An arrangement of business cards displaying the multiple services the CSU provides to students. Photo by Chantal Bellefeuille / The Concordian
As graduate students prepare to vote in upcoming elections, questions remain about the LIC’s accessibility.
The Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) Legal Information Clinic (LIC) was informed today of the Graduate Students Association’s (GSA) proposed referendum to eliminate the clinic’s fee levy of $2.75.
The LIC said in an email that the announcement comes at a frustrating time, especially when the CSU recently stated that they’re reviewing their initial decision to remove the clinic. Now, the CSU is reviewing the LIC’s services “in accordance with the resolution adopted, which was to keep the LIC open, by the CSU Student Council on Feb. 14,” as said in an email. The CSU’s final decision is still pending.
The LIC was not made aware of the GSA’s proposal prior to the announcement. If the referendum passes, the current graduate students who use the LIC services for their needs will no longer be able to, affecting the future of the clinic and the graduate students who need it.
Fo Niemi, executive director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), is currently working with two graduate students who need representation for their respective cases. He told The Concordian that preventing graduate students’ access to legal services will affect student protection and guidance during their legal issues and processes.
“If the GSA cuts off funding to the Legal Information Clinic, that means that the clinic cannot fund for the legal representation. If they go on their own to defend against these charges, it could be a very difficult experience for them,” Niemi said.
Niemi believes that fee levies are a “major source of financial support for graduate students who need legal representation.” Since many graduate students are international, they need the LIC’s help with immigration, cases involving racism or sexual assault, and employment, among others.
Even language barriers can cause difficulties to some graduate students as they undergo the judicial process during their case. Niemi feels that by keeping the LIC open, these graduate students will be able to access services that respect their language barriers, something that other legal services on university campuses may not provide.
“Once the graduate students access Quebec common agencies in charge of human rights—especially if your French is not good and you go there as an English speaker—you may need more than just lawyers and may need a lot of other support that the Legal Information Clinic can provide,” Niemi said. “That’s a very valuable and important support for these students.”
The LIC is urging graduate students to vote on the matter during the GSA elections on April 15 and 16.
The students will file complaints against the officers for excessive use of force
One night at the end of July, at almost 3 a.m., Concordia PhD students Amaechi Okafor and Wade Paul were walking on Saint-Jacques street, heading towards Okafor’s apartment in NDG.
As they walked, they saw police cruisers and officers gathered around an individual wrapped in a blanket. Not wanting to interfere with the situation, Okafor and Paul stepped into the street to go around the cruiser, then returned to the sidewalk.
“We didn’t even cross the road,” said Okafor. “I actually told him: ‘Let’s step on the road and avoid these cars and step back on the sidewalk,’ which we did for a split second. And all of a sudden, we just hear yelling.”
“Next thing I kind of remember, there was a police car coming up onto the sidewalk,” recalled Paul. Okafor said the intervention was “very, very aggressive.”
The officers were speaking French, and while Okafor speaks French, neither student could understand the officers’ accent—Okafor is an international student from Nigeria, and Paul is from St. Mary’s First Nation in New Brunswick. When told this, the officers switched to English and requested to see Okafor’s ID.
Okafor and Paul asked why they needed his ID, and the officers said that it was because they had been jaywalking. The students asked for clarification, at which point the officers asked to see Paul’s ID as well.
“They said […] that we were under arrest,” said Paul. “I had my arm kind of twisted, I was thrown up against a fence. I had my rights started to be read to me. I was in full panic mode.”
“The way the arrest went was really strange for me because it’s something I’d never experienced,” said Okafor. He recalls being put to the fence, handcuffed from the back and searched from top to bottom.
He was then put against the cruiser, where the officers spread out his legs so far that his pants ripped and searched him again, he said. This also affected his old knee injuries, and he is still suffering from knee pain a month after the arrest. He said the pain makes it hard for him to walk and work.
“I felt abused. I think that was the word to use. Because I didn’t give them the right to touch me all over where they touched me,” said Okafor.
The students said they were put in separate police cruisers, where they were left alone for 20 minutes. Officers went through their belongings and wallets, and did not explain what was happening. Okafor said they never read him his rights.
Both were fined $49 for jaywalking and $499 for refusing to show their ID.
Since the incident, Okafor’s family has joined him in Canada. He waited two years before bringing them here, wanting to make sure it was a safe place for them. Now, he fears what happened to him might happen to his three children.
“If my son is 16-17, what would happen if a cop were to stop him like that?” he asks. “I don’t want to lose my son because I’m ambitious.”
The students have pleaded not guilty to their fine. With the help of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) and its executive director Fo Niemi, they are planning on filing complaints with the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission for Racial Profiling and with the Quebec Police Ethics Commissioner.
“The only down thing is that the law, as it stands right now, will allow these officers not to cooperate with the Police Ethics Commissioner investigation,” explained Niemi. “Because they have the so-called constitutional right to silence. Not to incriminate oneself.”
Niemi is hopeful that the misconduct charges for excessive use of force will go far. “Just the fact that they were handcuffed, that’s a form of force that was used excessively,” he said.
“It all goes far to speak on how unsafe international students should feel,” he said. “Because if that could happen to me, it could happen to any other person.”
After hearing his story, other international students told him that they were worried about their own safety.
Niemi stressed the importance of speaking out about these situations. “Just because you’re international students, it doesn’t mean you have less rights when it comes to this.”
A TRAC protest from Winter 2021. Kaitlynn Rodney/The Concordian
TAs struggle to make ends meet with wages that do not cover living expenses and are lower than some other Canadian universities.
“We deserve a living wage,” says Max Jones, communications officer for Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC). Jones, a master’s student in English literature, has been a TA himself for the past year.
TAs are paid $29 an hour at Concordia which is significantly lower than some other Canadian universities, such as the University of Toronto where they are paid $49, or McGill University where the rate is $33 an hour.
Most TAs have contracts that cover an average of five to fifteen hours a week. University policy states that “the maximum TA working hours for TAs is 20 hours per week in order not to interfere with their studies.”
According to Jones, “these hours do not reflect the needs. At times English TAs need to read a whole book for a class and they can easily go overtime.” The limited hours coupled with the relatively lower pay leaves many TAs financially struggling.
“There are cases where a grad student is a TRAC executive, has a TA contract, and also works for other organizations to make ends meet,” adds Jones.
Agustín Rugiero is a third-year PhD student in film studies. Currently, he has two RAships and one TAship while doing some other small jobs to support himself. “You need at least three TAships to break even, $29 is not a living wage anymore,” Rugiero said.
As a PhD student he received an initial funding that allowed him to pay Quebec tuition rates. “This is not the case with all students,” acknowledged Rugiero. The tuition for a full PhD program can amount to $59,000 for an Arts and Science program in the case of international students. Even for Rugiero, who is not paying such rates, he still finds himself eating through his funds instead of relying on the money he makes through his TA or RAship. “$4 more per hour for McGill students might not look like much, but it can amount to $400 more per TAship which makes a lot of difference,” he added.
PhD students are expected to carry out quality research in their fields which is in itself a full-time job, but as Rugiero points out, “if this is our job, why are we not being sustained by it?” Many PhD students are deprived of more reading and research time because they need to complement their TAships with more work. For Rugiero this fact has made it more difficult to find time to network with other researchers in his field who have the same interests.
All this can gravely affect the quality of research that is being done at Concordia. “I enjoy my studies at Concordia; however, the creeping economic anxieties are also part of this experience,” admits Rugiero.
Vannina Maestracci, Concordia’s University Spokesperson, explained to The Concordian that the teaching assistants’ wages “are negotiated between the University and the Union.” These wages are based on a “Collective Agreement [that] is due to expire in June 2023 and that is when new wages will be negotiated.”
However, there is no guarantee that this new negotiation will result in higher wages for the TAs and RAs at Concordia. When asked about the possibility of a wage increase, Maestracci responded that they “can’t know what will happen in negotiations that are over a year and a half away.”
Currently, the low pay is not the only issue plaguing the TAs at Concordia. TAs are required to provide their sex assigned at birth when they are hired, “which forces trans TAs to out themselves,” Jones explains. The union has not been able to change this procedure after talks with Concordia’s Human Resources.
When The Concordian reached out to the University to inquire about the reasons behind such a requirement, it was explained that the University is “legally required to gather this [information] because TRAC employees (like all employees) are entitled to pension plan entitlements, which are based on age and gender at birth.”
The University official further explained that while this information is required, it is “collected separately from the other work-related information for an additional layer of confidentiality. As always, this, and all personal information, is treated with great respect and confidentiality.” While this stands as a legal requirement, Jones explained that many trans employees continue to be deeply disturbed by it.
Addressing various TA and RA grievances has been a hard task to achieve so far for the union. TRAC is a relatively new union; it was also dissolved in 2015 and put under the trusteeship of its parent union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), due to an investigation that saw the removal of TRAC executives. The executive committee was found to be fully dysfunctional, and the lack of a united front has affected the union’s capability to bargain in the past. Moreover, graduate students have a high turnover since they mostly graduate within two years.
“Grad students are also so tired that it makes it hard to functionally bargain,” adds Jones.
Voicing grievances can also affect a TA’s prospects for pursuing a career in academia. “Your career path can be determined by the professor you work for since you need their recommendation or help and there are professors who take advantage of this power dynamic,” adds the TRAC member. Jones is referring to a case in 2022 where TAs campaigned against working for a philosophy professor who was accused of sexual harassment. Jones explained that some TAs hesitate to come forth with complaints due to career considerations.
“Professors need to be more respectful of TAs as people and not just as a way to lessen their workload,” said Jones. Jones added that at times the failure of a professor to sign their contracts on time has resulted in a TA not being paid for months.
This year the TAs and RAs at Concordia are also recovering from COVID, where they had to learn new software and hold long Zoom hours to cope with the demands of the pandemic, and all these challenges were not reflected in their pay.
Rugiero is also a TRAC delegate. He believes that despite all the difficulties and the general slow response from Concordia, they can have high hopes for the negotiations.
“TRAC is shaping up to be even better and has been rallying people up for a higher wage,” he adds.
Rugiero also believes that Concordia needs to support their words with concrete action when it comes to mental health. The low wage that pushes grad students to seek more employment affects their work quality as researchers as well as their mental health.
“We’re paying so much for tuition and TAships should not make us sacrifice our degrees so we can have money to eat,” says Jones.
The wage increase would benefit grad students and undergrads who might become grad students in the future, and in this way it would affect the student body as a whole. As Agustín stated: “Not having an inflation-adjusted wage amounts to having a pay cut.”
