THIS MONTHS STORIES
OCTOBER 99
OCTOBER 12-17, 1999
OCTOBER 4-11,
SEPTEMBER 27-OCTOBER 3/99
Page design � Copyright 1999 Eugene W. Plawiuk.
OCTOBER 18-24, 1999
The provincial government wants feedback from
British Columbians on what kind of child-care they want and how much
they're willing to pay.
"We have to have a debate in this country," Moe Sihota, minister of social
development and economic security, said as he released a discussion paper
on possible child-care programs.
"This paper we hope will trigger debate about what kind of child care and
what costs."
Sihota and Women's Equality Minister Jenny Kwan released the 24-page
document -- Building a Better Future for British Columbia's Kids -- at the
spacious Children's Centre day care on the Simon Fraser University
campus.
``As the needs of special students go unmet,
as teachers face larger and larger classes, as deadlines for curriculum and
report cards approach with no support and as the need for new facilities and
equipment keeps growing, the government delivers a throne speech that ignores
the funding crisis that confronts public education in this province,'' said
Earl Manners, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.
Ontarians for Responsible Government says
today's Throne Speech indicates the Common Sense Revolution is far from
dead, although it may need a boost.
``The Speech, with its emphasis on tax cuts, balanced budget laws and
more rights for workers, was a good one,'' says O.R.G. executive director
Gerry Nicholls. ``It shows the government is still committed to the values
that first got it elected in 1995.''
Transport Minister David Collenette today
announced that the federal government will provide $2,123,200 to improve
safety at 18 railway crossings across Canada. In the past six years,
Transport Canada has contributed some $50 million to 518 projects across
Canada.
The federal government can't detain smuggled Chinese migrants who have
already lost their refugee claims without violating the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan said Wednesday.
An advertisement for a tenure-track position at the University of
Toronto has sparked controversy by stating that only candidates
with a "feminist and anti-racist perspective" need apply.
A Canadian safety organization said today that
reports out of Los Angeles suggest that a Canadian government official at an
international conference mislead attendees about planned changes to Canadian
truck driver hours.
Bob Evans, Executive Director of Canadians for Responsible and Safe
Highways (CRASH) said that ``it appears that the official talked favourably
about possible changes to Canadian rules relating to work within a single day,
while ignoring the far more important plans for a 40% increase in weekly truck
driver workload.''
Protesters pitch tents outside Ontario legislature
- A handful of protesters pitched tents outside the
provincial legislature Tuesday night to draw attention to the country's
homeless problem.
At least six youths were camped outside the legislature, said Toronto police
Sgt. John Ferris.
He said a couple of people had spent the night there Monday, adding
Queen's Park security was handling the matter.
Protester Elizabeth Antunes, a member of the province's NDP youth
caucus, said demonstrators were backing a proposal for all three levels of
government to spend one per cent of their budgets on affordable housing to
help end homelessness.
Well-heeled Liberal supporters dined on filet mignon and pavlova
for dessert as Prime Minister Jean Chretien dined out on his opponents at a party
fund-raiser Wednesday.
Outside the hotel playing host to the $400-a-plate dinner, a crowd of noisy but
peaceful demonstrators had trouble whipping up the kind of anti-Chretien fervour that
sparked violence at the same event last year.
The demonstration drew no more than 250 people, compared with 1,200 who showed
up last year.
Nunavut's government said in a Throne Speech yesterday that
redressing dismal housing conditions, training those on the territory's
welfare rolls and finding government jobs for the unemployed are
among its priorities for the next five years. The speech, read in Iqaluit's
recently opened Legislature by Helen Magsagak, Nunavut's
commissioner, launched the territory's third legislative session since it
split from the Northwest Territories in April.
Alberta's Socreds may have ended Wiebo Ludwig's hopes of leading their party
but he still has a way of getting his message out to the world -- on the Internet.
His Web site at www.wiebo.net includes photos of their farm and area oil well
flares, an appeal for donations for their legal defence fund and a detailed diary of
their life from 1990 to the end of 1998.
The Web site been active for about three weeks and it logged up to 1,800 visits
last week, says Wiebo Ludwig, whose bail conditions restrict him to the Trickle
Creek farm northwest of Grande Prairie.
"Part of the reason we're doing it is to give people some sense of the story behind
the stories," he said Tuesday.
Ludwig is facing 18 charges related to oilpatch vandalism and is currently on bail
awaiting trial.
According to the Web site, they have spent $150,000 fighting the oil industry in
the past few years and face "crippling legal costs."
The recent imposition of user fees for city recreation programs is
driving people away from community-based health and fitness
facilities in the downtown core, a Toronto politician says.
Kyle Rae, a city councillor, maintains the growing trend could
eventually force the municipality to shut down or privatize some of
its recreation centres if something isn't done soon.
"This is another example of the harm in harmonization," Mr. Rae
said yesterday. "We are losing the opportunity to train healthy kids
and to help seniors maintain their health. We have deliberately put
barriers in their way to stop them from getting access to our
recreation facilities."
A national safety group said today that
recently released national statistics show that the number of big trucks
involved in fatal collisions in Canada increased 11.5 per cent in 1997
compared to 1996.
``The increasing number of big trucks involved in collisions shows that
this is no time to increase the size of big trucks or the number of hours that
truck drivers can be required to work each week,'' Bob Evans, Executive
Director of Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways (CRASH) said today.
Evans said that regulators will be meeting November 7/8/9 in Halifax to
consider changes to the limit on truck driver hours of work. ``With almost
50,000 big trucks involved in collisions each year, regulators should reject a
trucking industry proposal to increase weekly hours of work from the current
60 to over 80 hours.'' Evans said.
The First Nations Summit has scheduled a
Special Assembly for First Nations currently engaged in the BC treaty
negotiations process. The Summit Assembly, to be held on October 28 & 29,
1999 at the Squamish Nation Recreation Centre in North Vancouver, will provide
First Nations in the treaty negotiation process with the opportunity to come
together and discuss options for the BC treaty negotiation process at what has
become a critical time.
Preston Manning, the leader of the Official Opposition, said
yesterday the Liberal government is abusing its powers by forcing the
historic Nisga'a treaty through Parliament without a wider public debate
on the implications of the agreement. Mr. Manning told the National
Post Reform MPs will mount a vigorous opposition to the treaty, which
gives the Nisga'a people of northwestern British Columbia about 2,000
square kilometres of land, $490-million in cash, and access to
resources.
The elimination of a fund for charities in Nova Scotia has
been followed by news the cost-cutting Tory government is scrapping a
program to help the disabled.
During question period Tuesday, the New Democrats noted that the Tories'
recent budget included the scrapping of a $350,000 fund to improve access
to public buildings for the disabled.
Cape Breton golden boy Ashley MacIsaac is promising to help those hurt by
the Tories' $2.2-million grab from charities around the province.
"I will start with a $50,000 donation to our food banks," the award-winning
Creignish fiddler said Saturday in a telephone interview.
Mr. MacIsaac was so incensed Saturday afternoon when he read a
newspaper article about the charity cash grab that he called this newspaper
and promised to do his best to have Premier John Hamm turfed out of
office.
The provincial Conservative government, aiming to
balance its budget within three years, has cancelled plans to hand
over $2.2-million in casino profits to charity.
Instead, the money will be diverted to the general revenue fund --
and opposition critics are fuming about it.
"It is theft of money from those who it was intended to assist," John
Holm, the NDP finance critic, said yesterday. "If this is an example
of the compassion that John Hamm [the Premier] talked about in the
election campaign, heaven help us all."
Catholic students in Toronto will carry collection
boxes for an anti-abortion group this Halloween, a move that has
polarized parents and politicized trick or treating for grade
schoolers.
Frances Lankin, a New Democrat MPP, sent a letter yesterday
calling on the Toronto Catholic District School Board to reverse its
decision to endorse Aid to Women as one of three charities
sanctioned for student collection this Halloween. Ms. Lankin says
the group harasses women who want abortion services and the
organization's generic-sounding name does not reveal its politics.
An agreement has been reached to further restrict the
use of a controversial goo used to dampen dust on rural roads during the
final months of its phase out.
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, a citizen's group and the pulp and
paper mill that produces the substance agreed earlier this month to require
municipalities, which spread the stuff on dusty gravel roads, to avoid putting
it near any kind of waterway.
Dombind is a byproduct at the Norampac Inc. mill in Trenton, Ont. It
contains traces of dioxins, a substance linked to cancer as well as hormone
disruption in people and animals.
"We believe that the new agreement is much more enforceable," said Pat
Potter, one of the citizens who appealed the ministry's original order to
Norampac to plan and build an incinerator to dispose of Dombind.
A 40 per cent recidivism rate at Ontario's camp for
young offenders isn't perfect, but it's a sign the controversial Project
Turnaround is working, says Corrections Minister Rob Sampson.
The flamboyant wife of Ottawa
high-tech maverick Michael Cowpland
has raised the wrath of an international
animal rights group over her wearing of
fur.
Marlen Cowpland's flagrant display of fur
clothing at public functions is a
contradiction of her professed love of
animals and her well-publicized support of
the Humane Society of Ottawa-Carleton,
says an Ottawa member of PETA, People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The Klein government, once the country's most virulent critic of
Canada's climate change policy, is about to introduce measures that
will put it at the forefront of provincial efforts to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
According to a copy of the government proposal shown to Southam
News, Alberta will adopt an action plan to highlight what's possible by
applying voluntary, technology-driven solutions to the problem of
rising emission levels.
The Famous Five who won the historic battle to
have Canadian women recognized as persons also had human flaws,
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson said Monday.
That was a diplomatic reference to feminist activist Emily Murphy's
controversial views on race and eugenics - the science of improving
the human race through selective breeding. Clarkson unveiled five
larger-than-life bronze statues at the downtown Olympic Plaza
honouring Murphy, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards,
Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby. In 1927, they paved the way
for women to sit in Canada's Senate.
The Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of
Canada (FCPMC) announced today that it has endorsed and will promote a
national food sharing system. The endorsement means that FCPMC will encourage
its members to donate to the National Food Sharing System, established by the
Canadian Association of Food Banks (CAFB).
A group of fishermen asked the Supreme Court Monday to stay, or freeze, a controversial decision which has
spawned violence in Atlantic harbors by allowing Indians to fish out of season and without licenses.
About 400 non-native
fishermen and their families took over the wharfs and
waters of southwestern Nova Scotia on Saturday,
demanding that Ottawa impose tight limits on the East
Coast native fishery.
As area fishermen dragged the waters in search of
native lobster traps, their wives lined the wharfs, saying
newly won aboriginal fishing rights will destroy their
families.
Seventy years to the day, October 18, Albertans are joining the rest of Canada in recognizing Persons Day. The day is
celebrated annually and marks the anniversary and victory of the Persons Case when the British Privy Council ruled women in
Canada would be legally recognized as "persons" and therefore eligible for Senate appointments.
The Persons Case struggle was led by five courageous Alberta women - Henrietta (Muir) Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise
McKinney, Emily Murphy and Irene Parlby. The "famous five" gained acclaim for their outspoken views of the time and waging
their battle that made it possible for women to participate fully in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society.
Canada marked the 100th anniversary of its first
war as a country on Sunday.
Canadians joined Britain in fighting Dutch settlers in South
Africa. Many credit the Boer War with preparing Canada's
military for the two world wars that followed.
Judy Rebick: "Rich
people have a lot to gain
from tax cuts, the rest of us
don't."
A plant that produces flour and cereal for
Canada, the United States and abroad is back in full operation after a freak
sewage spill closed part of the plant last week.
The document the writer relied on is based on a U.S. government definition of
poverty that has long been widely discredited
A turf war between the RCMP and Canada's spy
agency is impeding their ability to investigate international crime, including
smuggling and drug trafficking, says an internal audit.
According to the National Security Offenses Review, there is "a perceived
and actual competition" between the two agencies.
That sometimes leads the agencies to withhold vital information from one
another.
A white supremacist spreading propaganda in Canadian newspapers and
now calling for the torture of "darkies" is under investigation for hate crimes.
And he is publicly taunting Winnipeg police to charge him.
Earlier advertisements purchased by Michael Chessman -- founder of the
Coalition for a Humanistic British Canada -- said only people from Aryan
nations should be allowed to immigrate to Canada.
A latest coalition news release sent to The Sun yesterday says "darkies"
should be removed from Canadian soil, and that these "mongrelized,
uncivilized apes" should be tortured by their white superiors. The release
was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
Last week, Domtar Inc. chief
executive Raymond Royer flew
to Timmins, Ont., for a
meeting with workers from the
local McChesney sawmill and
other Domtar facilities.
This wasn't a typical corporate
cheerleading session, as
evidenced by the presence of
a Japanese gentleman named
Tsuneo Nezu.
Nezu is an instructor in the
Japanese management
technique and philosophy
known as Kaizen, a word that
means continuous
improvement. He was in
Timmins to assist two small
teams of Domtar workers
participating in a two-week
Kaizen mission aimed at solving
specific production problems at
the McChesney facility.
Today the Union of Suburban Municipalities on
the Island of Montreal made public the results of a Study on the impact of
municipal mergers.
This study performed by the Municonsult firm responds to the widespread
concern surrounding the effects of amalgamations. Accordingly Municonsult
identified the underling criteria arising out of a union with the City of
Montreal.
Pamela Wallin, the
CBC television
personality, is being
honoured by the
Canadian arm of the
United Nations
Development Fund
for Women for her
contributions to the
advancement of
women around the
world.
Ms. Wallin, the
well-known host of a
daily interview show
and former national
news anchor, was
chosen as the
inaugural recipient of
the new UNIFEM
Canada award
because of the
positive contributions
she has made to
Canadian society and
her status as a role model, the group's president said yesterday.
"She's a model in a country where [women] have rights," Kate
White said from her Ottawa office. "The award is our attempt to
acknowledge the opportunity we have here and make people aware
how important international development is."
UNIFEM, an arm of the United Nations, is charged with promoting
gender equality in the developing world. According to its latest
newsletter, recent initiatives include a trade fair in Burkina Faso
dedicated to the promotion of shea butter, a derivative of the fruit of
the shea nut tree, and a workshop in Senegal on the topic of the
fight against female genital mutilation.
While women in Canada struggle for access to
corporate boardrooms, Afghani women are forced to wear veils,
African societies practise female circumcision and most Carib- bean
nations have yet to enact sexual harassment legislation.
The predominantly white, middle-class Canadian women attending
an international women's rights conference in Calgary are getting
some eye-opening reminders about where they sit in the human
rights pecking order, hearing from speakers about violence against
women in India, a women's right movement in Eastern Europe still in
its infancy and a flourishing tourism sex-trade in the tropics.
"I envy the Canadian woman a great deal," says Margarette
Macaulay, chairwoman of the Caribbean Association of Feminist
Research and Action. Ms. Macaulay is scheduled to speak today at
the conference, titled Global Perspectives on Personhood: Rights
and Responsibilities.
It opened Thursday night and marks the 70th anniversary of
Canada's Persons Case, a 1929 feminist landmark in which five
Alberta women led by suffragette Emily Murphy successfully
lobbied the Privy Council in England to overrule a Supreme Court
of Canada decision that "persons" as defined in the British North
America Act did not include women.
The Council of Great Lakes
Governors along with the provinces of Ontario and
Quebec will consider setting up a regional consortium
on biomedical and biotechnology research.
The states and provinces agreed Friday to create a task
force to study the possibility of a biomedical/biotech
focus group for the region. Ohio Gov. Bob Taft
proposed the idea.
The boom in cross-border trade has made
neighbouring American states more important to Ontario than many
parts of Canada, Mike Harris said yesterday.
Surrounded by governors from some of those states, Mr. Harris,
Ontario Premier, said international borders have become less
important as his province links increasingly with America.
"We really see you as very, very strong allies, more so than many
parts of Canada, more so than Europe, more so than Japan," he
told his colleagues at a conference of the Great Lakes Governors
Council.
The importance of resource development and the need
to maintain health and other social programs will be key issues as voters in the
Northwest Territories prepare for a Dec. 6 general election. Resource development - especially diamond mining and oil and gas exploration -
will be hot topics during the campaign as people debate the need for jobs and new
streams of revenue with the social and environmental problems such activities
create.
The shutdown of the Giant gold mine later this month in Yellowknife, with the
expected loss of more than 200 high paying jobs, will put a sharp focus on the
issue.
The 13,000-member Police Association of Ontario says it has
grave concerns about the proposed shipment of weapons-grade plutonium from the
United States and Russia to the Chalk River nuclear test plant near Pembroke, Ont.
"An accident or terrorist act involving nuclear materials could place our officers in
harm's way," association administrator Paul Bailey said in an interview.
"They shouldn't be faced with that prospect until they are properly trained,
equipped and prepared to respond."
Bailey called for the federal government to hold off on its plans until a meeting
involving police and others who may be affected has been held.
Unless some other proposals are brought forth, federal
aid for Canadian-based NHL teams "doesn't appear very hopeful at this
point," Industry Minister John Manley said Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Ontario Premier Mike Harris shot down an NHL
proposal to free up its trademarks to create a lottery to help finance
cash-strapped Canadian-based hockey teams.
"There will be no new NHL lotteries," Harris said in Toronto.
Manley called the premier's comments "a bit hasty" and added it was "too
bad" because the proposal was one that "had some promise."
On Tuesday, Manley said he would "be prepared to consider options for
directing any federal portions of new sports lottery revenue" toward the six
Canadian-based teams.
Leaving the proper gratuity, and doing it right,
is no easy feat. After all, depending where you deplane,
who the money's going to, and how you hand it over,
a tip can be an insult, a crime, an option or a divine right.
Last year, 32 families lost a loved one to a
work-related motor vehicle tragedy. These tragedies, coupled with the
thousands of on-the-job motor vehicle injuries that occur each year in
Alberta, have devastating human, emotional and financial impacts.
With the aim of reducing this devastation, Alberta Infrastructure, the
Workers' Compensation Board - Alberta (WCB), Transport Canada and the Alberta
Trucking Industry Safety Association (ATISA) have undertaken a partnership, in
cooperation with the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the Calgary-based Canadian
Sleep Institute, to examine driver fatigue in the transportation industry.
Donations from individuals are the fastest
growing source of revenues for Canada's non-profit performing arts
organizations,
according to the Annual CBAC Survey of Performing Arts 1997-98,
just released. Individual donations were up another 9% in 1997-98, accounting
for more than a quarter of all private sector support.
The Council for Business and the Arts in Canada has been conducting the
Annual Survey of Canada's major music, theatre, dance and opera companies for
23 years. Tracking trends in the financial state of the not-for-profit arts,
the Annual CBAC Survey has documented the steady growth in support from the
private sector to the point that 22% of total revenues now come from
individuals, corporations and foundations.
On the eve of Mayor Pierre Bourque's visit to Toronto to drum up
support for his megacity plan, suburban mayors on Montreal Island have
released a report that contends an island-wide merger would cost
taxpayers almost $100 million a year.
Robert Mundell, whose theories helped create a common currency for the
European Union, won the Nobel Prize for economic sciences Wednesday.
Mundell, a native of Kingston, Ont., is a professor at Columbia University in New York. He was
awarded the prize for his analysis of exchange rates and how they affect monetary policies. His
work has made contributions far outside esoteric academic circles by clarifying how exchange rates
fluctuate when a government shifts from a flexible to a fixed monetary policy.
Mundell's most important work was done in the 1960s, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
said.
He served in the research department of the International Monetary Fund from 1961 to 1963, and
he published a pioneering article in 1963 on the short-term effects of monetary and fiscal policy in an
open economy, the citation said.
In a speech to the House of Commons this
afternoon, Prime Minister Jean Chretien will give more details
about his government's new policy direction as outlined in
Tuesday's throne speech.
Thomson Corp.'s Globe Information Services Tuesday announced a tie-up with newspapering rival
Torstar Corp, publisher of Canada's largest circulation daily newspaper, on an Internet job site.
Under the agreement, Torstar will acquire 40 percent of Globe Information Services' globecareers.com. In a statement, Torstar
said the investment, a blend of cash and advertising, values the Web site at C$47.5 million did not signal links between the two companies on the newspaper front, although both Thomson's Globe and
Mail and Torstar's Toronto Star are fighting a fierce battle with media baron Conrad Black's National Post broadsheet.
Canadian singer Celine Dion, best known for the theme song to the blockbuster movie ``Titanic,''
intends to fight her former drummer's lawsuit claims of wrongful dismissal, infringement of copyright and allegations that the pop
diva lip-synced many of her live concerts, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
John Manley, Industry Minister, will support the creation of
an NHL lottery in Canada and would contribute the federal
government's share of lottery proceeds in a bid to save professional
hockey. In a letter to Ernie Eves, Ontario Finance Minister, Mr. Manley
outlined what the federal government would consider contributing to a
rescue plan for Canada's six NHL franchises.
The day after Ottawa
imposed strict guidelines on native fishing, native women
ventured into the waters to set lobster traps, saying they
have a right to fish for their families and children. "This is
not just for the money, this is for us to continue
maintaining our (sustenance) for the kids that are
coming," said one New Brunswick woman as she
looked out over the water.
Using the serach engine
of three major newspapers late last
week, I set out on the Internet looking
for recent signs of life on the part of
the federal minister of Indian Affairs.
Robert Nault was appointed to cabinet
in the summer as minister in charge of
aboriginal affairs. He then proceeded
to vanish from the face of the Earth or,
at least, from the latest Indian affairs
flashpoints. Chantal H�bert is a national affairs writer. Her column
appears in The Toronto Star on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
A new Environment Ministry report shows the Ontario government
has made it "open season" for polluting the province's waterways,
environmentalists charge.
The report indicates the number of plants violating waste-water
discharge rules grew by about 10% last year, but the number of
fines dropped to zero.
The violators included almost a dozen Ontario Hydro power
stations. According to the report, 167 facilities, ranging from power
plants to steel mills and a provincial jail, violated waste-water
discharge rules in 1998. That's up from 151 in 1997.
Delegates representing small businesses from around the world meet
in Toronto today for the kick-off of the 26th International Small
Business Congress. And the symposium promises to bring together
advocates of small business from more countries than ever before,
said program director Brien Gray of the Canadian Federation of
Independent Business.
The ISP industry ran to the
federal government for help,
crying monopoly. And the
Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC)
intervened.
First the telcos, then the cable
companies were told to open up
access to their high-speed
services to independent ISPs,
for resale to the public.
This has been a particularly good week for those who advocate the
prosecution of alleged human rights abusers wherever they might be. Last
Monday, a court in Croatia convicted Dinko Sakic, the last known
commander of a Nazi-era concentration camp, of war crimes against
civilians. Then on Friday, a British court ruled that former Chilean leader
Augusto Pinochet can be extradited to Spain to face torture charges for
crimes allegedly committed during his presidency.
Quebecer Sabine Roblain, released after
being held captive with seven other
kidnapped Canadians for a month in the
Amazon jungle, is in good shape despite
losing weight.
She reported that the seven other
Canadians and one American still held
hostage by an unidentified armed group
are in good health despite hard living
conditions.
- A woman from Burnaby, B.C. has launched a
libel action in the B.C. Supreme Court over the contents of an
e-mail allegedly sent to her friends and employer.
In one of the first cases of its kind, Tasleem Suleman claims her
former friend, Shaine Virani, libelled her in an e-mail received in
Sept. of this year that was copied to four other individuals.
Transat A.T. Inc. has been caught up in the
40-year battle between the United States and Cuba because of its
management of a Cuban hotel built on property confiscated by Fidel
Castro, the Cuban President, in 1960.
The Montreal-based chartered airline is being served notice by a
Miami-based law firm that it is operating a hotel on part of the
100,000 acres confiscated from a Cuban-American family, the
Sanchez-Hills, when it took over management of the Las Brisas
hotel in Guardalavaca on Cuba's north coast from Delta Hotels &
Resorts of Toronto last year.
The forest industry, which once fought a war in the woods
with environmentalists, now is fighting a civil war in its wood-panelled board rooms.
Bitter divisions have developed over how to preserve Canada's lucrative stake in
the U.S. lumber market. Forest sectors in exporting provinces and individual
companies are being pressured to choose sides in a debate over whether to renew
the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement, which expires March 31, 2001.
ART HISTORY
An ambitious exhibit of Cornelius Krieghoff argues
the Quebec artist was endlessly innovative
in his depictions of the province's life and past.
Live or lip-synched? Celine Dion's former drummer, Peter Barbeau, is suing the
multi-octave Quebec diva for wrongful dismissal and copyright infringement. As
part of the suit, he alleges she lip-synchs to backing tapes in concert.
The allegation, contained in a statement of claim and not proved in court, suggests
the practice is "highly unusual in the music industry."
But that conflicts with what others in the record business say.
After more than 30 years of defending political prisoners
abroad, Irwin Cotler wants to bring his fight for human rights home. Cotler, who has
advised dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela, says he now
wants to represent the rights of vulnerable Canadians - poor children, minorities,
women and the elderly.
The 59-year-old lawyer is running for the Liberals in one of four byelections called
during the weekend for Nov. 15.
The federal government is looking at raising the legal age of sexual consent
from 14 to possibly 16, and could act next year if it gets broad national
agreement, the Sun has learned.The issue will be included in a discussion paper on child abuse and
protection which Justice Minister Anne McLellan plans to send out by
December to parent groups, the provinces, lawyers, social workers, police,
educators and other interested parties.
The paper will also ask if the legal age for consenting homosexual
intercourse, currently 18, should be brought into line with the legal age for
heterosexual consent.
And it will ask for opinions on a little-known exemption in the Criminal
Code which allows 12-and 13-year-olds to have consenting sex with older
teens in specific circumstances.
This exemption, aimed at avoiding making criminals of consenting young
loves, allows sex with a person no more than two years older who is not in a
position of trust or authority. This means a 14-year-old could have
consenting sex with a 12-year-old, or a 15-year-old with a 13-year-old.
The devil may come knocking on Sunday, Oct. 31, but no one will answer in
Moncton, N.B.
He could also find himself left waiting on the dark doorsteps of homes in Cardston,
Alta., and several other communities across Canada that have decided to have
Halloween trick-or-treating one day earlier.
In many cases, the decisions have been taken by municipal councils acting on
requests from religious organizations who consider Sunday the Sabbath.
They argue today 's Halloween traditions, even those carried out in jest, are
inappropriate for that day.
A new survey outlining who is using Toronto's overcrowded
homeless shelters has shocked the mayor's point man on the
homeless issue and his staff.
The preliminary report of the Income Protection Working Group
- an independent team of city volunteers - claims as many as 60
per cent of people in hostels would have qualified for the old
employment insurance, workers' compensation and disability
programs.
After three weeks of walking Toronto's streets, catching nits
from one man sleeping on the street and turning over another to
find two broken syringes under him, Toronto's budget chief
says he is determined to resolve the ``moral issue'' of
homelessness.
Montreal residents who were used as slave labourers by the Nazis during
World War II expressed disappointment and impatience yesterday with
the latest compensation offer from German negotiators.
The following editorial is from the Montreal Gazette
An ad campaign by an American animal rights
organization to promote a turkeyless Thanksgiving in Canada
this month never made it to the airwaves.
PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, had
earmarked $25,000 to run a 30-second commercial
promoting a vegetarian Thanksgiving in major markets in
Ontario and Quebec.
Researching social changes and its effects on the Canadian family
The Quebec Order of Engineers is fining Birdair, an
American firm, over its construction practices.
The firm installed the new roof on Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The roof
ripped last January sending snow and water pounding down on the stadium's
floor where workers were setting up for a car show. No one was seriously
hurt.
Hundreds of Casino Windsor employees spent up to 34 hours
lined up inside and outside the casino this week vying for 42
allotments to get Christmas Day off -- most asking for the day
without pay.
"It's dog-eat-dog," said union representative Pam Leach. "It's a
terrible thing to see people lined up all night just to get a holiday.
We'd like to see more spots for Christmas, but the company said
no."
Some employees railed against the union Wednesday. One
casino worker, seeing a photo of Leach on the front page of The
Star, complained: "She should be down with the members
waiting in line for a day off, not celebrating the great deal they got
for Chrysler workers. Why can't they do something about the
disgusting way casino workers are treated over this issue."
Leach sympathizes with the workers, acknowledging that it's
something the union has to keep working on to change.
The federal Minister of Labour, the Honourable
Claudette Bradshaw, today announced the reinstatement of fair wage
schedules under the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. This will
ensure that construction workers employed on Government of Canada
construction projects are paid a fair wage and treated fairly.
Canada's leading national, independent
business-labour forum is officially changing its name to the
Canadian Labour and Business Centre. The new name reflects the
joint composition and focus of the organization.
Most importantly, the name conveys the commitment of the labour
and business communities to work together on important issues of
mutual concern.
Founded in 1984 as the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity
Centre, the Canadian Labour and Business Centre is recognized
nationally and internationally as a centre of expertise on
labour-management relationships in Canada.
Several worried residents of Port Hope,
Ontario called on the Atomic Energy Control Board on
Thursday. They pleaded with the board to launch a sweeping
study of sickness and health in their community to find out
what effects uranium refining may have had on them.
Uranium from the town's plant
has fuelled nuclear reactors in
Canada and around the world
for over 70 years. Yet many in
the community say the potential
radioactive toll has never been
fully assessed.
For Port Hope residents like Pat Lawson, Thursday's
regulatory meeting was an opportunity, She's been fighting the
nuclear industry for 30 years. For the past five, she's
campaigned for a comprehensive medical study that would
look at everything from allergies to birth defects.
Lawson is convinced that people in her community have
gotten sick and have lost their lives because of the
involvement of the nuclear industry in her town.
More than 90 hospitals in the province are bracing for
government orders to balance their books within the next six months, says
the Ontario Hospital Association.
The OHA said Thursday it expects those hospitals projecting deficits to
receive letters today from the Ministry of Health officially rejecting their
operating plans
The ministry is expected to give them until the end of the fiscal year to
balance their budgets, said Michael Forbes, a spokesman for the
organization that represents the province's hospitals.
Waits for physical-rehabilitation services in Quebec are so long that
some parents abuse their children out of frustration, others head for
divorce, and elderly people go blind at home, rehab administrators said
yesterday.
The new chief of the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation has reportedly been chosen.
The Globe and Mail says Montreal businessman Robert
Rabinovitch could be named as early as Friday. Rabinovitch is head of Claridge Inc, a Bronfman family
holding company. He has been offered the position of CBC
president before, but in the past has turned it down.
Only six per cent of Canadians are living in poverty, less than half the
proportion in the U.S. and only one-third the percentage claimed by social
groups here, a United Nations study has found.
In fact, Canada has the second-lowest poverty level among the major
industrial countries and about half the level in most of the other G-7
countries, according to a 600-page report on labour markets and social
conditions in countries around the world by the International Labour
Organization.
Corporate Canada's call for tax cuts is a cleverly disguised bid to undercut social programs, says a report
being released Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "Couched in terms of job creation and 'relief' for
ordinary citizens, this campaign is designed to permanently lower government revenues," writes author Murray Dobbin in Ten
Tax Myths.
The United States is ``obsessed'' over the jailing of a Canadian journalist in Malaysia even
though he was convicted of breaking the law, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Wednesday.
But a trade union in the province is calling the churches
hypocritical because they've stayed silent when thousands of
people were forced to go to work on Sundays.
<
Twenty-two people were exposed to radiation after a
leak of heavy water at a Canadian-designed nuclear plant in
South Korea.
Resistance on both sides of the border is coalescing against the planned shipment of experimental nuclear fuel into Canada from
the U.S. Earl Commanda, head of the North Shore Tribal Council in northeastern Ontario, joined Michigan activists Tuesday in
an attempt to stop the scheduled shipment of plutonium on its way from New Mexico to the Chalk River nuclear reactor west of
Ottawa.
Environmentalists concerned about the state of the
air in the Maritimes are getting little hope from a meeting of
provincial premiers and New England governors.
Leaders from both sides of the border met to talk about the
problems of acid rain and ozone from midwest factories.
However, many of the politicians expressed doubt that the
U.S. federal government is making the air quality problem a
priority.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees grew by 7,000
members yesterday.
Members of the Canadian Health Care Guild voted to merge
with AUPE yesterday, boosting membership in the largest union
in Alberta to more than 44,000.
nspir�s par la r�cente victoire des Micmacs en Cour supr�me, les Innu de la C�te-Nord menacent de faire
bloquer par injonction des tribunaux le projet hydro�lectrique de Churchill Falls.
Ils exigent une entente-cadre reconnaissant leurs droits territoriaux sur le nord du Qu�bec avant de donner le feu vert � ce
projet �valu� � 6,5 milliards $ et devant cr�er 40 000 emplois sur dix ans.
Alberta's Justice Minister David Hancock, will consider a proposal from jail guards
to ban smoking in all provincially run correctional facilities.
A motion to be drafted at an upcoming meeting of Alberta guards will demand the
existing smoking policy, which allows prisoners to light up in their cells and other
designated areas, be replaced with a complete smoking ban, said Dan
McLennan, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
Over twenty transportation experts,
municipal representatives and up to 60 local citizens joined Brampton's Mayor
Peter Robertson at City Hall for a free public forum to discuss GTA
transportation issues and the need for all day, two-way GO Transit rail
service to Brampton.
Big shoulders rolling,
hands loose, stepping
light as a cat in black
leather shoes, Trevor
Berbick ducks and
dips his way into
Room 50, basement
of the Guy Favreau
Building, Appeal
Division of the
Ministry of
Citizenship and
Immigration.
A disgruntled season ticket holder has filed a lawsuit
against Senators captain Alexei Yashin and his agent,
Mark Gandler, for a combined $27.5 million.
They came. They marched. It rained.
``Now we know what the homeless experience,'' Canadian
Labour Congress vice-president Jean-Claude Parrot told the
hundreds that marched through downtown Toronto streets
yesterday demanding an end to homelessness.
More than 500 people, including dozens of organizations from
Unitarians to unions, from York University teaching assistants
to Riverdale parents, walked in a sombre, almost silent
procession past the places where homeless people live - and
have died.
-A record number of women are working for
themselves, but with mixed results, a new report from the Canadian
Policy Research Networks shows. Women have moved into
self-employment at a much faster rate than men, but only a
minority of women are earning more than if they worked for an
employer.
Friday, October 1, 1999, that
the reduction in the workweek will take effect. The duration of the workweek
will go from 42 to 41 hours. Within the framework of the progressive reduction
in the duration of the regular workweek, this duration must be reduced to 40
hours effective October 1, 2000.
The duration of the regular workweek, as prescribed by the Act respecting
Labour standards, is used to determine the time from which an employee works
overtime and must be paid with a 50 % premium (time-and-a-half).
In Quebec, close to 2 552 000 employees are subject to the Act respecting
Labour standards, 1 400 000 of whom only have this Act to serve as a framework
for their conditions of employment. The estimates that close to 178 000
employers are subject to the Act, 141 000 of whom only have the Act to serve
as a framework for the conditions of employment within their undertaking.
"Human resistance" may be used by natives to
prevent weapons-grade plutonium from the Cold War from being
shipped into Canada through their territories, Mohawk chiefs from
Kahnawake and Akwesasne warned yesterday.
Gone are the acrimonious debates,
the ideological split and the personal antagonism. In
fact, meetings of the Calgary public school board run so
smoothly these days they last only one hour instead of
the usual three to six.
That's because all motions are passed unanimously since
the seven elected trustees were fired and replaced by
George Cornish, the one-man board.
The retired Calgary city commissioner was handed the
job on Aug. 19, when Alberta Learning Minister Lyle
Oberg canned the all-female "dysfunctional" board
because trustees' personal differences were
irreconcilable.
See Alberta Labour News for more on this story.
Tired of paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare to
support immigrants abandoned by deadbeat sponsors, many Canadian provinces
are turning to the courts to force sponsors to pay up.
In the last year alone, the provinces have received permission from Ottawa's
Immigration Department to sue 1,600 sponsors for money doled out to relatives
who wound up on welfare, says department spokeswoman Huguette Shouldice.
Most of the requests came from B.C. and Manitoba, provinces taking advantage of
1997 changes to immigration rules that allow provinces, not just the federal
government, to sue deadbeat sponsors.
While Allan Rock, the Health Minister, prepares to allow a growing
number of Canadians to access marijuana for medical use, the
lawyer who represents many of the affected patients is appealing to
Mr. Rock's cabinet colleague, Anne McLellan, the Justice Minister,
to stay the prosecutions of marijuana users who were arrested
before Mr. Rock began his exemption policy in June.
The pointy heads at Harvard University just don't get it. In this
country, and this city in particular, doughnut shops are more than a primary source
of deep-fried batter and double-doubles.
"A beacon of light and warmth" is how B.C. writer Joan Skogan describes the Tim
Hortons on the old Island Highway near Nanaimo.
They're all that and much more, says Toronto social historian Steve Penfold.
Penfold picked doughnut shops for his PhD dissertation, "Tim Horton of Hamilton:
Suburban Culture and the Donut Store, 1950-1985," which attempts to
demonstrate that mass culture doesn't necessarily create a nation of robot
consumers.
Harvard University picked Penfold's dissertation for an Ig Nobel Prize, the annual
tongue-in-cheek award ceremony honouring individuals whose research
achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."
Soon, Canadians will be able to do more than take
courses from Canada's first completely online private university,
which opened for business yesterday. They'll be able to buy shares
in it, too.
Unexus University, which bills itself as the first private,
Internet-based, degree-granting university in the world, is owned by
management training company Learnsoft Corp. of Kanata, Ont.
Learnsoft is planning its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock
Exchange in five weeks, giving investors their first chance to own
shares in a Canadian university.
The decidedly high-tech path to higher education was established to
meet a demand for quality executive-level education that gives
students more flexibility than the traditional university model, said
Michael Gaffney, president and CEO of Learnsoft, a spinoff of
Ottawa telecommunications equipment maker Newbridge
Networks Corp.
One year after the Bow
Valley Centre was blown up
in spectacular fashion the
dust is still swirling on the
merits of demolishing the
downtown city hospital.
A fight in the courts to
prevent the site being used
for any other use hasn't
even begun.
A $500-million lawsuit by
the Friends of the Calgary
General Hospital Society
alleging the land was given
in trust for hospital use is
being finalized by lawyers
on all sides.
The head of Alberta's largest public-sector union
says the provincial government's opening contract offer is "insulting."
About 18,000 members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees have
been offered a one-per-cent pay raise for the coming year, plus a variable
bonus, says union president Dan MacLennan.
"It's insulting," he said.
His members want their share of the province's substantial budget surpluses.
Being your own boss may sound like a great idea, but a
study suggests the reality is not so sweet for many, especially women.
Three-quarters of Canada's female entrepreneurs work alone, often at
home, and make just $15,000 a year on average, says the study by
University of Alberta sociologist Karen Hughes.
The picture for men is a bit better but hardly bright: 59 per cent of them are
also "own account" workers who can't afford to hire staff and who earn less
than $20,000 a year.
The figures raise troubling questions about the "enterprise culture"
governments have been promoting in the 1990s as an alternative to direct
job creation, Hughes said in an interview Thursday.
Eleven thousand residents in the surrounding neighbourhood inhale
carcinogenic contaminants that exceed federal guidelines by
1,000%. They drop dead of cancer and lung disease, which the
government blames on "lifestyle." Their children consume lead in the
garden vegetables. And it goes on, unremedied, for years.
anada's much ballyhoed tax revolt now has about
the same chance of success as William Lyon Mackenzie's
ill-advised march from Montgomery's Tavern down Yonge
Street in the early winter of 1837.
AT Plastics will cut its workforce and take a $5-million to $6-million restructuring
charge, the company said Wednesday.
Production problems at its new $170-million Edmonton copolymer plant, plus
higher costs for feedstock, have hammered the company's revenue; it expects to
report a loss for the year. AT's board voted Wednesday to suspend payment of
its regular quarterly dividend.
"Half the restructuring charge will be for workforce reduction costs," said Jim
Donaghy, vice-president of finance. AT Plastics (TSE:ATP) has 760 employees at
plants in Edmonton, Brampton, Ont., and two U.S. sites. At least 300 people
work at the company's plant in east Edmonton.
Former prime minister Kim Campbell says Canadian high-tech companies
should consider moving their headquarters to California to increase sales and
improve access to venture capital. Ms. Campbell, now Canada's consul-general in Los Angeles, told a
receptive audience at the Mayor's Speaker Series at Ottawa City Hall
yesterday that more and more high-tech companies are choosing to locate
their executive functions in Silicon Valley in order to be "in the loop."
"In many ways, Canada is invisible to Californians," she said. "It's not that
people feel unkindly to us ... but when they think of NAFTA, they think of
Mexico," not Canada, as their number one trading partner.
The abductors sent no ransom demands, nor any conditions of release, said
Mimenza. The kidnappers sent a "request" that indigenous people and the
environment be better treated by the government and businesses.
Canada needs to tie its foreign aid to guarantees of
human rights and freedom of expression, say three African
journalists fighting censorship and repression.
``The Sierra Leone government is not upholding press freedom
and human rights,'' David Tam-Baryoh told journalists at the
National Press Club yesterday.
Thanks to Alexei Yashin, who is sulking in
Switzerland and not collecting the $3.6 million U.S. he had been scheduled
to be paid this season, the Ottawa Senators will see only a modest rise in
their 1999-2000 payroll.
Wayne Gretzky the hockey legend may be a
fading memory, but Wayne Gretzky the
marketing superstar is certainly hitting in his prime. Hockey's most
prolific scorer, who retired after 21 seasons, has been lighting up the
marketing scoreboard at an unprecedented rate since hanging up his
skates last spring.
Plans for a new $80 million Canadians War Museum are "on a knife edge,"
museum chief executive officer Jack Granatstein said in a speech in
Edmonton yesterday.
In the past few days, the future of the new museum has seemed rocky.
Earlier this week, a prominent veterans' group suggested the government
should forget about a current plan to build a new museum on land near the
Aviation Museum and try for a more modest approach, such as exhibiting
parts of the museum's vast collections in the National Gallery.
Once again a Canadian city has been tricked by a group with links
to white supremacists into declaring the week after Thanksgiving
European Heritage Week.
The problems with Quebec's job-training agency had at least
one sovereigntist rethinking his option on Wednesday. "When I see things like that,
I'm asking myself a lot of questions," said Roger Hebert, who joined a
demonstration protesting the agency's cutbacks.
"If they can't manage this kind of business - well, there's a lot of questions we could
ask ourselves," said Hebert, a community-group worker.
Two years ago, the federal government handed job training over to Quebec,
answering a demand the province had pushed for years.
But the province ran into trouble this summer when its job-training agency,
Emploi-Quebec, had to cancel training contracts with 5,000 unemployed
Quebecers because it ran out of money.
Royal Bank will shed "several thousand jobs" over the next 18
months as part of a cost-cutting exercise, a bank spokesman says. The bank has
not set a specific target, according to vice-president of corporate communications
David Moorcroft.
The Savings and Credit Unions of British
Columbia have kicked off the fifth year of their humorous advertising campaign
with a new slogan, ``I Switched'', and a new cast of characters from the
animal world.
Aimed at encouraging consumers to transfer their financial business to a
credit union, this year's television ads depict the joy of switching.
Credit union membership has jumped by 12 per cent since the campaign
began in 1995.``People switching to a credit union are looking for quality service and
competitive rates and products, from an organization with a community focus,''
says Freeborn. ``Only a credit union delivers that combination.''
B.C.'s 80 Savings and Credit Unions have some $21.6 billion in assets and
330 branches serving more than 125 communities, including 30 that have no
other financial institution. They are democratically controlled by their
members and employ more than 7,000 British Columbians.
First ladies have a privileged position
from which to work for social change, Aline Chretien
told a gathering of her pan-American counterparts in a
rare public speech Wednesday.
About a dozen first ladies from countries
throughout the Americas arrived in Ottawa
yesterday, the initial wave of delegates for a
two-day conference on women's health and
the problems facing the hemisphere's
youngest children.
Federal and provincial transport ministers have agreed
for the first time to formulate a national transportation strategy that
would make the revitalization of Canada's highway system its priority.
A string of deadly summer accidents has pushed safety and the state
of the country's "killer" highways to the fore. And ministers at both the
federal and provincial levels are determined to push their finance
ministers for the billions of dollars needed to rebuild the national
highway system.
Sell liquor stores. Close hospitals. Scrap whole departments.
Those are just some of the strong measures Nova Scotia's new Tory government is
being urged to take to get the province's fiscal house in order.
"We've got to understand we can't afford those anymore," said Peter O'Brien of the
Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which represents 10,000 small
businesses across Atlantic Canada.
The federal Conservative party will be taking
a page from the tax-reform playbooks of its governing
counterparts in Alberta and Ontario, leader Joe Clark suggested
Wednesday. Tax-deductible mortgage payments and lower
capital gains and corporate taxes will all be on the agenda when
the federal Tories gather Wednesday for their first policy
convention in three years.
The buzz words 'lean and mean' have set the standard
for most Ontario government operations in the last five years but within the
office of Premier Mike Harris, the philosophy appears to be 'bigger is
better.'
While slicing the number of politicians in the legislature to 103 from 130 and
cutting billions of dollars from ministry budgets, Harris has increased the size
of his own staff by 50 per cent.
The Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB) of
the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA), today released the
first-ever accounting standard on how governments should account and report
activities conducted through government partnerships.
``Governments are increasingly entering into collaborative arrangements
with other governments and private sector entities, and guidance is needed on
how such activities should be reported,'' says Jim Peters, CA, Chair of the
CICA Task Force on Government Partnerships. ``The recommended standard
provides guidance specifically tailored to government partnerships, including
those that engage in business activities, and shows how capital assets
invested in a government partnership should be accounted for and reported.'
[Gaspyoumean that all this time governments were privatizing the public sector
without any rules in place? Say it ain't so...Eugene]
``Our findings are unsettling,'' says James Nininger, President and Chief
Executive Officer of the Conference Board. ``After four years of working in
this area, we believe that we cannot sustain our high quality of life in the
next century, unless Canadians improve their performance on key factors that
underpin our socio-economic system.''
A coalition of health-related associations in
Ontario is launching a public education campaign which challenges broadly held
assumptions about human health. Its key message is that human health is
affected by a greater number of factors -- or determinants -- than most people
would assume.
In brochures and posters to be made available across Ontario, the
coalition points out that factors such as workplace issues, quality of housing
and personal isolation have a significant impact on people's health. Yet, the
group, known as the Health Determinants Partnership, says these critical
factors in peoples' lives are often overlooked in thinking about health and
health care. The members of the Health Determinants Partnership include the
Association of Ontario Health Centres, the Centre for Health Promotion at the
University of Toronto, the Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse, Innovaction, the
Ontario Public Health Association and the Registered Nurses Association of
Ontario. It is supported by Health Canada.
Information is also available to the public by calling 1-888-466-6822. Or
people can visit the Partnership's Website at www.making-connections.com.
French language information is available at www.tisser-des-liens.com.
MOST PEOPLE working in the
health-care sector are prohibited from
striking on the quite reasonable
ground that no issue in a dispute over
wages and benefits could possibly
justify threatening the well-being of
Ontarians.
Thus, nurses, nursing aides, cleaners,
porters, housekeepers, cooks, lab
technicians, diagnostic imagers,
admission clerks and other hospital
workers are denied the ultimate weapon in a labour dispute.
Everyone, that is, but the doctors.
During their last dispute with the Ontario government over pay
and benefits, the doctors began ``withdrawing services'' (the
medical profession's euphemism for a strike) to increase the
heat on the politicians.
The government responded by asking the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, the regulatory body for the
profession, to declare the tactic illegal.
The college refused and, instead, issued a statement saying
doctors have the ``right'' to withdraw services provided they
give their patients ``reasonable notice'' (undefined) and ensure
that they have access to ``emergency'' care.
Soon after this rebuff from the college, the government met
most of the doctors' demands in a three-year contract, at an
estimated cost of $1 billion-plus.
That contract is due to expire in six months, and both sides are
gearing up for the next round of talks.
Beginning October 1, 1999, the Workers
Compensation (Occupational Health and Safety) Amendment Act becomes law. The
legislation - known as Bill 14 - amends the existing Workers Compensation Act
and will affect how occupational health and safety is administered in B.C.
The B.C. Government introduced the new legislation based on
recommendations from an extensive Royal Commission review of B.C.'s workers'
compensation system and consultation with business, labour and injured
workers.
Two individuals and two companies have been
charged by the Special Investigations Branch of the Workplace
Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) with various counts of
non-compliance.
An inquest opens Wednesday into the death
of an inmate at Ontario's Joyceville penitentiary.
The hearing is expected to raise concerns about the level of
health care given to inmates in Canada's prisons.
Canada's traditional approach to crime and
punishment has in many ways been a failure, a top RCMP
official says.
Jails don't correct most criminal behaviour, the suicide rate in
prisons is twice the national average and the justice system is
so swamped that crimes go uninvestigated and charges get
tossed out of court, says Cleve Cooper, an assistant deputy
commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
``The community's needs to heal do not seem to be addressed
by the current judicial system,'' he told a national conference on
the prison and parole system attended by nearly 200 judges and
correctional officials.
Cooper noted yesterday that Canada has the highest
incarceration rate in the Western world, yet most offenders
aren't a serious threat or high-risk murderers.
Native leaders from across Atlantic Canada
decided yesterday to disregard threats of retaliation from non-native
fishermen and continue the lobster fishery that has sprung from a
recent Supreme Court of Canada decision.
right to work.
Tensions appear to be rising in the dispute over native fishing rights in the Maritimes.
The man behind a Supreme Court of Canada ruling on native fishing appealed for calm Tuesday, saying he
fears there could be violent confrontations on the water. Donald Marshall Jr. says he hasn't slept well in the last couple of days
because of news his landmark legal case is causing tension between native and non-native fishermen.
Interfor vehicles and a logging road in the Elaho
Valley have been vandalized, RCMP said Monday.
The area has been the site of a confrontation between environmentalists
determined to stop logging in the area and Interfor, which holds cutting rights
to the area north of Squamish.
Two city councils have made official the growing unease of Ontario
communities that will be exposed to two shipments of plutonium -- one
the remains of U.S. nuclear warheads and the other from Russian
weapons. The city councils of Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay have
passed motions calling for "meaningful and thorough" public hearings
before the nuclear material travels along the province's highways en
route to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s nuclear testing facility at
Chalk River in the Ottawa valley.
The upcoming international conference on federalism
at Mont Tremblant is not a "propaganda" event organized by the
Chretien government to impress Quebecers, says conference
co-chairman Bob Rae.
The former Ontario premier told a media briefing that the
conference's program, which includes speeches from Bill Clinton,
the U.S. president, Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico's president, has been
put together with "enormous integrity and professionalism."
ON SEPT. 17, The Star reported this
city's apology to its Jewish community
for allowing a photo exhibit of
Palestinian history to be displayed for
five days at City Hall.
The problem with the exhibit was in
part timing (it had been inadvertently
displayed during one of Judaism's
holiest periods ) and in part its very
nature.
``Obscene'' was how Harold Brief, chairman of the Israeli affairs
committee for the Canadian Jewish Congress termed it.
Mayor Mel Lastman, while more subdued, was equally
adamant. By being ``political,'' the exhibit offended ``the magic
of Toronto,'' that magic being ``you don't bring your arguments
and your beefs here.''
It was a curious story. But, like the Palestinians, themselves, it
was quickly forgotten - at least by me.
Until yesterday, when The Star ran three letters complaining
about the city's apology - and one of the photos from the
exhibit.
The Canadian Jewish Congress has convinced
the mayor of Fredericton to rescind an offensive
proclamation.
On Monday, the mayor proclaimed a holiday on behalf of a
convicted hate monger. Councillors were told that European
Heritage Week celebrates the history of Europeans in
Canada.
But it turns out the occasion was invented by Don Andrews, a
Toronto man who was convicted in 1985 of violating
Canada's hate propaganda laws. Andrews publishes a
newsletter for white supremacists.
Ontarians for Responsible Government is taking
its fight against union coercion to CAW leader Buzz Hargrove's backyard.
``We are putting up a billboard in downtown Oshawa urging workers to
fight for their right to political choice,'' explains O.R.G. executive
director Gerry Nicholls. ``This is an issue that's been ignored for far too
long.''
The billboard, which can also be seen in downtown Toronto, features a
photo of Hargrove next to the words: ``Why should your dues pay for his views?
It's time the right to political choice was restored to workers!''O.R.G., which is the provincial affiliate of the National Citizens'
Coalition, ran a media campaign during the last provincial election calling
for such reforms.
The National Citizens' Coalition is pleased to
announce that journalist, columnist and author Peter Worthington is the 1999
winner of the Colin M. Brown Freedom Medal.
The NCC presents the award annually to an individual who has made an
outstanding contribution to the advancement or defence of political or
economic freedom.
Mr. Worthington will receive the medal at a banquet in Toronto on
Thursday, November 16th at the Toronto Eaton Centre Marriott Hotel.The medal which Peter Worthington will receive commemorates the late
founder of the NCC, who first started his crusade for ``more freedom through
less government'' in 1967. Colin M. Brown died on March 4th 1987.
Previous recipients of the award include Ted Byfield, Mike Harris, Ralph
Klein, Diane Francis, Barbara Amiel and Thomas Bata.
Michael Moriarty, the
controversial American actor,
virtually torched the Canadian
flag last night during an private
dinner attended by political
activists, lobbyists and
well-connected bureaucrats.
With a drink in one hand and
a cigarette in the other, Mr.
Moriarty said the Canadian
flag "sucks" because it's
adorned with a "dying" red
maple leaf and is flanked with
two "Communist" curtains.
CANO�
(www.canoe.qc.ca)
is the first
French-language
news and
information
Internet site in
Canada providing
around-the-clock
updates.
Jeff Giles says his controversial ideas to transform the CFL into a four-down game
consisting of teams no longer obligated to dress a certain number of Canadians
should serve as a wakeup call that the CFL faces tough decisions to make the
league profitable.
Even more than a starting pitcher with more than 10 wins or
an infielder who can handle ground balls, Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou's
top wish for next season is stability. And Alou believes he'll get it - control of the
club will pass to a new ownership group, work will begin on a new stadium and the
Expos will, after two seasons of doubt, confirm they will stay in Montreal.
Toronto parents made passionate, tearful pleas before trustees
last night to save their schools from closing, at the same time
slamming the board for moving too quickly and not considering
other options.
North Bay city council has demanded a halt to a
controversial shipment of nuclear fuel until "meaningful and thorough" public hearings
are held.
The two-page resolution passed by a 9-2 vote, drew applause from more than 20
audience members at a council meeting on Monday night.
It comes less than a week after councillors attended a briefing session with
representatives from the four federal departments involved.
Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., has also passed a similar motion asking for public hearings.
The five-kilogram mixture of plutonium and uranium will be trucked from Los
Alamos, N.M., later this fall.
SeeAberta Labour News for more stories on this
The first Canadian study on the impact of health
care reform has been released. It assesses the closing of 52
Saskatchewan hospitals in 1993.
While it concludes the health of most people did not suffer as
a result of the communities losing their only local hospital, the
study shows that their confidence in the system did suffer.
P.E.I.'s main industry is in woe after a
weekend rain made an already bad situation in the potato
fields considerably worse.
Up to a quarter of the province's potato crop will be lost to
water damage this year, says the P.E.I. Potato Board.
The Samson Cree, an Alberta band with rich oil and gas
reserves on its land, claim Ottawa has been mismanaging the
band's trust money and resources for decades.
The case has been going on in near secrecy for the past 10
years.
Environment minister David Anderson has promised new federal legislation to
protect endangered species will be unveiled in the House of Commons by late
autumn.
And in the lobbying run-up to the legislation, environmentalists and farmers for
once appear to be saying the same thing. They both are telling Anderson the
legislation should allow habitat protection on private land to be implemented
voluntarily, with compensation offered if landowners suffer financial loss.
There are no quick-and-easy cures for Quebec's ailing health-care
system. But one prescription that makes sense is to allow private clinics
to offer publicly insured services such as emergency treatment and day
surgery.
Quebec's zealousness in pursuing cases badly skewed the numbers
compared to other provinces; federal officials want increases
elsewhere, too
Virtually all participants at an international
conference on the Great Lakes say they don't want
government to allow more water exports.
archived stories on campaigns opposed to the privatization of water and hydro
The r�sum�s of at least five former and current eavesdroppers -- with
the Communications Security Establishment, the military's elite
electronics-intelligence gathering wing -- have been posted on the
Web.
The battle of the sexes continues to rage on Canada's university campuses. Toronto Sun Columnist
Jean Sonmor, whose son has just left home for his freshman year at Queen's University in Kingston,
Ont. wonders whether feminism is to blame for the "ugly impasse" between men and women. What do
you think -- Has feminism made men feel hostile towards women? Have women turned men into the
enemy? And why can't men and women just accept each other as equals?Join the discussion.
This group is not moderated. The rules: No profanity, no advocacy of violence or law-breaking, no libel
or slander. Click here to alert us to offensive posts.
Pity the poor folks at CPAC. And, for that matter, anyone whose
remote died just as they were passing by CPAC and is of such
colossal girth or feeble gumption as to be unable to rise from the sofa
and manually flip the channel. The Liberal government's decision to
postpone a return to the House of Commons until Oct. 12 has left the
Cable Public Affairs Channel at something of a loss for content.
After a year of waiting, people in the Yukon
will soon learn the facts surrounding the RCMP shooting
death of a native man. An inquest begins Monday into the
case, which has sparked controversy in the aboriginal
community from coast to coast.
Parents who sparked a human-rights ruling against the
Saskatoon Public School Board's prayer policy say they are afraid to
attend a meeting on the issue this week. Last July, the Saskatchewan
Human Rights Commission ruled that the recitation of the Lord's
Prayer in public schools violates children's freedom of religion. Retired
Judge Ken Halvorson, who headed the board of inquiry, ordered public
schools to develop a multicultural religious proposal that doesn't
include any prayers or reading from any form of Bible.
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