Author: Gregory Todaro

Friends and families of victims speak out against police violence

Dozens of people gathered outside of the Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal office Thursday night for a vigil remembering victims of police killings.

Taking place just across Gilford Street from the Laurier metro station, the vigil was organized by Justice for the Victims of Police Killings Coalition, an organization created by family and friends of people who died as a direct result of police action and intervention. Police stood guard in front of the police building throughout the evening, overlooking the vigil as family of victims called out for independent civilian inquiries into police killings.

The sixth-annual Montreal event was organized in solidarity with a national day of protest in the United States coordinated by the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. Organizers of the vigil said more than 60 people have been killed in Montreal by police since 1987.

Julie Matson, one of the founders of Justice for the Victims of Police Killings Coalition, lost her father in 2002 after he died while in police custody. After taking part in a panel of people who have lost a family member to police killings at a conference in 2010, she said she realized how important it was for the families of victims to have someone by their side who understands what they’re going through.

“Most people just have no idea how to treat you when they find out that not only has your loved one passed away, but in such a violent way, most people … don’t know how to reply to you,” said Matson. “[With the coalition], it doesn’t matter because they all know. There was this amazing solidarity that I’ve never experienced before.”

Matson was one of the speakers at the vigil, sharing the story of her father’s death. Ben Matson was involved in a yelling-match with an off-duty officer in Vancouver over a parking dispute. Police were called and, Julie Matson said, beaten and arrested. Julie Matson said he was kept in a prone position (lying flat on his chest on the ground), which caused him to asphyxiate—and none of the officers involved were charged. She called the fight against police brutality “an uphill battle,” because police are a “brotherhood that keeps protecting [itself] at every single step.”

Bridget Tolley, founder of Sisters in Spirit Vigils which is part of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, also spoke about the death of her mother, Gladys Tolley, who was struck and killed by a Sûreté du Québec squad car in the Kitigan Zibi Reserve near Maniwaki in 2001. Bridget Tolley questioned the reports and statements from that night and has been calling for an independent investigation of the incident. She also said the investigation of the incident was led by the brother of the officer driving the car.

Then, Tolley turned to the police overlooking the vigil and addressed them directly.

“How wrong is that?” she asked the officers. “Since when is it allowed for a brother to investigate another brother on the scene of an accident after striking and killing someone? Since when?”

Tolley said despite having pushed for an independent investigation into her mother’s death for the past 14 years, she will continue to fight until the case is reviewed.

“I can’t move on,” she said. “I’m a great-grandmother, I have a one-year-old great-granddaughter, and I think about her and I don’t want this to happen to any other families.”

Team Support Change wins big in general election

The Support Change team was elected for every position where one of their candidates was running in the Arts and Science Federation of Associations general election last week. All open positions in both the ASFA executive team and independent councillor positions were filled with around 600 votes cast.

Jenna Cocullo (president), Marc Da Silva (vice-president of social affairs), Lana Galbraith (vice-president of external an sustainable affairs), Ian Campbell (vice-president of academic and Loyola affairs), Mariah Gillis (vice-president of internal affairs), Zachary Garoufalis (vice-president of financial affairs) and Cleo Fonseca (vice-president communications and promotional affairs) begin their roles as part of ASFA’s executive immediately. All five independent councillor candidates—Angelica Sood, Christina Massaro, Etienne de Blois, Frankie Sunnyshine and Oliver Marshall—were voted in to the five open positions and will be joining ASFA’s council for the November regular council meeting.

ASFA’s referendum question also passed. The approved change to ASFA’s bylaws lowered the necessary number for quorum—the number of people needed to pass or approve any official business—from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent of all of ASFA.

 

Getting the ball rolling

New ASFA president Jenna Cocullo said she expects to have to clear a few hurdles at the beginning of her new mandate. The first hurdle for the executive team is to get less experienced executive members familiar with the procedures and day-to-day operation of ASFA. The second is the lack of time which comes with starting halfway through a normal executive mandate.

“We’re taking on a huge task, and we’re already halfway through our mandate which starts annually in May,” she said. “It’ll be one of our biggest challenges—trying to revamp ASFA in such a short amount of time and doing it well.”

During her shortened time in office, Cocullo said she wants to prioritize the restructuring of the organization starting with with the relationship between ASFA and its member associations.

“We want to give a lot of autonomy to our member associations,” said Cocullo. “We want to remove a lot of the larger ASFA projects that happen and instead put a lot of our resources towards helping out MAs.”

However, Cocullo added, this doesn’t mean cutting all of ASFA’s events. Instead, she is working on bringing ASFA down to only one big event per semester rather than several events.

Cocullo also said she wants to overhaul ASFA’s current executive structure. “We want to change the executive positions to coordinators because it’s more accurate of what we’re aiming to do—which is coordinate between MAs and use our resources and time to help them with their projects,” she said.

One suggestion she has for the new executive structure is ensuring the coordinator positions are paid.

Now that all of the executive positions are filled, Cocullo said ASFA council committees—which have been mostly inactive because of the missing executives—will begin to meet regularly. Some key committees, including the Financial Committee and Policy Committee, had been meeting since the beginning of the academic year.

 

Independent councillors

ASFA has five position for independent councillors, which are councillors who sit on ASFA’s council independently from a member association and focus on contributing through various committees, and they were all filled during the election.

Frankie Sunnyshine is one of the new independent councillors. He hopes to help bridge the gap between ASFA and Arts and Science students who either know nothing of ASFA or have a negative opinion of the organization.

“The students have to know that there are people who actually stand for the students and want to engage socially with them and ask questions rather than just having a title and doing little to nothing,” he said. “We have the largest student body in this academic institution and I feel that once we have more and more students aware of ASFA, our well-being as a whole will be in a very positive state.”

Candidates focused on restructuring executive body

The polls for the Arts and Science Federation of Associations annual by-elections opened on Tuesday. Candidates are running for six ASFA executive positions and independent councillor positions, and all of the positions are contested except the VP communications. The elections last from Oct. 20 to Oct. 22, 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Students can access polling stations in the Hall building, the McConnell and Vanier libraries and the SP building.

Presidential Candidates

There are three candidates in the running to be ASFA’s next president: Jared Buck, Jenna Cocullo and Robert Young.

Buck said during the first of two ASFA candidate debates that his focus would be on keeping the association organized and well structured. He called ASFA’s current executive structure “inefficient.” Buck also spoke of the need to change “the rape-culture and bro-culture of ASFA.”

He said his priorities also include keeping ASFA sustainable and preventing the association from running a deficit.

Cocullo has experience in student politics at Concordia: she was interim VP external and sustainability, has experience as an ASFA councillor and was involved with the CSU. Cocullo said she plans on facilitating a major restructuring of ASFA, and one of her priorities is to focus ASFA on more long-term goals that previous executives have.

At a debate on Tuesday, Cocullo also said she plans to increase transparency in ASFA’s financial committee by requiring detailed minutes. She also said having paid executive positions would entice competent students who would otherwise be unable to commit to the hours necessary for executive positions.

Young’s focus is on changing the association structurally to help its member associations flourish. He wants ASFA to improve funding options for member associations and focus more on student-led projects instead of larger ASFA events.

Young also said during Tuesday’s debate that he is also looking to restructure ASFA’s executive structure and create a policy to prevent particular issues—such as the infamous Mei-Ling incident where a former executive filed a human rights complaint against fellow executives—from happening again.

 

Other positions

Nearly all other positions are also contested with the exception of VP communications. The candidates for the other positions are as follows:

Vp social: Jean-Philippe Provost and Marc Da Silva

Vp external: Lana Galbraith and Ayesha Naqvi

Vp Loyola and academics: Ian Campbell, Hassan Ezzo and Chanel Manzone Pilon

Vp internal: Mariah Gillis and Bianca Bruzzese

Vp finance: Sam Babity, Zachary Garoufalis and Ivan Makhorv

Vp communications: Cleo Fonseca

Independent councillors: Oliver Marshall, Frankie Sunnyshine, Etienne de Blois, Angelica Sood and Christina Massaro

Talk at McGill looks at causes and current issues surrounding the crisis

The Syrian Students’ Associations (SSA) of McGill and Concordia hosted a panel discussion on the Syrian refugee crisis at McGill University Leacock building  on Friday. The talk, also co-hosted by Standpoints, Amnesty International (AI) McGill and Concordia, and Journalists for Human Rights McGill (JHR), covered the origins of the crisis, but also the current and future problems the region and the refugees will face.

The conference was comprised of three parts; a video presentation, a talk by the executive director of Action Réfugiés Montréal (ARM) and a panel discussion.

The video presentation included a documentary from The Guardian, “We walk together: a Syrian family’s journey to the heart of Europe” which followed thousands of refugees who decided to walk to Western Europe from Budapest.

Then, ARM executive director Paul Clarke spoke about his organization’s work to bring refugees to Canada. Clarke opened his talk with the importance of correctly identifying the differences between migrants and refugees.

“Migrants are people who choose to leave where they are because they want to go,” he said. “A refugee is someone who has [undergone] forced migration.”

Clarke also discussed how about 600 refugees in 2015 brought into Quebec were privately sponsored. However, there were only eight government-assisted refugees during that time.

The evening ended off with a four-person panel discussion; Jon Waind, PhD student in McGill University’s religious studies department; Afra Jalabi, a founding member of the Syrian National Council; Matvey Lomonosov, an expert on nationalism and ethnic conflict in the Balkans; and Ecem Oskay, a masters student in McGill’s political science department.

Waind said issues of xenophobia or anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe stems from a “failure of collective memory.” He also discussed how the viral image of Alan Kurdi gained attention internationally through “common human vulnerability.”

“There’s this core feature that we have has human beings,” said Waind. “I don’t just mean our susceptibility of being harmed … it also means a sense of helplessness.”

Oskay, meanwhile, discussed how the European Union set up rules such as the Dublin Regulation and Schengen Agreement which have made it harder for the continent to deal with the influx of refugees. The Dublin Regulation, which was initially established in 1990s, was an attempt by EU member states to coordinate their policies on how they deal with refugees that enter Europe. The Schengen Agreement created Europe’s borderless Schengen area which pushed responsibility of border patrol to the countries along the edges of the EU.

“These two frameworks, the reality that they created is an uneven distribution of responsibilities,” she said. “What we see today, most refugees who come in come through the Mediterranean, so it’s Italy, Spain and also Greece that carry the largest burden of registering them and figuring out what to do with them.” Oskay said inner countries of the EU have been able to avoid responsibility in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis and straining resources in exterior countries.

Organizations stand “in solidarity” with Palestinian people

Around 100 protesters braved the first snow of the season in defence of Palestine, marching from Norman Bethune Square to the Israeli Consulate on Wood Avenue on Sunday.

The “Defend Palestine Speak-out”  march was hosted by several “associations in solidarity with the Palestinian People,” according to a press release from the Alliance of Concerned Jewish  Canadians. The groups present also included the Montreal-based human rights organization Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU).

Representatives from Neturei Karta International based out of Monsey, New York, also attended the protest. Neturei Karta International is a group of Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism and the existence of Israel, claiming it goes against the teachings of the Torah.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, associate director of Neturei Karta International, said Zionism is the cause of current tensions in the region.

“The root problem is unquestionably Zionism,” he said. “The fact is, we were living together … in the same courtyards as the Muslims and Arabs. There was never a problem because of religion.”

“The Zionists narrative is that it’s an ingrained hate from the Muslims to the Jews,” he added, “but that’s patently false.”

Concordia says Elections Canada provided them with “erroneous information”

Students, staff and faculty were turned away from the polls on Friday after Concordia University received “erroneous information” from Elections Canada.

In an email sent out Friday afternoon, the university said Elections Canada initially told them anyone eligible to vote in the federal election could cast their ballots from Concordia for early voting. However, “the polling stations in the J.W. McConnell (LB) Building from Oct. 9 to 12 are in fact restricted to voters who live in the riding of Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Sœurs and whose Voter Information Card lists the LB Building as an advance polling station.”

Early voting on campus was open to students registered in any riding between Oct. 5 and Oct. 8, but that did not continue through Oct. 12.

Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said the university specifically asked Elections Canada if people from districts outside Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Sœurs would be able to vote the whole time Elections Canada was present on campus. “We were told yes, but that was incorrect,” she said.

However, Mota doesn’t want voters from different ridings that voted between Oct. 5 and Oct. 8 to worry. “Their votes are good, they will be counted,” she said.

Activist groups come together, calling for more refugees to come to Canada

Dozens of protesters marched in solidarity with refugees on Saturday and called for the government to take in more refugees and stop the deportation of Haitians and Zimbabweans.

The march was organized by Solidarity Across Borders, Let’s Unite, Le Comité d’actions contre la décision 168-13 de la République dominicaine and Le Comité d’action des personnes sans statut.

The activists hoped the march would bring attention to several key issues. First, they called for an increase in the number of refugees being accepted into Canada, an issue that’s been in the spotlight since the images of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who drowned while he and his family were fleeing Syria, went viral last month.

The organizers also spoke out against the deportation of Haitian and Zimbabwean refugees currently living in Canada. A moratorium on deportations from Haiti and Zimbabwe has been lifted, giving refugees without status six months to apply for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or be deported.

“We’re here to … call to an end to all deportations,” said Solidarity Across Borders member Rosalind Wong. “There have been no deportations yet, but they are coming and we’re standing in solidarity with [the refugees] saying that their place is here with the community.”

The group marched East along Ste. Catherine Street from Norman Bethune Square to Phillips Square. At Phillips Square, police in riot gear were waiting and created a line to keep the march from entering the space. The organizers of the march then decided to turn up their speakers and play music, encouraging the group to dance in the street. The police soon backed down to the corner of Cathcart Street and Union Avenue before leaving the area.

Hundreds attended the march and vigil for murdered and missing women

“At the beginning of time, everything on Earth was given a responsibility. And everything on Earth still honours that responsibility—except us, the human beings. And at the beginning of time, the responsibility we were given was to love one another, to honour and respect all of creation, and to say thank you.”

Mohawk elder Sedalia Kawennotas Fazio opened the 10th annual march and vigil for missing and murdered native women on Sunday, speaking to the hundreds of people gathered at Cabot Square. The march, hosted by Missing Justice, Quebec Native Women and the Centre for Gender Advocacy, was held in honour of missing and murdered women and girls.

“On this beautiful day where we honour all of these beautiful sisters and daughters, mothers, grandmothers and aunts, we pray for them,” said Fazio. “For those we cannot find, we pray we will one day see them again. And for those who have passed on, we leave to Creator.”

The RCMP reported last year that over 1,000 aboriginal women were homicide victims between 1980 and 2012, and a further 164 were missing. Some activists say that the actual numbers are much higher.

Fazio performed a healing song to the crowd before other speakers and activists took to the microphone. Nakuset, executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, talked about her work to create a better relationship between Aboriginal people and the police.

“What we want to do is soon hire an Aboriginal person that would be the go-to person—so if someone is missing in Montreal, they would call this person … and then they would call all of the community organizations and the hospitals, and they would call the families … and create a file and bring it to the police,” she said.

The crowd marched east on Ste-Catherine St. to Phillips Square where the vigil was held. Candles were lit and paper stars with the names of missing and murdered native women were placed into the grass. There were performances by the powwow singing group Buffalo Hat Singers and dancing by Barbara Diabo.

Fazio returned to bring the vigil to its close with a song and a prayer.

“Let us pray … as one people, that we can gather here again next year—but not to beg to be recognized, but to celebrate that they are finally honouring our women that are lost, our women that are murdered,” she said. “Let us celebrate one year from today instead of standing up here with the powers that be to recognize us as human beings and as the first peoples of these lands.”

Fazio also called out the Harper’s Conservative government—a topic mentioned by several speakers throughout the day.

“We need this government changed,” she said. “We need a government who is going to recognize us. We need a government who will finally put us where we belong as the first peoples of these lands. We are not second-class citizens.”

Student-created app lets users match on music

Like many ideas, Cloe Khawam’s concept for her business came to her in the middle of the night, while studying during the spring of 2014. “I was just hit by a huge urge of inspiration,” said the JMSB marketing student.

She immediately reached out to her friend Matt Hennick, and together the two launched Scrute It—an app Khawam said is like “Tinder for music.”

The application, which officially launched in August, allows users to swipe right or left to indicate if they are interested or not interested, respectively. It also gives them a chance to compare music tastes with those potential matches. The app also allows users to post about music and artists they like, as well as chat with people they match with. Khawam said Scrute It will eventually sell tickets directly from the app as well, giving users a way to find someone to go to a concert with.

While Khawam’s original idea was to create a music review app, they learned that having an app with messaging is “the best way to make an app explode,” and they started to change the direction of Scrute It.

Khawam said it was important for her to be able to develop the idea for Scrute It without being afraid of making changes. “It’s kind of like how Instagram had the idea to be like Foursquare, but then changed,” she said. “There are a lot of startups that do that, but they have to pivot. Some people think it’s a death sentence but it’s not—it’s going to save you.”

The co-founders incorporated Scrute It and raised money to bring in developers to create the app. Since its launch two months ago, Khawam said the number of users on Scrute It is growing steadily.

“In Montreal, we’re over 200 users,” she said. “We have a pretty good, constant growth rate—but you don’t want that steady constant, you want that big explosion.”

She also said the app has picked up steam in Los Angeles and New York City.

Khawam said Scrute It is developing a campaign to give out free concert tickets to people who download the app and share it with their friends to try and get more users—which Khawam said is the company’s biggest challenge.

“There’s so many apps out there and you just need to find the right way to get the name out there,” she said. “Being in marketing, that’s always been my focus.”

However, the app has been gaining attention in the tech world: Khawam posted a video on Scrute It to Founderfox, an app where startups can post a two-minute pitch of their business ideas to investors. Founderfox then contacted Scrute It and offered to send them to TechCrunch, a large technology conference in San Francisco, last month. There, Khawam was able to network with technology giants including John McAfee, the developer of the first commercial anti-virus software.

But Khawam was also excited to find people on the West Coast were using Scrute It. “This is the coolest thing ever,” she said. “People are using the app in other places.”

While Khawam received some advice from other business owners in the tech industry, she said that, like many other startups, she largely felt she didn’t know what exactly was going on. “Most entrepreneurs will just think, ‘everything is going well so I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing,” she said. “We wear many hats, but they’re covering your eyes most of the time.”

Khawam also said being a student gives her access to resources and networking opportunities that other entrepreneurs might not have.

Khawam said the company is still looking for investors. The cost of creating a new app can run up to $20,000 per platform—a large reason why Scrute It is only currently available on iOS.

Scrute It made it to the top twelve in the Montreal Startup Challenge—a contest for startups started by students either enrolled or just graduated CEGEP or university in the last two years.

To learn more about Scrute It, visit their website at scruteit.com. The app is available in the App Store.

The company is one of 12 finalists for the Montreal Startup Challenge

Tailor2Go has changed a lot since its launch in July 2014. Founder Nathon Kong started off with just a measuring tape and a suitcase, traveling to businesses to give white-collar workers a chance to be fitted for a suit without the time-consuming shopping trips.

Now, Kong is putting his work on wheels. He drives his truck (named Elisabeth) to various spots around downtown Montreal to meet with clients who book appointments for fittings.

Tailor2Go is one of the 12 finalists competing in the first-ever Montreal Startup Challenge, an initiative started by MTL Blog. More than 60 startups entered the contest for entrepreneurs who are either enrolled—or have been enrolled—in CEGEP or university in the last two years. The competitors will soon be whittled down to the top five businesses with the most votes received online.

Tailor2Go has already garnered attention in the business community and has won several awards, including second place at the Concours québécois en entrepreneuriat in 2015.

While the convenience of having a tailor just outside your office building is a novelty in itself, Kong equipped the truck with a 360-degree scanner that calculates a person’s exact measurements.

“Before I bought the scanner, I went to 10 different tailors and had them measure me,” he said. “I got 10 different results.  All tailors have different ways of measuring that will contribute to an error, so having a scanner makes it quick, simple, less invasive and more accurate.”

Kong said the scanner provides 80 per cent of the measurements needed for a suit, and that the other 20 per cent are preferences which vary by customer, including jacket length and the pant leg width, which can’t be measured by the machine.

“The scanner and the truck are a convenient way to go shopping, but we do so well by focusing on two things: one is the quality of products for low prices,” he said. “Because we don’t pay rent or have a lot of operating expenses, our prices are lower.”

The other, Kong said, is maintaining relationships with customers.

“We make sure you get exactly what you want and that you feel comfortable,” he added.

Nearly two months after re-launching Tailor2Go with the truck, Kong said the business has over one hundred customers. He said he’s trying to expand his business by working with companies directly instead of individual customers.

“In a practical point of view, it’s difficult for me to drive all the way to see one person just to sell one shirt; it doesn’t make sense,” said Kong. “When you go to a company, with one stop, you’ll have a lot of people who will want to see us.”

Kong said he got a lot of support from District 3, a collaborative centre for entrepreneurs within Concordia’s community.

“I’m very thankful with the mentorship and the help I’ve been getting from them,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here without getting help from my mentors.”

Voting for the Montreal Startup Challenge ends on Oct. 1. The five startups with the most votes will have to give a live pitch about their companies to a panel of judges. The first-place winner will receive a $10,000 marketing campaign from MTL Blog, including free accounting, legal, banking, and marketing consultation sessions.
To learn more about the startup companies competing or to vote, visit mtlblog.com/startup-challenge.