Author: Gregory Todaro

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News

GSA tensions turn into a complaint

Graphic by Florence Yee

Former GSA president files case against GSA for discrimination and harassment from former directors

A former president of Concordia’s Graduate Student’s Association (GSA) is filing a civil rights complaint against the organization and some of its directors for harassment and discrimination.

During his year-long term as the organization’s president, Alex Ocheoha said he was subjected to hostile treatment from GSA directors starting from the organization’s first council meeting in June 2015.

“They were addressing me in a disrespectful manner, they were shouting at me, they were… trying to cause trouble at the meetings,” he said.

The GSA is made up of a five-person executive team and 20 directors who vote in the organization’s council.

After the first council meeting, Ocheoha said he thought the hostility might have stemmed from a small misunderstanding of how the GSA is supposed to function. “I thought it was something we could talk over and clear it up,” he said. “We tried to have a meeting, but [the directors] didn’t agree to come… They were not interested in coming.”

Ocheoha said the directors continually found ways to prevent him from fulfilling his mandate as GSA president and that their email communications felt like racial and cyber harassment.

“It was a terrible period for me,” he said. “I had never experienced anything like that before in my life.”

In emails obtained by The Concordian, GSA directors responded to Ocheoha’s complaints of harassment in emails shared with everyone in the organization. On Oct 29, Ocheoha received a response to an email from then-GSA director Rahul Kumar—the whole GSA organization was cc’d on said email. It read, “What do you want to prove from this, Alex? That you are full of shit?”

When Ocheoha pointed out that this was an example of ongoing harassment, another former director, Mathilde Ngo Mbom, responded: “Aaaaw the grown-up man feels harassed! Take your balls out of the pockets, put them where (i.e: between your legs) they should be and stop being a crying baby.”

“The next time you show some sense of mental disorder, I’ll send these emails to the police and they will request that you meet a psychiatrist (by force) because you need one,” she wrote.  

In an interview with The Concordian on Nov. 27, Ngo Mbom expressed regret for the tone of the email. “We were passionate,” she said. “We wanted what’s best for students. I was too forceful, but I’m glad I fought for the students, not for the executives.”

“I’m not saying we had the right to say what we did,” she added.

Ngo Mbom said the tone in those emails resulted from workplace tension caused by Ocheoha. She said even before the Oct. 29 exchange, Ocheoha would take any criticisms of his role as harassment and threaten to sue the GSA directors.

Those threats, Ngo Mbom said, caused fear in many of the GSA’s directors. Many of them were international students and she said international students actively avoid getting into legal trouble which could affect their study visa. This inhibited directors from working with him, she said.

“At a certain point, you don’t want to push because of the complaint of harassment,” said Ngo Mbom. “If [Ocheoha] says no, you back off.”

Kumar said the tension had been building up, “and I snapped. It wasn’t mature and I regret that.”

Both Kumar and Ngo Mbom said they apologized to Ocheoha for the comments they made, but that he didn’t seem willing to work with them afterwards. Instead, they said it felt like Ocheoha spent the rest of the year trying to build a legal case against them.

However, Ocheoha said there were never formal apologies for the emails sent on Oct. 29.

Ocheoha said the harassment also manifested itself through the organization’s newly-created oversight committee. The committee’s role was to review work reports from executives and recommend to the GSA council whether or not executives were fulfilling their work responsibilities and deserved their full bursary. Both Kumar and Ngo Mbom were members of that committee.

Both former directors said Ocheoha inadequately answered questions they had about his reports.

“He took asking him why he couldn’t do a task as harassment,” said Kumar.

Rupinder Kaur, who served as the GSA’s vice president of academic and advocacy until December 2015, said several directors would fight Ocheoha at every turn. “Whatever he said, they had to disagree,” she said. “He wasn’t getting any kind of cooperation.”

Kaur found the whole environment too stressful for her, which is why she left before the end of her term. “The environment was very unhealthy,” she said.

Ocheoha sought help from the university’s Office of Rights and Responsibilities as well as Concordia’s dean of students. While Ocheoha said the ORR wouldn’t help because the GSA is it’s own independent organization, he said the dean of students helped arrange a reconciliatory meeting— which saw little turnout.

The GSA itself has no internal body or organization to handle complaints like this, said Ngo Mbom.

“There’s no system,” she said, adding that, in 2014, the GSA directors made a list of recommendations to deal with this type of tension. “Even if there was, I’m not sure it would have been enforced.”

“There were internal difficulties, internal infighting even before Alex was elected,” said Fo Niemi, the director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, which is representing Ocheoha in the complaint. “When Alex was president of the GSA, he experienced harassment by some directors of the GSA. Even if there was an advocacy person there, conflict of interests could’ve arisen because it’s so internal. It’s an internal mess.”

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Opinions

It’s time we dump Mr. Trump

After a campaign of smoke and mirrors, it must be hard to defend him

I know you’re all tired of hearing about American politics and I didn’t plan to write an opinion piece on the matter leading up to Tuesday’s vote. However, last week, The Concordian published “Donald J. Trump is my personal choice,” an opinions piece so selective in its use of partial truths and logical fallacies it’s laughable. While I don’t have the space available to challenge every line I could contest, I’ll take some time to address a few of the most absurd arguments.

Let’s just start with the claim that Trump can, in any way, be a “peace candidate.” This view is unsupported and, frankly, ludicrous. Trump is the candidate who allegedly, during a meeting with a foreign policy expert, asked three times why the United States couldn’t use nuclear weapons, according to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. He also clearly expressed his willingness to give more countries nuclear weapons and to use them in the Middle East and Europe during several interviews.

This indicates a willingness to use these weapons, which might stem from either a lack of understanding of the consequences of starting a nuclear war or a lack of concern for those consequences—and I’m not sure which is worse. Trump even said “I love war in a certain way,” during a campaign speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa almost a year ago. In that same speech, he said “I’ll bomb the shit out of them,” referring to ISIS, in order to clear oil-rich areas to get the oil for the United States. As the non-partisan fact checking group Politifact reported, Trump also expressed support for the war in Iraq—something he now regularly denies he ever said.

None of this even includes the fact that Trump said during campaign events that he’d be willing to target the families of suspected terrorists and use torture, including waterboarding. These are not the policies of a “peace candidate,” and to make such a claim is bordering on disillusionment.

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

A team of journalists at Vox examined Trump’s statements about his foreign policy and found a common thread: he believes foreign policy needs to be tied to the US’s financial interests. “The problem is that foreign policy can’t be reduced to a question of dollars and cents,” they wrote, “and attempts to do so—even in the form of Trump’s bombastic campaign rhetoric—can do lasting damage.”

All this doesn’t even cover the level of domestic unrest that could emerge with Trump’s presidency. The encouragement of stop-and-frisk policies—which, as a 2013 court case in New York highlighted, can be abused and violate American’s fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure—are part of his “law and order” stance.

These policies are a continuation of policies which contributed to the U.S. having the highest prison population rate in the world, according to The Washington Post. It’s also difficult to see how breaking up families and kicking out more than 11 million undocumented immigrants with a deportation task force, as Trump has promised to do, is something that can be done peacefully or easily.

This isn’t to say that I think Hillary Clinton’s neoliberalist policies will move the world towards peace or cut down America’s military industrial complex. However, she has decades of experience and her stability in the face of international turmoil will allow her to guide the United States through the rough waters of international relations. The last thing we need is someone as unstable as Trump, who has shown repeatedly on his Twitter page that he’s quick to shoot from the hip without thinking of the consequences.  

On a quick side note, Trump’s immigration policy in particular is serving as a rallying cry for white supremacy groups across the country. Trump’s legitimization of racist rhetoric has contributed to a political climate where someone like former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon David Duke can openly run for the senate in Louisiana.

Trump has definitely amassed a questionable group of supporters to say the least. Take a look at the endorsement of Trump by The Crusader, a prominent white-supremacist publication. While Trump’s campaign has condemned the endorsement, it nonetheless serves as an example of how his rhetoric and policies appeal to a violent group of racist extremists.

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

If those voting for Trump are unable to acknowledge or even question why he appeals to such people, they (no matter how unwillingly) contribute to legitimizing these deplorable groups and what they stand for.

Now, onto the claim that Trump is somehow “pro-ethics.” It’s true that his policy puts forward some measures to fight for term limits and push back against lobbying in Washington. However, it doesn’t hide the fact that he runs a large company which is a massive conflict of interest, one which I find more of an issue than any potential conflict critics have pinned on Clinton.

This is especially troubling since, according to Newsweek, he’s given three different answers about the fate of his company and finances should he win, none which properly separate him from those conflicts of interest.

After refusing to release his tax returns, it’s difficult for voters to know if he has ties to Russian financial institutions. However, an investigative report by Slate magazine revealed regular email communication between Trump email servers and the servers of Alfa Bank, a Russian bank established in the 90s.

Last week’s article took a narrow view on ethics, only looking at financial conflicts of interest of the candidates. It’s much easier to defend Trump based on his claims that he’s taken less money from special interest groups, but even if it were true that’s really the only ethical high ground for a candidate who has repeatedly behaved disgustingly during the campaign.

I won’t waste too much space elaborating on Trump’s degradation of women, people with disabilities, journalists, judges and other politicians. And I would need a separate article just to list the number of people he’s refused to pay for their work—such as Larry Walters, the owner of a Las Vegas drapery company interviewed by the Wall Street Journal—or his hypocritical exploitation of undocumented workers as reported by Slate. I think it’s clear ethics and Trump don’t mix.

I have two more brief points to cover. First, arguing that Trump isn’t a misogynist (despite overwhelming evidence which suggests otherwise) because he supports paid maternity is simply outrageous. Even if supporting paid maternity leave was sufficient to say someone wasn’t a misogynist, he has a lifetime of comments and actions—including his comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and his hot mic comments with Billy Bush—which say otherwise.

And second, trying to use Clinton’s gay marriage flip-flop to paint her as an immoral candidate is embarrassingly laughable, considering Trump’s running mate said same-sex marriage is causing a “societal collapse,” according to Time magazine. Pence has even advocated for conversion therapy, according to Politifact.

It’s a shame that I have to spend all of this space rebutting this deplorable defence instead of actually focusing on a campaign between two candidates and how they could better the lives of Americans and the world.

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News

CRARR calls for review of harassment policy

Fo Niemi (left), director of CRARR, with Mei Ling (right) in 2015. Mei Ling’s case was one of several complaints to the Quebec human rights commission. Photo by Marie-Pierre Savard.

The civil rights organization is advising students to suspend ongoing internal complaints

A non-profit civil rights organization is urging Concordia University to fix what it considers to be inconsistent sexual harassment policies.

In a written statement issued on Friday, the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) also advised students currently filing a complaint internally at Concordia to immediately suspend their complaint.

Citing its work on multiple cases of discrimination against the university to the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission—including Mei Ling’s case in 2015 and Felicia’s case this year—CRARR said Concordia needs to improve the consistency of sexual harassment policies across the university to better protect victims of gender-based discrimination and other forms of harassment.

“We strongly encourage the university to immediately work with different stakeholders to harmonize these different policies and ensure that a single definition of sexual harassment that corresponds to the standard of the law is available to students and staff in Concordia’s complaints process,” said CRARR executive director Fo Niemi, in a written statement.

CRARR said the university’s Sexual Assault Working Group (SAWG) did not address what they consider inconsistencies with several definitions of sexual harassment in different policies.

“The fact that there are different definitions at Concordia, all of which can be deemed to fall below established legal standards of sexual harassment, may give rise to the possibility that victims of sexual harassment have been inadequately treated in all human resource practices and student support services at Concordia,” said Katrina Sole-Kähler, a member of the CRARR Working Group reviewing Concordia’s harassment policies.

Specifically, CRARR is criticizing differences in Concordia’s 2016 policy regarding sexual violence—which covers all members of the Concordia community—and three other policy agreements: the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association collective agreement which covers all part time faculty; the university’s policy on harassment as outlined in 2011, which covers all staff, faculty members and university administration; and the 2010 update of the Code of Rights and Responsibilities which encompasses all members of the university.

However, Concordia senior advisor of external communications, Cléa Desjardins, said all of the university’s collective agreements are meant to be read together with all the university policies.

“The definition of sexual harassment in CUPFA collective agreement is not intended to limit the scope of what constitutes sexual harassment,” she added.

Desjardins also said that the recommendations from the university’s SAWG, which was established in 2015, included making a standalone policy on sexual violence update and “harmonize” the Code of Rights and Responsibilities with the new sexual violence policy.

“Currently, a revision of the Code of Rights is underway and any appropriate modifications of the Code will be made during this process,” she said.

In response to CRARR’s call for students to suspend ongoing internal complaints at Concordia, Desjardins said the university still encourages any member of the community who feels that they have been the victim of violence or harassment to seek support either with Sexual Assault Resource Centre, the Office of Rights and Responsibilities or the Campus Wellness and Support Services.

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Opinions

Safe spaces: Both useful and necessary

Graphic by Thom Bell.

Why misconceptions about safe spaces lead to conflict

As safe spaces pop up on university campuses across the country, so too does the debate of limiting free speech. All too often, critics of safe spaces say the concept is designed to keep out ideas or opinions that conflict with a particular set of beliefs or values. And all too often, I’ve heard people call these spaces “closed-minded,” and complain that students are being babied and coddled.

These arguments barely have a leg to stand on. In some cases, this dislike towards safe spaces is a genuine disrespect of an individual’s right to want to get away from various forms of oppression. However, I do feel much of the aversion to these spaces stems from a lack of understanding of what a safe space actually is. I rarely see any critiques of safe spaces actually take the time to properly explain what a safe space is, or the complexity of safe space policies in general. So, before breaking down why the spaces actually contribute to campus and student life, it’s important to look at what constitutes a safe space.

While the specifics of any particular safe space vary, at its essence, it’s a space where individuals can feel protected from unwanted or unsafe situations based on gender, race, age, sexuality, religion affiliation and other aspects of identity, orientation or beliefs. In these spaces, respect for every individual’s background and experiences is key. In communities as diverse as Montreal and Concordia, students from all walks of life have different relationships with the world, and it’s vital that we provide a space that allows for a respectful conversation about these differences.

Graphic by Florence Yee.

Certain groups with particular goals or mandates will create safe space rules that reflect their values. This summer, executives—including myself—at Concordia’s LGBTQ+ resource centre, Queer Concordia, rewrote the organization’s safe space policy. In it, we highlighted the importance of creating a space free from not only homophobia and transphobia, but also sexism, racism and ableism, among other aspects of identity. The policy also has specific rules against hate speech, and outlines a specific protocol for addressing various offences of the safe space policy, including the handling of offensive language.

Canadians have a fundamental, undeniable right to free speech as outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—but even those rights fall short of protecting against hate speech. In that regard, safe spaces like Queer Concordia’s don’t deny anyone any freedom of speech rights already implemented in the law.

Where the confusion comes in is perhaps the prohibited use of “offensive language” and the difficulty in defining what can be considered offensive. Everyone has a different line as to what they find offensive, and it’s difficult to draw one solid line in the sand. However, safe spaces like the one at Queer Concordia try to create a “call-out culture” where “calling out” offensive language and sentiments can be used as an opportunity to educate people about why certain language or expressions are considered offensive.The process of “calling out” involves explaining and discussing why a phrase, expression or action is offensive—the total opposite of shutting down all conversation. This isn’t stifling free speech, this is creating a culture where we can break down the language we use, and understand how it’s harmful to marginalized groups or individuals.

It’s also important to note that “calling out” doesn’t happen only to privileged individuals or those with different political views, but it could also happen to marginalized people who may speak offensively without realizing it. “Calling out” shouldn’t be considered shameful or mean—it’s a way to generate conversation and realize our own biases and problematic tendencies.

For marginalized students, safe spaces can be one of the only places they feel they have the power or security to discuss these ideas. It’s easy to say bad ideas can be defeated in a sort of “free market” of ideas. However, when you consider that these marginalized individuals have long been denied the opportunity to discuss their ideas in any way, how else are new ideas from these marginalized communities supposed to develop?

Safe spaces provide a place for different ideas to develop and grow without being shut down by a system that was never created to account for differing perspectives—like modern-day versions of 18th century salons in France, home to intellectual discussions lead by marginalized groups. If nothing else, the increase in safe spaces across university campuses is a sign that the concept of a safe space is succeeding in this “free market.”

These safe spaces are generally small pockets scattered across campuses, not large, university-led initiatives. Having safe spaces on campus isn’t affecting the whole student population. Even the use of trigger warnings in class won’t end the possibility of debate or discussion—they simply give students the opportunity to leave the room if they feel the need to do so. In a cinema course I took last year, one of the films screened was I Spit On Your Grave—the 1978 film infamous for having the longest rape scene in history at around 25 minutes. By warning the class, the professor might have saved victims of sexual violence from reliving their traumatic experiences. It’s unrealistic to expect victims of sexual violence to disclose this sort of private and personal information to their professors. The 30 seconds it takes to warn students about something like this takes nothing away from other students’ learning experience.

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News

Homa Hoodfar free after 112-day imprisonment

Concordia faculty held a press conference regarding Hoodfar's release. Photo by Greg Todaro.

Colleagues: “We’re still in a state of shock” about release from Iranian prison

After 16 weeks of imprisonment in Iran, Concordia professor Homa Hoodfar landed in Oman on Monday a free woman. Hoodfar spent 112 days in a Tehran jail. While the charges laid against Hoodfar and the reason for her release are yet unknown, family and friends, including her colleague from Concordia’s School of Public Affairs, Marguerite Mendell, are just happy for her freedom.

“We’re still in a state of shock,” said Mendell at a press conference on Monday.

“We didn’t expect this news at all,” added Marc Lafrance, a Concordia assistant professor from the sociology and anthropology department. “I can’t find the words to describe my joy.”

Photos of the Canadian-Iranian professor have been shared on social media and while Mendell said Hoodfar seems frail and thin, seeing her able to walk on her own is a positive sign. Hoodfar, who is 65 years old, has a degenerative neurological disorder. She was reportedly not receiving the proper medication during her imprisonment.

Mendell said Hoodfar was asked to write about and explain her research after her first arrest and leading up to her incarceration. Her academic work has focused on gender and sexuality in Islam. However, Mendell said Hoodfar’s trip to Iran was for personal reasons and to conduct some archival work.

“She’s an ethnographer, and an anthropologist … her work is not political,” said Mendell.

Hoodfar’s colleagues also said she underwent interrogations that lasted eight or nine hours at a time and she reportedly spent time in solitary confinement—with no access to a lawyer.

Kimberly Manning, principal at Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, expressed her joy of Hoodfar’s release by taking off her “#FreeHoma” pin for good.

“I’m very happy to say I get to take it off today,” she said during the press conference. “The fact that Homa has been a real champion for understanding the lives of women is not without note on this moment. This is something that so many people from so many diverse walks of life rallied to recognize and to call for her freedom on that basis.”

Those rallying for Hoodfar included help from the embassies of Oman, Italy and Switzerland. Canada ended diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012. In a statement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked those diplomats, adding they were “instrumental in helping secure Dr. Hoodfar’s release.”

At a Board of Governors meeting on Monday, Concordia University President Alan Shepard said he is super thrilled that Hoodfar is on her way home. “We did our best both behind the scenes and in front of the cameras and once she’s had the chance to settle back and get some rest … I’ll be very interested to get any lessons she has [for] us in case we ever find ourselves in this situation again or other institutions find themselves in this situation,” he said.

Concordia students and faculty gathered in solidarity with Homa Hoodfar. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Protests for Hoodfar’s release happened both in Canada and abroad: in Montreal, more than 100 people gathered on Sept. 21 to bring attention to her imprisonment; in Dublin, Concordia Irish Studies professor Emer O’Toole helped organize a protest outside the Iranian embassy on Sept. 7.

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt so much relief in my life,” said Hayley Lewis, Concordia’s demonstration organizer, and former student of Hoodfar. “I am so, so happy that Homa is coming home to us.”

“I think that her release is excellent news. In terms of what contributed to it—I don’t really have any inside information—but I think that definitely the fact that there’s a wide range in show of support from Canadians across the country and particularly the Concordia community, it definitely contributed positively to what happened,” said Alex Tyrrell, leader of the Green Party of Quebec and a speaker at Concordia’s demonstration for Homa.

However, Lewis said there is still a lot of work to be done on behalf of those who are still imprisoned and equally deserve freedom. “That being said, I’m overjoyed by Homa’s release and so grateful that we can all continue to benefit from her presence in our lives and communities,” she said.

While it’s unclear when Hoodfar will return to Canada, or where she will be medically examined, her niece, Amanda Ghahremani, flew to Oman to meet her.

With files from Savanna Craig and Cristina Sanza

Categories
News

Student files human rights complaint against Concordia

Graphic by Florence Yee.

Claims she was fired after seeking help for workplace harassment

Felicia* loves talking to people. Her ability to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, is immediately noticeable — and it’s one of the reasons she loved working at Concordia’s Campus Corner on the downtown campus. For two-and-a-half years, Felicia worked part-time at the university while studying in the classics, modern languages, and linguistics department.

However, when she began working with a new employee in September 2015, she no longer felt safe in a place she had considered a second home—so much so that even she found it hard to talk to anyone about it, she said.

“As an individual, he made me feel really uncomfortable—and I couldn’t talk to the other employee [during my shift] about it because I didn’t want to ruin the [atmosphere],” she said.“I felt like if I was really, really nice, he’d be nicer.”

Felicia said that after more than a month of both sexual and gender-based harassment, she was no longer able to internalize the problem. “The more I was exposed to this, the more I was keeping it in,” she said. “It was building and building and, in November, I just crashed.”

She started having panic attacks and, after an encounter late in November, she experienced a panic attack that required her to seek medical help and miss a week of class and work.

Convinced she no other options, Felicia arranged a meeting with her manager to seek help for the harassment she had been facing.

“I told her what happened—I thought there would be a solution,” Felicia said. “Then she asked me, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I’m not going to tell my boss what to do. I’m the employee, I listen to you.”

Felicia asked her manager if they could be assigned different shifts but was told that wasn’t possible. Instead, her manager’s solution was to cut Felicia’s hours—but she was still scheduled to work with her harasser. Felicia went back to her manager to ask for a different solution, and that’s when she said her manager decided to let her go.

Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR)— which is now representing Felicia and assisted Mei Ling in her complaint against the Arts and Science Federation of Associations last year—said this raises questions as to how management is trained to deal with harassment in the workplace.

“Managers or supervisors are supposed to be trained with how to deal with the situation very effectively,” he said. “We don’t know whether there’s any training. [Felicia] went to the manager for help, and she didn’t get the proper resolution— and she got terminated.”

While the university doesn’t comment on ongoing cases against them, they responded to questions pertaining to how managers at Concordia are trained to deal with workplace harassment.

“Concordia offers professional development training to its managers on a variety of issues, including workplace harassment,” said university spokesperson Chris Mota. Training on harassment in the workplace for managers, facilitated by the Department of Human Resources and the Office of Rights and Responsibilities, has been offered since 2011, she added. However, Mota said that employees are not trained to deal with harassment—rather, it is the manager’s responsibility to address such issues.

“When I lost my job, my heart kind of broke,” Felicia said. “I felt lost.” The stress and anxiety became so difficult for her to deal with that her academic performance also suffered. Felicia, who had a 3.47 GPA before September 2015, finished the 2015-2016 academic year with a 0.7 GPA.

In February 2016, Felicia filed a complaint to Concordia’s Office of Rights and Responsibilities (ORR) against the employee. She also filed a complaint with the Commission des normes du travail against the university for having been dismissed without good and sufficient cause, insufficient indemnity pay and for being dismissed for exercising her right to a workplace free of harassment.

When Felicia met with the ORR, she was told everything at the meeting would remain confidential.

“I was told everything would be confidential and that they would have to do an investigation and that they’d contact my boss’ boss,” said Felicia. “The thing is, if my complaint with normes du travail correlated with the complaint with the university internally, they would stop the investigation and they would stop everything.”

Despite the fact that Felicia said the complaints to the ORR and the commission were different—the first complaint focused on the employee and the second on the university itself—the ORR ended its investigation. They also transferred the case files to Concordia’s Human Resources. “Everything I said in confidence was actually transferred to the administration,” said Felicia, adding that they never asked for her permission to do so beforehand.

Felicia said she was then contacted by HR, who requested she attend a meeting with her former manager. However, recalling former Le Gym employee Rose Tandel’s problems with Concordia’s HR department in 2013, Felicia decided against attending the meeting.

Meanwhile, the complaint filed with the Commission des normes du travail hit two major roadblocks. First, Niemi said they were told that, because Felicia didn’t have a contract as a part-time employee, there wasn’t enough evidence that she worked at Concordia long enough to file for wrongful dismissal. Additionally, in order to pursue the psychological harassment complaint, Felicia would have to present the case in front of the labour board, a process which is time-consuming and would require Felicia to pay additional costs.

Now CRARR is helping Felicia take her complaint to the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse. There, Niemi said they’ll look for a “systemic remedy.”

“We’re asking for mandatory training for managers and supervisors on harassment— how to resolve it, how to identify it, how to correct it and how to prevent it,” he said.

He also noted that this isn’t the first time complaints have been filed against Concordia. “We see a pattern that somehow internally the mechanisms don’t work as much as they should,” said Niemi. “There’s not enough of a speedy resolution or an effective system provided to a student or employee feels discriminated or harassed.”

Felicia is also seeking $45,000 in damages.

*Name has been changed to ensure the individual’s privacy and protection.

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU pledges $185,600 for Hive kitchen move

Photo by Gregory Todaro.

The move to the new space is expected to happen in 2018

It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon at Concordia’s downtown campus. But wandering around the Hall building’s seventh floor, the smell of fresh peanut butter cookies and the sound of mountains of crisp, fresh kale being chopped are a sign of life in the otherwise still building.

Photo by Gregory Todaro.

For the three cooks in the Hive Café Co-op kitchen, it’s a Sunday like any other.

Food coordinator Shylah Wolfe usually starts her day with a 10 a.m. grocery run and spends the whole day cooking and baking the food which will be sold at the Hive’s two on-campus locations. This Sunday, Wolfe made 90 peanut butter cookies, as well as the vegan rosemary chocolate chip cookies which lay cooling on trays near one of the dozen windows along the room’s back wall. The space is bigger than the Hive currently needs—something Colleen Risby, a chef with the Hive since September 2015, knows all too well. She said her pedometer has hit four kilometres in a day. “

“It’s like a football field in here,” she said.

But this space is a vast improvement from the kitchen the Hive was using when they started two years ago. Wolfe said she was working from the kitchen on the Loyola campus which, as she explained while scooping cookie dough from a large stainless steel bowl, didn’t even have knobs on appliances.

“We have knobs everywhere now,” joked Jay Manicom, a cook for the Hive since October 2015, from the next table over.

“Yes, we do have knobs here,” she laughed. “We’ve made such great strides.”

Now, thanks in part to a $185,600 allocation approved at the Concordia Student Union’s last special council meeting on Thursday, the Hive is preparing to take it’s next big step. In 2017, Concordia University will be making major renovations to the Hall building’s seventh floor—changes which mean a new kitchen space for the Hive.

Photo by Gregory Todaro.

“I think it’s a positive thing for the university to promote and allow student initiatives to play with food and learn about food,” said Colleen Risby, a chef with the Hive since September 2015.

Concordia will be covering costs of the infrastructure changes on the seventh floor, a project which will require the Hive’s current kitchen space to be demolished temporarily until the new space is open sometime in 2018.

Despite the university taking the brunt of the costs for the project, the Hive still needed help with purchasing kitchen equipment for the new space. The $185,600 will cover purchasing a commercial kettle, tilt skillet, grill and oven among other tables and appliances. While the actual costs of the items will be less than the amount asked from the CSU, Hive Café co-founder and Hive Café Mezzanine coordinator Jess Cabana explained a portion of the cost will go towards what she called a “contingency cushion,” or a sort of safety net in case unexpected costs arise. However, the motion passed at council stipulated that all money not used for the project would be returned to the CSU at the end of the move.

During their presentation to council, Cabana and Wolfe highlighted how important this move would be for the Hive and the necessity to act quickly. The group only had two weeks to let the university know if they were on-board with the new plans and Cabana said not taking advantage of this opportunity “would take away momentum” from the Hive.

“[There are] three main reasons why we need this money,” Cabana said to the CSU council. “The first is to keep what we have.”

Photo by Gregory Todaro.

The Hive currently makes 80 per cent of its food in-house and 70 per cent of the food sold is organic. Cabana said keeping a kitchen space will allow the Hive to maintain and stabilize its current services.

“We also want to enhance service to students,” she said. “The last one is really about opening opportunities.”

CSU general coordinator Terry Wilkings said contributing to the Hive’s move fits in with the organization’s mandates around food systems—five of the last nine referendum questions passed by the CSU related to the topic.

“Given the timely nature of the proposal and the very significant financial contribution from the university we feel that it is a large part of our mandate to support these types of initiatives,” he said, adding the funding proposal was for roughly two per cent of current amount in the Student Space fund.

Cabana said she was both excited and proud of the new project because of what it means to students. “This project is a milestone in gaining more control over the food we eat and increasing engagement opportunities for students in our local food system,” she said.

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ASFA Election Results

ASFA has officially announced the results of its general election and referendum question. Check out the full results below:

Total: 540 voted

President: Andrea Kraznai (elected)

–Yes: 318
-No: 69
-Abstain: 145

VP of Social Affairs: Marc Da Silva (elected)

-Yes: 335
-No: 68
-Abstain: 130

Vp of External Affairs and Sustainability: Agunik Mamikonyan (elected)

–Yes: 314
No: 65
-Abstain: 158

VP of Loyola and Academic affairs: Rachel Rammal (elected)

–Yes: 299
-No: 71
-Abstain: 164

Vp of Internal Affairs: Julia Sutera (elected)

–Yes: 299
-No: 102
-Abstain: 135

Vp of Finance

–Christina Massaro: 218 (elected)
–Rachael Hutchinson: 129
-Abstain: 185

Vp of Communications and Promotions

-Megha Sandhu: 88 (elected)
–Maria Salouros: 70
-Mario Seddik: 63
-David Ness: 63
-Mallory Vigier: 25
-Luslie Henry: 11
-Abstain: 213

 

Independent Councillors:

  1. Alisa Knezevic (elected)

Yes: 164

No: 77

Abstain: 297

  1. Bianca Bruzzese (elected)

Yes: 195

No: 71

Abstain: 269

  1. Camille Williams (elected)

Yes: 170

No: 72

Abstain: 293

  1. Farah Abdel-Hamid (elected)

Yes: 180

No: 82

Abstain: 278

  1. Laura Bustamante

Yes: 160

No: 59

Abstain: 312

  1. Mark Ausilio

Yes: 151

No: 76

Abstain: 311

  1. Malica Fils-Aimé

Yes: 123

No: 81
Abstain: 330

  1. Thomas David-Bashore (elected)

Yes: 169

No: 73

Abstain: 294

  1. Sakina Bano Mendha

Yes: 127

No: 88

Abstain: 323

 

Referendum Questions:

  1. QUESTION: Do you, as a member of ASFA, approve of the proposed amendments to ASFA’s By-Laws and Annexes?

    -Yes: 210
    -No: 222 (didn’t pass)
    –    Abstain: 101

  1. QUESTION: Do you as a member of the ASFA approve of the ASFA increasing all its fees (currently totalling $1.22/credit) to a new total of $1.36/credit effective Fall 2016?

    -Yes: 217
    -No: 243 (didn’t pass)
    –    Abstain: 67

  1. QUESTION: Do you agree that Article 25 of the ASFA By-Laws (No Independent Fee) shall be struck from the ASFA by-laws?

    -Yes: 214 (passed)
    –    No: 157
    -Abstain: 165

  1. QUESTION: Do you as a member of the ASFA approve of levying a fee of $0.10/credit for the Hive Café Cooperative for the sole purpose of running the Hive Free Lunch Program effective Fall 2016?

    -Yes: 341 (passed)
    –    No: 142
    -Abstain: 54

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Complaint filed over alleged TRAC violation of labour code

Former TRAC executive cites lack of transparency, $16,000 discrepancy in budget

A former executive of the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC) union has filed a complaint with the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) of Quebec, claiming TRAC did not give him full access to the organization’s financial records.

According to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Concordian, Robert Sonin—former TRAC president and current member due to his work as an invigilator—first approached TRAC executives in January of this year after noticing a $16,348.93 discrepancy in financial reports shared at a general assembly. Sonin said he requested to view the union’s financial account books and meeting minutes. While Sonin said he was shown an Excel spreadsheet, he claimed he was denied access to receipts and other financial documents which he, as a TRAC member, should be able to access under the organization’s own rules.

In the complaint—which is officially pointed at the Quebec regional branch of the national labour union Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)—Sonin is accusing TRAC of being both “in violation of their own bylaw 8.1 (c), in that they have not provided a member in good standing with access to [TRAC’s] financial records.”

Sonin told The Concordian the numbers shown in a Powerpoint presentation during the TRAC general assembly weren’t adding up. Despite reporting a total income of $87,911.55 and $61,772.46 in expenses—a difference of $26,139.09—the organization only reported a leftover surplus of $9,790.16 carried over into the 2014-2015 year, a difference of $16,348.93.

“What’s reported is all over the place,” Sonin said. “It never adds up properly … I don’t think they have a handle on the actual finances.”

However, TRAC secretary-treasurer Parmida Atighechian, who has worked on the union’s executive team since last year, said they showed Sonin everything he asked for.

“We have shown him, actually, the bank account, so I don’t know what else we had to show him,” said Atighechian.

Atighechian also told The Concordian that Sonin was eventually disaffiliated with PSAC.

“The first time when he came to us, we actually showed him all the documents that we had,” said Atighechian. “But the second time, PSAC came to us and actually asked us not to respond to him.”

When asked about the budgetary discrepancy, Atighechian at first said she wasn’t aware of the issue or what caused it. “But you understand, this is two years before I even came into TRAC,” she said.

When pressed for more information, TRAC responded they would need more time to look over their finances than this article’s deadline allowed.

TRAC’s next general assembly is set to take place on Tuesday, April 12 at 5:00 p.m. in the Hall Building, room H-763. Nomination period for TRAC’s executive team officially ends Tuesday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m.

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ASFA to retry referendum initiative

Councillors and executives say question on restructuring was unclear

After reports of questionable election practices during the Arts and Science Federation of Associations referendum last week, councilors decided to ask students to vote on referendum questions a second time. The decision faced vocal opposition from several councillors but was passed during a special council meeting on Friday.

The motion, which was approved in a 9-7 vote by council, cited decisions by ASFA’s chief electoral officer as a reason for “the proposal and bylaws (sic) changes be put back to ballot during the ASFA general elections so the student population can make a proper informed decision.”

Students in the Arts and Science faculty will have the chance to re-vote to restructure the organization into mainly a funding body for its Member Associations (MAs) from April 6 to 8 during ASFA’s general election.

While the original referendum failed to pass by a slim margin of 52 votes—with 329 votes against and 277 students in favour—some councillors felt that factors including the lack of a preamble to the question and the presence of promotional material at polling stations caused students to be unclear as to what they were voting for.

“I don’t believe anybody honestly in this room believes that there were no procedural issues with the way the referendum was carried out,” said Sociology and Anthropology Student Union (SASU) councillor Marcus Peters during the meeting. “Giving students another chance to make their voice heard is exactly what a democratic structure should be.”

The sentiment was echoed by Students of Philosophy Association (SOPhiA) representative Katie Nelson. “We can’t speculate on [what happened], but we can offer students a chance for a fair election—especially under these circumstances,” she said during the meeting, adding the fee levy question—which only passed by a margin of three votes—should also be placed under the microscope.

However, Concordia Undergraduate Psychology Association (CUPA) councillor Elizabeth Duong was one of several councillors who argued that ASFA’s Judicial Committee should look into the matter before asking students to vote again.

“The Judicial Committee should decide if the violations [during the referendum] affected the vote to the extent of 52 voters,” Duong said.

Political Science Student Association (PSSA) president Jason Poirier Lavoie disagreed, telling council that the Judicial Committee doesn’t have authority to rule in this case. “This isn’t a judicial concern. Politically, we should seek a strong response from the students that clearly favours one side or the other and making sure they’re informed when they do so.”

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Keyloggers found on library computers

Photo by Michelle Gamage.

Devices were found on stand-up stations on both campuses

Several keylogger devices have been found on computers at Concordia University. According to an email sent out to students by the university on Monday the devices, which are designed to record every keystroke entered on a computer, were found on stand-up stations at both the Webster Library downtown and the Vanier Library on the Loyola Campus.

Photo by Michelle Gamage.

“The library staff came across several of them,” said university spokesperson Chris Mota. “They immediately notified IITS … [and] we had the keyloggers removed.”

While it is unknown exactly how long the devices were in place, Mota said it’s strongly recommended anyone who has used one of the stand-up stations in the past 12 months to immediately change their password—and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity on their accounts, with the university or otherwise.

“The danger here is that if somebody here was to access personal information, accessing their Concordia personal files or their bank account that the information could be captured on a keylogger,” said Mota. “What we are very strongly recommending is that if anyone used these stand-up work stations … [they should] proactively check their bank statements, check if there’s been any kind of activity that could raise a red flag.”

Both an internal investigation and a criminal investigation have been launched; Mota said the university has inspected all the computers in both libraries to make sure all of the keyloggers have been found, and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal has opened a file on the case.

While Mota wouldn’t tell The Concordian how many keyloggers were found or when they were located by library staff because of the investigation, she did confirm they were found only on stand-up stations and not any other computers on campus.

“Anyone who feels … their personal information was captured or used in some malicious way, they should immediately contact the police and our security department,” she said.

An external cyber-forensics company has also been brought in to look into the incident.

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ASFA VP Finance expects deficit

The anticipated imbalance could be as high as $32,000

The Arts and Science Federation of Associations is facing a deficit of up to $32,000 for this academic year.

The organization, which has an annual operating budget of $74,453.15, will not have to dig into the savings required by the bylaws, according to VP finance Christina Massaro.

“We are in a deficit, but we’ll be fine,” she said. “We’re going to go over budget, but money-wise we had a bigger cushion than expected.”

ASFA bylaws require the organization to maintain at least $150,000 in its account to ensure its continuity. Even if the deficit reaches the maximum $32,000 predicted, ASFA will not need to dip into those savings.

Massaro said ASFA may not even hit a deficit that high, and that this prediction is a worst-case scenario.

“The deficit is only if we spend the total amount in every single budget line,” she said, adding that this deficit prediction is based on using the full amount budgeted for each line—something which does not frequently occur.

“For example,” Massaro added, “I know we can find $5,000 from [the office manager] not being hired, so not paying those wages. There are also other lines that aren’t completed as well.”

ASFA did, however, go over-budget in legal fees this year: the fees for working on the settlement with Mei Ling announced in mid-November and additional consultations for the restructuring of ASFA’s bylaws for the referendum question cost the organization $5,518—well over the original budget of $300.

ASFA also had around $4,700 of various expenses left over from last year, and also went $400 over-budget for their byelections.

 

Grad Ball

 

ASFA council approved transferring an additional $8,000 for the organization’s annual Graduation Ball at its special council meeting on Thursday.

Councillors voted to send $5,000 from ASFA’s budget and $3,000 from the group’s Special Project Fund to contribute to the event.

The unofficial total budget for the event is $53,651. An ASFA councillor involved with the project said revenue is expected to reach up to $43,000. However, these figures are not set in stone as the group is still searching for sponsorships and working with caterers to find the best deal.

ASFA Council discussed a motion during the February regular council meeting for $18,000 in additional funding for Grad Ball, but the item was tabled.
“We don’t know where ASFA is [financially] right now,” said ASFA VP internal Robert Young during the February meeting. But since then, Massaro has met with the group’s accountant to get a better idea of what the group’s financial situation is.

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