Emma Terrell first launched the Urban Botanist in Ottawa to help others engage with nature at home.
“I started fresh out of university with the idea and intent of encouraging my community and encouraging others to engage with nature in an urban setting,” the 31-year-old said. “I was teaching people about plants and inspiring people to grow their green thumbs and learn more about terrariums and gardening.”
At Carleton, Terrell had studied biology with a focus on insects. “I would say from my earliest memories, I have just been completely enamoured and obsessed with all things living and growing and green.”
Her business, started in 2017, includes an online plant and accessory shop, facilitating virtual workshops, and designing living walls for people’s homes, businesses or events.
Since the pandemic, Terrell has noticed an increase in demand for house plants and more engagement with her social media.
“We’ve seen a real jump in the general interest of millennials and Gen Z’s… wanting to get more into the hobby of horticulture, the hobby of indoor plants,” Terrell said.
Emma Terrell, the Urban Botanist, talks winter plant care and things to avoid. Recorded and produced by Aly McCabe
Terrell is among a handful of plant sellers in Ottawa who said sales have been on the rise since March 2020. Amid pandemic lockdowns, they said, Ottawans flocked to open garden centres to fill their homes with nature.
Now, over a year and a half into the pandemic, the demand for house plants and tropicals remains high.
The popularity of house plants stems from a need to care for something. In the pandemic, houseplants became a way to boost wellbeing.
“One of the things in order for us to keep well during the pandemic, particularly when we can’t engage in our normal activities, or hobbies, or maybe have reduced social contact with others is to find things that make us feel well,” said Crystal Holly, a psychologist at Balance Psychology and Wellness in Ottawa.
For Holly, “Caring for things and kind of getting back to those simpler activities contributes to emotional well-being and overall well-being.”
Flower to the People employee Krista Evans said she saw an increase in demand at their ByWard Market plant shop in March 2020.
“It’s also just really nice to be around aesthetically pleasing things,” Holly said, “As people grow plants at home and kind of beautify and green up their spaces, they’re also feeling better.”
The snake plant Laurentii, one of the many verities of snake plants Krista Evan loves. Photo taken by Kara Eades. Accessed from unsplash.com.
“We were pretty busy with plants before the pandemic too, but it definitely increased,” she said.
She said she noticed even grocery stores and big box stores jumped on the trend, offering bigger house plant selections since the pandemic.
Evans is an avid plant collector herself.
“I find it quite meditative,” she said, “I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking care of something.”
Sansevarias – or snake plants – are Evans’s favourites, and she said she has 60 different varieties in her home.
More demand, more popularity
The Plante family has been a part of the Ottawa plant and garden scene since 1981, when they started selling in the ByWard Market. In 2001, they opened Robert Plante Greenhouses in Navan, Ont.
Spokesperson Colin Matassa said they had never seen the kind of demand brought on by the pandemic.
“March 2020 is when the demand went through the roof,” he said.
The greenhouse always carried house plants, Matassa added, but they have never been so popular.
The brand-new 2,700-square-metre greenhouse is filled with houseplants and accessories. “There’s always something for everyone,” Matassa said.
On a sunny afternoon in November, greenhouse customers said they were reaping the benefits of the wide house plant selection.
“I’ve collected house plants off and on for years,” Kim White said as she browsed the greenery at the greenhouse. “It’s gotten worse since I found this place.”
White was shopping with her friend Krista Gower, a new plant mom whose collection began in February 2021.
“It’s almost like self-care for me to take the time to care for my plants,” Gower said. “It’s fun to watch them grow.”
Erik Watt-Sorensen and Elena Ienzi were also shopping for new houseplants and accessories.
Ienzi said her plant collection started when the pandemic started.
“It’s a hobby,” she said. “I used to travel all the time but not anymore because of COVID.”
Plants “definitely bring some joy and happiness,” Watt-Sorensen said. “It’s really nice on your days off because you always have something to do.”
Taking care of nature, taking care of ourselves
Full shelves at Plant & Curio on Preston St, Ottawa, Ont. Photo by Aly McCabe
To Emma Terrell, the growing interest in plants stems from a greater need for people to take care of themselves.
“I think that more people were looking for something to do, not only to fill up their time … but also looking for alternative ways to sort of give their mental health a break,” she said.
There’s a science to plants and their benefits, Terrell said.
“They actually work to clean our air and remove negative ions from our space, and ultimately boost your mood,” Terrell explained.
She continued, “We as human beings have an innate need to be close to nature.”
Being away from nature, Terrell said, can lead to “lacking creativity, lacking productivity, maybe feeling chronic fatigue or anxiety.”
Terrell said house plants help bring nature indoors, especially in urban places where big outdoor gardens are not always accessible.
“Plants literally breath more life into your space,” she said. “Just adding that lush greenery is a beautiful pop of colour and liveliness.”
Photo Illustration of Paige McKenny by Constantina Varlokostas and Natalia Weichsel
Twenty-somethings are ditching traditional relationship customs in place of polyamory, according to 28-year-old Paige McKenny, but no one is talking about it.
McKenny took up non-monogamy in their mid-20s after grappling with a series of relationships they would describe as non-functional and emotionally abusive.
But the idea of an open approach to love didn’t begin to brew until a conversation with a partner in 2015 that helped McKenny understand what non-monogamy really meant.
“When we started seeing each other, we both knew we wanted certain things in life that were going to lead us on divergent paths. And so when we began our relationship, we had a really frank discussion about what we wanted, and what we needed,” McKenny said.
The couple ultimately decided to have an open relationship with no expectations for the future.
“We were really interested in spending time together and cultivating a relationship, knowing that there was an end point to it.”
For twenty-somethings like McKenny, ditching traditional relationship customs such as marriage in place of polyamory has a growing appeal. From self-help books on becoming an ethical slut to the BBC series Trigonometry to 2019’s very public break-up of Hollywood triad Tana Mongeau, Bella Thorne and rapper Mod Sun, polyamory is having a moment. Even if the idea of having multiple concurrent partners may be taboo among some older generations, one in five Canadians have been involved in a consensual non-monogamous relationship, according to one study.
Experts and everyday explorers of non-monogamy all agree honesty, open communication and trust offer the best chance of success.
Found at a local Ottawa shop, Venus Envy, the polyamorous flag symbolizes openness and honesty through its blue stripes, love and passion with the colour red, and solidarity through black. It also features the Greek letter π (pi), as it’s an irrational number with infinite decimal places.
Polyamory, polygamy are different ends of the spectrum
What is polyamory? Some may confuse the term with polygamy, however, according to Noémie Kyryluk, they are two very different ends of the spectrum. Kyryluk, a registered psychotherapist and certified sex therapist, likes to describe polyamory as having different people to fill different needs whereas polygamy involves one man with multiple wives.
“A way that I like to think about it is as friendships, you have multiple friendships. Rarely does one person have one friend that you expect to do everything with you,” Kyryluk said. “Different people meet different needs, and you expect that, it’s just the norm. Polyamory is kind of the same concept.”
She explained that overall, polyamory is an umbrella term to describe when a person can’t have all of their needs met by a single partner so they have multiple partners where each person brings in a different dynamic, whether romantically, sexually or platonically.
According to the educational, sex positive website Sex and Psychology, Justin Lehmiller reported that approximately one in five Canadians have been involved in a consensual non-monogamous relationship. In his study, Lehmiller concluded younger adults were more experienced than older adults with open relationships and suggested there may be generational differences in openness to non-monogamy.
Kyryluk offered a similar perspective.
“I think the younger generations are just a little bit more open. They’re more open to the possibilities of all these different relationship styles, different types of sexuality, to talking about mental health and therapy,” she said. “Whereas with older generations, I find that there’s a lot of shame. They’re not sure if what they’ve done is okay, or whether it’s still taboo.”
Open relationships need open communication
For some young adults like Cynthia Pham, what brought her to polyamory was the emotional tyranny she experienced in her previous monogamous relationships.
Pham, a 23-year-old student at McMaster University, said the emotional barriers between herself and her partners led to unhealthy monogamous relationships in the past. With her latest partner, the possibility of pursuing an open relationship came up when they realized they would soon be a long-distance couple. It ended up creating the healthiest connection for them both, she said.
“I think another important thing in open relationships is that if anything changes in the relationship, because things are fluid, you always have to be open to communicating it with your partner,” Pham said.
Being in an open relationship with a man that had a deeper understanding of himself forced her to feel comfortable communicating her emotions.
Raphaella Valeri, a young professional, also believes communication is a big part of the process when exploring non-monogamy, especially when navigating it with her current partner.
“What helped us both become comfortable with this was just the fact that our relationship is so strong and healthy and that we are already really good at communicating,” she said.
Valeri described her five-year long relationship with her boyfriend as strong, trusting and something she sees going long term. Her interest in polyamory sparked a couple years back by speaking with her therapist and friends involved in open relationships. She researched the topic with her boyfriend by reading Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy’s book The Ethical Slut and by discussing relevant passages together.
By the end of this process, Valeri says she felt as if they built a strong enough foundation to handle an open relationship. She said this move was necessary for herself to grow and step outside of her comfort zone as her current partner was her only experience in dating.
Positive feelings of freedom are common among individuals who practice ethical non-monogamy. For Valeri, the term polyamory means independence, maturity and the ability to get to know other people and develop new relationships.
Similarly, McKenny described it as “the ability to be an individual.”
McKenny, 28, has been working at Venus Envy, an education-oriented sex shop located in Ottawa for two months, offering customers an inclusive and safe environment.
“I think it’s a great tool for introspection and being really self-aware and self-sufficient,” McKenny said. “Which is funny because you think with more people in the mix, you have less self-sufficiency or you have more people to fill your needs, which is true, but this means you need to know what those needs are, which requires a lot of introspection.”
According to Kyryluk, it’s important to note the differences between non-monogamy and infidelity. “Some people will say non-monogamy is synonymous to infidelity, which it is not, because the most damaging part in infidelity is really the betrayal and broken trust – all of the emotional stuff that surrounds it,” she explained.
“Ethical non-monogamy really focuses on that transparency, like, ‘Yeah, okay, we might be sleeping with other people, but we know it and we have boundaries and limits.’”
‘Love is important, but it’s tough’
When it comes to relationship styles, non-monogamy isn’t the only conversation buzzing among young people – marriage nears the top of the list.
This generation has seen it all throughout their childhood – from dysfunctional families to infidelity. As divorce rates increase, some young people don’t see marriage as an end goal.
Although Seager Wakil, a 23-year-old student, cannot see himself practising non-monogamy, he is also unconvinced that being legally bound to a partner is necessary due to being a child of divorce.
“I shake my head at people who rush into marriage early. I think there are so many real things that need to be addressed and you need to be so practical,” Wakil said. “Love is important, but it’s tough. Love can’t save financial issues or different communication styles.”
The desire for a life partner is attractive to the younger generation but without the paperwork.
“I have strong yearnings for a nesting partnership or an anchor partnership, something that feels like we’re walking a life path together,” McKenny said. “I think at the moment, [my partner] and I have expressed a mutual interest and that sort of trajectory to our relationship. I don’t think that there’s any reason for our relationship to have strong domestic poles towards each other,” they said.
A positive place to learn about non-monogamy is through books and educational sources such as those pictured here, found at Venus Envy in the Centertown neighbourhood of Ottawa.
Kyryluk’s advice for people interested in exploring non-monogamy is to invest in educational resources such as therapy, books and workshops.
“The best advice I can give people is to really take a proactive approach, and to talk about all of your expectations. If you don’t talk about your expectations, your wants, your needs, your limits, your boundaries, it probably won’t be super successful.”
Resources to learn more about non-monogamy and sex education:
A volunteer working behind the scenes at Carleton University food bank. Photo by Neeharika Saha
On Tuesday, Asma stood at the entrance to the Parkdale Food Centre food bank on Hamilton Avenue North.
The 33-year-old first arrived in Canada from Bangladesh in 2018 with her son, who is now 12, and she works as a lunchtime supervisor at a local school, three hours per day, five days a week.
“Fifteen hours is not enough to meet our needs,” she said.
She is not earning enough to sustain both herself and her son and relies on local food banks for assistance. She declined to share her last name.
The groceries she gets from the food bank cover one week, and she has to buy food to cover three other weeks herself. She prefers to purchase long-lasting, non-perishable and frozen products.
“They are helpful,” she said. During the pandemic, Asma could call the food bank and arrange the delivery of groceries to her building. The food bank never turned her away, even at times when stocks were low.
“If they don’t have much food, they can still give some food. And if they have more food, they give more food,” she said.
On Tuesday she arrived to pick up groceries and was told to submit an advance request. But, after a few minutes, Inaya Siblini, the coordinator of the food bank, came out the front door, bearing a paper bag with what Asma needed.
Asma is one of Ottawa’s many hungry people. Some rely on the kindness and generosity of others to put basic food on their table and use local food banks to supplement other sources of food. Food prices are rising, as are housing costs, and the winter is expected to drive this increase even further up. In these conditions, food banks in Ottawa are a support source of last resort for an increasing number of people.
Parkdale Food Centre welcomes people in need at 5 Hamilton Ave. North in Ottawa. Photo by Dennis Kovtun.
Most food bank users live in rentals and almost half worry about facing eviction or defaulting on mortgage payments, according to a 2020 report by Feed Ontario. In 2020, more than half of those who used food banks in Ontario were under the age of 30, and more than 60 per cent relied on social assistance, such as disability payments or Ontario Works.
With food prices rising, food banks are feeling the squeeze.
“Everything is getting so expensive,” said Inaya Siblini. “We do have a certain budget for every item and the increase in prices is affecting our budget.”
Siblini said her food bank saw a significant rise in demand over the last two years. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Parkdale Food Centre has been serving twice the number of clients as it had previously.
“When you have the increase in the number of people you are serving, that definitely will be hard for you,” Siblini said.
She expects the number of people who come to the food bank to continue going up. “Things are getting expensive, a lot. And there are more and more people who need food, especially when they do not have much income,” she said. “We will make sure to do our best to serve everyone who seeks our help.”
Food is stored and sorted inside the Parkdale Food Centre food bank. Photo by Dennis Kovtun.
‘A paycheque away’ from needing help
Government income support programs during the pandemic helped many people avoid using the food bank, said Samantha Ingram, a communications manager at Ottawa Food Bank.
“That really did help people, it really did show us that people are a paycheck away from requiring support, because without CERB, they came to us,” she said. “However, those supports from the government, they came in and they went through the course of the last 20 months. And as it is right now, demand is up a fair bit, I think.”
Many of the individuals who use food banks are single parents, Ingram added.
“One-parent families are definitely a demographic that we see having to head to food banks. Kids are expensive. There’s a lot of expenses that come along with raising a family, especially when you’re doing it on your own,” she said.
Ottawa Food Bank is not worried about its immediate future, said Ingram, who added they would be able to absorb the increased costs of food and increased demand thanks to the generosity of the community.
“The community has been there for us. We’re truly an organization supported by the community, for the community. If it weren’t for the people who donate their hard-earned dollars, we certainly would not be able to do what we do,” she said.
Ottawa’s food banks serve some of the most disadvantaged individuals in the city. They are spread around Ottawa and usually allow anyone who needs them to use their services. Map created by Dennis Kovtun.
The increase in food bank usage is an indicator of intensifying food insecurity, said Tim Li, a research coordinator with an interdisciplinary team at the University of Toronto that investigates food insecurity in Canada.
“We’re showing that only one out of four of the food insecure households are actually using food banks, and there are a lot of different reasons for this—it’s a dignity issue. In a country as rich as Canada, a lot of people don’t want to be seen as using food banks, or they may feel that it’s something that’s not for them,” Li said.
For many people, food bank usage is indicative of real misery, said Elaine Power, professor at Queen’s University, who researches food insecurity. With winter coming, Power said the cost of living is going to increase further. Clothing and heating are additional expenses, particularly for people with young children.
“I’m not sure that there’s anything special about this winter in particular, except that everyday costs are so much higher, and the essentials are more expensive,” Power said.
While neither the Parkdale Food Centre nor Ottawa Food Bank had to turn away people, Power observed a different situation in smaller communities.
“Lots of food banks turn people away all the time. They run out of food. The demand goes up. We’re going to see more and more of that,” she said.
Power said that while food banks in big cities like Ottawa or Toronto may not be very affected, this is not true for smaller communities. There, food banks have to strictly ration how much they give out, or they risk simply running out of food.
Rice, spaghetti, lentils, canned fish and canned vegetables are some of the most in-demand items in Ottawa’s food banks. Photo by Dennis Kovtun
River Ward Coun. Riley Brockington said he believes Ottawa is doing reasonably well on the issue of hunger, though there is room for improvement. Rates of food insecurity are high in lower income neighbourhoods, like those in his ward.
“I think you can best judge a city by how well or not it treats its most needy people. If you have many people whose needs are not being met, then the city’s not doing a good enough job.”
Sonia Bustos, one of the dancers for the Juno-nominated Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra, strikes a pose after an energetic set Nov. 12 at the Bronson Centre Music Theatre. Photo by Sam Konnert.
Frontman and circus ringmaster Sebastian Mejia burst through the back door, making his presence felt to the fans at Bronson Centre Music Theatre. Dancers, brass, strings, percussion and an accordion followed him into the theatre to create the melodic chaos of the Juno-nominated Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra.
Colombian artists Carmen Ruiz and Sebastian Mejia started the Montreal-based orchestra some 10 years ago. The circus-themed band mixes Colombian and Romani rhythms, and is one of the many unique acts to grace the Bronson Centre stage.
“The thing that was amazing about the show is that, for the first time in so long, we were able to make people stand up from their seats and actually come together and move,” Ruiz said.
Scenes of dancing and world music Nov. 12 at the Bronson Centre. Video by Sam Konnert.
The almost 1,000 seat theatre is in an old high school tucked between Ottawa’s Chinatown and Centretown neighbourhoods. The tired walls and bare bulletin boards contrast with the energy-filled hall behind the heavy black doors.
These mid-sized, 800 to 1,500-seat venues provide genre-bending shows by up-and-coming and established artists alike.
They are, however, a struggling segment of a battered business. A 2020 report by the Canadian Live Music Association found that in Toronto alone, 11 venues that hosted an estimated 5,000 concerts a year and employed at least 190 individuals shut their doors forever.
The report says these hardships are not unique to Toronto, as owners like Lisa Zbitnew are also feeling the pressure.
Zbitnew owns the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto and the Bronson Centre in Ottawa. She is also the former president of Sony Music Canada and BMG Music Canada.
With a bit of help, she said, she believes it won’t be long before fans can ride the rail in the front row.
Critical space in music ecosystem
Mid-sized venues are a critical space in the music ecosystem, explained Zbitnew, since artists use them to climb the industry ladder. “It’s the right size for a band that are at a point in their career where they’re still excited about touring and growing, and want a connection with an audience,” she said.
Accomplished artists looking for a more intimate setting also flock to these venues. The Rolling Stones played the Phoenix in 2005 and Bob Dylan performed there in 2004.
She pays $45,000 in monthly rent for The Phoenix on top of other costs, such as insurance, which she said have risen dramatically over the past year. “We’re into six figures for insurance annually. These costs really start to cut into our ability to have enough margin to operate,” she said.
“I’ve had to piece together three different policies just to operate,” Zbitnew said.
Concert organizer and industry veteran Yasmina Proveyer also understands the importance of margins. Proveyer co-founded Axé Worldfest, a non-profit that hopes to educate audiences about world music by organizing concerts in Ottawa.
They received a grant from the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) to present the Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra show.
The show cost nearly $20,000 with stage plots, cleaning fees, security, technicians, logistics, paying the talent and providing accommodation all being things to consider.
“The funding was a relief since you can put on a good show in a nice venue and at the same time make it affordable and accessible to the public,” Proveyer said.
The genre-bending, circus-themed band mesmerizes the crowd at the Bronson Centre Nov. 12.Photo by Sam Konnert.
Venues facing concert backlog
Pandemic-related border closures also cut off international artists that mid-sized venues depend on to fill their calendars. “When you get to a certain size, there are not enough Canadian acts that can fill our venues,” Zbitnew said.
Larger venues like stadiums were able to cover costs through sporting events while local bars were able to feature Canadian talent to fill their lineups, she explained.
“I by no means want to suggest that small venues weren’t hit as hard as us,” Zbitnew said. “For them, the tough part is digging out of a hole when you can only accommodate 50 to 100 people.”
Another problem her venues are facing is a backlog of concerts. With so many shows being cancelled, the next year is jam packed.
This is not a good thing, according to Zbitnew. “Shows just aren’t performing as well, because fans are having to pick and choose which concerts to see. We have to recognize that the most difficult time period hasn’t even hit us. The cost of booking shows, training new staff and other barriers will rise as we start ramping back up.”
Zbitnew said she feels her sector was an afterthought for the provincial government during the pandemic. The Oct. 8 decision to allow music at bars and fill stadiums with 20,000 people, while her venues were restricted, made no sense to her.
“What’s exactly at the core of this decision making, other than big business can lobby the province more effectively than small business?,” she said.
Lobbying the federal government, however, has proven an important tool for Zbitnew. With the help of the Canadian Live Music Association, discussions are ongoing surrounding wage and rent subsidy support through May of next year.
“I have nothing but good things to say about the federal government in terms of showing ongoing support for small businesses in our sector,” Zbitnew said.
Despite the recent troubles, she’s hopeful for the decade ahead. “Live music since Mozart has drawn people, once we go from a drought of no shows to the first six or eight months of too many shows, that stuff is all going to correct itself.”
Proveyer said she is also excited for the world music scene in the coming years. “You can tell from the audience reaction [at the show], there is an appetite for it.”
Connecting with audiences
Tickets to Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra were priced between $15 and $25, which attracted new fans like Nathalie Regan, who went to the show despite not knowing of the group.
FrontmanSebastian Mejia poses and catches his breath after a particularly lively song. Photo by Sam Konnert.
She said the venue was perfect. “The shared experience of a show like this doesn’t translate well to a larger crowd,” she said.
“At Bluesfest, you’re squished in like sardines, it’s hustle and bustle. You’re having a good time but you’re so focused on the person backing into you and stepping all over you,” she said.
Carmen Ruiz is just grateful to be dancing again with Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra.
“We can connect with the audiences, make them dance, make them laugh, make them not be afraid to lose themselves,” she said.
That’s what she appreciated about the venue. “The stage is big, but you’re not that far away that you feel a big fourth wall between the audience and us,” Ruiz said.
“It’s the most important at the end of it,” she continued. “More than how good the music, or how good the choreography, is how the energy goes through in the show.”
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Fans eager to make their way into the venue queue outside the converted high school.
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Carmen Ruiz dances her way down to the stage to start the show, followed by the band.
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Carmen Ruiz twirls as Sebastian Mejia plays at the crescendo of a song.
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The group finishes the show by playing within the crowd.
A crochet cartoon character sweater made by Ella Milloy and inspired by @artbykaraleez. Photo taken by Ella Milloy.
When the COVID-19 pandemic moved life inside, students started looking for new ways to stay engaged while adjusting to online lectures and tutorials.
Emma Charpentier, a second-year economics student at Carleton University, knew she needed to find a way to stay focused while sitting in front of her computer screen for hours attending her classes.
Through Reddit, Charpentier discovered Carleton’s Yarn for Change club, a member-based knitting and crochet group that actively recruits young people to attend meetings, learn new skills and create textile projects for donation.
“I started learning,” Charpentier said. “I didn’t get very far, but I did learn and it was pretty easy.”
She soon picked up a pair of knitting needles and started her first project. Working with her hands to create a lime green square allowed Charpentier to shift her focus without missing any important information in class. She enjoyed the simplicity of the activity and felt accomplished upon completing her first project.
“For a couple of weeks, I would just sit in class and I would knit while I was watching lectures. It lets you do something with your hands,” Charpentier said.
The pandemic provided many young people with the time and resources to discover and pursue new hobbies. Knitting and crocheting, two activities generally associated with an older generation, became the source of many viral trends and provided much needed relief from the stress of the pandemic. As a result, social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram quickly turned into hubs of creativity.
Not only were young people using these platforms to share videos of their creations, but they were also using them to start conversations about fast fashion and establish their own small businesses.
Over the course of the pandemic, 21-year-old American slow fashion designer Kara Lee used her growing TikTok and Instagram followings to pursue her passion for knitting and crocheting to sell her cartoon character cardigan design, establishing @artbykaraleez in September 2020.
The #accentchallenge is a popular TikTok trend where the creator shows a variety of images or videos of art getting progressively worse. In this case, Ella Milloy chose to show her crochet creation get progressively better. TikTok made by Ella Milloy.
TikTok became a space where many creative trends gained traction during quarantine and have lasted beyond the long months of isolation.
Videos of young creators crocheting giant bumblebees and knitting the famous J.W. Anderson cardigan sported by Harry Styles at a rehearsal for The Today Show in February 2020 filled users’ “for you” pages. More recently, British Olympic diver Tom Daley caused a stir online as fans related to his knitting as a way of dealing with his stress and pre-competition nerves.
Club offers space to connect outside virtual classes
In Ottawa, Carleton University’s Yarn for Change club welcomes growing interest in knitting and crocheting. The group charges a $5 membership fee to provide yarn for its members and make the student club more accessible. Members are encouraged to create projects such as dishcloths, mittens, hats and blankets for donation.
Like Charpentier, third–year Carleton health science student Malak Al Daraawi found the Yarn for Change club online. After coming across one of the club’s Reddit posts she decided to join, despite not having much experience with knitting.
“I didn’t have any experience, but the club is made up of so many different skill levels,” Al Daraawi said. “They gave me so many instructions and videos that could be useful. I wanted to get away from studying and because everything was online, [the club] was one of the only ways I could reach out to people and interact with them outside of lectures.”
Al Daraawi also noted that she grew closer to her mother and sister after learning about her mother’s ability to knit. Discovering this family time helped Al Daraawi manage the pressures of online school.
“[Knitting] really helped me because I got to sit down with my mother and I found out that she also knows how to knit and crochet,” Al Daraawi said. “I talked with my sister and had her learn with me. I’ve been able to find time I never thought I had to actually learn how to do it.”
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Thousands of knitters and crocheters created the J.W. Anderson cardigan worn by Harry Styles in 2020. This wool cardigan was made by Ella Milloy
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The beginning of Emma Charpentier’s first project. The finished square still hasn’t been removed from the original needles. Photo taken by Emma Charpentier.
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A crochet scarf made by Ella Milloy using the moss stitch technique and wool. Photo taken by Ella Milloy.
This program was put on hold during the pandemic, but as public health restrictions continue to ease and a new executive team steps in, the Yarn for Change club plans to restart its donations, including for ways to give directly to homeless shelters or community organizations.
Working with a group and giving back to those in need helps build a sense of purpose, said Dean Verger, a professor in the psychology department at Carleton University. Verger explained how creative outlets like knitting and crocheting can help balance out feelings of stress, anxiety and depression.
“Having a goal of any sort that channels our thinking allows us to focus on something positive,” Verger said. “Even if you’re following a pattern, that means you’re counting stitches and all that processing is filling the space available for thinking, so that there’s no space left for worrying.”
In addition to alleviating feelings of stress and anxiety, knitting and crocheting also provide numerous other mental health benefits.
“There is a product that comes out of this activity that is tangible,” Verger explained. “They’re then going to give the finished product to somebody for a good cause. There are so many practical, mental and social benefits and the whole idea of doing something for someone else and doing something as a group for someone else is what makes us human.”
‘It feels good to give back’
At Carleton, the Yarn for Change club provides a space for young artists and designers to come together to socialize, create and give back to the local community. On a larger scale, the Ottawa Knitting Guild established a similar space for knitters across the National Capital Region in 1994.
The knitting guild sees the participation of up to 200 knitters every year. The guild’s community knitting group creates a variety of items to donate to local organizations such as the Mission, Shepherds of Good Hope and Warm Hands Network.
Jean Grundy, the guild’s current president, hopes more young people get into knitting and crocheting. Grundy sees an opportunity for collaboration and knowledge sharing between members as more young people get involved in the organization.
“The guild wants to serve Ottawa knitters,” Grundy said. “We are a community of Ottawa knitters and if we are not involving all groups, and that includes students, then we are not representative or inclusive. We want to bring in new ideas and new techniques. We want to pass on this knowledge.”
After learning how to knit as a child, Grundy picked the hobby back up when she attended Concordia University in Montreal and has continued to knit ever since.
Similar to Charpentier, Grundy uses knitting to relax and to keep her hands busy during work meetings.
“Your mind is free when you’re knitting and yet you have to be present in the moment because of what you’re doing.” Grundy said. “Ultimately, it feels good to give back to people.”
Nicola Steeves hard at work at Umbrella Bar. Photo by Hafsatou Balde.
During the summer, there were days when Nicola Steeves would walk up to 40,000 steps during a shift at Umbrella Bar, the sunny Dow’s Lake patio where she works as a bartender and server. At the end of those long days, she would often soak her sore feet and keep Advil and Voltaren nearby.
“You need to buy a new pair [of shoes] like every two months because they fall apart,” the 26-year-old Ottawa woman said, adding the cost of sneakers alone is enough to appreciate the tips she receives.
But Steeves fears those hard-earned tips could soon take a hit when the province raises the minimum wage for liquor servers.
Starting Jan. 1, 2022, Ontario will join Alberta and British Columbia in raising the minimum wage for its liquor servers to match the province’s general minimum wage. Liquor servers, who currently earn $12.55 an hour, will soon be making $15 an hour. As wages and the cost of living in Ontario go up, people in the hospitality industry – everyone from consumers to experts – wonder what the future of tipping entails.
Although tipping is a voluntary act, it’s a large part of the dining culture in Canada. Consumers may choose to tip because they received great service, but they’ve also learned it has become what is expected when they’re out at a restaurant or bar.
Different approaches to sharing tips
Steeves earns around $350 to $400 in tips on a good day before pooling tips. Six per cent of every customer’s total of the bill goes into pooling tips. Not all establishments function this way, but at Umbrella Bar, the pooled money is then redistributed among the support staff whether tips are made or not.
“If people don’t tip us, [servers] end up paying six per cent out of their own pockets,” Steeves explained.
The act of pooling tips or tip outs is when employers withhold or make deductions from the servers’ tips and then redistribute them among some or all the employees at the workplace who wouldn’t otherwise benefit from tips.
Ben McMurray. Photo by Adam Brooking.
On a busy evening, Benjamin McMurray could earn between $35 to $40 an hour at Taproom 260 in Orléans, where the 20-year-old worked until recently when he left to focus on his studies.
“You would only have to tip out if you sold over $200,” McMurray said.
Meanwhile, on Friday or Saturday nights, which are the busiest at the Works Craft in the Glebe, Jessica Stewart, 24, said a server and a manager on duty makes anywhere between $100 and $150 in tips per shift. Stewart pools her tips to the kitchen and the host. The host receives one per cent while the kitchen receives 1.5 per cent of the tips.
Restaurants and bars have different rules on tipping and tipping pools, but no matter the arrangement, servers rely heavily on the tips left over to make a living.
Bruce McAdams, an associate professor at the University of Guelph who researched tipping culture and is a strong support of the abolition of tips, argues the increase in the liquor server minimum wage will have a big impact on restaurants, forcing them to increase their pricing.
“Server hours make up over 50 per cent of the hours of labour in a restaurant,” McAdams said.
There’s the additional concern that consumers will frequent restaurants less because of the price increase, which will in turn reduce servers’ shifts. “They’ll actually make less money,” he added.
Welcome sign in front of Banditos Nov. 16, 2021. Photo by Hafsatou Balde.
Many servers on social media and in restaurants are not happy with the idea of scrapping tips simply because their minimum wage is increasing. Servers in Ontario make an average of $30 an hour, according to McAdams, which is twice as much as the proposed minimum wage, resulting in the possibility of them earning less if tipping disappeared.
“Minimum wage would have to jump up a lot so that someone would be able to support themselves, especially in Ottawa with the high cost of living,” McMurray said. The liquor server minimum wage and its increase on Jan. 1 will not reflect the inflation rates. The annual rate of inflation reached its highest level since 2013 in October 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
The difference between paying the rent or not
The act of tipping helps servers support themselves. “It’s the difference between being able to pay rent or not – or being able to treat yourself to something you usually wouldn’t,” Steeves said.
Steeves took her sister out to a nice dinner after receiving a generous tip. A man and his two friends were dining at her restaurant.
“He tipped 150 per cent and I had to go to the kitchen because it was so unexpected,” Steeves said. Since her tips were pooled, the kitchen staff would have benefited from that 150 per cent tip as well.
In Stewart’s case, cash tips are key because tips included in electronic payments can take weeks to materialize. “I have a regular come in and he tips really well. He always tips cash too,” Stewart said.
“He gets a meal that’s 25 bucks and gives me 70 bucks.”
Almost all the money McMurray was making was going towards tuition. “A birthday group of 10 people ran up a $400 tab and they ended up leaving an $80 tip, which was the most I’ve ever made,” McMurray said. “It was nice to be able to see that the hard work I’m putting in would result in a good pay for school.”
But McMurray said he is aware some consumers believe the service should be included in the price when they pay for their meals.
“I can understand where tipping is an issue for some people because they feel like they’ve paid for the product,” he said.
If tipping as we know it were to stop, McMurray said he believes it would discourage a lot of servers from continuing in the job.
Steeves agreed.
“You would not keep quality people in the industry because we don’t do what we do for minimum wage.”
Although the tips can be great at times, a lot of servers are in the business because they enjoy serving and providing an experience to their customers. “Serving is a love language for me,” Steeves said.
A lot of the people she served over the summer were getting together for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, so Steeves said she tried to ensure they had a good experience at her restaurant.
Customers dining at Umbrella Bar Nov. 16, 2021. Photo by Hafsatou Balde.
The downsides of tipping culture
McAdams argues tipping should not be a part of restaurants and bars. Through his research, McAdams found there is some animosity between servers and cooks.
“If you’re a cook making $15 an hour and you know servers make tips and now you hear they’re making the same amount as you plus their tips, you may feel disenfranchised about the work you’re doing,” he said. Although a lot of places pool tips, servers are the ones benefitting the most.
One of the main reasons for McAdams’ strong belief in tipping abolition is the sexualization of servers. “You walk into an upper casual restaurant and unfortunately, women are wearing heels, makeup and their hair is done up because they’re asked or they know they will make more tips because of it,” McAdams said.
Steeves has not experienced being sexualized herself, but she agrees it is common in certain types of bars. “It’s an industry where you’re expected to look a certain way,” she said. “No one wants to eat somewhere where your server looks like they don’t bathe.”
To further his point, McAdams recalls a first-year undergraduate student came to him after a class on tipping and shared with him that at her campus bar – where she doesn’t wear makeup and her hair is always up – her female trainer told her that she would make more tips if she put on makeup, wore her hair down, and undid a few buttons.
“This is an 18-year-old woman. That’s why we should stop tipping,” McAdams said.
Research on tipping has evolved since McAdams’ work was published in 2017.
Researchers at Dalhousie University published a study in June that found more people are questioning the idea of tipping. The online survey of Canadians gathered attitudes and perceptions towards tipping during the pandemic, and found 48 per cent of the participants felt pressure to give a good tip more so than before the pandemic.
Back at Umbrella Bar, Steeves was taking a break during a recent shift. She said she fears the upcoming changes to Ontario’s minimum wage could create an exodus of servers out of the industry.
“If it turns out that people stop tipping and servers are just making minimum wage, I don’t think a lot of people are going to stick around.”
