The Georgia Straight - DOXA FEST - June 11, 2020

FREE | JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020

Volume 54 | Number 2733

SPIKE LEE

Da 5 Bloods depicts veterans’ sacrifices

ESPORTS BOMBSHELL

Uzi's early retirement

MEDICAL CANNABIS CBD helps former NHL player

DOXA FEST DOXAFEST The homegrown event goes online with an Okanagan tale of obsession and a film about Peter Wintonick

RACIST PATIENT

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ITALIAN WINE PAIRING

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JESSIE AWARDS

CONTENTS 8

COVER

June 11-18 / 2020

From a daughter’s quest to understand her father to two intense films about birth, DOXA’s new online festival gets personal.

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ESPORTS

League of Legends star retires at 23 In a shocking announcement, Jian “Uzi” Zihao admits his body is giving out

by Mike Usinger

By Janet Smith Cover illustration by Leif Yu

CANNABIS

Ex-NHL player and CBD promoter Mike Cammalleri first tried medicinal cannabis after injuring his upper back.

By Gail Johnson

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REAL ESTATE

The federal housing agency’s new debt-policy ratio will cut homebuyers’ purchasing power by up to 11 percent.

By Charlie Smith

e Online TOP 5

e Start Here 9 ARTS 11 BEER 6 EDUCATION 4 FINANCE 10 FOOD 6 HEALTH 10 LIQUOR 3 PSYCHEDELICS 11 SAVAGE LOVE 7 STREAMING 10 WINE

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

1 2 3 4 5

Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 54 | Number 2733 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com

CLASSIFIEDS: T: 604.730.7060 E: classads@straight.com

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DISTRIBUTION: 604.730.7087

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 604.730.7000

Global pandemic worsens as U.S. closes in on two million cases.

Actor Hartley Sawyer fired from Vancouverfilmed The Flash.

Health Canada issues recalls for some hand sanitizers and wipes.

Get your spot prawns.

Ten places to find them in Vancouver.

Economist describes India’s fiscal policy as remarkably poor.

GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight

PUBLISHER Brian Kalish

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li

FOUNDING PUBLISHER Dan McLeod

DIGITAL COORDINATOR Jon Cranny

SECTION EDITORS Janet Smith (Arts/Entertainment/Style) Brian Lynch (Books) Mike Usinger (eSports/Liquor/Music)

PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia

EDITOR Charlie Smith

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Miguel Hernandez SALES DIRECTOR Tara Lalanne

ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Glenn Cohen, Robyn Marsh, Manon Paradis, David Pearlman

SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Gail Johnson (Health/Food/Wine) John Lucas (Cannabis)

CONTENT AND MARKETING SPECIALIST Rachel Moore CIRCULATION MANAGER Giles Roy

STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) Craig Takeuchi

CREDIT MANAGER Shannon Li ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR Tamara Robinson

MEDIA CENTRAL CORPORATION INC. 503–192 Spadina Ave.,Toronto, ON M5T 2C2

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CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Brian Kalish CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Rodney Davis

SR. VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY & ARCHITECTURE Anton Tikhomirov CONTROLLER Igor Kostioutchenko

ARE YOU 18 YEARS OR OLDER AND LOOKING FOR A MEANINGFUL VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY? Our Peer Support Services is accepting applications for our Friendly Visiting and Friendly Phone Caller Volunteer Program Gain potential employment opportunities, personal growth and skills to interact with seniors in our community. Training will consist of two hour zoom sessions over 8 classes from 5 pm - 7 pm, starting in mid-June.

You will need to have access to a computer or email on your phone to access Zoom. Training is being offered at No Cost.

Jewish Seniors Alliance is an inclusive organization and reaches out to all seniors. We have a demand for volunteers from all cultural and religious backgrounds and especially volunteers who speak Cantonese, Mandarin as well as English. At the end of the training you will receive a certificate. The sessions are starting in mid-June from 5 pm-7 pm over 8 sessions.

Particularly now during COVID -19 we need you more than ever to help our seniors!

For more information please call either:

CHARLES LEIBOVITCH 778-840-4949 or GRACE HANN At 778-828-1917 2 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020

A

Jian “Uzi” Zihao is a legitimate celebrity in China, but he’s giving it all up at the height of his career. Photo: Yahoo screenshot

s ESports announcements go, it was a bombshell.

Imagine having it all, and then giving it up for the sake of one’s health and, from the sound of things, sanity.

That’s what League of Legends superstar Jian “Uzi” Zihao did last week in announcing he was retiring from the game that made him a legitimate celebrity in his home country of China.

Athletes retiring is, of course, a reality of life. Eventually, time catches up with every elite talent, whether you’re talking Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan, Joe Montana or Larry Walker.

What makes Uzi’s decision to hang up the headset so shocking is his age. He’s 23.

And despite being what his teammates called the heart and soul of China’s Royal Never Give Up team, he admitted that he feels nothing like a giant on the digital battlefield these days.

Uzi’s body was starting to give out. The gamer revealed that he was suffering from obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and hand and arm injuries caused by repetitive strain.

During a routine trip to the doctor, he was told that he had the arm of someone twice his age. Don’t let anyone tell that you ESports doesn’t cause wear and tear on the body.

Ask yourself how you feel during an eight-hour-plus haul in front of the computer during a work day, when your eyes, back, and wrist are in a pitched three-way battle for the King of Pain crown. And then ask yourself how you’d feel if your job consisted of paying rapt attention to a screen for 12 to 14 hours per day.

Team Liquid League of Legends pros have stated that they practise a minimum of 50 hours per week, with the key word there being

minimum. In Sue Bradford Edwards’s book Professional Gaming Careers, professional League of Legends gamers Chae “Piglet” Gwan-jin and Kim “Fenix” Jae-hun stated they slept four hours a night and practised as much as 14 hours per day.

That kind of demanding regimen took a toll on Uzi, whose retirement was described by Royal Never Give Up as a result of “injuries accumulated over eight years of high-intensity training”.

Increases in video game usage could translate to increases in overweight/obesity and chronic disease...

– Dustin Moore, UNH

In announcing his retirement to his five million followers on Weibo, he attributed his problems coping on a daily basis to “chronic stress… irregular diet, staying up late and other reasons”.

The fact that Uzi lasted so long in the trenches—he first roared onto the LoL landscape in 2012—is a testimony.

In interviews, Counter Logic Gaming team owner George “HotshotGG” Georgallidis has stated that the average length of a gamer’s career is one or two years. An ESPN study pegged the average age of a LoL LCS pro at 21. For comparison’s sake, the average age of a Counter-Strike:Global Offensive pro is 23. For an NHL player, that

S neaker HEADS

sustainability: with a motto of “this is trash”, the design boasts 50 percent recycled material by weight.

The extra-chunky blue-tint sole is made with Crater Foam, a blend of standard Nike foams and 15 percent Nike Grind Rubber ($170).

OUR PICKS from the world of kicks. c THE DEETS: Call them out of this world. Nike’s hotly anticipated Space Hippie 01 is inspired by future life on Mars (“where materials are scarce and there is no resupply mission”) but looks like your grandma had a hand in the needlework electricorange swoosh and crochetlike laces. Think bold new frontiers in

c RANDOMNESS: The coolly textured grey “Space Waste Yarn” upper is crafted from recycled plastic bottles, T-shirts, and yarn scraps—many of them from Nike’s own cutting-room floor. c STOCKISTS: Nike.com/ca on June 11 at 3 a.m. c SOUNDTRACK: David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”. g

by Janet Smith

jumps to 27, and 29 for those in Major League Baseball.

By those measures, Uzi was practically the Gordie Howe of League of Legends play when he decided it was time to walk away.

And a new study suggests that he made the right decision—at least if the goal is having a balance between life on a screen and life in the real world.

In a study tied to his work as a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, Dustin Moore collected data on 1,000 male students at the school between the ages of 18 and 24. His research found that gaming interfered with exercise and healthy eating. Those surveyed devoted a minimum of five hours per week to gaming, during which time they consumed more saturated fat and sodium, and fewer fruits and vegetables, than those who didn’t play.

In a press release announcing the study, which was presented to the American Society for Nutrition, Moore said: “The video game industry is continuing to grow at a fast pace and more people are playing than ever. If the findings of our study are indicative of general population, increases in video game usage could translate to increases in overweight/ obesity and chronic disease in the general population, which is already a big issue.”

Uzi, then, has done the smart thing by being proactive, and learning that with everything, whether it be loading up at the buffet table, packing the bong, or playing LoL, moderation is the key. At some point—no doubt five minutes after he saw the doctor—he realized that professional hockey players don’t spend 14 hours a day on the rink. Ironically, they often unwind with video games.

Then again, just as retirement isn’t always a sure thing—remember the Washington Wizards version of Michael Jordan—don’t count on Uzi shuffling off into the sunset for good.

The day after dropping his bombshell, he told Chinese Network Television, “If I can recover at my best, or if I can slowly get better, I still really want to return to this stage.”

With 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity, five to 13 servings of vegetable and fruits per day, and eight hours of sleep nightly, there’s nothing to stop him from getting back in the game. g

MORE eSPORTS ONLINE AT ECENTRALSPORTS.COM

CANNABIS

Science catching up to CBD’s sports benefits

by Gail Johnson

Mike Cammalleri played in the NHL for 15 years and uses CBD to treat anxiety and ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory disease. Photo by Michael Miller/Wikimedia

H

aving played 15 seasons in the NHL, Mike Cammalleri describes his time in professional sports as a dream come true. It was also a gruelling career, with lots of 3 a.m. f lights, an intense training regimen, and injuries.

In an interview with the Georgia Straight, Cammalleri (who played in Edmonton, Montreal, and Calgary, among other cities) says he first tried medicinal cannabis after injuring his T-spine (upper back) with the Oilers in 2018. He had never been a recreational cannabis user, and was wowed by the positive effects of CBD. “As an ex-professional athlete, I wish I had found it way earlier in my life,” he says. Cammalleri says the substance helped him in many ways, pain relief being just one of them. He was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age 11, making him sensitive to inflammation. CBD helped diminish that symptom. It also helped reduce anxiety, a common problem facing high-level athletes, particularly before or during an important game or event.

“I still use it daily,” Cammalleri says. “It has anti-inf lammatory benefits and anti-anxiety benefits.

It can benefit rest and recovery but it also helps with getting into the zone—being present, two things that all humans want. We want to be our best self, not just in sports.

The less anxiety and less inf lammation in your body, the healthier you can be overall.”

It’s not just hockey players who have turned to CBD to up their game. Ross Rebagliati (who runs Ross’ Gold, a medical-cannabis company, and Legacy Brands, a cannabis business) was ahead of his time, using the substance for snowboarding success. Pro golfers use it, with companies like On the Green claiming to be a CBD company specifically developed for golfers. Its products are said to help with focus, sleep, and recovery, improving overall performance. And Toronto’s Elias “the Spartan” Theodorou, a professional MMA athlete, is the first sanctioned medical-cannabis athlete.

These days, Cammalleri, who’s a married father of three, is the cofounder and co-CEO of BioSteel, the sportsnutrition company he cofounded in 2019. Canada’s largest licensed weed producer, Canopy Growth Corporation, has acquired BioSteel, which recently launched a line of CBD-infused recovery drinks.

Dr. Mark Ware is Canopy’s chief medical officer. Prior to joining the company, the family physician and former associate professor at McGill University spent more than 20 years researching different uses of medical cannabis.

Ware cautions that clinical research surrounding the benefits of CBD in relation to sports performance is lacking; to date, most of the studies have been done on animals or in preclinical settings. However,

there’s ample evidence to suggest the substance has anti-anxiety and antiinflammatory effects, which contribute to better athletic output.

“Anxiety is something that can affect people’s performance,” Ware says. “For athletes or weekend warriors going into a competition, anxiety itself can be a detriment to performing well. People knowing they have a big game the next day often don’t sleep very well.”

CBD’s anti-inflammatory effects could help reduce muscle soreness that can follow an intense workout, though Ware notes that the effect is subject to further clinical testing.

Anecdotally, however, many athletes “are already self-medicating with CBD”, he says.

People knowing they have a big game the next day often don’t sleep very well.

– Dr. Mark Ware

While CBD has relatively few side effects, Ware cautions that large quantities could interact with other prescription medication. He urges people to check in with their health-care professional to discuss potential interactions or other contraindications.

Health Canada says that the risks and benefits of medicinal cannabis in general need to be carefully considered by those who have a history of hypersensitivity to any cannabinoid or to smoke; have severe cardiopulmonary disease with occasional hypotension; have respiratory diseases or severe liver or renal disease; or have a personal history of psychiatric disorders or a family history of schizophrenia, to name a few.

Canopy is currently running multiple studies related to CBD. Cammalleri is confident that science will back up so many of the claims he hears all the time about CBD’s benefits for athletes.

“In my experience in pro locker rooms, any stigma has not only dissipated; it’s gone,” he says. “I can’t exaggerate how widespread CBD use is among pro athletes.” g

MORE CANNABIS ONLINE AT CANNCENTRAL.COM

PSYCHEDELICS

Psilocybin backers mull legal options

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by Carlito Pablo and Charlie Smith

t took a constitutional challenge for cannabis to be legally accessible in Canada to people with medical needs.

Following a case brought by Terry Parker, an Ontario man suffering from epileptic seizures, the federal government in 2001 released the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations.

It may take litigation again for people to have compassionate access to another drug, psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in socalled magic mushrooms.

B.C. psychotherapist Bruce Tobin has been trying to get legal possession of psilocybin to help terminally ill patients deal with end-of-life distress.

Based on information provided

by TheraPsil, a nonprofit health coalition founded by Tobin, the psychologist applied to the federal government in January 2017 for an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA).

In early 2020, Health Canada rejected the application, citing insufficient evidence to demonstrate the medical need for psilocybin.

TheraPsil executive director Spencer Hawkswell indicated that a legal option is available.

“At present, we are considering a judicial review of our original application,” Hawkswell told the Straight.

It is also conceivable that a Charter challenge may be brought by patients in palliative care, with the assistance of TheraPsil.

On June 1, the coalition of healthcare professionals, advocates, and patients announced that it is launching a program to help terminally ill British Columbians access medically supervised, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.

In a media release, TheraPsil stated that although this therapy is “proven to be effective in reducing severe emotional distress”, the treatment is currently illegal across the country.

“Canadians with a terminal diagnosis, experiencing psychological end-of-life distress, deserve the right to try new therapies that can improve their quality of life and death,” Tobin said in the release.

Patients have to apply for a CDSA Section 56 exemption. According to this provision of the law, the minister of health has the authority to approve the application if it is deemed “necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest”.

TheraPsil’s efforts around legal access to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy received a boost last month when Champignon Brands Inc., a Vancouver-based psychedelics company, announced it is supporting the nonprofit.

“Through our sponsorship, the Champignon team and board are extremely proud to begin collaborating alongside TheraPsil, helping patients in palliative care access new and effective therapies,” Champignon director Pat McCutcheon said in a media release.

TheraPsil’s Hawkswell told the Straight that Champignon “generously donated” to allow the nonprofit to “continue and accelerate” its work.

“We will use this sponsorship to deliver on our four-pillar mission: access, education, training, and research,” Hawkswell said.

IN 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a small religious sect with origins in the Amazon rainforest, União do Vegetal, could import ayahuasca, a hallucinogen outlawed under the Controlled Substances Act. Ayahuasca was used in the sect’s sacramental tea, and the court concluded that the ban on its use violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Also in 2006, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School

Anyone who wants to obtain psilocybin for compassionate or therapeutic use has to apply for an exemption from the federal government. Photo by Arp/Wikimedia

of Medicine, Roland Griffiths, was the lead author of an influential paper in the peer-reviewed journal Psychopharmacology. Titled “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance”, it was a double-blind study evaluating acute and longer-term impacts of high doses of psilocybin “under comfortable, supportive conditions”.

The study concluded that psilocybin “produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods including anxiety”, while also bringing about increased measures of mystical experiences. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience among the “hallucinogennaive” adult research subjects.

“At 2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes

rated by community observed,” the researchers found.

Michael Pollan highlighted the importance of this paper in his 2018 book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.

According to Pollan, the paper and how it was received “served to reinforce an important distinction between the so-called classic psychedelics—psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline—and the more common drugs of abuse, with their demonstrated toxicity and potential for addiction”.

“The American drug research establishment, such as it is, had signaled in the pages of one of its leading journals that these psychedelic drugs deserved to be treated very differently and had demonstrated, in the words of one commentator, ‘that, when used appropriately, these compounds can produce remarkable, possible beneficial, effects that certainly deserve further study’.” g

The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.

Scan to confess Connections Ok, I have a job still. Fortunate yes. Person X lost their job. They never bothered to talk to me while we worked in the same office space. I would pick up the area’s packages and bring them up to people from shipping, just cuz. None of those folks ever returned the favour; just stuck in their cliques and never looked up. So Person X now wants to add me as a LinkedIn connection. To that person: you failed to make any positive impression on me while we physically worked together, and you’re not going to impress me in the digital world either because we’re not even friends. It sucks that you lost your job, but I’d rather help other people, businesses and animals over you.

Why My Bathroom Has Grab Bars I don’t need them myself, personally. I can get up from the toilet unassisted. One of my friends teased that they have a kinky purpose, and I couldn’t deprive them of that thought.

In truth, I had them installed for my cat, as paw rests! Yes, you see I trained him how to use the toilet. :D

I think the 7 PM pot banging thing has gotten stale worn out its welcome. It was a cool idea and I like the supportive idea behind it but it just leaves me cold now.

can you imagine?

Very glad most of BC is not too affected by Covid19. For those who feel smug and is making fun of others serving the public with gloves, masks, face shields. Yes, I’m bagging your groceries completely covered up. That’s so you can enjoy being healthy and smug. So how about you imagine why people need to suit up before you let your mouth flap open?

Visit

to post a Confession JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 3

REAL ESTATE / FINANCE

Landlord and tenant reps CMHC trims buyers’ purchasing power seek relief from province

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by Charlie Smith

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by Charlie Smith

n organization representing B.C. landlords wants residential rental housing exempted from the province’s state-of-emergency declaration.

Landlord B.C. says on its Facebook page that this sector “cannot continue to operate in such an environment”.

It is urging members to write to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson to end the moratorium on evictions, as well as other restrictions recently imposed on landlords.

Landlord B.C. wants its members to copy the letter to Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, who imposed the state of emergency, and Premier John Horgan.

Horgan has said that he doesn’t see any end in sight to the state of emergency, which was imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Landlord B.C. has posted a form letter on its website that landlords can send to Robinson.

“The notion that the State of Emergency could be extended indefinitely is an unnerving prospect for owners and managers of residential rental housing,” the letter states.

“It is a particularly daunting prospect for the many small landlords who provide critically important homes for BC families and, as you well know, disproportionately represent our sector.”

The Vancouver Tenants Union, on the other hand, has launched an online petition calling on the B.C. government to extend the ban on evictions and rent increases until the end of the pandemic.

In addition, it wants the province to come up with a plan to cancel existing eviction notices and rent debt accrued

B.C.’s housing minister, Selina Robinson, is hearing different pitches on evictions.

before and during the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated working people and their incomes. The jobs lost during the lock down have been disproportionately low-paying jobs held by vulnerable renters,” the tenants organization states on its website. “Thousands of renters have already missed paying some or all of their rents over the last few months, and have no prospect for continued income in a global economic depression.”

B.C. imposed a state of emergency on March 18. On May 27, it was extended.

Under the Emergency Program Act, Farnworth has powers under a state of emergency to procure any property, services, resources, or equipment in B.C. and can authorize the entry into any building without a warrant.

In addition, Farnworth has authority to fi x prices and ration food, clothing, fuel, equipment, and medical or other essential supplies. g

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website that tracks changes in the home-lending market includes some startling conclusions about a new policy announced by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

On June 4, the federally owned housing agency declared that it’s expecting a nine to 18 percent decrease in housing prices in Canada during the next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, CMHC will change its underwriting policies for insured mortgages, as of July 1.

Among the new measures, one borrower on a mortgage must establish a minimum credit score of 680. In addition, nontraditional sources for a down payment that boost indebtedness won’t be treated as equity for the purposes of mortgage insurance.

New applicants will also require a gross/total debt servicing ratio of 35/42. (The GDS ratio measures percentage of income to pay off all monthly housing costs. The TDS ratio includes all of this, plus other debt obligations, as a percentage of income.)

According to the RateSpy.com website, these new rules will curtail homebuyers’ purchasing power by up to 11 percent.

“For example, someone earning $60,000 with no other debt and 5% down could afford approximately 10.9% less home under CMHC’s new rules,” the website states. “That’s like jacking up the minimum stress test rate from 4.94% (where it lies today) to 6.30%!”

It notes that insured borrowers only account for about 20 percent of new mortgages. That’s because lenders require mortgage insurance only if the down payment is

CMHC’s new debt-ratio policy may shift its business from Vancouver (above) to less urban and less liquid markets, says RateSpy.com. Photo by Stephen Hui

less than 20 percent of the purchase price. RateSpy.com also suggests that CMHC could lose 20 percent of its mortgage-insurance business as a result of the policy change.

“Liquidity is key if home values dive,” the website states. “Yet, CMHC’s decision today may shift more of its business outside of big urban areas and into less urban and less liquid real estate markets. That’s because borrowers in Greater Toronto and Vancouver generally have higher debt ratios—and borrowers with higher debt ratios and less than 20% down payments would choose Canada Guaranty or Genworth by default, since they’re the only games left in town.”

On June 6, Genworth MI Canada said in a news release that it doesn’t plan to change its underwriting policy. That means no adjustment to its debt-service-ratio limits, min-

Dad’s day gifts will exceed $1.5 billion

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by Gail Johnson

espite the financial toll COVID-19 has taken on so many individuals, people are still planning on forking out for gifts on Father’s Day this year.

In fact, Canadians are expected to spend more than $1.5 billion on dads on June 21.

That’s according to Finder, a Toronto-based firm that compares consumer products.

Finder’s Father’s Day survey found that 45 percent of Canadian adults, or 13.5 million people, plan to get something for their father this year. They’ll each spend $114, on average.

The other 55 percent of people surveyed said that they would not be spending any money on Father’s Day 2020.

The survey also found that 53 percent of women plan to spend money on Father’s Day, compared to 37 percent of men.

Members of Gen Z said they would spend an average of $259 on Father’s Day this year. Millennials plan to spend $104, while Gen Xers intend to spend $92.

Boomers and the Silent Generation spend less, at $91 and $55, respectively.

Across the country, Manitobans are the most flush, planning to spend $298, on average, this year. People in Ontario plan on spending $146, and Albertans plan on spending an average of $102.

Gen Z members say they’ll spend more on Father’s Day gifts than older generations. Photo by Frank McKenna/ Unsplash

In B.C., we’re looking at an average spend of $83, while those in Quebec plan on spending $80.

Nova Scotians plan on spending the least, with an average outlay of $65.

What are Canadians planning on buying this year?

According to RetailMeNot.ca, a coupon and cash-back site, 29 percent of Canadians plan to purchase gift cards.

Another 27 percent are planning to spend money on food, either making a nice meal at home cooked as a labour of love or ordered online. g

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imum credit score, and down-payment requirements.

“Genworth Canada believes that its risk management framework, its dynamic underwriting policies and processes and its ongoing monitoring of conditions and market developments allow it to prudently adjudicate and manage its mortgage insurance exposure, including its exposure to this segment of borrowers with lower credit scores or higher debt service ratios,” president and CEO Stuart Levings said.

CMHC’s president and CEO, Evan Siddall, went on Twitter to say that his organization “welcomes competition but will not compete by encouraging over-borrowing”.

“Before anyone celebrates, ‘no change’ may mean in part that @ GenworthCanada could have had tighter policies already,” Siddall stated. “We don’t know.” g

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EDUCATION

HEALTH

SFU remote learning may go to 2021 Problematic patients still deserve good health care

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by Charlie Smith

ven though new COVID-19 cases have fallen dramatically in B.C., it doesn’t mean that SFU students can expect to return to classrooms in the near future.

In fact, it’s possible that remote learning will continue not only through the fall but also into the spring semester, according to Jon Driver, SFU’s vice president academic and provost.

In a phone interview with the Straight, Driver said that almost 100 percent of SFU’s education will be delivered remotely in the fall semester.

“We haven’t made a decision yet, but we think it’s quite likely this will continue through the next term as well,” he said.

Last month, students made a presentation to the SFU board seeking lower tuition fees because their education is being delivered remotely.

The board has not embraced that idea.

“We, of course, plan to deliver the same courses,” Driver said. “We plan to deliver the same learning outcomes for students. The methods will change.

“We know that some students are not happy about having to work in this sort of online and remote environment,” he continued. “But we also know that other students are actually quite happy working in that environment once they’ve experienced it. They realize there were some benefits—and particularly for students for whom English is not a first language.”

Driver noted that students who are learning remotely do not have to pay recreation fees because the gym is not open.

Students also won’t have to pay additional fees imposed in connec-

A doctor reflects on a frustrating encounter in the ER

by Dr. Michael Multan

Students at SFU’s Surrey campus will also definitely be learning remotely for 2020’s fall semester, and they will likely continue to do so during the spring term.

tion with the use of materials in laboratory courses. And the U-Pass program is on hold, which means students don’t have to pay for that, either.

He said that there are more than 18,000 students enrolled in the summer semester at SFU, which exceeds last year’s total.

“We’re anticipating that in the fall term, we may see a decline in the number of new international students but we are reasonably confident that the international students who are already committed to a degree at SFU will continue to stick with us—because they are already partway through their programs,” Driver said.

He’s hoping that the federal government will relax some regulations to make it easier for international students to continue their programs even if they’re not in Canada.

Last year, international students comprised more than 20 percent of the SFU student body. Because

international students pay significantly higher tuition than domestic students, that helps the university’s bottom line.

Driver said some graduate students might be better situated financially than undergrads this summer.

That’s because graduate students are continuing to work as teaching and research assistants. Plus, many graduate students are funded with scholarships.

However, they may find it more difficult than undergrads to continue in some programs. According to Driver, some graduate students need to do field work, conduct lab experiments, or work with human subjects.

“There may be a slowdown in the research activities for some of them,” he said. “We will be looking at ways to ensure that they can continue in those programs and, secondly, making sure that they’re not going to time out or anything like this. Graduate research is going to be more complicated in this environment.” g

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6 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020

Dr. Michael Multan says health-care providers have a responsibility to provide the best care possible—even to racist patients. Photo by Laura Grace Photography

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he recent public conversations around the Black Lives Matter movement has provided me with an opportunity to reflect around my own knowledge, biases, and experiences surrounding race and racial issues.

I am a white, male, first-generation Polish Canadian. Thus, the opportunity to share this viewpoint and this story comes mostly from a place of privilege. It’s a story I think is worthy of discourse surrounding solutions—and I have no idea what they are.

Years ago, I was a junior learner at a large tertiary hospital working on an internal-medicine unit. This service consisted of three teams, each with a number of residents and students sharing responsibility for calls, taking care of ward patients, and seeing new visitors the emergency room. A senior internal medicineresident was stationed there, and acted as the overall internal-medicine lead managing the team and splitting consultations between each of the team’s residents.

I remember heading to my call room around 2:30 a.m., after having done a few consultations that evening, hoping I’d get a few hours of sleep before our 8 a.m. rounds.

That’s when I got the page.

“Mike, I know your team has already admitted a few patients this evening, but I was wondering if I can get you to see another patient in the ER,” asked the lead resident.

“We have a stable but sick patient we need to admit. I will go and see them with you in a bit, but they are refusing to see females and providers of colour. Can you help?” the lead explained.

I was angry. I was tired, and I couldn’t believe it.

I wasn’t even sure who I was angry at, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever figure that out.

Begrudgingly, I went down and saw “John Doe”. They had managed to answer many of my questions regarding their symptoms with racist commentary about the “incompetence” of the nursing staff and physicians they had seen in this and in previous health-care encounters.

I knew I had a responsibility to provide the best care that I was able to the patient standing in front of me.

After all, everyone deserves respect and great care in a public health-care system I continue to be extremely proud of. But at what cost?

Eventually I had to speak up.

“We’re here to talk about you, and your comments are very inappropriate. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Some of my best teachers have been both women and persons of colour.”

Our rapport wasn’t the same after that comment, and I would be lying

if I didn’t admit that our encounter was more brief than the care I would aim to provide in less frustrating circumstances.

Unfortunately the story of “John Doe” is not unique. Similar stories exist exemplifying health-care provider prejudice towards patients.

As physicians, our responsibility is first, and foremost, to the well-being of our patients. But what happens when the opinions of our patients are not only different than our own, but deeply problematic?

The Black Lives Matter movement has identified a need to empower black and diverse voices, and has allowed us all to call out institutions and individuals who continue to contribute to a system of deep-rooted discrimination.

Black Lives Matter has identified a need to empower black and diverse voices.

– Dr. Michael Multan

I still think Mr. Doe deserved the best care possible. My colleagues and mentors, many of whom were and are people of colour, deserve respect and allies to stand up for them when situations like this occur. I have friends and colleagues who, based on Mr. Doe’s behaviour, have said that in their opinion, Mr. Doe should not have been seen at our hospital at all.

Systemic racism is complex and difficult to address in the short term.

I hope that as stories of racism, violence, and discrimination against people of colour continue to be widely discussed, we’ll arrive at solutions.

And to all of the Mr. and Mrs. Does—be mindful of your comments, not only to your health-care providers, but to everyone around you. Health-care providers are tasked to listen, counsel, diagnose, and heal.

They shouldn’t have to face indirect, let alone direct and overt, trauma.

As we move toward solutions, there may one day be no place for this sort of behaviour in any modern Canadian hospital—from providers and from patients. g Dr. Michael Multan is a pathology resident physician at UBC. He completed medical school at Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine and previously trained as a physician assistant at McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario. Follow him @MultanMichael.

Langara College is Beyond Grateful for the community’s support through recent fundraiser (This story is sponsored by Langara College.)

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or its 49th anniversary, Langara College created a multifaceted fundraising campaign that would transform the lives of students.

The Beyond 49 campaign collected funds from generous members of the community that would support over 25 college initiatives.

Since the launch of Beyond 49 in October 2018, the Vancouver college raised an impressive $2.9 million, exceeding the original goal of $2.5 million. Through the fundraiser, the esteemed postsecondary institution was able to reconnect with alumni, engage with the community, and gain the resources needed to support current and future students.

Previous fundraisers at the college focused solely on scholarships and bursaries. But for the 49th anniversary, the Langara College Foundation embarked on the largest and first-of-its-kind campaign in the College’s history. This gave community members the opportunity to donate to the programs that were of personal interest to them.

The support that the college provides to its students comes in all different shapes and sizes.

For example, those concerned with sustainability and the environment could specifically donate to the “Making Solar Power Possible” or “Helping Students ‘Think Green’ ” initiatives. The students and faculty at Langara were quick to take action once these fundraising goals were met.

“Not only did our student Sustainability Club assist in raising the funds and purchasing the panels, the students were also involved in the in-

The Studio 58 Annual Fund supports the growth of Langara’s theatre artists and producers. The college’s production students learn through hands-on experience and from the multitude of mentors who are brought in to support them.

stallation,” says Moira Gookstetter, executive director for the Langara College Foundation. “We saw it as a unique opportunity for a handson learning experience.” This shows that providing its students with oneof-a-kind educational experiences is at the forefront of everything that the college does.

Students in the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) program also benefited from the Beyond 49 campaign as they were awarded funding for a new lab. The innovative GIS lab is now equipped with

the specialized computers and software required by students for optimal learning.

Donations from the Beyond 49 campaign also went toward the integration of an online filing system for Langara’s counselling department.

With health records being stored on one digital platform, counsellors can support students struggling with academic or personal challenges more effectively and efficiently.

Another key focus of the fundraising campaign was to make the college accessible for all students.

By implementing a software system called Accommodate, students facing physical or learning barriers can now sign up online for the use of specialized spaces and technology instead of having to visit the office.

“Langara faculty and staff deeply care about the students and their success,” says Gookstetter. “We want to try and eliminate any barrier that a student has to realizing their educational goals.”

The Beyond 49 campaign also raised funds for Studio 58, the college’s professional theatre training

program, as well as the Indigenous upgrading program, the Kevin Hanson student athlete scholarship, and the SOS Emergency Fund—to name a few.

Throughout this unnerving pandemic, the college has been able to help students by offering them resources and bursaries that were replenished by compassionate donors during the fundraiser. Along with the SOS Emergency Fund, donations also went toward restocking the Community Cupboard, a campus food bank for vulnerable students facing food insecurity.

“Prior to COVID-19, about eight to 10 students were accessing this program on a weekly basis but a month ago in the midst of the pandemic we saw 150 students in one week,” says Gookstetter. “We have been able to support the students in so many different ways because of the generosity of our donors.”

As the fundraising campaign nears its online closing celebration on June 9, Langara’s community is feeling “Beyond Grateful” for all of the gifts that they’ve received. Despite the end of the fundraiser, the College will continue developing efforts that will improve the lives of students.

“Everyone that works in our department for the foundation has such a strong calling to support our students and we are incredibly proud to work for a postsecondary institution that cares so much for its students,” says Gookstetter. “It’s tremendously rewarding to help people discover what they’re passionate about and to see students receiving the support they need. There’s nothing else like it.”

To donate to Langara’s Beyond 49 campaign, visit www.beyond49. langara.ca/give/. g

Spike Lee’s Da 5 unlike other war films

by Radheyan Simonpillai

Director Spike Lee (left) says that intergenerational trauma dating back to slavery still exists today—and it’s depicted in his new film, Da 5 Bloods. Photo by Netflix

A

couple of weeks ago, Spike Lee threw a little short film up on Twitter. He called it “3 Brothers”. In it, the sequence from Lee’s 31-year-old masterpiece, Do the Right Thing, when Radio Raheem is killed by police in a chokehold is edited together with cellphone footage of the real-life police killings of Eric Garner and George Floyd.

“Still relevant,” Spike Lee says on the phone, in self-isolation, during an interview discussing his latest joint, Da 5 Bloods.

The 63-year-old director sounds good-humoured despite everything going on outside his Manhattan home between coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter protests ignited by the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Floyd. In our conversation, Lee regularly makes wisecracks and lets out a chuckle, as if all he can do is laugh bitterly at how history and trauma keep repeating themselves and proving him right.

The director has never been irrelevant, not only because for decades his movies have tackled everything from systematic oppression to micro-

aggresions, but because no matter how much time passes, America’s still gonna be racist. And Canada too, but we’ll get to that.

Da 5 Bloods opens with a mad rush through the civil-rights era, which coincided with the Vietnam War. We see and hear Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis speaking truth to power over images of unrest that are starkly reminiscent of today. The movie ends with Black Lives Matter protesters and some final words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Between all that, Da 5 Bloods tells the story of black soldiers who served in Vietnam, sacrificing their lives in an unjust war while their own people face more injustice at home.

Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Norm Lewis star as veterans returning to Vietnam during the Trump era to retrieve the remains of their fallen comrade (Chadwick Boseman). In a plot borrowing from John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, they also search for a stash of gold they buried during their final tour.

Another classic hanging over Da 5 Bloods is Francis Ford Coppola’s

Apocalypse Now. A scene early on has the four veterans heading down a river to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries”, the music from arguably the film’s most iconic sequence. But this is a Spike Lee joint, so dangling from an overhanging wire on this Vietnamese river are a pair of Melo Class Jordans, kicks named after former New York Knicks player Carmelo Anthony, who, Lee points out, was born in his regular stomping grounds: Red Hook, Brooklyn. That detail merges two authors, two places, and two histories of oppression.

Like Apocalypse Now, Da 5 Bloods deals with psychological trauma and PTSD. Delroy Lindo’s character, Paul, is a sweaty, rambling, and emotional mess haunted not only by wartime memories but also the trauma suffered for being black.

“We’re traumatized from the minute we’re born,” Lee says when I refer to research on cyclical trauma and its effect on black mental health. He, in turn, refers me to Joy DeGruy’s work researching posttraumatic slave syndrome, which argues that intergenerational trauma dating back to slavery is present among black people today.

“This is going back 401 years,” Lee says. “1619, the first slave ship landed in Jamestown, Virginia. So there’s 401 years of this trauma. If an oppressed mother is traumatized, it doesn’t take a great leap to think that the child in the stomach is being traumatized.

They can feel what their mother is going through. I believe that.”

I bring up Regis KorchinskiPaquet, D’Andre Campbell, and Chantel Moore, black and Indigenous Canadians who died after police were called to deal with a mentalhealth crisis, contributing to statistics that say black people are 20 times more likely to die at the hands of law

enforcement and that 70 percent of deaths by police involve people with mental-health struggles.

“Hold up, hold up, back up, back up,” Lee shouts, nearly derailing the interview and flipping all the questions on me. He wants to know all the details. How did Regis fall off a balcony? Are people protesting?

Who is leaving bricks that could instigate looting and rioting on corners across Toronto?

“So the cops are just letting the bricks stay there?” Lee asks, sounding perplexed. “From what you’re telling me now, the cops is the last person I would call if I need mental help.”

At this point, I ask Lee—whose last film, BlacKkKlansman, was about an undercover police officer—whether

he supports the growing calls to defund the police, which could free up money for underfunded mentalhealth supports.

“There are so many needs that the black, brown, and the poor white people need,” Lee says, skirting the question. “We can’t forget about the poor whites also.

“The biggest takeaway to me, from this pandemic, is the gap between the haves and have-nots. It’s not just mental health. That’s not to negate what you’re saying. I mean, as you go down the line, it’s not just that. It’s education, et cetera.

“The list is long.” g Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods premieres on Friday (June 12) on Netflix Canada.

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MOVIES

Wintopia captures a daughter’s quest

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by Janet Smith

n her new documentary Wintopia, Mira Burt-Wintonick grapples with the death of a father who was absent for much of her life. The in-demand documentarian was often abroad, hitting the international filmfestival circuit and shooting footage for a never-finished feature about Utopia.

So it was with bittersweet irony that, after Peter Wintonick’s death in 2013, his daughter found herself spending more time with him than she ever did when he was alive. That’s because, driven to fulfill his last wish for a final film about his life and work, she set about exploring the 300-odd tapes of footage he had stored away in boxes marked “Utopia”.

“It was very confusing and intense,” she says from home in Montreal about watching the film that helped form the NFB-produced Wintopia, which opens the now-online DOXA Festival here. “I would have hours and hours of footage of him alive, so it was almost like spending every day with him, when I hadn’t spent much time with him at all for years.. I was so grateful for them.

“I do feel a lot closer to him now,” she adds. “I spent so much time in the past few years just imagining what he was thinking as he was shooting, watching his films and trying to figure out what his choices meant—connecting all these dots to who he was.”

Wintonick, a key player in Canada’s strong documentary history and the codirector of 1992’s Manufacturing Consent, had gone to the far corners

He really did believe documentaries were a way forward...

– Mira Burt-Wintonick

Mira Burt-Wintonick’s ode to her father opens the online DOXA documentary fest.

of the world to seek out his elusive Utopia. The destinations included the Spanish windmill region of Don Quixote; Ireland’s oratory of St. Brendan, patron saint of travellers; and throughout Australia, where the opening scene finds Wintonick, almost Chaplinesque, struggling to contain a map that’s flapping in the wind.

A recurring image in the film is a dreamlike view of the strand that links Ireland’s holy Coney Island with the mainland. Driving up to it at sunset, he

settles his camera on the low road sinking in the tide that covers it each day.

Like so much of Wintopia, it’s at once poetic, melancholy, and mysterious.

“It says so much about my dad,” says Burt-Wintonick, whose father was well-connected with the film scene here. “I don’t know the details, but I can imagine him just showing up there without checking the tide tables—he was a fly-by-the-seat-ofhis-pants kind of guy. It [the image] is a stand-in for this barrier that might

stand between us and Utopia—the hesitation of ‘Is it worth the risk to cross? Is it safe to cross and what are we going to risk to get to the other side?

Are we going to try to turn back?’ ” At first, Burt-Wintonick attempted to make a feature the way Wintonick might have crafted it, narrating his footage herself. But it didn’t feel right, and she took a break from the intense project for two years.

“It took a while to take it on as my own film and to let go of that pressure of what his dying wish was,” explains Burt-Wintonick, who has spent most of her career as a radio producer (working on projects like CBC’s WireTap). “It became clear it would have been impossible to make that film without him. Letting go of that was a really big shift in my thinking.”

Burt-Wintonick started reaching out to her father’s vast network of colleagues and friends. Directors who had worked with him, including Van-

couver’s Nettie Wild, reveal in Wintopia that her father talked about her and her mother, Christine, constantly while away from them. Those accounts and other footage show Wintonick knew in his heart that his real Utopia lay at home with his family— but, like the shore of that Irish island, he was not quite able to get there.

That reflection on his career and his life plays out in a lyrical and deeply personal way, as the director works through the enigma of her father.

“I feel it did provide a lot of resolution,” Burt-Wintonick offers thoughtfully. “I knew he was an important filmmaker, but making the film made me realize when he was away from home it wasn’t just this frivolous quest.

Even though there was this restlessness from the films he made and the people he mentored, he was just trying to make the world better for people who are struggling. He really did believe documentaries were a way forward in making the world a better place.”

For many, those kinds of reflections in Wintopia—about the meaning of life, about the passage of time, and about slowing down to find happiness close to home—will feel especially important during these pandemic times.

“The film is about Utopia on some level—Utopia and grief,” agrees Burt-Wintonick, “so it does feel very relevant right now.” g Wintopia is at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival from next Thursday (June 18) to June 26 via doxafestival.ca/.

At DOXA, Eddy’s Kingdom traces DOXA’s views from around the world one of B.C.’s most bizarre tales include an ode to unwed mothers

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by Janet Smith

rowing up in Kelowna, documentary filmmaker Greg Compton would sometimes spot the remains of a strange Great Pyramid replica on Rattlesnake Island when he would go boating on Okanagan Lake. He recalls hearing the story about a local man who had once tried to turn the island into a Middle Eastern-themed amusement park, and seeing the “castle” he had angrily built on the mainland overlooking the piece of land when he lost ownership.

“It was a little bit like lore, but no one really knew anything about it,” Compton tells the Straight before his film on the subject opens at the streamed DOXA Documentary Film Festival. “We didn’t know he held people hostage in Lebanon over it. It was just that everybody called him Crazy Eddy; the narrative was Eddy was the wacky guy.”

It was decades later, while shooting a short segment for the TV series B.C. Was Awesome, that Compton got a fuller picture of the strange 1970s chapter in the province’s history—and realized that the eccentric, conflicted character at the centre of it was still alive, in his late 80s. A local reporter told Compton that Eddy Haymour had been “screwed over” when it came to ownership of the island, prompting the director to do further research and make a longer film exploring the bizarro tale.

The resulting, Vancouver-produced feature Eddy’s Kingdom finds Haymour staring down the lens of the camera, telling his story. It’s one that starts with his immigration from Lebanon in 1955 with $17 in his pocket, and leads to his building of a chain of barbershops and becoming a millionaire. After a detour kidnapping his own children, he purchases an island off Kelowna’s shore for a theme park—setting off an outcry from eco-activists and moves by government forces to take the land over. From there, the stranger-than-fiction yarn includes a hostage-taking at the Canadian embassy in Beirut, a forced stint in a notorious local psychiatric institution, and a surprise decision in the halls of the B.C. Supreme Court. Compton even returns with cameras to Rattlesnake Island with Haymour and his daughter, walking the old cracked cement of a long-abandoned mini-golf course.

Haymour comes off, by turns, as a debonair lady’s man, a dreamer, a victim of the state, a terrorist, a domestic abuser, and more.

Filling in the story with witness accounts and archival documents, Compton takes pains to let the viewer decide what kind of person

8 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020

by Janet Smith

REVIEWS

d HERE ARE A FEW of the striking films at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, which streams from next Thursday (June 18) to June 26 via doxafestival.ca/.

Eddy’s Kingdom tells the story of one man’s obsession with an island in Okanagan Lake.

Haymour really is. Even two of Haymour’s daughters have different views of the man: one has come to terms with his past and helps Haymour; the other is estranged, painfully recounting life with an erratic, largely absent father.

“He’s not a sympathetic character overall, but some people have said after watching it, ‘I don’t totally dislike him,’ ” Compton says.

“There are all these odd things you can look at and say, ‘Wow, he’s out to lunch in a way,’ but you can also see he’s standing up to this element of racism in Kelowna and he gets conspired against. So balancing the tone was a challenge.”

And the reaction of the feisty figure at the centre of it all? “I said to Eddy, ‘We’re going to tell the story; it’s not going to be your story.’ He said, ‘Yeah, get the other side,’ ” Compton relates, then adds with a laugh: “But when he saw the first cut he was a little angry.”

In the end, Haymour seems to have embraced the warts-and-all project. But he might not have liked seeing the full, weird trajectory of his life so fully put in perspective—or the fallout of one man’s single-minded pursuit.

“I think it’s a cautionary tale about obsession at the expense of family—how obsession can wreak havoc on families,” reflects Compton. “His dream was to have cross-cultural understanding in Canada, but that led him to being completely at odds with his adoptive country.” g Eddy’s Kingdom streams at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival from next Thursday (June 18) to June 26.

FORGET ME NOT (South Korea) In one of the most unforgettable moments at DOXA this year, a filmmaker makes the difficult decision to lay her camera down to comfort someone. We are left to watch sideways, the sound cut out, as she throws her arms around a distraught girl. It’s just one of the heartbreaking moments in Sun Hee Engelstoft’s empathetic look into Aeshuwon, an institution for unmarried young women on the lush South Korean island of Jeju. The girls face a stigma that endures in a country where they have to keep their pregnancy secret from school and workplaces—a shame so unbearable their faces have to remain blurred, though not distractingly so. We follow them from the entry forms to their therapy sessions, to brutal negotiations with angry families and boyfriends who hang their heads, to the delivery room. The journey of motherhood ends, for many, with the soulripping process of handing their infant over to strangers. They have support in the home’s strong-willed manager Mrs. Im, but choosing to keep the baby is almost always impossible. Engelstoft gives it all a dreamlike feel where time slows down, intercutting the moments between the girls with shots of the home’s empty rooms and the swaying trees outside, where many of the women are forbidden by their families to venture. What gives the film poetic resonance is the director’s own quest to understand the choice of her mother, at the same home, to give her up for adoption in the 1980s and sign away the right to ever contact her. Social strictures leave a legacy of pain that forever links child and parent, and you’ll feel it viscerally long after the film ends.

BIRTH WARS (U.S./Mexico) Director Janet Jarman attends deliveries on dirt-floor mats and in white-washed hospital rooms to chronicle the struggle going on in Mexico between doctors and midwives. Set in the states of Chiapas and Guerrero, it introduces us to Indigenous women who fear surgery and hospitals, but face legal consequences for practising their traditional birthing methods. And we meet passionate young graduates from midwifery schools who can’t get hired in a system that prefers hospitals. Just wait till

Forget Me Not focuses on a home for unwed mothers in South Korea, where stigma still exists.

you see the lengths they go to in reaching more remote regions to aid villagers: one midwife rides a horse-drawn ferry across a raging river. But perhaps the most telling moment comes when a male ob-gyn says goodbye to a new mother by quipping, “See you at your next cesarean.” Aside from capturing the miracle of birth from every possible angle—watching a village midwife revive a struggling newborn mouth-to-mouth is gripping—the film offers an unfussy, keenly observed look at a messy situation. It becomes obvious that racial discrimination and gender inequity are preventing bridges from being built between the two opposing sides.

LANDFALL (U.S.) Cecilia Aldarondo’s pastiche of a posthurricane Puerto Rico captures the complex realities of a nation still trying to rebuild, amid inept leadership and a decades-long debt crisis. On one hand, we get images of a resilient people: young activists protesting governor Ricardo Rosselló, farmers using cattle to plough land ravaged by the storm, and a community turning an abandoned school into a shelter for those left homeless by the 2017 storm. On the other, Aldarondo shows the sharks descending to “rebuild” the broken economy: the real-estate agents ready to hawk ultra-luxury condos to foreigners, and American blockchain hucksters trying to sell cryptocurrency tech. She interweaves promo film from the nation’s history, from postwar tourist appeals about its beach paradise to propaganda pushing the island’s industrial future. And we also see lingering shots of the destruction that remains across the island—buildings crumbling into the sea, mountains of water bottles, and tarped roofs—cut with first-person voice-over recollections of the horrors when the hurricane hit. The kaleidoscopic take offers a more accurate picture of the chaos than any standard narrated documentary ever could. g

ARTS

Kuroko leads Jessie Award nominations

T

by Janet Smith

he 38th annual Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards announced its 2020 nominees virtually, in a year like no other.

With stages shuttered indefinitely

by COVID-19 restrictions, motherdaughter duo Amanda Sum and Linda Leung hosted the announcements online on June 8, as a celebration of the art form in the face of an industry struggling in a pandemic.

The nominations of works that played earlier this season, before it was halted unexpectedly in mid-March, were widely spread out. Twenty-three productions were named in the largetheatre category. Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s Kuroko leads the way with nine nominations, including one for outstanding production, one for Tetsuro Shigematsu for his script, and nods to Amiel Gladstone for direction and Lou Ticzon for supporting role; the show, which played at the Cultch Historic Theatre last fall, is also up for the Critics’ Choice Innovation Award.

In the same category, the Arts Club Theatre Company received 12 nominations overall for four productions, with Noises Off seeing eight nods (including outstanding production and outstanding direction for Scott Bellis).

The Arts Club partnered with other theatre companies for five productions that have acquired a further 11 nominations, including nods to Matilda, in partnership with the Citadel Theatre and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre; A Thousand Splendid Suns, in partnership with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre; Cost of Living, in partnership with the Citadel Theatre; Cipher, in partnership with Vertigo Theatre; and The Wedding Party, in partnership with Prairie Theatre Exchange.

Elsewhere in large theatre, the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival

Kanon Hewitt and Lou Ticzon in Kuroko, the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre play that has nabbed nine nominations for Jessies. Photo by Chris Randle

also made a big impact, pulling in 12 nominations. Coriolanus led the way with five, including one for Moya O’Connell for outstanding lead performance. All’s Well That Ends Well garnered four nods. Shakespeare in Love’s Charlie Gallant got named for acting, as he did for his performance in Noises Off. Pacific Theatre’s Best of Enemies earned seven of the company’s nine nominations; Inheritance: A Pickthe-Path Experience by Alley Theatre and Touchstone Theatre (in association with Vancouver Moving Theatre and community partnership with the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre) received three nods.

In the small-theatre category, two shows tied for the lead with eight nominations: The Sea by Slamming Door Artist Collective, and the Search Party’s production of The Father. Ensemble Theatre Company’s summer series at Jericho Beach received eight nominations for three productions, including Superior Donuts. Patrick Street Productions’ solo musical cabaret Herringbone nabbed five nominations, with Peter Jorgensen and Luisa Jojic, who alternated performances in the

lead role, each receiving an acting nod.

Raincity Theatre’s production of Sondheim’s Company earned four nods, with the entire cast nominated for significant artistic achievement and Chris Adams for his direction.

Rice & beans theatre’s Chicken Girl (produced in partnership with Playwrights Theatre Centre), Saint FiFi Collective’s Lungs, Third Wheel Productions’ Deep Into Darkness, and SOL Theatre Collective’s Anna Bella Eema each received three nominations.

In the theatre-for-young-audiences category, Carousel Theatre for Young People garnered four nominations for its production of Bad Hats Theatre’s critically lauded Peter Pan. With theatres shut down, the awards will be broadcast online as well. The Art Left will be producing the first live-stream Jessie Awards from the Firehall Arts Centre on June 29, from 7 to 9 p.m.

There will also be a many additional prizes, including the Vancouver Now Representation and Inclusion Award and the Ray Michal Prize for Emerging Director.

For more information, visit www. jessieawards.com/. g

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FOOD & DRINK

Italian chefs dish up their favourites

I

by Gail Johnson

talian Day may not be taking place on Commercial Drive this year because of COVID-19, but we wanted to recognize the local chefs who offer us the food of their native land with such flair. We connected with a few of them to hear what dishes remind them of home. We also asked them to recommend a spectacular Italian wine that won’t break the bank.

Here’s what they had to say. And here’s to everyone in Vancouver’s Italian restaurant community who works so hard to keep us craving the seductive flavours of the Bel Paese (“Beautiful Country”).

Alessandro Riccobono, executive chef at Mangia Cucina & Bar, was born and raised in Palermo, Sicily, in a family of restaurateurs: his father was a chef and owned two restaurants while he was growing up, and his brothers and other relatives also work in the industry. After RECOVERY International he finished culinary college there, FEAR? he gained DEPRESSION? PANIC ATTACKS? Feelings that you from really living your life? experience in London before moving to keep VanA way out is where we come in.

The delicious arancina bomba, which has its origins in 10th-century Sicily, is a personal favourite of couver in 2012.

Weekly meetings. Call for info: Riccobono, who serves as executive chef at Mangia Cucina & Bar. Photo by Pina Bresciani 9am -mind 5pm KathyAlessandro 778-554-1026 “The first thing that comes to my www.recoverycanada.org when I think of Sicilian food is the arancina,” bechamel sauce on the inside, topped with our ir- minds him of home. “Particularly this month, Sex Addicts Anonymous Riccobono told the Straight. “It 12-step is a fellowship delicious house-made pistachio pesto.” (You can there is everywhere live basil plants that inof men &resistible women who share their experience,sauces, strength and hope with each other,make that saffron risotto ball filled with various watch him it on Mangia’s IGTV channel.) spire me to do pasta with pesto,” Posteraro they may solve their common problem and help for example Bolognese ragu or bechamel-andRiccobono’s preferred Italian wine is a forti- said. “Don’t panic if you don’t have pine nuts. others recover from their sexual addiction.

Membership is open to all who desire to stop addicham. Once shaped, it is then rolled inbehaviour. breadFor afied Marsala, Almonds and walnuts will do instead.” tive sexual meeting list as well as sipped after dinner as a digestif. email & originphone contactsIt go to our website crumbs and quickly fried. The arancina has beenat produced in Marsala, Sicily—an Cioppino’s is reopening shortly after major www.saavancouver.org ated around the 10th century in Sicily, when hour from where he grew up—for centuries. renovations, which happened to take place durSex andtransLove Addicts Anonymous the island was under Arab rule. Its name “My (SLAA) favourite one is the Florio Marsala ing the peak of COVID-19. Posteraro not only Do you have a problem with sex and love lates to ‘a small orange’ because relationships. of the round Superiore for $17.99 a bottle,” he said. heads the kitchen and develops the menu at the You are not alone.

SLAA is a 12Dolce Step 12 Tradition oriented fellowship for those who suffer shape and golden colour of the final “Fortified and Yaletown restaurant, he also curates the wine list. fromproduct. sex and love addiction.

Leave a message on then aged in oak barrels, with its our phone line and somebody will call you back for and scent of raisins, it is always a “Having an arancina takes me straight back to amber colour “A nice Vermentino Lunae from the same meeting time and locations. slaavan@telus.net Sicily and the flavours of my childhood,” he said. great way to end the day.” region [Liguria] is the perfect companion for SEXAHOLICS ANONYMOUS - Vancouver, BC “An arancina is something I wouldForhave bought Pino Posteraro, chef-owner of Cioppino’s the pesto,” he said. “Fresh and crisp.” those desiring their own sexual sobriety, please go to www.sa.org for meetings times and places. and eaten during recess in my school days.

Mediterranean Grill and Enoteca—who’s a Alessandro Vianello is executive chef at We are here to helpAt you from being overwhelmed.

Newcomers are gratefully welcomed.

Mangia Cucina & Bar we serve our own version knight of the Order of the Star of Italy—hails Kitchen Table Restaurants (Ask for Luigi, Support, Education & Action Group for Women Right that of the arancina: vegetarian with mozzarella and from Lago. now, anything with pasta re- Pourhouse, Di Beppe, among others), whose have experienced male violence.

Call Vancouver Rape Relief 604-872-8212

Kodama perfects the art of making ice

T

by Mike Usinger

The Compassionate Friends (TCF) Burnaby TCF is a grief support group for parents who have experienced the loss of a child, at any age.

Meet the last Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m.

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o spend an hour talking Vancouver Society for Sexuality, Gender & Culture Educational group with monthly meetings are the majesty of ice with Jay planned for: 1st Tuesday of each month, 6:30 PM Browne is to end up com8:30 PM Vancouver Public Library - Firehall Branch 1455 W 10th Ave (by Granville St next to the Firehall) pletely inspired.

All are welcome, and we are looking for Board Members from the Health, Counseling, Education, Earlier this year, Browne launched and Business Professions Vancouver’s Kodama Ice Company.

Info: Michael or Darren: VSSGC@yahoogroups.ca He’s spent much of his adult life in WAVAW - Rape Crisis Centre has crisis line, counselling, public bars, both as a customer and aseducation, a a 24-hour & volunteer opportunities for women. mixologist at places including the All services are free & confidential. call for info: Business Line: 604-255-6228 fabulous Bao Bei in Chinatown. Please 24-Hour Crisis Line: 604-255-6344 As Vancouver liquor nerds know,Women Survivors of Incest Anonymous A 12 Step based peer support program.

Kodama is making a name for itselfWed @ 7pm @ Avalon Women's Centre with crystalline two-inch cubes that 5957 West Blvd 604-263-7177 also www.siawso.org are hand-cut by Browne in an East Van commissary. The process starts with filtered water being fed into Jay Browne hand-cuts every block of Kodama ice. Photo by Mark Yammine Clinebell large-block ice machines.

“In nature, if a lake or river is After 72 hours, he’s got a 300-pound freezing, the water freezes from the block of ice that he eventually lifts out top down,” Browne says. “A Clinebell with an engine-block hoist and carves freezes from the bottom up where up with an electric chainsaw. Slabs are the condenser is placed. then cut on a bandsaw before they are “The reason you get cloudiness in hand-shaped. the ice cubes you do in your freezer,” The role of ice? he continues, “is that the water is fro“Part of being a bartender is learnzen from every single side. That con- ing how to present a balanced drink,” centrates everything to the middle of Browne says. “A lot of the time, if the cube, and then things build up you’re not using ice in the right way, and push out, which is why you get you’ll end up with a drink that’s not that cloudiness.” as good as you hoped it would be.”

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The key to getting that balance right is to think about what you want the ice to be doing in a drink.

“There’s crushed ice, cubed ice, and big-format ice,” Browne notes. “It’s kind of like having an arsenal at your disposal.”

You can source Kodama ice by contacting Browne at the Kodama Ice Company Instagram page. And once you’ve got your hands on these cubes, which you’ll want to sit and admire instead of using, you can include them in this recipe, which he’s provided as one of his favourites.

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1 oz Santa Teresa 1796 Venezuelan rum 1 oz Esquimalt sweet vermouth 1 oz Campari Stir all ingredients in mixing glass with ice until very cold (at least 1 minute), then strain over a big ice cube, garnish with a nice big twist of orange zest. g Mike Usinger is not a professional bartender. He does, however, spend most of his waking hours sitting on barstools.

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family is from a small island in Venice called Giudecca. “My nonna still lives in the same apartment my dad grew up in,” he said.

The dish that brings him back to that place is mozzarella en carozza, ideally served with an icecold beer. “It’s essentially a deep-fried prosciutto and cheese sandwich,” Vianello said. “Not the healthiest snack, but it’s great. There is a place in Venice called Rosticceria San Bartolomeo that does an amazing one. You can just stand in the street and watch the world go by.”

He favours wine from the DOC (authenticated origin) wine area of Lison Pramaggiore and Venice. “I like the Savian Lison Classico or their Cabernet Franc as well,” he said. “The Lison is a grape that a lot of people may have not heard of. It’s fruit-forward, crisp, and refreshing. I like it on a patio in the sun. As for the other wine, I am just generally a fan of Cab Franc. Both of these wines are produced at a winery that’s about a 20-minute drive from where my family lives in Italy.”

Phil Scarfone, culinary director of Osteria Savio Volpe, Pepino’s Spaghetti House, and Caffe La Tana, has yet to visit Racalmuto, Sicily, where his father’s great-grandparents lived, but he was spent plenty of time on the mainland.

“I absolutely love the smell of slow-simmering tomato sauce,” Scarfone said. “My grandma Susie would always have a pot of simmering sauce made from tomatoes that she canned herself every year. She would simmer spicy sausages and meatballs in there, and serve it with penne rigate every time we came to visit.

“I’m a big fan of 2016 Langhe Nebbiolo from Giovanni Rosso,” he said of the wine from the Piedmont region. “It really pairs well with all of the food that I enjoy cooking, including braised and grilled meats and rich hearty pastas. It’s $27.99 and is a steal of a deal.” g

S plash OF WINE

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CASTELLO DI QUERCETO CHIANTI CLASSICO 2016 In honour of Italian Day (happening in spirit if not on the Drive for 2020), we wanted to celebrate with a great but reasonably priced wine. This one fits the bill and comes with a cool back story.

The Querceto castle itself goes back to AD 123, when Emperor Hadrian built a fortress to defend the area around it, presently the northeastern part of the Chianti Classico region. War destroyed it in the late 1400s, with the building of the existing structure taking place in the 16th century. Since 1897, it’s been in the hands of the François

Support Groups A MDABC peer-led support group is a safe place to share your story, your struggles and accomplishments, and to listen to others as they share similar concerns. Please Note: Support groups are not intended to provide counselling/therapy. ?

Please visit www.mdabc.net for a list and location of support groups or call 604-873-0103 for info.

AL-ANON FAMILY GROUPS Does someone else's drinking bother you?

Al-Anon can help.

We are a support group for those who have been affected by another's drinking problem.

For more information please call: 604-688-1716 Anorexics & Bulimics Anonymous 12 Step based peer support program which addresses the mental, emotional, & spiritual aspects of disordered eating Tuesdays @ 7 pm @ Avalon Women's Centre 5957 West Blvd - 604-263-7177 ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION Looking to start a parent support group in Kitsilano.

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SWIRL THIS: Find it at JAK’s Beer Wine Spirits for $37.99.

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SAVAGE LOVE

BEER

Dan opens up on circumcision history Subtlety stands out with Waypoint Hazy Pale Ale

W

by Dan Savage

b I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to know more about your history with circumcision.

My history with circumcision isn’t that interesting: I was present at one circumcision (my own); I’ve never performed a circumcision (that I recall); and I’ve encountered both circumcised and uncircumcised dicks in the wild.

I enjoyed them all.

b MY WIFE AND I are lesbians who just found out we’re having a baby boy! We’re super excited but had some penis questions.

My wife wants to circumcise our son because she says that if he’s uncircumcised he’ll get made fun of in the locker room. Does this happen? How often do boys look at each other’s dicks growing up?

The circumcision rate among newborn

boys has been falling for decades and now only a little more than half of boys are circumcised at birth. So even if boys were comparing their dicks in locker rooms—and they’re not—your son won’t be alone. And for the record: the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t recommend the procedure, and the supposed health benefits—a lower risk for urinary-tract infections and a lower risk for some sexually transmitted infections—aren’t a convincing argument in favour of the routine circumcision of male infants. And although the complication rate is low (1.5 percent), those complications can range from easily treatable infections

One shouldn’t share a toy one hasn’t cleaned—and one should make sure one’s toys aren’t made of porous materials that are hard or impossible to clean. But if one has, say, a silicone toy that can be run through a dishwasher, well, one can share that toy.

A fluid-bonded couple can safely share toys during sex, of course, so long as toys aren’t going from assholes to vaginas between cleanings.

You also shouldn’t put a dildo in your spouse and then stick it in your very special guest star. But if you The Straight’s long-time sex columnist obey those simple rules—clean toys, has revealed whether he’s cut or uncut. no ass-to-vag, no used toys in thirds to “amputation of the glans”, “necrosis or toys used by thirds in primaries— of the penis”, and “death”. it’s safe to share your toys.

Risking your son’s life and most important limb to spare him a mo- b I’M A BISEXUAL male in California. ment’s awkwardness in a locker room When is the right time to tell someseems unreasonable to me—particu- one I just started dating that I’m bisexual? And how? larly since your son can’t consent.

b IS THERE A safe way to date/be slutty now? Will there ever be again? I’m poly but live alone, so I haven’t had sex in 12 weeks. Help! in most places are urging all to only have sex with people we live with—Mom and Dad excepted—over in the Netherlands, health officials are advising single and horny Dutch people to find “sex buddies”. One sex buddy per person, someone you can meet up with for sex, ideally someone who isn’t interacting with too many other people.

If you can find someone you trust—and if you are someone who can be trusted—you could go Dutch.

While health officials

b LONG-TIME LISTENER AND magnum subscriber! We will keep this short: we are in a happy monogamish marriage and have heard one is not supposed to share toys under any circumstances.

What are your thoughts on this?

A

by Mike Usinger

s a valuable public service, we taste the latest in Lower Mainland beers and then give you a highly opinionated, pocket-sized review.

ON TAP

Stanley Park Brewing Waypoint Hazy Pale Ale. THEIR WORDS

“The brew itself is made with a strong mix of hops and malts including: African Queen, Comet and Crystal hops; and Pale Malt, Malted Oats, Malted Wheat, and Golden Naked Oats. It has a golden haze appearance, an aromatic grapefruit citrus and tropical fruit flavour, and a low perceived bitterness and refined alcohol level coming in at 5.2% ABV Mention your bisexuality on dating and 35 IBU.” apps—which is where most couples meet these days—and you won’t have TASTE TEST to tell someone you’re bisexual af- Like oysters and Björk, IPAs are often ter you’ve started dating them. If you radically polarizing. Some love them meet someone the old-fashioned way and others don’t understand why (school, work, through friends), tell the world can’t be nothing but deli‘em right away. It’s nothing you should cate peach lambics and lightweightbe ashamed of or have to roll out care- friendly grapefruit radlers. Think of fully. And being with someone who Waypoint Hazy Pale Ale as a bridge can’t embrace and celebrate your sexu- between those who want their IPAs ality is bad for your mental health; the to pack a Conor McGregor–like more out you are about being bi, the punch and those who’d rather not lower your odds of winding up with end up glassy-eyed halfway through their second can. someone who has a problem with it.

Stanley Park brewmaster Thom RiIt ups your odds of winding up with someone who fetishizes your bisexual- ley had a definite game plan for what ity, of course, but if you had to choose he wanted to accomplish: “I’ve tried to between a partner who disapproves keep the same level of hoppiness and (and polices) and a partner who drools flavour you’d expect from an IPA, but (and wants to watch), you’re gonna be just dialled back the alcohol. Waypoint Hazy Pale Ale has all the mouthway better off with the droolers. g feel and aroma of a traditional IPA; Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on it’s just a little more sessionable.

Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

I think this is a great beer for those

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who appreciate a hop-forward style.”

The taste definitely suggests an offering that’s part of the IPA clan, with grapefruit notes bold and beautiful and the beer well on the light side of bitter. This might seem like an oxymoron for an India pale ale, but subtlety is king here. Never been able to appreciate an IPA? Get ready to change your perception of what a hop-forward beer can be.

DEEP THOUGHTS

Even if you’re the kind of person who’ll erroneously argue that purple isn’t the greatest colour ever, what’s going to hit you here is the art on the can. In the words of Stanley Park Brewing, “The illustration highlights Stanley Park’s Brockton Lighthouse signifying a beacon of light in a sea of haze. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel." It’s been a long spring, so let's hope so. g

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1. YOUTUBE.COM Search Landon Young Vancouver (Canada Flag) Audio (music)

604.266.6800

4095 Oak St. Vancouver JUNE 11 –1118– /182020 GEORGIA AIGHT 11 JUNE / 2020THE THE GEORGIASTR STRAIGHT

BC Fresh Strawberries

CALIFORNIA

Fresh Raspberries or Blackberries

13.21/kg weather permitting

6 oz weather permitting

5.99

3.99

lb

ea

BC Fresh Long English Cucumbers

CALIFORNIA

Fresh Tree-Ripened Peaches or Nectarines 8.80/kg

3.99

1.49

lb

ea

ARMSTRONG

LOCALLY RAISED

BC Fresh Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs family pack

Cheese

600 g – 700 g

7.99

SAVE

ea

PRICES VALID FRIDAY, JUNE 12 - THURSDAY, JUNE 18

NOW OPEN

ıƂdž & īıŒdž with local coffee

12 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT JUNE 11 – 18 / 2020

39%

OFF REGULAR PRICE

FLIP FLIP HURRAY!

WE’RE BACK JUNE 15

DINE IN

TAKE OUT

order online starting on June 19 Visit freshstmarket.com for details