Renaming Ryerson University would achieve nothing

A certain group of holier-than-thou politicos are campaigning to change the name of Toronto's Ryerson University, on the grounds that it glorifies a 19th century Canadian statesman who, they argue, was instrumental in establishing the reviled residential schools system for indigenous Canadians.
Egerton Ryerson is considered a founding father of Canada. He was a Methodist preacher and missionary, but his main achievements came in the field of education. He campaigned for free, compulsory early education, and set up a professional teacher-training school. He worked for standard school inspections and uniform textbooks. He was essentially, as the plaque under his statue at the University campus says, "founder of the school system of Ontario".
Now, Ryerson, a product of his colonial Victorian times, also believed in all-year live-in schools to teach agricultural skills to native children - what he termed "industrial schools" - although he was not personally involved in setting up the iniquitous system of residential schools that later took hold (unlike Hector-Louis Langevin, whose name was recently pulled from the building that houses the Prime Minister's Office).
As the University's own website puts it: "While Egerton Ryerson supported education, he also believed in different systems of education for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children. These beliefs influenced the establishment of the Indian residential school system that has had a devastating impact on First Nations, Métis and Inuit people across Canada."
It is right and good to be upfront about this aspect of Ryerson's legacy. But it is equally right and good to stress his positive contributions, and revisionism and attempts to expunge him from history are not helpful to.anyone. As an indigenous student at Ryerson has (bravely) commented, "It's the history of the school. You do not have to agree with it, but it is the history of what people back then were thinking. It is a reminder … No one's hands are clean when it comes to the history of Canada". I couldn't have said it better.

Canadian innovations that changed the world

Having just experienced the combined hysteria and ennui of Canada 150, Canada's uneven celebration of 150 years since confederation, I thought I would dip into a book called Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier, a book with pretentions almost as bloated as its title.

The preamble to the book makes clear that it lists Canadian innovations, not necessarily inventions. "Innovation" means a change in the nature or fashion of something to make it more useful to more people; "invention", on the other hand, is the act of discovering or finding out, either accidentally or as  a result of search and effort. It also makes clear that the list will almost certainly be controversial and lead to "lively debate".

Anyway, although many of the items listed are well-known Canadian achievements (like the telephone, standard time, insulin, Trivial Pursuits, ice hockey, basketball, poutine, etc), or obscure things I had never even heard of (the flexi-coil air seeder, anyone?), and some were such vague or general concepts that it is hard to attribute them to Canadians or to any particular person or nationality (e.g. canoes, snowshoes, potlatch, etc), some items were nevertheless pretty interesting and eye-opening. For example, did you know that:

• The electric light bulb was actually invented by Toronto medical student Henry Woodward and hotelkeeper Matthew Evans in 1874 (they did patent the invention, but they couldn't obtain financing to market it, and ended up selling the patent license to none other than Thomas Edison, who refined their design and has taken all the credit for it ever since).
• Theodore Witte of Chillwack, British Columbia, invented the caulking gun in 1894 after watching a local baker decorating a cake.
• The radioactive chemical element radon, as well as the process of "atomic recoil" or radioactive decay, were both discovered by Canada's first female nuclear physicist Harriet Brooks in 1901 at McGill University, Montreal (where she worked with Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics), and not by Marie Curie as I had always thought.
• The idea of the dump truck was first thought up and manufactured by Robert Mawhinney from Saint John, New Brunswick, back in 1920.
• Geologist John Tuzo Wilson of the University of Toronto is credited with first describing the theory of plate tectonics in 1962, something I thought had been figured out a couple of centuries earlier.
• In 1967, Canadian physicist Richard Taylor (along with a couple of American colleagues at Stanford University who shared his Nobel Prize) was the first to physically demonstrate the existence of fundamental particles called quarks, which make up the protons and neutrons in atoms, and which had only ben theoretically predicted before then.
• Mike Lazaridis' BlackBerry (not the iPhone, and not some basic model Samsung) became, in 1997, the first digital wireless communications device, capable of exchange text messages over a secure network and syncing remotely with email accounts, as well as making good old-fashioned phone calls.
• The ship's propeller was apparently invented by the gloriously-named Captain John Patch one day in 1833, thus bringing the age of sail to a close almost overnight, but Nova Scotia at the time had no legal mechanism for registering patents so that Captain Patch's name is all but lost to history.
• The modern odometer was invented in 1854 by Samuel McKeen, also of Nova Scotia, although at that time it was used on horse-drawn carriages.
• Henry Taylor of Stanstead, Quebec, built what may have been the first ever horseless carriage - also known as a "steam buggy" or "car" - in 1868 (although the French, Brits, and Germans may disagree), but then, after showing it off at various local fairs for a few years, he grew bored with his invention and dismantled it, leaving the field open to names like Benz, Daimler, Ford, etc.
• Reginald Fessenden, a little-known inventor from East Bolton, Quebec, apparently invented both radio (in 1900, possibly before Marconi) and television (in 1929, just after John Logie Baird, but completely independently).
• Torontonian Norman Breakey, who invented the paint roller in 1939, is another example of a Canadian inventor who failed to patent (and profit from) an idea that later went on to sell hugely,thereby sinking into historical obscurity.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the fledgeling United Nations back in 1948, was written by Canadian John Humphrey in his capacity as first director of the United Nations' division of human rights at the time (not an invention as such, but certainly a worthy inovation).
• Winnipegger Harry Wasylyk developed the plastic garbage bag (later sold under the tradename Glad Bags and other brands), which have made garbage day slightly less unpleasant for millions, but which now clog landfills the world over.
• The Blue Box system of municipal curb-side recycling pick-ups was the brainchild of Kitchener, Ontario's Nyle Ludolph, and from Kitchener it went on to spread across Canada and the rest of North America, and throughout most of the world.
• It never occurred to me that road lines were an invention attributable to one individual, but apparently the world's very first dividing lines on roads were painted on a road near the Ontario-Quebec border in 1930, and were an innovation of one John Miller, an engineer with the Ontario department of transport.
• Peanut butter was invented, not by American botanist George Washington Carver (as many seem to believe) but by a chemist from Quebec called Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884, and he has the patent to prove it.
• Another surprise is that the world's first oil well was dug by James Miller Williams right here in southwestern Ontario in 1857.
• The heart pacemaker is one of a whole host of biomedical engineering breakthroughs (including the electron microscope, molecular spectroscopy, telesurgery, etc) attributed to Canadians, this one invented by the Toronto physician Wilfred Bigelow.
• Instant mashed potatoes were first developed by Edward Asselbergs, a chemist at Agriculture Canada in Ottawa in 1960.
• IMAX films, bigger, clearer and steadier than traditional films, were first developed by a goup of five Toronto filmmakers in 1971.
• The ubiquitous hookless fastener now known as the zipper was invented in 1913 by Swedish-born Canadian Gideon Sundback, who also created a machine to manufacture the fasteners in St. Catherine's, Ontario.
• The humble, and highly practical, egg carton was invented by Joseph Coyle in 1911 in Smithers, British Columbia.
• The world's first functional internet search engine (yes, before Google, Yahoo, even Altavista) was called Archie, and was developed in 1990 by three students at Montreal's McGill University.
• And, finally, who knew that the synthesizer traced its roots back to Canadian physicist Hugh Le Caine, whose "electronic sackbut" of 1937 was the first electronic music synthesizer.

So, this is a book aimed at stroking the fragile egos of Canadians. It tries to give the impression that Canadians are a uniquely resourceful and inventive bunch, and often that it is the land itself that causes this in some way, but I'm sure that the same book written in Italy or Germany or Japan would be just as impressive and twice as thick.

It tells many poignant stories of Canadian creativity overwhelmed by rapacious European and American commercialism, although I have a suspicion that many of the important advances listed here that became overshadowed by other, better-known discoveries elsewhere, may not have been exactly comparable, or maybe were independently developed after the better-known gadget - yes, history is written by the victors, but I have to assume that there is probably a good reason why the world does not know names like Reginald Fessenden and Henry Woodward.

Maybe this is just Canadian excessive modesty, another trait we are known for, but it's probably not a bad thing to be wary of tub-thumping and self-congratulation. Ingenious is an interesting read, nevertheless.

Omar Khadr deserves his $10 million

Canada is currently going through one of those ethical dilemmas/debates that occur from time to time and that split the populace pretty much down the middle. The debate is largely split on ideological and party political lines even though the issue is really one of pure morality and not political beliefs.

The issue I am referring to is the Liberal government's apology and awarding of $10.5 in damages to Omar Khadr, in settlement of a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit. Khadr is the one-time "child soldier", born in Canada of Afghan parents. As a child, he was essentially abducted by his family and enlisted as an al-Qaeda errand boy. Later, he was pressed into service with the Taliban as a bomb maker, and was badly wounded and taken prisoner after a firefight. Once in custody, he was accused of murdering a US soldier, although it is still not entirely clear that it was Khadr himself who the the grenade, nor how a charge of murder fits into actions carried out on a battlefield. He was 15 years old. He did plead guilty to throwing the grenade as part of a plea deal, although he later recanted and claimed that he really had no alternative, and saw it as the only possible way of one day finding his way back to his home in Canada. Either way, Khadr, still a minor and legally a Canadian citizen, was incarcerated in the notorious US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, illegally according to some, where he spent some 10 years, and was subjected to sleep deprivation, torture and other abuse.

For 10 years, the Harper Conservative government (and even the previous outgoing Liberal government) stubbornly refused to repatriate Khadr to Canada, despite a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Khadr's human rights were being violated at Guantanamo Bay. Ultimately, in 2012, he was repatriated, and now Justin Trudeau has made Khadr, now 30, an official apology for the Canadian government's foot-dragging in the case, and a $10.5 million financial settlement (although the family of the American soldier who died, allegedly at Khadr's hands, is claiming that the money should go directly to them, along with over $120 million more).

So, the moral dilemma that is being loudly debated right now is: does Khadr deserve anything from the Canadian taxpayer, and, if so, is $10.5 million excessive or not enough? The Liberals, and those of a liberal bent, are generally in favour if it; Conservatives and conservatives and groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, say the amount is too much, and/or that he should not have been repatriated in the first place. Here's Jason Kenney: "This confessed terrorist should be in prison paying for his crimes, not profiting from them at the expense of Canadian taxpayers."

I find myself in the former camp. Based on the Supreme Court rulings in 2008 and 2010, and on similar cases like Maher Arar (who was compensated $10 million 2007 for government actions that resulted in his torture in Syria in 2002) and an agreed compensation for another trio of Canadians who were tortured in Egypt and Syria between 2001 and 2004, the legal case for Khadr seems cut and dried, and the compensation level appropriate.

And the moral case? Yes, the Canadian government prevaricated and blocked his repatriation for years without due cause, during which time a whole host of his human rights were violated. And the amount? Well, pick a figure. Or use the figure previously agreed for another similar case. Either way, it is half of the amount Khadr's lawyers are suing the government for, in the wrongful imprisonment lawsuit.
It's a tricky one, though, especially when settlements for serious drunk-driving-inflicted injuries routinely come in at less than half-a-million dollars. From what I have gleaned from articles, comments and letters, pretty much everyone has an opinion on the matter, and a small majority think it was right to apologize and compensate Khadr. A good proportion of those, however, seem to think that $10.5 million is too much, even if few are willing to put forward a specific alternative sum, or explain how they might come to a different valuation.

Essay-writing services fraught with problems

There has been a proliferation of essay- and dissertation-writing services on the web in recent years, and there at now quite literally hundreds of them, with names like essayontime.com, essayexperts.com, customessay.com, etc, etc. I have even advertised some of them in an inconspicuous way on some of my own websites, as they were offering quite good money and they seem to be very light on demands and requirements.

That in itself maybe should have alerted me that something is not quite right. Athough at first blush many paper-writing services do seem to be legitimate and fulfilling a genuine academic function (and I do sympathize to some extent - student life today seems way harder than it was in my time), a bit of research has revealed that perhaps I might have been a little more discerning in my choice of advertising partners.

The problem is that not all essay-writing services are created equal. You might argue that paying for someone else to write your essays for you is just plain cheating, and from a purely moral point of view you would definitely have a point. At best, you might say, it is sheer laziness. But even if you do accept that such a service has a moral right to ply its trade, there is a huge range of quality in providers, and no real way to tell in advance which is good and which not so much.

Many such essays are actually well-written (apparently, many are written by teachers and college professors, which is a bit strange and perhaps a whole other blog subject in itself), but you can never be sure of this, and many of the heart-felt reviews you read on a particular website may not actually even be real. Because thet are custom-written, these kinds of essays do not get picked up by automated plagiarism-checkers, and, depending on your definition, they may not actually be plagiarism. They can certainly save today's stressed and over-worked students a whack of time (for a price!), and they may even help the student understand the subject and how a good essay should be structured and presented.

Some of these services, though, appear to be just plain scams. There are scams throughout the internet of course, in all sectors and areas, but there are now whole websites devoted to outing scams in the essay-writing sector (and it is rumoured some of THOSE sites may even be scams!) Many people have paid good money, and then not received the service, or the quality of service, they expected. Caveat emptor, as always, you might say, but the caveat seems to apply disproportionately in this particular sector.

Setting that aside, a good professor or teacher may pick up on the fact that your essay is in a quite different style than your usual work, alerting them to the likelihood that you have availed yourself of some kind of professional service. You may be able to commission an essay and then just reference it as a source in an essay that you write yourself, although different institutions have different views on that particular ploy. The bottom line is: if you are found out, you may wave goodbye to your course, and possibly even your whole college career, and that is worth some serious consideration.

Anyway, I am thinking that I will probably not be renewing those essay-writing ads on my won websites when renewal time comes up. Several of my websites are routinely used as essay and project sources for students, and I should probably not be encouraging these students to cheat. Because, make no mistake, that's really what it is.

Baby boxes no substitute for free universal healthcare

American health authorities, including New Jersey, Ohio, Alabama and many others, are latching onto the idea of giving new mothers a Finnish-style baby box.
It seems that they have read somewhere that such boxes - filled with baby clothes, diapers, nursing pads and a snug soft mattress - have been given to all new mothers in Finland for many years now, and Finland happens to have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (1.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, less than a third of that in the USA).
But it's a bizarre idea that somehow the box itself is part of making a baby's life safer. There is clearly nothing medically efficacious about cardboard, and the Finnish health authority itself notes that the boxes themselves do not contribute to their enviable infant mortality record: "Our low infant-morality rate is due to free-of-charge high-quality maternal and child health-care services and child-care guidance." Apparently, only about 37% of Finnish mothers use the boxes as a crib/bassinet anyway.
Add to that the fact that the American boxes have not been fully safety-tested, and the whole scheme starts to look like an ill-advised exercise in wish-fulfillment than a convincing and well-researched health initiative.
Now, when the USA gets free universal healthcare, then we might be getting somewhere.

German law against online hate speech admirable but hard to enforce

The German Bundestag has just passed a controversial law calling on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets to police their own websites for "obviously illegal" content, such as hate speech, defamation and incitements to violence, and to remove them within 24 hours.
Under a previous 2015 deal with the German government, Facebook, Twitter and Google resolved to take down such material from their sites within 24 hours, but a study this year showed that this voluntary approach was not working. Now, the companies would face an initial fine of €5 million, rising to €50 million, although they are granted upto a week to resolve more difficult or less clear-cut cases.
Germany has strict laws against hate speech, which is an increasing problem online. Critics and digital rights activists, though, maintain that the law infringes on free speech and puts a disproportionate onus on tech companies for determining the legality of online content.
Both Facebook and Google have already launched campaigns to combat fake news and hate speech in recent months, and Facebook is reportedly hiring an additional 3,000 people over the next year specifically to moderate such flagged content. But it is admittedly a huge, and perhaps even impossible, task. It will be interesting to see whether and how the new German law is enforced.

Increasing Ontario's minimum wages - the sky won't fall

Ontario's Liberal government has taken a lot of flak - mainly from what is usually described as the "business community", as though that were some collection of entirely like-minded individuals, united in their views and outlook, although I have a suspicion that it is really a shorthand or euphemism for conservatives - over their intention to raise the province's legal minimum wage from the current $11.40 an hour to $14 an hour in January 2018 and to then $15 an hour in January 2019. Coupled with this is legislation to ensure protections for casual employees whose shifts are cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, and a plan to increase the minimum amount of vacation days for employees of five years standing to three weeks. This all sounds to me like eminently laudable relief for some of the most vulnerable and oppressed members of society, ones without whom the cushy lives we live would collapse around us.
But the "business community" is not happy. They say that such a move would put many of them out of business, and I suppose that is possible in a very small percentage of cases (in which case a devil's advocate might argue that maybe they should not be in those businesses anyway if they rely on the exploitation and oppression of poor people).
Anyway, it was comforting to read in yesterday's paper an article by a group of economists (yes, members of the "business community"), which argues that the best modern studies available unanimously show that increases in the minimum wage (even quite substantial ones like this one) do not actually lead to job losses and higher consumer prices. In short, the sky will not fall if we offer some relief to the lowest of the low, and their lives will improve and they will become fully-functioning members of society and effective contributors to the very economy the "business community" wants to protect.
The idea that a higher minimum wage leads to increased unemployment, and is a well-meaning but ultimately self-defeating strategy which will only hurt the very workers it is supposed to help, is an old and ingrained belief, apparently still ardently espoused by the "business community". However, it has been superseded in the last generation or so by a revised economic model that does not make the rather simplistic and outdated assumptions of perfectly competitive markets. A whole slew of Nobel laureates and professional economists are now apparently in agreement that, in the real world, higher minimum wages do not automatically result in job losses and economic chaos, and often even create more employment.
Furthermore, empirical studies in the US, Canada and Britain all confirm that higher minimum wages do in fact succeed in lifting incomes for low-paid workers and thereby help to reduce income inequality. More motivated employees, lower staff turnover and lower recruitment costs all help small businesses flourish in such a scenario. Meanwhile, the spending power of low-income workers increases, and the economy as a whole benefits. It is a win-win-win situation.

UPDATE
The dire warnings of impending doom in the media have continued, largely from businesses, business advisory organizations, right-wing think-tanks, etc, with only the very occasional opposing viewpoint expressed by an economics professor, pointing out that these predictions are based on selective, often outdated, theoretical studies.
One such dissenting article points out another aspect of the argument that I (and most other pro-business reports I have read on the subject) had failed to take into account. Professor Jim Stanford points out that, even if the small-business lobby is correct and the increase in the minimum wage does result in many businesses investing in more automation or just shedding bottom-end jobs (which he seriously doubts), any employment impact that might result would still be lost in the current climate of increasing employment in all three of the provinces that are currently pursuing the $15-an-hour minimum wage.
Ontario, British Columbia and even post-oil shock Alberta are all expanding their workforces apace at the moment as their economies are booming. So, even if the wage increase does result in some layoffs, these would be lost among the underlying job expansion. The rate of job increases may (or may not) slow down, but the increases would continue. In fact, for this very reason, now would be a great time to pursue a socially and economically equalizing minimum wage increase.

Happy 150th Canada Day - unless you are indigenous

Well, happy birthday Canada, for what it's worth. It is just the sesquicentennial after all, not really a "big" significant birthday (although Montreal recently celebrated their 375th with a great deal of pomp and circumstance, and that's not even divisible by ten...) And 1867 is, after all, just a date when four provinces entered into a confederation to become something called the Dominion of Canada, still nominally under the control of the United Kingdom (Canada only became fully independent in 1982!) Be all that as it may, most European countries would see 150 years as just a drop in the bucket anyway. Hell, even the Americans have a century's jump on us.
But most Canadians seem content to think that there is something worth celebrating today. There's a giant rubber duck in Toronto harbour, Peter Mansbridge is gearing up for his final CBC anchor assignment, and people are being advised to take their places for Ottawa's fireworks display from nine in the morning (it's difficult to believe that anyone would actually do that, and basically waste the whole of the rest of the day, but what do I know?)
Most people are definitely treating it as not-just-another-Canada-Day. Unless, that is, they are indigenous. A teepee has been set up on Parliament's front lawn, and the rhetoric coming out of it is far from celebratory, along the lines of, "How dare you celebrate 150 years of shame and colonialism, marked by genocide, residential schools and subjugation? And 150 years? We've been here for 15,000 years! So there!"
Now, I get it. The First Nations of this country have been given a really raw deal, beginning a lot more than 150 years ago. And yes, they do need to drive this message home, and what better time to do so than when everyone else is celebrating the very agency of their oppression? I do get it.
But I still can't help but feel it a mite mean-spirited and curmudgeonly. I can't help but feel that, if Canada's First Nations were to be celebrating some significant date, we immigrants would be happy enough to join in, much like we are happy to encourage Eid celebrations or Diwali or Chinese New Year. But their culture happens not to have such an inclusive or galvanizing occasion to celebrate (the establishment of the Assembly of First Nations in 1982, perhaps?)
And I can't help but feel that an agreement by the indigenous community to help these pesky "new kids in the block" celebrate their silly little anniversary - always with the firm intention and commitment to getting right back to protesting and negotiating and rectifying some of the wrongs we have done each other over the centuries, and arguably continue to do today - might not foster more goodwill and be a more positive approach than blank-faced, and sometimes aggressive, denial.
But I do get it. Honest.