Author: The Concordian

As police redirect traffic, ambulances are parked in the middle of the street with somebody strapped to a stretcher. A bike is laying in the middle of the street. This was the scene on a  Wednesday night on the corner of St. Laurent and Sherbrooke Streets. It is not yet clear what happened and who is to blame but it is, unfortunately, a familiar scene in Montreal. Two cyclists were killed in back-to-back accidents that took place the second week of August.
Montreal police’s “share the road” campaign was launched last year and aims to crack down on Highway Safety Code violations made by both cyclists and motorists. The goal is to reduce the number of fatalities and accidents, despite the perceived increase in the number of bicycles on the road.
While enforcing cyclists to follow traffic rules and fining those who do not will improve safety, the best way to ensure cyclist safety is by not allowing them and drivers to share the road.
Cycling fatalities and injuries are surprisingly low in Germany and the Netherlands, even though bicycles are a widespread mode of transportation in these countries. What are they doing differently? A Rutgers University study showed that the answer lies in infrastructure. Extensive bicycle paths and lanes, special traffic lights for cyclists that give them priority at intersections, and designated bicycle stop areas that allow cyclists to stay in front of cars at intersections.
This month, Montreal has taken a step in the right direction by setting up its first bicycle box. The green-painted patch of pavement on the corner of Milton and University marks the space where bicycles can wait ahead of cars, giving them priority at the intersection. The bike box is just a pilot project for the moment, but its location is perfect for a test run as the intersection gets approximately 5,000 cyclists and 700 cars each day.
Although pricey – the bike box’s non-skid plastic that won’t come off during snow clearing has a price tag of $10,000 – it is the most effective long-term solution for the city’s bicycle accident problem.
Regardless of who is responsible in each individual case, the city should make sure it protects its cyclists as much as possible. In combination with cautious cyclists and motorists, these measures should dramatically cut down on the fatalities and accidents that have been so prevalent this month.

You have made it to Montreal. You have made it to the centre of town, and you are about to begin your life at Concordia University.
Take a good look around because before you know it, it will be over and you will be left wondering where it all went and why you didn’t go to the Jazz Fest once while you were in Montreal.
However, do not despair yet, as there are years between now and then and, if you heed some advice and be smart, you can get the most out of your education.
First thing, get a job. It doesn’t matter if you have a million-dollar scholarship or a millionaire mother or found $1 million like Bill Paxton in A Simple Plan. Getting a job will make you a better person and add to your three, four, five or six years at school.
You will be surrounded and consumed by the world that is Concordia, and developing an identity outside of that will only broaden your person.
Second thing, take advantage of as many festivals, galleries, events and concerts as possible, but also be careful. Montreal is the best city in Canada, and a gold mine of cultural experience and non-stop goings-on.
You can experience much, but the city can swallow you like the sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi. If you miss a show, a festival or a game between the Habs and the Canucks, don’t worry. There will be others.
Third, pace yourself. Start figuring out ways to manage time so that you won’t be one of the people stressing everyone else out with your complaints of how much work you have to do.
If you have six books to read in a term, read one in the first week.
On that note, if you do have to read six books in a term, thank your teacher. You will be better for it if you don’t complain and do the work to the best of your ability. Students used to have to read a lot more than you do now, so get over it.
Fourth, everyone is working, everyone is trying, everyone is studying, and you are just another one of the cogs that make up the machine. All work will get done if you want it to get done.
Talk to students in other programs, and you might learn something; I’m looking at you, engineering students.
Your discipline will not give you all the answers in the universe no matter how bold your teachers’ claims are.
Stay in Montreal for the summer. You do not need to go home and save on rent or visit your family. Montreal is the coolest place in the world in the summer, and to miss it is to miss a great party.
Finally, read Ulysses by James Joyce.  If there is one thing that anyone can do, and that you can permanently wear like a badge of honour and battle, it is to read Ulysses.
You’ll thank me later.

Many Canadians have likely spent the time since the last election lamenting the Conservative victory. While a Conservative majority government is certainly a defeat for the majority of Canadians who did not vote for the party, the results of the election present an opportunity for great improvements in the Canadian political scene. It is the chance to achieve the sort of legislative progress that has been unseen since the Chrétien years.
One of the arguments against the Conservatives during the recent election was that they were not terribly effective in passing legislation during their previous two mandates. This charge was somewhat unfair, as the problems that those two governments experienced in passing legislation were the same as any minority government, regardless of affiliation. Now that the Conservatives have formed a majority government, they will most likely be able to achieve significant legislative progress, although many Canadians will probably not like the legislation that results from it.
Another fear regarding the Conservatives that was emphasized by the opposition parties was the specter of the Conservative party’s supposed American-style right-wing beliefs. Although there are certainly members of the Conservative Party who would feel more than at home among America’s right-wing Republicans, this charge is a little bit of a stretch.
Over the course of the two previous Conservative governments, institutions traditionally loathed by America’s right-wing such as socialized health-care, gay marriage, and abortion rights have remained virtually untouched, and there is no indication that this will change because the Conservatives now have a majority. The demands of running a government traditionally moderate the policies of any political party, especially in Canada, and the new Conservative government will be no different.
Aside from the Conservative majority, the other big story of the recent election was the surge in electoral support for the New Democrats, and the corresponding failure of the Liberal Party. For whatever reason, the NDP eclipsed the Liberals in voter support, becoming for the first time the official opposition.
While it is almost impossible to say what will happen in four or eight years’ time, it is quite possible that this shift will become permanent. Despite their many deficiencies, most notably almost totally ignoring the socialist and worker-oriented causes for which they were created, the NDP present a far more different alternative to Conservative rule than do the Liberals. The success of the New Democrats in the election, if it can be repeated in subsequent elections, seems likely to result in a situation where Canadians have more choice in terms of voting for a party that is likely to get elected into government or as the official opposition.
In a number of ways, the results of the recent election represent a chance for improvements in the Canadian political scene. Whether these improvements will result in better political parties and better governments remains to be seen.

Last week, the CSU’s judicial board held a meeting to examine chief electioral officer Oliver Cohen’s decision to disqualify both the Action and Your Concordia slates which participated in March’s CSU election.

While Cohen’s decision to disqualify the victorious Your Concordia slate was overturned, the whole fiasco is symptomatic of a much larger problem for the CSU. The sort of amateurism that has characterized both the candidates and the CEO’s involvement in March’s election is something that should not be accepted by the students at this school, and an alternative must be found.

Oliver Cohen has run the elections process at Concordia for a number of years now, but you wouldn’t know it based on his performance during the March election. For starters, that period saw Cohen make himself virtually unavailable to campus media, individual students, as well as to candidates and groups attempting to secure student-sanctioned fee levies.

While Oliver Cohen’s lack of availability was certainly a problem both before and during the election, it was after the election that his conduct seemed to have become more problematic. In a letter sent to both slates on April 12, Cohen charged both slates with numerous breaches of the elections regulations, and disqualified them. While this in and of itself would not have been a problem, his failure to provide any sort of evidence to substantiate the charges, as well as his lack of communication with campus media and the student body in general created a situation where it became quite reasonable to question his capability as chief electoral officer.

Oliver Cohen was not the only one who displayed a level of amateurism in relation to the recent elections. As stated above, both slates were sanctioned by Cohen for exceeding the spending limited mandated by the CEO’s office. The sanction was then upheld by the judicial board. This mutual breach of electoral rules seems to indicate that both slates either acted in bad faith in an attempt to fool the students of Concordia, or that they can’t do basic math.

Either way, like Oliver Cohen, the slates’ conduct in relation to the recent election would seem to indicate that neither is properly capable of running a clean and legal electoral campaign, much less an organization such as the CSU, which is extremely complicated and which involves properly