1 December 2021

TOB AN the MANI

UMSU endorses binding arbitration in UMFA strike

SSUMFA says endorsement ‘unnecessary’

NEWS Colton McKillop, staff

UMSU passed a motion Nov. 22 endorsing binding arbitration to resolve the UMFA strike.

The motion, brought forward by UMSU executives, was amended to address UMFA’s non-monetary concerns, which were initially not included in the proposal.

Professors’ choice of whether to teach online or in-person and the requirement to teach three terms in a row without a break were among the non-monetary issues in the amendment.

UMSU president Brendan Scott said the student union supported UMFA in the strike, but after three weeks with no end in sight, the executives “felt it [was] necessary to support something new.”

“Given the internal talks with the administration, we knew that this was the mediator’s decision at the bargaining table to say that [binding arbitration] is the last thing that can move this thing forward,” he explained, referencing the mediator’s final recommendation of binding arbitration on Nov. 26.

“All other avenues [have] been

exhausted and this was pretty much the final thing that both the administration and the faculty could do to end the strike.”

In a Twitter thread posted Monday night, Students Supporting UMFA (SSUMFA) said UMSU’s exclusion of governance issues from the initial draft of the motion demonstrated their “lack of commitment” to UMFA’s cause.

SSUMFA said UMSU did not consult with the faculty association before bringing the motion forward and argued UMSU was trying to pressure the faculty association into “premature arbitration without ensuring that non-monetary concerns are accounted for and upheld.”

SSUMFA invited UMFA president Orvie Dingwall to the UMSU board meeting and they convinced the executives to include the amendments after more than two hours of debate.

Speaking on behalf of SSUMFA, Dario Duque Giraldo, a representative of UMSU’s Arts Student Body Council, said endorsing binding arbitration before governance issues are resolved would have been the “wrong decision.”

“Many of the directors of UMSU such as myself, Jaron Rykiss and Hannah Belec believe that this isn’t just a fight for the now, it’s a fight for the future as well,” he said.

“If those […] governance issues aren’t resolved […] before agreeing to binding arbitration, it’s going to basically end up being strike after strike, year after year, and we need to think about the future of the students, not just about wanting to end the strike right now, because it’s just not sustainable.”

According to SSUMFA, they were only given a two-hour notice of the motion before it was debated and voted on.

“At that point in time on Monday, we hadn’t heard from UMFA [about] what they wanted and why they didn’t directly accept binding arbitration,” explained Giraldo.

Scott disputed this characterization, however, saying, “UMFA was consulted, we knew their opinion on the matter.”

“It was on Saturday that UMSU was told that the mediator had suggested binding arbitration and we understood that it would come forward on the Sunday or the Monday, and so we booked to hopefully have the emergency meeting on the Monday,” Scott explained.

“The reason for the quick turnaround was to hopefully avoid scenario 3, which started on Wednesday. We felt that if UMSU could support the mediator’s [recommendation] of binding arbitration, given the fact that binding arbitration would immediately end the strike [...] then we would be able to avoid scenario 3, thus avoiding a lot of complaints that students had over scenario 3 and 4.”

Scenarios 3 and 4 are the schedules for interrupted classes proposed by the administration, which would push the start of the winter break to Christmas Eve.

Giraldo said the executives’ endorsement of binding arbitration was “unnecessary.”

“Saying ‘UMFA and admin need to go into binding arbitration just to end the strike,’ which was basically the reason for the executives to propose this motion […] was not what needed to be done at the time,” he said.

“Obviously if both parties agree to full-on binding arbitration, it would end the strike immediately, classes would resume and everything would be great and happy, but that’s not the reality of [the situation].”

news@themanitoban.com

Extension requested for Winnipeg police funding model

More time for public feedback needed due to COVID-19 pandemic

over poverty reduction strategies.

The question of how to fund the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) is winding its way through the Winnipeg city council.

In a Nov. 17 executive policy committee regular meeting, the city’s chief financial officer and WPS Funding Working Group requested a 120-day extension in order to conduct public engagement on the Winnipeg police funding model.

The executive policy committee’s motion was then taken to the Nov. 25 Winnipeg city council regular meeting where the motion was carried unanimously.

St. James City Councillor and Chair of the Standing Policy Committee on Finance Scott Gillingham clarified the reason for the delay.

“It’s partly because of COVID-19 and all the restrictions on meeting […] it’s taken longer to get the public feedback for that process to be finalized,” he said.

“The report was not ready at this moment. It will come sometime in

the new year, but the goal remains the same: to try and establish a formula by which police budgets can be set so that there is funding certainty for the police service, for council and for members of the public.”

James Wilt, a member of police abolitionist group Winnipeg Police Cause Harm, was critical of the need for an extension.

“The city of Winnipeg’s failure to produce a report on the financial sustainability of policing is perfectly indicative of its entire approach to completely unchecked police power,” he wrote in an email.

“Despite having by far the largest budget of any city department — spending well over $300 million this year, equivalent to more than one-quarter of the operating budget, along with the additional $7.3 million to make up for police overspending — the city pretends to have no control or jurisdiction over this, appealing to the toothless police board for oversight.”

Wilt also discussed the adverse effects of money being allocated to police

“The crisis of poverty and homelessness is intrinsically related to police spending, with the constant criminalization and abuse of people — mostly poor and Indigenous — directly undermining people’s access to housing, employment and community supports,” he said.

“Further, the ever-growing police budget means that actual solutions to poverty like public housing, harm reduction, food security, public transit, free and accessible mental health supports, 24/7 safe spaces and non-violent crisis intervention are considered impossible to fund.”

Councillor Gillingham disputed the claim that the police budget comes at the expense of poverty reduction.

“Right now there’s no direct link between [police funding and poverty reduction] in one sense. In another sense though, police services — in fact, Winnipeg emergency services — do respond to a lot of calls for service where individuals are people experiencing poverty.

“A lot of time, police respond because a 911 call comes, but it’s not always a

case that the police are the service that the individual needs. So that’s why there’s got to be a very coordinated effort between the city of Winnipeg, the province of Manitoba and departments of the city to make sure that when the call for service comes, the right agency is responding to that call for service.”

TOB AN the MANI

PhD student contributes to project renaming hominins

Making the case for decolonizing paleoanthropology

RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

Michael Campbell, staff

Joshua Lindal, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Manitoba, is part of a research team that has proposed a new species name for a human ancestor that lived half a million years ago. Unsatisfied with the monikers of Homo heidelbergensis and Homo rhodesiensis, Lindal’s research group has argued for their retirement. In their place, the group advocates that many H. heidelbergensis fossils be grouped with the existing Homo neanderthalensis and H. rhodesiensis be reclassified into a new group called Homo bodoensis

Lindal has been working with a group of researchers studying early human ancestors. The group includes Mirjana Roksandic, professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Winnipeg, and Predrag Radović, research assistant in the department of archaeology at the University of Belgrade.

“We used to think about this straight line from Homo erectus to archaic humans to modern humans today,” Lindal said.

“And now we’re realizing that of course, it’s way more complicated than that.”

Our species’ lineage is by its very nature exploratory. Early humans covered more land than previously expected, meaning conceptions of discrete proto-human species may not be as accurate as once thought.

H. heidelbergensis got its name from the city of Heidelberg, Germany, where a workman found a fossilized mandible in 1908. The mandible had traits of both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, so scientists declared it a new species. The authors argue paleoanthropologists have tended to categorize most fossils from this time period under this one species name.

H. rhodesiensis was named after the colonial African state of Rhodesia, which in turn was named after British colonist Cecil Rhodes. The fossilized skull known as “Rhodesian Man,” from which the species was described, was found in what is now Zambia in 1921. However, the colonial history of this name alone is not enough to invalidate its usage, according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

Lindal’s research group has proposed these species names are inaccurate.

In the cases of H. heidelbergensis and H. rhodesiensis, the authors argue fossils from the period are scattered and poorly understood. This has resulted in haphazard designations which have failed to stand the test of time.

The authors argue fossils currently

under the designation of H. heidelbergensis that exhibit Neanderthal traits should be reclassified as H. neanderthalensis. Likewise, fossils currently under the designation of H. rhodesiensis should be reassigned to the new designation H. bodoensis

H. bodoensis refers to the site of Bodo D’ar in modern-day Ethiopia, where the fossil specimen “Bodo 1” was discovered. The new H. bodoensis is situated in time after H. erectus and the most recent common ancestor to all living humans. This would mean that H. bodoensis is an ancestor to H. sapiens, but not H. neanderthalensis

To understand why specific species names need to be suppressed and others proposed, one must first understand the species problem. Species don’t exist in nature. They are a scientific construct with signifi -

“We used to think about this straight line from Homo erectus to archaic humans to modern humans today. And now we’re realizing that of course, it’s way more complicated than that”

— Joshua Lindal, PhD student

cant limitations.

To preserve the usefulness of this categorization tool, scientists have proposed more than 30 species concepts — or definitions — of the category.

One common conception of species uses the biological species concept, which states that organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring are grouped into a single species. The problem with this conception

is that it fails to account for behaviour.

“Like in birds,” Lindal said, “maybe they sing in different mating calls. So, they don’t have sex with each other because they don’t recognize each

other as potential mates […] even if they are technically fertile, if they don’t actually breed together, then they’re fundamentally reproductively isolated.”

Ultimately, the deciding factor in determining whether a group of organisms are one species is scientific consensus.

Much of the research leading to this proposed name change stems from fossilized teeth. Lindal’s PhD research focuses on teeth in early human ancestors. Teeth are interesting to scientists because they are harder than bones, are more consistently found at field sites than bones and are under strict genetic control.

“A lot of people probably imagine that all of our biology is under very strict control, but in reality, development will interact with our environment as we grow up and it’ll modify the way our genes get expressed,” Lindal said.

The strict genetic control of teeth allows researchers to track the relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans.

The categorization of hominin species remains hotly contested in part, Lindal argues, because we care more about humans than we do about other animals.

“The paleontologists are like, ‘Why are you splitting hairs on this?’” Lindal said.

“‘They’re all humans, they’re all the same species.’”

“And it’s because we care about humans more than other animals […] so we’re trying to get a better resolution on humans. But in the end, we end up using different criteria for categorizing humans than we use for categorizing other animals.”

research@themanitoban.com

TOB AN the MANI

A local love fest

Winnipeg record label holds first live showcase

ARTS & CULTURE

Alex Braun, staff

The Good Will Social Club was lit purple on the night of Nov. 20 for the first live showcase of the House of Wonders roster

The label was started by leader of art rock luminaries Yes We Mystic Adam Fuhr in early 2020, alongside the launch of his studio of the same name. Although the label has been steadily releasing projects from its three signees — alt-country troubadour Amos the Kid, indie rockers Julien’s Daughter and the inventive folk rock band Virgo Rising, the beginning of the label coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made for a strange early growth period.

Fuhr said “[r]unning the label has been very solitary laptop-y work, and I know for the bands it’s been hard to release their music in the world without that human connection. So, to watch people come together and have such a great time was very emotional for all of us.”

The show sold out almost instantly when advanced tickets were released, which took Fuhr by surprise. The enthusiasm in the room was palpable.

“We knew we had some heat but didn’t realize quite how much,” Fuhr said.

Openers Julien’s Daughter started the

night with a bang, running through a blisteringly energetic set full of early ’00s dance-punk energy, exemplified by their cover of the Franz Ferdinand classic “Take Me Out.” Frontwoman Emma Murphy’s dramatic stage presence adds to that vibe, with a touch of Karen O or Debbie Harry about her. The crowd was very receptive, moshing and stagediving and yelling lyrics.

Virgo Rising took the stage next, quieting the room with a run-through of their excellent debut EP Sixteenth Sapphire as well as a few new songs. Lead singer Emily Sinclair’s voice is really a force of nature, able to jump from hauntingly intimate near-whisper to glass-shattering belting with

shocking ease. The band’s music has a similarly unstable tension, always taking unexpected turns, with tempo changes, sudden freak-outs and wild dynamic changes. Their emotional intensity and more timid stage presence clashed slightly with the frenzy that Julien’s Daughter whipped up, but you didn’t have to look too far to find fans singing along and giving the band the attention they deserve.

The great Amos the Kid — the first signee to House of Wonders — headlined, delivering a very strong set with songs culled from his two EPs. The crowd yelled along to tracks like “Jesus Cocaine Ketamine Christ” and “You Make It So Easy,” which already feel like local classics. Amos reflected

on his past job as a bar-back at the Good Will, which is odd to imagine given the ease and comfort of his stage persona — he really looks like he belongs up there.

For all three bands, Saturday felt a like coronation of sorts, a raucous party celebrating all the work that Fuhr and the artists have put in over the past year. Though they seemed slightly taken aback by the rabid audience, they were prepared to throw that same level of energy right back at them.

arts@themanitoban.com

Bisons impress in Canada West championships

the highlight of Bisons swimming team

The University of Manitoba Bisons took to the pool this past weekend for the 2021 Canada West swimming championships.

The event headlined a three-day meet with races staggered throughout the weekend. The Bisons were well represented all three days by swimmers in the men’s and the women’s categories.

Kelsey Wog and Dora Modrcin in particular were superstars, both finishing high in their respective categories.

Modrcin finished third in the 50-metre butterfly, third in the 100-metre freestyle relay, second in the 100-metre backstroke and first in the 50-metre backstroke. Wog finished third in the 100- and 200-metre freestyle relay, first in the 200-metre individual medley and first in the 50, 100- and 200-metre breaststroke.

Other notable performances included

Hannah Schanel finishing second in the 50-metre freestyle and Daniel Boguski finishing second in the men’s 50- and 100-metre freestyle.

With the weekend wrapped up, nobody’s swimming career is more impressive than Wog’s.

She started by swimming in the Youth Olympic Games in 2014. There she placed fifth, sixth and eighth in various swimming events.

Wog then moved on to the FINA world championships in 2016, where she placed second in the 200-metre breaststroke.

In the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, she competed in the women’s 100and 200-metre breaststroke. Her 23rd and 16th place finishes prove that she can compete with the best of the best around the world.

Wog said the experience is a huge boon when competing in events such as the Canada West championships.

“My Olympic experience is key when swimming,” Wog said.

“To improve constantly, you have to compete against the best and I feel that is important. By swimming in the Olympics, it has allowed me to better myself and learn a lot from other swimmers.”

Although she would like to finish first in every event she participates in, that will not always be the case. She did extremely well in such a highly

competitive event.

“This feels amazing to participate in an event like this,” Wog said.

“I have been training my whole life for this and to be here is unbelievable. I am very proud to represent the University of Manitoba and swim with all the great people.”

sports@themanitoban.com