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Uniqlo enters Quebec’s retail market

Canada’s 14th and largest Uniqlo opens in Montreal

 

Downtown Montreal — nearly empty since the beginning of the pandemic — is finally experiencing some excitement. The Japanese retailer Uniqlo opened its largest Canadian store in Montreal’s Eaton Centre on Friday.

Its entrance in Quebec’s apparel market did not go unnoticed. Between construction and security officers, hundreds started lining up before the opening at the corner of Ste-Catherine St. and Robert-Bourassa Blvd. The waiting time was between 40 minutes to an hour long.

Customers line up on the street outside the Uniqlo entrance.

Police officers weren’t too far away, overseeing the scene and enforcing social distancing.

The opening was eagerly awaited since the CEO of Uniqlo Canada, Yuichiro Kaneko, announced the brand’s arrival a year ago. The 32,000-square-foot store offers a wide range of clothes for men, women, and children, as well as a small selection of home products. Additionally, the Japanese retailer has  a reading corner for children and will feature a flower shop display with the creations of Montreal floral design studio Bell Jar Botanicals until Nov. 15.

“I’ve been waiting for this opening for a long time now! Whenever I go to Toronto, I need to stop at an Uniqlo store. I’m used to ordering online but it’s always better when you can see the products before buying them,” said shopper Caroline Chicoine as she waited at the check-out line.

While opening during a pandemic demands more preparation, Uniqlo made sure to implement strict health and safety measures to create a safe shopping environment: plexiglass protective screens at the checkout counter, hand sanitizer available at the entrance and at cash registers, entrance and exit located on two different levels, customers having their temperature taken before entering. Masks were also mandatory in the lineup and only a limited number of people were allowed inside the store at a time.

As many as 115 employees work at the two-story Montreal location. They started preparing the opening the last week of August, receiving and organizing the merchandise as it arrived. Staff member Jessie Khov said she was eager to welcome the customers on opening day.

“Everyone is really proud of the hard work. We [started] preparing a month before the opening. Seeing the beginning of nothing to something like this today, it’s pretty special,” she said.

Moreover, the city hopes the excitement over the new retailer will also benefit local businesses, bringing Montrealers out of their homes to make a shopping trip with a few other stops along the way.

“We should come and shop. If we can’t [go in person], we can buy online. But how about we go direct[ly] to those stores. I think it’s a good way to support our small businesses,” said Mayor Valérie Plante, present at Uniqlo’s opening for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Up until now, the interest for the new store has been clear. It’s likely Downtown Montreal hasn’t been this alive since the pandemic forced people to work and study from home, reducing more than 90 per cent of the regular downtown traffic. People were seen daily lining up outside during the retailer’s first opening weekend.

 

Photos by Axelle Viramontes de la Torre

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Secondary schools struggle to cope with COVID-19’s second wave due to underlying issues

Students outside of College Saint-Henri.

A look at  how schools are struggling within  the red zone

Secondary schools in Montreal have been the subject of controversial conversations over the past few weeks.

Despite Montreal being in a red zone, Premiere Legault has insisted on keeping schools open thus far.

Back in September, he acknowledged the risk of sending children back to school, and argued that this was a calculated risk — one many in the education field would agree on, but for different reasons.

Now with over 2,700 cases in the 10-19 age group, cases have spiked considerably from just a month ago. As of Oct. 22, 2,207 cases are from schools in the province — an increase of 1,356 cases from the previous month.

These numbers show that the age group’s case numbers are increasing at an exponential rate. According to Sarah-Ève Grenier-Tourigny and Florence Normandeau, two Education students at UQAM who work in schools on a weekly basis, there is a reason why this is occurring.

The two students are in their third year of studying Social and Academic Accommodation in Education, which applies to students with learning or mental disabilities, and focuses on allowing them to receive more one-on-one teaching.

Their biggest concern lies with the miscommunication between the government and schools. Ève Grenier-Tourigny said, “I find there is a huge lack of accountability from Minister [of Education, Jean-François] Roberge; he’s painting a pretty picture in the media but there is not lots of concrete action in reality.”

Normandeau agreed with her colleague, and said, “I think everyone will do what they want, each school environment will dictate their own rules. But I feel like it shouldn’t be like that; rather, government and public health agencies should dictate how [COVID] is handled in schools, and everyone should follow those rules.”

Certain measures are obligatory in every school in the red zone. This includes highschool students wearing masks at all times, and those in their fourth and fifth year of secondary school only attend school on alternate days. Students continue to have school five days a week, and can receive sanctions when they do not complete work in time. Any other measures have been left up to individual schools to outline.

Frustrated by the rhetoric perpetuated by the provincial government present in mainstream media, Normandeau  explained that the ‘bubble’ system was implemented due to bigger, underlying problems with Quebec’s education system.

The bubble system refers to how classes are placed in ‘bubbles,’ in an effort to minimize the spread of COVID through the school. This means that students aren’t technically allowed to interact with students outside of their own class.

“We don’t have any classrooms, we don’t have any money to protect people, to do our lessons properly. We have no space in schools,” she said, referring to the limited physical space in schools and classrooms that makes it impossible to respect social distancing.

“These underlying issues have been a burden on our education system for decades, and are all culminating now,” Ève Grenier-Tourigny said. “There are huge classes, and now with the pandemic it’s just getting worse and worse. We’re heading for a rupture, if we aren’t already there.”

Another big problem when it comes to secondary schools is what happens when students leave their institutions at the end of the day.

Normandeau said, “I saw students when they finished school … They talk, they aren’t necessarily in the same classes and they talk among themselves and go take the subway, or take the bus.”

Despite these challenges, Grenier-Tourigny believes  it is crucial that we keep schools open for students’ mental health and academic prowess.

“[Keeping schools open] is also important for dropout rates and loss of motivation. Because we cannot see the end of this pandemic, we can’t just decide to take over three years of a teenager’s life … You want to have 16-year-old students with only their second year of highschool?” said Grenier-Tourigny.

Camille Dussault, a student in her final year of high school at Collège Durocher Saint-Lambert, sees herself as one of the more responsible teenagers in her age group, and opened up about the situation in her highschool.

At Collège Durocher Saint-Lambert, students attend school in-person every other day, with online school in between. Since the online schedule is strict, she manages to stay afloat, but still looks forward to the days she gets to go to school.

Prior to the mandatory mask rule, Dussault said she was one of “two students who would wear [a mask] all the time, and the rest of the class was just like ‘oh, I hate wearing my mask, so I’m not gonna wear it.’”

With a classroom filled with 36 students, this was shocking and uncomfortable for Dussault. Now, with mandatory masks, she feels safer.

“Some people were unhappy about it, but I’m kinda glad because I feel so much safer.” 

The most problematic time of day for Dussault is lunch time. She mentioned how many students took advantage of the nice weather to sit outside and eat lunch with friends that aren’t a part of their ‘bubble.’ She has high hopes that with winter approaching, this will subside.

“People …  have lunch there with their friends that are not in their classes, and they don’t respect the distance that is required most of the time. But we do have monitors that make sure that people do [keep their distance],” said Dussault.

This is difficult for her, and she feels like she is one of the only students taking these measures seriously. Dussault describes how she sits apart from her group when eating, and wears a mask even to see her best friend.

“They are all gonna be stuck together, and I am just sitting really far away but listening to the conversations …  I don’t get why they can’t distance themselves. It’s so simple! I could be less excluded if everyone was respecting the distance.”

Despite the stress of going to school in-person, Dussault refuses to accept that she may  have to do online school full-time again. After a very hard time during the first lockdown, she doesn’t feel that asynchronous online classes would be beneficial to students.

Addressing the first lockdown, she said, “I just remember back when it started … a lot of people — myself kind of included — felt very, very alone. And it was kind of detrimental to our social abilities.”

She stresses how difficult integrating back into society after months of isolation was for the growing mind.

“I felt like interacting in real life was almost more difficult! Like I had lost a bit of my [social] capacities since I hadn’t really talked to anyone!”

According to Dussault, many students did not take online school seriously, and it could cause a major problem down the road.

“A lot of people I know apparently didn’t [submit any work], and some things I would [s]lack a bit … but whenever we had to submit something, I would always make sure it was done on time. And apparently a ton of people didn’t even submit anything, like they didn’t even open their computers, which I found crazy. But it’s more common than you think.”

“It’s … worth it to sanitize everything, wear masks, but still get to have that little piece of interaction we used to have before. Even if it’s not nearly as good as before, sadly.”

 

Photo by Kit Mergaert

Swept under the rug: An island nation lost in time

North Sentinel Island: home to an uncontacted tribe that kills its visitors

Located in the Bay of Bengal, India, the Sentinelese are some of the last peoples on Earth who remain virtually untouched by modern civilization. This island nation does not know about the existence of electricity, cars, or cellphones, and meets visitors from the outside world with violence.

Between 50 and 400 people are estimated to be living on North Sentinel Island, whose surface area is just 60 square kilometres. While it is officially administered by India, the government does not intervene into the island’s affairs and declared it a tribal reserve in 1956.

The island is not only separated by a distance of 1,200 kilometers from the mainland, but also by an entire era from the rest of the world. The people on the island live in huts, with fire being the only man-made light source.

There is no evidence that the tribe has discovered agriculture or created its own writing system. The main source of food appears to be the sea, where the locals use small outrigger canoes to hunt fish, sea turtles and crabs with spears.

The tribe itself is part of the Andaman Indigenous population. However, its language cannot be understood by any related ethnic group, as it has been separated from all civilizations since at least the 19th century.

In fact, the British Empire, Burma, and Japan have all attempted to occupy the island, but the tribe showed strong resistance and successfully defended their territory from the powerful nations.

Even today, the Sentinelese continue to meet visitors with aggression, as they perceive every foreigner as a threat.

In the past decades, Indian anthropologist Triloknath Pandit was one of the few explorers who successfully interacted with the tribe. In 1991, he attempted to befriend the island nation by offering them coconuts, pots, as well as iron hammers and knives.

Although the Sentinelese accepted the gifts, Pandit recounted in an interview with the BBC that “Warriors faced [his group] with angry and grim faces and were fully armed with their long bows and arrows, all set to defend their land.”

The Sentinelese, however, go far beyond intimidating their visitors.

In 2018, the tribe brutally murdered John Allen Chau, an American missionary who attempted to introduce Christianity to the island nation. In 2006, the tribe also killed two fishermen with a row of arrows, as their boat was approaching the island.

Today, it is a criminal offense to have contact with the islanders, as they are not immune to foreign diseases. Moreover, in 2017, the Indian government ruled that even photographing and filming the Sentinelese people could result in up to three years in prison.

Therefore, as the outside world has an extremely limited access to the Sentinelese, the island nation is likely to continue its traditional way of life. Ever since Pandit made a peaceful entrance in 1991, all attempts of contact have resulted in violence, so the tribe is expected to remain in isolation for many years to come.

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West Islanders are ready to ride the rails

The Réseau express métropolitain (REM) light rail will service the West Island in 2023

Montreal’s $6.5 billion public transit project, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), is set to change the way Montrealers commute to work. But even as the light rail’s construction makes significant progress, West Island residents are concerned about accessibility.

This project broke ground in April 2018 and is expected to begin operation in 2021, extending to Brossard on the South Shore. This driverless light-rail system will consist of 26 stations in the Greater Montreal area, spanning 67 kilometres and directly connecting to the city’s metro system.

In 2023, the REM will start operating on the West Island, whose residents are unsatisfied with the current state of public transportation.

Mayor of Pointe-Claire John Belvedere told The Concordian that “Current service is unreliable, since there’s not enough buses on weekends and at nighttime. The STM is overlooking an entire transportation system here in Pointe-Claire.”

With trains running 20 hours a day, Pointe-Claire residents will be able to reach downtown Montreal in just over 20 minutes. This means commute times for the West Island will be cut at least by half.

However, the entire journey may not be particularly convenient. Belvedere says his municipality is concerned about the accessibility of its future stations: Fairview-Pointe-Claire and Des Sources.

“The roads leading to our REM stations — Saint Jean Boulevard and Sources Boulevard — [are] not pedestrian-friendly, and it’s inconvenient for cyclists to use them,” said the Mayor.

On top of that, residents are worried about the lack of parking spaces at the stations. Nearly 6,000 parking spots have been removed from the initial REM plans, affecting the West Island in particular.

Driving to Kirkland and Pointe-Claire stations could be especially problematic, as the two stations currently have zero planned parking spaces dedicated specifically to future REM commuters. In 2016, however, the two stations were promised to have a 2,000-car capacity combined.

Belvedere said his residents had many more complaints regarding parking than the construction process itself. This weekend, the installation of overground tracks will lead to the closure of Highway 40 westbound near Pointe-Claire. This inconvenience does not seem to significantly disturb the locals, however.

Instead, some have raised concerns over the cost of the entire light-rail project. In fact, Parti Québécois spokesperson Alain Therrien called the REM “a waste of taxpayer money.”

Taxpayers will not be covering the entirety of the project’s $6.5 billion cost. The Caisse de dépôt placement du Québec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund, is contributing $3.2 billion for the light rail’s construction.

The federal and Quebec governments will also be investing $1.283 billion each, thus evenly dividing the funding responsibility.

According to Belvedere, the REM’s potential benefits are worth such a significant financial commitment. He explained that the light rail project would increase the home values in the West Island area and attract more business.

“If you’re a business in Pointe-Claire, you can even have employees living downtown and easily commuting to the West Island. It won’t be a one-way commute anymore, where our residents mostly commute downtown for work.”

The REM is indeed expected to create more jobs for Montrealers, having promised 34,000 employees involved in the construction process as well as 1,000 permanent positions in maintaining the light rail.

West Islanders will have to wait until 2023 for the project to become a reality. The good news is that despite COVID-19, elevated tracks are being actively built along Highway 40, and the project as a whole is progressing according to schedule.

“The REM will be a fabulous system, and it’s something that our people have wanted for years. Now it seems like we’re finally getting it,” said Belvedere.

Photo by Christine Beaudoin

A brief history of medical racism in Canada

How the healthcare sector has repeatedly failed Indigenous people

Content warning: This story contains some elements of racism and abuse, which some readers may find disturbing

Though the topic of anti-Indigenous racism in Canada has regained some public attention since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, nothing has served as a more vivid reminder of this reality than the recent death of Joyce Echaquan and Georges-Hervé Awashish.

Hospitalized for stomach pains, Echaquan, an Atikamekw woman livestreamed the abuse she experienced by the medical staff whose care she was under, as she screamed for help and pleaded that she was being given too much morphine. She passed later that evening, after spending two days in the hospital, leaving her husband with the care of their seven children. Awashish, an Atikamekw man from Obedjiwan, did not receive the same spotlight from the public, but his treatment was just as poor. The circumstances of his passing are still being investigated.

As protesters decried the deeply entrenched problem of racism in the medical industry, specifically when it comes to the care of First Nations peoples, Premier François Legault’s reaction and apology sparked controversy when he didn’t directly address the systemic nature of racism in our province, with many recalling his denial of it over the summer.

We know this is false. And the fact that Legault used to be our province’s Minister of Health makes this belief all the more alarming.

Articles revealing the absurd statistics about racial bias in our medical system are not scarce. A 2017 report confirmed a five-to-seven year gap between the life expectancies of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, as well as an infant mortality rate 1.5 times higher for Indigenous populations. These numbers barely touch the surface of the issue; among these communities, studies have recorded higher rates of HIV/AIDS, diabetes, tuberculosis, depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and deaths from accidental or preventable conditions.

Studies about the disenfranchisement of Indigenous people in the medical industry point to disproportionately inaccessible and underfunded services, deficient education and data collection systems, and failure to consider cultural barriers as the main culprits.

But the government isn’t the only authoritative body to have failed Indigenous people; so have medical practitioners themselves. Other than the victims of doctors and nurses’ individual discrimination, who have turned into statistics and archived stories in the public’s eyes, genetics-based medical research has also often proven to uphold or be rooted in racial biases.

In 1962, geneticist James V. Neel formulated what he called the “thrifty gene hypothesis” — a supposed genetic explanation for Indigenous people’s higher tendency to be affected by diabetes and obesity.

In 2020, this hypothesis still has yet to be confirmed, and many experts have flagged it as a lazy excuse to shrug off responsibility for the type II diabetes epidemic currently plaguing First Nations communities.

The emphasis on genetics has repeatedly served this purpose. During the H1N1 pandemic, researchers were quick to suspect a correlation between the exponential rates at which the virus spread in Indigenous communities as a genetic predisposition. This meant relieving some of society’s accountability for the long-standing socio-economic circumstances that have led to higher chances of transmission and greater risk for medical complications — circumstances which have re-emerged in the age of COVID-19.

And let’s not forget the healthcare workers who took the practice of eugenics into their own hands for decades and performed forced, irreversible sterilization procedures on over a thousand Indigenous women. Shielded from legal repercussions by proclaiming these women were “mentally defective,” overly promiscuous, or alcoholics, practitioners were allowed to continue these operations until 2018, as far as we know.

The indictments of these practices as a form of genocide can hardly be called controversial. And those who choose to fool themselves into thinking that we aren’t a racist province are those who will continue to vote for a leadership whose agenda purposely excludes Indigenous rights and issues. I wonder how Premier Legault has managed to convince himself that these blatant acts of racism aren’t systemic. Crying ignorance to these issues is unacceptable; in 2020, it’s become irresponsible not to know.

 

Feature graphic by @the.beta.lab

Interview with Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning photojournalist Barbara Davidson

Barbara Davidson is a Concordia alumni, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Emmy award-winning photojournalist, and a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Davidson did an online panel on Wednesday, Oct. 14, where she talked about her life story, how she became a renowned photojournalist, and her time at Concordia.

Davidson was born and raised in Montreal and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Film Studies. While she studied at Concordia, she worked at The Link newspaper as a photographer.

Since graduating from Concordia, Davidson has traveled to over 50 countries, working at newspapers like the Washington Times and the Los Angeles Times. Her most current work before COVID was traveling across the United States taking portraits of gunshot survivors.

“I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate with a university degree,” said Davidson in an interview with The Concordian. She explained that for CEGEP she went to night school, as she had to work during the day, and needed to improve her high school grades for university admission.

When asked if she saw financial standing as a barrier to photography, Davidson said that people go into photojournalism believing it to be an easy profession — similar to modeling. But the steep learning curve and the extraordinary effort that goes into it can turn people off.

“If it is something you are passionate about, you make it work,” said Davidson, who explained that during her university years she would save her money and borrow equipment so she could continue photography. “You make it happen, that is what success is all about, I had to work hard.”

Davidson said what she most enjoyed while she worked at The Link was the sense of comradery; a sense of family and purpose. She was attracted to the feeling of engagement with the community in Montreal.

Davidson said her time at The Link was “an incredibly inspiring learning time in my life.”

“There has to be a hungry curiosity, a hungry curiosity leads to all kinds of opportunity,” she said, emphasizing that curiosity can lead a person in a new direction. “Be mindful and honest with yourself, if you listen to that inner voice about what you are curious about, then that can lead you.”

Davidson said her biggest regret in university was not taking advantage of her professors’ expertise. She explained that professors are not just there to give grades, but also to help guide you on your way. She said that university is a rare time where you have access to these resources.

“There are so many [mistakes], I have fallen flat on my face more times than I care to share,” said Davidson, who continued to elaborate on a particular incident when she was working at the Missouri Photo Workshop, doing an article about two single mothers raising their kids together.

Davidson explained that she got caught up in the sensationalism of reporting on how the mothers were going to parties and living their lives, and failed to report on the good parenting the mothers were also doing.

“I did not show a well-rounded picture, and that failure has guided me my entire career moving forward after that,” Davidson said.

“As a human, as a journalist, I failed to look for the true humanity in them,” she said. “Always look for the humanity in people, regardless of the circumstances that they are currently in.”

Davidson said the best advice she can give to students is not to think of themselves alone, that there are people out there to help guide, shape, and inform students.

“You just have the bravery to reach out, and you will succeed,” said Davidson.

The panel was open to the public, but the majority who attended were Concordia students or alumni. Those reached out too said the panel was informative and inspirational.

“Even if it’s not the path [students] are interested in taking, they can get a sense of what lengths they can go to in their own dreams and with their own goals,” said Kendra Kabasele, a Concordia alumni journalist and photographer who attended Davidson’s panel.

“[Students] may even be triggered to pursue an avenue they hadn’t ever thought of before. That’s what’s important about panels like these; the awakening of what has yet to be awakened,” said Kabasele.

“It gave me hope and perspective as I began my career, hoping to work as a photographer and visual journalist,” said Matilda Cerone, a Journalism student at Concordia who also attended the panel. “I am reassured that it is okay that I am where I am and that things don’t need to happen right away for me to embark on an eventful and exciting experience.”

Cerone explained that while she enjoyed the panel, she felt that Davidson did not properly address the questions on white privilege and the white gaze in photojournalism.

“I too desire to take pictures that have a social impact, but I do not want to engage in white saviourism and I am very aware that when a white person photographs non-white people there is a toxic power dynamic,” Cerone said.

During the panel Davidson stated that she understands the privilege she has and has seen editors bypass photographers of colour. She stated that this needs to stop, as diversity creates more interesting and rich media.

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Primary schools in Quebec — how’s it going?

In the midst of the second wave, schools and parents struggle with how to protect the children from the second wave of COVID-19

Montreal has been experiencing a full-fledged second wave of COVID-19, and has gone into lockdown since Oct. 1. With the number of cases rising, the provincial government has put new measures in place.

Dining rooms, libraries, museums and theatres have closed, and home gatherings are now banned. Additionally, social distancing is being reinforced, and masks are now mandatory during any demonstration or protest.

However, primary and secondary schools have remained open. When Premier François Legault addressed the province in a press conference at the end of September, he made his goal clear: “Our objective is first of all to protect the schools.”

Santé Montreal shows that there are currently 616 cases in the 5-9 age group, compared to Sept. 12 when there were only 376 cases, representing a 63.8 per cent increase. For older children, aged 10-19, there are currently 2,459 cases, compared to 1,321 cases from a month ago.

There has been plenty of controversy over the decision to keep schools open, and if the government should give parents a choice when it comes to their children’s education.

Charlotte Fritsch, an after-school caretaker at École Saint-Joseph in the Plateau, explained that it’s important to give kids the normalcy of going to school.

“Let [the children] go to school, see their teachers, see their friends in their class … these are formative years in their development when they are so young.”

The primary schools typically operate in smaller groups. Every classroom is a bubble, meaning children can play and interact normally with others in their bubble. Only the adults are required to wear protective gear such as masks and safety goggles or a visor. Fritsch explained that even though safety measures are in place, some gaps still remain.

“But as employees, educators, teachers, we really do our best to remind them of the rules, [such as] to take different paths and avoid colliding with another person,” said Fritsch.

Katrina Chionidis, a mother to an 11-year-old, is struggling with the second wave. After losing her job in the service industry due to COVID shutdowns, she now has nothing but time to homeschool her kids.

She said, “Second lockdown I found has hit me, my staff, and my family a lot harder than the first one. And the first one was a lot longer.”

However, a common misconception is that parents in Quebec are allowed to remove their kids from school for remote learning, similar to Ontario. Quebec does not allow for kids to be taken out of school unless justified by a medical cause.

Chionidis said, “We don’t have a choice … If I had the option, [the school] wouldn’t call the Directeur de la Protection de la Jeunesse on me, which is what they threatened to do when I asked if I could keep him out of school.”

Chionidis explained that in her case, she should have that choice, since online learning was successful for her family in the past.

“Every class in my son’s school has smart boards. So what would it cost [to install] a webcam so he would be able to do the home schooling like we did during the first lockdown,” asked Chionidis.

Although there is a lot of concern over the loss of normality in childrens’ lives, Chionidis believes that this isn’t an issue.

“This isn’t normal [either]. Let’s say you have a five [or] six year old year old, kindergarten or grade one. You are now asking this child to sit at a desk for seven hours a day. That’s not normal.”

However, there are many parents who don’t have the ability to stay home and care for their children full time in addition to providing for their family.

According to these parents, it is important for schools to remain open, and respect the safety guidelines that come from the Quebec national institute of public health.

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Pro-Armenian protestors gather to call for Mayor Valérie Plante’s support

A thousand protestors gathered in front of city hall on Thursday

A pro-Armenian protest in front of Montreal City Hall on Thursday Oct. 8 called on Mayor Valérie Plante to publicly support Armenians in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh territory conflict.

On Sept. 27, conflicts re-erupted in the region, leaving at least 23 civilians killed. While the Nagorno-Karabakh territory is recognized internationally as located in Azerbaijan, the majority of the territory is occupied and controlled by a majority population of ethnic Armenians.

Aram Shoujounian, one of the organizers of the demonstration on Thursday, said they want Plante to denounce Azerbaijan and Turkey’s violence towards Armenians in a conflict that has claimed over 300 lives, according to Armenian, Turkish, and Azeri reports.

Shoujounian said the protest also calls on Plante to recognize the independence of the “Republic of Artsakh.”

While the disputed territory is officially called the Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenians refer to the territory as the Armenian-language name of the region: “Artsakh.”

At present, the majority of the territory is ruled by a government called the “Republic of Artsakh,” and positions within the government are largely held by ethnic Armenians.

“We’re telling Valérie Plante, and the entire city hall, to recognize the Republic of Artsakh as an independent state, because that’s the only way to guarantee the security and the right to live on the territory of the Republic of Artsakh,” Shoujounian told The Concordian.

“We do not want our democratic societies to stay neutral,” said Shoujounian.

Located between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the territory has been disputed through political and military conflict for decades, beginning in the ‘80s.

Russia brokered a cease-fire with both countries in 1994, but conflict continued throughout the years.

Canada suspended drone technological exports to Turkey after reports emerged that the technology was used by Turkey to target Armenian civilians.

A ceasefire agreement on Oct. 10 was promptly broken just minutes after the agreed upon deadline. Both countries put blame on the other for breaking the agreement.

On Friday Oct. 16, Justin Trudeau met with Armenian and Turkish leaders to speak on the conflict, and to encourage a peaceful resolution. A petition supporting Armenia and Armenians in Artsakh was begun by Ontario Liberal Member of Parliament Bryan May, and will collect signatures to present to parliament until Nov. 8.

Fourth-year Concordia student at the protest.

One fourth-year Concordia student said she was attending the protest because more needs to be done.

“There is a second genocide towards Armenians happening right now and people are silent,” she said.

She says leaders need to take a stand to get involved beyond peace talks, stating, “Talking nicely and telling them to cease fire won’t work because we had a ceasefire agreement.”

Nathalie Setian, the student’s close friend, said, “they [Azerbaijan and Turkey] just want to invade and erase us as a nation as an Armenian race.”

Both Armenian Montrealers said they came to pressure government officials to support the self-determination and safety of the people in the disputed region, and to aid the movement in Montreal.

“We’re raising money [for Armenian soldiers], we’re donating a lot, we’re writing open letters,  we’re urging the government and the politicians and especially the media to stand with us,” said Setian.

“We’re raising our voices and doing as much as we can to get people to stand up for us, because we’re not accepting biased and falsified information by journalists.”

Last week the Armenian diaspora in Montreal organized a protest in front of the Montreal Gazette and Global News media offices, to call out the “surface level” reporting on the conflict, and how the reporting does not accurately represent the level of threat this conflict has for the ethnic Armenians in the conflict zone.

“If you are neutral, that means you support terrorism,” said Setian.

“We don’t want genocide to repeat itself and we don’t want whatever happened in Syria to repeat itself in Artsakh,” said Setian.

Since the protest, Setian has co-written an article on the conflict.

On Saturday Oct. 17, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire starting at midnight. The deal was brokered by the OSCE Minsk Group. Early Sunday morning, the ceasefire deal was broken with both sides blaming each other for the violation.

Today, Monday Oct. 19, Plante has released a statement saying she stands in solidarity with the Armenian people, and will support efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

“To the Armenian community of Montreal I would like to offer you all our support…I wish you strength and peace in these very difficult times and know that we stand altogether with you,” said Plante.

Photos by Hadassah Alencar

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University students have mixed emotions about the COVID alert app

While some students are happy to use the new app, others have privacy concerns

Earlier this month, the COVID Alert app went live in Quebec. Many Quebecers were eager to have a new tool to slow the spread of the virus. However, some still aren’t willing to download the app.

The COVID alert app works with Bluetooth and random codes. Essentially, the Bluetooth signal detects phones that are near yours. Then the phones send each other random codes. If you contract COVID-19, you will have to enter a code into the app, which will notify all the people you came into close contact with that they may have been exposed to the virus.

“We have to use the application massively for it to work,” said Edith Joly, a family doctor in Montreal. “If not many people use it, it destroys its purpose.”

Despite her concerns about the app not having enough users to function correctly, over four million Canadians have already downloaded it, including university students like Marc-Olivier Gagné, an Engineering student at the Royal Military College of Canada who normally resides in Montreal.

“I think it’s a great tool to help combat COVID.”

Ashlee, a recent University of Ottawa graduate who lives in Gatineau, also believes this app could be beneficial to public health and safety.

“I think this app could help lower the cases if we all use it.”

However, many students aren’t as eager as Ashlee and Gagné to download the app due to privacy concerns such as the government tracking their location, or collecting personal information.

“I don’t know if they’re tracking my phone,” said Isabella Hernandez, a second-year HEC student. “I don’t know if the government is trying to issue tickets with this new app or collect my personal information.”

Contrary to Hernandez’s concerns, a Health Canada product manager asserted the app is “not tracking any of our data … There is no breach of privacy because the app is using Bluetooth and codes.”

The Government of Canada also stated, “The COVID Alert app creates a random code, so that no one will know your name, or your location.”

Some students who have already downloaded the app believe that those who aren’t willing to download it should consider what they are already doing on the internet.

“I don’t know how much of your liberty you’re conceding when you use this app considering your bitmoji appears on the Snapchat map,” said Gagné.

Gagné is referencing the feature on Snapchat that tracks users GPS location and displays it on a map featuring a cartoon version of the user.

Those who use Facebook and not the COVID Alert app are also criticized.

“I find it hypocritical to argue that you don’t want to use the COVID Alert app when you’re on Facebook and other social media,” said Ashlee. “I would rather the government have my information than private companies.”

Facebook has been criticized in the past for sharing user data with third-party companies for advertising purposes.

However, privacy concerns are not the only thing preventing people from wanting to download the app.

Some students believe the app wouldn’t work because people wouldn’t put in the effort to get tested or quarantine upon getting the app’s notification that they were exposed to the virus.

After hearing all the reasons people don’t want to download the app, retired health practitioner Dr. Judy Flecknell doesn’t understand why people won’t download the app if there’s a possibility it may help keep people safe.

“I think people have a responsibility towards others within our population,” stated Dr. Flecknell. “Downloading the app is not an invasion of your privacy, and keeping your loved ones safe is what’s important.”

The ongoing reluctance of so many to want to download the app could indicate that the government needs to find a better way to demonstrate that they aren’t collecting any user information.

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How a young Montrealer is fighting toxic masculinity and sexism at school

Colin Renaud wore a skirt to school to protest against “sexist dress code”

Don’t be surprised if you saw high school boys in skirts Tuesday. It was part of a student movement led by Colin Renaud, after his own experience of wearing a skirt to school went viral on Instagram last week.

Renaud, a 15-year-old Villa Maria High School student, wore a skirt to school last week as a protest against their sexist dress code and the hyper-sexualization of women.

“I got a lot of negative comments, just not to my face,” Renaud, who recently started grade 10 and is a member of the student council, told The Concordian. “One of my first projects with the student committee was to make our school uniform unisex,” said Renaud.

His first project was a successful one, as Villa Maria implemented the unisex dress code a couple of years ago, allowing every student to wear whichever pieces of the student uniform they prefer. At least, that is what Renaud thought when he decided to put the new rule to the test by showing up to his class in a skirt.

“I thought that it would be easy, that my school had already approved a rule implying a unisex dress code, but it was the opposite.”

As Renaud walked to his class, he was followed by a school staff member and, during his second period, was summoned to the school secretary’s office, escorted by two faculty members.

What followed still shocks Renaud today.

“They said a lot of degrading comments about me,” said Renaud. What the school administration reprimanded Renaud for doing included wearing a skirt, wearing nail polish and not being a good model for younger students.

Renaud finds it disappointing that his school, which promotes itself as very inclusive, would have such a bad reaction to his choice of attire.

“Diversity is one of their fundamental values,” said Renaud.

He is happy to say, however, that the following day, he had another discussion with the administration, and that they seemed open and ready to hear what the students had to say.

Renaud said the fight is not over as the students’ association has been trying for three years to abolish another dress code rule: mandatory knee-high socks that girls have to wear in combination with their skirt.

“When I wore the skirt, I did not get reprimanded for not wearing knee-high socks but all the girls around me did,” explained Renaud. According to him and his classmates, this account of events shows the sexist nature of this rule.

Renaud is hopeful, however, that his actions will have the impact necessary to make a difference as he compares his situation to other students who imitated him at different institutions.

“There are certain schools that did worse, they sent the boys back home, telling them they can either wear pants or stay home,” said Renaud.

Seeing the movement move across the province in different schools makes him proud, but also uncomfortable.

“At the beginning I was happy … but I felt that it wasn’t my place to be the face of this movement,” said Renaud.

“I like getting feedback, whether it be positive or negative,” said Renaud as he recalled getting a lot of messages from disappointed women. “They believe it is sad that a movement like this one started getting media attention when boys were involved, which I totally understand,” said Renaud.

He prefers to see himself as an ally to the feminist movement, saying, “That’s something I want to change because I don’t want to be at the center of it all, I want to educate people so that we can live in a just place but I don’t want to steal the attention and have the spotlight on me.”

Renaud did just that when he created the movement Le Cercle Mauve, which has the objective to fight against the hypersexualization of women, toxic masculinity and sexism in school dress codes. He is hoping the movement will be a catalyst in changing how students of all genders feel about their school uniform.

“I am still waiting for excuses from the administration,” said Renaud, although he feels the administration owes an apology to all students.

“I’m not attached to that skirt, it is not a skirt I want to wear every day, but if a boy would want to wear it every day, he should not have to go through the experience I went through in order to feel more comfortable at school.”

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Free Gardens For All

Zac Clarke wants everyone to have a garden — so they’re building them for free

For Zac Clarke, founder of “Free Gardens for All,” the pandemic was an opportunity to rethink the direction of their life. Clarke owns “Dirty Pizza” on Mont-Royal Avenue, and after three years of working 60-70 hour weeks, they were completely burnt out. Then came the pandemic.

“I call coronavirus ‘the great pause,’” said Clarke. “I kinda stopped and thought: is this what I wanna do? And I decided that I wanted to make more money with my labour and less money exploiting the labour of others.”

Clarke originally studied carpentry at École des métiers de la construction de Montréal, but worked a series of kitchen jobs after graduating, which led them to Dirty Pizza.

Clarke’s goal now is to return to woodworking as an entrepreneur, and in the meantime they had a great idea: building free garden boxes. Not only would this allow them to get back into the swing of things with carpentry, but “as a baby socialist and anarchist, it’s good praxis!”

Garden boxes are small, raised planting beds that can be placed in a backyard, on a porch, a balcony, or even on the sidewalk, turning what was once bare concrete into a place to grow your own organic produce.

Clarke finds scrap wood — their first three boxes were all made from one-third of an old deck — and constructs the boxes with the help of volunteers.

The plan is to construct 20 boxes over the cold season and get at least 80 per cent of them producing food by next summer. After that, they’ll register as a nonprofit co-op and, if all goes well, Clarke can leave the project to grow on its own.

“When I was in high school I had a great theatre teacher, Louise Chalmers, who always said ‘If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I want this production running,’” said Clarke. “The hope with this is that I get the legs going, I get people motivated, and people can build free gardens whether I’m here or not.”

But they need volunteers to help make that happen. In particular, Clarke is looking for someone with a truck and anyone who has carpentry experience, but they made it clear that Free Gardens For All is an anti-ableist organization and welcomes everyone who has time to help.

Right now they’re focusing on building boxes and getting them installed, and once the spring comes, Clarke and volunteers will fill all the gardens with soil and compost from the Eco-Quartier so folks can get started planting.

With this project, Clarke hopes to get food back into the hands of the people. Another way to achieve that, they told me, is to get the city to expropriate roofs from the landlords who are hoarding them. All that extra growing space is a huge, unused resource.

“We’re fucked when it comes to climate change, when it comes to where our food comes from, when it comes to people not being able to afford food or healthy food,” they said.

But by making as many boxes as possible, hopefully “The spaces get greener, the money gets greener, and if the rooftops start coming, instead of people like Lufa, you’ve just got free fuckin’ gardens on people’s roofs.” Lufa is a Montreal-based company that sells produce grown in rooftop greenhouses.

Free Gardens For All is taking an intersectional approach for distributing garden boxes, and giving priority to anyone whose life would be really improved by having access to free, organic produce.

To volunteer, or to request a free garden box of your own, email freegardensforall@gmail.com and they’ll send you a Google form.

Is celebrating Thanksgiving still relevant in today’s society?

Thanksgiving is a national holiday that highlights colonialism and the mistreatment of Indigenous people

 

Thanksgiving was almost canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was celebrated this Monday, Oct. 12. The federal government has made it clear that gatherings during Thanksgiving weren’t a good idea, and to limit contact.

“This coming weekend for Thanksgiving and for the weeks to come, we need people to do everything they can to prevent transmission of this virus,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in regards to the holiday, asking people to stay home.

But it wasn’t the first time the legitimacy of the holiday was questioned. For several years now there has been a moral debate regarding the celebration of Thanksgiving.

As Gilbert Mercier, a French journalist would illustrate, “In many ways, the … celebration of Thanksgiving is analogous to setting aside a day in Germany to celebrate the Holocaust.”

 

A genocide

Thanksgiving was established by a proclamation of the Canadian Parliament in 1957 as a statutory holiday. It is at first glance a chance to celebrate the good harvest and all the blessings received throughout the year. But beyond feasts and celebrations with family and friends, the holiday’s story is less joyful.

The first colonists had trouble surviving on the new continent, and some Indigenous people offered their knowledge of the territories to help them. It was the case of Martin Frobishor and other navigators who arrived in 1578 to the Baffin Island and to whom the Mi’kmaq men taught ice-fishing techniques.

It wasn’t long before the relations turned disastrous, and the colonists decided to take possession of the lands by violating treaties, and exterminating Indigenous peoples. A war exploded over Halifax because the Mi’kmaq never agreed to give away their territories to the British settlers. In response, Governor Edward Cornwallis, who established the Nova Scotia colony, offered a bonus for every Indigenous person killed.

For many, colonists did significant harm.

The media outlet Cut released a video in 2015 asking Native Americans to associate Christopher Columbus with one word. Their answers were among others, “evil,” “invader,” “ignorant,” “genocide”— words that could also describe Edward Cornwallis.

 

A Day of Mourning for Indigenous people

For many Indigenous people, Thanksgiving marks the starting point of the smothering of their culture  and the theft of their lands, and therefore many are not celebrating the arrival of the European settlers. Being aware of the history of the holiday, some non-indigenous people also choose to not celebrate it in solidarity.

It is a day some use to protest systematic racism and oppression.

Last Sunday, about 20 people met in downtown Montreal in regards to the upcoming holiday for Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage.

Indigenous people are still fighting today to recover their sovereignty and their rights to their lands, which have never been ceded.

 

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