WOMEN HONOUREDTRUFA committee recognizes two professors in annual awards series, p. 8

FIRESTARTERSWilderness survival workshop teaches students about local flora, survival, p. 2

THIS STORY OF MINEA First Nations perspective on the Mt. Polley mine disaster, p. 5

Volume 24 – Issue 23 www.truomega.ca Ω @TRU_Omega March 11, 2015

TRU’s Long Night Against Procrastination, p. 2

REFS: The abuse they take and how to stop it, p. 11

2015 MOSAIC

FASHION SHOWPHOTOS, PAGE 6

2 March 11, 2015NEWS

All-nighters may be part of uni-versity, but last week they were en-couraged. With final deadlines and exams looming, more than 200 stu-dents came out to TRU’s first Long Night Against Procrastination, an all-night writing event meant to give students a leg up on projects due at the end of the term.

Writing Centre tutors were on hand throughout the night and provided workshops on topics like resume writing, organization and reading scholarly literature. Accord-ing to tutor Zain Bakhtiar, the tu-tors were in high demand.

“People were still asking for grammatical corrections at 3 a.m.,” he said.

Tutors Annie Slizak and Amber Knight said the event was reward-ing for both volunteers and students since both enjoyed seeing fellow students do well and improve writ-ing skills.

Students came and went through-out the night. There was a notable exodus following the free pizza at midnight, but about 40 students lasted until the event wrapped up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. For students like Alanah Seaton, who had just begun work on a 40-page research paper she said was due March 9, the late night provided a chance for intensive productivity.

According to TRU Student Ser-vices manager Sara Wolfe, the event served the TRU community by helping students “avoid procrastina-tion, build community and engage with student services.”

Christine Adam, TRU’s dean of students, added that she supported the event as a way of stopping stu-dents from “sacrificing their health at the end of the semester.”

According to a 2012 article by Psychology Today, up to 70 per cent of American college students pro-crastinate doing papers or studying.

The Canadian University Survey Consortium estimates that 40 per cent of students spend less than 10 hours per week outside classes on their studies, increasing the risk of getting caught with a major project

close to the due date.Since its first appearance in 2010

at the University Viadrina in Ger-many, the Long Night Against Procrastination has spread interna-tionally, also popping up at other

Canadian universities like the Uni-versity of Alberta.

Bakhtiar said that he was “im-pressed by the turnout” of the event, adding that he would do it again next year.

The backwoods of B.C. can be a dangerous place, but a group of TRU students are better prepared for being lost in the wilderness after a hands-on lesson in outdoor survival. The workshop educated students of all outdoor experience levels on the survival uses of various common plants that can be found in the forests around Kamloops, as well as ways to start a fire without using matches or a lighter.

The Gathering Place, TRU’s on-campus aboriginal cultural centre, organized and hosted the course. Jason Johnston, an experienced Parks Canada employee and wilderness guide, gave an interactive lecture about plants common to B.C.’s forests that can save the life of someone lost in the woods. Johnston said that outdoor activity is “a lifelong hobby” of his that he was happy to share with the students.

Johnston, a graduate from TRU with a bachelor of interdisciplinary studies, has honed his wilderness skills with a certification as a wilderness first responder. He is also an authorized scientific wildlife collector and has taken a course on bear awareness and avoidance.

Students were taught about the various ways to use the

Douglas fir, which is helpful for everything from brewing a tea for sore throats to dressing small cuts with its sap. They also learned about reindeer lichen, a type of lichen that can absorb water to carry it long distances. The discussion also covered some unlikely edible plants that are found in B.C. such as rock tripe, a species of lichen that grows on rocks and the roots of the cattail plant which Johnston said “taste a bit like cucumber.”

After learning about and tasting the plants, Johnston took the class outside to demonstrate ways to start a fire without matches and a lighter, two things someone may not always have available in the wild. Along with traditional methods such as creating friction with wood, Johnston demonstrated the use of steel wool and a battery to create a spark and the mixture of hand sanitizer and corn chips to help ignite kindling. Students were encouraged to try the method.

With camping season just around the corner, the workshop was well received by many of the students who attended. Sam Sturgeon was most interested in the session on Kamloops-grown plants.

“I found out just how uninformed I am about nature today, but it was nice to come learn how to identify plants, and find out which ones are edible.”

Jim ElliotCONTRIBUTOR Ω

Jim ElliotCONTRIBUTOR Ω

Students skip out on sleep, hit the books instead

Wildlife workshop teaches students survival skillsWorkshop talks campfires made with corn chips and the natural healings of Douglas fir

A long night in the library for TRU’s Long Night Against Procrastination

Education and Skills Training student Clay Hodges and TRU alumna Stephanie Gaudet demonstrate a firestarting technique using steel wool and a battery. (Jim Elliot/The Omega)

Writing Centre tutors Annie Slizak and Amber Knight. (Jim Elliot/The Omega)

TRU saw over 200 people pass through its library doors March 5 for the Long Night Against Procrastination. (Jim Elliot/The Omega)

3The Omega Ω Volume 24 • Issue 23

The Omega

www.truomega.ca

/TRUOmega

@TRU_Omega

Thompson Rivers University’s Independent Student Newspaper

Published since November 27, 1991

EDITORIAL STAFF

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

NEWS EDITOR

ISSUES EDITOR

SCI-TECH EDITOR

ARTS EDITOR

SPORTS EDITOR

COPY EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

PUBLISHING BOARDEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

INDUSTRY REP

FACULTY REP

STUDENT REP

STUDENT REP

Sean Brady

Christopher Foulds

Charles Hays

Kim Anderson

Mason Buettner

LETTERS POLICYLiterary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Omega will attempt to publish each letter received, barring time and space constraints. The editor will take care not to change the intention or tone of submissions, but will not publish material deemed to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. Letters for publication must include the writer’s name (for publication) and contact details (not for publication). The Omega reserves the right not to publish any letter or submitted material. Opinions expressed in any section with an “Opinion” label do not represent those of The Omega, the Cariboo Student Newspaper Society, its Board of Directors or its staff. Opinions belong only to those who have signed them.

COPYRIGHTAll material in this publication is copyright The Omega and may not be reproduced without the expressed consent of the publisher. All unsolicited submissions become copyright The Omega 2014.

Cariboo Student Newspaper Society(Publisher of The Omega)

TRU Campus House #4900 McGill Rd, Kamloops, B.C. V2C 0C8

Phone: 250-828-5069Advertising inquiries:

accounts@truomega.ca

PUBLISHING

/tru_omega

Sean Brady@iamseanbradyeditor@truomega.ca

Alexis Stockford@AlexisStockfordnews@truomega.ca

Ashley Wadhwani@ashwadhwaniissues@truomega.ca

Ryan Turcot@RyanTurcotsci-tech@truomega.ca

Kim Anderson@K_AndersonSaysarts@truomega.ca

Tayla Scott@taylascott3sports@truomega.ca

Rachel Wood@rachelwooodcopy@truomega.ca

Jim Elliot Steve Leahy

OPINION

I’m no expert in managing stress. I feel it pretty bad at least twice a year. I start having problems sleep-ing, I don’t feel as good about the work I’m doing, I get more anxious and my eye even starts to twitch a little. I’ve come to take these as warning signs. They tell me that I need to figure out how to manage my stress before things get worse. I take them pretty seriously and make whatever changes I can. I’ve found a few coping mechanisms, but still no easy solution.

The thing about stressing out at these times of the year is com-plicated by one thing, though: the source of your stress? It ends. It ends pretty abruptly, in fact. Your semester is over, your assignments are done, your tests written and a weight is off your shoulders. Now all you have to worry about is what you’re going to do for the sum-mer or over winter break. It ’s still some things to consider, but you now have some time to breathe –

something unfamiliar following the semester-long rush you just went through.

That’s why post-secondary stress isn’t like stress in the real world. After school, when you (hopefully) find a job in your field and get to work, it ’ll dawn on you that you’re probably going to be at this for a long time. Your life is no longer a string of four-month chunks of time that simply end.

The need to manage stress is real. In TRU’s 2013 National College Health Assessment, 37 per cent of students reported that stress was affecting their academic performance – something that un-doubtedly made them even more stressed. As many as 45 per cent of students reported “more than average” stress levels in the year prior and 22 per cent of students said that they “felt things were hopeless” at least once in the same period.

As a student, it ’s far too easy to simply not manage your stress. You know that the semester will end and that you’ll have a break, so instead of figuring out how to

decrease your stress level and still get your work done, you just push even harder and wait for it all to be over for you.

But in the real world, it ’s differ-ent. If you find yourself stressing out in your day-to-day work life, you’ll have a luxury students don’t: time to figure it out. Work-life balance is not something easily accomplished. It might take you years, but when you do manage to figure out, not only will you be less stressed, but your life might feel more fulfilling, too. After a while, you might even have the oppor-tunity to lower your workload or change your schedule to some-thing more manageable.

Post-secondary is where we learn a lot of things, but work-life balance is not one of those things. The school schedule just isn’t compatible with figuring some-thing like that out, especially when it only lasts 2-4 years for most stu-dents. Even those who do figure it out find themselves at the end of their fourth year, never to return to this kind of schedule again.

editor@truomega.ca

Do you participate in a bro-habita-tion? Do you have a female flatmate? How about a co-ed bunk bed?

For many college students, in order to make ends meet, their first home away from home will be shared with roommates. There are plenty of ad-vantages to sharing living accommo-dations, such as saving money, making new friends or building on old friend-ships, and being in a more accessible area.

It may not always be smooth sailing onboard the S. S. Roommate. Some-times, you’ll be plagued by the rancid roommate, otherwise known as That Guy. That Guy doesn’t take into con-sideration that he shares a space with one or more tenants. They will leave the suite in a disaster, not do their share of chores, won’t respect already limited

privacy, borrow things without asking, or even slack on their share of the bills. Putting it bluntly, That Guy will not be easy to live with, and will be the source of constant conflict throughout an oth-erwise harmonious living space.

That’s why it’s important to know what you’re getting into when decid-ing to share a residence with someone. When you and your potential room-mate are first organizing a future living situation, make it clear to all parties involved what their privileges and re-sponsibilities are. Will the bills be split evenly between roommates? Will one pay for internet and another pay for cable? Is everyone responsible for their own food or will everyone pitch in for groceries? These are among many im-portant responsibilities when (almost) living out on your own. Clarifying these factors early and holding every-one accountable to their own tasks could eliminate (or at least tone down) any future conflicts.

I’m not your mom nagging you to clean up, but common areas such as the living room and kitchen should be kept orderly. This could be done by cleaning up after oneself or by assigning rooms to each resident to care for. If you in-vited a date over (after asking for your roommate’s permission, of course!), I’m sure old pizza boxes or dirty clothes wouldn’t be a great first impression.

Although finding privacy in a multi-person household may be diffi-cult, everyone should at least have some sort of private area. No one should intrude on this area without the occu-pant’s permission. A similar rule should apply to an individual’s belongings: nothing should be borrowed without consent. Doing so could cause discom-fort, mistrust or potentially criminal charges. All in all, it’s easier to just ask.

Hopefully by setting some ground rules early, the S. S. Roommate will neither capsize nor wash ashore, and all the shipmates will sail on smoothly.

I want to thank The Omega for the article entitled “My Health is Sexy” campaign brings HIV testing to campus in the March 4, 2015 is-sue. I was interviewed for this arti-cle to help explain and promote the new pilot program that offers access to free and confidential HIV testing on our Kamloops campus.

After reading the article, I want-ed to clarify a couple of issues that I thought could be perceived as confusing to your audience. Firstly, in my interview I stated that HIV testing can create anxiety and fear

for anyone being tested, regardless of risk status. One of the reasons why the Wellness Centre agreed to partner with Interior Health for this pilot was to help reduce this stigma, promote awareness about recom-mended HIV testing guidelines, as well as to create a dialogue about the importance of HIV testing as part of everyone’s sexual health and well-being.

Secondly, I mentioned that pro-vincial guidelines for HIV testing for the general population are every 5 years for those aged 18-70 and

more frequently if you are in a high-er risk group such as men having sex with men or for those using IV drugs. If you are interested in spe-cific testing recommendations for higher risk populations, please see Interior Health’s press release at:

http://bit.ly/1Hr7Mr5This article has helped to foster

important discussions about access to HIV testing and education here at TRU; for that I thank you.

Chelsea Corsi, RN, BScN, BSc.TRU Wellness Coordinator

Sean BradyEDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ω

Mercedes DeutscherTHE OTHER PRESS (CUP)

TUNE IN/TUNE OUT

Remember the ‘90s when the biggest problem facing that generation was a lack of identity? If you don’t, then just watch “Fight Club.” Even if you do know what I’m talking about, watch it anyway.

Sometimes I wonder if our genera-tion has found an identity. I’m not so sure that we have, but that’s not our fault really. How the hell can we build ourselves an identity when every five years our society advances fifty? Con-sider all the technological advances we’ve made in the last twenty years. We went from having computers taking up an entire room to having a computer in our pockets. That’s not the future, it’s the present.

Where can you find a generation-al identity when somebody reinvents the wheel every year? There’s none to be found because an identity requires permanence to establish itself. Our generation is riding a surging wave of technology. Identity as we have known it can’t exist atop a wave, so either our generation gives up on having an iden-tity, or we forge an identity as no one has seen before.

If someone out there reinvents the wheel every year, then we reinvent our identity every year. We have the luxury of picking and choosing which state of the art wheels we want on our identi-ty. If you don’t like one, then give it a year or two and you’ll have several new models to choose from. We’re living in the future people; time to let the past be the past.

The ‘90s had it tough. They didn’t get the same amount of technology to play with, but we’re suffering from the same problem this generation is. There’s almost no stability to be found in soci-ety anymore. Back in the day you had absolute faith in the head of state, but thanks to technology (I’m looking at you, social media) we know that there are heads of state elsewhere that are not good people. And if it can happen over there, why not here?

That’s where this generation is com-ing from. For the first time we have a generation of young people growing up with a global consciousness. That’s truly insane, if you consider how insular we were just fifty years ago. Back in the ‘60s we were growing a global conscious-ness (those crazy hippies) but they only knew what their own country was do-ing. And even that was circumspect at best. Now we know what most other countries are doing, and not only that we have several voices all saying differ-ent things about the same topic. Let’s face it: we’re spoiled for choice.

Our generation has so many options available to us that it’s little wonder why we don’t really have an identity. It’s hard to choose on direction when we’re being pulled every which way you can imag-ine. But that’s the downside to riding the wave of the future – you can’t really direct a wave. We’re just along for the ride.

leahys112@mytru.ca

Steve LeahyCONTRIBUTOR Ω

Give us your words!We’ve got room for you. If you’ve got an opinion on a weekly basis, why not pitch it to us and put it on paper? Politics? Social issues? Student life? Tell us all about it and you might find yourself on this very page. If you’re interested in hearing more, write to editor@truomega.ca.

Why the real world is different: managing stress in post-secondaryPost-secondary might be the best time to learn how to manage stress, but it’s not an easy place to do it

A letter to the editor

Don’t be that guy: Rancid Roommates

4 March 11, 2015

Three TRU students, in as many days, were in court last week facing charges for violent crimes.

Vladislav Arnautov, a 23-year-old business student, was released on bail March 3 after being charged with assault causing bodily harm. Accord-ing to a recent report by Kamloops This Week, Arnautov admitted to beating and choking his girlfriend, also a TRU student, before being arrested Feb. 26. The pair was liv-ing in an apartment off campus where the assault allegedly took place.

Arnautov has since been placed on house arrest, al-though he will still be attending classes (accompanied by a friend, as per his release restrictions). The March 3 ruling also forbid him from contacting his girlfriend in any way, KTW reported.

The following day, law student Houtan Sanandaji appeared in court for a year-old assault charge.

Kings Chukwemeka Odemena, also a business student, rounded out

the week with a charge of sexual as-sault. The 30-year-old made his first court appearance March 5.

While TRU refused to comment on any specific case, dean of students Christine Adam said the university works with authorities when a stu-dent is involved in violent crime to make sure any restrictions are abided by. The RCMP has a liaison officer specifically appointed to facilitate communication with schools and universities.

“We’re ensuring safety and we’re ensuring ability to function academi-cally,” Adam said. “So really it’s about understanding the student’s sched-ule, and if it involves both students, understanding both of their sched-ules and setting up a clear plan for how they’re going to go about their daily lives.”

According to Duane Seibel, direc-tor of Student and Judicial Affairs, communication between TRU and authorities varies from case to case.

“In situations where the alleged victim is also a student, then the communication would be often and there would be follow up,” he said. “If the alleged victim is not a student, less [communication exists].”

While TRU has practices they have developed to deal with students involved with violent crimes, Adam

said these practices are not included in any official policy.

Adam also said there is no set way that TRU finds out if a student has been charged with a vi-olent crime. Some-times it is the stu-dent being charged that reports the re-strictions placed on him or her so that the university can

make accommodations.According to both Seibel and

Adam, a criminal charge, including a charge of violent crime, does not automatically prevent a student from continuing studies.

TRU’s Suspension of Students policy says a student may be sus-pended “for unsatisfactory conduct,

for failure to abide by university regulations and/or policies, or for consistent failure to demonstrate ad-equate effort in the pursuit of educa-tional progress.”

Both Seibel and Adam stressed that only TRU’s president may sus-pend or expel a student, although Student and Judicial Affairs investi-gates each case.

Adam would not speak to last week’s media reports, which named two of the three accused as interna-tional students, but said there could be many cases where a TRU student appears in court but is not singled out.

“There are a lot of people in this community who may be encounter-

ing the legal system who may or may not be here [on campus]… I guess I question whether it’s actually rele-vant,” she said.

She added that TRU’s orientation familiarizes all international students with the Canadian legal system.

“Laws are obviously different from country to country,” she said. “Even just cues about how people are be-having might be culturally specific.”

A legal information seminar is held each semester by Student and Judicial Affairs and TRU’s RCMP liaison officer and is mandatory for new international students. Accord-ing to Seibel, topics covered include dating, consent, alcohol use, violence and personal safety.

The current CBC business model is going to die, according to its president.

The public broadcaster is cur-rently facing issues with funding and keeping viewers, listeners and readers engaged and needs to find new ways to do both, said CBC President and CEO Hubert LaC-roix during a discussion on public broadcast’s future, hosted by the RTA School of Media on March 5.

Currently, the CBC receives funding from the federal govern-ment and through television and radio advertisements. The gov-ernment has cut its funding to the CBC by $115 million over the past three years in the 2012 fed-eral budget. Radio and television ads on CBC and Radio-Canada stations were estimated to bring in $15 million to $20 million but failed to actually produce that much revenue.

With 657 jobs eliminated last year alone due to budget cuts, and having eliminated its competitive rights to broadcast profession-al sports except those of national significance like the Olympics or the upcoming PanAm Games, the CBC and Radio-Canada need to find a new source of revenue.

“The funding model of receiving a cheque from the [federal] gov-ernment and lobbying like crazy so that your cheque is not weaker or smaller than the one that you

got the year before is not the best funding model,” LaCroix said.

“Not only do we [have to show] great content, we [have to] justify in the eyes of our citizens that we are actually a benefit to the econ-omy.”

In 2011 and in 2013, the CBC paid Deloitte, an accounting firm in London, U.K., for a study that found that for every dollar allo-cated to the CBC by taxpayers generates $4 in jobs, taxes, cre-ative industries and investments.

“We fuel the economy, we’re just not an expense. People think, ‘Oh geez! I’m giving 29 bucks to CBC/Radio-Canada for these programs!’ No. You’re giving 29 bucks to get the programs, plus [a] reinvestment of close to four bucks in the Canadian economy,” said LaCroix.

The CBC’s $913-million bud-get this year makes it one of the most poorly-funded public broad-casters in the world. The average worldwide funding of a country’s public broadcaster per capita is $82 per year. The CBC only re-ceives $29 per capita annually, which is then further divided by time zones and broadcasting in Canada’s two official languages. Compared to top players like the BBC, which receives $97 per cap-ita annually to broadcast in one language and one time zone, the CBC has eight to nine times less funding, but is expected to pro-duce the same amount and quality of content, said LaCroix.

Creating engaging content

across multiple platforms is an-other issue the CBC is tackling.

LaCroix said the Internet is a new source of search and display but not of advertising revenue for the CBC. With 90 per cent of Canadians watching live tele-vision for about 28 hours a week, LaCroix said it ’s now a question of how to maintain the pub-lic’s interest with those who still watch by-appointment television and those who are accessing con-tent from multiple screens, like phones, tablets or laptops.

“The challenge that we have is to try to make sure the content we create is relevant,” LaCroix said, adding that people expect each platform to have unique content.

CBC anchor Charlsie Argo, who co-hosted the discussion, said that there has to be a change in storytelling because people are being “bombarded” with social media all day and the CBC needs to keep their interest for the 6 p.m. news.

“What do you want to see at six o’clock? And how can we tell it to you in a way that ’s going to keep you watching, when chances are you already know the facts?” Argo said.

LaCroix said that the challenge is connecting with Canadians one-on-one because now they are more likely to trust social media rather than a news anchor.

Argo said that “in an age where people are following people, lit-erally, on social media, it ’s even more important [to have hosts

or anchors] to guide you through that sea of information.”

To cater to this, the CBC and Radio-Canada are going to offer news in a variety of digital plat-forms. Lacroix said that televi-sion news would be more geared

toward millennials who use dif-ferent platforms. Radio-Cana-da is already experimenting with this on its evening news program, where it goes in depth for three to four stories instead of 20-second clips of the day’s news events.

NEWS

“We’re ensuring safety and we’re ensuring ability to function academically,”

Christine Adam, TRU dean of students

Alexis StockfordNEWS EDITOR Ω

Deni VerklanTHE FULCRUM (CUP)

Students charged with violent crimesThree TRU students appear in court in as many days

CBC must adapt or die, CEO says

Chris Potter/Flickr Commons

5The Omega Ω Volume 24 • Issue 23 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

PhotoMathAndroid, iOS, Win 8 MobileFree

I’m pretty sure this app is straight from the future. It uses your phone’s camera to scan and solve math problems in real time.

Until this year, an app like this only existed inside The Big Bang Theory universe and, while Pho-toMath doesn’t solve the same quantum physics equations Shel-don Cooper encounters, it does perform reasonably well on alge-bra problems.

The user interface of the app is intuitive. It works more or less the

same way as any generic camera app, but instead of a shutter but-ton to snap a photo, you’re pre-sented with a small rectangle in the middle of your screen. Using hand gestures, you can resize this rectangle to precisely fit it to the math equation you’re trying to solve. Just hover over the equation for a few seconds and you’ll be giv-en the answer.

The app will also run you through the steps it took to solve the equation, so you can actually understand the process required to solve it yourself (or verify that the app did the math correctly).

The app does have some limits. It can only solve equations up to a limited threshold of complexity, and it doesn’t recognize handwrit-ing. Apparently the developer is

working on upgrades to address these limits, though.

Adobe Photoshop ExpressAndroid, iOS, Windows 8 MobileFree (with paid premium features)

Whereas apps like Instagram and Camu exist to help the social sharer quickly spice up photos with filters, Adobe Photoshop Express offers a more precise and technical approach for editing photos.

With this app you essentially get a backstage pass to all the knobs and dials that professionals adjust to create the filters you see on In-stagram. This includes adjusting your photo’s lighting, boosting or reducing its saturation and alter-ing its overall tones.

You also get a small arsenal of precision tools that allow you to straighten an uneven horizon, re-move blemishes, and fix red eye.

Smartphones these days typical-ly shoot higher resolution photos than standalone digital cameras did a decade ago, so I think a mo-bile app geared towards more se-rious editing is totally warranted.

Camera ZOOM freeAndroid, iOSFree(But time is money and this will waste it. Also there’s a paid premium version that will waste actual money.)

Whoever built this app clearly doesn’t understand how cameras work.

Camera ZOOM defies the sci-ence of optics and tries to claim it will let your camera zoom in three times closer to your subject (or thirty times closer, if you pay).

Oh yeah, I’ll get right on that!I’m not dumb enough to pay

$5.99 for the premium version, but I already know that if I did, my 30-times-enlarged photo would resemble an abstract mosaic of

pixels taken from a crashed NES game.

That’s because most smart-phone cameras (including mine) simply don’t have a true capacity to zoom, and no app will change that. For a camera lens to properly zoom closer to an image without distorting it, the lens must have a series of glass elements that move towards and away from each oth-er, essentially bending the light it takes in. This is called “optical zooming.”

Digital cameras try to simulate optical zooming with something called “digital zooming.” The thing is, digital zooming essentially just means cropping a photo to make it seem like it was taken from closer up. And that’s all this app does.

Your phone probably already lets you do limited digital zooming with its stock camera app anyways, and I guarantee any smartphone camera with the hardware to sup-port optical zooming (like the Asus Zenfone Zoom) also come with the software to let you use it.

Have an app you want reviewed? Let us know! Or just write it yourself. We’re always looking for contributors. Reach out to sci-tech@truomega.ca.

Ryan TurcotSCIENCE & TECH EDITOR Ω

Apps of the week: Push your camera’s limits

“It was like a death,” Jacin-da Mack began. “We cried. We grieved.”

The town of Likely, B.C. was devastated last year when Mount Polley, a local gold and copper mine, experienced a breach in its tailings storage facility.

Roughly 13.8 thousand cubic metres of tailings slurry spilled into Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, according to a report from Imperial Metals, the company that owns the mine.

“I don’t even call it Hazeltine Creek anymore, because it ’s not,” said Mack, a mining response co-ordinator for the Northern Shuswap Tribal Council.

Mack is touring B.C.’s uni-versities to raise awareness on the disaster’s impact on both the Secwepemc people and the general public.

“If you don’t know where you are right now, you are in Secwepem-culecw,” she told a packed room in Old Main last week. “In most of Secwepemculecw it ’s quite dry, but out in Quesnel Lake there’s rain-forest. There are medicines and foods out there that we can’t get anywhere else.”

According to Mack, Quesnel Lake was an important source of potable water before the disaster. In fact, the town of Likely relied on it, and went four months with-out access to clean tap water after the contamination.

“On a clear, calm day you could

have easily seen to the bottom of the lake,” she said. “It was that clean.”

In the wake of the contamina-tion, Mack said toxins have accu-mulated in the region’s salmon as well as other local wildlife that prey on the salmon.

“A lot of communities decided not to harvest salmon,” she said, noting that salmon are an im-portant traditional food source for the Secwepemc people. “We have a land-based economy that [the Secwepemc] are still very closely connected to.”

“Sometimes when I’m talking to people they’ll ask me, ‘Do you guys really still live that way? Like, really? I see you guys in Save-on-Foods and Costco.’”

Mack has a simple answer to the question: “Yes, we still do live this way, but it ’s becoming tougher to.”

“A question that remains is if our children will be able to,” she said. “It ’s becoming less and less frequent for us to have our tradi-tional food because it ’s becoming more scarce.”

Mack hopes that mines else-where in B.C. will take note of the Mount Polley disaster and think twice about their risk management plans.

“The Mount Polley spill was never supposed to happen,” she said. “They believed it was an im-possible event.”

The Government of British Co-lumbia commissioned a geotech-nical report to assess the cause of the disaster after it happened, ac-cording to environmental studies professor Michael Mehta. He said

the main problem was that the mine was situated on soft glacial till sediment.

“The mine did not anticipate or understand exactly how building on it could cause disasters, espe-cially as it continued to increase the height of the containment system [beyond its original capac-ity].”

In response to the spill, Mack said the Northern Shuswap Trib-al Council wants to take proactive

measures to help prevent other mines in Secwepemculecw from experiencing similar disasters.

“We have this new process where there’s a principal’s table that puts our chiefs at the same table as the ministers,” she said. “We also have a new mining policy that we put out on Dec. 1 last year.”

The policy Mack referred to is the Northern Secwepmec te Qelmucw (NStQ) Mining Policy, and she said “it pulls together the

best mining practices and indig-enous laws from worldwide into one comprehensive document, and outlines our minimum standards for operations within our territo-ry.”

“What happens if this happens at another mine in Secwepem-culecw?” she asked the crowd. “You have mines around Kamloops. What happens if they go? How will your water be impacted?”

Ryan TurcotSCIENCE & TECH EDITOR Ω

Murky future following Mount Polley spillTribal council speaks to disaster’s effects on Secwepemc community

Jacinda Mack speaks about the Mount Polley disaster at TRU on March 3. (Ryan Turcot/The Omega)

6 March 11, 2015

2015 MOSAIC FASHION SHOW

Multiple TRUSU clubs presented at the 2015 Mosaic Fashion Show held in the Grand Hall on March 6.

More photos online at truomega.ca.

Photos by Kim Anderson

7The Omega Ω Volume 24 • Issue 23

How would you react if you were told that from this day forward, you would begin to forget everything you once knew about your life? That your friends and family would become strangers, your hometown an unfamiliar place and your career a completely foreign subject?

For New York City-based linguistics professor Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), the unthinkable becomes a re-ality. Still Alice follows Howland as she is diagnosed with ear-ly-onset Alzheimer’s at 50, and the struggle to overcome in-credible amounts of adversity to keep a level head. Howland is a strong, spirited and intelligent woman with a successful job and family, which is all put on hold while she faces the biggest battle of her life head-on.

For Moore, it had to have been a tough role to play, but she played it well.

With a plotline so focused on what’s going on inside How-land’s brain, her face managed to mimic every intricate men-tal change, making it easier for the audience to empathize with the character. It’s been said that actions speak louder than words, and this is clear with each of Moore’s furrowed brows, lip trembles and blank stares.

Howland’s family played a large role in outlining how her

situation affected everyone around her. Howland’s husband John (Alec Baldwin) watches her decline 24/7, and must make some gut-wrenching decisions to keep his family’s head above water. Her eldest daughter Anna (Kate Bosworth), a bullheaded mother-to-be, is undoubtedly the most per-turbed by her mother’s condition. From the start of the film to the end there is a visible shift in which Anna begins to crumble under the weight of her mother’s disease. Only son Tom (Hunter Parrish) is the least significant role, keeping quiet for most of the movie. Youngest daughter Lydia (Kris-ten Stewart) starts off as the black sheep of the family, but ul-timately ends up as the glue that holds their world together.

The movie follows a story that could be a reality for anyone, which makes it that much more emotional and un-nerving for the audience. While there were snippets of black humour throughout (usually exchanges between Howland and Lydia), in the end it was a major tearjerker. At times the plot was hard to follow with large jumps in time and only the surface of early-onset Alzheimer’s was scratched. However, by the end of the 99 minutes the audience had a clear connection with each of the characters and left feeling emotional for Howland and her family.

Citizenfour is a factual documentary that has all the tension and suspense of a fictional spy thrill-er. The documentary tells the story of how NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents to the media that proved that the NSA and its part-ners in other countries intercepted and stored a vast amount of private electronic communication between citizens without their consent.

Keen followers of the Snowden leak may be dis-appointed that the documentary does not reveal much in the way of new leaked documents, but instead tells a very human story. As Snowden re-veals the scale of the government agency’s breach of trust, the audience is painted a vivid picture of a brave group of people facing off against an almost omnipotent force.

In an early scene, Snowden recommends that one of the journalists encrypt their emails with a password “strong enough to resist an adversary capable of a trillion guesses per minute.” A later

scene, in which Snowden suggests that the fire alarm, which has suddenly interrupted his conver-sation with the journalists, may be the CIA trying to flush them from the building. The scene carries as much claustrophobic tension as the depth charge attack in Das Boot. In the face of an enemy that completely dominates modern electronic commu-nication, Snowden’s meeting with the documentary crew is forced to rely on methods that would have been familiar to Cold War spies or the journalists that broke Watergate. The result is a face to face conversation in front of the camera that chronicles both the process of deciding how much of the se-cret documents to publish, and also how much of a public role Snowden should play.

Snowden is portrayed as a willing martyr but a reluctant hero. He seems resigned to the long odds that he is working against and is happy to go to jail for his actions but is unsure about becoming the face of the leak in the media. Snowden maintains

throughout the documentary that the leak is not about him, but Citizenfour certainly is. The docu-mentary is a humanizing account of the man that the United States government tried to portray as a hardened spy and traitor. Snowden is seen eating room service and fretfully typing out emails to his girlfriend, with whom he did not share his plans. If there is one thing that Citizenfour offers that pre-vious records of the Snowden leak did not, it is a look into Snowden’s intentions framed in his own words. It is clear that Snowden took great pains to self-censor what he released so that it would not harm U.S. citizens, only inform them of their gov-ernment’s conduct.

Citzenfour was an excellent documentary that is deserving of every award that it has received. It is a tremendously important film that succeeded in fully realizing and documenting a small part of what will be remembered as one of the most important historical events of our time.

“A mother doesn’t wake up in the morning not loving her son,” Diane Després said to her son in the film Mommy.

The film is directed by Xavier Dolan and re-cently won best motion picture at the 2015 Ca-nadian Screen Awards. The film was also Canada’s official submission to the 87th Academy Awards foreign film category.

The strongest theme in Mommy is love. Love comes in a raw and slightly twisted form be-tween Després and her teenage son, Steve, who has ADHD.

After losing his father, Steve’s disorder wors-ens, prompting outbursts of violence which leaves his mother more disheveled each time. Steve is released to Diane after being institution-alized and together they struggle to make ends meet and get Steve through high school, which takes some help from a neighbour, Kyla, the third major character in the film.

The film’s greatest strength is its gritty and

frustrated characters, which are portrayed by talented actors Anne Dorval (Diane), Antoine Olivier Pilon (Steve) and Suzanne Clément (Kyla).

Steve is especially easy to adore as a character. When he’s up, he’s really up, and the world is a beautiful joke to him. His love is abundant, and his realness brings laughter and joy to Diane and Kyla. When he’s down the audience sympathizes with the teenage boy who struggles with the fact he isn’t “normal.”

Another strength of the film is the way it pairs its scenes, happy and sad, with complementary music.

Humour doesn’t play a big role in the film, but it is woven into a few situations. When things have started looking up, Diane walks home on a quiet street with a spring in her step and a full bag of groceries in each hand. When both bags suddenly burst at the same time, sending grocer-ies rolling around on the pavement, Diane just stands there, frozen and staring straight ahead.

The film runs for 139 minutes, and although some scenes are overly long, they are well-edit-ed. They yo-yo from blissful scenes, always bathed in golden light, to darker scenes that use music and editing to build the tension until it bursts.

Although the Kamloops Film Festival website states that the movie is in English and French with English subtitles, don’t be fooled, it is entire-ly in French. The only English words are some of the profanities, which are numerous, and Amer-ican products.

If you speak French, there won’t be an issue, but as Mommy is dialogue heavy, reading the sub-titles gets tiring. It’s also hard to get the full ex-perience of the film when your eyes must keep going back to read what’s at the bottom of the screen.

Mommy is a powerful film about emotional strain, loneliness and the love that connects us to family and friends. Despite the length and the subtitles, it’s worth watching.

Citizenfour

Still Alice

Mommy

Review by Jim Elliot

Review by Rachel Wood

Review by Tayla Scott

Showing at the Kamloops Film Fest the week of March 11: Mountain Men – Two Days, One Night – Big News from Grand Rock – What We Do in the Shadows – Winter Sleep – When the Ocean Met the Sky

Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stwewart

Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin

Starring: Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément

8 March 11, 2015NEWS

2015

VO

TENOMINATIONS OPEN

NOMINATIONS CLOSE

ALL CANDIDATES MEETING

CANDIDATE POSTINGS RELEASEDCAMPAIGNING BEGINS

ELECTION COVERAGE IN THE OMEGA

ALL CANDIDATES FORUM, 7 P.M. TRUSU

POLLING OPENS, 8 A.M. TRUSU

POLLING CLOSES – 4 P.M.

ELECTION RESULTS RELEASED

March 2

March 13

March 14

March 16

March 18

March 23

March 25

March 26

March 27

TRUSU ELECTION TIMELINE

PRESIDENT

25HOURS/WEEK

10HOURS/WEEK

10HOURS/WEEK

ABORIGINAL REPRESENTATIVE

VICE PRESIDENT EXTERNAL

GRADUATE STUDENTS’ REP

VICE PRESIDENT FINANCE

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ REP

VICE PRESIDENT INTERNAL

LGBTQ REPRESENTATIVE

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATIVE

DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE (4)

Executive

Advocacy

Directors-at-large

POSITIONSAVAILABLE

4 EXECUTIVE5 ADVOCACY4 DIRECTORS AT LARGE

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the TRU Faculty As-sociation’s status of women commit-tee held a luncheon on Friday, March 6, honouring Brigitta O’Regan and Maxine Ruvinsky. Both women were acknowledged as part of TRUFA’s Notable Women series.

This year, the series recognized TRU staff or faculty, retired or active-ly teaching, who have “contributed outstanding service and commitment to the development” of the school, according to a TRUFA newsletter calling for nominations. The first honouree in 2013 was the late Lin-da Deutschmann, once a sociology professor at TRU before retiring. Deutschmann passed away in 2008.

Brigitta O’ReganBrigitta O’Regan began at the

University College of the Cariboo in 1990 as a sessional lecturer with a PhD in 18th century German litera-ture. O’Regan’s most prominent con-tribution to the development of TRU was her instrumental leadership in changing the policy of mandatory retirement, arguing that “women are disproportionately disadvantaged by mandatory retirement provisions,” according to her Notable Women Series poster.

“It wasn’t just retirement, it was mandatory retirement. The institu-tion did not have to choose that way, because [mandatory retirement] was gone within three months and it was no effort to rehire us back,” O’Regan said. “For any institution that claims to educate young people, you have to have an ethical basis.”

O’Regan became an assistant pro-fessor in 1998. During her eight years at TRU, O’Regan made many friends as she sat on numerous committees including the Study Abroad commit-tee and acted as chair of the TRUFA Human Rights Committee and the TRU Africa committee. O’Regan helped create and develop TRU’s Study Abroad office while also for-tifying relationships with German universities for study abroad oppor-tunities.

“She would find out when a stu-dent might need some assistance or she would give people one-on-one language tutoring free of charge so they could represent TRU better,” said Ginny Ratsoy, associate profes-sor in the English department.

For Ratsoy, one of the most admi-rable traits of both O’Regan and Ru-vinsky is their fearlessness.

“It’s what I admire most about both of them, because, for me, it’s the toughest thing to have,” Ratsoy said. “They won’t stop.”

When describing O’Regan, Ratsoy used words like tenacious, compas-sionate and warm. Ratsoy noted that O’Regan’s parties at her home were always welcoming and filled with great home-cooked food.

For O’Regan, the luncheon allowed her to see her friends and colleagues that she hasn’t seen since retiring.

“It’s better to be appreciated amongst peers than [to be] appreciat-ed by anyone else, because they know what it takes to do what you’ve done,” O’Regan said.

Maxine RuvinskyMaxine Ruvinsky came to TRU

in 1999 with a PhD in comparative literature, and is one of the found-ing members of TRU’s bachelor of journalism program. Ruvinsky’s most prominent contribution to the development of TRU is her aide in developing the journalism program by creating “many of the core courses that have inspired and educated new

generations of journalists,” according to her Notable Women Series poster.

Although Ruvinsky was unable to attend the luncheon and speak per-sonally on her time at TRU, Eileen Leier, associate professor in the visual and performing arts department and a close colleague, stood up and spoke on her time knowing Ruvinsky. Also from Montreal, Leier watched Ru-vinsky establish the academic direc-tion that the journalism program now takes.

“I think within Maxine’s character, is a phenomenal intellect, but along with the phenomenal intellect, she has passion, compassion and com-mitment. She has that as an investi-gative journalist, as a writer and as a teacher,” Leier said. “She brings those things to her teaching and I think that inspires students.”

Her fellow honouree O’Regan thanked Ruvinsky for her support.

“Being [recognized] with Maxine makes a huge difference because I’m a great fan. She was very supportive when all of us had to go through mandatory retirement with no warn-ing,” O’Regan said.

For Terryl Atkins, Ruvinsky is best described as “a force to be reckoned with.” Both met while acting on the curriculum committee, where Atkins remembers them laughing at similar points and “being on the same page.”

“When we started talking, it was about education, it was about what it means to teach a generation of students that are going to go on and become active human agents in the world,” Atkins said. “I think that’s one of the things that propels her forward. Teaching is an honorable activity.”

Outside of TRU but still within the realm of her passion for journalism, Ruvinsky is part of several national organizations: the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Canadian Centre for In-vestigative Reporting and the Cana-dian Association of Journalists.

A particular passion noted by both Atkins and Leier is Ruvsinky’s strong belief and encouragement of respon-sibility and ethics.

“She teaches ethics and that’s very important to her – being responsible for your actions in the world,” Atkins said.

Ashley WadhwaniISSUES EDITOR Ω

Status of women committee celebrates notable facultyBrigitta O’Regan and Maxine Ruvinsky honoured at luncheon for commendable work at TRU

Brigitta O’Regan has a laugh with the crowd when talking about her time in Ghana, Africa. (Ashley Wadhwani/The Omega)

Eileen Leier holds Maxine Ruvinsky’s notable women series poster in her hand while speaking on her time knowing Ruvinsky. (Ashley Wadhwani/The Omega)

9The Omega Ω Volume 24 • Issue 23 NEWS

When my parents told me they were moving to Fort McMurray, Alta. about a year and a half ago, I was more than a little taken aback. After all, we had lived in North Bay, Ont. for most of my adolescence and I always figured they would just retire there after my brother and I went off to university.

But, after they sat us down and ex-plained the situation, it all made sense. If my dad worked at a mining equip-ment company in Fort McMurray for just five years he could effectively cut his retirement time in half, and the two of them could have enough cash left over to finally buy that house on Trout Lake they had always wanted.

I actually started to get a little ex-cited at the idea of visiting them. Not only would I get to see them in their new digs, but I would also get the op-portunity to visit the hub of Canada’s energy sector, and see what it was like for myself.

Up until that point, I had mostly learned about Fort McMurray through the filter of the media or from word of mouth. Many people likened this high-profile municipality to a modern day frontier town: a rough and tumble place that would seem right at home in an old-school Hollywood western.

When I finally got to visit Fort Mc-Murray this past Thanksgiving week-end, I found that several of the city’s characteristics—namely its picturesque geographic isolation and infectious “gold rush” atmosphere—backed up that claim.

But more than anything, I found Fort McMurray to be a town full of dramatic inconsistencies.

Poorly built roads and condemned condominiums were a particular eyesore during our initial drive into town, especially contrasted against the beautiful new $258-million airport my brother and I arrived at. I had a similarly jarring experience when our family went to see a movie at Fort Mc-Murray’s only theatre. Even though my parents had spent all day showing us local engineering marvels like the gigantic community centre and the brand new sports stadium, the theatre itself had the size and comfort of a shoebox. And although the area is full of gorgeous forestry and running trails, it was really hard to get past the sight of the oil sands themselves, which kind of look like the pride lands in The Lion King after Scar took over.

All and all, it was still a great week-end, but the town’s blatant lack of uni-formity stuck with me well past the plane ride back.

In fairness, this kind of uneven development may just be growing pains—the symptom of living in a community that is so intrinsically tied to the booming oil industry. But now that oil prices are plummeting, Fort McMurray’s image of financial invin-cibility might be on the rocks—and with it may be thousands of prospec-tive job opportunities for Canadian students.

Land of opportunityOf course, the main reason why this

Alberta city attracts thousands upon thousands of Canadians like my par-ents every year is because it has been framed as a guaranteed source of jobs

and wealth. And why not? Because of their close proximity to the oil sands, the residents of the Regional Munici-pality of Wood Buffalo have managed to carve out a prosperous living for themselves. According to the area’s 2012 census, the median household income for a local resident is $190,470, more than twice that of the average Canadian.

This economic narrative has attract-ed the attention of multitudes of young people, especially fresh university grad-uates looking to find steady employ-ment early in their careers.

Sam Gough, a recent communica-tions graduate from the University of Ottawa, cast herself into this migrating horde. Gough arrived in Fort McMur-ray in October 2014, deciding to live there after months of failing to find reliable post-graduate employment in Ontario.

“I couldn’t get a job where I was making salary,” Gough says, now work-ing two jobs at a local restaurant and at Service Canada. “I’m still not doing what I went to school for, but at least I have a full-time job and I can use that to transfer back home eventually.”

This image of financial reliability has been shaken as of late, since the price of oil has been on a steady de-cline since June. As of this writing, the price of oil is hovering around $49 per barrel, significantly down from its tri-ple digit value last spring.

The effect on Fort McMurray has been dramatic. Not only have new projects relating to the oil sands been halted, many of the contract workers have up and left. Fort McMurray’s reputation as a bastion for job-hungry students has also been compromised, with engineering graduates reeling from an unprecedented lack of job op-portunities. This economic downturn has even transcended beyond the oil industry, and is influencing people’s day-to-day lives.

“(The price of oil) isn’t just affecting people who are working on the oil, but the whole town is suffering,” Gough says. “Nobody wants to go out for dinner. Nobody wants to spend their money and go to the movies. People are just being… cautious.”

However, as many industry experts have already pointed out, Fort Mc-Murray has been in this situation be-fore, having successfully bounced back from crippling oil recessions in 2008 and in the 1980s.

Andrew Leach, an associate profes-sor at the Alberta School of Business, says he remains skeptical of the doom and gloom rhetoric surrounding the future of the Wood Buffalo commu-nity.

“McMurray is really the centre of the most mature part of the oil sands industry,” he says. “That town is much more reliant on the operating of (com-panies like) Suncor, Syncrude, CNRL, Shell, Kearl, all of those projects, than it is entirely on the construction of new projects.”

This kind of analysis still doesn’t provide much comfort for residents like Gough, who is uneasy about the coming months.

Shadows over Fort MacThe recent economic downturn

highlights another overriding concern about Fort McMurray: its apparent lack of a strong, tightly knit commu-nity.

This conversation largely centres around Fort McMurray’s “shad-ow population”—a group of around 40,000 workers who fly in to the community for a couple of months of work and fly out when their jobs are done. Some might suggest that a town populated largely by temporary work-ers does not encourage the growth of a healthy communal atmosphere, espe-cially now that many of these workers have abandoned the city in search of more fruitful opportunities.

As a relatively new member of Fort McMurray, Gough echoes these con-cerns. She says many of the people she knows aren’t really taken with the idea of sticking around for too long.

“People are only working up here,” she says. “People book vacations to get away from here … Nobody stays around when they have time off.”

But some maintain that the local community is perfectly capable of promoting growth and expansion. Scott Schellenberg, a colleague of my dad’s at SMS Equipment, has lived in Fort McMurray with his family for almost 15 years and is in no hurry to move anytime soon.

“It’s a fantastic family community and that’s something that the press never seems to get right,” he says. “In the neighbourhood that I live, my son … can run out the front door and ride his bike and disappear out of sight and I don’t have to worry.”

Furthermore, Schellenberg says he believes the reduced oil sands activity will only improve their current situ-ation, since this downtime will allow the community to develop at a normal pace.

“(We) never have been able to catch up to the infrastructure. The growth has well outpaced their ability to build to suit the infrastructure of the pop-ulation,” he says. “Times like this are fantastic, where you can just let your road infrastructure catch up, and the housing prices kind of normalize a little bit.”

Ethical tug of warOutside of these internal concerns,

Fort McMurray’s well-being is also threatened by outside dissenters who object to the ethical nature of its num-

ber one money maker: the oil sands. With the increasing frequency of

divestment movements on university campuses and heavily critical celeb-rities like Neil Young, the fossil fuel industry has been receiving a beating in the media—which could affect the community’s economic viability in the future.

Joan Haysom, a senior researcher and manager of solar projects at the U of O, says she considers the current hubbub over oil prices to be insignif-icant in the long run. Energy sources like wind and solar offer up consid-erable benefits to fossil fuels and are even starting to hit grid-competitive prices, she says.

“The oil industry is going to be a boom-bust industry that’s dependent on global political aspects, like on wars, on decisions of foreign countries made in times of crisis,” says Haysom.

“It’s extremely volatile, compared to other industries that can be a much more stable source of energy and a healthy source of economic growth for our country.”

Schellenberg doesn’t see it as cut and dry as that. He says that, at least for the time being, fossil fuels are a ne-cessity in our society.

“The oil sands are here for the long term,” he says. “In our generation, and probably in the generation to come, my suspicion is that we’re still going to need an awful lot of oil and these guys will be around to produce it.”

Missing from the day-to-day news reports, he says, is the progress that has been made in terms of the indus-try’s environmental policy. Syncrude Canada Limited, one of Fort Mc-Murray’s biggest employers, has been particularly vocal about their recla-mation projects. According to the oil producer’s website, more than 3,400 hectares of land have been success-fully reclaimed in the Wood Buffalo area. One of these reclamation sites even includes a wood bison range—a welcome sight after my dreary drive through the oil sands.

Still, the effectiveness of these proj-ects has received, to put it generously, mixed reactions from scientists and environmentalists. Schellenberg says that’s OK.

“It’s good to have watchdogs and it’s good to have people pushing back on these guys because it does make them better and it holds them accountable. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

However, now that the use of re-newable energy in Canada is on the rise ,and bad press surrounding fossil fuels is never in short supply, it might not be wise for the residents of Fort McMurray to put all their eggs in one basket.

Modern day manifest destinyI’d say uncertainty is probably the

best way to define Fort McMur-ray. For relatively new residents like Gough, the area’s fluctuating econom-ic prospects prompt second thoughts about staying for the long term.

“I would like to move somewhere else. I don’t want to be here forever,” says Gough. “My plan is probably to stick it out for like a year, and just get the experience and then move on.”

As for my own parents, while they do have a distinct exit strategy in mind, anything could happen be-tween now and five years from now. My brother hinted recently that he’s interested in finding a job in Fort McMurray after he graduates from Queen’s, which could throw a monkey wrench into that whole plan.

Having said that, this sense of un-predictability is what sparked my in-terest in Fort McMurray in the first place. Here’s a community that’s pop-ulated by people who have uprooted their lives to try their luck at “making it big” in a western town that’s 435 kilometres away from another major urban centre.

This kind of modern manifest des-tiny has led to the creation of a com-munity that’s simultaneously modern and archaic, a fascinating conundrum that has become the centre of a na-tional discussion on economics, urban development, and environmentalism. However, like many experiments, there is always a distinct possibility of failure.

Just like the sun always sets in the West, the sun might be setting on Fort McMurray’s status as modern day boom town. Although, only time will tell.

Kyle DarbysonTHE FULCRUM (CUP)

In the wake of falling oil prices, can Canadians rely on Fort McMurray as a steady source of jobs and income?A community built on sand

Fort McMurray, seen here in 2010. (eryn.rickard/Flickr Commons)

10 March 11, 2015COMICS & PUZZLES

SUDOKU5 1 3 6

7 2

2 5 6 9 7

9 5 7

8 3 1 5

7 2 8

6 1 7 5 2

4 6

7 4 6 3

Because you’re probably not doing enough math

Name:

1

2 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 12

13 14

15

16

17

Created on TheTeachersCorner.net Crossword Maker

C S RR S DO OW ΩYoung in da ‘90s

LAST WEEK’S CROSSWORD ANSWERS:ACROSS

1. RIFFS3. DOIN7. THREE

8. THEREMEM-BRANDTS9. ROSS10. PARIS12. MAURICE

15. CENTRALPERK

DOWN 2. SCIENCEBOY3. DUDLEYMOORE

4.DRAKERAMO-RAY5. HARMONICA6. DENTIST8. THANKSGIVING

11. SNOW13. CRAP14. WHERE

by Ashley Wadhwani

xkcd.com

Puzzle of the Week #18 – Number Grid

Each of the spaces in a three-by-three grid has one of the integers fromone to nine. Each value is used once.

1. The three values in the left column are consecutive odds.

2. The three values in the right column are consecutive evens.

3. The three values in the middle row are consecutive primes.

4. The three values in the bottom row are consecutive.

How are the integers arranged in the grid?

This contest is sponsored by the Mathematics and Statistics department. The

full-time student with the best score at the end of the year will win a prize.

Please submit your solution (not just the answer but also why) by noon next

Wednesday to Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net>. Submissions by others are

also welcome. The solution will be posted the Wednesday after that in my

blog (http://genew.ca/) and in the Math Centre (HL304). Come visit: we are

friendly.

11The Omega Ω Volume 24 • Issue 23 SPORTS

“If your boss came to you every morning and told you to ‘smart-en the F up cause you’re a dumb bitch,’ would you like it? Well that’s exactly what’s happening to the referees by the parents, and fouler language than that,” said Jim Humphrey, president of the Vancouver Island Amateur Hock-ey Association.

Referees for all age groups and in all sports must deal with verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse from spectators, coaches and players. It ’s an issue that is espe-cially common in hockey.

Penticton police are currently investigating a case that involves a Kamloops man who allegedly threatened the referees after his son’s game.

“Inside of a hockey rink, it seems that they get a free pass, and I think the days of these free passes need to disappear,” Humphrey said.

According to Humphrey, abuse has caused hundreds of referees to quit officiating for the Vancouver Island Amateur Hockey Associ-ation over the years. Humphrey believes this aggressive behaviour is ingrained in hockey culture. He remembers multiple incidences when the police had to be called to deal with violent parents.

“The biggest one took 17 police officers to control the fighting in-side the hockey rink by the specta-tors in the stands,” Humphrey said.

In the last month, Humphrey said at least 13 parents have been kicked out or banned from games for getting aggressive or verbally abusing the referees.

“We’ve tried many different things to try to deal with it but pretty much all of them have been unsuccessful,” he said.

But there is one thing that has been helping recently, and that’s the attitude of other parents.

“In the past parents weren’t wanting to get involved. They would just sit and be quiet and just hope the game ended. What’s happened now is that there are parents that are actually standing up in the game and they’re telling their peers to sit down and behave themselves,” Humphrey said.

Humphrey said parents have also started reporting abuse to their lo-cal Minor Hockey Associations.

“Now that this is out and par-ents are actually turning in the bad guys, we can investigate. Now, rather than punish all the parents, we can just take sanctions against those parents that are the ones do-ing the abusive behaviour,” Hum-phrey said.

Kamloops is not without its share of abuse incidents, either.

Jeremy Salamandyk, ex-equip-ment manager for TRU’s Wolf-Pack hockey team, works as a secu-rity guard at various minor hockey tournaments in Kamloops.

“I’ve seen parents freak out. A lot of times they’ll throw stuff on the ice or they’ll have vulgar lan-guage and profanities directed at the referees. I’ve seen parents at the [Kamloops International Ban-tam Ice Hockey Tournament] go after the officials in the parking lot,” Salamandyk said. “A couple times I got in between the officials and the parents. Once a dad tried to get in the referee’s room and I had to grab the dad and pull him out.”

Sean Raphael, referee chief for

BC Hockey, said referee abuse seems more common in minor hockey because, with over 50,000 players, it ’s the most abundant lev-el of hockey in the province. Minor hockey is often officiated by level one, or 12- to 16-year-old, refer-ees.

“I think a lot of it is a lack of information that the spectator or the person criticizing the offi-cials have,” Raphael said. “Rules are constantly being updated and changed. New rules are being cre-ated and old rules are being taken out on a bi-annual basis.”

A pre-requisite to officiate un-der BC Hockey is a four-hour online course through Hockey Canada. After that there are many training opportunities for refer-ees, from clinics to summer cours-es. Referees have their own coach-es and supervisors who watch their games and provide feedback. Referees must also get recertified annually.

“Hockey Canada also launched the rulebook as a mobile app with a live search function on it. It ’s free of charge and it can look up any rule, any incident, right through the search function,” Ra-phael said.

Kevin Bennett started working as a referee at age 12 and 15 years later he still loves it, despite often

being the subject of verbal abuse.On March 3, Bennett was one

of the referees that a Kamloops Blazers player got upset with af-ter the game. The player pushed one of the referees and yelled at Bennett. But Bennett didn’t take it personally.

“He’s a good guy. He doesn’t mean to do it, just his emo-tions were high,” Bennett said. “You can’t always make them happy, but you have to call the game fairly.”

Cam Weir, TRU business student and ex-WolfPack hockey player, said he has seen verbal abuse get so exten-sive that it pushed fairness out of the picture.

“One coach that I had in junior had a horrible rela-tionship with this one ref. It just seemed completely odd how one-sided every game he reffed was. There were a lot more calls against us and some of them were borderline almost made up,” Weir said.

“When you start getting on

the back of a referee, they tend to create a bias, whether they real-ize it or not and they’re not going to give you any favour, that ’s for sure,” Weir said.

In addition to coaches, Weir has also seen parents and players

swear at and insult referees. “A lot of people, a lot of players

and a lot of coaches get caught up in the moment and really don’t see the ref as a person.”

According to Raphael, referee abuse has always been an issue,

but the amount of media atten-tion it gets has been growing in the past few years, and that might be part of the solution.

“We’re always looking for ways to raise awareness. We’re always trying to communicate the rules that are in place to try and prevent it from happening, and to encour-age positive attention towards the officials,” Raphael said.

One of the new ways BC Hock-ey is doing this is through “Make the Call” contests on their website.

“We have a [video] that shows an infraction or incident that oc-curred and we quiz people to an-swer the right question with the multiple choice of what the penal-ty was,” Raphael said. “At the end of the two weeks we announce a winner and then we reveal the answer to teach everybody about that specific rule.”

There have been about 550 entries into the “Make the Call” contests since they began in Oc-

tober. The prizes have ranged from clothing to tickets to watch the Van-couver Canucks and meet the ref-erees. Raphael said the contests have been successful and will continue on the officiating page of BC Hock-ey’s website.

“Unlike play-ers, officials don’t really get to prac-tice, so the games tend to be their opportunity to practice,” Raphael said. “Officials are constantly learning just like a player is

learning. The officials are always going to make mistakes out there but they are going to hopefully learn from those mistakes.”

“We always encourage people to try officiating if they think that they know the rules.”

Tayla ScottSPORTS EDITOR Ω REFS

The abuse from players, parents and coaches and what is being done to stop it

“If your boss came to you every morning and told you to ‘smarten the F up cause you’re a dumb bitch,’ would you like it?”

Jim HumphreyPresident, Vancouver Island Amateur Hockey Association

Kamloops Blazers player Ryan Rehill yells at referee Kevin Bennett while linesman Riley Bilson stands between them. (Tayla Scott/ The Omega)

March 11, 201512