The Past Speaks

Rowing Blade in Queen's Tricolour

Queen’s University has cancelled this year’s homecoming party for fears that it will lead to a repeat of last year’s rioting. The Globe story on the cancellation features a detailed map of the area around the university, pointing out known hotspots for trouble. I think that providing this map on the internet is a really bad idea, since it gives trouble-makers from out of a town a better idea of where to go to get into mischief. Was it really necessary to point out the area where bar fights occur most frequently? Did Canada’s national newspaper really need to tell people where on Aberdeen Street the drunken riots are most likely to take place? This is throwing fuel on the fire and telling people it’s water.

As this video suggests, many of the trouble-makers at previous homecomings were outsiders not from Queen’s.