By: Chris Litfin

Who are we voting for?

Perhaps you’ve heard that there are municipal elections in Ontario on Oct. 27. You may have noticed the plethora of lawn signs, the people in suits knocking on your door, or the three-ring circus that is Toronto’s mayoral race. If you haven’t, you aren’t completely to blame.

Not only does the municipal election get very little play on the major media outlets, there are no less than six distinct races in each ward: Mayor, Ward Councillor, and Trustees for the English Public, English Catholic, French Public, and French Catholic School Boards. Even for dedicated watchers of local politics, it’s enough to make your head spin.

Hamilton’s municipal government is made up of one mayor, 15 councillors each representing a ward, and an army of bureaucrats. You get to vote for the mayor (one of twelve candidates) and one of the ward councillors. McMaster is in Ward 1, which includes everything west of Queen street and east of Dundas below the escarpment, so unless you commute, you will be voting for one of the six candidates for Ward 1 councillor.

Why should you care about Hamilton politics if you are from, say, Vancouver? Simply put, after McMaster, the City of Hamilton is the organisation you interact with the most on a daily basis. Want more buses late at night? Want the bike lanes on Sterling plowed during the winter? How about a program to make sure that the student house you rented from that sketchy landlord is actually safe? All of those things are municipal responsibilities.

The school board trustees are where it starts to get complicated. As a legacy of confederation back in 1867, most areas in Ontario are covered by four distinct school boards. Thing is, you only get to vote for one of them; which one you vote for depends on whether you have “education rights” for something other than the English Public School Board. Long story short, unless you went to a Catholic/French/French Catholic high school, probably don’t have “education rights” and so will be defaulted to the English Public School Board.

In any event, in Ward 1 there are five candidates running for the English Public School Board and two for each of the others. If you think that the race for School Board Trustee is unimportant compared to Mayor or Councillor, you are dead wrong. Think about it: roughly 90 percent of you are a product of Ontario’s education system. Didn’t like something about your experience? Now’s your chance to do something about it.

The sad fact is that university students often don’t vote: for proof, just look at the dismal turnout for many of the elections held on campus. But there is a bigger problem here than the fact that university students are apathetic. As far as politicians are concerned, if you don’t vote, you don’t exist. Why should they spend time on some student-friendly initiative when they won’t see any benefit from it on election day?  Aside from all the doing-one’s-civic-duty rhetoric, it’s in your own self-interest to vote. On Oct. 27, let’s all be self-interested and take the ten minutes to put three Xs on a piece of paper.

Arnaud Thia-Nam
The Silhouette

If there is one thing I have learnt from my expatriation, it is to better appreciate my French status. More often than not, I would only be asked about stereotypes earned many years ago by people who, I can only assume, were poor representatives of who and what France is really about. Yes, I shower every day, (most of) the French women I know shave on a more-than-regular basis, and even though I miss the sweet taste of overly priced baguettes, I have now gone one and a half years without shedding a tear about it.

I couldn’t help but notice that those who would try to reduce me to a fixed mental image they have of what a French person should be, never actually understood what being Canadian is all about. And although I cannot blame them for it — after all, one’s identity is sufficiently hard to define — there is always this feeling that something, anything, can be said about it. What makes you more Canadian than me?

Stereotypes often do come from some kind of truth. I would know: France hasn’t won a war single-handedly in eons, and after fifteen months teaching and living amongst Canadians, I can honestly say that your amiability is nothing less than what you are celebrated for. However, I have yet to be proven that Australians aren’t as welcoming as Canadians. Your politeness does not, can not and should not define you. Politeness is a polished façade. It is a social commodity that governs over people’s interactions. When I meet you on campus, even though I do not know you, I will hold the door for you, smile and even answer your greeting. What part of me truly wants to do all of this, and what part only applies a protocol learnt and mastered in response to the need for social recognition? My humanism, for all you know, could very well conceal my hypocrisy.

In my years of studying various subjects, I have found helpful to resort to differences in order to qualify, or better define, a notion. What, then, differentiates Canadians from their neighbours to the South? There is the obvious answer that while your Constitution holds both English and French as official languages, the Americans have none. Or better yet, that you do not have a President, but a Prime Minister, and don’t engage so often in wars on (insert noun here). To be honest, most of us Europeans could not tell apart an Edmontonian from a Detroit-dweller, especially if the latter exhibits the Maple Leaf flag on their backpack.

Canada has so much potential. Its heritage is vivid, its legacy still warm. Your future is yet to be determined, and it can lead you anywhere —from mediocrity to greatness. Yet, I feel something missing in people from my talks with McMaster students: passion. I am genuinely concerned whenever I ask, “what is your passion in life?” and hear some people answer “Twitter and Facebook,” or even worse “I have none.”

Each and every one of you should be passionate about shaping the future of your country. Strike while the iron is hot. Commit. You have been given an opportunity to attend a post-secondary institution and gain an outstanding education. Be it in Mechanical Engineering, Life Sciences or Religious Studies, you have the opportunity to make a difference in your field. Use it. Talk to each other, try and understand if the vexation you may feel is only yours, or if more people relate to this discomfort in which case, address it.

I hear your disinterest and drifting away from anything political. Please, in turn, hear this: politics, for better or for worse, will play a part in your life. Politics does not have to be dull, it is not about thinking: “who elected this guy?” while watching Mayor Rob Ford’s latest idiocy on the news. It is about being involved and using the right to take action. Authority does not stem from having been voted in office some time in the past, it is a constant renewal of trust in one person’s ability to act in your best interest. Only you can know what this best interest is. Challenge the authority — it is the only way for it to be legitimate. Without your confidence, authority is nothing but despotic. “Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.”

Your country’s destiny is yet to be written. What Canada needs is dedication. And although you should be proud of your country, the way I am proud of mine, what you should do, above anything else, is to give your country and fellow countrymen a reason to be proud of it.

What makes you more Canadian than me? Is it your passport? Is it your way of pronouncing “about” or is it your ability to influence your country’s future? Know where you come from, where you are now, where you want to be headed and perhaps, too, where you do not want to find yourselves. Do not let the United States test its chemical weapons on your soil as they did during the Vietnam War (with the approval of your government), refuse to pay for winter maintenance on a highway that is not even yours to begin with, but still costs you an average of one million dollars per year (Alaska Highway in Yukon). Do not let your 70-year-old neighbour from down the street cast your vote. Do not let others dictate what will become of you, but seize your own authority and assert it.

If you are to be Canadian citizens, do for yourselves what no one else will do for you: stand up.

Jamie Murdrick
The Silhouette

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It can be difficult to attract a large group of volunteers at McMaster. There are so many different groups vying for students’ attention and often, there is so little guidance.

While international human trafficking is another important issue, it is critical to note the there are laws that protect immigrants from the harsh world of human trafficking in Canada.

However, there are no laws protecting Canadian citizens from this terrible act. Rather than being criminalized, people who are found to be a part of these circles merely get fined. This is an insignificant and meaningless price to pay considering people are being used as mere means to money.

The Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative originated this year. And while they do get some guidance from their funding and resource partners at Ontario Public Interest Research Group McMaster, they rely on their student volunteers to help with the groundwork.

One of the biggest obstacles this small program faces is the stigma surrounding human trafficking throughout Canada and right here in Hamilton. The co-founders of HTAI, Sukhbir Thind, a fourth-year Honours Life Science student and Letizia D’Alimonte, a fourth-year Honours Communications student, are trying to reach out not only to McMaster, but also to high school students - a task proving to be much more difficult than anticipated.

“I think they’re in denial of it,” says Thind, when discussing the challenge of reaching grade 11 and 12 students across Hamilton. People do not want to believe the streets of their city are littered with this issue, so they ignore the problem in the hopes that bliss will follow their ignorance.

This denial occurs despite the fact that, in 2011, 89 per cent of all human trafficking victims in Canada were Canadian aged 12-22. It is important that all students become aware of this cultural imperfection, and that this awareness will hopefully lead to change.

The focus of the volunteer-based HTAI is on domestic human trafficking awareness.

The founders of HTAI got the idea to start this social awareness group from “Walk With Me,-” a Hamilton-based group that helps people who are currently being trafficked.

From January to August 2013, they received 92 crisis calls from victims and police, and 126 tips/calls from the public, the large majority of which were from the Hamilton area. The purpose of this group is to spend their days picking up and aiding victims.

Although this group helps those affected by trafficking, it deals with a “lack of awareness,” explains D’Alimonte. “Everyone is too busy doing work, they are leaving no time to promote the cause.”

This is where HTAI comes in. The group intends to allow high school students to become aware of this issue, and perhaps set up HTAI juniors across Hamilton, eventually having these groups put on their own presentations to their classes and schools.

We have stereotypes about how Canada and Hamilton appear positively, but this optimistic attitude can blind us on important issues.

Rob Hardy / Silhouette Staff

Now that 2012 has finally come and gone, and we seem to have survived the prospect of the end of the world, it’s time to put the party favours and hollering away and get serious about the state of our world. Even though we have lived to see another day, the beginning of this new year sees a whole mess of tremendous problems in need of attention.

One of the biggest problems we need to face is the marginalized segments of our population, as well as those who are in fact homeless. Few really deeply think about our fellow Canadians literally living on the streets, and what an absolute fail this is for our government for whom this should be a top priority.

It may be shocking to learn that estimates of those homeless in Canada count some 175,000 people or more, depending on the source.  We must recognize our responsibility in not having provided enough affordable housing and rental options, at having increased the cost of living by eliminating cheaper alternatives, and in continually denying this group valid representation in all arenas. It’s time we no longer ignored the bigger picture, as we go off the deep end if we don’t have the right smartphone configurations, while others don’t even have shelter from the cold.

Canada has more than enough capital to better acknowledge this problem, and it’s time we face our apathy so we can transition to a higher level of compassion. We’re lucky to actually have the option, as other countries are not as resourceful.

Russia recently experienced the worst cold snap in over 70 years this past Christmas, with temperatures between -25 and -50 degrees Celsius that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200 people, many of them homeless.

As humans we all have basic rights - the most fundamental needs to be satisfied so we can at least have the barest chance at striving for more. Escape from homelessness is one if them.

Much strife is found in how society is being rearranged. It reverts to questions such as who will become a working professional and who will be their servants? How will we view future citizens who might hold multiple degrees but have been funneled into occupations at Starbucks, hotels, retail outlets, or even Walmart or fast food outlets, simply because the market cannot absorb as many lawyers and the like? Should our jobs really provide our main identities or can we be honest and realize that we class people based on their income level and social connectivity, not by intelligence or inherent talents?

Rob Hardy

Silhouette Staff

 

Last semester, an Opinions article spoke about popular Youtube sensation Epic Meal Time. That story stood out for me as a framework from which to examine the moral dilemma we are now in. Epic Meal Time, if you’re not familiar, is a group of guys who take part in making all sorts of bizarre food creations for the purpose of… well, to be blunt, I am not really sure what the purpose is. The video I subjected myself to watching involved them going to multiple drive-thrus, ordering an obscene amount of food, and then making some sort of gigantic bacon cheeseburger lasagna. Wow. As the name implies, it’s really “epic” stuff.

My problem with it is not so much what these people are doing, but that it is a representation of all sorts of similar material that has pervaded our lives. The author of the Sil piece argued that if people wanted to watch Epic Meal Time, then they should be allowed the right to do so. While I don’t disagree with that statement, I think this warrants a much closer look so that we may understand the bigger picture. Because, despite what we may think, how we live and what we do affects everyone else. And right now, we live in a society where people waste far too much of their time both watching and making this kind of useless crap.

The videos we watch can represent the height of insight and sophistication, and they can also show that our intellectual progress has actually halted severely, despite the vast, limitless resources at our disposal. Perhaps we are brainwashed into liking mindless drivel about six stupid-seeming twenty-somethings who do next to nothing, and consequently emulating them. This brings up the question: Why do we want to watch channels and shows like these? Is it because they are actually funny and worthwhile, or can the most recent generations even tell the difference?

While researching this topic extensively, I came across a statistic, which indicated that 42 per cent of college grads never read a book again. While I somewhat doubt its veracity, it is likely true in parts of America, where a little fewer than half of college freshmen ever complete their studies. But what about Detroit, where it was recently revealed that only one quarter of high school students graduate? Why is the larger population uninterested in reading, and instead embracing the kind of people in media acting in ways that would have previously been characteristic of a mental patient?

But if this is the status quo, the average person is unaware, or at least not too alarmed about it. Another popular show, Cash Cab, has begun to make the rounds, and features people on the street hailing the titular game-show car, trying to win money as they attempt to answer what are fairly easy questions. What is demonstrated about our culture, however, is that we have come to a point where people just love to laugh, even when embarrassing themselves on national television, because they think it’s absolutely hilarious that they don’t know the capital of Madagascar.

Yes, Google works, but when we as a society are always relying on a machine to give us the answers, we fail to develop the vital contextual knowledge that brings it all together. This can only be remedied if we are willing to break through our learned discomfort of reading long passages as they were written, rather than trying to scan the surface as we’d scroll down a twitter feed. We may be laughing now, but there are parts of the world that have no qualms about intensely embracing academic study with a kind of impassioned seriousness that is simply not fostered in North America. The fact is, comedians don’t cure cancer.

Though, it is true that generations clash, and to some degree this is a familiar story through the ages, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences. For instance, it is a sad inevitability that as decades pass, we lose more of our authors as they fade quietly into obscurity, no longer remembered as time goes on. However, even this cannot account for the fact that most of our young people nowadays simply haven’t the least bit of interest in reading novelists such as Joyce, Turgenev or Sinclair, writers who have lasted and been celebrated for over a century. How soon before their lights also get extinguished, and how will we deal with their absence when forced to, once again, reinvent the wheel? And for those whose legacies remain popular, we set forth perverting their works with dubious reinventions, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

The legacy that previous university students have left us is one of incredible honour, sacrifice and integrity. The massive societal changes in Russia’s history, for example, owe a huge debt to students who cared enough about what was going on in their country to get their hands dirty and fight for change, before the oxymoron “peaceful protest” came into being. More recently and closer to home, Students for a Democratic Society in the late 1960s resulted in massive strikes and closures of many prominent American universities, such as Columbia, as their organization actively embraced intellectual discourse on relevant issues from civil rights to American involvement in Vietnam. Though we may like to think that we have advanced since then, our unwillingness to engage, and for others the inability to even effectively do so, has led to a stark dilution of the intelligentsia.

The issue is active cognitive mental development, not “growing as a person” or any of the other false euphemisms that pass for education today. Knowledge may only begin in the classroom: the rest is up to you. Our country and world is depending on it.