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Concordia professor strives to prevent violence before it starts

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

As co-chair of anti-radicalization initiative, Vivek Venkatesh is focused on prevention over punishment

Concordia professor Vivek Venkatesh balances many responsibilities, from director of the university’s Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance to creator of Project Someone, a multimedia initiative designed to promote digital literacy and prevent hate speech. Now, he has one more role to add to the list—co-chair of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s new chair on the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism.

The initiative, which recently received $400,000 in funding from the Quebec government to be distributed over the next four years, will focus on goals that include developing research programs to shape public policy and enhancing cooperation between researchers, communities and other stakeholders that play a role in preventing violent radicalization.

Venkatesh’s involvement with the chair began in October 2016, when he spoke at a UNESCO conference on the subject of youth radicalization via the internet. Following this conference, he worked with Université de Sherbrooke professor David Morin and Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) professor Ghayda Hassan to create a chair proposal that focuses on the prevention of radicalization.

“It needs to go beyond simply incarceration. It needs to go into the field of rehabilitation, of community resilience and bringing the public voice to bear,” Venkatesh said of the chair’s approach to addressing the issue.

Venkatesh noted that there is no single definition of radicalization agreed upon by governments and academics, although it is often considered a process in which people who would normally hold “moderate viewpoints” on political and social issues shift to more extreme perspectives. Venkatesh added that the UNESCO chair is not focused on all forms of radicalization, but rather on instances in which radicalization leads to violence.

For Venkatesh, the issue of radicalization has personal significance, as he has lost a family member to a terror attack. “It shaped the way I think about hate,” he said. “It shapes the way I think about how we can build spaces to have dialogues.”

The chair proposal, according to Venkatesh, was first vetted by group of professionals working with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO before being presented to and approved by the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Although all three co-chairs bring their own unique research and expertise to the table, Venkatesh is heavily invested in exploring the ways in which art and multimedia platforms can be used to prevent and understand radical violence. The three professors are also not working alone; they have support from over 25 international partners, including universities, non-profit organizations and other UNESCO chairs.

Before becoming co-chair of this effort, Venkatesh was already working to address hate speech and radicalization in a highly digitized world through Project Someone, which includes programs that provide learning resources on digital literacy, and an “anti-hate” comic series intended to start classroom dialogues on the issue.

Ultimately, Venkatesh said he believes the success of this chair will hinge on the diverse experiences and perspectives that he and his co-chairs have brought to their work.

“One of the things that will be successful to this chair is the fact that […] we have our experience and projects,” he said. “We know what we do well, and we know how we can help each other do better.”

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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President claims no disconnect between university and students

Concordia president Alan Shepard sat down with The Concordian to discuss funding, pension plans and sexual misconduct allegations. Graphic by Zeze Le Lin 
Article written by Étienne Lajoie and Megan Hunt

Alan Shepard says he is interested in the results of the CSU student congress

In an interview with The Concordian on March 15, Concordia president Alan Shepard offered no comment in response to a recent CBC report revealing that two Concordia part-time instructors, Jon Paul Fiorentino and David McGimpsey, were the subjects of complaints in a third-party investigation.

“I wouldn’t be able to make any comments about any investigation,” Shepard said. The university has not made a comment regarding the complaints since the report was published on Feb. 28.

Although Fiorentino and McGimpsey were originally scheduled to teach this semester, their classes have been reassigned while the allegations against them are being investigated. Shepard told The Concordian on Feb. 15 that professors are not allowed to teach while they’re under investigation.

Lack of faculty attendance at student congress

When asked if he felt the university’s administration was disconnected from the student body, Shepard said: “Absolutely not.”

As previously reported by The Concordian, only one Concordia faculty member was present at the congress organized by the Concordia Student Union (CSU) to discuss proposals on potential sexual misconduct policy changes. Kate Bligh, a part-time faculty member in the School of Irish Studies, as well as the theatre and English departments, said that in her 20 years of teaching, she had never been asked to attend any consent training similar to what the CSU wishes to implement for all students, staff and faculty within a reasonable time frame.

“The same way we hold discrimination and violence to this standard, we have to do the same with sexual assault and violence,” Bligh said.

Shepard said he was “very interested to see the results” of the congress, adding that Bill 151, provincial legislation requiring universities to take certain steps to address sexual violence, will require consent training for faculty and staff in all universities.
“We have to comply by September 2019 and I anticipate that we’ll do it this coming year, so it’ll be early,” Shepard said. According to him, the university is already doing “a huge amount of voluntary consent training” for students, but whether or not the training will become mandatory depends on the findings of the newly created sexual assault task force.

He also said the university’s Sexual Assault Research Centre, whose employees were not present at the congress, “does a great job [and] has been training hundreds, if not thousands of students. Probably thousands at this point.”

Shepard told The Concordian he hasn’t received an invitation from the CSU to meet with executives, but said if they want to speak with him, he is “always willing to talk to them.”

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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Unconventional grocery shopping

The Concordia Student Union hosted a free dumpster diving workshop on March 12. Workshop participants prepared a meal together after their dive. Photo by Gabriela Simone.
Article by Catherine Hansen and Gabriela Simone

CSU workshop shares tips and resources for dumpster diving

The Concordia Student Union organized a free dumpster diving workshop on March 12 as part of their weekly DIY series. The two-part event kicked off with a dumpster diving theory class, which encompasses proper etiquette, health risks, legal aspects and a reflection on the eating habits of today’s society. The second half of the event had participants dumpster diving for food and making a meal with their findings.

The event was hosted by Isabella Leone and Coco Graziani of Les Échelles, a collective living space in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood that organizes free cultural events and encourages the sharing of food and resources. The majority of the food found in their fridge is gathered from dumpster diving. Residents of Les Échelles rarely spend money on food because they often find perfectly good produce that has been thrown away.

Graziani was raised in Italy and has been living in Montreal for four years. She spent the last two years living at Les Échelles and has taken up dumpster diving.

“Having dumpster diving as an option makes me feel less horrible when I eat food,” Graziani said. Dumpster diving allows her to “avoid going to grocery stores and buying things whose production rests on the exploitation of other humans and animals, and contributes to the further degradation of the environment.”

Leone and Graziani said dumpster diving is a viable option for people who want to save money on food and prevent food from being wasted, but it’s often trickier than it seems. While large quantities of edible food can be found in dumpsters, many building owners do not appreciate people rummaging through their garbage without permission.

To have a successful dumpster diving experience, Leone and Graziani said there is some important preparation involved, such as finding dumpsters ahead of time and making sure they are in a public space. Usually, if they are located in parking lots or behind buildings, they are considered private property. Other dumpsters, like those in alleyways, are considered public and can be looked through by anyone.

According to Graziani, proper diving etiquette includes not taking all the produce when large quantities are available and leaving the extras in a box outside of the dumpster.

The main health tip highlighted in the workshop was to make sure to soak produce in a bowl with water and a tablespoon of vinegar to disinfect it. As for moldy produce, Graziani and her friends have a rhyme they use to identify potentially dangerous mold: “Pink and black, put it back; blue and white, you’re alright.”

There are multiple resources dumpster divers can use to find the perfect diving spots, such as food drop-off and pick-up locations, the Health Canada recall website and a dumpster diving map available online. The map shows where dumpsters are located throughout the city, and are marked in either green or red. Pierre-Olivier Jourdenais, a workshop participant, wrote on the Dumpster Diving Workshop Facebook event page: ‘’The red dumpsters tend to be rarely fruitful, according to map markers, while the green ones are more likely to have things to dumpster dive. So, you’re avantaged to go for the green ones whenever possible, for efficiency reasons.’’

Jourdenais is a frequent dumpster diver who follows diving-related pages on Facebook, such as Free Food for Free People, a group created to inform people of drop-off points around Montreal where divers can collect food that would otherwise go to waste. “I often go to the drop-offs in Rosemont,” Jourdenais said.

One of the participants, Marina Kuneva, travelled all the way from Sherbrooke to attend the dumpster diving workshop with her friend, Valerie-Anne Codina-Fauteux, a student at the Université de Montréal. Codina-Fauteux said she likes how dumpster divers “don’t consider the standard way of consuming food as the only good way.”

Photo by Gabriela Simone

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Kafein owner can’t stay afloat amidst construction

Kafein café-bar owner Gaby Nassar said his landlord is taking over his business. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Bishop Street businesses have not been compensated for loss of foot traffic

After 15 years as a small business owner and months of decreased foot traffic, Gaby Nassar is losing Kafein, a café-bar popular among students.

“Basically, the landlord is taking over my business. This is happening in a week or two,” Nassar said. “I’m so behind on rent, and he would excuse my debt to him. So that’s where we are now.”

From Nassar’s perspective, the overdue rent payments and outstanding debt are the result of one thing: a 42-month construction project that has dissuaded potential customers from walking along Bishop Street, where his business is located.

As The Concordian previously reported, Bishop Street businesses have been struggling since October 2016, when the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) began construction on a new metro ventilation station that will ensure fresh air for the green line between the Peel and Guy-Concordia stations. The infrastructure project is predicted to finish in 2020, but according to Nassar, things took a turn for the worst as soon as the project began.

“We basically lost 25 per cent [of foot traffic] within the week after the construction, right off the bat. During the school year, students would make the trek, but then in the summer months, we had a 40 per cent decrease [in sales],” Nassar explained.

After the loss in customers jeopardized his rent payments, Nassar, along with a coalition of four other affected Bishop Street businesses, including Ferrari restaurant, Craft Grilled Cheese, Gourmet Burger and Mesa 14, filed a lawsuit in April against the STM and the city of Montreal. They requested compensation of $2,500 per business for every month of construction, free advertising in nearby metro stations, as well as funding to commission an engineering firm to see if the project could be sped up.

Despite the fact that his landlord is taking over Kafein, Nassar will be continuing with the lawsuit. Although a court date has yet to be confirmed, Nassar said he believes it will be at least six months until the trial begins.

Nassar did not lose the business he has operated for years without a fight. He claimed he had been speaking with “high-level [city] officials,” but after the latest update he received from them, he knew he would be unable to support his business financially.

“[The city] is not coming up with a program to help businesses until June or July, and that’s way too far outside my comfort zone. Even then, they’re not 100 per cent sure if I would be included in that program,” Nassar said.

Nassar said he doesn’t know what Kafein’s future will be once his landlord takes over the business. Currently, he is focused on finding some justice through the upcoming lawsuit.

Nassar added that many of the other Bishop Street business owners are struggling as well, to the point where they may soon close or lose their business to landlords. In the case of Craft Grilled Cheese, the owner has already decided to close the restaurant permanently. Ste-Catherine Street businesses may be the next to experience a decrease in customers, as a two-year construction project began in January 2018, according to Global News.

Although attention from tourists and pedestrians decreased as soon as construction on Bishop Street began, Nassar said he is grateful for Kafein’s most devoted customers, including many students.

“We had gotten a lot of support in the last year. People were willing to make the trip, and there were a lot of obstacles,” he said. “It’s too bad. A lot of people tried to help with this; we just couldn’t do it.”

The Concordian reached out to the STM for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

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ASFA updates discrimination task force mandate

The Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) votes on new mandate for their discrimination task force. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.

Internal harassment policy under revision; power dynamics training for executives to be implemented

The Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) voted on March 8 to approve a new mandate for its discrimination task force in response to the recent sexual misconduct allegations in Concordia’s English department.

The task force’s first mandate was established in September 2016, an action required by the terms of a 2015 settlement of a Quebec Human Rights Commission complaint filed against ASFA by a former executive using the pseudonym Mei Ling.

The complaint alleged the executive had been a victim of race and gender-based discrimination during her mandate, and the settlement stipulated that ASFA establish a task force to deal with these types of discrimination complaints at Concordia.

In January, the federation approved an ad hoc mandate for the task force so it could quickly respond to revelations of sexual misconduct by instructors in Concordia’s creative writing program and make recommendations on how ASFA should respond.

During a task force meeting on Feb. 26, it was revealed that its name would have to be changed to include racial discrimination, based on advice from ASFA’s legal counsel, in order to meet criteria established by the 2015 settlement. It was also decided that the ad hoc mandate set up to respond to the English department allegations would be combined with the 2016 mandate to create one unified mandate. Motions for both changes were passed at the March 8 council meeting.

“The task force has always and will continue to address the issues mandated within the settlement, but will also now cover sexual violence and misconduct,” ASFA council chairperson Rory James told The Concordian.

The new mandate states the task force will address issues raised in the original Mei Ling human rights complaint and “implement concrete steps to prevent racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination within the university.” The stated goal of these steps is to foster a culture that ensures everyone at Concordia can “seek assistance within the university that caters to the individual’s best interests.”

The mandate lists four steps to be taken immediately to achieve those goals. They include revising ASFA’s harassment policy and implementing power dynamics training for ASFA executives as well as incoming arts and science faculty students who participate in Freshmen Orientation Week.

The task force will also work with the larger Concordia student body to advocate for the implementation of recommendations made in Our Turn, a student report published in October 2017 that gave Concordia a D minus grade for its sexual assault policies.

Margot Berner, the newly established co-chair of the task force, reported to council on March 8 that the task force has, so far, devoted most of its time to revising ASFA’s internal harassment policy.

The task force is also working on developing a new safe space policy for ASFA’s community spaces, which would establish when a Member Association can bar someone from their space if they decide the person’s behaviour is inappropriate.

“Our aim is to make ASFA a little more responsible for our community spaces, for making them safe spaces,” Berner said, adding that the task force is working with their lawyers to develop this policy.

Photo by Mackenzie Lad

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Joining forces to denounce exploitation and sexual violence

A protester chants through a megaphone and rallies the crowd minutes before marching from the downtown Concordia campus. Photo by Alex Hutchins

30,000 Quebec students rally to demand salary wages for unpaid internships

Nearly 30,000 students across Quebec mobilized to protest against unpaid internships and denounce the sexual violence many students, particularly women, experience in the workplace on Thursday, March 8. In tandem with International Women’s Day, the Montreal Coalition for paid internships organized their third large-scale protest to demand that student interns be given proper wage compensation, as well as access to the internal resources at their workplaces that are exclusively available to paid employees.

The coalition was formed in early June 2017 by multiple student unions and associations to unite against labour exploitation. “We think that by asking for wages for interns it will change the situation because, in Quebec […] when you’re an intern, you are below every [paid] worker, and you don’t have protection,” said Kaelle Stapels, one of the organizers of the march and a member of the Montreal Coalition for paid internships.

Unpaid internships are illegal in Quebec, except when the student is completing an internship for course credit either for an approved educational institution, as part of vocational training or if the student is working for a non-profit organization, according to the Canadian Intern Association.

Jeanne Dufresne, a Université du Québec à Montréal student protester, explained how degrees that require students to do a minimum number of hours as an intern before graduating are particularly problematic. According to Dufresne, an internship is a “full-time job [and students] need to do that to get their diploma, so that’s why it’s frustrating, because after the work, they need to go [find] a part-time job” to subsidize the costs of being in school and working full-time with no income.

“When I’m doing my internship as a nurse and I’m with my patients, I’m legally responsible for [them] as I would be if I were a real nurse. But I’m not paid,” Stapels said.

While the coalition demands that every student, regardless of gender, be fairly compensated as working interns, many of its members emphasize that women are more vulnerable when it comes to labour exploitation and sexual harassment in the workplace.

A crowd of 300 protesters chant while they trek uphill towards Docteur-Penfield Avenue along Atwater Avenue. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Although it’s possible to experience sexual violence in every program or field, Stapels explained that women who are in programs such as nursing, social work or education have an increased chance of experiencing exploitation and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Stapels also explained that because female interns in particular are not given the same protection as paid employees through their placement’s administration, if they experience sexual harassment while working, often their only option is to use the resources available through their university. “And we all know schools do nothing,” Stapels said. “The resources that are in place now, they’re not [enough]. They don’t do the job.”

According to a report titled l’Enquête sexualité, sécurité et interactions en milieu universitaire (ESSIMU) conducted by over a dozen researchers, about 37 per cent of university students have reported incidents of sexual violence or harassment in Quebec training programs. One third of the reported incidents occured within a hierarchical context. Due to the power dynamics found within academic institutions, the report explains, students are often at a disadvantage when reporting sexual misconduct.

The march was organized mainly to protest against unpaid internships and sexual violence in the workplace, however, given that it occured in conjunction with International Women’s Day, many protesters gathered to denounce gendered violence altogether. Maintaining an open dialogue between people and encouraging women to speak up about the problems they experience daily, explained student protester Giverny Welsch, “[is] what is so remarkable about what’s happening right now.” Welsch emphasized how this open dialogue is key to formulating both a community and a movement that are geared towards inclusivity. “We’re humans because we are able to communicate.”

A crowd of 300 protesters chant while they trek uphill towards Docteur-Penfield Avenue along Atwater Avenue. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Building relationships by empowering women, said Lucie Arson, a protester who preferred to use a pseudonym, is the first step towards starting a movement and creating a strong community that works towards positive change as a united front. “[As] a non-binary trans person, and as a sex worker, I kind of feel alone and not represented […] but right now, I’m feeling great,” having met people with similar experiences, Arson said. “There’s a [feeling of] solidarity.”

Sexism still exists, “[it] is a problem everyday,” said Arson, and it can be life-threatening for countless women all over the world. “Patriarchy works in a way where we are always opposed to other women around us, so I think it’s time to rebuild these relationships and fight together.”

Photos by Alex Hutchins

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Kimberley Manning is running for change in Outremont

Simone de Beauvoir Institute principal Kimberley Manning is running for the Liberal nomination in Montreal’s Outremont riding. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Simone de Beauvoir Institute principal looking to be the Liberal candidate in upcoming by-election

“What does a feminist Parliament look like?” asked Kimberley Manning, the principal of Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, in an interview. It’s a good time to think about the answer, she said.

Manning’s name will be on the ballot for the Liberal Party of Canada’s nomination of a candidate to run in the Outremont riding for the upcoming by-election. In December, Thomas Mulcair, the riding’s current member of Parliament (MP), announced he would be leaving federal politics in June, creating an opening in the House.
Manning is open about her goals if she is selected by Liberal Party members: she hopes to find better ways to recruit, train and mentor women from marginalized communities—not simply “white, middle-upper-class women” like herself.

Manning admitted the road ahead will be challenging, largely because she is not well-known in the riding. Meanwhile, her Liberal Party opponent, Rachel Bendayan, ran against Mulcair in 2015. Back then, Bendayan lost by approximately 5,000 votes, despite spending over $108,000 on her campaign—$4,000 more than her victorious rival, according to Elections Canada financial filings.

“I’m definitely starting way to the rear of where she is at in terms of her organizing. So, ultimately, it literally comes down to numbers—the number of people that I can sign up to the party, and the number of people who will ultimately come out the night of the nomination,” Manning told The Concordian. What she lacks in political experience, the professor believes she can compensate for in her studies of legislative processes as part of her PhD in political science, as well her advocacy in the halls of Canada and Quebec’s assemblies.

Last spring, Manning and her trans daughter, Florence, made their voices heard a few times in the Senate to help the passage of Bill C-16, an amendment adding gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination.

“That was very galvanizing. I really got to feel and experience what it means to really try to advocate for something that you believe in within those institutional structures and ultimately be successful,” she said.

“As a parent, I want my child to be seen as who she fully is. I want her to have the dignity that should be afforded to all people who reside in Canada,” Manning wrote to senators on May 30, 2017, a few weeks before the bill was passed.
A few days later, in a blog post also signed by Elizabeth J. Meyer, the author of Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools, Manning rebuked comments made by Manitoba senator Don Plett.

“With all due respect, Senator Plett is wrong,” she wrote in response to the senator’s opinion that there isn’t any law “in the world that will prevent children from bullying.”

Manning doesn’t hide her strong, personal attachment to the Outremont riding—the result of being a resident for seven years—nor the reason for her move there from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (N.D.G.).

“There was a school that was prepared to work with us to create a safe environment for my child,” Manning said about her decision to move to Outremont.

In an interview with Parents Canada magazine, Manning said she met Shuvo Ghosh, the head of the Gender Variance Program at the Montreal Children’s Hospital—the only pediatrician in Quebec specialized in the treatment of transgender youth—and later determined with her husband that N.D.G did not have a safe school for their child.

Manning, who teaches political science in addition to her position at the institute, is careful when describing her role in protecting the rights of members of the trans community. Her involvement, she pointed out, is nascent compared to other trans activists, but is very personal. She said her testimony at Senate hearings “was a very powerful moment.”

At Concordia, Manning is the faculty lead on C-FAR, the Critical Feminist Activism in Research, a group exploring the idea of a feminist university that “calls for a disruptive practice in which ‘meaning-making processes that create and sustain relations of domination’ are brought fully to light,” she wrote in Concordia Magazine, citing the ideals of political theorist Rita Dhamoon.

“How do you take some of those principles and processes into Parliament?” Manning subsequently asked. “One of the reasons I want to run is because there is so much work still to do in terms of creating more open and inclusive political structures to increase participation.”

Running for the Liberals, Manning told The Concordian, is an opportunity to deepen “the work that’s already underway.”

“I just see it as where I can be most effective and have the most impact,” she added.

In November, Manning sat on a roundtable with Randy Boissonnault, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s special advisor on LGBTQ2 issues.

“It was really extraordinary to see the way in which he encouraged and was able to bring in everybody around the table,” she said.

Getting picked to run under the red banner will require asking people to join the Liberals, and come out on the still-undetermined night of the nomination. The biggest challenge, Manning added, “is just having the time to meet people, to get to know people, and have those conversations which are so key to […] ensure there are enough people who are going to say, ‘Hey, what she’s doing is really interesting and I’d really like to help.’”

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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Concordia up in world university rankings

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Rankings don’t necessarily show the whole picture, says Concordia spokesperson

The university marketing firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) announced on Feb. 28 that Concordia had risen in the ranks in several subjects in its 2018 World University Rankings list. Notably, QS placed Concordia among the top 51-100 universities in the world at which to study art and design. As of June, Concordia was ranked by QS as one of the top 431-440 universities in the world overall.

“Good news,” according to university spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr. But what do those numbers really mean?

University rankings are based on several criteria, but QS’s most weighted category for the overall ranking is “academic reputation.” According to the firm’s website, academic reputation is determined by surveying 70,000 scholars about which universities are the best for conducting research in their field of expertise.

Barr said that moving up the list is important for Concordia, adding that in the past decade, these rankings have become crucial to establishing a university’s reputation.

“Students, university administrators, board members and donors are paying increasingly close attention to the results [of these rankings],” Barr said. “As are fundraisers, communications and marketing personnel, recruitment officers and others.”

Other criteria used to measure a university’s overall score include “employer reputation,” which is also based on a survey, in this case of 30,000 employers who were asked to identify the universities from which they source the most competent graduates.

Finally, the decision to rank a university higher or lower on the list is based on the amount of useful research that comes out of the institution in a given field. This is measured by analyzing the number of times research from a certain university or college is cited in other researchers’ work. These numbers are sourced from Scopus, an online database of peer-reviewed literature.

However, Barr is critical of the ranking process. She said some of the “experts” who were surveyed may not have been able to judge all universities accurately.

“It is disputable whether the surveyed academic faculty have sufficient knowledge of what is taking place at all universities around the world to objectively and/or accurately judge which ones are doing ‘the best work’ in their field,” she said.

McGill University is frequently listed as one of the top universities in Canada; it is ranked second, behind the University of Toronto, on QS’s Canadian university rankings. Concordia is ranked 16th on the same list.

However, a university’s rank on the QS list is not always representative of student experiences. Maisy Roach-Krajewski, a life sciences student at McGill, was disappointed to learn that despite attending one of the highest-ranked schools in the nation, several of her first-year classes were over-capacity.

“The room legitimately didn’t hold the amount of students that were taking the class, so quite often when I showed up only five minutes early, there would be no seats. So I would just sit on the ground,” she said. “At any time, there would be like five to 10 people sitting on the ground.”

Barr said some older universities might be ranked higher because of their long-standing reputations, and a university’s rank doesn’t mean it will be the right fit for every student.

“No two institutions are equal, and each has its unique history with specific particularities, strengths and weaknesses,” Barr said. “Imperfect as they are, comparative rankings are widely followed and publicized, and represent an opportunity for Concordia in the areas they measure.”

Quacquarelli Symonds did not respond to The Concordian’s request for comment.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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Renegotiating the ins and outs of NAFTA

Former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was part of a panel discussing the effects of the ongoing NAFTA renegotiations. Photo by Mackenzie Lad

Panelists discuss how recent trade negotiations may potentially affect Canada

“What we need is for our Canadian government to be standing up far more strongly than what we have seen so far,” said former New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair at a panel hosted by the Concordia School of Community and Public Affairs on March 6.

The focus of the discussion, moderated by Daniel Salée, a political science and public affairs professor at Concordia, was the ongoing renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“[Canada has] every right to be adamant in opposing that type of purely discretionary imposition of an absolutely illegal tariff,” said Mulcair in reference to President Donald Trump’s controversial announcement on March 1 that the United States would be imposing a 25 per cent tariff on steel imports and a 10 per cent tariff on aluminum imports. “It would affect a lot of jobs in Canada.”

Although the tariffs are set to take effect before the end of the month, it has since been announced that Canada and Mexico will be exempt, pending a new agreement on NAFTA, reported The Washington Post.

“I don’t believe that we should be bullied into a bad agreement. We must make sure that an agreement is a win-win situation,” said panelist Michel Vincent, the Quebec Forest Industry Council’s director of economics, markets and international trade.

For Vincent, the most important element of NAFTA to be renegotiated is Chapter 19, which currently allows Canada to bypass the court system and instead create a binational panel of arbitrators to review the merit of any antidumping or countervailing duties on Canadian products imported into the United States, according to Maclean’s.

“It will be the most difficult point to achieve with the United States,” Vincent said, because in the last 25 years, the United States has lost 173 of the 180 cases in which Chapter 19 was invoked. If this section of the agreement is not strengthened or at least maintained, he added, “NAFTA is not worth a lot to Canadians.”

However, Vincent pointed out that, despite the current administration’s objections, most Americans still share the same values as their northern neighbours. “We should not get misled with the Trump rhetoric,” he said. “I think we have to wait him out.”

In the opinion of panelist Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, Trump has a particular agenda when it comes to NAFTA.

“It’s really clear; he wants to make it really cheap to do business in the United States to encourage businesses around the world to relocate to the U.S.,” he said.

Lee added that there are many urban legends about international trade. “The common belief that trading leads to poverty,” he said, “is empirically inaccurate.”

“Trump has the tendency to view things from only one side, which is his own,” Mulcair added. “In international trade, you have to look at how it works both ways.”

According to the former NDP leader, the president’s rhetoric takes the focus off more serious issues, like improving the United States’ farm and food trade systems. Although the Canadian supply management system for poultry, dairy and eggs works well and “provides stability to our farming families,” Mulcair said, this kind of support for farmers “is severely lacking in the United States.”

Mulcair said he strongly believes that a failure to renegotiate NAFTA will have a negative impact on both Canadians and Americans. “There are things that can be an improvement to NAFTA. […] There’s a way to make it a better agreement. But the idea that the Americans would walk away from something that important for their own economy, I think that is really difficult to conceive of,” he said. “But you never know with Donald Trump.”

Photo by Mackenzie Lad

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De-stress yourself before you wreck yourself

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Concordia’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre co-hosts Self-Care Week

The Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) is hosting a Self-Care Week at Concordia in collaboration with the Centre for Gender Advocacy, Health Services, Counselling and Psychological Services and several other groups.

“We wanted to host a self-care week to provide opportunities for individuals in our community to de-stress, cope, break isolation and try out some new activities that might resonate with them,” said SARC coordinator Jennifer Drummond.

Until March 9, students can attend a variety of workshops and presentations focusing on self-care and wellbeing, exploring topics like mindfulness, stress management, herbalism, artistic expression and communication.

Self-care generally encompasses acts of love for one’s own physical, mental or emotional health. According to Drummond, self-care, at its core, is “an activity or practice that helps you de-stress, feel good or cope with life.” Essentially, it involves putting yourself first and making sure you are in a good place physically and mentally.

Many people tend to cope with stress, strong emotions or unwanted situations in negative ways. According to the Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of British Columbia, a negative coping strategy can be distinguished from a positive coping strategy by evaluating its effectiveness in both the short-term and long-term. Negative coping strategies tend to provide temporary stress relief, but may increase the amount of stress we experience in the long term. These often include activities that promote avoidance and distraction, such as procrastinating or relying on drugs and alcohol to escape stressful problems.

While negative coping strategies might help someone feel relaxed for a short period of time, true self-care promotes long-term physical and emotional health. This means using more positive coping techniques, like getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet and scheduling time for yourself.

Drummond said she hopes to increase student awareness of the services available at Concordia.

“There are a lot of great resources on campus,” she said. “We wanted to have diverse activities and workshops available during the week.”

Drummond said this week of events will give Concordia students a chance to take a break, have meaningful conversations and connect with others.

“Starting small is one way to implement something new into your regular routine, like trying a self-care practice that is short or easy to do, or even doing something once a week instead of feeling like you need to incorporate something every day,” she said. “Self care is whatever works for you.”

SELF-CARE WEEK SCHEDULE

(See Facebook event for details and RSVP info)

Tuesday, March 6

Guided Conversation

Multi-Faith & Spirituality Centre

2090 Mackay St.

2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

 

Beading Workshop

Aboriginal Student Resource Centre

Hall building, 6th floor, room 640

3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

 

Plant Sale

Concordia Greenhouse

Hall building, 13th floor

5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

 

Wednesday, March 7

Insomnia and Poor Sleep

Health Services, Counselling and Psychological Services

GM Building, 2nd floor, Room 200

12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

 

Indigenous Art Workshop

Centre for Gender Advocacy

Hall building, 6th floor, Room 640

2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

 

Thursday, March 8

Stress Management Workshop

Health Services

GM Building, 2nd floor, Room 200

1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

 

Herbalism and Stress Workshop

Blueberryjams

Hall building, 6th floor, Room 640

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

 

Friday, March 9

Mindfulness Workshop

Counselling and Psychological Services

Hall building, 6th floor, Room 640

2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

 

SELF-CARE TIPS FROM STUDENTS

“I journal a couple of times a week to check in on myself. That’s usually when I figure out what is bothering me and I make plans to improve my situation. It’s cleansing.” – Cynthia Larche

“I used to be bingeing stuff on Netflix, but since I switched into computer sciences, I started reading to relax. It feels much better, since I usually stare at a screen all day to work.” – Isaac Abramowitz

“Time managing your homework and work schedule so that there’s time where you can just relax, as opposed to being constantly busy.” – Salena Wiener

“When I know I’ve had a really tough day, before I go to bed, I just sit in bed cross-legged with a fuzzy blanket over my shoulders. I close my eyes and focus myself on what my senses are feeling. It’s basically a mindfulness technique that places me in the moment.” – Jonathan Roy

“Being a student, I really need something non school-related in my schedule! I signed up for intramurals as a way to make sure my brain would get a break every once in a while.” – Gabrielle Lametti

“Learning to not feel guilty about saying no to going out when you don’t want to. Learning to not feel guilty about eating St-Hubert on the couch and watching Netflix.” – Emma Loerick

“Meditating every single day.” – Anaïs Venegas-Grün

“Sad, angry, depressing music helps me deal with my emotions, as opposed to keeping them in.” – Edgar Jose Becerra Granados

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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News

Students discuss proposals for policy changes

Speakers discuss mandatory consent training at student congress. Photo by Mackenzie Lad
Article written by Matthew Coyte and Megan Hunt

Concordia students and department association representatives voiced their thoughts on potential sexual misconduct policy changes at a student congress hosted by the Concordia Student Union (CSU) on Feb. 28. At the end of the night, attendees voted on which demands would be included in a proposal the CSU will present to the university’s administration.

Following the congress, Leyla Sutherland, the CSU student life coordinator, said that despite the discussion not taking place in an official student union setting, the approved proposals will have a real impact and will be presented to the administration “very soon.”

“When the details are plugged into these proposals, they will be very effective ways of addressing and hopefully combating campus sexual violence,” Sutherland said. “I didn’t know what was going to come from [the congress]. I’m happy to have so many proposals to dig my teeth into.”

The congress took place in the downtown Webster Library lobby. The chairs that had been set up were quickly filled, and many attendees had to stand. Audience members candidly discussed their concerns about sexual misconduct at Concordia, as well as the administration’s response to the allegations plaguing the creative writing program.

A recurring concern was the lack of mandatory training on issues such as consent, power dynamics, sensitivity and disclosure. Although Concordia’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) offers consent workshops, students and staff are not required to attend. SARC did not have a representative at the congress.

Following a lengthy discussion, which saw the proposal go through multiple iterations, the congress attendees voted on a demand for the university to fully fund mandatory consent training for all students, staff and faculty within a reasonable time frame. The demand received unanimous approval from attendees, meaning it will be fully endorsed by the CSU and included in their proposal to the administration.

The congress attendees also voted to approve a demand for the university to accept all the policy recommendations made by Our Turn, an organization that works with student associations across Canada to prevent sexual violence. These recommendations include developing and adopting peer-to-peer sexual violence prevention and training. Another proposal included lifting the current rule that all applicants to the university’s Task Force on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence fulfill the vague requirement of “good academic standing.”

Concordia students gather to discuss policy changes at student congress. Photo by Mackenzie Lad

One of the many student associations present at the congress was the Concordia Association for Students in English (CASE).

“I think it was important for CASE to participate because, obviously, a lot of the attention has been surrounding cases that are specific to the English department, even though it’s happening in various places at Concordia,” said CASE president Debby Gemme. “This particular executive team is committed to helping fix these issues […] and I think this went really, really well.”

A Concordia student employed by the Montreal Sexual Assault Centre (MSAC) said they wanted to participate in the congress after receiving a spike in calls to the centre from Concordia students and others following the #MeToo movement.

“It has come to our attention that there’s a problem with the Concordia administration and how it addresses complaints,” said the student, who wished to remain anonymous. “I’m hoping that numbers have power, and it’s going to put enough pressure on the administration to give us more leeway or liberty in defining these new policies that work better to address students’ rights.”

The congress was attended by numerous student politicians, including councillors, Senate and executives members. Jonathan Roy, the president of the Arts and Science Federation Associations (ASFA), also attended the meeting. He said he is happy to be able to present these proposals to ASFA members, as well as to the Senate of which he is also a member.

“These are very acceptable, realistic requests. We want to feel safe in our own school; that’s not a wild thing to ask for,” Roy said. “We need to take action and hold the administration accountable.”

Despite the congress being open to faculty, only one professor showed up to voice her opinion. Kate Bligh is a part-time faculty member in the School of Irish Studies, as well as the theatre and English departments. She shared input that helped the congress shape their proposal, including insight that the university could not legally force part-time staff to undergo this training, as it would violate their contracts. All training at the part-time level would have to be voluntary. She also suggested the congress add these proposals under the health and safety regulations already in place, which the congress did.

Bligh said that, in her 20 years of teaching, she has never been called to attend any training like the kind the CSU is hoping to implement.

“The same way that we hold discrimination and violence to this standard, we have to do the same with sexual assault and violence,” Bligh said. “We need to decide what sort of culture our school should have.”

Photos by Mackenzie Lad

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News

Space Concordia fee-levy request denied

Space Concordia president Mark Snidal argued his group should receive a fee-levy during a CSU special council meeting on March 5. Photo by Étienne Lajoie

Space Concordia president Mark Snidal argued his group should receive a fee-levy during a CSU special council meeting on March 5. Photo by Étienne Lajoie

Group seeks approval to ask students for $0,16 per credit fee-levy; complaint policy questioned

Space Concordia president Mark Snidal went to the March 5 Concordia Student Union (CSU) special council meeting hoping council would approve asking the student body if they would accept a $0.16 per credit fee-levy for his organization, effective Summer 2018.

“Over time, our scope has expanded […] more recently we’ve started including projects from students outside the scope of engineering,” said Snidal when asked why he believed Space Concordia should be receiving money from Concordia’s student body through a fee-levy.

In addition to their skepticism about Space Concordia’s benefit to the entire student body—and, therefore, whether it merited a fee-levy—the union called into question the functioning of the organization’s proposed complaint policy, which would be implemented along with a fee-levy.

Snidal explained that a permanent committee for dispute resolutions would be formed in order to address complaints made by members “arising out of or related to the Constitution, or out of any aspect of the operations of the Association,” the constitution reads.

The committee, Snidal suggested, would be chaired by a Space Concordia executive. It would also consist of a temporarily appointed member from Space Concordia, as well as a member of the CSU council and two students at large.

Certain council members pointed out that a conflict of interest may arise if the organization names its own chair, and council member Rowan Gaudet said he’d never seen the CSU appoint someone to sit on a complaints board for a fee-levy group.

“I think that’s not really our place […] that’s not something the CSU is responsible for, and also the CSU can’t promise it will go well,” Gaudet said.

“I think it’s really important that the complaint process is done in a way that the people coming forward feel comfortable and safe, and not necessarily that they are going to be outed by a committee right away when the committee is being chosen,” added Sophie Hough-Martin, a council member who sits on the student union’s policy committee. Hough-

Martin also recommended the group include consent and sensitivity training for its members.

According to CSU council member Aliénor Lougerstay—who also works as Space Concordia’s vice-president for marketing—the organization only recently received feedback from the union about their constitution, which includes the complaint policy, despite having submitted the proposed constitution to the CSU policy committee in December.

Lougerstay said the original proposal for the committee for dispute resolutions was that it be internal. However, the CSU policy committee noted that, since a person might file a complaint against the Space Concordia executive body, it couldn’t be internal.

“We tried to figure out something, so that’s how we came up with the idea [of having a CSU member on the committee.],” Lougerstay said.

In the end, the CSU council voted in favour of referring Space Concordia’s fee-levy request—including the complaint policy—back to the student union policy committee for review.

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