20 September 2023

Bison women’s soccer goalie Karina Bagi making one of 17 saves at the game against the UBC Thunderbirds

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Gillian Brown editor@themanitoban.com

BUSINESS MANAGER Dhruv Patel accounts@themanitoban.com

ADVERTISING CO-ORDINATOR Diego Castro ads@themanitoban.com

EDITORIAL

MANAGING EDITOR Ezra Taves me@themanitoban.com

COPY EDITOR Simon Pensato copy@themanitoban.com

NEWS EDITOR Sarah Cohen news@themanitoban.com

NEWS EDITOR Kyra Campbell news@themanitoban.com

RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Elah Ajene research@themanitoban.com

COMMENT EDITOR Jessie Krahn comment@themanitoban.com

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Jacob Davis arts@themanitoban.com

SPORTS EDITOR Grace Anne Paizen sports@themanitoban.com

DESIGN

DESIGN EDITOR Taeran An design@themanitoban.com

DESIGN ASSOCIATE Vacant

GRAPHICS EDITOR Teegan Gillich graphics@themanitoban.com

GRAPHICS ASSOCIATE Vacant

AUDIO AND VIDEO

AUDIO EDITOR Harmatpreet Brar audio@themanitoban.com

PHOTO EDITOR Ebunoluwa Akinbo photo@themanitoban.com

VIDEO EDITOR Kennedy Legault video@themanitoban.com

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Violet Baker social@themanitoban.com

REPORTERS

109 HELEN GLASS BUILDING

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

WINNIPEG, MB

204. 474. 6535

The Manitoban is the official student newspaper of the University of Manitoba. It is published monthly during the summer and each week of regular classes during the academic year by the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.

The Manitoban is an independent and democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens.

The Manitoban is a member of the Canadian University Press, and our journalistic standards can be found on the Manitoban’s website.

The newspaper’s primary mandate is to report fairly and objectively on issues and events of importance and interest to the students of the University of Manitoba, to provide an open forum for the free expression and exchange of opinions and ideas and to stimulate meaningful debate on issues that affect or would otherwise be of interest to the student body and/ or society in general. The Manitoban serves as a training ground for students interested in any aspect of journalism.

Students and other interested parties are invited to contribute to any section of the newspaper. Please contact the appropriate editor for submission guidelines.

The Manitoban reserves the right to edit all submissions and will not publish any material deemed by its Editorial Board to be discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic, ableist or libellous.

Opinions expressed in letters and articles are solely those of the authors. Editorials in the Manitoban are signed and represent the opinions of the writer(s), not necessarily those of the Manitoban staff, Editorial Board or the publisher.

A “volunteer staff” member is defined as a person who has had three volunteer articles, photographs or pieces of art of reasonable length and/ or substance published in the current publishing year of the Manitoban.

VOLUNTEERS

VOLUNTEER STAFF Bahareh Rashidi, Matthew Merkel VOLUNTEER interested in volunteering? email me@themanitoban.com today!

Any individual who qualifies as a volunteer staff member must be voted in by a majority vote at a Manitoban editorial board meeting. Elected representatives and non-students may be excluded from holding votes as volunteer staff members in accordance with the Manitoban Constitution.

All contents are ©2023 and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the Editor-in-Chief.

Feminist organization deems Manitoba Progressive Conservatives anti-choice

Kyra Campbell, staff

With the provincial election on the horizon, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) has declared Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative (PC) Party to be antichoice.

The statement, released on Sept. 5, outlined that the PC party has “shown its disregard for reproductive health care in Manitoba, even granting ministerial roles to vocal anti-choice individuals.” This statement refers to former minster Kelvin Goertzen, who spoke at an antichoice rally.

Other PC MLAs have also publicly vocalized their anti-choice views including James Teitsma, MLA for Radisson, who spoke at the 2019 Winnipeg March for Life, and Ralph Eichler, MLA for Lakeside, who participated in an interview with antichoice group Campaign Life Coalition.

Paige Mason, president of ARCC outlined the need for the organization’s message to reach voters.

“We thought that their record shows that they’re not willing to even nudge on the issues,” Mason said. “They’ve just seemed to push the issue aside, and we thought that it’s good to make people aware of this especially before the election.”

Two priorities are top of mind for pro-choice activists ahead of the election — buffer zone legislation and universal contraceptive coverage.

As Mason explains, buffer zones are a specific distance in front of all medical facilities where people are not allowed to protest. Multiple other provinces including Quebec,

Ontario and Nova Scotia already have buffer zones with protections reaching up to 150 metres around a medical facility.

According to Mason, a buffer zone is “just meant to protect patients’ privacies [and] health-care workers.”

“It shows that if you want to protest you can go to the legislative building or somewhere else, but not in front of a medical facility,” she said.

Manitoba New Democratic Party MLA Nahanni Fontaine introduced buffer zone legislation on multiple occasions from 2018 to 2021 but each time the legislation was shut down by the PC government.

Mason is concerned that people may not be able to exercise their reproductive rights or access contraceptives amid the current affordability crisis.

“Some person might not be able to choose between groceries and birth control pills,” Mason said.

The Manitoba Liberal and New Democratic parties have committed to universal contraceptive coverage if elected. The Manitoba PCs have yet to commit to contraceptive coverage.

Recently, the abortion debate hit even closer to home for students. On Sept. 14, anti-choice demonstrators set up on campus, displaying graphic imagery.

Kyle Coffey, organizer of the demonstration on campus, said that his group was there “with the message that abortion is a human rights violation.”

When asked about the ARCC’s statements and if the group’s goal is for an abortion ban in Canada, Cof-

Anti-choice advocates return to U of M campus

Sarah Cohen, staff

fey said he believes the government has a duty to protect all members of “the human family.”

Victoria Romero, a political studies student and vice-president of cultural and social engagement at the U of M racial equity inclusion alliance felt compelled to counter the demonstrators by having her own personal protest.

“It makes me quite upset that there are people who are anywhere, but especially coming to our campus, to force their opinions on others,” said Romero.

When asked about Coffey’s message portraying abortion as a human rights violation, Romero said, “They are actively seeking to take away others’ rights to their own body and their own human rights.”

“However they may see abortion or contraceptives or reproductive health as a moral failing, that doesn’t deter from the fact that they are the ones attacking other people’s human rights.”

With the ARCC’s statement and the Manitoba election fast approaching, Romero noted the importance of not just looking at abortion policies, but other initiatives taken by politicians.

“Regardless of if you see a politician supporting a pro-choice or antichoice initiative, it is also important to look at if they are supporting childcare initiatives and health-care initiatives and social supports.”

news@themanitoban.com

Activists from the anti-choice movement returned to campus Sept. 14. The protesters were scheduled to be outside the Fletcher Argue building from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Protesters are allowed to be on campus per the university’s desire to allow “freedom of expression,” according to signs posted around the building. The University of Manitoba’s Respectful Work and Learning Environment policy upholds the university’s responsibility to support an environment where individuals are “free from harassment.”

The signs simultaneously warned campus visitors of possible images they may find disturbing.

Rainbow Pride Centre (RPC), the Women’s Centre and Arts Student Body Council (ASBC) collaborated on a statement posted on the RPC Instagram account.

The post warned students that the protesters would be in the vicinity and provided alternate paths to Fletcher Argue if they wanted to avoid the possible graphic material.

In addition to the warning, the statement assured students that ASBC, RPC and the Women’s Centre all believe “in the right of each person to make decisions regarding their health care and support access to safe abortion.”

Students who may need additional support can access the Student Counselling Center at 474 UMSU University Centre or by phone at (204) 474-8592.

news@themanitoban.com

Join the club! Take a look at some campus student groups

Microbiology club focused on supporting students’ goals

The club has multiple events lined up for the academic year

For science students looking for a new and invigorating club to join, the undergraduate Microbiology Student’s Club (MiSC) is motivated to make the student experience at the U of M as positive and beneficial as possible.

MiSC co-presidents Randi Roy and Aakash Natarajan are energized for the 202324 academic year and excited to share all that the club has to offer. The club has gotten an early start on events, participating in U of M’s firstever Life Science Olympics on Sept. 9.

Roy explained the importance of finding community at U of M, especially within science programs.

“These programs are really robust and can be quite difficult,” she said. “Having that type of community and support system I think is important for people with these degree paths.”

Kyra Campbell, staff

Roy and Natarajan further delved into the importance of community through mentorships. Roy noted the “power” that comes with being connected with those in the same degree paths as you.

“We also have an amazing mentoring program led by one of the other execs on our team, Tiana,” said Natarajan.

“The mentoring program connects undergrads with graduate students in a few different departments on both campuses, and it’s sort of a way for them to see what graduate life is like.”

The club is focused on research, ensuring members are aware of research opportunities within the U of M and beyond. The club holds research nights highlighting the work of professors at the U of M and works in partnership with the National Microbiology Laboratory by hosting an information session.

MiSC has plenty of resour-

ces to offer. Natarajan is pion eering a guide listing mul tiple research scholarships available to students outside of what the U of M offers. The guide will also break down lab structure, how to get involved in research and how to con nect with a professor if you are interested in their research.

There’s also a new space for the group that Roy organ ized, where students can net work and attend events. The group can be found in the Par ker Building, room 134.

Along with research, the group will host a Halloween social in collaboration with other science clubs on campus and its annual Valentine’s Day social in February.

For more information or to join the club, MiSC can be contacted through its twitter @UofmMicroclub or through its Instagram, @misc.uofm.

of photography hobbyists

Kyra Campbell, staff

For decades, the photo club has been capturing the beauty that Manitoba has to offer. If you have ever wanted to learn more about photographing the people and places of Manitoba while joining a supportive and collaborative group, the photo club is the perfect place to start.

President of the photo club Anthony Phung joined the group in 2019. Since then, he has continued to foster a supportive hub for photography hobbyists to gather, learn and share ideas.

“The main thing that our club does is outreach to students,” said Phung. “We can get them involved in a new hobby that might bring happiness or joy to their lives, as well as creating an environment of education where people can learn off of each other.”

Within the club, students can grow their skillsets in many aspects of photography, including composition, lighting, shading and editing.

Past events run by the club include photo walks, an activity where photographers

gather and explore nice locations to take photos while getting to know fellow photographers.

The club has also facilitated workshops on improving photography skills, offering a chance for members to socialize with other hobbyists and encouraging hands-on experience.

Before the pandemic, the club would take a yearly trip to the Maskawa Project, a nonprofit in Pine Falls, Man. There, students could go on a retreat and take pictures of the vast array of wildlife and the aurora borealis.

Phung explained that the club is a friendly environment focusing on skill improvement. If students wish, there is the option for critique, but it is always constructive and geared toward helping group members succeed.

Currently, the photo club is restructuring its operations. It will open membership applications soon for students who wish to join the club and help shape it for the 2023-24 academic year.

photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

Stepping up to the podium

Debate at any level with UM Debate Club

Sarah Cohen, staff

Debate club is back in full swing after years of on and off club management.

Christy Abraham is in her fourth year in the faculty of arts, and as president of the debate club she helped the club get back to active status.

“Debate has a lot of applicable skills to life,” Abraham said. When it comes to public speaking skills, like those that you can build as a member of debate club, “it will make school as well as your life easier.”

Whether you want to debate recreationally, competitively or just want to watch a good debate, debate club is for you. You don’t need any prior experience to join. Abraham said that the club teaches everything from how to structure a speech to how to actually debate a topic. Above all, the skills you can gain from being an active member range from creating and defending an argument to confidence.

Abraham said that at the club when participants are getting ready for a debate, they’ll

be given a topic and a stance — either for or against — time to prepare and then the debate begins.

“As long as you want to learn, just drop by.”

Debate club members will get the opportunity throughout the year to visit other schools in order to compete. The club will also be hosting a high school debate tournament in November.

Abraham and another executive member host a podcast on the U Multicultural production company’s show, “U Talk,” where they talk about debate and debate club at the U of M campus.

While the club is on the smaller end of the scale right now, its members are hoping to attract a bigger crowd. You can attend a debate club meeting on Mondays and Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Tier 306. Abraham encourages all interested students to become active members. All you have to do is show up to meetings.

The place for all creative minds

Join .devClub to enter the world of coding and technology

Sarah Cohen, staff

You don’t have to have any experience coding to join .devClub, the U of M’s software development club. In fact, Ahmed Ahmed, .devClub vice-president, said that skillsets from the Asper school of business and fine arts, among others, are helpful to every project done in .devHacks, the club’s yearly hackathon.

.devClub is a student club for people from all fields and degrees to join.

“We’re more focused on making computer science and tech more accessible for everyone,” Ahmed said.

Joining .devClub gives students access to beginner-level coding workshops, social events, exam crams and coding competitions.

One of those coding competitions is the .devHacks competition, where students form teams to build a “semi-working application that has a good human-computer interaction component” from scratch.

Keeping your nose in the books

Book Club fosters a love of literature

Sarah Cohen, staff

From sci-fi to romance, the U of M Book Club has room for every reader to find their next favourite book and make some new friends.

Crystena Desilva is a third-year criminology student and Gabrielle Ramsay is a fourthyear microbiology student. Together they are the U of M Book Club’s co-presidents.

Desilva and Ramsay were looking for opportunities to connect with fellow book lovers during the COVID lockdowns. A student-run book club was listed on the UMSU website, but once the two arrived back in person, they found the club no longer existed. To fix that, Desilva and Ramsey decided to start one themselves.

The club began again at the beginning of 2023, and Desilva and Ramsay are happy to have brought it back to campus.

The goal of Book Club is to “bring people together who love reading and love books,” and “to connect through a common hobby,” said Ramsay.

Rather than all reading the same book, members of the book club are given a theme and a list of book recommendations within the theme. These themes are meant to provoke dialogue between book club members, not to be restrictive. For the latest theme, “Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You,” read-

ers picked a book that had a film adaptation. Meetings occur once a month, with loca tions announced on the U of M Book Club Instagram. In meetings, members chat about what they read that month and pick out the next month’s theme.

If you like reading and enjoy a friendly, bookish environment, join the book club.

“If you’re just getting back into [reading] or have been reading forever,” book club is for you, said Desilva.

The next meeting of the book club will be held at the end of September or beginning of October.

You can join the U of M Book Club by visit ing its Linktree, which can be found on its Instagram @uofmbookclub.

Besides learning how to code and building on technological skills, .devClub is a place to create and foster friendships.

“A big part of computer sci-

ence is being able to socialize and communicate with others,” Ahmed said. “Nowadays, you can’t do much if you don’t communicate with others.”

.devClub got together with other computer science clubs in July for a picnic where students from different backgrounds were able to socialize and make friends. At the beginning of September, .devClub held Are We There Yet? an event where students travelled up to Gimli for the day.

.devClub has weekly meetings and monthly events. The first event of the school year is Coding Kick-off, a workshop for anyone interested in learning soft skills for computer science, networking and possible career paths in computer science. The event will take place on Sept. 21 at 5:30 p.m. in E3-270 in the engineering building. Events are open to everyone, and becoming a member of .devClub is as simple as joining the discord server and filling out a quick form. The link can be found in the Linktree on the @UMdevclub Instagram or on the club website, devclub.ca.

photo / Book Club / provided

photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

photo / .devClub/ provided

Where music and technology meet

Exploring the Desautels faculty of music Studio FLAT

elah Ajene, staff

Computers have been integral to music composition since the 1950s, evolving from room-sized monstrosities to the personal computers we use today.

In the 1980s and ’90s, computers became commonplace tools for musicians. With the advent of digital audio workstations (DAWs), music composition and production became more accessible.

For Örjan Sandred, Swedish composer and Desautels faculty of music professor in composition, computer technology goes beyond recording and composing on digital platforms, opening doors to new ways of thinking about music. While traditional music notation remains important, computers and AI allow composers like Sandred to explore alternative ways to create and manipulate sounds.

Sandred’s journey into the world of composition and technology began during his time as a student. Among his teachers was Finnish composer Magnus Lindbergh.

“He was really fascinated by how you could work with computers as assisting you when you compose music,” Sandred recalled. “Everything he told me intrigued me.”

Sandred’s curiosity led him to further explore this realm, eventually bringing him to the renowned Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music in Paris. It was there that he deepened his understanding of computer technology’s potential in music composition.

Earlier this month, Sandred was elected as a new fellow of the Royal Society of Canada — a renowned scholarly organization in Canada that acknowledges outstanding achievements in research and arts.

Sandred founded the Desautels faculty of music’s Studio FLAT — a hub for both faculty and students, where they explore the possibilities of electronic and computer music.

“It’s pushing the boundaries for how you can use technology in music,” he said.

At Studio FLAT, Sandred’s focus is not on popular music or recording music, but on finding new ways to create sounds and approach music from different angles. The goal is to encourage students to think beyond conventional music-making methods and embrace technology as a tool to reshape the future of music.

Within the studio, Sandred

employs specialized software designed to manipulate and reshape sounds such as DAWs. With a DAW, one can record sounds, incorporate synthesizers and orchestrate sound sequences, similar to the workings of a tape recorder but executed digitally within a computer. The studio also uses software in score composition, helping arrange musical notes into coherent and meaningful musical instructions.

“It’s a symbolic way of working with music,” Sandred said. “Not the sound directly but instructions.”

Typically, those studying composition in the Desautels faculty of music take three courses involving Studio FLAT — the first of which is open to U of M students from outside the faculty.

“They get the challenge to make music out of any type of sound that they can put inside the computer,” Sandred said.

This process begins with recording various sounds, and the possibilities are endless — from capturing the chirping of a bird to recording the rumble of a passing car. Sandred

emphasized that not every sound is inherently musical, so it is the approach and attitude that matters when trying use sounds to make music.

In his sessions with students, discussions delve deep into the essence of music, exploring questions like “What is music?” and “How do we imbue sounds with meaning?”

Here, technology plays a pivotal role by enabling students to transform unconventional sounds into musical compositions.

“There’s another side of sounds that we can explore now with the help of technology,” he said.

Teaching composition and being able to witness students’ creative growth and transformation during their fouryear undergraduate journeys is a deeply rewarding experience for Sandred.

“I think it’s really cool to see someone grow with their ideas,” he said.

In his research, Sandred focuses on rule-based computer assisted composition techniques. “This is a way to define music,” Sandred

explained.

When learning music theory, one is typically instructed in a specific musical style and taught how to create music in that style by following a set of rules — what to do and what not to do. Sandred’s interest lies in the broader application of rules as a tool for creating music.

Think of the legal system, for instance. It is made up of numerous rules and laws, each seemingly straightforward on its own but collectively forming a complex web of interactions. Similarly, Sandred said, working with a multitude of rules in music, even simple ones, can lead to intriguing interactions and side effects, which can shape compositions and create unique musical experiences.

The composer’s exploration of computer technology’s role in music and the arts is driven by the desire to remain connected to the everchanging world and to create art that resonates with the present moment.

technologies available is intrinsic to the role of art. As people navigate their way through history and cultural backgrounds, art helps them understand who they are and allows them to express themselves in the context of their time.

“The role of art is to follow along,” Sandred said, “and I think art has to adapt to what’s going on.”

Computer technology has played a pivotal role in shaping music for over a century, particularly in popular music, where effects and innovations have transformed the musical landscape.

Sandred believes computer technology is a tool that can help artists remain connected and engaged with contemporary issues.

“Whatever we want to do, we have to somehow relate it to society to make art and music meaningful.”

To Sandred, adapting and evolving with the tools and research@themanitoban.com

photo / Ö rjan Sandred / provided

Bridging knowledge for climate resilience Project uses Two-Eyed

elah Ajene, staff

The concept of Two-Eyed Seeing was first applied to research practices by Mi’kmaw Elder of the Eskasoni First Nation Albert Marshall. An article co-authored by Marshall describes how he refers to Two-Eyed Seeing as “learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of western knowledges and ways of knowing, and to using both these eyes together for the benefit of all.”

Indigenous peoples have amassed thousands of years of experience managing ecosystems sustainably and dealing with extreme events. However, this knowledge has often been marginalized within the scientific community, said U of M professor at the Natural Resources Institute C. Emdad Haque.

Through his new project titled “Two-Eyed Seeing for climate-related disaster risk reduction, decolonizing science, and strengthening community resilience” — which recently received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council — Haque seeks to bridge the gap by creating a collaborative platform that allows Indigenous knowledges and western scientific methodologies to work together on equal footing.

The project is rooted in the reality that countries across the globe are grappling with the economic, social and human costs of climate change-related disasters. These include wildfires, droughts, floods and more.

Seeing approach to address climate change-related disasters

Haque said that the cumulative costs of these disasters have amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars globally. To tackle this crisis head on, Haque and his team have selected two countries for the project — Canada and Bangladesh, representing the developed and developing world respectively.

Haque grew up in Bangladesh, a country highly vulnerable to natural hazards.

According to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index report, it ranked seventh on the list of countries most at risk of extreme disasters.

With nearly three decades of relevant experience and international exposure, Haque felt the need to address the growing impact of climate change-related disasters.

“My interest has always been in the risk and hazards areas,” he said.

Early in his career, Haque developed a project funded by the International Development Research Centre focusing on flooding and river channel migration in the Ganges-Brahmaputra area of Eastern South Asia.

Haque continues to work

on several projects, including one on small-scale fisheries in partnership with the University of Waterloo and another with the University of Manitoba’s anthropology department focused on dried fish. He is also exploring the role of military involvement in domestic emergencies.

The central premise of Haque’s newest project is to

address the existing bias in disaster management, which has typically favoured a topdown scientific approach and often overlooks the knowledge and expertise of Indigenous communities. Through his project, Haque envisions a partnership where both Indigenous and western knowledges contribute to addressing climate change-related disasters.

“We plan to work with a number of Indigenous First Nation communities in Canada, as well as in Bangladesh,” he said.

Haque plans on using a participatory and community-led

approach, ensuring that the affected communities take the lead.

“The communities themselves will be in the driver’s seat,” he said. “We are not going to impose any so-called scientific or top-down methodology.”

This participatory approach recognizes that communities themselves, as potential disaster victims, should have agency in determining the specific methods and tools used for disaster management.

Haque hopes to produce a range of outcomes through the project, including knowledge products such as journal articles and monographs, as well as community reports. Once the project is completed, the focus will shift to imple-

mentation, which involves developing “planning tools for joint disaster and emergency management.” These tools will be instrumental in addressing various climate-related disasters.

“This project will bring about a lot of learning from different communities, from different parts of the world,” Haque said.

“We’d like to see that these tools and these knowledge products are applied to solve these problems and issues at the local community and regional levels.”

research@themanitoban.com

photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

“The communities themselves will be in the driver’s seat”

—

C. Emdad Haque, U of M professor at the Natural Resources Institute

Canada needs to protect the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth

Parental rights are a smokescreen for encroaching on trans kids’ needs

Kyra Campbell, staff

A s a Canadian citizen and grad student researching human rights, I always want to see the country continue to progress forward. However, Canada continues to become a place that I am more pessimistic than optimistic about.

Across the country, government officials are becoming bolder in legislating their discriminatory views and putting them into policy. New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have taken the lead in targeting 2SLGBTQIA+ youth.

On June 8, 2023, Premier of New Brunswick Blaine Higgs announced changes to Policy 713. The policy, enacted in 2020, was created to ensure safe and inclusive school environments for 2SLGBTQIA+ students.

The recent changes have waived the previously mandatory rule that teachers must use students’ pronouns no matter their age. Now, teachers are allowed to misgender trans and non-binary students under the age of 16.

The legislation will also require schools to obtain parental consent for students who wish to change their name at school. If a student does not feel comfortable asking for parental consent but wishes to affirm their identity, they must be referred to a school psychologist to develop a coming-out plan.

As an Atlantic Canadian, I was not surprised by Higgs’s decision. He is known to be a right-wing conservative and has a court challenge against his government for not providing adequate abortion access in the province.

At the same time, my heart hurt. Atlantic Canada is mostly rural and continues to lack safe and supportive communities for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth. Now, these decisions add another fear for students — that they will be forcibly outed by their schools.

In late August, Saskatchewan followed suit. Its legislation would require parental consent for students under the age of 16 to change their pronouns or affirm their gender identity within the school environment.

Along with this provision, the government has paused any involvement of thirdparty sex education organizations from educating within schools, and has introduced the ability for students to opt

out of sex-ed.

A lack of comprehensive sex education mixed with an inability to affirm one’s identity without fear of parental backlash leads to further isolation for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth.

It is concerning to see this type of legislation continue to gain traction across provinces. Recent transphobic activity is causing a stir in Manitoba, with the provincial Progressive Conservative (PC) party pledging to give “more rights to parents over their children’s education.”

In an article from CTV, PC leader and Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson was quoted saying “parents know what is in the best interests of their children.” But is that true? There are multiple examples in the world to suggest the contrary, including religious indoctrination or conversion therapy camps.

Instead, the question should be: “can young people give free informed consent to make their own decisions?” As they are autonomous beings, not just an appendage of their parents, they should have the ability to live their lives as their true selves.

Young people already don’t

have much freedom to live their lives, and the legislation in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan further chips away at the autonomy they do hold. Furthermore, education is under provincial jurisdiction, meaning that each province has the authority over how its education system is run. But the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth have recently become wedge issues at the federal level.

At the Conservative party national convention, a motion prohibiting gender-related “life altering surgical interventions” for children was not only allowed, but approved with nearly 70 per cent of members voting in favour.

Notably, at the same convention, delegates voted that Canadians should have “bodily autonomy” regarding vaccines. So, the hypocrisy is through the roof.

A national Nanos poll released on Sept. 23 revealed that the top priority issues in Canada are inflation at 16.3 per cent, the environment at 14.9 per cent and jobs/economy at 13.1 per cent. So, I’m confused about why the Tories would make a national declaration that they will focus on stripping human rights from Canadian citizens. It seems other issues are top of mind for Can-

adians, like their most basic needs and human rights.

These policy decisions lead to the big question — what can be done to protect the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth? This responsibility will likely come through the judgements of the courts.

Both Saskatchewan and New Brunswick already have cases launched against them, and it’s only a matter of time until one of them reaches the Supreme Court of Canada. What happens there?

Likely, the groups challenging the government will cite sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As someone who has extensively researched abortion in Canada, I am very familiar with Section 7, as it was the same section used to invalidate the criminality of abortions nationwide. Courts deemed the legislation as unconstitutional due to its violation of “life, liberty and security of the person.”

In the case of disallowing trans youth from using their pronouns or names at school, nearly the same argument could be made. Barring youth from undergoing gender-affirming care or allowing them to affirm their gender identities within a space that they spend the majority of their weekdays would violate their liberties.

states, “Every individual is equal before and under the law” and protects each individual “without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.” This section would likely be violated through these policies as they deny trans youth the ability to affirm their identities in the same safe manner as cisgender heterosexual people do.

Hopefully, the court will rule against the governments and show that basic human rights of equal protections and security stand above these “parental rights,” and that these attacks on trans rights can be deemed unconstitutional before they continue to gain momentum.

Let me be clear on what these policies represent. They are not intended to expand parental rights for the benefit of youth. Rather, they are a right-wing smokescreen to push anti-2SLGBTQIA+ beliefs and expand government control over the lives of queer youth.

Canada must protect and reflect upon the human rights of its most vulnerable citizens, not cut off the few avenues of autonomy that they have.

Section 15 of the Charter editor@themanitoban.com

graphic

/ Teegan Gillich

/ staff

Canada continues to become a place that I am more pessimistic than optimistic about

Squeezing deuces (or the politics of pooping and peeing)

How the lavatory becomes a political laboratory

Jessie Krahn, staff

P icture this: you’re scrambling into a public washroom, clutching your abdomen at the eleventh hour. You pick the perfect unoccupied stall — no neighbours — and throw your pants down to hurl yourself onto that unnervingly damp plastic seat.

Before you can finally release your cargo into the outside world you hear a cough. Your rectum seizes up as your body is petrified by shame and self-consciousness. If you resume, someone in this bathroom will know you’re pooping.

The thought alone is enough to make one flush with embarrassment.

Even though most people simply go to the bathroom to pop a squat, the prospect of proximity to other people in the pooper can inspire surprisingly complex emotions. Toilets are among the foremost political and ideological battlegrounds in the world, and we are remiss not to think more carefully about them.

Take Amoowigamig, a public washroom that opened on Main Street in Winnipeg, to service Winnipeggers downtown. The bathroom saw its hours cut in May this year because — surprise — people were using it. Amoowigamig’s operating costs surpassed its $200,000 budget.

The decision to cut back Amoowigamig’s hours rather than expand them was, to be blunt, a load of dookie. The bathroom serviced both unhoused Winnipeggers and random passersby who needed to do their business. It seems to me that publicly available washrooms ensure that less people have to pee on the street.

Winnipeg’s bylaws do not mandate that businesses with bathrooms allow members of the public to do their business in those bathrooms. Food and dining services must have a bathroom for patrons, but therein lies the problem. Some people can’t pay, but everybody poops.

Yes, everybody poops, and yet there are so many rules about when and where we’re allowed to do it. We frown

upon and even outright forbid people hurrying off to the water closet, as if it’s better for them to pee or poop in their seats. During one of tennis player Coco Gauff’s matches at the recent US Open, the umpire told a man in the audience to sit down when he tried to go to the washroom.

I peed before boarding a flight back from Toronto this summer, but my bladder was somehow full to bursting 40 minutes later as we were starting to take off. Despite sitting right next to the toilet and the plane being airborne, I couldn’t bring myself to go until the seatbelt sign was off. There was something about the idea of everyone on the plane knowing what I was up to that made me think holding it was better than just opening the flood gates. Bathroom rules are not universal. Toilets around the world expect different things from those who use them with varying levels of guidance.

North American bathrooms are devoid of essentials like bidets and floorto-ceiling stall walls in favour of maniacally wide gaps, so occu-

pants can make eye contact with passersby while cinching off another nugget. Toilets in many parts of Europe feature a person who demands payment before entry. In Greece, users have to toss poopy paper in a reeking bin rather than flush it. Countries around the world use squat toilets that look like misplaced urinals. I’ve only ever encountered one person who thought about this wide variation in-depth.

Slime-coated outrage merchant and philosopher Slavoj Žižek once spoke about toilets as metaphors for ideology. In his words, “you get on the toilet, and you sit on ideology.” Our precious porcelain thrones sample societal attitudes, like disgust, suggesting something about where that attitude comes from and how we deal with it. This is how he accounts for all the toilet variants we find around the world.

In my opinion, washrooms say something about power. That is, we are only okay if others are privy to us squeezing deuces in the lavatory if we see them as equal counterparts outside.

The seg-

regation of bathrooms has so often been a wedge representing wider bids for domination. It really doesn’t matter where someone goes to the bathroom so long as it doesn’t pose a risk to public health, like pooping in the street. Everyone wins if everybody can poop in toilets.

Under Jim Crow in the United States, Black folks were not allowed to use designated white washrooms. In some ways, segregated washrooms were both part of the enforcement of white supremacist ideology on the population as well as representations of the whole system. White America’s fears about Black folks reaching parity in white society played out with the bathroom.

There is a similar anxiety in anti-trans bathroom bills. Cis society’s fears about standing shoulder to shoulder with trans people in public, about trans people existing, play out in these bathroom bills.

What better way to ensure total domination over a group of people than to restrict where they do their business?

Restricting some people’s access to certain bathrooms is almost never paired with making sure a bathroom, any bathroom, is available to them as an alternative.

We all have to think about going to the bathroom daily, yet accessing the washroom is never a simple matter, even for those of us who overcome internal blockages about using public ones. This is the potty problematic — little is ever done on a grand scale to protect bathrooms from perpetually becoming miniarenas housing political or ideological battles, and the need for bathrooms only becomes more urgent.

Socially, talking about what goes on in the bathroom still carries stigma, and I think one’s reticence to break that wall down plugs up very important conversations that absolutely need to happen. Access to bathrooms should be an irrevocable right for all.

Winnipeggers desperate for a toilet can locate the nearest publicly available bathroom at https://www. winnipee.com/.

Finding friends in familiar places

How to win friends when you have none

Jessie Krahn, staff

1 977’s Between the Lines opens on a group of 20-something beatnik amateur journalists surviving on cigarettes, weekday booze and sexual misadventures.

These characters — including bizarro dud of a music critic Max played by Jeff Goldblum — are backgrounded by a dishearteningly shelled out journalistic landscape. I will ignore that in favour of the film’s secondary commentary on relationships — how friendships form with their contexts.

In the beginning, the office crowd in Between the Lines takes the shape of a friend group in its golden age. When the prospect of the paper being purchased begins to loom, the devilishly harmonious prankster culture the group maintains begins to dissolve as friends fall out with each other. That is, once the context that incubated the friendship starts to evolve, the characters’ relationships do too.

This is a lesson that young people would really do well to internalize.

Every September, university subreddits like r/umanitoba are inundated with posts from students soliciting advice on making friends. Because the U of M is a commuter campus, meaning most of its student body commutes to rather than lives on campus, the culture poses some unique barriers to socializing.

Friendships form in places where people regularly run into each other and have a shared purpose, so trying to make friends is harder in places where people don’t linger. To put a fine point on it, you’ll never make a friend by just stopping some stranger in a parking lot. One of the best ways to make friends is to frequently be around people in contexts where chitchat is socially acceptable.

UBC PhD candidate Iris Lok points this out in the exemplary situation of dog owners bumping into each other repeatedly on walks. Conversation starts organically in unforced situations. You will make friends if you have somewhere to go where you and others have a common goal and will continue to meet.

This isn’t to say that there are no spaces for this at commuter campuses. Rather, people seem to have no idea where to look for them. Many students seem to expect that

friendship ought to arise easily in university classrooms simply by asking people to be friends, from what I gather in conversation. Large first-year

to making friends are contextual, I think some of them come from cultural attitudes toward friendship too.

and choosiness.

classes in lecture halls are not usually the places where people linger or socialize.

At the U of M, joining a student group where members regularly meet up based on interests like anime or language learning, joining a recreational sports team, or volunteering at the Manitoban are fast tracks to finding friends. I made some enduring friendships primarily through getting involved with student groups throughout my undergraduate and graduate degrees, but I did have to take initiative and put myself in environments where I could meet and get to know people.

While some of the barriers

From what I see on Reddit many students expect they can just walk up to random people, ask them to be friends and wash their hands of the matter. Reddit is admittedly a warped way to gauge the temperature of anything, but it really seems to me that people neglect seeking out quality friendships and approach friendship with an attitude that anyone will do.

The notion that one can find friends easily without putting in time and work is a sign we tend to undervalue friendships, treating them as ways to alleviate loneliness rather than reciprocal connections that fortify and nourish us. In fact, finding fast friends that last is a long-term project that requires concerted effort

Philosopher Jacques Derrida mulled over the sticky parts of friendship in his book The Politics of Friendship. Derrida argues that, similarly to political alliances between countries, friendships are “preserved in silence,” held together by an unspoken agreement to never voice disagreements.

I think many friendships are generally sustained by silence, and in that way, they rob us of the chance to really know and understand true connection. Good, lasting friendships have room for disagreement. They aren’t just ways for us to fill lonely periods. They enrich our lives, challenge us and help us grow.

dards for friendship are on the floor?

There are things you as an individual can do to find friends. You have to put yourself in new situations and take the initiative to become a fixture in other people’s daily lives. You have to make the decision to take your metaphorical dog for a walk regularly in the hopes of meeting other dog owners.

Between the Lines ends on a bitter note but begrudges a sweeter sentimentality for bygone friendships and the heyday of print publications alike, with Max mooching drinks off a new buddy at the local watering hole.

Take a leaf out of Max’s book. Regular your local watering hole and pick out some people who will add something to your life.

Friendship isn’t always easy, but maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe the expectation that friendship should be easy contributes to people’s undiscerning selection habits. After all, why put effort into selecting a friend if your stancomment@themanitoban.com

graphic / Bahareh Rashidi / volunteer

Good friendships that last have room for disagreement

To complete Sudoku, fill the board by entering numbers 1 to 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.

20 by 20 orthogonal maze

Copyright © 2023 Alance AB, https://www.mazegenerator.net/

Giving back to our Friends of the Winnipeg Public Library

Full-time student and FWPL board director becomes new Instagram admin

Jacob Davis, staff

T he Friends of the Winnipeg Public Library’s (FWPL) Instagram profile is receiving some love thanks to Mahi Paantha, its new Instagram admin and one of its volunteer board of directors.

FWPL, a charitable organization that has existed for over 30 years, raises funds and makes donations once a year to the Winnipeg Public Library (WPL). Paantha joined FWPL’s board of directors this past summer.

Paantha has volunteered at libraries since elementary school, spending their recess periods doing various tasks such as scanning books and putting protectors on book covers.

“The library is just a really nice comfort place for me, and one of the few places where I can just unwind and chill by myself — read, draw, basically do whatever I want,” they said.

Paantha had sought out volunteer positions at the WPL in the past, but the arrival of

COVID-19 and the lockdowns that followed made finding a position impossible. This year they tried again and reached out to FWPL about a position that ended up being unavailable, but they were offered an opportunity to work with the FWPL board and accepted.

As a full-time student at Red River College Polytechnic (RRC Polytech), Paantha has been unable to attend board meetings since the start of September due to scheduling conflicts. However, they still wanted to contribute despite this, so they came up with the idea to manage the Instagram page for FWPL.

“I saw the Instagram was kind of lacking,” Paantha said.

“It seemed kind of empty so I was like, ‘You know what? I can post on social media all the time, I really want to still be involved with the board, I’ll just go on there and I’ll help out with designing stuff.’”

Paantha is in the Digital Media Design Program at RRC Polytech, which provides

them with relevant design experience for the job.

Being a part of an organization that does integral work for public libraries is something Paantha feels strongly about.

“Honestly, it’s so great,” they said. “I finally get to be involved with the library in a more direct way, because I was always just the person that would put books away.”

Their desire to be involved is also motivated by their passion for social services and accessible libraries for all kinds of patrons.

“Having [libraries be] accessible is honestly so important to me as someone who did grow up around libraries myself,” Paantha said, adding that they want public libraries to “continue being accessible for the city,” so that kids can have positive experiences just like the ones they had in their youth.

For Paantha, working on the board and helping to raise funds “for the library directly”

feels like giving back.

“It just makes me really happy that finally I can give back to the library, at least a little bit,” they said.

FWPL’s next event is a book sale at Grant Park High School on Oct. 21 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on Oct.

Week-long 2SLGBTQ+ film festival returns Reel Pride Film Festival set for end of September

Jacob Davis, staff

Reel Pride Film Festival, Canada’s oldest festival of 2SLGBTQ+ films, makes its annual return with a week of screenings later this month.

From Sept. 26 to 30, attendees will have the opportunity to see several films of different origins that depict different identities on the big screen.

Rose Murego, programming director at Reel Pride, said the festival has shown films with “unique, diverse content that best reflects what the LGBTQ community experiences on a daily basis” since its inception in 1985.

She said Reel Pride is important because it is the only week that 2SLGBTQ+ individuals in Manitoba can come to a cinema and see films that reflect parts of themselves. In her experience, attendees share a sense of community and are able to express themselves when they come to the film festival.

Most of the films set to screen at Reel Pride are relatively new in Canada, Murego said, and so when people come to the festival, “They will come in and watch those films they cannot watch any-

where else.”

The festival offers a cinema-going experience in which people can see themselves up on screen in a safe environment.

“Reel Pride gives people the possibility to enjoy, in a safe place, gay and lesbian and transgender films,” Murego said, adding that during the week of the event, people can come watch the films and have the freedom to feel like themselves.

The festival opens on Tuesday, Sept. 26 with its Retro Night, and there will be an art show opening at 6:30 p.m. before the day’s screenings. The two films for that evening, Blue Jean (2022) and Before I Change My Mind (2022), are both set in the 1980s. Blue Jean tells the story of a PE teacher’s experiences being closeted and living two different lives, while Before I Change My Mind revolves around a student whose gender identity is up for speculation as they form a complicated kinship with the school bully.

Wednesday, Sept. 27 will be an evening of short films starting at 7 p.m. At 10 p.m., Film Training Manitoba will be

hosting a panel discussion. The event on Thursday, Sept. 28 is titled “Soirée Cinéma” and features two gay French films, The Many Lives Of Edouard Louis (2022) and Lie With Me (2023). The Many Lives is a documentary about French writer Edouard Louis, while Lie With Me is about a novelist who is reminded of his first lover after he returns to his hometown for the first time in years.

Friday, Sept. 29 is “Date Night,” and features three international films, one British-Dutch, one Austrian and the other Russian. Silver Haze

(2023) and Eismayer (2022) both tell stories of complex romances, and Queendom (2023) is a documentary about a queer artist from small-town Russia who works to combat homophobia while challenging people’s thinking on queerness and beauty.

To end the festival, Saturday, Sept. 30 is Truth and Reconciliation Day. The first film playing that night is Rosie (2022), a film set in 1980s Montreal about an orphaned Indigenous girl who is taken in by her francophone aunt. Next up is The Empress of Vancouver (2022), a film fol-

22 from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The organization will be accepting book donations during the event. See @friendswpl for more details.

arts@themanitoban.com

Reel

arts@themanitoban.com

photo

/ Mahi Paantha / staff

photo / Reel Pride / staff

lowing Oliv Howe’s past that also sheds light on Vancouver and its drag scene back in the 1980s alongside the homophobic climate of the era.

Pride Film Festival will be held from Sept. 26 to 30 at the Gas Station Arts Centre. See reelpride.org for tickets and more information.

Cross-country season preview

Bisons to watch for in the 2023 season

Grace Anne Paizen, staff

With the Bisons Time Trial last Tuesday, Sept. 12, the cross-country team’s 2023 season is officially off from the start line. Helmed by veteran coach Claude Berubé, here are Bisons to watch for in the long road to the CanWest and U Sports Championships.

Recording the best time of any Bison at last year’s U Sports Championships, veteran runner Hailee Morisseau’s numbers have constantly improved over her career. The 2021 CanWest Second Team All-Star and 2022 Bisons female Athlete of the Week last November for her fantastic finish at nationals, Morisseau climbed 12 spots higher than her 2021 finish on top of her best Bisons time at the 2022 U Sports race.

In fact, Morisseau’s 2022 season saw her finish one place higher at the Sled Dog Open, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, and four places higher at the Stewart Cup, hosted by the University of Calgary Dinos, compared to her 2021 season.

Fellow veteran Danika Passler-Bates also improved her times the last two seasons. Passler-Bates finished

one place higher from her 2021 Sled Dog Open race, moving from 35th to 34th place in 2022. At the Roy Griak Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota, she ran a time of 28:08.8.

Teammate Angela Kroeker had a big 2022. Kroeker climbed 15 spots higher in her 2022 Sled Dog Open finish compared to her 2021 finish, and climbed 17 spots higher in her Stewart Cup finish from 2021. Kroeker even finished two places ahead of Morisseau in the 2022 CanWest championships race and competed in the rain-soaked 2022 U Sports championships as well.

On the men’s side of the team, veteran Calvin Reimer improved his times in both the Stewart Cup and the U Sports championships. In the Stewart Cup, he leapt from 15th place in 2021 to third place in 2022. Reimer also bested his time from the 2021 Sled Dog Open in last year’s race, improving to 27:10.7 from 27:52.4, even though he ended up finishing 16th overall in the 2022 race compared to 15th in 2021. He also had the best time out of all Bisons at the CanWest championships last year.

Fellow runner Justin

Kroeker also improved his times from the 2021 season, not only finishing higher in the 2022 Sled Dog Open and Stewart Cup, but lowering his overall run time in each race.

In fact, in last year’s Sled Dog Open Kroeker took over a minute off his 2021 time, jumping from 19th place in 2021 to 11th place in the 2022 race, and took a whopping three minutes off his 2021 Stewart Cup time, leap-frogging from 16th place in 2021 to first place overall in 2022. Kroeker was

honoured as Bison male Athlete of the Week for his personal best time and first place finish at the Stewart Cup last October.

first place last year, beating his previous time by well over a minute.

The herd are off on the road this week, competing at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis on Friday.

Teammate Noah Fillion is also a Bison to watch for this season. Fillion leapt from 51st place in the 2021 Sled Dog Open to 24th place in 2022, improving his time by over three minutes. Fillion also managed to improve from his fantastic second place finish at the 2021 Chris McCubbins Provincial Championships to sports@themanitoban.com

Sports teams’ schedules

–

*All times CDT

Brooke Jones / provided

Get to know your Bisons: Hailee Morisseau

Cross-country veteran

Grace Anne Paizen, staff

While most student athletes find their way into sports through the route of peewee soccer or baseball, cross-country veteran Hailee Morisseau found her way to the sport through triathlon.

“I started in triathlon when I was in middle school,” Morisseau said. “I was introduced to running through there, and that’s really when I took a liking to running and started doing it as well as the cross-country and track programs.”

While the Portage la Prairie, Man. product played a few sports in high school, it was through running that she “saw the most success,” and she particularly preferred the community feel of the sport.

Morisseau explained triathlon and cross-country “were usually smaller groups, but very close knit, and I liked that aspect of it.”

After finishing high school, Morisseau went on to attend Lakehead University in Ontario because of its distance running program’s reputation.

After attending Lakehead for two years, Morisseau took some time off both school and running. Wanting to be closer to home, Morisseau came back to the Keystone province, where she started attending the University of Manitoba before she got back into competitive running with the Bisons.

“It was just the most convenient option to train with the team there,” Morisseau explained. “It was nice to be closer to home and tie it all back together.”

Morisseau has given a huge boost to the U of M’s cross-country team and has become a stalwart over the

past two seasons.

In 2021, Morisseau placed ninth at the Sled Dog Open, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, and 11th at the Stewart Cup, hosted by the University of Calgary Dinos. She was also named a 2021 Canada West Second Team All-Star with her 14th place finish at the 2021 Canada West Championships. Morisseau also ran a respectable time of 31:32.2 at the 2021 U Sports Championships race in Quebec City, Que., hosted by Laval University.

In 2022, Morisseau improved her finish at both the Sled Dog Open and Stewart Cup, finishing eighth overall and seventh overall, respectively. She was also named a 2022 Bisons female Athlete of the Week last November when she ran 31:18 in the U Sports Championships co-hosted by Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s Universities in Halifax, N.S. Morisseau shaved off 14 seconds from her 2021 race and recorded the best Bisons time overall in the event.

Morisseau considers the break she took between Lakehead and the U of M to be the recipe for her success with the herd, feeling that it “was really beneficial.”

“I never really expected to improve my performance a whole lot,” Morisseau said. “Just trying to not take it so

a lot of my improvements over the years.”

seriously, and just focus on having fun and listening to my body a bit more ended up working really well for me.”

“Really listening to my body and trying to avoid injury and sickness for the most part, I think that can be attributed to

the cold, wet and windy con ditions in Halifax last year ing in the U Sports Championships race, Morisseau believes expecting the unexpected is her secret weapon.

“I really like the conditions when they’re a bit worse,” Morisseau explained. “I don’t take it as a mental hit. It gives me a bit of an advantage over some of my other competitors.”

cross-country apart from other racing sports like track and field.

“There’s so much else that factors into a cross-country race, you never know what the conditions are going to be like,” she said.

With her final season of cross-country eligibility underway, Morisseau wants to focus on enjoying her last year as a member of the herd.

Sports, Morisseau is happy to see where her competitive running takes her.

“I definitely will continue running and keeping active to some degree,” Morisseau said.

“But I think I will just see what the opportunities will present.”

“I think my main goal, honestly, for this season is just to have fun,” Morisseau said, sports@themanitoban.com

photo / Ebunoluwa Akinbo / staff

“There’s so much else that factors into a cross-country race”

— Hailee Morisseau, Bisons cross-country veteran

Bison briefs

Grace Anne Paizen, staff

Bisons football

The Bisons football team was on the road again this past weekend, this time stopping in Vancouver to take on the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds at Thunderbird Stadium.

On the second snap of the game, the Thunderbirds scored a touchdown and would continue to dominate the first quarter. However, in the second quarter, the Bisons started to mount a comeback.

Down 20 to UBC, the herd began to turn the tide when starting quarterback Sawyer Thiessen targeted receivers AK Gassama, Nathan Udoh and Brendt Adams, each recording huge first downs. With a 29-yard field goal from kicker Vinny De Rosa, the herd cut into the Thunderbirds lead.

The Thunderbirds would score their third touchdown of the game on the first snap after the Bisons field goal, but the herd would push back once more, even after starting the drive on its own 7-yard line. With an initial carry by running back Breydon Stubbs and a Gassama reaching catch, Stubbs and fellow running back Vaughan Lloyd rumbled the ball down the field. After receiver Tyson Orregaard had a huge first-

down catch, Adams scored a massive 38-yard touchdown for the herd.

Unfortunately, this would be the Bisons last offence of the night, being beaten 22-0 in the second half of the game. Despite the 56-10 loss, Bison quarterback Jordan Hanslip got several snaps in the game — including some crucial short yardage plays that extended the Bisons drives. The defence recorded a fumble recovery, courtesy of linebacker Nic Pereira, and two sacks on the day, one each from defensive tackle Collin Kornelson and defensive lineman Kaleb Mackie-McLeod.

The herd will be back home this weekend, hosting the University of Regina Rams on Saturday for a matinee game at IG Field.

Bisons golf

The Bisons golf team played two tournaments this last week. The team’s first outing was the par 72 Battle at the Bear tournament from Sept. 11 to 12, hosted by the University of British Columbia Okanagan Heat at the Okanagan Golf Club in Kelowna, B.C.

Cole Peters finished at the top of the herd with +10. Derek Benson and Jordon McDonald tied with +16 both shooting 81 and 79, but on opposing days. And Brent Ingram and Trent Robertson tied with

+18, both shooting 83 on day one and 79 on day two. The team finished seventh overall, shooting a combined +58.

The herd’s second tournament of the week was the Saint John’s University Fall Invitational from Sept. 16 to 17, hosted by the Saint John’s University Johnnies in Minnesota. The herd played on two different courses over the weekend, starting on the par 71 St. Cloud Country Club course on Saturday, before taking on the par 72 Blackberry Ridge Golf Club course on Sunday.

Rookie Jose Mekish-Lacquette registered the best score for the Bisons with +13, shooting an impressive 78 on both courses. Teammate Peters finished with +15, shooting 78 and 80 over the two days, while fellow veteran Robertson finished +18, shooting 79 and 82. Rookie Chase Janas finished the tourna- ment with +22, shooting an impressive seven strokes less on the second day and teammate Lachlan Allerton clocked in at +25, shooting 82 and 86.

Both rookie Jack Rudick and veteran Benson played as individuals, shooting +16 and +25, respectively. Rudick had a fantastic first day, shooting just three over par on the St. Cloud course, while Benson had a better second day on the Blackberry Ridge course.

The team finished 10th

overall in the 13-team tournament and will be back on the links again this weekend for the Twin Cities Classic in Minnesota.

Bisons women’s soccer

The Bisons women’s soccer team opened its homestand on Friday night against the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) Timberwolves at the West Turf Field.

The herd was relentless in the first half, opening the scoring with forward Janelle Chomini’s goal off a beautiful feed from midfielder Taryn Cabak in the 37th minute. The sustained pressure on the Timberwolves led to a UNBC own goal as Timberwolves defender Anna deWynter tried to head a dangerous Bison kick away from her net, but the bounce gave the Bisons a 2-0 lead in added time before the half.

The Bisons continued their attack in the second half and improved to 3-0 courtesy of Chomini’s second goal of the night, straight off Timber wolves goalkeeper Brityn Hinsche from a free kick taken by Bison captain Jessica Tsai in the 86th minute. With the win, Bisons goalkeeper Karina Bagi records her first shut out of the season.

The herd’s second game of the weekend was on Saturday night at IG Field, as the Bisons played host to the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds. While the Bisons spent the previous game on the Timberwolves side of the field, the Thunderbirds spent this game on the Bisons side of the field. The defensive effort by the herd saw Bagi capture the single-game Bisons women’s soccer program record with her 17 saves. The herd held off the Thunderbirds until the 59th minute, conceding two goals by the end of the night to UBC.

The Bisons will be on the road this next weekend as they face the University of Victoria Vikes on Friday and the Mount Royal University Cougars on Sunday.

sports@themanitoban.com