All Posts Tagged With: "Northern Gateway"
After the oil boom
Canada can no longer count on oil to produce jobs
Savanna Energy Services Corp.
In his 25 years in the oil industry, Preston Reum has seen his share of booms and busts. Back in 1989, when Alberta’s oil industry was in the midst of a downturn and unemployment in cities like Edmonton topped 10 per cent, Reum collected T4 slips from 11 different employers as he jumped from one job to the next in search of a steady paycheque.
“You’d have a friend and whoever got a job, we went and worked on that rig and when that job was done, you’d know another guy running a rig and you’d go there,” says Reum, now a general manager at service-rig contractor Essential Energy Services. “You just stuck with it and worked for anybody that had a job.”
With each boom-bust cycle in Alberta, Reum has lost friends and employees, tired of the long, cold days in remote work camps, weeks of unpaid downtime and the uncertainty of living paycheque to paycheque. When the industry took a hit in 2008 and 2009 in the midst of the global recession, Reum says workers left in droves for jobs in the construction industry or mining in Saskatchewan, while others took up plumbing apprenticeships in the cities. Many experienced workers who had flown in from Atlantic Canada went home and never returned. Reum says the jobs that skilled workers found after leaving the industry often came close to matching the salaries in the oil sands, while also offering regular pay and nine-to-five days at job sites much closer to home.
U of T sex club, viral feminist art & geography skills
What students are talking about today (January 15th)
Screenshot of Rosey Posey's "Judgments"
1. An 18-year-old Capilano University student named Rosea Lake (a.k.a. Rosea Posey) has received 275,000 notes on her Tumblr site after posting her feminist artwork “Judgments.” The photo shows a woman with a skirt hiked up and a series of words written on her leg that begin at her ankle with “matronly” and end at her buttocks with “whore.” She told The Province her message is for people to stop judging women unfairly by how they dress, a.k.a.”slut shaming.”
2. U of T students are being accused of planning an orgy. “The University of Toronto Sexual Education Centre is kicking off its annual Sexual Awareness Week next Monday at Oasis Aqua Lounge, a downtown club that bills itself as a water-themed adult playground, where swingers are welcome and sex is allowed everywhere but the hot tub,” reports The Toronto Star. “We’re not funding an orgy,” external education and outreach coordinator Dylan Tower, 22, told The Star. “People are allowed to have sex [but] there is not any type of ‘You should be having sex when you’re here.” So, in other words, students can have an orgy if they want to, but it’s totally optional. The SEC is affiliated with the University of Toronto Students’ Union and is funded by undergraduate student fees. Tower told The Star the event is a safe way to introduce curious students to the sex club scene.
Continue reading U of T sex club, viral feminist art & geography skills
What students are talking about today (October 22nd edition)
A pipeline protest, a really bad cartoon & black cats
Tambako the Jaguar/Flickr
1. Critics of the Northern Gateway pipline project are hoping at least a thousand people will turn up today for a protest rally at the B.C. legislature in Victoria, reports The Canadian Press. The protests have been endorsed by unions such as the the Canadian Auto Workers, the B.C. Teacher’s Federation and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, plus celebrities including actor Ellen Page and singer Dan Mangan.
2. A student newspaper cartoonist has been fired from the Arizona Daily Wildcat after an anti-gay comic strip prompted thousands of complaints. The comic shows a father telling his son that if he’s gay, he will be shot with a shotgun, rolled into a carpet and thrown off a bridge. The boy says, “Well I guess that’s what you call a ‘Fruit Roll Up.’”
3. Animal welfare advocates say they no longer ban adoption of black cats at Halloween—a practice that stemmed from fears the animals would be harmed. In fact, the Ontario SPCA is now offering a discount on the adoption of black, orange and calico cats, reports The Canadian Press. How cute.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 22nd edition)
What students are talking about today (October 11th edition)
A fraternity shut, a prayer dropped and a mullet banned
A Mulleted Man in Ontario (Danielle Scott/Flickr)
1. The University of British Columbia chapter of Kappa Sigma has been suspended for “code of conduct violations.” What the fraternity is accused of doing hasn’t yet been made public.
2. An Australian man is speaking out after a Perth bar told him to leave because of his mullet. I reckon that’s discrimination.
3. The president of the University of Windsor has approved removing a Christian prayer from convocation ceremonies. The request came from a student club, the Windsor-Essex County Atheist Society. The prayer had referenced an “eternal God” as “the source of all goodness, discipline and knowledge.” Read more here.
4. A Montreal police officer who was already accused of excessive force for pepper-spraying protesters during a student march earlier this year is under investigation again. Stéphanie Trudeau, who wears badge 728, faces scrutiny for an incident that started with a man holding a beer on a sidewalk and ended with four charges of obstruction of justice, assault and intimidation. An accidental audio recording on someone’s phone captured the officer calling the four arrested “a bunch of red square types,” a reference to the symbol of the student protests. More here.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 11th edition)
