Leonard and Ringland photographed outside the elevators of GM. Photo by Savanna Craig.
Security blocked entry of elevators where BOG meeting was held
Divest Concordia protested outside the Board of Governors (BOG) meeting on March 8 as a means to push the BOG to put Divest Concordia on their agenda. However, Divest members were met with Concordia security, who blocked access to the entrance of the fourth floor of the GM building.
“The president explained that the restricted access measures were in response to advice following last week’s events,” Concordia University Spokesperson Chris Mota told The Concordian, referencing the bomb threat at Concordia on March 1, which targeted the Muslim community. “High profile meetings can attract copycat attention and we wanted to ensure the meeting could be held without incident,” said Mota.
Divest Concordia decided to protest due to a lack of effort made by the BOG to give Divest time during the board’s meeting on March 8, said Kya Ringland, a member of Divest Concordia and an organizer of the mobilization.
Emails were sent to Concordia president Alan Shepard and the president of the BOG, among others. Divest Concordia sent them on Feb. 26, however, the administration did not respond until the day before the BOG meeting. The response, from assistant secretary-general Danielle Tessier, stated that Divest Concordia’s request to have their concerns added to the meeting’s agenda was being reviewed by the BOG.
Divest members intended to stand outside the BOG meeting to deliver informational postcards signed by more than 300 students, detailing concerns over the delay of Concordia’s divestment from the gas and fossil fuel industries, said Ringland. More importantly, Ringland added, the postcards urged the university to move forward with the sustainability policy, which is meant to facilitate sustainable initiatives at Concordia.
One of the goals of the sustainability policy is to divest from gas and fossil fuels and instead to invest in sustainable initiatives. The policy will also look into opportunities to fund socially and environmentally responsible projects, according to Concordia News.
The Joint Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee (JSIAC), composed of members of Concordia student organizations, including Divest Concordia, and the BOG, will review these initiatives.
Ringland said board members of the JSIAC asked other members to research sustainable investment opportunities Concordia could fund with the money removed from the fossil fuel and gas industries.
“Our Divest members [have been asked] to do research in alternative investments, which is great. We’re happy to partner with people to do that,” Ringland said. “Our members have done that and brought the research to the JSIAC, and it has just kind of been disregarded and not talked about anymore.”
Ringland said the same has happened for Sustainable Concordia. “They have looked at alternative investments, and no follow-up has been made on any of them,” she said. “Many other students and faculty members have put forth research and solutions––including the CSU.”
However, Ringland said she believes efforts should be made outside of student and faculty members. “We feel all members of JSIAC should be doing research into alternatives [and] bringing alternative solutions forward,” said Ringland. “Board members and admin should be a part of this process.”
Tessier said the JSIAC will be meeting shortly to make recommendations to the Concordia University Foundation and other stakeholders with regards to Concordia’s commitment to sustainable investing.
Leonard handing postcards to BOG representative. Photo by Savanna Craig
Divest member Alex Leonard said he hopes members of the BOG will see the group’s postcards. He said it is important to have the BOG “open to hearing what the student body is saying, as opposed to creating barriers where these public meetings are now high-security.”
“I think that [the BOG is] taking steps in the right direction, and I want to believe that they have the good of Concordia’s community in mind,” Ringland said. “I think that that’s going to be happening more—they’re actually holding consultations in the next two months with Concordia students, so those will be good.”
Ringland said divestment is an issue that’s becoming more severe due to climate change. “I think most of the Concordia community knows, and so we just want to make sure that [the BOG] realize how urgent it is and use that urgency to dictate their daily decisions,” Ringland said.
Before the Divest Concordia members left, a representative from the BOG came down to ask Divest members what they wanted to say to the governors. Divest Concordia members chose to let the postcards speak for them—Leonard handed the postcards to the representative.
Divest Concordia will hold their next meeting on March 17 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m in the CSU art nook, adjacent to People’s Potato on the 7th floor of the Hall building.
Thousands of students flood downtown Montreal. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Protests plagued by months of police brutality, mass arrests succeed in ending tuition hikes
On March 22, 2012, roughly 200,000 students poured onto the streets of downtown Montreal in what was one of the most iconic moments of the 2012 Maple Spring movement against provincial tuition hikes. In support, students pinned red squares of fabric to their clothes to denounce austerity measures imposed by the government.
One month prior, 36,000 students had voted to go on strike.
This large-scale mobilization was in response to former Quebec Premier Jean Charest announcing gradual tuition hikes in March 2011.
The Charest Liberal government proposed a province-wide tuition increase of $1,625 for university students, intended to be put into effect over a five-year period. Based on this plan, annual tuition fees would increase by $325 every year, rising from $2,168 to $3,793 by 2017.
Various occupations and mobilizations continued during that spring and throughout the summer, leading up to a protest on November 8, 2011, when 30,000 people took to the streets of Montreal to oppose these hikes—this culminated with a sit-in held at the administration building of McGill University.
The municipal government introduced P6—a bylaw which banned certain components of public protests. Photo by Navneet Pall.
While the protest in March 2012, which marked the peak of the movement, saw no arrests, in the months that followed, thousands of protesters were detained, along with bystanders and journalists caught up in kettling, a crowd-control tactic that corrals groups of people into a confined space.
As the summer of 2012 approached and the strike persisted, the municipal government of Montreal sought to curtail demonstrations by passing laws such as P6—a bylaw which banned protests not authorized by the city’s police and prohibited participants from wearing masks. This resulted in mass arrests—students endured police brutality, hefty fines and even harsh weather as the protests persevered into the winter months of early 2013.
Photo by Navneet Pall.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) was elected into office on September 4, 2012—the planned tuition hike was revoked one day after they took power. However, by December, the new government had laid out plans to slash the provincial budget. Among other affected institutions, Concordia University announced it was facing $13.2-million in cuts—cuts which caused the university to declare a deficit.
In February 2013, the PQ announced a three per cent tuition fee increase, amounting to $70 annually. This would increase tuition by $254 per year over a seven-year period, according to Maclean’s, which would be slightly less than the $325 hike proposed by the Liberal government. This was an act students condemned, and it led to renewed demonstrations, resulting in mass arrests during the following weeks.
After a long period of dwindling mobilization, a resurgence nicknamed Printemps 2015 restarted not just for students, but for all who were discouraged by the Quebec government’s budget cuts and the direction the province was headed.
Now, five years later, those who were involved in the Maple Spring movement reflect on the movement’s success, the evolution of the anti-austerity mobilization and the future of access to education for students in Quebec.
Many of Concordia’s current students were in their first year of university when the strike began. One student among them is Lucinda Marshall-Kiparissis, the general coordinator of the Concordia Student Union (CSU).
“I joined the PSSA [Political Science Students’ Association] strike mob committee to help out with organizing, with picketing,” Marshall-Kiparissis said. The committee was tasked with organizing pickets and other events related to the strike. “At that point, I wasn’t in a lot of organizing work because I was still getting my feet wet.” Nonetheless, she described herself as a very enthusiastic participant.
Marshall-Kiparissis said mobilization in the form of strikes and large-scale protests was more common among francophone universities at the time. “So for Concordia to go on strike, this was one of the first major times that an Anglophone student community joined that greater movement,” Marshall-Kiparissis said.
36,000 students vote to go on strike in February 2012. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Alex Tyrrell, the leader of the Green Party of Quebec, attended various student protests at the time. He said he would often record the protests and upload those videos to Youtube to document the movement, particularly focusing on police brutality and other incidents.
While filming, Tyrrell was stopped by law enforcement officials.
Protesters dress don the red square, a symbol which represents the opposition of tuition hikes. Photo by Navneet Pall
“I got arrested one time for P6 on May 22, 2012,” Tyrrell said. “That was immediately after they passed the special law.” The Montreal P6 bylaw had been imposed by then-Mayor of Montreal Gérald Tremblay in 2012 to counter student protesting.
“You had to provide your itinerary before protesting, otherwise it would end in mass arrests,” Tyrrell said.
On the day of Tyrrell’s arrest, each detainee was subjected to an invasive search, one by one, and then put on a bus and were read their rights. Tyrrell said he and the bus loads of detained protesters were taken to the Centre Opérationnel Est in Saint-Léonard to be processed. He was released at 5 a.m. the next morning.
Throughout the protests, participants faced police brutality and mass arrests. Photo by Navneet Pall.
He described the mass arrests and the laws causing components of student protests to be illegal, as a form of oppression administered by the Liberal government. “Being arrested is frowned upon—a lot of people think it’s a very negative thing,” Tyrrell said. “I’ve only actually recently started talking about it publicly because now it’s actually been proven unconstitutional.” He said before the arrests were deemed unconstitutional, people would warn him that a criminal record could affect his political career. P6 was ruled illegitimate in June 2016 by the Quebec Superior Court Justice Chantal Masse, as two crucial points of the bylaw were unconstitutional, including Article 2.1, which made it illegal to hold a protest without an itinerary registered with police beforehand. Additionally, Article 3.2 was marked wrongful as it prevented the wearing of masks during a protest.
Tyrrell said after acquiring leadership of the Green Party of Quebec, he found himself in situations where could debate with Geoffrey Kelley, a former minister of the Liberal government, about a generation wanting to protest being met with police brutality and mass arrests.
Over the course of the protests, Tyrrell said he lost confidence in the integrity of the police force. During April 2012, protesting peacefully increasingly put the physical safety of participants at risk. He said it was often other protesters who would intervene when some participants began vandalizing. “The protest would try to police itself,” Tyrrell said.
He said he realized the police were not interested in arresting specific unruly protesters or preventing individual acts of vandalism. “They were more interested in using the fact that the window was broken to declare the entire protest illegal, and start taking out the rubber bullets and pepper spray,” Tyrrell said. “That, I think, for a lot of people, called into question the legitimacy of the police force.”
Former Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp mocked in protest photo. Photo by Sophia Loffreda.
Over the course of the protests, SPVM law enforcement officials requested more than $7.3 million in overtime income for work between February and June 2012, according to the McGill Daily. For May and June alone, SPVM police officers were paid $5.6 million for overtime.
La fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal—the union representing SPVM police officers—estimated that special intervention units were paid between $2.5 to $3 million during the strike, as they were required to assist more than 150 times during an 11-week period, according to the McGill Daily.
Tyrrell recounted an instance of police brutality faced by a friend of his during one protest. He described his friend fleeing riot police officers, but, as they chased him, Tyrrell’s friend stopped to turn himself in. Despite his compliance, police pushed the young man from behind and threw him to the ground, causing him to fracture his wrist. “Then they put him in handcuffs with a broken wrist and they cut the straps of his backpack off,” Tyrrell said.
Matthew Palynchuk, now a masters student, was a first-year undergraduate philosophy student at Concordia at the time of the protests. He was one of 26 students who were set to face tribunals at the university for actions during strikes in the 2011-2012 academic year. These students were being charged for conduct prohibited under section 29G of the university’s Code of Rights and Responsibilities, which deals with the “obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administration, study, student disciplinary procedures or other university activity.”
Palynchuk said the evidence to be used against him at the trial consisted of security tapes which didn’t contain any recognizable footage of him.
On September 18, 2012, the day before Palynchuk’s tribunal, newly-appointed Concordia President Alan Shepard withdrew all charges administered by the university, as a fresh start between administration and students.
The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), a Canadian student union prominent within the anti-austerity movement, obtained a large number of members over the course of the protests. “ASSÉ went from about 40,000 members before the strike [to] 75,000 after,” said Marion Miller, a member of ASSÉ’s training committee.
After 2012, ASSÉ dropped in male* involvement and membership. According to Miller, ASSÉ had trouble making quorum last congress—in other words, reaching a minimum number of members needed to validate the proceedings of that meeting, which took place between February 25 and 26. “It’s a quiet period,” Miller said.
Photo by Sophia Loffreda.
In response to rumours made towards ASSÉ disbanding, Miller said she understands the assumption, as ASSÉ has not been as externally active in recent years. However, she denied the claim. “If [ASSÉ] were to be at the end of an era, they could rebuild,” said Miller. However, she said ASSÉ is not at the end of era.
“The strike was against tuition hikes, but the long-term goal was free education and redistribution of wealth,” Tyrrell said.
“It’s just a question of priorities. The government has more than enough money to pay for people’s tuition, but they choose not to,” Tyrrell said. “They choose instead to give tax breaks to national corporations, the one per cent—that’s a choice.”
“Neoliberals want students to graduate in debt,” said Tyrrell. He said this is because somebody who graduates university debt-free is not necessarily going to go work for a corporation immediately. “That’s the freedom that’s associated with free education.”
Tyrrell said a way the Quebec government could provide free education is by not only removing tax breaks to private corporations, but by generating revenues from a number of sources. Some suggestions include a carbon tax and mining royalties—this is the model proposed by the Green Party of Quebec.
Tyrrell said he believes the government is being infiltrated by private interest. “Who is the government working for?” he asked. “They defend private interest rather than the well-being and best interest of the general population.”
“The 75 per cent hike was supposed to come into force over five years—the entire hike would be in place by now,” Marshall-Kiparissis said. “Instead of having the 75 per cent, we’ve had about 15 per cent hike over that period of time. That’s the legacy of the student movement.”
*This article has been updated for accuracy and clarity. The Concordian regrets the error.
The StrikeOut Cancer Fund prepares for their annual Bowl-A-Thon and gala to fundraise money to grant the wishes of children facing severe illness.
Photos courtesy of Anthony Pacella
Organization founded by Concordia student helps fundraise for Make-a-Wish Quebec
Anthony Pacella, a Concordia student studying management at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) created StrikeOut Cancer, an organization which holds events to fundraise for initiatives to help those living with cancer. StrikeOut Cancer was created as a surprise for his mother Mary Melillo Pacella, who was diagnosed with lung cancer. Before the passing of his mother, Pacella told her about StrikeOut Cancer, to which he said she gave Pacella a thumbs up in approval.
“[In] August of 2010, my mother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer,” Pacella said. His family was devastated—his mother had never smoked cigarettes, he said.
“Unfortunately, my mother lost her life at the age of 52 to cancer on January 6, 2011,” Pacella said. “She left this world with two young children and a great husband.”
Pacella had been raising money for StrikeOut Cancer initiatives during her treatment, however, he began planning his first events for the organization less than a few weeks after his mother’s passing.
Three months after his mother’s passing, StrikeOut Cancer hosted their first event, a Bowl-A-Thon, which is now an annual event held each spring. The Bowl-A-Thon is geared towards families in order to raise money for the St. Mary’s Hospital Foundation in Montreal—the same hospital where Pacella’s mother received treatment. He was 15 years old when he organized the first Bowl-A-Thon.
In addition, StrikeOut Cancer organizes an annual gala in support of Make-A-Wish Quebec to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses. Pacella said the gala is held in November, with tickets available for $100. The cost covers the event and a full-course dinner.
“We raise thousands of dollars to make a child’s wishes come true,” Pacella said. He wanted StrikeOut Cancer to be involved with Make-A-Wish Quebec to contribute towards making children happy, he added.
“We continue to strive and expand in order to help our community, but most importantly, our goal is to make a young child’s wishes come true,” said Pacella.
Pacella said while he enjoyed working with St. Mary’s Hospital, he wanted to expand the StrikeOut Cancer initiative.
Pacella photographed with his mother Mary Melillo Pacella. Photos courtesy of Anthony Pacella.
“I wanted to make a greater impact, and I feel like my $10,000 [raised] wouldn’t find the cure to cancer,” Pacella said. “But my $10,000 could hopefully impact a child’s life.”
StrikeOut Cancer has helped three children so far. “They all wanted to go to Disneyland,” Pacella said.
The most recent gala, which was held on Nov. 7, 2016, honoured Chakameh, an eight-year-old diagnosed with leukemia.
“During my stay at Concordia, I hope that more people of Concordia hear about StrikeOut and I hope to continuously gain more support,” Pacella said.
Pacella hopes to have more support and involve more people in the StrikeOut Cancer initiative. He encourages anyone who is interested to contact him—he is particularly looking for volunteers to promote ticket sales, obtain more sponsors and spread awareness about StrikeOut Cancer.
For more information about StrikeOut Cancer and details on their upcoming Bowl-A-Thon, visit StrikeOut Cancer’s website or Facebook page. This year’s Bowl-A-Thon will be held on May 28 in at 1 p.m. at Le Centre de Quilles 440, 2535 boul Curé-Labelle in Laval.
Hisham Saadi, the man who sent a letter threatening to detonated bombs at Concordia, will be back in court on Nov. 9 for his trial. Photo by Ana Hernandez
The CSU offers support to students, administration yet to update about any building closures on March 2 and 3
After a bomb threat against Muslim members of the Concordia community caused building evacuations at the downtown campus, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) and students are standing in solidarity and offering their support.
Since publication of this article, a 47-year-old man has been arrested on the early morning of March 2 in connection to bomb threats imposed on Concordia campus, according to the Montréal Gazette.
The bomb threat was made by the “Concordia chapter” of the Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada (C4) in a statement released on the morning of March 1 to various student groups and media outlets—including CJLO 1690AM, Concordia’s community radio station.
In the press release, C4 stated “between March 1st at noon and March 3rd at 2 pm, [they] will DETONATE once per day small artisanal amateur explosive devices that [they] planted on two floors of the Hall bldg and one floor of the EV bldg.”
Concordia President Alan Shepard announced in a written statement Wednesday afternoon that students and faculty would be allowed to return to class as of 6 p.m. Shepard thanked community members for their patience.
In reaction to the events, the CSU’s executive team released a statement, in which they called the threat an act of terror, and reminded students that the white supremacist rhetoric we presume is only south of the border is a reality in Canada too.
The CSU executive team assured the Muslim community that they will continue advocating for their right to pray on campus. “We are currently coordinating with all relevant parties at Concordia University to ensure every student’s access and safety, and with the SPVM in their investigation,” the executive team said in their official statement.
The CSU reminded Muslim community members targeted by this type of hatred to seek support from the CSU Advocacy Centre—which provides aid for students facing discrimination and violence—or the CSU Legal Information Clinic, which offers students legal information and referrals.
The Centre for Gender Advocacy and the Muslim Student Association (MSA) were mentioned by the CSU as other services students seeking aid could reach out to.
In their statement, the CSU called on the university’s administration to cancel classes for the remainder of the week, since the C4’s threat specified that attacks would take place on March 1, 2 and 3. The CSU said they want to ensure the safety of Muslim students, staff and faculty.
Despite the fact that classes at Concordia resumed on Wednesday evening, Assistant to the Dean Lauren Broad sent out an email stating the Concordia Council of Student of Student Life (CCSL) meeting planned for March 3 would be moved from the SGW campus to the Loyola campus.
Students and other Concordia community members linger outside EV building. Photo by Ana Hernandez
In the email, Broad said the meeting was moved to “ensure full participation” since “some people may feel nervous about the statements in the media regarding the rest of the week.”
A petition has been created in support of ensuring the safety of students, particularly Muslim students at Concordia. The petition calls for Concordia to provide academic amnesty for students who request it––in other words, students would not be penalized for missing exams, labs, tests, quizzes or any evaluation that may take place between now and March 3.
As stated on the petition page, “this petition does not call for a cancellation of all classes, but for a guarantee from Concordia that students feeling unsafe will not be penalized for missing class.”
In addition to the support system offered by the CSU, other students have offered solidarity and a lighthearted approach to the recent events.
Concordia student Farhan Chöwdhury created a Facebook event, “Fight Against Flipflophobia,” with his sister Tahrim, to encourage students to wear flip flops on March 2. This unusual show of solidarity is in response to C4’s criticism of Muslim men wearing flip flops as they walked from the bathroom to the prayer room in the Hall building.
“We decided to be lighthearted about it because reading the thing made it seem silly. Now the bomb threat is serious—but the anti-Muslim bit there was a joke. It should be ridiculous that people are offended by others wearing flip flops and that’s what we want to get across,” said Farhan, who said he’s grown accustomed to anti-Muslim sentiments, and finds it ridiculous to fathom that C4 would make a bomb threat over Muslim men in flip flops.
The Concordianreached out to the university to ask whether there would be building closures on March 2 and 3, but they did not respond before this article’s deadline. However, according to the CBC, Concordia will be increasing patrols of its private security officers, and Montreal police will be present outside campus for the rest of the week.
Classes were offered with an option to donate to the Fauna Foundation
The Concordia Animal Rights Association (CARA) welcomed all community members in Montreal to participate in two free yoga sessions on Feb. 27 led by Josephine Vittoria, a yoga instructor and the founder of NDG Yoga.
During the event, CARA accepted donations to the Fauna Foundation, a non-profit sanctuary in Québec, which offers a safe environment for neglected and abused animals and former biomedical research chimpanzees.
The yoga sessions were hosted on the third floor of the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) building, which housed an inviting space for those interested in donating or participating in a class. The first yoga session started at 1:30 p.m., and 11 participants were present. A second class was offered at 3:15 p.m.
“We do a lot of tabling events, so we wanted to attract people in a different way and we know that the chimps actually do yoga sometimes, in their own ways,” said Lara Mackenzie, the event organizer and president of CARA. Mackenzie was referring to the way chimpanzees play flexibly—CARA has photos of the chimpanzees doing this on their Facebook page.
This is the second time CARA has held a Fauna Foundation yoga fundraiser. “We did it last year. It was pretty successful—we got about 20 people to come,” Mackenzie said. “This year, we’re trying to do two classes, hopefully to attract more because the space is small.”
Josephine Vittoria tailored the class towards students. Photo by Savanna Craig.
Katherine Millington, vice president of CARA, said instructor Vittoria tailored the session towards students. Millington said Vittoria offered positions that would aid those that study for long hours or work at a computer for a long period of time.
The Gourmet Barn, which offers a healthy alternative to gourmet desserts, provided treats such as brownies and cookies for yoga participants to eat.
Mackenzie said CARA works with a lot of animal rights foundations, but they were drawn to the Fauna Foundation because she had volunteered there.
“I have worked around the chimps before, so knowing I can give back in a little way through Concordia and creating awareness for them is exactly what I hope to do,” Mackenzie said.
This is CARA’s last fundraiser for the school year, but there will be more tabling events held this semester. “We have four more events planned focusing on encouraging people to adopt a vegan diet,” Mackenzie said. Some of these events will be themed around Easter and St. Patrick’s Day, she added.
For those looking to get involved with CARA, the team is looking to fill its incoming executive positions. Anyone who is interested can send their CV and reason of interest for application to caraconcordia@gmail.com.
More information on future events held by CARA can be found on the CARA Facebook page.
Former prisoner and activist faces threat of torture and murder by Iranian regime
A crowd gathered across the street from the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) office in support of Roghayeh “Mina” Azizi Mirmahaleh, a 60-year-old human rights activist from Iran. She recently had her application for her Canadian refugee status revoked and will be sent back to Iran on Feb. 28.
Bahrami, in the brown jacket, next to her mother Azizi Mirmahaleh. Photo by Savanna Craig.
“Keep Mina here! Keep Mina here,” chanted protesters as they stood opposite CIC in downtown Montreal on Feb. 21, urging Canadian Immigration not to deport her.
Sahar Bahrami, Azizi Mirmahaleh’s daughter, said the Iranian regime knows Azizi Mirmahaleh’s identity and of her political activism in Canada, which would result in her mother facing torture, imprisonment and execution if she were forced to return back to Iran. Azizi Mirahaleh was imprisoned in the 1980’s for three years due to advocating for human rights, women’s rights and free elections in Iran.
“[The regime] executed her husband in 1988 in a mass execution,” said Bahrami. “She has participated in protests [in Canada] against violation of human rights in Iran.”
Photo by Savanna Craig.
Azizi Mirmahaleh moved to Canada in 2012 after receiving a temporary resident visa, acquired by her daughter. However, when she registered for refugee status in late 2013, Azizi Mirmahaleh’s application was revoked. According to the CBC, in January a Canadian Immigration officer determined she was fit to go back to Iran.
Her lawyer Stéphanie Valois told Radio-Canada that, on Feb. 17, Azizi Mirmahaleh filed for a request to stay in Canada, in the wake of being denied refugee status.
Azizi Mirmahaleh was among the crowd of protesters, and she eventually went into CIC to speak with an immigration officer about her flight to Iran on Feb. 28.
Azizi Mirmahaleh entering Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Photo by Savanna Craig.
According to the Journal Métro de Montréal, Valois said Azizi Mirmahaleh was arrested following her appointment at CIC on Feb. 21, due to immigration officers suspecting she would not arrive for her flight next week.
“We do not support deportation of any political refugees right now, so we’re here to make it very visible and so our voices are heard,” said Sherry Guppy, an organizer of the event, who is also on the NDG Senior Citizens Council where she met Bahrami and Azizi Mirmahaleh.
Guppy said she has been working with Azizi Mirmahaleh and her daughter for the past nine days since they approached the NDG Senior Citizens Council for aid.
Gubby among other activists mobilizing across the street from CIC. Photo by Savanna Craig.
“They’ve needed a lot of support, so we’ve just been trying to mobilize in any way that we can. We’ve been traveling around, going to see different political constituents and rallying,” said Guppy.
“It’s a human rights issue. Mina is a human rights activist,” said Guppy. “Human rights, regardless of what your politics are…it’s very basic and it’s very fundamental to our safety here and everywhere in the world right now.”
Guppy said it is vital to mobilize in circumstances such as this, as many people around the world have their human rights in jeopardy.
There is a petition available for advocates, which calls upon Ministers with power to stop Azizi Mirmahaleh from being deported.
For more information and updates on Azizi Mirmahaleh’s case, visit the Facebook group “Stand With Mina.”
The annual March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women takes place at Complexe Desjardins
Stacey Gomez, action coordinator of the Centre for Gender Advocacy reported a success for the annual March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women held on Feb. 14. For the first time, the event was held indoors, at Complexe Desjardins starting at 5 p.m.
Photo by Ion Etxebarria
This is the tenth year community members in Montreal have gathered to demand justice for missing and murdered indigenous women.
“This year we decided to do something different, but with the same vision of the march,” said Gomez. In past years, there have been bad weather conditions leading to inaccessibility and harm to participants due to the severe cold. As a result of the mobilization being held indoors, it was easier for participants to be more present and listen to performers at the event, said Gomez.
“We had a flash mob that was Valentine’s-themed,” said Gomez. “We walked through Complexe Desjardins with hearts that had the names of women missing from different indigenous communities [written on them],” said Gomez. Participants held a banner calling for justice of indigenous women, muslim women and women of colour, added Gomez.
Photo by Ion Etxebarria
“The aim of the event is to honour folks who have been victims of racialized and gendered violence,” said Gomez. However, she said the event is focused on the pursuit of justice for indigenous women.
“There’s now a national inquiry around missing and murdered indigenous women,” said Gomez. She said, however, within the current inquiry there are issues that need to be resolved.
Gomez said there has been a lack of communication until now with a lot of family members in relation to these cases, that there have been concerns this inquiry has not received enough funding and that there is not enough justice, considering the fact cold cases are not being re-opened for investigation.
Photo by Ion Etxebarria
Indigenous women make up three per cent of the population in Canada, according to the Native Women’s Association of Canada. However, according to the same source, 10 per cent of all homicide victims in Canada are indigenous girls and women.
Following the mobilization at Complexe Desjardins, participants marched towards the Native Friendship Centre located at 2001 Boul St-Laurent. At the centre, participants were welcomed to attend a community dinner with guest speakers invited to discuss the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women, as well as racial and gendered violence, said Gomez.
For those who are interested in joining future mobilizations for missing and murdered indigenous women and for more information on the issue, Gomez recommends visiting faq-qnw.org.com, nwsm.info and MissingJustice.ca.
A photo of SARC coordinators Jennifer Drummonds office located in H-645. Photo by Savanna Craig
The Sexual Assault Resource Centre moves to a new, comfortable-yet-private location
The Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) opened the doors to its new office in the Hall building on Feb. 10, welcoming students to a more open and accessible space.
SARC is a Concordia service which offers support to students, faculty and staff who have been impacted by sexual harassment or assault.
The centre is now located in H-645 in the Hall building on the downtown campus. It was previously located on the third floor of the GM building since SARC’s inception in the fall of 2013.
“I think that moving to the Hall building represents an important step for us in terms of our growth and also in terms of our visibility,” said Jennifer Drummond, the SARC coordinator. “I think the Hall building has greater student traffic.”
Drummond said the new SARC office is still in a private area. “Students coming to access our services will still have that privacy and confidentiality,” said Drummond.
The new office is not only larger, but it has a reception area for students waiting to attend an appointment.
“I think a reception is really important because it not only provides support to the volunteers at the drop-in, but also, to me, it provides a safe landing spot for someone when they first show up to SARC,” said Drummond. “Especially if they’re a bit nervous, it gives them a private area to wait and relax before deciding whether or not they want to go into the drop-in [centre].”
Drummond’s previous office was located in a small room off of a hallway in the GM building. Drummond said if she was in a meeting and her door was closed, it may have felt unwelcoming for someone who had had difficulty coming to SARC in the first place.
“Coming up against a closed door can be really upsetting, especially if you’re already having a hard time getting there in the first place,” said Drummond. “You work up this courage and you get to the door and the door is closed—that can be detrimental to someone’s recovery and process in getting help, and they may never come back.”
In terms of SARC becoming more prevalent on campus, Drummond said moving the office to a more evident spot on campus was an important step.
“We are holding a big event on March 2. It’s in collaboration with the Atwater Library and Computer Centre and their project about eliminating cyber violence against women and young girls,” said Drummond. “We are collaborating with them to do an event about responding to and preventing cyber violence, and that can include gender-based cyber violence, online harassment or abuse of a sexual nature.”
“We’re going to continue to have events like that each semester,” said Drummond.
SARC is open Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. To make an appointment or for any other inquiries, email sarc@concordia.com or call 514-848-2424 ext. 3461 to reach the drop-in centre.
Climate Justice Montreal held their event in the CSU lounge in the Hall building. Photo by Savanna Craig
Water activists held a phone-in day to hold banks and PM Trudeau accountable to divest
A small, yet determined group of environmental activists congregated around a table on the seventh floor of the Hall building to make phone calls to banks and urge them to divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the Trans Mountain Pipeline on Wednesday.
Climate Justice Montreal (CJM), a group that supports climate and environmental justice by virtue of educating, calls to action and standing in unity with communities affected by environmental issues, organized the phone-in.
The event, which began at noon, housed participants at a table located in the Concordia Student Union (CSU) lounge, adjacent to the long, winding line of students waiting for People’s Potato to open.
Callers were offered scripts, which explained why activists would like banks to divest from pipeline projects. The importance of prioritizing the environment and communities threatened by the Trans Mountain and DAPL pipelines was outlined in the scripts as well.
Three Canadian banks are currently funding the DAPL construction—TD Bank, Scotiabank and RBC.
Political representatives and agencies were called to push for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to no longer support the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
“All together, TD gave $2.5 billion to the Dakota Access Pipeline and I don’t think any resistance [for] these pipelines is going to come from the government at this point,” said Maya Provençal, a participant involved with CJM.
“Especially with Donald Trump—he’s very pro-fossil fuel, pro-pipeline—so I think one of our only hopes is to get big banks and big companies to pull their money that they have invested in these pipelines,” said Provençal. “Without that money, the Dakota Access can’t go forward,” Provençal said.
She said she thinks targeting the banks is one of the most effective things activists can do.
“TD is the biggest investor by a lot,” said Provençal, explaining that as the largest funding body of the DAPL, CJM are focusing primarily on targeting TD Bank right now. “I could see us targetting other banks in the future.”
The Trans Mountain expansion project, imposed by Kinder Morgan—an American energy infrastructure company—will enable the construction of a new pipeline to run alongside the existing Trans Mountain pipeline—which runs between Edmonton, Alta. and Burnaby, B.C.
“We have this website where you can find your member of parliament, your representative, by entering your postal code and then we have a script,” said Provençal.
Provençal said Amy Miller, a participant in CJM, sent an email out last week in order to advocate for more mobilization around pipeline projects. This resulted in formulating this event framed around calling TD Bank and political representatives.
“I think sometimes people don’t realize how easy it is to just make an event like this. Really it’s a matter of just pulling a couple of chairs together, having a script, having the numbers organized,” said Miller.
Miller hopes to have mobilization take place each week.
“Whether it’s pickets at different TD Banks every week—which will probably be what’s next—or doing another march, doing another action at TD Bank, we definitely plan on keeping the pressure up,” said Miller.
Provençal said CJM hopes to take on an entire campaign dedicated to bank divestment in the near future. “We’ll see more action around that in the city soon,” she said.
“It’s not about just divesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, but it’s about stopping fossil fuel extraction at the source for all projects,” said Miller. “We can’t have greenhouse gas emissions rise, we can’t have the tar sands continue to expand.”
“It’s 2017, there’s no more time for talk, the time is now—we need to keep it in the ground,” said Miller.
Black History Month remembers the half of the story that was never told and recognizes ongoing oppressions
This month marks Black History Month, an observance established in 1995 through a motion introduced by Jean Augustine, the first black Canadian woman elected to Parliament. This month not only celebrates black people and their culture, but also remembers black history—a history with half of the story that’s never been told, according to Michael Farkas, the president of the Montréal Black History Month Round Table, a non-profit organization which advocates black culture and education.
“Obviously, in terms of blacks, you really have to check history to understand all the things that have happened to us and that are still happening to us,” Farkas said.
“There’s so much to uncover,” said Farkas. “Every year I personally learn something new.”
“We have a chance right now to have a beautiful month. Yes, it’s the coldest one, and yes, it’s the shortest one, but who really cares? I care about getting the information,” said Farkas.
“White people and people in the world show little or no interest to Black History Month—the little month we have,” Farkas said. “It should be in schools, it should be part of the curriculum.”
Concordia has yet to develop a Black Studies program, which Sophia Sahrane, the Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) academic and advocacy coordinator and a strong supporter of black activism on campus, believes is vital to be a major and not just a minor.
Sahrane is involved in the Black Studies Collective, which is responsible for bringing the Black Studies event series to Concordia. Sahrane has also organized a BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of colour) committee, open exclusively to racial minorities on campus, which recognizes and addresses barriers faced by BIPOC students and groups at Concordia.
The first talk in the Black Studies event series, held in September 2016, featured guest speaker Dalton Anthony Jones, a black scholar from the United States, who is known for developing Black Studies programs in American universities.
“The talk was on the importance of Black Studies,” said Sahrane. However, she said a main critique amongst some educators within Black Studies is that it should be integrated into general studies.
“When the Black Studies initiative was brought up to the Concordia senate and the university a couple of times, one of the things [Shepard] said was there’s no interest in a Black Studies program,” said Sahrane. “We’re trying to prove that there is by having this Black Studies event series—people are showing up,” she said.
She said the senate meeting revealed that the university didn’t have black professors to teach this program. “If we want a Black Studies program, we want a majority of the professors to be black, to be of some type of black culture. We want them to be able to relate to course curriculums,” said Sahrane. “But the thing is, [Shepard] just admitted to the lack of diversity at Concordia.”
There have been some initiatives to diversify Concordia’s faculty. The Student Association of Graduates in English (SAGE), for example, has brought in a racial bias specialist to help make the English department’s staff more diverse. “He sits down with the hiring committees and he helps them identify their biases and helps them work around them,” Sahrane said. However, she added that the English department is the only department to have taken this initiative so far.
There are not only issues concerning lack of diversity within schools, but as well the lack of education towards certain language and pop culture references.
Farkas said the N-word has been greatly appropriated, identifying an example as the way the word is represented in rap music. “They dehumanized the word in a way—and that’s their thing—but often they don’t know their history,” said Farkas. “The name comes from a very rich heritage.” He added that in the Americas, as well as parts of Europe, the word has been used to dehumanize black populations.
“There’s a very strong history of oppression and persecution and racism in Canada and I think that Canada worked really hard to try to erase that history, and being known in the international community as the peacemakers and a multicultural mosaic society [that is] accepting of all,” said Sahrane. “I think that because there’s this general belief that Canada is great and we don’t have a recent [racial] problem—I think the event on Sunday proved that we do,” she added, referring to the shooting in Quebec City on Jan. 29.
The N-word actually originated from an Ethiopian dialect called Amharic, Farkas explained. “When you really study the etymology of the word, it means that it’s close to niggus, it’s close to Nile, it’s close to Niger and it’s close to Nigeria—it is a very highly regarded name in a different language.”
Farkas referenced Sahle Selassie, who ruled Shewa, Ethiopia between 1813-47, who was dubbed the title “The Negus,” which translates to king or ruler in Amharic.
Things have improved with the advancement of people being more politically correct, as well as being in times where anyone can be videotaped, said Farkas.
“We’re all human beings and we all sometimes have ideas or prejudice in ourselves towards others,” Farkas said. “We all have to work on it, regardless of your colour.”
“Most of the microaggressions I have experienced have been in interpersonal relationships, such as being fetishized [for being black],” said Sahrane. “As much as I am very proud of my identity—can’t I just be a woman?”
“Some people aren’t comfortable around people of colour,” Farkas said, comparing this to the discomfort some people have towards people of other religions.
“Stigmatization can happen to anyone for any kind of reason—whether you’re a gay, whether you’re obese—people can make you feel very uncomfortable and you can feel intimidated,” said Farkas. “I’m not just going to say it happens to blacks, but sometimes, if you’re a black woman, maybe some people will make you feel uncomfortable and you’ll have to fight back for your right.”
“I think we need to retain some kind of values to pass onto our kids, and the ones we should pass on are respect and nonviolence,” Farkas said. “In that respect, we all can grow, I believe.”
Activists marched along Ste-Catherine Street, delivering a petition for TD Bank to divest from DAPL
A crowd of approximately 40 people, small but united and loud in their fight against pipelines, gathered in Norman Bethune Square at noon on Feb. 1 to deliver a petition to TD Bank, urging the bank to remove its investments from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The petition had more than 143,000 signatures on it.
“We’re here to honour what’s going on over there in Standing Rock with the Sioux Nation,” said Dan Parker, a representative from Climate Justice Montréal, the group that organized the event.
Parker introduced the event’s first speaker, Sierra Segalowitz, a Native youth ambassador. “I’m Inuit, Dene and half French, and I’ve been involved with these types of things since I was a baby,” Segalowitz said.
Segalowitz recites a speech from Black Elk Speaks. Photo by Savanna Craig.
Segalowitz recited a speech from the book Black Elk Speaks, written in 1932 by John Neihardt, an American writer and poet who often wrote about European-American immigrants and the indigenous peoples they frequently displaced. The speech had been delivered by the Black Elk, an elder from the Lakȟóta people, which is an indigenous tribe living in North and South Dakota
“If the old camp circle, the sacred hoop of the Lakota, and the old days have been rudely shattered by the machines of a scientific era and if they can be no more in the traditional sense, the universality of the images and dreams must testify to the emergence of a new sacred hoop, a new circle of intense community among Indians far outdistancing the grandeur of former times,” she read.
“He’s not alive, but he predicted this hundreds of years ago,” said Segalowitz, referencing ongoing pipeline conflicts throughout North America, including the one at Standing Rock.
“This was meant to happen. It doesn’t mean it is right, [but] it is happening right now,” said Segalowitz. “In thousands of years, we are the people who are going to be in these history books.”
“We are standing strong and we are standing for our Mother,” said Segalowitz.
Video by Savanna Craig.
Kristian Gareau from Climate Justice Montréal reminded the crowd why they had gathered.
“We’re Climate Justice Montréal, we’re people who fight for the respect of the Earth. We see everything that’s going on around us—it’s very discouraging,” said Gareau.* He said what inspires him and other members of Climate Justice Montréal is seeing the protectors of water and people from First Nations communities all over the continent who are standing up against the constructors and powers behind these pipelines.
This is a solidarity action for indigenous people who are mistreated and have had and continue to have their treaties violated, said Gareau. “We want to make noise and we want to make sure these people are heard.”
Gareau said the demonstrators would march to two TD Bank branches in Montréal to deliver petitions insisting the bank remove its funding from the pipeline project.
Kristen Perry from Climate Justice Montréal told the crowd they were responding directly to a call from Standing Rock that urged activists across North America to petition the banks in their area that are funding the construction of the DAPL.
“We have TD Bank right here in Canada that is the largest funder in Canada of the Dakota Access Pipeline,” Perry told the crowd. “As we’re taking action today, it’s really important to think of the destructive nature of this pipeline and what we’re doing here today to say that we are not okay with that.”
Police gathered outside TD Bank location at Ste-Catherine and Guy. Photo by Savanna Craig.
“You can’t eat money, you can’t drink oil, give it up TD, leave it in the soil,” chanted Parker, along with the crowd.
Representatives from Kahnawake’s People’s Fire marched alongside activists down Guy Street towards their first stop at the TD Bank on the corner of Ste-Catherine West and Guy.
Gareau delivered the petition to representatives at TD, as demonstrators sang together outside the bank, which was heavily guarded by police officers. As Gareau exited the bank, he told the crowd he had informed the bank’s representatives that they do not want TD to fund public money into dangerous and toxic infrastructures that infringe treaty rights.
“City by city, block by block, we stand with Standing Rock,” chanted the crowd as they marched towards Place des Arts, to the TD Bank on Ste-Catherine West and de Bleury.
“They actually had heard about Standing Rock, which is good. I think it’s something that’s been in the media a lot,” Perry told the crowd after delivering the second petition.
“We talked about how, as we go into the future, pipelines are not going to be good investments,” Perry said after meeting with the TD representatives. “We’re seeing that the current administration in the U.S. is trying to push through pipelines, but there’s a growing resistance across the world—as you can see with all of the people here today.”
“We’re calling on TD again to take their money out of Dakota Access Pipelines,” said Perry, as she urged participants to close their TD Bank accounts.
Protesters gathered at the TD Bank location on Ste-Catherine West and de Bleury. Photo by Savanna Craig.
“I don’t think the pipelines are good for the Mother Earth,” Segalowitz told The Concordian.
“[Climate Justice Montréal has] three main motives: we do mobilization, like today, we do education—where we give workshops—and then we do direct action,” Parker said. He told The Concordian that, in the three years since he joined Climate Justice Montréal, they have not organized a lot of direct action. However, Parker said recently they have been organizing protests against Line 9, which has a refinery located in Sarnia, Ontario—close to a reserve home to members of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation—running all the way to Montréal. Parker said Climate Justice Montréal has been helping indigenous land defenders, such as Vanessa Gray, who shut off a Line 9 valve in December 2015.
Vigil for Quebec City shooting victims unites more than 1,000 people
Abdelkrim Hassane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Ibrahima Barry and Azzeddine Soufiane—those are the names of whom a crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered for outside of Parc metro station. It was an act of solidarity against terrorism, racism and discrimination.
Abdelkrim Hassane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Ibrahima Barry and Azzeddine Soufiane—those are the names of whom a crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered for outside of Parc metro station. It was an act of solidarity against terrorism, racism and discrimination.
These six men fell victim to an act of terrorism committed at a mosque in Quebec City where many community members had gathered for an evening prayer on Sunday, Jan. 29, according to the National Post.
“Tout le monde déteste les racistes, tout le monde déteste les racistes,” the crowd chanted, over and over.
Claire Caillat, a participant at the vigil, said the large crowd validated the fact that many Canadians and those living in Canada are strong and determined to fight against racism. “This is proof that racism cannot divide us,” she said.
Mohammed Ahmed, another participant, said diversity is an important component of what makes Canada the nation it is today. “Without it, Canada would be tasteless,” he said.
Photo by Savanna Craig.
“People from all over the world come here to contribute to society,” said Ahmed. If we separate Canada in terms of race and culture, Canada will no longer be Canada, he said.
“I’m not surprised that people support the Muslim community because a vast majority of Quebecers do not hold intolerant views towards these minority groups,” said Alex Tyrrell, leader of the Green Party of Quebec and Concordia student who attended the vigil. “It’s really a fringe element of society that holds these discriminatory views.”
Tyrrell criticized the media for providing a presence for and profiting off of intolerant, extremist, right-wing views. “They’re often writing columns against trans people, against women, against minority groups,” said Tyrrell, using the example of journalists Mathieu Bock-Côté and Richard Martineau. “They’re constantly fanning the flames of these issues.”
“I think that that’s something that needs to change as quick as possible because we see what kind of impact these have,” said Tyrrell. “There has been many other hate crimes that have been committed in Quebec over the past few months and years.”
Photo by Savanna Craig.
As some participants began to disperse around 7:30 p.m., many others gathered around a large red tapestry that read “Make Racists Afraid Again.”
“No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here,” chanted thousands of participants in unison during the vigil.
Photo by Savanna Craig.
Sentiments of peace and acceptance filled the air throughout the evening, voiced by a crowd made up of all different races, backgrounds and religions.
The crowd later dispersed from outside Parc metro and moved East along Jean Talon.
