November 5, 2012 by The Varsity

THE Varsity

Vol. CXXXIII, No. 8

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

5 November, 2012

pg 11 ASSU op-ed: SGRT meeting with Murray allows government to avoid public discussion

pg 14

Women’s field hockey team takes CIS silver at home pg 26

Indie bookstores in Toronto keep wordlovers satiated

Pressure mounts on UTSU for electoral reform

Declaration from colleges, Simcoe Hall recommendations give new urgency to changes Zane Schwartz ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Pressure began mounting this week for electoral reform by the University of Toronto Students’ Union. The St. George Roundtable has backed a “non-partisan declaration” calling for reforms that are, according to the three-page document, “both necessary and overdue.” The declaration was well received by all the nine college leaders who sit on the SGRT. “All of the presidents have agreed that this is necessary,” said Paulina Bogdanova, co-head of college at Trinity. “They’re very basic issues, very basic suggestions,” she said. Also this week, The Varsity obtained a letter from vice-provost, students Jill Matus to former UTSU president Danielle Sandhu detailing Simcoe Hall’s concerns with the union’s electoral policy in the wake of the spring 2011 elections, and admonishing Sandhu to implement many of the same reforms currently being pushed for by the SGRT declaration.

“I’m sure you know that the complaints, both formal and informal, raised annually about the fairness of UTSU’s election procedures are an on-going concern,” Matus wrote in the January 2012 letter, adding, “Once again, Danielle … it would be a fine outcome of your tenure as President if you were able to bolster confidence in your organization’s electoral system.” Matus clarified that the concerns raised in the letter remained outstanding via email on Friday. “We have been given assurances by UTSU that the organization would address the issues raised in the letter no later than the fall of 2012,” wrote Matus. “The president of UTSU repeated this assurance in a meeting several weeks ago.” Meanwhile, the SGRT declaration’s widespread adoption could add to the urgency for reforms before this spring’s election, an effort that will likely come to a head when the UTSU convenes its annual general meeting on November 22. The declaration was endorsed by both the University College Literary Institute (UCLit) and the Trinity College Meeting last week. Other colleges and professional faculty associations will be considering the declaration in the weeks to come.

Benjamin Dionne, president of the UCLit, stresses the importance of “getting the discussion going” with the declaration. “We decided to support it because it contains genuinely good measures that any democracy cannot, in good faith, turn down,” said Dionne. Dionne admitted that the UCLit did have some reservations about the declaration, “mostly regarding the membership of the appeal committee.” He added that many of the aspects of the Declaration “are already part of the election code of the UCLit, and are therefore coherent with what we stand for.” The university administration and the SGRT appear to have raised similar concerns about the optics and policy of UTSUrun elections. The SGRT declaration calls on the union to address procedural issues by reforming the electoral code. Proposed changes include reviewing the appointment and powers of the chief returning officer, altering the composition and structure of various electoral appeals bodies, and removing financial barriers for

CONTINUED PG 3

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THIS WEEK

VOL. CXXXIII No. 8

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ON CAMPUS

ELECTION WATCH AND FALL SOCIAL Association of Political Science Students Tuesday, 6 November, 10 pm Gabby’s Bar and Grill 192 Bloor St. W. For commentary and analysis of the US presidential election, see pg 7

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Murad Hemmadi

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Design Editors Suzy Nevins Dan Seljak

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Arts & Culture Editor Brigit Katz

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Science Editor Dennis Dobrovolsky

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Sports Editor Zoë Bedard

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Illustrations Editor Minhee Bae

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RISHI MAHARAJ @9x19

UTSU CLUBS TOWN HALL University of Toronto Student Union Monday, 5 November, 4–6 pm UTSU Building 12 Hart House Circle

NATO INTERVENTION IN SYRIA Hart House Debates Committee Thursday, 8 November, 7–9 pm Hart House 7 Hart House Circle

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Video Editor Wyatt Clough

the week in tweets

@9x19 @assu_uoft I’m curious as to why this particular meeting was held. And what is the mandate of this forum called the “sgrt”? —30 October 2012

Managing Online Editor Patrick Love online@thevarsity.ca Senior Copy Editor Laura Mitchell

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Associate Design Editor Nathan Watson Associate Photo Editor Vacant Associate Online Editor Vacant Associate Copy Editor Catherine Kabasele Associate News Editors Rida Ali James Maiangowi Zane Schwartz

REMEMBRANCE DAY CEREMONIES Friday, 9 November, 10 am Soldiers’ Tower Hart House Circle

Associate Comment Editor Vacant Associate Features Editor Vacant Associate A&C Editor Danielle Klein Associate Science Editor Roxanne Leung Associate Sports Editor Vacant

@MunibSajjad Challenging legitimacy or mandate of SGRT is just a way of maintaining UTSU hegemony on ‘student issues’. —30 October 2012

GLEN MURRAY @GLEN4ONT It was a difficult decision stepping down from cabinet, but learning that Hon. @John_Milloy will replace me as Minister is great news! —03 November 2012

GLEN MURRAY @RENEWLIBERAL This morning, I announced my plan to renew the Liberal Party, win the next election & start renewing Ontario. Join me: http://renewliberal.ca —03 November 2012

UOFT STUDENTS’ UNION @UTSU98 @Glen4TC’s is at Maple Leaf Gardens. Its part of #ryerson which is bottledwater free. They’re serving bottled-water @RyeSU #cfsfcee —04 November 2012

Contributors Trevor Abes, Rida Ali, Zoë Bedard, Alberto Bustamante, Simon Capobianco, Amanda Coletta, Julia Cottrelle, William Deck, Jerico Espinas, Susan Gordon, Kaleem Hawa, James Hayes, Brigit Katz, Joel Krupa, Damanjit Lamba, Bianca Lemus-Lavarreda, Roxanne Leung, James Maiangowi, Haley O’Shaughnessy, Zane Schwartz, Vipasha Shaikh, Dan Smeenk, Jakob Tanner, Katrina Vogan, Irina Vukosavic, Carter West, David Woolley Copy Editors Elizabeth Benn Lois Boody Zareen Din Surbhi Gandhi Aisha Kakinuma Hassan Catharine Kabasele Caitlin Plainos Laura Sabatini Dan Smeenk Tonya Sutherland Judy Wu

Fact Checkers Catherine Kabasele Alex Ross

Designers Ethan Chiel Patrick Love Suzy Nevins Dan Seljak Shaquilla Singh Nathan Watson Photo and Illustration William Ahn Bernarda Gospic Janice Liu Catharine Mansouri Dan Seljak Maeve Devitt Tremblay Corina Wong Cover Bernarda Gospic

Business Office Business Manager John Fountas

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Crime Stats October 26 – November 1

Theft

Dispute

Property Damage

Car Crash

Liquor Offence

Noise Complaint

Mischief

Trespasses

Quoted “A no-money-down university and college program will let students enter postsecondary school without having to come up with large amounts upfront for tuition and fees.” –Glen Murray, former Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, announces post-secondary funding reform as a major campaign plank in his run for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership

The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published by Varsity Publications Inc. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock. Content © 2012 by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the sections associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity reserves the right to edit all submissions. Inquiries regarding ad sales can be made to ads@thevarsity.ca. ISSN: 0042-2789 Please recycle this issue after you are finished with it.

–Munib Sajjad, UTSU vice-president, university affairs

THE VarsiTy VOL. CXXXIII No. 8

THE VARSITY WILL BE COVERING THE REMEMBRANCE DAY CEREMONIES THIS FRIDAY.

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“It is great to see post-secondary education as a major platform in the Liberal leadership race, but we need to make sure that the platform is being constructed to work for students, not win elections.”

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New transcript to record extracurricular involvement Lingering concerns as focus group testing continues Kaleem Hawa VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The University of Toronto’s Office of Student Life is developing a new co-curricular record (CCR) for all undergraduate and graduate students. The initiative is designed to help students find extracurricular activities within the university and record them on an official, institutional document. “The research indicates that successful students get involved in activities both inside and outside the classroom,” said Catherine Drea, director of student life at U of T. “The CCR will provide a new extensive database that will help students search for co-curricular opportunities, based on location (campus, faculty, college), type of activity, or skills they would like to develop.” According to Drea, the co-curricular transcript will be “a separate and distinct document from their transcript, one that helps to demonstrate a student’s whole university experience.” The impetus for the transcript was borne out of concerns raised by the student body, Drea said. “Students have asked for the CCR as a way to track their involvement at university.” “In 2010, the university held a broad series of focus groups and asked students about their university experience,” said Drea, referring to the Council on Student Experience (CSE), which called for the creation of a cocurricular transcript as a means of enhancing student experience.

At the time, the CSE suggested such a move would “prioritize the importance of co-curricular involvement at U of T” and “recognize, celebrate, and make sense of co-curricular experiences, helping students relate to, reflect on, and learn from co-curricular involvement.” The council predicted that the record could become a “useful reference in a student’s community, workplace, scholarly, professional and personal life.” “Working groups were established in response to what we heard, one of which focused on school spirit and engagement, which we thought could benefit highly from a formal incentive to contribute,” Drea explains. The working groups were comprised of more than 75 staff, faculty, and students from across all three campuses. Kimberly Elias, program coordinator for the CCR, extols the benefits of extracurricular involvement. “Successful students get involved in university life,” said Elias. “By participating in these activities, U of T students will be able to build their experience and gain valuable skills.” Elias says that the CCR will complement the current GPA and academic transcript and will allow greater recognition of extracurricular involvement in university life. Carleton, Guelph, and Dalhousie already have a similar system in place. As focus groups help the Office of Student Life turn the proposal into reality, some students expressed lingering concerns. Second-year student Alexandra Sundarsingh says that a formalized co-curricular record may encourage students to join as many

Kimberly Elias (left), program coordinator, with director of student life Catherine Drea. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

clubs as possible and “emphasize quantity of involvement over depth” simply to have the activities listed on their record. Drea disagrees. “The record will emphasize more than just joining and will reflect active engagement,” she said. Drea said that student concerns highlighted in focus group sessions “have been heard” and that the main goal is to ensure that the administration communicates the policy change so that all students know about the CCR. “Every student should be aware of it and should

“REFORM“ CONTINUED FROM COVER candidates. The declaration also advocates a move to online voting and introducing a preferential balloting system. Various propositions have attracted support in diverse quarters of the university. Rishi Maharaj, president of the Engineering Society, is supportive of the call for a move to preferential voting. “Student organizations around the world have been leaders in the development and use of preferential voting and its benefits are well documented in academic research,” he said. Both the declaration and Matus’s letter encourage the UTSU to move to online voting, with the declaration saying that such a move could improve participation rates among “commuting students, students with physical disabilities, and disengaged students.” Matus’s letter cited improved security and increased voter turnout as possible benefits that could arise from online voting. UTSU REMAINS NON-COMMITTAL Sam Greene, co-head of college at Trinity, says he sent the declaration to UTSU “a few weeks ago” but has yet to receive a “real affirmative response.” “We decided to forge ahead to get stakeholder support — we’re looking to the UTSU to commit to these changes,” said Greene. UTSU president Shaun Shepherd said he has read the declaration and passed it on to the Elections and Referenda Committee. “I’ve passed [it] on, I’ve shared my thoughts in honesty with those people,” said Shepherd. But Corey Scott, vice-president internal and this year’s chair of the influential Elections and Referenda Committee (ERC), refused to comment on what aspects of the declaration he agreed with, or which of its proposals would receive serious consideration. Scott also refused to provide a timeline for when students could expect a formal response from the union. “The members of the Elections and Referenda Committee will be more than happy to review and seriously consider the proposals,” Scott said. “It is always a good idea to review policies and procedures to ensure fairness, transparency and access.” Asked to identify the area most in need of electoral reform, Scott pointed to Professional Experience Year (PEY) engineering students who are unable to vote in their PEY year, even though they return to full-time status the following year, saying the cause was something he would “personally prioritize.” “Some of these other issues in here … I don’t think that anyone had conversations with Clara Ho [former chair of the ERC] about this stuff last year,” Scott said.

A polling booth on campus last spring. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

“Once again, Danielle ... it would be a ﬁne outcome of your tenure as President if you were able to bolster conﬁdence in your organization’s electoral system.” —Jill Matus, vice-provost, students Bogdanova was not pleased with Scott’s response. “I feel like that’s a minor part of a broader issue,” she said. “He’s obviously just nit-picking.” CONCERNS AT SIMCOE HALL Matus’s letter is the clearest articulation to date of Simcoe Hall’s concerns about the optics of the UTSU’s annual elections. The document strongly recommends that the UTSU “undertake a serious review and overhaul of the process related to elections.” “This complaint and assertions made about previous UTSU elections clearly indicate that there are students who perceive the electoral system at UTSU to be unfair,” Matus writes in the letter, although she clearly notes that the Office of Student Life found no direct evidence of unfair practices during the 2011 election. No formal complaints were filed regarding the spring 2012 election that brought the current executive under Shepherd into office.

have a better understanding of the types of co-curricular activities that are available at U of T,” she said Other students questioned the efficacy of such a policy. Political science student Giorgio Traini says he thinks that the “policy presents an unnecessary inconvenience for students who are already hard-pressed for time.” The Office of Student Life will continue to consult students through focus groups this week; students can begin to sign up for the record beginning in 2013.

In the letter, Matus stressed the importance of both policy and perception when it comes to elections. “Electoral procedures must not only be fair, they must be perceived to be fair … in order to avoid perceptions that electoral processes are favouring a particular candidate or group of candidates,” she wrote, outlining six areas of concern to complainants. Robert Boissoneault, who served as legal director for the 2011 Students’ First slate, submitted one of the 2011 complaints that eventually prompted the letter. (Since 2012, Boissoneault has been a member of The Varsity’s Board of Directors.) “They [the administration] didn’t want to deal with politics, litigation. They were concerned, I think justifiably, with politics of defunding student unions,” said Boissoneault. He acknowledges that there was no “smoking gun” to prove outright bias in the 2011 election, but maintains that “there are enough little things wrong with this process to call into question its democratic legitimacy.” The administration has, in the past, intervened in cases of gross corruption on the part of student unions. When The Varsity published transcripts of conversations between ASSU executives in 2007–2008 plotting to rig the election, there followed a high-profile intervention. Matus explained the rule Friday. “If the Provost has reason to believe that a student society is not operating in an open, accessible and democratic fashion and following the terms of its constitution, the Policy provides procedures for the review of such matters and ultimately, the withholding of fees from the society,” she noted. PREVIOUS CALLS FOR REFORM UNHEEDED “Typically, election reform is discussed after elections and not during the crucial periods where changes can be made,” explained Scott. This year’s calls have come early, but Maharaj says he is skeptical that the effort will succeed, having seen annually “some attempt by those opposed to the CFS-affiliated incumbent to craft and pass policy and bylaw changes that would address some of the systemic criticisms of the UTSU.” “I’ve yet to see a motion passed at any general or board meeting of the UTSU without the approval of the executive,” said Maharaj. In August 2010, the Engineering Society submitted a detailed call for reform. According to Maharaj, then-UTSU president Adam Awad promised that the ERC would examine the proposal and respond. But nothing came of the plan. “From the minutes available to me, [the consultation] never occurred,” Maharaj claims. The concerns expressed in Matus’s letter from January 2012 also appear to have gone unheeded thus far. A copy of the union’s electoral policy indicated that the document had not been updated since November 16, 2011.

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News in brief Queen’s professors demand apology on behalf of colleague

David Naylor vists Hong Kong; raises $6 million for Boundless

Ombudsperson presents annual report to Governing Council

Queen’s University professors are demanding an apology from the university for false accusations of racism and sexism leveled against Michael Mason, a former history professor at the university. Mason, who had been teaching for almost 50 years, was “banned” from his second-year history course on imperialism and neo-colonialism, following accusations from students and teaching assistants that he was making racist and sexist statements in his lectures. Students said that he had used the terms “rag head,” “towel head,” “japs,” and “little yellow sons of bitches,” and one of Mason’s female teaching assistants accused him of telling the female TAs that they should become “mistresses.” Mason defended himself saying that he was using the offensive phrases to demonstrate the attitudes of the era that they were studying. He added that some of his statements were direct quotes from contemporaneous documents. Mason said that he had simply expressed the hope that his students would become “masters and mistresses” of the material by the end of the semester. The Canadian Association of University Teachers published a report in which it claimed that Queen’s had “acted callously and irresponsibly.”

University of Toronto president David Naylor and alumna Daisy Ho visited Hong Kong last week to launch the Asia-Paciﬁc branch of the university’s Boundless Campaign. The launch, celebrated with a gala event in Hong Kong, featured two major contributions to the campaign: a donation of $2 million from Daisy Ho herself, and gift of $4 million from an anonymous donor. Ho’s donation will be used to fund a new scholarship, the Award for Emerging Leaders, for strong international students attending the Rotman School of Management. Her donation will also support a new undergraduate program that will encourage Canada-Chinese relations through research projects and student exchanges. The anonymous $4 million was donated in order to establish a chair in Chinese Canadian Studies at University College. The chair will ultimately be part of a new awareness program that emphasizes the contributions of Chinese Canadians on campus and in Canada. “Boundless: the Campaign for the University of Toronto” is U of T’s major funding campaign, and is used to support the university’s goals and endeavours. Currently, the university has raised $1.12 billion out of a $2 billion goal, with $17 million being raised in the Asia-Paciﬁc region.

Last week, the U of T Ombudsperson presented their annual report to the Governing Council surveying complaints made to the office during the 2011-2012 year. The ombudsperson is an impartial official who resolves otherwise intractable complaints. The report gives an overview of the systemic issues that affected the U of T population last year as well as a statistical overview of office users, the nature of proffered assistance, and outcomes. Issues highlighted in the report include international fee exemptions, program fee refunds, academic integrity matters, discrimination, grading policies, student health plans and graduate supervision. The report makes no formal recommendations on any issue, and states that university and union officials have acted in a speedy manner to help resolve many of them. The report also provides information about outreach activities undertaken by the office and describes efforts to spread awareness of their services to students. The Governing Council’s official response to the report states that it has drafted new policies to deal with the issues presented and commends the Ombudsperson on its fair dealings of the complex issues presented in the report.

— Rida Ali Sources: The Globe and Mail

— Jerico Espinas

— Vipasha Shaikh

Medicine professor accused of “self-plagiarism” Prominent U of T researcher received $18 million in federal research funding Irina Vukosavic From marketing to finance to international trade, this program offers the unique skills you need to launch your career as a brand manager, operations planner, marketing coordinator, media analyst and many other exciting career options.

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A professor at the Faculty of Medicine has been accused of self-plagiarism, prompting a retraction of a 2005 paper published in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Stephen Matthews’ alleged transgressions were described as “a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system.” The retraction was flagged by Retraction Watch, a blog documenting retractions in the lifesciences field. The blog claims the paper has been cited over 100 times, citing Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. “The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process,” read a notice posted by Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Lloyd Rang, executive director of communications at the Faculty of Medicine, said in a Vancouver Sun article that the case was a “copyright squabble over a paper that was always intended as ‘review.’” Rang also told the Sun that “under the strictest definition of copyright it had to be original, but there

The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process. —Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews are only so many ways to describe the research landscape.” Matthews, who declined to comment, collaborated with thengraduate student Dawn Owen and research associate Marcus Andrews on the paper, which focused on the effects of glucocorticoids, a drug commonly given to pregnant women at risk of early delivery. Matthews has received more than $18 million in funding for his research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), according to listings on the Faculty of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Neither CIHR and NSERC has commented on the story. “We cannot comment on whether a matter is under review or what recourse, if any, an Agency takes with respect to a matter,” said Susan Zimmerman, execu-

tive director of the secretariat, in an email to The Varsity. “The Secretariat does follow up with institutions on all allegations which come to its attention.” Although it is unclear what action will be taken, Zimmerman says any investigation will be handed over to U of T. “The Framework [Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research] places the responsibility for investigating any allegations of breach of Agency policy with the researcher’s institution,” wrote Zimmerman. According to the framework, which sets out responsibilities and policies for researchers, institutions, and the agencies, “redundant publications” is defined as the “re-publication of one’s own previously published work or part there of, or data … without adequate acknowledgement of the source, or justification.”

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Naylor defends Access Copyright agreement Student unions call for university to reject agreement come 2013 renewal James Maiangowi ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

U of T president David Naylor defended the university’s controversial agreement with Access Copyright at a Governing Council meeting Tuesday, saying the university’s early ratification of the agreement, which has been widely criticized, gave it more flexibility on copyright issues. “We adopted the [agreement] early on to see if we could be first movers,” Naylor said. “We sought first mover status to see what we could do to secure a reasonable price and to make sure we had an early exit.” Access Copyright is a Canadian nonprofit collective representing copyright holders and publishers. The terms of its 2011 agreement with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada would raise the annual fee universities pay for copyrighted material from $3.38 to $26 per full-time student. The University of Toronto and Western University both signed the agreement in January. Other Canadian universities have opposed the new agreement, and over a dozen have refused to sign it, including the University of British Columbia, York, and Queen’s. Opposition among U of T students and faculty has also been considerable. “Student unions stand united with faculty and with student unions across the province in our criticism that Access Copyright has no legal basis, as we saw in the recent Supreme Court ruling,” said Erin Oldynski, external commissioner of the Graduate Students’ Union, during the Governing Council meeting. Oldynski expressed concerns about the agreement’s potential impact on academic

Governors mingle at Simcoe Hall before the October 30 council meeting. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

freedom, and criticized the university for its failure to consult students and faculty before signing the agreement. “The student unions recommend that Governing Council move a motion for U of T to reject Access Copyright when it comes up for renewal in 2013,” she concluded. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling in July expanded the definition of materials considered “fair dealing” and therefore exempt from copyright. Interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling has been mixed to date. “There can be no question the Supreme Court’s rulings are a serious blow to Ac-

cess Copyright,” wrote Ariel Katz, an associate professor at the Faculty of Law. “The message from the Supreme Court to users is clear: Fair dealing is real; fair dealing is important; do try it at home!” Access Copyright disputed the significance of the ruling in a July press release, claiming it would have a “limited impact on the importance of the Access Copyright license.” “The Supreme Court was only looking at about seven per cent of the copying done in schools,” said Maureen Cavan, executive director of Access Copyright. “The decision absolutely does not mean a free-forall on copyright-protected materials. On

the contrary, it leaves copyright licensing in the education sector alive and well.” “This is a very fluid and quite contentious playing field,” Naylor said later in the Governing Council meeting. “The view that this was somehow a done deal when the Supreme Court ruled is not true, I’m afraid: this will continue to evolve, and the key right now is to have an aggressive but principled approach to fair dealing.” “We certainly have some sympathy with those who argue that it would be ideal for the university to go at this alone at some point. But let’s watch and see how this unfolds in the months ahead.”

Unions demand ex ofﬁcio student seats Governing Council grapples with composition of new campus councils for UTM and UTSC Dan Smeenk VARSITY STAFF

Representatives from five student unions requested on Tuesday that the university’s Governing Council add ex officio seats to UTM and UTSC’s campus councils. Members from UTSU, SCSU, UTMSU, APUS, and the GSU all voiced their support for student ex officio positions on the campus councils. “All councils should have fair and accurate representation across their campuses,” said Chris Thomson, president of the University of Toronto Mississauga Student Union. “Ex officio seats have been brought up as necessary for elected representatives to bring our concerns to the table.” The UTSC and UTM campus councils were first proposed in a 2010 report on the university’s governance, and will be formally established by July 2013. The campus councils will oversee campus-specific concerns and report to the Governing Council. The student unions’ request drew a number of responses from Governing Council members during a question period on the floor, re-opening a debate about the proposed structure of campus councils that has been ongoing since the matter was first raised in 2010.

Under the current plan, campus councils would have 26 members, four of whom would be elected students. The only ex officio positions, which are given to members because of their other elected positions at the university, would be for the chancellor and president of the university, and the chair and vice-chair of the Governing Council. The student unions have framed the matter as one of transparency and freedom of information. Guled Arale, vice-president external of the Scarborough Campus Student Union (SCSU), said that ex officio seats would bring greater transparency and improve student leaders’ access to information. According to Arale, ex officio members of the campus councils would also have privileges not typically offered to other members, including access to campus list-servs, and opportunities for consultation and debate on sub-committees. Both Arale and Thomson discussed the need for increased student participation in campus committees. Arale said during the meeting that he wanted to see ex officio seats included in addition to the elected positions currently proposed. “We want to get as many students as possible,” Arale said. “Division [of representation] is good for governance.” Administrative staff member P.C. Choo and student representative to Governing Council Aidan Fishman, among others, raised concerns about the student unions’ demands.

Choo voiced his opposition to ex officio positions for anyone but “senior administrative staff.” He recommended that those concerned run as student representatives for the university’s governing bodies. Fishman took issue with the student unions call for transparency, claiming that elections for student unions lacked just such transparency. He pointed to the boycott of StudentsFirst in the UTSU election two years ago, over what the slate perceived to be an unfair election. Other council members raised the issue that ex officio seats could decrease constituent diversity on the councils, as more students could be represented if candidates unaffiliated with the unions were to run independently for the campus councils. Choo elaborated on this point in during an interview. “I am not in favour of ex officio representation on principle,” Choo said. “I have spoken to some student leaders a couple of months ago on this and have made my stance clear. In my conversations with the student leaders, they had made it known that they are quite comfortable with the non-voting option. This is exactly my point — if they are non-voting, how can they make a difference where it counts?” Consultations about the distribution of elected seats in the university’s governing bodies will be held throughout November. Governing Council is set to meet again on December 13.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

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Election 2012 The case for Obama

The case for Romney

Obama is far ahead of his Republican rival

Romney represents true hope and change

Simon Capobianco VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Barrack Obama’s first term in office was a colossal disappointment. The saintly glow with which America’s first black president replaced the obtuse and wildly-unpopular George W. Bush faded quickly as the miracles expected of him failed, inexorably, to materialize. He did, as promised, end the Iraq war, but he didn't shut down Guantanamo Bay, and he had no panacea for the economy, which continued to bleed despite his much-hyped stimulus package. Obama should, however, be given his due. He inherited two disastrous wars and a teetering economy from his predecessor, and although his stimulus package should have been more robust, it was hardly insignificant, creating millions of jobs, and staving-off outright recession. He has, furthermore, given America it’s first semblance of a national health-care system — a historic move, bringing it one step closer to the rest of the industrial world in that respect. Although unemployment remains high, and Americans are right to be frustrated, there’s no reason to do anything rash — like electing Mitt Romney. A cursory glance at Romney’s platform should be enough to terrify any sane person. He promises to repeal Obamacare in favor of a voucher system, which he claims will “preserve” and “strengthen” Medicare, while streamlining costs. In reality, as Paul Krugman points out, the Romney-Ryan tax cuts would kill the program, with brutal human costs, while deepening the deficit. On another page, under the heading “Cutting the Red Tape” Romney promises to

“tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy.” This includes ending the EPA’s “war on carbon dioxide” and repealing Dodd-Frank — the Democrat’s financial regulation act aimed at preventing a subprime-mortgage redux. The phrase “cutting the red tape” is either inadvertent tragicomedy, or outright mockery of the American public. A near identical slogan ran above the now-famous 2003 picture of government officials chain-sawing a pile of banking regulation, the demise of which helped lay the groundwork for the 2008 crash. To be sure, Dodd-Frank is a poor fix for the financial system, but it’s shortcoming is that it’s too timid — allowing investment banks more than enough rope to hang themselves, once again, at public expense. The idea that it goes too far is a bad joke. If Romney were to repeal DoddFrank it would set the timer on the next, probably much worse, recession. And if climate change continues as it is universally expected to, Romney’s rhetoric about Obama’s “war on carbon” will be as embarrassing as his plans to slash FEMA funding by 40 per cent are in the wake of Hurricane Sandy — which was probably anthropogenic, at least in part. Barack Obama isn’t a saint, he’s a typical centrist Democrat. His second term may well be as disappointing as his first. Compared to Romney’s disaster plan, though, Obama’s brand of disappointment seems downright utopian. Americans should vote for him again — but this time with open eyes. The world simply can’t take four years of Mitt Romney.

Carter West VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Republican nominee for president deserves a win on November 6. We’re very sorry that he has achieved every success but if you get past that, past all that smooth texture, you will see hope for the United States of America in Governor Mitt Romney. He wants you to have more cash in your wallets and if it takes a couple of trees to print the paper, Mitt Romney will take the heat. On the home front he believes you should get up off the couch and find a job to pay the bills, a job created by your neighbor and not a distant suit and tie. When he ran a company that was in the business of making money, he sent jobs to places that would accomplish the goal. But soon, with your help, Romney will be running America and America’s business is to create jobs for its citizens. You might cite binders of women and his rejection of gay unions as evidence of his poor attitude towards civil rights, but if you listen closely, you’ll find that he simply faces the same dilemma that any thinking person does. On foreign policy Romney has yet to gaffe. His presence in London during the Olympics was appropriate, since he is a former organizer of the Winter Games. As such, Mitt Romney’s comments on the security issues facing the Games Organizing Committee were apt because not two days before it had been revealed that the company tasked with securing the games would fail to meet their stipulated contract. He spoke intelligently about the Games, not derisively, as a leader would when faced with the mistakes of others. In Israel he affirmed his long held belief that it and America ought to be good friends and

to have one another’s back. Obama’s repeated snubbing of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, most recently during the opening session of the United Nations, does not accord with the role of an American president interested in keeping close ties with the country’s marooned ideological brethren. With Mali set to soon become a new fully-fledged Taliban state, Israel — truly free and democratic — needs a President Romney if it is to avoid being swallowed by its neighbors. Mitt Romney’s comment that Russia is the greatest enemy of the United States, was indeed a used line from the 80s cold war playbook. But many don’t understand that the situation hasn’t changed as much from the cold war era as it may seem. Then, Russia was a corrupt plutocracy that starved its citizens and stifled the right to public assembly and freedom of speech. Now, Russia is run by Vladimir Putin. During the foreign policy debate that many thought Obama won, I heard him tell us that he has no plan of action, while arguing for a hawkishness that looked more like a bird on a wire. The other man, old silver, also squawked a weak line on policy but he revealed an understanding of necessary increase in military spending and determination to use stern tactics when dealing with those who do not share America’s noble interests. If you can, cast your ballot for the governor. If you can’t, please stop regurgitating late night one-liners and focus on a candidate who offers a superior alternative to George W. Bush junior. That’s right; Obama with his drones and his massive spending program far more closely resembles former President Bush than you care to realize. For the first time in twelve years vote for true hope and change. Vote for Mitt Romney.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

VARSITY COMMENT

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Romney the salesman The US presidential debates have been a boon for the Republican candidate David Woolley VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

No one could understand it. An unpopular president, a sluggish economy, and high unemployment should have ensured that the race would be a cakewalk for the opposition. But when the time came for the contenders to line up, the best they could muster was a pizza tycoon, a philandering 69-year-old, and a cowboy governor with short-term memory loss. Was this the best the Republican Party had to offer? This the party that, since the 1960s had denied all but one Democratic president re-election; the party that only two-years prior, had ushered in the greatest swing in Congressional seats since 1938? The candidate that the party eventually chose as its nominee was a man who had, at one point or another, had been for nearly everything he is currently against — Mitt “Flip-flop” Romney. This was going to be ugly. Then the first presidential debate happened. On October 3 the president, who is considered to be one of the finest orators of modern times,

was trounced by Romney, a man most people suspect of being at least part-machine. Clearly, Obama had underestimated Romney; he believed the Governor would stick to the farright positions that he had expressed during the Republican primaries. It did not seem to have occurred to anyone in the Obama administration that the man best defined by switching his views to suit the election might actually switch his views to suit the election. Romney pivoted to the centre and trounced Obama in the first debate. Then his running mate, the wonkish P90X enthusiast, Paul Ryan, held his own against a former titan of the Senate, Joe Biden. And Romney outperformed the President, again and again. His worst he performance in any of the debates was still considered a tie. This was going to be ugly, alright, but now it was ugly for the president. Romney received an initial surge in the polls after his first debate performance, at one point being as many as seven points ahead of the president. An initial boost is to be expected and can be written off by the incumbent, but while that lead narrowed, Romney still main-

tained it. If it fell low, it never left the margin of error — the two candidates were tied. At this point in 2008, Obama led John McCain by 7–11 points. What had for most of the race looked like an easy Obama re-election, was now universally considered too close to call. And it was all thanks to the debates. No one expected Romney to be so knowledgeable, so personable, and so reasonable. Romney converted from the hard-right ideologue he had been during the primaries to a pragmatic technocrat, reminding the American people — and Barack Obama’s campaign — why he won the governorship as a Republican in a state that was three to one Democrat. Had it not been for the debates, Obama might still be enjoying significant leads. Romney’s success must be down to the debates because his campaign has been anything but rousing. A crowd chanting “Ryan! Ryan! Ryan!” when Romney takes the stage inspires very little confidence. Similarly, Romney is not known to be very personable, so it is unlikely that all the babies he kissed and hands he shook made a significant impact. The tradition-

al aspects of retail politics were never Romney’s strength, and both he and his family knew this. “Let Romney be Romney,” his wife and sons told his handlers before the first debate. They did and it worked. Romney is a businessman — he has a mind for minutia and a managerial style. What he is good at — what he has honed over his entire adult life since graduating from Harvard Business and Harvard Law; what he displayed at the Salt Lake City Olympics; and what he did nearly every day in the boardroom at Bain Capital — is sitting people down and explaining to them why his plan is the best. He sells his ideas. The debates gave Romney a platform that he was used to. He had a captive audience willing to listen to a cost-benefit analysis of his plan and the president’s. He was able to allay the fears of the risk-averse and ensure them that he could provide the greatest product at the lowest price with the least disruption to their daily lives — something Romney has done a thousand times before. While the shareholders’ vote is still to come, right now it looks like Romney may have made the sale.

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VARSITY COMMENT

MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

Back to nature It’s worth taking a break from modern life Julia Cottrelle VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

When was the last time you took the opportunity to walk in the woods? Can you remember when your feet last sank into the muddy earth of an expansive field? Have you picked up a leaf this fall and marveled at its colour? As simple as it sounds, getting back to nature replenishes the body and mind. Author Jules Pretty states that, “spending as little as five minutes in the fresh air lifts your spirits, boosts self-esteem, and short-circuits stress.” In this fast paced culture we rarely jump at the chance to disconnect from the buzzing and ringing of everyday life. We are slave to the devices which whir and wiz all day long. Look back to the old days of the farm and take a leaf from the decaying book! I’ll bet you can’t imagine not taking the latest message that is beeping at your fingertips. Perhaps you haven’t taken your ear phones out for long enough to make eye contact with the person across from you on the subway. Between the e-mails, calls, tweets and pings, it’s hard to keep your head up long enough to avoid tripping on the person ahead of you on the sidewalk. I was recently told that we cannot do more than one thing at once effectively. That doesn’t translate well when applied to the rapid-fire technological blitz, which has us by the scruff of the neck. Stephen L. Talbott, 53, is the editor of an e-mail newsletter called NetFuture. The year prior to starting NetFuture, he moved his family to Harlemville in upstate New York. They

moved into a house with an idyllic porch surrounded by hills and trees. He repelled the computer on which he did his work because he felt he was stepping outside of his haven each time he began tapping on the keys. In 1998 Talbott made the drastic decision to begin writing on a notepad. He can sit anywhere in his house with a window-view of the land and sometimes he turns in his pencil for binoculars to observe the wildlife around him. “I’m in the writing more, birds notwithstanding, it’s been a real pleasure to discover my own error.” This past summer I ventured up to the Des Moines River. It had been 10 years since I had visited the big log cabin with the picturesque view of the glimmering trees and mesmerizing water. When we entered the logging road we lost all access to electricity and technology. For four days I thought about one thing at a time. I ran, I swam, I canoed, I read, I ate. The simplified model of the world brought me back to authentic conversation by the fireside, the sensation of the breath moving through my belly and leafing through a good book without straying from the plotline. It was at that point I realized, we are inundating our brains with a whirring pace for which we are not equipped to manage. Lift your eyes at the dinner table in spite of that vibrating cell-phone. Stick to the task you’re on — your emails will wait. Take the dog for a spin — enter deep into the woods and slow your step. Ask a friend out and leave your phone at the doorway. Believe it or not the world will wait! And, while it does you will be released into the simplicity of old fashioned ways. Turn back the clock, tune the radio to jazz and listen to the stories of days gone by.

JANICE LIU/THE VARSITY

Support our troops, not the war On November 11 we should all take time to remember Haley O'Shaughnessy VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

CORINA WONG/THE VARSITY

A few years ago, I recall my first time seeing the Canadian military ribbon “Support Our Troops.” I remember physically recoiling at the thought that supporting our troops in Afghanistan meant supporting the war. To me supporting the troops meant supporting the death and destruction that comes from war and the subordination of democratic liberal pursuits of the people to an external foreign policy agenda. It meant suppressing the liberties and freedoms of today with anti-terrorism legislation under the pretense of ensuring more freedoms and liberties for tomorrow. I now see that my initial reaction was naïve and gravely mistaken. I still believe that reasoning to be

true in relation to the war, but it is not antithetical to supporting our troops. Quite the contrary, the death and destruction of war make it evermore imperative to support those still in Afghanistan and those who have returned home. Why? Because they answered the call to war and risked their lives. They will forever have to live with the trauma and horror that is war. Whether our soldiers personally support the war or not is irrelevant. Whether or not the war should have been fought is similarly irrelevant. These soldiers went to war, end of story. Now it is up to us as civilians to be there for them in terms of civil employment, mental and physical health services, and veteran pension plans — something that, with the recent government cuts to Veteran Affairs, we unfortunately have yet to live up to. Veteran’s benefits are

the neglected cost of war. Unconsciously or not, there has been a change in the societal mindset towards war. It has drifted away from the idea that when these men and women are at war, our whole country is at war. At times we forget the history of Canada at war. We forget the current sacrifice of our armed forces in Afghanistan. We forget that 158 Canadian soldiers have given the ultimate sacrifice — their lives. As I reflect upon my younger self, my grave mistake was that I, like many others, neglected the reality that these brave men and women are our fellow Canadians. So this Remembrance Day, I implore each and every one of us to truly remember. To wear our poppies next to our hearts, visit the Soldier’s Tower on campus, and look back at the history of military sacrifice with a sense of humility.

VARSITY COMMENT

10 MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

comment@thevarsity.ca

Letters to the Editor For Volume CXXXIII No. 7, October 22, 2012 RE: “There are words we can live without” I think the important thing here is context. Everyone has different views on what is and what isn’t offensive. An academic institution is not a place for language some people consider inflammatory, as it can be considered aggressive and isn’t productive for reasoned discussion. However, what one may say in situations with people one knows well I would say anything goes. We have to remember that words are just grunts we have assigned meaning to, many words can be entirely inoffensive in one context and vulgar in another. If one uses the term “bitch” at a dog show its perfectly fine, but used in anger against a lady it is a verbal attack. —Patrick Langille RE: “Protecting students should be a priority” You’re unhappy with the lack of danger on campus, so you’d like U of T police to start widening their net? U of T is such an option right in the middle of Toronto, yet we have such a low rate of incidents that most people don’t even stop to think about it. Plus, widening the net to the west end is like police officers from other regions publishing statements about issues in other areas that other police officers take care of. It makes no sense. U of T students commute from a lot of places. While I do see that Christie and Bloor’s attacks are closer to U of T, so were the Kensington attacks in the summer. I guess the student newspaper should keep printing stories to keep the student body informed, instead of having the U of T

police write 10 sentences on an area they are literally not allowed to work in. Imagine! —Mckaley Stuart RE: “You and me forever with they” As a parent who has actually seen the poster, polyamory was the last thing I thought of. And I haven’t heard about any parent who is particularly upset about the content of the posters. That some in the conservative, religious right are upset is to be expected and is just something they were bound to start whining about. The largest complaint I’ve heard is that kids don’t fully understand why there needs to be a safe space. Feeling that if ‘they’ get one, why can’t we have one. But it's my understanding that this is a small minority. On the whole it seems that kids are receptive of the idea. —Cathie Renner “If the polyamrous can demonstrate that they can stay with their people, raise many children, and show that this arrangement is capable of making useful contributions to society as a long-term effort, then showing the next generation TDSB’s ‘love has no gender’ poster will be perfectly appropriate.” As opposed to supposedly monogamous relationships and marriages? Let’s face facts, 90 per cent of monogamous relationships end-up in the trash, and then half of the 10 per cent that make it to marriage end-up getting divorced. Your argument is invalid. —Lucius Scribbens I grew up being raised by two moms and constantly hearing about the “gay life-

style” being incompatible with children. Bigots would rant about the promiscuity of gays and lesbians, and their relationships never last, it’s impossible for them to raise children, and they all die early from AIDS, drugs, and too much meaningless sex. I was confused and would look at my own family contradicting everything they said, but I could never seem to convince them that my family existed. This is deja vu. Now I have my own poly family and we’ve solidly been together for 14 and for seven years. One of my partners was raised by poly parents. Yet once again I have to deal with ignorant people claiming that my family doesn’t exist and anyone like us must be sex-crazed and incapable of healthy lasting relationships. That it’s coming from someone who is gay and likely has been exposed to this same style of bigotry is additionally upsetting. What level of “proof” do you require? Is our existence not enough? Are your false assumptions the only things you will trust? Do you realize there are still those demanding “proof” that gay, lesbian, and bisexual folks can have meaningful relationships? They will likely never be satisfied. It seems you may be headed on the same path. —Tobi Hill-Meyer By your standards monogamy shouldn't be on the poster either. It certainly hasn't met your criteria for "successful" relationships. My advice would be to do a little more research on polyamory. From what I've read here, you have a very poor grasp of it. —Conor Alexander

RE: “Munk School hits its stride” As a student of the MGA program, I can wholeheartedly agree with the analysis made by Graham Smith regarding the lack of political tilt in the classroom. I have never felt like my academic experience has been in any way impeded by the corporate donation by Peter Munk. As much as I'd like to be sympathetic to those who are so whole-heartedly opposed to the Munk school, I simply cannot without feeling like in some way I've given up my integrity and admitted to being a fool. Please, those who are outside of the program, actually talk to those of us going through the program before spreading your own form of slander. The quality of my graduate education is no less than the quality of graduate education available through any of the other faculties at the school, and I'd like to think of us as one big happy U of T community rather than an isolated subgroup subject to a zealous group of opponents. I may not personally agree with everything Peter Munk does, and I most certainly don't believe in everything Barrick Gold does, but I ﬁnd it extremely difﬁcult to have any sympathy for those militant groups so opposed to the school. I have learned more, both about myself and about the world at large, in my brief time at Munk than I did throughout my entire undergraduate career. One thing I hope to take from my time at the MGA is an ability to increase universal access to education. It seems odd to me that in a country like Canada there would still be those who seek to restrict the education of some based on personal values and beliefs. —MGA Student

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

The SGRT allowed Glen Murray to avoid facing public consultation An op-ed from the Arts and Science Students’ Union Katharine Ball PRESIDENT OF ARTS AND SCIENCE STUDENTS UNION

The recent meeting between the St. George Round Table, campus student unions, and the minister to discuss the discussion paper proposed by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities was part of a larger pattern of token consultation. The focus on an alleged rift between the UTSU and the Minister as the rationale behind his absence at the town hall on proposed changes to post-secondary education in Ontario takes away from the fact that the minister should be nervous to be on any campus right now, given how shaken administrators, students and faculty are by what he is proposing. There have been serious criticisms raised by students, faculty, and administrators about the future of post-secondary education and the University of Toronto, and by appearing to dodge public meetings where these criticism can be discussed, the minister does our university and himself a disservice. That is the issue. Construing the minister’s absences at the Town Hall, where students, faculty and administration were present, as a fault on the part of the UTSU is an unnecessary distraction from the issues raised by the minister in his policy paper. Whatever problems arose between the minister and the UTSU after his appearance at the Scarborough cam-

pus — and the story changes depending on who is telling it — the minister should take every opportunity available to him to hear criticism from those who will be directly affected by the proposed changes. By the St. George Round Table hosting a smaller closed-door meeting with the minister and painting it as a consultation on par with an open forum involving students, faculty and administrators the St. George Round Table allowed the minister an easy escape from the prospect of facing a crowd critical of his plans. During the St. George Round Table meeting, the minister dismissed student’s frustrations with the government’s handling of post-secondary education in the discussion paper, as painting him as the “big, bad minister.” This was not only patronizing but down-right offensive to students who have taken a lot of time to study the issues he raises in his proposal. When the government publishes a document outlining major changes for the future of post-secondary education, students are concerned. To dismiss this in such a simplistic manner is a great way to goad students into inflammatory dialogue that only serves to avoid issues in the proposal. The meeting hosted by the St. George Round Table demonstrates that Minister Murray is not interested in a real public dialogue. The Arts and Science Students’ Union Executive is not interested in being a part of such token attempts to engage students in the dialogue around the

The meeting hosted by the St. George Round Table demonstrates that Minister Murray is not interested in a real public dialogue. The Arts and Science Students’ Union Executive is not interested in being a part of such token attempts to engage students in the dialogue around the future of education in Ontario. future of education in Ontario. From what we have seen, the minister is more interested in a one-sided dialogue critiquing the budgets of universities while not answering the questions regarding the vision of post-secondary education expressed in the discussion paper. For example, when asked about the defunding of the workstudy program at this meeting, Minister Murray gave no direct answer as to why the province could justify defunding such a vital program that gives money and employment directly to students. The province does not directly control the budget of universities but it can control maintaining programs like this. Given the minister’s negative view of university budgeting it seems he would know that cuts to the work-study program would ensue from the defunding of the program by the province. The defunding of the work-study program has come at the cost of student organizations on this campus and the minister has decided to conveniently shift the blame onto the university.

The Arts and Science Students’ Union is committed to engaging in productive dialogue with administrators. In recent years we have maintained a strong working relationship with our faculty’s administration. We sustain an open line of communication with the faculty to ensure that consultation occurs regarding structural or policy changes that will affect students. The conversations had between the Arts and Science Students’ Union executive and the administrators are not always pleasant, but the level of mutual respect is kept high. A similar approach in dealing with the proposals from Minister Murray needs to be taken. Arranging a closed-door meeting with Minister Murray in lieu of him attending a public meeting on our campus is adding to the distraction from the explanation the minister owes students for the province’s proposal for major changes in post-secondary education. The ASSU is looking forward to working with other campus groups dedicated to holding those responsible for the direction of our education accountable through open dialogue.

VARSITY FEATURES

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

Stepping into the world As winter approaches, graduation is starting to seem very real for students completing their final year. But is pessimism over the job market justified? The experience of recent graduates shows that opportunities are out there for those that look by Damanjit Lamba

he endless theories about the dire state of Millennials entering the job market are unavoidable. Columnists gleefully exclaim that we’re a lost generation, that we’re lazy and entitled. More gently, but not particularly hopefully, others state we were just dealt an unlucky hand and happen to be graduating at the “wrong time.” The fact is that Canada is currently experiencing an unemployment rate of some 14.7 per cent for youth age 15 to 24, close to double the 7.4 per cent figure for the nation as a whole according to Statistics Canada. The number could actually be a lot larger, as Canada’s unemployment statistics only account for those collecting unemployment insurance or welfare. As fourth- and fifth-year students face the looming spectre of graduation only a few months away (or the more imminent deadline of grad school applications), these statistics can become a whole lot more frightening. It is clear that our expectations need to loosen and adapt to these changing conditions, as do those of our parents, many of whom still assume that a smooth school-to-work transition is guaranteed when you have a degree in hand. The truth is, the path to “adulthood” is a lot shakier. It’s easy to judge yourself and others for not being able to land an ideal job right out of university. Panic mode often sets in during the last few months of one’s post-secondary career, and the more months that go by without school or work, the more you can start to feel like a deadbeat graduate with nothing going for you. This pressure can warp how you handle such a personal conflict. The search for worthwhile opportunities can quickly lead to confusion over whether to wait to start a profession, or work other jobs (i.e. the service industry) to make ends meet. Edil, a 2010 U of T graduate with a double-major in Political Science and Anthropology, experienced these problems while bouncing between various short term positions after graduation. Once he finished his degree, Edil found a short-term job at as a Community Organizer with Toronto ACORN, a nonprofit organization focused on tenant rights advancement. “After a few months with ACORN, I was unemployed for about five to six months. But for all the headache and grief it caused me, I became much more introspective and thoughtful about the things that mattered most.” After that, Edil took advantage of two more temporary opportunities — a research position at Canada Council for The Arts and a job as a youth worker leader with Tropicana Community Services’ Summer Jobs for Youth. Eventually, Edil received a more stable year long contract as a research coordinator with Educational Attainment West. “Those posts took up my almost two years away from school. I am currently a graduate student. Although social science degrees are notorious for their unfocused career streaming, they do allow for graduates to try a variety of fields before they plan to commit to one,” he said. “We all know of people who only had one career in mind, studied it with vigor, only to be burned once entering the field, realizing it wasn’t what they wanted. I planned to apply to graduate school immediately after I finished my undergraduate degree, but realized that all of the theory I learned would be meaningless if I wasn’t able to apply it in the real world.” Alternatively, many recent graduates choose to bypass the job hunt for more school. With ample working years still ahead of them, continuing studies can provide students with more time to think through their future career goals. Political science specialist, Anupa, went straight into a two year post-grad journalism program at Humber College when she graduated from U of T in 2006. “I enjoyed the journalism program, but it was more about me not knowing what I wanted to do and turning to more school as a solution. It was kind of a kick in the ass. I was panicked; I didn’t know what I wanted to do

illustrations by Dan Seljak

with my degree or how to break into the industry. After I graduated from the program, I got a job doing digital marketing and a writing job on the side.” Unable to find a 9–5 job in their preferred field of study, students either retreat into another degree or find a job that pays the bills but doesn’t necessarily utilize their skill set. Anupa worked in digital media during the day and devoted extra time outside the standard workweek to develop her writing portfolio. Though stressful, pressure like this can sometimes be beneficial, making time spent on writing or other fulfilling projects special, and motivating you to work harder on your goals. Anupa recently started a new job as an associate producer with CBC Music, and she plans to stick with media as her line of work down the road. Anupa loved her time at U of T but isn’t so sure she would pursue a post-grad program if she could do it all over again. “Journalism school helped me, but would I have done it again knowing what I know? Sure. But you can break into journalism without doing post-grad. It was kind of a waste of money. That’s something to consider, and it’s important for me because I’m not loaded.”

hen there are graduates who decide to look for work outside their own country. If re-claiming your parents’ furnished basement is a big no-no, spending money on a plane ride to your dream destination is an investment to seriously consider. Sahar, a 2012 U of T graduate armed with a double-major in cinema studies and political science, travelled to Jordan in September to work on her film portfolio. Sahar, who in light of her situation abroad asked that her real name not be used, met like-minded students and had great success making a short film with the use of local resources and acting talent in Amman. What was intended as a short visit until October was extended to January after Sahar found work with a film production company, assisting a team of writers with the development of TV shows and web series. Sahar also got the opportunity to act as a production assistant on sets for several small films, commercials, and educational ads for local companies. The closest Sahar ever got to this kind of hands-on experience in Toronto was her part-time position as an audio visual technician trainee at Innis Town Hall’s projection booth. Of course, moving to a new country involves learning to adapt to a new environment rather quickly. Travelling will do that, forcing you to take responsibility for yourself and face working relations and circumstances that aren’t the norm in North America. From time to time, Sahar has dealt with lessthan-positive feedback while on the job, surrounded by all of her colleagues. “Doing this job the first time around, I definitely made mistakes and people got frustrated. But you need to keep your cool and act professional in high stress situations. Put your fears to the side and be efficient instead of dwelling and getting upset, because there will be people who treat you like shit.” Sahar’s next steps include higher learning, most likely pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing. Sahar is glad she chose to study both political science and film at U of T as it gave her a lot to work off of. “Being Iranian and working in Jordan, I can work through controversial political issues in a creative capacity and reach out to a wide audience in a more diplomatic manner. When you cushion political issues with a creative outlet, your reach grows dramatically.” For others, there’s no rush to jet off towards foreign sunsets fresh off of the U of T train. With hefty loans weighing on the minds of many graduates, travelling abroad is not only

a daunting prospect, it’s also not the most practical use of their limited funds. Alumna Sonal felt the same way when she graduated from U of T in 2010 (due to the nature of her future plans, Sonal asked not be identified). She spent the summer job-hunting for pretty much anything. She got an interview with a PR firm, which went beautifully, and she worked there as an intern for three months before getting a full-time placement. She’s been working the grind as a social media analyst ever since. “When I got there, everyone was a graduate from Humber. My friends were all either unemployed, starting their master’s, or doing a shitty job they didn’t like.” Sonal’s plans for the near future involve moving to France next spring to teach English. She’s even enlisted a tutor to help spiff up her high school level French skills before the big move, a testament to the very real opportunities available to those hoping to upgrade and continue learning later in life. Graduates shouldn’t get bogged down with the idea that they’ll be locked into one career trajectory their entire lives. “I had a lot of wanderlust in university but I couldn’t afford to take a vacation. I knew the only way I could do that was by becoming financially independent,” Sonal said. “My ability to travel was dependent on me paying for it. In order for me to do that, I needed to adopt a sort of traditional route. PR isn’t something I thought I would do but it’s comfortable. It’s not my dream job but it lets me travel and leave Toronto, and being a “starving artist” working at a coffee shop wouldn’t allow me to do that. Now that I’ve been in this field for the past two years, I definitely know this isn’t what I want to do. But moving to France wouldn’t be a possibility if I didn’t pay my dues and work first.” Such a bold transition between jobs is actually quite typical of Millennials. According to a recent survey by Future Workplace, the majority of young employees expect to stay in a job for less than three years, meaning you’ll probably have amassed a wealth of experience before settling down in a profession past young adulthood. You might not land your dream job right out of school, but remember that other jobs still yield experience, adventure, and opportunities for advancement. The graduates featured above suggest that there is more than one way of doing things, and many paths that can lead to your destination.

“We all know of people who only had one career in mind, studied it with vigor, only to be burned once entering the field, realizing it wasn’t what they wanted. I planned to apply to graduate school immediately after I finished my undergraduate degree, but realized that all of the theory I learned would be meaningless if I wasn’t able to apply it in the real world.”

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5 NOVEMBER 2012 arts@thevarsity.ca

Alternative book buying The importance of Toronto’s independent bookstores

photos by Bernarda Gospic

T Y P E “An independent bookstore has to be really grounded in its community.” —Joanne Saul, Type Books

Jakob Tanner VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library houses writing as old as Babylonia. While the library may not contain stone tablets, some of its books, like the early antiquarian pamphlets known in Latin as incubala, are more than 600 years old. Books, unlike iPods and BlackBerrys, have been a medium of information for centuries. We are often told not to judge a book by its cover, but how can you not when the binding is stitched with such care, the title and author’s name written in colourful and intriguing ways? Even the pages of a book can be unique, some trimmed sharp and straight while others are ruffled and soft. The book, regardless of the text found within, is a piece of art on its own, a piece of craftsmanship that should be honoured. Yet, other than the Fisher library, there are no galleries or museums in Toronto dedicated exclusively to the book. So where does one go to see books given the respect they so deserve? The answer is independent bookstores. By “independent” I mean everything other than Indigo or Chapters. Those big retail stores, while they refer to themselves as bookshops, sell everything from Christmas ornaments to coffee mugs, and are becoming more and more like Walmart in an urban bourgeois disguise. The little guys, the independent bookshops, are under threat not

Glad Day Bookshop 598 Yonge St. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered related books

only from massive chains like Indigo, but because of the recent emergence of the e-book. The book has been threatened with extinction before and people often wonder if it is heading toward the junkyard of obsolete technologies, the home of Betamax and VHS. Thanks to the e-book, we can no longer subscribe to a 1990s fantasy like the one in You’ve Got Mail, in which a lovely independent bookshop is saved by a bookstore chain mogul played by Tom Hanks. Unfortunately, the only way to contact Mr. Kindle is via amazon.com’s shopping cart button. So with the book’s life endangered and the business dominated by Amazon and Indigo, why are independent bookstores important to the city? How do they survive? “Not easily,” says Joanne Saul, coowner of Type Books, a small bookshop at Queen and Spadina. “An independent bookstore has to be really grounded in its community.” Type, a quaint little shop that faces Trinity Bellwoods Park, offers literacy programs for neighbourhood schools, story time for kids, and launch parties for magazines and books. It also houses an art gallery in the basement. Because the surrounding area is home to many artists, writers and designers, the store has a huge collection of design, architecture and fashion books. The children's section at the back of the store — which comes complete with mushroom-shaped sofas — offers everything from the latest Captain Underpants to regular kids’ classics like Curious George.

Theatre Books 101 Spadina Ave. Plays from around the world and plays published in Canada

Inside the shop you feel the sense of community. The cashier, who also owns a local record label, walks me through their “Plotless Fiction” section and talks about works by authors like Beckett and Burroughs. Another staff member,

Must-visit indie bookstores

the editor of an independent fashion magazine, takes me around the shop and talks about the latest trends in children’s lit. She points out a shelf of books labeled “Flora and Fauna,” yet another idiosyncratic section.

While Saul acknowledges the difficulties of keeping her store afloat in an industry dominated by Chapters and Indigo, other booksellers don’t feel threatened by big-box retail or online shops. Ben McNally, owner of Ben McNally Books, is one of them.

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“I was never concerned with big box retail,” McNally says. “They can’t do what I do. If there is something that I’m specialized in, it’s customer service. That’s another place they can’t touch me. You come in here a few times, I’m going to know who you are, you’re going to know who I am. We’re going to have a relationship… That doesn’t work there in big box. You never know if you’re going to see the same person two times in a row.” McNally wasn’t lying about the level of dedication and personal attention that defines his customer service. When I entered the shop, he was ordering a cab for one of his elderly regulars. Ben McNally Books has a fireside, livingroom feel. It’s a calming oasis of leather sofas and classical music in the heart of the Bay Street financial district. During our conversation, McNally acknowledges that poor business decisions were the downfall of newly-deceased Toronto

Opposite: Type Books, 427 Spadina Rd. Top, middle left, bottom left: Nicholas Hoare Books, 45 Front St. E. Middle right, bottom center, bottom right: Ben McNally, 366 Bay St.

independents like Pages and This is Not the Rosedale Library. Yet according to McNally, the main issue is the customers themselves, who are happy to forego bookstores entirely if they can find a better bargain online. “You should never buy anything online,” he states with conviction. “It’s cheaper but it’s only cheaper until there is no other competition. Why would Amazon sell you things cheap if they’re the only people selling you that thing? Why would you buy it online? Why would you drive your local retailer out of business? You want your neighbourhood to be vibrant. You don’t want to have nothing but fast food outlets in your neighborhood. Believe me you don’t really want that.” A few blocks south of Ben McNally on Front Street is another major independent bookstore. Within shouting distance of the historic St. Lawrence Market, Nicholas Hoare is a bookshop that looks like it could be a second home to some of its wealthi-

er clientele. The store is a long stretch of smooth, golden oak floors and sliding ladders, and oil paintings that hang along the walls in fancy frames. The shop looks as though it could have been plucked out of an old-school library. According to Nicholas Hoare, the owner of this eponymous bookshop, the key to a successful independent bookstore is having a focused and well-rooted clientele. “Our milieu is not the young,” he says. “It is middle-aged to the elderly. Our crowd is not the teenybopper. It’s not even people in their twenties. We start to see people when their mortgages are paid off, children are going to school, and the expenses are lightening up. The older they get the more we see them. Our milieu, is what we call the blue rinse crowd, which is, very wellheeled, very knowledgeable, extremely seasoned readers who come in knowing exactly what they want… Our market is a little different from the ordinary bookstore.

“The difference is what makes us.” Hoare emphasizes that his store does not offer discounts, Robert Ludlum or ebooks. It demands a high-earning community of costumers. Nevertheless, even poor, scrappy students like myself would probably be unable to stop themselves from browsing the beautiful shop and pretending to be posh. Type Books, Ben McNally and Nicholas Hoare all have a strong focus on literary fiction, but there are other independents in the city that are far more specialized and still manage to survive. Among them are the comic art shop The Beguiling; the cookbook shops Good Egg and The Cookbook Store; the Bakka-Phoenix sci-fi specialty shop; and Mable’s Fables, the ultimate kid’s bookstore. So to return to those initial questions, why are independent bookshops important and how do they survive?

CONTINUED PG 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

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Behind the scenes at Second City Ashley Comeau and Jason DeRosse open up about working at the iconic comedy enterprise Ashley Comeau and Jason DeRosse of Second City Toronto. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

Brigit Katz ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Toronto’s Second City Theatre is located on a quiet side street near King and Spadina. It’s housed in a rectangular building with a grey stucco façade and a muted red marquee. The theatre’s narrow lobby, flanked by the box office and the bar, is slightly cramped and the hallway leading into the theatre is small. The décor of the theatre itself is understated: black tables and chairs arranged, cabaret style, along the upper and lower levels of the room and a simple stage set into the back wall. In this rather unassuming space, only the photos lining the hallways — photos of Canadian comic greats like Catherine O’Hara, Colin Mochrie, Mike Myers and Eugene Levy — proclaim the theatre’s place in the history of one of the most iconic comedy enterprises of all time. On a Wednesday afternoon in October, I walk past these photos on my way to meet Ashley Comeau and Jason DeRosse, two of the six performers in Second City Toronto’s latest revue, We’ve Definitely (Probably) Got This. In a few short hours, the actors will be onstage and — if the performance of We’ve

Definitely (Probably) Got This that I saw is any indication — the theatre will resound with the raucous laughter of the audience. At the moment, however, the theatre space is empty and quiet. Comeau and DeRosse take a seat across from me at a table near the stage that becomes their workspace each night. “I feel like we’re in couples’ therapy,” Comeau says, pointing to my notepad as she sits down next to DeRosse. “I would accept that everything is my fault,” her co-star replies. When I meet up with the actors We’ve Definitely (Probably) Got This, a scripted sketch show that also features a smattering of improv, is already several weeks into its five-month run. Only a few months ago, however, the show consisted of little more than nascent ideas swirling around in the heads of its cast, ideas that would be fleshed out during several intensive months of improv, previews, and script-writing. “We write through improvisation here at Second City Toronto,” Comeau explains. “So you tell [the performers] what you want the premise of your scene to be and what role you want them to play, or some-

“We’re always going to do our best. Whether my best is the same as Gilda Radner’s best or not, who knows? But if I’m thinking about trying to be somebody else, it’s really going to interfere with why I was hired, which is to be my voice.” —Ashley Comeau, Second City Toronto times you design [scenes] together… Then you improvise it and you’re just constantly working to get it better.” Because the writing process at Second City is rooted in improvisation, the scripts of the company’s shows essentially come to life on stage. During the 30-minute improv sets that follow each scripted revue, the cast tests ideas for upcoming shows on the audience. Successful material becomes the basis for a new script, which, during previews before the show, is once again put to the test in front of a live audience. This method of script writing is, according to DeRosse, a thoroughly rigorous undertaking.

“Four months of the year, during the writing process … you have no life,” he says. “It’s very daunting. You have to take yourself out of everything else.” But for the lucky few who manage to get hired, working at Second City is worth the sacrifice. Because so many successful comedians are alumni of Second City, the company has garnered a reputation as a starting point in the comedy world, a stepping-stone for bigger gigs like Saturday Night Live. According to DeRosse, however, landing a job at Second City is a significant achievement in its own right, especially in Canada.

CONTINUED PG 

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WORD ON THE BEAT Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! Godspeed You! Black Emperor Godspeed You! Black Emperor, one of the most genre-defining Canadian indie bands, launched a derivative “third wave” of post-rock in the early 2000s. Their latest four-track, 55-minute album Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! follows a decade-long hiatus and was highly anticipated by the indie community before its short-notice release. While there are moments of creativity and melodic sensibility on this album, it ultimately leaves the listener unsatisfied. Twenty minutes of plodding stubbornly in one key gives the opening track, “Mladic,” a feeling of stagnation, despite its heavy riffs and fast tempo. “We Drift Like Worried Fire” begins intriguingly, but the rest of the song falls flat. One is much better served by listening to the far superior mid90s post-rock by Mogwai or Tortoise than the pretentious drivel on Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! While every track on the album is well-executed, its composition is disappointing. Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! is a collection that borders on selfparody, a crescendo-climbing mess.

good kid, m.A.A.d. city Kendrick Lamar

—James Hayes

A portrait of his upbringing in Compton, California, Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city delivers consistently introspective tracks — like “Sherane” and “The Art of Peer Pressure” — with an assured flow that belies the artist’s 25 years. Throwaway club anthems, including “Poetic Justice” and “Compton,” can probably be chalked up to the album’s highprofile producers, who no doubt sought to meet executive producer Dr. Dre’s sales goals. At any rate, it’s clear that good kid, m.A.A.d. city is Lamar’s attempt to straddle the line between celebrating his present good fortune and examining the years he spent as a gangsta rapping young adult hooked on PCP. Listeners are left wondering whether the album glorifies thug life or deconstructs it with a consciousness that is largely lacking in mainstream hip-hop. Be sure to listen to “Backstreet Freestyle” and “m.A.A.d. city” to hear Lamar at his rawest and most unhinged.

Written by william shakespeare Directed by Jeremy hutton

Nov 7 – 24, 2012

—Trevor Abes

Box office: w w w. u o f t t i x . c a / 416.978.8849

adults $25 / students & seniors $15 $10 student tickets every wednesday! seasoN spoNsors:

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"BOOKS" CONTINUED FROM PG  Hoare provides a succinct answer: “If customers look at independent bookstores as a fount of wisdom and not a fount of evil, they’ll go down there and [be] ready to pay for the books that they appreciate. The key here is curating.” Hoare himself claims to buy all his books based on merit, purchasing only works that get rave reviews. Regardless of their individual marketing ventures, it is independent bookstores as a group that are putting well-made and well-written books on display. In front of windows and on smooth wooden tables, bookshop owners are providing their customers with a gallery; a gallery not of paintings or fossils, but of books, which have been carefully curated and honoured as they should be.

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An epic tale of India Deepa Mehta discusses magical realism, Salman Rushdie, and Midnight’s Children Damanjit Lamba VARSITY STAFF

Midnight’s Children is Deepa Mehta’s love letter to India. Encompassing an impressive time-span in the nation’s history, the twoand-a-half hour film explores landmarks in India’s political past — including the country’s acquisition of independence, the partition of the subcontinent and the political crisis know as the Emergency — through the eyes of the young and vulnerable protagonist Saleem Sinai. Deepa Mehta first read Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie’s iconic historical novel, in 1982 while living in Dehli, 30 years before she turned it into a film. Now a veteran Canadian filmmaker, Mehta’s enthusiasm for Rushdie’s literary masterpiece hasn’t lessened in the slightest. “I never ever thought of it as a film until about three-and-a-half years ago,” she explained during a recent interview. “So that’s a different relationship that you have. But once I said, ‘Oh my god, I could turn this into a movie,’ my relationship to the book changed completely. And what I loved about the book is that it remains true, it’s timeless. It’s about the search for family, the search for identity, the search for a home. “And whether it’s about a young man coming of age, or a young country coming of age, the journey is similar.” Midnight’s Children is the result of a collaboration between Mehta and Rushdie. The infamous author didn’t simply sign away the rights to his Booker Prize-winning novel; Rushdie spent two years picking it apart, carving a screenplay out of a 500 page epic many critics deemed un-filmable. “When we decided to do it, I insisted that Salman write the screenplay,” Mehta said. “He’s a good screenplay writer. He did an adaptation for a television series which I’d read and thought was really good. “The other thing is he loves movies. He’s a total cinema nut, and therefore he’s very cinematic. He can think in terms of showing as opposed to telling. There are many things you have to let go of when you translate or

adapt a book into a film … [and] he understands that. There’s a healthy disrespect for his own words, and only he can have that. Once he understood there was a reason to my madness, it wasn’t just to punish him, it became very easy…. He is very generous, he is not an egoist. He understands that there is only one director.” The magical-realism at the core of Rushdie’s work is more firmly rooted in reality than the novels of the literary giant Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who originally popularized the style. Rushdie’s magic is embedded in his young protagonists, who are born in the first hour after India’s Independence on August 15, 1947. They use special powers to stay connected throughout India’s bloody and unstable history. Mehta’s direction took into account Rushdie’s delicate balancing of believable characters and key elements from the magicalrealism genre. “I knew I didn’t want it to be like Harry Potter or X-Men,” Mehta noted. “It’s not about super powers and X-rays, it’s about potential. Magic is about potential and the imagination. I wanted the glow to come from within. The kids had to feel real, but with the glow of hope.” Midnight’s Children is easily the most ambitious endeavour in Mehta’s 26-year filmmaking career. Shot in Sri Lanka under the hilariously cheesy fake title Winds of Change, Mehta and crew ran into all sorts of challenges, but always embraced the new experiences with optimism and open arms. “There was something really sad about building the ghetto,” Mehta said. “We really built a slum with our amazing production designer. And then you inhabit it with people. It’s the place where Parvati and Saleem have their wedding night, and the wedding party… It becomes so personal, almost real, because it was inhabited by people and characters…. And then it’s bulldozed and you really realize that this actually happened in real life to many slums when the Emergency happened in India. They were just bulldozed. “These are all new things for me. I would stop making films if I didn’t learn something new. It would be really boring.”

"SECOND CITY" CONTINUED FROM PG 

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“This was my dream that I chased for a long time,” he says. “This isn’t a stepping-stone, it’s a huge step for me. [Second City] is a training ground, which is great cause we get to be on stage every night, performing comedy and getting paid for it, which I don’t think you get anywhere else in Canada… But as a stepping-stone just to catapult you onto SNL, Toronto isn’t going to do that for sure. It’s going to be hard work.” Comeau and DeRosse have reason to be especially proud of being a part of the Second City cast this season. We’ve Definitely (Probably) Got This is Second City Toronto’s 70th revue. It’s a big milestone for the theatre, which has come a long way since it was founded in 1973, the Canadian offshoot of what was then a budding sketch company in Chicago. Thanks to the success of its main stage, the theatre now runs a training centre in Toronto and sends travelling casts across Canada. Second City Toronto is marking the occasion of its 70th revue with a show that points to its rich history. To a greater extent than other recent shows, We’ve Definitely (Probably) Got This follows in the Second City tradition of pushing the envelope with sharp — and occasionally dark — satire. The theatre’s latest revue skewers everything from Stephen Harper and the Toronto Sun to Weight Watchers and precocious toddlers. The sketches sometimes veer into risky territory, but Comeau claims that relevant, honest sketches are at the heart of Second City’s brand of comedy. “People are chewing each other’s faces off in Florida,” she says. “This is a dark time. Second City has al-

CATHERINE MONSOURI/THE VARSITY

ways been a theatre that … tries to hold up a mirror to people. Not that everybody in the audience is a cannibal, but on the flip side, we all have our dirty little secrets… It’s fun to be able to talk about it openly and to get people to laugh about it.” As members of Second City Toronto’s latest mainstage cast, Comeau and DeRosse have inherited more than a daring mandate to illuminate social and political absurdities through comedy. The actors are also following in the footsteps of an impressive roster of Canadian comics who got their start at Second City and went on to achieve great success in the entertainment industry. The prospect of living up to the legacy of these performers, whose presence at Second City is enshrined in those photos along the theatre’s halls, might seem like a daunting one. But Comeau asserts that the current cast does not feel overburdened by the theatre’s iconic history. “We’re always going to do our best,” Comeau says. “Whether my best is the same as Gilda Radner’s best or not, who knows? But if I’m thinking about trying to be somebody else, it’s really going to interfere with why I was hired, which is to be my voice.” One day, after they have made their mark on Second City Toronto, Comeau and DeRosse will graduate from the company; as the actors explain, cast members tend to spend only a few years at the company because the work schedule is so demanding. When that day comes, photos of Comeau and DeRosse will appear on the theatre’s walls, alongside those of previous alumni. Until then, the actors are determined to make the most of their time at Second City. “I just appreciate that I’m here because it’s such a rich history,” DeRosse says. “It’s our job to go out there and kill it.”

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Bacteria could be key to green energy production

5 NOVEMBER 2012

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Innovation in 20 minutes or less Big ideas and inspirational speakers come together at TEDx Toronto Katrina Vogan VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Short, informative, and sharable, the TED talk is a fascination of the Internet age. TED (technology, entertainment, design) talks are speeches under 20 minutes in length that tackle “ideas worth spreading.” Filmed and made easily available online, the speeches are seen by millions of viewers. With the rising popularity of the talks, organizations worldwide are attempting to replicate the success of TED conferences locally. These TEDX conferences are affiliated with the larger TED organization, but are independently organized. The fourth annual TEDX Toronto conference was held last Friday, October 26, and packed more than 1,000 audience members into the Sony Center for the Performing Arts, with 30,000 more watching on an online stream. There was a strong energy inside the theatre and the atmosphere was dynamic: attendees were excited and ready to be inspired.

The lineup of speakers included disparate personalities such as urbanist Shawn Micallef, chef Susur Lee, and ex-Barenaked Lady Steven Page. Blocks of semi-related speakers were broken up by three conversation breaks. The theme for the conference was “Alchemy,” inspired by the idea of making extraordinary things from ordinary elements. Lee described in mouth-watering detail his fusion of different cultural tastes into new dishes; Dr. Joseph Cafazzo passionately expressed his belief that non-scientists were desperately needed to revitalize and reshape the medical industry. Other speakers only flirted with the theme: Slutwalk founders Heather Jarvis and Sonya Barnett used the metaphor of harmful language as a disease to inform their speech, but did not push the idea much further. If the success of a speech is measured by audience engagement, University of Toronto professor Ronald J. Diebert, director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab of U of T, was an early hit at the conference. His talk on Internet security and hacktivism was a fascinating

discussion of the new digital landscape. “Cyberspace is changing,” he noted, “but not necessarily for the good.” This was a comment that may have resonated with the next speaker, Ryan Creighton, president and founder of Untold Entertainment Inc. His daughter, six year old Cassandra, joined him on stage. In 2011, the Creighton father-daughter team created the viral sensation “Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure.” The Creightons spoke about the state of childhood technological education. Creighton noted that when his daughter entered kindergarten, he was excited to see how education had changed in the 15 years that had passed since he had taught the same material. “It hadn’t,” he confessed, and the stasis alarmed him. After all, he argued, “as Douglas Rushkoff puts it, ‘program, or be programmed.’” Another crowd pleaser was Marcelo da Luz, who brought with him the XOF1, an electric car he built through volunteer labour and design. Da Luz crossed the longest ice road in the world in the XOF1. In his journey to the Arctic, he drove 36,200 kilometers

using only solar power. Another sustainability spokesperson, John Dwyer, chairman & CEO of Flax Energy who married concepts of environmentalism and economics in his pitch for flaxseed oil as a replacement for crude oil. Dwyer won the crowd over with his passion and his self-described “awesome Scarborough t-shirt.” Not all the talks at the conference were as successful. Isha Datar, a Canadian scientist who studies the possibility of growing meat in-vitro, spoke about her research and ways to integrate lab-grown meat into the food system of the masses. If consumers can be persuaded to eat a laboratory-grown steak, this bioengineered food is a solution to food shortages as well as the ethical and environmental problems posed by mass farming. Though Datar’s talk was informative, there was some confusion among the audience: where exactly is science in creating this in vitro meat? Is it a goal achieved, or a goal for the future? The problem is inherent TED’s format: embracing brevity can lead to a concise argument free of frills, but 20 minutes is not always enough time for an idea worth spreading.

Ideas to watch

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Char siu marinated duck is one of the signature dishes at LEE Restaurant.

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Art from Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure, a game designed largely by a six year old.

The XOF1, an electric car that traveled 36,200 km to the Arctic entirely on solar power.

Coverage of Slut Walk, a worldwide event that began in Toronto in 2011.

The talks referenced in this article and others from the conference will be available at www.tedxtoronto.com/talks/ in the coming weeks.

VARSITY SCIENCE

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

Stanford professor promotes switch to renewable energy Dr. Mark Jacobson’s ideas suggest eliminating fossil fuel dependency may be practical in the long term Joel Krupa VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Apologists for radical change are rarely greeted with open arms. Too often, environmentally-inclined advocates for drastic departures from the status quo are dismissed as hippies. Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, who gave a series of sociotechnical lectures to both the public and U of T graduates and faculty groups last month, is far easier to embrace, though he maintains an admittedly monumental vision. Jacobson is a straight-laced, intellectually-versatile, well-groomed idealist with a game-changing plan: a complete re-tooling of our modern energy system to be 100 per cent powered by WWS (wind, water, solar) renewable energy. Out are the old mainstays — nuclear, coal, natural gas — along with some ostensibly-helpful new technologies that will actually wreak havoc if deployed on a massive scale — biomass, biofuels, and biodiesel. This is hardly a new dream. Indeed, whenever formal or informal conversations move into conjectures on the future of the 21st century, renewable energy invariably makes an appearance. And with good reason — fossil fuels have wrought extensive environmental damage, negatively impacted human health,

and wiped trillions of dollars worth of “natural capital” — lakes, air, and rainforests — off the map. Even the most ardent of the fossil fuel titans have realized that current global energy supply mix is untenable, and tentative steps in the renewable energy direction are being made. But how might this new world, powered by renewables and devoid of fossil fuels, look? Enter Jacobson. In a number of academic papers in notable journals like Energy Policy, he outlines a set of sources for weaning our interconnected economy from conventional fuels. This is not some pie-in-the-sky philosophizing; Jacobson is part of a vanguard team of Silicon Valley billionaires, Hollywood actors, and blue-chip academics that want to address each of the concerns of the fossil fuel lobby and its many supporters. In his talks, Jacobson addressed many of the oil and gas industry’s key talking points head on. Can our grids handle intermittent power supply? Yes, according to Jacobson, and even moderate investments will reap big returns in the long-term. Is this plan going to raise consumer electricity rates? Yes, he acknowledges, but no more so than they would be raised through the inevitable new fossil fuel builds that will be required to replace our aging energy infrastructure. Will there be other tangential benefits? Of course, he

argues, estimating that the health care savings in New York State alone could be in the range of over $30 billion per year. Jacobson acknowledges that his analysis contains some big assumptions. Lack of political interference from citizen groups wary of the effects of wind farm development? Check. Huge increases in the availability of currently economically unfeasible elements like lithium from a variety of different locales? Yes. Little to no geopolitical instability in volatile countries like South Africa and China? Yes. It seems like an awful lot will have to be wellcoordinated and seamlessly rolled out, but Jacobson is very optimistic. It is also worth considering that the sociopolitical barriers to change are enormous. Powerful vested interests make rapid transitions unlikely, and well-funded lobby groups are likely to stay well funded. Our finance system is oriented towards short-termism and quarterly profit gains, so the chances that Jacobson’s proposed changes are implemented are small. Can it be done? Only time will tell, but Jacobson’s contagious enthusiasm suggests there is hope.

SCOTT SHINGLER PHOTOGRAPHY/FLICKR

Religious Diversity Dialogue Certiﬁcate

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Friday Nov 9th 2012 10 am to 3pm Hart House At this workshop you will: • Understand the importance and experience process of creating a safe space • Reflect on personal values and what these bring to a group • Learn about a strengths-based approach to community development • Identify potential challenges you might encounter as a facilitator and develop skills to support eﬀective group communication • Learn about civic identity, inter-faith dialogue, and community service opportunities

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Science in brief Scientists discover black hole close to our galaxy

US Scientists Cooking Up Baby Batter Treatments for human reproduction may see a major upgrade in the near future. Stanford University professor Dr. Renee Reijo-Pera and colleagues aim to speed up their plan to make human sperm within the next two years and eggs within five years that will be suitable for reproduction. Reijo-Pera’s team’s efforts were recently escalated after a hallmark Japanese study successfully created healthy baby mice by making eggs out of mice stem cells. The Kyoto University study is the first to create a mammal from stem cells. Reijo-Pera plans to extend this process to humans. The eggs and sperm will be made using human embryonic stem cells taken from embryos left over from in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. With this technology, infertile couples will be able to have biological children of their own. It would be especially helpful for women who cannot get pregnant due to cancer treatments and women who want more control over their reproductive capabilities and are hindered by the female biological clock. Additionally, creating eggs and sperm out of embryonic stem cells will teach researchers more about human reproduction and reproductive-cell development. Despite the potential benefits, one ethical issue noted by Reijo-Pera is how the perceived limits of a woman’s reproductive age will be affected.

Next time you’re out on a clear night, turn towards the Sagittarius constellation and know that you’re probably looking at a black hole. NASA’s Swift Satellite has discovered a black hole, named Swift J174526, located about 20,000 to 30,000 light-years away in the Milky Way galaxy’s inner region using the detection of an X-ray nova outburst. SwiftJ1745-26 was found because a pool of gas from a normal sun-like star was surging into the black hole after having accumulated into a disk around the spot for decades. This makes Swift J1745-26 different from other systems since gas does not collect around the disk for a long period of time, and instead steadily spirals inward. The result of this event was a shortlived, bright X-ray nova. An X-ray nova is a shortlived X-ray known to spontaneously appear, take a few days to reach its emission peak, and then fade out, usually over a period of months. According to the scientists working with the Swift Satellite, the bright X-ray nova emission produced by Swift J1745-26 was a rare sight and indicative of a black hole. The X-ray outburst was analyzed using the thermal-viscous limit cycle, which helps astronomers understand transient outbursts such as the one around Swift J1745-26. — Bianca Lemus-Lavarreda Source: Science Daily

— Bianca Lemus-Lavarreda Sources: BBC, The Guardian

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8/7/12 9:47 AM

VARSITY SCIENCE

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 

Got entrepreneurial spirit? The Institute of Optical Sciences merges science and business Roxanne Leung ASSOCIATE SCIENCE EDITOR

thevarsity.ca

Graduates in the physical sciences may believe that only a binary set of opportunities exists upon the completion of their degree: research followed by an academic career, or a job in the industry for a biotech or pharmaceutical company. However, another option that is growing in popularity is entrepreneurship. A number of universities have initiated programs to help cultivate entrepreneurial skills in their science-studying populations. The Institute of Optical Sciences (IOS) at U of T is an independent research institute that provides resources for the commercialization of science research. Its mandate is to “[help] accelerate the transfer of academic knowledge to tangible products and societal benefits,” through three pillars: education, discovery, and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial training at IOS can be traced back to 2004, when Dr. Cynthia Goh of the chemistry department began a seminar series for U of T graduate students in chemistry, physics, electrical and computer engineering. Eventually, the series grew beyond capacity and was transferred to MaRS, a science, technology, and social commercialization center. In 2010, IOS hosted its first annual techno-entrepreneurial training program, a one-month intensive program designed to provide students with the foundation to pursue their enterprising goals. “Our mission is … primarily about research excellence. But we have a passion to do the right thing — help our students have the job they want and translate our research,” says Goh, the current director of IOS. “The idea of entrepreneurship within chemistry and physics is not as prevalent as it is in computer science,” says Scott McAuley about the training program at IOS, which is relatively new in comparison to other well-established science and business programs at Simon Frasier University, Acadia University, and The University of Waterloo. McAuley graduated from U of T in 2010 with an MSc in Chemistry, and decided to join IOS the following summer. Along with a friend, he started a company

called Lunanos, with prototypes for infectious control products in the works. More than 30 startup companies have come out of the IOS with applications in fields such as health care, agriculture, optics, and nanomaterials, indicating the growing interest in creating jobs that merge research with business. In keeping with its core principles, IOS offers a collaborative master’s program and interdisciplinary courses and wet and dry-lab space for students. It also provides assistance with the more detailed aspects of startup companies such as finding appropriate academic grants and connecting entrepreneurs with legal advisors. This past August, the institute expanded its academic and professional collaborations internationally by sending a team of IOS faculty and companies on a month-long trip to India. With the help of Going Global Innovation, a federal contribution program from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, IOS was able to visit five major cities and meet with industry, university, and research institutes in India. The team engaged in one-on-one meetings with faculty members, industry leaders, and health-care professionals to share ideas and receive feedback. “Whatever innovations come out of these talks will not only boost Canada’s research and economic competitiveness, but also generate relevant applications for a growing economy,” says Goh. The opportunity to connect with a different academic and professional culture provided learning and networking opportunities for IOS faculty and companies alike. “We did learn a lot about how the system [in India] works … recognizing that we need to tailor what we do to the country you’re in, especially in an area like health care,” reflects McAuley. With the availability of resources to begin and develop a product, what is the next step for a start-up company like Lunanos? Says McAuley, “I’ve learned that if you put a [timeline] on anything it will end up taking two or three times longer than that … [but] we’ve done a lot of talk and a lot of background work, and I’d like to get something that we can actually show people.”

12/13 SEASON

Carmina Burana NOV 14, 2012 7:30 PM Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning

273 BLOOR STREET WEST

Noel Edison conductor Matthew Otto associate conductor Toronto Mendelssohn Choir TorQ Percussion Quartet Dove: The Passing of the Year Whitacre: Cloudburst Orff: Carmina Burana

Canada’s grand symphonic choir—the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir—teams up with Toronto’s dynamic TorQ Percussion Quartet for a performance of Carl Orff’s dramatic Carmina Burana at Koerner Hall.

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24 MONDAY, NOVEMBER , 