September 16, 2019

September 16 , 2019

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

Vol. CXL, No. 3

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UTSU Executive Committee to reverse decision to allow overtime pay

Union hesitant to change pay structure following consultations

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Bowman stated that the new timekeeping policy is expected to be approved at the next UTSU Board of Directors meeting.

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The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Executive Committee has announced that it will repeal a recently passed amendment that gave executives and assistant vice-presidents the ability to receive overtime pay.

The amendments to the executive remuneration policy were passed at the committee’s meeting on August 19. The change reads, “any additional hours worked shall be compensated at the same hourly honorarium,” without providing an upper limit on hours.

However, the committee later decided to overturn the change. “After consultations with our Board of Directors and our membership, we have come to the conclusion that there are far better and more effective ways to achieve our goals,” wrote UTSU President Joshua Bowman in an email to The Varsity.

Explaining the context to the amendment, Bowman wrote: “We want to empower indi-

viduals who decide to get involved with the UTSU with the opportunity to make tangible and meaningful change.” According to Bowman, the Executive Committee will repeal the amendment that expanded executive member overtime pay at their next meeting.

Bowman remains optimistic about future pay policies, and stated that the UTSU will continue to ensure the well-being of their staff members. In order to achieve this, a Time Keeping Management Policy is planned to be approved at the next Board of Directors meeting on September 22.

The intended goal for both the overtime pay amendment and the new timekeeping policy is not only for transparency in executive pay, but also to properly compensate executives for their work, wrote Bowman.

The Hudson lawsuit The proposed policy change comes four years after the UTSU was involved in a legal battle with former staff and executives regarding overtime pay.

Former Executive Director Sandra Hud-

son, along with former President Yolen Bollo-Kamara and former Vice-President, Services, Cameron Wathey, were all accused of committing civil fraud after Hudson was terminated by Bollo-Kamara and given a compensation package totaling to $277,726.

Of this amount, $29,782.22 was given as a payment for the alleged overtime hours she worked. However, records for additional hours worked could not be found, and according to the UTSU, Hudson’s termination had no legal grounds, as she only ever had positive reviews from her employers.

Bollo-Kamara and Wathey settled with the union separately in 2016, while Hudson continued the legal battle until the lawsuit was settled in October 2017. Hudson agreed to pay a portion of the money back, and accusations of fraud and theft were not proven.

It was later revealed that Hudson had filed a claim for damages alleging that former UTSU President Mathias Memmel broke a mediation agreement after he discussed the details of the lawsuit during an April 2016 Board of Directors meeting.

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The Water Dragons competed in the 500-metre race at the Montreal Dragon Boat Challenge earlier this year.

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SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

UTM to participate in Global Climate Strike

Teach-ins, banner-making workshops, documentary viewing among organized events Mikaela Toone Varsity Contributor

UTM will be holding a series of events in support of the Global Climate Strikes taking place on September 20 and 27, which coincides with the upcoming United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit that aims to present viable plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Climate change is clearly one of the most, if not the most, important issues of our time…

The Strike represents a pedagogic moment that UTM wanted to be part of,” wrote UTM Media Relations spokesperson Nicolle Wahl to The Varsity.

Classes at UTM will not be cancelled on the days of the strikes. However, in an email, former acting Vice-President and Principal Amrita Daniere encouraged faculty to be mindful of the walkouts and to remind their students to request accommodations should they participate.

In coordination with local groups, UTM is arranging drop-in workshops for making banners supporting climate justice, one-hour sessions with professors from various facilities, and TEDstyle climate talks.

An event titled “Meltdown: A Climate Change Summit” will be hosted at The Maanjiwe nendamowinan Building on September 24, bringing environment and health experts, including former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Dr. Diane Saxe, to discuss the impact of climate change on health.

The week of Climate Strike events will conclude on September 25 with an outdoor screening of ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch — a multiple-award winning documentary focusing on the Anthropocene Working Group.

As part of a global effort, the Climate Strike

aims to “declare a climate emergency and show our politicians what action in line with climate science and justice means,” according to its website.

The global strikes are inspired by school strikers, like activist Greta Thunberg, who has been leaving class every Friday since last August in protest of the climate crisis.

In a video in support of the Global Climate Strike, Thunberg said, “This shouldn’t be the children’s responsibility. Now the adults also need to help us, so we are calling for them to strike from their work because we need everyone.”

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“ Climate change is clearly one of the most, if not the most, important issues of our time

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U of T faced criticism in 2016 when President Meric Gertler opted not to divest from all fossil fuel companies, instead choosing to assess investments individually.

The UN Climate Action Summit, occurring the same week as the strikes, is urging world leaders to enact plans that address more than just fossil fuel mitigation and encouraging countries to move

f o r w a rd in fully transitioning to sustainable economies. This includes prioritizing renewable forms of energy, such as solar and wind, and removing subsidies for fossil fuels.

The UN also emphasized that these climate action plans must not add to economic inequality and that those negatively affected by shifts toward renewable energy production must be given new opportunities.

UTSG and UTSC have not announced any events for the Global Climate Strike. A full list of UTM’s Global Climate Strike events with dates and locations can be found on their website.

Incoming pharmacy faculty dean withdraws from position over summer

Wasan and co-authors failed to cite passages taken from an earlier book review

Kathryn Mannie Deputy News Editor

Wasan voluntarily withdrew from his appointment as Dean of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy over the summer.

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This past year saw both exciting announcements and alarming uncertainty coming from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. U of T unveiled their pick for the next pharmacy faculty dean in July 2018. Less than a year later, in June 2019, its new hire, Professor Kishor Wasan, had withdrawn from his appointment.

A book review in The Lancet, co-written by Wasan, who was a Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan, was found to contain “substantial passages” from another review of the same book.

The article, which was titled “A check-up on Canada’s health system,” has since been retracted due to its similarity to a review written by André Picard, a reporter and columnist for The Globe and Mail. Both Picard and Wasan wrote reviews on Danielle Martin’s book Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians.

Wasan was slated to become U of T’s newest Dean and Professor of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy for a five-year term, meant to serve in his role from July 1, 2019 until June 30, 2024.

However, in a statement made to The Varsity, university spokesperson Elizabeth Church confirmed that Wasan had voluntarily withdrawn from his upcoming position following The Lancet’s retraction of his book review.

The retraction notice published by The Lancet in May does not explicitly allege that any plagiarism

took place. This may be due in part to Wasan’s explanation that he and his co-authors credited Picard in earlier drafts of their review, but that the citation was removed without appropriate modifications to the text.

He contends that the citation was dropped in order to accommodate more of his and his co-authors’ perspectives. However, due to an accidental oversight, no additions were made to replace Picard’s ideas.

Speaking to Medscape Medical News, Wasan admits that he is “partly responsible,” but maintains that he and his co-authors “did not intend to deceive.”

Wasan was also previously the Chair and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia, where he co-founded the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative, a body meant to develop interventions for infectious diseases of poverty.

Wasan will not be returning to his original position as Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan. His term officially ended there in June 2019.

Professor Lisa Dolovich, who teaches at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, will serve as Interim Dean for a one-year term.

Wasan did not respond to The Varsity’s requests for comment.

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Government think tank on education faces criticisms of lack of transparency “Now is the time to shut down HEQCO,” reads faculty coalition press release Hannah Carty Varsity Contributor

A leadership crisis is currently wracking the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), a government agency that evaluates the postsecondary education system in Ontario. The high-level resignations of its board members and President Harvey Weingarten in August are giving rise to criticisms, which are further fuelled by earlier accusations of questionable research methods.

In an August 20 press release, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), a non-profit organization that advocates for the interests of faculty in Ontario universities, called for the dissolution of the HEQCO, claiming “now is the time” as the organization currently has no president.

The OCUFA accused Weingarten of hypocrisy in his recommendations to cut pensions while he himself has a $4.5 million public pension fund.

The HEQCO recently held a series of consulta-

tions where it suggested that faculty should not be able to collect a salary and pension at the same time, as well as encouraged faculty to retire at the age of 65 for cost-cutting purposes.

“They put out this ridiculous report in which they said that faculty salaries and pensions are one of the more critical issues facing the sector in postsecondary education in Ontario, without really even mentioning that Ontario has the lowest per capita per student and funding vis a vis GDP in the country,” said Michael Conlon, Executive Director of the OCUFA. HEQCO’s Research Methods In 2018, the HEQCO completed a series of studies which claimed that around 25 per cent of graduating postsecondary students in Ontario scored below “the minimum required for graduates to perform well in today’s work world.” The test aimed to measure “literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking,” looking specifically at whether graduates have the skills to succeed in the workplace.

University Affairs (UA) called the HEQCO’s skills assessments “a good example of cargo cult policy research,” meaning that their studies are not conducted according to the proper scientific method. UA criticized the HEQCO for using a non-representative study to support broad claims about the effectiveness of postsecondary education in Ontario.

As noted in The Globe and Mail, “students volunteered or were recruited for the studies, and therefore the sample was not random or representative; nor were the same students tested at the beginning and end of their schooling.”

“They’re in essence drawing really kind of political conclusions from their data, creating this kind of exaggerated sensibility around learning outcomes,” said Conlon.

The OCUFA also criticized the HEQCO for a lack of transparency regarding their relationship to the government. “We feel like they’ve essentially become more of a political organization, rather than an independent third-party policy think tank,

which is what they were originally designed to do.”

Another of the OCUFA’s criticisms of the HEQCO is their support of the usage of performance metrics in postsecondary education. Ontario announced plans earlier this year to tie 60 per cent of provincial funding of universities to performance indicators by 2024–2025.

According to Conlon, performance metrics “really undermine the system because they set up these arbitrary artificial measures that really have absolutely nothing to do with quality or student experience.” Additionally, they “distract from the real problems with this system, which is underfunding, cuts to OSAP… [and] a variety of other real challenges.”

“I think what HEQCO sets up is this kind of illusion of an independent, transparent organization, which it’s not, it’s just an agency of government. So that’s why we’re calling for that $5 million to be put back into OSAP.” The HEQCO has declined The Varsity’s request for comment at this time.

OCUFA has been active in protests against the Ford government’s postsecondary education policies.

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Bader Theatre hosts Black Ribbon event remembering Molotov-Ribbentop pact Chessmaster Garry Kasparov compares Stalin, Putin at Black Ribbon event

Garry Kasparov speaking at Isabel Bader Theatre on September 12.

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Khachig Ainteblian and Katya Fedorovskaya Varsity Contributors

The Lithuanian embassy held a Black Ribbon event at the Isabel Bader Theatre on September 12 to remember the 80-year anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and to recognize the victims of totalitarian and fascist regimes.

The keynote speaker, chessmaster, and notable opponent of the Kremlin, Garry Kasparov, drew from his experiences to compare Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regimes.

“Hitler and Stalin were allies,” Kasparov explained. “They started World War II together.”

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a non-aggression treaty between Stalin and Adolf Hitler, which was signed on August 23, 1939. The pact enabled the German invasion of Poland nine days later, which is regarded as the inciting incident that began World War II. Professor Matthew Light, who specializes in Eastern European and Russian politics, explained in an interview with The Varsity that Stalin “essentially carved up eastern Europe with Hitler, and after the war, imposed Soviet rule on the Baltics and communist regimes in Poland and other eastern European states.” Those states included Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and more — many of which had representatives at the Thursday event.

Kasparov on Hitler, Stalin, Putin Professor Light argues that painting Stalin as a hero against the Third Reich is a tool in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, “whose leadership Putin and his regime frequently refer to as ‘fascists’ and seek to associate with the Nazis.”

In 2009, during a visit to Poland, Putin denounced the pact as a “collusion to solve one’s problems at others’ expense.’’ 2014 — the same year Russia annexed Crimea — Russia’s Culture Minister, Vladimir Medinsky, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact a “colossal achievement of Stalin’s diplomacy.”

“I could only envy Canadians because they enter elections and they don’t know who’s going to win,” Kasparov joked in his keynote address. “[Young people] want to hear about the future.

And what can Putin can offer? Nothing. They could see wars. They could see growing tension there.

Most of them are pro-Western and they could see that there’s a growing gap between Russia and the free world.”

“Corruption in Russia is not a problem, it’s a system,” he said.

Despite the challenges, Kasparov remains an optimist, adding that “whatever happens after Putin, it will be some sort of regrouping, but I think Russia will move in the right direction. It’s a big chance and hopefully, unlike in 1991, we will not miss it.”

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Faculty coalition says new performancebased provincial funding model will increase inequality Funding model doesn’t encourage improvement, but will punish failure, says OUCC Kathryn Mannie Deputy News Editor

Since Doug Ford assumed the office of the Premier of Ontario last year, his government has made significant changes to education at all levels. One of these major changes arose in the Ford government’s first provincial budget: the decision to tie a large portion of the funding for universities and colleges to a set of performance indicators, as opposed to enrolment numbers.

In a public statement by the Ontario Universities and Colleges Coalition (OUCC), union and student leaders alike are pushing back on this move, claiming that it will “fundamentally compromise the integrity of Ontario’s higher education system.”

Renewed Strategic Mandate Agreement The current Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs) between the provincial government and the province’s 45 publicly assisted postsecondary institutions will expire on March 31, 2020.

SMAs are bilateral agreements that dictate how much the provincial government will provide in funding to these institutions over multiyear periods. While previous SMAs only tied a very small proportion of university funding to performance, the current Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities plans to increase that amount significantly.

By the 2024–2025 academic year, performance-based funding will increase incrementally from 1.4 per cent to 60 per cent in a move that Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Ross Romano claims will make

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Ontario a “national leader in outcomes‐based funding.”

In a statement to The Varsity, Romano wrote that these SMA bilateral discussions with university and college leaders will begin this fall to determine the specific performance metrics.

Under the expiring SMA, U of T’s performance metrics are currently tied to student experience, innovation, research impact, and access and equity.

OUCC Statement The OUCC, a coalition which represents 435,000 postsecondary Ontario students, faculty, and staff, alongside the 11 other signatories of their public statement, oppose these changes categorically. They list it as yet another attack on Ontario’s postsecondary education system, following years of stagnant public funding and cuts to student financial assistance.

The signatories argue that withdrawing

Former USMC president criticizes SMC magazine cover of pro-choice federal minister SMC alum McKenna featured, David Mulroney cites Roman Catholic values in criticism

McKenna was featured on the cover of SMC’s alumni magazine.

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funding from universities and colleges who fail to reach their targets will not encourage improvement, but will actually “ensure institutions fall further behind.”

Among a long list of predictions for how this new approach to performance-based funding will affect education, the OUCC notably claims that it will give rise to increased inequalities across all universities and colleges.

Particularly it will hurt northern and smaller postsecondary institutions, accelerate the corporatization of campuses as private funding becomes increasingly important, and generally compromise the autonomy of Ontario’s schools. In terms of students, they argue it will decrease access to education for those who are marginalized, as admissions requirements will change to best accommodate new metrics.

In an email to The Varsity, Romano wrote that he is “dedicated to making Ontario’s postsecondary education system more

competitive and better aligned with labour‐ market needs, while operating transparently and efficiently.”

Contrarily, the OUCC claims that Ford’s changes will “do nothing to improve accountability, as Ontario’s universities and colleges already have comprehensive structures in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs they offer.”

Further, they argue that performance-based funding won’t improve labour market outcomes, as this system will prepare students for the labour market of today, but not for the one they will enter upon graduation. The statement’s signatories include Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario, Felipe Nagata; President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, Rahul Sapra; and President of the Ontario Federation of Labour, Chris Buckley, among others.

Shivani Ojha Varsity Contributor

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna, a pro-choice politician, was the centre of criticism after being featured on the cover of the Summer 2019 issue of St. Michael’s — the University of St. Michael’s College (SMC) alumni magazine.

SMC is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, which opposes abortion under any circumstance. This was the same position that David Mulroney, the former president of SMC, took when criticizing McKenna in an article on LifeSiteNews, an anti-abortion publication.

McKenna, an SMC graduate, was featured in her alma mater’s alumni magazine for her accomplishments in a piece called “Living your Passion.” Mulroney’s frustration with the feature stems from McKenna’s public stance on abortion.

McKenna is publicly pro-choice, and often expresses her views on social media. According to Mulroney, these opinions directly conflict with Catholic values.

“When an alumna is invited to address a theology class it is because the university believes that she has some relevant insights to share. It becomes problematic when the alumna has a very significant role in taking actions that run seriously counter to Catholic teachings,” Mulroney commented to The Varsity.

Mulroney further expressed that McKenna’s status and accomplishments should not be a factor in her selection for the magazine cover.

Rather, the magazine should feature someone who “exemplifies the best of what a university stands for.”

Despite SMC’s decision, Mulroney believes that “a Catholic University must be faithful to both [worlds]. It encourages the free exchange of ideas, but is unafraid to engage its students in what constitutes a good life.” This quality, he believes, is lacking “at a time when secular society, including secular universities are increasingly intolerant of alternative perspectives.”

SMC Director of Communications, Laurie Morris, wrote in an email to The Varsity that the college “always welcome[s] and encourage[s] feedback from our community on all articles and alumni profiles.”

Morris declined to make any further comments on McKenna, citing inappropriate timing in relation to the upcoming federal election.

McKenna, who faces regular criticism for her work as an MP and minister, now has a security detail — which is uncommon for federal ministers.

In an interview with the CBC, McKenna said that, while these threats have been ongoing since her election, in person confrontations have gotten worse only recently.

Business

September 16, 2019 var.st/business biz@thevarsity.ca

How much do full-time undergraduate students pay in incidental fees?

Victoria College students pay the most, Innis College students pay the least Nicole Shi Varsity Contributor

With the Student Choice Initiative taking effect in the 2019–2020 academic year, U of T students can now choose to opt out of those incidental fees that have been deemed non-essential. This breakdown will offer insight on what U of T designates as “essential,” fees that may be charged on a mandatory basis, and “non-essential” — or in other words, optional.

Parting of the fees Last March, the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities put in place a set of guidelines that specify the categories of fees that are essential and non-essential. Essential services are limited to athletics and recreation, career services, student buildings, health and counselling, academic support, student ID cards, student achievement and records, financial aid offices, and campus safety programs.

Health and dental programs are also deemed essential services, but students can opt-out if they provide proof of pre-existing coverage.

To determine which groups may charge fees on a mandatory basis and which groups must allow for students to opt out, U of T has consulted with student services and student societies.

“Ministry guidelines specify which categories of fees are mandatory and which are optional,” a representative from U of T Media Relations wrote to The Varsity. “Within this framework, the University worked with all student societies (organizations on whose behalf the University collects funds) and

student services to determine all of the services and programs they offer.”

Because many of the existing services and programs were established in direct response to requests by students, and vary by campus, student status, faculty, college, and program, the cost of mandatory fees differs between students enrolled in full-time or part-time statuses, different colleges, and campuses.

UTSG, UTM, and UTSC students all pay mandatory fees toward Hart House clubs and programs, the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education services, their respective student union, and their respective health and dental plan. UTSG students additionally pay their respective college’s student society fee or student council fee.

For non-essential services, fees mainly go toward funding student publications, clubs and social events, scholarships and bursaries, and programs for financially or socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

Essential, but not equal Amongst UTSG colleges, students of federated colleges pay approximately $200 more. Paying the most in mandatory fees are Victoria College students, with a total sum of $901. The mandatory fees for Trinity College students, at $803.89 and St. Michael’s College students, at $826.94 follow closely behind.

Students from unfederated colleges pay significantly less for their mandatory fees; University College students pay $688.48, New College students pay $683.99, and Woodsworth College students pay $672.07. Innis College students pay the least amount across any campus or college, with their

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mandatory fees coming to a sum of $505.82.

On U of T’s other campuses, UTM students pay $799.12, while UTSC students pay slightly more at $833.12.

On average, across all three campuses, a student pays roughly $790 toward their mandatory incidental fees.

Multiple choices As for optional incidental fees, Trinity College students can pay up to $145.27 for services and programs, which is significantly more than that of any other college or campus. Innis College students can pay up to $71.13, Victoria College Students $65.41, St. Michael’s College students $56.58, University

College students $55.68, New College students $52.24, and Woodsworth College students following behind at $49.30.

UTM students can pay up to $69.90 in optional fees, while UTSC students have the smallest total of optional fees, registering in at $41.52.

Across all campuses, the average total cost of optional fees is about $60.

Students can choose their opt-out selections for the fall 2019 term on ACORN before September 19.

With files from Ilya Bañares, Ibnul Chowdhury, Angela Feng, Srivindhya Kolluru, Kathryn Mannie, Harmanraj Wadhwa, and Nathalie Whitten.

The Entrepreneurship Hatchery hosts Demo Day 2019 Magnetic aircraft-braking system takes home $20,000 grand prize Nikhi Bhambra Varsity Contributor

Team eXamify took home $10,000 for their software.

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Aeroflux won first place for their innovative airplane-braking technology.

NIKHI BRAMBRA/THE VARSITY

Sparrow is a software tool that coahes video game players through different levels.

NIKHI BHARMBRA/THE VARSITY

On September 4, the Entrepreneurship Hatchery’s NEST program hosted its ninth annual Demo Day for student-led startups. The event, hosted by the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, took place at the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

The 14 finalists from the program pitched innovations, ranging from addressing energy poverty in developing nations, to pre-emptive brain disorder diagnosis, and more.

A panel of professors, industry leaders, philanthropists, and Hatchery alumni awarded $42,500 in seed funding; $20,000 went to the first-place team, $10,000 to each of the two runners-up, and a $2,500 Orozco Prize to one crowd-favorite presentation.

The contactless airplane-braking company Aeroflux was awarded first place for its working demonstration of its patent-pending magnetic-field brakes. The team, composed of Nikola Kostic, Stevan Kostic, and Roshan Varghese, demonstrated its device, which minimizes the wear and tear on braking gear and could save airplane operators up to $7.2 million during a plane’s lifetime.

The team won the Clarke Prize for leadership in engineering design in May of this year.

It plans to continue developing the technology within the U of T startup community.

Sparrow, an e-sports analytics tool, and eXamify, an end-to-end assignment marking solution, each won $10,000 Hatchery Prizes as runners-up. The team behind Sparrow developed an artificial intelligence agent which was fed by tracking in-game movement and post-

game statistics. Sparrow delivers player-specific coaching suggestions in League of Legends, an online multiplayer game, with plans to expand into other competitive titles in the coming year, and eXamify is an all-in-one online test management suite that simplifies test grading for TAs and professors.

Crowd-favorite startup Brainloop was awarded the Orozco Prize for its predictive brain diagnosis platform. Up to 20 per cent of brain disorders are misdiagnosed, and Esteban Arellano and Juan Egas aim to use artificial intelligence to analyze test results to improve upon this rate.

The duo hope that hospitals will adopt the tool to support diagnoses as early as April 2020.

Throughout the course of the four-month NEST program, the cohort developed products spanning a variety of markets. Other teams shone as well: Team Connct focused its efforts on predictive content suggestions and autoreplies for Instagram influencers, while Team OpenRace developed a platform for runners to compete in real time, from around the world.

As an early-stage startup incubator, the NEST program helps new founders understand the markets they’re trying to enter.

“In 10 or 15 years, we’ll be able to point at successful startups and serial entrepreneurs and say that they had a formative and enabling experience here. In that sense it’s quasi-educational,” said Professor Jonathan Rose, Chair of the Hatchery Advisory Board.

“The key for engineers is to pay attention to the business. Engineers have lots of great ideas, but they need to know if there’s a market for it.”

Disclosure: Nikhi Bhambra was The Varsity’s 2018–2019 Front End Web Developer.

Comment

September 16, 2019 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

To preserve Indigenous languages, U of T must do better

Academic institutions must expand Indigenous language-learning opportunities in the face of endangerment and extinction In order to realize reconciliation, educational institutions like U of T must invest in Indigenous language and culture.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Conroy Gomes Varsity Contributor

Over 188 years have passed since the first residential schools were established in Canada.

Residential schools, a part of government- and church-sponsored policy, were built to undermine Indigenous identity in favor of the dominant white settler society. The repercussions of these schools are still felt by Indigenous people to this day. The intergenerational trauma of residential schooling remains a significant factor in the decline of Indigenous languages, as well as the health and well-being of Indigenous communities.

Indigenous language is integral to the preservation of culture and nationhood. As a result of residential schooling, Indigenous communities were left unable to safeguard their own languages and cultural identities. In fact, beyond the plethora of literature surrounding the psychological, physiological, and sociological implications that have taken hold, it is not uncommon to hear that those who have endured such practices still carry the burden — refusing to teach their children due to fear that they might endure a similar experience.

Until 1996, when the last residential school closed its doors in Punnichy, Saskatchewan, residential schools remained at the epicentre of the isolation, punishment, and assimilation into Euro-Canadian culture that the federal government imposed on Indigenous children.

Inside such schools, children — under the guise of educational policy — were removed from their communities and families and dissuaded from using their language and practising their culture.

Furthermore, many of the more than 150,000 school children in residential schools were subjected to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

According to a 2016 Canadian census, there are over 260,050 Indigenous language speakers in Canada — less than one per cent of the entire Canadian population. Further, there are reportedly over 70 distinct living Indigenous languages spoken in Canada according to the same census.

Yet, only 15.6 per cent of Indigenous people can conduct a conversation in an Indigenous language, a drop from the 2006 census.

Language is at the root of culture and history. However, for Bonnie J. Maracle, Wolf Clan member of the Mohawk people and Professor of Language Revitalization at U of T, language is much more than that. “Language is our help, our unity, our strength,” she claimed.

For Indigenous people like Maracle, there is a clear unifying connection between language and the spiritual and natural environment around us.

“Language is this healing and wellness,” Maracle said. “A whole generation of people had no language and culture, all as a result of residential schools… language has been holding on by a thread [ever since].”

This is not a problem unique to Canada. Indigenous languages and cultures are currently at risk of disappearing in all corners of the world.

This summer, three undergraduate students travelled to the city of Boa Vista, Brazil, as part of U of T’s Research Excursion Projects (REPs).

With guidance from Suzi Lima, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the students were able to study several Indigenous languages in the region, including Macuxi, Ye’kwana, and Taurepang, alongside locals in order to further preservation efforts.

On the importance of their work in Brazil, Gregory Antono, a former Linguistics and Spanish double major now entering his graduate studies in U of T’s linguistics program, spoke on the politics around Brazil’s loss of Indigenous languages. According to Antono, official language status, colonization, and desire to adhere to the dominant culture are among the major factors contributing to this decline. Antono went on to say that, “It’s a race against time, for one. A lot of these languages have [very] few speakers left so if we — from different areas of the world — don’t work together, there is a chance we will not be able to do it at all in a few years.”

Documenting the language and history of Indigenous peoples is just one example of the work that we, as academics, institutions, and global citizens can do to help preserve cultures all over the world.

“I think we focus a lot on theoretical problems rather than the field, but we need more programs like the REP to learn about and communicate with these communities,” Antono continued. “As a student I’m torn between pursuing my academic interests but also in creating meaningful work [within] the community itself.” It is in this day and age of critically declining language diversity that impactful work like this is not only beneficial to both parties at hand, but necessary as well.

In June 2019, the Canadian Government passed the Indigenous Languages Act (ILA).

Along with making attempts to adhere to the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action, the Canadian government is to allocate $333.7 million over five years and $115.7 million per year thereafter to support the ILA’s implementation. While there has been a lot of debate regarding the government’s claim of co-development of this legislation in collaboration with Indigenous groups, this increase in expenditure will hopefully allow more language revitalization projects to come to fruition in the coming years.

Academic institutions must do more to preserve Indigenous languages in light of the current instability in this area. According to Professor Andrea Bear Nicholas, Maliseet from Nekwotkok, Tobique First Nation, who works at St. Thomas University, the situation is truly dire.

“Unless we as a country give equal rights to Indigenous languages for the right to schooling in our languages, I think we will not be saving our languages,” she said in an interview with Global News Canada. “We have to make the next step, and that would be pre-school programs, that would be immersion programs, and guaranteed to any community that wants to start them. This is critical.”

Across Canada, academic institutions are starting to make spaces for Indigenous peoples to learn and thrive, offering course credits in Indigenous languages and cultural studies, and recruiting fluent speakers as administrators and educators. The Mohawk language has now joined Inuktitut and Anishinaabemowin in U of T’s language course offerings, at two levels of education.

However, two levels of language-learning seem hardly enough given that the norm for other languages offered at U of T, such as French and German, are offered at four, if not five levels.

As Canada’s number one university, continually pushing the boundaries of education, should we really have to ask ourselves whether three offered Indigenous languages are enough?

We must provide both Indigenous people — a great number of whom now live outside of reserves — and non-Indigenous students with opportunities to learn via immersive education, beginning in our public school systems. This is necessary if we want to move forward in mutual understanding and resolution.

U of T is also now beginning to pair Indigenous studies education with departments and faculties like the Ontario Institute for Studies in

Education, Law, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health. According to Professor Maracle, it is crucial for professionals to learn about, understand, and attempt to solve the domestic problems faced

by Indigenous peoples within our country.

The TRC has called on universities to start developing partnerships with Indigenous communities. “I can see universities coming to [our communities] and not just providing a classroom for students to go [to universities],” Maracle said.

For Maracle, though there is already programming in these communities, the question becomes, “how can we as institutions help to accredit those programmings that are already existing?” Institutions like U of T must strengthen partnerships with Indigenous communities, especially given the barriers that exist for Indigenous students entering academic institutions.

“If there are people in the community that are getting accreditation,” says Maracle, “[then] at the very least they would have gotten some validation or accreditation for the work they are already doing in their own community.” Public institutions historically have not engaged Indigenous students as well as they have their nonIndigenous counterparts. We must make greater efforts towards recruiting Indigenous youths for postsecondary educational opportunities.

For many Indigenous people like Maracle, Canada is now closer than it has ever been. In her view, Canada’s acceptance of the TRC’s Calls to Action, and promise to follow up with further action — the ILA, for example — has set the tone for Canadians. “The acceptance of the TRC entirely changed the objectives of Canada,” she said.

“It is now working toward changing the ongoing problems of colonialism by working together.”

“In the Indigenous sense you would really be helping if we could sit down and have a conversation about what we actually need." Maracle concluded. “We need to communicate with Indigenous people [to see] what they need help with.”

After all, the key to the preservation of any language or culture is ensuring that dialects not only survive, but thrive. We must start to look at reconciliation efforts that do not result in the survival and continuation of Indigenous languages and cultures as little more than continued assimilation.

Conroy Gomes is a fourth-year Neuroscience and Biology student at New College.

8

THE VARSITY

COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

What are the greatest issues facing students in the upcoming Canadian federal election?

Comment contributors weigh in on the climate crisis, affordable postsecondary education, rising tuition costs, and access to voter information Hafsa Ahmed, Aiman Akmal, Angad Deol & Oliver Zhao Varsity Contributors

In light of the upcoming federal election on October 21, four students weigh in on the greatest issues facing students today.

Turning around our voter turnout The greatest issue facing students in the upcoming elections is a lack of education on how the federal election actually works.

Young voters — citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 — make up the largest eligible voting demographic in Canada. This gives young people a lot of power. However, a lack of knowledge seems to take that power away.

Despite voter apathy, the stereotype that today’s youth don’t care about politics is not necessarily true. Today’s young people seem to be more politically involved than past

generations. Students are aware of the effects of political decisions in our everyday lives, from transportation and housing costs to cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). Young people do care, and they have power in numbers. However, there is a need to better inform young people so that they may channel their concerns into political action.

Many young people are not informed on how to register, vote, or on how their vote can impact their nation. Compared to older voters who have been politically engaged for years, youth lack experience and understanding of Canadian politics. This is amplified when considering the understandable lack of faith there is in the system, and the fact that the available candidates and parties do not sufficiently represent their needs and interests.

A common sentiment among youth is that the system is too flawed, or that no matter who you vote for, things never end up changing for the better.

If people are not well informed on how to get politically involved, and if the options they have seem like a choice between bad and worse, it could be discouraging for those who are new to voting or not politically engaged.

Voting is a right, but being an informed citizen is a responsibility.

Getting educated about how elections in Canada work and what your role and impact are as a citizen is actually quite easy. Canada has made voting considerably accessible, and the tools needed to understand the political system are only an internet search away.

While many challenges still exist for young people to politically engage in this country, this education barrier is one that young people can overcome. And when we do, our influence will be large enough to create massive change in our country.

Hafsa Ahmed is a third-year Political Science student at UTM. Tuition costs As our political parties ramp up their campaigns, voters are eagerly waiting for detailed platforms in order to decide which candidate they will be supporting. For many postsecondary students across Canada, there is one universal issue that they can all relate to — the rising costs of tuition.

According to Statistics Canada, the average undergraduate student in Canada during the 2011– 2012 school year paid $5,366, compared to $6,571 in 2017–2018.

As costs of living can exceed thousands of dollars for an eightmonth academic period — at the University of Toronto, for example — ITY /THE VARS students heavily rely on IRIS DENG

student loans to survive.

According to Statistics Canada, 40 per cent of graduates from the 2009–2010 class had to take out a loan for their postsecondary education, with 50 per cent of undergraduate students having a loan, compared to 41 per cent of doctoral students. Moreover, according to the Government of Canada, from August 1, 2015, to July 31, 2016, 490,000 full-time students took on $2.7 billion in loans, with an average of $5,507 per student. At the time of graduation of the same fiscal period, graduates on average had a debt of $13,306 from student loans.

In sum, when students head to their local voting centre this October, they should inform themselves well and vote for the candidate they believe in the most that will reduce the cost of tuition, in order to keep postsecondary education accessible to all Canadians.

Angad Deol is a f irst-year Life Sciences student in St. Michael ’s College.

Affordable postsecondary education Premier Doug Ford’s cuts to OSAP are in full swing. In addition to gutting the free tuition program for low-income students, the new program significantly changes the ratio of grants to loans and eliminates the six-month grace period on loan interest. All of these measures have made it difficult for students to find their way back on campus this year.

Making postsecondary education affordable is of the utmost concern for students, one that most major parties have already addressed.

Recently, both the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Green Party have offered proposals to make postsecondary education more affordable for students. Green Party leader Elizabeth May is proposing to eliminate student debt altogether, while NDP leader Jagmeet Singh wants to eliminate interest rates on student loans.

On top of this, Singh recently tweeted that his plan does not stop at eliminating interest, as he believes that “young people should be able to go from kindergarten to postsecondary education, barrier-free.” However, both the NDP and the Green Party have not released any substantial plans on how they would make these proposals sustainable.

Meanwhile, the Liberals have introduced a six-month grace period on interest for student loans after graduation.

The Conservatives have yet to offer any proposal. Though, based on the changes that the Progressive Conservatives have made in Ontario, it is safe to assume that the federal party is likely to make more cuts.

In the next few weeks, other parties will spend a considerable time painting Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer with the same brush: one of contempt, distrust, and disregard for students.

As the election starts to gear up, the NDP, the Green Party and the Liberals have all offered some sort of solution to the affordability of postsecondary education. As long as Andrew Scheer stays silent on the subject, one can assume that the Conservatives hold a similar position on postsecondary education as Doug Ford — and that is not a good look for Andrew Scheer.

Aiman Akmal is a third-year International Relations student at Trinity College.

The climate crisis The climate crisis is a major issue for voters

this federal election. This comes with an everincreasing awareness and demand for action as communities in Canada and around the world already experienced its detrimental effects. The federal government has followed the lead of countless municipalities across the country by declaring a climate emergency.

Voters and activists are demanding a leaders’ election debate solely on the climate crisis.

“ Voting is a right, but becoming an informed citizen is a responsibility

” The incumbent Liberal government’s environmental record has been criticized from both sides of the political spectrum.

The Conservatives say they can meaningfully reduce emissions without a carbon tax, instead focusing on big polluters, who will be forced to spend money investing in clean technology if they exceed emissions limits. Their plan has been dismissed by Mark Jaccard, a member of the United Nations (UN)’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as so insufficient that emissions would actually rise. The NDP’s plan builds on the Liberals’ carbon tax and intertwines action on the climate crisis with settler-Indigenous reconciliation and job creation, in a plan that it says will cost $15 billion and reduce emissions by 38 per cent by 2030.

The Green Party, however, has dismissed all of the above as inadequate. Its ambitious plan calls for an all-party “war cabinet” to address the crisis, as well as a pledge to stop importing oil and instead only use Canadian energy, and double the country’s emissions reductions target from 30 per cent to 60 per cent by 2030 and reach 100 per cent by 2050.

Voters will have the opportunity to evaluate each party’s plan during the campaign.

Young people, in particular, should pay close attention. While no one will escape the consequences of the climate crisis, it is we who will be most impacted by it.

The UN recently announced that we only have until 2030 to take drastic action on climate change. Some scientists warn the situation is even more dire, and that the deadline for action is as soon as next year.

Therefore, this election may be the last chance to elect a government that will take the necessary steps to solve the climate crisis.

Once the world’s temperature rises, there is no turning back.

Oliver Zhao is a second-year Criminology & Sociolegal Studies and International Relations student at Woodsworth College.

var.st/comment

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

9

For commuter students, frosh week has little lasting impact

Stream-based orientation would foster more meaningful connections Agata Mociani Varsity Contributor

Frosh week is seen as an exciting and somewhat necessary rite of passage for first-year students at university. Orientation is supposed to be a time to welcome new students, celebrate our community, and make new friends. But for commuters, frosh can be underwhelming. In my experience, it was overrated.

Commuters don’t have much to gain from frosh Each college at UTSG, along with our two satellite campuses, hosts its own frosh week and activities. For students staying in campus residences, a week among peers from their college can be a productive experience. They get to experience what their college and their peers are like, which matters since they will

live together for the year. Obviously, the same cannot be said about commuter students.

Last year, as a first-year commuter student, I attended frosh at New College. Throughout the week, I participated in activities meant to bring New College students together and create a sense of community. However, once the fall semester started, reality kicked in. I realized I was not really part of the college’s community, as I had no classes there, and likely never will. The tour I took around New College during frosh was of no use to me, an English student who had classes exclusively at Innis College and Victoria College.

Apart from meetings with the registrar, many commuters do not even set foot in their college during the school year. Thus, collegespecific events that happen during orientation are not always useful for people who reside off-campus.

Frosh does not group programs together It would make sense for frosh to be based on admission streams rather than college. If the week were organized by each stream, students would be able to meet peers with similar interests and aspirations, and truly develop a sense of community.

They would be able to attend academic guest lectures that are more specifically geared toward their interests. Connections could turn into friendships or study groups. An orientation based on streams would allow new students to feel more acquainted with classmates before classes actually start.

Yes, the people I met during frosh were nice enough, but all of us had different academic interests, and I never saw any of them again after that week, as we did not have classes together. Though I did keep in touch with a few people over Instagram, it did not take long for us to drift apart.

All in all, commuter students who miss frosh are not missing out on much. There are many

other things they could be doing during the last week of summer, and they will have plenty of better, more meaningful opportunities throughout the next four years to forge friendships and build a sense of community.

First-year students who take public transit or drive to school usually feel left out from the university experience at first. Most of their time is spent at home, in a moving vehicle, and in class.

Orientation week should acknowledge and include commuters. In 2017, students who didn’t live in residence made up almost 90 per cent of the university’s population. An attainable solution would be for the university to organize frosh by admission stream. Hosting stream-specific events for first-year students would stimulate bonding between students, no matter their housing situation.

Agata Mociani is a second-year English student at New College.

Frosh is an opportunity for all first-years to make meaningful social connections.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Why a commuter believes that you should not opt out of your fees Community is about supporting others, even when you don’t benefit

Caitlin Stange Varsity Contributor

ules shifting, or a need to avoid rush hour on the TTC, I was always prevented from attending most of the events I found interesting on campus.

I spent the last weeks of summer scouring the ULife club database, searching for at least one club that might spark my interest. While I am a part of a new, smaller club now, I still always find myself looking for another group to join.

Opting-out of "non-essential" fees seemed like a solid financial move. I never paid attention to the amount of fees on my invoice, but I imagined they might cover the cost of textbooks and last-minute stationary purchases.

Over the summer, my opinion on incidental fees shifted a lot. During the past few years, I have always had a sense that nothing would change — which is something you can easily convince yourself during the winter time, as darkness hits in the early evening.

I wanted to become more inIRIS DENG/THE VARSITY volved, but it seemed like an

During my two years at UTSG, I lived in residence twice: during commuter orientation and during frosh week itself. Since then, I have been a dedicated commuter — napping, listening to songs and podcasts, and trying to finish readings during my hour-long TTC journey.

When I found out about the provincial government’s Student Choice Initiative, which allows students to choose whether to fund “nonessential fees,” I was certain I would opt out.

Every year I tried to get involved in student groups, and every year I have not become as involved as I would have liked. Whether it be due to work sched-

impossible goal. My schedule always got in the way. If there was ever going to be a change, it would just have to take place during the fall as the new semester began.

I realized that I had taken campus life for granted; I thought there would always be opportunities for involvement on campus. After all, how could clubs that seemed so central to fostering student life suddenly not exist, or be a lot smaller than they were in previous years?

What would this mean for students who were new not just to the campus, but to the city or country itself ?

These “non-essential” student fees go toward clubs that help others find their place at U of T. They provide funds not just for groups and clubs, but also to services on campus, including those offered by the Family Care Office or Downtown Legal Services, which can be essential to some students.

While I am not a member of every single club on campus, those that I do not directly benefit from are still deserving of my student fees. These small communities foster connections, not just for those who live on or near campus, but for

those who commute as well. While my schedule does not allow me to attend every Facebook event that pops up on my timeline, I will not restrict my contribution to their clubs by optingout. These communities depend on students to support students.

At the end of the day, I decided to opt in — I chose U of T. I am grateful to be in a position where I can afford to opt in, and I know that not every student, commuter or otherwise, is in the same place. Will the 10 cents or dollar I put toward one club help them run smoothly? This year, that may be the case, more so than ever. In the event that my schedule allows me a break, maybe I can try to find a little community on campus to call my own. Am I overly optimistic?

Maybe. Regardless, I know that my contribution has gone toward helping students find their place on our sprawling campus.

Students can choose their opt-out selections for the fall 2019 term on ACORN before September 19.

Caitlin Stange is a fourth-year Digital Humanities, English, and History student at Victoria College.

10

THE VARSITY

FEATURES

Don’t be a woman, be a #Girlboss

Contemporary feminisms and the ideal neoliberal subject Writer: Kate Reeve Photographer: Shanna Hunter

If the following article seems a bit familiar, you might remember it from The Varsity’s winter magazine, “Anonymity,” where it was initially published. My work on the magazine as features editor was the first time I’d been given such responsibility over a major creative project — and I was desperately worried I would ruin it. I did, of course, make a series of obliquely idiotic mistakes. Luckily, I was surrounded by my nimble-fingered colleagues, who managed to catch all the balls I had dropped.

We’re reprinting “#Girlboss” as my final article as features editor. Due to a swampy combination of academic responsibilities and aspirations, I have decided to step down from the job — the best job I’ve ever had. Honestly, before I found the The Varsity in my second year — I started as a scrappy, yet radiant associate sports editor — I struggled to find community at U of T. The Varsity gave me a sense of knowing and being known, while simultaneously providing a space to grow as a writer and editor. I owe thanks to all my colleagues and my contributors over the past years, without whom I would have been lost.

Kate Reeve Outgoing Features Editor Volume 140

In 2014, then 30-year-old Nasty Gal clothing founder and CEO Sophia Amoruso published a memoir and business guide. She called it #Girlboss and, in doing so, officially christened and generated a new way of being a young woman.

Heavily informed by post-2008 economic precarity and institutional disillusionment, the original girlboss figure is aggressive, individualistic, and prides herself on being ‘selfmade.’ She does not fit Sheryl Sandberg’s MomCEO vision of corporate feminism — girlbosses typically eschew children and traditional gender roles, instead tying themselves to their productive labour and capacity for economic achievement.

Since its inception, the term has entered the cultural vernacular, spawning a specifically millennial ethos and aesthetic. In effect, girlbossery is founded on the ultimate neoliberal sleight of hand: obscuring collectivization with consumptive self-actualization. Brought into existence by processes of self-surveillance, online performance, and observation, girlbosses model behaviour to one another and police one another’s compliance to shifting norms.

As independent women, girlbosses do not rely on men to govern or discipline their behaviour — rather, they surveil themselves. This manifests both physically, through regimes such as extreme dieting, and psychologically, through a dry-eyed pursuit of constant positivity. The common metric is agency — girlbosses can do or have whatever they want, as long as they’re the ones who choose it.

But if every choice is autonomous and internally generated, why are the basic goalposts to which these women orient themselves so uniform, irregardless of class, race, sexual orientation, or any other systemic lever?

Here, instead of a strictly disciplinary regime imposed by men or patriarchal structures, the girlboss exists in what Deleuze calls a society of control, wherein the “controls are a modulation,” flexible and constantly evolving. As these controls are further internalized, they constitute the girlboss’ very subjectivity, endowing her with a limited agency that ultimately serves existing structures of power. The starkly sexualized aesthetic of Amoruso’s fashion retailer, Nasty Gal, reflects this: the company tells women to dress for themselves, but offers clothing, such as corsets and high heels, that emphasizes fantastic representations of feminine sexuality and plays into common conceptions of heterosexual male desire.

Moreover, the work of a girlboss is never done.

She, in Deleuze’s words, is “undulatory, in orbit, in a continuous network” of both self-improvement and online performance. She can always be more, look better, feel better, act better: to not be in a constant state of striving is failure. Further, as a co-constitutive phenomenon, the hashtag #Girlboss, has been used on Instagram alone over 14 million times, beneath images ranging from inspirational quotes like “Shit happens everyday.

To everyone. The difference is how you respond to it,” to women posing in lingerie. Girlbossery

features@thevarsity.ca

requires performance, but with that comes discrete behavioural parameters, structures of control that spring up around this newly generated way to be.

Discourse policing surrounding the #MeToo movement demonstrates the power of these behavioural limits. In theory, girlbosses support female empowerment, so to question any iteration of the movement would be a colossal betrayal — and when mutineers do, they’re quickly exiled or #cancelled. But this abject dismissal of any critical reflection perverts the power of what critical feminist theorist Nancy Fraser calls “subaltern counterpublics” of traditionally feminist spaces of discourse Instead of offering a “parallel discursive [arena] where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs,” the #Girlboss movement actively undermines attempts to engage in communicative processes that challenge dominant perspectives. The online nature of being a girlboss cannot be underestimated — if technocracy is a runaway train, girlbosses eagerly tie themselves to the tracks.

But beyond this regulatory cancel culture, the mainstream media’s presentation of women’s #MeToo testimonies invites scrutiny.

Set in tones so standardized that they seem to represent a new genre of writing entirely, these stories almost universally offer incredibly detailed and explicit retellings of trauma, often to the point of dilute pornography.

While this confessional, salacious style might provoke compassion or self-reflection in some, I question its genuine capacity to help women move forward. In my interpretation, there is

an uneasy exegesis of desire in these narratives. The vindictive edge and bloodiness that underwrites them seems to reflect a sublimated want for the very qualities that aggressors act through: dominance, impunity, a siloing self-absorption: privilege.

To what emancipatory end does this propel us?

At her core, the girlboss represents the ideal neoliberal subject, who, as theorist Wendy Brown writes, “strategizes for [her]self among various social, political and economic options, not one who strives with others to alter or organize these options.”

Identified as an “entrepreneurial [actor] in every sphere of life,” the girlboss “bears full responsibility for the consequences of [her] action no matter how severe the constraints on this action.” But she is still gendered.

In media culture, it is overwhelmingly women, not men, who are the target of aesthetic or behavioural improvement campaigns. In doing this work to transform through products, clothes, and services that they ‘autonomously’ choose, girlbosses are further constructed as consumer-citizens. Deeper resentments are then funneled into pre-set choices — bikini or full brazilian wax? — instead of toward collective action or organization.

Much as disciples of Sandberg’s mom-CEO doctrine may rely on foreign domestic workers

to perform their reproductive labour while they hack at glass ceilings, girlbosses also propagate global inequalities and structures that actively harm women — or, in the case of Nasty Gal’s production practices, literal girls. Recently, Nasty Gal came under scrutiny for using cotton sourced from sites known to engage in labour abuse and child labour. The company was also sued for discrimination after firing four pregnant

employees before they could take maternity leave. The case was settled out of court.

Mom-CEOs and girlbosses share one central trait: an assertion that they deserve to have it all — even if that involves standing on the backs of poor and racialized women across the globe.

For girlbosses, who are overwhelmingly white, middle to upper class women, this manifests in their consumptive choices and devotion to maintaining the capitalist order. In Althusser’s framing, these women are key actors in reproducing relations of production, through their ability to manipulate the labour power and a concerted devotion to fitting themselves into the ideology of the ruling class.

This was painfully obvious in the 2016 US election.

Girlbosses shilled for neoliberal queen Hillary Clinton in record numbers, but attacked other women

who supported Bernie Sanders and his socialist policies for being ‘anti-feminist.’ The irony here is too richly obvious to restate. Their rhetoric of independence also undergirds and reaffirms arguments for decreasing public services and increasing privatization, which historian Bethany Moreton rightly notes, “returns the full burden of savage inequality to its reliable point of origin”: poor women of colour.

After Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy in 2016, Amoruso started a Silicon Valley-funded media company called — of course — Girlboss.

She now hosts ‘empowerment rallies,’ which cost a minimum of $300 USD per ticket to attend, and include integrated advertising with self-proclaimed feminist corporations, such as dating app Bumble. Amoruso’s new website also offers articles such as “25 Gifts That Will Help Make Your Loved Ones More Productive,” — highlights include a tiny vacuum to optimize desk cleaning, Alexa, and running shoes — and “When Your Biggest Competition Is Your Best Friend.” Her life story also spawned a shortlived series on Netflix, also called Girlboss. The show received appropriately terrible reviews and was not renewed for a second season.

The term ‘girlboss’ generated a new way to be a woman in the twenty-first century, intimately linked to neoliberal structures of control and subjectivity. But much like the cheap clothes Amoruso used to sell, the girlboss movement is initially a neoliberal success that is ultimately doomed to fail women.

Arts & Culture

September 16, 2019 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

Student by day, tired by night

U of T undergrad on her time starring in a TIFF film Mick Robertson Varsity Contributor

Dear Readers, My name is Mick Robertson. I am a fourth-year student, a writer, and an actress. Most recently, I played the lead in Sofia Banzhaf ’s short film, I am in the World as Free and Slender as a Deer on a Plain. Luckily for me, this sweet short just had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). And so, for my Varsity friends, I kept a little log. Here are some selections that I would like to share, from the first six days of the festival.

Day one, Thursday, September 5: I wish I could start this series by saying, ‘I went to a party where I was the lamest person, which I was cool with, because the room was filled with STARS!’ But that would be a lie, and unfortunately my editor is holding me to ‘journalistic standards,’ despite my being a dramatist.

Day two, Friday, September 6: I watch Black Conflux by Nicole Dorsey, which the director of my film, Sofia Banzhaf, is in. As I step onto the escalator at the Scotiabank Theatre, the woman behind me is stopped by a volunteer and asked to show her ticket. Nobody has asked me for a ticket yet. Either I’m too quick for the volunteers to catch me or this pass around my neck is working its magic. After the film, I run uptown to see a comedic magic show, but that’s a story for another time.

watching my character watch anime porn. When the credits roll, a loved one leans over our shared armrest and whispers to me in the dark, “Congratulations! I am so proud of you!” Ahh, warmth.

Outside of the theatre, and we’re all gabbing. “I like it when you’re huge,” my boyfriend says. My mom and dad approach. Uh-oh. A shiver goes down my spine as I think about them watching me ‘try to S-E-X’ with so many men. My big, tough, vegan dad shakes his head, and then says with a sigh, “You know, you told me about the sex and the drugs but you did not tell me about the stirloin.” He laughs and so do I. “You look like Scarlett Johansson on the big screen!” says my overly-generous Mom. Day four, Sunday, September 8: I spend the morning workshopping a script with friends and spend the evening watching There’s Something In the Water by my lonesome. This makes me cry — not my being alone, but the documentary. Directed by Ellen Page and Ian Daniel, There’s Something In the Water examines environmental racism in Nova Scotia. After the film, the cast and crew take the stage to answer questions. The room rises to its feet. The passion is palpable.

Day five, Monday, September 9: I miss my morning class to watch Marriage Story

by Noah Bombach. And so, I cry both Sunday night and Monday morning. I have a soft spot for sad love stories. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

Mick Robertson is a multidisciplinary artist who performs and writes for the stage and screen.

COURTESY OF TIFF

Day six, Tuesday, September 10:

while getting dressed up, I forgot to wear deodorant.

After a quick run to Shoppers Drug Mart, I sit and people watch in the industry centre. I watch as industry folk bump into each other. ‘I wish my friends were here,’ I think.

Day three, Saturday, September 7: Today is the day that my film premieres. I spend my morning buying boob tape. I spend my afternoon doing overdue work on my computer as my sister curls my hair. A good sister, my Martha.

At the cinema, I swap giddy smiles with my friends and family as I am welcomed to the front of the auditorium. The show is sold out and the theatre is so much larger than I had anticipated.

The lights dim and my movie is up first. I count the minutes as my dad and I are in the same room

Log written at 12:30 pm: I’m on a mission to get free stuff today! I had to skip another morning class for a last minute photoshoot — whoops, oh well! Afterward, I took a gander around the TIFF village. I got free coffee and free hair conditioner! I realized that there’s free coffee all over TIFF, you just have to know where to find it. I take a professional air when ordering my espresso, hoping to mask the stench of a scavenging student. But alas, I realize that the stench is not metaphorical but that this morning

Additional log at 3:45 pm, typed exactly as written in my notebook: “Drank too much free beer coffee + then I had a beer at a meeting. Now I have to go to my classics class. Hopefully we grow older as we grow wiser.”

I would like to note that at this point I absolutely went home and ate sweet potatoes until I felt better before heading to class. Take care of yourself, folks!

Current place, current time: As I sit here and write in Robarts — relatable

Honey Boy

Eddie Vargas Arts & Culture Columnist

that is definitely based on Disney Channel’s Even Stevens. The second period takes place in 2005, where a 22-year-old Otis, now played by Lucas Hedges from the critically acclaimed A24 films LadyBird and Mid90s, now spends his days in a rehabilitation as a Hollywood star with an alcohol use disorder.

Har’el switches between the two timelines through a series of clever transitionary sequences where Otis ends up interacting with some object or physical space that parallels an experience his other self has, or will, experience.

In one such instance, an older Otis is in rehab and cleaning a chicken coop when he is reminded of his father who, in his own youth, was a less-than-successful rodeo clown who often used chickens in his showcases. These aimless chickens return throughout the film as a hilarious and surreal motif that often leads Otis into some of his most heart-wrenching revelations. Never has a chicken aimlessly prancing around been so emotionally impactful.

At times self-referential and fourth-wall-breaking, Honey Boy is also a film about film itself. Har’el is very invested in exploring the cathartic process of filmmaking itself through the kitschy, mainstream comedies and action flicks that Otis — and Labeouf — once starred in. At certain points in the film, it becomes difficult to distinguish between Otis’ memories, his reality, and his acting on

On the circularity of trauma

LaBeouf’s screenplay for Honey Boy is based on his childhood and his relationship with his father.

COURTESY OF TIFF

Content warning: mentions of physical and emotional abuse and alcohol use disorder.

Described by director Alma Har’el as a film made by and for children of alcoholics, 2019’s Honey Boy was is set up to be an emotional ordeal from its get-go. Having had its international premiere last week at the 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival, Honey Boy is a story told through two interconnecting timelines.

The film details the life of a child actor named Otis, played by Noah Jupe, and his experience growing up in the presence of his physically and emotionally abusive father, James, played by Shia LaBeouf.

With a screenplay written by and based on Shia LaBaouf ’s own upbringing, Honey Boy is an intimate tale of Otis’s trauma and exorcising of personal demons that ends up coalescing into a work of art that will surely resonate with its audience.

The film follows Otis through two stages of his life: 1995, when Otis is just a twelve-year-old actor on an unnamed sitcom — but one

content — the festival is creeping closer and closer to its conclusion on Sunday. That said, there are still many movies to see and plenty of studying to fall behind on.

I would like to thank The Varsity for inviting me to write this piece, and in doing so providing me with a reason to sit down in this whirlwind time and reflect on all of the things I am learning and loving about being around movies. If anyone is reading this and wants to make films, well, I want to make them too! Please feel free to reach out to me. Who knows? Maybe a bunch of us could be back here with a film next fall.

If you would like to see some of Roberston’s work, she invites you to attend a reading of Lone Island Lovers at the Luella Massey Studio Theatre on September 21 at 2:00 pm.

a film set.

Otis’ timelines interweave not only with one another, but with the sitcoms and action movies sets he’s working on. Whether it be through slapstick, prop humor or high-octane stunt sequences, the shoots often have Otis undergoing some form of a physical or emotional challenge as the scripts begin to parallel his real life. This blending of timelines and realities helps elevate the movie from straightforward, narrative biopic into an experimental, reality-bending film.

In the post-screening Q&A session with the cast and director, LaBeouf was quick to point out that he wrote this movie for himself and, more importantly, for his own father. Labeouf ’s portrayal of his father is revelatory in its ability to make one feel so angry at his failures as a father yet also be the focus of so much of our sympathies.

To see a person so openly face their own demons on screen was one of the festival’s most emotionally-impactful moments. Honey Boy’s greatest strength is in its ability to combine dream-like vignettes with wonderful dialogue to create moments of beauty in the most unexpected of places.

Whether that place is a chicken coop, a Hollywood film set or a highway interstate, Har’el’s cast of misfits manages to bring a smile — and a tear — to everyone’s face.

Honey Boy hits theatres on November 8, 2019.

var.st/arts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

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Bacurau

A film laden with such rich fictional imagery that it feels anything but fake Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Contributor

Bacurau is a 2019 Brazilian mid-western film.

COURTESY OF TIFF

There are some things you just expect to see when you watch a western: cowboys, horses, a cactus here and there, a dramatic standoff with an ominous bird’s caw in the background. Bacurau, a Brazilian movie described in its official synopsis as a “weird western,” has all of that and more. Directors Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles understand that having “weird” as a qualifier for your movie requires truly weird things; so take all the aforementioned spaghetti western tropes and add Nazis, UFOs, and futuristic technology, and you have Bacurau in a nutshell.

The film’s first shot is of a satellite slowly floating through space, and as suddenly as the vast emptiness of space appears on the screen, it disappears, and we are taken to a different kind of vast emptiness: that of rural Brazil. Part desert, part forest, with some regions exposed to sweltering heat, others perpetually soaked in rain, our main character Teresa — played by Bárbara Colen — drives in a water truck to the fictional town of Bacurau. But to call Teresa a main character would be a disservice to both Teresa and the movie, because there is only one clear character throughout the entire film and that is the town itself.

We are introduced to Bacurau through its inhabitants, presented to us in sequences and orders that can only be called chaotic. A nude botanist who collects seeds that have psychedelic effects, an old, wise doctor who becomes vulgar when she drinks, and a protective gangster who’s trigger happy with his gun; the residents of Bacurau appear to have individual capabilities so eccentric, you have trouble believing they coexist in the same small village. But, then again, so do the buildings: a church that is not used for prayer, but rather for storage, and a cultural museum that no

one seems to have an interest in. The infrastructure and the villagers end up working together synergistically in the finale, supporting the idea that the inhabitants and the structures in Bacurau are truly an amalgamation of just one thing: Indigenousness.

But Bacurau’s issue is not in unifying its residents, who are introduced to us divided because of a harsh political climate, the real danger facing our characters is the fact that they are being physically hunted — but to reveal more is to reveal the tricks Filho and Dornelles have cleverly hidden throughout their two hour movie.

Bacurau is a stern reminder that ability does not grant permission; having the technology to do something doesn’t mean that it actually should be done. Contrasting cultural traditions, like funerals and dances with sleek technological apparatuses and folklore tales with contrived debates about morality and race, Filho and Dornelles draw a stark line between their heroes and their villains. Today’s narratives tend to offer commonalities between protagonists and antagonists — two people with the same life trajectory, which deviates at one specific point, conveniently labelling one the ‘goodie’ and the other the ‘baddie’ — but Bacurau does no such thing. And in that sense, it truly is faithful to classic westerns: no ambiguity, no redeeming qualities for the villains, and heroes that are easy to cheer for.

Bacurau is a movie about a fictional town named after a fictional bird, filled with fictional people who practise fictional traditions — but their hunters, our villains, are anything but fictional. And therein lies the real magic of Bacurau: we are able to so emphatically root for our heroes, a people completely foreign to us, because we are so familiar with the evil that is hunting them.

This shift is nothing short of pure genius, indicating that everything has changed and that the family’s life must now be seen through a new lens. The title, Waves, fits perfectly as the camera’s movements often replicate a wave: a motion effortlessly reflecting and imprinting itself the next movement — or in this case, shot.

The film is enhanced by a score featuring Tyler the Creator, A$AP Rocky, Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, and couple of Frank Ocean ballads that never fail to make your heart sink. The cinematography is reminiscent of Euphoria’s ability to showcase the journey of the characters through the finesse of the camera and colourful mise-en-scène neon mood lighting.

The second act begins when Tyler is sentenced to life in prison. The family attempts to interpret their loss as the camera swiftly switches back to wideangle shots.

The film’s focus turns to Emily as she navigates high school as

a racialized teenage girl. She encounters Luke, played by the A24 veteran Lucas Hedges, and viewers watch the pair fall in love. The couple both have complex pasts and soothe their pain in each other’s arms. Emily’s uplifting love story contrasts the first act and helps the viewer unwind from the panicked state elicited with Tyler’s story.

At the post-film discussion with the audience, Shults noted, “I’m trying to find the balance… to get you closer to them in this emotionally immersive experience.” Ultimately, in the end, the family is broken, but the bonds of their love remain unbroken. As he eloquently said at the premiere, “Life doesn’t end at the worst moment, it keeps going. It’s about getting through the other side of it and healing.”

Waves

“Life doesn’t end at the worst moment, it keeps going”

Riel Flack Varsity Contributor

Waves, Trey Edward Shults’ new feature-length drama, will leave you speechless. A stunned silence was followed by a three-minute-long standing ovation at the end of this visual masterpiece.

If you enjoyed Euphoria, Mid90s, Moonlight, or Ladybird, you are sure to love A24’s newest powerhouse. Waves is a whimsical drama about an African-American family trying to navigate their way through the complexities of adulthood: joy, love, loss, and grief.

In the same vein of Wong Kar-wai’s classic Chungking Express, Waves is tastefully split into two acts: the first is centered on Tyler, impeccably played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., while the second act is led by his quiet younger sister Emily, played

by Taylor Russell.

Tyler

— no doubt channeling Frank Ocean with his buzzed-cut bleach-blonde hair — is in his senior year of high school.

Tyler has a bright future ahead of him as the star on the school’s wrestling team and with a beautiful cheerleader girlfriend, Alexis, who is played by Euphoria star Alexa Demie. Sterling K. Brown, known from the show This is Us, is phenomenal as Ronald, Tyler’s intense father, who is consistently pushing him past his limits.

When Tyler steals his dad’s pain killers to cope with a critical shoulder injury, his seemingly perfect family begins to unravel. After a series of heated arguments fueled with booze and drugs, the two get into a physical fight, creating a palpable sense of anxiety down that travels down the viewer’s spine.

It is during the climax of the film that Waves entered the realm of sheer brilliance. The first act was shot beautifully in wide-angle lens with seamless continuity between shots.

Forget This is Us — Waves is another family drama that tugs on all the heart strings.

COURTESY OF TIFF

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THE VARSITY

ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca Margaret Pereira Varsity Contributor

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is this year’s best LGBTQ+ film is by and about queer women.

COURTESY OF TIFF

When the lights came up in the Winter Garden theatre mere seconds after the credits began to roll, I felt betrayed by the caustic brightness. I was positively sobbing. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is French director Céline Sciamma’s fourth feature film, and it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. After it won the screenplay prize at the festival, I knew that it was going to be good, and after watching all of Sciamma’s past work to prepare, I knew it was going to be even better than I thought. Finally, after seeing the film at TIFF this year, reader, I can only describe it as the most admirable film I have ever seen.

This period piece follows a young painter named Marianne, who is commissioned for a portrait of a subject who refuses to be painted. Each shot is as beautiful as Marianne’s painting, lit with only natural light and photographed largely outdoors at a cliffside beach and inside the simple French mansion. The pureness of the blacks and the starkness of the whites in the frame punctuate moments of stirring dialogue. Sciamma spends a great deal of time with Marianne’s meticulous hand, sketching and painting various pivotal moments of the film.

The nature of her work is classical, but it’s imbued with bottomless integrity and emotion. As Marianne notes, the conventions of art at the time are specific and limiting, while Sciamma’s approach to her own art is profound and riveting.

Marianne and Héloïse share glances and whispers, and much of the film is composed of watching them look at each other. These prolonged moments of looking might have been lifeless, but the coursing energies between the two are captivating. It is also quite radical, as the way they look at each other, and indeed the way Sciamma’s camera soaks them up, embodies a new sort of gaze for

the cinema, one that is distinctly intimate and distinctly female. Unlike an unfortunate number of films with queer subject matter, Portrait of a Lady on Fire could never be accused of hetero-lensed lesbian relations to check some representational box. The beauty of the film lies in the core of what it means for women to love women; their lesbian relations are not incidental but integral.

So much of their courtship is quiet and unsaid, until it isn’t. Marianne and Héloïse are scared but thrilled, and because of the generally reserved contact their smiles are cathartic expressions of joy. At the post-film Q&A, Sciamma told us that she often uses music to act as an important moment of dramatic composition, and several times in the film this comes to fruition. Most notably in a striking scene around a bonfire where a choir performs acapella, and in a final churning and astonishing shot.

Beyond these few moments of musical release, the soundtrack is silent, as we are consumed by the growing joy and liveliness of Marianne and Héloïse’s relationship. We spend so much time with these heroines that, when a man appears near the end of the film, it truly feels jarring. The currents running through the film are feminine and bold, and they feel like less of a statement and more of a given.

When I exited the theatre I found myself in a rainstorm on Victoria street, sure that I looked like a wreck, I could only smile. I would not call this movie sad, or happy, or any word that suggests I could quantify exactly what Portrait of a Lady on Fire did to me. I would not even say fabulous, effective, exquisite. I would call this movie unimpeachably perfect, and so invested in art’s ability to make you feel that it absorbed all of my feelings and left me shipwrecked in a rainy downtown Toronto. Sciamma has unlocked something here, something so devastating and sparkly that it’s a wonder we ever lived without it.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire Two Varsity writers are mesmerized by Céline Sciamma’s stunning feature film Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Contributor

Right before the screening of Portrait of a Lady on Fire began, director Céline Sciamma did two things. First, she commended the décor of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, which has vines and bushels of fake shrubbery completely covering its ceiling, and second, she expressed her nerves at the buzz her movie had been generating. Leaning casually against the podium, she emphasized the relationship between such a grand, ornate theatre and her movie — a movie which was relatively small and didn’t have any big actors, though it may very well produce them — and commented on the fact that though this discrepancy was incredibly humbling, it was also very stressful.

Her stress, however, proved to be unfounded, as once the screen faded to black and the final credits rolled, everyone in the multi-tiered balconies shot up to give Sciamma and her cast a roaring ovation. Two hours of movie played in between her first appearance on stage and her second. Two hours of a movie where the delicate strings that connect lovers and friends are frayed and pulled at, though never completely severed.

The film begins with a brush stroke: a thick brush swipes dark paint on a canvas and we find ourselves observing a group of young girls being instructed in portraiture by a dark-haired woman, posed rigidly but confidently, in the middle of their circle. While she poses, she calls out orders, and we find out that she is not a mere model with timely anatomical advice, she is a painter herself.

As for the painting that is cast aside behind her, well, that one is called “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” And so our journey begins, jumping back a couple of years in time to the murky waters between France and Italy, to the end of the eighteenth century.

For Héloise, Marianne is an opportunity for

freedom: a companion with whom her mother would finally allow her to leave the house. It takes Marianne a little bit longer to see Héloise in the same light, but before long, Marianne notes freedom in her nature: someone who doesn’t hold her tongue and who doesn’t embellish the truth. Both women have imprisonment and freedom that the other doesn’t, and so they fit together like puzzle pieces, making up for what the other lacks.

Sciamma’s film is a dissertation on what binds us to societal roles and what binds us to ourselves, questioning whether we can ever find a happy grey area between the two — if we can join the two otherwise separate circles into a Venn diagram.

Imprisoned people believe they are free until they get a taste of what freedom actually feels like, and this is the case for Marianna and Héloise.

As they begin to discover and explore their newfound freedoms, they begin a romantic relationship, one that has a looming expiration date which promises a startlingly short lifespan. But the two women don’t try to evade their ending; they instead feel confident that they’ve established a bond strong enough for memory alone to sustain it once they’ve separated.

From the very beginning, Sciamma subverts expectations. Where there should be melodrama there is humour; where there should be pain there is laughter. But as such, where there should be love there is disappointment. These subversions begin as fun moments — instead of being upset at a big reveal, the characters begin to banter about the nature of art and art criticism — but eventually descend into moments of pain born out of helplessness.

However, this was the case for women in this time period. After all, Sciamma’s film is as much about women as it is about art or romance or memory. There are only five characters with substantial speaking roles, and all of them are women. Women of different social statuses and ones navigating different stages of life. These experi-

ences — grief, motherhood, business, homosexual love — are written and filmed in a lens unique to women. Portrait of a Lady on Fire focuses on all types of relationships between women: platonic, romantic, and subservient.

There is a new canon of contemporary gay movies shaping up out of the past decade and a half, movies focusing on a uniquely individual facet of gay love, through race, gender, religion, and period in time. Stylistically, Portrait of a Lady on Fire doesn’t do enough to separate itself from the likes of Brokeback Mountain, Moonlight, Call Me by Your Name, and God’s Own Country — not that being considered part of this group is a negative thing. Unlike last year’s The Favourite, it is gentle in its delivery, with thoughtful dialogue, gorgeous landscapes, and limited music.

You don’t come out this movie feeling that you’ve just witnessed one of the greatest cinematic love stories of this century. Instead you come out focused on the women and their individual journeys. The audience focuses on how they interact with one another when not pressured by the judgemental gaze of others, and how they behave when they have moments of absolute freedom, though few and sparse.

Céline Sciamma makes a movie where she coils women’s freedoms and imprisonments so that, if you are not paying enough attention, it seems like both are parts of the same vine. She doesn’t explicitly outline what freedom and imprisonment are for her characters, and as such we leave the theatre feeling that not only that we must ponder the partition ourselves, but that the characters are continuing on with their lives, mulling over the same dilemma that we are.

That is to say, Sciamma welcomes the audience as she does her characters. She unites everyone no matter their point in life, or what they had to do to get there, so that we all meet at the same point in the end. It isn’t a moment of clarity, but rather, one of unity.

The film subverts viewers’ expectations COURTESY OF TIFF

var.st/arts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

Parasite

15

Parasite is a South Korean dark comedy thriller.

COURTESY OF TIFF

One of the best thrillers of the last 20 years Eddie Vargas Arts and Culture Columnist

Last week at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho premiered his newest film, Parasite, to a Canadian audience. Not a second is wasted in the film’s more-than-two-hour hour runtime as Parasite slowly builds from a sardonic black comedy to its electrifying conclusion, making its audience toggle between bursts of laughter and squirms of discomfort along the way.

Parasite focuses on the interweaving lives of two South Korean families in vastly different economic situations: the Kims, who live below the poverty line in a cramped, sub-basement apartment; and the absurdly wealthy Park family, who live in a sleek mansion far away from the Kims’ poverty-stricken neighborhood.

When Ki-Woo, a member of the Kim family played by Choi Woo-shik, ends up securing a job as a private English tutor for the Parks’

daughter, played by Jung Ji-so, Parasite’s tale of deception begins to slowly unravel itself. What begins as a Robin Hood-esque tale of mischief devolves into something far more sinister, intricate, and highly entertaining.

In one of the film’s earliest gags, the Kims’ upstairs neighbor puts a password on their router due to the Kims’ freeloading, forcing them to sneak onto a nearby café’s connection in order to get on WhatsApp and stay up-to-date with the world and job openings.

This leads into a small, comedic exchange among the family, showcasing how often this modern utility is taken for granted and just how quickly we are to notice its absence. Right out the gate, this tale of internet theft ends up setting the tone for the rest of the film, firmly cementing Parasite’s world in a contemporary reality where one’s socioeconomic status often dictates their quality of life and access to everyday luxuries.

Gone are the fantasy and sci-fi elements of

Joon-ho’s most recent features — for example, 2013’s post-apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer, starring Chris Evans. Instead, Joon-ho chooses a twenty-first century capitalist society as the backdrop for this thriller, where every twist and turn is entirely conceivable.

Social commentary aside, Parasite never reduces its two families into a mere set of archetypes or symbols. Instead, it carefully crafts its moments of humor and tenderness to paint a realistic portrait of the film’s main cast. The Kims are not portrayed as characters we should pity, but rather they manage to garner the viewer’s respect and admiration through their shared charm, charisma, and resilience in the face of adversity.

The self-centered and vapid Park family often display their humanity, garnering the audience’s sympathy and attention, even as they are rooting for the conniving Kims. Joon-ho himself has described the film as “a comedy without clowns and a tragedy without villains.” This

sentiment rings true throughout every moment of Parasite.

Joon-ho’s gentle balance between extremes is proof that the director is working at the peak of his abilities. Especially in the film’s latter half, long portions of it would often go on without a breath heard in the theatre, as everyone anxiously anticipates the main characters’ next daring move. The silence would then be broken by a lewd remark, absurd bit of slapstick, or sudden violence without warning.

Attachments to characters are built, destroyed, and restored several times over the course of the film, building toward a climax that switches the gaze away from the misfit families and instead toward the capitalist countries that allow the vast wealth disparities it showcases to occur in the first place.

Parasite goes on sale as part of the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s regular-season screenings starting October 2.

Disco

A compassionate yet exhausting display of mental illness and fundamentalist religion

Margaret Pereira Varsity Contributor

Disco is Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s second feature COURTESY OF TIFF

Disco is Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s second feature film, and the Norwegian director managed to create a thumping, flashing treatise on cult-like religious devotion.

The film stars the Toronto International F i l m Festival’s 2 0 1 9 Rising Star

Josephine Frida, and follows her character Mirjam through trials of dance and faith alike. These dance competitions are somewhere between a gymnastics floor routine and Toddlers and Tiaras, as we open on a glittery compilation of dancers of many ages set to a strident electronic song.

Our first moment with Mirjam is a long shot of her barely-faltering smile as she waits to compete.

It’s eerie, and although she doesn’t smile often in the film, the forced, labored effect never fades. This also immediately introduces us to one of Syversen’s most employed techniques — the long take. We spend enough time on Mirjam’s bruising smile so that we can note each individual piece of glitter on her face.

Mirjam is active in her church, a shiny millennial rebranding of Christianity called Freedom.

Her stepfather speaks in the services often, a kind of Justin-Timberlake-knockoff pastor. Mirjam’s entire family, including her younger sister, is consumed by Freedom.

This is a highly fundamentalist institution, although the pink neon lights and pounding club music attempts to create a gauzy overlay. Syversen draws a comparison between the highly-athletic and performative dance sequences and the extended scenes of monologuing by Mirjam’s stepfather, suggesting the mental gymnastics required in both contexts.

Through long sections of the film that are spent listening to speakers at Freedom, Syversen lets her audience ponder the content themselves and hone in on the specific way that Mirjam’s church will fail her.

Mirjam has a spectral pain from a childhood incident that her mother refuses to tell her about, as well as anxiety and an eating disorder. She begins to crumble as the exertion required between her

dance and church performances starts to eat her up inside. Frida is remarkable in her performance, staring deep down the lens of the camera and willing the audience to recognize her ache.

Frida is highly internalized, seldom speaking during her scenes at the beginning, and almost never raising her voice by its end. We are watching a woman drown in her own mind, and Frida plays it as if she’s grieving, over God, sure, but mostly over herself. When Mirjam plugs into recorded sermons from American mega-churches, the searching in her eyes and soul is detectable.

When she begins fainting during her competitions, her mother and stepfather insist that her faith is wavering — if she only believed harder, trusted harder, she would feel better. The shame of her faith being questioned and her neglected personal issues push her on a dangerous path toward a more fanatical religious cult.

Syversen’s sustained scenes of church sermons are cut together with personal meetings Mirjam has with her uncle. The inundation of religious rhetoric is suffocating, with Syversen expertly creating the sense that there is literally nowhere else to turn.

By putting the audience in the same position as Mirjam, Syversen composes a compassionate, if exhausting view of mental illness and fundamentalist religion. Watching Disco is watching someone be betrayed by her family and her faith. The failings of the institution to consider any different method of coping is clear. Syversen is not exactly grinding an axe against religion, but creates a flashing neon sign that warns all those who enter.

As the film builds to a clanging finale, her point is made. No one can survive on faith alone.

Disco hits theatres September 7.

Science

September 16, 2019 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

Why do Canada’s Indigenous people face worse health outcomes than non-Indigenous people?

Indhu Rammohan Varsity Contributor

Medical student Paul Kim on the need for trauma-informed care, addressing the social determinants of health

Content warning: this article contains mention of suicide.

For its fourth consecutive year, Canada has been ranked as number one in the world for quality of life, according to the U.S. News & World Report.

A factor that drove the ranking was Canada’s advanced health care system.

But when it comes to access to health care and health outcomes, the glaring disparities that separate Canada’s Indigenous and nonIndigenous populations cast an ugly shadow on the ranking.

A June 2019 Statistics Canada report indicated that, between 2011–2016, First Nations people experienced a suicide rate that is three times higher than that of the non-Indigenous population. How can such a disparity exist in a country ranked at the top spot for quality of life?

How Indigenous people face worse health outcomes Suicide rates among Inuit youth in particular are one of the highest in the world, and 11 times greater than the national average. In some First Nations communities, the suicide rate among youth under the age of 15 is almost 50 times greater than the rate among non-Indigenous youth.

Lower life expectancy and the prevalence of chronic conditions — such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and arthritis — also disproportionately burden the Indigenous population. Tuberculosis, a disease that is both curable and preventable, is reported at a rate that is more than 40 times higher among Indigenous people living on-reserve than among nonIndigenous people.

In 2016, a U of T-affiliated comparative study compared racial health inequalities between the US and Canada. Though Canada’s population fared relatively better in the margin of inequalities seen across racial minorities, according to the study’s findings, the health inequality between the Indigenous and white population in Canada was greater than in the US. Furthermore, the observed health disparity held when adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioural factors in Canada. In the US, some of the differences could be accounted for by socioeconomic factors.

So what’s the reason for this inequity, and why is it especially prevalent in Canada?

The factors that drive the disparity Paul Kim, a U of T medical student, recently published a paper in Health Equity about the social determinants of health disparities that affect Indigenous people in Canada.

He discussed his findings with The Varsity, highlighting the need for Canadians, especially those in health care, to understand the historical context that underpins the health outcomes for Indigenous people seen today.

Kim’s research discussed how distal determinants of health, such as colonialism and racism, can worsen individualized factors, such as health behaviours and socio-economic status.

“The reason why we still see health inequity over time, even though the residential school system doesn’t exist anymore, is because of longitudinal policies that influenced parenting habits, influenced diet habits, [and] influenced lifestyle habits,” he noted.

“And [it’s] not just one generation of impact — [it’s a] multi-generational impact between parents and children, and their children’s children.”

A vicious cycle of health injustice among Indigenous people was set off by the cultural deprivation and systemic isolation of Indigenous people created by residential schools and colonial practices.

Forced assimilation following the Indian Act of 1876 — operationalized through the residential school system, the ‘60s Scoop, and legislation banning Indigenous languages from being spoken, as well as forbidding the practice of traditional ceremonies and rituals, created a deep rift between culture and personal identity within Canada’s Indigenous population.

In his paper, Kim elucidated how the trauma endured by children in the residential school system has continued to manifest in poorer mental health outcomes and cognitive dysfunction decades later.

He explained how these outcomes stemmed from the oppressive environment created by the residential schools, abusive teachers, the psychological stress of being taken from their families and communities, and the fact that this all happened during a critical period of cognitive development and identity formation: childhood.

“As a kid, in particular, emotional stress influences mental health as an adult because the brain is still developing,” he noted.

“And that’s important to remember,” he continued, “because the residential school system targeted children. It’s during this critical developmental stage that they learn to make rational judgements, form goals, and develop skills for later in life.”

Research has shown that enduring abuse in childhood leads to an increased number of hospitalizations, physical and mental illnesses, and poorer overall self-rated health later in life.

Likewise, family separation in childhood is a significant long-term predictor of depression.

Kim also noted the significance of education as an influence on health status later in life. A good education fosters academic and social development, which is necessary to develop strong interpersonal relationships as well as health literacy.

Conversely, negative educational experiences, most notably the abuse experienced by Indigenous children in schools, not only fail to prepare children with the skills they need to thrive, but effectively turn them away from the prospect of academic success and ambition.

Bridging the gap When asked how we can begin to resolve this issue, Kim expressed optimism, but highlighted the importance of being aware of the connection between Canada’s colonial past and the health inequities we see today.

“I think the way that we’re headed currently with trauma-informed practice, with the government recognizing what’s happened, is a step toward the right direction.”

Traumainformed care is an approach that aims to provide health care services in a manner that is sensitive to the experiences and needs of people that have dealt with trauma.

This is especially important given that people who have experienced trauma can be re-traumatized in health care and service settings, and therefore may be less likely to access these services.

Kim believes that several aspects of traumainformed care are especially important for care providers to keep in mind. Best practices include practising non-judgement when people discuss their trauma, as well as empathy with how one’s trauma may relate to an inability to seek help or heal.

He also emphasized using a patient’s knowledge of their trauma to facilitate strengthsbased skill-building. “Trauma is a negative thing,” he said, “but people are resilient.”

At a systems-level, Kim believes overcoming Canada’s health inequities requires implementing policies that specifically address social determinants of health, particularly on reserves and rural areas. This includes access to clean water, fresh food, job opportunities, and mental health support systems.

“The next time you’re on a reserve, think about where the closest hospital is, or where the closest tertiary hospital is, as well as where the closest grocery store is where you can get fresh food.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Final Report is a good start, said Kim, but policy recommendations need to be “granular and specific” in order to be effective.

“I wouldn’t say it’s redemption,” reflected Kim. “I would say it’s the right thing to do. I would say it’s a moral obligation.”

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-925-5454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-5312600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416-978-8030.

Warning signs of suicide include: Talking about wanting to die Looking for a way to kill oneself Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly Sleeping too little or too much Withdrawing or feeling isolated Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

MAARYA ZAFAR/THE VARSITY

var.st/science

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

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Student groups host panel discussion to advocate for science in Canada’s upcoming federal election.

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

#VoteScience: a campaign that wants science to inform your vote next month Expert panel advocates for pro-science candidates, scientific research funding ahead of federal election

Amira Higazy & Randa Higazy Varsity Contributors

A coalition of student advocacy groups have launched a campaign titled #VoteScience to encourage Canadians to advocate for pro-science candidates in Canada’s upcoming federal election on October 21.

U of T’s Toronto Science Policy Network (TSPN), together with the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences (CSMB) and the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, held a panel on August 27 to inform voters about how they can identify and support these candidates.

Panel members included U of T Professor of Medicine Dr. David Naylor, Research Associate Dr. Amanda Veri, and CSMB Vice-President and Ryerson University Professor Dr. Imogen R. Coe. Canadian research lacks steady funding, says Naylor Throughout the event, Naylor stressed the importance of advancing science education through steady investments in research. Although the current Liberal majority government has made some progress, Canada lags behind other developed nations in research investment, according to Naylor.

Naylor cited Germany’s sustained research funding as an exemplary model. “Think of Germany,” he said. “Since 2006, Germany has been increasing research spending across the board

by three per cent per annum, right through the meltdown in 2009 ongoing, and very recently an agreement was reached to continue that support for another decade.”

“This is predictable, steady, across-the-board support — something we have not seen in this country in a little while.”

Storytelling can stoke politicians’ support After Coe shared her story on her path to becoming a scientist, she highlighted the power of storytelling in mobilizing support, especially in influencing political leaders and policy makers.

“One of the points I’d like you to take away is that we need to be storytellers; we need to think about the stories that we can tell when we are trying to influence… politicians,” she said.

“All politicians are human beings,” she continued. “They all have family members who have been sick or they’re all worried about their futures.” “[Storytelling] is a continual… active process, and I think all scientists need to be engaged in and involved at levels that [are] comfortable to them… It is something that we can all do.”

Student-led advocacy for science education Farah Qaiser, a second-year master’s student in Molecular Genetics at U of T and president of the TSPN, spoke about the #VoteScience campaign that the group is running in an interview with The Varsity.

The goal of the campaign is to provide “people

U of T students bring home the gold for self-driving car

Victory marks second consecutive year that aUToronto came first in the international competition Vidhi Trevedi Varsity Contributor

A team of U of T engineering and computer science students won first place in an international self-driving car competition in Michigan in July. The group, named aUToronto, pitted its vehicle Zeus against those from seven other North American universities.

This victory marks the second consecutive year that the team has won first place in the AutoDrive Challenge, as it did last year against the same competitors.

The competition, run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International and General Motors, will hold its final round for this three-year cycle in 2020.

The team scored first in eight categories aUToronto won first place in eight of nine categories this year, defeating competitors from the University of Waterloo, Michigan State University, Michigan Tech University, Kettering University, Virginia Tech, North Carolina A&T State University, and Texas A&M University.

For its ability to recognize traffic signs, such as speed limits and ‘do not enter’ signs, as well as respond appropriately to them, aUToronto’s Zeus won first place in the Traffic Control Sign Challenge.

with the tools they need to advocate for science, regardless of what level they are in in the scientific field,” Qaisar said.

Voters, from undergraduate lab assistants to professors, as well as non-scientists, would be motivated by the campaign to email or write a letter to political representatives to support Canadian research.

In the panel discussion, Veri recalled her experience advocating for science as a U of T graduate student, after feeling disappointed with the Ford government’s decision to fire U of T Professor Dr. Molly Shoichet from her position as Ontario’s Chief Scientist.

Veri decided to email Ontario Premier Doug Ford and her local MPP for King—Vaughan, Stephen Lecce, through the Evidence for Democracy advocacy group to urge the Ontario government to hire a replacement. This exemplified one of the ways that Qaiser outlines for voters to advocate for science.

Veri also took it one step further. She recounted writing out her MPP’s “name in fungi on a petri dish and letting it grow.” She said, “I just did the simple thing of sending a picture in a tweet inviting him to come to my lab to talk about science and to talk about the need for an Ontario Chief Scientist.”

“Less than two hours later, I had a response from him right away stating that he was willing to come and meet with me.”

During Lecce’s visit to her research lab, Veri leveraged the opportunity to discuss many of the

issues that are important to her and the rest of the science community, such as the need for increased science outreach and diversity in scienceoriented fields.

Throughout her talk, Veri emphasized that “it doesn’t have to be a lot of work to have this outcome” of communicating with representatives about the importance of science.

She also noted that interactions with political candidates will be more positive and productive if communication lines are open and all parties involved are enjoying themselves.

Qaiser highlighted to The Varsity that she also encourages people to record their experience advocating for science with politicians through a Google Form set up on #VoteScience’s website, as it allows the student-led advocacy groups to follow up with politicians about their promises after the federal elections.

The TSPN president further emphasized the need for a unified voice from voters who advocate for science.

“If we do come together and advocate for science, we can make a change,” she said. “We have seen that in the past… [with] a campaign called Support the Report.”

The campaign, which lobbied the federal government to implement Canada’s Fundamental Science Review in 2017, may have contributed to the government’s decision to provide a 25 per cent increase in its federal budget to support research in basic science.

aUtoronto’s car also placed first in the Pedestrian Challenge, which tested cars on their ability to wait for pedestrian replicas to completely cross a road before proceeding, as well as in the MCity Challenge, which required the vehicles to navigate around obstacles such as a tunnel and railroad crossing.

“Correctly detecting and classifying all the traffic lights and signs was more difficult than we anticipated,” reflected aUToronto Team Lead Keenan Burnett in an email to The Varsity.

The team’s approach to the problem, which utilized deep neural networks, or systems of artificial neurons, required substantial tuning and data collection to work effectively.

Zeus further secured first place in the Intersection Challenge and tied for first in the Mapping Challenge.

One key aspect to the team’s success here can be attributed to the realization that “relying only on GPS/IMU for positioning [could have been] risky.”

“We opted to integrate a more advanced localization software that uses [a laser system called] LIDAR instead,” wrote Burnett. “This proved to be one [of ] the keys to our success at the competition.” aUToronto also scored first in the categories of Social Responsibility Report, Social Responsibility Presentation, and Concept Design Presentation. The team placed second in Concept Design.

Origins of aUToronto and Zeus “The team’s inception traces back to when SAE was soliciting applications from universities to compete in their new self-driving competition,” wrote Burnett.

“The idea is that they would select the [eight] top university applications based on the quality of the proposals, the backing of the university, and facilities that would be made available to students.”

Read the rest at var.st/autoronto

Sports

September 16, 2019 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

Opinion: The state of women’s sports today

From college teams to the big leagues, misogyny still exists Laura Ashwood Associate Sports Editor

Vicky Sunohara has lived the life that many athletes can only dream of. During her illustrious career she won Olympic gold twice and she won the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship seven times. She has remained engaged in her sport since her retirement in 2008 through mentorship programs and as the current head coach of U of T’s Varsity Blues women’s hockey team.

However, throughout her years of experience in hockey, Sunohara has noticed a glass ceiling for women players. “The national team… university athletes, they put in just as much time and effort as our male counterparts, but there’s not that opportunity to make money,” Sunohara said in an interview with The Varsity.

Sunohara is not the first woman athlete to feel undercut in her sport. It was only during the ‘60s and ‘70s that women in North America began to gain equal opportunity in athletics. However, even after the doors to sports clubs and societies opened for both genders, the public still struggled to allow women to participate in ‘manlier’ sports, or even portray them separately from their sexuality in the news and other media. Carling Bassett, for example, one of the best tennis players in Canada’s history, faced continuous sexual objectification throughout her career in the ‘80s, with interviewers prioritizing questions about her preference in boys over the documentation of her impressive stats.

Needless to say, women’s sports have historically been underappreciated and overlooked, in every country and at every level.

Recently, however, the tides seem to be turning. Nike released a viral ad campaign in February that celebrated women athletes in every stage of life and ability. In July, the US women’s soccer team won its fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup. And the International Olympic Commit-

tee (IOC) has increased the number of women in IOC Commissions by 98 per cent since 2013.

It seems that there are more opportunities than ever for women in athletics.

But many argue that these campaigns and perceived progress are masking and oversimplifying an issue that runs deep within all levels of sport. The lauded Nike campaign, for example, was soured when a New York Times op-ed revealed that the company reduced pay for their sponsored athletes who were pregnant.

The US women’s soccer team gets paid less than their male counterparts, despite winning more games and generating more earnings. The 98 per cent increase of women in IOC Commissions still accounts for less than half of their total members. And just this past May, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League disbanded after 12 seasons, due to an “economically unsustainable” business model.

All of these little side-stories and road blocks undercut the greatness of these women’s feats of athleticism, and pervade all levels and types of sport. What does it mean for the prospects of aspiring women athletes around the world, including at U of T, when their experience of sport is riddled with misogynist connotations and low expectations of success and ability? If people aren’t viewing your athleticism as elite, can your passion be a viable career option, or are women being forced out of high-performance athletics because of the public’s outdated and misguided beliefs about the nature of women’s sport?

Sunohara, among many other professionals, thinks that something has to be done. “I think that the players are doing the right thing,” she continued. “On the ice they’re trying. They’re looking for the best — the best training, the

Nike-sponsored athletes like Olympic mid-distance American runner Alysia Montaño, it’s speaking up to the media best coaching… But about unjust practices. In every you know for the big case, it seems to be exposure picture — for a proof the misogynistic underbelly IT Y of organized sport through infessional league, a S R A V /THE HONG sustainable league, it creased coverage and communiMILLY really is hard to say exactly cation. Athletes are starting to raise what it’s going to look like.” their voices against the systemic misogyny, and These systemically-perpetuated notions also audiences need to amplify their calls to action actively jeopardize the future careers of student through public support of the cause. athletes, including our own Varsity Blues. And Audiences also need to be explicit in their it’s not societal attitudes alone that prevent wom- interest in women’s professional sports in oren athletes from competing on equal ground; it’s der to increase its economic success. University the actual economic structures that was built of Southern California and Purdue researchupon such misguided ideas. In US universities ers conducted a 20-year study that shows that in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, women’s sports coverage pales in comparison to Division I, for example, women’s teams regularly men’s, and is even on the downturn. This means receive just 41.4 per cent of the money spent on that current women athletes will get paid less, salaries for head coaches, 36.4 per cent to fund and future women athletes may find it harder to recruitment initiatives, and 39.6 per cent of the identify idols or see a viable athletic career for total budget to fund athletic expenses. These lim- themselves. We, the public, can create change ited resources present a challenge for the growth simply by choosing to watch women’s sports, of women’s sport within schools, and hence for which sends a message to sports media networks. the success of the athletes after graduation.

If attitudes change at the professional level, the So what’s the solution? For the US women’s effects can trickle down to the high school and soccer team, it’s a lawsuit for equal pay. For collegiate levels as well.

Battling Blues drop home opener to Waterloo Toronto shows resilience and potential, despite loss Sara Fredo Varsity Contributor

The Varsity Blues men’s rugby team took on the Waterloo Warriors in their home opener on September 14, dropping a 35–14 decision.

Toronto got off to a slow start, with Waterloo scoring the opening try within the first minutes of the game. A brilliantly crafty play — a low, skipping kick from Waterloo for a sprinting player to latch onto — and subsequent conversion led to Waterloo doubling their lead.

Despite the widening scoreline, To ron t o

The Blues fight to even the score.

COURTESY OF SEYRAN MAMMADOV/VARSITY BLUES

were reluctant to relinquish control of the game to the Warriors, and grew stronger and more threatening as the first half stretched on.

Several Blues shined throughout the match.

Captain Faiyaz Lokhandwala showed off his speed on several dazzling and deceptive runs up field. Stephen Stothers-Robertson was a defensive juggernaut, using his strength and size to thwart several Waterloo attempts to gain ground.

Tudor Chirila played a pivotal role in gaining ground for the Blues, using his passing ability to widen the field, and his long kicks to force Waterloo back.

In spite of their best efforts, Toronto entered half-time down 21–0. However, they roared to life in the second half, with Liam Sangmuah slicing through Waterloo’s defence to score in the 42nd minute. Toronto used this momentum to force penalties and turnovers from the Warriors, and scored a second try from Riley Martin in the 49th minute. The Blues came agonizingly close to scoring a third try, but it was successfully held up and defended by the Warriors.

Despite Toronto’s spirited and relentless efforts, Waterloo would go on to score two more tries to defeat Toronto by a score of 35–14. However, the score was not representative of Toronto’s quality. The Blues showed impressive skills, a high level of fitness, and an unrelenting determination.

The Blues will continue their season on the road, heading to London, Ontario to take on the Western Mustangs on September 21.

var.st/sports

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

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UTM hosts Raptors 905 Open Tryout

The Varsity sits down with General Manager Chad Sanders to discuss team’s future, U of T hopefuls Joshua Chua Varsity Contributor

Last week, almost 100 basketball players from across North America were given the opportunity of a lifetime: a practice roster spot on the Raptors 905, the Mississauga-based minor league team for the Toronto Raptors.

On Saturday, September 7, the Raptors’G Leagueaffiliated team hosted open tryouts at UTM, and participants were given a platform to showcase their skills in front of coaches and staff from within the organization. For a fee of $275 during preregistration,

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Soccer double header

Women’s team get second win of the season, while men’s team draw in game cut short Laura Ashwood Associate Sports Editor

Women’s team The Varsity Blues women’s soccer team secured a 3–1 win over the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks on September 13, with impressive goals from newcomer Valentina Greco, regular starter Erin Kelly, and three-time Ontario University Athletics (OUA) All-Star Jenny Wolever. This loss for the Ridgebacks continues its fall from grace after the team went undefeated in 2017.

The Blues were dominating possession from the very beginning, making intelligent passes and creating countless shot opportunities. Defender Daniella Cipriano played an especially smart game from the outset, moving quickly up and down the line to maintain possession and shutting down the few Ridgeback offensive efforts that broke past the half line.

Cipriano’s speed and quick thinking created the opportunity in which Greco scored her first career goal — a quick cross up the line led to a goal in the second minute. “It was a really good play built from the back, they played it wide, [Kelly] just crossed it in and I finished it,” Greco

or a $310 ticket on the day of the event, the dream of playing on a team that has previously featured NBA talents Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and Norman Powell, became more attainable.

While the annual salary of a G League player is only around $35,000, a roster spot on one of these teams symbolizes a tangible route to the NBA and a career playing basketball on the biggest stage possible.

In an interview with The Varsity, General Manager of the Raptors 905, Chad Sanders, provided insight on the open tryouts, Canadian basketball, and the relationship between U of T and the 905.

The Varsity: How has the interest in the Raptors 905 team changed alongside the success of the Raptors in recent years?

Chad Sanders: I think we are definitely seeing interest in our team grow alongside the success of the Raptors. Our organization has worked hard to foster a meaningful connection between the two teams and I think that has been shown with how many players have some time with 905 as part of their development with Toronto. As it relates to our open tryout, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this season drew our largest number of attendees following the championship season that the Raptors had.

TV: What does the enthusiasm surrounding these tryouts reflect about Canadian basketball?

CS: The one thing I have noticed over the last few years is how basketball has continued to grow — particularly the growth at the grassroots level. We have a number of camps that we run which are well attended, and even just seeing kids at the public courts, basketball is really surging in popularity and we want to make sure we continue to help that happen.

described.

Kelly kept up the momentum with a header goal from another great Cipriano touch in the 14th minute. There was a significant commotion in the keeper’s box, but Kelly kept her cool and finished the play. She was a standout player throughout the game, making lots of touches and supporting a dominant offensive trifecta with Wolever and newcomer Miranda Badovinac, who together made aggressive plays throughout the first half.

The second half saw deteriorating organization and coordination for the Blues after a penalty against keeper Levanta Staggolis led to a penalty kick goal for UOIT. Play got a little scrappier in the final minutes, with the Ridgebacks hungry to even the mere one-goal gap and U of T fighting for three points.

In the end, it was Wolever who made it clear that the Blues’ lead was there to stay, with an insurance goal in the 90th minute, off a Kelly assist. “This was a game where even though things weren’t coming together as we thought, we all worked together and kept pushing, and I think that’s what got us through,” said Wolever. “We’ll just keep improving from here.”

Men’s team The Varsity Blues men’s soccer team tied the Ridgebacks 1–1 on September 13 after 75 minutes of hard playing. Despite a promising second half, in which midfielder and former Guelph Gryphon Atchu Sivananthan scored off a penalty kick, the game was cut short due to an unrelenting lightning storm.

Both teams fought aggressively from the first minute, and it shows in the 15 fouls earned only in the first half. The Blues dominated possession, keeping constant pressure in the Ridgebacks’ half

TV: How many students or alumni from U of T participated in the tryouts? What was the background of the participating of basketball players?

CS: We had a few players that had either attended U of T or played for the basketball team.

The school has been so accommodating to us, whether it be at the downtown or Mississauga campus, it really makes the day run smooth when you have a good venue.

Players ranged from your recreational men’s league players to professionals, and I think that’s the beauty of the open tryout, it really is for anyone. Some people just come out for the experience of being around basketball people and a professional basketball environment. It’s important that we as a staff and organization provide that experience for everyone and really treat everyone who comes out with the same mentality.

TV: What were the scouts and coaches looking for? What types of drills and games did players participate in?

CS: I think we are always looking for a few key things: talent, potential, and intangibles. The unique thing about the NBA G League is that rosters essentially reset every season, so you are starting from scratch each year. With that reality, it is important to identify players who can play within the team, but who also have the ability to create for themselves.

We structured the day so we could have some of the more individual aspects of the game come through in drills and smaller group games and then we organized full games that would put players in a position to show how they could operate within a team.

TV: How has the relationship between the Raptors organization and U of T changed the campus atmosphere and the opportunities that are available to the U of T community?

CS: We have a great relationship with U of T and UTM. We have used the facilities numerous times throughout the last four years, wheth-

er it be for open tryouts, G League showcases, or practices. Last season one of our mentor coaches was Tamara Tatham, who is an assistant from U of T with the women’s team and she was great for our program. We have nothing but good things to say about our experiences with U of T. TV: How was the talent compared to past years’?

CS: We are really fortunate to be in an area that has really produced legitimate basketball talent.

Lots of great players have come from Toronto and surrounding areas, and the open tryout is another opportunity to expose this talent. This season definitely stayed at the standard we have come to expect from the open tryout process.

TV: Given that current Raptors players Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and Norman Powell have all spent time in the G League, playing for the 905, what advice would you give a to a Varsity student regarding a career in professional basketball, and the different paths it might take to get there?

CS: I think you hit the nail on the head with the last part; there is no one path to follow. I’ve been fortunate to work internationally, and the sport of basketball has such a global presence — great basketball is being played all over the globe. That being the case, scouts are all over the world searching for talent, and if it is out there, it will be found.

Someone like Pascal — who you mentioned — was first seen at a basketball without borders camp in Africa. If you look at the NBA, even in the last few years. with players like Luka Doncic and Giannis, the game is more global than ever.

The other big thing would be to just keep working at it and focus on improving. All the players who you mentioned, Fred, Pascal, Norm, they all have such a strong work ethic and are constantly adding and improving their craft.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

and executing flawless passing patterns.

Star defender Kenny Lioutas instigated a number of intelligent plays from the beginning, shutting down Ridgeback breakaways and consistently keeping his cool in the face of a scrappy, foul-filled game, focusing instead on keeping possession and shifting the play.

Despite an obvious domination of possession, the Blues couldn’t seem to get any chances once they moved into the keepers’ box: the great pass formations could not be backed up by any goals in the first half, and the frustration amongst coaching staff and players of both teams was palpable.

It was at the start of the second half that the Blues’ aggression translated to shot opportunities.

After an apparent goal from OUA East second team all-star Marko Mandekic was deemed offside, the Blues’ anger translated to them outperforming their opponents as consistent shots on net were made by Sivanathan, Mandekic, and defender Koosha Nazemi. This only intensified after UOIT scored on a penalty kick, only for Sivanathan to tie the score with a redemption goal in the following minute.

This upwards trajectory was only heating up when the game was called off.

The women’s soccer team gained a crucial three points in the standings on Friday.

COURTESY OF SEYRAN MAMMADOV/VARSITY BLUES

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SEPTEMBER 16, 2019