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When Top Gear came to an abrupt halt in March of 2015 there was much speculation about the future of the show and its presenters. A return to the BBC was eventually ruled out for the presenters, leaving the world to speculate on where they would move to. The top contenders to pick up the trio of presenters included rival British TV station Channel 5, big name US networks, and Netflix. Among the punishments faced by citizens in a modern society, none are more severe than the death penalty. In use from Canada’s founding in 1867, till its abolition in 1976, the death penalty was exercised in the sentencing of nearly 600 persons. Having only been abolished in 1976, with an attempt to reinstate it in 1987, the death penalties use in Canada is still fresh in the minds of many Canadians. In recent months the Canadian Government’s “Temporary Foreign Worker Program” has come under heavy fire for its flagrant abuse by businesses across the country. Businesses have been using the program to outsource domestic jobs to workers from overseas.
This program was designed to fill job positions in Canada that those living here cannot or will not. Although a useful program in theory there are many issues that need to be addressed for it to be fair and successful. It was once noted that a true free trade agreement should only be a couple of pages long. This is just enough space for a title page, the definitions, and then codifying that all trade is tariff-free. Unfortunately free trade agreements in practice never turn out to be quite that simple. The North American free trade agreement is close to 400 pages long, and still manages to make reference to other documents which outline further restrictions. Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
This is the opening of the Equality Rights, Section 15, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section codifies the idea that every single person in Canada has the same rights, and is subject to the same laws. On January 15th Target Canada announced that they would be closing down all their Canadian stores. After initially buying the majority of Zellers’ retail locations in 2011, Target had only been operational in Canada for three years before their shutdown.
Target has been plagued with a series of unfortunate issues since they opened operations in Canada. The well-publicised supply chain issues leaving store shelves empty, and management structure issues are only two of the more tangible problems. Crowd-funding has quickly become the way entrepreneurs to secure funding for their project, without giving up equity. Kickstarter is one of the largest, and most popular, crowd-funding sites on the web. While having faced criticism for both their policies and treatment of controversial projects, there is by no means a lack of willing backers for the projects they host.
While there have been numerous projects that I have seen, and been interested in backing, I have chosen not to in each case because the shipping costs are just too high. Canada, like many developed countries, has fallen victim to a pattern of disregard towards voting. In the 2011 federal election only 14 of the 24 million registered voters (61%) actually cast a ballot. These numbers are even worse at the provincial level, where the 2011 Ontario General Election saw a 49% voter turnout.
It is extremely sad to see something as fundamental to a democracy as voting being disregarded by so many people. With fuel prices ever on the rise, customers are always looking for cheaper ways to get around by car. While hybrid, battery-electric, and hydrogen fuel cell cars are considered to be the long term solution for powering motor vehicles, there is the need for a more short-term solution. Europe has already realized that diesel is this solution, and has implemented it with wide-spread success. North America has been much more reluctant to adopt this technology for various reasons, chief among them the negative association between the diesel used in cars versus that of trucks. Recently, while shopping around for a series of new pairs of shoes, I came to a few conclusions. Firstly, while the selection at traditional Canadian shoes retailers is often on par with that of the US, the prices tend to be significantly higher. Secondly, when it comes to Canadian online shoe retailers you are stuck choosing from a select few terrible options. Online outlets for traditional retailers tend to have the same high prices as their physical counterparts, smaller Canadian online shoe retailers (the ones who actually ship to Canada) have an extremely limited selections, and Amazon. People are afraid of change. And it’s this fear that’s keeping Canada from taking the necessary steps towards changing the way we elect Members of Parliament. The current First-past-the-post (FPP) system is a hugely flawed electoral system that has been used in Canada for far too long, and is in need to replacement. This replacement comes in the form of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting, a system which eliminates essentially all the faults found in FPP. With the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games having finished on February 23rd, now is a good opportunity to analyse some of the results and highlights from the games.
Medal Count While something like the final medal count should be a simple matter, it seems the USA has once again managed to complicate matters. Taking a look at the official IOC standing, those published by a variety of countries, and what was published by the USA, you notice that everyone except the USA is using the same version of the results. The Supreme Court of Canada has been in the news more often in the past few months than it probably has in the past few years. This uptake in interest has come about do to the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon to the bench of Supreme Court of Canada. The controversy stems from Nadon’s appointed to fill Quebec’s empty third Supreme Court seat, having neither worked in a Quebec court (he has been working in the Federal Superior Court), nor in Quebec for over a decade. When it comes to hospitals and health care in Ontario one of the most widely compared statistics are those of emergency room wait times. While wait times in Ontario for “Minor or uncomplicated conditions” have dropped from 4.8 hours to 4 hours, these patients account for nearly a third of all ER patients in the province.
I have only ever needed some form of professional medical care 4 times in my life. OC Transpo, the public transit service for the city of Ottawa, has one of the largest fleets of buses in North America with over 1000 buses on over 130 routes. The following is an overview of my advice on seating for a selection of the buses operated by OC Transpo.
This guide is written primarily for the average able-bodies bus rider as there is very little available about the regular seating on OC Transpo buses. When Canada bought the CF-18 in 1980 the projected life of the jets indicated that they would be in service until the early 2000′s (Pugliese, 2011). To extend the life of the aircraft a modernization program was created to retrofit all of the current planes and upgrade them with the latest avionics, communication devices, and weaponry, allowing them to fly beyond 2017. At this point the Canadian Government realized that a replacement was needed for when the CF-18 would finally need to be taken out of service.