OVER THE EDGE _ February9, 2007

UNBC Team all Business at JDC West | Sn na art

First-time Competitors Surpass Expectations at
Regional Competition

HAAKON SULLIVAN
STAFF WRITER

On the days of January 19%
to January 21", thirty eight com-
merce students from UNBC at-
tended a business competition in
Vancouver called Jeux de Com-
merce (JDC) West for a weekend
of putting themselves to the test.
Due to the fact that UNBC was
a new competitor and was sup-
posed to only watch the events,
they made a surprisingly good
performance and was a match for
the larger, more experienced busi-
ness schools.

With the announcement that
UNBC was to actually compete
in the games came a rush to se-
lect a group of people to attend
the games as well as to get them
trained for the challenges to come.
The competition is divided into
three sections: Academic. Ath-
letic, and Social. For academic,
the team needed people who were
well rounded with emphasis on
character and cooperation. The

athletics group needed people
who were athletic and the social
group needed people with lots of
character who were ready for any-
thing.

The three months of training
the team had was barely enough
time to cover all that the team
needed to know, but it was far
from being low quality. UNBC
faculty and trained business pro-
fessionals spent their time training
the team. The team also spent a lot
of time getting to know each other
in order to increase cooperation
and lessen pressure.

The JDC West competition in-
volves over four hundred people
from over ten universities. Look-
ing at the list of participants, you
can quickly see. that our team
was competing with teams from
much larger universities such as
the University of British Colum-
bia and the University of Alberta.
This was a double edged sword
for the team as they could not get
as much funding for themselves,
but the small school size allowed

each team member to know each
other even before the team was
selected.

When the team got to Vancou-
ver, they were pushed to their lim-
its during the whole three days.
The people in the academic div-
ision had to complete case pack-
ages in areas such as marketing
and entrepreneurship. Calvin
Cheung of the academic team de-
scribed the task of getfing a case
package and developing a solution
and a professional presentation in
only three hours. Even with the
small time frames, the marketing

and accounting teams placed first

with their presentations.

As for the social team, they
had to put up with being on call
to perform a task given via voice
mail. At one point, describes Mike
Pucci, the team had to suddenly
get in their swim suits and go for
a swim in English Bay. After this
and staying up most of the night
before, the team was then told that
the sponsors were coming and that
they had to solve and present a

case package to the sponsors who
were arriving in twenty minutes.

The competition was not all
about doing tasks and making
presentations however. Also in-
volved in the competition were
three parties where all the stu-
dents could mingle and get to
know each other. For example, the
first night was a “bling-me night”
where all the participants showed
off their riches. The UNBC team
once again impressed its competi-
tion by being the most “blinged-
up” group there.

The team came home with
first place in accounting and mar-
keting, third place in international
business and participation and
memories that will last a lifetime.
Next time though, the CSS plans
to start searching for team mem-
bers nine months in advance so
if you want to join the next team,
contact them at http://css.unbe.
ca and join in on the fun. A word
of advice from Calvin Cheung:
“When you’re there think out of
the box. Don’t think textbook.”

Green Party leader praises Mulroney and
Schwarzenegger; criticizes Harper, Bush

-University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George

ANDREW KuRJATA
Eprror-tn-CHIeF

Federal Green Party leader
Elizabeth May cautioned voters
not to be too optimistic when it
comes to the new environmental
plans being unveiled by Stephen
Harper and George W. Bush, say-
ing they are being driven solely
by the polls and not by any real
desire to incite change.

“THarper] didn’t pick up the
DVD of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
that was given to him by Jack Lay-
ton for Christmas,” she joked to
the audience of about one hundred
who had come to see her speak
in the UNBC Canfor Theatre on
January 24. Also lambasted were
plans from Conservatives and
Liberals to increase the use of corm
ethanol as fuel, something May
says is little more than a disguised
subsidy for farmers and does little
to help the environment.

May’s talk, entitled “Climate
Change, Energy, and a Green Fu-
ture,” focused on the dangers of

global warming and what citizens
and governments can do to com-
bat it. She opened the speech by
invoking Canada’s past role as an
environmental policy leader, call-
ing Brian Mulroney’s Conserva-
tive government “one of the most-
forward looking” when it came to
the dangers of climate change. Of
particular importance was Mul-
roney’s role in forming the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and the fact that
he was in charge when Canada
became the first industrial country
to sign and ratify what eventually
became the Kyoto Protocol.

The current Conservative goy-
ernment didn’t fare quite so well.
May mentioned the new Minister
of Environment John Baird, who
has called the fallen trees in Stan-
ley Park a “wake-up call.”

“What I don’t get,” asked
May, “is how’d he sleep through
Hurricane Katrina?”

Similar criticism was directed
at U.S. President George W. Bush,

who has been on his own green
campaign in recent days with a
plan to cut down fuel consumption
in the United States by 20% in the
next ten years. May pointed out
that the plan doesn’t actually call
for lowering the current fuel emis-
sion levels, but instead lowering
the expected emissions for 2017-
- “not a real reduction.”

May also invoked the import-
ance of meeting the targets set by
the Kyoto protocol, saying it was
“the first step; [like] taking your
foot of the gas when driving to-
wards a brick wall.” By abandon-
ing the protocol, Harper and Bush
are instead “putting the pedal to
the metal.” Receiving praise were
the European Union and Califor-
nia governor Armold Schwarz-
enegger, who has made a com-
mitment to reducing emissions by
80% by 2050.

May stressed that the dangers
posed by global warming are real
and not just hypotheses, quoting
an IPCC report saying that the

consequences of global warming
are “second only to global nuclear

ar.” She also cited a study con-
ducted by the Pentagon on the
geopolitical. consequences. of ris-
ing sea levels, and a recent report
presented to the British govern-
ment which warned that global
warming could result in economic
losses of up to $7 trillion. “It’s al-
most not worth it to measure the
economic loss of losing every
coastal city, “ she added. “It’s kind
of obvious.”

May encouraged Canadians to
change the way they think about
energy. “Everything we do is
premised on the idea that energy
is cheap and-abundant,” said May.
“We need to stop assuming this.”
She said that by using already in-
vented technologies, Canadians
could reduce energy consumption
by half. “The good news is we still
have time. The bad news is time is
running out,” she concluded. “It’s
really going to be up to us.”

“[Harper] didn’t pick up the DVD of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ that was given to him by Jack Layton for

Christmas.’ - Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.