Scribe 2012

a night in toronto blindness hear the cry of the congolese

motherhood

2012

Envision a community where everyone can meet their food needs

North York Harvest is the primary food bank for northern Toronto, delivering 1.6 million pounds of food to sixty neighbourhood programs each year. We also support long-term solutions through youth engagement, education initiatives, and community food projects. www.northyorkharvest.com

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18 Arts & Culture

FEATURES

MISCELLANY

A Night at the Waverly

Unveiling the Truth

Psychosis

youtube: an epic tale

hear the cry of the congolese

One LOVE

pg. 8

pg. 10

Snakes and Lattes pg. 13

Q&A: Juice pg. 14

I Spit on Your DVD

pg. 25

pg. 28

Four Shades of Motherhood pg. 32

skyline rising pg. 35

pg. 49

pg. 50

The Face of a Bully pg. 52

Youth Without Shelter pg. 54

pg. 15

A Night in Toronto

ABANDONED: URBEX CAPTURES WHAT’S BEEN LEFT BEHIND

The Machine: Anatomy of a cage fighter

Regent Park: Photo Essay

Ghost Stories

Tattoo Life

THE Price of War

From the Slopes to the Streets

Blindness

pg. 18

pg. 20

pg. 21

The Power of Sports pg. 24

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pg. 38

pg. 41

pg. 44

pg. 46

pg. 55

pg. 57

25 Editor-in-chief Jonathan Zettel

Executive Editor Doreen Dawang

Managing Editors

Kate McCullough (print) Sarah Rea (online)

Section editors

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Dona Boulos Brandon Humber Nadine Martin

Copy editors

Lime Blake Dion Caputi Sarah Lennox Tatiana Patterson

director of research Shylo Adams

Fact Checkers Ustad Khaira Sara Yonis

Art director Philip Lam

Assistant Art director Geoff Buncombe

ART ASSISTANT

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Tim Milne

Photo editors

Meagan Malloch Sara Miller

Photographers

Matt Creed Tashae Haughton

Online Art director Kelly Snider

Assistant online art directors Jennifer Alvarez Alex Fuller

Faculty advisErs Lara King RenĂŠe Wilson

humberjournalism.com/scribe @scribe_magazine

BRINGING THE BLIND TO THE ICE, ONE STRIDE AT A TIME COURAGE CANADA raises funds to provide Canadians who are blind and visually-impaired with the equal opportunity to learn to skate and play blind hockey

DONATE $20.12 Help make hockey accessible for everyone www.couragecanada.ca

note from our editor Think for a moment about all the things that led up to this precise moment in time.

Here we are, thrust without consent into this deep and dark river; thrown blindly into the constant flow that bends around fields and ancient willows.

We remember thunderstorms, family photos, and smoked cigarettes; we remember rooms full of visitors, birch canoes, and cities of skyscrapers; there were skinned knees and bumble bees, moons over mountains, and milk on linoleum.

Some say that we have shed too many tears – some say not enough.

The ancient Greeks believed that each life was born out of Necessity and controlled by the three fates: Clotho spun the thread of life, incessantly hunched over her wheel; Lachesis measured the thread to determine how long each life should be; and the third sister Atropos would cut the thread with her “abhorred shears.”

We have gathered some of those threads here to weave this brief tapestry.

Isn’t it amazing how things come together?

Jonathan Zettel Editor-in-chief 7

BY SHYLO ADAMS PHOTOS DOREEN DAWANG

A Night at the Waverly When our director of research, Shylo Adams, queried us with an idea to write a story about the history of Spadina Avenue, we immediately zeroed in on the notorious Waverly Hotel. Built in 1900, the Waverly Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in Toronto. In its early years, the Waverly was the perfect getaway for transient individuals such as the famous Canadian poet Milton Acorn. It is also speculated that James Earl Ray hid there after shooting Martin Luther King Jr. The walls of the Waverly drip with history. In order to get the skinny on this historical hotel, someone was going to have to spend a night there...

D

ear Diary, I’m off to spend a night at the Waverly Hotel. A little excited, a little apprehensive.

5:30 p.m. Take the Spadina streetcar to College. Stop across from the Waverly. Two cop cars are sitting outside of the hotel.

Walking up to the front door, I’m greeted by an older black man with dreads and an elderly white lady. The man holds open both doors into the hotel, allowing me to maneuver my bags in easily.

5:45 p.m. Checking in. I’m hit with the smell of baby powder, incense, and smoke when I enter the lobby. At the front desk, the concierge quickly informs me that their credit card machine is down and that they only take cash. I give the man $70. He takes down my information and hands me a skeleton tooth room key. No key cards here. The lady from outside is now beside me, talking to herself.

6:00 p.m. Finding my room. The elevator is out of order, so I lug my duffel bag up the stairs. The stairs and hallway creak with old age as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. I take the time to look at each corner of the hotel before going to my room. Next to the second floor staircase, there’s a hole in the ceiling. Yikes,

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severe water damage. Drops of water seep through the orange ooze growing on the edges of the drywall. A bucket sits directly under it to catch the excess.

6:10 p.m. Rock music blasts out of a room at such a volume that it’s as if there’s a sound system in the hallway. I walk down a corridor where there’s a hand-drawn swastika and the word “kill” stained in lime green ink on the historic white walls.

6:15 p.m. Home sweet (temporary) home. I get to room 202, one of the only ones that didn’t have its number written on the door in black marker. Inside: a wooden dresser with a mirror, a desk with hair in the drawer, a metal framed chair, a queen-sized bed, a stand-alone black fan, and a bedside dresser with a broken TV. Someone wrote “Dial 1978” in black ink on the salmon pink wall above the desk, near a stack of plastic cups, an ash tray, and a Kleenex box. The room, like the rest of this place, smells like old cigarettes. I can see the CN Tower from my window.

6:25 p.m. Decide that showering here is NOT an option.

6:30 p.m. Hungry. On my way out to grab a bite to eat, a man in an emerald green robe, with a face full of Band-Aids holding

Years of wear and tear have taken their toll on the Waverly Hotel

a cane, enters the hotel. He’s hanging out in the lobby with the lady who was talking to herself earlier.

7:30 p.m. Full. Now what? I sit on the bed and listen to the ambient noises. It’s a live band, playing at the Silver Dollar beside the hotel. Outside, a man’s yelling curse words, drunks hoot and holler as they pass by, and the sounds of streetcars rolling by are constant.

7:45 p.m. There’s a voice coming from outside of my room door. I poke my head out and find a lady in her early 60s using the payphone. She’s in black sweatpants, a black tank top, and a black knitted cardigan. Her grey hair is braided down both sides of her head, like Britney Spears in the Oops!... I Did It Again video. It looks like she’s trying to stay young. Once she is finished on the phone, I approach her to ask about the hotel. She’s friendly but coy, unable to talk properly. She says she just got surgery on her mouth and must rest.

8:00 p.m. Stepped out. Tonight my friend is celebrating his birthday. I took moment out of the night to pay him a visit and say happy birthday.

8:30 p.m. Juxtaposition. My friend booked a room at the luxurious Thompson Hotel near King and Bathurst. Inside, the interior is upscale and dapper, which mirrored the business crowd standing at the bar and moving around in the lounge. I stand in the lobby wearing sweatpants and a hoodie and can feel the eyes of staff and security on me. My friend shows up a minute later and I greet him with a “happy birthday,” and my gift: a bottle of Kettle One in a paper LCBO bag. We wait for another friend of ours to arrive before going up to the room when security approaches us. They inform us that alcohol isn’t permitted upstairs in the rooms. My friend hands over the bottle and security puts it under his name and room number.

8:45 p.m. We report upstairs to the room where the rest of the party is waiting. The room’s elegant and has a working TV. In the bathroom, the showers have frosted glass walls that let you see the silhouette of the person showering.

9:00 p.m. Sitting on the edge of the bed with a cup of juice in hand I socialize with all who are there.

9:30 p.m. The room’s full, which means it’s time for me to leave.

After everyone finishes their last drinks we all gather ourselves and leave the room. I say my goodbyes and make my journey back to the Waverly Hotel.

10:30 p.m. Return to room 202. To my relief, I discover the room is the way I left it. The one thing I worried about was something going missing or being stolen while I was gone. The rooms lock with a normal key, and not the high-end electronic locks of the Thompson Hotel.

11:30 p.m. Book in hand. I have no other alternative for entertainment. Luckily, I brought a book along with me. I open A Game of Thrones and begin to read. After 30 minutes of reading the same line over and over I decide to put the book down.

12:00 a.m. Boo. I’d much rather watch Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but the TV doesn’t work. I climb into my sleeping bag, which I brought with me to be my own body condom. After hearing all the rumours surrounding the hotel I didn‘t want to take any chances. I turn off the lights. The smell of old smoke permeates the pillows. I nod off to the sound of nightlife outside and the live band playing downstairs.

2:00 a.m. Argh. I’m up again. The band downstairs is still jamming hard. Laying in bed with my eyes closed I envision the band in my room with a crowd of long-haired biker fans.

4:00 a.m. Should’ve packed earplugs. The music from downstairs went from being rock to techno, and my imagination sends me into a drug-infested rave. I picture ravers dancing in my room with glow in the dark body paint, glow sticks, and a strobe light. The street life outside has dwindled.

6:00 a.m. I’m outta here. Back at the front desk, I hand the concierge my key and he returns my $10 deposit. I have to ask him about the music. “It’s a rave. They go until 10 a.m.,” he says.

6:05 a.m. On my way to the street car, I look back at the hotel from the middle of the street. I just slept in a piece of history.

ttBright lights illiuminate the exterior of the Waverly Hotel, but the inside is dull and dreary

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youtube:

an epic tale H

arley Morenstein said the charm of his YouTube show is that it’s dumb.

EpicMealTime has more than 2 million subscribers and more than 340 million video views. The concept? A group of men gets together, drinks and concocts a large meal often using fast food, deep fryers, and, the signature ingredient – bacon. The group then sits down and eats the meal.

Only one uses utensils.

“I like to think of it as a celebration of food show,” said Morenstein.

On average, EpicMealTime requires 12 hours per episode to shop for food, cook, and eat. With such a large amount of food, it’s difficult to finish it all. The group does its best job devouring the caloriefilled foods, but any extras go home with crewmembers for meals later in the week.

The group has even donated some of the leftovers to local soup kitchens.

Once, a fan gave the EpicMealTime host a Kleenex with a set of 10 fake fingernails.

He told her he’d eat the nails, but decided against that idea. Morenstein is often approached on the street and loves what he does.

“I love YouTube,” he said. “I think it’s a genius means of getting your content out there, and I encourage anyone who’s half serious about producing anything to just give it a shot on YouTube.”

Once a high school teacher from Montreal, Morenstein, 26, now focuses on

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the YouTube channel full time. He makes sure the show is all that it can be – he even designed the popular Bacon Strips T-shirts to promote the channel. The other EpicMealTime stars aren’t as involved in the process as a whole, so they have time to work or study and participate in filming.

Fame and money weren’t Morenstein’s YouTube goals. He just planned on making videos he would want to watch and have fun doing it.

“Don’t treat it as a means to make money or be famous,” he said. “Get to that after.

Make sure you commit to doing a show you want to do. Make sure it’s something you’re interested in.”

The show started when Morenstein wanted to film fitness training videos with his friend and co-star of EpicMealTime, Muscles Glasses. They decided to make a “cheat” video one day a week. Trainers and bodybuilders are often on specific diets, so the cheat video would include multiple foods full of calories and sugars mixed together. The first video filmed was a cheat day – burgers on a pizza. They enjoyed it so much, they decided to make all videos cheat videos.

“I know a couple of trainers or bodybuilders who have to follow a strict diet and it’s just a guilty pleasure to watch us doing the exact opposite,” Morenstein said. “It’s like them eating vicariously through us.”

The downside? The channel’s making

STORY & PHOTOS BY

SARAH LENNOX

everyone fatter, Morenstein said.

When they aren’t filming, the guys from EpicMealTime eat the same foods they eat onscreen.

“It’s real life,” Morenstein said. “We’re dying. We’re killing ourselves. If we’re not dead in a couple of months, we’re not doing it right.”

On the other hand, YouTube has changed the Hindi sisters’ lives without harming their health.

“I was in the bathroom and this girl came up and said ‘oh my god! You’re from The Hillywood Show’,” said Hilly Hindi, 22, complete with an animated and nasally voice. “There was a whole line of girls and a lot of people didn’t know what she was talking about. I was there with a big red face and I bolted out of the bathroom.”

A Twilight parody and a Lady Gaga Halloween video were The Hillywood Show’s claims to Internet fame. The Las Vegas sister duo admits to focusing on hot topics to up their view count, but the hard work and details they include in their videos don’t hurt either. The girls spend one or two months creating each video they upload to YouTube. They sit down together to form an idea they both like – Hilly’s mind runs wild, but Hannah, 26, keeps her little sister on a realistic path.

When they agree on a story, they write the script. Hannah, the organized sister, takes over at this point. She’s responsible for directing, acting, and keeping everything

on schedule while Hilly focuses more on acting and editing. The two opposites make a perfect pair for YouTube stardom.

The Hillywood parodies stand out because of the amount of work and the attention to detail that go into each video. Some viewers have called the girls out on the quality of the productions, thinking the channel is run by rich girls who are handed everything on a silver platter.

Hilly and Hannah insist that isn’t true. They work hard to complete projects and try not to let the negative comments get to them.

Though they sell T-shirts, the money goes toward charity and future videos.

“This isn’t our job,” Hannah said. “We actually don’t get paid to do The Hillywood Show. We’ve never made a dime off of it. We’re just pursuing a dream.”

The fact that their upload view count is almost at 28 million shows that hard work really does pay off. The pair of dance instructors doesn’t make any money from the gig, but they aren’t about to start taking the fame for granted.

“Our lives changed six years ago and we had no idea how crazy it was going to be, but it’s also a really fun thing and we’re enjoying every minute of it,” Hannah said.

Canadians on YouTube

Stacey Brennan is all about makeup. The platinum blonde makeup artist has been flown to the U.S. to promote a line of cosmetic brushes. She also gets recognized when she walks around Toronto, her hometown.

Brennan has more than 14,000 subscribers and more than 1.4 million video views. Being a YouTube beauty guru has opened doors that Brennan may not have encountered otherwise.

“I kind of became the unofficial spokesperson for [Royal & Langnickel],” she said. “They found out about me and we started talking. They approached me after Christmas and asked if they could fly me in to do these professional videos for them.”

She’s dealt with negative comments, including insults about even the tiniest zit, but allows them to roll right off.

Keeping up with viewers’ comments and educating others

are her main focuses. She plans on keeping up with her channel, but Brennan does have some regrets.

“I wish I hadn’t made my [screen] name my name,” she said. “It’s a very good thing as it’s helping me brand my own name, but it also sucks because people all know my name. As my subscriber base grows, the privacy level is going to get lower and lower.”

The biggest problem?

“I have to be aware that somebody might recognize me somewhere and I have to make sure that I always have my hair done and my makeup done because heaven forbid they see me in track pants!”

It’s one issue the creators of The Violent Comedy Show won’t have to worry about. Matt Wakefield and Emily Jenkins started conceptualizing episodes for their new web series in October 2011. The show takes common jokes, like a chicken crossing a road or a dumb blonde, and turns them into something gorier. One episode will play on an interrupting cow joke. A cow will squirt milk onto a body after stabbing it. Though Wakefield and Jenkins work together throughout the process, Jenkins is mainly responsible for directing and producing, while Wakefield focuses on writing and working through the online aspects. The crew spent six months casting, writing, directing, filming, and editing the first batch of seven episodes.

“It’s the nature of the Internet that you want to have as much in the can [ready to upload] as possible before you start releasing because if you miss a release date, [viewers will] hate you for the rest of time,” Wakefield said. “Nobody’s going to watch your videos after that.”

Jenkins is in her third year of Ryerson’s radio and television program, while Wakefield is a graduate of the same course.

Jenkins’ enrolment allows the group to use Ryerson’s equipment and editing programs, putting less of a financial strain on the production. Other than the equipment assistance, the project has been independently funded by the duo.

“If they’re popular, hopefully we’d like to get funding for the next batch, but I think it depends

The Violent Comedy Show has been on YouTube since October 2011 and was filmed here in Toronto

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Organic: These videos seem to come out of nowhere and are found without any marketing efforts Organic with guerilla marketing: These videos look like classic YouTube videos, but they have subtle branding and use stealthy marketing techniques Organic with explicit marketing: These videos market a company or product in an open and obvious way Pay for views: These videos are promoted in ads and on the YouTube homepage

Actors gather from all around the city to act in The Violent Comedy Show

on how much they’re shared and the level of success,” said Jenkins. “We’ll have to consider whether or not to continue spending our own money on it.”

The online show is scheduled to be posted on Mondays and Thursdays. The actual jokes videos will be uploaded Mondays while Thursday’s videos will include interviews with the actors and comedians in the videos. The Violent Comedy Show may run all year or be cut into seasons, depending on how the first seven videos fare on the web. The creators hope the videos will become popular by using social media and using personal contacts, but they aren’t getting their hopes up. Right now, the show is being used as a future portfolio piece for employers.

“Ultimately, we’re under no illusions that we’re going to make any money from little two-minute videos that are being released on YouTube unless Justin Bieber stars in them,” said Wakefield. “We want to be able to go to people in the future because web series’ are taking off and they’re going to be the next big thing, so we want to be able to go to people now and say, ‘this is what we put out.’”

“If they’re popular on the Internet, it’s just a bonus,” added Jenkins.

The experts weigh in

There are four different types of viral videos, said Wendy Rozeluk, YouTube’s Toronto communications manager.

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Though it’s easy to classify viral videos after they’ve made their rounds, it’s difficult to predict which videos will make it big.

“We don’t really see any one type of video standing out more or people posting more of,” said Rozeluk. “All categories do quite well on YouTube.”

Technically, a viral video is a clip that spikes in popularity before dropping off.

A video can spend months on YouTube before being discovered, said Rozeluk.

There is, however, one way to ensure a hit.

“If your video is reviewed by Ray William Johnson, it is almost guaranteed to go viral because he has so many followers and subscribers,” said Daniel Fisher chief operating officer of Viral Spiral, a company that helps new viral stars figure out their fame. “It means your video is automatically getting a huge amount of eyes on it.”

Johnson, however, is the most subscribed YouTube user, making it difficult to get a spot on the biweekly show.

Neither expert could comment on why users post what they do, but Fisher said Viral Spiral often works with videos that have been made during a spur of the moment occurrence (Charlie Bit My Finger, Sneezing Panda, etc.). Some viral videos took time to create, but many seem to be unplanned – it’s all about filming at the right time and in the right place.

Though the positives can be tempting, Fisher said there are also negatives to posting on YouTube. Users open themselves up to hurtful criticism, theft of content, and a possible leak of personal details.

Great opportunities are out there, but few end up with financial gain and appearances on The Ellen Degeneres Show.

Users won’t be let down if they make videos solely to have fun and become part of a large community.

If you want to be one of the first to know about a soon-to-be-popular video, Rozeluk suggested checking out YouTube’s trend page.

Profitable or a waste of time?

Though Wakefield is just starting out on YouTube, he said anyone who wants to make money has other websites to choose from.

“YouTube has a really terrible ad revenue

model where they take the majority of your money,” he said. “There are better sites to use, like blip.tv that split it 50/50 with you and they’re really trying to push the web brand.”

With all of the traffic on the website, it’s often much easier to get views on YouTube, but many YouTube users and experts agree money shouldn’t be the first priority.

“If you have the numbers there, you can make profit, but first you have to get the numbers,” said Wakefield.

Going viral gets you the numbers you need to profit from the website, but finding a sure-fire method to achieving viral status seems almost impossible.

Bigger and Better Thing

• The Hillywood Show stars want to be picked up by a television network to film a show similar to Saturday Night Live for teens • EpicMealTime will just keep posting more videos • bbeautymarkd wants to make shorter videos more regularly and show viewers videos of her applying makeup at work

YouTube Stats

• Over 3 billion videos are viewed each day. That’s about half of the world’s population • Users post 48 hours of video every minute • Eight years of footage are uploaded daily • 70 per cent of YouTube traffic comes from countries other than the U.S. • Some YouTube stars make six figure salaries each year through ads on their videos

YouTube Terminology

YouTubers: someone who posts regularly Partner YouTubers: who post regularly and have the chance to make money through ads posted on their videos Meme: a popular image, video or saying that becomes part of Internet culture Beauty guru: someone who posts videos to share fashion and beauty tips and tricks Troll: someone who posts negative or off topic comments online simply to provoke a reaction from readers

Tips for Future YouTubers

• Harley Morenstein, EpicMealTime, said consistency is key – don’t miss a release date.

• Micaela Jordan, bbeautymarkd, suggested an HD camera and good lighting.

• Stacey Brennan, staceybrennan, said you should be yourself and have fun.

• Hilly and Hannah Hindi, jcksparrow, think users should be original and different.

• Viral Spiral’s Daniel Fisher advised new users to stay away from exploitative, inappropriate or offensive videos.

Snakes and Lattes STORY & PHOTO BY

KELLY SNIDER

T

here is a shelf. And on that shelf there are rows of the board games: Apples to Apples, 10 Days in Africa, Candyland, Card Rummy, Navegador, PÜNCT, Monopoly, Jenga, Sky Runner, The Secret of Monte Cristo, Mouse Trap, Lie Detector, Impact Zone, Clue, Battle of the Sexes, Old Maid, Razzel, Pressure Point, The Da Vinci Code Game, Catch Phrase, backgammon, Axis & Allies, 7 Wonders, Walk the Plank, and Family Feud. These games and thousands of others can be found in a little café on Bloor Street called Snakes and Lattes.

The café’s dim lighting, comfortable couches, wooden chairs, and brick walls with splashes of bright colours resembles

the café from Friends. Menu offerings include a tomato, basil, and goat cheese quiche, Italian ham with Swiss cheese and lettuce sandwich, chocolate fondant and classic candy, like Chupa Chups lollipops.

The most important part of the café, however, is the wall to wall board games.

“We have over 2,000 board games,” said manager Jon-Paul Decosse, 36. “We bought lots of games over eBay, at Value Village and Craigslist.”

Once they had a base collection of 500 games, the staff made sure the selection would appeal to a variety of people, not just the casual gamers who play Monopoly.

Decosse said the idea of the board game café originated in Europe and is far more

mainstream in other parts of the world than it is in North America. The TransEurope Café in Glasgow is one of the many board game cafés scattered across Europe.

These cafés are also a trend in Asia, and the Meeples European Board Game Café in Selangor, Malaysia is just one of many. But Snakes and Lattes, which made its official debut at the end of summer 2010, is the only board game café in Toronto.

The unique concept of Snakes and Lattes gave it its popularity, but the $5 cover charge is what keeps the café afloat financially.

“The five dollar charge is per person and we could probably seat somewhere around 130 people at one time,” Decosse

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said. “The admission fee helps us cover the cost of the collection, and making sure the lights stay on.”

The wide selection of board games and local beer attract hundreds of people to Snakes and Lattes each weekend, but it’s the staff that tie the whole place together. Snakes and Lattes employs the board game-savvy, like Decosse who has about 300 games in his apartment. Aaron Zack is one of those, too.

“I actually came here to buy coffee one day, and they were so swamped that I ran behind the counter and helped them,” said bar manager Zack, 22, who calls himself a secret game nerd.

Public relations manager of the café, Sean Jacquemain, said this job is perfect for him.

“This is what I would be doing on my own … teaching people how to play games, interacting with people, making connections. This is the kind of a job that was chosen for me through my interest and it just so happens I can make money doing it and contribute to a business,” said Jacquemain, 34.

Recently, Snakes and Lattes has been granted a liquor licence. Zack said the liquor licence has helped put the café on the charts for a Saturday night out.

“I think it offers a really interesting third space between staying at home and going to a bar because we have a really homey atmosphere where you don’t have to feel like you need to dress up or act a certain way,” Zack said. “It’s great that we serve liquor. I think it’s fantastic. I just feel like we’re a big relaxed house party, with board games.”

Decosse added that, for those who like to go out clubbing, the café has become a spot to have a drink before going out or a place to relax afterward, since it is open until 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The café’s success has brought on some obstacles. Websites like Yelp, a review site where people can post their experiences and rate the café, highlight the fact that Snakes and Lattes won’t cost a fortune for a night out, but some comments point out that wait times are an issue.

“When we had our original one-side café, we applied for our liquor licence for that space, and were given it. So when waiting times for tables were growing to two or more hours on a weekend, we knew we needed to figure out how to deal with it. That is when we got the second section which used to be a computer repair shop, and is our dry area,” Decosse said.

Decosse said the renovation helped at first, but another wave of popularity came with the extra space and weekend wait times of two to three hours became the norm once again.

“The next phase is to renovate the café. In the next month or two hopefully, we’re going to take down the wall that separates the two halves, build a state-of-the-art-bar, add beer taps, hopefully add another 30 to 40 seats, and re-apply for our liquor licence,” Decosse said.

Jacquemain sees the café expanding to other Canadian cities, and even farther.

“I would hope to expand throughout the country, North America, or even the world,” said Jacquemain. “This [café] is an idea that other people have had and for some reason we’ve done it in a way that’s successful. I would love to continue that and try it out in other cities with the same model.”

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BY SARA YONIS Scribe’s Sara Yonis sat down for a Q&A with sax player Kyle Woodward, 23, and guitarist/vocalist Tom Hanley, 22. The two have teamed up with trumpet player Max Stanutz, 23, bassist Andrew Wright, 21, keyboardist Craig Clemens, 24, and drummer Claudio Santaluce, 22, to form high-energy funk-band Juice.

Q: How are you different from other bands?

Tom Hanley: We put a lot of effort into instrumentation, songwriting, and our high-energy performances. Also, you don’t often see contemporary bands really take full advantage of horns. Usually a horn section won’t be included, and is sort of told, here’s your music, and we’ll tell you when to come in.

Kyle Woodward: Yeah, and then it’s like five notes.

TH: Yeah, and with Juice, the horns are a major part of the creative process, and they’re always at the rehearsals.

KW: Everyone in the band is integral – without one instrument the band wouldn’t be the same.

Q: Can you tell us how the band formed?

KW: I guess it started just after our first year of college. Tom and I were in residence together and started to jam over the summer. Then more and more people started to show up – some of my friends and some of Tom’s – until it became this massive 13-piece band.

TH: It was a big band with a sort of funk feel.

KW: Yeah, we played cover songs, and we called ourselves Signed, Sealed & Delivered after the Stevie Wonder song. We played at some weddings and for a couple parties. After the summer we revamped the band, just because everyone went back to school. That’s when Juice really started to take form.

Q: With a lot of indie bands there’s not a lot of money to go around. How are you guys managing?

TH: Basically any money the band makes from ticket sales, CD sales or anything – it all goes back into the band account and then we use that money to cover all expenses for travel and recording. Yeah, everything goes back into the band.

Q: Where have you played?

KW: Well our shows are really high-energy so we play a lot of university/college towns. Peterborough, Kingston, and Waterloo, for sure – they have a really high student population.

TH: Yeah, and obviously we play here in Toronto a lot. We’ve played at the Horseshoe Tavern, Lee’s Palace, and the El Mocambo.

Q: How would you describe the band’s sound?

TH: Well, we released a six-song EP and they are a real mix of funk, rock, hip hop and there’s even some jazz for sure in there. But since then we’ve got more of an indie-rock feel, but still really focusing on composition and a lot of energy.

KW: Really though we never set out to fit into any particular genre. We’re never like, let’s write a rock song. It’s really an organic process.

TH: Yeah, especially now, it’s really hard to put the band in a specific genre.

Yeah, we’ve got a lot of funk and rock, but it doesn’t end there.

Q: What’s your biggest achievement this far?

TH: Well really it’s just the fact that we continue to make music. It’s really tough out there. We’re not signed and are really doing everything ourselves. The music industry is upside-down right now. No one is really signing bands right now, so you just have to do it yourself. And you know it’s great. We get the chance to make all our decisions.

KW: Yeah, the way the music industry is right now sort of forces you to stay true to yourself.

I spit on your dvd Cult movies and why people love them

BY LIME BLAKE

I

remember sitting in the theatre watching xXx (2002, Revolution Studios) and being baffled and unimpressed by the awful dialogue and over-thetop action scenes before me. Kids at school said this was such an awesome movie, and in the back of my mind, as I watched Vin Diesel roar through the streets in his custom GTO equipped with rocket launchers and machine guns, blowing up everything in sight, I thought my classmates were insane. But as I sat there sighing, bored and picking at what was left in my bag of popcorn, I heard something unexpected beside me. I looked over at my two older brothers.

They were curled up with hands over their mouths, feet against the backrests in front of them, snickering and cackling at every ludicrous thing onscreen. My brothers were laughing at the movie, and they were legitimately enjoying all the stupid crap they were laughing at. I couldn’t believe it. What was I missing?

Was I just taking this flick way too seriously? I looked back at the theatre screen, reclined in my seat, and cleared my head of all critical thought. And then after a while I found myself surprised that all the stupid crap entertained me as well.

Many movies dubbed “bad” by critics upon initial release are now considered cult classics and are cherished by many adoring fans, myself included. I’ll go to my grave defending “trash cinema” like Super Mario Bros. (1993, Hollywood Pictures) and Caligula (1979, Penthouse Films International) even though sometimes I find myself stumped for reasons why I feel so attached to them. And really, what is it about these kinds of low-grade and often criticized movies that people love so much?

Rogers Video employee Bronwen Dwyer, 24, sees a lot of merit in cult movies – even the really bad ones.

In fact, one of her hobbies is scouring the local chain thrift stores in her town for long-forgotten VHS tapes of such schlocky entertainment value.

“First off, they’re like a dollar,” Dwyer said. “And you look at them and think, somebody paid a lot more for this a long time ago.”

“It really gives you a glimpse at the time [the movies] came out. … You’re watching it, and it’s 25 years later, I wonder what these people think of what they made, if they would even talk about this movie with anyone else.”

While rummaging through her extensive movie collection ranging from cult classics like Taxi Driver (1976, Columbia Pictures Corporation), to controversial must-sees like Cannibal Holocaust

COURTESY

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TOP L I M ET’ SM O V I E S CUL

1. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988, Chiodo Brothers Productions):

The Gone with the Wind of cult movies, Killer Klowns from Outer Space offers a healthy mix of horror and humour, that offers stellar animatronics, a wellwritten script, and a reflexive and clever take on alien invasion/monster flicks from the 1950s. Killer Klowns is proof that not all “B-grade” flicks are bad.

2. UHF

(1989, Orion Pictures):

“Weird Al” Yankovic lampoons ‘80s pop culture tropes with this movie about a humble creative genius who inherits a local dingy UHF station, and how he brings the network so far up the television ranks that it challenges the number one station in the city. A genuinely endearing and funny movie that pokes fun at everything we love about cable television, while adding Yankovic’s own brand of twisted humour.

3. Barberella: Queen of the Galaxy (1968, Marianne Productions):

Based on the 1962 French comic series by JeanClaude Forest, Barbarella tells the story of an intergalactic woman on a mission to the planet of Tau Ceti to find Doctor Durand Durand, the only man alive who can save Planet Earth from peril. While on her quest, Barbarella (Jane Fonda) “frolics” with various space men she meets along the way in a lighthearted romp for anyone into campy science fiction.

4. Black Dynamite

(2009, Destination Films):

A reflexive love letter to 1970s blaxploitation films, Black Dynamite is about a CIA agent on a mission to rid the community’s orphanages of smack – all while becoming entangled with the Black Panthers, pimps, crooked agents, and deadly kung-fu treachery. Black Dynamite is a genuine experience that hilariously (and very accurately) examines the genre that gave us other cult classics such as Shaft and Foxy Brown.

5. I Spit on Your Grave (1978, Cinemagic Pictures):

On vacation to work on her novel, Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) finds herself the subject of rape and revenge in an intense and visceral experience that will leave a mark on viewers that is sure to last. This polarizing film, originally released as Day of the Woman. is both a powerful and disturbing experience, held dear by many cult movie fans as well as victims of physical abuse for its empowering message of strength against all odds.

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(1980, F.D. Cinematografica), and campy public domain flicks like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959, Reynolds Pictures), Dwyer admitted she finds herself defending the movies she loves on a regular basis. An example she used was when a customer came into the store looking for “so bad it’s good” movies.

“I told him to buy them, because they’re worth owning, and most stores don’t have them to rent,” Dwyer said, and added, “My co-worker was like, ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to watch movies like that.’ … “I was like, well how can you not want to watch them? They’re extremely entertaining and they’re hilarious. And she was like, ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to take two hours out of their life to do this.’ It is hard to defend.”

Dwyer compared the enjoyment of cult movies to people who feel called to particular instruments or people who like a certain kind of art. “You either get it or you don’t,” she said, adding, “It’s unfortunate, to try and really sell people on these [kinds of movies].

They look at me like I’m a dog that’s been shown a magic trick.”

Josh Bloom, 24-year-old film student and vice-president of a weekly campusrun “bad movies” club echoed Dwyer’s opinion. During a break between that Friday night’s double feature of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987, Atlantic Entertainment) and Vampegeddon (2010, Trout Creative) in the campus’ lecture hall, Bloom said the students who show up to the weekly club get enjoyment out of the movies because “they are made simply to entertain people”.

“The reasoning behind students enjoying these movies is they want to see what a ‘bad’ movie is,” Bloom said. “A lot of the people who come out to [the club] already have either an appreciation for the movie itself, or for the … work that goes into [them].”

Case in point: Troll 2 (1990, Filmirage), a movie about a kid named Joshua and his dead Grandpa Seth trying to save their family from the hungry maws of shape-shifting vegan goblins after Joshua and his family unwittingly vacation in the sleepy town of Nilbog, the goblins’ kingdom.

Troll 2 has so much going on in it: stiff and questionable dialogue (“You can’t piss on hospitality!”), incredibly cheap goblin costumes made of burlap sacks, and even an awkward sex scene involving a corn cob and torrents of exploding popcorn. Award-winning Best Worst Movie (2009, Magic Stone Productions) explores the movie’s strong-growing cult status despite its notoriety in the film community.

Humber College film and sociology professor Curtis Maloley said cultural distinction plays a huge part in the appeal of cult films among particular audience groups.

“Cult movies give individuals the opportunity to share distinct knowledge of a cultural product that falls outside of what is perceived as mainstream culture,” Maloley said.

“It’s not that any cult film is inherently

‘good’ or ‘bad’ per se, but rather that such films do not adhere to definitions of what is considered to be valuable, or artistic, or of ‘quality’ by the majority of viewers. Saying that something is ‘so bad it’s good’ is really just saying ‘I liked the movie because it is the opposite of what most people like.’ It provides a sense of individuality and

community for those who reject the standard definitions of popularity in the culture industries.”

Christian Burgess, program coordinator for the Toronto After Dark genre film festival, agrees that not all cult-movies are bad.

“Movies are escapism,” he said. “I love movies because [they take] me out of my crappy life. You have a bad day, you can go out or sit at home and see a COURTESY

movie, and put your brain on hold.”

As a supervisor for nine years at Jumbo Video, Burgess said he had a certain selection of family-friendly movies he’d play throughout the day.

“One of my favourites when I used to work at Jumbo Video was Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988, Chiodo Bros.

Productions),” Burgess laughed. “I

don’t think it’s a bad film – it’s a B-film for sure, but I think the movie’s great.

As supervisor, I had a certain selection of movies I’d play, and my first choice was always Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Lucasfilm) and as the night went on, I’d put on my schlocky B-films.

And I remember customers used to come in and ask, what the hell are you watching?”

Burgess adds, “It’s one of my personal ‘bad’ films, but I love it. It’s creepy clowns trying to kidnap humans for snacks. It sounds absurd, but it kind of [pays homage to] the alien invasion movies from the ‘50s.”

Maloley uses the example of movies like Donnie Darko (2001, Flower Films): “Films like that are actually very intelligent and well-made, but become ‘cult films’ because they receive very little official promotion or distribution, but still become popular through word of mouth.”

Maloley said in Donnie Darko’s case, the movie centres on a boy’s nightmarish visions after a plane crashes into his house, which Maloley feels was seen as problematic due to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“The genre film makers out there take risks with stories they grew up with, and things you normally wouldn’t see,” Burgess said.

“You can go to a festival like ours, and chances are you won’t see these kinds of movies play at your local multiplex.

You take a chance on seeing something you wouldn’t normally see. Everybody has their own little things that pique their curiosity about these movies.”

Burgess uses Watchmen (2009, Legendary Pictures) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Universal Pictures) as prime examples – stating that although they were well-done films, they didn’t get the attention or praise they deserved.

Cult movies, which used to sit dustcoated in the most shadowy parts of the local “Mom & Pop” rental store, are now very readily accessible to consumers through venues such as video streaming and online-only stores.

Burgess said the Internet and social media have connected people in such a way that has changed the world forever.

“When you really pour a lot of money into a movie and promote it like it’s some kind of big hit of the decade … you make money off of that, but it’s less entertaining,” Dwyer said.

“There’s something really special about something like The Room (2006, Wiseau-Films) or Troll 2 because [they’re] really unique … They’re really honest about what they are: just pure entertainment.”

6. Super Mario BroS.

(1993, Hollywood Pictures):

This one’s an interesting and surprisingly dark take on the beloved Nintendo game’s instruction manual plot, where the Mario Bros. (played by Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) travel to an alternate dimension to save the Mushroom Kingdom from the political treachery of “President” Bowser Koopa (Dennis Hopper).

Watched with an open mind, this one’s superb for a group of friends on a Friday night.

7. Troll 2

(1990, Filmirage):

A must-see for any fan of “so bad it’s good” movies, Troll 2 shares no relation with its predecessor, and is well-known for its stiff and hammy quotes. Troll 2 has become a cherished gem among fans, with multiple screenings across North America over the years and a documentary about the film’s cult success.

8. The Room

(2003, Wiseau-Films):

Director/actor/producer Tommy Wiseau really made something “special” when he created The Room. Thanks to Mr. Wiseau, this confusing travesty of a movie (about the main character’s fiancé cheating on him with his best friend) has attained such a cult status that it has essentially become the new generation’s Rocky Horror Picture Show; adoring fans get together at screenings dressed up as their favourite characters and shout out various badly-written lines in time with integral scenes.

9. Caligula

(1979, Penthouse Films International):

At its core, Caligula is about the rise and fall of power-hungry Roman emperor, Caius Caligula (Malcolm McDowell), but as a whole, the film has an incredible history that ranges from the fact it is essentially a big-budget theatrical porno with an all-star cast with a script penned by critically lauded novelist Gore Vidal, to the fact that it was financially backed by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. Roger Ebert has said this movie is one of the few he’s ever walked out of, but Caligula is a decent watch for anyone looking for something to talk about.

10. Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959, Reynolds Pictures):

The name “Ed Wood” is notorious among critics and lauded adoring fans. Plan 9 from Outer Space is Wood’s best-known film, about aliens resurrecting the dead in an attempt to take over Earth. Also featuring the last appearance of classic horror icon Bela Lugosi, Plan 9 is known for its shoddy special effects (UFOs are blatantly hubcaps on strings), clunky set pieces (cardboard cut-out cemetery grave stones) and hammy dialogue. It’s a testament to aspiring film makers, budgetary confinements, and the struggles of the creative process.

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THE MACHINE

Anatomy of a cage fighter H

is fans call him “The Machine,” but Mark Hominick is really a family man who loves to fight.

Inside the Octagon, Hominick prepares for his next fight. Hands wrapped in black bandages, he slides them into a pair of boxing gloves, and stands poised, facing his trainer. Through the chain-link fence, Hominick roars with energy as the leather of his glove hits his opponent’s pad. With every jab, an instinctive grunt escapes between heavy breaths. Each is full of determination, passion, and frustration.

Frustration at the fact that even though 2011 was the biggest year of Hominck’s career, it could have been much bigger.

While facing one of the very best fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) last April, Hominick, 29, had the backing of the 55,000 plus in attendance at the Rogers Centre and for five minutes in the final round, it seemed he would become the new UFC Featherweight Champion. Even in defeat, Hominick put on a great performance and earned himself thousands of new fans. But just eight months later, after the death of his best friend and trainer, Shawn Tompkins,

18

his performance was far from captivating.

Knocked down and finished in seven seconds against “The Korean Zombie” Chan-Sung Jung, Hominick found himself on the wrong end of one of the quickest fights in MMA history. It was a two-fight losing streak. One more and Hominick would be forced to end his time with the biggest promotion in the business.

In the span of one year, he’s gone from fighting for a UFC title to fighting for his life in the Octagon. But he’s trying to stay positive going into his next fight.

“Right now, I’m just thinking about winning,” Hominick said. “That’s all I’m thinking about. People get so stressed about getting a title fight, but I think you have to earn it. The UFC and the fans will tell you when you’re ready for that. I have to go out there and make a performance so everybody takes notice and hopefully, down the road I’ll get another shot.”

Despite the two-fight skid, the man they call “The Machine” is still a force in the featherweight division, even if he isn’t as highly ranked as he was just a year ago.

Strength coach Brian Fletcher said the Thamesford, Ont. native has something the

STORY & PHOTOS BY

USTAD KHAIRA

rest of the division doesn’t.

“Strength is the great equalizer and Mark has strength in spades,” said Fletcher.

“If two guys have the same skill set, the stronger one will have the advantage.

[Hominick is] one of the strongest poundfor-pound guys out there.”

Before coming to the UFC, Hominick found success on smaller shows like World Extreme Cagefighting and Universal Combat Challenge (UCC). Often, fighters find themselves pushed too high, too soon in the UFC, but it was this steady buildup that prepared Hominick to handle the pressure of fighting on the biggest stage. Branching out from his first (and preferred) fighting discipline of kickboxing and becoming a complete mixed martial artist before hitting the big show meant being capable of taking on the highest competition.

“I was lucky enough to fight in big fights right away,” said Hominick. “When we were fighting with UCC and TKO [Major League MMA] in Montreal, they put on such a big event and big show that we were used to the big stage, doing the interviews, having the big crowd. My first fight, there were

5,000 people there, live on pay-per-view.”

The bright lights and cameras, the big audience, and the trademark Octagon of the UFC don’t faze Hominick as they do other fighters who make it big early. He was in the right mental state, prepared for everything the business demands both inside and outside the cage.

“We were used to that. It was Georges StPierre, myself, David Loiseau, Patrick Cote – we all fought in these shows, so we were used to the size of the show,” Hominick said.

After a decade of training and paying dues in smaller shows, Hominck’s hard work was finally about to pay off.

In January 2011, UFC President Dana White announced a win over George Roop would give Hominick a chance at gold against José Aldo in front of a record crowd.

His first round blitz and TKO finish of Roop put him in that fight, the first featherweight title match in UFC history.

The bout itself saw Hominick win “Fight of the Night” honours in a contest that had him losing through four rounds, but never finishing. The fifth round, though, was where Hominick won the fans over. With a hematoma on the right side of his head that had most wondering how he was still going, Hominick put Aldo on his back and laid a beating for the better part of five minutes.

“I knew I was behind, and I knew I was trying to put him away,” he said of his fifth round performance. It wasn’t to be and with the end of the round came a unanimous judge’s decision in the favour of reigning champion Aldo.

There was no time to dwell on the loss.

Two weeks later, Hominick’s wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Raeya.

“It was definitely tough [to focus on training], but I did the whole camp in Canada this time, so that made it easier – just making sure that everything was taken

care of. Time management was a big issue there, but I learned a lot about how to successfully do that,” he said.

As is the norm when becoming a new parent, duties and responsibilities began to change. And for Hominick, it meant less time in the gym.

“You just have to remember what’s important. A lot of the extracurriculars stopped. Free time, there’s not a lot of that, but the time and joy with my daughter is a lot more rewarding. It’s given me a lot more focus on what’s more important to life,” Hominick said.

Three months after welcoming his daughter into the world, Hominick was forced to deal with the sudden death of Tompkins, who passed away of a heart attack in his sleep.

“He influenced me as a person as much as he did a fighter,” said Hominick. “He was a life mentor to me, was the best man at my wedding. He paved the way for all of us [at the gym] and gave us the opportunities that we have today and all the sacrifices that he made allow us to do what we have to do today.”

For his next fight against “The Korean Zombie,” Hominick said he was motivated to fight for Tompkins and carry on his legacy, a focus that may have distracted him during training and, come fight night, will again.

“He wasn’t in the corner, wasn’t part of the training camp. I went in there with all kinds of motivation and it may have been the wrong motivation. We wanted to win for Shawn instead of just focusing on winning. I came out too aggressive,” he said.

Two straight defeats, the second being a seven-second loss, put Hominick in a tough spot in his next fight against Eddie Yagin.

In the UFC, three straight losses usually gets the fighter a pink-slip. But when the first loss is in a championship fight and the second following the loss of your head

coach, things get complicated.

“If he loses to Yagin, his job will be on the line,” said James Brydon, managing editor for Sportsnet MMA. “If he’s stopped quickly

by Yagin, he could potentially be cut. Such is life in the UFC.” Hominick isn’t thinking about being cut or about getting back into title contention; he’s just focusing on winning. For Hominick, who got into the sport out of the love for competition, this next fight is just about getting back to his roots.

He doesn’t fight to make tonnes of money or to be famous; he fights for the competition and for the thrill of victory. He aims to help grow the sport in Ontario and inform those who believe the MMA to be barbaric.

“The biggest thing is education. Show people more than just the MMA aspect of it,” he said. “People need to see who these fighters are and what they represent and the sport that they compete in. They’ll start to understand all the different aspects and see how exciting and unpredictable it is.”

For Hominick, everything that’s happened during his career has been a learning experience and he said he wouldn’t change a thing. What remains, after day in and day out, is his hunger.

“My motivation has always been to win and it still is. I’m still hungry. 11 years into my career and I’m still hungry. When you lose that passion, that’s when you start to see guys die off and I definitely still have my passion for what I do,” he said.

Within a year Hominick has gone from the high of a title shot to the low of losing his third straight fight. In his latest matchup, on April 21 in Atlanta, Hominick lost to Eddie Yagin in a very close decision.

Despite losing his third straight bout, he remains a fan favourite, and was given fight of the night honours.

That alone may have saved his job, for now.

Mark Hominick trains out of London, Ont.

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tattoo life

It’s more than just ink imbedded in skin, it’s a memory. You can write stories, film stories, paint stories, dance to a story, and you can tell a story through a tattoo.

STORY & PHOTOS BY MEAGAN MALLOCH

KAY TINDALE, 45

“The first one I got when I was 17. That one was the only one that was not planned. It was the first time I went. It was with my boyfriend’s friends. Everyone was doing it so it was just to try and see what it was like. But I am glad I got it somewhere where I can cover it up.”

AMANDA KUZYK, 20

“My zodiac sign is Aries, and fire is my element. As well, it looks like a ‘K’ for my last name so it is multi-symbolic. “

VICTORIA DEW, 20

“It’s been a really long year.

It’s hard to see him and the family deal with [his cancer]. So I wanted to get something that was specifically meant for [my stepfather] and what he is going through. I think it is important to have faith in cases like this.”

CARLOS RODRIGUES, 41 “When I first came to Canada, I used to watch Bugs Bunny.”

CLARE CLOUT, 40

“I think turning 30 was part of the reason that made me want to get the tattoo. It was really hard on me. It kind of took away from the idea of me turning 30.

It is kind of a youthful thing to do.”

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JILL TINDALE, 35

“I got it done at the Palms. It represented freedom. I’ve always loved dolphins so when I saw the picture I knew that was the one I wanted.”

BY GEOFF BUNCOMBE

from the slopes to the streets COURTESY

JIBBING

COURTESY

urban snowboarding

21

N

early a dozen onlookers stood at the bottom of the unassuming hill and tried to decipher the scene. On a warm and utterly snowless November afternoon, more than 20 colourfully dressed men stood atop the incline, boisterously strapping snowboards to their feet. Rising out of the grassy hill were two freshly waxed rails, and what resembled a bent ironing board. Most confounding for the gawkers must have been the trail of snow that lead up to and away from the objects, harvested from the parking lot of a nearby hockey rink and transported via pickup truck to its final resting place.

At the top of the hill, the excited chatter stopped and an eerie silence fell over the snowboarders. The looks on their faces said they were sharing a moment of realization. Here they were about to throw themselves off makeshift jumps to spin and slide across those freshly waxed rails. The reckless lack of helmets among the group upped the level of danger, and there were no medics on hand things went wrong. But it was time to jib.

“It’s nerve racking,” 20-year-old jibenthusiast Luke Camozzi said of the first run of the day. “When you’re setting up it’s all jokes and stuff, talking about what you’re going to try. But then you actually have to drop in and lay down some warm up tricks to build your confidence up to try the real hammers.”

Jibbing is the art of urban snowboarding, often with very little snow to speak of, and it appeals to the inner daredevil that lives within the sub-conscience of nearly every snowboarder. The inherent danger of the tricks is amplified, but more than sheer danger, it’s the unlimited potential for creativity and the free and easy access that draws boarders to this increasingly popular sub-category of shredding.

The potential for creativity is only limited by how much gas is in the tank, and how risky you’re willing to get. Any group of boarders with a truck, a shovel, and a camera can take to the streets to express themselves and practise their craft. In a sport that revolves so heavily around personal style and selfexpression, the accessibility and control associated with jibbing has given riders an unparalleled opportunity to gain exposure and experience even if they don’t have the resources or proximity to frequent mountains all season long.

“Free riding on a mountain is fun, easy, and usually painless if you know what you are doing,” Camozzi said. “But getting good at jibbing is something you have to work towards and when you get to that next level the sense of accomplishment is much greater.

There’s always a chance you might hurt yourself, but if you don’t try new things you won’t progress your riding. Snowboarding these days is all about progression.”

In a way, snowboarding has always been about progression. Smithsonian Magazine reported that the sport started in the United States in 1965 with surfer Sherman Poppens’ invention of the “Snurfer,” a pair of skis bound together with a rope to hold for stability. In the late ‘70s, Jake Burton and Tom Sims created the first snowboards with bindings, an invention that dramatically improved riders’ ability to control their boards and locked the two in competition for the better part of the next two decades.

Through those years, snowboarding exploded in popularity among teenagers, as the rebellious reputation associated with skateboard culture worked its way in to the sport. The sport was considered so outlandish, in fact, that the vast majority of North American ski resorts banned

Snow is transported from local hockey arenas|COURTESY

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snowboarding for the sake of their usual upper-class clients.

Smithsonian Magazine reported, in 1985, approximately 40 ski resorts in North America allowed snowboarding.

That number has risen steadily since then to include all but three ski resorts on the continent today.

“Snowboarding has always been about doing things differently. When the public sees this it might come across as disrespectful, but we’re just having fun,” says 19-year-old Bowmanville, Ont. native Jordan Sullivan, whose jib videos and contest wins have earned him sponsorships from a handful of major companies including Forum snowboards and O’Neill.

“It’s getting better now with the sport becoming more mainstream. Most people see it on television now and think of it more as a competitive sport rather than a hobby for little shit disturbers.”

Canada Snowboard, an online snowboarding forum, said in 1994, the International Olympic Committee adopted it for their next winter games in Nagano, Japan. The international press and attention gained from an Olympic appearance was set to legitimize the sport once and for all, but instead the debut was mired in controversy. Norwegian superstar Terje Haakonsen refused to participate in any of the qualifying events leading up to the Olympics due to a dispute between the sport’s original governing body, the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF), and the Olympic committee’s preferred International Ski Federation (FIS), which wanted nothing to do with snowboarding or snowboarders during the sport’s essential formative phase.

Haakonsen was widely considered to be the most skilled snowboarder in the world at the time, so news of his withdrawal from the Olympics was a major disappointment to fans.

Additional controversy erupted after Canadian Ross Rebagliati was awarded the first ever Olympic gold medal for snowboarding with his win in the giant slalom, but was abruptly stripped of his medal after testing positive for trace amounts of marijuana. The International Olympic Committee later reinstated Rebagliati’s gold medal because cannabis was not explicitly banned by their rules, but the incident left a sour taste in many people’s mouths and forever linked the controversial substance with the controversial sport.

“Snowboarders definitely get a bad rep because we wear baggy clothes, some of us do some drugs and stuff, and I guess we’re not really the best role models for kids because we’re throwing ourselves off jumps and smashing into rails,” Camozzi said.

“Especially on the street; we get kicked

out all the time. If you’re in a park you could get kicked out by the local people who call the cops on you for trespassing.”

Twelve years and three Olympic Winter Games after the sports’ auspicious debut in Nagano, British Columbia native Johnny Lyall became the most watched snowboarder in history as he launched himself through the Olympic rings at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 games. Lyall can attribute much of his success as a professional rider to jibbing. In his early days as an amateur, he took his camera and his craft to the streets in hopes of attracting a sponsor, and it wasn’t long before Endeavour snowboards offered their support.

“We would just film each other all the time and make promo videos, it’s almost like you can market yourself,” Lyall said of his early days as an amateur jibber.

“Certain sponsors that you want to target – you like the brand, you like what they do – you can put together a promo video and send it off to them. It’s one of the best routes to go [to get sponsored].”

It’s unknown who was the first to take the sport from the slopes to the streets but, since that day, riders have been constantly pushing the boundaries and scouring the urban landscape for increasingly difficult rails to conquer.

Snowboarding companies sponsor riders like Lyall and Sullivan, who they discover through homemade videos, and give them the resources to continuously progress and gain exposure through their promotional video releases.

“The urban stuff nowadays is getting pretty awesome. The different types of things that people jib – it’s not always just a handrail – it’s pretty interesting to watch,” Lyall, who has left the concrete and handrails behind in favour of mountains and powder, said.

“And the talent level is getting so high. I really enjoy watching it.”

As the level of talent continues to climb at an alarming rate, snowboarders will continue their drive for progression, fueled by a love of the sport and an affinity for danger. It’s in their nature to do so. Since the sports’ founding riders have been pushed to prove themselves and gain acceptance from a general public that to this day remains wary of their rebellious ways.

“I think most just don’t get it,” Sullivan said of the public’s view of jibbing.

“They can’t see it as an art and they don’t see the importance of it. They just think we’re destroying property or doing jackass stunts, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”

As the sun ducks back behind the horizon, once the inexplicable trails of snow have all but melted away, the colourfully dressed men assemble once more at the crest of the hill. Despite dozens of failed tricks and the accompanying painful falls, the energy level remains high as they unstrap their boards for the final time. Makeshift trophies are awarded for the best trick and the worst fall, with the riders showing equal amounts of love for both accomplishments. The rails are loaded onto the flatbeds their respective pickup trucks for transport home, a collective cheer goes up, and the jib outing is brought to a close.

vUrban snowboarders show off their skills|MATT CREED

COURTESY

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Thousands flock to a baseball game in the early 1900s|COURTESY

opinion

Power of Sports

BY DION CAPUTI

I

was standing in front of the net, just like Coach told me to. Skates strapped up, stick gripped tight. At six years old, I was in way over my head. But that’s what made scoring my first goal all the more exciting. The puck slid in my direction, and I was wide open. Slap! My team took a 2-1 lead. Perfection. For that moment, I had no troubles, no problems. It was the sheer appreciation of sport in its purest form.

Sports have a unique way of positively impacting us and, although the industry is not without faults, its value outshines its pitfalls. I view sports as the ability to give people hope, to create equality, and to remind us that, even in a bleak world, miracles are possible.

Nothing captures the feeling of collective expectation and desire like the devotion of a fan base rooting for a team, individual, organization, program, or franchise. The emotional ties that connect you to your team or favourite player are powerfully binding. They are an extension of you. Your team sustains a hope that, even if you lose, there’s always next match, game, season, or year.

When individuals come together to function as a single unit, the extraordinary is made possible. Mindsets, egos, skill-sets, and personalities coincide to write one collective story of success. The invaluable experience of teamwork cannot be overlooked.

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“Being a part of our 11-2 team this past season was one of the great moments of my life, aside from the birth of my son,” said Dwayne Frampton, a former wide receiver for the Arkansas State Red Wolves football team. “I began the year with a lot of friends on the team and I finished it with a lot of brothers. Like coach said, we started as boys, but became men.”

African-American track and field star Jesse Owens carried the hope of a nation when he competed in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin during Adolf Hitler’s reign. He won four gold medals. To this day, nearly 76 years later, the image of him standing on the highpoint of the podium after earning his final gold medal leaves a lasting impression of unity and equality.

It’s such a grand stage for such a grand gesture, made possible entirely by sports.

We must also understand the role “miracles” have in sports.

The very young 1980 U.S. national hockey team that earned the gold medal by defeating the heavily favoured Soviet Union squad during the volatile Cold War era was coined as the “Miracle on Ice.” The 2004 Boston Red Sox baseball team, “cursed” with 86 years of inability to win a World Series, came back from a 3-0 playoff series deficit against the high-powered New York Yankees to win the series 4-3 and “reverse the curse” in the subsequent final round.

The New Orleans Saints of 2006, in the

wake of the ruins left by Hurricane Katrina, perhaps played a big role in rebuilding the city. According to the Saints’ official website, the teams raised both money and awareness, and more importantly, raised spirits. Like the city of New Orleans, in 2005 the Saints were left barely above water following a crippling 3-13 season but, in 2006, the organization went from worst to first, winning its division after a 10-6 season. On Sept. 25, 2006, the team made a triumphant return to the Louisiana Superdome, its home field, which was decimated during the Katrina disaster.

The Saints played a 23-3 victory for a sold out stadium of 70,000 fans. Another 15 million watched the game on ESPN – it was the station’s largest audience in history.

The scene was one of the greatest, most powerful moments in sports history. It was something most would have considered a miracle just one year prior.

Some may feel that sports are nothing more than a common distraction to the true problems in the world, but I say sports are one of the gateways to solving them. If only we could all take our competitive spirit and will to win, and channel it towards something pure and whole-hearted rather than spiteful and vengeful, the world might just be a little better for all of us.

In the words of the Greek philosopher Plato: you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Unveiling

the truth

BY DOREEN DAWANG PHOTOS TASHAE HAUGHTON

For Muslim women in Canada, the act of veiling themselves has been a difficult path. They are often seen as oppressed or unable to function in the real world. But for many Muslim women, the decision to wear the hijab is a true testament to their way of life. The reasons for veiling are various. And continuous conversation is needed to lift up this negative representation of Muslims in western culture.

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“I couldn’t function without it. It’s like I would be trying to be someone else” - Sundus Abrar

S

undus Abrar felt awkward the first time she wore it. Though strangely familiar, it made her feel self-conscious. Her face was used to the texture of the fabric wrapped around her hair and neck. She didn’t tell anybody about her decision. Not even her mother.

She sat in class that day, feeling like all eyes were on her. But the students filling the lecture hall didn’t take notice of her change in appearance. Before going home, she visited her mother’s friend to seal the deal. Somebody saw and acknowledged it – proud to see her in the hijab. At the age of 20, there was no turning back; she was in it for the long run.

“Wearing the hijab is something I’ve consistently gone back and forth between,” said Abrar, now 24.

The hijab is a headscarf traditionally worn by Muslim women, which covers the whole head except for the face. Abrar has worn and taken off the hijab on three separate occasions. The inconsistency was difficult for her, almost a sacrilegious act.

“Wearing the hijab, you have to be consistent with it,” Abrar said. “As much as you’re doing it for yourself, you are still representing the larger group of people.”

Her family was not particularly religious, but Abrar’s mother had always wanted her to wear the hijab. Her mother hoped one day Abrar would come to the realization just as she did at the age of 23.

While living in United Arab Emirates, Abrar was nine years old when she put on the hijab for the first time. Like mother, like daughter. She saw her mom wear the headscarf and wanted to follow in her footsteps. But like all children, her interest started to dissipate, and so did her headscarf.

Abrar’s second attempt at the hijab came when her family moved back to Pakistan.

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The transition from life in Abu Dhabi to her birthplace was difficult for her. But wearing the hijab made her feel more in control of her life. She wore the hijab for two years during her teens before she and her family moved to Canada.

But like most 16-year-olds, Abrar wanted to fit in with her peers. While going to a public high school, she felt the pressure to look pretty and do her hair like everyone else. It was also difficult to find a part-time job. Wearing the hijab became a roadblock to living a normal, teenage life.

“Every now and then, you want to be like everybody else,” Abrar said.

So, she took it off for a second time.

Abrar’s third and final effort to wear the hijab came at a point in her life when she wanted to be more prominent in the Muslim community.

“Everyone was very well aware of the fact that I was Muslim,” Abrar said. “[Wearing the hijab] was something I wanted to do. I felt very fulfilled.”

Now that she’s older, Abrar feels a sense of community when a Muslim woman passes by and acknowledges her. She never noticed it until she started wearing the hijab again.

Although Abrar is one of many who feel liberated while wearing the hijab, there’s handful that still feel ridiculed.

According to the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, a report in 2006 indicated Muslim women are the most discriminated of the faith communities. One in three visible Muslim women reported an episode of discrimination and unfair treatment.

“It’s really hard not to get angry or be upset about it because they’re so misguided,” Abrar said. “Even though no one is saying it to me directly, I do take offence to it and that’s why I wore [the hijab].”

Abrar welcomes any opportunity to talk about her religion and why she chooses to wear the hijab. Whether talking to customers at work or strangers at the bus stop, she stresses the importance of involving others in the conversation.

“The only thing I can do is instead of sitting there, arguing with people, telling them that they’re wrong, I just need to show them that they’re wrong,” Abrar said.

“That’s really the satisfaction I get from wearing it.”

Working in retail for several years has enabled Abrar to be seen as a young, Muslim woman who is capable of having intelligent conversations and work in the public eye. The misunderstanding of Muslim women being powerless is one of Abrar’s motivating factors to wear the hijab. Ultimately, she wants people to see that Muslims can function in the real world.

“I wanted to stand out as a Muslim,” said Abrar. “I wanted to interact with people. I wanted people to see that I do have friends, that I do go out and go to school, and that I do talk to people.”

Many Muslims tend to shy away from challenging the misconceptions, leaving many people unaware of what really happens in their religion.

“We shut off and go our separate way.

It’s very important we’re involved with everyone else,” Abrar said.

“Because if you go off and get defensive about it, there’s no understanding or communication.”

Constant communication is needed. And according to Angela Aujla, Abrar has the right way of thinking.

The women’s studies professor from Humber College challenges the common view that the hijab is equated with oppression. Although she acknowledges there is some truth to the statement, it is

“People are curious and I’m okay with that. I like that people want to learn more”

not the case for all Muslim women. She said non-Muslims should not fall into the trap of automatically seeing the hijab in a negative way, but rather, they should question their own choices.

“Certainly we could turn around and look at the things we wear and look at those as symbols of oppression,” Aujla said.

Canadians live in a society where most people are subjected to hyper-sexualized and overexposed depictions of women.

Aujla believes this prevalent representation has created a normalized view for nonMuslims of what it means to be a woman.

The clear distinction, consequently, creates a divide between women who wear the hijab and those who don’t. And because of this, non-Muslims are not the best to judge another culture’s traditions.

“Again and again, our society is telling us that we’re not good enough but we will go take that extra step and critique a different culture or different religion instead of seeing our own practices as something to also critique,” Aujla said.

This mainstream way of thinking showcases a great deal of stereotyping and racism. Aujla said there is a western arrogance where non-Muslims create an “us versus them division” and believe their way of thinking is more progressive and forward-thinking.

She proposes people be more selfreflective. There is a polarized way of thinking, and non-Muslims need to reassess their own practices and step outside their own beliefs. With reflection, comes communication, which is key in creating a better understanding of Muslims.

“I think what’s dangerous is when people stop talking about it,” Aujla said.

A woman who is continuing the conversation and a voice for Canadian Muslim women is Sheema Khan.

Khan is the author of Of Hockey and the Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman and the founder of the Canadian Council American-Islamic Relations. For almost 10 years, she has written a monthly column for the Globe and Mail discussing Islam and Muslim women topics.

“I’ve always enjoyed engaging in the media because I found a lot of the things they said about Islam, especially about women, were so inaccurate,” said Khan.

“And so I would always jump at the chance to correct this information.”

On top of her position at the Globe, the suburban mom from Ottawa juggles a family of three children and a career as a patent agent. She also holds a PhD in chemical physics from Harvard University.

It was during her time at Harvard that she started to question her identity.

She found it unusual that her academic environment was putting a tremendous amount of importance on her faith. “[The States is] much more of society where religion is definitely more out in the open, and it’s not something to be ashamed of to hide or be quiet about,” Khan said.

She has lived in Canada since the age of three, and has felt very much a part of the Canadian fabric. Her family was not entirely religious, and no one wore the hijab. But Khan felt a “gaping hole” while studying at Harvard, which motivated her to explore her role as a Muslim.

So, she made a drastic change and began to wear the hijab at 27 years old.

Khan describes the day she put on the hijab as a personal moment several people can relate to.

“You don’t care about the doubts people have because you have no doubt in your own heart. And it’s very empowering,” said Khan.

“Your fears go away. All your fears melt,

and it’s very much a piece of yourself.”

Although Khan underwent a life changing moment, she’s aware the hijab is a symbol of oppression. There is still a misunderstanding of Muslim women and how they are represented in western culture.

“The concensus is that people force you,” Khan said. “But my family was against it.”

She was not married or dating someone at the time. Khan said her parents, especially her mother, didn’t support her decision to wear the hijab.

“It’s a hard struggle, but that will give you the strength,” Khan said. “I think that goes to the heart of every individual.”

She admits there is still discrimination between the western world and Muslims.

Having lived in the 9/11 decade, Khan said there still is a huge impact on the view of Muslims. Ten years have passed since the terrorist attacks, and the fear still plagues North America. But Khan looks forward to the day when the representation is more nuanced.

“I hope that the people will see us as the reality. We are a diverse group of people,” Khan said.

“Just like any group of people, we have different views, different levels of practice, opinions. I hope we can be seen for who we are as human beings.”

Khan believes the greatest strength of Canada is its liberal democracy. Living in Canada gives people the choice to exercise their conscience and their own free will.

And the testament should be shared and respected by all people in this country.

“This is the greatest gift: it is giving people the choice on how to live their life,” Khan said. “And if you don’t agree with that choice, you defend their right to have that choice. And I think we have forgotten about that.”

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HEAR THE CRY OF

BY DONA BOULOS

In February, the Congolese community of Toronto took to the streets to protest the lawlessness and injustice that continues daily in their homeland.

C

’est assez.

Hundreds of protesters halted traffic in a seemingly rehearsed and unusually organized manner. The parade flowed into the intersection of Yonge and Bloor and spilled out to create a unified circle. On the perimeter, they swayed from side-to-side in harmony, and in the centre of it they danced and chanted an amplified message… c’est assez.

Hundreds of Congolese streamed through the streets, raising awareness about the lawlessness in their homeland.

They marched peacefully holding the blue, yellow and red flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with pride and joy, even though the circumstances that unite them are horrific. From afar, there were crosses and signs floating in the skyline of Toronto. Many danced to music created by drumming on kitchen pots. Men and women took turns singing and chanting into the microphones, blaring songs and speeches from speakers attached to a small U-Haul truck that led the people.

Chilly winds blew on this typical February afternoon, yet the Congolese marched for hours, a clear sign of their perseverance and determination. The blistering cold was a further reminder that they are a world away from their homeland. In Congo, the sun is hot, the air is dry and the earth is rich but the violence is relentless and expected.

C’est assez, chanted the crowd repeatedly. It is enough!

“I’ve witnessed violence,” Sandra Sassa said.

For Sassa, 34, it is enough. She is a community councillor with La Cocot (la Communauté Congolaise de la Grande Région de Toronto), a Toronto-based organization that supports the rights and freedom of civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sassa was in the heart of the protest, walking at the pace of her 13-year-old son. Born and raised in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, she witnessed more violence than anyone should until

28

1993 when her father moved the family to Canada.

“To give us a better life and to fly away from Congo,” she said.

Sassa described her experience at the Toronto protest as “priceless because I am out of Congo, but Congo is never out of me,” she said, half smiling.

“That is the reality.”

As a young girl, she witnessed the brutality of the militia toward innocent civilians. The memories of beatings and horror are vivid, and the pain and anger are obvious in her eyes.

“People came to your house and would gun you down and do whatever they wanted to do. Those are the things that I have witnessed,” she said.

Sassa tells the story of a friend whose three brothers were killed in November 2011.

“They were shot in front of their house gate, for protesting against the government, and in honour of the Congolese that have been killed,” she said.

According to the Peace Direct, a U.K.based organization that seeks out local peacekeeping groups in fragile countries, five million people have lost their lives because of this violence since 1998.

For the Congolese living in Toronto, the horrors of their homeland could not be forgotten. Hence, in February 2011, La Cocot was founded to support their people back home.

“The making of the organization was a group effort by the community,” said Freddy Kabongo, who was elected as the first president of the organization. Kabongo was one of the determined protesters marching the streets of Toronto, with the hope that he would see his country free. La Cocot stands up for human rights.

“Every single human being who believes in democracy should stand up with us,” he said.

Members of the community have made it their mission to fight in Canada for their

THE CONGOLESE

Sandra Sassa led the crowd of Congolese, with a megaphone in hand

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Protesters raised signs, crosses and their voices for the people of Toronto to hear

African sisters and brothers who have been living in fear for years.

It is written all over their faces as they march onward through the chilly air.

The images from Congo are shocking. One protester held a photo of a woman lying frozen on the ground after having been raped by a tree branch. Another marched while raising an image of a suffering child, surprisingly alive despite his cracked skull. A man who stood on the sidelines of the protest watched in shock. He asked if “these [were] real pictures.” He watched in awe, completely unaware of the violence that plagues Congo.

During the protest, a man dressed in an army uniform and a ski mask covering his face stood out amid the sea of people. He sang into a megaphone and danced wildly in the streets. Some wore the Congolese flag as a cape, hugging it to their bodies.

Others did nothing but add power by numbers, smiling and welcoming strangers to join. Graphic images of children with blood gushing from their chests and of bodies piled up on top of one another were haunting.

NationMaster, the online world statistics database, reports that Congo’s homicide and murder rates were 35 per 100,000 people in 2004, whereas in Canada in 2008 the rates were 1.7 per 100,000 people.

“Whatever is happening [with these numbers] now, we don’t know,” Kabongo said. A more recent report from La Cocot reports that in 2010 the United Nations announced that eight million people have been killed in Congo since 1987.

“C’est assez,” the protesters chanted (which translates to “it’s enough” in English). La Cocot believes that fighting for democracy using the freedom of speech they have in Canada is the only way to save Congo.

“The Congolese are not dangerous

Yonge and Bloor was packed with Congolese on Feb. 16, 2012

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people. We don’t want to take power with weapons we want to take it with democracy. We have to change the culture of Africa,” said Kabongo, proving that there is hope, a shimmer of light for the future in the wake of a dark past. Unlike many in Toronto, the Congolese community knows about the millions of lives that have been stolen and, since the February 16 protest, their words will echo through the city streets.

“The history of the Congo is very complicated,” said Kabongo. The country was colonized by Belgium in 1877, and Kabongo explained, when Congo won its independence in 1960, they elected Patrice Lumumba. But he was killed in 1961 after just six months in power.

“The Belgians didn’t approve of his new ideas and Americans said he was a communist,” he said. After the death of Lumumba, Mobutu came into power and ruled the country by killing and stealing. “He never held any elections, and stayed in power for 32 years,” said Kabongo.

Fast-forward to Congo today: a similar government is ruling the country.

“How can you take someone who kills the Congolese and put him in power?” said Kabongo in frustration.

Although the corrupt government is exploiting its own people, there are a number of rebel groups both from Congo and from neighbouring countries who commit the same crimes.

Raise Hope for the Congo, a campaign of activists based in the U.S. that supports the human rights and works toward ending conflict in eastern Congo, names some of the armed forces who are killing, torturing, and raping the Congolese. Aside from the Congolese government itself, between 6,000 and 8,000 Rwandan soldiers (who are on the U.S. State Department

list of terrorist organizations) currently operate in Congo. The National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a Congo-based rebel group known to be one of the most destructive groups in eastern Congo, is also contributing to the mass killings. A Ugandan Muslim group, the MaiMai militia, as well as a rebel group led by Joseph Kony have been active in Congo for years. The war between these militias and the innocent citizens of the DR Congo is still underway today.

The United Nations Human Development Index reports the life expectancy in Congo is 43 years.

Joseph Kabila, Congo’s current president, faced opposition leader and former prime minister of the country (when it was called Zaïre), Étienne Tshisekedi, in the November 2011 election. The election is believed to have been “unruly” and that the tally of votes was flawed. Kabongo said that during the campaign Kabila did not allow any opposition to speak publically.

“Everybody knows Kabila lost the election. No matter what the votes said, Kabila made sure he won,” he said. In response, La Cocot and hundreds of other Congolese-Canadians marched to protest the tainted election through the busy streets of Toronto in mid-February of this year.

The fact that they blocked off one of Toronto’s busiest intersections forced people to pause their hectic lives and pay attention to the Congolese proudly generating noise in Toronto for the second time. Kabongo said as well as the events in Toronto, La Cocot has travelled to Ottawa to dispute this election and the ongoing violence in Congo. On a different occasion, Kabongo said the women of the community protested in front of Stephen Harper’s home.

This time, hundreds of Congolese joined them in Toronto. Speakers stacked in the back of a U-Haul truck blasted cultural Congolese music as the protesters marched repeating a single line over and over: “No more killing in Congo.”

One woman passionately shouted: “Why is Canada keeping silent?” The sincere question pierced the winter air. Many of the protesters made the peace sign with their fingers, humble and hopeful looks on their faces. A woman sat in the heart of Yonge and Bloor’s normally congested intersection, wailing in heartache for the lives lost in her homeland. Tears streamed down her cheeks as others began to sit by her side. Other Congolese protesters marched with candles lit, even as the numbing wind threatened to blow them out.

“The Congolese people are faithful and hopeful. That’s why we went on the street with candles,” said Kabongo.

Kabongo said the cause of Congo’s humanitarian crisis is that “too many

The Congolese community of Toronto say they want Étienne Tshisekedi elected as president

Canadian and American corporations support the mining in Congo.” Western countries extract the ores from Congo that produce tin, gold, coltan and other valuable minerals, which are vital in the creation of electronic devices. The Congolese people are begging the mining companies to stop raping their country’s earth of its minerals, and to stop raping the women of their dignity. One sign at the protest reflected a problem thousands of kilometres away: “International communities and multinational mining corporations must respect the will of Congolese people.”

“On paper, Congo is one of [the] richest countries in natural resources. And it has become a battlefield to all the Western countries,” said Sassa. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports 60 to 80 per cent of coltan in the world is in eastern Congo.

As the Congolese people stood in a steady circle, singing and chanting in harmony, passersby stared.

Angie Kalinga, a Congolese protester and activist, said the community in Toronto is shedding light on the truth of the election that happened in Congo in November 2011.

Kabila, who was “wrongly” re-elected, and is “irresponsible and killing people in the Congo,” said Kalinga.

A March 2012 UN report announced a violation of human rights, including killings and disappearances, during the election in 2011.

There is only one president that the people are demanding, and that is Etienne Tshisekedi, the “right man for Congo,” protestors chanted together. Sassa said Tshisekedi stands for human rights and truly wants an independent Congo.

“He has proved himself to the Congolese people to be non-corruptible. He is the Nelson Mandela of Congo,” she said.

“We are marching to ask the government of Canada to reject the government of Kabila,” said Kalinga. “We are asking the Canadian population to side along with us, in order to support us in this cause.

This cause is noble, this cause is just,” she said firmly as she stood in the middle of the road, unfazed by a police cruiser that was honking just behind her. “We need the voices of the people of Congo to be heard, and we will not stop until those voices are heard.”

According to the CIA World Fact Book, 71 per cent of Congolese live under the poverty line. The UN Human Development Index reports that in 2011, the average Congolese person received just four years of education.

La Cocot does more than raise awareness for the Congolese, it also raises funds.

Sassa said the organization gives small scholarships to Congolese kids in Toronto.

“Every kid that graduates receives symbolic scholarships, to show them that this community is behind them, and that we are proud of them,” she said.

After growing up in terrifying conditions in Congo, Sassa only wishes for one thing in the future.

“I want to see Congo free, Congo is not free,” she said.

TrustLaw, a Thomson Reuters global governance analysis website, has dubbed Congo the second most dangerous place in the world for a woman to visit – something Sassa would like to see change. Her message to the Congolese government is to value human life above all other things.

“You cannot be a government of dead people. You have already lost eight million lives. That is enough,” she said, with sad eyes.

“We cannot continue like this. They aren’t just damaging today, but the future as well. Stop the killing. Stop the raping.”

But it’s a vicious cycle. Kabongo said because the corrupt government and the mining companies work hand in hand, the safety of Congolese citizens is constantly in jeopardy.

“All we want is our freedom,” Kabongo said.

C’est assez, it is enough.

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Four Shades of Motherhood

BY TATIANA PATTERSON

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Rebecca Finnis, now 26, with her mother, and two children: Josh, 11, and Caitlin, 6 |COURTESY

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ebecca Finnis hadn’t told her parents about the relationship she had with Peter, and wasn’t planning to. Her mother would freak if she found out that her 13-year-old daughter was having sex with a boy who was 15. So Finnis chose to stay quiet. She would go on like nothing had changed, and she would try her hardest to ignore her missed period.

But even Finnis couldn’t keep secret the changes in her body. That missed period was becoming something that neither she nor her boyfriend had prepared for: a baby.

“How naive I was but I was only 13,” Finnis continued. “I eventually told Peter and he didn’t know what to do either. We were going to become parents at 13 and 15.”

Finnis and her boyfriend had been sleeping together for six months completely unprotected. She said that although she had a feeling she was pregnant, she tried to forget about it hoping that it would go away.

“I got very close to Peter very quickly. I feel he took the place of my dad, as he was the only male figure I had in my life,” she said. Finnis grew up with an abusive father, and her parents split up when she was 12.

Finnis said her parents tried to convince her to have an abortion, but she refused.

She was going to have this baby no matter what.

She took a lot of heat from her friends when they found out she was pregnant.

They called her names and some stopped speaking to her. But Finnis stuck to her guns and had a baby boy she named Josh.

Finnis said she missed out on sleepovers

with her friends because she had to take care of her son during the night.

“I only ever went out for special occasions such as birthdays, et cetera, but I would have to leave parties early to get back to Josh,” she said.

“When I got a bit older like 17 or 18, all my friends were booking group holidays.

I couldn’t go on those either, one because I didn’t have a babysitting for a week, and two because all my money went on things for Josh.”

Today, at 26, Finnis has two children. Her first born, Josh, and a girl named Caitlin.

They are 11 and 6.

Despite what the world thought of her, Finnis finished high school successfully.

She refused to become another statistic of teenage moms who don’t succeed at life.

She works hard to give her kids the best.

“The most rewarding thing about being a mother is teaching your children what you know and seeing them grow to become their own little person,” she said. “It has given me something to look forward to and feel proud of. Knowing that they look up to me for help and advice make me feel special.”

Being a mother is perhaps one of the toughest, yet most important jobs there is.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines a mother as any female serving as a parent. Of course a mother can be defined by maternal instinct and relation to her offspring, but there is so much more involved.

Maybe the complexity of motherhood is most accurately defined by those who are living it.

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armina Hunte, now 82, moved to Canada to work so she could bring her 10 children over, too. She saved every penny she could.

“In Guyana, I was a stay-at-home mom.

Back then, the wives didn’t work. We stayed home and cared for the home and for our children. Everybody was like family. Nobody was a stranger. The same way your parents treated you, is the same way your neighbour could treat you. It was very tightly knit,” she said.

Hunte said she taught her children teamwork at a young age. Each child had his or her own chore and she made sure their workload was fair.

“The boys had to cook, the girls had to cook. If the girls did laundry, so did the boys. Everything was even,” she said.

Her wrinkled face creased as she smiled at memories of her home in Guyana. Hunte said that like her family, her home in Guyana was built on solid pillars.

“On the pillars of the house, we tied two ends of a bag and made a hammock. The bag was used to bring rice. We would lie or sit on the hammock and rock the babies. It

was fun!” she said.

Carmina raised her children very strictly.

They were not allowed to go anywhere except school and home. She didn’t like it when they watched TV or went to the cinema.

“If there was kissing on the television, they had to leave the room,” she said.

Education wasn’t free in Guyana, and Carmina couldn’t afford to enrol her children in high school.

“My boys followed their father’s footsteps. He was a mechanic,” she said.

“They didn’t go to school, but they learned to repair cars from their father.” Hunte’s four sons are all trained mechanics.

“I did not bring [my children] here to become doctors and lawyers,” Hunte said.

“I brought them here to make a living. And that is what they’re doing.,” Hunte said that the most rewarding thing for her is knowing that she did her best to raise her children.

“As a mother, I did what a mother should do. I tried my best and I am happy about that,” she said.

Carmina Hunte did her best raising her practical and hardworking children | TATIANA PATTERSON

Hunte and her family in 1972|COURTESY

A

fter two marriages and three kids, Shazelle Bassoo is now discovering who she is. She’s had a life full of tough choices and false starts.

Her family has high expectations, and she can’t seem to hit the mark on any of them.

Bassoo works hard to provide for her kids, but continues to struggle as a single parent.

When Bassoo’s first marriage didn’t work out, she jumped too quickly into another one. She said that she just wanted to feel safe.

“I got my youngest daughter from a very abusive husband,” she said. “Vulnerability is like an enslavement sometimes.

Vulnerability makes even the smartest people make some pretty bad choices. But out of that I got [a daughter].”

Bassoo admits that though there are many joys in motherhood, insecurities come with it, too.

“I struggle with being insecure and not carrying my weight because I feel like it’s never enough, I’m supposed to be doing much more,” she said. Bassoo said she often has overwhelming moments of darkness.

“Then I get a clearing and I start over again,” she said. “I’m blessed that I have them in my life.”

But it isn’t always that simple.

“There are days when I hate my life, I resent it,” said Bassoo. “I can speak for myself as a single mom, when you just want to tell everybody to go fuck themselves.

You want to call your kids bitches.” She said that some days she longed to be free of responsibility.

“I don’t feel bad about having those moments because that’s when I realize that I’m human. And I can just release my weakness sometimes. I struggle with that,” Bassoo said.

Her children are hardly children anymore. Her first born, Nikko, is 22. Olivia is 18 and Alizzane is 13.

Being a single mother is one of the loneliest things there is, according to Bassoo. She said decision-making is tough when there’s no one to talk about it with.

“It’s like pulling something from a hat.

You don’t know what’s right, you don’t know what’s wrong,” Bassoo said. “But you still got to make it because you don’t have a choice.”

She said that parenting is a process in which you are always evolving.

“To me, you grow as they grow,” she said.

Bassoo knows that just because she’s the parent, doesn’t mean she’s always right.

Years later, she’s still learning.

“I’m still now getting the hang of it this parenting thing,” she said.

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B

right plastic toys are scattered everywhere, making it hard for anyone to walk from the living room to the kitchen. Siara is climbing on a chair, reaching her little arms to grab a bottle of eye drops. Leanne Eade can’t even get a moment to breathe. She tells Siara “no” but the little girl puts her hands on her hips and stares her mother down. This 16-month-old has got a personality of her own.

Siara is as energetic and curious as they come. She climbs on furniture and gets into everything. Her attitude is that of an independent woman, and already she hates when she doesn’t get her way.

“When it comes to her, she never stops,” said Eade, 22. She said taking care of Siara is fun but tiring. Before Eade had her daughter she was a night owl, but these days she’ll take any bit of sleep she can get.

“With having her it’s like as soon as she’s out, I’m out,” Eade said.

When asked if her boyfriend helps her with Siara, Eade gave a little laugh.

“Well you know with a younger man they mature a little bit slower.” she said.

“He’s there but I’m still the one mostly doing all the diaper changes and the feedings.”

Eade said she and her boyfriend of nine years sort of planned to have the baby, but she had no idea how tough it would be to mother a child at just 20 years old.

“You have to be prepared for a lot of lack of sleep, especially in the first couple of weeks,” she said. Eade said sometimes exhaustion makes the tears flow.

“You break down sometimes, but in the end, the next day, everything is better,” she said. “It’s like an emotional roller coaster.”

Luckily, Eade quickly gained the support of her family and can “count on them when she needs help.”

“At first it was a little rocky, and everyone was shocked,” she said. “But after the whole situation wasn’t as new anymore, I had the support of all my family and they were there for me. Especially my mom.”

Eade’s mom is probably one of the most important people in her life. Much of the way that Eade parents Siara stems from her own childhood, though she’s also developed a style of her own.

“I do see little things here and there that I went through in my childhood with my mom that I saw that she could’ve probably done differently that I now try to do,” said Eade.

But Eade said that her mother raised

her well and always listened to her side of the story.

“Nowadays, kids are allowed to have more freedom of speech with their parents,” she said. Though kids have the right to stand up to their parents, Eade believes children should be punished when they’ve done something wrong.

“Because it’ll teach you in the long run.”

Eade had had plans to go to college after graduating high school but those are now on the back burner. She still hopes to go back to school one day, but for now she works at a restaurant on top of her fulltime job as a mom.

Though she’s put her own dreams aside for the time being, she said, if given the opportunity, she wouldn’t change a thing.

“If I had an abortion, I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself,” she said. “Just because it was a bad timing for me I didn’t think it was fair to my daughter to do that.”

Despite the hard times Eade has faced in motherhood, she’s still happy with the decision she made to have Siara.

“It’s like you have a reason to do the things you do in your life. You don’t come first now, it’s someone else that comes first,” she said. “It’s just having somebody that loves you unconditionally.”

Leanne Eade, 22, says her 16-month-old daughter, Siara, keeps her on her toes |TATIANA PATTERSON

34

skyline Rising STORY & PHOTOS BY

KATE McCULLOUGH

Out with the old and in with the new. The Toronto skyline is changing. Our buildings are getting taller, and our streets seem to be getting smaller as they fill with a growing population. Neighbours now live above or below each other, and next door neighbours are becoming a thing of the past. Is intensification the route Toronto should go?

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T

he 501 Queen streetcar trundles to a halt at Broadview, stopping to allow a lineup of people to pack themselves like sardines onboard the car.

Going north from Queen Street, small, porch-laden houses line one side of the street. A community centre and a park sit on the other side. One block to the south, however, a giant high rise looms, casting a shadow over the row of houses across the street. This view out the streetcar window is becoming the norm in Toronto.

“I love intensification in our neighbourhood, but I love it even more if I don’t have to look at it,” said Antony Lorius, associate partner at Hemson Consulting, a planning and municipal finance firm in the Greater Toronto Area.

His attitude is typical of Torontonians: we know condominiums are a necessity, but we don’t want to be the ones that have to live with them – or beside them.

Lorius lives near Queen and Broadview in Leslieville. As a long-time east-ender, he’s not a fan of the new condos going up Contruction on Broadview, just north of Queen, threatens the quiet community in his neighbourhood. Condos, he said, create shadow, increase noise, and cause Toronto as development opportunities are true. They can live in a long-standing commuter routes – in his case the 501 snatched up. community with lots of character without Queen car – to be overcrowded, all of which While intensification looks at quantity, the issues – maintenance and allergies, have an impact on a community. gentrification looks at the quality of a among others – that come with an old As an urban planner, however, Lorius neighbourhood. More often than not, house. sees the need for multi-home buildings.

Though the value of Khera’s current intensification and gentrification go Toronto is growing, there’s no doubt hand in hand. The more safe, refined, and house has increased during the last decade about that. Statistics Canada reports affluent a neighborhood becomes, the more and a half, the value of the one they left that between 2006 and 2011, the city’s sought after it becomes. In turn, as an area behind in Leslieville skyrocketed. population grew by more than 100,000 becomes popular, old and tired amenities, “If I knew then what I know now, I people. A five per cent growth may not like grocers, coffee shops, and fast-food would’ve kept our house. That same house seem like a lot but, unlike the suburbs, restaurants, are either rejuvenated, or that we lived in is now worth about four Toronto has almost no undeveloped land. times as much,” he said. He compares replaced with new ones.

That’s why the City of Toronto has “Generally this notion of urban renewal Leslieville to areas like the Junction and no choice but to go vertical. Emporis, a is good, because it makes better places, it Roncesvalles on the west side of the city. worldwide building and construction makes cool places,” Lorius said.

Before the Queen car reaches data company, reports that Toronto has And that’s just what has happened in the Roncesvalles, it goes through Trinitythe greatest number of current high-rise east end. In the mid-90s, Royal LePage real Bellwoods and Little Italy – another construction projects in North America. estate agent Anil Khera, moved his family area that has undergone a growth spurt.

As of September of this year, Toronto has out of Leslieville, a then seedy part of the When Maria Orfao bought a house on more than 130 projects on the go, while city, because it didn’t look like it was going Montrose Avenue 27 years ago, it was a New York and Mexico City sit at about 85. to get any better. The young family made quiet residential neighbourhood – close Urban intensification refers to a a risky move to Queen and Woodbine, to downtown, but not too close. It was the concentrated growth of an area in order just north of the abandoned Greenwood perfect place to raise her two kids. to avoid dissipation. Intensification, also racetrack, which had gone out of business “It used to be like a small village there, known as “smart growth,” focuses on long- a couple of years earlier. those streets. You knew pretty much term planning for a sustainable city.

“There was no decision made as to what everybody on the street,” she said.

“If we’re going to decide that we was going to happen to this 80 acres of Now, it’s mostly renters, and new don’t like urban sprawl and we want prime real estate, you know, very close faces pop up every month. Students and intensification, then we have to balance to the lake and very close to downtown young adults have been pushed out of the that broad objective,” Lorius said. downtown core and permeated familyToronto,” he said.

He said that, without forcing “We just figured whatever was going oriented neighborhoods like Orfao’s. With intensification, the city would naturally to happen was going to be better than a them, come the bars, entertainment, and expand outward, threatening less racetrack.” noise. developed areas beyond the borders of the “At least for the past five years, I’ve been Sure enough, the city allowed the land to GTA. Most of the intensification that does be sold to a developer on one condition – a noticing a big, big, big, change,” Orfao said. go on in the city, Lorius said, doesn’t harm quarter of the land would become a park.

Too much of a change, perhaps. Recently, salvageable architecture.

“The condos are very nice, people love she has considered selling her house.

“The redevelopment and gentrification living in that area, it’s brought a new kind Orfao and her husband bought their house is most likely to happen with buildings of vibrancy to the area, as well as adding in 1985 for $80,000, and she estimates it that are in disrepair or very old or vacant,” another 20 acres of parkland,” Khera said. would go for at least $600,000 today. he said. Lorius thinks that, ultimately, Nutan Brown, a Royal LePage real estate For many, a new neighbourhood in an there will be a limit to intensification in old part of the city is a bonus dream come agent who works and lives in the west end,

36

said Orfao’s estimate is very conservative.

“Trinity-Bellwoods, Dovercourt and Queen, all of those sort of inner-city pockets, they were quiet little sleeper communities, but now all of a sudden they’ve risen to the top,” she said.

Brown said it’s a domino effect: as the population increases, the demand for land in Toronto is greater. This causes the price

of real estate to soar.

“In the city there’s a fixed number of homes, we don’t have land that’s going to be developed into large suburban developments,” she said. Condos are one of the ways in which Toronto is meeting the demand for more space in the city.

Amidst the change in Toronto, Brown said there’s one thing that won’t become

obsolete anytime soon: the niches of the city.

“There are so many neighbourhoods in the city that have their own little village, their own little personality, and they’re quite contained as a full community themselves,” she said.

A new condo development at Queen and Broadview casts a shadow over neighbours’ homes.

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A Night in W

hile you were sleeping, we sent our photographers out into the streets to document the life of manufactured lights. Here, we capture the streams of motion and the bright vibrancy of Toronto.

PHOTOS BY

KATE McCULLOUGH MATT CREED SARAH LENNOX JONATHAN ZETTEL

KM

JZ

Toronto SL SL

KM

MC

JZ

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JZ

Regent Park a photo essay

STORY & PHOTOS BY

TASHAE HAUGHTON

Regent Park is one of Toronto’s lowest-income neighbourhoods. Currently, it is in the second phase of a billion dollar revitalization project. We sent our photographer, Tashae Haughton to document this polarizing change.

A cloud of dust engulfs Regent Park as yellow claws tear up the earth, preparing it for condos.

Dirt rolls up to the red brick of this community centre, which has been the hub of Regent Park for years. Half built condos loom over the centre in contrast to the centre’s humble building.

In early April, residents met to voice concerns about their changing neighbourhood. Some wore pins that read: “we love Regent Park.” They are all for revitalizing the area.

Others believe gentrification will push out the existing communities. Their pins read, “we are not for sale.”

A child’s soccer ball has landed on the wrong side of this construction fence.

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Number 295 is one of many social housing options in the area.

This girl is the future of an evolving Regent Park.

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Sana Mir is a graduate of Pathways to Education, a program launched in Regent Park 10 years ago and has now gone national. Pathways to Education helps keep marginalized kids, like Sana, in school.

A woman seen walking through Regent Park’s desolate streets.

Residents are concerned that community housing projects will be obsolete in the revitalization of the neighbourhood.

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A

The price

t 11:18 a.m. on Thursday July 7, 2011, exactly nine years and nine months to the day the war in Afghanistan began, Canada’s military mission – our first war in over 50 years – officially ended. This closed the book on nearly a decade of war that cost the lives of 158 Canadian soldiers, wounded close to 2,000, cost taxpayers more than $20 billion, and solidified the shift from a country once renowned for its peacekeeping efforts to an active military force on the world stage.

Following a defence spending boom that began even before the attacks of Sept. 11, and continued to increase throughout the war in Afghanistan, Stephen Harper introduced the Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) in 2008. Touted as a modernization of the Canadian Forces, the plan aims to increase military spending at a rate of 0.6 per cent or roughly $22 billion per year until 20272028.

But John McKay, defence critic for the Liberal Party of Canada, said the CFSD resembles a press release more than a legitimate defense strategy.

“There’s no overall thinking in the so called strategy as to what the strategy is,” Mckay said.

“Other than the usual – well, we’ve got to protect Canada, and project ourselves into the international community – there is no Canada First Strategy.”

Mckay said a real strategy would include an evaluation of potential threats over the next 20 years, including the Middle East and the Baltics while re-examining our role in NATO, and our relationship with China.

“None of that is contained in the so called Canada First Defence Strategy,” he said.

And while governments around the world are slashing budgets and parading buzzwords like cuts and austerity, on the surface the current government seems to be falling in line. Their recent budget aimed at pairing down Canada’s debt by more than five billion dollars, and included a decrease of $1.1 billion dollars to military spending over the next three years – most of which will come from the elimination of 1,100 civilian jobs and delays to capital spending. According to the 2012 budget, “the Government of Canada has made significant progress towards the implementation of the Canada First Defence Strategy … [and] will continue to replace key equipment …”

This is no more evident than with the insistent purchase of the contentious F-35s despite a report

by Auditor General Michael Ferguson, in which he accuses the Conservative government and the Department of National Defence (DND) of misleading the public in the actual cost of the F-35s, projecting the price tag to come in around $25 billion; $10 billion more than the initial estimate to the public.

According to a report by Bill Robinson, a defence analyst and senior adviser of the Rideau Institute, an independent non-profit advocacy group that provides research and analysis on Canadian government policy, the increases in defence spending will amount to around $390-410 billion, or $12,000 per Canadian.

“There’s a big disconnect in that if you go to the average person and ask them, do you think we should spend more money on the military, seven out of ten will say yes,” said Steve Staples, president of the Rideau Institute.

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OF WAR STORY & PHOTO BY

Matt Creed

“But if you ask them to rank priorities for federal government spending starting with health care, employment, economy, the environment – defense spending immediately falls to the bottom.”

He said this disconnect extends – not only through the public – but to the Canadian Forces itself.

“The military doesn’t really have a clear direction of which way it’s going to go,” he said.

“I think what we’ve been seeing recently is a jockeying of various special interests within the military trying to gain a larger piece of the pie for its various programs and equipment ambitions; trying to resist any cuts that would be coming because of the budget deficit.”

Canada currently has a deficit of almost $25 billion dollars.

According to Staples, the Conservative government is using fear-mongering to create invisible enemies and to manufacture threats in an attempt to rally support from the public to justify increases in defence spending, while in turn using that money to appease lobbyists on behalf of defence contractors.

“You’ve got the defence companies lobbying for massive increases in defense spending for whatever pet projects they come up with and they find a more than willing government prepared to write blank cheques to the defense lobby,” Staples said.

Staples said the military is still failing in all three of their core focus areas: defence of Canada, defence of North America in partnership with the U.S. and NATO, and contributing to international peace and security, with the latter getting the worst grade.

“Internationally, most Canadians would like to see Canada contribute to UN peacekeeping operations,” he said.

“We’ve essentially abandoned that. You can get all our blue beret soldiers on a single school bus.”

Blake Lambert, a political science professor and contributing editor to the World Politics Review, an online information service for policy experts, echoed Staples’ sentiment that there is a misconception among the general population that Canada is still a peacekeeping nation.

“Canada used to send a lot of peacekeepers, but even before this robust, more muscular, more militarist stance emerged, it wasn’t giving all that many soldiers to peacekeeping,” Lambert said.

“Peacekeeping has become more peace enforcement over the last five to seven years.”

Lambert cites Canada having lost its seat in the UN as evidence of a shifting military climate underway.

“You look at the UN security vote last year.

There are 15 members on the UN Security Council – five are permanent, 10 rotate on a two-year basis. Canada had never lost a vote up to that point,” Lambert said.

“Now, you could argue the UN Security Council is a joke, it’s not very effective – all kinds of things. But I think a lot of Canadians were struck by the inability to get on the Security Council.”

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blindness B L I N D N E S S

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BY JONATHAN ZETTEL

I

t is completely dark. I remember the light, it burns in my mind. But as I look out into this new room, the light that shaped beautiful things, the light that gave form and distance to the world, the light that I used without thanking, has been entirely doused. I wave my hand in front of my face, but there is nothing. I look up, stretching my neck about in every direction, searching about in disbelief.

There must be a crack – a crack that light runs to like water down a hill. But no, here there is only darkness.

It is not heavy. It is unbearably thin and warm.

And then I peer into the abyss, my imagination kicks in and the abyss looks back at me: wisps of illusion swirl about and then vanish completely sucked up by the omnipresent black. Brief bursts of panic hit my heart. I had no idea I was this claustrophobic.

“Close your eyes. It makes you feel like you are in control,” says a woman from out of nowhere.

I close my eyes and immediately feel silly for trying to trick myself into believing.

Instead, I reach out. I need to know where I am. There is nothing but air to my left, and a wall to my right. It feels like papier-mâché, warm and rough, but it is too hard and I figure it must be old stonewall.

I reach out further into my new world, and feel the other side of the table. It’s a bit of a reach, but I can manage it. I reach under the surface and feel a hinge attached to the thin metal legs of the table. The hinge is wrapped in duct tape to keep the legs propped open. This must be the sort of table we used in grade school cafeterias.

There’s a tablecloth, and I wonder if they bother washing out wine stains. After all, who would know?

Voices chatter about me. There’s a couple directly in front of me, and three or four other groups off to my far left.

They come and go, clinkering glasses, and plates. I listen to their conversations, voyeuristically, but it soon becomes a

fantastic cacophony due to my distraction.

There is only one voice that I am waiting for.

And in all this darkness, I am pushed down into my seat, crushed by the world’s mystery: where do I begin, and where do I end?

“Welcome to O. Noir, my name is Diana. I am your guide server this evening. Tonight you will be dining in the dark.”

A few weeks later – back in the light of day – I went to visit the training centre of Balance for Blind Adults. In the lobby, I looked at the ledger and there tucked into the long list of other businesses I saw the word “BALANCE” in caps, and then two blocks of braille.

As I step into the small office the walls are lined with computers and oversized monitors.

Nearly every machine is occupied. There’s a woman wearing cheap foam headphones. I notice her head tilt my way as I walk through the room. There is a plastic margarine container and a bowl of dog food. The office has a pet? Then it slowly dawns on me: no, no. That’s for guide dogs. The walls are beige, and cramped. The entire training centre could easily fit in your living room. The blinds are drawn, and the lights are low. One monitor has the Google homepage magnified a thousand times so that each letter is nearly the size of a man’s hand. From the far corner, one of the computers speaks up in a robotic voice: “the nurse stuck me with a needle and it hurt.”

Shane Laurnitus steps out of a tiny office and introduces himself. He has the pale blue eyes of a kind heart. We shake hands, and then he takes me into the office.

There is room in here for two chairs, a computer, and filing cabinet. I stop myself from commenting on the view that I can see through the half drawn blinds. Shane closes the door but almost immediately there is a knock.

A client needs him to help read something.

“I’m applying for a job fair, now I get the

ticket by email ... I would like for you to look at my email, you know, I saw it but ... you know,” said the tall black man standing in the door.

Shane nods and tells him that he’ll be there in a bit. His voice is calm and soothing.

He closes the door and asks what my story is about. I start to tell him when there’s another knock at the door. Someone needs a piece of paper, and some help printing of some documents. Shane hands him a slice of printer paper.

“Busy day,” he said.

Officially, Shane is the community access facilitator. He has always been interested in social work, and has been working with Balance for Blind Adults for years in a variety of roles. Today it seems he is the all-around-go-to-guy.

“We help people get connected with their community,” he said.

There are tons of skills that are taught at the training centre from how to use JAWS (a program that reads everything on your screen) to tips and skills on how to get around the city safely. But at Balance, connecting people to their community means: a paying job, and a safe place to sleep.

This is, according to Laurnitus, an uphill battle.

A report published by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) finds 65 per cent of the visually impaired community are unemployed – not unemployable – but unemployed.

Anyone with a disability is eligible for monies from the government. In Ontario, it’s through the Ontario Disability Support Program, a program that lands a whopping $1,100 per month.

According to the City of Toronto, the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $950 a month, which leaves a meagre $150 dollars for rest of the month.

That’s five bucks a day for food, clothing and anything else you may need.

“It’s difficult. We teach people budgeting, to hold onto their money and use it wisely.

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Worst case, we show people where the food banks are,” Laurnitus said. “It’s bad, it’s really bad. I have so many clients right now that the first thing they want is housing ... I’m pointing people to shelters, and what a horrifying experience.”

He recounts a story of a blind man who came to the agency in desperation. He had been sleeping in a stairwell during the winter. The man had tried every shelter in the city, but no shelter in the city would take him – solely because he was a blind man. Laurnitus says he called one of the men’s shelters and the woman on the other end simply hung up on him.

“She was just overwhelmed, she just didn’t know what to do,” Laurnitus said.

Shelters are filled with drugs, alcohol, and mental illness. Laurnitus said he spoke with a manager who said his shelter wasn’t a safe place – let alone for a blind man.

Laurnitus eventually convinced the shelter to accept his client, but he was unable to stay there because he was tormented by other residents.

This is the underbelly of our city. We pride ourselves in living in a Canada with free health care; we pat ourselves on the back confident that our country is socially progressive. All the while, men and women with disabilities are forced to turn to city shelters that can only be described as hell.

At one point during his time with Balance, Laurnitus was an employment facilitator.

“The bottom line is the employers that were open to it either know someone who was blind, or have a family member who was blind, or they’re just a really nice person,” Laurnitus said.

He talks about the fear that exists in our society and the taboo that surrounds blindness.

“Blindness is the least understood disability,” he said. “People just don’t want to think about being blind.”

Back at O.Noir, after a few reassuring words from Diana, I have settled in. The waves of claustrophobia have subsided, my eyes are open, and have adjusted to the darkness.

Diana left me here, in this chair, and promised she would return. I immediately and implicitly trust her. She has an accent, though I am entirely unable to place it, and decide arbitrarily on Saskatchewan. I tilt my head and wait. The chatter of the room washes over me. I long for no one but Diana, and whenever she is near, I half expect her to fill me with enlightenment but understand that she’s busy working.

There is a creak to the door. Every time it goes off, my attention peaks.

When Diana returns, she brings bread.

It is warm, and I immediately rip it open.

I can feel the heat condense on my tongue.

The crumbs sit on the edges of my fingers, each one with a life of its own. I want to eat this bread forever.

“I have water for you,” says Diana, and I slowly reach toward her hoping to hit a glass. I take a sip, and the bread washes down my throat. I place my elbow on the edge and bend my arm down to measure exactly where I have placed my water glass.

It could spill all over the darkness, and wet the tablecloth.

While I wait for my entree, I am reminded of a story that was told to me earlier by one of the managers, Sami. He said that one night a woman was dining with a couple, and when she came out of the room, her server asked her how everything was, and she said it was the best night she had had in 174 days. The woman said it with such precision because she knew that it had been exactly 174 days since she was in a car accident and required facial reconstructive surgery. She said she would invite people over for dinner, and they would stare and make her feel uncomfortable. After 174 days, she was able to laugh.

The door creaks, and I know Diana is coming.

“Hi, I have your main,” she said.

Across town, you can see your own reflection in the white ice of one of Toronto’s hockey arenas. It’s just after noon, and the Zamboni has run its course round and round to prepare the surface. It is immaculate and pure, and so ubiquitous.

“

48

Blindness is the least understood disability - Shane Laurnitus

Every arena in the country has the same smell: a mixture of ice, hockey gloves, and french fries.

Two of the dressing rooms are packed with blind and visually impaired kids from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

There’s a row of black and white skates of all different sizes. In the corner, there’s a pile of gloves, elbow pads and helmets. One of the boys puts his helmet on backwards, and immediately asks for help. He’s built like a tank, and would make a mean defenceman. Two albino boys, both with skin the colour of milk, have their gear on and are ready to go. Tucked away in the corner, one of the girls is complaining about having to put gloves on.

Imagine putting bulky hockey gloves over the soft touch that is your eyes.

Andy is the first one on the ice. The teacher who is looking after him asks me if it’s alright that he is on the ice right now.

She’s worried that he’s gone off and done something uncontrollable again. Like any boy his age, Andy is full of adventure. I look over and see him skating with Mark DeMontis.

DeMontis is the founder of Courage

Canada – a charity that gives blind and visually impaired kids the opportunity to skate and play hockey.

And he has just challenged Andy to a race. Three, two, one – and they’re off. Andy skates as fast as he can while DeMontis follows closely. The crowd cheers. There’s no stopping them.

At the age of 17, DeMontis lost his vision after contracting Leber’s Optic Neuropathy, a rare eye disease.

“I decided that instead of giving up, [I would] make a difference for kids across Canada that are blind and visuallyimpaired and give them a chance to play hockey and that’s why I founded Courage Canada,” said DeMontis.

In 2011, DeMontis skated from Halifax to Toronto in 64 days to raise awareness.

Courage Canada, indeed.

After 20 minutes of warm up skating, they drop the puck. Again, Andy is the first in line. He pushes the over-sized puck – specially designed for blind hockey – towards the net, and then he blasts past the goalie.

“I deked him,” he said with a grin.

I asked Andy, on a scale of one to ten, how happy was he to be here. He replied, “On a scale of one to ten, I would have to say infinity.”

I pick up my fork and stab blindly at the table. There is no telling whether I have successfully picked anything up, and I am surprised to learn what a visual experience it is raising a fork to the mouth. It requires visual acuity, and I miss, rubbing what must be a strip of medium rare filet mignon across my cheek.

A loud burst of panic hits me, and I force air into my lungs.

I opt to eat with my fingers.

I need to feel the world around me; I need to know where I am, where I begin, and where I end. The fork is so mechanical; it is a distancing machine, a cold metal object that distances me. I take a strip of medium rare steak in my fingers and drop it into my mouth. There was a peppercorn on the braised outside layer, and I let it roll in my fingers. It warehoused an entire world.

Every fiber of my being spills out into the darkness. I have never been this comfortable.

The door creaks, and Diana – my angel – drops off desert. It is chocolate mousse with raspberries. It melts into the darkness.

When I finished my meal, Diana tells me put my left hand on her shoulder. She takes me to the door. It creaks on its hinges.

And then she carried me out and into the light. I was momentarily blinded. I rubbed my eyes in agony, stumbled with dizziness and complained about the brightness.

Then I paid my bill, stumbled down the hallway, and up a set of concrete stairs where I spilled out into manufactured light of our city.

PSYCHOSIS PSYCHOSIS PSYCHOSIS PSYCHO

BY NADINE MARTIN PHOTO MATT CREED

F

or Alex* it has been a long and winding road.

During the ‘90s, Alex took a job with Toronto People with AIDS (PWA), a nonprofit organization that helps gay men infected with HIV/AIDS. PWA was on the frontline against this deadly illness at a time when the causes and nature were still unknown. Fear, stigma, and discrimination – especially for the gay community – surrounded the illness, and Alex found himself at the center.

“All my friends were dying of AIDS, and it was hard to come to terms with,” Alex said.

Under the pressure, he began to unravel.

He said that he became isolated, started saying things out of the ordinary, trusted no one, and fell into a deep and dark depression. He said he began hearing and seeing things that weren’t there. The world was against him, he trusted no one, and the voices in his head began to be his driving force.

Eventually, while working at PWA, his boss made the decision to have Alex be taken to the hospital. He recalled the scene as being completely surreal. He was completely in his own world when he arrived at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health).

“They assessed me, and I got put into a program called the Primary Psychotic Episode clinic, and I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder,” Alex said.

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association people suffering from schizophrenia may experience delusions, hallucinations, lack of motivation, social withdrawal, and other thought disorders.

For example, people may feel like someone is spying on them, listening to their thoughts, or transmitting their thoughts into others’ minds.

To Alex, the diagnosis was just that, a diagnosis, and failed to get at the root of the problem. The professionals treated his condition with Haldol, an antipsychotic drug. The drug adjusts dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain.

“The medication was far too strong for what was going on with me,” Alex said.

Alexandra Lamourex, a social worker at the Toronto Branch of Canadian Mental Health Association, is part of Early Intervention Program of First Episodes.

She said that when it comes to recovery, she recommends a holistic approach, looking at the whole person, their environment and the causes of their stress.

“The foundation of recovery is that there’s hope for anyone, and all people can and do recover from mental health issues,” said Lamourex. “Even though we may not have a cure, we constantly see people getting back to their activities, and reaching their goals to living full lives even if they’re living with mental health issues.”

In Alex’s situation, medication was prescribed, but the underlying issues were

never properly dealt with.

“Once you mention you’re hearing things, seeing things, and your suspicious about people, they seem to be more focused on that,” he said. “But these things came about because I was deeply depressed. And for me, I always thought it was more important to figure out why I was so depressed and why it led me to acting out in such a way.”

After being diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder and for the next five years, Alex was unable to work, which only added to his difficulties.

“For me at the time, the more difficult thing around the experience was not about hearing voices or feeling depressed. I think the more punishing thing was not being able to work and being poor. It was worse than the symptoms,” said Alex.

After years of fighting the system and his mental health, Alex has come full circle. He managed to graduate university and has spent the last 10 years fighting to change the way our society deals with mental health.

“I’m no longer scared of myself. I’ve just learned how to live with who I am,” said Alex. “I consider my mental health a part of my personality, as something that comes and goes, and I’ve learned how to live with that way of being.”

*His named has been changed to protect his identity.

49

One Love

BY JENNIFER ALVAREZ

How one woman is changing the face of Rexdale

S

he says the wrong things; she acts the wrong way. She’s awkward and against the grain. She acts as though she has everything to lose. She believes that people should do good just to do good.

She likes to help others and do progressive things for the good of the community.

Arabi Rajeswaran can’t help herself.

There is something stirring in the soul of this bright-eyed 19-year-old who is involved in grassroots, on-the-streets youth advocacy, and community development. She is active, she gets out there. She talks with people, listens to them, and isn’t afraid to confront the powers-that-be about changes that need to be made.

“Sorry, I was almost falling asleep on the bus on the way here. It feels like it’s been a long day,” Rajeswaran said.

She had just come from her shift at Burger King. Before that she attended two separate meetings involving community outreach initiatives.

Rajeswaran works with the national organization Leave Out Violence (LOVE) and the Rexdale Protech Media Centre (RPMC). LOVE is an award-winning youth violence prevention program based in Toronto, and the RPMC is a resource for neighbourhood youth to access technology in an effort to foster potential careers in new media.

In both organizations, Rajeswaran thrives as a leader and mentor to other

50

youth who have been affected one way or another by violence.

Rajeswaran was born in downtown Toronto but moved to Rexdale when she was 18-months old. Rexdale is home to almost 54,000 people. It was developed as a suburb sometime during the 1950s,

Arabi Rajeswaran fights for the future |TASHAE HAUGHTON

when the majority of the population was of Scottish and English descent. Today, 55.5 per cent of Rexdale’s population is visible minority. Rexdale is dealing with the social effects of violence, drugs and gang activity.

Melanie Lachman, 16, a high school student at West Humber Collegiate Institute who participates in the LOVE program, said role models like Rajeswaran and programs like LOVE provide more than just words of advice and a space to socialize. Lachman said it’s about allowing youth in Rexdale to get the chance to realize their potential.

“I think that many people go through hard situations, especially in this area, and they just don’t know what else to turn to [other than violence or drugs],” said Lachman.

“And I think that many youth just grow up and feel that this is home. And from a very young age they see older people doing the wrong things and you just get the idea that that’s normal and that this is what life is going to be like.”

Lachman said she met Rajeswaran at a talent show run by the Toronto District School Board and through meeting her got involved in the LOVE program in October 2011. She considers Rajeswaran inspirational and a positive mentor for Rexdale teens.

“Her community work has affected me by making me want to do more in the

Arabi Rajeswaran (in red) with LOVE participants and student volunteers in Rexdale |JENNIFER ALVAREZ

community as well. Just seeing her [active in the community], I feel like I’m inspired to do the same thing as her and continue to help the community, just as she did,” added Lachman.

Rajeswaran did initially plan to attend university to major in kinesiology, but had a change of heart shortly after applying.

She felt that, although the program sounded great and she’d be doing exactly what her parents would want her to do, she wouldn’t be able to continue to be as active in her community. On a moral level, Rajeswaran said she didn’t feel right going to school for something that she knew she wasn’t entirely all that passionate about. She feels that social work is more her calling and is something she’s already doing at a grassroots level.

“Some people might look at it as I was too lazy to go to school, but I look at it as I was more driven to do what I love than to follow what the rest of the people my age were doing,” said Rajeswaran.

Suzanne Shulman, director of program development at LOVE, said Rajeswaran’s passion and determination is not only admirable, but also makes direct changes in her community and the organization.

Shulman has been working at LOVE for seven years and said Rajeswaran is a natural born leader.

“What is amazing is that she is so young but so driven and is finding a way

to make a difference,” said Shulman. “It can be very overwhelming for anyone in the community to stand up … You can get lost and Arabi is separating and navigating through the system to find places and spaces where she can have a voice and make a difference.”

Recently, Rajeswaran has been leading the conversation behind a new community project aimed at promoting multiculturalism while confronting issues around racism and xenophobia in Rexdale. Not only that, but Rajeswaran has also created an outlet for youth to be more involved in LOVE. She is the brains behind LOVE’s newly established youth central board, which serves as an advisory panel to the board of directors of the organization. Because LOVE is a youth driven organization on a national level, it’s important to have youth voices at the table in anything that they do, said Shulman.

“It really brings all of our regions together and helps the youth and staff get insight into what’s happening in the other regions. Building bridges, bringing important issues to the forefront and that’s something really groundbreaking. It’s not an easy task because our regions go all the way from B.C. to Halifax, so it’s tricky!

She’s really taken the initiative to do this herself,” said Shulman.

In January, Rajeswaran and other youth in Etobicoke challenged the city’s decision

to raise the TTC fare and cut services currently being provided to people that need them. Rajeswaran reached out to Toronto councilors and MPPs and asked them to ride the TTC for a week to gain a better understanding of the impact these changes would have on local commuters.

Only two city councilors and four MPPs participated in the challenge. Rajeswaran said the amount of media attention the challenge received was unbelievable. She did it as a way to voice concerns about the fare hike that would inevitably affect riders negatively. Media outlets, such as the Toronto Sun, the Etobicoke Guardian and the CBC, contacted Rajeswaran to talk to her about the video that went viral on YouTube.

“The more people that kept contacting me about the video, the more excited I got.

It was just amazing, the response. It really made me feel like [using social media] could help me make a difference,” said Rajeswaran.

Shulman believes one day Rajeswaran will be rallying for change at a higher level in order to make the changes she believes are necessary for the community she loves.

“Some people are living their lives without realizing the influence that they have on others,” said Rajeswaran. “It’s like they’re living their lives with blinders on, never seeing farther ahead of themselves than the first few steps.”

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THE FACE OF A BULLY

BY SARAH REA PHOTOS TASHAE HAUGHTON

S

arah Baxter was a bully. She would attack on the Internet, on the phone, in classrooms, and in the gym. At times she felt nothing could stop her and her gang of friends.

“Girls will be girls and bully to the extent that they will try to ruin someone’s name or hurt someone’s feelings,” said Baxter.

“I had a group of girls that … would definitely try and hurt other people’s feelings, from the nerds to the drama kids, to those who wouldn’t care what they really looked like.”

Baxter, now 22, realizes her mistakes.

“I believe that people bully others, to make themselves feel better, to give them some sort of authority over someone, make them feel as if they are in control,” said Baxter.

She explained that being a bully had its fair share of regret: “I’m not going to lie, I definitely do regret it. At the time it felt like it was the cool thing to do, but now …

I wish I could send out my apologies to all those people that I bullied.”

The simple routine of getting ready for a day of school is straightforward and painless for most kids, but for those who are bullied, this process can be a nightmare.

Every morning, victims fake stomachaches and sicknesses hoping to avoid school.

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These kids shower with anxiety, and dress themselves in tears.

A statistic published in March 2011

by Proactive Behavioural Management (PBM) in a “Bully-Proof” article written

by Jim Burns, a U.S.-based educator best known for his presentations on bullying, states that 20 per cent of all children have been bullied, and approximately 160,000 students in the U.S. skip school every day because of it.

Bullying Canada, a registered non-profit charity says on its web page, that at the very least, bullying can make children feel lonely, isolated, and unsafe, leaving “long-term physical and psychological consequences.”

Today, there are programs, such as Kids Help Phone, The Bully Project, and Canadian Half-Pints, reducing the rate of bullying worldwide.

Studies conducted in January 2012 at the U.S.-based Cyberbullying Research Center states that both genders were likely to report feeling angry, sad, and embarrassed after being bullied and were “twice as likely to have received treatment from a mental health professional, and nearly three times more likely to have considered dropping out of school.”

“We grow up in a society where it’s all

about competition. From a very young age we are put in sports, we are put in pageants, we are put up against our peers,” said Bryce Delyea, 20, a bully victim and previous member of his high school’s Unity Club, an anti-bullying group.

“Who’s the hottest? Who’s the prettiest?

Who’s the fastest? Who’s the smartest? We have awards, we are always in competition and that’s just something we’re taught from a young age. So it makes sense that when you go to high school you want to have that one up on somebody,” said Delyea.

At North Park Secondary School in Brampton, the Unity Club was Delyea’s outlet for dealing with the hurtful labels and becoming an active member in the fight against bullying.

“I was in Grade 10, and I had the worst acne ever. I was going through this medication that made my skin all rash and I was a total disfigured person,” said Delyea. “[They] use to call me bacon lips because my lips got so dry and so cracked that it was really gross and flakey.”

“We got a lot of people joining [the club] … Back then it was only a group of us, maybe 10 or 15, but that grew to about 40 or 50 people. And by Grade 12, we had to start moving our weekly meetings to a bigger

room because we didn’t have enough space to seat everyone,” said Delyea. “I think that the Unity Club was a good source for kids who were being bullied because if they didn’t have a teacher to turn to or a parent that would understand … they could all unite in this one club where they knew no one was going to judge them.”

One of the movements the Unity Club attempted was an anti-bullying assembly where Delyea had everyone sign a petition saying they didn’t want bullying at North Park Secondary School anymore.

“By the end of it, we needed a whole second Bristol board because there were so many signatures ... and we kept those boards up for the rest of the school year as a reminder that bullying had no place ever in any situation, and certainly not at our high school,” said Delyea.

Kathy Brodsky, a U.S.-based licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist specializing in bullying, said the amount of bullying has gotten much worse.

“Because this is getting to be so pervasive, especially with the online stuff that’s really gotten worse ... you have to let people know,” said Brodsky.

“Anything abusive goes on much longer when it’s kept private or a secret ... things can get way out of hand when they aren’t

talked about and this is when you see kids who go and commit suicide.”

According to bullyingstatistics.org, a website geared toward helping educate the public on bullying issues, Yale University suggests bully victims are two to nine times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, while a study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying.

“You see it in physical abuse in families, you see it in sexual abuse, you see it in every form of bullying. People are doing something to someone they feel is vulnerable. Abuse happens in a very secret way often ... It’s not evident to everyone else when someone is being bullied and often the victim is afraid to go to other people because they feel that it might get worse,” said Brodsky.

In most cases, kids that bully have once been victims themselves.

“In the past and in the town where I live, there was something in the paper about a 10-year-old girl who was molesting some younger kids, and my first question was ‘who molested that 10-year-old girl?

Because 10-year-old kids don’t molest,’” said Brodsky. “So very often you get a kid who bullies that was put down by a parent or somebody, usually kids who have very

low self-esteem.”

Shelly Giles has been a guidance counsellor at North Park Secondary School for the past eight years and said that there are many different reasons why people bully.

“Whether it’s elementary school or high school, there are bullies who remain bullies all throughout their life and through their careers,” said Giles.

“In my personal opinion, it’s a lack of self-esteem within themselves. Usually the person they target has something that they desire within themselves. For instance, personality, friend group, boyfriend, girlfriend, there’s usually an underlying factor of why that person’s been chosen.”

Today there’s a different trend in bullying, said Giles. The Internet provides attackers with anonymity and more bullies are now moving online. “[Students are] just spewing information about each other, and it’s just really appalling to see that happening and how much it crushes students’ self-esteem and self-worth,” said Giles.

“You wonder why there’s a mental health crisis … across Canada? As a society we have to figure out what we can do to make sure that these bullies pay for their crimes.”

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Art Tsang left home at age 17, now he is giving back

YOUTH WITHOUT SHELTER H

e told them the bruises were from sports. When teachers and fellow students began to ask about the blue and black patches that covered his body, he became a master at dodging questions and making up excuses. The truth was, 17-year-old Art Tsang was experiencing daily physical and mental abuse at the hands of his father.

Two days before Christmas, his father’s temper reached new heights, which forced Tsang to make a difficult decision: to leave home. Scared and on his own, he slept in a bus shelter that night.

Despite his situation, Tsang was determined to finish high school. Using abandoned cars and construction sites as his safe haven at night, he continued going to school. He also managed to keep up with a part-time job.

When a co-worker noticed that Tsang was constantly struggling with his health, he was brought to Youth Without Shelter, in north Etobicoke. There he was given a warm bed, healthy food and clean clothes.

With help from the shelter, Tsang was able to complete high school with top grades and put himself through university.

Years later, Tsang is giving back.

After working in the corporate sector for a while, a job back at Youth Without Shelter came up. Tsang saw it as an opportunity to help other homeless youth. He now works as the planning and event relation manager, a job that deals with shelter policies and evaluation of the programs offered.

“The negative experiences I’ve lived through have helped me shape into the person I am today and my experiences in my youth give me that extra push to advocate and do a better job for the kids Youth Without Shelter is responsible for,” he said.

“The only thing I can control is [to] represent the youth under our care the best way we can. Seeing our guys move forward in life is an awesome feeling. To know they can sustain or maintain themselves in life really gives what I do meaning.”

54

STORY & PHOTO BY

SARA MILLER

For 25 years, Youth Without Shelter has been providing youth ages 16 to 24 the chance to set their paths in the right direction for a brighter future. Since opening its doors in 1986, the shelter has grown from 22 to 50 beds and blends in seamlessly with the other residential houses that surrounded it. There is no sign to mark it, for safety reasons, but is only identified by the number six which hangs on the front entrance of the dark grey building.

The City of Toronto reports more than 22,000 people used shelters in 2011.

Tsang said he took the job because he wanted to help youth realize their potential in everything that they choose to follow.

“I saw how marginalized kids often times stay marginalized,” he said In a 2009 study by Yonge Street Mission, a not-for-profit organization that works with homeless of all ages in Toronto, youth who found their housing to be safe were twice as likely to be in school than those who didn’t.

During his own stay at Youth Without Shelter, Tsang kept up with his studies and graduated at the top of his class. Instead of extracurricular activies, Tsang worked a number of part-time jobs after school. He paid his own way through university, with the exception of a small scholarship he received each year that helped offset some of the costs.

Tsang hopes that through his job at Youth Without Shelter, he can help teens accomplish their educational goals, too.

Development manager at Youth Without Shelter Judy Loroux said the shelter completely runs on funding and donations from the public.

“My role in the shelter is to oversee and support the programs and services of the shelter through fundraising and volunteers,” Loroux said. “We are an independent registered charitable organization, with 50 per cent of our funding comes through the City of

Toronto through a per diem basis, and the remaining almost 40 per cent we raise through the community.”

The shelter is not only used as a safe place to sleep, but also offers a wide array of programs that will benefit the youth who are staying there. They provide longterm housing for problems at home.

Their Stay in School program helps support homeless youth achieve success in their educational goals and develop the skills needed to find and keep both a house and a job.

Similar to the way that teachers would keep progress files on students, each youth at the shelter develops his or her own “Plan of Care”, which outlines their own academic, employment and housing goals.

Youth are also provided with the base tools needed to succeed in the program, including supplies and public transit passes.

Youth Without Shelter offers a housing program that focuses on placing youth in permanent, affordable housing. What makes this program so successful is that housing workers equip youth with the skills needed to acquire and maintain independent housing through education.

After having worked at the shelter for nearly a decade, operations manager Ben Omoregie said he loves his job, which includes seeing to the every day needs of the shelter and its employees.

“I don’t come here seeing it as a job I come here knowing that I’m going to make a difference,” he said.

“Working here has kind of strengthened me as a person and also what makes me happy about what I do is when I see that progress has been made in the life of the youth.”

The advice Omoregie gives to youth who may be struggling with employment or problems at home is to never give up on themselves.

“Believing in yourself, I think, it goes a long way to push you to do a lot of things,” he said.

ABANDONED

URBEX CAPTURES WHAT’S BEEN LEFT BEHIND STORY & PHOTOS BY

BRANDON HUMBER

A

n eight-foot-high fence surrounds Bowmanville Senior Public School, but it hasn’t stopped miscreants from scarring the halls of the building that has stood abandoned since 2007. The floor that students had walked for the better part of a century is now covered in a thick layer of ice on this frigid day in early January. The school was closed after 80 years due to demand for larger buildings that could hold more students. For a time, it served as a training location for police. A lone dummy marked by paintball rounds still remains in an otherwise empty hallway. Vandals have marked this building through smashed windows and vulgar spray-painting. But the creed of urban explorers is “take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

Urban exploration (urbex) is about going to places that the public wouldn’t normally see, without resorting to breaking in, looting, or causing any damage. Abandoned buildings, like this Bowmanville school, is photographed by urban explorers for the images of urban decay. Each building has a

story that echoes in the halls long after the occupants have left, making it all the more haunting to see nature take back these man-made structures.

For most explorers, urbex is where art and history meet. Jeremiah* has a long personal history with urban exploration but, over the years, the histories of the abandoned locations he visits have become more significant to him.

“I’ve always gone into abandoned buildings since I was a kid,” he said. “We were poor, so I didn’t have places like Canada’s Wonderland, and the zoo. For us it was about adventure, finding something new and seeing something other people weren’t seeing.”

By the age of 12, Jeremiah said he was into drugs and alcohol, and began to hang out in abandoned buildings. His interest in them grew over time.

“Abandoned places have always been a part of my life,” he said.

In the past 18 months though, Jeremiah has taken the opportunity to learn all he can about the locations he visits. The

Rockwood Insane Asylum in Kingston, Ont. is one of the most memorable locations he has been to, simply because of its rich history. “It was one of the first places in North America where lobotomies took place,” he said.

“When you’re in that sort of area with that sort of energy, it’s monumental. Then as the 1880s and 1890s came along, they started to change those practices, and then we’re standing in this giant pink room that was an auditorium where the people inside were actually treated to orchestras. Those are the kinds of things that you’re thinking about when you’re in this place and the paint is peeling. To me that’s special.”

According to Geoff Keillor, 34, an officer with the OPP for 12 years, visiting such old locations can be risky. Along with the not-so-apparent dangers, like mould and asbestos, some buildings are literally falling apart. In 2008, an explorer died after falling from a sixth-floor catwalk in the abandoned Richard L. Hearn Thermal Generating Station, a power plant in Toronto.

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Graffiti decorates the outside walls of what used to be Bowmanville Senior Public School

A mannequin is left behind to haunt urban explorers wandering the lonely hallways

There are also legal dangers. Trespassing in Ontario is punishable with a fine of up to $65. Jeremiah said he has visited almost 400 locations without being fined, and will never force his way in if a building isn’t accessible. Although it seems like a victimless crime, Keillor feels otherwise.

“There is a victim to that crime, the victim being the person who owns that property, who has not given [urbexers] any right to enter that property.” Keillor said the main reason these abandoned buildings are left standing so long comes down to money.

“A lot of times [the reason owners don’t demolish buildings is] the cost of taking the building down. They don’t want to pay for that cost,” he said. “They’d rather sell it with that property on there and let the person who is purchasing it pay for the cost of the demolition.”

Before the buildings are demolished, Keillor said hazardous materials, like asbestos, must be removed and disposed of safely. He also said there are red-tape costs, such as expensive permits, that must be obtained for a demolition procedure. Those caught ignoring these rules face steep fines.

Sometimes, though, urbex doesn’t involve entering decrepit urban environments at all, but remote locations long-forgotten by most. “There was actually an abandoned refugee camp in Malaysia.

It’s on this deserted island,” said freelance photographer Neil Ta, 32, who has been exploring abandoned locations for several years now, in Toronto and abroad.

“During the late ‘70s, a lot of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam fled Vietnam because they believed they were being persecuted,” Ta said. “So Vietnamese people would leave by boat, to Malaysia, to this tiny little island and would stay there for a few months, or even a couple of years before relocating to the U.S., or Canada, or Australia. This was the refugee camp where my family ended up after fleeing Vietnam in 1979, and it was the refugee camp where I was actually born.”

He recounted of his trip to Pulau Bidong, an island that is roughly the size of a football field. For Ta, the trip was more than just a photo opportunity.

“I don’t really consider that urbex because it was just something that I needed to do,” he said. Urban exploration, and particularly the images that come from it, can be deeply personal. They are scenes of waste and destruction, a reminder of the finite nature of life. People, like buildings, degrade and are inevitably reclaimed by the Earth. But Ta said there is beauty to be found in this decay.

“You can see life in these buildings that was once there,” he said. “So, for me, a lot of it is [about] looking into the past, and lamenting for what it once was.” *His name has been changed to protect his identity.

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If only former grads could see what’s become of their old senior public school

GHOST stories

BY ALEX FULLER

PHOTO | JONATHAN ZETTEL 57

T

he third floor of the old storehouse is both pleasant and unpleasant.

The century-old varnish shining in the dust-filtered sunlight is pleasant. The wasp’s nest affixed to a rafter is not.

The upper half of a great, rough-hewn wooden wheel protruding through the floorboards is pleasant.

The old rocking chair, rocking, although there is no one sitting in it, is not.

Such is the Commissariat Storehouse at Butler’s Barracks, located across the Commons from Fort George in Niagara-onthe-Lake, a beautiful town that claims to have more ghosts haunting it per square foot than any other settlement in Canada, a claim that could very well be legitimate, given the town’s long and distinctive history.

Whether or not the rocking chair under the roof is an example of ghostly goings-on, however, is debatable.

“I have always said that I do not know,” said Matthew Didier, a computer technician in his forties, who is also a director of the Toronto Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society (TGHRS).

“Far too many people are incapable of saying the words ‘I don’t know.’”

What he means is the rocking chair could have been the work of a ghost, a draft, an uneven floorboard, or all or none

of those. And no one can be certain which is the truth.

“It’s too bad that the scientific, paranormal and skeptical communities couldn’t come together,” said John Mizzi, a 52-yearold machine repairman who, like Didier, is a volunteer paranormal investigator.

For both Didier and Mizzi, the call to enter the field of paranormal research was one first heard during childhood. Didier was raised “on a steady diet of science fiction,” which lent itself to an interest in ufology – literally, the study of UFOs – but both men experienced paranormal activity during their youth, experiences that fueled their respective interests in ghosts and hauntings.

Since those early days, Didier has become the head of the oldest web-based ghost research group in Canada, the TGHRS, while Mizzi is now specializing in electronic voice phenomenon, a pursuit that yields substantial evidence for the existence of ghosts.

While the TGHRS has conducted investigations outside Ontario’s capital, the group is, of course, based in Toronto, a city of illustrious history and modern distinction, with more than a few tales of the paranormal of its very own.

Take the lighthouse at Gibraltar Point, for example. There’s more than one version of the story of how Toronto’s oldest

The Keg Mansion is said to be haunted |ALEX FULLER

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landmark, which today stands well away from the water’s edge on Centre Island, came to be haunted, but this one was told

by Didier himself, and later reiterated by Mizzi.

As the story goes, soldiers from the garrison at Fort York paid a visit to the lighthouse one night in 1815, in search of bootleg whiskey. Exactly what transpired that evening is uncertain, but the building’s keeper, J. P. Radan Muller, was murdered and dismembered, and his restless spirit is said to inhabit the lighthouse to this day.

So enduring is this particular story that it has been immortalized on a plaque at the very site. The discovery of a partial skeleton nearby nearly 80 years later has only fueled the legend, and the lonely structure has earned something of a reputation for ghostly activity.

There are other places across the city where hauntings have been reported, some of which are predictable, and others quite less so.

TGHRS states the grounds and halls of Trinity College at the University of Toronto play host to the annual appearance of Bishop John Strachan’s ghost, while a portrait of that same man, the college’s founder, in the Provost’s office locks eyes with every viewer, no matter where he or she stands in the room, although that last fable is just that: a fable, made possible by

the artist’s painting style.

Less than two kilometres away, on Jarvis Street, is Euclid Hall (now the Keg Mansion), a former Lord’s residence that later came under the ownership of the Massey family. According to the TGHRS, the imposing Gothic mansion certainly has the appearance of a haunted house, and it is now the somewhat unlikely location of a steakhouse. If the apparition of a maid hanging in the foyer is not a hallucination, then the restaurant has more than rare beef to offer.

“Paranormal activity can occur anywhere,” said Mizzi, and that appears to be the case in Toronto.

The city has no shortage of historic structures, but one of the most disquieting tales originates in High Park. According to TGHRS, during the War of 1812, a British Grenadier company from Fort York was following an American company one wintery day, and the hapless Grenadiers broke through the ice on a frozen pond. Many drowned, and people passing near the aptly named Grenadier Pond today sometimes say they feel as if they’re being watched from beneath the water. The likelihood of this story, however, has been disputed, as described on the TGHRS website.

Conversely, the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital does not have a particularly eerie history – Didier described it as a model institution – and it did not fit many of the stereotypes that are often applied to asylums. There were no padded cells, and the many buildings were constructed to look homey and welcoming. As might be expected, a number of unpleasant and false tales have begun to circulate over the years, but it is difficult to imagine any hospital using a smokestack as a crematorium, one of several macabre tales recorded on amateur historian Agatha Barc’s Asylum

By The Lake website. The smokestack in question is still standing beside the old Powerhouse, but it only ever was a smokestack. The hospital had a proper morgue in the tunnels connecting the various buildings.

Another persistent rumour

listed on Barc’s website is that aborted fetuses are interred in what used to be an orchard in the northwestern corner of the hospital grounds, at the corner of Kipling Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard. That site was once a garden tended by the hospital’s patients, and the only things in the ground there are trees, bushes and flowers.

“There is a stigma,” Mizzi said of people’s perceptions of ghosts and hauntings. “It’s a shame that people don’t take it more seriously.” He did say, however, that views of the paranormal are changing. “We might find some answers to some very age-old questions.”

“It’s a hobby for me,” said Sue St. Clair, 45, who is Didier’s wife and co-director of the TGHRS. “I find it all quite interesting, whether it’s talking to witnesses or, you know, going out to locations or even just sitting in the library and finding some ancient news account of a potential ghost story. I find a thrill in that, too.”

Didier, Mizzi, and St. Clair are joined by more than their interests and their scientific approaches to the paranormal: all three of them say that, while they can be sure that something unexplained is behind ghosts and hauntings, they have no way of knowing beyond a doubt what it is.

“I just don’t know,” Mizzi said.

Bear in mind, however, that Mizzi’s specialty is electronic voice phenomenon, and he has gathered near-incontrovertible evidence for the existence of the paranormal, whatever that may be.

Mizzi told of one particularly poignant experience in the basement of a Mississauga house, in which he and a colleague were conducting a routine recording.

That recording would turn out to be something of a game-changer.

While Mizzi was in the basement, he felt distinctly uncomfortable and turned to go upstairs. He heard nothing as he did so.

However, when he replayed his recording, what seemed to be a young girl’s voice clearly said, “Don’t go.”

And her voice could only be heard in Mizzi’s recording.

Although cemeteries are often thought to be haunted, experts say this idea is cliché |JONATHAN ZETTEL

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