Nov. 11, 2015

LEST WE FORGET

ABSENTEES

TWO FOR TWO

Interview with a war veteran

TRU absent from university ranking list

Men’s basketball win 2 over UNBC

Kamloops resident and war veteran Alex Sim opens up about his experiences • Page 2

TRU’s unique nature made it impossible to be assessed by McLean’s • Page 4

A trip to Prince George ended with two strong wins for the ‘Pack • Page 7

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ISSUE 10 NO.

VOLUME 25

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NOVEMBER 11, 2015

A B Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

WELL-DECORATED

STORIES TO REMEMBER

An interview with a veteran of two wars Remembering Kamloops’ military contributions

O

We talked to veteran Alex Sim, who shared his thoughts on conflicts at home and abroad. (Jim Elliot/The Omega) • Page 2

MAKE YOUR OWN

BLOWING SOME CASH

When arts and crafts meets the turntable

How TRU Sustainability will spend its fund

Barnacle Records draws a crowd by combining crafts, zines and mixing records • Page 5

The Revolving Energy Fund is up to $600,000 – we asked how the money will be spent • Page 2

n Saturday, Nov. 7, Kamloops Museum interpreter Sylvia Gropp lead 20 Kamloopsians on a walking tour of Bunker Road, and then into the J.R. Vicars Armoury to learn about Kamloops’ involvement in the military. The tour was sold out, and Gropp said that there were nine people on the waitlist.

Gropp told the history of Kamloops in wartime through its legendary local personalities. J.R. Vicars, who the armoury is named after, once let a First Nations man who was a star player on a hockey team out of jail for one day so that he could play in a crucial game against Kelowna. Legendary pilot John “Moose” Fulton is said to have flown a damaged plane over a body of water, with the water lapping at the underside of the plane.

The “Kamloops Kid” Kanao Inouye was hung for treason after working as an interpreter and later interrogator for Japan.

Gropp’s crash course in Kamloops history also included discussion of the War Measures Act, which is well known as the act that enabled internment camps. When the camps finally let everyone go, there was a huge influx of Japanese families looking for jobs and places to live in Kamloops.

“When they asked the Kamloops Kid why he had specifically targeted Canadians, he said that it was because of the treatment he got as a Japanese kid in Kamloops,” Gropp said.

Gropp also spoke about the other landmarks in Kamloops that serve as memorials, and the great support Kamloops has shown for its fallen soldiers.

“The federal building has a Cold Warera bunker in the basement, and before being developed, Rayleigh was a munitions testing ground,” she said.

The bunkers were constructed just a year before World War II ended and were never used to their full potential.

Today, the bunkers are rented by different organizations, including the museum, as storage spaces.

CONTINUES page 4

NEWS

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NOVEMBER 11, 2015

An interview with a veteran of two wars 90-year-old veteran shares wisdom about today’s conflicts, both foreign and domestic Jim Elliot NEWS EDITOR Ω Few people have such an intimate understanding of the meaning of Remembrance Day as Kamloops resident Alex Sim. Sim is a veteran of both the Second World War and the Korean War, whose unique military career began at only age 16.

Sim attempted to enlist in the Royal Canadian Airforce (RCAF) in 1941. After making it as far as the swearing in ceremony so he could begin his training as a fighter pilot, Sim was outed as underage by the recruiting officer, who had been his high school teacher the year before. Sim then attempted to join the Calgary Highlanders.

After telling a Highlanders’ sergeant at the recruiting office that he was 18, half a year too young for overseas service, he was told to walk around the block and reconsider. After returning to the recruiting station and telling the same sergeant that he was 19, Sim was accepted. Sim’s aunt eventually intervened and had him discharged. By the summer of 1942, Sim had enlisted in another regiment by altering his younger brother’s birth certificate.

When asked why he was so determined to join, Sim said that “there were stories coming out, nothing official yet, on what was happening in Germany,” and that he wanted to join based on “a sense that we’ve got to stop this from happening.” Sim also spoke about his family’s military history, including his grandfather’s service in the First World War and his uncles, who were taken prisoner

with the British Army at Dunkirk in 1940.

After finally making it into the army and being transferred through several units, Sim found himself with the Regina Rifles in England in time for the D-Day invasion. Sim went ashore on June 6 at Courseulles-sur-Mer. “You could hear the gunfire and things, but you’re in a steel box landing craft. I guess you wondered how the day was going to end…you wondered whether you were going to make it to the beach.”

Sim fought on for the remainder of the war, including battles at Leopold Canal and the Nijmegen Salient. “Nijmegen Salient I guess for me was the worst part of the war… can remember sitting there at night and thinking that I didn’t figure I would survive World War II. I didn’t think I would be killed, somehow in the back of my mind I thought the war was going to go on so long that I would die of old age.”

Sim went on to serve in Korea with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. His unit earned a Presidential Citation for their actions at the battle of Kapyong.

Sim recounted that on the voyage to Korea, upon finding out that all the Canadians on the ship were volunteers, an American Sergeant remarked, “I heard you Canadians were crazy, but I didn’t know just how crazy until right now.”

Sim’s experience reflects Korea’s reputation as a forgotten war.

“When the war ended so did the publicity, everyone forgot about the 25,000 Canadians who went to Korea and didn’t remember us for a long long time,” he said.

Second World War and Korean War veteran Alex Sim. (Jim Elliot/The Omega) Sim spoke with great respect for the new generation of veterans returning from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Bosnia. “I don’t know if I would survive their type of war. At least in both of my wars you knew who the enemy was.”

Sim went on to criticize older Veterans who saw PTSD claims from Afghanistan veterans as illegitimate, suggesting that the “24 hours of agony” created by irregular warfare was as bad as anything he faced in Europe or Korea. “If I had to go to war again, I would prefer to go back to our old type of war…I would say these young guys that are veterans of Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina are entitled to every privilege we got from World War II.”

Sim also had definite opinions on the state of Veterans Affairs in Canada. “I joined the army when I was 16 and I retired when I was 43. I have hearing problems and a bad knee. It took me nine years of fighting to get hearing aids.”

According to Sim, despite the efforts of his local Veteran’s Representative, the head office in Ottawa saw “no great degree of evidence that hearing was lost due to military conditions.” Sim called the lump sums awarded for veterans’ disability benefits “an idiot system.”

“They weren’t taking proper care of the people who had done the job they were sent to do and did it very well,” he said.

In his personal life, Sim will

be celebrating his 69th wedding anniversary with his wife Dina at the end of the month. “She was 14, I was 15 when we first met at the riverbank in Calgary across from the stampede grounds,” Sim said.

Sim is also the honorary Commanding Officer of the 419 Squadron of the RCAF, the squadron that performs the flyover at Kamloops’ Remembrance Day ceremony. The 419 Squadron gave Sim a unique gift for his 85th birthday: a flight in the co-pilot’s seat of one of their jet fighters.

Sim will lay both the D-Day Normandy and Korea Veteran Association wreaths on Remembrance Day at the Kamloops cenotaph.

Revolving Energy Fund reaches $600,000 TRU’s Office of Environment and Sustainability prepares for upcoming projects Wade Tomko NEWS EDITOR Ω The pool of capital that represents TRU’s Office of Environment and Sustainability’s budget for future projects has reached $600,000. This is nearly triple the amount the fund has reached in years before.

The fund, which has been around for almost five years now, was created from the savings of the Energy Efficiency Capital initiative in 2011. Now, the energy savings by the university from all of Environment and Sustainability’s projects are added to the fund.

This Revolving Energy Fund represents a large portion of the department’s financial resources and directly corresponds to how many capital projects they take on. TRU’s director of Environment and Sustainability, Jim Gudjonson, predicts it will take somewhere

between 12 and 18 months to use the funds.

“Some of that $600,000 has already been earmarked for projects on the go right now. A few of those projects are in the feasibility study and design stage of development already,” Gudjonson said.

In the past, the Revolving Energy Fund has been used to bring BC Hydro’s Continuous Optimization Program (C-Op) to TRU. The program involved hooking up all of TRU’s major buildings to an energy dashboard. This allowed Environment and Sustainability to monitor each building’s energy consumption in real time.

The fund has also gone to retrofitting all existing buildings with high-tech LED lights, something Environment and Sustainability believes will help reduce electricity use even further.

Right now, Environment and Sustainability is looking at multiple capital projects to help reduce

TRU’s electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

“One project we are looking into is installing a wood biomass boiler in the Williams Lake campus. We would be able to use wasted wood as fuel for heating the buildings there,” Gudjonson said. He also said that the boiler may be able to reduce the Williams Lake campus’ greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent. This would represent a 10 per cent decrease in TRU’s emissions overall. The plans surrounding the project are expected to be posted to TRU’s website next March.

Though it is just a concept, Gudjonson said there may even be the possibility for a wood biomass boiler on the Kamloops campus, too.

“We might decide to put in our own wood biomass district energy system here. Although, it wouldn’t be a full-blown system linking all the buildings, as it needs to

be cost- and time-effective. What we’re looking at is linking all the big buildings, including TCC, to a sustainable energy grid,” Gudjonson said. Though this may still be a few years away, Environment and Sustainability predicts that it could reduce TRU’s greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 50 per cent.

Another project, which is more likely to happen in the immediate future, is Environment and Sustainability’s purchasing of renewable gases from FortisBC. On Nov. 5, Gudjonson signed an agreement with FortisBC to receive 10 per cent of the university’s gas fuel as renewable gases instead of natural gas.

Though TRU will pay a premium rate for these renewable gases, Gudjonson said they will reduce TRU’s greenhouse gas emissions by a further 10 per cent. Unlike natural gas, which is a fossil fuel and isn’t renewable, the renewable

gases discussed in the agreement come from agricultural and landfill waste.

The installation of more solar technology is also on the table.

“Solar siding has been looked at – drapes too. Most likely though, the next building to be built on campus will feature solar blinds.

These blinds will be translucent and let light through, but turn the heat that hits them into electricity,” Gudjonson said. He added that TRU faculty and students can expect to see more solar panels on campus rooftops within the next few years as well.

The university might also get its own wind turbine. Data collection work will soon start on top of the rocky knoll behind the Trades building. Gudjonson plans to collect data for nine months before moving ahead with the project. “The sky is the only limit in terms of wind turbines,” Gudjonson said.

OPINION & EDITORIAL

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“No” vote a lost opportunity for the city

Voters have rejected borrowing $49 million for a new Performing Arts Centre Sean Brady EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ω Kamloops residents went to the polls on Saturday, Nov. 7, last week to vote on whether or not to borrow $49 million to construct a new $90-million Performing Arts Centre.

Some wires were crossed along the way, however, and it appears that the referendum became about a variety of other things.

It’s a hefty sum, $49 million. The associated per-person number being thrown around is $38 per year more in taxes. Many were willing to pay it.

Many weren’t, however, and some instead called for increased spending on a variety of other things like road improvements or sparkly new sewers.

What’s not clear to these voters is that this wasn’t a referendum on how to spend millions of dollars – it was a referendum on whether or not we should have a Performing Arts Centre. If there were members of the electorate that felt as though they were being asked how the city should blow $90 million, they were mistaken, and I think the city would be able to figure out how to spend that money on its own.

The need for a new centre was debated throughout the run-up to the election. The city’s feasibility study locked in a proposed capacity and set out the business plan. It would build a 1,200-seat main theatre, 350-seat black box theatre and a much-needed parkade along with all of it. This is the kind of thing the arts community has been after for years.

But it wouldn’t be so. The “Yes” vote lost with 46.23 per cent of the vote. Although voter turnout was only 31.9 per cent, the geographic

breakdown of the polls still proves interesting. Overwhelmingly, rural and North Shore polling locations voted to reject the proposed borrowing. Polling locations in Westsyde, Barnhartvale, Rayleigh and Dallas all said “no” – some with as much as 68 per cent not in favour.

There are likely a number of explanations to look at why this divide is present. Was it based on proximity?

The further away you get from Kamloops, the less likely you are to go into town to attend an event? Maybe it’s socioeconomic? Maybe it’s political, and the more austere among us primarily live out of town.

There was also a cluster of North Shore locations that all said “no,” too. The NorKam, Arthur Hatton, Westmount and Parkcrest polling locations all voted between 59 and 67 per cent against. I would say that this block of polling locations, despite being close to the downtown core, voted against the centre because of a longstanding divide between the North Shore and the rest of the city.

The lack of North Shore development is clear, and worse, vacancies, rundown storefronts and houses are abundant. The North Shore situation is apparent to anyone who’s been there, and despite the efforts of revitalization groups and those who are brave enough to build, invest and operate over there, there’s a certain peak to reach that the city has yet to even come close to. While downtown Kamloops decides whether or not to build a beautiful new arts venue, the North Shore deals with a rash of pop-up fireworks shops and payday loan outfits.

While I understand those who agonize over the disparity (and I do a little myself), Kamloops is not so big that a new venue would not have benefited everyone – whether they

attended or not. Bigger acts traveling through town would literally put us on the map, and that’s the kind of attention that helps a city grow.

Now, we’re left with the Kamloops Daily News lot and to figure out what

Ω

to do with it. As Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar told other media in town, just dealing with the lot alone is something that might take some borrowing to do – I’m not sure that’s what people had in mind when they

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A B Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

recommend road improvements instead of a performing arts centre.

Maybe they’ll change their mind when someone puts up a fireworks shop or payday loan the old newsroom. editor@truomega.ca

CONTRIBUTE

WRITE FOR US! We’re always looking for contributors.

If you’re interested in writing for us, make sure you check out our contributor guidelines found at:

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NEWS

4

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

What's on at

TRU?

Nov 12 Environmental Sciences Seminar Series Visiting faculty Dr. Kevin Hanna explores environmental impact assessments and their social/economic impacts, strengths and weaknesses and public participation.

4 pm, Ken Lepin Building, S 203

Exploring Kamloops’ military history

Nov. 13 Restorative Justice Symposium This alternative means of legal punishment seeks reconciliation between offender and offended and is gaining traction around the world. Learn more through guest speakers, workshops, a break-out session and networking with those in the field.

Jim Elliot Marlys Klossner STAFF Ω

9:30 am to 3:30 pm, Terrace room, CAC. $50 or $15 for students, elders, unemployed, and retired.

CONTINUED (COVER)

Nov 16 Hands-On Learning In The Arts

The small houses on campus that are now occupied by TRU’s radio station, horticulture department and other campus services are a remnant of the area’s military past. According to current School District 73 Superintendent Karl deBruijn, who lived in one of the houses when he was younger, the entire TRU area was once a part of the ammunition storage facility built into the hills above McGill Road.

The ammunition storage bunkers and accompanying housing and administration buildings were built during 1944 and 1945 to house munitions for the Canadian and British Navies.

Historicplaces.ca says that the bunkers were closed in 1963.

“People didn’t like that they were driving through town to the railroad with loads of ammo, so they ran a tram line down the hill.

The winds were so bad that stuff was swaying all over,” said local historian Clarence Schneider.

Although the bunkers were no longer in use, the houses

Hear how arts students are adding value to their education through hands-on coursework, projects, research and applicable volunteer experiences. Fourth-year student Pam Erikson and faculty member Ginny Ratsoy will present their findings. 4:30 pm, location TBA

Nov. 17

Business Kickstart Series: Tom Gaglardi What motivates this real estate and hospitality industry mogul and owner of the Dallas Stars and Kamloops Blazers hockey teams? What make him tick? Gain some working tips and suggestions into the world of multi-million dollar deals and negotiations. 4 to 5:30 pm, Barber Centre, HOL. Free.

Nov. 18

Common Voices Lecture Series: Richard Florida Presented by TRU Students’ Union, this urbanist believes renewal and economic growth of cities should be based on creating environments that are attractive to what he calls the creative class and high bohemians—people who may be technology workers, artists, musicians, and members of LGBTQ communities.

7 pm, Grand Hall, CAC. Free, though a ticket is required.

Tickets at TRUSU Services Desk.

Nov. 20

WolfPack Women’s and Men’s Basketball Home Openers.

Cheer on your varsity hoopsters against the MacEwan Griffins from Edmonton. Eager to build on last year’s successes, both WolfPack teams are led by a mix of returning and new players.

Women at 6 pm, Men at 8 pm, Tournament Capital Centre main court. Game day prices: $10 adults, $5 seniors, $2 students, free kids under 12.

continued to see use from military and RCMP families until TRU’s predecessor, Cariboo College, opened in 1973. According to deBruijn, the other houses were occupied by five other military families and six RCMP families. DeBruijn said that he moved into House 5 in 1966, after his father was given a job at the Air Force radar station on Mount Lolo, and his family was given notice to leave in 1973.

The smaller houses, such as House 4 (Sustainability), were home to enlisted men, and the larger houses, such as the horticulture department, belonged to officers, according to Diana Skoglund, TRU’s media & communications manager.

House 5 is currently one half of Cplul’kw’ten, the First Nations Gathering Place, but in 1966 it was home to deBruijn, his parents and his six siblings. DeBruijn said that he doesn’t know how such a large family fit into the small house.

DeBruijn said that he went on to attend Cariboo College and attended a geography seminar in what was once his living room.

Retired Lieutenant-Colonel David Hanna lead a tour through the museum in the armoury.

Kamloops has long been a place

to train soldiers before they get stationed elsewhere.

The Rocky Mountain Rangers were an impressive force and integral in battles like Vimy Ridge. In fact, the armoury holds the original cross from Vimy that was built out of the wood from German trenches. “Six of the names on there we can confirm are from the area,” Hanna said.

The tour of the armoury felt very patriotic, with the walls lined with symbols of victory and photos of soldiers and the fields they fought on. The most recent displays were photos of troops in Afghanistan and fighting fires in 2003 in Operation Peregrine.

Hanna also mentioned the declining interest in military service, and the tightening of their budget, but said that the regiment still trains great soldiers.

While we toured, four Rocky Mountain Rangers were practising with ropes and equipment for the night’s hockey game, where two of them were to rappel down onto the ice. They were an interesting contrast to the historical Rocky Mountain Ranger uniforms on display.

The museum’s other Remembrance Day plans are to restore and update the cenotaph in memorial park before Nov. 11.

TRU absent from Maclean’s University Rankings Open Learning and diploma programs make for difficult assessment

Find out more:

events.tru.ca

Jim Elliot

MC120501

NEWS EDITOR Ω Maclean’s magazine has released their annual university rankings, but readers won’t find TRU on the list. The reason, according to both Maclean’s and TRU, is that the university is too difficult to categorize to be ranked against other institutions.

“The diversity of our programs, staff and students makes it impossible for them to assess us,” said TRU’s VP of Advancement, Chris Seguin.

Mary Dwyer, the senior editor at Maclean’s in charge of the university rankings said that Maclean’s does not rank TRU or other former university-colleges in B.C. because their system is “designed to measure performance based on students and faculty in degree programs.”

According to Dwyer, TRU’s large number of diploma students and laddering programs makes Maclean’s degree-program-based rankings difficult to apply.

Students at TRU can switch between diploma and degree programs, and so according to Dwyer “it is not possible to get clear figures on the number of students in degree programs or the faculty teaching in degree programs.”

Maclean’s ranks universities in three categories: Medical Doctoral, Comprehensive and Primarily Undergraduate. TRU does not easily fit into any of these categories.

TRU’s large number of Open Learning and online students also sets it apart from other institutions. Dwyer said that “many of our ranking measures don’t apply as well to online and Open Learning students.”

“As universities evolve and become more open and online, and as the populations of our peers change, they will be forced to change how they measure us,” Seguin said.

Seguin also said that TRU has supplied data to Maclean’s in the past and discussed the assessment with their editors and stakeholders. TRU completed Maclean’s annual survey using data from institutional planning and analysis in August.

Although TRU was not included in the rankings, the data was included in a university profile that ran in Maclean’s online education hub.

Amongst the universities that were ranked, UNBC took the top spot in the Primarily Undergraduate category, McGill won the Medical Doctoral category and SFU was the best Comprehensive university in the country.

ARTS

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5

Arts, crafts and turntables: A Friday night at Barnacle Records Jared MacArthur CONTRIBUTOR Ω Walking up a dark street, the sound of mixed rock and punk music leads the way to my destination. Before I even step in the door the mood is set.

It’s early in the evening and the crowd is still small. Some people are busy searching through records and a few others are sitting on couches making art and chatting.

After a while of flicking through records myself, enjoying the record spinning performance in the background, I spoke with art student Ryland Fortie.

Ryland and his brother Dion Fortie, both TRU arts students, come out with the homemade art trailer loaded with art supplies including a mini printing press. People can come and just draw, or, with help from the brothers, learn how to make a zine (a small four- or fivepage magazine).

The initiative with the art gallery and Barnacle Records, Ryland explained, was to “get some youth, our generation, stimulated in the arts.” The group at the store isn’t very large at the moment but does

represent a growing number of people interested in a creative arts culture.

“The time is nice, because it ends at nine, so you can stop by on your way to a party or downtown,” Ryland remarked, a point owner Ronan McGrath also mentioned.

Being an artist and student, Ryland sees the growing art culture around Kamloops and recognizes there’s no centralized art community for those artists to gather and collaborate, which makes an art hub like this very appealing.

As we talk, people from the street come and go, lured in by the same beats that drew me in, the sound of vinyl tracks being mixed and matched on the turntables: a sound as unique as those choosing the tracks.

This is only the second event done in collaboration with the open mix night, an idea of owners Ronan McGrath and Jessie Kobylanski, to bring a little more attention to the evening.

The record mixing is open to anyone who is willing. And as McGrath sees it, it is really meant to get people, who would normally just be observing, involved in the process of making art in another way.

Art host Ryland Fortie doodles while he mans the trailer. (Jared MacArthur/Submitted) An evening of art and music has been the goal of the owners since the inception of the store. There are a lot of ideas between the two of them for what they’d like to see in the future, but for now it’s just one event at a time.

Like Ryland, McGrath believes there is a growing interest for events

like this, and he hopes they’re “ahead of the curve,” in that regard.

“The city has, for a while now, been in a bit of a rut,” and with fewer people in the scene now this event is meant to be a way people can come together and collaborate, McGrath said.

Kamloops seems to be on the

verge of becoming a more defined arts community, be it in music, performing arts, or fine art, and the Barnacle Records open mixing and art trailer event is a small glimpse of where we are heading.

Event information can be found on the Barnacle Records Facebook page.

A night of lights Artists gear up at Kamloops Makerspace to make their lanterns for the upcoming Lumière festival Jennifer Will CONTRIBUTOR Ω Monday, Nov. 2 kicked off the first of three workshops to be held at Kamloops Makerspace for light installations and sculptures. The workshop was an opportunity for local artists to gather and talk about their projects for the upcoming parade.

This workshop detailed the dos and don’ts for lighting up the lanterns or sculptures, and gave a brief tutorial on LED lights and electroluminescent wires. The city has not permitted the use of candles in the lanterns, so the techs at the Makerspace are here to help artists illuminate their projects in other ways. They help the artists consider things like light exposure before starting their project. Whether you are a newbie or an old pro, they can help you get the assistance and support you need to make the best possible lantern.

They are encouraging everyone who wishes to participate in the parade to come out on Monday night, although this workshop is geared more towards adults. The workshops are a great way to get ideas for your piece, connect with other artists, get feedback on your ideas, and is a wonderful space in which to work and create. They are also encouraging anyone with creative techniques that can be used for light sculptures to come out and help to inspire other members of the community. All of these workshops are to take place from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. with free admission.

A workshop will also be put on

the next two Tuesdays leading up to the event on Nov. 17 and 24 at the Crossing Bridges Outreach Centre at Kamloops Immigrant Services.

These will be kid-friendly workshops going on from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. with limited space and supplies. Their goal is to teach participants how to create their very own lantern and how to carry it in the upcoming parade. The admission for these events is free.

There will be more kid-friendly workshops on Thursday nights Nov. 12, 19 and 26 from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m..

These will be put on by two local Kamloops artists at the Lansdowne Village. Kits for the lantern-making will be available for $5 to $10 per person. A free option will also be available but there are limited supplies. Admission for the workshops will be free.

The Lumière Lantern parade or “Lights in the Night” is being put on by the Kamloops Art Council, and is sponsored by the Downtown Business Association. The festival will take place on Nov. 26 starting at 6:30 p.m. at Lansdowne Village. Partakers and their lanterns will walk to Stuart Wood Elementary School where there will be entertainment and tons of awesome prizes. There is a $100 cash prize for the lantern that comes in first place. A prize for the best lantern created by a student at the Thompson Rivers University will also be given out. The evening will conclude at St. Andrews on the Square, where members of the community will gather to light the Christmas tree. The event will start up this holiday season with tons of festivities and holiday cheer in the city centre.

THE CARIBOO STUDENT NEWSPAPER SOCIETY

NOTICE OF AGM NOVEMBER 19, 2015 The registered society that operates The Omega will hold its annual general meeting on November 19, 2015. All TRU students in good standing are welcome to attend.

Location: Old Main, OM2691 Time: 5:30 p.m.

NEWS

6

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

University hosts speaker on missing and murdered women Jim Elliot NEWS EDITOR Ω The response to the large numbers of indigenous women who have gone missing or been murdered has shown that it is one of the most contentious issues in Canada in recent years. Dawn Lavell-Harvard, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) spoke to a small crowd at TRU’s Cplul’kw’ten (The Gathering Place) in order to dispel some of the myths about missing and murdered indigenous women.

“We all know the situation with violence against indigenous women and girls. It’s been a shameful reality for far too long,” Lavell-Harvard said. Female homicide rates have dropped in Canada for the last 30 years, but continue to rise for indigenous women, she said.

Lavell-Harvard’s presentation was first and foremost about challenging some of the established narratives about the indigenous women that are going missing or being murdered.

Income from crime, work in the sex trade and use of drugs and alcohol were all explanations that Lavell-Harvard claims the RCMP provided for high rates of disappearance and murder amongst indigenous women.

Lavell-Harvard dismissed all of these as statistically insignificant or considered dangerous only for indigenous people.

“They say our women are in these vulnerable situations because they have high-risk lifestyles. I agree our women are at risk, but no one dreams of being homeless,” Lavell-Harvard said.

Some who attended Lavell-Harvard’s presentation had a personal connection to the issue.

“I come from a small reserve up north, and my sister was best friends with Ramona Wilson. She went missing back in ’95, right around the time my sister was graduating so it really hits home.

The lack of response from the government is something that needs to be addressed,” said TRU law student Dustin Gagnon.

Lavell-Harvard was involved with Sisters in Spirit, a research, education and policy initiative within the NWAC whose primary goal was investigating violence against indigenous women. The number of missing and murdered indigenous women arrived at by Sisters in Spirit was over 800.

The RCMP eventually released a figure which claimed that there were 1,181 missing or murdered indigenous women.

Lavell-Harvard used the recent claims of abuse against police officers in Val d’Or, Que.

by local indigenous women to illustrate how common violence against them is. In Val d’Or, eight provincial police officers have been accused of violence and sexual abuse against indigenous women, 12 alleged victims have come forward.

“They should be supporting an independent investigation and letting justice take its due process,” Lavell-Harvard said.

Canada’s record on the protection of indigenous women has been criticized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations.

“They like to be appalled about violence against women around the world and they send millions of dollars to other countries… and yet they’re ignoring what is happening in their own backyard,” Lavell-Harvard said, in criticism of the Canadian government’s response to missing and

murdered indigenous women.

When asked by an audience member how effective the B.C. government has been at addressing the issue, Lavell-Harvard said that progress had been made under Christy Clark.

“Now that you have a woman in power, I think that there has been a lot more attention,” Lavell-Harvard said.

Recent federal NDP candidate Bill Sundhu used the question period as an opportunity to criticize the Liberals’ and Conservatives’ stances on mandatory minimum sentences. Sundhu, who does some legal work on Haida Gwaii, also criticized the current prisoner transfer system from Haida Gwaii to Prince George. Sundhu said women returning from their sentences in Prince George, usually by bus, are vulnerable at bus stations and at the Prince Rupert ferry terminal.

COMICS & PUZZLES

by Andrew Robertson

Puzzle of the Week #8–Ages Six friends are all of different ages. The initials of three consecutive friends in the order form an English word. No two friends adjacent in the order have the same number of syllables in their names. The sexes alternate in the order. Looking at the order, the names with the same number of syllables are in reverse alphabetic order.

Janine is older than exactly one-half of the group. The names are Gladys, Hugh, Ian, Jacqueline, Katherine, and Len. What is the order (“the order” in clues above) of the friends from youngest to oldest?

This contest is sponsored by the Mathematics and Statistics department. The full-time student with the best score at the end of the year will win a prize. Please submit your solution (not just the answer but also why) by noon next Wednesday to Gene Wirchenko (<genew@ telus.net>). Submissions by others are also welcome.

The solution will be posted the Wednesday after that in my blog (http://genew.ca/). Come visit the Math Centre (HL304): we are friendly.

by Andrew Robertson

SPORTS

WWW.TRUOMEGA.CA

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Basketball opens season with pair of wins The TRU men’s basketball team opens promising 2015/16 season with two victories Cameron Doherty SPORTS EDITOR Ω WolfPack basketball travelled to Prince George this past weekend and were victorious in a pair of games against the University of Northern British Columbia Timberwolves, winning 95–89 and 85–79.

Last season was a very good year for the ‘Pack: they finished third in the Explorer division and recorded the first playoff series victory in program history before finally bowing out in the conference quarterfinals to the eventual fifth-place team in the country, the Saskatchewan Huskies.

The successes of last season caused the other head coaches in Canada West to take notice of the WolfPack, as those coaches placed TRU fifth out of the seventeen teams in the conference in a preseason poll.

This is a roster that has to deal with a lot of turnover coming into the season however, as Tallon Milne, Brett Rouault, Brett Parker, Josh Mayorga and Victor Aguero are all gone. They all played key roles in the successes of the 2014/15 season. TRU head coach Scott Clark feels as though their production will have to be replaced by committee and points to Luke Morris, Mike Rouault, Jeff Tubbs, Mauricio

Medrano and Volodymyr Iegorov as players who have shown that they are capable of stepping up, competing hard and shouldering the load.

Clark’s words would prove to be prophetic as Iegorov had a great weekend, leading the team with 29 points on Friday night and chipping in with another 23 on Saturday.

Two returning players for the WolfPack that are sure to be relied upon are Reese Pribilsky and Josh Wolfram. Pribilsky directs the tempo of the game as the point guard of the ‘Pack and possesses the rare combination of elite floor vision that allows him to distribute the ball with ease as well as a deadly scoring touch.

Wolfram is a guy who does it all for the WolfPack. He led last year’s team in points per game, rebounds per game and blocks per game, and was named a Canada West first team allstar. Clark credits Wolfram’s success to the fact that he’s such a hard worker. “He’s done all the right things. He comes early to practice and stays late, he’s lifting weights. In the off-season he’s coming to open gyms and that’s what competitive people do, things that put them in the position to be advantaged, and he’s advantaged because he works hard.”

Despite a perfect preseason

Josh Wolfram surveys the court during TRU’s 94–89 victory over UNBC Friday, Nov. 6.

(Matt Wood/TRU Athletics) that saw the WolfPack win all eight games that they played, Clark still feels that there is some room for improvement as the season progresses. “Things have gone okay for us, we were perfect from a standpoint of wins

but we were far from perfect in our execution offensively and defensively.

It’s early in the year, we are probably where we should be but not where we need to get to.”

TRU will be on the road again

next weekend for pair of games against the Mount Royal University Cougars, before playing their home opener at the Tournament Capital Centre Friday Nov. 20 against the MacEwan University Griffins.

WolfPack goes winless in Winnipeg TRU Volleyball unsuccessful in four matches over the weekend

Cameron Doherty SPORTS EDITOR Ω It was a weekend to forget for TRU volleyball, as both the men’s and women’s teams failed to record a win in Winnipeg, both playing against the University of Winnipeg Wesmen.

The action got underway Friday night with the WolfPack women taking on a Wesmen team that had only one win in their six previous matches this year. The WolfPack came out of the gates hot as they won the first two sets and looked ready to win the match with relative ease. The Wesmen had other plans however, as it was then their turn to catch fire and they reeled off two straight impressive set victories. Heading into the fifth and final set it was the Wesmen that had all the momentum, and they would take advantage of that to squeak out a 15–13 victory.

TRU athletics head coach Chad Grimm was disappointed that his team couldn’t hold onto their early lead and win the match. “We had a chance on

the road to come away with a victory against a team that was struggling. We let them creep back into it and we imploded.”

If a close loss on Friday was tough to swallow for the WolfPack women then the game on Saturday offered them no relief.

They lost to Winnipeg three sets to none, despite a strong effort in the third and deciding set.

Struggling against some top teams through the early portion of the season, the men’s team came into the weekend hoping to get their season back on track, as they played a Wesmen team that had recorded just two wins in their first six games.

A turnaround was not in the cards for the ‘Pack however, despite playing Winnipeg tough in two sets they lost the match three sets to none.

The men would put up stiffer competition in the match on Saturday as they won a set and went on a couple point runs to drag themselves back into the fourth set, but unfortunately the end result was the same: a three sets to one Wesmen victory.

Despite the losses there were

some bright spots for both TRU teams. Reigning Canada West female athlete of the week Iulia Pakhomenko was again dominant for TRU, adding 36 kills to her league-leading total. TRU also showcased some diversity in attack with Krista Hogewoning picking up 19 kills and Katie Woo adding 61 assists on the weekend.

Brad Gunter led the way for the men with 28 kills on the weekend. Kyle Behiels and Brandon Hewwing rounded out the attack for TRU nicely.

After the setbacks of this past weekend, both of the teams find themselves in a little bit of a hole that they are going to have to find their way out of if they want to qualify for the playoffs in the extremely competitive Canada West conference. The women currently hold a record of three wins and five losses, while the men find themselves in a tough spot as they sit at one win and seven losses. Both teams will be in action next weekend at the Tournament Capital Centre when the University of Brandon Bobcats come to Kamloops.

Iulia Pakhomenko sends the ball over the net. (TRU Athletics)

NEWS

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NOVEMBER 11, 2015

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