The Community Edition: October 2016

THE CORD

COMMUNITY

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 11 • AUGUST 2016

Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 2 Issue 12 • september 4, 2014 • community.thecord.ca

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1 • OCTOBER 2016 SAVE THE EVIDENCE

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 6 • MARCH 2016

PAGES 8-9

ART AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Waterloo Region’s favourite places, spaces and folks — as nominated by you. Page 8-10

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KW’S GRAND SALOON

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ON NOT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT BEER PAGES 8-9

KITCHENER STILL MAKES

D’ION TO FINISH

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Citizens shape the municipal debate. Page 5 Behind closed doors: a sneak peak at Doors Open. Page 7

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7 • APRIL 2016

Online crafting meets community marketplace. Page 13

NEW STORIES OLD FOUNDATIONS

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SUMMER EVENTS CALENDAR

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7 • APRIL 2015

PAGES 8-9 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 6 • MARCH 2015

#HUMPDAYDTK

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 • JUNE 2015 OUR GRAND COLONIAL HISTORY

ART AND ATTACHMENT

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DAYS OF #KWAWESOME

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

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PAGES 4-5

TOGETHER WE WORK

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VOLUME 4, ISSUE 8 • MAY 2016

GREASY SPOONS

OF BRICK AND BEAM

SIDE STREET SCENE

PROFILING WR’S HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE PAGE 10

TCE REVIEWS THE BEST DINERS IN WR PAGE 8-9

DEVELOPING A DOWNTOWN

COMMUNITY THROUGH COMICS

IF STREETS COULD TALK

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 • NOVEMBER 2015

ONTARIO STREET’S EVOLVING COMMUNITY PAGES 8-9

ION DIALOGUES

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A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES

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JAWORSKY SHARES PAGE 3

AGNES MAKES

SLEEPING GIANT

BIRDS IN THE CITY PAGE 7

THE ART OUTSIDE

IF STREETS COULD TALK

Kitchener artist takes a grizzly stance on urban IF STREETS space

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COULD TALK

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SWEET ESCAPE

ARTS, Page 12

FIXATING ON GENTRIFICATION

IF STREETS COULD TALK

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MMUNITY PAGE 6

BEST BURGER IN TOWN?

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PAGES 6-7

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SUMMER EVENTS CALENDAR #DTKLOVE

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 9 • JUNE 2016

DAYS OF #KWAWESOME

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 • JULY 2015

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 • OCTOBER 2015

MAXIMUM SUMMER FUN TIMES GUIDE(S)

dependent monthly • Volume 2 Issue 10 • JUly 3, 2014 • community.thecord.ca THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGERS

g thRough PAGE 12

BUS OR FOOD? SURVIVING WELFARE

CAFKA PRESENTS

Rloo REgion PAGE 6

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VOLUME 4, ISSUE 10 • JULY 2016

I worry about the sound rockabilly, trumpet-toting band of merquality of my tape, whether or riment and 250 of Waterloo Region’s best not the laughing of our temporary friends – singing, laughing, swaying, and neighbors or the fizz spurting from the imbibing. This is Steel Rails Sessions 2014. shaken beverages will interrupt my interI’m acting as a roving reporter, trying to OFF THE Pushing the shotgun miview with Geobey. document the duality of this locomotive and RAILS crophone closer I’m flushing with a little panic about how I’ll PAGES to 8-9 his face, I ask him about his past experiences on the train. record the thoughts of 250 passengers when the entire train boasts the blurts of a tuba, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 12 • SEPTEMBER 2016 and every patron is crowding the aisle that is CONTINUED ON PAGE 9 no wider than a newspaper.

GOOD AND FREAKY The train has been rolling – St. Jacobs PAGE 12 bound – for about fifteen minutes, Geobey and I are still sitting in a quadrant of seats with two other passengers who have manICE ICE ART THAT aged to navigate the billowing cars well BABY MAKES ITSELF PAGE 12 PAGE 4 GRILLED enough to return with a few cans of beer.

CHEESE 4 LYFE “The line was getting crazy, so we grabbed a few,” one of them says, explaining the tall cans cradled in her arms.

BRFC

DRINK BEER FROM HERE

BEER

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VOLUME 3, ISSUE 12 • SEPTEMBER 2015

IF STREETS COULD TALK

IO DETO N URS

ERS

NA

MAK

E

THE JOURNEY TO HERE PAGES 4-5

GET THEE TO A BAKERY

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IF ‘BURBS COULD TALK PAGE 6

DOWNWARD APPROPRIATION PAGE 4

REGION

GON

A YEAR IN REVIEW PAGES 8-10

WATERLOO LIKE RIDING A BIKE

MAK

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 4 • JANUARY 2016

PAGES 8-10

STEEL RAILS

THE BEST OF

FARM TO TABLE PAGE 5

ELECTION 42

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HOP TO IT PAGE 16

MAKER EXPO

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OCTOBER 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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Volume 5, Issue 1 Next issue: November 2, 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 Mirali Almaula Anna Beard Alexandra Bissley Kate Daley Elizabeth DiCesare Meg Harder Stacey Jacobs Jon Johnson Christine Keachie Allison Leonard

Zainab Mahdi Kristen Philippi Rebeccah Redden John Roche Kat Rogers-Hern Eva Rucki Matt Smith Cara Vandermey Darin White

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.

CARA VANDERMEY ILLUSTRATION

Started in 2012, the Community Edition is an editorially independent newspaper published by Wilfrid Laurier University Student Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. WLUSP is governed by its board of directors.

Opinions expressed within the Community Edition are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, The Cord, WLUSP, WLU or Centra Web. All content appearing in the Community Edition bears the copyright expressly of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.

The Community Edition is a member of the Ontario Press Council, which is an independent ethical organization established to deal with editorial concerns. For additional information or to file a complaint, contact info@ontpress.com or call 416-340-1981.

Preamble to the Community Edition Constitution The Community Edition will keep faith with its readers by presenting news and expressions of opinions comprehensively, accurately and fairly. The Community Edition believes in a balanced and impartial presentation of all relevant facts in a news report, and of all substantial opinions in a matter of controversy.

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.

CIGARETTE EVALUATION STUDY Need smokers who smoke at least 5 cigarettes a day and are between 20-55 years of age who smoke Value Brands like Peter Jackson. $150 on completion. Call 519-578-0873 for details.

FEATURE

8-9 FIVE YEARS OF COMMUNITY NEWS

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

IN BRIEF WR’S ZINE SCENE TCE BY THE NUMBERS PIES NOT HORSES SMART GROWTH MENTAL MATTERS LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD A DOULA FOR THE PEOPLE SEXPLANATIONS MAKER EXPO CRAFTOBERFEST WHAT IS COMMUNITY? NIGHT\SHIFT RETURNS LADIES AND LGBTQ2+ OUT LOUD

COVER BY ALLISON LEONARD. It’s a poster. Hang it up.

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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IN BRIEF

Some modelled, some limboed and some made sadza (a staple food of Zimbabwe, organizers said “sadza is to Zimbabweans what mashed potatoes are to North Americans”) at this year’s LINK Picnic Festival and Family Carnival Parade in Kitchener’s Victoria Park. POOJA LAL MOHAN PHOTOS

NEWS

ARTS

URBAN

ANTI-RACISM DIRECTORATE TO KW

NO LIMITS AT NEW STUDIO CENTRAL

REGION SUPPORTS BREASTFEEDING

Following Black Lives Matter’s organizing, the province founded an Anti-Racism Directorate to “apply an anti-racism lens in developing, implementing and evaluating government policies, programs and services.” The Directorate is holding public meetings across Ontario, including on October 24 in KW, in a location to be specified.

“If you can imagine it, you’ll be able to do it at Studio Central,” says the Kitchener Public Library website, describing the upcoming launch of their “innovative media studio.” Promised elements include audio/video recording, a broadcast/podcast booth and tech for game development. Supporters are invited to an October 25 fundraiser.

In early October the Region of Waterloo moved a number of its public health breastfeeding services clinics out of the Grand River and Cambridge Memorial Hospitals. The Region says the new locations, in public health offices uptown and in Cambridge, should improve accessibility for people seeking breastfeeding help.

SIX NATIONS CUTS ENBRIDGE TIES

44 GAUKEL TO BE DTK ARTS HUB

ROAD HOCKEY STILL ILLEGAL

On September 28 the Six Nations Elected Council announced they were cutting ties with Enbridge, whose Line 10 pipeline crosses Haudenosaunee territory. The announcement follows the Six Nations of the Grand River’s signing on to the Treaty Alliance Against Expansion of the Tar Sands, along with nearly 100 other indigenous nations across Canada and the United States.

ArtsBuild Ontario, with the Accelerator Centre and the City of Kitchener is launching “Spacefinder Waterloo Region” at 44 Gaukel Street. According to a recent release, the “creative space in Downtown Kitchener... will provide affordable rehearsal and office space for local artists and tech start ups with hardware lab space.” Also billed as an “Air BnB for artists.”

Though it has never been enforced, Kitchener councillor Kelly Galloway-Sealock introduced a motion in late September to review the bylaw that bans road hockey in the city. According to the CBC, “she said road hockey is great and not just for the physical aspect,” citing also the community building element of a sport that in this reporter’s experience often ended in violence.

VENTURE CAPITAL KEEPS COMING

35 YEARS OF THE NEW QUARTERLY

RIDESHARING OK THIS DECEMBER

Venture capital continues to flow into Waterloo Region, including US $120 million to Thalmic Labs, whose technology senior staff say could eventually blur distinctions between humans and computers. Intel Capital, the Amazon Alexa Fund and Fidelity Investments Canada led this round of funding, which might excite or upset you, depending on your Marxism.

Did you know that one of Canada’s most decorated literary magazines lives in Waterloo?

The New Quarterly is 35 years old this year, and since 2011 has hosted a Wild Writer’s Festival.

TNQ celebrates these birthdays this year with a three-day festival that kicks off November 4. Features panel discussions with award winning authors and writing workshops.

On September 21 regional councillors voted to legalize ridesharing services like Uber or RideCo starting December 1 of this year. Taxis and “taxi-like vehicles” will have to display two 31-square-inch decals, among other requirements, as part of the decision. Interested parties will note that Uber has been operating in the region since July of last year.

FEWER LOCAL FLIGHT OPTIONS

NIGHT\SHIFT FOR THE PEOPLE

WATERLOO COSTCO READY TO GO

After one week of service flying discount flights out of Breslau last May, NextJet suspended operations for the summer, and according to CTV, “hasn’t come forward with any plans to resume service.” The same story notes that the last American Airlines flight to Chicago takes off October 5, so if you’re reading this, it’s probably too late.

Downtown Kitchener’s favourite fall placehacking festival returns for a fourth year this November, culminating on the first Saturday of that month. We preview the festival on page 14, but suffice it to say you’re unlikely to find better “pop-up art and performance, participatory creativity and impulsive community building” anywhere else.

A Costco store is set to open in Waterloo, on Erb Street west of Ira Needles Boulevard. The developer successfully fought the City’s request for a comprehensive traffic study prior to construction, and has built two roundabouts to manage expected increases in traffic. Officials say the new store will create 200 jobs. Is this good news?

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OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

KW'S ZINE SCENE URSE

WORDS BY MEGAN NO

N

DESIGN BY JON JOHNSO

Ellie Anglin loves zines. She owns about 500 of them, making her part of a large local community of DIY book makers whose creations are part of a movement and culture spanning decades.

A zine, if you’re not familiar, is a self-published pamphlet or booklet, usually filled with writing and visual art. The zine as we know it now became popular in the 1970s. At that time called “fanzines,” many early creations were punk and feminist, two subjects largely ignored by existing media.

The concept likely goes back hundreds of years, when people started printed political pamphlets after the printing press was first invented, according to Anglin.

“They’ve kind of maintained their

Arguably, the m ost interesting part of zines are th eir handmade aspects.

Most are desig ned in collage style by the zinemaker (s) with found and thrifted items.

Anglin scours thrift store books an d magazines fo r materials to m ake her art. Th ey are usually laid ou t by hand and photocopied or printed on hom e computers and often distribut ed for free.

“Zines have a DI Y aesthetic, th ey are not perfect, an d that allows m ore people to beco me involved in their production, re gardless of abili ty or t Zines require a lot of drive and effor ons, ibuti contr ct colle nt, conte e to creat design and distribute, usually on a zine small budget. And while creating a can be time consuming, many also c. describe it as healing and therapeuti nto Toro of lot a by red inspi “I was female identifying artists who took g something that was really traumatizin or personal and made it this beautiful, healing art object,” Anglin said of her ever-evolving zine making.

“We are all makers,” read the r volunteer t-shirts at this year’s Make

Expo, which included Galadza’s zine workshop station. Many of the zine that creators I spoke with made it clear there’s long been a DIY art community in the region, and possibly what has is really made zines so present in KW that they are an equalizing or egalitarian medium. Pretty much anyone can make a zine. They are handmade, self-published and the to point of them is that you don’t need or artist r, write al ssion profe a be publisher to make one. You just need an idea.

popularity because in a way a physical object feels more permanent,” said Anglin. She got into zines through the Riotgrrrl movement in the 1990s. Her first zine was made when she tried to start a KW chapter of Riotgrrrl in the early 2000s, and she was the driving force behind the KW Zine Library, which is now housed at Open Sesame.

“Zines are such an amazing force for marginalized people and have been used so much to help,” Anglin said, adding that “that pretty much defines the movement.” She has hosted several zine making workshops for the queer and trans communities at the uptown Button Factory. Sexual assault, transphobia, racial and sexual discrimination and body shaming are common zine themes

experience,” sa id Marichka Ga ladza, who recently led a zine workshop Maker Expo. at Galadza made her first zine wh ile teaching Engli sh in a remote fishing village in Japan . The desire to document her experience, bu t lack of resources to do so professiona lly led to a zine.

“Some zines ar e really good, professionally mass produced , and very touching. Man y are bad, angs ty verbal diarrhea kind of crap. But th at's what I love about the genre, it's pret ty accepting,” Ga ladza said.

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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5 YEARS OF TCE 48 ISSUES (THIS IS #49) 844 PAGES 827 STORIES AND 173 CONTRIBUTORS THAT MAKE IT ALL POSSIBLE. THANK YOU. LET’S SEE WHAT THE NEXT FIVE YEARS HOLD. • ADELE PALMQUIST • ALANNA FAIREY • ALEXANDRA BISSLEY • ALI CONNERTY • ALISTAIR MACLELLAN • ALLISON LEONARD • ALLY SIEBERT • AMANDA CHANG • AMY GRIEF • ANDREA HALL • ANDREAS PATSIAOUROS • ANDREW MORGAN • ANDREW SAVORY • ANDREW TUTTY • ANDY MACPHERSON • ANNA BEARD • ANYA LOMAKO • ASHLEY DENUZZO • BASHAR LULU JABBOUR • BEN WILSON • BOB EGAN • BRANDEN WESSLING • BRENT WETTLAUFER • BRYAN STEPHENS • BRYN OSSINGTON • CAMERON DEARLOVE • CARA VANDERMEY • CARLA BEHARRY • CARLY BASCH • CAROLYN GRAY • CARRIE DEBRONE • CATHY MACLELLAN • CHRISTINE ALMUDEVAR • CHRISTINA PROCTOR • CHRISTINE RIER • CHRISTOPHER CRYNE • CHRISTOPHER EMORY-MOORE • COLLEEN CONNOLLY • CRAIG LEACH • CRISTINA RUCCHETTA • DAN HERMAN • DANI SAAD • DANIEL KRUGER • DANIELLE DMYTRASZIKO • DARIN WHITE • DARREN KROPF • DAVE EALES • DAVE EMRICH • DAVE THOMAS • DAVID CAMERON MOORE • DAVID GASCOIGNE • DAVID MICHAELS • DAVID SIEBERT • DAVID WORSLEY • DEBBIE FREY • DOUGLAS CLARKE • DWIGHT SYMS • DYLAN SIEBERT • ELISE MARION • ELIZABETH DICESARE • ELIZABETH MCFAUL • ELLIE ANGLIN • EMMA DINES • ERIC RUMBLE • ERIKA PREECE • ERIKA YMANA • ERIN MCLEAN-PURDON • EVA RUCKI • FAISAL ALI • GREG DEGROOT-MAGGETTI • GREGORY O’BRIEN • H.G. WATSON • HANNAH MARIE • HEATHER DAVIDSON • HELEN HALL • JACQUELINE MARTINZ • JAIME MARTINO • JAMES HOWE • JAMIESON COX • JANE SNYDER • JANINE PREW • JENNIFER FREITAS • JENNIFER MARSHMAN • JESSE BAUMAN • JESSICA DIK • JESSICA O’CONNELL • JESSICA PETT • JILL KOLB • JODY WAARDENBURG • JOE MARTZ • JOEL WITTNEBEL • JOHN ROCHE • JON JOHNSON • JON PUKILA • JON SPEE • JORDAN SMITH • JORDAN SNOBELEN • JOSHUA BOWMAN • JUANITA METZGER • JULIA GOGOLEVA • JULIA VASILYEVA • JULIAN CARRIGAN-COATRIEUX • JULIANA GOMEZ • JULIE TAKASAKI • JUSTIN FEAUTEAUX • JUSTIN SMIRLIES • KAITLYN SEVERIN • KAMRAN KARAMCHI • KAT ROGERS-HERN • KATE DALEY • KATE TURNER • KATELYN CULLUM • KATHY MOSTARDI • KATIE PARKER • KEN HOYLE • KERRI HUTCHINSON • KEVIN DELANEY • KHA VO • KIRK ZURELL • KRISTEN PHILIPPI • KRISTIN MILANI • KRISTY GUTHRIE-ROTH • KURTIS THOMAS • LAKYN BARTON • LATANIA HYATT • LAURA BUCK • LEAH MARTIN • LINDSAY PURCHASE • LISA UMHOLTZ • LUKE MOYER • LYNDSEY BUTCHER • MAGDALENA MILOSZ • MARA BENDER • MARC XUEREB • MARIKA GALADZA • MARISSA EVANS • MARK GROULX • MARK SHIFFER • MATT QUICK • MATT SMITH • MEG HARDER • MEGAN NOURSE • MIKE BOOS • MIRALI ALMAULA • NATALEE BLAGDEN • NICK LACHANCE • NICK STANLEY • NOEL SEVERIN IVERSON • PETER BRAID • POOJA LAL MOHAN • RAMONA LEITAO • REBECCA ALLISON • REBECCA FERGUSON • REBECCA MAYERS • SAM NABI • SAMANTHA ESTOESTA • SANDRA MERY • SARA HANAFI • SASHA CAMPBELL • SCOTT GLAYSHER • SETH RATZLAFF • SHEENA BOUSANGA • SHELBY BLACKLEY • STACEY JACOBS • STEPH SMITH • STEPHANIE TRUONG • STEPHEN HARGREAVES • STEVEN STINSON • SUZIE TAKA • TAMAR VARTANIAN • TANISHKA KUNDU • TAYLOR GAYOWSKY • TEGAN THUSS • VERONICA NAAS • WANDA WAGLER-MARTIN • WILL HUANG • ZAINAB MAHDI • ZAINAB RAMAHI •

OCTOBER 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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FIRST PAST THE POST HEADED FOR PASTURE?

CITIZENS IN KW AND ACROSS CANADA WORKING TO MAKE SURE PRIME MINISTER CHANGES VOTING SYSTEM

JESSE BAUMAN EDITOR IN CHIEF Counting votes is not like counting apples or loose change. There are many ways to aggregate our sporadic expressions of political affinity, and many Canadians argue that because our current voting system is not proportional it is unfair, and runs against the basic principles of representative democracy.

We choose representatives because our communities are big and complicated, and we so rarely consider the reasons for representation that it now seems self-evident that we must choose professionals to rule us, instead of us ourselves.

We choose those representatives by voting, because we can’t in the first place agree who should do the ruling, and because counting ballots appears the most peaceful way to agree to disagree.

Campaigning last year, now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to scrap Canada’s first past the post electoral system, should that system find him victorious. First past the post is a phrase borrowed from horse-racing, where one horse wins and all the other horses lose. Do you remember Sham? Sham lost twice to Secretariat, both times by 2 ½ lengths, in the more

famous horse’s 1973 Triple Crown winning season. Sham died alone by heart attack in the green fields of Kentucky.

Our current voting system sends one person from each riding across the country to Parliament. That MP need not win a majority of the votes, just more than any of her competitors.

So it is that in the last election Brigitte Sansoucy became the New Democratic Party member of Parliament for Quebec’s Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot riding with 28.5 per cent of the vote. René Vincelette (who won 27.55 per cent of that riding’s popular vote), Michel Filion (24.28 per cent) and Réjean Léveillé (16.73 per cent) all went home empty handed, leaving the people who voted for them to hope that Sansoucy will fairly represent them in Ottawa.

A recent Broadbent Institute report wonders, “What if we imagined an election not as a horse race to be won or lost by one candidate or party, but as a pie to be divided?” I heard different versions of this question at a “Party Rally for Proportional Representation” organized by the Waterloo Region Green Party on September 17.

The forty plus rally attendees – a self-selected group, to be sure – seemed to agree that first past the post does not create a properly representative Parliament, because per cent of popular vote does not translate to per cent of seats. This especially punishes smaller parties who have voters in every riding, just not enough to win any one riding.

Organizer Julia Gogoleva says the Greens are advocating for proportional representation because it would “simply make our voting system fair.”

She is the financial agent of the Green Party’s Waterloo Electoral District Association.

Proportional representation “benefits all Canadians, who in a proportional system would be able to vote with their values, no matter where they live,” she says, adding that proportional representation could stop people from voting strategically or worrying about vote splitting.

Because there is no throw-away vote in a proportional system – each ballot counts towards the size of each party’s pie – advocates also argue that proportional representation could boost voter turnout. Nearly 69 per cent of eligible Canadians voted in last year’s federal election, which means that about eight million eligible voters decided not to go to the polls.

There are different ways to accomplish the goal of proportional representation, and part of the Kitchener rally involved small-groups brainstorming about how to implement a new system. “[Our group] leaned towards mixed-member proportional representation (MMP). Any proportional system is better than our current authoritarian system,” says Marion Markham, who facilitated one of the small groups. Under MMP we’d vote for a local representative and a regional representative, the latter result used

to top up results to more accurately reflect voter preferences. So you’d vote for a local MP, and also the party you prefer.

Many at the rally seemed hopeful for change.

“Trudeau could’ve stopped this process early, but it started grassroots and made its way to caucus and became a key promise,” says Sharon Somerville, who co-chairs the board of the Fair Vote Canada Waterloo Region Chapter, and sits on the board of the Liberal Party’s Waterloo Electoral District Association. Indeed, the Prime Minister has established a Special Committee on Electoral Reform to study “viable alternative voting systems” and seek citizen input across the country.

Shannon Purves-Smith says she is taking federal promises seriously because “of events like this,” which are indirectly connected to Trudeau’s election promise and the ongoing consultative process. Purves-Smith is a local resident, and smiling-but-serious about democracy.

Others at the rally cautioned that electoral reform is necessary but not sufficient for deepening democracy in Canada, and that proportional representation is no silver bullet. For example, says Purves-Smith, “politics is what’s happening in this room, not just about who gets to be in House of Commons.”

And yet other criticisms I heard seemed simply to be criticisms of representative democracy. One person representing many is hard and imper-

fect and tends to exclude – especially those who lack the interest or time or political resources to advocate for themselves. Proportional representation could improve this, and people like Purves-Smith could finally, “before [they] die, [have] an opportunity to vote for and elect a Green Party candidate.” But still, many or most of us will not always get to vote for the eventual Prime Minister.

There’s also the issue of who gets on the ballot in the first place, and how. In addition to proportional representation, the political theorist Melissa Williams argues that trust is the foundation of democratic accountability. She points out how individuals and communities, if they are to feel represented, must trust at least some of the available representatives and the institutions they represent. Black Lives Matter and Idle No More, among many other social movements, highlight their communities’ systematic exclusion from and betrayal by our formal political institutions. From this perspective, real representation must mean more than changing how we count votes.

In her opening remarks at the rally, Somerville reiterated that “Trudeau is looking for broad support for change.”

It’s up to people to organize and to make demands of their representatives, to be political animals that create the kinds of communities they desire.

Smart growth is about growing up instead of out, about creating more liveable urban areas while protecting farmland and the environment, argue Smart Growth Waterloo Region. MATT SMITH PHOTO

SMART GROWTH PLANNING LOOKS UP AND NOT OUT WR OPINION

KATE DALEY CONTRIBUTOR You might have heard someone say that house prices are going up because of provincial smart growth policies.

It’s not true. But people are saying it.

They’re saying it because the provincial government is doing a review of its smart growth policies. And some people in the development industry are used to making money by building new subdivisions over farmland.

Smart growth is about growing up instead of growing out. It’s about creating more liveable urban areas while protecting farmland and the environment. The provincial Greenbelt has set aside specific lands for protection, while the Growth Plan requires municipalities to make room for more residents in existing urban areas and to expand those areas more slowly and

with more residents than they did in the past.

These plans are popular. So, after 10 years of experience, the province is figuring out how to make them stronger. But some have an interest in more urban sprawl.

Their basic argument is that if they were allowed to build on more farmland around the edges of our cities, buying a home would be cheaper. This, they contend, is simple supply and demand: more houses mean lower prices.

It sounds like it could be true. But it’s not. There are two main problems with this argument.

The most obvious problem is that there is no shortage of new land for building homes. As the Neptis Foundation found, even in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, where growth pressure is highest, three quarters of the lands designated for urban development haven’t been built on yet. We have more than enough land available under provincial plans.

But there’s a bigger problem with the simplistic supply and demand ar-

gument. The issue isn’t land. It’s space.

The most expensive homes are those in the most desirable areas.

Truthfully, most people can’t afford to own a big house with a private yard in the most popular parts of our cities.

There simply isn’t the space to build enough single-detached homes in the most desirable areas to meet demand and keep home prices low. If location didn’t matter, the average price of a house in downtown Toronto would be the same as in Oshawa, instead of about five times as much, as Toronto’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat often points out.

In this context of limited space, home buyers need to consider what their priorities are. Families must choose what they value most: size, location or price. Some who can afford it will buy expensive, detached houses in places like downtown Toronto.

Some will choose to live in more dense townhomes or apartments, and stay close to where they work or where they want to live. Some will move to the outskirts of our cities, or even to other cities, and accept long com-

mutes, expensive transportation and less time at home, in exchange for more space at a lower price.

So the question becomes: given limited space, how should we build our communities? We can continue to build sprawling cities that pave over farmland and environmentally sensitive areas, but we do so at a huge cost.

It’s at the cost of harming our agricultural sector, our groundwater supply and the unique ecological systems that surround us.

It’s also at the cost of high taxes.

Decades of sprawl have taught us that sprawling communities are inefficient communities. It costs much more to provide urban services to suburban residents than to people in more dense neighbourhoods. Municipalities across Ontario are struggling to provide services to areas that have been built inefficiently.

When faced with the actual choices, most Ontarians agree that we can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to grow our cities and make them more efficient and liveable, while also protecting our countryside.

That’s why the provincial government is looking to strengthen their smart growth plans, rather than tear them apart, as some in the development industry would have them do.

For housing to be more affordable, we don’t need to build on even more land. What we need is real housing choices for diverse families. The vast majority of our existing housing is single-detached homes. We continue to build those. But we need to build more townhomes and apartments to accommodate more people in the places where they want to be. Only when we have more housing in more neighbourhoods will homeowners and renters be able to make meaningful choices about where and how they want to live, and what trade-offs are right for them.

Kate is a co-founder of Smart Growth Waterloo Region, and a PhD candidate in political science at York University studying the politics of growth management.

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

7

MEG HARDER ILLUSTRATION

WHEN YOUR PAST IS PRESENT (AND A DOWNER) MENTAL MATTERS

JOHN ROCHE COLUMNIST Talking about the past is totally passé. Unfortunately, just refusing to acknowledge history doesn’t change the fact that it has a huge influence on the present. Psychologically speaking, our brains are programmed by experience, most of which took place in the past. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to live in the moment, but the best way to become truly spon-

taneous is by integrating the past, not ignoring it.

To understand why, it’s important to know that the brain’s primary concern isn’t for us to be happy and spontaneous; it’s for us to survive. To that end, brains are constantly processing information and adapting accordingly: don’t stick a fork in the toaster, don’t message guys whose dating profiles mention how much they love making dolls out of human hair. For the most part, such survival lessons are easily learned and integrated with the brain’s daily living system.

Some lessons, however, come to us by way of experiences that are beyond our ability to integrate. How does a five-year-old go to kindergarten to learn his ABCs while at home

he’s being beaten by someone who’s supposed to protect him? The only way his psyche can manage is for the daily functioning part of his brain to essentially exile the part of his brain necessary for survival, causing a split between the two systems. From then on, a neural network will be frozen at that point in time, triggered by vaguely familiar situations that cue a fiveyear-old’s negative cognition, stuck emotion and compulsive behaviour.

Let’s imagine that this little guy grows up to be a 25-year-old who works an office job. In this example, the mere presence of his boss will trigger the belief “I’m worthless,” an emotion of anxiety or even terror and a compulsive behaviour like people pleasing or avoidance of work tasks.

He will hate work and probably also himself without having the slightest clue that the past is present and he’s simply re-enacting an outdated pattern of survival.

Ever found yourself caught up in anxiety, anger, codependence or addiction, and then fought against yourself because you “should know better?” That tells us that a similar split has, at one time or another, occurred within your psyche. Lucky readers are probably thinking to themselves, “But I had a good childhood!” Fair enough, but things that don’t seem like a big deal to adults can be huge to kids: getting the silent treatment from a parent or even being sent to summer camp can be interpreted by a helpless little person as a threat to survival.

The key to integrating stuck neural networks is to learn to recognize when they’ve been activated and then orient them to the present. Support groups, self-care and all that seemingly hokey inner child stuff are all extremely effective means of doing so. Therapy, especially eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, can accelerate the process tremendously.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that being triggered by certain situations into negative cognitions, overwhelming emotions and compulsive behaviours is not “just the way you are”; it is a neurobiological adaptation and it can be updated. And that’s good news.

REBUILT WR: AT THE FORMERLY GRAND DOWNTOWN YMCA

It’s fun to stay at the YMCA, it’s fun to stay at the YMCA, or at least it was between 1922 and 1982 when the local Y made its home in downtown Kitchener. For more than sixty years the Y graced the corner of Weber and Queen Streets in the core with its handsome red brick Georgian style building. Hosting church groups, meetings and activities like dancing, the Y was a well-used neighbourhood meeting place. The building also housed residences for men who were new to the city and could not afford a hotel room. In 1982 the new A.R. Kaufman YMCA building opened in the Rockway neighbourhood and the building was sold and used as apartments until 1988. This photo shows the building in that year, being prepared for the same fate that had already claimed two of its intersection neighbours, the original Waterloo County Courthouse, and the Kitchener Carnegie Library. The current Regency apartments were constructed on the site in the early 2000s, which brought new – and much needed – downtown residents to the core, but did little to improve the pedestrian experience at street level. Happily, St. Andrew’s Church still hovers over the intersection, reminding us of the former grandeur of the long gone historic buildings that once called Queen and Weber home. MATT SMITH WORDS AND RIGHT PHOTO. LEFT PHOTO (P008346) COURTESY GRACE SCHMIDT HISTORY ROOM.

INSIDE

A history of

Waterloo’s Bullish real estate market.

See Page 14

See Page 11 NOVEMBER ISSUE VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

FIVE YEARS OF WATERLOO REGION THROUGH SIGNIFICANT TCE HEADLINES

ART IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Volume 3, Issue 4 January 2015 The Cord: Community Edition becomes the Community Edition, and gets a makeover.

See Page 18

Volume 1, Issu November 20 fancy holiday onwards new October)

The Cord: Co inaugural issu story, entitled WATERLOO THE EARLY S TRANSIT PLA by a “propose cating LRT se Cambridge.

Vol Dec

Volume 2, Issue 9 June 2014 “TRI-PRIDE CELEBRATES COMMUNITY,” and TCE previews 19th iteration of LGBTQA+ festival.

“ST RE “BA reb

Volume 3, Issue 6 March 2015 With “WATERLOO REGION’S BEST GREASY SPOONS” TCE starts a period of telling you what to eat, drink or do. See also: best craft beer (March 2016), chip wagons (August 2016), iced coffee (July 2016) and adventures on the Grand River (May 2015)

Volume 3, Issue 8 May 2015 Editor in chief Allison Leonard writes “LIVE NUDES” about her experience visiting THEMUSEUM’s no-clothesallowed “Getting Naked” exhibition. Said she, in a follow up note: “I expected some discussion about the frontal nudity in our centre spread, and I expected some hurtful jokes about my own body’s presence in the

Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2014 “A HISTORY OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP” is the headline for a story about the impending closure of Schneider’s, one of Kitchener’s original industries. We told you then that the innovative and entrepreneurial culture of the region remains.

See also “THE PLANE TRUTH,” David Siebert’s chat with a local hand-tool craftsman (August 2016).

article itself. I did not, however expect such polarization…

To those who expressed opposition to my body, my ethics or the Community Edition’s journalism at large, thank you.

You were the inspiration for the story. In a culture where art that hosts or implies nudity is unnerving, undiscussed and cause for the the over-sexualization of a journalist’s body, it is time to start a conversation.”

Volume 4, Issue 2 November 2015

EIC Jesse Bauman writes “WATERLOO’S GENTRIFIC FIXATION.” The headline is great, but the story describe “the persistence and spread concentrated poverty–not g trification–is our biggest urb challenge.”

Volume 1, Issue 5 February 2013

ue 1 012 (because of a y issue, from 2013 w volumes started in

ommunity Edition’s ue leads with a news d “LRT ON TRACK: REGION ENTERS STAGES OF ITS AN.” Accompanied ed route” map, indiervice all the way to

lume 2, Issue 3 cember 2013

T. JACOBS RAISES AGAIN: LOCAL ESIDENTS CHANNEL REGION’S ARN-RAISING SPIRIT” to help build for-profit farmer’s market.

CATION sn’t es how of genban

In “LOST IN THE SHUFFLE: LOW-INCOME RESIDENTS PLAY THE WAITING GAME,” TCE talks with Richard O’Connor, one of about 3,000 local residents on the list for affordable housing. The list has grown since 2013.

Volume 1, Issue 4 January 2013

In “RE-EVALUATING RIGHTS,” EIC H.G. Watson talks about how abortion does not have to be illegal in order to be inaccessible in Waterloo Region and beyond.

“IT SEEMED UNSHAKEABLE: SYRIANS LIVING IN KITCHENER-WATERLOO SHARE THOUGHTS ON CRISIS.” In an interview, Omar Salaymeh said he was shocked by the so-called Arab Spring, describing a long-standing culture of fear and resentment of Assad’s regime. A UW student shared a simple request for people supporting refugees: “Please be kind to us in your country.”

“WE JUST HAVE TO SHOW THEM OUR HEARTS” begins with a story about Noor, a local Muslim woman: “Noor describes November 16 as an unseasonably warm day—a high of 15 degrees Celsius according to Environment Canada—and, pointedly, ‘the first Mon-

“10 IDEAS TO CHANGE WATERLOO REGION” rolls out. “10 ideas to change Waterloo is a collection of ideas. Some of these ideas are big. Some are small. Some are just starting — they’re still just a kernel, though they could become something more.” Ideas include: Little Libraries, the Grand Porch Party, @PEOPLEOFKW, an Electric Mobility Ecosystem (that would have us transition to “clean electricity”) and Girls On Purpose, an annual conference for mothers and daughters.

Volume 1, Issue 11 August 2013

Volume 2, Issue 1 October 2013

Volume 4, Issue 4 January 2016

Volume 1, Issue 8 May 2013

“GAME CHANGE: RIM HAS HIGH HOPES FOR THE NEW BLACKBERRY 10. CAN IT BRING THE EMBATTLED COMPANY BACK FROM THE BRINK?”

day after Paris.’ On that Monday her car windows were rolled down as she sat waiting for the lights to change at the intersection of King and Weber Streets. ‘When the arrow opened for the cars beside me to go left, I didn’t see the man’s face, I only heard him yell ‘you are a terrorist!’ and go, he was gone.’”

Volume 1, Issue 10 July 2013 ALL ABOARD! TCE takes over Steel Rails, our annual art-party-community-mediafundraiser-extravaganza.

Volume 4, Issue 7 April 2016 “Did you know that Aboriginal people were forced out of Waterloo?” Meg Harder traces the histories of colonialism along the Grand River in “OUR GRAND COLONIAL HISTORY.” David Siebert continues the conversation in the

same issue, in “A BAR BY ANY OTHER NAME MIGHT BE BETTER.” Identifying a trend to name local businesses after our historical fore-fathers, he argues that “by focusing on the aesthetically pleasing and romanticized aspects of our history, we are erasing the uncomfortable parts that are still with us.

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

10

THEY PRINT PAPERS, DON’T THEY? TCE THEN AND NOW TCE CHECKS IN WITH ITS FOUNDING PARENTS TO TALK ABOUT THE PAST AND FUTURE OF COMMUNITY MEDIA

ANNA BEARD CONTRIBUTOR After five years as Waterloo Region’s independent community paper, we thought it would be interesting to take a step back in time, into the minds of those who launched the Community Edition. In what follows, TCE’s first publisher Bryn Ossington and first editor in chief H.G. Watson open up about the paper’s genesis, and community media in general.

AB: Where did the idea for a community paper come from?

BO: When I was president of Wilfrid Laurier Student Publications (WLUSP) we wanted to find a way to extend what we were already doing on campus into the community. We had the resources to bring in community volunteers and use our current staff as a way to create news products, create revenue, and get our writers out more.

Whether they’re student journalists or writers in the community, we wanted to give them an opportunity to expose what’s going on in the community

T

while showing off their talent.

The other piece was to create a place to talk about what was happening locally. Having a physical place to collect those ideas would not only build a brand but also continue conversations.

BO: The paper is really starting to address what might have taken time.

The diversity of writing and topics has increased. I think it’s hitting the mark more.

HGW: When it was pitched to me, the situation was that the campus paper was already doing so much local coverage and WLUSP wanted to grow that community audience, so why not have a community edition?

I was hired with an eight-month contract. We just wanted the paper to survive. We started really ambitiously with a 24-page paper. We eventually went down to 12 pages after my contract was renewed, which I loved because I could finesse the content and the visuals.

HGW: Absolutely. There’s been a breakdown of local journalism and we don’t know what the next months will hold. There seems to be a push to find a new sustainable journalism model and I think something like this where student organizations... integrate into the broader community is great.

AB: Having been there at the beginning, what do you think of how the paper has developed over the last five years?

HGW: I think it’s cool that they’ve gone very hard magazine style. I think if you’re going to be in print, that’s what you need to do. As more of a monthly magazine style guide to Kitchener Waterloo, it’s very smart.

AB: Is community media important?

BO: Yes. Community change is always going to be a grassroots initiative. If we celebrate that and promote that, we’ll get more of it. Sometimes bigger organizations find great stories when things are just starting out but I’d say that’s the exception, not the rule. Try as bigger organizations might, they don’t have the resources to sit around a table and have someone say, ‘Hey this is what my neighbor is doing.’

Community media allows those stories to be told.

AB: Is there bias in independent media?

BO: There’s bias in every media.

There’s a real effort here in having a

DO YOU LIKE TO:

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diversity of writers, voices and points of view. We need a larger diversity of voices, not only just in the Community Edition, but also in every media outlet in town. That’s a problem in media – it takes finessing.

HGW: It’s incumbent on the editorial staff of any paper to find voices of different kinds. That’s the job. You need to decide what your paper is. Is it just the facts? More conversation based?

Your community should be reflected in the paper.

AB: Is there value in print media?

BO: Yeah. It’s the most accessible form of media. It’s cheap enough that you can leave it anywhere. It’s got the shortest loading time. Search function is a little lagging but... you don’t need to be at a power source.

AB: To whom is community media accountable?

informed about what’s happening in their community and what kinds of people are living there is part of the role of a community media organization.

BO: Community media isn’t national media. We don’t need to worry about writing big pieces in hopes of making or breaking a publication. You’re not going to have a publisher come and say, ‘Don’t write that!’ and that’s the beauty of community media: you’re not really tied to that high end or [forced to] make mass amounts of money for anyone. The second that happened, the audience would likely run away. Because it’s on a smaller scale you’re allowed to do things that other organizations just aren’t going to pursue.

These responses were edited and condensed.

HGW: No matter where you are, you should have the freedom to write about what is newsworthy. The accountability in a newsroom is always to the readers. You have a responsibility to report fairly and accurately and to do good reporting. Making the editorial decision to keep people

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OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

11

POWER TO THE PEOPLE, ONE BIRTH AT A TIME MURCH TCE CONTINUES NEW SERIES PROFILING WR AT WORK, THIS TIME WITH DOULA (AND MUCH MORE) BETH

WR AT WORK

ALEXANDRA BISSLEY CONTRIBUTOR Beth Murch has been working as a doula in the Waterloo Region for 11-plus years, and has been present at over 100 births.

“The burnout rate for doulas in this Region is about three years so I’m pretty on-fire for the work,” she laughs. Though doula work is her primary source of income, she sees it as more than a job; it’s her vocation.

Having recently given birth myself, I was familiar with doulas as one of the optional buy-ins of our modern birthing landscape, along with prenatal classes, birthing photography and the like.

Doulas are non-clinical care providers who offer “physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth; or who provide emotional and practical support during the postpartum period,” the Doulas of North America website explains. Doula work could involve helping to develop a birth plan, advocating on behalf of the person giving birth (and their partner/ family if applicable) during labour, and offering postpartum breastfeeding assistance.

At the cost of at least several hundred dollars, doula services sounded nice and all but really privileged; couldn’t I just read up and talk to some friends to prepare myself? And besides, a lot of the doula websites I

saw gave off major boutique-service vibes. How necessary is this, anyway?

I wondered. What’s the big deal? And then I met Beth Murch.

The passion that Murch has for birth and babies is evident on her very informative and well-sourced website, and manifests as a calm, warm confidence in person. When I ask about what she describes as a ‘calling’ to doula work, she talks about the vulnerability that people experience when they are giving birth.

“It’s an area…that people don’t talk about in our culture and there’s a lot of mystique around [birthing],” she says.

Not knowing what to expect in birth until you’re in it can be vulnerable and scary enough as is; in the case of any sort of “otherness,” it can be even more so.

Murch has had clients who don’t speak English and clients who are deaf. Her website lists populations that she has training and comfort in assisting, including survivors of sexual trauma, individuals who are HIV-positive and past or current substance users. These communities are largely unnamed in popular prenatal and birthing resources.

“The system isn’t tailored to support those communities,” she explains. A doula’s role, then, is to advocate on behalf of these individuals and to serve as a liaison between medical practitioners and the person receiving care.

On a grander scale, Murch sees doula work as a means of increasing accessibility to birthing information and education and community resources.

When I ask about the seeming eliteness of doula care Murch agrees that there are some doulas that market themselves that way.

“There’s a lot to be said for that. It’s easier to make a living that way.”

Murch has had as many as five clients (meaning she attended five births) in a month, and usually has at least one, but she is also open to a sliding scale of pay for individuals who may need her care but feel unable to afford her full fee.

I imagine it comes down to philosophy. Murch sees the doula’s role linked to social and reproductive justice, where issues of race, class and colonialism, for example, affect how individuals are able to access care, the care they receive, and their birthing experience.

If it sounds theoretical, it’s not.

Murch tells me about her experience supporting a woman of colour who, giving birth shortly after the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida, struggled in her labour, not wanting her child to be born into the world where he might be shot for the colour of his skin. She cites a recent North American study showing that people of Arab descent receive markedly worse prenatal and perinatal care now than they did before 9/11.

Imploring a wider awareness of reproductive justice within the doula community, Murch founded Revolutionary Doula Training two years ago.

She has also partnered with two other doulas to form the Timshel Holistic Collective, which offers an array of pre-natal, birthing and post-natal services.

I went into my meeting with Murch not really knowing what to expect. In the face of her honest, radical exploration of birth and birthing individuals, I was totally humbled, had my own privilege checked in a big way and fell a little in love.

Beth Murch attends a local birth, one of the 100-plus she’s supported people through in her work as a doula. CHRISTINE KEACHIE PHOTO

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SEXPLANATIONS

STACEY JACOBS COLUMNIST For our fifth anniversary I returned to some of my older articles and collected an array of tips, suggestions and advice. I reread every article I wrote since 2013, and I decided to do this on a Sunday afternoon while watching old James Bond movies. (I cannot believe there is a James Bond movie called Octopussy!)

The first message I would like to reiterate is that gonorrhea is becoming drug resistant. It is a good idea to get tested and treated and use condoms if you don’t want to have gonorrhea for the rest of your life. Also, many STIs show no symptoms. Cold sores are herpes even if people call them cute things like sun blisters, and can be spread to genitals during oral sex.

Get tested regularly even if you think you are in a monogamous relationship; your partner may think differently.

Masturbation is good. Pleasure is good. Lube is good. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That being said, there are many reasons people may not feel comfortable masturbating or feeling pleasure, and this needs to be respected too.

The anus does not naturally lubricate like the vagina, so lots of lube during anal sex is beneficial.

Use a barrier (a dental dam, for example) between your mouth and someone’s butthole.

And now one of my pet peeves: the external genitalia is the vulva, not the vagina! The vulva includes the inner

and outer labia, clitoral hood, clitoris, vestibule and the mons pubis. You can see the urethral and vaginal openings externally but not the vagina itself.

The vagina is the internal canal that leads to the cervix and uterus and is often involved in menstruation, penis in vagina sex, pregnancy and birth. Vulvas have the same amount of erectile tissue as a penis. If you have a vulva, take a look.

A person has three options when they become pregnant; abort, make an adoption plan, or parent. It is the choice of the person who is pregnant and no one else. People are not pro-abortion. Comprehensive sex education and accessible birth control can help prevent abortions. An abortion pill has been approved in Canada, but is not yet available. Emergency contraception (like Plan B) is available in pharmacies without a prescription, and cheapest at Walmart and Costco.

Sex education is life education, so please talk with your children about bodies, gender, sexual orientation, relationships, puberty and consent, among so many other topics.

Talking openly and honestly with your children can help prevent sexual abuse, sexual assault and unhealthy relationships. It can increase their trust in you. Open communication is important between parents and children as well as between people in relationships. It may be uncomfortable or awkward at first, but I promise that the more you talk about sex, the more comfortable you become talking about sex. And the more you can talk about sex the more you will learn about sex.

And learning about sex is a good thing.

Finally, my top three take home messages: truffle butter is not a culinary delicacy, bush is back and read Judy Blume.

13

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

MAKER EXPO MIXES ART & TECHNOLOGY ELIZABETH DICESARE CONTRIBUTOR For many years, Waterloo Region’s technology sector has attracted national and international attention, and on a blustery Saturday in September Kitchener’s city hall was full of robots – battling, drawing and printing – but also a water dragon (dubbed Kayloth) made of balloons, homemade laundry soap, giant notebooks, cardboard castles and zine workshops.

In other words, visitors to the annual Maker Expo were exposed to so much more than the traditional S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) activities that are often associated with the maker community.

If they were paying attention, attendees would also have noticed that the spirit, creativity, imagination and drive behind makers can be seen year round in many organizations, projects and programs that are carried out within the Kitchener Waterloo community.

“I honestly don’t usually think of myself as a maker, so it’s kind of an interesting label that I’m contemplating,” explained Heather Bigelow, one of the directors of the newly launched Avocado Co-op, who was exhibiting at the Expo. “I think of myself more as a crafter.”

For Bigelow, who helped launch Avocado Co-op on September 15, being a maker isn’t always about coding new apps or inventing new products. For her, being a maker means promoting accessible means to live a sustainable lifestyle.

“I think there’s a huge interest in learning how to be sustainable, but it’s challenging to know,” she explained.

“Having a reliable source of tried and tested options that your community is around is helpful.”

During Maker Expo, Avocado Co-op was showing attendees how to make their own laundry soap and felt dryer balls. Their sustainable products, which can easily be made at home, were so popular that they eventually ran out of materials at their booth.

Making household products is some-

thing that Avocado Co-op showed can be done year-round, and also shows that anyone can easily become a maker.

“I think it speaks to the creative side of Waterloo Region that you don’t always see,” she continued.

Sustainability isn’t necessarily the first thing that crosses your mind when you think about Makers, but it’s a good example of what can happen when arts and STEM come together.

The resulting acronym is STEAM, which is a focus for the Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGS), which was actively promoting STEAMbased activities to children and youth who stopped by their booth.

“Our goal is to promote and sustain interest in science, technology, engineering and math for girls who are seven to 16 years of age,” explained Zakia Ahmad, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chapter Co-ordinator for CAGS. However, she said that including hands-on activities, as well as the arts, garners more interest, and makes it more impactful for children and youth who participate in their programs throughout the year.

“I’m really happy about people changing STEM to STEAM, it’s more inclusive,” she continued. “Arts and science, engineering, math and technology are all intermingled. I think you need a level of creativity to do well in your STEAM area — whatever field of study that you’re in — and it enhances your art when you understand the STEM behind the medium that you’re working with.”

THEMUSEUM is also about to start year-round programming for youth interested in STEAM fields. In November, they will be opening a maker space with programming for school groups and the public.

“We decided to open a maker space in downtown Kitchener [because] we’re looking to fill a need, and that need is learning by doing,” explained Brent Wettlaufer, who will coordinate the space. “Whether your child is three, 12, or going into university, if we’re on the forefront, then we’re going to retain those brilliant young minds that are developing within the community, and then they’re going to be able to give back after they’ve become professionals in their fields.”

Clockwise from top: a balloon sculpture featuring Kayloth the dragon, by Drew Ripley with Lisa McIntire and Derek Wong; at the Waterloo Tape Music Club table people make sound annd music with electronics and fruits and vegetables; and Marius Salvescu interacts with Expo attendees at his robot table. PHOTOS COURTESY DARIN WHITE - MAKEBRIGHT.COM

CRAFTOBERFEST FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE

NEW DOWNTOWN KITCHENER FESTIVAL CELEBRATES LOCAL FOOD, BEER, ART AND MUSIC

KAT ROGERS-HERN COLUMNIST One of the first things I learned about Kitchener Waterloo, upon moving here in the spring of 2015, was that Oktoberfest is a big deal. A really big deal. It was hyped up so much over the course of the next few months that I couldn’t help feeling a little letdown when I experienced it myself.

I hadn’t really been expecting an authentic German experience, but I had hoped for a Canadian twist that included local craft beer and sausages from nearby farms. Instead, it was Molson Canadian and Schneider’s, with sides of Creemore Springs and Piller’s. Not what I had in mind.

This year promises to be better. No, the region’s official Oktoberfest hasn’t opened its doors to local, independently owned businesses. Instead, there’s a new harvest celebration in town: Craftoberfest. Organized by Alex Szaflarska and Rob Shorney, worker/ owners at Together We’re Bitter Brewing Co-operative, this two-night event aims to celebrate local food, beer, art and music.

According to their website, Craftoberfest will be a festival by the people, for the people. Shorney describes the event as, “what we want Kitchener Oktoberfest to be. It’s the second largest in the world, so it should be ours. We have a huge beer culture here, but craft breweries are not invited to the major fest.”

Referencing the common misconception that craft beer events are inherently elitist, he assured me that

this party is “not just about curly mustaches and folk music.”

The main festival will take place downtown Kitchener on October 7 and 8. Over 20 breweries and cider makers, many of them local, will be pouring their suds in the fest tent to kick things off on Friday night. I’ll be there representing Short Finger Brewing Co. with my partner; our little homebrew shop will be sharing a booth with the Kitchener Waterloo Craft Beer Club.

On Saturday, a dance floor will be set up for a good old fashioned party.

Organizing an event of this magnitude is no easy feat. Doing it while you’re running a brewery that’s still in its infancy – and in Rob’s case, raising an actual infant – is a whole other story.

Szaflarska and Shorney have been planning this event since their team collected the keys to their would-be

brewery in the fall of 2015, and it has been full steam ahead ever since.

They’ve worked with city hall, with local artists and restaurants, and have coordinated a collaborative brew day with breweries from across the region.

They’ve also opened their doors to companies like Short Finger, allowing us to brew in their space in preparation for the event. While TWB has been quietly footing the bill for this celebration, they aren’t looking to make a profit. This is a labour of love, and any proceeds from this year’s event will be rolled into next year’s budget.

“I really want everyone to tangibly feel that we’re trying to celebrate the community and craft beer in an honest, interesting, inclusive, and memorable way. We want to plan a party that we would ourselves want to attend,” Szaflarska shared. Tickets are still available online.

Local hops in local beer at Craftoberfest. MATT SMITH PHOTO

OCTOBER 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

14

SET YOUR CLOCKS TO NIGHT\SHIFT

PLACEHACKING FESTIVAL ANIMATES AND REIMAGINES DTK SPACES

KRISTEN PHILIPPI CONTRIBUTOR On November 5, the Night\Shift placehacking art and music festival will take over downtown Kitchener with light, sound and creativity for the fourth year in a row.

Taking place on the night of the autumnal time change, Night\Shift (or N\S) is a nocturnal art crawl that features “pop-up art and performance, participatory creativity and impulsive community building,” according to the N\S website. The intent is to hack the places where we spend time and reimagine them as pieces of art and music.

This year’s program hosts around 60 individual artists across 20 musical acts and 10 installations, spread throughout 15 different venues downtown. The festival organizers are deliberate in their goal to empower local artists and makers, and are financially supporting 12 acts this year through help from sponsors and contributing partners.

Since 2013, N\S has drawn out the hidden possibilities in our built environment through its participatory installations, community performances and mixed media exhibits – typically in familiar spaces. This year is no different, as a psychedelic theme

has emerged throughout the program, and electricity and light pulses through all the acts.

Local artists and long time contributors to N\S, nik harron and Bernie Rohde will be presenting a “human-sized, sound activated, light-amplifying, psychedelic collision of art and technology.” Their infinity tunnel installation re-imagines a long interior hallway with infinity mirrors, providing a place to spend time exploring its never-ending space. Surrounded by sound responsive LED lights, the tunnel will respond to the sounds of the downtown audience and nearby musical acts by flashing and moving, creating a visual representation of community.

In the Kitchener city hall rotunda, Dylan Reibling will be presenting a 24 hour filming installation where a camera, placed on a dolly to be manually pushed around a circular track, will record for 24 hours, continuously capturing whatever enters its frame.

Passersby are welcome to participate in whatever way they want – whether that be to stand in front of the lens and grin, utilize the performance opportunity or interact with the props on hand. The recording will be projected in the same space, transforming the rotunda into a dual temporality of the real time projection and a time capsule recording. “[This piece] is a really interesting combination of an endurance test and a spontaneous participatory event,”

festival director Eric Rumble proudly shares.

In a similar bid for community driven creativity, Night\Shift is collaborating with the Kitchener Public Library, 100 Guitars for 100 Kids and School of Rock to present DTK ReAxe, a project that reimagines guitars as multimedia canvases. The group of artists are working with ten local tech companies to adopt old and unsalvageable guitars into pieces of visual art. The reimagined instruments will be presented during the month of November at the KPL. These three installations are just a preview of the multitude of place hacking projects that will occur on November 5. Musical performance is also central to the program and (mostly) local groups including Jennifer Castle, Charlena Russell and Bjorn Borg Collective are all bringing their talents downtown. And for those who truly want to put in the distance in the wee hours of the night, there will be a venue open until 5 a.m., that will shift to a dance party after 2 a.m.

Night\Shift continues to foster the strong arts community in the Waterloo Region, this year promising to bring together creatives from the library to breweries, art galleries and tech companies. The urgent and immersive drive of the festival thrusts the community into a new season with a reimagined and reinvigorated sense of the spaces where they live.

Night\Shift attendees from years past interact with pop-up art installations in downtown Kitchener. PHOTO COURTESY NIGHT\SHIFT

WHAT IS COMMUNITY? ZAINAB MAHDI COLUMNIST I grew up living in a townhouse on the corner of a street predominantly populated by immigrants and refugees. My parents, immigrants themselves, found comfort living closely to others that shared life experiences similar to their own.

Across the street from my home was the oasis of my childhood: two trailers hitched together creating a makeshift community center, a swing set, and a basketball court with precariously dangling mesh.

Every Friday evening my mother would host a casual dinner party in our home for a dozen of her friends, a community affair of sorts. And every Friday I found myself tiptoeing stealthily past the congregation – enlisting all the covert maneuvers a fourth grader could muster – to make an exit without making a scene.

Getting caught meant enduring the most unfavorable of fates: exchanging pleasantries with a room full of cackling women and a dozen wet kisses planted on each of my cheeks. Besides, I could hardly wait to reach my oasis.

My closest friends all grew up in similar townhouses on the same street.

We grew up children of immigrants and refugees, although that never defined us, not back then at least. Every Friday evening our mothers would gather under a single roof, pouring cups of scented herbal teas and sharing conversations by the spoonful.

And every Friday evening my friends and I would gather under the roof of our community center, exchanging coloring utensils and sharing bewildering anecdotes.

Back then we all knew each other by name, the old and the young. We were bound by an unspoken desire to recreate the communities we had lost in past lives, in past worlds. Every smiling face was a gentle reminder that we belonged to something far greater than ourselves.

A decade later I find myself living in a semi-detached house on the corner of a suburban street predominantly populated by strangers. I have since outgrown my oasis, and have replaced it reluctantly with public transit and part-time jobs. Our neighbors don’t know our names; we have yet to exchange pleasantries in all the years that I’ve lived here.

This is not a street of immigrants.

Perhaps we are alone in our migrations. This street is lined with polished homes, mowed lawns and closed doors. The subdued silence of Friday evenings is a chronic reminder of my dwindling sense of community.

But what exactly is community? I ask this only because I seek it everywhere I go. Perhaps my definition of community was naïvely conflated with the carefree joys of childhood. Perhaps there is far more to community than shared meals, wet kisses and makeshift community centers.

The community I knew was built on shared smiles and shared sacrifices. It embraced our collective differences and thrived off of a mutual commitment to care for, and protect one another. My community was the safest place in the world, where no one was ever made to feel like a stranger.

Maybe a community is defined by none of these things. Maybe it is defined by all of them. The only thing I know for certain is that I am forever indebted to my community for making me the person that I am, and I can hardly wait to find my oasis again.

OCTOBER 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

15

LGBTQ2+ OUT LOUD

ARTS & CULTURE EVENT LISTINGS

MONTHLY FEMINIST COMEDY SHOW ARRIVES, AND IMPRESSES FIRST CROWD IN KITCHENER

MIRALI ALMAULA CONTRIBUTOR On September 19, Erinn White and Suzie Taka kicked off ‘LOL,’ a new monthly comedy show at B@THEMUSEUM downtown Kitchener.

‘LOL’ (Ladies and LGBTQ2+ Out Loud) builds on White’s Guelph show ‘That Time of the Month,’ which she produces with comedian Natalie Norman and Guelph’s comedy hub ‘The Making-Box.’ White began performing stand-up comedy with a desire to overcome her fear of public speaking but made it her home because of comedy’s “incredible power to build community, create entertainment, and amplify social commentary.”

Although new to performing stand-up, Taka has years of experience producing Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival in KW, which helped her tell others’ stories locally. Taka views comedy as a way to talk simultaneously about the personal and the political. Comedy has also given her the opportunity to explore her own voice.

The only rule ‘LOL’s’ featured comedians must follow is that they tell no rape jokes.

“The world is absurd and severe enough as it is that we just don’t have time for lazy jokes that make fun of people already facing challenges — it’s not hard to tell jokes that aren’t offensive. So we just don’t,” Taka explains.

‘LOL’ featured White and Taka as co-hosts. They were quick to get laughs from the enthusiastic, sold-out crowd of fifty that filled the trendy space. White’s awkward interactions with waiters at

restaurants and Taka’s quirky vision boards endeared the two hosts to the audience.

Guelph comedian Hayley Kellett got things started with a sex-positive set that hit a fun balance between stories about her sex life and stories about her mom. Kellett is an amazing improviser, which shone through in her ability to list stories to the audience and tell the one that got the best reaction.

Next up was Elijah Zimmerman, a new comedian who did his second set ever at this show. White and Taka explained that they want to give newcomers the opportunity to perform on their show as well. Zimmerman seemed to be testing the waters with his first couple jokes but he soon warmed up and had the whole room laughing.

Toronto comedian Preeti Torul’s irreverent and edgy comedy was a hit with the audience. She has a talent for taking heavy topics like abuse and poverty and showing audiences a way to find humour in them even if they haven’t shared her experiences.

Finally, Aisha Brown did an amazing job as the headliner. Brown’s set combined telling jokes with performing funny poems and rap songs. She explored interracial relationships, anxiety, racism and small dicks. Her poetry and rap songs are incredibly fun to listen to since her delivery is in keeping with the styles of those forms but her lyrics are straight-up comedy. If you’re not laughing out loud then it’s only because you’re stunned by how good an entertainer Aisha Brown actually is.

Suffice it to say that ‘LOL’ seems to have successfully filled a gap in the Kitchener market, because the audience and the performers walked away looking really happy.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17

CRAFTOBERFEST OPENING

PRINCESS TRIVIA

JUSTIN RUTLEDGE SHOW

Over 20 local breweries pouring craft beer, plus food and art. Bring your dancing shoes Saturday night.

Tickets online.

The quizzard will be on hand to ask the tough questions! Get there early, space fills up fast.

Justin Rutledge will be singing tunes from his latest record “East.”

You can buy tickets on the internet.

Film • Free • 9pm

Music • $20 • 8pm • 19+

DOWNTOWN KITCHENER

PRINCESS CAFE

STARLIGHT

Festival • $30-50 • Evening

OKTOBERFEST OPENING KITCHENER CITY HALL

The 47th annual KitchenerWaterloo Oktoberfest kicks off at city hall. The nine-day festival will feature over 40 cultural events.

Festival • Free • 11:15am-1:15pm

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

COLOUR BLIND COLOUR

KITCHENER PUBLIC LIBRARY Meghan Sims is an artist and is colourblind and will be exhibiting 10 pieces from her first experience painting in colour.

Art • Free • 1pm-4pm

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28

BITCOIN MOVIE

BEER BRAWL

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin is a documentary about bitcoins, as the title suggests.

Five courses, 10 beers, one winner.

Sounds intense and delicious, if you can afford it.

Film • Free • 7pm

Food • $65 • 7pm-10pm

CIGI

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

DRUNK FEMINIST FILMS APOLLO CINEMA

DFF is back in Kitchener for another round of laughing through Hollywood representations of gender. This time they’re bringing the classic 90s film The Craft. You can buy tickets on the internet.

Fun • $15 • 7:30pm-11pm

NICK AND NAT’S UPTOWN 21

ROCKY HORROR

PRINCESS CINEMA Technically Rocky Horror is great any time of the year, but it really shines in October. So you should go to the Princess and watch it during one of their seven screenings at the end of the month.

Fun • $12 • 9pm-11pm

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3

THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE

KNITTING 101

TURN THE PAGE BOOK CLUB

Spanning 5kms, it’s the largest Thanksgiving parade in Canada!

Learn the basics of knitting and reading patterns. You’ll have a project started by the end of the workshop. Participants will receive a knit kit with all the necessary supplies. Say knit kit 10 times.

Governor General award-winning author Diane Schoemperlen will be discussing justice, institutionalization and preventing emotional abuse. Turn the Page Book Club is a community reading project aimed at starting conversations about justice, stigma and creating safe communities.

VARIOUS LOCATIONS Fun • Free • 8:45am-11am

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13

WILDLIFE TRADE EDUCATION RARE

An interactive presentation by Jason Bracey about the global issue of illegal wildlife trade.

Education • $8 • 7pm-8:30pm

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14

Fun • $50 • 6:30pm-9:30pm

ESCAPE ROOM

IDEAS EXCHANGE, CAMBRIDGE After the library closes, you get locked in a room with a cool backstory, and you and your teammates will have to get out.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

ST. JACOB’S LIONS HALL Blocktoberfest is a combination of Block 3 and Oktoberfest. You can buy tickets on Block 3’s website.

Festival • $20 in advance

STORYTIME

BUTTON FACTORY ARTS The Baden Storytellers are hosting Stories Aloud. Attendees can just come to listen and are also welcome to share stories of their own.

Fun • $5 • 8pm-10pm

BREW DONKEY TAP TRANSFER ABE ERB

For one night only, Abe Erbs taps will be taken over by various Ottawa breweries. Admission is by donation, with proceeds going to the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada.

Fun • By donation • 6pm-midnight

DIY FESTIVAL

KITCHENER PUBLIC LIBRARY Makers unite at the second annual DIY fest! There will be workshops, activities and celebrations of all things DIY. Art • Free • 11pm-3pm

CREATIVE GRANT WRITING VISITOR AND HERITAGE INFORMATION CENTRE

Hosted by the City of Waterloo’s arts and culture department, this workshop for creative types should teach you how to write a better grant application and get more $$$.

Free • 12pm-2pm

SEX AND THE SINGLE BIRD RARE

Learn all about the mating habits of birds with David Gascoigne, who according to the event page has been “studying and enjoying birds since the age of eight.”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15

PICKLED FEST THEMUSEUM

A bunch of downtown Kitchener restaurants will be pickling various items. There will also be beer and music and all of the museum stuff.

Food • $35 • 19+ • 7pm

FREE MUSIC CONCERT JANE BOND

Ministry of Thrust and Grandmother Willow are uniting for a free show. My Humps DJ will also be around. Sounds like a weird but also probably fun night.

Music • Free • 9pm • 19+

KITCHENER MARKET

Fun • Free • 7pm-10pm

BLOCKTOBERFEST

Suzie Taka and Erinn White kicked things off at the first ‘Ladies and LGBTQ2+ Out Loud’ comedy night (top), and headliner Aisha Brown finished the night with style. REBECCAH REDDEN PHOTOS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26

Education • 12pm-2pm

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24

ANTI-RACISM DISCUSSION

FRESH GROUND CAFE

Fun • Free • 7pm-9pm

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4*

THE WILD WRITERS FESTIVAL VARIOUS LOCATIONS

The festival will feature a variety of workshops and panel discussions.

Authors Rosemary Sullivan and Guy Gavriel Kay will speak to CBC’s Craig Norris about alternate histories. There will also be a speakeasy at The Berlin and a literary brunch at Rhapsody Barrel Bar. You can buy tickets on the internet. *Runs until November 6.

Workshop(s) • $135 for all access

BADMINTON RACQUET 44 GAUKEL STREET

With Whoop Szo, the Guelph band takes over the Night\Shift infinity tunnel in advance of the festival.

The tunnel, designed by local artists Bernie Rohde & nik harron, will be taken over by live music from November 1-5.

Music • PWYC • All Ages • 7pm

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5

GIFTS IN A JAR

WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM Do you have a jar? Do you need to give a gift? Make a gift in a jar!

(This is a workshop to help you make three distinct gifts, each in its own jar.)

Fun • $25 • 1:30pm-3:30pm

LOCATION TBD

NIGHT\SHIFT

The Ontario Anti-Racism directorate was created in February to address and prevent systemic racism in government policy and services. This is one of many public community meetings across the province, details TBA.

The placehacking festival is back for round four. There will be art, community and lots of suprises around your favourite downtown spaces. See you there!

DOWNTOWN KITCHENER

Art • Free • 7pm

Community • Politics • Free

COMMUNITYEDITION.CA @THECOMMUNITYED

A history of

Waterloo’s Bullish real estate market.

See Page 14

See Page 11 NOVEMBER ISSUE VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1 COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

Street parties on lockdown

Toyota workers organize

Who is the girl on the poster?

News, Page 4

News, Page 7

ARTS, Page 11

VOLUNTEERIMPACTAWARDS2013 - WINNERS & MORE PAGE 11

urban exploring, Page 9

St. Jacob's market bounces back and the middle class fights the blues page 3

THE CORD

Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 2 Issue 6 • march 7, 2014 • community.thecord.ca

School board voting blueS When people go to vote for their school board trustee this fall they may find a hoop to jump through instead The CCE investigates why ‘school support’ matters

IN THE TAL AGE

H.G. WaTSon Editor-in-ChiEf

T

here’s no reason nuns can’t vote, but that’s the situation one group of sisters found themselves in during Waterloo’s last municipal election.

“When they went to vote in the election, they were told they couldn’t vote for the Catholic school board candidates because they were considered public school supporters,” explained Wayne Buchholtz, the chair of the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

The nuns were just one group of many that found themselves the subject of a strange part of Ontario election law that makes it difficult for supporters of alternative school boards to run for or vote in school board elections.

Unlike voting for candidates for city council or regional council, where you simply need to be a Canadian citizen who lives in the district, to vote for school board trustees you have to be a school supporter — which means your property taxes have to go towards supporting the school board you wish to vote in.

But, by default, all property taxes go toward the English public school board. Voters who want to ensure that their taxes — and

See Page 18

their votes — go to another school board have to declare themselves as school supporters.

The onus, therefore, is on the homeowners and renters to change their affiliation if they want to vote — or run — in an election.

“If they have children in the school, there is no problem,” said Buchholtz. Parents can fill forms out to switch their taxes to the school board of their choosing when they sign their children up for school.

But as Waterloo Region’s demographics change, it becomes more challenging for the Catholic district school board, as well as other school boards, to ensure that everyone who is meant to be identified as a school supporter is.

“The issue is that a majority of our rate payers no longer have kids in school,” continued Buchholtz. “They’re older and if they change their residences they suddenly find themselves a public school supporter.”

It’s also an issue for renters. Unless their landlord is already a Catholic school board supporter, renters again are likely paying taxes to the English oublic school board by default. The result is that many people don’t find out they aren’t supporting the right school board until the day they show up to vote.

“It is a big issue that the Catholic school

system has tried to change quite a few time,” said Anthony Piscitelli, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board trustee representing Kitchener/Wilmont. “I know a lot of people don’t realize it.”

As the population swells in Waterloo Region, this will become more important for the school boards. Between the 2006 and 2011 census, there were over 10,000 new households in the region and over 1,000 new renters.

In theory, switching school board support should be simple. But in practice, it can be a complicated if you don’t know the right channels to go through.

In all cases, the homeowner or renter has to go Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) and designate the school board that they want to support. It’s worth noting that when the CCE went to the Kitchener city clerk’s office to find out how renters could change their school board support, it took them a business day to find the answer.

For a person without the time, or patience, of a media outlet asking for the information, it could be a barrier to even starting the process.

But there is a process. MPAC has created a variety of forms to fill out, including one for renters and for people who may co-own

ORD COMMUNITY

a home with someone who supports another school board, which can be filled out in order for someone to designate support to a new school board.

However, the Catholic school board has been advocating for the simplification of this process for some time. They want a check box added to any new housing purchase agreement that would allow the homeowner to indicate what school board they want to support. “It’s a simple change that politicians don’t want to seem to [do],” said Buchholtz.

Part of the problem is that this issue is a multi-ministry one, involving both of Ontario’s Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. At press time, officials from the Ministry of Education were not able to comment, but were working on pulling together information from all the ministries involved.

But as the upcoming election looms, Buchholtz believes that there will still be problems.

“It’s a ludicrous situation,” he said. “But its something that presently exists, so you run into that problem. You’ll probably find in this election the same thing will happen.”

COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

APRIL 2013

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 7

DECEMBER 2012

Unravelling Etsy The global craft market is cultivating homegrown consumerism Allison leonArd

my Walbridge hasn’t had a proper dining room for six years. Reams of fabric and spools of thread now take up the space.

It’s a one-woman factory that exists where the formal table and chairs once sat. Like a tiny assembly line, the subtle stitches, sales and sending of handmade clothing happen rhythmically in the Walbridge’s home.

Walbridge is one of hundreds of thousands of people who sell handmade goods on the popular online retail store Etsy. Built for the discerning consumer — those who won’t settle for a massmarketed sweater — Etsy and other craft-peddling e-commerce sites are quickly changing the landscape of consumerism and corporate labour.

Dubbed ‘craft capitalism’ by academics, the sea of knitted scarfs, engraved lockets and handcarved, wooden iPhone cases inundate the seemingly endless pages of Etsy listings. Church bazaars and small-town craft sales are but fleeting memories for the craft consumer; the intimacy of a handmade item is now available online.

Grant Packard, assistant professor of marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University, said craft culture is not revolutionary, but a reversion to once necessary trade skills, one with added value.

“Etsy creates global access. There are no barriers or entry fee to open up a shop and see if you can have a business,” said Packard. “eBay, Craigslist and Kijiji opened doors for more formal models like Etsy or crowdsourcing where people have become investors.”

Based on Etsy’s research on seller dem0graphics, Walbridge fits Etsy’s standard seller profile: a female under 40 who moved away from the corporate sector to pursue a passion for the

For more election watch 2014 coverage, turn to page 5 or visit community.thecord.ca.

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2

handmade. In Walbridge’s case, her passion is sewing and selling women’s and children’s clothing from her Waterloo home.

“I have always been crafty, I learned to sew from my grandmother when I was young,” she said. “It wasn’t until I had my daughter six-anda-half years ago that I had nap times available and I started sewing in my dining room.”

Walbridge, a former oversees educator, committed to her craft and decided to indefinitely Continued on page 4 >>

• KATE TURNER CORD VISUAL DESIGNER

The undefinable Diamond Rings comes to Waterloo

ated up

As the region debates its gambling future, we investigate what it’s like to have a casino in the neighbourhood

See Page 17

Get lost in Cambridge urban exploring, Page 8

THE CORD

Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 3 Issue 3 • December 4, 2014 • community.thecord.ca

Page 4

COMMUNITY

+ Celebrating 30 years of Words Worth Books in Waterloo

COMMUNITY

ARTS, Page 12

Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 2 Issue 8 • may 8, 2014 • community.thecord.ca

WATERLOO’S WILD WEATHER As the weather gets more extreme, governments learn to adapt H.G. WATSON EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Idle No More movement amplifies See Page 5

URBAN See Page 19

COMMUNITY EDITION COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

JANUARY 2013

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4

RISE OF THE CREATIVE WATERLOOVIAN

tri-Pride 2013 guide

Art of the city with Silvia DiDonato

Page 3

Page 19

Page 20

NEWS

URBAN

ARTS

ORD COMMUNITY MAY 2013

COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

they reduced their tree canopy maintenance program the same year the ice storm struck.

“That canopy program would have probably lowered the losses for the ice storm that hit in December,” said Thistlethwaite.

Toronto’s city manager reported that ice storm costs reached about $106 million, with

the city’s forestry department incurring the majority of that cost.

Damages sustained from the ice storm were estimated to be around $1.2 million in Waterloo region. Kitchener-Wilmont Hydro incurred costs of about $300,000 from

RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. WRAP YOUR GIFTS IN THE COMMUNITY EDITION.

CAFK+A and Open Ears ready the biennial

News, Page 6

urban, Page 10

ARTS, Page 12

URBAN EXPLORING

Arts & Culture

rIM Park’s legacy, ten years on

The best soup to beat the cold

K-w gets geeky with two fests

Page 4

Page 6

Page 9

Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Vol 2 Issue 2• November 8, 2013 • community.thecord.ca

RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. WRAP YOUR GIFTS IN THE COMMUNITY EDITION.

Continued on page 4 >>

Tri-City Roller Girls hammer Kingston

News

COMMUNITY

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 8

• STEVEN STINSON CCE CONTRIBUTOR

the last 12 months,” he said, noting that the region experienced three prolonged power outages related to ice storms in the winter and a violent thunderstorm in July 2013.

Municipal infrastructure programs have a direct impact on how well that weather is handled. This became clear in Toronto, where

Kitchener Central Library’s new look

THE CORD

NEWS

Boston bombings close to home

THE CORD

A

rt Janzen was away from his office during last December’s ice storm when he was texted a photo from one of his employees. A woman driving past Menno S. Martin Contractor Ltd, the construction company Janzen heads as president, had slid off the road and wedged her car between the posts holding the company’s sign.

Luckily, she wasn’t hurt. But the sign had to go. “We have been talking about redoing the signage in front of our shop,” said Janzen.

“So it prompted that change.”

Their story was fortunately one of the more humorous ones to come out of the ice storm that dumped 10 to 30 mm of freezing rain across Ontario in late December and left some people in the region without power for days.

Extreme weather, like the kind we experienced this winter, is becoming more normal as climate change raises temperatures and changes weather patterns. While things like a damaged sign, or a house roof or car, are replaceable, the focus is fast moving away from response to mitigation and adaptation and — should the unthinkable happen — emergency management.

Jason Thistlethwaite is the director of the Climate Change Adaptation Project at the University of Waterloo. He believes that municipalities are at the front line of climate change, something that became readily apparent not only with the ice storm in December, but with the series of violent storms that have rolled through the area in the last year.

“To be honest I’ve never experienced weather like the weather we have had over

THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN K-W

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 5 • FEBRUARY 2015

COMMUNITY Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 2 Issue 9 • JUNE 5, 2014 • community.thecord.ca

The perfect drinks for your backyard or a patio

We go in search of cool in K-W. Page 12.

A CLOSE SHAVE

As it heats up in K-W, we found 25 ways to keep you cool and happy for the rest of the summer. Page 8

RADICAL CHOIR RETURNS

THE CORD

THE LONG-STANDING TRADITION OF A STRAIGHT RAZOR. PAGE 8-9

FOLK ROOTS PAGE 13

PAGE 11

Grab a tube and head to the Grand River

OPINION Stop bullying the teachers Page 11

ARTS Ahead by a century with the Arkells Page 20

SCENES OF CEDAR HILL

Walk like an Egyptian at THEMUSEUM

PAGE 10 And yet more drinks - because they’re the best part of summer

Cool off by heating up with all the tacos on offer in K-W

lauren ward NEWS Editor

4 >> ION Light Rail Vehicles roll into Waterloo Region

Waterloo Region votes: A ward-by-ward breakdown. Pages 8-9

HOMETOWN HOPS AND LOCAL LAGERS

9 >> It’s time to get our CFL (or NHL) team on

22 >> Documentary Blackfish asks us to Free Willy

<< 19 Elliot Brood takes Kitchener Bluesfest by storm

ORD COMMUNITY

zoom zoom

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 11

Making local landmarks Page 3 Award winning buildings Page 6 Film with a design twist Page 12

Bike thefts spike in the Region

Making gas guzzlers aware of climate change

+ Bike lane reviews, page 11

Page 5

Page 7

COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

JULY 2013

LIVE NUDES

WAtER SKYLINE STACK-UP

PAGE 5

ALLISON WALKING WITH JANEM. PAGE 10 LEONARD

IF STREETS COULD TALK PAGE 7

THE BEST OF 2014 A PHOTO COUNTDOWN OF WR PAGES 4-5

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 10

HOP ABOARD

STEEL RAILS 2013

BRAVE THE ELEMENTS ON TWO WHEELS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

W

e’re literally rolling through the heritage of Waterloo Region,”says Sean Geobey, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, looking through the vintage, wooden window frame and across the fields of Waterloo Region. The sun is setting, pushing streams of orange and red light through makeshift, stained-glass windows. The nostalgia of every passenger STREETS TALK whoIF once rode theCOULD ancient PAGES locomotive is alive 8-9 in this train car.

Of course, all of this is broken by a man dawning a horse head, running down the junk-mail filled aisle, followed by a VOLUME 3, ISSUE 11 • AUGUST 2015

Page 13

ORD COMMUNITY

Continued on page 5 >>

BARING ALL AT THEMUSEUM PAGES 8-9

VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 4 • JANUARY 2015

Queen Street Yoga heals body and soul

reported over 6,000 domestic dispute calls to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and also responded to one domestic dispute call every 1.5 hours. One of the most chilling facts is that since 1995, there have been 16 intimate partner homicides in Waterloo Region.

“Unfortunately, because of the silence it is really hard to get statistics on unreported cases. The only figures we can really get are

Waterloo Region’s ind

Continued on page 4

iNSiDE THiS iSSUE:

Why the Iron Horse trail is the best ride in K-W, in pictures

COM Graphic by Kate Turner Visual Designer

happen very often,” explained Ashley (who asked that her last name be omitted), a forVOLUME 3, ISSUE 8 • MAY 2015 mer Wilfrid Laurier University student. “It was mostly emotional and verbal abuse. It only happened a few times physically, so it was easier to make excuses. Plus he had a way of turning the tables and making it partly or entirely my fault. So sometimes I really thought and believed I was in the wrong. And of course I loved him.”

Statistics show that Ashley’s story is not unusual. In 2011, Waterloo Regional Police

Rolling

BiLL MCTAviSH CCE CONTRIBUTOR

O

ver the last couple of years there has certainly been a renaissance in the beer industry in the KW Region, and it’s incredibly exciting to be able to witness it first hand.

In what was a fairly gloomy environment for those looking to quench their thirst with substance and flavor, there are now numerous producers and establishments where beer drinkers can be sufficiently satisfied. There are four brick and mortar breweries in KW right now.

The baby of the bunch, Innocente Brewing Co. has been around for all of about six months. A baby they may be, but in order to truly appreciate Steve’s beers, you must have a sufficiently developed and mature palate. These are not for the light lager drinkers. These are certainly not lawnmower beers. Innocente is going to blow you away with hops, in the best kind of way. That is his intention.

His Conscience American IPA is measured at 80.2 IBUs, which seems low given the abundance of hops in this beer. Innocente wants to brew beers for hopheads, and there are an abundance of hopheads in Ontario, so they’ll do well to give these brews a try. But what impresses me more about Innocente is his ability to reign it in. Their new pilsner, Encounter, is one of the better pilsner’s to hit the market in a long time. A pilsner is the type of beer that will highlight any flaws. And this pilsner has none. Just ask him. What Steve lacks in experience in the Ontario Craft Beer Scene, he certainly makes up for in confidence and bravado.

Refreshingly, he is more than able to back up his claims. Innocente has been aging some Imperial Stout in barrels, which will be released this winter.

Look out for this one.

17 >> We learn the secrets behind making pupusas

AUGUST 2013

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buse is one of the worst things a person can do to another person. What can be equally bad is witnessing that abuse and not doing anything about it.

It is not uncommon for most people to Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Volume 3 Issue look 1 • October 2, 2014way.

• community.thecord.ca the other “Silence is a major factor,” said Carolyn Albrecht, senior director

7 >> How accessible are abortion services in K-W?

COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

of operations at the Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region. “When people see their neighbours in these situations, they are more likely to be like ‘that’s kind of their own business. We really shouldn’t get involved.’ That is the attitude toward abuse. People feel discomfort. It isn’t an easy thing to talk about.”

Another major factor is that no one ever thinks this is going to happen to them, so when it does, it comes as a surprise.

“Well what made it hard for me to get out of that situation was the fact that it didn’t

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Waterloo Region’s independent monthly • Vol 2 Issue 3 • December 6, 2013 • community.thecord.ca

WLUSP PreSident & Cord PUbLiSher

COMMUNITY EDITION COMMUNITY.THECORD.CA

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HT niGHT iTCHener

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The CCE guide to holiday parties with style page 6

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+ Kitchener and Waterloo real estate go head to head

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inside

PAINT BY MUNZY PAGE 12

WINTER-READY BICYCLES PAGES 8-9

DAN HOWLER PAGE 13

BOATHOUSE OPENS PAGE 6

THE COMMUNITY’S TABLE PAGE 14

A DIGITAL SUPERMARKET PAGE 5

Men in Black, sideshow freaks and snow cones, oh my!

Inside the biggest party in K-W