Author: Marissa Ramnanan

Categories
News

Concordia launches tool for Indigenous self-identification

“We are all working together towards greater retention, and that is done through support,” said Catherine Richardson, director of Concordia’s First Peoples Studies program.

Concordia has launched a new tool for Indigenous self-identification through MyConcordia. On the “My Student Centre” page, on the bottom left hand side under the personal information headline, there is the optional “Indigenous Self-Identification” link.

“There has been a high drop out rate of Indigenous students due to racism in the classroom and in the institution,” said Catherine Richardson, director of the First Peoples Studies program. “We are all working together towards greater retention, and that is done through support.”

Richardson explained that if she, who is Métis, was a student at the time of this new Self-Identification process, the support she would have gotten through it would probably encourage her to stay in school if she fell behind or had troubles.

Richardson said the staff could be present and be able to advocate for her if she had an issue with a professor for example. Or, “if there was a funeral in my community that I needed to attend, they would help me make arrangements with the professor.”

“For a long time, Indigenous students and those ‘taking care of the students’ did not want them to have to self-identify because there was too much risk of stigmatization and racism,” continued Richardson. “The ASRC offers a safe space, cultural safety and opportunities to form friendships and connections away from home, with a higher sense of mutual understanding.”

Concordia Spokesperson Vannina Maestracci said in an email to The Concordian that this new tool is used to connect students to culturally relevant resources and support on campus. According to Maestracci, the inputted information will be kept confidential and will only be available to select staff at the Aboriginal Student Resource Centre (ASRC) and the Office of the Registrar.

“There are more reasons to identify other than to merely be used as a diversity statistic by the institution,” said Richardson. “There are more scholarships available for Indigenous students, particularly at the masters and doctoral level.”

On top of scholarships, the identification tool could also give students the opportunity to have access to specialized services, bursaries and trips to conferences.

Richardson said the ASRC holds an Indigenous graduation celebration as well. Students don’t need to be formally identified to the university in order to participate, but it is through this identification process and the ASRC that the staff reaches out to students.

Richardson said knowing the number of Indigenous students is important for groups such as the Indigenous directions leadership group. Once given this information, the group could properly and more strongly advocate for the students when made aware of their background and general number, and they would, therefore, be better able to attend to their potential needs. She added that this identification also gives Indigenous students access to jobs related to Indigenous research projects, such as First Voices Week.

 

Graphic by Victoria Blair

Categories
News

A conversation about mental health in BIPOC communities at Concordia

The Haitian Student Association of Concordia partnered up with mental health groups to destigmatize mental illness in BIPOC communities.

On Nov. 8, the Haitian Student Association of Concordia collaborated with My Mental Health Matters and Stronger than Stigma to host an open discussion about mental health in Black, Indigenous, People of Colour communities (BIPOC) through an event called “It’s Not All In Your Head.”

“We’re broadcasting the message that anyone struggling, both emotionally or physically, isn’t alone,” said Stronger than Stigma President, Jillian Caplan. “That’s so important, especially in a high stress, academic environment. A dynamic conversation is a key component of mental health advocacy, so the best way to tackle the stigma surrounding mental illness is to talk about it.”

Three speakers candidly shared their struggle with mental health as part of the Stronger Stories segment of the event.

Jean Felando Noël, one of the speakers, said the event gave him the opportunity to be a voice for people who share his identity, by being a man, and by being someone from the Haitian community.

“I feel like some people kind of stay in the dark about how they feel, until they have somebody who steps forward and shares their story with others,” said Noël. “It shows them that it’s okay to speak, it’s okay to force yourself – so I honestly wanted to be here to be a voice [for] people; to be the voice of others who probably don’t have the chance of talking.”

Annick Maugile Flavien, the founding coordinator for the Black Perspective Initiative and co-moderator of the conversation, said it’s especially important to talk about mental health and illness in communities who tend to avoid acknowledging it.

In some racialized communities, “mental health is stigmatized in ways that are beyond just our family and friend dynamics, but also rooted in deeper colonial histories, and ideas of race, and religion-all of these things make for a very complicated individual life that is tied to a larger history,” said Maugile Flavien.

Off-campus mental health resources for BIPOC community

  • You can find a list of BIPOC mental health professionals here
  • There is an ongoing list of Black mental health professionals you can access here
  • My Mental Health Matters

Off-campus mental health resources 

  • Argyle Institute
  • The Emotional Mental Health Centre CBT Clinic
  • The Montreal Therapy Centre

On-campus resources 

  • Zen Dens
  • Concordia Students’ Nightline
  • Empower Me
  • Stronger than Stigma

“I really wanted to get a sense of what the emotional climate is with students at Concordia right now, and learn from their wisdom, and learn from their stories and be sensitized to what’s happening in people’s daily lives, in faces that we see everyday,” said Maugile Flavien.

 

Photo by Cecilia Piga

Categories
News

Concordia researchers study bilingualism and language development in toddlers

“The earlier you’re exposed to a language, there are some parts of the language that are going to be easier to learn,” said Krista Byers-Heinlein, Concordia professor and Research Chair in Bilingualism. 

A joint study by Concordia and Princeton universities aims at understanding how bilingual toddlers learn two languages in the context of language switching.

“Some bilingual people might switch back and forth between their languages more often, while others don’t tend to do that and we don’t have any information as of right now [whether] that is going to matter or not for development,” said Krista Byers-Heinlein, the Concordia professor working on this study.

Byers-Heinlein, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and the Concordia University Research Chair in Bilingualism, and Casey Lew-Williams, associate professor in Princeton’s Department of Psychology are in charge of the research.

Byers-Heinlein said the research is important because in Canadian cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, about 25 per cent of kids grow up in bilingual homes.

The study will be unique in several ways. They will be “following the kids longitudinally for three years to look at their development over time,” said Byers-Heinlein.

The toddlers will be wearing small digital recorders which will catch their home language environment. Through this, researchers can measure their language outcome. It will also contribute to an eye-tracking experiment that will be done periodically in their labs, which will observe word comprehension and language processing.

“With carefully designed stimuli, we can look at the earliest responses to language – [for example] how they look into different types of language sounds in each of their languages,” said Byers-Heinlein.

Byers-Heinlein said evidence shows children can only learn language on a deep level through interaction. Children must be able to interact with people in order to learn a new language, rather than just watching YouTube videos.

“The earlier you’re exposed to a language, there are some parts of the language that are going to be easier to learn,” added Byers-Heinlein.

With the partnership between Concordia and Princeton, the researchers will be able to study two bilingual communities, which is rare in most bilingual studies.They will observe the French-English bilingualism in Montreal, and the English-Spanish bilingualism in New Jersey.

Byers-Heinlein explained this creates an interesting layer in their research because in the United States, Spanish is not an official language.

Unofficial languages are usually synonymous with heritage languages, which are spoken at home or by community members only. It’s been noted those languages are at a greater risk, like Spanish in the United States, since children are generally more inclined to gravitate toward the languages their friends are speaking, and the official language of the city. They become more reluctant toward their heritage tongue. However, Byers-Heinlein explained the same cannot be said about Montreal where English and French are commonly spoken in the city and taught at school.

“We’re interested to see how those differences, as well as cultural differences, impact what’s going on in the home, and ultimately how children grow up learning their languages,” said Byers-Heinlein.

Studying different communities will also give researchers an opportunity to explore the socio-economic aspect of bilingualism. In some areas like New Jersey, bilingualism is synonymous with immigration. Oftentimes, those families come from a lower socio-economic status, said Byers-Heinlein. In Montreal, bilingualism is more common, and is not segregated in immigrant communities.

“We know that kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds, their language development tends to be a little bit behind than other kids, probably just because they’re not having the same opportunities towards interaction with their parents that are often working multiple jobs,” said Byers-Heinlein.

The researchers are currently in the planning stages of the study. Over the next couple of months they will start looking for families who are interested in participating in the research. Those who are interested in the study can learn more about it here, or sign up on the website. The team plans to keep in touch with the families every two months, and will invite them to the lab every year.

“Children can learn certain languages at a certain rate,” said Byers-Heinelin. “If you’re dividing that learning between two languages, versus a kid who is concentrating on one language, you’re going to see some differences in [learning and development]. Sometimes we might observe differences between monolinguals and bilinguals and say ‘oh wow that bilingual kid is way behind.’ Well, she’s not behind, she’s learning twice as much.”

 

Feature graphic by Victoria Blair

Categories
News

Concordia mobilizes to combat wasting unsold food and clothes

As the city of Montreal announced its new plans last week to tackle food and clothes waste, Concordia is already taking steps to do just that. 

In the city’s proposal, Mayor Valerie Plante and her team aim to ban stores from dumping unsold clothes and food, in an attempt to become zero waste by 2030. A plan released on Oct. 17 lays out their goal to reduce food waste by 50 per cent in five years, and reduce Montreal’s commercial textile waste.

According to Faisal Shennib, an environmental specialist who is managing Zero Waste Concordia (ZWC), they are already taking steps to reduce food waste.

“We’ve always aimed to reduce waste from landfills as much as possible,” said Shennib. “Organics are the top contributors of waste from our institutions, and they release a lot of methane when they go into the landfills, so it’s an easy target for us.”

ZWC plans to make compost bins accessible in each food consumption area at Concordia, and wants to figure out a program to process the organics that are composted in a sustainable way.

“But then what we realized is that we weren’t connecting usable food waste to people who could use it,” said Shennib.

Their pilot project, tentatively named Zero Waste Concordia’s Food Donation Program, was launched this September. It aims to get restaurants and cafes renting space at the university to move toward eliminating their food waste.

The project has three phases. The first is to educate the tenants, such as Subway, Java U and, Jugo Juice, about basic sustainability, like recycling and composting. The second phase is planned to launch next semester and aims to formally give them the opportunity to partner with organizations like La Tablée des Chefs. Their food recovery program redistributes surplus food to community organizations that provide food to the homeless. The third is to encourage tenants to rethink their food packaging and use of plastics in their businesses.

ZWC already informally contacted some tenants for the project, and most either expressed interest or are already involved in another food redistribution charity. Concordia as an institution already has a contract with La Tablée des Chefs. ZWC is also trying to get confirmation from the university to allow their tenants to be covered under their agreement.

“They use our landfill container at the end of the day,” said Shennib. “They actually throw out all that food, potentially, unless they have their own program.”

The project is also working to reduce food waste from university events by working with Hospitality Concordia, who organizes events at the institution. Hospitality Concordia already has a partnership with Tablée des Chefs but was targeting larger events. ZWC wants to target smaller, student-run events that may also be wasting food.

“There’s also a smaller ecosystem we want to build,” continued Shennib. “Say a student club serves food to 10 people, and then they have a lot of cookies leftover and nobody wants to take it from the group- it shouldn’t have to go to waste either. We’re trying to collaborate with health food co-op Frigo Vert to potentially use them as a place where students can bring them their leftovers, and they can offer them to the community.”

School Stores: Unsold Clothes

Melanie Burnett, the general manager for Concordia Stores, said they rarely ever throw away clothes because they almost always sell their apparel. Burnett said they have sales to sell unsold clothes and that they also recently donated their apparel to a charity.

She explained the only time they throw away clothes from their stores is if they are damaged and unsellable.

Concordia Stores also have a partnership with Concordia University’s Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR). Burnett said they have donated some unsold art supplies to CUCCR for creative purposes in the past, and have given them wooden shelves the Stores were no longer using.

“By fixing ambitious targets and giving ourselves the means to attain them, our city will deploy the necessary efforts to make its ecological transition more concrete,” said executive committee member Laurence Lavigne Lalonde. Lalonde is responsible for the ecological transition and resilience of l’Espace pour la vie et de l’agriculture urbaine.

Concordia has several other initiatives aiming to reduce food waste, such as the Dish Project, Waste Not Want Not and the Concordia Food Coalition. 

 

Feature photo by Laurence B.D.

Categories
News

Extinction Rebellion Quebec presents their cause at Concordia

The Quebec chapter of the international climate action group is rebelling against human extinction, which they say is caused by human-induced climate change and biodiversity loss.

“We are at the beginning of the sixth mass extinction,” said geologist and climate change scientist Heather Short, of Extinction Rebellion Quebec. “Or as some people call it, the first extermination of other life on the planet. We have extinction regularly – it’s a normal thing. However, what we are causing right now is in no way, shape, or form, normal. It’s way outside the scale and the rate of any sort of extinction we’ve seen in the last 550 million years.”

Short explained that there have been five other mass extinctions in Earth’s past, which she said were all caused by a rapid, excess amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

“The kind of ‘rapid’ CO2 emissions that we’re talking about is the same magnitude of emissions that we put into the atmosphere in 200 years but spread out over six, 10 thousand years,” said Short. “What we’re doing right now is absolutely unprecedented in all of Earth’s history.”

As stated on their website, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. According to Short, IPCC came out with a statement in 2018 saying we must stick to a rise of only 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is about pre-industrial levels. In order to have about a 50 or 60 per cent chance of meeting that goal, the IPCC said we must reduce CO2 emissions by 45 per cent within 10 years. Short said in all of the scenarios published by the IPCC, we need to start reducing our emissions by the end of 2020.

“Our present emissions trajectory is going to get us to a 4 to 4.5 degrees Celsius rise by the end of the century if we continue living life as we do, business as usual,” said Short. “Though the Paris Climate accord had been signed by almost 200 countries in 2015, we’ve been increasing emissions since then – we haven’t been decreasing any of them at all, anywhere. It’s really quite remarkable.”

Short said within the IPCC statements, which are very conservative, we could still have a worst-case scenario 8-degree Celsius warming in about a century.

“At a 7-degree Celsius warming, it’ll be impossible for people living in equatorial regions to cool off ever, and if you combine that heat with typical high humidity in those areas, it’s basically lethal to move around outside after a few hours,” said Short. “The conservative reports say limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would inquire transformative systemic change in all aspects of society.”

Short explained the oceans are affected by increased CO2 emissions as well. Ocean acidification, where the oceans absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and create carbonic acid, makes it impossible for phytoplankton to make their shells. Phytoplankton are the base of the ocean food web, so if we lose phytoplankton, Short said we will essentially lose the oceans.

“It’s not really a stretch to say that humans are at a threat of extinction,” she said. “It’s not gonna happen in our lifetime, it’s probably not going to happen by the end of the century- but the decisions that we make as a global society within the next year, and certainly within the next 10 years, are going to determine whether this happens or not.”

The demands of Extinction Rebellion are in direct relation to this science. The organization demands governments and the media tell the truth about the climate crisis; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the year 2025 and to create a citizens assembly to help oversee the government in the transition toward a carbon-free world.

“Basically, what we’re doing is equivalent to a one in 20 chance that the plane you’re about to board will crash,” said Short. “We would never get on that plane, with a one in 20 chance of it coming down, but we’re willing to send our children and grandchildren on that plane- for the sake of luxury and convenience and growth capitalism.”

Protests

Extinction Rebellion protests in two ways; the first is direct action, like climbing the Jacques Cartier bridge during morning rush hour. The second is peaceful forms of protests like the upcoming slow swarm on the 24 where people will cross the intersection of Parc and Sherbrooke holding up signs to drivers idle at a red light to encourage them to rethink their ways, or die-ins, like the KlimAde event which took place on Oct. 13.

This event was a play on words for the general population having to drink the “Kool-Aid” of false information and propaganda, fed to them by the government and the media, about the environmental crisis. During the demonstration, protestors drank the Kool-Aid and “died” of the poison, lying on a sidewalk in the heart of downtown. Demonstrations like these serve as mobilization and outreach actions to educate the general population about the climate crisis and cause some minor unrest.

According to Concordia university sociologist Guillaume Tremblay-Boily, social movements that balance radical direct action with softer forms of protest could be effective to encourage policy change. But he explained there is never a guarantee.

“It’s too early to tell if their action is effective,” Tremblay-Boily said. “But from previous movements, we can know that sometimes it is. For example, in 2012, the student strike very efficiently combined two types of action, and the movement eventually managed to obtain quite a substantial victory.”

Tremblay-Boily said their timing for their protests is right, and that doing a more radical action right after a milder protest in which almost 500,000 people participated seems to be a good idea. He said there’s a rise in awareness of the climate crisis, and protesters who participated in the Sept. 27 global climate strike can clearly see there has been no federal governmental change since the demonstration.

“A lot of these people who were part of that softer, more quiet protest might be ready to hear the kind of message that Extinction Rebellion is putting forward – this idea that you need to go further, to take more radical action,” he said.

Tremblay-Boily said a challenge for Extinction Rebellion Quebec could be to ensure their ideas stay rooted and to continue creating connections with the rest of the population. The sociologist said there is a risk their organization could become isolated from the larger environmental movement when they participate in direct action. A balance of protest is often key to staying on track.

 

Graphic by @justine.draws.sometimes

 

Categories
News

Concordia master’s student studies the effects of cannabinoids on the immune system

It’s been a year since cannabis has been legalized in Canada, and the drug is being widely used across the country.

In the second quarter of 2019 alone, Statistics Canada reported that almost 5 million Canadians have reported using cannabis. Since it was only recently legalized, there hasn’t been much research on it or the effects it has on users.

“So many people are using it, so how do we not know exactly what it’s doing to our bodies?” Concordia Psychology MA student, Norhan Mehrez asked. She said it was shocking to her that we still don’t fully understand the mechanism behind some of its effects.

Due to this lag in research, Mehrez said she took it upon herself to study the effects of cannabinoids on people, with a focus on the immune system.

Mehrez’s research is an intersection of three fields: the immune system, circadian rhythms and cannabinoids (THC, CDB and synthetic cannabinoids).

With the help of co-supervisors Shimon Amir, from the department of psychology, and Peter Darlington, an associate professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, Mehrez aims to understand how cannabinoids affect timekeeping in the immune system.

“We know it affects the immune system in several ways, we know that it may affect timekeeping in different tissues in the body,” said Mehrez. “I’m expecting that [cannabinoids] play some sort of role in maintaining an optimal balance in immune function. We know that cannabinoids affect the immune system, but the actual mechanisms of how it’s having those effects isn’t fully understood.”

The link between circadian rhythms and immune system

Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles in the body that regulate different organs and functions. An example of this is the sleep-wake cycle, which repeats every 24 hours. Mehrez explained we have circadian rhythms in a lot of functions of the body, including the immune system. We also have genes, called clock genes, that ensure the regulation of the circadian rhythm of certain functions, depending on the body’s perceived time of day. The clock genes “keep time” by rhythmically activating along a 24-hour cycle, which in turn leads to rhythms in many bodily processes.

Mehrez explained your immune system seems to function optimally at certain times of the day, where your immune response to fight a pathogen is the strongest, and where you may be more likely to heal from a wound. This is where the immune system and circadian rhythms are tightly linked.

Mehrez said when a person’s sleep-wake cycle is disrupted by working the night shift for example, this also affects other circadian rhythms in the body. Those workers are more likely to develop disorders of the immune system because their time keeping is thrown off.

“On the other hand, if you compromise the immune system in animals or in people, we see that some of their circadian rhythms get disrupted as well,” Mehrez continued.

The link between circadian rhythms and the immune system has been recently investigated, though research is still being done. Mehrez said she wants to learn how cannabinoids affect the immune system as it keeps time.

Research

Mehrez got funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for her research. She said they recruit healthy participants and screen them to have normal sleep cycles by using different questionnaires. They also have questionnaires to understand their drug habits. The participants’ blood is taken from them once screened and Mehrez then isolates the T cells, a subtype of white blood cells that detects the presence of a foreign invader in the body and creates an immune response to attack it.

Mehrez adds different cannabinoids to the isolated T cells, such as THC, CBD and synthetic cannabinoids, activates the T cells to stimulate an immune response and measures the reaction of the cells every four hours, for 36 hours.

They also look at the expression of the clock genes, which continue to show rhythms for some time even after being removed from the body. Once the researchers activate the T cells and add cannabinoids, they will see whether the cannabinoids affect clock genes and rhythmicity in the T cells.

“Are the cannabinoids going to help cells go back to normal time keeping or are they going to make time keeping worse? We don’t know,” said Mehrez.

Mehrez said, through her research, her team is hoping to uncover whether cannabinoids will help maintain normal time keeping under conditions known to disrupt it or if it will they cause further disruption.

There is a system in the body that has receptors for cannabinoids, generally involved in maintaining balance. For example, maintaining a body temperature of 37º C.

Mehrez said that from past research her team knows that cannabinoids also lowers immune system activity, which could be bad for someone who’s trying to fight off an infection or a cold, because we become more prone to viruses when our immune system is lowered or suppressed. “But it can be a good thing for people who have autoimmune illnesses, because their problem is that their immune system is attacking their own body. Cannabinoids are being shown to be useful in autoimmune illnesses because they are immunosuppressants and because they don’t have many known negative side effects. So, it seems to be very promising as a potential treatment so far.”

“I’m hoping that understanding how [cannabinoids] affects timekeeping [could] give us insight on how it affects the immune system,” said Mehrez.

Mehrez said that understanding how cannabinoids affect T cells will bring her closer to understanding how they affect overall immune function in healthy people. She added she hopes this research can be followed up to understand how cannabinoids might play a role in autoimmune illnesses.

 

Photo by Mackenzie Lad

Categories
News

Advanced voting available on campus from Oct. 5-9

“Every voice matters and every vote counts in an election,” said Concordia President Graham Carr in an emailed statement sent to the Concordian. “Concordia is happy to host, like several post-secondary campuses, polling stations for our community and our neighbours.”

From Oct. 5 to 9, those who are eligible can cast their votes ahead of the official Oct. 21 date. Advanced voting is available at several other universities and CEGEPs across the country for this year’s federal election.

According to Pierre Pilon, Regional Media Advisor for Elections Canada, the initiative to make voting more accessible to students began in 2015. The last federal election launched a pilot project involving 40 post-secondary institutions to offer advanced voting to students and staff. Concordia partnered up with the project for a second term this year, along with over 100 other institutions.

Pilon said this partnership is voluntary.

Offered on both the Loyola and downtown campuses, eligible Canadians can vote at the following times: Oct. 5, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Oct. 6, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.; Oct. 7, 8 and 9 from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

“I encourage everyone, and especially our students, to make their voice heard by taking advantage of the on-campus polling stations at Concordia and the possibility to vote early on certain days even if this is not your assigned polling station,” said Carr.

Concordia student James William Altimas, 22, said he plans to vote. The joint specialization anthropology and sociology student said the climate march on Sept. 27 solidified his decision. Seeing such a large number of people manifesting for change inspired him and made him think that his vote, along with all the others, could change something.

“The big reason why I’m voting is because of climate change,” said Altimas. “Maybe we can make a difference.”

“I voted before but never really thought it was going to make a difference,” he continued. “But this time around, there’s a lot of people realizing that we’re fucked if we don’t do anything.”

How to register to vote

Those who are over 18, have proof of Canadian citizenship, and have an address, can vote.

You must register before voting, otherwise you are ineligible. You can use the Online Voter Registration Service before Tue Oct. 15 by 6 p.m.

You can also register to vote in person at any Elections Canada office across Canada. If you register before the 15th, you will get a voter information card in the mail that tells you where and when you can vote.

Alternatively, you can register to vote on Oct. 21, the official date of the elections. Don’t forget to bring proof of address with you. Before voting, you should know the names of the MPs running in your electoral district.

At Loyola campus, the polling station is located at the Jesuit Hall Conference Centre, RF Atrium. For the downtown campus, it’s located at the J.W. McConnell Building, in the LB Atrium.

 

Graphic by Victoria Blair

 

Categories
News

Political Analysis: Will Trudeau’s black and brown face scandal swing youth vote?

“The picture does not change what he’s done during his tenure as Prime Minister. It will not really change my vote,” said Michel Maginzi, a 22-year-old student from Sherbrooke University.

“The first time I saw it, I was shook,” he said, admittedly. “Because that’s not something you expect to see from the Prime Minister, who’s the head of the government, head of the country. It’s very offensive. It’s racist, and I understand how people get offended. But at the same time, I’m personally not offended by it.”

“They found it and decided to use it as a weapon,” Maginzi continued. “It’s something that he’s done in the past. People are just trying to destroy his image.”

In an interview with the CBC, CEO of Abacus Data, David Coletto said that Canadians between the ages of 18 to 35 could make up 37 per cent of the electorate this federal election.

But, most Canadian youths have a tendency not to vote. Though the youth vote in the last federal election went up by nearly 40 per cent since 2011, they were still the age group with the least amount of votes according to Elections Canada.

Daniel Weinstock, director of the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy, said no matter the public youth opinion of Trudeau, it will probably not make much of a difference come election time.

“Younger demographics tend to have markedly lesser participation rates in elections,” said Weinstock. “That might have a dampening effect on whatever contribution the youth vote might make, to swing the election.”

“Right now it doesn’t seem like the effect is that huge,” he continued. Weinstock said the last poll he saw from a reputable source showed a small movement away from the Liberals, but within the margin of error, between 1 to 2 per cent.

“The news cycle doesn’t seem to be dominated by it anymore,” said Weinstock. “We’re still almost four weeks until the election I think that if it stays where it is now, I don’t see it as a major factor, more of an embarrassment than anything else.”

Weinstock does admit Trudeau’s numbers as a leader have taken a hit but said it could be due to any other of his scandals.

“SNC-Lavalin, the infamous India trip,” said Weinstock. “His personal leadership numbers have really gone down, but I think a lot of voters here are mature enough to distinguish between the leader and the party. They might say well, he may not have the best judgment, but as I compare platforms, I think the Liberal support, looking at the party as a whole, is not taking a hit.”

Jean-François D’Aoust, an assistant professor at McGill and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy Citizenship reflects this sentiment. D’Aoust said the controversy may have affected Canadian votes, but in a minor way, and explained that this event was not the only affair to have tarnished his image.

“There were already other scandals, such as SNC-Lavalin, which damaged his integrity image,” said D’Aoust. “Other scandals damaged his First Nations-friendly image.”

Could vote splitting between NDP and Liberals lead to a Conservative win?

Weinstock said Canadian voters know how the political system works and that they know what happens when there is vote splitting, so he doubts it could happen. In 2011, ridings, where voters were split between the NDP and Liberals, saw how the Conservative won because of it.

”I think a lot of people might say, you know what, I’d be inclined to vote for the NDP if they were a bit higher in the polls,” said Weinstock. “But four weeks is a long time. A bandwagon effect could happen, but right now I’m not seeing it in the numbers.”

 

Collage by Alex Hutchins

Categories
News

JMSB: first business school in Canada recognized for gender parity

John Molson School of Business has become the first business school in Canada to be certified by Women in Governance.

A national non-profit organization, Women in Governance aims to support women with advancing their careers, gain further leadership skills, and have an opportunity to serve on boards.

“I am tremendously proud that the efforts our business school has put into working toward parity have been recognized by an organization that is dedicated specifically to that cause,” said dean of JMSB Anne-Marie Croteau.

JMSB will be one of 48 organizations to be recognized for their commitment to gender equality in the workplace.

“It gives a clear message to society and to its students that diversity and gender parity is important and that chances and opportunities for men and women should be, today and going forward, equal,” said Nathalie Perreault of Women in Governance.

The Parity Certification, which was first inaugurated in 2017, is earned by businesses and organizations where women have been historically underrepresented. The certification evaluates the parity of an organization and also gives recommendations on what they can do better in terms of gender equality and equity.

“In order to attain this certification, JMSB demonstrated not only a commitment to ensuring parity through its policies, practices, strategic direction and decision-making, but also that the school’s strategies have resulted in progress being made in terms of the distribution of women to men being recruited and promoted,” said Croteau.

Perreault explained the certification evaluation process is a questionnaire that is divided into three categories. The first is governance and vision. More specifically, the culture and strategy of the organization when it comes to parity and how they communicate it to their employees.

Second, they look at collective enablers: the practices and programs in place within the organization to help women grow and get promoted within the organization, ensuring a better work-life balance. Perreault explained they also look at the presence of harassment and discrimination policies, mentorship programs, if there are different policies that address leadership skill development, and if the organizations promote the status of women with other associations.

The third is equity. Perreault said this is where Women in Governance ask the organizations to “take out their calculators and crunch the numbers.” Here they look at turn-over ratios and wage-gap ratios.

“As an institution, we embrace accessibility and inclusion and firmly believe that we draw strength from diversity,” Croteau said. “Inclusiveness is one of the school’s core values and is identified as such in our strategic plan.”

JMSB is set to officially receive the certification at the Women in Governance’s Annual Recognition Gala at the Palais des congrès de Montréal on Sept. 25.

 

Feature photo by Britanny Giuseppe-Clarke and @sundaeghost

Categories
News

Concordia professor talks international environmental agreements

“I have a daughter,” said economics professor and researcher Effrosyni Diamantoudi. “I want her to live in a happy world, like I did—in a world that’s not stressed with hurricanes and storms and all the consequences that come with climate change.”

“I see the world is not the same as it was 30 years ago,” Diamantoudi continued. “It’s not just for the sake of academic curiosity. My research has an important implication on the world I live in.”

Diamantoudi and her team have been researching international environmental agreements, through an environmental economist lense, for more than a decade.

She explained there are currently 180 environmental agreements that have been signed worldwide, which speaks to the necessity of an alternative method.

“If it was a no-brainer, then we would be drafting one agreement and then we’d all go home and it’ll be the end of it,” said Diamantoudi. But as it stands, these agreements are usually written and cancelled and rewritten and more defined and drafted.

We have the Paris Agreement, she said, and the Kyoto Protocol before that, and the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit even before that.

After much research, Diamantoudi and her team suggest to embed the international environmental agreement within another overarching agreement, like trade, and involve as many countries as possible.

It is favorable for country leaders to be part of agreements. “When you’re outside of the agreement, then you have to pay taxes for everything you sell to those markets, you don’t benefit from everything they’re exporting. You lose a lot if you’re outside of a trading block, said Diamantoudi. “What we’re suggesting is a situation where the environmental agreement and the trading block becomes one body, and they negotiate over the two together.”

The concept is simple: if you don’t meet the environmental standards of the agreement, then as a country, you will have to pay a higher tariff.

“That’s a way of balancing the incentives,” said Diamantoudi.

Diamantoudi said their research shows that if some issues are tied into each other, it would reinforce the validity of the agreement.

Through this, more incentives would be created for federal governments to contribute, and for ways to ensure indirect punishment if the agreement isn’t met.

She explained there are several international agreements currently in the works, which usually involves much of the same countries, on a singular topic. A group of countries get together to talk about trade, and months later the same group talks about the environment, and then, another couple of months later, technology transfers, and so on.

Diamantoudi said there are three characteristics that explains the failure of most international environmental agreements.

The first is the lack of enforceability. There is no supranational authority overlooking individual countries to keep them accountable if they don’t abide by the agreements made in the international agreement. These agreements are voluntary, and have to be self-enforced, which therein lies a problem.

“Within a country, you can come up with laws,” said Diamantoudi. “‘Do not dump more than X pollutants in the river, and so on, and if you break the law then you get a fine, or you lose your business. Well, nobody can fine a country, and nobody can shut down a country.”

The second is freeriding. Diamantoudi explained that although it would be ideal for all of us to actually do our part, and keep our environment clean, each one of us individually deviates from the agreement because we count on the other to do their part.

If everybody else agrees to cooperate and to decrease their pollution, then each country individually has an incentive to free ride, to not meet their target, because they assume everybody else has. “They think to themselves ‘now climate change is under control, presumably, and therefore we can continue doing business as usual,’” said Diamantoudi.

The third is the heterogeneity of the problem. Not all countries are the same. So in that,  not all countries have the same economies, are the same size, have the same industry, have the same natural resources, and not all countries suffer the same environmental consequences.

“It often happens that the countries that contribute to this greater bad, are not the ones that suffer the most,” said Diamantoudi. “So there’s this asymmetry in terms of contribution to the damage, and in consequences of the damage.”

“We have a dire problem in our hands, which explains why so many agreements tend to be drafted, and fail, and why we are where we are.”

Diamantoudi further explained if there are some smaller agreements which also has the environmental agreement embedded, it could be a good start.

“If we cant have all 180 countries sign, could we have a group of 90, and another group of 90, by all means, it’s better than nothing,” said Diamantoudi

She further explained that in situations like the environmental crisis, people have to take individual responsibility for their actions as well.

“You can’t teach people to care, but you can teach people to understand better, so information, education, into how this all works,” said Diamantoudi. “Yes, temperatures have increased, yes the water levels have risen, but [educate them on] the consequences of that. Make the calculation of that cost [to them individually], make that information more publicly available so that the masses can understand what’s going on.”

 

Feature photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
Opinions

Being afraid of your thoughts: the dangers of escapism

Graphic by Florence Y

Running away from your reality to avoid stress isn’t the only option

Escapism refers to activities that allow someone to focus on something other than their current problems, stresses or lives, according to Philip Cooper from John Abbott College’s department of psychology.

Escapism can come in the form of music, movies, books or the Internet, among other things. Using these mediums to “get away” isn’t necessarily a bad thing when used in moderation. These mediums can help us relax, and few would deny relaxation and recreation are healthy activities that enrich our lives. However, it isn’t the healthiest approach to dealing with our stress. Many people are so accustomed to escaping reality that these mundane activities have become harmful.

My friend Matthew said something that resonated with me while we were bussing downtown together. There was a pause in our conversation, and in that moment he looked at the people around him, all buried in their phones, and said absentmindedly: “It’s as though people are afraid of their own thoughts.” This comment put escapism into perspective for me and got me thinking more deeply about the subject.

People keep finding new ways to distract themselves from the present moment, disturbing their thought processes with media.

But when do you give yourself a chance to settle into yourself and your actual surroundings?

I only recently realized how much I was escaping my realities—my phone has been dying in the middle of the day, and so I’ve been forced to spend the hour-and-a-half-long trek home without music or a phone. At first, I felt incapacitated, like I was missing out on the constant connection of social media. But then I started to appreciate the mundane moments around me, and I started to appreciate the strangers around me as well. I’ve been making small talk with the people I sit next to, or just complimenting them on things I wouldn’t have noticed had I been absorbed by my phone. I also get a lot of thinking done, either dissecting a lot of issues I’ve kept buried or practicing my creative writing skills.

We are compulsively trying to escape reality and deviate from our thoughts. We millennials are the zombie generation. We avoid reality—in other words, we avoid facing stressful or emotional circumstances.

By being forced to disconnect from social media, with my phone constantly dying prematurely, I was in turn forced to face the cause of my stresses that I had been so desperately avoiding. After I faced it, I felt nothing but relief. This helped me tremendously, and gave me the incentive to stop running away from my problems.

In order to avoid relying on escapism, one should try to cope with stress directly whenever possible, or look for alternative ways to manage it, Cooper said. “Sometimes talking over your problems with friends can be enough,” he said. “Sleep and exercise are both natural stress relievers and will provide you with other health benefits as well. Breaking tasks down into manageable chunks, and setting up a schedule with reasonable goals can often make something seem much less stressful.” He added that, in serious cases, the person might want to consider talking to a counsellor or getting some other type of professional help.

For help with stress management, or to figure out exactly what you are avoiding, do not hesitate to contact the mental health services at Concordia University.

For more information, visit www.concordia.ca/students/health/mental-health.

Graphic by Florence Y

Categories
Arts

Poetry and prose come to life at Kafein bar

Kafein bar offers a safe space to let the creative juices flow

Pulsating music resonates in our bones as the crowd grows every minute. The conversation buzzes around us, alcohol and coffee alike in hands, sharing laughs with strangers seated shoulder to shoulder in a dimly lit room. The crowd crescendos its conversation in anticipation of the performances to come, groups settling in to stand at the back or on the sides of the room, trying to get the best view of the stage.

This is a common scene at Kafein café-bar, which has bi-weekly poetry events on Tuesdays at 9 p.m., opening the stage to newcomers and experienced performers alike.

Located right by Concordia University’s Sir George Williams campus, Kafein has been hosting Poetry Night every second week since July 2013. According to the event coordinator Ariana Molly, the event was an attempt to attract more customers on Tuesday nights—a difficult task, because really, who goes out to get buzzed on a Tuesday? Nearly four years later, though, it has grown into something no one could have ever anticipated.

Molly, a Concordia student, said she was given complete control of the job by Kafein’s owner—she’s the reason Poetry Night has become the glorious event that it is today.

Last Tuesday, Jan. 24, was an especially unique night at Kafein. It was their 82nd show, and the powerhouse Molly’s final night. She handed her position over to two new handpicked hosts, Jared Roboz and Selena Diorio, as she soon will be studying abroad. According to Molly, this resulted in one of the biggest turn-outs Poetry Night they’ve ever had.

A lot of work went into making Poetry Night such a success, Molly said. At the beginning, she said she was doing all of the scavenging for performers, but now she has to limit the number of readers per night because she doesn’t have room for them all.

According to Molly, Kafein’s Poetry Night policy is not to refuse anybody, no matter their experience or skill in writing. There are many first-time readers, and everyone is welcome. The event offers a space where the readers don’t have to feel intimidated. “[The event] is not just a place for people who have published novels,” Molly said. “It is also for people who write privately or keep a journal or write funny notes in their phone and just want a space to test the waters.”

Anyone who wants to perform at the event emails a copy of their work to the host. The schedule is created on a first-come first-serve basis. According to Molly, she has rarely turned someone down, but when she has, it was usually out of concern for the content of their work, as Kafein tries to create a safe space for the event.

“A true safe space is truly hard to create,” Molly said. “So I always say that we try to create a safer space here.” Kafein is very strict—no sexism, no racism, no ableism, no transphobia is tolerated, she said. The work can be avant-garde or provocative, Molly said, but it cannot be harmful to the audience. Kafein offers performers a space free of judgement.

According to Molly, the main goal of poetry night is to foster a sense of community over anything else.

The atmosphere is different the moment you walk into Kafein café-bar. “It’s very chill and cozy,” Molly said. “Kafein always has these couches—it feels like your best friend’s living room. Everyone’s comfortable.”

Molly said the poetry can be very personal, impersonal or even comedic—it differs from one person to the next. Some performers have spoken openly about eating disorders, or what it feels like to come down from a drug high, or even their struggles with alcoholism.

“I think because they feel comfortable, they feel an intrinsic trust towards the audience,” said Molly. “They can use it as a cathartic space, and that is something I never could have anticipated. Every time it happens, when somebody gets really real, everyone’s so quiet and so receptive, and everyone is just listening and not judging. There are not that many places where you can do that, where you can just talk freely like that.”

Molly said this position has become more than a job for her. Diorio and Roboz, the new hosts taking over the event, both share this sentiment. “This event means a lot to me,” said Diorio. “At least for myself, I’ve used writing as a coping mechanism and kind of as a form of therapy for mental illness. I think it really brings people together.”

Kafein is also where Roboz said he found his artistry. “I think it’s the most necessary and most beautiful place,” said Roboz. “It’s all love here.”

Molly leaves huge shoes to fill, Diorio said. “I only hope we can do a fraction of what she’s done for the community,” and give it the tools to grow even more, he said.

Exit mobile version