Author: Ian Down

ASFA community conversation tackles student indifference, poor communication

Christabell Moyo wasn’t quite sure what the Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) was. Despite being in her fourth year at Concordia and her last semester of her human relations and women’s studies degree, she only knew the federation from occasional emails she received.

Moyo is not the only one unfamiliar with ASFA. She was alone, however, in attending ASFA’s community conversation on Feb. 6. Despite being open to the public and heavily advertised on social media and through posters, she was the only member at large to attend. Three councillors and three executives were also present. Internal Affairs and Administration Coordinator Elliott Boulanger facilitated the conversation.

The event was part of a series, “An Open Conversation,” which is ASFA’s effort to rebuild its policies, practices, and culture with the help of the arts and science community. ASFA’s Advocacy and Executive Coordinator, Marguerite Rolland, said the idea for the event came around late November 2018. “The culture, it needs to change, and so we thought [of] having some sort of town hall open meeting like this where anyone can come in, be informed, but also to air whatever problems and concerns they have with ASFA,” she said.

“We can sit here for the rest of the year, make changes to all the policies and go through it, but this is not gonna fix a larger problem with the culture of ASFA and the reputation of ASFA and the fact that there are no members at large with us in this room right now when we’re talking about policy,” said Rolland. Moyo had already left.

“I made sure that this was sent out to all of our Arts and Science students through two newsletters,” said Rolland. “We put up posters at the Hall building, we put [the event] on our Facebook page and sponsored it as an ad as well.”

The three councillors present—Haylee McGregor of political science, and independent councillors Evan Lee and Victoria Smith-Ayotte—discussed their views on ASFA’s internal problems, including a lack of training for new councillors and a lack of institutional memory. ASFA does not have a uniform training program for all of its new councillors. Instead, councillors are trained by their predecessors, who may neglect to pass on all of the necessary information.

Rolland said ASFA needs to improve accessibility for its students. Financial barriers mean interested students may not be able to afford to invest their time in council. In addition, the ASFA office sits at the top of three flights of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible.

However, the most common concern expressed by the councillors present was a lack of communication to the student body about ASFA and a lack of presence on campus. The councillors felt that students were not aware of the services ASFA provides. Smith-Ayotte said that many students may not know they can receive grants from ASFA for various projects.

Rolland said it is for this reason that ASFA is often viewed as a “glorified party planner,” that exists only to organize Frosh and other events. She said that if this was what the student body wanted out of ASFA, they would follow suit. “But I think we all have enough experience and knowledge to say that we don’t think that’s what the membership wants.”

“I think some people like the parties, but I think in general what ASFA should be is a resource, and offer services that students need,” said Rolland.

ASFA also suffers from low voter turnout. In December 2016, a referendum to increase ASFA’s fee levy failed to reach quorum of 517 votes.

Comparatively, little time was devoted to the sexual assault and theft scandals that have hit the federation in recent years. In September 2018, Concordia student Harris Turpin filed a lawsuit against ASFA for allegedly mishandling his sexual harassment complaint against former ASFA President Jonathan Roy. Just three years earlier, the federation was ordered to pay an undisclosed amount to Mei Ling, a former executive who was subject to sexual harassment and racial discrimination by other members.

In November, former Finance Coordinator Caleb Owusu-Acheaw resigned after admitting to taking $300 in petty cash from the federation.

Wednesday’s event was the third and last in a series called “The History & The Present.” Two more events, titled “The Future and Ideas for it” were held on Saturday, Feb. 9 and Monday, Feb. 11. Rolland said, once the community conversations are over, ASFA will produce a report with the recommendations in time for elections. “That means when people start running in elections, they start running […] with the knowledge that this is going to be their task to uphold.” She also wants the suggestions to be officially adopted at the next general assembly so they become actionable.

Photo by Hannah Ewen.

A previous version of this article stated that “In September 2018, Concordia student Harris Turpin filed a lawsuit against ASFA for allegedly mishandling his sexual assault complaint against former ASFA President Jonathan Roy.” The complaint was actually related to sexual harassment. The Concordian regrets the error.

AVEQ had just two members left, including the Concordia Student Union

The Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ), the federation of student unions that has fought for the rights of Concordia students since 2015, will soon cease to exist.

On Jan. 26, the AVEQ announced that it had begun the process of dissolving that same afternoon.

The federation said the decision was motivated by “several administrative and financial challenges that contributed towards an overall lack of trust between the association and its members. As a result, over the past three years, the association no longer had the capacity to expand its mandate, and failed to increase its membership.”

The AVEQ said its dissolution “will mark the start of a new opportunity for better, more effective provincial representation for all students across Quebec.”

“In the beginning, when the AVEQ was created, the goal was to be able to represent student associations that have less visibility on the political scene, meaning religion students’ associations and student associations of Anglophone universities,” said Laura Daigneault, a member of the AVEQ’s administrative council. “These two groups, despite their differences, could align themselves on issues that concern all students at the university level across Quebec. These include the remuneration of internships and the decreasing student populations in the regions.”

Daigneault said the union advocated for its students by working with government organizations and other youth groups across Quebec. It also spearheaded campaigns against sexual violence, tuition hikes and unpaid internships, according to its website.

At the time of its disbandment, the AVEQ represented about 38,000 students: 35,000 in the Concordia Student Union (CSU), and about 3,000 in the Association générale étudiante de l’Université de Rimouski (AGECAR). Until last fall, the Mouvement des associations générales étudiantes de l’université de Québec à Chicoutimi (MAGE-UQAC) was also a member, comprising 7,000 students. However, the union voted on Oct. 23, 2018 to disband from the AVEQ.

UQAC’s student newspaper, Le Griffonnier, reported at the time that the administrative council, executive council and central council of the union all recommended the move, and that when the union’s members voted on the motion, it faced “little opposition. The AVEQ’s management practices and its internal climate seemed to be at the heart of the problem.”

The article further states that in the meeting, members criticized the AVEQ for failing to publish meeting minutes on its website, with the last documents dating to July 2017. Daigneault declined to comment on the issue.

Daigneault said it was in late November 2018, about a month after MAGE-UQAC’s departure, that the AVEQ’s administrative council began to discuss its possible dissolution. At the time, the council included members of the CSU and AGECAR.

“The announcement of AVEQ’s disbandment was not a surprise but it certainly saddens us,” MAGE-UQAC’s VP of Internal Affairs, Hélène Villeneuve, told The Concordian in a written statement. “Despite our disaffiliation from this organization in October, the fact remains that AVEQ’s demise creates an impact on the student political landscape and that, even if it wasn’t meeting our needs anymore, AVEQ contributed to improve Quebec’s students’ condition in its own way.”

“Our intention of leaving AVEQ was to respect the will of our members and to ensure their

representation, but not to induce its disbandment,” Villeneuve explained.

Villeneuve said the union is not currently looking to join another provincial federation.

“In general, the AVEQ did a good job in creating itself a place in the provincial political sphere,” said the CSU’s External Affairs and Mobilization Coordinator, Camille Thompson. However, “a provincial association cannot only function with two or three student associations. It has to create wider solidarity.”

Thompson said this inability to attract new members created distrust between the CSU and the AVEQ. After MAGE-UQAC left the federation in October, AGECAR announced that it would also leave by early February, had the federation not dissolved by that time. “Therefore, last December, council took the decision to vote in favour of the dissolution of AVEQ if the motion was brought up in Congress by AGECAR,” said Thompson. This vote never happened, but Thompson said the CSU supported the AVEQ in its decision to dissolve.

Thompson said Concordia students will be most immediately affected by no longer having to pay their AVEQ fees. However, “when fighting for better and [more] accessible education, the effects are felt more in the long run than in the day-to-day.”

The AVEQ’s most recent publicly available financial report, for the fiscal year ending in April 2017, shows that the federation had a year-end surplus of about $63,600. However, the report said the figures had not been audited. Daigneault declined to answer questions about the union’s finances, except to say that they had been audited last year in accordance with the law.

Daigneault said the federation will hire a team of lawyers to assist in the dissolution and to ensure that the federation doesn’t have any hidden debt.

Graphic by @spooky_soda

Gender advocacy lawsuit concludes a week of expert testimony

Françoise Susset has devoted her career as a psychologist and social worker to the trans community. She has trained doctors, psychologists and other healthcare professionals to care for transgender and gender non-binary patients. She has testified at multiple provincial parliamentary commissions on gender-related causes.

Susset was one of several experts who testified last week in the lawsuit the Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA) is pursuing against the provincial government. The CGA, a Concordia fee-levy group, is seeking to overturn 11 articles in the Civil Code of Québec that it says violate the rights of transgender and gender non-binary people.

On Friday, Jan. 25, during a week devoted to expert testimony, Susset answered questions from Plaintiff Attorney François Goyer about her work with the trans community and about the mental and emotional struggles they face.

Some of the stigma faced by transgender people, Susset said, comes from their peers at school. “It’s hell. And that’s not a hyperbole; it’s what [transgender youth] say in the studies,” she said.

Sometimes, the ostracization comes from their parents. Susset cited a recent study by Trans PULSE Project, a think tank that studies “the impact of social exclusion and discrimination on the health of trans people in Ontario,” according to its website. There were 433 responses, an unusually high number for such a survey. “What it showed us is that parental support is a key factor” in the well-being of transgender people, Susset said.

One of the articles of the Civil Code of Québec up for debate is article 62, which states that people under the age of 18 may have their name and gender markers changed if their legal guardian approves of it. Susset argued this law must be changed to give full autonomy to young people to change their personal information. When young people can’t change their gender markers, they “don’t have an affirmation of their identity,” she said.

Susset has spent a lot of time working in schools, where she said there is much work to be done to educate teachers and administrators. In her experience, both tend to be more open and understanding of children who identify as the opposite gender than those who are gender non-binary. For schools, when it comes to gender, “it’s one or the other,” she said.

Parents also lack concrete information about their transgender child’s needs, which can lead to worry and uncertainty when they notice their child displaying gender atypical behaviour, according to Susset. That’s why she helps organize workshops for parents of children under seven years old. In this age range, she said, stunting the expression of gender can cause psychological damage.

Susset said many children of transgender parents also face stigma as a consequence of their parents’ gender identities. These parents claimed a victory in the trial on Jan. 15, when the Directeur de l’état civil announced it would allow parents to change their own gender markers on their children’s birth certificates. The bureau also announced that they would allow gender markers to be removed from personal identification upon request.

Beyond the social consequences of being transgender, Susset criticized what she sees as a lack of medical services for trans people. “Services for trans people are so inaccessible, we find ourselves in a situation where most frontline services are provided by the community,” she said, adding that Quebec is in need of more community clinics to provide these services.

Susset said these are not problems she can solve using her own skills. “A large part of the suffering of my clients comes from forces external to them,” she said. “I can’t fix those problems using psychology.”

The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 29 at the Montreal courthouse. Proceedings are expected to run until the end of February.

Graphic by @spooky_soda.

Why ASFA won’t be reimbursing cannabis any time soon

Last September, with cannabis legalization on the horizon, some members of the Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) approached the executive team with an important inquiry: If ASFA pays for alcohol for member association events, why not pay for cannabis as well?

ASFA’s Advocacy and Executive Coordinator, Marguerite Rolland, said she was approached by executives from three member associations about such a policy. For a while, it looked like they might get their wish. ASFA’s policy committee began looking into ways it might design a policy that would reimburse cannabis expenses while still respecting the law. “We just wanted to make sure that if this was something that we could do and that people wanted from us, that we had a policy about it,” said Rolland.

An informal survey conducted by the federation showed that a majority of member association executives—roughly 56 per cent, according to the data—felt ASFA should be reimbursing these expenses. By comparison, 27 per cent said they did not think ASFA should reimburse these expenses, with the remaining respondents having qualified opinions or no opinion at all.

However, parallel to the policy committee’s research was an inquiry by the federation’s legal team. In early November, they concluded that such a policy would likely be illegal. “Under subsection 9(1)(d) of the Cannabis Act, it is prohibited for an organization to distribute cannabis,” the federation’s legal team ruled in an email to the executive team provided to The Concordian. “Furthermore, under subsection 9(2), it is prohibited to possess cannabis for the purpose of distributing it contrary to subsection 9(1).” An organization that violates these rules is “liable to a fine in an amount that is in the discretion of the court,” according to the same email.

The email does say that an ASFA member can legally smoke cannabis at an ASFA event, “as long as this student is 18 years or older, that the cannabis was bought at the Société québécoise du cannabis, that the event is held outside of the university grounds,” and outside of a place restricted by law.

Not every student association in the province has come to the same conclusion. The council of the Association étudiante du Cégep de Sherbrooke (AÉCS) passed a motion at the beginning of October, before cannabis had been legalized, allowing member associations to seek reimbursement for cannabis expenses, according to Radio-Canada. The AÉCS did not respond to a request for comment.

However, these expenses must be approved by the committees and associations involved, and smoking is still prohibited on campus, according to the same article.

Rolland said she reached out to the other faculty associations to see if they had considered similar policies, but none were considering it at the time. None of the other faculty associations responded to a request for comment.

Rolland said there is always a possibility the decision will be reversed in the future. However, she said “there is undoubtedly still a stigma attached to [cannabis], and I think that will affect the way people view it for a while.”

Graphic by @spooky_soda.

City in brief

Forty-three people, 35 of whom were children, were hospitalized after a carbon monoxide leak at École des Découvreurs in LaSalle, according to CTV. Firefighters said a leaking heating system was responsible for the incident. Although Quebec’s building code does not mandate schools to have carbon monoxide detectors, École des Découvreurs did have one, which allegedly failed to be triggered by the leak.

The Town of Mount Royal’s proposed $2 billion dollar Royalmount commercial centre will not serve the public interest, according to a report presented to the city’s Commission sur le développement économique et urbain et l’habitation. As reported in La Presse, urbanist Raphaël Fischler recommended in his report that all levels of government with the power to intervene should do so, including the provincial government and the Montreal Metropolitan Community.

St-Viateur Bagel’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce location will close in March, according to The Montreal Gazette. The owners of the chain were unable to re-negotiate a lease with the building’s owner. The iconic chain, which has had a location in Monkland Village for 18 years, has locations throughout the Greater Montreal area, including the original on St. Viateur Street W. and locations in Dollard-Des-Ormeaux and Plateau-Mont-Royal.

The founder of the homeless youth organization Dans la rue will be honoured by the city with a park in his name, according to CJAD800. The city is still working on plans to honour Father Emmett “Pops” Johns, the Catholic priest and community activist who died last year at 89.

Nation in brief

The RCMP will be overseen by a civilian watchdog board in an effort to address years of sexual assault allegations, according to the CBC. The plan was announced by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on Jan. 16, although the board’s composition and details of its functioning have yet to be determined.

A Canadian man has been sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling, according to the CBC. The sentencing of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg is the latest in a series of diplomatic disputes between Beijing and Ottawa, including the arrest of telecom mogul Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on Dec. 1, and the arrest of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in China later that month.

The Ontario government will no longer pay the full cost of university tuition for low-income students, according to The London Free Press. The Conservative government has lowered the eligibility income threshold from $175,000 per family to $140,000, and a portion of the grant has been converted into a loan. The government also cut tuition rates across the board by 10 per cent.

Comedian Mike Ward is appealing a $42,000 fine for a series of jokes he made about a disabled boy between 2010 and 2013, according to The Montreal Gazette. The 2016 decision by Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal states that Ward violated the rights of Jeremy Gabriel, a 22-year-old singer who suffers from Treacher Collins syndrome, by making fun of his disability and joking about drowning him.

World in brief

British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons with 325 votes in her favour and 306 against, according to the BBC. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, triggered the vote the previous day after the House rejected May’s proposed Brexit deal.

Protests erupted in Pakistan after the Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) shot and killed four people on a highway, including a couple and their teenage daughter, according to The Express Tribune. The CTD said the incident was the result of a counter-terrorism investigation into the family. Three younger children who were also in the car survived, although one was injured.

The anti-vax movement is one of the World Health Organization’s 10 biggest global health threats of 2019, according to Newsweek. Four times as many U.S. children are lacking recommended vaccines today compared to 2001. Climate change, non-communicable diseases and a global lack of primary health care were among the other threats on the list.
The mayor of Gdansk, Poland died in hospital after being stabbed in front of a crowd of hundreds at a charity function on Jan. 13, according to the BBC. The 27-year-old man who allegedly stabbed Mayor Pawel Adamowicz had a criminal record and has recently been released from prison, according to police

The 15 hottest places in the world on Jan. 15 were all in Australia, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. As the country was gripped by an ongoing heatwave, temperatures nearing 50 C were recorded throughout the country,—the hottest, in Tarcoola, South Australia, reached 49.1 C.

Graphic by @spooky_soda

Empower Me will be free to use for all undergraduates starting in February

A new 24-hour mental health service will provide Concordia undergraduate students with guidance on everything from addiction, to dating, to finances.

At a regular council meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 9, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) approved the adoption of the Empower Me program, a free service for undergraduate students that is offered by the CSU’s insurance provider, Studentcare.

When the service launches on Feb. 1, counsellors will be available 24/7 and can be reached in person, by phone, or over the internet, according to a pamphlet advertising the service. Students may book as many sessions with a counsellor as they want. “This multi-lingual, culturally sensitive, and gender and faith-inclusive service is built around a short-term, solution-focused counselling model,” the pamphlet reads. CSU Finance Coordinator John Hutton explained that the services are labelled “short-term” since students won’t use it after they graduate.

The service will compliment those offered through Concordia’s Counselling and Psychological Services. The pamphlet states that “on-campus staff can refer students to Empower Me professionals and share appropriate information (within the bounds of strict confidentiality policies).”

Currently, the school provides free sessions with counsellors and psychotherapists, as well as free workshops on topics such as insomnia, stress, and self-confidence. However, the office’s website lists just 14 mental health professionals, including two interns, for more than 45,000 students. Psychological services are in high demand at Concordia. In the 2017-18 academic year, Concordia undergraduates filed more extended health care claims for psychologists, at a higher cost to the insurance plan, than for any other service, except for prescription drugs, according to a report provided to the CSU by Studentcare. In addition, the nearly 2,000 claims filed for psychologists represent a roughly 15 per cent increase over the previous academic year.

“Demand for mental-health services has risen as our community grows larger,” said university spokesperson Fiona Downey. She said the university is still re-evaluating its mental health resources. “We have begun by looking at how to effectively use existing resources and look at opportunities to contribute resources from outside the university.”

“We are re-examining how we deliver care, and introducing new programs such as the Zen Den, and, by next Fall, faculty-embedded wellness teams,” said Downey.

Under the CSU’s current contract with Studentcare, members are entitled to coverage of $75 per session and $800 per year for counselling outside Concordia. While the union had the option to increase this coverage, Hutton said this plan would have cost at least $10 per student. Empower Me will only cost $4.20 per student. The union will absorb the cost of the program using revenue from the health plan. All non-international undergraduate students taking more than three credits are automatically covered under the plan.

Hutton said the new plan will not immediately affect insurance premiums for students, since these premiums are already set in the CSU’s contract with Studentcare. If the union continues with its current health insurance model for the foreseeable future, premiums will depend on how the CSU renegotiates its contract with Studentcare. If the union succeeds in transitioning to a self-funded insurance model, as it has been planning to do for years, Hutton said the CSU will likely be able to offer lower premiums for students.

“The reason we have a health plan to begin with is because there are gaps in the healthcare system, both at the university level, and at the provincial and federal level,” said Hutton. “Why do we have to beg university administrators for mental health care? Hopefully, in 50 years, when we look back at the gains we’ve made in [mental health care], we’ll talk about today as the dark ages.”

Graphic by Ana Bilokin.

CSU General Coordinator criticizes “severe time restraints” of council mandate

The Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) general coordinator has raised concerns about the union’s mandate to implement online voting in its by-elections.

For the first time in history, the CSU will conduct its by-elections entirely through an online service, Simply Voting, after being mandated to do so by council in a meeting on Nov. 28. Students will then vote in a referendum to either permanently adopt the system or return to paper ballots.

Once the motion was approved, the union had just seven weeks to implement the system. “Ideally, I would have liked to have had at least a month to troubleshoot [the system],” CSU General Coordinator Sophie Hough-Martin told The Concordian last Wednesday. “We’re troubleshooting today, tomorrow and Friday, and we have to implement this by Tuesday.”

Hough-Martin’s concerns extend beyond the functioning of the system. “We had to look into the legality of using a third party, whether or not we were even legally allowed to share students’s information with a third-party company because it hadn’t gone to referendum yet,” she said.

Online voting was originally supposed to be voted on in a referendum before being implemented. Then, at the meeting on Nov. 28, council voted to move ahead with the system without a vote from the student body. This is valid according to CSU regulations because rules for paper ballot polling are outlined in the union’s standing regulations, rather than its bylaws.

“The bylaws are binding and can only be overturned by referendum; the standing regulations can be overturned with a two-thirds majority of council,” Hough-Martin said. “What that means is, because paper ballots are only mentioned in the standing regulations, technically council can just override the democratic process we’ve had established from the beginning.”

Hough-Martin had to consult with students at other Canadian universities about changes that might need to be made to the union’s policies. “Our policies are explicitly outlined around having paper ballots and in-person polling, and I needed to make sure that we weren’t implementing a system that would be incompatible with regulations around things like campaigning or polling procedures that we already have in place,” she said.

For example, according to the CSU’s standing regulations, campaign materials may not be displayed near polling stations. “But when everyone’s cell phone becomes a polling booth, how do you monitor that?” Hough-Martin said. “What sanctions would be taken against a candidate who just went around with an iPad and said ‘Hey, did you know that you can vote for me right now?’”

Research into the feasibility of online voting was conducted by the CSU’s ad-hoc Elections and Participation committee. Hough-Martin criticized what she saw as “holes in the research” of the committee, especially regarding election security. “The Elections and Participation committee had not done research into the security and integrity of online voting, which makes this implementation, before any concrete guarantees have been given, a little frustrating for me,” she said.

“I don’t even feel like there’s a need for research on security,” said Arts and Science Councillor Chris Kalafatidis, who led the “Yes” campaign for online voting and sat on the Elections and Participation committee. “Simply Voting is being used by almost half of the universities in Canada, and I can’t find a single article from a student newspaper or from an actual newspaper talking about a hack, with one exception,” he said.

The Elections and Participation committee surveyed 100 universities about their voting practices, 42 of which responded. “Half of the universities that I spoke to are on [Simply Voting], and nobody’s going ‘Oh, this is a big issue,’” he said. “To me, no red flags at all have been raised.”

“Logistically, I think in one month it’s way easier to put on an election that’s outsourced to a third party than to do it all ourselves,” Kalafatidis said.

Kalafatidis is also confident the union will be able to make the necessary changes to the standing regulations before the general elections. “If we could have a package done by early February [or] March, for revisions, I think they could be corrected very quickly.”

Kalafatidis defends the security of online voting compared to paper ballots. “Paper ballots are not secure,” he said. “We didn’t even serialize the paper ballots this election, and had one person not pointed it out, we would have been easily exposed to the potential of ballot box stuffing.”

More than 1,500 institutions across the world use Simply Voting for their elections, including political parties, universities, and unions, according to the company’s website.

“We’re doing our best to make sure the mistake of last semester never happens again, and that the implementation of online voting goes as smoothly as possible given the severe time restraints we were granted,” Hough-Martin said.

Graphic by Ana Bilokin.

In June 2016, Adrianna Diaz was in a minor traffic accident. She phoned the police to file a report. Diaz, a Concordia undergrad in software engineering, said the responding officers were “very nice” and accommodating.

Then, Diaz said that as she was retrieving her photo ID, one of the officers happened to spot her health card. When Diaz received a copy of the police report a month later, she discovered that the officers who had filed the report had identified her as a man.

That’s because, at the time, Diaz’s health card still displayed an “M.” Despite moving to Quebec from Mexico seven years ago, and obtaining her permanent residency status in 2014, Diaz was not a citizen at the time of the accident. Article 71 of the Civil Code of Québec requires residents to be citizens in order to change their gender marker on legal documents.

Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA) is hoping to change that. For more than five years, the CGA has been working to challenge parts of the Civil Code of Québec, such as article 71, which the centre says violate the rights of trans people.

In a press conference on Nov. 20, the centre announced that court dates for the lawsuit have finally been set for winter 2019. Multiple hearings with the Superior Court of Quebéc will take place from Jan. 7 to Feb. 1.

In total, the CGA is challenging 11 articles of the Civil Code of Québec. These include article 59, which prohibits people without citizenship from legally changing their name, and article 146, which compels nonbinary people to identify as either male or female on “certificates of birth, marriage, civil union and death.”

The laws being challenged fall into four broad categories, each of which will be heard on a different day: laws concerning trans youth, trans parents, nonbinary people and trans people without citizenship.

In addition to academics and psychologists, members of the trans community will testify at the hearings, including representatives from each of the four communities.

“These laws prevent the integration of trans people into society, and they contribute to the marginalization of trans people,” said Dalia Tourki, an advocate and public educator with the CGA.

“We’re challenging those articles because they violate values and principles of integrity, safety, freedom [and] right to privacy that are guaranteed and protected under both the Canadian and Quebec charters,” Tourki told The Concordian.

Quebec is the only place in Canada that requires residents to be citizens in order to change their name or gender marker, even those who have undergone surgery. “Because they do not have a citizenship yet, they have documents that do not match who they are, and that creates a lot of troubles and a lot of discrimination,” said Tourki.

The history of the lawsuit dates back to 2013. In August of that year, the centre filed a human rights complaint with the Commission of Human Rights and Youth Rights, arguing that article 71 of the Civil Code of Québec violated the rights of trans people. At the time, article 71 stated that any person wanting to change their gender marker had to be a citizen 18 years or older and had to first undergo gender reassignment surgery. The rules requiring applicants to be legal adults and undergo surgery were abolished in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

Although the complaint was refused on technical grounds, the centre filed a lawsuit the following year.

The lawsuit faced many delays before being granted a hearing. Although the changes to article 71 in 2015 and 2016 were important legal victories for the trans community, Tourki said the CGA’s lawsuit had to be rewritten after each modification. This is because the lawsuit would not be allowed to proceed if it included challenges to laws that no longer existed.

Diaz is now an interim member of the CGA’s board of directors. “I always admired their work, I always found support [from them] as a Concordia student,” she said, adding that she hopes to be voted in as a full member during the centre’s next general assembly.

Tourki said the CGA will focus on its current lawsuit before contemplating any new ones. However, Tourki said “there are still a lot of things to do for the full integration of trans communities into society, for sure.”

Photo by Ian Down.

Concordia group claims provincial laws discriminate against trans people

Nearly five years after it was launched, the lawsuit filed by Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA) against the provincial government will be heard in court this January.

At a press conference on Nov. 20, the center announced that multiple hearings are scheduled between Jan. 7 and Feb. 1, 2019.

The CGA is seeking to overturn several articles of the Civil Code of Quebec that it argues violate the rights of trans citizens. These include articles 59 and 71, which prohibit people without citizenship from legally changing their name or gender marker, respectively, and article 62, which compels youth under the age of 18 to obtain permission from their parents before legally changing their name.

“These laws prevent the integration of trans people into society, and they contribute to the marginalization of trans people,” said D.T., an advocate and public educator with the CGA.

“We’re challenging those articles because they violate values and principles of integrity, safety, freedom [and] right to privacy that are guaranteed and protected under both the Canadian and Quebec charters,” D.T. told The Concordian.

The laws being challenged fall into four broad categories, each of which will be heard on a different day: laws concerning trans youth, trans parents, gender nonbinary people, and trans people without citizenship.

In addition to scholars, academics, and psychologists, members of the trans community will testify at the hearings, including representatives from the trans-parent, trans-immigrant, and gender nonbinary communities.

The CGA first launched its lawsuit against the Quebec government in 2014. Previous iterations of the lawsuit challenged provincial regulations that required trans people to undergo surgery before legally changing their gender marker and prohibited youth under 18 from legally changing their names and gender markers. However, these laws were modified in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

Photo by Ian Down.

Updated on Jan. 8. 2024

In the original version of the article the main source was named, however the source has since requested to be left anonymous.

CSU approves nearly $225,000 in total for two projects

At a Nov. 14 Concordia Student Union (CSU) council meeting, council approved funding for two renovation projects.

A total of $8,500 will be allocated to ongoing renovations at Reggies Bar. The motion was introduced by finance coordinator John Hutton, who said the campus bar was in need of new upholstery for seating and new light fixtures, among other things.

“Because this is a place that students really enjoy and use a lot, I think it’s a good use of student space funds,” Hutton said. Renovation costs for student spaces are covered by the Student Space, Accessible Education and Legal Contingency (SSAELC) fund. The scope and timeline of these projects was not mentioned, and it was not specified what kind of disruption the renovations would cause for patrons. The campus bar previously underwent extensive renovations in the summer and fall of 2015.

Council also approved renovations for the new CSU daycare on Bishop St. The centre is in need of a more child-friendly outdoor area, according to CSU general coordinator Sophie Hough-Martin. The union will take about $216,000 from the SSAELC fund to build the new outdoor play centre.

“Right now, the outdoor play area is just a very not child-safe porch,” said Hough-Martin, who introduced the motion. She said new features will include plants, a play area with water jets, a security gate for the front entrance, and a larger fence between the daycare, the neighbouring library, and McKibbins Irish Pub. According to the motion, a contract with a private construction firm was approved by the nursery’s board of directors on Oct. 23. The contract then needed to be approved by council.

Photo by Mackenzie Lad.