Monthly Archives: March 2009

As part of QPIRG-McGill’s annual film festival, Demilitarize McGill is screening the following film about one community’s direct action against arms manufacturing.  Come check it out!

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Monday March 30, 6pm McGill University, Leacock Building 26

On the Verge: The Smash EDO Campaign Film

In 2004 a group of Brighton peace campaigners began to bang pot and pans outside their local arms manufacturers EDO MBM in disgust of their part in the Iraq war. This has grown into the Smash EDO campaign, which has cost the company millions, been the subject large scale police operations and has tested the right to protest in the UK.Using activist, police and CCTV footage plus interviews with those involved in the campaign, On The Verge tells the story of one of the most persistent and imaginative campaigns to emerge out of the UK’s anti-war movement and direct action scene.

Continue Reading →

The new Research Policy at McGill was slated to be approved in Senate on March 4, 2009.  However, the motion has been postponed to the last Senate meeting of the year, on May 20, 2009. Apparently, more time was needed to work on the policy.

We are concerned that by moving the senate adoption of the policy to May, the administration will be dealing with this important and potentially controversial issue while there are fewer students on campus, and no student press. Under these circumstance, the review of the policy will have less student participation, less student awareness, and less critical input from student groups such as Demilitarize McGill that are concerned about the implications that the policy will have for the future of military research at McGill.

The Senate Steering Committee is responsible for deciding when business is brought to the senate. Their next meeting will be held on April 7th, and we are working with student representatives on the committee to push for the consideration of the conduct of research policy to be moved until next fall when there can be more student participation in the process.

[please forward widely]

Join Demilitarize McGill on Tuesday to stand against the militarization of our campus and the Canadian government’s suppression of free speech!

This Tuesday, March 24, McGill University is hosting a lecture by Denis Thompson, commander of Canadian and NATO Armed Forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The event is sponsored by SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based major armed forces contractor and ammunition producer which has made millions from DND contracts in Afghanistan and ammunition contracts with the U.S. military.*

Meanwhile, just last week, Scottish anti-war MP George Galloway was banned from Canada on the grounds that he presents a “national security threat.”** Galloway, an outspoken critic of military occupations from Gaza to Kandahar, was slated to give lectures in Toronto, Missisauga, Ottawa and Montreal (April 1).

What we want to know is, why is the commander of occupation forces in Afghanistan invited to speak at McGill, while opponents of the war are being prevented by the Canadian government from even setting foot in the country?? Continue Reading →

Earlier this semester, Demilitarize McGill held a public forum entitled “Military Research at McGill: Transparency and Ethical Evaluation?”

Presentations from the forum were recorded and are now available online:

Nat Marshik on the history of military explosives research at McGill and opposition to it
[audio http://www.radio4all.net:8080/files/[email protected]/3346-1-history.mp3]

Cleve Higgins on current military explosives research and how it connected to weapons development and war
[audio http://www.radio4all.net:8080/files/[email protected]/3346-2-current_explosive_research_at_mcgill.mp3]

Alex Vidal on the production of military propaganda through funding of political science professors
[audio http://www.radio4all.net:8080/files/[email protected]/3346-3-propaganda_production_-polisci.mp3]

Le Sénat votera sur une nouvelle politique d’évaluation éthique des recherches.

Louis Saint-Aimé, Le Délit (www.delitfrancais.com)

Vote de l'assemblée générale contre la recherche en armes thermobariques

Les contrats juteux de l’armée américaine, le financement indirect du Département de la défense canadien, et le développement, à McGill même, de nouvelles armes destructrices et létales utilisées récemment en Afghanistan: autant de sujets qui formaient les grandes lignes d’une conférence animée par quatre membres de Demilitarize McGill (DM), le vendredi 20 février, à la salle Lev Bukhman de l’édifice Shatner. Continue Reading →