humour // no. 18 Canada too polite to call Tim Hortons out on its BS > Country chooses Double Double over trouble Klara Woldenga Humour Editor im Hortons was in the news again last month after the company cut employees’ paid breaks and work benefits in Ontario to offset the province's minimum wage hike. This has been one ina long line of problematic actions from the company, with other issues including their degrading food quality and various human rights disputes. There have been short-lived protests against the cuts, but despite the country-wide outrage towards the company, many Canadians have done little to make change happen. The Other Press decided to send a reporter to the source of the problem to find out what the fuss was about and exactly why, despite the outrage on Facebook through posts and poorly-made memes, Canadians aren't doing more to push for policy change. Getting into a local chain took a very long time, as I was held up by two people saying “No, after you,” at the door for 20 solid minutes. Once I was inside the establishment, I was surprised by the amount of people buying food and coffee instead of chanting catchy protest slogans and holding signs with bad puns. “Oh yeah, I was pissed!” said Carley Alben, local Tim Hortons customer, though her words were nearly inaudible due to her mouth being full of at least two donuts. “I can’t believe this company would do sucha thing.” She then pointed to the food I had bought and asked if “I was gunna eat that donut.” After watching her consume her own donuts at a speed previously believed to be humanly impossible, I certainly wasn’t going to eat mine. When asked why she didn’t boycott Tim Hortons, Alben stated that she just didn’t want to be seen as “that person.” “T just didn’t want to be rude and make a fuss, you know? As Canadians, we're supposed to uphold this standard of politeness. We can’t let a little human rights violation and corporate greed from a Canadian company throw us off our niceness game.” When told that Tim Hortons is no longer owned by Canada, she pushed the need for politeness further, stating that “If Tim Hortons isn’t even a Canadian company anymore we have to be even more polite, since they are guests in our country.” John Ternik, a local advocate for workers’ rights who holds his weekly meetings at a 24/7 Tim Hortons in downtown Vancouver was also angry when he heard the news about the wage cuts. “I was definitely outraged when I learned what Tim Hortons was doing,” Sun Yat-sen Garden renamed to Rogers Garden > Iconic Vancouver landmark bought out by tel Greg Waldock Staff Writer Sz Yat-sen Garden, once dedicated to Chinese revolutionary and “Father of the Nation” Dr. Sun Yat-sen, has been purchased by Rogers Communication and renamed to Rogers Garden. The move was immediately and loudly criticized by people who don't use Rogers as a service provider, while those who do suddenly have been unable to browse or text without upgrading to a more expensive plan. The garden acted as a cultural center for Chinatown and the larger mainland Chinese community in Vancouver, and was crafted by professional architects following the traditions of Chinese gardening. Earlier this week, Rogers announced a series of dynamic and innovative changes that prove to be even more controversial than the new name. The name change was met with almost universal disdain. Protests have been continuing in Chinatown for over a week, growing stronger when Rogers insisted they didn’t want to supplant the pre-existing culture around the garden, but instead “assimilate it into the larger telecom conglomerate” in what they called the “One-Rogers Policy.” The unpopular renaming of Toronto’s Skydome and Vancouver's GM Place were apparently only the first steps into this bold rebranding initiative. In email interviews with the Other ~~ 7 Press, activists from Chinatown and across Vancouver called the changes “deeply insulting and grounds for a potential lawsuit,” before their internet connections were mysteriously cut. Seeking to both placate a growing PR disaster and to open the garden to a broader customer base, Rogers announced the future of the Rogers Garden will pay homage to Dr. Sun Yat- sen by following his Three Principles of the People, Sun’s philosophical treatise for revolutionary China. The first is principle is nationalism, which Rogers will express by allowing different nations to open pavilions ecom giant around the garden. Uncomfortably, the participating nations were selected by an internet poll, leading to Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong being selected simply for laughs. The second principle is democracy, which means Rogers is reluctantly staying committed to using internet polls for all major decisions. The third principle is roughly understood to be socialism, which Rogers chose to interpret by raising the price of admission into the garden. These decisions were poorly received across the political spectrum. Despite the unpopularity, the telecom giant has no intention of theotherpress.ca Photo by Analyn Cuarto said Ternik. “But, bringing these issues up to the people in charge would just be a super awkward conversation, you know? I didn’t want to be rude or anything. It’s better to just leave it.” When asked how successful Ternik’s advocate group was in getting fair rights for workers, he told the Other Press that they are “not very successful, and for the life of us we can’t figure out why. ” Photo illustration by Lauren Kelly backing out or slowing down their plans to remake Canada in their image. In the announcement of the controversial purchase, Rogers CEO Joe Natale added that it “opens up new opportunities for future rebranding. The Downtown Eastside has a bad rap—renaming it ‘Rogers Village’ could really help the community.” Natale went on to discuss future plans to rebrand other landmarks of the Lower Mainland, suggesting the “Rogers Peace Arch,” the “Rogers Cenotaph,” and the “Rogers Telus World of Science.”