Ryerson Free Press-September 2010 issue

sep

2010

After a decade of action, students finally win the fight to

Close Gould Street

Special Section: Crisis in Pakistan

NEWS From peaceful protests to class action lawsuit The legal battles in a post-G20 Toronto

By Scaachi Koul The charred cars, broken store windows and rioters have been cleared from Toronto streets, but fury over the events of the G20 weekend hasn’t faded for many.

Nearly ten weeks later, there are still 17 activists charged with conspiracy to commit mischief, and one that has been denied bail. With a $45 million class action lawsuit hanging over the heads of the Toronto Police Services Board and the Attorney-General of Canada, many are still furious over the actions on both sides during the G20 weekend.

The Crown withdrew charges against 58 people during the largest mass court appearance in Toronto’s history on August 23. With a showing of 304 people, 22 had their charges dropped under the condition that they make a charitable donation, while five were withdrawn through peace bonds. Nine people were listed under errors and six pleaded guilty.

Following the court appearance, hundreds of activists gathered outside Toronto Police Headquarters to express their disappointment, frustration and disdain for the actions of police during the G20.

“I’m here because I’m not too happy about people being swept off our streets and being thrown into cages just because they had the audacity to be in a public place on a Saturday night,” says Ryan Watt. Holding a sign that says, “Arrest rioters, not us,” he stands with a throng of protesters against what they call the “criminalization of dissent.” Watt admits he wasn’t present during the G20 protests, but has joined the protest against police action.

“It’s pretty apparent that the 1,105 people that were arrested during the G20 were either picked up during the mass arrests which were completely indiscriminate,” he says. “I believe the rioters are long gone.”

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network has been offering support to activists years before the G20 came to the city, from organizing food, lodging, street medics and legal assistance for activists. Since the mass arrests during the G20, they’ve been working closely with the Movement Defense Committee, which offers legal aid to those that have been detained and charged as activists.

“We see [the arrests] as systematic, as a patterned way by the police to deal with mass mobilization, [to] criminalize dissent, to keep them indoors and to get the public to side with their policies,” says Natalie Caine, one of many TCMN representatives at the rally in front of police headquarters. “We really believe that activism and political protest is a fabric of our so-

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ciety. We have people showing their frustration, their anger and hope in the streets of Toronto and around the world.”

Elizabeth Littlejohn was an activist during the G20 weekend, and shares Caine’s sentiment about protest being a right of the people. “I’m very concerned [about] the erosion of civil liberties in Canada. I think we’re going to turn around…and have a militaristic society.”

Littlejohn was a nonviolent protester during the weekend, and while she disagrees with Black Block tactics, she’s no less impressed with police or government action.

“The police were completely out of control,” she says, adding that a public G20 inquiry is necessary so that those responsible for the weekend’s violence and arrests are held accountable. “McGuinty’s avoiding it, Harper knows it’ll bring him down.”

Caine explains that many of the charged activists have been offered “diversion cases,” as exemplified by those who had charges dropped under the condition that they make a charitable donation. These cases leave the charged parties without evidence against them, but Caine claims that the charges are “trumped up” in the first place. She is quick to explain that there are still activists under house arrest, and claims some were held at gunpoint, dragged from their houses and taken into the streets.

Still, Caine along with her organization and hundreds of activists continue to fight against police action. For them, the class action lawsuit is just the beginning. “We believe what we did was totally legal and justified and aimed at making this world a better place,” says Caine. “I think you can’t get what you don’t ask for. Everyone here knows [the charges] were fabricated and trumped up. We can hope that the authorities admit their lies.”

Police circle the rally in front of headquarters. They’ve been surprisingly quiet in spite of being such key players in the G20 fight, but ask any member of the Toronto Police and they’ll show a similar dissatisfaction with the weekend that activists have, but for different reasons.

“It was hard being away from my family for so long,” says one officer whose badge reads M. Martinez. Martinez was holding parameter on Saturday, as well as Sunday during the now legendary Queen Street arrests. “But,” he continues, “that’s the job.”

He surveys the crowd, hoping the rally ends soon. “I just want to go home.” By the looks of it, everyone else does too.

photo: squirrel brand/flickr

Tamil refugees arrive on Vancouver Island Government’s approach to new arrivals criticized

By Tyler Roach

Ryerson Free Press The monthly newspaper for continuing education, distance education and part-time students at Ryerson Address Suite SCC-301 Ryerson Student Centre 55 Gould Street Toronto, ON CANADA M5B 1E9

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Editor-In-Chief Nora Loreto

News Editor James burrows

Features and Opinions Editor James Clark

Layout Editor Andrea Yeomans

Culture Editor amanda connon-unda

Photo Editor On the afternoon of August 9, the Canadian public was made aware of Tamil refugees looking to make Canada their new home. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced that there was a ship filled with somewhere between 200-500 Tamils heading towards Canada’s west coast.

The ship, according to the federal government, contained a frightening combination of human traffickers and members of the terrorist organization the Tamil Tigers.

When the ship was finally brought into Esquimalt harbour in Victoria BC, it was carrying approximately 490 Tamils looking to claim refugee status in Canada. Speaking to the press, Toews said the Conservative government is “concerned about who is on that ship and why they might be coming to Canada.” The Conservative government claims the Tamil Tigers are behind operations that smuggle people into Canada and that we “must ensure that our refugee system is not hijacked by criminals or terrorists.”

As the ship, the MV Sun Sea drew closer to Vancouver Island tension grew as word began to spread through news agencies. In an attempt to stop any claims of the Conservatives being ‘soft’ on terrorism and immigration issues, stories of Canadian prisons being prepped to detain these would-be immigrants were made public and the Conservative government continued to worry publicly about Canada being seen as an easy access point for any and all immigrants.

Many in the government and opposition parties appear concerned about immigrants making false refugee claims in order to exploit Canada’s refugee program. Critics however are suggesting that these concerns come largely without data to back them up and are pointing to the arrival of another boat of Tamil refugees last year.

Last fall a boat named The Ocean Lady arrived on Canadian shores carrying 76 Tamils. Since its landing, all 76 refugees have been cleared of any ties to any terrorist organization and are living in Canada going through the appropriate refugee process.

Opposition parties were also chiming in on the issue attempting to walk a thin line between staying critical of the Conservative party while also looking too sympathetic towards refugee claims. Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae, while talking to the CBC, claimed that the best way forward “is to asses every case individually” and to remember that “not everyone who is seeking to be a refugee is accepted.”

Rae said that if claims are found to be illegitimate we will simply send them home. NDP critic Olivia Chow postured in a similar manner saying “If they are genuine refugees, they should be allowed to stay. And if not, let’s deport them…

image: vibracobra23/flickr

we have a law that allows us to do that.”

Reaction from the public has been a mixture of antiimmigration rhetoric and support from a broad coalition of Canadians. Sun Media columnist Ezra Levant in a recent article asked the question “Are things so bloody bad over there (Sri Lanka) that we have to let a boatload of them into Canada, just because they showed up?”

Levant continues to citing report where 50 Tamil immigrants were interviewed and some had admitted to going back to Sri Lanka leading Levant to decide there are few legitimate claims to be made.

“The Tamils are playing us for fools,” Levant has been quoted as saying. “They’re not genuine refugees. Genuine refugees don’t go back to a country that’s persecuting them.

The benign interpretation is that they went back for a vacation. But there’s the real possibility that some went back to help the Tamil Tiger terrorist group wage its war against Sri Lanka.”

Support for Tamil refugees appears, however, to be growing. The Canadian Tamil Congress has been condemning the tone of the Conservative government and the assumptions they have been promoting and simply calling for each case to simply be on their own merits “in accordance with Canada’s laws and our international obligations.” The Tamil Congress has already offered help in any way they can including supplying translators if needed.

Other groups have also offered to lend support for the Tamils of the MV Sun Sea, such as No One is Illegal and the Facebook group “I’m not Tamil and I support peace and justice for Tamils.” These two groups, alongside a coalition of supporters, organized rallies across Canada on August 21 calling for a stop to the racism and for Canada to “demand that the Tamil migrants that have arrived on the MV Sun Sea be immediately released from detention, that their rights as migrants be upheld and they be granted permanent status and that the racist criminalization of refugee claimants immediately cease.”

No One is Illegal continues to say that “No evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim of ‘terrorist’ or ‘human smugglers’ (and that the) government’s primary source has already been discredited by lawyers as well as an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator for being uncredible.”

For now there is little the refugees from the MV Sun Sea can do except work to prove their refugee status, disprove the claims of terrorist ties and wait to see if they are given the right to start a new life in Canada.

Dan Rios

Cover Photo Aaron bernstein

Contributors aaron bernstein stephen carlick elizabeth chiang michael chu nicole clark amanda connon-unda jillian kestler d’amours libby davies katia dmitrieva diana duong otenia ellwand jessica finch kaitlin fowlie gursevak kasbia shanelle kaul salmaan abdul hamid khan

scaachi koul jesse mclaren amanda miller norman (otis) richmond tyler roach Angela walcott

Publisher CESAR The opinions expressed in the Ryerson Free Press are not necessarily those of the editors or publisher.

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Ryerson Free Press september 2010 3

Less than animals Palestinian women imprisoned by Israel speak out

By Jillian Kestler D’Amours “The Russian Compound...” said Jehan Dahadha, before trailing off. Her gaze shifts to the floor and the 23-yearold Palestinian woman sighs before continuing.

“The level of pain that the prisoners suffer inside the Russian Compound, whether it is psychological or on a physical level, made it so that we call it the ‘Butcher Shop.’ It is not suitable for humans to live there. Even animals, it is not healthy for them.”

At age 19, Dahadha was arrested under Israeli suspicion that she belonged to the Islamic Jihad movement, and was taken away from her home and family in Ramallah, West Bank.

She spent several days being interrogated at the Russian Compound prison facility in Jerusalem before being sentenced to 16 months at Ha’Sharon prison in northern Israel.

The Russian Compound covers 68 dunams (68,000 metres squared) in Central Jerusalem and includes the former Central Prison used during the British mandate of Palestine.

“We as Palestinians are all subject to becoming prisoners: my sister, me, my mother, my brother. There is not a single Palestinian house that [does] not suffer whether from demolition or arrest,” said Dahadha, sitting in the offices of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.

Dahadha says the real reason she was arrested was because she engaged in non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli occupation, visited the families of Palestinian political prisoners and helped these prisoners get in touch with lawyers.

“What’s behind [the Israeli process of arrest and detention] is not to maintain order or to punish people for violations of laws or committing crimes; the idea is to crush the mentality of resistance or the idea of rejecting the occupation in your mind,” explained Ala Jaradat, Programs Director at Addameer.

Approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested or detained under Israeli military orders since 1967. This accounts for about 20 per cent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and nearly 40 per cent of the male population.

Over the same time period, nearly 10,000 Palestinian women have been detained.

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7,000 Palestinians—including over 300 children and 34 women—remain in Israeli prisons. According to Jaradat, the small number of Palestinian women in Israeli jails makes it much more difficult for the prisoners to demand better treatment and rights, as compared to their more numerous male counterparts. “[Male Palestinian prisoners] can organize themselves in such a way and actually negotiate and resist and struggle to have certain rights and to have a certain level of relations because of the larger number,” Jaradat explained. “With Palestinian women, it’s harder to be able to organize because of the smaller number. Whenever they try to [negotiate] they are subjected to harsh treatments.”

Dahadha says that despite the research and information she gathered before entering prison, she was shocked by what she saw there.

“I used to read in newspapers and on the Internet about prisoners in prison. But no matter how much you read, you will never understand it until you go there,” she said, explaining that poor lighting, unhealthy food, and the constant presence of insects and cockroaches characterized daily life in Ha’Sharon prison.

“They treat you very badly, not as humans. They make committees for animal rights. But humans for them, especially the Palestinians, are less than animals,” said Dahadha.

According to Jaradat, Israeli prisons sorely lack a gendersensitive approach and issues such as personal hygiene and medical needs are rarely addressed.

Further, sexual harassment and intimidation are widespread and used as a means to coerce confessions out of Palestinian women during the interrogation process, he says.

While Palestinian women may have a unique experience, many of the injustices widespread in Israeli prisons are shared by both men and women—and are forbidden by international law.

Hiba Hamidat is originally from Jalazone refugee camp, seven kilometres north of Ramallah. She spent 32 months in Ha’Sharon prison in Israel for her participation in demonstrations and support of Palestinian prisoners.

Released just over a year ago, Hamidat explains that the hardest part was being separated from her family, especially her mother, who didn’t have an Israeli ID card and therefore

could not enter Israel to visit the prison.

“While I was serving my sentence, my mother couldn’t visit me for one year. For one year, only my father visited me.

It was very difficult to see that all the other prisoners had their mothers visiting them, while my mother couldn’t visit,” explained the 24-year-old.

According to Israeli human rights lawyer Lea Tsemel, Hamidat should never have been held in an Israeli jail.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power are prohibited.”

Hamidat’s case is yet another example of how Israel blatantly disregards international law, says Tsemel, especially when it comes to arrest, interrogation and detention procedures for Palestinians. “[Palestinians] are not recognized prisoners of war.

They are held in different prisons within Israel which again is contradictory to the international Geneva Conventions, [which state] that people from the occupied territory will not be shifted to the occupier’s territory,” explained Tsemel.

Jaradat, who does prisoner support with Adameer, says that a prisoner’s plight does not end with his or her release from prison. “Once a Palestinian has been to prison, their life will change. The punishments or violations of their rights and restrictions on their lives continue forever by the Israeli occupation,” said Jaradat. “It’s never over.”

Dahadha can speak to this reality first-hand.

“My life changed,” she said. “I was engaged to someone in Jordan, but after I was released they prohibited me from leaving the country. Every time I try to cross the border they turn me back and give me an invitation for interrogation.”

Newly-engaged and planning her wedding for the fall, Dahada says her new fiance has been threatened with imprisonment by Israeli authorities for his connection to her.

“Even after a prisoner is out of prison,” she said with a soft smile, “the torture and sentence does not stop there.”

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a human rights activist and multimedia journalist based in occupied East Jerusalem. This article was originally published in The Dominion at www.dominionpaper.ca.

photo: emli bendixen (www.emli.dk)/flickr

Eight million in need of emergency assistance in Pakistan Flood victims treated like “animals”

By Amanda Miller In late July, monsoon rains flooded Pakistan’s northwest and spread slowly southward throughout August. The waters destroyed key infrastructure, and rendered much of the nation’s most fertile agricultural regions uncultivatable for an estimated six months. Current figures place the number of damaged or destroyed homes at about 1.2 million; roughly 20 million people have been displaced and over 8 million are in need of emergency assistance. The death toll exceeds 1,600 people.

Disease is a rapidly growing concern; according to the UN, about 3.5 million children are at risk of waterborne disease, 72,000 of which are at high risk for death. Access to clean water has always been a problem, but the broken sewer lines, contaminated wells, and crowded conditions have severely exacerbated the situation. Stagnant floodwaters are also a breeding ground for mosquitoes, and the WHO warns that malaria cases may rise.

Across corporately-owned media channels, America has been lauded as the most generous contributor to Pakistan since the flooding began, but according to many foreign and independent news sources, the picture is much more convoluted.

Several other nations, Canada included, have been slow to respond to the crisis due to fears of fund mismanagement and terrorism-related security concerns. Even the efforts of the Pakistani government have been criticized as inadequate.

In contrast, the U.S. has pledged roughly $800 million in emergency aid so far. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, claimed that the U.S. is urging other nations to donate, but made it clear that the world “will require demonstration of real transparency and accountability” on the part of the Pakistani government with regards to how resources are being spent.

This statement is ironic considering the controversy at Shahbaz Airbase in the Jacobabad district of Sindh province that has been kept out of mainstream media.

On August 18, Federal Health Secretary Khushnood Lashari announced to a Senate Panel that relief operations

could not be conducted in Jacobabad district and surrounding areas because the only nearby air strip, Shahbaz Airbase, is under U.S. control.

Both the U.S. and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) vehemently deny these allegations, but widespread speculation since 2001, and the current facts on the ground, suggest otherwise. The U.S. recently gifted several Block 52 F-16 aircraft on the condition of the installation of US military personnel to “keep an eye” on how they are used. Essentially, even if the PAF officially controls access to the base, U.S. security concerns are the driving force behind the restrictions. Organizers of national and international NGOs have anonymously estimated that up to 700,000 people in need of aid have been cut off as a result.

The question of control is even more alarming given a statement by former Prime Minister Mir Zafar Ullah Khan Jamali that Jacobabad was flooded deliberately in order to divert waters to save the airbase. Although the PAF officially and completely denies that the breach was intentional, the presence of the Federal Minister of Sports, Ejaz Jakhrani, PAF soldiers, and several provincial government officials when the waters breached the Jamali Bypass on August 13 and 14, indicates deliberate action. Jakhrani, who had been assigned to protect the airbase by PAF officials, admitted that if the water had not been diverted, the airbase would have been inundated, but claims that the breach was made in order to save Jacobabad City.

In order to refute these allegations, Air Vice Marshal Abdul Quddus arranged for journalists to visit Shahbaz Airbase but the affair has been criticized as staged, and a waste of both time and resources. No acceptable explanation has been offered as to how both Jacobabad and Jafferabad were flooded while the airbase remained untouched. Estimates suggest that over 800,000 people were diverted to poorer areas because of the breach. It is unclear how this would compare to the devastation that would have occurred had the flooding progressed naturally.

On August 19, one day after Lashari accused the U.S. of controlling Shahbaz Airbase and blocking relief efforts,

the U.S. Department of State Hillary Clinton established the Pakistan Relief Fund to fuel donations.

More recently, on August 28, flood victims blocked a road in Thatta to protest the shortage of aid, expressing disgust at how they have been treated. One 80-year-old named Karima explains, “the people who come here to give us food treat us like beggars. They just throw the food. It is humiliating.”

75-year-old Nasima Mai echoed this sentiment: “They throw food from the truck like animals are given food.”

Such methods are also inadequate. One citizen, Mirbat Khan, explained, “the distribution is not very good. Undeserving people get things that other people truly need.”

The Taliban recently hinted that they may attack foreign aid workers; spokesman Azam Tariq claimed that the U.S. and several other countries pledged support for reasons other than “relief and help.” Given that relief is not “reaching the affected people,” he said, “this horde of foreigners is not acceptable to us at all ... when we say something is unacceptable to us, one can draw one’s own conclusion.”

Such threats, coupled with the declining popularity of the government, partially as a result of relief mismanagement, are causing people to focus more intensely on issues of security at the expense of aid for the Pakistani flood victims.

In other areas, the basic foodstuffs arriving are not meeting the needs of the people, who are selling them to local shops for money to buy essentials. Monetary donations, usually in the more secure form of cheques, vouchers, food stamps, or remittances redeemable at banks, would be the ideal option in such cases. Yet ignorance leads to resistance; some aid experts point to widespread assumptions that Western nations know best what developing nations require.

According to Paul Harvey, an independent aid consultant, donating money “is a more dignified way of doing things.” Given Karima and Nasima Mai’s assessments that victims are being treated like beggars and animals, it becomes clear that our fears and prejudices are communicated through our aid choices, raising both humanitarian and international relations issues.

Ryerson to unveil Centre for Labour-Management Relations

By Michael Chu

As Ryerson continues to diversify its already eclectic selection of degrees, a BComm in Labour Management Relations can be added to that list for the 2013-2014 school year.

Officially launching September 2010, Ryerson University, through the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) is set to unveil the Centre for Labour Management Relations (CLMR), a research centre devoted to heighten awareness and understanding of the importance of managing labour relations.

The CLMR will set the groundwork for the degree by first initiating research opportunities.

This centre, spearheaded by Buzz Hargrove will act as the external director. Dr. Maurice Mazerolle will act as the interim academic director.

While based out of the TRSM, faculty from across the

university – from history to politics, and sociology – will collaborate to establish this research centre.

The program will bring together industry heavyweights, unions, and academics to gather a better understanding of what the future holds for labour relations.

“We have had an incredible response, enough to launch,” says Hargrove. Funding has already approached $100,000 – mainly from the private sector - for the first year alone and there has already been substantial interest for research papers.

“There is always this fear in the puritan left in the labour movement that somehow anytime you are working with management, that you are selling out,” says Hargrove. “I’ve never bought that ever in my lifetime. You have to work with management. They are not the enemy. They are the people you rely on that provides the jobs.”

“If we can make things better, make [companies] more profitable by us working smarter together, as opposed to working harder, you will get a much better product and service.”

Students interested in this aspect of management will get hands-on opportunities to understand bargaining processes, labour and worker rights, and how this can all be done in a matter that will increase productivity, not only of workers, but companies, as a whole. “[Companies] are looking for much higher calibre employee to come into the workforce and contribute,” says Hargrove.

Companies and unions involved with this initiative will also provide students at Ryerson opportunities for internships, job shadowing, and mentorship.

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 5

OPINION Greenwashing the tar sands There’s nothing ‘green’ about Canada’s worst environmental disaster

By Gursevak Kasbia

We’ve seen the advertisements by Canada’s tar sands producers claiming that new technologies have allowed for cleaner extraction of oil. In fact, the Harper government is counting on carbon sequestration technology to eliminate carbon emissions from our atmosphere.

Still, the truth of the matter is that tar sands oil is perhaps both literally and figuratively some of the world’s dirtiest oil. It is estimated that approximately three barrels of oil are required in order to extract one barrel of crude oil from these sands, in part due to the energy required for its extraction.

In fact, one barrel requires over 125 gallons of water for extraction and emits 200 pounds of carbon emissions. These facts – combined with the water residue that is left over from extraction, which has proven to be of great ecological burden – questions not only the environmental burden of the tar sands, but also the sheer waste of energy attributed to the process of extraction.

With China and the United States trying to stake claim to the oil produced, Canada must find a way of appeasing both superpowers, and satisfying our own environmental policies.

To date the current Canadian government has done little or nothing to address the environmental concerns associated with tar sands oil production. After all, most Conservative support comes from these once fertile lands, and, with this, so too comes an economic price.

Of course, this price will only increase as soon as oil companies agree to build a pipeline from the tar sands to the city of Kitimat, BC by which oil will travel to our eastern trading partners. Let us hope that profits from the tar sands will be used to support research on alternative energies that, ultimately, can rid us of oil dependence altogether.

Let the Tamil migrants stay

By Canadian Peace Alliance

The Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada’s largest peace network, urges the government of Canada to respect the human rights of the Tamil refugees arriving in British Colombia. The Tamil people have already endured decades of repression at the hands of the Sri Lankan government, culminating in a war in 2009 that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and the illegal use of detention camps for the Tamil minority.

The Harper government failed to condemn strongly this ethnic cleansing. Canada must not further contribute to these ongoing abuses of human rights in Sri Lanka by denying sanctuary to these refugees.

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We are alarmed that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews would publicly accuse many of the migrants of being “terrorists.” This statement has the effect of branding all migrants as potential threats, thereby increasing racism and xenophobia.

Worse, these remarks will result in increasing racism against Tamil communities in Canada. The minister has produced no evidence of these claims and he must rescind the remarks.

Further, the assertion from Toews that these migrants are not engaging in proper procedures for refugee claims misrepresents the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Tamil minority suffer from the severe curtailment of their rights and have few options for fleeing to find safety. The people on

the MV Sun Sea are in need of safe haven. Especially given the Canadian government’s recent failure to condemn Sri Lankan war crimes, there is a strong moral imperative to give refuge to these people seeking safety, security and a better life. The current government must treat all migrants with respect and compassion, particularly those that are fleeing state sponsored violence.

This statement was issued by the Canadian Peace Alliance on August 16, 2010: www.acp-cpa.ca For more information on the Tamil struggle, visit Tamilnet online. photo: ezioman/flickr

Ground Zero hate Islamophobia and racism fuel opposition to mosque in Lower Manhattan

By Salmaan Abdul Hamid Khan

The inaccurately described “Ground Zero Mosque” has been the subject of much controversy in recent weeks. While parts of Russia burned and Pakistan was submerged under water, news broadcasters in the U.S. would fixate on this issue, running constant reruns of right-wing nut-jobs that were in a “battle for freedom” and protesting against the “Islamacization of America.” As one would-be patriot told the cameras at an anti-mosque protest on August 22, “this is ‘our’ country and ‘they’ are going to destroy ‘us’.

‘They’ are taking over.”

So what exactly is sparking all this controversy? To get the facts straight, it is important first to get a look at what is being described as the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Initially called Cordoba House (an allusion to Muslim Spain in which Islam flourished alongside Christianity and Judaism), the project was meant to symbolize cross-cultural and interfaith understanding. Opponents like Republican leader Newt Gingrich have asserted that the name “Cordoba” really symbolizes Islamic conquest, prompting the project developers to change the name to Park51 in order to avoid the unnecessary backlash.

What is Park51? The project first attracted attention in December 2009 when it was endorsed by local Jewish and Christian community leaders as a “centre for interfaith dialogue.” The building itself is a planned 13-story Muslim community centre that features a 500-seat auditorium, a theatre, a performing arts centre, a fitness centre, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a childcare area, an art studio, a culinary school, a prayer space, and, yes, even a September 11 memorial.

In its official mission statement, Cordoba Initiative, the group responsible for the project, says that the centre “will be dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet. It will join New York to the world, offering a welcoming community centre with multiple points of entry.”

So, now that we have some insight into this “command centre for terrorism,” or what one protestor compared to “a memorial to Hitler,” where exactly will it be located? Is it a “few steps away from Ground Zero,” as argued by Sean Hannity from FOX News? In reality, Park51 is not even close to Ground Zero. It’s not even across the street. Located at 45 Park Place (which is currently the location of an abandoned Burlington Coat factory), Park51 will be two full city blocks away from the north-east corner of the former World Trade

Center site, and up to four blocks away from the planned 9/11 memorial.

Yet opponents to the Muslim community centre continue to insist that it is too close and that, should it be built, it would “desecrate hallowed ground.” Apparently, the construction of an inclusive Muslim community centre would desecrate sacred grounds, yet the existence of the “New York Dolls Gentleman’s Club” and the “Pussy Cat Lounge” – topless strip bars also two blocks from Ground Zero – are holy enough to be left alone.

The bigger picture, however, lies not in the inaccuracies or fallacies perpetuated by those who oppose Park51, but rather in the nature of the whole debate. The question we should be asking ourselves is: so what if a mosque was being built near Ground Zero? Even if it were right across the street, so what? In fact, why did I have to write this long introduction in order to convince you that Park51 is more than just a mosque, that it’s a “community centre.” And why defend the fact that it’s not right next door but instead a few blocks away?

Let’s pretend for a moment that there really was a mosque being built right across the street from Ground Zero.

What’s wrong with that? What would make it any different from the Church or the Burger King that sits there, too?

Your answer might be that it’s because the individuals who carried out the attacks on 9/11 did so in the name of Islam, or that it was at the hands of “militant Islamists” that the Twin Towers came down.

But what has that got to do with the other seven million Muslims who live in America, never mind the approximately 1.4 billion across the globe?

Why have the actions of a handful of individuals been dumped onto the feet of a vast and varying belief system as if it were some monolithic entity, bent on engaging in a violent conflict with the West? Why would the existence of any

mosque – whether in Manhattan, Tennessee or California – automatically create suspicion or resentment?

In his article, “Hurt Feelings and the Ground Zero Mosque,” Gary Leupp says: “What does this tell us about this country? It tells us that nine years after 9/11, Islamophobia is rampant and politically useful. Even though U.S. troops are supposedly fighting to help Muslims in two countries, and both Bush and Obama have officially (for whatever reasons) emphasized that the U.S. is not against Islam, or that Islam is a religion of peace, or that we value our Muslim citizens, etc., the “us vs. them” mentality remains strong.”

Islamophobia and racism are at the heart of the opposition to Park51, not some spurious claims about consecrating “hallowed ground.” And the sooner we can cut to the chase, and identify what’s behind the controversy, the sooner we can begin to mobilize against – and hopefully stop – the same backward ideas that fuel support for the U.S.-led “war on terror.”

Visit the official website of Park51: http://www.park51.org/ faq.htm

The great debate Making sense of the census (non-)consensus

By Gursevak Kasbia Who would have thought the long-form census could have generated so much excitement and drama during the sleepy summer months? Munir Sheikh’s abrupt exit as head of Statistics Canada in response to (portfolio?) Minister Tony Clement’s “intrusive nature” characterization of the longform census questionnaire’s sparked a fiery debate amongst ordinary Canadians about the role that government plays in collecting information. As a former researcher, I knew the issue was quite a valid one as many privacy watchdogs diligently monitor the handling of StatsCan data. Since this is national data used not only by government, but also research groups and even political analysts, there are some valid arguments over why privacy must be maintained and how effectively StatsCan does this.

However, the fact remains that this data is crucial to the nation in many different ways. Without this data many government departments would not have accurate means about how to allocate monies towards health care expenditure and even cultural programs. Seeing as the conservative government has spent most of the surplus that existed before it came to power, and is now scrounging for ways to pay for its trillion-dollar military projects, this issue may allow the government to ignore the “socialists” of this country.

Ultra-conservative political analysts such as Ezra Levant photo: chor ip/flickr

have argued, for example, that question seven of the census is discriminatory in that family history questions concerning healthcare are “... none of the government’s business. It’s supposed to be a census, not a peek through a family’s medicine cabinet” (Sun Media, July 19, 2010). Yet this being said for a publicly funded healthcare system it would seem that this question may actually have merit. Imagine being able to determine statistically which populations were at risk for mental health problems and being able to provide funding for counselling or whichever form of treatment would best suit that population?

Of course, to conservatives, the government should not be a “nanny” state that “babysits” its citizens; rather, the market and capitalist forces should provide a private healthcare system where individuals choose how they wish to spend their healthcare dollars. Nevertheless, the long-form questionnaire seems to infringe upon the rights of many Canadians who don’t want to name their ethnicity, or whether family members may have mental health problems due to privacy concerns.

When I was working at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, we took very seriously the idea of privacy, and determined it highly unlikely that individuals’ private personal information could be tracked unless specific data

was leaked about their residential information or postal codes. Perhaps if privacy is the issue, a national data set could be designed and, if specific data were required, then interested parties would have to enter an agreement of privacy with StatsCan not to release any data without consultation.

The simple fact is the census debate was created ingeniously by a Harper government that knew it was trying to buy power, especially from industry and the military, while Canadians were staring at the census long-form as if it were the most important issue affecting Canadians. Currently, the long-gun registry, buying $18 billion worth (including the cost of maintenance, which the government conveniently forgot to mention) of fighter jets, the HST and a variety of other issues should be more prominently on the political radar screen than the long-form census.

Still, Prime Minister Harper insists that fining or imprisoning a person for not filling in the census long-form is a miscarriage of justice (no one in Canada has ever been imprisoned for not completing the long-form, incidentally).

Perhaps Harper should send a long-form to Omar Khadr in Guantánamo Bay to see what he has to say about being imprisoned for not filling out the form? Maybe Mr. Khadr would be extradited back to Canada to serve his time in a Canadian prison instead?

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 7

The missing and murdered women of Vancouver deserve an inquiry

By Libby Davies, Member of Parliament

When it comes to considering the missing and murder women from the Downtown Eastside, these are the concerns: • Why did so many things go wrong?

• A lack of trust for police still keeps women from reporting violence.

• What can we learn about solicitation laws and why they don’t work?

• Jurisdictional issues need to be addressed.

• A necessary evaluation of any public program is needed.

• What can we learn about marginalized women and men?

• What do policymakers need to understand and learn?

• It’s not about pointing fingers.

• Why are sex workers treated differently under the law and their safety not taken seriously?

Maggie deVries became what might be considered an unintentional advocate for the missing and murdered women of Vancouver after her sister Sarah deVries disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in April 1998.

In 2005 Maggie testified, along with 300 other witnesses, at the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Solicitation Laws, of which I was a member. Many things about her testimony moved me. Her background as a writer was evident in her eloquent presentation and informed responses. Ms deVries reiterated what the majority of witnesses told us: that current laws surrounding prostitution are actually hurting women, not helping them. Secondly, she reminded the sub-committee that the opinion and experience of sex workers is more important than the so-called experts when it comes to solutions to the problems facing sex workers.

I think of these points in particular as I renew my call for a full public inquiry into the actions of law enforcement surrounding the murdered and missing women of Vancouver.

There have been many people along the way who have tried to help. Year after year, there were calls for a special taskforce to investigate the missing women, warnings from the community that there was a possibility there was a serial killer involved, but it took years for these voices to be taken seriously.

I first called for an inquiry in 2001, and brought the issue to a parliamentary sub-committee in 2003 with the passing of my private member’s motion for a review of Canada’s solicitation laws. But long before that, based on real concerns from the community, I had supported and called for a special task force. I remember in 1999, as a federal MP, raising the issue at my first meeting with the then Attorney General of Canada Martin Cauchon. I asked him: “What would you do if you had 57 women who were missing and presumed murdered in your community? Well, that’s what’s happening in the Downtown Eastside.”

He seemed taken aback, and I don’t think he really knew anything about what should have been a national concern. It’s so shocking to me that if it was any other identifiable group, like nurses, or students from the University of British Columbia, there would have been a national outcry and a much different response.

Not only is a public inquiry necessary, we also need to have a community-led process that allows the families and the Downtown Eastside community to deal with the loss and trauma and the impact on so

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many lives. An inquiry can’t be about finger pointing for the sake of finger pointing, although only the media and governments are suggesting it would be. But an inquiry also mustn’t be dismissed out of hand because government doesn’t want to waste money or resources on a report that may not have all the answers.

For over two decades, the City of Vancouver, the province of BC, the Vancouver police force and the RCMP decided the steady disappearance of women, mostly Aboriginal and mostly working in the sex trade, was not worthy of committing the needed resources to put a stop to.

We cannot now simply say that an apology is enough, that one conviction – albeit vital – is enough and that everyone should now move forward. Although the Crown stayed the rest of the charges in this case, we know that here are at least 20 families who are still seeking answers. The reality is that 70 or more women have gone missing from the Downtown Eastside in the last 30 years and little has changed. There are women disappearing on the Highway of Tears in Northern BC, and in Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada.

We are learning in dribs and drabs about what happened in the case of the serial murderer of many of these women – standard investigation techniques were set aside, jurisdictional issues arose, internal conflicts were a problem. But we need to understand why. Why were these women in particular, mostly First Nation, mostly working in the sex trade, why were they allowed to go missing? And we need to understand clearly what has and has not been changed. Are things better? Worse?

An apology is welcome, necessary and helping many to move forward. But what has changed? Don’t think for a minute that with one man behind bars that this is over and we can now move on. Canada’s solicitation laws still do more harm to women than good. The Conservative government – without consultation and without public debate – quietly announced recently significant regulatory changes to the criminal code that place sex workers in the same category as organized criminals, pushing vulnerable women further into the margins of society.

Without an inquiry – documentation of what and why things went so wrong – we will continue to make mistakes at a policy level and law enforcement level.

There is a prejudice against sex workers and women who are at high risk, and most vulnerable. It raises the most serious concerns about our society, the way our judicial system operates and our laws and law-makers.

I have been thinking a lot lately of the 1894 quotation by Anatole France that Bruce Eriksen used as part of his mural at Bruce Eriksen Place at Hastings and Main: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread” (1894). We might not want to learn that as a society we have allowed laws and policy to be applied differently to different people.

But if that is the case, we need to know.

Mistakes, discrimination, racism, harmful laws and policies must be identified and then rectified. We owe it to the memory of the missing women.

This article originally appeared on rabble.ca on August 27, 2010: www.rabble.ca. Libby Davies is the Member of Parliament (New Democratic Party) for Vancouver East.

Why service stinks

are being taken care of, observe the number of customers that will just leave after finishing, showcasing their leftovers, empty pop bottles and other visual delights for the next customer, sitting in plain view on the tables and all over the floor.

Or even yet, go to an establishment that augments its core service with fringes such as Wi-Fi, and take note at what happens when a patron decides during a busy lunch hour to come in, take up a full table, grab a dollar coffee and use the Wi-Fi for the rest of the afternoon.

Then watch as patrons try to balance on a plastic tray their $10-plus meals, snaking through a maze of tables and chairs, frustrated because they can’t find a seat because everybody has decided to come in with their MacBooks, grab a coffee and spend their afternoon exploiting the free WiFi service.

This is an actual dilemma that major-foodservice establishments in Toronto have been faced with.

These differentiating support services are what companies are trying to use to help differentiate their service, but because those abusing the services don’t realize that their own actions are directly impacting the overall service, this vicious cycle continues, and the poor souls not able to eat their lunch might otherwise not come back.

It’s not entirely the customer’s fault, but…

This is not to say the companies are not entirely off the hook. They are responsible for proper training, support, and optimum design of the service. All efficient service designs start from, and lead back to, the customer, but if customers decide they don’t want to play any part in this, then the whole design has been made in vain. Most companies are even scared to communicate this because they fear losing business, and many more just hold the mentality that they “can easily replace lost customers with new ones.”

This happens all too often, and companies are crying because they can’t figure out why their costs are escalating and their revenue slipping. Keeping your most profitable customers happy has proved to be more cost-efficient, and easier than trying to grab new ones.

Placing the onus on the business seems to be the mentality of society. Agreeably, it is the duty of the business to ensure proper service delivery, but customers need to be engaged about their role in the service delivery process, and that their actions have repercussions not only on others, but on employee morale too.

And if this action doesn’t work, then God help us all.

By Michael Chu

Sleeping on the job, absenteeism, low job satisfaction, taking 20-minute coffee breaks while on the clock: If this sounds familiar to Torontonians, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is currently the most high-profile culprit – and that’s if you accept only one side of the story.

While the TTC and others have taken significant heat for their “inability to deliver,” curiously, another aspect given nary a mention is one key proponent essential to efficient service delivery: the customer.

Customers play a large role in the actual service itself.

The TTC has been trying to understand the expectations of its riders and accordingly to match them. However, when demands and expectations are too high, especially in comparison to the capabilities of the company, that’s where changes are necessary, but harder to overcome.

Are Torontonians’ expectations too high?

While it is a company’s duty to deliver to its customers, many organizations forget that their customers play an important role in the service design, besides the obvious fact, that the end product or service should be focused with the customer in mind.

Taking the TTC as an example, the next time you’re on the subway, take a look at just how many newspapers, food wrappers and empty bottles are rolling up and down the subway cars. That brown stuff on the floor is all the sticky goodness leftover from spilled pop and other beverages.

You know how you feel when you are greeted in a subway train like this. Picture TTC employees walking into this paradise, day in and day out. With expectations that photo: sillygwailo/flickr

“somebody else will clean this up for them,” turning into a group-think mentality, it’s not difficult for an employee of the TTC to be disgusted by the environment they work in, thus demoralizing them about their work.

Most people don’t enjoy or want to take public transit (especially when it’s massively underfunded), but even more people don’t enjoy paying $25 to $30, daily, to drive and park downtown either.

What do customers truly value?

Canadians are a deal-hungry bunch, and for companies to juggle providing customers’ value for their money, and quality service levels, this is where the service disconnects really start to show, and most companies erroneously decide to go after those looking for the lowest prices.

Comparing the price of a bag of milk at your corner store to that of a discounted, service-barren grocery chain start to shape the perception that customers are blinded by price, and are constantly on the hunt for low prices. Price-driven customers do not look at the attributes and benefits of location and time concerns of businesses; they just feel ripped off that a store 5 km away is charging 65 cents less for a bag of milk.

It’s ironic that in such a time-starved city like Toronto, expectations of paying the same price for similar products at every retail outlet, and spending countless hours per year finding the lowest gas prices, are so incredibly high.

Where’s the consideration?

The next time you’re at a busy food establishment, when employees are working hard to ensure the long line-ups

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 9

FEATURES

‘The girl can’t help it:’ She was a freedom fighter A tribute Abbey Lincoln (Aminata Moseka), 1930-2010

By Norman (Otis) Richmond a.k.a. Jalali “We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It’s our memory banks.” – Abbey Lincoln I have been blessed in many ways to have crossed paths with some of the giants of African history. Singer and actress Abbey Lincoln (Aminata Moseka) and drummer Max Roach are two whom I have met. I came to know Roach quite well, and Lincoln to a lesser extent.

Lincoln has now joined the ancestors. It is significant that she died in August, a month that has come to be known as Black August in many circles. She was born on August 6, 1930 and died on August 14, aged 80.

The Chicago-born Lincoln had many names. She was born Anna Marie Wooldridge and was strongly influenced by famed jazz singer Billie Holiday. Lincoln began her singing career in the mid-1950s with “Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love” and performed until shortly before her death. Her last album, Abbey Sings Abbey, was released in 2007 and featured her own compositions. Lincoln’s career spanned six decades during which time she recorded more than 20 albums, wrote her own songs, acted in films and television shows, and was a pioneering voice in the Black Power and African Liberation movements.

In the 1970s, Lincoln appeared on several hit television shows, including All in the Family and Marcus Welby, M.D. She also appeared in several films, including Nothing But A Man, an independent film with Ivan Dixon; For Love of Ivy opposite Sidney Poitier in 1968, for which Lincoln was nominated for a Golden Globe; and Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues. She sang in the film The Girl Can’t Help It, a 1956 Jayne Mansfield vehicle about rock-n-roll.

Lincoln once joked about how Max Roach had rescued her from the supper club set. In The Girl Can’t Help It she wears a Marilyn Monroe dress. She took off Monroe’s dress, put on traditional African clothes, and let her natural, nappy hair grow for the world to see. About her African name,

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she explained to me that Guinea’s former president Ahmed Sekou Toure gave her the name Aminata. The Minister of Information of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) named her Moseka. She had traveled to Africa as a guest of Miriam Makeba. Renowned record executive Nat Hentoff saw Lincoln as the one most passionately committed to African liberation. He said: “She was very outspoken, very much in front. She had integrity that could cut your head off.”

Lincoln, Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr. out of Chicago, collaborated on the groundbreaking album We Insist: Freedom Now Suite. South Africa’s apartheid government banned this album along with “Uhuru Afrika” by Randy Weston and Lena Horne’s song “Now.” The prohibition made international headlines and was covered in the September 1964 issue of Downbeat magazine. The recording became a landmark musical statement of the African Liberation Movement. Lincoln later said that the political nature of the recording might have hurt her career. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2007, she said, “We all paid a price, but it was important to say something. It still is.”

Lincoln not only talked the talk, she walked the walk.

She, Maya Angelou and a Trinidadian-American named Rosa Guy formed the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage. These women took heroic stands on African issues in the United States and abroad. When Patrice Lumumba, the democratically elected president of the Congo, was assassinated on January 17, 1961, this group went into action. These women, along with men like Max Roach disrupted a United Nations meeting after learning that Lumumba had been murdered by Belgian imperialists and their Congolese stooges. This action took place on February 14, 1961.

The Afro-wearing Lincoln also paid tribute to the giant African Nationalist Marcus Mosiah Garvey, in a piece called “Garvey’s Ghost.” Max Stanford (today Muhammad Ah-

mad), who was a leading member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), painted a picture of Garvey’s Ghost that appeared on the cover of RAM’s theoretical journal Black America. Ahmad was influenced by both Lincoln and Roach. The Philadelphia-born Ahmad pointed out in his volume, We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975: “The Freedom Now Suite immediately raised my political/cultural consciousness.” He saw the revolutionary couple perform the Freedom Now Suite at a National Association of Colored Peoples convention.

Lincoln worked with a who’s who of the giants of the music: Coleman Hopkins, Eric Dolphy, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Kelly, Kenny Dorham, Booker Little, Archie Shepp, Rodney Kendrick and many of the heavyweights of the music that has come to be called jazz. Lincoln and Roach fed off each other, creatively. They were married in 1962 and divorced in 1972. When they both looked back on it, each remembered the other as representing salvation. Roach said that Lincoln appeared “when I was drinking myself into oblivion.” Lincoln, on Roach, said: “My consciousness was opened. Max introduced me to museums and things, because I wasn’t that kind. I didn’t know anything about culture. I was really a simple country girl.”

Toronto’s own Sharron Mcleod, Liz Wright and Cassandra Wilson were significantly affected by Lincoln. The great Cassandra Wilson said: “I learned a lot about taking a different path from Abbey. Investing your lyrics with what your life is about in the moment.”

Norman (Otis) Richmond a.k.a. Jalali is the producer/host of Saturday Morning Live (SML) and Diasporic Music on CKLN-FM, and Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio. SML can be heard every Saturday from 10am to 1pm, Diasporic Music on CKLN every last Thursday from 8pm to 10pm: www. ckln.fm. Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio can be heard every two weeks: uhurunews.com/radio/show?show_id=dm

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 11

occupation This summer, Katia Dmitrieva worked with youth from the Kalandia Refugee camp in Palestine.

Children were encouraged to use their creativity through photography and other visual arts to express their voices as they live under occupation.

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PHOTOS: KATIA DMITRIEVA

through their eyes

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 13

Ryerson’s New Campus Students at Ryerson have been working for many years to shut down the main street that runs through campus. After years of student action and administration inaction, a decision of City Hall supported by everyone has partially closed the street—right in time for the new school year.

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photos: aaron bernstein

PHOTO: amanda connon-unda Ryerson Free Press september 2010 15

PAKISTAN Pakistan’s unnatural disaster An in-depth look at what’s behind the flooding

By Salmaan Abdul Hamid Khan The people of Pakistan are facing what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has described as the worst disaster he has ever seen, and what UNICEF declared as “the biggest emergency on the planet.” The disaster is so massive in scale that the head of the UN office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs admitted that the flooding in Pakistan flood is “worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistani earthquake and the Haiti earthquake combined.”

For nearly a month now, approximately one third of Pakistan – an area the size of Italy – has been submerged under water.

The “Flood of Misery,” as described by some news networks, made its initial impact in late July as “unprecedented Monsoon rains” caused floods and landslides in north-western Pakistan, killing hundreds.

As the torrential rains continued, flood waters spread along the Indus river – a major artery that cuts right through the heart of Pakistan – resulting in devastating floods throughout the country.

The hardest hit areas include the SWAT valley and the districts of Punjab and Sindh, where landslides and flood waters have washed away entire villages. By August 20, the floods had directly affected 20 million people, destroyed over a million homes (leaving over 6 million Pakistanis homeless), ruined millions of acres of farmland, and killed nearly 2,000 people.

Yet even though the monsoon rains have largely subsided, the flood waters remain, and the situation in Pakistan remains as dire as ever. With thousands still stranded without food or shelter, and millions taking refuge in makeshift tent cities, the UN has warned that “up to 3.5 million children are at risk of contracting water-borne diseases” and that “as many as 350,000 people could contract cholera,” a disease that can spread quickly in areas where the water is contaminated. The first case of cholera has already been reported in Mingora, in the north-western district of SWAT. If not immediately contained, it could result in an outbreak that would make an already bad situation much worse.

As millions of acres of crops remain underwater, the livelihood of millions of Pakistanis hangs in the balance. As a result, in a nation where 38 per cent of children are already underweight due to malnourishment, food prices are expected to sky rocket. One Lahori shopkeeper told Al Jazeera: “floods and rains have made these things unaffordable.” Stoking more fears is the reality that, as valuable farmland in provinces such as Punjab – sometimes called the “rice bowl” of Pakistan – remains submerged, farmers will be unable to meet the fall deadline for planting new seeds, thus resulting in “a massive loss of food production in 2011, which could potentially lead to long-term food shortages.”

With such disastrous conditions at hand, one is forced to ask a series of critical questions: Why was there destruction on such an extreme scale? Could it have been prevented? Why has a tragedy of such biblical proportions – one worse than any

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other natural disaster in recent history – been met with such a limited response?

And why did it take nearly three weeks for the international community – Europe and North America, in particular – to notice and finally react?

The sheer scale of this disaster is indicative of the mismanagement, corruption and failure that so fittingly characterize the Pakistani government. During the height of this calamity, while millions of his fellow citizens were escaping torrential floods, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari was busy “swanning” around Europe, rubbing elbows with the likes of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, yet leaving enough spare time to visit his family’s “vacation chalet.”

But Zardari would eventually bring an end to his “pleasure trip,” returning to Pakistan fully two weeks after flood waters had already torn through its centre.

Zardari, or “Mr. Ten Per Cent,” as many have come to call him, is not unique: he represents the self-interested brand of politicians that have come to preside over Pakistan over the years. It is that very history of corruption and indifference to the needs of ordinary Pakistanis that has allowed for a disaster of this magnitude to wreak this much havoc.

According to British socialist Yuri Prasad, “Pakistan has faced 12 major floods since 1973, yet basic protection infrastructure remains unbuilt.” Prasad cites officials from Pakistan’s Ministry of Power and Water who admitted that “many projects exist only on paper” and that “the quality of construction of others is substandard.” Rather than invest funds into much needed lifesaving infrastructure, the country’s funds are instead being diverted into an already bloated military, or into the pockets of corrupt politicians.

As revealed by Transparency International, an international NGO opposed to government corruption, “money that was given decades ago for flood management had been largely embezzled by Pakistan’s corrupt politicians.”

Not to out-do themselves, politicians from local and national governments have all-to-willingly awarded contracts to “millionaire-owned timber businesses” that have “plundered Pakistan’s forests and jungles” – natural defences that can help prevent flooding. Knowing the dangers of such reckless de-forestation, these developers put their own interests ahead of the safety of those around them.

Yet, blame for this human-made catastrophe cannot be solely blamed on Pakistan’s bureaucratic elite. Rather, it may prove beneficial to examine some of the past and present policies of Western nations and institutions in the region. Of particular importance are the mechanisms of debt which have come to represent a type of modern-day slave collar that Western financial institutions have successfully wrung around the necks of many “third world” nations.

Pakistan is a nation that spends nearly $3 billion a year on servicing debts. Ac-

cording to Nick Dearden, Director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, this amount is almost three times what the government spends on health care. Over the years, loans have flowed into Pakistan in order to maintain favourable military regimes; today, Pakistan finds itself with an approximate foreign debt of $49 billion. In order to pay for it, Pakistan recently took out a $7.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which comes with numerous strings and conditions attached. One of the main conditions is to reduce government spending, an initiative that could have paid for better health facilities or improved infrastructure – better equipping Pakistan to cope with the current floods.

Yet, for a number of reasons, one of the greatest hindrances to relief efforts as well as progress in Pakistan has been America’s current “war on terror.” One such incident that comes to mind is a statement made by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who during some of the worst periods of the floods boasted that Pakistani troops fighting “extremists” in the North had not been re-deployed to help with the relief effort in other parts of the country. A decision such as this – one sure to please the warmongers in Washington – is regrettable, given that current relief efforts have greatly stretched the available resources, and that upwards of 800,000 flood victims have yet to be reached.

Furthermore, the U.S. military has decided to continue its campaign of drone attacks inside Pakistan, regardless of the current flood situation. As recently as August 14, it was reported that a US missile strike had killed 13 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan district. These drone attacks, which the U.S. has been carrying out since 2004, and which increased threefold under the Obama administration, are highly unpopular in Pakistan, as more than 90 per cent of the victims are innocent civilians.

Even more unfortunate is Obama’s February 2010 announcement regarding the U.S. defence budget in which he allocated $3.5 billion to the maintenance of the drone program, a program which is responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent Pakistanis. Why is this revelation shocking? Perhaps because the U.S. is willing to spend $3.5 billion on a program U.S. which is responsible for killing Pakistanis, an amount 34 times greater than the $102 million that it donated as relief aid for the floods. This is in addition to the $1.5 billion the U.S. spends on “military aid” to Pakistan each year.

The “war on terror,” however, has done more than simply divert attention or misplace priorities during the Pakistan floods.

When addressing the question about why there has been such a limited response from the international community – especially in Europe and North America – antiwar activist Tariq Ali noted that “latent prejudice against Muslim countries is one of the reasons for the lack of international

aid…The reality is that the main factor limiting international aid is the flagrant Islamaphobia that has emerged in Europe and North America since September 11.”

The fact of the matter is that America’s “war on terror” came with its own system of propaganda, one that conveniently painted an artificial and demonized “Islamic world” in contrast to the civilized “West.” To make the situation worse for Pakistanis, it doesn’t help that mainstream media outlets and various political pundits are never shy of labelling Pakistan as the “epicentre of global terrorism.”

Addressing this issue in his article “Why doesn’t the world care about Pakistanis?” Mosharraf Zaidi points out that, “after the Haiti earthquake, about 3.1 million Americans using mobile phones donated $10 each to the Red Cross, raising about $31 million. A similar campaign to raise contributions for Pakistan produced only about $10,000. The amount of funding donated per person affected by the 2004 tsunami was $1249.80, and for the 2010 Haiti earthquake, $1087.33 … Thus far, for those affected by the 2010 floods, it is $16.36 per person.”

The people of Pakistan are living through the worst disaster of the new century. Millions of lives have been affected, and millions more need all the help they can get. Aid from the international community is barely trickling in as people think twice about saving lives in a land described as the “hub of global terrorism.”

Billions of dollars of aid and human resources continue to be channelled through the military, as America continues its “war on terror” and while millions of men, women and children go without food, clean drinking water or a dry place to sleep.

Consider these points, as raised by writer and activist Laura Flanders. Terrorism killed only 25 Americans last year.

Hurricane Katrina killed 1,836 Americans in a few days. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed and 20 million affected by the floods in Pakistan. In China, 3,900 people have been killed by floods this year alone, and more than 250,000 have been displaced by the recent floods in the North … and yet we haven’t seen a “global war on flooding.”

Pakistan’s flood are the result of much more than just “nature.” They are the product of greed, corruption, unchecked development, crippling debt, Western banks and international institutions, U.S. imperialism and the “war on terror” – in short, all products of global capitalism. If we’re serious about providing real relief in Pakistan and preventing a repeat of this unnatural disaster, we need to focus on the causes of disaster like these, not simply their deadly consequences.

Donate now! Please give money to one of the following organizations: UNICEF: www.supportunicef.org Oxfam: www.oxfam.ca Doctors Without Borders: www.msf.ca

photo: dvidshub/flickr

FLOODS Climate change, capitalism and war produce disaster in Pakistan What made the flooding worse?

By Jesse McLaren The massive floods in Pakistan that affect 20 million people are far from a random “natural disaster.” Rather, they are a predictable result of global warming, capitalist development, and U.S.-backed war.

There have been 12 major floods in Pakistan since 1973.

Three years ago the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of worse flooding to come due to global warming. This year is the hottest year in recorded history, which has produced Russia’s worst heat wave, massive forest fires in BC, the breaking off of a huge ice island from Greenland’s glacier and devastating floods in China and Pakistan. The current floods have inundated onefifth of Pakistan, displaced one million people, killed 2,000 people, partially or totally destroyed 722,000 homes, and raised the threat of a cholera epidemic.

But this disaster is not simply about the record monsoon rainfall this year. It is also about the political and economic history of Pakistan, a country that has been decimated by profit-driven “development.” According to Riaz Ahmed, an activist based in Karachi: “Cities like Mianwali and Charsadda have been allowed to drown in order to save dams and hydroelectric stations.

Military installations have been saved, but entire villages have been submerged because budget cuts have meant the loss of vital riverbank defenses. And forests and jungles have been plundered by millionaire-owned timber businesses.

This has created soil erosion and the destruction of natural defenses that can prevent flooding. Local and national governments have awarded the contracts for this kind of work, knowing the dangers.”

Rescue workers have been unable to reach over 800,000 people in the Swat valley, where flooding has inundated a region already devastated by war. Last year the Pakistani military launched a war against resistance movements in the Swat valley, trying to clear a path to U.S. bases in Afghanistan. U.S. president Barack Obama has followed up with

drone attacks, which have continued despite the humanitarian catastrophe. These combined attacks have destroyed bridges and roads, and displaced vast numbers into refugee camps.

The “war on terror” helped create the current disaster, and is now undermining relief efforts. In the first few days of flooding Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari was on a European tour pledging loyalty to the U.S.-led war. His decision to continue the tour, refusing to return to Pakistan to support the relief effort, has led commentators to call the floods “Zardari’s Katrina.”

The United Nations has appealed for $460 million for relief, but the same countries spreading climate change and war refuse to meet that goal. The U.S., the world’s largest polluter, provides Pakistan with $1 billion in annual military aid that has been used to bomb its own people, but initially only offered $10 million for flood relief. Meanwhile, the Harper government, which promotes the environmentally destructive Tar Sands and promises $18 billion for new fighter jets, initially pledged just $2 million for humanitarian relief.

Sadly, the Islamophobic climate generated by the “war on terror” has weakened donations, but still an outpouring

of support has pressured Western powers to increase their pledges. The Canadian government has now been shamed into matching dollar-for-dollar every private contribution made to relief efforts.

The people of Pakistan need much more than urgent humanitarian aid; they need an end to war and climate change, and an economy that puts people and the planet above profits.

This article originally appeared on rabble.ca on August 24, 2010. Jesse McLaren is a contributor to Socialist Worker newspaper. This article will appear in the September issue: http://www.socialist.ca/En/currentissue.htm

Pakistan: Floods, bomber drones and Western imperialism

By Norman (Otis) Richmond a.k.a. Jalali Redd Foxx used to ask women in the audience to show their wedding rings. Foxx would then say: “That n----- is cheap!” He would then raise the burning question: “Did he give you the Cracker Jack box that it came in?”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was acting like the cheap husband that Foxx joked about. His initial pledge to Pakistan’s flood relief – a mere $2 million – made Canada the laughing stock of the global community. Harper’s government was forced to up the ante to $33 million, after widespread public pressure. As the situation continued to deteriorate in Pakistan, the Canadian government was further embarrassed. It has now announced that it will match, dollar-for-dollar, all legitimate Canadian donations to the relief efforts. Government House Leader John Baird recently made the announcement, adding that he hoped the matching funds program will “encourage” Canadians to give more.

New Democratic Party MP John Rafferty and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) are supporting the Conservatives’ move. Rafferty praised the photo:abdul majeed goraya_irin/flickr

government for “finally stepping up to the plate,” but criticized it for being too slow.

Harper’s government is not on the same page as the Canadian people in regards to the current crisis in the war-torn nation of Pakistan. According to a recent editorial in the Toronto Star, ordinary people in Canada are now rallying to help Pakistan cope with the impact of the recent monsoon floods.

These floods have affected 20 million people, left 6 million in dire need of food and water, and 2 million needing shelter. Thousands have been killed. One province was hit by nearly 10 meters of rain in one week. The Toronto Star says: “The chilling images of homeless, hungry children huddled on exposed embankments and drinking filthy water have spurred people in Toronto and other cities to donate millions in aid.”

Harper’s government has shown a far less level of concern, before potential cholera and other diseases begin to further ravage the drowned countryside and drive up the death toll which the UN puts at close to 2,000. The UN has

appealed for $460 million in emergency aid for food, water, shelter and medicine. Collectively, donors have only pledged about $150 million to date.

This is nothing short of criminal. An estimated $20 billion was raised in short- and long-term help for Haitians, Kashmiri and South Asians after earthquakes and tsunamis struck. It must be recalled that U.S. president Barack Obama has been launching military bomber drones into Pakistan as part of his expansion of the US-led war in Afghanistan, killing many innocent Pakistanis. Maybe this punishment – the refusal to offer proper flood assistance – is part of an undeclared war against Pakistan, as evidenced by the drone killings. While one part of Pakistan is being ravaged by foods, President Obama is dropping bombs on another parts of that nation.

Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, reported: “While Pakistan is struggling to deal with the massive floors, the United States is continuing to carry out strikes in northwest Pakistan. The BBC reports at least thirty-five people died over the weekend in four separate drone strikes.”

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 17

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Open to all students, regardless of program.

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Email editor@ryersonfreepress.ca to start writing.

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 19

CULTURE

Broken Social Scene are impressive nominees of the Polaris Music prize

By Nicole Clark

Indie rock pioneers Broken Social Scene (BSS) have earned their second Polaris Prize nomination with their recent release, Forgiveness Rock Record. The Toronto based collective joins nine other Canadian talents on the shortlist in competition for the $20,000 award.

During a break from their hectic touring schedule, Ryerson Free Press caught up with BSS guitarist Andrew Whiteman to get his reaction on Polaris Prize nomination.

“It’s always an honour, but prizes are not what we make music for. [With] this prize in particular [and] the way that it’s decided – i’s nice to be a part of this group of peers.”

Broken Social Scene’s peers in the competition include first time nominees Tegan and Sarah and Dan Mangan, as well as the 2008 Polaris Prize winner, Caribou. However, Whiteman doesn’t believe that Broken Social Scene’s longtime experience in the Canadian music scene will give him an edge on some the emerging competition.

“I don’t think the Polaris judges are influenced by age.

Their mandate is to give the award to the best creative album,” he said.

Since BSS was formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, the band has been a revolving door of talented

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artists contributing to each album. All members of the collective have very different sounding side projects, including Whiteman’s Apostle of Hustle, but Whiteman says that the sound between each of BSS’s albums stays true to the BSS signature aesthetic. “[The sound] doesn’t change much. It’s the same big crew with a few dirty sprinkles on top,” said Whiteman.

Forgiveness Rock Record is a departure from the band’s 2006 inaugural Polaris Prize nomination for their self titled album. Dealing with a more mature subject matter, Forgiveness Rock Record makes amends with mistakes of the past, but remains to be a tried and true Broken Social Scene album.

Experimental and varied in genre, the album features some BSS favorites, such as the likes of Emily Haines, Leslie Feist and Amy Milan together on “Sentimental X’s.” Other famous friends of the band who contributed to Forgiveness Rock Record include The Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop trading verses alongside Kevin Drew in the track, “Romance to the Grave,” and guest vocals from Pavement’s Spiral Stairs.

“It’s a fresh slice. The other records are more Jackson Pollock. This one is pure Jasper Johns,” said Whiteman.

Broken Social Scene’s latest was co-produced by the band and one of their recording heroes, Tortoise’s John McEntire, at Soma Studios in Chicago, with additional recording in Toronto. McEntire, a recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist, has also worked with bands such as The Bell Orchestra and Bright Eyes, among many others.

Whiteman describes working with McEntire as amazing.

“It was not unlike achieving without attempting,” said Whiteman.

To say that Broken Social Scene has had a busy year would be an understatement. In addition to co-producing the album Broken Social Scene have been featured in Bruce McDonald’s This Movie is Broken, and have released a futuristic holographic new video which used experimental 3D scanning technology.

As busy as their year may have been, the Canadian music industry, including a jury of 109 music journalists who submitted their top albums for the Polaris Prize, have taken notice.

The Polaris Prize gala takes place on Monday, September 20, 2010, at the Masonic Temple and will feature live performances by this year’s shortlist. photo: dave gillespie

Toronto Now celebrates Will Munro

By Jessica Finch

Toronto Now at the AGO is a bi-monthly series of art exhibits showcasing local artists.

From now until September 26, 2010, Toronto Now hosts the work of late artist Will Munro in an exhibit entitled “Total Eclipse.” Munro passed away in May of this year, but left behind a great body of work and a lasting impression on the city he called home. In every sense of the word, Munro was an artist; transforming canvas as well Toronto’s social landscape. The exhibit offers a glimpse of the multi-tasking artist through art work and memorabilia.

Just beyond Frank’s Restaurant within the AGO, lies the Yonge Gallery, a small yet elegant space with a wide view of Dundas Street. The Gallery is home to Toronto Now, and every artist in the rotating series is chosen to fit the unique, tight space. As series curator Michelle Jacques explains, “[the] artist’s work [has] to make sense in the space and the goal of the series is to celebrate art at a street level [which is] so much of what Will was about.” A true Renaissance man, Munro worked as a visual artist as well as a DJ, party promoter and restaurateur; all his interests being reflected in the exhibit.

At the centre of the gallery sits a computer with a digital collage of video clips reflecting several of Munro’s pop culture interests. Clips of bands like The Runaways and artists such as David Bowie and Darby Crash, all speak to Munro’s style and penchant for 1970s punk rock.

Surrounding the digital display are Munro’s tapestries and art paying homage to artists and performers who profoundly impacted his creative style. Two of the most prolific influences in Munro’s art and life were Klaus Nomi and Leigh Bowery. Munro’s tribute to Bowery hangs on the back wall, a stitch work piece of the artist’s masked face made entirely of underwear and adorned with sequins. This work is perhaps the most important of the show as it combines Munro’s love of Bowery with one of his favorite and most often used materials: found underwear. Benjamin Boles, NOW Magazine Music Editor and friend of Munro’s, offers insight into the artist’s interest in undergarments, “Being a gay youth, [Will] was toying with the taboo-

Jules Koostachin reminisces on her journey to complete Remembering Innimowin

By Michael Chu Life has indeed come full circle for recent Ryerson graduate Jules Koostachin.

Recently completing her Master’s in fine arts in documentary media, her thesis came in the form of a documentary delving into the issue of the preservation of her native tongue, Cree.

Her documentary, Remembering Innimowin: The Cree Language, The Language of the Human Beings, documents the journey Koostachin faced as she rediscovered her history, through an emotional journey of healing and selfdiscovery.

The documentation process took her back to her community where she spent her formative years, and brings viewers back to where she is now, with a better understanding of her native language and a new-found connection with her mother – a survivor of the residential school system.

This haunting and raw documentary reminds us that as the world continues to move towards homogeneity – especially through globalization – that no matter which language you speak, the threat of losing identity because you don’t know your own language can result in losing stories, possibly forever.

Jules Koostachin reveals more in a recent conversation.

ism of it, but he also enjoyed working with fabric and [was interested in] traditional women’s craft work and femininity.” Munro was forever pushing the boundaries of inhibition in his work, and his prevalent use of underwear was just a hint of his rebelliousness.

Munro was equally outrageous on the party scene. Vazaleen Nights was one of his crowning achievements; a run of monthly parties that saw queer nightlife extend beyond the Church Street ghetto and into mainstream Toronto. Gay and straight crowds mingled on the dance floor at El Mocambo and later Lee’s Palace, as Will introduced a new vibe to Toronto’s club scene. “Vazaleen [felt like] an imaginary version of a 70s punk rock scene,” says Boles, who attended at Vazaleen as well as Munro’s later parties NO TO and Peroxide. Memorabilia from Munro’s party days appears in the exhibit, most notably, a customized Vazaleen t-shirt worn and designed by Munro. In 2006, Munro moved on to the Beaver Café, a brunch venue in Parkdale that he bought and fixed up as a west end hotspot. Posters from various acts playing at the Beaver also feature in Total Eclipse, and the restaurant/club is still open for good food and dirty fun.

Free for passersby, “Total Eclipse” offers Torontonians a glimpse of Will Munro’s work at various stages of his personal and creative development. The exhibit also gives those who knew the artist a chance to reminisce. “He was a doer and he was constantly in motion” recalls Boles; “He was a workaholic, but his work was more play than work.” Munro’s do-ityourself, no holds bar attitude set the foundation for all his work, and Toronto would not be the same without his brash approach. In a sense, “Total Eclipse” is Toronto’s way of giving back to the artist and resident that gave so much of himself to the city.

The exhibit runs until the end of September, at which time Toronto Now will install their next local artist in the gallery: Allison Mitchell. For more information visit www.ago.net.

Michael Chu (MC): Why did you decide to make a documentary on Innimowin, the Cree Language?

Jules Koostachin (JK): The language is disappearing. There are more speakers in the Northern communities because the elders are there. I found that the elders are not speaking to the youth, and the youth are not able to communicate with their elders.

I lived in Moosonee with my grandparents until I was four. They don’t speak English at all. My mom learned English through the residential school system.

I realized that as my grandmother was getting older, her stories were going to die with her. I felt this need to remember my language. I say remember because I understood my language, I just couldn’t speak it. I was in a situation of desperation, as I really wanted to have a conversation with my grandmother.

She passed away before I could make the film, so my dream was crushed.

That’s when I decided to approach my mom, and tell her how I felt severed from my language.

MC: Why do you feel media representation by outsiders can do damage?

JK: When I look at the history books that my kids are reading, the books are stuck in the past. They don’t cover issues Indigenous people are facing today. We only seem them in books wearing loincloths or feathers in their hair.

We are portrayed comically in old western Hollywood movies. There are still sports teams named after us. There’s Eskimo Pies and Land O’ Lakes butter with the Native woman and feathers sticking up in her hair. There are all these distortions of our image.

There is such a thing as cultural property. The harm in that, is they are creating more barriers, more stereotypes. It makes it more difficult for Indigenous people to be a part of the mainstream.

MC: What do you have in common with an anthropologist or historian?

JK: There is an anthropological term used in my thesis, “going Native.” So how do I “go Native,” if I already am Native?

Maybe things are changing where anthropologists realize they have to give back to the community where they do research. If there is no dialogue going back and forth, then

they are walking away mostly with their own perception and deeming that as truth.

When I submitted my thesis in Cree to my elders, if they think that something is off, then I will be told and I will be held accountable, and they are able to critique my work. Anthropologists don’t usually give that opportunity.

MC: How does your film move towards reconciliation and healing of a Native community?

JK: I met this woman who is part-Japanese and partWhite. Her mother’s English was terrible. She had the same kind of relationship that I had with my grandmother, but with her mom.

She said that she could relate to me as they had been able to communicate, just without words. She was inspired to learn her language to pass it on to her children. It was quite beautiful that my work was able to inspire across cultures, which is important.

What’s also important is [to know] that as Indigenous people, our history didn’t start when settlers came here. I asked my mother about her past before being in a residential school. Nobody had asked her about her life before it.

We need to hold true to our traditional teachings, and pass on our history and knowledge.

My film is the perfect medium to keep that knowledge intact so that our children can learn the language. You have to remember to go forward.

MC: Which scene or moment had the greatest impact on you?

JK: I get questioned a lot on the very last scene with my mom. We turned off the cameras after I did my reading in Cree. But my mother started to respond. They turned the cameras right back on. That was the first time in my life that my mother looked me in the eyes and spoke the language, ever.

I didn’t understand what she was saying – which is why I left the subtitles out. I think you get the idea of what she is saying to me, or at least feel what she is feeling. I want other people to know what it is like to love somebody and not be able to understand them.

MC: What does the future hold for your film?

JK: I was looking forward to screening the film here in Toronto, but some film festivals rejected it. They noted the quality and content. I am travelling all over the place with the film, except in Toronto. Is it really about the quality of the film? I feel that the quality as it is right now makes it raw and real.

I am going to Australia to screen the film at an Indigenous education conference and I have received an invitation from Mexico for a media conference. I just went to Maine to show my film.

Ryerson Free Press september 2010 21

Summer concert tours may have suffered but for music fans nothing replaces live music

By Kaitlin Fowlie

You know the live music business may be in trouble when The Jonas Brothers cancel 20 dates in their 2010 summer tour. The multi-million dollar pop icons aren’t the only ones pulling the plug on shows. Following in their footsteps are other big acts like Christina Aguilera, Limp Bizkit, American Idol, and Rihanna, who have all cancelled performances - if not entire tours - this summer.

Throughout history, concerts have been cancelled for a spectrum of reasons, including bans on hippies (Led Zepplin), impractical levels of bird excrement (Kings of Leon), and artists being pushed offstage for flirting with fans’ girlfriends (Frank Zappa). Most evident as of late, soft ticket sales have been to blame for a spate of concert cancellations.

Perhaps most publicized are this year’s struggles of Lilith Fair, which is making a shaky comeback after its 11 year hiatus. Critics have criticized the ‘feel good’ female festival which was once a force to be reckoned with in the 90’s - for being unnecessary in the age of empowered female artists like Lady Gaga. Due to poor ticket sales and cancelled dates, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Norah Jones and Queen Latifa have all pulled out of the bill. Even still, Live Nation set the going rate for seats close to the stage as high as $260.00 CAD - a bit steep, to say the least.

While Lilith Fair gouges fans for their hard earned dollars, the V Festival by Virgin media dealt with poor ticket sales last year by simply making the festival free, and has decided to continue on this summer for free. The Imagine Festival, which was anticipated to be the biggest 2-day music festival in Toronto’s history, cancelled altogether for the same reason V Fest struggled.

Vice president of the Imagine Fest, Kris Q. Christie, explains; “The market is down thirty three per cent this year. The industry

is in transition and [festivals] like V Festival, Edgefest [and] Lilith Fair...all had to postpone events until next year. We had no choice but to do the same.” In a world in which people expect to download all music and entertainment [such as movies] for free, is it possible that we have simply adopted an apathetic attitude toward supporting artists and actually going out for shows?

Many die-hard fans out there refuse to accept this, and there are successful artists who prove it, managing, even in these tough times, to bring out fans by the thousands. Concert tickets are, and will always be, a market.

Aside from the dilemma of easily accessible entertainment online, for music fans going to a concert is an experience unparalleled by any downloadable pastime.

Testament to the unique concert experience is Live Nation’s opinion that overall, this summer has actually been incredibly lucrative for concert venues. The Molson Amphitheatre, which usually presents an average of 25 concerts every summer, will have hosted 43 shows at the end of this season. On that optimistic note, many music bloggers haven’t expressed too much concern about the lack of sold out shows. (Frank, of Chromewaves. net, hadn’t even heard of this summer’s music struggles, stating “besides V Festival, I can’t think of anything offhand that was announced and nixed”).

According to Live Nation, the problems at the root of weak Canadian ticket sales lie in the American economy. Upholding the live talent market are the artists who are able to go into the American market and make a living.

If that market fails, artists are forced to wait and pick their moments to tour. As a result, Canada suffers a pullback by touring acts, and sees less activity in general because artists can’t exist solely on the Canadian marketplace.

The sounds of summer Toronto Summer Music Festival’s fifth year was a success

By Elizabeth Chiang

Toronto classical musical lovers welcomed the fifth annual Toronto Summer Music Festival (TSMF) from July 20 to August 12. Downtown Toronto was transformed into an aural oasis, providing a much needed respite from the lazy hazy days of summer, when local and international musicians convened upon the city to perform thirteen concerts during the four week festival. Running concurrently, the TSMF Academy Program allowed students to hone their musical craft by participating in intensive courses taught by internationally renowned music faculty.

The concerts were preceded by talks led by musicologists and professors, who provided useful and inspiring insight into the history of the pieces being performed, the structure of the work and areas of the music to pay particular attention to. In

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addition to the concerts, the Festival also offered free performances that featured emerging talent, and Master Classes that were open to public observation.

It is this emphasis on performance that Taras Gabora, one of the violin faculty, finds critical and crucial to the proper development of performance artists. He is vocal in his support of arts and music in all schools, and is a firm believer of the essential need for performance, not just theoretical or technical study of music, stating that “[Summer programs are] where you can produce chamber music in a short time – the way professionals do it – to have time to work on aspects of their playing that may be forgotten during the year. Summer programs give students a chance to perform a lot. These kids learn their craft on the concert stage.”

Pianist Yuxi Qin is attending TSMF for the second year in a row because “It’s meeting different teachers. At some camps, you get to work with only one teacher for a couple of weeks.

Here, you have chances to meet one new teacher every week and that’s where new information comes from,” she said. She recalls useful advice given to her during a master class with pianist James Anagnoson: “He was telling me that I have to hear everything when I play a piece, not just the general concept or the general structure, but every line and every note has its meaning... Usually in a Master Class they tell you [something like] “this music should sound like this,” but they don’t usually talk about how about how you should play [in general].”

Over 9,500 people attended the Festival in 2009, showing that there is indeed a growing community that supports classical music. This year is a pivotal year in music history with the 200th anniversary of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and German composer Robert Schumann and the 150th of Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. On a bittersweet note, this is also the farewell year of Founding Artistic Director Agnes Grossman.

Grossman has enjoyed a long and illustrious career as a performer and a conductor, directing world famous organizations over a twenty-five year span, including The Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra and Choir, the Vienna Boys Choir, the

Orford Arts Centre and Pro Coro Canada, among many others.

She is philosophical about her departure. “I think that chamber music is the highest art of musical dialogue, but I do think that a festival needs to include all the aspects to be unique.” Her sincere hope is that future years of TSMF will have the budget to present a fully staged opera again. “The opera is the culminating event where everything comes together.

[It’s] multidisciplinary because it is instrumental, vocal, [and involves] stage acting,” she said.

Grossman’s work in the future will take her further into the international conducting circuit as she passes the proverbial baton over to Douglas McNabey, a violist and Associate Professor and Coordinator of Chamber Music at McGill University, who will become TSMF’s Artistic Director.

The theme of this year’s festival “Songs of the Earth” was inspired by Gustav Mahler’s final completed work Das Leid von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), a six movement song cycle, based on eighth century Chinese poems. The song cycle speaks of life, death and rebirth, a fitting theme to reflect the many firsts and lasts that occurred during this fifth season of Toronto Summer Music. Grossman explained that he planned the festival around a musical theme, because “it really makes people understand that a really special part of musical history is being celebrated.”

On August 7, Grossmann stepped up to the podium to conduct the TSM Festival Ensemble, mezzo-soprano Roxana Contantinescu and tenor Gordon Geitz, in a performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Das Leid von der Erde. That night the world premiere of Canadian composer Glen Buhr’s Red Sea (a Song of the Earth - a contemporary piece commissioned for the Festival), also took place.

The powerful performance garnered numerous standing ovations from the sold out crowd and was a poetic and fitting farewell concert to the artistic visionary behind the festival.

But Grossman said that in addition to the festival programming itself, “We have created a public which is absolutely remarkable. That, I’m very proud of,” she said. photo: arquera/flickr

Fall fashion trends as seen at Fashion Crimes

By Shanelle Kaul

Pam Chorley’s, Fashion Crimes, may have been around for 27 years, but its dress designs are still ‘fine, fresh and fierce’ – as Katy Perry would say. Having dressed the ‘California Gurl’, herself, Chorley’s store has been graced by stars like Britney Spears, Juliette Lewis, Sass Jordan, and Paris Hilton who walked the aisles of this legendary Queen Street boutique.

Described as a staple to Queen West, by manager Kat McEwen, over the years this speciality dress store has made its mark as a destination stop for Toronto women looking to glam up their wardrobe.

McEwen describes their collection as a collaboration of classic vintage lines with modern fabrics, prints, and textures. She insists that classic dress shapes allow versatility in both creative design and wearable sizes. “I, myself, am a size sixteen. You don’t have to necessarily be a zero to shop here. I wouldn’t be manager of a shop where I couldn’t fit into any of the dresses,” says McEwen.

While finding your dress size may be an easy feat at Fashion Crimes, finding just one thing you want, may not. Just like their window display, much of their apparel is costume-centric and speaks of the bold and defiant eighties combined with a modern edge – thus the name, ‘Fashion Crimes’. McEwen says, “Sometimes when you have an idea for something so crazy and so cool, [our display window] just gives us the opportunity to push the envelope for a showstopper.” The boutique has a certain vintage feel, which reminisces the aesthetic of a past Queen West.

But after nearly three decades (and counting), what many people don’t know is that Fashion Crimes offers more than just dresses. Their unique accessories line includes a collection of pieces from both international and Toronto-based designers which feature nifty pieces that seem to tell their own story. Their newest handbag is a Mongolian sheep fur purse with tanned leather straps. “Our pieces are really different. And I think what people don’t realize is just how many designers pull from us – in terms of accessories.”

This year, Fashion Crimes’ featured fall look pulls a ruffled top over a tailored high-waisted skirt, matched with a corset belt and a locket necklace. McEwen says, “Textures are really hot for fall, as well as bold pieces with statement prints, and light accessories.”

The following is our breakdown of some other fall trends: Minimalism Remember when your mother said “less is more”? Well this fall, she’s right.

Inspired by this year’s Dolce & Gabbana fall runway show, which concluded with 50 models wearing classic black blazers, this season designers focused on clean lines and simple

shapes. Designers like Stella McCartney, Dries Van Noten, and Fendi have all jumped on minimalistic style by opting for classic structures and a monochromatic color palette in their fall collections. Accessories are light, if any, and tend not to take away from the statement of the main piece.

Pretty little lady After a few seasons of masculine inspired collections, the ‘femme fatale’ is back. From Louis Vuiton to Chloé and Prada, we’re seeing more figure hugging shapes on the runway. Fall 2010 combines classic boudoir looks with modern embellishments, producing a more ladylike appeal than seasons past. Bow-tie blouses and below-the-knee skirts are the new sexy this season.

Just “Purrrfect” From Proenza Schouler to even Chanel, many designers are featuring faux-furs and animal prints on this season’s runway. Furs, which have been a fall staple for women through the centuries, are brought back this year using cruelty-free options. Hot faux-fur apparel includes vests and handbags. Suggested styling for this look is irony, between the heavy prints and textures, with shorter hemlines. Make a statement by keeping the lines simple and accessories minimal.

70’s Chic The 70s are back! All without the blinding color scheme, that is. Shapes and patterns from this iconic era in fashion are sprouting on runways. But this time, with a more sophisticated look - swapping the retro color palette for a more subtle honey-hued one. Many celebrated designers, including Charlotte Ronson, Gucci, and Prada, have incorporated 70s inspired apparel in their collections. Though by using textures like wool, and autumn inspired hues such as rust, caramel, and olive, we’re seeing a very new type of boho-chic silouette. Staples for this look include straight-leg trousers, thin suede belts, silk blouses, pencil skirts, and A-line coats.

The Trench In rain or shine, the classic trench is a definite must-have. There is lots to love about the shapely, feminine look of the belted cotton trench-coat, but this fall is all about textures!

Designers like Emilio Pucci have featured faux-fur trenches with embellishments on the waist.

But if you’re not so daring, even honey-hued silk trenches can be a sexy alternative.

Michael Cera Day celebration continued without guest of honour

Brampton comic book shop owners declare citywide holiday to celebrate local actor

By Diana Duong Three identical Michael Cera masks smiled on as the red ribbon was cut in honour of the man they were masquerading.

About 50 people crowded around as Kevin Hickey, manager of the Brampton comic book store, opened up the ceremonies with a welcoming speech and cake cutting.

Hickey and his fellow manager at Stadium Comics planned to roll out the red carpet for Cera to show their appreciation for his work.

“Local Brampton kid has become world-famous. He’s got a movie coming out today, it’s starring him.

We thought we’d throw a day in his honour!” exclaimed Hickey.

Stadium Comics – located in Shoppers World Mall – declared

August 13 as Michael Cera Day, coinciding with the release of the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

The film stars Brampton-born Michael Cera in the leading role as

Scott Pilgrim, a slacker who must defeat the seven evil exes of his love interest.

Based on a comic series by Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim was filmed on location in Toronto. Locales presented in the comics include Casa Loma, Honest Ed’s and the Toronto Reference Library. In one particular scene, one character even mentions the city of Brampton.

“Today isn’t just about celebrating Michael Cera...Of course that is the main goal, but we also want to call attention to the fact that comics are a serious art form.

I mean, there are a lot of talented people working in comics,” Hickey said. “These people who are creat-

ing comics right now, they could be creating the next billion-dollar blockbuster at the box office, right here from the Greater Toronto Area.”

Outside of Stadium Comics a young boy tiptoed over to catch a glimpse of an artistic hand drawing of Spiderman. Outside of the store, nine artists had set up tables to display their work and give free sketches of favourite superheroes to onlookers. All of the artists are from the Greater Toronto Area, and some created Scott Pilgrimthemed work for the occasion.

Agnes Garbowska, Marvin Law and Richard Zajac are comic book artists from Toronto. A group of independent artists from Spent Pencils comic studio were also

there. Writer Jamie Williams and Shaun Hatton from The Electric Playground both who originate from Brampton.

“There’s a big community in Toronto devoted to this genre. Cool events always seem to be going on in the comics and games stores, but not so much [usually happens] in the suburbs,” Hickey said. “We try to really get involved with social media, [so that] if you live in the GTA, you don’t necessarily have to drive all the way to Toronto to get your fix.”

A group of independent artists from Spent Pencils comic studio were also there, as were writer Jamie Williams and Shaun Hatton from The Electric Playground both who originate from Brampton.

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Wizarding world emerges from the quad Inspired by the fictional sport from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy series, students form a Quidditch team at Ryerson

By Diana Duong Students awaiting their owl-sent Hogwarts acceptance letter may find it easier to settle for a bit of magic closer to campus this September. The wizarding sport of Quidditch, played on flying broomsticks, has recently been adopted at Ryerson in Muggle (non-magic folk) form. The enchanted flying balls and brooms may be missing from the pitch, however, the magic is not.

The newly-formed team, organized by Andrew Nguyen, is rapidly growing to an almost full-sized squad after beginning its commencement in late July.

Ryerson joins a modest league of schools that have also fallen under the sport’s spell. Carleton and McGill Universities have established Quidditch teams. According to Nguyen, McMaster University is also beginning to form a team.

Ryerson Quidditch plays by the rules and regulations set by the International Quidditch Association. In 2005, the IQA began as an intramural league at Middlebury College in Vermont. Since then, the non-profit organization has helped students from more than 400 colleges form Quidditch teams. Other countries with teams that play by the IQA standards include Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

The IQA’s rules do not diverge from J.K. Rowling’s vision in the magic world. With the exception of supernatural flying objects, the equipment is the same. Nguyen’s team uses volleyballs as Quaffles, dodgeballs as Bludgers, typical household brooms to run around with, and a ball in a sock as the Golden Snitch. According to IQA rules, all players must hold the broom in between their legs at all times. A team is comprised of three Chasers, two Beaters, one Keeper and one Seeker.

The Chasers of each team run with the single red Quaffle and attempt to pass it through the opposing team’s Golden Hoop Goals to score 10 points. The Keeper’s job is to prevent the op-

posing Chasers from scoring. Both Beaters on each team throw the three Bludgers to attack the opposing players. When any player is struck by a Bludger, it is called the “Knockout Effect,” and they must drop any balls they are holding and return to the goals on their side of the field.

An enchanted flying Golden Snitch with hummingbirdlike wings was rather difficult for the Ryerson Quidditch team to come across. It is widely regarded as the most important ball of the game because it is the capture of the Snitch that indicates the end of the game, therefore, the omission of the Snitch is inconceivable. Instead, the Snitch is divided into two parts, the person who is the Snitch Runner and the Snitch ball in a sock. Clad in yellow, the Snitch Runner is generally a cross-country runner, according to Nguyen. They should be capable of running long distances for a while. The Seeker’s job is to snatch the Snitch ball that hangs in a sock from the Snitch Runner’s shorts. The game ends as soon as the Snitch is caught. According to Alexander Graham, a member of the

McGill Quidditch team, Snitch Runners have been known for the trickery and theatrics, “The Snitch is basically a tail, and the Seeker has to catch it. But Snitch Runners don’t make it easy,” Graham said. “They can run off the pitch, run into buildings, run anywhere.

Our McGill Snitch has bitten us before, she also likes to hide behind cop cars. One time when I was Snitching, I would throw Seekers into each other.”

Nguyen is hoping to recruit as many members as possible to the World Cup Tournament in New York City running November 13 to 14. “People you find at the World Cup come from every physical background.

The sport is really fun and everyone can get involved because you don’t necessarily have to be the biggest Harry Potter fan to play,” Nguyen said. “There hasn’t really been a collegiate sport that everyone can really get engaged in. With Quidditch, you’ve got some contact, dodgeball here and there, basketball, and there’s some elements of tag, and a little bit of wrestling. It gets really messy sometimes.”

“Some people may find it intimidating to get into sports teams, but this is more like a community than a sports team.

We’re very inviting,” says Nguyen.

As the Ryerson Quidditch team develops, so it has developed us. According to Albus Dumbledore in Quidditch through the Ages, “Quidditch unites witches and wizards from all walks of life, bringing us together to share moments of exhilaration, triumph, and (for those who support the Chudley Cannons) despair.”

Dumbledore continues on to beg Muggles not to try Quidditch at home because “it is, of course, an entirely fictional sport and nobody really plays it.” Nguyen, however, promises that real practices are held in the Ryerson Quad every Sunday from four to six in the evenings, and newcomers are always invited.

Bring your own broom!

Food for thought at the Conscious Food Festival

By Amanda Connon-Unda, Culture Editor

It was a cloudy summer Sunday in August at the first annual Conscious Food Festival. The festival was nestled in between the low buildings at Fort York and there was a picturesque backdrop of the city’s downtown in the distance. With an advisory committee of over 10 names, the festival’s manifesto urged people to take the dialogue about food sustainability to the next level, and it stated that the small actions people take add up. The festival’s goal was to educate attendees about food that is local and natural and which is produced in a way that does not harm the environment. Companies were selected by the committee because they were deemed socially responsible or have incorporated recycling and reuse into their production.

Josh Bowman, is a development associate who works at Second Harvest. He was seated at the Second Harvest table at the festival. His organization feeds 15,000 meals a day to hungry people in Toronto by picking up and preparing excess food and delivering it to more than 200 social service agencies. Catering companies, restaurants and grocery stores make donations. As Second Harvest’s pamphlet proclaims, they’re helping to solve two of Toronto’s toughest problems: hunger and food waste.

Over at Ravine Vineyard’s table, Alex R. Harber was selling wine. His family owns the estate winery, and he is one of the vendors who is making an effort to make his product in an environmentally sustainable manner. How? - “We’re in our second year of getting our biodynamic certification,” he said. “We’re mixing the science of horticulture with the rhythms of the earth. So we’re becoming stewards of the land and we’re making less impact than standard horticulture,” he explained. In addition to producing wines that are 100 per cent organic, the vineyard is also in the Niagara region and by remaining in the family for generations to come, the family hopes to “fight the good fight against the residential urbanization of farm lands in Niagara,” he said.

At the Grindhouse BBQ stand savoury organic pulled pork sandwiches on a bun with arugula and goat cheese were being sold for a mere two dollars. In addition to many cheeses, wines and ice

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cream that were on some tables for people to try, the politics of food were also made apparent.

In order to encourage consumers to buy locally produced products and fresh produce instead of American or foreign produce, Local Food Plus was on site. Chris Trussell, a marketing and development representative from the organization explained that they lobby to get certified local and sustainable foods from farmers into large institutions. The University of Toronto is one of their most successful institutional partners who are in their fifth year of their pledge to shift ten per cent of their spending dollars to local sustainable produce. They’ve now well surpassed their goal. Meanwhile, Local Food Plus has their own campaign (at buytovote.ca) directed at individual consumers. They are asking for pledges to shift ten dollars a week to buy Certified Local Sustainable food. The idea is that consumers vote with their dollars.

Mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone was also at the festival. When asked about his approach to sustainability at a city level and what he plans to do, he launched into his credentials on the environment. “I was the chair of the environmental roundtable from 2003 to 2006. I led the city to get the Green Roofs bylaw and the Green Toronto Building Standards,” he said. “We have to provide the (food) systems so that families and companies can plug into them. In a few days I’ll release my official food policy. I want to emphasize more local food production. I have an idea for harvesting fruit trees to provide food to community groups.”

Like the festival’s official literature, Pantalone is enthusiastic about the Conscious Food Festival. “It can change our orientation to food and enrich our lives,” he said. “We can eat better, tasty food, local food, and environmental food,” he said.

Indeed, many participants did eat at the festival and some may have even learned about the food they were eating too. At least one caterer said he would give his left-over fresh foods to Second Harvest that day. While the festival was not very busy late in the day on Sunday, Second Harvest’s Josh Bowman said, “The festival is presumably going to grow.”

The Conscious Food Festival has the potential to provide a learning opportunity to participants. The festival started the process by showing that the ethics of food are as much about individual consumption as they are about government policies that guide food production.

Although the festival did a good job of providing individual consumer education it seemed devoid of educational material about the global issues surrounding unjust food distribution. Perhaps in the future, local and global alliances can be built around the awarenesses that are created at this festival. Here’s to hoping. top photo: matthew law; bottom photo: amanda connon-unda

Reviews

MUSIC

Syracuse, NY indie pop outfit grow up on second LP, but there’s still something missing Ra Ra Riot – The Orchard

P

otential, potential, potential— always a difficult thing to have hanging over your band. When critics and fans have big hopes for a musical outfit, it can be tough to defy the odds and match, let alone exceed, those expectations, but that doesn’t mean the band has failed; it just feels as though they could do better. Such is the feeling I get from Ra Ra Riot’s sophomore effort, The Orchard. The opening, title track is fantastic: sharp jabs and gentle wails from the strings, a pop-ping bassline and yearning vocals from singer Wes Miles make for a track with all the burning intensity of the

better tracks from Ra Ra’s debut LP, but it doesn’t get much better for the rest of The Orchard. The album is a step in the right direction for the band—it’s more mature, less obsessed with being peppy than with being intricate—but in stepping forward, they’ve left their most powerful asset behind: melody.

The Orchard lacks the hooks of the band’s debut, leaving the listener to feel that between their two albums, Ra Ra Riot have got all the necessary characteristics of a perfect album.

On album number three, they just have to put them together. Rating: B- —Stephen Carlick

Bethany Cosentino’s effortlessly cool style makes her authentic songs hypnotic Best Coast – Crazy For You

Y

es, this album came out in late July, but it bears mentioning even now, as the name Best Coast is finally becoming a household name to music-lovers everywhere. Why? Because singer and principal songwriter Bethany Cosentino churns out nuggets of pop gold. None of the thirteen excellent songs on Crazy For You surpass the three-minute mark, but each of them manages to burrow deep into the listener’s head. Certainly, her naggingly catchy and relatable songs can be attributed to Cosentino’s strong, sultry alto, and to her knack for melody, but there’s something more about Best Coast’s

songs that make them so hypnotizing. For all her talent and her quirks, Cosentino doesn’t seem to be trying.

It’s her effortless cool that makes her mundane, ever-so-relatable thoughts so engaging. “Pick up the phone,” she pleads on album track “Bratty B,” “I wanna talk about my day, it really sucked.” Her honesty about relationships, her borderline-creepy affection for her cat, and her ongoing desire for a bag of weed, all matched with her brief, hooky compositions, make the inconsequential seem so resonant coming from Cosentino - just like the rest of Crazy For You. Rating: A- —SC

Not such a bad thing: Disco-punk quintet stay stationary on album number five Les Savy Fav – Root For Ruin

E

ver toeing the line between punk and disco (if one exists), Les Savy Fav have been releasing consistently raucous and excellent albums for over a decade now, without once repeating themselves.

They may have hit their high-point with the fantastic singles compilation Inches in 2004, but the band turned in another winner with their cleanest and most laid back—relatively speaking—album to date with 2007’s Let’s Stay Friends. Root For Ruin is Friends’ minutely older sibling, which is both a good and bad thing. On the positive side, it’s an updated version of a thoroughly enjoyable album that presented a new side to a band that was already beloved for ten years when it was

released in 2007. Unfortunately, this album is also the first time Les Savy Fav haven’t taken a giant leap forward with their sound.

Like Friends, Root For Ruin is groovy, bass-heavy, and less frantic than any of their albums before it, and features glossier production than ever before. The album also loses steam quickly in its second half, where the songs tend to blur into each other rather than making their own unique impressions. Root For Ruin is a good album—it’s hard to imagine Les Savy Fav ever seriously mis-stepping—but for the first time, the band has produced an album of good, rather than great, quality.

Rating: B —SC

Note: Ryerson Free Press is looking for a monthly album reviewer to take the place of our most amazing music critic, Stephen Carlick, who is retiring on to other opportunities. If interested please email us your ideas on the best current albums and send us some writing samples (preferably music criticism, concert reviews or artist profiles) to culture@ryersonfreepress.ca.

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Caribou’s Swim makes waves in the music industry Polaris Music prize nominee discusses recent success

By Otiena Ellwand If you ever get a mathematics professor named Daniel Snaith, throw away your calculators and quick— get yourselves to the nearest dance club. While there’s no doubt that Snaith is an intelligent academic (he has a PhD in mathematics for a thesis entitled Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols), it is on his to-do list to one day end up at the front of a classroom, but for now he is far more familiar with being at the front of the stage. For most music fans he is much better known as Caribou— the maker of deliciously unconventional electronic music.

Ever since Dundas, Ont.-born Snaith was a kid he was deeply enthralled and involved in both math and music, but it’s mathematics that he went to study, first at the University of Toronto and then later at the Imperial College London.

Still, even as he was there working on his PhD, he couldn’t deny that music was taking precedence. So after passing his final exam, he chose to devote himself fully to crafting sound instead of equations.

Ten years into it and Caribou has finally received some recognition for his musical achievements. In 2008, his album Andorra won the $20,000 Polaris Music Prize. He split up the money between two Canadian charities, Eco Justice and the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and saved the rest for the making of the album he released in April, Swim.

As usual he recorded all of the instrumentation for Swim by himself at his home-studio in London, but then did something he’d never done before— he walked into an official recording studio for the first time and hired professional mixing engineers to finesse the album into one cohesive package.

It obviously did the music justice, Swim has been short-listed for the 2010 Polaris Prize and if Caribou wins, it’ll be the first double-whammy for any artist in the prize’s five-year history.

Snaith is far from your typical math geek, however— probably, in part, because music won him over early— he’s married, for one, looks pretty fit (he swims) and goes club-

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bing regularly (for research purposes). All three of these make-up important panels of his musical Rubik’s Cube and if you line them all up correctly you’ll see how they have informed the incandescent slices of music found on Swim.

It’s thanks to his wife’s interest in teas, for example, that they ended up in South-West China where he acquired some Tibetan bowls. Later on in their travels he purchased an Ethiopian flute. Both of these instruments play an integral part in defining songs like “Odessa” and “Bowls,” yet these foreign sounds are not out-of-place, they are expertly intertwined with the bass, drum, guitar and synthesizer, instruments more commonly expected in electronic-dance music.

“I’m always interested in learning about different musical cultures and that tends to have some sort of effect on the music I’m making,” says Snaith. “I was just keen to use as diverse a palate of instruments… So coming across instruments like that, that I wasn’t familiar with, that I didn’t know how to play, that I didn’t know what kind of sound I could get out of, was exciting for that reason. There probably isn’t another dance music record that will come out this year with Tibetan bowls and a harp on it.”

At the same time as his initial idea to create fluidsounding, water-borne dance music floated into his mind, his wife unknowingly bought him a set of swimming lessons.

He started swimming nearly every day as he was making the album, offering him a meditative escape from constantly creating, while also naturally feeding into his music’s liquid trajectory.

As for the dancing, well, geography played its part.

London offers an endless array of dance clubs and electronic music to choose from, but it was one night in particular that stands out. Snaith went to see Theo Parrish DJ at a club called Plastic People, a tiny little room with an intensely immersive sound system. “The idea of making music to be played in this environment is really exciting,” says Snaith. “I

was dancing around like an idiot, the whole thing was something that really sparked my imagination.” And so from there he began to delve further into this world of dance music, straying farther away from the traditional song structures and concise pop medleys that can be found on Andorra.

What with all of this travel, swimming and dancing, Swim soon morphed into this weird, psychedelic, aquatic experiment that he assumed would only interest a small niche group. But it had the opposite effect— people dove right in, making it the most listened to and popular of all of his albums to date. This fall he and his band are embarking on their biggest tour yet. It will take them through Europe, across North America and then down to South America for the very first time. “I’m slightly terrified and also excited at the same time,” he says. “Just looking at the list of dates we were like, ‘what have we done this time…’ It’s ridiculous.”

The only way Snaith can make sense of his most recent success is in a stereotypically Canadian way— with incredible modesty. He claims his success must have something to do with the changing musical climate: “People are maybe fatigued by straight-ahead kind of pop music, maybe, and are interested in seeing something a little bizarre, a little unexpected,” he says.

“All of the exciting music that I hear mostly is dance music so there’s no sort of impetus to change. I definitely don’t want to make another album that’s exactly the same but I don’t know yet how it’s going to be different. …There’s nothing yet that’s made me think I have to do another 180 degree turn on the next record, it may just develop on from where this one has ended up.” So from these dancing waters you can expect the next album to emerge, connecting new panels to unveil yet another quirky and talented dimension of Snaith’s musical Rubik’s Cube.

You can catch Caribou’s fantastic energetic live show on September 17 at The Phoenix in Toronto.

photo: nitasha kapoor

TIFF Bell Lightbox opens its doors this month

By Angela Walcott Building cranes no longer hover over the Bell Lightbox Theatre at the corner of John and King Streets. Bell Lightbox, the new home of the Toronto International Film Festival, will open to the public just in time for the 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this fall. A vast contrast to the posh Yorkville setting which TIFF knew for many years, the Bell Lightbox is in the heart of the entertainment district. Situated on the site of a former hot nightclub designed to entertain the fancy-free lifestyles of young Torontonians, this venue will now be a place where movie fans of all kinds go to be entertained.

“We have spent a decade working on this project and its opening marks a new step in the evolution of TIFF,” said the CEO and Director of TIFF Piers Handling. “Audiences visiting our new home and experiencing our wide range of programming will see that we are so much more than a 10-day event in September.”

Although the $196-million project will open on September 12, construction continues. Designed by Toronto-based architecture firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB), TIFF Bell Lightbox’s fluid structure is meant to encourage exploration, movement and play. Among the campaign donors to fund the TIFF Bell Lightbox project are founding sponsor Bell, the Reitman family (including notable movie director Ivan Reitman), the Daniels Corporation, NBC Universal Canada and the Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation.

The five-storey building features five theatres (three will be

ready for screening this fall), several galleries, learning studios, a public atrium, a bistro, restaurant, lounge and staff offices.

While the Lightbox is one of many new structures that are popping up around the city, older structures are receiving facelifts as Toronto braces for the upcoming 2015 Pan-Am Games. Projects currently in the works include the Waterfront and Union Station Revitalization Project and the restructuring of the St. Lawrence Market.

So what are the plans for the Lightbox post-TIFF? The fifth annual Scotiabank NuitBlanche and a Halloween event that will including daytime screenings, workshops, family activities and a night-time double-bill of horror classics are just some of the inaugural events slated for September 23 to November 24. The year-round movie venue will also screen movies on Thursdays instead of the traditional Friday screenings. In an effort not to compete with other major theatres, Bell Lightbox will focus on non-English language feature films, documentaries, revivals and restorations courtesy of Cinematheque. As part of the grand opening on September 12, a block party will kick off the event. Among the wide variety of programmes announced to inaugurate the new theatre there will be screenings of restored films and discussions of classics with David Cronenberg, John Waters, Peter Bogdanovich and Isabella Rossellini. The film line-up includes The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind and Apocalypse Now Redux.

TIFF runs from September 9 to 19.

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