Ryerson Free Press April 2009

Pallin Around Spenney talks An in-depth interview with what’s-his-name page 3

Immigration minister says get the hell out page 2

The

DeVryersonian

Volume 1, Issue 1 • The DeVryersonian — Ryerson’s Fully Dependent Student Newspaper since last night • Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Luv and Seks Warning XXX: Dog-on-dog-on-dog-on-dog action page 4

The DeVryersonian — Wednesday, April 8, 2009

NEWS

Page 2

Minister of Immigration says go; Cohen says no, no, no

By Jimmy So-So Bafudo

Jason Spenney, Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has come under fire from civil liberties organisations for the recent deportation order of Sarah Jane Cohen.

Cohen is a former student at the University of Toronto and was deported because she is ‘outrageously anti-Semitic,’ according to Spenney.

Cohen is an activist with the group Against Our Intentions (AOI), an advocacy organisation that works to bring attention to human rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority by agents of the Israeli state.

Spenney told journalists at a press conference held at a dude ranch on March 31 that Cohen’s links to Hamas and support of terrorists is what did her in.

“Canada does not harbour terrorists or terror supporters. People in support of Hamas and Hezbollah and who are anti-Semitic have no right to live in Canada.” He added that with the United States being taken over by an administration that supports terrorism, Canada now has more responsibility to ensure that terrorists are found and deported.

Cohen is of mixed ancestry, which made the deportation order a bureaucratic nightmare for the Ministry. Her mother is Jewish, from Winnipeg, but has family roots in territories that no longer exist in western Russia. Her father is Israeli. Cohen lived in Israel until she was seven.

As such, Kenney has ordered her to be deported to Israel.

“I’m outraged that my government would deport me on the grounds that I’m anti-Semitic,” said Cohen. “I have always stood up against oppression and stateperpetuated abuses committed against the Palestinians but I am in no way anti-Semitic or a terrorism supporter. For example, much of my family and friends are Jewish.

Oh, and so am I.” Spenney doesn’t believe that being Jewish is a defence for being anti-Semitic. “Cohen supports Hamas. She hates freedom,” he said.

When asked if she supported Hamas, her answer was simple: “My husband is named Hammas Juurrgen. It’s Finnish for tooth. He was born with a tooth in his mouth.

I support him because he was re-

Payday loans help students make ends meet Ludicrous interest rates allow RSU to claw its way out of multi-trillion dollar deficit; organization blamed for current global financial crisis

By Georges des Grandspieds

Ryerson students will soon be able to access more money, thanks to the business caucus of the Ryerson Students’ Union.

The caucus, comprised of business students who sit on the RSU board of directors, formed after frustrations over what it referred to a “socialist finance committee that is borderline communist.”

The new service will allow for students to access emergency payday loans to help make ends meet.

“I saw all these payday loans around Toronto and thought that maybe RSU could provide them to Ryerson students. It seemed to be a

silver bullet: students get cash faster and RSU makes enough money to pull itself out of the current deficit,” said Shandan Charma, business director for the RSU. Under the new scheme, students would be able to access payday loans at the Member Services Office. Loan limits would be as high as $20,000, depending on the credit rating of the student. Then, the student would have two weeks until they had to pay the loan back, normally with money that they were expecting through a paycheque or a relative’s death.

Payday loans have been called unethical by many people who oppose the high level of interest that

The Loan Arranger, pictured above, may be coming to get you, if hired by RSU

cently laid off from Chrysler.”

Cohen said that she’s explained this misunderstanding to Spenney’s office before but was called a terrorist.

The National Association for People’s Individual Rights issued a statement calling on the Liberals to end the Conservatives’ “Reign of Terror” and call an election.

“Deporting Jews to Israel for being anti-Semitic is a new low, even for the current government,” said their national director, David Greenan.

Cohen’s mother was sad about the news, but was optimistic about her swift return: “She’ll be at the first sader for Passover this year, you can bet Spenney’s political career on that. We’re a resilient people.”

The National Congress Against Anti-Semitism said that they were in full support of the deportation.

“We finally have a government with enough strength to have zero tolerance for hate in Canada,” said their national vice-president James Stevens. “The faster we can remove anti-Semites from Canada, the safer our country will be.

Cohen is set to be deported on May 1. is usually charged as a result of the loans. The proposal sets the interest rates at 75 percent of the loan principle.

“I think that this is completely unethical,” said current RSU vicepresident finance and services Thomas Blacroad. “I mean, RSU as a loan shark? I don’t know any loan sharks, let alone men who break legs for money.”

He added that the board has forced him to develop a request for proposals to hire a collections agency to follow-up on outstanding loans. “I hope to find a group with business practices that are somewhat above board, but Charma’s motion specifically prohibits me from using the words ‘ethical’ and ‘non-violent.’”

While no members of the board were able to guarantee an outside consultant to help develop the new service, some members who have ties to the Canadian Armed Forces said they knew some people.

“Ya, I know a guy,” said AbShmuel Rainpub. He wouldn’t elaborate.

When asked about the ethical implications of RSU starting such a service, Charma said that there shouldn’t be any concerns.

“In our society, it’s a battle for survival among the strong. Those who are weak, or those who agree to take on a payday loan at 75 percent interest, deserve to have their money removed from them. And besides, the new money will allow for us to offer more bursaries for students who really need money.”

Blacroad argued that instead, the RSU should occupy the office of president Smeldon Levy and make long distance calls on his phone until he agrees to reduce students’ costs.

“There’s a win-win situation. We can offer free long-distance calling for students with families abroad, occupy the president’s office, and engage students as they come in and out of the thirteenth floor of Jorgenson.”

Jason Spenney, pictured above at a party hosted by the Young Tory Club of George Brown College

ATTENTION: Ryerson Community There are many rapists in Toronto, including the area right around Ryerson’s campus. These are almost exclusively men and the vast majority of survivors of this violence are women.

Helpful tips for women’s safety: • Men should stay in their houses, and lock their doors • Men should not walk alone late at night, and stay in populated areas where they can be seen • Men should stay in groups of people they trust to not let them walk off alone • Men should refrain from telling or laughing at sexist jokes, perpetrating violence against women • Men should refrain from attending parties and drinking • Men should refrain from intimidating women • Men should refrain from following women • Men should refrain from putting drugs in women’s drinks • MEN SHOULD STOP SEXUALLY ASSAULTING WOMEN

STOP BLAMING WOMEN FOR RAPE!

NEWS

Page 3

The DeVryersonian — Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Q&A WITH THAT OTHER GUY.............................

A heart-to-heart-to-bottle chat with Pallin Efford

By Gornak Rhobani

Ryerson’s senior administration is normally overshadowed by Smeldon Bevvy, the gregarious advocate for all-things student. His outgoing nature, his motorcycle and his dry wit makes most journalists’ knees melt.

Bevvy takes the lime light most of the time, and his love affair with the Eyeopener leaves little space in the Ryerson media for the Provost, Pallin Efford. But we at the Devryersonian believe that Efford deserves his 15 minutes of fame and sat down with the man to discuss life, Ryerson, his rilvary with Bevvy and his dreams.

D: What exactly does the Provost do?

PE: As the Provost, I consider that question on a daily basis.

D: You’ve been at Ryerson for almost two years now. Have you arrived at an answer yet?

PE: Almost. I do know that I get told what to do by the Senate, sometimes. And I’m the head of the university when it comes to academics.

D: But Smeldon is the real head, right?

PE: Well, yeah. He’s the president.

D: As an academic, you must have loved teaching at some point. Do you ever miss it?

PE: I do, often, but then am snapped out of the serenity of reminiscence when some kid from RSU barges in my office and demands that I split tuition fees.

D: They do have a point, though,

you probably should split tuition fee payments.

PE: So much for unbiased media.

What paper are you from again?

I don’t believe that I should do anything.

D: You used to be at the University of Guelph. That means that you’re either an aggie (someone who studies agriculture) or a hippie (everyone else). Which one is it?

PE: I’m a moderate, so I’m probably an haggie. Or an agppie.

D: How does being an agppie help you in your work at Ryerson.

PE: I don’t understand the question D: Me neither. I think we’re a bit off track. That brings me to your relationship with Smeldon. Do you wish you had his job?

PE: No D: Are you jealous of his sweet ride [his motorcycle]?

PE: No D: Do you think his skillz are better than your skillz?

PE: No. Please stop asking me about my rivalry with Smeldon.

D: Oh, so you admit that there exists a rivalry.

PE: Sure. I have a rivalry with Smeldon. I have a rivalry with everyone.

students. This means that all left for you to love is the faculty, the staff and the buildings. Is it fair to say that out of these, you love the buildings the most?

PE: I don’t think that it is fair to say that at all. I love a lot of things about the buildings, but I think it’s the faculty that I love the most. Ryerson’s faculty are, by far, the most creative men and women I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

D: Including me?

PE: I don’t really know you so…. yes.

D: Wow, you’re really laying it on thick. Is it time to bargain a new contract with the faculty or something?

PE: No, I’m just trying to match Smeldon’s enthusiasm for students with my enthusiasm for faculty.

D: Interesting. In other interviews with the campus press Smeldon takes ownership of loving the

D: It doesn’t sound genuine.

PE: Well I haven’t had my morning shot of scotch.

D: It’s 3:00 pm.

PE: I was joking.

D: Smeldon can get away easier with a joke than you can. Does this make you jealous?

PE: No. D: He once held a Ryerson-wide event at 4:20. Have you ever done anything as ballsy as that?

PE: What’s 4:20?

D: Ok, ok. Tell me a bit about the new academic plan?

PE: Well, we want to take the traditional mandate of Ryerson University and make our hands-on applied classes as world-famous as can be. For example, we’re thinking of amalgamating the faculties of–

Smeldon? Is he in his office much?

I hear he works twenty hours a day.

PE: You cut me off, you punk. Let me finish my beloved speech about the Academic– D: Do you think I can get a picture of him for my desk at the Devryersonian?

PE: [silence] D: Do you?

PE: Get the hell out of my office.

D: I bet Smeldon never says hell. I bet he doesn’t even swear at all.

PE: Get out or I’m calling security.

D: Do you think I can go and meet

Ryerson students asked to vote to increase funds to fledgling library; remove poor students from programme

By Chris-sally MacNeil

At the last meeting of the Ryerson Board of Governors, a motion was served by Sir Henry Applebaum IV and seconded by an unidentified Ryerson Commerce Society member to increase tuition fees to improve Ryerson’s library.

The referendum question will ask students to pay an additional $5366.32 in tuition fees. The money will go to paying for a state-ofthe-art library, where books will be entirely replaced by computers, and robots will be built to serve the wealthiest students.

The referendum asks for students to agree to house the poorest students in the basement of Kerr Hall North. These students will be removed from their programmes and placed in special classes to teach them the value of hard work and etiquette.

“We’re pretty happy with this motion,” said Rick Von Slobar, a fourth-year business management student and former representative of the RCS. “We’ve been trying

to rid our programme for years of riff-raff. How can we be taken seriously by high society when we have a Ryerson degree these days?

It’s impossible. This motion is exactly what is needed to bolster the reputation of our school.”

Smeldon Bevvy, president of Ryerson, was vague but witty in his interview about this increase. “We weren’t completely sure that students would be in favour of such a fee increase. When Sir Applebaum brought it forward to our board, I thought ‘oh god, those Drop Fees people are going get to our student representatives and cause a stir.’

Thankfully that didn’t happen, and our hopes and dreams of a new mega-super library are coming to fruition.”

He added that option A, grabbing students by the ankles and shaking them upside-down, was amended to instead be an actual vote.

The upcoming referendum is posing some ethical issues for some students. Sara Thompson, a firstyear sociology student was surprised and confused when asked.

“They’re going to do what? I don’t understand. Don’t we pay too much already? I’m kind of poor, am I going to be taken out of my class?” she asked. There were no answers available to any of her questions.

While a referendum on increasing fees, if passed, will undoubtedly force some students who cannot afford school to drop out, Bevvy is not worried about enrolment for the new programme in Kerr Hall North.

“Enrolment is booming in the Greater Toronto Area,” he said.

“There isn’t a doubt in my mind that less-well-off students will enrol to learn valuable life skills.”

Sounds of champagne being uncorked, high fives and blissful screams were heard coming from the second floor desk of the library just after the referendum was announced on Infoline. “We can finally hire robots!” was shouted from the back of the book drop-off area.

Any student who wishes to lead a YES committee should contact the CRO. Students interested in the NO committee will be given the runaround and tried under Ryerson’s Non Academic Code of Conduct.

The vote will take place on April 7 from 12:00 am to 2:00 pm on the third floor of the library. The CRO explained that this is to allow for those students who use the library most to be able to access the vote.

The DeVryersonian — Wednesday, April 8, 2009

NEWS

Exams moved to Rogers Centre

Godspeed, Rebecca

Blue Jays forced to use Christie Pits ballpark, fans not concerned

By Dusty Lebron-gretzky

Exam season is nearing and students are appearing on campus allthrough the night as they make up for slacking off this past semester.

What many of them have not yet heard is that Ryerson has again changed the location for final exams.

“Due to the pressures on our budgets and our sadistic love of watching students suffer, Ryerson’s Senior Administration has decided to move all exams out of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and over to the SkyDome,” said a press release sent from the Director of the Provost’s office.

Ryerson moved exams to the MTCC two years ago to ensure that massive tiered lecture halls would continue to dot Ryerson’s campus, rather than build classrooms that are conducive to exam writing.

“I’m pretty pumped for exams this year,” said Joshi Rana, a second-year aerospace engineering student. “Like, I mean, if I stay long enough, I’ll probably be allowed to watch the Jays play, right?” Beside Rana was Chris Bonik-James who shared Rana’s optimism: “Will there be concessions salesmen? Can I buy beer throughout my exam?”

Page 4

Moving exams to the SkyDome does have some downsides. Morag Chu said that she was afraid that writing an exam in such an intimidating atmosphere would be difficult: “There’s something about writing an exam in a room with 6500 other students that’s overwhelming.

I mean, if we need to go to the bathroom, we’ll lose like 25 minutes of exam writing time.”

There’s also the issue of cost.

Right now, Ryerson pays the MTCC $18,000 a day to host exams there.

To rent the SkyDome for two weeks is going to cost Ryerson $1.2 million dollars.

“We got a deal, actually,” said Dionne School-Man, Director of the Provost’s office. “We were thrilled to see that in Ted Rogers’ will, he granted us a 15 percent reduction in rent should we want to use the SkyDome for such purposes. How can you say no to that?”

The plan is to fit 6,500 students in hundreds of rows to write as many exams as possible. In some cases, students will be handed two separate exams and asked to write them both in five hours.

Ryerson also plans to hire 120 students to guide other students to-

wards the SkyDome so as to avoid confusion on the morning of their exams. Students will be equipped with orange vests and paid in Tim Horton’s dollars for their services, redeemable at only on-campus Tim Hortonses. They will also be instructed to point toward the CN Tower if anyone gets lost on their way south.

Each student hired will be given an extra-large bright orange t-shirt.

“We will ensure that this transition will be smooth,” said SchoolMan. “No student will get lost trying to navigate our new space. Unless, of course, they find themselves at the 500s level. Then we can’t help them.”

Students are being advised to plan to be an hour early to ensure enough time to go through security, purchase the necessary nachos and hot dogs and find their assigned desk. Students should not bring bags, coats, pencil cases, sweaters, bottles of water that are not Dasani or backpacks.

Late students will be asked to wait for the first inning to finish before they find their seats.

“I’ve found the Lord and I plan to follow his directions,” was written on a note taped to the doors of the DeVryersonian on March 28, 2009.

It was the only reason given for the departure of their dedicated editor-inchief Rebecca Lanovsky-Grarson.

Her desk had been cleared out.

Only a pamphlet for the George Galloway event on March 31 was left in one of the drawers with a heart drawn around Galloway’s face.

Lanovsky-Grarson led the DeVryersonian through very difficult times.

Staff writer Samera Sameer remembered Lanovsky-Grarson fondly.

“She was always carrying around newspapers and inviting me to coalition meetings of one sort or another.”

She added that it was it was LanovskyGrarson’s sense of style that always made Sameer smile.

Euphora Delisle, a former features editor, was surprised to hear that Lanovsky-Grarson left for religious reasons.

“She was so passionate about social justice. I wonder who got to her.”

Delisle suggested that she may be going abroad to undertake missionary work. “I know that she lived in Guatemala a few years ago. Maybe she just decided that there was more work to be done there in God’s name than in Toronto for the anti-war movement? I don’t really know.”

Her fellow editor-in-chief at the Eyeopener remembered LanovskyGrarson in a different way: “Oh, you mean that girl who edited that other

paper at Ryerson? She found who? I always thought she was a pagan.”

Lanovsky-Grarson’s departure is being celebrated by the Ryerson Young Tories club.

In a press release sent to the National Post and carbon copied to the Canadian University Press, Ryerson Young Tories President, Ryan Sneebly wrote “We welcome the news that the DeVryersonian’s editor-in-chief, Rebecca Lanovsky-Grarson is finally leaving. We hope to be active in the hiring process and stack our membership in high-ranking positions there, finally removing that paper from the grips of social justice and communism.”

“This will help us satisfy our political masters, to whom we look for guidance and employment,” it signed off.

Ryerson’s Students for Evangelical Missions, International, also welcomed the news. “We know that Lanovsky-Grarson is well-respected in the activist community for her hard-work and dedication,” said Gunther Van Oosteen, the group’s vice-president.

“These traits will be a benefit to our movement, and we can’t wait for her to get to work.”

The DeVryersonian attempted to contact Lanovsky-Grarson through Facebook, to no avail. When trying to contact her brother and best friend, Evo Lanovsky-Grarson, he could not be found. Only Moses LanovskyGrarson appeared in our search.

Split Tuition Fees split over split vote on splits Banana splits unanimously delcared to be delicious, win vote by landslide; lactose intolerant people upset

By Shari Sheri-Shori

Students fighting for Ryerson’s administration to “Split Tuition Fees” were disappointed today over a misunderstanding at a party thrown by Smeldon Bevvy.

On March 30 in the lower HUB, Bevvy threw a party called “Splits for Lower Tuition.” Several hundred students attended from Ryerson’s Drop Fees coalition in hopes of hearing that Ryerson was finally going to agree to divide tuition fee payments into two parts to better reflect the distribution of OSAP. Instead, students were floored by what the event actually was.

“I’ve never seen such an old guy do such great splits,” said Sandra Berhnard a third-year Occupational and Public Health student. “I mean, I knew Smeldon was young at heart, but I would have never guessed he was this flexible.”

Bevvy and a team of volunteers from Student Services had hoped that the party would attract enough students to break a Guinness world record: the highest number of splits performed in a university cafeteria at once. The record followed a recent

attempt of Ryerson’s Student Services to provide the lowest amount of service to the highest number of students; they were defeated by administrators at the University of Toronto.

“After the loss to U of T, we knew we needed to find another record to win, one that they couldn’t match,” said Evelyn Same-Vaater, vice-provost for student engagement and retention.

“When we heard that the kids were all asking for more splits, we though, perfect! There’s no way U of T can do more splits than us in a university cafeteria. They don’t even have anything close to the size of our beloved HUB.” If the record is broken, Ryerson will be awarded $50,000 from the International Federation of Ridiculous Records (IFRR).

“That money will go directly to lowering tuition for all students by $0.73,” said Same-Vaater from the floor in a perfect Chinese split.

The campaign to split tuition fee payments was started by Daisy Chewbecca after receiving over 1,500 phone calls from an angry parent about Ryerson’s policy of making students pay tuition fees in a lump

sum in September. She started crying at the site of senior administration doing the splits.

“As a former dancer, I was most angry that many of their back legs weren’t straight. As an activist, I was confused as to how Senior Administration could have gotten our campaign so wrong.”

Chewbecca said that despite this misunderstanding, they will continue to fight to split fees, under the banner: “Split our Fees not your legs.”

Bruce La Fond and Dr. Henry Chrispymountain, present on behalf of the IFRR said they needed to send photos of the event to the international referee before they could declare Ryerosn’s attempt at the record a success.

“They’re actually competing with a March break event that occurred recently at McMaster University. The cafeteria there was filled with young gymnasts doing great splits. The average age here, though, makes this event special. It must be closer to 52, where they were all between 9 and 14 years old,” said La Fond.

Chrispymountain added that Ryerson’s intention to donate the money back to students was especially heart-

warming. “Bevvy is a regular Mother Theresa, you know.”

Ryerson’s Security Services was on hand for any emergency situations that could have occurred during the event. They only first aid administered was from a member of the senior administration to revive a Ryerson First Responder who went into a forward split and then proceeded to faint.

In the absence of knowing whether or not the day was a success, Bevvy gave credit to himself for bringing school spirit to Ryerson.

“Since the dark ages of Rye High,

few events have managed to put us on the map like this one,” he said.

“I really hope we win the record because I sacrificed my favourite pair of Henry Rosen pants for this.

Henry gave these to me himself. He said, ‘Smeldon, these are very nice pants. Don’t even think about doing the splits in them.’ I unfortunately got too excited to change, and indeed, I ripped the crotch. Please don’t report on this cause Henry’s going to be pissed,” he said.

The university refused to comment on whether or not they will go ahead an split tuition fees for fall 2009.

NEWS

Page 5

The DeVryersonian — Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Luv and Seks Spring is a time of love. People everywhere feel the need to seek love in new and exciting ways to shake off the dreariness of winter.

In honour of this, the DeVryersonian has compiled the wildest Luv and Secks issue of all time: Animal Styles.

We set out to out-raunch the raunchiness of our fellow campus papers and so we say to you: behold! You will never censor the vulgarity of our dirty, dirty minds. We are the campus press. We are untouchable.

We expect to offend you. Don’t even think about bringing this is-

sue home to mom and dad. They’ll ground you.

It’s the DeVryersonian’s Luv and Secks 2009.

Please direct all praise and complaints to luvandsecks2009@devryersonian.ca Wet n’ wild...look at that dolphin’s smile.

These guys are always hard.

“Am I coming on too strong, kid?”

You have to get clean before you get dirty.

Twins on twins, doggie style.

Does this even need a caption?

Interspecies action-better not get pregnant.

“Your breath tastes like nuts.”

BBSs (Big beautiful seals).

NEWS

The DeVryersonian — Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Page 6

Transcript of ryerson Student’s union annual general meeting TRANSCRIPT OF RYERSON STUDENT’S UNION AGM

Wait. There’s no motion to call the question on, and you can’t just make people leave!

break for... uh... prayers! That’s right, who can argue with prayers!

Because the secretary of the RSU Annual General Meeting was busy on Facebook during the meeting, the Ryerson Free Press took the liberty of preparing a transcript of the meeting for those who couldn’t make it.

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Why not? They are just students, it’s not like their votes are important.

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) Point of information. I can!

CHAIR Order. I call this meeting to order.

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Point of order. Just practicing for later.

CHAIR First on the agenda is that we have to decide on the agenda.

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) I call the question.

CHAIR OK, let’s go over the minutes from the old meeting.

Can someone read them out?

SECRETARY Item one. Previously, on Melrose Place....

DANADS HOUSSEIN (Team Freedom) Point of Order. I actually prefer Days of our RSU. SNAIDU SNAFU (Team Freedom) Point of information. Toby didn’t buy a pony for any of our events. I move that Toby buy ponies for the RSU. REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) I call the question.

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Wait. Before everyone votes, let me shoo some people out so that we don’t have quorum.

CHAIR

CHIA-WHITFIELD (Team Justice) I move to do everything at once.

ROD DEVRYIUS (Team Justice) Rebecca needs a break, so I’ll call the question.

SNAIDU SNAFU (Team Freedom) Wait, we had two whole tables leave, we can’t have quorum anymore.

CHAIR Well, we do. I had to use BOTH hands to count you guys. All in favour of no more counting?

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Point of order. I lost the last vote. That’s out of order, right?

DANADS HOUSSEIN (Team Freedom) I vote against anything Rebecca Rose votes in favour of.

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) Oh yah? Well point of information... I vote against anything YOU vote in favour of!

CHIA-WHITFIELD (Team Justice) Are we still talking about ponies?

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Point of order. We didn’t tell enough people to leave, so I’m losing votes.

SNAIDU SNAFU (Team Freedom) If we take a break, more people will leave!

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) That’s genius. Point of break! I move that we

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) Point of I HATE YOU! Nobody puts Osman in the corner! << Fire alarm sounds >> CHAIR Point of fire alarm! Stop arguing and evacuate!

EYEOPENER REPORTER I was trying to pretend I’m too cool for this meeting but it seems to be more interesting now.

RYERSONIAN REPORTER Oh dear, my professors might not like if I have to stay up late for this meeting.

Point of order! She can’t call a question when we don’t have quorum, and I’m going to leave to make sure we don’t have quorum.

CHAIR But if you leave we still have quorum.

SGT. SNOBAR SMITH (Team Freedom) Well, nobody said you needed to count to be a success in the military.

CHANDAN CHARMER (Team Freedom) Point of bankruptcy!

CHAIR Does anyone know what the rules even are?

SECRETARY You’re the chair... isn’t it your job?

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) I move the RSU joins the Stop the War Coalition!

RUtv REPORTER uh.... I lost my voting card. Can I use yours, Free Press Reporter?

DANADS HOUSSEIN (Team Freedom) Oh yeah? I move we join the Canadian War Lord Alliance!

GEORGIO PHEW (Team Freedom) Point of quorum! There are people here who aren’t supposed to be!

COMMUNITY SERVICE GROUP COORDINATORS Can somebody move that we get paid more for our work?

RFP REPORTER Are you talking about me?

DANADS HOUSSEIN (Team Freedom) No, he’s talking about all the other students. He’s mad they aren’t voting his way.

CHAIR Uh, guys? Fire alarm.

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) I call the question!

SGT. SNOBAR SMITH (Team Freedom)

OSMEN HUMID (Team Freedom) This meeting is ridiculous, and I’m going to conveniently ignore that it’s partially because of me. I move that we adjourn.

CHAIR Anyone second the motion?

REBEKAH ROSEY (Team Justice) I call the question.

CHAIR Good enough for me. Meeting adjourned.

The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Studies at Ryerson University www.ryerson.ca/ce

s

know were your money goes

less money in your wallet

apr

2009

Semester winds down, activism heats up at Ryerson

8

april 2009 ryerson free press

news

NEWS Is Gerard Kennedy worth $124,615.38 to Ryerson?

The Ontario Government released its list of public sector employees who earned more than $100,000 in 2008. MP Gerard Kennedy was an unlikely addition to Ryerson’s list of the highest rollers NORA LORETO NEWS EDITOR

Amount in Canadian Dollars

Median after-tax income of single elderly female, waged

Ontario Median After-Tax Income of Single-parent households

Median after-tax income of canadian Families

Sandra Hart

Gerard Kennedy

Scott Clarke

Diane Pimer

Ken Jones

Linda Grayson

Sheldon Levy

day. That is just under $100 an hour.

“I was paid less than I have been for other work I’ve done, less than I make in government,” said Kennedy.

Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure 2009 was released He added that he did not negotiate his salary, that it was on March 31 and, despite its timing right before April Fools Ryerson’s offer he accepted.

Day, many of the salaries listed were no laughing matter.

While at Ryerson, Kennedy gave three guest lectures, Among Ryerson’s top-paid administrators, faculty and staff worked with undergraduate and graduate students on was former Liberal leadership contender and current Mema variety of projects and started to develop a centre for ber of Parliament for Parkdale - High Park Gerard Kennedy.

Canadian enterprise with other universities. He also repFor 2008, Kennedy’s salary was $124,615.38, despite only working at Ryerson for eight months. The original announce- resented Ryerson in a number of meetings and delivered ment of his appointment indicated that his term would be fin- remarks on behalf of Ryerson to several groups in Canada and in the Ukraine and Israel. ished on September 4, 2008. By coincidence, this happened His contract was renewed in summer 2008, but conto be only days before the federal election was called.

Had Kennedy worked every weekday from January to Sep- tained a clause that said it would be terminated upon the commencement of a federal election. The election was tember, with benefits, he would have made $738.04 dollars a called on September 7.

During that election, KenPUBLIC SECTOR SALARY DISCLOSURE nedy unseated New Demo“Different people have different costs associated to them…If you want to get people who have cratic incumbent Peggy a reputation, it has a cost. He had a market value and had other options.”

Nash by just over 3,000 —Ken Jones, Ryerson’s Dean of the Faculty of Business votes.

“My only regret is the sudden call of election,” he said. Despite the end of his contract, Kennedy said that he’s continued to work on finishing some projects through the fall of 2008 and winter of 2009.

Ken Jones, the Dean of the Faculty of Business was pleased with both Kennedy’s contributions to Ryerson and with the network of people he built around the Faculty. “He helped brand us in a new set of communities,” said Jones, adding that Kennedy’s left-of-centre approach to business pro-

Ryerson Women’s Centre hosts Womyn of Colour Day Huda Assaqqaf On March 3, the Ryerson Women’s Centre, a Community Service Group of the Ryerson Students’ Union, along with the York Federation of Students hosted a movie and discussion event for women of colour. It was meant to be a lead-up event in preparation of celebrating International Women’s Day weekend on March 7.

The event was well attended, with a primarily female audience, who gathered on the second floor lounge of the Student Centre.

Together they watched and discussed two movies. The first was Stolen Sisters, a film on missing Aboriginal women in Canada. The second, The Souls of Black Girls, is a documentary about media’s depiction of black women and self-image disorder.

“I am a woman of colour and I came

to meet with other women to discuss mainstream depictions of women power and connect with other students in Ryerson” said Natalie, a first-year Master’s of Social Work student at Ryerson.

Natalie along with other students has shared similar views on the hyper-sexualisation and injustice geared towards women of colour in Western culture and also emphasized that if change is to happen it should start within each woman to dispose of the ‘self-image disorder.’

‘Self image disorder” is a medical term that refers to women who are constantly changing their looks to look thin and pretty like the images they receive from media and are unhappy with who they believe they are.

Labelling the phenomenon in medical terms shocked some students watching The Soul of Black Girls. Many people

present called this a typical American way of sorting things into medical categories to be able to look for a treatment when the issue is social.

This event was also a follow-up to the ongoing Stolen Sisters postcard campaign of the Canadian Federation of Students’ National Aboriginal Caucus.

The statistics are based on the report by Amnesty International which concludes that Aboriginal women are more than twice as vulnerable as other women in North America to face violence and segregation.

“This is an important event that draws attention to different communities and colours to discuss issues faced by women of colour and give a networking opportunity on campus in a good space of support” said Kiera Chion, education coordinator of the Women’s Centre.

vided a needed balance to the Faculty.

Jones said that Kennedy worked three to four days a week, met with students, provided counsel to Jones himself and made linkages across other faculties.

“His view is that entrepreneurship should be applied to government, not-for-profits, business and social organisations… from my point of view, that’s an important message,” said Jones.

When Tania Hassan, Vice-President of Student Rights for the Continuing Education Student Association of Ryerson (CESAR), was told about the salary, she was shocked.

“When President Sheldon Levy speaks about there not being enough money for infrastructure, but they can find the money to pay someone for eight months of work – that’s ridiculous,” she said.

Kennedy was the only Professor of Distinction on the list of salaries over $100,000.

When asked if he felt that his salary was too high, he asked, “Was there value received? The University said yes, there was” and added that he believed that his work led to tangible benefits for students and that Ryerson will see good things arise as a result of his work.

Jones was not part of the discussion of salary for Kennedy. He said that it was an institutional decision, rather than a decision of the Faculty of Business.

“Different people have different costs associated to them… If you want to get people who have a reputation, it has a cost. He had a market value and had other options,” said Jones.

In total, 548 faculty and staff at Ryerson made over $100,000 in 2008. President Sheldon Levy topped the list with a combined salary and benefits of $391,217.00.

Right after him was Vice-President University Advancement, Adam Kahan who made $369,730.66.

There are 59 more people making over $100,000 than last year, up from 489.

“Why are students’ backs being broken to pay these high salaries?” asked Hassan, also a part-time student in the School of Social Work. “I’m working two jobs just to stay in school. It’s ridiculous… it’s ridiculous.”

april 2009 ryerson free press

news

Without enough people to hold a legal meeting, RSU directors try to push through health plan contract A first hand narrative of one of the last RSU board meetings of the year

Annual General Meeting moved into the engineering building after the fire alarm was pulled.

NORA LORETO NEWS EDITOR The meetings of the Ryerson Students’ Union have, somehow, continued to degenerate into a chaos that the organisation has never before seen. Certain aggressive board members dropped to a new low where bullying, shouting and inventing rules became the norm.

I half expected to see a pig’s head on a pike à la Lord of the Flies.

The emergency meeting held on March 30 was called by Osman Hamid and Dana Houssein primarily to consider an emergency motion to sign a health plan contract before March 31. The motion left the appointment blank, to be amended on the floor of the meeting.

Health Plan contracts are high stakes for students’ unions. For-profit brokers can stand to make millions of dollars off a single contract. For example, when RSU signed the last contract with Gallivan and Associates, they were effectively guaranteeing the company over $800,000 in profit. That’s because the firm built commission rates into their five-year contract and, having once successfully sued the RSU for tens of thousands of dollars, there was little chance that the RSU would break the contract again.

At the RSU Semi-Annual General Meeting in the fall, students passed a motion directing the RSU President, Vice-President of Finance and Services and Executive Director of Operations and Services to conduct a tendering to select a health and dental plan broker for next year. The process is still on-going.

Despite this, however, Hamid and Houssein ignored the motion passed

by RSU’s members, subverted the process and called Monday night’s meeting. They even brought a lawyer with them. Flora Poon, called to the bar last year, would not disclose by whom she was retained or why she was there.

Toby Whitfield, Vice-President of Finance and Services, chaired the meeting. He ruled the motion to appoint a health and dental insurance broker was out of order because it violated both the motion passed at the SAGM (a higher decision-making

body) and because it would put the organisation at risk of litigation as the process hasn’t yet finished.

His ruling was challenged, but upheld. After two-and-a-half hours directors who felt the motion was inappropriate, left the meeting in disgust.

In the chaos that ensured, the remaining board members demonstrated either a complete lack of knowledge of proper process or a total disregard for any democratic standards.

This was best illustrated by a motion that was served to totally suspend the rules. Not a specific rule, but all the rules. Not surprisingly, such a manoeuvre is not permitted in Robert’s Rules of Order or the bylaws of the RSU. Despite this, Hamid, supported by Hussein, Abdul Snobar and Chandan Sharma, argued that they needed to suspend the rules in order to allow them to re-submit the health and dental plan motion that was already determined to be out of order. When Whitfield ruled that there were no provisions to suspend the rules, Hamid and friends none the less declared all rules to be suspended.

Whitfield left 9:28 pm in protest and with him, quorum. Without quorum, the meeting could not officially continue.

Quorum is defined in the bylaws of the RSU as being 50 percent plus one of the directors on the board. This is the minimum number of people who must be present in order to hold a meeting.

Hamid declared that, according to the RSU bylaws, Sid Naidu, VicePresident of Student Life and Events, is the next in-line to chair the meeting (they don’t actually say that). After arguing between each other, Naidu assumed the role of chair.

“Really, what are you guys trying to do?” Naidu asked Hamid and Snobar.

“We’re trying to suspend the rules so we can add something onto the agenda ‘cause we want to add another motion to the agenda so we need to suspend the rules,” was Snobar’s response.

Naidu asked if there was any opposition to suspending the rules. With only their allies remaining, no one

was left to oppose it. Naidu was reminded that a proper motion should be moved and seconded. Hamid moved to suspend the rules, Snobar seconded, and the motion was passed unanimously.

So, without rules, without quorum, with some directors doing homework away from the table, and without a competent chairperson, the remaining directors forged forward with their agenda.

The discussion may as well have been in Snobar’s basement.

The dismissed motion was readded to the agenda with a minor amendment to differentiate it from the previous one that had been ruled out of order. Hamid confessed that it was essentially the same motion.

Naidu read the motion out and asked if everyone was in favour.

Everyone raised their hands. Hamid moved and Houssein seconded an amendment to re-appoint Gallivan and Associates as RSU’s health and dental plan broker for next year.

When it was asked if they had quorum, Hamid told the secretary to ensure that all references to quorum be removed from the minutes.

Hamid motivated his preference for Gallivan and Associates. No one asked any questions. Hamid didn’t circulate the plan, the cost or the other bids. He didn’t say whether or not Gallivan was the cheapest, most expensive or in the middle of the group of brokers who bid on the plan. He didn’t mention their profit margin, promises of improvements or even the amount that would be charged to every RSU member for their health and dental plan. He didn’t mention that he had no authority to look at the proposals, let alone make a recommendation.

Hamid lost two elections last year and got elected last-minute to represent Student Groups at a vote of close to 60 people. During the recent RSU election, which he ran for vice-president of finance and services he lost by the largest margin, 664 votes. He was re-elected by 32 students on April 8 to represent RSU Student Groups.

Had this decision been the purview of twelve board members, in this case Sid Naidu, Femi Lawson, Waseem

Bangash, Aisha Nofal, Chandan Sharma, Abdul Snobar, Dana Houssein, Mohammed Malik, George Phu, Ken Chadha, Mohsin Mehboob and Osman Hamid, a $4-million contract of student money would have been unilaterally re-awarded to Gallivan and Associates.

Because of the litany of procedural irregularities, however, this decision will remain a personal one, and not of the RSU.

RSU ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING: THE HIGHS AND LOWS The Highs:

RSU created a new sustainability committee. This will go nicely with the sustainability commissioner created at the last annual general meeting.

More than 100 students stayed from 6 to 11 pm despite procedural motions that stalled the meeting.

This was the longest RSU AGM in anyone’s memory.

The Events and Entertainment committee is now opened for general student participation.

After the fire alarm was pulled, the meeting was relocated on the Lower Ground level of the Engineering Building where students sat on the floor and continued the meeting.

The Lows:

Osman Hamid at the Annual General Meeting.

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“Really, what are you guys trying to do?” Naidu asked Hamid and Snobar.

“We’re trying to suspend the rules so we can add something onto the agenda ‘cause we want to add another motion to the agenda so we need to suspend the rules,” was Snobar’s response.

The fire alarm was pulled, allegedly by someone connected to the meeting. This was the second time at an AGM in two years.

Board members refused to be counted towards quorum so the meeting would end despite the fact that they remained present away from the meeting.

Board members spoke ad nauseam and monopolized the microphones as a tactic to waste meeting time and ensure no motions were debated.

“Shut your fucking mouth” yelled by a male Board member to a female student.

9

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april 2009 ryerson free press

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Drop Fees, Childcare and Having Fun CESAR hosts its Annual Meeting and elects six new board members Morgan Dunlop “We’ve been working with students across the campus and across the country to make students’ voices more active, not only on their own campuses but at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill,” said Gail Alivio at the Continuing Education Student Association of Ryerson’s (CESAR) annual meeting on Tuesday March 23.

“We are always linking with social justice campaigns and working for student rights,” added vice-president of programming and outreach, Mohammed Ali Aumeer. “And we’re always having a good time.”

Alivio highlighted several achievements made by CESAR over the past year including banning bottled water from their meetings, renovating the CESAR office (complete with offices for staff and a counter that is accessible for students who use mobility devices) and rallying around social justice movements.

Vice-President of Finance, Jeremy Salter, explained that a significant amount of money that could have been lost during the economic crisis was saved through choices made about CESAR investments. Salter also highlighted the fact that an increasing number of students have applied for the Continuing Education (CE) bursaries, which are offered at the beginning of each semester.

The executive members however weren’t only speaking about facts and figures. Passion ran high that Tuesday night.

“It was on one of the coldest days of the year when antichoice groups came to campus,” said Aumeer.

“But we stayed strong and we said ‘No, it’s a women’s right to choose.’ We want a safe space for women and their rights.”

Aumeer went on to speak about some of his efforts, including the anti-war movement on campus and with Students in Solidarity with Gaza.

Tania Hassan, Vice-President of Student Rights, explained that CE students are able to refuse submitting essays to turnitin.com. She also spoke about the various social issue initiatives CESAR has taken part in of late, including the Task Force on Anti-Racism, which launched on February 18, David Suzuki’s stop at Ryerson as part of the Students for Sustainability Tour and the newly formed Childcare Coalition which seeks to provide childcare on campus for student-parents.

Looking forward, Alivio believes their biggest challenge is getting CE students more involved on campus. This is no small feat, as over 70 percent of CE students work upwards of 30 hours per week, on top of taking classes.

In an effort to leap over this hurdle, CESAR has been encouraging students to start new groups that will interest a wider variety of their students. Aumeer spoke about several of these new initiatives including Folio, whose mission it is to produce an annual magazine directed at CE students.

Then came the main event as ten CE students highlighted their particular talent and vision in an effort to secure one of the six two-year spots on the CESAR board of directors.

In the coming weeks those elected will be able to run for a spot on the executive if they wish (meaning a title, some

cash and a heap of added responsibility).

Each of the six new board members bring different talents and will surely inject some fresh ideas into the ever evolving CESAR. Alivio is excited about the new faces and the rapid shift that CESAR has already undergone. “When I got involved, we were just starting to change the organization,” said Alivio.

“We used to be very right-wing, and under the wing of Ryerson’s administration. We’ve really turned this around,” she said, citing their membership to the Canadian Federation of Students and their aggressive Drop Fees campaign as examples.

“When there was Islamaphobic graffiti a few years ago, CESAR didn’t take a stance. That would be unheard of by this board of directors.”

Alas, that Tuesday afternoon wasn’t only about new members, there will also soon be a shift in leadership.

Alivio will be stepping down as president and joining the ranks of the other board members. If the next president of CESAR is looking for tips, Alivio said her biggest hurdle was accepting the responsibility.

“To be advocating for 16,000 people while I’m at the table with Sheldon Levy was overwhelming at times,” she said. “But it was a challenge that I really took to heart.”

She also explained that her biggest concern is hearing from continuing education students, “Whether they write the executive an email or come to our office, we want to hear from them. We want to make sure that we are really representing what our members want.”

The six new members of CESAR’s board of directors are (drum roll please…)

Frank Nyitray (for one year) What he brings to the table: In a word: passion. Outreach coordinator for RyeAccess and strong advocate, Nyitray’s enthusiasm for equal access was contagious.

“My goal,” said Nyitray, “is to be part of a team that can continue to advocate on behalf of people without access and people who are marginalized and to make sure that nobody misses the chance to be here right now, doing what we’re doing, because we know that education should be the number one focus.”

Daniel Vandervoort What he brings to the table: A student in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Certificate and previous CESAR board member, Vandervoort traveled to Ottawa to lobby the government to reduce student debt. He has also created links with the Asian Students Association in Manila, Philippines as he gained support there for the November 5th 2008 Day of Action from the Asian Union of Students.

Vanessa Holroyd What she brings to the table: Part-time student in the Early Childhood Education programme, Holroyd’s platform centres around two main proponents: the Drop Fees campaign and the Childcare Coalition. During her speech Holroyd channeled Barack Obama, saying: “If you believe in change, we can all make it possible.”

Stephanie Singh What she brings to the table: Ten years of public relations, strategic communication and media relations experience.

Singh says that she hopes to help better convey the “compelling message” of CE students at Ryerson. “We give a lot of the money but we reap few of the benefits,” said Singh. “We often get left out of the picture.”

Alexander Samuelson What he brings to the table: Samuelson has participated in numerous initiatives including the Drop Fees campaign, the anti-war movement and the financial committee. He has also written for the Ryerson Free Press in the past and was recently elected as a CE Senate representative. But, perhaps most interestingly, Samuelson fought for - and won - a 20 percent bell curve for his chemistry class. Here’s hoping he can achieve such results on behalf of all CE students.

Tania Hassan What she brings to the table: Ten years of public relations, strategic communication and media relations experience. Singh said that she hopes to help better convey the “compelling message” of CE students at Ryerson. “We give a lot of the money but we reap few of the benefits,” said Singh. “We often get left out of the picture.”

april 2009 ryerson free press

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11

Students caught in the middle of conflict at CKLN 88.1 FM After over a year of fighting over jurisdiction, students have been hired to take over time slots.

Many of them know that there’s a conflict, but prefer to stay out of it. Ronak Ghorbani finds out why

When Ashley Stanhope walked into CKLN’s office for the last time, she wasn’t expecting a confrontation with police.

After attempting to start her weekly one-hour show Wired for Sound, a woman barged into the studio, yelling erupted between other volunteers, two people barricaded themselves in a room and police were brought in to break up the debacle.

“It seems bizarre when you think of it,” Stanhope said.

“This would never happen at CHUM FM, it would never reach that point. It seems people are on this power trip when it comes to college radio.”

For nearly two years, CKLN has been embroiled in fierce internal fighting with two groups of people claiming power over the station.

While one side was fighting to keep CKLN to its social justice roots, another side was attempting to make the station more mainstream. Dozens of hosts were fired and shows were cancelled, resulting in new student shows filling the gaps.

CKLN was shut down in the last week of March.

After a unanimous vote at a Student Centre Board meeting, it was decided that the station remain closed until the divided CKLN sides meet and negotiate on how the station should be run. For two weeks re-runs were broadcasted. Currently, there is on-and-off dead air and sporadic broadcasts being played.

Stanhope, a second-year journalism student, got involved with CKLN in first semester this year to get broadcast experience. She loved recording bands and had

arranged for George Stroumboulopoulos to appear on the show. For most of her time at CKLN, she was treated with respect and oblivious to the escalating conflict.

“I knew for a while there was bad politics going on but basically, we wanted to keep our noses clean. We didn’t want to get involved with it.

We had an hour show (every) week. We didn’t ask questions,” said Stanhope referring to how she and co-host Barb Deck felt.

Many of the students the Ryerson Free Press spoke to consciously decided to stay out of the station’s politics.

Although 60 percent of CKLN’s budget comes from Ryerson student fees, there was minimum student programming representation until this year. Many of the students were happy for the opportunity to host a show and tried to keep their slates clean.

However, bringing students in wasn’t necessarily done to pump up student-made content.

Rob Heydari, a second-year Radio and Television Arts (RTA) student, has written extensively about the CKLN conflict for the Ryerson Free Press.

After months of observation and speaking to various board members and ex-volunteers, he believes the newly recruited students are being used for political purposes.

“From my interview with Mike Phillips (the former station engineer) in August, he was quite clear that he was putting students on the air because that was the right thing to do,” Heydari said. “(But) you can’t ignore the political benefits that came from ejecting program-

mers with students. It’s not that it would give more power… you can only maintain control as long as you have the community behind you.”

Old programmers that were forcibly taken off the air have formed the group Take Back Our Radio. Actively resisting current CKLN management, the group hosted an independent broadcast on March 11 for International Women’s Day. They believe they were taken off the air because of the politically progressive nature of their shows. Some of the cancelled programs include Anti-Psychiatry Radio, Honour the Earth, which focused on First Nations issues, and Radio Cliteracy, a feminist show.

Heydari believes students are being used to keep these old programmers out of CKLN. “By replacing displaced programmers with students it’s very hard to argue against that.

Who wants to be the person (that says) ‘no you shouldn’t have more students on the air?’” Heydari asked.

Chi-Lihn Dihn, a third-year RTA student, who hosted Anime Brigade, feels horrible at the thought of being recruited

by CKLN for political purposes.

“Before, students never had the chance (to host shows) and now they do,” she said. “Who do you think they’ll back? The people who give them a chance - or people who want their shows back? The sad part is I understand both sides.”

Dihn views the situation as two sides trying to avenge personal vendettas while the students “feel like a cog in a machine to keep it afloat.”

Getting involved with CKLN meant Dihn could reach a

broad audience and have student input on the airwaves. Up until she started the show five months ago, Dihn wasn’t even aware CKLN existed.

“You can’t get passed the fact it’s funded by student money, it’s in the middle of the university and no one’s heard of the station (within) the student body, and only this year student shows are popping up,” she said. “I feel really bittersweet. We got the chance and now we’re getting steamrolled for something we didn’t do, it’s not fair.”

One student that did get involved with the current CKLN board of directors is Alex Narvaez. His hip-hop oriented show Off Da Tracks, went-primetime on CKLN in August, 2008. Narvaez wanted more input on the station’s functions so he joined the board and recruited more student programmers.

“It was a great experience for students to get on actual FM frequency and experience broadcast from a professional atmosphere and setting,” he said. “It was nice to make that transition from a hobby like online radio and pushing it to making a passion and possibly a career…These last couple of weeks (CKLN) has been closed it’s basically de-motivated everybody from taking it to the next level…I also really think it sucks out of all the times for the station to close down it was when the students got involved.”

Although he does miss doing his show, Joe Yachimenic who co-hosted the Eyeopener show every Wednesday morning is glad some action is being done to resolve the CKLN issue.

“We decried the situation (on air). Said it was silly. It was foolish that a campus radio station would not serve the campus. Especially if students are paying for it to have a bunch of old guys going in there to run an independent radio station to provide content students never listen to. And (we) said so many times.”

The decision to close CKLN temporarily was triggered by several incidences where police were called to remove people from the station.

‘CKLN’ CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

In honour of International Women’s Day, dozens of fired CKLN volunteers did a guerella broadcast on March 11 at the Imperial Pub, 54 Dundas St. Besides being a night in celebration of women, the volunteers were taking a stance against CKLN and taking back their radio. The Ryerson Free Press spoke to three fired volunteers.

Susy Alvarez, co-organizer of Take Back Our Radio and former host of Word of Mouth on Fridays: Ryerson Free Press: Besides this being just a broadcast for International Women’s Day this has been a form of resistance.

Susy Alvarez: The important aspect of this broadcast is that we’re opening up a space that was closed to the community that dependant so much on CKLN and the services CKLN provided.

RFP: Why do you think so many other volunteers were shut down?

SA: I think it’s because we were just outspoken because we really believed in the mandate of the radio station…for openness and democracy. When we were noticing that things were being conducted that were not according to the mandate, we raised up our hands and took note of it.

Audrey Redman former host of Honour the Earth which ran on air for seven years: Ryerson Free Press: What do you miss most about being on the air?

Audrey Redman: I miss bringing the voices of First Nations people whether it’s through music or whether it’s through folklore or from events I would go to where I would gather some interviews and stories of people.

RFP: How did you feel when your program me was shut down?

AR: I felt very much like what I was going through with residential school settlements.

Because I’m a survivor and I was making attempts to make some connections with the settlements they were making and I was being locked out, nobody was listening to me. And I felt very much that that was happening at Ryerson as an institution; that activists were particularly targeted. I think because we were able to get information to the public they otherwise wouldn’t hear, like First Nations stand offs and we were bringing up a lot of environmental issues I think and we were uniting and we were supporting one another.

Stefanie Gude, former host of OCAP Radio: Ryerson Free Press: When you first came out and talked you said that the voices of homeless women and people had been missing when you were off the air waves.

Why is it important for you to be here today?

Stefanie Gude: The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty organizes and tries to represent the struggles of people living on the margins particularly people living in poverty but also the working poor and people that are on welfare and disability. And those are voices that in the mainstream press particularly now that we’re in an economic crisis are not heard from. For us to be on the air waves and bring those voices of people who fight in an every day way has been the reason why we were always so honoured to have a slot at CKLN.

12 canadian TamilS STruGGle To brinG awareneSS oF Genocide bacK home april 2009

ryerson free press

news

TRACY CHEN While at a store with her husband, a bomb hits a woman’s leg beneath her knee. She yells for help, but her husband cannot help her because he fears for his own life.

Although there are many people in front of her, she is the only person in the store that is hit.

To stop the bleeding, she applies cardboard right after the incident.

The next day, she and her husband travel to a hospital and discover that her leg will need to be removed. Chandra Siva lost her leg in Sri Lanka in 1991. Her face shows the hardships that she has experienced and her eyes express the pain.

As a Tamil person, she was heavily persecuted in her country. She told her story through a translator, Chenthuran Ganesarajah, a second year Ryerson business student, during a workshop on Disability Struggle of Tamils at “The Silent Genocide” conference.

“The Silent Genocide” conference was held on March 17 at Ryerson featuring workshops and a discussion panel. The conference examined the systematic killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government. Siva was a speaker at the Disability Struggle workshop.

In Sri Lanka, Siva was displaced six times.

“When displacement happens people just go with flow,” she said through Ganesarajah.

To go from place to place, Siva needed the help of her husband or someone else, especially during the first year, when she was just adjusting to the fact she had lost her leg.

“That’s the one thing that affected her most- running for safety,” translated Ganesarajah.

To date the war has internally displaced more than 500,000 Tamils and 1,500,000 have fled Sri Lanka as refugees.

Her husband, who owned a store, had to close the store to take care of her. The couple came to Canada in 2001 and

have a five-year-old son.

“The prosthetic legs here are so much lighter and feels so much better than the other leg that felt like a rock and were so heavy,” said Siva through Ganesarajah.

Siva, who wants to support the Tamils in her homeland, finds it very difficult. “ She’s very sad and she just doesn’t know what to do with herself,” said Ganesarajah.

“For the simple fact she does not know any English, she herself cannot write to MPs.” She also was unable to stand at Tamil rallies “because she just can’t stand on those two legs for too long.”

The days before the conference, a human chain of Tamil protestors of about 120,000 lined up on the side walks along Front St., north up Yonge St. to Bloor St., and then west to University Ave. and south back to Front.

Currently, there is a very volatile relationship between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority of Sri Lanka.

The Sinhalese comprise 77 percent and Tamils make up 18 percent of the population.

Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese from 1505 and 1658 and the Dutch from 1658 to 1769. “Both Portuguese and the Dutch ruled these two nations separately,” says Abimanyu Singam, a Tamil community activist during a workshop on the political history. After the British takeover in 1796, the British merged the two nations into one in 1833.

“At this point in time, the Tamil community lost its ability to basically govern itself,” said Singam.

“These two nations are living in one island, that’s one of the reasons I believe that caused the conflict, these are two separate identities, separate language, separate religion and have had a historical issue with each other,” said Singam.

In 1948, Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, was granted independence and the Ceylon Citizenship Act was passed.

It removed the right of Tamils to vote or be a citizen of Sri Lanka.

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“One community was using its majority power passing legislation to deny the other community of their rights,” said Singam.

In 1956, Sinhalese was made the official language of Sri Lanka. In 1970, the Standardization Act was passed which made Tamils have to score higher on standardized exams to get into university. “In Sri Lanka, every single person on the island writes the same exam, if you are a Tamil you have to score high marks to get admission to get into universities, if you are Sinhalese you can get into university with lower marks,” said Singam.

At that time, Tamils staged peaceful protests to ensure their rights were respected. “The way the Sri Lanka Government responded to political opposition was by brutal force,” said Singam.

During 1983, the Sri Lankan government created a state sponsored anti-Tamil program in which they killed about 3,000 Tamils. “They had census information in their hand; they knew each home that was by a Tamil. They knew every store that was owned by a Tamil they went and confirmed it was a Tamil, and then they killed and burned the place,” said Singam.

To resist the government oppression, many youth resistance movements were created including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was formed in 1976.

“Youth were responding by taking up arms because that was the only thing left to do,” said Singam.

In 2001 the United States launched its “war on terror.”

“Sri Lanka was able to label the LTTE resistance movement in Sri Lanka as a terrorist group and was able to get several countries to ban the LTTE,” said Singam. LTTE is currently listed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries including Canada.

Within the Tamil community, there is an overwhelming support for the LTTE. “When your mother is watching the TV every day and crying, do you expect the young people sit and to debate these issues or do you expect the young person to raise the voice and say enough is enough we need justice?” said Neethan Shan, Markham Public School Trustee and Tamil activist. “I don’t believe in a military solution to this conflict, but at the same time the LTTE has fought hard in the lack of any other alternative.”

In essence, the Tamil community is asking for an end to the war, an independent country and the right for self-determination. “When I say support the struggle, we’re not asking you to support the military solution to the struggle,” said Singam. “We have lost homes, we have lost villages, we don’t want the war even for another day, let alone another decade.”

“When your mother is watching the TV every day and crying, do you expect the young people to sit and to debate these issues or do you expect the young person to raise the voice and say enough is enough we need justice?”

how can you read your prescripTion if you don’T speaK english?

ALYssA fRIEsEN When you receive a prescription drug, one of the first things you may do is read the information and dosage instructions.

As a literate person who can understand English, the fact that the label is typed in English is probably not a concern to you.

But what if you, like thousands of Torontonians, couldn’t understand English?

A group of third-year nursing students at Ryerson are raising public awareness about health literacy.

For a class project Marie Riddell, Alana Black, Stacy Vuu-Chau, Arnel Tirona and Sarah Chung are advocating that the Ontario Ministry of Heath should make pamphlets for prescription drugs available in different languages.

The students say health literacy could be improved if patients had access to pamphlets printed in their first language, and as a result patient medication errors

would decrease.

“We would like to make the public aware of the high incidence of medication errors due to patients not understanding their medical regimen, which can directly jeopardize their health,” said Marie Riddell.

Riddell explains that when a patient is diagnosed and prescribed a medication by the Canadian healthcare system, the pharmacy prints the instructions to the drug in English. This is a concern to her because such a large percentage of Canadians are unable to speak, read or comprehend English.

In Toronto alone, there are approximately 150 different languages spoken on a daily basis, and according to a 2008 report by Statistics Canada more than 70 percent of immigrants have a first language other than English.

The students discovered that people

with low English literacy levels are more likely to have higher rates of hospital admissions and use emergency service.

Medication errors, such as the wrong dosage at the wrong time, that result from miscommunication, have led to unnecessary extra costs for the healthcare system.

“Currently, there is nothing being done about this issue. As citizens, we have the right to speak up for what should be done,” said Riddell.

The issue came to the attention of the students over their past year of studies, as they focused on learning and working in community health nursing. They noticed that there were certain needs of the community that were not being met.

“We have conducted research on this matter and have come to realize the extent that language barriers can have on an individual’s health,” said Alana Black. “We first would like to have this matter heard

by the public and ideally have the Ontario Ministry of Health address this issue.”

The students believe health literacy could be improved by allocating funding towards translators who could convert the drug information from English into different languages. Pamphlets would be in circulation at large pharmacies such as Rexall, Shoppers Drug Mart and PharmaPlus. Through writing letters to the Ontario Ministry of Health and to editorial sections of Toronto newspapers, the students hope to generate support for their idea and get the citizens and health professionals of Toronto discussing the issue.

“If the public and health professionals know this technology exists, then what would stop the government from furthering this project?” asked Black. “Ontario could be saving lives by avoiding potential harm to its citizens.”

e-maGic @ flicKr.com

ryerson nursing students embark on a campaign for health literacy among canadians whose first language is not english

april 2009 ryerson free press

news

13

“The crisis in Darfur In a recession has gotten even worse” even Flea Markets Maiya Keidan On April 12 at 7pm, students hope to make the government take notice when they take a stand at Queen’s Park.

In years past, the protest has had as few as 800 and as many as 2,000 protesters.

Elham Bidgoli, campus director for Students Taking Action Now Darfur (STAND), is one of the event’s planners. Bidgoli manages all STAND chapters across Canadian universities. “The crisis in Darfur has gotten even worse,” she said.

It’s the sixth anniversary of the situation and Canada needs to step up its commitment, argued Bidgoli - 300,000 people have already been killed.

The International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Although Bidgoli believes this action was a positive step forward, it has come at the expense of humanitarian aid.

American President Barack Obama is calling for a re-introduction of aid agencies that have lately been expelled from the region, leaving 4.7 million people dependent on outside aid, at risk.

In addition to food and water, these organizations provided the majority of medical treatment. Without them, an alarming 650,000 people are suffering without full healthcare access.

“Unless the international community responds, these people will die,” said Bidgoli.

STAND succeeds in providing people with the tools to advocate for the victims of Darfur. At the campus level, there are STAND events in which students are welcome to participate. They might even consider joining the student group, always open to new members.

If students cannot to get involved on campus but do want to increase their awareness, they can call 1-800-GENOCIDE. The line officially launched in the middle of October last year.

Caroline Cormier is the national programmes director for SHOUT, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about genocide. The group was formed from student participants in the March of Remembrance and Hope and the March of the Living. Both trips take students on a journey of Holocaust atrocities in

Poland.

Cormier is also planning the Darfur candlelight vigil and rally.

The event has taken about a month-and-a-half of organization. “Recently, it’s taken up all my life,” said Cormier. Cormier and Bidgoli have been in touch with many organizations, such as the Red Cross, Save Darfur Canada, and the Darfur Association of Canada.

Although they’ve tried to attract both students and nonstudents to the rally, Cormier admitted it’s hard to know how to reach people outside the school system. High school and university students are the best chance for the vigil.

Not only will the event include a moment of silence for attendees, but students can also expect a number of speakers and musical performers. Students should expect to leave inspired, perhaps having discovered a way they can make a difference. The organizers will also have education and volunteer tables on hand.

For Cormier, the bottom line is, “We want to let the government know that a large amount of people care about this issue.”

Students celebrate Aboriginal Awareness Day

Ryerson’s second annual Aboriginal Awareness day featured dancing, story telling and drumming.

feel the pinch

However, despite the economic downturn, people choose to use Flea Markets as a way to save money

Bill Rios

Students plan rally on April 12 in support of humanitarian aid to the Sudanese region

Ronak Ghorbani Editorial assistant Carolyn Bye glances at a jewelry stand. A pair of gold hoop earrings catches her eye – they’re perfect for her co-worker. But the $120 price tag isn’t appealing. After a few minutes of haggling Bye gets it down to $100.

“I send everybody here,” she says with a grin.

Shopping at Merchants’ Flea Market in Scarborough, for 20 years, she barters and buys discounted retail products.

Living in tough economic times makes consumers want a bang for their buck and there’s no better place for that than a flea market where deals can be struck.

“We’ve almost been bred that the price on the price sticker is what we need to pay,” said Brent Barr a retail management instructor at Ryerson. “But consumers today are looking for ways to save money.”

Because flea markets have cheap deals, they’ve traditionally benefited from economic recessions. But at Merchants’ Market, business has slowed.

“Because there are so many discounters out there like Wal-Mart, we feel the pinch too,” said Justin Papazian, the market’s manager.

However, he refuses to be pessimistic.

“I think we’ll get out of it faster than most,” Papazian said. “When people start spending money again they’re not going to spend money on high-end stuff.”

Since rent costs are low, $495 for an eight by 10 foot booth, merchants have wiggle room for price negotiation.

Since September, Aret Oymaks, who runs a jewelry booth at Merchants’, has had a drop in customers by 10 percent. To compensate, he’s increased discounts.

A typical engagement ring with a gold band and medium diamond sells for $5,000 retail. Oymak’s price is $2,500. If the shopper is persistent, he’ll even pay the tax.

“It’s not all doom and gloom,” he says. “We’ve been in this location a long time. It helps bring people in.”

At flea markets, booth owners

are on hand to assist the buyers which is key to surviving this recession, said Barr.

“People are going to pay attention with the money they spend and those retailers that aren’t concerned with customer satisfaction, they’re not going to last in the long run,” he said.

Personal interaction between consumer and seller creates trust; something that is missing in today’s retail market, said Larissa Dilay, a business instructor at Ryerson.

“Overall, consumers purchasing products are feeling that (they’re) not getting the value of what they’d paid,” she says. “They’re not trusting the retailer on whether they’re offering the best price.”

Bartering with owners makes consumers feel confident in their purchasing power, she said.

In the United States, haggling is a primer at flea markets where attendance has slowly increased in the past year, said John Shoen, executive director of the National Flea Market Association.

“You can negotiate. If you don’t like the price, walk away and buy your tennis shoes from somewhere else (another vendor),” he said.

“The bottom line is you can get things cheaper, less expensive at flea markets than traditional stores.”

Jack Maalouli buys, sells, and trades video games at Merchants’.

“With today’s economy, there’s a lot of people who don’t want to buy games at $50, $60,” he said.

Wii Fit, the popular virtual fitness game, sells on average at $160. But at Maalouli’s booth a used copy sells for $75.

Flea Markets have a wide range of diverse products; everything from Bollywood movies to hoodies and has something for everyone.

“You can get an iPod from a flea market which attracts kids and you can buy a wheel chair that attracts older people,” said Shoen from the NFMA. One-stop shops, discounts, and bartering power is what makes flea markets appealing.

“At Wal-Mart you can’t go to the counter and negotiate,” said Merchants’ manager Papazian.

14

april 2009 ryerson free press

news

Nuclear power Not viable Solution

‘CKLN’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

Government commitment to nuclear energy questioned by environmental groups

Uranium mining creates radioactive dust and leaves behind radioactive tailings, which can linger for millions of years. Uranium mines may also open up just an hour-and-a-half away from Toronto.

“Uranium is mined in open pits,” said Susanne Lauten to a crowd at the No Nukes teach-in at the University of Toronto.

“During every part of the process, radioactive dust is released.” She said that studies have shown that uranium dust particles during mining can travel up to 400 km in the air. Lauten is the founder of the group Cottagers Against Uranium Mining and Exploration.

“No Nukes” was held from March 13 to 14 featuring more than 15 speakers and nine workshops. Notable sponsors of the event included the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, Greenpeace and a coalition of University of Toronto Students.

The event was organized in response to Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman’s proposed plan of building new nuclear reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Station to replace the aging nuclear plants set to go offline by 2013.

“I believe that one of the reasons that Canada is so locked into nuclear power is because uranium is our largest export,” said Lauten.

“The government has a very vested interest to keep nuclear power plants running around the world.”

Canada is one of the largest uranium producers in the world, generating an estimated 27.9 percent of the world’s uranium production.

In addition, Ontario’s two biggest electric power companies are Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power- both of which are nuclear plants.

Saskatchewan is the only place in Canada where uranium is being mined. “Now countries are prospecting for uranium in Ontario, all the way from Halliburton to Ottawa, every piece of crown land with any radioactive footprint has been staked for uranium mining,” said Lauten.

“Since 2003, there have been no environmental assessments required on mining operations including uranium mining on Crown land.”

Lauten, who is a cottager, spends between six months to a year in Halliburton. “Halliburton County is rich in Crown land,” she said.

In Ontario, Elliot Lake was mined until 1992.

About 200 million tones of uranium tailings are still located in the lake. Uranium mining leaves

radioactive mine tailings and the lakes and streams around these sites remain contaminated.

Nuclear power plants produce toxic radioactive waste including plutonium 239, which remains radioactive for half-a-million years. There is still no way to safely dispose of waste and this can leave permanent environmental damage.

“Uranium is just as bad as nuclear waste, in fact uranium is nuclear waste,” said Lauten.

“They’re going to be mining uranium in Ontario to run our apartments and that is insanity and I think that’s the thing we need to drive home,” said Lauten.

A poll conducted last year showed that 56 percent of Canadians who were surveyed believed nuclear power generation should be increased or introduced. The results are significantly lower compared to the United States, which is less than 81 percent and China, which is less than 91 percent. The poll was conducted

by Accenture and was based on 20 minute online interviews with 10,508 people in 20 countries.

Jack Gibbons, Chair of the Green Energy Alliance advocated a three pronged strategy, which could eliminate the need to construct two new nuclear power plants. This can be done by lowering energy consumption, using natural gas to provide heat and power and importing hydro electricity from Quebec. “Ontario is the one the most wasteful users of electricity in the world,” said Gibbons.

Ontario‘s electricity consumption per person is 50 percent higher than that of New York State. Through increasing the electricity efficiency, this will allow Ontario to save energy costs and rely completely on renewable resources.

Secondly, natural gas can be used to provide both heat and power through more efficient combination systems. “If you are going to use natural gas for heating for buildings, you should also use it at the same time for electricity,” said Gibbons.

Quebec has many hydroelectric resources, however Gibbons said that the trade of electric-

ity between Ontario and Quebec is virtually non-existent. “The reason why we don’t trade with Quebec is that for almost a hundred years, Ontario Hydro has monopolized electricity generation in the province of Ontario,” he said.

“If they traded with Quebec there would never be a reason to build nuclear power plants in the first place.”

In Ontario, wind power potential is 10 times greater than total energy consumption. When production is above average, Ontario can export power surpluses of wind to Quebec.

“When wind power production in Ontario is below on a calm day, Hydro Quebec will run that hydro electric dam and that send renewable power back to Ontario,” said Gibbons.

With this three-pronged strategy, Gibbons said electricity in Ontario can be sold at a much lower cost and that Quebec will also gain profits. “We can move towards a 100 percent renewable grid in less than 20 years, it’s a matter of political will.” says Gibbons. “We have to work very hard in the next 98 days to get the message to Smitherman there is a much better alternative.”

However, if two nuclear reactors are built, Ontario will be locked into nuclear energy for at least another 50 years.

davi sommerfeld @ FLICKR.COM

Tracy Chen

“Multiple people are claiming they should have access to the station and the Student Centre Board of Directors is put in an awkward situation,” said Toby Whitfield, Ryerson Students’ Union vice-president of finance and services. “This is the way that the student centre has chosen to deal with it - no one will have access.”

Ryerson president Sheldon Levy believes that, “Students are funding (CKLN) students should have a say in the product under which they’re funding. And they should take whatever actions they think to ensure they are satisfied with the radio station and where their money is going to.”

Currently, lawyers are attempting to mediate between the two rivaling CKLN boards.

“We’re trying to bring people together and have a discussion and solve it,” Whitfield said.

“There’s a lot of people here and hopefully they have the best interest of CKLN and that’s the focus…People should be able to come together and have a civil discussion.”

But for Bhairavi Thanki, she doesn’t see this as plausible. The third-year journalism student spent her summer volunteering at the station and grew to see it as a second home. She also hosted the morning show Rude Awakenings on Thursdays.

“You’d think things would resolve itself and reach a mutual understanding and the new board and the old board would just work together but it’s such a utopian idea,” Thanki said.

“I think CKLN could’ve gone in a much better direction than now. I think that involving more students, we were finally getting more students actually listening to CKLN,” she said. “Now people only think about it as a negative space…Anytime I mention CKLN they say ‘oh my goodness look at the politics. I hate that now everyone thinks about it so negatively.”

Iranian students create their own newspaper Persepolis hit the stands in March for the first time and aims to be a magazine about culture and science for Iranian and non-Iranian students alike Tara Aghdashloo A popular Tehran soccer team, a French graphic novel, and an ancient palace, all have one thing in common; they are called Persepolis. This Persian New Year a Ryerson-based monthly newsletter now also shares that name.

Persepolis is sponsored by the Iranian Student Association of Ryerson University (ISARU) and is a product of the ambitions of a group of students who speak English as their second language, and are in science and engineering programmes.

They bring their journalistic experience from student life in Iran. The Editor-in-Chief is Mehdi Takaffoli, a PhD Mechanical Engineering student who moved to Canada less than two years ago.

“One of the main activities in universities in Iran is to publish newspapers, but there’s mostly not enough money or means,” said Takaffoli, comparing the professional atmosphere of Canadian journalism to Iran’s.

Persepolis aims to reach out to both Iranian and non-Iranian audiences with content ranging from music to literature to science. And since ISARU is a non-political association, Persepolis needs to stay away from politics.

“But we’re interested in social and cultural issues, which are hard to separate from politics. Especially when it comes to Iran, where the authority of government is everywhere,” Takaffoli suggested.

Ronak Ghorbani, one of the assistant editors of the paper - a third-year journalism student at Ryerson - agrees about the inclusive nature of the paper. “For me it was very eye-opening.

It a very refreshing and different type of journalism, and not restricted or formulaic,” she said.

As an Iranian who was born and raised in Canada, Ghorbani’s encounter with Iranians, especially those her own age, has always been minimal. But when reached by Takaffoli and his team, she immediately agreed to get involved. Creating the newsletter depended on using experienced journalists who were active in the Canadian publishing industry more than anything else.

Earlier this year, ISARU organized a team of enthusiastic Iranians who were interested in writing. In 2005, their attempt to publish a monthly newsletter had failed after only one issue was put out. A nonexistent budget and limited writers were the main problems, and the Association’s president, Rouzbeh

Zamyaei, is determined to not face the same issues again.

“That’s why my idea this time was to start small, and get bigger as we go along,” said Zamyaei.

Ryerson has a very large Iranian community, and although they are mostly in engineering and science programs, many devoted readers and writers are among them. This first issue of Persepolis was published in late March, and among the list of writers and contributors there are many non-Iranian names.

But with only 300 copies circulating around campus, Persepolis needs outside sponsors to guarantee its continuation.

“Right now we are spending from ISARU’s trust fund, which is not a lot,” said Zamyaei. Hesitant to call it a ‘newsletter,’ both Zamyaei and Takaffoli emphasize their goal to make Persepolis and reliable quality-publication, ultimately circulating around Toronto and in different university campuses.

“Ryerson gave tons of money to the Commerce Times newsletter,” said Ghorbani, suggesting that the university must help with the newsletter’s budget.

Persepolis is still young and timid, but a very energetic and ambitious team who has great plans for it is trying to push the limits. The next issue is coming out in April.

What is wrong with our Newspapers?

A lively discussion with:

Peter C. Newman is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, and has won every journalism award there is and has been appointed to a Companion in the Order of Canada. He is the author of 24 books.

Linda McQuaig is a best selling author and award winning journalist.

She is author of seven books on politics and economics â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all national bestsellers.

Peter C. Newman Linda McQuaig Wayne MacPhail moderated by rabble.ca board President Duncan Cameron

Thursday April 16th, 7:30 (doors 7:00) Koffler Auditorium 569 Spadina Cresent

Wayne MacPhail has been a print and online journalist for over 20 years. He is now president of w8nc, a communications company specializing in emerging technologies and is on the board of rabble.

Duncan Cameron is an adjunct professor of political science at Simon Fraser University, a director of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University in Montreal and author of many books.

$10 or PWYC FREE for rabble.ca members seating limited - reserve a seat at: events@rabble.ca

Sponsored by University of Toronto OPIRG Media sponsor: Ryerson Free Press

Students gather to learn how to resist war and racism

In March, Ryerson hosted a national assembly where speakers and workshops looked at how to build a strong peace and anti-war movement.

Lia Grainger “We’re here to learn and to teach one another, and to act in unison to mobilize in an anti-war and anti-occupation movement,” said an organizer at the Student Assembly Against War and Racism, held March 20th to the 22nd at Ryerson.

The assembly gathered a wide range of activists to exchange ideas on issues of occupation, war and racism, and to discuss constructive ways of spreading the message of peace and equality through both the student population and the world.

The three-day assembly was divided into comprehensive workshops that allowed participants to hear from speakers on various topics.

The structure provided an opportunity for student activists to share in each other’s work, and learn about struggles and events outside of their normal focus.

The Israel-Palestine Conflict

Justin Podur, editor and writer for the website Znet.com, spoke bright and early on Sunday morning to an audience of groggy but eager students to hear about the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

“Why do I call Israel an Apartheid state?”

He asked. “Why is there a coalition against the Israeli Apartheid?” Podur elaborated on the South African origins of the term Apartheid, meaning separation, and said it applied to any country or political group that classifies its citizens as unequal based on race and culture.

“Apartheid is not just a South African phenomenon,” said Podur. “The construction of the illegal wall that is built around the territories conquered and occupied in 1948 is an example of Apartheid. The mechanisms that are used to control the Palestinian people – imprisonment and assassination of political leaders – contribute to the Apartheid state.”

Podur also addressed the effects of this type of thinking outside of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. He emphasised that an Apartheid system creates a racist outlook towards all individuals. “Apartheid doesn’t stop at the borders,” said Podur.

“True, the victims are the indigenous population of Palestine, but an Apartheid system identifies a place for everyone in the world, based on race, no matter where you are or where you’re from. It destroys freedom for everyone.”

Another speaker on the Israel-Palestine conflict was Iman Habibi Babadi, who made an impassioned plea to participants to join the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

“Since 1948 all international intervention has failed,” said Babadi. “The wall that has been built has been recognized as illegal under international law, as has the occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israeli settlements.”

Babadi gave examples of how efforts so far have failed, and listed three demands for the Palestinian people: to end the occupation and dismantle the wall, to be recognized as equals by Israel, and to be given the right of return, which Palestinians are currently denied but which is granted to anyone of Jewish decent.

“Israel has an economy based on occupation,” said Babadi. “It also has the fourth largest military in the world. The only way to end the conflict peacefully is through sanctions and boycotts, and the BDS plan is endorsed by 180 civil organizations within Palestine.”

Each workshop began with an acknowledgement of the traditional Native land where the assembly was being held, and that the majority of participants occupied it as settlers.

Keynote speakers included Col. Ann Wright, a Former US military leader who opened the US Embassy in Kabul in 2001; Nikolai Lanine, a Former Russian soldier who participated in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Faridah Saadat, an Afghan-Canadian who recently spent six months in Afghanistan; and Abdul-Rahman Karim, an Afghan-Canadian and York Political Science graduate.

The reaction of student participants to the workshops was generally very positive.

“This conference was a great chance to network with other students and to share ideas,” said Amy Hamett, one of 14 students from the University of Ottawa who travelled to Toronto for the event. “It inspires you,” Hamett added,

“and brings a chance to refocus.”

One group of students agreed that they could have used more time for group participation. “I’d like if some of the sessions were more interactive,” said student Taiva Tegler.

“The workshops were amazing, but it would be nice to have more time for participants to share, and I would have liked more emphasis on our own government, on what Canada can change.”

The weekend concluded with student-directed workshops that gave participants the change to address future plans for action. Students expressed strong approval for the sections of the assembly that encouraged cross-pollination among activists from different movements.

“It’s been a great opportunity to see what other people are up to,” said student Martin Schoots-McAlpine, “and to be inspired by all the work that is being done in so many different areas and by so many different people.”

Haiti

Kabir JoshiVijayan, a member of the Toronto Haiti Action Committee, spoke at the Student Assembly Against War and Racism about Canadian involvement in the 2004 invasion of Haiti.

Throughout his talk, Vijayan emphasised the role of Canada as a promoter of war and occupation in Haiti.

Joshi-Vijayan said that most Canadians believe that Canada followed the U.S into Haiti, but that this is not the case. “The 2004 invasion of Haiti was an imperial venture that Canada led,” said Joshi-Vijayan. He spoke at length about the controversial history of Jean Ber-

trand Aristide, the two-time president of Haiti, who currently lives in South Africa. Aristide was elected in 1994 and again in 2000, though the validity of the elections is debated.

“Aristide was brought to power twice democratically,” said Joshi-Vijayan, “and initially the U.S applauded the elections.”

Joshi-Vijayan said that it was Republican lobbyists that later convinced the U.S. government to change its position and dispute the validity of the elections.

A major international assembly was held and it was agreed that the elections were unfair. On their website, the United Nations maintains that Aristide claimed victory in 2000 with “a turnout that hardly rose above 10 percent of the voters.” In his talk, however, Joshi-Vijayan

was adamant that the election of Aristide was an entirely democratic grassroots movement, and that the international involvement to remove Aristide was an imperialist venture led by the U.S. and Canada.

“The result [of the decision that the elections were undemocratic] was international sanctions against Haiti. It was economic terrorism and blackmail, and it’s amazing that the government still made improvements during this time.”

Joshi-Vijayan said that Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. Marines aided by Canadian snipers, an accusation that the U.S. and Canada dismiss as “ridiculous.” Aristide himself has made the claim that he was removed from power forcibly by American military, and that

he did not resign.

Joshi-Vijayan explained that the military insurgency that surrounding Aristide’s departure was lead by an illegal and criminal fighting force supported by Canada, the U.S., and the UN “The UN killed unarmed civilians living in the slums,” said Joshi-Vijayan. “10,000 Haitians were killed by the army, the police, and the rebels, and Canadians remain in Haiti today, directing this illegal occupation.”

Joshi-Vijayan described the elections that occurred in 2006 as a fraudulent effort led by Canada. “In many ways the coup continues,” said Joshi-Vijayan. “Haiti is recognized as the test case for Canadian foreign policy, so it’s not just a question of the Haitian people, it’s a question of democracy throughout the world.”

Anti-War Filmmaking

Ryerson alum Alex Lisman gives tips on how to make a good activist short film Alex Lisman remembers the moment he comprehended the vital importance of activist filmmaking.

“I was attending film school at Ryerson in 2000, and a group of us went down to Quebec City to film the [Summit of the Americas] protests. There were sixty to eighty thousand people there, and over 5000 canisters of tear gas were fired,” said Lisman, “and yet when you watched the mainstream media, all they were showing was the few young anarchist students that were actually confronting the police. They didn’t show the incredible diversity of the crowd, and all of the people that were peacefully protesting, or even trying to get away from the action.”

Lisman and some of his fellow students created their own response to the event titled Tear Gas Holiday. “The riot police were out of control,” said Lisman.

“We were documenting the other side of it, and we showed another world.”

For Lisman, the experience reinforced the need for alternate media, and he spoke at

the Student Assembly Against War and Racism to share his thoughts on activist filmmaking.

Lisman began by giving a short history of antiwar filmmaking and its effects on public policy.

He emphasised the vital role that independent documentary played in the shaping of public opposition to the Vietnam War in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“Activists were able to bring the realities of war home, and it changed people’s perception of what was happening over there.”

Lisman said that since then, governments have learned about the importance of controlling information. “If you remember, the information and images that we got from the first Gulf War were very different from what we got during Vietnam. They were heavily sanitized and came primarily from imbedded reporters. The government had learned to suppress negative information,” said Lisman.

He also spoke about the work of the National Film Board in creating films that

promoted social justice at home, including “Challenge for Change,” a project that gave cameras to the poor and disenfranchised to create films about their unique experiences.

“The press is not all bad,” said Lisman, “ some journalists are very principled, but sometimes their stories get shut down at the very top. Information is key in war and so is misinformation. Media is also key in turning people against war, so we need to create our own media to spread the antiwar message throughout the world.”

Lisman then broke down the essentials of how to create and distribute a short activist film. Students were eager to hear about organizing shots, editing, and how to maximize hits on sites like YouTube. Here is some of Lisman’s advice: Tips for Making an Activist Film 1. Get good “B-Roll” shots: These are shots of anything other than the main action. For example, if you’re shooting a protest, the B-Roll shots would be of the crowd, the signs, or interviews with participants.

These shots add colour and are what will make your film interesting.

2. Network on YouTube: Lisman suggests linking your videos to other activist channels on YouTube, and let others link to your channel, that way everyone gets a larger audience for your work.

3. Keep it short: Lisman said that most of the time people only want to see something three to five minutes long.

4. Hold a public screening: Making an event out of your film will ensure that someone will see it. “A film can reach the people that wouldn’t go to a protest,” said Lisman.

He also answered questions about using media as protection (“If you’re holding a camera, they’re less likely to hurt you”), making a living (“I’ll admit I do some corporate work”), and gaining access to sources (“Always work with locals”).

“Remember, they call it a struggle for a reason,” said Lisman, “But film engages people in a new way. It’s personal and it’s human, and we should use that.”

A popular topic throughout the weekend was the action taken by Canada’s Citizen and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to ban Scottish anti-war activist George Galloway from entering Canada to speak in Toronto.

Galloway is a Member of Parliament and internationally respected for his humanitarian work.

He had planned a Canadian anti-war speaking tour from March 30 to April 2, but was warned by Canadian officials that he will not be allowed to enter Canada because he represents a “threat to national security.”

In the letter denying him entry, the government stated that they believe Galloway had supplied aid to Hamas because he entered Gaza earlier in March and delivered food to Palestinians as part of convoy organized by a British aid group.

American homeland security has placed no such ban on Galloway, who spoke in the U.S immediately before he was supposed to enter Canada. Galloway was warned that if he

showed up at the border, he will be taken into custody.

The ban on Galloway has provoked a public and political outcry. All three Canadian opposition leaders are asking that Galloway be permitted to enter, and even Conrad Black wrote an editorial which appeared in last Sunday’s National Post, stating that “I strongly support [Galloway’s] right to express his mistaken opinions in Canada or anywhere else.”

Galloway ultimately decided not to attempt to enter Canada, and instead delivered video speeches to audiences in Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. He stated that he would not enter because he had no intention of breaking the Canadian law.

The controversy provided a focal point for many at the assembly, who worked hard to fight the ban. Students expressed concern that the ban on Galloway will set a dangerous precedent for freedom of speech under the leadership of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

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George Galloway

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OPINION Adios y Viva la Revolucion Ryerson… your Jason Kenney coverage.

No more Jason Kenney.

No more ryersonfreepress.ca–updating you is an enigma–specially the freakin’ ‘featured categories.’

No more leveller.org. Your name clashes with our branding aspirations stolen from the Aspers–but you’re still an awesome thing!

No more J-schoolers pretending there

dan Rios

N

o more soul-crushing RSU meeting where good pasta was my only comfort.

No more routine CESAR board meetings with somewhat decent falafels.

No more journalists using so-called neutrality as a shield to side with the powerful against the voiceless.

No more trying to inflict war resister stickers upon Canadian Forces floats at Pride parades.

No more persuading law students that running over striking York picketers in their cars is illegal and uh… manslaughter.

No more Ram in the Rye: Health cards DO REPRESENT VALID GOVERNMENT I.D.!

No more sectarian McCarthyism of the Toronto left.

No more dreading the demise of CKLN– you have been great and will rise again.

No more inadvertent co-chairing of all awesomely activisty meetings.

No more yufreepress.org. May people stop making off with your papers.

No more utfreepress.org. Damn I loved

are only two sides to a story, or even more than just one.

No more letters to the editor about how Israel just couldn’t help itself.

No more community service groups. I rather liked puttering around in your offices. You have nice couches, of which I am rather envious…

No more empathizing and plotting with the other campus press that had to endure RSU meetings.

Nice working with you...but in the immortal words of Tom Petty, “I must be movin’ on.” (I can’t believe I just quoted Tom Petty... so I really must be movin’ on...) Ring if you’re in Guatemala.

PS—I present our new Editor-in-Chief Nora Loreto, a ferocious advocate for students. I would ask that all student papers spend more time questioning their administrations, governments and corporations instead of focusing exclusively on crushing unions that fight for students’ rights.

Hasta la victoria siempre...

Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen

Fire Jason Kenney For attacks on civil liberties Since becoming Minister of Citizenship and Immigration just a few months ago, Jason Kenney has gone on a rampage against civil liberties and the anti-war movement. It is now time that he be fired.

First, Kenney labelled US Iraq War resisters “bogus refugee claimants,” a smear denounced by the Canadian Council for Refugees for giving “the strong appearance of political interference.” He has gone on to imply that war resisters are criminals, in order to justify deporting them to US jails – against the will of Parliament.

Then Kenney attacked Arab and Muslim organizations for criticizing his support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. He punished the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) for exercising its freedom of speech, by cutting its funding of CAF’s immigration placement program.

With cruel irony, Kenney then criticized immigrants for not learning English (or French), even though he just cut funding to a highly successful English-language program provided by CAF. In addition, Kenney recently appointed a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and gay rights to the Immigration and Refugee Board, a tribunal that decides the merits of refugee applications - including LGBTQ people fleeing persecution. Kenney’s department also conducted raids on hundreds of migrant workers in southern Ontario on April 2 and 3, creating fear among non-status workers and scape-goating the most vulnerable in the midst of an economic crisis.

Kenney then denounced students organizing Israeli Apartheid Week as anti-Semitic – despite the widespread participation of Jewish students and organizations in the week’s activities. His attacks spurred university administrators to crack down on

student organizers, banning posters and fining students.

Finally, on the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War, Kenney banned British anti-war activist George Galloway from entering the country.

Galloway is a five-times elected Member of Parliament who has no criminal record, has never be banned from any country, and has spoken many times in Canada. Kenney labelled him a “threat to national security” because he opposes the war in Afghanistan (as do a majority of Canadians) and because he recently organized an aid caravan for Gaza – which undermined the Conservatives’ boycott of the democratically elected government in Gaza. As Galloway said, “this idiotic ban shames Canada.”

Kenney’s blatant attack on free speech has shocked even the rightwing National Post. He has become the leading face of reaction against civil liberties and the anti-war movement.

He has become the Minister of Censorship and Deportation.

The time has come for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to fire Jason Kenney.

Harper has unleashed his pit bull Kenney on the anti-war movement, because of the threat it represents.

In 2003, the anti-war

movement prevented Canada from joining the Iraq War, against the wishes of Harper and Kenney. In 2006, Harper’s defence of Israeli massacres in Lebanon – calling them a “measured response” – generated a backlash that drained Tory support. In 2008 and 2009, the anti-war movement won a Parliamentary motion in support of US Iraq War resisters, against Tory votes.

In 2008, Harper clung onto minority rule through an election campaign based on concessions – including promising to with-

draw troops from Afghanistan in 2011, and admitting that his support for the Iraq War was “absolutely an error.” At the start of this year, Harper learned from experience and kept his mouth shut on Israel’s latest war in Gaza, though he dispatched his ministers to back the bombing With each defeat, the Tories have launched a counter-attack against the anti-war move‘KENNEY’ CONTINUED ON PAGE 23

dan Rios

Jesse McLaren

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Knowledge professionals, A new direction for or just plain workers? Canadian ‘Peacekeeping’?

Sarah S. McLauchlan Knowledge professionals, or just plain workers? I have encountered this question repeatedly, both during and after the strike by teaching assistants at York University. It has never been asked directly, yet it floats in the air everywhere, underpinning many of the debates and divisions which have manifested over the past few months, both within our unions and in the larger community. It is a very critical question.

It is a question of how we conceive of ourselves, those of us who work and study within the institutions of the university, and therefore of where our allegiances lie.

Do we think of ourselves as workers, just like any other worker in the world? Or, do we think of ourselves as being in a separate category – as being a cut above regular workers due to the intellectual nature of our occupations? The answer to that question determines how we understand ourselves in relationship to the rest of the labour movement – whether or not we perceive our issues and struggles as being in common with those of workers in other occupations.

If we conceive of ourselves as workers like all other workers, then we can stand in clear and unequivocal solidarity with all of our fellow comrades in the struggle for just pay, reasonable working conditions and the right to collective bargaining. We can see the standard of living which we enjoy as being one which ought to be the right of all workers. Our collective labour produces the common good of society, and is therefore of inherent value, whether that work is intellectual, manual or both.

Indeed, we can begin to break down the long-cherished hierarchy which posits intellectual work as being superior to “mere” manual labour. And we can see the common good, the common well-being, as the ultimate goal of all our joint struggles.

But if we conceive of ourselves as being in a separate category of “knowledge professionalism,” then our relationship to the rest of the

labour movement becomes more problematic. It has the potential to imply that we do not see our struggles as being in common cause with other workers. It even stands to imply that we believe ourselves deserving of higher standards of living and working conditions, not because that ought to be the due of all workers, but because our work is of special value due to its intellectual nature.

It is easy to see the elitism inherent in this self-perception and to see the dangers thereof, not only for us but also for the entirety of the struggle for workers’ rights.

This positing of a difference between “knowledge work” and “labour” is not by any means restricted to the university sector. In fact, we hear it all the time. We hear politicians and economists say that we are moving to a “knowledgebased economy” – that we should be moving towards an “economy of brains not brawn.”

It seems to me, though, that this is simply the replication of the old hierarchy of work of mind over and against work of the body. It is the old ideology which would have us believe that our allegiance ought to be with those who do ‘clean’ work rather than with those who do ‘dirty’ work.

I would suggest that it is dangerous to fall into that trap, because it divides us from our fellow workers and citizens, and leaves us isolated and vulnerable as we enter into bargaining with our employers. We need to accept ourselves plainly as workers and not shy away from forming allegiances with other workers which this transition in thinking entails, even though they may work in historically devalued occupations.

If we want our collective bargaining to have any power at all, we need to break out of the ivory tower and accept membership in the working class. Better yet, we must learn to wear that membership with pride.

This article originally appeared in the York University Free Press.

Farah Islam From the “glory days” of Pearson-era internationalism a few decades ago to ranking today a dismal 55th out of 108 nations contributing UN peacekeeping troops – Canada has experienced a spectacular fall from grace.

We have lost relevance as a nation. We are either viewed as the polite, non-confrontational, self-absorbed northern cousin of the US, or as being so completely below the radar that the idea of Canada as a global leader is laughable.

What happened to Canada’s standing as a levelheaded middle power – as an independent beacon of international peace and goodwill?

Many of us have a romantic notion of Canada’s place in the world. The tougher-than-nails, indomitable Canadian spirit, possessing – in the words of poet A.J.M. Smith – “the beauty of strength broken by strength and still strong” – hearkens to a past that sadly just doesn’t ring true now.

Perhaps we lived up to our fierce independence during the time of Lester B. Pearson and Canada’s brilliant mediation during the Suez Canal crisis. During the Cold War, the clash of civilizations threatened the start of yet another world war. And in response, Pearson proposed the deployment of the first ever UN international peacekeeping force into the Suez Canal, calling for the simultaneous removal of French and British troops from Egypt. This ingenious plan brought the Middle East back from the brink of war, and later earned Pearson the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.

It set the precedent for the deployment of international peacekeeping troops, and effectively consolidated Canada’s role as a powerful, self-possessed mediator. We were relevant to the world. Our opinions held sway on the world stage.

But now, just over half a century later, we’re left wondering: what happened? Where did Canada go wrong?

Optimists always cite that Canada has contributed to every major peacekeeping mission to date. Examine this further and we discover that this rosy-coloured version of history is more than a little tainted. Unquestionably, one of the greatest blights on Canada’s peacekeeping record is the 1993 Somalia Affair. During a so-called UN “humanitarian initiative” during the Somali Civil War, two Canadian soldiers brutally tortured and murdered a Somali teenager, Shidane Arone. Adding to their sadism, the soldiers snapped photos to document their savagery.

The public outcry both at home and abroad left Canada extremely reluctant to join further peacekeeping efforts.

Two years later, Canada sent a conservative and reluctant contribution to NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. But again, adding insult to injury, Canadian “peacekeeping” troops sullied the nation’s name with the Bakovici Scandal. Reports surfaced of Canadian peacekeepers’ sexual misconduct with nurses and abuse of mental patients in a hospital in the former Yugoslavia.

What seemed to follow was a steady trend of withdrawal and retreat from the world stage. Canadian forces pulled out of Rwanda in 1995 and recently out of

the Syrian Golan Heights in 2006, to name a few. So you can understand that it is surprising that Canada stubbornly continues its mission in Afghanistan. What began as an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) initiative of overseeing elections and assisting in nationbuilding has morphed into an entirely different beast.

Canada is now involved with tracking down AlQaeda insurgents, shipping off detainees to the infamous Guantánamo Bay, and patrolling hot pockets like the Kandahar province.

This isn’t peacekeeping. It’s full-out war.

Reports of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, arbitrary home raids, and wanton destruction of infrastructure make this, on top of that, a very questionable and morally reprehensible war.

The likelihood of Canadian abuse of power in Afghanistan and further backlash is exponential. Following the debacles of Somalia and Bosnia, why would Canada take this gamble?

Perhaps paying lip service to “peacekeeping” by throwing a smattering of racist, abusive, and poorly trained troops at a problem just isn’t the solution.

Canada should promote peacekeeping by returning to its role as an innovative and prescient mediator, hearkening to the multilateralism of the Pearson era.

Do I believe that our present government has the gumption and compassion to revamp Canada’s world image? No. But that doesn’t mean that our next government can’t start to undo the decline of the past 50 years.

The youth in America had a huge hand in electing a man to office who has the potential to usher in a new world.

We can do the same.

Educate yourself. Vote. Voice your opinion. Demand more of our leaders. Make foreign policy relevant. In doing so, our leaders may make Canada relevant to the world yet again.

For a lively debate on Canadian peacekeeping, visit http://www.canada2020.ca/blog/conference-news/peacekeeping_post/ This article originally appeared in the York University Free Press.

Sultans of Science: they ruled for real!

Exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre explored the contributions of Muslims and Arabs to science Huda Assaqqaf With today’s western civilization and inventions ruling the world, people hardly put the effort to search for origins of this knowledge rooting back to times before Thomas Edison and Da Vinci. When I was a child, especially being a Muslim and an Arab, it was crucial for me to learn the civilisation of Islam and all the significant history makers who have contributed to the world in addition to learning about western scientists.

The Ontario Science Centre is hosting the “Sultans of Science: 1000 Years of Knowledge Rediscovered,” a travelling exhibition ending on May 10 and developed by Cape Town and Dubai-based MTE Studios. I was sceptical at first about visiting it. After all, from what I have seen about Islam’s images in North American media, I had this idea in mind that this exhibition will either be a flop, or will only be visited by Muslims who know its value.

I finally went with a friend and we first watched Journey to Mecca in the amazing IMAX dome. Even though I knew the story of Ibn Battuta, I still enjoyed the movie and felt they should have continued beyond his trip to Mecca because it was only after his Hujj did his real journey in search of knowledge started. As expected, about 90 percent of the audience of the movie were Muslims and there were a couple of white families and a Chinese family.

I was really curious to know as to what they thought of the movie, about the man with the most exploring journeys of his time before Magellan and Marco Polo, but I could not ask!

We then headed to exhibition Hall D where they have the Sultans of Science, the entrance was quite attractive with a model of Al-Jazari’s elephant clock.

I started feeling excitement and thrill to re-live the

stories I read in my childhood. As I entered in this jampacked exhibition, I saw people of all kinds, just like any place you would visit in Toronto; some of them seemed captivated by the exhibits and models.

The exhibition covered optics, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, chemistry, veterinary medicine, geography, engineering, flight, mathematics, society and lifestyle, geography, trade, art and architecture.

The scientists came from all-corners of the globe, from Abbas bin Fernas in Cordoba, Spain all the way to Zheng He in China. It felt great and amazing to be able to learn about the history of science and how Muslims, especially Arabs, contributed to it.

Quotes and compliments filled up walls of the exhibition reinforcing the fact that if Muslims did not invent and spread knowledge then today’s human civilisation may have been non-existent.

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Who’s Hiring?

Is it just me or is it getting really difficult to find a job?

Everyone, (well almost everyone) is feeling the crunch with this slowing economy, especially students.

Most of us have bills to pay and even for those who previously could count on mom and dad, things are a little different now.

And so, most of us have strapped up our boots and are trying to get a job to supplement our income/ lifestyle while we attend school.

There’s just only one small problem – who’s hiring?

There seems to be a cyclone of problems going on that have people’s minds whirling. If you already have a job, you may be worried about getting laid off or having your hours cut.

If you do not have a job, you’re competing with thousands of people who don’t have one either.

On top of the competition, most companies have a hiring freeze, while others need someone with particular credentials or really flexible hours, which is hard if you attend school. But phone companies and credit card companies don’t care if you can’t find a job. Neither will your stomach if you can’t afford groceries.

Even if you do cut back on expenses, perhaps switching phone companies or going from monthly cell phone billing to pay-as-you go or hiding your credit card somewhere in the house, there will always be something that you will

have to pay for: food, clothing, toothpaste, transportation, deodorant and soap (well I would hope so) and the list goes on…

I have many friends who have been finding it hard to get a job or to get enough hours at work, and that combined with their schooling and responsibilities can be overwhelming for them but as it has always been said, when there is a will there is a way.

As of February 2009 Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 7.7 percent according to Statistics Canada.

If the economy continues to contract, start to expect that number to continue to rise.

Some people who may be out of work may be daring and savvy and may decide to just start their own business; most of us might not have that luxury, especially when we are attending school.

However, if you are able to turn a hobby into a business without a lot of effort, or if you have the connections to start a business, by all means go for it.

But for the rest of us who just a need a job to bring in a little extra dough, here are some ideas if you’re finding it difficult to land a job: Attend job fairs Just bring your resumes and you’re A-game.

Go through a job agency They may take a portion out of your pay cheque but at least you will have a job. Beware of temp agencies, however –their record for

duckiemonster @ FLICKR.COM

Jessica Campbell looks at life for students during the recession and offers suggestions on where to find work

worker’s rights isn’t very good, to say the least.

Work from home (beware of scams) I will repeat, beware of scams.

However, there are some reputable companies out there that will pay you to do work from the comfort of your own home or rez.

Focus groups: companies will pay for your opinions Depending on the size of the focus group or company you can make a decent amount of money for one day of work.

Go through family and friends to see if anyone will hire you to work a few hours of work (a little money is better than no money) If you have a family member or a friend who has a business and doesn’t mind paying you for a couple of hours of work, what’s the harm in that?

Work on campus If they’re hiring and you qualify, why not go for it? They’ll likely work around your school schedule and pay at least $10.00 per hour.

Work for a fast food chain They usually are hiring students and a lot of their locations are open late so you can work after classes.

Work for a café Have you ever walked into a café and felt a laid back vibe, if that’s the case why not try working there, they too hire students and some of them even offer scholarships.

Write for a local school newspaper… (Hint, hint) If you have great ideas and can put them on paper why not put together an article for thousands of people to enjoy? The Ryerson Free Press is the only Ryerson paper that pays…

As I mentioned earlier, many jobs ask for flexibility. While some do require one to work evenings and weekends, I find that most jobs out there are for those who can work during the day.

If you too find that to be the case and you are someone who is desperate for a job, another idea to consider is to work during the days and take evening and/or online courses.

Either way, life is too short not to enjoy it, so have fun but don’t get yourself into a situation where you feel like you need to get rich quick.

If you do happen to find a job, don’t let it get in the way of your schooling because the chances are that you’re in school so that you can start a great career, so don’t let a job get in the way of that.

NATO’s role in promoting Western imperialism In the wake of NATO’s 60th anniversary summit, Lindsey German looks at the organization’s history and explains why it has never been the ‘defensive’ body it claims to be

Anti-war activists from around the world converged on Strasbourg, France in the first week of April to protest the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military alliance headed by the US. NATO was formed 60 years ago on April 4, 1949.

“NATO is an increasing obstacle to achieving world peace,” the organizers of the demonstration declared. “Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has reinvented itself as a tool for military action by the ‘international community,’ including the promotion of the so-called ‘war on terror.’

“In reality, it is a vehicle for US-led use of force with military bases on all continents. It has waged seven years of brutal war in Afghanistan, where the tragic situation is escalating and the war has expanded into Pakistan.”

Anyone who opposes war has reason to be concerned by NATO’s recent actions. The Strasbourg summit will discuss a $500 billion expansion programme to bring up to six new members into NATO, including Ukraine and Georgia, which are both on Russia’s borders.

NATO has also taken on the mantle of leading over 80,000 foreign troops in the military occupation of Afghanistan.

This comes as the war in Afghanistan descends even further into bloody chaos. Some 116 Canadian troops have been killed there since 2001, while 155 US troops died in Afghanistan last year alone. Despite all this, NATO still dominates over less than half of the country.

The occupation of Afghanistan was sold as a “humanitarian” mission, yet for ordinary Afghans, life continues to worsen. Last year, around 2,000 Afghans were killed or injured in fighting that relies on indiscriminate aerial strikes by NATO forces, often using notoriously imprecise unmanned

“drone” aircraft.

All the country’s development indicators are in decline.

Drug production is rocketing. There is barely any law enforcement or social services.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission

recently concluded that the lot of Afghan women is worsening in most of the country.

Now polls are finding that for the first time since the 2001 invasion, more Afghans view the foreign military presence as “unfavourable” than “favourable”. In the villages, the war against NATO is increasingly being fought by locals without any direct connection to the Taliban or Al Qaida.

The fact that NATO is today openly engaged in aggressive military conquest and occupation jars with the organization’s purported aims. It was formed in 1949 as a military alliance that claimed to be defending Western Europe from attacks by the Warsaw Pact, the rival alliance that brought together Russia and its Eastern bloc satellites.

But in truth, NATO has always served other purposes.

For starters, it was designed to ensure that the US’s European allies were kept in a subordinate military position. The senior military commander in NATO has always been a US officer.

France’s post-war leader General Charles de Gaulle refused to accept this subordination, which is why he refused to let France become part of NATO’s military structure.

France’s current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reversed this policy at the summit.

Moreover, from its earliest days NATO explicitly reserved the right to act against “communism” or any other “subversion” within its member countries.

At the time, this provision was especially meant to apply to Greece, which was emerging from a bitter civil war between left-wing partisans and the right-wing army. But it ‘IMPERIALISM’ CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

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Stereotyping Africa

Amil Shivji Let’s start by stating the obvious: Africa is a continent and not a country. Some of you may be surprised that I chose to begin in this way.

But trust me: after all that I’ve been through, this will be the least of your surprises.

I am an international student of Tanzanian nationality.

Tanzania is in East Africa, neighboured by Kenya and Uganda. It is a beautiful country with amazing land tenure and people. It is not all about safaris or The Lion King, and it has nothing to do with dictatorships and cannibalism (in truth, the only “man-eat-man” society that I am currently aware of is the capitalist one glorified in the West). Tanzania and all the other African countries are usually depicted as completely underdeveloped and starving for charity/aid from the so-called developed world.

One of the primary reasons why African

‘IMPERIALISM’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

also had wider applicability.

Lord Ismay, the first NATO secretary general, famously stated these aims from the British point of view when he said that the alliance’s goal was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.

NATO persisted in this form throughout the Cold War until 1991 when the Warsaw Pact was dismantled. This meant the alleged reason for NATO’s existence also disappeared. But, far from going away, NATO started a process of expansion that continues to the present day.

The organization has developed a nuclear first strike policy – which tears apart any claim that it is merely a defensive alliance.

And it has adopted an “out of area” strategy which argues that instability in any part of Europe

countries are not as financially stable as countries in the West is centuries of domination and imperialism – through slavery, colonialism and now neo-colonialism (or so-called globalization). Western countries have long exploited the resources of Africa. To this day, for example, their companies are siphoning off the enormous mineral wealth of my country to core countries.

So why is it that in Canada, much like many other places in North America, the mention of Africa arouses such mistaken notions? The mainstream media, being the primary source of information, has a large role to play in this by wrongly portraying Africa as an ensemble of “primitive” countries drowning in diseases.

However, the sad thing is how gullible the majority of Western society is when digesting such nonsense. Due to a lack of exposure to anything else but the mainstream media, many

constitutes a threat to its members.

It was on this basis that NATO acted as an independent military force during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and coordinated an 11-week bombing campaign on Serbia and Kosovo in 1999. These attacks, which were never given the legal basis of authorization by the UN Security Council, constituted the turning point in NATO’s mutation into a nakedly imperialist force.

NATO’s war on Serbia prefigured many now familiar aspects of the “war on terror.” It involved the major bombardment of civilians, all under the very detailed control of the US, yet was dressed up as a “humanitarian intervention”.

Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was labelled the “new Hitler.”

While opposition to the Kosovo war was much smaller than the opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was nevertheless important.

individuals take to reality what the media portrays of Africa.

All that I have heard from people is that I can speak good English. And an even bigger mystery seems to be that fact that I am not black.

There is more to Africa than what you think! Africa is a continent of 53 countries, many languages, and diverse cultures and people. Many countries in Africa are known for their great sense of friendliness and hospitality.

These countries also host democratic elections and democratic governments. Those countries that tend to go off the line of “democracy” (more like not playing by America’s rules) are quickly slapped down with the label “dictatorship.”

However, to romanticize the entire continent would be just as detrimental. No doubt, there are very real political problems in the

Opposition was based among people who understood that this was not a “humanitarian intervention” at all, but marked a new phase in the history of imperialism.

The end of the Cold War and the spread of “globalization” in the 1990s had ushered in a new imperialism, one that saw the US determined to use its military might to secure its economic interests in a world where it faced growing competition.

That year also saw the encroachment of US interests eastwards. It was little noticed at the time, but in the same month that the bombing of Belgrade began, NATO admitted three former Warsaw Pact countries – Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic – into its membership. The expansion of NATO eastwards was a major goal of Western imperialism. It was one of the sources of the war between Russia and Georgia last summer.

continent, but none that cannot be resolved by Africans themselves.

The solidarity found among the people of African countries is amazing. For example, the small businesses located in one area do not compete with each other but, on the contrary, aid one another. This highly contrasts the Western cut-throat competitive society, whereby everything functions around profit.

In order to understand the origins of these stereotypes, we need to go back to the era of colonialism. When the European powers divided Africa like a cake in the “Scramble for Africa” in the late 19th century, they fundamentally changed the map of the continent by randomly drawing lines, dividing its people. As if that wasn’t enough, they then imposed their own cultures, religions and languages in different African countries.

When they finally left Africa, the borders were already created and resources were unequally allocated. Worse, African economies had been made appendages of Western capitalist economies, thus giving Western countries enormous advantages.

On top of all that, four centuries of slavery and a century of colonialism socially and economically demolished African societies. (For instance, Timbuktu had an African-Islamic university as early as the 15th century.) We had to start from scratch with respect to developing, but still, it is never asked: who put us in that situation in the first place?

Nevertheless, comparisons are still made to Western countries in order to conclude that Africa is a “primitive” continent.

Of course, in order to move forward, it is not enough to blame the West. But in order to understand the current situation, we must look back at this history of domination.

Furthermore, it is not as if Western domination is simply a matter of the past. Cultural domination through mistaken and ignorant notions of the continent, economic domination through aid with strings-attached, and political domination all play a huge role in the continued oppression of Africa by the West. So by facing our history we hope to find solutions to rebuild our continent and to restore the grandeur it once had.

The development of African countries and Western countries can be illustrated as not a race between the strong and the weak, but a race between the strong that has chained the weak and now blames the weak for lagging behind.

This article originally appeared in the York University Free Press.

So the need to oppose NATO as part of a wider struggle against imperialism remains as pressing as ever. Nowhere is this more true than the war in Afghanistan. US president Barack Obama has just committed 17,000 more US troops to that conflict, taking the US total to about 55,000, in the second longest military engagement in US history.

The US is also putting heavy pressure on other NATO member states to follow its example and also commit more troops.

The combined total of NATO troops now stands at just over 80,000. But realistic independent estimates of the number of troops required to exert military control over Afghanistan come in much higher, at around 500,000.

NATO therefore simply cannot “win” in Afghanistan. But the likelihood of failure will not stop the US from wasting tens of thousands more lives.

There will be no developmental progress in Afghanistan because occupation by foreign powers is anathema to democracy and peaceful development. The Afghan war is not a “good” war in contrast to the “bad” war in Iraq.

They are both disastrous wars that must end so that we can turn our attention to the real threats that face us – climate change, mass poverty and the shockingly unsustainable economic practices that have brought the world into recession.

Challenging NATO is a crucial aspect of that wider fight to change the world, and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This article originally appeared in Socialist Worker (UK) on April 4, 2009. Lindsey German is national convenor of the British Stop the War Coalition. She writes here in a personal capacity. For more information, visit www.stopwar.org.uk

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Editor’s note: Palestine solidarity activists on university and college campuses across Canada have been the target of attacks by administrators who have attempted to restrict debates on the topic of Israel and Palestine. At York University, Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) were recently hit with fines and suspensions. Below is their response.

Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at York University condemns the intensifying efforts to shut down Palestine solidarity activism on campus. The decision by the York University administration to fine and suspend our organization is disgraceful and part of a wider pattern of administrative repression faced by Palestine solidarity groups on university campuses.

SAIA condemns violations of human rights In its recent attack on the population of Gaza, Israel indiscriminately killed 1,300 people, including over 400 children civilians. Israel continues to besiege and starve the population of Gaza, to imprison thousands of Palestinians without trial, to subject Palestinians to torture, and to commit a host of other violations of international law, all under the open support of the Canadian government and academic institutions such as York.

SAIA endorses the call from 2005 made by a broad coalition of Palestinian civil society groups in the Gaza Strip and West Bank for a campaign of boycott, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international and humanitarian law.

The February 12, 2009 rally On February 12, 2009, SAIA organized a rally and march at York University to demand that York University president, Mamdouh Shoukri, issue a statement condemning targeted Israeli attacks on Palestinian educational institutions.

Since York University, like many other Canadian universities, condemned the call for an academic boycott as a violation of academic freedom, we maintain that the outright blowing up of universities and schools with students still in them would constitute a greater violation of academic freedom, worthy of equal if not even stronger condemnation. Rather than respond thoughtfully to our reasonable demand, the Shoukri administration chose to suspend our organization for a month and fine us $1,000 as well as an additional $250 charged directly to the student account of the group’s signatory – amounting in total to $1,250 more than our volunteer-based organization currently has.

A coordinated sabotage of our activities Our membership, in trying to distribute critical political literature on our campus, has faced persistent harassment, intimidation and verbal abuse from on-campus clubs including Hillel and the Hasbara Fellowships, together with offcampus extremist hate groups such as the Jewish Defense League (JDL).

Israel advocates and the York administration have been shown to be working together in a coordinated fashion to try to sabotage our demonstrations and activities on campus, making them disruptive through aggressive counterdemonstrations and then using the disruption as a justification to shut us down.

False smears against our activists The York administration and Israel advocacy push to shut us down includes attempts to smear us with baseless, unsubstantiated charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ through a morally bankrupt campaign of distortion, innuendo and outright lies.

We oppose Israel’s apartheid policies, denial of the right of return to Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes in 1948, and institutionalized discrimination against its Palestinian citizens. To suggest that this is ‘anti-Semitic’ is false and reprehensible. To fabricate false statements and attribute them to our organization without evidence, as has been done by some of our political opponents, is worse still.

We continue to demand: That President Shoukri uphold basic principles of academic freedom and moral clarity by condemning the Israeli bombing of Palestinian educational facilities.

That York University publicly distance itself from claims that SAIA and IAW activities constitute ‘hate’ or ‘incitement’.

That York University make a public statement that SAIA’s activities are protected on grounds of free expression and that condemn disruptions and harassment of SAIA activists.

Students have the right to peaceful political assembly on campus. We also have the right to speak freely at rallies, and where our voices are being drowned out, to try our best to allow participants to be heard. We will continue to assert our rights to organize, distribute political literature, and hold public rallies in Vari Hall as we deem necessary in our ongoing struggle to reclaim campus space.

—Students Against Israeli Apartheid @ York This article originally appeared in the York University Free Press.

Radio Nederland Wereldomroep @ FLICKR.COM

SAIA York condemns smears, harassment and administrative repression

Forgetting the rule of law: A Canadian’s ordeal in Sudan James Gotowiec Josh Scheinert A Canadian citizen travelling abroad is arrested at the behest of a Canadian security agency and accused of being a terrorist. He is imprisoned in a foreign country and probably tortured. Four years later, the RCMP admits there is no evidence against him yet; his attempts to return home are blocked by the government. No, this is not a bad dream or a one-time slip up; apparently, it is a reality of today’s Canada.

It would be nice to think that our government had learned from the Maher Arar affair, but Abousfian Abdelrazik’s ordeal in Sudan is convincing proof of the contrary.

Both of us are law students who have intensively studied Canadian national security law. As students, we approach our contentions humbly, recognizing our place in this debate. Our motivation to speak out comes from what we have been taught of the law and led to believe about where it is supposed to guide us. But even without that background, as two Canadian citizens, we would be equally motivated by the injustice of what is happening to a fellow Canadian.

For six years now, Mr. Abdelrazik’s plight has highlighted that Canada’s commitments to the rule of law and the value it places on citizenship are not absolute, but instead are a matter of convenience.

Abousfian Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen with a family in Montreal. He comes from Sudan. Believing him to be an associate of al-Qaeda, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had him arrested by Sudanese authorities in August 2003 while he was in Sudan to visit his ailing mother.

He has not been home since.

Yet, for all the allegations, Mr. Abdelrazik is not a terrorist. The Sudanese released him twice and wondered why they were holding him in the first place.

In 2007, the RCMP admitted it could not find “any current or substantive information” to indicate he was “involved in criminal activity.

Returning home, though, has been a challenge. Contrary to the wishes of the Canadian government, he remains on the United Nations no-fly list. And while individuals on the no-fly list are technically permitted to fly home, for Mr. Abdelrazik that has not been possible: he does not have a passport anymore. It expired while he was in prison.

After the government failed to follow through on promised travel documents,

which he requires to get home, Mr. Abdelrazik is stuck where he has been living since late April 2008 – the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Sudan.

He was recently offered emergency travel documents, again, on the condition that he buys his own ticket. Knowing he is broke and destitute, over 100 Canadians defied a government threat to charge anyone who helped him, and chipped in to buy his ticket. For a second time, his flight departed without him; the government failed to live up to its end of the bargain.

Mr. Abdelrazik has never been charged with a crime, under a provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act or the Criminal Code or, for that matter, under Sudanese law.

Allegations against him have turned out to be unsubstantiated. Yet, he has been a prisoner for six years. Worse, his detention was at the hands of the Sudanese, notorious for abuse and torture. And, worst of all, that detention took place because our government asked for it.

Terrorism is scary and deadly. Long before 9/11, the Air India bombing demonstrated to Canadians the heavy price a nation could pay if attacked.

Protecting our national security must be a paramount priority of every government and our security and defence agencies. But we do not have carte blanche.

What has happened and continues to happen to Mr. Abdelrazik is wrong. In the wake of September 11, Parliament passed laws to enable us to prosecute individuals alleged to have done the things he was falsely alleged to have done. We do a disservice to those laws, said to be the bedrock of our foundation as a just society, when we turn a blind eye to them, ask Sudan to do our dirty work and then refuse to own up to our shortcomings.

We are taught about fundamental principles, the rule of law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and how they define us as a nation. As law students we are steeped in that culture – the belief in the promise and potential of those ideas.

Yet, for all their grandeur and symbolism, one man, holed up in a lobby half way around the world is shedding light on their true value.

It is time to put an end to all of this.

Bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home already.

James Gotowiec and Josh Scheinert are students at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. This article originally appeared on www.rabble.ca on April 3, 2009.

april 2009 ryerson free press

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Exposed:

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Conservative Party strategy to take over student unions Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen EDITOR-in-chief NORA LORETO NEWS EDITOR Audio recordings, photographs and documents that were leaked from a recent Conservative Party student workshop in Waterloo expose a partisan attempt to take over student unions and undermine Ontario Public Interest Research Groups (OPIRGs) on campuses across Ontario.

At a session held in early February by the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, campus Conservatives, party campaigners, and a sitting Member of Parliament discussed strategies to gain funding from student unions for the Conservative Party and ways to run for – and win – positions within student unions.

The leaked materials were posted on WikiLeaks.org in late March and add to the growing body of evidence that the Conservative Party has a strategy for interfering in campus student unions. In early 2002, the campus press first learned of a secret Millennium Leadership Fund that the party’s campus wing used to fund candidates in student union elections. Now it appears that strategy has evolved into a campaign to falsely obtain student union funding and destabilize student clubs with a social justice mandate.

Among those present at the workshop were Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Peter Braid and his campaign manager, Aaron Lee-Wudrick. Lee-Wudrick is heard on the recordings providing advice on how to siphon money from students’ unions through “front organizations” that would work to further the goals of the Conservative Party.

Braid took the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo from Liberal incumbent Andrew Telegdi in the last federal election. Telegdi had held the riding since 1993. Braid won by 17 votes, a margin that Lee-Wudrick identifies as being the reason why getting students involved in federal politics is so important.

In the presentation caught on the recording, Lee-Wudrick and Ryan O’Connor, a former Vice President of the Waterloo Federation of Students, spoke about how they were able to manipulate the student union board to run a referendum to refund the fees of the Waterloo OPIRG (WPIRG) chapter in the early 2000s. They disclose that when O’Connor was a Vice-President, he worked with Lee-Wudrick, then President of the campus Conservative club, to push forward their partisan agenda, often by using the resources ‘KENNEY’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

ment, and Kenney has become the tip of their spear. On Iraq, they are deporting war resisters, on Israel, they are lashing out at CAF and Palestine solidarity organizers, and on Afghanistan, they banned George Galloway in the lead-up to the global protests against the war on April 4.

As Galloway said, “This has further vindicated the anti-war movement’s contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are.”

But each of these attacks is based on weakness: a majority of Canadians oppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and support US Iraq War

of the students’ union.

In the presentation, Lee-Wudrick said, “If it’s possible if, in one fell swoop, to take over the Board of Directors [of OPIRG], I think that it would be pretty impressive, and you’d be a hero to the Conservative movement if you can pull that off.”

OPIRGs are campus organizations that are usually funded through a dedicated student levy to coordinate campus campaigns on human rights and social justice.

“We’ve always had people who wanted to destroy OPIRG. The interesting thing is the explicit participation of Conservative party members in these events put on by the OPCCA where they are discussing how to do these takeovers and end the role of OPIRGs on campus,” said Terrence Luscombe who sits on the board of directors of the York University OPIRG. “Of course, when there are actual Conservative MPs involved, you have to question where this group is getting its funding and [people need to follow] the money trail, and to which interests within the government [it will lead],” he added.

While Lee-Wudrick and O’Connor’s plan to cancel WPIRG’s funding failed in 2002, they boasted that it paved the way for another attempt in 2005, and expressed hope of success in the future.

They also identified student unions, campus radio stations and the Canadian Federation of Students as potential targets of a campaign to eliminate each organization’s funding.

“Part of the objective here is to bring people into the Party. That’s a good thing,” said O’Connor. “Young liberals will help you out… and they’re some of the strongest allies on student issues,” he added.

During the workshop, student Conservatives were also coached on how to set up “shell groups” as a way to advance a partisan agenda on campus.

“Yeah, we had a front group like that: the Campus Coalition for Liberty. It was really just a front for the Conservatives, but it gave us like two voices.” said LeeWudrick.

He added: “Don’t think that the Party doesn’t

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resisters, and a growing number are joining the Palestine solidarity movement.

When under attack for unpopular policies, the Tories often double their bet by going on an aggressive offensive, in an attempt to sway public opinion. But this strategy can backfire.

During the last election, the Tories initially defended their attacks on the Arts, but were forced to back down when this generated widespread protest. After the election, the Tories attacked pay equity, civil servant strikes, and opposition party funding, while offering nothing for the looming recession. This provoked a massive backlash that Harper only survived by proroguing Parliament. After the Tories

like that, because they do. They’re things that will help the Party, but it looks like it’s an organically-grown organization and it just stimulated from the grassroots spontaneously. They love that stuff… Remember all of the Rallies for Democracy… that’s just an example of how big those things can get.”

Listed as having been present at the Waterloo or other Ontario workshops were Richard Ciano, Founder of the Conservative Campaign University, a political training school for conservative activists; Nick Bergamini, student councillor and VicePresident Student Issues-elect for the Carleton University Students’ Association; and Kevin Wiener, a student senator at Queen’s University, candidate for the National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada and SecretaryTreasurer of the Ontario Progressive Campus Youth Association.

Also listed was Chris McCluskey, Program Coordinator for the Manning Centre for Building Democracy in Ottawa and a former Vice-President of the Dalhousie Students’ Union. He has conducted a workshop, called “Strategies that work: Running for student government” at severalother sessions including one in London and Ottawa.

Shelley Melanson, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario was surprised when told of the leaked strategy.

“Campus students’ unions are there to represent students and should be free from the partisan interference of federal and provincial parties,” she said. “The contribution of students’ unions and OPIRGs to the broader social justice movement in Ontario is important and it’s disturbing to think that Canada’s governing party would use its resources to undermine democratic student organizations in this way.”

While recordings are available from only the Waterloo workshop, the OPCCA and

the Manning Foundation have held similar Conservative training sessions on campuses in Ottawa, Toronto, London, Halifax and Winnipeg.

Braid was not the only sitting Conservative politician to attend such a workshop.

Monte Solberg and MP Chris Warkentin attended similar seminars in Ottawa on November 20, 2008, while Nova Scotia Environment Minister Mark Parent, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Greene, and Former New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord all participated in the Halifax workshop held from October 26 to 28, 2007.

In 2002, a secret Millennium Leadership Fund of the youth wing of the Progressive Conservative Party was exposed by the Western Gazette in an article called “Tories plot to infiltrate student government.”

The article referred to an e-mail leaked in March of 2002 in which then OPCCA President Adam Daifallah boasted to fellow party members about Millennium Leadership Fund recipients who were successfully elected that year at Queen’s University, the University of Waterloo and the University of Windsor. According to the Gazette, the Millennium Fund was largely paid for by senior Progressive Conservative members and supporters.

Influencing the results of campus student elections and referenda continue to be on the priority list of the OPCCA. Eric Merkley, president of the OPCCA and deputy campaign manager of Braid’s successful election campaign was also present at the workshop. In his election platform for president of the OPCCA, Merkley promised that, “Team Merkley will continue with progress made in providing across-province training sessions for recruitment and campus activism for student election and referendum campaigns.”

“Lee-Wudrick and Ryan O’Connor, a former Vice President of the Waterloo Federation of Students, spoke about how they were able to manipulate the student union board to run a referendum to refund the fees of the Waterloo OPIRG (WPIRG) chapter in the early 2000s.”

dropped below the Liberals in the polls, Kenney went on his rampage to mobilize their right-wing base.

But the ban on Galloway has generated massive opposition across the country. Kenney’s office was inundated with thousands of phone calls, letters and petitions.

Within a few days, almost 10,000 people joined the Facebook group to support Galloway’s right to speak.

As Galloway said, “all rightthinking Canadians, whether they agree with me over the wisdom of sending troops to Afghanistan or not, will oppose this outrageous decision.”

A broad campaign to defend free speech in Canada can mobilize all those Kenney has attacked,

in addition to many others who simply support free speech. In the process, many more people will be introduced to the anti-war movement, and as a result, be exposed to broader issues.

It’s not too late to condemn the ban and demand its immediate reversal. Contact Jason Kenney’s office by e-mail: minister@cic.gc.ca, kennej@parl.gc.ca, kennej7@parl. gc.ca, and harpes@parl.gc.ca; or by phone: 613-992-2235 and 403225-3480. For more information, visit www.defendfreespeech.ca.

Kenney’s attack on free speech is a ham-fisted attempt to silence the anti-war movement and critics of Conservative foreign policy. But Tory attacks at home can’t change what’s happening abroad: the Af-

ghan resistance has caught Western powers – including Canada – in a quagmire. Even NATO leaders are admitting that the war can’t be won militarily. Despite Kenney’s best attempt to shut down anti-war voices, he can’t change the truth of what they have to say.

And sadly for Kenney, the more he attacks free speech in Canada, the more he unites free speech advocates, and from all over the political spectrum. As their demands grow louder to defend civil liberties, so too will this one: Fire Jason Kenney!

This is an edited version of a longer article that appeared as a Socialist Worker special supplement on March 29, 2009.

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CULTURE

Home video-esque film gives twin a glimpse of home

A Ryerson professor takes his audience (and his brother) on a narrated tour through his childhood neighbourhood from Honest Ed’s to a 50s diner. Max Arambulo reviews In his short film 316 Albany St., Ryerson image arts professor Dr. Anthony Cristiano videotapes a walking tour of the Toronto neighborhood where he grew up.

He used a handheld camera and he minimized cuts, so it feels like a home video. “Here’s the ketchupand-fries store,” Anthony says about the yellow-signed Vista diner at the northeast corner of Bathurst and Dupont. His voiceover is addressed to his twin brother, Celestino, an ocean away in Italy.

The idea of a parallel life, of what if, of the road less travelled is a common film trope. In Sliding Doors, for instance, we witness a woman’s life unfold in two completely different ways, the point of divergence a simple missed/caught subway ride. In The Double Life of Veronique, the title character even gets a glimpse of her other life. She photographs a woman who is her exact double, a woman she never knew existed and who she will never see again. The parallel life, here, is another person, not just an idea.

But in Anthony’s case, and in the

case of all the world’s twins, the parallel life is even more actual: he gets to track the entire life of his doppelganger. His path and that of his brother were exactly the same early on. They had emigrated with their family from Italy to Canada, where they spent their gradeschool years, before moving back to Italy. There, Anthony studied with Italian filmmakers like Bernardo Bertoloucci and Fellini’s longtime scriptwriter Bernardino Zaponni. But while Anthony eventually moved back to Canada to complete his graduate studies, his twin brother stayed in their homeland to raise a family.

At a screening of his works at the University of Toronto hosted by the Department of Italian Studies earlier this month, Anthony argued that an artist’s life can be understood better by decoding his or her work. He spoke mainly about his own immigrant experience, the pull of two disparate cultures on his attention. But after hearing Anthony talk about his twin brother – his other life – it’s easy to understand why the nostalgia for

the Italian, specifically, in his work is so pointed and deliberate.

There is a dual nostalgia in 316 Albany St. On one hand, it is a postcard of sorts for his twin brother, who has yet to revisit their childhood home in North America. On the other, it’s also a gift for Anthony himself, for the version that might have remained in Italy and never have returned to Canada. At one point, Anthony turns the camera to his face. When Anthony watches, does he see his own face, or one that looks exactly like his but isn’t? Does he hear his own voice, or his brother’s tenor?

Or both?

Some of his films, such as Intervalli Chiaroscuri, are straight love letters to the Old World while others malign the emptiness of the white-collar North American life that Anthony chose instead.

Patterns captures everyday objects of a 9 to 5 existence including an apartment’s washroom sink.

Money Education Success is a series of interviews with Ryerson undergrads talking about the value of expensive higher education.

No, the students say, it’s not for everybody, but the knowledge is valuable. Anthony juxtaposes their digressions with a series of excuses regarding a missed exam. The result: examples of over-educated and over-domesticated Canadian youth. Perhaps reprove is too harsh a word as the tone of Money Education Success is lighter and more nudge wink than deliberate disapproval.

The mourning of the life left in Italy, however, is tempered by celebration. Anthony is an artist

and where else can an artist find solace but art? In a one-minute short titled A Minute Life 005, he strokes his camera’s lens with his fingers as a female voice moans on the soundtrack. It’s a common narrative. A love affair with a calling often means abandoning a home. And that’s better than a life in a familiar setting with a passion, abandoned.

A Collection of Cristiano’s shorts will be released on DVD by Facets Media, www.facets.org.

Radio’s not dead: podcasters It’s taking a newer, richer direction, say young journalists

Samantha Magnus The Martlet (University of Victoria) VICTORIA (CUP) – Sarah Buchanan struggles with noise, like the sound of her neighbour’s weed-eater taking over her tapes.

“Now I am relieved that at least one interview will not be saturated with the terrible sound of lawn implements,” she said. “This is the brutal life of a podcaster.”

Buchanan is one of two University of Victoria alumni (now Vancouverites) who started their own radio podcasts this year. She and Elianna Lev have been posting shows online since February.

“It came more out of addiction than any great drive,” Buchanan said. “I got the radio bug.”

Buchanan’s project, which has aired two episodes so far, is called Life After Radio. There are no ads on the website, but in the upper corner is a link to donate by Paypal that says, “Radio is dead, long live radio,” and underneath, “Support your podcaster.”

Buchanan explains that friends and family didn’t think getting into radio was a good idea, financially speaking. Indeed, Canadian broadcasting has been anything but a rock in the world’s financial storm.

“The situation is pretty dire for most of Radio One,” she said.

But is radio dead?

“It’s obviously not,” said Buchanan. “We’re taking radio in a different direction.”

Lev is also optimistic about podcasting as radio’s next incarnation.

“It’s still a pretty new medium,” Lev said. “Rather than be frightened [of the shifts in our media outlets], I think we should be excited.”

Lev had been working as a professional journalist for five years when she was laid off by the Canadian Press last October. If that was a sour gift, then her podcast, the People’s Program Project, is the sweet juice she made from the lemons.

“I was always writing for other people, which was amazing,” Lev said.

However, the strict format and formula demanded by mass media didn’t suit her.

“It’s not who I am as a writer, as an artist,” said Lev. “I was more interested in the human side of things.”

As a radio freelancer, Buchanan’s experience was similar.

“CBC always had a very specific mission,” she said, explaining that all pieces had to be reigned into a certain clean tone. “I feel like it takes some of the warmth out.”

Buchanan says Life After Radio, on the other hand, is more local in scope and more community-based.

“I want to get across the feeling you get when you’re in a room of people sharing stories,” she said.

That, she said, is more easily done with radio than with print. “[The] sound is richer,” Buchanan said. “I always feel like something is missing when I write.”

For Lev, something was missing in her old radio work.

“I always had to put on a professional voice that didn’t sound like me,” she said.

Now that she has complete control over production, Lev is looking to find her own voice for the first time. The People’s Program Project taught her as much about herself as other people.

“Now I’m doing something that is really me,” she said.

The Project started with interviews with friends and family about their quirky and moving stories – everything from crystal healing to traffic reports to the enduring numbness of

soldiers. But Lev plans to expand her “storytelling vault” for future episodes.

Life After Radio’s two features unfold stories from old love letters and uncork strange brews in fermenters’ kitchens. Buchanan is confident that the show snuggles into its own niche.

Lev scopes out ITunes podcast for competition, and points out that the most popular show in her category is the Big Gay Sex Show.

“What are they doing that I’m not?” she said, laughing.

So far, each episode of the People’s Program Project has been downloaded about 100 times, says Lev. Although she knows that many friends and old co-workers are among the listeners, she gets the odd international surfers from France or Sweden.

Life After Radio’s hits are also mostly from Vancouver, with landings from the reaches of Grenada, Scotland, and Mexico.

“People are scared of the Internet, but there’s a lot of potential,” said Lev. The world-accessibility is one such boon. Her own favourite podcasts include the big name This American Life, as well as local comedy-cast, Stop Podcasting Me. Buchanan names Radio Lab as her favourite, but links to Lev’s show on her website.

Despite their enthusiasm, it is hard to predict how Lev and Buchanan’s podcasts will fare as these journalists factor in their finances. Buchanan says she’ll need funding to sustain the time-intensive production of Life After Radio.

“It’s pretty important to me,” said Lev about her own show. “I’ll figure out a way to make it happen.”

Both shows are available any time online – free of cost and lawnmower noises.

25 Motion covers new ground in 40 Dayz april 2009

ryerson free press

culture

Angela Walcott Cuban jazz fusion streams from speakers and the floor vibrates in response. Incense swirls in the air. Exposed weathered brick extends along the wall. This is The Trane Studio, an artist’s haven located on Bathurst St. between Dupont and Bloor Sts. It is a venue bubbling with artistic activity. Huge paintings by local artists adorn the walls to promote local talent and on Tuesdays it’s open mic night – a chance for poets to strut their stuff and speak their minds. The lady at the door crosses off names diligently from the guest list for the night’s big event, the launch of spoken word artist Motion’s latest collection of poetry called 40 Dayz.

A tall man walks in dripping leather from head to toe -- flowing trench, fedora hat, racing gloves and shiny shoes enters. Scattered throughout the room are people dining on Southern-style finger food. It is a small space but the owners have used every inch of the place to their advantage, as one almost touches elbows with the diners beside them. Trane is a place for burgeoning talent in Toronto’s black community.

One can’t help but wonder if this is what the Harlem Renaissance was like; a relaxed hub of artistic talent brimming with expression.

Waitresses wearing poor boy and ivy caps and looks of determination disappear behind a red curtain only to magically reappear moments later with arms bearing large white plates stacked high with sumptuous glistening meals.

A woman takes to the stage. Her flawless skin painted with blush accentuates her high cheekbones, while burgundy lipstick glistens on her pouty lips. Round, curvaceous, bare shoulders peek out from a billowy animal print blouse.

Twisted locks of hair sit coiled high atop her crown. Awardwinning poet Motion opens her mouth and out comes an arresting rhythmic melody of talk put to music. The drummer keeps time while trumpet and bass guitar sing, keeping time to the fullness of her voice. Motion sways to the music, delivering the words with an intense desire to speak truth. Loudness reverberates off the walls of the room. The trumpeter stands his ground and roars through his solo. Such a big

voice, such large presence emanates from the approximate five feet and two inches of Motion’s frame.

After the release of her highly successful premier book, Motion in Poetry, dub poet Wendy Braithwaite a.k.a. Motion, is the same writer speaking from a new perspective. She has grown as an artist and expanded her repertoire, which also includes work on a children’s book. The artist who champions most of the same causes such as social justice advocacy, she maintains a strong sense of community by staying close to her roots. Her delivery and execution proves that she has emerged an even stronger talent.

While it is only natural for critics to draw comparisons between the poet’s first collection to evaluate depth and artistic development, it is clear that 40 Dayz is a work that stands on its own. In terms of maintaining her unique prophetic style, she has stayed true to her fans by showing her honesty, keen observation and gift for being able to state what so many only wish they could express in words. What readers will come to enjoy with this brand new collection is how much more reflective it is of the author as an artist and her views of the world around her. Her earlier work was a reflection of life, and society in general, but this 40 Dayz has removed many more barriers by delving into the specificity of circumstance from an analytical standpoint. The depth of character-driven subplots is what drives the book and gives it dimension. Woman is a quintessential description of hope

and desire to live up to a certain ideal/definition and expectation, yet it shows the inner struggle and ambivalence lurking within an individual who strives to live up to an impossible standard which society has placed on them.

40 Dayz is a spiritual allegory of renewal and the elevation of self to new heights. This collection sees us traversing the obstacles of life in stages: 40 Dayz, Of Rain, Wombstory, Around the World In, Wilderness, Mountain, Transformashun, Ascension and Epiphany. The reader travels on a journey of self-discovery through realization and acceptance.

Connect the T-Dots is an honest representation of what Toronto has come to represent. She encapsulates what she has grown to appreciate by viewing the city of good through a critical lens stripping the good from the bad and the not-sobad from the good. There is a certain ambivalence that exists in its execution, but she reconciles this by expressing hopes, memories and love for all she holds dear – family, friends and her love for words. It outlines her hopes for justice by coming to terms with struggles within herself as part of society. As poetry is about observation, hers is a deliberate deconstruction of the Toronto so familiar to many yet so alien at the same time. We visit her corner – her local haunts and experience her city which has been carelessly relegated to a dot on a map. The dot is really about making connections and understanding that the everyday strangers we pass on the streets are connected somehow by joy or pain and the strange city is also a comforting friend.

What readers of Motion’s work will find is that there is a deeply complex undertone to her work that touches every topic – both serious and playful. Whether she is discussing authority, innocence, identity, injustice, motherhood, relationships or community, there are many topics that will touch personally while speaking to a wider audience universally.

Fans at the launch were given the added advantage of experiencing the written word in a different realm, it heightens the experience and we understand why Braithwaite’s alterego is Motion -- she has managed to cover a lot of ground.

Prof publishes plans to transform power in the political sphere Kate Spencer tells us about the launch of Ryerson politics professor Judy Rebick’s new book and the people who will read it Mixed with the various bearded men, wearing old sweaters with leather on the elbows, were woman with short hair, smart glasses and impressively long earrings, all were out in abundance for the launch of Judy Rebick’s new book, Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Professional.

One such specimen greeted the guests of the launch with a program and a ticket, saying, “Here’s your drink ticket –

it’s the most important part!”

Whether or not Rebick took offense to the fact that free booze took precedence over her book, the display of food and drink is certainly impressive. Professionally catered biscotti and bruschetta was laid out, and the smell of quality food mixed with the feel of social reform in the air. Guests sipping glasses of white wine perused the social newspapers that volunteers handed out, and then make their way inside.

The sense of social change continued in the main room for the event, held in the Atrium of the Ryerson Engineering Building of on March 3. A slide show of protests and marches, showing fights against homophobia and for women’s rights played as the intellectuals found their places amongst the wooden chairs.

Ryerson’s president Sheldon Levy, made the first opening remarks. Since Rebick works at Ryerson, holding the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, the two have crossed paths before – whether it was always pleasant is anyone’s guess, but Levy expressed real respect for Rebick and her contributions to the university.

“Thank you, Judy, for expressing your views, even if we might have a slight disagreement on them,” he said.

Diane Turbide, a representative of Penguin Group, also gave opening remarks. Penguin Group published both Transforming Power and another of Rebick’s works, a book titled Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution. Turbide also commented on Rebick’s strong personality during the four decades that she has been “a very important activist.”

She recalled a time when they were “having a very spirited discussion – is there any other kind of discussion you can have with Judy?”

Possibly not. Rebick is not known for being anything other than a strong woman, and a strong voice in the political, journalism and activism communities. She was the President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, a co-host of Face Off (a CBC debate show), a regular commentator on CBC’s Sunday Report and a

columnist with Elm Street Magazine and London Free Press. She also launched the website rabble.ca in 2001. The website is a multi-media independent news and discussion site whose motto is “News for the rest of us,” containing a primarily social justice and political focus.

When Rebick herself took the stage, that force of personality came through clearly. One of her first remarks was regarding the number of seats still left in the front row, while there were people standing in clumps in the back. She laughed, “It’s a particularly Canadian thing, not wanting to sit in the front row.”

Turning to her book, Rebick spoke of its creation as if speaking of a life’s journey. She originally thought that the book would be about the kind of change she had seen and experienced in the world – that the book would exist solely to document this change. However, she realized that it went further than that, discovering that a real theory of power was developing.

Rebick explained how she had to undergo some personal change in herself in order to write the book.

“I tried to open up my mind and my heart and rethink my ideas about politics…I really did it this time,” she said.

This opening of the mind has made her realize something that became a sort of theme of the evening – that there needs to be “a new way of changing the world…not clinging to the ideologies of the past.”

Rebick strongly believes that there must be a way to bring together people who want change, putting aside changes in beliefs that had previously kept them from working together.

This diversity of belief is present in the individuals Rebick assembled for one of the main purposes of the evening – a panel about the book and a general discussion of philosophies, beliefs, and ideas for changing the world. Present were Annahid Dashtgard, the Executive Director of Anima ‘REBICK’ CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

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april 2009 ryerson free press

culture

Border censorship: Telling art from pornography When a comic book is deemed obscene at the Canadian border, are our rights to free expression overruled?

Ethan Cabel The Uniter (University of Winnipeg) WINNIPEG (CUP) – Scanning the bookshelves of Winnipeg head shop Kustom Kulture can be both a rewarding and shocking experience – among the droves of alternative comics, titles like Footlicker, House Wives at Play, and Head jump out at you.

While many are sexually explicit and wildly erotic books, others feature socially relevant depictions of fetishism, sexual frustration, and loneliness.

Kustom Kulture is a Winnipeg retail outlet, established in 1995 to emulate a traditional 1970s head shop.

All of its comics are a testament to buyer and assistant manager Cass Sikorski’s belief in the viability and diversity of comics as a medium that, she hopes, has garnered a wider readership since she started working at Kustom in 2000.

“You can attract a greater population of readers through the graphic novel format,” said Sikorski, speaking to the market potential of comics.

“I talk to a lot of people who will say: ‘I don’t read, but I read comics.’”

Prompted by what she characterizes as a “pleasant obsession” with comic books, Sikorski furthered the store’s commitment to the medium by increasing and broadening its stock to include more literary graphic novels.

The sales figures for certain titles, she says, especially titles of historical or political relevance, are promising.

There are severe limits on the availability of certain titles, however.

Raincoast, a Canadian book distributor, recently pulled all their titles from Fantagraphics, an American publisher.

“Now we have to import most of our comics from the States,” Sikorski said.

Fantagraphics simply changed distributors, says a Raincoast customer service representative who requested anonymity. It is common for publishers to change distributors, the representative adds.

Kustom imports their comic books to Canada from the United States through United Parcel Service.

As imported goods, the books are subject to the regulations of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The CBSA operates under the Canadian Criminal Code, the Customs Act, and the Customs Tariff.

Spokesperson Lauretta Nyhus agreed to comment on the CBSA’s commitment to protecting Canadian citizens.

“We administer 90 different, various acts and legislation,” she said. “We stop goods and people not allowed into the country and facilitate and help goods and people allowed into the country. That’s our mandate; that’s our job.”

Art or porn?

On Apr. 23, 2008, the CBSA seized four copies of a comic destined for Kustom’s shelves.

The comics were seized on the grounds of obscenity, under the subsections of bestiality and necrophilia.

The satirical book was called Boffy the Vampire Layer Meets Britney Spreads!

A notice of detention was sent to Kustom.

“We’re an established business and I wouldn’t think we’d be singled out [by the CBSA], but at the same time it wouldn’t surprise me,” Sikorski said in an e-mail, hinting that the CBSA is not entirely fair in its seizures.

The materials, according to the detention notice, were prohibited under the Customs Tariff through a subsection of the Criminal Code that states “any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploita-

tion of sex or of sex and any one or more of the following . . . namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed obscene.”

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects expressive rights under Section 2 of the constitution.

Section 1 of the Charter, however, stipulates that certain rights within the Charter can be overruled if they cannot be justified in a “free and democratic society.”

This section prevents hate speech and obscenity by overruling claims of the right to free expression on the basis that hate speech and obscenity, in certain cases, are believed to cause harm to society as a whole.

Expressive rights are suspended in the case of border seizures due to Section 1. Obscene materials are said to cause societal harm, which justifies their seizure by the CBSA. If Kustom were to make an appeal, they would have to argue that the imported material does not cause societal harm.

Steven Brennan, a Winnipeg-based lawyer, helped describe the defence. “[An] argument would have to be that [the comic book] does not fail the community standards test . . . that it does not unduly exploit sex in a degrading or dehumanizing way, which prevents a risk of harm to society at large,” Brennan said.

The CBSA employs some 13,000 people, working across 1,200 border points throughout Canada. Of these border points, 119 are land crossings and 61 operate at all hours.

The size of the CBSA, while considering the prejudices of individual border officials, could raise speculation about the consistency of its decisions.

“Our review process and detention notices address that [problem],” CBSA’s Nyhus said.

Brennan supports this idea.

“Given that there is a specialized unit set up to hear appeals at their first instance, I would suggest that it is the attempt of Canada Customs to provide consistency and uniformity,” he said.

While the CBSA has the right to seize materials, any importer has the right to appeal that decision in an attempt to regain possession of the imported items.

This, Brennan argues, ensures the CBSA’s decisions remain consistent, as they can all be re-evaluated on appeal.

“Where you have a large border patrol workforce . . . the very justification for setting up a mechanism for appeal or a tribunal is the attempt to be consistent,” Brennan said.

The CBSA’s appeal process remains simple for small importers. After 30 days of the initial detention of the material, the CBSA informs the importer of their decision. If the material is prohibited, the importer can file a written request within 90 days to the Prohibited Importations Unit of the CBSA. Kustom Kulture did not file an appeal, and all four copies of Boffy the Vampire Layer Meets Britney Spreads! were destroyed.

“I lost my shit,” Sikorski said. “When I got the notice in the mail from the Canada Border Services Agency . . . [I thought] censorship, homophobia. There were . . . book titles being held and I contacted our brokers right away to get as much information as I could to prep myself.”

A broker mediates between buyers and sellers, usually through a brokerage agency.

“The brokers implied that we’d pretty much be shit out of luck,” Sikorski said. “The value on those [comics] was low and a minimal loss to us so I had to let it go,” she said.

Sikorski was unable to comment on her brokers directly or on their advice.

For the CBSA, the law is cut and dry.

“It is the responsibility of the importer to appeal within the designated time and we have the responsibility to inform them of our

decisions within a reasonable time,” Nyhus said.

“It is also the responsibility of the importer to know the law before importing.”

Who decides?

Although the appeals process is free and easy, the onus is placed on the importer to disprove obscenity rather than on the CBSA to prove the material is, in fact, obscene. The material, in effect, is assumed guilty.

If the importer fails the appeal with the CBSA and pursues litigation in court, the burden of proof shifts back to the government.

But this process is much more expensive and much more difficult for the importer.

“It is always expensive to litigate against the government,” Brennan said. “Effectively, private parties are going up against the limitless resources of the Canadian public, [which is] never an easy fight.”

Currently, if an importer wants to go beyond the internal appeal through the CBSA up to the level of the courts, the money for that challenge comes out of the importer’s pocket.

This, according the Brennan, is a bit of a contradiction. The government is restricting expressive rights, but if the importer wants to affirm their rights through the courts, they are required to pay all legal fees.

“The larger question,” he added, “is whether there ought to be a government-funded advocate that advances the claim on the government’s purse . . . to ensure that resources, or the scarcity of resources, don’t become the ultimate reason for any decision.”

The Court Challenges Program of Canada was a federally funded program created in 1978 to heal this contradiction by advancing and funding large, rights-based claims against the government.

Funding for the program, however, was abolished in 2006 by the current Conservative government.

“The Conservative government, by canceling the Court Challenges Program among other things, has restricted the ability of citizens to make complaints and to take forward complicated and expensive cases,” said Karen Busby, a University of Manitoba law professor and a constitutional law expert and civil liberties activist.

In 2000, Busby acted as an intervener in the Supreme Court of Canada, defending a queer bookstore against what was viewed as discrimination at the hands of the CBSA. Border officers were charged with deliberately inspecting and seizing book shipments to the British Columbia-based Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium under the auspice of obscenity.

Little Sisters was defeated at the court level, however.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, another intervener in the case, did not respond to requests for an interview.

“Four [out of nine] judges would have struck down the provisions giving Canada Customs the power to exercise border controls . . . so the Supreme Court was closely split on that issue,” Busby said of the Little Sisters case.

That means the four judges opposed to the seizure of obscene materials by the CBSA required only one more judge to form a majority on that decision.

And rightly so, she argues.

Around the time of the Little Sisters seizures at the British Columbia border – between 1989 and 1992 – just under 35,000 shipments were prohibited under the Customs Tariff.

During that time, only 14 charges – not even convictions – were laid under the obscenity provisions in the Criminal Code.

This essentially means that censorship trumps criminal conviction with the CBSA.

Systematic targeting?

Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium vs.

Canada (Dec. 15, 2000) Little Sisters is a bookstore in Vancouver, British Columbia that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

They carry a wide variety of queer erotica, 80 to 90 per cent of which is acquired through United States imports.

Little Sisters went to trial believing that the Canadian Border Services Agency had deliberately targeted their store.

A B.C. trial judge ruled that the store had been subject to “systematic targeting” by border officials.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed that border officials behaved improperly, but still ruled in favour of the CBSA because Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows expressive rights to be infringed in certain, justifiable cases, like border seizures.

“So you can see that Canada Customs is a significant censoring force, but we don’t know what they do and how they do their work, and that’s problematic,” Busby said.

Enforcement The subsection of the Criminal Code allowing for border seizures due to obscenity is relevant beyond the limits of the border; individual stores and Canadian citizens can be charged with obscenity in any province throughout Canada.

“In my view, if Kustom Kulture wants to sell these magazines, they should be able to sell them and run the risk of an obscenity charge,” Busby said. “And the reality is they’re not going to be charged under the obscenity provisions in the Criminal Code because those charges are almost non-existent.”

Sergeant Kerry Baldwin works in the Winnipeg Police Service’s Vice Unit.

“We’re not the book police,” he said. “The difficulty is with the definition of obscenity [is] it is a difficult definition to wrestle with and that makes it a problem of enforcement.”

Baldwin says a complaint must be made to police and that they obviously don’t have police searching stores looking for obscene materials within the borders of Canada.

“Some of it comes down to exposure; to enforce obscenity requires a complaint.”

Busby argues that while importers like Kustom Kulture are not being officially charged by the CBSA, they are being censored without knowing the internal workings of border security.

They are also not provided with the resources to challenge the government up to the level of the courts. Without government support, their rights are being trampled, she said.

Sikorski, with her near-encyclopedic knowledge and undying love for alternative comics, has a lot to say about the importance of the medium.

She believes they are an inexorable source of education and interest.

“People know now that they can read history in a form that’s more accessible,” she said.

Most importantly, however, is what comics – as all art forms – provide for the reader.

“The most important thing is the pleasure you get from it.”

april 2009 ryerson free press

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RECORD REVIEWs Wolf Parade side-project rewards repeated listening, but lacks consistency Handsome Furs – Face Control Rating: B

Face Control would be easy to dismiss: at first listen, the songs can come across as jarring, slightly dissonant, and worst of all, indistinguishable from each other.

However, good records reward (and often, demand) repeated listening, and the Handsome Furs’ sophomore effort is no exception. After approximately ten listens, the album is solid and likeable (if not inconsistent), being stunning at its best and mediocre at its worst. The album hits its highs when wife and husband Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner (the latter being from Wolf Parade) rely more strongly on keyboards and melody than starkness, and when they forego

emotion for speedy tempo. While this doesn’t sound like the typical formula for a successful record, it seems fitting on Face Control, given that it’s named after a policy enforced by Czech nightclubs where the bouncers are allowed to keep you and your guests from entering you aren’t considered attractive enough (even if you paid to reserve a table!!! on EBAY!!!). Synth-laden tracks like opener “Legal Tender”, “Talking Hotel Arbat Blues”, and interlude “White City” are some of the better tracks, but it’s wild centerpiece “I’m Confused” that proves to be the most engaging, with reverb-drenched synthesized strings, punchy percussion, and back and forth guitar stabs demonstrating

the frenetic energy that the album is capable of. Alas, potential and reality are too often exclusive of one another: between the highlights lie mid-tempo yawners like “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything,” “Nyet Spasiba” and “Officer of Hearts” which, bafflingly, are among the longest on the album.

These are the tracks that upon first listen created the aforementioned sense of indistinctness, the tracks that Perry and Boeckner seemingly forgot to inject life (see: melody, tempo) into, and thus the finished product suffered; Face Control is a good album worthy of a few listens, rather than a great one worth owning.

Oh well... we’ll always have At Mount Zoomer.

No “new sound,” but a better-than-average effort...for U2 U2 – No Line on the Horizon Rating: C

U2 seems to have reached that critical point in the music biz where they could release anything and have all the major music publications and every “rock” fan (I use that term as loosely as possible) lose their minds.

Chalk it up to the following formula: former relevance + longevity + increasing blandness + aging fan-base with much disposable income = “best band/artist ever!!!” (just ask Bruce Springsteen). U2’s influence on modern music has been tremendous, to be sure, but there came a point somewhere along the way where they stopped being the “influencer” and became the “influencee;” in social terms, they stopped being your cooler older brother and started being your loser dad who tries embarrassingly to show that he’s still “down with the kids.” This isn’t to say that U2 have completely fallen off, but it does mean that they don’t deserve the heaps of praise that get piled on them, nor the taglines printed on the cover

of magazines every time they release a new album indicating their “new sound”. There is, unfortunately, nothing “new” about a band like U2. Unlike much-ballyhooed classic rock predecessors like Bob Dylan and David Bowie, whose work is characterized by “eras” and creative forays into multiple genres, U2 has for a decade been stuck between two genres of music: acceptable, political, and quasisympathetic arena-rock and bad, meaningless, testosterone-driven arena rock. Too often, they have tended towards the latter, but without mentioning anything about the changing sound of U2, I will admit the greater quality of No Line on the Horizon compared to their other work since the turn of the millennium.

The moments of success on this album can be attributed to the band’s willingness to tone down the emotionless bombast of previous work, but unfortunately, the song that least represents this is leading single “Get on your Boots,” whose inane chorus lyrics and generic “yeah, this is a rock song” guitar riff give the

wrong impression of an album that is generally less contrived. A better picture of the album is presented by songs like the title track, “Magnificent,” and album highlight “Fez – Being Born,” whose effortless guitar parts and more striking melodies make them easier to swallow than counterparts like “Get on your Boots” and “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”. Significantly, it is the songs that Brian Eno produced that are the winners here; without him, the band wanders, all four times, into songs that rely too much on heavyhanded guitar riffs and falsetto-sung “woohoos” from Bono. No Line on the Horizon is about as “experimental” as U2 gets, and it’s

the best they’ve sounded in years, but this is no departure: if you’ve never been a U2 fan, now isn’t the time to start, and to be honest with you, it might never be.

New York Art-rockers too detached from cold, over-produced third album Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!

Rating: B

Although the title (exclamation point and all) may suggest otherwise, It’s Blitz! the third album from New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is a decidedly safe and (overly) pretty affair.

It’s a step away from the actual “blitz” that was their debut Fever to Tell and the bluesy art-rock of their sophomore album Show Your Bones toward a cleaner and significantly easier sound that, sadly, only hits the mark half the time. Without her signature growl and cathartic yelps, singer Karen O. is just a pretty voice singing lyrics that sound sapped of their emotional content by synthesized instrumentals that don’t do guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase justice. Where the band previously used simplicity and well-placed

dynamic emphasis to emotionally connect with the listener, It’s Blitz! sounds as if the band is simultaneously holding back and pouring it on too thick in terms of emotion and sound, respectively. Songs like “Soft Shock,” “Shame and Fortune,” and “Dragon Queen” sound trite and boring at first, before using half-hearted bombast and overproduction, rather than song ideas and hooks, to capture the listener.

Most of the album suffers from either apparent unwillingness to perfect what sound like skeletal, demo versions of good songs, or from an overzealous amount of fine-tuning. The songs that work the best on It’s Blitz! are the ones that carefully balance emotion with energy and melody with space: both “Dull life” and “Hysteric” are examples of this, where Karen O. is finally given space to flex her vocal muscles

and knack for melody over characteristic Zinner guitar lines and simple, organic, interesting beats from Brian Chase. It is here that the band sounds most at ease and natural, and thus, most engaging and believable. In the face of “wall of sound” production and cold synthesizers that sadly dominate most of It’s Blitz, the band sounds too distanced from their craft; otherwise, the album could have been a real stunner, showcasing the band’s ability to evolve with each record, and in doing so, become a more prominent band in the musical universe.

However, every band is allowed to misstep, and if this is as bad as it gets, take that as evidence that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have plenty of time to recover from what should be seen as a blip in an otherwise respectable discography.

P.S. Album cover of the year??

Triple threat triathlete says getting in shape is as easy as 1, 2, 3 Thrive Fitness: Mental and Physical Strength for Life, by professional Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier, gives good, common sense advice on how to live a long and healthy life. Angela Walcott gives you something to chew on Be fit for life by doing three things: eat well, get plenty of sleep, and exercise, writes Brazier. We may have been listening to our doctors tell us this for years, but Brazier backs it with scientific studies in his book.

A lack of sleep, he writes, causes us to crave starchy and sweet foods so our bodies can refuel and get the energy we need to get through the

day. If we aren’t getting adequate sleep, then we look for replacement foods that aren’t good for us.

Brazier goes on to discuss the merits of eating a plant-based diet with lots of protein. He writes that exercise, if done right, will strengthen bone density, stimulate the heart and ease depression due to the natural release of endorphins in the body.

Brazier also talks in depth about the benefits of an alkaline-based diet and the importance of raising one’s maximal oxygen consumption.

Brazier reminisces about his steady climb in the world of fitness.

In high school, he ran after school and decided that once he graduated, he wanted to pursue a career as a professional athlete. He started

training, developed a fitness plan for himself, tweaking it along the way, and saw results.

Thrive Fitness is the follow-up to his best-selling book, Thrive Diet.

Brazier has developed health food products such as the protein drink, Vega, which is chock full of minerals and vitamins, to help the diet’s followers get in shape.

The book includes recipes for healthy meals, an exercise segment for strength training as well as several charts and log sheets to mark your progress. Thrive Fitness is a great tool not only for those wanting to get in shape in time for the sunny beach weather, but more importantly, for those who are wanting to get in shape for life.

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april 2009 ryerson free press

culture

Andrew Cash cashes in on music and the media

When he’s not writing a song about the state of the world today, he’s writing a column about it.

This Toronto-based ‘journalician’ lives every day in pursuit of a balance between rocking and writing Joel van der Veen I’m not quite sure what to expect when I meet Andrew Cash. He has been a fixture on the Toronto scene for decades – first as the lead singer for punk rock band L’Etranger, and now as a journalist and musician. His solo records received international acclaim, and he was also the only Canadian to perform at a 1989 concert in Berlin, marking the toppling of the city’s famous wall.

Cash greets me at his front door with a handshake. He asks me to meet him at the back of the house, warning me to look out for cat droppings along the way. When I arrive, he leads me out of the rain into his backyard studio, a simply furnished room piled with instruments, recording equipment and papers.

“Looks like a bomb’s gone off in it,” he says.

During the late 1980s, Cash was frequently touted as “the next big thing” in Canadian music. Following the breakup of L’Etranger in 1987, he signed a lucrative contract with Island Records, becoming the first Canadian to record for the prominent British label. Toronto’s CFNY-FM called him 1988’s “Most Promising Artist,” and the video for his single Boomtown earned him a Juno Award in 1990.

Twenty years later, Cash is still writing and performing music – he released his fourth solo album, Murder = last year, but it is only one of the hats he wears. He writes a semi-regular column for NOW Magazine, commenting on politics and social issues. He contributes soundtrack music for a variety of TV programs, including Dragons’ Den, a hit reality series for CBC. He is also a husband and father of three children. And while Cash is clearly passionate about each of these roles,

it’s not always easy for him to balance them all.

The two of us are discussing his current tastes in music (“I have been on a bit of a Kinks bender as of late”) when the telephone rings. Cash excuses himself to answer it, and then invites me into the kitchen to continue the interview. A pot of soup sitting on the

stove catches my eye; he offers me some as he prepares a bowlful for himself.

Cash’s musical career reached its popular peak in the late 1980s, but he soon found himself drawn to other interests. He began writing for the Globe and Mail in 1989, contributing several columns over the next few years. “I had, from the early days of my music

career, a reputation for writing social critique in my music,” he says. “It was very easy for me to write that stuff down in 800 words.”

Such pursuits, as well as his burgeoning family, began to demand more of his time, and Cash put his music on hold for four years. A new solo album, entitled Hi, finally appeared in 1993; today Cash calls it “my favourite of my albums.” Soon afterwards, he formed Ursula, a short-lived grunge band that also included future Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett.

In 1997, he began performing with his brother Peter for the first time. Their musical partnership, recording and touring as the Cash Brothers, lasted almost a decade. Presently, the duo is on “a bit of a hiatus,” says Cash. “Not for any big reason, just sort of mundane reasons – financial, really.”

He performed a few solo shows recently to promote his recent album, but most of his time right now is consumed by writing and soundtrack work. “I may get back out there and do some touring,” he says. “That said, I’m also starting to write tunes for a new record.”

And while Cash finds great enjoyment in both writing and making music, he seems happiest when he can strike the right balance between the two. Of writing, he says, “It’s something that I love to do, and I miss it deeply when I’m not doing it.” Of music, he says, “That’s where my roots are. . .in that need to rock, because to not rock would be to die.”

And then he pauses for a second, as his journalistic instincts kick in. He thinks about it and then adds, “That’s a damn good quote.”

Melodies over mummies

After years of schooling, an aspiring curator from the GTA decided that holding a microphone in her hand and looking out into a crowd singing along appealed more to her than looking at artifacts all day. Vanessa Santilli tells us about why this songstress picked music instead of monuments When Sandra Bouza went to Scotland to get a Master’s degree in museum studies, she thought she’d return home ready to pursue work with mummies, artwork and shards of pottery. But after her first performance overseas, she was hooked on a career in music.

At a battle of the bands contest at St. Andrews University she was singing songs -- the lyrics written by her -- with the group Cactus Shanti. A few hundred people were watching.

She says she’ll never forget the feeling.

“I was just completely happy,” she remembers. “I couldn’t stop smiling. I probably looked like an idiot. I wish I could bottle that moment and have it every day of my life. And I knew that there was nothing else I could do that would make me as happy as that.”

As it turns out, Bouza, 25, can’t leave music alone. She has decided to completely throw herself into it and follow the passion that made her into a celebrity of sorts in St. Andrews. People recognized her in the streets and requested her songs whenever she played.

After returning to her home in Markham, Ontario last December, Bouza played in the Guelph Songwriter Contest, placing first on the night she performed. Her soulful, raspy

sound (think Janis Joplin) landed her in the finals.

“I’m always going to play. Always,” she says with conviction. “You have to pursue your passion. I could get a job in a museum, I could make $100,000 a year, have a very nice house and all that, but I wouldn’t be happy, I don’t think. Not unless I try this. It might not go anywhere, but it might go somewhere. If I don’t try, I’ll never know.”

Bouza describes her own brand of music as mainly folk but says it can also be called blues, jazz or country.

Performing at the Blue Moon Pub in Toronto in early March, she looked every bit the musician. Sitting atop a stool with her acoustic guitar in hand, she wore a multi-patterned silk dress with black tights, a long red scarf, and tall brown boots.

But Scotland wasn’t the first place she stepped into this spotlight. Bouza got her first steady gig at the Albion Hotel in Guelph (during the year she took off after receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University). Going away for her Master’s, she thought she’d transition right back into the academic world. She was mistaken.

In St. Andrews, she played open mics, landed gigs, and joined a couple of bands. Near the end of her time in Scotland, she was playing five times a week, sometimes every night.

“Sandra’s performances are always memorable,” says Richard Clark, a member of the blues band she played with, said in an e-mail from Scotland. “When she starts singing, everyone in the room can’t help but listen. When she sang with my band, the crowd would always go crazy for her. It would always be the biggest applause of the night.”

Musicality runs in Bouza’s family. Her sister Lesley, who has a post-graduate diploma in vocal performance, just returned from a tour performing with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, a Toronto-based chorus. The chorale performed at two events associated with President Obama’s inauguration in Washington.

Growing up, the sisters used to sing in their backyard. Their first stage was an old concrete sink that that they would stand on for performances.

“One of us would sit on the grass, and the neighbourhood kids would come, and we’d take turns performing for each other,” says her sister. “We’d either make up songs or sing the

Beatles and Joni Mitchell.”

But performing now isn’t as simple as it was back then.

“It’s a difficult thing playing music because there are a lot of people who do music as a hobby but not a lot of people who do it full time,” says Bouza.

She has a job in British Columbia beginning in April, but in the meantime is living in Waterloo, where she plays often as possible.

She’s considering moving to Liverpool to play with blues band member Clark if her music career doesn’t pan out in Canada. Her other option is to go to Austin, Texas, where she says her style of music would be wellreceived.

“I get discouraged sometimes but I’m a pretty positive person,” explains Bouza. “If it doesn’t work out for me, I’m not going to be mad, but I’m never going to stop playing. If it doesn’t work out, it just didn’t work out. You could play for two weeks and make it or play open mics every single night of your life and never be at the right place at the right time.”

Check out Sandra’s MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/sandrabouza

april 2009 ryerson free press

culture

29

Backwards screening moves things forward for Aboriginals National Film Board documentary, The Invisible Nation, puts the big picture about Quebec’s missing Algonquin peoples on the big screen Pacinthe Mattar It was only fitting that an event taking place on Friday the 13th would run in reverse, out of order. At 7:01pm, only nine people were seated in the four rows of orange and grey plastic chairs at Trinity St. Paul Church on Bloor St. At the front of the darkened chapel, was a man hunched forward in concentration, urgently clicking away at a laptop and projector. He glanced nervously up at the blue screen and wondered which of the two was responsible for the glitch preventing a punctual start to a Reel Activism screening of The Invisible Nation, a National Film Board documentary about the disappearing Algonquin people of Quebec.

Over the next half hour, nine people were joined by over fifty more, who squeezed into the remaining plastic chairs and sunk into the surrounding worn couches. They chattered amongst themselves with the familiarity of childhood friends.

Technical difficulties sent the nervous man with the laptop home to replace it — the culprit of the night’s hold-up — and allowed Margaret Sumadh, co-chair of the Aboriginal Rights working group, to take the floor.

“We’re doing it backwards,” said Sumadh with warmth and authority, smiling in response to a wave of applause. Her working group encourages non-Aboriginals to participate in education, advocacy and solidarity with Aboriginal peoples.

“I was supposed to show the film first and then wanted you to ask questions. But I invite your questions now,” she said to the audience.

Sumadh asked the film-goers to remember points in the documentary that they connected with and to find elements that surprised them once the film started later on in the evening.

“You’re going to hear some surprises,” Sumadh said.

“Because they are voices that are not often heard. A lot of the work we need to do ourselves is media analysis. What do we see in newspapers, what do we not see? Whose voices? What do they say? What is missing?”

What is missing is more work like that of Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie, the directors of the award-winning documentary about the 5,000-year-old Quebec Algonquin

‘REBICK’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25

Leadership; Debbie Field, the Executive Director of FoodShare; Grace-Edward Galabuzzi, author of Economic Apartheid; and Velcrow Ripper, director of Fiercelight: Where Spirit Meets Action.

All four have different perspectives, both on Rebick’s book and life in general. Notably, Field, the director of FoodShare, was the questioner of the evening, posing queries such as “Why can’t we have our happy ending? What has

nation. Prior to the 16th century, the Algonquin people lived on vast lands they inhabited in harmony and in peace. Today, their population has been whittled down to a mere 9,000, their lands ravaged by settlers, their cultures, languages and traditions preached, killed and thrown away, their future dangerously precarious.

The Invisible Nation documents a peoples’ nightmare: where land is ‘bought’ in exchange for a mere $4 a year; where children go to residential schools to cut off all ties to their roots instead of nourishing them with knowledge; where a community, once surrounded by nature’s plenty, is reduced to its knees from a lack of food and water; where signatures on documents signal deception and not honour; where bad faith becomes the common currency in dealings with a people who are convinced that one cannot own the land, for it is a part of them.

Today, as one Algonquin person puts it in the film, they are like ghosts on this land. They live on reserves and no longer have access to their traditional lands. Eighty percent of the Algonquin population is on welfare, including 60 per cent of youth. If the standard of living of the Algonquin nation were compared to a world scale, it would rank 63rd right now, next to the Congo. The suicide rate within the Algonquin nation is seven times the national average for women, six times the national average for men.

“There is so much learning to do,” said Sumadh, when asked by a woman seated on a couch in the back of the room about how effective the efforts in reconciliation have worked so far. “We can’t possibly learn or know everything. There must be more invitation to walk in some way with them in this struggle. We have a long way to go.”

Then, an odd question from the other side of the room. A young man’s arm shot up.

“The thing with activism is,” he began tentatively, then paused: “How does joining help?”

A confused silence set in, so he ventured further. “I have a young niece, and if she falls and I make a big fuss about it and rush over to be there with her, she cries. When I leave her alone, she doesn’t cry.”

yet to be developed to get out of this crisis?” She mentioned that she feels Rebick’s book offered a feasible solution, adding that the importance of Transforming Power lies in its statement that the system must be turned around “from the bottom up.” Field agreed with the belief that Rebick offered, stating that there is a workable way to change people’s perspectives, and that real work must be a part of the solution, for, as Field said, “What would it look like if we thought we could change

the system, not just criticize it?”

Field’s questions were so thought-provoking that the next panelist, Velcrow Ripper, took rather longer than was necessary to approach the podium, he was thinking about his own questions so hard. He believed that the focus of activists needs to be on the politics of power and the politics that are capable of change. He called Rebick’s book “a frantic sweep of some of the most recent struggles of the 21st Century – from feminism to racism and beyond.” His

More pregnant silence.

“What I’m saying is if someone is in a ditch, and we get in the ditch with them, how are we helping?”

Uneasy with the blank stares, he pled: “Does this make sense?”

Sumadh nodded in appreciation of the comment, but responded, “To me, it does not. Sometimes we can learn how we are linked, and it is at this point that we can be present when we are linked to issues. For instance, in investing. How we are involved in investing is affecting people.”

The young man looked unconvinced. From across the room, a woman attempted to explain it: “I feel as a Canadian citizen, as a settler of European descent, that when my government is not honouring Aboriginal populations, I should definitely speak out,” she said emphatically. “I will call my MP, my MPP. I want my government to be respectful. I absolutely have a stake in that.”

Sumadh continued. “This isn’t a historical thing. It’s not ‘Oh well, it happened.’ Things are happening now.”

Almost as if on cue, the film was started by the nervous technician from earlier who had just arrived with a new laptop. Then, the room was blanketed in darkness and plunged headlong into a historical documenting of one of Canada’s biggest sources of shame.

Backwards.

The night had begun with applause, but the film ended with no such thing. Only a heavy silence, and a congratulatory message from D. Marie Marchand, a former constitutional lawyer with Cree roots who stood up in front of the screen: “I’m glad you didn’t clap at the end of this film.”

The silence continued, intimidating people and preventing them from speaking to each other. A man with graying hair put up his hand to offer the crowd some courage.

“You know, there’s an incredible amount of literature on this stuff. Legal, historical documentation,” he said.

“There are over 800 land claims going on right now; they’re available on the Canadian government website.

And the government… the government is avoiding it by pointing fingers at each other: provincial at federal, federal at provincial.”

A murmur of approval traveled through the chapel.

Marchand picked up where he left off.

“We have to develop our own indigenous knowledge,” she said. “The government system doesn’t work for them, for the colonizers, so how is it going to work for us?”

The strength of Aboriginal people lies within the people themselves, said Marchand.

“We’re not counting on the government,” she said. “We need you guys to put fire up our government’s ass. If you know how to do that dance, do that dance. They can take our space, but not our voices.”

theme for the evening was based on these questions: “How can we make another world possible?

What has to change to make politics capable of inspiring change in humanity?”

For Rebick, the power of the book is in the sense of going to the roots of the problem. As she said in a statement for the London Free Press, Transforming Power represents an evolution in political thinking – from a traditional Marxist in the 70s to a feminist in the 80s to a social feminist still ex-

isting in a Eurocentric framework.

“Transforming Power has shown me other ways of knowing, like indigenous knowledge, for example, that greatly expands my political understanding and makes me much more of an environmentalist,” she said. “I also appreciate much more the emotional or personal side of politics. Political change is about people’s feelings as much as about their ideas.

Changing people’s perspective is much more holistic than simply winning an argument.”

30

april 2009 ryerson free press

culture

Just say no to the Jo Bros

The Jonas Brothers may seem as innocent as their pop lyrics make them sound, but some experts have evidence that points to the contrary Ronak Ghorbani Editorial Assistant In the busy streets of Manhattan, a black Jeep is stuck in traffic is swarmed by hundreds of screeching girls. They pound the tinted windows and try to claw their way in -- their objects of desire are inside, the Jonas Brothers.

For the past two years, the Jo Bros (as they’re called in glossy teen magazines) have dominated the Billboard charts and hearts of countless tween girls with their pop/rock songs about love and heartbreak. With model-esque tailored attire, they’re the poster boys of the all-American heart throb, and now you can see them in 3D. On February 27, The Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience hit theatres and was hyped to be a bona fide hit. The hour and 16 minute movie features concert footage and backstage peeks. But the film was a flop, bringing in $12.7 million USD on opening weekend.

Under the Disney empire, the Jo Bros have been marketed as a wholesome American pop band. They sport purity rings and uphold Christian values, yet the film is riddled with degrading images of girls and phallic symbols.

The movie starts with brothers Nick, 16, Joe, 19, and Kevin, 21, escaping the girl-swarmed car. They run towards a helicopter to be freed from the raging pubescent hormones. In between performances of formulaic pop songs, there are shots of girls fainting and crying after meeting the brothers.

This female degradation is typical in Disney films, says Fiona Whittington-Walsh, a sociology professor at Ryerson.

“They’re tweens and they’re just running on animalistic instincts,” she said, commenting on the depiction of Jonas fans. “It positions women’s sexuality as being out of control and part of the natural world where as men embody reason and control.”

Gender inequality is alive and well in this 3D experience, and it’s most evident when phallic symbols like hot dogs and police batons are probed at the audience.

At one point, Nick and Joe bring out squirt guns and cover the audience in white foam. The girls scream and giggle excitedly, not realizing they’ve been symbolically cummed on.

“It’s the cum shot,” said Whittington-Walsh in agreement.

“So he’s actually reaching climax, both of them, and the girls aren’t ... The gun is the phallic because symbolically they’re (the Jonas Brothers) these fascist Gods. They want to dominate, so they’re dominating the woman, they’re controlling the woman.”

Whittington-Walsh disapproved of the idolized trio’s treatment of their mostly female fans.

“It’s almost raping the audience in a sense. It’s coming at you, it’s so big and powerful and we’re just in our seats and we have to take it,” she added.

Besides these subliminal messages there is no actual depth or meaning to the music. The whiney heterosexist lyrics rotate around falling in love and finding the perfect girl only to lose her. Granted, the boys do play their own instruments and write their own songs -- unlike many past ‘boy bands’ -- but their presentation is typical of the flashy boy band concert.

With a giant backing band, equipped with a string section and pyro-techniques, the Jo Bros rely on visuals to entertain the crowd. It’s a technique that’s been in use since seventeenth century opera, says David Snable, a popular music teacher at Ryerson.

“I know people want a lot of visuals, that’s a part of it, but certainly having fireworks and 3D detracts from the actual sound of what you’re hearing,” he said. “Your mind goes into sensory overload.”

On the sound quality of the Jo Bros, Snable describes them as, “a cute tune, [with] inane sort of nothing words, a bit of a beat. Certainly no sophisticated harmony ... They don’t know

{

Courtesy of www.jonasbrothers.com

These dressed to impress pop culture icons are causing some distress amongst pop culture critics for their sexuallycharged songs and shows. anything about musical subtleties.”

The formulaic pop that’s supposed to please the masses is part of the capitalistic music-marketing machine that’s been in full force since the 1930s. It started with Tin Pan Alley, an area in lower Manhattan where music composers shaped the structure of pop songs, which is still in use today.

Most pop songs have four sections; the first two are almost identical, the third section strays away bringing in a new tune, and the last section returns to the beginning.

Pop music has always been based on formulas, and the Jonas Brothers have the ingredients to make it work. Except these days it’s all about packaging and creating the most product. Admittedly, their recipe is an acquired taste, served to those who value looks over lyrics.

“It’s a cash grab and that’s all it really is. It has very little to do with anything artistic,” said Snable.

Besides boasting a contract with Disney’s Hollywood Records, the Jo Bros also starred in the made-for-TV-movie Camp Rock, which aired on the Disney Channel (Family Channel in Canada) last June. The movie premiere had 8.9 million viewers and fans can now buy Camp Rock dolls, tshirts, necklaces, bed sheets and winter coats.

Disney is breeding the perfect consumer at a young age, says Scott Henderson, a pop culture lecturer at Brock University.

“It’s grooming them into a mass culture hegemony,” he said.

“It’s a mass culture construction of what youth is supposed to be from a capitalist perspective.”

The identity being created by Disney is one of consumerism.

“They’ve been really successful in tapping into that youth tween market,” said Henderson.

“Gender inequality is alive and well in this 3D experience, and it’s most evident when phallic symbols like hot dogs and police batons are probed at the audience.”

The Jo Bros are just another wave of artists created by Disney to formulate the most product for the smallest cost.

In a 2003 article published in Fortune magazine, writer Julia Boorstin reveals how Disney has risen to the top of ‘tweendonium.’ When a new Disney star is introduced, they usually get a television show, then the movies and music albums roll in.

Cue Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus, In the article, Boorstin said the Disney Channel only films 65 episodes of any show, as quickly as possible, before the star fades out of the limelight. By doing this, they save loads of money, because once the star is famous, they’ll demand more.

Then the Disney Channel can show endless re-runs.

This is capitalistic child-exploitation. The first ‘tween queen produced through this process was Hilary Duff, who starred in the Lizzie McGuire Show.

The new queen, 16-year-old Miley Cyrus, star of Hannah Montana, earned $64 million in 2007 from CD sales and concert tours. She also has enough merchandise to fill a few shopping carts, ranging from hair extensions to video games.

Unlike the Jonas Brothers’ 3D movie which did poorly, Cyrus’ 2008 3D film, Hannah Montana-Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds, brought in $31.1 million USD on its opening weekend.

As the Jo Bros prep for their upcoming TV show debut, J.O.N.A.S. on the Disney Channel, one can’t help but wonder how long they’ll last until the new wave of carefully coifed, dashingly dressed tween idols comes crashing in.

Already, fans are losing interest -- evident through movie ticket sales -- as the boys grow older.

Even my 12-year-old cousin, who had a year-long crush on Nick Jonas, is getting bored.

“We don’t talk about them (the Jo Bros) anymore,” she told me. “When I was in grade six, we would talk about them all the time. (Now) we talk about other songs. I like the AllAmerican Rejects.”

So as the pop music cycle continues, it’s really the ‘tweens who suffer. They’re presented with the same packages time and time again, just the names and looks change. The only way to combat this youth-culture homogenization is by getting youth to think critically, or as Whittington-Walsh points out, “they’re just going to keep wanting that kind of fluff, they’re not going to go out see the Che movie.”

A modified version of this piece was recently published on rabble.ca.

april 2009 ryerson free press

culture

31

Ryerson on the runway Featuring faux fur, fads, and fabulous fashion, the 10th annual Toronto Fashion Week took over Toronto last month. Kat Marks, David Chou, Sara Duke, Dayna Phillips, Sidney Holloway, and Heidi Ackerman all showcased their work at the LG Fashion Show on March 20 at Nathan Phillips Square.

The looks ranged from futuristic spaceman-chic to demure bridal wear, with a wide variety of styles rep-

resented. As the only non-retail show, the focus was on creative designs. The timeless nature Heidi Ackerman’s elaborate knits contrasted against the historical influences evident in Sara Duke’s ensembles. David Chou’s use of dark shades and clean lines was a standout contribution to the show.

Aspiring designers take note: Ryerson Fashion means business.

David Chou

Dayna Phillips

photos by dan rios

SARAH DUKE

Heidi ackerman

Sidney Holloway