The Runner Volume 10, Issue 12

MARCH 13, 2018 VOLUME 10, ISSUE 12 KPU’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

UNCOVERING THE FACE OF THE OPIOID CRISIS Middle-aged men, more than any other demographic in the province, are dying from overdoses

NEWS

KPU to Diversify Gender Options for Student Registration

CULTURE page 4

Italian Brewing Students Get a Taste of KPU

OPINIONS page 10

Student Health Plans Should Cover Medical Marijuana

page 16

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STAFF 04

NEWS | KPU to Diversify Gender Options for Student Registration

Coordinating Editor

Aly Laube editor@runnermag.ca

Managing Editor

Connor Doyle managing@runnermag.ca

Production Manager

Melanie Tan production@runnermag.ca

Art Director

“Our system itself has been limiting in the fact that it only provides the binary option of male and female when we’re collecting data from our students, and based on what we hear from our student body, it’s 2018 and that’s just not cutting it anymore,” says KPU registrar Zena Mitchell.

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FEATURES | Uncovering the Face of Vancouver’s Opioid Crisis

While conversation about Vancouver’s opioid crisis often conjures images of dirty back alleys on the Downtown Eastside, recent data has revealed that it’s actually more present in the secure, private homes of middle aged men.

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CULTURE | Italian Brewing Students Discover Vancouver Craft Brewing

KPU brewing instructor Alek Egi says that many of the students have plans to start their own breweries back home and have come to Vancouver to learn skills that will give them an advantage in Italy’s emerging craft brewing industry.

Nicola Kwit art@runnermag.ca

Photo Editor

Braden Klassen photos@runnermag.ca

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OPINIONS | Insurance Providers Needs to Cover Medical Cannabis

Medical marijuana is regularly prescribed by physicians, meaning that it’s a recognized prescription and legitimate drug. So why shouldn’t it be included in our health care plans?

Staff Writer

Joseph Keller staff@runnermag.ca

Hashtag KPU Web Editor

Post on Twitter or Instagram about or around KPU and you could be featured!

Mel Pomerleau web@runnermag.ca

Community Reporter

Ashley Hyshka community@runnermag.ca

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

CONTRIBUTORS Candy Dhami Kristin Frier Kristine Hui Daniella Javier Tristan Johnston Matthew Pain Jesse Pottinger Lincoln Saugstad

COVER BY Braden Klassen

Arbutus 3710/3720 12666 72 Ave. Surrey, B.C, V3W 2M8 778-565-3801 www.runnermag.ca Vol. 10, Issue no. 12 March 13 // 2018 ISSN# 1916 8241

Spring Semester 2018 Student Publication Fee opt-outs available in person from Jan. 16 - Mar. 16.

Student ID & proof of registration and payment required.

PIPS office: Arbutus 3710, Surrey Campus.

Hours: 10 - 5 Monday to Friday.

Phone: 778-565-3801 Email: office@runnermag.ca

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

FROM THE EDITOR

Win fabulous prizes and support The Runner on March 27

(Nicola Kwit)

Aly Laube | Coordinating Editor On March 27, we’ll be giving away three prizes to KPU students: a MacBook Air, a Nintendo Switch, and a designer Herschel backpack.

The editors of The Runner have spent the past few months working to change the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society’s extremely out of date bylaws, which are the rules we need to abide by as a society. They were originally designed by student politicians 10 years ago, and they no longer make any practical sense for how we operate.

We need to adopt a new set of bylaws in order to function properly. Also, due to some changes to the B.C. Societies Act, we need to pass the revised bylaws in order to continue

paying the members of our Board of General Purposes, whose job it is to make sure that we’re running the paper ethically. They’re paid roughly a dollar a day, and we’d like to keep it that way.

To adopt the new bylaws, we’ll need to get a minimum of 100 students in the Surrey Cedar Conference Centre on March 27, a Tuesday, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm. This is where we’ll be giving out our prizes, and everyone who comes with their student card will be automatically entered into the prize draw.

The only thing that those 100 (or more) students will have to do is vote on whether or not we can pass our bylaws, which should take less than an hour. Once that’s done, we’ll hand out the Macbook, the Switch, and the backpack.

We’re counting on you, the students, to help us get this done. It’s likely that there will be less than 200 people in the room overall, so everyone who shows up has a fair chance at bringing something home with them on the 27th.

For those of you who don’t get so lucky, we’ll also have free food and drinks.

The Kwantlen Student Association will also be having its annual general meeting that day from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, and will be giving out some exciting prizes of their own. Among them are tuition vouchers and money for student clubs, and they’ll also be providing a full-on catering spread with all sorts of food throughout the day. If you stick around for the three hours between 1:00 and 4:00 pm, you can have your name entered to win all of the prizes available from both The Runner and the KSA. Getting bylaws passed might not seem important to the average student, but they do legally dictate how we operate, and every student at KPU pays both PIPS and the KSA a fee every semester. We’re responsible to the student body and want to be able to serve you as well as we can. In order to do that, we need to have all of our important legislation tidy and up to date.

So save the date! On Tuesday, March 27, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm in the Surrey Cedar Conference Centre, we’ll be moving to pass our bylaws.

To check out our new bylaws, and to see how exactly they differ from the ones we currently have, visit the “Constitution and Bylaws” section of our website.

KPU Releases Policies for Surveillance Cameras

NEWS BRIEF

Joseph Keller | Staff Writer Kwantlen Polytechnic University has outlined a set of policies and procedures for how its Closed Circuit Video Equipment (CCVE) cameras will be used.

The policies come in the form of two documents which went into effect in early February. The documents state that the cameras are in place to protect the safety of KPU students and staff as well as personal and university property by serving as a deterrent and an investigative tool.

According to the documents, the policies are focused on balancing the safety and privacy of KPU students.

“The University recognizes the need to balance its duty to promote and maintain a safe and secure environment against the responsibility to protect an individual’s right to privacy,” reads the first policy principle outlined in the documents.

The policies released on Feb. 1 outline exactly how the university intends to use the cameras and the footage that they capture.

Among other details, the documents state that the cameras will be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are placed at “exterior pathways, walkways, and building entrance, egress points, parking lots, [and]

student enrolment services front counters.”

The camera feeds are not routinely monitored and only persons authorized by KPU’s chief safety officer are able to access the camera feeds or recordings.

The recordings are to be stored in a secure facility for 30 days before being deleted unless required by law enforcement for investigative or evidentiary purposes. It is also made clear that the cameras will not be used by the university to monitor employee performance or productivity.

Throughout the final months of 2017 and early in 2018, the university invited community members to comment on the documents on the KPU policy blog. Students were able to pose questions and make remarks related to the CCVE, which would then be responded to

by KPU’s head of policy development, Josephine Chan.

One commenter on the blog asked if cameras could be installed in areas where property was prone to being targeted by thieves, such as departmental pods or offices, to which Chan responded that cameras will be limited to exterior pathways and entrances.

The full policy documents can be found at kpu.ca/policies.

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WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS MONTH

March 14

HONOURING VICTIMS

KPU’s Criminology Department has invited Dr. Benjamin Perrin, associate professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, to discuss the rights of victims of violent crimes.

10:00 am - 12:00 pm, KPU Surrey conference centre, free.

March 16 AMAZING RACE AT KPU

KPU Sports & Recreation is teaming up with Active KSA for an event that will challenge you physically and mentally. You also have the chance to win some prizes, so register your team today.

11:00 am - 1:00 pm, KPU Surrey campus, free.

March 19 DRESS FOR SUCCESS

A group of entrepreneurial students will be holding a clothing drive to help empower women entering the workforce. Donate your formal and business attire and get the chance to win one of several prizes.

12:00 pm - 2:00 pm, KPU Surrey Main atrium, free.

March 22 MULTIPLAYER MADNESS 5

The Kwantlen Gaming Guild is holding its fifth annual Multiplayer Madness event. Typically this is one of the most well-attended events of the year, so stop by if you want to be a part of some gaming goodness.

11:00 am - 6:00 pm, KPU Surrey conference centre, free.free.

March 25 BIGGEST DOG MEET-UP

This is not, strictly speaking, a KPU event. But if you’re a dog lover at heart you’ll want to know about this Vancouver-wide dog meet-up. Bring your dog if you have one and tell our furry friends who’s a good boy.

12:00 pm - 3:00 pm, Trout Lake Dog Park, free.

March 27 PIPS SGM

The Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society, which funds The Runner and Pulp Magazine, is having a Special General Meeting to changes its bylaws. Bring your student ID and be entered to win some FABULOUS PRIZES, including a Macbook Air and Nintendo Switch.

1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, KPU Surrey conference centre, free.

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NEWS

Gender Options for KPU Student Registration to Become More Inclusive

A report on registering as a non-cisgender university student has been brought to the KPU Senate for consideration Aly Laube | Coordinating Editor There will soon be more options than just “male” and “female” for students listing their gender identity during registration.

KPU’s Senate is considering a document entitled “Being Seen, Being Counted” by the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer. As it does so, it also grows more inclusive in an area that many wouldn’t consider related to social justice: data gathered from institutional information systems.

Zena Mitchell, the registrar for Kwantlen Polytechnic University, brought the BCCAT report and recommendations from the B.C. Registrar’s Association to KPU’s Senate on Feb. 26.

As the registrar, Mitchell works closely with the data collected from students and she is looking forward to creating a more “datarich environment” at the university. By doing so, KPU’s administration will be able to better understand the student body and use that knowledge to implement changes that will improve the student experience.

“Our system itself has been limiting in the fact that it only provides the binary option of male and female when we’re collecting data from our students, and based on what we hear from our student body, it’s 2018 and that’s just not cutting it anymore,” says Mitchell.

“We need to understand our student body

and in order to do that we need to provide the opportunity for them to be able to tell us about themselves and who they are.”

So far, the feedback that she has received for the document has been positive. While KPU students haven’t explicitly filed complaints about the current gender options available to them, they have been inquiring more frequently about how to register as as non-binary or trans, according to Mitchell.

She adds that, the year before last, KPU implemented a change to its online platform so that students can be referred to by their preferred name in class and during registration.

By doing this, students can ensure that their professors do not refer to them by a birth name that they may not feel comfortable with.

While Mitchell was unable to say whether the Senate has additional plans for making the university more inclusive for non-cisgendered students, she is looking forward to seeing KPU’s culture and policies become more welcoming for everybody.

Joseph Thorpe, the Queer Representative for the Kwantlen Student Association, is encouraged by the diversifying of gender options available to students registering online. However, he also feels that “there needs to be a lot more support for things like the gender-neutral washrooms and visible support, not just behind-the-scenes support.”

“Our current gender-neutral washrooms aren’t currently gender-neutral. You go in there and one of them has urinals,” he says.

Thorpe adds that, in his capacity as the KSA’s Queer Representative, he has heard several queer and non-binary students express that they still don’t feel comfortable being themselves on campus.

TransFocus Consulting is an organization dedicated to providing transgender resources to policymakers, employers, and other leaders in Canada. BCCAT contracted two social scientists to help them identify how it should go about expanding the gender categories offered to students registering for classes: Kai Scott, who identifies as a trans man, and Drew Dennis, who identifies as non-binary.

“We provide that trans insight into these issues … enough to be at the table to understand how we can reconfigure or reimagine gender categories,” says Scott. “We wanted to help make sure that trans and non binary needs will be met, while also balancing with the system’s needs and the capabilities of the institutions, so we can make sure everybody gets something.”

In order for non-binary people to feel comfortable and visible at school, Scott says, they need to have more options for how they identify within the system. Simply adding a “non-binary” option isn’t enough for trans

men and women, who would instead benefit from being provided a space to explain their identity and history, he explains. And the same can be said about only making a “trans” option available, requesting students to provide their sex assigned at birth, or asking students to summarize their identity with a word or short phrase.

“Right now we’re in this paradigm shift moment where universities across North America are testing out different options for expanding categories,” sasy Scott. “There’s kind of a wild west of options. There is a lot of complexity in it and it’s not always as straightforward as adding a category. Of course you want to include trans people and make them visible, but we also want to make sure that the data you use is applicable.”

(Wikimedia Commons)

This Year’s B.C. Budget Draws Praise From Students and Educators The budget will see millions in funding go towards student housing and childcare Joseph Keller | Staff Writer The government of British Columbia released its 2018 budget in February and, as far as organizations representing post-secondary education are concerned, it’s good news for B.C. students.

The Alliance of B.C. Students and the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators have both published responses to the budget praising the province’s allocation of funding to support students, particularly in regards to housing and childcare.

“This is an amazing win for students. This is the first time that I can remember that the government really sat down and listened to students and has given us what we’ve been asking for,” says Alliance of B.C. Students Chairperson Caitlin McCutchen.

The budget commits $21 million to making post-secondary education more accessible, adding funds to ESL support, adult basic education, support for former youth in care, and more. The budget will also see $450 million over the next three years go towards building on-campus student housing.

In a press release, the Alliance of B.C. Students called the investment “historic”, noting that the budget marks the first time that the B.C. government has directly funded student housing initiatives.

Support for on-campus housing has been a major focus of the ABCS’ lobbying efforts over the past couple of years. The organization has reached out to legislators from both the cur-

rent and former provincial governments in hopes of achieving this outcome.

Encouraged by this recent headway, McCutchen, who is also the Kwantlen Student Association VP External, says that the ABCS will continue to lobby the provincial government to ensure that new student housing is made affordable and accessible for well below the market rate.

“This government definitely wants to listen to students. We’ve done lobby days with them before and they’re always very keen to hear what we have to say,” says McCutchen. “[These budget items are] something that the ABCS and the KSA have been pushing for for about a year and a half and this just proves that they have been listening to us.”

The Kwanten Student Association has also welcomed the news that support for student housing is on its way. The lack of student housing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been an issue since the institution was granted university status. McCutchen says that the KSA will be sitting down with the university administration to have a say in KPU’s plans to take advantage of the province’s funding towards on-campus housing.

The President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators, George Davison, similarly praised the provincial government’s investments in education. In particular, Davison is happy to see the government's tuition waiver for students who were formerly in foster care extended from being offered at 11 of B.C.’s institutions to all 25.

Finance Minister Carole James announces the 2018 provincial budget on Feb. 20.

(Flickr/Province of British Columbia) “[This budget] is a continuation of what the government has been doing since they came into power—that’s making post-secondary education more affordable for students,” says Davison.

Davison says that he has noticed a difference between the way that the NDP/Green Party provincial government addressed the issues of students and educators and how those issues were managed by the B.C. Liberals. If the spending differences were not evidence enough, Davison says that he has found this government to give far better access to educators to talk about the issues that matter to them.

“It’s a huge difference just in access.

We’re now able to get our points of view across and things are getting better for students and faculty as opposed to getting worse,” says Davison.

He believes that a key focus for student issues going forward should be student debt issues and interest on student loans. He says that the provincial government has indicated to the FPSE that these issues are on the government’s radar as well, and that they are a “work in progress.” Additionally, Davison says that the fact that most institutions in B.C. still don’t have Aboriginal service plans is another issue that he wants to see addressed.

NEWS

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Federal NDP Passes Resolution In Support of Tuition-Free Post-Secondary Education Free tuition will be added to the NDP policy booklet as a result of the resolution Joseph Keller | Staff Writer At its federal convention in Ottawa from Feb. 16-18, the New Democratic Party voted in favor of a resolution to accept free post-secondary education as part of the party’s policy book.

The resolution means that offering Canadian students tuition-free post-secondary education is one step closer to becoming an official part the federal NDP’s platform.

The idea of tuition-free post-secondary education has always been popular amongst student organizations and activists. Going into the NDP convention, the resolution had the endorsement of 30 riding associations and organizations. One of the voices pushing for the resolution at the conference was John Hutton, a student at Concordia University and NDP member who drafted the proposal.

“There’s a real mismatch here where education is not just something that is nice to have. It’s something that we need to get anywhere economically in life,” says Hutton. “It’s putting a huge burden on people to actually pursue that.”

He points out that the average Canadian student finishes school with about $26,000 of debt and that students in this country collectively owe the government about $28 billion.

Hutton says he was inspired by the 2012 student protests in Quebec, where 300,000 students marched against a Quebec government proposal to raise tuition in the province. The grassroots campaign for free tuition at the 2018 convention began when Hutton drafted the resolution and sent it out to contacts via Facebook. The resolution spread online and caught the attention of various local riding associations. By the time the NDP convention began, Hutton says his resolution had spread all across the country.

Jagmeet Singh addresses the audience during the 2018 Federal NDP Convention in Ottawa, Ontario. (Flickr/United Steelworkers) At the convention, associations from across the country propose resolutions for ideas on how the party should move forward. As there is only so much time for discussion, only motions with sufficient support make it to the floor to be voted on. Hutton and other advocates for free tuition needed to make the case that theirs was an issue that deserved to be prioritized. In the end, not only did the idea make it to the floor, but the motion also passed almost unanimously.

“As I’ve been saying over and over again in my arguments, free tuition is an idea whose time has come, and I think the results of this

convention really reflected that,” says Hutton.

The acceptance of the motion does not necessarily mean that free tuition will be a part of the NDP’s official platform in the next federal election, but it does make clear that the idea is well supported among party membership.

This makes a significant case to its leadership that free tuition is wanted.

“This is a victory for students and I’m hoping that a lot of young New Democrat activists across the country in campus clubs and youth clubs will take this resolution as something that is popular and take it to the community,” says Hutton. “One conversation at a

time, building support for the idea.”

Hutton explains that his foccus moving forward will be to follow up with the party to make sure that this resolution isn’t forgotten.

He says that he wants to make sure that the party circulates material in support of free tuition and creates petitions. He also wants party leaders to speak in support of the idea.

Personally, Hutton will be writing op-eds in support of tuition-free post-secondary education and says that he hopes other activists will be pushing towards the same goal.

Federal Budget Incentivises Universities to Address Sexual Assault on Campuses

The Canadian government is encouraging universities to “harmonize” their sexual assault reporting frameworks Braden Klassen | Photo Editor The federal government has committed to supporting survivors of sexual assault and misconduct at universities across Canada.

The newly released federal budget contains a section that designates $5.5 million to be spent over the next five years to fund sexual assault support centres in Canadian universities. The government also issued a warning to universities that fail to institute policies in line with “best practices,” saying that it may resort to cutting the offending institutions’ federal funding.

The Ministry for the Status of Women is responsible for distributing the new funding.

According to the budget, it will also work to “support a harmonized national approach and dialogue, leading to strategies to address sexual violence, to create safe campuses, and to remove the stigma from reporting or seeking support following sexual violence.”

Caitlin McCutchen, the Kwantlen Student Association Women’s Representative and VP External, welcomes this initiative.

“It’s great that the federal government is taking action to address gender-based violence on post-secondary campuses,” wrote McCutchen in an email statement. “A national harmonized framework will ensure that, no matter where you live or which post-secondary institution you attend, you have access to the same reporting process and, hopefully, the same support structures.”

Ontario and B.C. already have province-wide legislation that governs university sexual misconduct policies, but this new provision in the budget may mean that other provinces will soon be enacting their own as well.

“I’ll be interested to see what the Status of Women will do to create a nation-wide framework,” said McCutchen, adding that she is critical of the announcement that universities could face punitive cutbacks. “Reducing funding will only end up hurting students and may not incentivize post-secondary institutions to follow best practices when addressing instances of sexual violence.”

In April of last year, KPU published its own sexual assault policy entitled “Proce-

dures for Dealing with Sexual Violence and Misconduct”. The policy was published after the province passed a law mandating that all universities in B.C. have sexual misconduct policies. This law came on the heels of considerable controversy, as UBC was publicly criticized for its poor handling of sexual assault reports prior to drafting their own new set of policies.

As dictated by the procedures, a KPU student who experiences sexual assault or misconduct has three options: they can disclose the incident to anyone at the university, they can make a complaint through the Office of Student Judicial Affairs, or they can file a report by contacting campus security. KPU keeps all of these disclosures, complaints, and reports confidential.

However, the policy distinguishes between “confidential” and “anonymous” which means that the identity of the complainant and the details of their complaint are shared with the respondent and those involved in the investigation and disposition of the complaint. Because of this, students who wish

to remain anonymous must file their report through security using the university’s Protected Disclosure Policy.

KPU’s policy encourages students to file a report as soon as possible after experiencing an incident of sexual violence or misconduct on campus.

The Minister of Status of Women, Maryam Monsef, will be responsible for distributing money and standardizing the sexual violence policies across all Canadian universities.

(Wikimedia Commons)

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NEWS

Health Canada’s Cannabis Regulations Leave Small Operations Behind, Says Industry Advocate A cannabis “bottleneck” in Canada could limit consumer choice at dispensaries Joseph Keller | Staff Writer As Canada’s cannabis industry awaits legalization, some of the growers who have been producing cannabis for years under the old “grey market” system worry that Health Canada’s regulations are leaving them behind. The current version of Health Canada’s framework could also lead to the disappearance of hundreds of existing cannabis strains due to what some experts call a “genetics bottleneck.”

While Health Canada has been working on laying regulatory framework since the federal government announced its intention to legalize Cannabis in 2015, it has been under a mandate from the Supreme Court of Canada to allow some sort of medical access to the substance since 2001.

In the years since then, dispensaries operating in a legal grey area have been part of the fabric of major cities like Vancouver and Toronto. In the absence of a regulatory framework, these businesses have sourced their product from independent growers, giving access to a vast range of options that the Canadian cannabis market is known for.

This stands in stark contrast to the framework now enforced by Health Canada for licensed producers. Under Health Canada’s rules, licensed producers are only able to source seeds and seedlings from other producers. Only a small portion of the the genetic strains that exist in Canada are owned by the 88 currently licensed growers. The thousands of other strains are effectively off limits.

Chad Jackett is the President of Cannabis Growers of Canada, an organization that represents 16 Canadian cannabis businesses that were created under the old Marihuana Medical Access Regulations. He says that, should Health Canada’s regulations become the status quo in Canada, we could see a cannabis industry with far less variety and quality than Canadian consumers are used to.

“If the government laid off of the market and just got their thumb off the people and brought in some sort of sound regulation that worked for everybody and not just the big players, I think you’d see a diverse gene pool and a lot more diversity in the market,” says Jackett.

Jackett speculates that the groundwork being laid by Health Canada could pave the way for a market for easily patentable genetically modified plants.

“I just look at the other [agriculture] industries and it seems like there are some big players that are trying to get involved to make sure that there are all these genetically modified organisms so that they’re patented,” he says.

Advocates for the free market cannabis industry like Jackett are concerned that strict regulations will make smaller operations unviable. For example, producers are required to own at least a 25-acre parcel of land for growing. A property of that size in British Columbia costs several million dollars.

While Health Canada is planning to implement license categories for “micro-cultivation”, they will include stipulations as to who smaller growers are allowed to sell to. Jack-

ett says that this could kill partnerships that craft growers have had for years.

“The bar is set so high in this licensed producer scheme that you have to be a multimillionaire just to get in the door,” says Jackett.

“A lot of these guys aren't that. They’re craft producers. They’re small producers.”

While Jackett recognizes the need for regulations to ensure the quality and safety of the product, he says that the regulations as they are currently written will drag down a developing market.

“I think we need something that represents more of a free and fair marketplace, something that includes small producers and doesn’t force them to change up their relationships that they’ve built up over the years and have to dramatically change everything they’ve been doing,” he says. “I think the best way that they can do this is to figure out some sort of regulatory framework that would be able to include the current British Columbia growers.”

Medicinal cannabis plants growing in a hydroponics facility in Oakland, California.

(Flickr/Rusty Blazenhoff)

Surrey RCMP Visit Schools to Help Keep Kids Out of Gangs The Surrey Gang Enforcement Team's new program aims to stop youth from adopting criminal behavior Braden Klassen | Photo Editor The RCMP’s Surrey Gang Enforcement Team has been delivering presentations to school communities in Surrey that aim to educate students—particularly those in grades six and seven—about the hazards of getting involved with criminal gangs.

The outreach initiative, Shattering the Image, was started in the fall of 2017 to dispel the myth that gang activity is glamorous.

Staff Sergeant Lindsey Houghton of the Combined Special Forces Enforcement Unit B.C. says that Surrey’s Shattering the Image program, much like the provincial-wide End Gang Life program, spreads awareness of the realities of youth involvement with gangs.

“These sorts of things are exactly what police should be doing when it comes to building relationships, not just with the community but specifically with schools and with kids in order for them to be empowered to make good choices over the next five, 10, 15, or 20 years, and in order for them to recognize some of the dangers related to gangs, drugs, and drug dealing,” he says.

The Shattering the Image presentation discusses how social media is increasingly being used to recruit youth as gang members, oftentimes while they’re still in elementary school.

“We know from talking with police across the province, as well as teachers and councillors and community workers, that kids as young 10, 11, and 12 are being recruited into this lifestyle,” says Houghton. “This is what’s

Sgt. Mike Sanchez from the Surrey Gang Enforcement Team talks with students as part of the "Shattering the Image" outreach program. (Surrey RCMP) happening in our communities and in and around our schools, and it’s important that the public be aware of this and the issues around it.”

The presentation addresses the practice of what the RCMP calls “dial-a-doping,” which they believe is one of the most common ways that youth participate in gang activity.

Dial-a-doping, or the “pizza delivery of the drug world” as Houghton calls it, involves buyers calling a predetermined phone number or contacting a drug seller through social media like Snapchat in order to establish a time and place to organize a drug deal.

According to the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit for the province, gang

members will often task newly recruited youth with delivering the drugs, which can put them in potentially dangerous situations.

Houghton says that parents have described finding their children with cash from unexplained sources, small quantities of drugs, “scoresheets” or accounting notes for drug-selling activity, and even weapons.

A video produced by End Gang Life that was tweeted by the Surrey RCMP says that drug traffickers comprise 73 per cent of gang murder victims.

Another main goal of the Shattering the Image program is to debunk the myths that glorify gang lifestyles.

“You’re going back through decades and

decades of social media, movies, music, television, clothing. All of those things contribute to that lifestyle,” says Houghton. “But no single one of those things causes kids to get involved in gang activity.”

He says that poor school performance, lack of connection with peer groups, and leaving home at odd times are some of the signs that a young person is getting involved with a gang.

“In isolation, these things may not mean that your child is involved in this activity, but in aggregate, it may lead to something else,” says Houghton. “So become educated and don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

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FEATURES

Research Uncovers the Face of Vancouver’s Opioid Epidemic Middle-aged men, more than any other demographic, are dying from opioid overdoses Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter While conversations about Vancouver’s opioid crisis often conjure images of litter-strewn back alleys on the Downtown Eastside, recent data has revealed that the crisis is actually most prevalent in the secure, private homes of middle aged men.

Last year, 1,422 people in British Columbia died from illicit drug overdoses, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Of those victims, 82 per cent were men, 88 per cent were alone in a residence at the time of death, and over half were 30 to 49 years of age. Fentanyl was detected in 81 per cent of the total fatalities.

The face of Vancouver’s opioid crisis is becoming clearer, but for responders and researchers on the front lines, it’s still not clear enough.

“Just by looking at those numbers, that’s why we’re in a crisis,” says David Florkowski, Dean of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Faculty of Health. “The numbers are skyrocketing fast and we don’t know why.”

The Biology Behind an Overdose According to M-J Milloy, a UBC Assistant Professor of Medicine and a research scientist with the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), using opioids triggers “a sort of feedback loop which we know reduces pain, reduces anxiety, [and] produces feelings of euphoria and well-being.”

“Unfortunately, it also triggers a creation of, over time, a pretty tight feedback loop in which the individual has to continue to take opioids, continue to trigger those receptors, or else they’ll go into withdrawal.”

Withdrawal is rarely fatal, but the physical and psychological symptoms are horrific, he says. This unwillingness to suffer from withdrawal is what causes users to continually take opioids, therefore forming an addiction.

The reason that people overdose lies within the biology of the brain and respiratory system. The neurotransmitters affected by opioids also control other bodily processes, most notably breathing. If a person takes too much of a drug, a signal to shut down can be sent to the circulatory system. The heart stops beating and the lungs stop processing oxygen.

Breathing can be slowed down so much that it appears the victim is sleeping when, in actuality, they could be dying.

Common signs of an overdose include the loss of consciousness, shallow breathing, pinpoint pupils, and lips and extremities turning blue. These symptoms can alert others to the fact that the user may be in danger, but because most victims are alone during an overdose, many die of respiratory arrest because there was around no one to help them.

“I think the really important question to ask is, why are these men using drugs alone in their rooms … even when they know that in the event of an overdose, there will be no one there to help them?” asks Milloy.

He says that, if the answer to that question can be determined, health-care providers

can better formulate a response to the crisis.

Why Men Are Disproportionately Affected In 2017, there were 1,173 illicit drug overdose deaths for males, as compared to 249 female fatalities. Chris Van Veen, Director of Special Projects for Vancouver Coastal Health, believes there’s a connection between traditional forms of masculinity and the overdose crisis.

Van Veen says that the data can only reveal so much about the opioid crisis, and only by doing more research will the reasons behind these facts become more obvious.

There are still many unknowns when it comes to the opioid epidemic. What is known, however, is that men have more troubles with substance abuse than women and are more likely to use illicit opiates. They’re more likely to work jobs that can result in workplace injuries. Men are also more likely to engage in risky intravenous drug use.

The reasons why a person might start using opioids are varied, but both Van Veen and Milloy say that many people do so to block out psychological trauma from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse or to manage chronic pain.

Van Veen says that, in drug-use culture, there is an expectation that men will be able to take large amounts of drugs because “they feel physiologically that they’re tough” and see it as less of risk than women do.

He adds that male drug users often feel intense guilt and shame for their addictions, likely leading them to use opioids alone.

Because of this, they might also refrain from reaching out and receiving help for their addictions and physical and emotional pain.

“Certainly, I think it boils down to the fact that men just feel like … showing any emotional vulnerability or physical vulnerability is equated with weakness,” says Van Veen.

Addressing these issues early in boys’ lives is critical to breaking the cycle.

Criminalization and Additional Stigma Vancouver Coastal Health has been working to quell negative and false perceptions about substance abuse. Nevertheless, Van Veen says that “it’s really tough to break the stigma around an illness that is still, in Canada, criminalized.”

He and his colleagues have been advocating for the drug policy model used in Portugal, which includes decriminalizing all drug use and sending a message to drug users that addictions are an illness, not a crime. This encourages them to enter rehabilitation programs instead of the criminal justice system.

Van Veen and Milloy both advocate for decriminalizing drug use. Ultimately, doing so could help isolated men who feel guilt and shame for using substances seek out and accept help.

“If you go outside and use drugs in public, you are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated rather than receiving the sorts of help you need for drug addiction,” says Milloy.

He adds that the experience of going to prison on a minor drug charge further traumatizes users, thus perpetuating the cycle of addiction and overdoses.

A Collective Response There were 333 illicit drug overdose deaths in the province in 2013. This was followed by 369 deaths the next year and by 518 deaths the year after that. A public health emergency was declared in 2016 when the numbers suddenly jumped to 993 and then skyrocketed to 1,422 in 2017.

As a member of KPU’s Faculty of Health, these numbers shock Florkowski. He, like many experts, fears that the number will only continue to grow.

“People worry about if it’s going to continue to rise and all signs point to, probably, yes,” he says. “We have no indication that it’s slowing down or going to plateau anytime soon.”

Students in Florkowski’s department receive some training that could be useful for combating Vancouver’s opioid epidemic.

For instance, nursing students receive mental health and addictions training. At KPU's Faculty of Health, Florkowski’s colleagues are in the preliminary stages of organizing a research project on the cause and solution to the city’s opioid crisis, but still need to receive funding.

Florkowski says that, while many want an answer for why the crisis is ongoing, it’s impossible to provide one with the data currently available. Health-care practitioners don’t want to enact solutions until they know for certain that they will work to avoid losing the trust of their patients.

While experts know that the crisis is disproportionately affecting men in their homes, Florkowski says that the health-care system cannot go to them directly without knowing their identities or places of residence.

“It’s not just a health-care problem, but a government problem. It’s a societal problem and everyone is scrambling to try to figure out what to do,” says Florkowski. “It’s a crisis on many levels in many sectors.”

The BCCSU’s mandate is to conduct research which can be employed to help users, families, and communities suffering from the impacts of substance use. Local health authorities have rolled out various drug testing initiatives, including a new technology and test strips that examine drugs for fentanyl.

In Vancouver, VCH has a regional response team working in areas that are hit hardest by the crisis.

Municipal governments, first responders, drug users and their families, and law enforcement officials work together to brainstorm solutions as part of the VCH initiative.

Current and former drug users are also being

included in clinical service and outreach teams. They can empathize with current drug users and help encourage them to reach out for help.

Van Veen says that VCH’s approach to the opioid crisis is focusing on harm reduction through its needle exchange program, overdose prevention sites, drug checking initiatives, addictions treatments, and housing projects.

If people are going to use drugs, VCH urges them not to do so alone. This has been a challenging message to relay to those who are most at risk, explains Van Veen.

“Drug use is a health issue. It’s a chronic, lifelong, relapsing condition. Addiction is not a criminal condition. It’s not a condition whereby you’re just weak, or you have moral failings. It’s a health condition, and we need to treat it as such,” he says.

The Risks of Fentanyl Fentanyl is highly potent, but it kills the same way that other opioids do. Because it’s so concentrated and toxic, a miniscule dose can kill a person, and when fentanyl is cut into other drugs, a user has no idea how toxic their supply may be.

“The problem with fentanyl is that people will unknowingly take a dose which is much higher [and] much stronger than what they’re accustomed to. And that is … why fentanyl is such a problem—essentially the margin for error with fentanyl is much higher,” says Milloy.

Vancouver’s illicit drug supply exists beyond the realm of governmental regulations and is being trafficked by criminals, therefore making it difficult to track where the contaminated drugs are coming from. It could be overseas in China or over the U.S. border, but no one knows for certain.

“I think that, if it wasn’t for fentanyl, if the drug supply wasn’t contaminated to the degree that it is right now … we would see overdose deaths this year and last year that were similar to the rates five and 10 years ago, which are admittedly still too high,” Van Veen says. “Every one of these deaths is even preventable.”

Societal Attitudes Have to Change Milloy says that society needs to ditch its preconceived notions that addictions stem from partying too much, being irresponsible, or having moral weaknesses. He says that it’s rooted in a person’s physical, neurological, genetic, and psychological makeup. By using terms like “junkie” and “addict”, users are only going to feel more shame and reluctance to seek help.

“The first thing we can do is really take that to heart, and not say, ‘But it is a problem for other people or a problem for someone else’s child.’ Rather, it’s a problem for all of us,” says Milloy.

Chris Van Veen, Director of Special Projects with Vancouver Coastal Health. (Submitted)

David Florkowski, Dean of Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Faculty of Health. (Submitted)

M-J Milloy, research scientist with the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, and UBC Assistant Professor of Medicine. (Submitted)

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CULTURE

KPIRG Workshop Teaches Students How to Podcast Candy Dhami

The Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group hosted a seminar based on the work and podcasting expertise of Peter McCartney, a climate campaigner for Wilderness Committee On Feb. 22.

Wilderness Committee is a charity and “wilderness protection group” that boasts more than 60,000 volunteers nationwide, according to its website.

One of Peter McCartney's projects with the organization is a podcast called Line in the Sand, which highlights the Kinder Morgan pipeline crisis. McCartney says that he hopes to make real change with his work on the podcast, and makes an effort to be more hands-on within the community that opposes the construction of the pipeline.

One such instance of being hands-on involved McCartney and his colleagues cooking food with other individuals that were supporting the movement to supply hungry protesters with necessities while they were advocating.

After discussing how he created that project, and outlining some podcasting essentials, McCartney explained how social justice issues are being advocated for through the medium of podcasting.

According to him, bringing awareness to a variety of issues on public platforms like Soundcloud and Youtube through podcasting has made the medium highly diverse as a whole.

From offering helpful editing tips to outlining the protocol of interviewing another person, Peter McCartney gave all who attended the workshop insight into what the aspects of a great podcast are.

Later in the session, he also touched on how audio strips away bias in media.

Audio, of course, can be edited to distort the facts, but McCartney emphasized that the truth is always going to be more digestible for listeners when they hear it directly from the source.

Podcasting tells a story in a way that is accessible to today’s younger generations, and many KPU students are a part of that demographic. With journalism continuing to evolve with the times, it’s important for KPU students to be able to attend sessions like this to learn how to use their voice to incite change.

PJ Lilley, the Research Coordinator for KPIRG, was enthusiastic about the event because she has "high hopes for starting KPU's very own radio station.”

According to Lilley, this station would consist of multiple contributed podcasts from students and teachers discussing subjects pertaining to all things KPU. They are currently looking for volunteers for such projects as well as new members for their board of directors.

Italian Brewing Students Discover Vancouver Craft Brewing Students to complete KPU brewing program over 12 weeks Joseph Keller | Staff Writer A group of brewing students from Italy has come to Kwantlen Polytechnic University to learn the art of craft brewing the Canadian way.

The 12 students arrived in Vancouver in early February and will be receiving 12 weeks of training at KPU’s brew lab in Langley.

During their training they will also be touring the Lower Mainland’s craft breweries and exploring Canadian craft beer culture.

KPU brewing instructor Alek Egi says that many of the students have plans to start their own breweries back home and have come to Vancouver to learn skills that will give them an advantage in Italy’s emerging craft brewing industry.

“The reason they have decided to come here is because we have so many different craft breweries and so many new and interesting hops, North American West Coast hops,” he says. “They’re really interested in all sorts of different beer styles that we’re doing here.”

Over their time at KPU, the Italian students will receive 96 hours of training in both the classroom and the brewery. The students will have the opportunity to brew two different types of lager and two different types of ale from start to finish. The brewing program has also organized tours at local breweries including Parallel 49 and Trading Post.

Even in North America, KPU’s brewing lab is a unique facility, as there are not many other breweries designed specifically for teaching.

Egi says that it’s also the chance to learn from an established craft microbrewing industry—

something that’s only beginning to be replicated in Europe—that makes the experience one of a kind for the Italian students.

“They want to learn as much as they can about different raw materials that we have here, different brewing techniques, but also they want to learn about how fast [craft breweries] expect to grow,” says Egi. “There’s a lot about the entire craft brewing industry which is specific to B.C., which is completely different from Europe because the craft brewing industry’s just starting there and there’s more experience here.”

B.C.’s craft brewing industry has exploded over the past 10 years and has begun to develop a reputation internationally. Egi says that one of the first things that brewers from abroad tend to notice about the local craft brewing industry is the focus on innovation and experimentation with new styles of beer.

“The big difference between Europe and North America is tradition versus a new world approach where anything goes and people are not afraid to try new things,” says Egi. Christopher Paiewonsky, one of the Italian students visiting KPU, developed his passion for craft beer at 16, when a pub near his home in Rome began offering craft beer. Craft beer was a rarity in Italy at the time, but Paiewonsky quickly developed a passion for the suds.

He began traveling around Europe to try different beers in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and elsewhere. Later, he became a chemical engineer and started homebrewing with two of his colleagues. He came to KPU in February to refine his craft.

“The main difference here [in North America as opposed to Europe] is people experiment more,” says Paiewonsky. “I was very happy with the choice [to come to Canada]. I didn’t choose Canada. I chose this special course, but as soon as I got the information on KPU I was impressed because I didn’t know there was such a kind of thing as a brewing university.”

Like the other students in the program, Paiewonsky says that his first few weeks in Vancouver have been spent exploring the city, visiting as many breweries as he can, and trying as many beers as possible. He says that he was surprised to see so many European styles replicated by Canadian brewers in addition to new styles that can’t be found back in Europe.

The standout brewery for him so far has been Storm Brewing in East Vancouver but says that, so far, his favorite beers have been a sour—a style not found in Italy—from Brassneck Brewing and an IPA by Steamworks Brewing.

In addition to being inspired by the breweries, Paiewonsky has been impressed with the amount of live music to be found at Vancouver bars, which he says is rare back in Rome.

Over the coming weeks he’s looking forward to exploring the North Shore mountains and rainforests as well as planning trips to Vancouver Island, Portland, and Seattle.

The program is still in its first few weeks but both students and instructors say that they’ve been very happy with the experience so far.

Egi says that he would like to see more groups of international students, regardless of where they come from, enrol in his brewing program.

Chelsea Johnson Brings “Old Soul Rock & Roll from the Heart” to Grassroots Cafe The Vancouver-based musician performed on the Surrey campus at the end of Black History Month Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter Students, KPIRG directors, and curious passersby listened as Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Chelsea Johnson belted out her songs during a Feb. 28 performance at the Grassroots Cafe.

The event was held by the Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group as part of a string of events celebrating Black History Month.

KPIRG Outreach and Communications Coordinator Idil Isse says that the organization planned the event because it believes that “the arts are an integral part of social movements and social change.”

“We wanted to make sure that we highlighted and showcased talents that aren’t recognized as often as they should be,” says Isse.

From singing powerful, sustained notes to soft spoken melodies, Johnson’s voice filled the cafe and captivated audience members.

Johnson calls her style of music “soul rock & roll from the heart.”

Isse remarks how Johnson is also a voice for issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, and race.

“Her lyrics are very universal,” she says.

“Her presence in the music scene in this prov-

ince is definitely noteworthy.”

But growing up, Johnson’s path in life wasn’t always focused so heavily on music.

During a Q&A session with Isse, Johnson— who originally hails from Sydney, Nova Scotia—said that her start in music began with being inspired by her mother, who is also a singer-songwriter. She grew up with her mother, grandfather, and extended family and started performing in musical theatre when she was five.

When she was 13, her father, who she didn’t know previously, unexpectedly called her and invited her to live in the United States with him. Johnson said that she needed a place where she could flourish, “work out all of [her] weird kinks and be a weirdo and a freak,” and that she felt she would be able to do that if she packed up and left her hometown.

Later, she received the opportunity to move to Vancouver and says that she thought, “Hell yeah, I need to get out of here.”

Upon moving to Vancouver in 2004, she flirted with taking part in poetry slams and thought she would become an actor. She later befriended Mighty Mike McGee, C.R. Avery, and Shane Koyczan, and together the group

collaborated on an album.

“It kind of brought me into the idea of being a working musician,” says Johnson.

Beforehand, she had always viewed music as something she did casually with her family.

She admitted that learning from her mother is how she developed harmonies and unknowingly began her training as a singer. She even auditioned for Canadian Idol in 2001.

In addition to her solo work, Johnson is currently in two bands—High Society, who she calls “a bunch of East Van cats”, and a duo called Old Soul Rebel with her friend Lola White. White plays electric banjo and Johnson plays electric guitar.

Johnson says she hopes people can “find medicine and a bit of therapy” in her music, and in the process will also see her as a person they can relate to.

Isse wasn’t sure how many people would attend the event, due to it being a hectic time in the semester for university students, but she was happy to have Johnson perform for any attendees who just happened to be in Grassroots.

“She’s a badass woman,” says Isse.

STUDENT SNAPSHOT

Colours flew as hundreds of students gathered in the Westerman Gardens on Surrey campus to celebrate Holi, Mar. 9.

(Braden Klassen)

Jasdeep Sidhu, Parwan Brar and Rajdeep Virk strike a pose, showing off Holi Fest T-shirts that were given out

by KPU International. (Braden Klassen)

Students pause to take a selfie amid the chaos of the Holi Festival celebration on Surrey campus. (Braden Klassen)

The Cedar Conference Room was packed with students lining up to get some of the food that KPU International was serving for the Holi Festival attendees.

(Braden Klassen)

Most students were covered from head to toe in the vibrant-coloured cornstarch mix traditionally used to celebrate Holi. (Braden Klassen)

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CULTURE

Public Relations Cohort Holds Gala for “Forgotten Children” Proceeds from gala went to supporting children of incarcerated parents Joseph Keller | Staff Writer This year’s graduating cohort from KPU’s Public Relations program has spent the past five months preparing an event to support the children of people who are incarcerated.

The group’s work culminated in a gala held at Surrey City Hall on March 1, with all funds from the event going to support charitable organisation JustKids.

“I think [this event] is absolutely incredible. I really had no idea that it was going to be this much of an accomplishment because we have had fundraisers from other causes in the past, but not like this,” says JustKids coordinator Kirsty Gordon. “They’ve done an amazing job. They really have.”

Each year, the graduating public relations cohort selects a charity to support. One of the students, Cassia Lachance, says that the class knew right away that they wanted to donate to a cause for children because all of the charities brought up for consideration for this year’s event supported children in some form.

After selecting JustKids as the benefactor, the class got to work on planning the event by finding a caterer, entertainment, sponsors, suppliers, and more.

“We’re just really happy and really excited to be throwing this event to benefit these kids who really need our support,” says Lachance.

Tickets were sold for $40.00, which included appetizers and desserts as well as a chance at door prizes. All proceeds from the bar, silent auction, and games went to support JustKids.

KPU President Alan Davis, as well as representatives from the public relations cohort and JustKids, spoke at the event.

Children of parents who are serving prison sentences are at extreme risk for poor life outcomes. On top of the emotional stress of having a loved one in prison, these children are often stigmatised for their connection to parents convicted of crimes. They often lack the critical support structures needed to sustain their emotional needs and learn important life skills.

“These kids face a lot of prejudice because people don’t want to associate with someone who is in prison, but these kids didn’t do anything wrong. They were born into that situation,” says Lachance. “A lot of them are living

with guardians or living in the foster system, so I think that getting out of the house and having new experiences and interacting with other kids in a similar situation is really great for them.”

JustKids is a fully donor-funded organization dedicated to providing support for “forgotten children”. It offers several initiatives to help these kids, including a storybook program in which volunteers bring a book and recording equipment to parents in prison to record them reading it aloud. The book and the recording are then given to the child to help maintain

the connection between parent and child.

The organization also offers a free summer camp, a Saturday club for kids aged two to six and seven to 12, and workshops to teach kids vital life skills like budgeting and cooking.

“I think that these kids are hidden. They’re hidden children. With addiction comes incarceration. With mental illness comes incarceration. It all goes hand in hand,” says Gordon.

“So there’s a lot more children with parents who have been involved at some point with the justice system … than people realize.”

A gala was held at Surrey City Hall in support of the JustKids organization, March 1. (Joseph Keller)

Marketing Department Invites Experts to Speak to Students about Bitcoin and Blockchain Representatives from HoneyBadger and KOI Research Group presented on Feb. 26 Lincoln Saugstad | Contributor The Marketing Department at KPU hosted The History and Impact of Bitcoin and Blockchain, an event featuring four speakers from either HoneyBadger and KOI Research Group, on Feb. 26.

KOI Research currently organizes workshops, offers consultations, and features speakers at conferences and events to share information on cryptocurrencies.

“We currently have a team of about five to seven people that work part-time, jump in and jump out,” says Chase Cedar, a recent graduate from UVic and one of KOI’s co-founders.

“We all have different specialties. Some people really understand the blockchain side and want to work with businesses, whereas others are really great at investing. We’re all about research, connecting with people, really just exploring the world of cryptocurrencies and helping educate people along the way.”

HoneyBadger, founded in 2016, provides kiosks for buying and selling bitcoin at physical location using physical currency. Since its inception, it has expanded to offer 45 ATMs— the second highest by number, and highest by distribution, across the country.

The CEO of HoneyBadger, Keirnan Wright, says that he wasn’t interested in cryptocur-

rencies when he first began researching them.

It wasn’t until he went to a meet-up of industry professionals that he felt compelled to join a bitcoin co-op in Vancouver. There, he met one of the founders of HoneyBadger, got a job as a sales manager, and became the CEO that same month.

HoneyBadgers’s mission is to make purchasing bitcoins more accessible, as “the biggest hurdle is just getting it in the first place,” according Mike Kitt, another member of the HoneyBadger team. He and his coworkers are hoping to set up another 50 kiosks by the end of the year and are offering $500 to anyone who can help install another outlet.

The presentations at the Feb. 26 event featured the speakers’ experiences and some background information on cryptocurrency.

“If I were to have a dollar, and I would send it to any of you today, it’s pretty important that I don’t still have that dollar. When it comes to online money, that was a big problem,” says Cedar. “Bitcoin’s blockchain was one of the first to solve this.”

He went on to define some technical terms such as “distributed ledger,” “immutable,” and “wallet,” which he says are “crucial for understanding the workings of cryptocurrencies.”

“As we are looking to 2020 and onward, decentralized computing is taking the fore-

front along with AI, quantum computing, big data, all of those buzzwords you start hearing about these days,” Cedar says. “People didn’t believe in the email [either] … but eventually mainstream adoption came through.”

In a TED Talk that Cedar says made the cryptocurrency market more credible, a leading authority on the subject, Don Tapscott, says that “the next generation of the internet … holds vast promise for every business, every society, and [every individual].” Cedar supported this statement by reminding attendees at the event that there is currently a $500 billion market in cryptocurrencies,

which represents a 2800 per cent increase since the beginning of 2017.

Kitt adds that those who are worried that it’s too late to invest in bitcoin, ethereum, or similar options have no cause to be concerned.

“We’re still really, really, really early to this,” says Kit. “Things like bitcoin and ethereum—those are like protocol layer levels.

We’re building the building blocks for blockchain. A lot of people … want to take all the applications that we have on the internet and turn that into a blockchain … [but] we’re years away, in my opinion, from that happening.”

Chase Cedar, co-founder of KOI Research Group, introduces himself at the "Impact and History of Bitcoin and Blockchain" event on Feb. 26. (Lincoln Saugstad)

CULTURE

KPU Shows its Colours for Pink Shirt Day The Canada-wide anti-bullying campaign is celebrating its 10th year Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter If you saw more people than usual wearing pink on Feb. 28, it wasn’t a new fashion trend or an elaborate reference to Mean Girls, but rather an awareness campaign that aims to address bullying in everyday life.

Pink Shirt Day has been occurring every February for the past 10 years. Its founders created the campaign to raise awareness of the effects that bullying can have on people and to fundraise for anti-bullying initiatives.

Matt Hunt, Event Coordinator for the Kwantlen Student Association, chose to bring the campaign to KPU this year because he believes that “bullying is maybe more of a problem than it’s ever been.”

“Bullying itself is still a massive problem everywhere we go, from adulthood right down to kindergarten,” Hunt says.

Pink Shirt Day is a cause that Hunt is passionate about because his parents work for the CKNW Orphans Fund and helped get the initiative off the ground in British Columbia with the help of Christy Clark.

As part of the campaign, the KSA gave away 300 pink shirts before the 28th so that people would have their own to wear. Hunt says the shirts were going to be dispersed as part of a fundraiser in the KPU Surrey courtyard on the 27th, but was pleasantly surprised when all 300 sold shirts sold out in only 30 minutes.

The following day, a group photo of members of the university community wearing pink shirts was taken in the Surrey Main Atrium as well.

Hunt says that, by handing out shirts in the courtyard or seeing people participating in Pink Shirt Day, the volunteers were able to spread awareness throughout the university community.

“I just hope that through seeing hopefully more than just one out of every 20 [people] wearing pink, hopefully you’ll see one out of every five [people], and it’ll just make people think that don’t know about the day, or don’t

Dozens of members of the KPU community gather in Surrey Main for a group photo on Pink Shirt Day. Their shirts read "Nice Needs No Filter". (Submitted) know what it is, that it’ll give them more of a reason to be like, ‘Hmm, why is everyone in pink today?’”

The funds raised go to the CKNW Orphans Fund, who then disburse it to various anti-bullying campaigns. While the KSA and other KPU departments had separate fundraisers for Pink Shirt Day, Hunt was optimistic that gathering everyone together for the group photo would be a “good way to come together and [show] that we’re many people supporting it at the university.”

Hunt also hopes that, with the success of this year’s Pink Shirt Day, he’ll be able to continue the initiative at KPU in the coming years.

“Just because Pink Shirt Day is Feb. 28 doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to promote and to push and to lead by example on the rest of the 364 days of the year,” he says.

Hunt says the world of bullying has changed recently. Before, bullies would harass someone face-to-face on the schoolyard, but now they can hide behind a cell phone screen or on social media. Often, bullying is a severe problem that many people don’t realize is problematic until it’s too late. In addition, many people feel the need to harshly and unfairly criticize each other, only exacerbating the problem, Hunt explains.

“I think it’s wonderful to spread the word to not judge people, to let people be who they are, because we’re all beautiful individuals in our own way,” says Hunt. “Pink Shirt Day is one day but it doesn’t mean it should be the only day that you stick up for yourself, or you stick up for your friends or your family … It’s a change that needs to happen year-round.”

The KPU-based startup makes weekly deliveries to help kids reach their full potential

Child food insecurity is a major issue in the Lower Mainland, but Bites for Kids, a KPUbased startup and social enterprise, is tackling the issue one food kit at a time.

Bites for Kids was founded in January, when students in KPU’s BBA Entrepreneurial Leadership program began work on their practicum. Co-founder Braedon Campbell says that they decided to make Bites for Kids because they learned that 135,000 children in B.C. face food insecurity.

“Food insecurity is an important social issue that prevents children in our community from reaching their full potential,” says Campbell. “We found that there is an array of school programs that help feed kids, such as breakfast and lunch programs, [but] we found there was a significant gap in weekend [meals] for children.”

On Feb. 15, Bites for Kids delivered their

Langley Campus Hosts Third Annual Brewing Career Fair Kristine Hui | Contributor

Bites for Kids Brings Food Kits to Inner-City Children in Surrey Daniella Javier | Contributor

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first food kits to children at three inner-city schools in Central Surrey. Their deliveries typically take place on Fridays so that children and their families are able to have food over the weekend.

Campbell says that the startup received an overwhelming response from the schools they contacted. Unfortunately, because they are unable to supply enough food-kits to everyone who has reached out to them, Bites for Kids must now assess who is the most in need of help. Primarily, they will be focusing on those three inner-city Surrey schools.

Each food kit they deliver is designed to contain four to six meals plus snacks. Campbell says that they try to include more foods that are high in protein, low in sodium, and low in sugar. They also try to make whole grains and produce available to students. For anyone who want to support Bites for Kids, individual kits costs $20.00.

Save On Foods has worked closely with Bites

for Kids and has offered them a deal to purchase food at a better price. According to Campbell, this deal has been crucial to the group's success so far, as they have been able to distribute much more food to children than they could have alone. Liv Interiors has also played a huge part in helping the team get started and is listed as a partner on their website.

Campbell says that, because most people are currently preoccupied with the housing crisis and other social issues, the hunger crisis is being overlooked. Once Bites for Kids has enough support, they want to keep growing so that they can target the social issue on a larger scale.

“We so often assume that we live in a fairly wealthy society but forget that there are still a lot of families with children struggling to get by,” says Campbell. “With the cost of living constantly on rise here in the Lower Mainland, food insecurity has become a bigger issue as time goes on.”

The third annual Brewing Career Fair was held at the KPU Langley campus on Feb. 26. Representatives from 22 breweries across the province were in attendance, including Four Winds Brewing, Parallel 49, Moody Ales, and Faculty Brewing.

The fair was hosted by Ken Beatty, a brewing instructor in the program. The Helles Lager and Dubbel, two beers which were brewed by the first year students, were served at the event.

Throughout the day, first and second year brewing students were able to participate in a “speed-dating” type of interview with three employers of their choosing.

Each interview session was 20 minutes long and gave students the chance to learn about and apply to job openings available at local craft breweries.

“It was a good opportunity to meet potential employers and kind of pick their brains a little about the industry,” says Jeffrey Bressette, a first-year student who was looking to secure a summer brewing position through the fair.

Bressette also said that listening to how the breweries got started gave him a better idea of what to expect when he enters the industry after graduation.

After the interviews, a question and answer period with a panel of industry experts took place. The panel included KPU Brewing alumni such as Ted Fine, who was part of the first cohort to graduate from the program. He currently works as a brewer at the Main Street Brewing Company in Vancouver.

When asked whether the province has reached its saturation point for craft breweries, panel members agreed that there is still room for more in B.C. As consumers’ tastes are becoming more refined, more and more people are turning away from big beer brands like Molson Canadian and are instead spending their money on higher-quality product.

In terms of making students more marketable, the panel advised them to obtain broader skill sets. For instance, certification in first aid and a forklift license would be valuable assets to employers, since craft breweries usually require employees to juggle multiple roles inside of their organizations.

Another valuable piece of advice from the panel was for students to learn how to brew a good lager beer. They said that— although the beer world goes through different fads such as briefly favouring sour beers, saisons, and hazy IPAs—consumers always return to what they enjoy most, which is usually a clean tasting lager.

KPU’s Brewing and Brewery Operations program was developed in partnership with brewing industry professionals. As a result, the students’ education reflects what the industry wants in its employees.

KPU’s annual brewing fair connects breweries with students, allowing craft breweries to benefit from the talent they helped to educate.

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+ Free Workshops

March Internatio 8th is Womenna'sl

Indigenous Women Confront State Violence

Day

Thursday Join us on March 15, the March 15th International Day Against 11am‐1pm, Police Brutality, for a presentation led

by Jenn Allan (Grassroots Women) and in Birch 250: Martha Roberts (Surrey People Power) on the history of police

violence here & the struggle for justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women in the Canadian state context.

Light lunch/snacks provided!

ONLY YES Wednesday MEANS YES

March 21st,

1:30‐3:30pm,

in Birch 250:

Find out about the laws on sexual assault & consent, through a survivor­ centred, social justice llens.

2‐Spirit, Trans*+ feminist symbol by Devin Kira Murphy (CC‐BY‐SA 3.0)

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by West Coast LEAF ~Women's Legal Education & Action Fund

Th Thurs.

March 222nd 6ppm‐ 8pm, in Birch i h 250: Ending Violence Against Women:

What if Police, Prisons & the State W ARE NOT the Solution?

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+ Research

Opportunities:

Interested in taking your research to a new level?

Open Access Media

Get involved with KPIRG's Research Support Network: kpirg.ca/foi for more info on ACCESS to INFORMATION digs in progress.

Last month, KPIRG Workshop Series hosted a podcasting workshop... if you'd like to help us produce upcoming shows, contact research@kpirg.ca Next, we'll be learning about digital mapping and how to use GIS to crowd­source data... check kpirg.ca/open­access for upcoming events!

DA DAMN@kpirg.ca We want to smash ste stereotypes & stigma!

Write us or Come out W to Birch 230 on Tues.

March 18 @ 2pm to set the agenda for change at KPU! Stop by our office!

N DROP­IN: FRIDAY AFTERNOO, 23, & 30.

1­3pm ~ March 16 ­ Address: Unit #204 . vd Bl ­7380 King George reet) (entrance on 137 St

Join us for f workshop digging at the roots of TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE with SFPIRG TRANSFO facilitator & organizer KALAMITY le. are wheelchair accessib ch hi w es ac sp in ld he HILDEBRANDT HILDEBR All events All are welcome.

KPIRG.CA ∙ facebook.com/kpirg ∙ twitter: @KwantlenPIRG We acknowledge we are conducting this work on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie and Semiahmoo Nations

OPINION

15

The Future of the Olympics Must Be Fiscally Sustainable Hosting the games makes less and less economic sense Tristan Johnston | Contributor With the winter games now over, Pyeongchang will destroy a $78 million USD stadium which was built specifically for the Olympics. In a town of 45,000 people, a 35,000 seat stadium makes very little economic sense.

Though there have been many reasons for locals to raise an eyebrow about hosting the games over the years, the economic barriers are becoming increasingly important.

Vancouver has fared much better than most other cities that ‘ve hosted the Olympics. One of the biggest project for us was surely the Richmond Oval, which cost $178 million. The Oval was designed to be used even after the games were over, and it now holds numerous sporting facilities under one roof. Eight years later the stadium still stands—though without any speed skating tracks—and several of my friends work out at the gym to this day.

A similar project to the Oval is the Whistler Sliding Center, which cost $105 million. Many upgrades were also made to stadiums throughout the city, such as Rogers Arena and Pacific Coliseum, to prepare for the Winter Olympics.

Granted, our expenditures for hosting the games still went over budget. It was projected to cost $1.9 billion and auditors of VANOC declared the games debt-free in 2014. However, that number doesn’t reflect contributions made by government. For instance, the Canada Line was built for around $2 billion.

Ultimately, around $7 billion was spent on the Vancouver games. This is if you consider

the cost of security—which was $1 billion on its own—paid leave for government workers, infrastructure, and so on.

That isn’t to say that spending this much on the games was a waste. I’m certain that most Richmondites will agree with me that life has gotten much, much better with the opening of the Canada Line. Travelling downtown used to take 45 to 90 minutes and now only takes 25.

Vancouver’s only real waste of resources was likely the Olympic Line streetcar, which ran between Olympic Village Skytrain station and Granville Island. The short route was meant to be a proof-of-concept for possible LRT in Vancouver, and there were talks about extending this streetcar line further into Kitsilano and north towards Gastown. Today, the two stations and track are overgrown in foliage.

Rio de Janeiro was much less fortunate.

The Brazil games had a final operating budget of $13 billion USD, though some believe that, especially with government corruption charges being laid around the same time, the money may have been used wrongfully.

The Maracanã Stadium, which was built in 1950, was used for the 2016 Olympics and is currently in a state of disrepair. It has been vandalized heavily, the grass left to die, and someone owes the power company $970,000 USD. Many other facilities were meant to be turned into public spaces after the games, but ultimately were left to ruin.

Fortunately, not everything was a complete waste in Rio. The Olympic Aquatics Stadium was always intended to be a temporary struc-

ture, and after the games were over the building materials were used to build new facilities.

Despite what the Olympic committee claims about the profitability and security of the games, the trend thus far has been that, where the Olympics go, debt and poorly planned construction projects follow. Nearly everyone has caught on to this, as can be seen by the fact that fewer and fewer cities are bothering to make a bid to host them.

In an unusual move, the international Olympic Committee chose Paris for 2024 and LA for 2028. Beijing will be hosting the

winter games in 2022, and will presumably be using some facilities it built for when it hosted the 2008 summer games. 12 cities vied to host the 2002 games, but only two wanted 2024 and 2028. Boston was, at one point, in the bidding race for 2024, but public pressure led them to withdraw.

The Olympics are sure to remain as we know them, but they will have to adapt to a world where cities are much, much more skeptical about the risks associated with hosting the games.

The Vancouver Olympic Cauldron was built at Canada Place in commemoration of the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Wikimedia Commons)

How Much Is the Surrey LRT Going to Cost Anyway?

Even if you don’t care, it’s kind of sketchy that nobody seems to know Kristen Frier | Contributor The final cost of the Surrey Light Rail Transit project has not been released to the public.

This is because the cost is dependent on when construction will actually take place—a topic still being debated—and is dependent on the value of the land that it will be built on.

The cost of property is always climbing in a rapidly growing area like Surrey, which is estimated to have 300,000 new residents over the next 30 years, according to the City of Surrey website. With the value of land increasing as more and more people need space to live in, the cost of building the LRT can only go up.

In 2014, the cost was estimated at $2.14 billion. As of 2016 it was $2.6 billion. Now, in 2018, the public seems to have no real idea of the cost of construction alone, not including operating costs or the cost of potential accidents. Without being able to accurately say whether or not light rail will be worth its dollar value, those of us living in the Lower Mainland ought to give the project another look.

Light Rail Transit is, to some, a really expensive B-line. They go approximately 30 kilometers per hour, obstruct traffic, and don’t provide an option for commuters that’s any significant improvement on driving. With most residents in Surrey already preferring to drive rather than take public transit, and 300,000 new residents expected to arrive in the next few decades, just imagine the traffic—and all of the emissions those vehicles will produce.

To anyone who needs to get from point A to point B, and doesn’t have a car or a driv-

er’s license to help them get there, it’s clear that Surrey needs a reliable transit system.

The LRT, however, might not provide enough transportation to be worth the trouble. The current plan for the project provides no service to South Surrey or White Rock and hardly takes into account the effects of construction on already chaotic streets like 104 Avenue.

The LRT is said to have a higher capacity than SkyTrains in the area, which would be great if drivers were interested in switching over to public transit, but that option is only worthwhile if the LRT could get them to work faster at peak times than driving does.

Many Surrey SkyTrain naysayers look to the Canada Line as a “White Elephant,” being a project that costs too much and doesn’t provide enough help to warrant the price tag.

They think an extension of the Expo Line into Surrey would be the same.

I disagree. If you have ever had to take a SkyTrain back to Surrey, you know that enough people are on that thing to support an extension of any kind. SkyTrain, LRT, or otherwise, Surrey is going to need something to transport its citizens, and fast.

A judgement of the LRT project cannot be accurately made, however, without a proper analysis of the overall cost, which should be accurately estimated and released to the public. This is a democracy, after all, and the public deserves to be informed.

Regardless of your stance on the project, it’s kind of sketchy that nobody seems to know just how expensive this is going to be.

Concept art of the proposed Surrey Light Rail Transit. (surrey.ca)

16

OPINION

More Insurance Companies Need to Include Medical Cannabis in Their Coverage Even as legalisation approaches, most insurance providers don’t recognize the medicinal benefits of marijuana Mel Pomerleau | Web Editor Medicinal marijuana is used to treat a wide range of ailments and diseases ranging from cancer to chronic headaches, Crohn’s disease, or seizure disorders. It’s regularly prescribed by physicians, meaning that it’s a recognized prescription and legitimate drug. So why shouldn’t it be included in our health care plans?

The University of British Columbia Students Union for the Okanagan campus recently approved a pilot program that will include covering medicinal cannabis in the student health plan and assess the overall costs involved in providing coverage for the drug.

In an interview with the CBC, the chair of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy Okanagan, Michelle Thiessen, explained that the UBCO student association set $20,000 aside for the year-long program to run its course, and that the data collected during this trial period would be used to improve the program in the future.

Of course, this money isn’t for people to submit “receipts” from their dealer to cover the cost of their recreational habits. Only those who are already registered through health Canada as having a legitimate need for medicinal marijuana will be eligible. There are individuals who can and do benefit from the

use of medicinal marijuana, but it is of course important that policies are in place to prevent people from taking advantage of the system.

Prescribed marijuana may not be the right choice for everyone, but in some cases, when other remedies and prescriptions just won’t cut it, cannabis may be a suitable alternative.

So which ailments can medical marijuana help with? While more research on the subject is needed, some evidence suggests that cannabis could be used to treat other substance abuse issues and PTSD. One popular use for medicinal cannabis is to relieve nausea and vomiting in patients being treated with chemotherapy. Other symptoms cancer patients may face include chronic pain and loss of appetite, which are also maladies that medicinal cannabis is often prescribed for.

The list of medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can help alleviate is pretty lengthy, and as more research is put into learning and understanding the medicinal properties of the plant, it will only continue to grow.

According to Health Canada, “legal access to dried marijuana for medical purposes was first provided in 1999.” Frankly, it seems absurd that 20 years ago it was decided that patients were allowed to legally possess mar-

The KSA Student Benefit Plan office located in the Grassroots Cafe on the Surrey campus. (Braden Klassen) ijuana for medicinal purposes, but patients being prescribed this treatment by medical professionals today are left to foot the bill.

The KSA’s student benefit plan doesn’t currently cover this type of prescription coverage, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them lobby on behalf of a student needing this type of support in the near future. As more com-

panies opt to cover the cost of medical marijuana in their plans, I’m sure student associations across the nation will see that included in their coverage as well. There’s simply no reason why something being prescribed by medical professionals shouldn’t be included in our health care plans.

Discount Flights are Taking Off in Vancouver Comparing two of Western Canada’s ultra low cost carriers Jesse Pottinger | Contributor Canadians love to travel. But due in part to our relatively small population and massive land area, domestic air travel in Canada is some of the most expensive in the world.

Fortunately for us Vancouverites who are strapped for cash but still want to venture outside of the province, things are looking up in 2018 with the introduction of Swoop Airlines, who will be adding some much-needed competition to the ultra low cost carrier (ULCC) market.

Swoop’s philosophy is simple. They offer no frills travel, which means that tickets purchased through Swoop Airlines cover the cost of your seat and virtually nothing else.

Customers have to pay extra for checked and carry-on bags, in flight entertainment, and snacks, but if you’re willing to trade these small luxuries for, say, a round trip flight to Edmon-

ton that costs under $100, then this might be your year to explore the Great White North.

With its inaugural launch set for July 2018, Swoop is only the second ULCC operating in British Columbia, following its Kelowna-based competitor, Flair.

Flair Airlines offers flights from Vancouver, Abbotsford, Kelowna, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Toronto, and though Swoop has yet to see a plane take off, it will be offering flights to Halifax, Hamilton, Edmonton, Abbotsford, and Winnipeg. Both companies offer competitive prices, so there’s no doubt that they will be vying for each other’s business.

Both Swoop and Flair allow passengers to bring one personal item on board free of charge, but the maximum size allowed for these items is quite small. Even a standard backpack might be too big to qualify.

With Swoop, the cost of bringing one carry-on bag starts at $36.75, and the first

checked bag costs at least $26.25. Flair offers similar prices, with the first carry-on bag starting at $31.50 and the first checked bag also starting at $26.25.

You may also wonder if cheaper airfare means worse customer service or an increase in flight delays and cancellations. In the case of Swoop, we’ll have to wait until July for feedback to start coming in.

As for Flair, customer responses online have been mixed, with many complaining of delays and other complications (on top of their lack of food and entertainment options).

Although, to be fair, online reviews tend to be overwhelmingly negative in general, and similar dissatisfaction can be found online in reviews of both WestJet and Air Canada.

But perhaps the most important thing to consider about budget travel is whether or not these flights are any less safe. Fortunately, the answer is no.

Whether you’re flying on a private charter, first class, or a $20.00 flight to Kelowna, all airlines and flights are subject to the same safety guidelines. When it comes to safety, companies can’t cut corners to save a few bucks.

Amazing deals certainly come at a cost to your comfort, but being less comfortable is a small price to pay when saving big on your flight.

Besides, plane food sucks anyways, watching a movie on those little TVs is hard on the eyes, and when your mode of transportation is an airplane, it’s about the destination, not the journey.

So grab a book, pack a snack (though remember to pack lightly), and be willing to contort yourself into some awful position for a few hours while taking full advantage of these long-overdue flight deals. Let’s hope that Swoop and Flair are just the beginning.

Ultra low cost carriers can offer flights to their customers for less than $100. (Pixabay)

OPINION

Grown-Ups Can De-Stress and Be Creative with Adult Colouring Books

17

Add a little colour to your stressful adult life

Going Global: Postmodern Warfare

Nicola Kwit | Art Director

Tristan Johnston | Contributor

As children, most of us spent time passionately doodling in colouring books. Sometimes we coloured on those restaurant colouring pages with crayons that fell apart in our hands. We spent our childhood being creative while failing—or not even trying—to stay inside the lines.

Then, as we got older, we became busy with cool adult stuff like bills, overtime, and three exams within 48 hours of each other—also known as real life.

But recently, something changed. Colouring books have come back with a vengeance, only now they’re aimed at a totally different demographic: the stressed-out adult. These adult colouring books can be based on themes that cover fanbases likes Harry Potter and Marvel or just simple representations of gardens and wildlife.

The point of using them again is to chill out and be creative as an adult without feeling pressure to make something original. I have personally used one that my friend brought back from her trip to Tokyo, and it was disgustingly pretty. They distract you and get you to focus on something else, something colourful and creative that takes you back to being a kid with no responsibilities.

Personally, I’m in an interesting position in regards to using colouring books because, as a freelance illustrator, my job is to be creative.

I spend many hours per day either working on specific commissions or sketching up new ideas and practicing. The idea of using a colouring book to relax seemed ridiculous to me since, well, it kind of falls in the camp of what I do and what currently stresses me out: creating on a deadline. But I spoke to one of my friends who insisted that the point was to feel no pressure to create, so I decided to give it a shot.

War has changed.

Years ago, when cyberwarfare became a serious point of discussion within think tanks and state departments, it was believed that there was danger in a hacker being able to shut down a nuclear plant.

Even worse, there was the fear that hackers could steal national secrets and destabilize financial institutions the world over.

These days, Russia understands information warfare possibly better than anyone. A recent report by Estonian intelligence asserts that Russian hackers place keyloggers and other backdoors in the computers of EU diplomats. Hacks like this were conducted on Democratic National Convention email servers in 2016, which led to the eventual release of DNC emails via Wikileaks. Independent cybersecurity firms such as Fidelis believe it was Russia that directly supplied these emails.

But stealing valuable data is just the half of it. What about distributing useless information?

Vladislav Surkov, a personal advisor to Vladimir Putin, has been credited by some in communications theory to be instrumental in keeping Putin in power for almost 20 years. He sponsored both hardcore right-wingers and left-wingers in Russian politics, knowing full-well that they would fight each other. The same has been more or less confirmed in the United States. While all of the attention is focused on the way the Russians likely aided Donald Trump, a comparable amount of effort was put in to increase the popularity of Bernie Sanders.

How can your opposition mobilize against you if they’re perpetually at war with themselves?

This is the postmodern form of dividing and conquering. Russia is also currently practicing it in Azerbaijan and Armenia, as Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said on television that his government sold weapons to both sides.

For their part, the West mastered the artform ages ago. The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 divided the Middle East amongst incomprehensible national lines, and for the next 50 years, the British took full advantage of the mess they made there.

This strategy is so effective because it requires very little in terms of military hardware, yet the gains are so massive.

Russian interference in the 2016 American election made the U.S. electorate so massively polarized and opposed to itself that more and more absurd ideas became palatable. Echo chambers guarantee that, to this day, you won’t be able to convince your uncle that Obama wasn’t a secret muslim.

In a time when the breadth and depth of information is vast and accessible by the phone in your pocket, censorship won’t be taking place. Instead, the vetted information will be relatively easy to find, but it will be buried under the mountain of false and misleading information. This is a crucial component in how modern cyberwarfare is waged.

(Nicola Kwit) Overpriced coloured pencils in hand, I picked a random page in the book and went at it. By the time I was halfway through the page, it dawned on me that I felt calm and focused on something that was actually enjoyable.

The more I thought about it, the more I figured that students could really benefit from this. It provides a creative outlet without having to come up with an idea, draw it out, and then work out on revising. You just get to jump right into spewing a nauseating rainbow of colours all over the page.

Being creative is healthy. It gets your brain

working in a way that is different from taking notes during a class or reading a textbook. It also takes your mind away from life and to-do lists for a while without having to meditate.

There’s no need to feel uncool for using a colouring book. Anyone who would make fun of that is missing out big-time. If you can get your hands on one and some cheap coloured pencils, give it a try!

Students always need an outlet to de-stress with, so you might as well make yours colouring in Harry Potter’s forehead scar and giving Snape an adorable pink robe.

There’s no Shame in Using the Mental Health Support Services Available to Students Many services are available 24/7 and follow strict confidentiality guidelines Matthew Pain KPU students are nearing the end of yet another exhausting school semester. Most will find themselves inching closer to their educational goals, which means completing the last few assignments, prepping for the final round of exams, and once again maintaining composure until the point where all that remains is to await the eagerly anticipated final grade results.

It is during this time that students tend to neglect their health and well-being as they focus on their schoolwork. As such, students need to be made aware of which on-campus services they can utilize when the need arises.

Many of these services help those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and other issues that personally impact them.

It’s not unusual for students to feel pressured by the need to maintain their focus on grades while also juggling the stressors and demands of everyday life. A lot of them will find a way to deal with this while others will struggle. We are all built differently—some

thrive in high stress situations and others struggle to making it through the day. This is when depression and other issues can arise.

However, the knowledge that there are resources available to those in crisis can make an enormous difference, and can help them to maintain their happiness, stability, and their capacity to engage in class.

It is often the case that students struggle with stress and anxiety as they near the end of a semester. However, if one already has a pre-existing mental illness, the negative symptoms they face regularly can be further amplified by test taking, report writing, or other demands that are expected of students.

The key to avoiding this is taking the necessary steps to curb such effects, whether that means implementing a personalized method of self-care or utilizing proper time management techniques. Still, some students might find themselves in such a negative state that they desperately need or require additional help. This is where counselling and external resources available to students comes in.

Unbeknownst to many, there are special-

ized services available that are tailored to very specific issues that students face. Some of these offer support for those struggling with anxiety, depression, unplanned pregnancies, financial problems, abuse, suicidal thoughts, and a plethora of other issues.

When accessing these resources or even entertaining the idea of reaching out for help, it is important to know that the majority of these services offer 24/7 multilingual support at no cost to the caller. Most of them also follow strict confidentiality and anonymity guidelines, which provide a method of protection to those who fear stigmatization or perceived judgement when reaching out for help.

For those who need someone to talk to, the Crisis Line (604 951 8855) is available 24/7 to those in need. If a student finds themselves needing assistance with a mental illness, there is the 310 Mental Health Line (310 6789) that they can call. Lastly, for those who have come to a point where all else seems hopeless, there is the suicide line service (1 800 784 2433) that can be reached 24/7.

18

COLUMNS

Artist Spotlight: Getaway Van

The new band is cranking out hard-hitting garage rock at breakneck speed Aly Laube | Coordinating Editor A band that only came together last October has successfully gigged, released a record, and made touring plans for the summer in a mad dash to create a name for themselves in the local music scene.

Getaway Van—a four piece with members Charlie Cole, Devon Sutherland, Derek Lionas, and Zack Fox—put out a live-off-the-floor three-song EP in January and have been performing garage rock around the city since then. While the record, Burnouts, feels relatively cohesive to listen to, it was recorded in only one day and mixed less than 24 hours before it was made public.

Style wise, a “heavy, groovy, bluesy, pure rock and roll kinda sound that hasn't been really big since the 90s” is what Getaway Van is all about, according to Fox, the band’s bassist. Each of the three tracks on their debut was cherry-picked by the members as the most well-rounded and strongest work they had together in January. Lyrically, the record explores concepts like dealing with the monotony of everyday life, striving for sobriety, and struggling to navigate personal relationships.

“That’s kind of the theme of the EP Burnouts, because we’re just doing stuff so quickly,” says Lionas, who sings and plays guitar.

“A little bit too fast in some situations … We were coming out of the gates hot and really forcing that because no one’s going to do it for you. You’ve just got to get it done.”

“But I feel like you capture a lot of the emotion, too—the energy when you’re recording live off the floor,” adds vocalist and guitarist Cole. “It’s harder to get the real precise quality but that’s not necessarily what’s always

most important.”

Getaway Van is, in part, a reincarnation of an older project. Lionas and Cole were previously in a local hard rock group called Destructive Interference, which Cole says often felt stagnant. This is part of the reason why the new band, with Sutherland and Fox on board, is frantic to make progress.

Although Getaway Van and Destructive Interference have different styles and line-ups, Lionas and Cole have written for both. As the band grows, the other two members of Getaway Van are likely to contribute more to the songwriting process, and whoever writes the song gets to sing it onstage and in the studio.

The band says that the reception to their music has so far surpassed all expectations.

This is an especially pleasant surprise for them as a largely self-made group.

“What’s so cool now is that back in the day you would have to have some kind of label to get you heard,” says Sutherland, Getaway Van’s drummer. “Now you can do it all yourself, put your music out there and make the posters, make the pages … and your success is going to have a direct relationship with how much effort you’re putting in.”

The band is currently writing a full length album that they’re hoping to release in June.

In the meantime, they will also be playing on

March 24 at Red Room and on April 14 at SBC. If you decide to go see the band live, prepare to be hit with a wall of sound—between the three guitarists, there are five fuzz pedals on stage and plenty of roaring riffs that are the backbone of their songs. Still, Cole describes their current setlist as a “very eclectic collection.”

“Everyone should do themselves a huge favor and get in the Van,” Sutherland says, about what he’s hoping for from the future.

“We've got so much more than just free candy.”

From left: Devon Sutherland, Zack Fox, Charlie Cole, and Derek Lionas are the members of Getaway Van. (Submitted)

After Thought: A Post-Budget Primer on Carole James A look at the past accomplishments of B.C.’s Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Braden Klassen | Photo Editor Now that the provincial budget has been announced and the dust has somewhat settled, it warrants a retrospective look at the woman who is at the centre of it all: The Honourable Carole James, MLA for Victoria Beacon Hill, B.C. NDP Finance Minister and Deputy Premier of British Columbia.

James first entered the public arena of provincial politics in 2001 when she ran for the Victoria Beacon Hill riding. She performed very strongly for a debut candidate but was ultimately defeated by an incredibly narrow margin of just 35 votes.

She and her family then moved to Prince George and she became the director of a child and family services organisation. James, who identifies as part Métis, also helped coordinate between the Ministry of Children and Families and the Northern Aboriginal Authority for Families.

James’ break from politics would be shortlived, and in 2003 she was elected leader of the B.C. NDP. This followed the landslide defeat of the party in the 2001 election, when they only held two seats in Parliament. James replaced interim NDP Leader Joy McPhail and got to work rebuilding the party’s image.

The results of the 2005 election showed that her efforts had been effective. The NDP regained 31 seats, almost doubling their share of the popular vote from 21 per cent in 2001

to 41 per cent in 2005. James also finally won her race in the Beacon Hill riding, defeating Bray by a margin of almost two to one.

For the next five years, James continued to serve as leader of the opposition until a group of 13 NDP MLAs led by Jenny Kwan called for her to step down. Aside from McPhail, Kwan had been the only other NDP MLA who managed to hold on to her seat during the 2001 wipeout, and she harshly and publicly criticised James after the party plateaued in the 2009 election, issuing a long statement that, among other things, accused James of “dividing the party by staying on as leader.”

James listened and relinquished the party leadership, serving under Adrian Dix as the NDP Critic for Children and Family Development, and was given the role of Official Opposition Spokesperson for Finance by John Horgan after he was elected NDP leader in 2014.

Horgan was loyal to James during the controversial end to her leadership term in 2010, so nobody was surprised when she backed him to succeed Dix during his own leadership bid.

Then, in 2017, after the NDP formed its minority government with the Green Party after the election, Horgan appointed James to the positions of Finance Minister and Deputy Premier, arguably two of the most prestigious and powerful positions in the provincial level of government.

Before her political career began, James had been elected onto the Greater Victoria School

In 2009, NDP leader Carole James made an appearance on CKNW to debate with the other provincial party leaders. (Flickr/Stephen Dyrgas) Board between 1990 and 2001 and served as President of the B.C. School Trustees Association for five straight terms in the mid-‘90s.

She also worked for two years at the national level as the Vice-President of the Canadian School Boards Association.

Given that the NDP’s election platform was so heavily based on childcare reform and increased spending on education costs, Carole James’ prior experience made her the perfect fit to lead the way on creating the new budget. Her previous experience on the

Independent B.C. budget review panel likely didn’t hurt either.

Only time will tell if the NDP’s budget will really improve the lives of British Columbians. But for those in doubt, at least when it comes to the portfolios of childcare and education finance, the fate of the province is in very capable hands. After collecting decades of experience in education and working with children and families, followed by more than a decade of experience in B.C. politics, Carole James knows what she’s doing.

PROCRASTINATION

HOROSCOPES Sagittarius Nov. 23 - Dec 21

Tomorrow you will eat a big bag of factory-rejected seeds until a healthy flower unfurls in your chest. You will mistake the sensation for the feeling of love and promptly die.

Pisces Feb 20 - Mar 20 You shouldn’t feel the need to “get out of your comfort zone” this week. It’s your zone, and you’re comfortable there. You spend most of your time being uncomfortable and it took great effort to build this zone of yours.

Gemini May 21 - Jun 20 In the future, resist the temptation to muscle your way past your coworkers to grab that last donut from the box while shouting that anyone who gets to the donut before you can “take it with them to their grave.”

Virgo Aug 24 - Sept 23 Make your goal this week, and every week hereafter, to act in such a way that local moralists write to their city officials, pleading that “something must be done about this wicked person.”

Aquarius Jan 21 - Feb 19

Capricorn Dec. 22 - Jan 20

There are unfavourable omens in the air. They ride a strange wind, all full of new smells.

Seinfeld is your favourite anime.

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19 Don’t give up, ya fuckin’ skeleton!

Make every effort, this week, to remain obnoxious to the French government.

Leo Jul 24 - Aug 23

Cancer Jun 21 - Jul 23 How much would you pay? That’s the question. That’s always been the question. How much would you pay, if you had to pay now? Because you might.

Scorpio Oct 24 - Nov 22

Libra Sept 24 - Oct 23 The name of your autobiography is, inevitably, Maggot Boy from Maggot Creek.

SUDOKU

The causes of all your worldly tribulations are, for the twelfth consecutive lunar cycle, those goddamned moon men.

Nothing’s here. There’s just nothing here. Whatever you’re looking for here doesn’t exist. Don’t complain, but if you have to—if you simply must complain—do it somewhere else because there’s nothing here. There just isn’t.

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!