Away From Her Sarah Polley is queen of Genie Awards ARTS >C9

Nutritious fast food Make dinner now, serve it later BUSINESS >B1
Dynasty continues Alberta Tories score a big win CANADA >A7

1858–2008

www.timescolonist.com | Xxxxxxday,
Tuesday, March
Xxxxxxxxx
4, 2008
00, 2008 Victoria, British Columbia High 9. Details, D4 Grizzlies beat Burnaby 4-3, B4

New fleet of boats for UVic Sailing Club

DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

Arel English and Erica Virtue work yesterday on one of six sailboats purchased by the University of Victoria Sailing Club and docked at the UVic Vikes Recreation Sailing Compound in Cadboro/Gyro
Park. The club bought the sailboats and a safety boat last month from the University of Washington. Club members have been raising money for the purchase since 2006. With their new fleet, they
will hold the inaugural Western Canada Cup, to be hosted in conjunction with the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. The regatta will take place May 10-11 in Cadboro Bay.

Homeless camping case makes it to court

Judge must decide if constitutional cation to deny the constitu-
tional challenge.
Lawyer Guy McDannold,
acting for the city, also argued
the homeless and demeans
their dignity.”
homeless activists’ case has
merit as a constitutional chal-

challenge to city bylaw will proceed Ministry lawyer Veronica

JEFF BELL
Times Colonist
Can a group of homeless
activists argue they have a con-
stitutional right to sleep on the
streets? That was the question
facing a B.C. Supreme Court
judge as a legal challenge to the
City of Victoria’s anti-camping
bylaw finally made it to court
yesterday.
It’s been more than two
years since the challenge was
launched after a number of
people were arrested in Octo-
ber 2005 for erecting tents in
Cridge Park, at the corner of
Blanshard and Belleville
streets.
Last September, the case
briefly made it to court when
the city lost its bid to dismiss
the challenge, but it won an
adjournment to allow the Min-
istry of Attorney General to
join the case.
Yesterday, Justice Victoria
Gray heard arguments from
the city, the province and the
homeless as part of a two-day
hearing on the ministry’s appli-
Jackson argued that the case
doesn’t have a reasonable
chance of success on constitu-
tional grounds, pointing out
that the bylaw is meant to
ensure that parks and other
areas “are available for all
members of the public to
enjoy.”
“The bylaw has general
applications that apply to
everybody,” she said.
She added that the case
would ultimately focus on what
society should do in terms of
funding and programs for the
homeless, instead of just the
content of the bylaw.
that people aren’t banned from
sleeping outdoors.
He said an amendment to
the bylaw in August — to omit
the word “loitering” — effec-
tively removes the provision
against sleeping in public
places.
But there are rules against
“temporary abodes” such as
tents, large tarpaulins, boxes
and other items, as well as the
blocking of sidewalks or
streets, McDannold said.
Catherine Boies Parker, one
of two lawyers representing
the homeless in the case, coun-
tered that the bylaw “has a
disproportionate impact on
Her case claims that the
bylaw — even with the amend-
ment from August — interferes
with homeless people’s security
of person, a right guaranteed
under the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.
“Our argument is that if you
have no place to go, you have a
right to sleep in a public space
… with some shelter from the
elements.”
She said constitutional argu-
ments are key to the case she
is putting together with col-
league Irene Faulkner.
Arguments in the case con-
tinue today in court. At issue
for the judge is whether the
lenge — she will not cast judg-
ment on the bylaw, only on
whether the challenge can pro-
ceed.
Yesterday’s proceedings
attracted a handful of home-
less people, including David
Johnston.
A baker by trade but home-
less by conviction, Johnston
has been arrested repeatedly,
and even jailed, for his refusal
to stop camping on public park-
land, particularly the grounds
of St. Ann’s Academy.
His actions were the impe-
tus for the group that camped
at Cridge Park.
jwbell@tc.canwest.com

Old clothes get new life in Third World BlackBerrys blossom

B.C. LEGISLATURE

despite house rules

some benefit to Africans buy-
Castoffs from developed nations provide cheap ing the cheap clothes.
clothing for Africans. But charity has a downside: “Of course, those citizens
that lack the basic needs to sur-
African manufacturers can’t compete, TC reporter vive (while living on less than LINDSAY KINES constituent with a profanity-
Sarah Petrescu writes from Kigali, Rwanda. $2 a day) would likely benefit Times Colonist laced message.
from purchasing apparel for None of the BlackBerry
such a low price,” he says. Now that the Victoria Flower Five was involved in answer-

S
tacks of polo shirts, Dock-
ers pants and enough Gap
castoffs to start a store
stuff the stalls of the
Kimironko Market on the out-
skirts of Kigali.
“Lacoste. Nike. Sean John,”
a vendor calls out to no one in
particular. These are some of
the only English words he
knows.
It’s a common scene
throughout sub-Saharan Africa,
the world’s largest destination
for used clothing — most of
which goes to brokers to be
sold in markets and street
stalls.
In Rwanda, the poorest
spend more than half their
clothing budgets on used items
from the West, according to a
recent Oxfam study. The rich-
est spend about 20 per cent.
Across all socio-economic
groups, there is a major shift
away from traditional dress to
western fashions.
What started as charitable
handouts to clothe the desper-
ately poor in the 1960s has
turned into a billion-dollar-a-
year industry.
“We call the clothes ‘Viety’
because the Americans gave to
charity after the Vietnam War,”
says Thierry Shakya, 27, a fab-
ric vendor at the market. “It’s
shameful that people donate
these things [and] then we try
to sell them. … I guess every-
body needs to make some
money.”
It works like this: People in
rich countries, such as the U.S.,
Germany, Canada and Bel-
gium, donate used clothing to
charitable groups.
From there, it is sold to tex-
tile recycling plants, sorted,
graded and put into 45- to 80-
kilogram bales. Ones for Africa
are generally sold for about
$1.10 to $1.45 per kilogram.
They then go to a develop-
ing-country importer, who sells
them to a local trader.
“The biggest beneficiaries
are the western charities, since
they collect the clothing for
free, and then sell them. Every-
one else along the chain must
pay for the clothing,” says
Pietra Rivoli, author of The
Travels of a T-shirt in the Global
Economy: An Economist Exam-
ines the Markets, Power and
Politics of World Trade.
Mike Valente, a University
of Victoria business professor
who studies globalization and
sustainability, says there is
However, the cheap second-
hand clothes sell for a fraction
of the cost of locally made
clothing.
And because of that, as well
as lower trade barriers,
African textile and clothing
industries have been all but
destroyed, Valente says.
“They end up being cheap
labour making clothes for the
West — similar to China — but
can’t produce for their own
countries,” he says.
In the mid-’90s, 41 textile
and clothing industries existed
in the West African Economic
and Monetary Union. By 2004,
there were six.
Oxfam says 80,000 jobs have
been lost in the domestic tex-
tile industry in the past 10
years, citing an influx of cheap
used and Asian clothing as a
major contributing cause.
spetrescu@tc.canwest.com
> TC reporter Sarah Petrescu was
in Africa as part of the Seeing the
World through New Eyes fellow-
ship for young journalists sup-
ported by the Jack Webster
Foundation and CIDA. Find out
what else she discovered at
African second-hand clothing mar-
kets, on page C1.
SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONIST
The Kimironko Market on the
outskirts of Kigali is where
locals go to buy fresh fruit, meat
and “Viety” — their word for
used clothing from the western
world. Clothing donated to
charities in Canada and other
developed countries is sold by
the kilogram for resale in mar-
kets such as this.
Count is officially over, it’s on
with another great capital city
tradition — the annual Black-
Berry Festival.
We refer, of course, to that
special time of year when
reporters keep a running tally
of MLAs breaking the legisla-
ture’s rules and using their
hand-held e-mail devices dur-
ing question period.
Normally, Speaker Bill
Barisoff tries to keep track of
the rule-breakers, but he has a
less-than-strategic post, seated
at the end of the chamber.
Not so the press gallery,
which peers down from above
and yesterday observed five
government MLAs — Premier
Gordon Campbell among them
— checking their BlackBerrys
during QP. To be fair, Solicitor
General John Les just gave his
a quick peek, as opposed to,
say, backbencher Val Roddick,
who appeared mesmerized by
hers for much of the 30-minute
session.
The other offenders?
Liberal backbenchers Dave
Hayer and Bill Bennett. The
latter you’d think would steer
clear of e-mails altogether
after getting bumped from
cabinet last year for flaming a
ing questions yesterday. The
rule exists largely to prevent
political staff outside the house
from feeding answers to min-
isters or questions to Opposi-
tion members stuck inside.
But Barisoff later con-
firmed that nobody should be
using the devices during QP.
In 2005, he reprimanded
Environment Minister Barry
Penner and Forests Minister
Rich Coleman after the NDP
spotted them using a Black-
Berry.
NDP house leader Mike
Farnworth said yesterday that
it’s time for a refresher.
“It’s clearly a violation of
the rules of this chamber and
the Speaker needs to start
enforcing it,” he said. “In
essence, the government cab-
inet is cheating.”
But Bennett is no longer in
cabinet and therefore not
called upon during question
period. If he was using his
BlackBerry yesterday — and
he didn’t recall doing so — it
would only have been to get
some work done during the
partisan theatrics, he said.
“Honestly, sometimes it
gets a little tedious.”
lkines@tc.canwest.com

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LIFE
Editor: Bruce MacKenzie > Telephone: 380-5346 > E-mail: features@tc.canwest.com
The Kimironko market on the fringes of Kigali is the place where locals go to buy fresh fruit, meat and “Viety” — used clothing from Canada and the U.S.
SARAH PETRESCU
Ready to Wear
Sarah models the new 113 Jacket
($195) and a silk print ascot ($55)
from Smoking Lily on Johnson
Street.
spetrescu@tc.canwest.com
Smoking Lily’s
fundraiser
I thought lining up at 8 a.m.
on a chilly Saturday for
Smoking Lily’s annual
garage sale at 10 a.m. was a
shoo-in for first grabs at all
the sweet deals.
Silly me. The queue was 40
deep when I arrived. The
annual sale by Victoria’s
hottest independent design
house is legendary for the
major mark-downs — and
serious scrapfests over $10
skirts, $5 tops and purses as
soon the doors open.
More than 230 people
attended this year, raising
$8,000 for Theatre SKAM, the
Mustard Seed and The Land
Conservancy.
Get on the mailing list for
next year at www.smok-
inglily.com
Evoke at Element
Fashion and dance will be
highlighted in a Cirque du
Soleil-inspired night at
Element nightclub Sunday.
Veronica Hull, a Sidney
designer who specializes in
PVC clothing and corsetry,
created costumes for the
event. Hull also designs for
the popular Cheesecake Bur-
lesque Revue.
Adrien Castle of Zenith
Dance Studio (pole-dance fit-
ness, burlesque fit and booty
camp) choreographs the per-
formance, based on the ele-
ments: Earth, air, fire, water.
The event is at 9 p.m. at
Element (in the Strath-cona
Hotel). Tickets are $20. For
more information, visit:
www.zenithstudio.ca
• We have two tickets to
give away; e-mail
spetrescu@tc.canwest.com
with your name and daytime
phone number.
– Sarah Petrescu
The paradox of
Kimironko market
KIGALI, Rwanda
T
he open-air Kimironko Market
on the outskirts of Kigali is the
last place I expect to see the
designer-fashion and develop-
ing worlds collide.
Endless narrow aisles overflow with
Gap and Old Navy cast-offs, T-shirts,
shoes, purses, kids’ clothes and even a
good selection of dusty ballgowns.
A Rwandan friend in Victoria was the
first to let me in on the second-hand
shopping in Africa. “Anything you want,
any style, from all the eras, you’ll find
it at these markets,” she said. “And for
cheap, cheap too.”
But when I find a pair of $200 Miss
Sixty jeans for $6, I have to wonder:
What’s the real cost of donated clothing
sold in a country where people can
barely afford to eat?
It’s a fascinating example of how
actions — even charitable ones — can
have unintended consequences.
Since charities started bringing
donated clothes to sub-Saharan Africa
in the 1960s and ’70s, the second-hand
clothing market has boomed into a bil-
lion-dollar industry.
Each country has a different name
for the cast-offs. In Rwanda, it is
“Viety,” a reference to U.S. philanthropy
reaching overseas after the Vietnam
War. In Zambia, they call it salaula —
which means to “rummage and pick.”
In Zimbabwe, it is mupedzanhamo
(where all problems end). And in Kenya
and Tanzania, they’re called kafa ulaya
(dead man’s clothes) or mitumba (bun-
dles).
Western charities sell donated cloth-
ing to recyclers, who sort and sell
packed bales to vintage boutiques at
home and developing countries abroad.
African brokers distribute the
clothes to market and street vendors
who hawk them for a range of prices.
“They used to be cheap so poor peo-
ple could afford clothes,” Manuel
Miandica, 28, told me a week earlier as
we passed rows of Nine West shoes and
H&M clothes in Beira, Mozambique,
East Africa’s largest port for second-
hand clothes. “Now they know what’s
trendy and jack up the prices.”
Menswear sells at a premium, as the
bulk of donated clothing is women’s and
children’s. Hip hop lines like Sean John
and FuBu are market gold, as are T-
shirts from winning sports teams.
Though it might seem the markets are
full of the latter, Africa is a receptacle
for discarded T-shirts of losers.
Major-league sports teams print
thousands of T-shirts and ball caps
anticipating a winning season. Their
leagues ban the loser’s swag on Amer-
ican soil and Ebay. Thus, the Cleveland
Indians won last year’s World Series —
at least in Ghana they did.
Not that many Africans mind. Most
seem happy for any access to the fash-
ions from North America that dominate
television and billboard ads in even the
most remote areas.
But they’d also like to see a home-
grown fashion industry flourish.
Policy-makers want to promote the
transformation of fibre into finished
products to stimulate employment and
industry. Mali President Amadou
Toumani Touré recently said that while
Mali is the largest cotton producer in
sub-Saharan Africa, it “does not pro-
duce a single T-shirt.”
Thierry Shakya, 27, tends his
mother’s African fabric stall at the
Kimironko market a few times a week.
The bright fabrics — patterned with
everything from gazelles and elephants
to political figures — are emblems of
the regions they come from.
“The ones from Kenya are very
beautiful,” Shakya says. “They make
very nice dresses.”
I take the large swath of maroon eye-
patterned fabric I buy from him for $2
to one of the many tailors working on
vintage sewing machines along the edge
of the market. They earn half the wages
of used-clothing dealers.
For $4 a seamstress whips me up a
boatneck top in less than an hour. When
I gesture to ask if I can take a photo of
the stylish empire-waisted A-line dress
she has made for herself in a similar
pattern, she shakes her head shyly.
“African fashion,” I say. They are the
magic words. In a flash she transforms
from suspicious to supermodel — proud
to show off her stuff.
That a top she designed and custom-
made on the spot costs no more than a
pair of cast-off jeans at the market
shows me firsthand how hard it is for
indigenous fashion to survive.
Reporter Sarah Petrescu was in Africa as part of
the Jack Webster Foundation and CIDA Seeing
the World through New Eyes fellowship for
young journalists.
Thierry Shakya sells traditional fabrics at the Kimironko market.
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2008
■ GARDEN: Doing what’s best for Lewisia, C3
■ HEALTH: What is scleroderms, C3
■ CROSSWORDS, C2 ■ ARTS, C9
■ TELEVISION, C10
timescolonist.com
■ BLOG: Jo2Go — Joanne Hatherly anticipates
the TC 10K and her goal of coming in last
SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONIST
SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONIST
This seamstress can design and make one-
of-a-kind articles of clothing from local
fabrics — yet she commands only half the
earnings of people who sell second-hand
clothing donated from western charities.
SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONIST
C1
RHONA RASKIN
Ask Rhona
rhona@rhonaraskin.com
How do I
keep feet
out of
mouth?
Dear Rhona: Over the past
year, I’ve been on the receiv-
ing end of an “accidental
pregnancy announcement.”
Three times I was informed
by either the girl or her
boyfriend. I have no idea
why this has happened to me
so many times. And I never
know how to react. Saying
“congratulations” isn’t the
right thing to say given
those circumstances … but
what else can I say?
Wants to Be Polite
Dear WTBP: I guess it’s best
to avoid responses such as
“Can you spell birth con-
trol?” and “So what do you
think of those new hybrid
cars?”
Sometimes the best thing
to say is nothing. If you
pause instead of filling in
the dead air, the news
announcer will inevitably
blurt out either, “Hey, this
could be an exciting turn of
events” or “I don’t know
what we are going to do
now.”
If you really feel the
pressing need to say some-
thing intelligent, go with
“How do you feel about this
news? Is this a good thing?”
That puts the onus on the
person with the new circum-
stances to outline the direc-
tion of the next few
sentences in the conversa-
tion.
And of course there’s the
simple wow! which is fairly
noncommittal and leaves
open the ability to shift in
either direction — depend-
ing on whether the news
flash is positive or not.
Dear Rhona: I’m in love with
this guy and he says that he
isn’t the type to get involved
because he isn’t good with
romantic relationships.
I tried to tell him that you
don’t date someone because
you think it’s going to last
forever — you date someone
because at this time in life
you are attracted to them.
But he won’t listen.
I really like him and think
we are both missing out on a
great opportunity. He isn’t
involved with anyone, so
what’s the big deal? How do
I get him to change his
mind?
Tiffany
Dear Tiffany: What are you
trying to do? Wear him down
till he signs up for your
brand of logic? Prove that he
is wrong by enticing him
into your sphere of influ-
ence long enough to blitz
him with your magic?
Perhaps he isn’t as smit-
ten with you as you are with
him and he’s merely
attempting to let you down
in a way that isn’t embar-
rassing for you.
It is possible that despite
your lovely personality and
winning smile he simply
isn’t attracted to you. Or
maybe he doesn’t want to
play with a female who is so
forthright about being a
casual player.
I suggest you gather
yourself together and plan a
foray in another direction.
You can’t make someone fall
in love with you. You can’t
beg or threaten. A relation-
ship requires two votes and
you only have one.
Visit rhona.com to send your
questions or comments.