September 30, 2019

September 30, 2019

THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

Vol. CXL, No. 5

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THE VARSITY

NEWS

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U of T admin, student groups, community respond to death at Bahen Centre

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Building to receive safety barriers as students express frustration

Andy Takagi News Editor

Content warning: article may be triggering to some.

U of T will be installing safety barriers at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology after a student died in the building on Friday, the third death at the Bahen Centre in the past two years. Historically, U of T has been hesitant to acknowledge on-campus student deaths. Since the building re-opened on Sunday, the university has also established a memorial where community members can leave messages.

“We will continue to work on permanent changes,” said Sandy Welsh, Vice-Provost, Students to U of T News, in reference to the temporary safety barriers that were installed on Sunday.

In March, following the death of a student at the Bahen Centre, students pushed for action from the university’s administration, holding a silent protest outside of Simcoe Hall and disrupting a Governing Council meeting.

Then-Vice-President, University Affairs of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Joshua Grondin said that he had specifically requested the installation of a safety net or barrier at the Bahen Centre in January.

The protests after the second death led to the formation of the Presidential & Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health, which is currently in its consultation stage.

“This tragedy — especially after similarly tragic events earlier in this academic year — has triggered profound shock, sorrow, anger and frustration,” President Meric Gertler wrote to all students in his announcement of the Task Force in March.

Following the most recent incident, students organized an emergency meeting last Friday night at Sidney Smith Hall to discuss mental health on campus. There, they expressed frustration, anger, and disappointment about the mental health supports on campus.

The U of T Mental Health Policy Council, a newly-formed mental health student activism

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group, took to the Ontario Universities Fair on Sunday to hand out information pamphlets on mental health at U of T and to disrupt an information session.

Both the UTSU and the Arts & Science Students’ Union have released statements expressing condolences for affected students, faculty, and staff. In their letter, the UTSU committed to further supporting student mental health: “This administration needs to change and listen. We, the UTSU, also need to improve, and we will continue to commit ourselves to pushing for change.”

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-925-5454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-5312600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416-978-8030.

Warning signs of suicide include: Talking about wanting to die Looking for a way to kill oneself Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly Sleeping too little or too much Withdrawing or feeling isolated Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

Justin Trudeau announces full, costed Liberal platform at UTM Town Hall Plan includes tax cuts, increased student grants Kathryn Mannie Deputy News Editor

Liberal Party leader and incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled his party’s full platform at a town hall event held this Sunday at UTM. In it, he set out a “real plan for the middle class.”

The platform is set to increase spending on student grants, child benefits, and the environment by billions of dollars, at the expense of the wealthiest one per cent of Canadians. He also took questions from students, community members, and the press.

Restructuring of student grants In introducing his plan to support students, Trudeau brought up Premier Doug Ford’s changes to education in Ontario.

“Doug Ford slashes education funding and makes it near impossible to pay for tuition.”

Under a Liberal government, Trudeau vowed to increase the Canada Student Grants by another 40 per cent, a move he claims will provide students with an additional $1,200 per year for tuition, books, and rent. The maximum Canada Student Grant will be raised to $4,200, up from $3,000.

He will also institute a two-year interest-free grace period with a minimum $35,000 income requirement, which is an increase from the previous six-month grace period. This means that even after the two-year grace period elapses, students will not have to start their student loan repayments until they are making at least $35,000 a year. Parents with student debt will also have the option to freeze their loan payments until

their child reaches the age of five.

When asked about her thoughts on Trudeau’s plan for students, UTM student Maha Taieldien said in an interview with The Varsity, “I think it’s a step in the right direction. There’s obviously a lot more that they can do, but it’s baby steps.”

Tax cuts for the middle class Trudeau kicked off the event with a scathing criticism of conservative politics, both federal and provincial.

“When he was campaigning, Doug Ford said that not a single person would lose their job to pay for his massive cuts. Well, tell that to the 10,000 Ontario teachers who are losing their jobs. Andrew Scheer is asking you to double down on Conservatives. That’s twice the handouts for big polluters and the wealthy, and twice the cuts for you and your family.”

In response, he promised to make Canadian lives more affordable. He plans to achieve this with tax cuts for the middle class — cuts that he claims will save the average family $600 a year and lift 38,000 Canadians out of poverty.

In addition, the platform, which was titled “Forward: A Real Plan for the Middle Class,” aims to cut phone bills by 25 per cent, provide interest-free loans of up to $40,000 for families who wish to retrofit their homes, and boost the Canada Child Benefit so that families with newborns will receive up to $1,000 more in payments.

On climate action Trudeau said that Canada will reach net zero emissions by 2050 under his government, and that fossil fuel subsidies will be phased out by 2025.

“In the process, we’ll become world leaders in clean technology.”

He also defended his Liberal government’s move to greenlight the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, promising that profits from the pipeline will go directly back to funding clean energy projects and an initiative to plant two billion trees in the next decade.

“I’m glad that they’re doing something about it but I just feel like 2050 is very far into the future,” noted Taieldien.

Emphasizing the point of her fellow classmate, UTM student Amanda Hammad said, “especially based on how much limited time we have, I agree, it’s something that needs to be done sooner.”

Media response When taking questions from the press, Trudeau faced multiple queries regarding how he plans to fund his tax cuts and benefits for students and the middle class, while continuing to work toward a balanced budget.

His answers often repeated the same sentiment that increased investment in the middle class would result in greater economic output.

These answers weren’t well received by journalists who were looking for specific plans on when and how Trudeau might curb his spending.

Trudeau also faced scrutiny for continuously mentioning Doug Ford, a provincial politician.

One journalist asked if Trudeau was attempting to associate Ford with Scheer. In response, Trudeau noted that, “Mr. Scheer is the person who has associated himself with Doug Ford.”

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

In the Spotlight: Kerry Bowman Bioethicist talks to The Varsity about conservation efforts, Amazon forest fires, Indigenous rights

Hannah Carty Associate News Editor

“Moved and horrified” is how Dr. Kerry Bowman described himself when he found that he was the only Canadian able to report from the Amazon rainforest fires in August. Now, he is trying to raise awareness for the situation with his research, arguing for protecting Indigenous land to promote both human rights and climate protection. Currently, Bowman teaches in the human biology department at U of T, though he is also cross-appointed at the School of the Environment.

Bowman’s work has seemingly pulled him in all directions, from Toronto to the Amazon to the Congo, and his research has attempted to put human well-being at the forefront of various issues, whether the backdrop is a Toronto hospital or the Amazon rainforest.

Along with his environmental work, Bowman worked for many years as a clinical bioethicist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, and he still consults as a bioethicist.

Bowman wrote his PhD on cultural differences in bioethics, focusing on Chinese-Canadian attitudes toward end-of-life treatment. “We all acknowledge them, and then we tend to ignore them,” Bowman said of the prevailing attitude about cultural differences.

A lot has changed throughout Bowman’s career in bioethics. “I really watched the whole movement of the care of dying people move from completely supportive care to now being in a position where people, if they meet the criteria, could say, ‘in fact, I want to hasten my death’ and they would be allowed to do it. So in my working life, I’ve seen that. I’ve been a part of it.”

But before he was bioethicist or social worker, Bowman started his environmental work studying the behaviour of the orangutan, a project he volunteered on while traveling around the world in his twenties. He said that he learned through his work with great apes that “none of this is relevant if you do not factor in the human realities of the environments that any animals or ecosystems

live within. And that the key to [a] healthy environment is almost always human-based.”

Bowman cites renowned primatologist Jane Goodall as an inspiration and a friend.

“She really, really taught me just how much an individual can do.” Goodall also taught him that when dealing with global issues like the climate crisis, “you’ve actually really got to get out and talk to everybody… you’ve got to go way beyond academic journals.”

The connection between environmental and human rights is the line of Bowman’s work in the Amazon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). During the most recent war in the DRC, Bowman witnessed how the guards at Kahuzi Biega National Park remained dedicated to protecting the land. “I was very moved by the fact that people really, really stuck to the protection of the park, knowing that it matters to their survival as well as everything else. Even in war conditions.”

Now, the Canadian Ape Alliance, founded

by Bowman, works to fund an environmentallyfocused school for children in the region. Many of these children will follow in their parents’ footsteps and work in the park themselves, on the front lines of protecting the critically-endangered eastern lowland gorilla.

Bowman had to consider the ethics of cultural differences as he worked to ensure equitable access to the environmental school for three groups that are often excluded: girls, those with albinism, and the subjugated Pygmy people.

Indigenous people are also at the centre of Bowman’s work in the Amazon. For the past eight years, he has been studying the benefits of protecting Indigenous land in the Amazon region. Protecting this land deters deforestation and promotes biodiversity. “What I’m really interested in is the fact that you can create essentially a climate shield and again, climate health, by protecting large areas of the Amazon forest [and] by protecting Indigenous people.”

Currently, he wants to raise awareness of the “profound human rights issue” occurring in Brazil, with Indigenous people and environmental activists being targeted. Maxciel Pereira dos

Santos, a protector of Indigenous land and a colleague of Dr. Bowman’s, was assassinated earlier this month.

Explaining that much of the rise of Brazil’s exploitative attitude toward the Amazon is due to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Bowman called for greater intervention of the international community. “He’s really creating a climate where the laws of the nation — the nation being in Brazil — are not being adhered to,” said Bowman.

For combatting a problem such as the climate crisis, Bowman criticized the lack of a global infrastructure for decision-making. Bowman argued that “we have a heightened responsibility in wealthy Western nations like Canada to do something,” as those who are the most disadvantaged will continue to experience the worst effects of the climate crisis. Fires are set every year to clear land for other uses, although 2019 saw the highest number of Amazon fires in the past couple of years. The fires are a risk to the whole ecosystem, but the Indigenous people who live in the Amazon are particularly at risk.

“I would say as Canadians, we’re struggling

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in this country to figure out our own very dark history with Indigenous people,” Bowman said.

“But what we have now going on in Brazil is this massive violation. And so for us to be silent on something like this, I would argue we’ve made no progress since colonial times because what’s happening in Brazil is no different than what occurred here.”

Looking into the future, Bowman said that he is inspired by the current climate strikes, calling it “just the beginning.”

“I think the university really has to set policies that are environmentally sound with consultation with its students and with the public. The time is here.”

What he’s learned from his own oftenmultidisciplinary work is that there is no single approach to any subject. “I would say to students that nobody should be leaning away from doing, things like environmental work or even bioethical work because they don’t think they have the right qualifications. These are complex problems and everyone is needed.”

Bowman’s research spans from issues of human rights to environmental concerns.

COURTESY OF KERRY BOWMAN/U OF T NEWS

UTSU September board meeting: remuneration policy, microtransactions, opt-outs

Changes also made to CFS–O media policies Hannah Carty Associate News Editor

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) held its September Board of Directors Meeting last Sunday. It discussed the upcoming second semester opt-out period for incidental fees that were deemed non-essential by the Student Choice Initiative, new endeavours to support financially-insecure students, remuneration policy, and changes to Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario (CFS–O) media policies.

Opt-out period for the winter semester The university set an opt-out period for the second semester which is a little less than three-months long, from November 1, 2019, to January 20, 2020.

This opt-out period is 14 days longer than the fall period, which gives students more time to choose

their opt-out selections.

UTSU President Joshua Bowman criticized the university’s decision. “I am extremely disappointed with the university administration for this decision,” said Bowman.

“This decision displays to me that they do not care about student societies, and quite frankly, the groups that are most affected by these opt outs.”

He noted that the UTSU had been in contact with the administration while preparing for the fall opt-out period, and said he will be holding an emergency meeting with the Office of the ViceProvost and representatives from student groups.

Microtransactions initiative Avani Singh, Vice-President, University Affairs, spoke briefly about her microtransactions initiative, which aims to support students whose classes require the use of third-party academic tools, such as Top Hat, WileyPLUS, and McGraw-Hill Connect.

The UTSU Board of Directors discusses microtransactions, remuneration, CFS–O media policy.

HANNAH CARTY/THE VARSITY

She has negotiated a number of free access codes from Top Hat to give to students in need, and is continuing dialogue with the university about the issue.

A study conducted by the previous VicePresident, University Affairs found that the biggest problem with these mandatory online programs was their financial inaccessibility. Singh’s initiative was launched on September 13, and received around 30 applications. “We received a lot of positive feedback on it,” said Singh.

Remuneration policy The Board of Directors discussed the remuneration policy, which would have allowed executive members to receive pay at their hourly rate if they work over 40 hours a week, rather than having their paid hours capped.

Lina Maragha, University College Director, said, “A lot of the concerns [with the policy] stemmed from false statements being published by The Varsity.

The Varsity did put out that it was overtime, which is literally the wrong word.”

The UTSU has criticized The Varsity’s decision to use the term “overtime“ since under Ontario law overtime pay must be allocated at time and a half, and that was not the policy’s intention.

According to the Government of Ontario, “overtime pay” is a general term that encompasses multiple forms of compensation. While under Ontario law overtime pay must be allocated at time and a half, it is not the only possibility that exists.

The Varsity’s initial article defined overtime pay according to the UTSU’s meeting minutes as “any

additional hours worked shall be compensated at the same hourly honorarium.”

Earlier in the meeting, Maragha questioned multiple UTSU executives on their reported hours, saying that she was concerned about the optics.

The consensus was that criticism of the policy arose because of concerns from U of T community members that the policy was being passed secretively, as well as in an untimely manner. “A lot of people were just disappointed with the fact that it happened during the Student Choice Initiative,” said Bowman.

“Moving it through the executive committee may have been perceived negatively,” said Bowman, but he maintained that every policy is created “with the intention that it does go to the Board of Directors.”

Bowman and a handful of others voted in favour of repealing the remuneration policy. A majority abstained, and none voted in favour of keeping the remuneration policy.

The remuneration policy was then struck down.

CFS–O media policies Vice-President External Affairs Lucas Granger reported on the CFS–O Annual General Meeting.

He proposed five motions at the meeting on behalf of the UTSU. Two media proposals passed, one requiring that the CFS–O begin to publish minutes.

Recognized student media groups are also now able to attend plenary sessions and tweet about them. Another proposal by the UTSU was a lowincome constituency group, which failed.

The UTSU’s Annual General Meeting will be held on October 30.

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UTGSU Finance Commissioner announces November resignation

General Council votes to de-affiliate with OISE GSA at September meeting Andy Takagi News Editor

During a lengthy General Council meeting on September 27, University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) Finance Commissioner Branden Rizzuto resigned from his position effective November 1.

At the same meeting, following extensive debate, the council voted to de-affiliate with the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) on the recommendation of the UTGSU’s Adhoc Committee after it found 20 constitutional violations in April’s GSA elections.

Rizzuto’s resignation “It is my personal opinion that the UTGSU has, for quite some time, suffered from a lack of accountability in its internal operations,” said Rizzuto, announcing the end of his fourth term as an executive elected to the union.

The commissioner cited an inability to continue properly executing his duties due to “multiple personnel and bodies in the UTGSU [neglecting] their duties and responsibilities for excessive

periods of time.” He further described an inequitable and unsustainable workload. With the developments of the UTGSU’s legal challenge against the Ford government, and the Student Choice Initiative, Rizzuto intends to remain until November 1 to ensure that particular duties are fulfilled before his departure.

“I feel that, while I have made earnest attempts to address and resolve the issues I have stated in this letter, I have ultimately remained unsuccessful,” concluded Rizzuto, who read from a letter.

Council members thanked Rizzuto for his work, but also sought to know more about his allegations — to which Rizzuto also declined to specifically name any individuals.

The Finance Commissioner position will be filled through a process voted on by General Council, which will be held at a future Council meeting, according to an email from the UTGSU Executive Committee.

Rizzuto and the Executive Committee declined to comment on the announcement.

De-affiliating with the OISE GSA On the recommendation of the Ad-hoc Course Union Investigation Committee (adCUIC),

General Council voted to de-affiliate with the OISE GSA, following an investigation that found a total of 20 constitutional violations in the April GSA elections. Out of four recommendations made by the adCUIC, the union passed the only punitive measure in the last 30 minutes of the meeting. Heated debate preceded the vote, which saw disagreement between advocates for de-affiliation and concerns from members that felt they did not know enough to vote.

Effective from the time of the council’s vote, OISE GSA’s four representatives on General Council are no longer allowed to vote; they do not have representation on council in any course union, but all students will remain UTGSU members with access to the union’s services.

Desiree Sylvestre, on behalf of the outgoing OISE GSA executives, wrote to The Varsity in an email: “The issues we are presented with at the OISE GSA are multi-layered and complex, involving different approaches and expectations regarding the priorities and style of student governance.”

While the UTGSU Executive Committee abstained from the vote to de-affiliate, Sylvestre maintains that the Committee did not reach

out to mediate following the election investigation. The outgoing GSA executives also alleged that the Committee “exponentially aggravated” tensions when suggesting that the GSA rejoin the union as a course union, which would cut down the amount of union dues that the GSA collects from its members through the UTGSU. The UTGSU Executive Committee asserts that its members “[remain] pointedly separate from any discussions happening internally at OISE or elsewhere within the University.”

Sylvestre concluded, “I am truly disappointed in the UTGSU, they operate in a punitive environment with no hope for solidarity. My hope is that OISE students will become more involved and take steps to successfully challenge the systems that exist within the UTGSU, beginning with their Executive Elections.”

Due to only getting through a quarter of the agenda items for the September 24 meeting, the next General Council meeting will occur before the October 29, according to the Executive Committee.

NDP, Green Party MP candidates for University– Rosedale discuss climate at Sidney Smith UTEA and APSS host Melissa Jean-Baptise Vajda, Tim Grant Hannah Carty Associate News Editor

From left to right: Tim Grant, Melissa Jean-Baptise Vajda.

COURTESY OF THE GREEN PARTY OF CANADA, @MELISSAVAJDA/TWITTER

The University of Toronto Environmental Action (UTEA) group and the Association of Political Science Students (APSS) hosted University– Rosedale’s MP candidates Melissa Jean-Baptiste Vajda of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Tim Grant from the Green Party, to discuss their parties’ approach to the climate crisis. The Liberal and Conservative Party candidates for University–Rosedale were not invited to the discussion, as UTEA only invited parties with climate as a central part of their platform.

Keith Stewart, a senior strategist with Greenpeace Canada, was one of the speakers for the event. He criticized “petro nationalism,” the rhetoric of oil companies where they attempt to connect the extraction of fossil fuels to a Canadian identity.

Speaking on each party’s environmental plans, Stewart described the Green Party as being more

focused on the reduction of greenhouse gasses than on environmental justice, which he defines as “transforming relationships” between society and environment. He described the NDP as being more focused on environmental justice.

“We don’t have to be very nice. The thing is this is actually a fight,” said Stewart on Greenpeace’s approach to environmental issues.

The discussion then turned its focus to the two MP candidates. The NDP wants to make emissions reduction targets legally binding. “We will establish a climate and accountability office that will be outside of the government,” said Vajda.

On environmental justice, Vadja commented that the NDP plans to put Indigenous people “on both sides of the table,” referencing the fact that the NDP is putting forward Indigenous candidates in the election.

Speaking on her housing plans, Vadja said, “We’ll build 500,000 more units all across Canada. We will build more affordable housing, social housing, co-ops — all of that impacts the ability

for people to remain in their communities to live safer and healthier lives. It’s all intertwined and connected with a green new deal.”

Green Party candidate Tim Grant emphasized the importance of working with other parties and increasing political engagement from young voters. As 18–24-year-olds are the biggest demographic of non-voters, “your ability to reach out to your friends and get them engaged is critical,” said Grant.

Moving into possibly a minority government, Grant said, “the Greens and NDP I think quite reasonably are going to be pressing hard on climate and other files.”

What makes the Green Party stand out, according to Grant, is that they do not whip votes, a practice he criticized other parties for. “And that means you have to wilt the same way and you can’t speak out even though you may, on various issues, feel differently than the party mainstream, and you can’t speak out otherwise.”

Mayor John Tory calls for Toronto to declare a climate emergency City Council to vote October 2 on declaration adoption Mikaela Toone Varsity Contributor

On September 20, Mayor John Tory announced that Toronto will declare a climate emergency, which the Toronto City Council will consider at its October 2 meeting.

According to a series of tweets from Tory, the climate crisis “poses a major risk to our city’s residents and businesses.” The purpose of his declaration is “naming, framing, and deepening Toronto’s commitment to protecting [the city] from climate change.”

Tory’s announcement coincided with the first round of Global Climate Strikes and follows an open call by more than 50 community organizations for the City Council to declare a climate emergency. It also follows in the footsteps of increasingly severe weather events in Toronto, according to the city’s Resilience Strategy.

If the City Council adopts the declaration, Toronto would be joining over 800 local governments that have already declared a climate

emergency around the world. However, the declaration is largely symbolic, and includes no new program or initiative proposals.

“Words are great. Symbolic politics is important. But the declaration of a climate emergency has to be reconciled with real climate conscious policies,” wrote Professor Teresa Kramarz, CoDirector of the Munk School’s Environmental Governance Lab, in an email to The Varsity.

Kramarz added that individuals have to “push the Mayor and city council… [to define] clear mechanisms of accountability that connect words of emergency to deeds that are commensurate with such a designation.”

Tory’s announcement also highlighted TransformTO and Toronto’s Resilience Strategy, which are two ongoing initiatives the city is using to address the climate crisis.

By 2050, TransformTO aims for an 80 per cent reduction in Toronto’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels. Its strategies include ensuring that constructing new buildings produces less GHG emissions, increasing renewable

energy sources, instigating more walking and cycling by Toronto residents, and diverting waste from landfills.

On September 26, Tory asked that the City Council commit to accelerating the goals laid out

by TransformTO, including achieving net zero GHG emissions before 2050. This, alongside the declaration of climate emergency, will be considered on October 2.

Toronto’s Resilience Strategy is a broader initiative designed to help Torontonians adapt to a number of issues, specifically the effects of the climate crisis.

“Declaring a climate emergency will only be helpful if it’s backed up by aggressive policies to reduce emissions in the city of Toronto,” wrote Jessica Green, an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment, in an email to The Varsity.

She suggested that the city should start with “more public transportation at low to no-cost, congestion pricing, and zero-emissions standards for all new buildings.”

“It will seem radical to many, but inaction will be worse,” noted Green.

Leap UofT, a climate justice and activism group on campus, was one of the signatories on the open call sent out to the City Council.

“I think we can get very focused on what we’re doing on campus and not look outward into the city as a whole,” said Julia DaSilva, a co-founder of Leap UofT. DaSilva believes it’s important for university students to get “involved in community-wide organizing as well.”

On the shifting of language surrounding “climate change” to more urgent terms such as “crisis” and “emergency,” semiotics professor Marcel Danesi said that, “Every time you change a word you’re labeling a new reality, you’re bringing it into focus.”

“If it’s a crisis then it’s something different than a change, it’s a change for the worse and therefore we need to take action. Yes, words do matter,” Danesi explained.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

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“This is powerful. This is historic. This is unprecedented”: students lead second Global Climate Strike at Queen’s Park Thousands gather to call for climate justice, including youth, politicians

Andy Takagi and Mikaela Toone News Editor and Varsity Contributor

Joining millions around the globe, U of T students protested at Queen’s Park on September 27 to demand action on the climate crisis. These protests marked the end of a week-long strike that started on September 20, spearheaded by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, to denounce inaction on the climate crisis by world leaders at this week’s United Nations Climate Action Summit.

At noon, protesters left Queen’s Park to march around downtown Toronto before ending up back at the legislature for closing remarks and a concert.

“This is powerful. This is historic. This is unprecedented,” said Allie Rougeot, organizer of the strike and head of Fridays for Future in Toronto, during her remarks in front of the sea of climate activists gathered outside the provincial legislature.

“When Fridays for Future started here in December 2018, there were 30 people where you’re standing here today. Look around you now. Look how many people showed up for climate justice.”

The protests were organized by a coalition of youth and climate advocates, including Fridays for Future Toronto, Climate Justice Toronto, ClimateFast, No One Is Illegal, Fight for $15 and Fairness, Migrant Rights Network, Toronto350, Rising Tides Toronto, Indigenous Climate Action, Greenpeace Canada, and Leap UofT. Students march and speak out As they slowly gathered on the steps of Sidney Smith Hall, students led a march across King’s College Circle to Queen’s Park holding signs that read “How dare you,” “I stand for what I stand on,” and “Leave class,” among others. While the U of T administration supported faculties and individuals where possible, and endorsed flexibility for students who striked, the university did not close despite calls from community leaders, students, and professors.

Allie Rougeot speaking to the crowd at Queen’s Park.

Students expressed frustration with inaction on the climate crisis.

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

Third-year ecology and evolutionary biology student, Sophia Fan, is the University College Literary & Athletic Society (UCLit)’s sustainability commissioner and led around 100 students to the strike.

“I’m really glad that this is becoming huge and that our generation is finally stepping up and just saying no to our futures being taken away,” said Fan. Rougeot contacted the UCLit at the beginning of the summer asking for its participation.

Since then, Fan and her commission distributed promotional material for the event, held postermaking sessions, and discussed the demands of the strike and its implications for both U of T and the wider community.

“I love nature and I wish I was only here so that I could learn more about it… but the fact that I’m researching bees because they’re dying, I’m researching plants because they have to tolerate heatwaves breaks my heart,” said Fan. Cricket Cheng, a fifth-year English and geography student, is an organizer with Climate Justice Toronto. Cheng and colleagues have been focused on “centering various intersectional struggles” for the climate strike.

“If you look at the demands, we’re fighting for Indigenous sovereignty, we’re fighting for justice for migrants and refugees, we’re fighting for universal public services,” Cheng said.

Cheng noted that “it was a bit of a struggle to persuade people who had been doing this for years, if not decades, in one very particular way to get them to reimagine what it means to be fighting for environmental justice and justice for all.”

Cheng pointed out the environmentalism movement’s history of censoring racial justice.

Elaborating on the organizational process in this context Cheng said, “we were showing up as… young racialized people and that really shifted the course, both in terms of the messaging, the policies, and also who was in the room.”

Mia Sanders is a third-year student studying

history and women and gender studies and also a part of Climate Justice Toronto. Sanders has been focused on “shaping the demands to reflect the connections between different liberation struggles.”

Initially, while the demands were being drafted, Sanders encountered pushback. “We got the critique that it was distracting from the real issue to talk about migrant justice,” said Sanders.

However, she’s proud that they were able to get the message out in the end.

Sanders admired the strike’s strong youth presence and has respect for Thunberg’s ability to mobilize the masses. However, Sanders said, “we can also look to young people like Autumn Peltier, who’s… [an] Indigenous water defender and… [has] wisdom in her intergenerational knowledge.”

As for next steps, “I’m going to be showing up more in solidarity with frontline communities,” said Sanders.

Both Sanders and Cheng will continue their fight for climate justice on October 13 at High Park, where the Indigenous Land Stewardship Collective is holding a protest.

“They’re fighting the contract that the… city has with Monsanto and the glyphosates that they’re spraying on traditional burial grounds,” explained Sanders.

Politicians weigh in on climate action Current and former politicians joined the climate strike, including Dianne Saxe, the former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, who gave a speech at the pre-march rally. Saxe told The Varsity that she hopes “adults will be shaken out of their selfishness, greed, and apathy, that young people will vote and that they’ll make the climate crisis central to their vote” as a result of the climate strike. Saxe went on to describe carbon pricing as an important tool in combating the climate crisis and said that “anyone who’s against carbon pricing is stealing the future.”

Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) leader

Andrea Horwath and federal NDP candidate for University–Rosedale Jean-Baptiste Vajda both pointed to the NDP’s Green New Deal as an example of effective climate action.

The plan commits to cutting emissions at least 50 per cent by 2050 while creating new jobs, and also promises to be equitable and meet obligations surrounding reconciliation. As Horwath put it, “no community can be left behind, no workers can be left behind.”

Former Toronto mayor and North American Director of the climate action organization C40 Cities, David Miller, noted that in terms of effective climate action, “the plans are all there, it just requires a political decision to do it.”

Miller highlighted the benefits of updating building codes to achieve net zero carbon buildings, eliminating the use of coal-fired generation in Alberta and New Brunswick, and the power of divestment.

“I believe our public institutions, like our universities, need to be moral and ethical in their investments… the economic system matters and institutions like University of Toronto can very easily choose other investments,” said Miller, citing the campaign to divest from South Africa as action against apartheid as an example of effective divestment.

MPP for Spadina–Fort York, Chris Glover, offered guidance to those discouraged by politics and the lack of action on the climate crisis: “It takes a lot of persistence to make systemic change because the systems are ensconced and we need to change those systems… join groups, mobilize, it takes a community to fight.”

Ontario Green Party Leader, Mike Schreiner, was impressed by the strike’s turnout, but hopes that political action comes quickly: “We need to act now to make sure we have a livable planet for these young people,” said Schreiner.

With files from Kathryn Mannie.

The protests were organized by a coalition of youth and climate activists.

U of T students joined a sea of protestors gathered outside Queen’s Park.

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

Business

September 30, 2019 var.st/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Professor Dilip Soman named Canada Research Chair Rotman researcher studies how businesses, people make decisions Nicole Shi Varsity Contributor

Most people say that the elevation of Mount Everest is 29,000 feet, forgetting the final 29 feet.

During the last 29 feet is when the bad things occur — people fall prey to physical exhaustion, give up mentally, and get caught. People often put in a lot less effort at the end compared to the hard work and preparation that has led them to these last steps.

Similarly, most companies spend much of their effort on at the beginning, from the product design, brand strategy, and optimization of the production process in the hopes of putting out the best product on the shelves. Companies often forget about the final step, where customers enter the store and talk to a salesperson or click a website, to make the choice of whether to purchase the product.

This irrational shortcoming of human behaviour is what caught Professor Dilip Soman’s attention.

In 1992, Soman began his PhD program at the University of Chicago where he focused on marketing and management. However, he was drawn to the implications of consumer behaviour on the market and decided to delve into the field of behavioural economics: the study of how cognitive and emotional factors affect the decision-making processes of individuals and institutions.

Twenty-seven years later, Soman is the

Director of the Behavioural Economics in the Action Research Centre at Rotman (BEAR) and serves as a Senior Policy Advisor on the Impact and Innovation Unit for the Government of Canada, while fulfilling his teaching duties at the Rotman School of Management.

“So much [of behavioural economics] I think is interesting because it says that there’s a deviation between what people want to do and what they end up doing,” Soman told The Varsity.

Now, Soman holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics.

The Canada Research Chairs Program aims to help chairholders launch Canada into the forefront of research and development.

Making choices easier The presentation of choices to individuals and consumers can impact their decision-making.

Different designs can either facilitate action or impede it. “As a behavioral scientist, my contribution is that I can help consumers — you must see that and I can help organizations see that,” said Soman.

He went on to explain that, “People are impulsive, people don’t think too much about the future. They’re emotional. Anything in the context that exaggerates those tendencies tends to make people deviate from what they should do.”

Professor Dilip Soman helps organizations make evidence-based decisions.

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Small and seemingly irrelevant details that make a task more challenging often make the difference between doing something and putting it off. Opting out of email subscription lists appears to be a menial task that will declutter our inboxes and make our lives a little bit easier, but because it is so complicated and inconvenient many people stay subscribed to email lists.

It is easy to see this tendency for people to deviate from what they intend to do becoming a lot more problematic — think retirement saving options and health care plans. When choices are confusing and require more effort to understand, people tend to stick with the default, even if it does not benefit them much, or at all.

Soman’s work consists of developing tools to help government officials and businesses create architecture that guides individuals to make choices that are in their best interests. It has a heavy focus on bridging the gap between the ideas of behavioural economics and how to practically implement those ideas in a real-world setting.

Soman’s work at the BEAR is a prime example of his contributions toward converting academic ideas in behavioural science to implementationoriented framework.

“Our biggest work is in scaling what we know in the lab to the marketplace… with the goal of shifting the research agenda in behavioural science from the big ideas to where can we use it and how,” said Soman.

On being a Canada Research Chair The Varsity asked Soman what it means for him to be named the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics, a prestigious title awarded to Canada’s most outstanding scholars.

Rather than reflecting upon his personal achievements, Soman viewed his appointment as a larger recognition of the field of behavioural economics.

“I think it’s more a recognition for the field… [that] this is the first candidate chair

at the intersection of Behavioral Science and Economics,” said Soman.

Whereas the government has worked with an economic assumption of citizens’ decisionmaking when drafting policy, Soman believes that his appointment as the first Canada Research Chair in the field of behavioural economics marks a changing attitude towards the idea that people are not always rational actors.

“That’s a big acknowledgement for the fact that the field is now not only considered legitimate, but that it can impact society,” said Soman. “I think once there’s a Canada Research Chair in behavioural economics… all [of the] ideas of our team are now much more easily received.”

On what’s next Soman wants to do more than understand the existing friction organizations have in place that prevents individuals from making good decisions — he wants to reduce it by applying the tools of behavioural economics to the complex problems of the real-world.

His main priorities for the upcoming years include converting academic findings into accessible information that businesses and individuals can digest; incorporating the ideas of behavioural economics toward a preventative health system; and improving the financial literacy of average citizens by using smart choice architecture to help people make better economic decisions.

Despite being an expert in understanding human imperfections in decision-making, Soman is the first to admit his shortcomings.

He is currently working on his latest book, About Time, but when The Varsity inquired about the book, Soman confessed that he hasn’t had the time to work on it yet.

“I mean, one of the reasons I studied this stuff I’m doing is I’m pretty bad myself,” joked Soman.

“I procrastinate.”

Comment

September 30, 2019 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Women’s empowerment must inform our vote next month Liberals, NDP, and Greens do better than the Conservatives on abortion

The parties must present clear plans to empower women and girls.

(LEFT TO RIGHT) COURTESY OF THE GREEN PARTY OF CANADA, THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA, THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA, THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF CANADA

Aiman Akmal Varsity Contributor

Content warning: discussions of sexual assault.

It’s 2019, and Canadians expect their government to take a strong stance on empowering women and girls. After all, in a society that is based on equal opportunity, it is only fair that women are treated equitably. This is the bare minimum that Canadians expect from their leaders. However, when it comes to policy, some parties exceed expectations. Others don’t even meet it. It is important to be aware of each party’s policies ahead of the federal election.

To start, the Liberal Party has engaged with women’s rights on both the domestic and international fronts. On the domestic side, the Liberals have made it very clear that they will not re-open the abortion debate and that the entire caucus supports a person’s right to choose. The party is particular in that it has applied feminism in its foreign policy as well.

For the past four years, Justin Trudeau’s government has been championing what it has dubbed the “Feminist International Assistance Policy.” Some initiatives include support of educational opportunities in areas where girls are less likely to go to school and increased economic independence among women.

Another initiative confronts humanitarian crises by focusing on factors that specifically affect

women and girls. When it comes to the issue of forced displacement, women and girls at times also deal with the trauma of being sexually exploited or trafficked, in addition to the trauma of fleeing a war zone.

To combat this, the federal government has dedicated a portion of its humanitarian assistance to providing psychosocial support and sexual health services to women abroad. These initiatives are part of Trudeau’s record, however, there have not been any recent policy proposals on this issue during the current federal campaign.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) has adopted an intersectional view of feminism by taking into account the lived experiences of women.

Party members often speak to the fact that Indigenous women are overrepresented in prisons in comparison to the rest of the population. On top of that, the NDP always brings the issue of socioeconomic class into the conversation.

In a statement released during Gender Equality Week last year, the NDP also expressed its concern over how older women are disproportionately trapped in poverty. Additionally, the NDP has also committed itself to a health care plan that fully covers contraceptives and abortion.

Apart from providing this coverage, the NDP has yet to outline any policy plans that would combat the concerns mentioned above.

The Green Party has not presented any specific policy proposals yet. Though the Greens maintain that the abortion debate has been closed in Canada,

Living in residence is worth the cost

On-campus housing helps you academically and socially

Efe Akan Varsity Contributor

Living in one of U of T’s residences unquestionably has both benefits and drawbacks. One such disadvantage is the hefty price you must be willing to pay for a tiny space right on campus.

You might be wondering whether you should choose a larger off-campus housing unit without burdensome residence rules, or you may be an upper-year student wondering if you should stay in residence past your first year. However, I believe living in residence helps you truly integrate yourself into campus life and has many benefits that you can only get if you choose to live on campus. As such, the somewhat steep cost is more than worth it.

I lived in UTM’s McLuhan Court Residence for the duration of my first year, and later on transferred to UTSG and chose to live in Elmsley Hall and Sam Sorbara Hall residences at St. Michael’s College (SMC) in my second and third year. Residence has been greatly beneficial to my

overall university experience.

So, what are the benefits of living in campus residence? The first thing I can point to is academic benefits. I have always had hedonistic tendencies which often got out of control and result in cycles of procrastination. However, living in residence constantly reminded me of why I was here and what my purpose was. I was, first and foremost, a university student, and I wanted to go to law school.

Now I feel qualified to say that residence allowed me to keep a very high GPA while enabling me to engage in extracurricular activities that I was passionate about, none of which I could have done if I didn’t choose to stay in residence.

Next, while the residence rooms are pricey, it’s important to keep in mind that rent is also high in downtown. UTSG residence costs vary, starting at around $1,300 a month. Compare that to the average rent of $2,260 a month for

party leader Elizabeth May has also recently came out saying that she would not prevent another Green Party member from re-opening the debate.

She later clarified that she would screen out candidates who move to re-open the debate.

The Conservative Party has yet to provide any policy proposals, and leader Andrew Scheer hasn’t clarified some of his more problematic views. This May, a handful of Conservative MPs attended the March for Life anti-choice rally.

While Scheer has said that a Conservative government would not re-open the abortion debate, he nonetheless offered no serious repercussions for the MPs who attended the rally. There is doubt on whether Scheer is willing to discipline MPs who want to see this debate reopened.

This also leaves doubts as to how a Conservative government would promote international development in the area of reproductive health.

Will Scheer simply watch as women and girls — and other people with active uteruses — in vulnerable areas continue to experience inadequate access to reproductive health care? One can only assume that would be the case.

While they want to give new tax credits to parents, the Conservative Party also lists the names of noteworthy conservative women in Canadian history on its website. The purpose of this page is to attack the party’s critics for making the assumption that the Conservative party is composed only of “old white men.”

Instead of putting out bold policy proposals that could advance feminism, the Conservatives have opted to prove its critics wrong by listing every noteworthy conservative women that once existed. If the Conservatives want to convince anyone that their party is inclusive, they should probably propose bold policies that would advance the rights of women in this country.

At the end of the day, the Liberals have set a high bar for how a federal government should empower women and girls. Both they and the NDP stand out for their unique and bold approaches to tackling this issue.

The Liberals are looking at empowering women and girls both at home and around the world.

The New Democrats are committed to lifting up women by taking into account their lived experience. Their approach crosses lines by taking into account socioeconomic factors that could halt women’s success.

The Greens, although quite silent on the subject, have maintained that the abortion debate is closed in Canada. However, the same cannot be said of the other side of the spectrum. The Conservative Party in particular stands out for not addressing women’s rights in this election. Keeping in mind that women make up about half of the population, this is absolutely absurd. The bare minimum has not been met.

a one-bedroom unit in downtown Toronto as of August, and you’ll find that residence spaces are relatively affordable.

Choosing to live in other regions of the city is reasonable. However, with a full course load, that means a longer commute time. Students might be late for classes, or may choose to skip them altogether.

Living near campus means you do not need to worry about commuting. All of your classes, club meetings, and campus activities are within walking distance.

If you want to attend most of your lectures and tutorials, staying on campus is the optimal choice for convenience, especially if you have two classes or tutorials with a short break in between. In these instances, you can easily return to your room to rest or retrieve items like textbooks. What’s more, almost everything is ready for your use.

Depending on the residence, you may have to participate in a meal plan. This can be a downside: in my experience, meals are not that tasty in any residence.

Nevertheless, with a meal plan, you don’t need to order food or cook and wash dishes. Meal plans save you time and money.

One of the greatest benefits in some residences,

including at SMC residences, is unlimited drinks that come with each of your meal swipes. For me the most important part was the unlimited coffee, and, as a U of T student cramming for tests and exams, I did abuse this perk!

Plus, the residence community and staff are quite lovely. I’ve heard many people complaining about not being able to make friends despite the fact that UTSG has a total enrollment of 61,690 students. The fact that a large amount of these students are commuters may explain this discrepancy, since commuting makes it more difficult to meet your peers. If you choose to live in residence, you will be living, eating, and attending classes alongside other students. You will see them more than your family and form lifelong friendships.

In a nutshell, while it’s true that residence rooms are tiny and rules seem to inhibit your freedom, on-campus residences grant you a different kind of freedom: a freedom of time, freedom from responsibility, and the freedom to focus on your life, which deserves your attention the most.

Aiman Akmal is a third-year International Relations student at Trinity College.

Efe Akan is a third-year Philosophy student at St. Michael's College.

8

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Efforts to reignite Skule spirit must involve meaningful faculty-student communication A lack of understanding led to a disappointing orientation experience Mélina Lévesque Varsity Contributor

Purple pedestrians pridefully parading past parliament — a familiar sight in Toronto during the first week of the school year. With students dyed purple from head to toe, Skule pride fills the air with a sense of excitement that no one can ignore.

The pride and joy of ‘painting the town purple’ was missing amongst U of T’s engineering students as the first week of September rolled around this year. The reason? A warning by Health Canada associating the ingestion of the antiseptic dye used by the students, gentian violet, with an increased risk of cancer.

While the discontinuation of this tradition was for the sake of health concerns, consequential questions of ending a rite of passage loom amongst the student body. The raving energy that was once amplified by the activity is now a ‘dyeing’ tradition among orientation festivities.

The unusual ‘un-purpled’ population of engineering students during the week of festivities was a bittersweet reminder amongst F!rosh leaders and organizers of what could have been and, most importantly, what it ended up not being.

While F!rosh Week organizers put time and effort into preserving the vibrant engineering traditions, this became a challenge when those making the final decisions refute these efforts.

Though a safe alternative to the genetian dye has been found, the faculty remained set in their decision to let the ‘purple pride’ tradition die down, demonstrating not only the faculty’s passivity in keeping cherished traditions alive, but more importantly, their lack of understanding and communication with their dedicated student organizers.

Students were left to dye only a small part of their bodies, leaving many disappointed.

A dyed down spirit?

The end of the tradition has given rise to bittersweet emotions amongst engineering students who experienced the act of ‘purpling’ prior to its safety warning.

“It is the central element of F!rosh Week not just at U of T, but across engineering faculties in Canada and around the world. It is frankly sad to know that the [class of 2023] will never experience the dye because of the poor communication between U of T and the F!rosh team,” said Julien Senécal, a fourth-year biomedical systems engineering student.

From dipping one’s pinky to drenching one’s entire body in purple, the resulting purple stains around campus once acted as markers of the radiant U of T engineering pride.

The purple dye holds a special meaning for Sam Looper, a Professional Experience Year engineering student and a former leader of organizing central frosh events. “Both my grandparents were engineers in the Canadian military, and their service to our country and dedication to their profession has been an inspiration to me since I first decided I would be an engineer,” said Looper.

According to legend, “the purple dye represents the duty and sacrifice of engineers in the navy, whose purple armbands would dye their skin from the temperatures in the bowels the of ships.”

“Not only does this tradition remind me of my grandparents and the role models they’ve been for me, but also [of ] a more general sense of duty and responsibility which is deeply embedded in the culture of our profession,” said Looper.

This year’s student organizers found themselves with little time to adapt to the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s sudden decision to ban the use of dye altogether after months of brainstorming alternatives to the original dye.

With the tradition dying out, the engineering

faculty at U of T failed to organize an alternative to the traditional event, leaving many students, both old and new, feeling left out.

Many incoming engineering students used to look forward to someday becoming a part of this tradition. “As an incoming first-year student, it is one of the first ways you are invited to step out of your comfort zone,” said Looper, “an exercise I believe prepares you to make the most of your time in university. It builds a bond between engineers that transcends all differences and is a first symbol of pride for your profession and community.”

“Many new students had been expecting to dye and were let down. The alternative to our traditional event was not as visible or extraordinary, which dampens some of the positive effects of this tradition, including community-building and the opportunity for new students to step out of their comfort zones.”

“I hope the faculty and student leadership do a better job of collaborating to find a new solution to the current issues surrounding the tradition for the sake of future U of T engineering students,” Looper added.

The future of Skule traditions The last-minute ban of the traditional purple dye may have taken a toll on expectations of engineering spirit during F!rosh Week, yet despite the faculty’s apparent inability to effectively collaborate with leaders and organizers to brainstorm a viable alternative to the dye, Skule spirit remains radiant.

Looper believes “that this year’s student organizers did an excellent job of maintaining the spirit of tradition despite the restrictions they were placed under.” In reflection, a major component that keeps the engineering spirit and pride alive is the feeling of connection and support between the faculty and students.

While the faculty’s decision to end the tradi-

/ ANG AW RILL ARSITY V THE

tion was made in the interest of student health, the abrupt nature showed a lack of proper communication with the people that make the faculty what it is: the students.

In the aftermath of such a last-minute decision, accompanied by an unwillingness to figure out viable alternatives, feelings of disconnect and disappointment can easily arise. Without effective communication between administration and students, school spirit dwindles.

Now, the future of this proud tradition is up in the air. This challenge is to be solved by strengthening communication efforts between the engineering faculty and its dedicated students. Having fallen under the scrutiny of Health Canada, the next step for university engineering societies is searching for possible alternatives to gentian violet that keep the purple spirit elevated and radiant, without posing any detrimental health risks.

Mélina Lévesque is a fourth-year Anthropology and Political Science student at Victoria College.

Integration of social media-motivated cultural movements into course content is long overdue K-pop and #MeToo courses bring academia closer to contemporary issues and subjects, challenge the traditional canon Emily Hurmizi Varsity Staff

My favourite part of What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy is his scathing yet hilarious criticism of other artists and styles. The most poignant part is when Tolstoy draws a distinction between the increasingly absurd art of the “upper classes” and the art of the “masses,” for it reveals how culture is a power dynamic in itself. U of T’s introduction of two new courses motivated by mass media significantly deviates from academic tradition.

Culture can denote separate judgements on the quality of social practices and values. One is a historical purveyor, and the other is a body of features representing a society’s progress.

Although people are exposed to many cultures in modern life, there still remains a belief that some cultural features are more prestigious or developed than others. In a simple offhand

remark about social media or reality television, there is an inherent act of discrimination against less “cultured” content and those who adhere to it, which may spiral to reinforce other prejudices.

This same attitude informs the content of our academic studies, guiding it toward certain subjects over others because they are supposedly more intelligent or insightful. These subjects often express male-dominated, upper-class driven, and Western traditions.

This makes U of T’s decision to offer two new courses which explore K-pop fandoms and the #MeToo movement significant, because these courses break with a Eurocentric tradition and recognize the impact of popular media movements on twenty-first century values and lifestyles.

Our contemporary world is marked by rapid changes in technological mediums which affect how we communicate and connect with

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

others, in addition to providing a platform for cultural homogenization, globalization, and radicalization. There is nothing more relevant to our understanding of culture than the social reality in which we live.

These courses might not be impartial or apolitical, but the subjective experiences that students bring into the classroom present an opportunity for meaningful discussion — discussion that allows for different perspectives to be heard and new ones to arise.

Subjectivity is already an alternative tool for understanding that appears when a person readsin modern or personal perspectives on historical events, makes assumptions and generalizations about other civilizations, and pieces together social conditions from a variety of partial sources.

Upon close consideration, it’s baffling why the inclusion of K-pop or the #MeToo movement took so long in the first place. There is no

justification for people who believe that popular culture cannot positively contribute to classroom settings other than notions of cultural superiority.

Media culture is complex and integral to the structure of social events, just as much as topics with ‘greater academic worth.’ Opponents of these classes are no longer begging the question. They are finding new reasons to enforce hierarchies.

U of T must embrace the generational and technological differences that shape society without judgment, and adapt its curriculum so students can address issues of here and now, as will be done in the K-pop and #MeToo courses.

To perpetuate a false perception of culture is, as Tolstoy would say, absolutely absurd.

Emily Hurmizi is a second-year Philosophy student at Victoria College.

Editorial

September 30, 2019 var.st/comment editorial@thevarsity.ca

Enough is enough, this is an emergency: U of T must immediately address its mental health crisis

The recent death at the Bahen Centre renews demands for mental health action to be met.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

The Varsity Editorial Board

Another student death at Bahen calls for immediate action from university administration, media, government

Content warning: discussions of suicide.

When news broke on Friday that yet another person had died in the Bahen Centre for Information Technology in an apparent suicide, the U of T community once again entered a cycle that has become horrifyingly familiar since it first appeared in mid-2018: grief, anger, and a question that is all the more tragic because of its frequency — “again?”

The mental health crisis at U of T had been apparent long before the first reported suicide on campus on June 24, 2018, and each known death since has only furthered the grief felt by students and highlighted U of T's acute failure to address the problem.

This incident marks the third death at Bahen Centre and the fourth reported death on campus in less than two years. These are stories that we should never have to report on.

We call on the U of T administration to truly engage with the real pain that students are going through and implement immediate and institutional change.

The university’s lacklustre response In March 2019, the student body responded to the second apparent death by suicide at the Bahen Centre through a series of protests and petitions calling for the U of T administration to be held accountable and to improve the access and quality of on-campus mental health services. Last year’s sit-in protest at the Medical Sciences Building undoubtedly garnered attention from those in power, yet so far their response has been based more on performative platitudes than meaningful action.

Although students have been calling for measures such as 24-hour counselling services, increased funding to mental health resources, and student-majority representation in policy-making, the university administration has instead focused on the implementation of policies that make little change. Furthermore, these policies are made without the consent of the student population.

For instance, President Meric Gertler’s mental health taskforce, which was formed after the second death in March, has not yet led to any change in policy concerning mental health. Its process has been long and seemingly unproductive, with many criticizing the number of students on the taskforce — four out of 13 to represent a tri-campus student body of over 91,000 students.

The university has also still not taken action to repeal the controversial mandated leave of absence policy, despite continuous student opposition over the past two years. The policy only serves to deter vulnerable students from seeking mental health counselling in fear of facing adverse academic ef-

fects. Since the policy’s enactment, eight students have been placed on mandated leave as of August 2019 and the university claims that the feedback has been positive.

We need a proactive administration, not a reactive one This time around, the university did, to some degree, improve its response. For instance, U of T acknowledged the death on the very night of the incident. On Sunday, U of T announced plans to improve safety around the Bahen Centre, including the implementation of structural barriers.

While this does not tackle the underlying issue, evidence has shown that installing physical barriers around suicide hotspots is associated with a reduction in suicide deaths.

This is a step in the right direction. However, the issue remains that the university behaves reactively, as opposed to proactively. The addition of safety barriers had been recommended by students after the first death as a precaution against further incidents, but the university has only now announced changes to the now-infamous building.

This step comes far too late.

When it comes to funding, the administration has often shifted the blame or responsibility to other institutions, including the provincial government. In an interview with The Varsity, President Gertler said, “We are not funded by the provincial government to be a health care-delivering organization.”

This is not an adequate response; the university, with its wealth and stature, could take a stand if it chose too. Specifically, it should immediately and significantly invest in funding to improve the services provided at the Health & Wellness Centres on all three campuses.

This means reducing wait times for initial appointments and phone calls, ensuring followup after initial intake, and removing limits on the number of annual appointments students can access. Furthermore, any changes to mental health policy should be done with the consultation of students; ideally a large and diverse group of representatives.

On responsible mental health journalism Irresponsible journalism from campus and mainstream publications alike certainly does not help with the crisis we are currently experiencing. Research suggests that media reporting can influence vulnerable people and that irresponsible media coverage is associated with higher rates of suicide.

Accordingly, a 2017 paper from the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) set out guidelines for reporting on suicide. For example, it suggests omitting the word “suicide” in the headline, or in

any prominent spot online or in print.

However, a recent Toronto Star article did not meet these guidelines, as the word was put both in the headline and several times throughout the article. Fellow campus publication The Mike made this same mistake in a response to Friday’s death.

We were most disheartened when our colleagues at UTM’s student newspaper, The Medium, recently decided to publish an opinion piece which advocates for “The case for personal responsibility” when it comes to mental health. The article reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the structural nature of the mental health crisis, employs victim blaming, and does not support its opinion with enough credible scientific backing.

We acknowledge that The Varsity is also not perfect, so we wish to draw attention to the issue and encourage responsible reporting in good faith. We hope that these practices become more widespread as the journalism community, including ourselves, learns more about the mental health crisis.

The province must play its part Although Gertler’s shifting of responsibility to the provincial government is not an adequate response to the crisis, the government is not in any way blameless. In July 2018, the Ford government cut $335 million from planned mental health funding that year. Cuts to services such as the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) have made it increasingly difficult for students to access support. As of 2018, 61 per cent of first-entry undergraduate domestic students rely on some form of financial assistance, and such cuts further serve to increase anxiety. Responsibility falls to the university to do what it can to alleviate the implications of financial uncertainty on students’ mental health.

Though it sometimes feels like the responsibility for student mental health services is being passed from group to group with no avail, there is truth in the assertion that this issue must be tackled in a multi-level, multi-faceted way. There should be a shared responsibility for the provision of mental health and wellness services to students in need, and this begins with adequate funding for universities.

The provincial and federal governments have both pledged additional money toward mental health this year, but it is unclear how much of it will be directed at students and young people specifically. This is, hopefully, a step in the right direction, but the urgency of the situation at the University of Toronto requires more localized action.

We stand with student advocacy Student organizations have stepped up in the midst of lacklustre responses from government and university administrations through calls to action

and solidarity. Last spring, a group of 15 students published an outstanding report entitled “Nothing About Us Without Us,” outlining student action, testimonies, and demands from the student population. Students have made impassioned and powerful pleas for action to the administration, and while the response remains underwhelming, this strong leadership does not go unnoticed by vulnerable students.

How Many Lives? is another example of a student-led initiative that hopes to produce actionable change. The resilience and determination of student leaders is inspiring, but it is difficult to advocate in darkness. U of T has yet to formally release data on student suicide rates, citing privacy and contagion. But withholding this information only serves to help the university, not students.

This university is not the haven it strives to be.

If the administration refuses to admit to its failures, students will continue to suffer. At this point, enough is enough. We have no further patience for rhetoric. U of T: listen to students, and take radical, immediate action to support students from the moment they step foot on campus. The mental health crisis is an emergency, and we cannot stand for any more deaths in our community.

The Varsity’s editorial board is elected by the masthead at the beginning of each semester. For more information about the editorial policy, email editorial@thevarsity.ca.

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-925-5454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-5312600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416-978-8030.

Warning signs of suicide include: Talking about wanting to die Looking for a way to kill oneself Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly Sleeping too little or too much Withdrawing or feeling isolated Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

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THE VARSITY

FEATURES

THe faces of Ford’s OSAP cuts Written by: Mélina Lévesque

Three members of the U of T community share their stories

Back in January, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced large-scale changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). Notably, there were significant changes to grant-to-loan ratios, the defining guidelines of independent students, and the scrapping of the free tuition program for low-income students. The Varsity spoke to three members of the U of T community about the personal implication of these changes.

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ing to a rise in mental health issues.”

Worries over losing a grip on postsecondary opportunities is shared amongst many. While the Ford government’s OSAP cuts impact different students in very different ways, one sentiment remains the same across each and every subject: a growing fear of the unknown.

“We have to commit as an academic institution to build a barrier-free and accessible education system until we have a change in government,” wrote Banerjee.

“If we don’t, we are going to lose the brightest students who rightfully deserve to [be] part of the University of Toronto.”

“Our education is now a privilege.”

“Education is about liberation.”

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Ananya Banerjee, Assistant Professor and Interim Program Director at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, has seen firsthand how the drop in OSAP funding has impacted many of her students.

“I had a number of our top applicants email me when they received an offer and saw the tuition cost of our program.

Many simply said they couldn’t afford to enter our program as they didn’t get the OSAP amount [that] they needed,” Banerjee wrote to The Varsity.

Some applicants asked to be switched to part-time students so they could work on the side. “I noticed a high proportion of these top applicants were racialized and from low-income families,” wrote Banerjee. “Fewer individuals from marginalized communities will be entering our post-secondary education system, and those that do will spiral into severe debt in order to afford it, lead-

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an accessible way for all to attend, regardless of their background or family income.”

As a result of the OSAP changes, many postsecondary students find themselves in a ‘catch-22’ situation. With less support from the government, students need to compensate by dedicating more time to pursue scholarships or potential jobs.

However, the more time spent on these activities, the less time students have to focus on their courses, which detracts from their ability to achieve a higher GPA. This then lowers their chances to receive merit-based assistance like scholarships that would alleviate their need to work a job, which swallows up time and perpetuates the cycle.

“It seems the only thing you can do is work harder than before,” Murray wrote. “It’s going to be difficult to not constantly worry about finances, but just taking it one day at a time is the best way to get through this.”

“The next step is to definitely fight back.”

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“My heart sank when Ford [made the] cuts.”

Morgan Murray, a third-year student double majoring in English and Cinema Studies, with a minor in Creative Expression and Society at U of T, has been commuting from Cobourg to the downtown campus for the entirety of her undergraduate studies. She wrote to The Varsity that she and her parents agreed on the commute to cut down on costs, but now, even that won’t be enough.

“A major part of that decision was because I wanted to put all my energy into my studies and extracurriculars, rather than working [a job] after class or on weekends,” wrote Murray.

As she now faces losing thousands of dollars in OSAP funding, the mounting costs that she didn’t anticipate are another pile of responsibilities slammed on top of her textbooks. Her summer funds will be funnelled to her basic amenities, like transportation, food, and textbooks. Any potential for a layer of comfortable cushioning in her financial situation has all but dissipated.

“As I’ve become more educated from university, whether it’s from my classes or the life lessons learned in between, it is very apparent that many people in government are not concerned about their citizens being educated,” wrote Murray. “If they did, they would find ways to benefit the lives of students and help make

“Despite having worked two jobs — both full time — this summer, the money I saved won’t even help.”

Yasmin Owis, a first-year PhD student and research assistant at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at U of T, was confirmed to receive thousands of dollars worth of funding through OSAP in June. Two months later, her funding was recalculated to zero.

Thinking back on the completion of her first two degrees, Owis wrote that she had relied completely on OSAP to be able to afford her education. Without it, she wouldn’t have been able to get this far.

Although as a full-time PhD student she receives a funding package from the university that covers tuition, the amount she receives doesn’t account for all the soaring costs of housing, food, and transportation that come with living in Toronto.

“I’m taking on extra work in an already stressful first year of doctoral studies to cover the funding I lost from OSAP and applying to as many scholarships, grants, and bursaries as I can,” Owis wrote in an email to The Varsity.

Among students and families impacted by the Ford adminstration’s drastic slash of OSAP funding, Owis’ story stands as one of thousands.

For many postsecondary students across Ontario entering the new school year, the prospect of funding their education has become an anxiety-driven scramble for financial security before their fees are due.

This anxiety began metastasizing in January, alongside Ford’s announcement. The previous Liberal government had implemented a program that offered affordable tuition to students whose families earn less than $50,000 a year.

Coming into power early last year, Ford’s administration disagreed with the sustainability of such a program.

Their response was cutting postsecondary tuition by 10 per cent, reducing the qualifying threshold for funding from $175,000 to $140,000, and requiring students under the $50,000 threshold to take on loans in addition to grants.

“It pulls focus away from academics and completing your degree to the best of your ability,” Owis wrote.

Compared to others, Owis believes that she is one of the lucky ones. Many of her friends that are without funding packages are taking out lines of credit, moving back in with their parents, and balancing three jobs with their course load.

The mental costs of such a workload can be stark.

“If you’re someone like me, who has both mental and physical health barriers, OSAP cuts [mean] that I have less funds for medication and mental health services that [are] not covered by my health insurance,” wrote Owis.

“Those who already face challenges [with] affording education are not spared.”

features@thevarsity.ca

September 27: Global climate strike Tens of thousands join march through Toronto Photographer: Dina Dong

More photos at thevarsity.ca/globalclimatestrike

Arts & Culture

September 30, 2019 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

Arundhati Roy’s resplendent principle novel presents the culture of the Indian subcontinent through new eyes.

RUSABA ALAM/THE VARSITY

Book Club: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things

Both familiar and separate, Roy highlights the restricted life of South Asian women Sana Mohsin Varsity Contributor

Having been educated in a postcolonial British school, the works of Western writers, from Kipling to Dickens to Twain, dominated my academics. It was only after coming to U of T to pursue an English degree that I realized how this limited syllabus of works had restricted my worldview.

So I began a journey to read more diverse authors, beginning with Arundhati Roy’s phenomenal novel The God of Small Things, widely considered a staple of South Asian literature.

The novel follows Esthappen and Rahel, twins

living with a multi-generational family, made up of their doting, conflicted mother Ammu; their half-English, half-Indian cousin Sophie Mol; and great aunt Baby Kochamma, who is set on making sure everyone is as unhappy as her. Set against the backdrop of Kerala, a state in southern India, the novel explores how the lives in a family can be complexly changed from one inexplicable instance.

Readers are given both present and past perspectives: in the present, the twins are grown up and return to their childhood home after multiple tragedies have rocked the household. In the past, we follow the events that come after the arrival of Sophie Mol and how the characters’ actions influence the future.

This unique plot, which is coupled with stunning prose, may be why Roy became an overnight sensation around the world and went on to win the 1997 Man Booker Prize with this novel.

The world of The God of Small Things is quite removed from mine, but startlingly familiar. Examples of similarities are endless: the jibes that Ammu receives for being a free spirit rather than succumb to the restrained behaviour that is expected from South Asian women; the special treatment that Sophie gets for being part-English and for being so much more sophisticated than the twins; and the way the twins are forced to memorize Shakespeare and Dickens because a knowledge of English correlates with intelli-

Fifteen sonic slices of September For sipping martinis on your balcony alone, or for surfing with tears in your eyes

Jacob Harron Varsity Staff

I won’t waste your time. If you’re reading this, you aren’t here to talk. You’re here because you need end-of-September jams so sizzling that you’ll be able to fry breakfast on your turntable, or at least warm a small child’s hands with your earbuds. And you need them now.

I hear you already: “Hold it right there, Jacob.

Not that I know who you are, exactly, but I don’t have time to waste. Every moment I spend not enjoying the glorious heat of September is another moment closer to midterm season and my fast-approaching deadlines. If I’m not so relaxed that my limbs atrophy, then so help me God. What’s on this list?”

Well, here are 15 scorchers hand-picked — with oven gloves — from humid climates all over the world. Be sure that the hot classrooms of U of T are empty before you plug in your headphones.

João Gilberto, father of Brazilian music style bossa nova, is on this list because his tunes would make even Brian Wilson call a waiter over and say, “Whatever I’m drinking needs a tiny umbrella in it, stat.” Sora’s recently re-issued Re.sort will have you dabbing at your eyes with your Hawaiian shirt.

You may recognize “Riot!” by Hugh Masekela from last year, when Earl Sweatshirt, his nephew, sampled it. You may also recognize the voice in Makeout Videotape as that of a young Mac DeMarco. But are you here for names, or are you here to attain catatonic levels of chill?

JULIEN BALBONTIN/THE VARSITY

These tunes speak for themselves, but for best results, you’ll want the 1961 Village Vanguard performance of “My Foolish Heart” and the Mandarin single version of “Moonset.” What?

Are you trying to do this halfway? Listen, if you can hear Bill Evans’ keys flutter delicately like a feather between your toes at sunrise and not be instantly reduced to half-waking bliss, maybe summer just isn’t your season.

I know what you’re thinking: “You’re still talking, Jacob. We’ve been over this. Do you have my jams or not? Where are the jams?” And to that I say that I’m at my word count now, so here you go: 1. Bill Evans Trio, “My Foolish Heart,” live at the Village Vanguard 2. Ryo Fukui, “Early Summer” 3. Lamp, “A都市の秋” 4. IU and Oh Hyuk, “Can’t Love You Anymore 사랑이 잘” 5. Little Simz, “Selfish (ft. Cleo Sol)” 6. Tyler, the Creator, “A Boy Is a Gun” 7. Taeko Ohnuki, “4:00 AM” 8. Cléa Vincent, “Château perdu” 9. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, “Are You Real?”

10. João Gilberto, “Brigas, nunca mais” 11. Elephant Gym, “Moonset月落” 12. Makeout Videotape, “Heat Wave” 13. The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset” 14. Hugh Masekela, “Riot” 15. Sora, “Rayuela”

gence in a postcolonial society.

Readers of this book will find that it does not matter whether you can predict what will happen or receive a spoiler. The nature of its complex, intertwining plot is just one of the aspects that makes this work a masterpiece, as readers are also given astoundingly visual imagery and prose that almost reads like poetry. I found myself rereading and highlighting entire passages because of how beautifully they were written.

If readers are looking for any author for inspiration, they should not look further than Roy. The God of Small Things is witty, thought-provoking, and should definitely be the next book on your list.

var.st/arts

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

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TIFF 2019: Corpus Christi

Dark, tragic, pessimistic — Komasa’s film encapsulates the power of second chances Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Contributor

Though the title, synopsis, and main poster — which features a still of the protagonist in a rich green chasuble, face contorted in emotion as he calls out — suggest that Jan Komasa’s newest film Corpus Christi is about an individual’s battle with faith and religion, it is actually much more grand.

Premiering in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Corpus Christi follows Daniel, a 20 year-old youth with convictions who can’t return to seminary school after being released from a youth correctional facility. He goes instead to a small Polish town to work at a carpenter’s workshop. But after spontaneously asserting that he is a priest, Daniel eventually takes over the town’s parish. It’s a premise that could have easily been a slapstick comedy, however Corpus Christi is anything but: it’s dark, tragic, and, most of all, pessimistic.

Daniel’s faith in Corpus Christi is unwavering; he never questions his beliefs. Quite the contrary, he remains a believer even after many injustices are committed against him and those around him.

Corpus Christi is about the systemic barriers that are built to stand in Daniel’s way of becoming what he truly wants to be. For instance, Daniel is told by the correctional facility’s priest — who he looks up to — that it is impossible for him to go to theology school.

It becomes apparent that Daniel is not simply a devout Christian. He is able to have profound

effects, both positive and negative, on people through his sermons, yet he isn’t able to nurture them further in a scholarly and official environment because of the mistakes he made as a teenager. Komasa isn’t asking us how this is fair — he’s plainly showing us that it isn’t.

There is another movie that challenges the church in a similar way: First Reformed, a movie

by Paul Schrader which screened at TIFF 2017.

First Reformed centers on Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke), who, after failing to console an environmental activist with depression, begins to question the politics within his own parish.

Similar to Daniel, Toller sees how the systemic infrastructure of the church actually stands in the way of pure preaching. For Daniel, his record prohibits him from going to seminary school. For Reverend Toller, his church having a close relationship with an industrialist puts limits on his ability to move his congregation toward stewardship, a religious ideal that suggests that humans are responsible for taking care of the earth.

Films like Corpus Christi and First Reformed are important because they detail the extensive politics that exist within what is supposed to be the most sacred of organizations. They outline the way in which greed, power, and money get in the way of the upkeep of justice and environmental sustainability.

These films remind us that social issues, such as the environment and the criminal justice sys-

TIFF 2019: Knives Out Witty murder mystery combined with a stellar cast, Knives Out is a must-see Margaret Pereira Varsity Contributor

This acclaimed mystery thriller is Rian Johnsons’ third directorial dissertation to hit the TIFF Lightbox.

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tem, can be viewed in more ways than one. By framing them through religion, Schrader and Komasa effectively assert that there is no excuse to plead ignorance or turn a blind eye. We must familiarize ourselves with our surroundings — be it politics, religion, education, or even entertainment — and then decide what kind of narrative is being presented, and by whom.

Corpus Christi and First Reformed ask us about personal responsibility and accountability, both to the institutions that we choose, and those that we do not. They prod the idea of responsibility to our surroundings, the environment, and the people that we interact with every day.

These philosophical questions are not answered in either of the films. Instead, Komasa and Schrader sow the seeds for us to examine our place in the web of society, and to subsequently decide to whom or what we owe our loyalty, and where owe rebellion.

Corpus Christi earned the Polish entry for the Best International Feature Film at next year’s Academy Awards.

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Knives Out is a quick-witted, revamped mystery that is, at its core, about the good in people, not their murderous instincts. Director Rian Johnson employs his miraculous cast in a story most closely comparable to a game of Mafia, as a detective and a private investigator try to determine the cause of death of a mystery novel magnate. With a backdrop of the stately Thrombey mansion and a rich family of money grabbers, the main character, Marta, is impressively played by the up-and-coming Ava de Armas.

In 2017 de Armas played a key role in Blade Runner 2049, but her performance in Knives Out is much more authoritative, nuanced, and magnetic. Marta is the close confidant and private nurse to our victim, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), and she is very trusting but certainly not naïve. There’s an argument to be made here that Marta is the most complex and substantive role written of its kind, one which avoids annoying tropes and fits perfectly with de Armas’ lived-in performance.

The cast includes a wealth of other celebrities, including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, and Jamie Lee Curtis. A cast of stars that size can cause serious issues for a film, with actors trying to outdo each other or sacrificing too much character development.

Johnson sidesteps these issues deftly, by carefully choosing peppery moments of characterization and maintaining a deep commitment to character-based comedy. Each performance has its own sensibility, and picking a favourite is definitely some sort of Rorschach test — mine is Toni Collette. Do with that what you will.

If you were to read the script, devoid of character names, you would still be able to tell who’s saying each line. It’s that tight.

When Johnson came out to introduce the film at its premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, he pumped up the audience by calling Knives Out a “classic whodunnit.” The film snaps between genre tropes and modern touches frequently, and evokes a similar edgeof-your-seat, Agatha Christie-esque feeling to its mystery. The movie is set to a snare-drumheavy jazz score and has a self-reflexive structure, which is far more effective and intriguing than a simple final reveal.

Knives Out gives you the same feeling as driving down a dark road at night while listening to a funny podcast. You can barely see what’s six feet in front of you, and certainly not any further than that, but you’re having a great time.

It’s not a ‘twist movie’ per se, it’s just a really good movie with spectacular planning and an attention to detail that rivals most actual police investigations.

The movie’s road is a spiral. Much of this has to do with Marta, who’s caught up in the death in a couple different ways, not least of which in her enlistment into solving the case by Detective Benoit Blanc (Craig). Marta is the daughter of an undocumented migrant, a fact not parachuted in, but woven into her character trajectory, the overall story progression, and Johnson’s main moral aims.

The divide between kind-hearted Marta and the Thrombeys is never more apparent than after Harlan’s death. The family squabbles over who is actually ‘self-made’ and who just coasts by on their parents’ money — hint: all of them coast.

The chasm between the Thrombey’s lifestyle and Marta’s is huge, yet the family does everything in their power to keep it that way. Even more frustrating is when they force her into a very timely discussion on the detention of asylum-seeking migrants and hand her an empty plate in the same breath, even though she is not a housekeeper.

It’s not a political film in terms of elections and debates, but it is political in the sense that this is actually what it feels like to be alive right now. Johnson somehow threads this needle, and pulls off a magic trick. He argues for goodness above all else, but recognizes the way the deck is stacked for the supremely wealthy, powerful, and white. It never feels hypocritical, and it never feels preachy. Magic.

Knives Out is going to be an absolute crowdpleaser, and deservedly so. It’s beautiful and hilarious, and the genre-bending that Johnson pulls off is one for the books — the mystery books specifically. I’m not sure if it’s a great sign that a murder mystery is the film to nail our daily experiences, but it is a fantastic reminder that a movie can be about something as simple as goodness.

Science

September 30, 2019 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

From ‘eh’ to ‘z’: how a U of T professor is getting Canadian words into the Oxford English Dictionary

Sociolinguist Sali Tagliamonte and her team are documenting unique words from rural Ontario

rians say, is etymology.

Of the more than 600,000 words in the OED, only 744 are designated as Canadian in origin or use. Contrast this with the almost 30,000 words sourced from the continental United States, with a further 64 from Hawaii.

The OED criteria for inclusion is by use and longevity. A word’s usage must be established by independent sources, and it also must be around for at least five years — although 10 is more common for new entries. Words used by only one social group don’t qualify for inclusion.

Tagliamonte gives the example of the gaming community’s invented sense of ‘epic,’ meaning awesome or amazing, which wasn’t a valid candidate for the OED until it began to appear among non-gamers in everyday conversation.

Tagliamonte uses a three-tier classification system for the candidate words she gathers. Gold words are the best — words that have no prior occurrence in the OED. These words are Canadian through-and-through. A silver word comes next, when “you find it in the [OED], but it does not mean what it means to [Canadians].”

Last are the “indignant words,” says Tagliamonte. “These are the bronze ones. You look up a word, because you’ve found it all over Ontario… and you go the [OED] and it says that it comes from the southern United States.”

“If you’re going to label [a bronze word] as anything, you should label it a North American word.”

In this way, Tagliamonte’s project isn’t just expanding the Canadian vernacular, but including important Canadian usages of words shared with the United States.

Tahmeed Shafiq Science Correspondent

“Don’t be such a suck ‘cause she gave you a tin ear at the bush party, bud.”

If that doesn’t make any sense, you should check in with Dr. Sali Tagliamonte.

Tagliamonte, a professor and chair of the Linguistics Department at U of T, is on a mission to document words with with unique meanings and origins from small Ontario towns for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

You might hear a whiner being called a ‘suck’ in northern Ontario. Folks in Beaverton might refer to ignoring someone as ‘giving them a tin ear,’ and a bush party is simply a party that is held outdoors.

So, in English: “Don’t whine because she ignored you when we were partying in the woods.”

The online OED lists 744 words as Canadian, but many of them are sourced from urban areas.

More rural words tend to go undocumented, words like ‘warming-closet’ — a water heater — and ‘corn-roast’ — a gathering where roasted corn is served.

The sociolinguist and Canada Research Chair in Language Variation and Change has been documenting these unique words, phrases, and definitions for a decade. Tagliamonte’s Ontario Dialects Project is sketching how Ontarians mark their identities with colourful, individualised language.

Words tell the story of a place: words like ‘slime,’ a name for lakes that were filled with mining detritus that has turned to gelatinous muck. You won’t hear of children playing in slimes outside mining communities where the word originated as a geographic label.

From teaching tool to research project The research started in a classroom.

One day in her undergraduate class in language variation, Tagliamonte was telling a story about her childhood in northern Ontario when she realised that her students didn’t get it. Specifically, they didn’t understand her use of the word ‘soaker’ to refer to a deep puddle or snowdrift.

This led to the realisation that Ontario has dialects. A dialect is a regional variation in spoken language, often tied to a location or social group.

More than a decade later, Tagliamonte and her crew of undergraduate students have crisscrossed Ontario in search of oral histories that might contain new words or meanings not cur-

U of T professor documents words from small Ontario towns for the Oxford English Dictionary.

JANICE LIU/THE VARSITY

rently found in the OED. People talk about their lives and offer up “stories about things that happened in their youth,” giving insight into the rich lexicon of Canadiana.

As Tagliamonte puts it, in those stories, “culture and history, and the social circumstances of their community come out.”

No place is too far off-the-map; towns near and far, museums, and high schools — all are visited with a recorder in hand. “We go down dusty old dirt roads,” says Tagliamonte, “we go

everywhere, and we just talk to people about their lives.” Such is the field work of sociolinguistics.

How new words get into the OED While at a Japanese conference, Tagliamonte attended a presentation by Dr. Phillip Durkin, one of the OED’s chief editors, about Japanese words in the dictionary, like ‘sushi’ and ‘manga.’

Inspired by this, Tagliamonte approached Durkin with an offer to introduce new Canadian words into the OED, and the rest, as word histo-

Beyond Ontario A similar search for new words could be conducted in other Canadian provinces. There is already evidence for the uniqueness of words in the Maritimes: words like ‘knob,’ a “hard sweet made with boiled sugar,” according to the OED. There may also be words unique to Canadian university students. The 2007 edition of The Dictionary of American Slang notes that Canadian students in the ’90s kept an uncommon definition of the word ‘wank,’ where it meant “to have fun; party.”

What is vulgar for one social group may be innocent for another. Just be careful not to announce to any friends from the United Kingdom that you’re having a ‘wank’ on the weekend, or they might think that you’re a ‘knob.’

Young long-term cannabis users may have higher levels of chronic stress biomarker

CAMH study links cannabis usage with biomarker, but not with symptoms of stress Abhya Adlakha Varsity Contributor

A landmark study conducted by researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found elevated levels of a brain protein associated with chronic stress and anxiety in the brains of young long-term cannabis users.

Published on September 18 in the JAMA Psychiatry medical journal, this study was one of the first to use the Positron Emission Tomography (PET), an imaging technique, to study the association between cannabis and the neuro-immune function in the brain.

The brain protein that was studied is called a translocator protein, or TSPO. It is involved in immune functions and is associated with levels of stress and anxiety.

In an interview with The Varsity, Dr. Romina Mizrahi, the lead author of the study and Senior Scientist at the CAMH Research Imaging

Centre, talked about the motivation behind the research.

“Young people use cannabis a lot and they usually think or perceive cannabis as harmless,” she said.

“I, as a scientist, I know that the brain develops and is still developing until the age of 25, so I wanted to understand how cannabis affects the developing brain.”

The study’s design and results Mizrahi and her co-authors conducted the study in Toronto. The participants included 24 longterm cannabis users, who met the criteria for Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD).

The study also consisted of 27 non-cannabis users, who acted as the control group to compare the protein levels in the brain.

Each participant underwent a scan with the PET imaging technique, which the researchers used to measure the subjects’ levels of TSPO. The study found that long-term cannabis users

had significantly higher levels of the biomarker associated with stress and anxiety compared to the non-users.

Limitations of the study Mizrahi warns readers, however, that this experiment only studied the relationship between cannabis use and the biomarker associated with stress.

While she and her co-authors studied the biomarker’s levels, they did not examine the impact of its elevated levels on the subjects’ behaviour.

The study therefore does not provide a direct link between long-term cannabis use and the symptoms of stress and anxiety.

“We cannot say that cannabis causes this increase in this protein or that it causes stress and anxiety,” said Mizrahi. “We know they are related, but we don’t know which comes first.”

However, Mizrahi spoke about the potential future research that aims to study causation. Such

studies could also examine whether the biomarker’s levels would normalize after a period of abstinence for long-term cannabis users.

These findings could refine research and have major future implications regarding attitudes toward the consumption of cannabis for adolescents.

Effects of cannabis on the developing brain still unknown Mizrahi still added that she would caution adolescents against using cannabis due to their developing brains.

“What I would tell them is that they should be careful when using cannabis because their brains are still developing until the age of 25,” she said.

“Whether [the effects are] long-term or shortterm, we need to study this moving forward.”

“But I would still caution them not to use cannabis. To use or to not use cannabis while the brain is developing… is an important decision [that adolescents] have to make.”

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The life of Cambroraster, a new predatory species uncovered

by U of T PhD student Joe Moysiuk discusses the specialized predator, life on Earth millions of years ago

Nicole Schwab Varsity Contributor

Fossils of a new predatory species named Cambroraster have been uncovered in British Columbia by U of T PhD student Joe Moysiuk, together with a team of palaeontologists from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

The animal dates back 500 million years, and is described by Moysiuk to have “a mouth apparatus that looks like a pineapple slice with teeth inside” and “rake-like claws.” This incredible discovery provides insight into the evolution of its modern relatives — including insects, crabs, and spiders.

The big discovery Moysiuk began exploring the Marble Canyon, a site in the Burgess Shale in the Kootenay and Yoho National Parks, in the summer of 2014.

The original Burgess Shale has been known for approximately 100 years but some of the newer sites, including Marble Canyon, have only recently been discovered.

Here, Moysiuk and his colleagues, led by the Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology Jean-Bernard Caron, found a fossil that no one recognized. “We didn’t know what to make of this thing at first; we had never seen anything like it before,” said Moysiuk.

The team nicknamed the species the “spaceship” on the spot, due to the appearance of its radial teeth in the rock, but the species was later given the scientific name Cambroraster falcatus.

“As the excavations went on, it became more and more clear what we were looking at,” recalled Moysiuk.

The species was found to be a 500-millionyear-old marine predator with rake-like claws and radial teeth that grew up to a foot in length.

Belonging to a group called the Radiodonta, it is related to the apex predator Anomalocaris — a metre-long marine species with giant grasping claws capable of preying on fast-moving organisms. The discovery of Cambroraster shows that Radiodonta may have been far more diverse than previously thought.

Moysiuk describes two aspects that make the Burgess Shale site remarkable: its age, and the extraordinary preservation of its fossils. The site that held the Cambroraster’s fossils dated back to the Cambrian period, which is more than seven times older than the era of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The Cambrian period was “an extremely rapid period of evolution,” noted Moysiuk. It provides paleontologists with “representatives of virtually all of the major modern groups of animals coming into the fossil record all at once.”

The Burgess Shale site also provides remarkable insight into the Cambrian ecosystem because fossils found there often contain preserved soft tissue. Because of this, researchers learn a great deal about the organisms of the Burgess Shale and get a unique window into life during the Cambrian period.

“When we think of fossils, we tend to think of things like dinosaur bones, shells, and teeth —

An artist’s depiction of Cambroraster, a 500-million-year-old marine predator with rake-like claws.

PALEOEQUII/CC WIKIMEDIA

hard parts of animals that are easily preserved,” said Moysiuk. “In the Burgess Shale we get, not only those parts, but also things like eyes, nervous systems, and even digestive tracts containing the last meal of the animal.”

The challenges of identifying a species from rock Unlike dinosaur bones in fossils where the rock is very soft, explained Moysiuk, “these fossils are extremely hard, flat, and almost two-dimensional sheets of carbon.” The process therefore involves breaking out big blocks of rock and splitting it as finely as possible to uncover a fossil. “The fossils actually sort of form a layer of weakness in the rock, allowing the rock to split where the fossil is,” he continued.

However, the almost two-dimensional form of these fossils can make it difficult to recreate the animal in three dimensions. Researchers will peel away layers of the fossil “like the layers of an onion” in order to see what’s underneath, and to help get fossils from different angles.

“A fossil with its front sticking up in the mud looks different from one preserved at the topup,” noted Moysiuk, “and so [by] putting this information together, we are able to reconstruct things in three dimensions — but this can be quite challenging.”

How Cambroraster can tell us about biodiversity today Prior to the Cambrian period, the ocean floor

was very low in oxygen, and any nutrients in the sediment were trapped and unable to surface.

“When we get into the Cambrian, we start seeing organisms [like Cambroraster] digging deeper and deeper progressively into the sediment,” said Moysiuk, “and exhibiting more complex burrowing patterns to draw oxygen down into the sediment.”

The Cambroraster’s digging would allow decomposition of the organic matter, which recycles it back into the marine ecosystem. The species was also a specialist predator, which would have preyed on organisms buried in the sediment.

“Cambroraster is playing a role that is analogous to what a lot of modern bottom-feeding organisms play today,” noted Moysiuk. “So this is a mode of life that has persisted ever since.”

What’s next for Moysiuk and his colleagues at the ROM? The discovery of new sites, including those in the Marble Canyon in the Canadian Rockies, has led to researchers uncovering huge collections of fossils, including several other new species other than Cambroraster. Moysiuk is interested in studying the new species of radiodonts found at these sites, as well as exploring how these species may have contributed to the evolution of modern marine biodiversity.

“There is a lot more work to be done in terms of understanding these ecosystems,” said Moysiuk, “and [the] organisms that were living in them.”

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SCIENCE

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Remembering Dr. Jay Keystone

U of T professor’s life profoundly impacted residents, colleagues through quality education and influential research

Keystone brought the Canadian medical community’s attention to the implications of globalization on the spread of infectious diseases.

COURTESY OF UHN

Safa Ahmad Varsity Contributor

Dr. Jay Stephen Keystone, a travel and tropical medicine specialist at the Toronto General Hospital and a professor of medicine at U of T, passed away from cancer while surrounded by family on September 3. He was 76 years old.

He is remembered fondly for his empathy and frequent use of humour as he trained residents, treated patients, and worked with colleagues through difficult days in the hospital.

“When people found out he had passed away, there was an outpouring of love and support from people all over the country and even worldwide,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a close friend and colleague of Keystone, to The Varsity.

Bogoch recalled that Keystone fostered a working environment “where you don’t really recognize that it’s work, because you’re enjoying yourself too much.”

“He’d always be smiling and enjoying life along the way,” even on days with heavy workloads, said Bogoch. “That’s one thing I certainly picked up from him.”

Keystone’s empathy in medical education Dr. Sumontra Chakrabarti, who is now an

infectious disease specialist at Trillium Health Partners, recalled his time working with Keystone as a resident for three years. He recounts those years as some of the “most enriching” of his career.

He wrote to The Varsity that Keystone was a “very outgoing, friendly and warm individual” with a “larger than life presence.” He attributed Keystone’s personality in large part to his “amazing sense of humour, that made everyone around him smile.”

“From a resident’s standpoint,” continued Chakrabarti, “any room Dr. Keystone was in, was one guaranteed to be relaxed, jovial, and a place where you would leave knowing much more than when you walked in.”

“It was because of him [that] I have pursued my special interest of tropical infections within my infectious diseases practice,” wrote Chakrabarti.

“The type of clinician I am today is in large part my efforts to emulate the type of physician he was.”

Dr. Christopher David Naylor, the former president of U of T, also commented on the empathy of Keystone’s mentorship style, which sharply contrasted the approach that other medical educators used at the time.

“What stood out is that he was humble and

kind to his students and residents at a time when, frankly, some of the older clinical teachers were into ritualized humiliation as a mode of instruction,” wrote Naylor.

Naylor also recalled one incident from Keystone’s education that he would never forget.

It involved Keystone teaching medical students that Ascaris lumbricoides infections could be almost asymptomatic. This means that, in Keystone’s words, on many occasions the only “presenting symptom of the patient [would] be horror.’’

“Why?” Keystone would ask rhetorically, “Well, how would you feel if you defecated and found a large worm wriggling in the toilet bowl?”

Keystone’s impact on clinical research Reflecting on Keystone’s research, Naylor highlighted how he brought the Canadian medical community’s attention to the implications of globalization on the spread of infectious diseases at a time when its impact was not widely recognized.

Keystone graduated as a gold medallist in the U of T Medical School’s class of 1969, and conducted postgraduate work and fieldwork on multiple continents. He returned to Toronto in 1977 to found and lead the Tropical Medicine

Unit at the Toronto General Hospital.

His legacy includes more than 200 scientific papers and textbook chapters that he coauthored, a premier travel medicine textbook he wrote as a senior author, and the organizations he was a part of, including the International Society of Travel Medicine where he served as president.

In 2015, he received the Order of Canada for his contributions to tropical and travel medicine.

But despite Keystone’s stature, wrote Naylor, “Jay himself often said that his greatest professional accomplishment was to teach himself out of a job.”

In an article published in May, co-authored with twin brother and rheumatologist Dr. Edward Keystone, Dr. Jay Keystone encouraged those reading “to think about the people who made an impact or provided you with mentorship, and how you can pay it forward to others.”

This fits with Dr. Jay Keystone’s approach to education. In Naylor’s words, Keystone was “involved in inspiring, recruiting, and educating literally hundreds of postgraduate medical trainees.”

“Those individuals, practising all across the country and all over the world, along with his beloved family, are Jay’s living legacy and most important gift to the world.”

The race of the male black widow spider to find mates Male spiders follow trails of competitors, according to recent UTSC study Vinayak Tuteja Varsity Contributor

How do male black widow spiders find potential mates? According to a recent UTSC-affiliated study, they follow the silk trails left by their competitors.

In a majority of mate-seeking insect species, the males follow pheromones — chemicals released by an individual of the same species — in order to find available mates. Traditional thinking would suggest that males follow pheromones from female spiders, while avoiding those released by males, to prevent any vicious competition during courtship.

However, according to the study’s results, the male black widow spider instead leverages the scent and the silk trails released by other males to efficiently find potential mates.

The motivation for the adaptation The reproductive success of the black male widow spider hinges on its ability to locate a potential mate as quickly as possible, due to the low number of available female black widow spiders and lengthy courtship behaviour.

“On any given night, there are only a handful of sexually receptive females. Hence competition

is inevitable,” explained Catherine Scott, the study’s author and a PhD candidate at UTSC, to The Varsity.

“Furthermore, courtship can last hours. So, even if a male is not the first to arrive and if he gets to the female quickly enough, he might just be able to win the competition and be the first one to mate.”

Given the intense competition male black widow spiders face in courtship, it is best for them to follow the trails of other males rather than completely lose the chance to mate.

However, these are not the only hurdles that male black widow spiders face. Even after successful mating, the male spider is sometimes cannibalized by its partner, as the females are much larger than the males of the species.

The study’s design and results To conduct the study, the researchers set up a series of races to track the spiders’ behaviour on the sand dunes of Vancouver Island.

Before the races, each male was weighed on a scale. The length of his legs were then measured, and his body was painted with unique racing

stripes for identification.

The race’s finish line was set up with cages containing the pheromonereleasing females.

Due to the nocturnal behaviour of black widow spiders, the males were released at sunset in 10-metre intervals from the finish line.

The shortest race was 10 metres away from the finish line, while the longest was a length of 60 metres.

The great “Black Widow Races of 2016 and 2017,” as Scott nicknamed them, enabled the researchers to determine the speed taken by each male to find the cages.

Unexpectedly, they found that the males were able to locate the females faster if they also had access to the pheromones of other males.

While further research needs to be done,

Female black widows sometimes eat their partner following courship.

FIR0002/CC WIKIMEDIA

Scott hypothesizes that the study’s results could be generalized to other species of spiders.

“In other spider species where there is a similarly high level of competition over access to receptive females, and where the last male to mate has an advantage, I would expect that males may use similar tactics,” wrote Scott.

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Spyware company introduces unprecedented human rights policy

U of T’s Citizen Lab researcher likens NSO Group’s reforms to “tokenism” Kaitlyn Simpson Varsity Contributor

Controversial Israel-based spyware company, NSO Group, has introduced a new human rights policy to complement its business practices — an unparalleled measure for the global spyware industry.

While NSO Group says the policy “embeds relevant human rights protections throughout [its] business and governance systems,” critics, including Amnesty International and U of T’s Citizen Lab, have argued otherwise.

NSO Group’s track record NSO Group is a cyber-intelligence company that sells technologies for monitoring communications of various targets. Earlier this year, it was partially acquired by Novalpina Capital LLP, a private equity fund based out of the United Kingdom.

According to its website, NSO maintains that it sells its technology to governments because “terrorists, drug traffickers, pedophiles, and other criminals have access to advanced technology and are harder to monitor, track, and capture than ever before.”

However, the company has also faced backlash for its practices. Research conducted at U of T’s Citizen Lab — an interdisciplinary research organization exploring digital surveillance, censorship, and cyberattacks — has discovered that NSO Group’s spyware, Pegasus, was used to target activists, journalists, and members of civil society in countries such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Most recently, in May, reports surfaced that NSO software was used to allegedly spy on a lawyer through a vulnerability in WhatsApp. The lawyer — who remains anonymous due to fears for their safety — was involved in a civil lawsuit against NSO. In June, David Kaye, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, called for a freeze on selling and using spyware until “human rights-compliant regulatory frameworks are in place.”

In his announcement, Kaye said, “The private surveillance industry is a free-for-all.”

Following Kaye’s call, researchers at Citizen Lab released a statement about the harmful consequences of the commercial spyware industry.

“In light of the concerns raised by the Special Rapporteur reports, companies like Novalpina Capital LLP… must take responsibility for the harms caused by the surveillance technology manufactured and sold by NSO Group,” wrote the researchers.

“Such a step would mean respecting international human rights treaties and, as a starting point, complying with the moratorium demanded by the Special Rapporteurs.”

A new policy NSO Group’s new policy, announced on September 10, is intended to align the company’s practices with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The aim is to help the company identify possible risks for human rights abuses and work to prevent misuse of its products.

When the company announced the new policy, co-founder and CEO of NSO Group Shalev Hulio said that the policy “publicly affirms our unequivocal respect for human rights and our commitment to mitigate the risk of misuse.”

“With this new Human Rights Policy and governance framework, we are proud to further enhance our compliance system to such a degree that we will become the first company in the cyber industry to be aligned with the Guiding Principles,” he added.

Alongside the human rights policy, NSO also announced a new External Whistleblower Policy and three new senior advisors.

The advisors — United States Governor Tom Ridge, former French Ambassador to the United States Gèrard Araud, and former Assistant Secretary at the United States’ Department of

Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem — are set to support the company in its partnerships with governments.

The response In the wake of the policy announcement, advocates and researchers have grappled with the question: can spyware and human rights work in tandem?

In an email to The Varsity, Citizen Lab Senior Legal Advisor Siena Anstis wrote that the policy “does not inspire confidence.”

“It’s easy to put words to paper, but we still have no real information on how the company will be transparent regarding its business practices or what types of oversight and accountability structures are in place to ensure real implementation of the ‘human rights policy,’” Anstis wrote.

“Without transparency or accountability, the policy is meaningless.”

When asked if NSO’s human rights policy would spark similar policies in the industry, Anstis wrote that “it’s hard to predict whether other companies in this industry are going to follow suit.”

However, she noted that “it certainly wouldn’t be challenging for other spyware companies to engage in the same level of tokenism.”

In a public proclamation, Deputy Director of Amnesty Technology Danna Ingleton also criticized NSO Group in response to the policy.

“The company needs to demonstrate [that this reformed policy] is more than an attempt to whitewash its tarnished reputation,” she said.

“It doesn’t get to pick and choose when it should respect human rights — all companies have this responsibility anyway.”

Ingleton called for more government regulation for the spyware industry.

“Governments also need to act,” she said.

“There needs to be tougher legal requirements on respecting human rights for the spyware industry, which time and time again has trampled on the rights to privacy, freedom of opinion and expression.”

Anstis further advocated for tightened regulation in the spyware industry.

“In addition to pushing for reform,” she said, “the public should be calling for more transparency on when and how their governments deploy this technology and the safeguards in place to ensure it is not abused.”

Disclosure: Kaitlyn Simpson previously served as Volume 139 Managing Online Editor of The Varsity, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Varsity Publications Inc.

BRITTANY GEROW/THE VARSITY

Sports

September 30, 2019 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

In conversation with Terry Radchenko The Varsity sits down with U of T running coach who worked with Bianca Andreescu

Joshua Chua Varsity Contributor

Terry Radchenko, one of U of T’s track and field coaches, had the opportunity to work with Canadian US Open Champion, Bianca Andreescu briefly before her historic title run.

In an interview with The Varsity, Radchenko explained what it was like to work with Andreescu, as well as the duties of a coach and advice he would give to Varsity Blues athletes.

The Varsity: How long have you been a coach at U of T and what are some responsibilities of the position?

Terry Radchenko: About 15 years ago, I started working with the University of Toronto track club, which had a junior development program consisting of around 150–200 athletes from grade seven to grade 12. I was coaching in that program for a number of years, and quite a few of those athletes happened to go on and run at U of T. About seven years ago, I started as a crosscountry coach the University of Toronto on a full time basis. In this role we work with athletes who raced from 400 metres up to 10-kilometre cross country. The majority of our job is coaching and looking after the athletes; we’re in practices with them, we work on the mental side of sports, we conduct weight training sessions, and overall we run an athlete-centered program.

We try to look at every athlete as an individual and make certain tweaks and changes to their program so they can be as successful as possible.

The other part of the job is a lot of administration work, such as planning meets and trips as well as other events, like the 800-metre festival in the summer, plus our work on eligibility requirements and recruiting, which are both big parts of the job. There’s a nice balance between administrative work, coaching, and communicating with athletes.

TV: What would you say is your favourite part about being a coach?

TR: Definitely the coaching part. Just being out there with the athletes, communicating with them, helping them, figuring out how they can be as successful as possible and watching them succeed.

You could be having a horrible day, whether it be because of personal reasons or perhaps you’re not feeling well, and you could go out to a practice and forget about everything else and just focus on that workout. It’s a really enjoyable

haven’t done as much. Bianca’s obviously on an ascent right now; she went from 150th in the world to one of the best in the world in a very, very short time. A lot of it with elite athletes is about staying healthy, which goes back to making smart training decisions.

Bianca was able to stay healthy despite a few little bumps in the road and nagging injuries — all elite athletes have that — showing how important it is to communicate with your staff to make sure you keep moving in the right direction and don’t need to take huge chunks of time off.

I think you can push the envelope a little more with someone who is on ascent, as they will have those big training gains. On the flip side, you have to make sure to not be overaggressive with them, because you don’t want them to get injured.

Athletes who are already in the middle of their career already possess a lot of information, and because of that it’s best to make smaller changes — they already know what has made them successful and that doesn’t need to be rewritten.

They probably know themselves a lot better and already know what they need to eat before a race, or how long it takes them to get ready.

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part of the job. Of course there’s ups and downs, but there’s nothing better than seeing an athlete run a personal best or accomplish something that they’ve never done before.

TV: Can you explain how you came into contact with Bianca, and if there were any previous connections?

TR: I’ve worked with a lot of different coaches over the years, whether it be sports performance coaches, sports psychologists, nutritionists, Athletics Canada coaches, or Athletics Ontario coaches. Over time, as you [get to] know more people, they also become more aware of you and your work, and we reach out to each other.

There was another coach that Bianca was working with, and she mentioned that she was looking for a consult on her running form. That coach mentioned my name, so her mom reached out to me, and we talked about a time that we could potentially get together to have a look at what Bianca does in her warmups, her running routines, and also her stride in general. It came together right after she won the Rogers cup.

The day before she was leaving for the US Open in New York, she was able to come by the Athletics Centre with her mom and dad, and their little dog, as well her Tennis Canada strength and conditioning coach and her physiotherapist. We all worked together for around an hour.

We looked at her activation routine, which is the way she warms up her body before she exercises, and we looked at the drills that she does in active mobility to prepare herself. When I saw her Tennis Canada coach going through that, I

noticed that it was very similar to what I and the coaches here would do with our university athletes. It’s interesting to see that world-class athletes in a variety of sports are doing the same types of activation and warm-up routines.

TV: What advice would you give to Varsity Blues athletes, especially those considering a professional career in sports?

TR: You have to listen to your coaches, work with them, and communicate with them to make sure that you can put a plan together that will allow you to be as successful as you can possibly be. I definitely think communication is something that’s really key, and you have to be open with that. You have to not only be willing to train hard, but also train smart.

One thing that we say about injuries is that it’s not that you’re necessarily training too hard, but it might be that you’re not recovering enough. You have to focus on all the little things, and it’s not just about going out to workout; eating well, watching nutrition, getting enough sleep, focusing on communication, [and] staying positive and confident, are all important. Every time you go to the line at an event, you want to make sure that you’re physically and mentally prepared to be the best you can possibly be. If you can put yourself in that position, it’s going to allow you to be successful.

TV: What kind of differences are there when training someone of Bianca’s age versus someone who might be older and in the middle of their career?

TR: You have to be careful, but I think younger athletes can improve much quicker since they

The conversations might be a lot different with an older, more mature athlete. I would say that Bianca is an interesting case, because female tennis athletes especially can achieve success at a very young age and hopefully continue that success throughout their careers.

TV: Is there anything we should be looking forward to in terms of major athletes coming to U of T, and specifically for track and field?

TR: We’re always trying to recruit the best athletes that we can and bring them into our program. We believe that the University of Toronto track and field program is a world-class program.

Just over the last Olympics there were three Olympians developed from our program here: Sarah Wells, — who was just on the Amazing Race Canada — Alicia Brown, and Gabriela Stafford. These are all people who were developed here in our program at the University of Toronto.

Gabriela’s sister, Lucia Stafford, was at the World Student Games and came fifth, and I think she has big goals for this summer and beyond.

Madeleine Kelly is an athlete who just graduated from U of T and won the 800-metre [race] in the Canadian women’s championships.

She also has her sights set on some really big goals for next summer — an Olympic year. We have a lot of other young athletes who are showing promise in our program, so we’re definitely excited for the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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U of T alum surges in middle-distance running rankings Gabriela DeBues-Stafford ascends to fourth in the world shortly before IAAF championships Silas Le Blanc Sports Editor

Former U of T psychology student Gabriela DeBues-Stafford has launched herself to fourth place in the world rankings for middle distance runnners. Stafford is hoping that this rise in prominence will lead to success at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, which will run from September 27 to October 6.

During her time with the Varsity Blues, Stafford came in first in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Cross Country Championships,

and second in the 1,000-metre race at the USPORTS Cross Country Championships, both in 2015. She finished first in seven different OUA track and field competitions, and five USPORTS competitions.

As of September 25, 2019, Stafford has broken five Canadian records, including the mile and 1,500-metre indoor races, and the outdoor mile, 1,500-metre, and 5,000-metre races. She was also the first Canadian woman to break the four minute mark in the 1,500-metre race.

She believes she can medal in the IAAF cham-

pionships, and now has a very realistic chance to do so. She will be Canada’s most prominent athlete in the competition. Stafford is also hoping that this competition prepares her for tough competition in the Tokyo Olympics.

“I think it’s a reasonable goal to break all my Canadian records again in the lead up to Tokyo,” Stafford wrote in an interview with the CBC. “As for the Olympics themselves, anything is possible.

I’m not comfortable saying outright what I want, but everyone on the start line has the same goal in mind. It’s not a secret what our goal is.”

Stafford ran with the Varsity Blues Track & Field team from 2014–2017.

COURTESY OF MARTIN BAZYL/ VARSITY BLUES

Efficient workout routines for students

With the school year in full swing, here are some ways to fit an effective workout into a busy schedule Ambika Sharma Varsity Contributor

According to Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines, adults 18–64 years of age should spend 150 minutes every week doing moderate-intensity aerobic activity. Yet over the course of the academic year, students often neglect working out in order to focus on their schoolwork. Here are three 30-minute workout routines that fit into most students’ busy school schedules.

Quick and effective workouts mean more time to study.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

At the gym People generally think that in order to go to the gym they must set aside around an hour and a half to work out. In fact, this is not true because weight machines and cardio equipment can make it easier to get an effective workout within tight time constraints.

Cardio is known for being an effective way to burn fat and strengthen your heart. When low on time, people tend to skip the cardio to focus on lifting weights, but even doing as little as 10 minutes of cardio will not only help you burn a

few extra calories, but also warm up your muscles for lifting weights, which will reduce the risk of an injury.

The form of cardio that you do is also key. It is ideal to pick an activity that gets your whole body moving.

Examples in the gym include using treadmills, ellipticals, or rowing machines. The gym provides the tools to have a short but effective workout that is good for your health both physically and mentally, as well as a change in scenery after a long day of lectures and studying.

At home However, not everyone can make it to the gym.

Whether due to lack of access or cold weather; at-home workouts can be just as effective, and also save you the commute time to and from the gym.

At-home workouts can take the same format as those in the gym. Start with 10 minutes of any full-body exercise that gets your heart pumping.

Non-equipment cardio activity includes burpees, jumping jacks, and jogging on the spot. Then

spend 20 minutes doing bodyweight exercises.

These can include squats, lunges, and crunches, which will strengthen your muscles without overexerting them and without requiring equipment.

Outdoors For those students who don’t want to be stuck indoors at a gym but still want a change of scenery, there are still workout routines that can be done outdoors when the weather permits. Start with cardio, like riding your bicycle or going for a walk or jog. Then find a set of stairs and climb up and down. This will not only raise your heart rate, but strengthen your leg muscles. You could even take a pit-stop at an open area and practice some bodyweight exercises like lunges or squats.

Everybody is different and everyone enjoys different activities, but the key is to get your body moving and stay hydrated. On the surface, it may look like 30 minutes could be better spent doing readings or assignments, but exercising regularly sharpens focus and increases productivity, which benefits mental and physical health.

Men’s rugby lose lopsided tilt to McMaster Toronto’s grit not enough to unseat Marauders Sara Fredo Varsity Contributor

The Blues record drops to 0-4.

RAKHSHAN PIROOZ/THE VARSITY

The Varsity Blues men’s rugby team dropped their fourth straight match of the season, losing 56–12 against the McMaster Marauders at Varsity Stadium on September 28.

The Blues found themselves trailing early at home as McMaster notched a try just two minutes in after a line out deep in Toronto’s end.

After a penalty 35 yards out from Toronto’s endzone, McMaster attempted a kick for points as opposed to the traditional scrum. The conversion was good, and 10 minutes into the game the Marauders jumped ahead to 10–0.

The Blues started to inch their way up the field, maintaining possession of the ball as they slowly forced McMaster further back. After a tense, multi-phase cycle within McMaster’s defensive zone, Blues’ Tudor Chirila smashed his way into the endzone. He then narrowly missed the conversion on a tough angle.

The back-and-forth affair continued, with McMaster scoring a third try in the 21st minute.

Toronto showed their defensive prowess when they successfully held up and prevented a McMaster try. Unfortunately, they were unable to prevent the subsequent play, and the Marauders jumped ahead to 24–5.

McMaster also got a try off a line out maul, and the Blues headed into the half down 34–5.

The physical match started to wear on the Blues, who gave up numerous penalties to the pressing Marauders. Despite the widening score line and growing fatigue, Toronto showed feisty try line defence, thwarting numerous McMaster attempts with crushing tackles, composed defensive lines, and quick plays on turnovers. Notable Blues of the match included Sangeeth Prakash, who often needed multiple McMaster players to be taken down, and Michael Morgan, who caused trouble to McMaster’s rucks all game.

Toronto fought valiantly until the final whistle, never bowing their heads in spite of the widening score line and voracious McMaster squad.

The Blues attempted to gain ground and space with each time they secured the ball. Their efforts finally paid off when two Blues players charged a McMaster kick in the endzone with scarcely a minute left to the game. The ball deflected off their hands and into the air, where Alvin Pane easily plucked it out and scored. Chirila was successful on his conversion attempt this time around. However, it was too little too late, as McMaster took the game 56–12.

The Blues are heading to Peterborough next week, where they search for their first win of the season against Trent on October 5.

20

THE VARSITY

DIVERSIONS

ACROSS 1. Death notices 6. Smoke & fog 10. Groups of thieves 11. Pick on unjustly 12. Stammers 14. Reverie 16. Intercepts en route 18. Aspiring movie queen 20. Arbitrate

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

22. Leakage 23. Rental contract 25. Spiny lobster 28. Disregarded 29. Late Princess of Wales 31. Casserole 32. Youth

21

DOWN 1. Debauched party 2. Public house 3. Disturbed 4. Write-ups 5. Sheathes 7. Cereal plant 8. Brain tissue (4,6) 9. Budgerigar home 13. Trifled

22

15. Bogs 17. Emerged from sleep 19. Spends time idly 21. Heat up 22. Notorious affair 24. Bicker 26. Decreases 27. Electrical power unit 30. One-spot card

23

Sc Ti V Science @The

Varsity

Up and atom!