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Episode 45 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition features Bitstrips.com, a Toronto-based website that allows users to create their own comic strips.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

Next episode: Feb. 25, 2011

Conservative Party Sets It's Sights On Student Groups

The Conservative Party is a strange beast. The entire goal of the party seems to be the accumulation of power for the sake of having power. While Harper has hardly been a progressive on any issue he is certainly not a fiscal conservative, and although he has expressed support for social conservative issues he is not currently pushing a social conservative agenda either. He doesn't like the CBC so he punishes the CBC, he does like the oil sands so he rewards the oil sands. The entire conservative party agenda seems to be about gathering greater power so they can reward their friends and punish their enemies (real or perceived).

Now, according to the Ryerson Free Press the CPC seems to be setting its sights on Student Unions and other campus organizations.

"At a session held in early February by the Ontario Progressive Campus Conservative Association (OPCCA) and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, campus Conservatives, party campaigners, and a Member of Parliament discussed strategies to gain funding from student unions for the Conservative Party and ways to run for—and win—positions within student unions.

The leaked materials were posted on WikiLeaks.org over the weekend and add to the growing body of evidence that the Conservative Party has a strategy for interfering in campus student unions. In early 2002, the campus press first learned of a secret Millennium Leadership Fund that the party’s campus wing used to fund candidates in student union elections. Now it appears that strategy has evolved into a campaign to falsely obtain student union funding and destabilize student clubs with a social justice mandate."

Apparently the plan is to build up a power base that will last for decades, so they can continue their agenda of bullying people they don't like. It is all made even stranger by the fact that higher education is one of the Conservatives perceived enemies. Can we have a new government yet?

Indigo: Copyright is More Important than Literacy

Julie Wilson runs the brilliant blog Seen Reading in which she catches people reading books around Toronto, takes a good guess as to what page they are on and then reports it on her blog along with a short exceprt from the book. Because Julie cannot actually buy hundreds of books a year she does her research in book shops. She finds the book and the page and copies an excerpt (about 50 words) to go along with the blog. In this manner she plugs books daily in an age when publishers are going under and literacy rates are declining rapidly.

Fortunately the Indigo Copyright police were on hand to put a stop to such nefarious behavior.

"Seems Wilson was caught up short by the Indigo staffer’s allegation that what she was doing was “illegal.” When she explained that excerpting 50 words from a novel-length text for the purpose of review or commentary falls under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act, she was informed that it was only fair use if copied from a book that she owned. It’s illegal to do so from a book on Indigo’s shelf. (Which, by extension, would mean that it would also be illegal for Wilson to copy a passage from a library book, but let’s not split hairs.)"

Thank goodness the upstanding employees of Chapters/Indigo are on their toes, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice to protect the world from independent local bookstores and the dark underworld of people who try to promote literacy in their spare time. Without their diligence the world would surely turn into a cesspool of scum, villainy and book piracy (with all of the illegal volumes copied out by hand no less)!

Sure there are a few bleeding hearts out there who think that Indigo should apologize to Wilson, promise to leave her alone in future and give her a big, fat gift card for the trouble but rewarding book crime and unlicensed literary promotion is a one way ticket to total anarchy.

Cred To Quill and Quire and CanCult.

Tell Scholastic to Stop Shilling to Children

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is running a cross-border campaign to try and convince the Scholastic Corp. to put books back in their book advertisements to children.

In case you don't remember, Scholastic is the company that makes the flyers that your teachers used to give you in elementary school. You could pick out books and, if you could convince your parents to buy them, your school would get some free books out of the deal.

If it helps jog your memory the flyers look sorta like this



The problem is that while scholastic's tag line is still "Helping Children Around the World to Read and Learn" the flyer is increasingly filled with stuff - marker sets, glitter things, pens and stuffed animals and various toys, plus an assortment of 'books' based on TV series, books based on consumer products (barbie) and (as you will see) the M&M's Kart Racing Wii where you can "Choose your favorite M&M's character and race one of 7 vehicles on 10 different tracks - ages 5 and up" and it is reduced from 39.95 to only 29.95 (order now kids).

So whichever side of the border you live on you can now Contact Scholastic and tell them to F*** off or ... well... at least ask them to knock it off. If they are going to be given the opportunity to sell things to elementary school students while they are in school they should be books, or at the very least educational.

My Platform: Education

There is alot of talk about federal deficits lately but the failure to spend on education creates it's own deficit. It is a deficit in terms of wasted potential, a deficit in terms of an attractive work force that lures in companies, and it is an actual financial deficit. According to this study the cost of high school dropouts is 1.3 billion a year in criminal justice costs alone. That doesn't even count what it costs in social services, lost tax revenue, lost economic activity...

"The study found that the total spending on social assistance — benefits for food, shelter, clothing and back-to-work incentives — would go down by $4,230 for each additional high school graduate."

If Canada is going to be competitive in the 21st century investment in education, including and especially higher education is essential.

I personally believe this policy should be revived. It would, for a start, deny drivers license to those who do not graduate high school. I would extend this to any and all licenses which are not a matter of charter rights (hunting, fishing, professional licenses etc). But it is not enough to impose penalties without giving people a chance to redeem themselves. Generally public schools need increased funding but more specifically I would set up a nationwide network of community colleges.

These community colleges would be

Heavily subsidized and designed to be inexpensive

Would have high school completion programs

Would have alot of certificate programs

Would have general courses that are transferrable to universities, so that people could knock out their first two years of University without racking up debt

Would have flexible programs so you could go full time, or part time, saturday courses, online courses etc.

Would have continuing education programs for professionals to keep up on new developments - from one day seminars to full semester courses

Would be networked so that you could take courses at a variety of different community colleges over time and have all the courses count toward a final goal

Would offer free online courses on subjects like citizenship (for immigrants), the Canadian political system (for voters), French and English courses, basic tax filing and home accounting, and basic health and nutrition

So, a economically challenged student who wanted a university degree could take their first two years, for a small reasonable amount of money, and could take the first two years over several years if they needed to. This would give them the opportunity to complete half of university without racking up debt and they could work and save money for the next two years. This of course would be combined with the $1000 / month they would be receiving. This would allow more people to go to university, would allow people to get professional certifications without breaking the bank and would allow people to continually re-train to further their careers.

Would this be expensive? Sure, but as I said no doing it costs money too and creates a different kind of deficit - one that hurts the Canadian economy and tax base in very real ways.

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Previous:
My Platform: Introduction
My Platform: Arts and Culture
My Platform: Poverty
My Platform: Business and Industry
My Platform: Crime
My Platform: Carbon Tax
My Platform: Labour and Workplace Reform
My Platform: Electoral and Ethics Reform

Rock Plaza Central Added to School Curriculum

From the Rock Plaza Central Myspace blog:

"So, really exciting to announce that Are We Not Horses has become required listening (or as Exclaim Magazine called it, "required rocking") at two institutes of higher learning. The first, at the University of South Alabama, is on a Grad English course on Comtemporary Literature, studying
"another recent (if slightly less visible) trend in contemporary lit: the cross pollination between indie music and fiction. We’ll pair three novels with three albums—Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn (1999) with I’m Not Jim’s You Are All My People (2008), Chris Eaton’s The Inactivist (2003) with Rock Plaza Central’s Are We Not Horses (2006), and Willy Vlautin’s Northline (2007) with Richmond Fontaine’s Post to Wire (2004)—and consider not only the issues faced when moving between media, but also whether cataclysmic changes in both the publishing and music industries might, in some fashion, have given rise to this phenomenon." 

The second institute is an elementary school in Ottawa, Ontario, where Grade 6 students interpreted "My Children, Be Joyful" as "trying something new, reaching towards something they hadn't before", and they've also been revisualizing the lyrics of the song in drawings. Hopefully we'll be allowed to post some pics soon!"

It remains to be seen whether being forced to study a particular band in school helps boost your fan base or not but given that most Canadians still don't know their Rock Plaza Central basics (nor apparently how their government works) it is good to see them put where they belong - in the mandatory curriculum.

Rock Plaza Central - My Children, Be Joyful

Did You Know?

Facinating video. It is not Canadian in origin but summarizes in 5 minutes and 16 seconds some of the changes happening in our world.

Sadly I would have to say that Canadian politicians (every party) and Canadian media companies are largely oblivious to or in denial about all of it. The world is changing very, very quickly and we are not prepared or preparing.

Learn Sign Language with Bob Wiseman

Having trouble with sign language? Bob Wiseman can help. No expensive classes, no cost and .. well not all that useful when talking to people who can't hear. But it will only take two minutes and fourty three seconds to learn so what the hell right?

Canada Still Getting the Government it Deserves

A plausible explanation has emerged for much of the confusion and anger that surrounded the recent Parliamentary circus in Ottawa. According to a new Ipsos Reid poll shows that far too many Canadians do not understand our system of government. According to the Canadian Press:

For example, results of the Ipsos Reid survey show 75 per cent of Canadians asked believe the prime minister, or the Governor General, is head of state. Bzzzz - wrong.
It's actually the Queen...

Given a choice how best to describe the system of government, 25 per cent decided on a "co-operative assembly" while 17 per cent opted for a "representative republic."
Canada is neither.
Only 59 per cent correctly picked constitutional monarchy.
In a similar vein, 51 per cent wrongly agreed that Canadians elect the prime minister directly.

To me this is the result of Canada's neglect of the education system. The answers to these questions should be deeply ingrained before a child graduates primary school.

Ultimately, if people do not understand their system of government and have at least a basic understanding of the issues they are voting on you cannot claim that it is a democratic system at all. For the moment we can only hope that there is significant crossover between the 51% who believe that we directly elect the Prime Minister and the 49% who decided not to vote in the last election.

Thanksgiving: What Will Future Generation Be Thankful For?

For most people the election will be put on hold tomorrow as everyone sits down for Thanksgiving dinner. It is unlikely though that most dinner tables will totally avoid the taboo topic of politics. If yours drifts in this direction, take a poll around the table. Ask people what your children and grandchildren and great grand-children will be thankful for when they site around their Thanksgiving tables in the future.

Will they be thankful for a reduction in greenhouse gasses, cooler temperatures, clean air and clean water or will they be thankful for a 2 cent reduction in diesel fuel prices?

Will they be thankful for a strong national health care system or will they be thankful that 14 year olds are getting life sentences?

Will they be thankful for a stronger more diverse national economy, and revamped infrastructure or will they be thankful that corporate board rooms got a big tax cut?

Will they be thankful for a strong public education system and a chance for everyone to go to university or will they be thankful that the $100/month day care credit was adjusted for inflation?

Will they be thankful for a strong, vibrant Arts and Culture sector, for music and film and literature that talk about them and their lives and experiences or will they be thankful that they didn't get a PM with a French Accent?

Obviously the Conservatives represent one side of this equation and (while they may have differences on the details) the Liberals, NDP, Greens and even the Bloc (if you're in Quebec) agree about the other side.

This election is actually shaping up to be very, very close. According to CPAC/Nanos the numbers currently look like this:

Conservatives 32 (-1) Liberals 28 (+1) NDP 22 (no change) BQ 10 (no change) Green 8 (no change) 18 % of people remain undecided

I know that other polling firms are showing different things, but in the last election Nanos was pretty close to right on the money. The table below will show you their final polling numbers compared to the actual result.



The other thing to keep in mind is the 18% undecided. There is a gulf in ideology between the Conservatives and the other parties. If people were going to vote Conservative they'd vote Conservative. It's far more likely that they are contemplating which of the Center/Left parties to vote for (Liberal/NDP/Green etc).
Although I don't have actual nationwide numbers on this at this point this example from the Winnipeg Free Press shows what they have found locally.

"What's more, voters who remain undecided going into the campaign's final weekend -- about seven per cent -- are leaning heavily to the opposition parties. About 30 per cent are seriously considering the NDP, 25 per cent are leaning to the Liberals and 16 per cent to the Greens, compared to 26 per cent who are leaning Conservative."

So, by their numbers anyway 71% of the undecided are going to break to the left on voting day but, due to the divisions, if we are going to take out the Tories we need to be motivated, we need to get our friends and relatives and neighbors and co-workers motivated and we need to vote strategically. Check out Anyonebutharper.ca or voteforenvironment.ca for information on strategy.

You Have A Choice

Montreal's New Film Factory

Via Art Threat: Montreal's Main Film has launched The Film Factory:

"... a year long program whereby Main Film provides the environment, the tools and training for artists to undertake artistic risks in the development, exploration, and experimentation of their own artistic practice of film as an art form.

Main Film is an "artist-run centre for independent filmmmakers." A complete list of the rules, qualifications, equiptment and facilities available and application forms are available on their website at mainfilm.qc.ca.

Toronto Independent Filmmaking Workshops

LIFT (the Liason of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto) is running a series of workshop in February. Details are below, for more information Call 416.588.6444 or visit lift.on.ca.

INCOME TAX FOR MEDIA ARTISTS
Let "Tax Ma'am" help you file your tax return as a self-employed artist!
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 6, 6-9 PM
Instructor: SUSAN FELDMAN
Cost: Members $55, Non-Members $70

GUERRILLA FILMMAKING IN SUPER 8
Experience the beauty of Super 8 in this all-inclusive 'mini-course'!
CAMERA: SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9 & 16, 12-6 PM
FINAL CUT PRO (OPTIONAL): SATURDAY FEBRUARY 23, 10 AM - 6 PM
Also includes camera rental, film, processing, editing time and transfer
Instructors: RICK PALIDWOR, TRACY GERMAN, JOE PERT
Cost: EDIT ON FILM - Members $155, Non-Members $170
Cost: EDIT ON FINAL CUT PRO - Members $200, Non-Members $225

GRANT WRITING FOR ARTS COUNCILS
Tips, tricks and common sense guidelines for writing a concise and
persuasive grant application!
TUESDAY-THURSDAY, FEBURARY 19-21, 6-10 PM
Instructor: ELIDA SCHOGT
Cost: Members $50, Non-Members $65

INTRO TO MOVIE MAKING
Learn how to plan and shoot a 'doable' short movie!
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 6-10 PM
Instructor: RICK PALIDWOR
Cost: Members $20, Non-Members $25

Canadian Authors Virtually In the Classroom.

Through canlit.ca I recently found out about W.E.I.R. which stands for Writers In Electronic Residence. According to the web site:

•An educational initiative that focuses on Canada's literary culture through creative literary expression and critical discussion undertaken in a writing—and written—community; and, An arts initiative that creates new forms of work for Canada's writers, and audiences for their books.

The idea, basically, is that WEIR sets up classrooms with electronic writers in residence who not only talk to students about the importance of literature, but run writing workshops for kids via the internet. This seems to me a hugely important and timely exercise given that it comes at a time when according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs the US book market is dead.

"...the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

You've Been Accepted into MIT

Anyone, anywhere can now attend MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) over the internet, from home, for free. I've known about this for awhile, but after reading an article in the Globe and Mail over the New Years holiday it occured to me that I've never blogged about it and that there may well be people out there who don't know.

An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures.

There are currently over 1800 courses offered (under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence) trough the MIT OpenCourseWare web site including courses in architecture and planning, engineering, health sciences and technology, humanities, arts and social sciences, and more.

Other Universities around the world are also jumping on board. Again from the Globe and Mail:

More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow.

Here are a few more links you might find useful.

The Open Courseware Consortium

The Open Courseware Finder

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Tufts University

Of course the downside to all of this is you're not actually an MIT Student (or John's Hopkins, or Tufts etc.,) that costs alot of money. So, you don't get a grade, you can't raise your hand and ask a question and you don't get university credit for it. But if you want to learn, if you want to study what people are studying at some of the worlds elite universities it's all right there waiting for you.

Breaking Links: Friday, December 14

The Winnipeg Police have some serious splaining to do. From Inside the CBC the Canadian Association of Journalists has filed a complaint over the inexplicable arrest of a CBC cameraman yesterday.

"The CBC says Scott did not film any undercover officers or cross police lines as he filmed the incident. He agreed to a police request to step further away from the incident but refused to stop filming, according to the CBC."

VoCA has a great post on "the search for the authentic in contemporary art.

"Art has become trendy among the young and upwardly mobile, creating a demand for edgy, flashy yet not-too-difficult work. As if to answer this demand, art schools are churning out thousands of young painters and installation artists annually, each of whom fully expects to make a successful career from art making. Mega collectors like Charles Saatchi in the UK, Martin Margulies and the Rubells in the US have become media stars with their own galleries filled with artists whose work they collect, complete with catalogues and full time staff."

The Quill and Quire blog has a rundown on the, very sad, battle over the Toronto Small Press Book Fair.

"A few weeks after the most recent Toronto Small Press Book Fair, a public battle is raging between fair organizers and disgruntled constituents – mostly in the arena of Facebook."

Ivor Tossell at the Globe and Mail has a look at 'How Copyright Became Cool'. We can only hope the people leading ACTRA will read this and be a little more aware of the situation before they belittle and insult the Canadian film, theatre and television audience again.

"When did copyright law become sexy? Jim Prentice must be wondering. This week, Canada's freshly shuffled Industry Minister was set to table new copyright legislation that could have completely changed the relationship between Canadians and their digital media. But then he backed down, at least until the end of the year."

Parkdale Pictures sings the praises of Rolling Stone's 'best songs of 2007'.

"Rolling Stone should have called its best songs of 2007 "a list of 100 songs you heard of" since it is bereft of both logic and taste. "

Homeless Nation is asking for help to save a forest.

"For those who do not know already, there is a culturally significant area of forest in Langford that is slated to be destroyed by the new development of a proposed cloverleaf-style freeway interchange. Previously entitled the "Bear Mountain Interchange," it is currently known as the Spencer Road Interchange. Currently, the area is being protected by activists who are occupying several trees and a sacred cave in the path of the proposed interchange."

Kelowna police have tasered a 68-year-old man (twice) as he sat in his car but they're sorry. Meanwhile the RCMP thinks their officers may be getting carried away.

"The RCMP's watchdog is calling for the force to restrict its use of stun guns, saying the weapons are increasingly employed to subdue those who are resistant rather than those who pose a threat."

And Vive Le Canada brings word that Acidic seas may kill 98% of world's reefs by 2050

"The majority of the world's coral reefs are in danger of being killed off by rising levels of greenhouse gases, scientists warned yesterday. Researchers from Britain, the US and Australia, working with teams from the UN and the World Bank, voiced their concerns after a study revealed 98% of the world's reef habitats are likely to become too acidic for corals to grow by 2050."

Via CanCult "Our School Libraries are Starting to Die" Chapters/Indigo has a short doc and call to action on the subject.

"Writing on the Wall explores the literacy crisis unfolding in Canada's classrooms. Complete with shocking statistics of children's literacy skills and the impact on their future, and Canada's, this groundbreaking film follows two high-needs elementary schools as they prepare their submission for an Indigo Love of Reading Foundation grant to rebuild their dying libraries."

No Room for Students or Teachers in Education Reform

Following up on the UNBSJ Story.

One would suppose that if the province was going to close your local university that current high school students might have an interest in the subject. Professor Greg Marquis thought so. The UNBSJ professor went to hold a scheduled information session for students at Harbourview High School in St. John, NB only to discover that the 'information session" was cancelled because "he didn't follow the proper procedures, and never contacted the superintendant's office."

According to this article

"District 8's Bev MacDonald says officials are not opposed to students having information about a current community issue."

But referring to this as a "current community issue" in this case is absurd. This is an issue that will affect where and in some cases even whether the high school students in question go to university.

You can now keep up to date on all of these happenings by reading "Living In Interesting Times" which has been added to the Canblogs. Again there is also a facebook group created by students, and a petition you can sign if you would like to lend your support to the people of St. John, NB.

Schools as Galleries?

Toward the end of this summer I read uTOpia Volume 2: The State of the Arts Living with Culture in Toronto which is a fabulous book and really sparks your imagination when it comes to art and public spaces, whether you live in Toronto or elsewhere. I highly recommend you grab a copy - wherever you live. There are several authors in there I would still really like to talk to about their ideas.

Shortly after finishing it I was flipping around at the television and landed on - I don't know what it was. There were children and they were talking about art. All they seemed to know though was the Renaissance, and Da Vinci, Michelangelo, a few even threw in Van Gosh and Jackson Pollock. It struck me that this was like your music education being limited to Beethoven and Mozart, Elvis and the Beatles. Nothing wrong with any of them - still, somewhat incomplete. I should add here that I do not blame the schools for this, the arts generally take a back seat to everything else, in terms of both time and budget in most schools.

The combination of these two experiences led me to an idea. What if you could set aside a small area of the school, a little bit of wall somewhere and allow local contemporary artists to show off their work. Granted a public school is not an ideal gallery, kids will see it, and teachers, and perhaps some parents or other community members involved in the school. Even if it does not sell a single painting or print for anyone though I still think it is an idea worth exploring. It makes art alive for children, it makes the artists in their neighborhood as real as the firemen and policemen and bankers (all of whom are involved in the schools).

It has also been suggested to me, by a few teachers I've talked to that it would be ideal if the artist could come in at some point to discuss their work with the children - this is also an excellent idea. I think though that it would be best to not do it right away. What I remember from art in school is that you would occasionally take a field trip to see some art, but that it was so rapid fire that you could digest nothing. You were ushered quickly through the museum and generally someone talked while you glanced at paintings and statues. If you saw something you thought curious or intriguing you didn't really have time to stop or you'd fall behind and they'd make you wait on the bus.

By putting the art in the school for a few weeks , or a month (before hopefully someone else takes over) it gives students a chance to live with the art, to look at it for as long as they like and form opinions then perhaps when the artist comes in to present they will have something to say. Most importantly the children would be on the path to being adults who know about and think about art, not as a part of classical history, but as a current, ongoing, living, vibrant topic. The artist, as I said, is unlikely to sell anything, but perhaps - if a generation is created that knows about, thinks about and even buys art, it will pay the artists dividends down the road.

I have talked to a school in West Toronto that is at least interested on the surface, and future talks are going to come. Ideally the art should be local, but if you live in Calgary, or Vancouver, or Halifax there is a good chance that there are artists who will work with your school - or schools that will work with you as an artist. If anyone out there is interested in participating, please get in touch, even if we are in different parts of the country, we can certainly at least compare notes.

Axing Higher Education Does Not Improve the Economy

Atlantic Canada has certainly seen better economic times, but short term fixes based solely on the demands of industry will not fix it. In any society that wants to prosper, both socially and economically, there is no better investment you can make than in education. It is education that provides the knowledge around which all other societal changes and improvements are made. Personally, I have nothing against polytechnic institutions but if you are serious about investing in the future you don't create them by shutting down universities and if you are serious about political credibility you don't do so on the basis of recommendations by a board member of polytechnics Canada.

Please join me in supporting the students and staff of the University of New Brunswick's St. John campus in fighting an attempt by government to shut down their school - along with recommendations to deregulate tuition, cap student loans and eliminate a $2000 grant for first year students.

More information is available here as well as a facebook group created by students, and a petition you can sign.