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University of Toronto’s community newspaper Independent since 1978
March 5th – 11th, 2009 Vol. XXXI, No: 21
the newspaper
the newspaper write between the lines
the news
the arts
5 Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) conflicts 4 SPECIAL: Gaming vs. Gambling addiction 5 Happy Birthday Darwin!
7 U of T Drama Festival 2 Quick, to the polls! (or not)
Change
Picture this
MATTHEW POPE
HANNAH FLEISHER
University Politics Bureau
Campus Clubs Bureau
University administration and student politics may seem like cumbersome institutions rife with cronyism and selfinterest. Nonetheless, they are an inescapable part of life at U of T and can affect students in profound ways. The problem is that few are willing to face the juggernaut, and even fewer distinguish themselves from the monotonous rhetorical mass. Michael Motala is one of those few, running for the position of Student Governor in the Full-Time Undergraduate Constituency, which is one of only 8 student positions on the 50 person Governing Council (GC), which includes the president and provost. He seems willing to move into the fray with students' interests at
Founded in 1919, the Hart House Camera Club gathers avid photographers and provides them with the equipment and space needed to hone their craft. With the aim to promote photography as a hobby or career field, the club provides traditional and digital darkroom facilities for its members, as well as course instruction on different photography techniques. A year-long membership, which costs just $25 for current U of T students or Hart House members, allows access to the traditional “Snow Storm” by Patric Ingram won darkrooms as well as the the Junior Division K.B. Jackson Trophy chemical supplies needed at last year’s exhibition for developing prints. For use of the digital darkrooms, an additional $15 fee is required. sideration in several categories, There are also lockers in the some of which include digital facility available for $5. (altered and unaltered), film Courses are offered in prints (colour as well as black both semesters to provide & white, and judged in both instruction on beginner and junior and senior divisions), and advanced black and white a photographic essay category. film developing, colour film For submissions depicting developing, portraiture, and campus life, the Yousef Karsh fine art photography. These Award is also up for grabs. The courses generally run over winning photos are displayed 2-4 sessions, once or twice in Hart House for one month, each semester, and the course and the selected winners fees generally range between will receive monetary prizes. $45-$60. Weekend sessions To get a glimpse of the 2008 are also offered on “getting to winning submissions, check know your camera” for only out the website: http://hhcc. $5. These courses are highly sa.utoronto.ca/gallery08.html. recommended since the key to An excellent triumvirate good photography isn’t how of judges this year include good your camera is or even renowned architect Bruce your film, but how well you can Kuwabara, of the Toronto archiuse it. tectural firm KPMB. Bruce is a U The 87th Annual Exhibition is of T alumnus and has worked also just around the corner. The on all scales of architectural exhibition allows all University projects, nationally and interof Toronto students and memnationally. Our second judge, bers of Hart House to submit “Pic” - Continued on page 2... their photography for con-
A word for Governing Council
Hart House Camera Club
Michael Motala (Trinity College) is running for Full-Time Undergraduate Student Governor on GC
heart, asserting that “there is so much great stuff to do be done at U of T without stepping on anyone”. Motala is a clean-cut, unassuming and well-spoken
young man who has clearly done his homework (literally and metaphorically). He spoke openly and honestly about his desired position, admit“GC” - Continued on page 2...
Justice can be racist
Race biases may penetrate Ontario legal system WILL CAMPBELL Community Concerns Bureau Despite being studied extensively by a provincial commission some fifteen years ago, race has continued to be a factor in this province’s criminal justice system – but we can’t know for sure just how much of a factor. So says Justice David Cole, an Ontario court judge and co-chair of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System, which released a report on the topic in 1995. The Commission was formed as part of the province’s response to the 1992 Yonge Street riot, an initially peaceful multi-racial protest against anti-black racism in
Toronto which escalated into a full-blown ruckus. Yet when asked whether the Commission’s finding – that racism, specifically anti-black racism, was prevalent in all aspects of the province’s criminal justice system – remains relevant today, Justice Cole cautions against any definitive answer. He cautions that we cannot say wether the colour of one’s skin is less of a factor in determining one’s treatment by the police, and in the courts and prison system, some thirteen years later. Systemic racism may still exist, Cole says, but “we don’t have any really good data
studies” to properly answer the question. Yet accusations of black skin resulting in different, more unfair treatment by the Toronto police are still made: earlier this year Roger Shallow, a black assistant Crown attorney, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging that he would not have been subject to an embarrassing strip search in the entertainment district in 2007 had he been white. But is Shallow’s case an increasingly rare one? The investigation continues in next week’s edition.