The Community Edition: July 2016

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 10 • JULY 2016

OFF THE RAILS PAGES 8-9

GOOD AND FREAKY

PAGE 12

ICE ICE BABY PAGE 12

ART THAT MAKES ITSELF PAGE 4

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Volume 4, Issue 10 Next issue: August 3, 2016 75 University Ave. W Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 519-884-0710 x3564 Advertising All advertising inquiries should be directed to Care Schummer at 519-884-0710 x3560 care.schummer@wlusp.com THE COMMUNITY EDITION TEAM Editor in Chief Jesse Bauman jesse.bauman@wlusp.com Publisher Lakyn Barton lakyn.barton@wlusp.com

General Inquiries info@communityedition.ca Web Manager Care Schummer care.schummer@wlusp.com

Social Media Manager Megan Nourse CONTRIBUTORS Cameron Dearlove Christopher Emory-Moore Stacey Jacobs Allison Leonard Rebecca Mayers Magdalena Milosz Jessica O’Connell Andreas Patsiaouros Kristen Philippi

Zainab Ramahi John Roche Eva Rucki Dylan Siebert Matt Smith Suzie Taka Dave Thomas Tamar Vartanian

WLUSP ADMINISTRATION President Executive Director Advertising Manager Treasurer Vice-Chair Director Director Director Director Director Corporate Secretary

Meghan Roach Lakyn Barton Care Schummer John Pehar Abdiasis Issa Mynt Marsellus Maddy Cutts Fred Kuntz Gary Doyle Matthew Burley Taylor Berzins

The Community Edition is an alternative monthly intended to engage and inform the community.

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The staff of the Community Edition shall uphold all commonly held ethical conventions of journalism. When an error of omission or of commission has occurred, that error shall be acknowledged promptly. When statements are made that are critical of an individual, or an organization, we shall give those affected the opportunity to reply at the earliest time possible. Ethical journalism requires impartiality, and consequently conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest will be avoided by all staff. The only limits of any newspaper are those of the world around it, and so the Community Edition will attempt to cover its world with a special focus on the community of Waterloo Region. Ultimately, the Community Edition will be bound by neither philosophy nor geography in its mandate.

The Community Edition has an obligation to foster freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This obligation is best fulfilled when debate and dissent are encouraged, both in the internal workings of the paper, and through the Community Edition’s contact with the community. The Community Edition will always attempt to do what is right, with fear of neither repercussions, nor retaliation. The purpose of community press is to act as an agent of social awareness, and so shall conduct the affairs of our magazine.

The folks from green light arts thrilled at Steel Rails 2016.

MATT SMITH PHOTO

FEATURE

8-9 STEEL RAILS PHOTO ESSAY

INSIDE 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 7 10 11 12 12 13 14 14 14 15 15

IN BRIEF WR GETS BEHIND BASIC INCOME BASIC SERVICES SURVIVE BARBARA HOBOT’S SENTIENT ART #WRWITHPULSE SOCIAL JUSTICE + MENTAL HEALTH HIJAB: MY MANIFESTO NEW LGBTQA+ WEB SERIES SEEKER’S CORNER: MT. ZION TCE FICTION ON ENDING DRIVER-CYCLIST RAGE GETTING GREEN OFF THE GROUND ICE ICE BABY SEXPLANATIONS: PEDOPHILIA TECHNOLOGY & GENTRIFICATION WHO BELONGS IN WR? SUMMER LIGHTS IN DTK LISTINGS

It takes a village to throw a large art party. So I learned this summer, in the months leading up to and including Friday June 24, a.k.a. Steel Rails 2016, and the first time the party went off the rails. I’ve had one part-night of sleep since then, and so my brain feels a bit like steel wool. But I’m also still riding a wonderful high that is this community’s fault.

At the end of the night, and before I could thank him and the rest of Lemon Bucket Orkestra, the band’s lead singer Marczyk thanked me and my fellow organizers. He thanked us for bringing the band to such a wonderful space, but also and especially for putting them in front of (and around and in between) a crowd that showed up smiling, open-minded and loud!

Maybe you can read some of my anxieties between the lines of this letter. Yes, I was worried it would be too weird, too different, too much. That no one would like it. Different people told me that this kind of party wouldn’t fly here — not in KW. (These people obviously hadn’t been to Night\ Shift or heard of CAFKA or so many other DIY events.)

My point is not that we threw a great (or the best) party, so yay!, pat us on the back.

My point is that this party doesn’t happen in a community that doesn’t already care a great deal about the arts. This party doesn’t happen without a community of artists, of people willing to perform and volunteer and playfully and earnestly engage with the creative spaces we packed into an industrial lot.

I’m probably preaching to the choir, and it’s an obvious point, but the overwhelming community response to Steel Rails is for me a simple reminder that this is a special place. Thank you.

Jesse Bauman Editor in chief

STEEL RAILS WAS POWERED BY:

LAKYN BARTON CARE SCHUMMER ALLIE LEONARD ALISTAIR MACLELLAN MEGAN NOURSE MEGHAN ROACH BETH BOWLES EMILY CRUMP JASON CHOW TOM PADDOCK DANNY SCHUMMER LEAH MARTIN MATT SMITH JON JOHNSON ANDREAS PATSIAOUROS ERIN MCLEAN-PURDON AMANDA GEIGER ELI WINTERFELD LAUREN ROSS JONATHAN MOYER DANIEL KRUGER JARED BAUMAN LOUISE & RICK COBER BAUMAN JULIAN GARRIGAN-COATRIEUX

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IN BRIEF

Our “If Streets Could Talk” series returns next month. Guess where?

MATT SMITH PHOTOS

NEWS

ARTS

URBAN

POLICE SEEKING A POSSIBLE LONE SUSPECT IN TWO SEXUAL ASSAULTS

KULTRUN BRINGS INTERNATIONAL MUSIC TO VICTORIA PARK

ARE BACKYARD CHICKENS THE WORST? YOU DECIDE

Wilfrid Laurier University released a statement on June 24 about two sexual assaults near campus in which a man grabbed women before running away.

The man in both incidents is described as being in his early 20s, with brown skin, 5’10” tall, with short brown hair and wearing baggy clothing.

The annual Kultrun international music festival will echo from Kitchener’s Victoria Park July 9-10. This year’s world-renowned artists span genres from Moroccan gospel to Quebecois folk to flamenco. The festival also includes food and craft vendors, henna and a gala. Admission is free and all are welcome.

The City of Kitchener has been hosting public consultations about possible bylaws that could allow for, or forbid backyard chickens in the city following the submission of a masisve digital petition. Proposed regulations include limiting the amount of chickens and requiring inspection.

$43M TO LOCAL TRANSIT HUB, BUT GO SERVICE STILL THE SAME

A COMMUNITY THAT GROUTS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER

BUY GROCERIES ON WEEKDAYS STARTING THIS FALL

A very large, very well-attended, very publicized announcement from Kathleen Wynne about GO Transit was held in Kitchener on June 14. Wynne announced a $43 million investment in the local transit hub and an agreement with CN to build a new rail corridor for the transference of freight cars, to increase passenger traffic.

No new Toronto to Kitchener-Waterloo GO trips were announced.

Meg Leslie has been leading workshops as part of the Hespeler Village crafternoon mosaic series with community revitalization in mind. The area will soon host mosaics throughout it’s core to encourage a sort of scavenger hunt. The next phase includes a community-wide project to create a wall-sized mosaic. All are welcome to contribute to grouting the lasting art project.

Downtown Kitchener residents might not have to wait for Saturday to get groceries. J and P Grocery Store is slated to open in 8 Queen, behind the new Vidyard office. Co-owners Sarah Pepper and John Kent say they were inspired to open the space by their own need for a nearby grocer in the core. The space will also offer grab n’ go lunches as well as a coffee shop on the mezzanine.

UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE NOT SO UNIVERSAL AFTER ALL

ARTS DESCEND ON CITY, 20 SOMETHINGS FEEL VERY TIRED ON MONDAY

NBLC COMES TO THE REGION, ACTUAL DETAILS EXPECTED SOON

In an effort to ensure healthcare is accessible for everyone, regardless of immigration status, rallies are being hosted in seven cities, including Kitchener, as part of the OHIP for All Campaign. The campaign calls on the Ontario government to provide access to OHIP for groups including temporary foreign workers, international students and nonstatus people who are denied care or receive hefty medical bills.

TCE has received reports of a Kitchener resident lost in the arts scene. The individual was sighted at Steel Rails, Tacofest, Kaeja Porch Dance and the Multicultural Festival, wandering booth to booth, and clad almost entirely in swag. In one Snapchat, they said “I’ve been wearing this cut off tank top for three days, I only meant to go to TacoFest but the crowds are too vast. The music, it beckons.”

Everyone’s favourite basketball league (the National Basketball League of Canada) is coming to the region. The league, founded in 2011, currently operates with eight teams, four of which are in Ontario, including London, Windsor, Orangeville and Niagara. NBL commissioner David Magley shared the news late in June, and will reveal franchise details, ownership and home court soon.

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BASIC INCOME GETS A BOOST FROM REGION

WR NOW THE LARGEST MUNICIPALITY IN ONTARIO TO DECLARE SUPPORT FOR INNOVATIVE POLICY

JESSE BAUMAN EDITOR IN CHIEF After seven frustrating years trying to work while on the Ontario Disability Support Program, John Green founded Basic Income Waterloo Region (BIWR) in 2014.

Green’s anxiety and depression prevent him from working enough to provide for himself, and ODSP rules allow those receiving benefits to work part-time. He freelanced those seven years, sporadically copy-editing high-school science textbooks, and describes the working-on-ODSP rules as “awkward, counterproductive and punitive.” Green says that the rules undermined of his efforts to establish the kind of “reliable income and stability that can lead to a better quality of life and wellbeing.”

While working, Green’s benefits changed depending on how much he made the year before.

“If you’ve had a good year, that’ll reduce your benefit the next year, so you better hope you continue to do well. And then if you do better [than expected] you can end up in an overpayment situation, where they decide they’ve given you too much. I’ve been in that situation for several years, where they’re taking a chunk off every month, and that’ll take several years to pay off.”

Green doesn’t mention this, but a single person receiving ODSP is already $6,783 under the provincial poverty line.

Green and other basic income advocates I spoke with shared great excitement about the fact that Ontario’s 2016 budget includes funds for a

details-to-be-specified basic income pilot project. On June 22 regional councilors passed a resolution to officially “support the stated intention of the Province to collaborate with stakeholders to develop, implement and evaluate a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) pilot project.” In so doing, Waterloo Region became the largest municipality in the province to publicly affirm the province’s BIG plan and to formally ask other municipalities to do the same.

Regional councilor Elizabeth Clarke says that, while the resolution is a small step, “BIG is essential.”

“Our current social assistance programs are a disaster,” Clarke says.

“We need to move to something else, and BIG is the only logical alternative.

We need a more effective and efficient system that is less intrusive, disrespectful and punitive.”

Kitchener Centre MPP Daiene Vernile confirms that BIG is still “among the options” as the provincial government continues to review income security programs (like welfare and disability supports). Vernile says that, following discussions with a number of local poverty reduction groups, she is “certainly going to be advocating strongly for Waterloo Region as a test location” for some kind of BIG. She says the province will announce pilot specifics before 2017.

There are many versions of BIG, but the core idea is that all adult residents of a particular area, irrespective of their labour market participation, are guaranteed a certain income. If you are alive, you get paid. Basic income could replace our social assistance bureaucracies with a simple cash-transfer mechanism. In such a community we would be free to do the work we want, because we could each depend on a steady and adequate source of income that met our basic needs. Those

basic needs met, more of us could afford preventative medicine, like good food. The lowest income members of our communities, who are the most likely to shop hyper-local, would, and more frequently.

BIG advocates promise a more effective poverty reduction tool than our existing social assistance programs, which should also make our communities (and the people who live in them) healthier, safer and more prosperous.

Sean Geobey is an advisor to BIWR, and an assistant professor in University of Waterloo’s school of environment, enterprise and development. He says that BIG’s “top benefit is that it eliminates the ‘welfare wall,’” explaining that “when people on welfare or disability start working, their cheques are cut 50 cents for every dollar they earn, meaning that the poorest people are facing the largest clawback on their earnings.”

“This traps people in poverty, because it often makes more sense not to work,” he says, because working comes with other costs, like transportation and child-care, but, increasingly, few benefits and limited job security.

Eliminating the welfare wall potentially means more people working, spending and paying taxes, but these savings seem insufficient to fund BIG. Indeed, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering how we could pay for BIG. Answers to this question are variations on a theme: poverty is expensive, and we’re already paying out the nose to react to the complicated consequences of living on a low income. In 2013 the Ontario Association of Food Banks estimated that poverty costs the province between $10.4 billion and $13.1 billion per year: trips to the emergency room instead of the family doctor, unhealthy food and then diabetes, stress, and pay-day

loans to pay off pay-day loans. Dismantling bureaucracies tasked with means-testing poor people could also generate savings.

People would not quit their jobs en masse, post-BIG, says Green and a variety of labour market research, because “most people will want a better lifestyle than BIG would give them.”

The BIG payments would be, more or less, the poverty line, and so anyone who wanted a nice car or to vacation abroad or not listen to Spotify ads would need to work. Whatever it is that compels us to keep up with the Joneses’ would not disappear once BIG arrives, its proponents argue.

What’s more, working less seems to have a variety of happy consequences for individuals and the environments they live in. Danes appear to be some of the happiest people in the world, while working less than most. And while some certainly want and need to work to feel good, it can be hard to see a connection between work and human flourishing for the so-called “working poor.” Do those people holding up work as the key to the good life have in mind cleaning toilets? Indeed, this is also one of the arguments in favour of a basic income guarantee: wouldn’t our communities be better if people were not forced to “choose” their work based on their survival needs?

Finally, BIG advocates point out that Canada already runs universal income support programs, like the child tax benefit and old age security, and also that a five year BIG trial in Manitoba in the 1970s had a demonstrably positive effect on the trial community’s health outcomes and poverty rates.

Although Canadians in general are among some of the best-off in the world, research from the Universities of Toronto and Calgary shows that many Canadians get healthier and

wealthier when they turn 65, which BIG advocates argue is key evidence of a basic income program’s efficacy.

While BIG advocacy has brought together unlikely allies, so too has it attracted a variety of criticisms.

Because people’s needs are not strictly financial, you cannot solve them with a cheque. You might be able to adjust payments according to different peoples’ living costs, so that those who need it could afford a wheelchair, but how can we quantify a person’s sense of belonging? Green, the basic income advocate, suggests that parts of the ODSP program could remain, to ensure those with disabilities receive the disability-specific supports they need.

The economist Kaylie Tiessen suggests that basic income advocacy could distract us from the important work of raising social assistance rates, which her research shows leaves recipients far below the poverty line.

A basic income pilot would take years to implement and evaluate, all while roughly one in thirteen Ontarians live far below the poverty line on welfare or disability.

Finally, who will take out the garbage in a society where everyone is relatively free to choose work they like?

Green laughs when I ask him. Yes, he concedes, it might be hard to find people to do the hardest, smelliest, least socially-valued work for low wages.

But would that be such a bad thing?

Maybe, Green suggests, such work would start to be paid what it’s worth.

Noting that Waterloo Region’s reputation for innovation extends beyond technology, Green hopes that BIG’s profile will continue to grow as a result of the resolution, and that other municipalities will get on board to keep pressing provincial and federal governments to consider BIG. “We’re in this for the long haul,” he says.

A new mural on the bottom of the new condo building at Young and Duke Streets, downtown Kitchener. MATT SMITH PHOTO

DISCRETIONARY BENEFITS FOR BASIC NEEDS REGIONAL COUNCILORS STEP UP, VOTE TO TEMPORARILY PATCH HOLES IN SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SYSTEM MEGAN NOURSE CONTRIBUTOR Discretionary benefits, which Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program recipients can apply to, to cover their basic health and other needs, are safe in Waterloo Region for another year. Faced with a projected $600,000 year-end deficit, at a mid-June meeting Regional councillors voted against service cuts.

Coverage for eyeglasses, hearing aids, mobility devices and drug and medical supplies not covered by OW were all proposed to be cut, but councillors committed to find funds in the tax stabilization reserve fund to ensure

program continuity.

Lynn Macaulay was at the meeting to speak against the proposed cuts, and started by thanking the council and acknowledging that their actions have proven they “value quality of life for people living in poverty in this region.”

Macaulay works for the Homelessness and Housing Umbrella Group (HHUG), and she and Doug Rankin of the Downtown Kitchener Community Health Centre both said that the phrase “discretionary benefits” is misleading, because monies cover basic – nondiscretionary – needs.

“It is truly paradoxical that Ontario Works, at its core a program aimed at getting people back into the workforce, does not require the provision of such items as eyeglasses, hearing aids and mobility aids,” Macaulay said.

Funding for discretionary benefits

is complicated, and it is worth noting that the Region of Waterloo contributes significantly more than most other communities in Ontario. In 2012 the province capped its contributions to the discretionary benefits pool, dropping its funding to our region from $6.5 million to $2.5 million.

Regional council decided that year to increase its contribution, though overall funding still dropped nearly $1.5 million.

Before the meeting Macaulay was adamant that we need to be advocating more to the province about changing the amount of funding, the formula its calculated by, and the core idea of what low income citizens need. Currently the province funds up to $10 per family on the Regional ODSP or OW roll, no matter the size of the family.

“This is a lack of provincial lead-

ership on discretionary benefits. It should not be left for the local taxpayer base to take care of the poorest and most vulnerable people of Ontario,” said Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Catherine Fife, who was the only MPP at the council meeting.

Regional chair Ken Seiling proposed using the stabilization fund to cover benefits for the rest of the year. That of course, is a short-term solution.

Douglas Bartholomew-Saunders, the Region’s Commissioner of Social Services, was at the meeting to answer questions and explain the committee’s proposal. He said his team is confident they had done the best they could to find money to cover the funding gaps.

Ultimately, and although council unanimously voted to cover the gap in this year’s budget, a long term solution was not discussed. Macauley said that

a more permanent solution will need to involve more community partners.

“In addition to funds from the Province and Regional Council, the discretionary benefits program works because many service providers accept a much lower fee for their services – including opticians, dentists, denturists and funeral directors.” Those providers will need to be more included in the long term solution, she said.

The problem is systemic and the solution, many agreed, should not be up to the Region alone. The council agreed that a letter to the province was needed to express the severity of the issue and the leadership Ontario’s government needs to take. The Region of Waterloo is doing more for its most vulnerable citizens that most other Ontario communities, but it is still not enough.

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Images courtesy of Barbara Hobot and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. PHOTOS BY ROBERT MCNAIR

ON MAKING ART THAT MAKES ITSELF MAGDALENA MILOSZ CONTRIBUTOR The ambiguity of nets, curtains, veils, drapes—means of concealing that can also reveal—permeates the large-scale works by Barbara Hobot currently on exhibit at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG). On the wall hangs a piece of faux leather vinyl cut and flared like a skirt; on the adjacent floor lies its aesthetic relative, partly draped over a wooden dowel. The two untitled pieces are part of Our Mutual Friend, an exhibition of new work by five locally based artists. The new pieces have been created in response to and are shown alongside objects from KWAG’s permanent collection as the gallery celebrates its 60th anniversary.

“I’m interested in [the] potential energy of objects,” Hobot tells me as we chat in the KWAG lobby outside the exhibition. Indeed, a central question that propels her studio practice, as she’s written in the artist statement accompanying her work, is, “Can an artwork make itself?”

“I’m determined to reach beyond my own intentions, as seemingly preposterous as that may sound,” the statement continues. “Searching for a creative sentience within objects compels me to keep making.”

As we talk about this somewhat paradoxical approach, I’m struck by her openness to sharing her thinking and her willingness to entertain my interpretations of her work. Our conversation flows around her fascination with archetypal tools that “do a hell of a lot,” like nets, knives, and wedges; how grad school helped her let go of some self-imposed rules in her practice; and

the desire to limit her own subjectivity, which has led to processes such as using previously made artworks to make new pieces. A broad overview of her work suggests a sort of developing family tree, with genetic or evolutionary relationships across mediums.

For Our Mutual Friend, Hobot found resonances with her own artistic practice in a piece by An Whitlock acquired by KWAG in 1982, a textile-like sculpture of latex and rusted steel wool eerily reminiscent of flesh (also, appropriately, untitled). During an artist talk on June 8, Hobot relates that after choosing Whitlock’s piece from among the 4,000 objects in the collection, she and gallery staff were uncertain as to how it should be displayed—it had never been shown to the public before.

KWAG’s senior curator, Crystal Mowry, says that with such a sizable collection, there are inevitably a large number of pieces that have not yet been exhibited.

“Staff has been intensely involved in exploring the gallery’s collection,” she states, in order to fill in some of the gaps in knowledge about the history of the institution and its accessions, particularly those from more than two decades ago. Founded in 1956, the gallery’s creation myth features a lowly bicycle shed as its first home, and a group of visionaries who wanted to bring contemporary (and often risky) art from a variety of sources to the regional public. Many of the original founders have passed away, but the collection they started now includes works by Picasso, Dalí, and most of the Group of Seven, as well as newer artists like Edward Burtynsky.

Mowry sees the collection as a research tool, something to be actively used. For Our Mutual Friend, she invited artists who already have an engagement with research in their practice, a process that manifests in diverse ways.

“Artists are allowed to set their own rules and develop their own methodologies,” Mowry says. “Part of my curatorial capacity is to find out why artists do what they do.” Each of the five artists in Our Mutual Friend has their own particular approach to discovering the themes and problems that drive their practice. For Hobot, the connections between An Whitlock’s work and her own are both material and conceptual, focusing on investigations of processes outside of the artist’s control, tensions between the manmade and the “natural,” and the ambiguity created by things that resemble curtains.

Hobot studied fine arts at the University of Waterloo, followed by a stint in arts administration and curation at a variety of institutions prior to pursuing an MFA at Western University. While she has maintained a consistent artistic practice since her undergraduate years, participating in exhibitions and residencies across North America and Europe (including CAFKA.11, for which she and partner Patrick Cull—also represented in Our Mutual Friend—did a mobile knife-sharpening performance), she has more recently dedicated herself full-time to this pursuit. She works out of a studio in Kitchener and this year has had a solo exhibition at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and a group show at Cambridge Galleries, in addition to Our Mutual Friend.

“I like being in group shows because it gives my work context,” she says.

The current exhibition is interesting in that relationships are formed not just among old and new (as the exhibition’s subtitle, “A Conversation with the Collection,” aptly conveys) but among five sets of old and new. Hobot is the only one of the five to focus on a single object from the collection, and the only one to employ sculpture in her own work as well as in her choice of “friend.”

The arrangement of Hobot’s two pieces

and Whitlock’s one thus becomes a dynamic, three-dimensional counterpoint to the drawings, paintings, and video work on the adjacent walls.

The problem of how Whitlock’s piece should be exhibited—on the floor or on the wall—was solved by the artist herself, who lives down the Grand River in Paris. But the uncertainty resonated with Hobot—her own wall piece was originally a floor piece that ended up wanting to be hung. Whitlock also stipulated that when installed, the latex and steel wool sculpture should have a looseness to demonstrate what the material is capable of; a slight drape at the top lets in light, emphasizing its translucency.

This sort of attention to details of materiality is another affinity between the two artists’ work. In Hobot’s pieces, cuts in the dark blue vinyl are splayed and folded to reveal an underside that has been treated as a canvas. On it is painted a semblance of wood like one might find on a stage set, obviously artificial and meant to trick the eye from a distance. Yet Hobot does not work from a design, instead taking cues from the materials as she works with them to bring an object into being. It is in the object itself that viewers must search for any meaning that may be obscured or revealed through this process.

Up next for Hobot is a research project as part of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship and a solo exhibition in December at Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto, which represents such eminent artists as the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the artist/architect Will Alsop. As Hobot prepares for this major show, focusing for now on a substantial series of drawings, the idea of giving objects power “keeps meaning revolving and rotating” in the studio.

“I wish I could know what an object wanted,” she muses. “This is what keeps me motivated.”

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FIGHTING BATTLES TO LOVE, FIGHTING BATTLES TO LIVE HUNDREDS GATHERED AT VIGILS IN KITCHENER AND WATERLOO FOLLOWING SHOOTINGS AT A QUEER NIGHTCLUB IN ORLANDO. SUZIE TAKA DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING SPEECH IN WATERLOO SQUARE. THE TEXT HAS BEEN LIGHTLY EDITED.

Hundreds of people lit candles at the Waterloo vigil in solidarity with victims of a shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nighclub, in June. ANDREAS PATSIAOUROS PHOTO

SUZIE TAKA CONTRIBUTOR When people find out I’m gay, a sentiment I often hear rushed back at me with barely a breath taken is that it doesn’t matter. And I know they mean this as a kindness, but it’s just not. It should matter to you because it matters to me and this world and how I live and breathe. There’s been so much talk about love since Sunday and while I’m a hopeless romantic it’s not as simple as “love is love.” It’s not as simple as tolerance. It’s not even as simple as acceptance. Queer and trans people and especially queer and trans people of colour have not been fighting battles to love – they’ve been fighting to live.

Forty-nine people are dead and 53 are injured. I’ve been reading about

the people who died. So many were students. So many were young. They were parents, they were children, they were partners. One couple was planning a wedding — their families are now planning a joint funeral.

Forty-nine people are dead.

Pulse, the club it happened at, was having a Latinx night. A night for not just LGBTQ2+ people on the margins but those pushed even further because of the racist world we live in. Yes it happened in Florida. Maybe it’s a bit different here. But not that different. Orlando happened because of a longstanding culture of homophobia, because of racism and colonization.

This might feel shocking for some of you, but for a lot of us it isn’t.

When you base your views of our community only on something as beautiful as love you have failed to understand that for most people it’s just about being able to live.

I’ve lived in Kitchener-Waterloo for about 13 years now and while I came here to attend the University of Water-

loo, I’m not really a numbers person.

I tend to think in poetry, the language of love that can make hard things so palatable. But it’s been numbers that have been floating through my head since Sunday.

Forty-nine dead. Fifty-three injured.

Eighteen days since our national opposition party, and the same party that governed for eight years, stopped condemning gay marriage.

Seven years since Waterloo Region was named the hate crime capital of the country.

It’s been 10 days since volunteers in this community pulled off a pride festival that almost didn’t happen. Thirty days since more volunteers pulled off the queer and trans film festival I love dearly — another event that almost didn’t happen.

The thing is we’re not just fighting to love — we’re fighting to find ways to connect and tell our stories and to live.

It’s lives that we have lost and why we are here.

There are so many numbers — but

the ones that won’t go away are the local ones and ones that tell how short our history is – how fresh the wounds are.

It’s been 15 years since I’ve been in high school and had never heard of a gay-straight alliance, 16 years since we got a local queer and trans film festival and were finally able to see a wide array of our stories on screen in KW. And it’s been 46 years since Stonewall, when queer people, led by trans women of colour, rioted in New York because there was no physical space that was safe to be queer.

I will never have enough thank yous for the Stonewall folks, but the saddest part is that in Florida and in our own communities there are still not safe spaces, especially for queer people of colour and trans people.

Twenty years ago we didn’t have tri pride. And if I had been a Waterloo student 46 years ago we wouldn’t have had GLOW. Forty-nine dead. Fifty three injured.

Because you are polite and probably

kind you say to me it doesn’t matter that I am gay. That love is love. But the opposite of hate isn’t love all the time — sometimes it’s just life. Love can’t and didn’t and won’t save the lives of 49 people who were massacred, and it won’t prevent future violence. And the opposite of hate isn’t indifference.

The opposite of hate isn’t saying we’re all just people.

Give us life. Don’t just show up now that we’re sad — show up when we’re happy. Show up by funding LGBTQ2+ and person of colour spaces, arts, programming, and physical health initiatives, pride events. Give us staff instead of volunteers. Stop making us fight. Stop telling us our love is OK when you are making it so hard to live.

Forty-nine people died and my love for them and their friends and communities and families is so deep. But I wish I could give them and the local LGBTQ2 community that is currently struggling... I wish I could give them so much more than love. I wish I could give them life.

WHY SOCIAL JUSTICE AND MENTAL HEALTH ARE INSEPARABLE JOHN ROCHE COLUMNIST Somewhere along the line we seem to have gotten the idea that our inner and outer worlds are unrelated. Most of us no longer think it’s weird that many psychiatrists and psychotherapists are materialistic and classist, or that many activists who work tirelessly for inclusion and peace also harbour bitter hatred toward certain groups of people. Something’s wrong with this picture, and our world desperately needs it to be corrected.

Here are three reasons why social justice and mental health are inseparable.

WE PROJECT OUR INNER WORLD ONTO THE OUTER WORLD Shame and trauma inflict wounds on our psyche. If the wound is overwhelming, we shove it out of consciousness and do whatever we can to avoid or destroy it. Unfortunately, such measures succeed only in making us terrified and hateful of aspects of our own selves. We then apply the same logic to the external world: we deem some groups to be understandable and acceptable, and some to be hateful and insurmountably “other.”

As Marianne Williamson said, “until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world. And we find that we cannot.

For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there that we must do our work.”

THE OUTER WORLD SHAPES OUR INNER WORLD Of course, not all problems exist only in our hearts; many exist on a societal level. As Krishnamurti pointed out, “it is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” The social sicknesses of economic exploitation, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia and racism inflict devastating wounds of shame and trauma on people every day. How could we possibly expect people who are excluded, hungry or terrified to be mentally healthy? Any serious commitment to mental health must include a radical restructuring of society. Anything less is simply a band-aid.

THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF BOTH JUSTICE AND MENTAL HEALTH IS WHOLENESS

Mental health is not simply the absence of diagnosable mental illness.

Greed, ignorance, fear, and hatred are not listed in the DSM, but they certainly interfere with our capacity to embody our individual and collective potential. Optimal mental health is about wholeness: compassion, understanding, courage, and joy. A psychiatrist who drives a Jaguar and makes a living sedating the poor with antipsychotics does not represent optimal mental health.

Similarly, social justice is not simply about turning the tables on the oppressor. It is so easy and so understandable to respond with hatred to victimization and oppression. But hatred fails to bring us lasting relief and only perpetuates the cycle of violence. Real justice means recognizing the human-

ity of the other and acting accordingly.

Without inner healing and wholeness, “social justice” quickly degenerates into toxic vengefulness.

It’s time for us to recognize that the psychological and the sociological are mutually reinforcing. If our development is constrained by oppressive social structures, then we are likely to be psychologically unwell. If we are psychologically unwell, then our actions will contribute to oppressive social structures. If we’re serious about transformation, then we can no longer afford to overlook either level.

John works as a therapist in Waterloo.

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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HIJAB: MY MANIFESTO ZAINAB RAMAHI COLUMNIST The point is that I choose. I choose to whom I reveal my hair, my body.

I do not exist to please others, so it follows that I do not craft my outward appearance for the pleasure of others.

You might still leer at me. Undress me with your eyes. Fixate on the thought of what is underneath. But the agency remains with me since you will never know. My body is not for public display.

I will not be constrained, oppressed, or limited by what the society I live in has dictated should be a woman’s appearance or personality. I will not show “just the right amount” of skin to strike a balance between being taken seriously at work or school and still being “just the right amount” of sexy. My sexy surprises include the facts that I am far more interested in working and learning and yes, I speak fluent English.

I will not participate in slut-shaming when other women express their confidence of, control over, or insecurity about their own bodies by wearing as

much or as little as they choose. Rape happens regardless of whether a woman is wearing a burqa or a bikini and I will never find the victim to be at fault for the crime. In the hope of maintaining control over my own body and soul, I will fight for the rights of others to do so: women and men and those who do not subscribe to exclusive gender binary constructions.

I will cover what I choose when I choose and I will explain my choices to no one. I will contradict myself until I am comfortable, trying hard to ignore loud whispers and concerned stares. I will seek meaning from what I do and when justifying my actions to myself and my creator, I will appeal to the heart and the mind — never anonymous misogynist orders, subtle suggestions or helpful hints from the fantastical Guidebook to Being Good.

I will wear hijab and I will take my body back, swimming against the overwhelming tide of established patriarchy. Stop telling me what and who I need to look like, be like. I will not let my thoughts be limited to my limited role as a limited woman in Western society or Eastern society. Neither will I be reduced to a hyper-sexualized Orientalized version of who you think I am. I will not be your harem woman; this material veil does not exist only

for you to remove.

I will be hyper-aware of my position of relative privilege as a person with access to excellent education and work opportunities, and I will recognize what greater responsibility I have to make a meaningful contribution to this earth. My hijab will serve as a reminder, to you, but primarily to me, of what I can achieve.

My hijab is not a plea. It is not a cry for help or a symbol of a sheltered, simplified life. My hijab does not oppress me, but I have been oppressed.

My hijab does not confine me, but I have been confined. My hijab does not dictate for me what I can and cannot do, but others have tried to dictate for me what I can and cannot do. My hijab does not limit my potential to contribute to society, but your persistent ignorance makes it more difficult and I become exhausted, frustrated, and a little sad. My hijab does not restrict me to closed spaces. The closed spaces in your head bleed distrust and misunderstanding and you should probably stop because I am not alone in feeling like I’m always fighting.

My hijab is not a piece of cloth on my head.

My hijab is my manifesto.

GETTING FREAKY IN LGBTQA+ CENTRIC WEB SERIES

LOCAL INDIE FILM MAKER MELISSA SKYE TALKS ABOUT HER NEW CREATION AND THE VALUE OF REPRESENTATION

TAMAR VARTANIAN CONTRIBUTOR

Good Freaky is a new local LGBTQA+ centric comedy web series that revolves around two best friends’ most momentous dating fails and freakouts.

Melissa Sky directed, produced, and co-wrote the series, which is set and filmed in Waterloo Region.

The local independent film maker says she wanted to showcase what Waterloo Region is capable of, and to “engage in important, progressive work by featuring relationships and identities that are less represented in mainstream media.” Different characters on the show identify as queer, trans*, polyamorous and pansexual.

“We know that representation matters. That seeing ourselves reflected in media is validating. That telling our stories is empowering,” says Sky. Casting a trans* person to play the role of a trans* character is so important, the bare necessity that so many mainstream media outlets ignore, she says, and her commitment to having better LGBTQA+ representation is part of what makes Good Freaky so charming.

The theme of community also surrounds the series, from its LGBTQA+ content to its local flavour.

The landmarks that are mentioned and seen will likely feel familiar because they’re all local: main

characters Kai and Tegan reminisce about past dates in the Waterloo café Seven Shores, and local foodies should be able to figure out where the cat lady date from the second episode happens. (Spoiler alert, it’s the Darlise Café in downtown Kitchener.)

The Region of Waterloo Arts Fund provided the resources to not only bring the project to life but to pay 40 creatives who put so much effort and love into the series. The whole crew and the majority of the cast are from Waterloo Region, which truly makes Good Freaky a local project through and through.

Good Freaky represents an incredible opportunity to show support for local creators and the LGBTQA+ community, and by doing so we create space for voices not always heard in the media, while opening up future opportunities for projects of its kind.

In a media environment where the LGBTQA+ community gets little representation, Good Freaky is a refreshing concept that deals with LGBTQA+ content in hilarious but also meaningful ways. Tackling issues of positive representation in media is an important component in intersectional feminism. Good Freaky succeeds in having positive representation and a well-rounded cast. By using comedy as a means to approach the issue it provides an inviting environment to get people engaged.

You can check out episodes of Good Freaky at www.femmefilms.ca. A new episode is released every freaky Friday with the seventh and last episode airing July 22.

Some of the cast of Good Freaky. From left to right: Sonja Malton, Stephanie McKenzie and Kayla Howlett.

ANGELINA NOCCETTI PHOTO

STEEL RAILS 2016

WE TOLD YOU NOTHING, 600 OF YOU SHOWED UP.

THE EVENING WAS AN ADVENTURE, FILLED WITH STILT WALKERS, INSTRUMENTS MADE OF FOOD, SURPRISE BANDS, FIREWORKS, STORYTELLERS, AND MUCH MORE. THERE WAS EVEN A TRAIN. HERE’S A BRIEF LOOK INTO WHAT HAPPENED AT #STEELRAILS16.

FIND MORE PHOTOS ONLINE AT COMMUNITYEDITION.CA SEE YOU NEXT YEAR. WHERE WE WILL AGAIN TELL YOU NOTHING. PHOTOS BY MATT SMITH AND ANDREAS PATSIAOUROS

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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WELCOMING THE STRANGER SEEKER’S CORNER RETURNS WITH A VISIT TO MT. ZION LUTHERAN

CHRISTOPHER EMORY-MOORE COLUMNIST The assortment of Lutheran and Mennonite institutions in K-W is a quietly prominent sign of our city’s enduring German Protestant roots.

On the last Sunday in May, just before 10 a.m., I settled into a back pew at Waterloo’s Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church for a peek behind one such sign. Across the skylit octagonal worship hall, in the company of about 70 mostly middle-aged parishioners, I faced a simple altar: three woven banners of earth, cross, and flame covering the wall, behind a heavy oak communion table and four white candles.

Worship began efficiently on an entirely human, even humanitarian, note — with announcements: “Don’t come to Church next Sunday!

Come to Waterloo Park instead for our annual park service and picnic.”

“We’ve signed and submitted an application to welcome a family of seven from the Congo deemed travel-ready.”

“We’ll circulate a petition we’ve formulated to John McCallum of the Liberal government protesting the delays in Canadians being able to receive Syrian refugee families.”

And, projected on twin screens flanking the altar: “Please join us in this

ministry of welcoming the stranger.”

When the minister of music explained that the opening hymn came from Cameroon and would need more rhythm than his piano could muster, a young man grabbed a djembe and a few women got to clapping and swaying. Unaware of the organ pipes behind my pew, they boomed to life halfway through the service acclaiming the Gospel reading that followed.

Under white robe and silver-green sash, Pastor Philip Mathai sustained the announcements’ theme of the stranger in his sermon on Luke 7:1-10: “We are always quick to draw lines between us and them in matters of faith… Jesus commends the Roman centurion’s faith even though he will likely never become a disciple… Who may be the other we deem as being outside God’s grace? Is Luke inviting us to see that all people can demonstrate faith that even Jesus could commend? To see that they could be used by God in the world even though they wouldn’t call it that?… May we be open to God amazing us in ways we do not expect… May there be a transformation in the way we see the other, because it is then that we experience holiness.”

Having often visited Catholic mass with my Grandmother as a child, I’m familiar with the protocol for guests during Holy Communion: stay seated as the baptised file out of the pews and up to the altar for their magical bread and wine, the peak of worship. So I was surprised when Mount Zion’s “usher

captain” approached me in the rear with a gentle invitation: “Thank you for worshipping with us. You’re very welcome to partake of communion if you like.” So I did, a very welcome stranger.

Mount Zion Lutheran has been on my radar for a couple years, chiefly as the site of my rented community garden plot. Worship on this particular Sunday concluded with a singing procession to the garden where Pastor Philip presided over a blessing of seed and soil under the late morning sun.

Three children giggled by his side holding up seed bag, soil tray, watering can and sun icon during specific prayers of thanks and supplication for each element. The blessing concluded poetically, yoking outer and inner, self and other.

“As all the earth is a garden, Lord, we ask that you bless this small piece of the earth. We pray for a bountiful harvest, both in our garden and in our lives. Give us the wisdom to take what we need to feed ourselves and to use our abundance to the benefit of others. As your Light shines upon us and upon this garden, giving us life, likewise help us to give light and life to others, through Christ our Lord.”

En route to the garden, a parishioner welcomed me to Mount Zion and asked if I was a student or just checking out churches. I said yes to both and she told me that she’s been coming since her son, now at UW, was five years old, “because everyone needs to know they’re not alone.”

Mt. Zion Lutheran Church’s community garden. PHOTO COURTESY MT. ZION

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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KEEPER OF THE WATCHFUL DARK FICTION

DYLAN SIEBERT CONTRIBUTOR The theatre was vast, dark, and silent. A single bare fluorescent bulb burned coolly overhead. Its soft light suggested the outlines of tiered seating, descending on three sides from the entranceways off the mezzanine down to the smooth bare floor of the stage. In this place, at this hour, all was suggestion, as if the soft hushing of the fans, the barred cross-hatch of shadow and light cast by the overhead walkways, and the cascading folds of black curtain hung from the far railing of the mezzanine were mere possibilities, sketches in the half-light of what was and what might be contained within these four walls. In a place like this you could lose yourself, and with a start, he realized that he had.

He stood slowly and turned toward the door. This was perhaps the quietest place in the downtown of the city, a jewel of silence hung at its very heart.

He knew that as the theatre door swung open at his touch, the world of light would assemble itself before his eyes, coalescing into forms and shapes and colours, with hard, clear edges decisive in their being and in their knowledge of themselves. And beyond the quiet light of the lobby there would be the pulsing, grinding light of the street, so hard and so clear and so vivid that he could blink and rub his dazzled eyes for a lifetime without comprehending the immensity of the shapes that it revealed. It was all beyond him, unknowable in a way that had only to be sensed firsthand to be believed. What he did know was that the theatre door would close behind him slowly, ending with a click so soft it would leave the grand silence within undiminished, because he himself had tuned the door’s mechanism to honour and preserve that silence.

He had used to tell people, when they asked, that he did cleaning and maintenance at a mid-sized theatre downtown. Later he had tried saying he did building management, but in truth he liked the ring of his original job title, custodian, because he knew that in the old Roman tongue it meant keeper, or guardian. Now when he

was asked, he more often mentioned the name of the theatre, and was proud when the name was recognized, disconcerted when it was not. He wanted it to be known. He didn’t know anymore whether what he did needed to be justified, only that it needed to be done.

Monday mornings after a visiting performance would find him mopping scuff marks off the stage floor and chocolate milk off the lobby floor, vaccuuming pink ballerina feathers out of the dressing rooms and chip crumbs out of the seating vaults. Toilets needed to be scrubbed and glass doors polished, toilet paper re-stocked and garbage hauled away. That much would often carry over into Tuesday, and then Wednesdays would be his day to clean the administrative offices upstairs. Thursday he might chat with the HVAC technician about a rattling duct, or walk around the building testing emergency lights. Friday could be a touch-up day to rectify mid-week messes, or a chance to replace burntout bulbs and broken flush levers.

Most of the work he performed in silence, immersed in the eternal hush and hum of the building’s systems, his only company the creature whose body was the air currents in the theatre and dressing rooms. He knew which doors needed to be kept propped open to keep this creature happy, and he knew at what times it was alright to feel his way along the basement corridors in darkness and when it was better to switch on the lights. He had learned through practice how to cast his mind on long, wordless trajectories that would carry him through the morning or the afternoon while his body and senses did their work.

Lunch was a special time of day, the time when he surfaced from the vast, dark interior of the building to eat with his co-workers upstairs. It was important to spend time on the surfaces of things, because surfaces were where things met and touched and got comfortable with one another.

He and his coworkers solved the word jumble in the newspaper together every day, and when his cousin had died they’d given him a card with all their signatures and best wishes inside. He liked them, and that went deeper than the surfaces of things.

When the stage lights came on and the symphony musicians assembled to rehearse their great craft, he would sometimes watch from a high corner

of the theatre as they drew from the wood and brass and huge vaults of air overhead an art so subtle and enormous you could miss it if you weren’t paying proper attention. But when he closed his eyes he understood that they were technicians like he was, master builders of an invisible architecture that unfolded in the mind’s eye as soaring arches, lofty columns, images vast and glittering, before resolving once more into silence and darkness. From them he had learned that art was not truly an act of creation, but a calling forth of what lay in things already; the seeing and the calling forth constituted a craft that must be learned with patience and practiced with a quiet zeal for excellence. He wished he could share with them in turn the way the silence that preceded and surrounded their music treasured them, as a cathedral treasures the prayers of worshippers long gone.

In the silence that remained when they had gone, in the cathedral of their absence, he cleaned the way they played music — quietly, zealously, glorying in the accomplishment of a task that by next week would have to be performed all over again, from here to eternity. To him it was true ritual; not the superstitious repetition of arcane formulae to banish dirt and germs and clutter, for the great god Entropy dwelt in all things and his kingdom would never be overthrown — no, ritual was the careful tying of the here and now in its passing to eternity in its unchangeability. Each time he cleaned a bathroom it was an act of adoration, of the same order as the songs of praise raised up by monks bent over the scrub-brush on the floors of temples and cathedrals everywhere, world without end. It was that adoration that had sustained him through the years of work in the darkness of all that he did not know.

You could lose yourself, or find yourself, or both, in work like this.

What was it that he did, in the final analysis? As he reached for the door that would take him out into the light, he felt somehow that there was a word for it, a word that had been lost, or its meaning forgotten, or maybe both. He was the keeper of the silence where the word had been, a watcher in the darkness of what might be. If you walked into the darkness and closed your eyes, you could almost see it.

And maybe that was all there was. And maybe that was all there.

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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REAL BIKE TRAILS MAKE DRIVERS HAPPY, TOO SHODDY CYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE TO BLAME FOR MANY CONFLICTS BETWEEN DRIVERS AND CYCLISTS

REBECCA MAYERS CONTRIBUTOR Yes, it is very hard to pass a cyclist on a shared single lane road. And yes, it feels very unsafe to be a cyclist when cars speed past within inches. But this “bikes versus cars” mentality needs to come to an end, and not only because both modes of transportation can be frustrating and scary, and not only because most people use both.

We need to rid ourselves of that antagonistic approach because our collective frustrations are really the function of poorly planned transportation infrastructure, and a society that undervalues traveling by bike. We must all – drivers and cyclists and everyone else – demand infrastructure that will keep us all safe.

The car has been our number one priority for decades, raking in billions of dollars from the oil and transportation industry, and although some drivers may be hesitant to admit the point, cycling yields benefits for all.

Cycling is beneficial to an individual’s overall health and so saves the government health care costs. Cycling also contributes to reducing emissions and congestion, all while (when planned correctly) making streets safer and fostering community.

But even though we know about cycling’s many benefits, we still tend to trivialize cyclists’ needs within the city. City of Kitchener planners recently recommended bylaw changes that could make cycling to and from work easier. However, anyone who bikes around the city knows that lanes can be littered with debris and potholes, that bike routes are often disjoined, that it’s hard to safely turn left and that there is insufficient

bicycle parking when you get to your destination.

Anything less than a real investment in infrastructure is a band-aid solution, and without those serious changes we should expect the battle between bikes and cars to continue.

Talking about the current state of cycling in a growing city riddled with construction might seem insignificant. Yet this is the perfect time to be having such a discussion.

So what are some of the ways in which we can make change and make this city great for all modes of transportation? Adam Fraser, who graduated from the University of Waterloo’s planning department, weighed in with ways to make city cycling more enjoyable and prevalent.

According to Fraser, we must first create “complete streets,” which are designed for all users and create a safe environment for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and transit users. Complete

streets include things like sidewalks, bike lanes, street trees and public transit. Complete streets attract people and business, as streets become a more livable and enjoyable place to spend time and money.

Second, says Fraser, bike lanes and trails need to be properly designed and maintained. Bike lanes are only a good option when they don’t abruptly end and aren’t littered with trash and potholes. Trails are great in theory, and pedestrians and cyclists should know the direction they should be moving, meaning clear markings, signage and traffic lights.

Third, active transportation choices should be incentivised by using options such as employer to employee discounts for choosing active transportation, or by increasing parking fees to make cycling, walking and transit use a cheaper option. Suggested changes to Kitchener’s bylaws, which would reduce the parking require-

ments for new buildings and require buildings to have bike rack installation, bike storage, showers and change rooms for those who cycle to work, is a great start.

The final suggestion for change is not something that we can build or design. Whether through economic incentives, marketing or training, we should increase knowledge about the positive affect that cycling can have for our cities and for each of us.

So, fellow drivers and cyclists, please support cycling infrastructure.

It makes our roads safer for everyone and reduces traffic. In the meantime, don’t bike on the sidewalk — claim your space on the road. Make sure you are visible to drivers, and signal your intentions. Finally, understand that we need a paradigm shift, and that planning for safe cycling is serious business. Whether you are a driver or a cyclist, the change starts with you.

Let’s end the battle.

We – drivers and cyclists and everyone else – stand to benefit from investments in cycling infrastructure. MATT SMITH PHOTO

GETTING GREENERY ON TOP

LITTLE PRECEDENT & HIGH COSTS KEEP MOST GARDENS ON THE GROUND JESSICA O’CONNELL CONTRIBUTOR Green space is having a hard time getting off the ground and onto Kitchener-Waterloo’s rooftops.

A German contractor named H. Koch pioneered green roofing after he tried to create a fire resistant rooftop with sand and gravel, in between which seeds fell.

In the 1960s Germans began to vegetate rooftops for the purpose of rainfall absorption.

Closer to home, for over a decade University of Waterloo researchers have studied green roofs with a project set on top of Waterloo city hall, which holds the largest and highest greenspace in the tri-cities.

Rooftop greenspaces insulate the buildings below, and absorb less light from the sun. This lowers the cost of heating and cooling, while the plants and bedding protect the roof and extend its life. Plants store contaminants from rainfall runoff and filter dust and particulate matter from the air.

According to proponents, rooftop greenspaces also improve a city’s urban aesthetics.

At Waterloo city hall, one can view the green roof within a ropelined “safe area.” When city hall was planned, roof-

top greenspace was not something the architects foresaw. Now, security and facility members are extremely careful about the weight the roof is upholding at any time.

Grand River Regional Cancer Centre has one of this city’s only liveable greenspaces. It is located in the heart of their cancer ward and is available as a retreat for patients undergoing intensive care.

As a patient, to see and hear the sounds and colours of a garden while undergoing experiences of weakness and fatigue is essential for healing. But why must we be receiving medical attention before we surround ourselves with the right foliage?

The Perimeter Institute has a green roof, as well as a small garden above their Black Hole Bistro. Sage and calendula grow amongst shrubbery and other herbs the bistro uses in its kitchen.

Here physicists and staff can consider quantum relations amongst earth’s green lifeforms.

When the KPL’s Main branch was undergoing renovations their goal was to become a Gold LEED certified building, and visitors to the teen and local history sections on the second floor can now sit next to a green rooftop. The architects designed green space onto this roof, its

courtyard and outdoor-columns that shade the building and swirl vines that block the sun’s glare from computer screens.

Rooftop greenspaces on Gold LEED buildings must be self-sustaining in two years. To that end, the KPL project engineers installed a hose bib next to their green roof, but it will have to be removed next year — for the KPL to maintain their building’s sustainability platform, the plants must end up relying only on rainfall, a standard set by LEED. The building division at the City of Kitchener shared that they have never been asked how a commercial building could create greenspace. Tom Weishar works in the building division and suggests that once one commercial building on King Street undergoes the process of creating a green roof, other buildings can follow suit with ease. He says that newer buildings, which have been overdesigned, support loads easier than older buildings.

However, so long as the process to obtain a building permit for a green or liveable rooftop space remains expensive and uncharted, our city centres will keep developing into urban heat islands.

Much of Waterloo’s city hall roof is green. JESSICA O’CONNELL PHOTO

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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COLD & CAFFEINATED THIS MONTH, TCE SENT TWO REPORTERS TO TRY THE ICED COFFEES OF KITCHENER-WATERLOO. THE RESULT? POLARIZED POSITIONS, COFFEE HIGHS AND A FRIENDSHIP ON THE ROCKS. MEGAN NOURSE AND MATT SMITH.

MATT SMITH PHOTOS

MEGAN NOURSE ON THE INDEPENDENT ICED COFFEES “I can’t do this, it’s too much,” I muttered into my sixth iced coffee of the day at Kitchener’s Smile Tiger café, two stops before I collapsed in a mess of caffeine and ice cubes.

My goal that day was 18 iced coffees from various cafes around KW, though it was actually a goal foisted upon me by this paper’s editor, who I will never forgive. While I really thought I could do it, my journey ultimately became a two-day marathon of visiting various independent cafes.

Day one took me around downtown Kitchener. It was pretty rough, but I learned a lot. Queen Street Commons has the cheapest iced coffee at $1.50 and it was really good, probably the best I had. The biggest glass was at Matter of Taste, which on any other day would have been a plus. The Yeti, I hate to say, was the worst – watery and all around not good. But everything else about the Yeti is amazing and you should go there right now.

Smile Tiger was pricey. Nova Era was okay. By Balzac’s and Café Pyrus my headache was so intense I was no longer of a sound enough mind to know what tasted good or bad. I gave up halfway through my mason jar at Café Pyrus, retreating home to take a 12 hour Gravol-induced nap.

Iced and cold brew coffee are my favourite warm weather treats, but I would not recommend more than three a day. By my sixth, I was moderately frantic. I ate some Smile Tiger toast that calmed me slightly, but that was really the beginning of the end. [Ed. note: yes.]

A few days later I was back at it, but this time in uptown Waterloo.

The Bauer café was my first stop, and I was still in good spirits. By the time I got to Settlement Co., stop four, I was a mix of super wired and exhausted, though still had enough energy to be annoyed at the $5 price tag.

In uptown, Honey Bake Shop wins for the best iced coffee — technically an iced Americano. I wouldn’t call any of the iced coffees I had uptown bad, but if I had to rank them, Settlement Co. would be at the bottom, mostly because it was not worth the money. Coffee based drinks should only be more than $5 when they are blended with soy milk or whiskey.

In short, you can get iced coffee pretty much everywhere. Some are overpriced, some are watered down, and they’re all full of caffeine. Just don’t drink them all in one day.

MATT SMITH ON CORPORATE ICED COFFEE Caffeine does nothing but make me shake. I have never ordered myself a hot coffee, but I do like sweet things and corporate iced coffee (CIC) seems to fit the bill.

While some chains get it right, my co-reviewer was quick to mention (and, annoyingly, she was right) that CIC is “like sweet watery milk.” All my CICs were ordered without special instructions, and as a rule I said yes to any offers of sugar, cream or other sweeteners.

While results vary from store to store, overall Tim’s iced coffee can be described the same as most of their menu: decent. The drink is sweet with a definite coffee flavour, but the main issue is that their product is often kept in an unrefrigerated tub.

So Tim’s is arguably best if you’re near one, you need a drive through, or you don’t take the word “iced” very literally.

The William’s CIC started off excellently, the first sip a sweet

zap of goodness. But that’s where it ended. The drink hadn’t been stirred well enough and I was left with a tepid cup of cream. Why tepid? Three small iced cubes might have had something to do with it.

This would have made William turn in his grave.

Wiliam’s is best if you like to gamble, you like cream, and not ice cubes.

Cinnabon is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think of a cold drink, but they deliver a solid cool cuppa joe. Their offering comes only in a vanilla flavour, which might turn some off – but turned this reviewer on.

Cinnabon is best if you spend lots of time in malls, you like vanilla, and you like the smell of fresh cinnamon buns (everyone does, don’t lie to yourself).

Sorry Coffee Culture, but I should have thrown my $3 down the drain.

I hesitate to call it an iced coffee because it was literally a cup of cream and water with a few ice cubes. I threw it out within one block of the store, forgetting to take a photo in my cream water induced rage.

Coffee Culture is best if the grocery store is out of cream and/or you need cream for the coffee you made at home.

The place that children call Starbs, offers by far the most customizability of any place I visited. The green strawed beverage strikes a good balance between sweet flavours and coffee undertones, but the price is somewhat prohibitive for an everyday fix.

Starbucks is best if you like the colour green, you like hearing your name, and you like getting what you pay for.

McDonald’s iced coffee is cheap, in summer roughly the same price as a handful of gumballs. Much like Tim’s, Ronald serves up a decent mix of sweet plus coffee, and you can order from their new touch screen robo checkout monster.

McDonald’s is best if you like fries with your coffee, you want to finish your happy meal toy collection or you love the terminator series and can’t wait for judgement day.

Forget the slurpees at 7-Eleven, this corner store-cum-gas station has one of the best iced coffee of any limited liability corporate entity. You have to make it yourself by mixing the ice and coffee out of a machine, but this cheap delight is well worth the extra labour.

7-Eleven is best if you like to feel like you’ve made something, you’re charmed by the luxury that is 7-Eleven or you don’t mind the extra jolt of sugar.

Nova Era $ The Yeti $$ Queen St Commons $ Matter of Taste $$ Good Vibes $$$$ Smile Tiger $$$ Balzac’s $$ Café Pyrus $ Bauer Café $$ Honey Bake Shop $$ Seven Shores $$ Settlement Co. $$$$ Café 1842 $$ Princess Café $ DVLB $$ Tim Horton’s $ William’s $$$ Cinnabon $$ Coffee Culture $$ Starbucks $$$ McDonald’s $ 7-Eleven $$

JULY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

SEXPLANATIONS

14

BAY AREA GENTRIFICATION IN WR?

SOME WR TECH LEADERS WORKING HARD TO BE PART OF HEALTHY URBAN DEVELOPMENT

STACEY JACOBS COLUMNIST Most of us have had the experience of being attracted to or aroused by another person. We may be attracted to their physical appearance, their smell, their laugh or their personality. We may be attracted to people of the same gender, the opposite gender, or all genders. Whatever the case, this is not usually something we choose. As Lady Gaga puts it, you were born this way.

We don’t often think too hard about why we are attracted to others — we just are.

But what if you are attracted to someone who you should not be attracted to?

I was recently at a talk organized by the Concurrent Disorders Working Group of Waterloo Region, where James Cantor discussed his research on hypersexual behaviour. Cantor is a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He has also spent many years researching and working with pedophiles.

Cantor’s research thus far has concluded that pedophiles do not choose to be attracted to children.

And so, if sexual orientation is the sexual, romantic or emotional attraction we feel towards others and it is not something we choose, then, Cantor argues, pedophilia is a sexual orientation.

There are few things in today’s modern society more stigmatized than pedophilia. In many ways, of course, this makes sense: pedophiles who act on their desires causes profound harm to children and families and communities. In this way there is a profound difference between pedophilia and other sexual orientations that have been historically stigmatized.

But imagine you were attracted to children and this was not something you chose and you needed help and support. Who could you turn to? The answer is more than likely no one. Not your friends, not your family, not your community.

I recently saw an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, where a young man walked into the precinct and told the detective that he was attracted to children and that he was concerned that he was going to act on his attraction. He wanted help. The detective told him there was nothing that could be done until an act was committed. I think this is what would happen in real life. There is no organization I am aware of that supports pedophiles before they offend. There are very few that support pedophiles or other sexual offenders after they have served sentences.

Cantor talked about destigmatizing pedophilia, so that people could get the help and the support they needed before they harmed themselves or others. This way they could be more open and honest about their attractions and find healthier ways to deal with them. As I asked in a previous column: stigma, what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

DAVE THOMAS CONTRIBUTOR The success of the tech sector has been a bright spot in Waterloo Region’s economy, bringing innovation, creating jobs and helping to revitalize city centres. But there’s a downside.

Gentrification pushes housing prices up and can displace people from spaces they’ve long been a part of.

Fortunately, many local tech companies are giving back, working with social profit organizations to try to keep our cities more liveable for everyone.

Vidyard, creator of a leading video marketing platform, takes its position in the community seriously, says Laura Flatt, business development representative. Inspired by co-founder and CEO Michael Litt’s passion and family history with poverty, the company has sought to have a positive impact on the community, supporting organizations like Lutherwood, Big Brothers Big Sisters Waterloo Region

and House of Friendship (HOF).

The company started Plugin, a series of social events for tech professionals to have fun, mix and mingle, and learn about local community organizations, with proceeds going to the organization. The company also provided software to help power HOF’s recent annual general meeting.

John Neufeld, executive director of HOF, is pleased with Vidyard’s support. He says that tech leaders here recognize that we must avoid the situation in San Francisco, where the tech sector’s success has had particularly harsh consequences for a large segment of the community.

“If we don’t look after all members of the community, it will be like San Francisco,” he says. “We don’t want that in Waterloo Region.”

Joseph Fung, a vice-president at NetSuite, agrees. He’s been leading efforts by his company to mitigate the possible excesses of success, for example by hiring individuals with employment barriers to work at the company’s breakfast stations.

“We’re a part of the community,” says Fung. It may be easy to lose sight

of what’s happening nearby, but it’s important to consider the effect that companies have in the community, and support those service providers that can bring about the most positive impact in improving people’s lives, he says.

When startups are just getting going, they’re focusing on their product or service, and building the company to a point where it’s viable. When they’re a bit larger and on a more solid footing, that’s when they’re at a stage to make meaningful contributions to the community.

Communitech is working with a lot of the small and midsize companies to help them to explore and realize their corporate social responsibility.

It’s not just about donating money, says Kayleigh Platz, manager of special operations at Communitech. Tech sector professionals “want to give their time, get their hands dirty, with causes they can own or have a direct contribution to,” she says.

The Working Centre (TWC) has received generous support from a number of tech companies for its wide range of operations, says executive

director Joe Mancini.

“We have found that once the startups are growing, they want to become part of the community,” Mancini says.

“They quickly see that affordable housing and community building are important factors that make a vibrant community possible. They want to participate in a community that is looking after its people. It’s not just about raising money; it’s about building culture.”

Companies of all sizes can play a part, and it’s often accomplished just by tapping into an area of interest.

Staff from Blitzen like to play golf.

They participated in the recent Big Brothers Big Sisters Waterloo Region golf tournament.

“With all the energy that exists with these companies, both small and large, it’s important for everyone to remember that we are a community,” says co-founder Josh Wright.

“Supporting local organizations that are making an impact, even if it’s a small amount of support at first that grows over time, is important — to make sure all elements of the community are rising up and growing.

Many thousands of people ate, danced and became cultured at this year’s multicultural festival, in Kitchener’s Victoria Park. MATT SMITH PHOTOS

WOULD WE EMBRACE EMPEROR NORTON?

WR OPINION

CAMERON DEARLOVE CONTRIBUTOR On September 17, 1859, in the San Francisco Bulletin newspaper, Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States. Though the editors may have printed his words as a joke, this ludicrous declaration was the beginning of a 20 year love affair between Norton and his community.

Early in his reign, Emperor Norton issued decrees dissolving congress and ordering the US Army to depose the elected officials. Though these decrees were ignored, Norton persisted in his reign, proposing changes that he believed were necessary to better the city and nation.

At times he was visionary: he issued a decree to form a League of Nations (later founded in 1920), and a decree for the construction of a suspension bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco (the Bay Bridge opened in 1936).

When not issuing royal decrees,

Emperor Norton could be found inspecting the streets, sidewalks, cable cars, and even the appearance of police officers in San Francisco. His regal attire consisted of an elaborate blue uniform adorned with decorations given to him by US Army officers, a beaver hat with a peacock feather and a cane or umbrella.

Over the years, citizens of San Francisco grew to love and revere their sovereign. Though penniless, Norton ate at the finest restaurants and had reserved balcony seats for theatre openings. He issued his own money, which became accepted local currency. When his royal uniform became ragged, the Board of Supervisors purchased him a replacement, for which he issued each of them a “patent of nobility in perpetuity.”

When a police officer arrested him for lunacy with the intention of committing him to involuntary mental health treatment, the citizens and newspapers were outraged, leading to Norton’s release and a formal apology from the police chief. Emperor Norton graciously issued an imperial pardon to the errant police officer. From then on, Norton was saluted on the street by the police.

And why wouldn’t they love Emperor

Norton, when he kept the city safe?

With racial tensions high, there were occasional demonstrations and riots against the Chinese community.

During one riot, Emperor Norton placed himself between the two parties and recited the Lord’s prayer until everyone peacefully dispersed.

On January 9, 1880, the San Francisco Chronicle’s front page headline read “Le Roi est Mort.” His pauper’s coffin and funeral were replaced by a rosewood casket and a royal farewell, funded by the San Francisco businessman’s association. An estimated 10,000 people representing all classes from the community came out for the funeral, paying respects to the fallen “Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.”

Would Waterloo Region embrace Emperor Norton? In today’s busy world, would our community spend the time to get to know and honour someone a little bit different? If you saw Emperor Norton inspecting King Street in his full regalia, would you take an interest in him as a person, or walk the other way?

If we aren’t that community, we could be.

A great community is one where our differences are not only toler-

ated or accepted, but embraced and celebrated. Where our diversity is our strength, and compassion our glue. Where the oddballs, misfits, and shockingly ordinary all belong. Where different is an undeniably positive adjective.

This summer, Bridges to Belonging is launching a campaign called #WeBelongWR to get us thinking not just about the importance of belonging, but about what each of us can do to create a community where everyone belongs. Belonging often feels abstract, but its impact is very real. Our actions should be real, too. We Belong encourages each of us to foster a sense of belonging in others through simple, everyday actions with friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers.

Everyone deserves to be embraced like Norton was; to have their presence welcomed, their voice heard, and their life and impact on others celebrated. I invite you to visit webelongwr.ca to see how you can get involved and make your community one where everyone is treated like an Emperor.

Cameron is executive director of Bridges to Belonging.

JULY 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

SUMMER LIGHTS UP

DTK STREET FESTIVAL KEEPS GROWING

KRISTEN PHILIPPI CONTRIBUTOR The Summer Lights Festival, held Saturday June 18, was one of those nights dreamt of in the depths of winter. The Festival brought a sincere joy to downtown Kitchener, the feeling that comes with being outside and comfortable in the warm summer weather after sunset.

The festival brought local artists, musicians, dancers, food trucks, breweries and many thousands of enthusiastic attendees to downtown Kitchener.

Whether listening to one of 15 musical acts on four separate stages, walking through the Altekrea edgy alt-culture booths inside the city hall rotunda or playing chalk tic-tac-toe on the closed off King Street, the motto of the evening was manifested: “come out and play!”

Beginning at 8 p.m., the setting sun painted a warm orange glow over King Street as community members wandered and wondered at the seemingly endless acts and activities.

Festival director Charlène Le Duc stated that the ambling nature of the evening was deliberate – there was purposely no map to tell you where to go, or what to see, but rather the emphasis was on arriving, looking around and simply appreciating the collision of artistry.

Summer Lights Festival began three years ago with Le Duc at the helm, in an effort to answer the question, “What can we do on the summer solstice?”

The festival has grown each year since it started.

Flash Contemporary Photography projected local photography and cinema on the side of a building on Young Street, while local band Safe as Houses performed on the stage in the “City Center” area. KW Glee performed while magician JP Magic was juggling fire.

Bryan Peter balanced rocks in single tiers while Hepcat Swing danced to 1930s tunes.

“We are all connected and sometimes it just takes something like this to see the simplicity in each other. We just all need to hang out and be together, because it’s an amazing experience,” Le Duc said, explaining the simple motivation that underlay the seeming chaos of so many performances.

Couches were sporadically placed along King Street to encourage strangers to meet because “sometimes you just need to sit under the stars and talk, have a conversation and watch.”

The goal of the festival was to bring together as many different types of creativity as possible, allowing visitors to see something new, providing a sense of wonderment that pairs perfectly with the ease of a Saturday night in the summer. The food trucks represented multitudes of ethnic food traditions, the musicians a range of genres, the artists a breadth of inspirations. How many places can you dance, drink a beer and mold Playdoh at the same time?

As the sun slowly set, and stars started to show, downtown Kitchener bustled.

Le Duc’s fantastic satisfaction with the night came not from smoothness of execution or perfection of performance, but from something she could not control.

“Collision is beautiful,” she said. “It is the pièce de résistance.”

Chalk drawing on King Street (top) and Central Frederick’s Chairs, debuted at the Hohner Avenue Porch Party, were all part of the Summer Lights Festival.

KRISTEN PHILIPPI PHOTOS

15

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