January 23, 2017

Vol. CXXXVII, No. 15 January 23, 2017 thevarsity.ca —— The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

U of T forecasts: Higher revenue $2.91 B Fiscal year 2016

$1.39 B

$3.13 B

Projected for the fiscal year 2017

Higher expenses $2.96 B

Projected for the fiscal year 2017

$2.70 B Fiscal year 2016

The largest source of income for the university is student fees, which are projected to account for 59.8 per cent of revenue in the fiscal year 2017

$1.36 B

-$309.3 M

Salaries are the largest expense for the university, projected to account for 45.9 per cent of expenses in the fiscal year 2017

in net transfers

+$89.0 M

in pension and benefit measurement

-$52.0 M

for the deficit at the beginning of the year

$52.0 M Fiscal year 2016

$93.9 M Projected for the fiscal year 2017

Debt: $1.02 billion

2 • THE VARSITY • NEWS

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Deferred maintenance at U of T on the rise

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Report says that despite $552 million increase, overall building condition remains stable

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Sheridan Cunningham Varsity Contributor

The university’s annual report on deferred maintenance has been released, revealing that the total cost of repairs required by University of Toronto’s buildings is $552 million — up $34 million from last year.

The report, which will be presented to the university’s Business Board on Monday, concludes that, despite the rise, overall building condition has remained fairly stable over the past five years and will hopefully soon begin to improve. It adds that “[the financial] liability, however, will be with us for a very long time into the future.”

BY THE NUMBERS Home to many aging buildings, UTSG is responsible for the majority of the total cost, to the tune of $474 million.

It also has the worst overall ranking on the Faculty Condition Index (FCI). FCI scores are calculated by dividing the cost of deferred maintenance by the cost of replacing the building. The higher the percentage, the worse for the building or portfolio of buildings; anything over 10 per cent is considered “poor condition.”

Buildings at UTSG possess an FCI rating of 15 per cent, which is up from last year’s 14.4 per cent. Out of the campus’ 109 buildings, 73 are classified as in poor condition.

The university as a whole has an FCI rating of 14 per cent, which is up from 13.4 per cent last year. In 2015, the average score for Ontario universities was 11 per cent.

Though UTM and UTSC are doing comparatively well, with FCI scores of 7.9 per cent and 11.9 per cent, respectively, they are facing their own struggles. UTM’s total deferred maintenance has risen $6.4 million from last year, lifting their FCI from last year’s 6.5 per cent. UTSC’s overall FCI ranking has fallen — last year it was 13.5 per cent — but the total cost of needed repairs has risen by $2.3 million.

MAX XI/THE VARSITY

NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

Above: The Engineering Annex at 11 King’s College Road had one of the highest amount of deferred maintenance, with an FCI score of 51.6 per cent.

Below: Home to the Faculty of Arts & Science, Sidney Smith Hall’s FCI is at 49.6 per cent.

THE DEFERRED MAINTENANCE CONTEXT The report is not all bad news. Between provincial funding and internal budgeting, enough money is now being invested into U of T’s buildings to hold the deferred maintenance to its current levels and even improve them over time.

The report credits this achievement partly to the university’s policy of solving high-priority projects first.

For instance, though the total cost of deferred maintenance at UTSG has increased over the past five years, the number of priority one deficiencies, which require the highest priority repairs, has stayed fairly stable. The report also notes that $18 million of the growth in deferred maintenance costs were due to a re-assessment of the price of replacing windows, not new problems arising.

BUILDING HIGHLIGHTS Sidney Smith Hall (UTSG) When Sidney Smith Hall was built in the 1960s, its chunky, brutalist architecture was intended to give the campus a more modern feel. Today, its has a total deferred maintenance price tag of $31,905,991, almost half — 49.6 per cent — of the cost to replace the building. Though it was projected to be audited in 2015, its most recent audit occurred during the 2010–2011 academic year.

Science Wing (UTSC) The Science Wing’s deferred maintenance cost of $26,100,501 triples any other building’s maintenance price at UTSC. It has an FCI score of 18.2 per cent and is a substantial contributor to UTSC’s overall score of 11.9 per cent.

Kaneff Centre for Management and Social Science (UTM) Though it is hardly responsible for the largest total dollar amount of deferred maintenance at UTM, the Kaneff Centre has by far the highest FCI score at 47.1 per cent.

Its last audit was in 2012–2013, which was before it underwent construction to add the rotunda in 2014.

Ramsay Wright Physical Laboratories (UTSG) The fact that Ramsay Wright carries $32,477,231 in deferred maintenance is not surprising, since the university has been renovating the sciences building since 2015.

The sum represents 30.9 per cent of the laboratories’ replacement value and is due to be re-audited in 2018.

Dentistry (UTSG) The building housing the Faculty of Dentistry requires $25,179,660 in deferred maintenance; this represents 23.1 per cent of its cost.

Lawsuit filed against Massey College, U of T after student falls from stairs

Plaintiffs allege negligence, seek over $120,000 in damages for injuries Olivia Chen Varsity Contributor

A former Massey College student and her husband are suing the college and U of T after she allegedly fell from a flight of stairs and suffered serious injuries.

In the statement of claim filed on September 23, 2016, plaintiff Judi Kobrick alleges that she suffered permanent physical, emotional, and economic damages after slipping and falling down a flight of stairs at Massey College in October 2014, when she was a student.

According to the lawsuit, Kobrick suffered “serious and permanent injuries including [but not limited to,] an acute undisplaced fracture of greater tuberosity of left humerus,” which is a shoulder trauma. Kobrick is seeking $100,000 in general damages, along with “Special Damages in an amount to be ascertained.”

The lawsuit alleges negligence, as well as a breach of the Building Code, the Occupier’s Liability Act, and the City of Toronto Municipal

Code on the part of both Massey College and U of T regarding the safety of the premises.

According to the plaintiffs, the lack of a handrail in place on the staircase, no surface in place to prevent water from accumulating, no demarcations on the landing, and “incompetent” employees who were not property instructed or supervised constitute negligence.

According to the statement of claim, Kobrick has had to undergo various treatments as a result of her injuries involving various out-ofpocket medical expenses, and her injuries affected her ability to make a living.

“The Plaintiff Judi has lost income, the ability to earn an income and will continue to lose income in the future,” reads a portion of the suit.

“Furthermore, the Plaintiff Judi has suffered a loss of competitive advantage as a Psychologist and has suffered and will continue to suffer loss of income.”

Kobrick’s husband, Ronald, is also bringing legal action under the Family Law Act. He is seeking compensation of at least $20,000 for

damages suffered as a result of Kobrick’s injuries. These damages include “loss of past support, care, service, comfort,” as well as “loss of income, expenses incurred and services provided” from caring for his wife.

Massey College is a residential college for graduate students that describes itself as “affiliated with, but independent from the University of Toronto.” The residence is located on 4 Devonshire Place and was built in 1962.

Ashley Artopoulo from Black, Sutherland LLP is serving legal counsel for both U of T and Massey College. U of T and Massey College submitted a notice of intent to defend on October 21, 2016 but have yet to file a statement of defense.

Massey College Bursar Joyee Chau and U of T Media Relations Director Althea Blackburn-Evans declined to elaborate in response to The Varsity’s requests for comment, as the case is before the courts. Manny S. Solnik, who is the plaintiffs’ legal counsel, could not be reached for comment.

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 3

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U of T Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee releases report President Meric Gertler says university is “beginning to work on issues right away” Jack O. Denton Associate News Editor

The university’s Steering Committee tasked with making actionable recommendations for the university’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its own report last week.

The report was titled Wecheehetowin, which is Cree for ‘working together,’ and on January 13, the committee delivered and entrusted the report to President Meric Gertler and Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr. In a ceremony at Hart House that included the lighting of sage and group dancing, Indigenous elders and members of the Steering Committee formally entrusted Gertler and Regehr with their recommendations.

Gertler, speaking to The Varsity, called the ceremony “one of those moments that will stick with me for a long, long time. Personally, it was very moving and very meaningful, and one of those milestones of one’s work at the university that will just be emblazoned in my memory.”

Formed early last year by Gertler, the Steering Committee was a direct response to the 2014 TRC report that outlined challenges facing Canada’s Indigenous population as a result of systemic abuse and racism, particularly the residential school system.

The TRC was an attempt at a transitional justice model of conciliation but has faced criticism in the years following its conclusion for lacking concrete reform.

The report is available online; it includes 32 recommendations.

Indigenous spaces Many of the tangible recommendations of the committee are related to physical changes on campus. The working groups informing the committee “emphasized that space was central to the Indigenous experience at the University, and that the current spaces dedicated to Indigenous experience were lacking in both number and features.”

The report stressed the importance of creating the “right environment” for Indigenous people, “if the University truly wishes to ensure the recruitment, retention, and

flourishing of Indigenous people on our campuses.”

One of the more major recommendations related to Indigenous spaces includes the creation of a dedicated Indigenous space at UTSG. Both the report and Gertler suggested that the Front Campus redesign process may be an appropriate and significant context for the establishment of this Indigenous space. “We have heard very clearly the call for a better and more visible space, and we will do everything we can to achieve that,” Gertler said.

In addition, the report called on the university to “begin planning immediately for the creation of dedicated, appropriate Indigenous spaces on the UTM and UTSC campuses.” The relationship between nature and structure on these campuses is crucial to this recommendation. Gertler says he has already reached out to the principals of both campuses regarding the implementation of this recommendation.

Further recommendations on the topic of Indigenous spaces include funding and placing more Indigenous public art across all campuses, and launching “a process to identify and name appropriate spaces on the three campuses using Indigenous languages.”

Indigenous faculty and staff Many of the working groups identified a “strong desire for increased recruitment of Indigenous faculty members — particularly fulltime, tenure-track or teaching-stream faculty members.” Their call to action on this point was a university-wide initiative to support significantly more Indigenous faculty over the next three years with the use of targeted funds.

Gertler said that “this one is really important, because so many of the other recommendations and calls to action in the report depend on our ability to work collaboratively with members of the Indigenous community. And the report makes clear that our current Indigenous community on our three campuses is stretched pretty thinly. There aren’t really enough of them to serve on all these committees and provide this important advice.”

Gertler elaborated: “We have to hire more faculty and staff of an Indigenous background.”

NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

The Steering Committee’s report was presented at this January 13 entrustment ceremony.

Some of the other recommendations surrounding how the university relates to and hires Indigenous faculty and staff are: exit interviews for Indigenous faculty and staff who leave employment with the university; a review of anti-discrimination training materials for hiring committees; and an increase in the number of Indigenous staff supporting “important programs,” especially ones that aim to revitalize and strengthen Indigenous languages.

Indigenous curriculum A long-term call to action by the committee was that “the University should work to integrate significant Indigenous curriculum content in all of its divisions by 2025.”

Changes to curriculum will happen over time, according to Gertler. He made it clear that the faculty needs time to digest and think through the report. Once they’ve done that, “we will start a university-wide conversation about how to do this,” he said. “It’s in the faculties and divisions where curriculum is developed and implemented, so it’s really important for leaders at that level to buy in and lead the process of implementing these changes in ways that work for them and their disciplines.”

In addition, the report details a short-term goal of launching an initiative “to develop and offer Indigenous learning opportunities for faculty, instructors, staff, and teaching assistants.”

What now?

Both the university’s Steering Committee and Gertler see accountability as an important aspect of the university recommendations.

The report asked Gertler and Regehr to “consider the creation of an Indigenous Advisory

Council made up primarily of members of Indigenous communities external to the University, and ensure that it is operating by the end of 2017 at the latest.”

This council would be tasked with monitoring the implementation of the calls to action made in the report and would address the issue of accountability to the recommendations.

“We haven’t yet settled on one model yet,” Gertler said, but he made it clear that the university is “looking around the country to see how other universities have been doing this, to see what we can learn from them.” Accountability is paramount to this ongoing progress and “it’s really important to ensure there is some mechanism for sustained progress,” Gertler said.

The Steering Committee also made significant calls to action in the categories of “Indigenous research ethics and community relationships,” and “Indigenous students and Indigenous co-curricular education.”

One recommendation in the former category is “the development of research training modules that recognize historical patterns of unethical research in and with Indigenous communities,” which would be made available to any scholar looking to work in an Indigenous community.

Regarding students and co-curricular education, the Steering Committee highlighted the need for “the creation of a more visible, single Indigenous web portal to provide one stop for key information for Indigenous students, expanding and diversifying the existing Aboriginal Student Services web page.”

U of T forecasts net income of $178.4 million, deficit of $93.9 million Debt surpasses $1 billion, S&P credit rating upgraded Josie Kao Varsity Contributor

U of T’s financial forecast for the current fiscal year ending April 30, 2017 reports a projected net income of $178 million and projected net assets to be approximately $4.7 billion. This projected net income has decreased by $32.2 million from 2016, while the forecasted net assets have seen an increase of $347.7 million.

These numbers were presented in Chief Financial Officer Sheila Drummond’s report, Financial Forecast to April 30, 2017 as at January 4, 2017.

The report will be presented at the Business Board meeting on January 23. It lays out the university’s projected revenue, expenses, net income, and changes in net assets from January to April 2017.

The university also projects a deficit of $93.9 million, which is an increase of $41.9 million from last year’s figure of $52 million.

This increase is largely attributed to additional internal debt which is reported to be financing capital expenditures under the university’s debt programme.

U of T is also forecasting $3.13 billion in revenue for the fiscal year, with the largest source of income being student fees at about $1.39 billion. Based on the projected figures, this means that the tuition fee revenue for this fiscal year will have risen $14.8 million.

The growth is primarily attributed to an increase in international undergraduate tuition revenues.

Expenses have been forecasted to be $2.96 billion, which implies an increase of $257.2 million from 2016. The bulk of the expenses will be going towards salaries, at about $1.36 billion; $234.3 million will be dedicated to scholarships and bursaries.

The university is assuming a projected investment return of 6.8 per cent, which is based on the actual return from May 2016

to November 2016. The endowment payout is expected to be $81.1 million for the year ending April 30 2017, while the projected endowments are expected to total about $2.2 billion. This represents an increase of $98.5 million from endowments last year.

The financial report also forecasts an increase of $101.4 million in divisional and central general reserves and $37.7 million in future divisional capital expenditures. The university acknowledges that investment returns are uncertain and that they only have interim information on divisionally-controlled revenues and expenses.

The debt report The university’s annual Debt Strategy Review will also be presented at Monday’s Business Board meeting. U of T sets its debt burden ratio at 5 per cent, meaning that debt and interest must be within 5 per cent of total expenditures.

At this ratio, the total debt policy limit has been

set at $1469.0 million. Of this, $350 million is internal debt and $1.12 billion is allocated for external components.

The university’s actual outstanding debt has surpassed $1 billion and is now at $1.02 billion; $715.8 million is external long-term debt and $304.1 million is internal debt. Of the internal debt, $150 million comes from pension funding. Of the external debt, 99.2 per cent is made up of unsecured debentures.

The university’s credit rating has gone up slightly from last year. Moody’s Investor’s Service gave the university an Aa2 rating, and Dominion Bond Service assigned a rating of AA, both unchanged from a year ago.

The grade from Standard & Poor has improved a letter grade from AA to AA+. These ratings are considered ‘investment grade.’

The report also states that last year’s debt policy limit projection for 2021 of $1.75 billion has been raised to $1.8 billion, which shows a $46.2 million increase.

4 • THE VARSITY • NEWS

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Public consultations for U of T Secondary Plan to begin Proposed UTSG Secondary Plan divides campus into distinct ‘Character Areas’

STEVEN LEE/THE VARSITY

The Toronto and East York Community Council met on January 17 and voted to begin public consultations on the plan.

Tamim Mansour Varsity Contributor

The Toronto and East York Community Council adopted a motion to begin public consultation on the University of Toronto’s proposed amendments to the City of Toronto’s Official Plan to establish a new Secondary Plan for UTSG. The Secondary Plan provides a municipal planning framework to manage developments on campus; it outlines policies on how land in the area can be used and provides municipal expectations regarding where and how future projects are carried out. These policies include height allowances, zoning, parking requirements, and other urban land use restrictions.

The new Secondary Plan aims to provide flexibility to how the university develops the planning area in response to the increasing academic and ancillary demands of students, staff, and faculty, while at the same time conserving the distinct heritage of multiple blocks around the campus.

This stands in contrast to the current Secondary Plan, which identifies 29 specific individual sites for further development.

“The current Secondary Plan, adopted in 1997, requires updating to ensure it appropriately addresses the current planning policy framework and the existing and future City context,” said Christine Burke, Director of Campus & Facilities Planning at U of T. “The proposed Secondary Plan was developed with a focus on the public realm and the pedestrian experience.”

Burke believes that the updating the Secondary Plan with additional flexibility and the move away from site-specific planning “allows both the University (and other area institutions) and the City to think both creatively and long-term.”

Scott Mabury, Vice-President University Operations, says that since the current Secondary Plan was adopted, all projects have needed to go to the City for rezoning. “The strategy was crafted... out of our experience,” he said of the failure of site-specific planning in mitigating the need to rezone.

The new Secondary Plan proposes to divide the campus into five distinct ‘Character Areas’, namely Historic Campus, HuronSussex, North Campus, South Campus, and West Campus.

“Each character area has been evaluated separately and as part of the greater whole, creating a comprehensive planning framework for the St. George campus,” Burke explained.

According to the Secondary Plan, “By looking at the Campus as a collection of areas of distinct character... [the university] can direct future growth and change in ways that both make efficient use of Campus lands and are considerate of these Character Areas.”

The new plan also proposes the designation of ‘Significant Open Spaces’ to protect historically significant open connections between buildings such as Front Campus, Philosopher’s Walk and Taddle Creek, Hart House Circle, and the Victoria University Quad.

Any new development within or adjacent to these open spaces must take into account the relationship between the project and the surrounding open space.

Views of specific landmarks and features will also be protected under the new plan.

This includes the view of Victoria College from Queen’s Park Crescent East and Wellesley Street West, the view of the Soldiers’ Tower from the north side of Hoskin Avenue in front of the Trinity College entrance, and the view of the dome of Convocation Hall from Russell Street at Huron Street.

These views “have been deliberately designed to be viewed from specific axial or oblique viewpoints” and new developments have to be designed to maintain these protected views.

The proposal also identifies a public realm network made up of the Significant Open Spaces, major streets and various branch streets and lanes that connect buildings and spaces. This network is to be maintained and enhanced with a focus on pedestrian use.

The Historic Campus Character Area covers the area east of and including Queen’s Park; Front Campus and the surrounding buildings; Hart House Circle; and Trinity College. This area is not intended to see sig-

nificant growth but the new plan allows for new underground parking, limited vehicular presence, and improved pedestrian amenities. These policies would enable the Landscape of Landmark Quality project, which would pedestrianize King’s College Circle and relocate surface parking to underground parking below Front Campus.

The Huron-Sussex Character Area covers the section of low-rise residential buildings and parkettes that form the Huron-Sussex neighbourhood. The area is expected to be stable, with policies included for laneway housing and small-scale commercial uses in the area. These provisions were recommended by the Huron-Sussex Neighbourhood Planning Study that was conducted and released in 2014.

“We developed the Huron-Sussex plan in cooperation with the university. So we’ve signed off on it,” said Julie Mathien, President of the Huron-Sussex Residents Organization. “We’ve known all along that it would be folded into the Secondary Plan.”

The North Campus Character Area is the portion of campus that faces Bloor Street and contains institutional buildings such as the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Royal Ontario Museum, and Varsity Stadium. It also includes newer academic buildings such as the Jackman Law Building and Woodsworth College.

The South Campus Character Area includes buildings on the south side of King’s College Circle and extends down to College Street.

The West Campus Character Area covers the area west of St. George Street up to Robarts Library. Whereas the Historic Campus Character Area has an open and connected public realm, the West Campus Character Area is identified as requiring a “more strategic approach” in terms of creating better open spaces.

It is expected to experience the most growth out of all the Character Areas according to the strategy of balanced intensification outlined in the new plan.

The Secondary Plan proposes the development of Huron Street into “a densely built-up but pedestrian focused street,” as well as a student hub at Sidney Smith that ties into the Willcocks Common and St. George Street.

This planned expansion in the West Campus Character Area has drawn some criticism from Sue Dexter, U of T Liaison of the Harbord Village Residents’ Association. “The solution [the university has] come up with to date is that they put in heights... for buildings in the area and then they put a kind of dotted line and say, ‘We could go up to here, but we promise we won’t go up to that height.’” Dexter told the Toronto and East York Community Council. “So it’s vague, it’s really vague.”

Given the size of the envisioned development in the West Campus Character Area, Dexter believes that the portion from Harbord Street to Russell Street should have its own Secondary Plan.

In an interview with The Varsity, Dexter cited the Huron-Sussex Neighbourhood Planning Study as an example of how this fine-grained area plan could be drawn up.

“It’s a huge development and it’s going to affect both St. George and Huron Street, and Huron all the way down. So what you need is... to plan it properly so it will fit and integrate into the green space in the heart of the campus,” she said.

Max Allen, Vice-President of Planning and Development for the Grange Community Association, does not believe another Secondary Plan is necessary. According to him, one of the problems has to do with technical issues.

The association is “in agreement with the university with respect to dividing it up into Character Areas,” Allen said.

As to what the Grange Community Association would like to see from the proposed Secondary Plan, he brought up the area on 256 McCaul Street, including the parking lot. While the university has no plans for the area, Allen would still want to see “all of the properties the university owns on the perimeter” covered under the new plan.

Character Areas of UTSG Historic Campus

North Campus

South Campus

Huron-Sussex

West Campus

SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO CULTURAL RESOURCE HERITAGE ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 2016

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 5

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Trump sworn in, met with protests U of T profs, community members weigh in on Trump inauguration, protests Jenna Moon Associate News Editor

Ten weeks after a particularly long and messy election season, Donald Trump has been sworn in as the forty-fifth President of the United States, with protests engulfing Washington, DC and other cities across the world.

At noon on Friday, Trump took the oath of office on the steps of the US Capitol and gave his inaugural address to the nation — his first official address as president.

Trump employed a number of talking points that he used during the election, but the “Make America Great Again” slogan came across with the most zeal, with Trump promising: “From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.”

With his firmly inward-looking rhetoric, the installation of Trump as president is sure to mark the beginning of a period of major change in how the influential state interacts with the world — including Canada.

Toronto joins the world in protest With an approval rating between 34–40 per cent, Trump has the lowest of any incoming president in recent memory. Saturday was Trump’s first full day as president — and it was met with substantial protest.

The Washington Post reports that at least 1,200 buses sought permits in the city for January 21, which coincided with the Women’s March on Washington. ‘Sister Marches’ organized in solidarity with the march in

Washington also took place in over 600 cities across the world, including Toronto.

Over 60,000 gathered at Queen’s Park before marching down University Avenue to the US Consulate and then proceeding to Toronto City Hall. The Varsity attended the march and spoke with numerous attendees to find out their reasons for marching.

A protestor named Diane told The Varsity “I’m marching because I’m in my fifties and I lived through the feminist movement, and I can see where we were and where we’ve come, and I want to make sure that we continue to move forward.”

Cathy, another protester, also expressed concerns over the situation, saying that she is “really, really concerned about what’s happening south of the border and the effect it could have here in Canada in empowering expressions of hatred and violence against women, and that that’s okay, because that’s the way he’s acted — and it’s not okay. And we’re going to stand up and say, ‘We will not let it happen here.’”

All ages were represented at the march.

Liam, age 11, said, “I’m marching because Donald Trump’s not a nice person… and he does bad things.”

A number of faculty members also participated in the march. York University Professor Jody Berland stated, “I’m of the generation of women that spent many years getting healthcare rights, abortion rights, equal pay rights, and dignity rights for women, and we don’t want to lose those rights.

JENNA MOON/THE VARSITY

Protestors gathered at Queen’s Park, marched to the US Consulate, and then proceeded to Toronto City Hall.

And we are confident that the new generation will pick it up and run.”

Anna Korteweg, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UTM also weighed in: “I’m marching because I’m scared about what Trump will mean for the globe, for the world, for my children, for my students, and I don’t know yet how we can stop the tide Trump signifies, but I hope together we can figure out how to get back on a better path.”

What’s next for the US and Canada?

In an email to The Varsity, Professor Robert Bothwell of the Munk School of Global Affairs wrote that he felt the relationship between Canada and the United States would be maintained “with great difficulty” under a Trump presidency.

“The US is bitterly divided, with the result that party positions become very rigid.

One party, the Democrats, is recognizable

and comprehensible as a party. The other... well, not so much. This is not just my conclusion, but Norman Ornstein’s, the Canadian at the American Enterprise Institute and a major scholar on US politics,” noted Bothwell.

When asked how Trudeau might maintain Canadian/US relations under a Trump presidency, Bothwell stated, “The USA’s a big country, and there are always some Americans we can get along with, and some we can’t.

The proportions differ, however.”

“If we are to believe what Trump’s entourage [says], we are in for some difficulties, especially over trade. I don’t think it would make much difference what Canadian party was in power: I don’t think the Trump team discriminates. Dealing with Trump the Twitterer will be [hard] enough; dealing with Republican politicians who worship Ayn Rand will be impossible,” explained Bromwell.

“Roughly $500” from Code Red ticket sales missing from VUSAC office VUSAC looking into strengthening policies to prevent future incidents Kaitlyn Simpson Associate News Editor

The Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC) is looking into stronger policies regarding event ticket sales and cash security after approximately $500 in ticket sales for VUSAC’s Code Red semi-formal event, which took place on November 24, went missing.

The details of the missing money were revealed at a VUSAC council meeting on January 20; exact amount of money missing is unclear given that there were discrepancies with recording and selling tickets for the event.

The missing money Following ticket sales from the night of the event — which were placed inside the same cash box containing the money from ticket sales prior to the date of the event — Scarlet and Gold Commissioner for VUSAC Zahavah Kay briefly sorted the money and placed the box inside a cabinet where the printer money is stored in the VUSAC office.

During the meeting, Kay said that she initially wanted to put the box inside the president’s office, but the three people who had access to that office — VUSAC Co-President Stuart Norton, VUSAC Co-President Rahul Christoffersen, and then-VUSAC Finance Chair Nicole Gumapac — were not there.

Kay then messaged Gumapac letting them know the whereabouts of the money.

Two days later, Kay and Nicole returned to the cabinet to collect the cash box and,

as Kay says, “visually” she could tell that money was missing.

Although only three VUSAC executives have access to the president’s office, over 50 people have keys to the main VUSAC office located in the atrium of the Goldring Student Centre.

At VUSAC’s January 20 council meeting, Kay said “a lot of people, beyond just the members of VUSAC, have access to that office. And I know a lot of people have keys to access the office, they might also have friends with them to study late at night – there are people in and out of the office all the time.”

In an email to The Varsity, Norton and Christoffersen said, “Any number of individuals could have gone into the money box during the days it was in the filing cabinet and taken the money.”

It is unclear who was responsible for the money going missing. Kay stressed at the meeting the importance of moving forward and preventing similar incidents, saying: “This is not at all to name names, this is not about figuring out what happened to it. There is no way for us to figure out what happened to it. There are no cameras in the office. This is more about how we can move forward to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Concerns with ticket sales VUSAC Vice-President External Steve Warner — who has also recently taken on the role of the Finance Chair — and VUSAC Finance Councillor Peter Huycke did an audit of the ticket sales to understand how many tickets were sold, how

much money was initially in the cash box, and how much money had gone missing.

Following the incident, there was $1,110 in the cash box, which would suggest that 110 tickets were sold, given that each ticket cost $10.

Warner and Huycke found out that 139 tickets were sold, according to the Google spreadsheet that ticket sales were recorded on. This would suggest that $1,390 was in the cash box, prior to the money going missing.

When cross-referencing the tickets and the spreadsheet, Warner and Huycke discovered that an additional 22 tickets were not there but were not recorded as being sold. The assumption was that these tickets were in fact sold, but not recorded — which brings the total number of tickets sold to 161 with $1,610 supposed to be in the cash box.

Given that $1,110 was found in the box a couple days after the event, Warner concludes that roughly $500 was missing.

“Obviously we’re working under a number of assumptions there just because the recordkeeping here,” he stated, during the meeting.

“So, $500 is our best guess.”

Moving forward A variety of potential improvements in securing money and selling tickets were discussed at the latest council meeting. Primary concerns were improvements to the security of money within the VUSAC office as well as tweaking the ticket selling process to ensure there are no inconsistencies.

“We need to improve our flow of the cash box so that we don’t leave substantial amount

of money in the main office when over 50 people have keys to it,” said Warner. “And we need to make sure that we’re depositing the cash box at the end of events into a locked safe place.”

Huycke suggested having a single device to record all sales instead of a spreadsheet that VUSAC council members access through their email accounts.

Huycke brought this suggestion forward at the council meeting saying, “The problem is that everyone has their own laptops and it gets really confusing when you have a spreadsheet that you only have access to on a certain email and you have to go in and out and new laptops come and go.”

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, VUSAC commented on potential solutions writing, “We are now working to create stronger policies surrounding ticket sales, including more consistent ticket sale recordkeeping, more regular deposits of money, and safer storage of cash boxes.” Norton and Christoffersen mentioned that VUSAC is also “reinforcing our existing” policies.

“We’re immensely disappointed that something like this has happened in our community, particularly as it is student money that has been taken. We would like to extend out apologies to the Victoria College community, and we will continue to work towards maintaining the trust of our members,” Norton and Christoffersen wrote.

The Varsity has reached out to Kay for comment on this story.

6 • THE VARSITY • NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

UC Lit, Dean of Students move to prevent future orientation troubles Budget deficit balanced by “compromises within events” Jack O. Denton Associate News Editor

The University College (UC) Orientation deficit of $10,000 is raising questions among University College Literary and Athletic Society (UC Lit) members as to how to prevent future instances of financial mismanagement.

The deficit in large part arose from a previously-lost invoice for $7,200 worth of breakfasts.

This deficit reduced the UC Lit’s contingency fund from 12 per cent to 2 per cent and forced the council to re-budget in order to refill the fund.

UC Orientation, which is an ancillary service of the UC Lit, initially went over-budget by $2,000; this was resolved at a December 8, 2016 council meeting by reducing the contingency fund from $12,000 to $10,000.

A $7,200 invoice found by Ramsey Andary, President of the UC Lit, in addition to another $800 in expenses, led to the contingency fund being brought down to $2,000, or 2 per cent of the UC Lit’s budget.

At the January 15, 2017 meeting of the UC Lit, council had to re-budget in order to bring the contingency fund back to 12 per cent. According to UC Lit Finance Commissioner Snow Mei, a total of $9,710 was moved to contingency, with budget cuts affecting events such as the All-Night Fung, the Spring Pub Crawl, and the Awards Banquet, among others.

Andary told The Varsity that “the deficit was resolved by making compromises within various Lit events.” The public will be able to view the specific line items that were altered after the minutes from the UC Lit’s meeting on January 15 are published.

Melinda Scott, the Dean of Students at University College, told The Varsity that she has “met with members of the Core Executive to discuss the situation and our Student Life Coor-

ANISHA ROHRA/THE VARSITY

The UC Lit cut $9,710 from events to bring its contingency fund back to 12 per cent. dinator was in attendance at Sunday’s meeting.”

Scott made it clear that her office is there to support the UC Lit, but that ultimately they are an independent body.

“We are always available to members of the Council for advice or support. However, as an independent, incorporated student society – the UCLit has responsibility for the oversight of its budget,” she said.

In addition to the issue of financial mismanagement, this year’s Orientation Co-Chairs, Abby Godden and Julia Davis, breached council policy on how they were supposed to be paid their $6,000 honoraria.

Twenty per cent of the honoraria is supposed to be withheld until after a full written report and a financial audit of UC Orientation is presented to the council. This is required under chapter six, section two, subsection E

of the UC Lit’s Council Policies for the funds to be released.

Godden and Davis signed off on their own cheques for the remainder of their honoraria, at a time when a full written report and a financial audit had not yet been presented to the council.

There had been some questions in 2016 as to whether or not a financial arrangement between the Office of the Dean of Students and UC Orientation should be ended to remove conflicts between the two bodies. Ultimately, it was not. Godden was in favour of removing the role of the office from UC Orientation.

Scott says that she does “not believe that additional funding provided by [her] office was the cause of any conflict with the Orientation Coordinators.”

Alumni figure prominently in “record year for fundraising” U of T Boundless campaign surpasses $2 billion goal Ahmed-Zaki Hager Varsity Contributor

A month after U of T announced that it reached its $2 billion fundraising target in donations last year, the university has released a report detailing fundraising for 2015–2016.

According to the University Advancement Performance Indicators report, which will be presented at the Business Board meeting on January 23, U of T raised over $233 million in philanthropic gifts and research grants for the 2015–2016 fiscal year — about $15 million less than the previous year.

The university’s Boundless campaign raised more than $1.9 billion by April 30, 2016, the end of the fiscal year. The university surpassed the $2 billion goal a few months later.

The report recognized the previous year’s results as a “record year for fundraising” and as a demonstration of community support for U of T “as it strives to find solutions to some of society’s most pressing issues.”

“In a time of uncertainty throughout much of the world, the University of Toronto is immensely fortunate to be located in a city and country that are deeply committed to the

principles of openness, tolerance and inclusion,” the report concluded.

Last year marked the fourth consecutive year that U of T received over $200 million in donations since the 2012–2013 fiscal year.

Of the 21,353 donors last year, alumni made up 78.5 per cent and contributed over $81 million, which amounted to over 41 per cent of all the donations last year.

The university received large gifts from the estates of two alumni, Joseph L. Rotman and Erwin Edward Hart, to support U of T programs and research projects. The Rotman Catalyst Fund and the Hart Trust have given $30 million and $20 million to the university, respectively.

Corporations made up only two per cent of all donors but contributed about 39 per cent of total gifts last year, about $76 million.

One of those corporations was IBM Canada, which invested $65 million in the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform, a collaboration between academia and small businesses using big data analytics, coled by U of T. The majority of the total amount gifted to U of T is attributable to principal gifts, donations of $5 million or more. Annual gifts, donations under $25,000, made up less than

Andary responded to whether or not the Co-Chairs will face repercussions but failed to address what the consequences are for breaching Council Policy: “The Orientation Co-Chairs are no longer employed by the UC Lit and the council will not be taking punitive action against previous staff members.”

He went on to say that the UC Lit appreciates the hard work the Co-Chairs did in delivering a successful orientation week overall.

Scott says that she does not “believe that the remuneration for future Orientation Coordinators should be compromised based on our experience this year.”

Moving forward, both the Office of the Dean of Students and the UC Lit are making changes to ensure that problems like the discovered deficit do not happen in the future.

“The UC Lit will be focusing on placing better measures to support the Orientation team’s financial management as well as prevent the breaking of policies for upcoming years,” Andary said.

Scott explained, “In an effort to ensure a positive working relationship moving forward, we are in the final stages of developing a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the UCLit which will establish the expectations of the UCLit, UC Orientation Coordinators, and the Office of the Dean of Students with regard to the planning and implementation of future Orientation programs.”

Andary said that the core executive, comprised of the President, Vice President, and Finance Commissioner “is working to complete the internal audit as soon as it can while also ensuring the audit is done as thoroughly as possible. We cannot provide a date as of yet.”

At press time, Godden and Davis had not responded to The Varsity’s request for comment.

Total giving by priority area Research grants $309,360,681

Infrastructure $529,463,308

Student experience $321,042,137

Programs and research $639,872,889

Faculty support $190,358,684 SOURCE: UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

eight per cent of the total gift amount, contributing about $15 million in total.

Over $80 million, about 40 per cent of the total gift amount, was raised for programs and research projects. Around $73 million, about 37 per cent of total gifts, was for infrastructure.

U of T unveiled the Boundless campaign in 2011, which aimed to primarily support programs, research, and infrastructure.

The $2 billion goal that was reached through the Boundless campaign surpassed the $1 billion the university raised in 2003, which was the most successful fundraising campaign by a Canadian university at the time.

The Boundless campaign has had 89,813 donors since its inception, 66.6 per cent of

them being alumni who have given approximately $729 million in total to their alma mater.

President Meric Gertler announced that the Boundless campaign will be extended, with a new target of $2.4 billion. Vice President of Advancement David Palmer said in the report that extending the campaign will “advance the University’s Three Priorities and fund emerging initiatives across each of our campuses.”

“We know that this vision is achievable,” Palmer writes in the report. “Working together, we will propel U of T to a new horizon of excellence and impact.”

Comment

January 23, 2017 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Collaboration

Appealing to authority Contributors scrutinize academic policies

Being educated at U of T also often means being constrained by administrative guidelines — many of which do not apply equally or fairly to all students. We asked four contributors to provide their perspectives on academic policies that leave something to be desired, as the university continues to re-evaluate its administrative strategies.

ZAHRA DANAEI/THE VARSITY

Unexcused extenuating circumstances U of T has a policy which states that if a student is ill, they can acquire a doctor’s note and potentially defer an examination or have some sort of accommodation made to make up for missing work. While this seems to be a relatively sound umbrella policy, there is an absence of complementary policies for other extenuating circumstances that prevent students from completing their coursework.

For instance, U of T does not provide guidance about what happens if students miss examinations or deadlines as a result of train delays or heavy weather conditions that would make it fundamentally dangerous for them to make it out to school. UTSG is apparently a commuter-friendly campus, but several students complain about the risks they have to take while commuting in order to get to campus on time.

Furthermore, an assignment may take longer to do for some students than others.

Students who work part-time may need to pick up more shifts or work more hours than anticipated, interfering with their ability to complete the assignment on time — and requiring an extension that would not be afforded.

There is no outlined procedure that professors are given to follow when handling these situations, which suggests that it is professors themselves who should come up with a solution. While some may decide to grant extensions, others may not. This inconsistency should be clarified by the university.

Late penalties and illness accommodation Considering the profound impact they can have on a CGPA, late penalties are probably among students’ worst fears in terms of their academic careers. Although the concept of penalties may sound reasonable from the perspective of teaching students about time management, they lose their fairness when their enforcement is inconsistent.

At U of T, the enforcement of late penalties differs from professor to professor and even from department to department. For example, while my POL300H class enforced 5 per cent deductions per day for a late assignment, my friend’s POL302Y class hardly enforced any late penalties.

This discrepancy is more concerning when considering that late penalties are often incurred for legitimate reasons. In FSL443H, I never got the chance to present my lastminute illness as the reason for my late submission, and it seemed as if my professor dismissed my reasons as mere excuses.

Students who are extremely ill may not be able to obtain doctor’s notes for a number of reasons — not the least of which being their inability to get out of bed. A professor’s refusal to accept a legitimate health concern without documentation should not interfere with a student’s academic success.

If U of T strives to foster a resolute commitment to the principles of equal opportunity, equity, and justice, incongruous late penalties are the pinnacle of irony. This concern is particularly significant for students who require extensions for medical reasons.

Participation grades Most courses in the humanities and social sciences have a participation mark as part of the grading scheme, typically ranging in value from 10 per cent to upwards of 30 per cent. Frustratingly, no standard policy exists regarding the effect of missing lectures or tutorials on the participation grade.

While some TAs and professors permit the submission of a written response for students who are ill or must otherwise miss a scheduled class, others eschew the practice altogether.

Additionally, there is no clear policy on whether a written response, if permitted, makes up the participation grade partially or entirely.

When taking HIS208Y last year, I missed several tutorials while working on a political campaign, and a TA told me that I could submit written responses to make up my participation mark. Having done so, I was surprised when my participation grade, accounting for 25 per cent of the course, was significantly lower than expected; I was then told that responses did not fully make up for missing tutorials.

When I tried to appeal this decision to the professor and later the history department, I realized that the absence of an existing procedure with respect to participation marks meant that a potentially substantial portion of a student’s mark is very difficult — if not impossible — to challenge.

It is time to stop leaving participation grades entirely up to the discretion of TAs and professors and allow students to have recourse for this unfair practice.

Exam deferrals The exam deferral process in the Faculty of Arts & Science is unfair to all students, and disproportionately increases stress on students with financial difficulties.

The faculty’s Rules & Protocol for Deferred Examinations states that students must pay $70.00 per deferred exam, up to $140 per session.

In this way, the faculty treats providing an exam deferral as a favour to students, with a hefty fee imposed to effectively punish students for delaying their evaluations.

This means that a student dealing with serious medical problems, for instance, could be forced to decide between having a fair exam and being able to pay for other expenses.

It is unclear what this unfair charge even goes towards — students with deferred exams must usually wait until the conclusion of the next offering of the course, which could take several months. After paying this fee, a student may have to continue keeping up with the course for another session on top of other coursework.

All in all, the faculty doubly punishes students who access exam deferrals: firstly with a deferral fee that disadvantages students with financial limitations, and secondly with a deferral process that disadvantages students academically.

This follows a trend of the university being unfairly punitive to students when unusual circumstances arise. The faculty should remove this fee and explore ways to make deferred exams easier on students.

Sila Naz Elgin is a third-year student at New College studying Political Science and Philosophy.

Veronica Chung is a fourth-year student at Woodsworth College studying Political Science, History, and French.

Daryna Kutsyna is a fourth-year student at Trinity College studying International Relations.

Auni Ahsan is a fourth-year student at Victoria College studying Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Psychology.

8 • THE VARSITY • COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

What the 6ix can learn from La La Land We need honest and nuanced representation of Toronto in films and television Avneet Sharma Varsity Columnist

When Scott Pilgrim asked Ramona Flowers why she moved from New York to Toronto in the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Ramona responded that Toronto is “one of the great cities.” Pilgrim’s inquiry is reflective of a general interpretation of Toronto as unexciting or uninteresting compared to cities like New York and Los Angeles — and this portrayal is a result of the underrepresentation of Toronto in film and popular media.

Surpassed only by Mexico City, New York, and Los Angeles, Toronto is the fourth most populous city in North America. However, Toronto remains severely underrepresented in both Canadian and American film and television.

This is partly attributable to a phenomenon called ‘Toronto doubling,’ in which films are produced and shot in Toronto in order to qualify for Ontario tax credits, yet the city is not referred to as Toronto in the production. Significant examples of this include the superhero movies Suicide Squad, X-Men, and Kick-Ass, which were filmed in Toronto but are set in New York, and the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which was filmed in Toronto but set in Chicago.

U of T is not free from this trope, as many parts of the university were used to film Mean Girls and

Good Will Hunting, set in Evanston, Illinois and Cambridge, Massachusetts respectively.

One of the grossest uses of this trope lies in Canadian production Orphan Black. The television series is shot entirely in Toronto — and yet remains ambiguous as to where it is actually set. The closest the series comes to revealing its setting are references to Scarborough and a mention of the intersection Queen and Broadview. The cocreator of Orphan Black, Graeme Manson, made note of the show’s ambiguous setting in The Globe and Mail, stating, “It’s meant to be Generica. It’s part of the price you pay for this kind of co-production.”

The decision to film a production in Toronto for business purposes is understandable considering the lower cost of doing so in comparison to other large North American cities. Yet, the fact that Toronto is rarely portrayed in film and media has a significant impact on the perception of Toronto and the identity of Torontonians.

Admittedly, with the success of artists such as Drake and The Weeknd, Toronto has gained increasing attention over the past few years. However, this one-sided representation of Toronto — as a home to two famous artists — is hardly accurate. It detracts from the idea that Toronto is a multidimensional city with many qualities and lifestyles, which aren’t accurately rep-

ELHAM NUMAN/THE VARSITY

resented by Drake, the Raptors, and the Entertainment District, all common associations with the city for those who do not know it well.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of the only major films in recent memory that portrays Toronto in a different light by showcasing the lives of young adults growing up in areas like Harbord Village and The Annex, as well as the indie rock scene in the city.

In contrast, watching cities like New York and Los Angeles portrayed in films and on television has given viewers a wide array of ideas regarding what life is like in New York and Los Angeles. Often — in contrast to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World where the characters often note the city’s “mediocrity”

— these notions have been romanticized in film.

Those who are from Toronto may begrudgingly point to its pitfalls as a reason for which the city is not receiving the same level of exposure as others. Yet, there are ways in which negative aspects of a city may be developed into quirks on the big screen, providing a more positive and authentic experience for viewers overall.

Take La La Land, which romanticizes Los Angeles from the perspective of younger, middleclass individuals. The film begins by taking one of the major flaws of Los Angeles, its traffic, and creates a musical number on a crowded highway overpass. La La Land uses driving as a motif, noting that it is

perhaps a less glamorous part of what defines Los Angeles as a city.

Toronto similarly has a culture of noting its transportation flaws, especially with regard to the viral meme-worthy shortcomings of the TTC. Yet, when Toronto’s poor transit system becomes one of its only defining representations, it contributes to a pervasive perception of Toronto as an unimpressive location, despite being one of the world’s major commercial centres. This is not to mention the irony that Toronto has a much better public transportation system than Los Angeles.

Toronto should more openly embrace and romanticize the flaws and characteristics that make up its identity, not just as ‘the city of Drake,’ but rather as the multidimensional city that it is.

More productions filmed in Toronto should be set accordingly, as setting a production in Toronto would not negatively impact the plot of the film or television series, but it would also capture the many dimensions that Toronto life has to offer. Toronto needs to be represented as ‘one of the great cities’ — and Toronto needs to love itself.

Avneet Sharma is a second-year student at Trinity College studying English and Book and Media Studies. His column appears every three weeks.

QUICK TIPS: Writing for Comment With respect to opinion writing, the more specific your topic is, the better. Trying to cover a broad topic like technology or mental health is an uphill battle when you only have about 800 words to do it, and you lose much of the nuance and dimensionality that would otherwise factor into a more specific and concise analysis. Filling out a Comment pitch template in advance — available upon request by email — will help you identify the angle you’re taking, narrow down your points, and ensure your piece hits home.

To contribute to the Comment section, email comment@thevarsity.ca.

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 9

var.st/comment

Critical inquiry or state propaganda?

A Robarts exhibition unduly depicts China through rose-coloured glasses Charles Chiu Varsity Contributor

A Martian who lands on our planet could be forgiven for believing that he had found heaven on earth after viewing the Happy Chinese New Year: Chinese Story Photo Exhibition on the eighth floor of Robarts Library.

Generously sponsored and supplied to the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) by the Consulate of the People’s Republic of China in Toronto, the photos provide a fantastical vision of China. One picture shows members of an ethnic minority group in traditional garments as they ride horses in a picturesque river valley. Another displays children playing in a golden field as adults harvest crops by hand.

Yet, we should approach such displays with caution — this exhibition is disappointing on a number of levels, not the least of which being the misleading message it communicates to its viewers.

Firstly, the exhibit is sorely lacking in informational guidelines. It is embarrassing that an exhibition at U of T — which houses an established School of Information and a robust Museum Studies Program — comes short of the following basic elements for each artifact on display: year, place, medium, author’s biography. One can’t help but wonder if this is an innocent oversight on the part of UTL or willful negligence in order to solicit patronage from a powerful party.

In fact, the exhibition’s title, Chinese Story Photo Exhibition, only indicates that these pictures were submitted from all over China.

As the word ‘story’ suggests, the photos collectively tell a single tale of “the great endeavors in pursuit of the Chinese dream by men and women of this nation.”

This erasure of the complexity and contra-

TESS KING/THE VARSITY

diction of everyday life is a tactic used by the Chinese government to silence voices that do not reverberate with the ‘Chinese Dream’ ideology put forward by the country’s leader Xi Jinping since 2013.

The decision to allow such an exhibition to take place in an academic library is disrespectful to members of the U of T community who take their scholarship seriously. Devoid of context, history, geography, and subjectivity, the images come across as being as flat as the white foam-core boards upon which they are mounted and certainly do not encourage deeper contemplation.

The subjects and landscapes depicted may have rich stories behind them, but it is doubtful whether they can be captured in a single, postcard-like image, especially with no other information supplied.

The exhibition asks one to indulge in the superficial ‘beauty’ of the images and dwell in the dreamland of the Chinese state’s cultural propaganda. In this light, the pictures are better suited for the lobby of a mid-range hotel where faint elevator music loops in the background — but definitely not for an academic library.

I also scratched my head to understand why this exhibit is being held at the University of Toronto Libraries in the first place. Having read Robarts Library’s exhibit policy in detail, the exhibit is hardly fitting for the mandate outlined within it. It does not “showcase the scholarly output of the University community,” nor “communicate the value of the University… as an internationally significant research institution” — and it certainly does not “foster the search for knowledge and understanding in the University and the wider community.”

The only goal stated in the Exhibit Policy that is possibly relevant is to “acknowledge gifts to the Library and encourage giving.”

With the People’s Republic of China being one of the world’s rising powers, it is perhaps beneficial for U of T to establish an amicable relationship with its government. But why is it that, as an academic community, we are so readily willing to be incorporated into its propaganda machine?

We would — and should — certainly object to analogous exhibits about the so-called ‘Canadian story’ being hosted abroad. As a counterpart of the current exhibit which depicts the joyous lives of ethnic minority groups in China, imagine a photo exhibition about First Nations peoples that depicted only the superficial, pristine aspects of looking in on Indigenous communities as an outsider, without further exploring their past and present marginalization.

The Happy Chinese New Year exhibit is therefore lacking on a number of levels, and we ought to expect better from the university.

Instead of reading the stories in the photos, it is perhaps more interesting to investigate the story of the exhibition itself in order to gain a more critical perspective on the balance between critical inquiry and state propaganda in university libraries.

Happy Chinese New Year: Chinese Story Photo Exhibition is on display until February 19 at the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library and the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library, both on the eighth floor of Robarts Library.

Charles Chiu is a master’s student in the Department of Geography and Planning. He is employed with U of T Libraries.

A real-life Black Mirror Big data comes with big concerns — one of which we should all be wary Ayesha Tak Varsity Contributor

Last year, Netflix premiered the third season of the critically-acclaimed British TV series Black Mirror, a dystopian thriller. The scenarios it presents are not far from our own reality — the show brings to light our fears surrounding technology and its ever-increasing presence in our lives.

What is particularly unsettling about Black Mirror is the way in which it captures realities that seem altogether plausible when applied to our everyday lives. From cell phones to browser cookies, our devices collect information about us at alarming rates — and their grip on our lives is not getting any looser.

All of the data gathered is appropriately referred to as ‘big data’ considering its sheer volume. Despite its ubiquity, the constant collection of data is cause for concern.

Admittedly, the ever-increasing influence of big data has given rise to consumer awareness and the translation of legal jargon found in terms and conditions into everyday language. Yet, there are still a number of reasons we should remain wary of governments and corporations putting this data to use.

The devil is in the details: there is always the potential that your data will be used against you.

The risks to privacy posed by cell phones, for instance, suggest that maybe you should read the terms and conditions before downloading any particular mobile application.

Nowadays, it is almost a necessity to relinquish information when adding an app to your phone.

On iPhones and Androids, most apps will let you know they will have access to certain features on your device, such as your GPS and camera, along with information on your device such as your name, address, and phone number. While you are fast asleep with your phone resting on the side table, several apps on your phone may be monitoring your inactivity.

Furthermore, debit and credit cards are used everyday — and whenever you make a purchase in store with your card, that data is also collected. Concerningly, in 2013, hackers tapped into a trove of 40 million credit and debit card numbers collected by Target, which were then sold in an underground market.

Yet, data can be misused even by people we don’t usually consider criminal. In fact,

corporations sell your data for money all the time. It is likely you are signed up for a loyalty program to get extra coupons and savings targeted to your purchases. But you get these savings because all your consumer purchases are meticulously collected, organized, and sometimes sold to third parties, who make money off of your spending preferences.

Even Facebook tracks your online behaviour and sells that data to advertisers who redirect certain ads to you based on your likelihood of purchase — an unsettling fact you may have encountered when seeing items that look familiar from past Google searches reflected in the sponsored content on your Newsfeed.

Under such circumstances, we may turn to the government to respond with regulatory action. Yet, it is important to remember that we are not necessarily safe from the government using data in unjust ways. Torontonian Ellen Richardson was denied entry to the US because she was once hospitalized for depression — her Canadian health records were transferred to the border and used to justify stopping her on the mistaken basis that she was ‘unstable’ and posed a potential threat.

We also cannot forget that Bill C-51 was passed to crack down on terrorism, but it

also started a discourse on the extent of government control over our data. The bill’s purpose, at least in theory, was grounded in security — but it also called for us, as citizens, to entrust the government with our cellphone and email records, something that ought not to be taken lightly.

Considering that all the data we put out into the world is open to being collected, we should remain vigilant. However, the fact is that it is the government who has the power to regulate and must do so responsibly. Governments should press corporations for more transparency on data collection and require companies to disclose where customer data might be sold or shared. Furthermore, privacy policies ought to be made easier to understand in layman’s terms rather than legal jargon.

At the same time, considering that the government is not immune to abuse, the public should also be more involved in the process.

Citizens must remain at the forefront of holding the government accountable when it fails to live up to standards of privacy.

Ayesha Tak is a fourth-year student at UTM studying Statistics and Sociology.

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Engineering is bringing traditions into the twenty-first century Andrew Kidd Varsity Contributor

Left to right: Engineers make an appearance at Pride; the Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad marches in the Santa Claus Parade; Hema Nookala and David Boroto attend Pre-Frosh as 2016 ’s Godiva’s Crown and Mr. Blue & Gold.

PHOTO BY ROBERT GOLDBERG, COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ENGINEERING SOCIETY

T Engineering is like a teenager moving away om home to attend its first year of university — hile it seems identical to its old self on the outmic changes are happening beneath the surface. e observers see the same student-driven tradiseparate set of courses in mathematics and and the independence from U of T’s college syse these inertial aspects of U of T Engineering tudents and faculty alike are working to redengineering experience, particularly for women year students.

iversity ng, as a profession and as a division of U of T, struggled with a past littered with sexism and y. Whether in the shiny workplaces of Silicon the grungy environment of a manufacturing men have long been made to feel unwanted. culty of Applied Science and Engineering and nts have worked to foster a more welcoming nd attract female students to the field of engiTheir effort has been met with some success: T class of 2018 set an Ontario record when made up 30.6 per cent of students. That record shed by the class of 2020, where more than 40 of students are female. ulty has launched outreach programs to conctly with potential female applicants, promoting neering and U of T. Ranging from overnight exlike Girls’ Leadership in Engineering Experience educational sessions like the Young Women in ng Symposium or Go CODE Girl, these programs n cited by many female students as a key factor in sion to join U of T Engineering. ear Mechanical Engineering student Julia id, “[GLEE] shows you what you can do, both ’re at school and once you’ve graduated.”

Foster, Associate Professor of Engineering eaching Stream, said the success of programs is attributable to the “community and shared periences… and the connections and network students.” same time, the broader community of engitudents has been working to bring engineering to the twenty-first century by opening up spirit that are traditionally held by men, like the Chief of Ye Olde Mighty Skule Cannon, to women. It has omed non-binary individuals into roles that were gendered, like Godiva’s Crown.

Boroto, a third-year Engineering Science Infrastudent who served as Mr. Blue & Gold 2016, ed the importance of this diversification behe sees it, people feel welcomed and included ey see others like them who are actively enthe engineering community. e these efforts, significant obstacles remain. ports having had a few negative experiences ble to her gender. While isolated, these incistill deeply concerning.

“Because in some of those cases, it’s easy to be like, ‘I’m gonna dismiss you as an emotional girl,’ because girls are sometimes known to be more emotional, so you have to be like in the know and be ready with multiple defenses,” Filiplic said.

Fortunately, students have used these incidents as opportunities to engage each other in conversation around these issues, while also spurring the faculty to take action.

Foster said that in teaching, “We’ve deliberately, in our modeling of behaviour, said this isn’t about… sociallynormed gender roles, it’s about everybody in the class getting in there... regardless of gender or ethnicity… we’re shooting for equality of opportunity to engage.”

First-year inclusion Similarly, students have driven change and improvement in the experiences of those entering the faculty in first year.

As the student body becomes more diverse, changes to F!rosh Week have included banning cheers and chants tinged with misogyny, and more subtle alterations like removing an event involving students busking for donations from the public.

Events like the Charity Buskerfest were often uncomfortable and unwelcoming for students, particularly for those from cultures that frown upon asking strangers for money.

Of course, these changes have not diluted the enthusiasm of engineering students expressed during F!rosh Week. Today’s F!rosh Week is every bit as fun and engaging as those of the past, while it still upholds a culture of openness and inclusivity to all.

Jinansh Shah, first-year student in Engineering Science, said, “It was definitely inclusive, all the Frosh leedurs were definitely hyped and encouraged the frosh to be hyped and have some skule spirit, even though we were kind of new to everything.”

Foster confirmed that sentiment, saying that students can opt out of any events that make them feel uncomfortable and find much more support in those choices than in the past.

F!rosh Week concludes with an academic orientation delivered by the departments within the faculty, introducing students not only to the content they will be seeing, but also to the support system built around them.

In the last 20 years, the faculty has ensured that every student in engineering has access to academic advisors, as well as engineering-specific experts in counselling and psychotherapy, learning skills development, and international student transitions.

Staff in the faculty’s First Year Office work to integrate these disparate elements of support into a unified system for students as they adjust to life at university.

First-year students are also guided in their acclimatization through Orientation to Engineering, a mandatory course for most engineering students. The course presents students with information on how to find success in engineering. As a pass/fail course, it also encourages students to focus on understanding and appreciating the course content, rather than fixating purely on a numerical mark.

Students report that these efforts have largely been successful: Shah describes the system as responsive to students and effective at directing students to the specific support they need.

All this serves to communicate to both first-year students and women in engineering of the community’s dedication to inclusivity. From the clear increase in women enroled alone, the results are real and tangible.

The Explainer: Engineering traditions Skule Before becoming part of the University of Toronto, the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering was known as the School of Practical Science. Playing on stereotypes about engineers’ lack of spelling ability, students christened their community ‘Skule,’ instead of ‘School.’

Ye Olde Mighty Skule Cannon The Skule Cannon, a custom-made miniaturized cannon that produces a very loud noise when fired, is the mascot of the U of T Engineering community. The cannon is protected by the Chief Attiliator, a respected member of the Skule community whose identity is kept secret. The Attiliator is helped by student Cannon Guards, who undergo training to ensure the safety of those near the cannon. The cannon is a symbol designed to unite engineering students, inspired by their success in keeping it secure against attempted theft from groups within U of T and other universities.

Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad Again playing on stereotypes about spelling, the Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad (LGMB), is a band open to all engineering students, spreading Skule spirit with noise and, occasionally, music. The LGMB is the most inclusive Skule tradition, designed as an outlet for anyone to be able to represent Skule, no matter regular involvement or musical ability.

Purple dye Engineers dye themselves purple during F!rosh Week to pay tribute to army engineers during the Second World War, whose purple armbands bled dye onto their arms as they worked to build bridges in the liberation of Holland.

Mr. Blue & Gold Mr. Blue & Gold is a leader of Skule spirit and a mascot of U of T Engineering’s spirit group, the Blue & Gold Committee. They swear an oath to drop their pants whenever asked by another member of the Skule community, in order to bring the engineering community together.

Godiva’s Crown

Another mascot of the Blue & Gold Committee, Godiva’s Crown symbolizes the engineers’ embrace of the legend of Lady Godiva, an English noblewoman who sacrificed her dignity for the common good. As a leader of Skule spirit, Godiva’s Crown swears an oath to click their heels whenever asked by another member of the Skule community.

PHOTO BY FAY HUANG, COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ENGINEERING SOCIETY PHOTO BY OLIVER LAROSE, COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ENGINEERING SOCIETY

Arts&Culture

January 23, 2017 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

A survivor speaks at U of T Sol Nayman on his journey from a Siberian labour camp to the skyscrapers of Toronto Adina Samuels & Reut Cohen Varsity Contributor and Arts & Culture Editor

n Sol Nayma

For years, Sol Nayman did not consider himself a true survivor of the Holocaust. Having never been in a concentration camp nor faced a Nazi soldier, it wasn’t until many years after his displacement during World War II that he felt comfortable with this label.

After internalizing the definition of ‘Holocaust survivor’ displayed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, Nayman realized that the burden of Holocaust education now fell on him too. He began to record his story, in the hopes of transmitting it to as many people as possible. The museum’s official definition of survivors is “any persons, Jewish or non-Jewish, who were displaced, persecuted, or discriminated against due to the racial, religious, ethnic, social, and political policies of the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945,” a category into which Nayman surely falls.

In advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, Nayman was hosted on campus by Hillel at the University of Toronto. He spoke to a roomful of students who hung on his every word, journeying with him from a small town in Poland, to the wilderness of Siberia, to the urban paradise of Toronto.

When the war began in 1939, Nayman’s life in the small Polish town of Stoczek Wegrowski was changed forever. At the young age of four, he watched with horror as the ‘Wehrmacht’ trucks and troops rolled in during Nazi Germany’s blitzkrieg invasion of Poland; he looked on as their beloved village was razed to the ground.

Along with his siblings and parents, Nayman fled to the nearby forests to escape the destruction of his town.

His family travelled to Bialystok in eastern Poland, which, under Soviet rule, had become a refuge for many Jews. Nayman explained that when Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of Jews to labour camps throughout the Soviet Union, he had inadvertently saved their lives.

The Naymans were shuttled into filthy and foul cattle cars, where a hole in the floor served as the bathroom. After a journey of several weeks and thousands of kilometres, they arrived in Syktyvkar, Russia.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SOL NAYMAN

Nayman (far right) and a group of Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz on the March of the Living.

Nayman explained his family’s motto for survival: “Make it through today, and maybe you’ll see tomorrow.” It was with this mindset that he and his family survived four years in a labour camp under extreme conditions, with rampant disease and no heating to give respite from the brutal Siberian winter.

People died daily in the camps from starvation, as well as from typhus, tuberculosis, and malaria. While enduring the hardships of wartime, Nayman attended the communist school, where he heard daily stories about the heroism and bravery of Father Stalin and the Soviet soldiers.

During a brief placement in Ukraine to assist in the rebuilding necessary after the implementation of Stalin’s ‘scorched earth’ policy, the Naymans learned of the death of President Roosevelt — whom they were told was the ‘czar of America’ — and then of the end of the war.

In a surreal twist, the family was moved into a flat that had previously been occupied by Germans who had been evicted by the Soviets. Their son had been an SS officer, and his photos were displayed as decoration throughout the home.

Finally, with the assistance of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Nayman was moved to the Wetzlar camp for displaced persons in Americanoccupied West Germany. Only there did he learn more about the atrocities of the Holocaust.

At this point in his story, Nayman stretched out his arm and told the audience that he had held soaps marked R.I.F. for ‘Reines Juden Fett’ — pure Jewish fat. Here, he and his family saw firsthand the numbers tattooed on the arms of the men, women, and children who had survived the concentration camps, and they heard their stories.

Eventually, the Neymans gained access to Canada, after struggling with its ‘none is too many’ immigration policy. They boarded their ‘Noah’s Ark,’ the USS General Samuel Davis Sturgis, and landed at Halifax’s Pier 21 in October of 1948. They took the train to Montreal, where Salomon Najman became Sol Nayman.

Though Nayman did encounter occasional anti-Semitism, he persevered and worked his way up Toronto’s corporate ladder, going on to attend Harvard Business School and become a founding partner of Club Monaco.

In 2014, 70 years after the Holocaust, Nayman returned to Poland on the March of the Living, an anPHOTO COURTESY OF NAOMI BRIEF nual program that brings thousands of high school students and accompanying survivors to Poland each year to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. He paid his respects at the ruins of Treblinka, the death camp that was built a mere 30 kilometres from his birthplace.

Nayman explained that he now considers himself not just a Holocaust survivor but a survivor of Treblinka. Unlike concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka did not have two lines for sorting arrivals into groups for life and death. Its arrivals were gassed and incinerated in a matter of six hours on average.

Nayman opened a text on his Blackberry and addressed it to Adolf Hitler, with “The final solution: status report” in the subject line. In the body, he wrote, “Seventy years later, we have our own final solution: never again.”

In his recorded story for the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Nayman concludes by addressing Queenie, his wife of 55 years, his children, and his grandchildren. “I have been blessed well beyond my wildest dreams,” he writes. He told the students gathered that he’d had a wonderful life. “No complaints whatsoever,” he says.

Speaking to The Varsity after the event, Nayman said his message to future generations is simply to remember: “It’s what we are commanded,” he said.

When asked if he is optimistic for the future of Holocaust education, he replied, “We have to be optimistic. We have to be realistic, accepting sometimes the things that befall us, but at the end of the day, if we are not optimistic, we are less than human.”

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 13

var.st/arts

Why outspoken celebrities only exacerbate political tensions Speeches from the one per cent aren’t having their intended effects Gabrielle Warren Associate Arts & Culture Editor

Through its reckoning with the wars, financial crises, and terrorism of the last few decades, the United States has transformed into an ideologically-divisive version of its previous self. The country’s two political parties appear unable to reconcile with the other’s view of America.

Reconciliation involves finding a middle ground between two extremes and forging a new reality for both sides. It involves crossing the aisle and leaving your intellectual comfort zone in search of a compromise. However, when both sides fail to see even the possibility of a greater good, their attempts to come together seem seldom.

In the TED Radio Hour episode entitled “Reconciliation,” host Guy Raz speaks about how common ground can often allow individuals to see the humanity in a person they ideologically diverge from. One example given was sports message boards.

Although people in these communities may be Democrats or Republicans, they can always come together to root for the Red Sox or the Golden State Warriors.

Another common ground in the United States has been celebrity. Regardless of who you are or what you believe, celebrity in America has always been a glamorous version of the American dream that people have strived for. Celebrities are often seen as blank slates in whom we imagine our own biases and thoughts to be reflected.

However, as celebrities increasingly make use of social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, this reflective quality has dissipated. Instead of maintaining a neutral image for all Americans to rally around, celebrities frequently and actively wade into political discourse. Rather than acting as unifying figures, this practice causes celebrities to be seen as representatives of the elite establishment by some in the current political climate.

In some ways, celebrities speaking out on certain issues exemplifies how an America where Donald Trump can become the president came into being.

While listening to Meryl Streep’s now famous Golden Globes speech in which she derided Trump, I started to realize that regardless of Streep’s intention in using her celebrity platform to discuss political ideas, she had sacrificed her true power — the ability to be a unifying figure for Americans — in the process.

Streep’s speech was spoken to a room of celebrities who represent the one per cent of society. Regardless of what she might have said, the same people who have always supported her would support her. Her ‘stand’ against Trump was performative rather than persuasive.

It would be unfair not to mention that other celebrities and ‘commentators’ have played a similar role. Streep’s speech, like other statements by celebrities since November 8, illuminate the perceived ideology of the ‘coastal elites.’ When a large percentage of the American population believes that Donald Trump is an anti-establishment disruptor, the acts of these celebrities merely prove their point.

The fact that celebrities are perceived to have influence only exacerbates their divisive potential. If one only listened to the illusory thoughts of liberal thought leaders, you would have believed that Hillary Clinton would be the forty-fifth president of the United States. However, if you listened even closer, you would have heard the rumbling of another movement.

Although all your favourite celebrities were posting about #FeeltheBern, he didn’t win the Democratic primaries. Although all your favourite celebrities posted vintage Hillary Clinton photos, she did not win the election.

Celebrities can be guilty of overestimating their own influence, which may explain why they continue to make political statements. Even if celebrities do have sway, it is likely only on a small portion of the population that may be convinced by what they

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have to say — the rest will either use their statements to bolster existing opinions or to exemplify an opposing one. This is even more of an issue in a world where algorithms play a large role in curating our online experiences.

The act of voting is often impulsive, emotional, and personal — many of the reasons behind a person’s vote are due to personal circumstances that are far removed from the privileged lives of the “elites.”

Although the Internet age allows information to travel swiftly, it also makes our memories short. On Monday, it might be pictures of Streep, and on Tuesday, photos of President Obama in his final appearances as commander-in-chief. The collective memory of the Internet is short, but real world actions will always speak volumes.

When discourse is concentrated online and through the mouthpieces of celebrities, honest debate is substituted for soundbites of anger and frustration from all sides.

The only way to come to constructive conclusions is to reconcile our feelings, and Streep’s speech only shows how difficult that will be in this political age. Celebrity could be a neutral ground where the rest of society can see its humanity, but today, celebrity has become yet another reason why people will not reach across the aisle and begin to heal.

14 • THE VARSITY • ARTS & CULTURE

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Why this year’s Oscars might diverge from past prejudice Moonlight, Fences, and Hidden Figures are likely to receive recognition from the Academy

Review

Hart House’s Carrie: the musical is a chilling take on a horror classic Tiyana Scott stands out as the psychic, psychotic title character

PHOTO COURTESY OF HART HOUSE THEATRE

Tiyana Scott shines as Carrie.

Leah Kuperman Varsity Contributor

VIVIAN TONG/THE VARSITY

Siobhan Spera Varsity Contributor

Hollywood is not an easy place to effect change. As a result of social inequality, white actors and filmmakers have long saturated the Hollywood film industry, resulting in a lack of diversity in productions.

In 2017, there may be reason to believe that greater racial diversity will figure in Hollywood. With the nomination announcement of the eighty-ninth annual Academy Awards set for Tuesday, January 24, several of the films slated to be shoo-ins feature previously unheard voices whose stories have been told.

Expected to be a frontrunner in nominations is Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. This comingof-age tale follows Chiron, an African-American boy dealing with life in the rougher parts of Miami while trying to come to terms with his sexuality.

The film is divided into three stages of Chiron’s life: “Little,” “Chiron,” and “Black,” which follow his life as a young boy (Alex Hibbert), a teenager in high school (Ashton Sanders), and an adult (Trevante Rhodes), respectively. With the help of Juan (Mahershala Ali), a father figure of sorts to Chiron, and Kevin (Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, and André Holland), his only friend while growing up, the protagonist struggles to find a way to fit into expected cultural norms in this beautiful and devastating story.

Another film with bright prospects is Fences, directed by Denzel Washington, which is a screen adaptation of the play by August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, this story follows Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington), an AfricanAmerican father who works in garbage disposal after having failed to become a professional athlete.

Living with his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and son Cory (Jovan Adepo), Troy struggles with aggression towards his past and the injustice that has followed as a result of discrimination. Troy’s obsession with his past often causes him to be unable to move forward.

Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi, is also at the centre of Oscars buzz. The film is based on the true story of three individuals who played crucial roles in NASA’s mission to send the first man to space — all of whom are Black women.

Empire’s Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine Johnson, the brilliant mind who made momentous revelations in calculating the trajectory that would succeed in sending John Glenn (Glen Powell) around the earth. The film also depicts the stories of Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who successfully fought for a promotion to become an aerospace engineer at NASA, and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), who successfully learned to program a data-processing computer before any of her male predecessors could.

All of these films share relatable stories that centre around Black protagonists; recognition of movies such as these is long overdue. Last year’s Academy Awards saw controversy around the lack of racial diversity in the nominees, resulting in the viral social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

Host Chris Rock himself addressed the controversy during the awards show itself, proclaiming, “You’re damn right Hollywood’s racist, but not the racist that you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, ‘We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.’ That’s how Hollywood is.”

However, evidence of a shift in this attitude was certainly demonstrated at this year’s Golden Globes. Even with an astounding seven wins for La La Land, Black filmmakers were also widely recognized with many nominations and one win for Moonlight, in addition to recognition of Davis’ moving performance in Fences.

Still, discrimination in the film industry is rife.

Outrage ensued on social media when Aaron TaylorJohnson won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Nocturnal Animals over Ali from Moonlight. Taylor-Johnson’s performance wasn’t even expected to receive an Oscars nomination this year, making his win particularly surprising. While performance is subjective, the extent of the public’s discontent speaks volumes. While it’s hard to know whether the Oscars will follow suit, Moonlight is expected to be a definite leader in the nomination count, which will likely spur some audience-approved wins.

Regardless of Tuesday’s nominations announcement, films such as these are bringing attention to the narratives that audiences have been deprived of for so long.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, it’s gonna be a night we’ll never forget!” chanted the cast of Carrie: the musical preceding the iconic prom scene, their voices ringing hauntingly throughout Hart House Theatre.

Based on bestselling author Stephen King’s horror novel-turnedfilm, the musical version of Carrie is the ultimate tale of bullying gone very wrong. The story surrounds a 17-year-old girl in her last year of high school, who is bullied horribly by her classmates. At home, she must deal with her religious zealot mother who tells Carrie that she is “special” to keep her isolated from her peers and the sexual culture of youth she views as perverse.

While suffering abuse from both her classmates and mother, Carrie develops somewhat poorly-explained telekinetic powers.

From the second Carrie (Tiyana Scott) appeared on stage with a dramatic revolving door entrance and bright blue lights, I knew the Hart House production would be a show to remember. Scott stood out immediately, not just because of her long, puritan pleated skirt in a sea of grey track pants; she gave an absolutely incredible performance with all of the emotion, pain, hope, and musical talent needed to inhabit this iconic role.

Brittany Miranda, who played Carrie’s mother, also did a stellar job at capturing the embittered, overbearing, religious fanatic with a few dramatic solos that left the audience captivated.

Although teenage angst definitely has a place in this story, a few of the scenes featuring finding-yourself songs were melodramatic to the point of drawing laughs from the audience.

The show also made use of interesting modern additions, such as projector screens showing screenshots from an Instagram page publicizing the cruelty that Carrie endured. This relevant take on the cyberbullying that is all too prevalent today made the show seem even more haunting and oddly relatable.

When Carrie is invited to prom by a boy she has secretly admired, she is ecstatic. She enters the stage in a white gown, looking so hopeful and excited that I felt heartbroken knowing what was to come next.

Scott captured this youthful hope and emotion so perfectly that for a second you forgot you were watching a blood-drenched, terrifying tale of abuse and violence.

The choice of costumes for the prom scene differed from the film, with the whole cast wearing neon tutus, face paint, and glow sticks. At first, the costume choice seemed gaudy, but it served the purpose of making Carrie stand out and emphasized the gory ending to the show.

Up until this point, the show could have been any other comingof-age tale with occasional instances of telekinesis. But when Carrie stands onstage, believing she is about to be crowned prom queen, only to have a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her head in front of the school, the lights in the theatre went black, leaving the horrified audience to sit in the dark, watching the gruesome shadows of Carrie murdering her classmates and hearing their bloodcurdling screams echo throughout the theatre.

Carrie: the musical will be playing at Hart House Theatre until February 4, 2017.

Science

January 23, 2017 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

Leave it to beaver Scientists sequence the beaver genome in time for Canada’s sesquicentennial

MIRKA LOISELLE/THE VARSITY

Connie Liu Associate Science Editor

Drake is not the only Canadian icon to have started from the bottom. Once driven to near-extinction by the fur trade, the Canadian beaver gained recognition as a national emblem in 1975 and is now the newest organism to have its whole genome sequenced.

Researchers from The Centre for Applied Genomics (TCAG) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) used DNA from Ward, a 10-year-old male beaver who lives at the Toronto Zoo, to carry out this project.

In time for Canada’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, this team is the first to map out the genes of a beaver.

“The Human Genome Project (HGP) generated a reference genome sequence,” said Dr. Stephen Scherer, senior author of the study and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

He compared the HGP to completing a 3-billion-piece jigsaw puzzle for the first time. Piecing together a puzzle like this for

every individual is difficult, so only the sections that vary are sequenced anew.

The current resequencing technique is analogous to taking apart and reconstructing one per cent of that puzzle while leaving the other 99 per cent intact. That one per cent is what varies among individuals in a population.

“Those pieces don’t fit well into your reference genome,” Scherer explained.

The beaver genome endeavour is part of a larger goal to develop a new technology called ‘de novo sequencing.’

“What we wanted to do is develop an approach that’s high-throughput and cost-efficient and de novo,” said Scherer. “A first draft Human Genome Project for every individual instead of just comparing the sequence to the reference — that’s de novo sequencing.

That’s the ideal sequencing.”

Scherer noted that de novo sequencing is still more expensive than resequencing. “But the quality of the data... is much more comprehensive, and now we have a framework to work around, we can try to increase efficiencies in the laboratory [and] bring prices down,” he explained.

By studying another species, in this case a beaver, scientists can more easily develop these sequencing methodologies. This project allows Scherer to “find out what those gene sequence differences are between humans and beavers… to see what contributes to the uniqueness of the beaver species. Then we can also infer what makes us unique.”

His team also wanted to demonstrate the versatility of the technique. “DNA is DNA,” said Scherer, indicating that these machines could be applied to any species’ genome.

When asked why they chose to sequence the beaver, Scherer replied, “We could think of 150 reasons to do it and we couldn’t think of any reason not to do it,” a nod to Canada’s anniversary.

Scherer and his team are working to identify genes involved in autism and apply the same technology used to sequence the beaver genome to human DNA samples from individuals with autism and other disorders.

“For about 20 per cent of the families with autism, we can explain, based on genetics, why they have autism,” said Scherer. “We’re going to take some of those samples where

we don’t have an explanation [and] use this new sequencing approach to see if we can find something we had missed before.”

Not only does this technology help to bridge the gap between genomics and precision medicine, the data collected from this study has also been stored in a public database so as to be available to scientists around the world as a reference for future comparative studies.

Nonetheless, Scherer believes the significance lies more so in the project itself rather than in the data. “For years we did not have the technology in Canada to do genome sequencing. We actually had to send it out to China or the United States,” explained Scherer. “And we’re now one of the biggest whole genome sequencing centres in the world.”

Scherer’s lab sequences approximately 10,000 human genomes a year.

“We needed to do this in Canada,” Scherer explained. “There were other groups thinking of doing it in the United States but this is the one thing we can say is truly Canadian.”

16 • THE VARSITY • SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Open science may open doors for Canadian research Scientists ponder functionality of open science approach in the wake of Tanenbaum Open Science Institute announcement Meghan McGee Varsity Contributor

‘Open science’ is a term used in the scientific community to describe a barrier-free approach to research whereby findings, data, and materials are shared expediently and openly within the academic community. The hope is that open science, if widely adopted, will accelerate discovery and innovation by making scientific findings more readily available.

McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital embraced an open science approach, claiming to be the first academic institution to make such a commitment.

Accordingly, the institution published five guiding principles for their open science commitment: share scientific data and resources; open external research partnerships; share research participants’ contributions and protect their rights; do not file patents; and respect academic autonomy.

The institute has since received over $100 million worth of donations from federal, provincial, and philanthropic sources.

Larry Tanenbaum, a Canadian businessman and chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, donated $20 million in December

2016 to establish the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute, which will fuel the discovery and application of treatments for neurological disease.

The main goal of the institute is to “accelerate brain research and discovery to relieve suffering,” Tanenbaum told CBC News.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Tanenbaum for his support of open science. “The vision around open science, recognizing the role that Canada can and should play, the leadership that Canadians can have in this initiative is truly, truly exciting,” Trudeau told CBC News.

Jason Karamchandani, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Neuropathologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, will oversee most of the new institute’s projects. He is most excited about the patient-centred aspect of open science. He argues that the patients suffering from these diseases do not care about who makes the discoveries.

“They want treatments. So anything we do that delays the development of effective therapies is contrary to the interests of the patients that we’re here to help,” said Karamchandani.

University of Toronto Professor Aled Edwards thinks other Canadian universities and hospitals should

follow suit. Not only will open science “attract industry partners and funding… [but it] will also stimulate local economies, by giving budding student entrepreneurs invaluable insight into business needs and enabling them to launch companies based on a keen knowledge of the market,” Edwards wrote in an opinion piece for The Globe and Mail.

Although data-sharing and collaboration have several undisputed benefits, Dr. Leslie Chan, Associate Professor at UTSC, isn’t entirely convinced that the approach will spur innovation and discovery.

“Certainly, in theory it should stimulate innovation. That is allowing new kinds of interactions to take place in terms of doing science and sharing science and also funding science, because again a lot of those models are not working well for a majority of scientists,” said Chan.

Chan stressed that there are different types of open science, all of which are relatively new and lacking in evidence-based research.

According to Chan, there are two issues regarding open science: philosophy and practice. In theory, “we want to share [our research] as broadly and as early as possible,” Chan said, but concerns over patient privacy pose a significant

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

problem, as does the possibility for the data to be misused. “While I’m in favour of it I also say we need to move cautiously so we can develop these guidelines and principles in ways that the community has good support and buy in before you really try to push it onto the community,” remarked Chan.

Chan, however, believes that the researchers themselves who have chosen to partake in open science are pioneering. “They are not doing things the majority of traditional scientists would do, right? So, in that sense I think they in themselves are innovative. I mean, open science itself is innovative,” argued Chan.

With respect to patents, Chan be-

lieves that prohibiting the patentability of products is largely advantageous.

He mentions the polio vaccine, which was purposefully unpatented and has led to the near-eradication of polio. “But if you look at other drugs that are patented, HIV/AIDS anti-retrovirals, [they’re patented and] those diseases are still around. We see the diseases lingering because this is in the interest of those drug companies,” remarked Chan.

Chan believes in the philosophy behind open science and is hopeful for its future. “Scientific knowledge really is a form of public good and so patent is the wrong way to go and I think that is essentially what these groups are saying.”

Mapping protein interactions to tackle cancer U of T’s Stagljar Lab has built a protein interactome map to improve cancer treatments Nicole Sciulli Varsity Contributor

It goes without saying that cancer is a devastating diagnosis: treatments are limited, and patients often undergo aggressive chemotherapy that not only destroys cancer cells but healthy cells as well. But what if scientists could eliminate cancer cells with optimal accuracy while allowing healthy cells to live?

Dr. Igor Stagljar, Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and his associates are aiming to address this puzzle at the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (TDCCBR). The Stagljar Lab recently conducted the first study that maps the interactions between receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) and protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs).

RTKs are proteins known as cell membrane receptors. They allow communication between the cell and molecules outside the cell. Signal molecules, like hormones and growth factors, bind onto the RTKs and control cell specialization by determining which genes are expressed. Other proteins attach to RTKs, allowing cell-to-cell interactions that maintain the spatial orientation of tissues.

RTKs help to regulate cell growth,

differentiation, and survival. If they were to malfunction as a result of a mutation, this regulation would be inhibited and may lead to the development of various cancers. In the past 15 years, new cancer drugs have been developed to block RTKs and control cell growth.

Currently available drugs only block a portion of RTKs because they are not perfectly understood.

Stagljar and Zhong Yao, Senior Research Associate in his lab, have now carried out the largest study on RTKs. They have mapped almost all the interactions between human RTKs and PTPs. PTPs are a group of enzymes that regulate the phosphorylation state for signalling molecules, where phosphorylation is the addition of phosphate groups that ‘switches on’ or ‘switches off’ enzymes and receptors.

When RTKs receive signals from extracellular molecules, PTPs bind to RTKs to ‘turn them off,’ a process important for controlling cell division.

PTPs maintain RTK inactivity and in some cases can also act as a positive regulator to ‘turn on’ gene expression.

Physical interactions between RTKs and PTPs had not been captured up until this point, largely because of where the RTK is located on the cell membrane. In order to study these interactions, the cell membrane would need to be dis-

solved. However, dissolving the membrane would change protein behaviour, so scientists were not able to recreate these interactions in their natural setting.

The Stagljar Lab set out to develop technologies that could capture these brief interactions. Membrane proteins are attractive therapeutic targets for various types of cancer because of how, as the TDCCBR studies, they play a role in producing cells that are either healthy or diseased.

The researchers developed two technologies that can study these membrane proteins: the Membrane Yeast Two Hybrid (MYTH) and the newer Mammalian Membrane Two Hybrid (MaMTH).

According to the Stagljar Lab website, the MYTH technology identifies membrane proteins in vivo using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast. It is one of the most studied eukaryotic — organisms having cells with a membranebound nucleus — model organisms in molecular and cell biology.

MYTH technology is used to identify protein-protein interactions (PPIs) between all PTPs and RTKs. There are 58 known RTKs. The MYTH technology screen uses 58 RTKs expressed as membrane proteins in yeast, mimicking their states in mammal cells. That way, they maintain their structure and

HANNAH BOONSTRA/THE VARSITY

function. They are then screened against a set of 150 PTPs in yeast.

MYTH is used to identify interactors that can lead to new drug targets.

The MaMTH technology is used in the analysis of the PPIs of fulllength integral membrane proteins in the context with mammalian cell lines. The MaMTH can detect subtle changes in interaction patterns.

This new technology is being developed so it can be used as a drug screening platform. The MaMTH provides measurements of PPIs in the natural membrane of human cells and would be able to detect small changes in proteins in response to a drug. This new technology has many potential applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

The MYTH technology has

mapped out more than 300 interactions between RTKs and PTPs in human cells. These new technologies will aid Stagljar and associates in future research for new cancer therapies.

“We wanted to show that these two assays we developed in our lab — MYTH and MaMTH — are suitable for studying these two important classes of proteins on such a large scale. The resulting wealth of important data can be used to develop new therapies against various types of cancer,” stated Staglijar to U of T News.

With the information provided by these new technologies, it is possible that the development of drugs that better target cancer cells may be on the horizon.

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 17

var.st/science

Science Around Town

Injecting support for the city’s most vulnerable

LSCDS January Seminar: Science Careers in Government A science degree doesn’t have to confine you to a career in medicine or research. The Life Sciences Career Development Society will be presenting a seminar to discuss science careers in government and other public fields.

Ontario approves funding for three supervised injection sites

Date: Wednesday, January 25 Time: 5:50–8:00 pm Location: Medical Sciences Building, Room 2170, 1 King’s College Circle Admission: Free for U of T students and trainees with registration; $10.00 for the public with registration

MUBASHIR BAWEJA/THE VARSITY

Safe injection sites are critically important in ensuring the safety of injection drug users and general public health.

Mishka Danchuk-Lauzon Varsity Contributor

Benefits of supervised injection sites according to the city of Toronto:

338

(from Jan–Oct 2016)

Linked to fentanyl: 193

529

Ontario

(from 2015)

Linked to fentanyl: 162

18

Saskatchewan (from Jan–Oct 2016)

Linked to fentanyl: 2

7

New Brunswick (from 2015)

Linked to fentanyl: No data SOURCE: GLOBAL NEWS

Supervised injection sites near U of T

SOURCE: CITY OF TORONTO

Bloor St.

Sherbourne St.

Jarvis St.

College St.

Church St.

Yonge St.

U of T

Dundas St. W

Bay St.

Gerrard St. Ave.

• •

Linked to fentanyl: 332

Alberta

University

•

(from Jan–Oct 2016)

St.

•

622

British Columbia

Reduction of risk factors leading to infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis Increase in the use of detox and drug treatment services Connection of people with other health and social services Reduction of the amount of publicly discarded needles Cost-effectiveness Decrease in crime and drug use in the local community

St. George

•

Deaths due to overdose by province

Spadina Ave.

•

Bathurst St.

In 2014, there were 252 overdose-related deaths in the city of Toronto. From 2004–2013, overdose deaths increased by 41 per cent, from a total of 146 to 206. Both these statistics indicate that drug overdoses are a prominent public health issue in Toronto.

The province of Ontario has recently approved the funding for three supervised injection sites in the city to address this crisis. According to the Toronto Star, supervised injection sites “are legally sanctioned spaces where people can inject illegal drugs, typically opiates or cocaine, under the supervision of trained health staff and without fear of arrest.”

The funding for the supervised injection sites comes at an important time. Fentanyl, an extremely potent painkiller, is becoming more widespread on the streets and there have been an alarming number of fentanyl overdoses in the past few months in Western Canada.

These three sites will be the first of their kind to open in Canada since 2003. It is possible that the move will encourage the city, the province, and the country to allocate more funding to programs that offer support to drug users.

The supervised injection sites opening in Toronto will be located at the following locations, once the buildings have been renovated and are later approved by Health Canada: the Toronto Public Health-operated needle exchange at Yonge and Dundas Streets, the Queen West Central Toronto Community Health Centre on Bathurst Street, and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre near Carlaw Avenue.

Professional staff who will work at these sites are trained to deal with drug use and overdose, in order to decrease the risk of death from overdose.

There is currently major stigma surrounding drug use, which may be something that the city must address in order for drug users to feel safe going to the new supervised injection sites.

A sense of comfort and security needs to be associated with these sites so that the space they provide can be seen as helpful and supportive.

Although there are many other issues that need to be addressed, such as the overprescription of narcotic drugs, the funding of supervised injection sites is certainly a step forward for the city and the Toronto Drug Strategy.

Queen St. Richmond St. Adelaide St. King St.

Harm reduction supplies location

Toronto Public Health-operated needle exchange sites

Invasive Species in Our Forests Science for Peace will be holding a public lecture hosted by Professor Sandy Smith of the U of T Faculty of Forestry, who will discuss the species that are threatening Canada’s forests today.

Date: Wednesday, January 25 Time: 7:00–9:00 pm Location: University College, Room 144, 15 King’s College Circle Admission: Free Stem Cells: The Next Generation Stem cells continue to be one of the most fascinating therapeutic techniques of modern-day medicine. The U of T Student Society for Stem Cell Research will be hosting their second annual conference, which will feature local Toronto researchers who will be discussing their work regarding stem cells.

Date: Saturday, January 28 Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Location: Bahen Centre for Information Technology, 40 St. George Street Admission: $5–$6 with registration Beyond the Lancet: Conference on Surgical Technology & Applications to Disease Modern surgery is vastly different from what it was just a decade ago, with the use of the surgical laser quickly replacing the scalpel. Come join the U of T Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Student’s Union for their conference to explore the innovative techniques constantly being formed in the ever-changing field of surgery.

Date: Saturday, January 28 Time: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Location: JJR Macleod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King’s College Circle Admission: Free with registration

Sports

January 23, 2017 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

The curse of the rookie quarterback Cowboys knocked out of playoffs with first-year Prescott at the helm Daniel Samuel Varsity Columnist

The Dallas Cowboys lost 34– 31 to the Green Bay Packers a few Sundays ago in an unforgettable duel that culminated with a heartpounding, game-winning field-goal by the Packers’ Mason Crosby during the closing seconds.

The Cowboys’ fate could have likely been sealed earlier in week 11, at the 2016 draft, in 2006, or even as far back as 2001.

Over the past few decades, the world of sport has fundamentally changed with statistical innovations and a plethora of resources to make player selection easier for owners, coaches, and scouts.

Despite the twentyfirst century sports revolution we are living through today, the NFL remains old-school; there’s still no greater gut-feeling test in sports than deciding on a starting quarterback.

The greatest executions of Mondaymorning quarterbacking — equivalent to claiming to understand artistic genius after

completing a paint-by-number Mona Lisa — are often misguided because of their lack of reverence for football history.

That being said, the Cowboys should have realized, sooner rather than later, that they were bound to lose it all with rookie quarterback Dak Prescott at the helm — historically-speaking at least.

Imagine if the Cowboys based the most important decision of their 2016 season solely on a single statistic. Could it have spared the Cowboys fans heartbreak? Would Dallas still be in the playoffs and competing for the Super Bowl?

While the correct answer to both questions is likely no, the Cowboys were almost certain to lose eventually with Prescott because of one simple statistic: since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, no NFL team has won the Super Bowl with a rookie quarterback at its helm.

Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones and head coach Jason Garrett, the top decision makers within the Cowboys organization, were likely aware of this information but unconscious of its future implications when Prescott was thrust into the starting role in week one, replacing injured Dallas franchise quarterback Tony Romo.

Romo’s preseason injury, a fractured vertebra in his back, came at a terrible time for the Cowboys, as the franchise was looking forward to his return after playing in only four games the season before. Losing Romo was a devastating blow to Dallas and while Prescott was drafted as Romo’s insurance policy, any rational Cowboy hoped that at most he’d manage to tread water until Romo returned — but that’s not what happened.

When Romo finally returned in week 11, Prescott had done better than just keep Dallas afloat. The Cowboys were rolling with an 8–1

record and looking towards a franchise record of nine straight victories. With Prescott’s success, Romo’s starting spot was long gone and the 23-year-old quarterback began garnering comparisons to Tom Brady, who replaced Drew Bledsoe in 2001.

Bledsoe, like Romo, was an aging franchise quarterback sidelined due to injury, whereas Brady was a second-year quarterback, led by a spectacular defense, who navigated the Patriots through the playoffs and ultimately won the Super Bowl that season.

Bledsoe never regained his starting position with the Patriots. Following Brady winning the Super Bowl, he was traded to the Buffalo Bills before ending his career with the Cowboys.

There’s something to be said for sticking with the hot hand. In the Cowboys’ case it didn’t make sense to make changes to a successful team, and the Cowboys never explicitly made the decision to replace Prescott with Romo. In fact, Romo played a meaningless throwaway game in week 17, where he came in for one series and threw a touchdown pass.

But Romo, the longtime franchise quarterback, didn’t play in the loss against the Packers.

The 36-year-old was dressed in full pads, wore a baseball cap and headset, and was ready at a moment’s notice, but he was never called upon.

As for Romo, an experienced veteran with only two playoff victories under his belt in his 13-year NFL career, he ended up not making an impact on the team’s best season since their championship years in the mid-1990s. He was undrafted at the beginning of his career and has been through it all, but somehow he never managed to pull it all together — and now he won’t likely have that chance again.

Prescott racked up 13 wins this season. KEITH ALLISON/CC WIKIMEDIA

So You Think You Know Sports?

Canal vaulting: this variation of pole vaulting is making a splash in Holland Danielle King Varsity Contributor

The world of sport is far more diverse than what you see offered at sports bars. This series will profile the lesser-known, the more interesting, and the downright peculiar sports that you haven’t heard of until now.

You probably haven’t heard much about canal vaulting, but it’s exactly what it sounds like: pole vaulting over a canal. The sport is practiced mostly in Holland and has origins that date back as far as the thirteenth century, when traversing the many waterways of the landscape was a necessity for farmers to grow their crops.

In the past 100 years, the task has evolved into a national sport now known as ‘Fierljeppen’ or canal vaulting.

Like a combination of pole vault and long jump, participants compete using carbon poles that can be up to 45 feet long. Athletes run full speed towards the pole and grab on; as the pole leans forward, they continue to climb several feet up the pole before relying on gravity to bring them to the other side.

In recent years, the sport has reached extreme heights, so to speak. The current record sits at 21.64 metres which is just over 70 feet.

In Fierljeppen, each participant gets three attempts at a jump and wears strips of bicycle inner-tube to maximize their grip on the pole. If they don’t master their strength, balance, and control, they might fall in the wrong direction, especially when wind and weather comes into play.

After the best jump is recorded, the top 3 participants move on to the final and the process repeats. While the sport is a competitive one, most of its athletes emphasize the sense of community they feel, which keeps them coming back to competitions.

The sport boasts over 500 registered athletes, and there are five different categories of canal vaulting: veterans, seniors, juniors, men, and ladies. The sport has grown enough to host an annual National Fierljeppen Manifestation, which attracts large crowds of locals and tourists alike, and dozens of additional competitions throughout the year.

The possibility of a splashdown is undoubtedly one of the greatest attractions for spectators. Remarkably, only about 30 per cent of participants end up in the water, which is a rather small percentage given the great distances they cover.

However, many things still can and do go wrong — it is impossible to reliably predict outcomes in this sport. Like a gymnast running full speed towards a vault, many minuscule calculations add up to make the difference between setting a new world record or falling face-first into the water.

Even experienced canal vaulters have been known to miscalculate their jumps and fall into the water; sometimes they even miss the pole entirely. As a result, canal jumping is extremely entertaining to watch and audiences have been growing every year.

So the next time you’re in Holland, be sure to stop by one of these competitions to cheer the athletes on or even sign up for some classes yourself. Several companies now cater to amateurs wanting to give it a go — just be sure to bring a change of clothes.

PETER VAN DER SLUIJS/CC WIKIMEDIA

Canal vaulting brings the pole vault to a whole new level.

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 19

var.st/sports

Skiing in the face of rising temperatures How ski clubs and resorts operate with low natural snow availability Kasi Sewraj Varsity Contributor

Global temperatures are rising, with 2016 as the hottest year on record. Higher temperatures typically mean less snowfall, and natural snow becomes scarce for Canadians seeking to participate in their beloved winter sports. In short, winter sports industries are at risk.

There are 30 different ski clubs and resorts in Ontario alone, but it is difficult for them to keep services running when temperatures drop barely below zero during winter months. Most skiers hardly notice this during a day on the slopes though because resorts can create large amounts of artificial snow, which currently covers the majority of slopes at Ontario ski resorts.

Artificial snow is made of small ice particles produced by a high pressure pump that sprays a mist of water into the air, which crystallizes to form snow. Bacteria are also used to allow water molecules form crystals at higher temperatures than normal and produce lighter, drier flakes. Snow is constantly being fluffed up after being placed onto ski trails, creating better snow for skiers to enjoy.

Large bodies of water are needed for this process, and nearby ponds or dams are often used as supply.

However, many ski resorts across North America are using recycled water, or more accurately, sewage water, to create the fake snow for their ski resorts.

Jason Stratton, a spokesperson for the Arizona ski resort Snowbowl, told the Telegraph that water is a precious resource that must be conserved and using sewage water was an environmentally-friendly way to keep the ski industry alive.

Although there are no reports of any patrons complaining of sickness at ski resorts that have been linked to the use of recycled water, 28 per cent of Telegraph readers polled did not agree with skiing on sewage.

Manmade snow has no unique shape like natural snowflakes. The drier snow created by the machines makes it easier to glide over while skiing, but it has a tendency to get slushy if temperatures are too high — a problem that resorts mitigate by replacing the snow every few hours during higher temperature days.

Each ski resort has a weather centre and technicians who ensure that the snow is constantly kept intact for the patrons’ pleasure. This has become an increasingly important job with rising temperatures.

Is this the unfortunate future of ski hills? MARKUS SPISKE/CC FLICKR The UK, France, and Switzerland’s most popular resorts have not seen snowfall since November of 2016 and over 45,000 ski resort employees lost their jobs; North American ski resorts may not be far behind. Diana Madson is the Executive Director of The Mountain Pact, an organization that raises awareness for mountain communities in North America.

Madson was quoted by the Telegraph as saying that ski towns have to diversify their economies in order to stay relevant.

The warmer weather, however, isn’t only affecting the recreational aspect of winter sports. In November 2016, the men’s races at the Lake Louise World Cup were cancelled because of high tem-

peratures and lack of snow on the race tracks.

Creating more fake snow and closing the tracks when days aren’t cold enough is not a solution. If the environment keeps heating up at the rate that it is right now, winter sports might become a thing of the past that we have to teach our grandchildren about in school.

How to avoid winter sports injuries Try not to slip Noah Walker Varsity Contributor

For many people, the mere thought of stepping outside into freezing temperatures is enough to send them scurrying for cover beneath a mountain of blankets. For winter athletes, however, the weather presents the perfect opportunity to indulge in the sports that are only made possible by the seasonal shift in climate.

From the park to the rink, winter athletes go hard over the course of their limited season. In their pursuit of perfection, athletes squeeze every last flake from the mountain before the spring comes to melt away their fun. They push themselves further and further, flying ever closer to the sun and, as a result, accidents often occur.

According to data collected from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), over 246,000 individuals were injured while participating in winter sports in 2015.

Skiing was the number one culprit, accounting for 88,000 of the injuries; snowboarding and ice-skating together resulted in 111,000; and sledding, snow tubing, and tobogganing injured 47,000 winter athletes.

These numbers represent what a lack of preparation leads to in the reality of all sports: people getting hurt. Many injuries are preventable, and with a few minor considerations for the sport beforehand, the chances of walking away instead of being carried away can be increased.

Many athletes find solitude a necessary and enjoyable part of any sport, but when an individual is 12,000 feet above sea level on a peak of Breckenridge Colorado’s famed Rocky Mountains, the level of risk involved in the activity can result in terrible consequences.

For this reason, risk needs to be managed more effectively by going about the sport with a partner and agreeing upon a method of communication in the case that something goes awry.

The AAOS also recommends that athletes properly warm up their muscles and ligaments before cruising through that British Columbia double black or skating headlong into the forward of your beer league team’s rival.

Limbering up will always aid in the prevention of tearing and pulling of muscles and ligaments. As ACL injuries run amok in winter

sports due to the tenacity of athletes, stretching before and after in the environment of the activity is a good method of avoiding months of painful surgeries and reconstructions.

Additionally, recuperation plays a big role in winter sports safety.

Typical rules of rehydration and replenishment apply to outdoor winter sports, and the addition of rest days to the weekly routine are important, as the body can only handle so much stress before it will give out.

Of course, not all injuries can be prevented with physical preparation. Simply maintaining gear and efficiently dressing for the sport are sure-fire ways to increase an individual’s chances of returning home in one piece. A helmet is a necessary piece of equipment for hockey players, skiers, snowboarders, and skaters alike, and it possesses the ability to save the life of the individual that is wearing it.

While pushing the limits is necessary for athletes to progress, grow, and reach their goal, winter sports athletes still must stay within the limits of the possible. All athletes should aim for improvement but should never attempt

IRIS DENG/THE VARSITY

the physically impossible; fully understanding this distinction can drastically decrease the number of broken ankles and blown knees an individual suffers.

Aside from physical ability, all winter sports athletes need to demonstrate athletic intelligence

while going about their sport.

Winter sports may be cold, fun, and exhilarating, but before you race outdoors into frosty bliss, you should take the proper precautions to indulge in your sport, because no one wants to be stuck inside with an injury all season long.

JANUARY 23, 2017 • 20

DIVERSIONS

SUDOKU

“You have a 9x9 grid and then you have to make each row and each column and each 3x3 square have each of the digits from 1–9 appear once.”

CARRIE: THE MUSICAL

2016/2017 HART HOUSE THEATRE SEASON

U OF T’S PERFORMING ARTS LEADER SINCE 1919

CARRIE: THE MUSICAL Music by Michael Gore Lyrics by Dean Pitchford Book by Lawrence D. Cohen Based on the novel by Stephen King Directed by Richard Ouzounian

JAN. 20-FEB. 4, 2017 harthousetheatre.ca

Season Sponsors: