The Georgia Straight - DOXA Fest - May 5, 2022 by The Georgia Straight

FREE | MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

Volume 56 | Number 2829

SHAUN MAJUMDER Looks to love for laughs

REBEL GRACE

Ziyian Kwan ruptures norm

DOXA FEST Indigenous rights shine in Alex Pritz’s The Territory and Ali Kazimi’s Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence; plus, Teresa Alfeld’s POV doc Doug and the Slugs and Me CINCO DE MAYO • MOTHER’S DAY BRUNCHES • RENTAL WOES • VSO SEASON

NEWS

Breen ends hunger strike, citing a cognitive decline

CONTENTS 19 COVER

Director Alex Pritz’s first feature doc, The Territory, has been attracting a lot of attention since its Sundance premiere. By Martin Dunphy Cover photo by Gabriel Uchida

by Charlie Smith

Nanaimo environmental activist has resumed eating after going on a monthlong hunger strike. Howard Breen, 68, was brief ly hospitalized less than two days after he stopped consuming any f luids at noon on Earth Day (April 22). Breen and Vancouver resident Brent Eichler had each pledged not to eat until Forests Minister Katrine Conroy agreed to a public meeting to discuss old-growth logging. Conroy phoned each of them on Earth Day but refused to agree to their demand.

Eichler halted his hunger strike in late April after 33 days. Breen began eating on May 1 after suffering cognitive decline and losing almost 40 pounds. “I really packed it on before,” Breen told the Straight on April 22. “I’m nowhere near as thin as [Eichler] is.” A third activist, Nanaimo resident Vic Brice, is continuing his hunger strike. These actions are part of a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience by Save Old Growth to try to force an end to oldgrowth logging in B.C. g

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HOUSING

Renter Amanda Schell and her family have been evicted or priced out of several homes on B.C.’s South Coast during the past several years. By Carlito Pablo

ARTS

Ziyian Kwan prefers to think of herself as a conjurer rather than a choreographer, and her latest piece of magic is called Rebel Grace. By Charlie Smith

e Start Here 13 ARTS 9 BOOKS 22 CLASSIFIED ADS 17 COMEDY 7 COMMENTARY 10 FOOD 6 HEALTH 8 LIQUOR 21 MUSIC 2 NEWS 5 REAL ESTATE 21 SAVAGE LOVE 16 VISUAL ARTS

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EDITOR Charlie Smith GENERAL MANAGER Sandra Oswald SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (ESports/Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER Janet McDonald

e Online TOP 5

Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.

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Price cut for mansion built by liquor baron and restored by Beijing developer. Canucks forward Brock Boeser tears up when asked about dad’s health. Regulator imposes $6,000 fine on realtor for misleading advertisement. 40 things for people to do in Vancouver this week, May 2 to 6. Police reveal no names in connection with homicide near Olympic Village. @GeorgiaStraight

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HOUSING

How renter family suffered in real estate’s heyday

by Carlito Pablo

nless Amanda Schell and her family find a new place soon, they will be homeless on June 1. “It’s definitely a huge problem,” Schell told the Straight in a phone interview. Their landlord has sold his principal residence in Burnaby and will be moving into the cottage that they are temporarily renting in Halfmoon Bay, a community on the Sunshine Coast. The family knew it was not a long-term rental, but they had to take it. “We got evicted from our last place, where we had been living for six years in Sechelt,” Schell said. In 2021, their former landlord started making moves to kick them out to do renovations and sell the property. This was the same year that the real-estate market in Greater Vancouver recorded its highest level: 43,999 sales. The 2021 market surpassed by four percent the previous all-time sales record of 42,326 made in 2015. It was that same year, 2015, when Schell and her family lost a previous rental home in Squamish. For Schell, their experience proves that a hot housing market doesn’t lift everyone. While home owners benefit in terms of increased wealth, renters get left behind. “It feels like renters are being penalized,” Schell said. Schell and her family had been renting the house in Squamish for 11 years at $900 per month. One day, a real-estate agent from Whistler came around and posted notes in the neighbourhood, stating that all houses there would be bought for about $650,000 each. This was not long after a nurse and colleague of Schell with Vancouver Coastal

Tenant Amanda Schell, who’s currently on medical leave from Vancouver Coastal Health, is a living example that a hot housing market along B.C.’s South Coast doesn’t lift everyone up.

Health sold her house below the asking price of $350,000. Schell noted that prices and rent have been on rise in Squamish since the 2010 Winter Olympics. The hot housing market of 2015 made the situation even worse. “People started getting displaced,” she said. The landlord had a business partner from Surrey who wanted to tear down the Squamish rental property in order to build two new houses on the site. Schell’s husband, John, who joined the call, said that their Squamish landlord was a good person, even offering to help them get a discount at another place. “There was a couple from Surrey that bought a duplex and they wanted $2,800 [a month], and he said that he could get us in there for $2,200 because we’re good tenants

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and he wanted to help us out,” John recalled. However, the place was “all beat up” and not suitable for the couple and their two children. Priced out of Squamish, Schell and her family left in 2015. In December of that year, the benchmark price of a single-family home in Squamish was $638,100. The price represented an increase of 37.6 percent over 2010, which was the year of the Winter Olympics. As of March 2022, the price of a typical detached house in Squamish has increased by more than 2.5 times compared to December 2015. It’s now $1,609,500. When Schell and her family moved to the Sunshine Coast in late 2015, the benchmark price of a single-family home there stood at $392,200 that December. About seven years later, the typical price

of a detached property there has increased by more than 2.5 times, with the benchmark price of a single-family home reaching $995,600 as of March 2022. The pressure of looking for a new place has put an added strain on Schell and her family. The addictions and mental health worker is currently on medical leave from VCH and the Canadian Mental Health Association. She was diagnosed with two types of cancer in 2021. She hopes to get back to work after her cancer treatment. “There seems to be a lot of things going on: people buying a house and then wanting to sell it in a couple of years’ time for a huge profit because the market is going up, and so the new buyers buy and their mortgage is higher and so the renters are paying more,” Schell said about what she has observed in the real estate market. She noted that since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, many people started moving away from big cities to outlying areas, where homes are relatively cheaper. “There has been a migration to more affordable places such as the coast and… [Vancouver] Island, causing house values to jump in these communities, and people are selling,” she said. When Schell spoke to the Straight on April 29, her family was scheduled to view a rental home the following Saturday. Schell sent a note April 30 about what happened. “The house would have been perfect for us and I thought the viewing went well,” Schell wrote. “Unfortunately, I just heard from them and they have decided to rent to a young couple with a baby.” g

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REAL ESTATE

Small apartment sizes cited in storage application

by Carlito Pablo

t looks like the self-storage business is doing well. For example, Maple Leaf Self Storage, which is one of the most recognizable names in the industry, has four locations in the city of Vancouver. Moreover, the company has two sites on the North Shore, another two in the Tri-Cities, and one each in Richmond and Surrey. Demand seems to be growing—otherwise, no one would be building new storage facilities. To illustrate, Vandwell Developments has applied to the City of Vancouver to develop a new three-storey mini-storage building containing one caretaker unit. The proposed development is to be located at 1802 Franklin Street, in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood. The company submitted an “operational letter” as part of its development application, and the document provides a window on what kind of homes are being built in the city. “We have identified a need to provide storage facilities for all the new residents in the E. Hastings corridor,” stated the document signed by “Jerry”—presumably, Jerry Rakhra of Vandwell Developments. “There are many existing and upcoming real estate developments in the surrounding area with very small units,” the letter went on.

Last year’s sale of 1802 Franklin Street went quickly. Based on tracking by realestate site Zealty.ca, it was listed on August 3 for $2,889,000 and the property sold on the same day for $2,730,000. The listing stated that the site at the southeast corner of Franklin and Salsbury Drive could be used for “warehouse, service, and/or and manufacturing redevelopment”. “Property currently tenanted on a fixedterm lease,” the listing also stated. An online post by shipping company Bolt notes that typical rent for an urban self-storage unit in Canada ranges from $1.75 to $2.50 per square foot. The article states that this range is “equal to a typical apartment rent in Burnaby”. This house at 1802 Franklin Street was rented after it sold last year for $2,730,000.

Moreover, it stated that the company’s “research has shown an overwhelming demand for personal storage due to the small sizes of new apartments”. Per B.C. Assessment, the property at 1802 Franklin Street sold in August 2021 for $2,730,000. The location has a home that was built in 1939 and contains seven bedrooms and two baths. The property has a 2022 assessment of $2,813,700. It is in an area with an M-2 zoning, which means it’s intended for industrial purposes.

T iny HOME YIELDS BIG PRICE

d THE SMALL HOUSE WAS built in 1949, and it had likely seen better days. It’s not much to look at today, and the 621-square-foot residence will be torn down anyway. Last month, 969 Adair Avenue in Coquitlam came on the market with an asking price of less than a million dollars ($998,888, to be exact). The seller’s agent, Stonehaus Realty

“In downtown Vancouver neighbourhoods, storage rents can reach $3.75 per square foot and average around $2.95 per square foot,” the post noted. “When you compare this to storage in smaller towns, where rents are more likely to be around $1.40 per square foot, the disparity is significant.” The Bolt post also noted, “In a city like Vancouver, where population density is high and space is at an ever-growing premium, affordable self-storage can be an expensive proposition.” The City of Vancouver accepted comments from the public about Vandwell Developments’ application for 1802 Franklin Street from April 7 to April 25. g

Corp. called the attention of investors to the property’s “huge future potential”. Its zoning “provides for the development of a mixed use, medium and high density Neighborhood Centre that accommodates residential uses, retail, commercial, professional services and a range of public amenities”. “Potential for Duplex, triplex, and fourplex possibilities as well,” the listing stated. After seven days on the market, the Coquitlam property sold on April 6 for $1,450,000. The selling price was about 45 percent more than the asking price. As per B.C. Assessment, the property has a 2022 valuation of $947,000. Most of that assessment, or $937,000, is for the 6,612-square-foot lot. The onebedroom and one-bath home has a value of only $10,000. The listing stated that the lot—near the Lougheed Highway site of an IKEA store and a Real Canadian Superstore— has a frontage of 60 feet and depth of 100 feet. g

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HEALTH

Risk of COVID reinfection cited after two months

by Charlie Smith

ne of the more troubling aspects of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is its capacity to return again and again. On April 28, Quebec’s acting public health director, Dr. Luc Boileau, said that his office has adjusted its recommendations in this regard. It now deems the risk of reinfection at two months, rather than three months, Boileau said in French, according to an article in Le Devoir. As a result of this conclusion, Quebec residents are encouraged to be screened for COVID-19 if they’re feeling symptoms within two months of a previous infection. In February, Nature reported a surge

Quebec is retaining an indoor mask mandate until May 14.

in COVID-19 reinfections with the rise of the Omicron variant, which can evade antibodies generated by previous COVID-19 infections. The publication cited data from the U.K. Health Security Agency estimating that reinfections accounted for about 10 percent The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is far more contagious than its predecessors, and it also has a much greater capacity for reinfection. Photo by Juan Ruiz Paramo/Getty.

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of all cases at that time. This compared to just one percent last November. Nature also reported that, according to the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, “reinfection risk was 16 times higher between mid-December last year and early January this year…than in the 7 months leading up to December when Delta was the dominant variant”. Boileau stated that as the virus has become more contagious, it’s less “aggressive”, with only five percent of those hospitalized ending up in intensive care. That’s down from 40 percent in the early stages of the pandemic. The BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has created a sixth wave of COVID-19. Boileau thinks this wave has “in all probability” passed, though the decrease in infections is occurring at a slower rate of decline than in previous waves. Quebec is retaining an indoor mask mandate until May 14. Meanwhile, British Columbia dropped its provincewide indoor mask mandate on March 10, with school students allowed to go mask-optional after spring break.

Recent wastewater-testing data shows rising concentration of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in four of five Metro Vancouver wastewater plants. This suggests that the number of cases could be on the increase in Metro Vancouver. On April 28, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control reported that 42 more British Columbians died from April 17 to 23 after contracting COVID-19. That was down from 52 deaths in the previous week. This figure includes “COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 related deaths occurring within 30 days from a positive lab result”, according to the BCCDC. “Hospitalizations and deaths may be incomplete (i.e. under-estimated) in the most recent weeks owing to the data systems timing and processes,” the BCCDC states. “Numbers provided for previous weeks may differ from week to week as data become more complete and are updated over time.” The official number of B.C. fatalities has exceeded 3,000 since the pandemic began. However, a recent paper published in the Lancet suggested that the actual number could be more than twice as high. g

COMMENTARY

Does Premier John Horgan really respect science?

by Charlie Smith

et’s start this column with some positive comments about Premier John Horgan. First off, he seems more concerned about the cost of living for average folks than any B.C. first minister in a generation. His government has limited rent increases in the face of lots of howling from landlords. I know, the critics will say that he hasn’t introduced vacancy control, which caps increases on units after people move out of a suite. But for many long-term tenants who never plan on moving out of purpose-built rentals, including seniors, Horgan has been a blessing. Horgan also scrapped tolls on the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridges. Again, this has elicited criticism, this time from those who think road tolls are an effective for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and making users pay for roads. But it saved a lot of money for motorists, some of whom are low income. Under Horgan’s rule, B.C. Hydro rates and ferry fares have likely not increased as they would have under the B.C. Liberals. Horgan’s government also took on the lawyers in order to drive down ICBC costs. Yes, this also elicited criticism from those who think that his government’s no-fault system will screw innocent victims of motorvehicle crashes who are maimed for life. But it sure made ICBC premiums a lot cheaper. The granddaddy of them all, as far as average folks are concerned, is probably the elimination of medical services premiums. Now employers foot the bill. Horgan came by his empathy for the working class honestly. He was raised by a single mother and his school chums came from families that weren’t drenched in money. But now let’s get to the headline on this article. Does John Horgan respect science? Not according to frequent social-media posts by Richard Kinar, a long-time advocate for safer sports in Canada. Clearly, this premier fails to understand aerosol science. That’s demonstrated by him continuing to gather with people indoors without a mask even though he recently survived a second bout with cancer. Let’s hope that his family can intervene for the sake of his health. It’s unclear whether Horgan realizes that people can be reinfected with the Omicron variant two months after previous infection. He also hasn’t talked about COVID-19 being a vascular disease, which can present itself as a respiratory illness in the early stage. Is he even aware that as a COVID-19 survivor, he still could suffer neurological and cardiovascular complications? He even suggested at one point that people feeling anxiety over the lifting of mask mandates should carry hand sanitizer with them. That drew plenty of guffaws on Twitter.

Once people make those choices, they are no longer in a position to stop… – Premier John Horgan on addiction

Two-time cancer survivor John Horgan takes maskless indoor selfies. Photo by John Horgan.

In addition, Horgan has never spoken in favour of relatively low-cost interventions—such as Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, HEPA filters, and carbon-dioxide monitors—to help stem the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms. So when it comes to COVID-19, the premier certainly has far more in common with blue-collar convoy protesters than those who’ve spent their careers studying aerosol science. Then there was Horgan’s appalling response to the overdose crisis in 2020, where he talked about how “choices...become dependencies”. “Once people make those choices, they are no longer in a position to stop making those choices without intervention,” Horgan said. He later apologized. But the premier’s callous comments demonstrated a lack of understanding about the root causes of addiction, which include everything from brain biochemistry to trauma. Again, Horgan seemed ignorant of the science. Since Horgan became premier in 2017, there’s been a lot of “father knows best” from this provincial government rather than hearing what users and addiction researchers believe are the most appropriate responses to save lives. Horgan also demonstrated his propensity for foot-in-mouth disease with his early comments about the heat wave last summer. “Fatalities are a part of life,” he said, before quickly apologizing. Even without that remark, B.C.’s premier could never be characterized as a climate keener. In opposition, Horgan was part of a crowd of NDP MLAs who opposed North America’s first carbon tax. Earlier in his political career, he railed against high gas prices in the legislature—when they weren’t actually very high at all in comparison to Europe, where they take the climate more seriously. Before that, Horgan was chief of staff to premier Dan Miller, a key architect of the

rapid expansion of the northeastern B.C. gas industry. Horgan has described Miller as a mentor. In addition, Horgan has supported the liquefied-natural-gas sector with $6 billion in “incentives”. The premier repeats the bluster of the oil and gas industry by claiming that LNG is a “bridge” fuel. He supported the Site C dam, which has ballooned in cost, to support the LNG sector. When it comes to climate science, Horgan has never demonstrated any deep public interest in how the narrowing temperature differences between the Arctic and temperate regions in summer are affecting the jet streams. That phenomenon will likely result in more deadly heat waves in B.C. in the future.

He hasn’t talked about how rising global temperatures increase water vapour in the atmosphere, leading to atmospheric rivers that pulverize B.C. with biblical-style floods. We’ve seen no evidence that he’s aware of the impact of rising sea levels and storm surges on rice production in Asia—but trust me on this, it’s a huge concern. I know, Horgan’s defenders will point to his government’s support for rapid-transit projects, which are massive job-creation exercises for his bluecollar base. His defenders will also point to the CleanBC initiative—and its support for a transition to zero-emission vehicles—to argue that he cares about climate science. But CleanBC is also predicated on the notion that carbon capture and storage is somehow a magic bullet to the climate crisis. That’s a highly questionable and risky proposition, given the stakes. Then, of course, there’s the premier’s continued support for logging old-growth forests, which serve as such magnificent carbon sinks and protectors of biodiversity. In light of all of the public-policy responses to the pandemic, overdose crisis, and climate breakdown, it is, indeed, difficult to argue with Kinar’s proposition that B.C.’s premier is anti-science. g

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LIQUOR

Horchata doesn’t need to be overly complicated

by Mike Usinger

ven though it’s that time of year when you should really be thinking “Paloma”, odds are good right now that you’ve got Margaritas on your mind. And really, who can blame you? Rightly or wrongly, it’s the tequila, triple sec, fresh lime, and simple syrup that most Canadians, Americans, and Cascadians reach for to kickstart Cinco de Mayo. (Or, as former CTV sportscaster Karen Thomson once adorably called it mid-broadcast, Cinco de Drinko). Rightly or wrongly (which is to say mostly wrongly), we assume that most Mexicans love a great Margarita as much as they love May 5. As tackled in a previous Liquor Nerd column, Mexico isn’t exactly all in on Cin-

co de Mayo. Like the drunkenly debauched celebration known on these shores as St. Paddy’s Day, Cinco de Mayo is largely an American construct. Just as almost no one in Ireland heads off to work, the pub, or a soccer match looking like a green-fever-dream cross between Lubdan the Leprechaun and the Lucky Charms mascot on March 17, Mexicans don’t dress up like Pancho Villa for May 5. In theory, the day is meant to celebrate a Mexican Army victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in the 1800s. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that North American liquor purveyors—take a bow Jose Cuervo!—began marketing May 5 as a great excuse to load up on nacho chips, sal-

If you don’t have the time to make horchata from scratch, you can go the concentrate route.

sa, burritos, and bandoleer gun belts accessorized by a flying-saucer-size sombrero. A big part of that campaign was pushing the Margarita aas Mexico’s national drink, that being understandable because it packs more of an instant-buzz punch than a Paloma, the beer-and-grapefruit-pop cocktail favoured by fMexican nationals. But we’re getting a little off topic here. Your ninth-favourite Liquor Nerd recently spent a couple of weeks in Mexico, first in Mexico City, and then on the coast in Oaxaca. Many Margaritas were consumed. But, at first for a little variety, and then later because they were so goddamn good, Rum Horchatas eventually became the daily go-to. Hold off on the rum, and you’ve got an ancient drink meant for everyone when you reach for the horchata. Ubiquitous in Mexico, where it starts with a base of rice, the beverage dates back to 2400 B.C. in North Africa. Before the Romans arrived to ruin everything, the ancient Egyptians were grinding up tiger nuts and mixing that with sugar to make a cooling drink they called horchata de chufa. . The Moors eventually brought horchata to Spain, after which it spread to Mexico through colonization. Because tiger nuts weren’t exactly readily available at the local mercado in Chiapas, Chihuahua, Tabasco, or Tlaxcala, a little improvisation was required. Rice proved a suitable substitute for the base, with cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar— and even hibiscus and marigold—creating a drink that’s now enjoyed everywhere from ice-cream parlours to taquerias to cocktail bars. 8

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

As with most culinary creations, the Internet has demystified horchata to where making it at home doesn’t require a degree from the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park. Start with a cup of long-grain rice that’s been coarsely ground with four cups of water in a blender. Soak for three hours, puree until smooth in batches, and then strain through a cheesecloth or fine sieve. Mix in a half-cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of cinnamon (or a broken cinnamon stick), pour into a glass, and then grab the rum. You can also cheat. Determined to maximize time drinking horchata in Mexico instead of making it, your resident Liquor Nerd found a base mix in the local supermarket where you add milk to three tablespoons of syrup. Do that, and listo (which, according to Google translate, is Spanish for voila), you’ve got a horchata that’s nearly as great as what you’ll end up with at El Vilsito in Mexico City. Or Sal y Limón on Kingsway. Not headed to Mexico anytime soon, and certainly not before May 5? There’s an amazing Mexican-themed store in the 3300-block Kingsway called Los Guerreros, and among the products they carry is imported B&B horchata concentrate. Add three tablespoons to a glass, fill with milk, dust with cinnamon, and then get busy with the rum bottle, and—sorry Margaritaville—you’re totally primed to make the most of Cinco de Mayo. Or, if you prefer, Cinco de Drinko. g Mike Usinger is not a professional bartender. He does, however, spend most of his waking hours sitting on barstools.

BOOKS

Book reveals high cost of WE witch hunt

A former director of the Kielburger brothers’ charity sets the record straight on a scandal that never was by Kirk MacDonald

BOOK REVIEW

WHAT WE LOST: INSIDE THE ATTACK ON CANADA’S LARGEST CHILDREN’S CHARITY By Tawfiq S. Rangwala. Optimum Publishing International, 416 pages

In his new book, What WE Lost: Inside the Attack on Canada’s Largest Children’s Charity, Tawfiq Rangwala outlines in excruciating detail how WE Charity devolved from a media darling to dust. Rangwala’s book is not only impeccably sourced (which one would expect from someone who makes his living as a lawyer in New York City), but also deeply insightful. The author grew up in Toronto and was a classmate of one of the two brothers who founded WE Charity. He sat on its board for four years, from 2017 to 2021. It was Rangwala’s childhood friend, Craig Kielburger, who found himself, along with his brother Marc and WE Charity, in the eye of a political and media storm that not only rivalled (in terms of media coverage) but was also related to the coronavirus pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau became the 158th Canadian diagnosed with COVID-19 several days after returning from London, where she had spoken at a WE Charity event called WE Day. The Prime Minister’s Office released a media statement that read: “Having recently returned from a speaking engagement in London, UK, the Prime Minister’s wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau began exhibiting mild, f lu-like symptoms including a low fever late last night.” The statement implied that Grégoire Trudeau had caught the virus at WE Day, setting off media speculation of a “spreader event” and the first wave of biting criticism of the charity. It wasn’t until more than a year later that Rangwala made the decision to write this book. Rangwala’s decision came on the night of March 27, 2021, when Craig Kielburger shared with the WE Charity board a letter from a journalist allegedly demanding tens of millions of dollars. If the charity declined to pay, the journalist would unleash yet another wave of bad publicity. Reed Cowan, a broadcast anchor with Sinclair Television in the U.S., is the journalist. Cowan was the star witness months

It wasn’t until more than a year later that Rangwala made the decision to write this book.

earlier at a parliamentary ethics committee hearing. At that point, the media

had turned into a pack of jackals further incited by Conservative MP Pierre

Poilievre and NDP MP Charlie Angus. WE Charity f latly turned down the demand for money. Cowan never launched his threatened media assault and never made any legal claim. Shortly thereafter, the Washington Post advised WE Charity that it planned to write about the alleged extortion attempt. WE Charity provided the newspaper with the nine-page demand letter. On April 2, 2021, The Post’s highly respected media critic, Erik Wemple, wrote: “The case underscores the importance of journalists maintaining a bulwark between their professional pursuits and their private crusades… Members of the media should be mighty careful about ever whipping out scary language about ‘public infamy’ given their role in facilitating an outcome.” (Full disclosure: the book reviewer, Kirk MacDonald, worked with Wemple at the Washington City Paper in 2007). Other than a brief in the Las Vegas ReviewJournal, no other North American media outlet picked up the story. In the end, it was WE Charity’s application to administer a $912-million volunteer student grant program, for which it was to receive up to $43.5 million, that was the final nail in the coffin. Those opposed to the deal, including the media and the above-named Canadian politicians, whipped up a frenzied scenario that nearly brought down the Trudeau government, cost Finance Minister Bill Morneau his job, and mortally wounded the credibility of the country’s largest youth charity and its leadership. After 125,000 (media) references, no ethics conf licts or financial malfeasance were discovered. What remains are defamation and libel lawsuits, one filed against CBC and another against the podcasting platform Canadaland. What was lost in the pursuit of a villain or villains in what is referred to as the We Charity Scandal? An untold number of life-changing experiences for the youths who were or in the future would have been part of WE Charity development programs. As Rangwala said in the introduction to What WE Lost: “As I wrote this book, I was frequently reminded of an adage commonly attributed to Dr. Seuss. Sometimes the answers are simple and the questions are complicated.” g This story is sponsored by Optimum Publishing International.

MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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FOOD

Diverse and tasty trio of Mother’s Day brunches

by Martin Dunphy

f you are among those who felt that it sucked to celebrate Mother’s Day during consecutive pandemic years without an elaborate brunch prepared by someone else, this might be your year. Because we know now that the novel coronavirus is spread primarily through aerosol transmission, you can review restaurants and make your dining decision based on your mother’s age and health (and yours), vaccine status (three is best; four is better, if eligible), size of room (the bigger the better), and whether or not patio, rooftop, or outside dining is available. A quick online perusal of Vancouver restaurants offering Mother’s Day brunches or special menus shows at least a few dozen this year. Below, we share a diverse snapshot of three that caught our eye: traditional, Italian, and Asian. PINNACLE HOTEL

(1133 West Hastings Street) In the Pinnacle’s P2B Bistro and Bar, a traditional Mother’s Day brunch is being offered from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 8, with a smoked-salmon Benedict,

The Heritage Asian Eatery on West Broadway is offering a Mother’s Day family feast for four that includes bright-pink crab, scallop, and prawn dumplings that really stand out on the table.

a truff le-and-morel quiche, and a West Coast fry-up (with sausage, bacon, eggs, grilled tomato, and baked beans) among the offerings after a preliminary charcuterie antipasti plate. Roasted chicken, a seafood (crab and scallop) omelette, and an albacore tataki bowl round out the

other mains. Kids can dive into waff les with chicken fingers (or their own sticky digits), blueberry pancakes, French toast, and scrambled eggs, with a “grand dessert buffet” awaiting all who can finish (or who, wisely, left room). Adults are $79, kids six to 12 will cost $37, and

Your local food packaging supply company Check out the Georgia Straight’s upcoming issue on MAY 26, 2022 and discover our readers favourite places to eat, drink and hang out.

Ballot has now closed for the Golden Plates contest Thank you to all our participating sponsors this year: Terra Breads, Rocky Mountain Flatbread, L a Belle Patate Vancouver, Water St. Cafe, West Coast Poké, España, Pacific Poke, Car tems Donuts, Pallet Coffee Roasters, Marquis Wines, Bella Gelateria, Memphis Blues BBQ House, Bonta Italian Restaurante, Havana, Baan L ao Fine Thai Cuisine.

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Glass jars Metal containers PET and vacuum bags Shop online at wellscan.ca Phone:online 604-420-0959 Shop at wellscan.ca Visit: 8705 Government St. Phone: 604-420-0959 Burnaby Visit: 8705 Government St.

Burnaby

Carlino has brought back its popular Mother’s Day brunch board. Photo by Mark Yammine.

it’s $20 apiece for tiny brunch munchers from one to five. Reserve a table at their website. CARLINO

(1115 Alberni Street) This restaurant and lounge in the Shangri-La Hotel downtown is bringing back its popular Mother’s Day brunch board for two ($69) on the big day, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Fresh strawberry bread with cream-cheese icing jostles for space amid seasonal fruits, mini parfaits, filoncino bread and a mini frittata, smashed rosemary potatoes, bacon, and San Daniele prosciutto. Included are two mimosas or glasses of Prosecco and two coffees or teas. Cheesecake French toast ($18) and a Tuscan-style panzanella salad ($21) are both available as à la carte options. Reservations are recommended. HERITAGE ASIAN EATERY

(382 West Broadway) This casual Mount Pleasant purveyor of fresh-take classic Asian comfort foods is offering a special Mother’s Day family feast for four (both dine-in and takeout; available Saturday and Sunday) for $128. (Although the feast is not, technically, only for brunch, that afternoonish dining staple’s hours are notoriously flexible, no?) Included are “bright pink” crab, scallop, and prawn dumplings (see photo); five-spice chicken wings; truffle siu mai; barbecued pork belly; prawn and pea-tip spring rolls; dandan noodles; gai lan; black sesame balls; and a take-home jar of the house chili sauce. Call (604) 559-6058 for reservations and advise if you will be ordering the family feast. Note: parking may be limited on Broadway due to SkyTrain construction; if anyone in your party has mobility issues, they may have to walk from a side street. g

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MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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ARTS

Conjurer Ziyian Kwan takes the lid off oppression

by Charlie Smith

hen the Straight reaches Vancouver dance artist Ziyian Kwan by phone, she wants to make one thing abundantly clear. Even though she’s the founder of dumb instrument Dance, which is presenting its newest work, Rebel Grace, this month, she does not want to be seen as a director or a choreographer of the show. “It is a collaborative process,” Kwan insists. “I think of myself less as a choreographer these days and more as a conjurer.” She describes Rebel Grace as a series of eight vignettes that f low together. Each represents “something of what our individual and collective voices express in terms of taking the lid off of oppressions

that we might experience in our bodies and in our lives”. To Kwan and the rest of the diverse artistic team—Chengyan Boon, Justin Calvadores, Lisa Mariko Gelley, E. Kage, Juolin Lee, Andrea Nann, Roxanne Nesbitt, and Rianne Svelnis—the objective is to “discover revelations about positive ways to bend those experiences”. “I’ve been writing rhyming couplets as a simple container in which to contextualize the inspiration behind the piece,” Kwan reveals. “Many of these poems will be shared in performance.” Here is one: What is a rebel but a state of grace? Ruptures of normal in mendings of space.

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Artist Ziyian Kwan says that she and Justin Calvadores are two of several collaborators “rupturing the normative” in dumb instrument Dance’s new production, Rebel Grace. Photo by David Cooper.

With Eros and Pathos and Ethos at play Dreaming tomorrow by bending today. Kwan says that the concept for Rebel Grace came to her about two and a half years ago. She actually had an idea of creating a “menopausal manifesto”—well before bestselling author Dr. Jen Gunter’s book The Menopause Manifesto was released. Some current collaborators and others no longer associated with the project—such as cellist Peggy Lee and dancers Delia Brett and Anne Cooper—were involved at that time. Kwan was intrigued by the notion of exploring women’s midlife years through dance and poetry. However, as the pandemic took hold along with a rise in anti-Asian hatred, she couldn’t sit on the sidelines. Instead, she found ways to voice a “graceful rebellion in relationship to other currents that relate specifically to the intersections of my identity, which are, of course, as an Asian woman whose identity is queer and older”.

In Rebel Grace, she points out that she and the other artists are expressing the rumblings—and the joy—that they’ve felt during the past two years. In essence, they’re finding ways to “rupture what is normative or what we perceive to be normative”, whether it’s in verse, movement, or, in the case of taiko artist Kage, through the beats. Kwan reveals that Kage will also sing, which she doesn’t ordinarily do. “Something I would like to underline in addition to the artists who are collaborating in the work that I’m conjuring is the Dance Centre,” Kwan adds. “In these turbulent times, where artists are redefining cultures of creative ecology, the Dance Centre is a steadfast vessel that offers an abundance of resources and care that make it possible to break the waves.” g As part of the Global Dance Connections series, the Dance Centre will present dumb instrument Dance’s Rebel Grace at 8 p.m. next Thursday to Saturday (May 12 to 14).

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ARTS

VSO’s next season mixes classical with contemporary

by Charlie Smith

he Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will bring forth an eclectic lineup of guest artists in the coming season. They include the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman (September 15). For VSO music director Otto Tausk, Perlman’s return to Vancouver carries a special significance. In an interview with the Straight last year, Tausk revealed that his “dearest experience and memory” in his time with the VSO was when Perlman came in January of 2019. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Itzhak Perlman, but he’s a very famous, great violinist, and he was a violinist I knew when I was really young,” Tausk said at the time. “He was a big star, and when he would come to the Netherlands to play in Amsterdam, I would go to my school and say, ‘Listen, I’m not coming tomorrow because there’s this guy coming to play the violin and I’m gonna listen to him.’ “I skipped school to go and listen to Itzhak Perlman,” the VSO music director continued. “So then having this moment of conducting the VSO with Perlman playing the solo part—that was a really, really special experience.” In the upcoming season, the VSO will also welcome guitar-playing science educator and former astronaut Chris Hadfield (September 16), as well as drummer Stewart Copeland (September 30, October 1) from the Police. Copeland is part of the London Drugs VSO Pops series, along with JUNO- and Gemini-nominated musician Sarah Slean (October 28, 29), who will offer a tribute to Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Broadway performer Capathia Jenkins will lead the vocals in a separate tribute to Aretha Franklin (April 28 and 29). Also on the guest list is violinist Hilary Hahn (January 13, 14), one of the leading lights in contemporary classical music. She will perform Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. And James Ehnes will be back, this time to play Korngold’s Violin Concerto in May, replicating what he performed on the VSO’s Grammy Award–winning recording. “The quality and range of guest artists coming to Vancouver is a testament to our great orchestra and city,” Tausk said in a news release. He also plans to showcase the beauty of the changing seasons with Brahms’s autumnal Symphony No. 3, Tchaikovsky’s Winter Daydreams, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été (The Nights of Summer). Another highlight of the coming season will be a performance of Bach’s

Singer-songwriter Sarah Slean will perform a tribute to Joni Mitchell. Photo by Myer Horowitz.

Creativity is at the core of all that we do.

– VSO president and CEO Angela Elster

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, which has traditionally highlighted a quartet of instruments—trumpet, oboe, recorder, and violin—accompanied by a string ensemble. Then there are premieres of Canadian music, including Marcus Goddard (Life Emerging: Antarctica, November; and Life Emerging: Pacific North-West, June), Vivian Fung (Flute Concerto, November), Cassandra Miller (new VSO commission, March/April), and Rita Ueda (new VSO commission, March). That’s in addition to 14 Masterworks programs, which will feature a return visit from Canadian soprano superstar Measha Brueggergosman and a performance by Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. “Creativity is at the core of all that we do,” VSO president and CEO Angela Elster said in the news release. “Innovation and inclusion are foundational to our music-making. Equity is key to the VSO and VSO School of Music’s thinking: repertoire selection, conductor selection, and composer selection. “With the guidance of the VSO Indigenous Council, Indigenous content, guest artists, and composers are woven into our programming,” she continued. “We experienced this at our recent presentation of The Path Forward. We look forward to future co-creations with the VSO Indigenous Council and our creative partners within the Coast Salish Host Nations as we continue the VSO’s journey towards Truth and Reconciliation.” g

Felix Landerer Everything will be ok Out Innerspace Strange Attractor Dorotea Saykaly RELIC

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MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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ARTS

The Leonids explode onto the Vancouver choral scene

by Charlie Smith

JOE INK

in partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs proudly presents the world premiere of

DANCE:CRAFT Performances + Exhibition 7pm

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MAY 20 TO 22

SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre 149 West Hastings Tickets: eventbrite.ca | Info: joeink.ca $30 Adults | $25 Students & Seniors + s/c Performers: Heather Dotto & Joey Matt. Ceramic heads: Debra E Sloan. Photo: Michael Slobodian.

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here’s an unforgettable anecdote in one YouTube video of U.S. bass-baritone singer and composer Jonathan Woody. It came in conversation with Erick Lichte, artistic director of Vancouver’s Chor Leoni men’s choir and assembler of a new choral supergroup, the Leonids. Woody—one of nine members of the Leonids—tells the story behind his impassioned and enthralling performance of composer George Frideric Handel’s “Why Do the Nations So Furiously Rage Together” with Kansas City’s Spire Chamber Ensemble in December 2016. Earlier that day, someone in politics, whom Woody didn’t identify, had made a disgusting comment about then–first lady Michelle Obama going back to Africa. This came as the Obamas were preparing to leave the White House. “It kind of broke my heart, actually, particularly because they weren’t even going to be in power in a month,” Woody tells Lichte in the video. “You know, it was just like, why are we still attacking these folks? “I don’t know—something personal just hit me that day,” the singer-composer continues. “I was really fortunate, actually, to have the opportunity to have the music to express myself.” Woody’s singing of the Handel classic from Messiah is riveting. His voice ascends with tension, shakes with anger and pain, enunciating every word and exploding through the hall. “It was cathartic for me,” he says. “That was what I needed to do those days to get through those emotions.” To stargazers, the Leonids are an annual meteor shower associated with Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Like their namesake, the Leonids choral group will return to Vancouver with a radiant and dynamic show every year. “It was really a chance to bring together a lot of these people who are at the top of their game and put them together in a small ensemble,” Lichte tells the Straight by phone. The Leonids include soloists from some of North America’s most admired ensembles, such as bass singer Eric Alatorre, with the Grammy-winning Chanticleer ensemble. The group will perform with Chor Leoni twice at St. Andrew’s–Wesley United Church and once at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts from May 12 to 14. Other members of the Leonids are bassbaritone Enrico Lagasca, baritone Sam Kreidenweis, and tenors Dann Coakwell, Andrew Fuchs, Jacob Perry, Steven Soph, and Steven Caldicott Wilson. “This program offers Vancouverites the

Chor Leoni recruited singer Jonathan Woody into a supergroup. Photo by Sean Salomon.

It was really a chance to bring together…these people who are at the top of their game… – Erick Lichte

rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s greatest large male choirs [Chor Leoni] coupled with one of the world’s most distinguished small ensembles,” Lichte says. He notes that their shows will focus on humankind’s relationship to the divine. This will be reflected in verses by Indian mystic poet Kabir, whose writings reflect Sikh and Hindu influences. As well, performers will sing verses by Welsh mystic poet George Herbert and American Trappist monk Thomas Merton, among others. “It’s some of the most exquisite, wild, and heartfelt music,” Lichte says. “You don’t always get that combination.” The Chor Leoni artistic director was determined to bring together singers with a sense of mission, artistic generosity, and educational experience. The goal was for them to share their expertise with younger singers at the two-day VanMan Choral Summit, culminating in the Leonids’ final 2022 show at the Chan Centre. “The audience will hear something they’ve rarely heard in Vancouver,” Lichte says. “It’s going to be partly homegrown and partly exotic, coming in from other lands once a year.” g

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ARTS

Collage artist Cabalu looks at consumerist excess

by Carlito Pablo

ancouver collage artist Jay Cabalu draws from a music video by Rihanna for the centrepiece of Extra, his first solo exhibit. In the video, the Barbadian pop star sashays in military-inspired couture, straddles the gun barrel of a tank, and wears a helmet with Mickey Mouse ears. Rihanna unabashedly sings: And I want it all / It’s gonna take more than that, hope that ain’t all you got / I need it all / The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes. From this, Cabalu created a collage called Savage Fenty (Rihanna), encapsulating what he wants to say in Extra, which opens May 7 at the On Main Gallery in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

“It encompasses a lot of what the show is all about in terms of excess,” Cabalu told the Straight in a phone interview. Cabalu explained that Extra is a show about capitalism-driven consumption and the resulting dominant culture of wanting to have “more and more”. In addition, there are “intersections” in that video for Rihanna’s 2009 hit single “Hard”. “It also brings to mind ideas of imperialism and war,” Cabalu said. The exhibition name Extra is, likewise, a “triple entendre to be taken literally”. It refers to newspaper special editions from a previous time, sold by paperboys on the street by yelling, “Extra! Extra!”

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Artist Jay Cabalu, here with his Savage Fenty (Rihanna) collage, holds his first solo exhibit, titled Extra, from May 7 to May 28 at the On Main Gallery in Chinatown. Photo by Marchel Eang.

“More recently, usage of extra was coopted into mainstream slang from AfricanAmerican vernacular English, meaning someone who is ‘over the top’,” Cabalu said. In exploring the world of consumerism, Cabalu emphasized that he took a route

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“somewhere in the middle of an indictment and a celebration”. “I think it’s important for me to be honest about the negative effects of consumer culture and excess but at the same time also be honest about how cool and pristine and sparkly and enticing the culture [is] as well,” he said. Cabalu said that he didn’t want to “detract away from how beautiful” many products and commodities are that are made for enjoyment. “I like the shininess of everything, and I want to include those images,” Cabalu said. “I want them to look luxurious while at the same time being critical and showing how damaging and destructive it can be. “As time goes on,” he continued, “people are becoming more inundated with images and media, all portraying excessive consumerism, while we are also depleting natural resources.” Cabalu adopted collage as his primary medium when he was earning his bachelor of fine arts degree at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. The art of putting together disparate pieces to form a new image spoke to his personal experience of growing up as an immigrant. Cabalu was born in the Philippines, and his family lived in Brunei for a time. He was a young boy when they moved to Canada in 1991. He made a lot of self-portraits between 2017 and 2019 as a way of exploring his own identity. “My technique just grew so much when I was making the self-portraits,” Cabalu recalled. g Extra runs from May 7 to May 28 at the On Main Gallery (427-268 Keefer Street). Opening reception is on May 7 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., with a limitedattendance artist and curator talk on May 14.

ARTS

“Old dad” Majumder looks to love for laughs

by Steve Newton

hen Shaun Majumder answers the phone in the backyard at his L.A. home, he’s in the middle of something very important: putting together a trampoline for his two-year-old daughter, Mattis. Somewhere in the house, his second child, four-month-old Eslyn, sleeps soundly— maybe waiting for her dad to wake her up and make her laugh, which is something he’s proven good at over the years. Majumder’s current state of domestic bliss will provide the bulk of the material for his upcoming comedy jaunt, The Love Tour, which includes a stop in New Westminster on May 13. Things are definitely going to be a little different from the last time he was on the road, making the rounds with The Hate Tour. “The Hate Tour really came around when the world was experiencing something with social media and with the amount of vitriol that was going on, I mean 2015 to 2019, obviously 2020. It was talking about mostly news-driven stuff, topical material, stuff that was happening on Twitter and Facebook, people getting caught on video saying horrible things. “So that tour was really focused on a lot of those outward things that people were experiencing,” he adds, “and this has gone inward now. I’m talking about things that are happening to me personally, on a deeper level, and it all is kind of focused on using parenting as kind of the theme that talks about love—all the good, the bad, and especially of being an old dad, starting late. I’m 50 now; I had my first kid at 47.” As well as developing a career as a touring standup comic, Majumder has made a name for himself through a wide variety of film and TV work, including 14 years on the iconic CBC show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He believes that part of what kick-started his fruitful career in comedy was simply growing up in the small Newfoundland town of Burlington. “In places like Newfoundland, where I grew up, everybody’s got a story to tell,” he says, “and everybody has some kind of sparkly sense of humour—it’s just the way of the place. You’ve gotta have a sense of humour based on the weather and, you know, based on a lot of the economic situations. When you grow up in a small town where people are slinging one-liners from every age, you just kinda pick up the ability to banter; your brain develops in a way where you put together thoughts in a different way. “So you catch the wave and you ride the wave and you be that,” he continues. “As a person, growing up, I always had a sense of humour, and I found that making people laugh helped me along the way, in many circumstances—whether it was when I was being bullied in school or if I was with a

Comedian and actor Shaun Majumder has a lot to be happy about these days, including being the father of two girls, ages two and four months, who are inspiration for his current Love Tour.

girl. Humour was a pretty good bit of currency, you know, to get you through. “But more than that, for me, it wasn’t just comedy; it was also just being free in being creative. And acting was something that I loved to do from a very early age. Little did I know that there was a career in it, but there is. It’s not the most secure career, but it is definitely driven by passion and that’s what matters the most to me.” Early on, Majumder was inspired by the comedy stylings of Canadian acts like CODCO, Wonderful Grand Band, and SCTV. He recalls how when he was young, he and a cousin would pretend they were SCTV’s Bob and Doug McKenzie and tape their own “Great White North” sketches on a little cassette recorder. Eventually, Majumder would create his own memorable characters, one of those being Raj Binder, the awkward and sweat-soaked reporter with the heavy Indian accent who came out of an experience Majumder once had at a tennis tournament. “It was back when cigarettes sponsored tennis tournaments,” he recalls with a chuckle. “It was the DuMaurier Open—I’ll never forget it. I mean, what the fuck! Tennis athletes. Great. So I went to this tennis tournament, and it was one of those muggy Toronto days, like 40 degrees Celsius, and I was just sitting in the stands and my friend Chris and I were just riffin’ on the fact that it’s so hot. I started telling him, ‘Dude, what must this be like for sportscasters in places like India?’ “I just started riffing and being an Indian guy doing this thing, and then that evolved into when I was doing sketch comedy with a group called The Bobroom,” Majumder explains further. “I started doing it as a voiceover in the back, like a radio broadcast, and then somebody went,

‘Dude, we gotta see that guy! I want to see what he looks like.’ And then I just kinda came up with Raj, the character. He was born and then he was on 22 Minutes and he was on Cedric the Entertainer Presents. Ya know, he was ringing in the New Year, he

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Shaun Majumder performs on The Love Tour at New Westminster’s Massey Theatre on May 13.

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was at the Olympics, sneakin’ into hockey photos. Raj has just been everywhere.” Looking back on his career, Majumder cites his time on This Hour Has 22 Minutes as being particularly fulfilling. But he also has fond memories of his early role as Slime Master Shaun on the wacky YTV game show Uh-Oh! “I would say they’re equally valuable,” he points out. “It’s funny, man, you do different gigs, especially when you’re starting out, and then what makes me laugh is what people recognize me for, ya know? ‘Cause as a Canadian celebrity, I’ve done everything: I’ve hosted stuff; I’ve done comedy; I’ve done drama; I’ve done all these random things, and people will spot me and be like, ‘Hey, I think I went to school with your sister.’ Or they go, ‘Wait, I know you. Are you that guy Jian Ghomeshi?’ “And then when they figure out it was Uh-Oh! or Brainwash or these old-school YTV things, then they freak out. So I’m not famous enough to be, like, ‘famous’. I’m just kinda well-known. Sorta. And I’m very proud of that.” g

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MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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DOXA

Sinixt defy government claim that they don’t exist

by Charlie Smith

oronto filmmaker Ali Kazimi has told a story of a B.C. First Nation declared extinct in 1956. A few years later, the Canadian and U.S. governments signed a treaty leading to the flooding of a significant chunk of their traditional territory. But there’s a catch: the Sinixt people are actually still alive in the Arrow Lakes region of B.C. And in Kazimi’s new film, Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence, they continue to demand recognition, only to be repeatedly denied by the state. “I point out that this was ethnic cleansing by legislation,” Kazimi tells the Straight by phone. “There’s no other way to describe it.” Kazimi began making the film in 1995 after being contacted by a friend, Vancouver lawyer Zool Suleman, who told him about a very unusual immigration case. A Sinixt man from his nation’s traditional territory in Washington state, Robert Watt, wanted to travel freely across the border into his First Nation’s traditional territory in the Arrow Lakes region. The Canadian government wanted to deport him. So Kazimi took his camera on a trip to the Kootenays to learn more.

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I point out that this was ethnic cleansing by legislation. – Filmmaker Ali Kazimi

Filmmaker Ali Kazimi says that he’s been inspired by Sinixt elder Marilyn James’s refusal to give into government claims that her people don’t exist north of the 49th parallel. Photo by Louis Bockner.

“Those four days that I spent there were truly life-changing,” Kazimi says. “I was privy to everything, I was privy

MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

to internal discussions. I was privy to debates. I was privy to the joy and the laughter and the incredible warmth of the elders. I felt so privileged.” He wasn’t able to raise the necessary funds to complete this film in the 1990s, but the stories remained with him. Kazimi was particularly impressed by Sinixt spokesperson Marilyn James and elder Eva Orr, who each spoke at length on camera about how their people had been erased from existence north of the U.S.-Canada border. In recent years, Kazimi returned to the area for more filming. And this, along with remarkable historical footage and video shot in the B.C. Interior by other filmmakers, shows a side of colonialism that few British Columbians are aware of. In 1872, a U.S. presidential order forcibly amalgamated 12 tribes, including the Sinixt, into the “Colville Confederacy”. Its people live on in a U.S. reservation from the boundary that extends from the international border into central Washington state. Even though pit houses document the existence of Sinixt villages in the Arrow Lakes area, the people did not exist in Canada, according to the government. And that drives James’s activism to this day. “Marilyn is one of the most remarkable people I’ve met, and she has been a source of inspiration for the film from the time I talked to her,” Kazimi says. “I’m inspired by her sheer willpower that drives her. I have seen the enormous price she paid for it. “She’s taking on the entire state of Canada and…she is being targeted by the state with all of its machinery, from the police to the legal system,” he continues. “But she maintains a kind of steadfast core and centre of

who she is, where she belongs, and where her people come from. And what she’s fighting for. It’s very clear to her.” Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence also exposes how the B.C. treaty process pits First Nations against one another. By necessity, Kazimi explains, they must make territorial claims that are larger than what they will receive. And that leads to inevitable conf licts when there are overlapping claims. “That’s built into the process,” Kazimi insists. “It’s completely baked in.” To him, it’s all so familiar. When he was growing up in Delhi, India, students were taught in school how the British colonial power used to use divide-and-conquer methodology against the Indian independence movement. The effect in B.C., he adds, is to weaken the collective response to the state’s efforts to subjugate First Nations. “It is about pitting one group against another,” Kazimi says. “And then how do you engage in reconciliation when that parallel process is going on?” He says that some First Nations are challenging this effort to drive wedges between them. As an example, he notes that the Okanagan bands are forming alliances. But the problem, Kazimi adds, is that they were given such tiny reserves under the Indian Act, which he also reveals in his film. “It’s all about the land and it’s all about claims and a recognition of traditional territory,” he says. “For example, in the Sinixt, it’s reduced to a tiny dot of barely a few hundred acres of completely uncultivable land. That says something, visually. “And also, over the years, I’ve realized that most Canadians are completely unaware of what the Indian Act does and how it operates—and how it’s such an instrument, as Indigenous scholars have pointed out, of forced assimilation.” g The DOXA Documentary Film Festival presents the world premiere of Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence at 2 p.m. on Saturday (May 7) at the Vancity Theatre and at 4 p.m. on Monday (May 9) at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at SFU. The film is also available online through the DOXA website.

DOXA

Territory director ambushes viewers with insights The plight of the Amazon’s Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau inhabitants becomes darker as Alex Pritz’s film unfolds

by Martin Dunphy

irector Alex Pritz reveals the meat of his first feature documentary, The Territory, through a series of small, skillfully introduced viewer epiphanies. The film—about the existential crises afflicting the remnants of a remote group of Indigenous people, the Uru-Eu-WauWau, in western Brazil—starts slowly, introducing watchers to the many threats closing in on the 180 or so inhabitants of six tiny villages in an official, “protected” Indigenous territory. Land grabbers, farmers, illegal roads and trails, loggers, ranchers, and purposely set fires are constantly eating away at the borders of the 7,000-square-mile territory they share with two other small goups of Indigenous inhabitants, most of whom hadn’t seen a white person before first contact in the early 1980s. Local officials with the Indigenous Affairs agency, tasked with protecting the territory’s inhabitants and land, are heard on the phone, protesting that they can “do nothing” about the repeated illegal violations of sovereignty, even going so far as to claim that the stories are “made up”. A brave and indefatigable environmental activist, Neidinha Bandeira, has worked with the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau for decades and considers herself almost a mother to some of their children who are now young adults, especially Bitaté, a personable and intelligent young man who has just been made leader by the villages’ elders. For all that Neidinha tells the camera about regularly receiving death threats from within the nearby community where she lives with her daughter, it doesn’t hit home until we later see her receive such a call while on-camera. Though she bravely assumes that the hysterical female voice identifying herself as her daughter is a trick—despite her claims to have been kidnapped by men with guns—she panics and races home when a follow-up call to her daughter isn’t answered. The tension of that short, agonizing drive home conveys more than an hour of terrifying testimony could impart. And a subsequent, sorrowful discovery along one of the roads used to patrol Uru-Eu-WauWau territory for “invaders” drives home the reality of the black dread now starting to inch up viewers’ spines. Similarly, it isn’t until well into the film, when we are shown a map graphic of the Indigenous territory like “an island of rainforest surrounded by farms”, clearcut deserts, and a growing network of roads and illegal property borders that the scale of the looming destruction becomes clear.

mistic thoughts a challenge. But if the intent of the filmmakers was to help stir international support for both the increasingly threatened Amazon rainforest and its besieged Indigenous inhabitants, consider it mission accomplished, despite the documentary’s unsettled and somewhat foreboding ending. Neidinha’s brave statement near the close of the film, however, provides a measure of hope in its sheer defiance: “There’s lots I still want to do,” the activist, 57, says over a gorgeous shot of her drifting on her back in a stream through a green cathedral during a rain shower, “and I know I don’t have much time left. “But in the time I have, I will mess with a lot of people. Poor them. If I live another 20 years, it’ll be 20 years spent bothering anyone who destroys the Amazon.” g Bitaté—who became leader of his people when he was only 19 years old—frequently heads out on patrol with traditional bow and arrows to search for invaders in Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory.

The 2022 film had its debut at Sundance earlier this year, and it grabbed people’s attention, winning both the audience award for world cinema (documentary) and the special jury award for documentary craft. Then Pritz nabbed the Golden Space Needle Award at the recent Seattle International Film Festival, where it was also nominated for the grand jury prize. (Vancouverites will get a chance to see it soon at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.) The international coproduction (Brazil, U.S., Denmark) has a bushel of producers attached to its coattails, none more prominent than filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. Besides directing, Pritz co-edited and helped shoot the three-year project, which also saw a major technical contribution from its main subjects, the Uru-Eu-WauWau themselves, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to close their Indigenous Territory’s borders after they quickly lost about five percent of their population. Their quick adoption and use of drones, video cameras, cell phones, GPS devices, and motorcycles to increase surveillance patrols and to document proof of the invasions (villagers “arrested” those they found with chainsaws and pestcides and turned them over to authorities) not only helped amass incontrovertible evidence to bolster their claims but also provided invaluable footage for Pritz via Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau videographer Tangãi, who received cinematography co-credit with the director. That all of this—including the local establishment of a regional association of would-be farmers illegally staking out enough Indigenous land “for 1,000 families”—is unreeling against a backdrop of

populist authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro’s ultimately successful drive to become president of Brazil in 2018 makes opti-

The DOXA Documentary Film Festival will screen The Territory at 8:45 p.m. on Saturday (May 7) at the Vancity Theatre and 12:45 p.m. on May 15 at the Cinematheque. The film is also available online through the festival's website.

ON TIC SA KE LE TS NO

MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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DOXA

Director’s young self in Doug and the Slugs doc

by Steve Newton

hen you think about the music of Doug and the Slugs, what comes to mind first are most likely the band’s upbeat early ’80s radio hits, “Too Bad” and “Making It Work”. Or maybe it’s the catchy, singalong vibe of the whimsical “Day By Day”. But for Teresa Alfeld, director of the new documentary Doug and the Slugs and Me, none of those tracks are her number one. “My personal favourite, undoubtedly, is one of the most non–Doug and the Slugs songs,” she says by phone from her home near Vancouver City Hall in the Fairview neighbourhood. “It’s one that I spotlight at the beginning of the film as well as the end. It’s called ‘Partly From Pressure’, and it’s a deep cut from their second record, Wrap It!, which I think is their best record. It’s this bittersweet midtempo ballad—unlike the more popular Doug and the Slugs tracks—that I think really showcases Doug [Bennett]’s complexity and talent as a songwriter, as well as the band’s arrangement capabilities. The first time I heard it, it got in my head and it got in my heart, and I’ve been really attached.” Alfeld’s original bond to Doug and the Slugs goes way back to when she was a child and living next door to the Bennett family in East Van. Shea Bennett, one of Doug and wife Nancy’s three daughters, was Teresa’s best friend, but—as friends and neighbours often do—they grew apart. The reconnection to the Bennetts started after Alfeld licensed a number of Doug and the Slugs songs for her first feature documentary, The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical, about the life of local lawyer, city councillor, and socialist icon Harry Rankin, which was released in 2018. “We actually used Doug and the Slugs songs exclusively in that film,” Alfeld says, “and to my absolute pleasure, we witnessed such a positive response to the music. People were talking about it; [band member] Simon Kendall came to one of the screenings, and when we introduced him, there was a huge

Teresa Alfeld (second from right) sits with Doug Bennett’s three daughters as they peruse his journals, which played an important part in Alfeld’s doc about the late Vancouver rocker’s band.

My first reaction when I got the journals was, ‘Oh, my god, I’ve struck gold!’ – Teresa Alfeld

outpouring of love in the audience. So [The Rankin File producer] John Bolton and I turned to one another and said, ‘Oh, well, this is an obvious fit. Let’s do a film!’ Because they have the built-in fanbase, and it’s a great story, and these are great characters.” To tell the story of Doug and the Slugs, Alfeld enlisted the group’s original members—keyboardist Kendall, guitarists John Burton and Richard Baker, bassist Steve Bosley, and drummer John “Wally” Wat-

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Doug Bennett (third from left) and the Slugs, goofing around during an ’80s promo shoot.

son—to offer reminiscences on Bennett, who died at age 52 while the band was touring in Alberta. (He died in a Calgary hospital on October 16, 2004, a week after falling into a coma, with his cause of death reported as “a long-standing illness”.) Alfeld also offers on-camera interviews with various music-biz celebrities, including Boomtown Rats singer and Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, who was music editor at the Georgia Straight in the ’70s, when Bennett worked there briefly as art director. At one point in the film, Geldof notes that Doug and the Slugs made fun music but that “there was an overarching intelligence that sublimates fun into something other.” “I was so happy that Sir Bob made that comment,” Alfeld says, “because it’s so true. Doug and the Slugs are really known for their big hits, of course, ‘Making It Work’ and ‘Too Bad’, and those are wonderful, extremely well-crafted pop songs. But at the same time, when you get into some of the other songs that Doug and the Slugs wrote—and especially some of the lyrics—that really profound curiosity that

Doug Bennett had about the world really comes through. It’s my hope that the full catalogue of Doug and the Slugs music gets a second look, and I’m so glad that people like Sir Bob Geldof are heeding that call.” Another route the director took to get to the core of what Bennett was all about came via a collection of his journals. The band members had told Alfeld about the notebooks, and some had taken peeks at them, but no one had fully studied them before. “My first reaction when I got the journals was, ‘Oh, my god, I’ve struck gold!’ ” she says, “and I didn’t even know what was in them. And so that first step was just sitting down and reading all 39 books front to cover, and then doing it a second time. It was fascinating because I had already started to research and interview the Slugs themselves before I got the journals, and so I had sort of constructed my version of who these characters were and what the story was. And then suddenly I was given Doug’s voice and Doug’s perspective, and it occurred to me—as uncomfortable as it could be—that allowing my characters to actually have a conversation with Doug, by reading his perspective on certain events, would really enrich the story.” Some of the most memorable sequences in Doug and the Slugs and Me come when Bennett’s band and family members read passages from his journals, for the first time, aloud on camera. But perhaps the most striking moment in the film comes during a segment shot on an old camcorder at a bowling alley. It features home-video footage captured when Alfeld herself, as a child, was out with the Bennett family, and at one point she’s actually filming her friend Shea throwing a ball—with daddy Doug overseeing the action. “At one point in my research journey, Nancy handed over this white document box of home-movie tapes,” Alfeld says, “and I just started watching. And I couldn’t have prepared myself for it, because it wasn’t just watching the Bennetts—it was watching myself, and my own childhood, reflected back to me in a way I hadn’t seen. It was like suddenly it was back at the Bennetts’ house—literally, there I am, or over at the bowling alley. The moment where Doug gets Stella to hand me the camera, I had no memory of that ever happening; I was too young. So when I discovered that clip by myself one night, I was just getting goosebumps, going, ‘Wow, our stories are more intertwined than I could ever imagine.’ ” g Doug and the Slugs and Me screens at Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at SFU Woodward’s on May 14 (evening) and 15 (matinee), and at Vancity Theatre on May 15 (evening) as part of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

MUSIC / SAVAGE LOVE

Tegan and Sara remind us idiots don’t know best

by Mike Usinger

hink a second about all the idiocy that you’ve endured over the course of your working life. The foreman who—for zero discernible reason—insisted that the boxes be stacked this way, not that way. The ditchdigger supervisor who demanded that you pile the dirt on the left-hand side of the trench rather than the right-hand side. The IT idjit who answered every perfectly reasonable question with a nonsensical riddle—if, that is, he deigned to respond at all. Such memories are guaranteed to maximize your enjoyment of “Fucking Up What Matters”, the new single and video from Canadian indie heroes Tegan and Sara. As for all of us, the past couple of years have brought changes for the Quinn twins. The big one is that Tegan and Sara have fled the major-label system for Mom+Pop Music, the indie label that’s home to the blue-chip likes of Sleater-Kinney and Courtney Barnett. “Fucking Up What Matters” sets the table for Tegan and Sara’s upcoming, as yet-untitled 10th album (and first for Mom+Pop).

Twins Tegan and Sara Quinn read somewhere that hair antennae will tend to improve cellphone reception when one is hanging out in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

Tegan Quinn explains the song and clip as follows: “‘Fucking Up What Matters’ felt like an ode to the moment in your life when you realize that you have most, if not all of the things you wanted and you start to think about what would happen if you

just walked away from it all. It’s the moment in the middle of the night when you start to daydream about something else, something you never imagined. It’s the feeling you have when you think you might have hit a new low, and yet you’ve never felt

so good. Sometimes it’s admitting that you can’t stop yourself from fucking up what matters, that you feel your strongest. And as my mom would say, it’s often when we’re fucking up what matters, that we’re learning the most about ourselves.” Music biz neophytes who’ve never made a video, and dream of doing so, will find the five-minute video endlessly informative. And horrifying. Don’t forget to invent a new TikTok dance, pay attention to the importance of hair, makeup, and wardrobe, and go out of your way to make normal activities (baking a cake, driving a car, getting a tattoo) seem endlessly enjoyable. An even bigger life lesson? That would be a heads up that sometimes you’re going to have to sit there politely while some hopelessly clueless, stone-cold cretin talks about what makes a great video. And, by proxy, how your arts and music coverage might be significantly improved if you’d only write things in a fashion that the average 4th grader might understand. But only if that 4th grader is in the remedial-reading stream. g

Open relationships a problem when feelings surface by Dan Savage

b STRAIGHT GUY HERE in a one-sided open relationship. My wife and I opened our relationship just for her and to females only, so she could explore her bisexual side. I’m super proud of her for coming out and wanted her to feel fulfilled. When we agreed to this, I was naive and figured anything she experienced would be purely sexual and nothing more. She recently caught feelings and now has a girlfriend. She stays at her girlfriend’s place one to two nights a week. I get jealous and sick to my stomach when she is over there. She has that “new relationship energy” going and talks about her girlfriend all the time. Aside from the jealousy, I feel like I am not a priority. Besides this, our marriage is great. I love my wife very much and want to support her in this. Are one-sided open relationships something that can work? Are my feelings unjustified, and what can I do to better deal with them? The logic used when we talked about a one-sided open relationship was that I can’t satisfy the female side she desires. But since I’m hetero, I don’t have an “unfulfilled” side. - Home Alone

Your wife isn’t the first person to come out as bisexual after making a monogamous commitment to an opposite-sex partner and then ask for permission to sleep with

on by the erotic power imbalance of being forbidden something their spouse is allowed—basically, this could work if you were a cuckold. Which you’re not.

Just because one’s wife can’t get pussy at home doesn’t mean she has the right to get pussy elsewhere and then refuse to extend that same courtesy to her increasingly jealous husband.

other people—without wanting to extend the same permission to their straight spouse. Since she’s bi and can’t get pussy at home, the reasoning goes, she should be allowed to get pussy elsewhere. Since you’re straight and can get pussy at home, you’re not entitled to the same allowance. But as your wife is demonstrating, HA, it’s not just pussy she’s getting elsewhere. While she’s getting one very specific need met outside your relationship, she’s getting a lot more than that. In addition to pussy, she’s getting variety, adventure, new-relationship energy, and two overnights a week. Why shouldn’t you have some of that too? Not to even the score but to feel like you’re an equal partner in this marriage.

And it doesn’t sound like you two were on the same page when it came to what opening your relationship entailed. You seem to have assumed—or figured—that your wife would be seeking sex elsewhere, sex and only sex, but your wife “caught feelings” and now she has a girlfriend. Agreeing to a one-sided open relationship is not the same thing as agreeing to one-sided polyamory. If you didn’t agree to that, HA, your wife had no right to expect that from you or impose that on you. That said, one-sided open relationships can be great, HA, but they work best when the person who isn’t seeking sex outside the relationship either isn’t interested in having sex with other people or is turned

b WE HEAR SO much about the all-important commitment to monogamy in marriage. What about the less emphasized but clearly important commitment to a healthy sex life? I’m a straight man. I’ve been married for about 20 years. I’ve never cheated on my wife, although I’ve come close in recent years. My wife and I had a healthy sex life for the first 10 years. For the last 10 years, we haven’t had sex at all. We are both in our late 40s, athletic and attractive, and neither of us has any overwhelming physical or mental problems. My wife is just so engrossed in her work and personal identity that she has stopped caring about sex. She refuses to discuss it. And she has made it clear that if I were to do anything outside the marriage, it would amount to an unforgivable betrayal. I vacillate between acceptance, frustration, bitterness, and deep anger. Yes, I signed on for monogamy. But what did she sign on for? Can a woman or man in a monogamous marriage unilaterally cut off sex for no reason and still expect or demand

MAY 5 – 12 / 2022

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to stay married and stay sane? I’ll see you in the comments thread. g

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for being too quick to give my blessing to cheating. So instead of answering this one myself, I’m going to open it to the commenters. So, gang, what should he do? Should he do the “right thing” and get a divorce? Or should he do what he needs to do

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from previous page

monogamy, as my wife does? Despite this issue, we are good partners, and good parents to our two teenage children. Protecting them from the trauma of divorce and not hurting my wife—these are

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