January 14, 2013

Keeping cool Staying Warm

THE VARSITY

Vol. CXXXIII, No. 13

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

14 January, 2013

“Men’s issues” groups test limit of free speech on campus Simon Bredin NEWS EDITOR

information was lost. This includes direct notification to those for whom we have current contact information,” Finley said in a statement released Friday. For those whose contact information is not up to date, a phone number has been set up by the department to address concerns.

Jaroslava Avila graduated from U of T in 2011, and received federal loans in 2005 and 2006. She says she is still unsure if she has been personally affected by the breach.

“This is just one more thing for students to worry about on top of paying thousands of dollars in students loans,” said Avila.

Senior administrators at the University of Toronto and the University of Toronto Students’ Union (utsu) continue to debate the acceptable limits of free speech on campus in the aftermath of a lecture delivered in late November by Dr. Warren Farrell.

The lecture was marked by a sizable protest and heavy police presence, during which a group of protestors blocked the entrance to the lecture hall where Farrell was scheduled to speak.

“We have at the University of Toronto a wide range of contentious events, in which views are expressed that are offensive to some,” said Provost Cheryl Misak in a December 11 statement. “Our primary aim with respect to these events is to ensure that freedom of speech is protected, including the freedom to protest, as long as the law is respected.”

In a dueling statement released in the days following Farrell’s lecture, the utsu condemned the event. “Despite complaints to the University administration, and requests from students to maintain our campus as a safe space free from oppression and discrimination, Dr. Farrell was given a space and forum to spread his misogynistic, hateful theories at U of T,” read the union’s release.

Farrell was invited to speak on campus by a group called Men’s Issues Awareness at the University of Toronto (miaut). The group is listed as a registered student club with ULife. Its mission is described as “consciousness-raising, public education and efforts to change public policy” in relation to “men’s issues,” and the group pledges “positive activism to advance a healthier society” and “the highest level of co-operative dialogue with other campus and community organizations engaged in activities of similar aims and goals.” Calls to the contact number listed on miaut’s ULife profile were routed to the voicemail inbox of the Canadian Association

CONTINUED PG 3

CONTINUED PG 4

The Newman Centre has provoked critisicm with “Courage,” a controversial same-sex support group. READ MORE PG 3

Feds lose data for hundreds of thousands of students RCMP, privacy commissioner investigating theft of external hard drive containing financial and personal info James Maiangowi & Zane Schwartz ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITORS

An external hard drive containing the personal and financial information of 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers went missing from a Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (hrsdc) office last year, the department announced Friday. The portable hard drive contains the names, dates of birth, addresses, social insurance numbers (sin), and student loan balances of students who were recipients of the loan program from 2000 to 2006 in 10 provinces and territories, including Ontario.

No banking or medical records were compromised. However, records of 250 employees of the department were also on the hard drive.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner are both investigating the matter.

Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, called the loss “unacceptable and avoidable,” and said new security policies would be put in place to ensure the safety of Canadians’ personal information. Finley also promised that the department would make efforts to inform those affected by the privacy breach.

“The department will be making every effort to contact the individuals whose

2

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

news@thevarsity.ca

WHAT’S GOING ON

THE VARSITY VOL. CXXXIII No. 13

THIS WEEK

21 Sussex Avenue, Suite 306 Toronto, ON, M5S 1J6 Phone: 416-946-7600 www.thevarsity.ca

the week in tweets

ON CAMPUS

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Murad Hemmadi

EMMA HRAJNIK @EMMAHRAJNIK

editor@thevarsity.ca

Design Editors Suzy Nevins Dan Seljak

suzy@thevarsity.ca dan@thevarsity.ca

Photo Editor Bernarda Gospic

photo@thevarsity.ca

Dear University of Toronto St. G campus, please get shuttle buses.

Sincerely, students that have to walk across campus in this weather

Production Editor Alex Ross production@thevarsity.ca Managing Online Editor Patrick Love online@thevarsity.ca Senior Copy Editor Vacant

copy@thevarsity.ca

News Editor Simon Bredin

news@thevarsity.ca

Comment Editor Joshua Oliver

comment@thevarsity.ca

Features Editor Simon Frank

features@thevarsity.ca

Arts & Culture Editor Brigit Katz

FREE PANCAKE BRUNCH University of Toronto Students’ Union Monday, 14 January. 10.30 am–2:30 pm New College | Wilson Lounge 40 Willcocks St.

science@thevarsity.ca

Sports Editor Zoë Bedard

sports@thevarsity.ca illustration@thevarsity.ca

Video Editor Wyatt Clough

video@thevarsity.ca

READING THE HUMAN GENOME Human Biology Program Tuesday, 15 January, 10 am–12 pm Medical Sciences Building | Macleod Auditorium 1 Kings College Circle

Associate Design Editor Nathan Watson Associate Photo Editor Vacant Associate Online Editor Vacant Associate Copy Editor Catherine Kabasele Associate News Editors Rida Ali James Maiangowi Zane Schwartz Associate Comment Editor Vacant Associate Features Editor Damanjit Lamba Associate A&C Editor Danielle Klein Associate Science Editor Roxanne Leung Katrina Vogan Associate Sports Editor Elizabeth Benn William Deck

Maged Ahmed, Zainab Asadullah, Dryden Bailey, Patrick Baud, Omar Bitar, Simon Bredin, William Deck, Connor Emdin, Karen Kyung Fuhrmann, Jennifer Gosnell, Daniel Horowitz, Evan Hutchison, Stephen Jayaratnam, Geshini Karunatilake, Lia Kim, Sofia Luu, James Maiangowi, Haley O’Shaughnessy, Rebecca Ostroff, Nicholas Pcholkin, Seemi Qaiser, Zane Schwartz, Dan Seljak, Vipasha Shaikh, Kay Dayson Tam, Georgia Williams Designers Ethan Chiel Natalie Morcos Suzy Nevins Dan Seljak Nathan Watson Photo and Illustration William Ahn Minhee Bae Bernarda Gospic Janice Liu Dan Seljak Stephanie Travassos Fact Checkers Catherine Kabasele Alex Ross Laura Sabatini

Business Office Business Manager John Fountas

business@thevarsity.ca

Advertising Manager Tina Yazdi advertising@thevarsity.ca Advertising Executives victoria@thevarsity.ca Victoria Botvinnik nick@thevarsity.ca Nick Brownlee sofia@thevarsity.ca Sofia Luu maokai@thevarsity.ca Maokai Shen

The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published

by Varsity Publications Inc. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock.

Content © 2012 by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the sections associated with them; emails listed above.

The Varsity reserves the right to edit all submissions.

Inquiries regarding ad sales can be made to ads@thevarsity.ca. ISSN: 0042-2789 Please recycle this issue after you are finished with it.

CHRIS @CHRIS_UOFT

SUMMER JOB FAIR University Career Centre Thursday, 17 January, 2–3 pm Hart House | Great Hall 7 Hart House Circle

Great break from the city discovering #Kingston this weekend! Anyone else falling behind on their readings? #UofT

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. REFERENDUM

KHEVNA @KHEVNA_UOFT

January 28, 29, 30, 2013 voting online at http://voting.utoronto.ca

RAVEN D @RAVENALEXANDRA

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC., the student group that publishes The Varsity newspaper, is seeking a $1 increase in its annual perstudent levy, also known as its compulsory non-academic incidental fee. All full-time undergraduate students at the University of Toronto who pay the fee are eligible to vote in the referendum to approve the increase.

Contributors

Copy Editors Elizabeth Benn Lois Boody Aisha Kakinuma Hassan Catharine Kabasele Ken Kongkatong Kerrie McCreadie Kayla Rosen Laura Sabatini Michelle Speyer Tonya Sutherland Shiqa Tauqir Irina Vukosavic Riley Watson Miranda Whittaker Cover Bernarda Gospic

It is a ridiculously warm January in Toronto and I hate it. I can’t wear my sweaters in peace.

arts@thevarsity.ca

Science Editor Dennis Dobrovolsky

Illustrations Editor Minhee Bae

CRYSTAL @CYJC23

Crime Stats January 7–10

12 8

Thefts

Trespasses

2 1

Dispute

Assault w/ a weapon

Still amazed at how awesome my profs are this semester #uoft

AMY CATHERINE @OURLADYDELILAH Just submitted the last things for my MA application. Just have to hand in the hard copy tomorrow. Commence panic #uoft #thestudentlife

stuff on campus, explained

ROSI is the Repository of Student Information at the University of Toronto. With students clamouring on social media for their grades, The Varsity sat down with Yvette Ali, the Faculty Registrar, Records & Associate Director at the University of Toronto’s Transcript Centre, to find out how students’ final marks wind their way on to ROSI. THE VARSITY: So how does marks’ approval work?

Property Damages

1

The Explainer

There are so many other people coughing in this con hall class with me... #sick #UofT

YVETTE ALI: What happens is, the instructors submit their marks on the system, the chairs log into the system and approve the marks, and as soon as the marks are approved, we just upload them onto rosi and it doesn’t take very long. So the turnaround time between when a chair approves a mark and when we upload a mark is usually less than a day.

So one of the things that students may be confused about, but we try to clarify, is that no marks are posted during the Christmas break. No marks are posted over the Christmas break.

I think some students check it, and think their marks are going to change. But it also says on SWS that their marks won’t change and won’t be posted.

TV: So for the teaching assistants, how do they help professors grade marks? Who makes sure that all the marks are fair between all teaching assistants for a course?

YA: So, the teaching assistants submit all their marks to the instructor and the instructor reviews all the marks and is the one to submit the final marks onto the eMarks system. It is the responsibility of the instructor to ensure that there is consistency among the marks of the various TA’s.

TV: What do you think is a student’s biggest concern about their marks?

YA: Some students ask if their marks can be posted up faster, but we, in the Registrar’s office, turn them around as fast as possible.

If it takes longer, the instructor hasn’t submitted them — that’s all. But instructors have a certain amount of time to submit them. It’ seven business days after their final exam or last day of class if they have no final exam.

TV: So submitting their final marks takes seven business days.

YA: Yes. But that’s business days. So it doesn’t count weekends or the time we are closed for Christmas break. Actually, most of the concerns from students are the marks they receive, which has nothing to do with how it’s administered. But there is another whole process for doing that, which is detailed in the Academic Calendar. Miscalculation of grades is very rare.

TV: So for the most part, it seems like students are just overly anxious or impatient when it comes to marks?

YA: Yes, that’s true, but I think that students feel a lot of pressure when it comes to marks. A lot of students are interested in going to graduate school, things like that. So there is pressure around marks. So it is unfortunate, because students are less focused on the learning. But it’s understandable about why it happens.

var.st/news

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

3

Newman Centre courts controversy U of T community voices concern over gay Catholic support group Lia Kim VARSITY STAFF

The establishment of a group called “Courage” at the Newman Centre on U of T’s St. George campus, which sets out to “provide support for the inclusion of the Catholic homosexual person into the Catholic Church,” has been widely critiqued as offensive since it was first reported by The Globe and Mail earlier this month. Increasing scrutiny has prompted the university to issue an official statement distancing itself from the program.

“I know there are some people who have been going to the Newman Centre, who no longer feel they can participate in parish life because of [the Courage] program, and will either look for another Roman Catholic community, or maybe feel like they have to leave their own faith tradition because it’s yet another instance of the church being inhospitable,” said Reverend Ralph Carl Wushke, ecumenical chaplain at the University of Toronto.

Courage is an apostolate of the Catholic Church which ministers to “persons with same-sex attraction.” It was founded in 1980

by Father John Harvey, and introduced to the city of Toronto six years later.

Though not an official entity of the university, the Newman Centre Courage program was formed at the request of “a number of people [within the university community] aspiring to live chaste lives in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality,” said Bill Steinburg, communications manager at the Archdiocese of Toronto.

“Courage is one program available to those in the university community who wish to be involved — only those who wish to be involved have any direct connection with the group,” said Steinburg.

“This is an important ministry to those who have chosen to be involved, and I support their wishes to gather in prayer and discussion,” announced Newman Centre pastor, Chris Cauchi, during Sunday Mass on January 6, at the adjacent St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church.

The controversy surrounding the program stems largely from “the twelve steps of courage” patterned after the twelve steps for recovery from alcoholism, originally proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc. (aa).

“The twelve step program is pathologizing same-sex attraction as a sickness, and I think that’s quite hateful,” said Wushke.

“LOST DATA” CONTINUED FROM COVER Munib Sajjad, vice-president, university affairs, of the University of Toronto Students’ Union, says he had around $6,000 of federal loans taken out during the time frame in question. His personal information may also have been comprised in the breach.

“I’m kind of baffled, and really, really surprised that our government is losing student records,” said Sajjad. utsu president Shaun Shepherd says he is deeply concerned by the loss. “I’m surprised and I’m disappointed by the fact that a significant amount of student information is out there and no one knows where it is. That’s a scary concept.”

Shepherd notes that the hdrsc is currently describing the information as “lost” rather than stolen.

“Reparative therapy is harmful and doesn’t help gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people come into their own, to find a healthy, whole life that is spiritually grounded in a positive way,” Wushke continued. “It may look like a positive solution for people suffering from the effects of homophobia, but in the long-run, gender identity is deeper than surface behaviours or passing experiences. I don’t think you can be cured of it. I think you can possibly repress it for a while but it’s going to come out in some other neurosis.”

U of T alumnus Rob Walker reflected on his past exposure to groups like Courage: “I was told for years that I am a ‘bad Christian’ for living as a gay man,” said Walker.

“In the best circumstances, students who would opt for a program like Courage do so because they have the full courage of their convictions,” Walker explained. “These young adults may experience tremendous pressure to be ‘good Catholics’ by conforming their self-understandings to what the church teaches. It is very difficult to achieve clarity of thought when you are told that, should you decide to live as a well-adjusted queer Christian, you are arguing with God in a state of moral sin, or potentially destined for the flames of hell!”

The existence of the program has also provoked a condemnatory response from the University of Toronto Students’ Union (ustu). The union wants the program discontinued, as does the university’s vicepresident of human resources and equity, Angela Hildyard.

“This has no place on a university campus,” said Shaun Shepherd, president of the utsu.

“I would encourage students to familiarize themselves with the notorious history of the ex-gay movement, and how programs like Courage continue to stigmatize queer identities, while offering little in return to participants,” said Shepherd.

Walker offered encouragement to fellow students, saying “There are ways to read Scripture, respect tradition, and incorporate the insights of science and personal experience that allow people to live as queer people, and I encourage you to make sure you give yourself the opportunity to ask many questions and to express your doubts and joys. In the end, choose the path that allows you to flourish — and allow others, in peace, to disagree with you and to make choices that are different from your own.”

“I don’t understand how that amount of information is kept on a hard drive and lost,” said Shepherd. “I’m hopeful that maybe it’s just been misplaced.”

As of The Varsity’s press time, significant questions remain unanswered regarding the loss.

According to a timeline released by the hdrsc, the hard drive was first reported missing on November 5, 2012. But the Departmental Security Officer was not notified until November 28, and it was not until December 6 that the department discovered what was on the lost hard drive.

Departmental spokesperson Christian Plouffe declined to comment on either gap.

Plouffe also declined to comment on why the RCMP was first informed about the matter on January 7, 2013, over two months after the hard drive was first reported missing.

A controversial program at the Newman Centre has caused a schism on campus. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

Canadian Federation of Students chair Adam Awad appeared to take the timeline at face value. “Their response was that they weren’t aware that the drive contained the information until several weeks after it was first reported lost,” said Awad.

Awad believes the government is taking the appropriate steps now. “We appreciate that they set up a hotline and that they’re taking efforts to monitor the students’ accounts that were affected,” said Awad.

The Varsity contacted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, who confirmed they had been notified on December 14.

The Privacy Commissioner only launches investigations where a “serious possibility” of a breach of the Privacy Act exists. “The opc is mandated by Parliament to act as an ombudsman, advocate and guardian of privacy rights of Canada,” read a statement

sent to The Varsity by manager of external communications Scott Hutchinson.

University officials were informed of the breach by the provincial Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities. The Ontario ministry informed universities via an announcement routed through the Ontario Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. It remains unclear how many former and current U of T students are affected although U of T spokesperson Laurie Stephens has confirmed the university is looking into the matter.

Stephens said the university stores records received from the hdrsc. “The university has strong security procedures around storage and access in order to safeguard the personal financial information of students,” Stephens said in an email.

4

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013 “DEBATE” CONTINUED FROM COVER

for Equality, an organization whose name appeared prominently on posters promoting Farrell’s lecture. utsu executives said the union had been in contact with the administration to express their concern over the club since early last fall. In spite of the union’s stated opposition, Farrell’s lecture was approved by the Office of Student Life, which vets potentially controversial speakers before they can speak on a U of T campus.

Through a spokesperson, the university declined to elaborate on the vetting procedure in place. Misak’s December 11 release stated in part that “the vast majority of the University of Toronto community understands that freedom of expression is vital to the mission of universities and cannot be reserved for those with whom one agrees.”

In the weeks since the event, the utsu has urged the administration to make the vetting procedure more stringent. “I support free speech, but there is no right without its limitation,” said utsu president Shaun Shepherd. “In this case, it’s obvious that [Dr.] Farrell had overstepped that limit a few times, not through what he was saying at the lecture, but the content of his other speeches and books, and the way he approaches these issues. It is sexist at the core.”

Shepherd said he was “ashamed” that the university “keeps poking at this free speech claim.” Misak’s statement concerning Farrell’s lecture, Shepherd said, suggested that “the

disruption of this event by protesters was a threat to free speech.”

“The way I’m viewing this is a test of the clause of these limits. If this isn’t the limit, then what is it? How far can someone go? I strongly believe this has been a breach of the university’s own policy,” said Shepherd. The union has urged the university to “use the [Ontario] Human Rights Code as a guideline in identifying events that may create an unsafe space for its students, staff and faculty.”

The university’s “Statement on Prohibited Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment” cites the Ontario Human Rights Code as one of several “foundational” documents, but also stipulates that within the university’s context, free speech is “the most crucial of all human rights.” A separate document, the “Statement on Free Speech,” adds that “there are limits to the right of free speech” referring specifically to instances “when members of the University use speech as a direct attack that has the effect of preventing the lawful exercise of speech by members or invited guests.”

“We want to ensure that events the university is promoting or allowing should fall in line with the general ethos of the university,” Shepherd said.

“Current policies don’t account strictly enough for situations where students become at risk under the guise of freedom of expression,” said utsu vice-president, equity, Noor Baig. “In my view, a lot of clarifications around violent language and hate speech need to be made in policies and upheld in practice.”

Immerse yourself in a world of infinite possibility

JUNE 3 – 15, 2013

Puppetry Intensive

Humber School of Creative & Performing Arts Toronto, Ontario, Canada For 12 full days of in-depth training you will: s learn from some of the best professional puppet artists in North America s take courses in Construction, Manipulation and Ensemble Creation s work in the state-of-the-art facilities of Humber College's Arts and Media Studios s rediscover your own endless artistic potential

www.humber.ca/puppetry

VARSITY NEWS As this debate over free speech has unfolded, a website called “A Voice for Men” has singled out several female protestors who were among the approximately 100 people who disrupted Farrell’s lecture in November. Three students, including former utsu president Danielle Sandhu, have been the subject of vitriolic blog posts. The group has also added two students to an online registry hosted on register-her.com, which publishes the names of women it labels variously as “bigots” and “false rape accusers.”

A Voice for Men has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “woman-hating” and a focal point in an expansive misogynistic online network. Contacted for comment, Farrell said he has “no affiliations with avfm, and only a hearsay understanding of what they have done.”

The posts on “A Voice for Men” include photos and other personal information gathered from Facebook and Twitter feeds. Although the site claims that the posts do not advocate or endorse violence, those targeted described receiving threatening emails and phone calls, “surveillance” on campus, and other acts of intimidation and harassment.

“Unfortunately, when contentious issues, such as this one, spill into the

news@thevarsity.ca world of blogs and internet participation and increasingly involve individuals external to our community, they can very quickly escalate. That has happened in this situation and has resulted in the vilification of a very small number of individual students,” read Misak’s statement.

The utsu confirmed that it has been documenting these cases of threats and harassment, and that this documentation has been shared with both the university administration and campus police. “We believe that there must be some member of the U of T community fueling this online witch hunt,” said Shepherd.

“There is no ambiguity here, the Men’s Issues Awareness group and its national affiliate organization, the Canadian Association for Equality (cafe) are part of the same broader ‘movement’ as ‘A Voice For Men’,” said Baig. “In fact the cafe website previously hosted a number of links to avfm which have more recently been taken down, most likely to feign dissociation.”

“I think it’s fairly clear that there are individuals within the university community with access to locally obtained information who are relaying this information, perhaps even composing the posts themselves,” Baig added.

Baig said that the union attempted to raise the issue of targeted individuals and compromised student safety at a meeting with university administrators on November 28, but the issue was not deemed urgent enough at the time to merit discussion. The topic was raised again at a December 4 meeting. Baig said it was not until after this second meeting, on December 11, that Provost Misak released her statement (quoted from above), “in which the safety of students seemed to only have been a minor issue on the side.”

In the December 11 statement, Misak wrote that the university “takes these threats seriously and we condemn them. We have reached out to individual students, and will continue to do so, in order to assist them in developing safety plans so that they may go about their academic and other endeavours on our campus safely.” A subsequent statement, released on December 20 and signed by Angela Hildyard, vice-president, human resources and equity and Jill Matus, viceprovost, students, reiterated that the university “deplores” the targeting of individuals and communities, and promised to take legal action as appropriate.

Warren Farrell on Campus Warren Farrell is a controversial figure whose published works include The Liberated Man, Why Men Are the Way They Are, and The Myth of Male Power.

On his visit to U of T campus in November, he gave a speech outlining his theory of how men are disadvantaged in Western society.

Topics discussed during Farrell’s lecture included suicide rates among veterans, custody battles

in family court, video game and pornography addiction, rates of male unemployment and underemployment, and violent sports. Farrell describes himself as a former feminist, and the only male ever to have been elected to the Board of the National Organization for Women three times. He began to include men’s issues in his work about gender in the mid-1980s.

Excellence is a worthy calling...

Become the teacher you’ve always wanted to be.

TYNDALE’S BACHELOR OF EDUCATION PROGRAM • 100 days of classroom experience reflecting the rhythm of a school’s year • Three distinct placements • Educational leaders will be your teachers and mentors • Cross-curricular emphasis • Small, collaborative and diverse learning environment

416.218.6757 | 1.877.TYNDALE www.tyndale.ca/education

VARSITY NEWS

var.st/news

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

News in brief Suspect in 2011 murder of U of T clerk arrested in Greece

Police urge caution after stabbing at UC

Former TDSB chair’s U of T thesis under investigation for plagiarism

A suspect facing first-degree murder charges in the 2011 slaying of a U of T clerk was apprehended by police in Athens, Greece, on January 8.

The victim, Allan Lanteigne, 49, was discovered dead in his home on Ossington Avenue in March 2011. The suspect, Mississauga resident Mladen “Michael” Ivezic, 53, was located and arrested with the help of Greek authorities and Interpol.

Lanteigne’s husband, Demitry Papasotiriou, 32, has already been arrested on first-degree murder charges as of last November. Both Papasotiriou and Ivezic have been charged in the murder of Lanteigne in what has been described in a statement by Toronto police as a “domestic homicide.”

The Department of Justice in Ottawa is said to be working to extradite Ivezic to Canada.

Police are urging U of T students to be vigilant after a stabbing occurred on King’s College Circle at 5.45 pm on January 10.

A woman was pushed by a man while she was walking in University College.

Another middle-aged man intervened on her behalf, and was then stabbed by the assailant. Students near the scene of the stabbing described hearing yells and screams.

Campus police released a statement late Thursday night. The suspect is described as being in his late 20s to early 30s, wearing bright red, form-fitting track pants and a green-yellow shirt.

He was carrying dumbbells.

Anyone with any information can contact the Police at 416 808 5200 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416 222 TIPS (8477).

—Jennifer Gosnell With files from cp24.

—Zainab Asadullah With files from the Toronto Star.

Chris Spence, former director of the Toronto District School Board (tdsb), may lose his doctoral degree from the University of Toronto if administrators conclude he plagiarized in his 1996 Ph.D dissertation.

Spence resigned from the tdsb last week after admitting to plagiarizing parts of an editorial piece for the Toronto Star. Since then, a number of Spence’s articles and his two books have come under heightened scrutiny.

Spence’s alleged widespread plagiarism is also under investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers.

The Star reported they found several passages in Spence’s dissertation as well as lengthy sections of his 2008 book The Joys of Teaching Boys that were copied without citation from various sources. In a statement released

by Spence Friday afternoon, he said he will be “fully cooperat[ing] with any possible inquiry.”

—Georgia Williams With files from the Toronto Star.

‘‘

Helping poor

farming families

‘‘

grow more crops and get them to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing poverty and hunger.

Bill Gates

Chairman,The Melinda and Bill Gates Foundationon Bill Gates thinks improving health in developing countries through better food production is important.What do you think?

The University of Guelph’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (FARE) is Canada’s leading food education and research institution.

Looking at graduate studies for 2013-14? Join a group of thinkers who are hard at work on a better tomorrow.

For more information on graduate studies at FARE, visit

uoguelph.ca/fare/grad UofG FARE Ad-TORONTO-12.21.12.indd 1

Food,Agricultural and Resource Economics

13-01-02 10:52 AM

5

6

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

news@thevarsity.ca

Bloor McDonald’s location shuttered Site of iconic restaurant once graced by Ashlee Simpson sold to financiers to develop condominiums Evan Hutchison VARSITY STAFF

Good night, sweet McPrince. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

On January 6, 2013, without much notice, the McDonald’s at 192a Bloor St. W. closed permanently, leaving U of T students both confused and hungry.

A favourite spot for U of T students looking for a quick bite between classes, or at least a bit of food to offset the effects of latenight partying, the McDonald’s will surely be missed as it is torn to down to make way for a new condo development.

From 1960 to March 2008, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Ltd. leased the site from the City of Toronto, paying rent of just $1,250 per month for most of that period.

The rent was to be renegotiated in 2004, with the city proposing to increase it to $16,250. McDonald’s countered with an offer to buy the property for $3.38 million.

Eventually, and controversially, city council voted, in 2008, to accept McDonald’s tender.

The value of the land on which the corporate-owned location

sat — the building itself was owned by McDonald’s — was estimated by some to be considerably higher, between $7 and $9 million, but the encumbrance of a 99-year lease made it less attractive to any other purchaser.

The land was in turn sold to a consortium led by Bazis International Inc., a developer based in Canada, but financed from Kazakhstan, also responsible for the now defunct 1 Bloor St. E. condominium tower, a 78-storey luxury development, the vacant site for which will eventually serve as the location of a considerably less ambitious project. Bazis has also participated in the construction of Astana, the ostentatious artificial city decreed Kazakhstan’s new capital in 1997.

High fences and hoardings have been erected around the old McDonald’s, but the derelict former hamburger restaurant is still visible.

Barring complications, 192a Bloor and adjacent lots will become home to the Exhibit Residences, a 28-storey condo tower consisting of four stacked cubes and 192 residential units. The structure will stand on

lots formerly occupied by Gabby’s Bar and Grill, Lobby Lounge, China Gardens, and Pho Hung.

In 2005, Ashlee Simpson memorialized the McDonald’s at Bloor when she drunkenly berated staff and customers, demanding that one kiss her foot, and attempted to climb the restaurant’s counter. A video of the incident can be found on YouTube.

Brandon Bailey, a former Victoria University student, reported his reaction to the closure on Facebook: “I happened to walk by when the security guard locked the door for the final time. Confused, I walked up the unlit ramp to read the closure sign.

“As I passed him, the security guard shot me a sad look over his shoulder and muttered, ‘It’s closed forever, kid. Condos.’ He then turned down the adjacent alleyway and faded into the darkness. It was about as dramatic as a condo-towerovertaking-a-McDonalds could be.”

The building it occupied for more than 50 years will be demolished, but the terms of its sale to Bazis provide for a new McDonald’s location inside the Exhibit Residences.

Global Reach. Innovative Programs. Diverse Perspectives.

Schulich

“All Master of Accounting programs are not created equal. The new Schulich degree offers a

unique opportunity for non-business graduates

to access a rewarding career as an accounting professional.”

MARCIA ANNISETTE, PhD

Associate Professor of Accounting Director, Master of Accounting Program Schulich School of Business

Three fast tracks to a rewarding career in business

INFORMATION SESSIONS AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Choose a 12-month full-time Schulich Masters program.

MAcc

Master of Accounting

Open doors to a career in accounting. Choose the CA Accredited Stream or the Management Accounting Information Stream. A unique program designed for both non-business and business graduates alike.

MF

Master of Finance

Become an expert in all areas of finance.

Specialize in Capital Markets or Financial Risk Management. Gain exposure to governance, regulatory and global frameworks that impact decision-making.

Learn more

MSc

MSc in Business Analytics

Master the skills to uncover business insights and drive decisions.This degree leads to careers as a Business Analytics professional in the fields of strategy, research, marketing, consulting and sales.

Schulich Programs: MBA, Accelerated MBA, IMBA, MBA/JD, MPA, MF, MSc (Business Analytics), MAcc Study Options: Full-Time, Part-Time Evenings, Days and Alternate Weekends

Mississauga Campus Student Centre, Room 280 January 23, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm St.George Campus Sidney Smith Hall, Room 1070 January 24, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Scarborough Campus Career Centre January 29, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Registration optional, visit: schulich.yorku.ca/infosessions

Schulich Leads in Rankings Schulich is ranked in the world’s top tier of business schools by The Economist (#16 in the world); Forbes (10th best non-US school); Bloomberg Businessweek (14th best non-US school); The Aspen Institute, a US think tank (#2 in the world in Social and Environmental Leadership); and Expansión (#20 in the world) in their most recent global MBA surveys. The Schulich MBA is also ranked #1 in Canada by The Economist, Forbes, The Aspen Institute and Expansión.

VARSITY NEWS

var.st/news

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

7

Work permit rules eased Vipasha Shaikh VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Under new guidelines, visas will only be granted to students attending designated institutions. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

New federal guidelines to protect international students, fight fraud Universities unaffected as “career colleges” express apprehension Zane Schwartz ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

New guidelines, proposed by the federal government for international students, have been met with broad support from postsecondary institutions. The guidelines, released by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration in late December, outline new measures designed to safeguard international students from fraud.

“There are too many stories of international students who pay a lot of money and leave their families back home to study in Canada, only to find out they have been misled,” said Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney.

“Citizenship and Immigration Canada is proposing changes to the isp [International Student Program] which would ensure that the primary intent of an international student in Canada is to study, and that this study takes place at an educational institution eligible to host international students,” says ministry spokesperson Rejean Cantlon. “The reforms are designed to cut down on fraud in the system by ensuring that students come here to study as their primary purpose, not to work.”

Cantlon also says the changes should ensure that students are attending “educational institutions eligible to host international students.” Several other countries, including Australia, New Zealand,

the UK, and the United States, have passed similar reforms in recent years, as have other nations identified by the Ministry as “key competitor countries.” utsu president Shaun Shepherd was cautiously optimistic about the announcement. “At face value, it generally seems positive to me,” says Shepherd, adding that the union would continue to monitor the implementation of the new policies because “the devil is always in the details.”

The proposed guidelines state that only designated institutions will be permitted to host international students, and that programs lasting less than six months would be automatically ineligible. The changes would not affect university programs.

The six-month rule will, however, impact “career colleges,” which are smaller and more informal institutions that train students in a variety of disciplines, including estheticians, pharmacy assistants, and early childcare assistants. Serge Buy, president of the National Association of Career Colleges (nacc), has raised concerns regarding the proposal.

“I’m a fan of the changes in general, but I’m not a fan of the changes that basically state that only a certain type of institution can accept international students,” says Buy. Many career colleges run programs that are less than six months long, and are at risk of losing their ability to accept interna-

tional students. Provinces and territories have been asked to compile a list of institutions designated to receive international students. If they do not do so, the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration will compile the list instead.

Buy is concerned that certain provinces, including Ontario, may have trouble compiling their lists on time. “In this case I have no faith that things will be done on time,” says Buy. If that becomes the case, and the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration compiles Ontario’s list, some of the institutions Buy represents could be left out.

Buy also points out that career colleges have comparatively small class sizes, where it is easier to take attendance and monitor students.

“We should get international students and everyone else should be put on hold until they start taking attendance,” says Buy. “I think the proposed federal changes are pretty positive” says Alysha Li, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. “In the end, what we’re hoping Canada does as far as Ontario, is to provide as many opportunities for international students as possible.”

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (aucc) and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (accc) have both been vocally supportive of the new measures.

“Canada’s ability to attract and retain top international talent is of

vital importance to ensuring our future economic prosperity and global competitiveness,” said a representative for the aucc in an email.

The accc has also been a strong supporter. The group’s president, James Knight, has touted a partnership between Citizenship and Immigration Canada and India, which has “resulted in at least 13,000 students being accepted into Canada’s public colleges and institutes, from India alone, this year … up from roughly 1,500 Indian students four years ago.”

The proposed changes are in the process of a 45-day public comment period, where interested parties and individuals can submit comments or concerns. Shepherd says the union will be submitting a response.

Canada still attracts far fewer international students than competitor countries such as Australia, the United States or the UK. However, Canada has shown double-digit increases since 2008.

The proposed reforms have raised concerns amongst some, including Buy, that Canada will become a less attractive destination for international students.

The ministry maintains that the changes will have a net positive effect on the educational sector, arguing that the proposed measures would not only reduce fraud but would “improve overall services to international students and educational institutions, and strengthen Canada’s overall image as a study destination of choice.”

Under new rules proposed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (cic), international students attending designated institutions would be permitted to work offcampus, without applying for a $150 permit. Though the changes remove a procedure that was troublesome, staff and students at U of T say that the cic should also focus on other issues in international student policy, such as financial aid concerns.

Benefits of eliminating the work permit go beyond saving students the $150 application fee.

International students would be more likely to find employment as they would no longer be limited to jobs on campus.

Zohair Masood, an international student from India, welcomes the changes as he was “constantly looking for jobs on campus,” but had trouble finding a position as there were “very few jobs and a lot of students were competing for them.”

Jeff Jifeng, an international student from China, said many students he knew resorted to other means to find work, because of the permit. He described how many international students he knew took jobs which paid less than minimum wage: “I once had a friend who worked in a tea shop in Chinatown for six dollars an hour with no benefits and her employer paid her in cash.”

Centre for International Experience director Miranda Cheng said students faced few issues with the permit, noting that “other than a delay in the processing time, the process is not that painful.” In fact, says Cheng, “Canada is very much at the forefront in terms of how international students have the right to work.”

Cheng and assistant director Holly Luffman emphasized that while the work permit was rarely a source of problems for students, they did face challenges with bureaucracy such as missing the deadline for renewing visas, or misunderstanding rules surrounding some of cic’s other programs.

Both administrators and international students agree that beyond this one welcomed change, the federal government should institute other reforms that would strengthen financial aid and employment for international students.

In regard to his own experience in dealing with the job market, Jifeng said that “if the Government of Canada wanted to attract more international students, it should provide a platform designed to help them find jobs.” Jifeng also noted that many employers “prefer permanent residents, so the government should also provide some sort of incentive for companies to hire international students.”

The cic has a different view on this matter, stating that “finding a job is the responsibility of each student who wishes to do so. Students may qualify for the on-campus, off-campus or post-graduate work permit programs.”

Comment

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

VAR.ST/COMMENT

ADRIENNE HO examines the flaws in "share for rights" propsosals

14 JANUARY 2013 comment@thevarsity.ca

var.st/avz

The Sir Daniel Wilson residence at University College was built in 1954. BERNARdA GOSpiC/THE VARSiTY

Seeing the architecture of gender How H.O.M.E.S. makes better homes Omar Bitar VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

With the gradual development of cosmopolitan cities and modern spaces, societies continue patriarchal trends that they thought were left in the past. The economy, architecture, streets, occupations, public spaces, houses, and more interestingly even toilets reflect the gendered ideology of our societies. Such socially constructed ideologies have somehow, paradoxically, become an implicit yet accepted part of almost every society.

The 1900s, characterized as a period of intellectual revolution, set the perfect stage for many voices to question and try to explain what everyone else had habitually accepted as a way of life. Professor Dolores Hayden makes a wonderful effort to visualize and unsex American urban design in an attempt to redefine the architectural and symbolic grounds of the American home.

To understand how space can be gendered, imagine the following: a woman walking into a traditionally designed home. She is actually entering an architecturally-demanding space. From kitchen work to living room chores to child rearing responsibilities, women were, and regretably sometimes remain, chained to a domestic routine that is almost never-ending. As we look around the social spaces that surround us, we find design that often demands that women be the responsible element of the domestic space.

According to stereotypical roles, she is also responsible for the “emotional maintenance” of her husband as he returns from his swarming, neurotic workplace. The American domestic space, as Hayden describes it, has not been designed to accommodate a women in the paid labor force. Instead,

urban household planning has almost always been structured to fit the traditional and outdated gender roles within the home and the family.

In Towards Cosmopolis, Leonie Sandercock describes how the American planning enterprise has been an almost exclusively white and male domain. American urban design molded what Betty Friedan famously called “the feminine mystique” to dominate the domestic space.

The home, as Hayden notes, has become “a box to be filled with commodities.” The explosion in mass consumption grew as the advertising industry targeted urban dwellers, particularly women. Slogans like, “Selling Mrs. Consumer” or “I’ll Buy That Dream” appeared in ads in the early 1900s. As consumption rates went up, women were pressured to find jobs to keep up with the demanding conformity of a psychologically invaded mass society. This is when the American city entered a societal paradox as women joined the paid labor force in huge numbers.

A drug company once used, “You can’t change her environment but you can change her mood,” as a slogan to advertise their product; the employed woman was supposedly not achieving the proper balance between the home and the workplace. Interestingly, this balance somehow constitutes the very motto of our present day.

A type of “utopian” project is crucial to reconstruct the sexually divided neighborhoods of America. Hayden invented a very convenient acronym, “h.o.m.e.s.” (Home-makers Organization for a More Egalitarian Society). h.o.m.e.s. includes men and women without regard to economic status, age, sex, class, ethnicity, or any other potential form of prejudice.

The mass consumerist, isolated, energy-consuming box of house that is the current norm is replaced with a collective space that would merge households; a collective space that would keep the elderly safe and attended; a space that would

make use of tens of meters of misused garage space; a space that would ensure that children get to know each other as they met in collective play areas. h.o.m.e.s. is a constructive re-imagining of what the American neighborhood has lost from a more communal past, due to the rise of a more impersonal, modern society. h.o.m.e.s. would offer a landscaped day-care center, a shared laundromat service, “Dial-A-Ride” garages that would serve a specific number of houses in a neighborhood, instead of parking hundreds of automobiles in a space with a huge potential for other uses. Last but not least, what Hayden called “MealsOn-Wheels” could also serve the community by delivering goods and food. As we can see, h.o.m.e.s. aims to reduce, or at least redefine, the disengagement inherent in the over-privatization that has vigorously spread in American urban design.

The essential elements of h.o.m.e.s. are very relevant to the new building projects here at the University of Toronto.

Earlier this year The Varsity covered the rejection of a condo-style, student residence project on 245 College St. This rejection, coming from Toronto City Council and concerned resident's associations, was motivated partly by the proposed residence’s 42 story height. Applying the h.o.m.e.s. project to a student residence could be especially valuable if implemented as a resource-saving, environmentally friendly project.

Advocating a mantra of collective space architecture and coordination, the h.o.m.e.s. lifestyle could be of great benefit to student life. The members of h.o.m.e.s., in this case, could very much involve the students living together, creating friendships, furthering cross-cultural exchange, inhabiting a space of equity, and reviving the spirit of cooperation, rather than isolating students in a traditional, box-like, residence.

Omar Bitar is studying Neuroscience and Sociology.

VARSITY COMMENT

var.st/comment

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

9

U of T helping to ease health care personnel shortages Programs to attract skilled immigrants put an unfair burden on countries that can least afford it While beneficial to us, these practices — and similar policies in other western countries — are a significant financial burden on VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR countries in sub-Saharan Africa. When a physician immigrates to Canada from sub-Saharan Africa, we are effectively outsourcing Like many developed countries, Canada is suffering from a our own educational investment to a country that can least afford shortfall of both primary care physicians and nurses. However, it. A study published in the British Medical Journal estimated that the problems facing our healthcare system pale in comparison Canada saved $384 million in training costs by recruiting qualito the severe healthcare worker shortage in sub-Saharan Af- fied physicians from sub-Saharan Africa. But as Canada saves rica. This region has an average of 0.8 healthcare workers money, host countries lose large investments. South Africa, per 1000 people, well below the World Health Orgain particular, has lost an estimated $1.4 billion investnization’s recommended minimum of 2.3 per 1000. ment in physician training to the US, The shortage has been caused by a variety of inUK, Australia, and Canada. teracting factors, many of which are outside of The emigration of trained Canada’s direct control. We have, however, exhealth care workers from the acerbated the shortage by promoting the emideveloping world to the develgration of trained healthcare workers from oped has been called ‘foreign aid sub-Saharan Africa. in reverse.’ But there is a way to In an attempt to alleviate our own minimize this injustice. Canada shortages, Canada has put in place proshould sponsor the training of grams to attract international physicians, health care workers in sub-Sahanurses, and pharmacists. Through the Provinran Africa to equalize the burden cial Nominee Program, provinces can sponsor imposed by emigration. Although there skilled healthcare workers to immigrate through is little precedent for a training program of an accelerated program. Some private Canadian minhe this size, U of T has provided a model that could y t i e ba e / the vars recruitment agencies go even further, advertising in be widely used.

African professional journals and magazines and promoting The Toronto Addis Ababa Psychiatry Project (taapp) is a immigration to Canada. These practices have proved to be partnership between the Department of Psychiatry at the Univera boon to Canada, since graduates of international medical sity of Toronto and the Department of Psychiatry at Addis Ababa schools are much more likely than domestic graduates to University in Ethiopia. Since 2003, teams of U of T psychiatrists specialize in primary care and work in rural areas — exactly have worked with their counterparts at Addis Ababa University to where we face our greatest shortages. support a new psychiatry-training program, the first in the coun-

Connor Emdin

try. As a result of this program, the number of practicing Ethiopian psychiatrists has increased from 11 to 44. This is still a tiny fraction of the number of psychiatrists needed, but it is a welcome improvement. The program has also developed the health services and educational capacity at Addis Ababa University in addition to providing U of T faculty with novel perspectives on mental illness. There is now a partnership between the schools of nursing at Addis Ababa and U of T, and a family medicine program is in planning stages.

The taapp project has shown that partnerships between Canadian and African universities can be successful. But a single partnership is not enough to equalize the flow of educational investment out of sub-Saharan Africa. The Canadian government should establish these partnerships at all of our 17 medical schools, each with a different sub-Saharan African university. Capacity in all facets of medicine, from anesthesiology to psychiatry to surgery, could be developed, while providing Canadian faculty and students with exposure to medicine in low resource settings.

I recognize that such program would require a significant monetary investment by the Canadian government — tens of millions of dollars, if not more. While this would be a difficult sell in a time of austerity, it is important to remember that we have been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars in investments by sub-Saharan African countries. Although it would be much cheaper for Canada to continue to be the beneficiary of the immigration of healthcare professionals, we should not solve our own problems at the expense of countries that can least afford it.

Connor Emdin is studying biochemistry at U of T and will be attending Oxford University next year as a Rhodes scholar. This article is adapted from an academic paper.

Obama's nominations a nod to drones The choice of Hagel foreshadows a leaner, drone-focused Pentagon Haley O'Shaughnessy VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Last Monday, President Obama announced the nomination of former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, to be the next Secretary of Defense. Assuming the Senate confirmation goes smoothly, Hagel’s nomination foreshadows a leaner Pentagon under Obama’s second term. The cost? A leaner Pentagon means an extensive drone-program at its core.

Hagel’s nomination is certainly an interesting one. As a senator, he served on the Foreign Relations Committee as well as the Intelligence Committee. While he voted for the Iraq War, he later became one of its chief critics. As early as 2005, he commented on the “parallel emerging” between Iraq and Vietnam, a move that significantly contradicted the Republican party line. Hagel’s criticism was even more potent because he himself received two Purple Hearts for his service in the Vietnam War. In 2005 he told the New York Times, “To question your government is not unpatriotic — to not question your

government is unpatriotic, America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices."

The question is, what does this record mean for the future of the Department of Defense? It means a non-interventionist Republican. It also means a Republican that will slash the Pentagon budget. In an era of austerity, Hagel will be able to move towards a leaner, smarter, and more importantly, a cheaper military.

For a Democrat president to nominate a Republican is not uncommon. Prior to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Obama kept on Republican Robert M. Gates. In Clinton’s second term, he nominated Republican William Cohen. Why? There is a public perception in America that Republicans are better at handling defense. While this is certainly a caricature, many Democrats know Americans don't trust them to deploy power. This has been the logic behind the president’s decision not to reform the Pentagon during his first term: the risk of being seen as anti-war is too great for most Democrats. But with Hagel, there is at least a chance for reform — that is why the choice of Hagel is a brilliant one.

There is, however, a catch — how does Hagel tone down the war in Afghanistan, thereby lowering expenditures, while still maintaining a strong counterterrorism strategy? The answer: drones. The drone program has clearly been a favourite of Obama’s during his first term.

Contrary to popular belief, the number of drones strikes has increased tenfold under Obama compared to George W. Bush.

With Hagel in the Pentagon and drone-a-holic John Brennan nominated as cia Director, drone use will only increase.

Despite the obvious ethical and legal controversies surrounding drone strikes, Obama has been anything but apprehensive about his nomination choices. To compare the nomination ceremony of Brennan and Hagel to that of John Kerry’s for Secretary of State is to compare Obama meeting his high school pals to his second cousin. Obama is gleeful about these nominations. Whether he is proud of this or not, they will set him down in history as the drone president.

Haley O'Shaughnessy is an International Relations Student who is an active member of Oxfam U of T.

Paying billions for the F-35 ignores other defense needs PATRICK BAUD VARSITY COLUMNIST

The Harper government’s proposed purchase of 65 F-35 Lighting II fighter jets to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force’s aging CF-18s has proven very controversial. The F-35 was the only plane to meet the standards set by the federal government, leading to criticism that the procurement process was rigged in favour of the F-35. Likewise, the anticipated costs of the purchase have ballooned from $16 billion when it was originally announced to over $40 billion in the most recent estimate. Late last year, the Harper government announced a review of the decision to buy the F-35 and appointed a panel of experts, including F-35 critics, to conduct the review.

Reviewing the decision to buy the F-35 is sensible, considering this is the largest military procurement project since the end of the Cold War. But the debate over whether Canada should purchase the F-35 has focused too narrowly on the anticipated costs of buying the plane rather than on what Cana-

da’s actual defense needs are, and whether the F-35 is the best plane to meet them. If one piece of military hardware is more capable than others, it makes sense to pay more for it.

Canada uses fighter jets in two ways: first, they form the bulk of Canada’s contribution to North American air defense. They patrol the edges of Canada’s airspace, as well as staying on standby at Canadian Forces bases. Second, fighter jets can be deployed overseas as they were in the Gulf War in 1991, the Kosovo War in 1999, and the nato intervention in Libya in 2011.

The F-35 would likely perform well in both capacities. It is certainly more advanced than the CF-18, particularly in terms of stealth technology, which makes it far harder to detect using radar than a CF-18. This matters less in domestic operations, when it is usually desirable that other planes know the fighters are present, but could make a difference in expeditionary operations if Canada was engaged in hostilities with a country with an advanced air force, or at least sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. The F-35 would likely perform well, but it would do so at tremendous cost.

Canada does not rank high in defense spending. Purchasing the F-35 would eat up the lion’s share of Canada’s military procure-

ment budget for much of the foreseeable future, closing off the possibility of spending on other military priorities. This seems short-sighted, especially given Canada’s experience in the past decade, when the Canadian army has played a leading role in Canada’s largest expeditionary operation since the Korean War: the mission in Afghanistan. A more balanced approach to procurement might be preferable if Canada intends to continue to conduct the kind of expeditionary operations that it has in the past.

Buying a cheaper fighter jet, perhaps the Boeing Super Hornet used by the Australian Air Force and the United States, would leave open the possibility of making investments in the army and the Royal Canadian Navy. This would allow Canada to continue to make its valuable contribution to North American air defense, while maintaining and ultimately building on the capabilities it developed during the war in Afghanistan.

The result of a balanced approach would be a stronger Canadian military, better able to provide a wide range of options to federal governments of all stripes.

Patrick Baud’s column appears every other issue.

VARSITY COMMENT

10 MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

comment@thevarsity.ca

Talking about life at U of T from different perspectives Discussion group tackles questions with no easy answers Jonathan Hadad Q21 ORGANIZER

I sit in a room full of people, eat a cupcake, and think to myself, “I have absolutely no idea why these people are here.” Where did they come from, and how did they even hear about Q21?

They have different backgrounds, are from different faculties, have different interests, and some of them are actually staff members. Every Thursday we meet and talk about a different theme relating to gender and sexuality such as “The Body,” “Families” and “Equality,” but the discussion goes wherever we take it.

I do know what made me want to help bring these people together. I have always had to deal with inclusion and exclusion in my life, and talking about it has been a lot easier than keeping it to myself. Since I came to U of T, I’ve had the opportunity to explore inclusion and exclusion in the Sexual Diversity Studies program. But outside of class people don’t necessarily feel like talking about social change or politics.

If this were what I wanted to talk about over coffee, how would you react? Gay activism has made incredible strides towards eliminating some inequality. So now, if you have the right amount of money, live in the right place and behave in the right way, you can avoid discrimination on the basis of be-

ing gay. But is this what we really want? Maybe some people do.

At Q21 I can bring up these thoughts, and other people can bring up their own. I don’t know where else I would have learned about sports and fitness at U of T from so many different points of view, perspectives that I didn’t even know existed. I had never thought about the role that gender plays in sports as early as elementary school. As a result I now have a completely different view on sports on a personal level. I probably wouldn’t have too many opportunities to share stories about online dating experiences with engineers and sociology grad students either.

The atmosphere is pretty laid-back, even if the topic is contentious. We’ve been successful at bringing together members of the U of T community with different experiences and perspectives, so even something that seems mundane is worth talking about.

Q21 has given me a deeper understanding of life at U of T and the opportunity to connect with and learn from people I wouldn’t have otherwise. Q21 is important to me because coming together and talking about questions that have no easy answers is valuable for our community and for ourselves.

Jonathan Hadad is a Sexual Diversity Studies student. Q21 meets weekly — more info at www.facebook.com/utorontosgdo/events.

Logo Courtesy q21

VARSITY COMMENT

var.st/comment

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

LETTERS TO

THE EDITOR

Volume CXXXIII, No. 13, January 7, 2012 Kathleen Wynne unveils post-secondary education platform Too bad she doesn't listen to the students of the primary and secondary schools, who would prefer to have no Catholic public schools, which would reduce the median journey distance to and from school and eliminate the need to force students to go to certain religious events.

There would also be an estimated $1.3-$1.6 billion/year and reduce the violation of separation of religion and state Ontario is currently violating.

— Danny Handelman (from web) Wynne wants to set up a youth advisory council? Wonder if she will treat the members as badly as she did as Education Minister when she closed down the Provincial Parent Board when she couldn't control agendas, etc?

— Paper girl (from web) GSU endorses boycott of investment in Israel

As a graduate student in cts/oise, I support the bds call by the gsu as a non-violent way to affect social change.

Like teachers and people of faith who are pulling pension/ investment funds out of Israel and the corporations who support the illegal occupation of Palestine, it is time U of T students take a human rights stand like we did when we divested from apartheid South Africa in the mid-1980's.

BRAVO GSU! — davis benjamin (from web)

DOCKET #:

Send 'em to comment@thevarsity.ca

Got thoughts for the editor?

Are you also going to boycott China for the far worse thing they've done in Tibet or do you only hate predominantly Jewish regimes? Also for fairness how about boycotting every country that has committed atrocities towards Israel too?

— Dave B (from web)

3265

I find it hard to believe that in this day and age a center of learning could pass such an ignorant and racist boycott against a democratic country. I can only say that I am appalled by the ignorance of reality that this shows in your organization. Perhaps you all need to take a year off, and go travelling. I would suggest you first go to either Syria or Iran to see where Muslims are suffering from murder and repression and where students far more intelligent then you are put in jail for their opinions, and then executed for exercising the freedom of speech that you use and abuse. I know Iranian bloggers that are waiting for excecution that would be appalled by your stupidty and ignorance and give anything to have the freedoms that you have. I have respect for them.

You guys on the other hand are an embarrassment to all of Canada. Strange but I don't see you boycotting either Iran or Syria? What is up with that? After you travel through these two represssive Islamic countries, may I suggest you take a vacation and go to one of the most beautiful democracies in the world where Arab Muslims live in freedom and peace instead of war and repression. And by the way your precious "Palestinians" have shut their borders to their Palestinian brothers that are fleeing Syria. They shut the door on their brothers! Lovely just lovely. As I write this I realize that you cannot help yourself, because you are fed lies on a daily basis from our western media. Do yourself a favour and do what you are supposed to do in University, get some brains and try thinking for yourselves. PS please throw away all your computers and cellphones because a majority of the parts and apps are from Israel. Hahahhaha!

— Denise (from web) Why is student government taking sides in a conflict that has nothing to do with campus life? Centres of higher learning should be open for debate and not politically slanted by official motions such as this one.

— Marcus (from web)

IN THE NAME OF

INNOVATION I am a person who challenges ideas and turns them into reality. I create and collaborate with an intellectual community. My passion is my research and this is where I will impact the future. I am a graduate student.

www.uoit.ca/graduatestudies

CLIENT NAME:

Holly

Veggie Mondays are only a start I'm sorry but you’re asking a University (which adults pay for) to take away a very common, very standard food variety that is ingrained in Western Culture. I could understand your stance if it was applied to High School or elementary schools. By removing meat from campus you’re essentially taking away the right of choice of students who have invested thousands of dollars. Your students are mature adults and should be allowed to make their own choices in regards to their diet. Your article has a clear bias. You talk about our societies ethics towards animals; maybe you should look at your ethics as a journalist.

— Trystan (from web) Responding to “Trystan”…

It's an opinion piece — reflects the author's opinion about the subject.

— Rachel Bridgers (from web) As a parent, teacher, and a grad student I agree with this argument, and really hope to see the promotion of a Meatless Monday on campus. Apparently, other campuses are adopting mm for sustainability. Certainly eating meat every day of the week is not necessary and when we all agree on something, it is easier to accept — like the smoking ban. In this case it is even more dire — the world is running out of resources and polluting faster than most people are aware. I think if people were really aware of the Livestock Long Shadow report and had compassion for future generations — if indeed they were parents of small children who are worried about what kind of world they will inherit- we would accept a Meatless Monday — no question! I really hope U of Toronto takes the high road on this and makes a good choice. The world will be a better place, and people will be healthier too.

— Rachel Bridgers (from web)

11

Attitude Adjustment Where can students with mental health issues turn?

Support is available, but old stereotypes lurk at every corner

by Dan Seljak illustration by Minhee Bae

I

am sitting in an auditorium.

My exam is in front of me. I have studied. I have brought seven pens because of the time in first-year my pen leaked halfway through the final essay question. I arrange them on the top left corner of my desk. They are aligned at the bottom from tallest to shortest, left to right.

The exam begins. For three hours I must be focused. Coherent. I feel good.

And for the first half hour I am good. But then I reach The Question. It isn’t that I don’t know the answer. I just don’t expect it. Maybe it’s worded strangely. Maybe the answer could be ambiguous. Whatever it is, The Question has triggered The Panic.

The Panic reminds me that if I get The Question wrong, I will have to get the rest right. If I don’t get enough of the rest right, this will have a negative effect on The Final Grade. If The Final Grade is low, that will pull down The GPA and once that happens there will be a negative effect on The Future. Once The Future is affected, I will probably be left by my girlfriend, abandoned by my family, and will one day live under the underpass.

My focus is gone. I am no longer present, but shuffling through possible futures. None of them are good. My anxiety rises and my thoughts become more fragmented. My pulse quickens. My handwriting, my spelling, and my writing style all fall apart. I have failed exams this way.

I find myself counting. I find five things that I can see (the red door, the bored TA at the front of the room, the brand name of my pen, my own name on the exam booklet, the tile pattern on the ground) and soundlessly repeat them to myself. Then I begin listening. I count five things that I can hear: the clock ticking, my breathing, the rustling of pages being turned, the scratching of pens on paper, the slight cough of the girl beside me. Finally I pay attention to what I can feel: the coolness of the pen in my hand, the smoothness of the exam booklet, the rigid shape of my chair, the hardness of the floor beneath my feet, the itchiness of the cheap cotton t-shirt I’m wearing.

Then I count them again, but this time one less. Four things I can see. Four things I can hear.

Four things I can feel.

Then three, three, three.

Two, two, two.

One. One. One. Finally, I am present again. I complete the exam. I will probably do fine, and no one will ever know about the 10 to 15 minutes I spent severed from the present. The only indication will be my t-shirt soaked through the armpits with sweat, but I will eliminate that evidence the moment I get out of the exam. Just like I always do. I will make my way to the first bathroom I can find, lock the door, remove my shirt, and hold it under the hand dryer. That is my ritual. Me, standing at a hand dryer, arms outstretched, motionlessly holding my shirt in shame.

And I am ashamed. I am ashamed in a way that has kept me from seeking treatment for 12 years. I am ashamed of having to admit that my needs might be different from what is supposed to be ‘normal.’ It is only in the last two years that I have started seeing a counsellor. It is only now that I have started practising breathing techniques. It is only now that I have asked my old family doctor, who last saw me when I was 16, for a referral to a psychologist who could assess me.

B

ut the reality is that I’m not the only one who copes with anxiety. According to a Canadian Mental Health Association, five per cent of Canadians are affected by anxiety disorders, a significant part of the 20 per cent of Canadians who will experience mental health issues in their lifetime.

12

If these statistics are accurate then an average 20-student tutorial is likely to contain four students with mental health issues. One of those four may have an anxiety disorder.

The University of Toronto does not ignore these issues. Our enormous student population guarantees that there is a virtual army of anxious, depressed, manic, or otherwise-affected students with needs that must be met. Accessibility Services, Counselling and Psychological Services, and the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work are just some of the services provided on campus to support students.

Janine Robb, Executive Director of Health and Wellness at U of T, handles the mental health component of these services.

“Mental health is a continuum,” she says. “It is not simply an absence of symptoms. It’s an ability to function, to enjoy life, to make good choices, to be participating. Because you can have a depression, and be able to do all that. You can have bipolar disorder and do all that.”

Robb couched her views with those of the University of Toronto. Overall, U of T services have a more general commitment to equity — a commitment to the rights of all students and a commitment to providing them equal access to education.

But despite the inarguable stated commitment to mental health on campus, stigma still interferes daily with students’ lives in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.

A

my, a third-year student diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder (the names of students quoted in this article have been changed to protect their anonymity), noted that University of Toronto staff often assume — if most often unconsciously — that diagnoses reflect a negative component of students’ personality.

When she went to speak to her registrar about an accessibility need, Amy was surprised that her registrar responded to the disclosure of her particular diagnosis with something along the lines of, “Wow, you don’t present as that at all!”

Amy was shocked because accessibility needs are often invisible; she had expected that her registrar would be used to students having a wide variety of needs, whether or not those needs are immediately apparent.

“Hearing something along the lines of ‘Wow you really don’t present like that,’ makes it seem as if she is: one, making an attempt at a compliment by telling me I present ‘normally,’ which assumes that anyone with a disability must aspire to be normal, i.e. someone without a disability, and two, de-validating the needs I have — even if it’s an unintentional de-validation, especially if it’s an unintentional de-validation — as someone who identifies as having Asperger’s disorder,” explains Amy. The invisibility of her diagnosis makes it no less real.

“Even if the outer representation of self doesn’t reflect a diagnosis, [it] doesn’t mean you’re not interacting with it on an interior level every day,” she continues. Amy has found that while her registrar has always been supportive, extremely helpful, and mostly sensitive overall, this initial reaction indicates how old patterns of thought can result in slips that challenge the level of equality to which the University of Toronto aspires.

Lindsey, an instructor I had last semester, prioritized this equality. She prefaced her class’ late policy with an account of how she had coped with death and suicide during her own under-

Too common to ignore

1 in 5 Canadians will experienCe a mental illness in their lifetime

mental illness is the

2

nd

1 in 20 will experienCe an anxiety disorder

highest sourCe of Canadian hospital expenditures. injury is the first

graduate experience, and emphasized how important access to the appropriate services was to her. She provided resources for where and how students could find the services they might need. Finally, she explicitly stated that she did not need to hear the full backstories of individuals’ mental health issues in order to acknowledge their needs. Instead she promised to do everything in her power to meet the needs of any student who provided her with documentation of their needs. She realized that students with mental health issues do not need to make excuses for why they don’t fit the idea of normal. What they need is to be recognized and accommodated.

B

ut even with the kind of recognition available at a university- and Accessibility Serviceslevel, students still face the possibility that stigma will cause their diagnosis to be misunderstood by friends and family. For students returning home post-diagnosis, there is the chance that the place they return to will be compromised. For these students, a diagnosis does not mean they are returning with a new tool that identifies their needs, but that they are returning as a manifestation of their diagnosis. They become seen as the crazy person, someone beyond help.

Terrence, a student leader and musician, recently received a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. For Terrence, the only issue he had with the services provided by U of T was the initial difficulty of finding help. Since he obtained his diagnosis he has found both faculty and staff to be incredibly supportive. Instead, it is at home that he faces stigma. It is at home where Terrence’s diagnosis is treated not as part of his multi-faceted identity, but instead as his identifier.

“The initial reaction from my family was not a good one. They were not prepared and are still unsure about how to manage a 21 year-old living under their roof with a mental illness,” he admits. Terrence’s family made him feel like a crazy, irrational individual who no longer met the criteria for what they considered ‘normal.’ The stigma within his home distanced Terrence from the support system he was accustomed to.

“My family’s reaction made it harder to handle my academics, mental illness, and general life,” he says. “I felt uncomfortable being home and did everything I could to stay away because I felt more comfortable being somewhere my illness was either not in question or better understood.”

When we discussed how his family reacted to his diagnosis, Terrence acknowledged that you can only react to what you know and understand. “My family had no education on the subject.

How do you manage a person with a mental illness?”

S

tigma challenges us in our own minds, our classrooms, and our support networks. It is what is left behind from the old ways of thinking about mental health. Dr. Tanya Lewis, Director of U of T’s Accessibility Services, noted that we are still facing an attitude adjustment towards mental health, disability, and accessibility.

“For a long time we’ve been in a medical model where it says there is something wrong with you — a mental illness — and you need to do the rehabilitation to fix yourself to fit into the world with everybody else,” she explained.

in total 3.2 million youth in Canada are at risk of being affeCted by depression. if reCognized and aided 80 per Cent will be spared major ill effeCts

1 in 100 will be diagnosed with sChizophrenia

But this system of thought has largely been replaced. “The [newer] term Accessibility Services comes out of disability studies that says what creates the disability is the world in which we live … the world creates what we call disability barriers.”

Lewis references someone with a physical disability as an analogy: they might not have trouble accessing what they need until they are confronted with a world in which stairs have been invented and adopted as the norm. Mental health is the same.

Robb also acknowledged that mental health assumptions need to change, and offered her own insight on how stigma can be tackled.

“It’s [about] continuing to have an open discussion that’s not judgement-laden,” she says. “It’s reminding people that taking care of your mental health is no different than physical health.”

We stand at a threshold for mental health discourse. No matter how much training and educating is done, it seems like the old way of thinking about mental health still inevitably emerges.

If we — whether it is the student body, the university, or the individuals that work at the university — hope to have a truly equal system, then we must make a new one. One that allows those affected by mental health to truly participate in society like the fully capable individuals they are. One that looks at the stigma of the old guard and challenges, de-constructs, and discards the disability barriers it creates.

One in which I can align my pens and use them too.

U of T ServiceS

in The ciTy

counselling & Psychological Services

Distress Line (Toronto Distress centre)

416 978 8070

416 408 4357

Accessibility Services

Kids help Phone

416 978 8060 accessibility.services@utoronto.ca

factor-inwentash faculty of Social Work 416 946 5117

1 800 668 6868

The centre for Addiction and Mental health 416 595 6111

STUDenTS for STUDenTS Mad Students Society outreach@madstudentsociety.com

Active Minds activeminds@utoronto.ca

Student Advisory Board on health and Wellness janine.robb@utoronto.ca

13

Arts & Culture var.st/arts

14 JaNUarY 2013 arts@thevarsity.ca

9 3

2

4 8

Keeping cool, staying warm

by Sofia Luu photos by Bernarda Gospic

A style guide for the winter season The winter semester is often the most difficult one to get through. With the weather seldom bright and mountains of schoolwork that never seem to diminish, the idea of wearing sweats all day might seem attractive. But dressing stylishly doesn't have to be difficult, nor is it the exclusive domain of the warmer months. Here are nine trends that you should try out this winter season.

1. EMERALD GREEN Pantone recently declared 2013 to be the year of emerald green. Don't bother waiting for the snow to melt to start introducing bold colours into your wardrobe. Chase away the winter blues with an emerald green coat on top of your usual winter ensemble. But if you're feeling a bit colour shy, ease into emerald green slowly with accessories such as bracelets or toques.

Consider This: Ankle Slit Pant in emerald green, Joe Fresh $39 www.joefresh.com 2. TURTLENECK It can be tempting to carry your fall basics into winter by throwing a heavy knit sweater over your collared shirts. But taking the easy route to dressing up is boring. Do things a little differently with layering this season by incorporating turtleneck shirts into your outfit.

It's a classic wardrobe staple that will do more than simply keep you warm. The versatility of the turtleneck makes dressing up or down wonderfully easy.

Consider This: Layering turtleneck, Joe Fresh $14 www.joefresh.com

unexpected way. Wear your leather skirt with a jumper for an outfit that's both edgy and comfortable.

3. BLACK To some, the idea of wearing head-totoe black might seem a bit too dour.

But with a few simple additions, your black ensemble will be anything but bleak. Consider throwing on a dark grey sweater over simple black pants.

If you feel your outfit needs a little extra something, why not top it off with your coat, or a handful of your favourite accessories?

Consider This: Steel the Show Skirt, ModCloth, $37.99 www.modcloth.com

Consider This: Black trousers, H&M $29.95, Black scarf, Guess $29. www.hm.com www.guess.ca/en 4. LEATHER Sometimes the easiest and best way to wear leather is to simply throw on a leather jacket, which can instantly elevate your outfit to a whole new level of edginess. But going rebel chic isn't the only avenue to explore when it comes to leather. Leather skirts can add an air of femininity to your outfit in an

5. WORKWEAR BOOTS While the Canadian winter has its mild moments, it's very likely that you will spend the majority of the season walking in wet and snowy conditions.

Workwear-inspired boots are key to making it through stormy weather with dry feet. Be sure to purchase boots with a thick sole instead of a flat, wooden one in order to prevent water from permeating the boots.

Consider This: Lace up boots, Zara $129 www.zara.com 6.PULLOVER SWEATERS AND SKIRTS Winter is the time to wear all your sweaters, all the time. It's a look that's extremely easy to pull off because it often involves items you

will probably already own. Looking relaxed — not polished — is the objective here. Layer your most comfortable, oversized sweater over a skirt that you would usually reserve for business-casual settings.

Consider This: Pencil skirt, Joe Fresh $29. Cable knit jumper, H&M $29.95 www.joefresh.com www.hm.com 7. MENSWEAR INFLUENCES Feel free to go all the way with a tailored tuxedo blazer and trousers.

You can also opt to add subtle menswear influences with a crisp shirt and neutral-toned oxfords. To put it simply, drawing inspiration from menswear nowadays means a lot more than simply borrowing your father's old t-shirts.

turning them in for a pair of coloured bottoms. Colours such as cobalt blue and forest green are bold enough to distinguish you from the crowd.

There's no secret to successfully pulling off bold colours. A simple white t-shirt will give way to a very clean look, but the contrast between the dark hue of the pants and the white t-shirt will be quite striking. Or you can continue to keep things interesting by choosing to wear a printed knit sweater over your t-shirt.

Consider This: Stretch skinny jeans in bright blue, Zara $49.99 www.zara.com

Consider This: Contrast trimmed blazer, Forever 21 $45.80 www.canada.forever21.com

9. PRINTS There is no doubt that prints are the defining trend of winter fashion for men. Balance the outfit out by keeping everything else neutral.

Are printed trousers a bit too much for you? There is a plethora of knit sweaters in a variety of prints and colours this season.

8. BOLD COLOURS Consider giving your standard blue jeans a break this winter season by

Consider This: Printed crew neck pullover, Urban Outfitters $29. www.urbanoutfitters.com

NEXT WEEK

Interview with David Prowse of Japandroids var.st/arts

9

3

7

8 1

6

4 9

5

16

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

A film for all seasons?

With the Oscars fast approaching, DANIEL HOROWITZ takes aim at the quality of recent Best Picture winners

WILLIAM AHN/THe VArsITy

It’s January! That means awards season is upon us and Innis College students are getting testy. It will be nearly a year since The Artist won Best Picture at the Oscars, and that time has afforded me an opportunity to think hard about the caliber of films we celebrate as being great.

Michael Chapman, the cinematographer of Raging Bull, declared, “Movies were the great art form of the twentieth century. But the twentieth century is over.” I agree. The glory days when a film became a text, when a movie shared the same shelf space as a masterly painting or epic novel, when Taxi Driver was as poignant, tragic, and meaningful as a work by Dostoevsky, are over. Movies are no longer cultural artifacts.

The legitimacy of film has been marred by thousands of bad movies, both preceding and following the year 2000. Industry talent is low, ideas are few, and little can be done to effect change. But it doesn’t hurt to question the very films that we exalt, and that is my concern here.

You remember The Artist, don’t you? It was all the rage in the early months of 2012 — that blackand-white, silent film. It’s okay if you don’t remember the movie; it’s not that memorable, let alone timeless or classic, as one would hope a Best Picture winner would be. In retrospect, some viewers will undoubtedly ask themselves whether this was, in fact, the same film that won an Oscar for Best Picture.

The Artist is a sideshow curiosity, not unlike the films of the early twentieth century that it emulates. Those silent and silver classics, in spite of a technologically-underdeveloped medium that had difficulty sustaining story or showcasing cinematography, could be saved thanks to the awe inspired by original narrative, innovative special effects, absorbing acting skills, melodic music, or well-crafted sets, costumes, and scenery. The Artist cannot demand such a forgiving critical eye, especially because its trite plot can be chalked up to little more than laziness and sloppy craftsmanship.

Released in 2011, when colour, sound, and in-theatre gimmicks had long been ubiquitous, The Artist seemed daring. Does that mean the absence of dialogue and a monochromatic colour palette are valid artistic merits?

In my opinion, it does not. The Artist offered little more than a gimmicky film quality like 3D or IMAX. If the film was not silent or black and white, it would not resonate as much with audiences, because we have all seen this story before in various forms.

Considered independently of the awards that it has received, The Artist is perfectly ordinary.

So why and how did The Artist win Best Picture? Well, the Academy, an aggregate of industry professionals, vote for the “Best Motion Picture,” and in the process, conflate their choice for ‘best’ film with their ‘favorite’ film. Granted, The Artist was sweet, funny, and charming, not unlike Silver Lin-

ing’s Playbook, one of this year’s Best Picture nominees. A great film can have all these attributes, but surely a Best Picture winner has to be more than that?

In fact, it’s somewhat hard to fathom how Silver Linings Playbook could be in the running for the same award that Annie Hall took home in 1978. Coming from the minds of of Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, Annie Hall serves up a class of wit and humour that is rarely offered in mainstream or independent comedies. Both Silver Linings Playbook and Annie Hall are funny, sweet, and thoroughly enjoyable to watch, but only the latter transcends its genre and stands out as a classic for its nuanced acting, innovative writing, and Gordon Willis' cinematographic treatment of New York.

After progressive and prolonged exposure to films of substandard quality, it’s not surprising that audiences take what they can get. Now, the best of the lowest common denominators is being lauded by critics and awarded by the guilds, academies, and festivals the world over. As we recede into a Platonic cave of ignorance, we are mistaking shadows for reality, mediocrity for greatness, accepting trite and trivial movies as masterpieces.

We should not excuse a mediocre film winning Best Picture simply because it is the best we can drudge up. The voting process should not be like grasping for straws. A great film has to be a film for all seasons.

A cast of merry men Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical puts a hilarious twist on the classic tale of an English outlaw Rebecca Ostroff VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The infamous English bandit and his band of merry men take over the Hart House stage with a unique brand of comic absurdity in Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical Comedy. Many members of the cast and crew — including director Jesse MacLean — were involved in the development of this original Canadian show back in 2005, and their gleeful rendition of the classic English folktale is a pleasure to behold.

Wittily crafted and captivatingly executed, Hart House’s latest production is a delightful take on the beloved legend of Robin Hood. In Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical, the hero of the story emerges from Sherwood Forest at a time when the English poor are paying ludicrous taxes and being manipulated into funding a friar’s alcohol addiction. Realizing that he can use his thieving ways to redistribute wealth, Robin forms a band of followers with a mission to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Although one could enjoy the show exclusively for its

tongue-in-cheek humour, Robin Hood’s provocative statements about the nature of social class are both witty and relevant.

As the tights-clad star of the show, Daniel James embodies the charming, dignified, and innovative Robin of Locksley. James’ strong vocals seem effortless, but it is his ability to adopt a range of different personas — including a French damsel in distress — that is particularly delightful. It’s impossible not to root for James’ Robin Hood, even after the character betrays his selfish motivations for taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the catchy song “Generosity.”

But it is Kevin MacPherson as Prince John and William Foley as Sheriff of Nottingham who never fail to get the audience roaring with laughter. MacPherson and Foley work together marvelously, endowing their despicable, money-hungry characters with a hilarious naivety. When the prince and the sheriff aren’t waddling, prancing, or sliding across the stage, the duo’s nonsensical dialogue keeps the audience happily anticipating whatever ridiculous thing these characters are going to say next.

Robin Hood shines during elaborate musical numbers, when the entire cast is on stage. Actors dressed in appropriately outlandish costumes whiz across the stage, while bows and arrows fly about with chaotic perfection.

The choreography, which incorporates both dance and stagefighting routines, is remarkably effective and well-performed by the talented cast.

The play’s twists on classic plotlines and send-ups of clichéd themes of unrequited love are consistently sharp, while “meta” references to the performance paradoxically draw the audience into the world of the play. A song called “After Intermission,” for example, bridges the transition from one act to the next, as though the 15-minute break is part of the story.

Whether you are looking for an astute commentary on social class, or just want to watch a bunch of men in tights dancing across a stage, it is impossible to leave Robin Hood without feeling at least a little upbeat. In all likelihood, you’ll find yourself cheerfully humming one of the play’s catchy tunes as you make your way out of the theatre.

JANICe LIU/THe VArsITy

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

var.st/arts

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

FILM REVIEWS On the Road Walter Salles’ latest film fails to capture the spark of Kerouac’s beloved novel

Sam Riley in On The Road. PHOTO COURTESY ALLIANCE FILMS

Dryden Bailey VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

On the Road, the latest film by director Walter Salles, is the most recent of a number adaptations of beloved novels to hit the big screen within the past few months. Twilight, The Hobbit, and Life of Pi all descended upon theatres in late 2012 and garnered large box office rewards. While filmmakers turn to successful novels for inspiration (and probably with hopes of cashing in on pre-existing fan bases), reactions to film adaptations are often mixed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, audiences’ pre-conceived notions about their favourite books invariably colour their perception of any director’s efforts at literary interpretation.

On the Road is adapted from Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel of the same name, which tells the story of Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), a young writer living in New York. Sal befriends Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and his wife Marylou (Kristen Stewart). The carefree and adventurous Dean galvanizes Sal’s stale existence, and the duo take to the road and head west. The film centres upon the friends’ adventures and the people they meet as they travel from place to place.

In Kerouac’s novel, Sal’s decision to hit the road is motivated by a pressing need to see the world, rather than sit idly in his mother’s living room, writing about things he has never seen. But the film adaptation of On the

Road fails to capture the acuity of Sal’s desire to explore the American West, resulting in a weak connection between plot points, many of which go unexplained.

On the Road boasts an impressive cast, with Riley, Hedlund, and Stewart in the lead roles. Riley’s voice in the film is practically a character unto itself, perfectly capturing the thick, raspy inflection of a man who has smoked far too many cigarettes and drunk far too much whiskey. Riley plays the naïve Sam with an easy smile, holding his own against a seasoned supporting cast that includes the likes of Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst, and Viggo Mortensen. The supporting actors do a fine job with their small roles, but unfortunately, none of them are on screen long enough to leave a lasting impression.

Hedlund is compelling as Dean Moriarty, but he doesn’t quite muster the enthusiasm and love of life that Kerouac’s character exudes throughout the course of the novel. Stewart’s Marylou is a forlorn young woman, wallowing in angst and failed love. While Marylou is a sympathetic character in Kerouac’s novel, in Salles’ film, she comes across as little more than an uninspired version of all the other roles that Stewart has played up to this point.

On the Road attempts to translate Kerouac’s most famous novel to the screen with little success. Though there are some moments where the words of Kerouac’s novel come alive, those who have not read the novel will be confused and those who have read it will be

Music & Lyrics by Kieren MacMillan and Jeremy Hutton Book by William Foley, Jeremy Hutton, Jesse MacLean, Kevin MacPherson and Kate Smith Based on the collective creation by Shakespeare by the Sea - Halifax Directed by Jesse MacLean

JAN 11 – 26, 2013 BOX OFFICE: w w w. u o f t t i x . c a / 416.978.8849

Adults $25 / Students & Seniors $15 $10 Student tickets every Wednesday!

SEASON SPONSORS:

SEASON PARTNERS:

Write for arts! arts@thevarsity.ca

WWW.HARTHOUSETHEATRE.CA

17

Science

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

var.st/sCIENCE

Genes explain why some live long and others die young

14 JaNUarY 2013

var.st/aq1

science@thevarsity.ca

In Google we trust Top 2012 search terms reflect why Canadians use Google Kay Dyson Tam VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The top Google search trends for 2012 were recently released, with the social media site Pinterest coming in first place in Canada. Next in the top 10 terms were superstorm Hurricane Sandy, the London summer Olympics, video game Diablo III, and the most watched video on YouTube, “Gangnam Style.”

Rounding out the top 10 are a variety of terms: the movie The Hunger Games, the controversial American bill, sopa (Stop Online Privacy Act), the Quebec reality TV show “Star Académie”; the viral video and campaign to stop the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Kony 2012 and perhaps the most entertaining in this list, the game ‘Zerg Rush’ (based off of Starcraft’s ‘zergling rush’ attack) which is actually a Google Easter egg that prompts your search results to be ‘eaten’ by a swarm of ‘O’s.

Globally, singer Whitney Houston, “Gangnam Style,” Hurricane Sandy, iPad 3, and Diablo 3 topped the trending searches for this past year.

To compile their list of trending search terms, the Google team studied “an aggregation of over one trillion searches (or queries)” and “filtered out spam and repeat queries to build lists that best reflect the spirit of 2012,” according to Google’s ‘Zeitgeist 2012’ website. No personal data is stored or used to compile the trends.

Google differentiates between its “trending” and “most searched” queries; the former are searches with “the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2012 as compared to 2011,” while the latter are terms with “the largest volume of searches,” according to the Zeitgeist 2012 site. This means trending terms better reflect the ongoing reasons Canadians use Google’s search functionality.

Google Trends is a more immediate compilation that correlates up to five search terms and their relative popularity over time. For instance, entering University of Toronto in Google Trends shows that people more frequently search for the university than The Varsity, which in turn is more frequently searched for than David Naylor.

The related searches for University of Toronto shows that people also often search

stEPHaNIE travassOs/tHE varsItY

for ‘University of Ontario,’ York University, and ‘University of York.’

Immediate results of search queries like Google Trends have been shown to be valuable predictors of real world phenomena. In a 2009 paper published in the science journal Nature, the Google team and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided evidence that some search engine queries are “health-seeking behaviours” that can be used to predict outbreaks of “influenza-like” diseases. The results offer a more immediate way to track early disease outbreak than traditional methods of report (e.g., through confirmed cases by physician visits), which can “reduce the number of people affected,” according to a post on the official Google blog. Currently, other epidemiologists

are trying to similarly correlate outbreaks of other diseases to search engine queries. Google uses its disease tracking data to monitor flu trends in 25 countries and dengue trends in 10 countries.

The collection of our search queries, though separated from identifiable personal data, is a part of larger, ongoing discussions regarding the tracing and storage of our online lives. ‘Big Data,’ as the aggregate data of online activity is often called, will likely have further important applications for real-world phenomena as disease tracking has just begun to show. But along with that comes dangers of invasion of privacy that may negatively impact some people’s ability to access insurance coverage based on the aggregate internet data for their similar demographic. Law professor Lori Andrews

argued, in a New York Times article last February, that the practice of “redlining” — the term used to describe “the practice of bank officials who drew a red line on a map to indicate where they wouldn’t invest [based on race and socioeconomic data on neighbourhoods],” says Andrews — may soon be used to discriminate against people based on their digital selves.

Andrews suggests that a person could conceivably be “refused health insurance based on a Google search you did based on a medical condition.” While such implications may come sooner than we expect or know, until then, data aggregation can provide us with important models for real-world phenomena and remind us of our collective adulation of Pinterest and Psy’s horse-like Gangnam Style dance.

Genetic engineering competition to be hosted at U of T The field of synthetic biology is blooming and iGEM’s in the middle of it all Seemi Qaiser

PHOtO COUrtEsY aDaM KOMOrOWsKI

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Synthetic biology — a form of genetic engineering — is the latest field to capture the imagination of amateur and professional scientists. The field consists of building biological systems using existing genetic data. For instance, certain useful genes from one organism can be isolated and added to the dna of a second organism, as in the example of the infamous spider-goat: a hybrid goat that produces the fine but durable silk secreted by spiders. However, unlike in traditional genetic engineering methods, the spider and the goat were not mated. Rather, the gene coding for the production of silk was isolated and inserted into the dna region responsible for producing milk.

It is easy to see how this level of control over living things can make the public uncomfortable and may be considered by some to be against the natural order. But are biological scientists really playing God? This accusation could easily be directed towards farmers who breed different species of wheat in order to

combine desirable traits or even dog breeders.

These processes also manipulate the genetic material of an organism through human interference, yet they are not as vilified as synthetic biology. “We engineer biological systems to perform functions not selected for in nature,” explains Adam Komorowski, an Immunology & Molecular Genetics and Microbiology major and president of the University of Toronto’s igem team.

The igem (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition is an international synthetic biology competition aimed chiefly at undergraduates and recently, high school students. Students work over the summer to construct biological systems that tackle problems in diverse fields from medicine to agriculture. The new dna sequences, known as BioBricks, are then submitted to the Registry of Standard Parts to be used in building future biological systems.

Currently, the team is in the process of brainstorming possible projects for the 2013 competition. From here, the best proposal will be chosen and worked on during the summer.

CONTINUED PG 20

VARSITY SCIENCE

var.st/science

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

19

Heartbeats may be the next passwords U of T startup develops unique security software the other hand, fingerprints can easily be lifted, and an ear print or facial image can be captured at a distance using a camera. But where cardiac biometrics really shine is in their potential to be completely seamless when integrated into handheld devices.

By embedding sensors into devices in an ergonomic fashion, a person can be seamlessly and continuously authenticated during normal device usage, without having to take any special action. Fingerprints require an intentional swipe or touch of the finger, and facial and iris recognition require careful positioning relative to a camera.

Karen Kyung Fuhrmann VARSITY STAFF

Bionym, a tech start-up founded by two U of T graduates, has created a piece of software that uses the unique heartbeat of humans for it security. Instead of unreliable and hackable passwords, the software, called HeartID, uses a person’s heartbeat to authenticate their identity and protect access to important information.

Founded by Foteini Agrafioti and Dr. Karl Martin, Bionym specializes in developing biometric software — technology that measures and analyzes human biological data. HeartID is more convenient than existing biometric identification techniques; instead of swiping fingerprints on a scanner or positioning irises in front of cameras, a cardiac signal requires a simple touch. Cardiac signals are also highly secure and their accuracy is rated at greater than 99 per cent. “HeartID is currently the only commercially available biometric authentication solution that uses the cardiac signal,” says Agrafioti.

To use the system, an individual holds a mouse-like controller with built-in sensors, and their unique cardiac rhythm is recognized by the connected computer. Authorized users with a recognized cardiac rhythm are immediately allowed access and logged in. As a further security measure, HeartID uses continuous monitoring, immediately

Dr. Karl Martin

logging off any user without an authenticated cardiac rhythm.

Passwords have become increasingly controversial and are no longer considered a secure method of protection. Re-used passwords and usernames are common, and are a source of failure. “In the past decade, there have been concentrated efforts by researchers around the world to design the next generation of biometrics which would be not only unique for every person but also difficult to steal

or attack,” Agrafioti says. “HeartID is the natural evolution of biometric systems because it addresses well known security concerns with fingerprint, iris, or face biometrics.”

Bionym is looking to usher in a new era where electronic devices will rely on a high level of personalization for enabling automatic access to secure systems and data. New systems will need to depend on an individual’s behaviour — where we go, how we act, and so on.

HeartID is all about making user authentication completely convenient and seamless. By enabling devices and systems to recognize WILLIAM AHN/THe VArsITy the user without them having to Ask the experts: What are you do anything beyond touching an trying to achieve with HeartID integrated sensor, we not only offer security that people will and IT security? actually use (keeping data and Foteini Agrafioti accounts safe), we also offer new functionality, such as automatic It all comes down to combining personalization.

Additionally, security and convenience. From a since HeartID can be integrated security standpoint, the cardiac into mobile devices (e.g., smart signal, being protected inside the phones and tablets), we’re pobody, is very difficult to circum- sitioning HeartID as being the vent or to steal or “skim” with- ubiquitous user authentication out a person’s knowledge. On solution for the future.

Science in brief Stem cells can “mass-produce” patient’s own cancer-fighting immune cells

Research estimates over 100 billion planets in milky way

Researchers have used stem cell technology to produce large quantities of cultured cells that can attack and kill cancer and viral infections. These can potentially be injected back into the patient’s body to support exhausted immune systems against cancer, hiv, or viral infections.

Our bodies naturally produce T cells, a type of white blood cell that recognises and attacks cells with the markings of infection or cancer. However, their short life spans and limited numbers make them ineffective against aggressive invasions.

The researchers took these T cells from patients’ bodies and reprogrammed them into stem cells. These were then grown under ideal laboratory conditions for growth and an improved lifespan. The stem cells were reprogrammed back into T cells that had the same cancer and hiv-infected cell targeting ability, but in much larger numbers and with much longer lifespans.

One study was carried out on an hiv-positive patient, while another was carried out on a patient with skin cancer. Although the studies successfully ‘mass-produced’ the required cells, the artificially-generated T cells must still be shown to be clinically safe. It is currently unknown whether they will kill healthy tissue cells as well as the targeted cells.

The researcher teams, from the University of Tokyo and the Riken Research Centre for Allergy and Immunology, published their results in Cell Stem Cell.

As we gaze into the night sky it is not hard to notice the numerous stars that stretch across the beautiful landscape.

We know that there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, but a recent study at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has estimated that there are at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy as well.

The Caltech team studied planets orbiting a star in our galaxy called Kepler-32. The star is an M dwarf, and the majority of stars in the Milky Way are classified as M dwarfs. Nasa’s Kepler space telescope discovered five planets roughly the size of the Earth orbiting Kepler-32. These planets are similar to planets that orbit other M-dwarfs, and making them great models in studying the formation of planets.

The planets orbit the star in a rare, edge-on orientation, meaning the starlight of Kepler-32 is blocked once a planet moves across it. This allowed the scientists to determine the planets’ sizes and orbital periods.

Although it is not known how the Kepler-32 system was formed, there is evidence that suggests the planets first formed further away from the star than their current locations and over time moved closer to the star.

Though the researcher’s estimation of 100 billion planets include planets that are in close orbit to M-dwarfs, this does not include planets further out in orbit or orbiting other stars. In light of this, the actual number of planets could be much greater.

— Maged Ahmed Source: Science Daily, bbc Science

— Stephan Jayaratnam Source: Science Daily

VARSITY SCIENCE

20 MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013 “iGEM”CONTINUED FROM PG 18 U of T’s igem team is lucky enough to be hosting this year’s conference at Hart House in October. It’s anticipated to be a large event, with all of Hart House booked for the occasion.

Is the team feeling the pressure to do well? “I wouldn’t call it pressure so much as anticipation,” says Komorowski. “With a lot of motivated

students, as well as knowledgeable graduate and professorial advisors on our team, we feel that a successful showing at the conference is well within our grasp. We hope to do the whole undergraduate scientific community at U of T — and the university at large — proud with our efforts.”

With almost 200 teams participating, some truly novel projects have

come about in the past, offering solutions to real-life problems. Take Washington University’s entry for 2011. The team used genes that convert fatty acid synthesis intermediates into alkanes to build E. coli able to produce alkanes. As the world shortage of fuel draws nearer, this approach might provide a potential solution. Or take the philanthropic approach of another team’s arsenic biodetector — a

science@thevarsity.ca

bacterial biosensor that can detect arsenic contamination levels in water and provide a more economic option for developing countries.

The competition goes beyond the laboratory; participants are encouraged to raise awareness and inform the public about synthetic biology.

U of T’s team is targeting highschool students and middle-aged professionals by hosting presenta-

tions at high schools and Ontario Science Centre’s Café Scientifique.

“Our objective is to reach all people, whether they have a scientific or non-scientific background and get them excited about ... the field,” says Komorowski.

With projects like diesel-producing E. coli and arsenic biodetectors, igem should have no trouble in garnering the public’s attention.

Explore an MS in

Know how to align? Come design!

Email design@thevarsity.ca

HUMAN GENETICS

I

n 1969, Sarah Lawrence College established the first U.S. Master’s program in Human Genetics. Today, we’re the largest and most influential—having trained almost half the world’s genetic counselors. Come join us for a great education and a fulfilling career in an expanding array of fields!

s 7ORLD CLASS FACULTY s 3MALL CLASSES FOCUSED ON STUDENT FACULTY INTERACTION s /UTSTANDING lELDWORK OPPORTUNITIES IN .EW 9ORK #ITY and surrounding areas s "EAUTIFUL CAMPUS SETTING ONLY MINUTES FROM midtown Manhattan s &INANCIAL AID AVAILABLE OP EN H OU SE

Held first Thursday of every month in Westchester or Manhattan!

To learn more, please visit www.slc.edu/human-genetics, call (914) 395-2371, or email us at grad@sarahlawrence.edu

From trade shows to weddings

From retail management to

to cultural festivals, this

wholesale to logistics, this

program offers the unique

program offers the unique

skills you need to launch your

skills you need to launch your

career as an event coordinator,

career as a fashion buyer,

account representative,

logistics coordinator, product

corporate meeting planner

development manager, visual

or many other exciting

merchandiser and many other

career opportunities.

exciting career options.

EVENT MANAGEMENT POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

FASHION MANAGEMENT & PROMOTIONS POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

business.humber.ca/postgrad

business.humber.ca/postgrad

Sports

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

var.st/sports

Women’s basketball fail to exact revenge on visiting Carleton Ravens

14 JaNUarY 2013

var.st/avy

sports@thevarsity.ca

“The number of quality people I have met through the football program has been astounding, and I couldn’t be happier”

BerNarda Gospic/tHe varsitY

Catching up with de Pass Blues receiver looks to help restore Toronto’s football credibility William Deck ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

Paul de Pass isn’t letting the negativity of another losing season with the Varsity Blues affect him.

The fourth–year history and geography major at utsc is staying positive, and continues to thrive as a Blues football player.

Despite his high level of play, de Pass only began playing football in the eleventh grade at Notre Dame c.s.s. in his hometown of Ajax. The Blues’ receiver was predominantly a hockey and baseball player, and during his high school days, he played on the defensive side of the ball as a safety. It was only when de Pass arrived at U of T that he moved to the offense and his current position as a receiver.

De Pass had only two years of football behind him at the end of high school, but he knew he was ready to play at the university level. After debating the merits of U of T and the University of Windsor, de Pass eventually chose Toronto because of its academic reputation and because the football program offered opportunities that Windsor could not.

“With regards to football, not only did it give me an opportunity to come in and have a chance to play right away, but I also wanted to help erase the losing stigma that had been attached to the football program and help bring the program back to the upper echelon of the cis where it belongs,” said de Pass.

De Pass has only seen moderate team success while playing for the Varsity Blues in his four years here, with the team going a combined 9–23 in his time on the team.

But de Pass himself has had tremendous individual success right from the start of his university playing career.

In his first year at U of T, de Pass won the Football Rookie of the Year after running for 314 yards and averaging 52.3 yards a game. De Pass was also elected to play in the East-West Bowl in 2012, a game which showcases athletes who display outstanding play. De Pass and the East condemned the West to a third straight defeat, triumphing 24–16 at Western’s TD Waterhouse Stadium.

As a team, however, the Varsity Blues have not been nearly as successful.

The Blues have not made the playoffs since de Pass arrived at U of T, and fell

to a 2–6 record this past season. But de Pass has not let the losing affect him, and chooses to see positives in the connections that he has made through the football program. “The number of quality people I have met through the football program has been astounding, and I couldn’t be happier,” said de Pass.

“There have been a countless number of lifelong friends I’ve made through the program.”

Although team highlights have been limited, one that stands out for de Pass during his time here is an early game against the Ottawa Gee–Gees. “One of the most memorable games I’ve had since coming to U of T was in second year when we beat Ottawa while they were ranked number two in the cis,” recalled De Pass.

The game saw the Varsity Blues upset the Gee–Gees 40–35 at Varsity Stadium, handing them their first loss of the season. It was also the game in which de Pass recorded his first touchdown of the season. Ottawa would eventually advance to the conference championships in the cis playoffs, before falling to Western.

De Pass came to U of T intent on winning championships, and even though the Blues have yet to accomplish that, he believes that

his team has the dedication and work ethic to move towards his ultimate goal. “As a team we continue to work incredibly hard in the off-season to adequately prepare ourselves for the upcoming season,” said de Pass. “We practice a few times a week in the off-season and I can’t say enough about the commitment we get from the majority of the team.”

Although 2013 is his final year of eligibility, de Pass does not see his football career ending there. He hopes there is an opportunity for him to play at the next level — the cfl — and if not in Canada, then to play for an European team. Even after his playing days are over, he still plans on being involved with football. “I’m sure once I finish playing I’ll continue to coach at one level or another. And of course continue to re-live the glory days in men’s leagues,” predicted de Pass.

With these goals in mind, De Pass is focused on next season and is determined to do everything possible to help the Varsity Blues do big things during his final season of play. “With one more year left of eligibility I’m going to do everything I can to help propel our team to a place we haven’t been in a long time — the playoffs.”

22 MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

VARSITY SPORTS

sports@thevarsity.ca

The Blues fell 2–1 in a shootout against the Carleton Ravens earlier this season. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

Blues complete series sweep over Paladins A hat trick, solid goaltending, and a good team effort combine for a convincing 6–1 victory Geshini Karunatilake VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Looking to rebound from last week’s loss to the Ryerson Rams, the Varsity Blues men’s hockey team played host to the Royal Military College (rmc) Paladins in front of a rowdy, enthusiastic home crowd at Varsity Arena.

Early in the first, rmc applied pressure and created some quality scoring chances, all of which were denied by Blues goaltender Brett Willows.

The momentum soon shifted in favour of U of T when the first penalty of the game was handed out to rmc’s Brett Pinder for tripping. With 22 sec-

onds remaining on the man advantage, the Blues drew first blood. Thirdyear forward Blake Boddy opened the scoring when he finished off a giveand-go play with Jeff Brown at the side of the net, and slid the puck past the Paladins netminder.

Discipline was an issue for U of T in the later stages of the first period, with Matt Walters and Michael Markovic called for roughing and kneeing penalties respectively. The penalties allowed the Paladins to tie the game on a two-man advantage, with rmc forward Brendan Wright scoring the team’s only goal of the game.

The Paladins, who looked tired while playing their second game in as

many nights, cracked under the pressure and were called for some careless penalties. The resulting power plays allowed the Blues to take the lead as Boddy pounced on a deflection off Lane Werbowski’s point shot and fired it past first-year goaltender Evan Deviller for the score.

This was followed by two more quick goals for U of T. Forward Paul Van de Velde found the back of the net on a delayed penalty. A minute later, Boddy scored to complete the hat trick in stunning fashion, racing through the neutral zone, picking up a pass from linemate Jeff Brown, and then shooting the puck beyond Deviller’s reach.

RITE

However, even that wasn’t enough to hold back U of T’s offence, which continues to shine.

Blues goaltender Brett Willows had yet another solid performance between the pipes, making 26 saves and continues to lead the cis with an impressive 0.935 save percentage.

“Willows played well,” said Blues head coach Darren Lowe. “He was there when we needed him to stop the puck.”

Having defeated the Paladins 4–1 and 7–1 earlier this season, the Blues successfully sweep their series against rmc with this win, and improve to third in the OUA East.

FOR SP TS OR

W

“The pucks were just going in,” Boddy said of his second career hat trick. “Jeff Brown gave me two really nice passes and made two of the goals really easy. The other one was just a rebound that landed on my stick.”

Having picked up two assists in the game, Jeff Brown scored a goal himself — his eleventh of the season — bringing his team-leading point total to 24. The last goal of the night came from defenseman Lane Werbowski to make it 6–1, and put the game well out of reach for the Paladins, who extended their losing streak to 14 games.

Despite the loss, goaltender Evan Deviller made 29 saves for rmc.

Advertising – Media Management Alternative Dispute Resolution Event Management Fashion Management & Promotions Financial Planning Global Business Management

sports@thevarsity.ca

Human Resources Management International Development Marketing Management Public Administration

DENTAL CARE

10 WAYS TO LAUNCH YOUR CAREER

DR. ELON GRIFFITH

FIND YOUR NICHE WITH A POSTGRAD IN BUSINESS

Cosmetic & General Dentistry

416-923-3386 drgriffith@rogers.com 25 Charles ST.W

BLOOR ST. W. CHARLES ST. W. Our Office

YONGE ST.

business.humber.ca/postgrad

BAY ST.

Toronto ON M4Y 2R4

var.st/sports

VARSITY SPORTS

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013

23

Third-year guard Matt Savel after taking a free-throw. BERNARDA GoSPIC/THE VARSITY

Blues dribble to eighth consecutive loss Men’s basketball collapses in a 92–75 loss to the Gee-Gees Nicholas Pcholkin

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues men’s basketball team dropped their eighth straight game with a 92–75 loss to the visiting Ottawa Gee-Gees on Saturday night.

From the opening tip off, the GeeGees blitzed the Varsity Blues with stifling full-court pressure, but Blues guards Matt Savel and Arun Kumar were largely able to break the fullcourt press.

Kumar, the tenth-best scorer in the oua, played a fantastic game hitting an array of shots from all over the court and finishing with a game–high

27 points. Forward Ben Garvin also had a solid game, making seven of 12 field goals and finishing the game with 17 points. Garvin was consistently able to get open and hit shots from outside, while also moving well towards the basket for some easy finishes.

The player of the game was Ottawa forward Gabriel Gonthier-Dubue who scored at will inside throughout the whole game. He shot an astounding 11 for 12 from the field including a ferocious alley-oop with 2.25 left in the fourth quarter, essentially sealing the game. Guards Warren Ward and Johnny Berhanemeskel both had solid games to set the pace for the Gee-

Gees. Ward scored 14 points and Berhanemeskel added 19 of his own while shooting on seven of nine opportunities. Ward wasn’t very efficient from the field, only connecting on five of 16 shots but hauled in 10 rebounds and led the Gee-Gees emotionally.

Ward and Blues guard Dakota Laurin battled for much of the game and both were called for technical fouls after much pushing and exchanging of words.

Alex Hill, the star Varsity Blues guard, struggled against Ottawa.

He hit the target on only two of 10 shots,and never seemed to find his groove in the first half. His play improved in the second half, connecting

on a couple of long three-point shots and continuously drove to the hoop.

His drives allowed him to get fouled multiple times, and he finished with 15 points, nine of which came from the line on his 11 free throw attempts of the game.

The momentum in the second half geared the game towards Ottawa, as they were able to continuously break pressure and found themselves with copious numbers of easy shots inside, including wide open threepointers. They shot an impressive 64 per cent from the field and 52 per cent from deep. The Blues’ ultimate downfall was their inability to stop the Gee-Gees’ three–point shots,

and they finished the game eight of 23 from downtown.

Ottawa’s shooting efficiency was too much for the Blues as they began to pull away in the third quarter, and Ottawa found themselves up 85–69 with three minutes to go in the fourth.

The Gee-Gees put on a collective effort, with five players scoring double digits, and their guards were impressive, creating fluid ball movement and finding open shooters all game.

Garvin summed it up best, saying, “We battled hard in the first half, but the second half seemed to just slip away.” The Varsity Blues are now 2–9, and, according to Garvin, “have had a tough year.”

copy Cop-e Edit for The Varsity copy@thevarsity.ca From media planning and

From marketing to finance

management to account

to international trade, this

CLASSIFIEDS

co-ordination and sales,

program offers the unique

this program offers the unique

skills you need to launch your

VINYL, CDS, EQUIPMENT High Quality Vinyl & reconditioned equipment AROUND AGAIN 18 Baldwin St

skills you will need to launch

career as a brand manager,

your career in an advertising

operations planner, marketing

or media company.

coordinator, media analyst

HIRING “Our Registered Agency needs Shoppers,Survey Agents, Admin/office Assistants, Drivers, Customer service Reps , General labourer any where from Canada and most especially at locations closer to you. The job is on a p/t or f/t basis depending on how you want it and it is very flexible. Each position is suitable for full time workers and students. We offer $40 for a start and other monthly benefits and Grants.

Respond to us via ptworkcal@gmail.com for more info. *Work starts immediately.*

and many other exciting career options.

ADVERTISING MEDIA MANAGEMENT POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

business.humber.ca/postgrad

GLOBAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

business.humber.ca/postgrad

SUPPORT COMPELLING PHOTOGRAPHY Vote ‘yes’ to The Varsity’s levy increase. studentvoice.thevarsity.ca

January 28, 29, and 30, help us continue to serve you.

Stories that matter, since 1880