Issue 7, (Volume 144) (October 23, 2023)

October 23, 2023

THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

Vol. CXLIV, No. VII

New EngSoc president charges UTSU with breaking agreement, calls for new deal

EngSoc raises concerns with UTSU over reduced representation, alleged delays to fee transfers Devin Botar Varsity Contributor

Since the school year began, members of U of T’s Engineering Society (EngSoc) — including the society’s newly elected president, Parker Johnston — have publicly criticized the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) for violating a 2015 agreement between the EngSoc and the UTSU. Signed to address a long history of tension between the two groups, the 2015 agreement requires the UTSU to deliver 50 per cent of the fees it collects from engineering students to the EngSoc. The agreement also guaranteed EngSoc would have at least three elected representatives on the UTSU Board of Directors (BOD).

The downsizing of the UTSU BOD in 2022 eliminated all constituency-based BOD seats, including the three EngSoc seats.

Johnston has argued that the UTSU has been consistently late to deliver the proportion of fees owed to them, although the UTSU disputes these claims.

In response, Johnston is seeking a new deal with the UTSU. A long saga of anger, shouting, and general unpleasantness In 2012, the U of T community’s criticism against the UTSU — for alleged interference and corruption in elections, opaque finances, and its “siege mentality” around making its processes more open — reached a critical mass. With backing from the univer-

sity administration, student heads from all seven UTSG colleges and three professional faculties led a campaign to impose reforms onto the UTSU. When the group proposed a package of amendments to the UTSU bylaws, executives left the motion out of the agenda at the fall 2012 Annual General Meeting, alleging that the group had submitted its proposal past the deadline.

Four months later, the UTSU convened a Special General Meeting, and the union included the reform group’s policy package near the very end of the agenda. The four-hour meeting lost quorum before students could vote on the package.

During the 2013–2014 school year, the main student governance bodies, six of the St. George colleges, and two of the professional faculties started pursuing “defederation” — which would mean taking measures that would allow them to leave the UTSU and receive all the fees collected by the union from their students.

The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (FASE) voted 95 per cent in favour of diverting the fees they paid to the UTSU to EngSoc’s budget.

Throughout that school year, then-UTSU President Shaun Shepherd repeatedly claimed that the colleges and professional faculties could not defederate under the UTSU’s bylaws. The Varsity reported that, when confronted with the news that it was possible to run a referendum for colleges or faculties to defederate under the bylaws, Shepherd responded, “I’m just not going to do that.”

Negotiations stalled. Both the UTSU and EngSoc spent a lot of money on lawyers. The U of T administration at Simcoe Hall

Science Jane Goodall talks about studying chimpanzees — and shows off her stuffed animal collection pg 15

tried to intervene, leading to a set of recommendations that the Arts and Science Students’ Union described as “troubling” for its infringements on the autonomy of student societies. One student head described the situation as all “prevarication, equivocation, misdirection and obfuscation.”

UTSU and EngSoc settle on 2015 agreement The 2015 school year saw a new slate of executives — at least two of whom had been involved in the earlier reform movements — elected to the UTSU. The UTSU and EngSoc reached an agreement that year, deciding that the UTSU would give 50 per cent of the membership fees it collected from students in the FASE to EngSoc. The agreement also included a measure guaranteeing that engineering students would elect at least three members of the UTSU BOD. The agreement also entitled the UTSU to appoint a representative to sit as a full member on the EngSoc Board of Directors.

Currently, that representative is the UTSU vice president, professional faculties — a position dedicated to looking after the needs of students not in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Representatives of EngSoc and the UTSU both reported leaving the negotiating table feeling very optimistic about the future of their relationship.

Continued on page 2

Features How do we balance protecting our ecosystems and maintaining animal welfare? pg 10

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The Varsity would like to acknowledge that our office is built on the traditional territory of several First Nations, including the Huron-Wendat, the Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit. Journalists have historically harmed Indigenous communities by overlooking their stories, contributing to stereotypes, and telling their stories without their input. Therefore, we make this acknowledgement as a starting point for our responsibility to tell those stories more accurately, critically, and in accordance with the wishes of Indigenous Peoples.

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“A resurgence in many of the same issues” In 2022, the UTSU massively reduced the size of its BOD from 44 to 12. The union argued that this was a practical change because there were rarely enough candidates to fill 44 seats, and once elected, many of them did not attend meetings. Alongside that change, the UTSU eliminated constituency-based representation, meaning that representatives from engineering — as well as all other faculties and colleges — no longer received guaranteed seats on the BOD. Currently, one engineering student sits on the UTSU BOD. This leaves engineering students with an eight per cent share of the voting power — slightly higher than they had before the BOD downsizing. However, engineering students as a whole make up 21 per cent of the UTSU’s membership.

At the EngSoc’s September BOD meeting, Madeline Kalda — an engineering student and former UTSU executive assistant, professional faculties — and Michelle DeLoyde, ombudsperson of EngSoc, presented a 20-plus-page report to the board.

The report describes the relationship between the UTSU and EngSoc in past decades as “tenuous at best and actively hostile at worst.” It concluded that the UTSU violated the 2015 agreement by downsizing its BOD. The report also laments that the UTSU is entitled to a representative on the EngSoc Board.

One of the reasons the UTSU gave for downsizing its BOD in 2020 was to avoid having other organizations able to appoint their own members to its board, arguing that this could create a conflict of interest if members had financial responsibilities for two organizations.

The EngSoc report called this an “excellent point” and questioned why that same principle

was not applied to the representative that the UTSU appoints to the EngSoc Board.

The report also criticized the UTSU representative for “regularly fail[ing] to uphold the standards of attendance and engagement expected from all other members of the Board.”

The 2015 agreement specifically stipulates that, unlike other members of the EngSoc Board, the UTSU representative cannot be recalled if they failed to uphold EngSoc standards.

In a statement to The Varsity, Al-Amin Ahamed, vice-president, professional faculties, said that he has not heard directly from any EngSoc BOD members about these complaints so far in his term.

He continued that timing prevents him from attending every EngSoc BOD meeting as he is also a full-time student who liaises with 10 other student faculties. However, he wrote that he keeps track of minutes for meetings he cannot attend.

A new president for EngSoc EngSoc’s new president, Parker Johnston, elected in a byelection on October 15, made renegotiating EngSoc’s deal with the UTSU the number one point of his platform.

Along with the lack of BOD representation, Johnston, who has sat on the EngSoc Board since 2020, says the UTSU has been “constantly delaying” the transfer of fees it collects from engineering students.

In response to Johnston’s claims about delayed fees, UTSU Vice President, Public and University Affairs Aidan Thompson wrote in an email to The Varsity that the UTSU has independently verified that it has sent EngSoc all fees owed to the society for “as long as [the UTSU holds] records.”

Johnston said that he wants to ensure that

engineering students derive benefit from the fees they pay to the UTSU — something that he thinks is lacking. In its report, the EngSoc suggested it might want to negotiate greater compensation from the UTSU if an investigative survey reveals that FASE students underutilize the UTSU’s services. The EngSoc voted to run such a survey at its September board meeting.

Johnston said he also wants to ensure the engineers are more properly represented in the UTSU, remarking that restoring the UTSU BOD of seats reserved for engineers would be one possible solution.

In an interview with The Varsity, Johnston said, “Obviously, I’ll wait until the results of the survey come out. But from my interaction with students, and what I’ve seen, engineers don’t get a whole lot out of the UTSU.” He emphasized how much value he and other engineering students get out of the EngSoc’s affiliated clubs, its academic advocacy program, and its independently-run orientation.

UTSU’s response In an email to The Varsity, Thompson emphasized that, currently, students in engineering have the same representation as any other students on campus.

Thompson wrote that the UTSU is always open to further collaboration with the EngSoc and actively encourages participation from engineering students, adding that he doesn’t view the issues brought up in the report as grievances in the relationship between the EngSoc and the UTSU, just “points of misunderstanding.” He added that he and Johnston will meet soon to discuss the EngSoc’s complaints.

With files from Jessie Schwalb.

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CORRECTIONS: A News article published in Issue 6 entitled “U of T Israeli and Palestinian students process the violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip” stated that Mohammad Rasoul Kailani is Palestinian. Kailani is Jordanian and is of Palestinian descent. Updates to the article were also made to clarify that the Simchat Torah is a celebratory holiday that marks the completion of the yearly reading of the Torah, which is known to Christians as the Old Testament.

A News article published in Issue 6 originally entitled “University waives tuition fees for students from nine First Nations communities” had wording changed, including in the headline, to reflect that the university is covering students’ tuition and not waiving it.

A News article published in Issue 6 entitled “Parts of Chestnut and New College dining halls adopt controversial pay-by-weight system” incorrectly stated that salad bars in the New College and Chestnut Residence dining halls began using the pay-by-weight system in September 2023. In fact, these salad bars have been using the pay-by-weight system since September 2022.

A News article published in issue 6 entitled “Canada-India diplomatic relations cast shadow over Indian students at U of T” originally stated that the Indian government killed thousands of people during

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OCTOBER 23, 2023

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Politician, real estate executive Ana Bailão joins U of T’s School of Cities, prompting backlash Bailão currently head of affordable housing for a real estate company facing rent strikes Maeve Ellis Assistant News Editor

On September 28, the School of Cities, a U of T research hub focused on urban studies, appointed Ana Bailão as a Canadian Urban Leader focusing on housing. Her duties in the School during her one-year term will include conducting research, leading events, and sitting on its External Advisory Board.

Following the decision, the hub has faced controversy from tenant rights activists and researchers.

Bailão was a Toronto city councillor for 12 years and deputy mayor of the City for five years, during which critics say her voting record did not go far enough in supporting housing affordability.

From January to March this year and again from September to the present, Bailão has been​​ Head of Affordable Housing and Public Affairs for Dream Unlimited, a real estate consultant agency based in Toronto. The company is facing a rent strike of over 200 tenants that started in June about rent increases above standard provincial guidelines.

Controversy has also played out online around her appointment; in response to the School of Cities announcing Bailão’s appointment on X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — 45 users had left comments, all of which — as of October 22 — were negative.

In contrast, the School of Cities’ X posts announcing the appointment of the other three current Canadian Urban Leaders — Mayor of Yellowknife Rebecca Alty, former Toronto City Manager Chris Murray, and former Mayor of Edmonton Don Iveson — had not received any negative comments as of October 22.

City Council voting record In an interview with The Varsity, Jeffrey Ansloos, an affiliate faculty member of the School of Cities and associate professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, said the think tank appointing someone with Bailão’s history shows it’s headed in the wrong direction.

“I thought it was very disturbing that somebody with a vested interest in private housing development would be setting an agenda for a housing research community,” he said.

“My question for the School of Cities is: what actual solutions for housing that address the most precarious and marginalized people in our city does Ana Bailão’s record speak to?” he added.

In 2022, Bailão voted against rent control measures on housing that the City partially funded.

As the City Council’s housing chair, she failed to gain enough votes to legalize rooming houses — a generally affordable housing option where landlords rent individual rooms that share facilities like washrooms or kitchens — in what she called her biggest regret during her time as chair. According to Ansloos, her time in office showed “a pattern of voting against affordable housing.”

In a statement to The Varsity, a School of Cities spokesperson said the think tank selects Canadian Urban Leaders based on government service, experience managing a portfolio with an urban focus, an ability to promote the School of Cities’ work, and “a proposed project for their term which aligns with the School of Cities’ objectives.”

Bailão has also taken some action on affordable housing. In her first term as city councillor in 2012, she convinced the mayor to retract a plan to sell off 600 units of social housing. More recently, in 2022, she spearheaded policies to relax zoning bylaws to allow laneway homes and garden suites and

JESSICA LAM

promoted student housing in her recent mayoral campaign, including at a debate that the School of Cities hosted in June.

Dream Unlimited employment In an interview with The Varsity, Bruno Dobrusin — an organizer at York South-Weston Tenant Union, which includes residents of two buildings on a rent strike against Dream Unlimited — said the School of Cities appointing Bailão is equivalent to having an oil executive direct climate change research.

“You’re aligning yourself with… a representative of a developer that is filing to evict hundreds of tenants. We’re in a housing crisis. How can you take the advice and the research of a person who is actually part of a mass eviction process?” he said.

Residents taking part in the rent strike on 33 King Street and 22 John Street properties are on their fifth month of not paying rent, while Dream Unlimited has threatened to evict them.

In a public statement, Dream Unlimited wrote, “We are concerned that the tenants are getting bad advice as they are responsible to pay rent, and will need to pay rent, to stay in the buildings.”

The statement read that the above-guideline rent increases at 33 King Street were put in place by a previous owner, and so Dream Unlimited should not be held to account for them. It added 22 John Street was built after 2018, so government rent control does not apply, since provincial legislation from 2018 struck down rent control for apartments built or occupied after November 15 of that year.

Overall, Dubrosin believes that solutions for affordable housing issues come down to leadership, especially at institutes like the School of Cities. “We cannot get the people that created [the housing] crisis to be the ones to fix it,” he said. “It’s only going to make it worse.”

Ana Bailão and Dream Unlimited did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

The Breakdown: How to survive midterms U of T resources and tips to aid you this midterm season Sakshi Kale Varsity Contributor

As midterm season creeps our way, students may wonder about what U of T academic resources are available. Finding such resources can be a rather challenging task, especially for first-year students. To help students navigate midterms, The Varsity has consolidated U of T resources for midterms, plus tips from upper-year students.

U of T resources The university provides many ways students can seek help ahead of midterms.

The Academic Success Department provides resources including multi-part workshops — such as “Learning Labs,” “Learning Well in First Year,” and “Learning Well in Second Year” — that can help you learn new study strategies and mend them to fit your learning style and needs. The department also provides study hubs: scheduled times for you to study in a group.

Through the department, you can also schedule one-on-one appointments with learning strategists. The department plans to create a tutor directory soon to help connect you with other U of T students who excel in a particular subject.

Facilitated Study Groups (FSGs) — sessions organized by the university on all campuses — allow students to interact with upperclassmen who have excelled in the particular courses. FSGs can be “really helpful in clarifying concepts because it is run by past students,” wrote Magdalene Abebe, a third-year student studying neuroscience and biochemistry, in an email to The Varsity.

However, if group work isn’t the most productive for you, all professors and teaching assistants have office hours for one-on-one help. In an email to The Varsity, Pranami Harsora, a third-year student majoring in molecular biology, immunology

and diseases with minors in political science and psychology, urged students to “go to office hours as often as possible” as professors can advise them on the most effective ways to study for their class.

Tips & tricks In addition, Harsora and Abebe had different study methods which demonstrates how a student may adjust their study methods to enhance their personal learning.

TIMOTHY LAW

U of T also offers past papers for most courses online on the U of T Old Repository Exams. Abebe wrote that the repository allows students to “get a feel of what a university exam is like before [you take] your own.”

Firstly, Abebe uses active recall, which includes testing oneself and using knowledge instead of digesting information again. Active recall can include using flashcards and explaining content to others out loud. In a

widely cited article published in 2011 in the journal Science, Purdue University Professor Jeffrey Karpicke and Anderson University Assistant Professor Janell Blunt note that activities where teachers require students to retrieve knowledge produce more learning than “elaborative” studying, in which students focus on relearning knowledge by digesting information.

Furthermore, Harsora uses the Pomodoro technique, a system in which one works for 25-minute sessions with five-minute breaks after the first three stretches and longer breaks after the fourth session.

In a 2023 study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology, Felicitas Biwer and colleagues randomly assigned students to choose when they wanted to take a break, use the Pomodoro technique, or take a three-minute break after each 12-minute study session. They found that, although the amount of work students completed didn’t differ significantly between the tested groups, students who used the Pomodoro technique or breaks every 12 minutes reported less fatigue and distraction and better concentration and motivation compared to the students who decided for themselves when they took breaks.

Also, Harsora noted that it’s important to have a dedicated quiet study space. On a university campus, it may not always be easy to find a “quiet” room, so they suggested investing in a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Still, Abebe finds working in spaces with other students useful because “it’s encouraging to see those around you working hard.”

Harsora wrote that having someone to study with also helps keep you accountable.

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Spotlight: Notisha Massaquoi on Scarborough health disparities, $250,000 research award Advancing research on the impacts of anti-Black racism in healthcare James Bullanoff UTSC Bureau Chief

For 30 years, Notisha Massaquoi — an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Society at UTSC — has researched the impacts of anti-Black racism on Black Canadians’ healthcare. In March, U of T’s Black Research Network — an U of T initiative launched in 2021 that aims to promote the visibility and success of Black researchers from various disciplines — awarded her the Connaught Major Research Challenge for Black Researchers, providing her $250,000 for her research.

The Varsity spoke with Massaquoi about her research and what the Connaught award means for the future of her workfield.

The Varsity: How did you end up focusing on this field of study?

Notisha Massaquoi: Prior to U of T, I spent 30 years in the healthcare system. Twenty-two of those years were at Women’s Health In Women’s Hands Community Health Centre [a Torontobased centre serving women of colour]. I became interested because I was seeing huge health disparities for Black community members.

The differences in health shouldn’t be so great when you live in a country with universal health care. It forced me to start thinking about why we were seeing such great health differences and why our health system was not responding appropriately to provide resources for Black communities.

TV: You were the executive director of Women’s Health In Women’s Hands. How has that shaped your research into primary health care access?

What was your experience like working there?

NM: It absolutely shaped my research. You’re providing health services for a specific population, and you’re seeing members of this population show up every day with the same health conditions and no research to tell you why.

We decided to start conducting our own research at the centre because we couldn’t find researchers who were interested in this population.

We got our friends and colleagues to work with us and teach us how to do community-based research, then we developed our own research

program.

TV: What are some of the disparities felt in Scarborough? Have they gotten better or worse over time?

NM: When I came to UTSC three years ago, I saw that Scarborough has one of the largest Black populations in Canada [according to the 2016 census]. I know there are limited services here that are specific to Black and racialized communities. I founded the Black Health Equity Lab, a research lab at UTSC whose purpose is to look at health disparities, particularly in local communities, as well as health solutions and programs that we can put in place.

Unfortunately, [health disparities are] not getting better. The Black community in Scarborough has one of the highest rates of HIV [among] bBlack women in particular. One of the first projects I’'ve developed is an HIV program to provide service to Black people who are newly diagnosed with HIV in Scarborough.

If you test HIV positive, you have to travel downtown for an HIV specialist. We asked ourselves, what if we could have that service in Scarborough, where people are close to home, and could receive quality care that is culturally and racially appropriate?

The immigrant refugee populations, particularly Black and South Asian immigrants and refugees, have the highest rates of diabetes and, stressrelated illnesses like hypertension and heart disease, andas well as high rates of mental health issues, particularly depression and anxiety. These things show up in Scarborough, but we have limited resources that are specific to serve those populations.

TV: How has your research impacted students?

What are their contributions to your work?

NM: I want students, particularly racialized students, to understand that they shouldn’'t be immobilized by a system that is not set out to support them. The academic system is not the greatest when it comes to the support of racialized students.

Most of the students who enter the lab have zero research experience. I don’'t look at transcripts, I don’'t know what their marks are. I do know that they’'re really committed and excited.

Professor Notisha Massaquoi researches anti-Black racism’s impacts on health care.

COURTESY OF NOTISHA MASSAQUOI

They want to be a part of doing research. It’'s not easy work, but you try to remove all the barriers that kept Black and racialized students out of research opportunities at an academic level.

The other thing is providing them with a community of support. If you’'re learning alongside peers who are also really committed to the populations we serve, you’'re going to be more successful. They can actually take part in changing their personal, family, and community circumstances. It’s really empowering.

TV: You have been given a $250,000 award to advance your research. What does the Connaught award mean to you, and how will it contribute to your further research endeavours?

NM: To receive it very early in my career was very exciting, scary, and overwhelming. It really allows me to create a bigger community of Black researchers and community members who are all dedicated and trying to figure out how we can

best develop a research agenda and research program to change the health disparities that Black communities are experiencing.

The grant allows me to bring together some of the best minds at U of T, researchers who are interested in Black health equity from different departments across the university. We have 15 researchers that I will be bringing together to collaborate on a series of research studies.

The Connaught lets us put infrastructure in place to support our research. It allows us to create a community advisory committee, interview members of the Black community, and bring together community leaders of Black organizations. We’'re not just doing research in a vacuum.

We’'re doing it in partnership with people who already have expertise in the Black community.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Students raise funds in response to earthquakes in Afghanistan U of T releases statement of solidarity following three magnitude 6.3 earthquakes Selia Sanchez Deputy News Editor

Content warning: This article discusses death.

Since October 7, three earthquakes have struck western Afghanistan. Following the earthquakes, U of T’s Afghan Students’ Association (ASA) hosted a fundraiser to support those affected by the natural disasters.

The university has also released a statement

of solidarity, expressing its sympathy and highlighting the resources available to U of T community members affected by the earthquakes.

The natural disasters On October 7, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Zinda Jan, a district in the Herat province of Afghanistan. Three days later, a second earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 struck the same province again. On October 15, another magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck near the city of Herat.

The Afghanistan Students’ Association held a bake sale outside of Robarts to support kids in Afghanistan.

COURTESY OF HENNA ASGHARIE AND SAMANA NAIMI

Herat, one of the largest cities in Afghanistan, has a population of more than 500,000 people.

According to the British Red Cross, an estimated 1.8 million people were in areas that experienced “high intensity impact” as a result of the earthquakes.

As of October 16, approximately 2,445 people have died, and 9,420 people have been injured within the Zinda Jan region. The Red Cross expects the death toll to rise as Red Cross teams continue to conduct rescue efforts across the Herat province.

In an email to The Varsity, spokesperson for the Afghan Students' Association (ASA) wrote that many issues in Afghanistan do not receive enough attention. “Tragically, such calamities in Afghanistan too often become normalized, their realities glossed over. We need to change this narrative,” they wrote.

Fundraising efforts On October 17, U of T’s ASA held a bake sale in front of Robarts Library where they sold chai, traditional Afghan pastries, and other baked goods. The ASA donated the $1,756 of bake sale proceeds to Children without Borders — a non-profit organization that aims to reduce child labour in Afghanistan.

The ASA spokesperson wrote, “We, and the community at University of Toronto, have a direct role to play in supporting those suffering from the devastating aftermath of recent earthquakes.”

They wrote that many members of U of T didn’t

seem to know about the earthquakes and noted the importance of spreading awareness.

On October 24, Girl Up UofT — the university’s branch of a worldwide leadership and fundraising initiative run by the United Nations (UN) — plans to host a cookie decorating social in the Victoria College Cat’s Eye from 5:00–7:30 pm. It will donate proceeds to earthquake relief efforts by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Solidarity statements On October 10, Joseph Wong — U of T’s vicepresident, international — released a statement to the university community. He wrote, “On behalf of the U of T community, I wish to extend deepest sympathies to all those affected by the destructive earthquakes in Afghanistan.”

The administration has directly contacted students from the region and any faculty, staff, or librarians with connections to the country. The statement confirmed that no students are currently registered as being in the country, and the university is not unaware of faculty or staff currently in the affected region.

In an email to The Varsity, Wong wrote that the university will continue to monitor the situation in Afghanistan. Over 60 current U of T community members are citizens of Afghanistan or hold dual citizenship. Wong wrote, “we know that others [in the community] have personal and professional ties to the country [as well].”

With files from Jessie Schwalb.

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OCTOBER 23, 2023

5

Thousands protest, demanding Ontario government stop mining on First Nations’ lands More than 6,000 protesters call for end to “free entry” mining system Muzna Erum Associate News Editor

Over 6,000 people protested against the Ontario government’s policies allowing companies to mine on some First Nations’ traditional lands as part of the March for the Land, which took place in Toronto on September 27.

The First Nations Land Defence Alliance — a group that includes members of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation, Wapekeka First Nation, Neskantaga First Nation, Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, and Muskrat Dam First Nation, created to fight against government intrusion on their land — organized the protest. The 1906 Treaty 9 allocates these First Nations over 60,000 square feet of land, but resource extraction companies have tried to mine on these lands.

The protesters criticized Premier Doug Ford’s “free entry” mining system, which allows companies to apply to mine on land in Ontario — including on the land of some First Nations — without ever traveling there physically. The Land Defence Alliance has argued that the system makes it easier for mining companies to make claims on their territories for mineral exploration without their consent.

Many U of T students attended the protest, and over 30 organizations, including Climate Justice UofT, the Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation, and Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction, supported the protest.

The protest The march started at noon in Grange Park, where protesters gathered for speeches.

Stanley Anderson — the deputy chief of Wapekeka First Nation — called on the government to stop mining on Wapekeka land. “We want to enjoy the land that was given to us,” Anderson said. “We continue what was given to us, what the Creator gave us, and the purpose.”

Treaty 9 is an agreement signed by representatives from some Cree and Anishinaabe communities and the government in 1906, about territory covering about two-thirds of Ontario’s land mass. The Treaty, as it was written, allowed the Crown to take control of the land for purposes such as mining, trade, and traveling. The treaty also acknowledged the rights of Indigenous peoples on the land to continue pursuing traditional ways of hunting, fishing, and trapping subject to federal laws. However, it allowed the colonial government to regulate and bar Indigenous peoples’ use of land settlers wanted for economic activity.

The Narwhal has reported that Treaty 9’s full terms were not translated to Cree or Anishinaabemowin, and government officials did not accurately record in writing what they decided on in oral agreements with Indigenous leaders.

In April 2023, leaders and chiefs from Treaty 9 territory announced that they had launched a lawsuit to “fundamentally change the way resource and land management decisions are made in the region.” This lawsuit responded to Premier Doug Ford’s proposed “critical minerals” strategy, which plans to mine in the “Ring of Fire” — an area with deposits of minerals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium, located on lands granted to First Nations in Treaty 9. The premier’s goal was to increase the supply of these minerals, which go into technologies such as smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles.

Many speakers at the protest expressed their anger with the Ford government, demanding that no development activities occur on land granted to them in Treaty 9 without freely-given and informed prior consent.

According to an article from CP24, several leaders from First Nations with land in the Ring of Fire demanded to meet with Ford about the mining activities on their land before the protest,

The protest culminated in Queen’s Park, in front of the Ontario Legislative building.

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but he refused the request. Greg Rickford, the Minister of Indigenous Affairs of Ontario, offered to meet instead.

In a speech at the protest, Sam Mckay — a councillor for KI — addressed Ford: “If you want to talk to us, you come and talk to us.”

In response to an email from The Varsity asking whether Ford or the Ontario government have met with the First Nations’ leaders to discuss their concerns about mining, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Mines wrote that “Ontario is building relationships with Indigenous partners that revolve around fairness and respect.” In addition, the spokesperson noted that the government follows their constitutional duty to consult

with First Nations.

After the speeches, the protesters began marching; some sang or played drums, while others yelled chants such as “The people united will never be defeated” and “stand up, fight back.” Around 3:00 pm, the protesters arrived at the south side of Queens Park, in front of Ontario's Legislative Building. Protesters performed a drumming ceremony, sang, and heard speeches.

As of October 19, the Ontario government has not publicly announced a meeting between the five First Nations’ leaders and Ford.

The free entry system Protesters also criticized Ontario’s free entry

Protesters called for the Ontario government to stop allowing companies to claim land granted to First Nations in Treaty 9.

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mining system.

According to the report “Mining in Ontario: A Deeper Look”, the “free entry system” is a part of Ontario’s Mining Act that allows companies to “stake a claim” to conduct resource extraction on any area of “open crown land” — including privately-owned and traditional Indigenous lands — if the companies see a significant potential in minerals. A company’s claim gives them the exclusive right to investigate the land for potential mining opportunities and then use it for mining operations.

In 2009, the Ontario provincial government made changes to its Mining Act in an effort to modernize the amendment to follow section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, which affirms Indigenous peoples’ rights to occupy and use the land and resources and the government’s duty to consult and accommodate Indigenous peoples.

However, a 2020 paper by Martin-Joe Ezeudu — an assistant professor at Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University who previously worked at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General — argues that the act is still unconstitutional, because the free entry mining system still allows companies to stake a claim without consulting Indigenous people.

Student involvement U of T students, labour unions, and other groups attended the march. In a speech, March for the Land organizers thanked Climate Justice UofT for being one of the organizations that provided support for the march.

In an email to The Varsity, Amy Mann, a third-year student studying health studies and math and co-coordinator for Climate Justice UofT, noted that the climate crisis disproportionately impacts Indigenous communities. She wrote that students must show up in solidarity and follow Indigenous peoples’ lead in fighting for climate justice and decolonization.

Amanda Meng and Ave Thomson, two second-year students both studying peace, conflict, and justice studies, also shared similar sentiments. Meng — who is also studying environmental studies and environmental science — told The Varsity that she hoped the protest showed how settlers need to help Indigenous peoples protect their rights.

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The breakdown: Enrolling in courses for Faculty of Arts and Science students

Resources and tools to help students enrol in courses Eshnika Singh Varsity Contributor

Between dealing with their breadth requirements, programs of study, and waitlists, students might find choosing courses confusing or stressful. Course decisions can also impact tuition fees, extracurricular opportunities, and work-study eligibility.

With November 6 — the last day to drop fall courses — fast approaching and enrolment for winter courses continuing, The Varsity broke down how to navigate the course enrollment process with explanations and useful resources.

The basics Before picking courses, it helps to understand U of T’s credit system, programs, and requirements.

U of T uses credits to quantify the number of courses students take and pass during a semester.

Fall (F) and winter (S) courses count for 0.5 credits each, while full-year (Y) courses are worth 1.0 credit. U of T recommends that full-time students in good standing — those who have a cumulative GPA of 1.50 or higher — take 2.5 credits each semester in fall and winter, but students can take up to 3.0 credits.

At U of T, your program refers to the set of courses you take in a subject area and determines the type of degree you receive. The Faculty of Arts & Science (A&S) offers over 340 programs for students to pick from. The Sidney Smith Commons Program Toolkit, The Varsity’s explainer on the topic, and the university’s Academic Calendar give a ton of insight into potential programs and the program enrollment process.

Breadth Requirements push students to explore

fields beyond their program. To graduate, the Faculty of A&S requires students to take at least 1.0 credit per category in four out of the five categories or 1.0 credit in each of three out of the five categories plus 0.5 credits in each of the two remaining categories.

Tips for picking courses and enrolling Programs that are not “open enrollment” require you to take certain courses to enrol, which U of T lists in the Academic Calendar. The university’s Degree Explorer lets you see your programs’ requirements, track your progress, and visualize how future courses could fulfill your graduation requirements. Timetable Builder is a tool that allows students to see how courses would fit their schedule.

It also has information about each course, including the professor teaching the course, descriptions of the course material, and the course’s breadth requirements.

To get an idea of a course’s workload and structure and see what students thought about a course, you can view each course’s past student evaluations on Quercus under the “For Students” tab in the Course Evals section.

Enrolment occurs through the student information portal ACORN during the enrolment period, which starts during the summer for fall and winter courses. Enrolment dates vary based on a person’s year of study and program: students enrolled in a program through a department receive the first chance to enroll in courses from that department.

Then, enrollment proceeds based on the number of credits a student has, where students with more credits can enroll first. The specific enrollment dates for each year can be found on the Faculty of A&S’s course enrolment page.

Waitlisting and dropping courses

Students enrolling in courses must consider a number of factors, including their breadth requirements, programs of study, and waitlists.

KELLSY ANN MENESES/THEVARSITY

During the enrolment period, students also have the option of adding, dropping, or waitlisting in classes through ACORN. Once a class is full, students wishing to join a class can add themselves to the waitlist. If someone enrolled in the class drops the course, ACORN automatically adds the next student from the waitlist to the class.

Students can be on the waitlist for up to 2.0 credits each semester, but these credits count towards the total number of courses they can sign up for. The various academic units — which include departments, centres, and colleges that provide classes — and the registrar’s office for your college can offer you support throughout the enrolment process.

An important point is that waitlists close a few days before the last day to add courses. This year, waitlists for winter semester courses close on January 16, while enrolment ends on January 21. Between these dates, students can add themselves to any course they want if a spot becomes available until the last day to enrol.

If a UTSG student needs to take a Faculty of A&S course to graduate and has tried all possible other options that would allow them to finish their program(s), they can use the “dean’s promise.” To do so, they can contact the academic unit offering the course if they need it for their program — or their college registrar if they need the course for a different degree requirement — and the faculty will allow them to enroll in the course.

Beyond academics Credits and course load also determine tuition, job opportunities, and what extracurriculars are available to you.

During the fall and winter term, the university automatically charges students a flat program fee for

all their courses. However, students taking fewer than 4.0 credits combined in the fall and winter semesters — which the university labels a “Program Fee course load” — can request that the university charge them by course. In the 2020–2021 school year, U of T charged $610 per credit for undergraduate domestic students in the Faculty of A&S and at UTM or UTSC — one-tenth of the program fees for that year.

To get a full refund for a fall or year-long course, a student must drop the course between September 8 and 21, and students wanting a full refund for a winter course must drop it between January 9 and 22. If you were originally enrolled in more than 3.5 credits worth of courses, dropped some of those courses, and no longer qualify for a Program Fee course load, U of T charges you a $57 “system access fee.” If you drop below a Program Fee course load after the first day of fall term, U of T will charge you a minimum fee of $368.00, and may charge you more if you drop later in the semester.

During the summer, students are automatically charged based on the number of courses they take.

Enrolling in certain programs allows students to join program-orientated clubs and course unions.

The university also offers a work-study program, but requires students to be enrolled in at least 2.0 credits combined between the fall and winter terms or 0.5 credits in the Summer term to receive a work-study position.

For international students, their course load is closely tied to their visa and study permit conditions. The Centre for International Experience provides more information and immigration advice for students both over the phone or through email.

UTSU discusses meal plan, divestment advocacy at October Board of Directors meeting Board receives updates on proposed Advocacy Group Advisory Committee

Devin Botar Varsity Contributor

On October 15, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) held its October Board of Directors (BOD) meeting. Updates on and plans for the union’s activism in areas like meal plan affordability and divestment from fossil fuels dominated the meeting. Executive members also discussed their fundraising in response to natural disasters in Morocco and Libya.

The union also discussed plans for its Annual General Meeting (AGM), which will take place on October 29 at 4:00 pm online. All UTSU members — which includes full-time UTSG undergraduate students, Toronto School of Theology students, and Transitional Year Program students — can attend the AGM to hear reports from the UTSU executives and vote on bylaw amendments. Students who wish to attend must be registered by October 22.

Food Insecurity Report UTSU Vice President of University Affairs Aidan Thompson shared that the UTSU has released its Food Insecurity Report. The report included information from a 2021 survey of 6,167 postsecondary students at 13 campuses across Canada, including UTM, in which 56.8 per cent of the students surveyed reported severe or moderate food insecurity.

The UTSU’s report highlights how the financial and time constraints students face lead many to skip meals or rely on low-cost but less nutritious food. Commuter students face multiple barriers to getting good meals, such as contending with greater transportation costs and often working part-time jobs.

Many students living in residence also experience food issues. The report argues that the pay-

by-weight (PBW) system, which the Chestnut and New College dining halls expanded at the beginning of the fall 2023 term, places financial strain on students and makes budgeting more challenging.

reduce prices. As of October 19, the petition has 466 signatures.

Thompson said he’ll be looking for ways the UTSU can promote the petition.

JESSICA LAM AND JADINE NGAN

A spokesperson for Food Services — which operates the two dining halls — wrote in a previous email to The Varsity that the PBW system increases students’ choices. However, students at the New College and Chestnut dining halls told The Varsity that they reduced their portion sizes and skipped meals because of the dining halls’ high prices.

Mike Lawler, a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Geography, served as a don at Chestnut Residence and helped consult on the report. On October 5, Lawler started a petition calling on Food Services to eliminate the PBW model from Chestnut and New College dining halls and

The Advocacy Group Advisory Committee Vice President of Operations Samir Mechel gave an update on the planned structure of a proposed UTSU institution called the Advocacy Group Advisory Committee — previously called the Student Advocacy Roundtable.

The UTSU proposed the committee to replace the UTSU Student Senate. The UTSU changed its bylaws last year to involve the creation of the senate, which was meant to add student representation after the UTSU cut seats from the BOD. The executive plans to introduce a motion at the AGM next week to remove its obligation to create the

Senate from the UTSU bylaws. Notably, the Senate has never actually existed — the UTSU decided it would attempt to scrap the Senate before holding any elections for it.

According to a preliminary plan for the committee, the UTSU would charge the committee with advising the union “on advocacy and equity-related concerns on campus.” It will be composed of representatives from campus groups, provided that “their values do not conflict with the UTSU’s values of equity and inclusion.” However, the precise structure and composition of the committee remains in the planning stages.

Quicker divestment at Trinity, and beyond Thompson also relayed that he went to a session of the Trinity College Meeting — a student direct democracy that votes on matters related to Trinity College — and made a motion calling on the college to divest from fossil fuels by 2025, five years sooner than their current target. Students passed the motion.

According to Thompson, the UTSU is in talks with student governance bodies for the other federated colleges — University of St. Michael’s College and Victoria College — to arrange for more resolutions of that kind.

Bake Sale for North Africa Charitable Indulgences — a U of T club that fundraises for communities in and outside of Canada by selling treat boxes — held a bake sale on September 25 to raise funds for aid efforts in Morocco and Libya in light of natural disasters that occurred in the two countries. With the help of equipment provided by the UTSU, the group raised $1,800, which it donated to Islamic Relief Canada — an organization that provides aid to address emergencies and poverty. The UTSU matched that amount, donating an additional $1,800.

Business & Labour Toronto emerges as an AI hub aiming to compete with Silicon Valley U of T research is fueling AI sector growth, but investment and regulatory challenges remain Nina Uzunović Associate Business & Labour Editor

In recent years, Toronto has established itself as an emerging artificial intelligence (AI) cluster — a region concentrated with companies, organizations, and institutions focused on the AI field that feed off of each other’s success.

Many people in the industry might still believe that Silicon Valley is the main destination for tech companies. But the AI revolution has made Toronto more and more attractive as a place to launch an AI-focused startup. Toronto’s attractiveness as a destination for AI is perhaps the result of U of T’s Department of Computer Science Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton’s groundbreaking work in AI development, which earned him the title within the industry as the ‘godfather of AI.’ In a 2023 tech talent scorecard ranking from the investment group Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE), Toronto ranks fifth, following Bay Area, Seattle, New York Metro, and Washington, D.C. Using 13 metrics, the scorecard seeks to “measure each market’s depth, vitality and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment.”

However, CBRE also reports that Toronto trails just behind the Bay Area in tech-sector job growth. It has the third-largest tech workforce, and is the second fastest-growing space for North American tech talent, having added 63,800 jobs between 2017 and 2022.

Jordan Jacobs, managing partner and cofounder of Radical Ventures, an AI-focused, Toronto-born venture fund, told Bloomberg that Toronto’s startup scene has seen a total reversal in the last decade. “Ten years ago, people couldn’t wait to get out of Toronto,” he said.

Today, notable companies such as Samsung, Google, Nvidia, LG Electronics, Roche, and Johnson & Johnson have all set up AI research and development laboratories in Toronto.

U of T as a driving force of AI growth in Toronto The 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities has ranked U of T 15th in the world for computer science & engineering. In the past, graduates have tended to migrate south to Silicon Valley, but now, the flow of graduates from the university also has the potential to supply Toronto’s AI startup scene with outstanding talent.

For example, U of T startups Waabi and Cohere both placed on the 2023 Forbes 50 AI list, which recognizes privately-owned North American companies making the “most interesting and effective use of artificial technology.” Waabi focuses on self-driving technology for usage in long-haul trucking, while generative AI

startup Cohere focuses on helping companies integrate natural language processing.

Jai Mansukhani and Alexis Tassone, copresidents of UofT AI, a UTSG club that hosts an annual AI conference and aims to help undergraduate students break into the AI industry, both have seen a huge increase in the number of AI-related opportunities at U of T. For example, the Toronto-based Vector Institute is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to AI research and was founded in 2017 by U of T Professor Brendan Frey. “The Vector Institute provides great opportunities, great research opportunities, internship opportunities for students, and kind of sets them on the path to having a full-time job lined up [in Toronto] after graduation,” said Tassone.

“Many of the core technologies underlying the recent advances in AI were developed here. The university has trained thousands of students to build, use, and apply AI tools. While today there are many important players in Toronto’s AI ecosystem, the initial boost largely came from U of T,” wrote Professor Avi Goldfarb, the Rotman chair in artificial intelligence and healthcare, in an email to The Varsity.

Hayoung (Gloria) Son, a third-year UTSG student majoring in ethics, society and law with double minors in history and philosophy of science and technology as well as in science, technology and society, finds that U of T’s current strength is that it isn’t limiting the study of AI to only the computer science department.

Son told The Varsity in an email that she became interested in the ethics of AI while studying at U of T. She noted the importance of studying AI within disciplines such as law, ethics, and public policy.

She also pointed out that U of T researchers are working with UNICEF to see how AI can work towards non-profit humanitarian goals. “[U of T is] essentially serving as a trailblazer in this endeavour,” wrote Son. U of T is also currently building the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre, which it says will house the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society — the U of T research centre dedicated to exploring the social implications of emerging technologies such as AI.

October 23, 2023 varsity.ca/category/business biz@thevarsity.ca

stayed in Canada as the VC ecosystem has shown signs of improvement. As of 2023, a Deloitte report ranked Canada third in per capita VC investment in AI among the G7 countries. The US takes the top spot, followed by the UK. Mansukhani founded his own AI startup, Ace It, which works directly with schools and educators to use AI to quickly generate classroom content. Recalling his search for financing, Mansukhani emphasizes a sizable difference in US and Canadian investors’ appetite for risk, believing that investors in San Francisco are willing to take on greater risk in their search for returns.

“I’ve seen these articles where people have just met investors in a coffee shop. That is not happening in Toronto. So it’s a much more formal process,” said Mansukhani in an interview with The Varsity.

Rotman Professor Joshua Gans, the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Chief Economist at the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), warns against focusing too much on the current landscape. “While the venture capital ecosystem in Toronto may not be as developed as in Silicon Valley, it’s important to remember that VC isn’t the only factor for success,” he wrote in an email to The Varsity.

Gans emphasized that Canada, and by extension Toronto, is working to grow its investment environment by establishing “startup-friendly policies and providing mentorship and support programs for entrepreneurs.”

He noted that the federal government has already taken steps to do this through certain immigration programs that specifically target AI talent. He also added that mentorship opportunities are provided by the CDL, a seed-stage funding program established at Rotman. Professor Ajay Agrawal founded the CDL in 2012, and Gans claims that it’s “[bringing the] best Silicon Valley VCs to Toronto to invest in startups in the program.”

Between 2021 and 2022, Ontario saw $2.86 billion in VC investment into AI — a 206 per cent increase from the previous year — demonstrating a sizable growth in AI financing.

But investment isn’t the only barrier to Toronto’s growth as an AI hub, “I feel like there’s always this part of me like, what if I was in San Fran? What would the key difference be inside of my company? I feel like Toronto hasn’t really encompassed the hustle mentality yet,” said Mansukhani.

Regulatory challenges Regulation concerns have also become a contested topic among those in the industry, with the European Union’s AI Act formed in June as the world’s first comprehensive AI law. Canada currently has no AI regulatory framework.

Avi Goldfarb, the Rotman chair in artificial intelligence and healthcare and a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management, implores against stifling technological advancements through excessive regulation but still highlights the importance of regulation in the growth of the AI industry and its role in consumer protection — advocating for a balance between the two viewpoints.

“If regulation is too loose, consumers may not trust its application. A robust competitive business environment is key to this growth,” wrote Goldfarb in an email to The Varsity. “We need to ensure that regulations aren’t focused on slowing us down and instead ensure robust competition.”

Gans agrees. “AI regulation should keep pace with the industry’s growth, but it’s crucial to strike the right balance,” he wrote. “Having appropriate regulations is important for consumer protection and ethical use of AI, but excessive regulation can hinder innovation and stifle technological advancements. But AI regulation is really a national issue and not a city by city issue.”

Growing pains A big question is whether Toronto will be able to compete with Silicon Valley’s heavily developed venture capital (VC) ecosystem — the financing that startups rely on to turn their dreams into reality.

In 2014, Atomwise was a Toronto-based startup and one of the first to apply AI to drug discovery. However, it moved to Silicon Valley to raise capital. Since then, startups such as Toronto-based Deep Genomics and Ottawa-based Shopify have

The Bahen Centre for Information Technology on U of T’s St. George campus.

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Comment

October 23, 2023 thevarsity.ca/category/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Banning Canadian visas isn’t the solution The Indian government’s decision to suspend Canadian visas holds little significance but much showmanship Nidhil Vohra Comment Columnist

It has been a month since the Indian government indefinitely suspended visas for Canadian travellers due to the allegations Justin Trudeau levelled against Indian intelligence forces and their involvement in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. For Indians, the Indian government has just stood up to Goliath’s tyranny. After years of being ‘big brothered’ by the West on the global stage regarding economic and sociopolitical development, India is now punching back, and media houses in India are explicitly critical of the Canadian allegations.

However, I do not see the Indian government’s move as a question of courage or cowardice. In my view, the suspension of visas was not an example of the Indian government’s ‘bravery,’ but rather a reflection of the decision process I see in the Indian government’s policymaking — make it loud, make it melodramatic, make it patriotic, and make it alienating. Make it all of the above while failing to make any meaningful change possible.

India stands to lose very little from suspending Canadian visas. The Indian economy isn’t heavily reliant on tourism from Canada, and neither is the workforce in need of Canadian immigrants.

However, the people who will inevitably end up suffering are Canadians with familial or professional ties to India, a number that currently stands in the millions. An NPR article highlighted the plight of those directly impacted by the visa ban through interviews with people in Canada. Most of the people affected are Canadian citizens of Indian descent who had booked their tickets to visit India but could not get their visas in time.

Unfortunately, we cannot quantify the emotional toll that the ban may have on families and relationships. So far, the Indian economy hasn’t taken a significant blow from the ban.

Therefore, I think that unless the Indian government sees the ban as negatively impacting its chances of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha elec-

weddings must be postponed, funerals halted, childbirths should be paused, and the sick should seek healthcare elsewhere. It would be an understandable move to make if the Indian government believes a security threat is looming and that protecting its borders must be India’s priority — but this is not the case.

Canada’s conflict with India has recently reached new heights.

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tions, the Kafkaesque ban won’t be lifted anytime soon.

I believe the Indian government is brash.

It has been for quite some time, and the visa suspension is evidence of that. Interviews with people affected by the ban in the NPR article show that the Consulate General of India in Canada is unwilling to make accommodations for people who urgently need to go to India.

The government seems to be signalling that

It is clear then that Indians will suffer most from the government’s decision to suspend Canadian visas. I question the government’s lack of empathy towards its own citizens in these actions. Shouldn’t a government care about its citizens instead of picking and choosing which vote bank to appease on a specific day?

This isn’t the first time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has silenced the minority by tooting its own horn extra loud. The BJP government’s

2023 Varsity Publications Fall Meeting of Members

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domestic policies have frequently caused the minority to suffer — not only does the government never address this strife, but they also choose not to acknowledge it. For those familiar, the protests against the BJP’s Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC) bill — which was dubbed by international media as India’s “anti-Muslim” citizenship law — and the unethical practices the government has employed were met with a similar blind eye by those in power.

I think the visa suspension is meant to enhance the ‘Lord and Saviour’ image that has been meticulously curated for Prime Minister Narendra Modi by his party. The media in India continues to vilify Canada and praise Modi’s leadership during this time. Coincidentally, Modi is up for re-election in 2024, which I believe will be at the forefront of his party’s agenda as they continue to deal with the Canadian allegations.

That being said, I also believe that by no means has Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the events been any better. I’d argue that both Trudeau and Modi have done what looks best for them on paper and what makes them each strong contenders for re-election.

However, both India and Canada’s actions have negatively impacted a significant portion of society and left no avenues to address their issues. Canada postponed a trade mission to India, both countries have sent the other’s diplomats home — and now the question of whether Canada will also suspend visas looms large.

Nidhil Vohra is a fourth-year student at St. Michael’s College studying peace, conflict and justice and political science. He is an International Affairs columnist for The Varsity’s Comment section.

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OCTOBER 23, 2023

Canada’s war on cigarettes has taken a bold turn — but not necessarily an effective one “Please stop, for me,” your cigarettes will read Divine Angubua Associate Comment Editor

In contemplating the construction of a fair world for its younger generation, Canada finds itself caught in a war against smoking cigarettes. In 2001, the country became the first in the world to legislate a requirement for tobacco companies to print pictorial warnings on the outside of cigarette packages.

On August 1, a fresh set of Health Canada regulations came into effect that requires manufacturers to plaster new, more graphic, and more insistent messages onto every cigarette pack that a smoker or curious starter picks up. Using a phased approach, most measures are set to hit the Canadian market within a year. By the end of July 2024, all ‘king-size’ cigarettes will have hit the market with individual warning messages like “poison in every puff,” “cigarettes cause cancer,” and further warnings highlighting the dangers

On August 1, a fresh set of Health Canada regulations came into effect about cigarette packaging. ZEYNEP POYANLI/THEVARSITY

of smoking to children and young people. Regularsize cigarettes with tubes and tipping paper will follow by the end of April 2025. The goal is to fulfill Canada’s Tobacco Strategy and the ambitious target of reaching less than five per cent tobacco use in Canada’s population by 2035.

As a non-smoker, I believe in the power of nudging consumers into making certain choices about the products of their desire. In the age of climate change, environmental sensitivity, and sustainable development goals, policies that use visual signals to the public have come in handy in creating a culture of sustainable living and environmental friendliness.

For example, with more

trash cans in public spaces that have labels about which bin plastics, food waste, and paper each go in, and warnings of fines against littering, people have found it easier to foster a practice of proper waste disposal. We have so much information and visual warnings about the damage that plastics are doing to the ocean and the land that we feel guilty about using plastic straws and polythene bags.

The struggle against smoking is also concerned with sustainable living, and if there’s one lesson that

rings true, it’s that changes to human behaviour are the key to maintaining a sustainable world. However, these must be backed up by a wealth of information on healthier choices and the consequences of continuing with habits that do not serve you or the people you love. More important still are the nuanced, subliminal, and sometimes overt policies that manipulate a consumer’s agency and direct their heart and mind into making specific choices for the general benefit of themselves and the society they inhabit.

Carolyn Bennett, the former associate minister of health and the minister of mental health and addictions, supports the stricter take on cigarettes because “tobacco continues to kill 48,000 Canadians each year.” She wants to see health warning messages become “virtually unavoidable” as a startling reminder of the consequences of smok-

ing. Then-Minister of Health Jean Yves-Duclos cited tobacco as Canada’s leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in support of the new measures against smoking.

Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, and Doug Roth, the CEO of Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, both applauded the new legislation as a new world precedent. The goal here is to secure the lives of young people by bringing them face-to-face with

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the inevitable dangers. Cunningham highlights that, for regular smokers and youth who experiment by ‘borrowing’ cigarettes from their friends, the sight of a throat or lung torn apart by cancer or the strong wording against smoking will prompt dialogue and initiate critical thought.

All of this is well and good in a country full of the good intentions of its leaders, but I am curious where else we can go from here and how the policy could cause other problems. For example, the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco warned that young people will likely be more attracted to cheaper, colourful black market cigarettes free of health warnings and funnel more money to illegal cigarette distributors.

Furthermore, in the past, the country’s fight against contraband tobacco and organized crime has led the police to wrongfully target Indigenous populations on reserves who have utilized tobacco as an economic engine out of necessity when other industries were illegalized on reserves and shut down by the federal government. Tobacco has enabled Indigenous communities to prosper against the grain while being free of a tax burden to the government.

The new legislation is a concern for Indigenous businesses and the government’s impending need for someone to blame in the event of a faltering policy.

More so, I wonder if the government should take the same action against alcohol, given that alcoholism increases the risk of seven different types of cancer. Research shows a bottle of wine a week compares to five cigarettes for men and 10 for women — and yet it causes no commotion.

Divine Angubua is a third-year student at UTM studying history, political science, and creative writing. He is the editor-in-chief of With Caffeine and Careful Thought and a staff writer at The Medium. He is the associate comment editor of The Varsity.

Psychological safety in academia is overlooked The silent scourge of academic bullying and institutional betrayal Debanjan Borthakur Varsity Contributor

Each day, as I ride the TTC on my way to U of T, a message resonates through the train’s speakers: “To help keep the TTC safe, report any suspicious activity to a member of staff member or the police. If you see something, say something.”

This seemingly straightforward call to civic responsibility is more complex than it seems in some contexts. When it comes to the academic world — a realm where we ought to expect the highest standards of integrity — speaking out against wrongdoing may not be rewarded, but may very well spell your downfall instead. Despite its esteemed reputation, academia isn’t free from bullying and institutional betrayal. A study from the Federation of European Biochemical Societies warned that opposing misconduct in academia often leads to punishment, not praise.

In my view, this chilling effect of punishing opposition threatens academic freedom, as it goes beyond mere disagreements to potentially ruin careers and reputations. We must pay attention to the pandemic of rampant bullying in academic corridors and delve deep into real-life case studies that exemplify the catastrophic impact of institutional betrayal.

Aspiring academics often face a bleak choice between enduring the harassment or risking retaliation by speaking out. From my experience, I’ve found that academics’ efforts are met with undue criticism, while emotional exhaustion erodes their determination. This grim reality often feels inescapable in a culture rife with bystander apathy.

Morteza Mahmoudi, the founder of the Academic Parity Movement, described in a Scientific American opinion article a biased internal investigation system that fails to deliver justice and invites further retaliation. While early-career professors can leave toxic workplaces, vulner-

able graduate students remain trapped because their careers and degrees are at risk.

A 2021 paper about academic bullying by Sherry Moss and Mahmoudi defines it as “a sustained hostile behavior from one’s academic superior including, but not limited to, ridiculing, threatening, blaming, invasion of privacy, and put-downs in front of others.” The paper also mentions that the abuse can involve “interference with matriculation and career progress by removing funding, writing falsely negative recommendation letters, taking credit for others’ work, and threatening to cancel visas or fellowships.”

Despite universities broadcasting a seemingly endless loop of virtue-signalling messages that preach equity and diversity, the prevalence of academic bullying continues to soar. Research conducted by Moss and Mahmoudi in 2021 reveals the staggering scope of this issue: 84 per cent of academic professionals reported experiencing abusive supervision, and the majority of targets were graduate students or postdoctoral students.

Surveys from Australia, the UK, and the US show that over 40 per cent of university students have faced sexual harassment; 28 per cent of U.S. postdoctoral students also reported harassment, mainly from faculty or staff. A 2017 study found that women of colour in astronomy and planetary science were more likely to skip events due to safety concerns, while a 2016 survey revealed that one-third of 2SLGBTQ+ physicists considered leaving their institutions.

The 2021 study by Moss and Mahmoudi indicates that 58 per cent of targets felt complaint outcomes were “unfair and biased,” while just eight per cent considered them “fair and unbiased.” This raises questions about how universities can continue to conduct biased investigations while ignoring the emotional toll of such injustices.

When Science Magazine examined Moss and Mahmoudi’s research on accounts of bullying and harassment in academia, they discovered

testimonies of individuals experiencing nausea before entering labs with unsettling work environments, giving up on dreams of becoming a professor, and being given mere seconds for a restroom break by their principal investigator.

Academic bullying is not merely a black mark on academic institutions; it’s an indelible stain on the very fabric of our intellectual community.

Institutions built to foster innovation and knowledge betray their fundamental ethos. I wonder how we can talk about academic freedom when fear and retribution shackle scholars. How can we talk about intellectual integrity when the guardians of knowledge are its very defilers?

Most people who report bullying, harassment, and discrimination face reprisals, even though such abuse is illegal. It’s time we pull back the curtain on this insidious problem that threatens not just individual careers but the soul of academia itself. I believe we must bring this dark underbelly into the light, challenge the complicit structures, and silence the bullies rather than the victims. We don’t need to merely survive academic bullying; we need to eradicate it.

For more comprehensive coverage of this issue and resources for victims, refer to the Canadian Institute of Workplace Bullying Resources article, “Surviving Academic Bullying: Stories and Resources for Targets” by myself and Linda Crockett. Let us not just be a bystander in this unfolding crisis.

As the TTC message echoes in our minds, let it be a call to action, transforming each of us into watchdogs for justice. It’s not just about keeping a transit system safe; it’s about preserving the sanctity of spaces designed for intellectual pursuit and growth. If academia won’t police itself, then it’s high time we, the students and the public, hold it accountable. After all, silence is complicity, and complicity is a luxury we can no longer afford; as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’

Debanjan Borthakur is a third-year PhD student at the psychology department at U of T. He is a CUPE steward, a member of Academic Parity Movement, and works as a researcher with the Canadian Institute of Workplace Bullying.

We don’t need to merely survive academic bullying; we need to eradicate it, says the author.

ARY KWUN/THEVARSITY

10

THE VARSITY

FEATURES

The tradeoff between conservation and animal welfare When invasive species get in the way of conservation, researchers face tragic moral conflicts

Franchesca Fu Varsity Contributor

On a field trip to see salmon runs on the Humber River as a Master of Environmental Science student at UTSC, I felt slightly unsettled and surprised. As the salmon ambled upstream, our professor was talking about the river’s ecological condition and invasive species in the region.

Sea lamprey is one of these destructive invasive species in Lake Ontario. The GLFC reported that at one point before the 1990s, sea lampreys killed more than 100 million pounds of fish in the Great Lakes in a year. To control the species, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) traps sea lampreys in sections of the Humber River so GLFC workers can capture and kill them, and uses lampricide poisons to kill sea lamprey larvae. I was shocked that killing en masse, justified or not, was a common and accepted conservation practice.

With large-scale campaigns to save endangered species, conservationists are often at the forefront of protecting animals and species at risk. Conservation biology emerged as a discipline to address and prevent extinctions humans have caused through habitat destruction. For example, conservationists often work to restore landscapes degraded by humans, which, in turn, allows many species to thrive.

However, any straightforward impression of conservation protecting all animals comes apart. In many cases, conservation efforts may harm specific animals — such as when the GLFC kills sea lampreys en masse — while protecting biodiversity and habitats, and we have to decide which cases of such harm we should allow. Compassionate conservationists argue we should prioritize animal welfare concerns, while other ecologists highlight the detrimental nature of invasive species and how managing ecosystems is an urgent matter.

Managing wildlife and ecosystems One key problem in conservation is invasive species. Invasive species are organisms not native to an ecosystem that cause significant ecological, economic, or societal harm. Often, they reproduce quickly and lack natural predators in their new environment, which allows them to outcompete native species and makes it more difficult for endangered species to persist.

Although there has been controversy around classifying and treating organisms as invasive and native, one survey by Shackleton and colleagues published in 2022 of nearly 700 scientists and practitioners working in invasion science found that its respondents generally agreed that invasive species pose a major global biological threat.

Consequently, conservationists dedicate great

efforts to preventing the introduction of new species into novel ecosystems and controlling existing invasive species. In Ontario alone, the Invasive Species Centre estimates that the government spends $50.8 million annually managing invasive species.

When it comes to reducing the numbers of invasive species such as sea lamprey, there are several nonlethal and lethal ways conservationists use to reduce the species’ numbers and the ranges they inhabit. With sea lamprey, for example, one nonlethal way to minimize their population is by building barriers and dams that prevent them from migrating upstream and spawning. Currently, the GLFC reports that there are around 70 such dams in the Great Lakes.

For invasive species that have already established themselves in the new ecosystem, the main mechanism conservationists use to control them is killing them. For example, the GLFC treats tributaries with lampricide to kill larval sea lamprey. The lampricide compounds disrupt the metabolism of larval lamprey without significantly harming other species.

Nicholas Mandrak, a professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at UTSC, explained in an interview with The Varsity that for larval sea lamprey affected by lampricide, researchers likely don’t have “any idea about whether or not they’re going through pain and suffering.”

Additionally, land managers capture juvenile and adult sea lamprey in traps placed along tributaries. Mandrak said that the captured sea lamprey are then put in “for lack of a better term… a dump truck” where researchers “just let them die, basically, by lack of oxygen, being out of the water.”

Conservation practices can also harm animals when conservationists are not trying to reduce population numbers, such as in the process of reintroduction or translocation. When animals are reintroduced into an area where they went extinct, they often suffer from high mortality rates due to human-related environmental disturbances, stress, and predation. One study that reviewed 45 carnivore reintroductions found that only 32 per cent of captive-born animals survived reintroduction, which is 18 per cent lower than the survival rate for wildcaught animals reintroduced without conservationists raising them in captivity.

Conservation practices can have a large human impact as well. In a paper in BioScience, researchers Peter Kareiva and Michelle Marvier emphasized that conservation science is not only guided by the goal of biodiversity — people’s livelihoods and ethical values are also key, oft-neglected components of conservation.

Journalist Mark Dowie wrote that estimates for the number of conservation refugees — Indigenous peoples forced off their land in the name of land and wildlife conservation — range from five million to tens of millions. In Botswana, the San people — an Indigenous people of Southern Africa — have been systematically stripped of their land to make way for the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and to prevent them from hunting. The displacement of Indigenous communities often comes with the tacit approval or silence of large nonprofit conservation organizations.

The research impact On a personal level, researchers feel pressure about the harm their research can sometimes cause. Rachel Bryant, a former philosophy assistant professor at UTSC and current assistant teaching professor at the University of Tampa, remembers her experience working on seabird research vividly.

In an interview with The Varsity, she recounted a particularly memorable experience when she was working with terns. “There was a gull… who was depredating a lot of terns. Some [of the terns] were species at risk, and we were told by our boss to kill the gull… and I’ve never gotten over it.”

Even though killing the gull might have been necessary for conservation research and have positive effects overall, Bryant felt bothered by the distress she caused for the gull, and for potentially disrupting the gull’s breeding seasons.

Current Ontario law requires individuals to kill any prohibited invasive species they come into contact with. For example, with round goby, which threatens several endangered species, Mandrak said that Ontario requires individuals to “remove [round goby] from the [water] system… If a recreational angler catches a round goby, they are supposed to dispose of them.”

Ontario does not explicitly discuss “humane euthanasia,” according to Mandrak. The GLFC also makes no explicit mention of animal welfare considerations when discussing practices to reduce sea lamprey populations.

The lack of consideration for animal welfare is also evident in practice for land managers and municipalities dealing with ecological challenges.

In Winnipeg, because people have released their pet goldfish in local ponds, goldfish are becoming hyperabundant in urban lakes, which prevents the city from effectively managing stormwater flow.

Winnipeg manages this problem by draining stormwater ponds at the end of the summer and letting the goldfish in them die through that lack of water.

Mandrak said, “I [argue] that it’s probably the right thing to do. But it could be done more humanely.”

As a researcher studying the effect of invasive aquatic species, Mandrak often captures invasive species either to study them or as bycatch — when a species is unintentionally captured. When handling animals, all academics in Canada have to adhere to the guidelines of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), which outline minimum animal welfare standards. At U of T, the university’s Animal Care Committee implements and oversees CCAC’s guidelines and provides permits for approved research procedures involving animals.

Compassionate conservation One attempt to fold animal welfare concerns into conservation is the growing compassionate conservation movement that pushes for conservation where we extend compassion to animals and humans. In an article in the Journal of Conservation Biology in 2018, Arian D. Wallach and other ecologists wrote that compassionate conservation works to preserve the Earth’s biodiversity while “retaining a commitment to treating individuals with respect and concern for their wellbeing.”

One of their key tenets is that conservationists should first “Do No Harm” and step back to assess their possible courses of action rather than acting immediately. Other tenets of compassionate conservation include how individual animals matter, where individual wild animals should not be valued solely as members of species, and how conservation should be about “the manner in which we

ought to engage with the world.” Lastly, they also believe that all wildlife are intrinsically valuable regardless of their population size, origins, sentience, or usefulness to humans.

Sometimes, these tenets work. In Middle Island, Australia, fox predation caused the population of Little Penguins to decrease from over 500 to 10 penguins in five years. To reverse this decline, in 2006, researchers used Maremma guardian dogs to protect the colony and successfully prevented fox predation. After 10 years, the population of Little Penguins increased to over 100. Given that the previously-used conservation strategy of trapping foxes was ineffective to begin with, the successful reduction of fox predation on little penguins with sheepdogs was an example of an ideal, win-win scenario.

Similarly, advocates in South Africa ran educational campaigns for farmers on nonlethal ways to control leopards predating on livestock. These campaigns led to an approximately 70 per cent decline in leopard predation rates on livestock while reducing the operating cost of caring for sheep for those farmers.

Researchers like Wallach say that the tenets are aspirational goals for how we should engage with wildlife. In practice, these guidelines do not provide clear-cut answers on which control strategies, if any, conservationists should take.

A balancing act It is easy for everyone to get on board when it is economically and ecologically advantageous to use nonlethal, non-invasive conservation tactics. However, that’s not always the case. Mandrak stresses the importance of preventing invasive species from entering new ecosystems, given his doubts that “there [are any measures] that [are] effective once they’re established.” It is important to prevent detrimental species from entering new habitats, which can mean killing said species when they are first spotted.

Grass carp are an example of the problems conservationists can cause by delaying action.

Instead of immediately killing and removing grass carp, Mandrak described how Ohio’s government tagged and studied the fish to see where they would spawn. Though it found the species’ spawning locations, its tagging program meant it didn’t take quick enough action to stop that spawning.

Time is of the essence when trying to mitigate the effects of detrimental species. If grass carp establish a population in the Great Lakes, an ecological risk assessment conducted by Fisheries and Ocean Canada found that they could have high negative impacts on 33 fish species and a moderate negative impact on another 33 fish species. If we take no action against a potential invasive species, the establishment of that species could mean that more animals are harmed by the invasive species’ disruption to existing food webs.

Other cases of wildlife management are also less straightforward. When individuals release their pet goldfish into local ponds, they face “their own little mini animal rights issue” where “they don’t want to flush the pet goldfish down the toilet,” said Mandrak. However, those individuals either neglect or are unaware that introducing such goldfish can end up causing more harm to animals and ecosystems.

Additionally, more often than not, the connection between a decline in an invasive species’ population and the ecological benefits of

biodiversity or native species growth rates is unclear. One study by Kim M. Pepin and colleagues published in 2017 on the effectiveness of culling in reducing wild pig populations cautions that the relationship between ecological harm and wild pig abundance is not well established. The relationship might not be linear, where more culling would correlate with a decline in ecological harm.

Researchers estimate that the relationship is more complicated: the decline in the pigs’ population numbers needs to meet a certain threshold before we see ecological benefits. If such is the case, then if we employ culling below the necessary threshold level, those actions would provide little benefit to the environment at the expense of those animals. Researchers have also found that unpredictable environmental events, such as hurricanes, can also change the effectiveness of culling.

Recognizing difficult ecological decisions Policymakers, conservationists, and scientists have to make challenging decisions that will often harm animals. Bryant describes these scenarios as tragic conflicts.

“In some cases, it seems like no matter what we do, we’ll wrong somebody — either they’re members of the species that are endangered that we're doing this to protect or the individual animals who we’re harming in order to prevent those extinctions,” they said. “And so that’s why I think that [these scenarios are] tragic. A tragedy is a story in which there can be no good ending.”

Calling these scenarios tragedies is a way of highlighting the difficult decisions involved with wildlife management. Bryant said, “Calling it a tragedy reminds us that we can’t just get off the moral hook for doing the things that create these situations. [We often] suppress and are dishonest with a part of ourselves when we don't acknowledge the moral complexity [of our actions].”

Bryant said, crucially, we should “stop creating the situations that make it be that a species is going extinct and the only way to save it is to harm individual animals.” Avoiding these situations means addressing climate change and minimizing environmental degradation.

The next step for conservationists is to figure out which actions would be most ecologically beneficial while also minimizing the harm to animals.

Bryant also acknowledges, however, that conservation makes up a small portion of the suffering animals experience. “If you really want to stop the human-caused suffering of animals to the extent that you can, it’s factory farming that we should be focusing on… that’s where most of it is happening.”

The boundaries of conservation Critics of integrating animal welfare concerns into conservation, like ecologist Peter Fleming, say that this kind of thinking is “animal liberation dressed up as conservation science” and “has little foundation in biology.” These critics speak to the tension that exists in wildlife management — respecting animal rights is sometimes

at odds with protecting habitats and other species.

In some cases, prioritizing animal welfare very well could mean that we are less effective at fostering biodiversity and saving a species — and those ecological concerns are often pressing. If we don’t act now, the ecological harm invasive species cause might be irreversible or incredibly costly to reverse later. Consequently, some scientists want to exclude animal welfare concerns from conservation management and research.

However, these concerns don’t have to restrict research. When Mandrak’s lab captures fish, they go beyond Ontario’s requirements by euthanizing the fish in a way that minimizes their pain and distress. Although this euthanization takes more time, money, and planning, Mandrak finds that it is not prohibitive to their conservation work.

Concerns to respect animal rights are also in line with key principles of conservation, Kareiva and Marvier pointed out in their paper. As ecology embraces equity and justice, they wrote that “conservation must not infringe on human rights and must embrace the principles of fairness and gender equity… Obviously, life is not always fair, but conservationists should not make it less so.”

This understanding of conservation science highlights that conservation is often rightfully bound by other concerns that are not directly connected to ‘biology.’ If we think that the suffering of animals is unjust and that the rights of animals matter in the way that rights matter to humans, then it is within the realm of conservation.

ZOE PEDDLE-STEVENSON/THEVARSITY

features@thevarsity.ca

Arts & Culture

October 23, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/arts-and-culture arts@thevarsity.ca

Meet the U of T alum, ceramic artist, and entrepreneur working out of a Scarborough climbing gym Jen Phuong Tran’s journey and mindset as an artist Franchesca Fu Varsity Contributor

KAISA KASEKAMP/THEVARSITY

When I see Jen, she’s wearing a bandana she crocheted herself and a slouchy green bag designed by a local Canadian artist. She’s asking me and the rest of her students if we want tea.

Half of us politely decline and the other half accept her offer. We’re handed herbal tea served out of her handmade, marbled ceramic cups before we begin tinkering with clay and settling into the homey space.

Jen Phuong Tran is a Scarborough-based multidisciplinary artist and the owner of the ceramic studio For Flux Sake. She embodies creativity through each of her aesthetic choices, hobbies, and gigs. “The art side of my life was so suppressed as a kid. So maybe that’s why it kind of exploded in my adult years,” she said.

As a multidisciplinary artist, she works in ceramics, writes poetry, and paints. Looking back, even her paintings were grounded in structural figures and objects.

One can see how that translates easily over to pottery, a physical, primarily three-dimensional art form. Jen began pottery by taking wheelthrowing classes in small studios during the pandemic. She eventually got her own wheel, but even then, she wasn’t sure that that was the medium for her; the learning curve was steep, and she didn’t feel like she had the flexibility to explore the forms she wanted to through the wheel. Rather than discounting the medium of ceramics, she found her footing in handbuilding — a process of making pottery without a wheel — by watching YouTube videos and practicing.

After a few years of practicing pottery and art,Jen has gotten to a point where she’s comfortable with herself as an artist — or at least comfortable with what she still wants to figure out as an artist.

She says that her development as an artist didn’t “just happen overnight.” Most of us aren’t born identifying as artists and as we practice art, we get to a point where we ask ourselves, ‘Am I an artist? What does it mean to be an artist?’ To me, being an artist can manifest in the way one sees things and expresses themselves — it is a desire to create things and say something meaningful about the world.

And Jen’s husband asserts this for her straightforwardly: he tells her, “You’re an artist.

Just admit it.” With the support of her friends and family, Jen says that finding her voice within functional and decorative ceramics is her “lifelong pursuit” and “purpose.” Her artistic journey is ongoing.

Jen’s path to being a creative wasn’t predetermined. When she first attended U of T, she was there to study civil engineering — her parents also happen to be engineers. However, when she took an elective in art history, a subject she knew nothing about,

she discovered that she found the art world much more fascinating. It “lit something up in my inner soul,” she told me.

She switched programs to major in art history and minor in German and classics. Art history allowed her to think deliberately and critically about art. Nowadays, she spends part of her week working as an optician while also teaching pottery and creating new works.

Jen’s current work explores how to feel at home and in familiar territory. She draws inspiration from the German word “unheimlich,” which means uncanny but is also the root of the word “unhomely.” Through the sense of uncanniness, one feels uncomfortable and in an unfamiliar space. Her work strives to push against the unheimlich-ness that we might feel, especially because Jen knows what it’s like to feel uncomfortable with aspects of herself that don’t fit in neatly defined labels. She’s VietnameseCanadian but was born in Hong Kong. For her

and those around her, home has always been a moving target. Returning to a place that’s supposed to be home, like Vietnam, doesn’t always feel like home, and she’s had to redefine ‘home’ for herself.

To reflect these experiences, Jen created a series of vases that play with the concept of home — a home can be a funky bottle house or a vase filled with someone’s sentimental objects. She says that the malleable nature of pottery allows us to envision normally disparate ideas in one physical plane and to take pieces from different aspects of one’s identity.

In one vase, objects like a fish, fried egg, and mushroom protrude out in an explicit reminder of what one considers home and comforting.

Those objects are there to make sense to her.

The For Flux Sake studio Jen’s pottery studio, For Flux Sake, emerged as her teaching practice grew. Initially, she oper-

ated out of her parents’ garage where she set up a kiln and started teaching. With more students, Jen had to think more intentionally about the space she was using to host classes. At the same time, she frequented Boulder Parc — a climbing gym in Scarborough — and was integrated into the climbing community there. She approached the owners of Boulder Parc to ask if she could use the extra space in the gym to teach and install a kiln. With the owners’ approval, the studio was set in motion, and Jen officially became a business owner.

October 2023 marks two years of Jen’s studio. For Flux Sake is a ceramics-focused studio tucked away inside Boulder Parc and less than a 10-minute drive from UTSC. The studio has handbuilding classes as well as screenprinting and crochet workshops. In these pottery classes, Jen doesn’t consider herself a traditional teacher but considers herself the “artists’ assistant,” who is merely there to “assist in making their idea come to life.”

Students can also become members of the Potters Collective, where they have daily access to the studio, a dedicated shelf, and access to regular firings. While many pottery studios exist in Toronto, few are outside of downtown Toronto and offer the flexibility of For Flux Sake.

Many studios in downtown Toronto have long waitlists for applicants and require members to demonstrate their artistic prowess to join.

Jen’s current priority is to have a critical mass of members constantly working there. Her hope for the studio is that “people can find something that they love and really zone out and do that thing.” The studio is growing and becoming a space that serves all kinds of artists. And she knows she’s on the right track when students come back. For anyone intimidated to join, Jen says, “We’re here in the back of a climbing gym!

Come and say hi.”

A poster that says “crying is healing” hangs above the members’ shelves. The space is a ceramic studio, an art studio, and a communal safe space for individuals to show up as themselves. It is surprising for an art studio to be in a climbing gym, but this unexpectedness is an outgrowth of all of Jen’s roles.

Jen says that societal messaging sometimes suggests that “you have to focus on one thing, and that’s the only way you can be successful.”

Her biggest pushback against that argument is that “a lot of things overlap, and life isn’t one thing.” Jen’s swimming in all the lanes and figuring it out as she goes — with her art, studio, and community to prove it.

Interested readers can find Jen on Instagram at @forfluxsake and @forfluxsakestudio and sign up for workshops at For Flux Sake’s website.

Disclosure: Franchesca Fu is a member of For Flux Sake studio.

Jen Phuong Tran, a ceramic artist and studio owner, began learning pottery during the pandemic.

COURTESY OF JEN PHUONG

thevarsity.ca/category/arts-culture

OCTOBER 23, 2023

13

What to do on Halloween in Toronto For anyone who’s not sure where the action is this Halloweekend Durva Patel Varsity Contributor

If you’re scrambling to find plans for Halloween, you’re not alone. Whether you’re an introvert seeking more intimate festivities or you want to dance your heart out in a crowd, here are some ideas.

Halloween Haunt at Canada’s Wonderland Familiar funnel cake, thrill-inducing rides, and playtill-you-win fair games — we’re talking about Canada’s Wonderland. What was once the abode of childhood dreams, though, has become the subject of nightmares.

The once-friendly theme park is now a notorious scream park. Wonderland’s Halloween Haunt from September 22 to October 29, occurs from 6:00–11:00 pm. Event attractions include mazes, haunted houses, ‘scare’ zones, people in monster costumes roaming around, unique night rides, and live entertainment. With a variety of celebrated live performances such as the “Inferno” stunt show and a Day of the Dead concert, Wonderland’s Halloween Haunt is a Canadian tradition. If you

haven’t been there yet, it’s worth dragging your friends to — you can take Line 1 up to Vaughan Mills station.

Black Lagoon Pop-Up Black Lagoon Pop-Up is headed to Toronto!

A combination of macabre, gothic, and metal themes, the Black Lagoon Pop-Up is a high-concept bar perfect for Halloween. The Black Lagoon experience, which has pop-ups all over North America, has finally found a home in Bar Mordecai in Toronto.

The ghoulish vibes don’t just invite souls to sip on their creepy cocktails — the immersive bar also offers a variety of live entertainment such as tarot card reading, Emo Night, Burlesque, Drag Brunch, and more. If you want to experience Halloween as you have never before, this bar deserves a visit — it’s on from now until October 31.

Legends of Horror at Casa Loma Being one of the only castles in North America, Casa Loma is already an exceptional location. It becomes an even more unique experience when

it becomes the Legends of Horror for Halloween.

Beginning in the lower gardens of Casa Loma, Legends of Horror is a trail that delves through the castle’s tunnels, and the castle even shows the audience dark locations that the public is usually not privy to. It is a one-hour immersive experience that exhibits unique and compelling theatrical sets.

A 3D presentation on the castle walls lights up the story they hope to tell. If you would like to feel the haunt of a regal power, then be sure to venture to Casa Loma.

Trico-Tri Party at Hush Hush club If you’re in the mood to bump and grind while in costume, Hush Hush bar has what you need.

From Saturday, October 28 at 10:00 pm to Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 am, the well-frequented nightclub is hosting its “Trico-Tri” spooky Latin Halloween dance. The club will play Reggaeton, Dembow, Salsa, Bachata, and club anthems throughout the night.

Halloween Haunt at Hart House Hart House, the centre of student life at U of T,

is hosting a haunted house on October 28, from 6:00–10:00 pm. The dark academia vibe emblematic of Hart House is now blending with the evils of Halloween.

If the bone-chilling haunted house in the basement is too much for you, there are activities for everyone to participate in. These include a costume dance party in the Great Hall, a horror film doublefeature in the Arbor Room, and pumpkin carving in the Reading Room. If you are a registered member of U of T, don’t miss the opportunity to mingle with new friends while being haunted at Hart House.

CN Tower Paranormal Investigation Whether your idea of ghosts is limited to a white sheet with cutout eyes or it encompasses tales of sightings and radars, learning more about the supernatural is never a bad idea. Travel up the CN Tower to delve beyond the dead. The CN Tower functions as a tall antenna that sends and receives radio signals, but should it end there? A 75-minute journey available on October 26 and October 30, the CN Tower Paranormal Investigation allows you to investigate the paranormal hands-on.

Horror movie marathons What is more Halloween than fake blood, bloodcurdling screams, and creepy twins? To experience Halloween, there’s no need to step foot outside your room; instead, revel in the eerie thrill of watching movies alone, or have friends over for the night. Don’t stop at the classics of The Shining, Psycho, and The Silence of the Lambs. Continue your marathon with Us, Hereditary, and Midsommar.

Regardless of your queue-up, the night is incomplete without scary amounts of popcorn and coma-inducing levels of chocolate. Though it may be counter-intuitive to ask you to curl up with company like Chucky, horror movies will make for a quintessential Halloween night.

Nightclubs, haunted houses, cocktail bars and more will be hosting Halloween events this weekend.

EVELYN BOLTON/THEVARSITY

The effortlessly cool Little Simz

break her choreography in the heat of the moment in rockstar fashion. However, I think her stage presence reflects how much she cares about her art — she’s got it down to a science.

@wheretopartytoronto Toronto is a maze of a city with countless parties and infinite options for clubs. However, if you’re not Nancy Drew and need help finding locations for your night out on the town, the Instagram account @wheretopartytoronto is your hub for clubbing knowledge. The page will display various party options on the weekend of Halloween.

She told the crowd that she wanted us to know, not in an arrogant way but in a confident way, that we were “witnessing greatness.”

Indeed, we were.

The UK hip-hop lyricist performed at HISTORY in Toronto on October 8 Milena Pappalardo Arts & Culture Editor

Little Simz, the UK rapper known for her soulful and complex sound, graced Toronto for the first time in four years during her 10-day North American tour. Following the release of her fifth album NO THANK YOU, Little Simz has been enjoying steadily increasing recognition. She noted, during her performance on October 8, how only a few years ago she played at a much smaller venue in Toronto, The Velvet Underground, and was now basking in front of a much larger, sold-out show at HISTORY. Little Simz is a hip-hop artist, through and through. Vulnerable while still clever and self-assured, Simz’s music, despite being from across the pond, emulates the American tradition of legends like Lauryn Hill and Nas, both of whom she cites as influences. Like Lauryn Hill, her music, and particularly her latest album, blends rap with gospel and RnB. However, Simz also adds her own spin on an American tradition with African drum beats —, seen on songs such as “X” —, and with her gorgeous British accent.

The show opened with the song “Silhouette,” an intense and magical track where Simz’s steadily accelerating bars and percussion are

coupled with airy gospel. Simz casually stepped onto the stage in her now-signature white dress shirt, black tie and black bomber jacket. She was cool yet sincere, wearing sunglasses in the dark concert venue but speaking with gratitude and poetry to the audience.

Simz was fantastic, hyping up the crowd to music that is admittedly difficult to thrash to due to its intellectual lyricism. But on songs like the viral “Venom,” the crowd erupted as the beat dropped and green lights started flashing. It was truly a great show — minimalistic but effective.

If Simz is one thing, it’s effortless. Around halfway through her performance, two guitarists emerged in suits identical to Simz’s. Simz and her two-person band would sway rhythmically in unison to tracks like “Gorilla,” bumping in perfect synchronicity. Her flow, steady and controlled, did not falter for a moment. Even the audience had trouble keeping up, with the concert venue left speechless as the rapper crafted a trail of smooth bars without losing her breath.

She interacted with the crowd like a true professional. Perhaps her measured approach to performing could be seen as lacking emotion or rawness — Simz didn’t strike me as the type to soliloquize to the crowd, make brash jokes, or

Little Simz’s new album NO THANK YOU. COURTESY OF KAROLINA WIELOCHA

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ARTS & CULTURE

“Writing is my default:” An award-winning YA novel author on her creative journey U of T graduate and UBC creative writing professor Emily Pohl-Weary talks about latest novel Olga (Olya) Fedossenko Video Editor

Content warning: This article briefly mentions violent crime.

Emily Pohl-Weary, an eight-time published author and a two-time literary award winner, came a long way before deciding on a writer’s career. “It was a process of elimination after I tried to do a lot of other things,” said PohlWeary in an interview with The Varsity. In her early twenties, she completed a degree in translation from Glendon College at York University and worked for a human rights organization translating press releases.

She tried to write every day after work. “But when I got home, I didn’t want to write anymore because I’d been writing all day. That’s when I realized I wanted to make my own stories and learn how to do that well enough to engage the reader,” she explained.

Pohl-Weary wrote and published her first book — her grandma’s biography — in her early twenties. At the time, her grandma, Judith Merril, also an author, was working on a new book and experiencing writer’s block. To help her, Pohl-Weary interviewed her grandma about the story and recorded their conversations. They recorded 13 cassette tapes before her grandma passed away at 73. After that, Emily took it upon herself to continue Judith’s book.

“I took over the project and finished it, according to a list she had left of all the topics she wanted included,” said Pohl-Weary. When she began working on it, the book only had three chapters. Her grandma wanted the biography to follow “the people, places, and things she loved.” So, Pohl-Weary had to go through stacks of old letters that her grandma had received from her loved ones over the years. The interviews and the letters became the basis of the book.

Pohl-Weary titled her finished biography Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril. In 2003, the book won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book and became a finalist for the Toronto Book Award.

Stories about teen girls and How to Be Found Pohl-Weary’s books often focus on young women’s experiences — for example, her novel A Girl Like Sugar (2004) follows a girl haunted by her dead rock star boyfriend, and Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl (2013) is about a young musician who gets bitten by a vicious dog in Central Park and finds herself changing into a hairy beast. The author’s recent youngadult novel How to Be Found tells the story of a 16-year-old girl who sets out on a risky search for her missing best friend in Toronto.

Growing up, Pohl-Weary did not feel like she and her friends were represented in the books on the market. “I wanted to write those stories

Emily Pohl-Weary

COURTESY OF DANIEL SHEHORI

and write them in such a way that actually reflected what it was like to grow up downtown,” she said about her novels. Remembering her teenage years as a difficult time in her life, she strove to write characters “who made slightly better choices than [she] did.”

How to Be Found, which came out this fall, centres on two girls Michie and Trissa, who grow up like sisters in a duplex owned by their single moms. Now that they are 16 years old, the differences in their personalities start to cause them to drift, but they try to remain close. One day, Michie wakes up to discover that her chosen sister has disappeared. The police choose to ignore the problem, so despite her introverted nature, Michie decides to find out what happened to Trissa.

The book also features a serial killer on the loose. Pohl-Weary drew on her own experience as a teen when Paul Bernardo, a Canadian serial rapist and killer, victimized girls around the Scarborough area. “I grew up at a time when it seemed girls could do anything. You can be a president, you can be an astronaut, you can be whatever you want. But still, there was this general feeling that we weren’t safe.”

Pohl-Weary knows women today face similar issues. She wrote How to Be Found hoping teen girls and women who fear one day they will go missing will see themselves in her characters.

Emily Pohl-Weary has published eight books and worked in different roles in publishing throughout her career.

COURTESY OF DANIEL SHEHORI

Community creative writing classes Throughout her career, Pohl-Weary has worked in different positions within the publishing industry, as a writer, publisher, and editor at feminist literary magazine Kiss Machine; a managing editor of Broken Pencil magazine; and an acquisitions editor for high school English textbooks. Despite her packed schedule,

she also found the time to host writing workshops for youth in Toronto.

In 2008, Pohl-Weary founded the Toronto Street Writers, a free writing group for disadvantaged youth in Parkdale, the neighbourhood where she grew up. For over a decade, she led writing workshops in a local library, helping teens find their creative outlet. “I just wanted to respond to what the teens wanted,” she said about her experience. “I remembered myself at that age thinking I was the only person like me. And I thought, maybe other artistic teens would like a space where they could meet some like-minded people their age who are also into writing and storytelling.”

A traumatic event in Pohl-Weary’s life inspired her writing group. On Christmas Eve of 2006, her little brother’s best friend was killed. Trying to “make sense of this senseless crime,” she found herself writing a lot of poetry.

That’s how her award-winning poetry collection Ghost Sick came to life.

Advice on how to write a successful novel “It’s about trusting yourself and what you’re interested in,” Pohl-Weary said about searching for concepts for her novels.“For Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl, for instance, I knew I wanted to write about the least feminine creature possible, hairy and toothy… I wanted to explore teen-girl anger.”

She focuses on the societal expectations of women and girls in many of her books. She also advises future writers to pick a theme they can obsess over for the longest time. Or, they can connect their writing to their deeply personal experiences, as Pohl-Weary did with her biography and poetry collection. Loving your project is the only way to follow through with it and get your writing where you want it to be.

Science

October 23, 2023 thevarsity.ca/category/science science@thevarsity.ca

On Jane Goodall’s empathy and informed hope How Goodall exemplifies the attitude we need to care for our environment Eleanor Yuneun Park Comment Editor

When Jane Goodall walks into a room, a series of unexpected things begins to unravel.

First, you realize that the 89-year-old iconic English anthropologist is of short stature — but also of an immensely powerful and dominating presence that stands taller than anyone else in the room.

Second, she carries along with her a bundle of soft, plush toy animals that have grown in size over time and her travels. To everyone’s amusement, she frequently mentions the toy animals — rat, monkey, and cow — and she refers to them all with endearing names.

Third, she greets her audience with chimpanzee sounds. As the short crescendo of her chimpanzee hoots echo across the audience — in sharp couplets of “woo”s and “ah”s — I am reminded that I am in the presence of a woman who has been making her mark in the world of both humans and animals much before I was born and continues to do so today.

Seeing such a seminal figure on October 13 inside the Desautels Hall of the Rotman School of Management was like seeing a storybook character come to life. I am being far from hyperbolic, as my first exposure to Goodall was quite literally through a Korean picture book with colourful drawings of her hugging chimpanzees.

At a young age, all I could gather was that Goodall had a respectable level of tolerance and kindness toward animals that inclined them to trust her, while I could barely coax a friend’s dog to look at me. At a relatively older age, however, hearing her talk at an event organized

by U of T’s School of the Environment was illuminating — both in understanding her work and her as a person.

Goodall shared her lifelong journey from when she was a little girl to her first time setting foot in Africa, meeting paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, becoming cognizant of chimpanzees’ behavioural resemblance to humans, and discovering the need for nature conservation.

With someone whose work has been globally renowned for as many decades as Goodall, you might expect a conversation about them to be full of “I”s and “me”s. Throughout the talk, however, Goodall rarely attributed her academic and social accomplishments to herself.

She attributed her initial fascination with animals and wildlife as a child to her mother — whom Goodall praised endlessly for her patience, understanding, and excitement toward her daughter’s curiosity. Goodall attributed her first step into the academic world of anthropology and paleontology, and her journey to the Olduvai Gorge in Serengeti, to Louis Leakey.

Leakey later discovered fossil remains of the Australopithecus boisei — species with skulls adapted to heavy chewing — and Homo habilis — the most ancient representative of the human genus — in that area. Leakey also financially supported Goodall to pursue her PhD in ethology at Cambridge University, despite her not having an undergraduate degree.

Most importantly, Goodall attributed her lifelong scientific contributions to chimpanzees.

She recalled the earlier stages of her career when older professors and scientists told her that she was doing “everything wrong” — from giving chimpanzees names rather than

Jane Goodall gives a talk at the Desautels Hall of Rotman School of Management on October 13.

COURTESY OF DIANA TYSZKO

numbers to having empathy or believing that chimpanzees had personalities and emotions.

Throughout the course of her research, Goodall has transformed the field so that we now know that humans are not the only sentient beings on Earth.

But Goodall claimed to have become an activist when she started to recognize the increasing loss of forest ecosystems and chimpanzee habitat. From this talking point, Goodall dedicated the rest of her talk to her efforts to protect our planet, chimpanzees, animals, and future human generations — mainly done through her organization Roots & Shoots. The organization began over 30 years ago and has since supported countless young activists to start their own projects and tackle biodiversity loss, climate change, and environmental inequity at a local level.

Given that the younger generation is most proactive in calling for political and social change to tackle the climate emergency, it is a refreshingly powerful change to see someone of a much older generation pave the way to help create a livable earth. We still need more people to “emerge as activist[s]” from being sci-

entists, professors, lawyers, or doctors — just as Goodall did.

Reminiscing on the late 1980s, Goodall briefly discussed how many of the young university and high school students at the time were already losing hope in slowing down climate change. When Goodall asked them the reason behind the supposed apathy, the students had told her that the — now much older — previous generations had compromised their future, and there is nothing they can do about it. Goodall says, “We have been stealing our children’s future ever since the Industrial Revolution.”

Ironically, this was the most inspiring part of Goodall’s speech to me because it was a stark comparison between the previous generations and ours. Despite our planet being on the verge of what is reported as an irreversible climate breakdown, our generation isn’t losing hope.

And with members of the older generation like Goodall, we can actually see the change that people like her have been working toward for decades. If anything, Goodall’s talk was emblematic of our generation’s hope and our unwillingness to let go of it. She is passing us the baton.

Electrons are the fundamental wheel on which matter turns — and we can see them now The science behind the 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics Ridhi Balani Varsity Contributor

L’Huillier, Krausz, Agostini, and their colleagues’ pioneering research has now made it possible to

ing pulses of light in attoseconds was significantly more difficult.

On October 3, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Anne L’Huillier, Ferenc Krausz, and Pierre Agostini for making it possible to use attosecond lasers in the lab, allowing physicists to study some of the fastest known phenomena in physics — the movement of electrons.

On the attosecond An attosecond represents a billionth of a billionth of a second. This is an incomprehensibly small amount of time. In fact, there are more attoseconds in a single second than there have been seconds in existence since the beginning of the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

Atoms, the particles that make up all matter, are composed of a nucleus made up of subatomic particles called protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons. The nucleus of an atom is significantly larger and bulkier than the electrons surrounding it. Atoms move and turn at a timescale of a millionth of a billionth of a second — also called a femtosecond. The electrons move 1000 times faster than atoms in a timescale that can only be observed in attoseconds. Because of how fast electrons move, directly observing them was thought to be impossible.

Scientists use pulses of light to capture images of atoms. The fastest pulse or ‘shutter speed’ that was previously thought to be possible was in the femtoseconds timescale, which is able to capture atomic movements but not the movements of electrons.

PIPER LEPINE/THEVARSITY

generate pulses of light that are attoseconds long, and physicists can therefore directly observe electrons for the first time ever.

Generating attosecond long pulses of light Why is this jump from femtoseconds to attoseconds so impressive? Prior to 2001, lab lasers were not able to create wavelengths that are shorter than a femtosecond. Therefore, generat-

In 1987, L’Huillier discovered that shooting an infrared laser beam at a noble gas — a really stable gas — resulted in the emission of shorter ‘overtones,’ or multiples of the initial wave. These emitted overtones can interact with each other to create pulses of varying sizes. Similar to how ripples in water originating from two different points can cancel each other out or add onto each other, waves that are superimposed on each other can

add up to a giant wave when their crests align or decrease in amplitude when a trough and crest align. Therefore, by reflecting and adding up different waves of light, it is possible to create new waves that are even shorter.

In 2001, Krausz and Agostini, in their respective labs, used this discovery to figure out an arrangement of overlapping overtones that would result in pulses that were in the attosecond timescale. Now, physicists can produce a pulse of just a few dozen attoseconds using their methods.

Why studying electrons is important Having a way to directly observe electrons opens avenues in pretty much every scientific field, from electronics to medicine. Electrons are the fundamental wheel on which matter interactions turn. Chemical reactions result from electron interactions; molecular interactions in our bodies result from electron interactions. Our very phones and their touch screens use electrons.

Having a precise way to study such an important part of matter interactions opens doors to developing better technologies, better diagnoses, and more. It is also possible to no longer just observe reactions but also control them by nudging electrons using these attosecond pulses of light with unprecedented precision.

Electrons are the gods upon which life rests, and thanks to L’Huillier, Krausz, Agostini, and their colleagues, we finally have a way to observe and precisely interact with them, which is incredible.

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SCIENCE

Archaeology as restorative justice How Professor Kisha Supernant uses GPRs to uncover lost truths about residential schools Avishka Gautham Varsity Contributor

Content warning: This article discusses residential schools.

On September 29, University of Alberta anthropology professor Kisha Supernant held a talk at UTSG, entitled “Truth First: Indigenous Archaeology as Restorative Justice” to discuss her research in identifying the unmarked graves of Indigenous children killed in residential schools.

This event was held in recognition of National Truth and Reconciliation Day, also known as Orange Shirt Day, which is celebrated annually on September 30. It is a day to honour Indigenous residential school survivors and the legacy of those who never came home.

Archaeology as restorative justice Supernant is a Métis/Papaschase/British professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta and a committee member on the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. She situates herself as an “Indigenous anthropological archaeologist,” centring her work on Indigenous principles of relationality and responsibility to challenge current settler colonial power dynamics. Her work addresses questions such as: who was archaeology meant for, and how can it be used to tell Indigenous peoples’ stories when Indigenous peoples have often been excluded?

Supernant began her talk with an overview of archaeology as a discipline and stated that “at its very core, [archaeology] is an inherently extractive process.” The field has long systematically excluded Indigenous voices.

Supernatant emphasized the fact that archaeology continues to be a field that is “male and white.”

She hopes that her work will shift the narrative and scope of archaeology and bring to the table perspectives that the field has long excluded while simultaneously contributing to Indigenous restorative justice.

Supernant challenges the discipline of archaeology as grounded only in an idea of objectivity by taking on heart-centred practices — something she mentions in her book Archaeologies of the Heart. She describes four “chambers of archaeology”: care, emotion, relationality, and rigour. This toolkit serves as Supernant’s guide for her most recent work using non-invasive surveys and mapping tools to uncover the missing graves of Indigenous children who never came home from the residential school system.

The 94 Indigenous Calls to Action, as proposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are steps that the Government of Canada must take to reconcile with Indigenous communities and redress the legacy of residential schools, where the government placed

Indigenous children as an attempt to essentially take away their fundamental Indigeneity.

Supernant’s work is most closely related to Call to Action #74, which states: “We [the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada] call upon the federal government to work with the churches and Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children who died at residential schools of the child’s burial location, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities where requested.”

Searching for sites where Indigenous residential school children are buried Supernant has faced significant obstacles in her progress toward her goal: informing families of their loved ones’ burial locations. Some of the challenges include that many children who died in the schools are not in the records, their sites of burial are unknown, and the cemeteries themselves are gone. However, the discovery of the graves of close to 215 schoolchildren on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School brought national and international attention to the atrocities committed by Canada’s residential schools, and a newfound urgency to Supernant’s work.

Supernant said she begins her process of searching for potential sites of burial with an analysis of the most appropriate technology to use in a specific area. “Certain technologies are best suited in certain places,” she said. Some potential methods for searching include aerial technology, such as flying drones above the landscape and historical aerial photos to determine changes to the landscape; LIDAR (light detection and ranging) mapping technology, which is a method of detecting objects through analysis of pulsed laser light reflected from the surface; and ground pene-

trating radar (GPR), which is a geophysical method that uses radio waves to capture images below the surface of the ground.

In the past, archaeologists have used groundbased methods to search for the graves of Indigenous children at former residential schools.

However, as Supernant points out, GPR technology and similar tools have significant limitations.

One of them is that GPR is inadequate in terrains that are not clear or flat, meaning that researchers often have to clear trees, bushes, and other vegetation from the landscape, which is not always possible. Supernant’s research uses GPR to identify potential burial locations, so acknowledging the limitations of GPR technology is essential to her work.

In order to bring justice for the children and communities at the core of her work, Supernant focuses on the communities where she conducts her research, ensuring that they are present at every step of the research process. This includes making sure that the communities have supports in place, both emotional and spiritual, for conducting appropriate ceremonies for the bodies that they find.

“This is a decade-long process at least… There is no school across this country where all the work that needs to be done has been done, and the only people who can say that it’s done are the survivors,” Supernant said. “We need sustainable support.”

If you or someone you know has been affected by residential schools and is in distress, you can call: • Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419 (available 24 hours a day), • Hope for Wellness Helpline at 1-855-2423310, • KUU-US Crisis Line at 250-723-4050, • Talk4Healing Help Line at 1-855-554-4325.

Professor Kisha Supernant delivering her talk for Orange Shirt Day to an auditorium full of students, faculty, and staff in New College.

COURTESY OF DIANA TYSZKO

The vaccine behind the ‘new normal’ The science behind the 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology

High school biology gave us an idea of what a vaccine is, what goes into these disease-fighting compounds, and who discovered the first vaccine. Hint: he’s a Jenner but not related to the Kardashians. We learned that a ‘traditional’ vaccine worked by introducing a weakened pathogen, or virus, into the blood. This would allow our immunity-building white blood cells and disease-fighting macrophages to gain memory of this pathogen and thereby protect against future attacks without harming us.

In 2020, this idea of a vaccine was reformed by a new discovery; in 2021, the reformed idea saved millions of lives; in 2023, that same path-breaking idea won a Nobel Prize.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, made important discoveries that led to the development of effective messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines against COVID-19. mRNA vaccines work by delivering instructions to our body’s cells on how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response to a specific virus. This way, the body is not exposed to the virus directly, but instead, it recognizes the virus based on a modified mRNA sequence and builds immunity for the future.

Ribonucleic acid, or RNA, is made up of four types of nucleoside molecules: adenosine, cytosine, uridine, and guanosine. It is similar to DNA but single-stranded instead of doublestranded. A strand of RNA holds instructions to make specific proteins in the body, depending on the order of its nucleosides. ‘Messenger’ strands of RNA are translated into proteins.

One of the leading concerns for Karikó’s and Weissman’s research was understanding how modifications to mRNA sequences can be made without harm to the host cell DNA from which the mRNA sequences are transcribed. mRNAs are very unstable, and foreign mRNAs are often degraded in the body as a fight response.

Karikó and Weissman discovered that changing one of the nucleosides in an mRNA strand not only makes it more stable but also prevents it from being immediately destroyed by inflammation when it’s injected into the immune system. Specifically, if uridine nucleosides mutate to pseudouridine, the engineered mRNA becomes more stable to work with.

The next hurdle was to figure out how to safely transport the modified mRNA into the host cell, and a technique using lipid-based nanoparticles — particles so small they’re most conveniently measured in nanometres — came to the rescue. Lipid-based nanoparti-

cles, when combined with the mutated mRNA, can fuse with the cell membrane, allowing for undegraded transport into the host cell.

Karikó and Weissman’s ideas of using nucleoside base modification and lipid-based nanoparticles solved a major dilemma and offered a creative way for introducing mRNA vaccines into the bloodstream.

The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccine was over 90 per cent effective, saving the lives of millions globally, and gave rise to a major breakthrough — not only in the world of immunology and science but also in a world that was previously quarantined for two years because of the SARS-CoV virus.

The discovery of mRNA-based vaccines is a huge milestone, and a well-deserving candidate for recognition by the Nobel Prize, as it has the potential to revolutionize the

treatment of various viral diseases, such as HIV-AIDS and fatal strains of malaria.

YIXUAN GUO/THEVARSITY

Shivangi Roy Varsity Contributor

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OCTOBER 23, 2023

Chandrayaan-3 — the spacecraft helping us learn more about the moon India makes history as the first country to achieve a soft lunar landing close to the moon’s south pole Medha Barath Varsity Contributor

“India, I reached my destination and you too!”

This message from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft caused the mission control centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to erupt in cheers as they celebrated the successful touchdown of their lunar vehicle.

On August 23, India became the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft lunar landing, which is when a spacecraft touches down on the moon without incurring damage to itself. As part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO launched its lander — a spacecraft assisting with touchdown on the lunar surface — and their rover — a vehicle for exploring extraterrestrial surfaces — to the moon. The mission aimed to demonstrate a soft, safe landing on the moon; conduct scientific experiments; and verify the rover’s functionality.

India’s achievement is particularly impressive as four out of the six global attempts for a lunar landing over the past five years have failed. Beyond this, India also became the first country to land a spacecraft close to the moon’s south pole.

The beginnings of Chandrayaan India’s journey in lunar exploration began with its first-ever deep space mission: Chandrayaan-1.

ISRO began planning for a lunar mission in 2000, and its ideas eventually materialized in the lunar orbiter Chandrayaan, or “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit.

The purpose of this spacecraft was to conduct extensive mapping of the moon’s surface to reveal its chemical, mineral, and photogeological properties.

India successfully launched this orbiter in 2008 and it remained in operation for over a year. Chandrayaan-1 was crucial in helping develop our understanding of the moon — in fact, this orbiter

helped facilitate the discovery of water molecules on the moon. Data from an American instrument on board revealed features on the moon’s surface characteristic of the presence of water molecules.

In 2018, a complete analysis of the data confirmed that there were indeed regions of frozen water on the moon.

15 minutes of terror Following the success of Chandrayaan-1, ISRO undertook its first attempt at a lunar landing through the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

India had hoped to land a spacecraft containing a rover on the moon’s surface that would facilitate lunar observation for 14 Earth days. While all was looking good following the launch of Chandrayaan-2 in 2019, ISRO’s mission control centre lost contact with the spacecraft seconds before it was supposed to touchdown on the moon’s surface.

Scientists believed that this failure was caused by a malfunction in the vehicle during the ‘15 minutes of terror’ — a period when the spacecraft must continue its descent to the surface entirely autonomously without intervention from the control centre.

Determined to avoid the same setbacks again, scientists at ISRO ensured that similar errors would not occur on Chandrayaan-3. They improved the vehicle’s fuel capacity and guidance systems while conducting extensive testing.

Advancements in lunar science Chandrayaan-3 observed the moon for one lunar day, the equivalent of 14 days on Earth. The resulting data has helped advance our knowledge of the moon, which can aid society in our quest for further space exploration.

One particularly fascinating discovery from the mission is about the moon’s ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere made up of electrons

due to the ionizing power of extreme ultraviolet and x-ray radiation. It is this layer that allows for communication using radio waves. Data from Chandrayaan-3’s lander revealed that the moon’s ionosphere has low electron density, which allows for radio waves to travel more easily. Thus, transmission delays would not be a huge problem for any future human settlement on the moon.

Chandrayaan-3 also confirmed the presence of sulphur on the moon’s surface. As sulphur is commonly found in hot molten rock, scientists believe that this molten rock might have covered the moon in the past. The surface could have eventually solidified to its current state. Another explanation for this molecule’s presence could be asteroids hitting the moon’s surface.

Interestingly, the mission’s rover might have recorded a ‘moonquake’ during its journey on the lunar surface.

Data suggests that its seismograph recorded a minor seismic event, but the tremors might have been from a small meteorite strike.

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solo endeavour — India and Japan are planning to jointly launch the LUPEX rover to the moon by the end of the decade to advance understanding of the moon’s water ice.

India’s future on the moon On September 4 this year, India put the Chandrayaan-3’s lander and rover to sleep. Unfortunately, the efforts that have been taking place since September 22 to reestablish connection with the rover have been futile; according to The Indian Express, Aluru Seelin Kiran Kumar, the former chief of ISRO, said that “there won’t be any more hope of reviving [the instrument].”

This does not mean that India’s lunar journeys have ended. Just this year, India signed the Artemis Accords, a US-led arrangement to help advance lunar exploration. Signing this agreement will facilitate the ISRO’s further exploration of the moon.

ISRO’s next lunar mission might also not be a An integrated module of Chandrayaan-3, pre-launch.

COURTESY OF INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (GODL-INDIA) CC WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Modelling social behaviour with AI

Reinforcement learning allows us to test social cognitive theory using AI Mehakpreet Kaur Saggu Varsity Staff

At the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society’s Absolutely Interdisciplinary Conference this June, Nicolas Papernot — an assistant professor at U of T — moderated a session titled ‘Testing social cognitive theory with AI.’ The two presenters at the session were William Cunningham, a psychology professor at U of T, and Joel Z. Leibo, a senior staff research scientist at Google DeepMind.

In their discussion, Cunningham and Leibo explored how multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) can test social cognitive theory. According to the social cognitive theory, learning occurs within a social setting, where individuals, their behaviours, and the environment interact and influence each other. Using reinforcement learning models, we can create simulations of agents and model their behaviours. This approach can help us gain valuable insights into the emergence of human social processes, offering valuable implications for aligning AI with human values.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a type of machine learning method where an AI agent learns by trying things out in an interactive environment, using feedback from the results of its actions and its experiences. Essentially, RL allows a computer to figure things out on its own without being told exactly what to do. Instead, it learns by getting rewards for ‘good’ behaviours and penalties for ‘bad’ behaviours. You treat the computer, or “agent,” when it does some-

thing correctly, and it learns to do more of it.

Vice versa, you punish the agent when it does something incorrectly, and it learns to do less of it. It’s like training a pet to do tricks.

Historically, social psychology has made an effort to pinpoint the core elements of social cogni-

explaining social behaviour in real-world contexts.

It failed to take into account external influences.

Social psychology now attempts to incorporate many motivational factors, such as self-esteem, group dominance, and inequality aversion, into its models explaining social behaviour.

ELVIA IP/THEVARSITY

tion by taking a ‘domain-general’ approach — that is to say, by believing that social phenomena can be explained solely through basic mental processes, which include perception, memory, attribution, and attention. However, according to the speakers, this simplistic approach was inadequate for

This is where AI comes into play. Cunningham and Leibo’s research used MARL models, a form of AI, as a “null model” for social cognition: a model with as few assumptions as possible about how the MARL models would behave. This allows them to focus on reinforce-

ment learning. They aimed to explore the extent to which they could explain human social behaviour without including additional motivational factors.

The researchers designed a coordination game that involved two different groups of ‘sprites’ — as in AI agents — interacting and collecting objects. Some conditions allowed sprites to interact only with members of their own group, while others allowed interactions with members of both groups. Over time, the sprites began to interact with members of their own group more frequently, demonstrating an emergent in-group bias.

The researchers then introduced unique ‘pixel’ identifications to each sprite, which allowed the AI agents to distinguish between individuals.

This enhanced the in-group bias, revealing that familiarity and the learning processes of individuals could drive group preferences. The AI agents did not require any hardcoded motivations — instead, the in-group bias was derived solely from reinforcement learning.

The implications of this research are profound. By leveraging AI and reinforcement learning, researchers can create models that simulate complex social behaviours without explicitly including additional motives. This opens up new avenues for understanding the origins of social biases and group formations without the need to postulate specific innate motivations.

As AI evolves, the intersection of AI and social psychology will open up a new frontier of possibilities, enabling us to explore the depths of human interaction like never before.

Sports

October 23, 2023 thevarsity.ca/category/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

Making waves: Mahaylia Datars defies the odds in the Ironman Datars discusses how her experience at U of T has made her a better athlete

Datars competed at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.

COURTESY OF SEYRAN MAMMADOV CC VARSITY BLUES MEDIA

Musa Shah Varsity Contributor

On August 20, Varsity Blues swimmer Mahaylia Datars surpassed all odds by completing the Ironman Mont-Tremblant — a 113-kilometre triathlon race — in an incredible 12 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds while posting the fastest swim time among all women competitors and fifth fastest among all competitors. She also finished second in the triathlon overall among all women aged 18 to 24.

As a result of her accomplishment in Mont Tremblant, Datars qualified to compete in the Ironman World Championships held on October

14 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. At the World Championship, Datars completed the race in 12 hours, 33 minutes, and 18 seconds, finishing 24th among women competitors aged 18 to 24, once again with the fastest swim time among competitors in her age group.

In an interview with The Varsity, Datars sat down to detail her incredible journey as a competitive swimmer for U of T that helped her tackle a challenge that she has dreamed of overcoming since she was a child.

Datars’ passion for competing emerged from her love for swimming, a sport she began learning when she was around six or seven. “Like every other child, I took swimming lessons,” she

U of T’s pom team: Glitter, grace, and grit Co-captains of the pom team discuss choreography, training, and recent auditions Lina Obeidat Varsity Contributor

If you’ve been to a football or basketball game at U of T, you’ve likely seen the pom team perform.

They’re a fun bunch to watch, with their impressively coordinated routines and incredible enthusiasm.

The Varsity sat down with co-captains Mackenzie Wong and Maya Halstead to talk about what exactly the pom team does, how they choreograph routines, the misconceptions people have about dance, and the auditions they held recently.

Pom vs cheer Students may confuse the pom team with the cheer team at U of T. Admittedly, I didn’t realize they were two separate teams, so my first question to the co-captains was about whether they could explain the difference between the two.

Halstead, a second-year kinesiology student, explained that both teams engage the audience and root for the players during U of T games. However, the cheer team does stunts that use techniques similar to those found in gymnastics, while the pom team performs dances with their pom-poms, focusing more on rhythm and expressing emotion.

So, what goes into a routine?

“We usually like to pick a song first,” said Wong, a third-year Rotman

Commerce student, when I asked the co-captains about what goes into choreographing a dance routine. Once the song is chosen, they chop the song up, block out all distractions, and ask themselves: “What can [we] do to bring these people from one place to another?” The movement of dancers from one place to another must be practical and visually appealing, so the team often does a bit of “playing around in front of a mirror” to see what works.

Halstead explained that the movements must also be in line with the traditional pom style, which is “almost like a fusion between… jazz and hip hop,” with the addition of slightly more “robotic” movements.

“You want to have everyone’s arm in the exact same position with their pom looking the exact same way to… make it look as clean as possible,” she continued.

said. “My mom put me into the local swimming club there, because for her [swimming] was always a [important] thing.”

Furthermore, living in northern Ontario, Datars grew up right near a lake. “It was really important to be a capable swimmer,” Datars said. The lessons at the local club kickstarted her ongoing 15-year swimming journey, as she participated in competitions from grade school to university.

Datars grew up idolizing swimmers like Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky. However, she especially credits the outstanding coaches she had throughout her childhood, who helped her develop into the athlete she is today.

“I’ve been very lucky in that my coaches have always recognized the importance of balancing swimming and life,” Datars said. “They always emphasized academics first in school, followed by hobbies… because happy swimmers are fast swimmers.”

Additionally, Datars described how her Blues teammates created a comfortable setting for her to integrate her swimming philosophy into a more competitive learning environment.

“There are practices that I can think of that I would not have been able to finish… if it weren’t for my teammates,” Datars said. “[They] see you at your worst, [and] they see you at your best.

Everyone is motivating each other every practice… and giving [each other] a little extra energy.”

When asked about the endurance she required to complete the Ironman, Datars stressed rhythm as a driving reason for her success. She explained that throughout the race, she struggled to exert additional effort due to her emotional and physical fatigue. Finding a rhythm in the middle of challenges allowed her to progress through the higher stages of the race.

“I think sports in general are far more mental than physical because you put yourself through worse situations in training than you would ever

put yourself through in a race,” Datars said.

Datars emphasized how, as an athlete, one reaches a point where it is difficult to exert additional effort since one’s body cannot take it any further. “When those moments happened throughout the race, I’d be like, ‘No, you got this’ — and you just put your head down and fight through it.” She added that the massive crowds at the race also encouraged her to remain positive in the face of adversity.

That approach served Datars well, as she successfully finished all three categories of the race: the 3.9-kilometre swim, 180.2-kilometre bike ride, and 42.2-kilometre run. For Datars, finishing the race was both a relief and an important milestone.

“I don’t think it fully sunk in when I finished it.

I was really relieved to have done it, but it was definitely an emotional roller coaster,” Datars explained. “There was a member of my [swim] team there… and my mom was there as well… so I was also emotionally fragile at the point too.

But [there] was a feeling of being proud and stuff like that. [I was] like, “Damn, you accomplished that,’ and that’s a pretty incredible [feeling].”

Her experiences as a Blues swimmer not only enabled her to achieve this extraordinary feat, but also to pursue success outside of sports in her last year at U of T, where she is double majoring in human biology and nutrition. Datars considers swimming to be a way of life for her since it demands her to be organized. Furthermore, the competitive mentality she has gained as a swimmer also applies to her daily life as a student, where the challenges of achieving her goals further motivate her to achieve success in life.

“I believe that my experience at [U of T] has prepared me to have the motivation and drive, as well as the confidence in myself, to deal with whatever life throws at me,” Datars said.

“Whatever the situation is, I know I’m capable of achieving it.”

“Most of pom is specifically the arms,” Wong added. “[Unlike] hip hop and jazz [where] you can use more of your torso or your legs. Not that you [can’t use them] — we do kicks and turns — but everything that’s visually appealing about pom mostly is going to be… the positions of [the] arms.”

amount of practice they put into their work, as well as “[the] technique and conditioning and endurance training that [they] have to do to make everyone look as clean as they are.”

An effortless image Many people do not view pom, or dance in general, as a legitimate sport even though Wong explains that being a dancer “[requires you] to have strength; [requires] you have to have flexibility and control over your entire body.” According to Wong, these are three essential abilities in most sports.

Halstead points out that one of the reasons people do not view pom as a legitimate sport is because it is an artistic one, and the dancers on the team “strive not to make it look hard.” “One of the goals is we don’t want to look like we’re tired and… struggling through a routine,” she said. “We want to perform; we want to look like we feel energized and… project the energy into the audience and make the audience feel energized.”

What people do not see, Halstead continued, is the

The auditions The co-captains recently held auditions for this year’s pom team and were shocked to see that registration for the auditions was booked out, with the number of interested students pushing past a hundred. “They blew us away,” Wong said, her eyes lighting up.

The sheer talent in Goldring Centre that day was exciting to witness, but it also meant that deciding who to pick and who to turn down would be difficult, so I asked the co-captains about what might set a potential candidate apart.

Two main qualities set a potential candidate apart and can even make up for techniques that are not necessarily the best. The first is how quickly dancers can memorize choreography; the second is performance, or how dancers project energy. According to Halstead, that’s “the hardest thing to teach.”

“If your performance is amazing, it’ll put you above other people because our eyes [are] just drawn to you, because of… the energy that you’re giving out,” added Wong.

To conclude, Halstead said she’s most looking forward to “[taking] all the new rookies and just… changing the gears in their head and [turning them] into pom-ers and then… watch [them] grow as a team.”

“One of our big goals is just to make sure the team is a welcoming place for everyone. We’re really trying to avoid cliques from happening this year,” Wong said. “We’re doing that through a lot of team bonding and getting to know people… really just making it a safe space.”

The pom team is always performing their routines at Blues games.

COURTESY OF MAYA HALSTEAD & MACKENZIE WON

thevarsity.ca/category/sports

OCTOBER 23, 2023 19

Toronto Maple Leafs: A season of high expectations The Leafs finally made it past the first round last year, but can they win the Stanley Cup? Samantha Nelson Varsity Contributor

It is officially time for the Toronto Maple Leafs players to come out of hibernation and work toward becoming Stanley Cup champions. The organization has made some great changes, but will these changes be enough to get the Leafs past more than just the first round?

Goodbye Dubas, and hello Treliving At the end of the 2022–2023 season, the Leafs didn’t extend the contract of former General Manager (GM) Kyle Dubas.

With the lack of a GM, the Leafs needed to find someone to fill that void.

Luckily, Brad Treliving’s contract with the Calgary Flames was also up. The Leafs’ president, Brendan Shanahan, decided that hiring Treliving as the new Leafs GM was the right move.

The Leafs definitely feel a sense of urgency to build a team that is ready to win. If Treliving is willing to work and improve the Leafs, fans could potentially look forward to the 2024 playoffs.

Out with the old, in with the new Many familiar names on the Leafs have departed, leaving space on the roster that the team needed to fill. Defenseman Justin Holl signed a contract with the Detroit Red Wings — a decision that many fans argued needed to happen. Elsewhere, defensemen Luke Schenn and center Ryan O’Reilly both signed contracts with the Nashville Predators. Additionally, right winger Noel Acciari signed a deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Leafs saw two significant departures when forward Alexander Kerfoot signed a two-year, $7-million contract with the Arizona Coyotes and forward Michael Bunting signed a three-year, $13.5-million contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. Bunting was an effective player for the Leafs, but after a rocky performance and a three-

Blues fall just short in chippy battle against Concordia Stingers Two-point nights from Robinson and Wong weren’t enough to complete comeback Jake Takeuchi Varsity Contributor

Riding a three-game win streak, the Varsity Blues men’s ice hockey team fell 4–3 in a tightly contested battle against the undefeated Concordia Stingers at Varsity Arena. Playing on the tail end of back-to-back fixtures, the Blues showed no fatigue from their Thursday night 7–3 victory against the Western University Mustangs in London. They took the game to the last minute in a thrilling battle that saw 36 penalty minutes given out by the officials.

What happened?

The Blues had a shaky start to the game, allowing Stingers forward Charles-Antoine Paiement to score two successive goals as the Blues struggled to establish offensive zone time. Blues captain Cole Purboo led the line with exerted pressure, creating pressure through relentless forechecking, brave blocks, and big hits. The game’s physicality reached a boiling point near the end of the first period, with punches and cross-checks being thrown by both teams after a net-front crash in the Stingers crease. Three minor penalties were given to each team on this play.

game suspension for an illegal check in the playoffs, his time with the team came to an end.

Yet, the team also saw new additions. Winger Ryan Reaves was signed to a three-year, $4.05-million contract. Fans are pleased to see a player with true grit being added to the roster, and Reaves is not afraid to put himself in the penalty box to protect a teammate.

Other notable additions to the team are defenseman John Klingberg, who signed a one-year, $4.15-million contract, and forward Tyler Bertuzzi with a one-year, $5.5-million contract. Bertuzzi may not be a star player on the roster, but with time fans can anticipate seeing him shine and possibly even become one of the top goal scorers. Finally, forward Max Domi decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, Tie Domi, and joined the team.

What about the “core four”?

In terms of the Leafs’ “core four” — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, and William Nylander — not much has changed.

Marner’s and Tavares’ contracts are not up until the end of the 2024–2025 season. Further, the Leafs were successful in securing four more years with Matthews as he signed a four-year, $53-million contract. So far, he’s had a hot start to the season with back-to-back hat tricks in his first two games. With Matthews re-signing, fans have expectations to see Matthews score 60 goals, Going into the period’s final minute, the Stingers scored a short-handed goal on a Blues powerplay to take their lead to three. Yet, just 14 seconds later, forward Nicholas Wong responded with a powerplay marker off of a perfect feed from defenseman Owen Luik to take the score to 3–1.

The second period saw end-to-end hockey with frequent breakaways and turnovers. Blues goaltender Jett Alexander made several key saves to keep his team in the game. Mid-way through the period, Purboo would be rewarded for his tenacity when he capitalized off of a rebound in a net-front scramble, scoring the Blues’ second goal of the game.

The Stingers scored early into the third period, and the rest of the game was all Blues offense as the team looked to close the gap, trailing 4–2. Forward Billy Moslak scored on the power-play midway into the period, but ultimately, it was not enough to overcome their initial three-goal deficit.

Blues forward Owen Robinson’s two assists on the night saw him rise to third in points, 11 in total, in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA), while

and possibly compete for the Hart Trophy once again.

Nylander is arguably one of the most relaxed players in the league. His contract is up at the end of this season, and although fans are impatiently waiting for the player to sign an extension with the Leafs, Nylander doesn’t seem to be bothered. “I still have one more year left, so, I mean, I don’t really understand what the big rush is,” Nylander said in an interview with Sportsnet.

Fans are expecting more out of this “core four” as there have been moments where the players have seemed too unbothered by the Leafs’ consistent playoff shortcomings. Fans desperately want to see them actively working toward winning the Stanley Cup. So, are the Leafs cup-bound? They’ve made changes, but are those changes enough?

There is no doubt that the players must work incredibly hard if they plan to attain the Stanley Cup. Only time will tell whether or not their changes will be effective. In the meantime, Leafs fans will stand behind their team, claiming, “This is our year.”

ZAINAB AFAQ/THEVARSITY Wong sits just behind at fourth with 10. Alexander also continued to be a steady presence at the goalpost as he made 28 saves on the night, adding to his league-leading 191 saves for the season — 21 saves more than second place.

What’s next?

The Blues now have a 4–2 record in the regular season and sit fourth in the OUA West standings.

In a post-match interview with The Varsity, Wong spoke positively about the team’s record so far: “I think that’s a good start. I mean, [we’re] getting off on the right foot here… [but] we got to keep on going, keep on getting better every day.”

The Blues have a week’s rest before a back-toback fixture against Lakehead University at the Varsity Arena on October 27 and 28. With 22 games remaining in the OUA regular season, the Blues look to maintain their strong record as they set their sights on the playoffs in February.

Blues forward, Owen Robinson now has 11 points in six games.

COURTESY OF ARU DAS CC VARSITY BLUES MEDIA

Canadian tennis is a story of soaring highs and disheartening lows From Félix Auger-Aliassime to Leylah Fernandez, Canadian tennis players are having a rough season Aleksa Cosovic Varsity Contributor

As the dimming lights enveloped the centre court of the indoor Pala Alpitour arena in Turin, Italy, the stage stood set for the start of the 2022 Nitto Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Finals. It was at this 53rd edition of the climactic event that Canada — a nation known for its love of hockey — was poised to make its long-awaited, triumphant return to the pinnacle of professional tennis.

Montreal, Québec’s Félix Auger-Aliassime — who seeded fifth in the season-ending championship — became the second Canadian in all of men’s tennis history to participate in the prestigious ATP Tour Finals. Thornhill, Ontario’s Milos Raonic, was the first, having qualified for the tournament in 2014 and 2016.

Despite defeating his childhood idol and 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal in a dominant straight-set victory, Auger-Aliassime finished the event with a 1–2 record, losing to Taylor Fritz and Casper Ruud in his other two group stage encounters.

Auger-Aliassime’s round-robin elimination from the championship did not reflect the scorching

end-of-season form that saw him win back-toback-to-back titles within a three-week span. Just in October 2022, he captured titles at the Firenze Open, European Open, and Swiss Indoors.

Auger-Aliassime capped off his remarkable 16-match win streak across multiple tournaments by producing an impressive run at the Paris Masters, ultimately falling short in the semifinals against the tournament’s eventual champion, Holger Rune, in two sets.

During that tournament, at the tail end of last year, the future of Canadian tennis looked to be in the hands of Auger-Aliassime, who had his sights set on a successful 2023 campaign — carrying the momentum from his first title-winning season on the ATP tour that culminated in a career-high ranking of No. 6 in men’s singles players.

However, Auger-Aliassime’s meteoric rise in 2022 has seemingly been overshadowed by his 2023 woes. In the past ten months, the 23-yearold has experienced a dreadful run of form and a plethora of disappointing first- and second-round exits — a polar opposite result from last year.

Auger-Aliassime’s second-round defeat to Márton Fucsovics at the Shanghai Masters on October 6 marked the seventh time in his last eight

NAYEON (NIKKI) SONG/THEVARSITY

events that he had lost his opening match of a tournament.

But Auger-Aliassime is one of many Canadian tennis players to have endured a lacklustre season. Vaughan, Ontario’s Denis Shapovalov last played a match in the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships in early July. He is currently recovering from a knee injury that kept him out of this year’s US Open.

After attaining a career-high ranking of 10 in 2020, the Israeli-born lefty — now ranked 45th in the world — hasn’t made it past the quarter-finals of any tournament he has participated in since finishing as the runner-up at the 2022 Vienna Open.

On the Women’s Tennis Association Tour, Canadians Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez have suffered the same unfortunate fate. Despite achieving success at the Grand Slam level, both now sit below their overall career-high rankings, though Fernandez has fared better.

In 2019, Andreescu became the first Canadian tennis player to win a major singles title after defeating Serena Williams in straight sets in the US Open Final. The former world No. 4 is now ranked

78th in 2023 and has not won a title since her historic 2019 triumph in the Big Apple.

More recently, after reaching the finals of the US Open in 2021, Fernandez was set to become the new face of Canadian women’s tennis. However, the former junior Grand Slam champion has struggled to find consistency in her game.

Apart from a quarterfinal appearance at the 2022 French Open, Fernandez has yet to make it past the second round of a major tournament since her memorable run at Flushing Meadows in 2021.

Canadian tennis has undoubtedly embraced the highs and the lows of the game. The bursts of momentum — and glimpses of success that fans became accustomed to seeing from their fellow Canadians on the court — have vanished this season, due to the lack of consistency the players have shown more recently.

However, there is no doubt that with the potential that players like Auger-Aliassime and Fernandez have displayed in the past, the tide will turn, and we will see Canada back at the top of professional tennis very soon.

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THE VARSITY

OCTOBER 23, 2023

DIVERSIONS

The Varsity’s Weekly Crossword — Colleges Kaiyo Freyder Varsity Contributor

Answers to the previous crossword

University College labryinth

Vincent Quach Varsity Contributor