Last Week

Travis Paterson, Opinions Editor

So soon the summer days slip past us. The more you pack into a day, the less you’re
likely to notice the days go by. To sleep in, be it an unscheduled sleep in, is to consciously
feel tomorrow becoming today, minute by minute, hour by hour. When you awaken,
decide enough is enough, and drag yourself out of bed into the house that’s been soaking
in a morning’s worth of sun, you realize the day has long been underway without you.
Enter the lost days of summer.

At least, that’s how it feels on a Tuesday, when looking forward to Saturday is so far
ahead, it’s but a dot on the horizon. It’s not any Saturday, its next Saturday.

For the bulk of DC students at work this summer, Saturday is a taunting leech that
sucks the blood out of the rest of your week. It’s a bedtime to keep in mind and a lunch
to prepare. Not when tomorrow is Saturday.

Of course, we don’t all get a Saturday weekend. Some of us spend our Saturdays cook-

ing or serving during prime restaurant season. There are, of course, the standard benefits
for those whose weekend falls between Sunday and Wednesday—beaches are empty, line-
ups are small, and industry nights offer superb deals.

Some of us manage to snag summer desk jobs, Monday to Friday, and some of us
insist we are content to work at the movie store until midnight for a pittance wage and
some free rentals.

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Each to their own. Some of us take the first thing that comes, some of us hold out, and
some of us have rotating schedules. Here is a shout out to the D.C. students pulling split
days this summer. May your Tuesday and Sunday off be as plentiful as those lost week-
end’s camping.

Whatever your Saturday, responsibilities are at a bare minimum. Early afternoon
Caesars, the need for inspiration, and friends to reflect on last week while batting about
potentials for the next. Last week, last month, last summer.

A funny thing happens with Saturdays, we highly anticipate them based on their poten-
tial, the first being the first of two full days off from work. The second is the emancipa-
tion from responsibility. The week’s end is a small piece of freedom. We think about it,
plan things for it, and talk about it at home and at school. And during the workweek of
our summer job, we rally around it like hyena’s awaiting their feed. We live for it. On the
day before, it becomes fomorrow. Our oldest means of inspiration and the best.friend we’ve
known since we found hardship in today.

When I retuned to live in Vancouver after a year in Toronto, it was May 2, and June 1
was the Saturday three weeks ahead of me. Now its July, nine Saturdays later. I have a job
at a television station, a column with the OP, a second job on hold, and I wouldn’t trade
them for anything. Even the meaningless Saturdays from May, which may have been my
last days of reckless youth and abandon.

On the Monday of the long weekend in May I felt left out. I had no job and I
despised looking for one, but I was missing summer, even though I was sure that I was
basking in it.

What brought me to last week in the first place was that last week was my first week as
Opinions editor. During that week, I thought about the week before. That-would be two
weeks ago, when I started a new job at a television station, and a part-time job that includ-
ed pouring beer in BC Place. Green-painted men in green jerseys with carved out water-
melon gourds for helmets (aka—Saskatchewan Roughriders fans). These dudes had caught
something I hadn’t: Summer Fever. Thus, I was inspired to better recognize the balance
between summer days and summer work.

I realized I was now living a Vancouver life at a Toronto pace. As expected upon
return, my schedule was slack, but for two night classes here at Douglas. Any sense of
responsibility I carried from Toronto had dripped down my back, tumbled into a little ball
of guilt; and settled in the recesses of my underpants. The longer I slept in, the more I
had to roll over.

It would be easy now to organize a proper student career to complement the student
social life I’d always had. I wouldn’t piss away a minute. The old routine was gone, my
time in Toronto had changed me—I was a machine!

Once I had finished setting up my place, I sat down on the couch, took a few deep
breaths, and fell asleep. I slept almost twelve hours a day for a week straight. Then the
May long weekend came, and it wasn’t just.that it meant nothing to me to have a holiday,
but I that I couldn’t remember what had happened last Saturday.

 

Conservatives’ Defense of Ol Industry Subsidies is Rather Crude

Luke Simcoe, Texas Ranger

On June 13, Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty rejected a report calling for the
termination of tax subsidies to the Canadian oil industry.

The Sierra Legal Defence Fund, a non-profit organization representing various envi-
ronmentalist and labour organizations, authored the report. Sierra Legal is known as one
of Canada’s most prominent and informed environmental advocacy groups. Their propos-
al outlined how the booming oil and gas sector is a major contributor to the country’s
greenhouse-gas emissions, calling for an end to the industry’s $1.4 billion worth of annual
tax breaks.

Flaherty rejected the proposal on the grounds that the oil industry is a major source of
investment and employment. When I first heard this, I was insulted. It’s the same party
line we’ve been handed year after year. It defends tax cuts to companies like General
Motors, who in recent years have paid zero percent corporate income tax.

The concern is that if we reduce corporate subsidies, companies will simply pack up
and move somewhere more competitive, taking all their jobs and what precious little some
do pay in taxes with them. We know the threat of car manufacturers moving is real, but to

~ use it asa. defense of oil subsidies is as flat an argument as. Gordon Campbell’s promise <=.i= «<2.

not to privatize BC Hydro,

I don’t need to see Flaherty’s seven-page response to Sierra Legal in order to call bull-
shit on it. What Flaherty is telling us is that if we remove these corporate benefits, then
Chevronvand Shell will leave Canada to conduct their business elsewhere. ..but where Jim?

Petroleum is a non-renewable resource, and it’s one that few countries have in any
great supply anymore. Do you seriously think that the world’s largest oil companies would
simply abandon the vast and partially untapped resources of Alberta’s oil sands just
because they had to pay a bit more tax? Resources are dwindling, prices are rising, and
Canada’s national energy regulator is expecting Alberta’s production to triple by 2015 to as
many as 3 million barrels per day. Yeah, I’m sure the execs at Exxon will thumb their
noses at a piece of that pie.

The Conservatives should stop buckling in to business and remember their promise to

“stand up for Canada.” They should implement Sierra Legal’s petition to ensure Canadians
receive their fair share of the $27 billion.in profits being pulled from our own soil, instead
of letting the money slip into the pockets of oil-industry CEOs,

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