He’ll say no

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Thomas Mulcair touts his willingness to stand up to unions.

In an interview with The Globe, Mr. Mulcair recounted how he informed the Canadian national director of the Steelworkers, Ken Neumann, that he opposed a reserved voting block for unions at the NDP leadership convention in March. “It was quite clear he wasn’t used to being told ‘no’ by anyone in the NDP. And I said ‘no.’ I said, ‘Why not let the membership decide?’” Mr. Mulcair said of the “cordial” conversation that occurred last month…

“So that is a defining difference because I want to work with the unions, but I’m never going to be beholden to anybody other than the people who voted me there, which will be the membership of the party,” Mr. Mulcair said.

Whistler’s sled dog massacre

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP

Even now, it is the conflicted sense of apprehension that Marcie Moriarty remembers: hoping to find a mass grave under piles of junk in a forest clearing north of Whistler, B.C.—and hoping not to. Then the ugly reality of the dozens of tangled corpses of sled dogs emerging as the ground was sifted away by some of the world’s leading forensic investigators. That, and the smell of death that followed her home. “It brings shivers to me,” says Moriarty, general manager of cruelty investigations for the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “It’s hard not to look at something like this and just lose all faith in humanity.”

Few murder cases, animal or human, have generated such instant revulsion as the gory killing in April 2010 of some 56 unwanted sled dogs belonging to Whistler-based Howling Dog Tours. The panicked animals were shot or had their throats slit in the presence of the 300-dog herd before being dumped in mass graves, allegedly by Bob Fawcett, then general manager of the company, and the man who raised and nurtured most of the dogs. Details of the gruesome killings leaked out in January after Fawcett filed a successful claim with the provincial workers’ compensation board, saying the cull left him with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “Some I missed, had to chase around with blood everywhere,” Fawcett wrote this January on a website for soldiers suffering from PTSD before he retreated from public view. “Some I had to slit their throats because it was the only way to keep them calm in my arms.”

The case drew international outrage, blackened the reputation of one of B.C.’s premier resort destinations, and triggered a task force that toughened provincial animal cruelty laws. It was apparent, however, that pressing criminal charges required more than Fawcett’s unsubstantiated claims. Even unearthing the bodies was insufficient, says Moriarty, a lawyer. “What needs to be shown is that the animals suffered unnecessarily to prove the Criminal Code offence.” Last month, the society filed thousands of pages of evidence with Crown prosecutors, recommending criminal charges of causing unnecessary pain and suffering to animals. It may be months before the Crown decides if charges are warranted.

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Turkey’s mighty Erdogan

By Adnan R. Khan - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

AFP/Getty Images

It was one coup among many. On Sept. 25, after passionately arguing in favour of the Palestinians’ right to a unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN General Assembly in New York, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan left with a hero in his back pocket. On board his government jet was a 1,900-year-old statue of Hercules, procured from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where it had sat, an object of ownership controversy, for nearly 30 years. Reclaiming the relic for Turkey was a symbolic act, but the 57-year-old prime minister had done what so many of his predecessors had failed to do. He brought Hercules—his head and torso at least—home to be reunited with the Greek hero’s less attractive but arguably more manly lower half, sitting forlorn and incomplete at the archaeological museum in Antalya, a city steeped in history situated on Turkey’s stunning Mediterranean coast.

In Turkey, Erdogan’s government was hailed for the statue’s return. It was not the only praise the PM had recently received. Only days earlier, during a trip to Egypt, he’d been compared to another, less mythic but equally meaningful hero, this time from Islamic history. In Cairo, frenzied crowds showered the Turkish leader with praise, calling him the “new Saladin”—a reference to the 12th-century Kurdish conqueror who wrested Jerusalem away from Christian Crusaders in 1187. Heady times—and not without reason.

By all accounts, Turkey stands at a crossroads—and Erdogan is the one finding a new direction. After pursuing a policy of “zero problems” with its neighbours, Turkey has been forced to deal with hard geopolitical realities, breaking ties with a tyrannical Syrian regime, abandoning former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak at the height of the Egyptian uprising, and freezing its historically warm relations with Israel in the aftermath of a 2010 attempt by an international aid flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, during which Israeli commandos killed nine activists, eight of them Turkish nationals.

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When to reveal your insulin pump

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Mark Hatfield/Istock

Having diabetes is a full-time job that goes beyond balancing blood sugar levels, writes the author of The Smart Woman’s Guide to Diabetes. You have to worry about how to feel sexy with a plastic pump attached to your lower back; how to still feel desirable with bruises on your stomach from insulin injections; and when in your relationship to tell your new boyfriend he’ll need to run and grab orange juice if you start to pass out.

Author Amy Stockwell Mercer was 14 when she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Her book includes her own experience of living with diabetes, as well as advice from other diabetic women on topics ranging from dating and diet to travel tips and motherhood.

According to a University of Toronto study, teenage girls with diabetes are twice as likely to develop eating disorders. “Diabulimia,” Mercer explains, “is characterized by a person with diabetes who is intentionally skipping insulin therapy to keep blood glucose levels elevated, which in turn causes dangerous weight loss.”

Fantagraphics Books

One woman cited in the book, Charla, hated being chubby as a child and remembers suddenly losing weight when she was 16. “God was answering my prayers!” she thought as she continued to eat gluttonously without gaining weight. “I also couldn’t get out of bed and knew something was wrong.” Her parents took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with diabetes. Once she started insulin, “I gained 14 lb. I felt like the Michelin man. The day I got out of hospital I started skipping insulin because I had to lose weight.” She eventually started taking just enough to survive, “one shot at bedtime.”

By her thirties, Charla had developed eye complications—diabetic retinopathy. She finally found a supportive, female endocrinologist who advised Charla to switch from injecting insulin with a needle to wearing an insulin pump. “When I first started wearing the pump, I hated it. I felt like it was a scarlet D on my forehead. I almost gave it back. I stopped wearing dresses. I hated wearing it on my belt because you could see the tubing. Then I figured out I could hide it in a pants pocket by putting a hole in the pocket and stringing the tubing through the hole. Once I figured that out, it was much better. I’m glad I stuck with it.”

In a chapter on puberty, Mercer warns that women with diabetes have more menstrual problems than their non-diabetic peers. Expect long cycles and heavy menstruation. “Usually, a woman’s insulin requirement goes up 10 to 15 per cent during the last three to five days of the menstrual cycle because of the hormone progesterone. Rising levels of progesterone counteract the action of insulin. The only way to manage changing insulin requirements right before your period is to measure your [blood glucose] often.”

Most of the women in Mercer’s book agree it’s best to tell your friends and dates as soon as possible about your condition. “I was a little self-conscious about carrying syringes around. I didn’t want anyone to think I was a drug addict,” explains Stella Biggs. Another woman, Kristin Makszin, tells Mercer, “I think that diabetes can be a good way to find a caring person. If it’s the right person, they will care and want to learn more.”

Another woman, Maia Caemmerer, shares her solution for birth control. “I chose to get a Mirena [hormone] IUD. The consistent release of hormones evened out my blood glucose. It was one of the best choices I made for my diabetes, and it took one thing off my daily health-related to-do list: no more birth control pills!”

In a chapter on travel, a woman warns that the battery in her insulin pump sets off the metal detector at the airport. She’s learned to wear the pump on her waistband, outside her clothing, when she’s travelling and to “never, ever wear a long skirt going through the checkpoint. There is nothing more humiliating than a TSA agent frisking your inner thighs while the whole world is watching.” And don’t forget, “eastward travel means a shorter day. If you inject insulin, less may be needed. Westward travel means a longer day, so more insulin may be needed. Keep your watch on your home time zone until the morning after you arrive.”

Jailhouse rock in Volgograd

By Jen Cutts - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:15 AM - 0 Comments

Fish tanks, sofa beds, wood panelling—not quite what you’d expect from a Russian jail cell. So when authorities dropped by prison number 12 unannounced earlier this month, and found mafia bosses serving time in three secret, pimped-out rooms, the prison’s governor was quickly out of a job.

The head of the facility in the Volgograd region had allegedly been collecting rubles for allowing the luxurious cells, and for providing comforts like plasma TVs, imported liquor and Internet access. Framed photographs of notorious Russian criminals were hung on the wall, and a collection of handmade knives was also found. The region’s prison service tried to quiet the scandal with a statement claiming the rooms were for counselling, and that the alcohol discovered was in fact nothing but aftershave.

But Russians have heard it all before. A similar scandal played out in April, when photos were posted online of toga-wearing prisoners celebrating a fellow convict’s birthday with caviar and McDonald’s. For prisoners without connections on the outside, Russia’s penal system—recently likened to Stalin’s gulags by the country’s justice minister—is much tougher to endure. The fact that Russia is second only to the U.S. in how many of its citizens are jailed likely isn’t helping.

The German Pirate Party’s flagging sails

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Carsten Rehder/AFP/Getty Images

No one expected Germany’s Pirate Party to win representation in Berlin’s state parliament. Yet their campaign, which included a platform advocating a quixotic mix of data protection, a guaranteed minimum income and legalized marijuana, appealed to disillusioned voters who rewarded it with nine per cent of the vote.

Now, however, the past activities of some members are casting shadows over the Pirate Party’s move onto the national political stage. At least two members, including a regional chairman, have been ID’d as former members of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which has been labelled by German intelligence as a “racist, anti-Semitic” entity that wants to create a Fourth Reich. (One later resigned.)

In addition, women complain that the party, which claims to be “post-gender,” is overwhelmingly populated by men. So far, party officials have shrugged off all the criticisms. As leader Sebastian Nerz told Der Spiegel, “We grew out of the Internet scene, and that happens to be dominated by men.”

Danny Gail Dimm

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Ted McGrath

Danny Gail Dimm was born in Duncan, B.C., on Feb. 25, 1958. His father, Fred, and his mother, Eunice, both had two children from previous relationships, but Danny was their first child together. (Mike, his younger brother, came next.) “He was always a daydreamer,” recalls his sister, Jewel Juriansz. “And he adored animals. As a three-year-old, I fully expected he would grow up to be a vet.”

Danny inherited his father’s love for the outdoors. Fred was a woodsman and a pilot and a pipeline worker, and would often walk through the front door with souvenirs from the bush—from rattlesnakes to hornets’ nests. Eunice, a stay-at-home mom, was the family anchor. “Danny got a lot of his industry from her,” Jewel says. “He could work circles around most people, and he put his whole heart and soul into everything he did. He would run; he wouldn’t walk.”

After high school, Danny toyed with the idea of racing cars for a living; he even moved to Mont Tremblant, Que., the mecca of Canada’s Formula 1 scene. But by his early 20s, he was back out west, working as a tree faller in the town of Lillooet. “He was just a really quirky guy,” says Peter Ford, a close friend and fellow faller. “For somebody who was crawling around in the mountains all the time, he had a very, very broad knowledge base about a lot of different things. Even out in the woods, he would always have books by his side.”

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Has RIM lost its way?

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Reuters/Robert Galbraith

With confidence in the BlackBerry platform waning and calls for a management shake-up growing louder, the last thing Research In Motion Ltd. co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie needed earlier this month was a network meltdown that left subscribers across five continents with spotty access to email for more than three days. It was perhaps a further bit of bad luck that the source of the outage was traced to RIM’s European headquarters in Slough, a dreary suburb of London that also happened to be the setting of the BBC TV series The Office, a sitcom about the pitiable lives of employees of a second-rate paper company toiling beneath a hapless manager played by Ricky Gervais.

Though RIM, based in Waterloo, Ont., is no Wernham Hogg (the name of the fictional paper firm in the TV series), the scramble by Canada’s tech superstar to diagnose, correct and explain the biggest network outage in its history left many observers shaking their heads. The disruptions began on Oct. 10 and immediately impacted users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America. RIM said the following day that the problem had been resolved, only to suffer more disruptions that eventually found their way to North America. The company later revealed that it had suffered a core switch failure in its network operations centre (a sort of central sorting facility for BlackBerry email), and that its backup systems had failed, too.

By the time Lazaridis appeared in a low-tech Web video (standing before a drab beige background) to issue a rare apology on Oct. 13, critics had already characterized RIM’s response to the crisis as inadequate. “The worldwide outages we experienced last week were unfortunate,” Lazaridis told a crowd of developers earlier this week at a BlackBerry conference in San Francisco, where RIM unveiled its new, next-generation BBX mobile platform. He added that RIM is studying what went wrong and is focused on “making this right” with customers.

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Visit Japan—for free!

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:05 AM - 0 Comments

Jane-Peter Boening/Redux

Seven months after an earthquake devastated its Pacific coast, Japan plans to boost its ailing tourism industry with a lucrative offer for foreigners: come to Japan for free. The Japan Tourism Agency will offer 10,000 free round-trip airfares to foreigners to visit the country next year to ease international fears of spreading radiation. Tourism in Japan plummeted by 50 per cent in the three months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that caused a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Authorities lifted evacuation advisories for five towns just outside the plant’s 12-mile evacuation zone on Sept. 30, although citizens with radiation-monitoring equipment continue to report small radiation hot spots as far away as Tokyo.

The tourism project will cost about $14.6 million, roughly 10 per cent of the tourism agency’s 2012 budget request. Successful applicants selected by the agency must pay for their own accommodation and other expenses, and will be asked to write a report about their trip to be published on the Internet. If the project is approved, the agency will start accepting applications from would-be travellers in April 2012.

Bombs on the beach

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Nudists should watch where they sunbathe on the Isle of Sheppey, off the south coast of England. After local officials discovered 26 munitions, such as an anti-submarine depth charge, on the naturist beach, bomb disposal experts of the Royal Navy were called in to sweep the area in October for other hidden explosives. In two days they pulled another 61 bombs, including high-explosive mortar shells, from the beach, which certainly lived up to its nickname of Shellness.

The area near the beach was a bombing range until 1937, and then an aircraft gunnery range during the Second World War, reports the local Sheppey Gazette. While the size of the haul caught officials off guard, bombs wash onto British beaches with regularity. Centuries of naval battles and ship sinkings have left the nation’s coastal waters so littered with unexploded munitions that Royal Navy disposal teams are on duty 365 days of the year. They’re likely to be back to the Isle of Sheppey. Though none of the recent haul of bombs is believed to come from the SS Richard Montgomery, which sank nearby during the Second World War, the wreck is still a threat. The munitions ship was carrying 1,400 tonnes of explosives.

Police blotter

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 7:45 AM - 0 Comments

British Columbia: A man recently walked into the Nanaimo Country Club Centre, allegedly with the intention of robbing the place. He jumped the counter and detonated bear spray into the clerk’s face, but couldn’t open the till. He then fled to the parking lot, spraying another man who tried to grab him; outside, he sprayed two more people before escaping in a white van. He was later arrested by the RCMP.

Alberta: A 32-year-old man, dubbed “Wile E. Coyote” by a judge, admitted to negligent arson after causing $70,000 in damage in a home explosion. He was trying to make hash oil by dumping butane onto marijuana in a pipe; the highly flammable material exploded while he was nearby playing video games.

Saskatchewan: A rancher near Bjorkdale, Sask., was charged under the province’s Stray Animals Act. Bulls were twice found fighting near a neighbour’s home after they escaped the man’s shoddy fencing. The same neighbour later came across about 100 cattle from the man’s ranch in her red clover field. A judge dismissed the charges last week.

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House of Commons math, revisited and revised

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 9:40 PM - 0 Comments

Tim Uppal, Minister of State for Democratic Reform, will be in Brampton, Ontario tomorrow to make an “important announcement.” According to the CBC that will involve 13 new MPs for Ontario, six for Alberta, five for British Columbia and three for Quebec. That’s one more seat for Quebec than had been reported last week.

Quebec currently has 75 of 308 seats, or 24.35%. The NDP had been calling for that percentage to be matched in any redistribution.

After the 2015 election, Quebec will now have 78 of 335 seats, or 23.28%.

The provinces thus break down under the new formula as follows. Continue…

The Bob Marley brand: recyling lyrics to sell headphones and coffee

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 6:33 PM - 0 Comments

(from left) Bob Marley's granddaughter Donisha Prenderghast, 1Love.org's Donna Mastropasqua, wife Rita Marley, son Rohan Marley, daughter Sharon Marley

Bob Marley was a superstar and a revolutionary whose music circled the globe. Now he’s a brand. On Monday night, I attended the Canadian launch of the House of Marley’s new headphone line, a collection of eco-friendly products with names like Soul Rebel, Revolution, Conquerer, Positive Vibrations, Zion and Trenchtown Rock—which are sponsored by Future Shop. The House of Marley? Yes. It was created by the late singer’s family as a commercial enterprise to market merchandise under his name and siphon some of the revenues to charitable causes via an organization called 1Love.org.The pitch: “eco-conscious, innovative products that adhere to the Marley family core values: equality, unity authenticity.”

The launch, a bizarre mix of old time Rasta vibes and corporate chic, took place at the ultra-slick Ultra Supper Club—formerly the Bamboo, Toronto’s unofficial reggae clubhouse. And it was attended by an impressive contingent of Jamaican royalty, including Bob’s wife Rita Marley, who looked positively regal in a purple gown and turban. I was seated next to Bob’s son, Rohan Marley, the family’s official representative at the House of Marley—a dreadlocked Rasta who once  played in the Canadian Football League with the now-defunct Ottawa Rough Riders. Rohan, an exuberant pitchman and raconteur, was hilarious as he regaled us with stories of how he ended up playing ball in the Great White North. He didn’t set out to play football. It was soccer he loved. But there were no soccer scholarships, so he ended up as a star linebacker with the University of Miami Hurricanes. When he got an offer to play in the CFL, he refused at first (“I was retired from football.”) But as he tells it, Rita applied pressure: “Mama Rita, she said, ‘You really love football. You should give it another try. You should go to Canada!” Rohan reminisced about how he stoked his on-field energy with herb, how he used his energy and speed to run circles around much bigger opponents, and how he feuded with his intolerant coach. Continue…

The Commons: Bonfire of the registry

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 6:06 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. At its essence, this debate over the long-gun registry was always a debate about paperwork. And so it is only right and fitting that it should end now with a fight over what should be done with that paper.

For the record, Article 29 of Bill C-19, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, states that “the Commissioner of Firearms shall ensure the destruction as soon as feasible of all records in the Canadian Firearms Registry related to the registration of firearms that are neither prohibited firearms nor restricted firearms and all copies of those records under the Commissioner’s control.” And variously this much is viewed as a waste of both information and money.

“Why,” Nycole Turmel asked this afternoon, “destroy two billion dollars of accumulated information, while the provinces and the police want to keep it?” Continue…

Parliament: now literally a joke

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 4:27 PM - 0 Comments

Pierre Poilievre, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport, responding this afternoon to the NDP’s Alexander Boulerice, who asked if the government would allow a parliamentary inquiry into the G8 Legacy Fund to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, there already has been an inquiry into it. There has been an exhaustive review by the interim Auditor General. If I could quote a truly great Canadian, “The facts have not changed.” Everyone could take a moment now to recognize that truly great Canadian, ladies and gentlemen, the honourable member for Calgary East.

The member for Calgary East is Deepak Obhrai, who was, until yesterday, the Conservative MP assigned to handle questions about the G8 Legacy Fund when John Baird is absent from the House.

Today’s round of Legacy Fund questions after the jump. Continue…

Herman, His Hero

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:39 PM - 0 Comments

You’ve probably seen the Herman Cain ad already – it made the rounds earlier this week and was spoofed on Colbert last night – but I think I still can’t resist posting it here.

A lot of the talk is about what they were thinking by having the guy smoke, but that seems obvious to me: smoking is a signifier of political incorrectness, and appeals as a quasi-rebellious gesture even to primary voters who don’t smoke. Mark Block, the Smoking Man, even said that his puffing will play in the heartland: “You walk into a veterans’ bar in Iowa and they’re sitting around smoking, and yeah, we are resonating with them. I’m not the only one that smokes in America, for God’s sake.” Having the candidate light up in an ad would look bad in this day and age, but having his chief of staff light up gives the campaign a certain cachet with a) People who smoke and b) People who don’t smoke, but dislike the stigmatization of smoking, or associate smoking with traditionalism.

Why they decided this particular guy should be the face of the campaign, I don’t know, but I don’t think it necessarily means that the campaign doesn’t take itself seriously, just that the campaign hasn’t raised a lot of money yet.

Auditing the auditor

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

The Liberals have declared their opposition to Michael Ferguson’s appointment as auditor general.

“When the Prime Minister made me aware of his choice of Michael Ferguson as Auditor General, I responded that, after reviewing the documentation provided, I had some concerns about the proposed appointment,” said Mr. Rae. “Not only did his résumé lack experience of a national scope, we now learn he is not proficient in both of Canada’s official languages. The fact that Mr. Ferguson did not meet the criteria set out by the government itself was not disclosed to me by Mr. Harper.”

Canadian Wheat Board sues Ottawa

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

The Canadian Wheat Board is launching a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing Ottawa broke the law by neglecting to hold a plebiscite of affected farmers before tabling the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, the Toronto Star reports. In a plebiscite conducted by the board last summer, 62 per cent of 40,000 participants said they would prefer to keep the existing system. Farmers from BC to eastern Manitoba currently have to sell their wheat through the board, but the new bill would make it voluntary, so producers could market straight to processors.

Toronto Star

NATO postpones end to air patrols in Libya

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:17 PM - 0 Comments

Libya’s interim leader asked NATO on Wednesday to prolong its involvement in the country until the end of the year, trying to dissuade the Western military alliance that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi from ceasing operations in the next few days. For now, NATO has agreed to put off a decision to end its bombing campaign. Initially, the alliance had set Oct. 31 as the tentative deadline for winding down the mission. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of the Transitional National Council, the country’s provisional government, said Libya needs outside help to bring to justice Gadhafi’s loyalists still at large. Notably, that includes the Colonel’s son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, though Reuters reports he may be ready to hand himself in to the International Criminal Court. Regardless of Saif al-Islam’s intentions, NATO officials seem reluctant to continue costly military operations and to become involved in tracking down individual Libyan fugitives, something that does not fall into the alliance’s UN mandate to protect civilians.

AP

Reuters

Standing up for victims, except this once

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:37 PM - 0 Comments

A note from the office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

Following the tabling of the Government’s proposed legislation to abolish the long gun registry, Sue O’Sullivan, Canada’s Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, today spoke out in support of the long-gun registry, urging the federal government to maintain the registry as a tool for preventing further victimization. “Our position on this matter is clear – Canada must do all it can to prevent further tragedies from happening, including using the tools we have to help keep communities safe, like the long-gun registry,” stated Ms. O’Sullivan.

According to 2002 RCMP data, long-guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicides. Over the past decade, 71% of spousal homicides involved rifles and shotguns. “Though there are varying points of view, the majority of victims’ groups we have spoken with continue to support keeping long-gun registry,” explained Ms. O’Sullivan. “I have brought that voice forward to the Government by relaying those views directly to the Minister of Justice in our most recent meeting.”

The Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime helps victims to address their needs, promotes their interests and makes recommendations to the federal government on issues that negatively impact victims.

Bank of Canada sees economy growing at below one per cent

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

Bank of Canada lowered its growth forecast for the fourth-quarter to 0.8 per cent on Wednesday, down from a previous projection of 2.9 per cent. Central bank Governor Mark Carney told reporters he expected growth would suffer because of a probable recession in Europe and continued weakness in the U.S. The economy should see a pickup “from the middle of next year,” he added. The central bank, however, refused to commit to prolonged record-low interest rates, the way it did in the spring of 2009, as Canada emerged from recession. Current circumstances do not warrant the use of such an “unconventional policy tool,” Carney said.

Reuters

CTV

Abolishing the gun registry: following the links as suggested

By John Geddes - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:15 PM - 0 Comments

It’s not fair, I suppose, to expect Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to have cleaned up all the inconsistencies on federal government websites in advance of his announcement yesterday that the long-gun registry is about to be, not only dismantled, but obliterated so all that expensively compiled data on guns can never be used again.

Still, I found it surprising that at the bottom of the background document his department provided yesterday, Abolishing the Long-Gun Registry: Proposed Reforms to the Firearms Act and Criminal Code, I found a note helpfully suggesting a visit to the RCMP’s Canada Firearms Program website.

Continue…

We’re killing each other less than we used to

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 12:09 PM - 0 Comments

The murder rate fell again in 2010

In 2010, police reported 554 homicides in Canada, 56 fewer than the year before. This decline follows a decade of relative stability. The homicide rate fell to 1.62 for every 100,000 population, its lowest level since 1966.

Firearms-related and gang-related homicides declined. The number of homicides by intimate partners (including spouses) was stable.

Paul Dewar goes urban (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Courtesy of the Dewar campaign, here are the other elements of the NDP leadership candidate’s urban agenda.

-Ensure a seat at the table for municipalities in federal/provincial/territorial negotiations dealing with their interests. That means all governments sitting down and working together at the same table when their interests intersect and the problem at hand needs all hands on deck. Jurisdictional sensitivities must not be an excuse for inaction. Canadians expect more.

-Bring all levels of government, Aboriginal communities, and civil society together to develop a National Housing Strategy with timelines, targets, review mechanisms and above all funding to enable Canada to meet its obligation to ensure affordable, adequate housing for all.

-Begin work immediately with its provincial, territorial, and municipal partners to develop a long-term infrastructure investment strategy to replace the Building Canada Plan when it expires in 2014 (there is currently a $123 billion municipal infrastructure deficit). Continue…