The Runner Volume 10, Issue 11

february 20, 2018 VOLUME 10 // ISSUE 11 kpu’s student newspaper

BALANCING PARENTHOOD AND EDUCATION REMAINS A CHALLENGE AT KPU

News

Culture

Opinions

KPU Has Stopped Accepting International Applications for 2018

Lecture Series Examines Issues in the Black Community Throughout February

Hit Snooze on Installing Sleep Pods at KPU

2 table of contents

staff 04

News|KPU Has Stopped Accepting International Applications for 2018

Coordinating Editor Alyssa Laube editor@runnermag.ca

Managing Editor

Connor Doyle managing@runnermag.ca

Production Manager

Melanie Tan production@runnermag.ca

Art Director

“We’ve seen an enormous growth in our international numbers over the last few years and the rate in which the numbers are growing essentially forced me to make a decision that we need to pause here,” says KPU Provost Dr. Salvador Ferreras.

10

features|Balancing Parenthood and Education Remains a Challenge

Data analyzed from 1976 to 2005 revealed that “between 11 and 16 per cent of post-secondary students had at least one dependent child,” according to an article in University Affairs.

12

culture|KPU Lecture Series is Examining Issues in the Black Community

The first event was held on the first day of February. Throughout the rest of the month, the series will feature discussions of issues relating to the Black community in the Lower Mainland and beyond.

Nicola Kwit art@runnermag.ca

Photo Editor

Braden Klassen photos@runnermag.ca

16

opinions|Hit Snooze on Installing Sleep Pods at KPU

At KPU, there are other issues that still urgently need improvement, so spending a few grand on a handful of sleep pods right now seems unwise.

Staff Writer

Joseph Keller staff@runnermag.ca

#FeatureTweets Web Editor

Mel Pomerleau web@runnermag.ca

Use #kpu or #runnermag in your tweet, and you could be featured in the next issue!

Community Reporter

Ashley Hyshka community@runnermag.ca

Operations Manager Scott Boux office@runnermag.ca 778-565-3801

contributors Epifania Alarcón Mia Davidson Katherine Dolmat Kyrsten Downton Kristine Hui Daniella Javier Tristan Johnston Jesse Pottinger @RESLUS Leah Rosehill Lincoln Saugstad

Cover by Epifania Alarcón

Arbutus 3710/3720 12666 72 Ave. Surrey, B.C, V3W 2M8 778.565.3801 www.runnermag.ca Vol. 10, Issue no. 11 February 20 // 2018 ISSN# 1916 8241

Spring Semester 2018 Student Publication Fee opt-outs available in person from Jan. 16 - Mar. 16. Hours: 10 - 5 Monday to Friday.

Phone: 778-565-3801 Student ID & proof of registration and payment required.

Email: office@runnermag.ca PIPS office: Arbutus 3710, Surrey Campus.

All submissions to The Runner are subject to editing for style, quality, length, and legality. The Runner will not publish material which the editors deem to be harmful or discriminatory. The views expressed within the publication are not necessarily those of The Runner staff or of the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society.

The Runner is student-owned and operated by Kwantlen Polytechnic University students, published under the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society. The Runner recognises that our work, both in and out of the office, takes place on unceded Coast and Strait Salish territories, specifically the shared traditional territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Sto:lo and Tsawwassen First Nations. Our name is inspired by the hun’qumi’num meaning of Kwantlen, which is tireless hunters or tireless runners. Just as KPU is adaptable and changing, so is The Runner.

editorial 3

From The Editor

Virtue signalling: it’s more complicated than it seems

(Nicola Kwit)

alyssa laube | Coordinating Editor Virtue signalling has been a hot topic in the northern hemisphere this year, especially with anyone following Justin Trudeau’s humiliating “peoplekind” flop.

What the Prime Minister is now calling a joke ended up sending more than a few writers into a fit of anti-virtue signalling rage, and it wasn’t the first event this year to do so.

The term has been brought up to criticize A-list celebrities wearing black dresses to the Baftas in support of the Time’s Up movement. It has been called a slur and “part of the Trumpian scream” used to oppress activists. And it has been deemed a dangerously easy way to belittle any-

one’s personality, efforts, or opinions.

But before all of this, it was purportedly “invented” by James Bartholomew, a contributor to The Spectator who isn’t shy about comparing himself to wordsmiths like Shakespeare and Thomas Carlyle. Nor is he shy about begrudging the fact that Radio 4 journalist Libby Purves is sometimes credited for coining it, while at the same time reminiscing about “seeing her walking in front of [him] wearing hot pants” when they attended Oxford together. Commendable.

In actuality, neither Purves nor Bartholomew coined “virtue signalling”—according to online phrase tracker Word Spy, it has been in use since 2004. But they surely popular-

ized it, and it’s this prescribed meaning that defines the term today.

Loosely, virtue signalling is communicating something solely to prove that you are virtuous. One oft-cited example is the adoption of Facebook profile pictures adorned with calls to support refugees or LGBTQ rights, for instance. These actions accomplish nothing other than boosting the social capital of those presenting themselves as righteous and wholesome. The point of naming someone a virtue signaller is, ideally, to get them to actually take action.

The problem, however, is that “taking action” is subjective. The term was used originally to act as part of callout culture for petty things such as this.

And it’s certainly annoying to listen to

holier-than-thou neighbours bragging about their socio-political opinions, but as it has evolved, the use of virtue signalling has become more volatile.

With the recent school shooting in Florida, it has come up again. The generic “thoughts and prayers” signature that’s often shared on social media has been responded to with anger towards so-called virtue signallers. In response, many of these people have asked what else can reasonably be done by the everyday citizen not directly affected by such a tragedy.

Still, others attest that the notion of keeping victims in mind as basic human empathy ought not to be discouraged.

Once a cute way to make fun of those spouting pompous and hollow rhetoric, the meaning of the word virtue signalling has become too broad.

As a result, it’s being thrown in the faces of protestors (watch the end of the Black Mirror episode called “Black Museum” to see a fictional example of how doing so can be oppressive), everyday folks on social media, politicians, and still others endeavouring to share their thoughts to spur change.

Even when used effectively, it’s little more than a taunting tactic employed to take the wind out of one’s sails in an apt and trendy way.

The phrase, although relatively newborn, has become trivial to the point of obscurity.

The nuances of properly navigating the use of “virtue signalling” have overgrown its utility. Before using it next, be careful that the implications of your words are actually meaningful and not, ironically, merely a tactic for standing on a higher moral ground than your ideological opponents.

News Brief

kpu employee Charged with Sexual Interference with a Minor joseph keller | staff writer A man listed as the Manager of Sport, Recreation & Health Promotion on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s website has been charged with one count of sexual interference with a minor.

The man, Codie Hindle, appeared in court on Feb. 14 before being released on bail, according to a report from The Free Press on Feb. 15.

The charge against Hindle is in regards to an incident that allegedly took place in 2010 while Hindle was working at an an overnight camp program. Hindle was investigated but not charged in 2011 for several allegations against him.

In 2016 another alleged victim came forward with claims against Hindle, leading to the charge filed

this week. The alleged victim, whose identity has not been released but who was 11 when the incident was said to take place, says that he hopes other victims will come forward as a result of these charges.

“We are mindful that there may be other victims who have not reported to police. We encourage you to talk to your children about any contact they may have had with Mr. Hindle,” Chilliwack RCMP Staff Sgt. Darren Stevely told The Free Press.

As of the writing of this article, Hindle is still listed as the Manager of Sport, Recreation & Health Promotion on the Sports & Recreation portion of KPU’s website. When asked whether or not Hindle had been dismissed by KPU, KPU Media Specialist Tatiana Tomljanovic told The Runner that, “due to privacy laws,

KPU is not able to comment on personnel or student matters.”

“KPU is committed to providing all students with a safe and respectful learning environment. We have a robust set of policies and procedures that support this commitment, and provide fair and effective mechanisms for dealing with reports of inappropriate behaviour,” Tomljanovic told The Runner via email. “Whenever a potential risk to student or employee safety is identified, the matter is dealt with promptly in accordance with our policies and procedures.”

Hindle is scheduled to appear in court to hear the charges filed against him on Feb. 20. Any information relevant to the investigation should be brought to the attention of the Chilliwack RCMP.

What’s Happening this month

feb. 21

mother language day

The Department of Language and Cultures is hosting performances of traditional music and artistic presentations to celebrate all of the languages and cultures in the KPU community.

12:00 pm - 4:00 pm, KPU Richmond Melville Centre, free.

feb. 22 podcasting essentials

The Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group wants to know if you’ve ever dreamt of creating your own podcast. If so, join them for a talk with podcast editor Peter McCartney to learn how to do it.

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm, KPU Surrey, Cedar 1060, free.

feb. 23 science world trip

KPU International wants to take you to the World of Science! The price of the ticket includes the bus trip there and back. Register now as space is limited.

10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Telus World of Science, $5.00.

feb. 27 BHM Movie Marathon

The Kwantlen Students of Colour Collective is hosting the third day of their Black History Month movie marathon. On the 27th, they’re screening Imperial Dreams, Beasts of No Nation, Moonlight, and Barry.

11:00 am - 6:30 pm, KPU Surrey, Birch Social Justice Room, free.

feb. 28 pink shirt day

KPU’s Pause for a Cause club is holding a Pink Shirt Day campaign on the Richmond campus. They will be selling shirts to raise funds for programs that help support children’s self-esteem.

10:00 am - 6:00 pm, KPU Richmond, $10.00 for a shirt.

march 2 freedom to read week

Libraries across Canada are celebrating our freedom to read whatever we want. The KPU Surrey campus library will be screening The Handmaid’s Tale (the 1990 film, not the TV series).

11:00 am - 1:00 pm, KPU Surrey, Coast Capital Library, free.

4 news

KPU Has Stopped Accepting International Applications for the Remainder of the Year

The university’s Provost cites an unprecedented number of applications as the reason for putting a cap on international intake joseph keller | staff writer Kwantlen Polytechnic University has officially received more applications from international students for the remainder of the year than it can handle.

As a result, university officials made the decision on Jan. 24 to end international student enrolment for the summer and fall semesters this year. Prospective students who have already applied before applications closed will still be considered for enrolment. The next available term for international applications will be January 2019.

“We’ve seen an enormous growth in our international numbers over the last few years and the rate in which the numbers are growing essentially forced me to make a decision that we need to pause here,” says KPU Provost Dr. Salvador Ferreras. “We actually have as many applications as we could ever want for the summer and for the fall.”

While KPU has long been a popular institution amongst students from other nations seeking a post-secondary education, the growth in international student applications over the past several years has been unprecedented. Ferreras says that, in the summer of 2015, university officials were expecting a 15 to 20 per cent increase in international enrolment. That year, they saw growth of over 30 per cent.

Administrators again underestimated the growth in international applications that KPU would see in 2016. Ferreras says that they did not expect numbers in 2017 to rise as high as the previous year and were shocked to see an increase of over 50 per cent.

“Seeing that trend, you have to be very careful about how you plan,” says Ferreras. “If you don’t plan carefully, you run out of room, you run out of instructors, or you run out of the capability to provide both the delivery and the support for the students.”

Ferreras says that the university is focused on providing those international students that do come to KPU with the best possible experience.

He says that, if the university takes in more students than it’s currently capable of handling, the university will likely be incapable of providing them with adequate services.

This surge isn’t unique to KPU. Universities across Canada are seeing a massive upswing in international enrolment, particularly in metropolitan areas like Toronto and Vancouver. Part of the reason for this is an agreement that was made between College and Institutes Canada and the federal government in 2015 to help students coming to Canada to attend educational institutions, navigate the immigration system, and acquire expedited visas. This agreement has

made studying in Canada as an international student significantly easier, and vastly increased the already significant number of students coming here from China and India.

“What was already turning into a healthy market has turned into an aggressive market,” says Ferreras.

With its massive South Asian community, Surrey is one of the most popular destinations for international students coming from India. Some of the international students attending KPU already have family around the area of the Surrey campus, and those who don’t can take comfort in being close to many of the cultural elements they were used to seeing at home.

Over the past several years, KPU made a significant effort to recruit international students, particularly from China and India. Representatives from the KPU International office attended recruitment events and conferences around the world to promote the university to students considering getting an education in Canada.

“Over a period of the last five years, the slow investment that we’ve made in exploring all these international markets has begun to pay off,” says Ferreras.

With applications closed for the rest of 2018, Ferreras says that the university is in the process of reevaluating its strategies for international recruitment and enrolment. Although

he divulges little about the decisions currently being made by KPU, he says that much of the process involves figuring out how many students each faculty, department, and program can handle. Because the university hadn’t expected to reach the limits of international student capacity, these are questions that haven’t previously been asked.

“We certainly are accepting a lot of students from those countries, but we need to recalibrate how we’re going to strategize the future,” says Ferreras.

Kwantlen Student Association International Student Representative Mamanjot Kaur did not respond to the The Runner’s request for comment.

The KPU International office, located in Cedar on the Surrey campus. (Braden Klassen)

The 2018 KSA Election Sees 17 Candidates Elected to Council for the Next Term

Here’s who will be representing KPU students over the coming year connor doyle | Managing Editor Seventeen student representatives have been elected as a result of the 2018 Kwantlen Student Association election held on Feb. 7 and 8. Each of these students will hold a seat on KSA Council through the 2018/19 term.

Beginning with the Faculty Representatives, both candidates running to represent students in the faculty of Science and Horticulture, Victoria Kalitowski and Rabia Khan, were elected with 86 and 129 votes respectively. While this will be Kalitowski’s first time on Council, Khan has been re-elected to the position she currently holds.

Four of the five candidates running for Arts Representative positions on Council were elected, filling all four positions available. Natasha Farris was re-elected with 71 votes, as was David Piraquive with 52 votes. Hannah Cenaiko and Shonel Kumar have both been elected for the first time, with 69 and 50 votes, respectively.

The only candidate running for Arts Rep. who was not elected was Tawahum Justin Bige, who has previously

served on Council as Aboriginal Representative. He received 38 votes.

Business Representatives also hold four positions on KSA Council.

Because only three candidates were running for these positions, each one received a number of votes for and against their election. Two of the three candidates, Puneet Bering and Shereen Bhatia, received more “Yes” votes than “No” votes and will thus will sit on the KSA Council for the coming term. Bering received 245 “Yes” votes and 101 “No” votes and Bhatia received 199 “Yes” votes and 119 “No” votes.

The third candidate, Jay Reedy, who is currently the KSA VP Student Life, was not re-elected as a Business Representative, receiving 135 votes against his candidacy and 123 votes for.

Moving onto the Campus Representatives, Hassan Bilan has been re-elected as the Langley Campus Representative with 344 “Yes” votes and 154 “No” votes, while Damanpreet Garcha has been re-elected to represent students on the Richmond campus with 388 “Yes” votes and 119 “No” votes.

The race for Surrey Campus Representative was highly contested this year, with five candidates looking to represent their fellow students. Gurpreet Singh Sabharwal was elected with 364 votes, replacing outgoing Surrey Rep. Tanvir Singh, who is currently the KSA’s President and VP University Affairs. The other candidates were Akashdeep Bhullar, who received 242 votes, Francis Gloriani, who received 90 votes, Anshul Grover, who received 72 votes, and Vaibhav Agarwal, who received 52 votes.

Finally, for Constituency Representatives, the only contested positions were those for Mature Students Rep. and International Students Rep. Jasika Rai was elected to represent mature students with 417 votes—the most votes earned by any one candidate in this election—defeating Murdoch de Mooy, who received 152 votes.

Shivam Kataria will represent international students on KSA Council next term, having received 365 votes. The runners-up—Nevneen Samra and Monga Sanju—received 211 and 192 votes, respectively.

Running for Aboriginal Students

Representative, Sarah Strachan was elected with 404 votes for her candidacy and 118 votes against. All of the remaining candidates for Constituency Representatives were running unopposed for positions that they currently hold. Joseph Thorpe was re-elected as Queer Students Representative with 381 “Yes” votes and 138 “No” votes, Munir-Khalid Dossa was re-elected as Students of Colour Representative with 349 “Yes” votes and 169 “No” votes, and Caitlin McCutchen, who is currently the KSA’s VP External, will once again represent female-identifying students

at KPU, having received 403 “Yes” votes and 124 “No” votes.

Despite these results, eight positions will remain empty on Council in the coming term. In addition to two unfilled Business Representative seats, there will be no one representing students on the Cloverdale campus, students with disabilities, or students in the faculties of Health, Design, Trades and Technology, or Academic and Career Advancement.

To help fill these positions, the KSA is expected to run a by-election in the fall semester.

(Thewhizzer/Blogspot)

News 5

KSA vp joins campaign that calls for proportional representation in b.c.

Caitlin McCutchen is a leading member of Yes PR BC joseph keller | staff writer A grassroots call for change in B.C.’s electoral system has sprung, in part, from Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Kwantlen Student Association Women’s Representative and Vice President External Affairs Caitlin McCutchen has signed on as a leading member of Yes PR BC, a campaign with a goal of swaying an upcoming referendum in favor of B.C. adopting a proportional representation electoral system.

The referendum, which will give B.C. voters the choice of keeping the current first-past-the-post electoral system or switching to a system of proportional representation, will be held in the fall.

“We want to raise awareness of the damaging effects that the first-past-thepost system is having on our democracy,” says McCutchen. “We also want to provide public education across the province on the benefits of a proportional representation system in B.C.” The debate over electoral reform has been raging across Canada in both provincial and federal politics for years. Critics of the first-past-thepost voting system argue that it often results in a false majority, as the win-

ning party can receive the minority of total votes but still earn the majority of seats in the Legislature. Proponents of proportional representation systems—wherein seats are awarded based on each party’s proportion of total votes—argue that this system does away with this problem.

McCutchen describes Yes PR BC as “a group of diverse political voices from across B.C., and also across the political spectrum.” In addition to McCutchen, the campaign is being run by the likes of former NDP MP Jean Crowder, former federal Liberal party candidate and entrepreneur Paul Summerville, and City of Vancouver Independent Election Task Force Chair Shoni Field, as well as several other political figures. Many of the people involved in the campaign have worked on previous voting reform campaigns in 2009 and 2004.

The campaign is still in its early days, so McCutchen says can’t say much about what its initiatives will look like. The Yes PR BC website features a clock that counts down the time until the campaign begins in earnest next month, when more details will be released about Yes PR’s plans for programming. In the meantime, McCutchen says that the campaign will

be holding a webinar soon to encourage people to sign on and be leaders in their local communities. Later, they will have a speaker tour to drive up awareness about electoral reform.

McCutchen sees student organizations such as the Kwantlen Student Association as a potential leader for increasing awareness for the campaign on post-secondary campuses.

The KSA has yet to officially become part of the Yes PR BC campaign, though the student government recently sent out a press release in support of electoral reform and proportional representation. McCutchen says that KSA advocacy for the referendum could look a lot like the group’s previous “Get Out the Vote” campaign strategies.

“This is a major thing that could change the course of our electoral system,” says McCutchen. “This is a really good opportunity for [the KSA] to make a difference, and I hope that the rest of the KSA will be on board.”

McCutchen argues that the referendum should be a concern for KPU students because proportional representation would result in students and young voters being represented more accurately, thus creating better

Kwantlen Student Association Women’s Representative and VP External Caitlin McCutchen. (Ashley Hyshka) engagement between them and the political system.

“Students are feeling disenfranchised from the voting system. They feel like their voices aren’t being heard,” she says. “Political parties campaign towards the older gen-

erations so students aren’t being addressed in government. If we have proportional representation, you will have more people representing you and more student issues actually being brought to government.”

Canadian Charity Initiatives Challenge Students to Investigate their Food

Through the Good Food Challenge, Meal Exchange is encouraging students to trace the origins of what they eat mel pomerleau | web editor A charity organization called Meal Exchange has started The Good Food Challenge in the hopes of transforming food accessibility and tackling food-related issues across Canadian post-secondary institutions.

“The Good Food Challenge is one of Meal Exchanges’ main programs and its focus is supporting campuses to create more socially just and sustainable food [options on campus],” says Celia White, program coordinator for the Good Food Challenge.

“We set standards that are upheld consistently across the country and that are a balance of ambitiousness and achievability, in that they’re standards that are pushing the food system to meet higher goals.”

In total, 20 post-secondary institutions across Canada have agreed to take part in piloting the program.

For the past two years, they have held audits and provided feedback to Meal Exchange with information detailing their experience with the Good Food Calculator. By doing this, they were able to determine where their campus food is coming from and whether it meets the good food standards that Meal Exchange has set.

The challenge has two main

aspects: the good food calculator and the good food campaign and commitment. The calculator is an online app which students can use to track the origin of their food purchases from the campus cafeteria to determine how “good” or how ethical its production is.

“Based on our pilot campuses, we’re seeing that campuses land somewhere between one and 15 per cent good food, and that’s partly because it’s very difficult to trace food back to the source at this point in time in Canada, and because there is a lack of mechanisms for transparency and traceability,” says White.

The campaign and commitment aspect encourages “presidents of campuses across the country to agree to purchasing 20 per cent ‘good food’ by 2025,” according to White.

“We believe that that is totally achievable since many campuses are landing close to 15 per cent,” she says.

In addition to the Good Food Challenge, Meal Exchange has a number of initiatives dedicated to improving food quality and accessibility across the nation. These range from garden networks to food banks and partnerships with other national initiatives such as Farm to Cafeteria Canada.

The organization works with

A display of food in the KSA-operated Grassroots Cafe on the Surrey campus. (Braden Klassen) post-secondary institutions, student unions and associations, and student collectives that have expressed interest in getting involved.

While six of the 20 institutions involved with the program are located in B.C.—including UBC, UVic, and Langara—there is no formal relationship between Meal Exchange and KPU, the KSA, or any student collective on campus. However, White says that “there have been a few faculty members from [KPU] who

sit on the advisory committee and have been integral in developing the standards” of the Good Food Challenge. Still, no KPU students have yet expressed interest in running a “good food” audit.

Shopping for local or organic produce is typically associated with paying higher costs than one would for other products widely available in the grocery store. While this is a barrier to ensuring that universities provide good food, White says that it’s

becoming more accessible as more investment is being put into sustainable farming.

“Campuses across Canada together spend over $300 million on food purchases, so when those campuses pool their demand, that’s an enormous investment going into these producers that then enables these companies to scale up and off their prices at more affordable rates,” says White.

6 news

Surrey Fire Department Uses Statistical Analysis to Fight the Opioid Crisis

By employing business intelligence tools, emergency responders can significantly reduce their response time to overdoses tristan johnston | contributor The B.C. opioid crisis reached tragic new heights last year with over 1,420 deaths reported as a result of illegal drug use, more than 80 per cent of which were linked to fentanyl.

The City of Surrey alone saw 174 drug-related deaths last year, the second highest toll in the province after Vancouver’s. These statistics represent a dire situation, as emergency responders like Len Garis know from firsthand experience.

Garis is Surrey’s Fire Chief, as well as an adjunct professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley. In order to continuously improve the city’s approach to dealing with the opioid crisis, he and his team have employed statistical analysis to respond as efficiently as possible to overdoses in Surrey.

“We’re using a business intelligence tool that monitors our inputs, [which are] discrete events,” explains Garis. Business intelligence refers to the type of software that sorts and analyses data for businesses and organizations. “We have a computer-aided dispatch system and we have a records management system.”

Since the statistical analysis tool was adopted by the department in July of 2016, it has activated special alerts 10 times. One such time was when four overdoses took place within two hours. That means that the system noticed higher-than-average activity in a given area, leading the department to move their resources closer to the area to better address the

Emergency responders in Surrey have been using statistical data analysis software since 2016 to pinpoint areas where overdoses occur more frequently. (Braden Klassen) incidents as they occur.

Garis indicates that many other data points are monitored as well, such as who is on or off duty.

“In this particular case, we want to be able to sort through all of these transactions and just pull out the events that are focused on an overdose,” says Garis. “If at any time there are four overdoses within one square kilometre, [we want the statistical analysis] to tell us about that and send us a report. Or, if the daily rate of overdoses doubles, [it will] tell us that too.”

Garis says that their response times are often within five minutes, but during periods of high activity, they can extend to 10 minutes. This can be

the difference between life and death for someone suffering an overdose.

“We built this resource for ourselves and then, of course, we share that information through a privacy sharing agreement with Fraser Health,” says Garis. “They have addictions workers who are able to interact on the ground with individuals who may or may not be drug users or potential drug users.”

According to an email from Tasleem Juma, a spokesperson for Fraser Health, the organization “really appreciates the leadership the Surrey Fire Department has shown in pioneering this technology that helps us determine what real-time strategic interventions are needed.”

“Access to data is very important for us as it helps us determine how to best deploy our resources. Analysis of our own data helped us realize that people working in the trades are particularly at risk of overdose,” wrote Juma.

From the data currently being gathered by the tool, Garis believes that his team has a good understanding of the time, location, and frequency of overdoses, but not the typology of overdose victims. To address this, the fire department has entered into a project with Statistics Canada to further understand the typology of the individuals who have overdosed.

“We did this for our understanding, to get as close as real-time to the event so we can minimize the likeli-

hood of someone overdosing and not getting resuscitated quickly,” he says.

Garis believes that, with the development of machine learning and many minds working on addressing the opioid crisis, creating technology that predicts overdoses before they happen may be possible in the future.

“It’s a tool. It’s not a silver bullet and by no means a game changer,” says Garis. “In terms of tackling this problem, it’s way deeper than a game changer. A game changer would be getting in front of the overdose.”

KPU Tech To Create New Mechatronics Program with Government funding

The mechatronics and advanced manufacturing program will be the first of its kind offered to trades and tech students braden klassen | photo editor The KPU Trades and Technology Department will be offering a new program in the near future thanks to some funding from the provincial government.

The new mechatronics and advanced manufacturing program will be created with the help of a $4.4 million investment in developing post-secondary trades programs across the province that the government announced in January. Other universities receiving investments are UBC, SFU, and BCIT, which will collectively add thousands of new seats to some of their own trades and tech programs.

“The tech sector in the Lower Mainland is booming, so it’s vital that we ensure students have the educational opportunities they need to access and succeed in these

good-paying jobs,” wrote Melanie Mark, the B.C. Minister of Advanced Education, Skills, and Training, in an email statement.

KPU’s allocation of the investment is expected to help create 40 seats for the newly created program, which will ultimately give students a twoyear certification and educate them in a variety of different technology and manufacturing skills.

“I’m proud that the funding from our government will help KPU develop and deliver a mechatronics and advanced manufacturing technology program, as it adds to the immensity of tech programs available at post-secondary institutions throughout B.C.,” wrote Mark. “This year’s $4.4 million is only the beginning of our government’s investment in the talented future leaders of our province and a strong, sustainable, and innovative 21st-century economy.”

Their first year will be spent obtaining Siemens mechatronics certification. In the second year of the program, students will focus on learning more advanced, hands-on skills including welding, millwright, and electrical services.

“It’s exciting news for us,” says Dr. David Florkowski, the Dean of the Faculty of Health and the Interim Dean of the Faculty of Trades and Technology at KPU. “This will help us expand into the manufacturing technology area, and based on the environment that we’re in, everything is moving towards that.”

Florkowski says that “the fact that KPU has been selected to receive these seats puts us in a good place to be with the technology as it grows, and it will prepare students for the field they will enter from the program.”

He adds that KPU has been negotiating with the provincial government

Advanced Education, Skills, and Training Minister Melanie Mark announces the BC NDP’s new plan to fund post-secondary tech programs. (Flickr/BC NDP) for months in order to help them fulfill their promise to invest more money into post-secondary trades education.

“We’ve been lobbying the government for anything we can do to support the advancement of trades and technology and we knew that, with the new government coming in, this was part of their mandate,” he says.

“This is actually quite a big deal for our trades and technology [students] because this is the first program that’s

going to be delivered at an undergraduate level for them. It’s setting the tone for KPU and how we’re advancing as a university in trying to achieve our polytechnic mandate.”

According to a B.C. government’s news release, the province will create approximately 2,900 tech-related spaces by 2023. Start-up funding for this is expected to increase over time to $42 million.

news 7

Researchers Explore the Potential for Psychedelic Drugs to Treat PTSD Vancouver will soon host one of 15 research sites for the MAPS study joseph keller | staff writer MDMA, a psychoactive drug that many associate more with parties than with medicine, could soon be a powerful tool for treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric afflictions.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) will soon be embarking on a multinational study on the efficacy of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

This marks the third phase of a nearly three decade-long endeavor for MAPS, during which public perception of MDMA as “party drug” has remained a constant barrier.

Despite this, researchers see incredible potential in the drug as a groundbreaking treatment to not only reduce symptoms for sufferers of PTSD, but to actually eliminate the disorder.

“The preliminary research that has been done so far, both on the MDMA studies and with other psychedelics for treating things like addictions, anxiety, depression, shows that these are extremely promising medications,” says Dr. Kenneth Tupper, Director of Implementation & Partnerships at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use. “Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is yielding very, very promising results such that we want to continue to expand and do more clinical studies.”

Brad Burge, communications director with MAPS, says that the stigma and politicisation of MDMA has affected researchers’ ability to get regulatory approval to conduct research and acquire funding. To this day, MAPS has yet to receive a single dollar in funding from any national government.

“Because of the war on drugs, our culture has been conditioned to think of these drugs as if we have already studied them, as if we already knew everything there is to know about these drugs and the case was closed, and the only way to use them is to abuse them,” says Burge. “And that’s clearly not the case based on the case reports we’ve seen and the data that we’re seeing.”

The third phase of MAPS’ research will take place at 15 research institutions and private practice sites in the United States, Canada, and Israel.

One of these sites will be the B.C. Centre on Substance Use in Vancouver, where 18 subjects will be treated with the drug in late spring or early summer of 2018, depending on the timeline of regulatory approvals and importing the medication from the United States. All of the recruited subjects for the trials will have been clinically diagnosed with moderate to severe PTSD. Tupper explains that MDMA could assist with psychotherapy by helping to break down the fear and emotional stress that patients feel while confronting traumatic memories. Additionally, the experience helps build

trust between patients and therapists.

Tupper says that there are likely other effects that are yet to be understood.

The portion of the psychotherapy process that involves the use of MDMA typically happens over the course of three sessions between six and 10 hours long. After ingesting the drug, the patient is given a blindfold and noise-cancelling headphones and is asked to “look inward” while the therapist is on hand for guidance. The MDMA sessions occur after several weeks of preparatory therapy and before several sessions of post-therapy, during which the therapist works with the patient to process the experience that they had.

“We’re still trying to figure out what exactly is going on that results in the healing where people’s PTSD symptoms are very much alleviated,” says Tupper. “Part of that is due to the therapeutic relationship bonding and trust built between the patent and the therapist, but I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily the only factor.”

MDMA and other psychedelics haven’t always had the party drug reputation that they’ve now been saddled with. Burge explains that, in the 1950s and early 1960s, MDMA and other now-controlled substances were already being used in counseling and therapeutic settings despite a lack of formal research. At this time, he says, Canada was a leader in the adoption of psychedelic psychotherapy. In fact, the term “psychedelic” was coined in Saskatchewan by British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in 1956.

It wasn’t until the war on drugs began to ramp up in the late ’60s that public perception began to turn on these substances. Tupper says that the number of legitimate studies on the therapeutic potential of drugs like MDMA diminished rapidly during that period, and by the early ’70s, research on the subject had been abandoned entirely.

“A whole variety of factors— largely, changing circumstances of non-medical use on the streets by the counterculture—led to a political backlash that led to the passage of laws and regulations that were very effective at keeping these drugs out of the hands of scientists and doctors, but not so effective at keeping them out of the hands of young people on the street,” says Tupper.

MDMA was officially criminalized in the United States in 1985 and, as a direct response, MAPS was founded in 1986. From then until the mid-’90s, research into the medicinal potential of MDMA was rendered impossible, as regulatory agencies in U.S., Canada, and Europe refused to grant permission for legitimate studies to be conducted.

“Due to the stigma on the drugs, the regulatory agencies responsible in the U.S. and in Europe were not even willing to consider the applications,” says Burge. “We would submit the applications and they would just disappear and we’d never hear back.”

A bottle of prescription MDMA used alongside therapy to treat patients with PTSD. (maps.org) In the mid-’90s,, an internal administration change at the FDA meant that research into psychedelics was back on the table. The FDA was suddenly much more interested in prioritizing research that could find a cure for conditions with few treatment options, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. This regulatory culture shift gave researchers at MAPS the opportunity to begin the initial phase of research into the use of MDMA as therapy.

These early studies focused primarily on the potentially dangerous side effects of the drug, none of which were found, according to Burge.

After the first round of research yielded promising results, MAPS finally got the opportunity to conduct the first-ever MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trials in 2000. The trials were based in Madrid and were designed to include 29 subjects receiving the experimental treatment.

Unfortunately, once media coverage increased public awareness of the trials, the anti-drug authority in Madrid quickly bowed to political pressure to shut the study down. The Madrid trials ended in 2002 with just six of the 29 subjects having received the treatment.

“It was too early for MDMA research in Spain,” says Burge.

“There were administrators in the Spanish government that just were willing to shut it down and didn’t see much of a political advantage to letting it continue.”

Researchers’ fortunes would change that same year, however, when MAPS received permission from the FDA to carry out trials in Charleston, South Carolina. Five more trials would take place between 2002 and 2016, including one in Vancouver, despite numerous bureaucratically-motivated delays.

Tupper says that, as MAPS tried to get approval for the Vancouver study,

(Cha0tic/Flickr) some of the most challenging delays came from Health Canada. This was partially because nobody had tried to cut the red tape to legally bring MDMA into Canada before. The process of finding a place to store and administer the MDMA took about four years and required “a military level of security for a very small quantity of MDMA,” according to Burge.

“We ultimately only ended up with just a handful, about six subjects, there in Vancouver, which was helpful because ultimately it enabled us to finally get the approval,” he says.

“We knew that when we wanted to do the phase three trials in Canada that Health Canada would be open to that and we would know which hoops we needed to jump through.”

Tupper says that the findings from phase two of their research were remarkably encouraging. According to MAPS, every test subject reported some sort of alleviation of PTSD symptoms after two months, while 61 per cent of subjects no longer met the qualifications for a PTSD diagnosis after treatment.

“There are going to be a lot of people who could potentially benefit from the therapy if the phase three results are anything like the phase two results,” Burge says.

With these results in hand, MAPS was able to submit applications to the

FDA and Health Canada for the third round of trials, which will commence this year. In an important indication of confidence in the experimental method, the FDA gave psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy designation as a breakthrough therapy in August. The vast majority of treatments to receive this designation from the FDA go on to gain full approval, notes Burge.

“That’s really important because it shows that the FDA already recognizes that the phase two results were promising enough and strong enough to justify that designation,” he says.

Getting to this point has been a slow process for organizations like MAPS which are trying to explore the true potential of a highly politicised substance like MDMA. Researchers like Tupper know, however, that the possibility of successfully using it to treat mental health issues is too great to be ignored, and that regulators are finally starting to come around.

“It’s kind of exciting to be getting legitimate publications in highly-esteemed medical journals and to see the shift in public discourse and interest and how the media treats these topics,” he says. “It’s much more respectful than I think it was 20 years ago.”

8 features

KPU’s Environmental Sustainability Report is in Dire Need of an update While the university continues to support green initiatives, there’s currently no consolidated report tracking and measuring its various sustainability-related efforts Lincoln Saugstad | contributor

As with most other universities, Kwantlen Polytechnic University has increasingly invested in sustainability-related initiatives over the past decade.

In addition to approving the construction of five LEED-certified buildings, the development of sustainability-centred programs, and an increase in energy efficiency, KPU has also signed the Talloires Declaration, described on the university website as a “10-point action plan for incorporating sustainability into teaching, research, operations, outreach and service activities,” and still is able to provide support for two sustainability research institutes.

While these efforts are certainly laudable, visible proof of the push to make KPU as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible is at times hard to identify.

In 2013, Karen Hurt, the former executive director of facilities at KPU, tasked a co-op student with creating an environmental sustainability report for the university. The report documents and summarizes the development and transparency of sustainability-related initiatives at KPU. It also identifies gaps in its efforts to be sustainable and provides recommendations on initiatives that can still be improved.

According to the report itself, it was created with the intention “to serve as a living document that will be periodically updated to display KPU’s current and planned sustainable practices.” Since January 2014, however, it has not been updated or replaced with a similar report.

Dr. Betty Worobec, KPU’s Dean of the Faculty of Science and Horticulture, is currently co-chair of the Environmental Sustainability Committee (ESC). As identified on its web page, the ESC was designed “to facilitate, advise, advocate, and enable the implementation of integrated environmental

sustainability activities at KPU.” According to Worobec, the primary aim of the environmental sustainability report was to coordinate within the university and raise awareness.

“One of the issues we’ve been having all along with a university-wide sustainability effort is that we don’t have a coordinator or a manager or a director. It’s just people from different units on campus coming together and brainstorming, but we can’t do anything because we don’t have a budget,” she says. “We do what we can, but pretty much leave it up to the individual units to forge on ahead with programming or different types of initiatives.”

Although it’s possible to hire another student to review or replace the environmental sustainability report, Dr. Worobec says that the university would be reluctant to do so unless the individual being hired was guaranteed to stay for longer than a year.

“The position we’d love to have would have to be ongoing and not a yearly contract because you want to hire someone who’s right for the job and will stay,” she explains. “You don’t want to be hiring new people every year because you lose that continuity.”

Due to its lack of a long-term director, the impact of KPU’s sustainability efforts is minimal compared to those of other universities in the province.

Matthew Greeno, a sustainability coordinator for the University of Victoria’s Campus Planning and Sustainability Office, says that he and his colleagues are responsible for developing and implementing a sustainability-based action plan for the university.

“We talk a lot about waste reduction, energy use … as well as transportation as a way of trying to engage staff, students, and faculty,” says Greeno. “One of the main student programs we have is the engagement of resident students to try and buttress up the sustainability aspects of what we have in our resi-

dence life programming.”

One example of that effort is a campaign called Love a Mug, which encourages students to avoid using paper cups. As part of the campaign, a staff member dresses in a coffee cup mascot outfit and hands out free coffee coupons while singing the praises of drinking from reusable cups.

According to Greeno, the campaign has led to a total increase of reusable cup usage from 15-20 per cent to 30-50 per cent.

Other initiatives from the UVic Campus Planning and Sustainability team include coordinating with facilities to install a new stormwater system, creating a bike plan, and supporting independent, environmentally-friendly initiatives run by students.

Their team is small but effective, composed of three full-time staff members—a director and two coordinators—as well as three student members. This is comparable to teams at other universities like Capilano and the University of Northern British Columbia.

Mara Mennicken, a student originally from Germany, is completing the Community Leadership and Social Change Diploma at Capilano University. She spent a year working as an event coordinator at CapU Works, Capilano’s version of a green team, and says that it was “definitely a good experience.”

“I learned so much. I was never so free in my decision-making and had so much support,” says Mennicken, about her experience with CapU Works. “When you continue into the next semester, it’s like, ‘All right, now I know how to put on a farmers market.’”

Other sustainability initiatives that Capilano is involved with include energy conservation projects, community gardens, awareness-raising campaigns, and more.

All of these universities have

reports which provide feedback and an overview of the progress made by the university on sustainable initiatives over the past year. A common feature highlighted in these reports is the reduction of energy usage by 33 percent from 2006 to 2015, which was mandated by the province and which KPU also achieved. All of the reports are available online to provide easy access to the various universities’ sustainability projects, as well as information about the tasks those institutions are undertaking to improve upon their sustainability.

KPU’s sustainability initiatives are also found on its facilities webpage.

This includes minutes and reports from the Environmental Sustainability Committee, data from facilities, and a link to the 2013 Environmental Sustainability Report. In addition, although there is no currently active document which consolidates sustainability developments at KPU, there are a number of reports which track individual achievements in areas such as waste, carbon, and energy use.

“Where I believe KPU is making the most strides with regards to sustainability is through facilities,” says Worobec. “Ian Hunter, the facilities manager, almost always has something good to say.”

Projects such as the waste audit that was created and completed by students in ENVI 2310 “almost always go to facilities,” which uses the information to develop new initiative ideas, according to Worobec. KPU also hosts sustainability-related programs such as the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems and the Institute for Sustainable Horticulture, as well as the Tsawwassen Farm School.

“In the past four or five years, everything in [the environmental sustainability report] is still on, but so much more has happened,” says Worobec. “That was sort of the reason behind it. [There were] a lot of

people doing things but nothing had been captured in one spot.”

The Kwantlen Student Association, for its part, has been very active on the sustainability front, running and implementing initiatives such as ecoDAYS and the Kwantlen Farmers Market as well as offering healthier and more sustainable food items— such as free trade coffee and vegan options—at the Grassroots Cafe.

Worobec is grateful for all the work that Mairi Lester, the sustainability coordinator at the KSA, has done. One of her most recent initiatives was sending a student from the sustainable agriculture program to Texas for a conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

On his return, the student, Will Bailey-Elkin, presented recommendations to both the KSA and the ESC on how to use KPU’s farm produce in the Richmond campus cafeteria.

Despite the efforts of various individuals and groups in the KPU community, the absence of a report or dedicated website tracking and consolidating all of the sustainability initiatives in one place makes it hard to understand and appreciate the university’s success in remaining environmentally conscious.

“Everyone knows it has to be done, but when money is short, rightfully so, money should be going towards making sure that programs are delivered,” says Worobec.

She explains that, at KPU, the primary focus is on the “student experience, that we have all the resources for you students to be able to get your credential in a timely manner and with a high quality of instruction.”

“I would hope for the new Vision 2023 that sustainability will be a main focus, and perhaps some funds will eventually be funnelled in that direction,” she says.

(@RESLUS)

10 features

Balancing Parenthood and Post-Secondary Education Remains a Challenge at KPU The Parents on Campus program at the University of Saskatchewan highlights just how few childcare services are provided for KPU students Ashley Hyshka | community reporter

Between being enrolled at school, working part time, and covering the cost of ever-rising tuition fees, most of today’s university students live under considerable pressure.

That pressure is even greater for those who have a child to care for at home.

Data analyzed from 1976 to 2005 revealed that “between 11 and 16 per cent of post-secondary students had at least one dependent child,” according to an article in University Affairs.

Once a quiet demographic, university students with children have become more vocal over recent years, demanding that universities listen to their needs. No student wants to be forced to choose between earning a post-secondary degree and caring for their children.

For those who manage to do both, having access to additional resources on campus can make life a lot more manageable. Though there are relatively few resources available to parents attending class at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the services and facilities provided by the University of Saskatchewan’s organization, Parents on Campus, are far more comprehensive.

Parents on Campus at U of S Kayla Madder, a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), has a Master’s degree in animal science and two Bachelor’s degrees in biotechnology and psychology.

She’s also the mother of a little boy named Amari.

While in her final semester, Madder became unexpectedly pregnant. She finished her degree while six months pregnant and then began her Master’s program, completing her proposal meeting nine days after giving birth.

After she returned from maternity leave, Madder, along with a friend who had also recently had a baby,

tried to locate a place at the university where they could privately pump milk or breastfeed. The search turned up nothing, so Madder stopped breastfeeding on campus until she founded Parents on Campus in 2014 with Rita Hanoski, the health education coordinator at U of S. She and Hanoski also created the U of S comfort rooms, which are private spaces for parents to care for their children while studying, eating, or relaxing. Other spaces for parents on campus offer services such as family friendly study periods, information sessions on relevant topics, and daycare.

“It’s getting better slowly,” Madder says about the on-campus environment for parents at U of S. “But I think we’re really happy with how far we’ve come in the few years we’ve been going.”

While she understands that universities often have tight budgets, she feels that every institution should offer programs for student-parents.

As a constituency, Madder says that students with children aren’t as vocal about their needs as others due to being exhausted, having hectic schedules, and fearing stigmatization.

“It’s basically just about equity,” says Madder. “Being a woman, being able to become pregnant, have children, breastfeed … is a human right.

And so, if our education or if our work environment has some barriers because you can’t do both things, then that’s a human rights issue.”

Rachel Parkinson’s Story A third-year U of S student, Rachel Parkinson, is obtaining her doctorate in biology while caring for her three year-old son, Silvio. She says that she found balancing motherhood with her studies at U of S more difficult before the existence of Parents on Campus and the comfort rooms.

“When I found out that I was pregnant, my due date was just before final exams. At that time, Parents on Campus didn’t exist and I had no idea what to do. I figured I would miss all of them,” she says. “It was ridiculous. I mean, new parents that need to be breastfeeding their babies would basically have to go home, so how are you going to go to class and be part of [raising your child] at the same time?”

She gave birth to her son before her final semester of her undergraduate program, got her Bachelor’s degree not long afterward, and began graduate school when her son was only nine months old. According to Parkinson, this high-stress time left her with very few days that she could spend on campus.

She says that Parents on Campus has helped her be a more diligent, involved student at U of S since it was founded three years ago. “[It’s] been a source of a lot of support for myself and for a lot of other student-parents,” she says. “At least you have advocacy—people behind you to back you up.”

lack of funding and available space on campus.

The KSA President before Singh, Alex McGowan, worked with the university to brainstorm initiatives for childcare. One of these was for an offsite service which would provide KPU students and their children with subsidized care.

Singh explains that this program fell short of expectations and has since been placed on the backburner, but he remains optimistic. With the new Surrey Central campus under construction at 3 Civic Plaza, expansions to the Surrey campus’ Spruce building, and the opening of the Wilson School of Design at KPU Richmond, the physical space across KPU campuses is growing. This could help create more opportunities for services like a daycare in the future.

“If the university is working on something like that, the KSA would love to partner in with them,” says Singh. “I think any learner at KPU that has a disadvantage and has equitable access to education is someone … the student association should try their best to help out.”

Studying as a Parent at KPU

Tanya Burnstad’s Story

Aside from an in-course bursary awarded to single parents, neither KPU nor the Kwantlen Student Association offer any services or facilities for students with children. This issue worries current KSA President Tanvir Singh.

“We definitely know that, by giving people access to childcare, people have a better ability to access their education than if they … had to spend out of pocket or go off campus for childcare,” he says.

Singh says that the KSA would ideally be able to provide childcare to their constituents, but every time a councillor has tried to do so, there have been barriers too significant to overcome. Some of these include a

For Tanya Burnstad, mother of four and second-year creative writing student, KPU’s lack of resources for parents has proven frustrating.

After high school, Burnstad completed one year of university before taking time off to decide what she wanted to major in. During this hiatus, she became pregnant with her first child.

She returned to university during the spring of 2016, but she and her husband decided to have more children. Recently, she spent two more semesters carrying her youngest son, and gave birth to him two months after completing the spring 2017 semester. Burnstad is taking two

classes this semester while being a mother to her four young children.

According to Burnstad, this has been an enormous and exhausting challenge.

“It wouldn’t recommend it,” she says. “It’s not fun.”

While she was a mother to three young children and pregnant with her fourth, she also juggled university studies and a full-time retail job.

“It was a lot to do,” she explains.

“My husband’s amazing. We wouldn’t have had four kids if he wasn’t so great.”

Because of her husband, her stable financial situation, and strong support from her family, Burnstad recognizes that she’s luckier than most parents enrolled in classes. Out of reluctance to use resources that a parent in a more difficult situation could benefit from, she has never contacted the university regarding childcare aid.

Still, she has faced several challenges during her university career.

Many of the courses she wants to enrol in take place in the morning, but due to the prohibitive cost of daycare, Burnstad would have nowhere to drop off her young children while at school.

“It would be great if there was a little bit more on campus because then I wouldn’t have to limit myself to the four o’clock class or the seven o’clock class,” she says. “If the [KSA implemented a program like Parents on Campus], it would be amazing. I know I’m not the only parent here.”

She feels that on-campus daycare and comfort rooms would be an invaluable resource at KPU. Although they’re a small demographic, student-parents at KPU still require help.

“We don’t wear stickers so you can’t go, ‘Oh, that person’s a parent!

That person is balancing school life and babies,’” says Burnstad. “We’re all here just trying to make a better chance for ourselves.”

Parents on the University of Saskatchewan campus take part in a music class with their children. (Flickr/seventwentysk)

KPU creative writing student and mother of four, Tanya Burnstad, with her two young sons, four year-old Jacob and infant Logan. (Ashley Hyshka)

12 culture

six Spots to Keep in Mind for Next Year’s Dine Out kristine hui | contributor This year marked the 16th annual Dine Out Vancouver Festival, an event which celebrates all things edible and drinkable in the city.

From Jan. 19 to Feb. 4, attendees were able to choose from the fixed menus priced at $20.00, $30.00, or $40.00 available at more than 280 restaurants. Here is a list of six restaurants with culinary offerings that highlighted how truly multicultural the food scene in Vancouver is.

El Santo is a trendy, high-end Mexican food restaurant that has been a favourite in New Westminster since its inception in 2015. Their $30.00 Dine Out menu featured a wide variety of Mexican goodness, from braised pork cheeks to charred corn husk flan for the adventurous foodie.

The Afghan Kitchen is a family-owned and operated business in Surrey. Their Dine Out menu featured a selection of dips, kebabs, and an intriguing dessert described only as “Mum’s Secret Cake.” All of their meats are halal, and for the low price of $20.00, it’s a meal that fit right into a student’s budget.

If you’re craving some authentic Italian food, make your way to Spacca Napoli Pizzeria. You can start with a caprese salad, bruschetta, or antipasto, and then have the pizza of your choice for $30.00. The most attention-grabbing pizza on their menu is the tartufo, which has truffle cream sauce, pistachios, fresh ricotta, fior di latte cheese, and mortadella sausage.

Carthage Café is a cozy little restaurant on Commercial Drive that serves up French-Tunisian fare. Some interesting items on their $30.00 Dine Out menu were traditional lamb shank couscous, golden raisin chicken tagine, and Makrouth Tunisian pastry, which is made with semolina, date paste, and honey syrup. Yum. If you haven’t had the opportunity to taste Persian cuisine, next year’s Dine Out Vancouver will provide you with the perfect chance to do so at Cazba Restaurant on Davie Street.

For an affordable $20.00, its menu offers various aromatic rices, refreshing yogurt dips, and baklava drizzled in syrup.

With a $40.00 menu for Dine Out this year, Chambar certainly isn’t cheap, but you can expect consistently delicious Belgian food—such as waffles, mussels, and fries—from the Beatty Street location. Chambar is busier than most restaurants, so if you plan on going next year, make sure you make your reservations well in advance.

kpu lecture series examines issues in the black community

Professors, artists, and activists will be speaking throughout Black History Month joseph keller | staff writer KPU philosophy professor Leland Harper hopes to encourage discourse and collaboration through his new speaker series for Black History Month.

The first event was held on the first day of February. Throughout the rest of the month, the series will feature discussions of issues relating to the Black community in the Lower Mainland and beyond.

“I think that something a lot of people in this area might not realize about this community is how rich the culture and history of Blacks in the Lower Mainland really is,” says Harper. “There’s a tongue-in-cheek perspective of, ‘Oh, there’s no Blacks in Vancouver,’ and that’s far from the truth. There is a rich history of Black communities in the Lower Mainland and [the lecture series] is kind of discussing that history and getting it out and getting something for young Blacks in this area to be proud of.”

Harper says that his main goal for the speaker series was to highlight the work that is being done in British Columbia, particularly in the Lower Mainland, on issues related to the Black community. He acknowledges that Black History Month does not get as much attention in Canada as it does in the United States, but hopes that the topics discussed at the series will encourage more interdisciplinary

Dr. Leland Harper introduces KPU professor Dr. Amir Mirfakhraie before his talk on Feb. 7 for KPU’s Black History Month lecture series. (Joseph Keller) collaboration on racial issues by students, staff, and faculty at KPU. The first talk in the series featured local artist and social activist Carline Jackson, who spoke about her role as a white woman in fighting for social causes that are typically prevalent in the Black community. She also spoke about how she has been able to use art as a catalyst for change.

Harper also spoke on Feb. 1 to explain the foundations of racial solidarity. He talked mainly about the Black community, but says that the concepts he mentioned apply to all racial communities.

“I spoke about how it’s getting more and more difficult to find that

common thread that runs across all members of one race,” says Harper.

During the Feb. 7 event, KPU sociology professor Amir Mirfakhraie presented a comparative study of how Black people are represented in school textbooks across the Middle East and North America.

“I think it’s very important for all of us at Kwantlen to participate in these kind of activities and celebrations of Black culture and history, especially since, within the context of Canada, we really hardly ever learn about Black history,” says Mirfakhraie. “The inclusion of these topics as part of the culture of Kwantlen is important.”

The next talk in the series will take place on Feb. 23. Author and Program Director of Creative Writing at SFU Continuing Studies Wayde Compton will be at KPU to discuss racism in media, video games, and other aspects of culture.

Finally, Holly Andersen, a SFU associate professor in the philosophy department, will speak about intent and use regarding the naming of sports franchises on Feb. 28. Andersen will be using the ongoing debate over the name of the Simon Fraser Clansmen as an example of this issue on the local stage.

Indigenous Dance Festival returns to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology The performances will explore and celebrate First Nations art jesse pottinger | contributor For the many distinct Indigenous groups of the Pacific Northwest, dance is more than just an art form. It is a medium through which history has been passed down over generations. It preserves the stories, both past and present, of Indigenous people.

From Feb. 27 to March 4, the 11th annual Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, presented by the Dancers of Damelahamid, will take place at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, located on the unceded territories of the Musqueam people.

The event will focus on sharing the beautiful and distinct dance practices of Indigenous people from the Pacific Northwest and across the world through a series of workshops, performances, and lectures.

“What I think is unique to the festival, and something that is shared within that space, is that people get to see the diversity of Indigenous artistic practices, and I think that, generally speaking, we have a very limited understanding of what that means,” says Margaret Grenier, the festival’s

director and a member of the Dancers of Damelahamid.

“I think it helps to break down the shared colonial history that we all have, but also to really open up what identity everyone is offering within today’s context,” she continues.

A total of 18 performances will take place throughout the week, including those by individuals and groups from Washington State, British Columbia, the Yukon, Alaska, and even some visitors from outside of the Pacific Northwest region.

Grenier and the Dancers of Damelahamid are among the West Coast performers at the festival. Others from the West Coast include the Yukon’s Flying Gwitch’in Fiddler Boyd Benjamin, a masked Haida dance troupe called the Rainbow Creek Dancers, the Coastal Wolf Pack—a Coast Salish group consisting of 50 members—and Alaska’s David Botsley performing with his group, the Get Home Dancers.

Other guests include Stina Therese Lorås Hessaa, a Coastal Sami artist based in Norway, Peter Espiritu, a Hawaiian dancer who will focus on

contemporary and traditional Indigenous dance, and Charlotte Qamaniq and Kathleen Merritt, both originally from Nunavut, who will perform traditional Inuit throat singing.

Although the festival has only taken place in its present location since 2008, there was a predecessor in Prince Rupert run by Margaret Grenier’s parents, Ken and Margaret Harris, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The original festival was created to revive dance practices that were lost following the Canada-wide potlatch ban which lasted from 1885 to 1951.

Having witnessed the rebirth of these dance practices, Grenier was inspired to bring the festival back to life in Vancouver.

“It was a big part of the reason why I wanted to begin the festival again and have an opportunity for future generations to have the experience that I grew up with,” she says.

Several performances will be covered by the cost of museum admission, including youth outreach workshops and school group performances held during the week. Additionally, two separately-ticketed events will

be held on the weekend.

There will also be a discussion panel taking place on the evening of Thursday, March 1.

“I’m really excited about that because Terri-Lynn, Morgan Davidson, and Robert Davidson, as well as Peter Espiritu and Steena Hessaa, are all going to be on the panel and sharing a bit of their background in the work that they do, and they’re all really beautifully established artists,” says Grenier.

Admission for the Museum of Anthropology is $18.00 for adults and $16.00 for students and seniors, while the ticketed events cost $30.00 for adults and $25.00 for students and seniors. Admission is free for those who identify as Indigenous.

Grenier says that reviving practices that were nearly—or in some cases, completely—lost to colonization has been “a work of the heart.”

“It’s a really beautiful expression of how we’ve been able to maintain the essence of what the stories have provided for many generations,” she says.

culture 13

Could Trump Happen Here?

A KPU professor thinks that it’s possible, and so do other Canadians kristine hui | contributor KPU criminology professor Jeffrey Shantz recently published an article on Rabble, a progressive news website, concerning the possibility of a Trump-like figure ascending to power in Canada.

In the article, Shantz describes the presence of two Canadas: the superficial Canada that celebrates its multiculturalism and the “other” Canada, which has had a long history of racism towards Indigenous people and nonwhite immigrants. It is the presence of this darker Canada that may lead to Trumpism here, Shantz suggests.

A recent study conducted by the Canadian Press and EKOS Research appears to support Shantz’s views.

The study was conducted in cities throughout Canada and covered more than 12,000 Canadians, plotting them on a political spectrum from open to ordered.

Those classified as open were “more likely to feel positive about their economic future and class mobility, and also have a better sense of Canada’s ethnic and cultural makeup.” In contrast, those classified as ordered were “more likely to say they’re falling backwards in social class and don’t think things are getting better. They also tended to believe too many immigrants to Can-

ada aren’t white.”

In general, the poll found that half of respondents had ordered or middling views, proving that worldviews similar to those held by Trump supporters exist here.

The occurrence of widespread Trumpism or a Trump-style nationalism in Canada is indeed a possibility, and some might argue that it has already occurred. The rise of neo-fascist groups such as the “Soldiers of Odin” serve as visible examples of Canadian xenophobia which have most likely become emboldened by Trump’s rise to power.

Some critics have compared the now-deceased Toronto mayor Rob Ford with Donald Trump, as the two share several similar traits.

Like Trump, Ford was also known to deflect his political failures onto the media and was caught in several instances telling half-truths or outright lies to the public. What fuelled both Trump and Ford was their populist approach to politics; they both had the ability to tap into the feelings of the common people and turn them against the ruling elite.

Ford, however, was only a mayor and did not wield the same level of power or national influence as Trump does. Shantz surmises that the possibility of a Trump-like Canadian Prime Minister coming to power, while pos-

sible, is unlikely for several reasons.

For one, the Canadian population is more diverse than America’s—in Vancouver, 75 per cent of people are foreign-born or first generation.

In Toronto, that number is about 80 per cent. As well, more Canadians than Americans attend public education, which allows for greater social

mobility. Shantz describes the bottom 40 or 60 per cent of the population in the U.S. as living in a “Darwinistic universe.” They are locked into their class with no real opportunity to move up, and so they voted for Trump as a way of changing or rebelling against the current system.

Shantz acknowledges that many

Canadians are rightfully worried about the possibility of a far-right, populist leader being swept into government. Fortunately, though nationalism has risen both at home and abroad over the last few years, Prime Minister Trump is still nothing more than a bad dream.

KPU criminology instructor Dr. Jeffrey Shantz published an article on Rabble.ca exploring the possibility of a Trump-like figure ascending to a place of power in Canada. (Braden Klassen)

Surrey’s Interfaith Pilgrimage Brings Different Believers Together

Pilgrims visited six places of worship throughout the city to listen to, learn from, and respect each other on Feb. 4 mia davison | contributor A small congregation of pilgrims walked 16 kilometres through Surrey on Feb. 4, visiting Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh places of worship as part of the KPU Multi-Faith Centre’s celebration of 2018’s UN World Interfaith and Harmony Week.

The Surrey Interfaith Pilgrimage, made up of about 20 people of various ages, stopped at six locations throughout the day’s journey. Beginning at 9:30 am, the group departed from Thien Ton Buddhist Temple on 96 Avenue and headed towards Laxmi Narayana Hindu Mandir on 140 Street, where they had a lunch break. At 3:00 pm they attended afternoon prayer at Jamea Muslim Masjid on 124 Street before ending the pilgrimage at 5:00 pm with dinner at Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara on 120 Street.

Along the way, the pilgrims also made rest stops at Northwood United Church and Canadian Singh Sabha Gurdwara, where they were greeted with snacks, gifts, and a warm welcome from the communities there.

At every location they visited, participants in the pilgrimage had the chance to mingle with members of

Participants in the Surrey Interfaith Pilgrimage join members of Surrey’s Hindu community at Laxmi Narayan Temple on Feb. 4.

(Lincoln Saugstad) the faith and learn about their systems of belief.

“I think most people are excited about learning about their neighbours,” says Multi-Faith Centre Chaplain Ethan Vanderleek, who was instrumental in organizing the event.

“We’re living in a world of difference.”

“And we can celebrate those differences,” adds co-organiser Connie Waterman.

The Interfaith Pilgrimage was first held in 2015 by Vanderleek and

Waterman as a response to the Paris terror attacks. The two were able to put the event together in just five days and were joined by approximately 50 other pilgrims.

Vanderleek says that the walk intends to show how a community’s different religions offer an opportunity for growth and understanding rather than fear or division.

Audrey Hall, a volunteer at Northwood United Church, notes that events which bring different religions

together are about more than simply getting to know each other.

“We’re not picking berries,” she says. “[We’re] bringing religions together on another level.” “[We’re making] peace in our little corner of the world,” adds Helen Davidson, one of the participants in the pilgrimage from Ocean Park.

“We’re building bridges. We are trying to understand each other [and] recognizing we’ve got differences.”

The Interfaith Pilgrimage was just

one of the events held by the MultiFaith Centre throughout Interfaith Harmony Week. All other events were held at the Richmond campus.

Some of these included a pancake breakfast on Feb. 6, another installment of their ongoing “brown bag” lecture and discussion series on Feb. 7, and a performance of Indonesian gamelan featuring master dancer and musician Sutrisno Hartana on Feb. 8.

OPINION 15

The Editor of The Baron Deserved to be Dismissed for Publishing Racist Material University campus newspapers should not be a platform for spreading hatred Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter Anna De Luca, former editor-in-chief of the University of New Brunswick-St. John student newspaper The Baron, was fired after deciding to publish two articles featuring Michael Thurlow, the founder of the National Socialist Canadian Labour Revival Party (NSCLRP).

The publishing of the articles— one an unedited letter to the editor, the other an interview—came on the heels of another controversy in which racist posters were placed around the UNB-Fredericton campus by the NSCLRP. Both controversies rightly sparked outrage at the Maritime university.

De Luca, however, remained steadfast that the student newspaper is about “unfettered freedom of speech and expression,” according to an article by The Globe and Mail.

As a reporter with a student newspaper, I initially empathized with De Luca’s dilemma. The editor could publish the articles but come across as insensitive and condoning racism, or they could choose not to publish them and be accused of censorship and media bias.

Ultimately, though, by allowing a

person who espouses bigoted ideas to share those ideas in the pages of her publication, the editor of The Baron gave Thurlow a public platform from which to spew his hate. As an editor, De Luca says that she promised to never “censor, never correct or challenge,” and while I applaud her dedication to unbiased journalism, in this case, her own sense of honour failed her.

Not all voices deserve to be heard through the news media. Thurlow’s articles were not journalism; they were an affront to common decency and basic humanity. The Baron was not journalistically or ethically bound to publish such hatred and pass it off as unbiased journalism. They could have simply said no.

In Canada, we have the constitutional right to free speech. But once free speech slips towards hate speech, as a society, we must refuse to accept it.

The Globe and Mail reported that the posters which Thurlow’s group posted around campus made “comments about Jews and what [Thurlow] calls historical exaggerations and lies involving the residential school system.” One poster said, “Overwhelmingly, Native Americans are beneficiaries, and not victims, of the society built by Europeans.”

The University of New Brunswick-St. John campus, where The Baron is published.

(Flickr/Martin Cathrae) Now, imagine being a Jewish or Indigenous student walking across the UNB campus and seeing that poster hanging on a building wall, telling you that the discrimination you feel is all in your head and that you should be grateful to your oppressors.

No one should be subjected to that level of abuse.

The Baron’s board of directors

made the right decision in firing De Luca, and afterwards issued a statement saying that Michael Thurlow’s viewpoints were both harmful and often untruthful. It must have been a difficult decision to make, but it needed to be made to send a message that we are not shielded from the consequences of our words or actions.

As student journalists, we have a

duty to uphold the truth, report facts in an unbiased manner, and let readers make their own judgements. In the wake of this controversy, however, The Baron and its former editorin-chief failed to adhere to the standards of ethical journalism.

unlicensed cannabis vendors at Robson Square Have Gone Too Far The Robson Square plaza in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery has become a contentious topic in Vancouver katherine dolmat | contributor The 800-block of Robson street in Downtown Vancouver was permanently closed to traffic in April 2016.

The intention was to convert the square into a location for social events and civic and cultural creativity with proper seating, lighting, and landscaping.

Instead, Robson Square has become a bustling marijuana market.

I regularly walk through Robson square on a daily basis because I work in a building just one block away. At first, the single-stand set-up near the bushes in the area was a charming, very “West Coast” quirk that tourists seem to love. The lone cannabis seller was off in the corner, barely noticeable except for the constant plume of smoke hovering around his table.

Lately, though, there have been at least of five or six similar tables set up around the square, complete with canopies and sellers shouting the prices of their edible THC products at passers-by. The atmosphere is reinforced by booming music and a constant barrage of marijuana-themed products and accessories displayed around every turn.

This is no longer a quirky anomaly. These illegal vendors have taken over what was intended to be a fam-

The Vancouver Art Gallery sits next to Robson Square on the corner of Robson and Hornby. (Flickr/Nathaniel F) ily-friendly plaza. Whether you’re a marijuana supporter or not, there are safety concerns that come with selling to underage buyers and a lack of regulation of the THC-laced food products that they’re selling there.

One of the other concerns with the market is whether or not it’s fair that marijuana vendors are working alongside legal food carts. There are vendors and buskers who make their livelihood working in and around the square. The application and permit fee for food cart vendors this year is over $1,200. This

permit comes with a guarantee that the vendor has health permits and liability insurance. They are also required to undergo a health inspection.

The argument that these sellers use to defend themselves is that cannabis is set to be legalized this summer. They claim that they always ask for identification to confirm that potential buyers are over 19, and that they’re providing a necessary service for people who use marijuana for medicinal purposes by being there.

But according to a poll by The

Vancouver Sun, 80 per cent of readers don’t think the pot market should be allowed to operate.

After increasing media coverage of this issue, five people were arrested for selling marijuana in the square and police seized much of their inventory.

Some vendors have returned, however, to protest for fair access to cannabis. They were seen giving out the drug for free to pedestrians.

While food vendors and cannabis sellers seem like they could have a complementary relationship, it sim-

ply isn’t fair for illegal suppliers to get away with operating unlicensed while other hardworking merchants lose out on business in the space that they pay for. Without regulation, there is no way for health and safety standards to be established for these suppliers. In order for Robson Square to work as a functional, family-friendly area, parameters need to be set for all of its vendors.

16 opinions

Hit Snooze on Installing Sleep Pods at KPU

While sleep pods like those at BCIT could boost energy on campus, university money should be spent on other services first daniella javier | contributor If you often find yourself in dire need of a quick nap while on campus, you’re likely in favour of getting a few sleep pods at KPU. BCIT installed two sleep pods in their Burnaby campus library as a part of a pilot project in July of 2016.

The technical institute noticed that students were curling up to sleep in various areas of the library anyway, so they planted the sleep pods there as a way to support the well-being of their student body.

Sleepy students can book a 30 to 60-minute “power nap” inside of the cylindrical pods, which are designed to fit just one person. This is to prevent student-on-student hanky-panky, a problem that supposedly led UBC to close their nap rooms in the ‘60s. The BCIT pods are under video surveillance, and staff working the service counter are only a few metres away from them, so they’re perfectly safe. They’re also intentionally not soundproofed, and you can keep your belongings with you while you’re inside.

Alison Griffin, the BCIT Librarian and Collections Coordinator, says that the reception to the sleep pods has been excellent. “[The pods] made national news, so it turned out to be a great marketing investment,” she says.

It’s well known that sleep is essential for student learning and memory retention. According to The National Sleep Foundation, a 40-minute nap can improve a person’s performance by 34 per cent and boost their alert-

A BCIT student takes a nap in one of the sleep pods at the institute’s Burnaby campus library. (Daniella Javier) ness by 100 per cent. It’s also safer for students to take a 20-minute nap before driving home than it is for them to operate a car while feeling groggy from sleep deprivation.

Considering how many three-hour courses our university offers, my guess is that many student would be in favour of sleep pods at KPU. Sleep is often overlooked when students are

trying to juggle a heavy course load or study for three to four exams at a time. The pods would be quite a convenience, as people would be able to catch up on their sleep without worrying about their safety.

Sadly, they just might not be a worthwhile expense for the university. According to CTV News, BCIT’s models are priced at $2,000 apiece

and are funded by vending machine sales. At KPU, there are other issues that still urgently need improvement, so spending a few grand on a handful of sleep pods right now seems unwise.

Jessica Wiechers, a first-year general studies student at KPU, thinks that the sleep pods are a great idea, but would rather see the university spend money on healthier food

options in the cafeteria. Surely, in that regard, she’s not alone.

If sleep pods can help boost student energy on campus, having KPU test them out in the future may be worthwhile. In the meantime, there are other, more important developments that students could benefit from.

Students With Anxiety or Sleep Disorders Should Check Out the Calm App

A new app helps you meditate and maintain regular sleeping patterns so you can mellow the hell out during exams nicola kwit | art director Like many people, I am the (not so proud) owner of a very noisy and needy brain. The amount of time I have spent laying in bed with my mind yammering away about either random or spirit-crushing topics is embarrassing.

Rather than sleeping, I often spend hours trying to get my anxiety to take a chill pill or contemplating setting my homework on fire—behaviour which sometimes crosses into Dr. Phil territory. I think we all have had that moment where you just get sick of being unrested and battling with your brain and realise that something has to be done.

My friend suggested something to me and I took it with a grain of salt: a “too-on-the-nose” app called Calm. The app guides you in meditation to help improve your sleep and self-worth while minimizing stress and anxiety. It even provides music, ambient noise, and stories to listen to while you’re trying to fall asleep.

If this all sounds easy to roll your eyes at, know that I did too, until I remembered two things: 1) I used to meditate all the time.

2) I am close to losing it.

So I downloaded Calm and later subscribed to it. I’ve been using it daily for over a month and it has helped me an incredible amount, primarily with my sleep. The meditations don’t have to take up a ton of your time, ranging from as short as two minutes for instant stress relief to considerably longer if you choose, depending on whichever meditation you want to do and what you want to focus on.

I know a lot of people hear the word “meditation” and instantly assume that it’s going to be very hippy-dippy, but this app is not like that. The people guiding you through the meditations are easy to listen to, whereas some of the more grating instructors out there simply fuel the burning rage inside of you.

Some people feel silly when they

first start dabbling in meditation. They think it’s only for people who need something trendy and faux-spiritual in their lives. But anyone can benefit from meditating, and if you’re a student, this app can be incredibly beneficial.

Calm can help lower your high stress levels or even help to cure your insomnia by allowing you to develop better sleeping patterns. Let’s be honest—if you are a student, you need to get your rest, so I strongly recommend giving this app a try. I did, and it gradually became a part of my daily routine because it took my crazy down a few notches.

And, folks, being in my final year of school, I’ve been buckets of crazy.

I relate to the crazy cat lady on The Simpsons on a spiritual level. Let’s help you avoid that!

Do yourself a favour. Check this app out and let it help you calm yourself the fuck down.

(@RESLUS)

opinions 17

Going Global: India Might Be a Budding Superpower Though it faces its obstacles, India is becoming more influential Tristan Johnston | contributor While all eyes are on China, many people have been talking about India as another up-and-comer on the world stage.

Both China and India have massive, 1 billion-plus populations, low labour costs, high agricultural fertility, and GDP growth rates above seven per cent. There are, however, many obstacles keeping India from reaching China’s status.

Beijing has the luxury of telling other cities and provinces what to do and how to do it. Highly centralized control is why massive infrastructure projects get started and completed relatively quickly there. India, however, is nothing like this. Despite its Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, being well-liked by most of the Indian population—a Pew poll last year suggested 88 per cent approval—it’s often difficult for New Delhi to tell, say, Gujarat state what to do, and to expect anything to happen. The reasons for this go way back in history.

China has a fairly unified identity, with the only outliers being the ever-resistant Hong Kong and still-in-

dependent Taiwan. Mao Zedong unified the country through force during his time as Party Chairman, but this only took place after thousands of years of conflict between warring states and various dynasties who attempted to unite the country.

No such thing ever took place in India, and in some ways, India is impossible to conquer for any period of time. Before the British took control, India was a collection of kingdoms and princely states, and the Brits somewhat unified the country by making deals and political arrangements with the various factions. After they left, the country experienced considerable chaos, with many of the Hindu and Muslim populations separating into rival nations.

Several issues from the partition of India are still felt today.

Furthermore, unlike China, there is no unified language in India. Yes, Chinese comes in more varieties than Mandarin and Cantonese—such as Wu, Min, Xiang, and several others—but these aren’t national languages. By contrast, India has 26 languages that the government formally recognizes, and even more than that

Milestones to Look For at this year’s Winter Olympics Kyrsten Downton | contributor The 2018 Winter Olympics are well underway in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but excitement about the games is continuing to grow here in Canada (thanks hockey!).

As of Feb. 16, Canada was sitting in fourth place in the rankings with four gold, five silver, and four bronze medals, and it has been predicted that the nation will win many more.

According to the Canadian Press, Canada could walk away with as many as 29 medals during the Winter Games. Gracenote, an international data analytics company, first predicted that Canada would win 33 medals, but have recently lowered that figure to 28.

If either of these predictions are true, this would be Canada’s highest medal showing at the Winter Olympics. Currently, our record is 26, won at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The 2010 Winter Olympics created a huge wave of national pride in Canada that has seldom been felt before, starting with freestyle skier Alexandre Bilodeau becoming the first Canadian to win gold on home soil. Maëlle Ricker quickly followed by winning gold for snowboard cross, becoming the first Canadian female athlete to win at home. This eventually led to a 14 gold medal count for Canada, which is currently the record for most gold medals won at an Olympic event. It also marked the

first time since 1952 that the hosting country led the gold medal count.

Canadian pride from those games is still felt today, as the country continues to develop into a serious contender in the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Each Winter Olympics seems to have a number of new firsts, and this year is no different. For Canada, 25-year-old Brigette Lacquette, a member of the Cote First Nations, is spearheading one of these milestones.

Lacquette is a defense hockey player who will be competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics on Team Canada. By doing so, she will be the first Indigenous hockey player to play on the women’s Olympic hockey team.

Other countries are also breaking new ground. South Korea and North Korea will be competing under a unified flag for the first time at the Olympic games, which could have possible political implications for the two countries. Nigeria is being represented in women’s bobsled for the first time.

The most important thing about these firsts is that they send a message. Sports aren’t just about competition. They unite us, break down borders, and provide assurance that we can connect regardless of our differences. Sports challenge us. For athletes, they push us to break boundaries and show us that we shouldn’t be afraid to do something or be different. Sports inspire us not only to do better, but to be better.

are spoken in smaller communities.

India likely couldn’t function if it was less democratic, given how diverse its population is. The country would simply have no stability. And on top of that, India has issues with insurgent Maoists and Khalistan groups.

Still, India has become somewhat more centralized under Modi, who took power in 2014. For example, he has increased the influence that the government has over judicial appointments.

India does have a lot of advantages going for it. Around 10 per cent of the population speaks English, and like China, many people there are earning STEM educations, making the country extremely appealing for outside investment. There are also several large companies beginning to grow in India, such as Tata Motors and Infosys. The current government is taking note of this and initiating policies that push their IT advantages.

When it comes to environmental issues, India continues to struggle with pollution, but some change is taking place. Modi has made ecology a massive part of his plan for India, but due to difficulties in Indi-

Narendra Modi has served as India’s Prime Minister since being elected in 2014. (Flickr/UK Parliament) an bureaucracy, progress is slow going. Modi is also making a big push to improve quality of life. Some symptoms of this were a campaign to increase public sanitation and the effort to get more people to use mobile payments.

After China and the U.S., India has the world’s highest purchasing power parity, and The World Bank estimates

that the number of Indians in poverty has halved since 1993. With India slowly becoming wealthier and more livable, its presence in the world will become increasingly important. India is not a superpower on the level of the United States or China yet, but 25 years from now, it might be a different story.

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18 columns

Artist Spotlight: Future Star

Think twee, glitter, and cutesy indie films to get an idea of Future Star’s “quieted down pop” style

alyssa laube | coordinating editor With only drums and keys accompanying Celina Kay’s hushed vocals, Future Star makes a statement about isolation and intimacy through writing indie pop.

The band is currently a two-piece formed in 2016 by Kay, a long-time Vancouver musician who invited her friend and producer Christopher Ellis to join as a percussionist. Although the lineup and name of the group has changed over the years, it has remained Kay’s personal project—a place to parse through feelings and ideas that otherwise only she would be privy to.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Would you ever have bass in your band?’ and I’m like, ‘No! The whole point is that there’s space there and that it’s kind of intentional,’” says Kay. “I like the idea of everything being contained within the keyboard.”

Between 2012 and 2014, Kay went by the name Where You’ve Been, That’s Where You’re Coming From.

Before then, she was in bands such as Kidnap Kids and True Crush. Kay’s first instrument is the keyboard, which she picked up in high school and now exclusively plays in Future Star, but bass, flute, and xylophone have a place in her arsenal of musical

gadgets as well.

Nevertheless, her current project is intentionally understated. Where many veteran musicians write exceedingly complicated, niche-pleasing songs as they bolster their reputation in the scene, Future Star stays true to its strengths by writing half-sweet, half-somber melodies that make use of the emptiness left between drum hits and synth chords.

Somewhat surprisingly, Kay is inspired by some of today’s most famous female pop icons. Her subtle approach to writing seems at first a far cry from the larger-than-life radio hits by stars like Kesha, Charlie XCX, and Carly Rae Jepsen, but beneath that is a sugary pop structure that exposes her loyalty to the genre.

“There was one time I tried to write a song like Carly Rae Jepsen and it didn’t work at all. I don’t know how to do that,” she laughs. “I never aimed for that sound, but at the same time, that’s the stuff that I listened to a heck of a lot when I was growing up and I’m sure it’s influenced me.”

She continues, “Generally, I just write about a thing that’s happening right now, a feeling that I’m having right now. I’m not the same person that I was two or three or six years ago. My priorities have changed.”

Future Star has released three

Future Star’s Celina Kay grins in a coffee shop downtown. (Alyssa Laube) records in the past: 2016’s Try Hard, an eight-song CD in December called Who Cursed Me Then Cured Me, and between the two, an 11-song cassette.

The band’s next record, Cryorities, will be available online in the first half of April with a physical release planned for April 13.

For the first time, there will be a

third instrument on Future Star tracks featured on the record—a friend of the band, Ridley Bishop, is playing saxophone on two songs as well as other instruments on Cryorities’ first track.

“I sing about crying a lot,” says Kay, about the name of the record. “I just like the idea of choosing what you’re crying about, being a grown up.”

For those interested in seeing the band live, Kay and Ellis will be playing on Feb. 25 with First Boyfriend and at the Cryorities release with Necking, Wind Up Birds, and two poet-comedians. Future Star’s recordings are available on Bandcamp.

After Thought: Whining and Dining with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley

The Alberta government’s embargo on B.C. wine betrays its desperation to further Kinder Morgan’s interests at our expense BRADEN KLASSEN | PHOTO EDITOR Economic sanctions are supposed to be used as a last resort to end a pattern of harmful behaviour undertaken by a government—usually as a deterrent to armed conflict and human rights violations.

Currently, Canada has imposed sanctions against 19 countries worldwide, including Russia for its role in supporting separatism in the Ukraine, North Korea in response to missile tests that have been ongoing since 2006, and the Syrian government for its use of military weapons against its own people. In circumstances like these, economic sanctions make sense and can lead to positive changes when imposed rationally and purposefully.

But in Alberta, the same measure used to deter criminal activity and violence against oppressed citizens is now being used to put pressure on the B.C. government to remove restrictions on the Trans Mountain pipeline project. On Feb. 6, the Alberta NDP declared that they are banning B.C. wine imports to the province until the restrictions are lifted.

According to the CBC, sales of B.C. wine in Alberta liquor stores netted the wine industry in our province about $70 million last year, which is peanuts compared to the $7.4 billion

construction and development price tag on the Trans Mountain pipeline.

The disparity between these two numbers is enough to show that this decision was not really intended to have any substantially harmful economic impacts.

The decision appears to have been made out of desperation as an appeal to the malcontent base of voters who are tired of having the pipeline delayed. Somehow, these people believe that this amateur, high school Model UN-level punitive sanction nonsense is actually going to accomplish something productive.

It’s understandable that Premier Notley wants to maintain the appearance of having some control in the negotiations over the pipeline’s completion, but this was not the way to go about it. Even John Horgan was dismissive of the announcement, saying, “It’s not the government’s intention to respond in any way to the provocation.”

In a statement released on Feb. 7, Notley said that “no one wants a trade fight between two provinces, not Alberta, not B.C. Our country can’t work like this, but if it takes this kind of action to get Ottawa to act, I’m afraid we have no choice but to stand up and defend Alberta’s interests.”

The classic “Now look what you made me do!” tactic is a shrewd nego-

The vineyard of Chaberton Estate Winery near Langley, B.C. (Braden Klassen) tiation method normally employed by children throwing tantrums on the floor of the toy section in Walmart.

Add a weak attempt to scapegoat the federal government and a textbook conflation of “Alberta’s interests” with the profit margins of a single oil and gas developer, and we have a ready-made press release for appeasing the people who want to make Alberta great again—one neglected

bottle of B.C. merlot at a time.

It’s an ironically anti-capitalist decision to enforce, and a silly attempt to screw over a bevy of smaller companies in order to serve the needs of Kinder Morgan, a large multinational corporation. This shows us just how deeply embedded the oil and gas industry is in the Alberta government.

The fact that the Alberta govern-

ment is compelled to act on behalf of fossil fuel business interests and use its legislative power to bully a completely unrelated industry in another province should come as an alarming affront to anyone who believes in the principles of a free market.

PROCRASTINATION HOROSCOPES Sagittarius Nov. 23 - Dec 21

Capricorn Dec. 22 - Jan 20

Aquarius Jan 21 - Feb 19

You’re 10 degrees left of centre on good days, 10 degree right of centre when a social issue affects you personally.

Your moral and spiritual nadir is captured in the half second of silence after one track from Dark Side of the Moon ends and before the next begins because you illegally downloaded the album track-by-track and now none of the songs fit perfectly together.

Soon you’ll be capable of whipping up a peanut butter brownie recipe so good it will technically be considered witchcraft.

Pisces Feb 20 - Mar 20

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20

If you want to be famous in 20 years, do something stupid right now.

Be considerate to others this week. Kindly clean up the wreckage of your presence after any and all social interactions.

This weekend, become an unwitting pawn in someone else’s plans for world domination.

Gemini May 21 - Jun 20

Cancer Jun 21 - Jul 23

Leo Jul 24 - Aug 23

You’re not exactly sure where the “hippo campus” is, but you’re pretty sure it fosters a more engaging student experience than the Langley campus.

The man’s whole frame—within the space of a single minute, or even less—shrinks, crumbles, absolutely rots away beneath your hands. Upon the bed there now lies a nearly liquid mass of loathsome, detestable putrescence.

It is technically not illegal to call yourself the World’s Heavyweight Champion.

Virgo Aug 24 - Sept 23

Libra Sept 24 - Oct 23

Scorpio Oct 24 - Nov 22

Don’t haunt an eerie lighthouse with your wailing spirit if you can’t accept the responsibility of guiding wayward ships to harbour.

You are going to the moon. You are going to Grand Central Station. You are going to the American Presidency.

The Planck length is believed to be the shortest meaningful length, the limiting distance below which the very notions of space and length cease to exist. Any attempt to investigate the possible existence of shorter distances, by performing higher-energy collisions, would inevitably result in black hole production. Higher-energy collisions, rather than splitting matter into finer pieces, would simply produce bigger black holes.

SUDOKU

THE DOODLE BOX Last issue’s answers.

Look for the answers in the next issue of The Runner.

We’ve merely started the creation, you get to finish it!

Tweet a photo of your drawing with #runnerdoodles and you could be featured in the next issue!