Jon Paul Fiorentino and David McGimpsey named in third-party probe after sexual misconduct allegations
A labour lawyer hired by Concordia University to conduct a third-party investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct in the school’s creative writing program has received complaints against two Concordia part-time instructors, according to CBC News.
Jon Paul Fiorentino and David McGimpsey were both named by investigator Catherine Maheu as being the subjects of complaints. According to CBC News, Maheu was hired by the university earlier this year to probe allegations of widespread sexual misconduct and abuse of power in Concordia’s creative writing program. Her name had not yet been made public by the university.
CBC News obtained an audio recording in which Maheu outlines her role in the investigation. “What you need to understand is that what I am doing is complaint-driven,” she said in the recording, “which means that there are complaints that were filed against Dr. McGimpsey and Professor—or Mr.—Fiorentino.”
Although Fiorentino and McGimpsey were originally scheduled to teach this semester, their classes have been reassigned while the allegations against them are being investigated. Concordia president Alan Shepard told The Concordian on Feb. 15 that professors are not allowed to teach while they’re under investigation.
The complaints come after a wave of blog posts, articles, tweets and Facebook posts were written in January criticizing the culture in Concordia’s creative writing program and the broader Canadian literary community. Current and former students have criticized the university for not acting sooner on allegations of sexual misconduct.
In 2014, Concordia graduate Emma Healey published a personal essay in which she discussed an abusive relationship she had with one of her professors. Similar claims of sexual misconduct were also brought directly to the chair of the English department in February 2015, when six students wrote a formal complaint detailing the program’s toxic culture.
In January, former Concordia creative writing student Mike Spry created a blog called “Canlit Accountable” in which he recounted how Concordia students who wished to make a name for themselves in the Canadian literary scene were exploited by their professors. In the wake of his piece, current and former Concordia students have denounced abuses of power in the creative writing program and demanded the university address the issue of student-staff relationships.
The university responded by commissioning an independent investigator to look into the complaints against professors and announced a climate review to assess the culture of Concordia’s English department. Additionally, the university is putting together a task force to consult with members of the community and review Concordia’s current sexual misconduct policies.
On Feb. 28, Joyland, an online magazine that publishes short stories, announced on Facebook that it would be removing Fiorentino’s work from its website and would consider doing the same for McGimpsey.
“As writers, as women, as survivors, reading about the culture at Concordia has been heart-wrenching,” the post read. “But Joyland is a writing community, not an institution, and our strength is that we can listen to each other and change.”
Concordia refused to comment on the investigation into Fiorentino and McGimpsey.
Although the students—called fund managers—have control of the portfolio for the calendar year, there are measures in place to hold students and their investment decisions accountable. Each fund manager is responsible for a specific industrial sector, and they are tasked with all investments within that industry.
Reena Atanasiadis, the director of the KWPMP, described how various measures, such as setting guidelines and constraints, ensure the fund managers make investments based on ideals of sustainability while growing their discretionary portfolio.
Once every quarter (every three months), the fund managers must justify their decisions to a board of professionals who make up the program’s client committee. This committee ensures the managers are investing in a professional manner.
“That’s how it is in the industry,” Atanasiadis said. “It’s this way so that no mistakes are repeated […] We’re not just generating returns, but we’re also teaching responsible investing.”
Calvin Truchon, a current fund manager, said the pressure of managing such a large portfolio is a crucial factor for gaining the experience needed in the professional investment landscape.
“Pressure is somewhat spread out by the fact that we manage the fund as a cohesive team,” he said. “The best way to reduce stress is to work hard and try your absolute best. Whatever happens next is out of your control, and you need to be level-headed to adapt.”
According to Truchon, if a fund manager loses money on an investment in the KWPMP, there are no real consequences for a bad investment, “apart from feeling bad for yourself […] and getting grilled by the client committee.” The emphasis is on providing a learning experience for students.
To become a fund manager, students must spend a calendar year as a research associate at Concordia, which involves taking a six-credit applied investment course, as well as interacting with and learning from current fund managers.
The selection process is “extremely competitive,” Atanasiadis said, adding that, in any given year, there are between 50 and 100 applicants. To be selected, students must meet the program’s academic requirement of a 3.5 GPA upon application and maintain it throughout the program. Atanasiadis described the students who are eventually chosen as “desperately hungry” to join the world of investment.
“Their character is what’s important,” she said. “There are no guarantees. I’ve had to fire students. I’ve put students on probation. Nothing is just handed to them.”
The program was launched in 2000 after a $1-million donation was made by Concordia alumnus Kenneth Woods. Since then, 160 students have graduated from the KWPMP and become what the group calls Calvin Potter Fellows, named after a Concordia finance professor who served as the university’s department of finance chairman for many years.
Ivanna Biloshytska, a fund manager for the 2018 calendar year, said the team works together to decide which investments to keep from the previous year. The team is in constant communication about decisions involving the program and their investments. Before investing, they must prepare an intensive 20 to 40-page overview of the proposed investment. From there, the managers vote on whether or not to move forward with the investment.
“It helps you become well-rounded in the industry,” Biloshytska said. The program is also designed to offer the fund managers a large network if they ever need advice or help regarding their investments.
After graduating from the program, former fund managers usually choose to mentor and help guide the next generation of fund managers, according to Atanasiadis. She called the program a “family” and said fund managers, both past and present, have a genuine appreciation for the program.
Concordia president Alan Shepard sat down with The Concordian to discuss funding, pension plans and sexual misconduct allegations. Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
Alan Shepard says university often does not assign classes to staff under investigation
Concordia president Alan Shepard discussed public concerns about the investigation of the university’s creative writing program and the creation of the Task Force on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence in a press briefing on Feb. 15.
In early January, courses taught by two creative writing instructors, whose names have not been publicized, were reassigned after accusations of sexual abuse and misconduct within the program circulated on social media. Although these instructors have not been teaching since the investigation began, Shepard could not confirm whether they will be assigned any classes in the upcoming summer and fall semesters, citing legal reasons. However, he did mention the university’s typical response to staff investigations.
“In general terms, if someone’s not teaching because they’re under investigation, they typically wouldn’t return to teaching while they’re still under investigation,” Shepard said. “If somebody’s under investigation, then they’re under investigation, and we don’t mix and match.”
The president also clarified that the investigation is only reviewing the actions of certain instructors and concerns about the atmosphere in the English department, and not the university as a whole. However, he said the sexual misconduct task force, to be made up of both staff and students, will be reviewing policies that affect all faculties and departments.
“The task force is a general review of the policies and procedures, a kind of environmental scan,” Shepard said. “Whether there will be any other [department investigations] will be something we’ll determine after we have done the work of the task force.”
Bomb threat: One year later
Shepard praised the university’s response to the bomb threat made on March 1, 2017, when Islamophobic letters were sent to multiple media outlets, and three of Concordia’s downtown campus buildings were evacuated.
“The Concordia community handled that episode well, particularly our security services […] which is really important in that kind of civic emergency,” Shepard said.
Coming up on the one-year anniversary, the incident has recaptured the public’s attention with the trial of Hashim Saadi, a former Concordia doctorate student who was arrested in connection with the threat. Saadi’s trial is currently on hold while he undergoes a psychiatric evaluation.
Although the university reviewed its safety guidelines following the threat, it was decided there would be no policy changes.
“Whenever we have a major incident, we always do a so-called post-mortem,” Shepard said. “We felt like our policies and our practices work well, but it’s important to learn from every instance like this.”
Concordia is now subscribed to an emergency response app called Alertus, which immediately notifies app users about emergencies at the university.
“I have it on my phone, and I recommend everyone have it on their phone,” Shepard said. “In the event that we have some terrible thing unfolding, God forbid, we can send a message.”
Software engineering student launches survey to assess opting out process
When Jonathan Sugumar, a third-year software engineering student, submitted a message to be published on Spotted: Concordia, he was looking for a project that would engage his passion for user experience (UX) design, which focuses on improving the usability, accessibility and pleasure experienced when interacting with a product or service.
Spotted: Concordia, a Facebook page that allows Concordia students to submit posts that are then published anonymously by page administrators, published Sugumar’s submission on Feb. 12. The post asked if there was anything “annoying to deal with the way it is implemented currently” at Concordia.
“I wanted to see if there was anything that could be improved upon,” Sugumar said, referring to the various ways students interact with school administration and student groups on campus.
One of the most “liked” responses to the post suggested the levy fee opt-out process. This led Sugumar to launch an online survey on Feb. 18 seeking input from his peers on the “user experience” of opting out of levy fees at Concordia.
Although some levy fees are mandatory, such as those for faculty student associations, levy fees for student groups or activities are required, under item 17 of Concordia’s Policy on Student Associations and Groups, to have an opt-out mechanism administered by the group. Groups that are funded by a levy fee include the Centre for Gender Advocacy, the Sustainability Action Fund, the Concordia Greenhouse and The Concordian newspaper.
However, the policy document does not prescribe specific rules for how the mechanism should work. The current procedure most groups follow has long been a source of contention for some Concordia students. Students must bring their student I.D. card and student account record to a group’s office on campus during a specific period at the beginning of each semester. This period usually lasts one or two weeks, although each group sets its own time frame. The fee for each group is often less than a few dollars, and students must go to each individual group separately to be refunded.
Sugumar’s survey included questions about how often students opt out of levy fees, whether they would prefer an online opt-out system, and why students opt out of levy fees for certain groups and not others.
Based on the 110 responses Sugumar had received by Feb. 26, he said about 65 per cent of respondents said they don’t opt out because the process is too tedious, and 75 per cent said they would use an online system if it was available. Sixty per cent of respondents said factors that influence their decision to opt out include whether they agree with the group’s mandate, whether they think the group is transparent and how the group spends levy fee money.
In recent years, Spotted: Concordia has become a popular platform for students to criticize the levy fee system. The page has published more than 10 posts criticizing the system since the beginning of the 2017-18 academic year, with some sharing information on how to opt out. Sugumar said he had frequently seen people complain about these fees on the page prior to having his post published.
According to university spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr, the process for opting out is outside of the university’s jurisdiction and, therefore, the university could not comment on the difficulties students experience during the process.
Based on the survey responses, Sugumar said he believes the best way to proceed would be to create a central web page where students can not only opt out of any levy fees, but also read about each group’s mandate and how they spend their levy fee money.
For his part, Sugumar said he feels indifferent about the subject. “At the end of the day, I don’t mind giving a bit if it helps other people’s general student life,” he said.
Electroacoustics students create and collaborate together during a CLOrk performance. Photo by Candice Pye
A look at the Concordia Laptop Orchestra which is changing the way we think about electronic music
The trend of live electronic music has gained a lot of popularity over the last 10 years. DJs, composers and sound artists in general have taken sound and altered the world’s traditional perception of it completely.
Students and professors in the electroacoustic studies program at Concordia University have made a great impact in the sound art scene as well, creating and manipulating the auditory in classes like the one that serves as the home of the Concordia Laptop Orchestra, otherwise known as CLOrk.
The Concordia Laptop Orchestra—an orchestra composed of students creating and manipulating sound on their laptops—took off in January 2011 and has since evolved into a “democratic, experimental environment for realizing new ideas, new technologies, new performance and new communication practices,” according to Eldad Tsabary, the founder and director of CLOrk, who has been teaching electroacoustics at Concordia since 2005. Tsabary is now the coordinator for the program.
According to him, electroacoustic studies focuses on the creation, manipulation and perception of sound. It is not about using sound to produce music, but rather using sound as the music.
“The field of electroacoustics is fascinating to me because it is in constant and rapid flux,” said Tsabary. “It is a technology-dependent practice […] and it also transforms really fast artistically, where artists and researchers are constantly looking to update and innovate the modes of creation, mediation and collaboration.”
Tsabary’s role as a professor has focused on the development of aural training and live practices—both fascinating aspects of the field which have influenced his work with CLOrk.
Acting as an exercise in improvisation, collaboration and experimental sound, Tsabary uses CLOrk to provide students with the opportunity to collaborate and incorporate the work of other artists, such as musicians, dancers, poets, actors or singers, into their performance.
“The collaborator is often the ‘guest of honour,’ so to speak, serving as a shared focus of attention and direction,” Tsabary said. “While the orchestra focuses on a guide and follows their lead, the soloist is inevitably following the orchestra’s voice as well […] The result is really a conversation.”
At a CLOrk concert on Feb. 8, one of the guests of honour was local performer Édward Fuller. He stood in the centre of the room at a microphone, with no shoes on, surrounded by approximately 25 laptop orchestra members. He spoke in improvised, poetic, sometimes broken sentences, guiding and being guided by the orchestra’s sounds.
At the front of the room during their performance, an online chat screen was projected, featuring real-time conversation between each of the laptop orchestra performers, as well as between the performers and the audience.
“When I felt that the orchestra had developed the ability to listen and support a synergistic performance, we added online chat,” Tsabary said. “It provides us versatility, real-time musical discussion and quick, collective troubleshooting when something does not work well. Adding the audience into the conversation is fun, and it breaks down the traditional distance between audience and performer.”
While the performances are often entirely improvised, each class leading up to a concert acts as a rehearsal. In these classes, students meet with Tsabary to discuss and improvise, deciding what works and what does not. According to Tsabary, there is a great deal of preparation that goes into a laptop orchestra concert.
“There are technical preparations to make and strategies to develop, like good communications and musical flow. In the first week of the semester, we did not use any mediation means, but simply played, listened to each other, discussed, raised problems, proposed solutions, tried them out and continued to do so in an iterative manner,” he said.
Édward Fuller improvises spoken word at the Concordia Laptop Orchestra’s latest concert. Photo by Candice Pye
Tsabary said that while there is never really a specific goal or plan going into one of the concerts, his ideal CLOrk experience consists simply of a “well-balanced collective creation.” Ultimately, he said his wish is for a seamless group experience where each student feels they have contributed equally and is satisfied with the role they played in the process.
One of Tsabary’s electroacoustics studies students, Kasey Pocius, participates in CLOrk rehearsals and concerts regularly. They said that while the program does provide experience with live performance, improvising and working in large groups is not explored outside of CLOrk.
“I personally find CLOrk works quite well as a continuation of the work covered in the ear training classes, as attentive listening is incredibly important in the laptop orchestra context,” Pocius said.
According to them, the grading system for the Concordia Laptop Orchestra class is very unique, as the students are solely evaluated on their attendance. Pocius said the improvisatory nature of CLOrk does not lend itself to a more traditional grading system, so it is difficult to prevent students from taking the course just to receive an “easy A.”
Nonetheless, they are happy with how the last concert went. Tsabary has had a positive influence on the program overall, according to Pocius.
“He continues to push research in terms of ear training software and practice,” they said. “In the more discussion-based courses I have had with Eldad, he always tries to foster a good environment for discussion.”
While electroacoustics students have learned a lot from Tsabary, he said he has also learned a lot from his students. As a composer himself, Tsabary has noticed his own compositional practice mixing into the laptop orchestra.
“I find it way more exhilarating to create within the group setting than to compose individually,” he said. “It is a lot of fun to allow your ideas to interact and cross-fertilize with others’ ideas and to witness how a collective imagination realizes in a cohesive orchestra performance. To me, it is a next-level type of creation, where ownership is given away in exchange for individual growth.”
Montreal announces additional consultation for Age-Friendly Cities initiative
When Montreal mayor Valérie Plante’s administration announced they wanted input from older citizens about how to make the city a more age-friendly place, they did so in a way that excluded the most vulnerable seniors, according to two Concordia researchers.
This month the city of Montreal organized four senior consultation sessions to gather information about how to better address the needs of older citizens. Seniors who could not attend the sessions were directed to an online poll on the city’s website.
On Feb. 7, Kim Sawchuk, the director of Ageing, Communication, Technologies (ACT) at Concordia, and Shannon Hebblethwaite, the director of the engAGE centre for research on aging, sent an open letter to Plante criticizing the consultation process.
Sawchuk and Hebblethwaite wrote that they were pleased the city was developing an action plan to better the lives of Montreal seniors, but said they were worried the consultations excluded the people whose voices needed to be heard the most.
In an interview with The Concordian, Hebblethwaite said older seniors, especially those with reduced mobility, would have trouble attending the sessions. An online survey was no solution, she added, claiming 58 per cent of seniors over the age of 75 do not use the internet. She also expressed concern that the consultations excluded anglophones because there was no consultation scheduled in the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (CDN-NDG) borough, where many of the city’s English-speaking seniors live.
“If you don’t design an age-friendly consultation process, how can we trust you to design an age-friendly city?” she asked.
According to Hebblethwaite, since she and Sawchuk sent their open letter, the city has responded to some of their concerns. A consultation session was added for Feb. 26 in the CDN-NDG borough, and a bilingual phone line has been set up for seniors to call if they have questions about the consultation process.
Nonetheless, Hebblethwaite said she is worried. Winter in Montreal brings icy sidewalks and snowy cobblestones—obstacles that can be difficult for seniors to navigate, especially those with mobility issues.
“Holding those consultations in February makes it dangerous if not impossible for seniors to attend those sessions,” she said. “We want the city to extend the consultations for a month or two into the spring.”
Hebblethwaite noted that in other cities such as Vancouver and Toronto, paper surveys were posted in public places, like churches and community centres, for seniors to fill out.
The Montreal consultations are part of the Age-Friendly Cities initiative, which began as a call from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007 for municipalities around the world to develop plans to address problems that affect seniors.
The city of Montreal estimates that people aged 65 and over account for 17 per cent of the city’s population and that figure will rise to 21 per cent by 2036.
Social isolation among seniors is one of the major issues Montreal will try to tackle. In 2016, the Canadian government reported that social isolation is linked to a significantly increased risk of depression and dementia. Hebblethwaite added that language barriers can contribute to feelings of social isolation. For example, English-speaking seniors in Montreal are more likely to be socially isolated than their French counterparts.
“A lot of older, English-speaking seniors came to this province before the language laws, and their children may have left Quebec,” she said. “They don’t have the same family or social networks [as French-speaking seniors].”
Concordia student Neveatha Selvarajah explores Montreal's black history. Photo by Alex Hutchins.
Concordia course explores the history of the Negro Community Centre
Last year, Concordia history students who were enrolled in a course titled “Telling Stories” sifted through archives collected from the Negro Community Centre (NCC) for the first time.
“We asked ourselves: ‘What’s in the boxes, and how can we return those stories to the community?” said Steven High, the Concordia history professor in charge of the course. High is also a founding member of the university’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, which offered support and resources to the students for this project.
The students detailed what they found in research papers that were showcased at the public launch of the NCC Archive at the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Liberty Hall in Little Burgundy on April 11, 2017. A year later, new students enrolled in the course continue to explore the history of what was once a cultural and recreational hub for Montreal’s black community.
“The NCC was an important hub in that community from 1927 to 1992,” said High, whose essay “Remembering the Negro Community Centre” was published in the winter 2018 issue of Quebec Heritage News. After the centre closed its doors in 1992, “it was abandoned until five or six years later, when the NCC invited Concordia to go in and save all of these records,” High recounted. “They saved about 100 boxes of material.” The building that used to house the NCC was demolished in 2014.
It is the material from these 100 boxes that Concordia students like Neveatha Selvarajah continue to explore.
“We wanted to understand various social spaces that aid the development of children within the Little Burgundy region,” she said. In addition to the NCC archives, Selvarajah went through online databases documenting the history of childhood spaces for the project. “We interviewed Patrick Thornhill, a lifetime member of the Union United Church on Delisle Street. He explained his experience within the church and within the NCC helped him cope with racism throughout his life,” she said.
Selvarajah said she hopes to open up an online network to continue sharing the stories of the NCC and exploring the Little Burgundy community beyond the classroom setting. “My goal is to work with Little Burgundy when I do my master’s,” she said. “I hope to be able to do a public history through a website and have my thesis as a website.”
Kelann Currie-Williams, a fourth-year communication studies student, was also among the students enrolled in last semester’s edition of “Telling Stories.” She said the research and community work she did through the course did not fulfill all of her wishes to give back to the Little Burgundy community and the larger Montreal black community. In Currie-Williams’s opinion, so much more needs to be done in terms of networking and helping black community centres thrive in Montreal.
“The network needs to be strengthened between all of us,” she said. Currie-Williams’s goal is to create a network of various black community centres in Montreal in the hopes of developing a space similar to the NCC, but that focuses on teaching the long-standing history of blackness in Canada.
“My envisioning would be to see all of these communities working together in such a seamless way. I see that being the future,” she said, adding that she hopes to initiate this project with High during her graduate studies.
“I think Black History Month is really important because it shines a spotlight onto that history, but it should not be limited to February,” High said. “We should be doing it year-round. Montreal’s Black History has been overlooked, and it’s a rich history. When you study Little Burgundy, it’s connected to Harlem, Detroit and global decolonization movements. It’s amazing how interconnected the black diaspora is.”
Feminist radio show surveys men for episode on mental health and toxic masculinity
When CJLO’s Women’s+ Collective decided to put together an episode on toxic masculinity and mental health for their bi-weekly radio show, Femme AM, they knew they needed to include men’s voices.
Recognizing that people may be wary of speaking on-air about their mental health struggles, Lily Roy, a Women’s+ Collective volunteer, thought the best option would be to set up suggestion boxes at five locations around the Loyola campus. The boxes were set up from Jan. 21 to Feb. 8, allowing men and male-identifying people to leave an anonymous written comment.
“You could say whatever you wanted; just let it out,” Roy said.
Along with each suggestion box was a poster asking men and male-identifying people if they thought there were adequate services available in the community for men who face harassment and abuse. It also asked how they deal with negative emotions such as anger, sadness and stress. The results were discussed during the Feb. 8 episode of Femme AM.
Toxic masculinity is a loosely defined term, something Roy and her co-hosts, Sophia Hirst Barsoski, Cassie Doubleday and Megan Flottorp, acknowledged at the beginning of the episode.
They noted that academic studies use the term “hegemonic masculinity” instead, something Marc Lafrance, a professor from Concordia’s department of sociology and anthropology, concurs with.
“I tend to go with ‘hegemonic masculinity’ when I’m in an academic context,” he said, adding that the term “toxic masculinity” was constructed largely through popular media.
Lafrance pointed out that hegemony still means power and dominance, and in this context, refers to the idea that certain traits typically associated with men, such as emotional stoicism and a desire to dominate, when exhibited at an extreme level, can lead to violent consequences for those around them and mental health issues for the men themselves.
Femme AM’s suggestion boxes yielded six responses, which Roy said was more than she expected.
Two responses described the triage system at Concordia’s mental health services as inadequate, suggesting an overall lack of mental health resources for Concordia students. Another agreed that there is an expectation for men not to show emotional vulnerability or talk about their feelings.
One response claimed a prevailing narrative that cisgender, heterosexual men aren’t affected by social inequality can lead them to disregard their own feelings and develop mental illnesses.
Roy said this was the most difficult response for her to read. “The goal of social justice, for me, was never to take away someone’s voice. It was just to give voices to other people,” she said during the episode.
According to Roy, the suggestion box project was intended to be a conciliatory gesture towards men who think feminism is anti-men or that it obscures important men’s issues.
“We’re pretty unanimous here at Femme AM that feminism is for everyone and that it benefits everyone,” Roy said. “I think the idea of ‘us versus them’ is foolish.”
Allison O’Reilly, the co-founder of the Women’s+ Collective, said they remain primarily focused on the goal of increasing the involvement of self-identifying women and other gender minorities in community radio.
“Most of our discussions will be about women and gender minorities,” O’Reilly said.
The Women’s+ Collective will be holding an informational meet-and-greet on Feb. 26 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Concordia Student Union’s downtown office in H-711.
The Green Party of Quebec is looking to make catcalling a ticketable offence
At 9 a.m. on a winter morning, Sarah Shaw left her apartment wearing a long coat and scarf—neither of which revealed her skin or figure. She walked down the street, and as a group of four men passed by, they began making remarks.
“Hey sexy,” one of them said. Shaw ignored him, but the tallest of the men tried to corner her against a wall. She managed to walk away, but the same man called back to her: “You stupid bitch, you think you’re so much better than me. You don’t even have an ass anyway.”
“I remember it so clearly, because it was so horrifying,” said Shaw, a fine arts student at Concordia. “Men think you owe them attention.”
Like many people who identify women, Shaw is accustomed to this type of commentary known as “catcalling.” It usually involves yelling sexual or derogatory comments at women in a public setting. Based on her experiences, Shaw said this behaviour is prevalent both in Montreal and her small suburban hometown in the United States.
“I just listen to music,” she said. “Part of it is for me, so I don’t have to hear [the catcalling]—but also so I don’t have to deal with it.”
Shaw said catcalling is not only disrespectful, gross and irritating; it’s scary, too. “You don’t know if these people are going to grab you.”
***
Catcalling is currently legal in Quebec. However, the province’s Green Party wants to change that. Last month, the party announced on social media their desire to make catcalling a ticketable offence. Such legislation would allow a police officer to issue a ticket to someone who is caught or reported to have been yelling derogatory, sexual and other verbal harassments on the street.
The Green Party of Quebec’s post on social media was a way of gaging public opinion and hearing different perspectives, since the proposal is in its early stages. According to the party’s leader, Alex Tyrrell, making catcalling illegal would not require modifying the Criminal Code. Instead, it would be a non-criminal infraction with a fine that would increase for repeat offenders, similar to jaywalking.
“Although the Criminal Code can address intense situations of criminal harassment, it’s not very well equipped to deal with the everyday situations,” Tyrrell said, adding that it is a challenge to reprimand a catcalling perpetrator in criminal court. “We’re trying to address it at a lower level.”
According to Tyrrell, a law against catcalling would be easier to enforce as its own infraction, rather than falling under the scope of criminal harassment. “More people would be sanctioned for their inappropriate behaviour, but it wouldn’t be tying up the court system […] with a whole bunch of criminal trials,” he said. Additionally, people would be less likely to contest fines if they were not considered criminal offences, Tyrrell added.
While the law would not ensure every catcaller is caught, Tyrrell said he is confident that giving police officers the ability to ticket the incidents they witness would help. “There’s an increased chance that people who are frequently engaging in this kind of behaviour will be sanctioned,” he said.
On Tyrrell’s personal Facebook page, where the idea for the legislation was first publicized, some users posted comments questioning the likelihood that the law could pass. Others said the focus should be on educating the public about why catcalling is wrong and encouraged women to stand up to catcallers.
“It’s not reasonable to expect people to confront their aggressors. Why does the burden fall on the victim?” Tyrrell said in response to such comments. “It’s really up to the police to enforce the laws, to sanction this kind of inappropriate behaviour. It’s really kind of strange how people put the responsibility back on the victim so quickly in certain cases.”
There are also concerns this legislation could infringe on Canadian free speech laws, and tickets for catcalling might be contested on these grounds. “They have the right to argue these points in front of a judge,” Tyrrell said. However, he added that if catcalling were considered hate speech, it would not be tolerated in Canada. “If someone was systematically yelling racial slurs at minority groups and encouraging others to do the same, it could be counted as hate speech. The same should apply to people who systematically catcall women because of their gender,” he argued.
In addition to objectifying women based on their gender, catcalling can be racialized as well—something Dina El Sabbagh is quite familiar with. “I feel, often, a catcall will linger when they recognize features in my face, hair and skin,” said the Concordia studio arts student. “Objectifying minorities sheds a different light on the issue of catcalling.”
According to El Sabbagh, men who catcall her often ask where she is from and attempt to speak the language they associate with her appearance. She said this behaviour fetishizes her race and reduces her identity to the desires of the perpetrator. “Object and use of object, ultimately, is what is at the root of catcalling.” France is the most recent nation to discuss making catcalling illegal, in a proposal put forward to the government in October 2017. Before it can be sent to Parliament to be voted on, however, the proposal needs to be approved by France’s minister of justice, the secretary of state for equality and the minister of the interior. The law would impose a fine on anyone caught making loud, crude comments about a woman’s appearance or body.
According to Marie Balaguy, the political organizer for the Green Party of Quebec, if catcalling were considered an offence, it would make this type of behaviour officially inappropriate. Even if the law is difficult to enforce, she said, it would make people think twice about catcalling.
“I don’t think people realize how much they’re affected by what is declared legal and what is declared illegal,” Balaguy said. Not only does she think a law would change how people view catcalling, but Balaguy said making it a ticketable offence would be a tool of empowerment for women.
Teague O’Meara, a Concordia student in women’s studies, said she vividly remembers the first time she was catcalled. She was about 11 or 12, and ran home in fear of being physically harmed. At the time, O’Meara didn’t know what catcalling was, how to handle the situation or what to expect from the perpetrator.
“I started to get used to it,” she said. “When you get used to it, you’re less likely to comment.” O’Meara added that, when she does speak up against a catcall, she is often harassed even more and called a bitch.
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Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
There hasn’t been a single night when Danielle Gasher, a Concordia journalism student, wasn’t catcalled as she walked home from her bartending job in the Plateau at 4 a.m. Whether it’s small remarks or more derogatory, sexual comments, she describes catcalling as “a microaggression and a violation of space.”
When she first had to deal with catcalling, Gasher said she felt timid, scared and would try to ignore the comments. Now, she describes herself as more confident and assertive towards catcallers. This behaviour also angers her much more now, which has lead to potentially dangerous situations.
Gasher’s most recent encounter took place last weekend, while she was walking home from work with a female co-worker along St-Laurent Boulevard around 4:30 a.m. “A car with four men stopped, and one of them rolled down his window to try to pick us up,” Gasher said. “I lost it. I started yelling at him, screaming, ‘Don’t talk to me’ and insulting him.”
“I wanted to humiliate him in front of his friends the same way I have felt violated and humiliated over and over again for years,” she said. The car came to a halt further up the street, Gasher recounted, and the men continued to insult the women and threatened to beat them up. “Luckily, it didn’t happen,” Gasher said. “The streets were empty so, when I think back on it, it probably wasn’t a good idea.”
Gasher said her male co-workers don’t understand what catcalling is like when they tell her to just ignore the behaviour. “They have never been in that position of objectification—the constant male gaze,” she said. “It’s socially accepted harassment, [and] if we keep normalizing it, it’s never going to go away.”
Gasher said that, while she is unsure “throwing a ticket at the problem” will reduce catcalling entirely, she supports the legislation’s attempt to legitimize the behaviour as a inappropriate.
According to Tyrrell, this legislation would be just one component of the Green Party of Quebec’s effort to tackle the province’s rape culture.
“If the Green Party was running the province, there would be a number of initiatives that would be in place,” he said. Among these initiatives would be the implementation of public awareness campaigns about sexual assault, harassment, rape culture and catcalling, as well as improved sexual education in elementary schools.
Balaguy added that a law prohibiting catcalling is a short-term solution. “In an ideal world, that law would become obsolete because catcalling would just not be a thing anymore,” she said. In order to achieve this reality, Balaguy said, a long-term public education plan is necessary to reshape society’s perception of catcalling.
Despite the activist party’s attempt to make the condemnation of catcalling commonplace, Tyrrell said they are “operating in very difficult circumstances,” in reference to a male-dominated provincial government. Out of 125 members in Quebec’s National Assembly, only 37 are women, or just under 30 per cent, according to the National Assembly of Quebec’s official website. In comparison, more than 50 per cent of the Quebec population in female.
However, Tyrrell noted that, since the 2017 municipal elections, there are now many more women holding mayoral positions in Montreal (seven of the 18).
“Maybe they would be interested in adopting [this legislation] at the municipal level,” he said.
The Green Party currently does not hold any seats in the National Assembly. “If we don’t win the election, then we’ll try to pressure other parties to follow,” Tyrrell said, referring the upcoming Oct. 1 provincial election. “Hopefully it will be picked up by progressive parties,” Balaguy added.
According to Tyrrell, the party will be running a series of six consultations in the coming weeks with current party members to determine and finalize the party’s official platform. Catcalling will be among the social justice topics discussed, and the party will release a finalized platform in May, Tyrrell said. “So far, the response to this proposition has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Hisham Saadi was on a drug known to cause psychotic behaviour at the time
The trial of Hisham Saadi, the man who sent letters threatening to detonate bombs at Concordia’s downtown campus last March, was put on hold last week so he can undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he will be held criminally responsible. His trial is expected to resume in March.
On Feb. 6, Saadi, a former Concordia doctoral candidate, told the court he had a difficult microeconomics exam the afternoon the threats were sent, and for several days prior, he had been taking three times the recommended dose of his antipsychotic and antidepressant medications.
He told the court he had also been taking a drug called Strattera at the time of the bomb threats, despite not having a prescription for it. Strattera is commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Saadi said he used the drug as a stimulant, taking it whenever he needed a concentration boost. On the day the threats were made, he said he took two Strattera pills. At the time of his arrest, Saadi did not tell the police he was taking the drug.
In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a report analyzing the effects of drugs used to treat ADHD. The report concluded that taking Strattera significantly increases the likelihood of patients having suicidal thoughts or psychotic episodes.
According to the report, “some patients, including some with no identifiable risk factors, can develop drug-related signs or symptoms of psychosis or mania, such as hallucinations, at usual doses of these drugs.”
Saadi told the court he had been having suicidal thoughts the week of the incident, because his psychiatrist denied him medical permission to delay his exams. He has been taking psychiatric medications since May 2015, when he dropped out of his doctoral program because of a nervous breakdown.
On March 1, 2017, the day of his exam, Saadi sent emails to dozens of media outlets threatening to detonate “small artisanal amateur explosive devices […] where Moslems [sic] hang out.” He has been charged with mischief, uttering threats and inciting fear of a terrorist attack.
Saadi’s lawyer, Caroline Braun, argued that Saadi was mistreated by police the night of his arrest on March 1, 2017. She stated that Saadi’s interrogation by police was illegal because he was denied his medication and proper clothing.
Saadi was arrested wearing boxer shorts and Crocs. Police gave him a white jumpsuit that didn’t fit properly, leaving his stomach and underwear exposed. It was his only piece of clothing until police gave Saadi a bag of his own clothes about halfway through his three-hour police interrogation. The defence argued that Saadi should have been given clothes and access to his medication before being questioned by detectives. Despite this, evidence against Saadi was ruled admissible by the judge, who agreed with prosecutor François Allard’s insistence that Saadi appeared conscious and was able to freely respond to the investigators’ questions throughout the interview on the night of his arrest.
Saadi told the court that watching the video of his three-hour police interrogation was like watching a movie. Throughout the interrogation, Saadi denied sending the threatening emails, a charge he has since admitted to. He testified that he didn’t know why he lied to detectives.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “It’s not me talking. I seem normal, but it’s not me.”
Drafts of the threatening letters were recovered from Saadi’s laptop. An analysis of his search history revealed that, in the early hours of the morning on March 1, Saadi searched and modified images that were featured in the letters and researched dozens of media contact e-mail addresses to which the letters were later sent.
Saadi’s Google account was also linked to ccc.concordia@gmail.com, the email address from which the threatening letter were sent. CCC stands for Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada, the group referenced in the bomb threat letters. Although no group with this name exists, a similarly named group, the Council of Conservative Citizens, is an American white supremacist organization.
Just before 10 a.m. on March 1, the time when the letters were sent, Saadi was using his laptop at the Tim Hortons on Guy Street, next to Concordia’s downtown campus. In the moments after the letter was sent, he searched “can the university track an email.”
The Hall, EV and GM buildings were evacuated because of the threats and classes were cancelled during the day on March 1, including Saadi’s microeconomics class. A search of Concordia University and Saadi’s apartment found no evidence of explosives.
After his arrest, Saadi spent time at a psychiatric hospital. He told the court he feels better now and that his medication doses have been increased.
Mathusha Thurairajasingam is the creator of BeautyByMathu makeup tutorials on Instagram and YouTube. Photos by Pamela Pagano.
Makeup artist Mathusha Thurairajasingam created her own beauty social media account, BeautyByMathu
“The pros of being a full-time student and having an active social media account is that I’m capable of working on both my passions at once,” said Mathusha Thurairajasingam, a second-year Concordia finance student who is better known as BeautyByMathu to her more than 46,000 Instagram followers.
Surprisingly, Mathusha used to hate makeup. “I was more into sportive activities, such as basketball, badminton and volleyball,” she said with a laugh. However, her perspective on makeup changed when she started college. Since she could no longer attend the gym on a regular basis, she discovered her “fashion senses.”
In 2014, Mathusha’s two sisters encouraged her to create an Instagram page after she began applying full face makeup for fun. “At the John Molson School of Business, I took a marketing class which changed my perception of social media,” she said. “I learned all the key components to be successful as a brand.”
That marketing course encouraged Mathusha to set goals for her Instagram page, such as posting good content and spreading positivity online. This resulted in BeautyByMathu getting reposted by famous cosmetic brands, like Anastasia Beverly Hills, Smashbox Studios and NYX Cosmetics. Mathusha was also featured in online magazines, like Elle and Infleur.
Mathusha said her Sri Lankan-Canadian ethnicity is part of what makes BeautyByMathu unique. Photos courtesy of Mathusha Thurairajasingam.
“People and brands are interested to view my work, since there aren’t many beauty bloggers of my Sri Lankan-Canadian ethnicity,” she said. “I use this platform to not only teach about makeup, but to make people believe in themselves.”
Mathusha’s goal is to start her own makeup brand. It’s why she chose to study finance. “I will need to understand the basis of how to manage my budgets, costs and future plans,” she explained.
Though Concordia’s finance program provides Mathusha with the education she needs to reach her goal, taking four classes and running her Instagram page can be stressful at times.
“It can be overwhelming when you know that your followers want to see more posts from you, but you can’t post because of exams or projects,” she said. “During exams, I feel like I have the need to post for my followers, but at the same time, I have the need to pass my courses with good grades.”
In order to balance school and her makeup tutorials, Mathusha dedicates one day per week to filming and creating content. She also separates a full makeup look into three posts: an eye tutorial, a face tutorial and one photo of the final result.
“[The three posts] give focus to the audience,” Mathusha said. “I want them to know how to do and attempt the look.”
She also posts tutorials on her BeautyByMathu YouTube account, although she prefers Instagram. “I still have some experimenting to do [with YouTube] which I am planning on expanding this year,” Mathusha said.
Ashley Luthawan, also a second-year Concordia finance student and one of Mathusha’s good friends, said she believes Mathusha is great at balancing school and social media. “I’m so proud to see how her content is growing successfully,” Luthawan said. “She’s very talented, and it shows through her videos.”
Some examples of one of Mathusha’s makeup looks. Photos courtesy of Mathusha Thurairajasingam.
According to Mathusha, striking a balance between her schoolwork and makeup tutorials actually helps her relieve stress. “Sometimes I just need a break from studying, so this helps me balance both,” she said. “It’s good to take a breather […] That motivates you to study later.”
Mathusha’s Instagram page, however, is about more than just exploring her passion and bringing balance to her academic life. It’s about educating and helping her followers accept themselves for who they are. “When you believe in yourself, you are capable of doing more than you expect,” she said. “Education is important […] but if you have a passion for something, you should always dedicate time for it because time is running, and you don’t want to waste it.”
During your study breaks, you can check out Mathusha’s weekly posts by following @BeautyByMathu on Instagram.
Concordia’s decision fulfills only one of the union’s requests for more transparency
The Concordia Student Union (CSU) will take over the process of recruiting undergraduate students for the new university task force on sexual misconduct and sexual violence, announced Graham Carr, the university’s provost and vice-president of academic affairs, on Feb. 2.
This decision comes one day after the student union held a press conference outlining their opposition to multiple procedures regarding the nomination process for the two undergraduate spots available on the task force.
The controversy began on Jan. 26, when Concordia president Alan Shepard released a statement outlining steps the university would be taking in the wake of allegations of sexual violence and misconduct against multiple faculty members in the creative writing program.
One of the steps was the creation of a task force that would review current policies and processes, as well as Bill 151, a piece of Quebec legislation requiring universities to take certain steps to address and prevent sexual violence.
It was later announced that four students (two graduate and two undergraduate) would be appointed to the task force. Despite claiming the university was looking for “a diverse group from across the university,” the call for applications specified that undergraduate applicants must have completed at least 30 credits and be in “good academic standing.”
On Feb. 1, the CSU held a press conference in their office on the seventh floor of the Hall building. During the conference, CSU student life coordinator Leyla Sutherland read from the union’s press release, claiming the task force procedures violated Quebec law by recruiting undergraduate students without the CSU’s involvement. She cited the “Act respecting the accreditation and financing of students’ associations,” a piece of provincial legislation that specifies student associations, such as the CSU, “may, alone, appoint students who […] are called upon to sit or participate as student representatives on various councils, committees or other bodies in the institution.”
“Beyond the cited legal concerns, this indifference in proper student representation shown by the university goes against both the spirit and letter of Bill 151,” said Sutherland. “It is imperative for students, and only students, to have a say as to who represents them.”
The press release also outlined a number of requests, including doubling the number of undergraduate students on the task force and ensuring representation from all faculties. Another request also asked that the requirement of good academic standing be removed.
Sophia Sahrane, the research and education coordinator for the student advocacy organization Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ), also spoke out against the task force’s academic requirements at the press conference.
“[The academic requirements] demonstrate a deep lack of both understanding and compassion for the reality of living through the trauma of sexual assault and having to become a survivor,” Sahrane said. “How do you maintain a good academic standing when you have just been sexually assaulted? When you have had your agency taken away from you […] when your abuser is your professor?”
Also present at the press conference was Caitlin Salvino, the chair of the Our Turn committee, a student-led initiative aimed at ending campus sexual violence. Salvino claimed it is not uncommon for universities to exclude student unions and the students they represent when addressing sexual violence.
“Students and student unions across the country have been locked out of task forces, committees and being able to advocate for policies that are actually survivor-centric,” Salvino said.
On Feb. 2, another email related to the task force was circulated to all students. In this email, Carr wrote that the university had decided to allow the CSU to oversee the recruitment process of undergraduate task force members. The same day, university spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr told The Concordian the university would accede to the CSU executive request “because [its] overriding goal is to finalize, as soon as possible, the membership of the task force so it can begin to work.”
Sutherland pointed out that, while the university’s quick response to co-operate is a positive sign, the university has not met the union’s additional demands.
“We are very glad that the university is handing this process over to us as we have been requesting,” Sutherland said. “It is absolutely essential that student representatives be chosen by students and not by the administration, which presents a clear conflict of interest […] We will continue to advocate for four undergraduate students and the removal of the good academic standing criteria.”
