Geneviève Sylvestre

Call the question galore at CSU council meeting

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Councillors call the question nine times at latest council meeting. Photo Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Calls to end debate and accusations of filibustering mark latest council meeting

The latest Concordia Student Union (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on April 9 saw councillors strenuously approve the consent agenda and reject all three motions on the agenda.

Throughout the evening, councillors successfully motioned to call the question—or end debate and move directly to a vote—a total of nine times, leading to accusations of filibustering. 

When it came time to vote on approving the consent agenda—the set of committee minutes and executive reports for the month—at the start of the meeting, councillor Drew Sylver motioned to remove four items for further discussion. The items included were the External Committee minutes, the Policy Committee minutes, the Community Action Fund minutes, and the Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes. 

Sylver called for sections of the External Committee, Community Action Fund, and Clubs and Spaces Committee minutes to be separated and voted on individually. All motions failed. 

For each of the items taken out of the consent agenda, councillor Ali Salman successfully called the question during his speaking turn. 

Almost 40 minutes into the meeting, as council was still approving the agenda, Sylver addressed the chairperson, saying that the constant calling of the question could be considered filibustering according to his interpretation of Robert’s Rules of Order. 

In politics, a filibuster is a procedure used to prolong debate to delay or prevent a vote or decision. 

The chairperson said this was not their interpretation of the rules and continued the meeting. All minutes were approved by council. 

Following the approval of the consent agenda, three motions were presented to council. The first was brought forth by Lena Andres, a member of the cooperative CultivAction. Andres motioned to reallocate $25,000 from the CSU Loyola coordinator’s grant to CultivAction, to be divided between the Loyola Campus garden groups. 

Andres claimed they made multiple attempts to communicate with the Loyola coordinator, Leen Al Hijjawi, and expressed dissatisfaction with the new grant. Al Hijjawi answered that they had been in communication and that she does not have a budget of $25,000.

After some discussion by council, Sylver called the question, clarifying he was doing so in a “non-‘filibustery’ way.” The motion failed.

Council moved on to discussing a motion put forth by Sylver to mandate that each councillor must disclose their affiliation with any CSU club in the name of transparency. As before, Salman successfully called the question, and Sylver’s motion failed. 

Lastly, councillor Liora Hechel presented her motion to create a new CSU committee under the Student Life Committee to host food truck events on campus. Hechel proposed that $10,000 be allocated to this new committee per semester.                           
                
External affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne raised concerns about the logistics and costs associated with Hechel’s motion. Later, Hechel said that the CSU could hold fundraiser events, such as a LinkedIn photoshoot, to earn additional funds. 

Once again, following additional discussion, Salman successfully called to end the debate and move to a vote. 

Hechel’s motion failed, and the meeting was adjourned around 8:30 p.m. 

Call the question galore at CSU council meeting Read More »

Celebrating Pride through resistance

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Thousand of Montrealers take to the street for the Wild Pride march on Aug. 10. Photo Lana Koffler

Maria Cholakova & Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

New Wild Pride festival aims to create a non-corporate, safe space for queer identity and politics

Yara Coussa and Aisha White first decided to create an alternative Pride festival following the wave of queer groups and organizations that publicly cut ties with Fierté Montréal back in the spring of 2025.

Coussa and White were texting each other about the city’s need for a non-corporate Pride event, and a week later, White had created an Excel spreadsheet with potential collaborators. 

Preparations for Wild Pride had begun. 

According to them, Wild Pride aims to be an alternative space for queer individuals to celebrate Pride in a radical, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and anti-corporate environment.

“ [The events are] really a response to a gap and a silence, specifically when it comes to the genocides all over the world, and an unwillingness to make Pride what it is at its core: a political fight,” Coussa said. 

They believe that pre-existing Pride events, like those planned by Fierté Montréal, were overly sanitized and lacked necessary political resistance. 

“In Montreal, [Pride] started as a riot against the police. It started as being led by lesbians of colour, by sex workers,” Coussa said. “So, to be in line with what Pride is, we need to continue being political. We need to continue with our fight.”

To gauge if there was interest within the Montreal queer community for an alternative festival, Coussa and White planned a town hall where 150 organizers showed up and 84 events were planned. 

Celebrations and events started on July 30 and will conclude on Aug. 18 with a variety of shows, workshops and community days.  

On Aug. 8, Wild Pride held a Community Day event, where 22 organizations gathered to promote their community organizations.

Firoza, a Montreal artist who offered henna art, was present and gathering donations for a Palestinian family in Gaza. 

“Historically, Pride has involved working-class queer and trans people, and it feels weird to be in an imperial [corporation], celebrating Pride with the same corporations that are fuelling the genocide and contributing to state-sanctioned violence against Black and Indigenous people,” Firoza said. 

Coussa also emphasized the importance of speaking up about Palestine as queer individuals. 

 “To say that the Palestinian cause and LGBTQ rights are dissociated is just to be blind to what is going on,” Coussa said. “It’s to be blind to the fact that the genocide in Palestine is being justified by pinkwashing.”

A number of Queer, Jewish and Palestinian voices have spoken out about the dangers of pinkwashing. Decolonize Palestine defines pinkwashing as occurring when “a state or organization appeals to LGBTQ+ rights in order to deflect attention from its harmful practices.”

Coussa, who is from the Levant region, said they feel connected to the Palestinian cause and the need to fight against both queer and Palestinian oppression.

“We live in a globalized system where our consumerism essentially funds [genocide],” Coussa said. “We have this added responsibility to be very conscious about what we consume, about what we support.”

Marchers hold up Palestinian flags and signs in support of the trans community. Photo Lana Koffler

Fierté Montréal and recent fallout 

In April, a number of LGBTQIA2S+ organizations, including Sweet Like Honey, Jeunesse Lambda and Helem Montréal, announced on Instagram that they were cutting ties with Fierté Montréal.  

The CBC also obtained an open letter in May signed by 10 LGBTQIA2S+ organizations denouncing Fierté Montréal, claiming it no longer represented them and that its practices were “unacceptable.”

Signatories also stated that they felt “unheard, used and underpaid.” 

On July 30, following calls from the queer community for the organization to show vocal support for Palestine, Fierté Montréal released a statement condemning the genocide in Gaza. The organization’s board of directors announced it would exclude groups it considered to be “spreading hateful discourse” from this year’s Pride events.

The two groups affected—Ga’ava, a Montreal-based, student-run Pro-Israel LGBTQIA2S+ group, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)—quickly denounced Fierté’s statement. 

CIJA defines itself as “the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA” and has been critical of pro-Palestine movements across Canada.

Over the years, they have opposed the teaching of Palestinian history in Canadian schools, opposed Canada providing aid to Palestinians through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and heavily criticized Canada’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state in September. 

Ga’ava, the second banned group, has also faced controversy, with reports from The Rover showing that the organization’s president, Carlos A. Godoy, has denied famine in Gaza and has claimed that “Palestinians are complicit with Hamas.” 

According to the UN, 12,000 children under the age of five were suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza in July. 

A week after their statement banning the groups from the Pride parade, Fierté reversed their ban and apologized for their original decision, stating that all groups, regardless of religion, were invited. 

Émilie Grandmont, a member of the organization AlterHéros who cut ties with Fierté Montréal in April, was panelling at the Wild Pride community event and spoke of the importance of having an alternative Pride festival. 

“With the recent turn that Fierté has taken—not just with corporation affiliation, but with the refusal to stand against the genocide and pinkwashing—it has become more important to have an alternative community gathering where we can be queer and be proud of it,” Grandmont said. 

The Link reached out to Fierté Montréal for comment, but has not received a reply as of the time of publication. 

Celebrating Pride through resistance Read More »

Sit-ins for Palestine continue across Canada

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Activists wave the Palestinian flag at a sit-in on Aug. 6. Photo Maria Cholakova

Maria Cholakova & Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Activist groups call out federal government over lack of action on Gaza reunification program

Pro-Palestine groups across the country are continuing sit-ins at Canadian immigration offices, demanding that the federal government take action to unite Gaza family members in Canada.

Activists and community groups are demanding that the government follow through on the Canadian reunification program. First introduced in January 2024 with a 5,000 temporary resident visa applicant cap, the program was meant to keep the promise of reuniting families.

According to the most recent statistics on the Canadian government’s website, as of July 8, more than 1,750 people who exited Gaza have passed security screenings and are approved to come to Canada. However, only 860 applicants have arrived safely from Gaza.

Additionally, as of July 26, Canada has assisted 11 Canadians, including children travelling with their mothers, in leaving Gaza safely, a move the Gazan Canadian Families organization called “not even a bare minimum response” in a press release.

In Montreal, weekly sit-ins, organized by activist Summer Alkhdour, Gazan Canadian Families and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), happen every Wednesday in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada building.

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, activists played songs, waved the Palestinian flag and chanted, “IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] while you delay, bombs are dropping every day.” 

Activists from Gazan Canadian Families handed out pamphlets urging immigration officials and the government to implement an efficient screening policy of 14 days and remove biometrics from applications for Gazans; to allow safe evacuations from Gaza through negotiations with the Israeli government; to fast-track approvals for applicants stuck in Egypt; and to collaborate with provinces to provide healthcare and coordinated support for arrivals.

IJV member Niall Clapham Ricardo emphasized the importance of caring about the genocide and confronting the government’s inaction. 

“People should not see this as separate issues from their daily lives; everybody is impacted by [immigration],” Ricardo said. “The more restrictions and obstacles we put towards immigration in this country, the more it will have an impact on every single community.” 

Sit-ins for Palestine continue across Canada Read More »

Is the CSU transparent?

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Students report ongoing problems with the Concordia Student Union. Graphic Emily Wolak

Geneviève Sylvestre & Maria Cholakova,
Local Journalism Initiative

Lack of organization, communication issues and long meetings frustrate the student body

For Jessica Winton, senior coordinator of Queer Concordia, her relationship with the Concordia Student Union (CSU) is nonexistent. 

“Since we’re a fee levy [group], we’re independent, we try to do everything ourselves,” Winton said. “And, given that the CSU has been very reluctant to support us in basically any way aside from two executives, […] I just don’t even bother trying to deal with them at all.”

Winton has worked all year to create a gender-affirming care (GAC) loan program to help students access care without the pressure of waiting for reimbursement from insurance. 

Originally, she went to the CSU to present her motion and ask for a maximum of $100,000 to be allocated to the loan project at the first regular council meeting (RCM) of the fall semester. 

At the RCM, on top of sharing financial concerns, a councillor named another reason to oppose the motion. 

“It’s just contradicting many people’s beliefs and religious values,” the councillor said at the RCM. “I just have to speak in their voice, and I have to say that these students also represent a significant portion of the student population.”

However, according to the CSU Positions Book, the union’s official position since 2021 is that it “stands in solidarity with trans, nonbinary and gender-non-conforming folks.” 

“[The] CSU never publicly acknowledged this incident. They still haven’t published the minutes, as far as I’m aware, they never apologized to us either,” Winton said, adding that only one executive member apologized to her in private afterward. 

Council voted to send her motion to the finance committee, which has a budget of $20,000. Her project was then struck down due to a lack of funds.

After failing to receive support from the CSU, Winton launched the program at a reduced capacity of $20,000 through Queer Concordia. 

To try and get more funding for Queer Concordia and her GAC loan program, Winton sent her application to receive a fee levy increase during the 2025 CSU general elections. 

The CSU Policy on Fee Levy Applications states that existing fee levy groups looking to run for an increase need to provide “an audit or review engagement prepared by an external accountant for the previous fiscal year.” 

As Queer Concordia is the smallest fee levy group on campus—receiving $0.02 per undergraduate student, per credit—Winton said that an official audit could cost around half of the group’s operating budget.  

Queer Concordia sent in their application on Jan. 22, and additional documents on Jan. 23. They received no updates about their application after it was sent and acknowledged. 

On March 4, after reading The Link and The Concordian’s collective editorial, Winton realized Queer Concordia’s fee levy was not even added to the deliberation documents for council to look through. 

“So I reached out,” Winton said. “And apparently, our application was never even presented to the committee.”

According to Leen Al Hijjawi, one of the chairs of the fee levy committee, the Queer Concordia fee levy application was sent after the deadline without an audit. 

However, emails acquired by The Link showed that the application was sent before the last Monday of January—the deadline outlined in the policy. 

The fee levy committee and its lack of organization 

Queer Concordia isn’t the only group that has been having issues with the fee levy committee. 

During the winter semester, fee levy applicants had to send their application to the chairs of the fee levy committee by Jan. 27. 

As is procedure, after receiving the applications, the council needed to meet to deliberate on the packages presented to them. 

However, according to committee chair Moad Alhjooj, despite numerous attempts to convene during the nomination phase of the general elections, councillors were unresponsive. 

As such, the committee did not meet at all. 

By Feb. 25, the CSU held an urgent special council meeting (SCM) to ensure that the upcoming CSU elections would be held properly and according to the rules. The agenda included the approval of fee levy applications and referendum questions. 

The approval of the applications took place four days after the Feb. 21 deadline of the CSU election nomination phase. During the SCM, the CSU chairperson placed the fee levy committee in a breakout room and granted them 40 minutes to deliberate on the applications. 

Only one of the five applications was accepted. Afterwards, groups were not informed about the committee’s decisions for a few days. 

When asked why groups were not kept in the loop about their applications, Alhjooj said it was hard to communicate when there was no new news to share. 

“Sometimes it’s very difficult to deal with applicants when we ourselves don’t have the answers,” Alhjooj said. “When we can’t meet with our fee levy committee, we don’t have any more [information] from them. We don’t know where this is gonna lead or go.” 

A week later, the only group whose fee levy was accepted, ElectroCon, had its application revoked due to a lack of oversight from the committee meeting during the SCM.

The revocation came as a shock to the group. According to Husam Tannira, ElectroCon’s president, the CSU told the group to follow the application criteria on the CSU’s website instead of the fee levy application policy. 

This created an inconsistency in their application, as the website only called for 750 student signatures to create a new fee levy compared to the 3,000 needed, as outlined in the fee levy application policy. 

After the mishap, ElectroCon got in contact with the CSU. 

“They told us [the revocation was] just because there was some misunderstandings between the fee levy committee and the other fee levies. Which, to be honest, we were like, ‘OK, fair enough,’” Tannira said. “We don’t want to be approved on [the] price of other people getting refused for no reason.” 

ElectroCon has yet to meet with the committee and ask them what happened with the application. 

During the last CSU RCM, held on March 12, the council voted to hold a special fee levy referendum as soon as possible due to mistakes made by the fee levy committee during the approval process. 

“Once this is passed, hopefully we’ll call for another fee levy committee meeting where we can discuss all the applications, hopefully not with the time constraint, go over everything in detail and then hold the separate elections just for fee levies,” Alhjooj said during the RCM.

According to Winton, Al Hijjawi informed her that another meeting would be planned to discuss fee levies after the general elections. 

After the fee levy committee meeting, Hijjawi reached out to ask for Queer Concordia’s audit despite Winton explaining it was impossible in their previous correspondence. 

“It feels like everyone’s constantly being given the runaround,” Winton said. “And it feels like these bylaws are kind of redundant, at a point where it’s kind of impossible for little groups to get an increase or to even get instated.”

At the time of publication, the dates for the referendum have yet to be announced.

The Link reached out to the councillors on the fee levy committee but did not hear back by the time of publication. 

CSU’s issues with communication 

According to the CSU general coordinator Kareem Rahaman, it’s hard to define if the year was simply successful or not. He believes it is more complex than that.

“Maybe we strayed from the mandate a bit,” Rahaman said. “But it’s not that we strayed because we just didn’t want to do the mandate.”

Despite not following the general coordinator mandate word for word, Rahaman said that the CSU always made sure executives were present at major events at the university. 

“When things were happening on campus, when police were on campus, we put ourselves in those positions to talk to [police], to try to stop those things from happening,” Rahaman said. “Except [for] a handful of incidents, we tried our best to make sure that these things happening on campus were safe.”

Despite the presence of CSU executives at major events on campus, students like Winton have criticized the union for being unreachable and not answering emails on time or at all. 

“So that’s a problem that I wasn’t even aware of, for the most part. I wasn’t even aware that that was a thing happening,” Rahaman said. 

Rahaman added that if a student wants to reach him or another executive, they can go to the CSU’s office and talk to the receptionist, who will try to get in touch with them. 

“Going to The Link, hearing about [communication issues] for the first time in an interview is not the best way to hear about it, I would say,” Rahaman said. “I mean, the Instagram page is active. There’s a lot of ways to get in touch with [us].”

CSU’s lack of transparency or student lack of understanding? 

Apart from executives’ reachability, students have also been vocal about the union’s lack of transparency. 

During the CSU general elections on March 11 to March 13, slates and councillors ran on promises of transparency for students. 

Rahaman believes that transparency is always brought up during the elections in order to paint the CSU in a bad light. 

“When I first ran, I ran on transparency too. But you know, my definition of transparency [is] something you can see through,” he said. “But in order to see through that thing, you have to look at that thing. You can’t look the other way and then say, ‘Oh, well, that glass is not transparent,’ but you’re looking at the wall.” 

He added that mechanisms for transparency are already in place, as the RCMs are open to all students who would want to participate or present a motion. 

Rahaman did say that, although meetings are public, the CSU’s website has not yet been updated with the most recent information. For example, the most recent minutes from a CSU RCM on the union’s website date back to May 2024. 

Additionally, the latest available budget and audited financial statements on the website date back to 2021-22. Finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani said she believes that, like herself, previous executive members were probably not made aware of the need to update the website. 

“The policy does not specify what things you need to update or not,” El Ferjani said. “And the trainings that we get are not detailed. They do not explain to you the scope of your work.”

El Ferjani added that she will be sending her budget and presentations to the web developer at the end of her mandate.

Where is the Judicial Board? 

Since its last decision was made in 2022, the CSU’s highest governing body, the Judicial Board (JB), has been non-functioning. 

The CSU JB acts as the judiciary branch of the union. It serves to render impartial judgments on complaints and cases by using and interpreting the CSU By-Laws and Standing Regulations.

Despite attempts from the executive team to reinstate the JB at the Jan. 22 RCM, councillors only voted for one out of four candidates who applied for the position. For the board to be active, a minimum of three members are required. 

As councillors entered a closed session to vote on JB candidates, it was not clear why three out of the four candidates were rejected. 

According to Rahaman, the problems with the restoration of the JB began long before the RCM.

He explained that it took the union three separate JB call-outs to get four students to apply for the position. 

As for the vote, Rahaman is still in the dark on why the council rejected the candidates. 

“We don’t even know the reasoning as to why these people weren’t selected,” Rahaman said. “And their job is to keep council in check; it’s to keep these problems from happening. It’s insane to me.” 

Filibustering, long meetings and disagreements

Long council meetings have been a recurring problem for the union this year. 

The CSU council is made up of 30 students from different Concordia faculties. Their responsibilities include passing mandates, voting on motions and approving the budget. 

During the academic year, meetings have often run over four hours, with a number of the meetings being adjourned without completing the agenda. 

This has led to delays in the approval of crucial documents like the budget. El Ferjani said that, despite the budget being added to different RCM agendas since September, meetings were always adjourned before it was approved. 

“I just called [an SCM] just to get the budget approved, because at that point, it was unreasonable,” El Ferjani said.

Arguments and long speaking turns are partially to blame for the long runtimes. Most notably, on Jan. 10, council member Drew Sylver presented a motion that called for the resignation of five councillors and seven out of eight members of the executive team. 

The motion led to an hour-long debate of executives and councillors accusing Sylver of failing to provide proof of wrongdoing for the listed individuals.

“It would be really easy for me [to say that the] union should implement this training and this training […] for the following year,” Rahaman said. “But realistically, that is not going to solve anything, because they’re just going to argue better.” 

With files from Hannah Vogan

Is the CSU transparent? Read More »

‘This is not humanitarian relief’: Montrealers gather to protest starvation in Gaza

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Montrealers gather to protest starvation in Gaza. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Hundreds of demonstrators marched to demand an end to Israel’s militarized aid distribution system

Over 200 Montrealers took to the streets on the evening of July 22 to protest starvation in Gaza and demand an immediate lift of the siege on the strip. 

The emergency demonstration organized by the Montreal chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) began at 5:30 p.m. with protestors gathering in front of the city’s United States Consulate General on Ste. Catherine St. W. 

“We are seeing the population of Gaza being deliberately starved to death as a form of slow genocide,” said Rama, a PYM spokesperson who was granted last name anonymity for safety reasons. “We’re here today to demand that humanitarian aid is let in.”

The World Health Organization has called the situation in Gaza “one of the world’s worst hunger crises unfolding in real time,” with the region’s entire 2.1 million population facing prolonged food shortages and almost half a million people in a “catastrophic situation of hunger.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that, as of June 15, 18,741 children have been hospitalized for acute malnutrition in Gaza since the start of the year. This represents only 31 per cent of the estimated 60,000 children in need of treatment.

“This is not humanitarian relief. It is collective punishment, engineered starvation and extreme dehumanization,” a PYM spokesperson said in a speech to the gathered crowd.

Protestors began marching at 6:30 p.m. down Stanley St. up to René-Lévesque Blvd., while chanting for an end to the siege on Gaza and a free Palestine. 

Protesters demand a lift to the siege on Gaza. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Amnesty International has gathered evidence demonstrating that Israel is continuing to use starvation as a weapon of war to inflict genocide against civilians in Gaza through its militarized aid distribution system. 

According to Al Jazeera, since May, almost 900 Palestinians have been killed near aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an aid agency backed by Israel and the United States. 

“We want to send a clear message to these governments that the blessing they give in the ongoing mass slaughtering of the people of Gaza is something that will not go ignored,“ said a spokesperson for Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) Concordia, who was granted anonymity for safety reasons.

Over 200 non-governmental organizations—counting Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children—have called for immediate action to end the “deadly Israeli distribution scheme.”

Protestors continued marching in the streets of downtown Montreal down to the Consulate General of Israel, where the protest ended at around 8 p.m.

“The weapons of war used in this genocide are becoming various, and this intense starvation phase is threatening every living person in Gaza,” said the SPHR Concordia spokesperson. “It’s urgent for us to mobilize to stop this in any way possible.”

‘This is not humanitarian relief’: Montrealers gather to protest starvation in Gaza Read More »

Students call for boycott of McGill summer course in Israel

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Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance McGill has started an email campaign to oppose relaunch of summer program. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre & Maria Cholakova,
Local Journalism Initiative

SPHR McGill denounces university for relaunch of summer exchange program with Israeli university

Students at McGill University have started an email campaign to prevent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and Israeli students from coming to the university’s campus. 

The campaign, first started by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) McGill, aims to boycott a summer exchange course between McGill and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI).

In their campaign, SPHR McGill accused the university of secretly restarting the POLI 339 course despite previous student attempts to shut it down. In a press release, the group then claimed that McGill has doubled down on its complicity regarding the Palestinian genocide. 

“While students in Gaza fight for the lives of themselves and their families, McGill has invited the facilitators of genocide to spread their genocidal agenda at our university,” the press release reads. 

According to a SPHR McGill Instagram post, Israeli exchange students are supposed to visit McGill from Aug. 1 to Aug. 22. 

History repeats itself

The email campaign is not the first attempt to shut down the course. In April 2019, students organized a sit-in to protest the course and demand its cancellation. 

The course requires enrolled students to pay a mandatory fee of $1,000, which needs to be approved by the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) of McGill University. 

In late January 2019, the AUS council voted 14 against and 13 for holding the summer course. According to reports from The McGill Daily, those in favour of the course cited “academic opportunity,” while those against claimed it “discriminated against Palestinian students, Arab students, and students who oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as they could be denied entry at the border and detained by Israeli officials.” 

Accusations of scholasticide and complicity 

In a 2024 statement, the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees criticized numerous Israeli universities for their complicity in genocide. 

HUJI, in particular, was criticized as one of its campuses was partially built on land illegally expropriated from Palestinian owners in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. The university has also hosted a military base on its campus to offer academic training to IDF soldiers.

The Link has reached out to McGill for comment, but has yet to receive a response as of the time of publication. 

Students call for boycott of McGill summer course in Israel Read More »

CSU holds first RCM of the year

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The CSU held its first RCM on Sept. 18. Photo Ireland Compton

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Guest speaker presentations dominated the discussion

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) held its first regular council meeting (RCM) of the Fall 2024 semester on Sept. 18.

The RCM officially began at 6:36 p.m. and lasted over three hours. There were 11 points on the agenda, but the majority were pushed to the following meeting due to the length of the guest speaker’s presentations. The council heard four presentations, details of which follow. 

Concordia Food Coalition food mobilization campaign

Intern and speaker for the Concordia Food Coalition Mia Kennedy put forth a referendum question to be included in the next CSU by-elections. The question aims to empower the CSU to make three demands of Concordia. 

The demands are that the university implement a food policy that centres around social and environmental justice, supports food initiatives that boost community well-being, and abolishes exclusive food contracts with multinationals such as Aramark. 

The motion passed unanimously.

Queer Concordia gender-affirming care pilot project

Queer Concordia senior coordinator Jessica Winton presented the group’s pilot project that aims to give Concordia students seeking gender-affirming care access to interest-free loans. The CSU’s current insurance plan covers $5,000 per procedure, has a $10,000 lifetime maximum and has no pay-direct coverage, according to the CSU website. 

Winton asked for $100,000 from various committees, including the Mental Health Committee, the BIPOC Committee and the Finance Committee, to be allocated to the loan project. 

Speakers from the Community-University Research Exchange and the Centre for Gender Advocacy spoke in favour of the motion. 

CSU finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani said that allocating $100,000 to this project would place the CSU’s budget in a bad position. According to CSU general coordinator Kareem Rahaman, groups seeking funding from CSU committees must apply directly to the individual committees. However, Winton said that she had received no response after trying to get in contact with different committees for close to a month.

The proposal was passed to the Finance Committee for further review.

ASFA – Student Spaces fund

Queer Concordia wasn’t the only student organization on campus requesting funds from the CSU. The Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) asked for $35,000 in funds from the Student Space, Accessible Education, and Legal Contingency Fund. The funds would be used for furniture and office upgrades for both ASFA and its member associations. 

Councillor Sarah Wolman motioned to request more information from ASFA as well as a budget breakdown on how exactly the student association will spend this money. 

The motion passed unanimously.

Studentcare legal essentials service agreement

Former CSU councillor Dave Plant proposed a motion to immediately cancel the Studentcare legal essentials service agreement, an addition to the existing Studentcare coverage that allows students to consult a lawyer and access legal representation.

Plant raised concerns with the contract the union had signed with Studentcare, CSU’s insurance provider. Concerns were mainly regarding the fact that Studentcare can select the law firm that will deliver legal services; Studentcare can become a minority shareholder of the selected law firm; and because Studentcare assumes no responsibility for the quality of the legal essentials programs the law firm provides. 

The CSU created a new standing committee to review the Studentcare contract. The committee will be dissolved following the end of the contract review. 

CSU holds first RCM of the year Read More »

CSU consent agenda modified following injunction

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo Nikolas Litzenberger

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The StartUp Nation filed an injunction against the student union following a decision to revoke its club status

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) held its latest regular council meeting (RCM) on Dec. 11. The evening was marked by the removal of two items from the consent agenda following an injunction filed by The StartUp Nation against the student union.

A majority of councillors were present at the meeting, which lasted a little over 30 minutes. Due to exam conflicts, two councillors and two executive members had sent their notice of absence to the chairperson prior to the start of the RCM. 

Council motioned to accept all of the absences and the motion passed unanimously. 

Consent agenda 

External affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne read out a statement on behalf of the executive team to remove two items from the consent agenda: The ratification of the minutes of the Clubs and Spaces Committee meeting held on Dec. 4, and of the minutes of the CSU policy committee meeting held on Dec. 5. 

She also motioned not to present to council the ratification of either item before the RCM scheduled for Jan. 22, 2025. 

On Dec. 4, at the Clubs and Spaces Committee meeting, councillors unanimously voted in favour of a motion to revoke The StartUp Nation’s club status. 

This decision came following the club’s violation of Concordia’s Policy on the Temporary Use of University Space; CSU policies on space usage; and section 2.2.4 of their own constitution, which states that “the club shall be subjected to both the [CSU] Code of Conduct and Concordia’s Code of Rights and Responsibilities.”

As per the meeting minutes, 12 complaints were filed to the CSU against The StartUp Nation due to tabling events held on Nov. 8 and Dec. 3. During the latter, the club had invited a non-approved community member—former Israel Defense Forces soldier Yoseph Haddad—onto campus, leading to a counter-protest by pro-Palestine students. 

According to point 3.1 of the CSU policy on clubs, the Clubs and Space Committee can make a recommendation to council to remove an official club’s status when it has not acted in accordance with its constitution or CSU by-laws, regulation and policy. 

During the policy committee meeting on Dec. 5, councillors motioned to modify point 3.1 of the policy so that the internal affairs coordinator may also recommend to council to revoke a club’s official status. 

For motions passed during committee meetings to be ratified by the student union, they must first be approved by council. Minutes from previous committee meetings are sent to councillors prior to the start of every RCM and they are able to debate on their ratification when voting on the approval of the consent agenda. 

According to the executives’ statement, the decision to remove the two items from the consent agenda was made following legal proceedings brought by The StartUp Nation. 

“This has required us to redirect extensive amounts of student money towards legal fees where an internal resolution could’ve been made between both parties,” Ballantyne said. 

The Israeli club believes that the motion issued by the Clubs and Spaces Committee on Dec. 4 is invalid. According to an Instagram post made the day after the RCM, The StartUp Nation called the fact that both items were originally added to the consent agenda “unlawful and undemocratic,” claiming that the CSU had violated point 3.1 of the policy on clubs.  

The motion to amend the consent agenda passed unanimously. 

Meeting disruption 

Following the amendment, an unknown individual disrupted the Zoom meeting by sharing their screen and playing a video of a man spewing transphobic rhetoric. The chairperson removed the individual from the meeting.

A councillor later requested that the chairperson remove another individual from the meeting as the councillor claimed that they were showing inappropriate things on their screen. This individual was also removed. 

Request for clarification 

Councillor Aron Kessel asked for the executive team to elaborate on the statement read by Ballantyne, mainly regarding the reallocation of funds towards legal fees. 

Academic and advocacy coordinator Vanessa Massot clarified that relocation of funds is associated with the legal fees incurred in dealing with  an impending application for an injunction. 

Following Kessel’s request for further elaboration, Massot said that the CSU’s lawyers had advised members of the executive team not to discuss the matter further and that the specific legal document had already been sent to all councillors. 

This is a developing story.

CSU consent agenda modified following injunction Read More »

Reggies gets a facelift

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Reggies reopened for the 2024-25 school year with brand new artwork. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

New menus, decor and cocktails bring in increased student clientele

After a complete redesign, new menus and longer opening hours, Concordia University’s student bar, Reggies, is reshaping its image. This comes after years of financial controversy. 

Operations manager Alex Rona said that Reggies’ old sterile interior was one of the main reasons why the bar was no longer appealing to students. 

“It had to be done,” Rona said. “The whole place was neglected and we needed to bring it up to par to get to that next step of Reggies.”

Over the summer, the space was fully remodelled. Rona and the managing team replaced some of the old furniture and worked with local artists to decorate the restaurant and bathroom walls.  According to Rona, they plan to add more to the space in the future. 

In 2011, the student bar was deemed “un-auditable” by an accounting firm and separated from the Concordia Student Union (CSU) in 2015 to become a solidarity cooperative. 

In 2023, Reggies faced another financial crisis after taking out loans to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“In 2023 when I [first] started, it became pretty apparent within, like, a week that Reggies was not going to be able to reopen in September of 2023 if it didn’t get a bailout,” said Eduardo Malorni, the current general manager of Reggies who was hired to evaluate the bar’s finances in 2023.

According to CSU general coordinator Kareem Rahaman, Reggies approached the student union and asked for a sum of money to stay afloat. After an uncertain future, Reggies was able to reopen for the 2023-24 school year and effectively broke even by the end of the academic year.

Reggies financial reports from June to October 2024 show that the bar turned a profit for two out of the three months provided for the fall semester. According to Malorni, they are on track to end the school year in the green.  
Reggies is now open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and hosts several events from Tuesday Trivia to Thirsty Thursday, with DJs and discounted drinks. For Rona, that diversity in offerings is important to make all kinds of students feel welcome at Reggies.

“We want Reggies to be the number one spot for events on campus,” Rona said. “It’s really creating that community on campus, which I think is really vital to your university experience.”

According to Malorni, the changes made over the summer, such as the new signature cocktail list with offerings like the Shuttle Bus and the St. Germain Spritz, have been very successful for the bar, with cocktails becoming one of their best sellers. 

As a solidarity cooperative, no single person owns Reggies, which Malorni says allows them to offer students lower prices compared to other downtown businesses. 

“We’re not trying to scam students, we’re giving you the best price,” Malorni said. “Yes, I have to cover my costs, but if I make a huge profit, that doesn’t come to me and it doesn’t go to anywhere else, it just stays in Reggies.” 
Rona said he knows that past financial scandals have left a stain on Reggies’ reputation, but he wants students to know that the bar is changing. 

“If there is something I want to reiterate, it would be: We’ve changed, we’re different now, those were things that happened in the past,” Rona said. “If you’re a Concordia student, there’s a spot for you somewhere in Reggies.” 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 7, published January 14, 2025.

Reggies gets a facelift Read More »

Councillors vote for a special fee levy referendum

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

The Concordia Student Union council voted to hold a special fee levy referendum. Photo Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre
Local Journalism Initiative

The fee levy committee will reconvene to reassess applications for an upcoming special election

During the latest Concordia Student Union (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on March 12, councillors voted in favour of a motion to hold a special fee levy referendum.

“Due to the time constraints of us trying to accept or review the applications during the SCM, some mistakes were made considering some of the applications, so they were wrongfully denied on the fee levy committee’s end,” said CSU student life coordinator and co-chair of the fee levy committee Moad Alhjooj.

Delayed motion to recess 

The meeting began around 6:30 p.m. with the approval of the agenda. As it is the month of Ramadan, the passing of the agenda was followed by a vote for a 33 minute recess to allow councillors to break their fast at 6:56 p.m. 

During Ramadan, Iftar is the meal enjoyed after fasting that begins at Maghrib (sunset) every day. 

After a councillor motioned for council to take a 33 minute break, councillor Drew Sylver asked to amend the motion. 

“I’m thinking a 33 minute break […] is not sufficient, especially considering everyone who is fasting. So, just to consider, I actually wanted to shift to motion to adjourn,” Sylver said.

The chairperson clarified that both a motion to recess and to amend are non debatable motions so, after a councillor seconded Sylver’s motion, the council voted on the motion to adjourn. 

The motion to adjourn failed three to 14. 

Council then proceeded to vote on the motion to recess, which passed unanimously. However, due to the last minute confusion, the motion passed at 6:57 p.m., a minute after the start of Iftar. 

Fee levy committee

Once council reconvened, councillors voted on appointing a councillor to the fee levy committee. 

Three councillors nominated themselves for the position: Liora Hechel, Norah Finlay and Chana Leah Natanblut. 

Councillor Aron Kessel asked council if they should take into account that the standing regulation recommends that each councilor sit on at least one standing committee when possible. 

In fact, according to the CSU Policy on Executive, Council of Representatives, and Committees, “each Councilor, when possible, shall sit on at least two (2) standing committees.”

The chairperson answered that councillors should sit on a maximum of two committees, but that otherwise the policy serves more-so as a general recommendation. 

Finlay was appointed to the committee with 15 votes in her favour.   

Reading week motion

Following the appointments, Hechel presented her motion to change the start of reading week to the Saturday before reading week. 

According to Hechel, the change in start date would be to avoid professors scheduling exams during the weekend, which can put students going home for Thanksgiving in a difficult situation. 

Hechel shared how one of her midterms was moved to the Sunday before Thanksgiving two weeks prior to the start of reading-week. 

“I had to postpone and pay a heavy fee on my flight home to Switzerland because I got the decision between either getting a zero or I’d have to move my flight,” said Hechel.

Ballantyne said that this motion would need to be brought to senate, as the CSU does not have jurisdiction over the academic calendar. However, Kessel said that, even if the motion is not binding, the CSU could still show support for the motion.

Following a successful motion to end debate from councillor Ali Salman, the motion passed unanimously.

Special fee levy referendum

The meeting ended with a motion by Alhjooj to hold a special fee levy referendum as soon as practical because of mistakes made by the fee levy committee. 

“Once this is passed, hopefully we’ll call for another fee levy committee meeting where we can discuss all the applications, hopefully not with the time constrained, go over everything in detail and then hold the separate elections just for fee levies,” Alhjooj said. 

No fee levy questions were sent to the ballot for the CSU 2025 Winter Annual General Elections. 

The motion passed 13 to six. 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:14 p.m., with council agreeing that Hechel’s reading week motion could be included in a future fee levy referendum.

Councillors vote for a special fee levy referendum Read More »

CUPEU suspends planned strike for fall semester

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CUPEU has suspended their strike set to start on Sept. 3, 2024. Photo Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre & Hannah Scott-Talib,
Local Journalism Initiative

Staff strike on hold after “global offer” from employer

Members of the Concordia University Professional Employees Union (CUPEU) have decided to suspend their strike that was intended to start on Sept. 3.

The Concordia community was first made aware of the now-suspended strike in a university email sent to the student body on Aug. 27. 

CUPEU is composed of 600 Concordia University staff members, including academic advisors, financial analysts, nurses, IT workers and guidance counsellors. 

The strike was initially set to occur after 10 months of what union members referred to as “unfruitful negotiations ” with the university in an Aug. 23 press release. The strike was concerning the hybrid work plan in place for academic staff. 

CUPEU president Shoshana Kalfon had previously told The Link that CUPEU was contesting the lack of flexibility within the hybrid work plan. She added that throughout nearly one year of negotiations, the university has remained firm on its position regarding the hybrid work plan for academic workers. 

However, the strike was suspended following new negotiations that began on Aug. 30.

Instead, CUPEU has called a general assembly for Tuesday, Sept. 3, to vote on what the union referred to as a “global offer from the employer” in a Sept. 2 press release. The union specified that this offer is not a tentative agreement and that, depending on the outcome of the vote at the general assembly, they may still strike.

According to the Aug. 23 CUPEU press release, nearly 50,000 students would be impacted by a strike. Services such as academic advising, IT support and other student services would be affected during the strike period.

On Sept. 3, all CUPEU staff members will be working and all services and facilities will remain operating as usual.

This is a developing story. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.

CUPEU suspends planned strike for fall semester Read More »

A look back on student encampments and resistance

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Students set up McGill encampment for Palestine. Photo Hannah Scott-Talib

Zina Chouaibi & Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The dismantling of the McGill encampment was not the end of Palestinian solidarity in Montreal

Over the past year, universities in Montreal and across the world have witnessed a surge in student activism, with campus encampments serving as symbols of Palestinian solidarity.

Antler, a camper at the McGill University encampment, who was granted a pseudonym for safety reasons, was about to leave Montreal for summer break when the encampment was erected on April 27. Instead, she chose to stay in the city to show her solidarity.

“This is a student opportunity that doesn’t happen often. It’s the first encampment in Canada, it was in a school that is already on stolen land, it had a lot of backstory to it that was very important to us,” said Antler. “At the time of the encampment, it kind of felt like it was the most we could do.”

The encampment brought unprecedented attention to the issue of divestment, highlighting activists’ demands that McGill and Concordia divest from companies with connections to the ongoing genocide and cut all academic ties with Israel.   

McGill filed three injunctions in an attempt to get the encampment removed. Two were rejected by Quebec Superior Court judges, and the last was withdrawn by McGill after the dismantlement of the camp by a private security firm on Jul. 10.

“The fact that it was forcefully removed by mercenaries only contributed positively to the momentum,” a representative from Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill said. 

According to the representative, the encampments showcased the unity and power of the student front.

“We had never seen this much media coverage on this topic despite divestment being a demand for the past two decades,” they said.

Antler was not present the day the encampment was taken down, but says she is very proud of what all the campers accomplished.

“Honestly, more than anything, more than disappointed, I was just very, very proud of how long the encampment stayed and how resilient the students were,” she said. 

The removal of the encampments did not mark the end of the divestment movement, but rather a shift in tactics. Activists like Hassan Ridha from the Palestinian Youth Movement are now focusing on long-term strategies that involve coalition-building across different communities.

“When multiple separate efforts are joined together, they become more powerful,” Ridha said.

Despite the lack of meaningful progress from university administrations, Ridha sees the rise in solidarity as a significant victory.

“I consider the unification of students, businesses, professionals and parents a major success of the encampment,” he said. 

According to the SPHR McGill representative, the Montreal community played a crucial role in supporting the encampments and keeping the movement alive.

“The Montreal community has supported us throughout the encampment with donations for what was necessary to keep the encampment alive,” the SPHR McGill representative said. “That in itself plays a huge role in achieving divestment.” 

Currently, activists like Ridha are looking to engage new supporters to sustain the movement, particularly incoming students who may be unfamiliar with the history of the encampments. 

“To engage new supporters, it is important to be as present as possible in as many places as possible,” Ridha said. He believes that by expanding the movement’s reach and involving more communities, the movement can continue to grow and evolve.

“At the end of the day, we are students who don’t want our tuition money to go to the funding of a genocide,” the SPHR McGill representative said. “That is such a simple ask: justice.” 

With files from Maria Cholakova

A look back on student encampments and resistance Read More »

Understand your academic rights

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo Caroline Marsh

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Answers to students’ frequently asked questions

Concordia’s bureaucracy can make it difficult for students to know where to turn when an issue arises. To help, here is a list of common academic concerns and how to resolve them. 

Am I allowed to repeat a class? 
According to the 2024-2025 Undergraduate Calendar, students are allowed to repeat a class they failed only once, but they may appeal to a Student Request Committee to be allowed to take the course a third time. A student who has received credits for a class may also repeat the class once. All grades will appear on their transcript, but only the grade received on the latest attempt will be used to calculate the student’s cumulative grade point average (CGPA). This is with the exception of grades awarded due to academic misconduct, which will be calculated into the CGPA nonetheless. 

What if I can’t make it to a final exam?
The 2024-2025 Undergraduate Calendar indicates that if a student encounters “unforeseen circumstances beyond [their] control,” such as a severe illness, injury or the recent death of a close family member, they are allowed to apply to defer their final exam. If a student decides to complete a final exam despite feeling unwell, the exam can no longer be deferred. After missing an exam, students can apply to defer it online or fill out the Request for Deferred Notation form and give it to the Birks Student Service Centre. A student can apply to defer an exam a total of three times throughout their undergraduate or independent studies. 

What can I do if I want to contest a grade?
If a student believes a grade was miscalculated or that the grade they were awarded was demonstrably unfair, they should first try to bring up their concerns to their instructor. However, if a student is unable to reach their instructor or if they are still unsatisfied, they are allowed to request a re-evaluation by filling out an Academic Re-evaluation Request form at the Birks Student Service Centre. The student’s department chair will evaluate if the request conforms with the re-evaluation criteria and, if the chair finds that it does, they will appoint a re-evaluator to assign a new grade.

What can I do if a professor’s behaviour is inappropriate?
All members of Concordia University, whether students, staff or faculty, are required to follow the Code of Rights and Responsibilities. The code strictly prohibits threatening or violent conduct, sexual violence and sexual assault, harassment and discrimination. If a university member’s behaviour violates the code, a student can contact the Office of Rights and Responsibilities for anonymous counsel and support in informally resolving an issue or in launching a formal complaint. If a student witnesses or is a victim of sexual violence or misconduct, they should reach out to the Sexual Assault Resource Centre for help.

I’ve been accused of academic misconduct. What can I do? 
Students may receive an invite to an interview to share their side of the story. It is recommended that students seek the help of an advocate from the Student Advocacy Office or the Concordia Student Union Advocacy Centre to prepare for their interview, but students may represent themselves if they wish. Following the interview, a decision will be sent by mail or e-mail. If the student is found to not have breached the Academic Code of Conduct, the case will be dismissed. If the student is found in violation of the code, sanctions can be applied. Sanctions range from a reprimand to failure of the course or the imposition of additional credits to the student program requirements. Decisions can be contested by contacting the Office of Student Tribunals up to 10 days after the decision. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.

Understand your academic rights Read More »

The importance of the Student Advocacy Centre

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Located in the Henry F. Hall building, the centre aims to help students with their rights. Photo Dorothy Mombrun

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The CSU service that can help you navigate Concordia’s bureaucracy

The Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) Student Advocacy Centre is a service that aims to help defend the rights of students by matching them with a student advocate. 

The centre deals with a variety of student complaints and questions, mainly in the sphere of academic misconduct, professor-student relations, questions regarding the Academic Code of Conduct, and issues relating to the Code of Rights and Responsibilities. 

Brittany Allison, the centre’s interim manager, said that advocates aim to help students understand Concordia’s various policies. Student advocates at the centre can serve as representation for students who are sentenced to a disciplinary meeting. 

“If you have an academic misconduct interview or a meeting with a hearing, we go, we attend, we do your opening, we do your closing, we help present your evidence and we help negotiate a sanction,” Allison said.

Beyond academic misconduct, student advocates can help with filling student requests for grade re-evaluations, tuition refunds and exam referrals, among others. Sofia Lipari-Couture, the centre’s interim lead advocate and the only full-time student advocate on staff, said that students often don’t know the extent of their rights.   

“Students don’t know what they have access to,” said Lipari-Couture.”They don’t know that they can defer an exam, they don’t know that they can discontinue (DISC) a class after the DISC deadline with exceptional circumstances, but these are things that we help with.”  

As opposed to the university’s personal advocacy service, the CSU Student Advocacy Centre is independent and is funded by students through a fee levy of $0.48 per credit. According to Allison, that independence reassures students. 

“Our interests are for the students,” said Allison. “If you’re filing a complaint against somebody at the university, do you want the same people that you’re filing a complaint against representing you, or do you want somebody that is independent?”

All consultations with student advocates are fully confidential and advocates cannot act against a student’s will. For Lipari-Couture, the service’s importance lies in helping students navigate situations that can be highly confusing, overwhelming and emotional.

“Students are dealing with a lot,” said Lipari-Couture. “[Concordia’s] website is not really easy to use, but we use it every day, we read the policies every day. I know the policies by heart, so if you come to me and you’re in this situation, I can point you into the right direction where you wouldn’t have even known where to start.”

Allison and Lipari-Couture want to push against the notion that people who seek student advocates are automatically guilty, and encourage students to reach out to the centre as a first resort when they have concerns. 

“I think that’s a big objective of ours, that students feel like they’re not guilty to come and see us. We’ll help with anything, we’ll help explain policies,” said Lipari-Couture. “We will even help you self-advocate for yourself,” Allison added.

Allison further explained that seeking help shows that students have done their due diligence. “We’ve had advisors and people within the university that have said that, when students have advocates put together their requests, it’s more simple for them to go through.” 

The Advocacy Centre ran for a fee levy increase in the Winter 2024 CSU General Elections. Like the other six fee levy groups that ran alongside them, the referendum question failed. According to Allison, the centre received a record-high number of cases last semester and is looking to expand to meet the demand, which is partly why they ran for an increase. 

Kareem Rahaman, the CSU’s finance coordinator, said that students are in a tight financial spot at the moment and the CSU will work harder on marketing its services and their importance.

“In an ideal world, no one has to use the centre because no one has any problems, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people with problems who don’t know where to go right now,” Rahaman said.

For Allison, it’s important for the university to have a service to help students that have a difficulty speaking up for themselves. “Concordia is so decentralized and everybody is like, ‘Well, you’re an adult. You should know better. You should know how to do this,’ Nobody is ever accounting for the eternal struggles or traumatic events people suffer from in their lives that may prevent them from speaking up, that may prevent them from writing a document, the disabilities that students have.”

Students wishing to use the Student Advocacy Centre’s services can go to their office located in the Mezzanine of the Hall Building or call (514) 848-7474.

This article originally appeared in Volume 44, Issue 13, published April 2, 2024.

The importance of the Student Advocacy Centre Read More »

Montrealers protest 300 days of genocide in Palestine

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

A few dozen protesters march through Downtown Montreal to denounce 300 days of genocide in Gaza. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Protesters march from Dorchester Square to the Israeli Consulate continuing their demand for a ceasefire in Palestine

On Aug. 3, Montrealers gathered to protest 300 days of genocide in Gaza. 

The demonstration, organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) Montreal, began around 2 p.m. at Dorchester Square with protesters waving flags, playing music and banging on drums to enliven the crowd.

A speaker for PYM Montreal addressed the crowd before they began marching. 

“We must continue to be the voice of justice,” said the speaker. “We demand, as we have for the last 300 days, an immediate ceasefire and an end to the genocide.”

The speaker also called for the release of 10,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons, an immediate arms embargo on Israel and the lifting of the siege on Gaza. 

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has instigated over 17,000 attacks in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran, over 60 per cent of which were on Palestinian territory.   

Additionally, over 39,445 Palestinians, 15,000 of whom were children, have been killed since the events of Oct. 7. 2023. According to a study done by the medical journal Lancet, the total death count could exceed 186,000. 

Protesters waving Palestinian flags left the square at around 3:30 p.m. and began marching up René-Lévesque Blvd.

Zeyad Abisaab is the former general coordinator of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Concordia and a member of PYM Montreal. He spoke of the importance of standing in solidarity with Palestine. 

“What happens here in the West, in the diaspora, the people in Gaza they see it. The people that are resisting the genocide, they feel it,” said Abisaab. “If they are not deterred from a genocide, if they are resisting, then what is our excuse here to not want to stand in solidarity with them?” 

PYM Montreal has been organizing weekly protests to stand in solidarity with Palestine, with many drawing in hundreds of Montrealers. Abisaab considers this an “unprecedented accomplishment.”

“There is unrest in this city. The people of Montreal and the people of Quebec, through these protests and other events, have shown their opposition to this genocide,” he said.

Estelle and her friend Nawel, whose last names have been kept anonymous for safety reasons, have attended a few protests in solidarity with Palestine.

“As citizens, we have a [voice] which is fairly powerful and I find it important to continue to manifest that power in solidarity with the people of Palestine,” said Estelle. 
 
The Gaza Health Ministry recently declared a polio epidemic in Gaza. The virus was detected in samples of wastewater in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), children under five years old, especially infants under two years old, are at risk.

The WHO is sending over 1 million vaccines to help lessen the spread of the virus, but the organization claims a ceasefire and an increase in humanitarian aid is necessary to avoid deaths. 

Maud, who was also granted last name anonymity for safety reasons, is a French citizen who has been attending protests and demonstrations for Palestine for years both in France and in Montreal. 

“It’s the moral minimum to support Palestinians today,” said Maud. “300 days is too many, it’s 300 days too many.”

The protest ended at 4:38 p.m. in front of the Israeli Consulate with organizers handing out watermelon slices to the crowd. 

Montrealers protest 300 days of genocide in Palestine Read More »

Historic areas for student activism at Concordia

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Demonstrators flooding the Hall building during the Netanyahu riot. Photo Steve Faguy

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The legacy of student activism is embedded in the university’s walls

The walls of Concordia University have bore witness to countless student activism movements throughout the years. 

Student activists have organized strikes, walkouts and sit-ins, occupied areas across campus and the city to fight for their cause. Here is a list of historical gathering spaces at Concordia and in Montreal for student activism. 

Ninth-floor computer lounge 

In 1969, Concordia University—then called Sir George Williams University—was home to the largest student protest in Canadian history, often referred to as the Computer Riot. 

In 1968, around a dozen Caribbean and Black students accused their biology professor, Perry Anderson, of systematically and unfairly awarding them low or failing grades due to racial bias. 

A complaint was filed to the dean of students, but after students were dissatisfied with the handling of the complaint, they asked Concordia to establish a hearing committee. 

The committee was established, but the administration did not allow students to sign off on committee members and ignored students’ concerns about three members’ abilities to remain impartial. 

Following a hearing on Jan. 26, 1969, over 400 students walked out in protest and occupied the ninth-floor computer lounge. Protestors also occupied the faculty lounge on the seventh floor, nine days later. 

After 14 days, a negotiation agreement was seemingly reached and most protesters went home, but negotiations fell apart. On Feb.11, the university called the police to remove the remaining protesters. 

Demonstrators threw computers out of the window in protest and a fire broke out in the computer lab. Police officers unleashed violence on protesters and 97 students were arrested. 

Eighteen-year-old Coralee Hutchison suffered head trauma inflicted by the police on Feb. 11 and died shortly after of a brain aneurysm. Her parents believe it was due to police violence. 

Concordia only apologized for the handling of these events in 2022 and did not comment on Hutchison’s death. 

Henry F. Hall building

Concordia students have a long history of Palestinian activism, with the ground floor of the Hall building being used as a space of demonstration for decades. 

In November 2000, hundreds of students gathered in the Hall building’s auditorium for a Concordia Student Union (CSU) general assembly. They discussed a motion in support of withdrawing armed Israeli forces from the occupied territories and to call for a Canadian boycott of Israel. Despite not meeting their quorum, the CSU agreed to bring the question to referendum during the next election, and it passed with 54 per cent of the votes. 

On Sept. 9, 2002, the Hall became grounds for another riot: the Netanyahu Riot. Students gathered in front of the Hall building to protest Hillel Concordia’s invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak at the university. 

A confrontation between both sides escalated, two windows were smashed and the university called the police, who sprayed pepper gas into the crowd to disperse protesters. 

Since the events of Oct. 7, 2023, the movement for Palestinian solidarity at Concordia has grown with existing organizations like Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Concordia spearheading the movement. 

Classrooms across campuses 

Tuition hikes are a highly controversial topic in Montreal, with student protesters going to extreme means to contest tuition raises. 

Most notably, the 2012 protests—now known as Maple Spring—lasted over 100 days with thousands of students taking to the streets to protest Jean Charest’s proposed plan to raise tuition by $325 a year over five years, amounting to a 61 per cent increase. 

Students across Quebec started mobilizing, and Concordia was no exception: student groups were striking, blocking classrooms and even blocking all entrances to the Hall building on the first day of exams to protest tuition hikes. 

This past year saw a renewal in tuition hike demonstrations to protest Quebec premier François Legault’s plan to raise tuition for out-of-province and international students. In March 2024, over 20,000 students were on strike and picketers arranged demonstrations and blocked classrooms in protest of the hikes.  

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.

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Out-of-province student faces tuition increase and no support

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Alison Prissinotti’s tuition increased significantly after she changed programs. Photo Alice Martin

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Lack of clear communication from the administration leaves out-of-province student in the dark

Alison Prissinotti was accepted to Concordia University to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology for the 2023-24 academic year. 

As a student from British Columbia, she was part of the last cohort of out-of-province students accepted before the implementation of the Quebec government’s tuition hikes in September 2024. 

At the start of the Fall 2024 semester, the tuition for out-of-province students at English universities in the province increased from $8,992 to $12,000, with some exceptions given to students attending Bishop’s University.  

Students like Prissinotti did not have to pay the increased rate as they were accepted into their program before the implementation of the tuition hikes. 

However, out-of-province students choosing to pursue a degree transfer are subject to the tuition increase. 

When Prissinotti sought to change her degree from anthropology to print media, it had not yet been officially confirmed that changing programs would increase her tuition. When she got accepted into the program in May 2024, she had not yet received a clear answer from the university and decided to accept her admission offer.

“I did [accept] because they still hadn’t said anything and I figured by the time it’s summer and people have already received admission to certain universities that they wouldn’t be changing any tuition that late-notice,” Prissinotti said.

Over the Winter 2024 semester, she sent emails to departments such as academic advising and the Birks Student Service Centre looking for answers for whether she could change her program without her tuition increasing.   

She was informed that a change in program may affect her tuition, but that the government had not yet clarified with Concordia all the details of the tuition increase. At the start of June, the Birks centre told Prissinotti to keep an eye out on the Concordia website for any changes. 

According to web archives, information clarifying that students pursuing a degree transfer would be subject to a tuition increase was not made public on the Concordia website before Aug. 18, 2024, at the earliest. This update was only published two weeks before the start of the fall semester.

“We regret the confusion that some out-of-province students have had to face due to the new tuition policy,” Concordia spokesperson Julie Fortier said in an email to The Link. “The government unfortunately only confirmed details concerning students switching programs on August 2, 2024.” 

Fortier added that, due to lack of clear government directives, Concordia warned students that changing programs may result in higher tuition fees as soon as the new measures were announced.

Prissinotti is financially responsible for her education and relies on student loans from the government to cover the cost of her tuition. As such, she claims she was not given a clear answer from the university about the tuition increase before receiving a much higher amount in student loans than she usually does.

“I was not notified by anybody, I never received any email about it,” Prissinotti said. “I was notified by my student loans, which was ridiculous and I feel like I deserved better.”

She said she asked to go back into her old program but was informed that her tuition would increase no matter what. 

“I couldn’t afford the tuition to begin with before it was increased, never mind now,” Prissinotti said. “And so, if I can’t get enough external funding for next year, I’m gonna have to leave school and I don’t want to do that.”

Prissinotti said she felt angry and abandoned, and like the university was not listening to her needs.

“I feel like I’ve actually built a community here in Montreal and I love my life here and I love being in school. Truly all I want to do is be in school and do this program,” Prissinotti said. “It felt like something I’d worked really hard for […] had been taken away from me.”

After the tuition hikes were announced, Concordia implemented funding opportunities for out-of-province students to help lessen the financial strain of the increase in tuition fees. 

As it was too late for her to apply to any other universities, Prissinotti chose to stay at Concordia and try to apply for awards and bursaries to help her pay for tuition. Since her tuition increased, she said she is spending hours every week emailing people and applying to different grants and bursaries. 

“It’s kind of a part-time job, honestly,” Prissinotti said. “My break from doing homework is researching bursaries.”

She had an in-person meeting at the Ombuds Office in September 2024 for help on applying to scholarships and awards. On Sept. 15, she received confirmation from an ombudsperson that they will be looking into her file.

“I will look into the scholarships available through Financial Aid for new students and see what I can find out regarding eligibility for people in your situation,” the ombudsperson said in the email. 

Prissinotti exchanged a few more emails with the Ombuds Office and, on Jan. 20, 2025, she asked if it would be possible to provide an estimated end date to the investigation as the results will determine whether or not she needs to start applying to other universities. 

She was told that the Ombuds Office cannot provide a date but that they are hoping the investigation will be completed soon. She only received a notice of conclusion of her file on March 5, 2025. 

The office informed her she was not eligible for any out-of-province student awards as she is neither a student applying to Concordia from high school or a student transferring from an external Canadian university or college, which are the listed requirements for these awards.

“We therefore see no unfairness and we have no recommendations,” the decision reads.

The office also told Prissinotti that Concordia is planning on developing regular communications with program directors so that students can be advised appropriately on tuition increases. 

After months of unsuccessful communication, Prissinotti says she feels she has received next to no support from the university.

“It’s just a cycle of getting the same email,” she said. “They’d tell me to talk to this person and that person and everyone had the same answer, which was to look at the financial aid website for awards and bursaries of which—even if I got all the ones that I was eligible for—would not cover half of the cost.”

Prissinotti is not the only student feeling frustrated. Ella Rutera, a journalism student with a minor in education from Saskatchewan, said she wanted to switch to a communication major but couldn’t due to the cost. 

Rutera also said she feels pressure to graduate before the end of the grace period in summer 2029, after which she would need to pay the new tuition rate.  

“I had to declare a minor for my program, and with my specific minor, [the classes] are always full and I can never take any,” Rutera said. “I definitely feel pressure that I have to graduate on time.” 

Prissinotti said she feels that the university has no support system for students in her situation. 

“I think that the university should have been more organized on that front of letting people know when this was going to be happening, even if they didn’t know,” Prissinotti said. “They should have prioritized supporting students who this was happening to.”

Looking to the future, as the date has passed for Prissinotti to apply to other universities, she is hoping to find a way to secure enough funding to finish her degree. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 11, published March 18, 2025.

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Tuition hikes threaten student services

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Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Concordia’s precarious financial situation can be felt in every corner of the school

Concordia University is facing what is being referred to as “extraordinarily challenging times” in the budget updates for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, leading to a drop in student services.

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) tuition hikes at English-language universities increased the tuition for out-of-province students to $12,000 and of international students to a minimum of $20,000. International students from France and francophones from Belgium pay out-of-province student fees. 

Angelica Antonakopoulos is the Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA)’s academic coordinator. She says the government has made the Quebec education system inaccessible.

“Our institutions, especially English institutions in the province of Quebec, have now been priced out of the game,” Antonakopoulos said.  

Concordia is experiencing the largest drop in enrollment in its history, with a projected drop of 1,200 students for 2024-2025. Registration for out-of-province students has declined by 28 per cent and for international students by 11 per cent.

Concordia student groups and student unions are all funded by a fee-levy collected from each student’s tuition based on the number of credits they are taking. A decline in the student population leads to a decrease in funding for these groups.

According to Danna Ballantyne, the external and mobilization coordinator for the Concordia Student Union (CSU), the decrease in funding is already being felt by the CSU. 

“We’ve had to forecast a decrease in budget because of a drop in enrollment,” Ballantyne said, “and that’s affecting the CSU in basically every facet.”

Concordia’s goal is to reach a deficit of $34.5 million for the 2024-2025 school year, down from the original projection of a $78.9 million deficit, requiring $35.8 million in budget cuts. 

According to CSU Campaigns research, students can expect to see fewer course offerings, larger class sizes and a loss in funding to programs deemed inefficient.     

Adam Sermergian is ASFA’s mobilization coordinator. He says that students are unhappy about some of the university’s budget cuts, mainly regarding the reduction of the shuttle bus service.

“ASFA [is] really trying to promote that we, as students, should have a say on what gets cut and what does not get cut,” Sermergian said.

The government’s new tuition framework makes it so a bigger percentage of tuition fees is clawed back from universities in Quebec to be added to a government pool split between the whole university network. 

Before the new tuition framework, the tuition fees for international students were deregulated, with universities in Quebec setting the tuition fee for international students and keeping all of the revenue. 

The government pool has increased 54 per cent since last year, from $259 million to $400 million. English institutions account for 50 per cent of the clawback, but will only be receiving 20 per cent in return. 

Penelope Higgins, CSU’s campaigns researcher, has been working on two reports that will be published shortly regarding the history and impact of the tuition hikes on the Concordia student population. She believes this clawback is a way for the government to avoid investing in universities.


“It is a way of cutting public funding for them. They take more money from student fees, […] that gives the government more money to spend on universities that doesn’t have to come from public funding,” Higgins said. “So it’s a way of privatizing the source of funding for higher education.”

Higgins says that, regardless of tuition framework, international students are expected to pay for everyone.

“This is a larger and a longer fight for international students to be treated with justice, and to not be exploited as a source of funding to keep what are supposed to be state-funded public services in Canada alive,” she said. 

Antonakopoulos says it’s important for students to care about tuition hikes because it is an issue that affects the entire student body.

“It’s really important for students to be incentivized to care,” Antonakopoulos said. “Because, even though they are not being affected personally at their bottom line, it is their education that will ultimately be affected.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.

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Queer Concordia seeks to launch gender-affirming care pilot project

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Banner from the Trans March for Our Liberation on Aug. 6, 2022. Photo Sophie Dufresne

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The project would provide students with interest-free loans to access gender-affirming care

Queer Concordia is looking to create a short-term, interest-free loan pilot project to help students relieve the financial burden associated with paying for gender-affirming care (GAC) procedures. 

The group will present the plan to the Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) Council of Representatives on Sept. 18. Queer Concordia will ask the union to allocate $100,000 annually to the project, which students under the CSU’s insurance can access as an interest-free loan.  

The CSU’s insurance provider, Studentcare, currently only covers $5,000 per procedure and a $10,000 lifetime maximum for GAC surgeries and treatments not otherwise covered by the student’s provincial government coverage.

GAC procedures can often exceed $5,000—even $10,000—per treatment. The pilot project proposal outlines the cost of one student’s surgeries that added up to a total of $33,000. Queer Concordia senior coordinator Jessica Winton said that the project’s loans would allow students to access the care they are paying for. 

“When a surgery is $10,000 or more, […] sitting around for up to a month waiting to be reimbursed by insurance for $10,000 can leave a very large hole in your pocket and very easily put you into debt,” Winton said.

If the CSU approves Queer Concordia’s proposal, the $100,000 would cover about 10 students at maximum per year.

Studentcare also requires that students receive a letter from a legally qualified physician or nurse practitioner confirming a gender dysphoria diagnosis to be eligible for GAC coverage. 

This goes against the recommendations of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) which state that “the use of rigid assessment tools for ‘transition readiness’ may reduce access to care,” and that a gender incongruence diagnosis “may better capture the fullness of gender diversity experiences and related clinical gender need.”

Adam Philomena is the Centre for Gender Advocacy’s community engagement coordinator. He believes that the insurance providers should follow WPATH recommendations and that healthcare providers should trust that patients seeking GAC have the most knowledge of their own bodies and identities. 

“The requirement of a gender dysphoria diagnosis is a huge barrier for a lot of people because […] people express their transness in different ways and may not be necessarily looking for that to be medicalized in a specific way,” they said. 

According to the CSU website, there is currently no pay-direct coverage available for the GAC plan, meaning that students seeking care must pay for the procedure out-of-pocket before making a claim for reimbursement.

Winton believes the pilot project if implemented could help relieve financial pressure for trans and gender-diverse students. 

“This will actually help people use the insurance,” Winton said. “Many people are put off from trying to use it because of the current restrictions of the $5,000 limit and the fact that you usually have to pay out-of-pocket.” 

The CSU’s Health and Dental Plan expanded to include gender affirming care in 2023. Undergraduate students that are paying provincial or out-of-province tuition rates and are enrolled in three or more credits are automatically signed-up for the plan that costs $225 for full-year coverage.

CSU finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani, said that she would be open to the project, but that Queer Concordia is asking for a substantial amount of money.

“Me and my team would be sitting down trying to see how we can solve this, how we can accommodate everybody without putting our budget in a bad position,” El Ferjani said.

Philomena claimed that, despite fee-levy employees having the same CSU Health and Dental plan as undergraduate students, they do not receive the Studentcare GAC coverage as they do not have student identification numbers. The CSU failed to verify the claim despite The Link’s attempt for clarification.

Quebec residents insured with the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) can qualify for certain GAC surgeries and treatments, such as phalloplasties, vaginoplasties and mastectomies, if a doctor determines they are necessary. Other treatments, such as breast augmentations and facial feminization surgeries, are not covered by RAMQ as the government deems them purely esthetic. 

Many universities across Canada, including McGill University, have the same GAC coverage as Concordia. Rachel Bainbridge-Sedivy, a member of the McGill Trans Patient Union, said that the coverage is currently inaccessible. 

“It’s healthcare. It’s a human right. It’s important for people to be able to access that,” Bainbridge-Sedivy said. “Gender affirming care is /not cosmetic, it is medically necessary.”

Winton will present the project to the CSU on Sept. 18. She encourages students to voice their support for the pilot project.

“We’re really hoping that we can mobilize together and get this through,” Winton said, “because it really will help so many people.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 2, published September 17, 2024.

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Concordia spends close to $300,000 to replace Hall building windows

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Concordia University has spent close to $300,000 to repair broken windows after vandalism. Photo Alice Martin

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The glass was vandalized during a demonstration in September

Concordia University has spent a total of $289,238.01 to conceal and repair broken windows in the lobby of the Henry F. Hall Building. 

Protesters shattered the windows during a demonstration on Sept. 29. The demonstrators had spray-painted pro-Palestine messages on the windows and carried a banner featuring the symbol of anarchy. 

According to information acquired by The Link, Concordia spent $277,262.21 to supply and install new windows and $9,642 on wooden boards to temporarily hide the vandalism. The university also spent $2,333.80 at the Concordia Print Store on black panels to further conceal the damage featuring temporary signage with the Concordia 50th anniversary logo. 

This comes as the university is facing what it refers to as “significant financial difficulties” following the Quebec government’s tuition hikes for English-language universities. 

Concordia has implemented cuts of 7.8 per cent to meet its financial objectives. Some of the cuts have included reducing the shuttle bus service schedule, implementing and maintaining a hiring freeze, and cutting classes with enrolment deemed too low. 

The September demonstration came four days after a student walkout in support of Palestine where police officers aggressively handled students and three protesters were arrested. 

According to Concordia deputy spokesperson Julie Fortier, the university will continue to call on the SPVM when people or events become violent.

“We need the entire community’s collaboration to help us maintain a peaceful study and work environment at Concordia,” Fortier said. “That’s why we called on all community members and groups to denounce violence, including vandalism of our buildings.”

The increase in political demonstrations at the university comes following over a year of genocide in Palestine. At the end of November, over 11,000 students at Concordia and 85,000 students across Montreal went on strike in support of an international university strike movement for Palestine. 

Student demands for the university include: Disclosing and divesting from companies investing in Israel, ending employment partnerships with companies complicit in genocide like Lockheed Martin and Bombardier, and publically condemning the ongoing genocide. 

The Concordia Student Union and nine other student associations have also formerly called for the university and Campus Safety and Prevention Services to end their relationship with the SPVM. 

As of the day of publication, the new Hall building windows no longer display the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 7, published January 14, 2025.

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CSU council fails to reinstate judicial board

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Councillors elected one person to the CSU judicial board. Photo Ireland Compton

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Councillors only appointed one of the three positions needed for the board to be active

During the latest Concordia Student Union (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on Jan. 22, councillors appointed one student to the CSU judicial board.

A minimum of three members must be appointed for the board to be active.

The CSU judicial board acts as the judiciary branch of the union. It serves to render impartial judgments on complaints and cases by using and interpreting the CSU’s Bylaws and Standing Regulations. 

According to the CSU website, the last judicial board ruling was in 2022.

The meeting lasted over three hours. Councillors interviewed four applicants for the position, but only Suzana Ek received the two-thirds majority vote needed to be appointed. 

The first interview was scheduled for 7 p.m. but began late as council members debated on how to proceed with the meeting. The Link has granted this candidate anonymity due to privacy concerns. 

Councillor Drew Sylver asked the first candidate whether or not they were involved in an altercation on Concordia property, which some members of the executive team deemed inappropriate. 

Sylver disagreed, stating that it is important to know if judicial board candidates are impartial. Loyola coordinator Leen Al Hijjawi replied that a candidate can remain impartial in their position regardless of personal politics or affiliations. 

During the deliberation period, Sylver asked to “admit evidence” to the council. He alleged that he possessed one photo and one video of the first candidate at the Concordia University Hall building altercation on Nov. 8, 2023.  

Councillor Mohamad Abdallah shared concerns with Sylver sharing the image and video, as he believed it to be an attack on the candidate’s privacy. Sylver agreed and chose to instead describe the “evidence” he had acquired. 

He alleged that he obtained a photograph of the candidate present at the Hall building altercation and a video of them seemingly “yelling at a student at a thousand-person riot.”

He continued, saying, “I do not want someone adjudicating a judicial board case that has been present at a riot. I don’t care what riot, I don’t care what it was, I would much rather that person not be there.”

Al Hijjawi motioned for council to go into a closed session to view the video. 

Academic and advocacy coordinator Vanessa Massot said that they found the viewing of the video to be against procedural fairness, especially as the candidate was not present to defend themselves. 

The motion failed. 

After the first interview, council saw three more candidates: Nicola Woloz, Ek and Saraluz Barton-Gómez. 

Following the vote, council voted to adjourn the meeting before the completion of the agenda. 

CSU council fails to reinstate judicial board Read More »

Why (almost) everything is Ronald Reagan’s fault

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Ronald Reagan’s policies have inflicted incredible damages on the American people and economy. Graphic Olivia Shan

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

How today’s extreme class disparity and economic instability can be traced back to the 1980s

In the ‘80s, the United States’ 40th president Ronald Reagan pushed social and economic plans that laid the groundwork for Donald Trump’s presidencies and growing social inequalities.

Inaugurated in 1981, the actor-turned-politician left a permanent stain on America, from his refusal to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic, leading to the deaths of thousands, to his economic policies strengthening class divides.

Still revered by modern-day conservatives, “Reaganomics,” based in supply-side economics, is an economic model based on cutting taxes for corporations and the highest-earners as well as deregulating industry, slowing spending on social programs and putting a higher emphasis on free trade. The reason: the belief that it would stimulate the economy by encouraging the rich to invest and having the money “trickle-down” to the consumers.

“Reaganomics” was mostly based on the theories of economist Arthur Laffer, who served as the chief economist for the US Office of Management and Budget from 1970 to 1972. Known as the father of supply-side economics, he created the Laffer curve, an economic theory outlining the presence of an optimal tax rate and how rising taxes too high can lead to a decrease in government revenue.

Laffer not only had a huge influence on Reagan, but he continues to be a key figure in conservative economic policy to this day. Indeed, he served as Trump’s economic advisor during his first term, with Trump awarding him the medal of freedom in 2019.

Reagan inherited an America suffering from high inflation and unemployment, which he promised to fix with his supply-side economic plan. Early in his first term, Reagan passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), cutting taxes for the highest earning Americans by 20 per cent.

He implemented massive cuts to social welfare programs, like federal student loans, and increased military spending. He deregulated healthcare, shifting the financial risks from private insurance providers to hospitals and doctors, which still impacts the system today.

His tight economic policy spurred a short six-month recession from 1981 to 1982. According to the Pew Research Center, 54 per cent of Americans in September 1982 agreed that Reagan’s policies had made their financial situation worse, although many believed it would improve.

As such, despite being known for tax-cutting, Reagan was forced to raise taxes across the board in 1982,1983,1984 and 1987, effectively cutting the intended effect of the ERTA in half. While he managed to lower inflation and unemployment, by the end of his tenure, the government deficit had tripled.

This is not a uniquely American system. “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister of the United Kingdom during Reagan’s presidency and implemented similar supply-side policies.

Now, unsurprisingly, researchers have shown that extreme tax cuts for the rich did not greatly impact a country’s gross domestic product. It only served to widen the gap between the lowest and highest earners in a society.

Essentially, it allowed the rich to get richer while gutting the middle class.

It’s simple math: If the government collects less tax revenue from the rich, it must recuperate the money somewhere else, either through taxes to the lower and middle classes or slashes in government spending.

As such, George H. W. Bush raised taxes in 1990 despite famously promising not to do so, in part due to the large deficit Reagan left behind. In 1993, Bill Clinton raised the marginal tax rate for the highest-earning Americans when he took office.

With the “dot-com” recession of 2001 at the start of George W. Bush’s first term, the US went back to Reagan-esque supply-side economic tax cuts. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this mainly benefited wealthy Americans.

Data shows that economic and investment growth in the US was lower under supply-side economic policies than in the 1990s.

These conservative economic models have also poisoned the Democratic party which, for decades, has been scrambling to the centre in an attempt to secure votes by pushing neoliberal economic policies.

In a column for PBS News, American economic historian John Komlos demonstrated how the post-tax income of the middle class from 1979 to 2011 barely grew when adjusted for inflation, while the top 1 per cent lined their pockets.

Simply put, the benefit of supply-side economics for everyone but the top 1 per cent is nothing more than a myth, a bedside story Conservative politicians keep peddling to line their own pockets.

Unfortunately, the stories worked, with The Guardian reporting that, in his first term, Trump’s tax-cuts led to billionaires paying less in taxes than the working class.

Researcher David Hope—who wrote a paper analyzing the effects of major tax cuts in 18 countries—said in an article for the London School of Economics and Political Science that he could not find any evidence that Trump’s 2017 tax-cut plan would help fuel the economy.

Trump points to immigrants as the reason why so many Americans are struggling, but the truth is that years of placing corporate greed first have landed everyone in this mess. Trump has, time and time again, implemented policies and cuts to advantage his rich peers while perpetuating harm against marginalized communities in America.

Trump’s most recent inauguration brought the idea of supply-side economics to its logical extreme, with billionaires sitting in the front row while his cabinet members sat behind them. All the while, since he got his foot through the doors of the Oval Office, Elon Musk has been slashing government funding left and right. This was despite his companies benefiting massively from government funding.

The income inequality in the US is the highest of all the G7 countries.

Let this be a cautionary tale.

On this side of the border, populist politician Pierre Poilievre is promising to implement similar economic policies, slashing government budgets, gutting social programs and cutting taxes as solutions to the raising cost of living. It won’t work.

The economic state of a country is much more complex than its tax system. But cutting taxes for the rich and slashing government spending has not only proven itself ineffective in helping the economy, it has shown to only deepen class disparities and inequalities.

It’s not common sense; it’s dangerous.

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 10, published March 4, 2025.

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Queer Concordia officially launches gender-affirming care loan program

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Queer Concordia has officially launched its interest-free gender affirming care loan program. Courtesy Queer Concordia

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Students will be able to access interest-free loans of up to $2,000 to cover procedure costs

Queer Concordia officially launched its gender-affirming care (GAC) community fund program on March 6, after being refused funding from the Concordia Student Union (CSU) due to lack of funds.

The program has a $20,000 pool and will allow students to access interest-free loans of up to $2,000 to pay for GAC procedures up front.

Queer Concordia senior coordinator Jessica Winton said that, in part due to Queer Concordia receiving the smallest fee levy of any group ($0.02 per undergraduate student, per credit), it’s been challenging to set-up the program with no outside funding. 

“Just the lawyer costs alone are anticipated to be upwards of $3,000, so that’s already a significant amount of money,” Winton said. 

Winton has been trying to implement a loan program at Concordia University since the start of the Fall 2024 semester. She said she feels privileged her parents were able to help her pay for the upfront cost of the GAC procedure that saved her life and wants to help others access care. 

“I know a lot of people who go through putting themselves in lifelong debt simply to go through surgery without insurance, and the fact that we have insurance but so few people are actually able to use it is incredibly disappointing,” Winton said. 

The CSU Health and Dental Plan offers a lifetime maximum coverage of $10,000 with $5,000 maximum per procedure for GAC. This can create a large financial burden for students, especially since procedure costs often exceed $10,000. 

Additionally, according to the CSU website, there is currently no pay-direct coverage available for GAC, meaning students must pay out-of-pocket for their procedure and wait to be refunded. 

Only students registered for the GreenShield GAC insurance through the CSU Health and Dental Plan are eligible for the loan program. Additionally, students must provide Queer Concordia with several documents including government identification, a student ID and a pre-authorization form from GreenShield or their claims history. 

“That way, we can just make sure that you’re eligible, that you’re not going to use this money for something that’s outside of the scope of the fund, as well as just identification to make sure that we have the right person that we’re issuing the loan to so there [aren’t] any legal problems,” Winton said. 

Winton added that the copies of the student’s identification will be shredded after the loan is reimbursed. 

The loans will remain interest-free for two months. However, students suffering with involuntary delays can make their case to the Queer Concordia board of directors to pause interest. 

“Typically, most claims get processed within about three weeks at most, in my experience,” Winton said. “The two-month period is to allow for kind of a grace period where, if GreenShield misprocesses something [..] for, let’s say, a month, there’s still time.”

According to the Queer Concordia website, international students are eligible to access the loan program so long as they have opted into the CSU Health and Dental Plan. The website also encourages students to write to the CSU if they are not satisfied with the current coverage provided by the union. 

Students interested in the program can stop by the Queer Concordia office during Winton’s office hours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Wednesday. 

Queer Concordia officially launches gender-affirming care loan program Read More »

CUPEU rejects Concordia’s offer, officially goes on strike

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CUPEU members picketing in front of the Hall building. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

“We feel we have no choice but to make our dissatisfaction known”

The Concordia University Professional Employees Union (CUPEU) officially went on strike on Sept. 4.

Union members announced the strike on Tuesday evening following the results of a special general assembly. 

Hundreds of CUPEU members were dispersed across both Concordia campuses, waving flags, ringing bells, blowing whistles and wearing “‘Concordia Professionals on Strike’” buttons 

The union was originally set to begin their strike on Sept. 3, but it was suspended after the union received a global offer from the university. At the general assembly, CUPEU members voted 59.1 per cent against the university’s offer and in favour of going on strike. 

According to the CUPEU website, the union will continue picketing until Sept. 9 and will hold an information session on Sept. 10 to “share essential information on negotiation and mobilization.” 

“We are taking consecutive days of strike, we do not know when it’s going to end,” CUPEU vice president of negotiation Sigmund Lam said. “It will be, in part, depending on what the membership decides and the university offers.”

CUPEU represents more than 600 university staff members including academic advisors, guidance counsellors, nurses, IT specialists, accountants and more. 

CUPEU president Shoshana Kalfon told The Link on Aug. 27 that the union is striking to oppose the university’s policy on hybrid work for academic staff. The policy only allows academic staff members one day of remote work per week, with the rest being mandatory on-campus work days.

“[The hybrid work plan] for the academic side of the university is kind of like a ‘one-size-fits-all’ whereas on the service side, there’s more flexibility,” Kalfon said. “We’re really looking to allow those who work on the academic side to have more flexibility.” 

Lam says that the union has been in negotiations with Concordia for close to a year. He says that the university is “trying to play hardball” and is refusing to budge on the union’s demands of two days of hybrid work per week for academic staff. 

“If we want to get any movement at the negotiation table, we feel we have no choice but to make our dissatisfaction known,” Lam said.

Concordia sent an email to the student body regarding the strike on Sept. 3, in which the university claimed that students “may encounter a temporary slowdown or reduction of services from some units operating with reduced personnel.” 

Reduced services include the International Students Office, the Student Success Centre, the Student Advocacy Office, the SGW Campus health clinic and the Loyola Campus health clinic.

The SGW Campus health clinic requires students to rebook previous appointments with nurses or health promotion specialists, while the Loyola Campus health clinic is closed.

“We have been negotiating with CUPEU since last summer and continue to negotiate in good faith,” Concordia spokesperson Vannina Maestracci said on Aug. 29. “We remain hopeful that there will be an agreement that addresses the needs of both the union members and the university.”

“This is our first strike. We really have no experience organizing [a strike], so I am very proud of how people have gotten together and organized,” Lam said. “We have a strong union.”

With files from Hannah Scott-Talib 

CUPEU rejects Concordia’s offer, officially goes on strike Read More »

Student raises concerns with $4.2 million Studentcare contract

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The CSU signed $4.2 million Studentcare Legal Care Program contract. Photo Ireland Compton

Maria Cholakova & Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

A $30 fee-levy for the Studentcare Legal Care Program will be included in the next CSU by-elections

At the last Concordia Student Union (CSU) Regular Council Meeting (RCM), student and ex-council member Dave Plant raised concerns with the Studentcare Legal Care Program (LCP).

On July 17, the CSU hosted a Special Council Meeting (SCM) where councillors unanimously voted in favour of implementing the LCP. The program offers students legal representation in areas such as housing, employment and human rights disputes, as well as legal consultations. 

The LCP contract signed by the CSU came into effect Sept. 1, and the initial term will last until Dec. 31. In order for services to continue, students will have to vote in the upcoming Fall 2024 CSU by-elections in favour of extending the program for an additional three years and eight months.

The CSU chair sent the LCP contract to The Link in an email on Sept. 13.

The contract, if passed, will cost $30 per student per year, totalling $1,050,000 per year for 35,000 students and $4,200,000 over four years. 

After four years, the contract would automatically renew unless the CSU provided Studentcare with a written notice stating otherwise 30 days prior to the end date of the contract. 

Costs and fees

If passed at referendum, the CSU would use insurance surplus to pay for the initial four-month term of the Studentcare contract at the cost of $10 per student. The CSU would also renounce its right to unilaterally terminate the contract. 

Insurance surplus refers to money that has been paid by students for their insurance, but has not been used. In the SCM minutes, CSU general coordinator Kareem Rahaman said that the CSU can only use the money in limited ways. 

“We can either use it to reduce premiums—but we’ve already reduced the premium—or we can use it to subsidize other services and that’s what we’re trying to do here,” Rahaman said.

At the SCM, Rahaman also told councillors that “Studentcare offered to pay from Sept. 1 up until the referendum.” 

However, according to the review letter commissioned by Plant, “​​The fee applicable for this initial term is $10 per student, for a total cost of $350,000. Assuming an approximate undergraduate student number enrolment of 35,000 members for the CSU.”

When The Link asked Rahaman to clarify this statement, he explained that he was referring to the fact that “[payment] isn’t going to come out of your pocket this semester, but you’re going to receive [access to the LCP] this semester. So, it’s deferred.” 

The contract signed by the CSU states: “In the instance of the Referendum passing, the CSU would use accumulated Reserve Funds in order to cover the expenses of the program for the period of September-December 2024 at a pro-rated cost of $10.00 per Member including HST or until the new levy is introduced.”

According to the legal review, if students vote against the LCP at referendum, the CSU will still have to pay for the initial four-month term of the Studentcare contract, with the cost split between the union and Studentcare, totalling $175,000 dollars.

According to Rahaman, only students covered by the CSU Health and Dental Plan would account for the $10, making the total cost closer to $100,000. During the SCM, Rahaman told councillors that the CSU would take a “minor hit” in the event of a failure at referendum. 

When a councillor at the RCM brought forward a question regarding the amount the CSU would lose if the referendum were to fail, Plant said, “Is $175,000 minor? I’ll leave that to you to decide.”

Not an insurance product 

At the RCM, Plant presented a legal review of the LCP contract that he had commissioned and motioned for the contract to be immediately cancelled. 

One of his main concerns with the LCP is that, as opposed to the other services Studentcare offers through the CSU Health and Dental Plan, it is not an insurance product.

According to Plant, council members were running on false pretences and misinformation. 

“Just through the minutes that got brought up in [the SCM], there are falsehoods. I think it’s up to the executives to lay out, in layman’s terms, what the council members are voting for,”  Plant said. “The only reason I understood how bad of a deal this was, is through a legal review of the contract.”

In the SCM minutes from July, Rahaman told council members prior to council voting on the LCP contract that “it’s an insurance product.”

Rahaman later clarified to The Link that he misspoke, as he is used to referring to the service as an insurance product colloquially.  

Studentcare’s role
 
Other issues raised by Plant in both the RCM and legal review concern clauses assessing Studentcare’s role in the contract. The legal review outlines how Studentcare has sole discretion on selecting a law firm to deliver the LCP, Studentcare and its directors may become minority shareholders in the chosen law firm, and Studentcare is not responsible for the quality of the LCP.

When asked about why that was the case, Rahaman explained that “it’s something we look at for sure. […] Every other university that’s signing these contracts, we’re all signing the same contract here. No issues [have] ever arisen from it.”

According to Studentcare representative Alexander Golovko, the service would be helpful for students at the university. 

“We truly believe that the [LCP] would be a significant enhancement to the student experience at Concordia,” said Golovko. “Concordia students would be joining over 300,000 students covered by the program across the country.” 

Rahaman made reference to the high level of satisfaction of the LCP in other universities in Quebec and Canada, including McGill. The Link has not been sent these statistics by the CSU  in time for publication. 

Current services 

The CSU currently has its own services that provide students with help around topics like housing, employment, academic disputes and legal questions in the form of the Advocacy Centre, the Housing and Job Resource Centre (HOJO), and the Legal Information Clinic (LIC).

“I think people who go to Concordia enjoy these little services that are offered to them, like a stone’s throw away,” Plant said. “LIC, HOJO, Advocacy Centre, you can just go into their offices, go and chat with them.”

Rahaman explained that Studentcare will work in tandem with existing CSU services to complement the coverage students already have. 

Studentcare coverage 

The legal review letter outlines that, according to the contract, the LCP does not offer representation to students who are otherwise already covered by a government agency or union. In the case of employment rights representation, areas already covered by the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST) are not covered by Studentcare. 

CNESST already covers complaints relating to labour standards, pay equity, occupational health and safety, hazardous situations, and complaints concerning the contracting process. 

Additionally, Studentcare does not offer human rights representation in situations where a student is already covered by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ).

Further concerns in legal review

According to information given by a councillor at the Sept. 18 RCM and confirmed by the chair, councillors were given 45 hours to read through and decipher the LCP contract and talk to their constituents before SCM in July. This is in line with existing CSU by-laws and procedures.

When the contract was presented to council, it had already been signed by CSU general manager Robert Henri three weeks prior. 

According to Rahaman, Henri’s signature was meant only as a show of support, and the fully signed contract containing the signatures of Rahaman and CSU finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani was only sent to Studentcare after the motion to approve the contract was passed at the SCM.

The legal review also highlights that the LCP does not cover legal representation for immigration law, a field of law the letter claims is “very much in demand by the many international students who are members of the CSU.” 

During the SCM, Rahaman told councillors, “You pay $30 in advance and you have access to a lawyer for housing and immigration law.” He later clarified with The Link that he was only referring to legal consultation. 

At the RCM, councillors voted to create a standing committee to overview the contract. At the time of publication, the committee has not yet met. 

A previous version of this article stated that the legal review letter highlights the LCP’s lack of legal representation for international law. In fact, the legal review highlights the lack of representation for immigration law. The Link regrets this error. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 3, published October 1, 2024.

Student raises concerns with $4.2 million Studentcare contract Read More »

Queer Concordia pilot project struck down at CSU finance committee

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Queer Concordia’s pilot project was struck down by CSU finance committee. Photo Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The committee points to lack of funds as the reason why the motion was denied

On Sept. 30, Queer Concordia senior coordinator Jessica Winton presented her gender-affirming care loan pilot project in front of the Concordia Student Union (CSU) finance committee, where councillors voted against moving forward with the project.

The project aimed to connect students seeking gender-affirming care with short-term and interest-free loans to help them relieve some of the financial burden associated with paying for gender-affirming care. 

The CSU’s Health and Dental Plan currently covers $5,000 per procedure and has a $10,000 lifetime maximum for gender-affirming care surgeries and treatments. This can make it hard for students to access care, as procedure costs can often exceed $10,000.  

Additionally, according to the CSU website, there is currently no pay-direct coverage available, meaning that students seeking care must first pay for their procedures out-of-pocket. 

Winton asked the committee for a maximum of $100,000. According to the finance committee minutes, councillors voted against the project as the CSU is currently faced with high expenses and dropping income due to low enrollment, making the project not “sustainable to the CSU.”

According to CSU finance coordinator Souad El Ferjani, the finance committee only has a total funding of $20,000. She added that, as finance coordinator, she does not chair all other committees and does not have the power to pull funds from other committees.

“We [had] plans for bursaries for businesses, we had plans for having financial literacy workshops for international students and for students in general, we had plans for a business fair,” El Ferjani said. “We had a lot of big plans for the whole year, so giving away the [whole] $20,000 did not make sense to the councillors.”

El Ferjani also added that it did not make sense for the councillors to allocate the few remaining funds to the Queer Concordia project.

“It’s very insulting if somebody comes and asks for $100,000 and I give them $2,000,” she said.

Additionally, El Ferjani told The Link that the finance committee did consider using funds from the operations budget to pay for the project. Ultimately, as the CSU is already in a deficit this year due in part to the tuition hikes, councillors decided that it would not be a financially sound decision. 

Winton added that she had also asked the financial committee to consider using the insurance surplus currently allocated to the Studentcare Legal Care Program to fund the pilot project.

“They said they would get back to me on that, but they did not,” Winton said, “and when I look at the minutes from the meeting that suggestion is not within the minutes at all either.”

Winton requested to present an amended version of the motion to council at the second CSU regular council meeting (RCM) on Oct. 9. The then-CSU chairperson Michelle Lam denied her request.

According to El Ferjani, Lam did not allow Winton to present her motion because the council had already decided to defer the project to the finance committee during the first RCM, and the finance committee had come to a decision. 

“This does not close the door for Queer Concordia to go to other committees, but to go back to council again does not make any sense because council has already taken the decision to send it to the finance committee,” El Ferjani said.

Winton said she believes that CSU members did not properly read her motion or take it seriously, citing that the motion only asked for a maximum of $100,000 and that councillors did not ask her questions during the finance committee meeting. 

“We’re just looking to essentially use money that the CSU has sitting around in their Student Space, Accessible Education, and Legal Contingency fund or other committees to always circulate it with the loan program for people to be able to access the gender-affirming care,” she said, “because you have to pay upfront for your procedures most of the time and that’s a very large financial barrier that most people face.”

El Ferjani said she believes councillors did not ask questions during the finance committee meeting because they had already read the motion and listened to Winton’s presentation during the first RCM.

“They were aware of the motion, they had the time to read the motion prior to the RCM, they listened to Jessica during the RCM, they [had] heard the questions during the RCM,” El Ferjani said, “so my thought process is that they already knew a lot of [this] information.”

Three of the committee’s four councillors were present for Winton’s presentation, with the fourth arriving later according to El Ferjani, and the student at large seat was and remains vacant. Winton requested to be appointed to fill the seat, but Lam denied the request.

Lam wrote in an email, which was sent to The Link, that procedure requires a student to first apply to the appointments committee and then have their appointment ratified by council before being able to sit on the committee. The former chairperson added that, even if Winton was appointed to fill the seat, she would not be able to vote on a Queer Concordia project as it would be deemed a conflict of interest. 

Winton expressed frustration over the lack of transparency, saying that the CSU website can be difficult to navigate and is not up to date, with the minutes from the first RCM where she had originally presented her motion having not yet been added to the website. 

According to Winston, more students should be aware of the CSU’s inner workings and how much money they possess.

“Student groups such as ours, […] it shouldn’t be our duty and our mandate to have to charge students more money by raising our fee levy to alleviate services the CSU is supposed to provide and to advocate for themselves,” she said. 

Looking forward, Winton said that Queer Concordia is able to dedicate around $20,000 of surplus to fund the project. She also said she is considering other avenues to fund her pilot project, such as applying to the Sustainability Action Fund and the Concordia Council on Student Life’s special project funding. 

Queer Concordia pilot project struck down at CSU finance committee Read More »

In conversation with Graham Carr

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Graham Carr is the President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University. Courtesy Concordia University

Geneviève Sylvestre & Hannah Vogan,
Local Journalism Initiative

The Link sat down with Concordia’s president to answer the student body’s pressing questions

Disclaimer: Answers have been edited for clarity.

As we enter the winter semester of Concordia University’s 50-year anniversary, how are you looking to improve the university for current and future students?

For me, the big question as we enter the new year, as we enter any year, is how we can make the university better.

I think Concordia has been on a pretty good growth trajectory, but obviously, the challenges are growing for us, in part because of government policies which severely affected our recruitment from the rest of Canada and created instability with international students; and both of those communities are pretty critical to Concordia’s identity.

Unfortunately, that situation is only worsening this year because of Bill 74—which all universities in Quebec opposed—which has really put a chill on international student recruitment, not just for Concordia, but for others as well; and I think it sent an unfortunate message on behalf of Montreal. 

I’ve been at Concordia a long time. We’ve been through challenging periods before. I think that we’ve always been an innovative university that has a very distinct place in Montreal, and a very distinct place in Quebec. We have to remember that, notwithstanding the challenges that are out there, fantastic things go on at this university all the time. And we need to continue to tell that message. Although we’re going to experience a decline in international students this year, and we saw a decline in students from the rest of Canada, we need to continue to convey the message that we still want those students, and we’re going to do everything possible to encourage them to come. I think that diversity has always been one of Concordia’s strongest assets, and we need to keep that going forward.

Since the announcement of tuition hikes, Concordia has been forced to make cuts and limit spending, including the reduction of the shuttle bus service schedule. What would you have to say to students who are frustrated about not being able to access services that they were promised when they enrolled?

My answer is not just for students, my answer is for the whole community that uses the shuttle bus service to move back and forth between campuses. My answer to that goes beyond the specific case of the shuttle bus, because there are a lot of things that we’ve had to stop doing or slow down. 

Obviously, a direct impact of reducing the schedule of the shuttle bus is that people need to find an alternative way to go between campuses because the shuttle is not available. But, there are a lot of indirect impacts of the budget cuts that are less visible but equally tangible within the university. We’ve essentially frozen hiring for the last year, both in terms of new faculty recruitment, but also in terms of staff recruitment. That means we have a lot of staff positions that are unfilled, which means that some people are being asked to try to pick up the slack and do extra work.

We are in a significant deficit situation. I know it’s a cliché to say hard decisions have to be taken, but we are having to make decisions which are not about growth. There are decisions about: “OK, can we do without this?”

What I’m heartened by is the efforts that faculty, staff, students and others have made to try to work within the new parameters that are in front of us. We’re invested in this place. We know it’s a great place, we want it to be even more successful, and we’re going to do our part to help that happen. 

I can’t be naive and not say we have a vertical climb ahead of us. If we lose a cohort of students last year, we’ve lost that cohort of students for four years, and the same is true this year; it has a compounding effect. We need to become as creative as possible in our thinking about how we deal with the financial situation. It can’t just be about where we’re going to cut, it has to also be about what can we do differently, and where we can find new opportunities to generate revenue.

There have been videos circulating on social media of students being assaulted by Campus Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS) agents and SPVM officers on campus. How will you ensure, going forward, that students are kept safe while protesting?

Our duty is to keep the whole community safe: that’s students, staff and faculty. It’s very painful to watch videos of conflicts and violence happening, whether it’s verbal violence or physical violence. We don’t want that on campus. Our campus safety officers are individuals who worked on, for the most part, the university campus for a long time. They’re as committed to this place as we are, and there are limits to what they can’t do. They’re a small number of individuals, they’ve been asked to do an awful lot over the last 16 months or so which is out of the ordinary. We need to realize that some of those CSPS agents have also been the victims of incidents. As a community, we have to say that certain things are unacceptable, and obviously, violence is one of those things. Keeping the community safe is a priority. I’m always very troubled and hurt when people say: “I don’t feel safe coming to campus.” Whether that’s a student, a faculty member or a staff member.

I’m really saddened by events that have happened over the last 16 months or so. I’m saddened by the vandalism that’s happened at the university. I’m saddened by the fact that there have been occasions when we have called the SPVM onto campus. CSPS agents are not bouncers. This is not a nightclub. It’s a last resort to call the SPVM, and the SPVM doesn’t want to be on campus either. It’s really concerning to me that this has become, over the last several months, a point of discussion, because it seems to me that we as a community have the capacity within ourselves to create the environment where we can express ourselves, but do so in a way that doesn’t feel intimidating. We’ve unfortunately seen incidents that are really regrettable here.

For over a year, students have been demanding that the university divest from companies funding the genocide in Palestine, including, but not limited to, BMO. This has culminated in 85,000 students going on strike in support of Palestine in November 2024. What do you have to say to students who feel that their demands are not being met or listened to by the administration?

I think two things. There’s one part of it around BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), and one part of it is around investment strategy. I’ll start with the investment strategy. The investment strategy of the university refers to the investments that are made by what used to be called Concordia Foundation, and is now the Concordia University Inter-Generational Fund (CUiF). Those are funds that are raised as a result of philanthropy; there’s no student funding in there. In 2019, in collaboration with the president of the then Concordia Foundation, we agreed that we would set an objective, that between 2019 and 2025 Concordia would become the first university in Canada to fully divest from fossil fuels, but also to double the investments that we were making in social equity investing, supporting educational initiatives abroad, clean water initiatives, and so on. 

I think the university as a whole should be really proud of that action, because that’s a differentiator for us. A lot of the pathway to get to that decision was a result of students concerned about climate change. We’ve just turned the page into 2025, and we’re going to meet that target. The CUiF will meet its target of being 100 per cent invested in sustainable and social equity investing this year. There’s no other university in Canada that can make that claim, and I think that’s something that the community should be really proud of.

Somehow it isn’t landing with the entire community. It’s like people are still assuming that we’re investing in things that we’re not investing in. We have no investments in the arms industry. We have no investments in the munitions industry. That’s not the pathway that we’ve been on. I think we as a university should be looking at our investment strategy as a point of pride for Concordia and as something which I think other universities would be envious of achieving, and other student organizations would be envious of achieving.

Based on Concordia’s ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) status, why does the university still partner with weapons manufacturing companies like Bombardier and Lockheed Martin, which have a high ESG risk rating through programs like Co-op or workshops? 

One of the initiatives that has helped make Concordia a destination university for students is our commitment to experiential learning and work-integrated learning. 
Last year, we had about 5,000 students who were in paid internships or Co-op programs at Concordia. That’s a huge number. Those are optional for students. Nobody’s forced to be in an experiential learning program. Students have the right, and should have the right, to choose where they would like to do work. I don’t think it’s for me, or for others within the university, to tell students that they shouldn’t work for a company, because that’s a field that they’re interested in working in. 

Being able to demonstrate the added value that students get coming to Concordia, getting a great experience in class, but also having the option to pursue work-integrated learning, is a huge advantage for us. We made the commitment two years ago, and it took a lot of work to get to this point. Every single undergraduate program in the university had to find a pathway to experiential learning for students in their program. Now, based on the success of the last two years, we’ll be able to announce next year that students, if they want, can have two experiential learning opportunities within the context of their program. Students who have had the benefit of work-integrated learning experience step more quickly into better-remunerated positions after graduation.

If students are pursuing paid internships or Co-ops, two things have to happen. First of all, they have to choose where they would like to go and interview for those positions, and then they have to be successful in getting the interview. We’re not the ones who are matchmaking. We’re not the ones who are saying this student is going to work with this organization or that company. It’s important to understand that this is about student choice and that we’re simply trying to make that choice available to the widest array of students possible within the university.

Students have requested that Concordia disclose all of its investments to increase transparency between students and the administration. Is this something that the current administration would consider?

Absolutely—I’d say two things about that. One is, we have been disclosing, in the sense that CUiF has a public report that they publish every year, that information is already public. I mean, it’s essential—it’s important to understand that the point of the CUiF is to raise money, the vast majority of which is used to support students, to provide student scholarships, etc. We need to be sure when our fund managers are making their investments, not only that they’re meeting the investment criteria that we set around sustainability, but they’re also yielding a return, because we want to be able to grow that fund to be able to support more students in the future. 

We also set up an informal meeting group with students from the Concordia Student Union and with the head of our fund management program to try to explain in more detail how the investment strategy and structure work. Investment at this scale for large institutions is very complex. We have a number of fund managers who manage Concordia investments, but all those fund managers are given certain parameters, and those are the parameters around sustainable and social equity investment, and that we judge their performance based on the revenue that they generate. I don’t think we have any problem being transparent about this, because this is a good story for Concordia to tell. The more we can tell that story about our investment strategy, and the more widely that’s circulated, I think it will be a factor that will encourage students to come to a university that’s invested in sustainability and social equity. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 7, published January 14, 2025.

In conversation with Graham Carr Read More »

Concordia University president’s statement draws criticism

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On Jan. 29, 885 students voted in favour of BDS motions at the CSU SGM. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Activists raise concerns with Graham Carr’s statement following January’s BDS vote

Some student associations and organizations at Concordia University have raised concerns over a statement made by the university’s President Graham Carr on Jan.30. 

The Carr statement was released following a special general meeting (SGM) where undergraduate students voted in favour of two Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) motions. 

On Jan. 29, 885 undergraduate Concordia students voted in favour of two motions: for the Concordia Student Union (CSU) to adopt BDS demands and for the union to bring those demands to the Board of Governors. Only 58 students voted against the motions. The total turnout for the vote was more than twice the 450 student quorum—the number of people needed to validate the vote. 

In the statement released on Jan. 30, Carr reiterated that Concordia’s position on “such boycott campaigns” has been consistent, writing, “Such campaigns are contrary to the value of academic freedom upon which all universities are founded.” 

He continued, saying that reports from the meeting were “deeply troubling” due to “the presence of heavily masked individuals, complaints of discriminatory behaviour and the use of intimidation tactics.” He called the behaviour at the meeting unacceptable and said it contravened Concordia policies.

Following the release, the School of Community and Public Affairs Student Association (SCPASA) and four other student associations condemned the statement in a post on Instagram. 

“Despite a clear, democratically obtained majority, Graham Carr incessantly seeks to silence pro-Palestine students, claiming the motions to be ‘contrary to the value of academic freedom,’” the post read. 

SCPASA executive secretary Samuel Gold said that he takes issue with Carr’s statement because it showed an “attitude of distrust” for student democracy. 

“I think it really just demonstrates that this administration is not in it for the students at all,” Gold said.

The CSU has also released a response to Carr’s statement on Instagram, stating, “Graham Carr’s statement draws upon existing anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment to present the result of a democratic vote in favour of BDS […] as illicit, hostile and non-binding.” 

Concordia spokesperson Julie Fortier told The Link that Concordia is “troubled” that people have chosen to “misread” and “purposefully miscommunicate” Carr’s statement. 

“President Carr’s statement does not say that the motions […] are contrary to the value of academic freedom,” Fortier said. “President Carr reiterates what has been Concordia’s position for years and that is that boycott campaigns are contrary to the value of academic freedom upon which all universities are founded [italics in original].”

CSU academic and advocacy coordinator Vanessa Massot said they want to ask the administration if they believe academic freedom is a universal right. 

“The entire point of us wanting to boycott, divest and sanction is the fact that people in Gaza, right now, do not even have shelter, food, medicine, let alone universities,” Massot said. “The entire point of what we’re doing is for academic freedom and overall liberation.”

Michael Bueckert, interim president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), sent a letter to Carr to express grave concern over Carr’s comments. 

In it, Bueckert listed several academic organizations in support of BDS, including the Middle East Studies Association and the American Studies Association. Bueckert also referred to the growing global concern that Israel is committing scholasticide in Gaza. 

“When universities, students, and academic bodies hold Israel to account for its role in apartheid, this is an affirmation of the very values that underlie academic freedom, not an attack on it,” Bueckert wrote.

Director of media advocacy at CJPME Jason Toney also raised concerns with Carr’s statement and how it may make students fearful of advocating for Palestine.  
“To use that kind of language that stifles debates and that stifles democratic expressions as it relates to a decision made by the CSU in a situation that seems to have followed all procedures and protocols,” Toney said, “it is extremely disappointing and highly concerning.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 9, published February 11, 2025.

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CSU sends Concordia a cease and desist

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Photo Matthew Daldalian

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The student union accuses the university of restraining freedom of speech, cites concerns with upcoming election

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) sent a cease and desist letter to Concordia University on Feb. 20 following the university’s announcement that it would launch an investigation into the student union.

In the cease and desist letter, the CSU claimed that Concordia’s actions will cause “irreparable harm” to the union. As such, the CSU has given Concordia 72 hours to rescind its suspension or they will undertake legal recourse against the university.

Concordia first informed the CSU of its investigation on Feb. 6 following claims of alleged breaches of university policies during the Jan. 29 special general meeting (SGM). At the SGM, a significant majority of undergraduate students voted for the union to adopt a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) motion and for the union to bring the motion to Concordia’s Board of Governors.

Primarily, Concordia pointed to alleged breaches of the Policy on Student Associations and Groups, the Policy on the Temporary Use of University Spaces, and the Code of Rights and Responsibilities. 

The university specifically outlined allegations that the auditorium was overfilled during the vote and that the CSU used the mezzanine to accommodate additional student voters without proper authorization. Concordia also pointed to allegations that the CSU permitted intimidation during the SGM, claiming that it received reports of “heavily masked individuals” creating “an intimidating climate.”

As a result, the university suspended the CSU’s ability to book spaces on campus and rescinded all the union’s past bookings. 

In the cease and desist letter addressed to Concordia provost and VP of Academic Anne Whitelaw, the CSU outlined how the alleged accusations “are very serious and are made without specifically referring to any articles of the three policies mentioned.” 

The cease and desist also claims that the university failed to provide details on the formal complaint that prompted the investigation.

“Limiting CSU’s rights on this basis goes against the CSU’s freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly and association, which are guaranteed to all students in section 1.3 of Concordia’s Code of Rights and Responsibilities,” the cease and desist reads.

The CSU also claims, contrary to Concordia allegations, that organizers counted and registered each student coming inside the building for the duration of the SGM. 

The union’s lawyer also wrote that Concordia Campus Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS) officers raised no concerns with organizers using the mezzanine as an overflow space to accommodate additional students. The cease and desist claims that CSPS officers even helped organizers install chairs in the mezzanine. 

“Accusing the CSU organizers of using space without authorization while, in reality, security personnel employed by Concordia helped them use this space constitutes an attempt to intimidate and stop students from being active in politics,” the cease and desist reads. 

The CSU also claimed that it provided students at the SGM with masks to ensure safety, claiming that concerns were raised by immunocompromised students who wanted to attend the vote. The union also noted that students were able to communicate their concerns through an anonymous text line to the moodwatcher throughout the SGM. 

“No concerns of discrimination or intimidation were brought forward beyond requests to mitigate cheering and prevent attendees from filming each other, both of which were then directly addressed by the chair,” the cease and desist reads. 

The CSU claims the administration did not try to get the CSU’s version of events or communicate with CSU executives except to clarify the effects of the suspension. 

The union’s concerns with the suspension come as the campaigning phase of the CSU General Elections is set to begin on March 3 at 9 a.m. 

The union claims that Concordia is causing “serious and irreparable damage to student democracy and freedom of speech” by preventing the union from booking the spaces needed to hold the elections. 

The cease and desist continued by stating that it is inconceivable for the union to hold “proper and valid” elections and organize debates in accordance with the CSU bylaws without access to the requisite spaces on campus. 

The letter also states that the governance and decision-making power of the CSU would be rendered null if the general election results were deemed illegitimate following the university’s actions. 

“The CSU is a multi-million dollar non-profit for students by students, so if these services were to be rendered null it would mean that millions in student funds would be put to waste,” the cease and desist reads. 

Concordia spokesperson Julie Fortier told The Link that the university does not comment on pending legal matters and that it “is not restricting freedom of speech or student democracy on campus.” 

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Concordia’s austerity measures threaten another victim

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SFCUCCR General Meeting on Nov. 1. Photo Matthew Daldalian

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

Students are mobilizing to save the CUCCR amid risks of permanent closure

The Students for the Centre for Creative Reuse (SFCUCCR), a new student coalition, has formed at Concordia with the goal of saving the Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR) from its permanent closure. 

The Students for the Centre for Creative Reuse (SFCUCCR), a new student coalition, has formed at Concordia with the goal of saving the Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR) from its permanent closure. 

The CUCCR is a used material depot that connects students with free materials collected from Concordia’s various waste streams. The depot is fruitful with various materials like wood, fabric, ribbon, binders, kitchen supplies and more that students can use to work on various projects. 

SFCUCCR created an appeal form for students to sign “to prove the CUCCR’s importance to the members of Concordia’s community.” According to the appeal, the university has yet to renew the centre’s contract and, if it is not signed by December, the CUCCR will have to close its doors in April. 

SFCUCCR member Jonah Doniewski said that the coalition wants to show the university that students believe the CUCCR is worth keeping alive. 

“We’re not trying to attack the university. We understand it comes from a place of really tight money constraints and funding constraints,” Doniewski said, “but ultimately [Concordia not signing the renewal contract yet] is a choice.” 

On top of being a coalition member, Doniewski is also a volunteer at the CUCCR. He said that students are often baffled that all of the materials inside the depot are free. 

“We live in a world [with] a lot of scarcity and competition, so free stuff doesn’t really make any sense to a lot of people,” said Doniewski. 

After collecting their supplies, students use the check-out system to weigh their items and assess their value, allowing the CUCCR to keep track of its impact live on the Concordia website. 

“It’s not like we’re getting new stuff,” Doniewski said. “We’re just finding the home for the old stuff.” 


So far this year, the CUCCR has already diverted 6334.42 kg of waste and saved students $43,394.10. Over the 2023-2024 school year, the centre saved students over $100,000. 

Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) finance coordinator Ryan Assaker has been very active in the movement to save the CUCCR, in part due to ASFA contributing a yearly fee-levy to the centre. 

“The CUCCR has been so vital in helping out the student community,” Assaker said, “and so, for ASFA, we can’t just see an organization such as the CUCCR disappear in front of our eyes.”

Reuse programming and sustainability specialist Anna Timm-Bottos is the founder of the CUCCR and the only employee. 

According to her, without the CUCCR, most of the waste that the centre currently diverts would end up in a landfill, as it usually comes from departments with limited storage space. 

For Doniewski, volunteering at the CUCCR helped make him more aware of the abundance of waste at the university and globally. 

“Interacting with that abundance has completely changed the way that I sort of see the world and see the community,” he said, explaining that the sense of joy these items bring people gives him a sense of hope.

Assaker added that while he understands that Concordia needs to implement different financial measures, he takes issue with the administration making these decisions unilaterally.  

“We’ve had it happen with the shuttle bus, and now it’s happening with the CUCCR and it’s concerning [not only] as a student leader, but also as a student,” Assaker said. “You’re making these decisions, you’re not consulting the student base and then you’re just basically pulling the rug [from] under our feet.”

For Timm-Bottos, the support has been overwhelming.“It really shows how much of a community project this is,” she said. “I may have been a leader in starting it, but it’s really the community that is around us, the students, that make the project what it is.” 

Concordia University spokesperson Vannina Maestracci explained that no decision has been made about the future of the CUCCR and that the university values the CUCCR’s service to the community. 

Looking forward, the SFCUCCR is looking to host an art fair with work made using material from the depot to fundraise and raise awareness for the CUCCR. 

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 5, published November 5, 2024.

Concordia’s austerity measures threaten another victim Read More »

BREAKING: $360,000 CUTV incubation project questioned at AGM

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CUTV members raise concerns with ongoing MOU between the station and The Breach. Graphic Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The station has been partly funding the independent media outlet The Breach since 2021

The latest Community University Television Concordia (CUTV) annual general meeting (AGM) saw some members raise issues with the station’s incubation of the independent media outlet The Breach. 

The arrangement was set out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between CUTV and The Breach which was approved by CUTV’s board of directors on April 7, 2021.  

Funding and additional services 

As laid out in the MOU, CUTV’s incubation of The Breach was meant as a “mutually beneficial arrangement” between both parties, with the aim of The Breach becoming fully independent in the long term. The document outlined five payments to be made by CUTV to The Breach between Feb. 1, 2021 and Feb. 1, 2025, totalling $360,000.  

Terms of payment from CUTV to The Breach as laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding. Infographic Maria Cholakova

In a letter sent to CUTV’s interim board president, Mackenzie Smedmor explained their decision to not seek re-election as a director of CUTV. In it, Smedmor, who had been in the position since 2022, outlined their belief  “that the directors of CUTV should consider undertaking a candid assessment of the relationship between CUTV and The Breach.” 

According to Smedmor, between 2021 and 2024, The Breach received between 13.3 per cent and 25.9 per cent of CUTV’s total funding, with the total funds sent to The Breach equating to 31.6 per cent of the station’s total Concordia University undergraduate fee levy in that period.

“There’s always been two mandates of the station, and it kind of represents two purposes and visions, and sometimes two factions [regarding] what the station is about,” said Marcus Peters, former president of CUTV’s board of directors who held the position when the MOU came into effect, and a former board member of The Breach.

According to CUTV’s website, the station has two mandates: To “provide facilities, training and equipment for the Concordia community & Montrealers” and to “support production of alternative programming for those underserved by the corporate media.”

Peters said The Breach was conceived in relation to the second part of the mandate as a media organization that aligned with student values, especially as the equipment depot was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

He clarified that the decision was made to fund a media outlet separate from CUTV, as it would allow their coverage to have national reach and to shape “Canadian media discourse.” He argues that this would not have been possible if The Breach was a student media organization. 

CUTV’s current undergraduate fee levy sits at $0.34 per student, per credit, totalling over $200,000 every year according to Smedmor’s letter and CUTV’s 2023-2024 budget. 

For CUTV’s board secretary Allison O’Reilly, despite her personal “leftist” beliefs aligning with The Breach’s editorial line, she is skeptical of the decision to use student money to fund the organization. 

“I think that The Breach’s coverage can be fantastic sometimes, and I support them as an organization,” O’Reilly said. “I just feel like the justification for using student fee levy money in order for their existence is weak.”

For Peters, fee levy groups have a role to play beyond students and they can, and should, serve the “community as a whole.”

CUTV revenues and transfers to The Breach between 2021-2024. Infographic Maria Cholakova

In addition to funding, The Breach has received support in the form of sharing health insurance, financial audits, banking fees, government fees and payroll processing with CUTV, according to Smedmor’s letter. Both organizations also shared a bank account until a closeout agreement was discussed in a CUTV finance committee meeting on July 10, 2023. 

According to CUTV’s former financial administrator Olivia Champagne, The Breach had a separate checking account under CUTV’s business account, as The Breach was not yet incorporated and, as such, “could not open an independent bank account.”

Potential conflict of interest 

In their letter, Smedmor outlined potential conflicts of interest between both organizations. Namely, they point out that, in addition to being CUTV’s executive director, Dru Oja Jay is also the publisher of The Breach. 

According to Moshe Lander, a senior economics lecturer at Concordia, transparency is primordial when it comes to two joined organizations.

“Whenever you’re going to have two organizations that are joined at the hip, whether you’re calling one an incubator and the incubated or whether they’re just a joint venture, […] transparency is critical,” Lander said, “and transparency seems to be lacking here.” 

Peters believes the overlap was necessary since The Breach is incubated by CUTV.

“You want to have overlap for various reasons. Not only because of the necessary resource sharing to maximize the potential [of] the project that’s being incubated, but also to protect the investment,” Peters said. “You want to have those overlaps, so that you have increased accountability, increased transparency.”

Smedmor’s letter detailed how, in 2022, CUTV’s station manager shared their concerns that Jay was often absent from the station as he split his time between both CUTV and The Breach.

According to Clare Chasse, who sat on CUTV’s board of directors in 2022, Jay was wearing himself thin in both positions. 

“I think that [Jay] especially was completely at his working capacity [and] was not able to oversee his job as the executive director in a way that was beneficial,” Chasse said, adding that there was a lack of oversight from the executive director role held by Jay.  

According to Peters, Jay was not failing to meet his job requirements and was “accomplishing his job […] in an exemplary fashion.” 

Chasse claimed she never received proper training for her position on the board, stating that the majority of board members with seniority were mostly tied to and concerned with The Breach. She said that CUTV’s continued close relationship with The Breach is why she left the board.

“Myself and another board member that I know both had ended up leaving the board early because we felt like […] we weren’t going to be able to contribute properly because of the precedent that The Breach took on a lot of everyday things,” Chasse said. 

The Link contacted Jay for comment and he refused the request. 

The letter also outlined other potential conflicts of interest. In addition to being the former financial administrator of CUTV, Champagne is also the general coordinator of Solidarity Economy Incubation for Zero Emissions (SEIZE) and the co-founder and director of Populus Solidarity Cooperative. Populus offers bookkeeping, accounting, and consulting and training services. 

Champagne was one of four co-founders of Populus, serving as a user member representative for SEIZE alongside representatives for CUTV, the Hive Café Solidarity Co-op and the Concordia Food Coalition. Members of Populus include CUTV, The Breach and SEIZE as well as others. 

Champagne served as CUTV’s financial administrator from October 2020 to January 2022 and said her position had no decision-making authority. 

At the time of publication, The Breach’s website lists Champagne as a member of the board.

Champagne claims that some government accounts were lost after The Breach was incorporated in June 2022. Following The Breach’s application to become a member of Populus, she was appointed to help recover access to the accounts in an administrative capacity she classified as “officers who are not members of the board of directors.” 

Lander believes that CUTV and The Breach should use different bookkeepers nonetheless to avoid any potential conflicts of interest, as the overlap can create “the whiff that something is wrong, whether it’s actually true or not.”

According to Champagne, both CUTV and Populus demand that individuals disclose potential conflicts of interest in relation to certain agenda items at the start of every meeting and step out of that portion of the meeting if conflict is identified. 

Transparency with members 

At the latest CUTV AGM held on Nov. 4, some members raised concerns regarding the station’s continued financing of The Breach. 

According to the minutes, CUTV ended the fiscal year with a $92,000 deficit, largely due to payouts made to The Breach, with financial recommendations including cutting costs and keeping a closer eye on financial transactions. 

At the AGM, member Cameron McIntyre proposed a motion for the board to opt out of the MOU with The Breach, pending legal consultation. The motion was seconded and, following a discussion period, it was called to a vote. 

Prior to the vote, two CUTV members left the room, including Peters, who called to recount quorum—the minimum members needed for a meeting to be valid. As quorum was no longer present despite the two members’ departures, the meeting was adjourned. 

Members present at the meeting, including McIntyre and Smedmor, deemed this undemocratic.  O’Reilly shared similar concerns. 

“The AGM showed […] that the members decided that they don’t feel [The Breach] is a priority for CUTV anymore,” O’Reilly said. “The pushback by other members and some staff members, I find, is disrespectful because they should be listening to what the membership wants.”

Peters disagrees.“I would say it’s not undemocratic for a member to choose how and when they engage with a general meeting, but what is undemocratic is […] 14 to 16 people making a decision on a station that represents hundreds of members for the rest of the year,” Peters said, adding that he does not believe the opinions presented at the AGM represent those of the whole membership.

According to O’Reilly, the motion presented at the AGM was not planned beforehand. 

“I think that certain people at CUTV assumed that this was a planned attack, but it wasn’t, it was just independent people seeing the facts and then reacting to those facts,” O’Reilly said.

This isn’t the first controversial CUTV AGM. In February 2020, following a sudden increase in membership in the two weeks preceding the AGM, CUTV members accused board members of stacking the vote with friends and family to ensure their election to the board.

Peters says that this increase in membership was, rather, a form of campaigning for the new board’s plan to incubate a new media organization. 

“We mobilized dozens of students to come [to] the general meeting where I was elected,” Peters said. “It wasn’t one that barely met quorum. It was like 60 or 70 people that came out, because we knew that it was like a super serious undertaking.”

According to the station’s by-laws, members need to sign up at least 14 days in advance to be eligible to vote. Following the 2020 AGM, a removal vote was held at a special general meeting (SGM) in August where members voted to not remove their board of directors by a margin of 10 votes. 

According to a document The Link obtained, in the days following the AGM, 20 new CUTV community members have signed up.

A SGM will be held in the coming weeks for the membership to vote on CUTV’s involvement with The Breach. 

A previous version of this article stated that quorum was no longer present at the CUTV AGM following the two member’s departure. This is incorrect, quorum would not have been present regardless. The Link regrets this error. 

BREAKING: $360,000 CUTV incubation project questioned at AGM Read More »

Concordia president’s base salary exceeds $500,000

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

Graphic Maria Cholakova

Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

A breakdown of Concordia University senior administration salaries in 2023-2024

In the 2023-2024 academic year, Concordia University President Graham Carr received a $33,352 salary increase, up 6.84 per cent from the year prior. Carr’s salary totalled $520,829 including other taxable amounts for the year.

Concordia’s financial statements and statements of salaries for the year ending on April 30, 2024 were completed in October and released on the Assemblée nationale du Québec’s website on Nov. 29. 

The other highest-paid members of Concordia’s senior administration include VP of Services and Sustainability Michael Di Grappa, Provost and VP of Academic Anne Whitelaw and VP of Research and Graduate Studies Dominique Bérubé. They received salary increases of $10,133, $10,626 and $10,901 respectively.

Salary increases for university senior administration in Quebec must be made in accordance with the rules and regulations from the Quebec government, laid out in article 5.11 of the Règles budgétaires et calcul des subventions de fonctionnement aux universités du Québec.

According to Concordia spokesperson Julie Fortier, the salary increases for senior administration were equal or equivalent to those given to other “unions and associations” at the university. 

She also claimed that the president and other senior administration members donated the amount of their salary increase for 2023-2024 to the university. 
 
The increases come as Concordia is facing what it refers to as “extraordinarily challenging times” following the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ)’s tuition hikes for English-language universities.  

Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) academic coordinator Angelica Antonakopoulos said that the recent cuts have resulted in ASFA executive members being spread too thin as they attempt to mobilize against different austerity measures.

“We’re sitting in these meetings with university administrators over and over and over and the response that we get almost ad nauseam is there’s just not enough money,” Antonakopoulos said, adding that she finds it hypocritical for senior administration to raise their salaries as they cut and reduce student services. 

“I’m very disappointed, evidently, but I’m also not surprised,” she said. “I kind of expected to see this coming.”

Antonakopoulos added that, even if administration members have given away the amount of their salary increase, she is nonetheless left wondering why they accepted the increase in the first place. 

“I think this just underscores the fact that Concordia acts in bad faith financially,” said Antonakopoulos. “There have been calls for both divestment and anti-austerity measures yet the university can’t even manage financial austerity.”

In the budget updates for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, Concordia outlined that it implemented cuts of 7.8 per cent to reach its goal of ending the year with a $34.5 million deficit, down from the original projection of $78.9 million. 

Cuts have included reducing the shuttle bus service, maintaining the hiring freeze implemented in the 2023-2024 school year, cutting courses with low enrolment, and the closing of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. 

Concordia president’s base salary exceeds $500,000 Read More »

A look back on student encampments and resistance

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Students set up McGill encampment for Palestine. Photo Hannah Scott-Talib

Zina Chouaibi & Geneviève Sylvestre,
Local Journalism Initiative

The dismantling of the McGill encampment was not the end of Palestinian solidarity in Montreal

Over the past year, universities in Montreal and across the world have witnessed a surge in student activism, with campus encampments serving as symbols of Palestinian solidarity.

Antler, a camper at the McGill University encampment, who was granted a pseudonym for safety reasons, was about to leave Montreal for summer break when the encampment was erected on April 27. Instead, she chose to stay in the city to show her solidarity.

“This is a student opportunity that doesn’t happen often. It’s the first encampment in Canada, it was in a school that is already on stolen land, it had a lot of backstory to it that was very important to us,” said Antler. “At the time of the encampment, it kind of felt like it was the most we could do.”

The encampment brought unprecedented attention to the issue of divestment, highlighting activists’ demands that McGill and Concordia divest from companies with connections to the ongoing genocide and cut all academic ties with Israel.   

McGill filed three injunctions in an attempt to get the encampment removed. Two were rejected by Quebec Superior Court judges, and the last was withdrawn by McGill after the dismantlement of the camp by a private security firm on Jul. 10.

“The fact that it was forcefully removed by mercenaries only contributed positively to the momentum,” a representative from Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill said. 

According to the representative, the encampments showcased the unity and power of the student front.

“We had never seen this much media coverage on this topic despite divestment being a demand for the past two decades,” they said.

Antler was not present the day the encampment was taken down, but says she is very proud of what all the campers accomplished.

“Honestly, more than anything, more than disappointed, I was just very, very proud of how long the encampment stayed and how resilient the students were,” she said. 

The removal of the encampments did not mark the end of the divestment movement, but rather a shift in tactics. Activists like Hassan Ridha from the Palestinian Youth Movement are now focusing on long-term strategies that involve coalition-building across different communities.

“When multiple separate efforts are joined together, they become more powerful,” Ridha said.

Despite the lack of meaningful progress from university administrations, Ridha sees the rise in solidarity as a significant victory.

“I consider the unification of students, businesses, professionals and parents a major success of the encampment,” he said. 

According to the SPHR McGill representative, the Montreal community played a crucial role in supporting the encampments and keeping the movement alive.

“The Montreal community has supported us throughout the encampment with donations for what was necessary to keep the encampment alive,” the SPHR McGill representative said. “That in itself plays a huge role in achieving divestment.” 

Currently, activists like Ridha are looking to engage new supporters to sustain the movement, particularly incoming students who may be unfamiliar with the history of the encampments. 

“To engage new supporters, it is important to be as present as possible in as many places as possible,” Ridha said. He believes that by expanding the movement’s reach and involving more communities, the movement can continue to grow and evolve.

“At the end of the day, we are students who don’t want our tuition money to go to the funding of a genocide,” the SPHR McGill representative said. “That is such a simple ask: justice.” 

With files from Maria Cholakova

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.

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