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Leehi Yona, our 2018 scholar researching climate change policy-making, published an op-ed in the Montreal Gazette regarding a new report released on October 8th by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The panel of experts addressed the heavy consequences of global warming above 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. It also indicates that “preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems” (Montreal Gazette).

For Leehi, while the IPCC’s overall assessment is alarming in many regards, it nonetheless conveys a message of hope and empowerment by teaching us that we are capable of acting now to limit global warming and protect our communities. Stopping the burning of fossil fuels is a key step is this regard and that involves giving up any new fossil fuel infrastructure projects, Leehi writes.

The work of Stéphanie Roy, 2017 Foundation scholar and a Ph.D. candidate in Law at Université Laval, drew the attention of Quebec Science magazine. In an article published on August 23rd, the magazine describes current and past research by the jurist whose awareness about environmental issues led her to investigate the role of the state in protecting the environment. In the same piece, Stéphanie answers questions from Rémi Quirion, Quebec's Chief Scientist, on the challenges posed by her innovative research project.
Read the article (in French only) here.

The Canadian Jewish News published an interview with 2016 scholar Ido Katri. An advocate for transgender rights for several years, Ido explains what made him decide to leave Israel -- his country of origin -- to pursue his work on issues related to gender diversity in Canada. Building on his involvement in trans movements, his research documents the political and legal struggles of transgender people around the world - notably in Canada, Israel, and the United States – thereby helping to develop more awareness of trans people’s experiences with justice systems.
Discover the interview given by Ido about his journey and his work.

In the July 2018 issue of the journal Northern Public Affairs, scholar 2017 Jamie Snook, along with coauthors Ashlee Cunsolo and Aaron Dale, addresses the research role of wildlife co-management boards in Inuit Nunangat. These boards, one of the outcomes of the Inuit land claims processes over past decades, allow Inuit people to play an active role in decision-making over the management of wildlife and plant species across Inuit Nunangat.
While co-management boards are responsible for conducting and reviewing research to support evidence-based decision-making about species within the land claims regions, they are often unable to fulfill this part of their mandates due a lack of resources. Snook and his co-authors argue, however, that “designing and leading research through these boards can be an essential component of self-determination and sovereignty over research” for Inuit. They illustrate this through the case of the Torngat Wildlife and Plants Co-Management Board in Nunatsiavut (Labrador), which developed a research project on caribou management and stewardship at the request of an Inuit community. Empowering Inuit in the Nunatsiavut region with new knowledge, this research has created a stronger base from which to make decisions and recommendations in the future.
Read the article in Northern Public Affairs

Introduced in 1968 by Henri Lefebvre, the concept of right to the city implies that any individual living in the city should be able to exercise her rights to socio-political participation and to the appropriation of urban resources and opportunities. Access to housing is an important prerequisite for the exercise of this collective right, as Marie-Ève Desroches, 2016 scholar of the Foundation, points out in an article (in French only) published in the Métropoles journal.

While various authors and social movements have emphasized capitalism as the main structural obstacle to the right to the city, Marie-Ève Desroches argues that we must take into consideration other types of oppression to lead truly inclusive struggles for this right. Her case study of feminist urban mobilizations in a Montreal neighborhood shows that patriarchy also creates, in interaction with capitalist structures, structural impediments to the right to housing and thus to the residents' right to the city. She concludes, therefore, that the concept of right to the city should integrate several approaches to justice to allow claims and practices of feminist struggles.

Jayne Malenfant, scholar 2018 of the Foundation, recently gave an interview about her work and her journey to the McGill News magazine. She explains how her doctoral research topic, namely the barriers to education for young people in precarious housing situations, is informed by her own experience of precarious housing during her adolescence. Having first hand knowledge of the school system's shortcomings in dealing with students in such circumstances, Jayne aims to improve this situation through her research so that everyone has access to education.

Learn more about Jayne's unusual journey and her work by reading the [**McGill News article**](http://mcgillnews.mcgill.ca/s/1762/news/interior.aspx?sid=1762&gid=2&pgid=1975).

As the Canadian government continues to work on Bill C-75 on the reform of the penal system, Sophie de Saussure, a 2017 Trudeau scholar, is examining the social effects of a parent’s incarceration on children, in an article published on July 12, 2018 in Policy Options.
In Canada, tens of thousands of children are living apart from a parent who is behind bars. In addition to the stigma, which often keeps them silent and ashamed, these children can face significant social, psychological, emotional and financial difficulties. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's 2011 recommendation emphasizes the need to promote alternatives to detention for those with a dependent child, yet these children are invisible in Canada, both on the political stage and in the media. Worse still, they are also neglected by social policy.
With three avenues for reflection, Sophie de Saussure hopes to get the government to include into its reform the question of the children of offenders, and to develop a public policy in support of them.

In Canadian universities, black, Indigenous, and other non-white students increasingly turn for support to faculty members of colour. These professors’ disproportionate – and unpaid – emotional labour often weighs on their prospects for promotion and tenure. In an article published on 3 June 2018 in The Globe and Mail, 2018 Foundation fellow Ayesha S. Chaudhry argued that recognizing racism as a fact would be a first step to improve university culture and the experiences of non-white faculty on the job. 2018 Foundation fellow Malinda S. Smith echoed Chaudhry’s remarks, emphasizing that non-white professors’ emotional labour also “tends to be highly gendered.” “The skills that go into performing this kind of work are undervalued,” she asserted, “in part because they’re invisible and ignored.” Chaudhry and Smith concluded that universities need to acknowledge the extra load that negatively impacts the career trajectories of non-white faculty – and of non-white women particularly.
Read the full article here.

On 28 May 2018 in Regina, 2016 Foundation mentor Marie Wilson reflected on diversity and reconciliation in Canada in light of her experience as a commissioner of Canada’s historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sponsored by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Wilson’s Big Thinking lecture at the 2018 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences is now available online. Watch the video here.

“Everyone’s uncle thinks that they are the world’s most handsome NDN, and no one says otherwise.” With “The Terrible Beauty of the Reserve,” a poem published on 7 June 2018 in The Walrus, 2018 Foundation scholar Billy-Ray Belcourt critically evokes the reservization, intimacy, and violence of Indigenous bodies and lives in Canada. Billy-Ray’s debut collection of poems, This Wound is a World, was published in September 2017 and won the prestigious Griffin poetry prize. Read “The Terrible Beauty of the Reserve” here.