The University recognized its role in anti-Black racism during Computer Centre incident
On Friday Oct. 28, 2022, Concordia’s President and Vice Chancellor Graham Carr formally apologised on behalf of the University for mishandling the events leading up to the 1969 Black Student Protests.
“We recognize the deep and often dire consequences that the actions of the University had at the time, and how these consequences have continued to echo through the years,” said Carr.
Carr delivered the apology at a press conference on the Sir George Williams campus last friday. In attendance were Rodney John and Lynne Murray, two of the students whose complaints of racial discrimination at SGWU ultimately lead to the 1969 Black Student Protests.
The University’s apology comes after the President’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism issued its final report on systemic anti-Black racism at Concordia. Assembled in the fall of 2020, the President’s Task Force was charged with investigating how anti-Black racism is perpetuated throughout Concordia. Its findings encompass over 88 recommendations for combating anti-Black systemic racism at Concordia, including acknowledging “the role of racism in the events of 1969 at Sir George Williams University.”
“Sadly, the University’s actions and inactions were a stark manifestation of institutional racism,” said Carr. “The adverse effects of that behaviour reverberated widely, not just in Black communities in Montreal but also beyond, particularly in the Caribbean, where several of the Sir George students were from.”
After SGWU rejected the students’ complaints on Jan. 29 1969, 200 students took to the ninth floor of the Henry F. Hall Building in protest.Negotiations between the University’s administration and protestors broke down on Feb. 10 and the Montreal police were called in to resolve the conflict the following day.
Riot police stormed the building, intent on dispersing the occupation by force. In response, protesters resorted to smashing windows and hurling University property onto the streets below.
While police and protestors clashed, a fire began in the computer centre, the cause of which remains disputed to this day. Those who were still inside the building were forced to flee for their lives as crowds of onlookers chanted “let the n****rs burn.”
The riot’s aftermath resulted in over 97 people in police custody, $2 million in damages had been reported, and professor Anderson, who had been put on administrative leave during the unrest, was reinstated.
To this day, the Sir George Williams Affair remains the largest student occupation in Canadian history and a stain on Concordia’s reputation.
“For Concordia, reckoning with these events is a long overdue, necessary step. But it is not an end in itself,” Carr said last Friday.
For many, including co-founder and president of the Black Student Union (BSU) Amaria Phillips, this means ensuring that last Friday’s apology is followed up with concrete actions.
“I just really hope it’s not performative,” said Phillips. “I really hope that it’s sincere, with the intention of apologizing to make sure that we prevent anti-Black racism in the school and the University on campus for students, faculty and staff.”
According to Phillips, the BSU was heavily involved, both directly and indirectly, with the President’s Task Force on anti-Black racism during its mandate. She agrees with its findings and recommendations, but worries that the University’s commitment to tackling systemic anti-Black racism will wane if the public’s attention shifts.
“My fear is that, unless the story dies down, the cameras are off, and we’re not the focus of this anymore, they’re just going to let it slide through the cracks, and then we’ll slip back into that cycle,” said Phillips.
Haya Bitar appointed as CSU internal affairs coordinator at last week’s RCM
On Wednesday Oct. 26, the Concordia Student Union convened for the third regular council meeting (RCM) of the fall semester. The major motions discussed at last week’s RCM are as follows:
CSU byelection postponed to late November as election process is already underway
The CSU passed a motion in favour of rescheduling the upcoming CSU byelection dates from early to late November. The election period will now begin roughly three weeks after the original election dates presented to the CSU earlier this semester.
The nomination period will occur between Monday, Oct. 31 and Friday, Nov. 18. The campaign phase will then begin the following week on Monday, Nov. 21 and last until Friday, Nov. 28. Polling is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 29, until Thursday, Dec. 1.
Academic and advocacy coordinator Asli Isaaq presented the motion at last week’s RCM on behalf of CSU CEO Ijkot Singh. Singh proposed extending the byelection period to ensure the CSU’s election policies are followed and to allow for additional candidates to come forward.
Singh also assured the CSU that the financial impact of the decision was minimal, since, according to Singh: “most of the prep work [still] needed to be done”.
Former CSU councilor Haya Bitar appointed as internal affairs coordinator of the CSU executive team
Bitar was interviewed alongside two additional candidates for the position during a closed session at last week’s RCM. Bitar’s appointment as internal affairs coordinator was to be announced in the days following last week’s RCM; however, the newly-appointed executive accidentally revealed the decision shortly after council returned to open session.
Bitar is the third person to serve as internal affairs coordinator during the 2022-23 mandate. Both of her predecessors, Fawaz Halloum and Temmy Mthethwa, resigned within months of being appointed to the position, with the former being elected as general coordinator of the CSU and the latter departing from the executive team after experiencing issues with their employment visas.
Greenhouse pond room. Thomas Vaillancourt/THE CONCORDIAN
The 13th floor: a little hidden gem of paradise.
Did you know that Concordia University has its very own greenhouse? It was opened in 1966 when the Hall Building was built.
This hidden gem located at the downtown campus is a little hard to find at first. But once you start seeing the painted plants on the walls of the stairwell leading you up to the 13th floor, you’ll know you are going in the right direction
.
Dominique Smith, the outreach and communications coordinator of the Greenhouse, gave The Concordian all the ins and outs of this space.
“I became the outreach coordinator a couple of months ago. The Greenhouse is a collection of different working groups that make up the community. Essentially, we are the people who create the agriculture community through workshops, volunteer hours and the staff that upkeeps the space,” Smith said.
He explained that his job at the Greenhouse is to work with all the different working groups that occupy the space, those groups being HydroFlora, Co-Op CultivAction, City Farm School and more.
Smith is also working on creating a vlog to explain the projects of those working groups, almost like a farmer’s almanac.
Smith emphasized that The Greenhouse as a whole is a collective space.
The staff at the Greenhouse, in partnership with HydroFlora, have brought back the Greenhouse to its pre-pandemic state.
“We came together to revamp the atrium spaces. So you have the front atrium which has always been available for students to rent or study in. Now we have a pond room that students are able to rent or study in as well,” Smith explained.
Smith explained how the layout of the Greenhouse is organized.
If one walks to the back of the Greenhouse, they can see all the sections where the different working groups such as CultivAction grow food for the HIVE cafes at Concordia University.
HydroFlora is the working group that helps maintain the house plants in the Greenhouse. They also give classes and provide students with job opportunities.
Not only is the Greenhouse a collective space for the working groups, it’s also a space to give workshops and classes.
“All these different working groups try to give students here at Concordia an entrance into the agricultural world. Sometimes it’s hard being high up and technically kind of far away from the ground floor,” Smith said.
Although the Greenhouse is a great initiative at Concordia, Smith stressed that the space is very finite and can’t accommodate a lot of people at once.
So if you are at the downtown campus, feel free to give the Greenhouse a visit but make sure not to take too many friends with you or else you won’t be able to get a seat.
Tyler and Ryan Bawart, pitcher and catcher duo for the Concordia Stingers' baseball team, 2022. KAITLYNN RODNEY/ The Concordian @kait_rodney
The Stingers’ baseball veterans have baseball running in their veins
If two brothers playing for the same team in competitive baseball isn’t uncommon enough, twins who pitch and catch on the same team are as rare as someone hitting more than 60 home runs in a season.
The Concordia Stingers is the lucky team for whom Tyler and Ryan Bawart play. Born and raised in Vaudreuil, both twins are now second-year finance majors at Concordia. It’s also their second year playing for the Stingers’ baseball team.
Growing up watching their father play baseball, the twins developed a passion for the sport.
“Our dad was a very big fan of baseball, and he got us started very early,” Tyler remembered fondly. “As soon as we could hold a bat, throw a ball, hold a glove, he got us started to play.”
Their father coached them until his passing in 2017. However, the brothers continued to play and carried his passion with just as much fervour.
Ryan and Tyler have been playing for 16 years, ever since tee-ball. Both of them are fans of the MLB and have gone to countless games.
“Every spring break when we were kids, we’d go to Florida, and we’d watch the spring training games. That got us a lot into it as well,” said Ryan.
Ryan and Tyler’s family owned a condo 20 minutes away from where the Pittsburgh Pirates played their spring training games.
“Every time we’d go there, we’d probably go to like three to five games a year. When we were younger, we used to run to get players’ autographs,” added Tyler.
Their dad taught them both to pitch and hit when they were young. However, when Ryan started having arm problems around the age of 12, he assumed the position of catcher. He remained able to bat however, so he focused more on that skill. He also continued catching his brother’s pitches.
This role later became permanent when Ryan joined an AA pee-wee team that was in need of a catcher.
The twins played for the Montreal Baseball Academy when they were in college at John Abbott. They currently play for the LaSalle Cardinals during the summer and continue to be a solid duo when it comes to defence. To them, their dynamic feels natural and comfortable.
“It’s fun to have the chemistry that we have. I’ve been pitching to Ryan for almost 10 years now, so I consider him almost like my personal catcher,” Tyler said. “Every time I pitch, I like to have him catch me. Especially when it comes to pitch calling, I’m very comfortable with what he calls. Compared to other catchers, I have better chemistry with him so I’m more comfortable pitching.”
But in the past few years, Ryan hasn’t been catching as much and took on becoming a shortstop, a position he prefers.
“I usually only catch when Tyler pitches,” he said. “With Concordia however, I started catching a little more because we don’t have many catchers. I like catching Tyler the most, I feel comfortable catching him and I trust him. I know his pitches really well and I think we have a good connection,” Ryan said.
The brothers plan on finishing their majors while playing baseball for Concordia.
As for the junior league they’re a part of during the summer: at 21 years of age, their stay is close to an end. Next year, they’ll be moving on to the senior league where they’ll need to go through a draft. However, the fact that the senior teams are far from their home in Vaudreuil makes them doubt whether they’ll decide to move up the ranks.
In the end, it doesn’t stop Ryan and Tyler from being optimistic about what the future holds for them. They know they aren’t ready to let go of baseball just yet. If they aren’t able to continue playing together, they will keep on training as a pair.
When it’s noon, it’s always midnight somewhere else
Swift’s tenth studio album Midnights is a pop record through-and-through. Within days of releasing her new album, Swift quickly broke streaming records. On Halloween, she became the first artist ever to occupy all top ten spots on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
Combining simple drum beats, a strong vocal performance and a hint of city pop synths, Midnights reminds listeners of the guilty, self-destructive thoughts that have followed the American artist throughout her career.
The first time I listened to Midnights I was in my bedroom at around 12 a.m — the perfect time for impulsively dyeing your hair or texting your ex. Immediately, I felt a huge 80’s aura which now that I think about it, Swift would definitely be able to pull off. Her voice is incredibly versatile and she shows off here.
The ninetieth time I listened to Midnights, I was on my way to work and it didn’t hit the same spot it did the first time. Midnights is an album that should be specifically played after 9 p.m. It’s like when you eat KFC a few days in a row. The first night it’s delicious; the leftovers are even better. But by day five your head hurts and the only feeling left is of guilt and shame.
When I say Midnights isn’t her strongest lyrical performance, I’m talking about “Anti Hero”. Phrases like “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby” don’t correlate with me at all and I feel like she could have done without them. “Sexy baby” sounds like something Ed Shearan would say in one of his cheesy love songs.
On the other hand, lines such as “It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem, it’s me.” resonate with people who’ve blamed themselves for a regretful experience in their lives. This is a great phrase but it’s also too generalized. It reminds me of reading horoscopes. One might ask if these lyrics were made with the intention of becoming a viral TikTok audio clip.
Lastly, I by no means think that Taylor Swift makes bad music. I just don’t believe that twenty years from now, when music historians look back on her career, Midnights will be recognized as one of her best works.
What: It’s a night from the past, with scientists from different eras coming together to focus on different topics and explain their research and answer questions.
What: An old style arcade with a twist, this space doubles as an art gallery that exhibits different local Montreal artists each month and an arcade to kick some butt at Pac-Man.
What: The South Asian Youth Collective is organizing a party in celebration of Diwali, a day celebrated in many cultures to shine bright and be with loved ones before the cold winter months come in.
What: A ghost-hunting tour where you will learn about the past events of the area, and even learn about some strategies and tools that are used to communicate and track paranormal activities.
What: Similar to a pub crawl, this event involves going to five different breakfast locations around Montreal where you will receive a beverage/meal at every stop. All proceeds go to charity.
Need something for your fall playlist? The Concordian’s staff share their go-to fall songs.
Guillaume Laberge, Music Editor
“Death with Dignity” – Sufjan Stevens
It’s hard to put words on this song as it is genuinely one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking pieces of music I have ever had the pleasure to listen to. “Death with Dignity” is a folk track that sees Stevens opening up about his late mother in a truly touching manner. The gentle finger-picking guitar playing mixed with Stevens’ whispery delivery only reinforces the song’s theme and makes for a very intimate moment that suits autumn perfectly.
Saro Hartounian, Assistant Music Editor
“Harvest Moon” – Neil Young
Where do I begin? It is THE fall song: the harmonica, the swish beat of the snare in the background, the sparse yet recognizable guitar riff played by the Winnipeg treasure. The harmonies of both Young and Nicolette Larson tie the song up into this calm accompaniment for your end-of-day fall activities, like sitting on the front porch on a Sunday evening.
Dalia Nardolillo, Community Editor
“I Ain’t Worried” – OneRepublic
A song that has been on repeat for me this fall is “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic. With the stresses of keeping up with a healthy work-life balance always looming above my head, this song reminds me to not get stuck on life’s little problems and just focus on the bigger picture.
I tend to gravitate towards the creepy and psychedelic during the spooky season. As a fan of hip hop, soul, and R&B, I stumbled across Flying Lotus a couple of years ago, who’s able to fit my autumn needs on many occasions. As his 2019 album Flamagra is my favorite of his works, I’d have to pick “Black Balloons Reprise” featuring Denzel Curry.
Cris Derfel, Head Copy Editor
“Retrograde” – James Blake
I always turn to James Blake’s music when the leaves begin to fall. His earlier work especially suits the melancholy of the season, and “Retrograde” from his second album Overgrown is on repeat for me throughout most of October. Blake’s voice is haunting and melodic as the synths and bass come together in an explosive crescendo — suddenly you’re hit, and if you’re like me you keep going back for more.
Evleen Kaur, Copy Editor
“Sleep On The Floor” – The Lumineers
Picture this: it’s a cold fall evening and you run into a philosopher on the walk to your apartment. He stops you and asks, “If you go today, will you go in peace?” Your eyes sweep over the dying leaves everywhere and suddenly you’re reminded of the tattoo you still want to get. You remember the hike you never went for because you were too paranoid. Now I’d tell you there’s a better way to picture all that, but then I’d be telling you to listen to this song.
Maria Bouabdo, Sports Editor
“Hurricane” – Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan’s music hits different in the fall, but there’s something about “Hurricane” that makes me turn to this song in particular every year. It’s a beautiful song based on a true and heartbreaking story. I’ve always associated fall with endings and sadness, and to me, that cannot be encapsulated any better than it is in this song: the wrongful end of a man’s freedom.
Cedric Gallant, Podcast Producer
“The Ballad of the Runaway Girl” – Elisapie
This song is perfect when you finish school late, night time is creeping in, and you feel tired yet accomplished with your day. It’s moody yet stylish and relaxing, and it kind of prepares you for the winter to come. The vocals by Elisapie are mysterious yet endearing, the musical performance is detailed and serene. Honestly, I cannot recommend this song and this whole album enough, a true delight to the ears.
Esther Morand, Arts Editor
“Never Fight A Man With A Perm” – IDLES
This is the perfect song for midterm season, just before the snow falls. When you don’t know how you’re going to make it through even a single day, this song will carry you through. It’s the perfect song to help you write long essays and occupy your mind so you have energy to finish the semester!
Feminist groups have identified various barriers to health services for women in the province
On Oct. 19, the Réseau des Tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec hosted an event in front of the Quebec Premier’s office in Montreal to give visibility to their demands for improved women’s health services.
The demonstration is part of the Réseau’s campaign to raise awareness about the obstacles to women’s rights to health in Quebec. The campaign, which took place over the past year, called on the Quebec government to work on making universal and quality public health services accessible to women throughout the province.
Audrey Gosselin Pellerin, a feminist political organizer and member of the Réseau, explained that the group aims to defend women’s rights by advocating for regional women’s groups on the national level. Gosselin Pellerin said that the issues health services face often affect women primarily.
“After decades of neoliberal attacks on the health care system with a pandemic that continues to drag on, we feel that there are real problems of accessibility to healthcare,” said Gosselin Pellerin. “At the end of the day, it is often the women who pay the price.”
Gosselin Pellerin said that the regional tables have identified various barriers that women across Quebec face when trying to access health services. According to the Réseau, in addition to the privatization and pricing of services that affect many Quebecers, women also face difficulties related to the centralization of health services.
“Centralization is an issue that we see in many of the regions far from the big centers,” said Gosselin Pellerin. “Many women have to travel hours to be treated and have access to specialized care and this has a big impact on their lives.”
Rebecca Chankowski, an international student at Concordia, has access to an insurance plan by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) but explained that she is still having a hard time accessing healthcare in Quebec and often has to wait to be back home in Europe to get treated for health problems.
“My biggest problem has been trying to get appointments and being told that it would take six weeks, even for something very urgent,” explained Chankowski.
Chankowski explained that she sees herself as very privileged for having access to RAMQ services, but even accessing it was a long and complicated process.
Gosselin Pellerin explained that, on top of long waiting periods, women often have to face unequal distributions of services.
“What we noticed is that, when hospital administrations have to make choices, when they have to cut somewhere, oftentimes it’s obstetrical and gynecological care that gets cut and that leads to longer wait times for women,” said Gosselin Pellerin.
The Réseau has also identified institutional issues that can lead to women getting the wrong treatment or, in worst-case scenarios, directly mistreated.
“These attitudes whether it be bias or prejudice really impact women, especially women at the crossroads of oppressions,” Gosselin Pellerin explained.
Mathilde Benignus, who has been living in Quebec for four years, explained that she found the search for a gynecologist or any specialists for that matter in Quebec difficult. Benignus says that most of the generalist doctors she has seen have run into some misunderstandings when it came to treating her.
“With women or trans people, the doctors I ran into at walk-in clinics didn’t know what to do,” Benignus explained. “If you want to get an HPV vaccine, for example, they just assume right away that you’re a straight woman in a relationship with a cis man or, if not, then they don’t think you need it.”
According to her, conventional medicine for women is not adequate because of a lack of informed doctors and feminist approaches to healthcare. In order to receive the healthcare she needs, Benignus relies on alternative methods of care at feminist healthcare centers.
“These alternative methods are really present and thank god for it, because they replace what most doctors don’t know,” Benignus said. “Not only is it cheaper but the people there are kind, informed and treat you as a whole person.”
For the Réseau, the solutions are to reinvest in the public health system, raise the working conditions of health professionals and ensure quality of care without discrimination.
“We want healthcare to be completely free, public and universal and to extend the coverage to migrants in precarious situations,” said Gosselin Pellerin. “We want women to have a say in how care is organized.”
Photo by: Nelly Dennene/Réseau des Tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec
The Concordia Stingers, 2022 U Sports women’s hockey champions (right), and this season’s rookies (left) in front of the championship banner at the banner-raising ceremony before the home opener vs. the Bishop's Gaiters on Oct. 30, 2022. MARIA BOUABDO/ The Concordian
Stingers’ forward Émilie Lavoie and other returning champions waiting to get called on the ice to join the graduating students, new students, and coaching staff for the U Sports championship banner reveal.
The 2021-22 Concordia Stingers’ women’s hockey team looking up at the hidden banners in anticipation of the big reveal at the Ed Meagher Arena on Oct. 30, 2022.
“I didn’t expect I’d get a little emotional because we really got to celebrate last year… but it was really special,” said Stingers’ head coach Julie Chu. “I think it was a really proud moment also to see the faces of our players.”
The 2022 U Sports women’s hockey champions (right) and this season’s rookies (left) in front of the championship banner at the banner-raising ceremony before the home opener.
“It’s a lot of emotions for sure,” Stingers’ goaltender Alice Philbert said. “But we knew we had a game to play after so we enjoyed the moment but after that we had to reset… But it was fun to have players from last year coming back to experience this and for sure tears in our eyes, a little emotional.”
“We have a title to defend and I think that’s what we’re going to do this year.”
The class of 2022 added to the conference and national championship banners, and a new 2022 champions’ banner.
Stingers’ defender Sandrine Veillette celebrating with her teammates after scoring and earning a 2-1 lead early in the second period vs. the Bishop’s Gaiters.
The crowd of 290 people cheering on the Stingers in their home opener vs. the Bishop’s Gaiters.
The Stingers celebrating forward Emmy Fecteau’s game-winning goal.
The Stingers and Gaiters lining up to shake hands after the 3-2 Stingers’ victory.
Filmmaker Brooke Swaney-Perpion Meg Acosta/ @city__ghost
The film explores the ongoing cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples specifically through adoption policies
The feature documentary Daughter of a Lost Bird, directed by Brooke Pepion Swaney, centers the story of Kendra Potter as she reconnects with her biological mother. Growing up in a white family with a white culture, she knew she was adopted, but it was only later in life that she learned she had native blood.
Daughter of a Lost Bird is Swaney’s first feature documentary. She is from the Blackfeet nation, which was cut off from the border forming process. Swaney is most known for helping produce the first season of the All My Relations podcast, along with Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene.
The term “Lost Bird” refers to native children that were adopted out of their nations, mostly by force, and never returned.
This film explores Potter’s search for her mother, understanding the forced adoption of her mother, and coming to terms that she is a direct product of forced assimilation in the ongoing cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples across Canada and the US.
“When someone says you are Lummi, I can’t wrap my mind around that, I don’t know what that means,” states April, Kendra’s mother in the film. She was raised far from her nation, so though she finds identity in being Lummi she cannot quite comprehend it.
The film took seven years to make, between concretely finding Potter’s mother April, breaks for mental health, and the actual shooting of the film.
Though the film is set in what is known as the US, adoption policies and methods of Indigenous erasure were very similar to those that transpire in Canada.
The Q&A was composed of the Swaney and Na’kuset. Na’kuset has been the executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal since 1999, and is from Saskatchewan, Treaty 6.
Q&A of Brooke Swaney Pepion and Na’kuset, MEG ACOSTA/@city__ghost)
“Because it’s an American film, the assimilation policy that they had was named differently than it is in Canada, but the harm is the same,” Na’kuset noted.
The assimilation of Indigenous peoples in Canada was known under the name of the Adopt Indian and Métis Project (AIM) project. On record, there were 20,000 children displaced, but as noted by Na’kuset, “the numbers are larger than that.”
Swaney and Potter met when Potter was cast as an actress in one of Swaney’s films. It was through learning more about her adoption story and the policies of forced assimilation that Swaney wanted to produce a documentary film about Potter’s life.
It is noticeable that Potter is a capable actress in certain scenes, as she is very comfortable as she stares directly at the camera. This has the effect that the audience almost feels like she is seeing past the camera, past the spectators, as if daring the audience to judge her.
It’s in moments of reunification with her mom that the audience feels they are seeing a real version of Potter. She is not as aware of the camera in scenes reuniting with family members she’s meeting for the first time.
When moving back to Montana after finishing her studies in New York, the filmmaker was able to reconnect with her family.
“My mom and I grew up off-reservation, it was nice to come home, but also complicated; I have family members who are struggling with addiction, and I have nieces and nephews who are out there in foster care.”
Moving back to Montana let Swaney gain the knowledge that, “all of these topics are close to every Indigenous person, it’s not one’s own personal experience.” It’s a series of colonial policies that have constantly tried to erase and assimilate Indigenous folks.
This film served to raise awareness about adoption programs in the US, and their direct impact on people’s identities and cultural losses.
Crowd at Cinema Politica screening, DAVID BEAUDOIN/ @3.2.888
“Where I feel like there’s a huge difference is between our societies, is the native voices are so much more present and louder in Canada than in the States.”
Swaney’s commentary throughout the film provides context to the story. She comments on her discomfort at times of almost projecting what she wants Potter to feel with her mother. She ends the film by stating that Daughter of a Lost Bird is ultimately Potter’s story.
In her closing notes, Na’kuset discusses one of the projects Native Montreal is working on. It’s a new project for housing women that seeks to offer supportive housing. In relating it to the film, she says:
“This is how we get our children back.” By supporting native women who need housing, there is the possibility to return forcibly adopted children to their families and cultures.
Union activist and writer Nora Loreto speaks at Concordia about labour organizing and the strength collective power.
Every year the Concordia Student Union (CSU) organizes a speaker series, collaborating with guest speakers from outside the University. This year, they decided to tie the series in with their annual campaign on housing and labour.
“Things we really want to do with this annual campaign is bringing this conversation up, and have it in public discourse,” said Julianna Smith, external and mobilization coordinator of the CSU. “It’s important to have speakers coming in from different perspectives to help relate to all the different facets of the Concordia population.”
She notes that during COVID “we’ve had an opportunity where people are reflecting on their housing situations, their employment, and they’re recognizing that things don’t have to be as they are.” She notes the possibility of action that comes from that.
Smith emphasizes that she “really wants to make sure that the speakers who come in really represent Concordia students and are interested.”
Writer and activist Nora Loreto came to speak at Concordia on Oct. 18 about her experience as an executive of the Canadian Freelance Union (CFU). The CFU is an organization representing freelance communication, acting like lawyers for people who are not paid for their labour. The work people do within the union is based on skill.
Loreto co-hosts the Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast and has written three books. Her latest book, Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic was nominated for the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction in 2022.
Her talk included themes of organization, collective power, and how we build collective power in the context of today and throughout COVID.
The talk was about the objective of the labour relations regime in Canada and how we can restore power to that balance, or if it is time to completely replace it with something more radical.
Loreto began her talk by stating, “I come at the world through student-organizing eyes, and when you are a student you realize you have almost no power.”
“You want to have power, you want to shut stuff down, you want to occupy buildings or offices, but you really don’t have much power, and worse than that you’re paying these people to put a boot to your neck.”
Thus far, the CFU has not lost a single case. “We use the tactics of the labour movement in our union,” said Loreto. Her history as a manager of a unionized office informed her work.
“Within liberal democracy, the way it is supposed to work is you have different actors that interact for the operation of the state,” she said.
Labour relations were codified in 1946, and in the years that followed that compromise collapsed with “more workers having fewer rights, fewer workers covered by unions, balancing work for profit.”
“The really cool thing about being part of a student union in Quebec is we have the same legal recognition as a labour union, so it’s interesting to think about our academic labour relations in terms of labour relations,” noted Smith.
Judging by the success of the event, to the questions asked during the Q&A, it is clear that the talk was much needed by the Concordia student community.
Following Concordia’s New Contract With Aramark, The Fight Is Still Not Over For A Food-Sovereign Campus
In April, Concordia’s board of governors signed a new contract with multinational food services corporation Aramark to return as the University’s food supplier until May of 2026, with the possibility of a two-year extension. Aramark has been notorious for its ties to the US prison system ,and offering poor working conditions.
The University’s decision to sign a new contract with the corporation goes against a continual effort to steer Concordia away from multinational corporations and towards social enterprises or not-for-profit food suppliers instead, in an attempt to make Concordia into a food-sovereign campus.
In 2021, it seemed as though the University was seriously considering this alternate option. “Concordia was making an effort to explore options outside of multinational corporations,” said Shylah Wolfe, executive director of the Concordia Food Coalition (CFC).
Oliver de Volpi, Concordia’s Food Services manager, corroborated this claim. “We investigated some other options. The one that was even presented by Concordia Food Coalition didn’t pan out. They weren’t ready to bid.”
Ultimately, the University did sign a new contract with Aramark. But, it’s not the end of the movement for a food sovereign campus.
Currently, the CFC is drafting a business plan for what they are calling the New Food Enterprise (NFE), which will be modeled largely off of Diversity Food Services (DFS), a social enterprise providing food service at the University of Winnipeg.
The CFC’s website states that “the NFE will be an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable social enterprise capable of becoming Concordia’s campus food service provider. We are building a coalition of community stakeholders and local food producers to supply affordable and sustainable food options at scale to the university.”
The NFE will bring together the Concordian Student Union, the Hive Cafe, SEIZE, and collaborate with the University’s senior administration. The CFC website states that “there is already broad understanding that the NFE is the transformative model that Concordia needs. Our job is to bring it to fruition.”
The Concordia Student Union has contributed $50,000 total to the NFE project. The CFC has taken $10,000 of the aforementioned funding to contract Chief Operating Officer of DFS Ian Vickers as a consultant. The VP Student Services Office has also pledged $25,000 to the project, Wolfe told The Concordian, with the remaining funds supporting additional planning, financing and partnership development.
“They’re putting their money where their mouth is, and taking us a bit more seriously. Now that we have four years to develop an alternative that is not just lip service, it will be an actually fleshed-out plan,” said Wolfe.
The money was pledged by the University before Aramark won the Request For Proposal (RFP) bid, with the CSU’s funding coming in during the bidding period.
Since 2020, and during the RFP period, the CFC and other student representative groups sitting on the Concordia Food Advisory Working Group (FAWG) advocated for Concordia to adopt a model similar to that of Diversity Food Services. This would include cooking from scratch, more involvement in local food economies, and providing better benefits for staff.
“What we’re doing now is essentially taking a provenly successful model at the University of Winnipeg with Diversity, and essentially building out an offering on a silver platter to the administration that we would run it with Diversity closely consulting,” said Wolfe.
According to Wolfe, the business would be owned by stakeholders made up of the University, the CFC, and DFS.
According to the University’s sustainable food systems plan, Concordia and Aramark are making efforts to be more sustainable and improve upon their last contract, by bringing in more local products, removing Aramark’s rights to operating vending machines on campus, and making meals offered in cafeterias one-third vegetarian, one-third vegan and one-third meat by 2025.
De Volpi further stated that while Concordia did decide to re-sign with Aramark, the decision was not motivated purely by finances.
“75% of the criteria for coming back to campus is not financially related. It’s sustainability operations, it’s nutrition, it’s that part of it. And Aramark won the bid. They’ve made contractual obligations to be easily a leader in Canada in both sustainability and nutrition. We’re going to hold them to it as well,” he said.
But many advocating for a new food service model feel that their current goals aren’t enough.
“I think that the goals that the University has are commendable, but they’re not transformative. I think that it is difficult for them to ever do anything transformative if they continue with the bureaucratic processes that they are using,” said Wolfe.
“That last 25 percent is weighted twice as heavily as the other 75 percent,” explained de Volpi.
Erik Chevrier, a part-time professor at Concordia who did his PhD on building food-sovereign campuses, and a Concordia FAWG member, explained why Concordia’s sustainability goals can’t be too transformative under the current RFP model.
“If you look at the targets, they’re not too hard to meet. So the targets are somewhat written for the big food service providers to be able to meet them, because if not, they’re setting unrealistic goals. So in some way, the idea that if they make this criteria too stringent nobody could actually fit the criteria. They’ll have no food service provider,” said Chevrier.
Financial aspects are involved in the RFP process. According to Chevrier, Companies need a minimum of $5 million annual revenue in food service before being able to bid. This requirement makes it difficult for small or new food service entities to compete for a contract. This is to help ensure that the companies Concordia partners with can remain viable throughout the year, and makes it harder for smaller-scale or new companies to compete during the RFP.
“There’s a big risk for us. We bring in [a food supplier] who’s never existed before that, you know, a month in and they say we just don’t have the personnel to operate anymore. We’re going to close down. Then what do we do with 1,000 students that live here and the rest of the population that depends on us?” said de Volpi.
Wolfe feels that the risk is on the CFC and now with the ability to develop their own business plans, when the next RFP comes around in 2026, the New Food Enterprise will be able to prove their viability.
“We’re basically taking all of the risk for them, to develop this, to garner the support, the political will and also build out the actual back-end with a supply network. We’re essentially going to build them a business that will do all the things that they said they were going to do, but give them none of the risk,” said Wolfe.
Chevrier pointed out that Concordia has a number of student-built food initiatives that have been able to remain viable for many years.
“We’ve created them in the past, or students have, like the People’s Potato,” said Chevrier. “Nobody believed that it would last 20 years when it was first incarnated.”
Across Canada, Concordia has one of the strongest student-run food economies, with seven organizations operating in 2018.
JAMES FAY @jamesfaydraws
These economies all work together across Concordia in a way that Aramark doesn’t.
Aramark makes half of their money off a mandatory meal plan for most students in residences. This plan provides flex dollars that can only be spent at Aramark’s other retail locations across campus. Chevrier believes that allowing flex dollars to be spent at student locations would be largely beneficial.
EVAN LINDSAY/The Concordian
“First of all, it’ll create competition for the big food service providers, maybe get them to behave a little bit better. And second of all, it could actually provide a local economy, where students can actually choose where they want to go,” said Chevrier.
While DFS, the business the New Food Enterprise is based on, did struggle during its start-up phase, has now yielded a better performance for the University of Winnipeg than their previous multinational supplier, Chartwells.
“The University does better with us than they ever do with Chartwells because we sell three times what Chartwells did. People actually want to eat real, made from scratch food a lot more than they wanted to eat that processed food.” said Vickers.
The new contract with Aramark is an improvement on the last, but the problem many have with it is not Aramark themselves, but Concordia continuing to work with multinational corporations.
“There’s a lot of evidence to show that actually, the global food industry is decimating our planet. So basically, most of these big corporations, externalized costs in that they basically externalize them to people,” said Chevrier.
Concordia has a long history of working with multinational suppliers. Their relationship with Aramark began in 2015, and prior to that they worked with Compass-Chartwells and Sodexo, two other multinational food supply and hospitality corporations.
Combined across Canadian universities, these corporations make up 60.8 per cent of the food suppliers among universities in Canada, according to Erik Chevrier’s thesis on building food-sovereign campuses.
“Each of these corporations really relies on supply chains that actually drive down costs as much as they can by externalizing the environmental and social costs,” said Chevrier.
“Concordia, as an innovator, I think should actually be looking towards how we can better the world, especially in some of the industries that they’re actually partaking [in.]”
The advantage of moving away from multinational corporations and towards social enterprises like DFS is that they are able to better interact with local farmers and food producers. Currently, according to University Spokesperson Vanninia Maestracci, 43 per cent of food offered in cafeterias is local or sustainability sourced.
JAMES FAY @jamesfaydraws
Vickers stated that last year, 72 per cent of food served by DFS was locally or sustainably sourced. Purchasing locally most of the time is naturally better for farmers, who have experienced a 31.5 per cent increase in total outstanding debt across Canada since 2017, according to Statistics Canada.
By working with more local food suppliers, DFS is able to better manage its supply chain and from-scratch cooking is made more possible to attain.
“Our cooks come in first thing in the morning. They bring in fresh turkeys, the first thing the chef will do is throw the turkeys in the oven instead of roasting them off so that she can slice them out and then cut it down and that becomes turkey sandwiches. She takes those bones and she puts them in a pot and starts making turkey stock. Then she can make gravy for what’s going to go on the poutine, as well as make soup,” said Vickers.
According to Vickers, the cost of bringing in local food is largely the same as well.
“We tend to be between two and three per cent less expensive,” he claimed.
Independent food suppliers have the freedom to work with as many producers as they like and don’t suffer the same turnaround times for payment as larger corporations do.
“When it’s an independent business, being able to pay farmers for cash right at the farm gates or out of their delivery truck is more possible,” said Wolfe. “We can work with as many suppliers as Diversity does, which is sometimes up to 100 different local producers.”
“Large corporations like Aramark or even the University would not be able to do that because they have like sometimes 90- to 120-day payment processing so they have to work with huge distributors,” she stated.
“Part of the reason Diversity is able to do this is because, while they are a for-profit business they are also a social enterprise,” explained Vickers.
“What would normally be the profit that you would pay to your owners, is invested instead in environmental, social, cultural, or local economic sustainability,” he continued.
“What [the University] charged myself and the rest of our management team with is taking the profit and reinvesting it into being a good player in the global economy. So what does that mean? It means that we buy as locally as possible every single time.”
Additionally, under this model Diversity Food Services is able to offer a living wage, benefits and pension plans to all of their employees.
EVAN LINDSAY/The Concordian
There is a lot of money to be made in these contracts — a study by the CFC found that the food service providers who won the RFP process in 2015 stood to make a minimum of $7 million in revenue annually.
Under the new food enterprise model, any money made by the business could then be reinvested.
“The profits, if there are any, would be in the community,” said Wolfe.
“That money would be reinvested in the business so that it’s cheaper, so that meal plans and generally food is cheaper, or so that workers get more money or it would be donated to the community organizations that need funds to run their projects.”
Creating a project like DFS at Concordia is ambitious, and bringing in more local food to supply the 3,000 meals a day that CFC provides is a big task. It’s one that Vickers says will need a really solid plan, but he doesn’t think its impossible.
“Your local agriculture is so much better equipped to do this than we are,” said Vickers. “It would be incredibly feasible.”
