https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/62030/archive/files/0f0664818a14d7a5ae009919046393b0.pdf?Expires=1790208000&Signature=i%7EFTkiTVARm1J2FG1Ce2us2Aj7Mw7DX%7EHa1HKT-nOIV-T-ii8Zbf-KsD1mSkkF2DpN9XdCtilikNfcl87EV2v99Vx72bmZJzTMvN0UNY-%7EPPxo3JIqSGc8hmjV90r64TkiLWMSNWoGttc-lcxOhbAo6JfAneeWLrhnfMmKzu9yHmq4wP-S-ezkZ87IFHeg39Z1ejB0zJvrQT595vp30BLXaFRDnMnkOo5QfUE1Udrf-yj0LZXPqnfAsZYNlRvz-MI9fn4pTLUCdzxpJJHedbe7QKv7pbsiawrHAJT0PPPOy9QEJC3YmfrKcnABqac%7EHuB1JQ6fASyGpN7fHCc56KkQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0ba94c5070db9f437de614d055bb1e65 PDF Text Text News The McGill Daily, Thursday, October 30, 2008 SSMU approves pro-life club 3 Choose Life’s status to be reviewed in three months Lina Crompton News Writer S SMU councillors voted 21 to two in favour of granting a controversial pro-life group on campus club status in a vote at Tuesday’s council meeting. After an animated debate from councillors, concerned students, and the club’s supporters, Choose Life was granted interim status and will be able to apply for full club status after three months as an interim club, the standard for all new clubs. The club will have to hold three events and satisfy other requirements to demonstrate it is active. Women’s Studies student Andrew Thorne, watching from the gallery, claimed Choose Life was a structurally violent group and opposed its legitimization through SSMU. “Pro-life is inherently violent against women and against human rights,” he said of the ideological mandate of the group. When council reached the debate on Choose Life’s club status, ten to 15 students filtered into the room. Members of the gallery came from various advocacy groups at McGill, including the Quebec Public Interest Research Group and the Union for Gender Empowerment. Signs from the gallery poked up with slogans including “legalize abortion” and “fight gender oppression.” Choose Life’s mandate, according to its constitution, is to “promote and respect human rights and human life from conception,” which they define in their constitution as “the moment fertilization occurs.” Choose Life’s director Natalie Fohl defended the group’s legitimacy at the meeting, stressing that SSMU club status will facilitate pro-life discussion at educational events and will ensure that a variety of services and options are available on campus Guy Lifshitz for The McGill Daily Max Silverman, last year’s VP External, commented that he had never seen a SSMU Council meeting so well attended. for women and partners faced with decisions about pregnancy. Fohl felt there was a lack of support on campus for women who decide to carry their pregnancy to term and worried that refusing Choose Life a campus voice would silence pro-life issues. “The more options there are on campus, the better off [women] will be with making decisions for their own care,” said Choose Life representative Kathryn Sawyer at the meeting. Councillor José Díaz disagreed with a gallery member who questioned the legal and moral implications of SSMU’s decision to accept a group with a controversial definition of conception. “Universities are the best places for this kind of debate. SSMU can’t stop pro-life groups just because of their definitions,” Diaz said. Based on tactics of outside prolife groups, other gallery members were worried Choose Life members would distribute graphic pamphlets hostile to abortion. In response to these accusations, Fohl assured council attendees that Choose Life’s activities would be nonincendiary. “[We’re] against using graphic pictures or circulating literature that could be construed as hateful,” Fohl said. Devin Alfaro, SSMU VP External, assured the room that if Choose Life was to circulate hateful material during its interim period, the society would stop its activities in their tracks. SSMU’s equity committee is prepared to receive student grievances against any club’s actions. SSMU President Kay Turner echoed Alfaro’s assertions. “In the SSMU Constitution, if one club demands recourse with another they can take it to the [Judicial] Board if there is behaviour that infringes or endangers another person’s or club’s livelihood,” she said. Law Students’ Representative Alexandre Shee supported granting Choose Life interim club status. “SSMU should not limit freedom, thought, or opinion as defined by the Canadian Constitution,” Shee said. “All clubs are innocent until proven guilty,” said councillor Hanchu Chen, arguing that Council should respect the group’s right to free speech and assembly. Other clubs that were swiftly granted interim status at the meeting include the Muggle Quidditch Team, the Thaqalayn Muslim Association, Fetish and Kink Enthusiasts, Dragon Boat Z, Aerospace Medicine Association, and the People’s Liberated Knitting Front. Migrant farm workers seek collective bargaining rights Seasonal worker status doesn’t guarantee full employee benefits Maria Forti News Writer T he right of migrant agricultural workers to collectively bargain for better contracts is at stake in a case before Quebec’s Labour Relations Commission that began hearings Friday. Seasonal Mexican workers at a farm in Saint-Augustin de Mirabel, about 40 kilometres north of Montreal, applied in July for accreditation to form a collective bargaining unit to secure better working conditions. During the hearing, five workers spoke about the conditions on the farm, including the long hours without breaks, the volatile temper of their boss, their reasons for migrating to Canada for work, and their lack of job security. “Workers who come here from Mexico deserve respect,” said Ausencio Flores, who has worked for farm owners Johanne L’Écuyer and Pierre Locas for about five years. “We do not come here so that [the bosses] can insult us. We come here as people, not as animals.” Flores added that workers entering Canada are threatened by the Mexican Consulate, saying they are told not to complain about anything at work or they will be considered “in conflict” with their contracts and will not be asked back to Canada for the next season. The United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW), which brought the application forward, is supporting the part-time workers’ collective bargaining efforts. When asked why he signed a union card with the UFCW, Gabriel Sanchez, another worker on the farm, explained that the language barrier made negotiations challenging. “We needed someone to help solve our problems and every time we called the Consulate, no one answered,” Sanchez said, speaking through a translator like most of the workers. “I don’t speak the language so it is not possible to talk [with my boss].” A collective bargaining strategy was opposed by the farm owners, who argued the part-time workers should not receive full employee benefits because the farm is not in operation all year, citing a provision in the Quebec Labour Code that requires at least three employees to work yearround to be eligible for certification. The UFCW is claiming that the provision in the Code is unconstitutional due to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that guarantees employees the right to collective bargaining, a change from its previous opinion. Hearings will resume Tuesday and continue into November. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Coverage from The McGill Daily Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data PDF Volume 98 Issue 17 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource SSMU approves pro-life club Description An account of the resource An article about a new pro-life/anti-abortion club at McGill called Choose Life. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lina Crompton Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The McGill Daily Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008/10/30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Choose Life reproductive health reproductive justice SSMU Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE)