financial challenges: Declining international student enrolment, loss of revenue due to tuition policy changes for out-of-province undergraduate students, costs associated with the Canada Awards program to maintain enrolment levels, and uncertainty surrounding the provincial government’s proposed Bill 74 and the Dubreuil report. 

Bill 74 seeks to limit international student recruitment and impact graduate programs, and the Dubreuil report proposes capping anglophone university enrollment at 15 per cent or requiring 85 per cent of instruction to be in French. Manfredi underscored that both could severely affect McGill and Concordia’s future enrollment.

“I think there is a unanimous agreement among all Quebec universities that this would not be a good thing for Quebec,” Manfredi said. “I want to assure members of Senate that there’s significant engagement with the government, both with our stakeholders who are outside the university sector, but also in collaboration with other Quebec universities.”

Next, Associate Vice-President (Financial Services) Christiane Tinmouth presented an overview of the university’s financial state for the 2024 fiscal year, noting a surplus of $78 million CAD in the operating fund, primarily due to a favourable pension remeasurement gain. She detailed the breakdown of revenues and expenses, noting the operating fund surplus was achieved on a Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) basis.

Concluding the meeting, Vice-President (University Advancement) Marc Weinstein presented a report on fundraising. He announced the Made by McGill: The Campaign for Our Third Century had surpassed $2 billion CAD ahead of schedule. The campaign, launched in 2019, has funded almost 5,000 projects across the university with donations from over 113,000 donors in 132 countries. 

“We are trying to optimize our fundraising efforts to better support the emerging priorities of the university. We are reorganizing advancement as we speak, and our goal is to better support McGill philanthropically by re-working our operation, both centrally and in faculty,” Weinstein said. 

Moment of the meeting: 

Manfredi stressed that the decline in international student enrollment is particularly concerning as they pay significantly higher tuition fees than domestic students. Additionally, the Quebec government’s tuition policy changes have resulted in a $5,000 CAD per student revenue loss for each international student. These factors combined have created a significant financial strain on McGill. 

Soundbite: 

“[There is] a concern about thinking there was a lack of transparency, and wondering if there could be some way of consulting academics and students to be included when important decisions are made like this […] having designated academics and students that could be included when important decisions are made about this.” — Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences Senator Alissa Levine on the directive of the Nov. 25 email and the implications of a future speaker policy. 

Science & Technology

Healing the barriers: Noa Therapeutics and the future of eczema treatment

by Sammi Lai on

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A promising new approach to combating eczema could help millions of patients who are left unsatisfied by current treatments. The key may lie in transcription factors—a solution that was previously considered impossible.

On Nov. 19, members of the McGill Department of Chemistry gathered in the Otto Maass Chemistry Building where Carla Spina, CEO and co-founder of Noa Therapeutics, presented her research and innovative therapeutic for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD), a form of eczema. 

Eczema is a complex disease that affects one in 10 children worldwide. AD is the most common form of eczema. It falls under the category of inflammatory barrier diseases, which can cause disruption of the body’s barriers—such as the permeability barrier of the skin—and leave the immune system compromised. 

Spina described three major drivers of inflammatory barrier diseases: Barrier dysfunction (breaches in the barrier itself), immune dysregulation, and microbial imbalance. She stated that current therapeutics focus primarily on the inflammatory pathway and do not directly address the above drivers of the disease or the underlying cause. In fact, 65 percent of patients with AD are non-responsive to current therapies. 

“We see that the drugs on the market are not addressing all of the underlying factors of these kinds of inflammatory diseases. We are looking [at] a more holistic approach to addressing underlying drivers, not only from an inflammation perspective, but from a barrier perspective, and addressing the potential for infection,” Spina explained.

Spina detailed the use of transcription factors as therapeutic targets, specifically the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). Transcription factors are proteins that regulate genetic activity and influence important biochemical pathways. In the past, many scientists believed they were unsuitable as therapeutic targets, due to their inability to bind small molecules or drugs.

“Traditionally, transcription factors were thought to be undruggable. This is in part because a large number of transcription factors do not have discrete binding pockets or they are not accessible for small molecule therapeutics,” Spina said.

However, some transcription factors, including AHR, do have a binding pocket. According to Spina, AHR is even considered a “promiscuous receptor” due to its ability to bind a variety of ligands originating from both inside and outside the body. She explained how, when you hurt yourself, certain compounds can bind to AHR and promote healing pathways.  

With her company, Noa Therapeutics, Spina developed NOA-104, a leading drug compound that targets AHR. Within the first six months of starting the company, the novel therapeutic demonstrated the ability to resolve barrier dysfunction and reduce oxidative stress in human skin cells, potentially decreasing inflammation associated with atopic dermatitis. 

Spina, who studied at the University of Calgary before coming to McGill in 2003, has many loved ones who live with atopic dermatitis and said she was passionate about finding better methods of treatment for those with inflammatory barrier diseases.

“When we think about what we’re here for, we’re not here for the molecules, we’re not here for the science, although that part is really fun. We really focus on people, on patients,” Spina said.

Looking ahead, Spina and Noa Therapeutics aim for further translation of their drug into disease models, such as through validation in animal studies.  However, as the complexity of atopic dermatitis presents numerous challenges, their team requires extensive testing to have a better understanding of the impact of their therapy. 

“You always want to have a clear understanding of what the implications are in a real disease state [….] Because again, atopic dermatitis is very heterogeneous,” Spina said.

Finally, Spina opened the door to addressing a broader range of inflammatory diseases, including multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease—conditions with pathological similarities to atopic dermatitis. She emphasized the need to review current models of therapy and continue driving innovation to ensure impactful advancements that improve the quality of disease treatment.

Letters to the Editor, Opinion

Letter to the Editor: How SSMU President Dymetri Taylor Undermined a Historic Student Strike for Palestine

by Concerned Students on

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Following a callout for an international coordinated student strike for Palestine on Nov. 21, McGill students initiated a process that, if successful, would mandate a week-long strike of all Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) members, which encompasses all undergraduate students. This would have been an unprecedented mobilization of over 24,000 students striking alongside tens of thousands of university and CEGEP students in Montreal.

On Nov. 5, students submitted the first draft of a motion for a Special Strike General Assembly (GA) in solidarity with Palestine, in accordance with guidelines outlined in the SSMU Constitution. The strike was prompted by Israel’s relentless genocide in Gaza and increasingly escalatory violence in Lebanon, leading McGill students to continue to demand:

  1. Complete divestment from all companies complicit in Israel’s Genocidal war on Gaza, 
  2. Halting the construction of the Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute, including severing the associated research partnership between McGill and Tel Aviv University. 
  3. Demand that our university immediately cut ties with any academic institutions, research partnerships, corporations, and individual donors complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.
  4. For McGill to immediately cease contracts with private security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance firm SIRCO, ending all racially-motivated security surveillance, harassment, and physical assault on students.
  5. For McGill to enact a strict policy preventing Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) and Sûreté du Québec from being present on campus.
  6. For McGill to immediately cease any disciplinary cases and political tribunals against students involved in popular organizing, political activity, and demonstrations, and provide amnesty to all students who engage in similar protests going forward.
  7. Demand that our university cease its use of Islamophobic tropes and anti-Arab rhetoric in its communications regarding protests on campus

 This motion would have aligned with the SSMU’s mission to uphold human rights, social justice, and equity on campus as stipulated in the Divest for Human Rights Policy and Harmful Military Technology Policy and would have leveraged student democracy as facilitated through a strike vote.

However, on Nov. 6, the SSMU Steering Committee denied the facilitation of a GA due to alleged legal constraints due to the injunction placed on SSMU after the Policy against Genocide in Palestine (PAGIP). On Nov.8, following repeated attempts by a SSMU Political Campaigns Coordinators to get clarification on this decision, SSMU President Dymetri Taylor falsely asserted that the SSMU Steering Committee could not proceed with the Special GA for a strike vote claiming: “The necessary language to be changed would result in the Strike no longer having anything to do with Palestine.”

Despite the Political Campaigns Coordinator insisting that the injunction’s limited scope was specific to the PAGIP and did not prevent consideration of a strike motion, Taylor continued to obstruct the democratic process. 

Taylor continued to make vague and misleading claims about the legal review of the injunction on the PAGIP, which he claimed prevented students, legally, from enacting the GA. After encountering this, students requested to meet with the steering committee to rework the language of the motion in order to better adhere to these “legal constraints.” However, they were consistently ignored or rejected by Taylor.

Taylor continued to misrepresent consultations with legal counsel by alleging that, “[The legal counsel] have informed [SSMU executives] that actions such as striking would be against the injunction several times.”

Finally, on Nov. 21, Taylor acknowledged his errors, admitting  to making “incorrect assumptions” and “misrepresenting the SSMU’s legal limitations,” writing, “I failed to adequately consult our legal counsel or my fellow executives before making such a definitive statement.” At this point, 16 days after the policy was first submitted, a strike was no longer possible due to the continued obstruction of these processes and constrained timeline.

Due to Taylor’s incompetence, the mass strike mobilization in Montreal for Palestine lost 24,000 potential striking students. Similar to the failings of last year’s PAGIP, SSMU’s bureaucracy has cost the student movement heavily. 

On Nov. 27, an anonymous ex-SSMU Board of Directors member leaked the SSMU legal review of the injunction regarding the PAGIP. This is the legal review Taylor was referring to throughout the many email exchanges with the Political Campaign Coordinator regarding the strike motion. 

The leaked legal review highlights recommendations for the SSMU following the approval by the Quebec court for an interlocutory injunction against the 2023 PAGIP:

  • The safeguard order does not prohibit the adoption of a new policy, although we suggest that SSMU obtain our opinion on the content of the policy prior to adopting it;
  • SSMU may make public statements in support of Palestine in terms other than those used in the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine; 
  • SSMU and its executives may organize and participate in activities, workshops, and events and otherwise publicly show support for Palestine and Palestinians.

It is crystal clear that SSMU is not restricted from making “public statements in support of Palestine.” Students have had enough of  SSMU’s “bureaucratic constraints”. Students are rightfully outraged by how their representative union blocked legitimate democratic processes meant to represent their collective will. At the present moment, Gazans are preparing for a second winter under siege and bombardment. Taylor’s actions unilaterally blocked a historic mobilization in solidarity with the liberation of oppressed people going through one of the most brutal genocides in history. 

We demand that the SSMU Board take accountability for their actions, which have undoubtedly hindered student democracy and mobilization for Palestine. SSMU executives must represent the fact that Palestinian lives are non-negotiable for the student body. It is well beyond time to raise our standards and start pushing for material actions on this vital front within the student movement. SSMU has the ability to make change, and we will not be fooled by false constraints. If SSMU executives can not fulfill student demands, they must be held accountable. Taylor, specifically, must take responsibility for his negligible and damaging actions.

Opinion

Selective apathy is undermining democracy 

by Monique Kasonga on

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When the American election results rolled in, McGill’s campus witnessed a surge of political interest—students refreshing electoral maps in library corners, heated debates spilling out of lecture halls, and social media feeds flooded with political commentary. This heightened attention makes sense: not only does McGill host a significant American student population, but U.S. policies ripple far beyond its borders. Decisions made in Washington influence global economic stability, international relations, and the well-being of countless individuals, particularly those affected by American imperialism and destabilizing military interventions. However, it is concerning when many students, who were hyper-focused on the U.S. elections, disengage from political discourse and action closer to home. 

Elections often bring disappointment—broken promises, unresolved systemic issues, and growing disillusionment among voters. While the anger and frustration stemming from electoral results are valid responses, merely wallowing in negativity without channeling them into sustained political engagement perpetuates the very stagnation people decry. Selective apathy, where attention is sporadic and limited to high-profile events, doesn’t foster meaningful change. Global democracy demands more than fleeting interest or periodic outrage.

Strong local community engagement at a grassroots level lays the foundation for uplifting those far beyond our borders. While it is important to engage with foreign political events, such engagement must go hand in hand with addressing local concerns. It is through building strong, informed, and resilient communities locally that productive change can ripple outward to impact the global community. 

Voting is critical, as is being aware of global politics and events. These are essential for understanding the systems of injustice that must be dismantled. However, voting and awareness cannot be the only means of engagement with democracy—they represent the bare minimum. Engaging in activities like attending community meetings, advocating for policy changes, volunteering for grassroots organizations, or supporting marginalized groups strengthens the fabric of your community. By staying passive, you risk leaving critical decisions to others, which can stall advancement on issues that deeply affect your neighbours and hinder long-term progress. Meaningful societal progression requires consistent involvement through local activism, community organizing, and advocacy for systemic reforms. This is not a solo endeavour; it’s a collective effort. Like any group project, when more people contribute, the work becomes lighter and the results more impactful.

Our globalized world complicates civic engagement—many students live and study in places where they cannot vote due to their citizenship status. However, contributing to democracy involves much more than legal entitlements alone. Becoming part of a community—especially one you’re new to, as over half of McGill students are—requires active involvement. It’s about fostering connections, uplifting those around you, and working toward shared goals. This is the essence of democracy. Real change starts with recognizing that democracy isn’t simply about election outcomes—it’s about ensuring everyone has the tools and opportunities to make their voices heard, and that these tools are used. 

At McGill, we live in a bubble, surrounded by highly educated peers with the tools and resources to engage with political systems. But this privilege is not universal. In 2012, 17 per cent of Canadian adults had low literacy skills, and 29 per cent of those with low literacy lived in low-income households. Newcomer, Indigenous, and low-income populations are disproportionately challenged by low literacy rates. Paired with economic hardship, these reading proficiency levels limit people’s ability to navigate the political system effectively. Systemic barriers such as the ongoing effects of colonialism further suppress educational and political opportunities for marginalized groups. When large segments of the population are excluded from political participation, democracy falters. National results cannot truly reflect the will of the people unless every voice is empowered to speak, which is why it is central for these communities to be uplifted and their voices amplified in the fight for justice. 

Existing in the most privileged strata, there is no excuse for McGill students to lack engagement or awareness about what is happening locally in Montreal, and in Quebec. If you can’t vote, educate yourself about the needs of those who can. Engagement extends beyond casting a ballot; it’s about taking responsibility within the community. We must challenge ourselves to engage consistently—with our communities, with local and national issues, and with the systemic barriers that prevent others from doing the same. Change begins with collective action, and the strength of our democracy isn’t measured in ballots alone, but in how we show up for our communities every day.

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