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To “put something on the map” is to give that something notoriety, fame, or recognition. But what about simply changing the name on that map?

On September 11, 2020, Trinity Western University (TWU) announced its new address at 22500 University Drive. University Drive, and by extension the University District in the Township of Langley (TOL), are the first outward signs of TWU’s expansion past its original campus in Langley. The steps taken to create this district, however, were not without controversy.

Though TWU runs other campuses in other cities (including Richmond, Bellingham, and Ottawa), the University District is the first physical expansion of the Langley campus since its creation in 1962. A vision for the district has been in place since 1997.

According to former TWU President Bob Kuhn—who commented on the district in 2014 — the vision for a worldclass University District that would be comparable to those at UBC or SFU requires more space: “We don’t want to change the community by going up, instead of broadening.”

The University District was approved by the TOL in 2013. It includes 375.6 acres of land, stretching from Fort Langley to the Langley Events Centre. Though beneficial for the growth of both communities involved, 70 percent of the land in this district is part of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).

The ALR is “a provincial zone in which agriculture is recognized as the priority use. Farming is encouraged and non-agricultural uses are restricted,” according to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC). These reserves are found throughout B.C., as far north as Fort St. John and throughout the lower mainland. Without the protection of the ALR, farmland is lost to urban development and production of local produce declines.

Environmental groups voiced concern over this intrusion into the ALR, warning of more such developments to follow in its wake. “It would be a negative precedent to start having these kinds of small zonings allowed throughout the ALR,” said Doug Mcfee of the Salmon River Enhancement Society.

“The University District will allow for the expansion of TWU and create a hub of higher learning that will solidify the Township’s reputation as a centre for education and training,” said TOL Mayor Jack Froese. “Allowing Trinity Western to develop to its full potential and creating an integrated university community in the surrounding area will help Langley students receive an excellent foundation close to home, attract international students looking for a high-quality education, bolster employment, and strengthen our economy,” said Froese.

TWU and the TOL benefit mutually through their partnership. The Langley Events Centre was built through it, and TWU is the TOL’s third-largest employer.

Despite public concern over land in the ALR in the proposal, the project was approved by the TOL. It then caught the attention of the regional district of Metro Vancouver, which argued that such “dense, residential development” was not suitable for the site. Metro Vancouver sued the TOL, and the matter was taken up before the supreme court of B.C. under a question of jurisdiction. The TOL won the right to make such a decision within their borders, and proceeded with the University District.

TWU’s new address is not solely a new name for the university’s place on the map. It is the first tangible step in a years-long process to create a University District in protected agricultural land. Ironically, the land required to preserve the rural feel of the campus and avoid building upwards must use actual rural land. Though a positive move for the growth and development of TWU and the TOL, it sets an unusual precedent for land use in the ALR.

With 205 countries represented, 3.6 billion viewers, and costs of up to $13.2 billion dollars––the Olympic Games are built on big numbers. With as much exposure as they get, the Olympics have also been a hotspot of political discussion and oftentimes, tension. Such is the case with this upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Currently, China holds the bid for the 2022 Games, but is embroiled in rising controversy over the treatment of its Uygher citizens. For the past three years, the Chinese government has been attempting to “re-educate” this ethnic minority group occupying Xinjiang––a northwest region of the country. As many as 500 000 to a million people have been detained in re-education camps. As a Muslim majority, their religious practices have been banned, and Chinese documents have revealed plans to force longterm birth control on 80 percent of Uyghur women in the region. On February 16, Erin O’Toole, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to enact an official relocation of the historic event due to these human rights abuses.

“While there is a genocide taking place, we should not be turning a blind eye toward that,” O’Toole said. “If there is no change in conduct by the state of China, we should examine whether our athletes should compete.” He says he is calling on the prime minister to approach the IOC about considering alternate options for hosting the 2022 Games.

But while O’Toole has no problem leveling these accusations at China, Trudeau has still been hesitant to speak with the same sharpness. In a response to O’Toole’s address, the prime minister declined to label China’s treatment of Uyghur people as a “genocide”––cautioning that a loose application of the term devalues the gravity of its meaning. He said that, in regard to the Olympics, Canada continues to be “very vocal” in standing up for human rights around the world.

This use of softer language could be indicative of the Canadian Government’s hesitation surrounding the situation with the two Michaels. The businessman, Michael Kovrig, and Michael Spavor, a former diplomat, are two Canadian citizens who have been detained in China without charges since December, 2018. Trudeau denied that the lack of that particular label was due to China’s detainment of these two men.

China’s treatment of the Uyghurs is not the only criticism being held against them. Not only are the two Michaels being used as “diplomatic hostages,” Australian journalist Cheng Lei was arrested by Chinese authorities this February––also with no charges. Fifty-nine countries have joined Canada’s Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations in response to these events.

On February 23, based on the 1948 UN Genocide Convention definition, Parliament passed the motion to officially regard the Uyghur situation as genocide. Trudeau was not present for the vote, and government officials have not adopted the term despite the House’s affirmation.

With all of this bad blood towards China––its actions, policies, and responses––the future of the 2022 Olympic Games seems uncertain. Only time will tell if O’Toole and other public figures will be successful in convincing the IOC to relocate the Games––quite possibly at the cost of withdrawing Canadian athletes from the competitions entirely.

Amanda Gorman, a 22 year old Black woman from Los Angeles, has taken the world by storm with her outstanding gift of the gab. On January 20, 2021, she was handpicked by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden to be the inaugural poet at the inauguration ceremony of U.S. President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Gorman recited her own poem, “The Hill We Climb,” to the high-profile audience as the youngest to ever do so. This occasion drew tremendous attention even before her speech, as Oprah Winfrey gifted her golden hooped earrings and a birdcage ring. According to Oprah Magazine, it was a tribute to the infamous inaugural poet, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” The concept of inaugurations having poets is still relatively novel since, prior to Biden, only three other Presidents had them: John F. Kennedy in 1961, Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1997, and Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013. Oprah also sent gifts to her close friend Angelou for her recitation at President Clinton’s first inauguration.

Amanda Gorman is no stranger to the spotlight as she founded “One Pen One Page,” a nonprofit organisation, in 2016 aimed at boosting creative writing among youth in underserved communities. In 2017, she rose to national recognition when she was awarded the title of Inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States––a distinction which honours the contributions made by outstanding poets. That same year, at the United Nations Social Good Summit, Gorman delivered her poem entitled “The Gathering Place” as a UN Youth Delegate. Amanda also graduated from Harvard University in 2020 with a degree in Sociology, which aids her advocacy and social justice pursuits.

The 2021 Inauguration was not only historic due to Gorman’s accomplishments; this event was significant because both she and President Biden formerly faced speech impediments. In her CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, she describes how she struggled articulating sounds and consonants, particularly those with the letter “r.” This has further inspired those with an impediment to dream big and accomplish greatness––either as a poet laureate or even President. Amanda Gorman’s poem is filled with beautifully blended poetic techniques that proclaim Black excellence and optimism for a divided America.

If you were talking with someone about the electoral college two weeks ago and they said “Yeah, but doesn’t Canada kind of do the same thing?” it is now your job to send this column to them, because they are wrong.

Canada’s voting system is very different from the electoral college. Canada uses a system known as First Past the Post (FPTP), also known as a single member plurality system. The FPTP name refers to a horse race, where the horse that passes the post first is the winner. It doesn’t matter how closely behind the other horse was, you just have to pass that sacred post before anyone else. The United States tallies votes by state, whereas in Canada, we tally votes by riding. Each state is worth a certain number of electoral votes that a candidate needs to win the presidency, which was linked to the population of the state at the time, but is no longer representative in this way. In Canada, each riding represents roughly the same number of people, and is worth one seat in the House of Commons. There are 338 ridings across Canada.

When you vote in your riding, you are voting for a Member of Parliament (MP) who will represent your riding and the party they belong to. When Canadians vote, they are voting for an MP on the ballot instead of a Prime Minister. A leader of a party becomes a Prime Minister after their party wins the most seats.

The one similarity between the Canadian and American voting systems is that just like there are safe states for candidates, there are also safe ridings. A vote for the Green Party in an Alberta riding is about as useful as a vote for the Republicans in California. But ridings are much smaller than states. Canada’s system is not foolproof, but it arguably does a better job trying to represent all citizens than the Electoral College does.

Remember GameStop? Yes, the outdated video-game retailer that was decimated by the age of digital game downloads due to its reliance on selling hard copies of games. As it turns out, GameStop has recently received a significant increase in its stock price in a movement led by a large reddit page titled Wall Street Bets (WSB).

Outdated business models are often in play for a “short” scenario. Essentially, a short is betting against the company. Rather than supporting a company by purchasing a share of its stock, shorting is a matter of profiting off of the cost of a share going down. Although there are many methods to do this, the most common way to short a stock is to borrow shares from a broker, then sell those shares immediately. Short sellers find themselves in a position of being in a debt to the broker, which is offset by the money they just received for the stock. Once the price of the shorted stock goes to the level desired by the short sellers, they then buy back the stock and give it back to the broker. Piece of cake.

GameStop was the poster-child for shorted stock. By typically preying on outdated business models, those who short stocks are able to make significant money as they lobby against a company. Since 2011–– when downloading video games directly onto a user’s console started becoming the norm––GameStop’s stock price went from $20 per share, gradually falling to $4 per share by 2020. This led to easy money for anyone who was shorting this stock. Yet WSB had something else in mind. Often targeting stocks that are being heavily shorted, WSB swooped in with its army of nearly six million self-titled “degenerates” to artificially raise these stocks back to life. However, the GameStop instance seems to stand alone as a masterpiece by the degenerates. Slowly gaining traction throughout the fall and eventually booming in the month of January, a single share of GameStop’s stock rose from $4 to nearly $500, showing signs that it could continue climbing.

As a result of this massive base of investors in GameStop, those who shorted the company have lost a significant amount of money due to the drastic fashion in which these events transpired. For those who have shorted the GameStop stock, there is a lot of frustration towards the artificial money that the company has at its disposal. Now valued at approximately $20 billion, GameStop has few options to succeed with its newfound money due to the brick and mortar nature of the company itself.

Yet, this heist pulled off by the ordinary North Americans of WSB has caused a feud of drastic proportions, possibly pointing to bigger issues within the supposedly free market of Canada and the United States. Popular stock trading services for the common North American investor such as Robinhood and TD stand at the forefront by grounding the GameStop stock. Robinhood, the recipient of more hate than any other platform, decided to halt all incoming purchases of GameStop shares, only allowing sale of the stock that was rapidly sold after. Multiple lawsuits are expected to come down on trading platforms that have halted GameStop’s meteoric rise.

As miraculous as this strategy is, WSB has truly taken the nature of ordinary investments to the next level. Manipulating a market has never looked so easy. For once, it seems as if the little guys may have won this one.