News

News NEWS DIRECTOR VACANT news@thecord.ca NEWS EDITOR JAMES WINSLOW news@thecord.ca

CHRISTMAS A short(ish) history of Christmas and Santa

JAMES WINSLOW NEWS EDITOR

Few people, if any, know the world’s most popular holiday as intimately as Gerry Bowler, author of four books on Christmas and a history professor at the University of Manitoba researching the intersection of religion and popular culture. e original religious inspiration for Christmas, as the symbol of the nativity scene suggests, has everything to do with the birth of Jesus Christ. “...Early Christians seemed not to have been interested in celebrating the birth of Jesus,” Bowler explained.

Interest was only stoked when Gnostics began asserting a disembodied view of the Christian messiah.

“When Gnostics began to suggest that he never had a body, that he had never su ered physically, that he had never been born physically, Christians began to be interested in asserting the corporeality of Jesus,” Bowler said. “Celebrating the birth of Jesus then began to make sense.”

Once the birth of Jesus represented something worth celebrating, the next step was to agree on a date. After a couple centuries of debate, Dec. 25 emerged as the victor – cementing Christmas “right smack in the middle of a bunch of Roman holidays.”

Such holidays were Saturnalia (a winter festival in honour of the Roman god Saturn), the Brumalia (a winter solstice festival) and the Kalends of January (similar to celebrations of the New Year). e customs of these traditions eventually got enmeshed with Christmas celebrations. “Before too long, Christians are giving each other presents, they are talking about the sun, the rebirth of the sun [and] they are bringing greenery indoors,” Bowler explained.

According to Bowler, all cultures who recognize a midwinter festival emphasize three things: light, feasting and bringing greenery into one’s home. e emphasis on light is contrasted by the natural world’s darkness during winter months, whereas feasting has something to do with the cessation of productive harvesting and farming.

“It’s an agricultural dead period, so there’s not much work to be done but all the food is there to be eaten,” Bowler said.

“In the absence of refrigeration, that’s when you do your baking … the wine harvest is in [so] you drink all the wine, the barley is in so you drink the beer, all the meat is slaughtered so it’s a time of festivity.” e emphasis on bringing greenery into the house is the result of what Bowler called “ oral bleakness” – in other words, the grey and white undertones of the natural world in winter.

Now that we understand how some Christmas traditions began, we might ask where they began. “ ere is some suggestion that it was rst celebrated in North Africa in the late 200s … when Christianity was still being persecuted,” Bowler explained. e celebration did not, however, take on an outwardly enthusiastic shape until the persecution ended.

“When the persecution is over, Christians can come out with their buildings and their festivities … the earliest thing we have real dates for is in the 320s.”

Today, Christmas is celebrated longest in the Philippines. “ ey start getting excited in September,” Bowler said. Germany holds the title, at least in Bowler’s view, for the region that celebrates “most intently.”

“It’s out of Germany that comes the Christmas tree, the advent wreath, the advent calendar … [and] gingerbread.”

In Canada, where about 90 per cent of the population celebrated Christmas in 2019, some especially unique traditions are practiced.

Perhaps the most unique among them is the tradition of ‘Mummering.’ Celebrated in Newfoundland and Labrador, this tradition is too befuddling to write about su ciently here. In short, town inhabitants dress up in disguises and dance their way through town, staging friendly home invasions and putting on plays, among other things.

Christmas rst made its way into Canada when European settlers began exploring Canadian waters. In 1534, the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, would bring the tradition inland.

It has not, however, remained the same tradition as old. Today, Christmas faces something of an identity crisis: commercialization. According to one survey from the Angus Reid Institute, “69 per cent of Canadians feel Christmas has lost some of its meaning and become too commercialized.”

Commercialization is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of Christmas. Before the industrial revolution, the only gifts that were given were, by necessity, homemade.

“Up until the 19th century, Christmas indulgence is all in food and drink … that’s why we have wonderful Christmas foods,” Bowler explained.

In the 19th century, with the invention of Santa Claus – or, more accurately, the transformation of St. Nicholas – Christmas becomes an unstoppable commercial force.

“ e advantage of Santa Claus is that he is utterly non-sectarian. He is not a Catholic bishop anymore, [so] he can appeal to any family,” Bowler said. “Advertisers seize on this at once.”

“Santa Claus is the most important ctional character in world history. He is the rst ctional character we took advice about buying from … before Betty Crocker or Ronald McDonald, it was Santa Claus.”

e advent of the industrial revolution coupled with the introduction of Santa Claus led to previously unimagined freedoms for children. “It coincides with a new view of childhood where kids don’t have to be economic contributors anymore. You can have this brief period of childhood innocence before they’re sent o to the factory or sent o to boarding school,” Bowler said.

Industrialization also meant that there was more stu to buy – and, of course, to give. is idea of childhood innocence, which is going strong to this day, is one of Bowler’s favourite aspects of the holiday. “If you have kids, Christmas is just magni ed: the innocence, the magic, the expectation.”

KASH PATEL/ MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR

LOCAL NEWS

Waterloo to become a living-wage employer

FILE PHOTO

MADALYN MOSTACCI

NEWS INTERN

e Region of Waterloo will become a living wage employer.

Starting Jan. 1, 2023, all employees working for the municipality will receive a minimum of $19.95 per hour.

“I salute the municipality for taking some leadership on this,” Ellen Russell, Associate Professor in digital media and journalism, society culture and environment, social justice and community engagement, said.

According to the Ontario Living Wage Network, “A living wage is the hourly wage a worker needs to earn to cover their basic expenses and participate in their community. A living wage is not the same as the minimum wage …”

A living wage is calculated by factoring all necessities for a family of four, with two working adults, for a year. e amount varies between regions in Ontario.

Currently, minimum wage in Ontario is $15.50 per hour; an amount that does not match up to any calculated living wages across the province.

Full-time and part-time employees as well as contract sta of the Region will receive the new pay, making Waterloo the only municipality to provide a living wage at this level.

“Living wages need to keep up. If you set the living wage twenty-years ago, that’s not enough anymore,” said Russell.

Receiving less than a living wage negatively impacts workers.

“ e employees who earn a living wage are able to do all the things we associate with being employed, food, housing and so on. If you’re making less than a living wage, how do you manage?” Russell said.

Families may feel the e ects, Russel added “It has consequences for raising children and family stability. You could really go on with all of the ways in which struggling to make ends meet impacts people.”

Bene ts surrounding the labour force and municipality as a whole can arise from providing living wages.

“In an era in which there has been a tight labour market, where it’s been di cult for some employers to attract employees, paying a living wage means that you can get a stable workforce,” said Russell. “In a municipality, that means that you train people, they hang around and do what they’re trained to do. You don’t have a lot of turnover and inconsistency … so it can be very bene cial for the employer themselves.”

Waterloo saw a 16 per cent increase in living wage from the previous year.

“If they make it genuinely a living wage now, it would be great if they had a policy to keep monitoring. If in ation goes up substantially, they need to make adjustments,” said Russell. e city with the largest living wage jump was Salute St. Marie, up 21.6 per cent from 2021.

“If you pay people a decent wage, they go to the grocery store or wherever and spend it. at has a lot of positive consequences …” said Russell. “[Living wage] is part of what enables a very vibrant and sustainable local economy.”

For more information, visit e Region of Waterloo’s website.

Melody Morton Ninomiya appointed CRC

ASHLEY BARRY LEAD REPORTER

Melody Morton Ninomiya, an assistant professor of health sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University, has been appointed Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Community-Driven Knowledge Mobilization Pathways to Wellness. She will receive funding for a five-year term.

“It’s a mixture of excitement –I’m very happy and excited for the possibilities that CRC appointments can hold, but also a sense of responsibility to do it justice and do it well,” Morton Ninomiya said.

Being appointed one of Canada’s Research Chairs in the Canada Research Chair Program (CRCP) is a huge accomplishment, as the program invests $311 million per year in funding CRC’s at Canadian universities to reinforce academic research that will benefit diverse communities.

“It’s quite an honour really, and a privilege to be able to hold this appointment because I know it’s not something that many people can necessarily hold. I’m excited that there was support for a CRC with that particular focus around centering community and research,” Morton Ninomiya said.

Not only is Morton Ninomiya ecstatic to take on this research position, but she also hopes that her skills and experiences in community involvement will add to her qualifications for this role.

“I have not been on a purely academic career path in my whole ... working life. I’m actually a Laurier alumni, and I have worked in a number of different sectors ranging from high school teaching to doing a lot of community based work, so I feel like I’m coming at this as someone who has worked in community and still has one foot in community and also one foot in academia,” she said.

Having the experience of being involved in both the community and academia will serve to further enhance her research.

“I’m able to see the benefits, and how we could really benefit from each other’s resources, skills and addressing things that can be addressed through research. The scope of research that I’m currently doing and plan to keep doing is sort of rooted in this commitment to research that is requested by the community,” Morton Ninomiya said.

Most projects she works on come from the community and are community involvement projects which help identify priority areas among equity-deserving groups.

“I almost always involve students––sometimes they’re undergraduate students and other times they’re master’s and Ph.D. We also want to have Indigenous researchers that are also students at multiple institutions, so most of the projects are community-initiated,” she said.

One of the ways Morton Ninomiya and her team connect research to the community is presenting the research in a way that is useful to the communities it involves.

“I’m going to make a generalized statement, but communities are not interested in research unless it’s helpful to them. For it to be helpful, you have to make sure that you deliver research in a format that’s useful to communities,” Morton Ninomiya said.

Relaying academic research is important towards helping these communities, but it does not have to be conveyed in the same format.

“The types of things that communities usually need and want are not what academia trains researchers to do, so communities don’t necessarily benefit from journal publications or conference presentations, but actually want different kinds of ways to present research––what we call knowledge mobilization,” she said.

For example, research might be presented to communities in an interactive way, rather than just relying on reports, conferences and journal articles.

“One event that we had was sharing back the findings from a community wide study, and we held a community feast, renting out the community center and inviting anyone from the community to come for dinner. We would share back the key findings from a large study asking people to respond, give feedback, correct or add to what we present, and have sort of an open forum,” Morton Ninomiya said.

Additionally, Morton Ninomiya and her team would get community members to vote on the significance of the research.

“They voted on what they thought was the most pressing thing that their community could address because there are maybe ten recommendations, and we want to know where people thought we should be channeling our energies because you can’t take on all things at once, so people voted on priority issues,” she said.

Interacting with communities and sharing research in this way supports meaningful change for these communities in the future.

HEALTHCARE

I almost always involve students––sometimes they’re undergraduate students and other times they’re master’s and Ph.D. We also want to have Indigenous researchers that are also students at multiple institutions, so most of the projects are community-initiated.

-Melody Morton Ninomiya, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Community-Driven Knowledge Mobilization Pathways to Wellness.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

An economic approach to healthcare crisis

ZAINA DO HAILE

NEWS CONTRIBUTOR

Discussions surrounding the stability of our current healthcare system have recently increased as the spread of COVID, influenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus continue and emergency room wait times rose to an average of 12 hours. With hospitals all over the province facing a backlog of service, emergency room patients have had to wait up to 45 hours to receive the care they need.

Shortages in healthcare system resources such as ambulances to respond to 911 calls and nurse vacancies in hospitals have magnified the issue. Healthcare workers in Ontario have had to work overtime and step outside their normal means of practice, in hopes of managing the increased demand for care.

With more than half of the recent Influenza cases being in children and teenagers, adult intensive care units (ICUs) have had to take on pediatric patients due to pediatric ICUs being over capacity. This has begun to raise concern, causing many to call on our government to implement a solution.

Due to the complexity of our healthcare system, the efforts necessary to solve the crisis are neither straightforward nor simple. However, in analyzing the current lack in healthcare resources from an economic standpoint in terms of supply, demand and equalizing mechanisms, some clarity can be provided.

“In most markets and systems, there is a monetary price that people pay in order to ration a particular good. We don’t have that in our healthcare system (arguably for very good reasons), so the only rationing mechanism, for the good that is healthcare service, is time.” Logan McLeod, a professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University who researches health policy and the utilization of health services, said. This explains how the shortage of healthcare supply was naturally matched by an increase in wait times.

Tactics to help reduce the effects of the strain can be found in the way we operate ourselves. When looking into the supply side of factors and the shortage of human resources in the system, a block in the path of improvement is present. “If we increased the wage of healthcare workers, it would attract more into the system. Yet, under Bill 124, these salaries (and other public sector salaries) are currently frozen to remain as they are,” McLeod said. So, because of this, it appears the bigger challenge as well as a possible solution, lies on the demand side.

Throughout the pandemic, there were constant efforts to “flatten the curve” and achieve a more steady and manageable demand for care. Now that the impact of the pandemic has subsided since its peak, policies are beginning to be lifted (e.g., mask mandates and vaccination rates). Due to this increasing absence in the policies meant to stabilize this demand, a rise in the contraction of respiratory diseases has been seen.

Things like masking and taking extra precautions to avoid contracting bacteria and viruses could aid in curbing the spread of respiratory illnesses. This will relieve some of the current strain and pressure on the healthcare system and its workers, while also providing protection and aid in the health and safety of others - especially children and teenagers who are currently the most at-risk.

SADIYA TEEPLE/ LEAD PHOTOGRAPHER

Marking days of activism against GBV

MADALYN MOSTACCI

NEWS INTERN

From Nov. 25 to Dec. 10, Wilfrid Laurier University will practice the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.

The Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an internationally practiced campaign aimed to raise awareness around and prevent gender-based violence. The movement began in 1991.

“Sixteen Days of Activism is a worldwide campaign because gender-based violence is a worldwide problem,” Dayna MacDonald, Sexual Violence Prevention Specialist in the Office of Human Rights and Conflict Management, said.

According to the United Nations, “... gender-based violence refers to harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms.”

Gender-based violence can affect all people, however, some groups are more at risk. With women, non-binary, transgender and Two-Spirit individuals being disproportionately impacted.

The Canadian Women’s Foundation found that 64 per cent of all people in Canada know a woman who has experienced sexual, emotional or physical abuse.

“[Canadians] exist in a space that has a lot of access to education and incorporating sixteen days of activism into that education is really important,” said MacDonald.

Knowledge and prevention strategies surrounding gender-based violence are vital for university campuses.

“On a university campus specifically, sexual and gender-based violence happen quite widely,” MacDonald added. “It’s our responsibility, in this educational environment, to let folks know that these things are real, these things happen …”.

This year, Laurier is participating in the full 16 days of the campaign.

“Sometimes when we only have one day … everything can wisp by really quickly, 16 days might be better for letting [gender-based activism] shape our lives,” Lorraine Vander Hoef, contract faculty in Women and Gender Studies, said.

Events planned throughout the sixteen days will take place on both the Waterloo and Brantford campuses.

The first days of the campaign saw online webinars and live lectures for students on topics ranging from healing to self-care for survivors.

Dec. 6 marks the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women. The day commemorates the Montreal Massacre, where fourteen women were murdered at École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.

“[The Montreal Massacre] really highlighted how femicide and misogyny were still present. Since then, femicide has not stopped … I think that it’s important to remember those fourteen women’s lives that were lost while simultaneously calling attention to the fact that there is still such a long way to go,” MacDonald added.

On National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, the Gendered and Sexual Violence Prevention and Support team will take over Laurier’s Instagram, @wilfridlaurieruni, to discuss support and activism.

“Remembering all of those people and everyone who has died at the hand of femicide and empowering people to recognize and move forward and mobilize around that is what I think should be the spirit of National Day of Remembrance …” said MacDonald.

To close the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, a drop-in care space for survivors and supporters will take place on both campuses – Dec. 8 for Branford and Dec. 9 for Waterloo.

MacDonald touched on the event, “[It is] for survivors to come to a space and make a self-care kit and hang with us for a bit … treat themselves to some good and valuable personal care time …”.

More awareness surrounding gender-based violence is seen compared to previous years.

“We talk about it [gender-based violence] more and I think we talk about it more with diverse groups,” Vander Hoef said.

“As I have worked in my position at Laurier, I have noticed that with every incoming group of firstyears, they have a little bit more knowledge,” MacDonald said.

However, there is room for improvement to the campaign at Laurier. “Something I would love to see is more men and masculine folks being involved in the cause,” MacDonald added, “I think something that we’re lacking in the conversation is people who have more power speaking up …”

More information on the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence at Laurier can be found on the university’s website.

“Survivors who are needing support, we are here for you … you can find us by reaching out to our email, svinfo@wlu.ca ,” MacDonald said.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

CLIMATE CHANGE

RBC donates $850,000 for climate change

LAURA KAPRIELIAN

NEWS INTERN

For a number of years, RBC has been a devoted contributor to Wilfrid Laurier University, offering financing for activities including athletics, projects and experiential learning.

On Nov. 9, 2022, the RBC Foundation and Wilfrid Laurier University announced their new cooperation to promote a new curriculum in climate change management.

Through its Future Launch initiative, the RBC Foundation has pledged $850,000 to aid experiential learning, research and instruction over the next five years. This is meant to support climate change management at Laurier.

More specifically, RBC aims to better prepare students for vital developing occupations in climate change management.

“This program will provide opportunities for internships for students as well as co-op placements, allowing students to get experience dealing with climate change,” Jason Coleman, vice president of advancement and external relations at WLU, said.

“That will in turn make them passionate about that as a profession potentially going into an area of study that ... creates things that would make changes to the climate.”

Funding will also be made available for Enactus startup companies, experimental art projects and other initiatives with the goal of increasing attention on climate change in the field of geography and environmental sciences.

Internships, co-op work periods and other opportunities in this program that focus on climate change could pave the way to further education and a career in this field. To help young entrepreneurs create long-term enterprises, RBC has funded the Enactus club.

RBC was concerned about the economy’s future and decided to provide a scholarship for students interested in pursuing careers in the green economy and sustainability. Agreement was reached on a 5-year, $850,000 funding plan to aid with climate change management in a variety of ways.

They will also be providing funds to students and recent graduates to get them involved in the fight against global warming. Curriculums like this one help ensure that students get the specific and foundational information they need to make meaningful professional contributions toward a more sustainable future.

This contribution will be utilized to establish a climate change management program at the university’s Milton campus, since many of the topics taught to students relate to climate change and sustainable development.

The primary objective of this program is to make learning about climate change a required part of any undergraduate education. With RBC’s support, we can go to work right now and get the product to market significantly faster.

Experiential learning and co-op opportunities make up the bulk of the program’s work in Milton. Most of the money we receive will be used to provide such opportunities for students over the next several years, in advance of the program’s official debut.

Candidates who have previous experience or expertise in the field of climate change should anticipate receiving preferential consideration from prospective employers.

RBC has also formed partnerships with Conestoga College and the University of Waterloo to implement its Future Launch project, which aims to better prepare today’s youngsters for tomorrow’s employment.

KASH PATEL/ MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR