A few years ago, then-dean of Arts John McCallum, PhD'77, addressed the fact that Montreal was a falling star within the small galaxy of Canadian cities. Hundreds of Canadian offices and 300,000 people had moved; the unemployment rate was stuck stubbornly above the Canadian average. Help was needed. McCallum took an advertiser's mind to the problem, and re-imagined Montreal as the "Brain Capital of Canada." With four universities, Montreal well deserves the brain capital label. Unfortunately, McCallum has since taken his own brains to Toronto where he is Chief Economist with the Royal Bank of Canada. Nevertheless, his idea remains, and nicely puts McGill at the centre of influence.
In preparing this issue, we pay homage to the brainpower of Peel Street, which dissects the campus and runs right into the heart of downtown. From top to toe, Peel is clearly the address of some of the province's best brains. To illustrate the point, Montreal artist "Ferg" drew a series of caricatures and building sketches. We at the McGill News well realize that there are those we missed, or couldn't fit in, and we deserve rightful indignation from the McGill Graduate School of Communications, the Department of Jewish Studies, the McGill Centre for Teaching and Research on Women, the clergy and social workers at Newman Centre, all the fine lawyers at the law firm of McCarthy Tetrault, and the McGill daycare workers who are doing the important job of nurturing young brains.
Besides this graphic (on pages 22-23), two articles emanate from Peel Street: an essay by Dr. Charles Weijer, BA'93, MSc'95, of the Institute for Medicine, Ethics and Law, and a story about the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and its director Desmond Morton. As if to anticipate your next question, it is with some brute honesty that we acknowledge the most known entity on Peel Street, and one which brings a smile at its recognition, is the Peel Pub. Within this informal setting, many McGill brains are fueled with inexpensive beer, food and cigarette smoke.
In other news, I travelled to Switzerland last fall as a guest of the Switzerland Tourism Board, Swiss Air, and the local tourist councils of Baden, Sion and Spiez. The sponsorship allowed me to travel to Geneva to interview George Weber, BEd'70, MA'74, the Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, as well as meet academic Andre Liebich, BA'68, at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales.
As Professor Liebich spent most of his career teaching in Montreal, he is perfectly positioned to take a look at Swiss federalism, especially as Switzerland is often cited as a model for Canada. A specialist in Eastern Europe, he finds himself also explaining the Quebec/ Canada situation in Switzerland. He was recruited to occupy a chair in communist studies at this well-known graduate school, beautifully situated on the shore of Lake Geneva. Adjacent is the World Trade Organization (WT0), formerly GATT. He notes with some amusement that the ending of the Cold War reached this neutral territory. Shortly after he was hired, the communist world fell apart and he now occupies a "no-name" chair. The neighbouring WTO considered moving to Bonn, but Geneva rallied with many concessions, including giving the WTO the university building in 1997, which houses the library and many faculty offices. Andre Liebich and his colleagues will move further along the shore.
I must confess that Switzerland was decidedly more interesting and complex than I had realized from its tourist image, and our guides, Ursula Beamish-M”der and Leyla Alaluf, answered a barrage of questions with much insight and good humour. Thank you to them.
On a final note, we have established a McGill News
Endowment Fund with the money from subscriptions and
voluntary subscriptions. Your contributions will last
into perpetuity, and help ensure the future of the
McGill News.
