photo / Gillian Brown
staff
The land beside the National Truth
Court upholds ruling, Manitoba must pay UMFA $19.4M
Ruling follows finding that the province interfered in 2016 labour negotiations
Gillian Brown, staff
Manitoba’s Court of Appeal has rejected the provincial government’s appeal of the ruling that the province must pay the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) $19.4 million in damages following its covert involvement in 2016 contract negotiations.
UMFA president Orvie Dingwall reported mixed feelings from the association’s members.
“People are happy, they’re pleased with this result as a ruling, but they still talk about how this never should have happened,” she said.
This decision, made by Justices Holly Beard, Diana Cameron and Janice leMaistre, is the latest in a seven-year dispute between the government and the association.
A judge found that government interference caused UMFA to strike in the fall of 2016, which contributed to the damages it was ordered to pay the association, including costs of the strike and lost wages. The strike lasted nearly a month.
Before the strike, the U of M had made UMFA an offer that included a seven per cent wage increase over the course of four years. While the association had not accepted the offer, it was still on the table when the Progressive Conservative-led government heard about it.
tract instead, with a zero per cent wage increase for UMFA. It also directed the administration not to tell UMFA that the order was given.
The U of M felt the only option was to abide by this mandate, as it was told that there would be “financial consequences” if it did not. The university is public, and a large portion of its funding comes from the province.
According to the U of M 2016-17 budget submission, a provincial operating grant accounted for over half of the total operating budget.
Because of the large operating grant, “there is a high level of accountability” that needs to be in place, ensuring that the funding goes to programs, infrastructure, research and students at the university, said Dingwall, but “being accountable is not the same as being autonomous.”
The university’s autonomy from the government is of the utmost importance to Dingwall and the rest of UMFA, and the topic has been a “real issue” under government leadership by Heather Stefanson and Brian Pallister, she
the government.
The province is allowed to give suggestions to the administration during labour negotiations, and has done so in the past. The key legal violation in the 2016 negotiations was the government’s secrecy when dealing with the university.
“People are happy, they’re pleased with this result as a ruling, but they still talk about how this never should have happened”
— Orvie Dingwall, UMFA president
said.
Concerned that the offer would set a bad precedent for future bargaining, the province directed the U of M to bargain for a one-year con-
Aside from the very real necessity of being able to freely teach and conduct research without government influence, the university must also be able to make its own bargaining decisions, even when given suggestions from
In the first trial against the province, the judge ruled that the Manitoba government had violated UMFA’s freedom of association as outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Dingwall said that “the money is only one part of the damage.” She thinks back to both the youngest and oldest members of the association, those who were starting new
families and paying off student loans, and those who were earning pension contributions. The salary increases in the original offer “really would have made a difference,” she said.
She said that, had the government not interfered, the 2016 strike could have been avoided entirely, and the strike in 2021 may have even been prevented. But not only that, “there was irreparable harm that was done to the relationship between the union members and the university’s administration.”
“No sum of money will ever be able to correct for that harm or for those losses.”
Dingwall said that while UMFA takes the ruling as “very promising news,” its members know that there are still months of waiting ahead to see what the province’s next move will be.
The province has two options. It can either pay the damages sentenced in the ruling upheld by Manitoba’s highest court, or it can apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, and it has until Sept. 29 to do so.
A government spokesperson said in an email statement that the province will “take the time to thoroughly and carefully review the court’s decision.”
“While the government was entirely successful on the main constitutional issues in the broader litigation, it respects the Court of Appeal’s determination on the much narrower UMFA issues,” the statement read.
news@themanitoban.com
Explosive chemical found in Parker building
Winnipeg emergency services carried out detonation on U of M campus
Sarah Cohen staff
A “potentially unstable” chemical found in a storage closet of the Parker building sent Winnipeg Emergency Services to the University of Manitoba on Friday, June 30.
Students and employees received an email shortly after 11 a.m. announcing the discovery. The email also noted that buildings connected to Parker would be evacuated until emergency services were
able to assess the situation.
Buildings remained taped off with Winnipeg police cadets and university employees around the perimeter until the substance was safely detonated.
At 2:24 p.m. students and employees received a followup email that said, “City of Winnipeg Emergency Services have decided to proceed with a controlled detonation.” The detonation occurred
at 4:09 p.m. and a third email told students that the explosion had been successful and that buildings and spaces affected would be reopened soon.
Winnipeg police, fire and paramedics, as well as the bomb squad, lined the road between the Wallace building, Parker building and Machray Hall. The detonation was done outdoors and, according to an email from the university, had
no effect on air quality.
The university’s environmental health and safety office (EHSO) declined an interview request.
The university declined to interview but provided a written statement to the Manitoban which stated that EHSO is “currently reviewing all chemical safety procedures and collaborating with others within the UM community to ensure the proper handling
and storage of chemicals to mitigate risk and prevent incident re-occurrence.”
Winnipeg Police Service did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
news@themanitoban.com
photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff
UMFA raises concerns over COVID-19 practices
Faculty association letter draws attention to needed COVID-19 policy revisions
Sarah Cohen staff
The University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) continues to be concerned with the university’s health and safety practices surrounding SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19.
The association sent U of M president Michael Benarroch a letter on July 17 outlining its concerns and requests for revising the university’s health and safety measures for the fall 2023 semester.
Concerns from UMFA began when the president’s office sent an email to employees and students on April 24 announcing that the mandatory masking protocols would end when the summer term began on the first of May.
The letter highlights the importance of masking in spaces where faculty members or students who are immunocompromised are at risk.
UMFA president Orvie Dingwall noted that SARSCoV-2 acts differently during summer and winter. Dingwall said the association’s priority is that “everyone is safe in their working and learning
environments” while not letting go of the lessons learned throughout the lockdowns about the “real problems in our society.”
In its letter, UMFA urged the university to allow Student Accessibility Services to mandate mask wearing in locations around campus where a faculty member or student has applied. That way, it can accommodate any immunocompromised individual, in addition to “the laboratories, classrooms and office spaces over which [UMFA members] have direct control while performing their university duties.”
“It is already a societal norm to say, ‘Okay, someone in this space has a severe reaction [to peanuts], we’re going to look out for them, and we’re not going to have peanuts in this space,’” said Dingwall. The same should go for a person who needs masking, she continued.
Additionally, the letter suggests the administration should create web pages where anyone is able to see results and locations of air
quality testing, in detailing UMFA’s concern over building ventilation across all U of M campuses.
While Dingwall believes the university has been consistent in meeting the faculty association’s requests for mask availability and upholding prior mask mandates, it hasn’t been “as good about being transparent with the information on the monitoring of air quality.”
Dingwall stated that new standards published during the pandemic should be what the university is testing against. The letter also brings up concerns that testing is being conducted using “flawed and inappropriate” techniques.
The standards that Dingwall and the rest of UMFA are aware of and believe the U of M should follow come from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Of the many standards and guidelines that ASHRAE publishes, UMFA would like to see the university adopt ASHRAE Standard 241-2023 concerning
the control of infectious aerosols.
In a statement found on the U of M’s COVID-19 Health and Safety web page, the university said that, as of April 21 this year, all 140 of the campus’s oldest and frequented buildings meet ASHRAE’s “standards in optimal conditions.” Indoor air quality testing results for some spaces on campus can be found on the U of M’s website.
The web page goes on to state that, “Improvements to HVAC systems in the 140 tested spaces are expected to be complete by fall 2023. Over the coming year, UM will complete the same assessment on its remaining 341 learning spaces across campuses and make upgrades as required.”
“COVID isn’t done yet, and hopefully we’ve learned something from this and are making changes going forward so that, overall, our working and learning environments are safe,” Dinwall said.
Benarroch was unavailable for an interview.
A statement given to the Manitoban by his office stated that while he had received the letter and it was being reviewed, the university “remains committed to the health and well-being of faculty, staff and students.”
“UMFA will receive a fulsome response to its letter in the coming weeks.”
news@themanitoban.com
U of M looks for steps forward following Waterloo attack
Hate motivated stabbing at University of Waterloo rattles university communities
Kyra Campbell, staff
In light of the recent hate-motivated stabbing at the University of Waterloo, members of the U of M community are beginning to reflect upon the events that took place and look toward how to protect education and the well-being of students and staff.
After initial investigation, the Waterloo regional police have found that the attack against students and a professor within a gender studies class was not random.
“The accused targeted a gender-studies class and investigators believe this was a hate-motivated incident related to gender expression and gender identity,” the Waterloo regional police said in a media release.
A message from Diane Hiebert-Murphy, U of M provost and vice-president academic, extended sympathies to those affected at the University of Waterloo.
“Our campuses should be places where we peacefully pursue knowledge and seek to benefit others,” stated Hiebert-Murphy.
On taking action, the message reiterated that the university is focusing on lasting change through advocacy, action, research and comprehensive policies to address the root causes of such hatred.
This is not the first act of gender motivated hate within an academic institution, which Adele Perry, director for the Centre of Human Rights Research immediately recognized when hearing about the attack.
“I think the first thing that it connected me with was memories of hearing of the Montreal massacre, which happened when I was an undergraduate student,” said Perry. “It shaped, in profound ways, a generation’s experience of what it means to occupy space at the university.”
On the political nature of the attack, UMSU women’s representative Witta Irumva said that politics can greatly influence how people conduct their lives, and worries about when they are taken too far and lead to critical outcomes.
“Beliefs and ideologies can come to life and actually cause harm,” said Irumva.
Perry said that it is too soon to know if Canada’s political landscape played into the attack, but noted that after the Montreal massacre, there was the sentiment of “one lone sad angry man” and pushback against systemic analysis of the event.
Perry went on to say that such violence is not new for many groups including women, non-binary people, Indigenous people and racialized people, “who always live with the knowledge that violence structures our lives.”
In response to threats of violence, Irumva hopes that security is not the only course of action taken but that deeper underlying factors are also looked at.
“I think there’s a deeper societal issue, and I think it ties in with a lot of misogyny, as you can see it was a gender studies class which also talks about 2SLGBTQIA,” said Irumva. “Moving forward, I hope they don’t only address the security aspect of people on campus but also what is driving it.”
When asked if UMSU had discussed any plans for the
academic year in response to the attack, Irumva said that it has been difficult to connect with students as the attack occurred in the summer.
In next steps, women and gender studies and history associate professor Jocelyn Thorpe also hopes that increased security is not the primary course of action.
“Lots of people do not feel protected by security. So the idea that we need to have more security is controversial because who then feels safe, and who doesn’t feel safe?”
Thorpe continued that actions such as women’s-only hours at the gym and increased lighting on campus are ways to keep people safe but are, at their core, responses to systems of oppression.
Instead, Thorpe and Perry believe there should be an increased focus on course curriculum and on who is populating university spaces so that they are reflective of the campus community.
“I would be interested in thinking about the bigger questions, about who is there both teaching and as students, and maybe patterns
about how we staff and populate campuses in general,” said Perry.
Through teaching about histories of university exclusion, Thorpe hopes that people will further understand the histories of colonialism and patriarchy to see that society does not need to continue this way.
“This is why the curriculum in women’s and gender studies and in Indigenous studies is really important, because I think it’s part of what leads to a conversation that is not polarizing.”
For students who may be hesitant to take gender studies classes, Perry reiterated the importance of taking such courses.
“Some of the disciplines and fields and courses that have been under attack, whether at a rhetorical level or in these very real ways, are also world changing.” news@themanitoban.com
photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff
U of W faculty association pens letter to board about ‘state of governance’
Concerns include loss of human resources, administrative instability
Gillian Brown, staff
The University of Winnipeg Faculty Association (UWFA) has sent a letter to the university’s board of regents, voicing concerns following an “inordinate number of resignations and other departures” from senior staff and administration, the letter reads.
Published in the Winnipeg Free Press the day after the board received it earlier this month, the letter pointed to multiple senior departures over the course of the past 18 months. Notable names listed included Chris Minaker, former associate vice-president engagement, Jennefer Nepinak, former associate vice-president Indigenous engagement and Jan Stewart, former associate vice-president academic, who joins the U of M as dean of the faculty of education on Aug. 1.
“UWFA council members cannot recall a time when so many senior administrators left in the middle of appointments, often with little or no notice,” the letter read.
It expressed concern with “the current state of governance and administrative instability.”
The letter asked the board to take a further look at the issue, and among other questions, ask, “Why have so many administrators and staff members left in the past 18 months?”
It pointed to the rarity of UWFA writing a letter to the board, but that now the association holds “deep concern” with the trend, along with the impact it may have on the ability of the university to operate now and in the future.
While the letter directly brings up the association’s concern over resignations that occurred over the course of the
past year and a half, which go back to January 2022, all the names put forward in the letter are of those who resigned following the appointment of Todd Mondor as president and vice-chancellor in April 2022.
Mondor expressed his disappointment with the implication that he and his leadership style were responsible for the resignations. He said that he had not worked with half of the people listed in letter, and had not even met some.
Regardless, “every person on that list I was sorry to see go,” he said.
Mondor said he believes things have not changed much at the university since he began his term, and that his approach, one of collaboration, has been the same at the U of W as it was during his time at the U of M. At that institution, he acted in several academic and administrative roles over the course of more than two decades, including deputy provost academic planning and programs.
He also said that there have not been any complaints about his behaviour, neither at the U of W nor at the U of M.
In the case of each departure, Mondor said that the staff had found jobs elsewhere, whether it be for promotions, higher pay or other considerations. In the meantime, some were hired to fill acting positions until someone was permanently brought on.
One former staff member mentioned in the letter, Julia Ryckman, left the U of W in June 2023. She said she left her position at the university because she was offered her “dream job.”
“I loved my time at UWinnipeg and I still stay in touch
with my former colleagues,” she said in an email.
UWFA president Peter Miller declined a request for comment. In a meeting with Mondor and the university’s vice president academic Pavlina Radia following the board of regents’ receipt of the letter, UWFA was asked not to give any comment to the media until the board had the chance to meet, but as the letter states, it was sent “with concern for the health of our institution.”
Chair of the board of regents Stefan Jonasson said it is too premature for the entire board to meet to discuss the issue. However, the board officers have met, and they were surprised by the letter. “Of course [we] would want to give the faculty association the opportunity to communicate with us,” he said.
According to Jonasson, the staff turnover actually took place over the course of three years, not 18 months. The administration has spent this past year filling the vacancies that opened during the pandemic.
He said the board is currently gathering information, but so far, “the information has more or less confirmed our sense that the departures have been just departures in the normal course of events, and that there are sound explanations for each departure.”
Staff turnover is natural for an organization, Jonasson said. The board sees the amount of change that the U of W has experienced as no different from what an organization would reasonably see.
Miller told the Free Press that he “would have hoped that the board would take this opportunity to reflect on [our concerns] and investigate.”
He noted that a place to start might be to examine the number of turnovers during previous administrative changes.
Jino Distasio, vice-president research and innovation and professor of geography at the U of W, has been at the university for 24 years, and in administrative positions for about 15 years.
The interesting part of the U of W, he said, is its smaller size, and because of that, “there’s just always been a real strong connection among different people on campus,” Distasio said.
governance structures differ. Mondor’s appointment is different from others because of the pandemic, and for that reason, may have resulted in a bit more of a turnover. Distasio does not think that the turnover can be attributed to the change in governance, though, because the number of acting positions over the past two or three years were in place prior to Mondor’s arrival.
Distasio emphasized that the focus should not solely be on the fact that people left, but that “some really great people arrived,” and said that was missing from the association’s letter.
Since Mondor’s appointment, Distasio said that this internal culture has not changed more than it has with any other president he has worked with over the past 24 years. With every new president, the administration and news@themanitoban.com
Manitoba government to increase student financial aid
Increase announced as cost-of-living rises
Kyra Campbell, staff
To combat the cost-of-living crisis, the Manitoba government has announced an over 40 per cent increase to the maximum benefit of the Manitoba student loan program. The increase will take effect Aug. 1, raising the loan to $200 per week from its current amount of $140 weekly.
This increase is intended
to offset increased financial hardship faced by rising expenses and to reduce financial barriers so that more students can pursue-post secondary education, noted Minister of Advanced Education and Training Sarah Guillemard in a media release.
“As the cost of living continues to increase, our government remains committed to making life more affordable
for Manitobans,” Guillemard said.
“This increase will provide additional funding to students who have the highest financial need, so they can remain focused on their studies and achieve their educational goals.”
In a press release, UMSU welcomed the news but also noted that Manitoba students have waited far too long for a
loan increase.
“UMSU believes that there is still more work to do to make post-secondary education affordable and we look forward to working with the provincial government in a spirit of collaboration,” the release read.
The provincial student loan maximum benefit has not been increased since the 200506 program year, however the
increase will now bring the provincial student loan funding more in line with other jurisdictions. Eligible students will also receive the federal government’s Canada Student Loan maximum increase of $210 to $300 weekly, as announced in March of this year.
news@themanitoban.com
photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff
Team discovers new sweat bee species in the Prairies
Discovery highlights importance of habitat preservation
Elah Ajene, staff
Back in 2017, Jason Gibbs and his wife — who were newcomers to Manitoba at the time — went to Spruce Woods Provincial Park to collect bees.
While analyzing the collected samples in his lab, Gibbs stumbled upon a bee species he had never seen before.
This species — Epeolus gibbsi — would later be named after him.
This is just one of several new bee species named after him for his work related to bees.
An associate professor in the department of entomology at the U of M and expert in the sweat bee taxonomy, Gibbs has been around bees since childhood.
The researcher grew up around honeybees due to his father’s commercial beekeeping.
However, his journey into entomology began during his master’s degree at the University of Toronto when he attended a colleague’s talk about her research on the nesting biology of sweat bees in Greece.
In his most recent discov-
ery, a new species of sweat bee was identified in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The species, officially named Lasioglossum onuferkoi, marks a significant addition to the world of entomology and underscores the importance of preserving unique habitats.
“Any time we find a new species, it’s a pretty exciting discovery,” Gibbs said.
“To find them in Canada is a bit surprising. We don’t have that many species of bees relatively speaking,” he said.
This new species was collected by Canadian Museum of Nature research associate Thomas Onuferko, who was conducting a comprehensive survey of sand-dwelling wasps and bees within inland dune systems — wind deposited sand dunes found away from coastal areas — from Alberta to Manitoba, and formally identified by Gibbs and his PhD candidate Joel Gardner, who works on sweat bee taxonomy of western North America.
When Gardner was writing a paper on Canadian sweat bees, he and Gibbs called L.
onuferkoi a new species, naming it after the research associate.
The identification of the new species is not without its challenges, as sweat bees are notorious for the great similarities in their appearances and complex classification.
Sweat bees belong to the genus Lasioglossum, which has more than 1,900 described species.
Gibbs pointed out that this is greater than any other wasp or bee genus.
Additionally, the restricted range of the new species further adds to its uniqueness.
Unlike some more widely distributed sweat bee species,
L. onuferkoi is exclusively found in inland dune systems.
“It’s restricted to such a small range of these inland dune systems,” he said. “Basically you have to go to very specific habitats to find it.”
Gibbs explained that the discovery of L. onuferkoi underscores the importance of inland dune habitats for select species and the impact of encroaching vegetation on these sand-loving bees and wasps.
light on how different habitats impact evolutionary diversity and help distinguish closely related species like sweat bees.
As Gibbs continues to explore the country’s biodiversity, he emphasizes how diverse bees are.
“We are familiar with honeybees and bumblebees, but they are kind of on the outer edges of what a typical bee is actually like,” he said.
“There’s all these beautiful colours and shapes and sizes of all these different bees. It just makes life interesting.”
Looking ahead, Gibbs plans to delve further into genomic data to understand the evolutionary history of bees in the Prairies, and he hopes to shed research@themanitoban.com
Unveiling the world of sports psychology Savouring, self-compassion and passion maximize positive experiences in sports
Elah Ajene, staff
Why do athletes sometimes thrive and sometimes don’t? Why are sports fans sometimes engaged and happy and sometimes not?
This is what drives Ben Schellenberg, assistant professor in the faculty of kinesiology and recreation management.
“These have always been fascinating for me,” he said. “So I get to study psychology and sports. It’s blending these two things that I love.”
In the ever-evolving world of sports and leisure activities, the study of human behaviour and experiences has become a fascinating domain of research.
Schellenberg, whose research explores individuals’ love for their daily activities, seeks to understand how both athletes and sports enthusiasts can optimize their experiences, providing a profound impact on their overall well-being.
With a background in psychology and a keen interest in sports, Schellenberg
studies the intersection of these two fields and has lots of questions about the sports world.
The answers to those questions cover topics like passion, burnout, savouring, self-compassion and perfectionism.
There are two kinds of passion — harmonious and obsessive passion.
This dualistic model of passion, first proposed by psychology professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal Robert J. Vallerand, is a theme explored in sports by Schellenberg.
“A lot of people think that if you’re an athlete, you need to be obsessed to reach the highest levels of form,” he said.
However, over the course of his research, Schellenberg finds that harmonious passion — where individuals are in control of their activities — leads to positive outcomes without the need for obsessive involvement.
Burnout, which involves physical and emotional exhaustion accompanied by negative thoughts and devalu-
ation, is a serious issue in the realm of sports, Schellenberg said.
Notably, recent evidence suggests that burnout levels among athletes have been increasing over time.
Schellenberg has been studying different factors that predict experience of burnout in athletes.
To combat burnout, Schellenberg highlights the significance of savouring positive experiences.
One of his key findings suggests that athletes who savour positive moments by reflecting on their feelings, sharing them with others and celebrating successes tend to report lower levels of burnout.
“Savouring is one of these things that people can do that might help them maximize these positive experiences and minimize burnout,” he said.
Self-compassion, another intriguing theme of Schellenberg’s research, involves being kind to oneself, practising mindfulness and recognizing that mistakes are an
inherent part of being human.
Evidently, this plays a positive role in an individual’s overall experiences.
“Self-compassion is one of these skills that can be learned that can potentially, almost certainly, maximize people’s experience in sport,” Schellenberg explained.
The researcher also delves into the theme of perfectionism, and how it may influence athletes’ performance in sports.
Although preliminary research has viewed perfectionism as a multidimensional construct, perfectionism essentially comprises both striving for perfection and concerns about imperfection.
While some debate exists over whether striving for perfection can lead to excellence, Schellenberg’s research shows the advantages of the pursuit of excellence without being obsessed with perfection.
“We’ve been looking at athletes who are perfectionists versus those who pursue excellence and there doesn’t
seem to be any advantages of trying to be perfect beyond trying to be excellent,” he explained.
“Just try to be as good as you can be,” he continued. “Don’t try to be perfect, which, believe it or not, it’s taken decades to get to this point.”
As Schellenberg continues to unravel the complexities of human experiences in sports, he hopes to transform how we approach sports and leisure with his research, promoting a healthier and more fulfilling engagement with the activities people love.
“People have limited time to devote to these meaningful activities in their lives,” he said.
“I’m hoping that the research we’re doing can maximize their experiences, and collectively maximize the benefits that people are getting in their life, their positive experiences from these different activities.”
research@themanitoban.com
graphic / Teegan Gillich / staff
Illicit drug supply horrors demand action
Rise of animal tranquilizer xylazine exposes need for compassionate solutions
Jessie Krahn, staff
Asubstance called xylazine has been popping up in Street Connections’ and SaferSites’ overdose reports. Xylazine — or tranq as it is known on the streets — is a sedative not approved for use in humans that is commonly used on horses and cattle.
Unlike other tranquilizers, xylazine doesn’t have potential effects that may be appealing to recrea tional drug users. Users wake up from stupors with with drawal symptoms without having experi enced any high.
People overdosing on opioids might stop breath ing, or their heart rate might slow to a halt completely. Usually, opioid users can be saved with a medication called naloxone, which reverses the effects of opioid overdoses. Because xylazine is not an opioid, life-saving medications like naloxone do not reverse its effects. This means that if someone overdoses on xylazine, first responders may lose precious seconds necessary to save their life by first trying to treat the overdose as an opioid-related one.
political action in the context of drug-related crises to whatever is within the power of individuals to control. We can call xylazine a threat and hope that individuals will instinctively know when their drugs are contaminated. That is much easier than funding something like a robust program to offer free, anonymous drug testing nationwide.
This focus only moralizes the act of doing drugs. Those
To top that off, xylazine also causes necrotic skin lesions to appear and fester on the user’s body, which, if left untreated, can lead to ampu tations. Xylazine withdrawal can cause seizures, and the drug’s novelty means there are no medications to treat its withdrawal symptoms.
Why are people begin ning to use xylazine, then, if its effects on the body are so gruesome? Not by choice. Unbeknownst to people buying cocaine or heroin off the street, the drug supplies in many places in the U.S. and Canada have been saturated with xylaz ine. Not only is xylazine increasingly appearing in overdose deaths, in the state of Maryland almost 80 per cent of drug samples with opioids contained traces of xylaz ine between 2021 and 2022.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden declared xylazine-laced fentanyl an “official emerging drug threat” to the country. I admit that the effects of xylazine make me fearful for people who use it. At the same time, I think labelling xylazine a par ticular “threat” is like labeling a runny nose a disease.
Politicians tend to restrict
But even those who want to stop using recoil from the prospect because of the titanic obstacle of withdrawal symptoms. Many xylazine users, for instance, explain they are afraid to seek medical attention for their wounds because they fear their withdrawal symptoms will not be treated — and that hospital staff will be cruel — during an extended stay in hospital.
The advice most read-
incalculable positive impacts are clean needle programs. Once derided as a way of enabling people to use drugs, harm reduction measures that provide people with clean needles have proven to significantly reduce the transmission of HIV-AIDS.
Exactly what harm reduction measures will look like as they are aimed at addressing xylaz ine is a complex picture.
What we need now is harm reduction, or strategies to make sure fewer people suffer or die
onlookers. But our short-sighted views about whether people ought to do drugs pass over more intering questions we could ask about why people do not stop doing drugs. What shouldn’t be left unsaid is that sometimes — for some people — drugs are fun. At other times they eject your mind from itself, flinging it into an alternate dimension populated by giant metal
ily available to people is to abstain from using drugs, which has never, ever worked. History should have taught us, after the failure of prohibition measures in the early 20th century, that people will always use drugs.
What we need now is harm reduction, or strategies to make sure fewer people suffer or die. Among the harm reduction measures that have had
Xylazine poses a threat because the illicit drug supply is unpredictable. We might sometimes think of overdosing as a problem caused by heavy drug use, but that’s inaccurate. At the other end of the spectrum, even people who use drugs recreationally, who buy their supply off the streets, are at risk of overdosing.
Harm reduction measures targeted at reducing the mortality rates among drug users, then, have to serve both people with a physical dependency on drugs and rec-
lic health experts is to provide a safe supply. Researchers Joanne Csete and Richard Elliott argue that governments have a moral obligation to provide safe supply because governments must protect people’s right to life, and safe supplies ensure fewer people die because they have access to quality-assured drugs.
Of course, providing a safe supply of heroin might seem extreme to some. The strongest criticism I’ve seen against these programs is that it doesn’t force people with a physical dependence on drugs to “get clean” as soon as possible.
But do people with a physical dependence on drugs deserve to die? Does a recreational user deserve to die? For me, that’s an easy “no,” and I hope our answers are the same.
Those in need of harm reduction services can find more information through the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network at mhrn.ca.
comment@themanitoban.com
Call the University of Waterloo attack what it was
Misogyny, transphobia, tacit endorsement of terror have no place on campuses
Jessie Krahn, staff
Feminism is core to who I am. My past experiences dealing with men’s rage when they discover this about me make me nervous to share my feminism publicly sometimes.
On June 28, a 24-year-old man entered a gender issues course at the University of Waterloo. After confirming the class’s subject matter with the professor, the assailant withdrew two knives from his bag and began attacking the professor and students.
Police said the attack was hate-motivated and related to gender The attacker was a former student at the university.
Despite the obvious hand misogyny and transphobia had in this incident, ensuing public discourse has curiously veered far and away from those subjects.
Waterloo’s associate vice-president of communications Nick Manning said shortly after the attack that it was too early to consider stationing additional security around campus. However, the topic was not ruled out, and student action at Waterloo is focusing on petitioning the university to update its emergency alert systems.
This is not a discussion restricted to Waterloo. The University of Alberta is exploring upping its security detail to prevent attacks like the one at Waterloo. Somehow, we are collectively talking about the prob -
lem of mass violence as if it begins and ends with security measures. This is nothing new. In the wake of hate-motivated mass violence, there seems to always be a special rhetorical move wherein members of certain institutions invent numerous reasons for the attacks and avoid the real ones altogether.
The National Rifle Association cited the Sandy Hook shooter’s interest in video games as one possible explanation for his killing spree. The 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was chalked up to the shooter’s mental illness.
Research suggests neither video games nor mental illness are predictors of a person’s likelihood to commit acts of mass violence. In fact, mental illness only factors in to about four per cent of violent incidents. Still the subjects of gun control and antisemitism fall by the wayside.
What the Waterloo case has in common with these incidents is the public’s convenient aversion to calling a spade a spade. I call it convenient in that nobody ever has any apparent responsibility to do much in the wake of mass violence. This attack is a case of anti-feminist, transphobic violence, another angry man translating hate into terror.
Just like other cases of mass violence, many are avoiding the real problem and instead engaging in fanciful conversations about a magical single-channel cure-all. Simply ban video games or end men-
tal illness and men will stop going on killing sprees. Now, we appear to be moving past blaming video games or mental illness toward blaming insufficient policing for acts of hate.
Subjecting everyone on university campuses to extra security measures — men, women and non-binary people alike — swerves around the fact that men are overwhelmingly, disproportionately the people committing acts of mass violence.
This is not to say that men specifically ought to be more closely monitored and policed. I mean to say that calls to police the general population both ignore the obvious problems of misogyny and transphobia and divert public discourse away from talking about why men specifically keep doing this.
What is more, comments offered by university and federal leadership have been flaccid, indirect and abstract. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted, “Yesterday’s stabbings at a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo are horrifying and unacceptable.” He continued, “this type of violence must always be condemned.”
Waterloo’s president Vivek Goel said, in the wake of the attack, “there are those who would like to intimidate us. They want us to be afraid […] Afraid to speak our truth.”
These comments almost read as sarcastic to me. Trudeau’s response was so tepid
he did not even specify what “type” of violence was unacceptable. I think Goel’s comment endorsed perceptions of gender studies as a fake discipline. The victims of this attack weren’t speaking their personal “truth” like influencers talking about the strains of posting TikToks daily. They were engaging in evidence-based scholarship.
These statements are non-responses to the attack. The one thing that would have really constituted a stance against the attack would have been to show that this violence does not pay and flood gender studies departments with resources. Imagine if the federal government had announced federal scholarships for students incorporating gender studies into their research in the wake of Waterloo.
Melanee Thomas, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, told the CBC that a lack of investment in humanities subjects fuels fervent fury against gender studies. Something is whipping up fervor against fields like gender studies, and universities respond by leaving their humanities programs more vulnerable to attacks. I believe stochastic terrorism is partly at the root.
with extremist groups by neither denouncing them nor explicitly encouraging them towards violence.
Funding these programs properly might lead to more students learning that gender studies isn’t the progenitor of evil, ensuring there is a strong presence to counter stochastic terrorism, which breeds anti-feminist rage.
What is also important is for leadership to not behave exactly like stochastic terrorists and leave room for their words to be misinterpreted. At the very least, the prime minister should be calling the Waterloo attack the act of gendered violence that it was.
Writing for Conversation Canada, j wallace skelton, assistant professor at the University of Regina, cautioned this is not an isolated incident. Universities around Canada are leaving scholars in gender studies and queer studies out to dry.
We can blow smoke up our own asses about how we condemn hate. As if anyone is going to disagree with that sentiment. But will university and federal leadership ever do anything substantial about misogyny and transphobia?
Stochastic terrorism has several definitions ranging from the stoking rage against a group — to the point where someone is inspired to commit violence against them — to the ways public figures flirt comment@themanitoban.com
graphic / Teegan Gillich / staff
A staff member’s concern about campus climate policy
What the Where We Are Today report reveals about U of M community priorities
Alexa Harwood-Jones
I would like to comment on the recent report released by the U of M called Where We Are Today, which summarizes the key concerns of the U of M community as the institution prepares to create its new strategic plan.
Over 1,000 students, faculty and staff responded to surveys and participated in consultation sessions. Their five primary concerns are antiracism and equity, divers-
ity and inclusion (EDI), reconciliation and decolonization, improving accessibility for Manitobans, better preparing students for the future and increasing relevant knowledge creation.
While all these areas are critical, I was shocked that climate action was not a primary concern for those community members who participated in the survey. This doesn’t accurately represent
the feelings of more than 60 per cent of Canadians who are worried about climate change. Besides, whether you’re worried about it or not, extreme weather is already affecting us here in Canada. Climate action could fall under two of the existing themes, specifically anti-racism and EDI and reconciliation and decolonization. Climate action is inherently anti-racist because Black, Indigenous and people of colour are dis-
proportionately impacted by human-caused climate disruption, despite often having lower carbon footprints. Furthermore, meaningful stewardship of land is essential to preserving and repairing the traditional territories of Indigenous people.
As stated in the Paris Agreement — an international climate change treaty — CO2 emissions need to be cut 45 per cent by 2030, making the next seven years part
of the most critical decade in human history. Now, more than ever, we must make our voices loud. I strongly encourage those on campus who care about this issue to speak up. We must hold ourselves and our leaders accountable for our impact on Earth and create a beautiful future for all to share.
letters@themanitoban.com
Diversions Name the Species!
To complete Sudoku, fill the board by entering numbers
9 such that each row, column, and 3x3 box contains every number uniquely. In Straights, 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 “straight.” A straight is a 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.
Puzzle by Syndicated Puzzles
Images by Teegan Gillich
Sudoku
To achieve in academia, four women resist more than a century of colonialism
“Anishinaabe of Treaty 3, 55,000 square miles, signed in 1873.” Lorraine Seymour knows the details of her home by heart.
Sitting on a rock outside the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation building on a warm June day, the 63-year-old U of M graduate spoke of privilege. Her experience in Canada has been one of ongoing genocide.
“I feel tired,” she said. “It’s in my body.”
Seymour is a survivor of the Indian Residential Schools system, which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada concluded was a “systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”
Her Indigenous identity influences every part of her life. “It has to be the first thing,” she said. Despite the Canadian government’s attempts at cultural genocide, Seymour “learned how to thrive.” She worked hard to move past negative thinking, her biggest hurdle. She shifted the narrative from focusing on the racism and abuse she endured to the fact that she’s still here, and she just graduated with her master’s degree.
This past May, Seymour graduated with her master of social work — Indigenous knowledges (MSW—IK). Her path to her master’s was not linear. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in what was then called native studies from Trent University, Seymour practised social work for over two decades, looking at the practice “through a lens of the colonized.”
Executed through a western lens, social work policies are “ineffective right off the top,” Seymour explained. Her goal is to get past the “wall of white fragility,” another tool for cultural genocide.
To get there, Seymour had always seen the power in education, and had always wanted a master’s degree. The idea had been instilled in her from childhood by her family. As a child, she needed to overcome the racism in Kenora, Ont., schools, but her family always reminded her that education is “the key.”
Working on the front lines in child welfare, Seymour found that she had no power. “I was just being directed to do harmful things according to policy,” she said.
As she worked, she knew
she wanted to get an MSW to change policy herself.
However, after a long pause, Seymour said she isn’t really happy that she went to the U of M for her degree.
“I’m glad I got my degree, but I think they could’ve done better, and I think there’s other universities that do better,” she said. After having started with her pre-masters at the university, Seymour said she felt “shackled,” like she couldn’t take it anywhere else. One support that improved her experience, however, was the presence of the Knowledge Keepers at the U of M.
The Elders and Knowledge Keepers support students, staff and faculty on campus and the MSW-IK program has its own Knowledge Holders. The Knowledge Holders in the program can call back to the teachings their ancestors once practised, and share that knowledge with students in the program as they learn more about how to work in the field while understanding and incorporating Indigenous perspectives.
“I can’t even describe, there’s so much knowledge,” said Seymour.
Surviving residential school impacted the way that Seymour views education today. Sometimes she would encounter triggers on campus and be transported back to the brick hallway she walked as a child. She said that being able to smudge everywhere would help with this, but because a classmate claimed to be allergic to sage, she was unable to, even in her Indigenous social work classrooms. The inability to smudge in class was what began to make her feel uncomfortable, she said.
/ Gillian Brown / staff
dent who wishes to smudge as part of their class can submit a request to their teacher, who can submit it to building administration.
While Miller was head of Indigenous studies at the U of M, the department’s offices replaced its smoke detectors with heat detectors to accommodate smudging while still adhering to fire safety protocols.
Miller found that throughout her career as an Indigenous academic and historian, universities she attended and worked at often offered very
found that it was more of a “checked our box” situation for the university. When she asked to teach graduate level courses on Indigenous content, she was told that students wouldn’t be interested in learning about Indigenous history.
“There are few things that we can do to support reconciliation more than telling the truth”
— Cary Miller, associate vice-president Indigenous: curriculum, scholarship and research
After that, Seymour finished the first year and wanted to leave, but she couldn’t take the pre-masters into a different program at another school.
‘Part of a journey’
Cary Miller, U of M associate vice-president Indigenous: curriculum, scholarship and research, pointed to the complications that come with accommodating the need for smudging while operating as a bureaucracy. There are designated smudging spaces on campus, and any stu-
little Indigenous content. Her thinking after she graduated with her first degree was that she could go to graduate school and bring Indigenous history to these institutions, because “we have a right to be here,” she said.
“Truth comes before reconciliation,” she said, “and so in some ways, there are few things that we can do to support reconciliation more than telling the truth.”
When Miller was hired to teach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2002, she was one of the few people with degrees in Indigenous history she knew of whose teaching load consisted entirely of Indigenous content, but she
Miller came to Canada because she wanted to teach at an institution that would take issues like reconciliation seriously. As of this year, 500 U of M faculty and staff have voluntarily signed up for the Summer Institute, a 12-week course on Indigenous content literacy. She compares this with her past experiences at other universities, and she has “an incredible amount of hope.” She said one reason Indigenous academics may feel uncomfortable at universities is that they are based on European models, not models informed by other cultures around the world.
Indigenous peoples might say that “the land is our greatest teacher,” she said.
“When we are removed from the land in a square box with no windows, what kind of teaching are we getting?”
The U of M has taken steps toward reconciliation in the past, but Miller said that, being a large university, making those changes can be difficult. “It takes a lot of effort, it happens very slowly, and it happens very carefully,” she said.
So far, the office of the vice-president Indigenous has created five Indigenous faculty seats on the senate, the Summer Institute has been established, and some faculties have implemented an Indigenous content requirement (ICR). Now, Miller is working on a reconciliation action plan that will address the current missing pieces. She reported that, hopefully, her office will be bringing on an Indigenous faculty support co-ordinator by the end of the summer. The office is also aiming to hire a director of Indigenous research that will act as the connection between the U of M and communities.
The plan is based in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) calls to action, particularly concerning education. This involves bringing more Indigenous knowledge and content to curriculums in general. A consultation with communities is also in development concerning policy for repatriation of ancestral remains.
Ultimately, reconciliation cannot be limited to a five-toeight-year action plan. Those plans are important because they set priorities, said Miller, but in Manitoba, priorities will need to be continually set to build relationships with Indigenous communities. Unpacking the 150 years that have led us to this point, all the policies, laws and procedures, “is going to take at least a generation, maybe two or three.”
Cont’d p. 14 >
photo
Lorraine Seymour, graduate of the masters of social work — Indigenous knowledges program at the U of M. Photographed outside the National Truth and Reconciliation building on the U of M campus.
Gillian Brown, staff
< Cont’d from p. 13
“Reconciliation is a commitment to [living] a particular way, to walking a particular path that isn’t going to come to an abrupt end in five or eight years,” she said.
“We’ll have completed part of a journey, but we’ll be able to see where that road leads and plan then for the next steps in that journey.”
Overall, Miller thinks the U of M is doing well on this front. While the university is behind other Canadian universities in some areas, like having an ICR for all degree programs, it is ahead in others. The U of M is actively working to put more Indigenous voices in senior leadership positions, and Miller reported that it currently has over 50 Indigenous faculty members and is constantly hiring, which is more than most U15 universities.
“While I know that we haven’t created as safe a learning environment for our students as we hope to, it is miles better than it used to be,” she said.
“It’s miles better than what I had experienced, and there are so many more supports and so many more Indigenous faculty to look up to and take classes from.”
Learning in a colonial space
Nearly one-fifth of Manitoba’s entire population is Indigenous, and the province has the highest Indigenous population proportionally out of any province.
“I often say to folks that this means every graduate is going to encounter one out of every five of their clients, patients, customers, coworkers, bosses [who] may be Indigenous,” said Miller.
This also means the U of M has a special responsibility when it comes to reconciliation. University of Manitoba Indigenous Students’ Association (UMISA) co-cul-
tural co-ordinator Kayla Shaganash believes that institutions in Manitoba should be “the ones to pave the path for every other institution.”
“There are small tiny movements,” she said, “but there are a lot of large movements that end up taking us back.”
Shaganash works in archives and collections in the anthropology department, and reported that one step forward is the repatriation of ancestors and sacred items being housed at the U of M. In the 2021-22 academic year, the university’s Indigenous Initiatives Fund gave $60,000 to professors in the anthropology department for their project focused on honouring ancestors, belongings of Indigenous communities and other Indigenous material that is held in university archaeology labs as part of a Respectful Repatriation Ceremony.
have programs.” Now, Catcheway plans to enter medical school after she graduates next year, with the goal of eventually practising medicine where she grew up.
That’s why Catcheway and Shaganash went into student politics in the first place
sity is to face these issues and to have these difficult conversations head on, and not be taken down by them the way I was before.”
“The reason I’m in university is to face these issues and to have these difficult conversations head on, and not be taken down by them like I was before”
— Kayla Shaganash, UMISA co-cultural co-ordinator
— even within UMSU, Catcheway sees the institutional problems.
“I argue every single day in those board of directors meetings,” she said.
“I argue a lot. Part of being Indigenous is arguing and sticking up for yourself and using your voice.”
Shaganash’s experience at the U of M has been heavily influenced by colonialism. She faced academic barriers that she attributes to intergenerational trauma, but her mentors advocated for her and kept her afloat.
The timeframe of a fouryear degree is often unfeasible for many Indigenous students, especially those coming from the reserve, said UMSU Indigenous students’ rep Ishkode Catcheway, who came to Winnipeg from a reserve herself.
Every day, she says to herself, “these institutions were never meant for Indigenous people to be in.”
“They were never meant for us, to be walking in these halls, to have a building, to
The reality for the two is that it’s up to them to “be the ones to make that change and to raise our voices,” said Shaganash.
Like Seymour, Shaganash’s family always talked about post-secondary education. But while Seymour emphasized the importance of thriving as an Indigenous person, Shaganash said her community in Thompson, Man., wasn’t doing so. For her, going to university always comes back to helping her community.
While she doesn’t always feel like she fits into the institution, “I’m going to make space for myself here,” she said.
“The reason I’m in univer-
Catcheway doesn’t believe that the U of M is a safe space for Indigenous students. While she herself has only experienced racism on campus once, she knows that the experience is all too familiar for many Indigenous students.
She and Shaganash both believe the community at large would benefit from an ICR for all students.
“The longer we prevent this from happening, the more instances like this [are] going to happen, and then we’re not going to be doing anything to move forward in reconciliation,” she said.
One thing that both Shaganash and Catcheway have found troubling throughout their time at university is being unable to cite oral teachings and traditional knowledge in papers they write. Catcheway referred to an Indigenous studies course in her first year. She wanted to use information passed down from her grandmother and mother in an assignment, but she couldn’t include it because she couldn’t cite it.
“That’s a big barrier we all face as Indigenous scholars,” said Shaganash.
Miller recommends Chicago citation styles in her courses for students who wish to cite traditional knowledge, which detail how to cite personal interviews and communications, as well as lecture citations which can be applied to situations such as an Elder giving a public pres-
entation or speaking before a community group.
When used in research that may be published, students must obtain informed consent from any person they intend to quote through an “ethics approval” process, which Miller said is one reason why students may not be able to use knowledge passed down to them. This was implemented to address research practices that worked to exploit Indigenous knowledge. If the university doesn’t follow these guidelines, it may jeopardize its federal research funding.
Miller said that Indigenous communities support asking researchers to file ethics applications and follow procedures outlined. This applies to dissertations and theses at the graduate level, but it could also be required for senior theses and some undergraduate projects.
Research that works alongside communities rather than “on communities” is essential when thinking about a university’s path to reconciliation, said Miller.
Learning as a community
Shaganash and Catcheway emphasized the importance of community-based learning. While that isn’t happening right now, both believe that it’s possible to achieve. Migizii Agamik already does it.
Catcheway, Shaganash and Seymour are some of many Indigenous students who have used supports provided by the Indigenous Student Centre (ISC) and Migizii, the building that the centre works out of.
“We all used Migizii as a community,” said Seymour.
ISC director Carla Loewen said the centre is for all Indigenous students, “whoever finds our doors.”
Cont’d p. 15 >
“Accept my culture, you accept me”
Lorraine Seymour, master of social work — Indigenous knowledges
< Cont’d from p. 14
There are five student advisors working at the ISC, and Loewen said that each advisor works with roughly 100 students every year.
Some students will see an advisor once and never come back, and some will come often throughout their time at the U of M. Once students find Migizii and the ISC, Loewen said they often call it “their home away from home.”
Addressing the fact that she and her team work within a colonial environment, Loewen said the centre always
works to “support the whole student,” taking into account their mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing in programming, advising and other supports. Students are also able to smudge in Migizii.
“Everybody who comes here often says they feel relief when they’re in here because they can tell that they’re with people who understand,” said Loewen.
Learning from the land
Education does not just exist in one form. It goes far
beyond what is taught in universities. Seymour keeps a small beaded tobacco pipe like the one that she would have received around the time she was taken into the residential school system. The pipe “will teach you how to be, to live a good life,” she said. The pipe helps her to hold on to her identity.
Her life’s journey, she said, is helping people access and reconnect with their identity and their cultural attachments, much like how the pipe helps her make sense of things. Her master’s thesis centred around beading as
healing, making connections with research participants struggling with their identity and culture. The main project was supposed to take 12 weeks, but it lasted four seasons instead.
Seymour said the project took her to the land. It all comes back to the land, because “that land is your family,” despite attempts to exploit and colonize it.
On that warm June day, Seymour spoke of the water as the river flowed, and as she did, it began to rain.
Her daughter, a Robson Hall graduate, fights for that water and its rights.
“Accept my culture, you accept me,” she said. “You don’t accept my culture, I’m not in a safe space.”
“That includes U of M. They need to do better.”
features@themanitoban.com
“Look at the water,” she said. “It’s alive, but it belongs to somebody. How is that even real?”
photo / Gillian Brown / staff
A small beaded tobacco pipe Seymour would have received around the time she was taken into the residential school system.
Something wicked this way comes
The Wicked Bazaar blows into town
Damien Davis, staff
Where do witches, the magically inclined and self-declared weirdos go to sell their goods? As of June 24, the answer is the Wicked Bazaar.
Founder of the Wicked Bazaar and business owner of Momma Bat Witchery Kari Giavedoni, with the support of friends and loved ones, debuted Winnipeg’s first witchy market.
”I have a business where I do tarot readings, astrology readings,” Giavedoni said. “I sell crystals. I sell crystal jewelry. I sell spell jars, ceramics, all kinds of stuff that you would find in a metaphysical or witchy shop.”
The bazaar was created in part to provide alternative makers with opportunities they often don’t get in larger markets.
“I’ve been doing that since 2018, and so I’ve also been doing markets since 2018,” Giavedoni said. “And, unfortunately, I’ve been rejected from a lot of markets.”
Rejection and inspiration go hand in hand for the birth of the Wicked Bazaar. While Giavedoni expressed feelings of not fitting in at conventional and traditional markets, she also found inspiration from witch markets in other cities with a larger scene.
Another source of inspiration behind the market’s creation was Giavedoni’s dream of opening a store.
“But I also am a stay-athome mom,” she said. “I have three young children as well, and it’s just not the right time for me to open a store.”
Twenty-seven vendors, Giavedoni included, filled her yard on the day of the first Wicked Bazaar, and the event also featured a fire dancer. Participants were greeted by electricity, volunteers on site and a venue where they could comfortably sell their goods and services.
“There was a lot of work that went into it,” Giavedoni explained. “We fed everybody, which was, I think, a really nice touch. And when I say ‘everybody,’ we fed the volunteers and vendors.”
Giavedoni explained that, when she was participating in other markets, she often did so alone. It was rare to have someone along to help her, and because of this things like eating and using the washroom were next to impossible. These experiences fueled her desire to create the bazaar with vendors’ needs in mind.
The bazaar also featured a donation drive for the North
“There was a lot of work that went into it”
— Kari Giavedoni, founder of the Wicked Bazaar
Point Douglas Women’s Centre, and Giavedoni plans to do another at the next event.
“I’m going to be doing a donation drive pretty much at all of the events,” she said.
“I really enjoy working with the North Point Douglas Women’s Centre for a couple reasons. I have acquaintances and friends that do work with them, so that’s why I chose that one.”
Giavedoni said that, to incentivize donations, Prairie Sky Books, a Wolseley staple, donated a prize. Attendees who donated were entered for a chance to win.
The event went smoothly and left her speechless. With close to 500 attendees, Giave-
doni felt that it came close to perfection and is excited for the next market.
When asked if there was any concern with hosting a market that could be considered taboo, Giavedoni said that, while it was on her mind, she didn’t have any doubts or fears.
“I think there’s a couple reasons why,” she said. “The neighbourhood, first of all. Wolseley is pretty ‘crunchy,’ pretty open and accepting of any type of lifestyle.”
She added that there are several people in her neighbourhood who live a similar lifestyle to her own. Some of them were even vending at her market.
“It’s kind of a good time to do a witches’ market or open a witch store or have a witches’ business because it’s interesting,” she said. “It’s trending now a little bit.”
“I’m 34 years old, so I’m millennial, and if you were like this in school, it wasn’t cool. But I feel like if you’re like this now you might be considered cool, you know?”
With the success of the first market, Giavedoni and her support system of her experienced friends and husband have already started advertising and planning for more markets in August, October and December. The next market is the Wicked Bazaar: Lammas Harvest Moon.
“It’s on a Wednesday,” she said. “It’s Lammas, which is a pagan Wiccan Sabbath, which is basically just like a witchy holiday.”
The bazaar will once again be at her home in Wolseley. The vendors are already picked and she’s feeling confident. “I’m just really excited for everything that’s to come.”
The next Wicked Bazaar will be Aug. 2 at 1184 Wolseley Ave. from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
arts@themanitoban.com
photos / provided