The Runner Volume 10, Issue 4

VOLUME 10 // ISSUE 4 October 17, 2017 runnermag.ca

News

Feature

Opinions

New KSA Health Plan Increases Coverage of Mental Health

Summoning the Spirits of New Westminster

We Need to Speak Out Against Victim Blaming

2 table of contents

staff 04

News|New KSA Health Plan Increases Coverage of Mental Health

Coordinating Editor Alyssa Laube editor@runnermag.ca

Managing Editor

Connor Doyle managing@runnermag.ca

Production Manager

Melanie Tan production@runnermag.ca

Art Director

Nicole Kwit art@runnermag.ca

Photo Editor

Braden Klassen photos@runnermag.ca

“The idea of increasing mental health initiatives is something that the KSA has been interested in for a few years now,” says KSA President Tanvir Singh. “There are a couple of changes that we’ve made to the health and dental plan that we think are really going to benefit students.”

06

culture|Previewing KPU’s Annual Music Faculty Showcase

For the second year in a row, KPU’s Music faculty will perform a series of concerts through the fall and spring semesters to showcase the talent and hard work of the department’s instructors.

08

features|facing prejudice on the public stage

Jagmeet Singh was already Ontario’s first turban-wearing Sikh to sit as a provincial legislator when the New Democratic Party elected him as their next leader on Oct. 1. Now he has become the first person of colour to lead a major Canadian party.

13

OPINIONS|When “No” Isn’t Enough, We Need to Speak Up

People must be vocal against sexual assault. When violated, women, men, and children become victims. Only through empathy and understanding can they begin the healing process.

Staff Writer

Joseph Keller staff@runnermag.ca

#FeatureTweets Web Editor

Mel Pomerleau web@runnermag.ca

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

Community Reporter

Ashley Hyshka community@runnermag.ca

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

contributors Paula Aguilar Epifania Alarcón Justin Bige A.J. Birtwistle Kristine Hui Sandra Hunaidi Rosa Ojeda Sarah Sidhu

Cover by Nicole Kwit

Fall Semester 2017 Student Publication Fee opt-outs available in person Sept. 5 to Oct. 31.

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PIPS Office: Arbutus 3710, Surrey Campus.

Hours: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Monday to Friday.

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

Arbutus 3710/3720 12666 72 Ave. Surrey, B.C, V3W 2M8 778.565.3801 www.runnermag.ca Vol. 10, Issue no. 4 October 17 // 2017 ISSN# 1916 8241

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 Kwantlen is adaptable and changing so is The Runner.

editorial 3

From The Editor

Stop tolerating small doses of sexism

(Nicole Kwit)

Alyssa Laube | coordinating Editor Misogyny doesn’t always show itself as a slap on the ass or a grotesque catcall. More often than not, it rears its head through the little things—the microaggressions that are barely detectable unless you’re paying attention or they’re fixed on you.

These are the issues we don’t often talk about when we discuss feminism because there are typically so many bigger things to worry about. Every day women are being harassed, assaulted, abused, and murdered just for existing on this planet. The inconspicuous sexist remarks that barrage our nerves during average conversation shouldn’t take priority over such horrific injustices, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be standing up to the people who make us feel inferior in social situations, whether

they’re trying to do so or not.

To offer a personal example, every time I go out to socialize at a show or party, I’m faced with the same annoyance: in a circle of new friends introducing themselves to one another, all of the men in the group shake hands and warmly exchange details while the women go completely, silently, unacknowledged. We treated like we’re not only invisible, but also disposable—not important enough to even ask for our names or look us in the eye. Without having done anything to deserve it, we are excluded.

This isn’t just upsetting as a symptom of deeply-rooted societal biases against women. It is personally hurtful and isolating for us as people.

Every time a man ignores my presence in a group, he makes it clear that he doesn’t want to get to know me, and that he isn’t even willing to pre-

tend that he values my voice in conversation. There are few more dehumanizing things to feel when you’re trying to make new friends and instead are labelled as either a pretty accessory to whoever you’re with or an inanimate object that doesn’t deserve to be addressed or seen.

There are countless microaggressions like this that weigh us down in our daily lives. Trying to connect with men in one-on-one conversations only to be met with pointless comments about our boyfriends and appearance isn’t flattering, it’s insulting. Enjoying ourselves in a group of male friends doesn’t need to be ruined by reminders that we’re fragile, graceful women and you’re crass, lustful bros. We don’t need you to apologize for swearing around us, making crude jokes, or doing anything else that you might wrongfully

assume is inherently masculine. Just be as decent as you would be around anyone else. We can handle it.

I know a lot of good men who don’t realize that they do this to the women around them, and I know a lot of strong women who don’t feel secure enough to fight back against it.

On the few occasions that I have been so bold as to bluntly state my name to a man who’s been pretending I’m not there for the past 10 minutes, or directly say that someone’s being sexist towards a friend of mine, I’ve been met with awkwardness and hostility.

In a way, that’s an accomplishment. If you make it obvious that someone is being sexist hopefully they’ll realize that it isn’t right, but that demands a social sacrifice. Call men out for being awful and you’re labelled a ballbuster, a nag, a bitch, a social justice warrior, or any other insult in the slew of degrading slurs hurled at women when they speak up for themselves. Stay quiet and you feel like shit, but at least you don’t get ousted and made into a public spectacle.

We don’t need to be eloquent about how horrible this makes us feel. It sucks. It’s not fair that we’re regularly forced into situations where defending ourselves has greater social ramifications than staying silent and feeling unimportant and unheard all night when all we wanted in the first place was to have a good time.

So, to the people who refuse to make eye contact with women while they fist bump every man in the room: we don’t want to meet you either. And until you start treating us with respect, we never will.

B.C. Gov. Releases Funds for Adult Learners in Surrey

News Brief

Alyssa Laube | coordinating Editor Over the next year, $2.4 million of provincial funding will be put towards 93 of British Columbia’s literacy programs, two of which are based in Surrey.

One of the programs, the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society, offers Surrey’s Learn with a Friend program. The other, READ Surrey/White Rock Society, tutors adult learners in literacy.

Melanie Mark, Minister of Advanced Education, Skills, and Training, made the announcement on Oct. 13. The investment is designed to help Surrey’s adult learners succeed in their lives both inside and outside of school. Kwantlen Polytechnic University is partnering with local literacy providers to offer more comprehensive programming for adult learners in support of the initiative.

“KPU is pleased to partner with regional literacy providers to support the literacy of residents in our region as they work towards a better life

for themselves and their families,” said KPU President Alan Davis in a press release from the Ministry of Advanced Education. “Math, writing and computer skills are the building blocks for a life enriched with friends, community, and post-secondary education.”

According to the READ Surrey/ White Rock Society Board Chair Aimee Begalka, “The Partners Adult Literacy Tutoring program helps adult learners gain the basic literacy skills they need to move forward in their lives, unlock their potential, and contribute to society.”

“Our learner-led program responds to the needs and goals of the individual. These goals have ranged from getting a driver’s licence, to writing a trades entrance exam, to building up their confidence, so they can move on to more education,” she said in the release.

Satbir Singh Cheema, CEO of the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society, emphasizes that programming for adult learners

should be held in smaller, community-oriented locations that will not intimidate potential students, and that the “Learn with a Friend Program helps students as they build the specific literacy skills they need to reach across that separation and begin to build better lives.”

British Columbians will have easier access to a greater range of literacy programs with the allocation of these funds. The province has been releasing more money for supporting adult learners throughout 2017, having made Adult Basic Education and English Language Learning programs tuition-free during August.

“People work hard and lead busy lives; they need the opportunity to learn close to home,” said Education Minister Rob Fleming. “We’re supporting adult learners by investing in community-based literacy programs that give people of all backgrounds the opportunity to learn in places that are welcoming and familiar.”

What’s Happening this month

oct. 19

Mental Health Resources Fair Learn about which resources KPU and the KSA can offer you to assist with mental health and well-being.

See which programs you have access to both on and off campus.

11:00 am - 2:00 pm, KPU Surrey Main Atrium, free.

oct. 19 is winter coming?

Members of KPU’s Political Science faculty will be speaking at the Grassroots about the impending threat of nuclear annihilation. If you don’t mind having the end of the world spoiled for you, come check it out.

Grassroots, 7:00 pm, free.

oct. 20 richmond open house

Visit the Richmond campus to see all that it has to offer. From Design to Traditional Chinese Medicine programs, there’s something for just about everybody. You’ll also get to meet the instructors there.

12: 00 pm - 3:00 pm, KPU Richmond, free.

oct. 20 diwali celebration

KPU International is hosting a festival of light celebration on both the Surrey and Richmond campuses.

There will be bhangra dance performances, food, music, and lots of fun.

1:00 pm - 7:00 pm, KPU Surrey Cedar 1145, KPU Richmond Room 1400, free.

oCT. 24

Pieces of Mind Conference

The KSA wants to know how you thrive! Join them to gain important insights from the stories of students, professionals, and more regarding their experiences with mental health.

11:00 am - 3:00 pm, KPU Surrey Conference Centre, free.

OCT. 25 KDocs: Nobody Speak

KDocs will be screening the documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press on the Surrey campus.

Afterward there will be a Q&A panel and snacks will be provided.

5:30 pm - 8:00 pm, KPU Surrey Fir 128, free.

4 news

KPU’s Cannabis Professional Series to Improve and Adapt as Legalization Draws Nearer

David Purcell, the university’s Director of Emerging Business, is optimistic about the future of the program

Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter The government of British Columbia recently announced that it will be consulting the public about how marijuana legalization, including regulations and sales, should be undertaken across the province. Director of Emerging Business at Kwantlen Polytechnic University David Purcell is optimistic that both the process of legalization and the consultations will benefit KPU’s Cannabis Professional Series program in the near future.

According to Purcell, the goal of the CPS is to become “the leader in workforce training in cannabis in Canada.”

The series is an extension of the Continuing Professional Studies department. It is an online program that consists of four courses which range from plant production facility maintenance, marketing and sales, finances, and plant sciences.

Purcell says that the program is designed for students who are currently employed in the cannabis industry and want to upgrade their skills or for people who want to enter the industry. There is a diverse range of students enrolled in the CPS, from those straight out of high school to experienced workers in the horticulture and finance industries.

The program began about two years ago, with the identification of

medical marijuana as a burgeoning industry. Future growth was anticipated, mandating the need to train experts in the field who could not only grow and cultivate the plant, but also market and sell it.

In anticipation of legalization, which is currently slated for spring 2018, the department is creating a new course which will specialize in the selling of cannabis in a retail environment, according to Purcell. He also wants to develop management, educational, and social issues workshops and courses.

Legalization would make more research dollars for studying marijuana available, which would benefit KPU as a polytechnic university. Federal and provincial dollars for applied research into the crop are currently unavailable, but KPU is aligning itself “with as many partners as [it] can” so that it can take advantage of the opportunity once it is available.

“There’s a massive … curriculum roadmap that we’re building,” he says. “We want to continue to deliver [a] world class curriculum.”

Purcell calls the cannabis industry “an emerging market.” Experts estimate that both medical and recreational marijuana will one day become a $23 billion industry, and Purcell estimates that 50,000 to 150,000 new jobs will be created in the field over the next two years.

“There is a deep need for knowledgeable, legitimate workforce training, and that’s what we’re providing today,” says Purcell.

B.C. Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, who made the announcement that the government would be seeking public consultations prior to legalization, was unavailable for an interview.

However, his office stated that “Ottawa has given provinces and territories the ability to tailor rules for their jurisdictions, and to regulate licensing, distribution and retail sales … This provincial scope of control is mirrored in our government’s priorities: protecting our young people, making the health and safety of British Columbians a priority, keeping cannabis out of the hands of criminals, and keeping our roads safe through education and enforcement.”

The statement continues, “We have no intention to achieve these goals unilaterally, nor illusions that we could. We are now consulting broadly—with all levels of government, with industry, with the health sector, law enforcement and all British Columbians—because everyone has a stake.”

Purcell says that the current government is more open to these types of social issues than the Liberals were because the people are calling for it, and that “the prevailing thought on

marijuana itself is changing, and it’s softening a little bit.”

Like the government, he believes that public consultations are important. He encourages the public to discard their stereotypes about people involved in the industry or marijuana users, who, in his experience, are hard-working, educated, and welltrained individuals.

In his opinion, the CPS program is

critical for moving forward with marijuana legalization so that the public “can make conscious and informed decisions about the plant itself, about the industry, [and] about what legalization is going to look like in Canada.”

Port Coquitlam MLA Mike Farnworth. (Wikimedia Commons)

New KSA Health and Dental Plan Offers Extensive Mental Health Resources to Students

Students will now be able to claim up to $500 for medical help per year alyssa laube | coordinating editor As part of an effort to start a conversation about mental health and ensure that KPU students are faring well on campus, the Kwantlen Student Association has released a new and improved version of its health and dental plan.

“The idea of increasing mental health initiatives is something that the KSA has been interested in for a few years now,” says KSA President Tanvir Singh. “There are a couple of changes that we’ve made to the health and dental plan that we think are really going to benefit students.”

For instance, the KSA now covers up to 80 per cent of all visits regardless of how many appointments a student needs to make to address their mental health issues. While there used to be a cap on how many visits would be covered, the only funding restriction now is that a maximum of $500 can be claimed per year. The new plan allows students to see psychologists, Canadian certified counsellors, social workers, and more trained practitioners who can help

them work towards a happier and healthier future.

“We really thought that would give students a choice for who they want to see rather than just seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist. They have the option of seeing a whole range of mental health professionals,” says Singh.

He adds that, because local psychologists are in such high demand, it can take months for youth in crisis to get the help they need. With these updates to the plan, students will be able to expedite that process without having to pay exorbitant amounts of money.

For those who would rather be evaluated and offered assistance from the comfort of their home, the KSA’s adoption of the MyWellness app will come as a relief. The app offers anonymous mental health assessment, support resources, and various online tools ranging from games to exercises that are designed to keep users informed and mentally stable.

“One of the main things that we think MyWellness is going to do is start a conversation,” says Singh.

“The [KSA] executive team and a lot of our students have been reaching out to students and trying to get them to start having a conversation about taking their mental health seriously.”

KSA VP External and Women’s Representative Caitlin McCutchen is currently running a mental health awareness campaign called “A More Mindful U”. The campaign aims to “provide some workshops for people to really take care of their mental health, as well as a couple of other things,” according to Singh.

“I’m just really excited that the KSA is taking a look at mental health on-campus,” says Singh. “With us starting a dialogue and trying to break down the stigma around mental health, we can really benefit students.

I think this can be one of the best things we do all year.”

Students who have questions about the plan are encouraged to visit the KSA Health & Dental Benefits Plan Office in KPU Surrey’s Cedar 1265 or visit their website for more information.

KSA President Tanvir Singh hopes to start a conversation about mental health on campus. (MyWellness)

News 5

The Balance Between Equality and Religious Rights at Trinity western university TWU and the law societies of B.C. and Ontario will have their case heard in court later this fall

Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter A contentious battle over equality and religious rights in post-secondary institutions is headed to the Supreme Court of Canada on Nov. 30.

Trinity Western University, a private Christian school in Langley, B.C., requires its students to sign a “community covenant”, whereby they agree to abstain from all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage. The Law Society of B.C. and the Ontario-based Law Society of Upper Canada refused to accredit graduates of TWU’s proposed law school due to the belief that this covenant discriminates against unmarried and homosexual couples.

When the “law school case” reached the B.C. Court of Appeal last year, it ruled in favour of TWU, stating that the university had the legal right to freedom of religion under Canada’s Constitution. The Ontario Court of Appeal, however, ruled in favour of the Law Society of Upper Canada, stating that “prohibition on sexual activity between same-sex married couples [is] degrading and reminiscent of similar rules singling out blacks and interracial couples in the United States,” according to a report by The Globe and Mail.

The two cases, which have now

Trinity Western University has been involved in a number of legal disputes that stem from a mandatory covenant agreement. (Braden Klassen) been merged, are going to be heard in Canada’s Supreme Court on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. There, the decision as to whether the Law Societies in B.C. and Ontario can legally refuse to accredit TWU’s law graduates will be made.

“I am confident that we will succeed at the Supreme Court of Canada,” says Earl Phillips, the Executive Director of TWU Law. TWU’s statutory mandate is to provide a “university education with an

underlying philosophy and viewpoint that is Christian,” explains Phillips.

He says that the court case poses these questions: “What kind of society are we going to have in Canada?

Are we going to have one that recognizes that there is a real diversity of people and ideas and philosophies and religions in this country?” He also maintains that TWU does not view the policy as discriminatory, and does “not require people to deny their sexual orientation.”

Ultimately, he asserts, it is a voluntary decision for students to attend TWU and sign the community covenant. If students, LGBTQ or not, are uncomfortable with the requirements of the covenant, they can simply choose to attend another university.

“TWU would probably not be the place they want to be,” he says.

Chuck Reasons, a professor of Law and Justice at Central Washington University who formerly taught Canadian Law at Kwantlen Polytech-

nic University, says that the Supreme Court must benefit “the social good” by deciding whose rights take precedence in the case.

“It is really the balancing of equality rights and religious rights,” says Reasons. “I believe, given cases in other areas, that the equality rights will win out. In other words, the Canadian Supreme Court will follow the Ontario ruling, rather than the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling.”

He adds that it’s common for provincial court systems to disagree on hot button issues such as this, which he attributes partially to a judge’s personal opinions, background, and ideology influencing legal decisions that are made. However, he believes that it’s important for members of Canadian society to combat sexism and homophobia in order to maintain Canada’s inclusivity and diversity.

“By having that policy [of the community covenant], they’re saying that you’re not welcome. And to me, that’s a real step backward in law in Canada and in inclusivity in what the Canadian mosaic really should be about,” he says.

When contacted for an interview, the Law Society of B.C. declined to comment until the final court decision is released in spring 2018.

Is Post-Secondary Education in Surrey Being Shortchanged?

KPU faculty member Geoff Dean points out a funding inequality that goes back decades

JOSEPH KELLER | STAFF WRITER Recent announcements regarding an increase in funding for education from the B.C. and Surrey governments, specifically targeting certain demographics or special areas of interest for the region, have been met with praise from educators.

One of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s longest-serving faculty members, KPU Academic and Career Preparation instructor Geoff Dean, says that these “special projects” do not address the root issues for post-secondary education south of the Fraser.

In August, the province announced that it will restore funding for free adult basic education at universities like KPU, and last month the Surrey government announced funding for programs that provide training for advanced manufacturing in the city. While programs like these are a step in the right direction according to Dean, he argues that it’s the overall funding for full-time enrolment at south-of-Fraser universities that needs to be increased.

“If we’re going to help Surrey residents get into good jobs in advanced

manufacturing, and help employers be able to have enough capable employees, the province needs to fix this long-standing unfairness in funding,” says Dean.

KPU is only funded for about half the number of full-time enrolments per resident in the university as compared to other universities in the province, according to Dean. He also claims that the university receives significantly less funding-per-resident for academic upgrading and ESL support than other universities in B.C. “We’ve been shortchanged in a whole lot of ways, but in terms of the long-term progress and success and economic health of this region, we’ve long been inequitably looked after,” says Dean.

He has been involved with KPU since 1985 and says that he began looking into funding numbers in those early years to see if the university was able to serve the region well.

“It was real clear after just a couple of glances that no, we don’t,” he says.

While the university has grown with the population over the years, the funding-per-resident has remained largely stagnant.

Dean believes that, as the institution has grown from a college to a university-college and finally to a polytechnic university, it hasn’t received adequate funding to match its development. While it can now provide more advanced levels of education, the funding shortfall primarily affects more basic services such as adult upgrading and first and second year programming. According to Dean, this means that KPU is struggling to serve the “real needs of the region.”

Over the years, he and other faculty members have been periodically emailing MLAs and city councilors to push for change. They have watched various provincial governments come and go without addressing these issues. Dean says that university officials and board members have been quietly pushing for the same changes that he’s calling for, but due to KPU’s status as a public institution, they are unable to make these calls publicly.

“It’s very strange that nothing has been done about it,” says Dean. “Nobody responds. [They say] ‘Oh we’ve got to improve education for the province,’ but nobody’s paying any attention to Surrey, Langley, Delta.”

KPU Academic and Career Preparation faculty member and Advisor Geoff Dean. (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)

6 culture

Second Annual Music Faculty Showcase Premieres on Oct. 27

Three concerts between the fall and spring semesters let students see their instructors perform outside of the classroom Mel Pomerleau | web editor For the second year in a row, KPU’s Music faculty will perform a series of concerts throughout the fall and spring semesters to showcase the talent and hard work of instructors.

The three concerts will host a variety of talented instrumentalists playing brass, string, woodwind, and piano. KPU Director of Keyboard Studies Jane Hayes says that “anyone who performs can come forward with an idea as to what they do when they’re not teaching at Kwantlen.”

“The students, I don’t think, are aware of just how active the faculty are outside of teaching hours,” she adds.

The first show in the series on Oct. 27 will feature Touch of Brass, a quintet which KPU trumpet instructor Tom Shorthouse is a member of.

The group has been around for 40 years, and Shorthouse has been a part of it for the past 25. With the quintet consisting of two trumpets, a french horn, a trombone, and a tuba, every one of the five musicians involved comes with their own unique and extensive professional background.

“I think one of the things that makes our group unique, at least in my mind, is that we try and play a lot of music that we have arranged ourselves,” says Shorthouse. “There’s a lot of music that’s available to purchase or to rent, but that doesn’t make us special. What makes us special is the fact that we can write for the individual members of the group.”

Together, Touch of Brass plays a

variety of genres from different eras, ranging from baroque to jazz, pop, and classical. Because the group largely plays music they’ve arranged themselves, they often take a 40 or 50 member concert piece and turn it into something manageable for a brass quintet while still remaining true to the original. Shorthouse describes this work as “familiar, but unique.”

However, the challenges of being a professional instrumentalist are not unknown to him and his colleagues.

“Not everyone is aware that brass instruments are very challenging to play for a long period of time,” he

says. “So being brass players ourselves, we’ll know when we have reached our peak or limit and we will need a rest. We can’t play all the time like a pianist can or violinist or cellist.”

The second concert of the series will focus on KPU’s artist-in-residence, the Borealis String Quartet, with Hayes on piano. The third installment, affectionately named CD-elebrate, will include performances from a number of KPU instructors who have recently recorded albums.

The faculty showcase is not only a

space for KPU’s music instructors to show off their skills and accomplishments. It will also provide the opportunity for students to get a sense of what it’s like to be a professionally performing musician.

“So many students from what would be a narrow background have been inspired to go into music because their high school band teacher inspired them, but actually, so many of them have never been to a professional classical concert,” says Hayes.

“It’s showing them a complete package and it’s also showing them that music isn’t academic.”

“I think [students] have to be able to see me and the other faculty members approach the concept of playing the instrument in a musical fashion—not just in some kind of esoteric way,” adds Shorthouse. “In a lesson we’ll say, ‘You have to breathe this way and you have to articulate this way,’ but to see it happen all at a given time with four other people all doing it at the same time … I hope that’s what [the students] would get, is a sense that what I’m saying in lessons isn’t just spouting nonsense.”

Joan Blackman, violinist, Jane Hayes, KPU Director of Keys, and Julia Nolan, KPU saxophone instructor, make up the small ensemble Sea to Sky. They will celebrate the release of their CD at the third installment of the Faculty Showcase series. (Mel Pomerleau)

KPU Instructor publishes Study Analyzing False-Belief Reasoning across lifespans Daniel Bernstein and researchers discover that toddlers and adults’ abilities are roughly equal

Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, protagonist Atticus Finch tells his young daughter Scout that “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Daniel Bernstein, a psychology instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Canada Research Chair in Lifespan Cognition, conducted a study which sought to investigate that same premise.

After receiving approval from the Research Ethics Board at KPU and Simon Fraser University, Bernstein and a team of researchers conducted a study on “false-belief reasoning,” which Bernstein says is “the ability to appreciate that people can hold mistaken beliefs about the world.”

The study, published on Sept. 28, reads, “We tested 266 individuals at various ages ranging from three to 92 years on a continuous measure of false-belief reasoning (the Sandbox task). All age groups had difficulty

suppressing their own knowledge when estimating what a naïve person knew.”

Bernstein explains the “Sandbox task” method with this analogy: there are two girls, Sally and Ann, playing in a sandbox. Sally puts a specific object in location #1 and then leaves.

While Sally is gone, Ann removes that object and places it in location #2, which is still in the sandbox. Sally then returns to the sandbox, and participants of the study had to guess where Sally would look for the object.

Bernstein and his researchers could then measure the errors toddlers and adults make, in which location #1 is the correct response, and location #2 was incorrect. Participants, however, could respond by pointing to anywhere in the sandbox. This allowed researchers to measure responses on a continuum rather than by strictly correct and incorrect options. By doing this, they found that adults typically made the same kinds of mistakes that toddlers do.

One explanation for these results is

that preschoolers have difficulty with false-belief reasoning. Therefore, they make errors. While adults comprehend the concept, Bernstein says that “it doesn’t always mean they use [their understanding of false beliefs] appropriately.”

Bernstein’s study was the first of its kind. Other studies have looked at false-belief reasoning from the perspectives of one or two age groups, while this one compared it in preschool children, school age children, younger adults, and older adults. Researchers wanted to know what happens to a person’s false belief reasoning “across the lifespan,” according to Bernstein.

Initially, he got into psychology because he “wanted to understand how we think—what makes people tick,” and generally how the human brain works.

In 2009, after minor earthquake tremors occurred in L’Aquila, Italy, the Italian government asked a group of scientists and one government official to determine the possibility of a major earthquake occurring. The

scientists, citing a lack of available information, determined that they could not ascertain whether a major earthquake would strike. Several days later, a major earthquake struck and killed over 300 people.

The scientists and government official involved were put on trial and found guilty for failing to adequately warn the public of the impending earthquake. They were imprisoned and fined eight million euros. The conviction was overturned two years later.

Bernstein says that this is a real-world example of false-belief reasoning because the Italian government was aware of the eventual outcome of the disaster and assumed that the scientists should have known enough to predict the earthquake.

However, due to the fact that, at the time, the only data the scientists had to go off of was from a few tremors, predicting the earthquake was impossible.

“When you have privileged knowledge of an outcome … you might think that others should see it or know

it, but that doesn’t mean that they see it or know it,” Bernstein says. “[People] should be mindful of these kinds of errors—egocentrism essentially— that when you know something that I don’t, [you’ve got to] take that into account when you’re trying to talk to [someone]. Just because you know something doesn’t mean that others know.”

KPU Psychology professor Daniel Bernstein. (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)

culture 7

Richmond campus Hosts Mixolos Mitchtape Live Vancouver-based poet performs a spoken word piece on and about Turtle Island

A.J. Birtwistle A poetic recollection of the last decade on the west coast of Turtle Island—through the eyes of a Vancouver-based performance poet—took place at Kwantlen Polytechnic University on Sept. 27.

The show, Mixolos Mitchtape Live, was a spoken word poetry reading that was hosted on KPU’s Richmond campus in the Melville Centre for Dialogue. It was presented by the Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group and hosted by Mitcholos Touchie, a homeless Indigenous poet and artist who has been living in Vancouver since 2015.

“My art has always been an expression of who I am,” says Touchie.

“Homelessness informs my art, and my art is informed by my whole life.”

Emotional, heartbreaking, entertaining, and eye-opening, the stories and poems Touchie performed came directly from his own experiences and his own perception of the world.

The primary subject matter at hand was Turtle Island, a title for North America used by many of the continent’s First Nations.

Besides captivating the audience with his work, Touchie’s key point was to remind those in attendance of Canada’s history, as well as its complicated relationship with Indigenous people.

“You live on unceded territory, stolen land. There are thousands of nations all across this continent called Turtle Island,” Touchie said.

Before his hour-long set, Touchie gave the stage to three other talented spoken word poets. The first was Kay Kassirer, a Vancouver-based poet and activist who uses poetry to tell stories, educate, and heal. They began their set with a moving piece about the difficulty of living everyday life while shouldering the burdens of depression and anxiety. Much of Kassirer’s poetry was based on grief, personal suffering, and the reflection of the self.

Mother Girth followed Kassirer, explaining the meaning behind her most treasured “shit” and presenting objects she brought with her to the stage during her performance. Her set focused on family and personal history. She has recently begun performing burlesque as a way of reclaiming her body. While some tell her that it’s very brave, Mother Girth feels that, simply put, “being brave is existing.”

The last poet to perform before Touchie began his set was Frankie McGee, who shared a personal and nostalgic set. McGee read dated poetry, although it was new to most of the audience, from an old notebook.

When Touchie returned to the stage, he performed several powerful pieces that detailed a plan to retake

East Vancouver, a history of the word “Indian,” and a story about how he and his people have been treated by Canada and the English language.

While it is not known if Touchie will return to KPU for a similar event, he will be performing Mixolos Mitchtape Live at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Peterborough,

Ontario, from Oct. 22 to 28.

If Ontario is a bit too far for you to go, Touchie’s poetry can be found on Facebook. His podcast, which has the same name as the mixtape, can also be heard on Soundcloud.

Mitcholos Touchie performing spoken word and poetry live on the Richmond campus. (Paula Aguilar)

Learning to Drink Beer professionally

KPU’s sensory evaluation classes help brewing students perfect their palates

Kristine Hui While drinking beer during a Monday morning class might sound like a bad idea, it’s just a normal part of the school day for students in KPU’s Brewing and Brewery Operations program.

Developing a well-informed palate is critical for future brewers so that they can make sure they are producing a consistently high-quality product. KPU instructor Alek Egi has the important task of teaching brewing students the science behind beer tasting in his class “Sensory Evaluation and Ingredients”.

“Sensory science is a young discipline, but it is developing very fast

in all consumer industries and also in some service industries,” says Egi, who started his sensory learning 15 years ago while working at the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre in Winnipeg.

He spent one and a half years studying in Canada, the United States, and England in order to understand and utilize sensory evaluation, which would in turn also help his company develop its own tasting panel.

There are currently two sensory evaluation classes that are a part of the two-year Brewing program at KPU. In the first course, which is composed of a lecture and a lab component, students learn about different sensory methodologies and how

tasting panels are run in the lectures, and they are given samples of water or beer which are often spiked with flavour enhancers in the labs.

The class may then be asked to rate the samples for a particular attribute such as sweetness, or may be asked to determine which of the samples is odd-tasting. While it may be fairly easy for regular beer drinkers to identify sweet, salty, or sour tastes, only students will likely be able to identify common beer flavours such as diacetyl, ethyl butyrate, catty, or alkaline.

In the other sensory class, they will gain even deeper knowledge about beer tasting, including how to run consumer tests, analyze data, and submit samples to beer competitions.

“Really, in breweries … sensory [evaluation] should be done at every step, starting from all the raw materials being purchased: malt, hops, and water,” says Egi. “On the day of the brew, you start with tasting your water, and every time you take a wort sample from any part of the process [you should be tasting].”

He also sees more and more small breweries in Vancouver implementing sensory panels, adding that, for those who are interested in the field, sensory evaluation in brewing can be a lucrative full-time career.

A set of hop and water triangle tests that brewing students use to evaluate the flavours of different beer ingredients. (Kristine Hui)

KPU grad is the Vancouver Giants’ New Broadcaster Sarah Sidhu Dan O’Connor, Director of Media Relations and play-by-play announcer for the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants, says that the hands-on experience he got while attending Kwantlen Polytechnic University was crucial to his success in broadcasting.

“I’ve known really since the very beginning that this is what I wanted to do. I was one of those very lucky people where, even at age five or age six, I kind of knew I wanted to broadcast hockey games,” says O’Connor.

“As a kid, I would literally practice with the TV muted [and I] took every opportunity to practice.”

Now he travels with the Vancouver Giants doing play-by-play for all 72 regular season games and covering website content, media requests and inquiries, social media, and more.

Aside from the responsibilities that his job demands, O’Connor helps organize the team by booking hotels and accommodations.

“It’s a lot more than showing up 15 minutes before the game and putting a headset on,” he says. “There’s a lot of preparation that goes into the job [and] travelling with a junior hockey team.”

As a graduate of KPU’s Journalism program, O’Connor doubts that he would be as successful in his field without his schooling. He says that the biggest thing he learned from KPU was how to write and take photographs, adding that he “wouldn’t have traded [the experience] for the world.”

“Kwantlen’s Journalism program prepared me excellently for all that was to come, and I really owe so much of my skillset and what I’m able to do and what I’m able to contribute to a hockey team because of [the program],” he says. “I would recommend the program, absolutely 100 per cent, to anyone, and I’m definitely proud to call myself an alumnus of Kwantlen.”

O’Connor would like to thank “the teachers and the passion that they all had for the program and for the business” for providing him with a rewarding education at KPU. “They just made it so much easier and worthwhile to go to school every day and to look forward to it,” he says. “They taught me a lot of important lessons along the way.”

As for the Vancouver Giants 2017 and 2018 season, O’Connor says that the team is “coming together,” and that “the biggest thing is to get better every day.”

8 FEATURES

Facing Prejudice on the Public Stage Sikh politicians across Canada continue to fight racism with optimism joseph keller | staff writer braden klassen | photo editor Jagmeet Singh was already the first turban-wearing Sikh in Ontario to sit as a provincial legislator when the New Democratic Party elected him as their next leader on Oct. 1. Now he has become the first person of colour to lead a major Canadian party.

This is a big milestone for the South Asian Canadian community, and for equality in Canada. But it comes at a time when many are noticing a rise in racist discourse both domestically and abroad.

“Racism has been part of Canada and we have to be honest about that,” says Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s Minister of National Defence who, like Jagmeet, is the first Sikh to occupy his position. “It was much worse before but it has evolved and gotten better over time and we’re seeing a little bit of a spike now.”

Jagmeet Singh faced a symptom of that spike last month, when he found himself face-to-face with a heckler who stormed the stage at one of his campaign events and accused him of being “in bed with” Sharia law and the Muslim Brotherhood. Video of the incident has since gone viral.

What happened to Jagmeet then was just one example of what public figures of South Asian descent are commonly subjected to when they step into the limelight. Other politicians with a similar backgrounds can attest to this.

Federal and Provincial Politicians Respond to Ignorance The incidents of racism that public figures from marginalized communities in Canada face are often much less publicized than Jagmeet’s recent encounter.

Campaign signs for politicians of South Asian origin are regularly vandalized with racist messages during

elections in the City of Surrey and elsewhere in Canada. Discussions about South Asian politicians on Facebook and message boards too showcase the very worst of our nation’s thoughts towards these public figures.

Rachna Singh, a member of the B.C. Legislative Assembly for Surrey-Green Timbers who moved from India to Canada in 2001, says that she has dealt with prejudice throughout her career. Often, this racism comes in the form of the perception that she won her seat as a result of her ethnicity, and that she used it to win over the local South Asian community as voters.

“I have seen the layers of racism in everything that I do,” says Rachna.

“The sentiment was, I’m just there because of my colour.”

Harjit Sajjan has faced prejudice throughout his career, both as a politician and as a soldier. He recalls his early days in the military, when several of his commanding officers were hostile towards him for serving due to his ethnicity.

“I’ve been dealing with these things throughout my life,” he says.

“My answer is really simple. It’s to demonstrate what type of behavior is acceptable in Canada.”

Sajjan’s response to racist or bigoted actions was to lead by example— an approach that he today advises young people of colour to adopt. He says that he continued to serve in the military and used his personal success as a way to change minds about South Asian servicemen among the ranks.

“At the end of the day, we can also look at it as: ‘How can we convince this person that everybody, regardless of ethnicity, can be a valued member of society?’” says Sajjan. “Your success is the best revenge for anybody,

and it’s going to change people’s minds eventually.”

Still, many in the South Asian community have seen a spike in racist rhetoric not only online and behind closed doors, but also in public spaces. In the weeks following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, Rachna organised a community forum in her home riding to address what’s been seen by many as the rising tide of racism in North America.

“I’ve lived in Canada for 16 years.

I’ve always felt the subtle racism, but now it is coming out in the open. I’ve never heard of these organisations before who would just come out openly and say something against a particular community,” says Rachna. “A lot of people say that it isn’t happening in Canada. It is happening in Canada.”

Rachna specifically cites an incident that occurred in June, when members of the white supremacist organisation Soldiers of Odin protested outside of a Surrey mosque.

“Some of them approached me and they’re saying, ‘Go home,’ but this is home for us. These are the kids who were born and brought up here,” she says.

Rachna combats these situations by using her platform as a public figure of colour to speak out against hateful and bigoted thought.

“There are some segments who want to create hatred or want to attack multiculturalism. We have to not just sit at home and talk about it,” she says. “We have to get on the streets.

We have to spread this message that this won’t happen in Canada.”

Harjit Sajjan and Rachna Singh both say that it is the job of all Canadians to speak out against racism and stand up for inclusivity, and that it is the job of politicians like them to start

those conversations.

Bridging the Gaps in Local Communities A Statistics Canada report published in June provides evidence that hate crimes in Canada have become increasingly common over the past few years.

The report found that the amount of hate crimes documented by Canadian police rose by 5.2 per cent— from 1,295 to 1,362—between 2014 and 2015. This was “largely attributable to an increase in police-reported hate crimes motivated by hatred of a religion (+9 per cent, or 40 more incidents) or of a race or ethnicity (+5 per cent, or 30 more incidents).”

It further states that “much of the increase in police-reported crimes motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity is due to 23 more incidents against Arabs or West Asians.”

Out of the 13 provinces and territories, B.C. had the fourth highest number of hate crimes committed in 2015 with 164 total, 38 of which targeted religious minorities.

This is alarmingly disproportionate to the size of B.C.’s population, which is about four times larger than the population of Manitoba. Despite this, the number of the hate crimes committed against religious people here in 2015 was almost 10 times higher than it was there.

Though this can appear discouraging, especially for people of colour in the province who become or hope to become public figures, it has not prevented many of them from entering politics and serving their communities.

Despite the fact that he has experienced numerous instances of cultural ignorance and racism, Kwantlen Student Association President Tanvir

Singh says that he is optimistic for Canada’s future.

“There’s a cultural shift happening,” he says, pointing to Surrey as an example of a thriving multicultural community in B.C. “I think that it’s really important for all of us to have friends of different cultures, to get accustomed to other people, and to have that level of acceptance going forward.”

He says that Jagmeet Singh’s response to the heckler last month represents these values of acceptance, specifically when he chose not to react by clarifying that he was Sikh in response to being incorrectly labelled as a Muslim.

“That’s really inspiring to me,” says Tanvir. “I think if somebody was to be racist against me and call me a Muslim, the first thing I would say is, ‘I’m not a Muslim.’ But I think that Mr. [Jagmeet] Singh really puts out a good message … where you’re condemning the violence, not the misattribution.”

He says that working towards cultural acceptance can be a “two-waystreet.”

“There’s kind of a concept in social justice communities where marginalized individuals shouldn’t have to be the ones to educate their oppressors,” he says. “I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that all of the time. I think there are definitely places where people from an oppressive community do need to go out and be the ones learning, but when people are asking sincere questions not meant to hurt or put you down, I think it’s really important for us as a community to come together and help others learn about our own cultures and identities.”

FEATURES 9

Canadian Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan. (Flickr/Jim Mattis)

Surrey - Green Timbres MLA Rachna Singh. (Flickr/BC NDP)

Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. (Flickr/AndrĂŠ Querry)

Kwantlen Student Association President Tanvir Singh.

(Braden Klassen)

10 features

Summoning the Spirits of New Westminster Peer into six of the most haunted places in the city words by alyssa laube | coordinating editor photos by braden klassen | photo editor As one of the oldest cities in Western Canada, it’s no surprise that New Westminster is home to a slew of ghost stories. The Great Fire, a blaze that nearly levelled the area in 1898, helped stoke the rumors that something lurks in the dark corners of the city, and as the years passed, New West became increasingly acknowledged as one of the most haunted areas in British Columbia.

Over a century of supposed supernatural occurrences have taken place within its borders since Queen Victoria affectionately named it “The Royal City” in 1859. Below are six of the scariest spots that ghost hunters from near and far find themselves compelled to investigate.

Fraser Cemetery It’s said that a young woman in a white, Victorian-era dress roams the grounds of the Fraser Cemetery, waving at visitors and directing them towards particular stones in the grass.

Some visitors also report visions of a little boy perched on benches or playing on certain structures, but both of these figures are quick to vanish once seen.

To date, no malevolent hauntings have been documented among the tombstones themselves. The cemetery, however, has a particularly unnerving atmosphere. It was established on Richmond Street in 1869 and many of the people buried there have occupied the cemetery since the early 1900’s, their graves grown over with moss and eroded by harsh weather. Few, if any, still receive visitors.

There is a certain solemnity to most burial grounds, but there’s something more to Fraser Cemetery. What, or whom, that something might be is still uncertain.

New Westminster Secondary School A particularly mysterious case, the legitimacy of the hauntings of New Westminster Secondary School are hotly debated by those who’ve taught or attended class there.

According to legend, a boy drowned in a pool in the basement of the school, beneath what is now known as the Massey Theatre, sometime in the 80s. After his body was found, the school had the pool filled in and started using the basement for storage, building the theatre above it.

Security guards have said that they were frightened by the fleeting spectre of a young boy lying face-down in the basement or standing in the theatre. What’s more, some say they’ve seen orbs of light flitting through the school’s music room, heard a man’s voice shouting from the basement where an archery range once was, or seen a mysterious boy in the woodworking shop, where another child was said to have lost his life.

While many graduates and faculty members attest to the existence of a pool in the school’s basement in the 80s, others argue that there has never been one in the building. Current administration confirms that, at the very least, current staff have no knowledge of a pool there today. Still, some say that they saw the pool with their own eyes before it was filled in near the end of the decade.

If that sounds too scary to be true, never fear; there is a proven fact that would cause any visitor to New Westminster Secondary School to feel uneasy. According to Dianne London, a citizen of New Westminster who attended the school in the 1950’s, over five acres of the building was

New Westminster Secondary School

constructed without proper decommission on top of the Douglas Road Cemetery. Last year, New Westminster Record reported that it was initially used as a pioneer graveyard and eventually became the burial site for prisoners, stillborn babies, mentally ill patients from Riverview, the impoverished, and Chinese, Sikh, and First Nations persons.

Irving House

This ominous structure looms tall and sullen over Royal Avenue, where it now serves as a museum and archive. It was once occupied by the Irving family, with Captain Irving moving there in 1865. The family sold the lot to the City of New Westminster in the 50s, and although their bodies are not physically in the home today, many believe that the Irvings’ presence still lingers there.

Your basic scares, like unexplained noises and movement, are common-

place in Irving House, but some of the apparitions that visitors witness are quite unusual. In the main dining room, the walls appear to shiver and an identifiable voice repeatedly asks for a name to be spoken. Upstairs, the trophies turn to watch passersby. In the master bedroom, where Captain Irving died, an indentation in the mattress is commonly reported.

Walking around Irving House, peering between the lace curtains into dark windows among the rows of

Fraser Cemetery

Irving House

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The Paramount Gentlemen’s Club scarlet flowers outside, it’s hard not to catch a chill. For the brave, tours are held there from 12:00 to 4:00, Wednesdays to Sundays every week.

Bernie Legge Theatre In the grand scheme of New Westminster’s history, this site is relatively new. It has existed for around 50 years but, located underneath a dense canopy of trees in Queen’s Park, has still fallen subject to suspicious and fearful murmurings. In October, bright red Christmas lights line the shingles of the stout building, and caution tape can be seen peeking out of the mud leading up to its doorstep.

Employees past and present attest that three entities frequent the Bernie Legge Theatre: “The Woman in White” who presents herself in the form of blinding white lights darting between the seats, a little boy who kicks the back of the seats, and an old fisherman who can be seen in reflections in the theatre’s lobby and green room.

An anonymous commenter on the Northern Paranormal Investigations’ website, who had been working at the theatre for a year at the time of commenting, claims that there is also a dungeon—more likely, a basement—“where even the most skeptical of people can’t help but feel a sense of great fear.”

“Actresses back in the 80s and 90s have told stories where they felt something grabbing them from behind, like long invisible arms trying to wrap around them. No one ever goes to the theatre alone after dark.

Strange things happen that defy logic and reason all too often. Lights flickering and strange noises are so common, we don’t even pay any attention to those things anymore,” the commenter wrote on Aug. 6.

The Met Hotel A man named George once checked into the 120 year-old Met Hotel, but he never left. At least that’s what the staff at the hotel, who commonly deal

with inexplicable electronic malfunctions such as elevator doors opening and closing without anyone calling for it, believe.

The hotel stands as the second oldest building in New Westminster, and was one of the only structures that survived the Great Fire.

The resident ghoul at the Met was affectionately named “George” by the hotel’s front desk manager, Sean Thomson, who resides in the hotel.

But the staff aren’t the only ones who feel a presence in the building.

During the spring of 2016, an anxious review for the Met was left on TripAdvisor by user RaeWoman.

“This hotel is definitely haunted,” they wrote. “I woke up in the middle of the night with that very clear, distinct feeling, and needless to say, it was very hard to get back to sleep!

It felt like a presence was hovering, standing over beside the bed! Very creepy indeed.”

Upon visiting the Met on a rainy evening, concierge Ocean Mackay admits that “there could be spirits roaming around, because there have been a couple of deaths and it’s so old.”

The only chilling experience she has had is the movement and opening of the elevator without request, although the building’s basement does give her and her coworkers the creeps.

The Paramount Gentleman’s Club Nowadays it’s a no-booze strip club, but not long ago this location was a popular theatre that played host to a sequence in the original adaptation of Stephen King’s It. A dated neon sign bearing its namesake adorns the Paramount, which seems to have a more hair-raising history than most would suspect.

A bouncer at the club, Sam Singh, claims to have come face-to-face with the spirits who reside there.

He is often one of the last people to leave, and has felt several presences during his time at the Paramount.

“I guess my favourite story is this

The Met Hotel one time we went backstage,” he says.

“It was my manager, myself, and one other guy. We heard the chairs move around and didn’t think anything of it, but when we came back around to the floor, one of the chairs had come to the dead centre of the stage.”

He has seen and heard bathroom doors slam shut, sinks turning on on their own, and people running up and down the halls.

“A lot of things move … We sometimes see things that aren’t really there,” he says. “There’s this one area where, every time I go there, I get chills.”

He goes on: “We always see this woman in a white dress standing above us, because there are four separate floors upstairs. At the very top one, from the third floor, we can see on the top one that there’s somebody standing up there staring at us. But when we go there, there’s nobody.”

The woman looks like one of the girls who would be working in the club, Singh says. Recently, he used a Ouija board in the club and believes that he channelled a four year-old boy.

“I don’t like telling this one be-

The Bernie Legge Theatre cause sometimes it’s hard to believe,” he says. “Another coworker of mine heard the chairs move but we were in the front office, so we went into the club to rearrange the chairs again but I turned around and freaked out and was like, ‘What the hell?’ and he saw something too, but we looked under

the table and saw a boy crawling out of it. A little boy.”

According to the staff, the owners were approached by a Canadian paranormal society, but refused to host an investigation.

12 OPINIONS

Canada Still Needs Rick Mercer’s News Commentary Keely Rammage-Scott | CONTRIBUTOR Canadians were dismayed to learn last month that we will be losing a long-standing favourite news commentary show: The Rick Mercer Report. The program has been on the air for 15 seasons and Rick Mercer himself announced that the one currently airing will be his last.

Mercer has spent years entertaining the Canadian population with his comedic take on current events.

Alongside This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Rick Mercer Report has been a staple in the country’s satirical television since 2004. Many will be sad to see him leave our screens.

Countless bits that have aired on his show over the years are widely adored. One of his classic monologues, “Canada Explained,” has gone viral with over 300,000 views on YouTube. Another one of the show’s most popular ongoing segments has been “Talking to Americans,” which puts American knowledge of Canadian history and culture to the test.

Mercer’s on-location segments— during which he would travel to a Canadian location, usually somewhere recently in the news, and involve those passing by or participate in something that was happening there—will be particularly missed.

Of course, there are other popular show hosts that have taken a similar approach to entertainment, such as Jimmy Kimmel’s “Pedestrian Question” segment that notoriously engages the public. The key aspect that sets Mercer apart is his Canadian identity.

Having a figure like him in our media has been important to the reputation and success of our entertainment industry. Over the years, Mercer’s show has resembled a Canadian version of The Colbert Report or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. These are both prominent figures in satirical news media, and it’s rare for Canadian entertainers to receive such acclaim and attention for their work.

For example, American news stations such as CTV or ABC News always seems to seep into our networks. The opposite rarely happens.

Canadians enjoy The Rick Mercer Report because it is a representation of ourselves. He talks about Canadian news and Canadian events while the rest of the world is revolving around the United States. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear someone talk about our country and our news, and it’s sad to see that come to an end.

Whether or not Mercer will be taking on any new projects or heading straight for retirement is still unknown. Whatever the case may be, many Canadians will miss his show.

The final episode of The Rick Mercer Report is set to air on April 10, 2018.

A Message to Whistler Mayor: British Columbia Belongs To All British Columbians Whistler Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden thinks Lower Mainlanders shouldn’t visit on the cheap

JOSEPH KELLER | STAFF WRITER In a recent interview with CBC News, Whistler Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden had a couple of complaints about some of the summer visitors to her little piece of our province, and she specifically singled out day trippers from my little piece of British Columbia.

“We don’t necessarily want people who are coming up for a day, packing a bag with their lunch in it, and not really appreciating the mountain culture that we have,” Wilhelm-Morden told CBC News.

In the same article, Wilhelm-Morden implied that Lower Mainlanders are disproportionately responsible for the trash being left on the trails. But it’s not only that—we’re also guilty of an apparently equally egregious offence: not spending enough money while we’re there.

“We have a significant machine that has to be fed, and if people are driving up to Whistler for the day ... that’s not going to sustain our economy, not by a long shot,” she said.

I’m not certain what Mayor Wilhelm-Morden means exactly by “mountain lifestyle,” but in my mind the words conjure images of the exact type of activity that she’s trying to discourage. As an avid hiker, I picture throwing a sandwich in a bag and heading into the backcountry to take in that stunning B.C. scenery, away from the headaches of the city for a night, or maybe just an afternoon.

For Wilhelm-Morden, “mountain lifestyle” seems to mean staying in her resort town and shelling out for a night at the Westin, dinner at The Keg, and shopping at the resort’s boutiques.

Mayor Wilhelm-Morden’s concerns about trash on the mountains are perfectly valid, just as similar concerns are valid about trash being left on just about every part of this earth where humans have set foot. It’s a sad reality that there are thoughtless people everywhere who somehow never learned to clean up after themselves. I’d be interested, however, to learn exactly how Wilhelm-Morden came to the conclusion that the problem comes disproportionately from the Lower Mainland, because the reasoning stated in the CBC article is flimsy as best.

Let’s address this issue without unfairly assigning blame to a single demographic and agree that littering makes you an asshole whether you’re on a daytrip from Surrey, abroad on a work visa from Australia, or on a tour

group from Hong Kong. Pack out what you pack in. It’s not that hard.

What I most take issue with is that the residents whom the Mayor speaks for seem to have come to the conclusion that they’re owed something from their fellow British Columbians who visit this particular, special part of the province. The truth is that every taxpayer in B.C. has already done their part to support the Whistler tourism economy. The infrastructure that makes the area accessible, the forestry services that maintain the natural beauty, and the 2010 Winter Olympics that helped put Whistler on the international radar were all paid for by provincial tax dollars.

It’s the Crown lands that surround the municipality of Whistler that create the real draw to the area, not the resort town. These lands, like the rest

of this vast and spectacular country, are the birthright of every Canadian.

They are ours to enjoy and protect.

They are not just for the residents of Whistler and certainly not just for those with money to throw around.

I’m about to graduate with a journalism degree, which means I won’t soon earn the kind of money that will make me welcome in Wilhelm-Morden’s Whistler Village. Regardless, the next time I visit I will probably be throwing some food and supplies in a backpack and sleeping in a tent rather than a hotel. Whether I stay for a week or just an afternoon, I promise to take my garbage home with me.

I’m looking forward to it, and I’m not going to feel even a little guilty about it.

Tourists wander around scenic Whistler B.C., a world-renowned winter holiday destination.

(Pixabay/werner22brigitte)

Conservative MP Dianne Watts Could Offer Honesty as B.C. Liberal Leader Watts’ identity and history could be an indicator of her great leadership potential

Sandra hunaidi Conservative MP and former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts announced on Sept. 24 that she will be seeking the leadership of the B.C. Liberals.

When journalist Liberty Craig asked about her political future for Fresh Magazine in 2010, Watts said that she didn’t “play politics.” Based on her political attitude, this means that she shied away from playing games or picking favorites in her political life.

“To get into the muck and mire of a political environment and focus your energy on personally attacking other people is just somewhere I will never go,” Watts said in the interview.

That was seven years ago. Now, she wants to be Premier.

Watts often displays a concern for the well-being of others, and has been in Canadian politics since she won a seat for Surrey City Council in 1996.

She was a dependable and influential Mayor of Surrey for nine years and in 2010 was voted the fourth best Mayor in the world, receiving a World Mayor Prize for her work.

Surrey is the second largest city in B.C. with a population of over 468,000, according to Census Canada. As Mayor, Watts achieved the lowest residential tax rates and business taxes in Metro Vancouver, worked on a Sustainability Charter that guides the city’s approach to social, environmental, cultural, and economical sustainability, and released the Surrey Crime Reduction Strategy, which has become an inspi-

rational model for other cities.

Her dedication to bettering the city can perhaps be attributed to her background in Buddhist practices. In her interview with Fresh Magazine she said that Buddhism holds philosophical appeal to her. In particular, she felt inspired by “the reverence of all human life, compassion for all life,” and the “flow of life” that can guide a person through existence.

This kind of approach to politics makes her an outsider, and she has often turned heads in the political realm. However, her position as an outspoken female Conservative party representative allows her to connect with people from diverse backgrounds and belief systems.

When I asked myself what kind of leader Dianne Watts would be, I

made the mistake of judging her negatively for her association with the federal Conservatives. When I sat down, opened up her political history, and read about who she was, my mind changed.

Her intentions seem clear. In interview she had with The Province just prior to announcing her bid for the B.C. Liberals leadership, Watts said that “You’ve got to stand for something, and it should be limiting taxes and creating jobs.” Historically, she has stood by those same principles, and transparency is usually the last thing you’ll find in a politician.

Watts doesn’t lead with her ego by tearing down her competition, and I think it’s a rare quality that will take her further in the race.

OPINIONS 13

When “No” Isn’t Enough, We Need to Speak Up

The never-ending cycle of misogyny, rape culture, and victim blaming needs to come to an end Ashley Hyshka | Community Reporter I sat aboard the 319 to Scott Road Station as it waited by the side of the road for around 15 minutes one evening before I asked my fellow passengers why we were at a standstill. One lady responded that we were “waiting for a new bus.” I asked another passenger, hoping to find more answers, and soon learned we were waiting for the police because a young woman had been sexually assaulted on the vehicle.

The young woman was pale, and continuously wiped tears from her face. All she seemed concerned with was that she started work at 6:00 pm, and was now running late.

What also concerned me was how loud the second woman I spoke to was, broadcasting the occurrence of this girl’s assault across the bus. The victim was sitting only two seats behind us.

Advertisements on transit often tell us to say something if we see something. Unfortunately, that did little to save the young woman who was victimized aboard the bus. Shockingly, inside of a busy bus on one of the most congested transit routes in Surrey, no one noticed she was being assaulted. Whether it’s ignorance, complacency, or sheer indifference— whatever you want to call it, it still

leads to the same outcome.

People must be vocal against these crimes. When violated, women, men, and children become victims. Only through empathy and understanding can they begin the healing process.

A report by the Government of British Columbia published in 2015 stated that, the previous year, there were 2,959 reported cases of sexual assault offenses across the province.

In 2015, the number of reported sexual assaults jumped by 2.3 per cent to 3,028 cases.

Furthermore, a Global News report stated that “data from a 10-year period from 2005 to 2015 shows that, while over 5,200 sexual assaults were reported across the city [of Vancouver], only one in five resulted in charges, and only 2.9 per cent ended up with convictions.”

Of course, those are only the reported assaults.

According to Statistics Canada, 91 to 95 per cent of sexual assaults are not reported to police. A fear of being revictimized, a distrust of the justice system, and feelings of guilt and shame factor into this abhorrently high rate of underreporting.

I was sexually assaulted in a Saskatoon nightclub over two years ago by a man whose face I don’t remember. Once Donald Trump became the Republican front runner for the presi-

dency last fall, he became the subject of a scandal for saying, on tape, that rich and powerful men can get away with grabbing women “by the pussy.”

That’s when all of my memories of that night came flooding back.

But do you know what I keep blaming myself for? I didn’t verbally say, “No.” I blamed myself, saying that I had been asking for it because I only pushed his hands away during the assault but didn’t tell him “No,” that I was leading him on, and that I was drunk. In my mind, I had convinced myself that, because other women have suffered far more heinous sexual assaults or rapes, that I was not a true victim.

But as I’ve learned, self-blaming, as well as victim blaming, also needs to end.

Do not be passive. Fight like hell and call out misogyny, victim blaming, and rape culture when you see it. If someone had practiced this on the 319, maybe the young woman on the bus wouldn’t have been sexually assaulted. While heading home on the SkyTrain early that evening, all I could think about was how that young woman probably wasn’t going to get any sleep that night.

Our silence equals complacency in this epidemic.

(Epifania Alarcon)

Decolonial Discourse: The Walk for Reconciliation We can walk to reconcile, but can we make the distance to find the truth?

JUSTIN BIGE | CONTRIBUTOR Reconciliation has been talked about a lot in Canada lately, but are institutionally organized public events enough to restore what’s been taken from Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island through the Indian Residential School system?

At the Walk for Reconciliation on Sept. 24, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson announced that Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish flags would hang in Vancouver City Council chambers, and that the route taken in the Walk and the Vancouver Art Gallery would be retitled to have a relevant Indigenous name.

The different levels of government endorse marches and name-changes, performances and apologies, but where is the reparation and repatriation of what has been taken?

Over 50,000 people gathered at the event to march from Queen Elizabeth Plaza to Strathcona Park via the Georgia Viaduct. At the park, a Reconciliation Expo was held with many speakers including Robertson and Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould. As Emilee Gilpin of The Tyee reports, “It was a walk in the park, literally.”

Raybould gave a speech largely about the government’s role in reconciliation through vague acknowledg-

ments of colonization. Back in 2015, she proudly announced that the government would be adopting the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The next year, she called the Declaration unworkable into Canadian law and said it was already covered under Section 35 of the Constitution. There is little integrity to the words Raybould speaks of reconciliation.

As for Robertson, why is hanging the flags of the Indigenous Nations that his city government displaces enough? How about ceding authority of Vancouver back to Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish instead? That way, the three Nations could have their say in what kind of governance is enacted from the room that their flags hang in. A symbolic, token measure by the mayor’s office like this comes with little commitment and no measures of actual, tangible change.

The “initiatives” from Robertson and others are a response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 2014, which, when I first saw it, seemed like it would change everything for Indigenous people in Canada. Since then I’ve been proven sorely naïve.

From watching the Conservative government destroy evidence of the harm of residential schools and prevent investigations into the missing

and murdered Indigenous women and girls to the empty discourse about reconciliation that always seems to forget the truth, it’s hard to see a proper reconciliation happening. In the history books, this will look like a turning point for Canada’s colonial past, while 150 years of that genocidal past is celebrated.

Instead of true reconciliation, the efforts of the mayor and his government turn out to be just another notch of erasure and assimilation, or “Reconsimilation.” We will have to mark down our own story throughout this

time. Our modern-day story of resistance includes fighting for our lands and title against resource extraction giants like TransMountain (Kinder Morgan) pipelines, Imperial Metals mining at Mount Polley, and transnational fish farm companies destroying wild salmon stock. It also includes doing our best to care for our own, like the some 4,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, or those disproportionately living and dying on the streets in Vancouver without adequate social housing or health resources to deal with the

opioid and addiction crisis.

And this barely scratches the surface of the struggles our peoples persevere through today, nor the proud triumphs and resurgence we still achieve. We claim them through our own work, our own activism, our own great strides. Until the government unconditionally supports this work and gives back what they’ve taken, reconciliation can’t happen. It doesn’t matter how many thousands manage to walk two kilometres.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and CEO of Reconciliation Canada Karen Joseph speak at the Walk for Reconciliation on Sept. 24. (Ashley Hyshka)

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After Thought: The “Three Pillars” of Creative Canada

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the future of Canadian content braden klassen | photo editor Canada isn’t exactly known for being a hotbed of cultural activity—a fact that Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly vowed to change when she unveiled the government’s new Creative Canada plan in September.

The plan contains several elements that have the potential to help Canadian artists come together and break into international markets, but many of the ideas are not finalized. This is a problem.

The proposal is organized into three “pillars”: investing in Canadian artists, promoting Canadian Content (CanCon) “discovery and distribution” internationally and at home, and strengthening public broadcasting and supporting local news.

In the first pillar, $300 million will be spent on the development of Creative Hubs, or places where “creators can build their entrepreneurial skills, create, collaborate and innovate.”

The document doesn’t really describe what these could be, or how they would be any different from the methods of learning and opportunities for collaboration that artists already use.

Nothing about this initiative is new.

It sounds like rehashing roles that libraries and social media already play in fostering the creation of art.

In addition, the government will increase investment in the Canadian Media Fund, a private-public partnership that already receives about $130 million per year.

In the second pillar, $125 million of new funding will be allocated over five years for a Creative Export Strategy to boost the sales of Canadian content around the world.

How is this supposed to happen?

Is the government going to purchase 5,582,849 CD copies of Nickelback’s immortal magnum opus All the Right Reasons—which currently costs $22.39 on Amazon—and airdrop them into a bunch of different countries across the globe?

Not really. Apparently, a large part of this plan involves working with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

to develop new models of content distribution that befit the digital age, but these models will not be revealed until June 2018. The Minister also hired “cultural and trade officers” to be embedded in countries abroad, ostensibly to promote CanCon and facilitate business connections. Exactly how Canadian creatives are supposed to utilize any of this is still unclear.

One of the biggest reasons that

Federal Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly. (Flickr/Province of British Columbia)

CanCon struggles to gain popularity in international markets is that, in many cases, nobody actually wants to consume it.

There must be a theoretical limit to how many reruns of The Beachcombers international audiences can stand to watch before they start to beg the government to take back its money and deport the cultural trade officers.

How Creative Canada intends to focus on and evaluate television shows or music with actual export-potential remains to be seen.

The third pillar contains little in the way of financial support for local news publications, and instead is geared towards helping digital news media. This upset a lot of people in print news, who took issue with Joly’s declaration that the government was no longer interested in supporting broken business models.

The biggest jobs of all, reviewing the Canadian Broadcasting Act, Telecommunications Act, and Copyright Act, were basically put off to a later date. Despite all of the unanswered questions, Creative Canada will no doubt help Canadian artists, but its announcement would have been less underwhelming had the government waited until the legal policies regarding CanCon were being overhauled.

Artist Spotlight: No Regrets Music

A KPU Human Resources graduate is one half of an upbeat rap duo dedicated to diversity alyssa laube | coordinating editor Multiculturalism is at the heart of No Regrets Music, a local rap group consisting of KPU Human Resources graduate A.J. “Cliche” Gazdar and his business partner, Marcus “Scoota” Lester.

Born in Mumbai but raised in Vancouver, Gazdar works hard to represent this city in all its diversity through his songwriting. Now a long way from home, Lester came here from Alabama, and brings the musical skills he learned there to No Regrets today.

“We’re trying to put both cities on the map and represent where we are from, who we are,” says Gazdar. “We represent two different styles and two different sounds … When we blend that together, that’s super unique, in my opinion.”

Gazdar was still releasing music with No Regrets when he was going to school for Human Resources at KPU. Now that he’s graduated, he uses that education to give his brand a professional and financial edge in a competitive local scene brimming with talent.

“I’ve always believed that music is a business,” says Gazdar. “At the end of the day, there are things artists have to consider, like monetary funds and a whole bunch of stuff that goes behind it like advertising and marketing. All the stuff that I’ve learned in

school I’ve used in music, which is really a beautiful thing because a lot of [artists] aren’t business savvy.”

“College students can expand their horizons,” he adds. “Just because you got a degree in HR doesn’t mean you can’t make music.”

Being able to be hands-on with their music has gotten No Regrets to high places. Playing shows with headlining acts like Riff Raff, releasing internationally acclaimed singles online, and still managing to stay ac-

tive in the local community are some of the group’s proudest achievements.

“We really want to get our hands dirty in the community because it’s bigger than just us, and if you have a voice and people hear enough, it would be nice for people to be inspired by that,” he says. “If you don’t know how to grow, you can’t get out there, help people, and influence people. Our goal is to do that with our music.”

With those goals in mind, No

Regrets Music is releasing a single called “Non-Believers”—a song that Gazdar says is about “people who don’t really believe in what we do and where we come from”—through social media on Oct. 17. Afterwards, a “really easy-going song for everyone to listen to and vibe to” called “Eye Candy” will go live, with many more singles planned to follow.

No Regrets Music offers a laid back, fun sound while still retaining passionate and relatable messages.

Whether they’re playing at parties, over car stereos, or through your headphones, “Cliche” and “Scoota” are guaranteed to lighten the mood with their catchy beats and one-of-akind style.

To hear the new single or more of No Regrets Music’s work online, you can visit their page @thenoregretsteam.

Rappers “Scoota” (left) and “Cliché” (right) are the members of No Regrets Music. (Submitted)

PROCRASTINATION HOROSCOPES Sagittarius Nov. 23 - Dec 21

Capricorn Dec. 22 - Jan 20

Aquarius Jan 21 - Feb 19

Literal vampire potbelly goblins are hobbling around coming after you. This is not fearmongering. This is really happening.

At first I thought Jupiter was in your sign, but now it’s clear that’s just an out-of-control trashcan fire in a warehouse full of wet, defunctive Furbies.

Mogwai in the streets, Gremlins in the sheets.

Pisces Feb 20 - Mar 20

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20

Tomorrow you will be the victim of wholesale murder by a one man Kung Fu army. Dress accordingly.

I’m telling you now, don’t look under there. There’s nothing to see, it’s just turtles all the way down.

Sure, your opponent may make a good point about how you’re unable to refute any his arguments without crassly attacking his character, but can we really trust the word of a notorious pig filator?

Gemini May 21 - Jun 20

Cancer Jun 21 - Jul 23

Leo Jul 24 - Aug 23

Yeah, no, I’m sure your genitals are SUPPOSED to explode like that.

The moment you entered the room you detected a noxious air, wholly alien to your world of decay and putrefaction. This sickening perfume was called formaldehyde, and it reminded you of your mother.

If you keep using the word “fertile” to describe your cat you will not be allowed back into this Arby’s.

Virgo Aug 24 - Sept 23

Libra Sept 24 - Oct 23

Scorpio Oct 24 - Nov 22

You will take control of a minor, central European dukedom this week.

Beware attacks from your southeastern border and never place your trust in the Teutonic Order.

Dooooooooooooom. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Anyone who disagrees with you is a pawn of the illuminati. You read it in a horoscope so you know it’s true.

SUDOKU

THE DOODLE BOX Last issue’s answers.

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

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

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