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Cycling in Waterloo: Environmentally aware
BRONTE BEHLING MANAGING EDITOR
With the climate crisis continuing to plague the minds of Canadians, many have turned to more eco-conscious forms of transportation.
In Kitchener-Waterloo alone, walking, carpooling and Grand River Transit services (bus and ION) are staples for those looking for alternate modes of transportation throughout the region.
However, there is another that is becoming increasingly popular— cycling.
Speaking with David Trueman from WR Cycle, cyclists come up against many obstacles: “the majority of the population do not feel safe riding in traffic.”
“We need protected infrastructure and that takes the form of being separated from traffic whether it’s on multi-use trails or boulevards, paths or what we call cycle-ways,” Trueman said.
This infrastructure would allow for cyclists to have added protection, something that is currently lacking and dissuading many from trying cycling themselves. “We’ve been overinvesting in cars and motor vehicles and the infrastructure to serve them for about a century - and it’s time to catch up so that people who are walking or cycling can get where they need to go safely.”
With the reallocation of this investment towards vehicular transportation, cyclists could have added protection with a minimal grid, primary network or city spine.
A minimal grid refers to a cycling initiative by the City of Toronto, while a primary network and city spine are interconnected systems that guarantee safe passage for those using alternate forms of transportation.
Currently, there are few safe havens for cyclists in the region.
Trueman advocated for off road trails such as “the Ironhorse Trail, the Spurline Trail, The Homer Watson Multi-Use Trail and the Laurel Creek Trail.”
Conversely, there are places in the region cyclists should avoid if they are able.
“There’s a bridge over Highway 85 on Northfield. You have a painted green cycling lane with high-speed traffic on either side of you getting onto the freeway, so that’s probably the most famous unsafe place.”
Truman also advised that cyclists avoid the Forwell Trail. “There’s an example of the Forwell Trail going north east out of Uptown Waterloo where it crosses Weber. There’s a little tiny refuge island in the center that you’ve got two lanes of high-speed traffic on either side ... I’ve heard many reports of people saying they almost saw someone get hit there,” Trueman said.
Of course, this shouldn’t dissuade those looking to start cycling. The best way to start, Trueman suggested, is with friends.
“Start riding with friends because that’s the best way to get introduced to it and get hooked on it.”
Furthermore, cycling daily has many health benefits.
“Statistically, you are more likely to have serious health issues if you don’t get the kind of exercise that you get when you’re riding than you are to get injured when you are riding. So, you actually reduce your risk of health issues by riding,” Truman said.
Being eco-concious starts with us re-evalutaing where we emit unnecessary fossil fules in our everyday lives.
Looking to try cycling? Check out Cycle WR for information on how to be a safe and alert cyclist in the Kitchener-Waterloo Region. You can find them on their website: https://cyclewr.ca/.
-David Trueman, President, WR Cycle
EDI INITIATIVES
Reviewing Special Constable Services
YASMEEN ALMOMANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
In July, Laurier shared a report containing recommendations that were presented in the external review of the Special Constable Service (SCS). “That review was enacted to look at our special constables and make a decision if there were things that we could improve,” Ivan Joseph, Vice President of Student Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University, said.
Reviewing the SCS is part of the university’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigeneity Action Plan in order to strengthen the way SCS supports people who identify as Black, Indigenous, racialized or part of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
“[The purpose] was to look at our services and to make sure that we were serving our students, our faculty, our staff and our community as best we could,” Joseph said.
In a previous external review of the SCS conducted by three experts, there were different recommendations made for the SCS in terms of racial justice and community policing.
“We struck a committee made of faculty, staff, students, the Indigenous vice provost, the black Equity, Diversity and Inclusion vice provost, and went through every single one of the recommendations and decided which ones could we decide to move forward with,” Joseph said.
The comprehensive recommendations which can be seen in the report include the following: reallocating resources and funding to better serve the students at Laurier; increasing proactive campus engagement and relationship building; conducting a review specific to the Brantford campus; re-defining hiring and the job description of the SCS (as well as increasing hiring of equity-denied individuals). It also includes reviewing the SCS uniform to ensure that SCS understand barriers that the law enforcement uniform presents to Laurier’s community; increasing community partnerships; increasing mental health training, gender violence training and cultural safety training; implementing different problem-solving models for SCS; implementing a student program to support student safety and wellness.
Regarding the allocation of resources, the purpose is to ensure that adequate funding is provided to areas that support community safety, gender violence support, anti-oppression, anti-racism and cultural safety training.
“If we could partner with our mental health unit, what might that look like for them to be more involved in delivering some of the services that typically our Special Constables might deliver? ” Joseph said. This would mean investing in the mental health units.
All Laurier community members are encouraged to review the recommendations and email scsreview@wlu.ca regarding any questions as a phased-in implementation is scheduled to begin Jan. 2023 and be complete in the fall.
KASHYAP PATEL/MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR
This is the title for the WPL story
BRONTE BEHLING MANAGING EDITOR
The effectiveness of early childhood education in Ontario is a frequently contested topic among those who have children in what has become known, ominously, as ‘the system.’
With numerous changes to the school system over the last ten years, many parents may feel as if the education system is proving to be too challenging (or not challenging enough) for their children.
According to the Government of Ontario, the number of students enrolled in an English language school between the grades of junior kindergarten to grade 1 was 359,049.
Considering this statistic, it is easy to estimate that the current education system will be unable to cater effectively to each child’s individual needs.
One area, English, can be addressed by making use of community resources - such as the numerous programs and offerings provided by the Waterloo Public Library (WPL).
Speaking with Kelly Kipfer, the Manager of Community Engagement & Children’s Services at the WPL, the extent of the library’s role in fostering the creative and literary minds of children was made apparent. By making use of this extensive community resource, parents can help to broaden the minds of their children in a way that the school system lacks.
“We have a strategy in place for both early childhood, so 0 to 5 and for middle childhood - so 5 to 12. So, these are formalized strategies that we’ve come up with to create responsive and comprehensive programming and services and engagement with the community and strategic relationships with other organizations to best support kids at these different ages and stages,” Kipfer explained.
One of these strategies is the Early Literacy Strategy - an award-winning strategy “in place where our whole organization looks at serving families with young children and what the library should be doing.”
From this strategy came “Explore Play Learn”, a collection of “really easy, quick grab books that families can use knowing that they are not only great books to read out loud, but that they also help to support fundamental skills when it comes to developing early literacy,” Kipfer said.
The Explore Play Learn collection bridges the gap between children and their parents, empowering parents to become an active agent in their child’s literacy development through active reading.
Furthermore, the WPL, alongside the other libraries in the region, promote 5 key practices to “build early literacy strategies. So, reading, writing, singing, copying and playing. Those are embedded in that collection, and then we have a suite of programs that we do that are targeted at age and stage 4 babies all the way up to seniors but in that early literacy strategy.”
Alongside these practices, the WPL has a full slate of programs for the Fall.
For middle childhood programming (ages 5-12) , there is the “core literacy area.”
“Our goal as a library is to develop the multiple literacy needs of our community so we have some kind of core areas that we’d like to address ... one of those is sort of community leadership and environmental stewardship, so we have programming happening around being involved in your community,” Kipfer said.
With the planet warming at an increasingly rapid pace, programs like this are essential for the next generation who will bear the weight of the climate crisis. Further, other members of the child’s family can also be involved with the programming at the WPL.
“We also like to do intergenerational programming,” Kipfer explained, detailing how a program centered on astronomy allows whole families to learn how a telescope works in a family friendly setting.
Ultimately, Kipfer stressed that programs at the WPL “respond to needs that are either academic needs that we have, and we have partners that help us with reading buddies and homework help.”
Furthermore, there are “ lots of fun and creative programs with the emphasis really being on learning something new, finding yourself in community space and trying different things.”
Interested in getting involved or supporting the library as a university student? Luckily, there are many opportunities to get involved at the WPL.
“We’ve worked with sororities to actually do a lot of programs, special story times and things like that,” says Kipfer.
In addition, through a partnership with Frontier College, the WPL has developed a program called ‘Number Ninjas.’
“Number Ninja, tutoring, homework help, reading buddies, that’s all university students, so they play a huge part in those kinds of things. We do some special events so we always welcome the support of volunteers to help with those events.”
For support, getting a library card is crucial, as well as spreading the word about the library’s resources and taking part in community consultations.
“We will be doing community consultations shortly about our new strategic plan and so having university input on that is very useful.”
Moreover, Kipfer notes the WPL’s continued focus on reaching out to the university community to help them view the library as a safe space.
“One of the things that’s really important to us is reaching the university community - so we have new students coming in all the time and we want them to feel like they’re part of the community.”
Based on this, the WPL offers outreach programming for students.
“We do special outreach activities like Waterloo Fest that is coming up on September 8 that’s in partnership with the City of Waterloo.”
The WPL remains focused on providing an essential service to the community for all ages. In order for it to survive, the onus is on the community itself - university students volunteering and parents instilling a love for the library in their children.
“Lots of people don’t realize that you can read to kids before they’re even born so they can hear their voice - so we try to really emphasize making reading and visiting the library part of your daily habit,.” Kipfer stressed.
Any type of reading is better than no reading. From riveting fictional dramas to graphic novels, any type of book that gets children reading in a world polluted with technology should be fostered.
By connecting to the library, children will learn to seek and use its resources - ensuring its continued survival.
The essential “connection to a community resource that’s about lifelong learning and about exploring passions and about you know - not just being on a screen”, says Kipfer, will make the library a “pleasurable, intergenerational kind of experience”.
Interested in any of the WPL’s programming and resources? Looking to get a library card?
All information can be found on their website: https://www.wpl. ca/.
FILE PHOTO
Autism Dog Services offers program for support dogs
ASHLEY BARRY
LEAD NEWS REPORTER
Autism Dog Services (ADS) is looking for foster families to house puppies, as the demand for autism assistance service dogs increases.
ADS is a volunteer run charity organization, aiming to provide independence and companionship to children aged three to18 years old with autism, fetal-alcohol syndrome, down syndrome and related disorders through training and placing service dogs.
“I’m very, very proud and passionate of this organization,” Vicky Spadoni, executive director of ADS, exclaimed.
Over the past several years, Spadoni has worked alongside a dedicated team of volunteers to coordinate a flexible and accessible training program for anyone interested in raising a puppy.
“We offer regular training classes in Hamilton, Cambridge and Guelph, and pay for all the big ticket items including the vet bills, crate, food, training equipment and public access jacket, so that the puppies can get socialized anywhere and everywhere when they’re young,” she explained.
The socialization part of the training is a crucial part of the development of an Autism Assistance Service dog.
“Puppy raisers subject their puppy to loud noises, crowds, community festivals, grocery stores and restaurants. All of it is grooming them to become a versatile, well equipped dog that’s going to support a child and a family with autism or other,” Spadoni said.
COVID-19 proved to be a challenge for the socialization aspect of ADS’s training program, as foster families were not able to socialize their puppies in proper community settings due to lockdowns.
“It really affected us, not having the puppy raisers and dogs able to access community events when everything was closed,” Spadino said.
Despite this setback, ADS has received support within the service dog industry.
“We’ve had lots of offers for donated puppies from credible breeders, and we’ve been very honoured and well supported by other service dog organizations,” she said.
Although the influx of puppies donated to ADS is wonderful news, the demand for puppy raisers to help these dogs through their training programs has increased.
“Our problem is, we’ve got puppies, but we’re low on recruiting puppy raisers to get them started,” Spadino explained.
With the increased demand of puppy raisers, ADS has made their training program fit to accommodate all foster families.
“Puppy raisers can look different. They can get the puppy started for us and be a puppy starter, request an older dog, if that’s where their comfort level is—there’s lots of things that we can try to do to pivot and accommodate puppy raisers,” she said.
ADS’s goal is to recruit as many people as they can who are interested in fostering and training a puppy.
“We are quite concerned that we may have to turn puppies away from our program, and nobody is comfortable with that,” Spadino said.
ADS is hoping that they will be able to recruit committed puppy raisers, to participate in this program.
“We have had college students, university students, semi-retired volunteers, retired volunteers, and families with young children —everyone over the age of 16 is welcome to apply,” she said.
Additionally, after 12 to 18 months of training, puppy raisers are invited to participate in their dog’s graduation when the dog gets placed with a new family.
“Once my advanced dog trainer feels that the dog is ready to be placed, they consult with client services, and they pick a family on our waitlist that we feel is a good match,” Spadino said.
“The puppy raiser gets invited to come back to graduation, to have that closure, and I tell you there’s never a dry eye in the room.” .
The graduation ceremony is a full circle moment between puppy raiser and dog through demonstrating the impact the dog will have in their new placement—a rewarding experience.
“When the puppy raiser takes the dog to the family, and the public access jacket is put on, the puppy raisers are actually able to meet and see how the dog benefits that child and that entire family,” she said.
The impact the autism assistance service dogs have on the lives of children and their families is miraculous.
“I’ve got testimonials where after the dog was placed in a home for three hours on a trial basis. The child was never verbal, never said ‘mama,’ never said ‘daddy,’ and after the dog was in the home for three hours was saying, ‘come doggy, come’—like not even just talking, but speaking sentences,” Spadino said.
With the positive effect that autism service dogs have on children with autism, ADS is looking for individuals or families who may be interested in raising a puppy that could make a difference in these children’s lives.
To apply for raising a puppy and proceeding with ADS’s training program, go to their website: autismdogservices.ca to submit an application.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
FILE PHOTO
Laurier Helps Ukraine provides support and awareness with crisis
JAMES WINSLOW
NEWS EDITOR
So ya Bezruchko is a second-year psychology and criminology student at Wilfrid Laurier University. She was born in Ukraine and immigrated to Canada when she was 10 years old.
When Russia invaded Ukraine this past February, Ukrainian students like Bezruchko felt the impact personally.
“We now have to worry about things like rape and mass graves and people being buried in their front yard because there’s no time for a funeral,” Bezruchko said.
Most of Bezruchko’s family lives in Ukraine, and she knew she had to do something when the war broke out. us spawned the advocacy group Laurier Helps Ukraine.
“Laurier Helps Ukraine is essentially a group of students who are very passionate about what’s happening in Ukraine and who wanted to do the right thing, who wanted to help.”
“ e club formed pretty much right after [the invasion]. On the 28th of February, several people got together and said, “we need to do something.” We found each other and started knocking on doors within the Wilfrid Laurier administration and we formed the club,” Bezruchko, president of the club, said.
Laurier Helps Ukraine has three objectives: Raise humanitarian aid,promote student advocacy and raise awareness. In addition, the organization wishes to introduce students toUkrainian culture. e rst objective is approached by way of donations to “humanitarian charities like Help Us Help, the Canada Ukraine Foundation,” and more.
“We’re also looking for new Ukrainian charities that we can donate to [and] that we can partner with,” said Bezruchko. e club’s second objective – to promote student advocacy – includes helping “students from Ukraine who are now at risk of either being homeless or of being unable to continue their education. eir future and their career trajectories are completely jeopardized.”
“Students [who] have arrived here and are looking for pathways to continue education, that’s what they’re looking for and that’s what they’re really nding di cult. I’m hoping that Laurier can ll that gap and I’m hoping that we can help Laurier ll that gap,” said Bezruchko. e third objective – to raise awareness and introduce people to Ukrainian culture – is “something that’s going to be really important, really vital.”
“We want to introduce people to Ukrainian music, to Ukrainian cinema, to Ukrainian traditions and holidays and kind of make people understand that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are really a diverse and unique culture and ethnicity all on their own.”
Bezruchko noted that desensitization to the war is a barrier and especially troublesome for “the student body because it’s something that’s so serious, that’s so depressing … it’s di cult. It can impact people’s mental health.”
Bezruchko believes that part of this desensitization is from not seeing the undeniable human cost of the war.
“ ere’s a human factor to it and I think that’s something that you only see when you get more involved and you get more in contact,” Bezruchko said.
Bezruchko described one incident in which friends of hers, who had recently arrived from Ukraine, “started crying and having a really bad reaction to reworks. at’s a sign of PTSD.”
Bezruchko will be president of the club until Sept. 6 this year, when she will become co-president alongside Elzbieta Morawska.
To get involved with Laurier Helps Ukraine, Bezruchko suggests that students “come join our club. We’re always looking for new members … it’s just a matter of reaching out and saying ‘hey, I want to help’ and, believe me, we will nd work for you.” e Laurier Helps Ukraine Instagram (@laurierhelpsukraine) is the best place for students to reach out if they want to get involved.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Wilfrid Laurier University has established updated COVID-19 guidelines for returning and new students, faculty and sta . E ective Sept. 8, face coverings are required in instructional spaces to limit the spread of COVID-19 in higher-capacity, close-proximity settings. Masks will be provided by the university at no cost. An instructional space is any in-person indoor gathering where academic courses are being delivered. is includes lectures, tutorials, seminars, teaching laboratories, tests and exams. Although mask wearing will be optional in other areas of the university, there will still be a number of designated mask-only spaces for students who would prefer to wear a mask. e COVID-19 mandatory vaccination policy remains paused, but Laurier members are strongly encouraged to stay up to date with boostersand students and sta are urged to regularly self-monitor for symptoms and avoid campus COVID-19 fall update VOLUNTEER WITH USCOME when ill. Furthermore, Laurier has taken steps to update their ventilation and ltration systems to ensure the your voice, your media health and safety of everyone on campus.
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