“Less may be more, but endless is most,” said green architect and entrepreneur William McDonough.

He was speaking on Thursday, Oct. 29 at the 2015 Zero Waste Conference in Vancouver, encouraging the audience to rethink our relationship with the garbage that we create.

The event brought together business leaders, politicians, and engineers from around the world to discuss exactly how to transition Canada to a circular economy.

In a circular economy, no material is wasted at any step of an assembly line and no waste goes into the landfill at the end. Electronics are stripped to their component parts and used to make new ones, while organic waste is composted and shipped back to farms to help grow the next year’s crops.

The Richmond Energy Garden, operated by Harvest Power, is based on this economic philosophy. The facility takes in compost, digests it using bacteria, and burns the resulting gases to generate enough electricity to power 900 homes. The byproducts of this process: nutrient rich soil and huge amounts of waste diverted from landfills.

In the opening keynote, McDonough asserted the necessity of this kind of efficiency, saying, “If we are to be the dominant species [on Earth], then that also implies that we must be stewards.”

He went on to describe Cradle to Cradle certification, a standard that is awarded to products that are assembled with recycling and environmental safety in mind. However, this certification has a caveat: processes must improve in efficiency over time, or they lose their certification. He explained that the goal is to encourage manufacturers to refine their processes over time in order to reach the ideal of zero waste.

Vancouver is already seen as a global leader in sustainability. The city was rated the fourth greenest city in the world in 2014 by the Global Green Economy Index. Also, Vancouverites themselves are especially aware of waste management, according to Iain Gulland of Zero Waste Scotland. “I’ve been impressed,” he said, “A lot of people in Vancouver already understand [what a circular economy is].”

Throughout the event, corporations stepped up to talk about the steps that they were taking to reduce their ecological impact. Representatives from Loblaws and Walmart discussed ways that they were reducing food waste at every step of the supply chain.

The afternoon keynote speaker, Stefan Sjostrand, is president of IKEA Canada and he described his company’s pursuit of a simple goal. “Our vision is to create a better everyday life for people,” he said, adding that IKEA has been deliberate about only using energy efficient LED bulbs and serving sustainably-harvested seafood in its restaurants. He then addressed his peers, “I’d like to challenge other businesses to do the same.”

Although the development of more advanced technologies will help Canada reach a circular economy, many experts at ZWC were calling for a shift in how we think about waste and social responsibility to begin with. McDonough urged the audience to not try to get the most out of giving the least, but instead ask “how much can we give for all that we get?”

The conference comes at a critical time in global sustainability: the United Nations recently set a target for cutting food waste in half by 2030 in their Sustainable Development Goals.

If Canada reaches that goal, it might because there are a few people in Vancouver that have already gotten their hands dirty.

Anne Giardini, SFU’s chancellor, will be recognized with a lifetime achievement award at the Western Canada General Counsel Awards next month.

Giardini received her undergraduate degree from SFU in 1980. Having pursued a major in economics and a minor in political science, she went on to study law. Giardini says that there was an underlying theme in her academic studies.

“I was interested in power, how it got exercised, and who had control. Having learned about economic power at Simon Fraser, legal power was another kind of power I wanted to learn about.”

Giardini continued, “It’s not that I was power hungry, I simply wanted to understand power from different areas.”

After receiving a degree in law, the now-chancellor began working at one of the world’s leading forest products companies, Weyerhaeuser Company Limited. Giardini has received awards for her legal and corporate work as a part of Weyerhaeuser’s legal counsel and then as president of the company. She has also been a strong proponent of encouraging greater female engagement in non-traditional sectors and roles.

Since 2010, Giardini has been appointed to the commonwealth group of senior lawyers, the Queen’s Counsel, has received the Robert V.A. Jones Award for her contributions to corporate law, and has been noted as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network.

Aside from her career at Weyerhaeuser, Giardini has also published two novels, The Sad Truth about Happiness, and Advice for Italian Boys. Currently, she is working on a third novel.

“My latest novel that I am working [on] is about death. There is still some work to be done on it, but it will eventually be released.”

Giardini’s mother, Carol Shields, was a novelist. Giardini is currently editing a collection of her mother’s writing advice which will be published in the Spring of 2016.

In addition to her legal work and writing, Giardini volunteers her time for and serves on the boards of several Vancouver organizations.

Giardini commented on how her time at SFU shaped who she is today: “My time at SFU made me curious. The professors and the students I met were all different and had different interests. And mostly, they were all passionate about what they were doing.

She continued, “I think my time at SFU gave me a lifelong curiosity about what people do, what drives them, and what moves them.”

The chancellor noted that she believes curiosity to be vital to an undergraduate education.

“Curiosity is a very important aspect of what you get out of an undergraduate degree. An undergraduate degree opens your mind to some of the possibilities out there.

“I really hope that students are not closed minded about their undergraduate degree. It really should open up possibilities.”

The Institute for the Humanities at SFU hosted one of the most highly anticipated lectures of their fall series on the topic of “Settler-Colonialism and Genocide Policies in North America.”

The Facebook event for the lecture, which took place on Tuesday October 27, had 1,737 positive RSVPs, however the ICBC Concourse at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue was only able to accommodate around 200 people.

“This has got to set something of a record for us,” commented Samir Gandesha, Director of the Institute for the Humanities.

The lecture was delivered by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, retired professor and author from Oklahoma, who spoke to examples of American policies and rhetoric, as the US is her area of expertise. However, she acknowledged that many of her points are transferable to the Canadian context as both countries share similarities in their colonial pasts. 

The title of the lecture series, “State of Emergency,” was drawn from a TED-x talk given by one of their speakers from earlier in the semester, Pam Palmater. Gandesha explained, in light of the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, “Professor Palmater drew attention to the fact that, particularly from an Indigenous perspective, Canada was and is in the midst of a ‘State of Emergency.’”

“The most obvious example of this was the previous government’s stubborn refusal to mount an inquiry into Canada’s national disgrace: the hundreds of missing and murdered indigenous women over the past several decades,” said Gandesha.

Dunbar-Ortiz’s lecture addressed the way settler-colonial policies have and can be portrayed.  “United States government policies and actions related to indigenous peoples, though often termed racist or discriminatory, are rarely depicted as what they are: classic, classic, cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism — settler-colonialism.”

She strongly believes the term “genocide” should be used in describing the atrocities inflicted upon North America’s indigenous peoples, discussing the origin, history, and application of the word.

Dunbar-Ortiz explained that all five acts of genocide, as identified in Article II of the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, were committed against the indigenous people.

The acts include “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Explaining the perspective of Australian anthropologist Patrick Wolfe, Dunbar-Ortiz remarked, “The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler-colonialism. Land is life, or at least land is necessary for life.”

She argued that the expansionist goals of the settler-colonial forces required violence and the threat of violence to achieve their goal of exterminating the indigenous populations as a people, not just as individuals.

She rebutted a popular argument against the use of the term genocide: “Genocide certainly doesn’t have to be complete to be considered genocide. That’s ridiculous; saying there were ‘too many Indians left,’ 10 per cent of the original population, is ludacris.”

Gandesha explained that “People are [. . .] often confused at why an Institute for the Humanities organizes the kinds of critical events, such as the one this evening, insofar as an Institute that is geared to a Western tradition seems to be deeply complicit in [. . .] the very history of Settler-Colonialism.”

He explained that the Institute aligns itself with a “counter-tradition” within the Western tradition, “that has elaborated a powerful critique of colonization, domination, and exploitation.”

Dispossessed but Defiant, a travelling photographic exhibition arrived at SFU last week.

Created by the Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East Foundation (CJPME), the exhibit showcases historical and contemporary photography of indigenous experiences of dispossession from South Africa, Palestine, and Canada.

Located in the Saywell Atrium, the display was brought to SFU through a collaboration of the world literature program, the Office for Aboriginal Peoples, and SFU’s Institute for the Humanities. The photographs will be on display until November 6.

Dispossessed but Defiant presents over 80 photos drawn from various archives, libraries, and individual collections, by both amateur and professional photographers.

The exhibit was curated and contextualized by CJPME through consultation with an expert in each of the areas of interest. It deals with the restriction of free movement and peaceful protest, as well as forms of dispossession like land loss and cultural pressures, amongst many others.

This exhibit hits close to home as SFU itself is situated on unceded Coast Salish territory.

Melek Ortabasi, the director of the SFU’s world literature program, frames the exhibit as part of the university’s mission — to create opportunities for dialogue around social issues. “SFU, to its credit and peril, has thrown itself behind the motto of ‘The Engaged University,’” she said, adding that it falls within this mandate to examine difficult questions.

The exhibit aims to personify the experiences and stories of the dispossession of indigenous peoples through the use of photography, drawing from multiple traditions from the invention of photography to the present day.

It counts on institutional records, anthropological photographs, studio portraits, and press and activist photography to illustrate a narrative of indigenous “‘migration,’ ‘exile’ ‘homeland,’ and ‘dispossession,’ as some of most viscerally wrenching human concepts,” expressed Ortabasi. 

Through projects such as this, the world literature program aims to unpack the concept of travel, movement, and tradition — by tackling “these difficult questions, and how they are mediated from one culture to another,” explained Ortabasi.

In three photographic case studies located in different places, the exhibit attempts to provide an opportunity to examine the Canadian indigenous experience in relation to that of other countries, through the organization of five clusters of photographs that suggest a thematic arrangement.

The photographs chronicle well-known historical moments like residential schools in Canada and Nelson Mandela’s election under universal suffrage in South Africa. However, the exhibit also presents some less familiar pieces of history. 

The exhibit provides a broader view of traditional lands, ways of life, dispossession and resistance in its various forms by showcasing photographs of agriculture in pre-partition Palestine and referencing the failed creation of Bantu homelands under apartheid.

Through the combination of text and compelling documentary photography, Dispossessed but Defiant aims to cast a wide lens on the experience of indigenous dispossession and to encourage productive discussion of surrounding issues.

UViC students offer new perspective on astronomy

[VICTORIA] — University of Victoria (UVic) students are looking to reinvent stargazing and upgrade the astronomy department at their university. The Committee for Upgrading the Learning Telescopes is a small and relatively new group at UViC. They currently lack the funds they need to fully realize their goal — to enhance the public experience of watching constellations on their open stargazing nights.

The committee has made adjustments to the 20 inch telescope model on campus and they also plan to work on the 32 inch model, Canada’s largest on-campus telescope.

With flies from The Martlet

New chancellor appointed at University of Western Ontario

[LONDON] — The University of Western Ontario appointed alumni Jack Cowin, founder of Competitive Foods Australia Ltd., as it’s 22nd chancellor.

He graduated from Western in 1964 with a degree in Psychology and was involved in the university’s wrestling and football teams.

Cowin told The Gazette, “I’ve got some views on education, what’s required and where Western should be going in the future. I’m glad to play that role.”

With files from The Gazette

Internships scarce for international med students

[HALIFAX] — About 60 per cent of international students applying for internships in medicine at Dalhousie University are being denied. 293 out of 486 applicants were rejected last year because the dates and departments they chose were already full.

Not only does this cost them the $500 Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada fee, but also the non refundable $775 Dalhousie application fee. Canadian and local students receive preference over the international students.

With files from The Dalhousie Gazette