Social work students provide powerful lecture and display

Kegan Harris

Oppression is an issue that has gone ignore for far too long in society. From international atrocities as the Holocaust, to abusive relationships, oppression is something has shaped history and lives continually. Many who find themselves entangled in this vicious cycle are often unaware of the seriousness of their situation, whether they are the oppressor or the oppressed.
However, thanks to students from Lakehead University’s Master of Social Work Program and the Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW), Lakehead students were treated to a powerful art display and lecture on anti-oppressive practices.
Seeing Voices: A Day of Community Art and Anti-Oppressive Awareness was held last Tuesday in both the Agora and UC 1017, providing a powerful and often disturbing look into oppression.
For the majority of the day, the Agora served as a makeshift art gallery for “Front Pages”: a collection of photos, paintings, and even decorated Argus newspapers (on the February 23 edition’s blank front page released as part of the feature on oppression).
While oppression is often thought as something that “doesn’t happen here,” the photos put a familiar face on it, leaving a disturb feeling that oppression can happen to anyone anywhere, even you.
The lecture, meanwhile, continued to build on the initial feelings of the Front Pages gallery. Students were told of the many common forms of oppression, from religious discrimination to ageism, and were shown how easily individuals’ differences can be used against them as a tool of oppression.
The lecture also taught attendees important anti-oppressive practices, which can be utilized by someone witnessing an oppressive behaviour or even by the oppressed person themself.
Seeing Voices was an extremely worthwhile and moving experience. Excellently executed, the event opened the eyes of many people, showing the different sides of oppression that often go ignored.

CBC hit reality show auditions held in Thunder Bay

Brandi Cameron
News Editor

Molly Duignan, Co-Producer of CBC’s Dragon’s Den was at the Intercity Mall last Monday as local auditions ran for the program. Photo by Brandi Cameron.

Duignan, Co-Producer of the CBC’s Dragons Den, is traveling across Canada, auditioning hopeful Canadian entrepreneurs for her show. Last Monday, she was stationed at Intercity Shopping Centre for seven hours, conducting interviews with potential innovators.
Dragon’s Den, based off of a Japanese reality show, first aired in Canada in October, 2006, and allows Canadians to showcase their business ideas to the “dragons,” in hopes of acquiring financial support to develop and market their product.
Duignan comments, “How else could someone with a small business or idea from Thunder Bay find a customer in Vancouver or Yellowknife? They might not. The show has created a community of thought and innovation, and I think simply by watching people are made more aware of the amazing innovation we have right here in Canada.”
The five dragons: Arlene Dickinson, Robert Herjavec, Jim Trellving, Kevin O’Leary, and Brett Wilson, are all successful entrepreneurs in their own right, and “represent a cross section of business backgrounds and expertise.”
“The dragons are a prime example of what you can do as an entrepreneur in Canada,” explains Duignan. “They are true entrepreneurs in the sense that they all built their businesses up either from scratch or from fledgling situations. None of them were born into their success or were appointed to their positions the way others might assume.”
Trellving, Duignan explains, is a good example of this innovative spirit.
“(He’s the) co-founder of Boston Pizza, (and) was an RCMP officer when he bought the first location,” she says. “Now there are more than 300 Boston Pizzas in Canada, more than 100 in the U.S., and he’s got stakes in multiple other Canadian and US businesses, a true success story of entrepreneurship.”
During this season’s auditions the trend appears to be “new twists on old things.” Duignan adds that ideas that will create new jobs during this recession could be a huge bonus of this endeavor.
Dragon’s Den is filmed, like other reality shows, before it is aired, and perhaps the most difficult part, says Duignan is “keeping it a secret until it airs.”
Over 3,000 people will audition across Canada, before 200 finalists will present their ideas to the dragons at the Toronto headquarters. As one half of the audition team, Molly will have held tryouts in Halifax, St. John’s, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Prince George, Nelson, and Kelowna by the end of her tour.

Idea Drop with Duignan

• There are plenty of inventive ideas out there. Here are some of those that have graced the TV screens through Dragon’s Den:
• Conversion kits that can transform any mountain bike into a downhill ski with rear traction.
• Back Buddee: it looks like a fly swatter, but it helps you apply lotion on your back.
• Rim roller: a small keychain device that helps you roll up the rim to win
• Quicksnap: a shoelace attachment that means you’ll never tie your laces again
• Recipe for medicinal marijuana macaroons: targeting the existing medicinal marijuana market.
• Ecotraction: An all-natural, eco-friendly alternative to road salt that can be used again, or used as a fertilizer for gardens.
• Biodegradable wooden cutlery to replace plastics.
• Exploding bottle caps that make any drink a fizzy drink.

1977
1/3 of students alcoholics: U of Guelph study finds that the average student began drinking at the age of 15 and spends upwards of $15 per month on alcohol. They even drank more than students at the University of Texas!
1989
“Where are they in 20 years?” According to the Argus’ predictions, former staffer Graham Strong is writing greeting cards for hallmark, Chris Mills is playing Santa Claus at Keskus mall, and Jeff Lafountaine is convicted as an FLQ terrorist.
1989
The Board of Directors slashed the 1989-90 clubs budget from $28, 000 to $3,000, meaning clubs received $120 rather that “a couple of thousand” as they had previously. In a ringing endorsement of school spirit, clubs now receive $100 a year.
2001
President Fred Gilbert “questioned the mental toughness of Lakehead’s varsity teams” at the annual athletic banquet. The Argus retorted with the “losing record” of LU and its “coach” Gilbert in national university rankings.

‘Technology these days really cuts down the distance,’ says the fine arts student

Terrine Friday
The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) – J.P. Neufeld says his friends now call him “Super J.P., Hero of the Internets.”
The fine arts student at Montreal’s Concordia University still hasn’t gotten used to the attention he’s received since he averted a high school bombing in the United Kingdom.
Neufeld, the oldest of four siblings, insists that he’s just a regular student who did the right thing.
“The attention is kinda freaky, I must admit,” Neufeld said as he chomped on his M&M Easter Eggs. “I Google my name and all these articles pop up, whereas just last Tuesday, if you Googled ‘J.P. Neufeld,’ you’d find this doctor doing very doctory things.”
Neufeld was uploading music to Newgrounds.com when he noticed some odd postings on the site’s forum: a high school student had threatened to bomb his school in the coming hours.
“Most school shooters have put something online, whether they’re bragging or they want to be caught,” Neufeld said. “I kept that in mind and thought: ‘Hey, I actually have the chance to maybe prevent something here.’”
Neufeld, who used Google to find the local law enforcement number and used Skype to call them, was surprised the police took him so seriously.
Police apprehended a 16 year-old British male with flammable contents on his way in to class on March 17.

Concordia waste audit shows decrease in overall garbage, but spike in trashed coffee cups

Amy Minsky
The Concordian (Concordia University)

Photo by Mike Bennett.

MONTREAL (CUP) – The Concordia University community in Montreal trashes 3.9 million non-recyclable disposable coffee cups every year, according to Louise Henault-Ethier, the school’s environmental co-ordinator.
Each community member trashes, on average, about 75 disposable coffee cups on campus each year, she says.
“Students are addicted to coffee,” she said. “But this behaviour has a great impact on our environment.”
Last week Sustainable Concordia, with the help of over 20 volunteers, sifted through 350 kilogram of trash – a small percentage of the garbage Concordia students, faculty, and administration produce.
For five days, trash was collected from over 100 locations on campus, including kitchens, hallways, auditoriums, offices, and classrooms.
Volunteers sifted through the garbage and separated the contents according to their composition.
The containers for plastic, metal, and glass were not as full as in previous waste audits. In fact, says Henault-Ethier, the total amount of plastic, glass, and metal items placed in the garbage decreased from 16 per cent to 15 per cent. This suggests more people are placing the materials in recycling, rather than in the garbage.
The amount of paper and cardboard thrown in the trash dropped dramatically, from 15 per cent to nine per cent of the garbage.
But, there was one disturbing statistic from the audit, Henault-Ethier says. The fraction of disposable coffee cups trashed on campus increased from eight per cent of the waste in 2007 to almost 10 per cent in 2009.
This increase came despite campus-wide urging students to forgo disposable cups and use reusable mugs instead.
This year’s co-ordinator for the audit, Sebastian Sanchez, was surprised at the amount of coffee cups he and the volunteers found in the trash.
“We had enormous towers of Tim Hortons cups,” he said. “We could have built buildings out of them. I’m sorry Tim Hortons, but it’s just because it’s Roll up the Rim. People are drinking all these coffees because they want to win. These kinds of competitions promote waste. It’s really too bad,” he said.
The incentive to purchase coffee in a reusable mug is usually a few cents off the regular price. These benefits aren’t great enough though, Henault-Ethier says.
She suggests selling disposable coffee cups instead of giving them away for free.
Disposable coffee cups were found in both the garbage and the recycling streams, despite the fact they are not recyclable.
Most disposable coffee cups, including those sold at Tim Hortons, are neither recyclable nor biodegradable because of their non-biodegradable plastic or wax liners.
These linings prevent the cups from being pulped with other paper products; they can’t be recycled with wax-coated milk cartons either, since the two items don’t melt at the same rate. Styrofoam is not recyclable either.
Tim Hortons customers receive a 10-cent discount when purchasing beverages in a travel mug. But by using a reusable mug, customers take themselves out of the running for a prize.
No one from the Tim Hortons communications department was available for comment. According to the company’s website, however, Tim Hortons is “always researching alternative packaging materials” that are recyclable, compostable or both.
Though the majority of sorting and recycling plants are not equipped to process disposable coffee mugs, there are facilities that can in Moncton, N.B and Windsor, Ont.
The results of Concordia’s waste audit will be used to evaluate which areas of the university’s waste management need improvement.
“Just as important too,” Sanchez said, “is to see if the Concordia community has a sense of individual waste consciousness.”

Moyer apologizes, Snoddon resigns while Directors dither

Ian Kaufman
News Writer

VP Finance candidate Brent Moyer (left) addresses LU Radio host Josh Kolic’s questions at last Friday’s LUSU Board of Directors meeting. Photo by Nik Broukhanski.

Just as LUSU’s Board of Directors was getting set to wind down the year, an issue they thought they’d resolved in January came back to bite them in their collective posteriors. While other students partook of a Latin American-themed party down the hall at the Study, the Board and a dozen or so students entertained themselves instead with reprisals and recriminations over LUSU’s increasingly labyrinthine trail of election errors. By the end of the night, one director had resigned and students were left facing a possible by-election.
The question that came back to haunt the board was the eligibility of VP Finance-elect Ian Dasti. Last week his erstwhile opponent, Brent Moyer, sent the Argus and LU Radio a letter (in an email he tried to pass off as “anonymous”) from the Student Union’s lawyer. Dated January 22, 2009, the letter advised the Board that Dasti should not be considered eligible to run in the elections. Not enrolled in any courses in the winter semester, he was paying no LUSU fees and hence was not a member of the Student Union.
How Moyer, who is not a Board member, got hold of this letter is a mystery. He claims he received it anonymously, although he did say that Director Thomas Valiquette “brought the issue to light” in an MSN conversation.
While apologizing for the deceptive way in which he made it public, he said that “this letter should not have been kept secret from the membership […] to go against the advice of your own lawyer was wrong and that had to come to light.”
The day after receiving the letter, the Board followed its advice and disqualified Dasti. However – and this is where it gets labyrinthine - they reversed their decision the next week, based on Dasti’s arguments that he was still technically registered in his program at the University.
Moyer’s email in itself would not have hampered Dasti’s ratification. However, another error was brought to the Board’s attention: their failure to follow the proper procedural rules in reinstating Dasti as a candidate.
In overturning their previous decision to bar him from running, the Board would have needed a two-thirds majority, which they failed to achieve. The error went unnoticed, and Dasti went on to defeat Moyer by a margin of 25 votes.
As a result of all of this, the Board must now decide whether to ratify Dasti despite the errors or to declare his election null and void. In that case, either Moyer would be acclaimed in his place, or a by-election would be held. The Board will hold a meeting as soon as their lawyer is able to attend.
Most students present expressed their frustration that the decision on Dasti’s status was put off. Engineering Student Society President, Zac Trolley, stated that he represented 12% of the student body in asking the Board to resolve the matter as soon as possible.
Granville, however, was not convinced that the handful of people present represented a significant swathe of student opinion. Rather, he suggested, “there are two groups here that are partisan.”
That the debate was being driven by personal grudges or friendships with Dasti and Moyer was a sentiment echoed by others, as well.
“This isn’t a matter of names or agendas,” chided one student. “This is a matter of rules which the Board of Directors needs to govern by.”
Others, however, were simply fed up with LUSU’s “inability to act,” as former Director, Mike Snoddon, put it in his letter of resignation.
VPSI-elect Trevor Cava also pressed the Board to resolve the issue rather than wait another week, at the least. Their frustration with yet another delay might be understandable, but Granville, General Manager Pat Callaghan and Josh Kolic of LU Radio expressed caution, hinting at the possibility of legal action from some of the parties involved should they take an incorrect decision.
Details on the time and location of the meeting will be posted at www.theargus.ca as soon as they are available.

Clusterf**k to the LUSU office

January 22    CRO Andrew Follis, LUSU Executives, and BOD members receive a letter from LUSU lawyer, Anthony Carfagnini, recommending that Ian Dasti be disallowed to run in the LUSU executive election.

January 23    During an in-camera session, the Board rules that Dasti is not classified as a LU student and is therefore ineligible to run for VP Finance.

January 30    Dasti challenges the Board’s decision to disqualify him from the LUSU elections and demands to be reinstated as a candidate. A motion to reconsider the Board’s earlier decision is supported by a majority of voting Board members, but does not achieve the two-thirds majority of votes needed to overturn the previous week’s ruling. The mistake goes unnoticed and Dasti is reinstated as a candidate in the election.
March 14    Following a recount of the votes for VP Finance, Dasti is declared the unofficial election winner of the LUSU Executive elections over Brent Moyer by 24 votes.

March 20    The Argus and CILU Radio receive the Carfagnini Law Office letter from an anonymous e-mail account.

March 22    Moyer concedes that he was responsible for mailing the Carfagnani letter to the Argus and CILU Radio despite previous denials.

March 27    Board decides to reopen the question of Dasti’s eligibility, but defer decision so legal counsel and student input can be sought.

April ?    Board meeting will be held to decide amongst the options of ratifying Dasti, holding a by-election, or acclaiming Moyer.