Tag: Canada

News

Concern over new Canadian Census Form Changes

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date June 30, 2010

Changes in the way census information will be collected due to privacy concerns is concerning many Canadians 
as well as the research community.
 
The long form questionnaire which contains valuable information for researchers and StatsCan will be eliminated 
and replaced with a new voluntary National Household Survey form and the results will never be released.

According to the Vancouver Sun story: "The idea of doing away with the long census questionnaire form,  
transferring the questions to the NHS and no longer releasing the information did not become public until Saturday, \
when it appeared in a  government publication."

Tories Scrap Mandatory Long Form Census – Globe and Mail

Census Change Under Fire – Vancouver Sun

The next Census will be in 2011.

Tags Canada, census

Online Resource (Free)

Perspectives on the upcoming G20 meeting in Toronto

Post author By Yvonne Chan
Post date June 21, 2010

As you are no doubt aware, Toronto is playing host to the upcoming G20 summit June 26th and 27th. It’s a good time, therefore, to take a look at some information sites and other resources related to the group. Here are just a few – there are many many more out there.

The Government of Canada has a website devoted to the G20 and its meeting in Toronto. On this site you can find government news, videos, Ministers’ statements, and a calendar of events.

The University of Toronto, through its Munk School of Global Affairs, has a G20 Information Centre with extensive links to news features; Ministers’ statements and communiques; G20 Official Documents, factsheets and newsdesk publications; and links to both U of T and external research reports.

OECD and the G20 is a topic page on the OECD website which provides information and links to relevant OECD reports, video clips, working papers and OECD leaders’ statements.

The World Bank has a blog devoted to the G20. The posts are substantive and include World Bank or other high quality data sources where relevant. Recent post topics include: auto sales, poverty, protectionism, and good governance.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) maintains a Principal Global Indicators webpage “to facilitate the monitoring of economic and financial developments for these systemically important economies. Launched in response to the on-going financial and economic crisis, it is hosted by the IMF, and is a joint undertaking of the Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics: Bank for International Settlements (BIS), European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), and the World Bank (WB).”

Tags Canada, finance, G20, international, trade

News

Text of Bill C-32 now available

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date June 2, 2010

The text of the bill is now available:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32401372/Copyright-Bill-C32

Tags Canada, copyright, legislative

News

C-32, new Copyright Bill introduced

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date June 2, 2010

A day earlier than expected the new copyright bill, C-32, has been introduced.

The text of the bill is not yet available online but is coming soon: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/crp-prda.nsf/eng/home

For further information take a look at Michael Geist’s blog.

Also CBC features a news story about the bill: Copyright bill would ban digital locks

Tags Canada, copyright, parliament

News

Rise and Fall of the GDP

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date May 20, 2010

Read the article Rise and Fall of the GDP in the New York Times Magazine. The author Jon Gertner attended a presentation on the Canadian Index of Well-Being presented by Alex Michalos, a former chancellor at the University of Northern British Columbia.

The presentation on the Canadian Index of Well Being is available here. Michalos’ interesting approach discusses how the success of a country depends on collaborations with international organizations such as Stats Canada, OECD etc.

Tags Canada, economics, finance, United States

News Website

U.S Government responds to oil spill in Gulf

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date May 18, 2010

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources resumed it’s Hearing May 12th, 2010 to review current issues related to offshore oil and gas development – you can view the archived webcast of the Hearing.

Take a look at the US government response timeline.

Take a look at the Deepwater Horizon Response site, which gives up to date news and video on how events are progressing.

Read the Globe’s article: Moderator’s skipped question on Gulf oil spill at Harper forum.

Tags Canada, environment, G8, United States

Online Resource (Free)

Government & Government-related films

Post author By Yvonne Chan
Post date March 30, 2010

We owe another shoutout to Christina at Lam for telling us how much she likes FedFlix! We agree – it’s terrific!

FedFlix is a collection of US government public information and training films hosted over at the Internet Archive: FedFlix is a “Joint Venture NTIS-1832 between the National Technical Information Service and Public.Resource.Org. Here we feature the best movies of the United States Government, from training films to history, from our national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors, all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.”

The content covers a wide range of topics, from forest fire control to workplace integrity, military etiquette, mining safety, cold war, homeland security/civil defence and culture, religion and communities training courtesy of the Chicago police department.
Here are just a few sample titles you can watch: Why Vietnam (1965, Dept of Defense); the much spoofed Duck and Cover (1951, Federal Civil Defense Administration); Central Intelligence Agency True Stories (1963; and Assessing the Madoff Ponzi Scheme Part 1 and Part 2 (2009, US House of Representatives)

You may wonder – does Canada have a repository like this? Not exactly, but we do have a couple of great sources of film clips that cover a wide range of social and political topics:

The CBC Archives is a wonderful source of CBC radio and television clips. Topics include Federal and Provincial elections; the path to Canada’s Constitution; separatism; abortion; women politicians; and foreign relations. There is also a great deal of content on various prominent political leaders such as Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent, Maurice Duplessis, William Lyon MacKenzie King, Paul Martin, Robert Bourassa, and Rene Levesque.

The National Film Board of Canada allows the public to view a large proportion of its films for free on its website, including animated films, documentaries, war films and much more. Sample titles that you can view for free are: Call for Volunteers (1941, following the women of Winnipeg and their war efforts); Food: Weapon of Conquest (1940s newsreel); Action: The October Crisis of 1970; Airplane Casualties (1918); Air: Climate (2000); and Kanehsatake: 270 years of Resistance (1993).
If you click the “playlists” link you’ll find collections of films grouped under various themes, such as the Winter Sports movies, hockey movies, anti-racism films and “fun films about science and technology.”

Tags Canada, films, political history, USA

Online Resource (Free)

Canadian Parliamentary Information and Research Service

Post author By Yvonne Chan
Post date March 22, 2010

Ever wondered how MPs and Senators research issues? Did you know that the Library of Parliament has a research service for parliamentarians – the Parliamentary Information & Research Service (PIRS)? Or that PIRS provides free public access to its publications? Click here to view the list of available research publications.

“PIRS (responds) to questions that require research and analysis on legal, economic, scientific, or social science matters. Researchers obtain and analyze material, and write letters, short notes and longer research papers at the request of Senators and Members of the House of Commons.”

These documents provide insight into the depth/type of information that MPs and Senators have prior to debates and votes
Publication categories include Aboriginal issues, agriculture, business, copyright, crime, public debt, defense – including much about Afghanistan, education, environment, fisheries, health, human rights, immigration, legislative summaries, taxation and transport.
Documents added since January 2010 include Clean Coal?; Cybersecurity and Intelligence: The US Approach and Productivity: Its Increasing Influence over Canadians’ Standard of Living and Quality of Life.

Tags Canada, legislative, parliament

News Website

HotDocs DocLibrary – Dept of Canadian Heritage

Post author By Susan Paterson
Post date March 10, 2010

“This site is supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage. It provides free access to a large growing collection of documentary films from Canadian film makers. These include materials from National Film Board. Materials can be searched or browsed by topic. There are also playlists for films by young film makers and a section designed for school and college use. A wide range of topics relating to social, political, economic and world events are covered. They include an emphasis on the history, culture and society of Canada, the anthropology of Canadian ethnic groups and Canadian perspectives on world events. Information on copyright and technical requirements is given on the website.” – Intute

Tags Canada

Online Resource (Free)

Food and Product Recall Database

Post author By Yvonne Chan
Post date February 3, 2010

After discovering this morning that a brand of potato-leek soup might have undeclared clams in it….this seemed like an appropriate database to highlight. The Healthy Canadians website has played host to a database of recalled food and consumer products since 2007. You can search by product or by food and the site also provides links to lists of recalled foods and products by month, and articles on various food/product safety topics.

A related site you may be interested to look at is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. This provides you with a great deal of information related to food & food chain safety in Canada. Also links to the various authorities in each region that are responsible for handling restaurant complaints and inspections.

For Vancouver, this is the Coastal Health Authority. The Health Authority has a very handy database that will allow you to search for and view restaurant inspections for food establishments in Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, “Bellas,” Richmond and Bowen Island. Just may be more information than you wanted to know!

Tags Canada, consumer recalls, database, food chain, food safety