Capilano Courier Vol 45 Issue 22

“Pushing buttons since 1968”

Volume 45

N O R T H V A N C O U V E R / / M arch 2 6 , 2 0 1 2

DIVERSITY AT CAPILANO

with Education cuts // beer // dental work // and so much more ...

Issue N o. 22

TABle of contents Vol. Forty-Five | Issue 22

Pushing buttons since 1968

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The Capilano Courier is an autonomous, democratically run student newspaper. Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste, and legality. The Capilano Courier will not publish material deemed by the collective to exhibit sexism, racism, or homophobia.

The views expressed by the contributing writers are not necessarily those of the Capilano Publishing Society.

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The Capilano Courier is brought to you by the following people ... editor-in-chief

editor-in-chief

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Sarah Vitet

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Chris Dedinsky Go nuts for doughnuts! Chris Dedinsky, he's everything you dreamed … and more. Check him out at dedinsky.tumblr.com or send him fan mail (ded_in_sky@hotmail.com). He'd like that. He'd like that a whole lot.

from the editor //

WHEN YOU GET OLD WE WILL JUST SHOOT YOU WITH FIGHTER JETS BECAUSE YOU COST TOO MUCH MONEY

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magine turning 65. Where do you want to be? Maybe on a cruise through the Caribbean, participating in a book club; maybe writing your own book … strolling through your neighbourhood at sunset, and then coming home and making delicious little pies? Retirement is meant to be a time to finally relax and enjoy life, a time when your contributions to society have been appreciated and you are finally allowed to give your mind and body a rest after the constant grind of subsistence labour. In reality, though, at 65 you’ll probably be getting up every morning to go to work, with no real end in sight, just like you are now.

One in three retired Canadians have some form of consumer or mortgage debt, and two thirds of working Canadians in the same age group (55 or older) are in debt, with a median debt load of $40,000.

Living comfortably when we grow old is increasingly becoming a fantasy, with the average Canadian Old Age Security (OAS) payment at only $510.21 per month.

The current retirement age is 65 years old, but the Conservative majority government has been outlining plans to initiate a series of cuts that will directly affect retirement and pension plans. These plans include changing the retirement age to 67 years old in order to keep citizens in the workforce for longer so they provide more tax dollars, as well as lowering the amount of beneficiaries.

The number of seniors is expected to climb to 9.3 million by 2030, from the current 4.7 million, potentially costing $108 billion in pension payments. Harper claims that those costs will be unaffordable, although experts counter that when viewed as a ratio of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), there won’t be a problem. The Parliamentary Budget Advisor also said that even if benefits were increased slightly, the pension system would continue to be sustainable.

Canada already has one of the smallest public pension systems, relative to the size of the economy, of all the G7 countries.

Critics of the Conservative pension cuts are saying that they favor only the middle-income and rich Canadians at the expense of the poor. “For many Canadians, turning 65 and receiving OAS is the difference between worrying about their financial security every single day and suddenly being able to just get by,” writes Bob Rae, interim leader of the Liberal party. “This is especially true for people who receive the low income Guaranteed Income Supplement which is directly tied to the OAS.” Rae also points out that many people have structured their retirement plan for the age of 65, and that changing the rules now could be devastating: “Worse still, some provinces tie seniors’ benefits, such as prescription drug cards, to being an OAS recipient,” says Rae. “Waiting two more years for these benefits will be impossible for some people.”

The government using dollar figures to justify cuts to the pension system is odd, considering recent federal expenditures that seem less than essential. $9 billion has been budgeted for the purchase of new F-35 joint strike fighter jets, which Harper has justified purchasing “so that we can protect against foreign invasions.” The budget for Corrections Canada is also projected to rise 27 per cent this year, in conjunction with the omnibus crime legislation that was recently passed, reaching $3.1 billion in federal funding. To put these numbers into perspective, Environment Canada is seeing their budget being cut from $242 million in 2010-2011 to $76 million in 2012-13, and Agriculture Canada is projected to lose 42 per cent of their budget, dropping to $90 million.

The callous spending of billions of tax dollars in the military and prison sectors is disturbing, considering the puny budgets allocated to the environment, agriculture, and public sectors in comparison. Are food, clean air, and the welfare of senior citizens unimportant? Who is threatening to invade Canada, and in that case, would 65 fighter jets even be enough to protect the entirety of our vast nation? It seems as though the budget isn’t really in line with the reality of Canada’s needs.

We all like to think we’ll be in an ideal financial situation by the time we turn 65, and if your parents are in the middle class, it’s even easier to expect a fairly similar situation for yourself. However, this isn’t always the case, as evidenced by the high levels of seniors in debt – and a comfortable retirement continues to seem more unlikely as an increasing number of Canadians find themselves in poverty.

Currently one in ten Canadians are living under the poverty line, with only a third of those able to obtain employment, the others being single mothers, disabled people, Aboriginal Canadians living in rural areas, and immigrants. B.C. extensively cut funding to the welfare system, which wasn’t enough to lift people out of poverty to begin with, and those cuts severely affected the above-mentioned marginalized groups and contributed to B.C.’s high child poverty rate (10.4 per cent). Rather than adapting a national strategy to address the issue of poverty in Canada, the Harper Government said that “the sustained employment of Canadians” was the best long-term plan, though many critics have questioned if it is sufficient.

The effects of poverty are not going to go away just by ignoring them.The more we cut public spending, the more people will be forced to live under the poverty line, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. Taking care of our senior citizens should be a top priority for the government. Everyone is affected by poverty, and it’s not okay to buy fighter jets instead of funding the pension system.

— Sarah Vitet // editor-in-chief

The Voicebox

with JJ Brewis Look for the Voicebox on Tuesday afternoons in the Birch cafeteria, to anonymously “voice” your “opinion” on any “topic.” Introverted alternatives include emailing your opinion to voicebox@capilanocourier.com, or texting (778) 886-5070.

“Vegans are soooo pushy. Just shut up already. Nobody cares about your views! Why can’t they keep it to themselves?”

It’s a very fine line. I’m vegetarian, so I see both sides. I don’t bring up my diet unless it comes up in conversation, or somebody specifically asks me why I’ve chosen to not eat animals. If they ask, I’ll tell them. But I do completely understand what you mean, as I know a handful of obnoxiously over-eager vegans/vegetarians who will not, for the life of them, shut the fuck up about it! We’re all fucking adults. We all made our decision, so why does it even need to be an issue? Years ago, my friend’s boyfriend held a fork full of pork (lol rhyme) in my face and sneered, “MMM I looooove eating dead animals.” Yeah, real classy. Way to prove once and for all that vegetarians are the greater species, Ian, ya dumbass.

“Reggae gets such a bad rep!”

To be fair, Bob Marley is one of the worst musicians of all time. And The Doors. Yuck. I mean, I agree with Bob’s philosophy of peace and

understanding and all that bullshit, but in the bigger picture … he probably didn’t really need to bother all of us with his terrible tunes. I went to a wedding once, and no word of a lie, the bride walked down the aisle to the tune of “Jammin'”. It was a bit embarrassing, but mostly hilarious.

Even better, another wedding I know featured the song “Angel” by Shaggy as the bride walked down a spiral staircase – and the groom fell down the staircase when it was his turn. Everyone got really nervous – I mean, he could have had a concussion, I guess. But wouldn’t have that made the best story ever? “I had to postpone my wedding because at the ceremony, I went flying down the slippery, waxed, wooden spiral staircase and bonked my head on the floor at the bottom! All while Shaggy was playing!” Apparently, I just associate with a lot of unfortunate people, or people with good comedic timing.

“Would you marry Bon Iver?”

I already did.

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EDIT OR // Gurpreet Kambo // ne w s @ c api l ano c o uri e r. c o m

$70 M in cuts for education Are you Falcon kidding me?

News Briefs

By Gurpreet Kambo // news editor

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he 2012-2013 budget announcement has caused Kevin Falcon, B.C.’s Minister of Finance, to receive a severe fingerwagging from the heads of post-secondary institutions throughout B.C. Falcon recently revealed that, as part of the budget, funding for all post-secondary institutions across the board would decrease by $70 million in the next three years.

“The province will work with universities, colleges, and other institutions to help ensure that front-line programs are not affected,” he said in his budget announcement. “And we believe a one per cent cost reduction is very achievable.”

Falcon said he expects institutions to cut administrative costs by one per cent by 2014-2015, especially by working together in the areas of “travel, administration and executive overhead.”

However, this announcement has provoked responses from a variety of groups concerned about the reduction. Perhaps most notably, the presidents of all the province’s public postsecondary institutions have collectively written to the Minister of Advanced Education, Naomi Yamamoto, to express their displeasure with the budget announcement.

“All the college and university presidents in British Columbia were disheartened to hear the news about the upcoming budget cuts in 2013/14 and 2014/15,” says Capilano University president Kris Bulcroft. “The pending reductions in our operating budgets are in addition to five years of unfunded inflationary costs to all colleges and universities in B.C., so the cuts will impose a real strain on our budgets.”

“It is critical for Government to understand that the $70 million reduction to institutional grants over the last two years of the fiscal plan, combined with five years of unfunded inflationary pressures, creates a strain on the operations of post-secondary institutions,” the letter states.

One Grading Profile to Rule Them All

It also mentions the pressure created by the government’s “net-zero” stipulation, in that any increases in compensation for staff must be paid for by decreases in other areas. Collective bargaining typically includes an increase in compensation every few years.

The government’s statement on the cuts assures that service levels would not be affected, a claim the administrators clearly disagree with, saying that to expect the reductions would have no effect on service levels is “unrealistic”.

The letter also points out that the post-secondary sector is the only one that has received an absolute budget decrease in the proposed budget, “with the inference that other sectors, such as health, have taken action [in reducing costs] where we have not.”

However, the presidents point out that their institutions can show many different expenditure management initiatives that have been implemented over the last few years.

Although the precise impact the budget cuts

// Jason Jeon will have on these institutions will not be seen until next year, Bulcroft assures students that any changes will occur with as little disruption to students as possible.

“I know that students are concerned that the result of these cuts will be service cuts in the form of program reductions or eliminations, or other services that students have come to depend on in order to be successful here at Capilano. At this time, no decisions have been made about how we will deal with provincial reductions in our operating grants, and I know of no other college or university that has come forward with a statement about how they intend to deal with these reductions,” she says.

She adds that decisions about what areas will be impacted will involve a “process that brings our stakeholders (including students and the external community) into dialogue about how to work together to insure that Capilano is meeting the needs of our students, despite these difficult fiscal constraints.”

Brutal Irony the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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// The McGill Daily (McGill University)

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ONTREAL (CUP) – An anti-police brutality protest on Mar. 15 turned ugly when demonstrators and police clashed in the streets of downtown Montreal.

Around 2,000 protesters turned out for the demonstration, gathering at the Berri-UQAM metro station at 5pm before marching through the downtown area.

Some demonstrators wore red squares around their right eye in solidarity with CEGEP student Francis Grenier, whose right eye was injured last week when he was reportedly hit with a flash grenade thrown by a police officer.

The anti-police brutality demonstration, organized by the Collectif Opposé a la Brutalité Policière (COBP), was marred by small groups of protestors who took part in acts of sporadic violence. Projectiles were hurled at store windows

and police vehicles along St-Catherine St. after riot police stopped the march in front of McGill’s Strathcona Music building and demonstrators diverted to St-Catherine.

The violence was widely condemned by other demonstrators, however, who responded to most instances of vandalism by booing. After a masked man unsuccessfully tried to force open an ATM machine with a garbage can, he was surrounded by the crowd.

Shortly after 7pm, roughly 200 demonstrators, most them masked, flooded down the McTavish steps on to McGill’s lower campus. The crowd made its way past the Redpath Museum, while one demonstrator stood atop its steps and led a chant in French of, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Police used pepper spray on demonstrators on at least two different occasions in the square to move the crowd away from police lines.

William Karshaw, a participant in the protest, witnessed a friend of his get detained: “We were

BC Ferries Introduces Plans For Easier Travel On March 21st, BC Ferries president Chip Rex announced a new plan that will make travel faster and easier for their customers.

After receiving several reports that their current services are inconsistent and that the ferry fare is ‘unfair’, they are going to experiment with a new style of transportation known as a trebuchet. Cars and civilians will go on the launch pad and then be hurled towards their destination. The first few customers have experienced broken bones upon arriving at their destinations, but they report that it is still an improvement over the old ways.

Empty Out Your Piggy Banks

just standing just like everyone else just watching. I guess he didn’t get a chance to get out of the way fast enough, and he was thrown to the ground and arrested,” Karshaw says. “We weren’t doing anything wrong … we were moving out of the way.”

Eventually, after about two hours of marching and clashing with police, the remaining protesters were rounded up and arrested by the police.

Each demonstrator was accompanied by two officers to be frisked and have their bags searched before being loaded onto STM buses to go to a detention centre.

The officer said that there was no resistance from demonstrators. One demonstrator was lead out of the group to an ambulance by two officers. In total, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal reported that over 150 people were arrested, and seven officers injured.

Capilano University’s Board of Governor’s passed a resolution to raise tuition fees by two percent. The resolution will come into effect for the Fall 2012 semester, and will raise fees to $115.67 per credit. The university has increased the tuition fees by two percent annually for the past several years, as that is the maximum tuition increase allowed by provincial law.

David Clarkson, student representative on the Board of Governors, voted against the proposal. “There wasn’t enough information on hand at the time. I would only support an increase in tuition on principled grounds, and just having a desire to generate revenue is not satisfactory.”

Clarkson proposed that the increase be proposed at the same time as next year’s budget, but his idea met a cold reception.

“I found the comments made towards my concerns not to be even respectful or professional of the board. It was a bit of a gong show.”

With files from Eric Andrew-Gee.

By Gurpreet Kambo // News Editor

Anti-police brutality protest ends in violence

By Laurent Bastien Corbeil and Erin Hudson

Starting in the Fall of 2013, Capilano students may notice a difference in the way that they are graded. During the March Senate meeting, Capilano University’s Senate approved a resolution to adopt a single grading profile for the whole school.

Currently there are 22 grading profiles in use across the different faculties and programs at Capilano. According to the report produced by the committee tasked with discussing grading profiles, the new single profile “is numerically straightforward, understandable, and relatively easy to use and interpret, for both quantitative and qualitative courses.”

However the proposal did not pass without opposition. Tim Schouls, a senator and Political Science professor expressed strong opposition to the proposal, on behalf of the Social Sciences Division, which unanimously opposed the lone grading profile.

N e ws

Power to the Students Faculties face many barriers when finding student representation

By Gurpreet Kambo // news editor

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FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Although the Faculty of Arts and Sciences typically holds elections to select its student representatives, this does not appear to be common practice amongst the five other faculties. New representatives have been selected for these

had students appointed, and then they maybe attend one meeting, and then they don’t make it Jean Bennett is the Dean of the Faculty of Health to another meeting. Because this is all relatively and Education, and the acting Dean of Student new, we’re trying to figure this out; how to do this Services and Development. Bennett has noted more effectively. So it really is more about ‘how that there is difficulty finding representation do we make the student voice in the faculty an from her faculty, “because there isn’t a single effective voice?’” student body within the Faculty of Health and FACULTY OF STUDENT SERVICES AND Education, [so] we have looked to groups like the DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES Human Kinetics Student Council, music therapy, and early childhood education, that have a stu- The Faculty of Student Services and Developdent club … to appoint someone to the faculty,” mental Studies includes programs such as Adult says Bennett.

Basic Education and ESL. “I don’t think they, at Part of the challenge, she says, is that the fac- this point, have had any student representation,” ulty has programs that have unusual timelines, says Bennett. “I think it’s partly the challenge that such as the Health Care Assistant program, in almost all those programs, you’ve got people that which students study for seven months, partly Continued on page 10 … in placements off-campus. “Quite frankly, we’ve FACULTY OF HEALTH AND EDUCATION

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

t Capilano, there are many opportunities for students to get involved. One of these ways is through becoming a student representative on one of the institution’s five faculties, as well as sitting on the Senate or Board of Governors (BOG). However, each faculty is different, and as a result, they may not be getting the student representation they need from their decision-making bodies.

Provincial laws mandate that these university structures facilitate student representation and participation in these bodies, which ensures that those for whom decisions are being made have a voice and influence on the outcome. The University Act of B.C. requires all universities to have two students elected to its BOG, and four students to its Senate (something that was not required when Capilano was a college). It also requires that a certain number of students sit on the committee that governs each of the faculties of the university (which are also made up of the faculty’s Dean, the president, the faculty, and staff).

Capilano University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences recently held a call-out for nominations to fill its newly vacated student representative positions. The Faculty’s terms of reference stipulate that “an election is to be conducted by the student union … [and] the term of appointment of a representative is one year.”

Stanley Greenspoon, vice-chair of the faculty, coordinates the elections every year in partnership with the students’ union. “It was my feeling that students shouldn’t just be appointed … they should elect their representatives to these meetings themselves. Student input in the direction of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is important,” he says.

However, this year’s election ended up with an unusual outcome. The faculty has two student positions for arts, and one for sciences, and there were two nominees in both categories.

Greenspoon decided to exercise some creativity, so as to maximize student involvement. “I thought, why discourage one student from being on [faculty], so I asked the dean, ‘How about if we have four representatives, but they only have three voting rights?’,” he says.

Dean Robert Campbell agreed to this proposal, and subsequently, an election was not held. The candidates for the sciences position decided to share their vote, rendering the time and expense of holding an election unnecessary.

“Being a student representative in the faculty seemed like an interesting way to learn about, and participate in, the running of the school,” said Christina Coambs, a biology student in her first year. Coambs holds one-half of the vote representing science students, the other half held by second-year student Daniel Zayonc.

Addressing the issue of how they will make decisions on how to vote on items, especially in the event of disagreement, she says, “For myself, I plan to attend all the scheduled meetings, [so] vote by consensus will no doubt be our approach to any arising topics.”

positions throughout the last year, but it was rare to see posters around campus advertising the available positions. However, a resolution approved by Senate in 2009 reads, “There shall be a minimum of two students identified to participate in Faculty meetings with voting rights. Each Faculty shall work with its students to establish clear procedures for the selection of student representation with the goal of fair proportional representation. Students may be selected by faculty members in the absence of nominations from students in the Faculty.”

It is apparent that all of the deans want to facilitate some meaningful student involvement.

Each faculty faces its own unique barriers to achieving student representation, and as a result the processes used to find student representation are diverse.

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m o n day m a r c h 2 6 NO TANKERS RALLY Oil tankers are nasty! I’m over them! They’re stupid! I can’t go to this because I literally have class all day long, but you should go! You can even meet up with other people from Capilano at 10:30 at Birch and head down in a big fun group! NO BLOOD FOR OIL! 12 PM. Vancouver Art Gallery. Free!

DIRTY SPELLS EP RELEASE SHOW I don’t know these guys, but they have a super name – I’m into anything to do with witches/ magic, I just think it’s cool. Opening for them are Ghost House, The Dirt, and Capilano Courier’s own pride son Colin Spensley’s band, EEEK! This show will probably be a little grunge. 9 PM. The Biltmore. $6.

WHO WANTS TO GO TO WARPED TOUR THIS YEAR It will be sooooo funny and also you’ll get to see all your favourite bands from high school!

The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Anti-Flag, AND Yellowcard are all playing. Like, seriously?

Seriously! AND MORE! Aug. 4. Redmond, Washington. $22/40 (like so cheap are you joking)

GOLDIE’S JAZZ JAM Weekly event, hosted by my friends David Blake and Wynston Minckler, along with Brent Mah who I don’t know very well; I actually don’t think I’ve met him. Be sure to show up early to catch the opening set, and stick around for the jam! 9 PM. Goldie’s Pizza

WHATEVER TUESDAY It’s not a big deal. Whatever you’re worrying about, it’s seriously no biggie! Life goes on.

Whatever. Face the world with a big, crazy grin; freak people out.

BAHAMAS@THE MEDIA CLUB From JJ: Toronto's Afie Jurvanen brings his new album "Barchords" to town. How is this guy only playing the Media Club? See him now before he blows up like City & Colour or something and then you can legit complain about all those things people complain about when a musician rightfully gets successful. 8 PM. The Media Club.

“DID YOU KNOW THAT THAT’S ONE OF MY FEARS?” “Wizard people?” “No, lizard people.” “Like the queen?” “No, not like the queen. What?”

“See, look at this, ‘The queen: a lizard person’.”

Close-to-real-life conversation here at the Courier office.

EAST VAN PICNIC “Bring a picnic and enjoy live music and standup comedy in support of Kiwassa and Frog Hollow Neighbourhood Houses. Sponsored by Vancouver-Hastings MLA Shane Simpson.”

Sounds like a good time AND a good cause!

7 PM. The Wise Hall. $20.

YOUNG JEEZY When I asked everyone if they knew who Young Jeezy was, everyone was like, “Celinaaaaaa come oonnnnn why don’t you know aaaannnything.” Well, whatever guys. Apparently he was featured in a Rihanna song! I love Rihanna.

Also an R Kelly song! 9:30. Plush Nightclub. $50–$150.

WORLD’S WEIRDEST POP-UP RESTAURANT “TV host and chef Bob Blumer presents a onenight-only surprise-menu dinner to launch his new show World's Weirdest Restaurants.” Yum! Surprise food! 8:30 PM. The Waldorf Hotel. $38.

DISCORDER FUNDRAISER Even though sometimes they publish things that are kind of silly, I still like Discorder and I totally support going to this fundraiser! The show features Man Your Horse, Sun Wizard, The Adulthood, and Village, as well as DJ Douggernaut. Also, swag and a silent auction! 9 PM. The Biltmore. $10.

THE CAMBIE BATHROOM BASH UNDERWEAR PARTY The Cambie has new washrooms! Thank goodness. Fun Fact: I definitely puked in their old ones during reading week. Party! Anyways, they’re having drink and food specials, and the money raised “will be donated to the B.C. Cancer Society's The Underwear Affair for research for cancers below the waist.” Fun! 7 PM. The Cambie. No price listed.

GROWING UP WITH HEROES “U.S. Consulate General Vancouver, the First Nations House of Learning, and the First Nations Language Program at UBC present Zonnie Gorman, daughter of a Navajo Code Talker, who will discuss Growing Up with Heroes … the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, a Daughter's Journey.” 11 AM. First Nations House of Learning (1985 West Mall). Free!

I WENT ON A DATE LAST WEEK AND IT’S SUPER COOL BUT I’M NOT SURE HOW I SHOULD ACT NOW Like he’s really cool! He’s so cool. But how can you tell if someone thinks you’re cool??? Life is so complicated! I’ve never been in this situation before ever. And like, okay, 1) I keep getting worried that maybe he thinks I’m cool but I’m not making it clear that I also think he’s cool but 2) Then I switch to like, he probably doesn’t even like me! Like what is this? Do you guys know?

t u e s day march 27 THE TING TINGS “Ughhhhh, I HATE them. Don’t go to this show. Most. Annoying. Band. Since. The New Testament.” – JJ Brewis. “Are they like, trying to be reggae or something?” – Marco Ferreira.

Personally, I have no opinion on them. Maybe you should go! Maybe it’ll be fun. 8 PM. Commodore Ballroom. $38.50.

we d n e s day mar. 28 MEDIA CLUB SHOW Featuring The Copilots, Selina Koop & The Blanks, and Karma Sohn. I put this event in because my friend Nancy knows Selina Koop and apparently it’s weird for her because we’re both named C/Selina and our last names start with K and we also kind of look a bit alike.

8 PM. The Media Club. $8.

THE MORAL PROBLEM OF CHARITY A thought-provoking idea! “As part of SFU Philosophers' Café, moderator Martin Hunt asks if charity is a good way of providing social services.” 7 PM. La Zuppa (1544 Lonsdale Ave.).

Free!

t h u r s day mar. 29 SHOW AT SPARTACUS BOOKS A show! Featuring Katie Clover from Oakland, Katie Caron, Haiku Charlie, Garland and Yarn, and Pedagogues. Also, a violin set from Peter Bavovsky! This sounds like it will be a very chill event. 7:30 – 10:30 PM. Spartacus Books. No price listed.

friday march 30 NORTH VAN SOCIAL CLUB EP. 2 The North Vanniest event that probably exists!

This night features Mind of a Child, Free City Collective, and Criminal Caterpillar. Seriously, more North Van blood than the music video for Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. Free beer with paid entry! 9 PM. The Narrows. $10.

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UP COAST: SOME RAP BATTLES My friend Stuart (rapper name: Pigsty) is battling at this! You should check it out, he’s really good at rapping. There will be 12 KOTD (I don’t know what this means) and GZ (don’t know what that means either) battles. Rap! I don’t know what it is, really. 7 PM – 2 AM. The Media Club. $18.

GLADYS KNIGHT According to her Wikipedia page, she is referred to by some as the “Empress of Soul”, and this is sure to be a memorable show. If I had the money, I would totally go. 8 PM. River Rock Casino. $74.50+.

STANLEY PARK YOUNG NATURALISTS: SPACE INVADERS I love stuff that’s educational!!! “Kids 5-14 can weave their own traditionally inspired baskets while recovering habitat from introduced invaders. More information at www.stanleyparkecology.ca. 10 AM – 12 PM. Stanley Park. Free!

sunday april 1 JJ’S MOM’S BIRTHDAY From JJ: Not an April Fool's joke! My mom is the coolest lady ever, so let's all do her favourite things on this day! Paint watercolours of flowers, watch True Blood, and eat Chile Relenos! Love you mom. To another 61 years!

APRIL FOOL’S DAY Prank idea: putting saran wrap on someone’s toilet. Prank idea: calling someone and pretending to be someone else. Prank idea: exploding golf balls!!! Prank idea: whoopie cushions everywhere. Prank idea: putting food colouring in all the juice so all the juice is a weird colour.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY! HAPPY PRANKING!

YAHOO ANSWERS Has most of the answers. I feel like I should write about my date on Yahoo Answers. And it’s like, is he posting stuff that appeals to me on Facebook ON PURPOSE to trick me into having a crush on him? BECAUSE IF SO, IT’S WORKING.

MY BIRTHDAY EVE I don’t wanna take away from JJ’s mom’s birthday, but my birthday is tomorrow!!! Forever 21 y u lie? It’s not true at all; I’m literally turning 22 tomorrow. If anyone wants to party with me on this day, I’m probably going to want to party.

At the stroke of midnight, I’ll probably start screaming and yelling.

FREE KIDS MOVIE ON THE BEACH Um lol this is like all my favourite things. Well, not all, but it’s the kind of thing that really appeals to me. Check out Cars 2 and Puss In Boots for free! Admittedly not my favourite kids movies, but still probably fun. 5:30 PM/7:45 PM. 6Pack Indoor Beach Centre (115–13180 Mitchell Rd. Richmond). Free!

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ED I TO R S / / S ar ah v i te t + Samant ha Thompson // s pe c i al fe ature s . c apc o uri e r@ gmai l . c o m

Bottoms up The search for Capilano’s student pub

By Jonty Davies // web editor

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ollege students like to drink. One of the many perks that comes with newfound adulthood is the ability to define and practice your own levels of alcohol consumption. The college experience is a very social one and alcohol is known to lower inhibitions and encourage more outgoing behaviour in social circumstances. Whether positive or negative, drinking seems to be thoroughly integrated into post-secondary culture.

an organic smoothie and protein shake bar, and more variety on the campus menu, among other ideas.

Mosquito Creek Bar & Grill 2601 Westview Drive

Have you ever found yourself in the midst of an impromptu high school reunion that you defiIn the meantime, drinking will have to be under- nitely did not want to attend? Welcome to the taken by students off of the Capilano campus. Al- Mosquito Creek on a Thursday night. Thursday though there is a large demographic of Capilano is karaoke night, and if you went to high school students that live outside of North Vancouver, the in North Vancouver, you will know almost evarea does have a good number of pubs that could eryone there, except maybe the curiously everfill in as the Capilano hangout. Here are a few of present cougars. It’s not necessarily everyone’s But … I’m thirsty!

Translink accessibility: 2/5 Cost: $ Atmosphere: Dude, beer pong!

What to wear: Hair gel Queen’s Cross 2989 Lonsdale Avenue For appearance’s sake, the Queen’s Cross does a pretty solid job. It easily has the most authentic pub ambiance of all the North Van spots. If you’ve ever been to a real British public house, you will be impressed by the very strong evocation of that look and feel. Unfortunately for students, the Queen’s Cross is a very suburban establishment that exists to serve the members of the community around it. It’s pretty far up the Lonsdale hill, and in an older residential neighborhood. Consequently, the clientele is mostly older locals. Also, probably because of all this, it’s pretty expensive.

It’s got regulars though, that’s for sure.

No pub on campus

Translink accessibility: 3/5 Cost: $$$ Atmosphere: You’re not from around here, are you?

What to wear: Slacks Village Taphouse 900 Main Street

them to consider – responsibly, of course.

Sailor Hagar’s 86 Semisch Avenue With a prime location just steps from Lonsdale Quay – the central transport hub in North Vancouver – and a very personable and familiar staff, Sailor Hagar’s is about as close as it gets to being in Cheers. Their vibe isn’t exactly “college”, though. It’s got very little sex appeal and not much in terms of a happening, jiggy vibe (one can picture the eponymous sailor drinking there after a hard day on the docks). It is, however, basically the only bar that offers pool, foosball, and darts. They also have beers optionally available in the legendary “Viking” pint – only slightly less than a pitcher and meant for solo-consumption, it will make you feel giddy as a hobbit staring over it. Sailor Hagar’s also has a great bar-food menu that’s almost unreasonably cheap. This isn’t a place where you’ll meet the love of your life, but a decent spot to hang out at with your pals.

Translink accessibility: 5/5 Cost: $ Atmosphere: No worries What to wear: Whatever’s comfortable

It’s funny, actually. The Village Taphouse is a part of the manufactured landscape of Park Royal’s Village. It’s pretty hip and semi-casual, but the fact remains that the place has got very little appeal outside the superficial. It’s needlessly expensive and, until recently, the only redeeming quality was an awesome karaoke night (a karaoke night vastly superior to that of the Mosquito Creek). With that gone, there doesn’t seem to be much going for students. You might meet some// Faye Alexander one attractive, though. jam, but if you’re new to Capilano and you want to get out and about and maybe meet some new Translink accessibility: 2/5 people, this a pretty good place to start. On most Cost: $$$$ other nights, it’s a pretty casual spot, although it’s Atmosphere: I just love tanning! kind of out of the way. The menu is all right too, What to wear: Coloured polo with popped collar with one online review calling it “Earls with a pub slant.”

Don’t be stupid, have fun Translink accessibility: 2/5 Cost: $$ Atmosphere: Oh, you again What to wear: Letterman jacket The Narrows 1970 Spicers Road The Narrows, formerly known as the Bridge Between, formerly known as the Maplewood, has been a fixture of the North Vancouver pub circuit for decades. It has changed hands frequently and the most recent incarnation is something of a departure for the space. They’ve taken to showcasing some cool local bands and even hosting beer-pong tournaments (clearly the most college-student-friendly activity imaginable). Despite the fact that the unfortunate location hasn’t changed – visibly and fragrantly adjacent to the city dump – its proximity to

When responsibly enjoyed, alcohol can be a positive social lubricant. When irresponsibly enjoyed, it can be a dangerous distorter of perception, and can lead to dangerous behaviour, as well as multiple health problems. Although almost every student has partaken at one time or another, a Journal of Studies on Alcohol article reported that 31 per cent of college students met the criteria for diagnosis for alcohol dependence according questionnaire-based self-reports about their drinking. Alcohol consumption can also lead to depression, which is the number one reason people drop out of university, so watch out.

In addition, most bars operate on a level of universal inclusion with many offering alternative lifestyle events and nights, so have a look around and see what fits you best – you might even find a spot where everybody knows your name. Cheers.

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Currently, prospective drinkers from Capilano have to look off-campus to find a communal watering hole. There is no fixed alcohol-serving establishment anywhere at Capilano University, nor has there ever been. Many other universities play proud hosts to very student-friendly and economically sustainable pubs, but due to a few circumstantial realities at Capilano, we’re not in a position to see one just now.

According to Saam Nasirpourm, Food and Beverages Chairperson at the Capilano students’ union, there are a few reasons for this. Not only is Capilano a dry campus, but the university itself would not likely be running the pub due to liability issues, it would be the student union, as is the case at UBC and SFU. “In addition,” says Nasirpourm, “the University may be concerned about the economics surrounding a campus pub. This is also another reason why student unions run pubs – since student unions are run as not-for-profit, the economics are not nearly as critical as they would be to the university.”

It’s easy to understand where the liability comes in with the operation of a pub. It is clearly a huge financial investment that comes with a good deal of uncertainty. Many bars and restaurants in town fail quickly, even when they aren’t catering to a centralized community of young people in varying degrees of unemployment.

Capilano also has a significantly smaller population than Vancouver’s other universities. UBC has an active population in the field of 54,000, versus Capilano’s 7,500 enrolled in credit programs, and UBC has four active campus pubs (although, somewhat tellingly, there used to be five, as one was recently closed.)

Nasirpourm continues: “At Capilano University, there is a contract between the University and Aramark that prohibits the Capilano Students’ Union from offering food services on campus.

It’s not uncommon for universities to have monopolistic contracts with one third-party food service provider; however, most campuses offer an exception for their Student Union to offer some food services such as a pub. Unfortunately, this doesn’t exist at Capilano.”

Perhaps the demand for a food service provider, as determined by Capilano’s population, is low enough that a single third-party provider – in this case Aramark – can operate on an exclusivity contract. As it is, there have been expressions of the student bodies desire to diversify and the CSU are open to initiatives of expansion. They’ve taken input from students and have been considering the potential realities of a pub on campus, as well as other options, such as more locally-sourced and sustainable foods,

Phibbs Exchange makes it fairly accessible from Capilano. All of that and $3 dollar beers?

Students welcome.

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MOVING ON UP Gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

By Harsha Walia and Dave Diewert // Originally published Feb. 24, 2012 on rabble.ca

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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n the poorest urban neighbourhood in Canada, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), gentrification has been on the move for decades. Plotting these new developments on a map of the DTES and walking along the now unfamiliar streets reveals gentrification for what it is: a form of structural violence.

Gentrification is the social, economic, and cultural transformation of a predominantly lowincome neighbourhood through the deliberate influx of upscale residential and commercial development. Encouraged by municipal development policies, economic incentives for investors, and the mythical pull of the creative city, urban land is purchased and developed at low cost for middle-class buyers. As urban theorist Neil Smith writes, “As a generalized urban strategy, gentrification weaves together the interests of city managers, developers and landlords, corporate employers, and cultural and educational institutions.”

Despite pockets of low-income housing, the transformation of Gastown and Victory Square into a tourist destination with trendy restaurants and boutique shops is almost complete.

On the western edge of the DTES is the massive mixed development at the old Woodward’s site with over 500 condos, SFU art school funded by notorious mining giant Goldcorp, and retail stores. This has set off a tidal wave of gentrification within a few blocks, with four new condo developments (Paris Annex, Paris Block, 60 W. Cordova, 21 Doors) and countless restaurants and bars, including those owned by barons Sean Heather (Irish Heather, Salty Tongue, Shebeen, Penn Bakeshop, Everything Café, Fetch Kiosk, Bitter Tasting Room, Salt Tasting Room, Judas Goat) and Marc Brand (Diamond, Sharks and Hammers, Boneta, Sea Monstr Sushi, Save on Meats), overpriced coffee shops, and designer stores. In symbiotic fashion, retail stores and cultural sites proliferate alongside new housing, rendering the area more welcoming and familiar for wealthier consumers.

In the southern sub-area of Chinatown, recent condo projects have been established (V6A, Ginger, Strathcona East, Keefer Suites), and the city approved Historic Area Heights Review allows for increased building heights, green-lighting a 17-storey condo and retail project. On the eastern front of the DTES, a massive 352-unit housing, commercial, and light industrial project is in the pre-development phase. At the former Pantages Theatre site, right in the heart of the low-income community at Main and Hastings, is the proposed Sequel 138 project, with 79 condos.

As on the western edge of the DTES, accompanying all these condo projects are a plethora of restaurants, coffee shops, hair salons, fitness centres, furniture stores, art galleries, organic food stores, banks, and specialty clothing outlets that have opened atop already inadequate low-income services and stores.

The processes of neo-liberal urbanism that fuel this kind of gentrification are rooted in the colonial doctrines of discovery and terra nullius, as well as more modernized forms of transnational globalization. As Smith further articulates, “Gentrification has become a strategy within globalization itself; the effort to create a global city is the effort to attract capital and tourists, and gentrification is a central means for doing so.”

In the DTES, Salient Group condo developments on Hastings and restaurants along Carrall Street are falsely advertised as existing in neighbouring Gastown. This simultaneously erases the very existence of the vibrant DTES community (indeed, the immediate defence of many developers is, “I am not displacing anyone. There was nothing here before”), and imposes the invading impulses of capitalist production and the dominant classes. Marketers deliberately align new gentrifying sites with the architecture of upscale neighbourhoods, producing an image that effaces the social and cultural reality of the existing community. The logic of middle-class entitlement to settlement and its attendant low-income displacement is particularly insidious given that the disproportionate number of Indigenous people in the DTES is itself a legacy of colonial dispossession and attempted assimilation of Indigenous communities.

The rabid nature of gentrification is cyclical – both a result and a cause of the extreme housing crisis in urban centres like Vancouver. With Vancouver consistently named one of the most unaffordable cities in the world, powerful developers are on the prowl for the last urban frontier in which to build high-density housing.

This trend towards condo-ization, pitched as “affordable” for young professionals, increases real estate speculative values and drives up rents, which in turn displaces long-term residents. Areas such as Mount Pleasant, Kensington/Cedar Cottage, and Grandview Woodlands are experiencing rent increases as high as 45 percent, forcing out working-class families and seniors.

And so we have one of the inherent paradoxes of capitalist globalization in the urban context: the trajectory of infinite development within a finite city.

This capitalist accumulation (which Andrew Witt and Sean Antrim refer to as rent “extraction”) is incentivized by the policies of the municipal government. First, public funds and public services are divested from low-income neighbourhoods. Then, private capital is allowed to develop these neighbourhoods with a high return of profit. The global accounting firm KPMG named Vancouver as the world’s most business-friendly tax climate. For example, two of B.C.’s richest billionaires, Brandt Louie and Jim Pattison, received tax exemptions ranging from three to ten years for their investment in Woodwards. In the past two elections, funds for Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver party came primarily from real estate developers. Studying the tedious bureaucratic processes of zoning, tax policies, and development permits all illuminate how the government functions as the political pillar for the expansion of real estate’s capitalist interests.

Many DTES residents describe the impacts of gentrification as deeply traumatic. According to a recent Carnegie Community Action Project report entitled Upscale: the Downside of Gentrification, affordable single-room occupancies (SRO) are increasingly scarce. More than half of SROs now rent higher than a person on welfare, disability, or pension can afford. New retail shops and restaurants are zones of exclusion, offering goods and services beyond the means of the predominantly low-income residents.

Public space has become more uncomfortable and hostile with increasing policing and private security surveillance, as well as constant reports by low-income residents of feeling judged by many of the new owners and consumers in the

neighbourhood. As one DTES resident told SaveOn-Meats owner Marc Brand in a meeting, “I was treated like a piece of meat in your restaurant.”

In cities like Vancouver that purport to be progressive, the violence of gentrification is masked behind a three-fold ideological discourse aimed at giving it an air of reasonableness. First is “urban renewal”. This presumes that the downtrodden ghetto will be uplifted and revitalized through social entrepreneurship and trickle-down investment, a now widely discredited theory at the global level.

Second is the language of “affordability.”

When peddled by developers such as Marc Williams, Jon Stovell, Robert Fung, and Westbank, it does not mean affordable for current residents.

Rather, the affordability is pitched to higherincome buyers and customers such as young artists, students, and professionals, the canaries for whether a neighbourhood will successfully be gentrified.

The third is “social mix”. While it sounds inclusive, in reality it means that people with higherincomes are at liberty to utilize their social capital to alter the demographics of a low-income community. On the one hand, low-income services such as shelters and food banks are systematically expunged from higher income neighbourhoods (why not enforce social mix in rich areas like Shaughnessy?). On the other hand, space in low-income neighbourhoods that could be used for community-based actualization is appropriated by those with greater power and wealth. As geographer Loretta Lees writes, “The rhetoric of ‘social mix’ hides a gentrification strategy and in that a hidden social cleansing agenda … Over the longer term, poor people suffer more from the loss of benefits of living in a poor neighbourhood than they gain from living in a more affluent one.”

// Sarah Vitet Above all, what these “community-friendly” justifications obscure are hierarchical structures and the asymmetry of political and economic power – decisions are made in private boardrooms, privately funded organizations promoting urban development, and the offices of city hall. Gentrification ultimately normalizes power: the power to mobilize financial and cultural capital; the power to purchase land and market goods and services; the power to occupy space and determine its accessibility; the power to shape and control the social and cultural landscape.

This power is operative regardless of the personable façade, co-opted language, and token gestures of alliance promoted by some of the newly arrived gentry.

Like many other forms of power, gentrification’s most potent hold on us is the idea of its inevitability. Even some in the left are either complicit or apathetic in the face of it. In spite of this, we believe we have the power to transform the pre-packaged profiteering of gentrification through genuine low-income and workingclass solidarity that opposes the trend towards normalization. We can boycott condos in the Downtown Eastside, refuse to frequent stores and cultural sites that are inaccessible to the low-income community, and demand rent control and real affordable housing for all tenants in the Lower Mainland.

Though the tentacles of gentrification are most impacting poor and homeless people in the Downtown Eastside, the rental rat-race is rapidly destroying and displacing neighbourhoods across our city. It is our collective responsibility to urgently articulate and fight for a vision for community autonomy and self-governance that rejects the commodification of our basic survival.

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BREAKING DOWN WALLS Capilano’s multi-faceted equity and diversity practices – are they enough?

By Mike Conway // Writer

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n 1995, Capilano College announced that it supported the concept of employment equity. In this memo, it stated that it would “ensure access to equal opportunity in terms of hiring and promotion … make such reasonable accommodation as will ensure an open workplace and a diverse workforce [and] affirm or establish process and policies which comply with the federal Employment Equity Act.” Although this administrative memo was proactive in its goals, positively reacting to the newly created Employment Equity Act of Canada, since 1995 very few concrete means have occurred in order to ensure that the memo’s goals are being met. In its current employment procedures, Capilano University does aim to ensure their positions are widely available to anyone wishing to apply, but very little exists in terms of employment policy guaranteeing equitable hiring practices.

The memo, tucked away in the archives of Capilano’s website, originally stated that in order to adhere to the Equity Act, “these processes and policies will be developed using the Capilano College collegial model, and will be consistent with that model.” The memo is one of the few references to the Employment Equity Act by the administrators of the college/university.

Despite this affirmation to comply with the Employment Equity Act in 1995, little has been done to meet its requirements through process or policy – likely because as Capilano is not a federally regulated employer, it is not legally bound to the act.

Although not legally binding for the university, the Employment Equity Act is still an important piece of legislation. It requests that, when hiring, employers take into consideration offering equal opportunity and fair representation to a host of constituency groups which have been historically marginalized.

Currently, however, Capilano does not maintain detailed employment records, and has yet to establish a clear policy as a means to comply with the Employment Equity Act. Policies alone are not enough to promote equity and diversity, and although the institution aims to hire with equitable and inclusive policies, there is still much that can be done across the board.

A COLLECTIVE MODEL

DIVERSITY AT CAPILANO

Although Capilano is not legally bound to the Employment Equity Act, there are other postsecondary institutions that have opted in to being legally bound by the legislation. These institutions, including SFU, UBC, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and the University of Victoria, have employment equity policies because they are participants in the Federal Contractors Program (FCP). The FCP is a federal program that ensures organizations that do business, or have (or seek) contracts with the Canadian government meet the standards within the Employment Equity Act, as federally-regulated employers.

The standards of the Employment Equity Act are high, and specific, in their attempt to bring equity and quality to the workplace for four historically disadvantaged groups: women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal people, and visible minorities. The Employment Equity Act has specific requirements that must be met by an employer, such as the creation and implementation of a detailed equity plan, which includes gathering employment statistics, and the setting of three-year target goals in order to better understand how well their organization is doing. These organizations must then report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which will assess whether or not they are doing enough to meet the intention of the act.

David Kirk, Capilano University’s First Nations advisor, can agree with Bulcroft’s point of potentially misleading employment data: “I don’t know if we actually have a specific employment equity policy, but I know we always try to hire people from those groups,” he says. “The biggest challenge for Aboriginal people is that we have a huge number of students who drop out of high school, yet alone go on to post-secondary; I mean, our students make up a very small percentage in the school population.”

Kirk points out that in specifically, in order to understand employment equity for Aboriginal people in Capilano University or any other institution, people must understand the challenges young Aboriginal people face.

He elaborates, “For a faculty position at Capilano University, you need a Masters degree,” says Kirk. “[But] many Aboriginal youth struggle to finish high school, yet alone get a PhD like you need at UBC or SFU. That’s one of the biggest barriers. So really, a university can make as many policies as they want, but when a group of people are struggling to get into post-secondary for a number of reasons, policies alone won’t make a huge difference.”

“As far as equity goes here at Capilano, of course, policy would always help, and it does make a difference, but the reality is when you don’t have enough Aboriginal people going into post-secondary and getting degrees, that may be the biggest challenge to finding equity. This is an issue for all post-secondary institutions, you can create all the policy you want, but it may not make a difference.”

Maureen Bracewell, director of Women’s Studies at Capilano University, feels that women are well-treated, and has never personally witnessed discrimination based on sex. She did, however, warn, “As I do not know the incidence [or] rate of complaints of, for example, sexual harassment, or gender discrimination, I am concerned that I might misrepresent the actual situation. My observations are primarily positive.”

Jan Shiell, the Advisor and Assessment Specialist for Disability Services and Student Assessment Services, has a similar outlook to Bracewell’s in regards to how people with disabilities are treated in the university, that being quite positive, albeit anecdotal.

These institutions participating in FCP are also aiming to ensure everyone has the opportunity to understand how employment equity works in their respective schools. The “Frequently Asked Questions” sections in almost all of the Employment Equity policies allow for individuals, or future employees, to understand the framework around Employment Equity, while also answering questions concerning more complex issues such as how employment equity avoids reverse discrimination, or why it is important to keep detailed employment records. The government does not impose quotas for hiring members of the four designated groups; instead, they leave it to the university to set out future target goals.

Despite the fact that Capilano College, in 1995, pledged itself to the federal Employment Equity Act, it is not participating member in the FCP, and is therefore not legally bound to the policies or goals of the Act in any way. Capilano University is covered under the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which is more reactive than proactive in its approach to human rights and employment equity. The BCHR Tribunal sets out rules and definitions that all employers must abide by. Unlike the federal Employment Equity Act, the BCHR Tribunal sets no target goals, no long-term plans, nor the need for detailed employment statistics; in fact, there is little mention of the four designated constituency groups specifically at all.

EQUITY AND DIVERSITY COMMITTEE Capilano University does have an Equity and Diversity Committee, which is in line with the collegial model. The Capilano Students’ Union’s website states that the committee “acts as a resource for the college concerning equity, diversity, and human rights legislation and issues; works to promote the values of inclusiveness and diversity in the college as a workplace and as a

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The collegial model that the memo refers to is a model where “faculty and management personnel endeavour to work collectively to serve the overall best interest and needs of the College community,” as stated in the Capilano Faculty Association’s Collective Agreement. The collegial model was used by Capilano College from its very beginning, and this system of administration was then adopted by Capilano University after its formal transition into a university in 2008.

The model supports the collective best interest by creating sub-administrations and committees to facilitate the organization of the university in order to best allow for the communication between faculty and administration.

Employment equity is also covered under the collegial model, within the Human Resources department at Capilano University, which oversees the fulfilment of the university’s ethics around hiring. “Capilano's mandate in hiring is: ‘Model equity and inclusivity, and be an employer of choice.’ We hire employees from many diverse ethnic backgrounds,” says Val Newman, Executive and Private Assistant of Human Relations at Capilano. “Employees are hired on their skills and abilities to perform the job.”

“Every single new position that comes up has to be reviewed, and vetted, and posted. We don’t do internal hiring, so everything must be published, and we have to go out to the market place,” says Kris Bulcroft, the President of Capilano University. “I believe we have a pretty well-developed system of advertising in places where you can find people who have the skills but also represent enough diversity in the labour force.”

Bulcroft addresses what she calls a “demographic bend” in the University, as it has an aging faculty and staff where many have been working in the University since the1980s when, according Bulcroft, “the population base in Vancouver was not as diverse as it was now, so if you just take a look at our data in terms of how many visible minorities or First Nations [are part of the faculty and staff], it’s probably not that many.”

However, there is not presently data collected at Capilano University regarding how many visible minorities, or First Nations employees are in the school. “We do not keep statistics presently on the hiring of different ethnic groups,” says Newman, “but hopefully when our system allows // Illustrations by Chris Dedinsky us to, we will be doing this.”

EQUITY OPTIONS

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community; and makes recommendations for programs, projects, and services delivery in the area of equity, diversity, and human rights.”

One such way of meeting these goals is by working with the Sexual Harassment Committee and Keiran Simons, the current Conflict Resolution Advisor, to confidentially and effectively resolve interpersonal conflicts involving sexual/discriminatory harassment and bullying. The Conflict Resolution Advisor has been publishing a special report since 2007 that details how many complaints are lodged, and in what manner they are handled (for example, what sort of mediation was used). It also details the types of complaints and who they are between. Each year is then compared with the statistics of the previous seven years.

“We actually have a pretty robust system if people feel they are being discriminated against, mistreated, or harassed,” says Bulcroft. “Keiran Simons is there to deal with people who feel they have a grievance. He’s there for students and faculty alike. I’m very proud that Capilano has invested in this.”

The current model at Capilano University creates sufficient sub-administrations so as to address human relations issues as they arise; and, according to the special reports published by the various Conflict Resolution Advisors, these issues have been recorded, and handled in a seemingly appropriate manner. However, there is very little communication between these subadministrations, the faculty, and the administration on the topic of how equity policy exists within Capilano University.

The pledge to meet the requirements of the federal Employment Equity Act in 1995, now 17 years ago, remains unmet in many areas, as the requirements would, according to the Employment Equity Act itself, necessitate a more cohesive equity policy, an equity plan, and more detailed employment statistics than Capilano University employs presently. Capilano

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University does not have any form of tracking to make sure it hires enough people that, in the words of Bulcroft, “represent enough diversity in the labour force,” because it doesn’t have to, according to the law.

There may still be a number of improvements that can be made upon the policy regarding employment equity. Despite the best efforts of faculty and administration, there is no definite way to be sure if the university is doing its best to ensure employment equity, nor is there a clear way to make sure the university’s hiring practices are the best practice possible.

Other universities across Canada have clear policies in place that Capilano University does not; however, the existence of committees and projects relevant to equity and diversity implies that Capilano does have some intention to guarantee diversity and equity in their institution. The question that now remains is how much further Capilano will go with equity and diversity, and if they will take the next step and ensure that equity is intertwined in every aspect of the institution’s policies and practices, regardless of whether or not they are held accountable to it by law.

depending on how it is organized, and generally out of that group of people, someone is nomiare coming in for a very specific time period, or nated to be a rep to the faculty.” there are going to be really different kinds of Moore confessed that she was not familiar things to consider in how to involve them.” with the details of how each representative gets chosen, due to it being run by the division heads.

FACULTY OF FINE AND APPLIED ARTS FACULTY OF BUSINESS The Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts does not currently have sitting student representatives. “It The Faculty of Business, similar to other faculhasn’t worked well for Fine and Applied Arts yet,” ties, has the problem of lack of interest or ability says Dean Jennifer Moore. “Fine and Applied from students. “We’d never get enough students.

Arts programs are so time-intensive, it’s like an If there was more than the number [of students] immersion program.” that were required, we would hold an election as In the past, the Faculty has made call-outs for well, but we haven’t yet, because there isn’t. So students in the fall, organized by the heads of it’s an election by acclamation, or the equivalent each school in the Faculty. “It’s different in each of an appointment,” says Dean Graham Fane. of the schools. Typically, the cohorts will elect a The Faculty of Business also asks its student orcohort representative, and amongst the cohort ganizations to submit representatives. “We have representatives, they will elect people who will an undergraduate student society, CUBES, and represent the year, the program or the certificate, they get together and say, ‘Who among us would Power to the Students continued …

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like to do this?’ I guess they have gone through some process within their society as to who will have their name advanced, as it’s only ever the prescribed number that we need. [CUBES does this] just for the school of business representatives. The other departments will have a similar process, in that they go to their students and say, ‘What would you people like to do in terms of making this appointment?’”

Fane adds that communication within business may be somewhat different than in other faculties. “Within my department, we are cohorts … [so] the student organizing group talks to all of the eligible members of the group because they are all in classes together,” he says. “There’s no need for posters, because the system of communicating is by students talking in classes. If I want to talk to all students in the school of business, I know that there are four classes on Tuesday that I go to.”

“We do a hiring process, and we try to get as many students aware of what’s going on as possible. And then they apply for the job,” says Adam Browne, CUBES President. They do outreach by talking in classes, email, social media, and on their website.

The currently sitting representatives are Browne himself, and Kelly-Ann Warawa. In terms of the differences between how the different faculties elect their representatives, he explains, “We don’t have a list of the students in the faculty of business, so that’s one of our difficulties in having a voting process, in that we don’t have the ability to contact every student. We try our best to get awareness out.”

Chris Bottrill, Dean of the Faculty of Tourism and Outdoor Recreation, did not respond to requests for an interview.

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EDIT OR // Cl aire Vul l iamy // arts @ c api l ano c o uri e r. c o m

To Beer Or Not To Beer?

Homebrewing offers cheap and tasty answer

By Leanne Kriz // writer

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t’s fun to do, you get beer, and it’s just like cooking.” That’s home brewing in a nutshell from the brew master himself, Dan Small, owner of Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies. His shop which is located on the corner of Heatley and East Hastings St. in Vancouver has been there for decades.

This nondescript store, which Small describes as busy and hectic on Saturday afternoons, supplies the home brewers of Vancouver with the equipment and ingredients needed to brew their own beer. Business, he describes, “[has] been growing for the last 20 years.” He contributes this to high beer prices which people just can’t afford and word of mouth. Also, he adds, “commercial beer is, for the most part, kind of crappy.”

“Have you tasted Kokanee?” he asks. “There is no flavour, there is no body, [and] they use adjuncts. Adjuncts are any type of additive that is not water, hops, yeast, or malt,” he explains. “They are using corn, rice, cane sugar; you know, that kind of thing. It not only makes the beer taste bad, but it will give you a headache.”

These adjuncts are used to do anything, from extending the shelf life of beer and cutting costs, to adding flavour or creating a better head.

Unfortunately, consumers do not have the ability to check what ingredients are being put into their beer. According to the website of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, nutrition labels are not required for beverages over 0.05 per cent alcohol.

Home brewing offers those with allergies and those conscious of what they put in their body an

opportunity to have control over the ingredients that go into their beer.

A customer of Small’s Homebrewing Supplies explains that he started brewing because “it’s cheap and you can experiment with different flavours.” For some, the draw of home brewing comes from the experimental chemistry that goes along with brewing beer, while most others are drawn to it by its low cost.

// Stefan Tosheff Whatever the cause may be, Small insists that anyone can do it: “Just some basic equipment” is all you need, Small explains. “It costs about $70.”

Starting supplies include “a couple fermenters, a siphon, a hydrometer, and your ingredients. That’s the equipment to make about 23 liters.” The ingredients to make each batch will cost about $20 to $30 depending on the type of beer. His only suggestion for first-timers is to use

good quality products and ingredients to brew their beer.

“People see these beer kits for $15 … [and] they buy these cheap things and expect them to be good and then they are disappointed … but if you start with good ingredients, there is no reason why you can’t make good beer the first time, and most people do,” he explains.

If you’re still hesitant about brewing beer on your own, you can join a beer club, or perhaps even start one. Graham With is the founder and president of Vanbrewers, a club that has been around for the last four years and caters to local brewers to give them an outlet to discuss and learn more about beer.

“There are about 140 members now and we meet up once a month and do technical presentations or have guest speakers on different aspects of brewing,” With explains. It costs $20 a year to join Vanbrewers, which is a non-profit organization.

The club offers a variety of support; for example, “if something didn’t turn out right,” With explains, “you can always bring it to the club meeting and get some more experienced brewers to test your beer to see what they think happened.”

The Vanbrewers meet up on the last Thursday of every month. Their next meeting is on Mar. 29, and their event can be found on Facebook.

Whatever attracts you to homebrewing, Small insists that anyone can do it: “It’s just like cooking.

You can make whatever you want and you’re not stuck with something that is prepackaged … You can add more hops you can decrease the hops, you can make it darker, you can make it lighter, you can do whatever you want.”

The Power of Words One-man play Nggrfg goes international

By Leah Scheitel // writer

“A

so they really understand why the show has the title that it does, and why I’m out there performing it,” McKenzie says.

His next target is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, and he is currently fundraising to take the show there through Kickstarter.com.

“We’ve pledged to raise $10,000 in 30 days,” says McKenzie, explaining that “if you say you’re going to raise $10,000 in 30 days, you have exactly 30 days to raise that money,” or you won’t get any money at all. “That’s the kicker, maybe that’s why they call it ‘Kickstarter’,” he jokes.

As of recently, McKenzie has met his $10,000 goal; however, he is still open to contributions.

The deadline for McKenzie’s campaign is Mar. 26 and he is also taking donations in the form of Air Miles to help pay for some of the flight expenses to Europe.

McKenzie is hoping to gain some international attention at the highly-acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “Often Fringe [Festivals] tend to be high-stress. Quickly into the space, quickly out of the space. You want a positive review right off of the top, because often a positive review will help you sell tickets, and vice versa if you get a negative review,” he says. “In Scotland, there are 2,500 shows in a month, whereas Vancouver’s Fringe has 800 shows in two weeks. It’s double the amount of shows, so it’s very difficult to get

attention there. You’re also performing there alongside people like Joan Rivers and John Leguizamo. A lot of bigger stars will go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival just to do some theatre again.”

McKenzie is blown away by the support he has received from his friends and the arts community in Vancouver. His family is also very supportive of his endeavours: “They’re very proud.

My parents are very amazing people. When I told them that I was doing a show called ‘Nigger Fag’, they were like, ‘Oh, good, dear. Good luck with that,’ but when they saw the show and [saw] the response and the support that I have gotten over the last four years, they’re just really proud of the work I’ve done and they support me 100 per cent.”

“A lot of people aren’t able to get involved or don’t know what it’s like to put on a play like Nggrfg. This allows them, in their own way, to be a part of the process,” McKenzie says of taking the play to Edinburgh. “It’s been really amazing, and it’s been really humbling for me to watch Vancouver rally behind the show.”

For more information on Nggrfg or Berend Mckenzie, check out www.smallbrownpackage.com. To donate, search “Nggrfg is going to Scotland” on Kickstarter.com

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

s a child, I realized I had two things working against me. Both would determine the course I took in life: Nigger. Fag. I know. I don’t like these words either.” This is a line from Vancouverite Berend McKenzie’s one-man play, named after the taunts that he endured as a child, but written as “Nggrfg”.

“We took out the vowels, because we found it was really difficult to see the full title spelt out, even for me,” explains McKenzie. “So we just put in the consonants.”

McKenzie based the play on his childhood memories of growing up being homosexual and black in rural Alberta. His adoptive father was an RCMP officer, so the family moved often: “I’m half black and half white, and I grew up in a few small towns in Northern Alberta, and I was the only black child to live in some of these towns at that time. So I had an afro and looked different than everybody else,” he says.

McKenzie was nine years old when the miniseries Roots debuted on TV, and that had a great impact on his childhood: “I was targeted on the playgrounds and called a ‘nigger’ and, later on, a ‘faggot’. Any of the names that came up in Roots, like Chicken George, or Kunta Kinte or Kizzy,

the female slave, every day that one of those episodes aired, I would then be called one of those names. The mini-series aired for about a week, but it [the taunts] went on for quite a while.”

It was these memories that McKenzie first pulled from in order to write his one-man play, which is composed of seven different stories.

The stories were written at various times, and compiled later.

“The first story is about when I was playing with a skipping rope on a playground, and a bully grabbed the skipping rope and used it as a whip,” he explains. “He re-enacted the whipping scene in Roots, and chased me around, calling me a ‘nigger’, telling me to change my name. I wrote that for the Edmonton Loud and Queer Festival, and then the other pieces came from there.”

Nggrfg first premiered at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 2009, and since then has toured the country twice, had a run in Toronto, and was performed in Seattle.

McKenzie was also commissioned by the Vancouver School Board to perform the play for local high school students. “The students get it.

They’re living it in real time. They’re dealing with the issues during that day that they see the show.

Many of them have been teased in the hallways,

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Arts

HOLLYWOOD AND NASHVILLE Gossip Girl and Grammy winners hit the stage

By JJ Brewis // Art director

THE PRETTY RECKLESS at The Rickshaw Theatre March 18

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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hild stars have a long history of getting into trouble. For one-time The Grinch Who Stole Christmas star Taylor Momsen, her celebrity might not be taking her to rehab or getting her in the tabloids, but she is attempting a sinister edge in her vanity-project rock group The Pretty Reckless.

The group, which sees 18-year-old Momsen backed by a trio of guys obviously at least twice her age, is a sincere departure from Grinch and Gossip Girl – the only reasons she’s able to do music at all.

The songs are completely underwhelming, with Momsen attempting to give her best animalistic growl over a cacophony of metal-ready guitars. “Somebody mixed my medicine,” she sneers, completely decked out in raccoon-eye makeup and an oversized, cut-up men’s shirt as a makeshift dress. The tour manager told press photographers that no shooting would be allowed from the barricade because “otherwise you’ll be shooting right up my girl’s skirt.”

Scanty outfits and a dirty mouth aside, it can’t be sure whether or not this bad girl vocalist is just another role for Momsen. The entire thing reeks of a manufactured production, and it was hard not to imagine Momsen going backstage to the run-down Rickshaw’s backroom and being terrified by the rats running around, realizing she’s a long way from Hollywood. However, this is the stuff memoirs are made of, and the crowd, mostly pre-teens decked out in spiked shoes and impressive mohawks and accompanied by their parents, hung on her every word.

Momsen did come off surprisingly personable, graciously thanking the crowd, telling them how much she loves Vancouver, and doing her best to rock out despite the fact she was standing inches above the stage in gravity-defying platform heels. Unfortunately, so much of the show was an unintentional parody of itself, such as Momsen’s banter about partying with System Of A Down and then proceeding to cover that group’s song “Aerials”.

There is promise here, as Momsen’s stage presence and even her voice both show indications of real talent, something that many actor-turnedsingers lack. When the hard edge is toned down, like on encore song “Nothing Left To Lose”, the stripped-down instrumental lends well to her voice, which is better showcased on a more barebones back track. It’s here where the fragility and sincerity in her voice seem to shine, and the three aging musicians behind her seem altogether more of a backing prop.

Despite not being really my genre, I would say that in its live incarnation, The Pretty Reckless are genuinely entertaining and fully-formed, no matter how boxed in they’ve made themselves. With song titles like “Zombie” and “Miss Nothing”, it is clear that they’ve made their bed and are lying in it. Branching out may be their best friend next time around.

about 20 minutes before the Nashville trio hit the stage, only to see the huge stadium-sized screens filled with images of the audience flashing their cleavage in high definition, awkwardly dancing to top 40 hits while downing their overpriced beer.

The capacity crowd was quite a mish-mash of legitimate Nashville-lovers, parents with scantily clad pre-teens, and the odd displaced hipster. As soon as the group hit the stage, the crowd banded together with a scream of pleasure unlike any I had experienced before that made me reflexively cover my ears. As soon as they began their opener, “We Own The Night”, I was mesmerized by their stage presence, enchanting harmonies, and singer Charles Kelley’s dashing looks.

The interesting thing about “Lady A” – as they call themselves – is their legitimate-seeming graciousness. They thanked the crowd countless times, high-fived members of the audience, and delivered a set chock-full of hits.

Kelley and Hillary Scott share vocal duties,

while the trio is rounded out by multi-instrumentalist Dave Haywood, who shreds harder on his guitar, and with more stamina, than most rock acts I’ve seen. The “country” appeal of Lady Antebellum is perhaps just an homage to their Nashville roots. They dress like East Vancouver indie kids, parade their catwalk stage like Mariah Carey, and sound best when they’re pumping out their ballads, like the heart-churning “Just A Kiss”.

Like any big arena show, the set doesn’t stray from a pre-rehearsed song list, which makes for a smooth, polished production that had me, personally, in the palm of Lady A’s hand. The production values were perfect, from emotionally manipulating video montages that show the group’s evolution from Nashville locals to world-touring, Grammy-winning superstars, over the course of one song. At the end of “Love Don’t Live Here”, Haywood ripped into another guitar solo, during which he began rising into the air, only to reveal he was actually standing on a grand piano being

raised from under the stage.

For me, it was all about the small moments, such as the band asking the crowd to raise their lighters and phones to make the arena a giant disco ball for slow jam “Dancin’ Away With My Heart”. It actually looked quite beautiful, which was made all the more amazing when the woman in front of me accidentally hit the man beside her on the head with her phone, which started a good old-fashioned country altercation between the woman’s husband and the wounded man.

The band just really gave the crowd what they wanted, including a special appearance by opener Darius Rucker (of former Hootie and the Blowfish fame), the donning of Vancouver Giants jerseys, and the odd cover song (Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”). Aside from Kelley’s overindulgent air guitaring (come on, man), the group have pretty much perfected the arena country-rock show on their first try, so it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with next.

LADY ANTEBELLUM at Pacific Coliseum March 19 I did not expect to like Lady Antebellum’s live set as much as I did. I walked in to the Coliseum

// Melissa Dex Guzman

A r ts

Make Stuff, Make Friends Vancouver Mini Maker Faire presents opportunities for creative collaboration

By Erin Knodel // writer

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ow many dreamers, designers, and builders does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. They've invented an ingenious new solution in their basement already; the light bulb is obsolete.

So was the case on Mar. 15, at the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire's Show & Tell held at the Museum of Vancouver. The place glowed with the energy of excited, creative minds. This was a fundraiser for the second annual Vancouver Mini Maker Faire that will be held Jun. 23 and 24 at the Vancouver PNE Fairgrounds. The event will bring together some of Western Canada's most enthusiastic makers for two days of interactive displays.

Maker Faire began in the US in 2006 as an event put on by Make magazine, with purpose to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects, and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset.”

Today, Make assists community-driven Mini Maker Faires in many locations across the US and Canada.

Emily Smith, the Director and Founder of the VMMF, says the event anticipates significant growth this year, hoping to house about 250 booths, including an outdoor arena where Maker Coordinator Richard Sim anticipates quad-copters and flame throwers to be among the displays.

The beauty of the Maker Faire lies in its spirit of collaboration. Smith relates it to a giant craft circle: “You and your friends get together, work off of each other, [and] inspire one another.”

A wide variety of projects are displayed at these Maker Faires, from fibre artists, to revolutionaries in robotics. This melding of mediums is an especially exciting aspect of the Maker Faire, as makers who meet often become collaborators.

A healthy cross-section of these interests were represented at this event, including “Mister FireMan” David Gowman, who has been hand-carving wooden horns, trumpets, and other associated wind instruments for the last ten years. He plays them with his band, the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra. His craft grew, he says, from a desire to take his two-dimensional artistic

expressions as illustrator and painter to the third dimension by working with sculpture. “It ended up being kind of four dimensional,” he says, referring to the musical facet of his work.

The Internet has played a big role in bringing the DIY community closer together. Informal collaboration takes shape as weblogs bring inspiration from around the world in the form of other people's projects. Websites dedicated to the DIY lifestyle and video-sharing websites such as YouTube are invaluable, with tutorials available on an infinite number of skills. Another boost to the DIY culture is that with online merchandising, even the most obscure parts and supplies made available to the most remote locations.

Consider the guys at West Coast Kits, who bring kits for you to rig your entire bicycle with neon El Wire, casting an ethereal glow about it in a colour of your choice. They also offer the DrawBot, an “Automated vertical drawing device” that draws out any image you ask it to on a variety of surfaces.

The Vancouver Experimental Theremin Orchestra (VETO), who boast being “Vancouver's first experimental theremin orchestra,” gave a performance with their unique instruments. The theremin utilizes two metal antennas that sense the position of the player's hands; one antenna controls frequency oscillators that produce sound and the other controls volume.

VETO will be in attendance at the VMMF hoping to collaborate with other artists in film, performance art, or virtually any other medium.

The Plush boutique located on Main St. brought out their DIY or DIE!!! needle felting workshop as an example of what are sure to be many fibre art booths at the VMMF in June. The public was invited to try their hand at a form of appliqué, which uses a tiny barbed needle to apply un-spun wool by felting it to almost any textile surface.

Kim Werker, a VMMF board member, brought out her project Mighty Ugly in which she challenges participants to make something “truly ugly”. She feels it is important for us as a society focused on concepts like beauty and success to peer into the face of ugly and embrace it. Without it, she says, “we're missing out on exploring

// Indervir Jhuti creativity in its fullest sense. We're only looking at what we consider a success as a valid form of creation and that discounts the mistakes that we make, and by discounting them we're stunting our own growth.”

Everyone at the event, whether as a maker or as a spectator, seems to share an excitement about the apparent growth of the DIY movement. “It's an engaging culture,” Gowman says, “and I think many of us are very tired of being a spectacle-observing culture. We want to interact; we want to feel our lives have meaning and substance.”

Where is the DIY movement headed?

Werker was certain in her answer: “Only good places. There are fewer and fewer boundaries on creativity.”

Maker Faire will take place June 23rd and 24th at the PNE. If you have a project you'd like to share, the call for Makers for this year's event is still open. Details on application can be found at http://vancouver.makerfaire.ca/makers/.

Super important advertisement!

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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co l u m n s

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EDIT ORS // Col in spensl ey // c o l umns . c apc o uri e r@ gmai l . c o m

From the experts:

Farming needs to grow up

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the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

pending time in the local urban farms of my East Vancouver neighborhood inspired me to grow my very own vegetable garden. Unfortunately, a raccoon urinated on my artisan lettuce and my herb crop was teeming with baby spiders. This marked the end of my urban farming career, as my ancestral prairie knowledge told me that pee and spiders render a crop useless and that I should throw my little garden into the yard trimmings bin.

It makes perfect sense to grow the food you eat close to where you live, as it eliminates both travel and environmental costs. Seeing as we live in a world with a shrinking supply of land suitable for agriculture coupled with a booming population, we’re running out of land to feed us. The concept made so evident by the KFC DoubleDown is that humans haven’t demonstrated the capacity to consume less, so we’re going to have to learn to produce more in ways that don’t harm the planet that we rely on.

How do you create new large areas of agriculture close to, or inside, large cities? By creating growing space out of thin air. Vertical farming is the idea that growing food in enclosed structures, whether it’s a skyscraper or a rotating rack of plants, allows the year-round production of food, minimizes pesticides and herbicide use, creates more farmable land, and eliminates both the fossil fuel use and spoilage factor of transporting food long distances.

Years ago, when wandering around the Internet first became a paying job, I worked as a blogger for a company that pioneered a system where over 50 varieties of leafy green vegetables

14

With Michaela Davies // Guest Columnist

are grown in vertically stacked trays and continuously rotated within a climate controlled area, ensuring an even exposure to light and nutrients while creating a constant airflow. The vertical method they used produced as much as 20 times greater yields than conventional growing methods, while using only eight per cent of the water usage typical in soil farming.

The problems with the current industrial agriculture system are becoming evident.

We have the ability to produce a lot of food, enough food that supermarkets can stock only the most unblemished and perfect looking produce, but this comes at a cost. Looking down your supermarket aisles you’ll see foods that are grown in ways that consume massive volumes of water, degrade topsoil through monoculture (single-crop) production techniques, and are heavily dependent on fossil fuels for both synthetic fertilizer and for transportation.

What would we do if the industrial farms closed today? Our society has become dependent on a huge, centralized agriculture operations and long distance transport – I certainly don’t think the Mr. Noodles I have stashed away in the emergency cupboard could take me very far into the week in terms of nutrition. Relying on food deliveries from thousands of miles away offers poor food security and leaves us vulnerable to food shortages caused by volatile market prices and unpredictable growing conditions.

Vertical farms could eventually be able to supply much of the produce for urban centers on demand and at a reasonable cost. Building a skyscraper full of crops sounds expensive, and

it is, but so is the way we’re currently growing as a global population. When comparing costs, it’s important to remember that currently, industrial agriculture is subsidized, and gets help from policies that encourage the current destructive industrial practices. The hidden costs of production, such as the environmental mess that’s continuously building, isn’t included in the price of the industrial foods in the supermarket, but we’ll be paying for it later as a society.

Vertical farms aren’t the perfect solution for every city and every situation. The advantages of controlling the growing environment in an indoor landscape also comes with what could be a troubling level of energy consumption to keep ideal growing temperatures, both for heating and for the lights acting as stand-ins for the sun.

According to agriculture researcher Stan Cox, if you wanted to replace all of the wheat cultivation in America for a year using vertical farming, you would need eight times the amount of electricity generated by all the power plants in the US. If a vertical farm is plugged into an energy system that uses coal power plants, or other carbon intensive energy forms, it negates some of vertical farming’s positive effects.

In B.C., we’re lucky to have a fairly strong renewable energy portfolio with hydropower feeding the majority of the electricity into our grid.

So with a goal of only using renewable types of energy to feed the vertical farms, they become a sustainable option.

There are already vertical farm projects around the world that are showing promise, so

// Katie So it’s looking like vertical farming won’t become the Segway of agriculture. In Suwon, South Korea they have a vertical farm working and producing vegetables in a three-story demonstration built to the specifications of vertical farming guru Dick Despommier. Vancouver will have their own example soon, as local company Valcent will be installing a vertical farm on the roof level of an EasyPark lot in downtown Vancouver.

As someone who depends on a calculator for equations that can’t be counted on fingers, let me show some simple numbers to illustrate the logic of vertical farms: we don’t have much land left because we used it all to build malls and grow whatever is in the middle of a McDonald’s burger. The world’s population is growing by 1.10 per cent every year, and we’re depleting groundwater, especially in places like California, where half the fruits and vegetables in the United States are grown, the water table is being over-drafted at a rate of 1.6 billion cubic meters per year.

It makes sense to look at different options to the existing model, because as strange as it sounds, the current industrial farming model makes far less sense than creating skyscrapers full of vegetables.

Michaela Davies is a Communications Director for a local corporation based in Vancouver. Her long list of accomplishments is only matched by her love of all things Netflix and pizza. She currently holds the record for "afternoon napping."

Michaelas father is also an esteemed professor at Capilano University.

C o lu mn s DIVIDED WE STAND

Crazy train

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lot of people take public transit in our fair city. Every year within the last ten years, TransLink has been breaking its own records with the amount of passengers who take public transit. This trend as of 2010 has exceeded more than 211.3 million passengers. However, is the general public being served adequately, or is the system they rely on to get around failing them?

Making public transit in Metro Vancouver better has been a goal for City Council recently. In Vision Vancouver’s last campaign, they promise to ameliorate the system by increasing the infrequent night bus service; however, this hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile, TransLink has some interesting ideas on how to improve ridership.

Most recently, TransLink has begun the installation of the fare gate system, slated to be up and running by 2013. The fare gate system is meant to stop people from getting onto the skytrain without paying.

This is what James Moore, B.C. Senior Federal Minister, had to say about how the gates will make transit more accessible: “Not only do I think it’ll crack down on those who are trying to cheat the system by getting on the system for free, but on top of that, I think you’ll probably have more people using public transit.”

This is a completely negative perspective

With Harrison Pratt // Columnist

coming from the Senior Federal Minister that falsely criminalizes the people he is suppose to serve. Public transportation is an essential service that is supposed to serve the general public – the general public including everyone from the unemployed to the stinking rich.

Some cities have recognized that transportation is a right. The city of Hasselt in Belgium is one example. In 1997, after improving their bus, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure, they introduced fare-free transit. The yearly operating budget is around $7.8 million and is largely funded by the national government. Their ridership increased by 1,223 per cent four years after removing fees.

An independent audit was completed in 2007 about these “cheaters” that Moore refers to, and found that TransLink was losing an estimated $6.4 million per year worth of revenue, due to fare-evaders. This has been an issue that Translink has been fighting against for a long time now, and to them, fare gates are the solution they’ve been looking for.

Other fixes to the fare-evasion problem have been lacking. In 2005, TransLink created the transit police, and operates the force at a whopping $27 million per year to eliminate this yearly estimated loss of $6.4 million.

We'll be generous and round that number up to

$7 million. So let’s do the basic math: 27 minus seven is 20. That means that every year, $20 million of taxpayer money is being wasted and not being used to improve the transportation system.

Some might argue that the transit police make the system safer, but a report done by the city of Edmonton says otherwise: in looking at the B.C. model while considering instituting their own transit police system, they found that overlapping jurisdictions with municipal police forces and the RCMP renders these transit police a waste of money. Edmonton decided not to follow in our footsteps.

The current installation of fare gates and administrating police force is further derailing the purpose of public transit considering the disposition of the general public it serves.

Right now, a fare of $2.50 may not seem like a lot to people; however, for those who need mobility in order to survive, a single-zone bus pass costs $81. This is a substantial amount for many people; for example, single employable people living on the $610 welfare provided to them with the requirement that they be looking for work – an activity that requires regular travel throughout the city. With the cost of transit police and fare gates, people who have it worst off in all circumstances will find it difficult and possibly physically impos-

sible to get around.

Put this in perspective with the current honour system, without the transit police: more people would be able to ride transit without the paranoia of a police force which actively looks to charge people $173 for not paying $2.50 for a transfer. Safety would be at a similar level, considering the municipal police, and we wouldn’t be in concrete deficit of $20 million a year.

Currently as it stands, the transit system put in place isn’t working. The amount of money being spent on the transit police and the installations of the turnstiles doesn’t benefit the general public.

Instead of trying to do patchwork on this sinking ship of a system, we should look at existing models of transportations that work. Perhaps we should demand a fare-free system such as that of the city of Hasselt instead of paying exorbitant costs to enforce something that doesn’t work.

Public transit should put the needs of the public above all.

Harrison Pratt is a musician, former Capilano film student, and resident of East Vancouver. His experiences working minimum wage and handing over most of his income to pay for his previous education have led him to write about issues affecting the low-income population of Vancouver.

NOT WHAT NOT TO WEAR

Formal schnormal

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know how to dress like they tinkle champagne and shit diamonds. The key is really all in the details: a great blowout and manicured talons go a long way to exude an aura of wealth and taste, even if all your tiny bedazzled clutch contains is a maxed-out Visa and two sticks of gum. So, go make friends with an esthetician: my girl Kasandra operates a secret ghetto beauty salon out of her illegal basement suite and will make you over in exchange for a few hours of babysitting so she can go see The Hunger Games with her babydaddy! Who needs a fairy godmother with friends like these?

Also – and this takes planning – hit up every rummage sale, garage blowout, craft fair, Salvation Army, and old-dead-lady estate sale in West Vancouver. These places are a veritable treasure trove of furs, bling, and accessories that you can pile on that amazing vintage silk gown with navel-baring cleavage that you’ve never had the guts to actually wear (extra points for going the pantsuit-with-only-a-bra-underneath route). Anything with velvet, gold, big cubic zircona gems, or centuries-old beading is good to go, and don’t be shy about stacking bracelets ten deep over your elbow-length opera gloves. That way, when your exboyfriend’s new flame tries to make a snide remark about how she’s so happy, you can drown her out with a deafening rattle of your Rich Bitch chains before blowing a cloud of perfumed smoke from your Cruella de Ville cigarette holder all over her boring black dress. Then, you sail away into the crowd to dry-hump James Bond on the dance floor.

In summary: never forget that you’re better than other people. Dress like it.

Cheetah Powers is a long-time hoarder and lover of fabulous clothes. She believes that a truly stylin' outfit should always be affordable, universal, and easy to pee in.

// Columnist

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

veryone seems to spend a lot of effort whining about how they hate going to formal events, because they’re stuffy and boring. However, these people are missing the point: your attire sets the mood for the evening.

Going to formal events in a rented black tuxedo or an off-the-rack dress is like a recipe for falling asleep before the chicken dance even begins.

However, if you take this opportunity to unleash the sartorial beast within, chances are that you’ll not only incite seething lust and jealousy, you’ll end up party-rocking until the sun comes up.

Anyway, what is there not to love about swanky events? Sure, the small talk is grating, but after 20 minutes and the open bar, things start to loosen up, not to mention the spread of tiny finger foods that act as a secret aphrodisiac. Whether you’re attending your ex’s wedding, taking your 18-yearold girlfriend to prom, or crashing the local country club gala, there’s no reason to “under-dress” or “be tasteful”.

Basically, if you’re a man, you will want to look like you’re a secret agent on an assignment that involves rapid-fire dialogue with a Machiavellian host while sipping a dry martini and eating tiny wieners on sticks. Get a white dinner jacket.

White shirt. Black bowtie. Pin a red carnation to your lapel, side-part your hair, and bring your gun, because you will need it. Other men will be so jealous of your 007 steeze that they will probably actually challenge you to a fight or a loud James Bond trivia competition. But ignore them; they were dressed by their wives, those silly gents, and you have supervillains to catch and bitches to seduce. I’m actually getting a little bit hot under the collar just thinking about the potential you right now.

If you’re a woman, on the other hand, just go all-out Rich Bitch. Think Bianca Jagger, Elvira Hancock, or even Lana del Rey. Those hoes

With Cheetah Powers

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Columns STUDENT FOODIE

Full of beans

D

uring the time that I was a vegetarian, I stumbled through life eating whatever wasn’t meat and doing my best to stay healthy. I knew beans were supposed to be a good source of protein, so I added them to my diet and hoped for the best. It wasn’t until about a year ago, while I was at my parent’s house perusing their plethora of cookbooks and food-related bathroom reading materials, that I found Full of Beans. I cracked it open and to my surprise, I learned some amazing facts that my former vegetarian self really could have taken advantage of.

I call it my bean bible.

Simply because you are a meat-eater does not mean that alternative sources of protein, such as beans, should not be a healthy part of your diet.

Since I first discovered that book, I’ve learned a lot of intriguing and useful information about beans. As a consequence, I began to feel increasingly confident eating them and knowing that I am getting all the nutrients my body needs.

Not only that, but as I did more research, I learned that proteins that come from plants are way more healthy than meat proteins, because they contain much less fat. A six-ounce broiled porterhouse steak can contain up to 60 percent of your daily intake of saturated fats, whereas a one-cup serving of lentils contains less than a tenth of that, according to the

With Leanne Kriz // Columnist

The Nutrition Source by the Harvard School of Public Health.

The most valuable thing I learned from my bean bible was how to pair my beans to make a full protein. As many people know, beans do not contain all the essential amino acids to comprise a full protein. They must be eaten with complimentary proteins that contain the other amino acids. Luckily, a lot of the foods people already tend to eat with beans are, in fact, complimentary. For example, beans and rice, beans and cheese (Mexican food), beans and pasta, and many more.

Here are some more of the complimentary pairings for beans: Grain protein Rice, rye, corn, wheat, and pasta Seed and nut protein Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, walnuts, cashews Other proteins Milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs Beans are also incredibly cheap compared to their meat counterparts. Dried beans are even less expensive than canned beans, and they

taste almost the same, but they require a little more work.

What you need to do is wash the beans thoroughly, and then soak them. You can soak them in cold water for 7–10 hours; or bring them to a boil, turn off the heat, and let them soak for one hour. Then rinse them, and they are ready to be cooked. Cooking depends on the type of bean, how old they are, and many other factors. Your best bet is to read your package of beans; it should give you an appropriate cooking time.

The book also offered several tips to reduce flatulence. One way to do this is to thoroughly rinse your beans, as many of the gas-producing elements of beans accumulate in the water that your dried beans are soaking in. It is advised to rinse them after soaking and after cooking. Also, rinse your canned beans! According to Full of Beans, apparently this can reduce flatulence up to 80 per cent. Additionally, if you love beans and eat them all the time, your body will become more accustomed to them and you won’t have so many problems. Cool beans, eh?

The recipe this week is Bacon Bean Burgers with Mango Guacamole – take out the bacon and you’ve got your vegetarian option. The reason I chose this recipe is because, as a vegetarian, sometimes you just want a delicious burger

to chow down on, and those frozen patties just don’t cut it all the time. A lot of those store-bought veggie patties are dry and, frankly, pretty gnarly. This recipe is also a wonderful, healthy choice that makes up a full protein and is a cheap way to get your burger fix.

I recommend you garnish it with something saucy, because bean burgers are naturally less fatty and less moist than regular burgers. I chose guacamole, although salsa, hummus, and aioli are great alternative options. A really good bun makes a burger that much better, so head down to your local bakery or gourmet food store to find some of those – if you only have time to head to the grocery store, I recommend Kaiser rolls.

Whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, beans can help you expand your variety of food choices, lower the cost of your dinners, keep things healthy, and at the same time rest easy knowing that a great source of protein can be found outside of meat and poultry.

Leanne comes from a long line of food lovers, and has been cooking since she was eight years old. She has spent many years creating the perfect chocolate chip cookie. In spite of all of her food experimentation, to this day her favourite meal is still a delicious bowl of popcorn.

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Bacon Bean Burgers with Mango Guacamole Ingredients 1/2 cup mayo 2 cans black beans ½ large onion, chopped fine ½ - ¾ cup breadcrumbs 1/3 cup walnuts, chopped very fine 1 egg ¼ cup cilantro 3 cloves garlic, pressed ¼ tsp cayenne pepper 1 ½ tsp chili powder ½ tsp salt Package of bacon Step 1: Sauté onions in a pan.

Step 2: Rinse one can of beans and place in blender. Add the sautéed onions and the rest of the ingredients except the walnuts. Blend until smooth. Add an additional ¼ cup of breadcrumbs if the mixture is really wet.

It should be quite sticky but still firm.

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Step 4: Take the mixture and form it into patties that are about the size of your palm.

Step 5: Put about 1 tablespoon of oil into a pan on low-medium heat and fry the patties for about 7–10 minutes on low heat so that they have a chance to cook properly. I recommend that you don’t flip them often, because they do start to crumble. I just flip them once, checking on them every few minutes.

Step 6: Preheat your buns, load them up with all your favourite toppings, and add your bacon. Use your best guacamole recipe; I added mango instead of tomato to mine to switch things up – yum!

To comment on this and other articles, visit www.capilanocourier.com

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the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

Step 3: Place the blended mixture in another bowl. Rinse the other can of beans and add it and the walnuts to the mix. Stir it up with your hands.

Op i n i o n s

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Edi tor // Marco Ferreira // o pi ni o ns @ c api l ano c o uri e r. c o m

Mo' Kony Bologna The success of the Kony movement could result in more violence in Africa

By Jonty Davies // Web Editor

W

ith the bombastic momentum of a runaway freight train, the movement known as Stop Kony 2012 has taken over social networking sites all over the Internet.

The Stop Kony campaign is an organized initiative to raise awareness of and put an end to alleged atrocities committed in Uganda by one Joseph Kony – acknowledged leader of a militant guerilla faction known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Kony has been said to employ tactics of warfare so heinous that the Western world's eyes have been stunned by its realities.

The horrors are very real and fully deserve our attention, but the Stop Kony 2012 movement is at its core a call to arms, and this is not necessarily for the best – as it may be a call that leads to further violence in Africa.

Stop Kony 2012 was a documentary film created by the organization Invisible Children and directed by Jason Russell. It’s been hugely effective at building unique appeal. Rather than guilting the viewer into financial participation like most charity commercials, the film invites you to join a grassroots initiative of celebritizing Kony. This is to be done by purchasing passit-on bracelets and an action kit stacked with stylized posters of the man. Participants are instructed to blanket cities around the world with these posters in a single night of action on Apr. 20.

Since Kony 2012's meteoric success, it has been met with backlash. Any rational person can see that horrors of such a magnitude need to be dealt with, but many sceptics have looked past the sheen of the emotional pitch and on to the

negative realities that may come as a result. Some have gone as far as outright deride the movement as a dangerous thing promoting the wrong kind of global behaviour. Concern is directed toward the actions that are to constitute the “removal” of Kony. Because the film was produced in the United States, and the majority of people getting involved will also be American citizens, the issue has become something for America to deal with. There is major uncertainty about the whereabouts and current activity of Joseph Kony and the American government's speculated action will involve sending soldiers on a typically American crusade of interventionism that will threaten Ugandan sovereignty.

// Tiaré Jung As Adam Branch, a senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda wrote, “It is an excuse that the US government has gladly adopted in order to help justify the expansion of their military presence in central Africa. Invisible Children are ‘useful idiots’, being used by those in the US government who seek to militarize Africa, to send more and more weapons and military aid, and to bolster the power of states who are US allies.”

He argues that the United States would intend to pursue militarism anyway, and with millions of young North Americans demanding it, they are put in an easier position to do so. Branch goes on to suggest that the very considerable

problems facing the Ugandan people have little to do with Kony. The Acholi people are being forced from their land by foreign speculators, many of whom are in collaboration with the Ugandan government.

The problems are not about Joseph Kony.

There are many other warlords around Africa committing just as many horrific crimes – the problems are systemic. Africa is a conflicted place that houses massive deposits of oil. Central Africa is also estimated to have up to 80 per cent of the world's coltan reserves. The primary mineral extracted from coltan is tantalum – a substance found in almost every electronic device, most universally, the cellphone in your pocket.

The ethics surrounding the mining of these minerals are suspect and known to involve high levels of violence.

Public support will allow for interventionist action, and as humanists like Branch who operate in the region acknowledge, this will do more harm than good. The military presence will allow for strong-arm style domination in the region, offering the land and its resources to the occupier.

If these warring factions are content with raping children for the sake of maintaining their limited regional power, they're highly unlikely to accept sanctioning measures lightly. They already make a habit of clashing with government troops as it is, and violence will escalate, rather than be extinguished.

By being rallied into action around Kony 2012, we are misguidedly believing that we’re doing all we can to stop the violence, yet are inadvertently encouraging it. These warlords operate on a takewhat-you-will basis and have shown no past hesitation to violently defend or pursue what they believe to be theirs.

Necessary Expenses Wisdom teeth removal is too expensive for students

By Christina Blakeborough // writer

// Alexandra Gordeyeva

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

Whether you’re saving up for university or tuition debts are already a problem, it's going to be difficult to afford having your wisdom teeth pulled. A lot can go wrong when these teeth start coming in, and the dentist will likely tell you that you need to get them removed. Health Insurance B.C. obviously doesn't agree, as the procedure doesn't fall into their classification of a medicallyrequired service provided by a physician. If getting your wisdom teeth removed is so necessary, then why isn't it covered by Medicare, or at least a basic dental plan?

Wisdom teeth removal is both a costly and risky procedure to have done. The general cost for wisdom teeth removal in British Columbia is $350 per tooth under the gum line, and $500 for the anaesthetic. Therefore, if you’re unlucky enough to have all four teeth, the total cost will come to nearly $2,000.

The B.C. Government's health plan doesn't cover any dental, and that includes extraction of wisdom teeth. This is the case even if the teeth are impacted, making it a necessity, so you better get some insurance if you need them removed. Even

then, what is and isn’t covered on a dental plan ultimately depends on each plan. The surgical procedure for wisdom teeth removal has to be done by a specialist, so a basic dental plan won't be adequate.

It’s not only wisdom teeth removal; anything that can’t be done by a general dentist won’t be covered by a basic plan. If something as common as wisdom teeth removal is so costly, then why isn’t it included in a dental plan affordable to young people? An average Blue Cross extended plan would cover about 80 per cent of the costs, which only leaves a few hundred dollars that actually need to be paid by the patient; for university students that would make a tremendous difference. However, some extended dental plans can cost upwards of $70 a month.

When it comes to dental work, many people put it off either because it's too expensive, or they don't believe it’s essential. Unfortunately, untreated dental problems can grow from minor preventative issues to emergency dental treatments requiring hospitalization. Fortunately, if you're hospitalized because you couldn't afford to get your wisdom teeth taken care of, the government will foot the bill, so maybe that's the best route to take after all.

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o p i n i o ns

No, not the guy from Twilight Why the next leader of the NDP should have been Nathan Cullen

// Desiree Wallace and also his economic plan to address NAFTA, increase domestic trade instead of relying of exportation, and continue his work to help small businesses create jobs.

Brian Topp’s campaign has been largely based on party tradition. He says the NDP must stay connected to its “fundamental identity as a social democratic/democratic socialist party.”

In his policy papers, Topp has described economic inequality as “the central economic and moral issue of our time” and pledged to increase governmental presence in the economic market to ensure distribution of “wealth and income more evenly.” He has also promised to cut corporate tax breaks and to work with small businesses, which he says “drive

our economy,” to foster job creation and economic growth.

Topp has also criticised Mulcair’s desire to make the NDP a more centrist party, saying that if there are two liberalised parties, voters will choose “the real one” come election time. The problem with this hard-lining is that it fails to acknowledge those Canadians who are not diehard social democrats, which risks nullifying the progress made under Jack Layton, and returning the NDP to a fourth-place party. Nathan Cullen’s co-nominee idea, although controversial within the party ranks, will show that the NDP is ready to cooperate and to represent the entire country, not just its own base.

Cullen is the only candidate to have defeated a Conservative incumbent MP. “I know how to beat these guys,” he said in the final debate in Vancouver, but still he recognizes the Conservative threat for what it is. “Mr. Harper is many things,” he says, “but not stupid.” By not underestimating the Conservative party, Cullen shows that he is prepared to tackle the complex challenges facing both the party and the nation.

As the Vancouver Sun’s Peter O’Neil says in his recent column, “Jack Layton is going to be on the mind of every New Democrat during this vote.”

Given that, the new leader must be someone who can live up to Layton’s reputation. O’Neil agrees that “Cullen is by far the closest of the seven candidates to the late leader in terms of personality and charisma” and that “his message … also echoes Layton’s style.”

Whoever is elected must be someone that the party, and the country, will rally around with the devotion and enthusiasm that Jack Layton inspired, and it is Cullen, with his fresh and charismatic vision, who can create that inspiration.

attack," says UAB Associate Professor Martin Young, Ph.D., in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. "The opposite is true when falling back in October. This risk decreases by about ten per cent.”

Not only are these health effects legitimate, the mental strain resulting from DST has also been widely documented in the last few years.

Although DST is attributed to aiding recovery from Seasonal Affective Disorder through additional sunlight hours, an Australian study from 1986-2001 regarding suicide rates post DST concluded that rates in male suicides rose steeply in the week following the one hour time shift.

So is DST worth these blatant pitfalls? Many current researchers would have you believe that it is not. In countries such as Russia and Iceland, a movement towards “permanent daylight savings time” has been seen in the last few years. The positive effects of DST continue to be discredited and the concept of DST has been dragged through the mud by the public and opponents of DST, so can we just quit changing our clocks back already? The answer is, yes, we can, as soon as our old-fashioned governments figure out that no one needs sunlight; we’re all just watching Netflix with the curtains drawn anyways.

// JJ Brewis

By Julian Legere // writer

J

ust less than a year after the NDP saw historic electoral success in winning the position of official Opposition, Canada’s political landscape is still experiencing one of the most turbulent years in our history. With Jack Layton having tragically passed away last August, there is a vacuum in the NDP organisation at possibly the most crucial time in the party’s history.

This month, the party faces the painful task of replacing its irreplaceable fallen leader, and the only candidate who can really be expected to fill Jack Layton’s enormous shoes is B.C.’s own Nathan Cullen.

Another runner-up is Thomas Mulcair, a Quebec native and the province’s longest standing NDP MP. CBC News cites his “defense of the French language” and Mulcair himself is quoted saying he “fought hard and passionately to keep Quebec in Canada” and he almost guarantees continued Quebec support. However, Nathan Cullen has also demonstrated that he is fully aware of the importance of Quebec and has a plan to maintain the NDP’s goodwill by getting MP’s to “spend a lot of time on the doorsteps and attending events in their ridings.” Although Mulcair was elected as the new NDP leader at the recent party convention, a comparison of the candidates illustrates the value of what could have been, had Cullen been elected instead.

Mulcair’s plan to beat the Conservatives also involves what Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin describes as “[broadening] the NDP tent,” which would result in “crowding [the Liberals] for votes in the middle,” leading to a repeat of the left-wing split that led to the Conservatives managing to attain a majority gov-

ernment. Cullen has instead suggested the idea of Liberal/NDP co-nominees in the next election, which would unite the left to defeat the Conservatives rather than encouraging the split.

Meanwhile, Peggy Nash is focused on proving that the NDP are “the best party to manage the economy.” She has described the economy as “the central issue” of Canadian politics and says “it ought to be [the party’s] strength.” Her support among unions, fostered when she worked as a union negotiator, lends credibility to her economic platform, especially among the NDP’s working-class base, but her largely one-track focus appeals to a narrow portion of NDP supporters; this is in stark contrast to Cullen’s diverse agenda on democratic reform, the environment,

Sorry I was late Daylight savings time needs to stop now

By Colin Spensley // writer

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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here are few things people hate more than missing out on a few hours of sleep.

So why is it that twice a year Canadians sleeping patterns are disrupted by an archaic tradition with no relevant data to back up its purpose?

A New Zealand entomologist shift worker and avid bug collector G.V Hudson first introduced the idea of Daylight Savings Time (DST) in 1985 when he realized that more daylight meant more bug collecting; and thus, DST was born.

Proponents for DST claim it is an effective and simple method of saving energy and encouraging people to maximize their time outdoors during hours of sunlight. Although heavily debated since its inception, DST made its way across the world, and was officially adopted by the USA in the mid-1980s.

The main problem with DST is just how ineffective and unregulated it has been. Although all countries practice the standardized time zone method of time keeping, not all nations continue to use DST and most do not have a standardized time at which to change the clocks back and forwards one hour.

For example, mainland Chile observes DST from mid-October until mid-March. Because Chile changes its DST at different times than other nations, the time difference between England and Chile, for example, is three hours in the summer months, and five hours in the winter.

This can often be a nuisance, not only in people’s personal lives, but in the work force as well.

No longer is DST just a plain sleep-depriving nuisance, either. Studies have been released in the last few years that indicate that not only is DST inconvenient, it’s downright dangerous.

CBC reported that there is an increase of accidental deaths on job sites of six per cent the day after DST. "Losing an hour of sleep contributes to sleep debt," says Shyam Subramanian, a pulmonologist at Baylor College of Medicine in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. "If you don't make up the debt, it manifests in waking up tired, needing a lot of caffeine to get going, nodding off during the day."

If the accident doesn't kill you, your body’s reaction might. Science Daily recently reported a rise in heart attacks the day after DST: “The Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks ahead one hour in March is associated with a ten per cent increase in the risk of having a heart

Adve r t i s e m ent

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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Caboose

Caboose

➽

Edi tor // MIKE BASTIEN // c abo o s e . c apc o uri e r@ gmai l . c o m

Super superstitions

Squirtle JJ Brewis

Farfetch’d Jonty Davis

Stunfisk Mike Bastien

Magikarp Sarah Vitet

Someone get me a t-shirt with this hilarious bastard on it right now, I wanna lol all the way. A turtle who squirts. Can you think of anything more hilarious? I know I can't. Believe me, I've tried. A turtle who squirts. It just really works for me. People wonder why children grow up and have the dirtiest minds. Well here I am, mom, a full grown man, contemplating the filth and glory in this adorably perverted little beast. Children have no idea about the dirty shit hiding within the things they love, and that makes it all that much better when they grow up, like most of us do (RIP Macaulay Culkin), and realize, "Oh my God, they drew an erect dick in the sky in Pocahontas!" Growing up naive just so we can all become horridly gross. Many of us spend so much time overdoing things to the point of exhaustion and just ruin what could have been a simple, perfect solution. The best things in life truly are understated and easy. They could have given Squirtle a neon backpack that propels him into space, or a cornucopia of knives for easy stabbing. But he doesn't need that shit. He squirts at you: super effective, and fucking hilarious.

Professor Oak: This is Farfetch’d. He is the wild duck Pokemon! Ash: WTF is a duck? As we have every reason to believe, in Pokeland, Pokemon are the only non-human creatures in existence.

And the human residents of Pokeland seem to be surviving just fine – even prospering you could say. They certainly don’t look very hungry. So bad news, little Pokemon: you’re on the menu. All of you. Squirtle soup? Maybe. Jiggly-pie? I guess.

But seriously, what kind of asshole is going to order a Grimer-stew or Onyx burger? BOOM! All of a sudden, in flies a nice, plump Farfetch’d.

He’s the Peking-Pokemon. I’d go hands-first for that shit. For God’s sake, the bastard’s carrying a leek around with him at all times; he provides you with his own garnish. For sheer courtesy, Farfetch’d is my favourite Pokemon. And there’s no frills with Farfetch’d: no wack ass psychoses like that lunatic Psyduck. I dare you to eat a Psyduck. Probably walking away from that meal with a seismic toss of a migraine. No, if every Pokemon were a little more like Farfetch’d, the Pokeworld would be a much more delicious place.

Despite often being mocked because he is a fish who isn’t even a water type, Stunfisk will fuck you up. “He’s stupid,” they said. “He’s a joke,” they said. “Don’t kill us,” they said. Derpy-fins here will earthquake and lightning-bolt the shit out of your pokemon, then splash in their blood.

Thank Arceus this guy cannot evolve, because then he would be too powerful for any trainer to handle. If you ever encounter a wild Stunfisk, just run. These guys are near-impossible to defeat. A combination of high defenses and resistance to paralysis, as well as dealing out paralysis, is a dangerous combination. Hell, this guy’s evasion goes up in sandstorms. That’s right, this fish prefers the desert over the ocean! If you somehow manage to K.O. this hell flounder, he smiles as he faints, because he knows that he will have his vengeance upon your soul in the afterlife.

Everybody knows Magikarp is pathetic. In battle, all it does is splash around, which does no damage effect. If you surf or swim in almost any water, Magikarp will be there to make your game more tedious. You don't gain any experience from killing this stupid fish, and it usually dies in one hit, which is really just a waste of the power point.

Sometimes it's fun to battle a Magikarp with another Magikarp (which I will usually nickname SUCKADICK or NIPPLES), and they just splash at each other over and over again until somebody flees in boredom. Of course, Magikarp naturally evolves into Gyarados at level 20, but good luck training it that high. Because of all these terrible qualities (it also can't learn Surf, the main useful water pokemon skill), everyone just hates Magikarp, and it has the reputation of being the weakest of all pokemon. It reminds me of a goldfish, though, and I love goldfish, so I can forgive Magikarp. After all, at least it's not Zubat, who infests caves and is fairly easy to kill, but has the ability to badly poison and confuse you. Magikarp means well. Just because it isn't violent, strong, useful or particularly cool looking, doesn't mean we should make fun of it. That's unfair – everyone deserves to be respected, even the pathetically weak Magikarp.

F e at u r e d F i c t i o n

the capilano courier | vol. 45 issue 22

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Something Happened In Ward G

y own footsteps are the only sound that disturbs the thick, woollen blanket of silence that wraps itself around Ward G tonight. Since administration told us to stop calling it the “graveyard” shift, a few of us custodians have started to refer to the hours spanning from two to five o’clock in the morning as “the deadtime”. Honestly though, I’m the only guy around here who sees almost no death in this damned hospital during the deadtime.

Ward G is the recovery section of this hospital in central Chicago, and not much happens during the deadtime. Nights pass as I sweep invisible dirt tracked in by the ghostly shoes of patients in heavy states of sedation or the deepest of sleep.

A cough from down the soft-lit hall breaks my inner concentration. I spin hard on my heel and it makes a satisfying squeak on the freshly waxed floor, open the door and once more, I’m in 11B. This room has been empty for a few days now, and I’ve been spending a lot of time here during the deadtime. Some old guy with a lot of dough paid extra to have his own room while he recovered from some sort of stomach operation, so they carted in a big TV, some extra pillows, and a mini-fridge full of mineral water. The way things go around here, it’ll probably sit empty like this for weeks, or at least I can hope it does.

I breathe in. The smell of disinfectant has become so familiar to me now, like mother's

cooking or dad's garage, so normal, like walking through the front door of the home you grew up in. I glance into the tiny mirror over the tiny sink.

Haven’t shaved in a couple days, but who cares?

The only people I see around here is Susan the night nurse and Bob my boss, but he’s drunk half the time and Susan doesn’t want anything to do with me. I adjust my name tag; “George C. – Custodian”. I read it aloud before opening the fridge and examining a leftover bottle of pills on the middle shelf.

“Promethazine hydrochloride…hmm…”

Cracking one of those mineral waters, I pop two of the pills. I throw myself down on the bed and switch on the television. ER is on again and I relish it for a moment. I see the hardworking doctors rushing between gurneys as nurses run to fetch supplies and solutions. Bones are set, cuts stitched, and stomachs pumped. Oh the mess!

The gore … It’s all just so … glorious! A fictional patient has severed his jugular and the blood is everywhere. Pouring from his neck like a fruit punch waterfall.

My mind wanders from the television and I reflect on the custodians who must dart in to dispose of such a mess. Oh, for they are the unsung heroes of the ER wards, aren’t they? Imagine doctors setting their own broken wrists because no one was around to mop up the vomit, piss, or blood. A chuckle escapes my dry throat and

road kill. The blood is everywhere … I can see his liver, his kidney, and his heart open on display like some morose peep show … I take off my socks and get out of the bed. I reach for the broom next to the window and place my bare feet into the shattered remains of the bottle and press down with all my weight. I can feel the glass cutting into my soles and the blood starts to seep out, mixing with the mineral water.

By Colin Spensley // Writer // Caitlyn Neufeld I take another swig from the cool bottle of water.

The green glass bottle feels good in my hands and the region of France where this water comes from is probably beautiful this time of year. … So I heave the bottle against the wall, and watch it smash into a thousand emerald snowflakes and the remaining water pool onto the floor in between the shards, little islands in a fizzing sea.

No sounds emerge from the hall; no one has woken from my act of self-induced rebellion. The television's warm glow captures my attention again – a cleaning commercial for disinfectant. I chuckle and begin to undo my boots, slowly. My eyes don’t leave the screen as each lace comes undone. An ad for a digestive biscuit, a public service announcement… “And now back to our regular programing …” A female doctor has an obese man sliced open like some sort of human