Life in Canada

A Lawsuit by Ontario’s Pikangikum band which failed shows what happens when an intransigent bureaucracy meets a stubborn first nation In the court case of Pikangikum v Nault is a glimpse of an answer to the age-old Canadian question of how so many first nation communities in this country continue to suffer appalling conditions and ruinous poverty even as Ottawa throws millions and millions and millions of dollars at impoverished reserves.

That hint of an answer is found in what happens when intransigent bureaucracy (the federal Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, or INAC) meets stubborn and hypersensitive first nation, in this instance the Pikangikum band.

And what happens, as Ontario Superior Court Judge John dePencier Wright found, is … nothing.

Thus, more than a decade after the remote Pikangikum reserve in Northwestern Ontario first came to national attention (for, among other things, youth suicide rates that are said to be the highest in the world) and their local MP was named Indian Affairs minister and all seemed rosily possible, little has changed for the band’s approximately 2,100 residents.

As Judge Wright said, a much-ballyhooed power grid remains uncompleted, costing Canadian taxpayers an extra $3-million a year to keep prohibitively expensive diesel generators going; effluent from the water treatment plant is still going into Pikangikum Lake, which supplies the community’s drinking water; sewage facilities are inadequate.

A golden opportunity to improve life for some of Canada’s poorest citizens was “missed because of the unfortunate collision between an unstoppable force and an immoveable object," the judge wrote.

Judge Wright’s 93-page decision, which amounts to a searing indictment of the status quo, was released just before Christmas to almost no attention.

He dismissed the Pikangikum lawsuit against former Indian Affairs minister Robert Nault, which had alleged he acted unlawfully by imposing what’s called “third-party management" – basically, an outside party is appointed to administer band funds – on the reserve. In fact, Judge Wright found that when INAC arbitrarily moved to impose third-party management on the reserve in November of 2000, it did so “against the wishes" of Mr. Nault. Calling the strike “breathtaking in its ramifications," the judge said that either “elements in the Ontario Region of [INAC] were amazingly disloyal to their Minister or were shockingly oblivious to political realities."

Third-party management is supposed to happen only after lower-level interventions, such as joint management or “co-management," have failed, and always after a meeting with the band. Instead, 10 days before the 2000 federal election, INAC abruptly announced it was arriving on the reserve to begin third-party management.

The action was “extraordinary on both the political level and procedurally," the judge said, taken as it was against the minister’s wishes and on the eve of an election. “The Minister did not agree with the imposition of third-party management," Judge Wright said. “He wanted co-management."

The judge did, however, find there were plenty of legitimate reasons for some sort of government intervention: Pikangikum was reeling from suicides; its only school had been shut because of a fuel spill for almost a year; the new water treatment plant had twice flooded, due to human error, and the community was in crisis.

The fault for all of it, Judge Wright said, is evenly divided between the Pikangikum band and the INAC bureaucracy, which appears to have fought Mr. Nault tooth and nail after he took over the ministry in 1999.

Pikangikum wasn’t just another reserve to him, but as the long-time MP for Kenora-Rainy River, his constituents.

“…to the annoyance of some in his department," the judge said, Mr. Nault “instructed people at the highest levels" to give him monthly progress reports on the Pikangikum school project (tanks on the school fuel tank farm were to be replaced with more environmentally safer ones).

Haiti's cholera death toll has soared in recent days with 3,333 people dead, according to official figures.

The new data up to December 26 of 432 more recorded deaths compared with previous Haitian health ministry data marked a major jump in fatalities, although it was unclear exactly when they occurred. The number of confirmed cholera deaths on December 19 alone was just over 100, the new data showed, far higher than previous peaks around 80 in mid-November. More recently, the death tolls have returned to previous averages of around 50 new reported deaths each day.

The total number of infections soared towards 150,000 in Haiti and authorities in neighbouring Dominican Republic said Thursday there have been 139 cases there, none of them fatal.

Haiti's first cholera outbreak in more than a century has poured further misery on a poor and politically dysfunctional country trying to recover from a devastating January earthquake that killed some 250,000 people.

The epidemic, which began in October, spawned anti-UN riots last month as some turned their anger on peacekeepers from Nepal accused of bringing the disease into the country. Experts say the outbreak was likely sparked by a human source from outside the region and the United Nations has promised a thorough investigation into the origin of the epidemic.

Angry mobs in the deeply superstitious nation have stoned or hacked to death at least 45 people – most of them voodoo priests – accusing them of spreading the waterborne bacterial infection. Cholera, which causes potentially deadly cases of diarrhoea, often strikes in poor countries where there is a high danger of an epidemic due to inadequate sanitation and limited access to clean water.

The Pan-American Health Organization in early December estimated Haiti could see up to 400,000 cholera cases over the next 12 months, half of them within three months alone.

The epidemic comes against the backdrop of deep political uncertainty.

Why promises of lowest rates don’t always deliver

Most consumers think unregulated intermediaries such as InsuranceHotline.com always offer the lowest rates going, but that’s not always the case

David Waserman has been an insurance broker for 17 years – long enough that he could usually eyeball a consumer’s information and know roughly how much they were going to have to pay for auto insurance.

So when he started paying close attention to InsuranceHotline.com, he was confused. The site touts itself to consumers in advertising as: “Your search engine for the lowest insurance rates."

But he knew this wasn’t the case.

Insurance Hotline claims to find the lowest rate on offer from its large network of insurance professionals by having consumers spend 10 minutes filling out forms, then running it through a database of more than 30 insurers. Brokers pay the site for links to prospective customers, which are called “leads."

But after Mr. Waserman joined the service, something didn’t seem right.

“I saw some leads come in where something looked really out of whack," Mr. Waserman said. He was being sent leads, or potential customers, who he knew could get a cheaper rate elsewhere, from insurance companies that he didn’t happen to deal with.

“You, the consumer, enter all your information. You’re told $6,000 is the lowest price. They give you three [quotes], allegedly the three lowest," Mr. Waserman said. “But when I enter it on my system, I see that there’s at least one quote for $4,000 out there for you." But he hadn’t merely stumbled on a glitch in the website. What he had unknowingly uncovered is another crack that is opening up in the regulatory oversight of Canada’s insurance distribution system. InsuranceHotline.com is not a broker, nor an insurer, and is therefore not subject to scrutiny from the provincial authorities who preside over the insurance industry. Consumers who trust that the site is giving them the lowest rate may be disappointed, and may end up paying more for insurance than they have to, Mr. Waserman said. “If it’s your first insurance [policy], you’re probably more likely to be susceptible to that," he said.

Quotes and other insurance coverage information provided to consumers by unregulated and unlicensed intermediaries is beyond the reach of regulators.

Perplexed, Mr. Waserman started doing some research. Of all the leads that he received from the website in the month of June, as a sample, he figures that one in four were not giving the consumer the lowest price they could possibly receive.

Frustrated, Mr. Waserman refused to pay for leads where his price wasn’t the lowest, and he put in calls to Ontario’s insurance watchdogs. The leads, he felt, were no good to him because the consumer would quickly realize they could get a better price elsewhere and would become frustrated with him.

Regulators looked at the matter and said because the website isn’t providing “binding" quotes, it’s not actually selling insurance, it’s just linking buyer and seller – despite its advertising claims to the consumer about offering the lowest price in the market.

Scientists launch fightback against mite that is wiping out our bees... by making it self-destruct

For 20 years it has ruthlessly attacked Britain's hives - wiping out millions of bees and bringing misery to Britain's honey producers.

But now scientists have launched the fight back against the invasive, blood sucking varroa mite parasite - the world's biggest killer of bees. They have developed a new technique that turns off genes in the pest's DNA, forcing the bugs to self-destruct.Although the treatment is still experimental, it could be developed into a treatment that kills the mites without harming bees within years.

Conservation groups are welcoming a breakthrough in the battle against the deadly mite responsible for decimating the honeybee population The breakthrough won't come soon enough for the UK's beleaguered honey bees.Bee numbers have fallen dramatically over the last few years. In England, the population has shrunk by 54 per cent since the 1980s as a result of the varroa mite, pesticides, industrial farming and disease.

Farmers say the decline could be disastrous for agriculture. Bees are vital for pollinating crops and are worth an estimated £200 million to farming each year.

Varroa mites look like brown crabs and are the biggest global killer of honeybees.

They were first found in Asian honeybees in 1904, but jumped to European honeybees in the 1950s. The parasites inject viruses into the bees which suppress their immune system - making them vulnerable to disease. They are 2mm long - the equivalent of a person carrying a small monkey on their back night and day. It can take just 1,000 mites to kill a colony of 50,000 bees Honey bees are worth £200m to the UK economy a year through pollinating crops.

The Varroa mite entered the UK in 1992 when it was found in Devon. Honey bee populations have dropped by 23 per cent since then, potentially costing the economy millions of pounds In 1992 there were 23,767 beekeepers and 151,924 colonies. In 2010 there have been 21,000 beekeepers, and 116,500 colonies. A mite can live on the back of an adult bee for months. In winter it feeds off the bee’s amber coloured blood. In summer it moves onto the developing brood to reproduce

It has been transported to every country in the world except Australi. It sits on the backs of honey bees - attacking their immune system and making them prone to disease. Its rise has been linked to the mysterious 'colony collapse disorder' - where entire hives die off. Attempts to wipe out the mite have failed because it is increasingly resistant to chemical treatments.

Dr Giles Budge, one of the UK's leading bee experts based in York, said the human equivalent of the mite would be having 'an organism on your back that's about the size of a dinner plate, which creates a hole through which it can feed and through which its family can feed', he said.

To tackle the pest, bee researchers harnessed a method called RNA interference. RNA is a chemical cousin of DNA and helps carry genetic messages around cells. The technique involves putting small pieces of RNA into an organism which silence a particular gene. In the experiment reported in the journal Parasites and Vectors, researchers soaked the varroa mites in solution containing the genetic material. The genetic code found its way into mites and switched off the gene they were targeting.

In the tests, the treatment targeted a non-lethal gene. However, they believe it be used to switch off a gene essential for the mite's life.

Dr Alan Bowman, of the University of Aberdeen who led the study said the technique fooled the immune system of the parasite into attacking itself. 'This can target the mite in the hive,' he said. 'It would be completely selective - it wouldn't target the bees and wouldn't affect any other pollinating insects, such as ladybirds.'

The mites hide in food that is stored in the hive for larvae. A beekeeper could put the treatment into food intended for the developing bees.

The new treatment would allow beekeepers to treat the parasites without harming the bees. Currently they have to use pesticides.

Prof Francis Ratnieks, a bee researcher from the University of Sussex, said it could be a long time before it was used on British bees.'It may be possible to use gene knockout techniques such as RNAi to learn more about the physiology of pests and to use this to develop ways of controlling them, maybe by the development and application of novel pesticides,' he told the BBC.

'But to do this is a huge undertaking involving many years of testing and certification.'

Martin Smith, president of the British Beekeepers Association, said: 'While this research is at the early stage, we are pleased that work is being undertaken to try and control the varroa mite which remains the largest threat to beekeeping in this country. We look forward to seeing further work in this area.'

Iraq's Christians plan a simple Christmas in the shadow of violence

Only one Baghdad church is celebrating Christmas fully this year, as Iraq's Christians fear a recurrence of the recent murders of their fellow parishioners and are forced to mark the occasion in the absence of over 1,000 families that have fled.

Five Islamist extremists burst into the church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in October, murdering two priests, holding the congregation hostage and eventually killing more than 50 people. Now Amnesty International has warned of a spike in violence in the run-up to Christmas and has urged the Iraqi government to do more to protect Christians, who are now believed to number less than 500,000, about half its level of seven years ago.

Only 40 people turned up for mass at Our Lady last Sunday. They sang and chanted, a forlorn gathering of survivors, the walls around them spattered with blood and cratered by bullet-holes. The bloodied hand prints of those who failed to escape marked the door in an ante-room.

In front of the altar stood photographs of the dead, including a light-haired smiling four year old boy, Adam Eashoue, and his 33 year old father, Uday. Adam's grandparents, Zuher and Amal, cannot bear to return to the church.

"After the war, we thought we would stay here and have a future," said Zuher. "But after what happened at the church I don't think so. It's the government's job to protect us, but they failed."

Their cousins, Thaer and Nadia, and their two young sons, have already left Baghdad for the Kurdish area in northern Iraq.

"We love Christmas but this year it feels bitter," said Thaer. "You sit somewhere and you're afraid; you go shopping and you're afraid; you go for a walk and you're afraid. Iraq has become a hell."

The Islamist extremists who attacked the church see Christians as infidels although Christianity existed in the region several centuries before Islam. The Chaldeans and Syriac Christians of today speak Aramaic, the language Jesus would have spoken.

At St Catherine's Monastery in Al Qosh in Kurdistan, monks are sheltering 21 families who fled Mosul in November after a spate of attacks. "We were happy before the war," said Hanna Khoder, who fled after her neighbour's house was bombed and her sons threatened. "But now the terrorists say, 'the Americans are your people, they are Christians. You brought them here'. And they kill us for it."

Back in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White, an English vicar, is trying to stem the tide, attracting several hundred to his Christmas carol service last Sunday in St George's, the Anglican church.

The children of all shapes and sizes, a few wearing knitted hats in seasonal scarlet, stood in front of the altar singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in English and Arabic with minimal attention to melody. The sound system screeched, and Father Christmas was trundled down the aisle in a box on wheels covered in red cloth and gold tinsel. A Sunni sheikh, who was there to show Muslim support of Christians, looked on. Outside, members of the Mothers' Union Baghdad Branch (twinned with Portsmouth) sorted frozen chickens and other groceries to be given to each family.

The congregation frequently ask Canon White whether they should stay or leave. "It's very hard," he said. "I can't tell people what to do although it's important that we maintain a Christian presence here, because Christianity is the root of Iraq. If you cut the root, it's finished."

Bee colony collapse in USA and around the world

More than a third of the commercial beehives in the US were lost to colony collapse disorder [CCD] in the winter of 2008. Will this happen again next year even thogh numbers of bees are still low. The syndrome, in which all of the worker bees in a colony die off suddenly, leaving nothing but a solitary queen wandering alone on empty frames, has spread to several countries in Europe already including France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Several causes of the disease have been suggested, including the almost universally present varroa mite, certain pesticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus, climate change and mobile phone broadcasts, but none have yet been proved to be the culprit.

No cure has been found either, and as cases are reported in new countries the likelihood of a global pandemic leading to the extinction of the honeybee becomes a real possibility.

Evidence: Apart from the loss of the honey crop, without the honeybee several crops key to human life would be wiped out, including the soya bean, cotton, brassicas, several kinds of nut including brazil nuts and almonds, grapes, apples and sunflowers, the source of a large proportion of the world's vegetable oil. Almost a third of the world's food is directly traceable to the action of bees. If they became extinct severe shortages, starvation, violence and riots would surely follow.

$2tn debt crisis threatens to bring down 100 US cities

Overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing the US economic recovery. Nor are European cities safe – Florence, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice: all are in trouble

More than 100 American cities could go bust next year as the debt crisis that has taken down banks and countries threatens next to spark a municipal meltdown, a leading analyst has warned.

Meredith Whitney, the US research analyst who correctly predicted the global credit crunch, described local and state debt as the biggest problem facing the US economy, and one that could derail its recovery. "Next to housing this is the single most important issue in the US and certainly the biggest threat to the US economy," Whitney told the CBS 60 Minutes programme on Sunday night. "There's not a doubt on my mind that you will see a spate of municipal bond defaults. You can see fifty to a hundred sizeable defaults – more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of defaults."

New Jersey governor Chris Christie summarised the problem succinctly: "We spent too much on everything. We spent money we didn't have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit card's maxed out, and it's over. We now have to get to the business of climbing out of the hole. We've been digging it for a decade or more. We've got to climb now, and a climb is harder."

American cities and states have debts in total of as much as $2tn. In Europe, local and regional government borrowing is expected to reach a historical peak of nearly €1.3tn (£1.1tn) this year.

Cities from Detroit to Madrid are struggling to pay creditors, including providers of basic services such as street cleaning. Last week, Moody's ratings agency warned about a possible downgrade for the cities of Florence and Barcelona and cut the rating of the Basque country in northern Spain. Lisbon was downgraded by rival agency Standard & Poor's earlier this year, while the borrowings of Naples and Budapest are on the brink of junk status. Istanbul's debt has already been downgraded to junk.

Whitney's intervention is likely to raise the profile of the issue of municipal debt. While she was an analyst at Oppenheimer, the New York investment bank, in October 2007 she wrote a damning report on Citigroup, then the world's largest bank, predicting it would cut its dividend. She was criticised for being too pessimistic but was vindicated when the bank was forced to seek government support a year later. She has since set up her own advisory firm and is rated one of the most influential women in American business.

US states have spent nearly half a trillion dollars more than they have collected in taxes, and face a $1tn hole in their pension funds, said the CBS programme, apocalyptically titled The Day of Reckoning.

Detroit is cutting police, lighting, road repairs and cleaning services affecting as much as 20% of the population. The city, which has been on the skids for almost two decades with the decline of the US auto industry, does not generate enough wealth to maintain services for its 900,000 inhabitants.

The nearby state of Illinois has spent twice as much money as it has collected and is about six months behind on creditor payments. The University of Illinois alone is owed $400m, the CBS programme said. The state has a 21% chances of default, more than any other, according to CMA Datavision, a derivatives information provider.

California has raised state university tuition fees by 32%. Arizona has sold its state capitol and supreme court buildings to investors, and leases them back.

Potential defaults could also hit Florida, whose booming real estate industry burst two years ago, said Guy J. Benstead, a partner at Cedar Ridge Partners in San Francisco. "We are not out of the woods by any stretch yet," he said.

"It's all part of the same parcel: public sector indebtedness needs to be cut, it needs a lot of austerity, and it hit the central governments first, and now is hitting local bodies," said Philip Brown, managing director at Citigroup in London.

In Europe, where cities have traditionally relied more on bank loans and state transfers than bonds, financing habits are changing. The Spanish regions of Catalonia and Valencia have issued debt to their own citizens after financial markets shut their doors because of the regions' high deficits. Moody's cut to the rating of the Basque country on Friday left it still within investment grade but noted "the rapid deterioration in the region's budgetary performance in recent years". It said it expected it to continue over the medium term.

In Italy, Moody's and S&P have threatened to downgrade Florence, while Venice has been forced over the past few months to put some of the palazzi on its canals up for sale to fund the deficit.

"Cities are on their own. Governments won't come to their rescue as they have problems of their own," said Andres Rodriguez-Pose, professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics. "Cities will have to pay for their debts, and in some cases they will have to carry out dramatic cuts, such as Detroit's."

California crunch

Vallejo, a former US navy town near San Francisco, is still trying to emerge from the Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection it entered in 2008.
The city, now a symbol of distressed local finances, is still negotiating with the unions, which refused to accept a salary cut plan two years ago. Paul Dyson, an analyst with the Standard & Poor's credit agency, said Vallejo, which is mostly a dormitory town for Oakland or San Francisco employees, did not have enough local industry to sustain its finances and property tax – a major source of local income – plunged with the collapse of the real estate market. The S&P credit-rating agency has a C rating on the town – the lowest level.

With a population of about 120,000, Vallejo has $195m (£125m) of unfunded pension obligations and has to present a bankruptcy-exit plan to a Sacramento court by 18 January. Since 1937, 619 local US government bodies, mostly small utilities or districts, have filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News recently reported. US cities tend to default more than European municipalities as they usually rely on bonds issued to investors, which enter into a default if the creditor misses payments. European towns, by contrast, traditionally depend on bank loans and government bailouts.

FBI arrest technology firms' staff over insider trading claims

Employees at Dell and AMD among those held over allegedly selling information to hedge funds Staff at technology firms Dell, Advanced Micro Devices and Flextronics International sold inside information to hedge funds, according to the FBI, which made a series of arrests today in its long-running investigation into alleged insider trading on Wall Street.

The US authorities arrested four people including employees of Primary Global Research, an expert network firm, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Flextronics, which supplies components to Apple and others. The firms have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

James Fleishman of Primary Global was arrested in New York. Mark Longoria, an employee of AMD, was arrested in Austin, Texas. Walter Shimoon of Flextronics was arrested in San Diego. The arrests are part of an investigation into so-called "expert-network" firms and allegations of insider dealing. These firms employ insiders including customers and current employees to give insight into companies.

According to US authorities, Daniel Devore, an employee of Dell, pleaded guilty last month to providing confidential information about the computer firm and its suppliers to hedge funds. Authorities said he was paid $147,750 for the information.

Last month Don Chu, a former Primary Global employee, was charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The justice department alleges Chu arranged for information about public companies to be passed to hedge funds.

FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk said: "The information trafficked by the four 'consultants' went way beyond permissible market research; it was insider information." She said the consultants were paid more than $400,000 to participate in phone calls with firm clients. "This wasn't market research. What the defendants did was purchase and sell insider information. Our investigation is most assuredly continuing," she said.

Senators reject call for expenses check isn't this amazing and surprising information? Who would have guessed this rejection result?

Audit calls for spending oversight after finding multiple risks for abuse with existing rules. Canadian senators are rejecting an independent auditor’s call for a second set of eyes to scrutinize their expense claims.A report by Ernst and Young, which recommends across-the-board reforms for managing Senate spending, also suggests senators put in place a “second level of approval" to oversee their claims.

Senators, who earn their posts by political appointment rather than by direct election, currently approve their office travel, hospitality and living expenses before submitting them to an internal finance department for reimbursement.

“Normal practices within private sector and public sector organizations include second-level approvals of expense reports, including those of the CEO," auditors wrote following their scrutiny of senators’ office spending, which is about a quarter of the Senate’s $81-million operating budget.

Senator David Tkachuk, chair of the Senate’s internal economy and budget committee, said there’s no need for a second level of sign-off.

“Who’s going to sign off for a senator secondly? The senator is responsible for his or her own office and budget … we all sign off a form saying we swear our expense report to be true," he said. and added “We still have to submit to a whole bunch of rules we established for ourselves."

Mr. Tkachuk said the Senate itself ordered this audit. The body is preparing to post senators’ quarterly expenses online.

The Ernst and Young audit, conducted between July and September 2009, warned existing rules fail to clearly spell out what duties and activities should be covered by taxpayers and which are partisan politicking and therefore ineligible.

“For example, there is no clear guidance made between partisan activities related to Senate business (allowable expenses) and partisan activities on behalf of political parties which may not be eligible," the auditors said.

The report warned the lack of written policy spelling out when senators’ spouses can travel on the public tab may lead to cases where taxpayers are being cheated. “There is a risk from a public perspective that travel of spouses may not be for a parliamentary function."

The audit found more than a few examples of senators misusing their travel charge cards. “We noted six instances out of a total of 25 tests where travel cards were incorrectly used to pay for hospitality-related expenses."

Tests carried out by auditors found many cases where senators were not properly justifying their expenses. For instance, senators are provided with $5,000 in hospitality spending for meals, drinks, gifts and promotional items.

“We observed that 13 of 25 hospitality expenses had minimal documented descriptions regarding the purpose of the hospitality expense and the number of guests attending the hospitality event," the audit report said.

“The absence of the list of guests on hospitality claims hampers [the Senate finance department] personnel when assessing the reasonableness of the expense against meal allowance limits," the report warned. “There is a risk that ineligible expenses may be reimbursed."

Senators aren’t currently required to identify when they give gifts to people and who received the items. “There is a risk from a public perspective that gifts may not be for parliamentary functions," the audit warned.

Mr. Tkachuk said the problems identified by the audit are not intentional. “Most of things the audit showed are not sins of commission. They were sins of omission … a lot of mistakes," he said.

Does anyone recall hearing this sort of reasoning before?.. and was it in Canada

TORONTO - Canadian shoppers are paying all-around higher prices because major credit card companies forbid retailers from charging credit card users a fee at the checkout, Canada's competition watchdog claims. Is this another realtors type situation?..Look what happened to them. and here the result

In an application filed Wednesday with the Competition Tribunal, the Competition Bureau alleges that a "no-surcharge" rule and other policies of both Visa and MasterCard are "restrictive and anti-competitive."

The filing has reignited a war of words but not actions, between the bureau on one side and the credit card companies on the other, who say the rules actually protect consumers from retailers who could slap fees on transactions and discriminate against card users. Since its been proved that the credit cards are under the thumb of government(wikileaks)I wonder where this will go?

Store owners are currently charged between 1.5 per cent and three per cent per credit card transaction, but the "no-surcharge" rule prevents them from tacking on a surcharge to offset the extra amount.

The Bureau claims those fees add up to about $5 billion per year in hidden credit card fees for Canadian merchants — who pay some of the highest levels in the world.

I applaud Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken who maintains that the above facts encourages businesses to bury the surcharges in the prices of all their products — no matter what payment method is used. The Bureau also takes issue with credit card policies that prevent retailers from encouraging consumers to use other payment options, like cash or debit, which cost retailers less, and a requirement that merchants must accept all credit cards offered by a company, including premium cards that carry higher fees for acceptance.

A $400 purchase on a premium credit card, which includes a three per cent fee, would cost business owners $12 compared to a standard 12 cent flat fee that Interac charges on all debit purchases, regardless of the size, Aitken said.

"If you give them flexibility, you take away those constraints you're going to find that you're going to introduce competition between Visa and Mastercard that isn't there today," she said in an interview. "When you introduce competition, they're going to have to try to make those cards attractive to merchants ...They're going to stop loading up more and more fees on these premium cards and that will result in decreased costs that would otherwise be passed down to consumers."

However, the credit card companies and a consumer association argued that removing the rules would allow merchants to charge credit card users exorbitant fees that can vary wildly while at the same time keeping current prices intact. MasterCard said that if businesses were forced to charge a fee for use, it would result in a form of discrimination against credit card holders, who would have to pay more for using the cards. "What the Competition Bureau is suggesting is taking a well-functioning payment system and turning it into, quite frankly, some form of chaos," said Don Lebeuf, vice-president of customer delivery at MasterCard. "This could really negatively affect consumers and that's why these rules are here.

Having consumers faced with any number of different scenarios for every different merchant, it's problematic and it's discriminatory against consumers," he said and added the benefits to businesses who accept credit cards offset any fees they have to pay, adding that those who have an issue with fees can opt not to accept the cards. Some amazing statements in my view and typical of a monopolistic view.

If the Competition Bureau has its way, he said, it is questionable whether businesses will reduce prices across the board or keep pricing levels intact while also charging credit card users a fee. I say let it happen..take stock later!

Visa Canada released a statement calling the Competition Bureau's move "anti-consumer," arguing the rules "protect consumers from being punished by large retailers who seek to impose surcharges and take away consumer choice at the checkout counter."

The company pledged to vigorously defend its "pro-consumer" provisions.

Both companies denied that they forbid store owners from steering customers toward other payment options, arguing that they don't stop retailers from offering discounts for paying with cash or debit.

The Consumers Association of Canada (who are they they did not ask me and I am a consumer) largely supported the position of the credit card companies arguing that allowing merchants to levy surcharges on credit card purchases could lead to "predatory practices," under which individual businesses decide how much they want to charge the consumer.

"The Competition Bureau appears to have abandoned our interests in favour of the well-organized merchant lobby," said its president Bruce Cran.

The association cited a recent study by a consumer group in Australia, where regulators removed the no-surcharge policy, that found consumers are paying as much as 10 per cent extra each time they use their credit card.

The group says that some businesses use surcharges as a new revenue stream. For example, Australia's largest domestic airline now imposes surcharges as high as $30 per ticket, it said.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, which complained to the Competition Bureau in 2009, said the current rules are unfair to business owners who accept credit cards.

"A duopoly in credit cards has led to significantly higher costs for our members who accept credit cards, and many of them have little choice but to pass at least some of those costs onto their customers," said CRFA President and CEO Garth Whyte.

Visa and MasterCard process about 90 per cent of all credit card transactions in the country. The Bureau is challenging Visa and MasterCard's rules under the price maintenance provisions of the Competition Act, which allows the Competition Tribunal to prohibit certain agreements or contracts that influence prices upwards or discourages the reduction of prices.

The Bureau launched an investigation in response to complaints by merchants and their associations and initiated a formal inquiry in April 2009.

Good luck I say..

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney issued a staunch warning to Canadians about the perils of cheap borrowing Monday, just as fresh data suggested household debt-to-income ratios have jumped to record highs. He issues the warning amid a near record low 'interest rates' and wonders why? Perhaps he sees record negative equity around the corner?

"Household debt levels are at unprecedented levels relative to income — the level of vulnerability of households remains high," Carney told a news conference after a speech in Toronto. Spurred in part by record low interest rates, Canadians have rapidly increased the amount they have borrowed during the recession and recovery. And the proportion of households with stretched finances has ballooned as a result, Carney explained in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada said Monday the ratio of debt to disposable income rose to 148.1 per cent in Canada in the third quarter — a close to five point jump — slightly ahead of the U.S. ratio of 147.2 per cent.

The increase means Canadians now owe $1.48 for every dollar of disposable income they have. That nice to know..NOW

The numbers also come amid reports Ottawa is talking to lenders again about the possible need to clamp down on credit.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper each weighed in on consumer debt levels Monday, suggesting that while Canadians are responsible for their own finances, the government isn't opposed to stepping in beside they are creating the environments.

Flaherty told reporters (will he still say this next month) that he has been talking to the banks about the situation and has been monitoring debt levels, but he does not believe that any action is needed at the moment.

"Affordability is what is important, and if you talk to the banks about default rates — and I talk to them often on this subject — there is not reason for extreme concern now," he said.

During a visit to Thetford Mines, Que., Harper suggested the situation is the result of individuals' choices and the government can't control how they spend. "We continue to warn Canadian households that interest rates are unlikely to go down in the future. They're far more likely to go up, so Canadians should plan accordingly," he said.

TD Bank chief economist Craig Alexander said it was natural that the government would explore ways to constrain borrowing, but said he also does not believe the situation has reached a crisis.

"Debt relative to income has gone up a little faster than it should have, but the problem is not excessive ... we don't have a U.S.-style problem," he said, referring to the better quality of Canadian debt which like our national debt is largely owned by the Chinese

He added, credit expansion has slowed of late and many economists believe it will return in line with income growth going forward.

Alexander says Carney is in a "bind" because the weak economy requires him to keep interest rates at near-floor levels for an extended period in order to lure businesses into spending on investments. But those same low rates may cause households to overextend themselves, which could result in difficulties when interest rates rise. He said the government may need to take steps to rein in consumers if house prices begin rising again. More taxes perhaps..?

For his part, Carney said changes to mortgage qualification rules that took effect in April, as well as three subsequent decisions to push the central bank's key interest rate to the current one per cent, are beginning to have an impact on slowing debt accumulation. I would like to see these figures Mr. Carney.

"We've seen a bit of a deceleration in the rate of growth of consumer debt, but it's still growing faster than income," he said. and Mr. Carney noted with alarm that household credit has grown by seven per cent since the recession's trough, compared to a 3.5 per cent decline in the U.S., perhaps an indication that Canadians believe the easy ride on debt payments will be permanent.

When the reckoning comes, he warned, it could be swift and brutal. The Bank of Canada will set interest rates based on inflation, not on whether a large swath of Canadians have taken on too much debt, Carney added.

"Low rates today do not necessarily mean low rates tomorrow. Risk reversals when they happen can be fierce; the greater the complacency, the more brutal the reckoning," he said.

One reason for the tough talk, say analysts, is that Carney wants to discourage reckless borrowing among consumers with words because his hands seem to be tied on action. Raising rates would further slow an already slow-moving economy. I was wondering at what rate reckless borrowing starts and how it is identified?

While the debt-to-income ratio has risen in the latest quarter, Statistics Canada pointed out that the main reason is not because of more borrowing, but due to a 1.5 per cent decline in disposable income.

No pardons for pedophiles, all parties agree as government tries to force vote

OTTAWA - There appears to be all-party agreement in Ottawa that criminals who commit sex offences against children should never be eligible for a pardon. Liberal, New Democrat and Bloc Quebecois MPs all made the same point during two hours of debate at a committee hearing on Parliament Hill looking into legislation that would toughen Canada's pardons system.

The governing Conservatives called the morning committee hearing in an effort to force a vote on sweeping changes to the way criminal records are handled.

Opposition MPs are balking at some provisions in the legislation, and the government tabled more than a dozen changes to the bill late Monday.

None of the government amendments deal with the most controversial aspect — a new rule that would make anyone convicted of more than three offences ineligible for life from applying for a record suspension.

Conservative committee member Brent Rathgeber said that even Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has acknowledged there may be a problem with the general three-strike rule, but it was not part of the government amendments tabled this week.

Ottawa cuts blemished integrity watchdog’s deputy loose as Stockwell Day names new interim commissioner ahead of committee hearing on Auditor-General’s scathing report and Treasury Board President Stockwell Day has named a new whistleblower watchdog. Its seem to me anyone telling the truth is classed as a whistleblower hence the term is not that common in Canada.

Mario Dion, the former chairman of the National Parole Board who was also the executive director of the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution of Canada, was announced Tuesday as the new interim Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada.

“When our Government took office, we promised to bring accountability to Ottawa," Mr. Day said in a news release. “As part of that commitment, we created the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to ensure that public servants can speak out about wrongdoing without fear of reprisal. Through today's appointment, we are ensuring that commitment is followed in the spirit it was intended."

Mr. Dion, who has also been associate deputy minister of justice, has a strong legal background with significant experience in strategic and operational management, the release said.

His appointment comes after Christiane Ouimet took an early retirement from the watchdog post in the face of a damning report by Auditor-General Sheila Fraser. It found that Ms. Ouimet had been abusive to her staff while doing little about the hundreds of complaints of wrongdoing that had been submitted to her office by federal whistleblowers.

The move occurs on the same day that Joe Friday, the acting commissioner and former legal adviser to Ms. Ouimet, appears before a Commons committee to explain the actions of his office. I can not wait for the explanations, I need a laugh?

Critics have suggested that asking Mr. Fiday to review the many files that were dismissed without being investigated was like asking him to review his own work. For that reason, Mr. Day said last week it was imperative to get a new interim commissioner in place as quickly as possible.

“I would expect that the interim Commissioner's immediate priority will be the review of the disclosures of wrongdoing and complaints of reprisal received by the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and that he will report his findings to Parliament," Mr. Day said in the release.

The interim appointment of Mr. Dion is for a maximum period of six months and I for one wish Mr. Dion a successful commission and lots of luck for sure he will need it.


Gloria Galloway Globe and Mail

Next federal budget will have no guidance from Parliament

Leak of Commons finance committee’s prebudget report prompts its shelving and next year’s pivotal federal budget that could trigger an election will be put together without the legally required input from Parliament.

The Commons finance committee has decided to shelve its prebudget report after a draft was leaked to lobbyists by a low-level Parliament Hill staffer.

“It’s unfortunate," said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty,(lovingly nicknamed Mr.Flip Flop) who will be making key decisions on the contents of the 2011 budget without the report from MPs on the finance committee. Mr. Flaherty said, however, that he has met with the Liberal and NDP finance critics to discuss the budget and has written to all MPs asking for their advice.

December and January are key months in which decisions are made on the next federal budget. The committee’s failure to produce a report means Mr. Flaherty and his officials will not have the guidance of compromises hashed out by the parties in the minority Parliament.

That gives the Finance Minister extra latitude as if ne needed it, but also robs him of the opportunity to pin down the opposition on budget day by having opposition MPs on the record as to the measures they support.

The politics and positioning leading up to the budget are no small matter given the possibility that the ensuring vote could be the trigger for the next federal election.

The cause of the unprecedented disruption of the finance committee’s prebudget work – which involves months of extensive hearings followed by behind-the-scenes compromising – is now the subject of an investigation by the Commons procedure committee. Will we ever see the results and when...

That probe was launched after Conservative MP Kelly Block apologized for the leak and said she has fired her assistant – Russell Ullyatt – who forwarded the draft documents to several lobbyists minutes after they arrived in his inbox.

Members of the finance committee were reluctant to discuss the situation Monday because all discussions over the leak and the status of the report took place in camera. Liberal MP Massimo Pacetti, the committee vice-chair, said a decision was taken not to release the report. I ask why any decision was needed in the first place?

Leaked committee reports are nothing new on Parliament Hill. But what so incensed opposition MPs in this case is the fact that it was not the final report but a draft report outlining where each party stood on various polices. That left some MPs feeling the opportunity for compromise on a final report had been lost.

Further, MPs began receiving phone calls from lobbyists expressing surprise that they had failed to convince the MP of their various budget requests. The Speaker agreed with a complaint from finance committee member Thomas Mulcair – the NDP’s finance critic – ruling that the leak infringed the MPs’ ability to do their work.

Donald Savoie, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the University of Moncton, said he doesn’t understand why the committee report must be shelved while hearings continue into the leak. I totally agree with his reasoning, but as usual I suspect he will never get and adequate honest answer just more veneer

The committee’s prebudget work has a long and largely respected history and in 1994 the committee was given the specific duty in the rules of Parliament to “review proposals relating to the government’s budgetary policy."

Cigarette smoke causes immediate damage to a person's lungs and their DNA even in small amounts, including from second-hand smoke, U.S. federal officials said on Thursday in a new report. So what will governments do will they talk the talk or walk the walk. I am guessing on talking only. Time will tell. Lots of taxes lost if they ban smoking. 'Shooting oneself in the foot syndrome'. I don't think so...

Taxes, bans and treatment must all be pursued to bring smoking rates down, U.S. Surgeon-General Dr. Regina Benjamin said. "The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale causing damage immediately," she said in a statement. "Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer," she said. The report said tobacco companies deliberately designed cigarettes and other tobacco products to be addictive and that they released new products that are portrayed as safer but that are in fact just as dangerous and addictive.

Benjamin went on to say that a third of people who ever try cigarettes become daily smokers and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said curbing smoking would remain a priority for President Barack Obama's administration.

Sebelius listed measures taken by Obama since he took office two years ago, including "legislation to regulate tobacco products, investing in local tobacco control efforts and expanding access to insurance coverage for tobacco cessation."

The Food and Drug Administration has banned flavored cigarettes and begun investigating menthol cigarettes. In November it issued rules requiring graphic images on cigarette packages.There have been setbacks. Earlier this week an appeals court ruled that the FDA can only regulate "e-cigarettes" -- or battery-powered products that allow users to inhale nicotine vapor -- as tobacco products and not as drugs, and thus cannot block their import. The report notes that studies have shown cigarettes kill 443,000 people every year in the United States -- one in every five people who die -- from cancer, heart disease, lung disease and other causes. Can not block imports but could place huge taxes on them.!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says efforts to reduce smoking have stalled in recent years. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of smokers fell by 3.5 percent, from 24.1 percent to 20.6 percent.

"The economic burden of cigarette use includes more than $193 billion annually in health care costs and loss of productivity," Sebelius said.

Why our email addiction is 'turning us into lab rats feeding on pellets of social nourishment' Checking emails constantly stops humans concentrating on one task

Using the internet and an obsession with email type information is turning us into ‘lab rats’, an expert has claimed. Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, said that information overload is stopping people form concentrating on tasks as they search for ‘pellets of social interaction’.

The non-stop information overload also makes it impossible to think deeply in a syndrome has been christened Divided Attention Disorder, or DAD.

Mr Carr, who wrote a book called The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, says that our basic human instinct to search for new information makes us addicted to our inboxes. Many office workers check their email up to 30 times an hour.

Mr Carr told Esquire magazine: ‘Our gadgets have turned us into hi-tech lab rats, mindlessly pressing levers in the hope of receiving a pellet of social or intellectual nourishment.

‘What makes digital messages all the more compelling is their uncertainty. There’s always the possibility that something important is waiting for us in our inbox …[which] overwhelms our knowledge that most online missives are trivial.’

Mr Carr’s warning is just the latest by expert who fear that the digital age may be having unseen consequences for our brain’s health.

Last month one of the country’s most eminent brain scientists warned that an obsession with social networking sites may be changing the way people’s minds work.

University expert Susan Greenfield said she believes constant computer and internet use may be ‘rewiring the brain’, shortening attention spans, encouraging instant gratification and causing a loss of empathy. ’

The neuroscientist believes technology may be behind the ‘alarming’ rise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the growth in the use of anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin. Lady Greenfield warned social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook may hamper empathy.

Using search engines to find facts may hinder our ability to learn, while computer games in which it is always possible to start again, may make us more reckless.

'We need to take control of our own lives and society. If we don’t, who else will?’

Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said brain circuits honed by reading books and thinking about their contents could be lost as people spend more time on computers.

‘It takes time to think deeply about information and we are becoming accustomed to moving on to the next distraction,’ she said.

High levels of 'cancer chemical' found on till receipts, warn health campaigners

Till receipts and paper money contain high levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to cancer and early puberty, a study has found.

The chemical mimics the female hormone oestrogen and independently-funded scientists have long suggested it poses a risk to health - especially to young children.In the latest research, a team from two U.S campaigning groups tested till receipts made from thermal paper that they had collected from 22 popular retailers and cafes in America.

The chemical BPA is used to make ink visible on thermal till receipts. They found that half of them were coated with large quantities of BPA. The chemical is used to make ink visible on thermal till receipts. Holding the receipts for just 10 seconds caused up to 2.5 micrograms of BPA to transfer from the paper onto a person's fingers.

Meanwhile rubbing the receipts increased the amount of BPA transferred from the receipts onto fingers around 15-fold.

'Since BPA in thermal paper is present in a powdery film, we suspected it could easily travel from those receipts to other objects,' the researchers said. The researchers from the Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer Chemicals, Safer Families group, found the chemical on 21 of 22 bills tested, although in much lower levels than on the till receipts.

More than 130 studies over the past decade have linked even low levels of BPA to serious health problems, including breast cancer, obesity and early onset of puberty.

The European Union last month followed Canada's lead and banned the use of BPA in baby bottles after tests showed the petroleum product can affect neural development and behavior in lab rats exposed to the chemical in the womb or very early in life.

Last month, the World Health Organization said BPA does not accumulate in the body, but admitted that 'recent experimental and epidemiological studies found associations between low BPA exposure levels and some adverse health outcomes.'

In January the US Food and Drug Administration announced it has 'some concern' about BPA's possible effect on the brains of babies and young children after years of insisting it was safe.

BPA is still widely used in plastic water jugs, soft drink cans, mobile phone cases and computers. Andy Igrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families called on US lawmakers to toughen up the law that regulates chemicals in the United States in the light of the study's findings.

'BPA on receipts, dollar bills and in many other products is a direct result of the absurdly lax controls on chemicals in the United States,' he said.

Taking an aspirin every day cuts the risk of dying from a range of common cancers, according to a major study.

British researchers have discovered the first definitive evidence that aspirin reduces overall death rates by a third after just five years’ use.Rates were slashed by half for some cancers and the longer people took the drug, the better the protection.
The most amazing drug in the world: Research shows that aspirin has far more health benefits than first thought

The study has led to the 100-year-old painkiller – costing just 1p a tablet – being hailed as ‘the most amazing drug in the world’.Experts say healthy middle-aged people who start taking low-dose aspirin around the age of 45 or 50 for 20 to 30 years could expect to reap the most benefit, because cancer rates rise with age.

In addition, a 75mg dose – a quarter of a standard 300mg tablet – helps prevent heart attacks and strokes even in people who have not been diagnosed with cardiovascular problems.Millions of heart patients who already take low-dose aspirin on doctors’ orders to ward off a second heart attack or stroke will be getting built-in cancer protection.

There has been widespread concern that side effects such as stomach bleeding and haemorrhagic stroke would outweigh any advantage among healthy people starting a daily regime.But Professor Peter Rothwell, of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, who headed the latest study of almost 26,000 patients, is convinced the ground rules have changed. He said: ‘These findings provide the first proof in man that aspirin reduces deaths due to several common cancers.

‘Previous guidelines have rightly cautioned that in healthy middle-aged people the small risk of bleeding on aspirin partly offsets the benefits from prevention of strokes and heart attacks, but the reductions in deaths due to several common cancers will now alter this balance for many people.’

The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, looked at eight trials where heart patients were allocated daily aspirin or dummy treatment for five years.The heart benefits had already been reported – this time the researchers wanted to discover what happened to death rates from cancer. They found dramatic results, with aspirin linked to fewer deaths from a host of cancers.

After five years of taking aspirin, death rates fell by 34 per cent for all cancers and 54 per cent for gastrointestinal cancers.Even after 20 years, the risk of cancer death remained 20 per cent lower in groups previously allocated aspirin for all solid cancers and 35 per cent lower for gastrointestinal cancers.

It took five years for the benefits to emerge for oesophageal (gullet), pancreatic, brain and some forms of lung cancer. It took ten years for protection to take effect in stomach and colorectal cancer and 15 years for prostate cancer.

Too few women were included in the trials to give results for breast and ovarian cancer but the figures were ‘all in the right direction’.Professor Rothwell, who started taking aspirin two years ago in his mid-40s, said the latest findings underestimated the benefits of taking aspirin over two or three decades. But he warned it was not possible to predict any ‘unexpected’ effect of taking a drug for a third of a lifetime, so it was up to individuals to weigh up the risks.

Around one person in 1,000 on aspirin might suffer stomach bleeding compared with one in 2,000 to 3,000 non-users, but taking the drug does not result in more fatalities.

Professor Peter Elwood, of the College of Medicine, Cardiff University, who has been investigating aspirin for decades and taking it for 35 years, suggested taking aspirin with a glass of milk at night. He said milk contained calcium which enhanced the drug’s positive effects.

Professor Alastair Watson, of the University of East Anglia, said: ‘This study provides strong evidence that taking regular aspirin for more than five years can help prevent development of a number of other forms of cancer, including lung, pancreas, oesophageal and prostate cancers.

‘It also indicates that the longer aspirin is taken for, the greater the benefit. It is important that people know aspirin can cause dangerous bleeding in the stomach in some patients. People wishing to take aspirin should first discuss it with their GP.’ But, he added, this study ‘is further proof that aspirin is, by a long way, the most amazing drug in the world’.

Nick Henderson, director of the industry-backed Aspirin Foundation, hailed the study as ‘probably the most important news for aspirin since its invention’.

Ed Yong, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘These promising results build on a large body of evidence suggesting aspirin could reduce the risk of developing or dying from many different types of cancer.’

British scientists say they found way to repair damage caused by disease

British researchers said Monday they may have found a way to reverse damage in the central nervous system caused by multiple sclerosis, in a study hailed by campaigners as a major breakthrough.

The study by scientists at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh has raised hopes of a new treatment within 15 years for the disabling neurological condition, which affects millions of people worldwide.

The team identified a mechanism essential to regenerating myelin sheaths -- the layers of insulation that protect nerve fibres in the brain -- and showed how it could be used to make the brain's own stem cells undertake this repair.

"Therapies that repair damage are the missing link in treating multiple sclerosis," said Robin Franklin, director of the MS Society's Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair at the University of Cambridge. "In this study we have identified a means by which the brain's own stem cells can be encouraged to undertake this repair, opening up the possibility of a new regenerative medicine for this devastating disease."

Britain's MS Society, which partly funded the research along with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United States, hailed the study and said it could lead to clinical trials within five years and treatment within 15 years.

"For people with MS this is one of the most exciting developments in recent years," said chief executive Simon Gillespie.

The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, identified a specific type of molecule called RXR-gamma, which appears to be important in promoting myelin repair.

The team found that stimulating RXR-gamma in rats encouraged the brain's own stem cells to regenerate myelin.

The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario is struggling with a spike in the number of children and teens needing urgent care for depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and other mental-health crises.

The hospital's emergency department has been overwhelmed since September, but the situation got worse in November, following the suicide of 14-year-old Daron Richardson, the youngest daughter of Ottawa Senators assistant coach Luke Richardson.

At least 500,000 Ontario children -- up to one in five under the age of 18 -- have difficulties that are diagnosed as a serious mental illness.

"There was a surge before this tragic death, but it intensified after," said Dr. Simon Davidson, CHEO's chief psychiatrist.Demand for the hospital's 19 psychiatric beds (15 for teens, four for children under age 12) has been so high that the children's unit remains closed to voluntary admissions and additional beds in the medical wards have been reallocated for psychiatric patients. The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre has eight beds that are reserved mainly for 16-to-18-year-olds, but in recent weeks, those beds have also been full.

"We're running out of places where we can put these patients," said Davidson, who's also chief of the Royal Ottawa's specialized services for children and youth.He pointed to the bed shortage as a symptom of the province's chronically underfunded mental-health services, which quickly come under strain when demand surges."When we experience an increased demand like we're having now, we are very close to having serious difficulties coping," said Davidson.

Under Ontario's mental-health regulations, only individuals who are considered an "imminent" danger to themselves or others are hospitalized on an urgent basis.

For children and teens, however, physicians consider additional factors, such as the level of family and community support available, whether bullying is involved and the severity of symptoms such as crying, sleeplessness, anxiety and substance abuse."We're doing careful risk assessments and admitting the ones that have to be admitted," said Davidson.

Staff from CHEO's outpatient mental-health clinic have been reassigned to provide crisis intervention, and an extra psychiatrist has been pressed into on-call service, bringing to two the number of specialists available to ER physicians for round-the-clock medical advice.

With more staff focused on urgent care, children and teens waiting for outpatient mental-health services will inevitably face longer delays, Davidson warned. For non-urgent cases, the average wait for CHEO's mental-health services currently sits at two to five months.

Davidson said it's too soon to say how much longer non-urgent patients could be expected to wait. "It all depends on how long the surge continues."

CHEO officials are nervously eyeing the months ahead out of fear the winter flu season could add to the crush of children and teens showing up at the emergency room, creating additional pressures on beds and staff.

In November alone, 39 children and teens were admitted for mental-health crises, nearly double the number compared to the same period last year.

Likewise, the number of crisis visits to CHEO's ER nearly doubled last month, to 232 from 148 in November 2009. If the trend continues, the hospital could exceed the total number of ER visits (1,773) made by children and teens suffering from mental-health crises last year.

Officials are at a loss to explain the sudden surge, but Davidson suggested the economic downturn could be putting extra stress on families, causing children to experience increased anxiety, depression and panic attacks.

He also wondered if the outpouring of public support for the Richardsons, following the death of their daughter, has made more children and teens feel comfortable about seeking help instead of suffering in silence.

The problem is that Ontario's mental-health services are already stretched to the limit, and the strain isn't simply confined to hospitals, said Davidson.

He noted that in the weeks following Richardson's death, YouthNet, which offers in-school counselling services, and the Youth Services Bureau, which offers suicide-prevention services, also struggled to meet demand, suggesting those agencies are "dramatically under-resourced."

Davidson said the growing gap between supply and demand means the province must step up funding for mental health.

At least 500,000 Ontario children -- up to one in five under the age of 18 -- have difficulties that are diagnosed as a serious mental illness.

Resources

- . The Youth Services Bureau's 24-7 crisis line for Eastern Ontario. Teams of professionals answer calls about mental-health issues among youth, make house calls if needed, and connect youth and their families to professional help. The YSB also has a temporary residence where troubled youth can stay while being assessed. The crisis line number is 613-260-2360 or 1-877-377-7775.

- . www.youthnet.on.caoffers interventions and resources by youth for youth
- . www.ementalhealth.caoffers a complete list of mental-health resources in the community
- . www.newmentality.cais a program of Children's Mental Health Ontario that helps youth break the stigma of mental illness and works with them to get youth involved within mental-health centres

- . The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario's website, www.cheo.on.ca,currently features an illuminating YouTube video of psychologist Ian Manion talking to teens about suicide prevention. Also included is a list of warning signs of suicidal behaviour.

Cancun Climate Conference 'using as much energy as a village for a year'

Amazing figure about a "Climate Control Meeting
The Cancun Climate Conference is using up as much energy as a small village in England for a whole year. More than 190 countries are meeting in the luxury resort for two weeks to discuss the best way to bring down global carbon emissions.

The total carbon footprint of the conference, according to the Mexican Government, is 25,000 tonnes. This is equivalent to 4,500 UK households for a year or the same amount of carbon as a poor African nation such as Somalia would pump out in two weeks.

The carbon footprint of the conference is five times as much as the last meeting in Copenhagen, even though less people are attending the conference. There are around 15,000 delegates this year compared to around 45,000 people from governments, media and non-governmental organisations in Copenhagen.

However Herando Guerrero, the chief of staff for the Minister of the Environment, insisted the reason emissions are so much higher is because the Mexican Government are taking more comprehensive measurements.

He said the measurement this year includes all the flights taken by the delegates, energy use and even food. "The emissions at Copenhagen were estimated at below 5,000 tonnes. In Cancun it will be 4 or 5 times that amount because we are considering everything. Emissions from every trip, all transport, food. We are taking the information to calculate the carbon footprint."

The Government has also installed a 1.5MW wind turbine on the approach to the conference centre and solar panels on the roof of the Moon Palace Hotel where most meetings are taking place. Delegates are being driven from hotels to the conference centre in buses powered by biofuels.

There are recycling points scattered around the conference but Mr Guerrero admitted the nearest recycling facility is hundreds of miles away in Mexico City.He said the all the carbon will be offset through protecting forests and planting trees in poor areas of Mexico. The government will pay £7 ($10) to farmers for every tonne of carbon that is "neutralised."

Altogether the Mexican Government is spending £43 million on the conference, including security and transport.However Alejandra Serrano, an environmental lawyer in Cancun, said wider environmental issues should have been considered.

She pointed out that Cancun itself is an 'environmental disaster'. The resort was built 30 years ago on a pristine mangrove island and has since grown uncontrollably.

The huge concrete hotels have destroyed the mangrove forests, meaning the beach has entirely eroded and sand has to be dredged in every two years. The lagoon is polluted and most of the island is now paved.She said the Government should be bringing in strict regulations to stop further development of the coast, installing proper recycling facilities and protecting the coral reefs and mangrove forests that are left before it is too late.

"With the eyes of the world on Cancun, we should be using this conference to make sure the environment is protected in future," she said.

Talk the talk but not : walk the walk

When the jobless just won't participate
The real story behind the latest labour figures...

Latest employment report shows more people are just giving up on looking for work
A deeper look at last Friday’s employment statistics shows more soft spots.

While the official jobless rate is now 7.6 per cent, and this is of course a government figure, the broader rate, which includes discouraged workers, the unemployed and involuntary part-timers (called the R8 series), was 10.2 per cent in November. That's not much improved from the 11 per cent rate a year ago.

Meantime, the unexpected drop in the country’s national jobless rate last month, to 7.6 per cent from 7.9 per cent, sounds good on the surface because it hasn’t been that low in almost two years.

The reason, however, stems more from a tumble in the number of people looking for work than from any real job growth. Full-time jobs disappeared last month while private-sector positions also evaporated.

About 43,600 fewer people searched for a job last month. It’s little wonder some are giving up, taking a breather or going back to school: Canada hasn’t created many jobs in the past five months, after a strong start to the year.

That sent the participation rate, or the number of people who are working or actively looking for work, to 66.9 per cent from 67.2 per cent -- the biggest one-month drop in 15 years, according to Statistics Canada. The current participation rate is the lowest in nearly five years and compares with a high of 68 per cent in March, 2008.

A drop among youth was the main reason for the decline -- youth participation rate is now the lowest in more than a decade. But it’s not only youth who are falling out of the labour market -- the rate fell among adult men and women, too.

“It’s not good news to see less people in the job market," says Benoit Durocher, senior economist at Desjardins Securities in Montreal.

I will be watching the rate closely next month to get a sense whether it’s a longer-term trend, and whether it’s still concentrated mainly among youth. Another low participation rate could signal slower consumption, he says, because it suggests more people are feeling an earnings loss.

This may cause a government tax shortfall ..soon
The effect on the buying of youth goods is also affected .. no money no goods?

Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace. The basis of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual life is antagonism. This I believe is the open fact of life.

Health is the balance between physical life and external nature, and it is maintained only by sufficient vitality on the inside against things on the outside.

Everything outside my physical life is designed to prematurely end my life. Things which keep me going when I am alive, disintegrate me when I am dead. If I have enough fighting power, I produce the balance of health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a vigorous mental life, I have to fight, and in that way the mental balance called thought is produced.

Morally it is the same. Everything that does not partake of the nature of virtue is the enemy of virtue in me, and it depends on what moral calibre I have whether I overcome and produce virtue by conformity of my life and conduct to moral and ethical principles; uprightness; rectitude.

Immediately I fight, I am moral in that particular struggle. No man is virtuous because he cannot help it; virtue is acquired.

I base these comments on the disintegration of moral structure, parenting practices, cultural tolerance and the growth of antagonism changing population discernment.

More Canadian Veneer?

OTTAWA - The only major attempt to assess the impact of the multibillion-dollar federal stimulus program suggests it's been a flop when it comes to creating jobs. I wonder why this is/was the only major attempt to tell the Canadian taxpayer just where their money went to and just what it was spent on. Watch this space for another Fairy Tale is this spend is ever accurately audited.

The Conservatives have long boasted that the Economic Action Plan helped save hundreds of thousands of jobs during the recession. But the parliamentary budget officer has found that the recipients of the money don't see it that way.

In a survey of municipalities that received Infrastructure Stimulus Fund (ISF) money, 33 per cent said they saw an increase in employment as a result of the funding. Twenty-one per cent said there were fewer jobs, and 43 per cent said they saw no net impact whatsoever.

The responses are part of a survey the parliamentary budget officer commissioned in the summer."The results pertaining to perceived unemployment impacts are particularly worthy of note here, given some of the goals underlying ISF," said Scott Bennett, a (Conservative) Carleton University expert in polling who analyzed the results.

The survey also shows little evidence of job spinoffs as a result of the stimulus spending. The federal government ran up the deficit to finance its stimulus spending with the expectation that the money would immediately create construction jobs, then trickle through the economy to buoy up the private sector and create jobs elsewhere.

"The stimulus money was necessary to protect our country, to protect our jobs," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Wednesday in his usual flip-flop way.

But municipalities said they don't expect to see higher employment after the stimulus money stops flowing. Rather, eight per cent said they expect lower employment, and 69 per cent said there will be no change.

Respondents in New Brunswick and Northwest Territories were more likely to perceive significant employment benefits from the stimulus spending than other provinces. Municipalities in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec were far less enthusiastic.

According to Bennett's analysis, the municipalities' responses are thoughtful and thorough. But they are perceptions of job creation, and not an actual job count.

From other information gleaned in the survey, Bennett figures each of the 3900 ISF projects created 19 year-long jobs on average, paying about $55,000 a year. But there's no way of knowing if those jobs would have been there in the absence of federal stimulus money.

What is clear, according to the survey results, is that some types of infrastructure projects were far better at creating jobs than others.

Public transit projects were "very effective," the survey findings show. And jobs at building airports, highways and ports were especially lucrative.

At the other end of the spectrum, solid waste management projects didn't pay well, nor did they create many jobs.

Generally, the municipalities said they thought the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund was administered well, but they had big problems with the timing. Government approvals of projects were too slow, and reimbursement was too slow, the survey says.

The Harper government has not made any public effort to track jobs created by the $16-billion infrastructure program. Rather, it has relied on economic modelling at the Department of Finance. We all know how capable Mr Flaherty is..yes.

The modelling suggests that the Economic Action Plan as a whole would have created or maintained 220,000 jobs by the end of 2010.

The survey involved 644 completed questionnaires out of 1,129 sent out. If it was a random survey, the results could be considered accurate within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.