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Gwar destroys Canada

Nick Khattar
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I remember it like it was yesterday; the moment that my soul curdled and was shit on. The year was 1992. People were already into wrapping flannel shirts around their waists, but it hadn’t yet become cool to be depressed. I was a strapping-young-lad of eight. It was lunchtime, and while waiting for my chicken noodle soup and chocolate milk, I was sifting through daytime television. Flipping along in the innocence of my soon to be soured childhood, I stopped, jaw-dropped, on the Jerry Springer Show.

There on the television was a sight bewildering to my Ninja Turtle and G.I. Joe-mind. It was a sight of horror and gnarlyness; a sight of sci-fi absurdity.

There, sitting in a chair, surrounded by other such spectacles, was a giant humanoid barbarian looking creature. He had a face like old hamburger meat, and a head that looked to belong to Satan himself. He had two giant blades coming out of his back and spikes all over his shoulders. His legs were clearly human, but the rest of him was something from a smack withdrawal hallucination. The creature was Oderus Urungus, front man of the disgusting and epic space-metal band “GWAR.”

As the story goes, eons ago there existed a mighty group of galactic warriors known as the “Scumdogs of the Universe.” The Scumdogs roamed the universe terrorizing their victims and appeasing “The Master” until one day they grew too strong and were banished to the worst place in the universe: Earth. Here they rested for millions of years until pollution de-thawed them from their Antarctic coma. Since that day they have been roaming the planet using their powers of space-metal rock and lewd antics to torture the human race.

Their goal? The complete destruction of the human race and existence itself.

In their time on Earth, besides torturing humans, they have been nominated for two Grammys and have appeared on The Jerry Springer Show (aired in 1990, the show I saw was a rerun of this episode), the Joan Rivers Show (1990, 2006), Mystery Date (1991), Viva La Bam (2008), and Empire Records. Gwar was featured in the Super NES video game Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity, where the main objective of the game is to attend a Gwar concert. Most recently, Oderus Urungus has been showing up on the Fox News show “Red-Eye” as their “intergalactic correspondent.”

Yes indeed, Gwar is much more than a metal band, but as Oderus has put it, “it’s just a bunch of rotting humanoid diarrhea that isn’t meant to do anything but barely entertain you.”

Recently I caught up with Oderus Urungus and had the displeasure of having a chat with him.

Nick Khattar: So what’s up? You guys are in Florida right now?

Oderus Urungus: Yeah, yeah. We just started this huge fucking coast to coast-up and down, all over the fucking place tour with Red Cord. We’re also doing some shows with Lamb of God. It’s fucking completely off the hook!

NK: Shits going off for you guys!

Oderus: Yeah! Shows are huge. It’s the greatest fucking … its the 25th Anniversary of “GWAR”!

NK: You guys have been celebrating that now for two years.

OU: Yeah well it’s been 25 years since Gwar was unearthed in an Antarctic stronghold and it’s been 25 years of unrivaled mayhem ever since. Every year has been bigger and this year is the biggest Gwar show ever. So everybody’s gotta get out and go down to the show and go through the enduring, enjoyable cultural ritual that is Gwar!

NK: Abso-fucking-lutely! We are pretty   excited that you guys are coming all the way to Halifax.

OU: Yeah! All the way! Canada has a lot in common with our homeland of Antarctica, but the one thing that Canada has that Antarctica doesn’t have is people. And what Halifax has is people that support the fucking hell out of metal and love their Gwar! So yes, we will be there very soon trying to destroy that section of the world.

NK: So rumour has it there is a second World Maggot that may make it on tour this time?

OU: Yeah there is a rumour that there is another one but we haven’t seen it yet, so hopefully it will make it on this tour. But we’ve had a ton of other things that beat the shit and eat people, ya know, like maggots, giant dinosaurs, cybernetic/intergalactic assholes. I mean there’s just a ton of shit up there.

NK: So how’s it been working for Fox?

OU: Oh yeah, they are great! They basically told me from a distance that they’re smart enough to only let me be used at their affiliate stations, but there’s a couple times I’ve been down in the studio in New York and it’s been really awesome. I have been instructed by my manager, Sleazy P. Martini, not to kill or eat anyone. And I’ve held to that so I’ve had a lot of success doing it. So as long as I don’t kill the host of the show, I think I am in there!

NK: By host you mean Greg Gutfield?

OU: Yeah! He is a delectable little Pillsbury of a Doughboy, and Oderus and him get along well. Every time I am on the show I am sure it is going to be my last but they just keep calling me back.

NK: So you guys were at the Waken Open Air festival in Germany this year, how was that?

OU: Yeah we played that gigantic fucking metal fest. The barricade was about 30 metres across and we were confronted with about 100,000 screaming Germans. When we were killing Obama, they thought we were just killing a black person. That was pretty funny. We were like, “No, no, no. We’re not just killing black people in general, that’s actually President Obama and he deserves to die.”

NK: So you guys aren’t down with Barack and Roll?

OU: No, no, we like him a lot actually. I think he is definitely a step up from the last President. It’s interesting to see though how Americans are freaking out that they finally have a black president, but there has been a ton of black presidents all over the world for hundreds of years. And they’ve even had black and female presidents at the same time. And then everyone in America is like, “Oh, really?”

NK: So what is Gwar’s role in being a politically outspoken band?

OU: We basically hope to show the human race that our stance on politics and politicians is that they are completely fucking useless. They should just be the people setting up the timetables, not telling people how to live. So basically our stance is that they should all be put to death, or made to fight each other, to death, with the crudest of weapons, for the entertainment of the masses. Yes, there should be crude anarchy in the streets, we believe. Let people fight it out, and let the barter system return. Let Gwar be their futile overlords. This is a system we advocate, we understand it is a little different than what most people would want.

NK:  So word on the street is that you guys are recording another album while touring to be released in 2010?

OU: Yes, I’ve heard this as well. What has started as me just randomly blabbing in some interview has turned into a question I am regularly asked. So I have not even run it by my band mates at all, and I will gladly agree to this: yes! We’d love to put out another album by the end of the 2010 and it doesn’t seem that difficult to do it.

NK: So what’s the deal with your battle against Cardinal Sin?

OU: Well we got off the planet this year and went back to outer space and found out everything sucked out there. Essentially Cardinal Sin had turned outer space into one gigantic Branson let’s just say. Just a huge bad TV show full of terrible strip malls and corporate headquarters. There wasn’t any crack or strip clubs or heavy metal anywhere. So we had to come back to Earth to get the things we love. Earth is the only place left in the whole universe that has crack! That’s why we stand side by side with the humans (who we created by butt fucking apes remember) to defeat this menace Cardinal Sin.

NK: Will Cardinal Sin be showing up in Halifax?

OU: I think Cardinal Sin will be showing up at the Halifax show. So get down there! It’s more than just a fucking show. You better come on because we are going to be struggling for the fate of the human race. I mean, do you want to be destroyed by Cardinal Sin, fucking intergalactic puritan asshole? Or do you want to get raped to death by Gwar? I think the choice is obvious.

Editor’s note: Gwar played the Cunard Centre on Oct. 29. If you were only confused by the author talking to Oderus about an upcoming show that already happened, then you should be proud of yourself.

Know where your legislators stand

Ben Wedge
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Since 2006, approximately 1500 votes for second and third readings of bills occurred in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Of these, only 12 were recorded in the Hansard. The rest? They were voice votes, meaning there is no record of how each member or party voted.

Third-year political science student Michael Kennedy wants this to come to an end.

Kennedy launched a blog, knowhowtheyvote.wordpress.com, to lobby provincial MLAs to be more accountable to the public. He says it’s easy to change the process: any two MLAs can call for a recorded vote when the speaker calls the vote, and then the result is noted in the Hansard, the name for the record of the meeting.

Kennedy emailed 49 MLAs, and the speaker, Charlie Parker, to encourage them to hold more recorded votes. He also contacted the candidates from last week’s byelections. Newly elected Antigonish MLA Maurice Smith did not respond to the email, and Inverness MLA Allan Thompson said he’d look into it if he wins. As for those members elected in June, only Dartmouth East MLA Andrew Younger, and Parker responded.

Younger says anything to increase the accountability of elected representatives is a good thing, but he feels the change will be hard to bring about.

He says that to permanently change the voting process in the house, the government must call the Committee on Assembly Matters, which has not met in years.

Younger says he “would like to see the legislature move to an electronic system, which would allow a paperless workflow and would also make electronic, recorded, voting a matter of regular practice.”
It would also reduce their carbon footprint.

This is a change he successfully pushed for when he was a Halifax city councillor.

Kennedy is a member of the Dal-King’s campus Conservatives, but says that the issue of recording votes is one that stretches across party lines. He’s not asking anyone to change their vote, he just wants it written down for others to see.

Nova Scotia elected its first House of Assembly in 1758 – the first in the British Empire outside of England. Back then, and until at least 1848, there is an extensive record of votes. We can look back in the Hansard and see how Joseph Howe, or James Boyle Uniacke voted on many issues, from university tuition, to land expropriation, to taxation, and more.

Since 1848, with the advent of party politics, voting has changed, and fewer votes have been recorded.
It doesn’t need to be that way, Kennedy argues.

“The democratic deficit in Nova Scotia is growing,” he says. “With every unrecorded vote in the legislature, our MLAs get farther and farther away from our scrutiny.”

“Choosing not to record votes is choosing not to be transparent and accountable to the constituents that you represent.”

He says it’s a simple change that will help democracy in this province.

Paul McEwan, Speaker of the House from 1993 to 1996 wrote a letter to the Cape Breton Post on Oct. 19 to respond to Kennedy’s points arguing for recorded votes in a previous letter.

McEwan wrote that recorded votes could take a half an hour away from the duties of the House.

“The normal procedure of a voice vote, which takes maybe 10 seconds, is more conducive to keeping the House moving along,” he wrote.

Kennedy counters that over an hour each day is dedicated to member statements on things like barbecues in each member’s constituency, essentially a chance for each member to say they made it to LegTV that day. He says this could be trimmed by a few minutes to make up for the added time it takes to do a recorded vote.

In Ottawa, recorded votes often take place after question period, or at another time that is indicated several days in advance. Members will show up, vote on as many bills as was agreed to in advance, and then return to their other business. This removes the need to stop House business and to ring the bells for an hour before each vote, thereby alleviating some concerns.

Kennedy is looking for supporters of his campaign to write letters and talk to MLAs. He hopes that the campaign will increase accountability, and maybe even reform the House of Assembly’s daily proceedings.

Ben Wedge and Michael Kennedy are friends and fellow members of the Dalhousie-King’s Campus Conservatives.

National program encourages female political participation

Lucy Scholey
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Female political participation is still a new concept in Canada. But a new national program hopes to change that.

Experiences will pair girls and women with female politicians at all levels of government across Canada. The idea is to encourage a mentor-mentee relationship between participants.

“Our mentors can have a cup of coffee with the mentees and that may be just the boost that young woman needs to make a presentation in her class” said Courtney Bragg, the Atlantic Canada co-ordinator, at the national program’s first launch in the Nova Scotia legislature. “Or in 10 years, because of that boost … and that mentorship, that young woman may be elected as prime minister of Canada.”

The free program is a product of Equal Voice, a multi-partisan and non-profit organization that encourages more female participation in Canadian politics.

Francoise Gagnon, senior program director of Experiences, says she hopes to recruit about 6,000 women and young girls as mentees.

The program is also still recruiting mentors. So far, Halifax MP Megan Leslie, Minister of Health Maureen MacDonald, Liberal MLA Kelly Regan and Minister of Immigration Ramona Jennex have signed up for the program in Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie University student Anita Neumann was the only young woman in the group of nearly 20 people at the launch. Aside from her introductory political science class, Neumann says she knows little about the political scene.

“I’m trying to learn more about (politics) and become involved,” she says. She’s still unsure whether she’ll register for Experiences, but attended the event for more information.

She doesn’t follow politics, she adds, but hopes the program can change that.

Louise Carbert, Dal political science professor and chair of Equal Voice for Nova Scotia, says politics is a boring topic for most young people.

“Political parties have to do something to make political life more appealing,” she says. “They have to broaden their pool where they’re seeking to recruit candidates.”

“I think events like this are really important in keeping up that sort of conviction that everybody’s at the table. Everybody has to contribute to keeping the democratic process alive,” says Carbert.

It’s important that the legislature reflects the general population, she adds.

That means getting more women involved. Out of 52 members, the province elected 12 women last June, equalling 23 per cent of the legislature. It’s a historical high, but still far from representing the province’s population. Women and girls make up 52 per cent of the population, according to a Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women report.

It’s been a slow road. Canadian women won the right to vote in 1918, but Nova Scotia didn’t elect a female MLA until 1960.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the obstacles women face in politics, Carbert adds.

“I think that (the challenge) is just to actually envision ourselves doing it,” says Liberal MLA Diana Whalen. “When I talk to other women in politics, they often think that … they’re not ready, even when they’re the most accomplished women and they have so much to offer.”

Whalen has been involved in politics for nearly nine years, including three in city council. She didn’t face many barriers, but says getting involved requires a certain level of confidence.

The program receives its $1.5 million in funding from the Canadian Advisory Council of the Status of Women, Merck Frosst and TD Bank Financial Group.

The speakers at the event included representatives from the latter two organizations, Leo Van Dijk and Hazel Campbell, respectively, and Denise Peterson-Rafuse, Nova Scotia’s minister responsible for the Advisory Council of the Status of Women.

Fighting old battles

Bethany Horne
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Twenty years might have gone by, but Black Nova Scotians still face many of the same barriers to education that they did in 1989.

This was one of the realities up for discussion at a workshop organized by the Black Student Advising Centre (BSAC). The workshop examined Breaking Barriers, a report that brought the centre into existence.

More than 30 people met last Friday to discuss how far along the fight against systemic racism at Dalhousie University has advanced.

Wayne MacKay, a professor at the law school, set the tone with his introductory remarks.

“The most important kind of accommodation is systemic accommodation,” he said. Lifting a person in a wheelchair above a flight of stairs may solve one problem, but building a ramp makes the building accessible from then on.

He said these systemic changes are what are needed at Dalhousie.

MacKay chaired the 1989 Task Force on Access for Black and Native People that put together the Breaking Barriers report.

As recently as 2006, the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies said the enrolment level of Nova Scotian black students at Dalhousie is low.

David Divine told Nova News Net that the disadvantaged position of blacks needs to be “systematically examined.”

The M.C. of the event, former BSAC advisor Barbara Hinch-Hamilton, said the workshop on Friday was supposed to bring the report back and find new ways to move forward on it.

“It hasn’t been a document with wheels,” she said. “It was done, some things were implemented and then it was stopped.”

The report was written on the basis of a six-month long consultation process that took the Task Force members all over the province to hear from Black and Mi’kmaq community members, on their own turf.

“The perception of Dalhousie … in the various communities that we visited was really not a very positive one. It was seen as … elitist, remote, alien, aloof,” MacKay said.

One of the presentations they heard in March 1989, by Darrel Bowden on behalf of the Black Canadian Student Association at Dalhousie, is included in Appendix Two of the report.

“Being Black Canadians, more specifically Black Nova Scotian, it is important that we are not to be categorized with all minorities, or even other blacks, in the same terms,” Bowden wrote.

“There is a significant difference between growing up as a black majority in Africa, than growing up as a black minority with a slave history in Canada.”

MacKay, in his speech, said the recommendations in the report prioritized programs that would help indigenous blacks.

“They were clearly, in 1989, the most underrepresented” at the university, he said.

In creating this distinction, the Task Force honoured the requests of the black students.

Last week, The Gazette examined the controversial claim that students’ opinions are no longer valued when the university makes decisions affecting the Black Student Advisory Centre.

The centre’s website says the first committee to select a black student advisor consisted of members of the Black Canadian Students Association and Dal administrative staff. It is not clear whether any subsequent hiring committees included the student voice.

There are concerns that students’ complaints about the non-indigenous black student advisor, Oluronke Taiwo (profiled in the companion article in this edition) are dismissed for being xenophobic.

Keslyn Adams, who works as the secretary of the BSAC, says students’ dissatisfaction with Taiwo are not xenophobic, or racist, at all.

“There are more than a few African students who have also expressed their concerns with the centre under her management, and one has even said so to senior administration at the university,” Adams wrote in an email. She has been on sick leave for two weeks.

The next Gazette investigation will focus on the meat of student’s complaints against Taiwo as an academic advisor, a personal counsellor, and an events organizer. Reporters are relying on students who have experienced Taiwo as a counsellor and leader of the centre, to speak up.

Students need more input in contracts – SMAC

Scott Beed
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Over the past few days, petitions have circulated among some Dalhousie University classes. A cup of free soup at Tuppy Thursdays or a study session at the Killam has come with requests for signatures.

Students Mobilize for Action on Campus (SMAC) is pushing for greater access to information about Dalhousie Student Union’s corporate deals. The deals in question are with Pepsi Co., Moosehead and Sodexho.

“There are issues with contracts that we don’t even know about,” says SMAC member Brian Lume.

“There are potentially private firms that are called upon to do work on campus.”

“Full transparency regardless of what the company does on campus is crucial,” Lume adds.

In recent years, corporate presence has increased at Dalhousie. It’s in line with all other post-secondary institutions because of the struggling economy. But according to their website, SMAC wants the information accessible to every member of the student body. It’s the central focus in their campaign.

Lume says the privatization of university services limits freedom on campus to choose local or sustainable products. He says the DSU should find partnerships with local organizations because it best represents the interests of the students.

“Students have been receptive,” Lume says. “This isn’t a partisan issue regardless if you stand left or right on the political spectrum. This is about governmental accountability.”

In an email, DSU VP (finance and operations) Doyle Bond says the DSU can’t comment on details surrounding the Pepsi contract.

“The reason for this is because of competitiveness,” Bond says.

“Contracts that are open competition we cannot share,” adds Charles Crosby, media relations and official spokesperson for Dalhousie. “There are confidentiality clauses for reasons relating to basic competition issues. It is not fair to any of the parties involved in the process to share details of the arrangements one may have with the university. It would render the process moot, or at a minimum, unfair. With regard to Moosehead, there is no exclusivity agreement with Moosehead, and it’s not even a contract per se. That is a sponsorship through Athletics.”

“This process ensures that these services are delivered with the best value to students at Dalhousie,” Crosby says.

“There are many hundreds, perhaps more, of individual contracts at Dalhousie,” he adds. “That’s the nature of any large organization. We have similar contracts regarding everything from snow removal to elevator maintenance to monitoring the steam lines, to employee contracts in departments all across all three campuses, and everything in between.”

Pepsi contract specifics are not known. Lume says Dal has to fill a quota. If the amount of Pepsi products sold doesn’t meet a certain number then Dalhousie doesn’t receive funding. Dal didn’t meet its quota last year. Essentially, Pepsi had its machines on campus for free, he adds.

According to Lume, if Dal doesn’t make a profit from these exclusive deals, then it’s not beneficial to have them. Dal should look for contracts that foster better educational experiences for all students, Lume says.

As stated on their website, SMAC’s goal is to create an environment that allows more participation among students. This will ensure greater democratization.

The group is trying to obtain 1,500 signatures so they can present a motion to the senate and get legislation passed by the end of the term to put forth a referendum.

By last Saturday, SMAC had already collected about 400 to 500 signatures. But last year’s DSU elections had just a 20 per cent voter turnout. This translates to nearly 3000 students.

From Nigeria to Dal

Bethany Horne
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Oluronke Taiwo says she knows only too well the sting of racism.

The successes in her career in medical microbiology in Nigeria, where she taught and published at the University of Lagos, didn’t go far when she moved to Canada in 1998.

“I knew the racism that I went through,” she says. “After having a masters for 17 years, having to go back and start. That is a barrier I had to cross.”

In Africa, she had been a lab technician and then a lecturer, working with pharmacy students. The United Nations sponsored her to bring her research about antibiotics to Dalhousie University. After the sponsored term ran out, she wanted to stay in Canada.

Her family joined her after a year, but she couldn’t find work in her field. At that point, she started a bachelor of social work.

And last year, only weeks away from her graduation from the Master of Social Work program, she was hired to become the next advisor at the Black Student Advising Centre.

Now, her office is decorated with signs of her journey. Two cuddling giraffes, carved out of a piece of blonde wood, sit atop a filing cabinet. Her certificate of counselling skills from International Correspondence Schools is displayed, along with her degrees from Dal and her Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers registration.

More than a year into her job, she says it has not been easy settling in.

“To me, the greatest challenge is actually being accepted by the indigenous black,” Taiwo says.

“Because I am the first non-indigenous black (students’) advisor. I cannot explain the reason why,” she says. “My goal since I came is: ‘How do we unite, as blacks?’”

She says as fellow victims of racism, they have more in common than they have differences.

“If they believe that, ‘Oh, nobody understands me, nobody has gone through my problem,’ this will be an ongoing thing, and it will not end.”

“Bitterness will start to evolve in anger,” she says. “The generations that are coming after us, they follow what they see, and they will pass that on.”

Even though becoming a social worker was not her first plan in life, she now says she enjoys being a counsellor. She says the best part of the job is talking to students.

“Because I am also a social worker, I am able to use my theoretical understanding and skill to get through cognitively to students.”

She says her style of counselling consists of setting herself as an example to students.

“If I can go though full-time work, full-time school, and family – you can. And I’m not young.”

“I’m able to use my experience to empower people, to encourage people,” Taiwo says.

In last week’s Gazette, the Black Student Advising Centre’s move out of the Student Union Building, and into an old residence at 1400 Henry St., was examined through the words of students. Many of them are worried about this move.

Taiwo says this negativity was a surprise to her.

“In my own silent way, I let the Student Services and the VP know that the house is really important for the students, because it would give them their own space,” she says.

“I was flabbergasted to hear that now that they get it, they don’t want to move.”

She says that students haven’t given it a chance.

“Only (the) few that have gone in are probably (the) ones telling tales about it.”

“If you are given something, appreciate that first,” she says. “I will say, let them move, and let them see.”

Last week, the centre celebrated their 20th anniversary. Taiwo was one of the main organizers of the banquet and dance, which brought dozens of people from all over the university to the celebration in the McInnis room.

She says the job as Advisor has given her an opportunity to get to know faculties and departments in the university that she wouldn’t have otherwise.

“I get to know, I get to meet, I get to be involved. That’s really fun.”

The lost demographic

Sunjay Mathuria
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Fadi Hamdan has come a long way from Jordan. Only three years after arriving in Canada, the 20-year-old is now a youth worker at the local YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs.

But his accomplishments did not come without trial.

“When I came here, I really needed someone to help show me around and help me around the city, and I didn’t have that,” he says.

“If you’re over 21, you’re treated as an adult and you’re expected to prove yourself as one. But it’s difficult to do when you’re in a new country,” Hamdan says.

In 2001, Statistics Canada reported 2,260 of the immigrants in Halifax belonged to the 18 to 24 age group.

Many of them face challenges similar to the ones Hamdan did.

Often classified as “adult” children of immigrants, these youth are too old for the public school system, but too young to fit in an adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.

Sarah Cooper, a Settlement Worker for Refugees at the Metropolitan Immigration Settlement Association (MISA) says that there is not enough support for this particular age group.

“To put them in adult ESL is not the best option,” she says. “They will be with older people and won’t have that peer support their own age. But you also can’t put a 21-year-old with grade 10s.”

Carmen Moncayo, MISA family counsellor, compares this age group’s situation to “being in a vacuum”.
She says the options for them right now aren’t good enough.

While younger immigrant children are able to adapt quickly to Canadian life, and pick up English easier, their older siblings find it more difficult. Social circles and peer groups are almost non-existent for the adult children of immigrants.

For Hamdan this was certainly true.

“My younger brothers handled it really well,” Hamdan says. “They made friends and had school and they had a chance to practice their English.”

“For me, I had to go to work, and I couldn’t make friends a lot of the time and didn’t have the same chance to practice my English,”

From her experience with refugee cases, Cooper says that a lot of older youth still want to get an education.

“Many of them say themselves that they want to be in high school,” she says.

But for those who want to study, the process is strenuous and in most cases, long. While most people their age are in university, these youth are taking years just to get ready for post-secondary opportunities.

“It’s very frustrating for them to go through six to eight years of high school and ESL before they are ready,” says Cooper.

“There needs to be some flexibility with schooling options, so students can simultaneously have ESL and high school,” she says.

Moncayo agrees that the educational options for this demographic is in want of reform.

“We need to find the right way to respond to their situations,” she says. “Universities, ESL schools, high schools and immigration services all need to be on board.”

A new nominee program that started this past summer may help address some of the issues this age group faces. The program is designed to attract young immigrants to the Canadian workforce. Foreign credentials will also be more widely recognized.

And, people registered with a Nova Scotia Nominee Program visa will be entitled to study in Canada.

One of the goals is to try to keep families together. Previously, any child over the age of 21 wishing to immigrate to Nova Scotia with their families had to apply separately. As a result, many families were separated.

“The kind of criteria for the old program (was) based on a more western idea of family,” Moncayo says.

Cooper says it’s more inclusive now.

“It’s quite challenging to have to leave behind any child,” she says.

This demographic doesn’t deserve the short straw they have been given. Even though younger newcomers have more opportunities and services available to them, their older siblings prove to be just as successful.

“There is so much potential at that age. They bring a great deal of strength to the table that helps overcome the obstacles,” says Cooper. “But they do need help to remove these obstacles.”

MISA and YMCA organize mentorships and other programs to help newcomers adapt better to Canada. But Hamdan says older immigrant youth need more recreational activities to increase their chances of practicing English.

“The key is to be patient,” he says “Try to be open-minded and take the good from your culture, and the good from Canadian culture, and mix it up.”

Gulu Walk promotes peace in Uganda

Katrina Pyne
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Haligonians with a mind for change stepped it up this year by taking steps in the fifth-annual GuluWalk. Last Saturday, 50 students walked to promote a more peaceful and stable northern Uganda. Collectively they raised $650.

“This event is about a group coming together for a common purpose, it’s about something bigger than your self,” says Jennifer Keeling, who was co-organizer of the GuluWalk this year. “We are here to help out.”

The event didn’t draw as many people as last year, when nearly 100 Haligonians participated and raised over $7000. But it may be because this year’s event conflicted with the International Day of Climate Change, says former Dalhousie international development studies and political science student Claire Dykhuis. This year’s donations will go toward building an arts and culture centre in Gulu to help bring the war-torn community together.

Northern Uganda is the site of a 23-year-long war, which has left the country in a state of devastation. In the beginning, the Lords Resistance Army would roam the streets of rural communities at night abducting children and indoctrinating them to become child soldiers. Thousands of children were forced to leave their homes and walk to cities like Gulu each night for safety to avoid abduction. Since the army began terrorizing northern Uganda in 1987, the infrastructure and opportunity for youth has all but disappeared.

“Imagine if it was going on here,” says Dykhuis. “It would be like walking to Bedford every night.”

“We are the night commuting generation,” she says. “This war has been going on for longer than I have been alive!”

The night commuting in northern Uganda has stopped, but the reconstruction of a fallen city is just beginning. Children who lived through the war have scars – both physical and emotional – that will last a lifetime. GuluWalk seeks to give these children an opportunity to reintegrate back into society.

The idea for the GuluWalk began in 2005 when Toronto residents Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward first heard about the plight of the children in northern Uganda. They decided to do something about it. Every night the two of them would commute to city hall in downtown Toronto. They would sleep for a couple of hours, and then walk back to their homes and jobs at dawn. In doing this they were mimicking the harsh lifestyle of the children who were night commuting in Uganda. Over 31 days they walked 775 kilometres and took 872,739 steps. It was from this start that GuluWalk came into being and grew to the extent that it has.

Last year, more than 30,000 people in 75 cities and 16 countries took to the streets to urge the world to support peace in northern Uganda.

The war in Uganda is “ignored and forgotten,” says Keeling. “Many people have not even heard about this war, yet it has been going on for 23 years.”

“It is time now to rebuild a torn apart society,” adds Claire Dykhuis. “Our time is now.”

Fashion suicide: don’t do it!

Cheryl Hann
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It’s no secret that American Apparel has infiltrated our city. Halifax’s destination for Vice Magazine and solid colour tank tops has got our youth in its neon death grip.

To quote the Spice Girls’ 1996 hit “Wannabe”: “I really, really, really want a … zigzag-print thong-bodysuit.”

Alright, those aren’t the real lyrics. But, for a disturbing number of young women, they might as well be.

The Halifax AA has only been open for three years, and in that short amount of time, its “unique” brand of brightly coloured, boldly printed, fade in two washes clothing has managed to weasel its way into the closet of everyone I know, and give their other garments the heave.

While I am all for people expressing themselves through fashion, I have a problem when everyone is expressing the same thing.

Unfortunately, too many people who shop at American Apparel shop there exclusively. They stop making their own fashion choices, and start dressing the way Dov Charney wants them to.

Suddenly, everyone who doesn’t want to look like an archetypal frat boy, or dome girl starts looking the same. Instead of wearing titty-tops and polos with popped collars, everyone’s wearing a magenta hoodie and gold lamé leggings.

This is the worst thing to happen to us since Dal sweatpants and Ugg boots, people!

Perhaps I sound too judgmental here; perhaps I am just bitter because my C-cup chest won’t allow me within 100 feet of American Apparel and its ‘bras aren’t sexy’ policy. Perhaps. But, probably not.

I know that a lot of the people who are reading this have, will or do shop at American Apparel. Please don’t let me and my cynicism stop you. I just want to dissuade you from dressing head to toe in neon, if I can.

To help in this endeavor, I have created a list of reasons why you might want to reconsider American Apparel as your number one fashion destination.

1. Dov Charney.

Dov Charney is President and CEO of American Apparel Inc. He is involved in all of the creative processes of AA including hiring the sales “models” and photographing American Apparel’s controversial ads. In order to get hired at American Apparel, you have to let someone take your photo and send it to Charney in Los Angeles where he will ogle it for a while. If you’re lucky, he’ll pick you out – real special like – to come and do a photo-shoot with him. Photos that may or may not become an ad, but in which you will definitely look like a half starved rape victim. Charney is currently involved in a number of sexual harassment suits with women who used to work at American Apparel. Gross!

2. The ads.

Some call these ads exciting think pieces. They’re real. They’re dirty. They’re not airbrushed or tampered with. Others call them sexist tripe. The women are submissive, humiliated objects. I’m inclined to agree with the latter camp. Most American Apparel ads are like this, and most of the photos were taken by, you guessed it: Charney. Whose hairy chicken legs did you think those were? He photographs the models under bright lights, in little to no clothing, with facial expressions that say, “I’m sleepy. What’d you put in my drink?” Doesn’t that make you want to buy a pair of non-prescription glasses?

3. American Apparel is over-priced.

A basic T-shirt at American Apparel is $20. At No Sweat Clothing (a store that boasts a sweat shop free manufacturing process, and actually gives a shit about the sweat shop issue), basic tees cost $5.16. So, what are you paying for?

“Dov has never shown any interest … in the sweatshop issue whatsoever,” says No Sweat CEO Adam Neiman. “It’s all about sex – sexy tees, sexy tees, sexy tees – that’s it.”

That’s still it, and the tees are sexy, but so what?

4. Halifax has cooler clothes.

My final reason for you to at least consider shopping somewhere else for your statement making garb is that we live in a city crawling with independently owned thrift shops: Dressed in Time, Lost and Found, Elsie’s, The Clothes Horse, 50 Hats, Put Me On. The list is lengthy, my friends. There’s also the Salvation Army, whose proceeds go to charity, not into Charney’s pocket.

To compel you further, the Sally Anne has a 50 per cent off sale every Wednesday. We’re talking $1.99 dresses here people. Dresses that you won’t see on anyone else. Think about it.

Tyagi warms up with THAW clothing line

Rebecca Spence
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“Black. Clean. Simple.” These are the three words Halifax fashion designer Akshay Tyagi uses to describe his own personal style.

“I keep it as neutral as I can. I don’t want to think about myself when I’m dressing. I want it to be easy to get up and go,” says Tyagi, 23. “I’m lucky if I can get as far as cutting my nails and shaving my beard.”
Tyagi’s “no muss, no fuss” approach to his own appearance is a matter of function. He has been busy working around the clock since June to get his 2010 spring/summer collection ready for Atlantic Fashion Week (AFW).

His first solo show, entitled “THAW”, is sure to be anything but simple. The collection is presented in shades of gray and white, with sheer materials like chiffon, set against opaque fabrics to create visual tension. Tyagi says each piece is heavily inspired by the winters of Halifax, the concept of melting and the moment of transition into spring. His 16 looks include women’s dresses, skirts and coats, as well as accessories such as organza scarves that are textured like the Eastern shoreline.

“My biggest inspiration was the drive along St. Margaret’s bay where along the cove the ocean is frozen over but the rocks crack through the surface,” says Tyagi, who is also inspired by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior.

“I saw that little moment and I knew I wanted to make something.”

Halifax winters and the East Coast winds are definitely not environments that Tyagi is used to. Born in India where he completed the International Baccalaureate Art program, Tyagi came to Canada and enrolled in NSCAD. He was 18. Last year he graduated with a BFA. He majored in textiles and minored in fashion.

Since graduation, he’s been working as an associate manager at Club Monaco six days a week. Tyagi also participated in last year’s AFW, and was a top-three finalist in Argyle Fine Art’s Off the Cuff competition.

“This is not going to be your typical runway fashion show,” says Tyagi. “I want this show to be more than a runway. I want people to walk away from an experience, thinking about what they just witnessed.”

“THAW” is in collaboration with the young women’s choir, Camerata Xara. The 24-piece choir will be functioning both as Tyagi’s models and soundtrack, creating an avant-garde style performance.

Tyagi’s models come in all different shapes and sizes. From size double zero and under five-feet, to size 14 and six-feet tall, Tyagi is not limited in the shapes that he can dress. “There’s variety,” says Tyagi.

“They all have different personalities but come together as a group. They’re intense performers. They do not at all step away from any challenge. This event, for them, is an attempt to push their own boundaries.”

A self-described trendsetter, Tyagi hopes that his collection will inspire everyday people to push their own fashion limits as well, and not be too afraid to wear something a little more edgy.

“You wear clothes every day, so why not have fun with it?”

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