The Hive Café’s new initiative will offer a daily free vegan breakfast starting this fall to fight food insecurity.
In ASFA’s March 2023 elections, students voted in favour of a fee levy increase to the Hive Café Loyola Free Lunch program. These funds will be used to implement a new breakfast program starting this fall, providing free breakfast at the Loyola campus five days a week.
“The team here, myself included, are really passionate about feeding students,” said Alanna Silver, the Free Lunch program coordinator. She also noted that few free breakfast options are available in NDG compared to the downtown campus.
The Hive Café Co-op aims to serve breakfast to at least 100 people a day, as they already serve 250 through their free lunch program.
“We’re really passionate about creating a sense of community. It’s not just serving a meal,”
Silver explained how studies demonstrate that students retain their learning better when they’ve eaten their first meal of the day.
The Hive’s vegan options have allowed a greater proportion of students to benefit from their menu, regardless of religion or dietary restrictions. The team hopes to serve vegan meals as well, although Silver concedes that most breakfasts contain animal products.
“[Our] choices are limited to smoothies, oatmeal and bread. So there was definitely some big debate on whether we should do vegetarian or vegan breakfast,” she said.
The Hive will continue to produce vegan meals in-house. The increased fee levy will cover the added food, labour and equipment costs.
The project began development in mid-February, and the Hive team believes it will be fully implemented by the end of the year. The ASFA election results in March helped increase their funding by $0.25 per credit to support the project.
The team launched a promotional campaign around the university through social media posts, graphics and posters to get the word out.
With the new project’s financial needs covered, the Hive’s next challenge will be managing their space.
“We’re trying to currently figure out how we’re going to share a kitchen because obviously we’ll be doubling the staff, doubling the production, doubling the amount of equipment we need,” Silver said.
Correction:
In a previous version of this article, the Hive Free Breakfast program was referred to as the first free breakfast program in Canada. Both MacEwan University and Mount Royal University have free breakfast programs that predate the Hive Free Breakfast.
now over four decades since the start of the HIV health crisis, how is it being handled in Canada today?
During the summer of 1981, a headline from The New York Times warned people about a “rare cancer” found in young, healthy gay men. Nine months later, the first case of this mysterious illness was reported in Canada. This turned out not to be cancer at all but human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and could infect people of any age, race, and sexual orientation.
In 1983 alone, there were an estimated 3,000 to 7,000 new cases of HIV in Canada. Nearly 40 years later, there were approximately 1,520 new cases of HIV in 2020, and 1,722 new cases in 2021, according to reports by the Government of Canada.
In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) established the 90-90-90 targets to tackle this pandemic. Their aim is to ensure that 90 per cent of people with HIV know their status, 90 per cent of those who know their status are receiving treatment, and 90 per cent of those who are on treatment have an undetectable viral load.
Recent research published by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease has found that people with undetectable levels of HIV cannot transmit the virus through sex.
Canada has made significant progress since the beginning of the HIV pandemic. In 2018, 87 per cent of people with HIV knew their infection status, 85 per cent of those who knew their status were taking treatment, and 94 per cent of those taking treatment for HIV achieved viral suppression.
Despite this progress, Canada still has much to improve on. Montreal did not sign on to the Paris Declaration on Fast-Track Cities Ending the AIDS Epidemic, which put forth a new 95-95-95 target. As a result, HIV/AIDS organizations within the city feel as though Montreal is not doing enough to combat the pandemic.
Another highly contested issue is Canada’s laws on HIV non-disclosure, which state that an individual’s HIV-positive status must be disclosed to their partner prior to any sexual activity that poses a “realistic possibility of transmission,” or risk being charged with sexual assault. This law has faced significant backlash due to overcriminalization, particularly among marginalized communities.
Furthermore, many marginalized groups continue to struggle disproportionately compared to the rest of Canada. According to the Ontario HIV Epidemiology and Surveillance Initiative, in 2019, African, Caribbean and Black women represented 61 per cent of new diagnoses among women in Ontario. Out of 169 women, 21 per cent were reported to use injection drugs.
A cohort study published by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network highlighted that individuals who experienced intimate violence from a partner were up to 50 per cent more likely to contract HIV.
In 2018, the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange reported that only 78 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada who inject drugs were aware of their HIV status, with 83 per cent of those who knew their status receiving treatment, while only 64 per cent of those on treatment had an undetectable viral load.
Marginalized groups encounter barriers to access to treatment care for multiple reasons: the costs, the types of clinics and services available and the stigmas related to alcohol and drug use, to name a few.
HIV organizations that provide support services witness this disparity first-hand. Kimberly Wong, the programs development manager at AIDS Community Care Montreal (ACCM), believes community organizations need more funding to help marginalized people living with HIV.
“There are major shortages of resources and many post-lockdown crises that our sector has to deal with, so having more money to hire skilled workers would help a lot,” she said.
ACCM provides a wide array of other services to the community. “Currently, we offer rapid HIV testing by appointment,” said Wong. They also offer one-on-one support for those living with HIV or hepatitis C, including referrals to other resources and individual counseling.
For those interested in volunteering at ACCM, you can see their list of volunteer opportunities here.
For more information regarding other support services, such as STI testing available in the Montreal area, including Concordia University, please refer to the list below.
Concordia students talk about the challenges they face finding housing
In 1973, the Liberal Party of Quebec declared July 1 as the province’s unofficial moving date. Since that decision nearly half a century ago, March 31 has become the deadline for tenants to notify their landlords if they intend to terminate their lease.
The period between the beginning of April and the end of July can be particularly challenging for university students, especially those from outside of Montreal.
Sierra McDonald is a first-year political science student at Concordia University. She said she had difficulties trying to find an apartment before starting school.
“I’m from the Northwest Territories, and that’s pretty far away from Montreal,” said McDonald. “I found it really difficult having to find apartments online that fit my budget.”
According to Adia Giddings, an assistant for Concordia’s Housing and Job Resource Centre (HOJO) out-of-province students like McDonald are in a vulnerable position when searching for housing because they often cannot visit apartments in person.
“Specifically international students who are trying to sign a lease from another country and can’t visit the apartment, they enter into the lease and then they look at the apartment, and it is not what it looks like in the pictures,” she said.
A common issue thatGiddings deals with relate to students struggling to find leases outside of the standard lease duration of one year.
Dana Hachwa, a second-year journalism student at Concordia, said she has noticed that the vast amount of short-term accommodations on advertised Facebook Marketplace are for “apartment swaps.”
Hachwa believes the practice is exploitative in nature and blocks students like her from entering the housing market.
“You see a nice apartment in a great area. It’s big, it’s affordable. The person’s looking to transfer their lease, but it’s only a swap. So if you’re not giving them something in return, you can’t have the apartment,”
said Hachwa.
Another scam that students should be on the lookout for, Giddings warned, is promotional deals or limited time offers that include discounts on rent.
“Big landlords will advertise a month free of rent or a little bit off every month that you live in the apartment for your first year,” said Giddings. “Those fields are especially worrisome because a lot of them have clauses that are considered punitive by the tribunal.”
Giddings explained that many of these deals include provisions that allow landlords to negate on these terms if the tenant attempts to conduct a lease transfer or pay rent late. Students looking for more information about their renting rights can go to HOJO’s website or visit their offices at the Henry F. Hall building, room number 224.
Initiative to raise awareness on community challenges gathers West Island citizens at Pierrefonds Community High School to recognize racial, mental and physical minorities.
Pressing issues affecting minority voices in the West Island community were the main topics of discussion at the West Island United rally hosted by the Youth Stars Foundation on March 26.
The event’s main goal was to ally West Island community members under “unity, inclusivity, diversity and equity amongst all cultures, including racialized and BIPOC communities,” according to their website.
Teenage students spoke about how inclusivity at school helped them to feel more confident in their lives. In an environment that affirms their identity, they can be accepted for their differences and avoid exclusion.
The annual rally was held at Pierrefonds Community High School. Representatives from the local community were invited to speak, or share a poem to the audience.
Among the speakers at the meeting was high school student Kate Zarbatany, who performed a nine-minute monologue on neurodiversity by labeling autism as a misunderstood diagnosis.
“It is unbelievable to think that so many people go through their lives struggling because they are not diagnosed,” said Zarbatany. ‘It’s important to remember that there isn’t just one form of autism. It’s a spectrum. Our world is designed for the neurotypical.”
“This is why I’m asking you to be our allies and try to better understand us,”
she added.
The event hosted various West Island organizations providing different services.
Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi de l’Ouest-de-l’Île, Action Jeunesse de l’Ouest-de-l’île, the West Island LGBTQ2+ Centre and Big Brothers Big Sisters of West Island each had their own booth.
SPVM agents were also present to provide community outreach.
However, Benoit Langevin, councilor of the City of Montreal for the Bois-de-Liesse district in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, noticed that there was an absence of Indigenous voices at the meeting.
“I think that we have to make bigger efforts for the Indigenous population,” said Langevin.
In the near future, Langevin’s team is seeking to develop a new set of activities with the local library in consultation with the West Island Black Community Association (WIBCA). In February, the library hosted different shows to inform its residents on the roots of their Black community. Langevin plans to continue working closely with the association.
The event gave Pierrefonds Community High School students an opportunity to express themselves and their needs. “We’ve always talked about the importance of community, the importance of inclusion, the importance of belonging,” said Lester B. Pearson School director general, Cindy Linn.
“We’re also realizing that in order to make those things happen, we need to involve everybody in the conversation,”
ASFA elections receive the highest voter turnout rates in the last decade
This past ASFA election saw the highest student engagement in the last decade, with a voter turnout rate of 14.8 per cent. Angelica Antonakopoulos, the academic coordinator for ASFA’s upcoming executive team, believes that the increased student engagement was fueled by transitioning into in-person instructions and the initiatives of those running.
“ASFA came out of the gate screaming right on social media,” said Antonakopoulos. “They also had a couple of really informative graphics, explaining what you were voting for. […] So I feel like that may have enticed students, because sometimes if you get ballots for something that you don’t understand, you kind of have a tendency to cast that aside.”
The results show that the executive team will be dominated by the new student slate Supportive Foundations. Supportive Foundations will be replacing the Radical Care student slate. Antonakopoulos said students can expect simplicity, transparency, and accountability from the new slate.
“If anyone has had a little bit of interaction with ASFA, as a structure, it’s complicated,” said Antonakopoulos. “We’re really going to sit down now and try to find ways that we can educate freshmen and other students from the get go at the beginning of the academic year and try to explain to them, this is your member association, these executives are your direct representation.”
Supportive Foundations also hopes to reinstate the scientific academic journal, and to reopen the Loyola office to make the executive team more accessible to the student body.
Antonakopoulos says students can expect a calmer year relative to the last ASFA slate Radical Care.
“We don’t feel the need to do a school-wide strike,” said Antonakopoulos.
“Radical Care really seemed to have a big focus on mental health. They kind of came in at a bit of a tumultuous time because they had to focus on the full heat transition into in-person school.”
Students also voted in favour of a fee levy increase for the Hive Free Lunch program. The fee levy will be used to implement a new breakfast program starting next semester. Click here for a complete breakdown of the election results.
Economics analyst Moshe Lander shares his observations from the budget data
The new Quebec Budget for 2023-24, presented by Minister of Finance Eric Girard, lays out several supporting plans for taxation, the health-care system, youth, education, and business budgets.
Educational spending has risen by six per cent this year, for a total of approximately $20 billion. In terms of higher education, the two biggest expenses are faculties and facilities. However, specific details as to where funding is going remains unclear at this time.
According to Moshe Lander, senior lecturer of economics at Concordia, “More money on education isn’t necessarily a good thing. It could be, but it depends. It’s merely a promise that this year we will spend this money on education, but stay tuned for the details.”
In addition to increases in the educational budget, $888 million over five years has been allocated to business productivity and encouraging business innovation. This demonstrates the possibility that students entering the job market will find more employment opportunities when they graduate. People looking to start their own businesses would also receive more funding from the government.
“The traditional industry that they might go into might not be as popular as when they graduated. Innovations might change the nature of those industries,” Lander said.
Lander thinks the province’s aging population and voter turnout could influence budget spending.
“Young people don’t get a lot of money from the government because they don’t vote,” said Lander. “But old people do.”
As the highest-taxed province in Canada, Quebec’s government reduced taxes by one per cent in this year’s budget, which will result in $9.2 billion of lost revenue for the government.
Lander agrees with the government cutting, “It (tax cuts) is a good sign, it’s small, but it’s better than nothing,” he said. But at the same time, he is concerned about balancing the budget.
“You’re going to dramatically cut spending and there’s a whole bunch of things that you have to stop spending more,” said Lander.
This year’s budget will lay the foundation for the government’s initiatives over the next four years. Lander pointed out that it’s unclear whether we’re heading into a recession, or whether we’ll avoid one.
“With that type of uncertainty, they’ll kind of wait and see what happens to decide how much they need to spend, ”he said.
Racialized people fighting for a better system and developing a sustainable world
Brick by Brick, a non-profit organization for social change, hosted a seminar on racialized people and their engagement in environmental justice on March 30. Alexandra Pierre organized this event with the Concordia Office of Community Engagement. The seminar tackled the following question: How are racialized activists transforming environmental struggles?
Nadia Bunyan, the seminar’s moderator, highlighted that climate change is worsening because of the systems that were put in place.
“If we don’t talk about how it [climate change] happened, how is it going to change?” she asked.
Bunyan explained her belief that racialized people are always the ones raising their hand in a room when it comes to environmental justice. In order to change the capitalist system, Bunyan asserted, privileged people need to take the time to speak up as well.
“You have to be the one in the room, but for people who are not racialized, how does that work in the space when we are talking about allyship? It’s not necessarily something that we can answer on, because we are not the ones holding that strength,” she said.
Duha Elmardi, another speaker, addressed the problem with the following statement: “Our interventions must be the ones that address and destroy the root causes: colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy.”
Andrea Claire McDonald, a speaker and Opwaaganasiniing First Nations representative, spoke about her deep connection to nature, especially with plants, which is very important in her community.
“I believe that when we build reciprocal relationships with the plants that surround us, we can gain accessible sustainable support for ourselves and for communities,” she said. “In my mind it is not a coincidence that many of the plants that thrive in our urban environment have very specific medicine for the challenges we face.”
During the conversation, access to nature was an important subject. A participant mentioned that if someone wants to have access to certain sites, they have to pay governments, or private entities. Such privatization makes resources inaccessible to Indigenous people — the people who initially settled in North America.
Lourdenie Jean, founder of the initiative L’Environnement, c’est intersectionnel (ECI), was another speaker at the event.
“One of my main messages with the ECI is the verb repurpose,” she said.
“Social movements led by racialized communities are already environmentally intersectional.”
Based on the event’s subject, Jean stated this: “How mainstream environmental movements can become allies to the social grassroots movements and not how mainstream movements should be inclusive.”
The event speakers and moderator approached the subject of how individual initiatives, like recycling, are only the tip of the iceberg, whereas like Jean mentioned, it is harder to join community-led change.
In her speech, Bunyan addressed the following saying: “We have it so good in North America.” She stressed the importance of recognizing the fact that people do not see all the microaggressions and trauma that happens in this country.
“It’s very easy for people to disappear, to fall below the poverty line and not have access to services, even though they exist. Whereas in smaller spaces, in a home, where you can have land and you can grow what you need, you can be connected to your community,” she said. “And it is very easy here [in Canada] to become disconnected to all of that.”
Delegates from all over the world visited Montreal for the CONMUN conference
The fourth edition of the Concordia Model United Nations (CONMUN) conference took place last week. The annual conference hosted by Concordia, was held this year at the hotel DoubleTree by Hilton. Representatives from delegations across the world arrived in professional attire to compete in the event.
“Concordia has recently risen in the Model UN rankings, we’re fairly in the top 25 schools and our image is growing,” elaborated Rowen Tanguay, a Concordia staff member for Model UN. “More schools and better delegates are being attracted to our conference each year.”
The aim of the conference is to simulate an United Nations conference as accurately as possible. During a simulation, delegates gather around tables to debate one another. The delegates raised a placard, on which the country or the person they represented was written. The Chair and the Vice Chair of the simulation will moderate the discussion.
Danisha Decius, who is part of the Concordia secretary team for Model UN, explained that there are committees made up of general assemblies, specialized agencies, and crisis committees.
CONMUN has been ranked as a Best Delegate conference since 2019.
“It is a great way to bring people not only from Canada, but also from the United States and abroad to see how great Concordia is and the city of Montreal,” said Liam Quraeshi, an assistant crisis director with Concordia’s Model UN team.
The main theme of this year’s conference was climate change, but conferences can focus on any subject that affects the international community, like artificial intelligence.
Quraeshi said that in a typical CONMUN conference, 40 to 50 delegates represent countries or political actors. The countries selected tend to be the most influential like the U.S. and China. But sometimes, smaller countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya are chosen depending on the debate theme of each conference.
Tanguay finds the Model UN environment fantastic. He thinks that the simulations are theatrical, but he loves them because he considers himself a theatrical person as well.
He is interested in politics. “Roleplaying as a political agent is a particularly appealing concept,” said Tanguay.
He appreciates how Model UN skills are applicable in everyday life. “I think it is a good program at the very least in terms of extracurricular activities,” he added. “It is a phenomenal activity for sharpening your social skills and forming lasting connections with incredible people.”
Quraeshi said he particularly loves when the conference is held in Montreal because he prefers the experience here a lot more.
“It is closer to where I live, I am very in touch with the city, in terms of best places to eat, the public transport, and just showing people around having a good time,”
Concordia students share their experiences with the Co-op program
When Emma Amar was accepted into Concordia University’s software engineering program in April 2020, she was invited to apply to the Co-op program during an orientation session. She hoped to get experience in the field before graduating, alongside an accreditation to her diploma.
But in January 2022, she called it quits.
“I decided to leave Co-op because I couldn’t stay and take a leave of absence,” she said. In 2020, the Co-op institute required software engineering students to take five classes for their fall, winter and summer semesters. Currently, their sequence requires fewer courses over an academic year.
“If you step out of sequence, then your Co-op gets messed up. So it’s very rigorous every semester. So most of my peers take five [classes] every semester.”
In order to complete the Co-op program, students must dedicate two semesters to learn about the Co-op program and to secure an internship via their institute. Then, they must successfully complete three internships, spread over three semesters.
“I was very excited to work because I’m not a person that enjoys [studying],” she said. “I have anxiety and have a lot of things that make it very difficult for me to be a student and a participant in a class setting.”
Amar’s internship workload felt like she was taking an extra class. “I have to attend all these workshops. I have to be a member of the Co-op institute, but I’m busy juggling five classes,” she said.
Juggling between being a full-time student one semester and working full-time the next, all while dealing with mental health issues made Amar realize she needed a break.
Despite the added stress she encountered with the process, she says she improved her technical skills through the experience. “Two years past that internship, I’m still using all the skills that I got from my job in my classes, in my group projects,” she said. “I’m able to sit down and actually be able to interact with my peers and actually be able to contribute.”
Alex*, who wished to remain anonymous, is another student whose Co-op experience was similar to Amar’s. They decided to apply for Co-op in March 2021; as a journalism student, they were eager to find internship opportunities in their field, but quickly realized that the program only offered opportunities to work in public relations and communications.
“Sometimes I would have to go to a press conference. Well, I guess you do that in journalism, but this was not me asking questions. This was me networking for the company,” they said.
Alex thought their internship would teach them journalism skills, like following tight schedules, writing and publishing content. Yet they felt like their days were coordinated by random tasks their manager gave them.
Alex expressed feeling burnt out after that summer, having worked 50 hours every week, including their summer job.
“The university could do so much more to set us up for success with internships, and yet they don’t,” they said. “I sincerely hope that Concordia, the journalism department and the Co-op department figure out a way to have paid journalism jobs. Right now, it’s all communications, marketing or PR. And to me, that’s completely useless and irrelevant to my field of study,” Alex added.
“I still feel like I’ve never really recovered from that. It made me realize I want to do journalism,” they said. “The thing about Co-op is that you can’t quit halfway through because it looks like you failed on your transcript,” Alex said. “[I] was realizing that the Co-op program in journalism is kind of a scam.”
After completing their first internship in summer 2022, Alex told their program coordinator they were no longer interested in being part of the Co-op program.
Amar and Alex will not graduate as Co-op students, but as C.Edge students.
C.Edge is another internship institute at Concordia for students who are transitioning to the workfield. Only one internship is required to complete the C.Edge program.
“It’s not going to show that I’m a Co-op student, but because I did successfully complete one internship, I’m a C.Edge student,” Amar said. “I have no idea what that entails.”
The vernissage of FASA’s new exhibition took place last Saturday, March 11, at the Eastern Bloc in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, displaying works in varying mediums from 10 different artists
Shams, the Arabic word for “sun,” seems like the perfect word to describe this exhibition, because it shines the light on the unheard voices of proudly Arabic artists.
Nesreen Galal is the curator of FASA’s new exhibition. She is FASA’s outreach coordinator and a fourth-year Concordia student double majoring in studio and computation arts.
Galal conceived the idea for Shams after having co-organized many shows for artists of different ethnicities through the CSU. She found that there wasn’t enough representation for Arab people.
“I thought it would be cool to have an opportunity to have fine arts and non fine arts students who identify as Arab to have a space, and focus on marginalized voices as well such as women, queer [people], immigrants, disabled people, and refugees,” she said.
Galal drew initial inspiration from American-Palestinian author Edward Said’s book Orientalism, which explores the west’s depiction of eastern culture.
“Arabs are perceived in a western-dominant perspective, especially in Canada where its perception is affected by America’s dominant perspective. We’re defined as barbaric or as terrorists or even stereotyped as people in fantasy lands like in Aladdin,” said Galal.
For this reason, it was necessary to provide Shams as a safe space for the attributed artists.
Courtesy Photo
Co-creator of furniture workshop Atelier Bon Train Rafaël Khoury displayed an installation in the exhibition, called A lesson between two sculptures. It’s composed of three pedestals: the middle one holds a couple of notebooks containing Arabic and English scribbles, while the other two pedestals each hold a strange sculpture resembling uneven bookshelves composed of shattered marble and walnut wood.
“They are explorations in self-compassion, one of the primary themes of the installation are the exploring of self, reorienting of self, and being allowed to do so,” said Khoury. “The sculptures are a divergence of traditional furniture, and the script is also me trying to get in touch with part of my story, as a child of immigrants, but in my own way.”
Similar to Khoury, communications alumnus and musician Amira Faradj grew up out of touch with Arab culture despite being raised by Algerian parents. “Because it was always in my household, I felt disdain towards it for some reason. Maybe it was because I wanted to fit in with my peers who were not from that area,” said the musician. “It’s only recently that I’ve come around to explore my identity in a way that feels like mine. I’ve never felt a connection to my country of origin until I realised that I can make that thing my own.”
Faradj, who DJs as a hobby, presented egypt91 at the expo, which is a 35-minute mix of drum and bass/house music blended with sounds of what the west perceives Arabic music to be. This was accompanied by old footage of Faradj’s father’s trip to Egypt in 1991, collaged with other flamboyant visuals.
Ranime El Morry, a third-year studio arts major, presented the second portrait in their series called Just A Lookalike. The acrylic on canvas is of a mask made of some sort of malleable paper. It represents the unconscious social strategy of autistic masking.
According to El Morry, who has been diagnosed with medium support needs on the spectrum, autistic masking is a unique process through which people with autism assume a different personality to each person they interact with.
Courtesy Photo
“It’s very hard to mix different groups of people in the same room, because we’re very different, and a lot of people diagnosed with autism don’t notice that they are masking,” explained El Morry, referring to their artwork. “You wear this paper and it moulds [metaphorically], and it can easily change but it can easily unmold, but it feels heavy.”
Dona Maria Mouaness, who immigrated from Lebanon a year ago in pursuit of studio arts studies at Concordia, created a terracotta bust of an unknown woman with tribal Bedouin face tattoos. “It started out as a self portrait. I wanted it to be more than that, I wanted it to represent women who identify with it or feel any kind of connection to her. She represents the resistant Arab womanhood.”
The sense of unity is strong in this exhibition. Every artist has a different story and relation with their culture, yet they take strong pride in their identity, regardless of how prevalent it is in their lives.
The International Day Against Police Brutality protest highlighted concerns about police accountability and mistreatment of detainees
On March 10, the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations hosted an event in Montreal’s Little Burgundy neighbourhood to gather victims of crime, city officials, and community groups to discuss crime prevention. The event began with organizers acknowledging the pain and suffering felt by attendees in the room and hoping that they could start a conversation on how to overcome violence in the area.
On March 15, the International Day Against Police Brutality, over 100 demonstrators marched through the streets of NDG to protest police brutality. The protest aimed to highlight brutality throughout the justice system, not just among police officers. Demonstrators demanded accountability for the individuals responsible for upholding systemic racism.
The demonstration was organized by the Collectif opposé à la brutalité policière (COBP), who founded International Day Against Police Brutality in 1997.
The protest also highlighted the case of Nicous D’Andre Spring, a 21-year-old Black man who died during an altercation with police while illegally detained at Bordeaux prison. Quebec’s chief coroner has ordered a public inquiry into Spring’s death, and provincial police opened a criminal investigation into the incident, which resulted in the suspension of a correctional officer and a supervisor.
Alain Babineau, director of The Red Coalition, a group in Montreal that advocates for social justice issues, shared his perspective on the progress made in addressing racial profiling and police brutality. “Protests are good, but there has to be some type of objective behind it. They raise awareness, but it has to be sustained. Otherwise, the powers that be, the politicians, go along with the popular [sentiment]. If they see there is merit in supporting your claim or what it is that you’re pushing forward, then they’ll go along with it.”
Babineau stressed the importance of treating people with respect and dignity, rather than just focusing on reconciliation efforts.
Earlier this year, the Quebec Police Ethics Committee ruled that two Montreal police officers, Dominique Gagné and Mathieu Paré, knowingly omitted key information about David Tshiteya Kalubi’s medical condition before his death in their custody in 2017. The officers failed to document Kalubi’s sickle cell anemia on the inmate control sheet, a condition he took medication for. The committee found the officers’ omission amounted to negligent and careless behaviour.
However, the Quebec Crown Prosecutor’s Office decided not to charge anyone in connection with Kalubi’s death. The case has raised questions about police accountability and the treatment of Black individuals in police custody.
Quebec’s Crown Prosecutor’s Office has announced that the police officers who shot and killed Jean René Junior Olivier in Repentigny in August 2021 will not face criminal charges. The Crown’s decision was based on an analysis of evidence, including video footage from one of the paramedics at the scene. The incident sparked outrage in Repentigny’s Black community against racial profiling by law enforcement.
The march served as a reminder that the fight against police brutality is ongoing and that it is the responsibility of everyone to demand justice and accountability from “les brutes en uniformes,” as one masked organizer called police. The COBP and other organizations have been fighting for decades to end racial profiling and violence by law enforcement, and they vow to continue until significant changes are made.
Babineau highlighted the need for sustained activism to bring about real change.
“Apologies are apologies are apologies,” he said. “If it sort of atoned for evil that you did, great. It’s not a licence for the things you’re about to do.”
Concordia in Dire Need of Sexual Violence Policy Reform, Students Say
Listen to the Concordian’s news editors Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman and the Link’s news editor Zachary Fortier speak on the details behind this story.
CORRECTION: This article was edited to remove an erroneous quote and to add specifications. Details regarding the corrections are found below.
At the start of the Winter 2022 semester, Concordia student Katherine Leblanc’s theology class was moved online due to COVID-19 precautions. After texting her class group chat about the challenges of the course, Leblanc began receiving hateful messages from multiple male classmates. Their insults took a rapid turn.
In February 2022, Leblanc received a series of pornographic images and threats of bodily harm, including rape.
She followed Concordia’s sexual violence policy, which also applies to online harassment. As she attempted to seek justice for the harassment she endured, she said the university made it as difficult as possible for her needs to be met.
After filing a complaint to the Office of Rights and Responsibilities (ORR), Leblanc claimed she was left in the dark for weeks and routinely ignored by Concordia. After hiring a lawyer to get the university to respond, she claimed she finally received a reply with a hearing date the following day. “I shouldn’t have to get a lawyer to move my case to the tribunal,” Leblanc said.
“I’d been cooperating for weeks and they would not send my case to the tribunal. They just wouldn’t answer. Instead of telling me the process, they moved me from person to person,” she continued.
“I was cooperating with Concordia but they would not listen.”
From the ORR to the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC), Leblanc never felt heard or properly taken care of by the institutional bodies meant to handle sexual violence on campus.
The history of sexual violence on Quebec campuses goes back decades. Years of advocacy from university and CEGEP students led to Quebec passing Bill 151 in 2017, an Act to prevent and fight sexual violence in higher education institutions.
In compliance with the new law, Concordia created the Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence (SMSV) in 2018. Despite the mandatory inclusion of four student representatives on the committee, student members of the SMSV say they have routinely felt ignored and outnumbered by the administration.
In October 2022, the Concordia Student Union (CSU), the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA), and the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC) union began a boycott of the SMSV. They demanded student-led solutions, transparency, and gender equity.
In response to the boycott, Concordia appointed four students to the SMSV, potentially violating the Accreditation Act by not having representatives from student unions. The identities of these students have not been revealed.
Limited Resources, Limited Impact
After Leblanc was sexually harassed, she consulted SARC for assistance. She was given information about mental health and other services available to her, but didn’t find much use from them.
Faced with physically returning to her classroom once in-person learning resumed, Leblanc was frustrated with Concordia’s Sexual Assault Response Team, made to help survivors navigate campus. “Just trying to get security to accompany me to class was a nightmare,” she said.
SARC was created in 2013 largely due to student-led efforts from the Centre for Gender Advocacy and in collaboration with Health Services, the Dean of Students Office and other units on campus. It is the primary point of contact for members of the university experiencing any form of sexual violence.
For Jennifer Drummond, SARC’s manager, the centre has two missions: support and prevention. “The centre provides counseling, academic and health accommodations, and other resources,” she said.
Currently, SARC employs two counselors, a facilitator, and a project coordinator, according to Drummond. Volunteers fill the other posts.
One of SARC’s responsibilities is the handling of sexual assault disclosures.
In Concordia’s annual reports, which are required by Bill 151, the university categorizes instances of sexual assault reported by students between disclosures and complaints.
The report defines disclosures as signaling a situation without going as far as filing an administrative complaint. Disclosures are resolved with accommodation measures for the survivor.
In Concordia’s 2021-2022 report, 111 disclosures were filed.
Many students have criticized the way SARC operates. In a 2018 report, 70 per cent of people who reported sexual assault at Concordia were dissatisfied with the outcome of their cases.
Olivia, a member of the CSU’s campaigns department who has been given a pseudonym to protect her identity, argued that institutional changes are needed.
“Only 10 per cent of assaults on Quebec campuses ever get reported,” she said. “And from that 10 per cent, how many actually get any follow-through? Accountability is incredibly hard to achieve at Concordia,” she said.
said Olivia.
“The issue with SARC is that it’s not staffed enough to deal with the entire Concordia population,” comprised of over 50,000 people, Olivia added. “Rates of sexual violence are incredibly high—over one in three people will be assaulted on campus in Quebec. We need SARC to be well-staffed, which includes raising budgets.”
Drummond said she felt that SARC was well-equipped by the administration, but that more can always be done. “I think that with a community of this size, we can always have more counselors and resources,” she said.
If Concordia wants to fix its rape culture, Olivia believes the university must invest in better prevention. She criticized Concordia’s online sexual violence trainings, which were made mandatory by Bill 151.
She said all mandatory trainings should be annual, in-person and involving a facilitator. While athletes and student leaders do have mandatory trainings that fit these criteria, Olivia believes this should be extended to the whole student body. “If Concordia wants to call itself a next-generation university or a feminist space, it needs to care about survivors more than its bottom line.”
Processing Violence
Once survivors consult with SARC, they are encouraged to file a complaint if they are comfortable, Drummond explained. According to Concordia’s policy, complaints are formal measures aimed at taking action against alleged perpetrators.
The report makes a distinction between informal complaints, which “are often resolved to the satisfaction of both parties,” and formal complaints, which “can lead to disciplinary measures.”
Informal complaints can result in an apology letter, community service, or a no-contact agreement, Drummond said. It is a non-disciplinary option, but can escalate to a formal complaint.
Formal complaints involving students will be sent to the Office of Student Tribunals, where a hearing will take place. If a survivor’s case involves a member of the administration or faculty, an investigation is planned. Disciplinary action may be taken, and final results are in the hands of panelists trained in part by SARC, Drummond explained.
Formal complaints can lead to a note on file, suspension, restricted access to the campus, expulsion or firing. According to the latest annual report, 18 complaints were reported in 2021-2022.
Sexual violence complaints are handled by the Office of Rights and Responsibilities (ORR), the body charged with resolving all incidents where the Code of Rights and Responsibilities has been allegedly violated.
When Leblanc attempted to file a complaint with the ORR, she was met with seemingly endless problems.
“The whole time I dealt with the ORR, nothing was explained to me. It felt like I wasn’t worth their breath.”
Because sexual violence had been involved in her case, Leblanc wanted to take it to a student tribunal. She claimed her requests were ignored by ORR members.
Leblanc spent her summer in Zoom meetings with the ORR, forced to retell her story multiple times to many different people. She recalled Drummond sitting in during one of the meetings and offering her words of support, but nothing substantive came out of their interaction.
“We are not a reporting office. We just receive disclosures, provide support and provide education,” said Drummond, explaining that reporting is handled by the ORR.
Bill 151 stipulates that universities must have separate policies pertaining to sexual violence that distinguish them from other policies. While Concordia meets these criteria, students have criticized the university for not having a body independent of the ORR to handle cases of sexual violence.
Drummond affirmed that SARC works very closely with the ORR on cases of sexual violence, helping guide members as they deal with complaints. Additionally, students who sit on student tribunals are given trainings by SARC for when they have to deal with sexual violence cases.
The Policy Problem
Concordia’s Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence (SMSV) was created in 2018, following the implementation of Bill 151.
According to Concordia Spokesperson Vannina Maestracci, the SMSV “explores ways to strengthen prevention and response and so it reviews the policies, looks at responses, training and so on.” The SMSV does not rule over issues of sexual violence at Concordia, but rather looks into the policies and procedures used in such cases.
In 2018, Concordia student Elena, who has been given a pseudonym to protect her identity, sat as her union’s representative on the SMSV. At the time, the committee forced members to sign non-disclosure agreements with the university. Elena refused to sign the NDA and Concordia eventually stopped asking for it, despite her constant presence at the committee.
Elena recalled a board room filled with administration officials, lawyers and faculty representatives. Each meeting would begin with a lengthy speech from one of Concordia’s lawyers.
“Sometimes, they would send us massive documents the night before so that we didn’t have time to read through them in time,” Elena said. “We students would stay up all night making notes and organizing, and we’d enter meetings with solutions.”
After poring over reports, the students wanted to give their input. “They told us, ‘that’s really not what you should do in this meeting, we’re just here to discuss and get a general vibe. You’re all very loud.’ They wanted to let everyone speak, but nobody besides us had read the documents,” Elena added.
Elena recalled survivors standing before the committee, sharing their stories and experiences. “The administration sat in silence and rolled their eyes,” she said.
“Watching survivors recount their trauma while crying hysterically as these overpaid motherfuckers scroll through Instagram, rolling their eyes, is just evil. That kind of behaviour is the true definition of SMSV,”
said Elena.
Since its inception, Concordia’s sexual violence policy has been under harsh scrutiny. According to Sophie Hough, former student representative on the SMSV, systemic change must take place. Hough is a member of Students for Consent Culture (SFCC), the group responsible for the 2017 Our Turn report, a national action plan that examined 14 Canadian universities’ sexual violence policies. The Our Turn report gave Concordia a D- on sexual violence policies.
“Students on campus have been advocating pretty tirelessly since 2011 for a standalone sexual violence policy,” she said. According to SFCC, a standalone sexual violence policy is completely independent from the Code of Rights and Responsibilities—a requirement they claim Concordia does not meet.
For any changes in sexual violence policy, students, faculty, and other stakeholders must be included, Bill 151 states. The SMSV must have student representatives to function. In November 2022, the University appointed four new representatives from the student body at large.
When asked for the names of the current SMSV members, Maestracci would not disclose the information “due to concerns around the current climate for these members.”
The Link and The Concordian both reached out to SMSV Chair and Equity Director Lisa White for comment, but were denied. According to Maestracci, “the Chair of the Standing Committee still hopes to meet the CSU and GSA to discuss the issues with them directly, rather than through student media.”
An Alternative Approach
For some sexual violence survivors on campus, using the resources provided by the institution in which they were assaulted can be traumatizing. Many have to look outside the university for the help they need.
According to Deborah Trent, executive director at the Montreal Sexual Assault Centre (MSAC), universities are legally required to have services, procedures and policies in place to deal with sexual violence.
If universities fail to follow their own procedures, Trent said, survivors have the full right to seek guidance outside the institution.
“They have every right to press charges; they have every right to go to the police,” she explained. “But for a whole lot of people, it’s a really difficult decision.”
Since 2010, the organization has operated a Sexual Violence Helpline to ensure survivors have a place to share their experiences and get information and resources that best fit their case.
Nonetheless, since the SMSV boycott began in October 2022, students and workers have mobilized to create an alternative within Concordia.
In order to combat the restrictive nature of the committee and call for a complete restructuring of the university’s sexual violence policies, a grassroots, worker-led group called the Inter-organizational Table for Feminist Affairs (ITFA) was created.
ITFA contains a variety of student and worker groups at the university, including the CSU, GSA and TRAC. They aim to find solutions to sexual violence at Concordia from and for the people most affected by the issue.
TRAC delegate Mathilde Laroche said that the main problem with the current SMSV committee is rooted in its lack of student inclusion. “It doesn’t give any space for students to be involved and informed or to have the right information to participate in the decision-making,” they said.
Julianna Smith, the CSU’s external affairs and mobilization coordinator, believes that very little meaningful change can be made through the SMSV. “Right now, the students are completely outnumbered on the SMSV committee,” said Smith. “So even when we are able to mobilize as students and work together, we’re always outvoted so we can’t actually put any initiatives forward.”
The need for student-centred solutions was an important part of the decision to boycott the SMSV.
“ITFA works within a transformative justice framework. It is important to have an organization that is authentically interested in addressing sexualized abuses of power,” said GSA representative Akinyi Oluoch.
“Addressing these abuses at their root will require worker, student, community, and survivor-led processes of justice,” she added.
Infographic by Natasha Spinelli and Iness Rifay
With files from Hannah Vogan, Iness Rifay, Joëlle Jalbert, Maria Cholakova, Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman, and Zachary Fortier.
In a previous iteration of this article and the podcast, a quote mentioned a correlation between the way sexual violence and plagiarism are handled at Concordia. This quote was incorrect: sexual violence falls under the Code of Rights and Responsibilities and plagiarism falls under the Academic Code of Conduct.
In a previous iteration of this article, it was stated that 70 per cent of students were dissatisfied with the outcome of their case after dealing with SARC. This was incorrect: 70 per cent of students were dissatisfied with the reporting process overall.
In the article, a source mentions that Concordia does not have a mandatory in-person sexual violence training involving a facilitator for students. Concordia does offer such a training; it is mandatory for athletes and student leaders, and optional for the rest of the student body. The source believes it should be mandatory for all students. This clarification has been made.
