The Community Edition: May 2017

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 8 • MAY 2017

housing blues RENTING AND BUYING IN WATERLOO REGION

MAY 2017 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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IN THIS

ISSUE

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 8

MAY 2017

FEATURE

8-9 FIGHTING ISLAMOPHOBIA WITH COMMUNITY

INSIDE 3 4 5 5 6 7 7 10 11 11 11 12 13 14 15 16

IN BRIEF SUBSIDIZING RENT, ENDING HOMELESSNESS COOLING WR’S HOUSING MARKET ARCHIVES AS MEDICINE J AND P, THE COMMUNITY STORE TAGGER’S RIGHTS? BENT BENDS QUEER STORYTELLING TCE FICTION: THE HOUR AND THE HINGE HEALTH AND HOME BUILD IT OR NO ONE WILL COME SEX AND DEMENTIA LOCAL LIQUID YEAST MAKES GOOD BEER DISRUPTIVE SOLUTIONS COLONIALISM 150 OONA MOON, PART SIX PORCH PARTIES ALL SUMMER LONG COVER BY LAKYN BARTON

Volume 5, Issue 7 Next issue: May 3, 2017

General Inquiries info@communityedition.ca

75 University Ave. W Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 519-884-0710 x3564

WLUSP ADMINISTRATION President Andreas Patsiaouros

All advertising inquiries should be directed to Care Lucas at 519-884-0710 x3560 care.lucas@wlusp.com

Executive Director Lakyn Barton

THE COMMUNITY EDITION TEAM Editor in Chief Jesse Bauman jesse.bauman@wlusp.com Incoming Editor in Chief Megan Nourse megan@communityedition.ca Publisher Lakyn Barton lakyn.barton@wlusp.com Social Media Editor Sarah Pouramn Web Manager Care Lucas

Advertising Manager Care Lucas Treasurer John Pehar Vice-Chair Lisa Irimescu Directors Benjamin Cooke Rosalind Horne Noa Salamon Corporate Secretary Noa Salamon

CONTRIBUTORS Josh Barkman Teghan Barton Emily Gleeson James Gowland James Howe Stacey Jacobs Patricia Jane Adam Lewis Zainab Mahdi Sam Nabi Megan Nourse Seth Ratzlaff Kat Rogers-Hern Eva Rucki Noel Severin Iverson Matt Smith Nick Stanley Suzie Taka Dave Thomas Cara Vandermey

TWITTER @THECOMMUNITYED INSTAGRAM @COMMUNITYEDITION

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

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.

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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.

MAY 2017 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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IN BRIEF NEWS HOUSE PRICES RISE AGAIN IN KW

THE POTENTIAL POWER OF POOP

TRUDEAU TALKS TECH IN DTK

KW TO TORONTO TRAINS A-GO-GO?

A housing price survey released

by Royal LePage at the end of April shows the average cost of a house in Waterloo Region has passed $400,000, a 14 per cent increase from last year’s survey.

Their calculated average, based on company data, is $400,902.

Niagara Region and London saw similar price increases of 15 and 12 per cent, respectively.

A pilot project that will turn dog poop and other organic waste into a biogas that could be burned for heat is about to kick off in Waterloo. Mayor Dave Jaworsky told CBC that our municipal litter bins are “40 to 80 per cent dog waste,” though it’s not clear how much energy would be created from a largescale poop-harvest.

Justin Trudeau graced downtown Kitchener with his presence at the end of April when he spoke at Vidyard about economic innovation. “Standing up for Canada is my job, whether it’s softwood or software,” he said.

Notably, he did not mention if he will be standing up for Canadians with criminal records for minor drug offenses. #Legalize?

Will we ever get two-way all-day GO Train service to and from Toronto? Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic seemed positive in a press release about the newest Ontario budget, though that budget offered few details in terms of the service, other than to say that planning and analysis is underway. At least our streetcars are almost ready to ride.

KIMBERLY DREW IS COMING TO TOWN

FESTIVAL SEASON IS NEARLY HERE

GLOBE STUDIOS OPEN HOUSE

FORAGING FOR ART IN KITCHENER

The next speaker in CAFK+A’s Big Ideas in Arts and Culture lecture series is Kimberly Drew, coming to the Rotunda on June 1. Drew is the social media manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, founder of the Black Art Incubator and allaround curator and organizer of black artists. Check out her most excellent Tumblr, called Black Contemporary Art.

Time to dust off that flower crown. Elora’s Riverfest announced its lineup recently, featuring headliners MGMT and Mother Mother among many others. DJ Jazzy Jeff will also be there, if you need 90s hip hop to make your festival experience memorable. Guelph’s Hillside festival also just announced their lineup, which features Canadian treasure Sarah Harmer.

Globe Studios is hosting their annual spring open house featuring local artists who work out of their studio space. It’s a behind-the-scenes look for the general public at how some emerging artists in the region are working on their craft in a collective space. Globe is an artist owned not-for-profit. Their studio is at the intersection of Cedar St. and Whitney place.

Have you heard of a de-colonial salad? Artist Maggie Groat will teach you how to make one if you forage with her and outdoor educator Luke Eckstein for non-native and invasive plants in Kitchener. KWAG is hosting this event on May 13, and Groat’s work “Suns Also Seasons,” is on exhibit at the gallery until June. Tickets for the foraging event cost $60, though.

A LITTLE EASIER TO GET A BIT NOISIER

CITY CONSIDERS LOWERING FEES

CONSTRUCTION RETURNS UPTOWN

KITCHENER IS KEEPING IT GREEN

A new policy was passed by Kitchener City Council allowing residents requesting noise bylaw exemptions to forgo council approval. However, the exemption only applies to neighbourhood and family BBQs, backyard weddings and birthday or anniversary parties. So if your backyard punk show doesn’t include a BBQ, you’ll have to justify it — or else consider getting hitched.

The City of Kitchener is considering waiving fees — up to $30,000, total — associated with developing new affordable housing projects. There are currently around 3,000 households in line for affordable housing in the region. This editor can’t decide whether to file this proposal as a significant step in the right direction or a symbolic and ultimately hollow gesture.

The signs of spring’s arrival were quickly dampened by the start of construction season. A portion of King St. in uptown Waterloo is now closed until fall for street and sidewalk improvements. As of printing, the road closure stops at Bridgeport, however the region’s plans say construction will extend to University ave. Get used to GRT detours, extra walking and more water-cooler-talk about roads.

Sustainable Waterloo Region awarded the City of Kitchener with their Sustainability Promoter of the Year award and the Travelwise award for Leadership and Innovation. Reasons for the merit-based awards included Mayor Berry Vrbanovic’s advocacy for sustainability beyond KW’s borders and the City’s efforts to provide sustainable transportation solutions for employees.

who appreciates in such a fundamental way what a fundamentally important thing we’re doing, here.

We are the stories we tell. This means different things to me, on different days.

A few weeks ago a small community newspaper in Iowa won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting about agribusiness poisoning groundwater. So it means that we need independent storytellers speaking truth to power.

A few months ago I got a kind letter thanking us for our writing about refugees struggling to find affordable housing, a theme that also runs through this issue. And

so it also means something about how we have tried, in small ways, to make space for voices that appear less frequently in the pages of the for-profit publications in this region.

Finally, I am thrilled that Megan so deeply values the community that is TCE, and more specifically, the dozens of volunteer contributors who write and take photos and draw and tweet and code and copy-edit and design our covers at two in the morning. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again: the list of contributors on page two of any issue is a list of people who could have been do-

ing anything else but instead gave us their time and their talents for something (see previous paragraphs) larger than themselves.

And so I want to end this last letter of mine with a last thank-you to the many dozens of volunteers that I’ve worked with at TCE. Democracy dies in the dark, slowly and piece by piece. Thanks, folks, for shining a light with me.

ARTS

URBAN

A LETTER FROM THE (OUTGOING) EDITOR She’s made you laugh, and she’s made you cry, and if you’ve read enough of her work she’s probably also made you cringe in painful recognition while she plumbs the depth of our human condition. Introducing Megan Nourse, our new editor in chief!

Schooled first at UW’s student publications and then Alternatives\Journal, I am thrilled for the new and exciting places Megan will take the Community Edition. (She already launched our podcast, so you know she’s got the goods.)

And I am thrilled to be handing off this publication to someone

Jesse Bauman Editor in chief

MAY 2017 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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A BLACK HOLE NO MORE

LOCAL RESEARCHERS CONTINUE TO ESTABLISH INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICES FOR ENDING HOMELESSNESS (HINT: GIVING POOR PEOPLE MONEY MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE)

JESSE BAUMAN EDITOR IN CHIEF “Homelessness is a black hole. No matter how much we give you, you’ll suck it all in, the money will disappear, and you’ll come back telling me the situation has gotten worse,” a local politician argued to Lynn Macaulay many years ago.

“And you know what? At that time, he was kind of right.”

Macaulay is the initiatives coordinator for the Homelessness and Housing Umbrella Group (HHUG), a network of agencies and people working to end homelessness in Waterloo Region.

And yet, thanks to pioneering Canadian – and local – research, Macaulay says the black hole is no longer.

“We now have models and research [which] tell us there are meaningful and impactful interventions we can use to get people housed now.”

Macaulay is talking about the “housing first” approach to ending homelessness. In social-services-speak, housing first combines permanent independent housing with individualized support services. The motivating common-sense idea is that when people are worried about where they’ll sleep they have a harder time addressing mental health or substance abuse issues, or finding a job.

Every person looking for housing has slightly different needs. Locally, about 75 per cent of the people who use shelters only need one stay before they find some kind of housing on their own. Those peoples’ needs’ typically revolve around money; they need more to afford market rents.

Another 15 per cent are episodically homeless, and the last 10 per cent are persistently homeless, often for

reasons relating to mental illness and/ or addictions.

In a recent research project Courtney Pankratz analyzed one strategy for finding durable housing for the highest-needs group: portable rent subsidies. To complete her Masters degree in community psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Pankratz interviewed 50 participants in the Region of Waterloo’s Support to End Persistent Homelessness (STEPhome) program, which provides intensive case management for people experiencing chronic homelessness.

Roughly half of the people Pankratz interviewed received, in addition to STEPhome’s case management, a portable rent subsidy of up to $494 per month. The project’s dramatic results surprised her and Macaulay: the group who received the subsidy were far more likely to find stable, better-quality housing and report an improved quality of life. “[The subsidy] gives people back their dignity, and allows them to make some choices in their life,” Pankratz said.

Her findings affirm the Region of Waterloo’s commitment to housing first, which was approved by council in March, and confirm also that subsidies are a nimble and effective tool to use to pursue a housing first strategy, especially in our consistently-warming and under-supplied housing market.

Pankratz’s thesis is also a document of participants’ lived experiences of homelessness. Without the subsidy, many said that simple feelings of security, dignity and emotional and physical wellbeing were (often financially) out of reach.

“With the program giving me the top up, it’s allowed me to relax and not have to scramble so much,” one participant said.

Another person said that after starting to receive the subsidy she could now afford groceries, and for

the first time in a long time invited her family over for an Easter dinner. That same woman liked to craft, so bought supplies.

“I can do whatever I want in there…

I can come and go as I please… It’s great… I can sit if I want to, I can sit, I like to just sit there and think and I can do that… if somebody knocks on my door, I don’t have to answer, I don’t have to do nothing nobody wants me to,” another participant said.

“Security goes a long way for people,” Pankratz told me by way of an explanation for how the subsidies had such a quick and positive impact.

Everyone I spoke with about this article pointed out that no single policy or social change will end homelessness because there are multiple, often intersecting and always complicated underlying causes.

There are not, for example, enough truly affordable rent-geared-to-income units in Waterloo region. More than 3,000 households are currently in line for affordable housing in the region, and the overwhelming majority of those families will never be eligible for one of the 100 subsidies that Pankratz studied.

Portable subsidies also fail to create permanent affordable housing infrastructure, and without rent controls subsidies might lead landlords to increase rents and create a situation where taxpayers are simply subsidizing landlords’ profits.

Also, the cheapest units on the market are typically surrounded by the other cheapest units, which for someone struggling with schizophrenia and/or drug use makes getting clean and staying housed incredibly difficult. Social workers told me that landlords use their discretionary power to refuse units to people touched by the stigmas of poverty, drug use or mental illness.

Finally, of course, is poverty. Current social assistance rates force families to

choose between rent and groceries – or the food bank.

“If housing is a basic right… we must think differently about another right: the right to make as much money as possible by providing families with housing — and especially to profit excessively from the less fortunate,” the Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond writes in his 2015 book Evicted. Desmond later quotes Martin Luther King Jr.: “Every condition exists simply because someone profits by its existence. This economic exploitation is crystallized in the slum.”

Whether or not we reconsider housing-as-commodity, inequality imposes unnecessary costs and burdens on everyone. Poverty’s many manifestations – and attendant architecture of social-services – are expensive, whether you do that accounting psychically or economically.

Pankratz’s research points to one way to reduce those costs, and is another bit of evidence in the larger argument for housing first, an argument that Macaulay continues to push across this region and beyond.

“Years ago I was at a conference with somebody who was newly appointed to the civil service, and they said, ‘Lynn I have a pot of money. If I care about people where do I put it?’”

“Early childhood health? Food security? Housing?” she remembers this well-intentioned and well-endowed public servant asking her.

“I really didn’t know what to say. I wish I did, but I didn’t. Now, we actually have an answer. What the housing first research has shown us, which is the international gold standard, done in Canada and by local researchers… is that if you care about people, and care about their wellbeing, the number one and first thing you need to do is to support people to have a place to call home. When they have a place to live, where they want to live, everything else improves.”

While conducting graduate research at Wilfrid Laurier University, Courtney Pankratz found that persistently homeless people who received a “portable rent subsidy” – up to $494 a month – were more likely to find stable, better-quality housing and report an improved quality of life. MATT SMITH PHOTO

MAY 2017 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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HOUSING MARKET TOO HOT, TOO COLD OR JUST RIGHT?

ON THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT’S NEW EFFORTS TO MANAGE AN INCREASINGLY EXPENSIVE HOUSING MARKET IN WR

DAVE THOMAS CONTRIBUTOR Amidst a blazing hot housing market in Toronto – and other areas like Waterloo Region – the Ontario government has introduced a series of measures to cool the market without tanking the economy.

The surging growth has been continuing locally. In March, Kitchener

Waterloo home prices were up 24.2 per cent from the same month a year ago.

The government’s steps were set out in Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan in late April. The strategies are meant to address the situation in a number of ways, such as addressing the demand for housing, increasing the housing supply, actions to protect renters and also to protect homebuyers and increase information sharing.

The actions include a speculation tax for non-residents, bringing in legislation that will allow municipalities to implement a vacancy tax, making

surplus provincial land available for housing developments, tackling practices that contribute to “flipping” properties and consulting real estate professionals and consumers to review rules governing real estate agents, to ensure that consumers are fairly represented.

The plan’s provisions for renters include expanding rent controls to cover all private rental units in the province, strengthening the Residential Tenancies Act to increase protections for tenants and introducing a new $125 million program to stimulate construction of new rental properties.

It’s too early to tell what effect these measures will have, but the experience of British Columbia’s provincial government, in tackling the hot Vancouver real estate market, may be instructive. When a 15 per cent tax was introduced for non-residents, there was a fairly sudden decrease in property sales and a drop in prices, varying across the Metro Vancouver area from 5.5 to 13.5 per cent, between August 2016 and January 2017.

Vancouver also implemented an “empty home tax” to discourage properties from being left sitting vacant for long periods. There have been con-

cerns raised about the fairness of that tax, as some owners who own homes in Vancouver and outside the city have had their Vancouver residences deemed to be empty – even though they are frequently occupied.

It will be a delicate dance to keep housing prices affordable, while trying to avoid inequities and distortions in the market, and also to keep the economy moving on an even keel. Time will tell if the Ontario government has found the correct approach.

“A condo city dust cloud / It all just feels so bleak now.” Who can afford to buy in Kitchener Waterloo? Not us! MATT SMITH PHOTO

ARCHIVES AS MEDICINE: UNDERSTAND THE PAST, HEAL THE FUTURE

STORYTELLER-ACADEMIC JESSE THISTLE SHARES ABOUT UNCOVERING HIS MÉTIS FAMILY’S INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA

SETH RATZLAFF CONTRIBUTOR It was for a variety of reasons that an unlikely medley of people gathered Apr. 11 to listen to a speaker named Jesse Thistle. The topic of the evening?

“Archives as Good Medicine.”

Thistle transfixed his audience at Council Chambers with his life story, weaving together an oral narrative and written accounts that were sometimes light-hearted, often poignant and always powerful. He told of his father’s inexplicable abandonment at a young age and mysterious disappearance thereafter. He read a story of his teenage embarrassment and shame over his Indigenous heritage. In another tale he told of a grocery store owner who unexpectedly pitied him and forgave his thieving. He described his

lifelong struggle with drugs and alcohol, culminating in spouts of episodic homelessness and finally rehabilitation in 2008, after which he enrolled in university — fulfilling a promise to his ailing grandmother.

The title of Thistle’s talk came from a paper he wrote after conducting meticulous research into his family’s history. Thistle is Métis-Cree from his mother’s side and Algonquin-Scottish on his father’s. He was born into a Road Allowance Community in Saskatchewan, but grew up in Ontario, raised by his maternal grandparents.

The Métis have been called “road allowance people” because, without a homeland – they were not welcome in white settlements or allowed to live on Treaty land – they were forced to build homes on that crown land set aside for future highway construction – what is known as road allowance land. When that Crown land was appropriated or developed these communities were often displaced, sometimes violently.

Today Thistle is a Trudeau and Vanier scholar as well as a Governor General Silver-Medalist pursuing a PhD in History at York University.

Despite his impressive accolades, he told the crowd he prefers another title: storyteller.

Thistle has obviously excelled in university, and as an undergraduate was hired to conduct research on his own ancestry. Consulting written and oral sources while travelling across Saskatchewan, Thistle soon discovered what he called “a vein of trauma” repeating itself through the stories of his people.

That trauma started in the early 19th century when a North West Company trader from Scotland abducted an Algonquin woman to start a union with her — a practice encouraged by the company at the time in order to cement settler/Indigenous trading relations. From that original trauma, Thistle described episode after historical episode of incidents — including the battle of Batoche, in which his Mé-

tis ancestors fought alongside Louis Riel — tracing through time a seed of intergenerational trauma all the way to his own father.

Thanks in part to public archives, Thistle gained a new understanding of the plight of his family, as well as their triumphs, learning to see his own life as a “ripple in an ocean of colonial trauma.”

After completing his research he came to the conclusion that public archives can be understood as good medicine. Uncovering intergenerational trauma helped Thistle and his family heal; he was able to comprehend his father’s actions in a new light, ultimately finding a way to forgive him for the choices he made.

He explained this process as an expansion of the fourth step of Alcoholics Anonymous, which encourages one to take a moral inventory of oneself. A deep historical review acted as a kind of familial moral inventory that helped Thistle and his family along their healing journey.

Thistle also shared two videos he helped create. “Finding Mistawasis” is available on YouTube and depicts the lessons he learned during his research in Saskatchewan. The second is called “Kiskisiwin/Remembering,” which challenges the revisionist history of Canadian pioneer myths. It is available on Vtape.com. He is currently working on an autobiographical novel that he hopes will be finished by the end of the year.

Thistle’s speaking illustrated the interconnectedness of colonial history and current social issues. He stressed the importance of public archives for reconciliation as well as personal healing for all the “children of colonialism.”

In this way, archives become good medicine. But it was also clear by the end of the presentation that there was a second kind of medicine at play: Thistle’s captivating and powerful storytelling.

MAY 2017 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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J AND P A NEIGHBOURHOOD CORNERSTONE

FRIED TILAPIA, PANCIT NOODLES & SALT COD ARE STANDARD FARE AT FILIPINO-MEETS-NEWFOUNDLAND STORE

SAM NABI CONTRIBUTOR Stepping inside J and P Filipino Store, the first thing I notice is the people. A half-dozen of the owners’ friends have stopped by to chat, and they’re right in the thick of a boisterous conversation when I arrive.

Perched at the corner of Madison and Courtland Avenues in Kitchener, the store is actually a renovated house.

Which must be why it feels so homey.

At first glance, J and P is your typical corner store piled high with canned food, snacks and frozen goods. But there’s also a cafeteria-style hot food counter at the back.

Pinky Campbell — the P in J and P — tells me her best-selling dishes are spring rolls, fried tilapia, and pancit noodles. She focuses on Filipino food, but people from all backgrounds keep coming back for more.

I hear a customer joking with one of the employees, teasing her for not giving him a large enough portion.

“And lots of gravy on my rice, please,” he chuckles. “Good eats!”

Pinky and her husband Jason Campbell have operated J and P Filipino Store since 2010. As new entrepreneurs, they sold their home to make the dream happen.

“We were thinking this is a great spot for us. It’s downtown, it’s close, we can stay there. Instead of us keeping a mortgage in Forest Heights and finding another place to rent, we just sold or house and bought this,” says Jason.

“We live upstairs, and we have our store here. So it’s convenient for us.”

Takeout food and convenience-store essentials are expected in a neighbourhood corner store. But J and P’s reputation stretches much farther.

Customers regularly come from as far away as Guelph, Cambridge and Mississauga to get Filipino goods that they can’t find anywhere else.

J and P also offers services to help people stay in touch with their relatives in the Philippines. They’ll transfer money, ship parcels, and take passport photos.

Goods and services catering to the Filipino community may be the main focus, but Jason’s Newfoundland roots also play a big part in the operation.

J and P is well-stocked with salt beef, cod, tea cakes, and a range of Newfoundland-made sweets.

“I have a lot of Newfoundland friends here, so instead of driving half an hour to Stoyle’s in Cambridge, we try to supply some of it here,” he says.

Jason works full-time at Toyota’s Cambridge facility, then comes home to keep working at the store after his shift.

Cody, Jason and Pinky’s son, is also an important part of the team. As I wrap up my interview, he enters the shop carrying a 20-pound bag of rice in each hand. He’s just finished his shift at an automotive parts supplier in Waterloo, and now he’s unloading a white cube van full of inventory for the store. It’s becoming clear to me that J and P is a real family operation.

“We know all our neighbours around here. There’s a retirement building across the street, they all come over here and buy stuff,” says Jason.

Jason and Pinky have built up a solid relationship with their community, but that doesn’t mean they fear change in the neighbourhood.

When I mention plans for a massive redevelopment of the former Schneider’s factory, which is just a 5-minute walk from J and P, their response is welcoming.

“Getting more people into the area, that would be great. It’s getting bigger and bigger here,” says Jason.

As for the store itself, it’s getting bigger and bigger too. A year and a half ago, Pinky and Jason invested $40,000 in a commercial kitchen to serve hot food. Their next step is installing new windows, air conditioning, and giving the building a new paint job.

The story of J and P is the story of a family building up a business in step with their community’s needs. While multi-million dollar projects might attract the most fanfare, these small independent businesses hold our neighbourhoods together and deserve to be celebrated.

J and P Filipino Store attracts customers from across southern Ontario with its mix of Filipino and Newfoundland foods.

NICK STANLEY PHOTOS

MAY 2017 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

TAGGER’S RIGHTS?

7

ON SMESH’S CONTROVERSIAL PLACE IN KW

Graffiti is illegal, but some argue should be protected as free speech. EMILY GLEESON PHOTOS

EMILY GLEESON CONTRIBUTOR About a year ago I spent my lunch break staring at a spray-painted tag on the back of the building where I worked. At the time, I was miserable and hated my job. I ate my lunch alone while contemplating the odd name.

Smesh.

I started to notice it in other places: along the Spur-Line Trail, outside my yoga studio, on the brick next to a convenience store; sometimes the area would be splattered with two or three of them.

Smesh was everywhere.

A “tag” is a form of graffiti where “writers” sign their name in a stylized but simplistic scrawl. I’ve seen Smesh written with an arrow, and a few bubble-letter Smesh’s (Smeshi?) but usually the script is pretty basic.

What sets Smesh apart from other tags, however, is the prolificacy of the artist. I submit to you that there is no harder working writer than Smesh; but it’s neither pretty nor particularly interesting to look at. It offers no real aesthetic element to the surroundings like others that implement colour, form and/or a political message. I have no business liking the un-sophisticated, artless and meaningless Smesh!

But I do.

And herein lies my tension. Why do I like Smesh?

I met with Dr. Herbert Pimlott, associate professor of cultural studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, to see if he could clarify my connection to those five letters.

Pimlott shared his own ah-ha! moment. Before he was a professor he was in Belgrade and saw graffiti that referenced The Clash. Suffering through “shit jobs” with “shit pay,” he found it encouraging to know there were others like him in the city who understood the message of the band, whose music spoke to the dull life of poverty and injustice.

“As a young, working class lad you sometimes don’t get heard – this is why punk appealed to me,” he said.

Graffiti is illegal. Local media has reported on its negative impact on business owners and worried residents. Areas where LRT construction is on-going are prime targets, as are alleyways where large, brick facades act like blank canvases.

“Private homes, small shops, that sort of thing – they aren’t fair targets.

Public transit ways, however, an overpass or underpass – that’s some-

thing we all pay taxes for – even the taggers.” said Pimlott.

I sympathize with businesses that are hit and can understand when residents find some graffiti unsavoury (see: large, ejaculating penis painted in a Kitchener alleyway years back).

Never mind the potential for racist or other discriminatory material.

However, Pimlott argued that graffiti, when placed in a public space, should be considered under the law of free speech: “even if it means hearing speech you don’t want to hear.”

“I feel like I’m constantly assailed by advertising – billboards, all forms of signage, which I personally don’t like. I find it aesthetically suspect. Perhaps it is of value to business, but are we only about commodities?”

I asked Pimlott if he thought the rise of graffiti could be a product of a growing economic divide in the Region.

“Perhaps with the housing bubble… it’s beginning to squeeze the greater majority of the population – which is going to limit their access to a lot of things.”

Some propose “legal walls” or shuffling graffiti into a gallery in hopes of alleviating the illegality of the act, but I fear that is missing the point. The value of the tag is the inherently political message of it: the secret language between writers and the community that notice and interact with it, creating a unique underground understanding – like punk music. Those anti-establishment, roguish implications are lost once the authorities OK it. “[Tagging] is a part of that sense of being voiceless – it’s like screaming and no one hears you and you want to be heard. Graffiti is not a sign of breakdown, but more a sign of youth frustrated.”

Which brought us to the idea of identity and why simply writing one’s name is a way of legitimizing and documenting oneself.

“We may not even understand what Smesh is saying but… it is an affirmation of their existence in this place.”

He continued, posing the question: “Is tagging just another kind of selfie – a portraiture of words?” I tag, therefore I am?

As we philosophized about the merits of the tag, a train passed by the cafe, its cars strewn with various graffiti. Like a moving art gallery, we paused to look and comment on the images and words. It was peaceful in a way, fitting in perfectly with the environment we were in and allowing for a break in the discussion. And then the train was gone.

BENT IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL LGBTQ2++ MAGAZINE

COLLECTIVELY PRODUCED ‘ZINE BLENDS MAGAZINE GLOSS WITH QUEER EDGES AND STORIES FROM THE MARGINS

SUZIE TAKA CONTRIBUTOR Like many young queer folks, Ellie Anglin found and saw herself through LGBTQ2++ artists like John Waters, kd lang and RuPaul. But it was in her first partner’s basement, when she held the silk screened hand bound pages of a ‘zine, that she found messages talking directly to her.

Over a decade later, Anglin is still involved in ‘zine culture, and has

reignited it across Kitchener and Waterloo. Her work has involved making her own ‘zines and creating a ‘zine library at Open Sesame in downtown Kitchener. Anglin has a new project in collaboration with Button Factory Arts, supported by funding from the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation for their belonging project, and is part of a collective of artists that have birthed BENT – a ‘zine for, by, and about queer people and their lives and politics.

This isn’t your typical gay magazine – BENT is a rejection of mainstream stories of LGBTQ2++ narratives and unleashes the voices of Waterloo region’s queer folks in real, meaningful

and moving ways. It is about belonging but very much about being an outsider in Waterloo region – a telling of lives on the margins. It’s an invitation to readers to connect with the artists and writers within it and to the voices that are often unheard. Putting those voices out there was a necessity for Anglin in creating BENT. While magazines are glossy, full of ads, uniform, standardized, ‘zines are inherently queer in their difference, their playfulness with boundaries and form, colour and limitations.

BENT is no different. The name refers to “an old-timey slur I found via a Google search for anyone who isn’t strictly heterosexual,” Anglin told me

– a playful reclamation, a defiance of boundaries.

As much as ‘zines are about the words and artwork presented within them, they are also handicrafts in their own right. For BENT, Anglin, a seasoned ‘zine maker, worked in collaboration with a photocopier as her toolkit arranging, changing, splicing, layering. Allie Brenner and Desiree Lichty of Button Factory Arts were instrumental in this part of the process – and the outcome has the sleek colourful gloss of a magazine with the queer edges and contrasts that make ‘zines so personal.

While the colours are bright and the edges smooth, the images and words

and rejection of a standard magazine form create an experience that feels like an interaction with the authors.

As BENT is released Anglin will continue to promote it through a Rainbow Reels Zine Fair and at local shows. Proceeds will support local queer arts programming. You can also see find more of her art on posters for local events and through her collage art. The BENT collective is looking for more folks to join – contact ellieanglin@gmail.com to get involved.

THE LOCAL WOMEN RESIST

JAMES GOWLAND CONTRIBUTOR The National Council of Canadian Muslims’ most recent statistics show that 90 per cent of current Islamophobic hate crimes and attacks on individuals have been against Muslim women. Local community leader Fauzia Mazhar explains that outcome with the term “triple jeopardy”: between the prejudices of gender, being a visible minority and also visibly Muslim, these women have become special targets.

Mazhar is chair of the Coalition of Muslim Women of K-W, and emphasizes to me that these events are occurring in Waterloo Region. I hear the same from Sarah Shafiq, who coordinated the CMW-KW’s Hate Crimes project in 2014, who adds that racist and Islamophobic incidents are rarely being reported to the police in Waterloo Region.

“We thought we should do something about it,” Shafiq says. “For advocacy, for bringing Muslim voices to the forefront.”

The CMW-KW was created in 2010, after Bill-94 – which proposed banning the wearing of the Niqab when receiving public services – was tabled and discussed in Quebec’s parliament. Since then the non-profit has encouraged a proactive approach towards, and community dialogue about gendered Islamophobia.

“The more opportunities people have to get to know Muslim women, we think the better it is in terms of eliminating stereotypes,” says Mazhar.

“If you see women in action, if you can talk to them, if you know who they are, then this is the best response.”

Bardish Chagger, MP for Waterloo,

affirmed that approach at a CMW-KW organized town-hall about Islamophobia in Kitchener on Apr. 22.

“We have to start being pro-active instead of reactive,” Chagger said.

“And we’re not doing a good job it, but where we are doing a good job of it is having these conversations.”

Jobs and discrimination are the biggest issues according to Mazhar.

Over the course of our conversation she shares about two unreported hate incidents that have occurred in the region recently.

The first involved a Muslim woman with a small child being attacked by another woman as she was walking down the street in Cambridge. The second occurred at a grocery store in Kitchener where security was called.

The woman declined to report the abuse and quickly left the store.

“It’s a lot of hassle,” said Mazhar. “It’s a lot of shame.”

Many members of the CMW-KW possess at least one graduate degree from their country of origin or from Canada, yet still struggle to find reasonable employment.

“Imagine you’re a newcomer, you’re an immigrant, you speak English with an accent, you’re a woman, and on top of that you’re a covered woman,” said Mazhar.

The Coalition’s earliest funding came from the United Way and The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation, and their focus quickly became about promoting awareness, documenting hate crimes and incidents, learning how to respond and how to seek help. That initial funding has now been used up, leaving this important community community service – documenting incidents and

supporting victims of Islamophobia – in limbo.

“We couldn’t really continue the program,” said Mazhar. “If we could get funding, we would really like to be able to provide this one-on-one support. “ More funding would enable counseling after a hate incident or hate crime.

The CMW-KW would also like to create a unique job search tool, tailored for Muslim women.

In the meantime, the CMW-KW continues to spark community conversations, like that April town-hall.

“The main purpose is to have these opportunities for the larger community and Muslim women to come together,” says Mazhar. “And to make that work, we have to have women who are ready to do that and take that role.”

Many Muslim women’s triple-jeopardy situation is layered, and so the CMW-KW is promoting awareness and encouraging action.

First, they encourage anyone who witnesses an act of hate or discrimination to speak up and report it.

Whether on the buses or in the streets, once documentation of an incident has been established, further action can be taken.

Second is community involvement.

All 40 members of the CMW-KW and many more volunteers are out in the community taking a leadership role, engaging and talking with their neighbours, and breaking down barriers and stigmas associated with Islam.

“We work in the other direction,” said Mazhar. “We try to strengthen their voices.”

TING ISLAMOPHOBIA IN KW

About 90 per cent of reported Islamophobic hate crimes in Canada have targeted women. Since 2010 the Coalition of Muslim Women of K-W has taken a proactive approach, organizing community events to break down stereotypes and build relationships. Some members of the CMW-KW, clockwise from top left, are Fauzia Mazhar, Fauzia Baig, Wisam Osman, Rahmah Omar and Uzma Bhutto. NICK STANLEY PHOTOS

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TCE FICTION

THE HOUR AND THE HINGE DYLAN SIEBERT CONTRIBUTOR The king listened with all his strength. The voice told of great battles, terrible betrayals, knights who died for love and queens who killed for spite. It spoke of voyages beyond vision, past the salt waste of the sea, over high moors billowing in the moonlight, to the heights of mist-covered mountains whose roots were in the deepest secrets of the earth.

And when the voice fell silent there was not a breath nor a sound in the whole place. Each man alive held still, spellbound.

“And the battle?” asked the king at last, his voice harsh and ragged in the still air of the pavilion. “Will the battle go our way?”

“These are the shapes of things that are,” answered the hooded man, “of things that were, and of things that are to come.” His voice, deep and clear, seemed to well up from underground and to sink again into the hiddenness of silence. “The shapes do not change, only the men and women who must live them out. Who grasps the Pattern, sees all battles that ever were, and are, and will be again.”

The king’s smile was grim as the scar that ran the length of his throat. “Fine words for a tale of sorcery, but we are men of deeds. Is there no valour in your tale, no part for the soul’s striving in an hour of chance and peril?”

“No striving can make or mar what was shaped before the foundations of the earth. And yet,” the voice continued, musing, “if there be one who sees clearly the shapes that are before him, and if at the hour and the hinge of doom he stand firm in his course, then by knowledge of the Pattern he may

NOEL SEVERIN IVERSON ILLUSTRATION

indeed win mastery, for a time. But without this, all valour is in vain.”

“Well then, Master Patterner, this is the hour and the hinge of doom, and now your visions will be tested,” said the king. “Ten kings have I gathered to my banner, and on this day we march to the siege of the Castle Terrible, where my brother’s forces are already gathered. There the young lord will meet us on the field of battle, the renegade, who in his pride has brought destruction on our lands and people.

All this you have foreseen, and never have you led us wrongly before. The mastery will be ours, by our valour, and by the Pattern itself.”

The doorway to the pavilion opened and a messenger entered, hot and short of breath. “My lord,” he said, dropping to one knee.

“Rise,” rasped the king. “What is your report?”

“My king, the army of your brother is routed. They met the forces of the young lord this morning.” The messenger stopped, dragging in a deep breath. “The greater part of your brother’s following are destroyed, and he is taken alive.”

As he spoke, the light seemed to drain from the room, until in the bleak dimness that followed, the king’s men could hardly look one another in the eye across the pavilion’s width. No, it was not so, each one realized as he looked around him: evening had fallen without their noticing, the grim dusk of early spring, when the fields are grey and winter clings on with iron hold.

“What have you done?” breathed the king in the gloom. “Light a torch, someone!”

Swiftly the dazzling light leapt up and outward. But the hooded man was nowhere to be seen.

“Curse you, Merlin!” roared the king.

“Curse you and all your works!”

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For many new (and old) Canadians, feeling “at home” is key to good health. NICK STANLEY PHOTO

ABOUT HEALTH AND HOME INTERSECTIONS

ZAINAB MAHDI COLUMNIST Most of us have experienced, at one point or another, the unsettling phenomenon of homesickness. You might have felt it for the first time while attending summer camp as a child, or perhaps after leaving home to pursue college in an unfamiliar city. Often the feeling is fleeting; it subsides after returning home or merely diminishes with the passing of time.

But what happens when one’s separation from home isn’t voluntary?

What experiences of “homesickness” exist for individuals who are forcibly displaced? And how might a better understanding of the unique intersection between health and home provide us with insights on how to interact with and support vulnerable populations within our community?

In 2015, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated there were 65.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide – almost

double the current Canadian population. The many refugees recently arrived in Kitchener-Waterloo are living proof of this tragic statistic.

One of the key agencies for refugees seeking healthcare upon arrival is the Refugee Health Clinic (RHC) – a joint initiative between Reception House and the Centre for Family Medicine (CFFM). Since 2008 the Clinic has seen about 250 refugees per year, but due to the recent increase in Syrian refugees arriving to Kitchener Waterloo, the RHC saw more than 800 visits in 2016.

The CFFM recently hosted an education session about providing culturally sensitive health care for refugees. Dr. Meb Rashid, a family physician and medical director of Crossroads Clinic for refugees in Toronto, spoke about his many years of experience working with refugees. He highlighted the disparity that exists between the types of services that health professionals often provide, and the types of things that most significantly improve the health of newcomers.

“With [refugee] patients, we treat them with counselling, music therapists, psychotherapists, medication,” Dr. Rashid said. “But when did they get better? When they got a job, when they were reunited with family, when

they learned English and were able to get a sense of community.”

Although many refugees require medical treatment to address specific health concerns, Dr. Rashid’s point was that many more of them do not.

For these individuals, the kind of support they require cannot be found in a doctor’s office, but rather comes from developing a sense of normalcy.

It is unreasonable to expect that the health and wellbeing of refugees will improve unequivocally upon their arrival to Canada. Challenges of acculturation, language acquisition and social exclusion pose tough barriers for refugees – indeed, for newcomers in general – and impede their ability to adjust to their new lives.

According to Dr. Rashid, health care professionals – especially those in a position to treat newly arrived refugees – have a role that expands beyond the provision of healthcare.

These professionals are often among the first people that newcomers meet, and their genuine concern and support can be integral to ensuring the overall wellbeing of their patients.

“The most important thing besides [screening for illnesses] is developing a relationship,” Dr. Rashid continued.

“Refugee health is about making those relationships.”

WR AND HOWE

SEXPLANATIONS

JAMES HOWE COLUMNIST

STACEY JACOBS COLUMNIST

While Waterloo Region may have finished on the podium in the race to host the 2021 Canada Summer Games, Niagara Region came out on top. I’m OK with that, as long as we understand where we fell short and act on it.

Most of the marquee action at the last Olympics took place in two facilities: the track and field stadium and the swimming pool. We do not have either in Waterloo Region.

Don’t get me wrong, I supported the bid. We have the people power and expertise to pull off a major sporting event, as we have proven time and again with golf, hard ball and curling.

But not being selected as the host city did not surprise me.

The local bid had track and field events taking place in Guelph, with the swimming happening in Brantford.

Even if we had been selected as host, we still would not have those facilities in Waterloo Region as a legacy of the games. There wasn’t even a badly needed new stadium for the Kitchener Panthers included.

Niagara Region’s bid, on the other hand, included building a new track and field stadium at Brock University.

A three story sports centre with an accessible gym, a second floor wrestling and martial arts facility and several health and wellness facilities are also being built there. As a result, hosting the Canada Games will leave a real legacy in Niagara Region for elite athletes and many other local citizens.

We need to hear the message sent by the Canada Games decision and act on it.

With 535,000 people living here – and more every month – Waterloo Region needs a track and field stadium and swimming facility capable of hosting national events. As with the Canada Games, these events could give our area a major boost of economic activity.

Even more importantly, our young athletes deserve proper facilities at which to train and compete without travelling half an hour or more outside the Region.

We can take a page out of Niagara’s playbook and ensure these facilities are designed to provide opportunities that increase physical activity opportunities for all children and a diverse range of adults.

I see hope in the cooperation between our local municipalities to coordinate the 2021 bid. Because the scope of these facilities is regional, I think there is an opportunity for the Region of Waterloo to take the lead in a collaborative effort with the cities.

The big question then is where to locate facilities.

One possibility is to redevelop the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex. It is central with great access to the expressway and will soon have an iXpress bus connecting to the LRT. Or, I hear there may be a good site for a major athletic facility on Conestoga College’s Cambridge Campus.

In 2014, Henry Rayhons of Iowa was charged with sexual abuse for having sex with his wife who had Alzheimer’s disease. They were intimate in Mrs. Rayhons’ nursing home, and her physician said she was not capable of giving consent. Nursing home staff commented that Mrs. Rayhons always appeared happy to see her husband, and there was no suggestion that Mrs. Rayhons had resisted intimacy. Mr. Rayhons testified that his wife continued to desire intimacy and sexual contact and even initiated these activities.

Charges were later dropped.

I learned of this story at a recent research symposium hosted by the University of Waterloo’s Sexuality, Marriage and Family Studies Program, where Andria Bianchi, a PhD candidate in applied philosophy at the University of Waterloo, shared a presentation entitled “Sex, Intimacy, and Consent for People with Dementia.”

I was instantly intrigued. This was something I had never thought through before. How do you give consent when you have dementia? Can you legally give sexual consent if you have dementia? Is there a protocol for such a thing? What if I got dementia?

Would I want to be intimate? Would my partner want to be intimate with me? Would I trust my partner to do what they thought was in my best interest? What if I didn’t have a partner but still wanted to be intimate?

People with dementia often suffer great losses. Loss of their independence, their memories, use of their bodies, possibly their family, friends and home. Loss of intimate contact would be another loss in their lives.

Who gets to decide whether a person with dementia can consent to sexual activity? Is it their physician, their partner, social workers, the law? And what does this sexual activity include?

Who determines if they are a willing participant? Should people with dementia be denied the benefits and comfort of physical intimacy?

Some people may make these decisions for people with dementia based on their discomfort – discomfort about elderly people being sexual, discomfort about people in care facilities being sexual, discomfort about sex in general. A person with dementia still has sexual rights, which would include the right to intimacy and sexual activity. They also have the right to be protected from abuse, coercion and exploitation.

Bianchi discussed advance sexual directives in her presentation as a way to prospectively consent to sexual activities. Is this a solution? Could advance sexual directives be used in unison with active consent as long as the withdrawing of consent was possible? For many people a fulfilling sex life is important and they may want to ensure that this is not taken away from them. They may also want to protect those they are in relationships with from being prosecuted.

For now, I have more questions than answers.

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LOCAL LIQUID YEAST FERMENTS FAR AND WIDE

ESCARPMENT LABS BRINGS A FORAGER’S SPIRIT AND SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO CREATING CRAFT BREW YEASTS

KAT ROGERS-HERN CONTRIBUTOR Until 1857, no one really understood how beer was made. The earliest version of Germany’s Beer Purity Law limited the approved ingredients to water, hops, and malted barley. God was credited with transforming them into beer. The problem? We didn’t know about fermentation until Louis Pasteur discovered the process over 300 years later.

Once he figured it out, though, yeast quickly became the defining characteristic of many beer styles. This living organism, which plays the ever-important role of converting sugars to alcohol, also contributes in huge ways to the flavour of beer. If you’ve ever tasted bubblegum in a Hefeweizen or cloves in a Belgian Saison, you’ve got yeast to thank.

Traditionally, breweries kept a tight lid on details about their preferred strains in order to protect their recipes. Now? Not so much. With craft breweries opening up at a breakneck pace all over the province, collaboration is the name of the game. Recipe sharing and experimentation reign supreme.

Enter Escarpment Laboratories.

Started in 2015 the Guelph-based lab is Canada’s only commercial source for liquid yeast. Before they opened

their doors, breweries and homebrewers alike relied primarily on yeast purchased from American industry giants White Labs and Wyeast. Some breweries also preferred to use cheaper and considerably less complex dry yeast options.

Escarpment is working to change that, having embraced the craft culture of collaboration from the get-go.

Before they had their own facility, they took advantage of spaces offered by Royal City and Wellington in order to focus on research and development.

Since then, they’ve worked to release collaborative brews with those companies, Sawdust City, Folly, Four Winds and others.

That’s not to mention the fun they have while harvesting wild yeasts for their customers. Co-owner Richard Preiss ran me through this process, explaining that fruit and tree bark are natural reservoirs for yeast. Once environmental samples are collected and soaked in a wild yeast growth medium, yeast isolates are tested for their usefulness to brewing. Starting from approximately 40 yeast isolates, the Escarpment crew works to find the one or two strains that are optimal for beer fermentation and flavour. A challenging process, to be sure, but one that yields a truly unique local strain for the brewery in question.

Having built relationships with breweries in every province except Manitoba — which they’re working on — Escarpment is clearly doing something right. Before they entered the scene, these services were beyond the

budget of your average craft brewery.

Comments from the head brewers at Wellington, Royal City, Block Three and Barncat all focus on the same key benefits of Escarpment: yeast freshness and selection, along with quality service and serious knowledge.

“We can sit down, have a conversation and talk about beer and yeast and life,” said Marvin Dyck of Wellington Brewery.

Yeast management is critical.

Provided that local craft breweries are taking advantage of the services that Escarpment offers, we should see a continued increase in the quality of beer being released. Beyond that, locally developed yeast strains could also lend a distinct regional flavour to many of our beers.

The reality, though, is that many local breweries still haven’t made the switch. Is that inherently bad? No. Should we assume that, just because a local option exists, it must be the go-to choice for local breweries? Not necessarily. But here’s the thing: Escarpment offers a wide variety of strains that are fresher than breweries can get them anywhere else. There’s a lot of talk in the craft beer community about brewing local and supporting small businesses. Shouldn’t we be doing that in our own backyard?

TCE HAS A NEW EIC HER NAME IS MEGAN SHE IS EXCELLENT HELP HER: WORDS, PICTURES, SOCIAL INFO@COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

Most complex beer is made with liquid yeasts, including from Guelph’s Escarpment Labs, who work in the wild and the lab and with many local craft breweries.

PHOTOS COURTESY ESCARPMENT LABS (TOP) AND KAT ROGERS-HERN

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DISRUPTIVE SOLUTIONS @STEELRAILS IS BACK ON THE RAILS JUNE 23

IN WHICH OUR EXPERT CORRESPONDENT REVIEWS LOCAL TECH COMPANIES BASED ON WHAT HE THINKS THEY PROBABLY DO AFTER FIVE MINUTES OF WEB RESEARCH

ADAM LEWIS CONTRIBUTOR RAVE Rave is an app that streams movies from other websites so that multiple distant people can view them simultaneously while chatting. This can already be achieved pretty easily using Google Hangouts or Twitch, which would also let you use a larger screen than that on your phone, but whatever. If you choose to do this with people in the same room as you, the app turns your phones into a “giant speaker system,” in the same way that tuning two nearby TVs to the same channel turns them into a giant speaker system. Rave apparently used to be called WeMesh and was the subject of considerable mockery on the uwaterloo subreddit for reasons that I didn’t care about enough to discover.

According to the Waterloo Chronicle, Rave also offers an app called “RaveDJ,” although I wasn’t able to find such an app on either the Android or the Apple store (I didn’t check BlackBerry World and never will).

RaveDJ is supposed to automatically turn playlists into mashups. According to CEO Michael Pazaratz this involved “teaching an AI system to understand and break down music,” which probably means they got some co-op kid to install scikit-learn and then feed a bunch of Katy Perry songs through a support vector machine or something.

I’ll bet you a quarter this doesn’t work very well, since otherwise Spotify would already have done it, but I’m sure the kid got an A.

19 disruptions out of 10.

AERYON LABS This is a company that makes drones.

As a general rule in tech, anybody making a physical object one could hypothetically trip over is far less able than usual to coast on hype (unless that object is somehow wearable), and indeed these guys seem pretty legit.

However, due to this publication’s solid commitment to leftist values — according to Wikipedia Aeryon Labs sold a spy drone to Libyan rebels once — I must nevertheless rate them poorly.

Two giant death robots out of 50.

MAPPEDIN MappedIn creates maps of the interiors of participating stores. These maps tell customers what’s in stock and how to get to the appropriate shelf, which I guess means the store has to hire fewer attendants than otherwise. More usefully from the corporate perspective, MappedIn also somehow logs customers’ actual shopping behaviour for later analysis, allowing sufficiently large retailers to optimize their inventories and shelving empirically. It wasn’t clear to me whether this was accomplished by simply logging searches or by directly tracking customers’ movements. This could maybe sell.

Nine Soylents out of 10.

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FIRST THINGS FIRST EXHIBIT FALLS FLAT

A new exhibit at THEMUSEUM asks critical questions about Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations, but falls short.

MATT SMITH PHOTO

TEGHAN BARTON CONTRIBUTOR A Cause for Celebration: First Things First is a new exhibit at THEMUSUEM, and asks, on Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary, what exactly are we celebrating? The exhibit challenges visitors to learn from the past, and in a year abounding with themes of nationalism and identity, it seems especially important to take a step back and reflect on the behaviours, lands, and identities of our last 150 years.

First Things First is focused on the history of policy affecting Indigenous communities in Canada, and is framed by work from four artists: Mohan, a Metis artist, Nyle Johnston from the Anishinawbe First Nation, Ann Beam, and her daughter Anong Beam.

The art represents an array of styles and approaches, serves as bookends for the exhibit’s core, and belies the challenging subject matter, which asks us to remember that hope, too, must exist.

The core of the exhibit is a linear exploration through Canada’s history, using the terms of sitting Prime Ministers as a structure upon which to map Canada’s history with Indigenous peoples. The exhibit presents the information in a visual timeline.

Visitors’ first visual is of our earliest Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. A large photo of each Prime Minister hangs adjacent to a placard that outlines their political affiliation, years in office, and a summary of their impact on Indigenous issues during their tenure. An original archival artifact accompanies each Prime Minister – usually a letter that was signed by them.

For example, during Sir Robert Borden’s terms as Prime Minister, from 1911 to 1920, the Canadian parliament was forced to decide what to do with Indigenous peoples who wanted to enlist. Although parliament eventually decided that Indigenous peoples would be exempt from Canada’s conscription laws, over 4,000 people enlisted anyways. Many Indigenous community groups, such as the Six Nations of the Grand River, made significant contributions to aid war-orphans and assist with relief.

Curated by Virgina Eichhorn and Andrea Jackman, the decision to structure the exhibit in this manner is as creative and inspired as the legacy of Canada’s history with Indigenous peoples is long and complicated. Visitors can contextualize the information as well as approach it in a way that is not overwhelming. Further, presenting this exhibit in this way is a creative way to showcase the systemic nature of our history as well as the intrinsic relationship between the past and present. However, that is where the ingenuity stops.

The exhibit itself is designed to be one of second-thought, of reflection, of questioning our colonial history, yet the bulk of the exhibit – specifically the Prime Minister timeline – lacks

any political will or passion about the subject matter. I was left with an underwhelming sense of, “oh.”

A subject like this must be more than the bland reciting of a grade 10 history textbook. The exhibit felt as if it was afraid to offend people and instead opted to go for a minimalist approach.

The point of this exhibit is to challenge the nationalist, colonial nature of the Canada 150 celebrations. It is an opportunity for us, amidst the fervour of the festivities, to remember our past but also our present. The horrific crimes committed against Indigenous peoples are not a thing of the past – they are living, breathing problems of today. That is lost in this exhibit.

Indeed, it seems that one of the issues facing Indigenous peoples today is the idea that they live solely in the past, that they are relics of a time gone by. This dominating representation of Indigenous peoples appears in many historic – and official – narratives, and while this is beginning to change, our fraught history must also be remembered as occurring in the present.

In the wake of #IdleNoMore, an exhibit like this must have an element of resistance to it. Of active, current resistance. It is essential, and yet the only spirit of resistance comes from Anong Beam’s mixed-media art pieces.

The rest of the exhibit does nothing to combat the status quo narrative, keeping indigenous peoples and indigenous stories as things that stay firmly in the past.

I left feeling frustrated. As a student of Canadian history there was so much potential, especially to draw connections as a way to showcase that isolated incidents in our history, such as Oka or the Cyprus Hills Massacre were not blips in a history of bland colonialism, but were incendiary moments inextricably linked to what happened before and what would happen after.

First Things First is a fine exhibit. It is presented beautifully in the space, with clean minimal lines. Ironically, it is in this design that it falls short.

There’s an awful lot of white space – from the walls to the space taken up by the 23 white people who held parliamentary control at the time. Instead, the exhibit design should have provided the lines within which to colour a story that tells our true history, a history of Indigenous resilience.

The dedication to minimalism left wall to ceiling white space, and the lack of political courage left a lot of white space inside the exhibit. And isn’t that the problem?

A Cause for Celebration: First Things First runs until Sept. 4, 2017 at THEMUSEUM.

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I WANNA BE FRONT PORCH ROCKIN’ ALL SUMMER LONG SITTING ON THE STREET AND IN FRONT OF STRANGERS’ HOUSES IS ENCOURAGED FOR THIS MUSIC FESTIVAL SERIES

PATRICIA JANE CONTRIBUTOR There is a porch party every month this summer in Waterloo Region. A porch party is best described as a free mini music festival, a celebration of community and local musical talent, showcased on the porches of neighbourhood homes.

The Grand Porch Party in Waterloo’s uptown west neighborhood was the first in the area, started in 2011. It’s been going strong ever since, and in 2012, the GPP received Waterloo Region’s Art’s Award for Best New Music Festival. This recognition seems to have inspired other neighborhood associations to come together to host their own porch parties. In 2013 the Hohner Avenue Porch Party debuted, followed in 2015 with the Schneider Creek Porch Party and the Preston Porch Party.

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of attending a local porch party, let me help paint a picture.

Rain or shine, starting mid-afternoon, musicians take their porch posts and residents from near and far begin to fill the neighborhood. I wouldn’t be surprised if you pass a lemonade stand as you walk towards the music, and who can blame the kids for taking advantage of the increased foot traffic?

Once arrived, as several bands are often playing at once, follow the rhythm of a porch that best suits you.

Sitting, dancing, swaying and meandering are all accepted. There is often chalk and other activities for the kids (and youthful souls) and an information booth. Depending on the event, various art and environmental stations may be set up.

In more recent years, food trucks are

getting in on the action and come to feed hungry bellies. Each porch party has their own unique way to end the event, sometimes with a marching band, belly dancing or my personal favourite: the sing-along.

Porch parties share a commitment to the talented musicians of Waterloo Region. It’s an eclectic mix of garage and cover bands, local neighborhood acts, solo artists and classical instrumentalists. There is often even space for younger performers to shine.

Well known bands, elementary school choirs, Indigenous drum circles, bag pipers and steel drum bands have all performed in years past.

And while it may seem that the music simply emerges from porches to fill our ears and hearts, it is the collective drive from neighborhood volunteers that brings these porch parties to life.

In the months and days leading up to each event, volunteers find bands and porches, hang posters, gather funds and basically everything else too.

Porch parties are a low-cost opportunity to turn off and put down our screens, tune out supersized pop stars and connect with local musicians and new people. At a porch party there are faces we likely see in our day-to-day lives, at the grocery store, the market, the pub or our sidewalk. Rarely do we have the time in our busy schedules to slow down and introduce ourselves.

Porch parties provide the time and space to do so. They turn regular streets with potholes and curbs into avenues of laughter and joy.

As Laura McBride, an organizer of the Hohner Avenue Porch Party put it, “porch parties are just as much about people sharing experiences, building relationships and seeing our places from a different perspective, as they are about music and the arts.”

HOW TO GET THE

MOST OUT OF YOUR

PORCH PART Y

EXPERIENCE

• Mark your calendar now, but don’t worry if you are already double booked. As a free event open to everyone, you can come and go as you please, even if your busy weekend only has enough time for an hour or two.

• Volunteer! A porch party wouldn’t work without the amazing efforts from volunteers. All sorts of efforts are appreciated.

Connect on social media if you are interested in helping out!

• Dress for the weather. Porch parties happen rain or shine! We hope for sunshine but really the music is only silenced by the sound of thunder.

Rocking out at the Hohner Ave. Porch Party. LAURA MCBRIDE PHOTOS

PORCH PARTY DATES

MAY Hohner Ave. Porch Party Last Saturday in May May 27, 2017, 3pm-8pm

JULY Schneider Creek Porch Party Saturday after Hillside July 22, 2017, 3pm-8pm

JUNE Grand Porch Party Second Sunday in June June 11, 2017, 2pm-5pm

AUGUST Preston Porch Party Last Saturday in August August 26, 2017, 1pm-5pm

• Carry light chairs. Even though some homes may put out a few chairs for those in need, you are more than welcome to bring your own. Most of the crowd is too busy wandering or dancing to the music to take a seat for too long.

• Respect roadways and be mindful of cars on nearby streets.

Common sense.

• Bring your own water bottles and even utensils and plates to save on disposables handed out by any food vendors.

• Be friendly and have a good time!

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