28 June 2023

U of M tuition to increase for 2023-24 academic year

Sarah Cohen, staff

Fleur Almeida came to Canada for her post-secondary education in order to have more opportunities career-wise and a better quality of life. Now, Almeida is having to worry about the potential weight of student loans to compensate for the increasing international fees she and her family are facing.

This upcoming year, the U of M will see an increase in tuition by 2.75 per cent for undergraduate and graduate programs, for both domestic students and international students like Almeida, now in her second year of a bachelor of science.

“I just hope that [increasing tuition] doesn’t continue,” she said.

“There are a lot of international students who come here, and everybody comes from different financial backgrounds, and we’re already paying so much more […] if this goes on, it’s going to be really difficult to afford education.”

“Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody needs to be able to have access to education.”

The 2.75 per cent increase in tuition fees this fall is creating concern for undergraduate and graduate students alike.

The increase was approved at the March 28 board of governor’s meeting, where U of M president Michael Benarroch outlined the proposed 2023-24 budget for the university.

All domestic and international

undergraduate and graduate programs will undergo an increase in tuition, except for the undergraduate doctor of pharmacy program. The increase will also extend to all university fees.

Vice-provost (academic planning and programs) Greg Smith noted that “recent inflationary pressures [have] meant that some costs have shot up very quickly.”

According to Smith, that means that as the costs of running a university go up, such as faculty salaries, maintenance and equipment, so does tuition.

The percentage increase is mandated by the provincial government, Smith explained.

Minister of Advanced Education and Training in the Manitoba legislature Sarah Guillemard was not available for an interview.

Jon Lovlin, spokesperson for the minister, said in a statement to the Manitoban that while the province sets the maximum, each college and university is allowed to adjust their tuition how they see fit as long as they do not exceed that maximum. The maximum for the 2023-24 academic year is 2.75 per cent for universities and $133 per program for colleges.

At the University of Manitoba, the increase will result in a cost of $444.75 for the average three credit-hour course in the faculty of arts. During the 2022-23 academic year,

the domestic tuition for that course was $432.84.

An international student in the same course will be paying approximately $1,700, where they would have been paying $1,654.44 in the academic year prior.

Smith said the 2.75 per cent increase is below the inflation rate, and that the need to reach that maximum increase for additional revenue was clear.

University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association president Christopher Yendt and UMSU president Tracy Karuhogo both brought up concerns for students amidst the rising cost of living.

Inside the U of M’s Village Lab

Elah Ajene, staff

Gigii-bapiimin is an Ojibwe language term meaning, “we survived.”

It is an expression that reflects the resilience and strength of Indigenous people.

The Gigii-Bapiimin study, launched by the Village Lab — U of M’s faculty of social work community-based interdisciplinary health research lab — applies this concept to the continued survival of Indigenous people through past and present pandemics.

In this study, the research lab explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of Indigenous

people living with HIV-AIDS in Manitoba and Saskatchewan communities, as well as the resilience of those living in said communities.

Community is at the centre of the Village Lab. For its director, Rusty Souleymanov, this entails collaborating with community members

“While the university exists in its own little context sometimes, we can’t forget the fact that cost of food has gone up, cost of rent and living as gone up […] and yet we still struggle within the campus environment to meet those needs and those challenges for grad students,” said Yendt.

Yendt also emphasized that graduate students are both employees and students, putting them in a situation where the university is asking for more from students when really the students “need more from the university.”

Cont’d p. 4 / Undergraduate >

and using community-based research practices while operating at an intersection of health and social sciences.

“It’s all about peers, it’s all about community, and that’s where the power lies with our lab,” he said.

Souleymanov, who received his PhD at the University of Toronto, is currently an associate professor at the U of M’s faculty of social work and director of the Village Lab, and has been actively engaged as a community-based HIV and harm-reduction researcher in Canada over the past 13 years.

Souleymanov seamlessly blends his expertise in social

work, public health and psychology in working with socially and economically marginalized communities to address both health and social equity issues.

Since its launch in 2021, the Village Lab has focused on three main aspects — creating meaningful research partnerships, producing novel research and building skills and increasing capacity among community partners and peers through training community members and students.

Cont’d p. 5 / Group >

photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

photo / provided

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Micro-diplomas to focus on German lifestyle, mythology

Arts programs seek to expand learning options for students

Kyra Campbell, staff

F or those interested in taking a diverse array of courses within the faculty of arts, but who do not have the available time commitment, the departments of classics and German and Slavic studies are promoting new micro-diplomas for the upcoming academic year, where students can delve into the worlds of German lifestyle and mythology and folktale.

This spring, the department of German and Slavic studies held its first offering of the micro-diploma introduction to German language, life and culture. The program took place from May to June and was quite successful, explained Lars Richter, instructor and curriculum representative for the department of German and Slavic studies.

“You can speak German like a native speaker, but if you do not know what is going on in Germany and know nothing about the politics or the history, then this only goes so far,” Richter said.

Those who have an interest in travelling abroad will have the opportunity to take the diploma as a travel course in Germany from May to June of 2024, where the students will become immersed in contemporary German lifestyle. The three courses taught throughout will be an introductory German 1 and 2 along with the course discovering German life and culture.

Richter further emphasized that the German diploma is about both language and culture, as students will have the opportunity to meet with those within the German community. In the first instalment of the program, students met with president of the German-Canadian congress and students from the University of Winnipeg completing research on German immigration to Canada.

In the fall 2023 semester, students will have their first opportunity to undertake the mythology and folktale micro-diploma through the classics department. Within the diploma, students have a

cross course opportunity to take classes from the departments of religion, classics, Icelandic and German and Slavic.

For students to earn the mythology and folktale diploma, they must take on 12 credits of designated courses from the involved programs. Some of the 10 courses that students could take to achieve their diploma include: Icelandic folktales in a European context, Greek and Roman mythology and Ukrainian myths, rites and rituals.

The idea for the micro-diploma sparked as a way to weave together several departments across the faculty of arts that have mythology or folktale classes. As classics department head and graduate student chair James Chlup has observed, students are very interested in taking them, with 500 students enrolling in the introductory Greek and Roman mythology course each year.

“A significant minority of them, up to about a third, take at least one other mythology or folktale course somewhere

Expansions expected for multiple health sciences programs

Steep increase in applications leads to need for changes

Kyra Campbell, staff

To meet post-pandemic admission demands within the faculty of health sciences, the university is looking to expand numerous programs including undergraduate medical education, doctor of pharmacy and master of physician assistant studies.

Due to a sizable increase in applications post-pandemic, acceptance rates to the bachelor of health sciences program dropped from 20 per cent in 2019 to 9.4 per cent in 2022.

The largest increase proposed will occur within the bachelor of health sciences (B.H.Sc.) program, which will see an increase from 40 students to 100 students annually.

The proposal to the provincial government for admission expansion outlined that students find interest in the B.H.Sc. program due to its core focus on human health in a holistic manner and its focus on health and wellness within cultural contexts.

To convince the government of the necessity for expansion, the proposal also outlined that the healthcare system is ever-changing and continues to face increased stress due to the gaps highlighted by the

COVID-19 pandemic. To counter such gaps, U of M health-care programs, including the B.H.Sc. program, can complement and support burdened health-care efforts.

Separate to the program expansion, an Indigenous admission category will be implemented in preparation for fall 2024. The new category would hold 17.5 per cent of the spaces in each program for self-declared Indigenous students.

The faculty cited the need for the new category as the proportions of non-Indigenous to Indigenous students in the B.H.Sc. and bachelor of health studies programs are not representative of the Manitoba Indigenous population. The goal of the new category is to relieve application barriers that Indigenous students may face.

All program proposals are yet to go ahead, as funding negotiations must occur with the provincial government. If negotiations are successful, proposed expansions for all programs could occur by fall 2024. news@themanitoban.com

in the university,” said Chlup.

To further understand the decision behind the micro-diploma, Chlup has seen attitudes towards traditional ways of learning changing, with students finding more interest in creative aspects of study and being able to tell their own stories.

“Mythology really cuts to the heart of that, because mythology is about storytelling and understanding the interpersonal relationships that we create,” said Chlup.

Students will have the opportunity to analyze how myths are acquired through poetry, art, storytelling and music, and then learn how to question and challenge such myths.

Micro-diplomas can either complement a degree that a student is pursuing or they can be a stand-alone achievement. Micro-diplomas can also enhance students’ interests, as they may wish to expand one of the programs of study into a major or minor.

Professors Chlup and Richter both agreed that the

micro-diplomas are valuable additions of knowledge for after graduation. The micro-diplomas are a “further credential certificate that proves that they have this expertise in a certain field,” Richter said.

“What a lot of students find is they are attending university and they are going towards a certain degree because they think it is going to lead to a certain profession,” said Chlup. “But they also have genuine interests in other things, and a micro-diploma is really nice because it is fairly small and compact.”

Chlup added that these diplomas are something you could easily fit into your electives, and they provide the chance to follow something in more detail that you find interest in.

“You want to be interesting,” he said.

news@themanitoban.com

College of nursing expands to meet provincial demands

More opportunities for aspiring nursing students

Sarah Cohen, staff

In order to meet the province’s demand for nurses, the college of nursing at the U of M is expanding, welcoming a third intake of nursing students.

Earlier program changes have allowed nursing students to complete their studies in 28 months, expediting the previous four-year timeline. This is possible because the program has expanded into three terms per year — fall, winter and summer. The class of 120 starting in summer 2023 is the first semester of the expanded intake.

In a December 2021 press release, the province addressed the need for a strong future workforce of nurses. The conversations around the expansion of nursing programs across the province began around December of 2022, only allowing for approval and implementation to reach the U of M within the last few months.

The provincial government and hospitals decide when nurses are not in as high a demand, a situation in which the increases may be discontinued.

With 120 seats to fill per cohort, and three or four applicants per seat, the addition of another 120-person

cohort allows more opportunities for students to enter into the program.

One major post-COVID-19 concern for the college of nursing deals with the degree program’s mandatory theory courses. While students enrolled in the program during the pandemic attended in-person clinicals and simulations, with the return to in-person learning, theory classes are seeing a lower engagement and attendance rate.

During the 28-month program, academic and mental health support is available for students, as well as accommodations for time off.

news@themanitoban.com

Report set to protect Indigenous identity on campus

Nine recommendations aim to combat Indigenous identity fraud

Kyra Campbell, staff

Indigenous identity is a personal journey for all who experience it. However, such identities can face exploitation through acts of fraud. Fraudulent identifications are a reality facing growing attention. In 2021, for example, one University of Saskatchewan professor was found to have falsely claimed Métis ancestry.

Following a CBC investigation that found Carrie Bourassa had falsified her identity, the university lauched a portal that required Indigenous faculty, staff and students to verify their identity when applying for a position or award specifically meant for an Indigenous person.

Currently, the U of M has a self-identification structure for Indigenous students. As UMSU Indigenous students’ representative Ishkode Catcheway explains, the current system can lead to room for identity fraud.

“The current way to self-declare, for students anyways, on Aurora [is] just literally clicking a checkbox that says ‘Yeah, I’m Indigenous,’” Catcheway said.

To work toward addressing this issue of fraud, the university held dialogue sessions throughout 2022 to produce a report and recommendations toward an Indigenous identity policy.

The consultations were headed by Métis, Inuit and First Nations community leaders, who met with multiple interest groups to construct main themes to guide the potential policy.

In March, the Indigenous identity report was completed, encompassing nine core recommendations for students to validate their identity, and to report cases of fraud.

The top priority highlighted by the consultations was the need to avoid increasing barriers for Indigenous people in validating their Indigeneity.

Within the report, a tiered system outlines how students and faculty can confirm their Indigeneity.

The first tier outlines presenting identification issued by provincial, federal and Indigenous governments. The second tier involves genealogies and identity circles within a community. The third tier calls for a signed declaration that confirms connection to a

specific Indigenous community.

For those who may not be able to present their identity through the three tiers and to honour Indigenous tradition, there is also the possibility for oral testimonials and additional assistance for application processes if needed.

Catcheway and University of Manitoba Indigenous Students’ Association co-president Sheri Shorting are optimistic for the eventual policy based on the new recommendations, but worry about the barriers and strain that could occur for those reconnecting with Indigenous roots and those who are non-status.

“The umbrella under Indigenous is so complex, especially having to carry a card that declares what we are,” said Catcheway.

Continuing equity, diversity and inclusion at the U of M

New working group struck at June 8 UMSU meeting

Sarah Cohen, staff Equity, diversity and inclusion

(EDI) continues to be a priority for the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU). At the last board meeting, the union passed a motion to strike an EDI working group for the 2023-24 academic year.

Motion 0569, brought to table during the June 8 meeting, designates a group “to serve as a safe space for members of designated UMSU communities to discuss the subject of equity, diversity and inclusion.” improving EDI in UMSU president Tracy Karuhogo and the rest of the executive team described the need to “prioritize the level of engagement, success and opportunity available to marginalized members of the university community” within the language of the motion.

The group’s voting body will be composed of the UMSU Indigenous representative, women’s representative, 2SLGBTQIA+ representative, Black student representative, international student representative, accessibility representative, racialized representative and three

self-identifying students belonging to a marginalized community selected through an application process.

The working group will be tasked with bringing concerns regarding EDI on campus and within student groups to the university in order to make suggestions on how to address these issues in the future.

Motion 0569 passed without opposition and the group has been struck for the year.

This EDI working group is not the first of its kind. In years past, striking the group has been moved by the executive committee. The group was also struck during the 2020-2021 year, with similar goals.

“Then, we have these people who are taking up space in places that they are not necessarily belonging to because they are not Indigenous — so that is why we need this.”

After reading the report, Catcheway found the recommendations to be great steps but worries about their prioritization. In both Catcheway and Shorting’s eyes, Recommendation 9 should instead be top of mind and shape the future policy. Recommendation 9 states that “The policy must be transparent and should clearly state the process for verification of identity as well as a process for review of complaints of Indigenous identity fraud.”

Both are also concerned about the awareness and promotion of the consultations

leading up to the report, as neither were aware of the plans for such a policy until the recommendations were released. However, they are hopeful that the plans result in a successful policy, since students and staff will be the ones greatest affected.

“You can write about it but to see the action from that, is going to be pretty interesting to see how this will roll out,” said Shorting.

The report outlines next steps for the report and proposed policy. Within three months after the report has been received, the U of M president and executive will create a group whose responsibility will be to outline the timeline and steps intended to implement the recommendations and address any additional supports deemed necessary.

As outlined in the report, next steps of implementation are occurring as UM Indigenous Identity Policy and Procedures Committee meetings are in progress, and the policy is under development

news@themanitoban.com

Undergraduate, graduate students concerned about rising tuition

< Cont’d from front page

Yendt continued, saying that, in return, graduate students “would like to see things that are a little bit more conscious” like the price of parking or food on campus, aspects that make university life a “powerful and challenging piece for students.”

“I think we’re losing sight of the fact that every hour a graduate student has to work, or a student for that matter, has to work off campus in another field or job that is not related to their field of study, is an hour lost of capacity and potential.”

Karuhogo raised the question, “How are students going to afford this increment with the way inflation is going and things being so expensive?”

She noted that UMSU is happy that tuition was not increased by a higher percentage as students may struggle to pay tuition already in

the scheme of managing other life expenses.

“The education we’re giving students has to be accessible and […] UMSU has to always advocate for [it to be] accessible and affordable ”

Smith said tuition at the U of M is low among other schools in Canada’s U15 division. He acknowledged that the pandemic is still affecting students’ lives economically, and reported that the university has allotted an additional $2 million in student financial aid for this upcoming year.

Yendt and Karuhogo are both anticipating conversations with the university to address the challenges impacting both undergraduate and graduate students.

news@themanitoban.com

news@themanitoban.com

“Everybody deserves a chance, everybody needs to be able to have access to education”

— Fleur Almeida, second year faculty of science student

& Technology

Project to examine period poverty across U of M campuses

Aims to raise awareness, promote menstrual equity

Elah Ajene, staff

Periods are a fact of life.

They are a basic human biological function for nearly half the world’s population.

However, many individuals face challenges in accessing basic necessities to manage menstruation due to financial or other constraints. This is known as period poverty.

U of M assistant professor in the faculty of social work Lindsay Larios emphasized the growing interest in overcoming these challenges, both within the U of M community and at the government level, and highlighted the need to approach it as an issue of equity.

“We’ve identified this as a really crucial moment to assess what the available resources are,” she said, “and consider kind of a wider justice-based model for thinking about how we distribute menstruation products and how this might be affecting students, but also other com-

munity members.”

Through a menstrual justice lens, various social structures like socioeconomic status, gender identity, cultural identity and race shape responses to menstruation, and inequities can increase period poverty for different marginalized groups.

“It’s something we want everyone to have equal access to,” Larios said.

“This is a basic human bodily need that roughly half the population has to deal with,” she continued.

“Given the challenges that we’ve heard about and we’ve seen in the research around how lack of access to menstrual products affect people, we really feel like this is an issue of equity and equality and needs a justice-type response.”

Larios’s work has always focused on reproductive policies and justice.

After UMSU, in collaboration with the U of M vice-provost (students), announced

its pilot project aimed toward combating period poverty back in February, Larios grew interested in the different challenges U of M students faced.

In a one-year project funded by the U of M’s Strategic Initiatives Support Fund, Larios, alongside director of the Centre for Human Rights Research Adele Perry and assistant professor in labour studies Julia Smith, is part of a team that seeks to address the accessibility of menstrual products across the U of M’s Fort Garry campus, Bannatyne campus and William Norrie Centre by identifying barriers and advocating for equitable solutions.

“We are hoping that, in our workshops and our panels that we’re able to organize, we’ll be able to bring in some community folks to kind of share their experiences as well,” Larios said.

To kick-start the project, Larios explained that a comprehensive audit will be con-

ducted across the various campuses. Alongside a team of students, the project team will physically inspect washrooms to assess both the availability and accessibility of menstrual supplies.

Larios noted that this audit, which considers factors such as the presence of supplies, their accessibility and whether they are functional, will shed light on the current state of menstrual supply access for the U of M community and beyond.

Additionally, the project will involve conducting a literature review on menstrual justice in Canada. This review will explore existing policies that facilitate access to menstrual products and identify the barriers faced by students.

Documenting these gaps in menstrual supply access on campus could help different faculties at the U of M in promoting period equity.

“There’s still kind of a lack of awareness of where to get these products,” Larios said.

“They’re not available in every building, knowing what centres to get them at, those kinds of things.”

Larios hopes the project will raise awareness and promote a more holistic approach to addressing menstrual equity. Various events, including public discussions, student-focused workshops and arts-based activities, are going to be organized to encourage participation, allow for the sharing of experiences and combat the stigma associated with menstruation.

As the project progresses, Larios believes it will shine a spotlight on the importance of menstrual equity and spur action toward achieving a more just and inclusive campus, where individuals of all genders have equal access to menstrual products and support.

research@themanitoban.com

Group empowers marginalized communities through community-based research

< Cont’d from front page

Teamwork is also a vital part of the Village Lab.

The team includes an Indigenous Elder — who guides the research to ensure cultural safety and relevance — undergraduate and graduate research assistants, co-ordinators, community members and multiple guiding circles representing diverse communities.

“We always listen to the voices on the ground and we always listen to the voices from the community,” Souleymanov said.

By actively involving participants and researchers in shaping the research process, the lab works toward truth and reconciliation. This allows for accessible data relevant to communities, made available through community reports, infographics, workshops and training opportunities.

The Gigii-Bapiimin study is just one of several impactful projects the Village Lab has undertaken since its establishment.

The first project they undertook, the Migration and Health Study, focused on understanding systemic barriers to health-care access faced by new migrants and refu-

gees in Manitoba — shedding light on issues like racism and insensitivity in health care.

Another project, the Manitoba Two-Spirit, Gay, Bisexual and Queer Men’s Health Study, examined healthcare access for sexual and gender-minority men, with a specific emphasis on HIV services.

The Village Lab has also worked with Black, African

and Caribbean communities through its Ubuntu-Pamoja Study to improve HIV testing accessibility and safety.

And then there’s the HIV Doula Project. This is centred on Indigenous doulas — individuals who assist new mothers and provide support during birth work.

“We’re training them to engage more in HIV prevention because there’s a lot of

vertical transmission from parents to children in terms of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections,” Souleymanov explained.

Community training does not stop there for the Village Lab.

Through its Investigaytors program, the lab offers an accessible and inclusive space for members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to engage

in health research, while learning valuable research skills.

This year, the program focused on mental health and incorporated creative participatory research methods like poetry, photovoice, photography and drag performance.

“We use arts-based methods to make sure we don’t lose on any voices from the community, to make sure research becomes accessible to communities,” Souleymanov said.

For Souleymanov, the work has only just begun at the Village Lab.

He expressed anticipation for continued energy and participation from the community, and continues to seek funding from the government and community organizations.

“We are making sure that our impact is even bigger in the community,” he said. “We want to make sure that we are really not just producing research knowledge, but also affect policy at the ground level.”

research@themanitoban.com

photo / provided

Going forward, golf must be stopped

From environmental effects to paywalls, golf is a drag

Jessie Krahn, staff

My parents tried to raise me to be a golfer. It didn’t work. There is no sport with which I have a greater enmity than golf.

The avid golfer reading this editorial will have paused midway through the last sentence, pensively stroking their moustache, to exclaim, “But why? Golf gets people outside!”

The incentive to leave the house is not particular to golf. I go outside to meet neighbourhood cats and talk to gardening retirees.

Furthermore, golf is expensive and time-consuming in a way that many other recreational sports are not. By comparison, a sport like soccer could theoretically be played in a dark alleyway with a tumbleweed made of crumpled receipts and a dream.

Golfers not only have the luxury of between two and five leisure hours to spend on the course. They also have the time and means to get to the course. Even the quickest bus routes to Crescent Drive — which is the nearest short course to the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus — involve a journey that is barely under half an hour with a transfer.

The steep cost of entry makes golf’s luxuriousness even more visible. Someone who doesn’t own clubs and sets aside a mere two to three hours to sneak in nine holes at Crescent Drive will be spending $24 to start. If they haven’t sunk $700 or more into owning a middling set of clubs, Crescent Drive charges $30 for club rentals along with an additional $5 for a pull cart if they just walk the course instead of lugging the clubs around. For the privilege of a motorized cart, players shell out a further $24 to rent one.

Enjoy that $78 three-hour outside time.

At this point, reader, you will pound your fist on a table, moustache quivering, and shout, “Some of us are willing to pay for sports!”

I object to the restriction of access to green space with fees, and I think endorsement of that system is obliquely applauding class divides. Like the golf course that was lauded for giving a face lift to what the New York Times dubbed a crime-ridden area of New Orleans, golf courses are often gentrifying tools. They are buffer zones between poor places and wealthier ones.

One of Winnipeg’s privately owned courses, St. Charles

Country Club, does not allow even the paying public to play on its course. Instead, patrons of St. Charles must either purchase a membership or be invited by someone who has one. The course boasts its exclusivity too. Its website advertises itself as hosting “20 per cent less” rounds than most private clubs.

The vein in your forehead just pulsated a bit, reader, and I know what you want to say next. Golf courses preserve green space in a time when corporate greed devours the natural world in perpetuity. Even though all people can’t afford to access them, that must be a net positive.

In truth, the construction of golf courses is an overwhelmingly bad thing for the planet.

As Kit Wheeler and John Nauright summarized in a 2006 paper, the construction of golf courses necessarily involves deforestation and changes to

topography and hydrology. That is, we terraform to make those immaculate greens, and we do so to the detriment of existing ecosystems.

That’s to say nothing of the toll the upkeep of courses has on the environment. The amount of chemicals required to keep those fairways and putting greens pristine is equivalent to an astounding seven times that of industrial agriculture.

To top that all off, 78 per cent of the world’s golf courses are concentrated in just 10 countries, all in the global north. Even better, almost 17,000 of the nearly 39,000 golf courses on the planet are concentrated in the United States alone. Canada is in third place with more than 2,600 courses.

In short, the global north is accelerating total planetary collapse because some people need a place to hack at balls.

From where I sit, the whole

point of preserving green space is so that everyone from current and future generations can enjoy it. That appeal fades when the space can only be accessed if you pay upwards of fifty bucks a day for the privilege of poking through ponds, looking for the ball you drove off the fairway on your third beer. The appeal explodes into dust when course upkeep is poisoning the land with chemicals.

This did not used to be the case. In 15th century Scotland — where modern golf originated — golf courses were just natural landscapes. People would try to hit pebbles over sand dunes.

Golf courses are glorified manicured lawns, except lawns are not constantly barraged by spherical nightmare pellets shot by polo-wearing accountants and alpha dads harrumphing about their

business sense. Now your moustache is bristling again, and I imagine you will say, “But what about those people who like to golf? What do you expect them to do?”

People used to flock to the Globe Theatre to watch bear baiting in London and tossing wine was once a celebrated sport in Ancient Greece. You can play golf until it doesn’t matter anymore, and Scottie Scheffler will likely be part of ancient memory before he has to learn VRChat foosball or competitive mall walking to earn a living. As for me, I’ll be hanging out with the gardeners and the cats.

editor@themanitoban.com

graphic / Teegan Gillich / staff

What are critics for, anyway?

Despising dissent is an act of anti-intellectualism

Jessie Krahn, staff

While gamers are, in my opinion, among the most morally malnourished subgroups in the world, patrolling the internet and being hateful to someone for having an opinion you disagree with is unfortunately universal behaviour in fandom.

This behaviour has recently come to prominence in the critical conversation surrounding The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK). Near unanimous praise from critics has not been sufficient for many avid fans of the game.

Released on the Nintendo Switch as a sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, TOTK is looming large as a major pop culture moment this summer. For perspective, the game surpassed 10 million copies sold in the first three days after launching in May. That commercial success is mirrored by its critical acclaim, as the game’s Metacritic score is resting at a crisp 96 out of 100.

A small minority of reviewers have scored the game less than perfectly, and the comments sections on these reviews online are filled with users writing angry responses that vary from accusations that the reviewer is incompetent to caustic personal attacks.

Slant Magazine’s review saw a wave of outraged comments after rating TOTK three out of five stars. In reaction to veteran games critic James Stephanie Sterling awarding the game a score of seven out of 10, commenters began writing outright transphobic slurs on their website.

Being a beloved pop culture artifact, like any of Taylor Swift’s albums, TOTK inevitably ended up at the centre of a pack of rabid stans that stabs at the jugular of anyone who approaches it. I think Taylor Swift’s songwriting is digital detritus mashed together with the sticky residue left by a marketing executive’s fingers, and I love Banana Yoshimoto’s books. Yet I won’t call anyone names for saying the former is good and the latter is bad.

If critics try to articulate a flaw in a work of art, no amount of positive feedback can quell the outrage they provoke so long as one dissenting voice exists.

Dissent does seem to be the problem. We have drifted into a collective state of mind wherein we interpret popularity as a sign a work of art is

flawless, and if someone disagrees, we react to them as we do to people who question fundamental properties of the universe. One commenter explicitly compared Slant’s review to a flat-earther argument, actually.

Many of the comments responding to Sterling argue that the dozens of perfect scores from other review outlets are evidence that Sterling is wrong. This is really troubling. If we accept that popularity and consensus are synonymous with perfection, quality or merit, we are essentially arguing that popularity is natural and that disagreement is unnatural.

Maybe equating popularity with quality feels intuitive, but what is popular changes all the time.

I was recently reading literary critic Northrop Frye’s book Anatomy of Criticism. I think he puts this point best when he writes “there is no real cor-

relation either way between the merits of art and its public reception.” Frye sees criticism as a way of making sense of the arbitrary relationship between public reception and a work of art. He sees criticism as a part of “cultural memory” in that way.

For Frye, it’s not that popular art has no merit. I think he

of hours on a project only for your own family to be too busy to engage with it. Imagine if people took the time they were spending cyberstalking contrary reviews of global pop culture smash hits to support an independent artist whose dad can’t remember the name of her YouTube channel.

I will now catastrophize and jump straight to talking about fascism.

people with different points of view.

Really the criticisms of reviewers who said negative things about TOTK are that those critics are not saying the exact same thing that everyone else already said. Why is that a bad thing?

means that having merit does not necessarily lead to popularity.

The other side of the conflation between popularity and quality is a sort of depressing idea that obscurity is deserved. Artists who toil thanklessly with small, slightly detached audiences for years to decades seem like they lack merit until they do break out under this way of thinking. After all, if they were good, they would be popular.

Truly, nothing is more humbling than spending hundreds

In 1937, the lead propagandist of the Nazi party, Joseph Goebbels, banned art criticism on the justification that it was a sign of “Jewish influence.”

I’m not arguing that being anti-criticism is in and of itself antisemitic or fascistic. However, the furious tone of some responses to negative criticism hints that many people do not understand why art criticism is important and do not care to. That incuriosity benefits a specific way of organizing society, one that does not allow for liberated

The point of critics of film, literature, painting, video games, music and theatre, among others, is they are specially trained to ask particular questions about works of art and come equipped with a specific knowledge background.

Critics draw out important details others fail to notice or don’t realize they ought to care about. At the very least, the advantage of critics, when they’re doing their jobs, is they disrupt the terrifying boredom of echo chambers.

comment@themanitoban.com

Near unanimous praise from critics has not been sufficient for many avid fans of the game

graphic / Teegan Gillich / staff

Why they tried to hide pride

Casting ignorance as safety ultimately harms children’s education

Jessie Krahn, staff

Despite Winnipeg’s Pride parade drawing record-breaking numbers this year, my reflection on the month is soured by how urgently necessary this support was, coming on the heels of a recent surge in homophobic and transphobic action in Manitoba.

Prairie Rose School Division also heard a call to ban 2SLGBTQIA+ content from its school libraries on June 19. Morden faced a corrosive wave of anti-2SLGBTQIA+ vandalism in early June. In May, one Brandon constituent proposed banning “transgender books” from Brandon School Division libraries, which was shot down.

What catches my ear in the cacophony of each successive round of these discussions about gay or trans literature is the refrain that knowing about 2SLGBTQIA+ people has an almost corrupting effect. The Brandon delegate compared 2SLGBTQIA+ content in books to grooming and pedophilia that was “robbing children of their innocence” in her appeal of the decision.

Critical theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argued in the ’90s that gay panic exacerbated emerging ideas that gay people could “project their own desires into”

straight people’s heads, as if merely knowing something infects you with the property of the thing you know. What followed fostered ignorance. That is, people fearmongering that breaking the public’s ignorance about gay people would make them gay made the public ignorant for real.

As transphobes’ inertia compels them to circle around the issue of banning books like vultures over carrion, it seems to me this conversation doesn’t just encourage ignorance in children. It reinforces children’s total subordination to their parents, even if their parents are stupefied by Google searches.

The consequence of that total subordination is that children’s rights are vague. Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Children in 1991, a treaty that lays out the rights of children. Article 3 of the treaty emphasizes that adults should have the best interests of children in mind when making decisions that could affect them. Meanwhile, Article 12 states that children’s views and opinions should be respected and taken into account.

These are nice sentiments. However, not only are there times when what adults think is best for children conflicts with a child’s opinions, as far

as I can see these articles do not materialize in ways that actually give children more control over their own lives.

Canada’s approach to children’s rights leaves much of children’s lives in the total control of their parents, with stipulations across provinces’ legislation and even across sectors like health-care and education as to when minors’ rights supersede their parents’ will.

Across Canada, the mature minor doctrine states parents’ entitlement to make decisions on their child’s behalf may be nullified when a minor is “sufficiently mature” to the point where they can give informed consent.

For example, in B.C., the Infants Act enables healthcare providers to administer care without parental consent if the health-care provider deems the minor understands the treatment and its outcomes. In Manitoba, trans minors are allowed to change their sex designation on their birth certificate if they are “able to appreciate” the nature of the treatment and its “consequences.” However, minors’ applications to change their name still must be filed by a legal guardian.

In general, kids are at the mercy of their parents. This puts trans kids in especially

difficult situations if their legal guardians believe the bare visibility of trans identities in books is equivalent to pedophilia. I think the sinister undercurrent to this conversation is that restricting children’s access to information is effectively a way of stripping them of autonomy in situations where their guardian cannot make an evidence-based judgment on their behalf.

These appeals to ban books are working to rob trans kids of the tools they would need to demonstrate they are “sufficiently mature” to make their own decisions and give informed consent.

Having access to information is what ensures minors’ choices override their parents’ custodial role over them. Where are minors supposed to get information if 2SLGBTQIA+ content is banned or censored in schools and their parents equate 2SLGBTQIA+ identities to innocence lost?

being.

In queer theorist Lee Edelman’s book No Future, he argues that the appeals to think of the children are actually calling for the politics of the present to be authenticated and solidified into the future. This tactic is a way to frame teaching kids as a political move and keeping them in the dark as not political.

Edelman also pointed out that demands to think of the children impose a limit on conversation. It seems that we can’t even have conversations about expanding children’s worlds based on what is already happening to them because someone is aflutter about what might happen to the children. Conveniently, what trans kids are already dealing with is allowed to just be normal while talking about how to make life better for them is political.

It’s important to understand the full ramifications of these appeals to ban books. Efforts like these ensure trans kids are even more at the mercy of capricious guardians. We need to treat that prospect seriously.

Genuine concern about children’s rights and safety should be paired with a productive objective, such as expanding children’s rights. What these appeals seem to do is recast knowledge about trans people and the rest of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community as political and ignorance as a neutral or apolitical state of comment@themanitoban.com

Puzzle by Syndicated Puzzles

12 5 3 9

SUDOKU

How to beat Str8ts –

20

SUDOKU

936 38 81 5729 6592 9415 17 74 163

Medium

Like Sudoku, no single number 1 to 9 can repeat in any row or column. But... rows and columns are divided by black squares into compartments Each compartment must form a straighta set of numbers with no gaps but it can be in any order, eg [7,6,9,8]. Clues in black cells remove that number as an option in that row and column, and are not part of any straight. Glance at the solution to see how ‘straights’ are formed.

45

4521 4321 35214 21 21 65 3

To complete Sudoku, fill the board by entering numbers 1 to 9 such that each row, column and box contains every number uniquely. For many strategies, hints and tips, visit www.sudokuwiki.org for Sudoku and www.str8ts.com for Str8ts.

If you like Str8ts and other puzzles, check out our books, iPhone/iPad Apps and much more on our 64532

How to beat Str8ts –

Like Sudoku, no single number 1 to 9 can repeat in any row or column. But... rows and columns are divided by black squares into compartments Each compartment must form a straighta set of numbers with no gaps but it can be in any order, eg [7,6,9,8]. Clues in black cells remove that number as an option in that row and column, and are not part of any straight. Glance at the solution to see how ‘straights’ are formed.

To complete Sudoku, fill the board by entering numbers 1 to 9 such that each row, column and 3x3 box contains every number uniquely.

For many strategies, hints and tips, visit www.sudokuwiki.org for Sudoku and www.str8ts.com for Str8ts.

Puzzle by Syndicated Puzzles

Vol. 110, No.1 graphics@themanitoban.com

xkcd.com Sudoku Solution Straights Solution

Diversions Trees Near You!

Indigenous Peoples Day at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

Art, languages from across the country featured at WAG-Qaumajuq

Damien Davis, staff

ollowing a personal tradition from the previous year, I made my way to the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG-Qaumajuq) to experience an afternoon of Indigenous artwork and programming for National Indigenous Peoples Day last Wednesday.

F

On June 9, WAG-Qaumajuq released new selfguided tours for those walking around the gallery, as well as a new way to tour virtually. The first tour using this new platform launched on National Indigenous Peoples Day. Available worldwide, the virtual tour features Indigenous languages from Manitoba, along with dialects from Inuit Nunangat — the Inuit homeland in Canada.

With this in mind, I was eager to participate in this year’s events. I was only able to attend the afternoon tours, but for individuals who prefer quieter forms of celebration, walking the galleries during the day is just as much fun as the evening events.

My first destination was the tour of Inuit Sanaugangit: Art Across Time, an exhibit that features nearly 400 works from across the Arctic, with some pieces dating as far back as 200 BCE. This gallery was magnificent to behold. When you enter, you are thrown into a world of historic and

contemporary art forms like sculpture, drawings, clothing, printmaking and film.

My favourite thing about this exhibit was how you could see each region’s different artistic styles and aesthetics. A piece in the Alaska region I found myself drawn to was “Small Floral Secrets” (2009) by Sonya Kelliher-Combs, from the town of Utqiagvik, Alaska. The piece is made up of several small pouchlike creations placed directly on the wall in rows of seven, made of found bedsheets, acrylic paint, glass beads, human hair, nylon thread and steel pins. Each “small floral secret” is unique. The meaning of this piece is up for interpretation, but something about it pulled me in, and I spent several minutes examining each row, smiling wider every time I looked at them.

It was during this moment of being absorbed in “Small Floral Secrets” that I realized I had lost my tour group. Resting for a moment on a small couch placed in the centre of a now-empty Inuit Sanaugangit, I took a moment to reflect on my feelings and scout out my now-solo journey to the next gallery, The Art of Faye

HeavyShield

Faye HeavyShield is a Blackfoot (Blood) woman from the Kainai territory. Curated by Felicia Gay and informed by the relationship between Gay and HeavyShield, this exhibition is described by the WAG-Qaumajuq as “built on the bones of memory and story.”

This was my favourite exhibit. There wasn’t a single piece I saw that didn’t move me, but there was one piece in particular that I absolutely loved.

“Aapaskaiyaawa (they are dancing)” (2002) is made with acrylic on canvas, along with

hanging from the ceiling. I realized while observing that each individual shape was meant to represent an ancestor. The individuals were made so that, with even the slightest breeze, they sway and move around, “dancing.”

To end my final gallery tour, I carefully walked the little path between the individual figures hanging from the ceiling. I couldn’t help but think about my own ancestors and my own family. As I finished my walk and turned around, the figures started to dance, their shadows dancing with them.

2023 shortlist: Billy Gauthier, Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, Kablusiak, Maureen Gruben and Ningiukulu Teevee.

beads and plastic filament. The piece reflects on time, kin, dancing as a form of celebration and the significance of honouring ancestors from an Indigenous worldview.

The last line of the work’s description panel reads, “one day we will pass through and enter the dance, watching our kin in time,” and it was this line that brought me to tears.

The installation contains several triangle-like shapes

After exiting the exhibit, there were several tables set up for folks to do a mixedmedia collage workshop inspired by HeavyShield’s work. The idea was to create a piece while thinking about your own community, family, friends and connection to land and environment. The collage I made was silly looking, but I’m proud of it.

Some of my favourite pieces in this exhibition were “Tiiturumaviit? (would you like a tea?)” (2023) and “Ningiuq (grandmother)” (2019) by Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona. “Tiiturumaviit?” is a digitally manipulated linocut print of six cups in three rows, all different colours and each the exact same design, with a tea bag string hanging out of them. “Ningiuq” is a digitally enlarged woodcut print with a collage of a grandmother sitting down and sewing on a background of several rows of sewing needles.

I thought these pieces were so sweet, I couldn’t help but linger and take them in. Everyone should take an opportunity to go to WAG-Qaumajuq and check out these exhibits. Admission is free for Indigenous visitors year round.

The WAG-Qaumajuq will feature Inuit Sanaugangit until Jan. 7, 2024, The Art of Faye HeavyShield is up until Aug. 27, 2023, and Anaanatta Unikkaangit is on until Nov. 12, 2023.

As I was wrapping up, collage in hand, I noticed the doors to Anaanatta Unikkaangit: Our Mother’s Stories It showcases the work of the five Inuit artists on the Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award arts@themanitoban.com

/ Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

“

One day we will pass through and enter the dance, watching our kin in time”

— “Aapaskaiyaawa (they are dancing)” (2002), Faye HeavyShield

’Toban Listens: Spirit Plate

Indigenous food sovereignty on the air

Damien Davis, staff

J une is National Indigenous History month, a time for recognizing and acknowledging the resiliency, diversity and rich history of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Last week Wednesday was National Indigenous Peoples Day, and within Winnipeg there were several powwows and celebrations for people to attend.

In the spirit of honouring National Indigenous History month, the first podcast recommendation from “’Toban Listens” looks at food, caring for the land and agriculture through an Indigenous lens.

Enter, Spirit Plate Spirit Plate is a podcast from Whetstone Radio Collective. Host Shiloh Maples — who is Turtle Clan, Anishinaabe and citizen of the Little River Band of Ottawa, as well as belonging to the Ojibwe People of Swan Creek and Black River — takes the listener on a journey.

The series focuses on Indigenous food sovereignty and its multi-layered complexities, with deep-dive

discussions on the history and politics involved. With Indigenous peoples at the forefront of telling their own history, Spirit Plate invites you to listen to accounts of different communities and their relationships to the land and to food.

Episodes feature interviews with seedkeepers, chefs, farmers and community members, and explore topics from developing new vocabularies for food systems to the horrors of the custom-altering Allotment and Assimilation era in the United States during the years surrounding the turn of the 20th century.

There are nine episodes in total and, while nine may not be many, each is around 40 minutes in length, which is perfect if you’re someone who loves a passionate podcast full of history and education.

The name Spirit Plate reminded me of dinners at my best friend’s home with her family. Often, I would watch her assemble a plate for her ancestors before any of us ate, placing the nicest pieces

of the meal on the plate and leaving it outside. This was something she learned from her parents, and something her parents learned from their parents. She is one of reasons I was inspired to talk about Spirit Plate here and recommend it.

Thinking back on this experience reminded me of the importance National Indigenous History Month has as a time to acknowledge the resilience of Indigenous peoples and the hardships they have faced.

It’s also important that these acts of recognition do not disappear from people’s minds come July 1. To act within the spirit of reconciliation, to participate in decolonization, these are things that should be recognized every month and every day.

Spirit Plate can be found on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

arts@themanitoban.com

day

Kiskithihta Mīthokwesowin kicks off for the summer

Art program for Indigenous youth debuts

Damien Davis, staff

Kiskithihta Mīthokwesowin: Discovering Our Gifts kicked off its opening celebration on National Indigenous Peoples Day last Wednesday with a pipe ceremony, medicine walk and a monoprint workshop open to the public. The event was held at the ARTlab on U of M’s Fort Garry campus.

Created by the School of Art Gallery, the program is designed to take place over the summer in partnership with various community organizations in order to support, inspire and teach the Indigenous artists of the future.

The program is the first of its kind and will be led by Indigenous art education co-ordinator Justin Bear and Indigenous intern for the School of Art Gallery Jory Thomas.

“We noticed that, one, there [aren’t] a lot of Indigenous artists coming in here to do work, or there’s barriers with kids, Indigenous youth, doing art,” Thomas explained.

“A lot of the time these kids think, ‘Oh, art is not something that could work for me,’ and, ‘I’m good at art, but it could never be a job,’ and I feel

like that’s just a stigma that’s been presented for a long time.”

The Indigenous artists lined up for Kiskithihta Mīthokwesowin come from a range of artistic and technical backgrounds. Some artists have master’s or bachelor’s degrees in fine arts, while some simply do art as a hobby.

“That’s kind of what the intent is, showing youth that this is what you can do and we want to see your gifts,” Thomas said. “The university appreciates it, and the world is better with more Indigen-

ous artists.”

The community organizations involved in Kiskithihta Mīthokwesowin are Action Therapy Youth Services, Ka Ni Kanichihk, Marymound and Rainbow Resource Centre.

In collaboration with these organizations, the program will offer a series of workshops designed for many different youths, including those within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and those with action therapists.

Each workshop is customized for each organization. The Marymound workshop

photo / School of Art / provided will be about video storytelling, and will utilize cellphones and cameras. Ka Ni Kanichihk’s event will involve spray paint, subverting the idea that the material is typically forbidden for youth. Rainbow Resource Centre will have a mixed-media workshop focusing on the relationships connecting two-spirit people to land, plants and animals, while the event involving Action Therapy Youth Services will have participants make their own paint to use on rawhide instead of traditional canvas.

The youths’ artwork will be showcased at the School of Art Gallery from late August to mid-September. A reception for the exhibition will be held Sept. 7.

Thomas highlighted the layered significance that a gallery exhibit holds for Indigenous artists.

“Traditionally, most Indigenous art was actually put in museums instead of art galleries because they considered it a dying thing that they need to preserve, rather than a thing you want to keep alive,” she said.

She hopes those who participate in the program will have an experience similar to her own, where they grow to realize that pursuing art as a career is possible and can positively impact the world around them.

“Even if you’re not having these extraordinary paintings that you’re selling, even learning how to do art and doing your own style of art might inspire someone else.”

arts@themanitoban.com

graphic / Teegan Gillich / staff

To act within the spirit of reconciliation, to participate in decolonization, these are things that should be recognized every month and every

Manitoba connections

Hometown athletes are putting the province on the map

Grace Anne Paizen, staff

Vegas Golden Knights

Lord Stanley’s cup is on its way to Manitoba this summer. With the Vegas Golden Knights defeating the Florida Panthers 9–3 in game five of the NHL Stanley Cup Final on June 13, the Stanley Cup’s appearance in Manitoba was secured.

The Golden Knights boast six Manitobans on their roster: Winnipeg’s Mark Stone and Nolan Patrick, Brandon’s Keegan Kolesar, Oakbank’s Brett Howden, Winkler’s Byron Froese and Sioux Valley Dakota Nation’s very own Zach Whitecloud.

Of the 24 Golden Knights

players who made an in-game post-season appearance, 18 were Canadian, with 19 Canadians in total listed on the active roster hailing from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

Men’s national hockey team

It was a rematch 93 years in the making. The last time Canada faced off against Germany in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) Men’s World Championship was the first-ever hockey World Championship in 1930. The Canadian squad had a direct bye to the final game

and defeated the German squad 6–1.

After 93 years, on May 28, Canada would defeat Germany in the IIHF Men’s World Championship game 5–2.

Winning gold with the Canadian squad were Winnipeggers Cody Glass, who currently plays for the Nashville Predators in the NHL, and Joel Hofer, who currently plays for the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, along with a third Winnipegger, Kurt Keats, the team’s manager of hockey operations.

National soccer teams

The countdown is on for the women’s national soc-

cer team as it prepares for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to Aug. 20, Canada finds itself in Group B of the tournament, paired with Ireland, Nigeria and co-host nation Australia.

Winnipeg darling, 2022 Order of Manitoba recipient and former Bison all-star Desiree Scott will take to the field to add a FIFA World Cup title to her Olympic gold and bronze medal collection.

CAF) Nations League final held on June 18 in Las Vegas, Nev. Bested by the host team United States 2–0, it was a bittersweet parting gift for Canada’s team captain Atiba Hutchinson, as it was his last game before retiring from the international stage.

The men’s national team is currently playing in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which runs from June 24 to July 16 and is being jointly hosted by Canada and the United States.

While there may be no local connections to the men’s national soccer team, it finished second in the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCAsports@themanitoban.com

Former Bison Nick Thomas faces off against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a pre-season game. Thomas was drafted to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in May and is currently on their active roster

Sports teams’ schedules

Valour FC

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Winnipeg Goldeyes

Winnipeg Sea Bears

Around-the-horns

Everything the herd has been up to this summer semester

Grace Anne Paizen, staff

Bisons basketball

The Canada West (CanWest) conference announced in May that the University of Manitoba will play host to the CanWest men’s basketball championship from Feb. 21 to 25, 2024.

Moving to a single-site format, all playoff games will be held at the Investors Group Athletic Centre.

The regular season tips off this November, with the Bisons men’s basketball team opening the season at home Nov. 2 against the Brandon University Bobcats.

And downtown, two former members of the herd are inaugural members of Winnipeg’s freshly minted Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) team.

Both the 2022-23 Bisons and U Sports national Rookie of the Year

Simon Hildebrandt and 2017-18 Manitoba Male Athlete of the Year Justus Alleyn, who played for the Bisons from 2013 to 2018, play for the Winnipeg Sea Bears, along with fellow Winnipegger Chad Posthumus. Hildebrandt made CEBL history as the Sea Bears first-ever draft pick. The Sea Bears are currently first in the CEBL Western Conference, with a bestin-league 7-3 record.

Bisons football

Fresh off his 2022-23 Bisons

Male Athlete of the Year award, AK Gassama was one of four Bisons selected for the annual U Sports East-West Bowl. McMaster University played host to the game on May 13.

Bison receivers Gassama and Birhanu Yitna, as well as defensive backs Stephen Adamopoulos and Nick Conway, were named to team West.

While the game was a resounding East win — the final score 37–0 for team East, and its first win since 2015 — all four Bisons made positive impacts for team West.

Adamopoulos made a huge interception off of team East quarterback Thomas Bolduc of the Université Laval Rouge et Or in the second quarter, stalling team East’s march down the field.

Conway and Adamopoulos also combined for four tackles over the course of the game and were part of team West’s huge goal line stand on its own 2-yard line in the third quarter.

While Gassama was targeted unsuccessfully twice in the game by team West quarterbacks Kinsale Philip of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues and Evan Hillock of the Western University Mustangs, Gassama had four successful punt returns over the course of the game, including successfully taking a missed team East field goal out of the end zone in the second quarter and a fantastic punt return to the 34-yard line in the third quarter.

It was Yitna who shone in the passing game, raking in 38 yards receiving in the fourth quarter and making him a favourite of West quarterbacks Hillock and Philip in the fourth quarter, who targeted Yitna five times. Moreover, the four Bisons selected in the East-West Bowl were not the only members of the herd who made an impression in the football world this spring.

Five Bisons were invited to the CFL 2023 Invitational Combine: defensive back Markos Bockru, quarterback Des Catellier and defensive linemen Tyrece Viner-Cox, Collin Kornelson, Tristan Francis and Bisons linebacker Nick Thomas took part in the 2023 CFL Combine.

Both Kornelson and Thomas were drafted by teams in the CFL this spring. Kornelson has been drafted by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Thomas by the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Bisons golf

The Bisons golf team recently put an end to their drought at nationals. The herd made the cut for the first time since 2018 at the Canadian University/College Championship that ran from May 30 to June 2 at FireRock Golf Club in Komoka, Ont.

The team finished 10th overall, with a team total of +61. Cameron McIntyre had the best individual outing in the tournament for the Bisons, shooting +9. Teammate Cole Peters finished close behind at +12. Trent Robertson finished the tournament with +19, Derek Benson with +28 and Connor Stewart with +33.

Bisons volleyball

Both the men’s and women’s volleyball teams have had an exciting off-season. At the 2023 Volleyball Manitoba Awards & Hall of Fame Banquet on June 11, Bisons own Raya Surinx received the Cheryl Cable Memorial Award for under 20 (20U) women’s player of the year and Jordon Heppner received the Mark Tennant Award for 20U men’s player of the year.

Fresh off receiving her latest award, 2022-23 Bisons Female Rookie of the Year Surinx was named to Volleyball Canada’s women’s Indoor NextGen Team as part of its travelling roster. She was joined by fellow Bisons teammate Ella Gray, who was named to the practice roster.

Meanwhile, the Bisons men’s volleyball head coach Arnd (Lupo) Ludwig, assistant coach Mike Stephens and players Jonah Dueck and Sammy Ludwig are making a statement representing Canada in international volleyball. The Bisons foursome won bronze at the North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation U-21 Pan American Cup that was held in Havana, Cuba, June 5–10, defeating Puerto Rico in four sets.

Dueck finished the tournament with 38 points and eight blocks, while teammate Ludwig finished the tournament with seven points and two blocks.

The bronze medalists’ next tournament is the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball U21 World Championship hosted by Bahrain July 7–16.

Bisons hockey

The Bisons men’s hockey team officially has a new coach. Gordon Burnett has been named Mike Sirant’s successor.

A Regina native, Burnett was a defenceman in his hockey career, having played in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) for the College of St. Scholastica Saints, and in both the East Coast Hockey League and the Central Hockey League, including a stint with the Arizona Sundogs, who he would end up becoming assistant coach of from 2012 to 2014. In his coaching career, he was also assistant coach for the NCAA University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish, as well as for the Western Hockey League’s Kootenay Ice and Moose Jaw Warriors.

Burnett was head coach in 2019 for Team Saskatchewan at the Canada Winter Games, and has served as head coach of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Winnipeg Blues.

Teegan Gillich / staff