Indie sensations Alvvays will play the concert theatre at Algonquin College in Ottawa in October.

The Toronto-based band, comprised of Maritimers and led by Molly Rankin, will play the theatre on Thursday, Oct. 15, with openers White Reaper.

Alvvays (pronounced “always”) are about as hot as indie hot can be, with two Juno nominations, a place on the Polaris Prize shortlist, and shout-outs from international media, including Rolling Stone. The band’s airy, jangling sound is rapidly expanding its reputation.

Tickets, $20 plus fees and taxes, are on sale at 10 a.m., Friday, Aug. 14, through livenation.com, ticketmaster.ca or at the Algonquin theatre box office.

More than four dozen male and female weightlifters of various sizes and abilities gathered at the DTS Open 2015 meet at Algonquin College Saturday for a combination personal best/provincial qualifying session.

It was the first competition for several of the participants.

Each lifter competed in the three main disciplines: the squat, bench press and deadlift.

Jo-Anne Larabie, the oldest participant at age 59, lifts the weights during the bench press competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Jo-Anne Larabie, left, oldest competitor at age 59, looks on before entering the main competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Power lifter Amy Ng successfully lifts the weight during the bench press competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Power lifter Amy Ng successfully lifts the weight during the bench press competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Jo-Anne Larabie, oldest competitor at age 59, practices bench presses before entering the main competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015.

Jo-Anne Larabie, oldest competitor at age 59, practice bench press before entering the main competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015.

Maya Levin, participating in 57 kg weight category for the classic three lift, practices dead lift before entering the main competition at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015.

Phil Brougham, who is volunteering and also a junior national champion in the 120 kg class for power lifting, rolls around on the floor at DTS Open 2015 held at Algonquin College on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015.

Post-secondary students will soon be flowing into Ottawa, some for their first time away from home, others after a summer break from their studies.

But the debate over where to put them? It never left.

The latest flashpoint in a battle that pits landlords against neighbours is an unremarkable 1¾-storey house in Courtland Park, a postwar Ottawa neighbourhood between Fisher Avenue and Prince of Wales Drive south of Baseline Road.

A single-family dwelling from the time it was built, 154 Sanford Ave. was sold this year to a developer who began converting the brick-and-frame house to two apartments. What caught the attention of nearby homeowners, however, were the landlord’s Internet rental ads not for two dwelling units, but seven separate bedrooms at $550 to $625 a month in a building “designed with students in mind.”

In sedate, largely single-family Courtland Park, that landed like a beer keg in the begonias. Soon, 180 residents had put their names to a petition that goes to Ottawa city council on Wednesday and asks the city not to approve a rooming house licence for 154 Sanford.

It won’t (not that there is any such application). The students will move in anyway. Here’s why more and more houses are being transformed into private dormitories, and the city has little power to stop them.

Pressing numbers

Growing enrolments are outpacing the construction of on-campus residences and pushing off-campus housing beyond such traditional student enclaves as Sandy Hill, which adjoins the University of Ottawa, and the neighbourhoods that butt up against Algonquin College.

“It started out just in the Ryan Farm, City View area,” says Coun. Rick Chiarelli, whose College ward is named for Algonquin. “Now it has spread to Centrepointe, Bel-Air and now (with the Sanford conversion) to River ward.”

Between them, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University have added more than 14,000 students in the past decade, bringing their combined enrolment to nearly 72,000. Algonquin has been growing at a similar rate, with 21,000 full-time students projected this year in Ottawa and at its smaller campuses in Perth and Pembroke.

The college’s limited supply of on-campus housing is further feeding the expansion of private student residences. “Within a couple of years, Algonquin’s enrolment will be triple what it was seven years ago,” warns Chiarelli, council’s leading opponent of what he says are illegal rooming house conversions.

Sublet subtext

Ottawa’s zoning rules were reworked in 2014 to limit rooming houses to seven rental rooms and restrict such houses to arterial and collector roads. The Sanford house, on its suburban street, could never qualify.

But the rules do not prevent a leaseholder from subletting a dwelling unit to three, or in some cases four, tenants. Nor do they address less-formal arrangements for shared accommodation. The two apartments at 154 Sanford yield seven bedrooms, the maximum allowed in a rooming house. Notes Riley Brockington, councillor for River ward: “The net result is the same.”

A first-term council member, Brockington is struggling not to disparage all young renters — “I don’t want to stereotype students,” he insists, “because students are good people overall” — while acknowledging the fears of neighbours about late-night noise and overflowing garbage cans.

“This is a case where we do have an established community and I do fully support their desire to retain the charm that exists, and I can understand the fears that they have if this gets out of hand because it’s very hard to turn that ship around.”

 Landlord’s view

When city bylaw officers told Adam Sarumi of Urent Ottawa not to advertise individual rooms at 154 Sanford, the developer says he soon found an alternative.

“It’s going to be a rental, rented to one group on one lease,” says Sarumi. “There’s no rooming house. They can call it whatever they want to call it.”

Sarumi and his sister Jennifer operates several properties in west-central Ottawa aimed at students. Their company’s website promises a “quick and easy rental process” and offers would-be renters forms for guarantor and sublet agreements.

The landlord believes private student housing has a bad reputation because of safety issues in poorly converted houses in older neighbourhoods. Urent Ottawa units, he says, are high-end conversions that meet all standards.

“We have a city permit that everything complies to — fire regulations, smoke detectors, everything’s up to code, up to date.”

Closing the loophole

Brockington says he’s still doing research but believes there has to be a way to hold rooming houses to arteries and collector streets and eliminate the subletting loophole.

Chiarelli, meantime, is pressing for a “modest licensing system” for house conversions in college and university neighbourhoods with mandatory inspections to ensure properties meet standards and don’t offer more rooms than bylaws allow. A study he proposed of such measures used in other Ontario cities was to have been complete this year but now has been pushed back to 2017.

“Before that comes we’re stuck in the current situation where bylaw officers have to go out and prove that somebody’s rented out too many rooms. It’s not as easy to do that as it sounds. You may suspect that four rooms are rented or five or six, but it’s hard to get proof of that without, sometimes, a stakeout, stuff like that.”

rbostelaar@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/robt_bostelaar

How long, I say to my lunch mate, do you think John Westhaver was in Ottawa before he knocked on the door at CKCU?

“Hmm,” he hums, and munches his lunch, “a couple of weeks?”

More likely a couple of days, I reply, knowing Westhaver’s commitment to music — to making it with his bands, to selling it in his record store and to sharing it as a DJ on CKCU, the campus radio station at Carleton University where he marks 30 years on air this week.

As it turns out, both guesses were wrong. Westhaver says he had contacted CKCU and arranged to be on air in Ottawa even before he arrived in the capital city. Well, of course.

“It was all in the planning stage while I was still living in New Brunswick,” says Westhaver, who’s from Fredericton, and spent five years there on campus radio. The Ottawa deal was done through his cousin, Roch Parisien, who had a show on CKCU titled No Future Now (punk, as the title alludes). Westhaver took over the show. It was August, 1985.

He felt at home in the nation’s foremost government town. “It’s very much like Fredericton,” he says, during an interview at his Glebe record store, Birdman Sound. “It’s government, universities, art college, lots of trees, a river runs through it. Laid back and comfortable, safe.”

He was studying broadcast journalism at Algonquin College. In 1985 and 1986 he was on air at both CKCU and at the Algonquin station, CKDJ, where he was program director. For a while he had three shows per week.

In 1987, after graduating from Algonquin (“straight A’s”), he was hired as musical director at CKCU, and was soon bumped up to program director, a role he held until 1989. It was, he recalls, a lot of work.

“Community radio is a total burnout factor, because you’re working a lot of hours, and it’s stressful. . .  There’s a freak factor at community radio. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Community radio is highly creative. Most people are seriously committed to the art form, whether it’s music or tech or writing or whatever.”

Westhaver took over his current CKCU slot — 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays — in 1988. He figures he’s done about 2,000 broadcasts, and rarely missed a show.

“Even when I would go away for a week, I’d time it so I left after a show one week, and I would be back to do the show the next week,” he says, in the past tense, as if never missing another show is a certainty. “It’s not like I was obsessed by it. I love doing that radio show.”

He is wholly committed to music. If you took the music out of John Westhaver there’d be nothing left but an empty, dusty shell, with the wind playing a hollow tune as it blew through his dry bones.

He runs his record store in an age of digital music, and stocks it purposefully, even obstinately, with the same non-commercial, underground, obscure and sometimes demanding music he plays on the radio — bands like Can, Acid Mothers Temple, Faust, or Radio Birdman, the Australian punk band for which he named his shop.

He pays no heed to populism, and has no patience with mainstream music.

“The most popular stuff is absolute shit, for the most part,” he says, typically unabashed. “I don’t feel bad saying ‘no Beatles here.’ It’s not what I do in the store, it’s not what I play on the radio. I don’t hate the Beatles, I just don’t feel the need to perpetuate that, and the thousand other things like that.”

It’s unconventional radio, and fans seek it out. “You can’t name a country I haven’t had an email from,” he says. CKCU program director Matthew Crosier says Friday Morning Cartunes “is always within the top 5 at the station for support during (the annual) funding drive, even though (it airs) during the day, during the week.” I’ve encountered many new bands through Westhaver, including Endless Boogie, the vastly under-rated, stoner-riff band from Long Island.

His show is popular enough that in 2003 and 2004 Ottawa Bluesfest invited Westhaver to program a stage. For two years the Birdman stage featured acts such as the Greenhornes, Five Horse Johnson, and the Dirtbombs, and every year since, when the new Bluesfest schedule is announced, I’ve heard people lament that the Birdman stage is gone. (For the record, Westhaver says he couldn’t abide Bluesfest’s need for corporate sponsorship on his stage, so he left “with no hard feelings.”)

He’s often been on stage with his own bands, including The Exploding Meet, Resin Scraper, Four ’N’ Giv’r, and then The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol — which this fall will release its ninth album in seven years. “That has got to be some kind of record,” he says.

It’s another kind of record — the vinyl kind — that he plays on Friday Morning Cartunes. This week’s 30th anniversary show will broadcast live from Birdman Sound, that shrine to vinyl, on Friday morning. Check out the sample playlist below. Don’t expect the Beatles.

What: Friday Morning Cartunes 30th anniversary show

When and where: 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on CKCU FM (93.1), and broadcast live from Birdman Sound (593 Bank St.)

– 30 –

Birdman playlist: 10 Songs That Typify Friday Morning Cartunes (Click on each title for a Youtube video)

Acid Mothers Temple – IAO Chant From The Melting Paraiso UFO

My Brother The Wind – Fire! Fire!

Opal – Rocket Machine

CAN – Mother Sky

Deep Purple –Demon’s Eye

Flipper – Talk’s Cheap

Dream Syndicate – Days of Wine & Roses

Saccharine Trust – I Am Right 

Faust – It’s A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl

Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – City Slang

A day after police confirmed that they had found a man’s body in the Gatineau River, swimmers were back in the water near the red covered bridge at Wakefield, cooling off on a sultry long weekend.

A 23-year-old Algonquin College student and three friends had arrived at the river downstream from the bridge on Thursday night, police said. The student, a Zimbabwean man, got caught in the current and disappeared.

His body was recovered Friday night. His name had still not been released on Saturday.

Flowers and a note, with the words “rest in peace” visible across the top of it, sat by the bridge Saturday afternoon.

MRC des Collines police Const. Martin Fournel had said Friday that the river’s water level had risen and the current had been running faster in recent days, likely because the dam upstream in the municipality of Low had been letting more water through.

Flowers and a note sat by the covered bridge on the Gatineau River in Wakefield on Saturday Sept. 5, 2015.

Olivier Rocheleau-Leclair creates large bubbles along the Gatineau River in Wakefield on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015 as others enjoy the sun and cool off in the river.

Marie Gagne, left, is all smiles as bubbles burst on her while she cools off in the Gatineau River with Kali Verville.

Flowers and a note sit by the covered bridge on the Gatineau River in Wakefield on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015.

Olivier Rocheleau-Leclair creates large bubbles along the Gatineau River in Wakefield on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015.

For more information or to book an appointment to give blood, please call 1-888-2-DONATE or visit blood.ca.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Algonquin College, The Marketplace Food Court (Salon A), 1385 Woodroffe Ave., 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Germania Club Pembroke, Main Hall, 15 Bennett St., Pembroke, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Nick Smith Centre, 77 James St., Arnprior, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

École élémentaire publique Nouvel Horizon, Gymnasium, 433 Cartier Blvd., Hawkesbury, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

L’Esplanade Laurier, Main Foyer, 300 Laurier Ave. W., 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

When 10-year-old Charlie DeJong was told earlier this year he could have one special wish come true, he was very clear about what he wanted.

“We went through the whole list of wish possibilities and it was, ‘No, no, no,’ ” said Kelly DeJong, Charlie’s mother. “And then we thought, do you want a pool? And instantly his whole face just lit up.”

The Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada quickly got to work. And just in time for summer, the DeJong family had an accessible, above-ground pool in their backyard.

“The smile couldn’t have been bigger,” DeJong said on behalf of her son, who has a severe form of cerebral palsy and communicates non-verbally. “He was just overjoyed.”

The Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada is widening its scope after 30 years to grant more wishes to kids like Charlie, who have serious neurological and genetic conditions. Traditionally, the foundation has worked with children who have life-threatening illnesses. 10-year-old Charlie DeJong was an early beneficiary of the expanded eligibility.

The Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada is widening its scope after 30 years to grant more wishes to kids like Charlie, who have serious neurological and genetic conditions. Traditionally, the foundation has worked with children who have life-threatening illnesses.

Children’s Wish board member John Haralovich said the foundation decided to change its rules of eligibility because of advancements in treatments that provide children with complex medical needs a better quality of life. The DeJong family is enthusiastic about the foundation’s expansion.

“I think that this initiative they’re taking on is monumental because they’re recognizing that the impact on a family is huge,” DeJong said.

DeJong said as Charlie gets older, it’s becoming “harder and harder” to plan family activities, especially outdoors.

“It takes a lot of thinking,” she said. “What’s accessible? Can we go there with Charlie? How much walking do we have to do?”

Charlie’s parents say the pool, which is fully accessible with a ramp and steps, has made a world of a difference.

“The pool has created another tool for us to spend more time as a family,” said Matthew DeJong, Charlie’s father. “Everyday it was like, Dad you’re home? You have three minutes to eat and then we’re going in the pool.”

Charlie’s mother said the only downside is that outdoor swimming isn’t a year-round activity.

“The pool was closed early October and it was a sad day in the DeJong house, to say the least.”

Haralovich said the foundation anticipates a 20-per-cent annual increase in wish requests now that it has expanded its reach. Each wish costs $10,000 on average.

The foundation launched a fundraising campaign Thursday at Algonquin College called More Wishes, More Wonders in order to meet their growing demand.

The campaign aims to raise $10 million nationally by 2021 — $636,000 of which will be channelled to the Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais region.

More than 5,000 children in Eastern Ontario have had their wishes granted since Children’s Wish was founded in 1984. Haralovich said 209 wishes were granted in the past three years.

Charlie’s father said his family is thrilled to be included on that list.

“This wish may have been Charlie’s but it has benefitted our whole family.”

bbritneff@ottawacitizen.com

An arbitrator has dismissed a complaint that Algonquin College‘s use of part-time teachers in its continuing education program violates its collective agreement with unionized teaching staff.

For nearly 30 years, Algonquin has used part-time instructors to teach its continuing education classes — typically offered in the evening to students not enrolled in one of the college’s programs.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has challenged the practice unsuccessfully in the past, arguing that it violates a contract clause that obliges the college to give preference to full-time teachers in staffing teaching positions.

In the latest case, it alleged that the college had violated the collective agreement by using part-time rather than full-time staff to teach continuing education English courses in its School of Business.

The college asked the arbitrator to dismiss the union’s grievance without even hearing it because the relevant clause only refers to sessional appointees and “partial load teachers,” not part-time instructors.

After hearing arguments from both sides, arbitrator Norm Jesin upheld the college’s motion for early dismissal.

Jesin said there was no evidence that the use of part-time personnel “has resulted in the erosion of the bargaining unit. There is no suggestion that full-time vacancies or partial load vacancies have been converted to part-time assignments.”

Nor is the number of night classes growing at the expense of day-time programming, the arbitrator said. In fact, the number of continuing education courses in Ontario has fallen by 35 per cent in the past seven or eight years, he noted.

Accepting the union’s position would force the college to assign full-time teachers to continuing education, Jesin said, which could result in a significant increase in the size of the bargaining unit.

The arbitrator said the college had put forward a “reasonable and bone fide operational justification” for its use of part-time teachers, including the fact that classes in continuing education classes are significant smaller.

In testimony, Linda Rees, head of the college’s continuing education committee, said the average night class has about 12 students. If unionized full-time teachers were used, continuing education classes would need 35 students per course in order to break even, Rees said.

Jesin said the evidence “does not support a conclusion … that part-time personnel has been used to improperly avoid the obligations of the college to apply the collective agreement to continuing education.”

That does not mean continuing education is excluded from the collective agreement in perpetuity, Jesin added. “For example, if it becomes apparent that daytime courses are being shifted to continuing education in order to avoid the collective agreement, the decision might be otherwise.”

The college declined to comment on the decision. OPSEU did not provide a response by deadline.

dbutler@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/ButlerDon

The everyfan’s guide to the Redblacks in the Eastern Final.

For Redblacks fans, there’s no sweeter sound than the roar of the chainsaw that, in the capable grip of a flannel-clad lumberjack, slices through a log in the end zone to signify every home-side touchdown.

Introduced in the team’s debut 2o14 season, the routine has already cemented itself as a fun tradition. Television broadcasts can’t resist showing it.

Like the Redblacks’ plaid third uniform and Big Joe muscled mascot, the log-sawing ritual is meant as homage to the capital’s beginnings as a rough and tough lumber town. But while the city has, er, branched out, the lumber industry remains a mainstay for much of the Ottawa Valley. And that ensures the team an authentic supply of lumberjacks, drawn from the Forestry Technician program at Algonquin College’s Pembroke campus.

“For us it’s great PR,” says Chris Ryan, a professor in the program and head coach of the Algonquin’s Loggersports team, which competes with other 14 schools in such Canadian pursuits as axe-throwing, pole-climbing and, of course, sawing.

Students, he says, get to show off their “old-time logging skills” to a full stadium and national television audience.

“And it promotes forestry — it shows people that forestry is not a dinosaur. It’s alive and very, very well.”

The students are still working on the original white ash log brought in last year, “and there’s not much log left,” Ryan notes. “There’s about four feet.”

The team, however, doesn’t want to tempt fate by bringing in a new one for the last home game, so the lumberjacks will be keeping their slices — or “wood cookies” — especially thin, he says.

After the log is cut, game broadcasts invariable move to a commercial. Fans at the stadium, however, see the second part of the process. The cookie is branded with the Redblacks logo and presented to a deserving guest at the game. It might be someone who has raised millions for charity, says Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group vice-president Randy Burgess, or a breast cancer survivor who rallies others to fight the disease.

Branded ‘cookie’ is presented to a guest to honour a community contribution.

Burgess says he’s always moved by the applause the recipients get as he escorts them back to their seats.

“For me seeing the fans give that ovation to a person who has really made a contribution to the community … it’s tremendous.”

Bluffer’s guide, Part 3

You know that Canadian football has three downs, versus the four chances that American teams get to move the ball down the field. But there are numerous other differences to remember if you’re just getting into this now — all of which make for a livelier and less predictable contest, fans of the Canadian game insist.

We have 12 players per side, for instance, which is one more than the Yanks. And Canadian fields are longer and wider than those of their U.S. counterparts, and the end zones are deeper. This is a result of Canada’s adoption of the metric system in the 1970s.

OK, it isn’t. The Canadian field is still measured in yards — 110 by 65, versus 100 by 53.5. Some say the American field was reduced because of space limitations at Yale (which indeed is a hard school to get into).

But the football itself, depending on supplier, can be a tad longer in the United States — if, that is, the ball is fully inflated.

We welcome your Bandwagon comments and suggestions. Write to bandwagon@ottawacitizen.com

Paco Peña’s new and critically acclaimed show in Ottawa is moving to a new venue.

Flamencura, the evening of Flamenco music and dance, led by Peña on guitar, will be held at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 25 at Algonquin Commons Theatre, on the Algonquin College campus off Woodroffe Avenue. The show had been scheduled for the National Arts Centre. All tickets sold for the NAC show will be honoured at the new location.

The Daily Express called Flamencura “a concussive orgy of music and dance that threatens to blow the roof off the auditorium.” The Times of London said, “Dance and music-making this good are rare.”

The New York Times wrote that “Peña is the musician today doing the most remarkable things with flamenco music itself. And so flamenco dance is rendered new.”

The Spanish guitar master has performed at Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall, and played sold-out shows at the National Arts Centre.

Tickets, $69.50 plus fees, are on sale through ticketmaster.ca, 1-855-985-5000.

See more at Paco Peña’s website by clicking here.

For more information or to book an appointment to give blood, please call 1-888-2-DONATE or visit blood.ca.

MONDAY, NOV. 30

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Community Pentecostal Church, Gymnasium, 1825 St. Joseph Blvd., 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, DEC. 1

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Cornwall Civic Complex, Salons A, B & C, 100 Water St., Cornwall, 12 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School, Cafeteria & Atrium, 1211 South Russell Rd., Russell, 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, DEC. 3

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Algonquin College, The Marketplace Food Court (Salon A), 1385 Woodroffe Ave., 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

St. Mark’s Parish Hall, 461 Edward St., Prescott, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

FRIDAY, DEC. 4

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Shaw Centre, second floor, 55 Colonel By Dr., 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

SATURDAY, DEC. 5

Canadian Blood Services, 1575 Carling Ave., 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Samir Al-Rubaiy shyly displays the scrapes and scratches on his hands and arms. He doesn’t remember exactly how he got them, only that they were there after he and two other men rescued two toddlers from an apartment fire Saturday afternoon.

“I must have got them looking for the children,” he says, recounting how he twice plunged into the apartment unit, feeling his way with hands and feet in the smoke-thick rooms to rescue a neighbour’s little girl and a boy, Neva and Jeremiah.

On Saturday afternoon, Rubaiy and another neighbour from down the hall, Samson Aboegbulem, used a fire extinguisher to smash through the heavy door of the second floor apartment in a highrise at 1465 Caldwell Avenue where the toddlers were trapped.

Their mother was accidentally locked out of the apartment while taking garbage to a hallway chute. Apparently one of the children closed the door.

There was no fire at this stage, but the woman had left food and cooking oil heating on the stove. Knowing the danger, the woman — Rubaiy knows her only as Bernadette — began banging on neighbours’ doors, pleading for help to rescue her children.

“She was really scared,” Rubaiy said Monday evening, recalling the mother’s coming to his apartment door shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday. “She was afraid the oil would catch fire. She wanted me to open the door.”

Samir Al-Rubaiy was on hand to help save two toddlers in an apartment fire on Caldwell Avenue .

The commotion attracted other neighbours, including Aboegbulem. The fire alarm was pulled. Then, for about the next 30 minutes, while they waited for fire fighters, Rubaiy and Aboegbulem, with the help of a couple of other men, tried everything from screwdrivers and hammers to their feet to break into the apartment.

One of those men who came to help was Montell Russell. He later posted on Facebook: “I did what anyone would do in my situation. Two children were trapped inside a burning apartment and I acted on impulse and instinct. Nothing more can be said.”

Finally, the men used a fire extinguisher like a battering ram, punched a hole through the door, then knocked it down. They could see the flames in the kitchen, but black, acrid smoke filled the apartment, making it impossible to see the children.

That’s when Rubaiy figures he earned his cuts and scrapes. Hearing the television and knowing the apartment layout was the same as that of his unit, he had an idea of where the children might be.

“I was sure they have been sitting on the floor in front of the TV, so I just took a big breath and went in. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand in front of my face. It was dark and there were no lights, and I just started feeling around with my hands and my feet.”

Luck was with him. Near the entrance to the kitchen, he found Neva unconscious on the floor. He scooped her up, ran out into the hall, handed the child to one of the men and told him to take her outside.

While Rubaiy tried to recover from the smoke he’d inhaled, coughing and choking as he stood at his kitchen window. One of the other men — Rubaiy doesn’t know which one — ran into the apartment to look for the boy, but was driven back by the choking smoke.

The fire department still hadn’t arrived. The fire was still burning. The smoke was still thick. And the child was still inside the apartment.

Rubaiy returned to the hallway, then plunged back into the smoke-filled apartment. “I felt around with my hands on the furniture and kicked with my feet on the floor. I could’t see anything. But I heard a little bit of crying.”

Rubaiy found Jeremiah huddled on the floor by the balcony door. “I threw him over my shoulder but I guess I was disoriented because I kept banging into things, chairs and things, when I tried to get out.”

Rubaiy himself needed help. By this time firefighters had arrived and, according to a fire official, District Chief Don Smith rescued Rubaiy and the child, going into the apartment without protective gear. Both men needed to be treated for smoke inhalation.

The two children, meanwhile, were taken to hospital by paramedics where they were in serious but stable condition. The little girl wasn’t breathing when she was found. The mother was at CHEO Monday with her children.

The fire itself was confined to the apartment unit and soon extinguished, although residents had to temporarily evacuate until early Saturday evening.

Rubaiy, 43, who came to Canada from Iraq in 2006 and is now studying computer security at Algonquin College, was decidedly modest about what he did.

“Bernadette needed help. My children play with her children. I didn’t really think about what I was doing. You just do these things.”

His wife, however, is a little more enthused.

“(Bernadette) came to our door to ask for help from my husband,” said Jihane Smouh. “And my husband broke down the door with the help of a man who lives at the other end of the hall.

“He’s a hero.”

The fire department agrees. “At least 3 men who reside at Caldwell breached the door of the fire unit and rescued one of the children,” firefighter Marc Messier, formerly the communications officer for the fire service, wrote on his personal Twitter account. “Kudos to the residents who assisted in the rescuing of the 2 children.”

With files from Tom Spears

Help a simple man at Christmas, would you?

Why does the world go nuts when the University of Ottawa student federation cancels a yoga class – for lack of cultural sensitivity – but no one bats an eye when Algonquin College opens a men-only campus in Saudi Arabia, only to lose $1 million in public money in one year?

Algonquin, the city’s leading college with 20,000 students, has a mission statement that details its core values. One of them is “integrity,” described thusly: “We believe in trust, honestly and fairness in all relationships and transactions.”

Another is “respect,” put this way: “We value the dignity and uniqueness of the individual. We value the equity and diversity in our community.”

How you square those values in a country with a human rights record like Saudi Arabia is a mystery. It has been said — and written — that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne would not only be barred from attending Algonquin’s campus in Jazan, she could well be arrested for being open about her sexuality. If she tried driving a car to class, Lord knows what would happen.

(This is not histrionics: public floggings and beheadings are common in a country with so-called religious police. It hardly helps when you visit the Human Rights Watch website and the first story on Saudi Arabia is: “Poet Sentenced to Death for Apostasy.”)

Nonetheless, a couple of the Wynne ministries were only too eager to announce this great adventure in international education in 2013.

The optics are terrible, frankly, gender inequality being one of many sore points.

The college said this planned “revenue generator” was important at a time of reduced funding, presumably from the Ontario treasury. At capacity, annual revenue in Jazan was to peak at more than $25 million.

Well, does this not have a “sell-your-soul” feel to it? It’s OK if it makes money? Setting aside that whopper, the bottom-line predictions turned out to be wrong.

The campus lost $983,000 in 2014/15 and the estimate for the current year is a modest profit of $232,000, followed by projected profits of $2 million and $3.6 million. Well, we shall see. It might be the moment to point out Algonquin’s operating deficit for 2016/17 is projected to be near the $5-million mark.

This can probably be parsed eight ways to Sunday, but the bottom line is easy to find. This is a public institution. It is not a for-profit corporation. It needs to think pretty hard about gambling with the public’s money, with an eye on profit, to provide a service to citizens in one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

The people of Ontario — is it not so — are subsidizing oil sheiks?

The arguments are not lost on the school. It produced a strategic plan in 2014 that discussed the human rights records in countries where Algonquin does or might collaborate.

“Algonquin believes that education is a powerful, effective force for positive change in any country,” it reads.

“For these reasons, while some feel Algonquin should not partner with countries that do not offer the same human rights protections as Canada, the College is convinced that working with those genuinely invested in change can yield beneficial outcomes. Saudi Arabia and China, for example, are investing heavily in education and have explicit policies encouraging their educational institutions to partner with those in the west.”

It is also worth asking whether the Saudi deal could have been structured so that Ontario taxpayers were protected. Instead, the college is paid on a performance-based model that takes into account things like attendance and graduation rates.

Wonderful if students stay in school. Not so good if they drop out, or flunk, which they did in alarming numbers in 2013-14: of the 600 students in the English foundation program, only 20 per cent completed the year.

Things are improving, however. This year, the school has 800 students, including 200 in actual diploma programs. So, perhaps, financially, the corner has been turned.

This hardly solves the conflict in values. Institutions of higher learning should be places where ideas — even crazy ones about yoga — can be expressed without fear of reprisal. Hard to imagine this is the case at Algonquin’s Saudi campus, where students are learning how to be accountants and “truck and coach technicians.”

Algonquin’s stated vision is “to be a global leader in digitally connected applied education and training.”

C’mon. Keep it simple. Why not aim to be best college in Ontario?

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn

Algonquin College’s campus in Saudi Arabia lost $1.486 million in the last school year, more than officials had anticipated.

A financial update presented to the college’s Board of Governors on Monday revised upward an earlier projected deficit of $983,000 for the 2014-15 school year.

The college in Jazan, Algonquin’s first international campus, has been controversial since it opened in 2013, offering foundational English and two-year engineering diplomas. The Jazan campus was supposed to be a way for Algonquin to earn money, but it has encountered some unexpected problems, mainly in the academic quality of Saudi students. Most of the students who enrolled in the English program in 2013 dropped out because it was too hard for them. Officials are now scrambling to help students improve their basic English and study skills to a level that would allow them to take the diploma programs the college is mandated to provide.

Governors at Monday’s meeting asked a few questions about the finances before approving the business plan for Jazan in 2015-16.

Officials are revising programs at Jazan, and attendance and graduation rates are improving dramatically, said Doug Wotherspoon, Algonquin’s vice-president for International and Strategic Priorities. That’s important because Algonquin is paid based performance indicators.

Wotherspoon said the deficit was about $500,000 higher than initially anticipated for 2014-15 because the college didn’t receive its bonus for reaching a quality rating of “good” rather than simply satisfactory, according to independent assessors approved by the Saudi government.

He said all but one of the other 36 internationally run technical colleges in Saudi Arabia got the same “satisfactory” rating. Stephen Heckbert, the faculty representative on the board, suggested that if he was cynical he’d think the Saudis were simply trying to avoid paying the quality bonus.

Another board member wondered if Algonquin had an “exit strategy” if Jazan continued to lose money. But Algonquin President Cheryl Jansen said she was confident in the financial projections. The plan calls for Jazan to start earning money this year, and end up turning a profit of $4.35 million over its first five years of operation.

Some critics have also said that Algonquin should not be operating a mens-only college in the repressive country, where political dissent is punished harshly and women do not have equal rights. College officials argue they are pursuing a policy of “engagement over isolation in the international arena.”

jmiller@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/JacquieAMiller

A man killed in a Christmas Day collision on Greenbank Road was to have been married on the evening before Valentine’s Day.

Gunveet Singh was driving with his fiancée for a Christmas dinner on Friday when he was killed in a head-on collision along a stretch of Greenbank Road.

The unidentified 27-year-old man driving the other vehicle also died after being transferred to hospital without vital signs.

The crash on a busy route between Nepean and Barrhaven has prompted a call from the Ottawa councillor who represents the area for governments to consider widening the two-lane roadway.

Singh, 30, was driving in the southbound lane with his fiancée, Allison McCuaig, 32, in the passenger seat when a northbound sedan crossed into his lane and collided with Singh’s sport-utility vehicle.

Singh died at the scene. McCuaig was transported to a trauma centre by Ottawa paramedics with serious abdominal and back injuries.

They had planned to marry on Feb. 13.

“It’s really shocking for whole family we were all ready for celebrating his marriage at Ottawa,” said Singh’s cousin, Raman Ghandi, in an email message from India. “As all arrangement are done, our family tickets are booked for 13 Jan.”

Over the weekend the tragic news spread to other relatives. In a telephone conversation from the city of Ludhiana in India’s Punjab state, another cousin, Aman Mauj, said his family is heartbroken.

“It is terrible, he was a very good person,” said Mauj. “He was very much cordial with everybody. He was involved in the community, he liked sports and he was religious and spiritual. He was a great guy.”

Singh arrived from New Delhi in 2004 and studied mechanical engineering at Algonquin College. As a student, he began to eat fast food, pasta and similar fare and found himself gaining weight. When he saw an ad in a local newspaper promoting the 180° Fitness Biggest Loser Challenge in 2012, he signed on.

“I never had pasta before I moved to Canada and fast food was a luxury you had maybe once a month,” he told Orléans Online at the time. “Here there is a fast-food restaurant on every corner.”

He dropped almost 20 per cent of his starting body weight and ended up winning the challenge. Singh, who became a staunch Ottawa Senators fan, also finished his first half marathon in 2014 when he completed the Canada Army Run.

His father, Kawaljit Singh, arrived in Ottawa on Sunday to bring his son’s body back to India.

“It is a big shock, we were preparing for his wedding,” said Mauj, whose voice trailed off.

Family members in India had already made arrangements to come to Canada for the wedding of Allison McCuaig and Gunveet Singh.

In Singh and McCuaig’s Facebook profiles, the two appear in what looks like an engagement photo. Friends and family sent notes of congratulations. “You were made for each other,” wrote Laura Marie Moses.

“Wishing you never-ending love that will bloom and shine on you all your life!” wrote Kawaljit Singh. McCuaig replied: “Thank you papa ji.”

The collision happened at about 4:15 p.m. in an 80 km/h zone on Greenbank north of Fallowfield Road.

Police say alcohol and drugs do not appear to have been factors.

That stretch of Greenbank — which runs through the Greenbelt administered by the National Capital Commission — is notorious for speeding and passing cars and has been the site of numerous collisions. Last May, a 54-year-old man was killed when his car left the road as he tried to pass a truck pulling a trailer.

Related

• Second driver dies after Christmas Day crash on Greenbank Road

In January 1996, Matt Brownlee, with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream, was racing another car on Greenbank when his car crossed the centre line and rammed into an oncoming vehicle. Brian LeBreton-Holmes, 12, died at the scene. His mother, Linda LeBreton, 35, died in hospital the next evening.

Barrhaven councillor Jan Harder says it’s time to consider widening the long two-lane portion of Greenbank, given it’s a main road for as many as 85,000 residents who live in that ward.

“I think that definitely it is time to have a discussion with the NCC and I can tell you that over the past few days I have been in touch with somebody that I speak with there just to see if we can start that dialogue,” said Harder, who called the collision a tragedy.

“What would have to be part of the discussion for the folks in Barrhaven and in the west end would be how do we afford to pay for it if we can find a way to widen it to four (lanes).”

Anyone with information or who may have witnessed the collision is asked to contact the Ottawa police collision unit at 613-236-1222 ext. 2481 or Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477.

pmccooey@ottawacitizen.com

You can take the boy of Ottawa, relocate him to Denmark and even promote him to head chef at Noma, the restaurant that in recent years has been called the world’s best. But you can’t take the Ottawa out of that boy, Ben Ing.

Ing, 30, was just promoted at the celebrated Copenhagen restaurant that has taken repeatedly taken top honours on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Still, in the interview below, Ing, an Algonquin College culinary program graduate, says his heart remains in Ottawa and that he hopes to contribute once more to the restaurant scene here.

Ing will soon be flying to Australia, where the Noma staff will stage a pop-up version of the restaurant in Sydney. But first, Ing will pop by Ottawa, where he previously had cooked at Fraser Cafe, Beckta Dining and Wine, Restaurant E18hteen and Whalesbone Oyster House. He looks forward to grabbing a bite or three here, he says.

Q: For you, what is the significance of becoming Noma’s head chef?

A: Being named head chef of Noma is a great honour and responsibility, one that I accept as a challenge and I look forward to taking it on full speed, leading our great team. The more I look back on the announcement, I realize that my hard work and determination has gotten me here and that I have to work even harder now to be successful — and I love that. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Q: Why do you think you were chosen to take on the position?

A: I think I was chosen for this position because of my personality. My ability to stay focused and calm under pressure plays a huge factor on the way I not only work in the kitchen, but live my life. I would never say that I am the most talented or skilled chef at Noma, but I think I fit the role of becoming head chef. Other chefs are more talented at, say, the creative side and that is their role and they excel at that. I think I have been chosen to fit a specific role in the restaurant and we all work together as one toward the same goal.

Q: What will your responsibilities entail? How would you describe the working relationship with Noma’s chef-owner Rene Redzepi?

A: My main responsibilities will be leading and organizing the kitchen. Expediting service and upholding the highest of standards for service. In the service kitchen we execute the dishes and menu that has been conceived by Rene and the creative team. My working relationship with Rene is strong. All the chefs have different relationships with him, but mainly we talk about execution of service, the organization of the chefs and the guests’ experience, whereas it might be a different conversation with, say, the foraging team or the fermentation lab etc. Again, we all have different roles within the restaurant.

Q: A bit more than a dozen years ago, you were a junior cook at one of Ottawa’s Lapointe fish restaurants. How do you explain your ascent to the culinary heights at Noma?

A: There is no other answer other than hard work. Hard work, hard work, hard work.

Q: Since you went to Noma in early 2014, how much contact have you had with your restaurant peers in Ottawa?

A: I have had a lot of contact with my peers back home. Whenever I visit I always make a day for visiting with them and eating at their restaurants. I will actually be back home in Ottawa on Saturday Jan. 2 for a few days and already have plans to visit The Manx, Town, Fraser Cafe, Arlington 5, The Pomeroy House and Chez Lucien. My friends in the industry back home have been so supportive of me over the last few years. They have been a huge part of my life and success abroad.

Q: When you spoke to the Citizen in 2014, you said that in the future you “definitely want to do something in Ottawa.” Why? After what you’ve achieved and what lies ahead at Noma, wouldn’t some people say that you’ve outgrown your hometown and its restaurants?

A: Some would definitely say that and maybe it’s true, but Ottawa is where my heart is. I think Ottawa has come a long way in the dining scene from where it was, say, 10 years ago. I feel very proud coming from Ottawa — we’re not trying to be something that we are not. Thanks to a handful of passionate chefs and restaurateurs, Ottawa is slowly but surely sculpting its identity in the Canadian culinary scene and I am very excited to see where it goes from here. I don’t think I would do anything in Ottawa in the near future but would love to contribute in some way whenever the time comes.

Q: What do you think Ottawa needs to improve either its dining-out reputation, its range of restaurants, or both?

A: Very tough question. Ottawa is sort of an enigma when it comes to dining out. I think there are a lot of answers  — answers that I don’t necessarily know. A few things that I can see that will improve the scene: The re-incarnation of Lansdowne Park — incredible area and will no doubt get people eating and drinking in that area; The election of our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — I don’t know if there is a better symbol of change than Mr. Trudeau, and he’s already making huge national waves; and we need to move the Canadian Tire Centre closer to the downtown core. The energy and vibe that would create in the city would definitely be positive for the dining out scene.

Related

• Profile: Meet Ben Ing, the Ottawa chef in the world's best kitchen

phum@ottawacitizen.com

For the past 11 years Howard Hartley, 78, has turned a life-long interest in social nudity into an opportunity to make a little extra money to supplement his old age pension by modelling for life drawing classes.

“I’ve always had an interest in naturism or social nudity,” Hartley explains, “I think I have ever since I picked up one of my father’s books when he came home from overseas.”

He clearly is comfortable in his own skin.

Howard Hartley, 78, poses for an animation class at Algonquin College.

In a darkened Algonquin College art studio, Hartley steps down from the small lighted platform to take a break and then wanders among the 30 or so third-year animation students looking at their artwork.

Wearing nothing but flip flops and a towel draped over one shoulder, he appears to make the young students a little nervous as he stops to chat to them about their artwork.

He shrugs later saying he finds it curious that artists would feel uncomfortable talking to him while he’s still nude just moments after they spent 20 minutes sketching him in detail.

It wasn’t until he was a young married man serving in the Royal Canadian Navy while living in Moncton in the mid 1950s that he first tried naturism.

His wife was hesitant to join him at first. Some women from the club however, got in touch with her and managed to put her at ease.

Howard has been an avid naturist ever since.

“Some people say, ‘Oh you just want to show off (but) no, it just feels comfortable.”

In 2004 a fellow naturist taking an art class at the Nepean Sportsplex suggested he would be a good model and he should think about joining the many life drawing models that work the circuit. He scoffed at the suggestion saying, “What do you mean model? That’s for young, good looking people!”

“Well for one thing, your face is fantastic for drawing,” the friend replied, “and good artists are drawing human beings the way they are.”

So Howard gave it a try and now poses two or three times a month for about three hours at a time. He earns about $25 an hour.

Algonquin College Life Drawing professor and independent animator Jeff Amey says, “Howard’s age is one obvious attribute that is rare in the world of life drawing.”

“Not many people his age are willing to take off their clothes and hold a pose for 20 or 30 minutes allowing students to draw them from 360 degrees.”

“His poses may be less dynamic in gesture but he has a great profile that the students can work with to get some real caricature.”

Across the city at the Greenboro Life Drawing Workshop, Ella-Rose Swinimer manages to stifle a sneeze while holding a pose during a Saturday afternoon session.

“That’s a pretty funny thing that can happen to you (when posing), especially nude,” the professional model, photographer and media entrepreneur says with a laugh.

She was convinced to model for art classes more than 10 years ago when a friend who was an animation artist suggested she should attend a life drawing art group at the Sandy Hill Community Centre to see what was involved.

Ella-Rose Swinimer models for a Kristy Gordon portrait workshop held at the Artist’s Studio on Gladstone Avenue.

“I knew that fine art models are nude so I was a bit offended at first,” she says. “But when I saw all the beautiful art being made from the model posing, I thought that is something I really wanted to do.”

Serafina Adams recently returned to posing after a four year hiatus now that her four-year-old son started school. She started out doing photography modelling for a friend when she learned about life drawing classes from another photographer. She practises both yoga and martial arts which helps her to control the poses.

“It’s very different than photography modelling because the poses are longer and you have to be more in tune with your body and understand yourself,” she says. 

If you’re interested in becoming a model or wish to attend as an artist there are a number of art schools and workshops organized around the city and you can easily start your search at the Greenboro Life Drawing Workshop or the Sandy Hill Life Drawing Workshop.

When an Algonquin College official recently briefed the board of governors about the institution’s campus in Saudi Arabia, he began with a quotation from Nelson Mandela.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

The connection between the anti-apartheid hero and the vocational college Algonquin runs in the Middle Eastern kingdom is tenuous at best. But in a week when Saudi Arabia has provoked international outrage by executing 47 people in one day, drawing a connection provides a pat summary of the college’s rationale for operating a mens’-only technical college in one of the most repressive countries on earth.

Algonquin opened its college in Jazan, Saudi Arabia in 2013. This week the union representing Algonquin faculty repeated its call for the college to pull out of the country.

                                                  Algonquin College Jazan in Saudi Arabia.

Cheryl Jensen, president of the college, says she is deeply concerned about the mass executions in Saudi Arabia, but the institution has “chosen to align ourselves with the government of Canada, and that is to engage rather than isolate.” 

“I strongly believe that through education we will be doing our part in what we can do to change cultures in different countries.”

While education likely helps the Saudi students receiving it, it’s less clear how it impacts human rights in a country in which peaceful critics can be jailed, flogged or beheaded, and women and religious minorities are systematically discriminated against.

Debate about the best way to pressure such regimes to change is not new. Some argue that boycotts, trade embargoes or what Algonquin calls “isolation” don’t help, whether it’s in Cuba or China, while others credit just that strategy with helping end apartheid in South Africa.

It depends partly on what the “engagement” includes, says Duff Conacher, visiting professor in political studies at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of Democracy Watch, a non-profit citizen group that advocates democratic reform, government accountability and corporate responsibility.

He doubts whether there is the academic freedom at Jazan College to discuss, for example, democratic principles or women’s rights. “Where exactly are the avenues for advocating change? And if there are none, they are essentially not engaging in any way that will improve human rights.”

The proposition that any type of education will improve human rights is a fallacy, he said. “This has been well documented and well researched. Part of what can prop up an authoritarian regime is economic prosperity. If an authoritarian regime can deliver a good economy, it actually legitimates their authority and can entrench it further.”

Algonquin professor Jack Wilson, a vice-president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union that represents faculty, argues that Algonquin’s primary motivation in Jazan is to make money. Platitudes about the value of education were trotted out after critics asked some hard questions about the appropriateness of operating a college in a country that beheads peaceful dissidents, he said.

“You can’t be a tool for change if you don’t have a receptive partner for change.”

Algonquin is helping prop up a repugnant regime by training its technocrats, he maintains. And it would be dangerous for Jazan College instructors to introduce topics related to human rights. “We’ve seen what happens to critical thinkers,” Wilson says in reference to the mass executions. They include Shiekh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shia cleric sentenced to death after an unfair trial on a “host of vague charges apparently based on his peaceful criticism of Saudi officials,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Wilson says Algonquin should develop a guideline for ethical investment to help it determine which countries are appropriate to operate in. 

Doug Wotherspoon, Algonquin’s vice president for international and strategic priorities, says it’s a complex issue, and he appreciates his critics’ point of view. “Where do you draw the line? We drew it on a case-by-case basis. The primary driver was — do we see the country is committed to education? Do we see progress? If we see those two things, it gets on the list.”

Doug Wotherspoon is in charge of international operation for Algonquin College, and is the spokesperson for the college’s campus in Saudi Arabia. 

Are there any countries in which Algonquin would not invest? Libya, he says — it’s not a secure environment — and North Korea. 

Jazan College is for men only, and women teachers are not employable there because the education system is segregated.

Jensen says Algonquin is investigating opening a college for women in Jazan. Algonquin has already made several bids for women’s colleges in the country that didn’t work out.

“Change isn’t going to happen overnight, but certainly having a male campus and a female campus will help us even further to change the expectations of how education is delivered.”

Algonquin’s main concern is education, says Wotherspoon. “Listen, we’re not in the politics business. We’re in the business of education. We get into discussions about critical thinking, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re talking about politics. We are there as educators, and we believe that education is one of the most powerful ways in which you can build a civil society, a prosperous community. That’s the work we’re doing. Leave the politics to other folks.”

There may be value to bringing technical education to students in Jazan, a remote and backward area of Saudi Arabia, says Simon Henderson, a specialist in Arab states of the Persian Gulf who is a fellow at The Washington Institute. “But don’t play it as a human rights endeavour. It’s a commercial endeavour.”

As for any comparison with the work of  Nelson Mandela, Henderson is blunt. “If you’re going to say that is spreading human rights like Nelson Mandela, my reaction to that is a rather uncharitable one, which is to sit down to stop from laughing out loud.”

jmiller@postmedia.com

Algonquin College officials admit they didn’t do enough homework before opening a technical college in Saudi Arabia that lost $1.486 million last year.

“We didn’t do as much due diligence as we needed to do,” acknowledges Doug Wotherspoon, Algonquin’s vice president responsible for international affairs. “And that’s on us.”

But officials remain upbeat about the Jazan, Saudi Arabia campus opened in 2013, characterizing it as a bold, entrepreneurial enterprise that will help make Algonquin a “global leader” in exporting education and eventually earn millions in profits.

Jazan is not the only internationally run college that’s run into problems in the Middle Eastern country.

Several British consortiums that opened colleges, signing lucrative contracts with the expectation they would earn millions, are struggling to break even, according to a report in a higher education journal. Some are running virtually empty campuses, according to Education Investor, a British magazine that covers the business of education.

One British education company, Pearson TQ, confirmed that is has pulled out of the three colleges it opened in Saudi Arabia in 2013, although company officials refuse to comment.

Niagara College in southern Ontario lost $966,504 in its first year operating a college in Taif, Saudi Arabia, that opened in 2014. The college had anticipated a loss of about $700,000 in the startup year, says a Niagara College official, but he said Taif is expected to earn a profit starting this year.

Hopes were high when Algonquin opened its men-only college in Jazan, a poor area near the Yemen border, in 2013, offering students a “foundation” year of basic English, math and other skills, to be followed by two-year engineering diploma programs.

The first projections called for Jazan College to earn a profit of $19.9 million over five years.

But the college has been plagued with problems, from students who dropped out of their foundation year in droves to the discovery that Saudis tend to hold college education in low esteem, there’s a low level of English literacy, and government officials in the kingdom don’t honour payment promises.

Algonquin officials say they were misled by research provided by the Saudi government, which asked for international bidders to help develop technical colleges in the country.

Based on that information, Algonquin officials thought students would be more academically prepared for Jazan’s diploma courses.

Instead, many students arrived with poor English, sub-standard math, and also lacking basic study skills such as taking notes and using a desktop computer. The culture did not place a high value on school attendance, which was especially problematic since Algonquin signed a “performance-based” contract that ties most of the payment to a student attendance rate of 80 per cent.

It’s unclear why the situation in Jazan would be a surprise, since Algonquin had operated a trades program on contract at the same college the year before winning the bid to take over the campus.

Doug Wotherspoon is in charge of international operation for Algonquin College.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” says Wotherspoon, who wasn’t in charge of the Saudi project at the time. “I think everybody did (things) to the best of their abilities.”

Algonquin officials apparently believed a higher calibre of student would be attracted to Jazan College once it was operated by an international provider like Algonquin.

It quickly became clear that was not the case. In Jazan’s first term, only 15 per cent of students in the English course met the required 80-per-cent attendance that triggered payment. Most failed to complete the year, so the flow of students into the diploma program slowed to a trickle.

Saudi officials changed their mind about an interpretation of the 80-per-cent attendance funding rule, further reducing revenue, according to a report given to the board. By the fall of the second year of operation, the profit projections for Jazan had been dramatically reduced, to $4.6 million over five years. The latest business plan calls for Jazan to start earning money this year, and have a total profit of $4.4 million by the end of the five-year contract.

Like any startup or international enterprise, sometimes the situation on the ground turns out to be different than what is expected, so the college had to adjust, says Wotherspoon.

Jazan is now in its third year of operation and, he says, things are improving. Attendance and pass rates are creeping up. Staff are working doggedly to keep students in school and help them to succeed through such measures as revising the curriculum to make it easier for applied learners who don’t flourish in a traditional classroom.

Algonquin’s Saudi partners have an interest in making sure the college succeeds, says Wotherspoon.

International operators have opened 37 colleges in Saudi Arabia since 2013. It’s part of a Saudi government initiative to improve vocational education in the country, which has traditionally relied heavily on foreign workers.

jmiller@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/JacquieAMiller

Isolation or engagement? The question has confounded governments and policy makers throughout history when faced with rogue countries or leaders whose behaviour is beyond the pale.

Apartheid South Africa, China, Cuba, Iran and others have faced the pain of isolation with varying degrees of success, and now some have set their sights on Saudi Arabia. In the wake of the Gulf kingdom’s execution of 47 alleged terrorists, including prominent Shia cleric and critic Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, Algonquin College is facing calls to pull out of the country where it runs a men’s only campus.

Critics say Algonquin’s presence in Saudi Arabia amounts to “propping up” a repressive government. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The notion that the presence of Algonquin College or any other educational institution in Saudi Arabia amounts to propping up a “repugnant regime” is preposterous.

Calls for Algonquin to leave the country are totally misguided.

Algonquin is in Saudi Arabia to provide education. It is not its role to bear the burden of international morality. Indeed, if Canadian institutions withdrew from every country we consider repressive, Canada will end up being the one living in isolation. Obviously those who demand Algonquin’s departure want the college to take a take a moral stand.

Fair enough. But then why only Algonquin?

Let’s consider some facts. Canada maintains full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, our second largest export market in the Middle East. Government figures show that Canadian exports to Saudi Arabia in 2014 were a modest $1.2 billion, while imports stood at $2.6 billion.

It is a market Canada wants to expand. Several Canadian companies operate in Saudi Arabia, and have been there long before Algonquin set foot in the country. Mining, telecommunications, gas and oil, construction and other companies do business with Saudi Arabia with the full support of the Canadian government, but they haven’t been asked to shoulder any responsibility for Saudi policies.

No one is accusing these companies of aiding and abetting Saudi policies in the wake of the executions, and no one is demanding they pack up and leave. So why is Algonquin? Why should an Ottawa college trying to provide education to young Saudis be asked to bear the brunt of a foreign government’s policies when others don’t?

If the government – both Conservative and Liberal – believes it serves Canada’s interests to maintain diplomatic and trade relations with Saudi Arabia despite its policies, why should Algonquin sever its ties? Should Saudi Arabia allow dissent and give women more freedom? Absolutely. But whether Algonquin stays or leaves, will make no difference to what happens.

Which brings us to the larger issue of whether isolation is the best policy on Saudi Arabia – or any other country deemed to have a poor human rights record.

What to do in these circumstances is never clear cut. There is no magic formula. Richard Nixon went to China in 1972 to break 25 years of American isolation of the communist country, and his brave and historic move still stands as one of the great diplomatic coups of all time.

On the other hand, the world’s determined isolation of South Africa politically, economically and in sports during the heyday of apartheid, is acknowledged as having helped end the racist policy.

Significantly however, it was business as usual with China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. And Cuba? What did 50 years of U.S. isolation of the island really achieve? In contrast, Canada’s policy of engagement turned out to be the right one, allowing us to play a big role in the rapprochement that led to diplomatic engagement under Barack Obama.

Canada in recent years isolated Iran, but it is unclear what we got out of it. The West has alternated between isolation and engagement of Russia after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and neither seems to have worked.

If people want to isolate Saudi Arabia because they don’t like its human rights record, that is their choice. But they should not do it on the back of Algonquin College.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.