FASA 101 hosted several workshops in Concordia’s VAV Gallery. Photo by Kaitlynn Rodney / The Concordian.
Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance hosted their first orientation event of the school year.
Concordia University’s Fine Arts Student Alliance (FASA) is a student-run organization that provides funding, creates several clubs and organizes art shows for all students within the faculty of fine arts. It is committed to being an inclusive, diverse, accessible and welcoming community for all students. FASA 101 was a recent event organized by the FASA members at Concordia’s VAV gallery located at the Sir George Williams campus on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
FASA 101 Zine Workshop, VAV Gallery. Courtesy of FARR Concordia, Photo by India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner.
This event was an orientation gathering that brought together all the clubs under FASA. The aim was to provide a better understanding of the association and the opportunities it offers to new students. As one of the members mentioned, “it is basically an event where you should drop in, make crafts, meet friends while getting to know available opportunities.The Concordian was able to attend the Mindful Campus Initiative presentation—part of the many presentations and workshops that took place during FASA 101.
The association representatives explained FASA’s dedication to the well-being of the fine arts students. The presentation outlined offered online courses focusing on stress and anxiety management tips, on campus services and activities for students to take advantage of as they navigate their coursework.
The representatives also discussed the potential difficulty students may have as they begin to get involved on campus. It may seem overwhelming at first for new students to pursue joining new clubs in an unfamiliar environment, but FASA’s mission is to make the process as accessible as possible.
FASA offers several opportunities that can help students get involved in the university. Some of the best ways to get involved are by following callouts for upcoming exhibitions or events, volunteer work, jobs and grants. The best way to access all of these opportunities is through their websites, Instagram accounts, and email subscriptions.
The VAV gallery’s general meeting is one of the upcoming events that will be hosted on Sept.21at the gallery to elect the board members for the 2023–2024 academic year. Undergraduate students in the fine arts department are welcome to attend this event—whether to simply become familiar with the operation and members of the gallery, or to nominate themselves for one of the positions available!
Demonstraters walk down sherbroke street bringing traffic to a halt. Kaitlynn Rodney / The Concordian
As the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death approaches, Iranian Montrealers reflect on one year of protests and uprising.
A year ago, in the weeks and months following the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran, Pooya—then a graduate student at Concordia—was hopeful that this event and the protests that followed might be the spark needed to finally bring about change in his home country of Iran.
“Last year, I was personally thinking that this time is the time that something good will happen,” he recalled. “A hope was in our heart and our mind that a change will occur. But right now, when I’m talking to you right now, after almost one year, I’m devastated.”
Pooya, who asked his last name to be withheld for safety reasons, said he has lost hope that the people of Iran have the power to change the regime. His parents and sister, who still live in Iran, recently got work permits and are planning on moving to Canada this fall. “I don’t want them to stay in Iran anymore,” said Pooya.
On Sept. 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini was arrested by Iran’s “morality police” for wearing her hijab incorrectly. She later died in custody, and witnesses claim she was beaten by officers. Her death sparked protests throughout Iran and the world.
According to Amnesty International, more than 22 thousand people have been arrested in Iran in relation to the protests, including over 90 reporters and 60 lawyers. Seven people have been executed for their involvement in the protests, hundreds more were killed and thousands injured during protests.
Despite all this, the chant of “Woman, life, freedom” still rings through the streets and on social media.
For Forough Fereydouni, psychology student at Concordia and Iranian community activist, there is still a lot of hope in the movement. She said their biggest achievement is the widespread awareness of women’s situation in Iran. The fight isn’t over, and women in Iran are still protesting despite the risks.
“They know the Islamic Republic is going to arrest them, charge them, put them in jail,” said Fereydouni. “And they know suppression is very brutal. But these women are fighting for their rights.”
In the last few months, the regime’s crackdown on protesters has gotten even worse. “They are arresting activists very widely, many activists. They are [charging] them without any logical reason, they are suppressing women in the street very strictly,” said Fereydouni. “They are making themselves ready for the anniversary. They want to scare people.”
Aboozar Beheshti, a Concordia-graduated Iranian activist in Montreal, pointed out that protesting is almost impossible in Iran. “It is not possible to be there in the street and not be attacked by the police,” he said. “And when I say attack, it means attack. It means brutal attack, arrest, charges, prison.”
For Pooya, his hopelessness does not come from a feeling of having missed a chance to change the Iranian regime. It is a question of whether there was any chance to begin with. “I don’t think it’s possible to change the regime only by counting on the powers of people,” he said. “The people do not have guns, government have guns, and it’s a simple equation. They have guns. They kill.”
Despite these setbacks, both Fereydouni and Beheshti believe the movement against the regime can still change things in Iran. The activists explained that now that public awareness has been achieved, they are one step closer to their goal.
“This new generation in Iran is different,” said Beheshti. “They don’t tolerate suppression. They are very brave. I could not imagine even that something like this [would] happen. They go ahead, they go in front of the bullets, they go in front of the police and they aren’t scared of anything.”
Fereydouni is grateful that the movement remains strong on social media when it is too dangerous for Iranians to take it to the streets. “Yes, we have a long way in front of us,” she said. “Imagine a day every woman, not just activists, fights for her rights, against mandatory hijab—how beautiful that would be.”
What are the impacts of Bill C-18 on social media platforms?
For us to make important financial decisions, we must first be informed. Recent events surrounding Bill C-18, the Online News Act, have ignited a fierce battle between tech giants and Canadian journalists.
This legislation aims to compensate Canadian news outlets for their invaluable content. Tech giants like Meta and Google have chosen to block Canadian news on their platforms in combat—which is the reason why you may have noticed that news content has disappeared from your Instagram feed.
The federal government is throwing their weight behind Bill C-18 and suspending advertizing on Facebook and Instagram altogether. This move is echoed by provincial and municipal governments, including Quebec Premier François Legault. Even big media corporations are taking a stand.
The Online News Act, enacted by the federal government in June, requires tech platforms to negotiate with news organizations for financial remuneration for the news shared on their platforms. This can potentially bring in over $300 million annually for Canadian news organizations.
Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, is urging all provincial and municipal governments to follow the federal and Quebec governments in stopping advertizing on Facebook and Instagram in response to Meta’s threat. The Canadian Association of Journalists calls on Meta to reverse its decision, emphasizing the importance of access to accurate and quality information for a flourishing democracy.
Recent data from an August 2023 study conducted by Talk Shop reveals that 51 percent of Canadians are concerned about the impact of Bill C-18. These worries highlight a growing unease about the future of dependable news in the digital era.
Even though Bill C-18 was meant to safeguard journalism against dwindling revenues, it has unintentionally pushed consumers to seek news from unaffected sources like newsletters, podcasts, independent news sites, and even X (formerly Twitter).
The union also calls on corporations responsible for a significant portion of the more than $4 billion in annual revenue that Facebook generates in Canada to support local news and Canadian content by halting all advertising through Meta and its subsidiaries.
The world is closely watching how Canada tackles this issue. As tech giants square off with governments over their responsibilities in the digital era, Canada’s actions will set a precedent for other nations.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s plans to implement the Online News Act are taking shape, promising a potential resolution to the contentious issue. With public consultations, an independent auditor, and a mandatory bargaining process on the horizon, the organization is hoping to establish a fair compensation framework.
Whether through negotiated agreements or regulatory changes, the outcome will shape the future of digital news in Canada.
CJLO's Physical Music Library. Photo by Tabéa Benlakehal / The Concordian
A talk with CJLO’s music director about the radio station’s airing process.
As Concordia’s one and only radio station, CJLO 1690 AM’s team needs to stay up to date with the emergence of new music to air while continuously cataloging incoming music. As conveyed on their website, over 80 DJs spin through various music genres and CJLO has been streaming seven days a week from early 2003. Their tower and transmitter can be heard as far as Ottawa and Burlington, Vermont. This means that the station’s crew ought to not only constantly broadcast but also take into account their large number of listeners to successfully run a radio station in 2023.
CJLO’s head music director, Lisa Rupnik, shares a typical day in the life at the station and what the DJs encounter and need to consider when airing music these days. Her job mainly consists of tracking what DJs play on their shows and translating that information into their weekly music charts. In her day to day, she is also in correspondence with record label representatives and radio promoters who keep her up to date on all the latest releases. This allows her to ensure their playlists are suitable for listeners and offer novelty.
After receiving recommendations, Rupnik curates what gets added to the station’s digital library based on their DJs’ tastes and interests. After the digital side is taken care of, she explains that the next step is to oversee the physical media collection and coordinate volunteers to help with music library projects.
Rupnik validates that the majority of the DJs at CJLO stream music for their show exclusively. With the decline of tangible music like CDs and vinyls at the station, she says some DJs make an extra effort to play physical media, but it is generally just for fun and doesn’t actually make any noticeable difference to listeners at home.
Their in-house music library holds hundreds of physical media and is part of their permanent collection that has been going strong since CJLO’s start 25 years ago. As music director, Rupnik continues to add physical submissions to their library, which she receives from promoters.
“We value keeping CDs and vinyls to keep a tangible archive of music trends over the years,” Rupnik says. “The fact that CDs and vinyls are rarer these days encourages us to keep and maintain a quality collection.”
As a core member of the CJLO team, Lisa can tell when a release is really exciting, as the singles take the radio by storm long before an actual album is released. For example, the latest Slowdive album, Everything Is Alive, was just released on September 1, but CJLO’s DJs had already been spinning the singles since June.
That being said, a lot of other DJs will play artists on their show whose entire discography consists of singles. These artists are often found on TikTok, YouTube, SoundCloud and even Bandcamp. Rupnik agrees with this support: “It’s great that DJs are supporting these artists as some of them are totally DIY, although you should take into consideration that the “singles only” trend happens amongst both indie and major artists.”
Concordia’s on-campus radio station is then far from vanishing collectible pieces of media but does keep a close eye on taking the extra effort to sustain their library and encouraging DJs in engaging with more tangibility in music.
View of Gallery 249, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Mallory Lowe Mpoka in Re-Mixing African Photography. Photo by Emma Bell/The Concordian
The Art Gallery of Ontario includes Mallory Lowe Mpoka’s work in Re-Mixing African Photography.
Queer Cameroonian-Belgian artist and Concordia Studio Arts BFA student Mallory Lowe Mpoka is currently exhibiting at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto as part of a group exhibition titled Re-Mixing African Photography: Kelani Abass, Mallory Low Mpoka and Abraham Oghobase. The exhibition is situated in the inner gallery space of the Department of the Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora. Established in 2020, the department seeks to redress the representation of both historic and contemporary African art through their programming and exhibitions.
Three artists draw from Western and Central African traditions of studio portraiture in order to critically examine the history of photography within broader conversations of the African diaspora. Mpoka’s work makes use of a variety of materials such as archival family photos and natural pigments in order to explore themes of home, heritage, belonging and connection.
The Self-Portrait Project (2020) is a pair of black and white photographs that feature two staged self-portraits of Mpoka standing with one leg resting on a stool. In both images, Mpoka holds a framed vintage photograph of her father close to her body—a gesture that speaks to her connection with her Bamileke heritage. The family portrait signifies the distance between past and present, where the commemoration of heritage is rooted in a sense of loss.
Her dynamic posture is both nonchalant and assertive. She engages the viewer and invites them into the image, but she does not directly return their gaze, for her eyes are obscured by dark sunglasses or the brim of a hat. Her stance creates an impactful exchange of looks between the subject and the audience. She offers a glimpse into her identity, but keeps a protective distance from the viewer. The portraits maintain that there is always a measure of opacity in agency; the artist reserves the right to carefully choose what she reveals.
Mpoka’s series What Lives Within Us is an experimental multimedia project that expands on this notion of memory and heritage by blending material and image. The series brings together found photographs from Mpoka’s family archives and craft techniques such as natural dye processes, collage and embroidery. Mpoka reworks the photographs using materials from her family’s sewing workshop in Douala, Cameroon. The threads she uses were hand-dyed with pigments from Cameroon’s highland soil. By sewing the thread directly onto the surface, she obscures and thus protects the identity of the subjects. This action is another assertion of privacy as she negotiates her sense of belonging.
Mallory Lowe Mpoka, What Lives Within Us, Gallery 249. The Art Gallery of Ontario, Photo by Emma Bell
Re-Mixing African Photography will be on view until January 7, 2024. Admission is free of charge for all Indigenous peoples, AGO members, Annual Passholders and visitors aged 25 and under.
View of Lasting Impressions Vitrine Exhibit, Webster Library. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian
Webster library hosts a retrospective exhibition from Concordia’s special edition program.
As students begin to use the Webster library during the first few weeks of the school year, some may notice the vitrine display to the left of the entrance stairs. Concordia’s special editions program within the Print Media Department currently has a temporary exhibition on display titled Lasting Impressions. Founded in the 1990s by Judy Garfin and Cheryl Kolak, the program “fosters creative, collaborative and pedagogical opportunities for visiting artists, master printers and students.” This exhibit was curated by Director Erika Adams and showcases a retrospective collection of works produced over the past couple of decades that demonstrate the breadth of techniques that artists have engaged with.
The printmaking techniques range from lithography to screen printing, and each artist contributed a unique visual language to the body of work.
Lithography is a fairly complicated method that takes advantage of the way water naturally repels oil. A drawing made on a textured, stone surface with oil based materials is etched into the surface through a chemical process. Once the oily image is fixed onto the stone, the artist will pass a wet sponge over the surface before rolling on an oil-based ink. With the properties of oil and water at work, the ink will only stick to the oily image, while the watery negative space remains clean. The artist can now transfer the image onto paper by running it through a printing press.
The nature of lithography allows for a more detailed result—every mark made by the artist will appear in the final print, thus there is more opportunity for value, complicated linework, and an overall painterly appearance. Take Betty Godwin’s 2003 Escape for example: at a glance, this print appears to be a drawing. This simple lithograph features a diving figure whose elongated body is rendered with a quick hand. The diver’s limbs are mere suggestions constituted of hasty linework and smudged ink. A quiet object, perhaps a pillar, in the background softly emerges through more linework. This level of delicacy, texture, and value beautifully captures the possibilities of this method.
Betty Goodwin, Escape, 2003, Lithography on paper, 46 x 31 cm, printed by Chris Armijo. Photo By Emma Bell / The Concordian
In contrast, silkscreen printing, or serigraphy, lends itself toward the bright and the graphic. A method of choice for poster artists and activists, this printmaking technique favours boldness. The process involves separating an image into colour layers and turning those layers into stencils. The stencils are then fixed to a stretched silk screen, where the artist will then pass over with a squeegee to transfer the ink onto the paper layer by layer until the image is complete. Pierre Dorian’s 2008 print Stairs aptly demonstrates this technique. The bold lines, solid colours and overall graphic qualities of the staircase are highly characteristic of serigraphy.
Pierre Darian, Stairs, 2008, Silkscreen on paper, 76 x 62 cm, Printed by Mikael Petraccia. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian
The discipline of printmaking values the process of creation just as much, if not more, than the final print itself. As you spend some time with the works here, try to notice both the limitations and possibilities of each method and how it complements the subject matter. Lasting Impressions will remain in Concordia’s Webster library until September 25, 2023.
Captain Mahalia Robinson (Top right) coaches her teammates during a scrum
Coach Jocelyn Barrieau to be replaced during the 2024 Olympic run.
The 2023-2024 season is looking bright for the Stingers’ women’s rugby squad. Although there’s been some restlessness in the coaching staff, the team not only seems to be in great hands under new interim coach Craig Beemer, but according to long-time teammates, this is the best women’s rugby team to wear the Concordia colorway in years.
It was announced in early April that head coach Jocelyn Barrieau had been selected to train the women’s Canadian senior rugby seven-a-side team for the NextGen Rugby Americas North Sevens. Pulling through with a final 53-0 win over Mexico in Langford, B.C. on August 20, the team qualified to move on to play in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
When coach Barrieau started her career with the Stingers in 2018 in the RSEQ women’s rugby league, four of the eight teams’ training staff were led by women. Today, she is the only female head coach.
Since coach Barrieau will be absent for a majority of the season, Beemer was introduced as a replacement. A friend and associate of Barrieau, Beemer has an extensive rugby coaching resume. He became the head coach of McGill’s rugby team in 2007 after assisting for two years. In 2014, the Ontario native was offered an opportunity to coach for the men’s rugby team at Concordia, and led the Stingers to a championship. Beemer remained with the Stingers ever since.
“Big sigh of relief for me to have someone here who I know cares about the Stingers, that I know cares about the student athletes and also cares about the game of Rugby,” Barrieau said. “I’m super happy that Craig decided to be involved.”
Captain Mahalia Robinson is satisfied with the interim’s efforts to not stray too far away from the old plan. To her, coach Beemer is keeping Barrieau’s core values from over the past four-five years. “He’s doing a good job of keeping that and also adding his own. So it’s a mix of the two,” says the leader. “Even after she’s gone, I hope that we can still draw on her energy, because she drives this team and is the core of this team even if she’s gone.”
Beemer strongly believes that the team’s progress won’t stagger long thanks to their symbiosis and the reigning HC staying close to her team. “I can walk in, punch in and bring my strengths into the program, ” coach Beemer remarked. “When I punch back out and [Barrieau] slots back in I don’t think the program will miss a beat.”
Jocelyn Barrieau (left) and Craig Beemer (right)
Last year, the team finished the season with a 3-3 record. Since the start of training camp on August 17, it seems new training methods were brought to the table. “I think Beemer is bringing a lot of experience in terms of winning, which we haven’t had, so it’s nice to have different perspectives of what it takes as a team to win,” Robinson added.
Robinson scored 55 points last season, which is more than half of what 6th place Université de Sherbrooke managed to break as a team at 90 points. She is a product of the strong leadership values that Barrieau has cultivated over her tenure with the Stingers.
Coach Beemer appreciates that his predecessor set high standards within the oraganization. “It’s really important to [Barrieau] that players take ownership of certain aspects in our program, which builds leaders, whether it’s on or off the field,” he adds. To him, its about putting in work on the field every week, and less about winning or losing. So far, the new coach is impressed with the team’s attitude and effort over the past two weeks.
Maxine O’Leary, a third-year number eight majoring in Communications, adds that the senior players, including herself, look forward to passing on some of their own insight to the rookie players. “We want to grow the game and leave it better than we found it,” she said. “It’s about building for next year, when we leave, whenever that is. We want the program to stay the same and for the newcomers to take on those leadership roles.”
To the team, the most important game of the season is the Kelly-Anne Drummond Cup, held in honor of the titular Stingers alumnus, who sadly passed away in 2004 in a domestic confrontation. Her mother, Doreen Haddad, is beloved in the Quebec rugby community for charitably starting the Kelly-Anne Drummond scholarship in 2019, whichis given to outstanding full-time Concordia student players.
“It’s our biggest game of the year,” emphasizes Robinson. “It’s the only one that we really have to win, it’s unacceptable to lose and this is the game where we show the most love on the field because we know what it means to be more than a team and be friends and be family. That’s how we play at the Kelly-Anne.
This year’s legendary cup game will be played on Wednesday, September 6 at 8 p.m. The Stingers aim to surpass last year’s achievement of out-scoring McGill 55-3. As for the rest of the season, expectations are high, and there’s a visible hunger around the squad to go 6-0.
“This is the best training camp that I’ve been at for the past three years so overall the energy’s super high from day one,” Maxine O’Leary said. “Everyone’s fighting for a jersey. And I think that’s a big difference, everyone’s fighting for a spot for the team.”
Stingers Midfielder John Cevik (front right) clearing the ball
Credit: Reuben Polanksy-Shapiro / Concordia Athletics
Both the Stingers and Carabins failed to find back of the net in season opener
The Concordia Stingers Men’s Soccer team kicked off against local rival Montreal Carabins at Concordia Stadium on August 30.
Following the Stingers women’s team’s lead, the men would be in for a tough test as the Carabins finished atop the Réseau du Sport Étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) standings in 2022. This match would also serve as an opportunity for revenge, as the Carabins shot down the Stingers’ hopes of a play-off berth last season.
Several new players made their Stingers debut, as injuries and the loss of ten graduates from 2022 were absent from the roster. Stingers’ head coach Greg Sutton says the biggest challenge was the loss of their graduates last year. “We have to understand that not everything is going to happen overnight,” he said. “There will be some time and progression for this team, but we will get there and we will be better in those big moments of the game.”
The first half of the match saw the Carabins come close to scoring on several occasions. A shot glanced off the crossbar which bounced in the Stingers’ favour and stayed out. Twenty minutes later, a Montréal corner kick led to another close call, this time ringing a shot off the post. That being said, the Stingers persevered.
The second half offered much more even playing surface. While the Stingers’ offensive opportunities were hard to come by, their defence was the story of the second half. Stingers’ goalkeeper David Desbarets stopped all eight Carabins shots on goal throughout the match, earning the fourth-year goalkeeper player of the game honours.
Yellow cards and free kicks were all that filled the game sheet in this match, as the game concluded with a score of 0-0.
Coach Sutton reflected on the tightly-contested affair postgame. “This first game was more about the resilience we showed, in the sense that the character we showed was strong,” he said. “We were able to do what we were able to do and get the result against a good team.”
The Stingers will head across town to face their next opponent, the McGill Redbirds, at 1:00 pm on September 3.
Talc-based makeup is not as dangerous as you think.
Have you ever thought that makeup might be potentially harmful to your health? Talc-based makeup products have raised safety concerns due to potential contamination with asbestos. The HBO Max investigative documentary Not So Pretty explores the danger of talc, a chemical ingredient found in most of our daily makeup products, and its link to cancer.
The first episode on makeup introduced the sensational stories of two women—- Corrin Otillio, who believed that her makeup is contaminated with, and a mother who exposed Claire’s makeup for having asbestos in their kids’ makeup sets.
Otillio sent all her makeup products to the laboratory after she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. The results showed that 10 out of the 25 products had traces of asbestos. Surprisingly, the directors of this episode invited lawyers and a journalist to support the case of Otillio, rather than having a cosmetic chemist and a toxicologist speak on this case and educate the audience on the potential risks of chemical ingredients in makeup.
I think that the documentary is clearly biased due to the lack of scientific evidence presented and their choice of experts. Another point that I find intriguing is that an episode that is strictly supposed to focus on makeup, was mostly spent talking about the case of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder, a case that has way more solid evidence of causing harm than makeup.
India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, a Concordia student in art history and studio arts, says “I have heard of talc being dangerous due to a Johnson & Johnson lawsuit, but I or anyone I know has never had any reaction to talc from makeup.”
A lot of women who have decided to eliminate talc from their makeup routine have been using TikTok as a platform to raise awareness, by posting videos of themselves throwing out their makeup products using #notsopretty. This shows how this documentary has successfully influenced much of its audience into buying clean beauty products.
It is important to mention that at the end of the episode, there was a list of recommended applications that makeup consumers could download to scan their products and find out whether their ingredients are harmful. I find that the controversy over talc-based makeup products is just a marketing technique that clean beauty brands have implemented to make their way into a highly competitive market.
In reality, there hasn’t been enough evidence to prove that the level of talc in makeup products is high enough to cause cancer. This means that the anecdotes about women who blame their ovarian cancer or mesothelioma on makeup are just outliers.
Besides, people who contract diseases from asbestos are those who work in construction sites or environments that contain high levels of asbestos particles. I think that Not So Pretty is a partial documentary that simply wanted to promote clean beauty products by capitalizing on makeup consumers’ fear of being diagnosed with cancer.
On April 5, Montreal was hit by a freezing rain storm. Photo by Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman/ THE CONCORDIAN
Many students had to find new ways to study, as households lost power and internet
As finals approach, students are mustering up the strength to open up their textbooks one last time. However, nature decided to create some bumps in the road.
The city of Montreal ground to a halt two weeks ago due to freezing rain, forcing students to find creative new ways to study. The freezing rain started on Wednesday, April 5, and it soon created a spectacular landscape of ice. On Thursday morning, 1,114,750 households throughout Quebec did not have power.
That night, Concordia alumni Danny Gold was walking home from his French class. As he walked down the street towards his home, he noticed that fallen branches were blocking the way.
He hesitated, wondering if he should climb over them or find another way home. He eventually decided to go over the branches.
“About two seconds after I step over these branches,” he recalled, “I take three steps, I hear ‘snap snap snap’ and then ‘boom!’ five feet behind me, a whole tree branch just came off the top of a tree and slammed on top of a car.”
The branch was around six inches thick, Gold estimated. It was thick enough to crack the windshield of the car behind him.
The timing of the outages also coincided with Passover. Gold explained that offering help is an important part of the holiday, and of Judaism.
“If somebody knocks on your door, randomly, or messages you, someone you know, someone you don’t know, and they’re asking for shelter, for some food, any sort of help that you can provide from your home, it’s the biggest thing in Judaism to invite that person in your home, for nothing.”
Gold lives on the Plateau Mont-Royal, and his apartment was spared by the outages. So when a friend texted him asking for a place to warm up and charge their electronics, Gold was happy to help. He extended the invitation to coworkers, friends, and family. At some point, six people were crowding Gold’s Plateau apartment.
For many Concordia students, losing power and heat was only part of their worries, as the threat of finals loomed on the horizon.
Abilash Gunaratnam, a first-year Concordia science foundations student, lives in the West Island. He lost power from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning. He also lost cell reception at the beginning of the outage.
“The first two days, I was waiting for the power to come back on,” he said. “I had to get back to my school work, exams were coming, and I was stressed out. Exams weren’t too far away, and I needed to study.”
Gunaratnam initially thought the power would be back by early Friday morning. When that did not happen, he and his family decided to go stay with family members in Laval.
“I was already behind, and then I got even more behind,” he said. “Since I had no power, I couldn’t study, so on Saturday I had to cover eight chapters [twice as much as planned.] And I had work on that day too.”
Matthew Erskine is a first-year computer science student. He lives in Pierrefonds and lost power from Wednesday night to Saturday morning.
Erskine was not overly worried about losing study time over the weekend, since most of his final assignments and exams were at the very end of the semester. He decided to go into school on Thursday morning to study and charge his electronics.
“After the power came back on, I was just focused on not stressing too much,” he said.
“In the grand scheme of things, it was just an inconvenience,” he added. “But needing food, that was the number one thing. Everything in our fridge was basically gone.”
Concordia itself was spared from the worst of the storm. According to the university’s spokesperson, Vannina Maestracci, neither campus lost power, and the facilities were open to students in need of power or internet.
Further accommodations like extensions were left in the hands of professors, said Maestracci, as the effects of the outages were very different throughout the island.
Entrance of the Depot Community Food Centre restaurant and kitchen on 6450 Somerled Ave, Montreal, Quebec. Photo by Jacqueline Lisbona/THE CONCORDIAN
Team members discuss new innovations at the NDG Depot since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout the past 30 years, the Depot Community Food Centre has worked day and night to provide food for low-income families. Originally founded as a temporary emergency food measure in 1986, the Depot has now grown into a crucial resource to ensure food security in NDG and the surrounding areas.
While its primary purpose is a food bank, their Marché Depot also acts as a grocery store. Volunteers help cook food, serve participants, and stock pantries. Additionally, the centre is solely donation-based. Most of the money comes from grants from the federal and municipal government, individual donations, or charitable foundations.
A volunteer scoops apple butter from the pot and separates sliced apples with spices. Photo by Jacqueline Lisbona/THE CONCORDIAN
Karima Dajani is the communications coordinator for the Depot. She explained that customers are given a certain amount of “depot dollars” once a month to purchase food depending on how many people are in their household.
“The depot dollars are split, they have a budget between fresh produce and dry ingredients, and they come for their appointment once a month and shop,” Dajani said.
However, after the pandemic, the Depot Community Food Centre adapted and improved their safety measures and distribution system. According to Randa Abu Hakima, a volunteer of six years, one of the changes is that the depot no longer accepts food donations from the public.
“It’s a much better image to present to people in the community. It is food that we would eat rather than outdated cans of food or stuff people rejected from their homes,” Hakima explained.
Dajani said the demand for their food has increased since the pandemic.
“Our numbers have skyrocketed. Not just because of COVID, but also because we’re seeing a lot more immigrants. December was by far our busiest month ever. We provided emergency food for around 2,770 individuals,” Dajani recalled.
Dajani also explained that a new “award-winning healthy food policy” has been implemented since the pandemic. “We only serve meat at the restaurant once a week, and everything is as clean and healthy as possible, she said.”
Okra is chopped to add to the vegan curry. Photo by Jacqueline Lisbona/THE CONCORDIAN
The COVID-19 outbreak also gave the community food centre the opportunity to reflect on their food distribution system.
“During COVID we were delivering to people, so we had to change the way we operated. We had to shift super quickly,” Dajani said, explaining that they had to stop their delivery services post-pandemic.
Despite the changes, Hakima still feels at home when she volunteers.
“I feel part of a community, a very special community and it relates to food. I love my food so I want everyone to enjoy their food and to have food so it’s a very happy and rewarding place to be.”
