Author: Mina Mazumder

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News

March of solidarity at Nuit des Sans-Abri

Montrealers marched in support for the city’s homeless during the annual La Nuit des Sans-Abri. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Annual event urges Montreal politicians to raise awareness about homelessness in the city

It was chilly on Oct. 20, but nothing like the cold Montreal’s homeless population faces every winter. This year, hundreds of Montrealers chanted and marched in solidarity with those who inhabit our city streets in the 28th edition of La Nuit des Sans-Abri.

With the approach of Montreal’s municipal elections, Pierre Gaudreau, a spokesperson for La Nuit des Sans-Abri and director of Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), said the organization will be pressuring politicians in the coming days to address issues of homelessness in their platforms and policies.

According to Gaudreau, the group’s advocacy doesn’t stop there. “We are asking the federal government to invest money to support all of the actions that are needed to help homeless people and to prevent homelessness,” he said.

The purpose of La Nuit des Sans-Abri is to raise public awareness about homelessness in Montreal, Gaudreau said.
The event began in Phillips Square at 6 p.m. The crowd walked towards Cabot Square following a brief opening speech from Bernard St-Jacques, the host of the event and director of Clinique Droits Devant, a non-profit organization that works with homeless people.

Gaudreau said one thing Montrealers can do to help the cause is support initiatives, like La Nuit des Sans-Abri, that seek to inform politicians running in the upcoming election about issues related to homelessness.
During the march, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said, when he first ran for mayor, the welfare of homeless people was not a prominent topic. “I decided that [the homeless situation in Montreal] was the priority because it’s a matter of making sure that everybody is a first-class citizen,” he said.

Coderre said he and his team are focusing on creating an action plan that protects the lives of homeless people in Montreal. “We’ve also been focusing to get all the power in housing. So now, with the new status of metropolis, we have that capacity to create all the housing and respect the diversity,” he said. “There is a lot to be done still, but we set up a good four years to improve the situation.”

According to Gaudreau, the biggest misconception the public has about the homeless is that they chose to be in that situation. “That is just not the case,” he said, adding that Indigenous homeless individuals are becoming more prevalent due to poor domestic situations. “We are seeing more Native people [on the streets] who lived violent situations coming from a poor neighborhood.” According to Gaudreau, Indigenous people make up 10 per cent of Montreal’s homeless population. “So it’s a big number because they do not represent that much of the population in Montreal, so they are overrepresented on the streets,” he said.

Some of the city’s current dilemmas around homelessness include a lack of social housing, social profiling of homeless people and the need for help in day centres, Gaudreau told The Concordian. “One of the major achievements that we hope to have in the next four years is to do more housing for the people who do not have any home,” Gaudreau said. “The houses will be situated everywhere in Montreal. We need some downtown and some also in Montreal North.”

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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News

Training hours go up, Uber Quebec goes down

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

After government proposes new standards, Uber threatens to leave the province

Uber driver Francis Galarneau said he thinks a mandatory 35 hours of training for drivers is too long and so does his boss, Uber Québec general manager Jean-Nicolas Guillemette. The extended training is part of the government of Quebec’s new demands for the ride-sharing behemoth.

The changes to the province’s deal with Uber were presented by Quebec’s Minister of Transport Laurent Lessard on Sept. 22. Following Lessard’s announcement, Guillemette said Uber would pack up its things and leave Quebec.

The provincial government’s renewed deal with the American company also included the addition of criminal background checks performed by police on drivers, according to Mathieu Gaudreault, a spokesperson for Lessard.

“We do not want Uber’s departure from Quebec,” Gaudreault told The Concordian. “We believe that these modifications are legitimate and realistic.” Gaudreault added that the number of training hours were non-negotiable.

Galarneau’s situation is similar to that of many other Uber drivers: he has a full-time job and drive part-time on the side. According to a 2015 study by Uber’s head of research, Jonathan Hall, and Princeton University professor Alan Krueger, 31 per cent of the company’s drivers continue to work full-time.

Galarneau said it would be impossible for him to do the 35-hour training. “A training course via audio through the app would be a good solution,” he added.

The Uber driver said he believes the company already regulates its drivers enough for the app to be a safe service.

To become an Uber driver, Galarneau said he had to show proof of his driver’s license as well as undergo a vision exam, a medical exam and a theory exam—all of which had to be completed through the Société de l’Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ). Galarneau’s car also went through an initial inspection with Uber Montreal, which the company repeats annually. He said that, in total, all the exams cost him about $300.

When he first started driving, Galarneau said he only received an hour-and-a-half worth of training from a video he had to watch at the Uber Montreal office. He also explained that, if an Uber driver “constantly gets under 4.65 stars for their service on the Uber app, they are deactivated from the platform.”

“I’ve heard many customers mention that they prefer the services of Uber much better than taxis,” Galarneau said.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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Student Life

A storm of painted lady butterflies in Quebec

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

The reason why so many butterflies have been seen across Eastern Canada

Rain in an American desert, winds in Quebec and more time for reproduction than usual were all factors that lead to the massive increase in painted lady butterflies flitting through air over the last few weeks, according to Maxim Larrivée, the section head of entomological collections and research at the Montreal Insectarium.

“What happened this year is unprecedented.” Larrivée said. He explained this phenomenon is a combination of many factors. “Last winter, there were unusual rains in the Sonoran Desert where the butterflies spent the winter,” which led to a higher survival rate, he explained. In addition, strong southern winds in Quebec in April facilitated the butterflies’ migration north, which is why they showed up a month earlier than usual.

According to Larrivée, the swifter migration allowed the butterflies to produce in larger numbers. Normally, they have time to cycle through one or two generations each summer once they arrive, Larrivée explained. However, since they showed up so early this year, the butterflies had the chance to generate an extra life cycle. “This created this explosion of individuals,” Larrivée said.

There are also factors keeping the butterflies in Quebec longer than expected, Larrivée added. “Normally, when they migrate back to the south in the fall, they go up in the air column and they’ll migrate at 300 to 400 metres in the air,” he explained. “However, what happened this year is they faced heavier southern winds in early September, and that put them to the ground. They are now sitting and waiting for winds to shift from north to south so they can ride them and facilitate the migration.”

Featured Butterflies at the Montreal Insectarium. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

While there were some initial misconceptions among the general public about the type of butterfly filling the skies, Larrivée confirmed that most of the butterflies Quebecers have been seeing are in fact painted lady butterflies. “They are part of a group of butterflies from the gene called Vanessa [cardui],” he said, adding that “painted lady” is their common name. “A lot of people confuse them with monarchs because they are flagship migratory butterflies.”

The distinction, according to Larrivée, is that monarchs are bigger in size, with bright orange and black veins running through their wings. The wings of the painted lady, on the other hand, are brown in the centre, with orange patches visible when the wings are open. When the painted butterfly closes its wings, their mottled pattern blends with the ground. “The good thing about [the phenomenon this year] is that almost every Quebecer will now be able to distinguish a monarch from a painted lady,” Larrivée said.

According to Larrivée, the fall migration of these butterflies finally began in mid-September. “We have been stalled in this warm weather pattern with limited-to-no winds,” he explained. “Normally, the painted lady would take off within a few days after hitting contrary winds.”

However, Larrivée specified that this delay has nothing to do with the hurricanes pummeling the Caribbean in the last month. “I’m sure there are some larger global weather patterns that are influencing this, but I don’t think the hurricanes are related to their abundance,” he said. “We had a similar phenomenon in 2012, but it happened in early August instead of early September. It was a smaller magnitude, but it was historical from our standpoint and it lasted just a few days because the winds changed more rapidly.”

Outside of Quebec, there has also been an increase in painted lady butterflies around the Great Lakes of Ontario, Vermont, Maine and all the states bordering the Great Lakes. Once they begin migrating, the butterflies’ route takes them to the southern American states and northern Mexico. “There will be a few stragglers who will be a bit behind, but the bulk of them should be gone by Oct. 2 ” he said.

Larrivée is the founder and director of eButterfly, an international, data-driven project dedicated to butterfly biodiversity, conservation and education. According to Emma Despland, an associate biology professor at Concordia, eButterfly is a citizen science project where ordinary people can get involved in scientific research by taking pictures of butterflies they see around the world.

“We want to know where the butterflies are and when. So, either you hire an army of thousands of students across the continent or you ask ordinary people, ‘If you see one of these butterflies, let us know,’” Despland said. “It’s a way to get information and get people involved with science and the natural world.”

Two of the assignments in Despland’s class, Techniques in Ecology (BIOL 450), require students to use eButterfly as a resource. “In the first assignment, students have to go out and photograph three butterflies, identify them and upload their identifications on eButterfly,” she said, adding that this gives her students practical experience as naturalists. “I think that’s valuable for Concordia students because they’re very urban, so they don’t have much experience with the natural world,” she said.

Larrivée said he hopes to better map the migratory corridors of the painted lady butterfly to see if this species coordinates or aligns with the monarch. “I’d be really interested to use the sightings reported by our participants on eButterfly to determine what corridors they used to migrate and where to spend the winters in the south,” he said.

Students can contribute to the eButterfly project by sharing their observations and submitting photographs to eButterfly.org.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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Student Life

Concordia literature student to launch self-published book

Concordia English literature student Léandre Larouche will be self-publishing his french Novel, Hétérochrome, in October. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

The French novel focuses on a quest for identity and contemplates existentialism

Hétérochrome is the story of a CEGEP student who, in addition to being fascinated by literature, cinema and existentialism, is deeply curious about what comes after death.

“He decides to commit suicide to get that answer. But by doing so, he realizes it wasn’t the actual reason why he committed suicide,” explained author and Concordia student Léandre Larouche. “There’s something not quite right in his life […] something deeper, psychologically, that really troubled him.” In his third year of English literature, Larouche will be self-publishing this French novel in October.

According to Larouche, Hétérochrome was a product of his boredom. “When I was in high school, I was really bored. I didn’t know what to do with my time so I started writing.” He said he wrote the first draft as a short story in Grade 10 while he and his classmates were learning how to write short stories. “I wrote it about four to five times, and at some point it really got where I wanted,” Larouche said. The full-length version of the novel was written mostly during his CEGEP years. When he began his degree at Concordia, Larouche said he continued to revisit the story until it felt perfect. “The whole thing took over four years,” he said.

Larouche said he can relate to many writers who feel discouraged about their work and don’t believe they can complete it. “I told myself that if I didn’t finish one thing, I was never going to finish anything else. I just kicked my butt,” he said. “It was a feeling of necessity.” After many attempts at contacting publishing companies, Larouche decided to self-publish his novel. “Over the last year, I’ve been knocking at every publisher’s house and nothing good came out of it,” he said. “I felt that it was necessary to make it available now.”

Yet Larouche urges aspiring writers not to use self-publishing as a way to skirt the hard work of producing a novel. “Don’t see [self-publishing] as the easy way. Ultimately, you want to publish [your work], but you also want to make sure it’s publishable. Make sure it’s high-quality. Be organized.”

Larouche said his goal is to sell about 50 copies of Hétérochrome. “You have to be wise and good at self-promoting,” he added. “And learn to accept that it’s going to be small.” Larouche also recommended that writers who choose to self-publish still ask someone to look over their work and give feedback. One thing he said he should have done was ask strangers (often referred to as ghost readers) to read his book so that they could offer comments without a bias. “Make sure it’s read by many different people, and see where their feedback intersects,” he said.

According to Larouche, the first step towards self-publishing is to have a “polished result that you know is ready for publication.” The second step is to shop around for ways of publishing. The third step involves “taking ownership of all responsibilities,” which is taking the initiative in hiring a copy editor and a graphic designer, according to Larouche. The final step is the marketing phase, said Larouche, “you have to brand and sell your book. When it’s printed, you launch it and try to distribute it to bookshops.”

Larouche also advises writers to read their own work out loud to make sure the ideas flow. “You have to do it, otherwise you’ll never hear the rhythm,” he said. “You have these ideas, but it’s hard to put them into words. […] Make sure that every sentence goes well with each other.”

According to Larouche, one of the biggest challenges he faced during the writing process was his own impatience. You want to see the final result, he said, but it can’t get there without time and hard work. Although writing a French book while studying English literature might sound challenging, Larouche said it didn’t affect his work. “If it did, it would be in a positive way,” he said. “I’ve been educated for more than 20 years in French. I can write more complex sentences [in French] and have it perfectly right.”

The novel draws on themes of identity, coming of age, self-exploration and existentialism, among others that many readers, particularly young adults, will find relatable. Larouche said he believes a major theme in Hétérochrome that his readers will connect with is the idea that “everybody feels different.”

“It’s a lot about who you want to be, who you think you want to be, [who] your parents would like you to be, [who] everybody else wants you to be,” he said. “It’s that struggle. It’s definitely something that everybody thinks about.”

Larouche said he hopes his book will encourage university students to reflect on their pasts and the events that made them who they are today. “It’s written from a CEGEP student’s perspective, and in that sense, [university students] will think about themselves when they were in CEGEP,” he said.

For more information or to purchase the book, visit www.leandrelarouche.com.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

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News

Webster library renovations enter their final phase

Renovations at Concordia University Webster Library enter their final phase. Photo by Alex Hutchins

University vice-provost of digital strategy and university librarian Guylaine Beaudry said plan is to open fourth floor on Sept. 12

Concordia’s Webster Library is entering its fourth phase of renovations with the final upgrades to be made in the coming weeks, according to the university’s vice-provost of digital strategy and university librarian, Guylaine Beaudry.

Beaudry, who has been a member of the team managing the renovations since the project began in January 2015, said the plan is to reopen the fourth floor and the other half of the third floor by Sept. 12.

Once the floors are open to the public, there will be only minor adjustments left to complete, Beaudry said. The only area left to be renovated is the visualization room, which is a new addition to the third floor, she said. This studio will have one wall covered with projection screens for student projects.

“That [final] piece will be delivered by the end of December,” Beaudry said. “It will put an end to our project.”

Students can also create simulations for class projects with the help of staff, Beaudry said. Construction workers are currently adding a window to the room so that passersby can see the studio in use, she said.

According to Beaudry, the university invested $36 million for the renovations. “So far, we are on-budget, even a bit below,” she said. “We are actually delivering before the date that was initially planned [which was December 2017]. Everything tells us that we will be able to deliver 98 per cent of it [on Sept. 12] if you put aside the visualization studio.”

The library’s new configuration has 3,300 seats, which is an addition of 1,800 seats. Among the new features on the fourth floor are four presentation practice rooms equipped with recording materials for presentation playbacks. “It’s a one-button system,” Beaudry explained. “You put in your USB key, press a button and you start recording. Your recordings will be saved on your USB key, [and the room] includes video and sound recording.”

“We will also be improving our digital signage,” Beaudry said, referring to screens placed around the library displaying maps to guide students. These maps will also be accessible through the new Concordia app, Beaudry explained.

With the construction coming to an end, Beaudry said the library’s team will now be working to push their spill-proof mug campaign and emphasize the use of designated food areas. More study hall monitors will be hired to enforce these regulations, and banners will be hung throughout the building to remind students. “We are also working to better understand the needs of our students to give them the services that they need,” Beaudry said.

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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Student Life

An update on Waste Not Want Not

Students reunite to support the Waste Not Want Not compost campaign. Photo by Kim Gagnon

Concordia campaign wants to make composting a university lifestyle by increasing compostable bins

Concordia’s first-ever compost campaign will be expanding their efforts this year, increasing both the number of bins available on campus and student awareness, announced one of the campaign’s founding members, Keroles Riad.

When Riad, a Ph.D student in the individualized program of engineering, started the “Waste Not, Want Not” compost campaign two years ago, there were only nine compost bins available at the University.

“This year, we are going to increase to about 60 compost bins around campus,” Riad said, adding that he’s also looking to show incoming Concordia students that making use of the compost bins is an established culture.

“We will have new students, and we don’t want it to be presented as something new that you need to make an extra effort, but more like, ‘This is the culture of Concordia,’” Riad said. “The most helpful thing students can do is to show that they are responding [to the campaign.] Riad said he was motivated to start the campaign two years ago after the university’s composter — which turns food waste into soil — malfunctioned. According to Riad, the machine, which had been purchased by Sustainable Concordia, was not properly maintained.

Now, Concordia has to ship most of its organic waste to a composting facility in Ontario. According to Riad, approximately 74 per cent of compostable waste from Concordia goes to a landfill.

Organic waste that ends up in landfills, Riad explained, can be harmful to the environment. “Organic waste in landfills [does] not become soil. It doesn’t decompose in a way that becomes soil again. It ends up emitting a lot of methane and pollutes water,” he said. “You can cut how much you have to send to landfills by half if you compost. The idea is not just to compost but to reduce waste, which is the ultimate goal.”

Seeking to improve Concordia’s composting situation, Riad contacted Peter Stoett, the director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre, and Roger Côté, the university’s vice-president of services. He said the goal was to start a composting campaign to help Concordia students and faculty make a productive change to help reduce waste.

“I was hoping to reach towards a better way of composting,” Riad said, adding that the campaign’s name comes from an expression used during World War II that advocates minimalism. “It’s a message to encourage people to reduce their waste.”

Available on Concordia’s website is a list of the locations of compostable bins on campus on Concordia’s website. By the end of last semester, there was a total of 27 bins total at the downtown campus and at the Loyola campus. According to Riad, it’s also possible to request a compost bin for any events happening on campus. The bins can be spotted by their orange lids, and they are usually placed alongside garbage and recycling bins.

Also available on the university’s website is a list of acceptable compostable items, including leftover food, paper, tissues, apple cores, fruit peels and brown paper bags. There are also examples of non-compostable items, notably anything plastic, such as coffee cup lids.

In addition to its benefits for the environment, Riad explained, the campaign also aims to transform organic matter into soil and fertilizer for food production. “We will be merging with the sustainability ambassadors program to ensure the sustainability of the campaign. The soil created from Concordia’s organic waste is distributed to gardeners and farmers to be used on their crops. It’s a question of caring enough to do it and spending an extra second at the waste station to put the stuff where they belong,” said Riad.

For more information about the university’s composting projects, visit Sustainable Concordia’s website, at sustainableconcordia.ca. 

A call out for all interested volunteers to visit this website:

https://www.concordia.ca/campus-life/sustainability/sustainability-ambassador-program/student-sustainability-ambassador-program.html  

Photo by Kim Gagnon

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Student Life

The evolution of Wikipedia’s reputation

From left, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales; Harout Chitilian, the vice-chairman of Montreal's executive committee; Katherine Maher, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation; Christophe Henner of Wikimedia France and Benoit Rochon of Wikimedia Canada pose for the press at this year’s Wikimania conference in Montreal. Photo by Alain Lefort.

Co-founder Jimmy Wales talks misinformation and the fight for truth at Wikimania 2017

The conference room filled with Wikipedia contributors and enthusiasts eager to hear from the website’s co-founder, Jimmy Wales, on Aug. 11. Alongside Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist specializing in hacker culture and online activism, Wales kicked off the discussion with the topics of information accuracy and misconceptions surrounding Wikipedia.

“In the early days of Wikipedia,” he said, “there was a lot of misunderstanding in the press. (Wikipedia was) never as bad as we were made out to be.” As Wales described it, the press would zero-in on the mistakes in the encyclopedia made by a small number of “bad” contributors.

At the same time, Wales said, the media would not focus on how passionate Wikipedia’s staff and contributors were about fixing these errors and promoting free, fact-based knowledge. There was never a time when Wikipedia was a “write whatever you like” venue, he added.

“We always wanted to get to quality. When people complained about Wikipedia, they were never aware of how much more fake information was available online,” Wales said during the talk held amidst a five-day Wikimania conference hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation in Montreal.

According to Evan Prodromou, a software developer, an open-source advocate and the keynote’s moderator, when Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects first started, there were many questions about liability. Now, however, Wikipedia has become one of the cornerstones of truth and reliability on the internet, he said.

Coleman, who holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, acknowledged that, five to 10 years ago, teachers such as herself were unhappy if students used Wikipedia for their research.

“It is not that case anymore,” she said. “Many class projects encourage students to edit the Wikipedia page. I think part of that transition is the fact that pages went from basic overviews to very detailed and sometimes esoteric takes.” She said many experts in a wide variety of fields contributed to that shift.

Prodromou later shifted the conversation to how Wikipedia defines truth in a post-truth society. Coleman mentioned that the website takes truth very seriously. In fact, she said, the laborious process of the editing stage demonstrates the quality of truth on Wikipedia.

She added that, because there are people, such as climate change deniers, who deny factual evidence, “both convincing people of the truth and arriving at the truth is a difficult enterprise.”

It’s a reality, Coleman said, not only for Wikipedia but also in the industries of science and journalism. “Now people trust Wikipedia because we can see the process to get to the truth. And that’s a really big deal since you don’t always see that with some trusted newspapers.”

Wales and Coleman both agreed that Wikipedia is a space where information is presented in a more impartial way, with less bias than certain news organizations. “I do believe it is important to sometimes acknowledge when you do have a bias, because that’s a form of neutrality and you are explicit about it,” Coleman said. “Some newspapers do that, and some do not.”

Wales said that, although Wikipedia is different from everyday news, it focuses more on being neutral and acknowledges uncertainty. “We tend to write in a very authoritative style, and we admit when we are unsure,” he said.

Coleman ended the conversation with a sentiment describing Wikipedia’s value beyond its fight for truth. “People gain recognition among peers [through Wikipedia], and that’s very satisfying and a way where the individual can shine,” she said. “But in certain cases, very large and complicated projects can only be achieved collectively. Wikipedia has a huge impact on the world, and more and more people want to be part of that.”

Featured image: From left, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales; Harout Chitilian, the vice-chairman of Montreal’s executive committee; Katherine Maher, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation; Christophe Henner of Wikimedia France  and Benoit Rochon of Wikimedia Canada pose for the press at this year’s Wikimania conference in Montreal. Photo by Alain Lefort.

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Student Life

How to become actively involved in the zero-waste movement

Graphic by Florence Yee

Quebec actress Mélissa de La Fontaine talked about her experience joining the movement

Quebec actress and environmental health advocate Mélissa de La Fontaine talked food waste and consumption during her Conférence Zéro Déchet on March 21 at Université de Montréal.

During the conference, which was held in French, de La Fontaine touched on her experiences living a zero-waste lifestyle and offered tips for people interested in joining the movement.
She talked about her experience moving from Shawinigan to Montreal, and how she started raising her awareness on environmental issues and the rising problem of food and material waste in Canada. She said through her activism, she wants to encourage all Montrealers to make better environmental decisions.
“You should all know that the garbage that we throw daily, it does not disappear. It ends up at landfill sites,” de La Fontaine said. According to de La Fontaine’s research, there are two ways these sites pollute our environment—many non-compostable materials, such as plastic produces methane and well-water. “Methane ends up in the air that we breathe, while well-water is a form of juice that garbage creates, which can end up in our oceans and deeply harm fish,” she said.

De La Fontaine propelled herself in the movement after reading environmental activist Bea Johnson’s book Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life by Reducing your Waste. The book helped de La Fontaine become more educated on waste and environmental issues in Canada. The environmental advocate said she believes if everyone made small, regular contributions towards waste reduction in their own homes, it would do a lot of good for the planet. According to a 2016 Huffington Post article “Let’s Work Towards A Zero-Waste Future By Creating A Culture Of Reuse,” people throw out “an average of 4.7 trash bags of clothing every year,” which is equal to 2.6 billion pounds of garbage that goes into landfills per year.

“We do not need to count every piece of garbage we throw out, but rather all contribute according to our personal limits. We all have limits, so it’s not about going to extremes,” de La Fontaine said. She said following a minimalist lifestyle is a good way to reduce waste. When you live a minimalist lifestyle, you are dedicated to buying less and focusing on only necessities.

She outlined a four-step technique to limiting waste in urban households. The steps are refusing, reducing, reusing and recycling.

Refusing is about saying “no” to extra, unnecessary items. This includes trinkets organizations tend to give away at conferences. It also includes promotional cards and flyers distributed on the street, or “freebies,” as de La Fontaine called them. “You are telling the organizations to make more of these items, which causes an issue when they use petrol and energy to create them,” she said.

Reducing is about minimizing the purchase or use of household products, among others. Reducing not only saves money but also lowers the demand for certain products that harm the environment, but that also create pollution when they are manufactured.

Reusing is about utilizing items such as bags and containers. De La Fontaine suggested to buy reusable plastic containers and grocery bags that can last for many years and do not cause damage to our planet.

While de La Fontaine said recycling seems fairly self-explanatory, it’s important to do it correctly. Composting is one of the most important waste-reducing processes, she said. About 50 to 60 per cent of garbage being thrown out in Quebec is compostable, according to Statistics Canada.

“I would recommend composting things like fruit peels, which is very easy to do,” de La Fontaine said.

De La Fontaine said she hopes in the next five years, Canadians will start taking serious action towards environmental health, reducing waste and saving the environment from further pollution.

For those interested in finding out more about the zero-waste movement in North America, de La Fontaine highly recommends reading Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life by Reducing your Waste.

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Student Life

My personal experience with anorexia

Graphic by Thom Bell

One Concordia student talks about her struggles with body dysmorphia and self-esteem

At 14, I was diagnosed with anorexia.

It all started during the summer of 2008. My family and I often visited the Old Port and went to see movies together. During these family outings, whenever I wore a tight-fitting T-shirt, my sisters and brother would comment on my belly fat. I started to feel extremely self-conscious. “You need to stop eating junk food because you are getting fat,” they would tell me.

Thinking back, yes, I had gained a bit of weight in my stomach area, but I wasn’t overweight. Yet back then, I was disgusted with myself. I would stand in front of the mirror and push my belly in, hoping it would just disappear.

People sometimes don’t realize how the things they say can hurt someone. I felt as if there was something wrong with me because of my obsessive thoughts about my body, my weight and my physical features.

I just wanted to feel “normal,” and feel good about myself. When I started grade eight that September, I slowly stopped eating—I used to skip breakfast and lunch. At night, I would only eat a small snack, like an apple or yogurt, just so that my stomach would not growl all night.

I used to admire the models in magazines, and I wanted more than anything to look like them. I wanted to be skinny—I equated that to being pretty.

I also equated skinniness to being healthy. But at 15, my family doctor told me my skinniness was far from healthy. At 5’2, I weighed only 90 pounds. “You need to start eating or else you’ll die,” he told me. That was my wake-up call. He made me keep a food journal to keep track of my eating habits, and to make sure I was eating.

He also advised my mom to watch me, to make sure I was eating three meals a day. At that time, I was getting bullied at school. People would say I was too skinny and ugly. Those were the darkest days of my life. I felt frustrated when my mom started supervising me. However, even though she had never given me emotional support, I knew this was her way of showing she cared about me. My brother used to call me names because I was skinny. My second sister was actively supporting my recovery, though.

The second wake-up call was when my eldest sister cried. “You are malnourished, I can tell just by looking at you,” she said. At that point, somewhere deep down, I knew I wanted to get better. I wanted to be in good health.

At 16, after over a year of following a strict food regimen, I attained a healthy body weight. I was eating healthy and exercising, so not only was I in my healthy weight range, but I was also getting fit. During my recovery, I started swimming. It was very therapeutic for me, a kind of escape.

I was proud of myself: I was eating well, exercising and overcoming the things that had been tearing me down. At first, it was hard to not hate my own body. After every meal, I felt fat. But when I started gaining a healthier weight, I looked at myself in the mirror, in a swimsuit, and I felt beautiful.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about my experience, it would be that life is short—it’s better to live a long healthy life than die young because of anorexia. You should never feel ashamed of your body. You are beautiful. Health is beautiful. Happiness is beautiful. Always remember that you are not alone and that you are worthy.

If you are feeling down about your self-image, or experiencing obsessive thoughts about your weight, body or food, please speak up or call for help.

Graphic by Thom Bell

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News

Understanding the historical background of Israel

Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Two professors discuss their new book Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society

Speakers Harold Waller and Brent Sasley discussed the historical and sociological developments in Israel in a lecture last week. The major ideas presented during the event came from their book, Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society, which was released on Feb. 3.

Professors Harold Waller (left) and Brent Sasley (right). Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Waller, a political science professor at McGill University, said he had the idea to write the book in his early years of teaching in the political science department. Waller said the books he used to teach with were focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel-Palestinian issues, but lacked context of zionism. Zionism is a national revival movement which focuses on the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel (area).

“I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the books that I had used,” said Waller. “They didn’t have all of the material that needed to be in a book like this, and they had excess material that detracted from the main points of my teaching.”

Waller contacted Sasley, an associate professor at University of Texas at Arlington, since they both taught similar classes and both wanted to address issues surrounding zionism. This encouraged them to write their own book, said Waller.

“What we really are trying to achieve is to enable readers to comprehend Israel on its own, and not simply as a major actor in the conflict of the Middle East,” Waller said.

He also debunked some common myths about Israel during his talk. Waller said many of his former students often categorized Israel as a state about the Jewish religion, when in fact “Israel forces a Jewish state, but it is not a state about the Jewish religion—[it’s about] Jewish peoplehood.”

Sasley said Israel has never been a liberal democracy the way Canada is. “That liberal democracy never really took place in Israel—it’s still heavily collectivist,” Sasley said.

Sasley emphasized that, in English-speaking countries, an important problem Israeli students face is trying to explain what it means to be Jewish and democratic at the same time. “Most students grew up in a democracy where you give your loyalty to a set of institutions, ideas and to a sense of citizenship,” he said. Sasley said their book elaborates on the difference between the religious meaning and ethno-meaning of what it means to be Jewish.

Both Sasley and Waller hope their book will be useful for courses taught outside of North America, in order to provide a different perspective on the politics in Israel. “I believe that any person who wants to be well-informed should understand how the politics operate and how decisions are made in the Israeli government,” Waller said.

Categories
Student Life

Battling both disease and oppression

Sharon Batt, author of Patient no more: the Politics of Breast Cancer, is a long-time feminist health activist. Photo by Ana Hernandez

Canadian scholar Sharon Batt sheds light on issues within the healthcare system and her experience with health activism

Award-winning journalist and women’s studies scholar Sharon Batt discussed feminist health activism and social justice on March 6, as part of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute’s Feminist Café event.

Batt discussed her experience with social activism, the health system, wage disparities and intersectionality. She talked about the importance of understanding the health system—specifically the pharmaceutical industry—and the issues within it.

Batt said neoliberalism hasn’t delivered on its promises of equality. Neoliberalism is an altered version of liberalism that focuses on free-market capitalism. “Instead, we have rising inequality, unsustainable drug prices, and pharma-funded patient advocacy not serving patient interests,” Batt said.

Batt first became an activist in the 1970s. In 1973, she and a friend founded Branching Out, Canada’s first national feminist magazine. The magazine, which was active until 1980, was initially only distributed in Edmonton before becoming available in other provinces.

“That’s when I got involved in the women’s movement and doing grass-roots community work,” Batt told The Concordian. “We wanted to have a high-quality magazine that focused on feminist contributors and political issues. It got me excited about journalism, feminism and working in a community,” she said.

In 1988, Batt was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated for breast cancer from 1988 to 1989. She was also diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005, and was treated successfully.

Batt was a feminist activist through her journalistic work long before her diagnosis and treatments. However, after being diagnosed, she increasingly focused on health activism.

In 1994, she wrote her first book, Patient No More: The Politics of Breast Cancer. In her book, Batt offers a critical look into the cancer treatment “industry.” In 1991, she co-founded Breast Cancer Action Montreal, a group to help women fighting the disease. “I was working in the community with women who were feminists,” she said.

After working at the national level for the breast cancer awareness movement, Batt moved to Halifax to teach women’s studies at Mount Saint Vincent University for two years, where she was the Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies. The Chair title was named after Nancy Ruth, a renowned feminist and activist.

Batt said her experience with community work and academia is what brought her to Concordia. “This is one of the reasons I got the position [at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute] as a scholar,” Batt told The Concordian.

Batt was part of the second wave of feminism through the work of her magazine in the late 1970s. During that period, she learned that women’s health issues were undervalued. “There was a lot of interest in money [during the second-wave women’s movement], including cut-backs, and it was a hard period,” Batt said. She emphasized that the government focused more on economic issues, rather than on human rights and equality. “There was a conservative agenda for the last 20 years,” Batt explained.

Batt said she’s interested in getting to the root of cancers that affect women. “We need to understand why so many women get these diseases. A lot of them are environmentally-related. This is one of the reasons why I co-founded Breast Cancer Action Montreal—to raise awareness on prevention and the need to reduce toxic chemicals that can lead to cancer,” Batt said.

Graphic by Thom Bell

Now, the focus of the organization is on younger women and prevention. “We’ve worked on a project called FemToxic, which looked at chemicals in makeup and how to educate young women. This is new for us, since, when we started out, the focus was more on older women,” Batt said. “Touching younger women helps to bring more prevention. There are many things that younger women can learn from my generation.”

Batt’s message to Concordia students, especially female students: “Be engaged in the women’s movement. We all come into feminist politics for different reasons, and the passion you have for your own issues is vital,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to bring your issues to the floor, even if they may not be the central issues right now. Listen to other women who have different issues. We need a lot more conversation and communication on the diversity of issues that affect women.”

As for the future, Batt hopes to see change in the pharmaceutical industry and a reduction in the cost of breast cancer treatments.

Through her upcoming book, Health Advocacy, Inc.: How Pharmaceutical Funding Changed the Breast Cancer Movement, Batt hopes to educate people on health policy and women’s healthcare. “Medications are overpriced. I think community groups that are involved [in activism] need to voice that [issue], even if they are afraid,” she said. The book will be released on June 1.

Categories
Student Life

My personal experience having a YouTube channel

Graphic by Thom Bell

How YouTube taught me life skills and how to be confident

I started my YouTube channel four years ago. In the beginning, the purpose was basically to post random music video covers of some of my favourite songs. Now, my YouTube channel has evolved and completely shifted focus—I now film and post videos about beauty, food as well as lifestyle-type videos. I’ve also recently started filming videos of my travel getaways and story-time videos. I plan on expanding on more aspects of myself for others to see.

When I started out, I was definitely nervous about filming videos and having them posted on a platform as big as YouTube. However, I knew that, if anyone could do it, I could. I’ve always had the courage in me to do anything I want. I’ve never really been afraid of what other people think.

However, I faced some disapproval when I first started out. My mom and sister judged me for the videos I posted on my channel. They called them stupid and useless. For a while, I felt discouraged about this negative feedback. Recently, I saw insulting comments posted on my videos. I deleted them and pretended they never existed. Of course, deep down, it hurts.

When you film videos and post them online, you need to be prepared for any comment that may come your way—the good, the bad and the ugly. You need to shrug off the hateful comments and keep moving forward. This is my current mindset for my YouTube journey, and it feels good. I have gained enough self-trust and confidence through YouTube— I know I am doing this for nobody else but me.

My YouTube channel means a lot to me. It’s the place where I can truly express myself with people around the world. Filming videos has definitely boosted my confidence. I can see myself evolving and becoming more “social” online by reaching out to people from all over. It makes me feel free to say and do whatever I want.  It has also helped me practice speaking aloud and in front of a camera. These skills translate well in my academic life. My channel has also forced me to be more socially-active with friends and when meeting or talking to strangers.

I also like the idea of helping people through my YouTube videos. I want to be a role model for others. Making these videos has made me want to help others overcome the same struggles I’ve dealt with in my life, including bullying and issues with self-image. I also want my YouTube channel to be a light, fun environment where I can also post funny skits, travel adventures and videos about makeup.

If you’re thinking about starting a YouTube channel, be yourself and do not be afraid to express yourself and branch out. This will help you develop a thick skin and ignore hateful comments because, at the end of the day, you are doing what makes you happy. There are always going to be people online hating on your channel, but use it as motivation to make your content better and take more risks through your videos. As Walt Disney once said: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Graphic by Thom Bell

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