Issue 16, January 30, 2023 (Indigenous Issue) (Volume 143)

Indigenous Issue

January 30, 2023

The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

Vol. CXLIII, No. 16

THE VARSITY

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The Varsity would like to acknowledge that our office is built on the traditional territory of several First Nations, THE VARSITY including the Huron-Wendat, the Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the

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Credit. Journalists have historically harmed Indigenous communities by overlooking their stories, contributing to stereotypes, and telling their stories without their input. Therefore, we make this acknowledgement as a starting point for our responsibility to tell those stories more accurately, critically, and in accordance with the wishes of Indigenous Peoples.

MASTHEAD Jadine Ngan Editor-in-Chief

Letter from the Editors

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Makena Mwenda Creative Director Nawa Tahir Managing Editor, External

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The Varsity’s first Indigenous Issue is a work in progress, long overdue

Sarah Artemia Kronenfeld managinginternal@thevarsity.ca Managing Editor, Internal Angad Deol Managing Online Editor

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Talha Anwar Chaudhry Senior Copy Editor

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Khadija Alam News Editor

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Shernise Mohammed-Ali Comment Editor Janhavi Agarwal Business & Labour Editor

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Alexa DiFrancesco Features Editor

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Marta Anielska Arts & Culture Editor

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Sahir Dhalla Science Editor

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Mekhi Quarshie Sports Editor

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Caroline Bellamy Design Editor

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Andrea Zhao Design Editor

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Vurjeet Madan Photo Editor

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Jessica Lam Illustration Editor

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Maya Morriswala Video Editor

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Aaron Hong Front End Web Developer

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Andrew Hong Back End Web Developer

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Safiya Patel Deputy Senior Copy Editor Lexey Burns Deputy News Editor Jessie Schwalb Assistant News Editor

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Al Aref Helal UTM Bureau Chief

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Alyanna Denise Chua UTSC Bureau Chief

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Emma Livingstone Graduate Bureau Chief

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Ajeetha Vithiyananthan, Kyla Cassandra Cortez, Lina Tupak-Karim Associate SCEs Alana Boisvert, Selia Sanchez, Tony Xun Associate News Editors

Kunal Dadlani, Alaysha Merali, Hargun Rekhi Associate Sports Editors Georgia Kelly, Andrew Ki Associate B&L Editors

Arthur Hamdani, Johanna Isabella Liu, Eleanor Park Zhang, Spencer Lu Associate Comment Editors Associate Design Editors Alice Boyle, Maeve Ellis Associate Features Editors Madeline Szabo, Milena Pappalardo Associate A&C Editors Seavey van Walsum, Salma Ragheb Associate Science Editors

Cheryl Nong, Biew Biew Sakulwannadee Associate Illo Editors Zeynap Poyanli, Nicholas Tam, Augustine Wong Associate Photo Editors Vacant Associate Video Editors

Alya Fancy Social Media Manager Lead Copy Editors: Ozair Chaudhry, Linda Chen, Jevan Konyar, Bella Reny, Momena Sheikh, Nandini Shrotriya, Camille Simkin, Kiri Stockwood, Miran Tsay Copy Editors: Andrea Avila, Gene Case, Selin Ginik, Ikjot Grewal, Jane Kang, Victoria Paulus Designer: Averyn Ngan

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BUSINESS OFFICE

Ishir Wadhwa Business Associate Rania Sadik Advertising Executive Abdulmunem Aboud Tartir Advertising Executive

No one on The Varsity’s masthead — our core editorial team — is Indigenous. As settlerCanadians, immigrants, and international students, we can’t speak for Indigenous students, staff, or faculty.

Our staff, which includes anyone who has contributed to the paper at least six times, includes very few, and possibly no, Indigenous writers. This estimate is based on our yearly internal demographic survey: in the 2021–2022 academic year, none of the respondents identified as Indigenous. During each of the two years prior, we had one Indigenous person on staff who responded to the survey. (We haven’t sent out our internal demographic survey for the 2022–2023 year yet, but plan to do so in the coming month.)

These numbers mean there are gaps in The Varsity’s structure. We have heard over the years that our policies and practices are not equitable and inclusive. In addition, we are often unaware of important context and may miss the stories important to Indigenous peoples in the U of T community. This means that Indigenous students do not find themselves represented in our pages or our organization structure.

When non-Indigenous people report on Indigenous stories, that reporting is not always respectful to the people covered. In addition, Indigenous peoples and their stories are underrepresented in Canadian media at large.

That is why The Varsity is determined to make more space for Indigenous contributors. It’s also why we wanted to dedicate an issue to Indigenous stories and coverage.

We’ve been trying to publish an Indigenous Issue at The Varsity for at least the past two years. After several years of effort, this is the

first time The Varsity has gathered enough stories to release an Indigenous Issue — and that’s something we’re not proud of. A dedicated focus on Indigenous peoples in our pages is long overdue.

We’re making this a special issue so we can compensate contributors for their labour — something that often isn’t within our budget as a student newspaper. For this issue, we’ll be paying Indigenous contributors honoraria amounting to around $600 in total. The Varsity committed to spending at least $1,000 on this issue, so we’ll donate the rest of that money to an Indigenous organization, which our masthead will select in the coming days.

We’ll update the online version of this article when we’ve done so.

Looking ahead, we don’t want this Indigenous Issue to be a one-time initiative. This issue represents a broader commitment to covering Indigenous communities at U of T and in the GTA. We hope that future Varsity editors will build upon that commitment for years to come.

And we don’t want to set a precedent that The Varsity pays attention to Indigenous peoples and stories for one issue a year. We are committed to regularly publishing stories about, for, and — hopefully, more and more — by Indigenous members of the university community. Both mainstream and student media have harmed Indigenous communities and continue to do so today. We are complicit in that harm — so we are also committed to taking more care.

We have a long way to go. We need to ensure that each year’s masthead team learns about the histories and diverse cultures of the Indigenous peoples that we cover. We need to report on a wider range of stories about Indigenous peoples — stories about challenges and

barriers, but also stories of hope, community, and celebration. We need to approach community interactions in a way that meets the expectations of Indigenous students, staff, and faculty. We have to improve our editing and fact-checking processes to anticipate Indigenous worldviews and stories, and we need to include Indigenous voices in non-Indigenousspecific coverage. We also need to continually revise our Equity Guide to improve our practices for reporting on and with Indigenous communities.

We will make mistakes as we journey through the early stages of this work, and as those arise, we will take responsibility for them.

We welcome feedback — regarding this special issue, or about The Varsity’s initiatives to improve our Indigenous coverage in general.

If there’s anything you’d like to share with us, please reach out to Jadine Ngan at editor@ thevarsity.ca.

Down the line, we hope there will be a Varsity team where multiple Indigenous students with a variety of lived experiences have a stake in leadership and decision making. We hope The Varsity will become a newspaper that builds and maintains reciprocal relationships with various Indigenous community members and covers Indigenous stories with the care and basic competency they deserve. We are not yet that version of The Varsity. But we hope we are making a step, even if only a small one, toward it — and even if The Varsity meets these aims, we know there will still be work to do.

We are especially thankful to Shannon Simpson, director of U of T’s Indigenous Initiatives, for sitting with The Varsity to talk about U of T’s work on Indigenous initiatives in the past few years.

Letter from cover artist Evelyn Bolton Varsity Contributor

When creating this piece, I considered the importance of an Indigenous-centered issue. I wanted to convey in my illustration how Indigenous students are entering a new age of representation and recognition. I drew the figure to be armed with culture. She is dressed in a ceremonial ribbon skirt and carries a hand drum. The buildings were inspired by the buildings on Bloor Street West facing east at sunrise.

I would like to thank Zoe Neilson for modeling for my reference photos.

Cover: Evelyn Bolton

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The Varsity is excited to announce that we will be holding a Winter Open House on Thursday February 9, from 12-6 PM. You’ll be able to interact with the masthead of your favourite student newspaper, and learn more about getting involved with us. We look forward to meeting you, and perhaps convincing you to give us a shot at being your next extracurricular activity.

NOTE: Visitors will be asked to wear a face mask in our office upon entry.

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The Breakdown: Resources for Indigenous students A compilation of academic, cultural, and financial services at U of T Emma Livingstone Graduate Bureau Chief

U of T offers various resources for Indigenous students, spread across various platforms and divisions. Each U of T campus includes a separate centre focused on providing resources and hosting events specific to Indigenous community members; UTSG is home to Indigenous Student Services, UTM to the Indigenous Centre, and UTSC to the Indigenous Outreach Program. The Varsity compiled a rundown of academic, cultural, and financial resources for Indigenous members of the U of T community.

First Nations House Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students attending all three campuses can access academic services at First Nations House (FNH), on the third floor of 563 Spadina Ave. FNH provides support for Indigenous applicants to U of T and current students in the form of academic advocacy, financial advising sessions, and tutorial accommodation services. Some faculties and programs, including the Faculty of Law and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, also provide program-specific academic support to Indigenous students. The FNH also houses the First Nations House Bursary, which is awarded to undergraduate Indigenous students who demonstrate financial need.

FNH hosts an orientation for incoming Indigenous students in September and events and programs for Indigenous students throughout the academic year, including traditional talking circles, a career fair, and workshops. It also hosts Indigenous Education Week, which is an annual

The office of First Nations House.

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tri-campus event in October. The week features programs and events highlighting Indigenous art, histories, and ways of knowing. Additionally, Indigenous community members can meet with Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers for traditional teaching and advising at all three campuses.

Indigenous students can also participate in the FNH Student Advisory Committee, which collaborates with staff at FNH to develop programming and strategic initiatives.

Indigenous Research Network The Indigenous Research Network (IRN) provides resources and support for members of the university community. These include training on Indigenous research methods and ethics, information about securing research funding, connections to Indigenous communities, and cultural and spiritual support for individual researchers.

The IRN also provides research supports to Indigenous communities, connecting them to U of T researchers who specialize in Indigenous research, facilitating networking opportunities with other Indigenous communities, and giving methods and ethics training.

Indigenous House At UTSC, Indigenous House serves as a space for celebrating Indigenous ways of knowing and provides support to Indigenous community members.

The Indigenous Outreach Program at UTSC also hosts events, including a beading circle and language lessons.

Indigenous Centre The Indigenous Centre, located at UTM, provides resources and support for Indigenous community members. They also host events, including the upcoming All-Nations Powwow on March 25, 2023.

Financial Aid The university offers scholarships and bursaries for Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students at all campuses.

In addition to the FNH Bursary, the Indigenous Student Bursary is available to all undergraduate students based on financial need. Indigenous students who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents can access the Bennett Scholars Bursary based on financial need.

U of T undergraduate scholarships based on achievements in academics and extracurriculars include the Gertrude Elgin Robson Scholarship for Indigenous Students, the Dr. Lillian McGregor Indigenous Award of Excellence, the Marilyn Van Norman Indigenous Student Leadership Award, and the President’s Award for the Outstanding Indigenous Student of the Year.

The School of Graduate Studies (SGS) provides awards for Indigenous graduate students pursuing a PhD-track program through the Inclusive Excellence Admissions Scholarships for Master’s Students. This three-year pilot program aims to diversify academia and provide financial support to students from underrepresented groups in academia. As part of the pilot program, the SGS will provide 100 admission scholarships to students, each valued at $15,000. The SGS also provides an Indigenous Travel Grant to assist Indigenous students with travel expenses associated with participating in research or academic conferences.

A more comprehensive list of scholarships and bursaries — including program-specific awards and external awards, as well as application instructions and deadlines — can be found through U of T Student Life.

The Breakdown: Why only some programs require Indigenous courses Requiring Indigenous-focused courses “is not a one-stop solution” Lexey Burns Deputy News Editor

In 2016 and 2017, Lakehead University and Trent University each implemented a policy that required all undergraduate students to take at least one 0.5 credit course focusing on Indigenous content before receiving their degree. Laurentian University implemented a requirement for all students completing a Bachelor or Arts and Bachelor of Commerce to also complete at least three credits, equivalent to 0.5 at U of T, of Indigenous content.

Some U of T community members, like Jeffrey Ansloos — an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), who is a Canada research chair in Critical Studies in Indigenous Health and a member of the Fisher River Cree Nation — believe that integrating Indigenous-focused program requirements at U of T could be beneficial toward students’ overall education.

Current state of Indigenous course requirements In 2017, the U of T Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee released its final report, which called on the university to integrate Indigenous curriculum “throughout all levels and sectors of U of T, ensuring that the content is relevant and sustainable.” In the wake of the report, the U of T administration publicly committed to include significant Indigenous curriculum content in all of its divisions by 2025.

Currently, English students at UTM and the Faculty of Arts and Science must receive at least 0.5 credit in Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Indigeneity or 0.5 English credit in Indigenous, Postcolonial, Transnational Literatures, respectively. The uni-

versity encourages students in Canadian Studies to enroll in at least one out of a list of Indigenousfocused courses.

In an email to The Varsity, Ansloos indicated that he believes the university should expand Indigenous course requirements, particularly for undergraduates. “[The] idea of a required course at the undergraduate level, at this point in Canadian history, makes a lot of sense and is entirely feasible,” he wrote.

OISE has designed Indigenous elective courses and is considering putting some requirements in place. However, Ansloos brought attention to the fact that requiring Indigenous-focused courses “is not a one-stop solution.” He wrote that he does not believe every graduate program should require Indigenous course work. Instead, he believes the university should require graduate students to take Indigenous courses if they seek to enter a sector directly cited in the national Truth and Reconciliation Commissions Report, such as the legal, social, educational, and health-care sectors.

U of T’s response In September 2019, U of T named Susan Hill, the director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies, and Suzanne Stewart, the director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, as academic advisers on Indigenous curricula and Indigenous research, respectively.

In an interview with U of T News, Stewart said that she aimed to prompt researchers to be more conscious of how Canada colonized Indigenous peoples and colonization’s impact in shaping Canada’s society today. Stewart highlighted the privileges colonization has presented to all nonIndigenous Canadians, especially individuals in

First Nations House.

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research positions.

In the same interview, Hill expressed the benefits of educating students about different historical texts through their appropriate lenses and contexts, which Hill believes is crucial to ensuring Indigenous perspectives are considered within courses.

In an interview with The Varsity, Shannon Simpson, senior director of Indigenous initiatives at the Office of Indigenous Initiatives, explained that discussions about implementing an Indigenous course requirement have been ongoing for several years. “It is a bit of a challenge, with all the different departments and divisions and the way that they have degree requirements,” she said.

“Something we have talked about a lot is that there might be more value at U of T to have content built into curriculum instead of requiring a course,” said Simpson. She highlighted that there are pros and cons to mandating courses, the biggest con being that students might see learning about Indigenous peoples as a requirement and receive fewer benefits from the experience.

Indigenous course integration In May 2022, Françoise Makanda, the senior communications strategist from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, published an article about integrating Indigenous health into the Public Health & Preventive Medicine Program, which has been in progress for the last three years. The program launched as a pilot in fall 2021.

Dawn Maracle, a Master of Education student from OISE who is Mohawk from Tyendinaga Mo-

hawk Territory, explained that, “Canada is woefully behind” in regard to incorporating Indigenous content into the program curriculum.

Maracle explained that people throughout the U of T community “were fighting” to have an Indigenous course in different programs approximately 30 years ago.

“We should be far ahead of that. There are Indigenous issues to consider in public health as well as in many other topics,” said Maracle.

In 2014, U of T introduced the International and Indigenous Course Module, to allow students to learn about Indigenous history and issues outside of the classroom. In 2017, students visited Hawaii as part of the course module to learn about multiculturalism and decolonization strategies.

Over reading week in November 2022, a group of undergraduate students travelled to the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, as part of the course module. Students listened to the stories of residential school survivors and visited monumental sites from the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre, including a chapel and graveyard.

“When we learn in the classroom, we have an emotional buffer,” said Lydia Dillenbeck, a firstyear social sciences student and member of the University of St. Michael’s College. “We discuss and analyze serious topics without fully realizing their impacts. At Shingwauk, that emotional buffer was stripped away.”

With files from Nawa Tahir.

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NEWS

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U of T’s progress on Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee’s Calls to Action Final Report came out six years ago Jessie Schwalb Assistant News Editor

In 2017, U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee (TRSC) released a report that built off of the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In addition to highlighting the university’s role in forcing the assimilation of and perpetrating violence against Indigenous people, the report included 34 calls to action. In the report, the steering committee urged the university to commit to the long process of reconciliation.

The report reads that, “This report is but a beginning for the University of Toronto of what will be a long set of challenges, and yes, struggles.” The report quoted Nobel Peace

Consider building a dedicated Indigenous space at UTSG. In 2020, U of T unveiled a design proposal for the Indigenous Landscape at Taddle Creek, located on the Hart House Green.

The space marks the course of Taddle Creek — which ran from the current day intersection of St. Clair Ave. W and Bathurst St. and served as a fishing and gathering place for the Mississaugas of the Credit and other peoples before settlers buried the creek in the 1800s.

The design, created in consultation with many U of T community members, features a gathering area, signage with information and stories, benches, and a variety of tree species.

Consult with local Indigenous communities to develop a strategy to fund more Indigenous public art across all three campuses.

Since 2017, U of T has commissioned several pieces of artwork across U of T’s campuses, including the Tree Protection Zone, a work of street art located in front of Hart House that eight Indigenous artists created.

In 2019, Animikiik’otcii Maakaai, UTSC’s former Indigenous artist-in-residence, unveiled a solo exhibition featuring pieces focused on storytelling and ceremony. Mikinaak Migwans, a Faculty of Arts and Sciences professor, multimedia artist, and Anishinaabekwe of Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation, joined the Art Museum at University of Toronto as curator, Indigenous contemporary art in 2020.

Begin building Indigenous spaces at UTM and UTSC. At UTM, U of T erected a tipi on the field outside of Maanjiwe nendamowinan (Mahnji-way nen-da-mow-in-ahn), the building that houses the campus’ humanities and social sciences departments, which is more commonly referred to as MN. The tipi is used for various programming and ceremonies. In 2021, the university began constructing the Indigenous House on the UTSC campus, which will support various Indigenous ways of learning and knowing. The building will be surrounded by gardens and will overlook the Highland Creek Ravine.

Begin identifying and naming appropriate spaces across U of T’s campuses using Indigenous languages.

Various faculties have incorporated Indigenous languages into their signage, notably the Faculty of Law, which installed signage outside of the Indigenous Law Students’ Association office. These include Kwak’wala, spoken in 15 First Nations on the Northwest Coast of Turtle Island; Oneida, a Haudenosaunee language spoken in the Northeast; and Cree, an Alogonquian language family spoken in southern Canada. In 2019, U of T collaborated with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation to name the newly renovated humanities and social sciences building Maanjiwe nendamowinan, which translates to “gathering of minds” in Anishinaabemowin.

The designs for all renovations or new buildings should take smudging into account.

Smudging is a practice in multiple Indigenous traditions, where individuals burn herbs or plants such as sweetgrass, sage, and cedar as a means of purifying themselves or a space. Multiple rooms across U of T are preapproved for smudging. The renovated William Doo Auditorium, located in New College, includes smudging rooms. The UTSC Indigenous House will use heat sensors instead of smoke detectors throughout the building to allow for smudging.

The provost should hire a significant number of Indigenous faculty by creating funds specific to that goal.

Since 2017, the proportion of Indigenous faculty and staff at the university has grown, partially because of the creation of new Indigenous positions. In 2016–2017, the vice president and provost dedicated a new fund to hiring faculty from groups underrepresented at U of T and, in 2017–2018, initiated a separate fund specifically dedicated to hiring 20 new Indigenous faculty and 20 new Indigenous staff. The university also began a Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, which hires Black and Indigenous scholars and supports their research and career development.

The university should build additional avenues to support networking opportunities for Indigenous faculty and staff.

In 2019, the Office of the Vice-President, International facilitated a research partnership between U of T Indigenous scholars and scholars at the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, and the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School to create a plan that supports students to engage in Indigenous research in Australia and Canada.

The Indigenous Research Network launched in 2021, forming connections between researchers, faculty, and staff focused on researching the challenges that Indigenous communities face.

Conduct exit interviews with any Indigenous faculty and staff who leave the university.

According to Simpson, all staff and faculty have the opportunity to participate in an exit interview. There is no formal system in place to interview all Indigenous faculty and staff who decide to leave.

Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s speech at Six Nations community near U of T, reminding the university community, “Don’t ever think it’s over.”

In an interview with The Varsity, Shannon Simpson, senior director of Indigenous initiatives at the Office of Indigenous Initiatives (OII), discussed the difficulty of tracking progress on the TRSC’s calls to action. “[The calls to action] will be ongoing. They’re not things that we’ll probably ever be able to cross off the list,” she said.

The Varsity sought to document U of T’s progress on each of the 34 calls to action.

Review the anti-discrimination training materials supplied to hiring committees to ensure that they discuss specific issues related to Indigenous peoples.

In 2020, the Office of the Vice-Provost, Faculty and Academic Life organized a workshop for leadership and faculty who participate in hiring, tenure, and promotion processes. The workshop aimed to provide leadership and faculty with guidelines for incorporating equity and inclusion into hiring decisions, as well as reducing the effects of bias. The OII encourages placing Indigenous faculty on hiring committees and offers training sessions on Indigenous issues. According to Simpson, U of T does not require that members of hiring committees participate in any diversity and inclusion training sessions.

Assess the Indigenous cultural awareness training programs and begin discussions about how community members can promote equity and cultural sensitivity in relations to Indigenous peoples.

The OII piloted Indigenous Cultural Competency Training sessions in 2019. That same year, it hired John Croutch as Indigenous Training Coordinator, who took on the role of customizing training sessions for the university’s senior leadership.

Each division should consider creating an Indigenous leadership position within the Office of the Dean.

Multiple divisions have hired Indigenous advisors, mentors, and Elders in residence, some of whom are cross appointed with the Office of the Dean. These divisions include the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Victoria University, the Faculty of Architecture, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, the Faculty of Law, and Woodsworth College.

Consider creating an Indigenous Advisory Council largely made up of Indigenous community members external to U of T. The Council of Indigenous Initiatives Elders’ Circle, which is affiliated with the university, existed prior to the TRSC’s 2017 report and comprises Elders who are not employed by the university. The Circle meets three times a year to review the university’s governance, strategic planning processes, academic and research programs, and relations to employees. Twice yearly, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health consults the WaakebinessBryce Institute for Indigenous Health National Aboriginal Community Advisory Council, made up of 22 Indigenous academic and community members from across Canada.

The provost and the vice-president, research and innovation should collaborate with the Faculty Association to convene a working group to investigate issues related to research in and with Indigenous communities, create guidelines for ethically producing this research, and determine how the university should assess this research for tenure and promotion.

In 2020, the Academic Advisor on Indigenous Research started the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation Indigenous Research Circle to advise on community-focused research, programs, and policy. Additionally, members of the Indigenous Research Circle serve as staff on the Indigenous Research Network, which connects Indigenous scholars and promotes participatory Indigenous research.

Actively increase the number of Indigenous staff members who support important programs such as those aimed at strengthening Aboriginal languages and supporting Indigenous students. Over time, U of T should aim to fund these positions through core budgets instead of year-to-year add ons.

In 2016, U of T started the Diversity in Academic Hiring Fund, which funds positions targeted at Indigenous and Black faculty.

According to the 2020 Report on Employment Equity, 1.1 per cent of staff self-identified as Aboriginal, and the proportion of staff who identified as Indigenous/Aboriginal and as racialized increased from the previous year.

Expand access to Elder services and financial supports for connecting with Elders.

U of T has introduced multiple initiatives to connect students and faculty with Elders.

The Elder’s Circle meets with different divisions and members of the university community, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. New College has partnered with local Indigenous governments to create a program connecting students and Elders monthly. The Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health holds monthly student/Elder talking circles, and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education hosts language events featuring Elders.

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Examine the role and structure of the Elders Circle, particularly how the Circle’s mandate differs from the Council of Aboriginal Initiatives. U of T should also promote the importance of Elders across campus, particularly in advising senior leadership.

The 2019 report of the OII discusses the Elders’ Circle and the importance of Elders at U of T more broadly. According to the report, the OII encourages “the community to engage and grow in connection with them.

The teachings and support of the University’s Elders are regularly called upon by divisions and academic units.”

Integrate significant Indigenous content into the curriculum of all divisions by 2025, and evaluate each division’s progress regularly.

In response to the Canadian government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, multiple faculties introduced initiatives to make Indigenous content mandatory, including the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Law, and the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. Since 2017, many divisions have taken additional steps to incorporate Indigenous curricula. Some, including the Faculty of Arts and Science, have convened working groups to advise on Indigenous curricula.

UTSC offers grants for the development of Indigenous curricula and hosts an annual retreat for faculty to develop Indigenous curricula. In 2019, the Office of the Vice-President and Provost appointed Susan Hill, director of the Centre of Indigenous Studies and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee (Wolf Clan/ Mohawk Nation), as the Academic Advisor on Indigenous Curriculum and Education.

Develop opportunities for faculty, instructors, staff, and teaching assistants to learn about Indigenous issues. Create and fund a group, ideally made up of people of Indigenous heritage, to develop Indigenous curricula based in Indigenous knowledge and practices.

The OII offers three training sessions that discuss Indigenous allyship, reconciliation, and land acknowledgement for both staff and students. In 2019 and 2020, more than 2,700 U of T community members attended these training sessions. U of T has hired education developers focused on Indigenous pedagogies.

Expand offerings in Aboriginal languages, starting from local languages and expanding to provide a broader range of languages. Provide consistent funding for teaching Aboriginal languages and the Indigenous Language Initiative In 2017–2018, U of T provided courses on the Iroquoian language family and Anishinaabemowin. Currently, U of T’s Centre for Indigenous Studies (CIS) offers courses on Anishinaabemowin, Kanien’kéha, and Inuktitut.

The CIS also includes Ciimaan/Kahuwe’yá/ Quajaq, an Indigenous language initiative that facilitates language workshops, conferences, and activities for community members. The Varsity could not determine the levels of funding U of T dedicated to these courses and programs.

Develop research training modules that recognize the history of settlers conducting research unethically in Indigenous communities. Provide specific cultural and research ethics training to any scholars who aim to work in or with an Indigenous community.

In 2019, The University of Toronto Libraries hosted lectures on Indigenous research methodologies, ethics, and ways to support Indigenous researchers. That same year, The Vice President and Provost’s Office appointed Suzanne Stewart, an associate professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, as the Academic Advisor on Indigenous Research. Her mandate includes advising faculty and students with interest in conducting research in Indigenous communities and developing best practices for conducting research that respects Indigenous peoples.

The Indigenous Research Network also provides services to support any faculty, staff, and students who are engaged in Indigenous research, including events, training, and individual meetings.

Create a subcommittee of the Research Ethics Board focused on Indigenous-related research and tasked with developing a way to coordinate with Indigenous communities when the board reviews research proposals.

At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the VicePresident, Research and Innovation is in the process of establishing an Indigenous Research Ethics board that would include Indigenous faculty. This board will supplement the preexisting Decanal Advisory Committee on Indigenous Research, Teaching and Learning, which continues to advise the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on issues pertaining to Indigenous research.

Work with other universities to convene a committee discussing the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans and how it applies to research involving Indigenous peoples and communities.

In 2020–2021, Suzanne Stewart, Cathay Rournier, and the Indigenous Research Circle compiled a report consulting on Indigenous Research Ethics. Although this consultation did not include other universities, it suggested ways to adapt the Tri-Council Policy Statement based on a literature review and consultations with U of T and Indigenous community members.

Commission Indigenous authors to compile an accessible reference guide to Indigenous cultures and history, available to all U of T faculty, staff, and students through the internet.

The University of Toronto Library website includes multiple reference guides related to Indigenous peoples, including resources on the Indigenous history of Tkaronto, language resources, and Indigenous publishers and authors.

Consider creating a single, easily accessible Indigenous web portal where Indigenous students can access a variety of resources.

The Indigenous Gateway provides an overview of services, programs, and initiatives accessible to students across all three campuses.

Create a working group to investigate barriers for Indigenous students across undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. Consider where the university might use admissions initiatives targeted at Indigenous people, particularly in graduate programs.

Although the university convened an Indigenous Students Working group before the release of the TRSC report, The Varsity could not find evidence that it has convened one since. However, multiple graduate programs have implemented specific pathways for Indigenous applicants, including the Faculty of Law and the MD program at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Invest more to publicize and recruit to existing college pathway programs and targeted Indigenous access and bridging programs. These allow students who don’t meet admission requirements and who finished high school more than two years ago to gain entry to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences while earning credit toward their degree.

The Indigenous Studies website and Indigenous Gateway include information about the Transitional Year Programme and Academic Bridging Program. Applicants can contact the Recruitment Officer at First Nations House to discuss options for admission. The Varsity could not determine the amount of money U of T has invested in advertising these programs over time.

Ask the working group recommended in call to action 25 to examine issues related to Indigenous student housing.

The Varsity could not find evidence that the university created a working group to investigate access to student housing for Indigenous students.

Conduct a detailed study of how U of T might rework existing funding mechanisms to better support Indigenous students. Design a fundraising campaign where community members can donate to provide Indigenous students with scholarships and needs-based bursaries.

U of T offers multiple awards and bursaries aimed at Indigenous students, which can be found on the Indigenous Gateway website.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences allows individuals to donate specifically to the Indigenous Students’ Scholarship Fund.

Design a sustainable mentoring program that connects first-year undergraduate Indigenous students with volunteer Indigenous faculty, staff, and students.

Some colleges and faculties, including Woodsworth College and Temerty, offer Indigenous-specific programs to connect incoming students with peers or faculty members.

However, no U of T campus offers a campuswide mentoring program specific to Indigenous students.

Administration should discuss how the university will fundraise to meet the calls to action in the TRSC report and consider creating an overarching Indigenous Reconciliation fund.

The Defy Gravity campaign advertised specific donation funds to support Indigenous curriculum, spaces, scholarships, and research.

However, the university has not created an overarching Indigenous Reconciliation fund.

Consider creating an Indigenous Advisory Council, composed of members of Indigenous communities who are outside U of T, which would monitor U of T’s progress on implementing the Calls to Action.

Currently, the Office of Indigenous Initiatives, which does not include members external to the university, carries the responsibility of monitoring and driving U of T’s progress on the calls to action.

U of T should require all divisions to report to the provost each year, documenting the progress they’ve made in implementing the calls to action.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences published an interim report in 2022 discussing the progress it has made toward the calls to action.

The faculty also released similar reports in 2017 and 2021. However, The Varsity could not find evidence that other divisions reported their progress.

Every three years, a monitoring body should review the university and divisions’ progress on the calls to action.

The role of monitoring U of T’s progress on the calls to action falls on the Office of Indigenous Initiatives, which publishes a report annually on the university’s progress. According to Simpson, the OII is currently working on creating a dashboard to track U of T’s progress on each recommendation.

With files from Nawa Tahir.

With the input of Indigenous students, staff, and faculty, design an education module, available to all, that introduces students to Indigenous cultures, histories, and the relationship between Indigenous peoples and U of T. U of T offers education modules as part of the Indigenous cultural competency toolkit, including self-directed modules created in collaboration with Indigenous leaders.

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First-year architecture student confirmed victim of Spadina streetcar stabbing City officials increase police presence on Toronto transit following recent TTC attacks suffered two wounds from self-defense on her hands.

In the Global News interview, the student said that she cannot currently return to her classes.

She has also expressed that it’s unlikely she will ever use the TTC again.

The incident The student explained to Global News that she doesn’t recall looking at her attacker. Instead, she had been focusing on another commuter who was crocheting. She only remembers Valdez moving toward her. The student attempted to flee, but fell, after which Valdez sat on her lap and began stabbing the student in the head with a folding knife.

The student then began screaming and calling for help until two men pulled Valdez off of her.

“I remember looking at myself in the TTC mirror, in the reflection of the mirror, and I was bleeding, my entire face was blood,” she told Global News.

After the streetcar pulled up to the Sussex Avenue stop, a witness told the Toronto Star that the police were on the scene within two minutes. Officers have since recovered a knife from the scene and highlighted that they would be evaluating the streetcar’s surveillance videos from the incident.

The 510 streetcar.

SOFIA LUDWIG/THEVARSITY

Lexey Burns Deputy News Editor

Content warning: This article discusses recent stabbings on the TTC and includes scenes of intense physical violence. It also contains a brief mention of sexual violence.

The January 24 TTC streetcar stabbing victim was a first-year U of T architecture student, Global News has revealed.

Around 2:00 pm on Tuesday, a 23-year-old woman was attacked on a southbound 510 Spadina Avenue streetcar. The attack, which police do not believe was targeted, occurred just before the Sussex Avenue stop on the edge of the UTSG campus. The woman told Global News that she

believes she was stabbed approximately six or seven times in the head.

Police arrested Leah Valdez, the 43-year-old suspect, on the scene. Valdez is facing five different criminal charges from the unprompted attack, including attempted murder, carrying a concealed weapon, possessing a weapon dangerous to public peace, aggravated assault, as well as the possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon with the knowledge that its possession is unauthorized.

Following the attack, the student — whose name Global News did not release for safety reasons — was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital, where she says surgeons operated on her for an hour and a half. She stayed at the hospital overnight but has since been discharged. She has multiple staples and stitches on her head and also

Victim’s educational dreams put on pause The victim explained to Global News that she moved from India to Prince Edward Island in 2018 before receiving her permanent residency in Canada, which allowed her to afford tuition. She has lived in the Greater Toronto Area since September 2022.

She told Global that she will eventually recover from her physical injuries, but she is traumatized and cannot leave her home. The student added that she is now afraid of people. Despite this, she still wishes to finish her studies and “finally have [her] dream come true.”

Increase in police presence This attack against the U of T student follows the December 2022 death of 31-year-old Vanessa

Kurpiewska, who was a victim of a stabbing at High Park station. Police believe Kurpiewska’s attack was random, and that the attacker did not know her.

On Thursday afternoon, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw, Mayor John Tory, and TTC CEO Rick Leary announced that the Toronto police would be increasing its presence across the TTC. This decision followed several other violent incidents in the last week, including one case of sexual assault at Kipling station, and a case in which an individual chased TTC employees with syringes near Dundas station.

While some commuters have welcomed the bolstered police presence, others believe the decision fails to address “root causes of violence,” including inadequate mental health-care services.

According to an article by the Toronto Star, the TTC reported over 450 different serious incidents against TTC users in the first half of 2022. Some of the reports included robbery, assault, and harassment. Despite recent TTC customer levels sitting at 68 per cent of pre-COVID levels, if the attacks from early 2022 had continued throughout the year, the total number of reports would have averaged an increase of around 35 per cent from 2019.

Valdez was scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, January 25, and will return to court on Monday.

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can reach out to: • The U of T My Student Support Program available 24/7 at 1-844-451-9700 or 001416-380-6578 outside North America • Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866925-5454 • Connex Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-531-2600 • Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-9295200 • U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416978-8030

Centre for Research and Innovation Support hosts seminar on decolonizing research Indigenous Research Network offers supports for researchers and communities Andrea Zhao Design Editor

On January 26, U of T’s Centre for Research and Innovation Support (CRIS) hosted an online seminar on decolonizing and Indigenizing research.

The event was chaired by Nicole Kaniki — Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Research and Innovation at U of T — who conversed with Sandi Wemigwase, a PhD candidate in Social Justice Education at U of T and the Indigenous Research Special Projects Officer at the Indigenous Research Network.

Wemigwase is a citizen of Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in Harbor Springs, Michigan.

The event was part of the In Conversation With…Visiting Topics in EDI in Research & Innovation series organized by CRIS. Each seminar focuses on a different topic related to EDI in research and innovation.

The seminar began with a discussion on the possibilities for Indigenous research at U of T. Wemigwase spoke about the resources that the Indigenous Research Network offers to researchers and students at varying stages of their careers, as well as the support available for Indigenous communities and nonprofits.

The panellists then discussed practices that researchers should consider when working with Indigenous communities. Wemigwase highlighted the need for Indigenous involvement, collaboration, and consent in research,

and for recognizing the validity of Indigenous worldviews and perspectives.

Wemigwase also emphasized the importance of reciprocity in relationships between the researcher and the communities that they work with. She noted the importance of asking them, “what can I do for you that would help you?” and “how can this relationship be reciprocal?”

Wemigwase said that decolonization should involve Indigenous communities regaining autonomy of their traditional lands, but that many other steps could be taken along the way to achieving this goal.

One aspect of decolonization, according to Wemigwase, is the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty. This would entail allowing Indigenous peoples “to have their own agency over what it is that happens to them,” explained Wemigwase.

Finally, the panellists discussed data collection practices. Wemigwase emphasized the importance of communication between researchers and the communities they work with during the data collection process. She also discussed how researchers should consult the people they work with when reporting on collected data.

Another important factor, said Wemigwase, is to consider the impacts of data and those who may be affected. She concluded, “Data isn’t necessarily just numbers, but there are actual… beings in the spirit behind that.”

The event concluded with a discussion on resources that the university offers, which researchers can use to learn more about Indigenous research and working with Indigenous communities.

ANDREA ZHAO/THEVARSITY

The next event hosted by the CRIS will take place on February 1, and will focus on adopting EDI principles into humanities and social sciences research.

JANUARY 30, 2023

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U of T professor documents experiences of antisemitism at Temerty Faculty of Medicine Publication of paper followed swastikas drawn outside Munk School in October Lexey Burns, Alana Boisvert Deputy News Editor, Associate News Editor

Content warning: In addition to discussions of antisemitism, this article also mentions antiPalestinian violence.

On December 5, 2022, Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s (TFOM) Dr. Ayelet Kuper published a paper describing antisemitism she experienced during her year as the faculty’s senior advisor on antisemitism. Kuper is an associate professor and the associate director of Faculty Affairs at TFOM. During her term as a senior advisor, which lasted from June 2021 to June 2022, Kuper heard colleagues perpetuate stereotypes about Jewish people, deny the existence of antisemitism, and refuse to accommodate Jewish students.

In response to Kuper’s paper and other recent instances of antisemitism, multiple groups highlighted the need to address antisemitism at the university and support Jewish students.

Kuper’s article Kuper, who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors, documented numerous instances of antisemitism that she experienced at TFOM. Kuper was told “that Jews lie to control the university or the faculty or the world, to oppress or hurt others, and/or for other forms of gain,” referencing common stereotypes about Jewish people.

Others at the faculty told her that antisemitism can’t exist because everything that Jewish people say is a lie, “including any claims to have experienced discrimination.” Kuper also highlighted different student groups’ refusal to provide kosher food at events.

Some of the stereotypes Kuper documented pertained to the pandemic. Kuper wrote that she’d witnessed discussions blaming Jewish people for “concocting or causing” COVID-19 and perpetuating the belief that Jewish people mandated vaccines for their financial gain.

Kuper also heard dozens of times that TFOM’s “antisemitism problem” stemmed from the 2021 war in Gaza, blaming antisemitism on the Israeli government’s policy. Kuper overheard her colleagues complain about “those Jews who think their Holocaust means they know something about oppression.”

According to Kuper, some people associated with TFOM use the term ‘Zionism’ incorrectly and attempt to improperly redefine the term. Kuper defined Zionism as “the belief that Jews have the right to national self-determination,” adding that Israel “should be allowed to continue to exist as a country.” The term ‘antiZionism’ refers to the movement opposing Zionism and contesting Jewish people’s right to treat the State of Israel as their homeland.

Kuper’s article mentioned a January 2022 incident that she termed “the most well-publicized episode of antisemitism at TFOM this year.” Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian federal justice minister and attorney general, and professor emeritus of Law at McGill, presented a talk on antisemitism at TFOM for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In response to the talk, 45 U of T faculty members sent a confidential letter to TFOM’s Acting Dean Patricia Houston. The letter criticized the event for favouring the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which the university’s Antisemitism Working Group (AWG) had decided not to adopt a month prior.

The IHRA defines antisemitism as “hatred toward Jews,” which is “directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The confidential letter also stated that the talk reinforced anti-Palestinian racism by label-

ling “legitimate criticism of Israel as examples of antisemitism.”

Responding to the confidential letter, Doctors Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (DARA), a Toronto-based grassroots organization, released an open letter addressed to Houston, framing the confidential letter as antisemitic for its use of “well-worn anti-Jewish contrivances.” Over 300 Jewish faculty members at the university signed the DARA letter.

“There are, of course, those who speak up for Palestinians (for example) who do so without being antisemitic,” Kuper clarified in her paper.

However, Kuper noted that, when other TFOM members insisted that Zionism implies “hating all Muslims” or “wanting to murder all Palestinians,” they cast Jewish Zionists through a skewed lens.

History of antisemitism at U of T In October 2022, TFOM Dean Trevor Young apologized for the faculty’s restrictive quota system, which limited the numbers of Jewish MD students accepted to TFOM and physicians hired at partner hospitals for decades before and after World War II. That same month, Hillel UofT, the centre for Jewish life at the university, received news that someone had drawn a swastika in front of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

In an Instagram post discussing the incident, Hillel UofT wrote that the defacement of a U of T building bearing the name of a preeminent Jewish donor was “emblematic of a larger problem at the University of Toronto.”

On January 9, 2023, the University of Toronto Students’ Union also published a statement highlighting the Munk School defacement, and expressing alarm about the rising rates of antisemitic instances at U of T and in Toronto.

U of T’s response At the latest Governing Council meeting on December 15, 2022, U of T President Meric Gertler highlighted the importance of addressing antisemitism and the work of the AWG, which U of T established in 2020.

The AWG submitted its report, which includes eight recommendations, in December 2021.

Among those recommendations was that U of T ensure that kosher food is available on all campuses and actively apply the university’s Policy on Scheduling of Classes and Examinations and Other Accommodations for Religious Observations to avoid scheduling mandatory school events on significant Jewish holidays.

The AWG also recommended that “the University should frequently reiterate its commitment to academic freedom and inclusion.” The report called on the university to remind community members that the university won’t restrict events based on the presence of controversial content but that events must proceed in a “respectful, safe, and open manner.”

In his statement to the Governing Council, Gertler said that the university is committed to implementing all eight of the AWG’s recommendations and has “made significant progress.” Gertler also highlighted the steps TFOM has taken to acknowledge and combat antisemitism within the faculty. These measures include regularly consulting with Jewish learners — postdoctoral fellows and clinical residents — to support them, while also introducing curriculum changes and anti-racism training.

Miriam Borden, a member of the AWG and a PhD student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, wrote in a statement to The Varsity, “When an [antisemitic] incident does occur, it reverberates throughout the entire Jewish community on our campus. The effect is chilling, alienating, and wounding.”

Borden wrote that, while the working group cau-

tions against curtailing academic freedom or free speech, the university should consider antisemitism as egregious as other forms of racist and religious discrimination.

Restorative circle On January 23, U of T held a restorative circle to provide a forum for community members to share their experiences with antisemitism. In an interview with The Varsity, Jacqueline Dressler — Hillel UofT’s Advocacy Manager and the event’s facilitator — explained that the university has often asked Hillel UofT to host such events because of its prominent role in the Jewish community on campus.

“We think it’s wonderful that the university comes to us and asks us to help support them… to make sure the Jewish experience is reflected in the university’s culture,” said Dressler. “We should always be talking about antisemitism and how it affects Jewish students all the time, all year round,” she added.

In regard to Kuper’s claim that student associations did not provide kosher food at TFOM events, Amit Rozenblum — senior director and senior Jewish educator at Hillel UofT — explained that Hillel UofT offers five-dollar kosher meals for students five days a week.

He explained that Hillel UofT typically outsources kosher catering and offers recommendations for groups seeking to provide kosher food at their events.

Dressler commended Kuper for highlighting the types of antisemetic incidents that have “become really common on university campuses.”

“All members of the U of T community really should be outraged with the things that Dr. Kuper is describing,” Dressler said.

Kuper did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

TFM has been subject to ongoing criticism regarding antisemitism.

VURJEET MADAN/THEVARSITY

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U of T commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day, promotes antisemitism awareness Events included survivor testimony, restorative circle, book talk Maeve Ellis Associate Features Editor

Content warning: This article discusses antisemitic violence, including mentions of concentration camps and genocide.

During the week starting January 22, U of T hosted various events to discuss historic and current antisemitism, leading up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, January 27.

The events took place amid recent conversations about antisemitism prompted by allegations of hate speech at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and U of T’s rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

This year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day marked the 78th anniversary of Soviet troops liberating the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than one million people were murdered.

Restorative Circle On January 23, U of T’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office hosted a Restorative Circle for the Jewish community via Zoom. According to the event description, the event was intended to “share the impact and harm of antisemitism on us and our community — as well as repairing and reflecting together.”

Jacqueline Dressler, the manager of advocacy at Hillel UofT and the event facilitator, asked participants to reflect on matters ranging from “an intention that will support you on your journey of healing,” to “Jewish joy, or [feelings of] resilience.”

Participants responded to this activity through the chat function, because verbal communication was not available to participants. Some discussed studying the Torah, connecting with distant relatives, and “solidarity across differences.”

The university originally set up the event in re-

sponse to antisemitism concerns at U of T. “I can’t comment on how the university was promoting it, because we’re not employees of the university,” Dressler told The Varsity in an interview. She said she initially “didn’t get the impression that it had to do with Holocaust education week.”

Survivor testimony The following day, Hillel UofT, Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS), and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal co-hosted a International Trauma and Survivor Testimony event at the Wolfond Centre on 36 Harbord Street.

The event included a presentation by Jenna

Quint — JACS’ Courage 2 Change program coordinator — on the sociological and medical manifestations of intergenerational trauma, down to its genetic impacts.

She discussed the four main adaptational styles of families of Holocaust victims. These include “victim families,” afflicted with pervasive depression; prideful “fighter families” who lack the ability to trust; “numb families,” with intolerance for positive or negative stimulation; and the successful, “we made it” families, whose children may feel neglected in the pursuit of goals.

During the event, Gershon Willinger, a Holocaust survivor, gave a presentation on his child-

hood. During World War II, many parents hid “unknown” or “hidden” children in attics or cellars, or even sent them to Christian families or certain religious institutions to hide them from the Nazi regime. Willinger became one of these “unknown children” after his parents were killed in the Sobibor death camp in Poland in 1943.

Sima Shmuylovich, an undergraduate student majoring in computer science at UTSG, who attended the presentation, told The Varsity, “I’m obviously happy that U of T is trying to do more events… but I think it’s typically only people from the Jewish community who show up. Getting the larger community to come is definitely the goal.”

Book Panel Discussion On Thursday, the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies hosted historian Harold Troper in a panel discussion about his 1983 co-authored book, None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948. The book is widely credited for exposing Canada’s unwillingness to accept Holocaust refugees.

Allison Kinahan, a graduate student in the history department, told The Varsity, “The focus on the Canadian aspect is interesting, but I think in conversations there should be an element where we discuss our own colonial past.” She added, “But, from what I’ve heard about the Holocaust events that are being held this week, I think that is being covered as well.”

In an interview with The Varsity, Troper said, “It’s not false modesty for me to say that I’m as surprised as anybody by the success of the book, by the way it has shaped discussion and debate.” He continued, “That the book still speaks to people today about the Canadian scene today and about issues of refugees and immigration speaks to the power of the written word.”

January 27 marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. MAEVE ELLIS/THEVARSITY

With files from Lexey Burns.

Tamil members of the U of T community share experiences with identity, representation Tri-campus international offices hosted a panel for Tamil Heritage Month Selia Sanchez Associate News Editor

January marks Tamil Heritage Month, and, on January 25, the UTSC International Student Centre, St. George Centre for International Experience, and UTM International Education Centre collaboratively hosted a panel discussion featuring three Tamil members of the U of T community.

The panellists discussed connecting to their Tamil heritage, navigating misinformation about their identity, and cultivating a sense of community at U of T. Stories The Tamil people are an ethnic group primarily made up of Tamil-language speakers in southern India, Sri Lanka, and throughout South Asia. Many Tamil people practice Hinduism, although the community also includes Jains, Christians, and Muslims.

Panellists Ninthusha Uthayakumaran, Jananee Savuntharanathan, and Pirakasini Chandrasegar were all born and raised in Canada.

Their parents left Sri Lanka as a consequence of the Tamil genocide during the Sri Lankan Civil War, which lasted from 1983–2009.

Although some Tamils arrived in Sri Lanka before 500 BC, the British forcibly brought other Tamils to Sri Lanka to work tea plantations in indentured servitude, starting roughly 200 years ago. Following independence, the new Sri Lankan state denied many Tamils’ political rights, excluding them from the Sri Lankan

Parliament, and they continued to experience generational poverty.

Conflict escalated to regular attacks and battles between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant independence movement aiming to create a separate Tamil state, and the Buddhist Sinhalese people, who are the major ethnic group in the country. In 2009, the Buddhist Sinhalese people defeated the LTTE. Throughout the 26 years of conflict, a total of approximately 80,000 deaths occurred, 350,000 people were displaced, and one million people became refugees.

All three panellists expressed that being Tamil is deeply intertwined with their lineage.

Savuntharanathan, a UTM graduate student, explained that their shared history of trauma enables them to build a community together.

Chandrasegar, a fourth-year UTSC student, added, “What it means to be Tamil is holding that whole lineage, holding all of that ancestral pain, and hopefully educating the rest of the world about what it means [to be Tamil].”

Uthayakumaran, a recruitment and admissions officer at Rotman’s School of Management, recounted her difficulty in resonating with her Tamil identity at many points in her life. “Did it mean that I spoke the language, I can cook the food, I take part in the fine arts?” she asked. “Is that what being Tamil means?”

It wasn’t until she entered her graduate program that she began to further explore her identity and history. Now, she describes being Tamil not only as “very internal” and “very personal,” but also as “being resilient.”

Challenges Being a Tamil student at the U of T also comes with its challenges. All of the speakers emphasized “miscommunication and misinformation” from others as one of the biggest barriers they’ve faced.

“Especially when I’m talking in different spaces,” Chandrasegar said. “People don’t necessarily understand, especially those who aren’t educated about the subject [of Tamil culture].” She encouraged students to further educate themselves on Tamil history by taking the time to find new resources or even asking more questions to avoid making comments that may downgrade a person’s lived experiences.

Savuntharanathan added that people tend to assume she’s from a specific place of origin. She explained that Tamil is a language and Tamil people come from around the world, not just one place.

As a child, Savuntharanathan would often struggle with the stereotype of Tamil people having “ties to terrorism,” as well. She shared, “To this day, sometimes I feel like I’m a threat to society and I don’t know why.”

For Savuntharanathan, a lot of the miscommunication she faced came from the news and political discourses. She added, “It’s so important to understand the history that we come from, to truly understand us as a person.”

Uthayakumaran noted that when she was a student in her undergraduate and graduate programs, she “didn’t know where to go to find other students” that were like her or that would understand her.

For all the panellists, being able to share their culture and personal life experiences with others enhanced their time at U of T. Chandrasegar recounted that there was a lack of Tamil representation during her first few years at UTSC. This resulted in her founding the Tamil Student Union, which provided her with a new community and safe space.

Concluding sentiments Before concluding the event, the panellists offered advice for U of T students and the university administration as a whole.

Uthayakumaran encouraged more diversity on campus. She emphasized the importance of bringing in diverse course materials that are not “fully Eurocentric” to provide different perspectives in the classroom.

“One thing I would even tell my younger self is to not think that you’re not Tamil enough,” Savuntharanathan said. Regardless of birthplace, she explained, “We all just bring such a uniqueness, just from our own lived experiences.”

All three speakers expressed that finding a community to interact with can make university a much more positive experience. “There is definitely one community you belong in. Look for that community — and if you can’t find it, make that community,” said Uthayakumaran. “Community starts with you.”

This event was part of the university’s Our Stories series, wherein students and staff from different communities are invited to share their personal stories in commemoration of various awareness months celebrated across each campus.

JANUARY 30, 2023

thevarsity.ca/section/news

How dispossessed Indigenous lands financed U of T’s development

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The Landback event was held on January 25, 2023.

COURTESY OF OTTAWA FIELD NATURALS CLUB VIA FLICKR

Two professors’ research into U of T’s land histories a part of national effort Alyanna Denise Chua UTSC Bureau Chief

On January 25, Mariana Valverde — a professor emeritus with U of T’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies — and Brian Gettler — an associate professor at UTM’s Department of Historical Studies — presented their research on the material history of U of T’s lands at a public lecture held at the Canadiana Gallery.

Their research found that the university acquired almost 226,000 acres of land from the Crown in 1827, which they sold for almost $43 million in today’s currency. In addition, U of T’s efforts to develop the lands allocated to UTM sparked disputes between the university and local homeowners.

Valverde and Gettler’s research is part of a nationwide effort to investigate how settlers used dispossessed, stolen, and unceded Indigenous lands to finance the development of universities in Canada.

Their lecture is part of the CrimSL Speaker Series, hosted by U of T’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. According to the centre’s website, the speaker series aims to expose students to topics, research methodologies, and theoretical perspectives in criminology and sociolegal studies.

U of T’s original endowment lands Valverde’s research focuses on U of T’s original endowment lands and how much U of T profited from the sale of these lands. Endowment capital refers to money or property given to U of T, which U of T typically invests to generate income.

Valverde explained that the governments of most settler-colonies such as Canada were “cash poor but land rich,” meaning that they did not have enough money to directly finance educational institutions but possessed an abundance of land. “Of course,” Valverde said, “these lands were taken from Indigenous peoples.”

Valverde found that, in 1828, the government gave King’s College — the precursor to U of T — almost 226,000 acres of land that the Crown had seized. It repeatedly instructed U of T to sell these lands — particularly to settler farmers — as a way to generate revenue and fund the university.

These lands did not come in one piece, Valverde found. At the lecture, she presented historic maps showing that U of T’s original endowment included land in the townships of York, Monaghan, and Haldimand, among others.

However, Valverde said that U of T’s current endowment lands are not likely from the original endowment package. By 1861, U of T had already sold the majority of these original lands, generating almost $1.4 million – amounting to almost $43 million in today’s currency.

Valverde cited a 1906 report from the Royal Commission on the University of Toronto, which stated that, “throughout North America little in the financial history of universities has been more noticeable than the good effect of large grants of wild land.” As such, the commissioners recommended that the government give U of T a total of at least one million acres of land.

While Valverde could not determine whether

this additional endowment ever took place, she wanted to illustrate “the sense of entitlement” settlers felt toward Indigenous lands.

Disputes over UTM land development Gettler’s research explored UTM’s founding during the postwar boom of university-building. He found that, in the 1960s, U of T’s board of governors passed a bylaw granting them the ability to expropriate or seize property. U of T tried to expropriate homeowners near UTM’s lands in order to develop the UTM campus.

However, on June 28, 1965, U of T cancelled its expropriation plans due to pushback from local homeowners.

Gettler also found that the U of T committee in charge of planning the satellite campuses had conflicts of interest. For instance, the committee included land and property developers who U of T later hired to develop newly bought lands for the satellite campuses.

In an interview with The Varsity, Gettler noted the “tightly knit connections between forprofit corporations and the university” that he found in his research. He also explained that the news at the time often reported on the disputes over UTM’s development. “Yet, we don’t know about them [now],” Valverde said.

A nationwide research effort Valverde told The Varsity that their work is part of a nationwide research project that aims to create a public history website documenting how Indigenous dispossession funded Canadian universities. According to Valverde, the project started “very informally,” right before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She began working with two other professors based in Vancouver and estimates that the effort now includes around 12 to 15 researchers from institutions including the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, and Saint Mary’s University.

Currently, the research team is preparing to apply for a grant so they can create the website. Valverde said that the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg already agreed to host the website.

Along a similar vein, historian Robert Lee and journalist Tristan Ahtone conducted the US Land-Grab Universities investigation. They examined how the US funded 52 universities with nearly 11 million acres of dispossessed Indigenous lands.

Beyond the website, Valverde said, “It’s up to Indigenous students, faculty, and nations that have been affected by the land grab to think about… what they might need or want.”

UTMSU faces $171,000 loss following Orientation expenses, cites lack of sponsorship UTMSU approves levy fee increases and 2023 Operating Budgets Lexey Burns, Al Aref Helal Deputy News Editor, UTM Bureau Chief

On January 27, the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) Board of Directors (BOD) met to approve levy fee increases and the 2022–2023 Operating Budget.

Wenhan (Berry) Lou, vice-president internal, presented a motion to dedicate $10,000 toward urgently replacing a broken fridge at the Blind Duck. The fridge lasted 15 years, and a new replacement is projected to last another 15 years.

Levy fee increases Felipe Nagata, the UTMSU executive director, presented 2023–2024 levy fee increases for the upcoming year. Nagata confirmed that fees will increase but services remain the same. “All fees are pretty much increased by [Canada’s consumer price index (CPI)] with the exception of the U-Pass.” The CPI represents changes in consumer prices due to inflation.

The UTMSU Food Centre levy fee, which is the only financial contribution to the food centre budget except for donations, will increase from $0.64 to $0.68 per session. This levy fee affords the operation and staffing of the food bank, while the Mississauga Food Bank supplies the food for the centre. A session is equivalent to one semester.

The Academic Society levy fee which goes toward the operation of 17 clubs and societies at the UTM campus will increase from $1.19 to $1.26 per session. The UTMSU Student Society fee will increase from $37.51 to $39.72 per session for full-time students and $1.22 to

$1.29 per session for part-time students, as per the CPI. The UTM chapter of the World University Service of Canada Program levy fee affords the sponsorship of a refugee student’s full tuition as well as social and academic support to aid their transition to Canada. This levy fee will increase from $2.08 to $2.20 per session for full-time students, and from $1.28 to $1.36 per session for part-time students.

The Canadian Federation of Students funds the implementation of on-campus grassroots campaigns such as Consent is Mandatory, United for Equity, We The Students, and Reproductive Justice. This levy fee will increase from $8.86 to $9.42 per session.

All increases were approved.

The U-Pass and health and dental plan For the upcoming academic 2023–2024 year, the Mississauga Transit U Pass will be changing from a physical pass to a digital pass; students will be able to tap their phone onto the Presto card readers. The UTMSU will pilot the digital U-Pass program in the summer semester. As the U-Pass will be digital, there is no longer a replacement fee if a student loses their physical copy.

The student cost for the Fall/Winter 2023– 2024 Mississauga Transit U-Pass will increase from $144.74 to $157.77 per session, while the Summer 2023 U-Pass will remain $192.29.

“The summer fee remained the same… because the summer students currently pay more for the pass than the fall/winter students,” Nagata said. He added that the increased cost of the Summer U-Pass was due to decreased rid-

ership in the summertime.

The UTMSU student society fee designated for the Green Shield student insurance Accidental Health Plan will be increasing from $102.09 to $112.30. The Dental Plan will increase from $83.34 to $93.87. All student levy fee increases were approved unanimously, and subject to implementation in the upcoming 2023–2024 year.

Blind Duck Operating Budget Lou presented both the Blind Duck and the UTMSU’s Operating Budgets from the 2022–2023 year. The Blind Duck, the on-campus pub and restaurant run by the UTMSU, noted a $3,000 increase in both rental income — from renting space to Chatime, a bubble tea location in the Student Centre — and an increase in Alcohol Labour Income because it is the only place on campus that sells alcohol.

Lou highlighted that the Blind Duck saw a $2,000 decrease in ticket sales and an increase in rentals of CO2, china, and linens — up $1,000 from its Preliminary Budget of $3,000.

The report also indicated that there was also a $10,000 increase in salary expenses. Overall, the Blind Duck lost $18,800.

UTMSU Operating Budget Because of the unexpected decreases in sponsorships for orientation events, the UTMSU saw a $171,169 increase in expenses for Frosh Week from the forecasted $35,000. The union experienced a $49,000 deficit in the Major Events budget category.

Also forecasted in the budget is a reading week trip to Montréal, which is budgeted at

$36,000. The UTMSU hopes to raise $33,400 in students’ ticket sales, resulting in a $2,600 net expense for the union.

The upcoming budget forecasts increased funds allotted to the InfoBooth for the purchase of tickets. This service facilitates access to discounted vouchers to Wonderland, Boston Pizza, bowling, escape rooms, and Cineplex Movies.

The budget indicates a $26,000 increase in Executive Stipends after the BOD voted to increase executive salaries in September 2022.

The Duck Stop, the UTMSU convenience store, noted a $53,000 decrease in Food and Beverage sales. Despite paying less than initially predicted for Food and Beverage, the Duck Stop still reported a $13,100 net income loss.

The BOD voted to approve the Operating Budget.

Upcoming events The UTMSU plans to increase the hours of the UTM Student Centre on Thursdays and Fridays until 9:00 pm. The Student Centre currently closes at 6:00 pm.

The board meeting ended with a summary of upcoming events. These include UTM Lobby Week, which will see the UTMSU “showcase its progress on active campaigns such as Education for All, Academic Advocacy, Food Insecurities. Black History Month will see events from numerous UTM clubs, and on February 8 an International Students Forum, which aims to connect international students to different supports, will occur. During February reading week, the UTMSU’s Montréal trip will be held for the first time since February 2020.

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THE VARSITY

NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

New UTSC professor from Pamitaashkodeyong talks research, politics Chad Cowie says his research on Mississauga First Nation belongs to his community Alyanna Denise Chua UTSC Bureau Chief

For Chadwick Cowie — an assistant professor at UTSC’s Department of Political Science — working at UTSC has allowed him to come back home to his territory.

Hailing from the Pamitaashkodeyong community — also known as Mississaugas of Rice Lake or Hiawatha First Nation — Cowie is one of the three Indigenous faculty members that UTSC hired in 2022. Cowie is part of the Atik (Caribou) clan. He is also a PhD candidate completing his dissertation at the University of Alberta. He currently lives in Montréal, but will soon move to Toronto permanently.

At a UTSC Campus Council meeting in September 2022, UTSC Vice-Principal, Academic and Dean William Gough said that UTSC currently employs 10 Indigenous faculty members in total. In 2015, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada published its report, UTSC had no Indigenous faculty members.

U of T is on the traditional lands of three First Nations: the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Research projects In an interview with The Varsity, Cowie said that his research projects seek to provide a fuller picture of stories that already exist.

“There’s [usually] more… [to] a story that we don’t necessarily know,” he said.

His dissertation examines whether Indigenous peoples voting in Canada’s federal elections can generate changes for themselves.

Cowie focuses his research on the 2015 federal election because it saw the highest voter turnout among Indigenous peoples since 2004, when turnout tracking began.

Since then, Cowie found that political parties have expanded sections of their platforms to address Indigenous relations. However, his research concludes that as long as political parties don’t fully realize the impact of the Indigenous vote and establish long-term relationships with Indigenous communities, among others, then voting will not necessarily bring changes for Indigenous peoples.

Cowie’s other research project involves establishing and collecting the history of the six Mississauga communities and the Mississauga First Nation as a whole. Cowie said that he undertook this research so that future generations will have the opportunity “to learn about themselves growing up, unlike myself, who had to wait until my late 20s to start learning more about my history.”

He emphasized that this research is not his: “It belongs to the nation, belongs to the communities.” This ownership means that this research is “not necessarily aligned with the Western academic setting,” he said.

make changes once they’re in charge.”

Cowie taught POLC52H3 — Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State — at UTSC in the fall and is teaching POLD54H3 — Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg Nation Governance and Politics — this winter term.

Road to political science Cowie said that when he was 16 years old, he had watched debates between political candidates for the 2000 Canadian federal election.

At the time, he thought that the debates were “stupid and boring.” His mother, however, told him to pay attention. “No matter what, these people… will make decisions on your future,” Cowie recalled his mother saying.

She had singled out one candidate in particular: “This one, he would like to see our rights taken away, because he doesn’t want to acknowledge our history.”

Cowie has involved himself in politics since then. He worked for the Association of Iroquois Allied Indians when he was a teenager, established and became president of the First Nations Student Association at Western University when he was an undergraduate, and eventually sat on the national board of the Liberal Party of Canada for two terms.

Cowie said that, ultimately, he decided not to pursue politics because he doesn’t “have the time or the patience to play the political structure [in Canada],” which he said is markedly “party first.”

Cowie pursued an academic career instead because he enjoys engaging with the younger generation more. “I have more hope in the younger generation because they are actually being taught [about Indigenous peoples] at a young age,” he said. “If I’m going to influence decisions to come… it’s going to be [by influencing] those who are coming later… setting it up so that the generations to come are able to

When he is not teaching or doing research, Cowie draws and paints landscapes, infrastructures, and cityscapes. In particular, he likes drawing “scenes of destruction,” because he said focusing on fine details helps him to unwind and destress. He also enjoys traveling.

Chadwick Cowie is a member of the Atik (Caribou) clan.

COURTESY OF CHRISTIAN CHO

UTSC Campus Council celebrates UTSC’s recognition as a healthy campus UTSC’s Healthy Campus Initiative includes pet therapy, nature walks Tony Xun Associate News Editor

On January 25, the UTSC Campus Council met for the first time in 2023. During the meeting, the council celebrated UTSC’s formal recognition as a Healthy Campus by the Canadian Health Promoting Campuses Network. UTSC is Canada’s 37th campus to receive that designation, which came after the university adopted the Okanagan Charter on October 14, 2022.

The Okanagan Charter calls on campuses to “embed health into all aspects of campus culture” and “lead health promotion action and collaboration.” By adopting the charter, UTSC committed to “endorsing diversity and promoting wellness on campus.” These commitments centre around six pillars: arts and culture, food and nutrition, mental health, physical activity, equity and diversity, and physical space.

During the meeting, Sheila John, assistant dean, wellness, recreation and sport, presented a report on the UTSC’s Healthy Campus

Initiative. The initiative prompts the university to include health-focused initiatives — including physical, mental, spiritual components — within teaching, research, and co-curricular and extracurricular pastimes.

John detailed a number of campus events associated with UTSC’s Healthy Campus Initiative including pet therapy, nature walks, equity promoting conferences, and a community bike program. One of the initiatives’s key program was a Prioritizing Mental Health experiential learning course, which UTSC piloted in summer 2022. John characterized the course’s impact as “tremendous”; feedback from students described the course as a “major destressor.”

As part of the Healthy Campus Initiative, UTSC launched a Healthy Campus website that consolidates resources for faculty, staff, and students, such as mentoring opportunities, counselling resources, and events.

All staff, faculty, and students are invited to celebrate the adoption of the Okanagan Charter on January 31 from 2:00–4:00 pm at the Highland Hall Event Centre.

The UTSC Campus Council held a meeting on January 25, 2023.

JAYRA ALMANZOR/THEVARSITY

Business & Labour

January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Why this Mississaugas of the Credit-owned cannabis shop operates without an Ontario license Mississaugas of the Credit Medicine Wheel rejects “centuries of economic genocide” Georgia Kelly Associate Business & Labour Editor

At the College and Spadina intersection just off the UTSG campus, a Mississaugas of the Credit (MC) Medicine Wheel cannabis dispensary proudly operates without an Ontario license.

The 289 College Street store is one of 13 MC Medicine Wheel locations, nine of which are in Toronto, with the first having opened in October 2021 at 1176 Danforth Avenue. Danforth Avenue runs across a part of the Mississaugas of the Credit territory.

According to its social media, the business is operated “seed-to-sale Indigenous,” meaning that all the workers — growers, processors, and store operators — are Indigenous.

“We are rejecting centuries of economic genocide by operating on our traditional territory,” MC Medicine Wheel tweeted in early January.

Different governments, different laws MC Medicine Wheel is certainly not the only cannabis dispensary in Toronto to operate without a license. Unlike other, non-Indigenous dispensaries that do so, however, owner and operator Ken Hughes of MC First Nation told the Toronto Star

that this decision represents an expression of selfgovernance. He likened seeking an Ontario license to receiving a driver’s license from a province where you’re not a resident, adding, “I have rights to do things in my traditional territory — and this is one of the things.”

Some dispensary operators, such as Rob Stevenson — the founder of Medicine Wheel Natural Healing in Peterborough — refer to non-licenced Indigenous operated dispensaries like these as the “red market.”

John Borrows is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law and a professor at the University of Victoria. According to Borrows, Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution could provide legal support for Indigenous groups claiming self-governance, but courts have stated that the rights laid out in Section 35 are not that “general in nature.”

Borrows told CBC that to qualify, medicinal marijuana businesses would have to show that their products were “integral in their distinctive culture” before European arrival if they can’t draw upon treaties with the Canadian government that mention those products. “The courts have not been receptive to Indigenous peoples’ framing of their self-governance rights in a broader way,” said Borrows to CBC.

MC Medicine Wheel location on College Street.

NICHOLAS TAM/THEVARSITY

Advocacy groups such as the National Indigenous Medical Cannabis Association have further advanced an argument for sovereign dispensaries, citing archival findings, archaeological evidence, and even the journal entries of European settlers as evidence that Indigenous nations have used cannabis for thousands of years and therefore have sovereignty over its use in their communities. However, this legal justification only applies to activities on lands that the Government of Canada recognizes as Indigenous sovereign territory.

A centuries-long dispute On social media and on its news page, Medicine Wheel asserts that the Mississaugas of the Credit never truly “surrendered” the land on which the stores operate, disputing the series of treaties that supposedly transferred ownership of the Toronto region to the Crown, as the Government of Ontario claims.

According to the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Crown initially seized this land in 1787 with something barely resembling a legal agreement and offered just a handful of blankets and other household items as consideration. The Crown admitted the agreement was illegitimate 18 years later, by which point the Mississaugas of the Credit had realized the agreement wasn’t actually protecting their hunting and fishing rights, and wanted to get them back from the Crown. The Mississaugas of the Credit came to the negotiations to regain some limited entitlements, and the Crown took that willingness to negotiate as an indication of consent to the entire 1805 Toronto Purchase,agreement that which had exchanged 250 830 acres of Mississaugas of the Credit land for 10 shillings.had taken their rights away.

After disputing the Toronto Purchase for over 200 years, the Mississaugas negotiated a $145 million settlement with the Government of Canada in 2010.

An economic fight Dispensaries on Indigenous reserves were some of the only places to purchase cannabis before Canada’s Cannabis Act legalized the substance in

2018. Following the act, a growing number of licensed stores diverted the market away from these Indigenous-operated stores, which some community members view as crucial for local economic prosperity and healing, especially in communities combating unemployment and drug abuse.

Organizations representing various Indigenous peoples, such as the Assembly of First Nations, continue to criticize the Canadian government for failing to properly consult First Nations when developing the 2018 act.

Since the piece of legislation was passed, representatives have worked to pass amendments to the act to allow First Nations to develop more sovereign taxation and regulatory systems.

Violence and resistance continue Canadian police continue to raid dispensaries operating on reserves — land set aside by the Canadian government for use by First Nations — even when those dispensaries follow the regulations of the respective nations that govern these regions.

Such raids include those on Tribal ReLeaf in Tobique First Nation in 2017, New Age Medicinals and Medi Shack in the Algonquin Amikwa Anishinaabek nation in 2019, three shops in Millbrook First Nation in 2021, and Burnin Grass Dispensary in Samson First Nation in 2022.

Still, Indigenous entrepreneurs continue to open dispensaries without Canadian licencing, on and off of reserves — Spirit River Cannabis just opened last December in London, Ontario, joining MC Medicine Wheel and over 300 other Indigenous sovereign dispensaries operating within Canada’s borders, as reported by the website Dispensing Freedom, which reports on Indigenous sovereignty and cannabis distribution.

Meanwhile, other Indigenous entrepreneurs have opted to recognize Canadian regulations, such as the owners of Seven Leaf — the first Indigenousowned and operated dispensary to be approved by Health Canada back in 2018. It operates on the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne.

An Indigenous entrepreneur on sharing culture through arts and crafts Wandering Wolf Crafts’ Brenda Dart reflects on the importance of “passing teachings on" Andrew Yang Ki Associate Business & Labour Editor

Brenda Dart is the founder and proprietor of Toronto-based Wandering Wolf Crafts – a small business dedicated to selling traditional arts and crafts, which are either prepared from a catalogue or personalized items made to order.

Describing Wandering Wolf Crafts as a “small Aboriginal business,” Dart shared several reflections on the experience of running their business in an email to The Varsity.

Resources for Indigenous entrepreneurs

Cultural challenges “As an Indigenous business owner I find it very important that I am part indigenous,” wrote Dart in an email to The Varsity. “I find it to be a huge factor when it comes to creating the items I create to sell. I do practice my culture at home as well as abroad.”

Dart seeks to provide Indigenous goods to their customers and expressed frustration with cultural appropriation in their industry.

“I find that the Indigenous culture is very tokenized in the business world,” they wrote.

“There are many out there who have no Indigenous backgrounds that sell items from the culture and it can be very disheartening for Andrew Yang Ki Associate Business & Labour Editor

The Indigenous Entrepreneurship Workshops at U of T is a weekly program that aims to provide a unique space for conversations about entrepreneurship through both an Indigenous and nonIndigenous lens.

The workshops are led by Redbird Circle, in partnership with The BRIDGE at UTSC, ICUBE UTM, and University of Toronto Libraries. These workshops aim to foster a community among

many of us.”

With their light-toned skin and hair colour, Dart mentioned that they often receive questions about their cultural background. Still, they value the opportunity to share their culture with others. “As an Indigenous business owner, it’s very important to me to share the culture with people of all backgrounds,” they wrote. “I absolutely love what I do and enjoy passing my teachings on to those who desire to learn, as it was passed on to me.”

Near and far Dart brings Wandering Wolf Crafts to various markets and events to showcase their wares.

Indigenous entrepreneurs, while promoting traditional knowledge and providing entrepreneurs with mentorship.

First Nations House at the University of Toronto is a resource center for Indigenous students at the University of Toronto. It provides a range of services including academic and personal support, cultural programming, and a safe and welcoming community space.

The center also serves as a hub for Indigenous knowledge, fostering awareness and understanding of Indigenous cultures and issues

One such host is the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, which is a charitable organization that hosts programs and services based on Indigenous cultural traditions and teachings.

Further afield, Dart also travels to pPoww Wows and other Indigenous events. “All I can really say is that if you do get a chance to spend time at a pow wow or event please thank the Indigenous artists, dancers, drummers/singers and elders for all you learn,” they advised.

“Take time out to sit, close your eyes and listen to the drums as for those of us who are Indigenous it represents mother earth’s heartbeat.” among the wider university community.

For more information, U of T Libraries has a resource guide for Indigenous students and entrepreneurs at the University of Toronto. It provides information on various programs, workshops, and initiatives that focus on Indigenous business and entrepreneurship at the university.

The guide also includes resources and information on funding opportunities, mentorship programs, and other support services that are available to Indigenous entrepreneurs.

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THE VARSITY

FEATURES

“Nothing for us without us” What reconciliation looks like beyond U of T’s 34 Calls to Action Alice Boyle Associate Features Editor

When a chemistry professor approached Mitchell Souliere-Lamb for guidance on how to include more Indigenous material into her syllabus, Souliere-Lamb felt conflicted. A third-year mechanical engineering student at U of T, Souliere-Lamb is Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory. In an interview with The Varsity, he explained that he felt pressured as an Indigenous student to educate students and faculty at U of T to fill their knowledge gaps.

Souliere-Lamb eventually told the professor to include material that was relevant and culturally sensitive. After the interaction, though, he still felt uncomfortable. “I was compensated, but it did make me feel like, ‘Why?’… I’m only one person,” he said.

When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) published the 94 Calls to Action in 2015, there were sections in the document that were dedicated to change in Canada’s education systems. These changes included plans to remove the education and employment gap between Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, opportunities for Indigenous people to contribute to the drafting of new education legislation and

initiatives for education on reconciliation. In the Calls to Action, the TRC urged all levels of Canadian government to provide funding so that Canada’s post-secondary institutions can better “educate teachers on how to integrate indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms."

According to survey results published by Universities Canada in 2020, progress has been made since 2015. 70 per cent of universities are “incorporating Indigenous knowledge and methods into teaching and research,” and “working to increase representation among faculty.” In response to the document the TRC created, U of T made its own 34 Calls to Action. It included a goal to integrate “significant Indigenous curriculum content in all of [U of T’s] divisions by 2025.”

However, these documents don’t tell the whole story.

Conversations with Indigenous members of the U of T community who work in different areas of the institution highlight that Souliere-Lamb’s interaction with the chemistry professor did not occur in a vacuum. Despite the strides the university has

made toward reconciliation and incorporating Indigeneity, interviews with Indigenous students and faculty members at U of T emphasize that there are still critical institutional gaps that make it harder for Indigenous members of the U of T community to exist in these spaces.

The “native informant” “The TRC shed a big spotlight on everything in a whole different way,” Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo shared with The Varsity. Hamilton-Diabo is Mohawk from Kahnawake. He is a professor of theology at Emmanuel College, and his teaching focuses on the impacts of residential schools, the TRC, and the Calls to Action. He was also on the Steering Committee for creating U of T’s own Calls to Action.

Hamilton-Diabo recalled how the TRC’s final report raised awareness about Indigenous issues in Canada to a degree that has not been reached before. To him, this uptick in engagement, as well as U of T President Meric Gertler and Provost Cheryl Regehr’s initiative to answer the TRC’s Calls to Action, were encouraging developments in a movement that had been years in the making.

Yet, this new increase in interest gave rise to the phenomenon of the “native informant,” where Indigenous people who are not necessarily experts in the field of Indigenous knowledge systems and culture feel coerced into sharing their lived experiences and knowledge for the benefit of their settler peers.

Iehnhotonkwas Bonnie Jane Maracle is a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mo-

h a w k Nation at Tyendinaga Territory, and was the Indigenous learning strategist at U of T from 2014 to 2022. In an interview with The Varsity, Maracle spoke about the phenomenon of the native informant. She recalled how First Nations House was “flooded with all kinds of requests” to help professors implement Indigenous knowledge in their curricula, and cited a lack of resources and knowledge keepers to meet the needs of indigenizing curricula at U of T. “We’re in our thirtieth year of existence as a First Nations House,” Maracle explained. “It’s 2023, and still, we have one traditional teacher that works one day a week… this is what we have to serve all of that need.”

In an interview with The Varsity, U of T’s Senior Director of Indigenous Initiatives Shannon Simpson said the university has elders and

knowledge keepers at UTSC, UTM, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, First Nation House, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Faculty of Law, and Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Simpson added that elders and knowledge keepers will soon be hired at the Faculty of Arts and Science.

Simpson said,“There aren’t very many” full time knowledge keepers and elders on staff because the university wants to ensure that their duties are “a good use of their time and their work in community.”

The final report of the Steering committee of U of T, which was published in 2017, also mentions this issue. The report noted how the then four traditional teachers appointed across U of T’s three campuses are “overextended in terms of their commitments” and leave “a significant amount of unmet need in terms of those wishing to benefit from the guidance offered by Elders.”

Simpson also highlighted that, for several years now, U of T has employed an Academic Advisor on Indigenous Curriculum and Education, whose role is to “advise the provost on… directions that units, departments and divisions should go in terms of incorporating content.” That advisor can also work directly with departments to help bolster curricula, bring experts into the classroom, and connect with resources like training.

However, due to continued barriers to access and massive need for guidance on Indigenous knowledge and cultural sensitivity, the burden to fill knowledge gaps may still fall on Indigenous students at U of T. Maracle highlighted the pressure an Indigenous student may feel to help their professors because the latter occupy a position of power: “They’re being put in this… very intimidating position of trying to help the professor simply because [they’re] an Indigenous student.”

Maracle also

noted that the position of the native informant becomes doubly uncomfortable because Indigenous students often grow up removed from their respective cultures and come to university to learn more about their identity.

To Souliere-Lamb, the pressure to constantly explain Indigenous knowledge to his peers makes him hesitant to disclose that he’s Indigenous. “If you get put into those types of positions, where you’re always the one that has to help people learn, it does make you feel tired and make you want to not help people learn because it can be exhausting,” he said.

Representation versus tokenism Sometimes, universities’ attempts to implement Indigenous knowledge into curricula fall into the category of tokenism — giving the appearance of sexual or racial equality in a workforce or institution by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups.

To Soulier-Lamb, being tokenized at U of T is a constant worry. Both the TRC and U of T’s calls to action address the need to get more Indigenous students into university. However, Souliere-Lamb believes that, presently, the low numbers of Indigenous students make it easy for tokenism to occur.

Soulier-Lamb recalled joining a Zoom orientation for Indigenous students entering their first year in engineering, and only seeing two other students in the meeting. He also notes the imposter syndrome he feels is one of three Indigenous students in the faculty of engineering. Later on in his undergraduate career, he met more Indigenous engineering students; however, the low numbers of Indigenous students still make him feel isolated. “You can tell that U of T wants to be diverse,” Soulier-Lamb said. “It kind of makes you think, ‘Am I only [here] because they want that [quota]? Am I really here… based on my academic merit?’ ” Beyond the scope of individual students, tokenism is also a risk on an institutional level. As outlined in U of T’s calls to action, one of the key ways to alleviate the pressure placed on Indigenous students to provide knowledge is to hire more Indigenous faculty and staff.

Throughout his time at U of T, Hamilton-Diabo has

features@thevarsity.ca seen an increase in Indigenous faculty members across various departments at U of T. He also feels encouraged by an increase in non-Indigenous faculty making real attempts to implement Indigenous knowledge into their classes in a manner that does not fall into the category of cultural appropriation.

However, Hamilton-Diabo also stressed the importance of not pigeonholing Indigenous faculty members into just teaching Indigenous content.

“What we’re doing is ignoring the fact that they can contribute in so many other ways,” HamiltonDiabo said. “We don’t want to make this assumption that they’re going to now go out there and educate their department.”

Hamilton-Diabo has witnessed encouraging changes in how Indigenous knowledge keepers and elders are consulted in the process of building programs and curriculums. However, he reminded The Varsity that when indigenizing programs and spaces, the university should consult Indigenous peoples in every step of the process: “Nothing for us without us.”

Moving from calls to answers Sometimes despite our best efforts, interactions with Indigenous students at U of T may lack cultural sensitivity. The Varsity is no exception.

Soulier-Lamb recalled an uncomfortable interaction with writers from The Varsity during last year’s National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

Following a Hart House event commemorating residential schools, Soulier-Lamb was conversing with a group of Indigenous students. A writer from The Varsity then approached the group and asked for a comment about what Orange Shirt Day meant to them. Soulier-Lamb was surprised at the request. “You mean right here?” he asked them.

Soulier-Lamb explained that no one he was speaking with wanted to talk. Instead, the writer asked Soulier-Lamb to give his comment through email. He never sent one.

Situations like this partly happen because there is a lack of awareness regarding how much emotional labour gets exerted when Indigenous individuals are asked to comment on a subject as heavy and traumatic as residential schools. Soulier-Lamb carries a degree of understanding for the writer’s actions. What frustrates him, however,

is the lack of student engagement when there is cultural competency training being offered.

Soulier-Lamb is a lead on the Indigenous Reconciliation team in U of T’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. He recalled the club heavily advertising an Indigenous cultural competency training session to be run by him and John Croutch, U of T’s Indigenous training coordinator, only to see a handful of students show up. “People don’t care,” Soulier-Lamb said. “I think that’s why I wanted to do this [interview].”

Hamilton-Diabo echoed Soulier-Lamb’s statement when commenting on the discomfort some may feel when faced with the reality of sweeping structural change to answer the Calls to Action.

“In some way, many people are okay with the inclusion component,” Hamilton-Diabo explained.

“When it comes to the actual transformation, there has to be a change in the way things run — no more status quo. That is the [most] difficult piece.”

Space is a significant component of transforming the status quo to answer the Calls to Action.

Hamilton-Diabo stressed that indigenizing space on campus goes beyond creating physical spaces for Indigenous members of the U of T community, but creating a sense of presence across campus.

“If you walk across [U of T] right now, are there signs that there’s a visible [Indigenous] community?” he asked.

One of the first things that comes to mind when reflecting on Indigenous presence is the Land Acknowledgement. Initially, a university-wide statement given at the beginning of courses or school events, the Acknowledgement, Maracle worried, became a mandatory preamble and “people lost that connection of purposeful acknowledgement.”

However, an encouraging development she has been seeing is the tweaking of the standard land acknowledgement to tailor toward the specific relationships that departments or even individuals at U of T have with the land they work and live on.

Hamilton-Diabo also spoke about the benefits of taking a pause and giving a land acknowledgment. He stressed that land acknowledgements shouldn’t be a static statement, because the relationship between the land and the people who live on it is ever changing.

Hamilton-Diabo slightly tweaks the land acknowledgement every time he gives it. To him, it goes beyond

moral obligation. “It’s more about just helping understand that there's this relationship that we have with the land, and that yes, there have been Indigenous people that are people on this land well before the establishment of Canada, and to also recognize those stories as well.”

What does cultural sensitivity look like?

So, what does cultural sensitivity look like, and how does the status quo at U of T need to change?

Maracle noted the stark differences between how Western academia and Indigenous communities view credibility and knowledge. In contrast to how educational certifications are obtained in the West, Maracle said that Indigenous worldviews take stock of a person’s life experience, character and community contributions as markers for if the person is qualified to give guidance. “It’s not from what I’ve studied, it’s the person that I am.”

Hamilton-Diabo also observed this difference in worldviews, noting that the knowledge of elders is often overlooked in Western academia because they don’t have the credentials that these institutions value, such as being a PhD, despite having knowledge and wisdom that is on par, or even surpasses, that of a PhD. Maracle also recalled how she witnessed settler professors initially having a fear of being required to neglect everything they have learned in their academic and professional careers in order to indigenize their syllabi.

“The fear factor was, ‘I have to throw out everything that I’ve been doing, to change it to this other way of doing, and I know absolutely nothing about it,’” Maracle explained. “‘And I’ve been on this pedestal for how many years?’ There was a real threat to egos, basically.”

Yet, Maracle believes that neglecting Western ways of knowing was never the expectation, as integration does not mean

the school year. A bundle is a collection of sacred items that many First Nations people have to help them with guidance. About the framing of orientation information in an Indigenous worldview, Maracle said, “It’s just the terminology used in the perspective that the students can relate to.”

However, outside First Nations House, there’s still a disconnect between Indigenous worldviews and the demands of Western academia. Maracle found that one of the biggest disconnects between Indigenous students and settler faculty members was their conflicting views on what makes a good essay. Maracle said that she noticed Indigenous students cited their personal experiences when providing evidence in their writing, especially when topics could be told from an Indigenous perspective.

“The [professor’s] expectation would be regurgitating research,” Maracle said. “But the Indigenous student would have a different slant on it, from a personal perspective, still have references and things but it would be interpreted more in a personal way.”

Maracle has witnessed PhD candidates have their final theses rejected because of a lack of understanding from the committee. Staff at U of T’s writing centers have referred Indigenous student papers to Maracle saying that they could not follow what

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an all-or-nothing approach. She has seen positive change in her seven years as the Indigenous Learning Strategist, where different departments are slowly integrating Indigenous knowledge in their curriculum in a non-intrusive way.

Hearing Maracle speak i n the capacity of the former Indigenous Learning Strategist made it clear that cultural sensitivity is crucial in aiding the success and well-being of Indigenous students on campus. For example, to help Indigenous students understand U of T’s academic integrity guidelines in a non-intimidating manner, Maracle organized guidelines to fit the Seven Grandfather Teachings.

The Seven Grandfather Teachings are the central set of principles that Anishinaabe people live by. At the start of the new school year, Maracle ran a workshop called Preparing Your Bundle, where she equated information that students new to U of T needed to know to things to put in their bundle for

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the student was writing, despite the essays being coherent and up to par to a reader with the proper context — an issue, Maracle pointed out, that an increased presence of Indigenous staff and faculty would solve.

Hamilton-Diabo mentioned that another important aspect of being culturally sensitive is to avoid the pitfall of viewing Indigenous communities as a monolith, because doing so erases the diverse worldviews and cultures encapsulated by the word “Indigenous.”

“A course here, in a particular area, would look very different than a course out in Manitoba, because we’re talking about different contexts, different people, different experiences, different worldviews.” Hamilton-Diabo explained.

Since 2017, real change has occurred. There has been an increase in hiring Indigenous faculty and staff, according to Hamilton-Diabo and Maracle, and people have grown more reflective of the land acknowledgements they give. “I would say things are progressing nicely, but not quickly,” Maracle said.

Souliere-Lamb echoed Maracle’s thoughts; he sees real, incremental change happening around him. He hopes to see this awareness of Indigenous issues moving beyond something that only moves into the spotlight once a year during Orange Shirt Day and become something steady and ongoing. “For Indigenous people, every day you have to deal with remembering everything. I think as long as people are aware and sensitive to that, things will get better,” said Souliere-Lamb.

Comment

January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

BIEW BIEW-SAKULWANNADEE/THEVARSITY

To improve Indigenous health, we need more rural Indigenous health-care workers Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario lack adequate access to health care Angie Hunda Varsity Contributor

Have you ever heard a woman say that she would prefer that her gynecologist be female? Or what about a man saying he’d be more comfortable speaking to a male urologist about his issues with erection or urine flow? I’m sure we’ve all heard this before. Given this, doesn’t it make sense that patients would also feel more at ease with a healthcare provider of a similar cultural, regional, or linguistic background?

Let’s consider the landscape of Northern Ontario. The region has half of the province’s total Indigenous population and estimates indicate that between 15 to 25 per cent of individuals living in Northern Ontario identify as Indigenous. The Indigenous population in Canada is also growing at a rate four times faster than the rest of Canada’s total population.

Despite this, Northern Ontarians in general, and individuals from Indigenous communities more specifically, often have to travel the farthest to access primary care; some have little to no access to specialist services in their communities and are at greater risk of several chronic health conditions.

Since northern and rural communities are underserved with respect to health services, it is paramount that we begin to have conversations about why this is and how to improve access.

Prior to colonization, many Indigenous communities had their own traditional healers who were familiar with the medicines that nature provided and traditional ceremonies. After colonization, the dominant society forced the traditional healers into

hiding, and so began the process of eradicating much of the Indigenous healing knowledge. Moreover, Indigenous peoples were forced away from their traditional lands and often relocated to more rural and remote areas of northern Ontario. This gave colonizers the power to hold and distribute medical knowledge.

Today, many Indigenous peoples are open to both traditional and modern medicine, but there is a lack of access to primary health-care providers in many rural and northern areas of the province, including Indigenous communities.

The challenges faced by northern and rural communities have long been known. There are numerous reports that have identified unique access challenges such as availability of health-care services, transportation, a lack of rural perspective at the decision making tables, and a more recent focus on centralizing health-care services.

Researchers have examined the data on how to best attract and retain health-care professionals in underserved communities. One method that has been employed, with mixed results, is to offer financial incentives. New health professional graduates are offered contracts that provide them with financial gain to lure them into working in northern and rural communities. Internationally trained physicians are also given similar incentives along with Canadian citizenship to settle in northern and rural communities. However, this is a short-term solution because many of these physicians do not remain in these communities past their compulsory terms and most are not Indigenous.

Instead, more success has been seen with factors such as candidate selection and rural train-

ing programs. Research has demonstrated that students of rural origin and students who have an intention to work in the northern and rural communities, medical facilities located within these geographical areas, and positive training experiences during rural exposures have resulted in greater retention rates.

Hence, would it not make sense to ensure that all health-related programs in Ontario make greater efforts to recruit Indigenous students who have a desire to work in their home communities? However, many Indigenous students have varying socioeconomic, cultural, and background experiences that makes gaining entry to competitive programs difficult. Other potential barriers these students face in attending these schools include leaving their family and home community, amongst others.

In our current health-care professional shortage, many established medical schools have been given government funding to increase their capacity for students in health-care programs. For instance, last March, the Ontario government announced that it was adding 160 undergraduate seats over the next five years, but only 30 of these go to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM). In other words, just under 19 per cent of new seats are allocated to the most underserved areas of the province. Furthermore, NOSM only dedicates a minimum of four seats per year for Indigenous

The legacy of the residential school system must be better taught Understanding the legacy of the residential school system allows us to address its lasting impact Erin Lunn Varsity Contributor

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence, physical violence, and substance abuse.

In Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Issues in Canada, Chelsea Vowel, a Métis writer and educator, stated, “I never attended residential school. My experiences are all secondhand. Mine is the first generation to be schooled entirely outside of that system, and yet I cannot think of any Indigenous peoples of my generation who have not been touched by it, one way or another.” In this quote, Vowel painfully conveys the generational trauma caused by Canada’s residential school system.

Over the 150 years that residential schools in Canada operated, 150,000 children attended and over 6,000 children died. Despite this, many Canadians are still unaware of the atrocities that took place in residential schools and how that trauma continues to affect Indigenous peoples and communities today.

This is why improving the way students learn about the residential school system at every level of education is critical to enhancing Canadian understanding of the residential school system, and thus allowing us to work toward reconciliation.

There’s no question that the residential school

system is a very dark part of Canadian history.

There are numerous accounts of staff physically and sexually abusing Indigenous children in residential schools. The fact that children’s burial sites are frequently being discovered at former residential schools speaks volumes about the atrocities that took place at these so-called schools. It only takes reading one survivor’s story to realize that these children were not only stripped of their identity and culture, but were also dehumanized.

These detailed, personal accounts portray residential schools in a truthful light, showing how horrendous and inhumane they really were. What’s worse is that the impact of the residential school system does not stop with survivors; it invariably impacts their children and the communities they are a part of.

The reality is that the injustices of the past will never be healed until Canadians learn the details of what happened, understand the lasting impact, and know that reconciliation is necessary.

Although most Canadians are aware of the residential school system, few understand the immense impact it has had on Indigenous communities. The final report from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission stated that true reconciliation won’t be possible unless the public understands, acknowledges, and addresses the impacts of residential schools.

Given this, how do we properly teach about this dark side of history? I look to my own experience to answer this question.

While I knew about residential schools from my public education, I did not fully understand the horrors until I read first-hand experiences.

The personal stories give a perspective that most Canadians who rely on knowledge from the media and outdated education do not have.

Within the current Canadian education system, it should be mandatory for students to read these stories, while also learning how the residential school system changed the way that Indigenous children perceived their self-worth as Indigenous peoples and the generational impact of this trauma. Furthermore, students must also learn about the harmful policies affecting Indigenous peoples that are still in place today.

This approach would not only teach Canadians about the horrors that took place in residential schools, but also explanations of how the system has led to current inequities in education, health, and much more. It is with this understanding that people may start to see some of the challenges that Indigenous communities face due to the systemic damage done by residential schools.

For example, substance abuse disorders are a common issue with which Indigenous communities struggle. Theories of addiction put forward that individuals with addiction develop their problems with substance abuse because it helps alleviate the pain that comes with trauma. Properly studying the history of the residential school system and understanding the lasting effects it has had on Indigenous communities allows problems such as substance abuse disorders in those communities to be both understood and addressed better.

If the history and current impact of residential schools were better taught in schools, it would help

students with significant living experience in Northern Ontario. This is not what is best for Indigenous communities from the north, who are our most underserved with respect to health care.

To address the shortage of health-care professionals providing meaningful care in Indigenous communities, we can’t simply increase technological capacity for online access to health professionals and while also continuing to endure the financial burden of travelling to medical clinics from rural and remote communities.

Indigenous partners, such as the National Consortium for Indigenous Education, need a space at the table to change how the current education system is organized so that it can recruit and retain more Indigenous students in health-care programs. In line with this, the selection criteria in existing health-care programs need to be modified so that more Indigenous students are admitted.

Additionally, the number of health-care programs in northern and rural areas of Ontario need to be increased. Lastly, the existing structure of health care in Ontario needs to be changed so that Indigenous peoples have greater self-governance over their health.

Angie Hunda is a first-year student in the Physician Assistant program at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Canadians understand why the legacy of residential schools is still present in political and legal policies today. Furthermore, it would also help Canadians understand that systemic discrimination still exists and is reflected in issues like the disproportionate amount of Indigenous children in the child welfare system.

I believe that reconciliation can only happen if enough people agree that it is our obligation as a society to make it happen. As expressed in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, residential schools cannot be understood as simply history; all Canadians must understand the lasting effects of the residential school system and how the trauma from it still impacts Indigenous communities today.

Erin Lunn is a first-year social sciences student at Innis College.

Over the 150-year history of residential schools, at least 6,000 children died.

COURTESY OF STILL PHOTOGRAPHY DIVISION NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

JANUARY 30, 2023

thevarsity.ca/section/comment

Letter to the Editor: We need to change how we talk about Indigenous peoples Why are Indigenous peoples always treated as subjects to be discussed?

Stephanie Allen Varsity Contributor

A student-led PhD-level seminar that I attended included a discussion of population ecology and sockeye salmon. However, midway through the seminar, the facilitators put up a slide with a quote by some academic about “Indigenous North Americans.” This was meant as the subject for the next round of small group discussions, but once others heard and saw my reaction, they wisely pivoted, and returned to discussing wildlife. I was left quietly fuming.

A little later there is a discussion of values related to harvesting. In the reporting back another group says they discussed the values of Indigenous people — yes, singular. Thankfully they didn’t go any further to explain. The last straw was when a woman in another group

boldly stated that people that live a subsistence lifestyle just to wipe out populations because of food insecurity, like we all know this to be a truth.

So I quietly exploded, stating that, in fact, that is a fallacy; subsistence populations know the value of caring for the resources — bad word, I know — that they depend on, plenty of literature on that subject. And the real issue is Western capitalism and colonialism — the need for sea-doos, the latest and greatest cell phone, SUVs and McMansions. Global food production is three times the caloric need of every human yet one third of that is wasted and people are left to starve to death and go hungry.

There was total silence.

And then the seminar continues with the discussion. It drags on and on because everyone is vying to talk, simply to earn marks. At this point in the discussion, I’m hoping to leave

and there’s no quick way to duck out. I have to disturb half the class to get to the door, which I do.

And I don't care if they heard the expletives that spewed out once I was safely in the hallway.

The first thing I did when I got home was drop the course. I don’t need the course so it is no big deal. What is a big deal, however, is that this experience happens in almost every course.

It did during my undergrad degree — I was exhausted, angry, and disillusioned by the end.

I love studying science and I fool myself into believing that I can just be me and do the science. This isn’t enough for me to turn my back on getting what I want from the Institution.

I do think the university is trying and my program, supervisor, and the other students are very supportive, shockingly so, in fact. However, this course is from another department than most of the ones I take. I think that is what I find so alienating — I let my guard down because I actually felt comfortable but, clearly, I shouldn’t have let my guard down.

I have several issues with experiences like

this. First, situations like this are not being addressed by anyone but me, and this fact leaves me with anger and alienation. Second, we, First Nations, are always homogenized and treated as if we are one people. The fact that even PhD students are making this assumption is particularly alarming. After all, would anyone suggest that all Europeans are culturally or linguistically the same? What about Asians? How about people from the Caribbean? I’m hoping that you get my point.

My last question, and the most troubling one: do people see us, First Nations, as people or as just research subjects? I’m wondering why it is that we’re always raised as a topic for discussion. In these types of science discussions, I haven’t heard any other type of people used as a topic for discussion or as a research subject, just Indigenous peoples.

I sent this letter out of pure frustration, hoping that someone else had pitched something similar to the Indigenous issue. I just want to give others an idea of what First Nations students like me experience.

Stephanie Allen, of Kanien'keha:ka, Six Nations of the Grand River, is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences at UTSC.

Canada makes moves toward Indigenous reparations with Bill C-38 Bill C-38 is just a start to reparations Isabella Liu Associate Comment Editor

Content warning: This article discusses legislation that has historically harmed Indigenous communities.

On December 14, 2022, Canada’s Minister of Indigenous Services, Patty Hajdu, introduced Bill C-38, An Act to Amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements). As suggested by its title, C-38 does not propose any new laws, but rather acts to amend previous legislation — specifically, the Indian Act. Bill C-38 aims to tackle the age-old issue of enfranchisement, the process through which several Indigenous peoples lost eligibility for registration and membership in their home communities. Indigenous peoples have been fighting against enfranchisement since the original act was first introduced in 1876.

The original Indian Act, enfranchisement, and “Indian Status” Perhaps the most historically impactful piece of legislation for Indigenous peoples, the Indian Act is the primary federal law that oversees all matters regarding Indian status, bands, and reservations. Today, it serves to outline and claims to preserve Indigenous autonomy, but its history is rather dark, with its original rendition having much more oppressive intentions.

The Gradual Civilization Act, passed by Canadian parliament in 1857, sought to “assimilate”

Indigenous peoples into colonial Canadian culture by encouraging people to denounce their Indian status and “join civilization” — in other words, enfranchisement.

Enfranchisement, officially, was the legal process by which Indigenous peoples were stripped of their Indian status and indoctrinated as Canadian citizens. Assimilated individuals were allowed to vote, work, purchase alcohol, and own land outside of reserves, rights that were prohibited to them otherwise.

Indigenous men who acquired university degrees, or even entire bands who qualified as “fit” and “civilized,” would lose their Indian status and become Canadian — an opportunity which, according to the government, would be extremely beneficial. Women and their children had even less of a choice; since their status was recognized only by familial relations and not by blood, those who married non-Indigenous men or men who chose to enfranchise would be forcibly stripped of their status.

In the passing of the official Indian Act in 1876, enfranchisement was one of the fundamental ways the federal government attempted to eradicate Indigenous culture, history, and existence entirely. In the 1920s, government officials were even granted the ability to forcibly strip people’s statuses without their consent if they were reported to have “possessed the necessary qualifications” — “compulsory enfranchisement,” 1920’s Bill 14 called it, in their quest to “solve the Indian problem.”

It wasn’t until 1985, with the passing of Bill

C-31, that enfranchisement was officially removed from the Indian Act. Those that had lost Indian status, by choice or by compulsion, were able to reapply for the title. However, descendants of said enfranchised families and individuals were left out of the equation; regardless of whether or not one chose to reinstate their Indian status, their grandchildren and following generations would forever be ineligible, barring hundreds of First Nations people from their rightful name for years.

Bill C-38 addresses exactly that.

Bill C-38 and beyond As it currently stands, Bill C-38 will ensure that descendants of previously enfranchised First Nations people and families with histories of enfranchisement will be legally enabled to regain and reapply for their Indigenous status — because, in some twisted fashion, they haven’t been able to thus far.

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The proposed amendment will affect hundreds of First Nations individuals whose rightful titles were taken from them due to the Indian Act’s abusive provisions, and Bill C-38 is a much-needed reparation.

In a December 2022 interview with CBC, longstanding Indigenous Rights activist Kathryn Fournier described the impact the legislation would have on her and her children, who have been thus far ineligible to apply for Indigenous status. “To be able to say that they can officially and formally claim that connection and officially be recognized as being part of that community. It’s a huge thing for them.” said Fournier. “It has less to do with any particular benefits that may accrue. It has mostly to do with their ability to say quite clearly and quite openly that this is part of who I am.”

From residential schools to unceded land, First Nations people have faced centuries of violence at the hands of the federal government. No matter how much non-Indigenous Canadians, like myself, may apologize and recognize, reparations only truly matter when they come in the form of action — legal, physical action. Canada’s notoriously violent history must be put to rest once and for all, and Bill C-38 is just a start to it.

Isabella Liu is a second-year student at Victoria College studying international relations, public policy and environmental studies. She is an associate comment editor at The Varsity.

Last December, Canada introduced Bill C-38, An Act to Amend the Indian Act. COURTESY OF ASIF.A.ALI/FLICKR

Arts & Culture

January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/arts-and-culture arts@thevarsity.ca

Reflections on Indigenous education in Ontario Our educational system needs to do better by Indigenous stories Evelyn Bolton Varsity Contributor

In this article, I would like to present a series of anecdotes. Stories are the most potent form of communication since they allow us to share experiences and perspectives. In this article, I will share my stories as an Indigenous student in the Canadian education system.

I have always known that I am Indigenous. Although it isn’t an all-consuming identity, it is a part of me and my life. However, all the Anishinaabe and Indigenous teachings that I have learned have always been taught outside of the Canadian education system. When I was younger and my family rented a small house in Toronto, I went to an incredible Indigenous preschool called Head Start.

I learned to say the days of the week, introduce myself, and count in Anishinaabemowin. I scarcely remember it and now, I can barely speak the language. Once I was removed from the city, there were no Indigenous resources, nor did I have access to Indigenous education.

Indigenous education only reentered my classroom in middle school. My mother had given me children’s books about Indigenous history. One of those books was about a little girl who was taken away to a residential school. I brought that book to class and read it as a presentation. I was nervous and stuttering as I stood in front of my classmates.

But they were bored, confused, or didn’t care all that much. They probably didn’t understand what I was talking about when I spoke of residential schools. I don’t think they even knew of or had thought about Indigenous peoples in Canada.

I remember how eager I was to share with the

class but also how nervous and uncomfortable I was to present. Why was I the only person who brought up Indigenous peoples? Why was this not taught by my teacher? In complete truth, I think she knew just as much about Indigenous peoples as my classmates. So I, as the only Indigenous kid in the school, was left as the only person to teach about it.

The first time Indigenous peoples were brought up by a teacher was in seventh grade.

She had been teaching us about Canadian history. All we focused on were the ‘great’ explorers, John A. Macdonald, and my teacher’s particular fascination with the Acadians. Despite the fact that all these people contributed to colonization, Indigenous peoples did not feature much in these stories; they felt like background props — never fully explained and only existing as cardboard cutouts.

On this day, my teacher decided to discuss the Indigenous peoples from our region. I entered the class so excited to share and see people’s reactions to Ojibway, Cree, or Mohawk culture. Instead, my teacher talked about Huron-Wendat. I was disappointed and confused when they were the only culture she discussed, and she never even brought up their history. It was only after the class, when my friends and other classmates started asking me if I was Huron-Wendat, that I became frustrated. When I told them that I was Ojibway, they were confused. They couldn’t understand that more than one Indigenous group lived in Canada. But how could they, when they were only taught about one group and only once a year?

The story, or lack of history, continued in the eighth grade. Little was taught or said about

Indigenous peoples. My history textbook had three pages that discussed Indigenous history but only focused on brief mentions. And yet, one teacher suddenly went on a crusade. She brought different magazines and pamphlets discussing residential schools and tried to tell the entire school about the atrocities that happened in one week.

Finally, it felt like Indigenous history was being taken seriously in schools. Students started to react and remember. My pain and my family’s pain felt validated and recognized. This moment made me believe in the possibility of a future where Indigenous history and culture could be embraced and remembered. However, not all the effects were positive.

One particularly memorable occasion occurred in a high school history class. A student asked why he should care about Indigenous peoples and why people expected him to feel guilty. It happened hundreds of years ago, so why was it important to learn about Indigenous peoples now? He didn’t understand how these events still affect people today, or why it was important to discuss and remember them.

Indigenous peoples were brought up in short bursts once a year. Teachers were learning at the same pace as students. Some were sympathetic, but others were dismissive. It was all forgotten after one class. So when schools started doing land acknowledgments, I was confused. It was a nice gesture, if nothing else, but it was hollow. Especially considering the fact that they acknowledged the wrong people.

My latest experience with land acknowledgements has been at U of T. A political science teacher had just spent two weeks

introducing us to Indigenous political philosophy when he asked our class, “Should land acknowledgements mention or include the violence done to Indigenous peoples?”

Most answers were shallow and hesitant, except for two. One audience member suggested that the land acknowledgement should discuss the violence inflicted on settlers by Indigenous peoples. Additionally, a student from the balcony ranted about how everyone was a settler and contributing to colonization.

Yet, the point they made about the number of settlers in Canada being the reason “why Indigenous people can’t get jobs” was just as insulting.

The point I’m trying to make with these anecdotes is that misconceptions and judgements about Indigenous peoples still exist.

While Indigenous education is improving in Canada, many gaps and prejudices are fuelling people’s perspectives.

Not all of my experiences have been negative. There have been two remarkable occasions when my friends applied their education on Indigenous peoples and reached out to me personally. One friend sent my family orange flowers after the residential school bodies were uncovered in British Columbia in May 2021. Another friend used the education she was getting at Lakehead University to begin a productive and deep discussion with me about the current state of Indigenous peoples.

These moments give me hope that, in the future, there will be more Indigenous education. While I can’t tell you exactly how learning about Indigenous peoples will impact your life, it does impact mine, and the lives of all other Indigenous students.

JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY

JANUARY 30, 2023

thevarsity.ca/section/arts-and-culture

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Liz Howard is breaking the rules Poet and professor talks Macbeth, cosmology, generative distraction, and trusting oneself

TV: Do you have a core memory from your childhood that has shaped you as a poet?

LH: When I was six or seven years old, I was in our basement; there were boxes of my mother’s things, and I was snooping around in them. I found a copy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. My mom must have had it from when she was in high school and just never returned it. In any case, I started reading it and, of course, I didn’t understand every word.

But something of the manner in which the characters spoke — the iambic pentameter and tetrameter — launched itself inside my head. I found that my inner voice began to match the patterns of the speech of the characters in the play. I started to write things down, keep a journal, and write poems. That’s a core memory for me.

TV: What is your process of writing poetry?

LH: Poetry comes about for me in a few differ-

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TV: You’ve been appointed as the Shaftsbury Creative Writer-in-Residence at Victoria College for the 2022–2023 academic year.

What were some of the things that were important to you when you were designing your course, Creative Citizenship, The Here and Now? LH: I wanted to select a mix of texts that were published recently, and there’s at least one that I think originally came out in the 1980s. I wanted to have texts that were representative of different genres.

So we’re looking at poetry and then also prose poetry. We’re looking at hybrid writing, which is bringing in poetry, prose, and visual elements. We’re going to be looking at short fiction, a novel, as well as a collection of creative nonfiction essays by Joshua Whitehead.

I selected texts that I thought would be great for generating discussion about the role of writing in our contemporary moment and writing from different groups of people that have different experiencU CO

The Varsity: How would you describe yourself?

Liz Howard: I’m a poet, educator, and editor.

I’m originally from a small town in Treaty 9 territory called Chapleau, Ontario. I moved here when I was 18 years old to go to university, and I studied and worked in psychology for many years at the University of Toronto. I began taking a number of poetry classes, and participated in poetry readings throughout the city. I eventually did a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Guelph, which led to the publication of my first book, Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent, which has led me to a life of writing and teaching.

TV: What would you say is the role of poetry in our world?

LH: I certainly feel like poetry is a barometer for the different registers of language operating in our world.

[Its purpose is] to bring those different registers into release and to interrogate them and challenge them.

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My conversation with Liz Howard started a couple weeks ago, while I sat in Birge-Carnegie at Victoria College to attend the seminar course she is teaching this semester, VIC459 — Creative Citizenship, The Here and Now. Our discussion stuck with me, and I was eager to continue it.

She asked me to call her on the afternoon of January 26 for this interview. In class, Howard is usually the one asking me questions, but she was just as comfortable and eloquent on the other side of the metaphorical table. She contemplated before answering every question and spoke reflectively about her life, work, and deep passion for the art of poetry.

ent ways. The main way is through free writing. I will usually sit down and just allow words to come through. Another way is that I will often do a certain amount of research into different topics, and that information will make its way into poems. And, a third way is that I may have something specific in mind that I want to address. Then, I go about trying to bring that into the world.

Liz H o wa rd .

Khadija Alam News Editor

es. Also, selecting work that I was curious about, so that I could put my own passion and interest into the class.

TV: What are your passions and interests?

LH: I’m interested in history. I’m interested in archaeology. I have a deep interest in the past. I’m interested in cosmology — the origin and fate of the universe in a really layperson sort of way. I don’t claim to be an expert on a lot of these things.

But, my last book had to do with the origins of our universe, and the possibility of multiple universes, as well as interesting things around quantum physics, and the ability of matter to be in many different states simultaneously. I find ideas like this to be really interesting to think through, and to extrapolate into more human realms.

In general, I find myself generatively distracted, and I tend to be interested intensely for short periods of time on any number of different topics. Bits of those hyperfixations will make their way into my writing.

TV: Relating to a conversation that we had in our Creative Citizenship course a couple of weeks ago, I want to bring up the intersections of poetry and politics. We talked about how poetry that deals with political or social themes is considered by some to be lessthan. How do you think poetry intermingles with politics and social issues?

LH: Those who have those sorts of criticisms show themselves to be saying that they consider the individuals, the issues, and the groups themselves to be less than.

There’s this lack of recognition and capacity to contribute in a longstanding, compelling, and meaningful way if your writing isn’t falling in line with certain conservative ideas about form and content, [or] if it’s not playing by the rulebook

How four art pieces by Indigenous artists shape U of T’s campuses Anishinaabe art historian Mikinaak Migwans shares insights on each piece Ashiana Sunderji Varsity Staff

Content warning: This article contains a brief discussion of residential school graves.

In recent years, U of T has seen more and more artwork by Indigenous peoples on campus. Each piece expresses a variety of techniques and ideas that welcome students to engage with Indigenous Knowledge.

In a conversation with The Varsity, Mikinaak Migwans, an Anishinaabekwe art historian and

The tree protection zone project at Hart House.

CAROLINE BELLAMY/THEVARSITY

professor at U of T, spoke about a variety of Indigenous art installations that exist at U of T. Migwans is most closely affiliated with the tree protection zone project at Hart House. The project was made in collaboration with Maria Hupfield, a colleague of Migwans’, and Anishinaabe artist Susan Blight. This piece, which allowed the artists to use their street art skills, is a temporary installation and will be replaced by an Indigenous garden in the future.

Migwans expressed enjoyment that the work took place outdoors and in nature. “It was an ephemeral site on these construction hoardings, so it’s not a traditional gallery site,” they expressed.

“It was really nice to work on campus outside and engage with some of the nonhuman communities around — the trees and all the occupants of the trees.”

The second piece Migwans discussed was the Solomon and Trinh King piece that U of T commissioned for the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship. It’s a multimedia project, including bead and wood work.

The piece pays homage to natural entities on earth that display engineering feats, such as honeycombs. Migwans explained that this piece does a great job demonstrating that nature is not just an entity that we should observe, but one that we should work in collaboration with — a common theme in Indigenous Knowledge.

“It shows us how Indigenous Knowledge can be a part of our educational experience… [it is] something that should be integrated into our practices as we become professionals,” said Migwans. They added that Indigenous Knowledge is often factored out in the Canadian education system. The piece is a reminder that we should be integrating Indigenous Knowledge into our curriculums.

Migwans then spoke about the Great Hall at Hart House, which houses several pieces of art that depict the different individuals who have been at the top of the university’s hierarchical structure.

There is a clear lack of diversity and representation among these individuals.

“It’s very evident… the race and gender dynamic of that power structure,” Migwans said.

“Waabidiziiyan doopwining,” or “to see oneself at the table,” created by Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero, is a mirror piece that now resides

that’s been established by hierarchy. And [this is] a hierarchy that is predicated upon some people being excluded and used for content to be appropriated from, to be vilified, and [to be] romanticized in stretches.

TV: Thinking back to that conversation, we also talked about how marginalized writers can often be pigeonholed into writing about their trauma. Do you have any advice for writers or artists who are grappling with this?

LH: I think this is why courses like Creative Citizenship are important — to tap into conversations already happening. People from marginalized groups are now being lifted up into positions of power where they can acquire stories that aren’t the usual trauma narratives, which — for whatever reason — have been shown to be highly consumable and profitable. We will continue to see the great richness of narratives that haven’t been as represented before, perhaps in a more widespread or visible way.

Writers should continue to be fueled by what makes writing rewarding for them, and to not feel that they need to recapitulate these narratives of trauma from their own lives or those of their community, to feel as if that’s the only way that they’re going to be recognized or heard. That being said, my personal position is that simultaneously one should not be dissuaded from writing about the difficulties that one has experienced or the difficulties in one’s community. Certainly in my writing, I’ve written about personal trauma as well as intergenerational trauma. And I’ve written about that out of necessity. There was no way for me to not write about it.

TV: Finally, I’m hoping you can impart some words of wisdom to young artists and writers. If you could go back in time and say something to your younger self, what would you want her to know?

LH: I don’t know why this is such a difficult question.

Don’t be so concerned about what other people think, even though I believed myself to not be so concerned. Be wary of people who seem as though they’re supportive and, in fact, have ulterior motives. And read more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. in the Great Hall among the portraits of past U of T presidents. Migwans explained that this piece is a significant response to what already existed in the Great Hall. Instead of simply adding a diverse portrait for ‘representation,’ which is often the automatic response to and a quick fix for lack of diversity, this piece of art is a mirror, so that everyone can see themselves represented.

The next piece Migwans described was the Daniels Mural Project by Que Rock, a multimedia artist who used his aerosol skills to create the piece. The mural is displayed on a window of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design so that it can be visible to passersby at any time.

The project is a response to U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report. According to the report, “A strategy for the funding and placement of more Indigenous public art across all three campuses should be developed, in close consultation with local Indigenous communities.”

The piece was also created to recognize the unmarked graves of 215 children confirmed in Kamloops, British Columbia, in 2021. Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission has concluded that at least 4,100 students died while attending residential schools, the last of which closed in 1997.

Migwans concluded that diversity in art should not only make sure that everyone feels represented and supported, but that it must also address ongoing systems of exclusion. “[We have to] make sure that we’re not just talking about the representation of diversity… but people’s lives — making sure that our people are being treated like community members.”

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Barbie versus Oppenheimer Oppenheimer:: The war for summer 2023 Who will receive the box office crown?

Barbie and Oppenheimer will both be released on July 21..

Alex Pavlin Varsity Contributor

COURTESY OF IMDB & VURJEET MADAN/THEVARSITY

The most climactic battle in cinematic history will occur this summer on July 21, 2023. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will duel it out in cinemas everywhere to be crowned the ‘queen’ or ‘king’ of the year’s most crucial box-office weekend.

Both films feature star-studded ensemble casts and are directed by acclaimed filmmakers. The scheduling of their releases has taken the online film community by storm and revealed a petty rivalry between two gargantuan movie studios, Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Pictures, releasing Barbie and Oppenheimer, respectively.

Fan insights Since the announcement, the internet has had tremendous fun memeing the situation. There is a diverse set of opinions surrounding this contentious clash: those of the Barbie fanatics, the Oppenheimer enthusiasts, and those excited to make a double-feature adventure of the whole ordeal.

Barbie fans are excited to witness the cinematic debut of a beloved cultural icon. Although much of the plot remains a mystery, the available details disclose a satirical tale of Barbie’s self-discovery following her exile from Barbieland. A chunk of the film’s buzz comes from the casting of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken. The initial look at Gosling’s Ken sparked a meme tsunami. The humour, derived from Gosling’s appearance, drew comparisons to Scooby-Doo star Freddie Prinze Jr. Other fans dubbed Ken a “literally me” character — a selfdeprecating phrase to describe someone’s attachment to a character who is emotionally repressed, socially awkward, and lonely. Gosling is notable for playing such figures, including K from Blade Runner 2049 and the Driver from Drive.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has also received plenty of online fanfare. The film explores the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, the

American theoretical physicist who contributed to the creation of the atomic bomb. In contrast to Barbie, the memes for Oppenheimer were not directed at Cillian Murphy, who stars as the titular scientist. Rather, director Christopher Nolan has been the target, famous for his use of practical effects in the current era of CGIheavy blockbusters.

For example, in Tenet, Nolan and his crew crashed an actual Boeing 747 into an aircraft hangar for an action set piece. Fans were speculating as to how Nolan would be able to mimic a nuclear explosion without the aid of CGI. Many memes joked that Nolan detonated a real bomb that would have killed billions, with fans comparing it to a similar act of mass murder committed by Marvel’s Thanos.

The final fan group has traded tribalism for camaraderie. Memes have emerged poking fun at the contrast between the aesthetics and subject matter of both films. These admirers have shared their outfit plans for opening night: hot pink to celebrate Barbie and black and dark grey for Oppenheimer. Fans have also debated the proper viewing time for the films, but the consensus considers Oppenheimer optimal daytime viewing to prepare for an evening with Barbie.

In an interview with The Varsity, Raphaella Zymaras, a TA at the Cinema Studies Institute, offered her thoughts on this ‘war.’ “I plan on seeing both movies. And I definitely think that I’m more excited for Oppenheimer because of the fact that Florence Pugh is in it,” Zymaras said. “But my best friends are huge Barbie fans, and I’m definitely gonna be dragged there as well.”

Speaking on the aesthetics and the viewing debate, Zymaras noted, “I think I’ll be wearing dark for both of them. I think that it’s funny to go into a Barbie movie wearing the complete opposite… So I think that people should switch it up a little bit.” Zymaras considered Barbie to be the perfect “cocktail film” to prepare for the more grim Oppenheimer.

“I think Barbie has more hype because everyone is talking about it,” Zymaras reflected. “And Ryan Gosling’s in it, so why wouldn’t you want to watch?”

The massive hype surrounding the films is evidence of a new age of movie marketing, one in which fans generate anticipation via viral memes. Another piece of event cinema was 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. A popular TikTok trend emerged featuring teenagers attending screenings in their finest suits. Univer-

sal Pictures, Minions’ distributor, celebrated the efforts of these TikTokers, and who’s to say that something similar won’t occur this July?

A petty rivalry The drama surrounding the release date also has implications for both studios.

Here’s a bit of background: Warner Bros. was Christopher Nolan’s studio partner for nearly 20 years, releasing his biggest successes, such as The Dark Knight trilogy and Interstellar. But Nolan openly expressed his disapproval of the studio’s decision to distribute its 2021 slate simultaneously in theatres and on HBO Max, a move motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nolan severed his ties with Warner Bros. shortly thereafter.

Nolan and Warner Bros. had also previously fought over the release strategy for his sci-fi spy thriller, Tenet. The film’s release was delayed several times due to the pandemic but eventually hit screens in September 2020. Nolan hoped that releasing the film in theatres would generate a moviegoing resurgence, but Tenet’s disappointing box office results — a worldwide gross of less than 400 million USD against a 200 million USD budget — cost the studio approximately 50 million USD. Following Nolan’s split from Warner Bros., Oppenheimer eventually found a home at Universal Pictures, which agreed to a production budget of 100 million USD, a 100-day theatrical window, and 20 per cent of the first-dollar gross to Nolan. In October 2021, Universal announced a release date of July 21, 2023. Six months later, in April 2022, Warner Bros. declared that Barbie would also release on the same date!

Both studios are hoping that their respective star-studded release will be crowned the movie of the year, a moneymaker that will win over audiences and critics alike. The question on everyone’s mind is: who will emerge as the top dog?

With six months to go until the movie showdown of the summer, all one can do now is anxiously wait until we all experience what could potentially be the greatest day in cinematic history.

Voicing Identity with John Borrows Madeline Szabo Associate Arts & Culture Editor

COURTESY OF UOFT ILSA VIA INSTAGRAM

When I sat down in the law building’s impressive atrium for John Borrows’ talk on his newest book of essays, Voicing Identity: Cultural Appropriation and Indigenous Issues, I got the impression that I was looking through a window at a deep area of the world that I had yet to learn about: Indigenous law.

Borrows is U of T’s current Loveland chair in Indigenous Law and came from the University of Victoria, where he held the Canada Research Chair position in Indigenous Law. After hearing about the past, present, and future of his research and work, the importance of Traditional Knowledge, whether law or otherwise, is clearer to me than ever.

The past: Family history Borrows’ own story begins generations ago, as he and his ancestors have had land and legal status as Indigenous peoples for seven generations. According to Borrows, the legal status that Indigenous peoples have was introduced as a concept by European settlers, yet, it is a key part of their identity and maintaining their land. Here we see that, since settlers arrived on Turtle Island, it has been essential for Indigenous peoples to prove their legal positions in the context of a law that is not their own.

Throughout the story of Borrows’ family’s past, Indigenous law manifests as a personal interest not necessarily in law, but in his personal history. His great grandfather, Charles Giganos Jones, was a runner who transported messages between Indigenous nations and between settlers so that harmony could be kept. Borrows’ thesis as a JD, A Genealogy of Law Inherent Sovereignty and First Nations Self-Government, traces this extensive family ancestry. In his own roots, he finds the seeds of strength in the face of legal challenges. His

great grandfather was not a victim of the Indian Act as some narratives may suggest; instead, the history shows that he took action and lived by the laws he grew up with — not those imposed upon him.

The present: Voicing identity The 28th call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission requires all Canadian law schools to provide a course on Indigenous peoples’ and Indigenous law. In order to do so, schools need reliable information, and they need to balance respectful engagement with Indigenous peoples and issues, given their diverse identities.

Borrows’ new book, Voicing Identity — a collection of 15 essays edited by Borrows and Kent McNeil — responds to this need, providing a window into Indigenous law for students and schools. The essays are written by different academics who reflect on experiences with the law and topics in Indigenous history, such as building relationships to teach substantive Indigenous laws and finding value in your place in the world.

Borrows aimed to make the text accessible to a wide population, instructing the authors to try to “think about the [writing styles of] the New Yorker and the Atlantic” when writing their essays. The result is a book practical for law students, and informative for those looking to better understand the land acknowledgments that we hear everyday.

COURTESY OF UOFT ILSA VIA INSTAGRAM

The past and future of Indigenous Law scholarship

The future: Preserving knowledge When we understand Indigenous law, it opens up the door to understanding much more complex relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers. Borrows’ aspiration with his next work is to create a living history of Indigenous values, to make “all of our [Indigenous] traditions living.”

Ultimately, Borrows’ talk reminds us that Indigenous history will always be part of Canadian law. We must appreciate, learn, and enter into dialogues about that to appreciate and understand Indigenous peoples and respect their traditions.

Science

January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/science science@thevarsity.ca

A health-care system checkup How do medical schools live up to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action?

JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY

Seavey van Walsum Associate Science Editor

Content warning: this article discusses instances of medical violence against Indigenous peoples.

From a history fraught with unethical medical experiments in residential schools — including government-funded research on malnourishment that withheld dental care and a 1955 case of the allegedly unnecessary removal of portion of a lung — and a wide range of ongoing health inequities, it is unsurprising to find medical reform among the Truth and Reconciliation Report’s Calls to Action (TRRCA).

In the health-related subsection of the Calls to Action, only one article explicitly pertains to the training of medical professionals themselves, asking that medical and nursing schools require students to complete a

course on Indigenous health issues. The rest call for action from the federal government, seeking comprehensive health-care system change on all levels. These changes would include increasing the number of Indigenous professionals in health care, retaining healthcare providers in Indigenous communities, and providing cultural competency training for all health-care professionals.

A lot has changed since that report came out in 2015.

Here’s what universities, medical schools, and medical professionals are doing to meet some of the health care-related calls to action — and how our health-care system still needs to change.

Laurentian University, Simon Fraser University, Lakehead University, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), and U of T have begun to offer graduate programs specific to the health needs and concerns of Indigenous and rural northern communities.

The Temerty Faculty of Medicine at U of T

offers a masters in Indigenous public health, has drafted plans to “recruit Indigenous faculty and staff to lead all aspects of Indigenous medical education,” and has instituted an Elder-in-Residence position. Today, this position is held by Elder Kawennanoron Cindy White, who also holds a degree in nursing.

Despite these advancements, there’s a long way to go. Indigenous peoples comprise five per cent of the Canadian population but only a little more than one percent of U of T’s medical faculty and, as of 2023, there are four faculty members who publicly identify as Indigenous: Dr. Chase McMurren, Dr. Jason Pennington, Dr. Lisa Richardson, and Dr. Suzanne Shoush.

Although 33 per cent of the overall Canadian population lives in rural areas, for Indigenous peoples, that number is approximately 60 per cent. In contrast, a mere 9.4 per cent of all physicians are located in rural areas.

This becomes an issue for Indigenous health care because low physician retention in northern regions leads to an issue in access.

Urban masters program may not be enough to entice doctors further north; this is why NOSM was founded.

In 2002, Laurentian University and Lakehead University collaborated to found Canada’s first independent medical university, intended to prioritize medicine for rural northern communities, by northern communities.

With campuses in Sudbury and Thunder Bay, NOSM aims to take learners “out of the ‘ivory tower’ and into [the] backyard” and fill the gaps in northern rural, Indigenous, and francophone medicine. Among its medical programs, NOSM offers the Remote First Nation Stream, a rural residency program that involves community immersement in the Eabametoong First Nation.

Less than a quarter of NOSM graduates

stay in rural communities in northern Ontario, but NOSM reports that more than half its graduates stay in northern Ontario cities, and nearly eight per cent of all its medical school graduates are Indigenous.

This trend is positive but does not combat the lack of access to specialists, and many still travel long distances to attend appointments.

“My mom has a disability,” fifth-year U of T global health specialist Madeleine Leach Jarrett told The Varsity. “I grew up — my whole life, as a little kid — going to hospital and doctor’s visits and stuff with her… I’ve been kind of knowledgeable and understanding of the public health system and how it functions since I was young.”

From experiencing disparities in the northern public health system and studying them in school — in both her specialist and double minors in immunology and Indigenous studies — Jarrett is sympathetic to both the health professionals who cannot stay in the north and the patients who need them.

She believes in a different future of health care: “Instead of making people travel ridiculous distances, spend extreme amounts of money, drive on roads that are dangerous in the winter — all these different factors — we could be able to do some sort of telemedicine visit… there could also be an in-person component at a local clinic with a local doctor or nurse practitioner, and then an online component with a specialist.”

Jarrett is optimistic about the future of a hybrid model. “We just need to be both adaptive and creative in how we solve these things,” she said. “Now that we’ve gone through COVID, we’ve seen that we actually can be more accommodating with our systems. We can create accessible systems for everyone.”

The impact of early psychosocial deprivation on brain structure Using family-based care interventions to rescue neurodevelopmental deficits Alexandra Kostich Varsity Contributor

The human brain is a highly plastic and malleable network in the early years of one’s life. A mere second could allow for the formation of over a million neural connections. During this period, the brain exhibits high sensitivity to both positive and negative experiences, and proper structural development is dependent on the quality of the child’s interactions with adults.

Researchers at the Idea Lab have dedicated their time to exploring this very problem, where Mark Wade — clinical psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at the University of Toronto — is investigating the link between psychosocial deprivation and neurobiological development. Lab’s primary goal involves the investigation into how one’s early-life experiences shape mental health and cognition, in addition to the brain’s structural progression.

High-quality foster care can reverse developmental domain deficiencies Amongst the various research projects that the lab has undertaken, the Bucharest Early Intervention Project is the longest longitudinal study — defined as a study that tracks chang-

es within individuals over time — in Bucharest, Romania that focused on family-based care, spanning nearly 20 years. By following the development of children growing up in orphanages, this project aims to better understand how the impacts of psychosocial deprivation could potentially be reversed via the implementation of family care.

The project’s researchers designed a highquality foster care environment specifically for the study. This allowed them to separate children into two groups, wherein one remained in institutionalized care and the other was transferred to high-quality care. With several follow ups throughout the children’s lives, researchers were able to define differences in a variety of developmental domains.

Analyzing these domains revealed several negative impacts of early institutionalization, such as cognitive and socioemotional deficits and an increased risk of psychiatric disorders.

Reward sensitivity was also found to be altered in children remaining in institutionalized care, as a lack of rewards — such as affection and physical closeness to caregivers — leads to both downregulation and premature elimination of synaptic connections across the brain.

But with the implementation of high-quality foster care, domains such as brain activity, cognition and language displayed improve-

Adult interactions in early childhood development affect brain maturation.

COURTESY OF BINGODESIGNS VIA PIXABAY

ments. These improvements were characterized by lower electroencephalogram coherence, indicating higher intellectual processing, as well as higher academic performance in terms of language arts and reading ability. Further goals of this project include studying additional lasting effects of foster care placement and recovery-sensitive periods, defined as a period in which a child should be placed in foster care for domain recovery to be exhibited.

Changes in cortical structure In a study published by the Science Advances in 2022, data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project was used to develop a randomized control trial looking into the relationship between psychosocial deprivation and cortical development.

By examining the total brain volume for both institutionalized and noninstitutionalized children, researchers were able to observe a 2.5 to 5.5 per cent overall brain volume decrease in children that were institutionalized. Changes in brain surface area and cortical thickness were also reported

— two factors that are critical to supporting brain function. The group that was randomized to foster care displayed both a faster decrease in the cortical thickness of the prefrontal cortex and in the medial orbitofrontal cortex surface area — regions required for decision-making — from ages 9 to 16 when compared to the institutionalized group.

Further results indicated that caregiving environments can impact white matter, as exposure to institutionalization corresponded to modifications in white matter integrity in various brain regions, which is vital for the passing of information between parts of the brain.

The combination of these findings indicates the profound impact early experiences, such as caregiving, have on neurological maturation. This study was the first of its kind to link psychosocial deprivation to structural neurodevelopment in a randomized control trial from middle childhood to adolescence, shedding light on the importance of family-based care interventions during early development.

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Lillian Dyck’s contribution to neuropsychiatry The George Gordon First Nation scientist examined how identity influences research Ashiana Sunderji Varsity Staff

The honourable Lillian Eva Quan Dyck, who is a member of the George Gordon First Nation, was born in 1945 to a Cree mother and a Chinese father. After completing a Bachelor of Arts, a Masters of Science in Biochemistry, and a PhD in Biological Psychiatry — all from the University of Saskatchewan — she went on to become a professor in the university’s Neuropsychiatry Research Unit. Notably, she is one of the first First Nations women in Canada to receive a PhD in the sciences.

Dyck’s early life and early career In a 2013 interview, Dyck recalled how in her early life, her older brother Winston was physically and verbally bullied for being Chinese, and the siblings kept their Indigenous identity hidden to prevent further discrimination.

Her professional success was similarly met with sexism and racism. She expressed that she received many comments that diminished her importance in her roles as a professor and associate dean at the University of Saskatchewan.

Dyck was initially drawn to studying the intersection between biochemistry and alcoholism, prompted by the racist stereotype regarding Indigenous peoples’ susceptibility to alcoholism. She started off with research surrounding alcohol metabolism in Indigenous

peoples before shifting to research drugs later in her career and their mechanisms of action for treating strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia.

Quetiapine research In a paper published in July 2008, Dyck and her team reported on the effects of an antipsychotic drug, quetiapine, on patients with Alzheimer’s disease. As of September 2022, the FDA has approved this drug to treat schizophrenia, mania, and Major Depressive Disorder, and research has indicated its potential uses for anxiety that are not yet approved.

One of the main physiological indicators of Alzheimer’s is the aggregation of amyloid beta protein plaques — clumps of proteins that disrupt the proper function of cells — in the brain.

Dyck’s 2008 paper explains that quetiapine can reduce the cytotoxic oxidative stress that results from failure to detoxify reactive molecules in cells caused by amyloid beta plaques.

Dyck’s research has also shown that quetiapine can reduce memory dysfunction, as well as the amyloid precursor proteins that can lead to Alzheimer’s in certain mice models. Further, they explained how the amyloid beta protein aggregates produce an unstable reactive hydroxide molecule (OH-), which causes a positive feedback loop for the increased formation of amyloid beta protein aggregates. Quetiapine is supposed to capture OH- and thus reduce protein aggregation.

Dyck contributes to neuropsychiatry research.

COURTESY OF OBERT MADONDO/FLICKR

Identity and research Alongside her biochemistry-based research, Dyck also explored the relationship between a researcher’s identity and research. Her 1996 paper, “An Analysis of Western, Feminist and Aboriginal Science Using the Medicine Wheel of the Plains Indians,” does what most conventional science papers do not — it dissects how identity influences the work of a scientist.

This is an incredibly unappreciated realm of science as — the majority of time — research is claimed to be done objectively, ignoring the potential confounds of culture and identity.

Dyck writes, “The public usually assumes that

scientific enquiry is not affected by the scientist’s preconceptions (scientists are considered selfless and objective) and the scientific method itself is thought to be immune from bias, so scientific experiments are thought to lead inevitably to indisputable results.”

Dyck has received a number of awards, including a Young Women’s Christian Association Lifetime Achievement Award. She joined the Canadian Senate in 2005, and was a member of the Progressive Senate Group, holding the roles of deputy chair and chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.

The war below our feet: how plants and insects interact How evolution has created unlikely allies in a hidden world

Jessie Schwalb Assistant News Editor

Our earth is rife with conflict and cooperation that we often fail to consider. I’m talking about the interactions between plants and insects, groups that account for half of all terrestrial species. These organisms are linked through webs of deception, cooperation, and warfare, and learning about the ways plants and insects interact with each other will forever change the way you look at these hidden organisms.

The little old insect who lived in a plant Arthur Weis, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at U of T and the principal investigator at the Weis Lab, investigates how plants respond to the pressures imposed by the climate crisis.

His lab also studies the interactions between plants and insects, which range from cooperative to combative.

In an article published in Natural History, Weis described the relationship between goldenrod, a flower characterized by a riot of fluffy yellow spikes, and the goldenrod gall fly, a quarter-inch-long fly found in the eastern and midwestern

CHERYL NONG/THEVARSITY

US. After a female fly mates, she searches for suitable goldenrod plants to lay her eggs. Each time she finds a plant she deems satisfactory, the fly inserts the needle-like organ extending from her rear into the flower and pushes out a single egg.

After the egg hatches, the larva burrows into the stem. By exposing the plant to chemicals in their saliva, “[the larva] induces a tumor on the goldenrod plant,” said Weis, in an interview with The Varsity. The larva then camps out inside the gall, chomping on the tumor and protected from parasitic wasps by a corky outing, until it emerges as an adult fly and spends the next two weeks before its death continuing the cycle.

Plants and their bodyguards Plants aren’t passive victims — they also manipulate insects for their protection.

According to Weis, tomato plants often come under siege from hungry caterpillars. “ To m a t o e s , when they’re damaged… release a different class of volatile chemicals” that alert nearby parasitic wasps.

These parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside the caterpillars, spelling the caterpillars’ demise. Once the baby wasps emerge from the egg, they eat the caterpillar from the inside out, bursting out

as adult wasps.

However, tomato plants don’t always rely on other species of insects to defend themselves.

In a 2017 study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers primed tomato plants for attack and put larvae on the plants. The authors found that the plants they’d primed decreased the nutritional quality of their leaves, leading the larvae to eat each other. The researchers mused that inducing cannibalism is a particularly sound strategy — not only does cannibalism reduce the number of herbivores, but it also makes the remaining larvae less hungry and less likely to eat the plant.

But the caterpillars have found ways to fight back. According to a 2021 article published in the New Phytologist, some caterpillars’ saliva contains enzymes that prevent tomato plants from opening the pores in their leaves. This limits the plants’ ability to release wasp-attracting chemicals, effectively “silencing the alarm.”

Impacts of the climate crisis According to Weis, the ongoing climate crisis can change the ways plants and insects interact by disrupting overlap between the organisms’ life cycles. “For instance, [if] the plant is very dependent on day length to regulate its growth cycle, but the insect is very dependent on temperature — well, day length is not changing, but temperature [is],” he said. “You can end up with these sorts of mismatches, in which the time in which the plant is the best and the most nutritious may not be the same time when the insect is ready to eat.”

Elevated carbon dioxide levels decrease the nutritional content of certain plants’ leaves, causing herbaceous insects to eat more. In addition, recent studies suggest that exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide may limit plants’ ability to release some of the chemicals they use to defend themselves. This leads me to one of the most convincing arguments for addressing the climate crisis — keeping our world conniving and weird.

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January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/photo photo@thevarsity.ca

Ogimaawabiitong’s 3rd Annual Healing Your Spirit Pow Wow in Wauzhushk Onigum Nation honoring IRS system, '60s Scoop and Day School survivors through the power of song and dance.

University of Manitoba’s 33rd Annual Traditional Graduation Pow Wow in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

LINDSAY BAIN/THEVARSITY

LINDSAY BAIN/THEVARSITY

Pow Wows across Treaty #3 and Treaty #1 territories Pow Wows in Wauzhushk Onigum honour survivors of Residential Schools, Day Schools, and the ’60s Scoop, and celebrate students graduating from the University of Manitoba Lindsay Bain Varsity Contributor

Aaniin, Boozhoo! Giiwedin Noodin indizhnikaaz, Makwa doodem, Waabigonii Zaaga’igan Anishinaabeg indonjii.

My name is Lindsay Bain, and I’m from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation in Treaty #3 Territory in northwestern Ontario. I was traditionally elected and serve as a junior proxy on the Oshkiniigiig Youth Executive Council for Grand Council Treaty #3 — the traditional government of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty #3 — which works to engage youth in the leadership and governance of our nation and completes our circle of traditional governance. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to attend Pow Wows across my territory

during the summer and happy to share photos and stories from these experiences with you. As a first-year Master of Public Policy student at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, I appreciate finding ways to connect back to my culture and community while studying so far from home.

Stories and storytelling are an important part of Anishinaabe culture and tradition. Through oral teachings, our knowledge and laws have been passed down through generations, since time immemorial. Stories hold the history, culture, knowledge, traditions, laughter, and tears of our people — and it is through storytelling that we learn the principles of Mino-Bimaadiziwin — living the good life. To live Mino-Bimaadiziwin, we as Anishinaabe people must return to our tradi-

tional teachings, connect to our culture and identity, and learn our language to put these teachings into practice. Pow Wows are one way that we can celebrate and honour our culture, identity, and community. They are integral to our way of life and provide opportunities for socialization, relationship building, economic development, and knowledge sharing while providing safe spaces to celebrate and embrace being Indigenous. The beautiful regalia, dancing, singing, and drumming are sacred and ceremonial aspects to Anishinaabe culture, whose teachings were kept alive despite colonial attempts to eradicate and silence our ceremonies and traditions. All are welcome to attend a Pow Wow and participate in the celebration, whether you’re Indigenous or not. Pow Wows are ceremonial spaces; how-

Pow Wows are opportunities to connect with community and family including Elders, cousins, friends, and your deadly aunties and uncles.

LINDSAY BAIN/THEVARSITY

ever, we ask that you respect them by keeping them alcohol and substance-free events. They’re warm, welcoming, and lively spaces where a lot of healing, connection, laughter, and fun can be had if you’re blessed with the opportunity to attend one.

“The pow wow is a living cultural expression of song, dance, and art which brings people together, and through the drum, reminds us of our connection to Mother Earth. […] pow wows are a time to put differences aside and to celebrate traditions, mostly it is the time to celebrate life. A pow wow strengthens an entire race of people.

To be Anishinabe is to be proud, to know who you are, and where you came from.” – Harold Flett Gichi-miigwech. Thank you.

Sports

January 30, 2023 thevarsity.ca/section/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

An inside look at jersey art by Indigenous artists How Norval Morrisseau and Tyler Tabobondung Rushnell created art for Toronto teams Alaysha Merali, Mekhi Quarshie Associate Sports Editor, Sports Editor

Think of your favourite team, picture it in your head. What aspect of the team comes to mind — is it your favourite player? A championship moment? The head coach? Now think about the colours that surround that memory, the vibe it gives off. Chances are, you’ll end up picturing that team’s logo during this exercise.

Logos are a key part of any team’s identity, whether it be the Golden State Warriors with their classic yellow and blue or the Toronto Maple Leafs with their iconic blue and white. But every now and then, a team will make a statement jersey.

Lately, multiple Toronto teams have used the hype surrounding their jerseys to put artists from marginalized communities on the big stage. For

The Varsity’s Indigenous issue, we looked into some of Toronto’s Indigenous-themed jerseys and figured out the leaders behind the logos.

Last year, the Toronto Raptors three-point connoisseur Fred Van Vleet teamed up with Indigenous artist Mike Ivall and illustrator Casey Bannerman to make a red, blue, and purple masterpiece for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. The jersey touches on the Raptors’ famous slogan “We The North” with the word “Giiwedin” at the front, which means “North” in Ojibwe. A portion of the proceeds from the jersey sales went to the Orange Shirt Day Society.

The special Raptors jersey was designed by artist Norval Morrisseau, a member of the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation, is credited as being the ‘Picasso of the North.’ Morrisseau emphasizes the outlines of people, creatures, and objects, alongside bright colours, in his art-

work. The Raptors jersey features; it reflects the work of Morrisseau, who is the credited creator of the ‘woodland’ style of art.

Basketball is not the only sport in Toronto to embrace and celebrate Indigenous cultures. The Toronto Maple Leafs commissioned Anishinaabe artist Tyler Tabobondung Rushnell to create a new cover of the Leafs’ jersey, which features a revamped maple leaf with a thunderbird shoulder patch. Taking inspiration from the Ojibwe and the Anishinaabe peoples, the thunderbird represents strength and symbolizes the fierce nature of Toronto’s defensive hockey team.

The proceeds from the sale of these jerseys were donated to the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre. The Maple Leafs sent out a tweet that read: “Recognizing and celebrating Indigenous people’s contribution to hockey and sport and culture today.”

Blues men’s basketball lose nailbiter against Lancers at Goldring Climb back from 16-point deficit not enough for hungry Blues team Victoria Paulus Varsity Staff

On Saturday, January 28, the Varsity Blues men’s basketball team faced the Windsor Lancers at the Blues’ home court, the Goldring Centre for HighPerformance Sport.

After their big 92–83 win against the Western Mustangs on Friday night, the fans were ecstatic, and the court was packed with friends and family of the Varsity Blues. All eyes were on Blues guard Callum Baker, who displayed an outstanding performance the night before.

What happened The Lancers broke through the Blues’ defense early on in the first quarter, giving them Lancers

a lead that would carry them into halftime. By the end of the second quarter, the Blues were down 15 points, with a score of 50–35.

Despite this, the Blues came onto the court fired up at the start of the third; they were not ready to give up and knew they had to lock in on defense and take advantage of every offensive opportunity they had to close the 15-point gap.

Baker held his head high and carried his team through the third quarter with 10 points and two rebounds. His strong leadership skills and aggressive offensive attacks contributed to the Blues’ thirdquarter comeback, closing the gap with a score of 69–58.

With great effort, the Blues made an outstanding comeback in the fourth quarter. There were two minutes left in the game, and the Blues

were down by two.

Although the Blues were unable to score that last basket to tie up the game or take the lead and fell short with a final score of 85–78, the fans were proud of the Blues’ efforts.

Baker boasted yet another exceptional performance, finishing with 26 points, six rebounds, four steals, and two assists.

His teammates, forward Noah Ngamba and guard Iñaki Alvarez, also performed very well and contrib-

Both the Leafs and the Raptors are contemporary examples of a push for inclusivity from sports teams. This push for inclusivity is that much more meaningful when displayed on logos that are broadcasted to screens across the world. It’s important to realise that the “we” in the Raptors slogan “We the North” is composed of many different people from different walks of life, and they should be celebrated accordingly.

While woodland style jersey art is a start toward inclusivity in sports, there is still a long way to go. A proper follow up to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s Call to Actions 87–91 is needed in order for Indigenous athletes to properly be represented in Canada. Specifically, following through on the National Indigenous Sport Strategy, as well as providing funding for Indigenous athletic development programs, are both needed to take strides in the right direction. uted greatly to the Blues’ comeback in the second half. Ngamba secured 13 points, seven rebounds, and two assists, while Alvarez finished with 12 points, six assists, three rebounds, and two steals.

The Blues now sit in third place in the Central division of the OUA standings, with 12–6 overall and a 0.667 win percentage.

What’s next On February 3, the Blues are off to St. Catherines, Ontario, where they face the Brock Badgers for the second time this season. In their previous match, the Blues lost 69–87 and will be looking to redeem themselves.

Blues forward Noah Ngamba attacks the net with ferocity.

LEXEY BURNS/THEVARSITY

Varsity Blues make bold statement with win over TMU Jett Alexander’s 32 saves bring Blues to a 3–2 win in the ‘Battle of Toronto’ Cole Hayes Varsity Contributor

The U of T Varsity Blues men’s hockey team picked up a 3–2 win in the battle of Toronto against the TMU Bold at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, Saturday afternoon. The Blues had lost their two previous games to TMU this season but avoided the season sweep, defeating the Bold on TMU’s senior night.

What happened Despite the Blues having to kill off a four-minute Bold powerplay after Blues forward Zack Smith took a kneeing penalty, it was the Blues who had the

early 1–0 lead. The Bold coughed up the puck at the Blues blueline and forward Billy Moskal took advantage of their mistake, getting a breakaway and going five hole on goaltender Kai Edmonds for the shorthanded goal.

The Blues’ lead did not hold for long; the Bold’s forward Jacob Kamps powered through the Blues’ defense to tie the game at one. It was the only shot that beat Blues goaltender Jett Alexander who stood on his head in a period where the Blues were outshot 17–8.

With five seconds left in the first period and the Blues on the powerplay, forward Ross Krieger went bar down to give the Blues a 2–1 lead

heading into intermission.

The Blues couldn’t have asked for a better start to the second period. One minute and eight seconds into the period, the Blues broke out of their own zone and forward Cole Purboo fed forward Owen Guy on a give and go for Guy’s fifth goal of the season, extending the Blues’ lead to 3–1. The goal was the eventual game winner.

Early in the third period, the Bold cut the Blues’ lead to one. Forward Connor Bowie beat Alexander low on his blocker side, and with lots of game left, the Blues had to defend a one-goal lead.

Bold’s offense had several chances to score

late in the game. With one minute and forty-seven seconds left in the game, the Bold called a timeout and pulled Edmonds for the extra skater.

But between forward Peyton Reeves’ blocked shot and Alexander’s saves, the Blues spoiled senior night and left the Mattamy Athletic Centre with the victory.

What’s next The Varsity Blues have four games remaining before the OUA playoffs begin. Their next game is against the Brock Badgers, at 7:00 pm on February 3, at the Varsity Arena.

Alexander Jett walls off countless shots from Bold forwards.

COLE HAYES/THEVARSITY

JANUARY 30, 2023 23

thevarsity.ca/section/sports

Blues bulldoze through Golden Hawks for 5–2 at Varsity Arena Blues forward Sophia Grawbarger dominates in win and defender Caroline Eagles both grabbed goals close to the middle of the period.

The Hawks played with increased desperation, hoping to change the score that echoed

Miran Tsay Varsity Staff

their previous loss. The third period got messy for both teams.

Within three minutes on the ice, Abby Howland — a Blues forward — was lying on the ice after a kerfuffle with other players and eventually got up themselves.

While Blues defender Lauren Omoto was still in the penalty box for interference, the Hawks’ Rylee Crego put one past Madeline Albert, the Blues’ goalie, 4:12 minutes into the third period. The Hawks were riding the momentum of their success, energy evident in their steps and fighting for the upper hand.

Quickly following their first goal, four minutes later, the Hawks pressed on, and forward Chloe Davidson evened out the score to 2–3.

Morale was being pushed and pulled around at this point, both teams eyeing the remaining 10 minutes. The Blues tightened up their defense, supporting Albert in the net.

Natasha Athanasakos swooped in at 11:01 and snatched another goal for the Blues centre Natasha Athanasakos Blues, once again increasing the lets one fly toward the net.

LUKE KITCHEN/THEVARSITY Blues’ lead — now 4–2.

On January 28, the Varsity Blues women’s hockey team faced off against the Laurier Golden Hawks for the second time this season. The first time they met, on November 17, the Blues left the ice victorious, with a 3–0 beatdown. The team continued their winning streak during the rematch, upping the count from 13 to 14 consecutive victories over the Golden Hawks in total.

What happened The Blues snatched the lead two minutes into the first period, with forward Katy McKenna scoring. Morale was high for the Blues as they rivalled the Hawks for the puck for the rest of the first period.

The Blues continued to pull ahead in the second period, scoring two goals in four minutes. Forward Celine Frappier

“I just came off the bench, and Sophie — number five — made just the best pass. You know, another person to rely on to make just these fantastic plays,” Athanasakos told The Varsity. She emphasized the support built into the team that lets her and other forwards go in for the kill.

At 16:36, Sophia Grawbarger nabbed another point, securing the final score of 5–2 for the Blues. The team saw their victory through until the end, playing the full 60 minutes — as Athanasakos said, they strived to fulfill.

What’s next The Blues will be pivoted up against the Guelph Gryphons on February 1, who currently sit second in the West Regular Season Ontario University Athletics rankings with a 0.652 win percentage. On November 12, the Blues lost 0–1 to the Gryphons, and the next game is a chance for the Blues to apply what they’ve been working on, as Athanasakos says, and achieve redemption.

Lancers took charge over Blues in hard-hitting defeat at Goldring

Leading scorer Jada Poon Tip unable to secure final winning score Marva Trim Varsity Contributor

On January 28, the Varsity Blues women’s basketball team took a hard hit after a 22-point loss against the Windsor Lancers.

The Blues and the Lancers met at the Goldring Centre for High-Performance Sport on Saturday night with high energy. Prior to this game, the Blues lost to the Lancers back in 2019 and were hoping to succeed in their first 2023 season game against the Lancers on home court.

What happened The Blues had a slow entrance into the game, with the Lancers securing their first three-pointer by Julia Chiarot. Blues guard Ellen Ougrinov applied pressure with a quick match-up shot, keeping everyone on their toes. Closing in to the end of the first quarter, with just seconds left, Lancers forward Vanessa Budimunda secured a buzzer beater to hold the four-point lead at 17–21.

The Lancers continued to maintain the lead throughout the first half of the game by clamping down on defense and keeping a tight focus on protecting the basket. The Blues pushed through to keep a tight score between them. A clean assist by Blues guard Gabby Reed to forward Sabrina Nero for a smooth layup helped the Blues

gain momentum. The Blues started to close in on the Lancers and the score quickly reached 24–26.

As the gap in the points started to increase, Blues guard Soraya Jovin kept their points moving with a smooth three pointer. The Blues finished off at half time holding their own but falling short in the end with a 16-point disadvantage of 29–45.

Blues coach Tamara Tatham fires the girls up on the sideline.

MAC BELL/THEVARSITY

The Blues came into the third quarter with a fiery passion — Blues guard Lauren Boers effortlessly shot a three pointer from deep corner, closing in the gap. The Lancers dominated in this quarter with a 20-point lead up on the scoreboard despite the Blues’ efforts to keep up.

Varsity Blues forward Jada Poon Tip and Boers secured the title of top scorers in the game, with Poon Tip at 13 points and Boers at 11.

The strength of the Blues athletes was persistent throughout the game despite being down every quarter. They showed their ability to keep up with the Lancers from start to finish, but unfortunately the game ended unsatisfactorily for the Blues. The match ended with a score of 50 for the Blues and 72 for the Windsor Lancers.

What’s next The women’s basketball team travels to St. Catharines on February 3 for a redemption game against the Brock Badgers after a four-game losing streak.

Varsity Blues lose to Western Mustangs in dramatic fashion The women’s basketball team showed promise in close loss Friday night

Mac Bell Varsity Contributor

The University of Toronto Varsity Blues women’s basketball team came into their Friday night matchup against the Western Mustangs hoping for a better result than in their game against the Ottawa Gee Gees the previous weekend. At 8–6 on the season, the Mustangs promised to be a tough opponent for the Varsity Blues.

What happened The Blues won the tip to start the game, and guard Faith Joseph went right at the Mustangs defense, attacking the rim and drawing a foul to open the scoring. On the other end, Blues guard Lauren Boers got the Blues going defensively with an emphatic block. They continued the aggressive play throughout the first quarter, which helped them keep the game close. The Mustangs opened up an early seven-point lead, but a flurry of three pointers from the Blues forward Thuraya Abdul Hamid and fourth-year guard Ellen Ougrinov cut this lead to three by the end of the first.

A three from Boers gave the Blues the lead back early in the second quarter, but the Mustangs tied the game up at 21 with seven minutes of the quarter remaining, and turnovers plagued both teams

for the rest of the half. In a low scoring second quarter, Boers was crucial for the Blues offensively, hitting two threes and facilitating the offense. A quick five-point flurry from the Mustangs guard Ariane Saumure gave Western a 28–26 lead at halftime. Saumure led both teams with 14 points at halftime and was the driving cause behind the Mustangs lead.

Gabby Reed opened the second half scoring for the Blues with a layup off a great pass from Ougrinov. Continued stellar play from the Mustangs’guard Saumure kept Western ahead of the Blues during the third quarter. She proved too quick for the otherwise rock-solid Toronto defense.

The Blues opened the fourth quarter with two beautifully worked plays leading to open layups, tying up the game. Great defense in the fourth quarter allowed a three from Joseph to cut the Mustangs lead to one point with 30 seconds left in the game. In a tragic ending, the Blues turned it over, down two points with 10 seconds left, allowing the Mustangs wing, Emily Capretta, to ice the game for the Mustangs from the free throw line. A buzzer beater three from Ougrinov inspired the crowd, but wasn’t enough to pull the Blues out of their fourpoint deficit.

Despite the final score seeing the Blues fall 61–60 to the Mustangs, the team showed a lot of

promise in the game on Friday night. In an interview with The Varsity, Boers said that “our focus going into all games is defense,” and highlighted that it “shows that we can play with any team.” The defensive intensity they showed Friday night helped them come as close as possible to beating a quality opponent in Western. Boers had 14 points and five rebounds on the night.

Blues guard Lauren Boers glides by Mustangs defender.

MAC BELL/THEVARSITY

What’s next After their second loss of the weekend against the Windsor Lancers on January 28, the Blues will head on the road for their next game against the Brock Badgers on February 3. They’ll look to continue playing with the defensive intensity that gave them success against the Mustangs.

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JANUARY 30, 2023

The Weekly Crossword 1 2 3 4 5 ACROSS 1 Host's request 14 15 5 Freshwater 18 17 catch 10 Advance, 20 21 slangily 14 Whitish 23 gemstone 28 26 27 15 Awaken 16 Pricing word 30 31 17 Yellowfin, e.g.

38 18 What a teacher 37 takes 43 42 20 Life-and-death 46 47 22 Nitwit 23 Now and then 54 51 52 53 25 "___ you nuts?"

57 26 Dickensian cry 56 28 Heads off 61 30 Chilled 32 "Yadda, yadda, 64 65 yadda" 68 33 Congregation's 67 cry 37 Ring-shaped 40 Part of a 3 Fading away heartbeat 4 "The Republic" 42 Latest fad author 43 Cork sound 5 Skipper's 45 Contract pursuer specifics 6 Do a tire job 46 Pull apart 7 Last longer than 50 Pub crawler 8 Type of tax 51 Rapper Lil ___ X 9 Inclination 54 Get through 10 Stitched line 56 Gum-yielding 11 Bamboo lover tree 12 Come to pass 58 Tolerates 13 Kind of song or 61 Dictatorial park 63 Good-for19 Furniture nothing covering?

64 Nursery item 21 Motivate 65 Historic period 24 Big Apple team 66 Drop-off spot 26 Wild swine 67 Kitchen items 27 Tolstoy heroine 68 Slow on the 29 Appease fully uptake 31 Stage prompts 69 Appear (to be) 34 Dots-anddashes system DOWN 35 "Blondie" boy 1 School military 36 Arboreal abode org.

38 Faced the judge 2 Prompt 39 Equine color

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41 Locomotive power 44 Robert of "The Music Man" 47 Large-scale 48 Storage spots 49 Throat soother 51 Civil rights org.

52 Honda's luxury line

53 Gown material 55 Canterbury stories 57 Corn cores 59 Bigger than big 60 Petunia part 62 Donkey Kong, for one

Answers to Previous Crossword: C L O D

A O N E

M O R A L

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S A U S A G E D O G

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C A T A R A C T S Y S T E M

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