Oh, Canadians!
A Tribute to Canadians Who Make A Difference

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Canada's Pavilion at Expo in China

SHANGHAI, CHINA--(Marketwire - Oct. 31, 2010) - The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, today underlined the resounding success of Canada's participation at Expo 2010. Today's closing of Expo 2010 in Shanghai was marked at the Canada Pavilion by a salute to the flag attended by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"Canada really shone at the largest international exposition ever held," said Minister Moore. "The Canada Pavilion took top honours at Expo 2010 Shanghai, and all Canadians can be proud of the image it projected of Canada. As well, it presented Canada as a nation that is modern, inclusive, proud of our natural heritage, and eager to strengthen its ties with China."

Since its opening on May 1, the Canada Pavilion has welcomed more than 6 million visitors. The numbers far surpassed the most optimistic predictions and the initial attendance goal of 5 million visitors. With the involvement and imagination of Cirque du Soleil, Canada built a pavilion that showcased the theme "The Living City: inclusive, sustainable, creative." The public presentation invited visitors on a virtual journey where they could experience the energy and vitality of Canadian cities and discover some of Canada's urban best practices.

The Canada Pavilion offered visitors a feeling of life in a vibrant, diverse, and green Canadian city. The pavilion showed 6 million visitors the image of a modern Canada where cultural diversity, technological expertise, and pride in our environment are all assets that make the country an ideal destination for doing business, studying, or travelling.E xpo 2010 gave Canada an opportunity to advance its foreign policy and international trade goals, reinforce diplomatic and cultural ties with China, and strengthen Canada's brand image in China.

For more information about Canada's participation at Expo 2010, visit www.expo2010canada.gc.ca.

Canada participated at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, which closes today (October 31, 2010). With 242 participating countries and organizations and more than 72 million visitors, it was the largest international exposition ever held. Canada's theme at Expo 2010 was "The Living City: inclusive, sustainable, creative," which showcased our country's artistic, cultural, and democratic values and reflected the overall Expo 2010 theme chosen by China: "Better City, Better Life."

Canada's participation at Expo 2010 consisted of several elements. The Canada Pavilion was the focal point. A large portion of the pavilion was devoted to a public presentation; our participation also included a cultural program, a business program, and a culinary program.

The Canada Pavilion

Over the six months of the exposition (May 1 to October 31), the Canada Pavilion welcomed more than 6 million visitors. The numbers far surpassed the most optimistic predictions and the initial attendance goal set by Canada of 5 million visitors. As well, 18,000 Canadians visited the Canada Pavilion, a clear indication of their support of Canada's participation at Expo 2010 Shanghai. The design and structure of the Canada Pavilion reflected Canadian values of inclusivity, sustainability, and creativity. The three-story structure was the product of a partnership between the Government of Canada and Cirque du Soleil, with building expertise from SNC Lavalin.

The Cultural Program

The Cultural Program allowed 165 Canadian artists from the visual, literary and performing arts to showcase their work at the Canada Pavilion and to demonstrate their talent by participating in various events at the Expo 2010 presentation sites.
In all, performing artists gave 63 live performances, including 5 major shows in large venues, featuring several artists together on stage in front of a large audience.

The Business Program – Conference Centre

The Canada Pavilion Conference Centre and Visitors' Lounge welcomed more than 10,000 visitors to its business and networking activities. VIPs included 12 federal ministers, 5 provincial premiers, and 25 mayors from across Canada. About 100 events were held, including the signing of several agreements in principle. For example, on May 16, 2010, Manulife-Sinochem Life Insurance Co. (Canada) and Bohai Bank (China) signed a $30-million agreement.

The Culinary Program
Six young chefs from across Canada joined Chef Wayne Murphy and the culinary program at the Canada Pavilion.The young chefs served meals to more than 6,000 visitors to the Canada Pavilion, and enjoyed introducing guests and VIPs to Canadian cuisine.

The Canada Pavilion in the Chinese Media
The Canada Pavilion was ranked one of the most popular pavilions at Expo 2010. The Chinese media praised the Canada Pavilion as the most entertaining, interesting, and "wired" pavilion at Expo 2010.

Awards and Honours

The Shanghai Morning News awarded the Canada Pavilion the Expo Oscar for most environmentally responsible pavilion. SNC Lavalin, the company in charge of the construction of the Canada Pavilion, was named Canada Chinese Business Council "Member of the Year" at an awards ceremony held in Beijing, China, on October 13, 2010. The date also marked the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and China.

The Expo Organiser magazine and the Chinese financial daily Diyi Caijing Ribao awarded the Canada Pavilion their "Most Commercially Valuable" designation.
(1) In July, the Canada Pavilion was consistently rated one of Expo's "top attractions." In an article entitled Five Expo "Bests," the popular Chinese website www.163.com described the Canada Pavilion as the "friendliest pavilion" in Shanghai.

RMR 24 Sussex

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Bonar Law- Canadian Prime Minister of England

Andrew Bonar Law PC (16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923), commonly known as Bonar Law, was a British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister. Born in the crown colony of New Brunswick, he is the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles. He was also the shortest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, spending 211 days in office.


Law was born to a rural preacher and his wife in New Brunswick, where he spent his early life. A few years after his mother's death in 1861, his father remarried, and in 1870 Law moved to Helensburgh, Scotland, to live with his mother's sister Janet and her family, who ran a successful merchant bank. After an education at a preparatory school in Hamilton and the High School of Glasgow, Law left school aged sixteen to gain a "commercial education" at the family firm. A few years later the firm was sold to the Clydesdale Bank, putting Law's career in jeopardy until his uncles loaned him the money to buy a partnership in an iron merchants firm. Through hard work and his business acumen the firm flourished under Law, and by the time he was thirty he was a comparatively rich man.

Law first entered politics in 1897, when he was asked to be the Conservative Party candidate for the seats of Glasgow Bridgeton and then Glasgow Blackfriars and Hutchesontown, accepting Blackfriars. Despite a large Liberal Party majority in his seat, Law campaigned successfully for the 1900 general election and was returned to Parliament. In the House of Commons he became noted for his excellent memory and oratory, and soon gained a position on the Conservative front bench. A strong supporter of tariff reform, Law was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in 1902. The issue of tariff reform split the Conservative Party, and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour resigned, prompting a general election in which the Conservative Party were forced into opposition. In opposition Law continued to argue for tariff reform, both in Parliament and within his party, largely avoiding the constitutional crisis surrounding the People's Budget in 1909. His appointment as a Privy Councillor that year marked him out as a conservative frontrunner, and when it became clear that Arthur Balfour would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party, Law put his name forward. Despite trailing third before Walter Long and Austen Chamberlain Law eventually won the election when the strong possibility of a draw between Long and Chamberlain that would split the party forced both to withdraw.

As Leader of the Conservative Party, Law focused his attentions on two main areas; tariff reform, which he supported, and Irish Home Rule, which he was opposed to. As leader of the opposition he was in no position to make active changes, but his strong campaigning, particularly on Home Rule, turned Liberal attempts to pass the Third Home Rule Bill into a three year struggle eventually halted by the start of the First World War.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Jessie Catherine Gray

Jessie Catherine Gray. Born Augusta, Georgia, U.S.A. August 26, 1910.  Died October 16, 1978. A distinguished and internationally recognized surgeon, lecturer and researcher, Dr. Gray has so many “firsts” that “The Canadian Encyclopedia” calls her Canada’s first lady of surgery. From 1941 until retirement in 1965 she worked with the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, as associate and as surgeon-in-chief. Here is the list of firsts: 1934, first woman gold medalist in medicine at the University of Toronto; 1939 first woman to hold a master of surgery degree; 1941 first woman resident surgeon a the Toronto General Hospital; 1941 first Canadian woman to become a “fellow” in the Royal College of Surgeons; first woman member of the Central Surgical Society of North America; 1966 first woman elected to the Science Council of Canada.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Turbine can power home or business

A Canadian-made turbine designed to fit on roofs and help power homes and small businesses will go on sale in December. The Honeywell wind turbine is designed for the roofs of homes and small commercial or agricultural operations. (WindTronics)The Honeywell Wind Turbine measures 1.8 meters across and weighs 84 kg. It can begin producing power at wind speeds of three km/h. It is being manufactured at a new factory in Windsor, Ont.

Reg Adams, president of manufacturer WindTronics, told CBC News the turbines will appeal to commercial and agricultural operations, as well as homeowners who are environmentally conscious, or need emergency backup power."We are complete emergency home standby systems," he said in an interview. "It's like the replacement of a home standby generator. We can build a battery support, and if the power outage is because of a storm, it will have wind. If not, we have charged batteries."Each turbine comes with a computerized smart box and inverter that will allow the unit to feed directly into the ac power system of a home or business, or feed the energy back into the electricity grid.'The Honeywell turbine makes wind technology affordable and accessible.'

—Reg Adams, WindTronicsThe design is intended to maximize power output while minimizing noise and vibration. The unit differs from industrial wind turbines in that it looks more like a fan than windmill and generates power through the tips of the blades rather than turning a generator."The Honeywell turbine makes wind technology affordable and accessible to the vast majority of Canadian homeowners, who have great wind resources," said Adams.

24 years to payback

When its installed in an area with high winds, the turbine can produce up to 2,700 kilowatt hours a year. Based on Ontario's peak power rate of 9.9 cents per kWh, a turbine could save $272 in power costs each year.However, at a cost of $6,500, with an additional $3,000 for installation, it would take 24 years for it to pay for itself. Adams says the company is currently negotiating with the Ontario government to have the turbines included in the Feed-in Tariff Program, which pays a premium for green-power energy. He said if the Ontario government agrees to pay 50 to 55 cents per kilowatt-hour, it will make the turbines far more appealing to everyday homeowners. If Ontario residents were able to feed power back into the grid under such an arrangement, the turbine would earn about $1,500 per year and be paid for in 4½ years.The turbines will be sold at Home Depot and other major retailers across Canada.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/27/con-turbine.html#ixzz13c9Zrj2r

Canadian Genomics

Maud Lenora Menten

Maud Leonora Menten. Born Port Lambton, Ontario 1879  Died 1960. A dedicated and outstanding medical scientist she was the first Canadian woman to receive a medical doctorate in 1911 at the University of Toronto. In 1913, while working in Germany, she and a colleague Leonor Michaelis developed the Michaelis-Menten equation which is a basic biochemical concept. She continued researching and publishing and made discoveries relating to blood sugar, hemoglobin and kidney functions. From 1951-1954 she conducted cancer research in British Columbia.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Bertram Brockhouse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Bertram N. Brockhouse)

Born July 15, 1918

Lethbridge, Alberta

Died October 13, 2003 (aged 85)

Hamilton, Ontario

Nationality Canada

Institutions McMaster University

Notable awards Nobel Prize in physics

Bertram Neville Brockhouse, CC, FRSC (July 15, 1918 – October 13, 2003) was a Canadian physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (1994, shared with Clifford Shull) "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter", in particular "for the development of neutron spectroscopy".

Life

Brockhouse was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, and was a graduate of the University of British Columbia (BA, 1947) and the University of Toronto (MA, 1948; Ph.D, 1950).From 1950 to 1962, Brockhouse carried out research at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory.In 1962, he became professor at McMaster University in Canada, where he remained until his retirement in 1984.

 Awards and recognition

He shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with American Clifford Shull for developing neutron scattering techniques for studying condensed matter. In 1982, Brockhouse was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1995. In October 2005, as part of the 75th anniversary of McMaster University's establishment in Hamilton, Ontario, a street on the University campus (University Avenue) was renamed to Brockhouse Way in honour of Brockhouse. The town of Deep River, Ontario has also named a street in his honour.

The Nobel Prize that Bertram Brockhouse won (shared with Clifford Shull) in 1994 was awarded after the longest ever waiting time (counting from the time when the award-winning research had been carried out).In 1999 the Division of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (DCMMP) and the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) created a medal in honour of Brockhouse. The medal is called the Brockhouse Medal and is awarded to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter and materials physics. This medal is awarded annually on the basis of outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter physics. An eligible candidate must have performed their research primarily with a Canadian Institution.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Volcanic eruption led to B.C. salmon boom: scientist

CBC News
The volcanic eruption led to a massive bloom of special phytoplankton called diatoms — an unusually rich source of food for the growing salmon. A volcanic eruption might have helped produce B.C.'s largest sockeye salmon run since 1913. The 34 million salmon that returned to B.C.'s Fraser River this year were "adolescents" in the Gulf of Alaska when the underwater Kasatochi volcano erupted there in 2008, said Tim Parsons, a research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C.

The ash from that eruption fertilized the ocean, leading to a massive bloom of special phytoplankton called diatoms — an unusually rich source of food for the growing salmon. "When you have an adolescent of any kind [and] you give them lots of food, they have lots of energy, and they build strong bodies," Parsons said. "So, we get back, in my hypothesis, 34 million salmon — which was totally unpredicted — instead of the 1.5 million salmon of the previous year, which fed on a diet — which was the normal diet of the Gulf of Alaska — composed of very small plankton." Parsons said he based his hypothesis on the recent research results reported by Roberta Hamme, an assistant professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. Hamme, who observed the plankton bloom using satellite imaging, said in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that it was one of the largest such blooms observed in the subarctic North Pacific. Parsons said the 2009 sockeye run was small because the fish in that run were older, closer to adulthood, and were starting to move out of the Gulf of Alaska at the time the eruption happened.

The link between the plankton bloom and the huge sockeye run of 2010 is consistent with Parsons's own research. In one 1970s experiment, the sockeye run increased seven fold after he fertilized a lake on Vancouver Island. In other studies, he found salmon populations in the Gulf of Alaska depend on the density of phytoplankton.
Parsons suggests that if his hypothesis proves true, it could help fisheries managers make better predictions about salmon populations. A federal inquiry into the state of B.C.'s wild salmon stocks opened in Vancouver on Monday.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/25/volcano-bc-eruption-sockeye-salmon.html#ixzz13PXtK4qF

The Railrodder- Buster Keaton

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Dr. Frances Gertrude McGill

Forensic pathologist, a criminologist and first Honorary Surgeon to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


Sometimes dubbed the "Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan," Dr. Frances Gertrude McGill, is a pioneer in many ways. Graduated in medicine at a time when few women ventured into this area, she devotes most of his career in forensic pathology, a discipline then emerging in Canada. She works officially for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) From 1943 and is considered as the "first police horse" of the police force. Renowned for its professionalism and for his unfailing unfailing availability, she built a solid reputation in a world of men. Its success is embodied in the motto probably endorsed it: "Think like a man, act like a lady and work like a dog."

Frances G. McGill was born in 1877 in Minnedosa, Manitoba. She grew up on a farm and a family of Irish origin, where the medical vocation is everywhere: one of his brothers is a doctor and his sister is a nurse. Frances G. McGill is no exception: she obtained her medical degree in 1915 from the University of Manitoba. She abandons her brief teaching career she began after her training at the Winnipeg Normal School to pay for college. Gifted student, she succeeded with flying colors and received his education, including the gold medal Hutchison for its excellent academic results.

After a year of internship at Winnipeg General Hospital, she began a postgraduate course to provincial laboratories in Manitoba, under the supervision of the Director of the institution, the renowned Gordon Bell, Ph.D. In 1918, the Dr. McGill is appointed by the bacteriologist provincial Ministry of Health in Saskatchewan. She works diligently, especially during the serious epidemic of Spanish influenza. In 1920, she accepted the post of provincial pathologist, and two years later, the director of the laboratory of the province where she is working primarily to resolve cases of suspicious deaths. She works closely with various police forces, including the RCMP and a reputation as a great criminologist. His testimony in court and are deemed by his painstaking work it helps to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. His investigations led him to crisscross the province in difficult conditions; travel are many, in all climates and by all means of transportation: dog sledding, snowmobiling, seaplane ...

When in 1937 the RCMP opens its own forensic laboratory in Regina, the workload of Dr. McGill decreases considerably. She nevertheless continued her work with the local police until his retirement from the position of provincial pathologist in 1942. For Ms. McGill, this retreat does not mean inaction. In addition to his private practice, she engages in effect at many recreation including hunting, fishing, horse riding and bridge. She even finds time to support the war effort by knitting wool socks for soldiers involved in various associations including the Business and Professional Women's Club and Regina Women's Canadian Club.

In 1943, Dr. McGill became head of the Forensic Laboratory RCMP.  It then starts its investigations throughout the province. Alongside this work, it gives future police and detectives in the country during the medical jurisprudence, pathology and toxicology. Communicative and with a proverbial sense of humor, she said that humor prevented a morbid depression. She knows to convey her valuable expertise. She teaches them how to collect and preserve evidence, how to study a crime scene, how to distinguish human blood from animal blood, etc..

After officially ended its work with the RCMP Dr. McGill remains a consultant to the Force as honorary surgeon, as it receives 16 January 1946. Between his appointment and her death, January 21, 1959, Dr. McGill remains active. This includes furthering her private practice specializing in the treatment of allergies and skin diseases. We can summarize her career at what she said: "It was a lot of hard work and lots of fun ... and when the work is fun, it's never really hard ". McGill Lake located north of Lake Athabasca, Saskatchewan, bears her name.

Resources

Fund of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, clippings from the personal file of Frances McGill, RG18-G, File G455-198, Volume 3573.

Bannerman, John MacKay. Leading Ladies Canada Belleville, Mika Pub, 1977.

Churchman, Jim. "Initio" R.C.M.P. Quarterly, Vol. 38, No.o3 (July 1972), pp. 20-25.

Hacker, Carlotta. The Indomitable Lady Doctors, Halifax: Formac Publishing Company Limited, 2001.

Holmlund, Mona and GAIL Youngberg, ed. Inspiring Women: A Celebration of Her StoryRegina, Coteau Books, 2003.

Petersen, Myrna. "McGill, Frances (1882-1959)." The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan: http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/mcgill_frances_1882-1959.html%20(Accessed 3 June 2008, link in English only).

Salterio, Joe L. "McGill, Frances G., M.D.. R.C.M.P. Quarterly, Vol. 12, No.o1 (January 1946), pp. 25-32.

"MI Frances Gertrude McGill, (1877-1959). " University of Manitoba: www.umanitoba.ca / libraries / units / health / resources / womhist / fgmcgillf.html (Accessed June 3, 2008).

"Frances Gertrude McGill 1877-1959. Museum of Science and Technology Museum: http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/francais/about/hallfame/u_i23_f.cfm%20(Accessed June 3, 2008).

"Historical Notes - Women in the RCMP", Site of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/hnud-nhut/women-femmes-fra.htm (Accessed March 26, 2009).

Burgun, Isabelle. "Frances McGill, working for justice"

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Rainy Days

Emily Howard Stowe

Emily Howard Stowe (née Jennings). Born Norwich, Upper Canada (Ontario) May 1, 1831. Died April 30,1903.  A life long champion of women’s rights. With no Canadian institution allowing women to study medicine she studied in the United States and  in 1868 became the first Canadian woman to practice medicine in Canada. It was she who organized the Women’s Medical College in Toronto in 1883. She was also founder and first president of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association in 1889.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Canada's first cross dressing doctor

James Miranda Stuart Barry. (née Bulkeley [?]) Born England 1795. Died 1865. In the day when medicine only accepted men as students one woman disguised herself as a man and entered the Edinburgh University in 1809. As a doctor in the British army she served in the far corners of the British Empire and gained a reputation as an outstanding surgeon. In 157 Dr. Barry was posted to Canada where he was well respected for his fight to provide cleaner hospital facilities and better food for the working soldiers. An odd small “man” with little or no facial hair Dr. Barry was considered an eccentric. It would not be until death, when the body was being prepared for burial that it would be discovered that the renowned doctor was indeed a woman! It must have cause a stir in the Victorian society to have had the first “woman” doctor in the British Army!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Keeping Canada's unique Gaelic culture alive

Some folk music forms still heard in Cape Breton, like at the Celtic Colours International Festival, have been lost in Scotland and reintroduced from Canada. Musicians, folk culture enthusiasts and teachers have been spearheading attempts to revitalize a unique Gaelic culture on an island off Canada's Atlantic coast. Brandy Yanchyk reports from the Celtic Colours International Festival on Cape Breton.

Several hundred years after Canada's Nova Scotia province was settled by refugees from the Scottish Highlands and islands, the Gaelic culture they brought with them survives, just.

On the island of Cape Breton, Gaelic has endured even as the language came under intense pressure from Canada's English-speaking majority.The island's road signs are printed in Gaelic and English. Some Gaelic supporters say the people's Celtic roots are evident in their humour and story-telling traditions."In teaching the language here I find that they already have the blasts, the sound of the Gaelic even in their English," says Margie Beaton, who was brought over from Scotland in 1976 to help revitalize the Gaelic language. "It's part of who they are, you can't just throw that away. It's in you."

For the past week and a half, fiddles, harps and Gaelic songs have delighted crowds at the 14th annual Celtic Colours International Festival, a key part of the island's efforts at cultural revival.“We are just like the native peoples here," poet Lewis MacKinnon says of "indigenous" Gaelic culture.Local musicians and songwriters were joined by musicians from Scotland and Ireland, in a bid to celebrate Celtic song and keep the language alive.Malcolm Munro, a singer from the Scottish band Meantime, said he had noticed a resurgence in Gaelic in Cape Breton since he first visited 17 years ago.

Younger generations have made learning the language a priority and have helped keep Scottish traditions like fiddle music, step-dancing and piping alive, Mr Munro says."I've seen fresh roots of recovery here in Cape Breton," he says.Cape Breton residents and officials' desire to keep the Gaelic language alive goes beyond the festival.In 1995, Nova Scotia schools began offering Gaelic language as a core subject, after years in which the province lacked the funding to do so.

Adults keen to brush up on their Gaelic can take an immersion course called "Gaidhlig Aig Baile" (Gaelic in the community), in which groups meet weekly to practice speaking Gaelic and learn traditional Scottish pursuits like milling frolics, where Gaelic songs are sung in rhythm while beating a woven wool blanket across a table-top.And Nova Scotia's Office of Gaelic Affairs hopes to develop an all-immersion Gaelic curriculum in schools.

Scottish settlers

The efforts come after a long decline in Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia, as generations of Gaelic speakers have passed away, taking their knowledge of the culture with the Street signs on Cape Breton island are printed in both English and Gaelic
An estimated 2,000 people speak Gaelic across Nova Scotia now, officials estimate. Roughly 25,000 Gaelic speakers settled in Nova Scotia from Scotland in the 1770s. Gaelic's decline coincided with the rise of formal English-language education in Nova Scotia in the mid-19th Century. Students were punished for speaking Gaelic in school, and by the 1930s many parents stopped passing down Celtic traditions, believing that to get ahead their children had to assimilate into English-speaking culture."We are just like the native peoples here, our culture is indigenous to this region," says Lewis MacKinnon, a musician and Gaelic poet from Cape Breton and head of the Nova Scotia Office of Gaelic Affairs."We too have suffered injustices, we too have been excluded, we too have been forgotten and ridiculed for something that is simply part of who and what we are. It's part of our human expression and that story needs to be told."

Canadian Gaelic dialect

The community's isolation has helped preserve traditions that sailed across the Atlantic with the original settlers but have since declined in Scotland. Gaelic language teacher Margie Beaton hears "blasts" of Gaelic in the island's vernacular English."The dialect of Gaelic that I speak... doesn't exist anymore in Scotland," Mr MacKinnon says.

And Mr MacKinnon says styles of step dancing and fiddling found on Cape Breton have been lost in Scotland, with efforts underway to reintroduce them there.Ms Beaton, the Gaelic language teacher, said Scots also feel the connection to their new world cousins."The motto they have for Nova Scotia is 'Ach an cuan' which translates as 'but for the ocean', meaning 'but for the ocean we'd actually be together.' There's only an ocean separating us," explains Mrs Beaton."We're like another island off the coast of Scotland but we have an ocean separating us instead of a strait or a channel."

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Canadian citizenship: What it takes

The 2006 census listed 6,186,950 people as being born outside of Canada. Here are the top 10 countries of origin:

Country Immigrants

U.K. 579,620

China 466,940

India 443,690

Philippines 303,195

Italy 296,850

U.S. 250,535

Hong Kong 215,430

Germany 171,405

Poland 170,490

Viet Nam 160,170
Source: Statistics Canada

Applicants must:

•Be at least 18 years old (or a child's guardian, parent or adoptive parent may apply on his/her behalf).

•Have permanent resident status and not be involved in an immigration investigation, inquiry or removal order.

•Have lived in the country for at least three years (1,095 days) over the past four years. Children are exempted from this requirement.

•Have knowledge of either French or English.

•Must have a clean record. Applicants cannot be in prison, parole or probation; have been convicted of an indictable offence, or be under investigation for or convicted of a war crime or crime against humanity.

•Must understand the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and have an understanding of Canadian history, society and symbols.

How long does it take to process a claim for citizenship?

Routine applications normally take 15 to 19 months to process.
However, any number of factors could delay approval, such as if the person submits an incomplete application or misses a citizenship test, hearing or ceremony.

Top 10 countries of origin for immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2006
Country Immigrants

China 155,105

India 129,140

Philippines 77,880

Pakistan 57,630

U.S. 38,770

South Korea 35,450

Iran 27,600

Romania 28,080

U.K. 25,655

Colombia 25,305

Applicants may be asked to submit fingerprints in order toverify their identities and confirm that they do not have any criminal charges or convictions that could affect their applications. Delays can also occur if authorities request further information to confirm that applicant have an acceptable understanding of French or English, meet residency requirements and aren't subject to any immigration, criminal or security prohibitions.

Which family members can accompany someone who immigrates to Canada?

A person who becomes a permanent resident can move to Canada with his/her:

•Spouse or common-law partner.

•Dependent child, or that of a spouse or common-law spouse.

•The dependent child of a dependent child.

Parents, grandparents or other family members are not eligible. But an immigrant can later apply to sponsor them to come to Canada.

Is it necessary to hire a lawyer to navigate through the immigration process?

No. It's not mandatory to hire a lawyer or immigration consultant, and hiring one won't speed up the process or guarantee approval. Immigration representatives can offer advice and assistance to help people through the process.There are two types of representatives: paid and unpaid.

Paid immigration representatives must be lawyers who are in good standing with a provincial or territorial law society, immigration consultants who are members in good standing with the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, or notaries who are members in good standing with the Chambre des notaires du Québec.An unpaid consultant can be a family member, friend or member of a non-governmental or religious organization.

What are the requirements for people who want to immigrate to Canada and open a business?

They must have managed a business and have owned a part of a business for at least two years in the period that begins five years before they submit their application and ends when a decision is made on the application. Businesses operated primarily for the purpose of deriving investment income are not eligible.Their assets and those of their spouses or common-law partners must exceed their combined liabilities by $300,000.Applicants also have to prove that none of their net worth comes from criminal activity.

As well, they must pass a medical examination and security and criminal checks.
Prospective immigrants can also apply to come to Canada as investors. They would have to show that they have business experience and a net worth of $800,000 that was obtained legally. They would also have to show that they could make an investment of at least $400,000.

How does a person claim refugee status?

Canada provides refugee status to individuals in need of protection and to those who meet the definition of a convention refugee, as outlined in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. For more information on the refugee process, see our Flight to Canada FAQ.

How much does it cost to apply for citizenship?


The cost for an adult is $200. It's $100 for a child under 18.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/10/18/f-canadian-citizenship-faq.html#ixzz12u32VTfV

The Acadian Expulsion

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

David Suzuki's Dirty Dozen

The dirty dozen:

1 – BHA and BHT. Used in moisturizers as preservatives, the suspected endocrine disruptors may cause cancer and are known to be harmful to fish and other wildlife

2 – Coal-tar dyes such as p-phenylenediamine and colours listed as CI followed by five digits. Used in some hair dyes, may be contaminated with heavy metals toxic to the brain.

3 – DEA, cocamide DEA and lauramide DEA. Used in some creamy and foaming moisturizers and shampoos. Can react to form nitrosamines, which may cause cancer. Harmful to fish and other wildlife.

4 – Dibuytl phthalate. Used as a plasticizer in some nail-care products. Suspected endocrine disrupter and reproductive toxicant. Harmful to fish and other wildlife.

5 – Formaldehyde releasing preservatives such as DMDM hydantoin, diazolidinyl urea, imidazolidinyl urea, methenamine, quarternium-15 and sodium hydroxymethylglycinate. Used in a variety of cosmetics. Slowly release small amounts of formaldehyde, which causes cancer.

6 – Paraben, methylparaben, butylparaben and propylparaben. Used in a variety of cosmetics as preservatives. Suspected endocrine disrupters and may interfere with male reproductive functions.

7 – Parfum. Any mixture of fragrance ingredients used in a variety of cosmetics. Some fragrance ingredients can trigger allergies and asthma. Some linked to cancer and neurotoxicity. Some harmful to fish and other wildlife.

8 – PEG Compounds such as PEG-60. Used in some cosmetic cream bases. Can be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, which may cause cancer.

9 – Petrolatum. Used in some hair products for shine and as a moisture barrier in some lip balms, lip sticks and moisturizers. A petroleum product that can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may cause cancer.

10 – Siloxanes: cyclotetrasiloxane, cyclopentasiloxane, cyclohexasiloxane and cyclopethicone. Used in a variety of cosmetics to soften, smooth and moisten. Suspected endocrine disrupter and reproductive toxicant (cyclotetrasiloxane). Harmful to fish and other wildlife.

11 – Sodium laureth sulphate. Used in some foaming cosmetics, such as shampoos, cleansers and bubble bath. Can be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, which may cause cancer.

12 – Triclosan. Used in some antibacterial cosmetics, such as toothpastes, cleansers and deodorants. Suspected endocrine disrupter and may contribute to antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Harmful to fish and other wildlife.

Courtesy the David Suzuki Foundation
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/19/suzuki-dirty-dozen.html#ixzz12qdaBF2i

"Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature" was written by Pavan Sukhdev

In Canada, the report found that Canada's northern boreal forest is worth $191 billion a year, for all of the services it provides, from storing greenhouse gases, to filtering water. And the greenbelt that surrounds the Greater Toronto Area contributes $2.6 billion annually worth of flood control, waste treatment, and clean air — roughly $3,487 per hectare. The emerging carbon market will make the boreal forest more valuable as a carbon sink than for its timber, Elgie says. And once people see nature's true price tag, they might be careful what they buy, he hopes.


A recent OECD report ranked Canada 29th of 33 countries in creating economic incentives to reduce pollution and conserve nature. Aside from progress such as recent expansion of national parks and protected marine areas, Liberal Environment critic Gerard Kennedy says Canada is an environmental laggard."[Canada] needs to do more than simply put nature in a museum in a restricted area," Kennedy said. "Outside of those parks, Canada's nature is in distress."

"Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature" was written by Pavan Sukhdev, a banker who heads the UN's green economy initiative.
It found that nature provides trillions of dollars in "free" services to the global economy every year, and having to account for all of those services being removed would significantly reduce the world's economic output and cost far more."From an economic point of view, the flows of ecosystem services can be seen as the ‘dividend’ that society receives from natural capital," the report said."Because we get nature’s services for free, we tend to use them wastefully," said Prof. Stewart Elgie, chair of think-tank Environmental Prosperity, which contributed to the UN's report. "Like a tenant that doesn't pay for electricity, [we tend] to leave the lights on."
Taking an economic perspective, the report proposes that economic instruments can be used to incentivize sustainable environmental practices, and was full of global examples of that in action. Reducing forest loss by half would generate $3.7 trillion worth of greenhouse gas reductions, the report found, and the largest 3,000 companies in the world cause $2.2 trillion in uncounted environmental costs — the equivalent of more than a third of their annual profits.'Like a tenant that doesn't pay for electricity, he tends to leave the lights on'—Prof. Stewart Elgie

Fifteen years ago in New York State, Elgie notes, officials had to replace a water treatment plant. A man-made facility would have cost between $6 and $8 billion US, plus between $300 and $500 million annually to maintain. "Instead they paid a bunch of landowners and farm owners in the Hudson river watershed to restore forests … it cost them about $1 billion US," he said, "[and] water rates in New York were 80 per cent lower than they would have been otherwise."


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/10/19/un-economy-environment-ecosystem.html#ixzz12qbKbGwV

Monday, October 18, 2010

K’naan

His song









You may have heard  his song......



Born in Somalia,K'naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991. His aunt, Magool, was one of Somalia's most famous singers. K'naan's grandfather, Haji Mohammad, was a poet. He is Muslim, and his name, Keinan, means "traveler" in the Somali language. He spent the early years of his life listening to the hip-hop records sent to him from America by his father, who had left Somalia earlier. When he was 13, K'naan, his mother, and his three siblings, older brother, Liban, and younger sisters Naciimo, Sagal left their homeland and joined relatives in New York City, where they stayed briefly before moving to Canada, to the Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale,where there was a large Somali community and his family still resides. There, K'naan began learning English, partly by listening to hip hop albums by artists like Nas and Rakim. Despite the fact that he could not yet speak the language, the young K'naan taught himself hip-hop and rap diction, copying the lyrics and style phonetically.He then also began rapping. While growing up in Rexdale, K'naan spent time in prison and lost many friends to murder, suicide, prison, and deportation.He is married to Deqa, a pharmacy technician. They have two sons, born in 2005 and 2007.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Irma LeVasseur

Irma LeVasseur Born January 18, 1878. Died January 22, 1964. Young Irma wanted to study medicine but no schools in Canada would accept women, so Irma headed to New York in the U.S.A. to earn her medical education. She returned to Quebec in 1900 but it would take three years before a private members bill would pass the legislature allowing her to join the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Province of Quebec as the first woman doctor. She found a lack of knowledge about childhood medical practices and travelled to Europe to gain more knowledge in 1908. She and Mme De Gaspé-Beaubien founded Hôpital Sainte-Justine for the care of children. In 1915 she responded to the request of doctors to serve in World War l returning to New York to work for the Red Cross in the USA. In 1922, using her own savings, she founded Hôpital de L’Enfant-Jésus. By 1927 she had her own clinic for handicapped children and also opened a school for disabled youth. In order to relax from the rigueur of medicine and hospital administration she worked with her other passion of painting and took classes at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the 1920’s becoming an accomplished artist. In the 1950’s she was celebrated for her 50 years of medical service by the Circle des femmes universitaires, however, she would die in poverty largely and unknown pioneer in pediatric medical care. Sources: Irma Levasseur

Ignatieff

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Georgina Fane Pope

Georgina Fane Pope. Born Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island 1862. Died June 6, 1938.  She graduated from the Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing, in New York. and served in various administrative positions at hospitals in the US. With the Canadian involvement in the South African War , she volunteered for nursing services with the British forces in October 1899. In fact she headed the first group of four Canadian nurses. In 1902 she returned to South Africa , leading a small nursing force, the third such group but this time they were officially the Canadian Army Nursing Service, a part of the Canadian Army Medical Corp. In 1903 she was the first Canadian to receive the Royal Red Cross for conspicuous service in the field. Once more at home, she continued to serve in the Canadian reserves. By 1906 she was working with the permanent forces at the Garrison Hospital at Halifax and in 1908 she became the first Matron of the Canadian Army Medical Corp. She served in World War 1 in 1917 -1918.  In 1983 Canada’s National Historical Sites and Monument Board declared her a National Historic Person of Canada.

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Canadian Microbiome Initiative

If you are wondering who is working on the real issues of human life, the following Canadian researchers are working on the real war that humanity is facing in realitive obscurity. The world will owe a great debt of gratitude to these people.
The researchers and projects in the Canadian Microbiome Initiative include:

• David Guttman of the University of Toronto, whose team is studying the role bacteria, viruses and fungi play in the severity and progression of lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis. For example, whether the microbes exacerbate the disease.

• Anita Kozyrskyj, an epidemiologist at the University of Alberta, is co-director of a cross-Canada team investigating whether giving antibiotics in the first year of life triggers asthma and allergies later in childhood by harming the bacterial balance in the intestine that helps the body absorb nutrients and protects against harmful bugs.

• In Vancouver, Dr. Deborah Money of the Women's Health Research Institute is leading a project to examine vaginal organisms to determine what a healthy bacterial balance is for women to protect against sexually transmitted infections and prevent miscarriage and pre-term birth.

• Dr. Ken Croitoru, a gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, will sequence the DNA of microbes in the digestive system that might play a role in the development of inflammatory bowel disease.

The research teams are based in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Genome British Columbia, the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation are also jointly providing $1.4 million in funding.





Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/10/14/microbiome-research-funding-cihr.html#ixzz12O2fhwua

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Jeanne Mance- Canadienne hero

Jeanne Mance. Baptised Langres, France November 12, 1606 Died June 18, 1673. As a young reader she had enjoyed reading the Jesuit Relations, published reports of priests in the new world and thus she became interested in foreign missions, Jeanne joined the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. She sailed as the first lay nurse for New France May 9, 1641 and founded first hospital in New France in 1642. The, Hotel-Dieu Hospital of Montreal was completed by 1645. She would return to France twice, in 1645 and 1657 to attain additional financial support for her work in Montreal. Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp in her honour in 1973. She has been declared a National Historic Person of Canada by Canada’s Historic Sites and Monument Board.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Crisis looms in Intensive Care beds

A Study in Lancet by Canadian Dr Gordon Rubenfeld, from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said that huge investment would be needed to keep pace with the growing demand for intensive care services.

Experts believe there will not be more intensive care beds as health budgets shrink The relatively low number of intensive care beds in UK hospitals means it is poorly prepared for major disasters, a report in the Lancet says.

Critical care experts say there may be as few as 3.5 intensive care beds per 100,000 people in the UK, compared with more than 24 per 100,000 in Germany.The experts from Canada also said demand for intensive care was likely to rise with an ageing population.One figure suggests that by 2030, the incidence of acute lung injury will have risen 50%, driven by pneumonia cases in older people.

Dr Rubenfeld analysed the availability of critical care beds in various countries, and while conceding that the figure of 3.5 per 100,000 might under-represent the true position, he concluded that, at present levels, the UK would not be in a good position to deal with the extra demands of a disaster.He said: "It is clear that the UK is at the low end of ICU bed capacity, and thus would have decreased ability to cope with a large-scale disaster with many critically injured casualties." "If we have a pandemic of normal winter flu we would be stretched to the limit”

Currently, an intensive care bed costs the NHS about £1,500 a day, and Professor Mervyn Singer, from University College London, said it was unrealistic to expect a significant expansion of intensive care at a time when health budgets were shrinking in real terms.He said: "We are clearly in a worse position than some other countries because there is no spare capacity in the system, with many units running at 100% capacity, or close to it."While it would be nice to have extra wards and staff ready in the event of a disaster, it is not a particularly pragmatic expectation.

"There are things you can do in the event of a disaster, such as cancelling surgery, which frees up beds, but it is very much a 'make do and mend' approach in these circumstances."



Local demands



Dr Kevin Gunning, a consultant in intensive care at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and a spokesman for the Intensive Care Society, said that in the event of a major pandemic or other disaster, the true determinant of intensive care capacity would be staff such as trained nurses rather than beds or equipment.While there had been significant improvements since the year 2000, when a severe outbreak of winter flu caused problems across the NHS, he said the UK was still relatively poorly resourced compared with much of western Europe.

He said: "It's fair to say that we would have struggled with a flu pandemic of the scale some were predicting last year. "If we have a pandemic of normal winter flu we would be stretched to the limit."A Department of Health spokesman said: "The number of beds has increased and continues to increase but more does need to be done in some areas."However, international comparisons are difficult because there is no internationally agreed or clearly accepted definition of a 'critical care bed' or in the way that services are configured and delivered.
"It is for local healthcare commissioners and providers to assess the number of critical care beds needed locally to meet the demands of their population."

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Women’s Rights In Canada – Through History

1875 - Grace Annie Lockhart
Grace Annie Lockhart was the first woman to receive a university degree when she graduated from Mount Allison University.

1881 - Dr. Emily Stowe
Dr. Emily Stowe established a medical practice in Toronto and was the first woman to practise medicine in Canada.

1884 - Widows and Unmarried Women win the Right to Vote
Women who are widows and unmarried were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario. Married women could not vote as only their husband’s votes would count.

1900 - The Married Women's Property Act
The Married Women's Property Act gives married women in Manitoba the same legal capacity as men in terms of property ownership. Previously, everything was under the ownership of the husband. Within a decade, P.E.I. and Saskatchewan would grant women the same rights.

1913 - Alys McKey Bryant
Alys McKey Bryant became the first woman to pilot an airplane in Canada.

1915 - Nurse Elizabeth Smellie
Nurse Elizabeth Smellie is the first woman to be appointed Colonel in the Canadian Army.

1916 - The right to vote in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan
Women win the right to vote in provincial elections in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. In the next two years, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia would grant women the same rights.

1918 - Act To Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women
An Act To Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women grants women the right to vote in federal elections.

1921 - Agnes MacPhail
Agnes MacPhail became the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament. She represented the riding in Grey Country, Ontario.

1922 - The Married Women's Property Act
The Married Women's Property Act gives married women in Alberta the same legal capacity as men. Before this, any rights that women had would have been transferred to their husband once they got married.

1924 - Cecile Eustace Smith
Cecile Eustace Smith, a 15 year old figure skater, became the first Canadian woman to represent Canada in an Olympic Games.

1929 - The word 'persons' in Canada's Constitution
The five Lords of the Judicial Committee of England's Privy Council ruled unanimously that the word ‘persons' in Canada's constitution should include both the male and female sex. As such the British Privy Council allows women to be appointed to the Canadian Senate.

1936 - Barbara Hanley
Barbara Hanley is the first woman elected to the position of mayor. She presided over the town of Webwood, Ontario.

1937 - Léa Roback
Léah Roback led 5000 garment industry workers in Montreal on a massive strike that lasted 25 days. They were protesting 60 hour work weeks, poverty level wages and miserable working conditions.

1951 - The Fair Employment Practices Act in Ontario
The Fair Employment Practices Act is passed in Ontario and equal pay legislation is introduced in the province.

1953 - The Fair Employment Practices Act in Canada
Canada passes the Fair Employment Practices Act and year later, the federal government declared its fair wages policy.

1956 - Female Employees Equal Pay Act
The federal government passes the Female Employees Equal Pay Act.

1974 - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police accept 4 female recruits, the first women to join the force.

1976 - Sue Holloway
Sue Holloway became the first Canadian woman to ever compete in both winter and summer Olympic Games in the same year.

1977 - The Canadian Human Rights Act
The Canadian Human Rights Act was passed by prime minister, Pierre E. Trudeau, The Canadian Human Rights Act gave basic rights to all humans. There was no discrimination based on sex, race, religion, sexuality. It specified that there must be equal pay for work of equal value.

1980 and 1984 - Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé
Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé was appointed the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons. In Canada, it is the Speaker's responsibility to manage the House of Commons and supervise its staff.

1984 - first woman Governor General
Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé then became the first woman Governor General of Canada.

1986 - Sharon Adele Wood
Canadian, Sharon Adele Wood is the first woman from the Western hemisphere to climb Mount Everest.

1987 - Discrimination in the Hiring of Women
Systemic discrimination in the hiring of women is found to be unlawful.

1989 - Sexual Harassment is a form of Sex Discrimination
The Supreme Court of Canada decided that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination.

1989 - Audrey McLaughlin
Audrey McLaughlin, Member of Parliament from the Yukon, was elected as the leader of the federal New Democratic Party and became the first woman ever to lead a national political party in Canada.

1993 - First Female Premier
Catherine Callbeck was elected Premier of Prince Edward Island and became the first female Premier elected in Canada.

1993 - First Female Prime Minister
Kim Campbell became the first female Canadian Prime Minister.

1994 - Lenna Bradbum
Lenna Bradbum was appointed Canada's first ever woman police chief in Guelph, Ontario.

1996 - Summer Olympics
Of the 307 Canadian athletes who competed in 1996 Summer Olympics, 154 were women and 153 were men, making this the first Canadian Olympic team ever to consist of more women than men.
1996 - Heather Reisman

Heather Reisman founded Indigo Books. Five years later, it would merge with Chapters to form the largest book retailer in Canada.

1998 - Arlene Dickinson
Arlene Dickinson, a Canadian marketing professional, took sole ownership of Venture Communications, one of Canada's largest independent marketing firms.

2000 - Beverly McLachlin
Beverly McLachlin became to first woman to hold the title of Chief Justice of Canada.

2001 - Lieutenant Governors and the Governor General
Lieutenant Governors in seven Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) and the Governor General of Canada were women.

2002 - Canadian Senate
Approximately one third of the Canadian Senate are women.

Friday, October 8, 2010

The Supreme Court of Canada

SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court of Canada is Canada's highest court. It is the final court of appeal, and the last resort for all litigants, whether individuals or governments.However, the Supreme Court hasn't always been the last court of appeal in Canada. At the time of Confederation, decisions from provincial courts could be appealed directly to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, for a final decision.

The Supreme Court of Canada was constituted in 1875 by an act of Parliament and is now governed by the Supreme Court Act. Bills for the creation of the Supreme Court were introduced in the Parliament of Canada in 1869 and in 1870, but both failed. However, on April 8, 1875, a new bill was finally passed. The Supreme Court is composed of a chief justice and eight puisne judges (puisne meaning ranked after), all appointed by the governor-in-council. It has jurisdiction over all areas of the law, including constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and private law.

On Feb. 20, 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a change in the process of appointing Supreme Court judges. Nominees will have to face three hours of questions from an all-party committee of the House of Commons. The committee does not have the power to veto a nominee. The final decision on whether to go ahead with the appointment or withdraw a nominee's name rests with the prime minister.
The first nominee to be questioned before such a committee was Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein on Feb. 27, 2006.

History of the Supreme Court of Canada

Courts of law thrived in the 18th-century in Quebec (Lower Canada), Ontario (Upper Canada), and in the Maritime colonies. The Quebec Act, 1774, section17, defined powers for creating British-style criminal, civil and ecclesiastical courts in Quebec, along with Quebec's much more ancient French courts. The Constitutional Act, 1791, created the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and established new courts for each province. Next, the Union Act, 1840 created the first Court of Appeal, in this case for Upper Canada, and set salaries for judges across the country. The Constitution Act, 1867, allowed the new federal Parliament to create its own court of appeal. This was used by Parliament to create the Supreme Court of Canada. However, decisions of the new court still could be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for final judgment. This did not end until 1933 for criminal appeals, and 1949 for civil appeals.

The statesmen most prominent in establishing the Supreme Court were Sir John A. Macdonald, Télesphore Fournier, Alexander Mackenzie and Edward Blake. This court originally had six justices. In addition to Chief Justice Richards, five associate or puisne justices sat. In 1927, the number of Supreme Court justices increased to seven and, in 1949, the court reached its present total of nine members. Of the nine, three must by law be from Quebec. Tradition dictates that three others are from Ontario, two are from the West, and one is from Atlantic Canada.

The court first sat in the Railway Committee Room at the House of Commons. In 1882, the court moved to its own small building at the foot of Parliament Hill on Bank Street. Sixty years later, the Supreme Court Building as we know it today began construction. It was designed by Ernest Cormier, the Montreal architect who also designed the Government Printing Bureau in Hull and the University of Montreal. It is situated just west of the Parliament Buildings on a bluff high above the Ottawa River. The late Queen Mother, then Queen Elizabeth, laid the cornerstone in the presence of her husband, King George VI, on May 20, 1939. After delays caused by the Second World War and the new building being used to meet wartime needs, the new court building finally held its first case in January 1946.

The Constitutional Framework

The judicial system in Canada is divided between the federal government and the 10 provincial governments. The provinces are given jurisdiction over "the administration of justice" in the provinces, including "the constitution, organization and maintenance" of the courts, both civil and criminal, in the province, as well as civil procedure in those courts. However, this jurisdiction does not extend to the appointment of the judges of all of these courts. The power to appoint the judges of the superior courts in the provinces is given to the federal government, as is the authority to remove them.

The Judiciary

All members of the judiciary in Canada, regardless of the court, are drawn from the legal profession. Those judges appointed by the federal government are required by federal statute to have been a member of a provincial or territorial bar for at least 10 years. Lawyers wishing to become judges must apply to do so and their applications are reviewed by committees established for that purpose. However, the federal cabinet has the final say.

All judges in Canada are subject to mandatory retirement. In the case of some of the judges appointed by the federal government, the age of retirement is fixed by the Constitution Act, 1867, at 75. In the case of all other judges, both federally and provincially appointed, the age is either 70 or 75, depending on the court. The chief justice is also a deputy of the governor general. This was established for the purpose of giving royal assent to bills passed by Parliament, signing official documents or receiving credentials of newly appointed high commissioners and ambassadors. Should the governor general die, become incapacitated or be absent from the country for a period of more than one month, the chief justice or, if that office is vacant, the senior puisne justice of the Supreme Court, would exercise all the powers and duties of the governor general.

Organization of Courts

The courts in Canada are organized in a four-tiered structure:

•The Supreme Court of Canada sits at the top of the structure and hears appeals from both the federal court system and the provincial court systems,

•The next tier down from the Supreme Court of Canada consists of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada and the various provincial courts of appeal.

•The third tier consists of the Federal Court of Canada and the provincial and territorial superior courts of general jurisdiction.

•At the bottom of the hierarchy are the courts typically described as provincial courts. These include a traffic division, a small claims division, a family division and a criminal division.

The Administration of the Supreme Court

The staff of the Supreme Court total almost 150 members of the federal public service. Each justice has three law clerks who provide research assistance for a one-year term. This term satisfies the articling requirements to enter the practice of law. A judicial assistant and a court attendant are responsible for the management of the justice's office.

Court Locations

There are approximately 750 courts in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada sits only in Ottawa. The Federal Court and the Tax Court have offices at 22 permanent locations. The provincial and territorial courts sit at more than 700 locations. These include 15 permanent provincial and territorial appellate court sitting locations - one in each province and territory except for Quebec and Alberta, which have two each.

What is the annual salary of a Supreme Court Judge?

•Chief Justice: $278,400

•Puisne Justices: $257,800

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Canada House Art Gallery Banff


Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Brilliant work at the University of British Columbia

Mushrooms to replace styrofoam


POST 401-How a 2-degree climate change would hit Canada

Ongoing climate change means that summer Arctic sea ice could be halved, runoff in the South Saskatchewan River basin reduced and the cost of shipping through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway could rise due to lower water levels, according to a compilation of research published Tuesday.

Billed as the first comprehensive illustration of expected climate impacts in Canada, the report is a joint project of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS), which publishes Canadian Geographic and Géographica magazines. The October issue of the magazines feature the compiled research, including a diagram outlining 60 effects of climate change at increasing levels of warming.

I think it's important to get the correct science information in Canadian hands," NRTEE chair Robert Page said Tuesday at an Ottawa news conference called to release the data. "What I like about this (report) is it's an attempt to bring it back to an accepted factual base."

The scenarios about Arctic sea ice, the South Saskatchewan River and the Great Lakes are premised on a temperature increase of 2 C over pre-industrial levels.That temperature rise is significant because the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen last December ended with a non-binding document aiming to limit world temperature increases to no more than 2 C. Globally, temperatures have already risen by 0.8 C over the past century. But as Page pointed out, the increase in temperature in Canada is expected to be twice the world average, and parts of the Canadian North are expected to experience a rise in temperature that is twice the Canadian average.

Yet as the compiled research shows, not all impacts in Canada are negative. For example, a 2 C increase could bring increased timber yields from faster-growing trees in the North and more Atlantic cod north of the 60th parallel. The ski industry might struggle, but golfers could benefit from warmer temperatures.

The society and roundtable have also produced an education package based on the compiled research, which will be distributed to 12,000 schools across Canada. On Tuesday evening, the two groups will host a reception at the Canadian Museum of Nature, where Canada's new Governor General, David Johnston, is scheduled to speak.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/05/science-round-table-canadian-geographic-climate-change.html#ixzz11WfghKTS

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Laura Secord, Canadian Hero

Laura Secord walked 32 kilometers over rough terrain (the Niagara Escarpment) risking her life with the possibility of being caught by the American soldiers so she could warn the Native warriors. Secord saved Niagara Falls and maybe even all of Canada. The only reward Secord ever received was £100 at 85 years old.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Canadians and the IG Nobel prize

Canada has a history of winning important international prizes and the IG Nobel prize

1996 SAFETY ENGINEERING


Troy Hurtubise, of North Bay, Ontario, for developing, and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. [REFERENCE: "Project Grizzly", produced by the "National Film Board of Canada.]

1997 STATISTICS

Jerald Bain of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Kerry Siminoski of the University of Alberta for their carefully measured report, "The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length, and Foot Size."

[REFERENCE: "Annals of Sex Research," vol. 6, no. 3, 1993, pp. 231-5.

The 1999 Ig Nobel Prize Winner SOCIOLOGY

Steve Penfold, of York University in Toronto, for doing his PhD thesis on the sociology of Canadian donut shops.
REFERENCE: "The social life of donuts: Commodity and community in postwar Canada," Steven Penfold, York University Ph.D. thesis, 2002.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010

Did anyone realize that a student at the University of Ottawa won an Ig Noble in 2004 for PHYSICS?

Ramesh Balasubramaniam of the University of Ottawa, and Michael Turvey of the University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratory, for exploring and explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping.

REFERENCE: "Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula Hooping," Ramesh Balasubramaniam and Michael T. Turvey, Biological Cybernetics, vol. 90, no. 3, March 2004, pp. 176-90.

Canadian overlooked for Nobel Prize in 1974

Keith R. Porter From Wikipedia

Keith Roberts Porter (1912–1997) was a Canadian cell biologist. He did pioneering biology research using electron microscopy of cells , such as work on the 9 + 2 microtubule structure in the axoneme of cilia. Porter also contributed to the development of other experimental methods for cell culture and nuclear transplantation. He also was responsible for naming the endoplasmic reticulum.

Keith Porter was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on June 11, 1912, and became a citizen of the United States in 1947. He was an undergraduate at Acadia University and a graduate student at Harvard University. Starting in the late 1930s he did research at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Porter helped found the American Society for Cell Biology and the Journal of Cell Biology. The Keith R. Porter Endowment for Cell Biology, founded in 1981, supports an annual Keith Porter Lecture at the conference of American Society for Cell Biology.

Porter moved to Harvard University in 1961 and to the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1968. He retired in 1983 and did post-retirement work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Pennsylvania. UMBC's Keith R. Porter Core Imaging Facility is dedicated to Porter.

In 1970, together with Albert Claude and George E. Palade,Porter was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. Porter's colleagues Albert Claude, Christian de Duve and George E. Palade were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1974 "for describing the structure and function of organelles in biological cells", work that Porter is also well known for.

AWARDS

1964 Gairdner Foundation International Award

1970 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

1971 Dickson Prize in Science

1971 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize

1976 National Medal of Science

1981 E. B. Wilson Medal

Alex Trebek’s TV audition

Sunday, October 3, 2010


















Todd Reichart, a PhD student of Engineering at the Univeristy of Toronto.

Half a millennium after Da Vinci, under the power and piloting of Todd Reichert -- an engineering Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies -- the wing-flapping device sustained both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds, covering 475 feet at an average speed of 16 miles per hour.

Michaelle Jean- A Canadian Story

Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean has described Canada as "a country of so many possibilities." Her own story is proof of that. Canada's 27th Governor General was born in Port-au-Prince on Sept. 6, 1957, during the era of the Duvalier dictatorships in Haiti. Her parents, Roger and Luce, were teachers.

In 1965, Roger Jean was abducted by Duvalier henchmen. Days later he was dumped outside the family home, barely recognizable from the torture he endured. Two years later, he fled to Canada. (Luce's brother, René Depestre, a famous Haitian poet, had gone into exile in Cuba in 1959.)

Fled Haiti to Quebec

In 1968, Luce and daughters Michaëlle and Nadege joined Roger. Thetford Mines, Que., was their new home. Roger got a teaching job, but by this time he was a "broken man," daughter Michaëlle later recalled.
She also recalled children touching her black skin to see if it was real. Roger and Luce's marriage soon fell apart. Luce and the daughters moved to Montreal. To pay the rent on their basement apartment, Luce worked in a clothing factory and then a psychiatric hospital.

Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, right, and former Quebec politician Lise Bacon receive honorary doctorates as they attend graduation ceremonies at the University of Montreal on May 28, 2010. Jean studied at the university. Michaëlle Jean completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Montreal, earning a degree in Spanish and Italian language and literature. She taught Italian at the university while pursuing a master's degree in comparative literature.

She went on to study Italian language, culture and literature at universities in Florence, Milan and Perugia, Italy, between 1982 and 1985. By then, she was fluent in five languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish and Haitian Creole. She could also read Portuguese. While completing her university studies, Michaëlle Jean was also deeply involved with helping women and children who were the victims of domestic violence. Her own mother had been such a victim. Jean co-ordinated a groundbreaking study — published in 1987 — that looked at abusive relationships in which women were the victims of sexual violence at the hands of their spouses.

Jean's journalist years

Jean first returned to Haiti in 1986 when she and a friend were there to interview Haitian women for a Quebec feminist journal. That was also the year the final Duvalier dictatorship fell. That project helped Jean land another trip to Haiti the next year as a documentary researcher. And that assignment led her to Radio-Canada, the French-language half of the CBC. She was a reporter for the program, Actuel, the first black reporter on French TV news in Canada. From 1991 to 1992, she hosted Virages. And for three years, starting in 1992, she appeared on the national and international news program Le Point.

In 1995, Jean began working as a host/reporter on many RDI programs such as Le Monde ce soir, L'Édition québécoise, Horizons francophones, le Journal RDI and RDI à l'écoute. In 2004 she began hosting her own show, a current affairs program on RDI named Michaëlle. She also dealt with challenging themes such as the Roman Catholic Church in a four-day debate titled Le Pape en France, pedophilia in L'enfance volée and Chinese politics in La rétrocession de Hong Kong à la Chine.
She won many awards for her journalism, including a Gemini in 2001. She also received awards from the Human Rights League, Amnesty International, CBC, the City of Montreal and the Canadian Association of Cable Television Providers. In 2003 she received France's Médaille de l'Ordre des Chevaliers de La Pléiade des Parlementaires de la Francophonie for promoting francophone culture.In 1991 she went to the Caribbean to work on a documentary about Martinique poet Aimé Césaire and his influence on the Quebec independence movement. She fell in love with the film's French-born director, Jean-Daniel Lafond, and they married the next year.

That documentary,La manière nègre, would come back to haunt her in 2005 after Prime Minister Paul Martin named her Canada's next governor general. In the film, in a scene in which she is seated next to Pierre Vallières, the former Front de liberation du Quebec separatist leader, Jean says, "In general, yes, independence is not something that is given - it is something that is taken."

Jean continued to pursue her passion for making documentary films. She also worked with her husband on: Tropique nord (1994) about being black in Quebec; the Hot Docs award-winning Haiti dans tous nos rêves (1995); and L'heure de Cuba (1999), about the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Beginning in 1999, Jean also hosted CBC Newsworld's documentary programs The Passionate Eye and Rough Cuts. She also hosted RDI's documentary program, Grands Reportages.

In 1999, Jean and Lafond adopted a baby from Haiti, Marie-Éden.

The 27th Governor General

George Stroumboulopoulos, Host of CBC's The Hour, interviewed Jean in a Toronto studio on June 9, 2009. Jean said she took four weeks to make up her mind whether to accept the viceregal post. Her goal was to bring extra relevance and meaning to the institution and to bring it "closer to our Canadian realities," she told the CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos on The Hour.

She adopted "Breaking down solitudes" as her motto.

After she was named to be the next governor general, David Mitchell, vice-rector at the University of Ottawa, called Jean's appointment "politically inspired."
"She will be a voice for Canada in Quebec and she will represent the new Quebec to the rest of Canada very effectively," Mitchell said. "She has that potential and that sense, this is an inspired choice."

In Quebec, the province where the monarchy is least popular, a Leger Marketing poll found three-quarters of the respondents supported the Queen's appointment of Jean.

Jean was the third journalist in a row to be appointed to the viceregal post. Adrienne Clarkson, the 26th governor general, also worked for the CBC. Clarkson's predecessor, Roméo Leblanc, worked as a journalist for Radio-Canada in the '60s before going into politics. (Jeanne Sauvé — the first female governor general — had a 20-year career at the CBC before she entered politics in 1972.

Michaëlle Jean succeeded Clarkson on Sept. 27, 2005.

She quickly began to let Canadians get to know her, and win them over.
At her installation speech she said, "I know how precious that freedom is.... I whose ancestors were slaves, who was born into a civilization long reduced to whispers and cries of pain, know something about its price, and I know too what a treasure it is for us all." At a Black History Month event in Montreal a few months later, she spoke about racial discrimination. "It has no place in a society that prizes above all the values of respect, openness and sharing, which are paramount for me," she told the audience.

Political powers

Historians will probably best remember Jean for her political role, something for which very few past governors general are remembered.
In 2008 she cut short a trip to Europe because of a political crisis in Ottawa. The opposition parties were threatening to defeat Stephen Harper's minority government and replace it with their own coalition. Harper wanted her to prorogue Parliament before the opposition could pass a non-confidence motion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper returns to Rideau Hall after speaking with the media following his meeting with Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean in Ottawa on Dec. 4, 2008. Harper was there to ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament. Harper went to see Jean at Rideau Hall, uncertain she would grant his request, although he considered it a routine matter. In Canada, ultimate constitutional authority formally rests with the governor general. In a June 9, 2009, interview on The Hour, she said, "It wasn't an easy decision." She consulted constitutional experts and she kept the prime minister waiting for over two hours while she decided.
"I was in a position where I could have said no. The decision in my mind had to be in the best interests of the country," she told Stroumboulopoulos. "And I have no regrets," she added. Parliament was prorogued and Harper's government was saved. According to University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman, that was when, "many Canadians woke up to realize that the Governor General might wield real power."

Jean also faced two other significant political issues during her five-year appointment.
Despite the Canadian government having a new fixed-date election law in place, in 2008 Harper asked Jean to call an election over a year ahead of time. And in December 2009 Harper again asked Jean to prorogue parliament.

Other highlights of Jean's five years in the post include:
Feb. 15, 2006: the first visit by a governor general to a prison. Jean went to the Bordeaux penitentiary in Quebec, where she "spent two intense hours, in a reflective dialogue on personal responsibility, dignity and freedom, during which young inmates shared their deepest fears and aspirations with me."
February 2006: Jean's first international trip as governor general, which included the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, and meeting Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
May 4, 2006: the first address by a governor general to the Alberta legislature.
Jean opens the Winter Olympics in Vancouver on Feb. 12, 2010.
May 14, 2006: Jean attends the inauguration of René Préval as president of Haiti for his second time. The trip includes a visit to Jacmel, her mother's hometown, whether Jean spent several summers during her childhood.
March 8, 2007: Jean visits Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Feb. 19, 2009: Jean welcomes U.S. President Barack Obama to Canada on the first foreign visit of his presidency.
May 25, 2009: In Nunavut, Jean eats a piece of heart from a seal that had just been gutted during a traditional Inuit seal feast.
March 2010: Jean visits Haiti for the first time since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Shortly after the quake, Jean gave a tearful speech thanking the country and the government for its quick response. Wiseman opined that Jean "at times sounded more like that country's ambassador to Canada than Canada's viceregal representative."
After she steps down as Governor General on Thursday, Jean will become a special envoy to Haiti for UNESCO.