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Even less love One Love 3.0 draws one student >> pg. 3
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CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906
VOLUME 107, ISSUE 93
Whelan missing, presumed kidnapped Iain Boekhoff NEWS EDITOR Police are searching for Pat Whelan, the University Students’ Council president, after his Tinder profile picture was changed to show him tied up with masking tape covering his mouth. J.C. Aubin, operations leader for campus police, said the first theory about the nature of photo was dismissed. “We determined that this was not a consensual sex experiment gone wrong due to the desperate look on his face,” Aubin said. Police have now classified the case as a kidnapping and have honed in on Western Solidarity Network members as prime suspects in his disappearance. Whelan has been missing since the night of the USC’s third One Love Rally, on Saturday March 29, during which protesters from WSN picketed the event as a frivolous waste of students’ money. Aubin said the police were having trouble figuring out just who was involved in WSN due to their horizontal organizational structure with no clear leaders. “WSN did not organize this, it was not a WSN protest — but they do support it — and I am a member of WSN but this is not a WSN protest, I want to be clear on that,” said Jordan Pearson, the not-leader of WSN. When the majority of the USC executive left the One Love at the beginning of the event, they were accosted by the protesters and, according to vice-president finance Spencer Brown, were barely able to get into the limo they had arranged for themselves for the event before heading off to The Ceeps.
TINDER
WHELAN DISAPPEARS. Pat Whelan, president of the University Students’ Council, is missing and presumed kidnapped after the above photo showed up on his Tinder profile over the weekend. Members of the Western Solidarity Network are the prime suspects in the investigation, although so far campus police have been unable to directly link them to the disappearance.
WSN protesters followed them to Ceeps and when the executive were leaving at 1:30 a.m., they were again confronted by the protesters and were split up, tragically having to take only a half-limo each to their homes. All the executive members said they were unconcerned for their dear leader. Vice-president external Amir Eftekarpour said the texts from Whelan stopped at around 3 a.m. “I wasn’t really worried because I figured he just passed out, he was super drunk,” Eftekarpour said. “He had, like, four beers, which is a lot for him.”
WSN member, and definitely not leader, Jordan Coop said WSN members have an alibi for when they left Ceeps. “After politely trying to engage the executive in conversation for a second time at Ceeps, we headed back to a warehouse that we are squatting in and started planning a protest of the Humane Society because they just put a Coca-Cola ad in the lobby,” Coop said. Pearson corroborated Coop’s story, but did say that while they had considered kidnapping Whelan at another meeting of WSN, they did not reach their arbitrary number of
people for quorum. “We were so angry at Pat for betraying students, completely ignoring and rejecting their valid, objective and correct concerns about Western’s strategic plan that we thought we should take drastic action,” Pearson said. “However, we are a democracy and we have to respect the will of whoever shows up to our randomly assembled meetings and we just simply didn’t have the necessary three people for quorum.” Sgt. Aubin said police know the kind of hate WSN members have for Whelan, and that was why they
were focusing their investigation on them, even though they have yet to find any evidence to implicate anyone. “It’s pretty clear they are blinded by some kind of hybrid communisthippie view of the world and considering how right-wing Whelan is, it makes him an easy target,” Aubin said. “However, there is nothing to directly implicate WSN membership at this point in time.” Campus police a re requesting that anyone with information about Whelan’s disappearance should contact their hotline 1-888-SAVEPAT.
Chakma to turn mansion into TA shelter Megan Devlin NEWS EDITOR Amit Chakma, president of Western University, announced yesterday that he will be converting his immense mansion into a homeless shelter to be used by Western’s starving teaching assistants. His mansion, called Gibbons Lodge, rests on 17.6 hectares of forested land. It has its own private LTC stop halfway up the driveway. Chakma said he will be setting up tents throughout his sprawling property, and reserve his mansion
for Western’s own TAs — those with plainly visible ribs and hipbones will have access to the master suite. “After reading Smoth’s Gazette column, ‘Chak this up to inequality,’ I realized the income gap at this university is simply unacceptable,” Chakma said in an interview. “I cannot believe my TAs have to resort to food banks to feed themselves because the salaries I pay them are below the poverty line,” he continued. Chakma plans to rectify the situation by providing free living for his malnourished TAs, and feeding
them breakfast every morning. “If one cannot learn on an empty stomach, one certainly cannot teach,” Chakma said. However, while Chakma’s initiative will be benefitting TAs and the homeless, Western’s sessional professors are not included in the plan. “Technology cannot solve this problem,” Warren Steele tweeted. However, fortunately for Steele, his membership to Luddites United provides opportunities for advancement. Some environmental activists,
particularly Stuart Ruffolo of EnviroWestern, are worried the homeless shelter on Chakma’s land will disrupt the natural ecology. Weldon Park, the name of the land on which Gibbons Lodge is located, is classified as an Environmentally Sensitive Area. The lodge will be re-zoned as a homeless shelter starting in September. The grounds will be covered by the burned tennis tents from last year’s campus fire in the winter. London Mayor Joe Fontana said he hopes this initiative will move
the homeless out of the downtown core and up to North London. “We hope students coming back to Western will feel more safe when they get off the bus at Richmond and Dundas,” Fontana said. “I am so happy to be giving back to the community,” Chakma said. “After my tenure on the Sunshine List, I think it’s time to give back to the 99 per cent.” Chakma made $479,000 last year, and has decided he will use his immense salary to purchase his own home instead of living in his university-provided mansion.