Concordia’s Jeux De La Communication Delegation Stands Against Rape Culture
The Scandal Led to the Resignation of the Université du Québec en Outaouais’ Delegation Co-Chiefs
Found on the walls of a student bar at the Université du Québec en Outaouais’ on Sept. 8 was a list of twelve challenges named “12 Labours of Hercules” that included “Participating in a wet t-shirt competition” and “Kissing Erik Colto.”
Colto is the co-chief of the UQO’s delegation at the Jeux de la communication, an annual journalism and communications competition in Quebec and New Brunswick. He and the other co-chiefs resigned a week after the graffiti provoked a scandal.
“We thought it was deplorable” said co-chief of the Concordia team, Vincent Gagnon. The third-year journalism student added that “the most shocking was that it was associated with the JDLC.”
The graffiti was “not at all validated by the JDLC,” explained Gagnon. In fact, the games’ organizing committee, immediately condemned the event at UQO. In a letter that was posted on the JDLC Facebook page, the organizing committee condemned the event and “dissociated from the situation.”
The JDLC organizing committee asked them to take responsibility for their actions but did not explicitly tell them to resign, Stéphanie Boucher, president of the JDLC committee told The Link.
Boucher explained that the organizing committee had met all the chiefs a month ago to establish the boundaries the activities needed to respect. On Sunday, Sept. 11, three days after the events, Gagnon and the chiefs of the other delegations met to discuss.
No student organizations have contacted the co-chiefs of the Concordia team according to Gagnon, but he and his two colleagues will try to combat rape culture within the delegation.
They plan on contacting the “No Means No” campaign (“Sans oui, c’est non” in Francophone universities in Quebec) to collaborate with them but also hand out at school in the next month.
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