The Tribune Vol. 45, Issue 7

Mairin Burke Managing Editor

Asea of demonstrators in red, white, black, and green chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” at the Montreal student rally for Palestine on Oct. 7. Commencing outside of Concordia University’s

The Tribune Editorial Board

On Oct. 1, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Board of Directors (BoD) abruptly dismantled the student-run food accessibility collective known as Midnight Kitchen (MK), firing its staff and locking the doors to its kitchen space without any prior warning.

SSMU’s executive termination of Midnight Kitchen betrays the fundamental duty of a student union to serve and uplift its student body. SSMU’s decision to close MK— without proper consultation with the kitchen collective beforehand—demonstrates an ignorance of the practical specificity of MK’s

Henry F. Hall Building at 1:00 p.m., thousands of university and CEGEP students and faculty, as well as broader Montreal community members, gathered to protest two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Despite the pouring rain, attendees also showed up to support the day’s Montreal-wide student strikes for academic divestment from the genocide, which applied to over 80,000 students. Chapters of Students for Palestine’s Hon-

work, and an exploitation of inconsistent and selective information to sensationalise the circumstances surrounding MK’s dismantlement.

MK is a non-profit, volunteer-run collective with the core mission of providing affordable, healthy, nut-free and vegan food to McGill students and the surrounding community. MK’s programs include educational workshops on food prep and food politics, free lunches, and solidarity servings.

The discrepancies between the BoD’s rationale for shutting down MK and the nuanced realities underlying these accusations lay bare SSMU’s disregard for clear and respectful communication with its student organizations.

Rachel Blackstone Staff Writer

our and Resistance across Montreal’s post-secondary institutions organized both the strikes and rally.

Surrounded by Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officers in riot gear—approximately 40 of whom were stationed in lines barricading access to the temporarily-closed Hall Building—attendees cried out chants for Palestine and for divestment.

ith reading week behind us, preparing for midterms is almost as unappealing as completing them. For some, building healthy and fruitful study habits feels like an impossible feat. If you’ve been spending more time researching optimal study tips than reviewing your actual class content, fret no longer. The Tribune has composed a midterm survival guide.

Ditch the library and try a cafe Montreal is home to a fantastic cafe culture; use your mountain of deadlines as an excuse to try out some of Montreal’s vibrant options. Bring a fellow struggling classmate, treat yourself to a delicious drink, and savour the last whispers of terrace season as you study. If you are avoiding libraries, but still craving a close to campus late-night study session, check out the Second Cup on St. Laurent. Located at the intersection of rue St. Laurent and avenue du Parc, Second Cup is open until 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, and 12:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Thousands fight for Palestine during Oct. 7 student rally and strikes for divestment

Demonstrations illustrate city-wide solidarity against genocide

Mairin Burke Managing Editor

Continued from page 1.

Contingents of students from different universities and CEGEPs, including McGill, Concordia, Cégep de Saint-Laurent, Université de Montréal, and Université du Québec à Montréal, continued arriving to the intersection of rue Mackay and boul. De Maisonneuve Ouest.

Associate Professor of McGill’s Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Daniel Schwartz addressed the growing crowd, affirming that the movement for Palestinian liberation is an ongoing, universal fight.

“A lot of people ask me how I, as a Jew, can make this sort of speech on Octo -

ber 7,” he stated. “And I say to them, as so many of you have said, that this genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians did not start on October 7. I say to them that any day of the year is a good day to commemorate the Palestinian struggle.”

Schwartz continued his speech by applauding the Montreal student collective’s solidarity with Palestine.

“I am proud to stand here with students representing all the universities and CEGEPS in Montreal, [and] to be joined by a growing number of professors […] who refuse to sit on the fence,” Schwartz said.

“I’m proud of the moral conscience of our students, of their patience and their steadfastness, despite all the opposition and threats they’ve received from administrators, politicians and the police.”

In an interview with The Tribune ,

Irene, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Canada, commented on the importance of solidarity between worker and student movements.

“We’re [hoping people] see the connection between what’s happening in Gaza and the broader crisis of capitalism […] to [realize that] oppression in Gaza is tied to oppression here. [....] So we all are vested in freeing Palestine, because it means our freedom too,” they stated. “What’s needed is these students, with their palpable energy, to combine with the workers’ movement, [and] unite together. And this unity [means] we’re unbeatable.”

Around 2:00 p.m., the protest began to travel from rue Mackay onto rue St.-Catherine Ouest. It threaded through nearby streets lined with SPVM officers before moving north on rue Peel. The demonstrators then entered McGill’s campus via a service driveway behind the Bronfman Building, despite the main entrances to campus being closed. At the driveway’s entrance, faculty members held a sign that read, “Profs pour la Palestine.”

On McGill campus, Associate Professor of the university’s Department of Sociology Barry Eidlin discussed the importance of professors supporting the student movement for divestment in an interview with The Tribune

“It’s particularly important because the university has taken a really hard line on trying to […] stifle student protest and just campus protests in general,” he stated. “[Professors] get pressure from our administration to just conduct business as usual. [But] the students are here because this is something that they’ve been fighting for, for years now, and it’s fallen on deaf ears.”

The demonstrators moved past the McLennan-Redpath library complex to reach McGill’s Y-intersection, where another protest contingent joined the larger group using the campus road alongside the Macdonald-Harrington Building. As the demonstration unfolded on campus, an individual smashed a window at McLennanRedpath.

Once the marchers assembled, organizers began releasing smoke bombs and small fireworks in the colours of the Palestinian flag as they unfurled banners to form a protected circle in the centre of the Y. A student speaker in the circle began to detail how academic institutions in Montreal have recently “revealed the lengths that they will go to [to] maintain their genocidal complicity.”

“We have demanded arms embargoes, we have demanded sanctions, and we have demanded divestment, only to be redirected to the so-called diplomatic and civilized channels,” the speaker stated. “And after two years of genocide, we have learned that these channels are anything but diplomatic or civilized.”

Eidlin echoed these sentiments.

“The type of protest often matches the response that protesters received from the powerful, and we have been in a context now where the administration has basically been burying its head in the sand […] [and] the only response [to student demands has been] to lock down campus and try to stifle

the ability to engage in free speech and as-sociation on campus,” he said.

Amidst chants of “shame” from the assembled crowd, the speaker continued to decry universities’ attempts to “divide [students’] collective might” in pro-Palestinian activistmovements.

“Our administrations are motivated by greed and profit amid donor pressure, but do not mistake this self interest for ig-norance,” they said. “In their hearts, they know that they’restandingagainstthetidesof history, and history will not wash Deep Saini [and] our [Board of Governors] of their blood-soaked hands.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) maintained that the university will not di-vest.

“McGill remains firmly committed to freedom of expression and peaceful pro-test,” theMROwrote.

Organizers at the rally then burned an Israeli flag covered in red handprints, be-fore traveling past the Leacock Building beside the Redpath Museum. “We keep us safe!” the demonstrators chanted, as they approached approximately 20 riot officers preventing access to Leacock. Diverted by the police presence, the collective moved onto rue McTavish, before re-entering the streets of the Golden Square Mile around 3:00 p.m., once more accompanied by po-lice. Onlookers showed support, raising peace signs and honking car horns during stretches of the demonstration that oc-curred on roads. One attendee was shoved by an SPVM officer as they walked near a Société de transport de Montréalbus.

When the protestors returned to the Hall Building, they were once more met by police officers guarding the doors. Though the group of demonstrators edged close to the doors, there was no escalation, and the protest eventually travelled south from the buildingto reach Square Victoria, where it joined another demonstration for Palestine at around 4:00 p.m.

Upon joining the second protest at Square Victoria, demonstrators listened to speeches, including by Mohawk activist and artist Ellen Gabriel, and shared free refreshments provided by organizers. Participants also displayed a mock MK-84 guided bomb, which has been deployed by Israel amidst safe zones in Gaza designated for displaced Palestinians. The demonstration concluded at around 6:30 p.m., with the SPVM reporting no protest-related arrests. Many attendees then moved to Place des ArtstoattendasecondeventforPalestine.

Outside of the Hall Building, Professor at McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies Michelle Hartman discussed what the Oct. 7 Montreal student strikes represent, and the importance of facultysupportforthesestudentmovements.

“We are the majority of the world. We're the people who are on the right side, and we're the people who are all over the streets,” Hartman stated. “The students voted for the strike, so professors should respect that, if not stand in total solidarity with the students. [....] I feel like increasing numbers of professors at McGill agree with me. As professors are unionizing across all the faculties now, people are becoming more and more aware of the importanceofthatkindofsolidarity.”

McGill faculty pass historic resolution supporting academic and cultural boycott of Israel

The motion calls on McGill to take steps towards Israeli boycott demands

Yusur Al-Sharqi Editor-in-Chief

On Oct. 10, 2025, the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT), which represents fulltime professors and librarians, passed the Resolution to Endorse the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel—marking the first official collective action for Palestine taken by McGill faculty to date.

The motion, introduced by ten professors across multiple faculties, asserts that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide under the UN Genocide Convention, and that its system of governance over Palestinians amounts to apartheid. The motion cites reports from international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to argue that, by maintaining ties to Israeli universities that are deeply intertwined with the state’s military and political infrastructure, McGill is complicit in settler-colonial violence.

The resolution subsequently calls on McGill to recognize its role in perpetuating genocide, to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation, and to sever academic partnerships with Israeli institutions. It also draws parallels between its current demands and MAUT’s prior discussions about divesting from Russian companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and McGill’s divestment from South Africa during the apartheid.

McGill’s Media Relations Office de-

clined to comment on the resolution’s content or passing.

In an interview with The Tribune , Daniel Schwartz, associate professor in the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures department at McGill, noted that some faculty were concerned that the motion could infringe on academic freedom. He explained that the boycott proposed by MAUT does not target individual Israeli academics, and argued that critics’ appeals to academic freedom are misguided given the conditions faced by Palestinian scholars.

“We’re not trying to boycott or silence any of our Israeli colleagues. [....] This is really about institutional relationships,” Schwartz said. “The idea of invoking values like academic freedom and discussion is […] a little bit in bad faith, because you can’t have a real dialogue with somebody who is buried under rubble and doesn’t have any universities.”

The vote needed to meet a quorum of 100 professors to be binding, with a simple majority in favour allowing the motion to pass. Of the 150 members who registered for the SGM, 114 attended. Professors noted that some faculty members walked out of the meeting in an apparent attempt to reduce attendance and break quorum. However, the meeting maintained quorum throughout, and the resolution ultimately passed with 104 in favour, eight opposed, and two abstaining.

In an interview with The Tribune , Alia Al-Saji, professor of the Department of Phi-

losophy, described her surprise at the motion’s passing, noting that the nature of this SGM is unprecedented.

“I’ve been at McGill for 23 years, and I’ve been in MAUT for 23 years, and I did not even expect us to be able to have a meeting on this,” she said. “So just having the meeting was kind of incredible.”

The resolution includes a two-year sunset clause, meaning it will require renewal through a future vote. In an interview with The Tribune , Rula Abisaab, professor of the Institute of Islamic Studies and one of the presenters of the resolution, reflected on her initial reaction to the motion’s passing, while emphasizing that continued oversight from MAUT will be necessary to ensure McGill works toward meeting the outlined calls to action.

“We [are] euphoric, we are very, very, happy, but I think now the work starts,” Abisaab said. “We feel the responsibility of actually [...] making sure that it is observed in the [...] different faculties. [....] So we have to be diligent. We have to be aware.”

Al-Saji highlighted the resolution’s broader significance for academic freedom at McGill and beyond, noting that Israeli academic institutions have demonstrated a pattern of censoring criticism of Israel among their students and faculty, and preventing Palestinians from accessing an education equivalent to Israelis’. As of May 2025, the UN reported that Israel’s assault on Gaza destroyed all universities, killing at least 5,479 students and over 190 university

staff.

Specifically, Al-Saji mentioned Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who was suspended from Hebrew University and arrested by Israeli police for criticizing Zionism on a podcast.

“There isn’t academic freedom for Palestinian students in Israeli universities, there isn’t academic freedom for actually, anyone who wants to criticize the genocide,” she emphasized. ”We’ve seen academics be suspended for speaking out against Zionism. It’s our duty, if we actually do believe in academic freedom deeply, to have this voice.”

Earlier this month, over 500 McGill students voted to hold a one-day strike on Oct. 7, calling on the university to divest from companies supplying Israel with weapons, and to drop disciplinary cases against pro-Palestinian activists. Mayada Elsabbagh, professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, reflected on the significance of recent student activism at McGill and shared what she hopes students will take away from this motion.

“I know a lot of students in the activist movement who’ve been incredibly brave, not just in the last two years, but for many, many years, [and] have been disappointed, skeptical, frustrated with the position of faculty members,” Alsabbagh said. “I hope that, in some small symbolic way, today’s vote reassures the students of what we all know, [which is] that students always stand on the right side of history.”

Independent Jewish Voices celebrates Sukkot while standing in solidarity with Palestine

SPVM forced attendees to take down the religious hut central to the celebration

Armen Erzingatzian Photo Editor

The McGill chapter of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a grassroots, antiZionist, Jewish organization, held an event on Oct. 6 on McGill’s Lower Field to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and show their solidarity with Palestinians enduring Israel’s ongoing genocide. Sukkot is a seven-day festival of thanksgiving for the fall harvest, where observers build makeshift huts, known as ‘sukkah.’ The holiday also commemorates the 40 years that the Jewish people spent wandering after their Exodus from Egypt, during which they lived in huts. The IJV event was quickly met with heavy presence from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).

At 4:00 p.m., members of McGill’s and Montreal’s Jewish communities began building the sukkah on the Lower Field using a pop-up tent. Nearly 50 individuals gathered and made speeches, said prayers, sang, and waved four species of plants—citron, myrtle, palm, and willow—as well as banners reading, “Jews against Genocide/Free Palestine,” “Liberate Judaism from Zionism,” and “L’chaim Intifada”.

In an interview with The Tribune, an attendee who wished to remain anonymous described the significance of the sukkah-building as a demonstration of support for Palestine.

“[A sukkah is] a temporary structure […] [that] you share […] community experiences in,” they said. “We wanted to bring that here today, to be in solidarity with Palestine, [and] to show that we can make the choice to build a temporary structure like this. [....] The people of Gaza, whose homes have been destroyed, they have to live in structures like this. [....] They don’t have the choice.”

Another attendee who wished to remain unnamed explained why they felt it was important to differentiate Judaism from Zionism in times of Palestinian oppression.

“It’s very clear to me that if there is this injustice, it must be addressed, not just because it is a Jewish thing to do, but because it is the human thing,” they stated in an interview with The Tribune. “And […] in that process, we are actually addressing antisemitism, because we are showing a positive version of what Judaism can look like when people have only been exposed to Zionism.”

IJV McGill was one of the bodies who supported the Students’ Society of McGill University’s Legislative Council’s decision to adopt the Policy against Antisemitism in April 2025, which distinguishes between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Many pro-Israel groups on campus were opposed to its adoption. The attendee spoke to this disagreement.

“[The policy] cites […] historical precedent, […] [and] legal summaries endorsed by a lot of law professors [internationally],” the

attendee explained.

“I really think that this narrative of the Jewish community [being] so divided, [is] disingenuous and […] misleading. Partially because they’re like every community, […] in a state of trying to figure itself out. We’re doing everything we can to engage in this conversation.”

“I [grew up in] a Zionist perspective,” the attendee continued. “Change is possible. [....] I do think that it is also kind of a mitzvah, a kind of important obligation to try to help people on their journey to having a more open mind.”

Meanwhile, between 4:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., approximately 25 SPVM officers arrived at the sukkah. Around ten SPVM Specialized Support and Intervention Section police, or riot police, stood 20 meters away from the gathering.

In an interview with The Tribune, a community member who interacted with the SPVM described how one of the police officers was “mocking” the religious ceremony.

“One police officer explicitly said that he didn’t think this was a religious tent. He was

like, ‘It’s just a gazebo,’” the attendee, who wished to remain unnamed, recounted. “[His comments were] pretty demeaning, derogatory, […] borderline antisemitic. [....] [He was] insisting that we don’t have a right to mark this religious service in the way that our faith requires that we do.”

According to the community member, around 5:30 p.m., the SPVM officers threatened to physically intervene in the gathering, claiming the structure had been illegally erected on McGill’s private property.

Though attendees took down the pop-up tent, they gathered to form the sukkah once more using their banners as walls, their bodies as pillars, and the branches in their stretchedout arms as the roof.

Jean-François Roberge bans gender-neutral pronouns in all officia l Quebec communications

“As if trans and nonbinary people don’t already deal with enoug h problems,” McGill’s Trans Patient Union remarks

Amelia H. Clark Staff Writer

On Sept. 24, Quebec’s French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge introduced a bill banning the use of gender neutral pronouns such as ‘iel,’ ‘celleux,’ and ‘Mx.’ in all official communications from the Quebec government. Roberge plans on extending the bill to public education in the province, ranging from kindergarten to post-secondary institutions. It further applies to both patients and employees in the province’s healthcare system.

Roberge states that the pronoun ban is necessary to protect the clarity of the French language. He claims neologisms, or newly coined words, such as ‘froeur’ cannot be conjugated properly due to the pre-existing language structure in French, causing confusion. The bill only applies to written documents, meaning a teacher can be referred to as ‘Mx.’ by students during class, but cannot be identified as such on the record.

Although Roberge claims that the bill is not intended to alienate gender expansive communities who use the now-banned pronouns, some queer advocacy groups at McGill have expressed concerns that the ban will reduce 2SLGBTQIA+ access to government institutions and resources, while also harming the public perception of transgender and gen-

derfluid individuals.

The Trans Patient Union (TPU) at McGill wrote to The Tribune that this bill creates further blocks to accessing gender-affirming care in Quebec, and stated that many doctors continuously misgender patients, despite corrections from the patient or an ‘X’ marker written on their file.

The TPU also wrote that the inclusion of neologisms in French would actually incentivize more people to communicate in the language, as gender expansive people would know that French recognizes their identity.

“It is at times the case that bilingual nonbinary people will avoid speaking French specifically because of how challenging it can be to speak French while being correctly gendered,” the TPU wrote. “Changes which aim to make the language better include trans and nonbinary francophones can only help encourage its use.”

A representative of The Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE) at McGill noted in an interview with The Tribune that Roberge’s decision to ban the use of gender-neutral pronouns in official communications was confusing, considering that there are no previous laws mandating the inclusion of these pronouns in government announcements.

“The fact that this [bill] covers the government and municipalities kind of strikes me as banning a problem that doesn’t exist,”

the UGE representative said. “When it comes to widening this legislation to other publicly-funded institutions, my first thought is that this undermines the autonomy of different publiclyfunded institutions to decide how they want to structure and address some of their publications.”

The bill also mandates that official communications must be written in the masculine form, going against the government’s past inclusion of also the feminine form within brackets in government documentation.

“The greatest effect of this decree will be to re-emphasize this type of convention as more expedient, and consistently remove the presence of women, which are, frankly, the majority of the population in Quebec, from references to the population as a whole, whether as workers, as citizens, or as patients,” the UGE representative said.

McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) stated in a written response to The Tribune that McGill plans on continuing to denounce the systematic use of the masculine pronoun, and continuing to avoid using gendered lan-

guage in its announcements.

“You will see that our style guide already favours inclusivity in writing [and] that we don’t normally use the terminology targeted by the government,” the MRO wrote.

The UGE representative further questioned the purpose of the government language ban, noting that no empirical research was conducted prior to its proposal supporting its alleged benefits.

“When it comes to clarity in terms of graphic conventions, I would love to see data on the science of reading that tells me that using a parenthesis is clearer and easier to read for, say, people with dyslexia or learners of the French language,” the UGE representative said. “I don’t think it exists right now. This is merely a question of tradition, not clarity.”

Milton-Parc residents suffer from a lack of accessible healthcare Barriers to receiving medical attention affect senior citizens a nd university students alike

Eren Atac Staff Writer

Milton-Parc, which contains residents ranging from McGill students to senior citizens, lacks a walk-in clinic, local community services centre (CLSC), or any other form of accessible healthcare, leading to it being dubbed a ‘medical desert.’A recent report by La communauté Milton Parc found that six out of ten residents of Milton-Parc who were surveyed lack a family doctor, and many are unaware of the alternate healthcare options available to them.

Despite being in the heart of Montreal, Milton-Parc residents must travel farther to access healthcare than those living in surrounding areas. Most residents of the Plateau-Mont-Royal area, which contains Milton-Parc, have access to healthcare through service from the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud. Milton-Parc, however, falls under the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-deMontréal, which comprises a network of hospitals outside of their neighbourhood.

In an interview with The Tribune , Milton Park Citizens’ Committee President and McGill course lecturer Garrfield Du Couturier-Nichol explained that the medical crisis in Milton-Parc began six years ago, when the neighbourhood’s local clinic closed in 2019.

“There used to be a CLSC clinic in the [Air Transat Tower],” Du Couturier-Nichol stated. “That closed down, and since then,

there’s been a problem because Milton-Parc is part of the Jeanne-Mance Plateau-MontRoyal area. So we’re basically split between two CIUSSS authorities. [....] It basically goes by your postal code. For a lot of people, especially seniors, that’s very confusing.”

The bureaucratic division of the Centre-Sud and Centre-Ouest authorities, coupled with the sheer distance from the nearest clinic, leaves elderly, often technologyilliterate residents unsure of where to go for medical attention, Du Couturier-Nichol told T he Tribune

“I’m almost 83, and I have a bit of a mobility problem, but I’m still able to get around. So I can use public transport when it’s working to get to the CLSC,” he said. “But a lot of seniors in my age group have problems with mobility, so it’s difficult for them. They don’t know whether they belong in CIUSSS Centre-Sud, or CIUSSS CentreOuest, because it’s a very confusing thing for a lot of people. A lot of people are not computer-literate. And most of this [navigation] is done online, so it creates a problem. Since 2019 when [the local CLSC clinic] closed, a lot of seniors have basically just given up.”

While the lack of accessible healthcare falls hardest on seniors, many McGill students living in Milton-Parc also feel the strain when they need medical care. One resident, Annika Arya, U1 Arts, spoke in an interview with The Tribune about her experience accessing healthcare. When she

fell ill this month, the lack of clinics in Milton-Parc forced her to either use Uber or walk 30 minutes to the nearest emergency room.

Arya also discussed her experiences attempting to seek services at McGill’s Student Wellness Hub. She called for more accessible healthcare options throughout McGill’s campus and residential areas.

69.7 per cent of Milton-Parc residents surveyed report being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with access to health services in their neighborhood.

(Sophie Schuyler / The Tribune)

“I [have gotten] two appointments out of maybe the 10 times that I’ve called [the Wellness Hub],” Arya reported. “I think that McGill needs to make it a priority to implement more health clinic facilities throughout campus, including [in] Milton-Parc and the residence areas.”

The McGill Media Relations Office (MRO) stated in a written response to The Tribune that they are taking steps to address the wider issue of healthcare accessibility, and ensure McGill students can find the support they need.

“We are […] actively working to mitigate the impact of broader systemic challenges in the provincial healthcare system—such as limited access to primary care and mental health services—by expanding

our interdisciplinary care model, improving pathways and increasing our capacity to timely appointments, and strengthening partnerships with local organizations,” the MRO wrote.

Du Couturier-Nichol suggested the establishment of a mobile clinic would be a positive step to remedying Milton-Parc’s medical challenges, before introducing a more permanent solution.

“The first step would be to have at least a mobile clinic once or twice a week in the Milton-Parc area to start looking at the problem and understanding the number of seniors who may have medication or healthrelated problems or need social work. And then progress from there,” he stated. “Look for a location that’s fairly central in MiltonParc to establish a permanent clinic.”

Editor-in-Chief

Yusur Al-Sharqi editor@thetribune.ca

Creative Director Mia Helfrich creativedirector@thetribune.ca

Managing Editors Mairin Burke mburke@thetribune.ca

Malika Logossou mlogossou@thetribune.ca Nell Pollak npollak@thetribune.ca

News Editors Asher Kui

Helene Saleska Kaitlyn Schramm news@thetribune.ca

Opinion Editors Moyo Alabi Lulu Calame Ellen Lurie opinion@thetribune.ca

Science & Technology Editors

Leanne Cherry Sarah McDonald scitech@thetribune.ca

Student Life Editors Gregor McCall Tamiyana Roemer studentlife@thetribune.ca

Features Editor Jenna Durante features@thetribune.ca

Arts & Entertainment Editors Annabella Lawlor Bianca Sugunasiri arts@thetribune.ca

Sports Editors Ethan Kahn Clara Smyrski sports@thetribune.ca

Design Editors Zoe Lee Eliot Loose design@thetribune.ca

Photo Editors Armen Erzingatzian Anna Seger photo@thetribune.ca

Multimedia Editor Sahel Delafoulhouse multimedia@thetribune.ca

Web Developers Rupneet Shahriar webdev@thetribune.ca

Copy Editor Ella Bachrach copy@thetribune.ca

Social Media Editor Mariam Lakoande socialmedia@thetribune.ca

Business Manager Celine Li business@thetribune.ca

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

SSMU

must remember whose team it is on

The Tribune Editorial Board

Continued from page 1.

In an email sent to the study body, the BoD claimed that MK had failed to meet its fee mandate, providing only two weekly meals instead of five. In a statement regarding the restructuring of MK, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill (QPIRG-McGill) clarified this reported shortcoming, explaining that in addition to its two weekly meal servings, MK also provides two to three solidarity meals for students and local communities, totalling four to five meals per week.

SSMU also claimed that MK did not spend enough of its budget directly on food. The email outlined that in 2023, MK spent 5.1 per cent of its $350,360 CAD budget on food, an amount

COMMENTARY

Sabiha Tursun Contributor

MLilly

CONTRIBUTORS

TRIBUNE OFFICE STAFF

Sophie

ontreal’s new $2 million CAD housing fund demonstrates an increased political resolve to aid the city’s unhoused population. The fund is dedicated to the expansion of housing non-profits; Plante’s government aims to double the number of housing units available for unhoused individuals. The city is dividing the funding among four non-profit organizations dedicated to developing below-market housing: Old Brewery Mission, Gérer son Quartier, Interloge Centre-Sud and Corporation Mainbourg. This initiative is expected to add roughly 6,300 units, offered below market rates, over the next decade. Old Brewery Mission, in particular, will receive $400,000 CAD to help finance 237 new apartments by 2028.

This announcement comes in the wake of an intensifying capacity crisis among homeless shelters in Montreal, forcing some shelters to turn individuals away and others to offer overflow visitors nothing but chairs to sleep in. Quebec’s health department reports that ‘visible’ homelessness increased by 33 per cent in Montreal and 44 per cent in Quebec between 2018 and 2022. In recent years, encampments have also become increasingly common in Montreal, but the city often targets and dismantles these temporary settlements, forcing unhoused individuals to constantly relocate. However, this funding initiative comes against a backdrop of troubling policy decisions that reveal Montreal's

that increased to 7.41 per cent in 2024, but, according to the BoD, remained insufficient. QPIRG contextualised this claim by outlining that the amount MK spent on food does not represent the true amount of food the kitchen acquires, as it sources a large portion of its ingredients free of cost from Moisson Montréal and local student farms, such as Les greniers agricoles and Élèves des Champs. The way in which SSMU offered data without providing context critical to its meaning is misleading and incomplete, demonstrating a failure to work in good faith with the collective to reach a compromise on financial and operational changes.

As a student society, SSMU’s most fundamental responsibility is to support its students and their organizations, not to antagonize and pit them against one another—as SSMU’s framing has done.

Instead, SSMU imposed a black-and-white business-centred conception of proper management onto MK’s operations—of which SSMU has little to no expertise. The Students’ Society neglected the practical obstacles inherent to running a kitchen and serving food. MK’s kitchen, for example, can only accommodate eight people; additionally, it has no dishwasher, meaning staff must clean everything by hand. These challenges are much more likely to be at the root of organizational shortfalls than the budgetary discrepancies it problematized.

SSMU’s unapologetic prioritization of austerity over MK’s critical social and political mandates undermines the collective’s capacity to provide food and education to students and local communities in need, and delegitimizes SSMU allyship with the student body. A student union that uses its bureaucratic power to confuse and mislead its

members fails its most basic duty to serve its students—a failure that no amount of increased ‘efficiency’ can make up for. Regardless of the details of MK’s funding or operational strategy, the manner with which SSMU addressed its grievances with the collective was deeply damaging, disrespectful, and dismissive. SSMU must commit to transparency, not use numbers and incomplete information to sensationalize its negotiations with the student organizations with whom it is supposed to be allied. As students, it is our responsibility to remain critical of the apparent legitimacy of numbers, to seek relevant context when assessing the efficacy of clubs and collectives, and to avoid passive acceptance of information shaped by SSMU’s bureaucratic power. SSMU and its students are all on the same team, and we must treat each other as such.

More housing for the unhoused

contradictory approach to its unhoused population. The STM's closure of the Atwater metro entrance last winter—a crucial warming space—exemplifies the city's pattern of displacement over care. Such hostile policies, from metro closures to the dismantling of encampments, prioritize pushing vulnerable people out of sight rather than addressing root causes. The $2 million housing fund represents a step in the right direction, but it cannot exist in isolation from these exclusionary practices. The city must reconcile its commitment to creating housing units with its simultaneous deployment of hostile architecture and exclusionary policies that treat unhoused people as problems to be removed rather than community members deserving of dignity and protection.

Long-term units like the ones Old Mission Brewery is constructing provide unhoused individuals more stability, dignity and long-term support. For instance, last year, Old Mission Brewery began turning open dormitories with bunk beds into small private rooms offering more privacy and dignity for unhoused individuals. These more welcoming spaces, known as ‘chambrettes’ allow unhoused individuals to sleep in a quieter environment, providing more privacy and safety.

Investing in stable, affordable housing for the unhoused population also reduces the costs of homelessness in the long run. For instance, in Montreal, the health, social, and judicial services for unhoused people with mental illnesses costs more than $55,000 CAD per person per year. The benefits of this municipal investment

The annual health care costs for unhoused individuals is 6 times more even after adjusting for health history and income. (Armen Erzingatzian / The Tribune)

in addressing the housing crisis are mutually reinforcing.

After Plante unveiled this fund, the upcoming November election has brought housing policy to the forefront of political debate. Luc Rabouin, the Projet Montréal candidate running to succeed Plante in the November election, expressed his plan to increase the funding envelope to $5 million CAD next year if he is elected.

Meanwhile, Ensemble Montréal's Soraya Martinez Ferrada has promised to develop at least 2,000 transitional and permanent housing units with psychosocial support during her first term and create a $10-million CAD matching fund to encourage private and philanthropic contributions toward homelessness initiatives.

Transition Montréal’s Craig Sauvé opposes dismantling encampments and proposes increasing property taxes on wealthy homeowners to fund homelessness initiatives. Futur

Montréal's Jean-François Kacou put forth a policy to partner with the city's hotel industry to offer monthly packages for citizens experiencing temporary involuntary homelessness.

The diversity of approaches among candidates raises critical questions about Montreal's future relationship with its unhoused population. Will the next administration prioritize housing-first solutions that foreground humanity and empathy towards its vulnerable residents, or will it continue the pattern of dismissal and displacement? As voters head to the polls, they must consider which vision aligns with the kind of city Montreal aspires to be—one that treats housing as a human right, or one that continues to criminalize poverty. The choice facing voters, and their prospective candidates is not merely about housing policy—it's about what kind of community we want to build together.

re- flect the opinions of The Tribune, its editors or its staff.

Sophia Angela Zhang Contributor

OMcGill Global, Montreal forgotten

n September 17, McGill President and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini announced ‘McGill Global,’ a $185 million CAD plan to establish ‘satellite campuses’ abroad—branch campuses operated by McGill outside of Montreal. The announcement comes at a time of financial crisis at McGill, triggered by Quebec’s tuition hikes for out-of-province and international students. By investing in McGill Global in a time of financial insecurity, the university signals that it prioritizes global prestige over supporting its staff and students, the backbone of the Montreal campuses.

The Quebec provincial government, run by Premier François Legault, has recently doubled out-of-province tuition for English universities from approximately $9,000 CAD to $17,000 CAD in an attempt to protect the French language. Consequently, many prospective out-of-province students will likely be deterred from McGill, as the university’s tuition is no longer able to compete with that of other Canadian universities. For example, the tuition fee for the Faculty of Arts and Science for non-Ontario residents at the University of Toronto is $7,250 CAD, less than half of the current McGill equivalent. Enrollment of out-of-province and international students—whose minimum tuition is

now set at $20,000 CAD—is expected to decrease dramatically as McGill becomes increasingly unaffordable. This will result in a net financial deficit for the university. McGill has announced its plan to cut $45 million from the 2025-2026 budget by laying off staff to reduce the workforce by 350-500 people, imposing a hiring freeze, and discontinuing student services, such as the Faculty of Medicine’s DEI office.

In the midst of mass layoffs and termination of critical services for students studying at the Montreal campus, Saini maintains that satellite campuses will “expand opportunities for [McGill] students and faculty, grow [the] talent pool and amplify [McGill’s] impact.” By funding this project, the McGill brand can further its reputation and attract talent from regions where its outreach has previously been limited. However, this comes at the cost of essential services, resources, and jobs. While satellite campuses may add to a projected appearance of prestige, they inevitably neglect local McGillians, as their expensive tuition fees are used for McGill Global, a program that does not serve their needs.

The tension between Saini’s push to broaden McGill’s international reach and the need to rebalance budgets following declines in international and out-of-province enrollment is a direct manifestation of a deeply entrenched conflict between the provincial government and anglophone universities: Language. McGill’s student

Canadian gun advocates make a fair point—and it doesn't matter

Joshua Karmiol Contributor

Earlier this month, demonstrators gathered on the lawn of the Myles F. Burke Police Headquarters in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to protest the federal government’s new gun buyback program. 250 strong and adorned in an assortment of flannel, sunglasses, and baseball caps, the rally-goers held bold text protest signs with references to the Bible and “wasted tax dollars.” Guest speakers, including local Conservative MPs, bemoaned government overreach and encroachment on “good gun-abiding people.” And they made a fair point.

If one considers the merits of the Government of Canada’s gun buyback, broad design flaws quickly become apparent, namely its cost and failure to target illegal firearm owners, the main perpetrators of gun violence in Canada. Although it is easy to criticize the ill-targeted excesses of Liberal gun policy, backlash from gunowning communities and Conservative politicians ultimately fails to address the merits of the gun buyback program itself in the context of the country’s relatively low rates of gun ownership.

In May 2020, weeks after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia that killed 22 people, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a ban on over 1,500 models of ‘assault-style’ fire-arms, and instated a transition period during which the government would undertake a national

body is exceptionally diverse, with approximately 25 per cent of incoming undergraduate students coming from other Canadian provinces and around 30 per cent coming from outside Canada. Still, students from Quebec consistently comprise 4050 per cent of the annual incoming class, and about one in five McGill students have declared French to be their primary language.

While policy solutions like tuition hikes for out-of-province students are a means through which to preserve Quebec’s French heritage, the provincial government’s hostility towards English speakers in Montreal reveals a cultural rigidity and a refusal to adapt. In pursuing the satellite campus project—likely in regions where French is not as culturally relevant— McGill is moving away from Quebec’s linguistic demands. Ironically, despite Legault’s insistence that he wants McGill to stay anchored in Quebec, the very policies meant to protect the French language may be driving McGill away from Quebec, rather than securing its future within it.

In trying to regain

gun-buyback program and shield owners of prohibited firearms from criminal liability.

Most available statistics indicate that gun crimes in Canada primarily occur through black market weapons smuggled into the country from the United States. No clear correlation between legal gun purchases and crime has been established; in fact, firearms licence-holders have a 10 per cent lower murder rate compared to the Canadian average. Even the Nova Scotia mass shooter who prompted the gun ban used smuggled American guns.

The program’s compensation of gun owners alone will cost an estimated total of $756 million CAD, leaving some critics to wonder if those funds could be allocated towards something more useful. Others claim the specific gun models listed within the ban itself are somewhat arbitrary, with similar guns to those banned still available for purchase.

Essentially, the government is targeting law-abiding Canadians who purchased their weapons legally at great expense to the Canadian tax payer, for virtually zero benefit.

Any Conservative politician worth their salt will bang their chest in solidarity with gun-owners. It is easy to see why. Reckless spending in order to create a pointless bureaucracy designed to oppress individual rights, plagued by administrative incompetence and arbitrary decision making? It’s practically a slam-dunk. The Liberal gun buyback regime is, as much as it may hurt for some to admit, stupid.

prestige and escape Quebec’s restrictive language laws through international expansion, McGill's administration has prioritized its image over the well-being of students and staff. These price hikes burden students the most: On the one hand, tuition increases price out aspiring students, and on the other hand, university-sanctioned cuts to critical programs lead to a lower quality of education. If McGill is to be deserving of calling itself “a locally anchored, globally pre-eminent university,” it needs to uphold its responsibility to the students, staff, and city that built its reputation.

In Fall 2024, 49 per cent of the entering McGill undergraduate class came from Quebec, 22 per cent came from the rest of Canada, 12 per cent came from the United States, and 16 per cent came from abroad. (Eliot Loose / The Tribune)

COMMENTARY

An earlier phase of the Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program saw the collection of over 12,000 prohibited firearms with more than $22 million CAD offered in compensation. (Zoe Lee / The Tribune)

But who cares? If one told the average Canadian that the federal government was spending a miniscule fraction of our federal budget to remove about 100,000 ‘assault-style’ weapons from the hands of the public, would they be upset? The vast majority of Canadians—92.9 per cent— do not possess firearms, and the cultural inertia that underpins firearm rights in the US does not exist here. On the contrary, most Canadians, while they may not grasp the minutia of the issue, support increased firearm restrictions.

Self-defense law in Canada does not allow for the use of firearms in the protection of one’s property, rendering guns almost exclusively used for target-shooting and hunting. In other words, gun ownership in Canada is just another equipment-centric outdoor hobby, like kayaking or dirt-

biking. What is the difference between guns and hypothetical onerous over-regulation of, say, jet-skis? If certain models of jetskis suddenly faced sweeping government bans—with proportionate compensation for jet-ski owners, mind you, would anybody shed a tear? The major difference being, of course, that jet-skis cannot be used to conduct a mass shooting.

Gun advocates have a point in criticizing this specific program, but this argument is senseless in the context of Canada’s political and cultural understanding of gun ownership. There was no counterprotest to the gathering outside the police station in Cape Breton. Besides gun-owners and those that stood to gain politically from their outrage, nobody showed up. I’m not even sure if the police looked out the window.

What we liked reading this fall break

The

cozy pages that A&E explored during their time off

Jeremy Zelken Contributor

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

If you are anything like me, you probably read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five about three times in high school. While I had always insisted it was his best work, I have to admit— I was humbly mistaken. The Sirens of Titan , a book I couldn’t put down this break, completely eclipsed it.

Written in Vonnegut’s signature deadpan humour and cosmic cynicism, the book follows Malachi Constant, Earth’s richest and most corrupt man, as he is swept into a wild interplanetary journey with the eccentric and unwilling Beatrice Rumfoord. Along the way, they encounter extraterrestrial beings, a Martian army, and bizarre religions, all culminating in a story that questions the purpose of it all. Each moment of absurdity and anomaly is delivered with equal sincerity and pensiveness. Even at its most surreal, the emotional undertone is surprisingly human—more so than in any of his other novels. Vonnegut somehow finds meaning in the meaningless.

It’s always a pleasure to read something that makes you feel every emotion at once. If you enjoy laughing at misfortune, questioning your existence, and finding comfort in confusion, this book is for you.

Anna Roberts Contributor

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

Caroline O’Donoghue’s charming coming-of-age, The Rachel Incident is addictive. After fervently reading this across long train rides and at every spare moment of my break, I can easily say it is one of the most electric books I’ve read in months. Set in Cork, Ireland in the 2010s, during the economic recession and tension over abortion laws, the novel explores the messy life of a girl in her early twenties as she makes a series of many questionable decisions.

After settling in London, Rachel hears that her old college professor is in a coma, spurring her to reflect back on her final year of university in Cork. In this flashback, she meets her soon-to-be best friend and flatmate, James, who encourages her to pursue an illicit relationship with her older, married professor. When this attempted affair fails in an unexpected way, Rachel launches into an unsteady relationship with another man while overburned with duties at an internship under her professor’s wife. During this period, she is forced to grapple with the culture in Ireland at the time, her intense relationships, and her desperate desire for a career in publishing.

The novel is deeply tender, yet witty; O’Donoghue masterfully moves between humour and seriousness, weaving together plotlines and creating complex relationships. The heart of the novel is the platonic love between Rachel and James; while they fall in and out of love with other men, their bond remains at the centre of their story.

Dylan Hing Contributor

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

Imagine if, one day, all your exes started appearing out of nowhere, and your cult-like friends became obsessed with what comes next. It’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it? Cult Classic, comedy writer Sloane Crosley’s second novel, inquires whether our choices are really our own and what it means to decide to love.

Lola, an editor at a New York City magazine, finally gets engaged—but then begins running into her exes. Under these circumstances, she’s roped up in a conspiracy that questions the very idea of free will—are we making our own choices, or are we subject to the subliminal effects of the world around us? Through these constant appearances of exes,

both Lola and the reader are left to wonder whether she is really happy with her fiancé, or whether she simply settled for lack of a better option.

Despite the unsettling actions of some of the characters, Crosley manages to endear the reader to the strange but mostly unremarkable cast of her novel. Her background in nonfiction humour strengthens her writing; the comedy is mainly descriptive, because this novel is meant to reflect questions of reality. So, if you’re interested, give it a try. I’m sure it’ll be a cult classic.

The Africa Fashion exhibit stitches together stories of agency and innovation

The McCord Stewart Museum explores six decades of diverse African fashion and self-definition

Nell Pollak Managing Editor

The Africa Fashion exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum tells a story that spans six decades, 20 countries, and boundless artistry. On display from Sept. 25 to Feb. 1, 2026, the show marks the only Canadian stop on an international tour organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. It presents 100 garments and accessories, as well as textiles, photographs, and videos from 45 designers that foreground individual perspectives on the vitality of African fashion. Rather than attempting to showcase every textile tradition across the continent, Africa Fashion spotlights selected designers whose work captures the eclectic nature of the continent’s fashion as a self-defining art form.

At its core, the exhibition explores the concept of agency—the ability of African designers and wearers to define themselves in their own terms. The narrative begins in 1960, when 17 African nations gained independence, turning fashion into a language of liberation. It became a strategic political act as nations asserted their cultural identities, using art as a powerful force of post-colonial self-expression and global innovation.

This generation of pioneers bridged tradition and modernity with ingenuity. Nigerian designer Shade Thomas-Fahm revolutionized everyday wear for the modern woman by opening Maison Shade in 1960, the year of Nigeria’s independence. She added zippers to traditionally wrapped ìró skirts and created pre-tied gèlè headwraps that allowed busy, cosmopolitan women to embrace Nigerian fabrics without sacrificing convenience. Malian designer Chris Seydou

reimagined traditional textiles through a contemporary lens, while Ghanaian artist Kofi Ansah combined indigo-dyed Adire cloth with Japanese denim jacquard fabric. Their work embodied how fashion became a tool for decolonizing minds—expressing freedom through reimagined tradition.

Authentic representation and celebration of African beauty is woven into every element of Africa Fashion, embodied even by the mannequins themselves. Rejecting the Eurocentric figures that dominate the fashion industry, the Victoria and Albert Museum collaborated with South Sudanese model Adhel Bol to create mannequins that emulated the beauty of African models, spanning four different skin tones and three hairstyles, including Irun Didi braids and Bantu knots. The result is an exhibition where the presentation method serves as an extension of the curatorial narrative, centring African beauty and the visual culture of its fashion creatives.

The Politics and Poetics of Cloth section examines how textiles themselves became strategic political declarations during independence movements. Indigenous clothes that had been devalued under colonialism were reclaimed as symbols of pride and resistance. The exhibition features commemorative cloth made in the early 1990s celebrating Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, traditional kente fabric from Ghana, Nigerian àdìrẹ, and Malian bògòlanfini—pieces that gesture toward the continent’s thousands of textile techniques and traditions.

The contemporary section of the exhibition demonstrates how today’s generation of designers continue to push boundaries while honouring heritage. South African designer Thebe Magugu’s Alchemy collection, created in collabo-

ration with traditional healer Noentla Khumalo, centres on African spirituality and ancestral relationships. Kenyan brand IAMISIGO, founded by Bubu Ogisi, references ancient West African masquerade costumes and performance art traditions. Rwandan fashion house Moshions reimagines traditional Rwandan forms and cultural motifs into contemporary pieces that reference ceremonial attire historically worn by royalty. Djiboutian costume designer and photographer Gouled Ahmed creates self portraits that combine textured garments with contemporary materials to represent multifaceted identities. Nigerian company DAKALA CLOTH by NKWO explores ways of using waste denim to create new

textiles while preserving traditional craft skills, exemplifying how innovation can honour ancestral techniques.

Africa Fashion ultimately demonstrates that fashion is never just about clothing; it is storytelling, cultural preservation, and resistance encoded in fabric and form. What visitors witness is not the emergence of African fashion onto the global stage, but rather a long-overdue reframing of who gets to tell these stories. As the exhibition affirms, African designers have been charting their own course for decades: Revolutionizing adornment into an assertion of identity, a reclamation of heritage, and an uncompromising vision of the future.

Part 1: Introducing the Black Box of bureaucratic violence and immigration restriction

Our academic aspirations are within sight, and we wish to contribute to the world through our studies. With the goodwill and empathy of Canada, our future will not slip away needlessly due to factors beyond our control.”

This sentiment from Majd, a Palestinian student in Gaza who was accepted to a master’s program in Computer Science at McGill, is not an isolated one; it reflects the circumstances of 68 Palestinian students who are admitted to graduate programs at Canada’s top universities—including McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of Calgary—but are barred from travelling to Canada to study. Their obstacles are not academic; rather, these students’ hands have been tied by a web of targeted and restrictive immigration barriers.

Most of these students, like Majd, are stuck in Gaza, where daily life is marked by instability, restricted mobility, and unreliable internet and electricity due to Israel’s continued genocide. Even those who have managed to evacuate the Gaza Strip are still trapped by the selective negligence of immigration bureaucracies.

Despite their unconscionable circumstances, many of the graduate students in Gaza continue their academic programs remotely while awaiting study permit approvals from the Canadian government. Tragically, some never received that chance. Sally and Dalia Ghazi Ibaid, twin sisters accepted into a PhD program at the University of Waterloo, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Dec. 5, 2024, while preparing to cross the Rafah border into Egypt.

Their deaths serve as a devastating reminder of the lives lost when bureaucratic systems tailor their efficiency to a colonial valuation of human life. Such valuation justifies the abandonment of Palestinian students while alleviating accountability from the Canadian institutions and governments perpetrating it.

This feature examines how Canadian immigration bureaucracies block Palestinian students’ passage to Canada through selective application processing, indeterminate timelines, and impossible requirements, trapping students from Gaza in a ‘Black Box’ of restriction, uncertainty, and life-threatening physical danger.

A study permit and its impossibilities

Requirements for obtaining an international

Opening the Shining light on McGill’s Palestinian and the bureaucratic blockades

Written by Lulu Calame, Opinion Editor

study permit to Canada are the same whether an individual is from France, the United States, or Gaza. Palestinian students, like any others hoping to study abroad, must provide proof of acceptance into a Canadian institution, evidence of financial support, valid travel documents, and biometric data. After submission, applications undergo security screening and background checks before receiving official approval.

While standardized requirements for a study permit make sense in theory, those applying from within Gaza face unparalleled obstacles from Israel’s ongoing violence, forced displacements, border closures, and demolition of infrastructure in the Strip. As a result, many are unable to even complete their applications, while those who can are kept in limbo by long delays—often without explanation.

In August 2025, the Canadian government introduced Special Immigration Measures for Palestinians, effective until July 31, 2026. These measures are intended to support Palestinians already in Canada through fee-exempt study and work permits, extensions of temporary resident status, and expedited processing in some cases. But these measures do not extend to Palestinians currently inside Gaza . Biometric requirements, exit procedures from Gaza, and security screenings still apply to these students, with no adjustments tailored to the context of the ongoing genocide, famine, and destruction in the Strip.

A biometrics issue?

The impossible procedural barrier for Palestinian students from Gaza is the biometric requirement. Applicants must provide fingerprints and photos obtained at a Visa Application Centre (VAC). However, no such facilities exist in Gaza.

In May 2024, Israel closed the Rafah border crossing—which is Gaza’s only connection to Egypt—and is not likely to reopen it. Even before the closure, reaching Rafah was risky and time-consuming. Now, with the crossing shut and the surrounding areas frequently under fire, it is effectively impossible for most students to leave.

While applicants and advocates have demanded waivers or deferrals for Gazan students’ biometrics given the exceptional circumstances, Canada has ignored these requests.

More than biometrics: The Black Box

But biometrics are not the whole story. Even those students who successfully left Gaza and completed all application requirements, including biometrics, have now waited more than a year in the background check

Designed by Mia Helfrich,

phase. This stage, managed by unnamed ‘third-party organizations,’ adheres to no official timeline or any precedent of direct communication with applicants. Through interviews we learned that others were barred from paying for various stages of the process because Palestinian visa cards were not accepted. Some were even prevented from starting the application process after submitting their ‘interest forms’ and never receiving the reference code needed to complete the application.

Students and advocates describe this obscure knot of bureaucratic obstacles as a ‘Black Box’—a term reflecting the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding study permit applications for Palestinians.

“It’s a Black Box. It’s unknown what is causing the block to their study permits,” said Nadia Abu-Zahra in an interview with The Tribune

Abu-Zahra is a professor at the University of Ottawa and an active collaborator with the Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk (PSSAR) network. PSSAR supports students through the university, student visa, and CAQ application processes, helps them access social services, and pairs accepted students with professors to supervise research.

“These innocent students are waiting, and the only thing they want to do is to be able to study,” Abu-Zahra said. “It’s unfair to block them now [for] no reason. No one knows why they’re being blocked. No one has given a reason as to why they are being blocked.”

Nada El-Fassou, the Director of Student Services at PSSAR, echoed this frustration in an interview with The Tribune

“Whenever we ask questions about [the processing delays], IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] just says it’s done by third-party organizations,” El-Fassou said. “We don’t know what they do. They refuse to tell us what they do. They refuse to tell us who the third-party organizations are. And every time we ask for help—even from MPs [Members of Parliament]—they say the same thing: ‘There’s no processing time.’”

So, who is responsible?

While IRCC is a major cog in the immigration restriction machine, it does not act alone. The Black Box is held together not by isolated bureaucratic inefficiencies, but by broader political apathy.

the Black Box

Palestinian students stuck in Gaza, blockades that

keep them there

Editor & Sahel Delafoulhouse, Video Editor

Helfrich, Creative Director

“If the Prime Minister’s Office decided to create a new process that works for these students, they could have done that a long time ago,” said El-Fassou. “So I believe it’s a shared responsibility between many different parts of the government.”

The discrepancy between Canada’s alleged commitment to high-quality international education and humanitarian support on one hand, and its neglect of Palestinian scholars on the other, puts in sharp relief the discrimination built into its apparently egalitarian path to international education. It is a path that systematically excludes those facing the harshest persecution, enabling the Canadian government to frame education as a right for most, but for Palestinians, a hard-won privilege.

Part 2: Students’ stories from Gaza

This Black Box is neither abstract nor remote. It is a web of concerted restrictions within which McGill students are stuck as we speak , slashing through layer after layer of impossible hurdles and indeterminate delays with their McGill acceptance letter in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Sherin Jadallah and Majd are two such students. In addition to pursuing her master’s degree, Majd is an alumna of the MIT Emerging Talent program in Computer and Data Science, and a student at the Artificial Intelligence Agents and Large Language Models (LLM) bootcamp based in Gaza. Sherin, a Palestinian physician also from Gaza, will start a master’s specialization in neuroscience at McGill in Winter 2026. Currently, she serves as a medical evacuation officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Strip.

At the time of publication, both Majd and Sherin have been accepted to McGill but remain trapped in Gaza, as they are unable to provide their biometrics. Majd is also currently relying on solar power, which leaves her without internet connection for her studies during the winter.

“We are trying to build our futures in a vacuum,” Majd said. “There are no safe places to study, no functioning labs, and limited ways to connect with professors for guidance.”

The value of education for Palestinians

Sherin has never been outside Gaza, and has lived her entire life under Israeli siege. For her, McGill is a key to personal mobility and cultural fluency. But it is also the place that can best provide her with the training in pediatric neuroscience necessary to address the psychological scarring and developmental trauma inflicted upon Palestinian children by Israel’s genocide and it man-made famine back in Gaza.

“The need for education is greater than ever,” Sherin said. “This isn’t just about knowledge gained during a single academic year or our three academic years, it’s about transferring the experience of a great nation like Canada back home.”

Sherin’s education is a medical resource. By denying it, Canada inflicts egregious violence

against the hundreds of Palestinians still stuck in Gaza for whom Sherin’s degree could be the difference between life and death.

“A breath of life in this crisis”

Just a few years ago, the Gaza Strip bustled with life: Gazans ate in restaurants, worked in offices, and attended university. But this vitality has been erased from dominant visual discourse—phys ically by Israel, symbolically by Western media, and legally by immigration bureaucracies. Pursuing education preserves a semblance of this denied normalcy.

“When you look at the current status of Gaza in the news, most are naturally astonished if such a place is fit to human life,” Sherin said. “They might view anyone arriving from Gaza as a form of permanent immigration, assuming they will never return [....] However, Gaza is fit for life, and our primary desire is to acquire Canadian expert[ise] and knowledge so we can return.”

She also described education as a form of resistance and reclamation in the face of the dam age-centred colonial rendering of her home.

“For me, education currently is not just a resilience of resistance. It’s a breath of life in this crisis,” Sherin said. “Many of my students have been killed just trying to reach the hospital for a lecture. But also studying makes them feel like they are now live [sic] normal life before the war.”

Functioning in this way as a token of memory, education is both a form of preservation and a tool of psychologi cal reconstruction of the once-flour ishing Gaza.

“Education stability is the cornerstone of stability,” Sherin told us. “It’s the memory of stability. It’s escape from death, and is sensed.”

The stability of education also comes from its indestructibility. As the Israeli state razes Palestinian homes, schools, aid sites, hospitals, libraries, museums, business es, and houses of worship to the ground, education prevails as one of the few things of which Palestinians cannot be deprived.

competitive programs around the country in medicinal chemistry, mathematical cryptography, biotechnology, and civil engineering, to name only a few. Their merit shines irrefutably even after every university that once fostered it has long been reduced to rubble.

“These students are very high-achieving,” El-Fassou said. “They would be amazing. They would contribute greatly to the Canadian academic community. And we’re really missing out on that.”

Part 3: What can be done; what must be done:

“What gives me hope is knowing that this is not an impossible problem to solve,” Majd told us—and it’s true.

Universities hold the power of advocacy, and a collective influence greater than the sum of their parts. “Universities are like individuals,” Abu-Zahra said. “When they act individually, they have individual power. When they act collectively, they have collective power.” Support from organizations like PSSAR, testimony before Parliament, and acts of solidarity like the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT)’s historic res -

One Palestinian doctoral student told Abu-Zahra that a doctorate is something no one can take away.

“He was comparing the doctorate and academic accomplishments to land, to homes, to agriculture, to the place [he] grew up, to [his] ancestors—everything that they’re attached to,” Abu-Zahra recalled. “Palestinians, as a people dispossessed, seek academic qualifications because they recognize that that cannot be dispossessed, that cannot be expropriated.”

Canada has everything to gain from Palestinian students. They have been accepted to the most

cence. Today, it could choose to welcome

reconstruction and infrastructure of hope for a place razed to the ground by an apartheid state. And if not today, it could choose again tomorrow.

“Without this kind of intervention,” Majd explained, “my application and my future at McGill remain in limbo, despite everything else I have done to make this happen.”

“Once [Palestinian students] get here, they can flourish and they can thrive,” Abu-Zahra said. “But they’re starving at the moment. Two of the 70 people accepted into universities have been killed. I don’t know if Canada’s waiting for the other 68 to die or be killed.”

“We are not asking for the impossible,” Majd said. “We are asking for what has been shown to be possible.”

One Battle After Another and the never-ending need for resistance Veteran actors and fresh faces shine in this new action thriller

Loriane Chagnon

Contributor

Holding on tightly to its place at the top of the box office since its release on Sept. 26, Paul Thomas Anderson’s new action thriller One Battle After Another continues to captivate and delight viewers. With it, Anderson maintains his standing as one of cinema’s best and brightest filmmakers. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland , he transforms the story through wide shots of winding midwestern roads, action-packed scenes, and a haunting score composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. It features career-topping performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro, and breakout performances by Teyana Taylor and newcomer Chase Infiniti.

One Battle After Another entraps the viewer right from the start. It opens with the rescue mission of detained immigrants conducted by the far-left revolutionary group, the French 75, whose members include ‘Ghetto’ Pat Calhoun (DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Taylor). After an encounter with commanding officer Steven J. Lockjaw, (Sean Penn), whose performance is as wickedly haunting as Hans Landa’s (Christopher Waltz) in Inglorious Basterds , Perfidia and Pat’s daughter is born. Perfidia then enters witness protection, leaving her family behind. Forced into hiding, Pat and his newborn daughter—now assuming the

identity of Bob and Willa Ferguson—abandon their revolutionary ways in favour of a simple life in exile.

16 years later, Lockjaw resurfaces to hunt Willa down. To protect herself, she runs away, forcing Bob to rejoin the revolution. Anderson depicts the struggles of a father and retired revolutionary with both humour and purpose, as he switches between Bob’s failed attempts to rescue his daughter and Willa’s determination to carry on the fight her parents abandoned to save her life.

By shooting in VistaVision—a highresolution widescreen process created in the 1950s—Anderson gives his film a timeless feel, while designing the most enjoyable viewing experience for the big screen. He masterfully captures his characters’ undying determination to make the world a better place, and to escape those who threaten to end these aspirations for their own gain.

One Battle After Another does not shy away from topics such as postpartum depression, intergenerational trauma, and the never-ending need for resistance, depicted through the father-daughter relationship of Bob and Willa, who both love and despise each other, as parents and adolescents often do.

With a run-time of 162 minutes, the film succeeds in retaining its viewers’ attention, never losing focus on the desire of Bob and Willa to reunite. Penn’s physical

A love letter from art to autumn

Some fall faves and a PSA to look outside

Bianca

Sugunasiri Arts & Entertainment Editor

Dearest autumn, You’ve arrived once again, although you’ve made me wait an awfully long time this year. You seem content to torture me with thirty-degree weather in October. But the leaves have finally turned a crisp ochre, and with this comes the breaths of cozy inspiration. All around, artists and audiences alike snuggle up with their blankets to descend into the crackling fireplace of imagination and creativity.

A classic fall pastime for coffee lovers involves sipping from warm mugs while rewatching their favourite 2000s sitcoms. The familiar bond between those in their twenties and their 40-minute episode, seven-season TV show is unmistakable. Gilmore Girls is my personal favourite, combining slice-of-life realness with a tinge of whimsy and the wittiest dialogue. Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) is a sparkling character who epitomizes fall vibes. Watching Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) consistently make poor decisions throughout her early life crisis makes me want to rip out my hair—or hers. But there’s a certain comfort in knowing that no matter how off-kilter my day is going, Rory’s is going worse. This frustration and endearment alongside a steaming teacup is quintessentially autumn.

You, autumn, encourage everyone to slow down. Books are suddenly magical again, and a windy bite at one’s nose in -

acting encapsulates the haunting absurdity of Lockjaw, who is portrayed as both a frightening antagonist and an irrational, law-bending, manic character. His caricatured walk, flexing of muscles, and growling mouth make for a character that is both sinister and ridiculous. Anderson is unafraid to denounce the cognitive dissonance that arises when faced with an authority that works, not for the good of the people, but for its own selfish desires.

Strong acting, meticulous cinematography, warm colour grading, and the exploration of family, resistance, and revolution make One Battle After Another a movie that leaves no one indifferent. Anderson is at his best, as he reminds viewers that movies are meant to be digested and reflected on rather than consumed rapidly and in greater numbers. One Battle After Another will make you gasp, dance, scream, hope, and most importantly, think

cites a desire to hide under the covers with a silly little fantasy novel. My personal recommendation this season is Rebecca Ross’s Divine Rivals . It is not often that I find a story with a plot that feels entirely new, but Ross achieves this, weaving together a perplexing and animated world that I couldn’t escape from. She charts the story of two young journalists competing for the role of columnist. Both share a fiery determination and darkened pasts, kept close and secret. As war rages on, the question emerges: What should we really be commenting on? Connected through magic typewriters, the two form an unlikely bond under precious aliases, becoming each others’ dearest confidants. Ross creates a whirl of warm love, sweet misgivings, and moral conundrum all in one. It’s perfectly paired with the pumpkin spice treat of choice, and the soft patter of rain.

Autumn, despite the wonderful inspiration you are for writers, artists, creators, in addition to the atmosphere you create for art-lovers to immerse themselves in their passions, you are art in and of yourself. Stepping outside on an autumn day holds nearly inexplicable magic, but I shall do my best. It is a sensory exhibit of wonder: The crunch of bright leaves under my soles, the symphony of rustling above me, the slightly sweet, nutty smell in the air. It is art created by no one at all, but shared by everyone. Every leaf is a painting that changes from moment to moment: Sage, to copper, to bursts of sunset and teddy brown. Innocent kids, barely two feet tall,

collect them, press them into books; they notice the art, even if growing up will make them forget. The clouds dance with the sun in autumn, light rays slanting through the cottony fluff and painting the world in vivid colours.

Spring and summer may always hold the popular vote. But I will always love the slight inconvenience of a chill seeping through the knit of sweaters, of the wind tousling perfectly placed hair. There is dramatic art in the playful flair of autumn. Autumn flirts with everyone, like they’re the audience of an interactive play. You demand their attention, grasping them out

of whatever self-centred haze they may be trapped in. We become a shared audience for autumn, united in the common experience of red-tipped ears and runny noses. Art and autumn go hand in hand. These months will pass by so quickly with the blur of midterms and travels home. But for a moment, even just a breath, try to find a piece of art this fall, in the blur of your train ride window or the stray leaf dancing across your textbook. Take a moment and notice it. We’ve worked very hard.

Love, Art

OFF THE BOARD

I promise I’m not a first-year

Sarah McDonald Science & Technology Editor

Last week someone’s jaw dropped when they learned that I’m in third year. Suddenly they wanted to know everything about me: What I’m studying, where I’m from, and if I’m sure I’ve been at McGill for two full years already.

What I find startling is that whenever people are floored by what year I’m in, their disbelief is founded in the same faulty logic: That I am too full of life to be anything but a froshie.

I admit I have more energy than most; the secret to this youthful facade isn’t an inordinate amount of caffeine,

Jamie Xie Staff Writer

Hbut rather an inordinate amount of love.

I made it a rule a number of years ago to fall in love every day. Not ‘lawfully-wedded-wife’ love; something smaller, but no less real. Some days it’s a perfect pair of brown suede boots I spot on campus. Other days, a stranger who holds the door. Today, the perfectly ripe plum I had as a snack and the way my friends piled into the DESA office to spend time with me during my office hours.

Even if I achieve nothing else in any given 24 hours, every day I find something to love.

I’ve been told that I use the word ‘love’ too liberally. I fundamentally disagree. There is so much love to have, to share, and to hold that I can’t come up with a single reason to hoard it in the crevices of my heart.

So yes. I love loudly and I love too much. I let love spill through the cracks in my soul because I love the way it tastes on my breath. I love entirely and wholly and endlessly and daily and I do not care if it is disconcerting. I am a kid and the world is my candy store. Sue me.

I love waiting in slow-moving lines with my friends, just to buy

overpriced coffee to drink together while we commiserate. I love bathroom graffiti and reading the messages that have been painted over and re-written with endless dedication and resilience. I love experiencing world-shattering heartbreak, because when love ends, heartbreak is the proof it was there to begin with—I feel so lucky to have gotten to experience something so profound, even if, in hindsight, it was never meant to last.

This love keeps me grounded, and it takes many forms: Appreciating the ordinary, romanticizing the mundane, and, most importantly, pulling glimmering silver linings out of seas of grey. Sparkles are often the only difference between the gorgeous and the grotesque, so to think of them as childish seems silly: I firmly believe that no matter how old you are, sparkles can help. There is always a glittering silver lining to be found, even if you have to paint it on yourself.

I won’t pretend love is a catch-all solution. My insistence on retaining a love for the utterly unremarkable doesn’t grant me immunity from the realities of university life. Just because I love love

Act like a man, perform like a male

doesn’t mean I’m always just-peachy; my friends have wiped my tears and eaten pints of ice cream straight from the carton with me.

However, there is something to be said about letting the world excite you; about treating so-called ‘frivolous’ love as something adult rather than something naive. If love is what makes life beautiful, why on earth should we ever stop looking for it?

Love doesn’t happen all on its own, but that’s what makes it worth it. Sifting through the unremarkable and finding something beautiful is a beautiful act in and of itself; love is formed and found where you look for it.

So I collect it.

I pick love like berries and spread it on my toast every morning; I use it to sweeten my tea; I wear it as perfume. It fills my days with life and lore, and, apparently, disguises me as a first-year.

While I do wish people could guess my age a little more accurately, there is, as always, something to love in this misconception: It proves that whatever life is lost between first year and third year can—with enough looking and enough love—always be found.

The rise of performative male competitions in Montreal

istory repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” Thus wrote Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Aligning itself with a long legacy of alternative male archetypes, the performative male exists in conversation with the Metrosexual, Soyboy, Nice GuyTM and Male Manipulator—each a cultural attempt to grapple with what it means to be a man in an era of progressive politics, where prized selfawareness is rewarded as social capital.

What makes the performative male distinctive as a phenomenon is its selfconscious, nonthreatening nature. Originating in feminist criticism of men who appropriate aesthetics of political sensitivity for women’s validation, the label has since been embraced, blurred and reinterpreted as a kind of satire—part parody, part reclamation, culminating in a cultural onslaught of competitions to see who can most embody the archetype.

This spirit materialized on Sept. 26, when Sam Rudin, U2 Arts, in collaboration with Spotted McGill, hosted McGill’s first Performative Male Contest on campus, just hours after the university’s annual Lettuce Club competition. Among the wilted green remains of the Lower Field, competitors advanced through rounds of runway, dance-offs, and mock interview questions in a bracket format by ‘cheermeter’—scaled to the music of audience uproar and applause.

Recounting the organizational process, Rudin admits that he hadn’t initially planned to organize anything at all. He

initially floated the idea of a performative male competition in a Spotted McGill confession—more of a suggestion than an intention, but when it garnered traction online, it became clear that what started out as a passing joke among his friends had become a serendipitous call to action.

“At some point, I realized if I don’t do it, no one will,” he said in an interview with The Tribune

For Rudin, the competition was not so much a matter of political statement as it was an inclusive community-bonding exercise. When asked about the role of gender in this phenomenon, he told The Tribune , “Someone commented on the post asking if girls were allowed to perform and another person replied, ‘performative male is a mindset.’ Anyone can be a performative male.”

Runner-up Anthanasios Wees, U1 Arts, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing in an interview with The Tribune that “gender and sexuality have no place as a discriminatory feature.” Wees highlighted that it’s the intent that defines a performative man, not the semantics of how ‘he’ acts.

“It’s about the intention of illusion, pretending to be a safe space for women to gain an advantage in social circles opens you up to rightful criticism […] that’s when you start entering the world of being a performative male.”

Shahzaib Sultan, local social media influencer, winner of the Montreal performative male contest, and self-identifying performative male, believes the city’s cultural landscape is particularly conducive to self expression. Between the fashionforward Plateau, and Mile End’s melting

pot of subcultures, Montreal naturally fosters performative expression where the line between personal style and deliberate performance often blends sincerity with self-aware Gen-Z irony.

Though ultimately victorious, Sultan found himself at odds with the contest’s expectations, and at times, considered quitting. “Being queer in the contest, I questioned my place in that too,” he said. Navigating a space where crowds caricaturize the forms of self-expression he feels natural in, Sultan noted the environment’s inherent hostility in an interview with The Tribune : “It’s not authentic—straight men have appropriated queer culture in many ways and this is just one of them. We applaud men for being performative.”

Kyler Swiatocha, the winner of McGill’s performative male contest, took ‘men should not speak’ literally—duct-taping his mouth and declining to comment in an interview with The Tribune. (Lilly Guilbeault / The Tribune)

Despite the underlying tension, Sultan embraced the experience, choosing to reclaim the space on his own terms. The contest, built on exaggerated heteronormative clowning, prompted him to consider how his identity fit within the broader digital landscape. Getting ready for the

contest felt ordinary—another familiar morning routine. In an ironic twist, it was perhaps the most genuine participant who triumphed in a contest defined by performative masculinity, revealing heart beneath a seemingly cynical spectacle.

“I think the performative male trend has done a lot of good. People base their identity in significantly more ridiculous things than being a performative man. Good for them, it’s hard to figure out what we are,” said Wees.

At Queer McGill, trans and nonbinary community-building is stronger than ever

The Queer History Month Market and Panel Discussion featured speakers and organizations centred on community-building and activism

Gregor McCall Student Life Editor

On the chilly night of Oct. 8, students, activists, organizers, and vendors gathered on the fourth floor of the University Centre in celebration of Queer History Month. Queer McGill’s Market and Panel Discussion featured a variety of organizations and speakers focused on issues surrounding transgender and nonbinary communities.

The heart of the conversation highlighted the importance of creating spaces where trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals not only feel accepted but also see their identities reflected in queer-centric spaces. Even within queer organizations and communities, as the panellists discussed, trans and nonbinary people often have to advocate for themselves—whether seeking access to gender-affirming care or fighting to see themselves represented and reflected—in ways cisgender queer people do not. At the same time, the cultural and political rise of transphobia in Canada threatens the very fabric of these communities.

Val Munoz, a master’s student in McGill’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education, emphasized that in the wake of hateful sentiment, community-building is more important than ever.

“[In] Quebec, there’s a recent bill that was passed [restricting] gender-neutral language or pronoun-usage anymore in official documentation. It’s still a fight to be acknowledged in the first place. So, it’s super important for us to feature trans and nonbinary specific vendors

and panellists for today’s event.”

Munoz refers to the recent decision of Jean-François Roberge, Minister of French for Quebec under the Coalition Avenir Québec government, to ban the use of gender-inclusive language in all official communications. This prohibits government officials from using the pronoun ‘iel’ or adding inclusive suffixes to gendered words, as in ‘étudiant.e.’

Institutional barriers to gender inclusivity exist beyond the governmental level and manifest in all corners of society, including at universities like McGill. Juno Cinq-Mars, U2 Education, and one of the organizers of the event, stressed that even though McGill has made progress in offering services to queer students, there is still a long way to go.

“Overall, right now, there’s been an increase in gender-neutral washrooms, but we need to expand on that project and make sure that’s accessible in every single building. There’s no reason that I need to be running around multiple kilometres while being disabled, just because I’m trans, to find a washroom.”

Other panellists and vendors spoke of the importance of safety in community organizing. Katya Tyutyunyk, a master’s student at McGill’s School of Architecture and member of the featured organization lowkiki, highlighted that creating queer spaces apart from party culture is one of the missions of the group.

“Our purpose, initially, was to create an alternative to nightlife and give queer [folks] a space where they can build community and meet each other without having to party and drink.”

Don’t squirm, it’s time for midterms

“We mainly do a ‘third-space’ type of event where you come and hang out. We have collaging, [...] we’ve done trans-centric events, we’ve done an event that was centred around braiding for Black and Indigenous People of Colour. And these are all kinds of things we want to centre with our events in terms of creating a space where people can come and become friends in the city without pressure,” Tyutyunyk added in an interview with The Tribune

The event underscored the responsibility of allies to support queer voices and work collaboratively to ensure the proliferation of inclusive spaces. Queer History Month reminds

Tips for building effective and sustainable study habits

Rachel Blackstone Staff Writer

Continued from page 1.

Trying new places, bringing friends, and exploring Montreal are all benefits to cafe studying, which make midterm-cramming less isolating and repetitive.

If a library is what you prefer…

If the ensured silence, outlets, and privacy of a library are the features that facilitate your productivity, broaden your horizons away from the packed Schulich and McLennan by exploring the many other beautiful libraries McGill and Montreal have to offer.

Located only three metro stops from the McGill station, the National Archives of Montreal is open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. Its beautiful interior with warm lighting, high ceilings, and intricate architecture makes it a must-try for study sessions.

Even closer is Concordia University’s Webster Library, a mere fifteen minute walk from Roddick Gates. This library is open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, only requiring a Concordia student ID between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00

a.m.. It is a great option for students looking to escape campus for a few hours while remaining in a student environment.

If you prefer to squeeze library-time in between classes, stay on campus and check out the Nahum Gelber Law Library, Birks Reading Room, the Islamic Studies Library, or the Marvin Duchow Music Library. These are excellent choices if you seem to know one too many familiar faces at Schulich or McLennan, or simply can’t find a seat during peak midterm season.

Remember, revising is not an all or nothing game

Don’t let perfection become the enemy. Be kind to yourself if you don’t achieve everything you want to, and take mindful breaks instead of doomscrolling. It can be easy to call 15 minutes of Instagram Reels your study break, but try to use those 15 minutes to go for a walk outside instead. Get your blood pumping, ingest some fresh air, and fully disengage from your work so you can start again feeling refreshed.

Set yourself up for success

A full course load is overwhelming, and it can be tempting to sit down and attempt to conquer everything at once. Al -

everyone to acknowledge and celebrate the countless queer individuals and organizations who have fought against oppression and for civil rights throughout history.

Cinq-Mars continued, “Queer issues affect everyone, not just queer people. Issues with forced gender conformity affect cis people, they affect straight people, and overall, we have to break free from the binaries of gender, and the heteropatriarchy, in order to increase the quality of everyone’s lives, not just queer people’s lives.”

Interested students can follow Queer McGill on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on the wide range of events, services, and programs they offer to the McGill community.

though stress can be a strong motivator, it can also generate unproductive, scattered studying. Instead, make a study plan in advance, setting smaller goals for each day. Creating a weekly plan with each day’s tasks outlined allows you to get everything done in small digestible doses, while avoiding a stress-induced rut of procrastination.

Taking good care of your mental and

physical health during midterms is incredibly important. Before any to-do list or cafe adventure can happen, you must fuel your body with real food, lots of water, and quality sleep. These pillars should be the backbone of every study session. As appealing as coffee, energy drinks, and vending machine snacks are, let them be treats—not foundations—of long study sessions.

Could personalized interventions transform eating disorder care? How individuals with eating disorders feel about personalized single-session feedback

Michelle Yankovsky Staff Writer

Eating disorders (EDs) are serious and prevalent conditions that can impact all aspects of one’s life. However, treatment remains difficult to access as a result of high costs, long waitlists, and geographic limitations. But what if just one encounter could significantly improve cost-effectiveness and long-term outcomes for individuals living with EDs?

Single-session interventions (SSIs)—programs designed to involve only one visit with a clinic, provider, or program—are emerging as a promising approach to better support individuals with EDs who may otherwise be unable to access care.

In a recent pub- lication in the Journal of Eating Disorders, Laura Lapadat, a fourth-year PhD student in McGill’s Clinical Psychology program, investigated the effectiveness of a personalized feedback SSI for individuals with EDs. Lapadat explained that her motivation stems from a desire to make research more collaborative and patient-involved, ensuring that the voices of those directly affected are heard in the development of new interventions.

“When it comes to creating interventions, it’s great to talk to the people who live with the condition and know what it would be like to have to use this [intervention] day to day,” Lapadat said in an interview with The Tribune

She emphasized the need to move past a “one size fits all” approach to treating EDs, since there are many subtypes; the most wellknown include anorexia nervosa, bulimia ner-

vosa, and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorders.

“There’s a movement in the field right now towards more personalized approaches to EDs, as there is a lot of variation in how an ED can present and persist,” Lapadat said. “[Personalized interventions] capture different elements of eating disorders, such as levels of symptoms like restrictive eating or emotion regulation problems.”

Using a qualitative approach, the study interviewed 16 individuals with EDs to explore whether they would be interested in a personalized SSI. Lapadat hoped to incorporate their feedback regarding their ED symptoms and behaviours to better understand their experience

during recovery.

Participants indicated that they valued the detailed personal information, appreciated actionable recommendations for their health, and hoped for feedback which could be shared with their extended healthcare team to allow for better support.

“People with EDs are interested in seeing their own data and appreciate the personalized element of it as compared to a one size fits all approach,” Lapadat said.

However, some participants reported concerns that personalized feedback may bring up feelings of shame. Lapadat highlighted the emotional complexity patients face when receiving such feedback, describing a participant

who experienced strain between their ED and recovery goals. The participant explained that if the feedback indicated she was “doing well,” it could reinforce and trigger her ED habits. This finding illustrates the need for sensitive delivery in making SSIs safe and effective for people who may be at different stages of ED recovery.

“In terms of how it’s delivered, we wanted it to be engaging, to not have too much long text, and to be formatted in ways that respect the autonomy of people with EDs, ideally giving them options about how they view and receive their feedback,” Lapadat said.

Lapadat also acknowledged the study’s limitations caused by its narrow demographic representation. Most participants were white, educated, cisgender women, with many individuals in stable states of their illness.

“Interviewing individuals in more severe states of their illness may have yielded different findings,” Lapadat said.

Looking ahead, the lab’s next step involves recruiting ten individuals with EDs to conduct a pilot study, where participants receive two weeks of five daily phone surveys, to better capture the interventions’ efficacy in real-world settings.

Because EDs have the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness, implementing effective interventions to overcome barriers to treatment is urgent. Personalized SSIs show an encouraging new avenue for ED care by offering treatment tailored to a patients’ unique needs, cutting costs, and reaching individuals who may otherwise not have access to traditional care.

Rogers Place and the overlooked costs of urban development projects Study reveals that Edmonton’s arena displaced Indigenous and unhoused communities

Malika Logossou Managing Editor

The creation of public sports infrastructure often sparks excitement, as many view these projects as symbols of progress and cultural pride. Yet few consider how such developments impact marginalized populations, notably Indigenous communities.

A study in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research examining Rogers Place—Edmonton’s $613.7 million CAD publicly financed hockey arena—challenges the belief that sport-related urban development projects offer community-wide benefits.

Before opening in 2016 on Treaty 6 territory, the site was home to a significant Indigenous urban street community and several nonprofit social service agencies. Following the arena’s creation, residents were evicted as subsidized apartment complexes and community hubs were replaced with upmarket housing. Thus, between 2016 and 2018, Jordan Koch— associate professor in McGill’s Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education—worked alongside researchers Jay Scherer and Rylan Kafara from the University of Alberta to conduct community-based research documenting the arena’s impact on Indigenous and unhoused residents.

Koch told The Tribune in an interview that the project began after he and his colleagues witnessed residents being displaced and losing access to local social services, including the

harm reduction facility known as The Hub.

“The three of us had this longstanding relationship in this community, and we just witnessed firsthand what was happening,” he said. “This sort of thriving community being displaced, […] often aggressively, violently, and we were kind of at a loss for what to do, so we started doing what researchers do, research it […], [and] trumpet stories that we thought were underrepresented.”

The researchers interviewed 34 city centre residents, 20 frontline staff at The Hub, and 8 managers from several non-profit agencies. They also spoke with 30 city centre residents via Homeless Connect events and unhoused individuals at three facilities outside the urban core, and conducted ethnographic observations during 40 National Hockey League (NHL) game nights.

Throughout their interviews, the researchers identified three recurring themes. The first is that the increase of racialized policing and carceral redlining—systemic social control through discriminatory policing and incarceration practices specifically targeting racialized communities—increased stress and anxiety among participants. Police and private security increased surveillance, issued fines, and used other aggressive policing measures to displace Indigenous and unhoused residents to create a “comfortable” environment for hockey fans on event nights.

Koch recalls witnessing this directly during his ethnographic observations.

“An hour before the game, […] police were sort of clearing the corridors [and] that would lead the traffic to and from the arena. [There was] this physical cleansing of the space to kind of make it a more enjoyable experience for the fans.”

Koch also shared that a South Edmonton police officer explained to him how individuals displaced from downtown relocated south. However, limited services forced police to return them downtown and then bring them back to the south on game nights, adding to this nauseating feeling of continuous displacement.

The second common theme among residents was anger and sadness over the loss of safe community spaces. Developers destroyed dead zones in the city, such as parking lots, which often served as shared homeplaces.

The last theme the study found was that city centre residents desired to remain on Indigenous land and retain access to The Hub, viewing it as a sacred space amid ongoing colonial violence against Indigenous Peoples.

“The community has been widely displaced. Yet there was still this hope and sense of home that I thought was really important. So that, to me, was what was kind of the most surprising,” Koch said. “People’s connectedness to that space, to that land, and to each other.”

The study notes that in 2021, the Katz

Group purchased The Hub, and the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation allocated $10 million CAD to relocate it two blocks away from Rogers Place. On Sept. 30, 2023, The Hub closed, and at least 120 city centre residents have since died amid ongoing housing and drug crises.

Ultimately, this study shows that sportdriven development often fails to provide community-wide benefits and instead reflects settler colonialism in its displacement of racialized communities for the benefit of urban elites. Indigenous resilience and connection to land emphasize that urban spaces are home to many communities, which is why ethical and inclusive planning is vital when constructing sport arenas in Edmonton, Montreal, and beyond.

Breast cancer clarified: Addressing medical advances and common misconceptions

A conversation with the director of MUHC’s Breast Centre

Sarah McDonald Science & Technology Editor

Breast cancer is far more common than many people realize; in 2024, breast cancer accounted for 25 per cent of the new cancer cases in Canadian women. While breast cancer survival rates have improved drastically over time, researchers continue to study the disease to improve patient outcomes.

One such researcher is Dr. Sarkis H. Meterissian, a McGill professor of surgery and oncology. As director of the Breast Centre at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), Meterissian’s research is centred on breast cancer management.

“We do a combination of clinical research, meaning looking at patient outcomes and trying to determine from our databases what the optimal [treatment] approach would be [....] We also do translational research […] and then finally, we have a lot of very interesting collaborations and projects with industry,” Meterissian explained in an interview with The Tribune

These industry collaborations help pilot new and developing technologies in clinical settings—a crucial step in tailoring medical technology to patients’ needs. One partnership is with the Montreal company Noze which is working to develop an AI model

that can ‘smell’ cancer and other diseases on exhaled breath.

“[Noze] did a pilot study already, with us at the breast center, with over 140 patients, showing very promising data on sensitivity and specificity,” Meterissian said. “And now I’m leading a study which will hopefully start soon, and will include over 3000 patients.”

Another collaboration with Polytechnique Montréal involves engineers developing a medical wand to detect cancer on the margins of surgical wounds. According to Meterissian, between 20 and 25 per cent of surgically-treated breast cancer patients have cancer recurrences and require a second operation. Should this project be successful, this technology could significantly reduce reoperation rates—a huge advance in breast cancer treatment.

As diagnostic and treatment technologies evolve, breast cancer treatment results and the overall patient experience are expected to improve.

However, despite doctors’ and researchers’ continued efforts to improve patient outcomes, there are still many misconceptions about breast cancer, which Meterissian hopes to address.

First, he wanted to clarify the most atrisk populations. He explained that while breast cancer is most common among older women, cancer cases are becoming more

and more common in younger patients in general. He also emphasized that breast cancer is not influenced by genetics nearly as much as many people believe.

“Only in five to ten per cent of cases is [it] genetic, so you have the other 90 to 95 per cent that are sporadic,” Meterissian said. “In other words, a woman who has no family history can get breast cancer.”

He also described how lifestyle can influence breast cancer susceptibility. Most types of breast cancer are linked to hormone levels—the higher the levels of circulating hormones one has, the higher their risk of developing breast cancer.

“A woman who is of average weight has less circulating hormones than a woman who is 50 pounds overweight, because [the latter] will make hormones from the fat as well as from her ovaries,” Meterissian explained.

Alcohol also has a definitive influence on breast cancer development.

“If you drink every weekend, every weekend your liver is taking a hit and your hormones are going up,” Meterissian said.

“So the chances of you [getting] breast cancer will be higher if you are drinking on a regular basis than a woman who doesn’t drink.”

Another key misconception about breast cancer is that it is limited to one sex. While breast cancer is, expectedly, most common in women, it is important to remember that men can get breast cancer too—something that is forgotten all too often.

Ultimately, Meterissian shares that it comes down to noticing changes in your body.

“The number one [piece of] advice I have for women is to be aware of their bodies,” Meterissian said. “We see so many times there’s a lump, there’s redness, and women haven’t noticed. So take the time to check.”

When cells collide: Understanding the effects of red blood cell collisions Study reveals intercellular collisions as the primary factor for red blood cell membrane strain

Guillaume Delgado Contributor

The field of biomedical engineering is complex, to say the least. Out of all the sciences, it is one of the hardest to understand, as it centres around understanding and altering the millions of interactions occurring in our bodies everyday.

In a recent study published in Scientific Reports , McGill Alumni Hristo Valtchanov and his colleagues analyzed the intricacies of the human body, specifically blood flow, to determine if red blood cells (RBC) are negatively affected by intercellular collisions, where two or more cells come into direct contact with each other. Because of the density of our red blood cells and how small our blood vessels are in width, red blood cells frequently collide with each other when being pumped through our bodies.

Valtchanov believes that researchers have overlooked RBC collisions in the modeling of blood rheology—the science of blood flow—despite overall advances in said technology.

“In the biosciences, model representation is extremely important,” Valtchanov said in an interview with The Tribune . “It’s also important to challenge the assumptions people have on said models.”

He also argues that previous studies downplayed the importance of RBC collisions, suggesting they had a minimal impact on hemolysis—the destruction of

RBCs. High levels of hemolysis is dangerous for the human body and can eventually lead to organ failure.

“It’s actually quite difficult to incorporate the effect of intercellular collisions, but no one had actually tried to quantify the effect, so we did a study doing just that,” Valtchanov said.

Thus, the researchers used viscoelastic simulations, measuring the RBC membranes’ responses to constant force or deformation to analyze how much strain intercellular collisions put on these membranes. They specifically analyzed this strain at different shear rates, which measure how fast layers of liquid move past one another.

“Basically, we made a simulation, and smashed the red blood cells together so that we could directly measure the effect of collisions on the strain experienced by the red blood cell membrane, and thus on hemolysis,” Valtchanov said. “We did this in simulation because the distribution of strain on the RBC membrane is exceedingly difficult to examine, particularly during a dynamic event like a collision.”

Their results showcased that overall, intercellular collision increased RBC membrane strain. In fact, they found that intercellular collisions were the main cause for membrane strain in RBC.

The importance of RBC collisions is made abundantly clear when considering what Valtchanov and colleagues had been examining beforehand.

“We began this study while we were trying to develop constitutive models for

hemolysis. We use hemolysis modeling to try to predict the amount of damage to red blood cells when a medical device is implanted into a patient,” Vatlchanov explained.

These findings could help create new and improved biomedical devices, such as blood pumps, that are less likely to cause hemolysis, which could save lives as a result.

“A high degree of hemolysis is called ‘lethal hemolysis’ because it causes kidney failure and death. Lower doses have all sorts of other complications. It will slowly damage all of your other organs, and your kidneys will eventually give out.” Valtchanov said.

Ultimately, this study could help broaden current knowledge in modelling blood damage and creating biomedical devices.

“As engineers, our main challenge is to predict things,” Valtchanov added. “If you can predict something, you can control it, and design solutions to stop it

from happening.”

Despite the progress that the researchers have made in this field, the work is far from over.

“The amount of knowledge you need to advance any science is a lot, to be frank,” Valtchanov said. “In general, there is so much work that needs to be done to improve our understanding of how the body works, to model the biomechanical processes that lead to diseases. The future of medicine is preventative, and harnesses data to take into account each individual person’s unique physiology.”

A long-awaited return: McGill Field Hockey hosts second home weekend in over six years

Martlets brought the action back to Montreal for a matchup against

Lialah Mavani Staff Writer

TFor the second consecutive year, the McGill Women’s Field Hockey team made their home debut, marking a major step in the team’s efforts to re-establish their presence on campus. On Oct. 11 and 12, the Martlets played their only home games of the season, facing off against the University of Toronto’s Varsity Blues. While the Martlets were unable to secure wins in either match against the second-ranked team—losing 4-0 and 7-0— the games were a reminder of the team’s ongoing improvement and determination.

The team’s opening match at Forbes Field on Oct. 11 set the tone for the weekend, showcasing their defensive skills and growing their on-field chemistry.

Goalie Gabriella Fourkas, U2 Arts, and midfielder Sara Prins, U2 Arts, spoke to The Tribune about the importance of maintaining focus and composure on the pitch, which the team has majorly improved upon this year.

“We were all able to stay calm the whole time,” Fourkas reflected. “We didn’t let the excitement or the stress of it being a home game get to us too much.”

Prins echoed that sentiment.

“The first half definitely started off with extreme jitters,” she said. “But after the second whistle blew, every girl was in it.”

As Prins noted, the Martlets had a slow start in the first half, with the opening quarter

ending in a

scoreless 0-0 tie. The Varsity Blues ramped up their offensive pressure in the second quarter, pulling ahead 3-0, though Fourkas ended the half with a crucial save to deny another goal.

McGill began to settle into the ebb and flow of the game in the second half, using their strong defensive pressure and working to find open spaces to pass up the field. While the Martlets were unable to score, they stayed composed, hustling to every ball and supporting their goalkeeper. Fourkas’ relentless performance and spectacular saves earned her ‘Player of the Game,’ with special mentions by the team’s assistant and head coaches to defenders such as captain Clara Smyrski, U3 Arts and Science, and Jenna Payette, U3 Science, for greatly strengthening the defensive line.

Head Coach Sharan Gill praised the team’s determination in an interview with The Tribune

“The girls are really good. They are one of the hardest-working groups I’ve ever coached,” Gill said.

The game also sparked a broader conversation around the future of McGill’s Field Hockey program. The Martlets currently face the threat of being cut in the upcoming varsity review. Midfielder, assistant captain, and U3 Arts student Grace Hodges emphasized the necessity of hosting home games in building awareness and visibility for the team in an interview with The Tribune

“Having home games builds the sport in the province,” she reflected. “[If the program gets cut], it’s a shame not only for women’s sports, […] but also for the future of this sport within the province, growing different types of games, and not just the ones that have had support from McGill.”

UofT’s Varsity Blues

Hodges’ sentiment that the sport is growing was echoed by the stands, where the crowd’s presence and cheers created a buzzing atmosphere.

The Martlets carried the momentum of their home play into their Oct. 19 matches against the Queen’s University Gaels in Kingston. Though the Martlets lost their first game 2-1, Smyrski scored the first goal of the season; in their second match, the Martlets won 1-0, with a goal from U1 Arts and Science student and forward Avery Berry. Prins assisted both goals.

Quotable:

“It makes a big difference for the girls to have the chance to play with their families [watching]. A lot of us are from out of province, and our families have flown in and have

Tides and Roses split points as former Martlets reunite in NSL showdown

Guilmette, Bouchard, and Hill compete on opposite sides as NSL playoff race heats up

Ivanna Zhang Staff Writer

The Halifax Tides FC played the Montreal Roses FC in a crucial Northern Super League (NSL) match on Oct. 2, which ended in a 2-2 draw. The game was the final matchup this season between three McGill Martlets Soccer alumni: Sophie Guilmette (MA ‘25), Mara Bouchard (BA ‘24), and Stéphanie Hill (BSc ‘23, MSc ‘24).

Guilmette signed with the Tides in March 2025 and plays goalkeeper for the team. In an interview with The Tribune, she expressed her excitement about playing against her former teammates.

“It’s just joy, honestly. Mara and Steph are [some] of my closest friends,” she said. “And at the end of the day, win or lose, those are my people.”

Founded in April 2025, the NSL is Canada’s first professional women’s soccer league. Its season spans eight months, starting in February and ending in October, and features six clubs: Calgary Wild FC, the Halifax Tides FC, AFC Toronto, the Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC, and Vancouver Rise FC. Over the course of the regular season, each team plays a total of 25 matches, facing every opponent five times.

Bouchard, who is a midfielder for the

Roses, explained the uncertainty that comes with playing in a new league in an interview with The Tribune

“I guess the first thought is, I don’t know what to expect,” she said. “Everyone is just jumping in the league where no one has any idea of how [it’s] gonna turn out.”

Guilmette discussed how part of the NSL’s importance lies in its novelty.

“Up until this year, it was not possible to play [professional women’s soccer] in Canada,” she emphasized. “I’m super privileged to be able to do that at home in front of my family and friends [now].”

Although still in its early stages, the league has already drawn significant attention from Canadian fans, attracting over 14,000 spectators to its opening matches in Vancouver and Toronto. The NSL has also secured multiple broadcasting agreements with major streaming platforms, including CBC, TSN, and the francophone Réseau des sports.

The Tides-Roses match came just two weeks before the NSL playoffs, for which the top four seeds have already been determined. Still, it was an important match, as the Roses aimed to surpass the Rapid to become the second playoff seed, while the Tides looked to end their winless streak dating back to July 12.

“We already qualified for playoffs, so

for us, [we treated] this match like a playoff game,” Bouchard explained. “We’ve always had a tough time playing against Halifax this season.”

driven hours to be here. There’s the field hockey community in Montreal that shows up for it. So, it’s not only meaningful for us to be able to play on a home field, but it’s meaningful for the sport at large in Quebec.”—Hodges, on the importance of celebrating Women’s Field Hockey at McGill.

Stat corner:

There were 112 fans in attendance, marking a major increase from the previous year’s home game attendance of 75.

Sports Editor Clara Smyrski and Sports Staff Writer Jenna Payette are members of the McGill Women’s Field Hockey team. Neither were involved in the writing, editing, or publication of this article.

Despite numerous scoring attempts from both sides in the opening half, a breakthrough did not come until the 36th minute, when Tides midfielder Saorla Miller capitalized on a free kick. Montreal responded in the 68th, with Lorie Thibault threading a pass to fellow midfielder Charlotte Bilbault, who chipped the ball past Tides goalkeeper Anika Tóth to bring the Roses level.

Just two minutes later, Miller restored Halifax’s lead, scoring her second goal. But the advantage was short-lived—only four minutes later, Montreal’s Chaerim Kang tipped the ball past Tóth to secure a draw.

Hill, one of the Roses’ starting defenders, sat down with The Tribune to reflect on the team’s performance.

“We were having a hard time scoring and keeping the momentum,” she said. “We were perhaps making them look quite good at some moments, and that’s on us to step it up.”

For Hill, the intensity of the game highlighted the changes between playing professionally and collegiate competition. While both seasons end in late October, McGill’s preseason starts in early August, whereas the NSL preseason begins in February, extending players’ calendars significantly.

“It’s just so different,” she explained. “I’m getting paid to do this. It’s my full-time job. We train every day from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. With McGill, academics always came first. So it was school all day, and then practice [at] 6:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m.”

Despite these challenges and adjustments, all three former Martlets spoke with gratitude about their journey to the NSL.

“I want to remove the negative connotation that comes with the word ‘challenge’ because I think it’s something that’s to be embraced,” Hill said. “Work hard, and let’s see what kind of magic can happen.”

Youth

give rugby a “try” through Redbirds Rugby-CRARR

partnership

for community safety

Session was part of CRARR’s Together Against Violence program, which uses sport to empower and connect diverse Montreal youth

Mairin Burke Managing Editor

On Oct. 4, approximately 50 youth from the Greater Montreal Area ran sprints, played touch rugby, and learned the fundamentals of the sport, coached by varsity athletes from McGill’s Redbirds Rugby Team, on Forbes Field. The training event was the second half of an initiative led by Montreal’s Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) this year—the first, a press conference and information session on Sept. 4—as part of their Rugby for Community Safety initiative, in partnership with the Redbirds and the Jamaica Association of Montreal.

The Rugby for Community Safety series is a part of CRARR’s broader Together Against Violence project, which uses sport to unite and empower youth from diverse areas of Montreal to engage with their communities, meet potential mentors, and build skills that act as emotional outlets to help mitigate violence. CRARR commenced the project in 2023 with support from the City of Montreal and other major sponsors such as the Société de transport de Montréal, running a range of sports-focused events such as basketball skill sessions.

In an interview with The Tribune, CRARR Project Coordinator Nicole Machlout affirmed that the ongoing collaboration between the Center and the Redbirds represents much more than the sport itself.

“We [aim] to bring together people from marginalized communities, kids who normally don’t have as many opportunities to learn about new sports, with the goal of hopefully getting them off of the streets, or to [safely and productively] prevent them from being involved in crime,” she explained.

Machlout dove further into how sports sessions like those in the Rugby for Community Safety series have lasting impact.

“We want to inspire kids that are at risk. Specifically with sport, the goal is to teach discipline for them to have a sense of growth,” she said.

“It’s a great way to kind of instill self care, because they’re doing something that makes them feel good […] and also [is] extremely healthy. [....] If [youth are] able to have access to the sport [and thus] able to meet mentors, […] that will also build a network and create connection. So if they want to pursue this on, let’s say, a varsity level, […] it’s giving them access to that.”

Starting at 9:45 a.m, the youth in attendance—aged 12 to 20—began by listening to presentations on the connection between sports and youth violence prevention, and were introduced to the CRARR affiliates and Redbirds Rugby players running the session. After participants practiced the fundamentals and played in a round-robin tournament, the event concluded around 1:00 p.m. Participants were then offered refreshments, and invited to attend the ensuing Martlets Rugby game—the final match of the

regular season—at Percival Molson Stadium. The Martlets ultimately came back from a 21point deficit to beat the Bishop’s University Gaiters 38-35.

The Rugby for Community Safety session foregrounded interactive and hands-on learning about the sport, with the Redbirds demonstrating fundamental rugby skills such as catching, kicking, passing, and tackling. The Redbirds also prioritized camaraderie, promoting a lighthearted, supportive environment that made trying something new as approachable as possible for attendees.

and spreading the game of rugby.”

In an interview with The Tribune, scrumhalf, club president of McGill Rugby, and third-year Engineering student Ashton Wright expressed how giving back to the Montreal community simultaneously gives back to the Redbirds varsity program.

“We really are growing our presence within the community and growing the effect that we can have, the positive impact we can have,” Wright said. “This collaboration [is] hopefully going to be revisited in the future. It’s definitely something we enjoy doing, getting the boys out

First-year Arts student and second row Redbird Nikolas Begic echoed Wright’s sentiments in an interview with The Tribune

“I think it’s really important that, as a school, as a team, we give back to the community and come out here,” Begic said. “I love spreading the game, a game that builds teamwork and community. [....] [I] really feel privileged to be in the position I am [to] teach.”

Sports Staff Writer Zain Ahmed is a member of the Redbirds Rugby team and was a lead organizer of this event. He was not involved in the publication of this story.

Mitchell’s collapse sparks reflection on what happens when

Fever” burns too hot

How

overtraining and exhaustion can push even elite athletes past their limits

Jenna Payette Staff Writer

In the third quarter of Game 5 of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) semi-finals against the Las Vegas Aces, Kelsey Mitchell’s legs locked mid-stride. The Indiana Fever guard suddenly slowed, freezing in pain as her body began to betray her. In an instant, a highly-anticipated playoff game became a medical emergency, and Mitchell’s season hit a terrifying breaking point.

“My muscles stopped producing [energy after reaching] maximum capacity,” she later explained in a written social media post. “I went into a sense of numbness/paralyzing feeling with no movement from my lower extremities for up to 5 to 7 seconds.”

As Mitchell’s body crumpled, the game’s referee stepped forward instinctively, catching her before she hit the hardwood. Mitchell’s teammates rushed in, surrounding her with towels to block cameras. The arena fell silent. She was carried off the court and taken to the hospital for treatment. What had looked like a simple cramp was quickly identified as something far more serious: Rhabdomyolysis, a dangerous condition that can be triggered by extreme physical exertion, dehydration, and heat exposure.

Rhabdomyolysis occurs when skeletal muscle breaks down faster than the body can repair, causing the tissue to disintegrate and die. As this happens, toxic proteins flood the bloodstream.

Normally, the kidneys filter these substances out, but when overwhelmed, they cannot keep up.

Symptoms can include muscle pain, weakness, dark urine, nausea, or fatigue. The condition may also lead to kidney failure.

Though rhabdomyolysis is rare, with only 26,000 people developing the condition annually in the United States, athletes like Mitchell are at

high risk as rhabdomyolysis’s effects can be easily mistaken for ordinary gametime exhaustion.

For a player who carried her team through a season defined by adversity, the moment was especially haunting. The Fever had already lost five players to injuries, including star point guard Caitlin Clark. In her seventh WNBA season, Mitchell remained the team’s anchor. She was averaging 20.2 points per game and was a 2025 WNBA MVP finalist. On that September night in Las Vegas, she had already scored 15 points before her injury sent her off the court.

Mitchell’s teammate Sophie Cunningham described the moment vividly on her podcast Show Me Something. “She just got a full body cramp. Imagine having a charley horse, but times 100,” Cunningham said. “She was a little sick, super dehydrated, but really the doctor just said […] she played till her wheels came off.”

The Fever lost in overtime to the Aces, 107-98, which capped off their fairytale playoff run after a hard-fought season. But Mitchell’s collapse raised a question that reverberates far beyond professional basketball: How close can athletes come to their limits before crossing into

danger?

‘No pain, no gain’ is a common refrain, but research from University of California Los Angeles Health highlights the dangers of equating the two. Overtraining disrupts hormones like cortisol and testosterone, impairs recovery, and strains mental health. Fatigue, persistent soreness, and decreased performance are warning signs that an athlete needs rest. Hydration, sleep, and rest days are therefore not optional, but critical to performance and safety.

Thankfully, Mitchell is expected to make a full recovery. But her experience is more than a cautionary tale: It is a call to action. Professional athletes like Mitchell are trained to push boundaries, but they should not have to gamble with their health to prove their worth or win a championship. The WNBA and its teams need to examine how a culture of constant performance may blur the line between dedication and danger. With longer seasons, grueling travel, and ever-intensifying competition brought on by the league’s expansion, player welfare must not be an afterthought. For athletes, rest and recovery are not a luxury, but a necessity. WNBA coaching staff and medical teams must better monitor athletes and encourage open communication about fatigue so players can speak up before they break down. Mitchell’s collapse serves as a vivid reminder that winning should never come at the expense of well-being. Even the strongest athletes are still human, and true strength means knowing when to stop.