SFU student by day, rock star by night

March 21, 2016 - Volume 152, Issue 11

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FIRST PEEK

March 21, 2016

“McFogg the Dogg.”

Maria Mihaira Fourth-year health science

“[McFogg the Dog] was my answer before she said it. . .”

informs them of the evils committed against First Nations peoples by the Canadian government, then how can they possibly properly understand the issue properly?

How can they fully understand Canadian history? How can we de-stigmatize ourselves from any potential real-life uncomfortable experiences we may encounter?

I normally write for The Peak’s humour section, so something really has to bug me to put me in the den of seriousness. Lately that thing has been the overly-politically correct (PC) culture developing on college campuses.

Now, before I start raving on the topic, I’ll say that I consider myself a very progressive, leftleaning individual. I am an ardent supporter of Black Lives Matter, pro-Syrian refugees to a fault, and I’m a feminist. But unfortunately, a lot of the overly PC attitudes I see developing lately don’t feel all too progressive in my eyes.

What specifically bothers me is the notion of trigger warnings — that is, online warnings provided before content that could possibly trigger a traumatic feeling or memory — which I believe to be completely flawed and unnecessary in the university environment.

A trigger warning that irked me in particular was one provided before an English class that looked at the horrors the First Nations peoples had to face. Wow, if fragile students can’t face content that

These ideas, combined with reading excellent coverage of free speech erosion on American college campuses by writer Conor Friedersdorf for The Atlantic, gave me a reason to speak out on the issue of trigger warnings. By potentially deterring people from viewing, listening, or reading important content, trigger warnings ultimately hinder the creator’s free speech.

As a part of the ‘bubble-wrap generation,’ coined due to how closely we’re mollycoddled by our parents and the rest of society, I can’t think of a generation that has been exposed to more warnings for content that divulges the cruel realities of the world. Instead of preparing us to

deal with reality, they encourage us to create personal, safe, sheltered spaces for ourselves so we can avoid all around us.

The fact of the matter is the world is not a safe place; traumatic experiences happen every day. You could become seriously injured or die at any moment in an accident, contract a deadly disease or be mugged by a stranger on the street. Moreover, people both on our continent and overseas are being treated terribly under the conditions they live in today, not just conditions described in history books. Safety is an illusion created in the mind.

It’s reassuring, but it’s not reflective of reality.

If your only means of dealing with your fears is to avoid them, how will you ever overcome any obstacle thrown your way?

Any psychiatrist will tell you the only way to face your fears is to confront them directly.

So instead of demanding to be coddled and sheltered by trigger warnings, we should work towards strengthening our emotional fortitude by facing harsh realities without throwing up a warning beforehand.

If words break bones, then how do you expect to survive reality’s sticks and stones?

Daniele Perazzolo Fouth-year anthropology

“You guys. The Peak can become president. You guys can just take them over.”

Tejas Phaterpekar Second-year MBB

“Arnold Schwarzenegger, hands down.”

Trevor Bestergaard First-year history

“I want a coalition between Bernie Sanders and David Attenborough’s super British voice.”

Clair Seefer Fourth-year international studies

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NEWS

Only one of every four candidates running this year isn’t male

“Where are all the female candidates? Seriously!”

That’s the burning question on the mind of current VP External Relations, Kathleen Yang. When asked what she wanted to talk about in regards to the Simon Fraser Student Society election, she nearly shouted it immediately.

“I think it’s so unfortunate that there is a huge disparity between male and female candidates, and even non-binary candidates,” she continued.

“Candidates that aren’t cisgender males, where are you?”

While the overall number of candidates is down to just 24 this year for the 15 positions on the Board of Directors, only six of them are women.

That’s just 25 percent of the candidates that aren’t men, for a school whose student population is assuredly not 75 percent men. In an election season that is marked by the lack of candidates, it’s a similar story for

March 21, 2016

female representation among those running.

“It’s not just this year,” said one of those candidates Christine Dyson, who is running for VP External Relations. “I think if you look at all the previous years, it’s an ongoing issue. It’s always the case.”

While female turnout has been low in the past four years, it has been much higher in the past. In the 2013–2015 SFSS elections, out of all 108 candidates, 36 were female, which constitutes 33 percent.

Additionally, during these years two of the fifteen positions (VP Student Services and Business representative) did not have a single female candidate run.

Another three (Arts and Social Sciences representative, Applied Sciences representative, and VP Student Life) only had one.

While these numbers do not accurately reflect the SFU student body, Dyson said that she hasn’t faced any trouble being

news editor email

a woman who wanted to be on the board.

“Once you’re on the SFSS, it’s a totally inviting environment being on the Board of Directors.

I think perhaps leading up to it, with the elections and everything, it can be very intimidating.”

Dyson is part of a slate with four of the six women running, along with Larissa Chen (VP Student Services), Blossom Malhan (Arts and Social Science representative), and Prab Bassi (Communications, Art, and Technology representative). The other two, Raajan Garcha (Health Sciences representative), and Jaggy Kullar (At-Large representative), are with the Bridge the Gap slate.

There are no independent women running this year.

For Chen, she think it’s disappointing because she knows many women who she believes would flourish in these roles.

“I think it is disappointing that there are only six candidates that don’t identify as male running, ’cause I have the privilege of working with a lot of amazing females who could definitely be amazing in these positions.”

Yang believes that one of the obstacles that arises for women

Jamal Dumas news@the-peak.ca

associate news editor Nathan Ross

running — and also men, explaining the lower number of candidates — is the awareness of what being on the SFSS entails.

“I think if you look at [. . .] what the society has done to our mental health, to our physical health, to overall well-being, I think they look at the student

society and they ask themselves why would we ever want to be a part of that,” she said.

As for Dyson, she affirmed that the slate went with the candidates who they felt were the best fit, although she did acknowledge that she does hope to see mixed representation.

“We wanted to have mixed representation. That being said, we did choose the candidates that we felt were the best fit for the position,” said Dyson. “If there is more gender balance, I think that’s very important to have that on a slate, just because you don’t want it to be an all-male board next year.”

At the end of the day though, Yang believes that more needs to be done to encourage more women to run and bring their voice to the SFSS foray.

“I think it’s really up to the folks in power to make space for these individuals who are underrepresented, and actively invite these folks to sit at the table,” said Yang.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘Oh look, we are holding an election.’

You need to actively pull these people into our circles and encourage them to run and participate and do our best to dismantle the extra barriers that prevent them from running.”

For the full version of this article, visit the-peak.ca.

Infographic by MuhammadQasim Dewji

NEWS

March 21, 2016

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While the Surrey debate didn’t prove any more popular than the Burnaby debates, it did have two interesting notes that separated it from the rest.

The first was that, since platforms had been released prior, the few students who attended were able to ask more informed questions to candidates, with many taking to Twitter to have their questions asked if they couldn’t attend.

However, lack of attendance wasn’t just a problem for students — many candidates also neglected to attend the debates, as school and other commitments came first. Most absent submit statements to be read in their place, although not all of them did, which was not well received by the students in attendance.

In case you missed it, these are a few notable points that differed from the prior debates.

• At-large candidate Moein Sharifi Moghaddam said he would build an SFSS app if he is elected. Current VP Student

Services Darwin Binesh insisted he be held to task if elected.

• At-large candidate Alam Khehra got very focused on the amount of money spent by clubs on pizza for their meetings, and promised to look into this.

• Many candidates advocated on behalf of Surrey students, acknowledging how left out Surrey can feel from general SFU proceedings.

• Candidates Tomas Rapaport (Science representative), John Ragone (Education representative), and Ibrahim Hafeez (VP Finance) were unable to attend, but all had statements in their place.

• Uncontested Health Science representative candidate Raajan Garcha also did not attend, and did not give any statement.

• Presidential candidates Deepak Sharma and Darien Lechner stuck to their main issues of “connecting the campuses” and Build SFU respectively.

• On gender parity or lack thereof in this year’s candidates, Sharma said he was proud that four of six of the total women running were on his slate, while Lechner said it was SFSS’s goal to help more women “believe in themselves.”

• Current president Enoch Weng called out Lechner for his plans on the 25 percent Build SFU levy reduction for Vancouver and Surrey students, saying changes to Build SFU contract “will default on the loan

and the project will leave the society in massive debt.” Lechner said that info is contrary to what he knows, but didn’t elaborate further.

• Both candidates said that if they were Disney characters, they would be Simba from The Lion King.

Otherwise, there was nothing new from the debates. Many issues were re-answered, since the debate took place on a separate campus. For coverage of past debates, you can find nonexecutive positions here and executive positions online.

At the Vancouver debate, engagement was minimal, with only seven out of the 24 candidates running present and only one

non-candidate present in the audience. Here are some key points: • FCAT Representative Prab Bassi raised the issue of student groups not being present enough on the Surrey Campus making specific reference to the Women’s Centre and the SFSS, citing events at Surrey that have had minimal student attendance.

• VP External Relations Candidate Archit Bansal was asked about looking into external sponsorship for the Build SFU project, a point included in his opponent Christine Dyson’s platform (who was not present at the debate). He noted he would need greater student support before he were to proceed with sponsorship.

• Presidential candidate Deepak Sharma commented on the Build SFU project that had been a point of contention in previous debates. Sharma noted that Build SFU did not go to a referendum question because students would not have all the information necessary to make a decision.

• The Peak asked a Twitter question from other candidate Darian Lechner on why when Sharma was VP Student Life the beverage garden at the 2015 Fall Kickoff was closed.

Sharma noted that he took “direct responsibility over” it and blamed the failure on not following up with the university administration.

Young Women in Business (YWiB), a club on campus devoted to creating a supportive network of women who wish to grow professionally, hosted their fifth International Women’s Day Conference on March 12, 2016 at the Sandman Hotel.

“The International Women’s Day Conference is our pillar event,

and it’s a day where like-minded individuals come together to celebrate what women have achieved,” said Bailey Wong, Chair of the IWD 2016 Organizing Committee. “It not only helps us celebrate our current achievements but equips us to achieve more in the future.”

This year’s theme was “Breaking Boundaries.” The intention was to equip women for tackling challenges that will undoubtedly come up in their professional lives, all the while being conscious of their societal impacts. The speakers worked around the general theme of leveraging strengths and using them as tools to master weaknesses.

“The theme of the conference changes each year, and we base our speakers and our philanthropy aspect around it,” Wong said. “This year we decided to work with a

non-profit charity called Covenant House Vancouver.”

YWiB asked for donations such as clothing and comfort items from participating delegates in order to partake in The Shoebox Project in partnership with Covenant House Vancouver.

The host of the conference was Nicolle Hodges, a news anchor at CTV. She opened the event with a personal story of how her career started by “breaking boundaries” and reaching out to a job she hardly fit the qualifications for — in doing so, she got hired to a job that kick-started her journalism career and helped her get to CTV. Workshops were led by professionals such as entrepreneur Danielle Van Zanten, and focused on a specific topic such as “Establishing your presence: personal branding”

and “Managing yourself upwards.”

Van Zanten expressed the importance of remembering that you as a person are a brand, and how you present yourself will have a powerful influence to your professional brand whether it be positively or negatively.

During the breaks between workshops, delegates were encouraged to network with the professional speakers and the various vendors such as Blossom Box Jewelry, Brain Station, and Giving Gifts & Company.

Wong explained that her favorite part of the conference each year is “Executive for a Day”; a draw where a delegate is given the opportunity to choose a professional from the conference and shadow them for a day. “It’s a game changer from the typical networking event

and much more personal being able to just spend a day with them or have coffee with them one on one,” Wong said.

Excluding the executive team, approximately 100 members attend the IWD conference each year.

Alice Joel, IWD 2015’s engagement coordinator and next year’s co-president of YWiB alongside Bailey Wong, expressed her excitement for the upcoming year. “The thing I love most about YWiB is how much they have challenged me to grow,” she said.

“It’s nice surrounding yourself with an ambitious and egoless team who are not only passionate about pursuing their own goals, but also take a genuine interest in helping others build themselves as well.”

6 NEWS

Rumneek Johal Peak Associate Most of us are well aware of the health risks associated with tobacco products, but what isn’t often given as much attention are its environmental impacts.

Colleagues of SFU professor Kelley Lee are trying to change this with their research, and shed light on the environmental impacts of cigarette butts by trying to hold tobacco companies accountable for the waste they produce.

Lee says that the tobacco industry has often resisted taking responsibility for managing the post production waste they release into our environment. “People don’t understand the environmental impact [and that] this is a kind of third hand smoke — the environmental residues tobacco products create,” she said.

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A common misconception is that cigarette butts are biodegradable, instead of toxic chemicals that are cumulative, and people have stopped looking at them like litter.

“The reason [people don’t notice them] is because they wash down the drains into places you no longer see them,” commented Lee. They are also found found in the stomachs of fish and other sea animals, or eaten by pets.

Lee and her colleagues undertook an experiment where they put a small cigarette butt in a litre of water alongside some fish. Said Lee, “Half of the fish died off from just one butt, demonstrating how toxic they really are.” A key concern for Lee is making sure people understand how harmful these cigarette butts can be if allowed to be released into our environment or waterways.

Currently, many manufacturing companies implement environmental initiatives and safe recycling programs, with some returning and disposing of paint products, light bulbs, batteries, and electronic items, as well as charging environmental fees. Dr. Lee says that a paradigm shift is

amount of yes or no votes. With 24,001 students in the current student registry, that means that 1,201 votes will need to be cast.

Nathan Ross Associate News Editor In addition to the 15 positions that students will be voting on in the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) election, there are also two referendum questions that could slightly affect how much students pay in fees.

The first question is whether or not to increase the U-Pass fee collected from students as tentatively agreed upon by SFU along with other post-secondary institutions and TransLink. The second question proposes scrapping the student levy taken for Schools Building Schools.

Both of these referendums require five percent of the undergraduate student body to vote in order for them to count, regardless of the

Question one: U-Pass “Whereas the current U-Pass BC Agreement expires April 2016; Whereas the current and proposed U-Pass BC fees are: Current fee: $38.00 per month of study Proposed year 1 fee: $39.50 per month of study (May 1, 2016 – April 30, 2017) Proposed year 2 fee: $41.00 per month of study (May 1, 2017 – April 30, 2018) Whereas a “no” results for this referendum will result in SFU undergraduate students no longer having access to the U-Pass BC; Are you in favour of authorizing the Simon Fraser Student Society to collect a mandatory fee of $39.50 per month of study for the participation of students in the U-Pass BC Program

Photo courtesy of University Communications

Each year, Canadians litter 16 billion cigarette butts. required in order to hold tobacco companies responsible and create extended producer responsibility, in ways similar to other manufacturing companies, to require them to responsibly dispose of the waste that their products create.

Around the world, according to Lee, smokers throw five trillion

cigarette butts on the ground annually. Every year, 16 billion cigarette butts in Canada alone are getting washed into our waterways and eventually our oceans, he says.

A potential solution, according to Lee and her colleagues, would include take-back schemes as well as a number of other things for

which companies would be held responsible, including clean up, waste reduction, redesigning the product, or even placing environmental warnings alongside health labels on tobacco packaging.

“They need to consider the whole product life cycle,” argued Lee.

beginning May 1, 2016 to April 30, 2017 and $41.00 beginning May 1, 2017 to April 30, 2018?”

This referendum comes since the current U-Pass agreement is set to expire, as it was a two-year deal that was struck in 2013. This current deal is also for two years, meaning it that should it pass it will expire again in 2018.

The proposal laid out was agreed upon by representatives from all schools and TransLink, and is the contract to which students have to agree. Should the vote not pass, it does not mean that a new proposal will be struck.

It is a $1.50 increase each of the two years, meaning that students will pay $3 more than they currently do for their U-Pass at the end of the proposed agreement.

There are fears that if not enough students vote or students vote no to this, they will lose their U-Pass until 2017.

According to Darwin Binesh, VP of Student Services, “Even if you get

a ‘yes’ vote and 99 percent majority but less than five percent of eligible cast ballots, it doesn’t count. It’s not binding; we lose the U-Pass.”

the collection and remittance of any funds to Schools Building Schools on behalf of the Simon Fraser Student Society?”

“This is a formality,” said VP External Kathleen Yang when describing this referendum question at the Burnaby SFSS debates.

As it stands currently, students pay either a $1 or $0.50 levy per term — depending on if they are full time or part time students — that goes towards Schools Building Schools, a student-led organization that build schools in Africa.

The reason that Yang is calling this a formality is that both sides have agreed that ending the levy is a suitable call, as they are moving in different directions than originally intended when the deal was first struck.

Both sides are encouraging students to vote yes; however, it is still a decision that falls on students, and needs five percent response to have any action taken.

Question two: Schools Building Schools “Whereas Schools Building Schools, a Canadian registered charity, currently collects an opt-out levy of $1 per term from full time SFU undergraduate students and $0.50 per term from part time SFU undergraduate students, which was voted upon in a referendum held in 2012; Whereas, Schools Building Schools no longer wishes to receive financial support from the students of Simon Fraser University; And whereas the SFSS is unsatisfied with project and financial information provided by Schools Building Schools; Are you in favour of authorizing the Board of Directors, by ordinary resolution, to cease

NEWS

Bernice Puzon Peak Associate SFU alum Kristin Henry has set up camp in front of BC Hydro’s headquarters in Vancouver, refusing to eat until construction of the BC Hydro’s Site C Dam project is halted.

According to BC Hydro’s website, this will be the third dam and hydroelectric generating station that will be built along the Peace River area in Northern BC. The Site C Clean Energy Project and will have a 83 kilometer reservoir that will be twice to three times the length of the river.

The project received approval from the provincial government to begin construction in December 2014.

Henry believes that the project is unnecessary, and will cause serious damage to the environment. When she was interviewed by The Peak on the third day of her hunger strike, she paused, saying she had to gather her energy and collect her thoughts before answering our questions.

“We don’t need the energy that this project [will generate]. What we do need is everything this project will destroy,” she said, listing natural

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wilderness, pristine habitats, and more than 5,000 hectares of agricultural land as being at stake if this dam’s construction proceeds.

Henry is currently on her fifth day of the strike, and the camp around her has steadily been growing. Five women will be staying in the camp as of tonight, and more are expected to join this upcoming weekend.

Farmer Sage Birley is the only man who has yet been welcomed in the camp, and will join the hunger strike for three days. In a statement to The Peak, Birley said, “If someone I had previously never met is willing to go without food to protect the food security of the Peace Region, then it is time for me to do my part.

It’s time to stand in solidarity to halt the Site C Dam so we can feed our communities and so we can all have food on our plates.”

Inspired by other activists she admired, Henry decided to go on a hunger strike because it was a drastic means of protest. The hunger strike is also symbolic to her in an another way. “We are moving into an era where food scarcity is going to be a reality, and that is not a future that I want to see,” she said.

Henry also stands in solidarity with the Treaty 8 Tribal Association (T8TA), an organization that provides advice and support to BC’s First Nations, who themselves are part of the Treaty 8 agreement.

The Treaty was signed in 1899 by

Photo courtesy of rabble.ca

Kristin Henry (right) sits with Sage Birley at the main site of her hunger strike. several Indigenous peoples residing in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories, with BC later following suit. The Treaty, according to T8TA’s website, “promotes co-existence between peoples on the landbase and the sharing of the resources, both renewable and non-renewable.”

T8TA was forcibly removed from their protest at the Site C construction site. Henry also explained that the Site C project will be built on Indigenous land, and argued that T8TA was not properly consulted on how this project should progress. “[This project] is an actual infringement on Indigenous rights. It

is choosing a future of industry over having fresh food and farming,” said Henry.

“They are branding this as a ‘green energy’ project, but for nine billion dollars there are so many [alternate green solutions]. We need to preserve the habitats and biodiversity that we have left.”

According to Henry, no representatives from BC Hydro have responded to Henry’s efforts thus far, but she is not giving up anytime soon. “I shouldn’t have to put my life on the line for this to the point where I could get really sick,” Henry stated. “This is on the government and BC

U of S Pharmacist Awareness Month

One for One Movement at UBC to Support Syrian Refugees [VANCOUVER] – UBC’s One for One Movement is looking to assist Syrian refugees in British Columbia by striving to raise $1 from each UBC student, donating all proceeds towards the Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC).

Initiated by a group of first-year students, organizers have asked for donations at the beginning of lectures, and hosted a soccer tournament. As yet, the group has raised over $1,400 towards the ISSofBC Welcome Centre, which will open this spring and provide beds, a health care clinic, English classes, and support services for refugee families. The ISS has taken in over 2,000 government assisted Syrian refugees since November.

[SASKATOON] – College of Pharmacy and Nutrition students at the University of Saskatchewan are hosting their annual Pharmacist Awareness Month this March. The nationwide initiative endeavours to educate students and the public about the various streams of pharmacy.

Members of the Canadian Association of Pharmacy Students and Interns are hosting numerous events aiming to engage U of S students and promote the college. Events include information booths throughout campus where pharmacy students are available to answer questions, a presentation from the Cancer Society of Saskatchewan surrounding sun safety, a mentorship night featuring pharmacist and dietitian mentors, and a “Mr. Pharmacy” pageant.

With files from The Sheaf

Hydro — they have the power to fix this. If they don’t, then my life is on them.”

The Peak contacted BC Hydro via phone, who said they would call back by 4 p.m. Friday in response to Henry’s claims like the project is harmful to the environment.

They emailed out a statement which said “We know that there are some individuals that have their own perspectives on Site C. We respect their right to express those opinions when they do so in a safe and lawful manner,” which is a similar statement given to other media sources like rabble.ca.

Ontario universities form Consortium for Manufacturing Research [ONTARIO] – McMaster, Western, and the University of Waterloo will be teaming up for a $50 million project for advanced manufacturing research, with the Ontario government funding $35 million over the next five years.

All three universities have expertise in advanced manufacturing, such as the development of new manufacturing materials and hybrid materials, as well as the infrastructure needed for such research.

The consortium intends to combine the resources and strengths of the three universities, alleviate manufacturing unemployment in Ontario, and provide opportunities for university students to participate in research and gain industrial experience.

With files from The Imprint

With files from The Ubyssey

By Maggie Li

8 NEWS

March 21, 2016

Since Jan. 29 of this year, five sexual assaults have occurred on Burnaby Mountain and in the greater Burnaby area, prompting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to form an official task force to investigate. According to Staff Sergeant Major John Buis, a sexual assault spree of this calibre has never before happened in the Burnaby area.

The assaults first began on Jan. 29, then occurred on Feb. 18, March 1, March 5, and March 6.

During the March 1 attack, an unknown male attacked a woman on Springer Avenue while she was walking home from a Hastings street bus stop at 1:55 a.m. Approaching her from behind, he attempted to pull her into the bushes.

Fortunately, she was able to fight him off, causing him to flee

northbound. The suspect is described as a caucasian male, taller than 5’8” with a medium build, and wearing dark clothing.

The most recent assault took place in the middle of the day at 2:50 p.m. The suspect, described as a white, 5’7” male wearing a soft dark hoodie, attempted to sexually assault a woman while she was walking on a popular trail near the Lake City Way SkyTrain station. The suspect once again was a stranger to the victim.

Luckily, a man whom the police referred to as a “good samaritan” noticed the attack and was able to scare the man away.

Police are in search of the good samaritan, who is estimated to be around 50–60 years old, asking him to come forward to help their investigation. The survivor of this assault is receiving treatment in the hospital.

According to an RCMP police report released on March 7, it is “too early to say if the incidents are linked,” but the “similar characteristics” of the assaults are what prompted the creation of the task force. According to Sergeant Major Buis, the similarities are

At this point, those who have been following the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) election know that there are a reduced number of candidates as compared to year’s.

This hasn’t escaped executive members on this year’s Board of Directors, either.

“Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed,” said Enoch Weng, current president of the SFSS. “There’s a lot less turnout in terms of both candidates running as well as people attending the [debates].

“People can blame dates, people can blame the general apathy of students, there’s so many factors involved that I really wouldn’t know where to start.”

He isn’t the only one who feels this way.

“It was a little bit disappointing to see the low number of candidates putting their names forth for this year’s election,” agreed VP University Relations Brady Yano.

“It’s disappointing that they will not have to necessarily work as hard for the position as many of us did on this current board.

“I think the campaigning process is a good way to see how individuals perform under pressure, and unfortunately many of the candidates will not be put into those pressured situations.”

VP Student Services Darwin Binesh believes the main reason is because of the lack of interest in multiple slates.

“Typically you see multiple slates in an election which are full, so what ends up happening by virtue of two slates with 16 seats to fill each is if they fill those seats, they automatically have 32 seats,” he said.

that “the suspect targeted women who were alone in areas where there were not many people.”

The force is led by investigators from Burnaby’s Serious Crime Section. Additionally, the RCMP has partnered with the Vancouver Police Department, collaborating on recent sexual assault cases.

The RCMP would like to remind Burnaby citizens to be

vigilant when walking alone in trails, as well as walking alone at nighttime. Sergeant Major Buis is “confident” that the RCMP will catch the suspect soon. In the meantime, the Community Response Team is increasing bike patrols on trails, and General Duty Officers have partnered with Transit Police to “conduct more, highly visible patrols in and around transit stops and stations at night.”

The Peak reached out to Campus Safety & Security Services to find out more, but they declined to comment.

If you have any tips that may help the investigation, call the Burnaby RCMP Sexual Assault Task Force at (604) 294-7922, or if you wish to remain anonymous, you can call 1-800-222-TIPS. You can also visit their website: www. solvecrime.ca.

“In this case, you only have one slate that really tried to fill all the seats.

“There was no division on the board this year that led to multiple people running for seats against each other. Current board members are actually all on the same slate. Slates are definitely a big part of it.”

“It’s a huge issue. Let’s just say that — there’s no need to make that politically correct,” said Yang.

“It’s a huge systemic issue with the lack of students that come out to vote in the SFSS election.

“Really, that’s what it is,” she continued. “Transportation, food security, housing security, and income security. Those are the four major things that are ultimately preventing students from participating on campus.”

The reduced number of candidates means that many only have to convince students to say ‘yes’ to them.

Almost all positions have two or fewer candidates running, with the at-large representative race being the sole exception.

With that, the campaign process has felt underwhelming to Yano, who wonders if this

election season has really given us a good sense of what these candidates will do if elected.

“In the debates, I did not get a sense from any individual candidate of the tangible steps they will take in order to get anything done. Instead, we heard very high-level talk, saying things like ‘We will engage students’ and ‘We will communicate,’” he said.

“I’m hoping that this next board, despite the ease of potentially getting elected, do take their role seriously and do build upon the existing work we’ve done this year and don’t take this opportunity for granted, ’cause they are essentially walking into the position.”

Whoever ends up filling the seats on the Board of Directors, Weng has a parting message for them.

“Be accountable. That can mean a lot of things to other people, but to me, it really just means do your best for students. Don’t screw up or don’t screw things up for them. Do things honestly, and don’t waste money.”

Regardless of the reason, the low amount of candidates has perpetuated the notion that students won’t come out to vote. It’s just another example of students not participating in SFU whether they want to or not, which VP External Relations Kathleen Yang believes is already a recurring issue.

NEWS

March 21, 2016

generally “more impressive” according to Wen, a computer science student.

When asked how Tap Tip compares to Chitter, another anonymous confessions posting app for university students, Wong discussed how “Tap Tip focuses on very conservative, Chinese values” while “Chitter is very Western.”

Online communities can bring people together or push them apart. For the creators of Tap Tip, a social media app, their goal was to bring Chinese international students together across various post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, including SFU, Fraser International College (FIC, which is housed on Burnaby Mountain), UBC, and the University of Victoria to name a few.

The Peak talked to Vincent Wen and Fred Wong, two out of 16 members of the Tap Tip administrative team who oversee the content that is posted on the app’s message boards. The app, which was released last December, focuses on two themes: Tap, which has posts about daily life, the community, and relationships; and Tip, which has posts about academic life and is

Even though the app is focussed on Chinese international students, the content that is posted on the app gives insight on the struggles that all international students can identify with, such as the language barrier, making friends, and being able to keep up with grades. However, despite this seemingly harmless content, there are other facets of the app that showcase more controversial posts.

One of the biggest problems that administrators like Wen and Wong have seen on the app is

the rise of advertisement-like content, such as the sale of assignments. When asked how Tap Tip administrators can mitigate the rise of this activity, Wen says that it is the individual’s responsibility to make sure that they are posting content that is positive. “[This activity] is definitely unfair and illegal [. . .] we can delete this app but we can’t solve this problem. If they want to buy assignments they can go anywhere.

It’s not our app’s problem, it’s the individual’s problem.”

Wen and Wong also discussed how while they personally do not condone this type of content, they opt instead to boost more positive and innocent posts so that they receive more attention, pushing posts like these advertisements out of view.

Despite the push of conservative ideals, Wen and Wong admit that there is some content that is less than conservative, especially by way of romance. Wen explained how some Asian students are introverted, and having an app like Tap Tip that is presented in their language enables them

to communicate with others and ask questions regarding relationships. The anonymity of the app, Wen continues, enables users to be “honest.”

But the creators agree some of the questions have been noted to be hypersexualized

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— something uncharacteristic of Chinese conservative values.

Regardless of the nature of the posts, Wen and Wong stress the fact that Tap Tip will not delete posts or ban users: “[Poor content] is unavoidable. We’ll only delete it if it is spam, but this kind of content is posted every day. It’s hard to control.”

As for whether or not they see the possibility of being shut down by administration, Wen and Wong do not see it to be an issue, as the app is meant to be a platform to “express one’s opinions.” But most importantly, Wen says that Tap Tip will hopefully help ease Chinese international students into their new environment.

“The school’s website is in English, and it [puts] tons of reading pressure for ESL students,” Wen said.

“With the daily life comments, students can see what the school is actually like before coming.”

A tool to help the transition for Chinese international students, Tap Tip has plans to continue expanding its app accessibility to other schools and hopes to install other subsequent features so as to give prospective students an opportunity to get a taste of what studying abroad is like before they arrive on campus.

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10

OPINIONS

If you asked me what I do when I hang out with friends, I would probably tell you that I love to go out to eat. Eating out has become the new normal. Nothing in the fridge? Let’s do take-out.

Didn’t pack lunch? Let’s buy food on campus. Going on a date? Let’s go out to some restaurant and class it up in a suit or dress.

Going to a restaurant is a pretty normal thing to do, with the only potential surprise being the bill at the end. But since wages are much higher than they were 40 years ago, it’s no wonder the price of everything is going up alongside our purchasing power, making eating out so much more enticing.

My grandpa pointed this out to me when I announced that I was not going to be present at a family dinner yet again. I had made plans to see a friend, and going to dinner seemed like a logical thing to do. Of course, I wasn’t at home for dinner most nights out of that week, and I had forgotten to make lunch as well, meaning I would have to buy lunch while at school.

“You’re wasting a lot of money on food,” he told me bluntly. “It’s also incredibly unhealthy for you.”

At this point I wanted to let him know that I was going to see a vegetarian friend and that would we be having a strictly veggie dinner, but I let that slide.

A 2013 survey by The Food Institute found that millennial homes spend 10.6 percent more on food than Baby Boomer homes when eating out. This extra chunk of money not only illuminates our increased spending, but highlights some very key issues that may indicate that our grandparents had it right all along.

More than likely, you have come across reports that eating out can lead to obesity and other health problems due to our constant ‘on the go’ lifestyle. Where cooking gives you a clear sense of exactly what is going into your food, we have no idea how much salt, sugar, and fat go into restaurant dishes. All of this makes the food we eat extra delicious and incredibly easy for us to

March 21, 2016

consume, resulting in increased calorie intake of nearly 20 percent since the 1980’s, according to a study by Dr. Stephan Guyenet in 2012.

But aside from eating out more, the fact is that millennials have seemingly less culinary knowledge than their grandparents do. All those tasty family recipes might go up in smoke if millennials don’t know how to fry an egg.

Despite the rise in popularity of Gordon Ramsay cooking shows, cooking is more of a hobby than a necessity, with our cooking repertoire hovering around only seven dishes.

The relationship between these two points creates a negative feedback loop. If we don’t have the desire to learn how to cook, at the end of the day we will opt for the easy way out and pay $15 for something decent. Our grandparents only ate out on extra special occasions, and saved a lot of money doing so. They also wasted less, learned more about sustaining a household, and potentially saved themselves from early onsets of diabetes or chronic obesity.

So the next time your grandpa asks if you want to join him in the kitchen, say yes and try your hand at cooking.

opinions editor email

Adam Van der Zwan opinions@the-peak.ca

Working as a restaurant server is a hard job. You are constantly on your feet, you have to deal with rude customers, and all while maintaining a smile. And if you’re a woman, this job can be made more difficult if the dress code demands you to dress in a sexualized manner. Many female servers are made to wear outfits that reveal more of their bodies, though these dress codes are not demanded of their male counterparts.

It’s absurd to require anyone to wear sexualized outfits in the restaurant industry, but sadly, it’s a prominent trend. And some women have made human rights complaints against these sexist dress codes.

Apart from being objectifying, these outfits can hinder a server’s ability to do her job.

Mobility is not a top priority for sexy clothes, and it’s not easy being on your feet for eight hours while being restricted by an unnecessary high heels or super tight skirts. It’s obvious to me that by making practical uniforms, employees will be able to do their jobs more efficiently.

Having an improved quality of service allows restaurants to do better business, and by requiring women to wear ‘sexy’ outfits,

employers are saying that female servers are only worth as much as their body — their skills as a server are secondary. It’s blatant objectification, and it’s unacceptable.

I would like to stress that how you dress your body should be a choice. If you are comfortable in tight, short clothes, or high heels, then there’s nothing wrong with wearing them, but the issue arises when it is a requirement for a job in which your body’s appearance is irrelevant to what that job entails.

A dress code’s purpose should be to provide consistency and professionalism in the workplace.

Restaurants may want to create a specific environment by encouraging certain uniforms, but demanding for servers to dress revealingly is not okay. The restaurant industry should not be similar to the sex industry.

Does having scantily clad women even add that much value to your restaurant experience? I understand that having attractive people around your place of business would be, well, an attractive quality. But do restaurants need to provide something for customers ogle at while they scarf down their dinner? If you need to rely on the looks of your servers to attract customers, then I am concerned about the quality of the food you serve.

This demand for sexualization of female servers is disturbing. Creating different standards of dress for men and women is an unnecessary distinction, and reinforces antiquated ideas of gender roles. Sexualizing uniforms not only hinders servers’ abilities to do their jobs comfortably, but holds us back from reaching total equality.

OPINIONS

Today’s feminist problem is that mainstream feminism often attempts to speak on behalf of the struggles of women of colour, while silencing them in the process.

A striking example was Patricia Arquette’s “feminist” Oscar speech in 2015, where she proclaimed that it’s time for “all the women in America,” “all the men who love women,” “all the gay people” and “all the people of colour that we’ve fought for to fight for us now.”

Even as we celebrated International Women’s Day a couple weeks ago, we celebrated achievements of women worldwide. The problem? Many women of colour are left out of the discussion because their voices, and their past and present struggles, are often silenced by mainstream feminism.

In society, the hierarchy of privilege tends to place men at the top, followed by men of colour. Subsequently come white women, and lastly, women of colour. If we celebrate strides for some women, we cannot celebrate this as a stride to equality if we do not recognize the struggles of women of colour, who are fighting to be equal with men, but are even still fighting to be equal to white women.

The gender parity cannot be solved by putting a woman on a board of directors, or on the prime minister’s cabinet — the multifaceted issues faced by women of colour are simply too great. In implementing gender quotas, racial bias is still

March 21, 2016

prevalent, and we can’t solely focus on gender without racial diversity as well. If we advocate for more women in leadership positions, and fight for gender and pay equality, we must ensure that our feminism is intersectional. A white woman’s equality is not equality for all.

Women run 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 Companies, and only a small percentage are women of colour. Having women in such roles is rare, but we need to recognize that these opportunities are lacking in number, and even more for coloured women, due to histories of colonialism, inequality, and marginalization.

Further, if we are going to promote body positivity, and the right for women

to make choices with their body, we must also support the right of women to wear hijabs or niqabs, to wear their hair in box braids or dreadlocks, and for all to celebrate their cultural traditions freely.

As we fight back against unrealistic definitions of beauty for all women, we must also recognize that on top of this coloured women are subject to colourism — where their beauty, and even their worth, is decided by the closeness of their skin to the white standard.

Coloured women are subject to ridicule for things white women are praised for. For example, as a girl of Indian descent, for wearing henna or bindis, or having

11

thick eyebrows, I would have been made fun of growing up. Now that it is adopted and encouraged in fashion magazines by famous white women, I no longer have to feel ashamed. This is ridiculous.

If we celebrate International Women’s Day, we need to ensure we are not just celebrating white ,middle class, cisgender women, but also the diverse women of colour with struggles that deserve our honour and respect. I hope to live in a world where having an Aboriginal female CEO or prime minister isn’t unheard of.

In order for this to be a real possibility we must break this cycle of ‘one voice’ feminism and speak to the struggles of women of colour, and not on their behalf.

12 OPINIONS

Dangling modifiers are more important than the US election, because I can change dangling modifiers. Modifiers are clauses that precede a sentence. They define the subject in the sentence that is to come.

A modifier is dangling when it modifies a subject that it isn’t intended to. Here’s an example: “Being so fit, the 50 km run was easy for Manpreet.” This sentence says that the 50 km run is what is fit.

What we probably want to say, though, is this: “Being so fit, Manpreet ran the 50 km run with ease.” In this case, Manpreet, the sentence subject, is fit.

Dangling modifiers can be hard to understand, but they can be changed by Canadians.

The US election is hard to understand, but can’t be changed

by Canadians.

If I can control my grammar, I can avoid misinterpretations, and needn’t be afraid.

One odd thing about grammar, though, is that it’s

inherently forceful. It’s tempting to force people to follow the rules according to a specific grammar rule book, of which there are many. I follow the Canadian Press style, because it makes sense to me.

It’s also my job as Copy Editor to make decisions about these sorts of things, and I think it’s okay to enforce this to make a newspaper cohesive.

But this can be a problem when we marginalize and punish for people not following difficult rules that often don’t really make sense. Doing so lends itself to judging people who don’t follow specific grammar rules, but who can probably get a point across just fine regardless.

Doing so can be kind of racist — like a prominent US presidential candidate.

Fortunately, grammar can still be fun to discuss, because we can change it. If we look at it from an open point of view, we can discuss what does and doesn’t make sense, and we can change the way we speak. This, in turn, affects the way we shape the stories of our lives. It’s not like the United States’ inevitable demand for Canadian fresh water in the coming years, which we can’t control.

Grammar really can shape lives. Think, for instance, about being mad. If you’re mad, are you mad? Or do you feel mad?

Big Smoke Burger has just opened on campus. While SFU finally has a decent burger shack, I’ve proclaimed multiple times in the last month or so that, while delicious, sadly, you can feel the liquid fat explode from the pores in your forehead as soon as you sink your teeth into one of those fat, juicy, dijonsmothered patties.

So, if you and I are of the same mind, then we have two options. We can either drag our health kick to

March 21, 2016

Now, if you tell yourself every time that you feel an emotion, rather than you are an emotion, how might those words affect your thinking? You might be more inclined to think of your emotions as a passing experience, rather than a consuming identity. It might make emotions feel a bit less important, and sometimes we need that.

Clearly, grammar is fun.

And important. Unlike the United States election.

The election is important, of course, but not to Canadians, because we can’t affect it.

We can’t control, for instance,

the Subway around the corner, or try one of Big Smoke’s veggie burgers (which, in reality, are just as greasy).

However, I’ve always been a fan of veggie burgers. I just like how they taste! Growing up, my parents would fry up some veggie burgers from time to time as simply a “healthier alternative,” and as a family we’d wolf them down at the dinner table.

I can happily say that I’ve always welcomed imitation-meat into my food lexicon without any fuss.

that a frontrunner openly promotes the violence that occurs at his rallies.

Remember last summer when we thought he was just a joke candidate? That he’ll probably just drop out, and we’ll all be like, “well, that was weird!

We learned a lot!” And we didn’t have to worry. But we can’t worry, because we’re Canadians, and that’s fine. We can control other things.

Even if every Canadian moved down there and voted for Bernie, we’d only make up about nine percent of the population.

Nine percent.

Though, most people are taken by surprise when I tell them I like to eat veggie burgers on occasion, especially when I clarify for them that I’m not, in fact, a vegetarian.

Recently, I’ve been wondering why this is so. Am I an oddball for liking the taste of a ‘manufactured’ burger?

Why are we so surprised when someone who proudly eats meat decides to whip out its veggie counterpart, as if only vegetarians have the ability to enjoy a traditionally meat-based food

But then if any of us did move there, we’d have to worry about a potential president who promises “worse than waterboarding.” It’s like he has no idea what he’s saying.

It’s like we’re France in 1920, and we’re watching Mussolini in Italy, and we’re like, “hey, guys, just stop it, look hard at him, he’s evil,” and Italy is all, “we need a strong leader, and all that racist stuff was just sarcasm.”

But we can control what we have. I have my grammar. I can control my grammar. And also American is an entire country, and they’ll probably figure it out.

We’ll be fine.

made from its healthier companion?

I recognize ‘veggie-made’ foods as just another food that I enjoy eating, rather than as an alternative to the foods I enjoy.

I guess this sort of defies the whole concept behind what veggie-foods are made for. I remember a vegetarian friend of mine state that she doesn’t really enjoy the taste of a veggie burger as much as real beef, but she eats it because it’s “close enough.”

Perhaps I’m just an oddball after all.

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ARTS

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March 21, 2016

Being ‘indie’ in the music industry implies more than just a musical genre — it also means being responsible for handling the business aspects of one’s own career.

The obligation of establishing one’s musical image, including the daunting tasks of booking tours, promoting singles, and paying for recording sessions, is placed in the hands of the band members themselves. This is the case for This Side Of Town, a Vancouverbased punk band that exemplifies the meaning of ‘indie.’

The band describes their sound as an amalgamation of modern pop vocals and early 2000’s punk influences, reminiscent of Paramore and A Day to Remember. About their beginnings, Jennifer Lai, lead guitarist, said, “I started playing guitar at 15 and 16. [. . .] I didn’t take it seriously until after high school though. I had a year off after high school and I really wanted to do something with music, so I decided to post an ad on craigslist and then actually do something about it.”

“I’ve been doing music for pretty much my entire life,” says Melanie Dawn, the lead singer of the band. “I’ve been in other bands before, but I grew up in Abbotsford, so there are bands out there that don’t really go anywhere. It’s really hard to get out there when you’re living in a small town, so [joining] a band that was based in Burnaby opened a lot of doors.“

“I started playing drums when I was about 18,” says drummer

Chris Kavanagh. “I bought my first kit then just screwed around for a bit before deciding that I wanted to be in a band and do something with music. All my friends weren’t serious about it so it never went anywhere. Then I saw Jen’s Craigslist ad, and now here I am!”

Fast forward to a debut album — 2013’s #thestreets — a couple of EPs, music videos, a stream of live shows, and a cross-continent tour. I discuss with them the challenges of being an unsigned indie band.

“We do everything ourselves,” says Jennifer Lai. “We have to pay for our recordings, venue bookings, promotion — everything.”

“We tried to get other people to book for us, but it’s really hard.” says Dawn. “They aren’t as passionate

as we are, so we try to get it into our own hands and do it. I mean it results in probably getting less gigs than we like, but we’ve still been able to play gigs across the whole continent, which in itself is amazing.”

The challenges that came with setting up a cross-continent tour were a big hurdle for the band.

The biggest challeng of being indepedent, Lai says: “I would say booking tours. But even so, just getting your music properly promoted out there is really difficult.”

The Internet has also played a big part in the formation of the band, as well as in building their fanbase.

“I think if the Internet didn’t exist then we wouldn’t have anything,” says Dawn. “We even have a fan in North Carolina that writes to me! He would of never heard of us if it weren’t for the Internet.”

Aside from the benefits of holding the world in your hands, the accessibility online platforms have enabled has also shaped the relationship between bands and record labels, inevitably placing

Jess Whitesel arts@the-peak.ca

more responsibilities on the band to promote themselves.

“Before the internet, the fight to get signed was more central, but now it’s not as important. A lot of bands who inevitably get signed to a label still have the onus of doing a lot of things [. . .] you still have to pay for your own recording most of the time, but it depends,” says Kavanagh, as he sips on a brewer’s lemonade.

“Sometimes, the labels will also pay upfront for stuff but it really varies per artist. But, they’re not going to take care of you like the way they used to.

They still expect you to do the work,” adds Dawn.

17

“You have to pound the pavement basically. So instead of Facebook and that, you have to begin printing out flyers and stick to traditional ways because you can’t rely on the Internet to spread the word,” Lai elaborates. “With the Internet, it makes it harder, too, because everybody now has a chance.

There’s so many bands for people to listen to.”

After a coincidental friendly encounter with another local Vancouver punk band The Faceplants, I end by asking what advice they wish to give to aspiring bands.

“Please do it!” says Kavanagh enthusiastically.“Go out there, do shows, meet and network with people, and make friends. We went to a show, gave someone our card, and then when they were booking shows they considered us, and now they’re our friends,” Dawn adds with a smile. “It is an experience like no other.”

18 ARTS

March 21, 2016

Listeners who are familiar with M. Ward will enjoy the gentle Americana-blues tunes and occasional hard-road offerings on the singer-songwriter’s 2016 release More Rain .

The album is filled with many of the archetypal M. Ward niches of blue electricguitar solos over Bob Dylanesque fingerpicked progressions and indie hit-kit back ups. Songs like “Confession,” “Girl from Conejo Valley,”

“You’re So Good To Me,” and “Temptation” remind of the old FM stereo roadies made for cars on the highway. On the other hand, songs like “I’m Listening (Child’s Theme)” and “Slow Driving Man” will suit those more somber, rainy days spent alone.

Needless to say, this album was made to live up to its name and its surprising title track (simply a recording of rain,

falling for one minute) — it’s an album that stays optimistic upon acknowledging that the rain has not stopped, but has and will likely continue.

Moth is only Chairlift’s third full-length studio album, even though the band has been together since 2005. This lack of output is due to the fact that the members of the band have gone on to pursue solo work.

Overall, the album doesn’t seem to have a cohesive direction in terms of production, writing, or style. This could be to the amount of time between their last release in 2012 or the

amount of solo projects that members have done.

The most notable of these solo projects has been Patrick Wimberly’s production work with Das Racist.

In any event, this album is somewhat of a mixed bag in terms of what you get from it. Some parts are absolutely beautiful and catchy, and then other parts are experimental — but not in a good way.

Highlights include: “Polymorphing,” “Ch-Ching,” and “Moth to the Flame.”

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Everyone has family stories — the kind that get swept under the rug and are not talked about either to protect a family member, or, more often than not, to avoid dealing with a difficult situation or event.

Imagine taking that story and writing a memoir about it, essentially sharing those secrets with the world.

Cindy Graves, who works at SFU as a Director of Advancement, told the whole truth about an event that haunted her family for years and that some of them still haven’t gotten over. She shares the details of her sister Natalie’s young love, and the events that led to her father serving jail time for shooting Natalie’s boyfriend, in CareyOn. Graves didn’t always know she was going to write this book. Her father used to say that he should write about it, but after years of telling people the story in person, she decided it was finally time to put pen to paper.

She had thought that there was no way she would be able to tell the truth about everything. The trouble with memoirs is that the characters in the book are your family members who may not want their story shared. After taking a memoir writing course at SFU, Graves decided she had to tell the truth, and would have to be ready for the repercussions.

Natalie Carey met John Ranberg (whose name was changed for the book) in high school, and the story revolves around their tumultuous, unhealthy relationship. Natalie got pregnant at 14 and had to go through a traumatic abortion, but she remained loyal to John long after that. John and the girls’ father, Harry Carey, never got along, but the trouble started when John and his friends began terrorizing the

Carey farm. One night, after becoming fed up with the disturbances, Mr. Carey took out his shotgun and fired at the car, not knowing who was inside.

That incident only caused Natalie to become more estranged from the family, and eventually her father gave her an ultimatum: stop seeing John or move out of his house.

She took the latter option and moved in with a friend.

The perspective switches between Cindy and Natalie, allowing for a well-rounded telling of the story and both an inside and outside perspective on Natalie’s troubled relationship. Graves mentioned that some people have asked if she co-authored the book with her sister because her character’s voice is so strong, and it does feel that way — in fact, Natalie wasn’t willing to talk to her sister about that time in her life. Graves had to rely on memory and her best guesses to craft the story of Natalie and John.

Natalie also requested that her name be changed for the book, and still has not been able to read to entire thing.

“It did cause some unrest within the family,” said Graves, explaining that her other sister Christine was very upset and felt exposed by the book. She was mad for a long time. “I thought I was giving them a gift, a legacy, but the reaction wasn’t what I expected.” Another unexpected consequence was that her aunt found out a family secret about sexual abuse only through reading this book — Graves had thought she already knew.

This is a gripping, high-stakes story that makes you want to keep reading to find out what will become of Natalie, find out how the family will cope, and see if they will truly be able to carry on. With relatable characters and familiar themes about growing up, young love, family dynamics, and figuring out who you are, CareyOn highlights the importance of open family communication and never letting someone slip away.

ARTS

Passion. Intensity. Purpose.

These are some of the words that come to mind when listening to artist Saul Williams perform.

Hailing from New York, Williams is a master of many trades. He is a rapper, slam poet, musician, and actor. Regardless of what or where he is performing, his words and the meaning behind them always pack a powerful punch.

Williams credits a lot of his creativity to his safe and privileged upbringing. In email correspondence with The Peak, Williams reflected on his childhood and how it enabled him to spend “a lot of time in [his] head.

“I felt safe enough to read, dance, imagine, dream,” Williams recounted. “The richness of the culture I was part of by growing up in the African American church, the hood, [New York] during the birth of hip hop. . . all of it informed me.”

Ever since his debut album Amethyst Rock Star in 2001, Williams has been telling stories that are inspired by what he sees and hears around him. His latest album, MartyrLoserKing,

We’ve all have that one show.

You know, that one. It was on the air for a decade, but hasn’t had

March 21, 2016

continues to push boundaries and aims to connect the “first and third worlds” through words, music, and multimedia.

Spending time writing and recording MartyrLoserKing in Senegal, Reunion Island, Haiti, Paris, New Orleans, and New York gave him a host of different perspectives. His album connects these unique places together to tell a story that must be told.

With provocative and forthright words about various hard-hitting topics like poverty, race relations, and violence and brutality, Williams often earns the title of ‘activist’ in discussion. When asked whether or not he views himself as an activist, Williams said he sees himself more like a “chef who gets pleasure from feeding activists.” His work, he says, reflects his world and the thoughts that occupy them, and he is interested in “providing music and fuel for activists.

“I want them to be well fed, the same way the system works to feed the bellies and morale of soldiers,” stated Williams.

a good season since the third. It’s the same show that you have such a strong emotional attachment to that not even massive cast turnover and poorly executed sub-plots could make you stay away. If you are the fan of a terrible TV show that didn’t deserve to continue, and/or if you’re an easy crier, I don’t recommend you keep reading this piece.

Anyways, we all have that show.

And if your show is on this list, I’m

While each track contain powerful words, the intensity and overall feeling varies from track to track; for example, “Horn of the Clock-Bike” has lyrics sung over the same motivic passage being repeated over and over on the piano, creating a slightly hypnotic feel that plays to the meekness of a martyr. In contrast, “Burundi” opens with very majestic strings, followed by forceful and percussive words that slice through the drum beats in the background.

His words mix effortlessly with hypnotic beats, powerful percussion and mbira (thumb piano) strokes, giving Williams a sound like no other that will keep you inspired. With regards to MartyLoserKing , Williams himself calls the vision that he has of the album “ahead of its time.”

Williams’ creative process, according to him, happens just “like that.” When asked how he knows whether a piece will become a song or poem, he says he lets the creative process take over, “I can never predetermine the outcome.” He treats the experience as if he were raising a child, ensuring that the “ideas

19

are nurtured and fed” in order for them to grow: “If a poem calls for music I provide it. If a musical idea decides it’s ready for words, I provide them [and] try not to get in the way.”

From his early beginnings as a slam poet to coming onto the world stage with thought-provoking pieces, Saul Williams is taking the world on a wild ride, and he shows no signs of stopping.

sorry. But the truth is these five shows just turned into utter shit as the seasons went by. And as a student journalist, I need to call them as I see them. Let’s get started.

she deserves (see Agent Carter).

Don’t just take old stories and put a women in the dude’s shoes. It’s boring and offensive.

5. Two and a Half Men

I can already hear the angry 19-year-old girls with pitchforks beating at my door. But honestly, we all need to take a deep breath and think long and hard about the state of this show. Once everyone calms themselves and puts down the glass of grapefruit-infused rosé, its hard to disagree with me on this one. This once very clever and dramatic show about doctors is now just a rollercoaster that takes you on a ride from hell for 60 minutes at a time.

Everyone has died and come back to life so many times I wonder if the producers believe in the sanctity of life at all. This show is out of steam and material, and no amount of good-looking actors can change that. Get off the air already.

What started out as a show centred around weird, perverted humour that actually merited a chuckle or two became a hot mess by the time it went off air in 2015.

Truth be told, this show should have wrapped up in 2009, before Sheen even got the boot. But they wanted to prove that even as an older show, they still had stamina.

Spoiler: they didn’t.

4. Supergirl This never should have made it past the pilot episode. Mediocre acting and been-done-before plot secures this show’s ‘gotta be canceled’ status. It has been a true disappointment. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: if you want to give us a badass female superhero, write her the new role AND story

3. Grey’s Anatomy

2. Supernatural What is this show even about?

I thought it was about two brothers fighting supernatural monsters, but honestly the latest seasons are over the top and just bizarre. . . this show could be about anything at this point.

1. How I Met Your Mother This show was that one show for me. I watched every episode religiously from 2005 straight through 2014 when the show finally went off air. With mixed emotion and pain in my heart, I will admit this show turned into total garbage. By the time they had milked the franchise for every last joke, there was nothing left for the finale. This is ultimately why the show also receives the honour of “worst series finale” on top of “show that should have ended way sooner.” The show jumped the shark in season four and never really recovered. So I’m sorry, HIMYM, but you will always be remembered as the show that disappointed a generation.

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March 21, 2016

From March 30 until April 3, with a preview on March 29, Tomo Suru Players will be performing their production of The Laramie Project at Studio 1398. First performed in 2000, The Laramie Project is a play depicting the actions surrounding the death of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man from Wyoming brutally murdered in a hate crime.

In an interview, Gerald Williams, director and founder of the Tomo Suru Players, discussed the motivations for the curation of this project. While speaking with a group of young actors, he realized that “many of them had never heard of The Laramie Project.” In that moment, he said, he understood that “the memory of this project is something that could be lost.”

“It’s such an important point in, I believe, the history of human rights,” stated Gerald. He continued, “I believe that part of the point of The Laramie Project is [that] it carries on. It resonates today as it did 20 years ago, it needs to be passed on generation to generation.”

With this production in particular, Williams stated, “The goal was to have the actors feel it. If the actors feel it, if there is that level of

satisfaction and growth with them, everything else works.” Another massive goal of the production, says Williams, is “getting young people to see it.”

In an attempt to make this goal a reality, Tomo Suru Players are looking for sponsors for their Youth Sponsorship Packages.

These packages give young people connected to LGBTQ+ and antibullying campaigns an opportunity to see The Laramie Project. They currently have 40 tickets to give out through community groups, schools, colleges, and universities — including SFU. Working on a project like this certainly takes its toll. When Williams first heard about the tragic death of Matthew Shepard, he was living in Japan. “You think, ‘people don’t do this, in this extreme. . .’ apparently, we do. [. . .] Even though we touch the depths of horror, it ends positively,” says Williams. In an attempt to help foster an environment of open discussion, after each performance, the creative team and actors will be conducting a live talk with the audience.

Two such actors are SFU alumni Kelly Sheridan and Tony Giroux. The unique perspectives they have brought to the production were directly influenced by their time at SFU. Sheridan states, “I was in the theatre program at SFU at the time when he [Shepard] was murdered, and Matthew Shepard and

I would be almost the same age if he was still alive today.” Sheridan also brings a knowledge of the show stemming from her viewing the original off- Broadway production by Tectonic Theatre company, as recommended by an SFU professor Giroux first learned about Matthew Shepard’s story in a class at SFU. “Part of the lecture was on how Matthew Shepard had been branded in the media,” he said. “It’s interesting to hear about it from a more analytical point of view in school, and now

it’s really cool to be diving into the more emotional aspect of it.”

The importance of the piece comes from the real life events that it discusses, and the ripple effect those events had in society. As Sheridan argued, Matthew Shepard is “up there with Harvey Milk and Stonewall.” She went on, saying his story has “reverberated through our culture, where people who haven’t heard about him experience the effects of his murder, and the subsequent trial, because it’s changed the way that we perceive bullying.

“It’s easy to think that what happened 20 years ago doesn’t happen now,” Sheridan continued. But she warned, “There are opinions, there are values that are just as strong as they were 20 years ago [. . .] it’s important that we keep having that conversation.” The Laramie Project promises to be just that conversation starter.

The ’90s was the golden era of sitcoms. We had Friends, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and of course, Full House.

The reign that these shows had over the TV landscape may have ended, but their legacy lives on through catchphrases repurposed into memes on Twitter. Now, through the magic of Netflix and YouTube, a whole new generation can enjoy the quality TV that once existed.

But in the same way many movies have terrible sequels, the Full House crew decided to take

a gamble and invade the millennial entertainment market with a spin-off. The term ‘spinoff’ is not used lightly here: the new Netflix original, entitled Fuller House, takes the original story line and spins it round and round. It’s like getting off of an incredibly fast rollercoaster: your surroundings still look the same, but slightly distorted.

Set 20 years later, Fuller House actually starts with the original Full House credits in all of their ’90s glory. One by one, the original characters enter back into familiar territory with recycled jokes, proving to the universe that somehow, they are immortal.

The show follows DJ TannerFuller (Candace Cameron-Bure), a widow with three boys. As her family begins to move on with their

lives, DJ begins to see how difficult it can be to raise three children on her own. By the end of the premiere episode, her younger sister Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and best friend Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) move in with her to help her raise her family.

Sound familiar?

In the first episode, all of the catchphrases and jokes come back to life in a very surreal way. We welcome back Tanner family man Danny (Bob Saget) and his clean freak ways, “Have mercy” Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos) and his all-American wife Rebecca Donaldson (Lori Loughlin), big kid Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier), and even Jesse and Becky’s twin boys Nicky and Alex make a cameo appearance without blonde mops on their heads (Blake and Dylan

Tuomy-Wilhoit). And who can forget DJ’s sandwich-chomping exboyfriend Steve (Scott Weinger), who tries to rekindle their romance despite his lack of hair?

However, noticeably absent was “You got it, dude” Michelle (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen).

In addressing Michelle’s absence from the show, the characters broke the fourth wall — or rather, demolished the fourth wall — as they faced the audience somberly after stating that Michelle was “building her fashion empire in New York.”

Despite the premiere being a big cheesefest, the season continued on fairly strongly, bringing in independent storylines and new characters. The show has also been modernized to appeal to a 2016 audience, citing Donald Trump as a

swear word, and including a Bachelorette-esque season finale.

Aside from the obvious attempts to be a sitcom that belongs in this day and age, Fuller House remains true to its strong sense of family and its commitment to keeping it PG. The fans enjoyed it so much that Netflix ordered a second season, to be released sometime next year.

Hopefully it will be able to tie up many of the unfinished storylines that season one gave us, like if Michelle Tanner will ever return to San Francisco, or if DJ and Steve will ever be together for real.

Fuller House is a old meets new reboot with a lot of potential in future seasons. But regardless of how successful it gets, “holy chalupas” will never replace “oh Mylanta.”

SPORTS

sports editor email

March 21, 2016

Nick Bondi sports@the-peak.ca

21

Elsewhere in SFU athletics...

SFU placed in second at the Notre Dame De Namur Argo Invitational. Kevin Vigna finished in second place individually, one back of the leader. Chris Crisologo finished tied for second with 12 birdies, and Michael Caan finished in 15th. Their next competition is the California Baptist Invitational from March 21 to 22.

Not many golfers can say that they have achieved a hole in one. Second-year SFU student Breanna Croxen though, has achieved this feat twice in under a month.

The New Westminster native is one of seven girls who represent the Clan on the women’s golf team. Croxen started playing golf at the age of 14. But golf was not the only sport in her life: at the time, Croxen also played lacrosse, soccer, and basketball, but she always had an interest in golf. After sustaining a wrist injury at the age of 16, Croxen decided to pursue golf more seriously, with the help of her aunt.

“My aunt dedicated a lot of time to teaching me how to play, since she had no kids at the time,” Croxen said. “She took me under her wing.”

Despite starting her golf career later than most, Croxen has already proven herself to be very serious about the sport. She trains three times a week with the team, doing Olympic weightlifting and yoga, alongside sessions at the range twice a week to develop her golf strokes and playing rounds on the weekend with her teammates. Croxen also continues to work with her aunt with golf-specific training.

All of this training is evident in her success: in 2015 Croxen was able to seal a third place finish at the Greater Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) Golf Championship. That success, Croxen says, was what helped her confidence.

“It was evidence [to me] that I am a good golfer,” Croxen said.

But beyond her individual work, Croxen points to the team dynamic that she and her teammates share as being an integral part of her success.

“We do a lot of things together, like play games together and get competitive,” Croxen says of her teammates. “It’s all healthy competition — we leave all of it on the course.”

One key point to remember about golf is that it is as much

SFU competed in the annual NCAA NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships with Cameron Proceviat finishing just over a second off winning a national championship. He was named a first team All-American, while five other SFU runners were also named.

a mental game as much as it is a physical game. Athletes who play team sports can rely on their teammates for support if they find that they are having an off day, but for Croxen and other golfers, off days could pose a serious threat to a player’s entire outlook off the game.

“It’s easy to get down on golf [when thing aren’t going your way],” Croxen says. Because of this, Croxen is thankful that coaches like swing coach Nate Beauchamp help the team not only with the physical parts of the game, but as well as the mental parts as wellof it.

Through the mental side of the game, golf has given Croxen

determination and a good work ethic. Alongside her training and competitions, she is also studying Communications with hopes of becoming a sports broadcaster. With homework and training, Croxen says, she needs to learn how to balance her time wisely so that her homework gets done and that her game does not slip.

“It’s easy to just focus on golf. . . [but] it’s important to remember to devote time to each area of life.”

Croxen also discussed the vast opportunities that girls had within the world of golf. While golf is typically considered a maledominated sport, it has opened to Croxen many scholarship opportunities within the NCAA as well as various career paths. At the end of it all, Croxen hopes to one day play alongside other famous

names like Michelle Wie, Lydia Ko, and Sandra Gal. She says that she can use her experience with golf in the field of sports broadcasting, interviewing other famous golfers and reporting for TSN — another field which is predominantly male.

Croxen’s journey with golf is just getting started, and with her hard work and determination, she shows great promise as a potential player on the LPGA tour.

SFU swept Central Washington University to win their seventh straight game. The Clan won the first game 10–9, with eight of SFU’s runs being scored in the first two innings.

Nicole Ratel went two for three, and hit a home run.

In the second game, SFU won 7–6, with five of the Clan’s runs coming in the second inning. Taylor Lundrigan led the team offensively in the second game, going three for five.

Junior Tyler McLean finished fourth at the NCAA Division II Wrestling Championships. In doing this, he became only the second SFU men’s wrestler in the NCAA era to achieve this honour. McLean finished with a 45–13 record, and is only the third wrestler in SFU’s history to achieve this in the NCAA.

22 SPORTS

March 21, 2016

Lisa Dimyadi / The Peak

did try to stage a comeback with Lamont’s second early in the third. But it was too little too late as Jacob Mills made it 5–3 for the visitors, before they added an empty net to make it 6–3.

This meant the second game the next night out at the George Preston centre was do or die for SFU. They needed a win to keep their season alive and send the series to a third game back in Burnaby. They got off to a betLast weekend was the start of the BCIHL playoffs, and SFU took on Trinity Western University. The teams had played some heated games over the season, and this series was no exception. However, the Clan lost the first two games of this best of three series — the second one in overtime — marking an early end to the season for the team.

The first game at SFU’s home rink, at the Bill Copeland Sports Centre, started off with a flurry of goals. Cody Stephenson and Ryan Bakken scored for Trinity, while Brendan Lamont and Mathew Berry-Lamontagna scored for the Clan.

However, Trinity scored two unanswered in the second, with Florian Niedermaier and Mattias Schmidt shorthanded gave the visitors a commanding 4–2 lead. SFU

ter start, with Tyler Basham and Adam Callegari scoring for SFU to give them a 2–1 lead after one. Basham scored again early in the second to make it 3–1, but Trinity Western came storming back — goals from Niedermaier and Kaleb Denham tied it at three. Callegari added another late in the period to give SFU the lead, heading into the third, before Jamie

Russell knotted things up to send it to overtime.

That’s when the heartbreak happened. Despite SFU controlling most of the play during the extra frame, Trinity Western forward and Burnaby native Matthew Vela scored after an SFU defensive zone draw.

“You never like to be in this situation, but the best you can do is to keep your head up, [we] played a hell of a game,” said SFU Head Coach Mark Coletta afterwards. “At the end of the day, the guys coming back next year have to take this and use this as motivation and be the best they can throughout the summer and coming into camp.

“You don’t want to feel this every year, and so until the group coming back understands that it’s not just a monthly thing, it’s a process, it’s a yearly thing, it starts tomorrow — next year.”

The goal marked a tough end to the season for SFU, with five of their past six games ending in a loss.

With over four minutes spent in their own defensive zone, and three goals scored against them in that time, SFU Lacrosse looked like they were facing a comeback by the Chico State Wildcats. SFU had entered the third quarter up by a dominant score of 7–2, and were now only up 7–5.

It wouldn’t have been the first game SFU gave up after an early lead, either. In games against Boise State and the University of Washington, SFU bolted out to 7–2 and 6–2 leads in the first quarter, only to lose 13–11 and 18–17, respectively.

“We kind of let up in the third,” said sophomore attacker Greg Lunde, who had three goals and an assist.

“We’ve been struggling with that a lot this season, so we’ve had good starts and eased off, as seen again in this game.”

But that wasn’t the final result Tuesday night versus Chico State. Instead, SFU cruised to a 10–5 lead by the end of the third quarter, and only allowed one more goal in the remaining 20:36 of the game. In the end, SFU won 13–6 against a non-conference rival who now has more losses than any other team in the league with nine.

Lunde opened the scoring, putting SFU on the scoreboard 4:15 into the game. Tyler

Kirkby, assisted by Lunde, made the score 2–0, a little over three minutes later. Kirkby and Lunde led the charge offensively, each putting up three goals, while Kirkby had two assists to Lunde’s one.

SFU played a perfect quarter for 12:28, not allowing a single goal for that span. However, once the Wildcats found the back of the net, they scored a second one just 16 seconds later, erasing the Clan’s first quarter lead. The teams headed into the second quarter tied 2–2.

However, it was the second quarter in which SFU exploded offensively, putting up five goals and not allowing one.

“I thought we started out pretty strong, [but] we weren’t executing as a clip like we were supposed to.

But the second quarter got a lot better,” explained Lunde. “I think it was really just good defence and hard work on ground balls, and that led to good execution on offence.”

Tom Newton, Kirkby, and freshman Taylor Martin, the latter of whom scored his first MCLA goal, all put up goals in the second quarter, as did Lunde, who put up two. Lunde’s second goal of the quarter came when he forced a turnover in Chico’s defensive, and went in on a breakaway and made the most of the chance with 38 seconds left in the quarter.

In the course of the game, Alex Thomson, Andrew Branting, and Kael Naylor also put up goals.

Branting and Newton also had multi-goal performances, scoring two each.

Goaltender Jeremy Lashar put up a strong game, putting up 11 saves, and during the three-plus minutes of Chico possession in the third quarter, made several key saves.

SFU’s next home game will host the University of Nevada on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

SPORTS

On an incredibly stormy Sunday, the SFU Men’s soccer team took on professional team Whitecaps FC II. The team showed once again that they can compete with the best, as they drew 0–0. It was the exact same score that the team had against Toronto FC II two Fridays earlier.

“I thought we defended very, very well,” said Head Coach Clint Schneider afterwards. “The elements certainly equalized things, [so] that was nice. They’re a really good side, but I can’t say enough positives about the character my guys showed. We played this spring with 10 outfield players, and we haven’t conceded a goal at home in over a year.

That’s pretty unbelievable.”

At the start of the game, the Whitecaps dominating possession, forcing the Clan to simply try and

March 21, 2016

attack on the counter. The first good chance of the game fell to the ’Caps, as SFU keeper Brandon Watson was forced to punch the ball out on a dangerous looking cross.

However, by the 30th minute, the weather started to become a huge factor. The rain was driving across the pitch, soaking everyone who wasn’t undercover, and the wind was so harsh that it knocked over equipment on the covered balcony I was standing under to cover the game. SFU, to their credit, continued to try and push forward, though they could have easily reverted to a defensive shell.

“No, we tried to play,” said Schneider. “I think they got into be a little bit more direct, and it punished them, because the ball would run out of bounds. But we kept things thing and compact, and it was good [. . .] it was nice to not concede a goal. But that’s football, it could have gone either way.”

The second half featured no let up on the weather. It got so bad that even prominent fan Cedric Chen left to go for cover.

Surprisingly though, the second half featured the best chance for either team. In the 65th, Watson

23

had to push an excellent Whitecaps free kick over the bar, saving what would have been a great goal. For SFU, their best chance of the match came in the 78th, when Mamadi Camara — wearing number 10 for this match — made a great run down the left flank, only to have his shot go right into the keeper’s hand.

The game also marked the return of former SFU Head Coach

Alan Koch, who is now the head coach of Whitecaps FC II. He led SFU to two Final Four appearances in 2012 and 2013, as well as an undefeated season in 2011.

“Yeah, it’s always cool,” said Schneider, who served as an assistant coach under Koch during his time at SFU. “Those guys, I mean there’s a reason why they’re there. They’re very good at what they do. Any opportunity

we have to play against alumni — it’s always very special. Again, I wish the weather would have been a little different for all of us, but I’ll take it. I’m very proud of our guys.”

The game marked the end of preseason friendlies for the Clan.

The team went undefeated, and did not concede a single goal during preseason — although they didn’t score any goals either.

From March 9–12, SFU’s swimming team competed in the NCAA Division II Championships. A number of SFU swimmers did very well individually and the team as a whole finished 10th — their best finish ever in the NCAA. “Very well,” said Head Coach Liam Donnelly on his team’s performance. “It’s always a little tough to say how exactly things are going to unfold before you head in there. But our goal is to always improve and compete.

I think we clearly did that, and we rewrote the record books a little bit on our team records. ” Perhaps the standout performance of the championships was Mackenzie Hamill. He won the 1,650 yards freestyle second SFU swimmer, male or female, to win an NCAA national title.

The first came back in 2013, when Mariya Chekanovych won the 100 and 200 yard breaststroke.

“For anybody to win a national title is impressive, freshman or non-freshman. I don’t think that was necessarily his absolute mission at this competition. It was going in there to be successful every time he touched the water.

“He was the seventh seed in the event, so he wasn’t necessarily expected to come through with the win, but we knew anything’s possible at these. It’s a tightly contested meet. Sometimes one arm’s length from first to 16th [can decide things].

So it’s a great accomplishment for him.”

Adrian Vanderhelm also had an extremely strong performance at the national championships. He finished third in the 200 yard freestyle while breaking an SFU record, and also finished third in the 500 yard freestyle, and in that race, finished with the fifth fastest time in Division II history. All of this going against some top notch performance.

“For him, outstanding” said Donnelly on VanderHelm’s performance. “To go the fifth in the history of NCAA in the 500 free [is remarkable]. It just happens that he’s up against some really tough competition. The guy who won is is a Dutch Olympian, top 20 in the world. Second place was Victor Poliakov, a Russian guy who’s had years of national team experience. So it’s a fantastic opportunity for him, but it makes it very challenging to win those events.”

With the season over, VanderHelm and others will set their sights on the Olympic trials for the 2016 Rio Olympics, to be held in Toronto starting on April 5. The Clan will send 12 different swimmers to the qualifiers.

“That’s a high level competition, it’s the most important event in our country. There’s no limitations on who can compete [. . .] at the olympic level, it’s open to everybody. So all of the best Canadian athletes, they can be training internationally, they come back and compete in the event. So it makes it very tough.”

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HUMOUR

March 21, 2016

humour editor email

Justin Stevens humour@the-peak.ca

25

26 HUMOUR

March 21, 2016

The First Rule of Crossfit (Destiny Hsu & Jacey Gibb)

(Reuben Newton)

Creator’s Pet (Destiny Hsu)

HUMOUR

March 21, 2016

27

SFU replies!

This is a column dedicated to questions for SFU Grand Leaders to answer questionsregarding The Students’ Republic of SFU. Have a question?

Send it to copy@the-peak.ca!

Hey, SFU! School has been so fun lately!

I love the daily excavations and the spirit parades on Fridays!

Unfortunately, I know some students who doubt the supremacy of SFU! How do I report them, and what rewards will I receive for doing so?

Yours, John Smith, gender: M, dept: history, BT: O-, GPA: 4.5, excellent standing John, You bring up a serious topic.

It is important to be aware that many students among you are harbouring thought-crimes, and it is your duty to report them.

Thought-crimes are thoughts that inherently cause harm to SFU, like thinking of not waking up during a break on an excavation shift, or thinking of disobeying the Ghost Guardians of the Geography department, for instance.

Report any suspected thought-crime to an SFU ghoul or available otherworldly individual. Simply whisper “engage” into any reflective surface on the mountain to summon a representative, who will be happy to record your report and gently take a puddy cast of your body.

Rewards for reporting thought-crimes range depending on your standing with the school, which, of course, is constantly subject to change. Most students will receive a complimentary Renaissance Coffee gift card and back massage!

But those few lucky, supremestanding students could receive an entire day off, with a week’s rations of blood oranges and decaf coffee to be consumed at leisure throughout the one day!

Of course, those students below good standing will be unable to sign up for courses the following semester, and will report to Correction Mall (formerly Convocation Mall) to immediately to contribute to Project Secret Burrito.

So worry, SFU students. If you care about the sanctity of your school, worry. And report your fellow comrades.

On a lighter note, this Friday, don’t forget to wear your blue, grey, and red Hawaiian shirts to show your school spirit! (Hula remains prohibited.)

Hakuna matata!

A tall, hooded figure, SFU Punishment

A recent controversy has come to light regarding Vancouver’s undisputed transit company, TransLink. According to an anonymous inside source, Metro Vancouver’s statutory transportation authority of 18 years is “a complete sham made to disguise the organization’s true objective: to conduct social experiments on the general public.”

That’s right: all the malfunctions, delays, and shitty planning experienced by TransLink users have actually been purposefully staged to document people’s reactions. Last summer’s TransLink referendum, which resulted in 61.7 percent of voters saying “no” to an alleged $7.5-billion regional transportation plan, was just as phony as its company.

“The plebiscite was just a cover for the extra fine print, written in quarter of a pixel font.” An inside source told The Peak. “The real question being posed to the public was: do you not want us to increase on-transit surveillance?”

Due to the majority voting ‘no’ to this question, TransLink has since quadrupled the amount of incognito video cameras and wiretapping on each of

their public transport vehicles.

These include X-ray cameras that monitor activity in the cerebral cortex in response to classical conditioning methods such as late buses, unresponsive schedule texts, and getting stranded far from home. By cross-analyzing these findings, TransLink has secretly become Canada’s largest hub of metadata collection — a

title previously thought to be exclusive to CSIS. But the scandal doesn’t end there; in pursuit of a meta analysis on the reaction of psychologists themselves, the organization has been periodically hiring professional actors to render behaviour under extreme catharsis. These actors are paid to yell, stomp, throw up on buses, and act like complete assholes, leaving the psychologists to multitask mitigating the situation with driving. “It only makes sense to psychoanalyze the psychologists themselves,” said the source.

“How else would we get data on psychologists?”

T h i s b r i n g s into question why Vancouverites didn’t see the signs sooner.

“People have just blamed the unstable job market for why all of TransLink’s employees had psychology degrees. It’s actually because they’re a guild who have negotiated with every BC government since 1999 to ensure their monopoly over the lower mainland’s public transit in exchange for data on Vancouver’s population.”

This explains why no additional services were provided after the price of fare increase in 2013: the money was allocated towards building their tech and research facilities instead. This ingenious plot has duped all of Vancouver for many years. Our anonymous source chose The

Peak to break the story because “well. . . no one else would really listen to me.”

So the next time you’re riding the 135 down Burnaby Mountain only to realize it’s heading towards Production Station, bear this in mind: you’re being watched.

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LAST WORD

Features Editor email

Tamara Connor features@the-peak.ca

March 21, 2016