Rising Against: Creating Social Change by Breaking Common Laws by Arbitrage Magazine

March 2013 l Vol. 5 l No.2

RISING AGAINST: Creating Social Change by Breaking Common Laws

Justice is served: Citizen-driven initiatives support crime reduction

The slave trade: The modern reality

The 80/20 rule: And how it can help you

Maluuba revolutionizes mobile voice search tech

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Publisher’s Note

David Alexander Founder & Publisher Arbitrage Magazine With the ever increasing pace of today’s world, it can sometimes be hard to appreciate the thoroughly disruptive change that’s taking hold in every element of our culture. While some of these changes are the result of new technologies, the deeper ones emerge from people rising up and rising against the established power systems that have controlled them for decades and centuries. In this century alone, humanity has taken massive leaps forward when it comes to the fight for equality, be it for different skin colors, genders, or sexual orientations. In this last decade alone, we saw a small group

of hackers humble giant corporations and governments for abusing people’s privacy and rights, we saw people from across the Arab world rise against their governments to demand better representation, we saw people from across the globe rise against the 1% to advocate for a fairer, more stable economic system. In every case, it has been everyday people who have broken laws, customs, and traditions in the name of progress toward a fairer and more equitable world. It is these everyday people who are making a difference in their communities, with and without government

support. It is these everyday people who are the theme of this issue. This issue also looks at how different communities are responding to various social issues in innovative ways. We look at how the government of Rwanda is rebuilding itself from society scared from genocide; how first nations peoples are flexing their pipes against Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline; and how citizens are pioneering new ways to combat crime and homelessness in their communities. Finally, we’ll also take a look at the latest happenings in the tech, business, and

finance worlds. We look at the Blackberry 10 and how Rim is betting it all on their new BB platform. We chat with the team at Maluuba who have introduced a revolutionary mobile voice search technology on the Android platform that rivals Siri in a big way. On the business front, we introduce readers to annuities and Forex trading. In all, this issue is packed with content that will challenge the way you think about social revolutions, the rule of law, and alternative ways to build a better community. Read on, friends.

Founder & CEO David Alexander PRODUCTION TEAM Editor-in-Chief

Luis Fernando Arce, Ethan Lou

Managing Editor Exequiel Octavio Bertaina Senior Online Editor Alexandria Chun Section Editors

Michelle Hampson, Tilly Wark

Online Editors

Katherine Nader, Liana Crocco, Kelly Townsend, Maya Sokolovski, Tejas Shah

Staff Writers

Matthew King, Siavosh Moshiri, Monica Cheng, Caitlin McKay, Caitlin MacLachlan Roxanne Desouza, Megan Gartrell, Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande, Jaron Serven Leah Kellar, Grace Elizabeth Kennedy, Spencer Emmerson, Imogen Whittaker-Cumming Konstantinos (Kostee) Roccas, Jackie Marchildon, Rebecca Ferguson, Azim Ahmed Sucheta Shankar, Amanda Connolly, Corinne Sato, Fatima Syed Nikki Gill, Ani Hajderaj, Dillon James Li, Melissa Goertzen, May Warren Viviane Fairbank, Lauren Nisbet, Kevin Chao

Art Director

Katherine Chu

Assistant Art Directors

Mark Quimoyog, Marie Siojo, Ian Todd , Elaine Kwan

Staff Designers Julie Barkun, Adrien Mendez, Angela Song, Richard Bramer, Eman Faiz Azin Dilamghani, Ana-Maria Enescu, Yiting Zhang, Summer Zhang, Sarah Kiu-Wai Sia, Ron Kelner, Weimar Lee, Chloe Leung, Juliana Suave Melissa Thanakone, Matthew Hunter, Tope Iona, Maria Jose Arias G. Jason Yeh, Saya Ye, Ruvini Silva, Nathalie Tyurzhon, Alyssa Papas

SUPPORT STAFF Board of Directors Samita Vasudeva, Garin Kilpatrick, Michael Manirakiza, Rabeea Wajeeha Communications Director Monika Mistry

Assistant Communications Director Connie NG

Communications Reps

Anshul Kumar, Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Aundra Belnavis

Assistant HR Director Samuel Jackson

Human Resources Director David Whelan

HR Coordinators

Rebecca Strauss, Jiaji (Ashley) Zhou. Nicholas Wagner, Stasia Dias, Kathy Hu

27 Rising Against Creating social change by breaking common laws

Justice is Served

Citizen-driven initiatives support crime reduction

TABLE OF CONTENTS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 8 10

Maluuba introduces revolutionary mobile voice search technology Rim betting it all on Blackberry 10 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Moving on after the genocide in Rwanda

Slavery: the greatest insult to humanity STUDENT RESOURCES

The 80/20 rule and how it can help you

The job hunt and your mental health BUSINESS

Social lending changes the way investors

How M&A is shaping the banking industry POLITICS

First nations flex their pipes against Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline

Investment over environment: questioning the Canada-China agreement FINANCE & ECONMICS

Annuities: are they worth it?

Introduction to Forex trading

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G O D R U O Y JOB HUNTING ISN’T JUST A PASTIME.

IT’S AN OBSESSION. WE’RE HERE TO HELP. EVEN BEYOND OFFICE HOURS. JOIN THE CONVERSATION. find our group

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Maluuba: A revolutionary voice seach technology

Combining voice search and touch screen technology goes international WRITTEN BY: CAITLIN MCLACHLAN, STAFF WRITER

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF MALUUBA

DESIGN: MARK QUIMOYOG

What began as a research project by University of Waterloo students in 2010 has quickly become an internationally sought-after voice search technology available to Android users. Maluuba announced the launch of its international (beta) edition at the Google Play Store on October 10, 2012. This edition will feature Restaurant and Business finders and be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In an online interview with Arbitrage Magazine, a panel of experts at Maluuba explains the difference between their technology and Apple’s Siri, the importance of design, and what they’ve got in store for the future. Tell me about Maluuba, I understand that it has partnered with Samsung in Canada and the United States to provide a new kind of voice search technology. What makes it different from the technology used by Siri? The biggest thing is Siri uses something known as an ontological approach. What this means is for them to build new domains, they have to gather a massive amount of data and expert knowledge of that domain. This results in a very slow pace for expanding out their technology. Their aim was about 2 new domains a quarter.

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Maluuba, on the other hand, uses machine learning techniques that have been optimized to learn from very cheap data and data we get from our users, meaning we can iterate very quickly. We were able to build 18 domains in six months, which is far faster than the speed Siri was going. Since launching, we’ve already added new natural language understanding and you’ll be seeing some huge launches from us over the next little while.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Could you explain normalization? How does it improve voice search technology? What other languages does Maluuba “understand”? «Normalization» is a technical term in the natural language processing community, but roughly speaking, it means recognizing all the different ways that a concept can be expressed in words, and converting them all to the same «standard» form that a machine can understand. Take, for example, the date «December 21st, 2012.» There’s actually a huge number of ways to say this. There’s simple variations on the date—21st of December, for instance—but there’s also contextual ways: «in two months,» «the third Friday of December,» «four days before Christmas.» Normalization is the process of understanding that all of these are actually referring to the same thing, and it’s very difficult for computers to do; it’s one of the things that makes our technology so innovative. It’s exactly these sorts of challenges that make languages so difficult. At the moment, Maluuba’s only working in English, but our underlying approach to the problem is actually pretty scalable to other languages. It’s only a matter of time until we collect the sentence data and do the feature engineering to expand; Chinese and Spanish are next on our list The website mentions that Maluuba supports 18 different domain categories, why those ones specifically? Our choice of domains comes from a lot of places. On the one hand, there’s a certain set of features that, for better or worse, users have come to expect from a virtual assistant: things like answering «knowledge» queries, for instance. For most of them, however, our inspiration came from observing what people typically use search for in a normal day. Most

of it is looking for local results around things that occupy your day: restaurants, movies, navigation. In the future, now that we’ve launched, one of the main ways we’ll be picking new domains will be by looking at the sorts of things users are asking Maluuba for that we don’t already answer. You can be sure that Sports will be making an appearance in an upcoming release! The user interface is both touch and voice activated—are all aspects of the app voice activated? Yes, every single domain is accessible through voice, and every single action on those domains can be activated through voice. The reverse is not quite true, there are a small handful of things that can’t be accessed by touch and have to be asked for, but for the most part, Maluuba works equally well through both voice and touch. This is really important to us, and it’s a place where we feel our competitors have dropped the ball. There’s so many cases where it’s awkward or inconvenient to speak, and we’re pretty much the only voice-based tool right now that recognizes that fact. Luckily, it seems our users agree with us—our internal statistics tell us that roughly half of all the actions people are taking are happening through touch rather than voice! That’s a whole lot of engagement we’d rather not leave on the table. I understand that design played a large part in making the technology user-friendly. In what ways does the design make it easier to navigate Maluuba? Design plays a huge role in phone apps. Not only is it about making it look pleasing to the eye, but it’s also about making it very user-friendly. In our product, we focus on three major themes: search, plan, connect.

Thus, we came up with simple gestures to let users swipe between a home page with the option to speak or type a command into your phone; an explore page, where users can tap on icons to access the different domains we offer; and a page called «My Day,» which acts as a timeline that displays the user’s alarms, reminders, birthdays, and calendar events for the day. As our app continues to grow and support more domains, we will continue to strive towards improving the user interface each day. What else can users expect from Maluuba in the future? The next big thing users are asking for is support for other platforms— especially iOS, unsurprisingly. We’ve already started working hard on this; we’re promising a Windows Phone 8 release sometime next month, shortly after the first few devices for that platform start shipping, and an iOS release early next year. It’s a highly non-trivial task to adapt such a large and complicated application for a whole new set of interaction models and conventions, so we want to make sure we really nail these. The other major things on our horizon are, of course, adding more domains. We want to get to a point in a few years where there’s almost nothing you can ask Maluuba that it won’t be able to help you with. The ones we’re looking at for the short-term include user favorites like sports and shopping, but we’re talking with partners in all sorts of industries to see what else the power of natural speech interaction can be used to improve. There’s tons of other things we’d like to do—other languages, for instance— but let’s leave some surprises for the future! To learn more about Maluuba and to try the app yourself, visit www. maluuba.com

March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

RIM BETTING IT ALL ON BLACKBERRY 10 Can the BlackBerry device make a comeback? By Rickash Emrith, Staff Writer Photography Mark Lennihan Design Mark Quimoyog

Research in Motion (RIM) was once atop the mobile Smartphone world in 2008 with their revolutionary BlackBerry Smartphones. Fast forward to present day and the company is a shell of its former self, having massive layoffs of employees and a plummeting stock value, and undergoing major changes in the front office. Many have already counted out the Canadian company or likened their fate to that of Nortel, but don’t expect the BlackBerry creators to go down without a fight. We have all heard of the BlackBerry 10 devices that could put RIM back on the map and regain some of the market share they once had, but is it enough to save a company in freefall? While Apple and Samsung hold the majority in the Smartphone market with their respective flagship devices the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3, they are also in

the process of suing each other for patent and copyright concerns. While the two giants of the industry are busy in the courts RIM has been appealing to app developers. RIM has given the incentive that if an app you create earns $1000 of sales then RIM will pay you $10,000. Doing away with the conventional methods, RIM is forced to test their creativity and try to generate some buzz that the company has been lacking the last year and a half. In the world of technology time can be your worst enemy, and RIM is learning that the hard way. In an effort to make sure the Blackberry 10 operating system is fully tested and ready on release, RIM has continued to announce the delays of the Blackberry 10 devices. The devices were once rumored to arrive in

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

mid 2012, and then expected in time for the holiday season, but unfortunately they were a no show. Currently, the device’s anticipated release is within the first three months of 2013. Missing the 2012 holiday season, a time when consumer electronic sales are at their highest, is a big risk for a company so desperate for sales. Thorsten Heins, the current CEO of RIM, remains supportive of delaying the new operating system by saying, “We’re not just building an update of Blackberry 7, we’re building a whole new mobile computing platform. Don’t underestimate the dynamic that this platform is going to create in the market.” RIM now faces the challenge of not only rolling out its new lineup of devices, but they also face the challenge of changing the tech world’s

perception of BlackBerry devices. The brand power of BlackBerry has been plummeting fast from once being a status symbol of the business elite to a horrible review in the New York Times last month (October 2012), saying BlackBerry devices were a source of embarrassment to their owners. Though Heins has been nothing but optimistic with over 80 million users still using BlackBerry devices around the world, the company can nevertheless make a comeback. But if the BlackBerry 10 devices fail to create the kind of buzz around their devices such as Apple and Samsung have in recent memory, it could spell the end for RIM.

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INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

RWANDA’S RESTORATION POST-GENOCIDE

Rwandan government brings economic development to a devastated country By Caitlin McKay, Staff Writer

While it is often associated with civil war and genocide, Rwanda is re-branding itself as a vibrant and thriving country. It’s all part of the government’s plan to develop Rwanda into a middle income country by the year 2020. The Rwandan government created Vision 2020, a document that aims to transform the Rwandan economy. The plan is built on 6 pillars: good governance, human resource development, private sector development, infrastructure development, productive and market oriented agriculture, and regional and international integration. According to the numbers, Vision 2020 seems to be working. In 2011, Rwanda’s GDP grew by 8.6 percent and investors have been flocking to spend in the up and coming country. But behind the numbers, what’s really happening? According to some reports, Rwanda’s current strategy does not tackle absolute poverty. Rather, the wealth remains in the hands of the elite and the promised ‘trickle down effect’ has limited potential. But Rwanda was also not built in a day. An important

component to Vision 2020 is private sector development. In order to have a strong private sector, the government has to make new industries attractive to investors. Rwandan officials have to assure potential investors that the economy is stable and ready for an influx of money. “The vision that’s being developed also has a 2050 vision. It’s a vision to help people know where Rwanda wants to go …. When you have a government that’s committed from the top level, they are engaged to develop the private sector,” said Mukabagwiza. But it’s difficult to serve up the Rwandan economy on a development platter when suitable infrastructure is lacking. Unpaved

And slowly people are getting it and really the poverty is being eliminated from one level to another. That’s the way it is going. roads and feeble buildings slow down productivity and development. Lack of good infrastructure has been a major challenge to the growth of Rwanda. “If you want to develop you need infrastructure and we are doing that. When we talk about industry, it’s a challenge to investors and that’s something we are still working on,” said Mukabagwiza. While Rwanda appears to be on the right track and has been praised by the international community, some critics worry that the plan undermines the most reliable source of employment: farming. Roughly 90% of Rwandans are

subsistence farmers so this issue is a serious concern. The Rwandan government wants to modernize the agriculture industry, which means more technology and higher productivity. But for subsistence farmers these changes are problematic because they cannot compete with large-scale agriculture. However, Mukabagwiza says it’s time for subsistence farmers to get with the times. “We used to have survival farming, each individual family used to have their own field where you could have different plants. This is one thing that was a big challenge but we are working on it. What we did was set up consultations to see how we can put all those individual fields together … in a cooperative so they can grow much more than just alone,” she said. While there are some problems with Rwanda’s vision, it has delivered economic development. Mukabagwiza says that Rwanda’s growth can be used as a model for other countries that face similar challenges. “Rwanda is a country which wants to develop itself, which wants to be a hub of different development programs … which also recognizes that it’s among many other nations. We want to also bring our support and contribution to many other nations,” she said. Rwanda remains dependent on international aid and as 44.9 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, hardship is still widespread. But since 2003 and the implementation of Vision 2020, the GDP has grown by 7-8% every year. After a devastating past, it seems that Rwanda has a bright future.

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INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Slavery

The Greatest Insult to Humanity

written by : caitlin mckay, staff writer

photography : elaine kwan

You sell drugs once but you can sell a person over and over. It’s horrible. So devastating and you can break a person to the point where they can’t escape so they resign to the fact that they will be sold over and over.

Why there are still 27 million slaves in the world

design: elaine kwan

Slavery is one of the greatest insults to human rights. It degrades the very essence of what it means to be a human being, by presenting them merely as a commodity. But what you might think of as a bygone issue is still a very real reality today. In fact, there are more slaves in the world now than there were at the height of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. A shocking statistic, considering the global society has established a standard of human rights that’s theoretically universal. Human trafficking reveals a considerable lapse in human rights and the notion of equality. Victims of human trafficking include some of the most vulnerable members of society. “It’s often people who are desperate and who are looking for a promise of a better life.... Often these people are impoverished. Someone has capitalized on their eagerness

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

or desperation,” says Petra Bosma, the communications coordinator for International Justice Mission (IJM) Canada. IJM works internationally to strengthen local law enforcement and prevent trafficking. “Generally, slaves are distinguished by their vulnerability. A person can be made vulnerable by their gender, wealth, level of education, nationality, age, or other factors, depending on what country or society they are coming from,” says Karen Stauss, director of programs at Free the Slaves, in an email. “Poverty is one of the most common factors among victims. To put it into perspective, a poor, underage female in a foreign city is incredibly vulnerable to trafficking.” There are two main forms of slavery: forced labour and sex slavery. According to the United Nations,

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

forced labour makes up 18 percent of the industry and sex slavery makes up 79 percent. t of the industry and sex slavery makes up 79 percent. Debt bondage is a common type of forced labour. It occurs when a victim needs a loan to pay off bills or buy food, and a slave owner lends them money in return for labour. In reality, victims are trapped. They will work for years and years, but never be able to pay off the loan. Sex slavery is forced prostitution. Women, girls, and sometimes boys will be locked in brothels to serve customers with their bodies. Needless to say, the physical and psychological repercussions of being forced to have sex repeatedly is unimaginable. Slavery is not just ‘out there’ in some third world country. It’s not someone else’s problem. Even in a developed nation like the United States, there are an estimated 10,000 slaves. The international scope of this issue meanwhile, makes it all the more challenging to combat. It is a war—and a big one—for humanity and for real equality. Every slave is a reminder that the human race has not entirely progressed beyond the barbaric slave trades of the 18th century. William Wilberforce, the man responsible for abolishing the slave trade, would not look upon this world favourably. The problem is, trafficking is an incredibly profitable business. In fact, it’s the third most profitable venture for organized crime. Interpol estimates that it generates $32 billion a year.

“You sell drugs once but you can sell a person over and over. It’s horrible. So devastating and you can break a person to the point where they can’t escape, so they resign to the fact that they will be sold over and over,” says Bosma. Essentially, until a slave dies, they are an unlimited resource for their owner. “It’s all about money. [Traffickers] talk to each other and ... they get together and talk about how they want to make money. They teach each other techniques,” explains Joy Smith, M.P., who has been a champion of anti-trafficking legislation in Canada. “The technique is to get her away from her peers, get her away from the community. They want to isolate the victim.” The average age of a girl in Canada who will enter prostitution is between 12 and 14 years old. Smith says traffickers will target young, pretty, virgin girls to get the highest price. “Youth are easily manipulated and easily impressionable. They target the youth because they are beautiful and easy to control,” says Smith.

Catching traffickers is difficult because they can move across borders while law officials cannot. But there is something that can be done. Education, awareness, cooperation, and the enforcement of laws are all proven methods to reduce trafficking. “You can educate the communities who are being preyed upon by traffickers. Outreach programs, education, and then robust law enforcement and a response … a law enforcement that is adequately resourced and trained to respond. It needs to be holistic, everyone needs to be involved in this,” explains Bosma. “If [traffickers] find out their crimes won’t pay, the likelihood that they would be deterred is higher. It’s the enforcement of the law that should contribute to determent of the traffickers.” The very existence of slavery suggests that some people are more equal than others. Human rights should not be dependent on age, location, or economic status—that’s why it is called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But seeing as how slavery is still a reality, are these rights truly universal?

The number of convicted traffickers is increasing, but remains low. Thanks to new legislation in Canada, this $280,000 a year business has indeed shrunk, but lack of awareness is still a major obstacle to finding the solution. “It’s been going on for years and years,” says Smith, “it’s been under the public radar screen because I think people don’t recognize it for what it is.” March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

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Maximize your time with the 80/20 rule Making life a little more productive by prioritizing the right things By Alexandria Chun, Staff Writer In the early 1900s, an Italian scholar named Vilfredo Pareto noticed that his pea plants yielded unequal amounts of peas. More specifically, 80 percent of his peas were consistently produced by 20 percent of the plants. This numerical observation proved to be more than coincidence when Pareto discovered that 80 percent of Italy’s wealth was owned by 20 percent of the population. These two percentages formed the basis of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. It refers to the idea that 80 percent of the effect is produced by 20 percent of the cause. To put the 80/20 rule in perspective, let’s apply it to business management. The numbers help establish that 80 percent of your sales are generated by 20 percent of your sales force and 20 percent of your clients, while 80 percent of complaints come from 20 percent of clients. As you can see, a large percentage of sales and complaints come from

a relatively small percentage of the sales force and clients. Learning to address the vital 20 percent of clients and sales staff is therefore more efficient than addressing the non-vital 80 percent. The 80/20 rule isn’t just limited to business though. It can be applied to everyday life too. As a student, there are undoubtedly many things you have to juggle: school, work, family, a social life, hobbies—the list goes on and on. So how can you get the most out of what precious time you have and minimize stress? Apply the 80/20 rule. For example, say you’re behind on a stack of reading material and have only a couple of hours to complete them. You could start at the top, regardless of the content, and risk missing the key readings. Or you could apply the 80/20 rule, skim through all the pages, identify the 20 percent that seem to hold the bulk of the information, and focus on those. Reading that 20

percent has given you 80 percent of what you need to know. In addition to saving time, the 80/20 rule can also help you save your energy. People tend to stress over a lot of things, but worrying about every little thing in your life is a major energy drain. And 80 percent of things aren’t even worth worrying about because they don’t have much impact in the long run. Focus your energy on what’s important, on the vital 20 percent and don’t sweat the small stuff.

in a one-to-one ratio with results. That is not to say only give 20 percent or 80 percent. For best results, always give 100% to the 20 percent. The 80/20 rule promotes efficiency, not mediocrity. But when time is a commodity, as it often is, it is important to allocate it to give yourself the best results.

Now you might ask, “How do I know what activities make up the vital 20 percent?” Unfortunately, there’s no formula to determine the vital 20 percent. But if you keep the 80/20 rule in mind, you can learn how to identify the more important endeavors of your day through experience. It’s important to realize that vitality is not evenly distributed in life. As the 80/20 rule demonstrates, effort is not necessarily

The 80/20 rule promotes efficiency, not mediocrity. 15

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

STUDENT CO.

Mental Health The job hunt and your

WRITTEN BY: CAITLIN MCKAY, STAFF WRITER

PHOTOGRAPHY: SCOTT LIDDELL

DESIGN: TOPE LONA

People have higherexpectations, you can’t just be good, you have to be the best.

As students prepare for the upcoming semester, there might be one more thing to add to the checklist: medication to control anxiety and stress. Post-secondary education is supposed to be one of the best experiences of one’s life, but for some students, it can trigger some very serious mental health issues. A student can’t just be a student because the post secondar y experience is not about good grades anymore. Now, students have to work to pay for their education, volunteer to gain relevant work experience, and go to class. Oh, AND fit in time for friends, the gym, homework, eating, sleeping, and general life enjoyment. What’s more, as

competition for jobs increases and more people attend post-secondary institutions, the pressure to be outstanding intensifies. It seems like students are starting to crack. “I think that it’s kind of a society wide phenomenon … people have higher expectations, you can’t just be good, you have to be really good, or at least that’s the perception out there,” explains Dr. Mike Condra, director of Health, Counseling and Disability Services at Queen’s University. “This creates a situation in which you can continue to set the bar higher and higher … giving people less and less room to feel comfortable ….

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THE COMPETITION When students look for work, either during the summer or after graduation, they face stiff competition from their peers and from workers who have been laid off during the recession. It’s tough to get noticed and it seems that the only way to stand out is have an exceptional résumé. According to Dr. Condra: “I think the broader financial circumstances and the recession has all kinds of implications. Employment prospects are not bad, but they’re not terrific, money is tight … so that’s all part of the context. … I think all of those create the environment in which stress levels can increase significantly.” LACK OF EXPERIENCE Students need to have previous work experience because future employers don’t want to waste time and money on training. So before students even get the job, they have to already know how to do the job. It’s the contradictory nature of the job market. “Unfortunately, employers expect students to have work experience before they enter the workplace,”

comments Lauren Friese, founder of Talentegg.com, a job board dedicated to finding students and new graduates employment. “Students need to get in control and get that experience, not only to beef up their résumé, but also to learn what they are good at.” BE FOCUSED Fortunately, there’s a way for students to be exceptional without pushing the limit. Many students believe they will impress potential employers with a lengthy résumé, detailing extensive involvement in a number of diverse clubs and activities. In reality, a bloated résumé just looks messy. If a student can become more focused and figure out exactly what they want in their professional life, they’ll find they don’t need to join every club or activity they come across. As Friese explains: “The biggest mistake [students make] … is probably not knowing themselves and not being able to articulate themselves properly.” To correct this issue, Friese advises students to “know [their] story and know what [they] want, and that’s not easy…. People really screw themselves over when they list random things [on

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

their resume].” She recommends: “Tailor those experiences to tell a story.” CONCERN FOR LONG-TERM HEALTH For students heading off to school this fall, it might be time to reevaluate whether their mental health is just as important as their job, clubs, and academics. “Some of us need to go further and should look at the environment that contributes to our … mental health. I think there is a broader societal problem because I don’t think mental health problems come out of nowhere,” says Dr. Condra. Though the majority of students certainly feel it’s important to be successful, the anxiety produced by school and the ever-present pressure to find a meaningful job will always be difficult to contend with. However, it’s not impossible for students to stave off the majority of this stress if they remember to remain focused in their goals and keep their mental health a priority.

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

Initiatives for Struggling Entrepreneurs Losing Steam written by :

photography :

A bad M ahava

design:

Bebe Zhang

Most micro-credit Initiatives in Canada focus on providing lowincome individuals, marginalized youth and immigrants, with business training programs and seed money to start up a local venture.

Micro-loan initiatives in Canadian community developments have a long way to grow

Caitlin M cL achlan, Staff Writer

As an entrepreneur with a brilliant business plan, suppliers lined up and a dazzling marketing strategy, it should be easy to find an investor with that first few thousand dollars to get business going. Unfortunately, you’re an immigrant, a single mother or a youth, and you’ve also got no credit and no collateral. In a country standing on the precipice of another economic downturn, large financial institutions won’t even consider you for the seed money you need. It’s this scenario and many others like it that are the driving force behind Canadian social lending initiatives. Many community-based lending

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

programs partner with large organizations and community-based stakeholders to provide funding, resources, and mentorship. Although Service Canada does provide some micro-lending programs through their subsidiary, Western Economic Diversification Canada, most sources of microcredit are available through financial cooperatives and non-profit, nongovernmental organizations (NGO). Often these two sources work within a partnership to provide community development services.

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

photography :

Tal Gertin

Fast Facts Micro-credit: small loans with low interest intended for use in small

business ventures. It’s awarded to people without credit or collateral, typically living at or below poverty levels.

Financial Cooperatives: financial organizations owned by their members.

Qualifying for micro-credit with most organizations requires an appearance before a panel of investors, a solid business plan, and a demonstration of need, skills, and commitment.

Non-governmental organizations: although no legal definition in

Canada, commonly known as a non-profit group operating independently of the government.

Qualified borrowers: candidates for micro-lending programs who have appeared before a panel of investors with a solid business plan and a demonstration of need, skills, and commitment to the program.

One example of a successful non-profit/financial cooperative partnership is the Youth Micro-Loan Initiative. In 2010, the Toronto Community Foundation par tnered w ith Alterna Savings to implement a business training program aimed at marginalized youth. In a 2011 presentation given by Susan Henry and Jean Barrett of Alterna Savings, 61 percent of participants in the organization’s microfinance programs have experienced “financial stability” and 33 percent experienced “better nutrition.” Notably, these are two aspects of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada’s definition of March 2013

financial security. However, since the success of its six graduates in 2011, there has been no mention of the Youth Micro-Loan Initiative becoming a fixed program. Social lending in North America has its roots in micro-credit and microfinance pioneered by Bangladeshi banker and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus. Yunus determined that micro-credit would alleviate poverty, empower women, and create economic growth. Today, critics argue that the “neoliberal model of micro-financing” does little to address conditions that created poverty in the first place.

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FINANCE & ECONOMICS

How M&A is Shaping the

Banking Industry A look at mergers and acquisitions and why they matter WRITTEN BY: CAITLIN MCLACHLAN, STAFF WRITER

In 1995, there were many banks operating in the United States, 37 of which were well-known firms. By 2009, only four of the thirty-seven remained. Where did all those banks go? How did such an extensive network condense into just four institutions? Through the power of mergers and acquisitions. If you look at the major banks on Wall Street and Bay Street—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, RBC, CIBC—a majority of them developed as a result of mergers and acquisitions. As their smaller predecessors clumped together, they integrated their pools of resources and products to form some of the most powerful financial institutions we see today. What is an M&A? So what is mergers and acquisitions, or M&A? As the name suggests, it’s the business of combining companies. Although the purpose of both these processes is to join two entities, they do have slightly different procedures. An acquisition involves the purchase

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of most, if not all, of a target company. The acquirer owns all the old shares of its target. A merger, on the other hand, is when both companies surrender their stock, and issue a new one under the name of the new company. But to be fair, a true “merger of equals” is not common, as acquirers often seek to buy companies smaller than themselves.

neighborhood to extend your market reach, or you could merge with a vendor who makes iced tea to extend your product line. If you were to buy the lemon farm that supplies your lemons, you would be making a vertical merger, where a company acquires its supplier. Your lemonade business could also buy an unrelated business, such as a hat-maker. This is called a conglomeration.

If a company wants an existing product or service, they might find acquiring another company easier and more cost-effective than expanding its own. For example, it’s a lot faster and cheaper for you to go out and buy a light bulb than try to make one yourself (unless you already have all the tools and know-how to make light bulbs). M&A deals are also made in different directions. Let’s say you own a lemonade stand. A horizontal merger could be made between you and another lemonade stand down the street. You could merge with a lemonade stand in a different

Motives for deal-making range from practical to trivial. RBC improved its presence in Ontario and Manitoba by acquiring Traders Bank and Northern Grown Bank. BMO increased its service line by purchasing RBC’s credit and debit processing systems. To take advantage of a failing bank, JPMorgan Chase acquired Bear Stearns at a low price. These are all good, practical reasons.

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Other motives include: an increased market share, synergy, increased buying power, hiring new talent, and reducing tax liabilities. Ultimately, all these motives are based on

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

increasing shareholder value, and in turn, increasing revenue.

thorough due diligence lets you know exactly what you’re buying.

When M&A’s go bad Occasionally, mergers are doomed by poor intentions. A company might hastily acquire other companies to create a monopoly, or a CEO might pursue unsound M&A deals simply because it will give them a nicer bonus. The resulting deals are often not well executed, and cost more resources than they procure. Synergy is a very important concept in M&A. Apart from just being a cool word, it encompasses all the benefits of merging with another company. If done properly, a deal can increase cost efficiency by reducing overlapping staff or departments, increasing purchasing power, and acquiring new technology. Synergy is a goal of successful deal-making. So if Company A wants to acquire Company B, they must first look at the pros and cons of the deal. Pros, as m e nt i o n e d a b o ve, i n clu d e di ver sificatio n, ge o gr ap hical extension, larger market share, access to different technologies, reduction of financial risk, and the added incentive of a potential rise in value. Cons can be found by valuation. Company A must evaluate how much they think Company B is worth. The deal can fail before it even starts if Company A doesn’t understand their target’s business and operations well enough. And if Company A approaches Company B with too low of an offer, it might create hostility. A deal can also fail after the merger with postintegration problems, such as conflicting corporate culture, technological differences, and brand dilution.

The deal Once the target is valued, the deal proceeds in stages. The first stage is buying the target’s stock. The acquirer can purchase up to five percent of the target’s stock before they must declare their intentions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now that the acquirer has a substantial stake in its target, they can make an initial offer called the tender offer.

It’s also a good idea to check the target’s books for misleading assets. Companies must avoid the mistake Bank of America made when they acquired Merrill Lynch. They had saved the failing firm only to find larger-than-expected losses on Merrill’s balance sheet. Executing

Now the ball is in the target’s court. At this stage of the deal, they can do a few things, depending how they feel about the offer. If they approve, the deal can go forward. If they don’t approve, they can try to negotiate a better offer, issue new shares, or find another buyer. By issuing new shares to all existing shareholders (expect the acquirer) at a discount price, the target reduces, or dilutes, the acquirer’s position in their company. Deals also have to be run past regulators to check if the new company will create a monopoly situation and diminish competition. These scenarios have a great impact on market diversity, and are particularly disadvantageous to consumers because competition leads to better consumer deals. Poor regulation at the heart of the 2008 meltdown Regulation turned out to be especially important after the financial crisis of 2008. Deals throughout the 1990s and early 2000s gave rise to giant financial institutions that were deemed “too big to fail.” In 2008, banks like Bank of America and Citigroup had to be bailed out by the US government because their failure would have had widespread economic consequences. Canada did not have these problems thanks partly to the government’s rejection of large bank mergers. In 1998, Bank of Montreal and TD were

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set to merge with RBC and CIBC, respectively. Paul Martin, the Finance Minister at the time, disallowed this because, among other reasons, it would have drastically reduced competition between Canadian banks and flexibility for customers. Since 2008, M&A in the financial sector has declined substantially in volume and value because big deals aren’t happening like they used to. PwC reports that deal volume in the banking sector has decreased by 24 percent between 2010 and 2011. Many factors contribute to this decline, including stricter regulations, the European Sovereign debt crisis, and volatility in the markets. M&A and the future So where does banking M&A look like it’s heading in the next few years? That depends on which banks you’re looking at. Reports by both Merrill DataSite and Deloitte suggest that M&A activity is going to increase in small and mid-size institutions as they try to keep up with rising regulatory requirements. At their current size, smaller banks do not have enough capital to viably deal with increased operational costs and capital requirements. The reports also indicate that these increases, along with improved credit quality, will greatly encourage deal-making amongst smaller banks. M&A activity between larger banks, on the other hand, is expected to decrease. Gordon Nixon, CEO of RBC, stated that because of strict requirements on reserve capital, the massive deals between banks that predate the financial crisis of 2008 are in the past. Big banks are now looking for ways to “fill in some of the holes that [the banks] have in some of [their] global platforms.” In fact, RBC is in the process of expanding its global wealth management business, which has been one of its holes. “That may sound less exciting than

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

what you might have seen from 2000 to 2008, where you saw much bolder and more aggressive transactions,” said Mr. Nixon, “but clearly in today’s environment that’s not going to be something I think you’re going to see in the future.”

crisis similar to the one in 2008. Lehon and Mizra believe that “[t]his has made banks think strategically about how they manage liquidity pools and which businesses are core versus noncore from a capital and liquidity perspective.”

Indeed, others agree with Mr. Nixon’s outlook regarding the effect of regulations. Ivan Lehon and Omar Mizra at Ernest and Young Capital Advisors point out that the DoddFrank Act and Basel III are two regulations with the most influence on M&A activity in the United States.

Another key factor in the slowdown of banking M&A activity is the European Sovereign debt crisis. A PwC report found that European banks are beginning to divest non-core businesses in order to recapitalize and generate enough cash to help sustain themselves during the debt crisis. Although actual European M&A activity is unlikely to add to deal volumes, divestitures will create opportunities for acquisitions by other firms.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed in 2010, aims to end “too big to fail” situations and protect taxpayers’ money from being used for bailouts. Basel III is part three of a global regulatory standard on banks set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. This regulation includes capital requirements and regular stress tests to help prevent a financial

A third factor, volatility, is playing an interesting role in M&A activity. The volatility of the global markets is creating opportunities, even in such an unsteady time. A report by American Appraisal found that

although high profile deals are being rejected to due uncertain economic conditions, these uncertain conditions may create other opportunities for smaller M&A deals. Large companies are beginning to divest their non-core businesses and streamline in response to market volatility, increasing the availability of high-quality targets at reasonable costs. That said, volatility is also preventing deals from closing due to lack of investor confidence. So it could have a dual effect on M&A activity. Although this article focuses on the banking sector, M&A happens across all industries. It’s a major component of business that helps drive growth and increase efficiency. Although today’s global economic conditions are not suitable for the level of M&A activity seen in the past, new opportunities are still constantly emerging—and it’s up to deal-makers to find them.

March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.CA

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FINANCE & ECONOMICS

‘NO’ TO THE ENBRIDGE PIPELINE First Nations Flex their Pipes against Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline By Caitlin McKay, Staff Writer

Design by Marie Dominique Siojo

Thousands protested the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in front of the B.C. legislature in Victoria in October 22, 2012. Protestors wanted to show a united backlash against the proposed pipeline that would transport crude oil from Alberta to a port in Kitimat, B.C. Some came out to protect the environment, while some to demonstrate that the coast is ‘not for sale.’ If the pipeline is constructed, it would run through various northern First Nation communities. And for them the pipeline threatens their home, culture, and way of life.

made .... It’s nothing but a smokescreen to try and dissuade media and Canadians from dismissing Enbridge’s efforts as meaningless.”

culture,” said Alfred. “The pipeline is a significant obstacle to that, so it’s a significant obstacle to the cultural survival of coming generations.”

Enbridge also says that they will employ First Nations on the pipeline’s construction. This will train those First Nation members, and provide them with jobs and skills. About 15 percent of the workers will be First Nation. But communities, who are opposed to the pipeline, say that Enbridge is missing the point. The construction alone will harm the surrounding plants and habitats that First Nations rely on to sustain their way of life. While Enbridge claims that the pipeline will bring economic activity to the area and allow it to prosper, some community leaders say not all economic activity is good.

First Nation communities and Enbridge approach the pipeline issue from different perspectives that

“This project assumes that First Nation lands are for sale and access to Native communities is a right. It disregards any notions that First Nations have any control over their own territory,” said Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, a professor of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria and protest participant.

This proposal is not going to benefit the average Canadian but the multi-national corporations. Enbridge Inc, partner to the pipeline, says First Nations stand to gain from this initiative. The company has proposed to offer First Nation communities a 10% share in the project. According to their website, that’s roughly $280 million of net income over 30 years. But Enbridge stands to gain far more than $280 million from this pipeline and the money won’t repair the damaged environment, should the pipeline break. “That’s just a propaganda ploy on the part of Enbridge,” said Alfred. “It’s relative to the amount of profits they

The project would transport 525,000 barrels of oil per day from near Edmonton to Kitimat. The companyoperates the world’s longest crude oil pipeline, transporting 200 million barrels of oil a day using 13,500 km of pipeline. Enbridge assures the B.C government and other stakeholders that they will adhere to the highest industry standards for safety and environmental protection. However, the Polaris Institute calculated that Enbridge has had 804 spills between 1999 and 2010.

contrast with each other. For Alfred, the idea of economic progress is one that has deep roots in society and not necessarily beneficial for First Nations or Canadians. “This proposal is not going to benefit the average Canadian but the multinational corporations. Economic prosperity is already achieved, the notion that we need to continually progress ... is engrained in the Canadian mentality,” he said. “Canada doesn’t need more money, it needs a better use of the money that already exists.” The multi-billion dollar project is still being discussed by the B.C and Albertan governments. Public hearing about safety, construction, and design issues are ongoing, with both sides still at odds.

First Nations fear a spill in their territory could destabilize the environment they depend on. The possible risk could undermine their way of life, which is already constantly under threat from external sources. “What First Nations stand to gain should be measured in terms of the ability of those people to re-root themselves in the true source of their identity and strength, which is the interaction with their homeland and traditional practice which is the basis for their March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

Investment over environment: Questioning the Canada-China Agreement By Caitlin Mclachlan, Staff Writer When news broke of an impending Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (FIPA) signed by Canada and China on September 9, 2012, concerned Canadians raised the red flag. Within days of the announcement, social justice organizations, international investment experts, and opposition parties demanded more time for independent and public assessments. Concerns shared by opponents involve the negative impact it would have on Canada’s environment and natural resources, as well as the compounding factors of unbalanced reciprocity and lack of accountability in the agreement. A November 8 press release issued by the Council of Canadians rejected the final draft of the FIPA’s environmental assessment. Stuart Trew, a trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians says, “The environmental assessment is completely inadequate and confusing … we need to take it back to the drawing board right now.” Trew is not alone in his concern for clarity.

In an op-ed republished by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Scott Sinclair explains that Canada’s resources will be of primary interest to Chinese investors. Sinclair, a senior trade policy researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, writes “The Canada-China FIPA will govern all future Chinese investment in Canada, not just in the energy sector. The issues raised by this treaty deserve a thorough public airing.” The most common concern regarding environmental preservation and the FIPA agreement is the language used. On October 18, Liberal MP Wayne Easter submitted a list of questions regarding the Canada-China FIPA to government officials. Question 18 deals with concerns about the agreement’s impact on Canadian laws protecting consumer safety, the environment, labour rights, etc. In response, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade writes, “All foreign investors in Canada, including those from China, are subject to the same laws and

regulations as domestic investors. Nothing in FIPA prevents federal, provincial, and territorial governments from regulating in the public interest, as long as it is done on a non-discriminatory and not wholly arbitrary manner.” The agreement states that disputes between contracting parties will be dealt with by an ad hoc arbitral tribunal outside of Canadian and Chinese court systems. Since the language is so broad, opponents fear that arbitrators will be free to determine how these definitions fit to their standards. There is growing concern that the agreement works more in favor of Chinese investors and to the detriment of evolving Canadian environmental policies. Trew says, “The rights the treaty gives to foreign investors to challenge environmental policy can, and more and more often do, undermine policies to protect the environment, public health or to conserve resources.”

QUICK FACTS 1

What is a FIPA?

– Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) is a bilateral agreement aimed at protecting and promoting foreign investment through legallybinding rights and obligations.

How long has this agreement been in progress? – Negotiations began in 1994; were put on hold until 2004; final negotiations were completed in January 2012 and the agreement was signed on September 9, 2012.

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

What is an arbitral tribunal?

- A «mini-trial,» somewhat less formal than a court trial. In most cases the arbitrator is an attorney, either alone or as part of a panel. (legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary. com)

FINANCE & ECONOMICS CULTURE

Annuities

You Can’t Hate Annuities Because They Bring You The Money By Max Oser, Contributing Writer It’s hard not to love money. But money becomes even more important once you arrive at retirement age. This is the time you should no longer worry about how to support your living costs. For instance, you might have invested in annuities. These are your lifelines because they may become your biggest financial provider when you’re no longer able to work and earn a living. Investing in annuities is a smart choice. However, it seems that some people are having a hard time trying to convince themselves about whether to invest in annuity programs. Typically, most people are unfamiliar with investment and it has often been associated with unpredictable risks. However, annuities are different because, regardless of how bad the economy is, your capital investment won’t likely be affected. CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM EQUITY INDEX ANNUITY? In terms of equity index annuity, this retirement plan provides you with a way to earn interests based on another index. In most scenarios your investment will be based on S&P but some other standards are similarly applicable. This is where the confusion starts. A lot of people believe that they are buying shares from a company. In reality, it has nothing to do with buying stocks or shares.

CAN YOU EARN RIGHT AWAY FROM IMMEDIATE ANNUITY? Perhaps the idea of investing in equity index annuity still scares you. Don’t worry though, because your options don’t end here. There are a variety of annuities available. The immediate annuity is a great option to start with. It starts paying soon after the contract has been purchased. The longest waiting period would be a year. Anyone can invest in this retirement plan. If you have a lump sum of cash, you can hand it over to an insurance company of your pick, a month later you may receive a cheque. The insurance company pays you on monthly basis until the end of your contract. You may also choose to invest in a lifetime plan where the insurance company pays you every month for the rest of your life. VARIABLE ANNUITIES ARE RISKY. IS THIS TRUE? If you have more funds to invest, you may want to try the variable annuities. This is one of the most interesting retirement plans because you can invest as much as you want. Many people are not aware of this and so they are not inclined to invest in variable annuities because they fear losing their initial capital. There are many benefits to obtain from variable annuities, one of them

being guaranteed payment to your beneficiaries in the event of your death. The minimum payment would be equivalent to the sum of your initial capital. Your beneficiaries may also receive earnings from interest rates calculated annually. If the present amount of your investment exceeds the amount of initial capital, plus earnings from interest rates, then your beneficiaries may receive full payment based on the new amount.

It seems that the returns are lower than a lot of other annuities; however, if you want to play it safe, this is the option you should go for. One thing for sure is that you may enjoy stable rates until the end of your contract. This means you can accurately estimate or even know for sure how much you are earning every year. There is a huge possibility for you to double your earnings if you choose to keep your funds untouched.

There are many benefits to obtain from variable annuities, one of them being guaranteed payment to your beneficiaries in the event of your death. The minimum payment would be equivalent to the sum of your initial capital. Your beneficiaries may also receive earnings from interest rates calculated annually. If the present amount of your investment exceeds the amount of initial capital, plus earnings from interest rates, then your beneficiaries may receive full payment based on the new amount.

Overall, you’re making a smart move if you choose to invest in any annuity programs. These programs are am o ng the m o st significant to ol s that anyone can use to fund their retirement. One of the greatest benefits yo u may e njoy is a guarante e d stream of income for life. If you love your money, you’ll love investing in annuities.

GET STABLE RATES WITH FIXED ANNUITY If your main goal is to invest and earn a fixed amount of monthly income, then you should look nowhere else but at the fixed annuity. The fixed annuity is known for its ability to pay a steady return to investors.

March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

TRENDS

JUSTICE IS SERVED Citizen-driven initiatives support crime reduction. written by: caitlin mclachlan, staff writer photography: jovan milosevic

design: katherine chu

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

TRENDS According to the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD), it costs between $66,300 and $110,400 to incarcerate one offender for one year in Canada. Taking into consideration the frequency of repeat offenders, does it really make sense to build bigger jails? Fortunately for us, there is another way.

of homelessness in Edmonton, Dave Martyshuk, CEO of Martyshuk Housing took action. “(The company) is a profit driven corporation. We’ve just happened to make a business out of contributing to the abolishment of homelessness,” says Martyshuk. “It’s never been attempted before anywhere in Canada.”

Edmund Burke, a well-known Irish political theorist, once said, “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without.” In other words: you do the crime, you do the time.

The business began as an employee housing company in 2004. By 2007, it had become a driving force in Edmonton’s private sector “movement to abolish homelessness.”

Traditionally, crime and punishment have always gone together, but the cost of justice ain’t cheap. According to a study published in Crime Prevention Digest II, as of 1999, achieving a 10 percent reduction in crime through incarceration costs tax payers seven times more than it would have through social development initiatives. As advocates for social development, the CCSD highlights it as one of three major avenues to successful crime prevention. The other avenues include situational approaches (improved lighting in public places, self-defense classes, etc.) and police/ courts/corrections. Our House: social development in the private sector In the spring of 2007, Alberta faced a serious housing crisis. In Edmonton alone, it left more than 200 people homeless. The CCSD reports that residents of poor quality housing are proven to be at risk for behavioral and educational problems, both of which are linked to a higher likelihood of criminal behaviour. In response to the growing prevalence

“We’re now hosting 208 previously homeless individuals and we will be up to 600 by March,” says Martyshuk. “We just took on another 200 bed complex and a 174 unit apartment building. It’s a lot of people, but we still have 2,400 to go after that.” The corporation’s vision of a homelessfree community involves a network of private, social, and public sector partners that work together toward this common goal. “(The network) is very large,” says Martyshuk, “it’s kind of like counting the dots.” Martyshuk Housing works closely with Community Services, addictions experts, home care services, and Edmonton Police Service to provide it’s hard to house residents with safe, healthy, and supportive permanent living arrangements. One partner the corporation works closely with is Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH). It’s a program that provides financial and health related assistance to eligible adults with a disability. “If you put $1,500 into the hands of someone who is addicted to crack cocaine, he’s not going to pay his rent” says Martyshuk. “AISH and Community Services send us a third party payment on behalf of this individual to ensure that his rent is paid.”

Martyshuk estimates that of the 208 clients the company currently houses, 100 of them are on medication. A common problem in the beginning of the venture was the high level of drug abuse among residents. “We were suffering overdoses among many of our clients,” says Martyshuk. “They’ll buy (medication), sell it, trade it, steal it—whatever they have to do to get their hands on ‘oxys’ and percs, that kind of thing.” Oxycodone, or oxys, is a narcotic pain reliever used to treat moderate to sever pain. Percocet, or percs, is a combination drug containing acetaminophen and oxycodone. It’s also prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain. At this point, most people would throw in the towel, but Martyshuk would not be deterred. “We can use a lot of creativity, and this is one of the benefits of (getting the) private sector involved,” says Martyshuk, “after our last death, we went out, bought a pharmacy and started regulating medications to our clients.” The pharmacy was so successful that it turned a profit, which the company uses to finance a housing sustainability fund. “Rent is based on $850 month,” says Martyshuk, “if they earn less than $1,100 a month they qualify for a $300 housing subsidy, whether or not they’re on medication.” Within the first year of owning the MacDonald Lofts, once notorious for violence and drug related activity, EPS responses to the building were reduced by 74 percent. “That represents about a million bucks (of taxpayer dollars),” says Martyshuk, “eight-hundred dollars per hour for EPS response that doesn’t include the ambulances and fire trucks and everything that comes with it.” In its own way, Martyshuk Housing

March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

TRENDS has put a private sector spin on social development. The corporation has made a significant dent in homelessness; reduced drug related crimes on its premises, and even cut costs by reducing police responses to the area. “The reason I think we’re so successful is that we can do it on dimes to the dollar,” says Martyshuk. “We take everybody; we expect to have to pick them up, dust them off, and keep them going.” Angels in the Alley: grass-roots situational crime prevention Situational crime prevention increases the risk potentials for the offender, minimizes opportunities for crime, and reduces the payoff of completing a criminal act. According to the CCSD, it includes everything from selfdefense classes to comprehensive community planning. The Guardian Angels safety patrols fall somewhere in between. Established in 2007, the Edmonton Guardian Angels is a volunteer citizen group that patrols the city streets as a crime-deterring presence. Dave Schroder is the chapter leader whose initiative led him to contact Curtis Sliwa, founding member of the original Guardian Angels in New York City. “I just had this feeling that, although I was busy, involved with volunteer work with our real estate board, I just wanted to do something to just try and make a difference someway,” says Schroder. Patrols typically consist of three to five people. Before going into the streets, crew members frisk each other for weapons (none are allowed), and police are given a cell phone number and the location of their patrol route. “Absolutely no weapons” says Greg Silver, “we try to use our voices more than our bodies. We try to talk people

down.” Silver is chapter leader of the Calgary Guardian Angels, he is also owner of Silver Graphic Design. In fact, although graduated members are trained in self-defense and conflict prevention, the true purpose is to be a presence that dissuades criminal activity and to engage the community. “The number of confrontations is minimal,” says Silver, “for the most part it’s all about community support.” Schroder agrees, “Most of our patrols might involve talking to locals, just allowing them to express their frustrations about things that are going on, sometimes it’s (about) walking seniors home.” “We have a professional police force, they are the ones that are really making the difference in the city in terms of effecting crime rates and truly making the city safer,” says Schroder. “Being realistic, we fully realize that the difference we make is really just where we are at that point in time … two hours later, or two days later, I mean really, things are going to take place as they take place.” Patrols for the most part involve a sort of advocacy for crime reduction. Their presence sends a message to wouldbe offenders that the community will not stand for it any longer. What separates the Guardian Angels from other citizen organizations is that, according to Schroder, they are willing to “take it one step further.”

that before anyone even becomes involved, a team member calls the police. The rest of the team ends the scenario as quickly as possible, usually by creating space between the conflicting parties. Although members of the Guardian Angels have varying day jobs, they are unified by their desire to see a positive change in their community, one that involves citizens taking back their streets one block at a time. “You have two choices in life,” says Silver, “you can sit on your couch and complain about the way things are or you can try to make some sort of a small change.” Schroder agrees, “I would suggest that if people have the capability, there may be a moral obligation to help people that are in trouble.” The public and the police: a symbiotic intelligence gathering relationship In 2005, Sgt. Brodeur was tasked with cleaning up drug houses in Edmonton. By aligning with agencies and interested parties, Brodeur cleaned up six houses in one month. Building on this success, he created the Report a Drug House (RADH) program. Within 10 months, the operation had received 186 reports and closed 162 of those complaints.

“People know who we are, so the drugs and stuff go away, I’m assuming until we leave. We keep our eyes out, if we see somebody thumping on somebody or doing something that’s dangerous, we’ll intervene,” says Silver.

Interestingly, one of the interested parties associated with Brodeur in the early stages of RADH was Dave Schroder in his capacity as chapter leader of the Edmonton Guardian Angels. Brodeur met with Schroder to discuss the possibility of a collaborative effort. He gave Schroder some business cards to pass out to the people on the street. “It was so refreshing to have somebody who was so open to having a positive impact in the community,” says Schroder.

Contrary to the popular notion that intervention leads to vigilantism, the Guardian Angel’s approach is not physically violent. Schroder explains

Although Brodeur has since moved onto other projects, the RADH program continues to run successfully under the leadership of Sgt. Daryl

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TRENDS

Mahoney. What makes the program so effective is the symbiotic relationship between public participation and police action. “We are a witness driven program. If the community didn’t use us we wouldn’t exist to be able to help them,” says Mahoney. Mahoney describes RADH as a “crime type specific program targeting drug grow and drug sale operations. We saw a two percent growth in the number of calls from last year to this year with 134 calls to our hotline,” says Mahoney, “we concluded 71 files this year either through warrant, arrest, eviction of the problem, or concluding drug activity had ended.” There is a resounding opinion among members of the public and private sector that calls for a more integrative and collaborative approach to crime prevention. Recent trends in law enforcement practices are beginning

to mirror this sentiment in philosophy and strategic approach. “There is the traditional enforcement tool for fighting crime but if that is the only tool in your tool box, it really limits your response to any given problem” says Mahoney. “With education, information sharing, resource sharing, retraining/reeducation, rehabilitation you have significantly many more tools to use to permanently fix an issue.” Sgt. Mahoney “wholeheartedly agrees” that there is a need for collaborative initiatives. “Crime reduction is concerning yourself with all aspects of an issue,” says Mahoney, “the individual, neighborhood, city, global issues, and trends need to be addressed and we all have a part to play and a piece of the puzzle.”

The big picture It would certainly be simpler to lock offenders up and throw away the key, but this only solves the problem halfway. If we insist on putting up jails rather than addressing the conditions that lead to criminal activity, eventually, we will run out of room to build. Gradually, communities are evolving away from a segmented structure of isolated parts. The most successful examples of crime reduction involve individual citizens who have discovered a way to reach out across the divide and pull together elements of the private, public, and government sectors. Maybe what Burke really meant was that there is, within each of us, the capacity to impact what affects us.

March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

Forex 101 An Introduction to trading in the world’s largest market By Sara Mackey, Contributing Writer What is the largest financial market in the world? The response most people would offer to this question is the stock market. But the correct answer is that the world’s largest financial market is the foreign exchange market. To put into perspective just how gigantic the forex market is, think about this: if you were to add up the daily volume of every major stock exchange in the world—the New York Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange—the total still falls far short of the average daily volume that is transacted in the fx market. What exactly is the fx market? Most people have traded in the fx market even if they were largely unaware of it. Every time a person exchanges one currency for another, he or she is trading in the fx market. The foreign exchange market is where currencies, such as the American dollar, euro, Japanese yen, and Swiss fran are traded and exchanged against one another every day. But tourists exchanging one currency for another as they travel between countries accounts for only a very small percentage of daily turnover in the fx market. The bulk of daily volume in the fx market is executed by

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investment banks, wealthy private investors, and transnational corporations. In fact, until the early 2000s, these organizations were the only players involved in the fx market due to very large minimum contract sizes, often fixed at $1 million or more. This high minimum contract size made it impossible for the average investor to gain access to the fx market. But the explosion of the internet and recent technological advancements have allowed small retail fx brokers to open shop and provide minimum contract sizes of as little as $1,000. As a result of increased access to the forex for smaller investors, the fx trading has substantially grown over the last 10 years. High leverage In the stock market, the most investors can typically leverage is 2:1. In futures, traders can gain a bit more leverage but nothing near the 50:1 that’s currently available to U.S. traders and the 100:1 leverage that’s available to most European and Australian brokers. Low transaction costs In stock trading, commissions can eat up all the profits one makes in a year. In fx, the total cost of execution tends to be much lower than that of the stock and futures markets. This is a

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major advantage for serious traders and investors. 24-hour market The fx market is not a centralized exchange, such as stock and futures markets. Instead, the market is simply a loosely connected network of interbank dealers spread around every major financial center in the world, including New York, Tokyo, and London. Therefore, there is no clean open and close each day. Instead, liquidity and volatility ebb and flow between financial centers around the world. This is very advantageous because traders do not have to worry about opening and closing gaps, adding significant risk to overnight positions. With an ever increasing demand to exchange currencies, the forex is still poised to grow. And perhaps you too will grow your profits on the world’s biggest market.

Trading in the Forex market offers a number of clear advantages and is becoming increasingly open to the average trader

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RISING AGAINST: written by: chantelle (tilly) wark , staff writer

photography: tallie lowcock- garey

design: katherine chu

Creating social change by breaking common laws 33

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM March 2013

TRENDS History is filled with the strength and might of the human race. Often, history has been made with people trying to better society, whether it was through a political movement or the need for knowledge. Other times, history is made up of those fighting against the system—at times, breaking the law—in the cause of what they think is right. Today is no different. That’s why the Arbitrage decided to profile some of the latest developments within three causes that are near and dear to our hearts. Regardless of your view on their positions, the following groups and people have risen, showing what the will of man and womankind is made of. Be wary, Big Brother is watching you Who is Anonymous? When a person used to hear the name Anonymous, a sense of unknown is what would have come to mind. Such is not the case any longer. Now, when the name Anonymous is heard, an image of an unnamed collective behind Guy Fawkes masks is what’s seen. Anonymous is an organization of approximately 50,000 members world-wide that has been in operation since 2003. There are those who praise Anonymous, viewing the collective as freedom fighters of the internet, or thinking of the group as a digital Robin Hood, robbing various governments and organizations of information. Just as many people perceive the members behind the masks as cyber terrorists. However, no matter how the collective is perceived, Anonymous continue to believe that they are hacking for the greater good, strong in their beliefs for freedom of information. As well, the organization makes their views on this belief quite clear: “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do

not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” Sabu and Commander X In the everyday world, a 28-year-old man was known simply as Hector Xavier Monsegur. However, in the land of binary, Hector Monsegur was Sabu, an Anonymous hacker who surrendered his online identity to the FBI after being presented with a string of charges on June 7, 2011 that could total 124 years behind bars. Faced with these charges, Sabu pled guilty before becoming a part of an FBI blackhat hacking group within Anonymous. With the go-ahead from the FBI, Sabu assisted Anonymous deface government websites and corporate websites. He also played a crucial role in hacking Stratfor, a private, global intelligence firm. With Sabu’s assistance, multiple arrests had been made, and the cocky confidence within Anonymous had quickly become sombre. Though Anonymous claimed to have no real leader, depriving them of Sabu meant taking away a crucial hacker who couldn’t be easily replaced. Christopher Doyan, a resident of Santa Cruz, California, hacked the county website for a thirty-minute virtual sit-in under his Anonymous name Commander X, in protest to a homeless encampment being removed from the courthouse steps in September 2011. In the States, Commander X would be served with 15 years in prison for his sit-in, a minor assault on his hacking resume. Commander X, in a May 2012 interview with a National Post reporter, stood by his belief that Anonymous isn’t a cyber-terrorist organization, and that what the organization does is for the greater good. In his interview, Commander X stated, “we’re fighting for the people, we are fighting, as Occupy likes to say, for the 99%.” He also feels no guilt regarding the high-profile hacks he’s been a part of,

from Syrian President Assad’s email database to Stratcor, claiming that, “every email database, every single one has had crimes in it,” never deeming any of the people at the victim end of the hacks are innocent. Not wanting to face his prison term, Commander X fled to Canada to avoid prosecution. If he were still in the United States, he realizes that the virtual sit-in charges would be the least of his worries as he’d be presented with a whole other slew of hacking-related felonies. For the duration of the trial, which would last a few years, he wouldn’t be able to access his Facebook, Twitter, or most important, other members of Anonymous. A New Big Brother? Anyone who’s familiar with George Orwell is familiar with the daunting phrase, “Big Brother is watching you,” an uncomfortable thought as we’re now in an era of mass surveillance and over-controlling authority figures. Big Brother has often been synonymous with the government, but since the formation of Anonymous, this may very well change. If the claims of Commander X are true, Anonymous has managed to acquire access to every classified database that exists in the United States. Commander X has also stated that, “it’s a matter of when we leak the contents of those databases, not if.” With these confident statements, it appears that the American government at the very least has lost control, along with the Parliaments of many other nations, and that Anonymous is the new power to be reckoned with. The Fight for Gay Freedom For the most part, much of this world we live in is very open and accepting of difference. However, arguments can be made that many people, countries, and religious sects are vastly out of

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A Few Hacks Worth Noting Westboro Baptist Church: In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, the Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest the funerals of the victims, as they believed it was God executing his judgement. Anonymous retaliated by hacking the WBC database, and releasing the congregation’s personal information, such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Chinese Government: Upon breaking into hundreds of websites within the Chinese Government, the “Great Firewall of China” was downed, and replaced with tips on bypassing government censorship. The United Nations: The UN’s official website was hacked with accusations that the United Nations ignored hunger strikers in Palestine for protesting detention without trial in Israel. Greek Ministry of Finance: Greece’s Ministry of Finance website was breached, with Anonymous leaking documents that would be embarrassing to the government. This included poorly-chosen passwords, and a JPY 900 million interest payment to be paid back to the Deutches Bank in Tokyo and London.

touch with the present, and are still living in the past, especially with regards to homosexuality. Homosexuals are people who show sexual desire for someone of the same sex and have been around since the dawn of time, as well as homophobes, who are people prejudiced against them.

Stonewall and Harvey Milk Two of the most well-known fights for gay rights in history are the results of the Stonewall Riots and Harvey Milk. The Stonewall Riots happened on June 28, 1969, while Harvey Milk was, “the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States.

Though there have been many riots and public displays for gay equality throughout recent history, there are, sadly, still people and places in this world that continue to resist the call for equal rights. Despite all this, though, those who were once enemies of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community are now starting to side with those members of society. Perhaps people are starting to realize that those who are LGBT aren’t so different from the rest of us after all.

In 1950-60’s America, gay-friendly establishments were far and few between, as homosexuality was deemed an unacceptable way of life. However, the Stonewall Inn, which was run by the Mafia, catered to the poorest residents, and marginalized members of the gay community. A raid by police in 1969 led to one of the most spontaneous series of riots in history.

LGBT in Canada Canada is a nation of acceptance and difference, a place where homosexuals can freely be with whom they desire without any fears of having to keep who they are to themselves. Thanks to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms this great country has become a leader in the Americas with regards to gay equality. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1969, while samesex marriage has been legal since 2005. As well, Canada became the third country in the world to perform same-sex marriages. Ontario has been marrying homosexual couples since 2003. Canada also performed the world’s first legally-recognized samesex marriage on January 14, 2001, which was legally upheld in court on June 10, 2003.

The power has shifted and control has been traded. Be wary, Big Brother, Anonymous is watching you.

While Canada still has some work to do to support transgendered individuals, it can still boast an LGBT-equal present. Other nations meanwhile continue to be riddled with riots and fights for equality, along with arrests and attempts at rehabilitation.

Police raids on suspected gay establishments in New York City were regular occurrences in the sixties. The routine was to check identification, check the genders of those in the establishment, seize alcohol, and arrest the men who were dressed as

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women. What wasn’t normal, though, was for the patrons of the Stonewall Inn to have the courage to retaliate. Though a crowd had began to gather outside of the Inn during the raid, the riots didn’t truly begin until a transvestite, who had been beaten with a billy club, yelled to the crowd, “why don’t you guys do something?!” With that started the lighting of fires in garbage cans, kick lines, throwing of debris, from pennies to bricks, and mocking chants towards the police, who were severely outnumbered. The storming of Stonewall led to the formation of many gay organizations, such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). However, what is likely the

most prominent legacy to come out of the Stonewall riots was the start of Gay Pride parades. The first parade was held on the anniversary of the Stonewall Inn siege, June 28, 1970, on Christopher Street. Though the parade attendees were unsure of what to expect, the New York Times reported that, “there was little open animosity, and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign ‘I am a Lesbian’ walked by.” Like Stonewall, Harvey Milk also left a legacy as the first openly gay politician in America. In San Francisco, after being fed up with the treatment of the gay community, Milk reached a point where he knew he, “had to become involved or shut up.”

After a brief stint on the San Francisco Board of Permit Appeals, Milk began his campaign for the California State Assembly. As his campaigning was underway, his role as a representative of the gay community was also starting to expand. Though he lost the Assembly election, Milk went on to co-found the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club. In response to an anti-gay vote that was held in Dade County, Miami, residents of the Castro District, led by Harvey Milk, embarked on a 5-mile march through San Francisco. As they marched, the gay activists chanted, “out of the bars, and into the streets!” And in response to Anita Bryant’s anti-gay movement in Miami, Milk declared, “this is the power of

The riots didn’t truly begin until a transvestite, who had been beaten with a billy club, yelled to the crowd, “why don’t you guys do something!” March 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

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the gay community. Anita’s going to create a national gay force!”

fights for gay freedom and equality to be won.

Finally, Milk had won a Board of Supervisors campaign he had attempted many times before, winning by 30%. However, with the win came an increase in death threats. He was concerned about the possibility of being assassinated, so he would record his thoughts, saying into the tape, “if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

Many religious leaders and manuscripts still deem homosexuality a sin. For instance, in his 2012 Christmas address, the Pope deemed homosexuality a, “manipulation of nature.” Apparently gay marriage is a threat to world peace.

During his time in office, Milk began his tenure with his sponsorship of a bill that would outlaw discrimination towards homosexuals. According to the New York Times, when the bill Milk supported was passed, “the growing political power of homosexuals” was demonstrated. Not only was the political power of the gay community expanding, but so were the sizes of the Gay Freedom Day Parades in San Francisco, growing to 250 000- 375 000 attendees in 1978. On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk’s time on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors came to a tragic end. Daniel White, a supervisor who had resigned from his position, assassinated Harvey Milk and the city’s Mayor, George Moscone. Even in death, Milk’s message rang clear: homosexuals need to fight for their freedom, country, for themselves, and to no longer hide quietly in their closets. The Present Reality Much progress has been made in favour of the LGBT community since Stonewall and Harvey Milk. For example, Tammy Baldwin made American history when she was voted in as Wisconsin’s Senator, the first openly-lesbian politician to do so. American States are starting to legalize same-sex marriage, following the paths of Canada and many European countries. Despite all the progress, though, there are still many

Other homosexuals cannot be open about their sexuality due to cultural punishments. If a Muslim is gay, he cannot come out to anyone in his family or culture as the Qur’an deems homosexuality a sin that is to be punished with death by stoning. Knowing people in that situation, they keep their preferences to themselves. They hope that if they are ever discovered that their families choose to spare their lives and ostracize them instead. Though the world will always be riddled with homophobes, there will always be allies who support the LGBT community. And if societies could put as much effort into acceptance and getting along as they do hatred and discrimination, this world would be a better place. The Right to Be a Girl Jean Lowden, at 99 years old, has lived through most of the events that have made up modern history, including Canada’s Suffragist movement. She was young when it happened, and at her age, she doesn’t remember much of what went on. Though her mother and sisters would have remembered events differently, in an interview, Jean said, “as far as I’m concerned, I’ve always had rights.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always had rights.”

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Women’s suffrage movements have been around since the late 1800’s, with the first success occurring in New Zealand in 1895. In North America, suffrage movements came about with the end of the First World War. And in Canada, Quebec granted women their rights in 1917, along with Ontario. By 1940, the remaining women in the country had equal rights. Given how long ago Canada’s Suffragist Movements occurred, it isn’t any wonder that we females feel like we’ve always had the right and freedom to work, get the education we want, and vote. Unfortunately, there are still parts of the world where women face extreme discrimination, and those women are rising up and fighting back. Malala Yousafzai What is perhaps the most angering yet inspiring fight for girls rights occurred on October 9, 2012 when Malala Yousafzai, a 15 year old girl, was shot in a school bus in Pakistan by the Taliban. Malala has been fighting for girls to have the right to an education since she was 11 years old. In 2008, when the Taliban tried to shut down schools for girls, Malala, infuriated, stated at a local press club, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” In the years leading up to the attack on Malala, the Taliban had been working to shut down educational institutions that catered to girls. Schools were bombed and girls were banned from getting an education in January 2009. Soon thereafter, Malala was able to resume her studies, while still finding time to speak up for the right for girls to go to school. In 2009, Malala became the Chair of District Child Assembly Swat, an organization fighting for the right for girls to go to school. For her efforts, she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. Thus began her celebrity status, which

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grew when she received the National Youth Peace Prize in December 2011. With this, the Taliban had come to hate the young female activist, and determined that Malala’s life must be terminated. The attempt on Malala’s life sparked international outrage. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a part of the United Nations Special Envoy, started a petition in her name, demanding that every girl in the world have the right to an education by 2015. Malala had been recovering at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, and has recently been discharged. Though her life was saved this time, the Taliban won’t hesitate to try to assassinate her again, all because she is a girl who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and demand the right to a proper education. The Equal Feeling and Rights to Come Despite most countries granting women equal rights, there are still a few that deny their female citizens the rights they deserve. Progress is slowly being made however, such as in Saudi Arabia. At the moment, Saudi’s women still are not permitted to vote or run for office, but things are set to change. In September 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that the women of his nation will finally have their rights to vote and run in politics with the arrival of 2015.

Arabia still have to wait another two years before they can finally make their paper voices heard by marking an x on a ballot. To the females in Canada, remember how fortunate you are. Women from many decades before fought long and hard for you to be able to work, get educated, and vote. Other suffragist movements are still in progress. As they fight for their rights, don’t throw yours by the wayside. These cases studies are just three of many that see everyday individuals taking power into their own hands to break societies established rules and practices in an effort to create positive change in their communities and in the world around them. So when you hear of people fighting for cause hitting the airwaves, keep an open mind to what they are advocating for, regardless of how the media portrays them—they may be fighting for rights you never knew you lacked.

People who were born and raised in North America truly don’t understand just how lucky they are, especially the women. Citizens choose not to go to school or skip classes because they are lazy or don’t like the person teaching the course. Meanwhile, Malala almost lost her life fighting for the chance to get a proper education. When elections are held, members of society scratch ballots, or skip the polls entirely. The women of Saudi

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