Tag Archives: inequality

Canadian college newspaper scores poop scoop of the century

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It was the best of flushes, it was the worst of flushes; it was the age of comfort, it was the age of thriftiness; it was the epoch of relief, it was the epoch of inequality; it was the season of one-ply, it was the season of two-ply; it was the beginning of a new roll, it was getting down to the last square; we were all going direct to the bathroom on the top floor, we were all watching our dreams go down the toilet.

student-journalist-laura-woodward-and-the-cover-of-the-ryerson-eyeopenerSuch were the dramatic terrors and inequities revealed in an investigation published in a student newspaper at Ryerson University in Toronto last week. A tenacious student reporter discovered that those in positions of power at the college had been hoarding a treasure that students were desperate for, creating a system of plumbing inequality.

The blockbuster story on Water Closet–gate begins, “There’s two-ply toilet paper at Ryerson — and if you’re a student, you don’t get any.”

The Eyeopener discovered a box of the two-ply goodness on the bottom of the Student Campus Centre (SCC), which raised questions of which bathrooms they’re used in.

Student washrooms are stocked exclusively with that translucent, gotta-fold-it-thirteen-times one-ply.

The top two floors of Jorgenson Hall — 13 and 14 — carry the thick, absorbent two-ply.

The story is accompanied by an infographic titled “Unflushing Toilet Paper: A Ryerson Tissue.”

The university president, Sheldon Levy, whose office is “steps away from the two-ply supplied bathroom,” told the Ryerson Eyeopener that the revelation of a “two-tiered” toilet system was “shocking” and “embarrassing.” The National Post did some follow-up reporting and found that other universities in Ontario have a far fairer system when it comes to distribution of strategic reserves of extra-soft and quilted wealth. An official at the University of Guelph bragged, “We have one-ply tissue campus wide, from the president’s washroom to the student residences.”

And when I was a student there, I regularly stole toilet paper. One-ply. There was a metal clip that needed to be depressed and the roll would slide off.