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Strike declared at Concordia
Concordia undergrads are going on strike. A two-thirds majority has made it official. Students attended the CSU’s general assembly on Wednesday afternoon.
VP Chad Walcott announced the results in the Hall Building at the downtown campus. The reaction of the crowd was overwhelming.
“The results for our mandate. Votes in favour: 1152. Votes against: 557. Congratulations Concordia, you just made history.”
The assembly took place at four designated locations at the university: three at the downtown campus and one at Loyola. Lindsay Spence came to the assembly without knowing how she would vote.
“Once they started talking about how much the government is going to make and then how much of that is actually going to be invested into education, that's what really bothered me because it doesn’t make sense that their making money off of us and their reevaluating. Taking those funds and putting them where they feel where it should go.”
Others, like Anna Campbell, wore their red squares and expressed their enthusiasm for the outcome.
“We voted to go one strike for five day, so I’m really happy. I really support the strike. I believe in the cause because I believe that students shouldn’t have to pay increasing amount of tuition with a government that increasingly cuts corporate taxes. They’re just misspending money. They don’t need more money, necessarily from us. This just shows the amount of solidarity all students are having together for the cause, which is really awesome.”
But not everyone felt the same way. Victoria, an undergrad who did not want to give her last name, explained.
“I’m not surprised and I think it’s great that we can have this type of mobility and people can come together for a cause. I just don’t know if I feel comfortable or confident in it. Even though I think they have the best intentions for it to be like a safe, open, no value judgment zone, I feel there’s a really large intimidation factor and it makes me really uncomfortable.”
Though the CSU voted this Wednesday afternoon, several faculties had already done so earlier. By Tuesday, six student associations had adopted a strike mandate on tuition increases. This brought along with it the boycotting of classes. Necolas Payeur, another undergrad, was against the approach as well.
“I can understand that people don't want to pay more tuition. I don't want to pay more tuition either. But, there’s a difference between being against the tuition fee hikes and vote for a strike. I think there are more possibilities to do then just go on strike all week and undefined strike after. Don’t keep people from going to school and classes, which they pay for and want a good education. You got the job opportunity after and if you go on strike indefinitely you lose your job because you cannot go work because you still have school. I don’t think it’s good for all the people.”
A motion to change the date of the strike was passed as well. It will officially take place from March 15th to the 22nd. Another general assembly will then be held to decide whether to continue with the tactic or not.
Photo by: Esther Viragh
Harper agrees to give Elections boss more power
The Conservative Party has changed its mind on a decision to grant more investigative power to Elections Canada.
According to the National Post, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced to the House of Commons that his party will be supporting the bill put forth by the NDP.
The motion would give Canada’s chief electoral officer the power to verify a party’s election expenses.
Elections Canada would have full access to all parties' reports and receipts.
The bill was put forth in light of the recent robocall scandal.
Prime Minister Harper initially announced his party would not support the bill as it would be an added expense to the election process.
Harper changed his mind to stave off the appearance of trying to block the robocall investigation.
Flickr photo: Kashmera
Four injured in protest against tuition hikes
Four people were injured at the tuition hike protest that took place yesterday in downtown Montreal. According to the Canadian Press, police fired tear gas and arrested several protestors. Some students were tackled before being arrested.
Police officers with shields put up a human wall to hold back the crowd after protestors toppled the metal barrier on Sherbrooke Street.
Police also forced students out of the Loto-Quebec building. The building is home to the organization that represents university rectors.
Tens of thousands of students have already been on strike in the past few weeks and Concordia students voted yesterday to join the ranks. Despite strikes and violent protest, Charest doesn’t seem to be changing his mind about tuition hikes. He says that universities will continue to be mostly financed by taxpayers and that the hikes are an equitable way to keep universities competitive. (Photo: Lauren Guay)
A video with an important message
It’s been popping up everywhere on social media sites this week.
An American based charity called Invisible Children has made a compelling video campaign. They want to make Joseph Kony a household name in the hopes that he will finally be captured.
Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, has been evading an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court since two thousand and five. He is accused of using child soldiers and being responsible for more than thirty thousand deaths.
Invisible Children’s campaign has managed to spread knowledge of the name outside of Africa. The video has become so popular that musicians, celebrities and even Canadian politicians are talking about it.
According to the globe and mail, Kony might be hiding in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s believed that LRA is burning villages there and forcing people to join his army.
Last October, President Obama said he would send soldiers to Uganda in order to search for the warlord.
Flickr photo: quazymonkey
This Week in Sports: March 7th
NHL:
Playoff races are getting tighter and tighter as we come down to the final stretch run of the regular season. It's entirely possible that the last few playoff spots could be decided in the final games of the season, which will certainly raise the intrigue league-wide, even for fans of teams that are already out of playoff contention. As it stands, only five points separate the 8th and 13th spots in the Eastern Conference, while in the West the five-point gap is between 7th and 12th place. There will no doubt be plenty of drama and fast-paced action as teams scrap for as many points as they can get their hands on in the fight for a chance at hockey's holy grail this spring.
NFL:
Monday was the deadline for NFL teams to apply their exclusive franchise tag (should they choose to) on one player they wish to lock up for the upcoming season. The concept essentially allows a team to "prevent" losing a player to free agency if a contract extension cannot be reached. The tag essentially buys teams more time to work out a legitimate deal, as is the case with the New Orleans Saints, who franchised their prolific quarterback, Drew Brees, for the upcoming season so that the two sides can work exclusively on getting a deal done. The problem with the franchise tag is that the salary commanded is a number derived from the player's most recent contract, which then gets increased by approximately 20% of its total value; therefore, Brees will be making close to 17 million this season alone, which is not unheard of for star quarterbacks, but it seriously limits a team's flexibility in terms of signing and retaining other free agents.
MLB:
Baseball spring training has begun in earnest, as pre-season games have commenced, giving teams a chance to test the young talent in their organizations while also keeping a close eye on bubble players who may or may not get cut, and keying on any flaws certain players need to improve upon. It also gives fans a preemptive glimpse of what they might see from their teams in the upcoming season. An example of this comes in the form of Brett Lawrie, the fiery, talented third-baseman of the Toronto Blue Jays who is already hearing about the high expectations being placed upon him for this season. He's answered the call, for now anyways; this weekend he hit two doubles in the Jays opening pre-season game against Pittsburgh. Consistency will be the key for Lawrie and the Jays as they attempt to come out on top in what is perhaps the toughest division in baseball.
NBA:
In the marquee match-up of the weekend, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers made a bold statement to the entire league by taking down the Miami Heat in a physical matchup that saw Miami star Dwayne Wade foul out of the game near its conclusion. Kobe extracted a small measure of revenge against Wade and the Heat after Wade broke Kobe's nose and concussed him in last weekend's All-Star game, but there was no real physical retaliation from Kobe or his teammates, so that finally the overblown story can be put to rest.
The other big news that came out of the NBA this weekend was the unreal performance by Nets point-guard Deron Williams, who put up a stunning 57 points in a game against the Charlotte Bobcats on Sunday.
MLS:
The Montreal Impact will be making their long-awaited and much-anticipated Major League Soccer debut this Saturday in B.C against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Kickoff is at 6 PM.
-Andrew Maggio co-hosts Game Misconduct every Sunday from 12pm-2pm and runs a dedicated Habs blog that you can check out here
March 07, 2012
Read by: Greg Wilson
Stories by: Aisha Samu, Michael Lemieux, Alyssa Tremblay, Joel Ashak and William D. Pelletier
Produced by: Jamie-Lee Gordon
Iran allows UN to inspect nuclear military site
The pressure put on Iran over their potential nuclear weapons seems to be paying off for the United Stated.
According to the CBC, Tehran has decided to allow the UN to inspect one of its main nuclear facilities suspected of secret atomic work.
The inspection of the military complex Parchin was a key request of the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano.
Amano said last Monday that he suspected Parchin was linked to new weapons experiments or attempts to clean up previous alleged work. He also exhorted that inspecting the military facility was better sooner than later.
Iran reported it will allow the UN to visit the facilities in a gesture of good will. Tehran always denied Parchin was a base of secret nuclear experiments.
The inspection still requires both sides to agree on principal guidelines on how the inspection will be held.
RBC settles with Earl Jones victims
According to CTV Montreal, RBC has settled a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit out of court.
The bank settled to the tune of $17 million with the victims of Earl Jones. Jones was a deceitful financial advisor who conned millions of dollars out of his clients. He ran a classic Ponzi scheme for years before being discovered and arrested three years ago.
Bank managers at an RBC in Beaconsfield were revealed to have known of Jones scheme since 2001. In light of this and that they did nothing to stop him, court approval was given to the victims to file a lawsuit against RBC.
Many of Jones victims mortgaged their houses to buy in to his scheme. They are now left with very little. Luckily the settlement with RBC covers nearly 50% of the total investments.
Flickr photo: Ian Muttoo
Five hackers from Anonymous and LulzSec groups arrested
According to the National Post, Five members of the Anonymous group have been arrested for allegedly partaking in a computer hacking conspiracy.
A U.S. law enforcement official added that one of the five charged members has already pleaded guilty.
Fox News has a released a statement saying that two of these men were British, two were from Ireland and the last one was an American.
They were charged based on evidence given by a leader of the Lulz Security group.
Hector Xavier Monsegur , a founder of Lulz Security, has been giving information to the FBI since being arrested in 2011.
Lulz Security has attacked websites belonging to Sony, the US Senate, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and many more.
Flickr photo by Brandon Doran
Updated: PSSA will honour strike mandate
Of the six student associations and organizations who held a General Assembly last week to vote on a five day extendable strike against the Quebec government’s proposed tuition hikes, the Political Science Student Association has had the most confusion regarding a strike mandate.
At this point, the PSSA will technically be on strike, but its executive along with the CSU recommend that students go to their classes until another GA takes place.
At Thursday's vote, 59 members of the PSSA voted in favour of a strike with 14 opposed and one abstention. Immediately following the meeting, complaints and contestations were made towards the PSSA executive demanding that the vote be annulled since it represented only a small fraction of the 1600 students in the department. The Arts and Science Federation of Associations stipulates that each member association have a quorum of 2.5% or 15 people to enforce binding decisions in a GA. The PSSA achieved quorum with 74 students in attendance.
Early Monday morning, Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill, who is at the forefront of the pro-strike movement at Concordia, proposed on the PSSA Facebook group that the strike be delayed until a GA is held to discuss a strike. “I think it is inappropriate to ask people not to go to class with this amount of confusion,” said Gill. “I support the strike but I think we need to have an information meeting that all political science students receive notice by email for before going forward.”
On Tuesday morning, PSSA President Pier-Luc Therrien sent an email to its members announcing the cancellation of the strike until further notice.
At approximately 2:00pm, PSSA VP Internal Eric Moses Gashirabake denounced Therrien’s email. He said, “The PSSA Executive Team has no power to unilaterally void that result.” Gashirabake also suggested that Political Science students honour the vote and go on strike tomorrow as planned.
Shortly after Gashirabake denounced Therrien's announcement, political science student and pro-strike activist Nadim Kobeissi created a petition online to impeach the PSSA president for “illegally” cancelling the strike. The petition also states that Therrien has a conflict of interest because he does not support the strikes.
By about 9:00pm, Therrien retracted his statement. He said that he was mistaken to believe that he had the power to cancel a binding GA motion.
A meeting has been organized for 8:00am Wednesday in the LB Atrium to discuss how to proceed. Students are invited to attend.
In other strike news, Tuesday saw the Graduate Students Association, Urban Planning Association, and Sociology and Anthropology Student Union all vote to join the strike as well.
Photo by Joel Balsam on Thursday Mach 1, 2012 at PSSA GA.
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