Greetings from your Student Union meant to make it tougher to break into the Student Union Building after hours, a major How is everyone’s third week coming along? The Douglas Students’ Union is going great. If you enjoyed our Welcome Weeks events, we have plenty more in store for you! We'll announce it as soon as possible too. problem in the past. The summer was quite aneventful _—iIf you are a David and fruitful period in the history of the — Lam student, you Douglas Students’ Union. We started passing new policies and have done so for the last three months in a row. We first passed the infamous Section M, which was a policy geared towards earning a little extra money for the may especially appreciate this next policy change: we amended our Representative Committee meeting Union by renting out space (previously schedule to meet at David Lam every done for free) to groups who have no _ second meeting. affiliation to students or the College. Our Union has been more © We then passed Section N, which is politically active recently. We are working towards the David Lam and New Westminster Campuses having an express bus between them. We are also pressuring Translink to finally finish the Evergreen Line, which would be a Light-Rapid Transit line between David Lam and the Lougheed Skytrain Station. If you have not signed the petition already, there are still copies available at the New Westminster Office on the second floor of the Student Union Building. The Union is discussing the U-Pass with the College, and they have decided to reconsider their position on subsidizing the administrative side of the program. This is a positive step forward. The DSU is also working to make our campus more sustainable and has been in discussions with the administration about this as well. As you can see we are quite busy. But please drop by our offices to find out more about what we are doing and how you can become involved. The Douglas Students’ Union Representative Committee REM EM _B ER ae ae rae ee Sixth anniversary of 9-11 attacks Commemorated JJ McCullough, OP Editor brief speech alongside his Australian counterpart, John Howard. During an address to the Australian parliament Harper similarly evoked the anniversary in an attempt to draw support his government’s staunch backing of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, which he said was part of an ongoing battle against the sort of “poverty, brutality and ignorance” that had inspired the original attacks. Official commemorations of 9/11 have steadily dwindled in size and scope with each passing year, prompting considerable debate surrounding the long-term future of such ceremonies. oe quiet commemorations around the world marked the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In New York, a traditionally somber memorial was held at what remains of the ground zero site. Though family members of the victims were still able to visit the “footprints” of where the towers fell, this will almost certainly be the final year in which they will be able to do so. By September of 2008 full-fledged construction on the new Freedom Tower will have consumed the memorial site, filling in the now- famous holes with foundations of the replacement building. Away on an official visit in Australia, Prime Minister Harper led a moment of silence in remembrance and gave a Liberals seek to Create Healthier Students JJ McCullough, OP Editor A, part of continuing efforts to achieve Premier Gordon Campbell’s oft-stated goal of making British Columbia “the healthiest jurisdiction to ever host the Olympics,” BC’s Liberal government has unveiled a bevy of new health initiatives specifically designed to target the lifestyles of students. One such proposal will see all elementary and high school students forced to undergo a mandatory amount of physical activity each week, either in the form of traditional physical education classes or “free time” outdoor recess peroids. Elementary and middle school students will be expected to get physical for at least 30 minutes a day, while high schoolers are given the more flexible goal of 150 minutes per week. Junk food is also set to be banned in all elementary and secondary schools by September of 2008, both in vending machines and cafeterias. As the definition of what precisely constitutes “junk” can be fairly subjective, strict new dietary guides will instruct what sorts of foods schools may and may not serve to kids and teens, as defined by fat, sugar, and calorie content. Closely related was the Ministry of Agriculture’s recent announced expansion of the government’s “Fruit and Veggie Snack Program” to over 100 new schools across the Lower Mainland. The plan—which is operated in conjunction with the Save-on-Foods supermarket chain— distributes free vegetables and fruit snacks to students several times a month for the entire school year. Some reforms will also be felt by post-secondary students. A full-fledged ban on tobacco smoking on any school property passed last spring will now prevent college and university students from lighting up between classes. In addition, new “healthy choice” snacks are now mandated to be included in college vending machines alongside the traditional chocolate bars and chips. Though one of the most comparatively healthy regions of North America, British Columbia still suffers from a steadily-increasing rate of obesity. At least 25 percent of all children in British Columbia are now considered overweight or obese, which experts predict could result in a notable drop in life expectancy within a generation.