Although canon-formation is, as Lecker suggests, a product of rhetoric and textual choices of critics, it is also a product of economic forces, political conflicts, and cultural expectations of coherence, “order,” and unitary explanation. Conditioned by some or all of these, an essay ostensibly skeptical of canons, as this one appears to be, can find itself nevertheless contributing to the thing it questions. In attempting to attribute the formation of a single national canon to a specific period , to a (...) specific and allegedly homogeneous group of actors , and to a specific social phenomenon , Lecker’s essay becomes another constructor of canonical text and theory. Behind its arguments that a canon suddenly came into being are fairly precise assumptions not only about “Canadian critics” but also about what constitutes canonicity, and about the relative legitimacy of canonicity claims. “At the end of World War II, Canadian literature was not taught as an independent subject in Canadian schools. There was no canon,” his essay begins . Is a school curriculum the only possible context for the attainment of literary “legitimacy”? Can there be no canon if a literature has no curriculum, education publishers, or “academic critics,” or if it has not been institutionalized as an “independent” subject? Frank Davey, chair of the department of English at York University, is the author of From There to Here: A Guide to English Canadian Literature Since 1960 , Surviving the Paraphrase , Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics , and Reading Canadian Reading . He is also the editor of Open Letter and the on-line magazine Swiftcurrent. He is currently working on a study of nationalist ideologies in Canadian fiction entitled National Arguments. (shrink)

During a period of about four decades following World War I, gasoline was often deodorized at refineries by treatment with alkaline solutions of lead oxide, a procedure generally denoted ‘doctor sweetening’. Contemporary accounts describe it as old, but are generally vague about its origin. This paper traces the early history of the treatment of petroleum distillate by alkaline plumbite solution, dating back to 1866 when it was introduced in Germany by Rudolf Wagner. After 1869, this procedure became the preferred method (...) for deodorizing Canadian kerosene and other petroleum products which were afflicted by unusually high sulphur content. Subsequently, Hermann Frasch improved on this method by distilling the afflicted petroleum in the presence of solid metal oxides. (shrink)

The current study examines informal, practitioner-directed ethical discourses within the Canadian CA profession for the 1912–1997 period. Starting from the premise that ethical discourse within practitioner journals are less constrained, more flexible and timely than formal ethical codes in communicating "important" ethical information to the lay membership, we examine: (1) is the CA profession''s current interest in ethics a recent phenomena?, (2) what was meant by the term ethics in earlier periods?, and (3) are current-day ethical discourses a continuation (...) of – or break with – prior discourses? We expect that the analysis provides a necessary historical context for understanding the state of current-day ethical discussions with public accountancy. (shrink)

Three Canadian institutional animal care and use committees were observed over a 1-year period to investigate animal ethical evaluation. While each protocol was evaluated, the observer collected information about the final decision, the type of protocol, and the category of invasiveness. The observer also wrote down verbatim all verbal interventions, which were coded according to the following categories: scientific, technical, politics, human analog, reduction, refinement, and replacement. The data revealed that only 16% of the comments were devoted to the (...) 3 explicit ethical categories and that most of the comments were technical. However, the analysis revealed that ethical concerns were implicit in both scientific and technical comments; either ethical norms had been translated into scientific and technical language, or some of the scientific and technical comments had an impact on the ethical treatment of animals. The results are discussed in relation to previous nonobservational research that identified potential pitfalls and bias in animal ethical evaluation. (shrink)

The ten provincial ministries of education in Canada were surveyed to determine the extent to which they promote moral education in their public schools. The results were compared with those from a similar inquiry completed 12 years before. In the intervening period, Quebec has taken giant steps forward on several fronts. By contrast, activity in other provinces has been far from encouraging.

This study uses a specific method to analyze the contents of the codes of ethics of the largest corporations in Australia, Canada and Sweden and compares the findings of similar content analyses in 2002 and 2006. It tracks changes in code contents across the three nations over the 2002–2006 period. There were statistically significant changes in the codes of the three countries from 2002 to 2006: the Australian and Canadian codes becoming more prescriptive, intensifying the differences between these and (...) the Swedish codes. The contents of these codes and the nature of the changes they have undergone over time are culturally driven: Australia's and Canada's reflecting their similar cultural profiles and Sweden's reflecting its differences from these countries on organizationally relevant cultural dimensions. The study reveals that corporate codes of ethics are living documents as reflected by the significant longitudinal changes in the frequencies of mention of several of the 60 items underpinning the content analysis of the codes of ethics. Consequently, and in light of their growing prevalence and importance as instruments of corporate governance, they should not be treated as static but as dynamic documents that are subject to various environmental factors. The clear implication of the findings of this study is that for corporate codes of ethics ‘one size does not fit all’ and that these instruments must be carefully monitored and revised to reflect changing conditions. (shrink)

This study uses a specific method to analyze the contents of the codes of ethics of the largest corporations in Australia, Canada and Sweden and compares the findings of similar content analyses in 2002 and 2006. It tracks changes in code contents across the three nations over the 2002–2006 period. There were statistically significant changes in the codes of the three countries from 2002 to 2006: the Australian and Canadian codes becoming more prescriptive, intensifying the differences between these and (...) the Swedish codes. The contents of these codes and the nature of the changes they have undergone over time are culturally driven: Australia's and Canada's reflecting their similar cultural profiles and Sweden's reflecting its differences from these countries on organizationally relevant cultural dimensions. The study reveals that corporate codes of ethics are living documents as reflected by the significant longitudinal changes in the frequencies of mention of several of the 60 items underpinning the content analysis of the codes of ethics. Consequently, and in light of their growing prevalence and importance as instruments of corporate governance, they should not be treated as static but as dynamic documents that are subject to various environmental factors. The clear implication of the findings of this study is that for corporate codes of ethics ‘one size does not fit all’ and that these instruments must be carefully monitored and revised to reflect changing conditions. (shrink)

ObjectivesPrevious studies found a general increase in prejudice against Chinese people during the first months of the pandemic. The present study aims to consider inter-individual heterogeneity in stability and change regarding prejudice involving Chinese people during the pandemic. The first objective is to identify and describe different trajectories of prejudice over a seven-month period during the pandemic. The second and third objectives are to test the association between trajectory group membership and antecedent variables such as: socio-demographic factors and two psychological (...) mechanisms, namely economic threat and global citizenship identification.MethodsA representative Canadian sample according to age, gender and province of residence, was recruited for a 10-wave survey starting from April 2020 to December 2020. First, a group-based modeling approach was used to identify trajectories of prejudice. Second, a multinomial logistic regression model was used to test associations between membership in trajectories and antecedents.ResultsFour trajectories were identified. The first three trajectories have a low, high or very high level of prejudice against Chinese people which is relatively stable over time. The fourth trajectory reports low levels of prejudice in favor of Chinese people which become more positive throughout 2020. Regarding socio-demographic factors: gender is not associated with trajectory group membership, younger people are more likely to follow the trajectory in favor of Chinese people and conservatives are more likely to follow the highest trajectories against Chinese people. Regarding some psychological mechanisms: personal but not collective economic threat is associated with the trajectory in favor of Chinese people. Finally, the highest levels of prejudice are found when the strategy of identification is more local rather than global.ConclusionThe present study shows that Canadians differ in terms of both their level and change in prejudice against Chinese people throughout the pandemic with some socio-demographic groups being more likely than others to be associated with prejudice. The results also suggest that a promising way to tackle the major social issue of prejudice is to highlight a vision of the world where individuals are all “global citizens” facing the same challenge. (shrink)

SummaryThis article examines the role played by conceptions of friendship in the francophone Catholic world during the early-to-mid twentieth century, focusing particularly on the review La Relève, a significant French Canadian publication of the 1930s and 1940s. For many francophone Catholic intellectuals during this period, friendship signalled a shared commitment to common religious, social and political goals. These notions of community and friendship were especially central to Catholic thinkers such as Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier, who participated in the (...) personalist movement, an influential current of philosophy in mid-twentieth-century France. While the young writers at La Relève were initially a small and cliquish group of old schoolmates, their growing interest in personalism led them to conceive of their group in more inclusive and communitarian terms. Their personal ties to Maritain also allowed them to cultivate links with a broader, international network of francophone Catholic authors. These relationships would come to fruition during the Second World War, when the Relève group would act as publishers for many European anti-fascist intellectuals living in North American exile. The example of La Relève thus allows us to see how friendship served as both an idealised form of social relationship and a means for building up a larger community of like-minded Catholic intellectuals and social activists. (shrink)

This study analyses the patenting activities of university science and engineering professors in Canada between 1920 and 1975. Unlike most studies on commercial activities in academia, which typically focus on the post-1980 period and on university practices, we focus on the pre-1980 period and on the individual decisions of professors to patent their inventions. Based on quantitative patent data, we show that patenting, and thus professors’ interest in the possible commercial value of their scientific discoveries made in university laboratories, was (...) relatively common on an individual and informal basis well before the 1980s and the advent of what is now called “academic capitalism”. This contradicts the belief that before that period, universities were a kind of ivory towers in which professors isolated themselves from external influences and engaged only in pure and disinterested research. (shrink)

This paper brings together a most fascinating and under-examined body of early New World writing that belong to a genre of writing I call “the torture narrative” with the insights of Marshall McLuhan in order to offer a way of thinking about body parts, especially hands, teeth, tongues, and eyeballs, and their extensions through technologies such as alphabets, manuscripts, books, and weapons. At its core are questions about the nature and effects of the changes wrought by the early-Gutenberg era—a period (...) characterized by vast scientific and technical discoveries, rising nationalisms, explorations, and conquests—in the New World. Rather than explore the ways an early New World print culture reflects or distorts discrete historical or ethnographic facts about colonial contact, I want to probe the ways the torture narrative speaks to the conditions of speaking and writing, and therefore to the discursive and textual production of the New World subject and New World space. My inquiry seeks to understand both the violence in, and the violence of, representation at founding historical moments, but its relevance far exceeds Renaissance or American studies. At stake in this discussion is an appreciation of a mode of intellectual inquiry that is attentive to the relationship between media technologies and the social worlds they reflect and transform. (shrink)

The residency years comprise the last period of a physician’s formal training. It is at this stage that trainees consolidate the clinical skills required for independent practice and achieve a level of ethical development essential to their work as physicians, a process known as professional identity formation (PIF). Ethics education is thought to contribute to ethical development and to that end the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) requires that formal ethics education be integrated within all postgraduate (...) specialty training programs. However, a formal ethics curriculum can operate in parallel with informal and hidden ethics curricula, the latter being more subtle, pervasive, and influential in shaping learner attitudes and behavior. This paper reports on a study of the formal, informal, and hidden ethics curricula at two postgraduate psychiatry programs in Canada. Based on the analysis of data sources, we relate the divergences between the formal, informal, and hidden ethics curricula to two aspects of professional identity formation (PIF) during psychiatry residency training. The first is the idea of group membership. Adherence to the hidden curriculum in certain circumstances determines whether residents become part of an in-group or demonstrate a sense of belonging to that group. The second aspect of PIF we explore is the ambiguous role of the resident as a student and a practitioner. In ethically challenging situations, adherence to the messages of the hidden curriculum is influenced by and influences whether residents act as students, practitioners, or both. This paper describes the hidden curriculum in action and in interaction with PIF. Our analysis offers a complementary, empirical perspective to the theoretical literature concerning PIF in medical education. This literature tends to position sound ethical decision-making as the end result of PIF. Our analysis points out that the mechanism works in both directions: how residents respond to hidden curriculum in ethics can be a driver of professional identity formation. (shrink)

This study elucidates the link and effect of ethical reinforcement in the post‐financial crisis era by taking two congruent directions to demonstrate that ethical reinforcement can be accomplished by either a continuous ethical training or a meticulous code of business ethics—which members of the mutual fund industry claim they adhere to—as both have a positive effect on the funds’ performance, including sizeable gains to investors. Furthermore, evidence divulges that ethical reinforcement moderates the performance of ethical or socially responsible investments (SRI) (...) funds more than nonethical investments, suggesting that a perspective of ethical or SRI classification of a fund alone is not sufficient, but it is necessary to have the institutional ethical environment and/or managers’ continuous ethical training. This result supports the notion of financial market discipline and reveals some factors behind SRI or ethical funds returns, notably during the period following the recent financial crisis. (shrink)

How do we deal with difference personally, interpersonally, nationally? Can we weave a cohesive social fabric in a religiously plural society without suppressing differences? This collection of significant essays suggests that to truly honour differences in matters of faith and religion we must publicly exercise and celebrate them. The secular/sacred, public/private divisions long considered sacred in the West need to be dismantled if Canada (or any nation state) is to develop a genuine mosaic that embraces fundamental differences instead of a (...) melting pot that marginalizes. An ethics of difference starts with a recognition of difference, not as deviance or deficit that threatens but as otherness to connect with, cherish, and celebrate. The book begins with the suggestion that our inability to come to terms with social plurality is not fundamentally the fault of religious differences, and that a public/private split inadequately deals with matters of basic difference. It then explores how encouraging people to live out their respective faiths may open new possibilities for respectful, honourable, and just negotiations of contemporary dilemmas arising out of the multicultural fabric of Canadian life. Towards an Ethics of Community introduces readers to some of the most challenging and divisive dilemmas we face in this increasingly pluralistic, postmodern world — issues such as family and domestic violence, Aboriginal rights, homosexuality and public policy, and female genital mutilation. This is a book truly global in scope and significance. (shrink)

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation changed in 2021; persons without a reasonably foreseeable natural death (RFND) could now be eligible for MAID and would have to wait at least 90 days before their intervention. This legislative change caused a new ethically complex question to arise, which we explore in this commentary, namely: Where should individuals without a RFND wait (for 90 days) in a publicly funded health system?

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set the stage (...) for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)

This study analyzes the ideals of responsibility and accountability, asking such questions as when it is legitimate to blame top officials of an organization for mistakes made by personnel below them in the bureaucratic hierarchy; when things go wrong in a large and complex organization like the Canadian Forces, who is responsible and accountable; and whether a plea of ignorance is a good excuse. The study also analyzes the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in both the British and Canadian (...) parliamentary traditions, asking whether it is realistic to expect that a government minister should be held responsible for everything that goes wrong in his/her department. Finally, traditional military values are examined, considering the kinds of attitudes and values expected from Canada's armed forces and the differences between the military and civilian sectors. (shrink)

In the 1960s and 1970s, scuba technology, underwater cameras, and documentarians revealed a long-hidden underwater world to the public. At this time oceanographic science was growing exponentially. Historians of the marine sciences have focused their studies of the period on institutional and military partnerships, and on the scientist-administrators who shaped oceanographic research institutions (such as the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the British National Institute of Oceanography). Underwater habitat development during the 1960s and 1970s, however, (...) deserves greater attention than it has yet received, as it highlights a peculiar confluence of military, scientific, and popular interest, characteristic of the period, in the colonization of the seafloor. Existing accounts have focused on American habitats, notably Sealab and Tektite, since these were the largest and best funded. But this approach overemphasizes a Cold War narrative in which the sole protagonists of the habitat programs were the United States and the Soviet Union. At least 65 habitats were built between 1962 and 1991. Some were state-sponsored, with significant programs run by French, German, Japanese, and Canadian teams. This essay takes as a case study the Canadian Sublimnos habitat as well as the underwater exploration programs it helped launch in Newfoundland (Lora-I) and in the Arctic (Sub-Igloo). The Canadian case demonstrates that technological expertise and public enthusiasm for underwater exploration should not be solely understood with reference to Cold War interests of the two superpowers. Rather, the international range of habitat programs of the 1960s and 1970s reveals an expanding interest in the vertical underwater dimension that was fueled by numerous national scientific aims and territorial claims. (shrink)

As Canadian experience back to the Great Depression reveals, monetary policy can have potent impact on social welfare. Although in recent years Canadian monetary policy has been managed—with little public understanding—for the benefit of wealthy interests, earlier Canadian federal governments, largely through the monetary powers of the Bank of Canada established in 1935, not only financed participation in World War II, but also in the post-war period created the nation's remarkable social programs. Changes in monetary policy beginning (...) in the late 1970s have shifted control over the money system almost entirely to the private commercial banks, and have contributed substantially to severe erosion of those programs. Changes in current monetary policy, shown from past experience to be feasible, could play a key role in financing restoration and improvement of social programs. Some implications for the US and other nations are spelled out. (shrink)

Canadian capitalism has entered a period of intensified volatility. Rooted in persistent profitability problems, it is facing several challenges, including economic stagnation, a household-debt driven real-estate and construction boom, and an increasingly fragile financial system. Drawing on a classical Marxist framework of capitalist crisis, this article explores the dynamics of instability in Canada and the response of the capitalist state, which centres on increased efforts to export oil and gas to China, thereby deepening conflict with Indigenous land defenders, and (...) a redoubling of the assault on workers to increase the rate of exploitation. (shrink)

Bioethics experts played a key role in ensuring a coherent ethical response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the fields of healthcare, public health, and scientific research in Canada. In the province of Quebec, a group of academic and practicing bioethicists met periodically in the early months of the pandemic to discuss approaches and solutions to ethical dilemmas encountered during the crisis. These meetings created the opportunity for a national survey of bioethics practitioners from different fields. The survey, in which forty-five (...) Canadian bioethics practitioners (clinical ethicists, ethicist members of REBs and government health policy ethicists, or any bioethicist practicing outside of academia) participated, explored their concerns, challenges and opportunities during the first wave of the pandemic, with the objective of informing bioethics research about the difficulties experienced by bioethicists “in the field”. Participants reported increased stress levels, increased workloads, and a greater proportion of their work being devoted to public health ethics. Most of their concerns focused on groups other than themselves, such as health professionals, patients, research participants, and people in vulnerable socio-economic situations. An optimism about the future of bioethics was noted due to an increased awareness of the importance of bioethics by the public and by health and research institutions. (shrink)

During the nineteenth century period of intensive European Expansion into Canada, place was experienced with dis-ease by indigenous people. Not only was there less land available for people of the First Nations to live on as in the past centuries, but their intimate relationship with the land was disturbed causing a dis-ease, as their ability to experience place through ceremony was denied. The effects of this process of Euro-Canadian invasion within Canada created a sense of dis-ease, a sense of (...) being out of place for indigenous people. It is my contention that in order to understand health, an awareness of the dynamic connection between a people and their land is needed, recognizing that a quintessential human quality is to imbue the world with meaning in the creation of sense of place. Through examination of a variety of published and unpublished material, archival sources, memos, letters, official documentation, I explore the effects of control of the place of First Nations, on the health and healing practices of the indigenous people. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over (...) the period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

The Faces of Reason traces the history of philosophy in English Canada from 1850 to 1950, examining the major English-Canadian philosophers in detail adn setting them in the context of the main currents of Canadian thought. The book concludes with a brief survey of the period after 1950. What is distinctive in Canadian philosophy, say the authors, is the concept of reason and the uses to which it is put. Reason has interacted with experience in a new (...) world and a cold climate to create a distinctive Canadian community. The diversity of political, geographic, social, and religious factors has fostered a particular kind of thinking, particular ways of reasoning and communicating. Rather than one grand, overarching Canadian way of thinking, there are “many faces of reason,” “a kind of philosophic federalism”. The book has two dimensions: “it is a continuos story which makes a point about the development of philosophical reason in the Canadian context.... it is a reference work which may be consulted by readers interested in particular figures, ideas, movements, or periods.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophie, Greta, Cuiyuan, and Feminist DesireStories by Ding Ling, Alice Munro, and Eileen ChangYuhui Bao (bio) and Ian Dennis (bio)Desire has a history and, for a literary criticism inflected by mimetic theory, novelistic prose fiction offers a privileged view of its unfolding. We study novelistic fiction, as opposed to various romance genres, to grasp that history, for what its authors have been able to see, understand, and dramatize—this is (...) the procedural model, indeed the authority established by René Girard and that has largely governed such criticism thereafter.1 But of the three short fictions we consider here—two Chinese and one Canadian—only two are fully novelistic in character, in that they attempt to describe and diagnose—rather than merely express—emergent and changing desires. Students of Girard, of course, recognize here the distinction between the romanesque and romantique. to which one might add the understandings of genre developed by a number of other theorists.2However, we might also concede that all fictions are invariably and to some degree romantic—some desire, necessarily mediated, is always operative, in writers and readers alike, before or even as it is demystified, if indeed it is. Furthermore, a passionate fictional commitment to that which Girard boldly [End Page 131] designated the mensonge romantique may actually reveal or clarify, at least for later readers, that which the author seeks half- or unconsciously to conceal. It is with this possibility in mind that we propose to consider our other subject fiction, "Miss Sophie's Diary" (莎菲女士的日记 sha fei nv shi de ri ji; 1927) by the pioneering Chinese woman writer Ding Ling (丁玲 ding ling).3 "Miss Sophie's Diary," to be clear, is no simple romance; it is at least hybrid, and in its brave if perhaps only partially successful pursuit of the truth of desire, subtly revelatory. Miss Sophie (莎菲 sha fei), chronically ill with tuberculosis and half-separated from a human world she both longs for and despises, with her aggrieved sense of superiority and desperate, shameful longing for those she passionately feels to be her inferiors, with her loquacious rationalizing and constant, perverse reversals of attitude, is a kind of Dostoyevskian "underground woman," afflicted as well with a touch of the "nausea" later made prestigious by J.-P. Sartre.4 She is clearly a harbinger of her own culture's precipitation into the world of internally mediated, indeed, metaphysical desire, what we might also call the market world, the modernity Girard credits the great European novelists from Stendhal onward with diagnosing. This story has long been described as an unprecedented and "frank" revelation "of a Chinese woman's sexual feelings and contempt for conventional views," expressing an "outspoken and unrelenting individualism."5 At the same time, it has been seen as a product of the fatally compromised and ultimately unsuccessful May Fourth literary movement,6 and not necessarily representative of its author's overall fictional production. From an orthodox Girardian critical perspective, however, the crucial interpretative question might be the degree to which Ding Ling is aware of the sources of the newly enfranchised desires her heroine wrestles with, or, as we might also put it, the degree of separation between the author's understanding and that of Miss Sophie. But such a question is perhaps easily enough answered. Ding Ling clearly does not share Girard's "novelistic" perspective on the operation of desire. But from our current perspective, does her best-known work nonetheless offer, however imperfectly, certain now-recognizable insights into historical processes of desire that our other two writers more fully realize?"Miss Sophie's Diary" is famous in China for the delicacy, depth, and explicitness with which those bold and passionate sexual desires of Sophie are exposed, even as such desires are (perhaps reassuringly) defeated, or at least revealed as illusory. Clearly the story reflects a period of cultural and personal crisis. "I was extremely confused at that time," she wrote in a later phase of self-critique. "On one hand, I was radically rebellious, believing blindly in social revolution; on the other hand, I indulged myself in a petty bourgeoisie sense, departing from revolution, so I was trapped in loneliness, struggle and misery [End... (shrink)

The acid rain issue came into prominence because scientists kept telling the world of acid rain's potential devastating effects. Yet, the acid rain debate was marked by mistrust between American and Canadian scientists. The signing of the Air Quality Accord in 1991 appears to have quelled this divisiveness and promises to bring about a new era of scientific cooperation. Using surveys of acid rain scientists in the United States and Canada across three time periods, this study finds both similarities (...) and differences between how Canadian and American scientists view many of the issues surrounding the acid rain debate. (shrink)

The academy is widely reported to be going through a period of transformation: not just changes to what is taught, but threats to tenure and internal funding, perhaps balanced by new possibilities for external funding and interdisciplinary projects. This article discusses a recently conducted survey of US and Canadian Philosophy departments, in an effort to understand one discipline’s perspective on and reaction to these changes. The survey found that, for the majority of departments, Philosophy has largely not changed over (...) the last decade in terms of shifts in subfields, tenure and tenure criteria, internal funding and external grant awards. However, a minority of departments are demonstrating potentially transformative possibilities, especially as related to interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

Background: Medical tourism involves patients travelling internationally to receive medical services. This practice raises a range of ethical issues, including potential harms to the patient's home and destination country and risks to the patient's own health. Medical tourists often engage the services of a facilitator who may book travel and accommodation and link the patient with a hospital abroad. Facilitators have the potential to exacerbate or mitigate the ethical concerns associated with medical tourism, but their roles are poorly understood. -/- (...) Methods: 12 facilitators were interviewed from 10 Canadian medical tourism companies. -/- Results: Three themes were identified: facilitators' roles towards the patient, health system and medical tourism industry. Facilitators' roles towards the patient were typically described in terms of advocacy and the provision of information, but limited by facilitators' legal liability. Facilitators felt they played a positive role in the lives of their patients and the Canadian health system and served as catalysts for reform, although they noted an adversarial relationship with some Canadian physicians. Many facilitators described personally visiting medical tourism sites and forming personal relationships with surgeons abroad, but noted the need for greater regulation of their industry. -/- Conclusion: Facilitators play a substantial and evolving role in the practice of medical tourism and may be entering a period of professionalisation. Because of the key role of facilitators in determining the effects of medical tourism on patients and public health, this paper recommends a planned conversation between medical tourism stakeholders to define and shape facilitators' roles. (shrink)

The rapid commercialization of applied genetics in the mtd-1970s, accompanied by a sudden rise in academic-corporate partnerships, raised questions about the impacts these linkages have had on the social and professional norms of scientists. The extent and pattern of faculty tnvolvement in commercialization of biological research is largely an unexplored area. This article provcdes a quantitative assessment of the linkages between biology faculty in American uncverscties and the newly formed biotechnology industry. The results of thes study, covering the period 1985-88, (...) show that academic scientists responded en masse to participating in the commercialization of genetecs research by estabhshmg formal associations with many of the new biotechnology compances. A data base consisting of 889 U.S. and Canadian biotechnology companies and 832 sccentcsts who had formal ties to them was developed over a four-year period. The patterns of academic-corporate Icnkages are revealed by institution. Three universities with the most commercially active faculty are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Of the 359 bcomedeca! scientists and geneteccsts who were members of the Nateonal Academy of Sceences, at minimum, 37% had formal ties with the biotechnology industry. (shrink)

Coined in 1984 at the American Association of Artificial intelligence (now the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence or AAAI), the various boom and bust periods of AI research and funding lead AI researchers Marvin Minsky and Roger Schank to refer to the then-impending bust period as an AI Winter. Canadian AI researcher Daniel Crevier describes the phenomenon as a domino effect that begins with cynicism in the AI research community that then trickles to mass media and finally (...) to funding bodies. The result is a freeze in serious AI research and development. This initial pessimism is mainly attributed to the overly ambitious promises that AI can yield with the actual results being far humbler than expectations. (shrink)

Annual Reports on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) issued by Health CanadaCanada on behalf of the Government of Canada strive to make essential information public, on this large national program that over five years has provided death to over 30,000 Canadians. The source of the information is self-reporting by physicians and nurse practitioners who offer to act as MAID assessors and providers, as well as self-reporting by cooperating pharmacists. Focus of this discussion is the latest available document in this series, (...) the Third Annual Report on MAID published in July 2022 and providing data on 10,064 deaths by MAID in 2021. In addition to reviewing essential information about MAID recipients and MAID providers, the discussion is centered on the method of data collection, the rapid and unexpected annual increase of cases, the underlying medical conditions, the nature of suffering reported by MAID applicants, the use of palliative care, the decision-making about one’s eligibility, the role of the reflection period, necessary requirement to obtain informed consent and the denial of assisted dying. In each case, the attention is drawn to missing or indeterminate elements, and essential but unavailable analysis of data, in order to identify further information that ought to be collected and used to generate future annual reports and to refine the delivery of MAID program and its oversight. (shrink)

A central motif of R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history is the idea that historical understanding requires a re-enactment of past experience. However, there have been sharp disagreements about the acceptability of this idea, and even its meaning. This book aims to advance the critical discussion in three ways: by analysing the idea itself further, concentrating especially on the contrast which Collingwood drew between it and scientific understanding; by exploring the limits of its applicability to what historians ordinarily consider their (...) proper subject-matter; and by clarifying the relationship between it and some other key Collingwoodian ideas, such as the place of imagination in historical inquiry, the sense in which history deals with the individual, the essential perspectivity of historical judgement, and the importance of narrative and periodization in historical thinking. Professor Dray defends Collingwood against a good deal of recent criticism, while pointing to ways in which his position requires revision or development. History as Re-enactment draws upon a wide range of Collingwood's published writings, and makes considerable use of his unpublished manuscripts. It is the most systematic study yet of this central doctrine of Collingwood's philosophy of history, and will stand as a landmark in Collingwood studies. 'For many years William Dray has been working at the task of retrieving Collingwood for contemporary philosophy.... It is something of an event then to have this new work, the culmination of a lifetime of thought, appear in his retirement. As one would expect, it is a deeply considered book, lucidly written, and scrupulously fair to all parties... a sound and serious philosophical commentary... anyone interested in either Collingwood or the philosophy of history should consider joining the dialogue and will learn much in the process.' Canadian Journal of History. (shrink)

This survey of the Supreme Court of Canada’s pivotal anti-discrimination rulings over a 30-year period assesses the extent to which the shifting nature of the grounds approach and the Court’s conceptions of dignity together form part of a gendered system of enunciation at the intersection of autonomy, identity and affect. This article is written as a corrective to some of the author’s early optimism about the possibilities that dignity may offer in the context of constitutional equality rights cases and as (...) a cautionary tale for those who would attempt to use it as a vehicle for rights claiming through the courts. These cases reveal that in the context of Canadian anti-discrimination law, the concept of dignity is most often used to circumscribe agency, limit subjectivity and curtail possibilities for redress by reducing large scale structural problems to the individual in ways that reproduce law’s originary violence. (shrink)

The mechanisms of longevity have been the subject of investigations for a number of years. Although the role of genetic factors is generally acknowledged, important questions persist regarding the relative impact of environmental exposures, lifestyle characteristics, and genes. The BALSAC population register offers a unique opportunity to study longevity from an intergenerational and genealogical point of view. Individuals from the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean population who died at age 90 or older between 1950 and 1974 were selected from this database (n = 576), (...) along with a control group of individuals born in the same period who died between 50 and 75 years of age. For these subjects and controls, spouses’ ages at death and parental ages at death and at their birth were investigated using regression analysis. Genealogical reconstructions were carried out for each individual, and various analyses were performed on both groups. Both fathers’ and mothers’ mean ages at death were significantly higher among the longer-lived cases than among controls whereas spouses’ ages at death and parental ages at birth had no effect. Regression analysis confirmed the positive effect of both fathers’ and mothers’ age at death. Mean kinship coefficients for the parents’ generations displayed significant differences, indicating that kinship was higher among subjects than controls (this effect was stronger among the oldest 10% of the subjects). Frequencies and genetic contributions of ancestors were very similar for the two groups, and none of these ancestors appeared more likely to have introduced genetic variants involved in longevity patterns in this French Canadian population. (shrink)

Rationale, aims and objectives This randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the 2-year costs and effects of a proactive, public health nursing case management approach compared with a self-directed approach for 129 single parents (98% were mothers) on social assistance in a Canadian setting. A total of 43% of these parents had a major depressive disorder and 38% had two or three other health conditions at baseline. Methods Study participants were recruited over a 12 month period and randomized (...) into two groups: one receiving proactive public health nursing and one which did not. Results At 2 years, 69 single parents with 123 children receiving proactive public health nursing (compared with 60 parents with 91 children who did not receive public health nursing services) showed a slightly greater reduction in dysthymia and slightly higher social adjustment. There was no difference between the public health and control groups in total per parent annual cost of health and support services. However, costs were averted due to a 12% difference in non-use of social assistance in the previous 12 months for parents in the public health nursing group. This translates into an annual cost saving of $240 000 (Canadian) of costs averted within 1 year for every 100 parents. Conclusions In the context of a system of national health and social insurance, this study supports the fact that it is no more costly to proactively service this population of parents on social assistance. (shrink)

The public purse is responsible for funding almost all autism spectrum disorders (ASD) research in Canada (as per Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR]) and for providing some of the existing services and supports for this population. In this article, we consider various reasons why Canada should be concerned to ensure a more equitable distribution of relevant public funding for ASD research than is currently the case to meet the express needs and interests of the diversity of autism stakeholders. (...) As such, we report data to show that CIHR-supported ASD research from the period of 2000–2010 demonstrates a bias focussed on the aetiology of the condition revealing a disproportionate emphasis on only two (Biomedical and Clinical) out of the four research pillars avowed by CIHR, with a comparative lack of fiscal resources committed to Health Systems and Services and Population and Public Health research. We advance certain normative and prudential reasons for funding more Health Systems and Services and Population and Public Health ASD research in Canada. In our view, this would seem to follow from CIHR’s official mandate ‘as a flexible mechanism that will continually align health research funding with changes in the manner in which health problems and opportunities are identified, understood and addressed’. (shrink)

The problem of national identity is extremely important especially in the modern realities of life. Particularly relevant this issue is in relation to ukrainians living abroad. The ukrainian ethnic group in Canada, ranked second in the number of ukrainians living outside the country and the first by its activity in the development of social, cultural and spiritual life. In addition to successful integration into a new society, a professional recognition and success in their careers ukrainians are constantly concerned about the (...) preservation of their own culture, language, traditions, etc. Due to the flexible legislation the canadian government and implementation of it policy of multiculturalism, ukrainians quickly managed to develop its own wide network of educational, cultural, religious and scientific institutions in the country new settlement. Active in this sense it was the third wave of ukrainian emigration, which was caused by political factors and consequences of the Second world war and contributed to the departure from the country of active, educated, politically literate citizens who actively expanded their social activities in Canada. This part of the ukrainian elite and its descendants were not only able to integrate into a new society, but also to achieve high results in many spheres of life - politics, business, science, information technology, and the like. However, the ukrainians of Canada has always cared about their national identity by teaching children the ukrainian language, giving ukrainian periodicals, shifting to english ukrainian classics, celebrating national holidays and memorable dates. Important evidence of the work of the ukrainian ethnic group in Canada to maintain their own identity is the creation of the Canadian Institute of ukrainian studies, many ukrainian churches, outstanding museums dedicated to ukrainian culture and heritage, archives and libraries. In canadian cities there are many streets that bear the names of prominent ukrainians, opened the monuments to Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, etc. Every year in the provinces of Alberta and Manitoba are held the festival of the ukrainian heritage, involving other ethnic groups of Canada. Therefore, by actively developing its culture, science and education, the ukrainians of Canada preserve their national identity, and transmit it to future generations. (shrink)

Based on the 'Partnership Model of Corporate Ethics' (Wood, 2002), this study examines the ethical structures and processes that are put in place by organizations to enhance the ethical business behavior of staff. The study examines the use of these structures and processes amongst the top companies in the three countries of Australia, Canada, and Sweden over two time periods (2001–2002 and 2005–2006). Subsequendy, a combined comparative and longitudinal approach is applied in the study, which we contend is a unique (...) approach in the area of business ethics. The findings of the study indicate that corporations operating in Sweden have utilized ethical structures and processes differently than their Canadian and/or Australian counterparts, and that in each culture the way that companies fashion their approach to business ethics appears congruent with their national cultural values. There does, however, appear to be a convergence of views within the organizations of each culture, as the Swedish companies appear to have been more influenced in 2005–2006 by an Anglo-Saxon business paradigm than they have been in the past. (shrink)

BackgroundAccurate reporting on sex and gender in health research is integral to ensuring that health interventions are safe and effective. In Canada and internationally, governments, research organizations, journal editors, and health agencies have called for more inclusive research, provision of sex-disaggregated data, and the integration of sex and gender analysis throughout the research process. Sex and gender analysis is generally defined as an approach for considering how and why different subpopulations (e.g., of diverse genders, ages, and social locations) may experience (...) health conditions and interventions in different or similar ways.The objective of this study was to assess the extent and nature of reporting about sex and/or gender, including whether sex and gender analysis (SGA) was carried out in a sample of Canadian randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with human participants.MethodsWe searched MEDLINE from 01 January 2013 to 23 July 2014 using a validated filter for identification of RCTs, combined with terms related to Canada. Two reviewers screened the search results to identify the first 100 RCTs that were either identified in the trial publication as funded by a Canadian organization or which had a first or last author based in Canada. Data were independently extracted by two people from 10% of the RCTs during an initial training period; once agreement was reached on this sample, the remainder of the data extraction was completed by one person and verified by a second.ResultsThe search yielded 1433 records. We screened 256 records to identify 100 RCTs which met our eligibility criteria. The median sample size of the RCTs was 107 participants (range 12–6085). While 98% of studies described the demographic composition of their participants by sex, only 6% conducted a subgroup analysis across sex and 4% reported sex-disaggregated data. No article defined “sex” and/or “gender.” No publication carried out a comprehensive sex and gender analysis.ConclusionsFindings highlight poor uptake of sex and gender considerations in the Canadian RCT context and underscore the need for better articulated guidance on sex and gender analysis to improve reporting of evidence, inform policy development, and guide future research. (shrink)

This article explores the impact of judicial empowerment on social movement politics and public policy using a case study of the lesbian and gay rights movement in Canada before and after the 1982 constitutional entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The expanded role of courts in the Canadian political system has had substantial effects on public policy in the lesbian and gay rights area over a twenty-year period, putting Canada in the forefront of this area (...) of human rights. (shrink)

The scope of this essay, dealing with the relationship between the celebrated Canadian theologian B. Lonergan and his debt to the theological and cultural inheritance from Thomas Aquinas, is to underline three important facts. Firstly, to focus on the vital, but not exclusive, influence of Lonergan's Thomist studies , placing them in the setting of his entire work. Secondly, to explore the continuing role of the theological paradigm, worked on for decades, emerging from his doctoral thesis on operative grace (...) in St. Thomas . The current appearance of unpublished Latin texts from Lonergan's first period of academic teaching will be of special help in this regard. Thirdly, there is the desire to bring theology back to its genuine role as advancement in wisdom of Christian faith and as a service of mediation between revealed meanings and those stemming from human cultures. What St. Thomas did for the Christian world of the 13th century remained for Lonergan an example to follow in the new context of a world largely distant from faith and from Christian thought in the 20th and 21st centuries. Lonergan's key contribution is the forging of a basic and general methodology, where the anthropological and philosophical foundation is an updated expansion of the authentic contribution of the medieval Doctor. (shrink)

This article utilizes the lens of disposability to explore recent conditions of low-wage temporary migrant labour, whose numbers and economic sectors have expanded in the 21stcentury. A central argument is that disposability is a discursive and material relation of power that creates and reproduces invidious distinctions between the value of “legitimate” Canadian settler-citizens and the lack of worth of undesirable migrant populations working in Canada, often for protracted periods of time. The analytical lens of migrant disposability draws upon theorizing (...) within Marxian, critical modernity studies, and decolonizing settler colonial frameworks. This article explores the technologies of disposability that lay waste to low wage workers in sites such as immigration law and provincial/territorial employment legislation, the workplace, transport, living conditions, access to health care and the practice of medical repatriation of injured and ill migrant workers. The mounting evidence that disposability is immanent within low-wage migrant labour schemes in Canada has implications for migrant social justice. The failure to protect migrant workers from a vast array of harms reflects the historical foundations of Canada’s contemporary migrant worker schemes in an “inherited background field [of settler colonialism] within which market, racist, patriarchal and state relations converge”. Incremental liberal reform has made little headway insofar as the administration and in some cases reversal of more progressive reforms such as guaranteed pathways to citizenship prioritize employers’ labour interests and the lives and health of primarily white, middle class Canadian citizens at the expense of a shunned and racialized but growing population of migrants from the global South. Transformational change and social justice for migrant workers can only occur by reversing the disposability and hyper-commodification intrinsic to low-wage migrant programs and granting full permanent legal status to migrant workers. (shrink)

This paper intends to explore the phenomenon of cultural identity on one of the pioneer societies in handling pluriculturality: Canada. This part of the study focuses on the first half of the XX century, specially, on the literary discourse produced by Canadian female writers. The analysis of this period established some identity features of the Canadian culture, which are later identified on the literary discourse of a short story written by Dionne Brandt, one of the best representatives of (...) literature of that northern country. Taking into consideration the importance of contexts in the formation and transformation of identities, some categories from the Theory of Contexts are used for the analysis of this discourse. The methodology used allows to broaden the spectrum of analysis of cultural identity, because it covers the uniqueness of each individual and the social collectivity, as well as the connection between the processing of discourse, social structures and communicative situations. The results show identities of new comer groups and those who receive them in conflict. On the short story as such, contradictions between migratory inclusive policies and discrimination against minority groups are expressed. Likewise, there is evidence of the interrelation of contexts with discourse and ways of acting that are as much part of the process as a result of it, for these contexts can change provided the strategies created by groups to face new and sometimes hostile cultural environments. (shrink)

While corporate fiduciary duties in many jurisdictions are generally understood to be owed to shareholders, recent Canadian Supreme Court cases have held that directors owe their duties to the corporation, period, not to shareholders or any other stakeholders. This development has introduced significant indeterminacy to the law since it is not clear what such a conception of the duty requires. The Supreme Court did, however, make one clear statement: it held that directors owe a fiduciary duty to ensure that (...) their corporations obey statutory law. Such a duty encourages compliance with law, but may over-encourage compliance: individual directors do not necessarily gain personally from legal breaches, but may lose personally from them because of fiduciary liability, so they will have excessively strong incentives to avoid such breaches. The Article connects the fiduciary duty to obey law with recent developments in financial regulation that have increased the obligations on directors of financial institutions to oversee risk. By requiring directors to be engaged with risk at a governance level, regulators have enhanced the probability that directors will face liability under their fiduciary duties if their institutions do not comply with financial regulations. As the Article explains, the policy tradeoff between enhanced compliance benefits and over-compliance costs of fiduciary liability is different in the context of financial regulation from that in other settings. For example, significant corporate penalties, as opposed to penalties borne by individual directors, may be inconsistent with the prudential goals of regulation, perhaps because of toobig- to-fail concerns. The fiduciary duty to cause the corporation to obey financial regulation, and a stricter application of this duty than the highly deferential standard that exists in Delaware law, has advantages that do not exist in other legal and regulatory contexts. (shrink)

Using panel data from three Canadian provinces, this article examines the relationship between the de-marketing of tobacco products through provincial-level price increases and consumers’ attempts to quit smoking as measured by the uptake of tobacco replacement therapies. We ground our hypotheses in the rational addiction model and the theory of planned behavior. Our analyses suggest a positive, one-month lagged effect of a price increase of tobacco products on the uptake of tobacco replacement therapies. This effect dissipates 3 months later, (...) suggesting that there is a critical period for aggressive de-marketing of tobacco products. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and future research into de-marketing harmful consumer products. (shrink)