Carol Tator, who teaches anthropology in York’s Faculty of Arts and specializes in racism in Canada, notes that while interracial marriage helps combat racism on a personal level, discrimination is still deeply embedded, reported The Globe and Mail March 24 in a story on mixed marriages and biracial children. “There’s still lots of negative responses from communities and families to mixed marriages, but in time as we have more and more of those kinds of relationships all of our communities will be all made up of hybridized identities and so that is in a sense a movement forward,” she said.
Ottawa shares the military-contract pie
Federal Industry Minister David Emerson says a $1.3-billion pilot military training contract awarded to a consortium led by Kelowna Flightcraft shows that Ottawa’s procurement process is becoming fairer to suppliers across the country, reported Canadian Press in a story printed March 24 in The Vancouver Sun. It is the second time this month that Bombardier was beaten to a contract by a much smaller competitor. Martin Shadwick, strategic studies professor at York University, said political considerations have at least a small bearing in such major government contracts. For example, awarding the pilot training to a company from British Columbia would make it politically more palatable for Ottawa to offer a big financial package to Bombardier for its proposed C Series jet program, Shadwick said. “Sharing the pie between western-based companies for the aircraft training and Bombardier for financial support for C Series, it spreads the wealth a little bit.”
Crooner’s drive comes from parents
Las Vegas crooner Matt Dusk (BFA ’02) was profiled briefly March 24 by the Winnipeg Free Press. The 26-year-old vocalist – nominated for new artist of the year at next week’s Juno Awards – has been a resident at the Golden Nugget and the Vegas Hilton. The Press asked: Did your parents push you? Dusk answered: “No, not (directly). My dad runs a packaging company. My mother was [assistant] vice-president of [students at] York University. They’re workaholics, really. You don’t realize how much you’re like your parents until you get older.”
On air
- Judith Adler Hellman, a social and political science professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, discussed the meeting of US President George Bush, Mexican Prime Minister Vincente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin, and how Mexicans and Canadians will view any trade and security deals they sign, in a CBC Radio interview aired March 23 on local programs in Toronto, Halifax, Sydney, Quebec Thunder Bay, Yellowknife, Calgary and Edmonton.