6 THE VOICE, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2011 EDITOR NATALIE CAMERON Canadians must spend their money smarter pparently, Canadians are Pein smarter, at least when it comes to money. According to a report by credit agency TransUnion, Canadian’s total debt has either dropped or remained steady. Common causes, or should I say blames, for debt include a poor economy, student loans, high costs of living and spendthrift spouses. I forgot the most important one: plain old stupidity. This year, the average Canadian has only $25,603 in debt, down $106 from the previous year. Good job, guys. This year, I have $0 in debt, the same as last year. It’s not because I have the luxury of a cushy job where I’m ridiculously overpaid. It’s not because I have a sugar daddy in the aforementioned scenario. It’s because I’m not enticed by the latest trends, and I don’t prescribe to the rat race of keeping up with the Joneses. I don’t describe 50 per cent off of a $2,000 dress as “a good deal.” And yes, I’m quite satisfied with my laptop that’s half as fast as the latest model, thank you very much. Ilive within my means, and somehow, am able to make do without the latest, greatest and shiniest of everything. Now, I’m not making light of this national epidemic. People do have valid reasons for drowning in debt that I’m grateful not to have any firsthand knowledge in. If you’re going through job losses, medical emergencies, or soap-opera dramatic divorces, my heart goes out to you. But if your credit card bills are a mile long because you have poor impulse control, there will be no sympathy from this corner. According to the World Bank, almost half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. If that’s possible, maybe it’s possible for people to forego those daily $5 cappuccinos and those weekly $100 dine-outs every once in a while, at least until that debt is paid off. Now, that would be smart. OPINION JENNIFER FONG We want to hear from you Did we get a fact wrong? Tell us. Got a different point of view? Write to us. Problems with something we've said? Let us know. Journalism instructor Nicholas Read oversees The Voice. E-mail him at nread@langara.be.ca Despite StatsCan study, we shouldn't feel unsafe Canadians in other cities, according to a study released by Statistics Canada yesterday. The study is based on data gathered in 2009 for feelings of personal safety and perception of crime in Cana- dian metropolitan areas. The Canadian average for feelings of satisfaction with personal safety was 93 per cent. Out of 33 Cana- dian cities surveyed, Vancouver ranked the lowest with feelings of personal safety at 87 per cent. It’s not significant enough of a difference to warrant any serious concern. Besides, the actual rates of crime, while somewhat higher in Vancouver than other major centres like Toronto and Montreal, were not VYferssins feel less safe than ar OPINION MARTIN WISSMATH near the worst in the country in 2009. Crime makes the news because it’s rare. If we educate ourselves on the actual facts and data, our feelings of safety should only be increasing. Violent crime affects our percep- tion of safety the most. In 2009, the violent crime severity in Vancouver was 17.8 per cent higher than the national average. That’s nothing to brag about, certainly, but violent crime severity in Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg were 54.7, 55.6, and 87 per cent higher than the average, respec- tively. Yet Vancouverites still felt less safe than Canadians in any of those cities. Crime is higher in the wild west; however, 96 per cent of Saskatonians reportedly felt satisfied with their personal safety. Vancouverites definitely felt less safe than they should have. Or Saskatonians were just blissfully ignorant. Violent crime in Vancouver was particularly highly publicized in 2009, which would have affected our feelings of personal safety. That was the year of the infamous gang war, when targeted slayings were reported on the nightly news with disturbing regularity. The spike in violence was so severe it made national headlines. A report from Maclean’s maga- zine published in March, 2009 listed Vancouver with the fifth-highest murder rate in Canada. Port Coquitlam was number one (based on 2007 data). Low feelings of personal safety were understand- able at least, if not justified. Violent crime actually fell in Vancouver by 6 per cent from 2008 to 2009. On the positive side, despite the blood-spattered scenes from their city making the news that year, 87 per cent of Vancouverites felt satisfied with their personal safety. They’re right, since the crime rate has continued to fall since the late 1980s. Violent crime fell by another 10 per cent in Vancouver in 2010. There’s no sign that downward trend won’t continue. Being strictly Canadian is hard himself to live all-Canadian, all the time, for an entire year. Darren Barefoot has been writing about his experiences on his blog One Year, One Canadian for the past 11 months. His reasons for living this way were to be patriot and to discover how one could live off of only Canadian products, media and other services. He wants the project to be about thoughtful consumption. The task demonstrates how few products are made in Canada. It has also saw him lose weight, when he switched from drinking pop to water because Coke, one of his favourite drinks, is not made in Canada. If one Canadian is struggling to live directly off of Canadian prod- GO: Vancouverite has challenged ucts, how would the rest of Canada’s 34 million people survive? Barefoot is surviving. He displays pictures of maple candy, maple syrup cola, frozen berries, leather boots from Roots, and underwear from Nova Scotia (Stanfield’s has been selling Canadian made underwear since 1856) on Facebook. However, he does write about the difficulty of finding Canadian items. We are lucky enough to have imports bringing in goods, both OPINION NATALIE CAMERON manufactured and raw. Without these imports we would be living off maple sugar and products covered in beaver prints. Obviously, Iam kidding. But, it would be difficult and unsustainable. Statistics Canada reported that in 2007, Canadians imported around 30 per cent of our food. Last year alone, Canadian’s spent over $57 million on consumer goods such as clothing and footwear. While most of our imports come from the U.S. it is not the only country we rely on. Shipments from overseas generates a huge carbon footprint, yet we don’t seem to care. We continue to rely on imports. If the zombie apocalypse were to occur we would be totally incapable of taking care of ourselves. The Voice is published by Langara College's journalism department. Editorial opinions are those of the staff and are independent of views of the student government and administration. We welcome letters to the editor. All letters must be signed. They may be edited for brevity. Names may be withheld in special cases, but your letter must include your name and phone number. HOW TO REACH US PHONE 604-323-5396 FAX 604-323-5398 E-MAIL thevoice@langara.be.ca DROP-IN Room A226 Langara College There is a mailbox at the entrance to the journalism rooms. SNAIL MAIL The Voice 100 West 49th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. VSY 226 WEBSITE wwwlangara.bc.ca/voice EDITORIAL STAFF THIS ISSUE: MANAGING EDITOR/ PAGE 6 Natalie Cameron PAGE EDITORS PAGE 1 Brittany Lee PAGE 2 Anne Watson PAGE 3 Khethiwe Rudd PAGE 4 Derek Bedry PAGE 5 Leah Goebel PAGE 7 Jesse Winter PAGE 8 Carlisle Richards CITY EDITORS Kyla Jonas Celina Albany Jared Gham REPORTERS Moma Cassidy Lynda Chapple Emma Crawford Jennifer Fong Shawn Gill Alexandra Grant Alanna Hardinge-Rooney Matthew Hyndman Patrick Johnston Ruman Kang Devon MacKenzie Daniel Palmer Jen St. Denis Carly Wignes Martin Wissmath Contact us: Our blog at www.langara- voice. posterous. com Twitter at @langaraVoice Youtube at VoiceLangara flicker at Langara Voice