Jets land Dubois but ship out Laine in the process
Trading the better player was key to building a better team
The Winnipeg Jets made a blockbuster trade on the morning of Jan. 23 that sent superstar sniper Patrik Laine to the Columbus Blue Jackets along with Jack Roslovic. in exchange, the Jets received Pierre-Luc Dubois and 2022 third-round selection.
This trade saw the second and the third overall picks in the 2016 National Hockey League (NHL) draft get swapped for each other, and is one that almost every Jets fan either loved or hated.
In 306 NHL career games, Laine has put up a total of 250 points, while Dubois has put up 159 points in 239 games played.
Cont’d p. 15 / Sports >
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Upcoming UMSU elections to make use of slate system despite abolition in works (Jan. 20, 2021)
The article said Brendan Scott, UMSU vice-president finance and operations, presides over the governance committee. According to the UMSU governance and operations manual, the VP finance and operations is a non-voting member of the committee, and not the chairperson.
Student nurse ‘almost gave up’ on helping with vaccination efforts due to disorganized hiring process (Jan. 27, 2021)
The article said Shared Health is leading vaccination efforts; these efforts are being undertaken by the provincial government in Manitoba.
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UMSU board meeting update
Governance changes, Black students’ rep timelines presented
NEWS Colton McKillop, staff
The University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) has released a detailed timeline for changes to the governance board structure.
At the beginning of the fall term, UMSU set a “rather ambitious” goal to abolish the current slate election system that the union currently uses, according to UMSU president Jelynn Dela Cruz. However, it was announced last month that the upcoming election will be conducted under the slate system.
Dela Cruz said the slate system will continue to be used because the motion to abolish slates was still pending legal approval and approval from other autonomous bodies.
The timeline for these changes depends on the speed of the legal work to include the new changes to the union’s bylaws to incorporate the new board structure.
The changes to the governance structure include the abolition of the slate system in student elections, which would force candidates to run
independently rather than as a “slate” of candidates representing the same platform.
Dela Cruz remained optimistic despite the delays in implementing the new proposed electoral system.
“While there are setbacks of not having had this decision in accordance with the original timeline, I do think that it does provide a benefit for many student associations and organizations to best prepare for these changes and inform their students on how to best get involved, depending on what [their] level of involvement and directive in the student leadership realm.”
There is no set timeline for the implementation of these structural changes to allow for “extra discussion time or any extra deliberation,” but the latest that the changes will be presented will be at UMSU’s final board meeting on April 29.
In addition to the new board restructuring, the UMSU Black students’ representative position will not be filled until the fall term.
Including a Black students’ representative has been a part of the existing plan within UMSU’s board changes over the year. The position is not up for election this February, but will be open for by-election come fall along with any other unfulfilled positions.
— with files from Cam Cannon
Shared Health offers apology to ‘frustrated’ applicants
NEWS Cam Cannon, staff
Shared Health has offered an apology to “anyone who may have felt frustrated during the application and onboarding process,” in an email statement to the Manitoban Jan. 30.
The statement comes following the Manitoban’s publication of a story in which a student nurse shared their experiences with the hiring process to work as a vaccinator and observer in a vaccine clinic as part of the province’s ongoing vaccine rollout. As of Jan. 30, 137 student nurses had been hired for the immunization program.
news@themanitoban.com
Student Counselling Centre sees drop in use despite increase in mental health pressures
Despite a University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) members survey in October 2020 indicating that 57 per cent of members had experienced declines in terms of mental well-being due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Student Counselling Centre (SCC) revealed that the centre has recently seen a decrease in students accessing mental health services compared to past years.
UMSU president Jelynn Dela Cruz explained that while more groupbased mental health services offered at the U of M have seen an “exponential increase” in use, some of SCC’s more individual services have seen a decline.
That decline is “mainly because there is […] this need for in-person connection for individuals being able to identify and relate to other professionals in that field that isn’t necessarily as mimicked by the online format,” according to Dela Cruz.
“Many students who at least I’ve spoken to are reaching out to avenues that are a little bit closer to home, maybe a little bit more convenient and personalized,” she added.
Eileen McDonald, women’s program manager with Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba (MDAM), said she was “shocked” to hear about
the decline in usage at SCC.
McDonald said that despite moving entirely to online and over-the-phone delivery of services, MDAM programs had seen an increase in demand.
The increase in demand is most noticeable when it comes to phone calls and one-on-one services, such as MDAM’s friendly caller program and one-on-one peer support.
Budgetary needs
After some lobbying by UMSU in spring 2020, the SCC received $300,000 in funding from the U of M.
In a recent meeting between UMSU and the SCC, there was discussion about how the additional funding secured for the SCC by UMSU last spring has been used.
“What [the SCC] was able to tell us was that the additional funding was put forward toward triage intake staff as well as an additional counsellor and, because of this, they were able to stabilize their operations,” she said. “However, they are hoping to see that the university will match that contribution to provide some stability for the office in the next upcoming year.”
“For the years that I’ve been on UMSU so far, we have continually adjusted and adapted to the situations that
surround us and the circumstances that face and challenge the student body, and this year is not void of that,” she said.
She added that this year, comparatively, UMSU has had to adapt and provide additional resources to students to “support them where they most need it at this present moment.”
Noting the upcoming UMSU general election, Dela Cruz said, “I think that it really is up to the student body to make mental health an election issue and to really question the candidates in the upcoming election about what they hope to see and what direction they hope to take the union with regards to mental health and supporting student wellness.”
— with files from Cam Cannon
Among the concerns raised were that the onboarding process happened in a strange order — being asked to sign up for shifts without knowing what position they had been hired for and did not know if they were qualified for yet — and that a package of onboarding documents containing sensitive information was emailed to the wrong person.
Other concerns included difficulty finding out information necessary to move forward in the process and constantly getting redirected to other people to answer their questions.
Shared Health explained in the email statement that the David Aplin Group — a staffing and recruitment company — has been hired to assist in recruitment for COVID-19 immunization clinics. This includes conducting interviews, posting job listings, conducting background checks as well as keeping applicants informed of where they are in terms of the hiring process.
According to the statement, applicants may have been contacted by the David Aplin Group regarding the hiring process — the firm used already existing distribution lists — but the email was intended for those applicants who had not yet completed the hiring process.
“The David Aplin Group has been brought on board to support the recruitment of people from outside the health system, [for example] dentists, veterinarians […] as well as individuals who don’t currently hold an [employed full-time] position within Shared Health,” the statement read.
In total, the provincial recruitment and redeployment team has “completed the hiring of over 1,000 employees for roles associated with COVID-19 immunization.”
news@themanitoban.com
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photo / Basel Abdelaziz / staff
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It was a busy day at the Forks this weekend due to mild temperatures. The Forks was more crowded than usual Saturday due to the temperature drop down and the opening of some shops.
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U of M hosts talk with inventor of handheld cellphone
Former Winnipegger discusses past and future of mobile phones
RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY
Kunal Rajpal, staff
On Jan. 29, the University of Manitoba’s faculty of science hosted a talk with Martin Cooper, an inventor and entrepreneur who led the team at Motorola that created the first cellular phone in 1973.
The advent of the mobile phone as a revolutionary device may have begun on the streets of Winnipeg as six-yearold Cooper dreamed of becoming an engineer. Cooper said he spent his “most formative days” in the city.
“Winnipeg is a wonderful city,” he said.
“If you could only get rid of winter, it would be just perfect!”
The story of the cellphone starts with a conflict between two companies, Bell and Motorola, who had very different visions for the handheld telephone.
“Historically, the Bell system had created a system that connected one place to another place,” Cooper said.
“Our interpretation of where the world was going was that it was a person-to-person conversation that was appropriate, and so we took them on.”
Bell, which Cooper regarded as the “largest company in the world by every measure,” had a monopoly in the U.S. and Canada, whereas Motorola was a relatively small company.
The conflict, in hindsight, looks like a classic David versus Goliath story.
Cooper said that Bell was “not very optimistic about how pervasive this system would be.”
“Their anticipation was that ultimately, there might be a million cellphones in the world, and their definition of a cellphone was a car phone […] We at Motorola disagreed with them. Our view of the car phone was that it was archaic. What people want is the ability, the freedom, to be able to communicate anywhere and at any time.”
However, creating a proof of concept was easier said than done.
“I decided that the only way we were going to persuade people of our position was to really demonstrate that the way to go in the future was with a personal handheld telephone,” said Cooper.
Cooper showed the model of the first handheld cellphone, which is considerably bigger than modern phones.
“We were never really sure that this thing was going to work for more than a few minutes at a time,” he said.
“This phone could only do two things: talk and listen. [It] didn’t have any other capabilities and had a battery life of perhaps 25 minutes or so. It weighed about a kilo — about
two-and-a-half-pounds.
“That was not a problem, the battery life […] because you couldn’t hold this heavy thing up for more than 25 minutes.”
In 1983, 10 years after the initial demonstration, the first commercial phones were introduced. Most were car telephones, but Washington, D.C. had a system similar to the original model.
Cooper spoke about how far technology has come since those early days, discussing both the increased function cellphones now have and their ubiquity around the world.
“There are more cellphones in the world than there are people,” he said.
Cooper said the areas that have benefited the most from cellphone devices are not developed countries such as Canada and the U.S. but rather places like Africa, India and Mexico, which are emerging nations.
“In Africa, as an example, just the ability to be able to save money, to transfer money from one place to another, the commerce that the cellphone engendered lifted over a billion people out of severe poverty,” he said.
He predicts we have witnessed just a small fraction of the ultimate effect on humanity of the mobile phone and that the best is yet to come.
“We are assuming that one device, a device that does all things for all people, can serve all of the different kinds of people in the world. That’s just not it — that just doesn’t make sense.”
Cooper said he thinks the future of what we currently know as a cellphone will look and function very differently but occupy a similar role in our lives.
“The phone of the future [...] is a device that contains an artificial intelligence that analyzes us, that looks at our behaviour and either develops the apps or finds an app that is suitable to solve our problems,” Cooper said.
“The cellphone will not be a single device […] it will be a device that is distributed on our bodies to solve what our specific problems are.”
Cooper even offered his own guess at what such a device might look like.
“Ultimately, I think the phone is going to be a chip embedded under your skin, possibly close to your ear,” he said.
“In the interim, maybe it’ll be an earring or a button on your ear.”
graphic / Jenelle McCann / staff
The downsides of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax
Indigenous populations disproportionately affected by potential regressive tax
RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY
Sarah Doran, staff
Government involvement in community health is a contentious issue, not least because different health issues affect different parts of the population at varying rates. Initiatives that may seem effective in theory often come up against practical difficulties.
The faculty of agriculture and food sciences held a seminar Jan. 27 to discuss the impact of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax on Indigenous populations. Faculty dean Martin Scanlon hosted the seminar, with U of M assistant professor Natalie Riediger and Athabasca University assistant professor and lawyer Myra Tait as panellists.
In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a brochure supporting taxing sugar-sweetened beverages as a method of reducing obesity and non-communicable diseases like diabetes. These taxes have already been implemented in communities and countries around the world, including Mexico, the United Kingdom, South Africa and India.
Despite endorsements from national health organizations, Canada does not yet have a sugar-sweetened beverage tax.
This kind of tax is regressive, which means lower-income populations must pay a higher proportion of their total income. Critics of the tax have pointed out that since lower-income populations, Indigenous peoples and those in food deserts all report a higher level of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, the tax disproportionately affects these groups rather than society as a whole.
Riediger, an assistant professor in both the department of food and human nutritional sciences and the Rady college of medicine’s department of community health sciences, is currently leading a study collecting data on Indigenous attitudes toward a potential tax. The study also examines the availability of various types of beverages in different contexts, including rural, urban and reserve communities.
“Nobody has asked low-income people what they think,” Riediger said.
“With the aspect of self-determination and sovereignty, nobody has asked. It’s been proposed, and health organizations have gone to the federal government. It was on the agenda — many provincial political parties have put it on their agenda, and yet nobody asked.”
A member of the Berens River First Nation in northern Manitoba, Tait is a practicing lawyer who has done work on federal taxation of Indigenous populations. She is also currently an assistant professor of governance,
/ Alexander Decebal-Cuza / staff
law and management at the online Athabasca University, with a teaching emphasis on sovereignty and Indigenous justice.
“When it comes down to it, how do we deal with these very serious problems of diabetes, of lack of water, of food deserts, and whether it’s in the middle of Winnipeg or in a northern community in Manitoba, how do we deal with those issues without penalizing the very people who are suffering from them?” Tait said.
“For the average person who spends $100 a week on groceries, if part of that is a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, you’ll pay that tax whether you make a hundred dollars a week as a salary or whether you make a hundred thousand dollars a week. You’re still paying the same amount.”
Riediger pointed out the issue a sugar-sweetened beverage tax is supposed to fix is an example of a situation where a single health concern is intricately linked with others.
“There’s growing research showing that the adverse impacts of food insecurity are greater in terms of
mental health, infectious disease, injury in addition to non-communicable disease,” she said.
“We can’t just think about non-communicable diseases, or not consider food insecurity and the impacts that might happen with raising the price of a food disproportionately consumed by lower-income people.”
She also said the WHO’s claim that educating people on health risks in addition to taxation would help drive down obesity and diabetes rates is incorrect.
“In the research we’ve done so far, everybody is aware of the health outcomes of drinking sugar-sweetened beverages,” Riediger said.
“It’s not, to me, a matter of education, that people are largely unaware. I don’t think we’ve interviewed one person who was unaware.”
Tait spoke about the prejudice, unconscious or otherwise, with which lawmakers often perceive Indigenous populations and the ways those stereotypes reflect in legislation.
“Those people actually have some ideas about what’s best for themselves, and I point no further than what I call expressions of self-determination that First Nations are taking even today in closing their communities off to traffic in and out of their reserves,” Tait said.
“I don’t know if they actually have jurisdiction to make those choices, but they’re doing it because they know that that is how they’re going to keep [COVID-19] under control in their own communities.
“Now, if they can manage a pandemic, I’m going to suggest to you they can manage pop consumption.”
photo
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Cuts to the enhanced operating grants in Manitoba daycares signal an escalating crisis facing low-income parents
EDITORIAL
As an ex-daycare worker, I have seen firsthand how hard early childhood educators (ECE) in the public sector work to keep their facilities afloat with the abysmal grants they receive. From getting creative with the way they budget to holding several fundraisers a year to pay for costly maintenance fees, public daycares are struggling to make ends meet in Manitoba, and so are parents.
With the onslaught of the pandemic-induced recession, the Progressive Conservative-led (PC) provincial government has doubled down on austerity measures, leaving the most vulnerable populations of Manitoba to immiseration. The most recent cuts to the enhanced operating grant in daycares should be of grave concern to low-income parents with children in early childhood education. Further, it could possibly signal first steps down a long road to privatization.
On Jan. 18, provincial officials announced that the enhanced operating grant, which serviced public daycares and provided low-income parents the option to send their kids to these facilities for $5 a day — amounting to $4,180 per daycare space annually — will be slashed to make room for a universal grant that will range from $1,045 to $2,090 per space annually, depending on attendance records.
The province hopes the reduced subsidies will create an equitable solution to extremely diverse and expensive child-care rates. However, daycare workers and ECEs have expressed some concerns. Cutting the grant will disperse needed subsidies for low-income parents across the daycare income spectrum. Laura Burla, the director of St. James Montessori School, noted this will likely inflate prices for recipients of the subsidies by roughly 108 per cent.
Parents who were paying approximately $5 a day for child care may have to make room in their budget for a daily maximum of $10.40. Although $10.40 a day seems like a small cost, keep in mind many families in Manitoba are living under the living wage line which sits at approximately $16.15 an hour. In juxtaposition to this, minimum wage workers make roughly $11.90 per hour — a glaring discrepancy that provides a small glimpse into the struggles of making ends meet in a province with a horrendous poverty reduction strategy.
Contrary to what the provincial government has claimed, these cuts and redistributions of funding will no doubt contribute to a less equitable child-care system. The PC administration has been interested in dismantling the public daycare system since its early years in power. In the late months of 2017, the PCs made clear the intent to focus on reducing “red tape” and introducing “new
incentives for private investments in child-care spaces.” In other words, the province holds the privatization and deregulation of the daycare sector as a priority in its agenda rather than spending more to improve desperate public facilities. More concerning then is whether the government’s unwillingness to spend more on the deteriorating daycare system will lead to full-blown privatization efforts.
Privatization seems extremely likely considering some of the subsidiary policies the PCs have adopted over the years. The PC government embraced the portable child care benefit in 2019 — a demand-side subsidy program that provides funding directly into the hands of families who qualify. Although appearing to be a generous welfare policy, these subsidies can be extremely damaging to public facilities.
The intentions behind the subsidies are to provide parents “more choice”
as to which daycare spaces they can select. However, due to long waitlists, many parents often take daycare spaces upon their availability, whether they are private or not. Hence, these subsidies are highly wasteful and informally subsidize the private sector while leaving public facilities out to dry.
Escalating privatization would be devastating to Manitoban families who require affordable child care. Unfortunately, private daycares set their own fees, whereas public daycares are held to a capped pricing system that varies depending on the levels of funding each facility receives. Should demand for daycare spaces rise, parents will either be left out in the cold or will be forced to pay the exorbitant rates that private facilities charge. In these cases, a demand-side subsidy is next to useless.
The PCs are tilting the competitive edge toward the private child-care
sector. With the recent cuts to public facilities’ enhanced operating grant, low-income families could struggle to find a space they can afford. The most effective, equitable and cheapest way to create daycare spaces — while simultaneously making it cheaper for parents — is through direct investments in public facilities themselves.
These neglectful cuts serve as commentary to a dangerously parsimonious government that seems to value cost-reduction and privatization efforts over the welfare of low-income parents and their children.
graphic / Jenelle McCann / staff
words / Lucas Edmond / staff
Instagram Contest Runs: January 25 - February 5, 2021
• Traditional Frosty Snowman
• Most Creative/Original Snowman
To enter our contest, send us your photo submission, student #, full
& contact info incase you win by February 2, 2021 @ 4 PM! umsumarketing1@gmail.com
• Funniest Snowman UMSU
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Systemic racism in Canadian health care is hurting Indigenous people and it must be addressed
Leaders from Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, a non-profit political advocacy organization, and its northern branch, Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin, met with government officials and health-care partners last week in a two-day conference to address anti-Indigenous racism in the Canadian health-care system. This was the second meeting after an emergency conference was called following the death of Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, who died in a Quebec hospital in September.
Echaquan live-streamed her nurses as they hurled insults and said Echaquan was “better off dead” while she was suffering from a heart condition. In the video, Echaquan noted her worry that she had been over-medicated and given morphine — a drug she asserted she was allergic to. She died after she ended the video. This inhumane act underlines the colonial violence that continues to affect Indigenous populations in Canada.
A collection of Indigenous surveys published by the College of Family Physicians of Canada indicate that from 39 to as much as 78 per cent of Indigenous populations have experienced racism from health providers.
One horrifying example of health-care discrimination in Winnipeg occurred in 2008 when Brian Sinclair died of a bladder infection in the Health Sciences Centre waiting room after 34 hours of inattention.
Hospital staff said they assumed he was homeless or intoxicated and determined Sinclair was not in need of medical help despite seeing him in clear pain.
This endangering and racist stereotype that all Indigenous people abuse alcohol stems from intergenerational trauma caused by Canada’s ongoing legacy of settler violence and cultural genocide.
A common misconception that Indigenous people are genetically intolerant to alcohol, despite there being zero scientific evidence, is often used to stereotype this demographic and it has real-world consequences.
In fact, trends of alcohol-related diseases and injuries are found in most populations — including white Canadians — who experience disadvantages and intergenerational trauma.
Because anti-Indigenous erasure and racism was built into the structure of systems including health care, the treatment that Indigenous populations receive in Manitoba is racist by design.
In order to retrain unconscious biases against Indigenous communities — a step necessary to fix the health-care
system — research centred around the voices of Indigenous people is essential.
Researchers from the University of Manitoba worked in collaboration with First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba and eight First Nation communities to understand what barriers First Nation communities face in health-care systems and devised what types of program delivery are most effective from the perspective of the First Nations.
The study was based on interviews and group discussions and the team found many alarming trends in Manitoba’s health-care system. Trends of disrepair, devaluing First Nation health and wellness, poor quality of service due to racist sentiments and a lack of consideration for First Nations was revealed.
People who have to travel for hours from Northern Manitoba to Winnipeg often find themselves with a sense of culture shock when they arrive in a city that is unfamiliar to them.
Preference for English and biomedicine in Manitoban health care
also makes it difficult for travelling Indigenous people seeking health care. Some community elders don’t speak English which creates extensive barriers because hospitals do not offer resources in Indigenous languages.
It is clear that anti-Indigenous racism exists in the Canadian health-care system to varying degrees. In a nation that advertises its universal coverage on medically necessary services based on need, it’s deplorable that Indigenous people have to constantly prepare to fight for their basic human right to health care.
The Trudeau government has been making promises to forge a new relationship with Indigenous peoples in Canada since 2015. Whether or not meaningful reform has materialized is debatable at best, but one thing rings true — Indigenous peoples are still not receiving the same quality of care as white Canadians.
If the provincial and federal governments care about the basic human right to quality health care, they must listen to Indigenous groups and their grievances.
A focus on traditional medicine and the transfer of power back to Indigenous peoples is necessary to create a holistic and inclusive healthcare system that does not neglect the needs and cultural history of any Canadian citizens.
Canadians must start conversing about systemic racism. Education on the history and traditions of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit is a crucial step in bringing about a shift in racist biases.
It’s time to finally find concrete ways to bring about real change and deliver thoughtful and, most importantly, safe health care to Indigenous communities, no matter what hospital they enter.
graphic / Jenelle McCann / staff
COMMENT
Grace Gyolai, staff
MANI
Canada will not fight for the Keystone XL pipeline despite pressure from Alberta
COMMENT
Liam R. Forrester, staff
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney made a bad bet and it looks like the house is about to clean him out. On his first day in office, U.S. President Joe Biden signed 15 executive orders and two additional orders. Among them was a revocation of the 2019 permit for the Keystone XL (KXL) oil pipeline. President Biden cited a desire to show leadership in the fight against climate change when cancelling the permit.
Canadians should have seen this coming. The cancellation was a Biden campaign promise advertised months in advance, and the KXL pipeline spent years in political limbo.
The KXL permit had to be issued twice by former president Donald Trump due to a federal court order in 2018. The 2018 order halted construction out of a need for further environmental review.
Earlier in November 2015, former president Barack Obama denied KXL’s application. This was not an easy decision, as it involved almost six years of back-and-forth between various courts, the U.S senate and the state department. All the while, environmental and Indigenous activist groups on both sides of the border had been fighting tooth and nail to keep KXL from being constructed.
All this is to say that KXL was anything but a safe bet for Albertans, and it has been that way for years. Kenney dropped $1.5 billion in taxpayer money as an upfront payment with another $6 billion in loan guarantees on a wildly unstable project.
Even more concerning is that, had the pipeline gone forward, the returns would likely not have been as spectacular as many hoped.
Oil and gas mining has accounted for roughly 16 per cent of Alberta’s gross domestic product since 2016. It is the single largest sector of Alberta’s economy, with real estate trailing at
around 11 per cent in that same period.
The purpose of the KXL pipeline was to get Albertan oil to refineries lining the Texas coast for less than the cost of rail transport, thereby making the whole endeavour more profitable.
Separated from context, the pipeline seems almost reasonable on that basis. But, upon looking at the product KXL is trying to move, things get dicey again. Alberta largely mines oil from the oil sands, the world’s third-largest proven oil reserve. Unfortunately, the crude oil extracted from the oil sands are notorious for a thick, sludgy texture and low quality relative to other types of oil on the market.
As a result, Alberta oil is sold at a discounted rate. Considering the messy extraction process and its high cost, profit margins are quite narrow.
The whole purpose of the pipeline should have been to lower the cost oil while increasing how much moved into market. However, Saudi Arabia and Russia had already exposed weaknesses in the Canadian oil market by flooding it with better quality oil for extremely cheap prices. In March of 2020, the expiration of an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries production agreement prompted negotiations for a new contract. But, Russia declined support for the new production plan causing a 10 per cent drop in prices. Saudi Arabia piled on by dramatically cutting prices to secure their market share.
As a result of this price war, Alberta oil nearly veered into the negatives. As an analysis by the Narwhal revealed, during this pricing crisis, a barrel of Albertan oil was cheaper than a bottle of maple syrup.
Albertans are out several billions of dollars, thousands of workers have been laid off, Alberta oil must fight a hostile market and as of Jan. 20 the Biden administration pulled support for the KXL pipeline.
graphic / Dallin Chicoine / staff
So, what courses of action should the Canadian government take? It is a tough say, but it would be wise to ignore Kenney, who has spent the past week advocating for retaliatory sanctions between Canada and the U.S. — a bold move from a man who likely just lost his constituents several billion dollars.
These sanctions should not be considered a serious threat. They are an attempt to project strength from an untenable position. And Kenney desperately needs that win. At the end of December 2020, he held the coveted last place spot on a Leger article, a market research company, that ranked premiers’ performance. Beyond this, his political opposition is out-fundraising him.
With public opinion already in the toilet, it seems his best course of action will be to attempt to pin the pipeline debacle on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resigned acceptance of Biden’s decision, a position that will likely play well to conservatives.
Still, not even that strategy can be guaranteed. Trudeau could very well leverage the pipeline’s cancellation to better negotiate an exemption
to the Biden administration’s “Buy American” provision. Without an exemption, Canadian manufacturing would find itself with significant barriers to its most important market.
Kenney is already using the present political moment to stoke separatist sentiments. In response to the federal government’s decision not to pursue KXL, Kenney said “that will only force [Alberta] to go further in our fight for a fair deal in the federation.” It is important to note that in April 2020, Kenney had to beg the federal government for $20 to $30 billion to survive the previously mentioned oil price war.
Regardless of the outcome, Albertans need to think critically about the stability of their largest industry and their leader’s decision-making abilities.
comment@themanitoban.com
TOB AN the MANI
Maclean’s ‘Power List’ pushes narratives that are damaging to social justice movements
COMMENT
Lucas Edmond, staff
“Few moments have challenged our understanding of power as profoundly as the one we’re in,” reads the opening sentence of Maclean’s recent “Power List.” Of course, the magazine was referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. Maclean’s then goes on to explain that in a year of extreme social dislocation, which bore witness to several justice movements, that there are 50 individuals who represent power in a time of so-called “transformative change” and are apparently antithetical to the “status quo.”
It’s extremely ironic, then, that the very first individual ranked on the “Power List” is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — the very person responsible for maintaining the loosely defined “status quo.” Later in the list, leader of the federal opposition party Erin O’Toole is mentioned alongside Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford. If these names do not represent status quo power, I’m not really sure who does.
However, all of this is to say Maclean’s has completely dropped the ball with this article. Not that Maclean’s listed the “wrong” people per se, but that it thought listing 50 people was an appropriate way to display power and change.
No, not only 50 people have determined the direction of history through this perilous crisis. It would be absolutely absurd to think so. Yet, this article has been received by the public with little criticism, which leads me to an important question: do people really believe this stuff?
Of course, the individuals mentioned in the article ran to Twitter and thumbed their thanks to Maclean’s, stroking their egos while trying to appear obliged. But it was also filled with congratulatory messages from everyday Twitter-goers.
All this article serves is the so-called “great man” narrative of history — the idea that throughout history there comes along a hero to save humanity from peril, build an empire or is responsible for social uprising and change. Although romantic, these narratives are simply untrue, and they can be damaging to the collective’s sense of agency in a broader structural context.
Defeated and cynical tones pervade social justice discourse. Where there is a hopeful, there are at least three hopeless. It is as if a universal realism dominates peoples’ imagination until a “chosen one” comes along to say, “game on.” But historically, most successful movements start leaderless and are fractured. Movements are led by principle and guarded by those who believe in it.
For example, social justice organizations like 2020’s Black Lives Matter rallies didn’t have a centralized figure, nor did the #MeToo movement and neither did 2008’s Occupy movement.
/ Dallin Chicoine / staff
They were all compelled by shared values and concerns, not leaders.
Demands from an overwhelming number of individuals naturally hold more significance than a single voice. Don’t thank the “powerful” for leading discussions and pushing for change. If we relied on them nothing would get done.
In fact, thanking the powerful for change in many ways is a direct contradiction of the way social change permeates. For example, thanking British parliamentary members for democracy in Britain would be horribly ahistorical. Democratic reform in Britain relied on demands from the people. Take the Peterloo Massacre for example. After a crowd of reformist protesters gathered on St. Peter’s Fields demanding a change in the distribution of power, the British cavalry were ordered to charge the crowds. In other words, the democratic reform within the British
parliamentary system was thanks to protesters like these, who faced the tyranny of conservatory power and demanded change.
Parallels to this can be seen in modern contexts, too. Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s response to police brutality following the BLM rallies. Biden went on record and said that officers should shoot “in the leg” as opposed to shooting individuals dead, sparking concerns about how informed he really was about issues of police brutality and racial injustice.
The point is, power and change rely on people, not so-called leaders.
Maclean’s “Power List” does a disservice to the people who live, breathe and bleed for social change. Armchair politicians who sit back and watch as people struggle to make a difference are not the locus of change, they are often the barriers to it. Maclean’s made this crucial mistake when publishing
its “Power List,” and in the process it pushed a narrative that further inhibits the rally for social justice and change.
graphic
TOB AN the MANI
In conversation with Canadian author Annette Lapointe
ARTS & CULTURE
Shaylyn Maharaj-Poliah,
From the COVID-19 pandemic and murder hornets to important civil rights protests and one of the most nail-biting elections in American history, 2020 was certainly a roller-coaster ride of emotions.
Now that we are beginning a new year, it’s essential to find time to calm our frayed nerves, take a breath and focus on what lies ahead. So many people are hurting from the strife of last year — emotionally, physically and spiritually — both individually and as a society, so healing becomes a critical process but it can also be very difficult and very messy.
The newest novel from Alberta-based author Annette Lapointe engenders this dichotomy. Released on one of the final days of 2020, And This is the Cure is Lapointe’s third novel in her body of work. She has also published You Are Not Needed Now, a collection of short stories, as well as two novels, Whitetail Shooting Gallery and Stolen, which was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2006. She is a graduate of the University of Manitoba, having completed her PhD in contemporary literature in 2010.
And This is the Cure is told from the perspective of Allison Winter, a pop-culture radio host who finds herself re-navigating parenthood, overcoming a troubled past and confronting a conservative Christian family, all in the wake of her ex-husband’s murder.
The inspiration for a novel like this struck at the strangest of times — the original idea occurred to Lapointe
’Toban
staff
while she was listening to Tori Amos and making homemade vegetarian pizza.
“I was feeling quite pleased with myself, but I suddenly thought, ‘A child would have nothing but contempt for me. They’d know I’m not cool,’” she said. “I don’t have children, but the scorn of an […] 11-year-old really staggered me, and I began to play with a scenario in which a child that age might express her complete disdain for adult cool.”
This imaginary child eventually developed into the character of Allison’s daughter, Hanna, “and the story [was] built around her.”
Unlike Lapointe’s other novels — which were set in Saskatchewan — most of And This is the Cure uniquely takes place in Winnipeg with some glimpses of Toronto, Ont. thrown in.
“This really did become my Winnipeg novel,” said Lapointe. “I had to live in Winnipeg for a long time before I could write about it, and then leave the city for work and miss it extravagantly.
“Winnipeg was an essential setting, too, because of its music scene and its constant state of creativity. Toronto functions as a foil to Winnipeg: bigger, glossier, more mainstream, more the centre of the cultural world — at least for Canada.”
When asked about the prevailing theme of healing in And This is the Cure, she said, “healing is a constant process, I think, in being alive. The world causes damage to the people in it, even if that damage isn’t caused
cornertable
Annette Lapointe — ‘And This is the Cure’
Annette Lapointe is intimately familiar with the Canadian Prairies. Born into rural life, Lapointe has spent her time since then travelling away from and returning to one or another of the Prairie provinces. She has lived, worked and studied in a variety of other places — from Quebec City, Que. and Winnipeg, Man. to Seoul, South Korea — and is currently settled in Grande Prairie, Alta. where she teaches at the Grande Prairie Regional College.
Lapointe’s history of travel and return to the Prairies is mirrored in the main character of her latest work, And This is the Cure. However, where Lapointe has an affinity for the rolling fields and island-esque cities of Central Canada, the novel’s main character most decidedly does not.
And This is the Cure follows public radio broadcast journalist Allison Winter as she returns to Winnipeg to claim custody of her daughter, Hanna, following the untimely deaths
intentionally or malevolently […] healing becomes a matter of survival — we either heal or we die, and that second option isn’t a very appealing one.”
Though healing and redemption play a large role in this dark story, Lapointe would also like readers to come away from the novel with the humble understanding that “confidence is an illusion.”
“We never really know what we’re doing, we just make it up as we go along,” Lapointe said. “This can be part of a career, or being someone’s adult child, or being in love, or being a parent or otherwise negotiating with the world.”
And we, individually and as a society, have been negotiating with the world for a while — going on nigh one year.
Lapointe said that the quarantine hasn’t sparked much new work, but it has allowed her to revisit old or unfinished work “and take them out for new attempts.” When she is not doing that, though, she goes “about the business of being alive” — teaching English at Grande Prairie Regional College, walking her dog, reading, cooking and sewing.
When asked about her next publication plans, Lapointe shared some good news: “I learned that my short story ‘Starveling’ will appear in Prairie Fire magazine this April, so I’m excited about that.”
Finally, to the next generation of writers, Lapointe encourages persistence and commitment to the craft.
“Many young writers become frustrated because they don’t ‘get good’
right away,” she said. “Becoming a writer is about pushing through the period when your abilities don’t match your aspirations and continuing to create, because you will get it sooner or later, as long as you don’t give up.
“And […] make sure that your taste, your sense of what good writing is, is maintained — read a lot, and read work by good authors.”
And Lapointe would know — she speaks from experience. Consistent writing from a young age and years spent consuming Margaret Atwood, Larry McMurtry, Miriam Toews and William Gibson have helped her pave the way to becoming one of those good authors as well.
Annette Lapointe’s third novel, And This is the Cure, is available for purchase from Amazon or through your local McNally Robinson Booksellers, Indigo or Chapters.
arts@themanitoban.com
of her ex-husband and his wife. She finds herself grossly unprepared to confront not only her grieving former in-laws, but her past as a semi-famous frontwoman of a riot grrrl band and her conservative Christian heritage. As her former bandmates introduce the possibility of a reunion, Allison is confronted with a disastrous event that forces her to navigate her relationships with her estranged mother and her own troubled past.
Told in flashes between the past and the present, the first-person narrative of the novel reads like a reluctant love letter to the city of Winnipeg and the Prairies within which it resides.
As you pore over this novel, you are drawn into Allison’s world through the staggering detail and raw observational accuracy of Lapointe’s writing. As she is reintroduced to her preteen daughter, Allison seems to reconcile, though resignedly, with the innocence that she once clawed her way out of and shed like a snakeskin.
There is a bare-faced honesty to the way that Lapointe portrays Allison’s personal and familial history of mental illness. From a childhood in which she did not have the support she needed to remain stable to a nocturnal existence in the grungy world of feminist punk rock, Allison is portrayed as torn between embracing the responsibility of the various roles she has played in her life and her all-consuming desire to be unencumbered. All Allison wants is to be free — of roots, of expectations and of the changing times.
This is not a simple or straightforward novel. The complex narrative set forth in And This is the Cure does not make for a light and fluffy book that you can pick up and put down without a thought. This is a gritty and gripping look into the life of a remarkably real woman.
In sharing Allison’s story, Lapointe addresses the perils of a too-sheltered existence alongside those of a life of overwhelming overexposure, almost in parallel. Through Allison, we learn that our past does not have to set
the precedent for our future or even for our present. Like our punk-rock protagonist, we all have a far greater capacity to learn, grow and love than we know.
image /
Annette Lapointe / provided
image / Anvil Press / provided
TOB AN the MANI
Celebrating a Canadian classic
ARTS & CULTURE
Zoë LeBrun, staff
From Feb. 1 to 7, Winnipeggers can participate in La Poutine Week to enjoy our city’s delicious assortment of poutines and support Winnipeg’s culinary community. The Manitoban spoke to Daniel Gurevich, La Poutine Week’s Winnipeg ambassador, about this year’s festival, its history and its goals.
Nine years ago, Daniel and his sisters brought another popular Canadawide food festival known as Le Burger Week to Winnipeg. After seeing Le Burger Week’s success in the city, he and his sister Arielle Gurevich decided to launch La Poutine Week as well and have organized the event ever since.
For those unfamiliar with La Poutine Week’s operations, the week-long festival is a chance for restaurants nationwide to show off their poutine creations, which customers have the opportunity to vote on through La Poutine Week’s website to determine the best poutine in their respective cities — in 2020, Winnipeg’s winner was the Guinness Tenderloin Poutine from Fionn MacCool’s Crossroads.
Gurevich explained that in addition to voting on the best poutine in the Winnipeg market, La Poutine Week also employs anonymous judges to
vote on an array of poutines across the city regarding specific categories such as “most creative poutine,” which customers can seek out.
When asked about why he feels poutine is such a great food to highlight in food festivals, Gurevich said he believes that the level of creativity and diversity that can be found among poutine dishes is part of why it’s so well-loved.
“Poutine is something that everybody does and everybody can enjoy, and we like that everybody can put their spin on it […] it does definitely reflect the diversity in our culinary scene.”
“It’s one of those things that people rally around,” he said, “and it’s found on so many different menus […] I think it really is just a very common food and something that you find all over the place.”
Gurevich stated that, in the broadest sense, the main goal of Winnipeg’s La Poutine Week is to bring culinary communities together and support the city’s restaurants and related food industries as a whole, something it has done remarkably well in the past.
“Some restaurants look forward to [Le
Burger Week] or [La Poutine Week] all year because they know they’ll see some of the busiest days of their entire year throughout the festival,” Gurevich said. “I’ve had plenty of restaurants tell me that […] they thought they’d prepped enough for the week and then ran out in a day […] We see great engagement from the city, and I think that Winnipeggers, in general, just do a wonderful job of supporting this type of event.”
“It’s a friendly competition,” he said. “The goal is to get people out and eating and enjoying local food and local flavours and […] just gathering around food and finding connections and commonalities through food […] there’s something out there for everybody.”
However, this year’s La Poutine Week looks a little different, seeing as customers cannot actually eat in restaurants due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival will continue completely via takeout and has partnered with SkipTheDishes to aid in facilitating this change.
Despite some of the logistical challenges that have come with organizing La Poutine Week during a pandemic, over 700 restaurants are participating in La Poutine Week nationwide —with over 100 restaurants in Winnipeg alone — all of which makes Gurevich feel
optimistic about community engagement for the upcoming festival.
“We also want to make sure that people are being mindful of what’s going on […] we want to make sure that they’re remaining safe,” said Gurevich.
“We’re just really happy that restaurants can hopefully see some value and have some fun throughout what’s going on right now. We do it for the restaurants and we hope that everyone is able to enjoy themselves.”
You can find all the details on La Poutine Week, including a comprehensive list of 2021’s participating restaurants and last year’s winners, at lapoutineweek.com.
arts@themanitoban.com
Musical chemistry found in a most unexpected place
The internet was supposed to make our lives better. The reality of that naive dream is a little more complicated and a whole lot scarier, as it turns out the information superhighway might just lead to a dead end. Still, sometimes the universe chooses kindness, and the web makes good on its promise of connection and possibility. As Julien’s Daughter frontperson Emma Murphy tells it, it was the catalyst for one of Winnipeg’s most exciting new bands.
“I was just leaving high school a few years ago and I was wanting to make a band,” Murphy said. “I had switched high schools for Grade 12, so I didn’t really know anybody and I didn’t know anyone else in the scene […] so, I started making these Kijiji ads to try and connect with other musicians in Winnipeg.”
Murphy joined our Zoom call from her bedroom, while guitarist Ian Tata called in during a work lunch break, his breath visible from his parked car. Murphy continued, describing the search for the rest of Julien’s Daughter as a kind of cross-platform scavenger hunt: “I connected with [multi-instrumentalist Chelliot Osuntade] on this website called BandMix,” she said. “It’s almost like a dating app for musicians — but it’s not for dating, it’s just for connecting with other people.
Then […] we found everyone else.”
“Everyone else” being Tata and drummer Cody Kennerd, who finally rounded out the quartet after a few false starts. “The band [has gone] through multiple lineups — probably five or six other people have been kind of in and out of the band, and then we finally landed on [Tata and Kennerd].”
For four complete strangers, Murphy and Tata describe a near-immediate musical chemistry — an effortless convergence of styles and ideas that lends their debut EP, The Static That Carries Over, a sense of swagger and confidence.
“We could build a song in an hour — it was crazy how we can bounce stuff off each other,” she said.
According to Tata and Murphy, the surging “Kitty Oxford” was hashed out in 20 minutes, while Osuntade penned the EP’s opener, “Coffee,” which was finished by Osuntade and Murphy in a single evening.
“Every song has kind of been built a different way,” said 19-year-old Tata. With the pandemic halting spontaneous basement writing sessions, the band has had to adapt to writing remotely. “However we can write at the moment is how we do it,” he said.
Recording a first EP in the middle of a global crisis is no small feat, complicating an already nerve-wracking experience. “I’m pretty sure that was everyone’s first experience [recording in a studio],” said Tata. “It was super fun — everyone was super easy to work with. But since we were doing a whole EP in a weekend, there was a lot of rushing and running around.”
Due to a tight budget — “we were broke,” said Tata — the band chose to record the bulk of the EP at Collector Studio rather than label HQ, House of Wonders. Murphy and Tata say they’re proud of what they made, though the sessions weren’t without hurdles.
“It would have been nice to not have to sit in a small room with a mask on in the summer — we were super angry and mad and on edge at times,” Murphy said. She describes the vocal takes as particularly anxiety-inducing, a world away from the freedom
of the practice space and the stage. “I was having these meltdowns,” she said, laughing. “Ian was falling asleep while I was doing my vocal tracks and I was [feeling] like ‘You guys don’t support me! You guys weren’t listening to me!’”
All the heat and pandemic blues paid off, as The Static That Carries Over is that rare debut that wears its disparate influences proudly — the muscularity of a Josh Homme riff for Tata or the glittering bombast of Metric’s Fantasies for Murphy — while still sounding effortlessly individual. It’s likely only a taste of what’s to come, and the world of Julien’s Daughter feels full of endless possibility. As Murphy said, “This is just our first EP, you know?”
photo / Julien’s
Daughter / provided
ARTS & CULTURE
Kaelen Bell, staff
TOB AN the MANI
SPORTS Isaiah Wagner, staff
So, what exactly makes this a better trade for Winnipeg, and what did the Jets gain?
The Jets got an elite two-way centreman in Dubois, who not only uses his defensive play but also his big body.
The six-foot-three Canadian-born player uses his big body to create pressure in the offensive zone and shelter opposing players in the defensive zone.
Dubois played the majority of his junior career for the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles where he put up great numbers.
He was then drafted by Columbus number three overall in the 2016 draft.
In this trade, Columbus got the better player, but Winnipeg ended up with the better overall team.
Dubois has two more years left on his $5 million a year contract and is hopefully going to re-sign with Winnipeg and remain a Jet for many future years.
A player of his calibre is going to be a force to play against, especially since he will be behind another star player, Mark Scheifele.
Scheifele and Dubois as Winnipeg’s top-two centres will be a problem for
opposing teams when they decide to line match.
A team will not be able to decide which line they want to play against who.
Despite being traded on Jan. 23, Dubois will not be able to make his Jets debut until Feb. 9 against the Calgary Flames.
This is all due to the fact that any player who is travelling from the U.S. into Canada must quarantine for a total of 14 days before he can see any game-time action.
It will be interesting to see how Jets head coach Paul Maurice will handle this whole situation. Will Dubois play a lot of minutes right out of the gate or will he be eased into game play due to his quarantine?
Only time will tell where he will be slotted, but this is what I believe the lines will look like come Feb. 9.
Winnipeg’s top two lines should include Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor on the first line. Dubois, Paul Stastny and Nikolaj Ehlers make up the second unit.
This makes Winnipeg’s
top-six forward group one of the best in the league.
Many Winnipeg fans will be sad to see Laine go, but many who have followed his career over recent years will likely have much in the way of gratitude and hope for a successful future for him.
The Finnish sniper had a great career in Winnipeg but was unfortunately cut short. Some of his most memorable moments include his five-goal game and his hat trick overtime winner against Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Laine will always be remembered in Winnipeg for his goal scoring, but other parts of his game are no slouch. He was finally starting to transform his game into a
As of Jan. 31, the Jets have a record of five wins and three losses. This puts the team at fourth place in the Scotia North division.
The Jets will look to make up some ground in the division as they face Calgary in the next three games.
graphic / Jenelle McCann / staff
words / Isaiah Wagner / staff
sports@themanitoban.com
TOB AN the MANI
Manitoba Junior Hockey faces unique challenges
On Jan. 14, the Winnipeg Jets played the Calgary Flames at Bell MTS Place. Not only was this game significant because it was the season opener for the Jets and Flames, but also because it was the first game of hockey played in Manitoba in over two months.
After code red restrictions shut down all rinks in the province, already shortened hockey seasons were postponed indefinitely. Until those restrictions are lifted by the province, hockey will not be played in the Keystone province. However, there has been a glimmer of hope.
The Western Hockey League (WHL) has announced a 24-game schedule for teams to play once it is safe. For the National Hockey League (NHL) draft eligible players, this is critical to not only their stock in the draft, but also their future development.
One player who has chosen to cross the border is Winnipeg Ice forward Matt Savoie.
A top prospect for the 2022 NHL Draft, Savoie recently suited up for the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League. While Savoie is expected to return to the Ice once WHL camps begin, it is likely that some prospects choose to stay down south.
Another league that has had players head south to play hockey has been the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL).
Like other hockey leagues in the province, the Junior A circuit has been on pause since code red restrictions were implemented.
While the WHL is regarded as the top developmental league in Canada, Junior A hockey is a reputable option for hockey players aged 16 to 20.
Junior A offers players the opportunity to play in front of college scouts, in the hopes of landing scholarships. If
the player chooses, they can attempt to land pro contracts after college.
Nick Trudel, a 20-year-old defenceman for the Winnipeg Freeze is in this position. In his last year of eligibility, the loss of a season might mean the end of his junior hockey career.
For Trudel, the postponement of the season is not only a challenge for himself, but his team as a whole.
“It’s difficult to tell how the game will change in the coming years, but if the pandemic proceeds into next season I believe players will have a difficult time creating new social connections with their teammates which may translate to how teams compete on the ice,” Trudel said.
Trudel knows that in order to have success when the MJHL returns, he must focus on what he can control in the present and not fret over the future.
“I’ll just have to take advantage of this time away from the game to focus on what is within my control such as school or my conditioning,” Trudel said. “As for the future, only time will tell, and I’ll try to make the best of my opportunities.”
Josh Bond, a 2001-born goaltender for the St. Boniface Riels of the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League (MMJHL) is in a similar situation.
An agribusiness student at the University of Manitoba, Bond has taken the time off from playing hockey to focus on his studies. However, he would rather be strapping on the pads.
“My academics have benefited because I have more time to study, but I’d still rather be playing hockey while going to school,” Bond said.
While the WHL and MJHL are primarily developmental leagues for athletes that hope to play pro and college hockey, the MMJHL is set up primarily for hockey players to have the opportunity to go to school or work and still play competitive hockey at home.
However, there are many very talented players in the league, with many moving on to play higher levels of hockey later in their careers.
While these leagues offer players different opportunities, they all face a similar challenge. The loss of ticket sales may cripple many teams financially, with some possibly not
surviving much longer.
This directly affects players like Bond.
“Junior hockey careers are only so long, and I lost about a quarter of my junior career so far,” Bond said.
“I’m worried about arenas and teams ceasing to exist because of financial difficulties.”
Players like Bond and Trudel know that in order to find success in junior hockey you need to make the most of every opportunity. Careers are short and often tumultuous. Roster spots can be taken away at any moment.
For players, it is important to focus on what they can control. Hard work in the present will translate to success in the future. Once restrictions are lifted, the product of that hard work will be on full display.
