Author: Étienne Lajoie

Categories
News

TRAC, university to move on to issue of contract splitting

TRAC president Alexandre St-Onge-Perron talks financial negotiations. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Mood at the collective agreement negotiation table “excellent,” says TRAC president

Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC) president Alexandre St-Onge-Perron does not know when his group and the university will negotiate the financial aspects of what he hopes will be a new three-to-four-year collective agreement.

“After every meeting, we ask ourselves when we’ll talk about the monetary. I hope it will be in late February or [sooner],” St-Onge-Perron said.

The monetary aspects of the agreement include the issue of “contract splitting.” St-Onge-Perron previously explained to The Concordian that contract splitting consists of a teaching assistant being paid a wage for their time in class and a second, lower wage for marking papers.

In an e-mail to The Concordian, university spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr wrote: “All contracts are managed in accordance with the collective agreement, which is negotiated by the parties.” Article 15.05 of the 2013-16 collective agreement—the one currently in use—states that “marking duties may be the object of separate marker contracts.”

St-Onge-Perron said, when the negotiation of financial issues begin, Concordia’s negotiating team—made up of employees from human resources, professors from the political science and engineering departments, and Nadia Hardy, the vice-provost of faculty relations—might be more influenced by their superiors than they are now.

“We have to convince their bosses by mobilizing,” St-Onge-Perron said. Nonetheless, he added that the mood at the negotiating table is “excellent.”

According to St-Onge-Perron, the biggest change to come out of the negotiations so far is the changes to the process of filing a grievance complaint, which has “greatly improved.” He said the process is much easier for TRAC members than before. The new agreement will not force the two sides to be present at the same time during the grievance process, and the process will be simplified.

Notably, the time allowed for members to file a grievance will be extended. Under the current agreement, members have 40 days to file a grievance following an incident. Their window to file a grievance will now only begin at the end of the teaching or research assistant’s contract.

St-Onge-Perron explained that one of the first things members say when they come forward with issues is, “I don’t want to cause trouble,” because they don’t want to file a complaint during their contract and risk losing their position.

“Now, they won’t have that problem,” St-Onge-Perron said.

He also added that the new policy would not favour the university, which wants to avoid having students file too many grievances.

More delegates in the ranks

According to St-Onge-Perron, there has recently been a slight increase in the number of TRAC delegates. In October, Eunbyul Park, TRAC’s communications and mobilization officer, said adding delegates was one of TRAC’s priorities.

St-Onge-Perron said a substantial number of people attended the faculty of engineering’s delegate assembly, where members were free to express their concerns and question their delegate and TRAC’s executive team.

St-Onge-Perron also noted that the executive team has a meeting scheduled later this month with administrators from the department of mechanical engineering, which he defined as “previously problematic.” For instance, the department did not distribute TRAC membership forms the appropriate way, St-Onge-Perron said.

Bill 62 discussion at general assembly

St-Onge-Perron said TRAC’s executive team will ask its members if they want the union to take a position on Bill 62—a provincial religious neutrality law.

“If the answer is yes, we’ll ask, ‘What is your position?’” St-Onge-Perron told The Concordian. “We decided that it wasn’t up to the executive team to decide if TRAC was for or against it.”

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
News

Concordia announces plan of action following sexual misconduct allegations

Photo by Alex Hutchins

President Alan Shepard confident in university environment: “The department is safe”

“I feel confident with the environment we have at the university and that the department is safe,” said Concordia president Alan Shepard after announcing the launch of an assessment of the university’s current environment on Jan. 10.

Following allegations of sexual misconduct by professors in Concordia University’s creative writing program, Shepard said he was “profoundly sorry.”

“We take this stuff very seriously, very seriously,” he said.

Concordia president Alan Shepard responded to recent allegations at a press conference on Jan. 10, stating that the university is not “trying to sweep everything under a rug.” Photo by Étienne Lajoie

Shepard announced on Wednesday that the university will be launching an investigation into the allegations posted online by Concordia alumnus Mike Spry on Jan. 8. The investigation was one of three specific actions Shepard outlined during the press conference and in a press release sent to students. The release, written by Shepard himself, reads that the university will also be “meeting this week with students, faculty and staff in the creative writing program to listen, support and chart a path forward.”

The university’s third initiative is an assessment of the “current environment” at Concordia, which will be coordinated by deputy provost Lisa Ostiguy. Ostiguy previously chaired the Sexual Assault Policy Review Working Group, which reviewed the university’s sexual assault policies and made recommendations in August 2015.
“These are complicated matters, and we have to proceed with care. People’s lives are affected by these experiences, and people who are facing allegations also deserve due process,” Shepard said. “We take the allegations seriously. It’s not a case of us trying to sweep everything under a rug.”
Shepard invited students to consult the university’s Office of Rights and Responsibilities and the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC).

When asked if the university had decided whether to suspend any professors, Shepard said “all investigations are confidential by law and by our policy.” He did not comment when asked if any professors accused of misconduct might still be employed by the university.

“One of the misconceptions I think about our university is that we get complaints about faculty members and we ignore the complaints. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Shepard said.

In 2014, Concordia alumna Emma Healey published an essay on the website The Hairpin making allegations of sexual misconduct against a Concordia creative writing professor. When asked about the university’s lack of response to previous allegations against professors from the program, Shepard said “I acted on Monday afternoon because I heard about it on Monday afternoon.”

Several former students have stated on social media that the creative writing department’s “toxic culture”—as Spry referred to it—has been an open secret dating back 20 years. According to Shepard, “it was not an open secret” to him. “I did my best to pay attention,” he added. “I deeply regret. This is not okay. This not acceptable.”

Feature photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
News

Concordia planning on moving to new payroll system

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Spokesperson said Empath software has been used since January 1993

Concordia plans to move to a new payroll system “in order to better meet the needs of the university,” spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr wrote in an email to The Concordian.

The university has been using the Empath system since January 1993, according to Barr.

A needs assessment study was done, “including user consultations, and a request for proposal (RFP) process for a new software vendor is currently underway,” Barr wrote.

Empath is used by the university’s human resources for all payroll, benefits and position tracking activities. “There are thousands of users among Concordia’s current and former employees” using the system, according to Barr, in addition to “100 heavy users spread across human resources, the provost’s office, the faculties, finance and etc.”

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU finance coordinator resigns

CSU finance coordinator Soulaymane El Alaoui resigned on Nov. 22 citing personal reasons. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Soulaymane El Alaoui is cited personal reasons; fourth finance coordinator to resign in last three years

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) finance coordinator made his way to the ninth floor of the John Molson School of Business on Nov. 22, asked for the attention of the students on council and then read a message aloud:

“My resignation is effective immediately. It was a pleasure to work alongside you all, and I will be available once my replacement is chosen to help him transition into the role. Thank you for your support. Best regards, Soulaymane El Alaoui.”

He then walked out of the room. El Alaoui cited personal reasons as the cause of his resignation. El Alaoui told The Concordian he made the decision “a couple days ago.” Internal affairs coordinator Veronika Rydzewski has been named interim finance coordinator.

El Alaoui was elected as the finance coordinator in March. He is the fourth CSU finance coordinator to leave the position in the last two years. In March 2016, Anas Bouslikhane resigned from the position before finishing his mandate. His replacement, Adrian Longinotti, was asked to resign by the CSU after the executive body deemed him unfit to act as a representative of the student union.

In November 2016, Longinotti was replaced by Thomas David-Bashore, who was the finance coordinator from December 2016 until the following CSU election in March, when El Alaoui was elected.

Rydzewski said El Alaoui did not warn the CSU’s executive team that he would be resigning.

Rydzewski, who as the internal affairs coordinator is responsible for supporting clubs, often communicated with El Alaoui regarding club budgets.

“A large portion of the cheques that the CSU processes weekly are from CSU clubs,” she explained. “My role as interim finance coordinator will be to make sure that cheques are processed in a timely manner.”

According to Rydzewski, there will be a general call out for students to apply for the finance coordinator position. Councillors will also be able to apply. The CSU’s appointments committee will then “collect the applications and only filter out applications that do not meet the most basic requirement, i.e. be a registered Concordia undergraduate student,” Rydzewski wrote in an email to The Concordian.

The appointments committees will forward all the remaining applications to the CSU council for further deliberation, she added.

Apology letter rejected

A letter of apology written by CSU general coordinator Omar Riaz and submitted to council was rejected by an eight-to-five vote, with one abstention, during the council meeting.

The request for the letter, as well as the repayment of two plane tickets, were sanctions decided by the council on Sept. 20, after learning that Riaz and El Alaoui accepted plane tickets from Alliance pour la Santé Étudiante au Québec (ASEQ) CEO Lev Bukhman.

Riaz and El Alaoui used the tickets to fly to Vancouver in August for the Student Union Development Summit (SUDS).

John Molson School of Business councillor Rory James described the letter as “frankly quite insulting to council.”

“There’s no contrition, there’s no apology, no acceptance of what actions were wrong,” James said.

In his letter, Riaz wrote: “I did not deem this sponsorship as a personal gratuity or intend to benefit from it. Instead, I considered it as a cost-saving measure for the CSU.”

The first draft of the letter had to be submitted on Nov. 22, to be reviewed before being submitted to the student body. Due to the rejection, Riaz must resubmit a revised version of the apology letter.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Categories
News

A conversation with Concordia’s president

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Alan Shepard comments on allegations, fundraising, campus expansion

“I hate that this kind of stuff happens,” said Concordia president Alan Shepard in response to a question about the unsolicited social media campaign that resulted in two Concordia students being allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted.

Montreal police opened an investigation into the alleged assaults, however, “I don’t have any idea how the investigation is doing,” Shepard told The Concordian. He said the SPVM hasn’t shared details with him.

The university was informed of the cases during the first week of November, Concordia spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr disclosed in an interview with The Concordian. Shepard said the incidents happened “some time ago,” including one last winter. “We acted as soon as we felt we had our facts straight,” he said.

According to Shepard, these incidents won’t change the university’s sexual assault policy, which he described as “strong and robust.”

Fundraising campaign

According to Shepard, the university is halfway to raising the targeted $250 million for its Campaign for Concordia: Next-Gen fundraiser, the largest in the university’s history.

The campaign is to attract world-class talent to Concordia, Shepard said. “You’re trying to make great education. It’s a competitive landscape [between universities]. It’s not a ladies and gentlemen club—it’s a free-for-all,” Shepard explained. “We need the resources to attract really compelling faculty, researchers and compelling students.”

The president said the money is not currently in the bank, and, instead, comes in the form of pledges or promises of gifts that eventually come to the school “over a 10-year window.”

“We have the promise that it will come in the next while,” Shepard said, referring to the funds they’ve already amassed.

Expanding Concordia

Following the announcement of a new $52-million research facility to be built behind the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex on the Loyola campus, Shepard told The Concordian he has “ideas of other needs” the university has for expansion.

“Every public institution has a responsibility to look at options and think about the future,” Shepard said. But the president admitted the process can be long.

“These buildings take five, seven, eight or 10 years between the twinkle in your eyes [when you say] ‘I think we should build a building there’ to opening the doors to students,” he said. Speaking about the university’s downtown campus, Shepard said the university is “pretty strapped for land,” adding that, “if we were to expand, we’d probably look for new acquisitions.”

Faculty social media policy

In September 2016, a York University professor was fired “for allegedly sharing anti-Semitic posts on his public Facebook page,” Global News reported at the time.
Shepard and spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr said there is no specific media policy, but the university’s academic code of conduct applies to all faculty members, even on social media.

“Whether you behave a certain way in person or in class or on social media, those same codes of conduct are in place,” Barr explained.
“If I’m your prof and I write to you by email, I’m writing to you in a governance framework. If you write to me on Facebook and I write back, I’m still writing to you as your prof, and the rule still applies,” Shepard explained. “If, as a private citizen, not as a professor, I write on Facebook, that’s a different matter.”

With files from Ian Down.

Feature photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU finance coordinator resigns for personal reasons

Archive photo by Nelly Serandour-Amar.

Soulaymane El Alaoui fourth finance coordinator to leave position in less than two years

The Concordia Student Union finance coordinator arrived on the packed ninth floor of the John Molson School of Business on Nov. 22.  He asked for the attention of the students on council and then read a message aloud:

“My resignation is effective immediately. It was a pleasure to work alongside you all, and I will be available once my replacement is chosen to help him transition into the role. Thank you for your support. Best regards, Soulaymane El Alaoui.”

He then walked out of the room. El Alaoui cited personal reasons as the cause of his resignation. El Alaoui told The Concordian he made the decision “a couple days ago.” Internal affairs coordinator Veronika Rydzewski has been named interim finance coordinator.

El Alaoui was elected as the finance coordinator in March 2017. He is the fourth CSU finance coordinator to leave the position in less than two years. In March 2016, Anas Bouslikhane resigned from the position before finishing his mandate. His replacement, Adrian Longinotti, was asked to resign by the CSU after the executive body deemed him unfit to act as a representative of the student union.

In November 2016, Longinotti was replaced by Thomas David-Bashore, who was the finance coordinator from December 2016 until the following CSU election in March when El Alaoui was elected.

Categories
News

Make room for the millennial

22-year old borough councillor Younes Boukala is Montreal’s youngest municipal politician. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Lachine borough councillor Younes Boukala is giving a voice to his district and his generation

Next winter, while Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante makes some important political announcement, Lachine borough councillor Younes Boukala might be in class at the Université du Québec à Montréal. This is the reality of being the city’s youngest municipal politician.

At 22, Boukala is taking over the leadership of Lachine’s J.-Émery-Provost district, one of the borough’s most impoverished areas, under the banner of Projet Montréal. It’s a sector he knows all too well—he still lives there with his parents in cooperative housing.

I first spoke to Boukala in August, at the start of his campaign. He had just finished his mandate as youth ambassador of Lachine—one of Montreal’s 19 boroughs—for the city’s 375th anniversary.

The purpose of the project, organized by the Forum jeunesse de l’île de Montréal (FJIM), was for young Montrealers “to raise awareness about the reality of young people in their borough, to mobilize and consult with other young people in the borough,” according to the forum’s website.

During a trip to China with Boukala and other youth ambassadors last spring, FJIM president Jennifer Teasdale-Raymond spoke to Boukala about the possibility of running in the November municipal election.

“You need to be a bit audacious,” Boukala said in August about running for election. This is particularly true in the J.-Émery-Provost district, where high school graduation rates are low— just like voter turnout. Boukala admitted his parents had never voted in municipal elections before he announced his candidacy.

According to data collected by Le Devoir, at least three of the polling stations in the J.-Émery-Provost district had a voter turnout rate of less than 25 per cent in 2017.

During this campaign, Boukala discovered his area was home to two very distinct groups of people: those who have lived in Lachine their whole lives, and immigrant families who just arrived in Montreal. Despite their differences, Boukala said the two groups were united in their cynicism towards politics.

Boukala thought he represented both groups. He was born in Morocco but moved to Montreal when he was just one year old. “I saw what was necessary for families to integrate [into a new community] through the experience of my parents.”

“At the same time, I lived with native Quebecers and went through the Quebec education system,” he explained, “so I had the right profile.” Boukala said he considered himself “the middle ground” that could unite the multicultural and native Quebec communities in his district.

The young candidate had difficult moments throughout his campaign, but he told himself “it was part of life and that nothing was easy.” His laid-back attitude was apparent during our conversation. “I’m someone who enjoys life,” he said.

The week and a half following the election, before being sworn in, was when Boukala finally relaxed. He was tired, understandably. From late August to the start of September, he went door-to-door to campaign every day for at least four hours. On sunny days, he would leave his house at 10 a.m., campaign for eight hours and return home at 6 p.m. to eat.

“Doing eight hours of canvassing was something,” Boukala said, admitting that campaigning can be tough on morale. “It’s not easy when someone shuts the door on you, and then the neighbour is a Projet Montréal supporter,” he said. “You’ve got to find a balance.”

Getting young people interested in politics

One of Boukala’s objectives has always been to make municipal politics interesting to the younger generation. “Listen, we’re not only there to study and work in fields we don’t like,” he said about young people. “You don’t need a doctorate to be a candidate. You only need to be on the field, in your district.”

Retired people were surprised when he spoke to them during his campaign, Boukala remembered with a laugh. “Well then, how did this happen?” he remembered people asking, surprised by his age.

Throughout his time in college and university, Boukala said he never had one specific goal. “I lived and grabbed hold of opportunities as I went along,” he said.

Now he has the opportunity to make a change as a councillor.

“Councillors can be pawns or trailblazers,” Boukala said. “I want to walk in my neighborhood and think ‘I’m happy I did this. I improved the life of my fellow citizens.’”

Last Thursday, on Nov. 16, Boukala was officially sworn into office. Eleven days prior, Teasdale-Raymond surprised Boukala at the Corona Theatre where Projet Montréal gathered on election night.

“He wasn’t expecting [the result],” Teasdale-Raymond said. Running for election was a challenge, Boukala admitted, “but if you never challenge yourself, you never go forward.”

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
News

Siding with evidence rather than opinion

Concordia professor psychology Adam Radomsky believes the biggest push towards using evidence-based approaches comes from training programs like Concordia's. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Concordia professor: Measuring client progress through feedback is necessary

In May 2016, 26-year-old John Chayka was named general manager of the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes. Chayka’s hiring was not only surprising because of his young age, but also because he was the first analytics-driven executive to lead a hockey organization. He has never played professional hockey, and was a recent business administration graduate from Western University’s Ivey Business School.

Since the successful use of performance metrics in the early 2000s by Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics, many sports have followed suit, hiring stats geniuses in their 20s and 30s to manage their teams. Politics, like sports, have also embraced the use of metrics for polling and recruitment. According to clinical psychologist Tony Rousmaniere, big data could also transform mental health treatment, “if only psychologists would stop ignoring it.”

In an essay published last April in The Atlantic, Rousmaniere reminded readers that therapists don’t have instruments of measurement as other doctors do, like stethoscopes or lab tests.

Instead, therapists are the instruments themselves—they are the ones who measure how much their client’s mental health has improved. According to Adam Radomsky, a Concordia professor and the university’s research chair in anxiety and related disorders, this is a real problem in mental health care.

“There are guidelines [from the Ordre des psychologues du Québec (OPQ)] saying that you should use evidence-based approaches, but there are no evidence-based police out there to come and make sure you’re doing something that’s been shown to work,” Radomsky told The Concordian. The OPQ is the professional body responsible for licensing psychologists in the province.

What Radomsky described as “evidence-based approaches” and what Rousmaniere calls feedback-informed treatment, or FIT, in his article, are types of feedback that inform therapists about the progress their clients are making. According to Rousmaniere, “perhaps no field faces higher barriers of incorporating performance feedback than psychotherapy.”

Clients often feel vulnerable when meeting a therapist, Radomsky explained, so they might not talk openly about the state of their mental health, even if it’s deteriorating.

“Many clients are more willing to report worsening symptoms to a computer—even if they know that their therapists will see the results—than disappointing their therapist face-to-face,” Rousmaniere wrote in The Atlantic.

Radomsky said evidence-based psychological therapy can refer to two different things. The first is the use of a treatment that’s been shown to work, “that’s been studied extensively [and] it has met that threshold,” he explained. The other “is that you use evidence to track the progress of your work with clients or patients.”

The Concordia professor—who has a small number of clients in addition to teaching—added that he “absolutely would not” be able to work without client feedback.

According to Rousmaniere, nearly 50 feedback systems for therapists have been developed over the last 20 years.

Radomsky explained that many of the clients he has seen and supervised fill out one or “a very small number of questionnaires” every week or each time they come in for a therapy session.

“These are often standardized questionnaires, validated through scientific studies, so we know what they’re measuring and we know how well they measure them,” Radomsky explained. “Then we track that over time to make sure that things are moving in the [right] direction.”

One system developed by Brigham Young University researcher Michael Lambert involves a 45-question online survey conducted before each appointment. If the clients appear to be at risk, Rousmaniere explained in The Atlantic, “their therapists are sent alerts that are colour-coded for different concerns. Red for risk of dropout or deterioration, yellow for less-than-expected progress.”

Rousmaniere said his “anecdotal impression is that use of FIT today remains disappointingly low among therapists.” According to Radomsky, using an evidence-approach is “very uncommon for some, and absolutely required for others.”

It can often depend on the psychologist’s training, Radomsky said. Older approaches to psychotherapy “weren’t really subjected to scientific tests in the same way some of the newer approaches are.” One of the newer and most commonly used approaches by psychologist right now, according to Radomsky, is cognitive behaviour therapy.

“I think that those of us that have been trained in the newer approaches, [like] cognitive behaviour therapy and other similar approaches, a part of what you do, is you track the progress of your work,” he added. “I think some people would never use it, some people would always use it. I’m not sure how many people are in between.”

Educational process

Radomsky said clients should ask their therapists about their approach and whether there is evidence to show that it works. However, he admitted it can be uncomfortable to ask these questions. “If the answers seem strange or cryptic or vague, find another therapist,” he advised. “A good therapist is happy to answer these questions.”

The Concordia professor tells his clients that, “if after about eight weeks, we’re not starting to see some improvements, I might need to fire myself.”

“I refuse to be an unhelpful therapist,” Radomsky said. “It doesn’t mean that the problems will be all gone in eight weeks, but what it does mean is that we should be tracking the progress of the work.”

According to Radomsky, the biggest push towards using evidence-based approaches comes from training programs like those in Concordia’s psychology department.

“I think it’s sometimes harder for people who’ve been doing things in a particular way for a very long time to change,” Radomsky said. “I think they should, but at the moment, there isn’t a way to force them to do that.”

Five years ago, the OPQ, which could not be reached for comment before publication, started requiring practicing psychologists to take courses or attend conferences to keep their training up to date, Radomsky told The Concordian.

“All psychologists providing therapy in the province are required to show that they are continuing to learn and train on an ongoing basis,” he explained.

The research chair said he believes the increasing use of evidence-based approaches is an ongoing process, and it needs to be more common.

“What is the alternative? Opinion doesn’t cut it.”

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Categories
News

St-Pierre residents look to experts for solutions

Concordia professor Maria Elektorowicz, transport economist Zvi Leve and doctor Patrick Morency talked about sustainable mobility in the enclaved neighbourhood of St-Pierre. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Revitalisation St-Pierre organizes panel to talk about the issue of sustainable mobility

One by one, the residents of St-Pierre—a small enclave neighbourhood within the Lachine borough—raised their hands when David Marshall told them it was time for a question period.

The three sustainable mobility experts, invited by Marshall and his colleague Isaac Boulou for a panel, listened to the residents whose demands have fallen onto deaf ears over the past few years.

The first question, asked by a woman who lives in the neighbourhood, was representative of what residents have been wondering for years: “Will someone ever listen to us?”

Marshall is the director of Revitalisation St-Pierre, an organization made up of St-Pierre residents and urban planners—like Marshall—whose goal is to revitalize the neighbourhood.

On Nov. 9, a few residents and community workers from Lachine gathered in a small room on the second floor of the St-Pierre community centre for the third of a series of panels organized by Revitalisation St-Pierre to discuss the future of the village-like area.

Present to give their thoughts on St-Pierre were transport economist Zvi Leve, Montreal health public department member and doctor Patrick Morency, and Concordia professor of environmental engineering Maria Elektorowicz.

The three panelists had very different perspectives on the issue of neighborhood revitalization. Each tried to help residents make sense of the future of their 5,400-person neighbourhood. St-Pierre was its own town until 1999, when it joined the then city of Lachine.

In recent years, a lot of cars and trucks have begun to drive through the neighbourhood along its main street. St-Jacques Street—which runs from east to west through the neighborhood—has become a bypass route to get onto the new Highway 136 that runs parallel to Highway 20 East.

“Instead of respecting St-Jacques Street as a commercial hub, it has become a highway,” Marshall said. According to Morency, sustainable mobility means giving community space back to the people.

“We shouldn’t subordinate the mobility and security of people to facilitate the flow of large trucks,” Morency said during the panel, earning applause from attendees.

The doctor was amazed by the lack of security for children attending Martin-Bélanger Elementary School—located next to the neighbourhood’s entrance—as they regularly have to cross St-Jacques.

St-Pierre residents already witnessed tragedy first-hand this summer when an 80-year-old woman was hit and killed by a truck as she tried to cross the St-Pierre and Notre-Dame intersection, next to the St-Pierre interchange, according to the Journal de Montreal. She was caught in the middle of the intersection because the time allotted to pedestrians to cross wasn’t long enough.

In an email to The Concordian, Montreal Port Authority director of communications Mélanie Nadeau wrote that the port has seen a 10 per cent increase in traffic from 2015 to 2016. Approximately 55 per cent of the traffic entering or exiting the port is by truck, according to Nadeau.

This is especially worrisome for St-Pierre, because 60 per cent of trucks that drive through the neighborhood are heading for or coming from St-Laurent, Pointe-Claire or Lachine.

“The main street of a neighbourhood can’t become a trucking route,” said Lachine mayor-elect Maja Vodanovic in June. Vodanovic was previously the borough councillor representing St-Pierre.

Elektorowicz said the borough has two main advantages: its proximity to the Lachine Canal and to Concordia’s Loyola campus, which is less than three kilometres away from the neighbourhood’s centre.

While the neighbourhood might be close to the canal, it is increasingly difficult for residents to reach it because they have to cross the St-Pierre and Notre-Dame intersection where the pedestrian was killed this summer.

In June, Marshall said his organization had been trying to get a sidewalk installed on the eastern part of the intersection for the last six years. This would allow cyclists and pedestrians to cross more safely. Plans to build the sidewalk were completed in 2015, but the sidewalk is still not built.

Just prior to the plans being accepted by the borough, Marshall said a young cyclist was killed while crossing the intersection.

Again in May 2016, a 58-year-old cyclist was hit by a car but survived, La Presse reported.

At a borough council meeting in August, Lachine councillors voted in favour of asking the Ministère des Transports to tear down and rebuild the St-Pierre interchange, which is one of four barriers that make the neighbourhood an enclave.

“When we rebuild the interchange, we really have to make sure there’s a passage for pedestrians and cyclists to make the link with the Lachine Canal,” Leve said.

Morency—who first visited the neighborhood 10 years ago—said politicians shouldn’t wait for the interchange to be rebuilt before securing the intersection for pedestrians and cyclists.

Morency advocates for a reallocation of resources to invest in cycling paths in St-Pierre. “We’ve got to invest in projects that will improve public security instead of deteriorating it,” he explained.

The lack of security and increase in traffic has taken a toll on residents and business owners. For example, cars cannot park on St-Jacques Street, so it is hard for people to reach businesses, Vodanovic explained. In June, the neighborhood’s only bank, a Desjardins on St-Jacques, decided to close up shop. At the time, the self-described “cooperative financial group” claimed that only 5,000 transactions were made every month, and it needed between 10,000 and 12,000 to turn a profit.

There are no easy solutions in St-Pierre. Last June, Marshall told The Concordian that 10 per cent of the population moves away from the neighborhood every year.

“On a population of 5,400 people, that means you have got 500 to 600 people coming and going every year,” he said.

“That also means that a student starting in kindergarten here, by the time they’re in grade five or six, nearly half the class is different. For children, that poses all sorts of difficulties, social development-wise, in terms of their friendships [and] social engagement,” Marshall explained.

Leve said politicians and organizers—like Marshall—should look for solutions within the neighbourhood itself.

Julie Pascale-Provost, a CEGEP teacher and the newest borough councillor representing St-Pierre for Projet Montréal, was one of the last attendees to question the panelists.

“Before Turcot and the St-Pierre interchange, where do we start?”

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Categories
News

Unsolicited social media campaign results in alleged sexual assault

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Promises of professional development lured female Concordia students off campus

In an email sent to students, and signed by deputy provost Lisa Ostiguy and the vice-president of services, Roger Côté, Concordia University reported that “social media invitations promising unsolicited professional development opportunities have been used to lure students off campus.”

“These invitations resulted in reported drugging and sexual assault,” the university wrote.

According to Concordia spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr, the university was informed of the situation last week. Complaints had already been filed with the Montreal police, who are investigating the situation.

“We want to make sure as many people are aware,” Barr said.

The email cautioned students to be vigilant when responding to unsolicited social media offers.

This story will be updated.

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
News

Concordia students react to McGill union vote

Israel on Campus and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights executives comment on the decision not to ratify McGill student Noah Lew. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Student group executives comment on decision not to ratify McGill university student Noah Lew

McGill University launched an investigation on Oct. 27 after one of its students, Noah Lew, claimed he was targeted for being Jewish. In a message posted on his Facebook page on Oct. 24, Lew wrote that he was “blocked from participating in student government because of [his] Jewish identity and [his]affiliations with Jewish organizations.”

Lew, a member of the board of directors of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)—the university’s student union—explained in his Facebook post that “over 100 students” opposed his assent as a director at the SSMU general assembly on Oct. 23.

The McGill student said the reason for the opposition was his support for the ratification of a decision by the SSMU judicial board that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel violated the SSMU constitution.

“I think it’s very sad that a person is discriminated [against] because of his cultural or religious identity,” Amina Chemssy, the Israel on Campus (IOC) Concordia president, told The Concordian.

The BDS movement calls for banks, local councils and other institutions “to withdraw investments from all Israeli companies,” according to the movement’s official website. The movement also calls on governments to “fulfill their legal obligation to hold Israel to account by ending military trade [and] free-trade agreements” and for people and organizations to “withdraw support for Israel and Israeli and international companies that are involved in the violation of Palestinian human rights.”

In December 2014, Concordia Student Union (CSU) members voted in favour of endorsing the BDS movement against Israel. While the CSU’s membership totals approximately 35,000 undergraduate students, only 2,343 students cast a vote.

Following the vote, Concordia president Alan Shepard wrote that the “result of the vote [was independent] of the university.”

Chemssy—a friend of Lew—and her colleague, IOC Concordia vice-president of finance Jonathan Mamane, have been following the situation at McGill closely.

Mamane, who was part of the “Vote no to BDS” campaign at Concordia in 2014, said he was not surprised Lew was not ratified.

At IOC Concordia meetings following the SSMU general assembly’s decision not to ratify Lew, Chemssy said people were shocked. “We thought Concordia was the most turbulent [of the two] campuses,” admitted Chemssy, who ran for an elected position in the March 2017 CSU elections.

“We thought, ‘Oh my God, this is happening next door. How are we supposed to react now?’” she said. According to Chemssy, she and IOC McGill president Grace Miller-Day are currently planning a “fun and non-political” event to bring people from both universities together.

According to Mamane, “there isn’t much of a working relationship” at the moment between IOC Concordia and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) Concordia—which supported the 2014 BDS vote. “However, some of us interact and engage other members in civil dialogue,” Mamane said.

The Concordian reached out to SPHR president Mustafa Bokesmati who wrote in a text message that his organization “would like to avoid discussing [the situation at McGill] publicly.”

“We have tried to do things with some organizations in the past and I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t usually work out,” Mamane said.

“There are values on both sides and, if both groups can’t agree to some things, then it doesn’t end up working out so well and sometimes it’s better to just not do things together,” Mamane told The Concordian.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

A clarification has been added to this article regarding how many CSU members voted in favour of endorsing the BDS movement. The Concordian regrets the misunderstanding.

Categories
News

Ammonia at Parmalat factory not a concern to Concordia university

The risk of an ammonia leak at Parmalat factory is not a threat to Concordia students, according to the university. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

After deadly leak in British Columbia arena, Loyola assures no risk at Ed Meagher arena

Three arena workers in Fernie, B.C., died after being exposed to ammonia following a leak in October. Ammonia is “very toxic” and “fatal if inhaled,” according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

As for Concordia’s Ed Meagher Arena, the last ammonia leak dates back to 2005. It was during the month of October, in one of Paul Donovan’s first years as president of Loyola High School.

The leak happened one morning while Donovan and his administrative team—the two vice-principals of academics and the vice-principal of discipline—were across the street at Second Cup, according to a 2014 article in Loyola Today.

Since Loyola High School is located beside the arena, the building was evacuated and students were moved to the nearby St-Ignatius of Loyola Church, with the help of Donovan and his colleagues.

Heather Dubee, the Loyola High School director of communications, confirmed there hasn’t been an ammonia leak at the arena since 2005. According to the school’s building manager, the chemical is no longer used, although there’s still ammonia down the street.

The Parmalat factory at the intersection of Elmhurst Avenue and St-Jacques Street still uses ammonia to cool their products, according to Anita Jarjour, Parmalat Canada’s director of government and industry relations.

“The safest and most efficient way of cooling dairy products and maintaining temperature is the use [of] an ammonia cooling system,” Jarjour wrote in an email to The Concordian.

Two years ago, an ammonia leak happened at a Parmalat factory in Winchester, Ont., according to CBC News. An investigation by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change was launched at the time. The company told the ministry the leak was an “isolated event” and only a litre of ammonia leaked. Nonetheless, a resident who lived close to the factory told CBC News she “couldn’t breathe [the air].”

According to Jarjour, “it is of utmost importance for [Parmalat] to ensure the safety of the community in which our facility is located as well as the safety of our 360 employees working on site.”

In addition, she explained that Parmalat complies “with all applicable safety regulations and safety measures.”

As a precaution, Dubee said the high school ran an ammonia leak drill last year. “Loyola’s procedure is to ensure that all students, faculty and staff remain indoors and the ventilation system is turned off,” she explained.

According to Concordia University spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr, “a very specific weather pattern would need to occur for there to be a threat to the Loyola campus” if an ammonia leak occurred.  “Concordia’s Loyola campus may be affected, but the risk is very low,” she said.

In the event of a leak, Concordia “would work closely with city officials to ensure all of the appropriate measures were implemented,” Barr said. These measures could involve “keeping faculty, staff and students indoors until the situation is resolved.”

Jarjour confirmed that Parmalat would also work with Montreal city officials in the event of a leak.

“We also collaborate with the city of Montreal’s public safety department to test our external siren if there were to be such an incident,” she said, adding that the next siren test will be on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 2:10 p.m.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Exit mobile version